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Pro-Hamas Turkish MP Who Collapsed and Died Moments After Delivering Anti-Zionist Rant Is Buried With Honors
The funeral at the Turkish parliament of pro-Hamas MP Hasan Bitmez. Photo: Screenshot
Dozens of Turkish dignitaries attended the funeral on Thursday afternoon of a pro-Hamas parliamentarian who collapsed and died just seconds after delivering a ferociously anti-Zionist speech in front of his fellow MPs.
The death of the MP — Hasan Bitmez of the Islamist Saadet Party — had been announced earlier by Turkey’s Health Minister, Fahrettin Koca.
Video of Bitmez collapsing at the podium on Monday a split second after he finished speaking went viral on the internet. After warning Israel that it faced “the wrath of God” while displaying a sign reading “Israel murders,” Bitmez immediately fell to the ground unconscious. Efforts by other MPs to revive him failed and he was rushed to Bilkent City Hospital in Ankara, where he died on Thursday morning after spending two days in the intensive care unit. It is understood that Bitmez, who was 54, suffered from diabetes.
Bitmez’s funeral procession began outside the Turkish parliament in front of key leaders, including former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Mustafa Elitas, the deputy chairman of the ruling Islamist AKP Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Also present was Bitmez’s father, who demonstratively wore a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf. The coffin was wrapped in a Turkish flag that was in turn placed over a Palestinian flag, local media outlets reported.
A vice-president of the Saadet Party, Bitmez entered parliament last May as the representative of the city of Kocaeli.
Bitmez’s last post on his X/Twitter feed on Dec. 9 criticized the Turkish government for retaining relations with Israel, comparing the country’s leaders unfavorably with the Iran-backed Houthi rebel movement in Yemen which enthusiastically supports Hamas and has attacked commercial shipping bound for Israel in the Red Sea.
“Who is a friend of ISRAEL, who is a friend of PALESTINE?” Bitmez wrote. “Are the Houthis in Yemen trying to prevent ships carrying logistics to Israel? Or is it the AKP government that still sends all kinds of materials Israel needs to Israeli ports with dozens of ships every day from Turkish ports?”
The circumstances of Bitmez’s death drew ironic amusement from pro-Israel advocates on social media, who pointed out that he collapsed less than a minute after asserting that Israel faced divine retribution.
“LOL! Turkish MP Hasan Bitmez says God will punish Israel and instantly has a heart attack,” one post remarked, while another commented, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
Turkish lawmaker gets heart attack right after saying Israel will ‘not be able to escape the wrath of God’.
I guess he couldn’t escape it either. pic.twitter.com/V8wHbCm7R1
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) December 13, 2023
The post Pro-Hamas Turkish MP Who Collapsed and Died Moments After Delivering Anti-Zionist Rant Is Buried With Honors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.