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Protesters disrupt Blinken as he asks Senate for emergency wartime funding for Israel
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Dozens of protesters shouting “Ceasefire now!” repeatedly disrupted a Senate hearing where top Biden Administration officials were seeking emergency wartime assistance funds for Israel and Ukraine.
Sen. Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked the Capitol police to remove protesters from the room at least six times.
The protesters waited until Secretary of State Antony Blinken, began his testimony, allowing Murray and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the committee, to deliver their opening remarks without interruption.
Blinken, who is Jewish, appeared to be the main target of the protesters. By the time Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary began his testimony, the protesters appear to have stopped their outcries, although a contingent remained behind, raising hands stained with fake blood.
“Palestinians aren’t animals!” one woman screamed. “Stop funding the genocide!” Some of the protesters belonged to the Codepink, a woman’s antiwar protest group. In each instance, protesters chanted, “Ceasefire now!”
Another chant was, “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go,” reflecting a bid by some on the progressive left to link the U.S. migrant crisis to Israeli actions on its border with the Gaza Strip.
Invading Hamas terrorists from Gaza killed more than 1,400 people, wounded thousands and abducted at least 240 people on Oct. 7. Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes since then and in recent days began a ground incursion. The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry says that more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children.
Blinken and Austin said the emergency funds were needed to assist two U.S. allied democracies at a time of crisis. Ukraine has been repelling a Russian invasion for more than 18 months.
As he closed his comments, Blinken also nodded toward the concerns of the protesters.
“I also hear very much passion [being] expressed in this room and outside this room,” he said. “All of us are committed to the protection of civilian life. All of us know the suffering that is taking place as we speak. All of us are determined to see it end. But all of us know the imperative of standing up with our allies and partners when their security, when their democracies are threatened. That’s what’s happening now. We stand resolutely with them even as we stand resolutely for the protection of innocent civilians.”
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.