In a year when Israel was at war on several fronts, Donald Trump was reelected president of the United States, and antisemitism continued to skyrocket globally in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion, these were the 10 stories that most captured the attention of The Algemeiner‘s readers.

1. Masked Activists Violently Attack Jews at North Carolina Public Library

Three pro-Israel attendees of a public event titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance” reported being attacked and forcibly dragged out by anti-Israel activists also in attendance at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.

2. Network Behind Eruption of Anti-Israel College Campus Protests Revealed in New Report

Anti-Zionist protests striking US colleges and universities across the country have been the result of “tightly coordinated” efforts backed by the financial power and logistical support of groups linked to terrorist organizations and some of America’s most prestigious philanthropic foundations, according to a new report.

3. Boxing Champion Floyd Mayweather Donates $100,000 to United Hatzalah for Bulletproof Vests for Israel

Former boxing world champion Floyd Mayweather will donate $100,000 to United Hatzalah of Israel for the organization to purchase 100 bulletproof vests to keep volunteers safe amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

4. ‘Raped Daily’: Former Israeli Hostages Recount Sexual Abuse by Hamas Terrorists as Families Plead for Action

In an emotional hearing at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, former hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza recounted harrowing tales of sexual harassment and abuse, as families of those still held captive pleaded for the Israeli government to do more to secure their release.

5. Hamas Responds to Trump Threat to Unleash ‘Hell’ on Terror Group if Hostages Not Freed by His Inauguration

Hamas has responded to US President-elect Donald Trump’s warning that there will be “all hell to pay” in the Middle East if the Palestinian terrorist group does not release all of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration on Jan. 20, claiming that Israel has “sabotaged” several potential ceasefire deals and should be held responsible for perpetuating the ongoing war.

6. George Washington University Professor Accused of Antisemitism Leaves School, Heads to Qatar-Based Institute

George Washington University psychology professor Lara Sheehi, who was accused of verbally abusing and discriminating against her Jewish graduate students, has left the school and accepted a job at an institution based in Qatar, according to a correspondence obtained by The Algemeiner.

7. Chanel, Tory Burch, Others in Fashion Donate to Help Israelis Impacted by Hamas War

Several fashion brands and their parent companies have announced that they are making donations to help provide humanitarian aid to Israeli victims of Hamas atrocities following the Palestinian terror group’s infiltration of Israel on Oct. 7.

8. ‘You Jew!’: UC Berkeley Mob Attacks Jews During Event With IDF Soldier, University Pledges Investigation

A mob of hundreds pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at the University of California, Berkeley featuring an Israeli soldier, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protestors overwhelmed campus police.

9. Prominent Pro-Hamas Activist in Australia Arrested on Kidnapping and Torture Charges

Australian police announced the arrest of a prominent pro-Hamas advocate accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and torture of a man whose perceived offense was to work for a Jewish employer.

10. ‘You Corrupt the World!’ Jewish Man Wearing Kippah Assaulted in Washington, DC

A Jewish man wearing a kippah was assaulted in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC in what police are investigating as a hate crime.

The post The Algemeiner’s Top 10 Most-Read News Stories of 2024 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

One of Iran’s top foreign policy priorities will be working to enhance its relationship with Cuba across several domains, according to a senior adviser to the Iranian health minister.

Ali Jafarian also explained during a coordination meeting of the 19th Iran-Cuba Joint Commission in Tehran on Tuesday that Iran’s Islamist regime has made it a central focus to expand cooperation with Latin American countries more broadly, Iranian state-run media reported.

The meeting came as both countries continued looking for ways to combat US sanctions, which are only expected to become more harsh on both Tehran and Havana when US President-elect Donald Trump enters office on Jan. 20.

Jafarian said that a comprehensive 10-year strategic plan between Iran and Cuba should serve as the foundation for all documents related to the 19th Commission on Iran-Cuba Economic Cooperation, which is scheduled to take place in Havana in February.

During Tuesday’s gathering, Mohammad Hossein Niknam, the director-general of international cooperation at the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said that, despite being thousands of miles apart, Iran and Cuba have long supported each other and are committed to strengthening their economic relations.

Iranian Ambassador to Cuba Mohammad Hadi Sobhani said during a virtual appearance that, beyond economic matters, the 19th Iran-Cuba Joint Commission will also allow the two countries to expand political cooperation.

Iran and Cuba have taken several steps to grow closer over the past year, motivated in large part by a joint opposition to the United States

Last December, both countries vowed to strengthen relations and stand together against sanctions imposed on them by Washington.

“What can neutralize the sanctions is the exchange of capacities between the two countries,” then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said during a joint statement with his visiting Cuban counterpart, Miguel Diaz-Canel.

“There is a serious determination between the two countries to develop relations,” Raisi said, adding that “the common feature of the two countries is that they both stand against the system of domination.”

That meeting came months after both leaders met in Havana and each said their countries faced similar situations and had to confront “Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance.”

Cuba has been under a US embargo since 1962 and is included on Washington’s list of countries supporting terrorism — like Iran, which is also subject to severe sanctions. Earlier this year, the US also removed Cuba from a short list of countries that it alleges are “not cooperating fully” in its fight against terrorism.

It’s unclear if Iran will end up pursuing a relationship with Cuba to resist US sanctions in a formalized way as it has with Russia.

Iranian and Russian leaders have been working on an initiative to form an international alliance against US sanctions known as the International Union Against US Sanctions. An Iranian lawmaker spearheading the effort said earlier this month that it will soon be completed.

Beyond shared hostility toward the US, Iran and Cuba have also taken several steps to expand their economic relationship. In April, for example, they established a twinning relationship between two major ports in each country to facilitate shipping and trade.

The post Iran Pushes to Expand Ties With Cuba as Both Countries Seek to Counter US Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories has called on all medical professionals to cut ties with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” and unfairly detaining Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya.

“I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide,” Francesca Albanese wrote on X/Twitter on Monday.

The post came after Israel last week arrested Safiya and several other people while conducting a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military is fighting Hamas terrorists. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it arrested Safiya because he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.” The IDF also insisted that the hospital has been used as a “command and control center” for the Palestinian terrorist group.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an allied terrorist group in Gaza, have extensive histories of using hospitals — as well as schools, apartment buildings, and other forms of civilian infrastructure in Gaza — as bases for storing weapons and planning and conducting attacks. A PIJ spokesman in April confessed that terrorists have taken over all of the hospitals in Gaza, using the medical facilities to hide military activities and launch attacks.

Israel has reportedly relocated Safiya to a detention facility for further investigation into his purported ties to the Hamas terrorist group. 

Albanese’s comments came amid a surge of antisemitism directed at Jewish health-care professionals in the West. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, about 75 percent of Jewish health workers and students have been subjected to antisemitism, according to a recent study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Religion and Health.

A separate recent study conducted by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group, found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace.

That study followed a similar one published in Canada earlier this month, in which Jewish doctors reported being chased not only out of the field of medicine but also out of the country. Commissioned by the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario (JMAO), the survey found that 80 percent of Jewish medical workers who responded to it “have faced antisemitism at work” since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and that 31 percent of Jewish doctors — 98 percent of whom “are worried about the impact of antisemitism on health care” — have weighed emigrating from Canada to another country.

Earlier this month, members of the US Congress raised alarm bells about growing antisemitism in the medical field. 

“That’s truly scary; the idea that somehow your religious background or your identity would inform or impact the type of care that you get is not only antisemitic, it’s not only anti-American, it is anti-democratic,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state. In the months following the Oct. 7 atrocities, Albanese has accused Israel of enacting a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions. 

The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese over the summer for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and that they give her “hope.”

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