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‘Shoot Jews or Hand Them Over to Hamas!’: Antisemitic Demonstration, Police Inaction in Berlin Spark Outrage
Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski
Participants in an anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstration in Germany this past weekend called for Jews to be executed or handed over to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, sparking outrage among German leaders.
Under the slogan “Hands off the West Bank,” protesters, mostly of Arab descent, marched through Berlin from Alexanderplatz to Potsdamer Platz on Saturday, German media reported.
“Anyone with a weapon should use it to shoot Jews or hand them over to Hamas!” the marchers chanted loudly several times, according to the German tabloid newspaper Bild. Up to 280 activists reportedly participated in the demonstration.
„Wer eine Waffe hat, soll damit Juden erschießen oder sie der Hamas übergeben“ – lautstark und ungeniert skandiert. Empört sich die Politik? Gehen die „Guten“ jetzt auf die Straße? Oder bleibt der antifaschistische Kampf wieder selektiv?
pic.twitter.com/00T4nj2tlL— Ahmad Mansour
(@AhmadMansour__) February 1, 2025
In response, Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner is now pushing for an initiative to potentially ban protests that incite violence.
“If a movement consistently promotes violence and hatred, the Berlin police will consider banning these protests,” Wegner told Bild. “Inciting hatred and calling for terrorism are not acts of free speech, but criminal offenses. The safety and protection of Jews are my highest priority.”
“When I hear such misanthropic and antisemitic slogans at the demonstrations in Berlin, it deeply shocks me,” Wegner continued. “In this instance, the police and judiciary of Berlin will take action against the alleged offenders with the full force of the rule of law.”
On Saturday, however, it appears that law enforcement did little to intervene.
According to the Berlin police, the demonstration on Saturday involved “statements potentially punishable by law for supporting terrorist organizations banned in Germany.”
Police are currently reviewing the footage of the protest, with the documentation being handled by the State Security Service.
“Due to language barriers and the level of noise associated with the event, a clear translation could not be made for an immediate assessment,” the police said in a post on X/Twitter.
Bei einer Versammlung in #Mitte kam es heute Abend zu möglicherweise strafbaren Ausrufen für in Deutschland verbotene Terrororganisationen. Aufgrund der Sprachbarrieren und der mit dem Aufzugsgeschehen einhergehenden Lautstärke konnte nicht an allen Stellen eine durchgängige… pic.twitter.com/zn5jnVVqom
— Polizei Berlin (@polizeiberlin) February 1, 2025
According to Bild, only three individuals were temporarily detained to confirm their identities, and two defamation complaints have been filed so far.
Peter Langer, secretary general of the center-right Berlin Free Democratic Party (FDP), condemned the weekend demonstration, stressing that the police should be given the authority to quickly disperse protests that essentially promote terrorist propaganda.
“Kai Wegner must finally turn his grand words into actions,” Langer said. “I expect him to present a concrete plan on how they intend to stop this issue.”
Last year, Berlin experienced a record number of antisemitic incidents, with the total for the first six months of 2024 exceeding the entire count for 2023.
Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) documented 1,383 antisemitic incidents in Berlin from January to June, averaging nearly eight per day.
The figure compiled by RIAS, a federally-funded body, was a significant increase from the 1,270 antisemitic outrages tallied in 2023 and the highest count for a single year since RIAS began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015.
Of the 1,383 incidents documented in the first half of last year, two were cases of “extreme violence,” another 23 were attacks (six of which were against children), and 37 were targeted acts of property damage, including 21 acts involving memorials.
Like many countries around the world, Germany has seen a major spike in antisemitic incidents following Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
During the Oct. 7 onslaught, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and took 251 hostages to Gaza while committing widespread sexual violence, making it the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The post ‘Shoot Jews or Hand Them Over to Hamas!’: Antisemitic Demonstration, Police Inaction in Berlin Spark Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.”
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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.