Women hold placards during a protest after the death of a rape victim, on a street in Mumbai, India, Oct. 6, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

Authorities in India have arrested a third person in connection with the recent gang rape of an Israeli tourist, according to local media.

The attack occurred on Thursday night when a 29-year-old Indian woman hosting travelers took her guests — two Indian men, an American man, and a 27-year-old Israeli woman — on a stargazing trip at the Tungabhadra Canal in Karnataka, a state in southern India.

According to local media reports, the group was ambushed by three men who gang-raped the Israeli tourist and her local host. The American and two Indian men were thrown into the river, with one of the Indian men drowning. On Saturday morning, local police recovered the third friend’s body.

After filing a police complaint, the victims were transferred to a government hospital, where they are receiving medical treatment. The police said the case is being pursued under charges of extortion, robbery, gang rape, and attempted murder, with the investigation being treated as a priority.

The guesthouse owner described the events leading up to the assault and explained that they were approached by three men on a motorcycle around 10:30 pm that night.

“After dinner, we decided to go stargazing. We rode our scooters to the banks of the Tungabhadra Canal, near Sanapur Lake,” she reportedly said. “As we were watching the stars and playing the guitar, around 10:30 pm, three men on a motorcycle approached us and asked for fuel.”

According to her testimony, she told them that there was no gas station there and suggested they find fuel in a village nearby, but one of the men suddenly demanded 100 rupees.

“They didn’t know us, so I told them I had no money,” she said. “But they kept demanding, until one of the male tourists gave them 20 rupees.”

After the soon-to-be victims refused to give more money, the suspects began arguing and threatening the group with stones. Two of the men then attacked and raped the women, while the third pushed the men into the canal.

“I was bleeding heavily. Two of the suspects dragged me to the side of the canal,” the guesthouse owner recounted. “One of them choked me and removed my clothes. One after the other, they beat me and raped me.”

“When we screamed and cried, they fled on their motorcycle,” she said. The assailants stole her bag and fled with two mobile phones and 9,500 rupees (approximately $114).

Police said over the weekend that they had identified the suspects and formed six teams to pursue and arrest them. On Sunday, Indian authorities said that they have apprehended a third person suspected on being involved in the gang rape.

In India, sexual assaults on women have become a prevalent issue, with police recording 31,516 rape cases in 2022 (an average of about 90 rapes per day), a 20 percent increase from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

In 2013, the rape law was amended to criminalize stalking and voyeurism and lowered the age at which a person can be tried as an adult from 18 to 16. In 2018, the government approved the death penalty for those convicted of raping children under the age of 12.

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Illustrative: Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media at Columbia University encampment in New York City, US, June 1, 2024. Photo: Jeenah Moon via Reuters Connect

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday night arrested a male alumnus of Columbia University who was a leading anti-Israel agitator on campus and an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover, which took place during the closing weeks of the 2023-2024 academic year.

ICE agents picked up Mahmoud Khalil, who recently participated in another building takeover at Barnard College, on Columbia’s campus at his university-owned apartment, his attorney, Amy Greer, told several news outlets. The agents reportedly explained that they were acting on a US State Department order to revoke his student visa and permanent resident status.

Mahmoud is a Palestinian from Syria. He completed post-graduate studies at Columbia University in December and is awaiting the formal granting of his diploma.

In a statement, the US Department of Homeland Security said ICE arrested Khalil “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”

The department continued, “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security.”

ICE’s arrest of the student follows an executive order by the Trump administration that calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” A major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. Trump has also said that foreign students who hold demonstrations in support of Hamas “will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”

So far, Columbia University has been the administration’s main focus, as the school continues to be convulsed by pro-Hamas activists.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the university has produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.

Amid these incidents, the university has struggled to contain the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which in late January committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.

In recent weeks, CUAD occupied two buildings at Barnard College, disregarding threats that doing so would lead to swift and severe disciplinary sanctions, including possible expulsion.

Following the incidents, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia as punishment for its failing to address the issue, executing an ultimatum delivered by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

Some groups are unhappy with the administration’s policies on pro-Hamas advocacy, however, and following Khalil’s arrest, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) denounced his detainment as unconstitutional.

“The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder studying in this country legally — is targeted, retaliatory, an and extreme attack his First Amendment rights,” NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said on Sunday in a public statement. “Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation.”

On Monday, however, US President Donald Trump defended Khalil’s arrest and said it will be the first of many.

“This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

Trump went on to argue that the presence of those who support terrorism on US soil undermines American national security interests, adding that he expects colleges and universities to cpmply with his executive order.

On Friday, Columbia University, which has been accused of refusing to impose disciplinary sanctions on pro-Hamas activists, announced that is has suspended four of its students who were identified as co-conspirators in the latest storming and occupation of a Barnard College building, which took place on Wednesday at the Milstein Center.

“These students have been suspended and restricted from campus as we swiftly work through the discipline process,” the university said in a statement. “We are a campus governed by our rules, policies, and the law. Any violations of these will not be tolerated and will have consequences.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Yuval Raphael in the music video for her new song “New Day Will Rise.” Photo: YouTube screenshot

Israel debuted on Sunday night the full song that Yuval Raphael will perform in the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, this May.

Israel’s Kan 11 premiered during a live broadcast the music video for “New Day Will Rise,” a powerful ballad written by singer-songwriter Keren Peles that has mostly English lyrics but with some French and Hebrew as well. Yuval, 24, lives in the Israeli city of Ra’anana — same as Noa Kirel, Israel’s representative in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest – but lived as a child with her family in Switzerland for three years. She is fluent in Hebrew, English, and French.

Raphael sings in the chorus: “New day will rise/ Life will go on/ Everyone cries/ Don’t cry alone/ Darkness will fade/ All the pain will go by/ But we will stay / Even if you say goodbye.” The song has a Hebrew line from the biblical Song of Songs, which translates to: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.”

Raphael survived the Nova music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, in Re’im, Israel, after hiding from Hamas terrorists in a roadside bomb shelter. She pretended to be dead and laid under dead bodies for several hours until she was rescued. Terrorists killed 370 people and abducted 44 hostages at the site of the festival.

In the music video for “New Day Will Rise,” Raphael and a group of young people gather together to sing, dance, and enjoy each other’s company in a grassy area, which is reminiscent of what young Israelis did at the Nova music festival before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 onslaught. Red anemones, Israel’s national flower and the flower that is known for growing specifically in the southern region, are seen in the grass in the music video.

In mid-January, Raphael won the Israeli television singing competition “HaKochav Haba” (“Rising Star”), whose winner goes on to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest.

“Throughout the season of ‘Rising Star,’ I chose songs solely from a place of emotion, as soon as I felt a twinge in my stomach,” Raphael told Kan 11. “When I heard this song [‘New Day Will Rise’], I had a twinge in my stomach and said – ‘This is your song.’” She also commented on the song’s connection to her surviving the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

“One of the most exciting things that has happened to me in my life is the very extreme transition from the most terrible event of my life on Oct. 7, to such a great and empowering moment – representing my country at Eurovision. The feeling of personal victory is immense,” she said.

The lyrics and the video for “New Day Will Rise” has been approved by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year, Israel’s original song submission, “October Rain,” was rejected by the EBU for being too political since it referenced the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Kan ultimately rewrote the song and titled it “Hurricane.” It was performed in the Eurovision by Eden Golan, who finished fifth place in the competition.

Watch the music video for “New Day Will Rise” below.



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