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Teen Who Stabbed Jewish Man in Zurich Was Radicalized Online, Swiss Police Reveal
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Zurich, Switzerland, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: IMAGO/dieBildmanufaktur via Reuters Connect
The teenager who seriously wounded an Orthodox Jewish man in an antisemitic stabbing attack in Zurich earlier this month was radicalized on the internet while living in Tunisia, Swiss police announced on Monday.
The 50-year-old victim, who has not been named, was badly injured during the March 2 attack but survived his ordeal. The attack, described by Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) as the most serious antisemitic hate crime in Switzerland in two decades, caused widespread shock and concern among the approximately 18,000 Jews in the country, resulting in enhanced security for Jewish sites in Zurich.
The 15-year-old assailant, who was arrested at the scene of the attack, had already been identified by police as having appeared in a video in which he expressed solidarity with the ISIS terrorist organization and called for a “battle against the Jews.”
Speaking on Monday, Mario Fehr, the head of the police department in the Zurich canton, revealed that the assailant was a Tunisian immigrant who was naturalized in 2011. Between 2017 and 2021, he lived in Tunisia, where, according to Fehr, he became a habitué of Islamist chat rooms online. The teenager remains in pre-trial detention.
“There is a strong link with Tunisia,” Fehr commented.
In common with other countries in Europe, antisemitic outrages in Switzerland have rocketed in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel.
About 114 of the antisemitic incidents in Switzerland last year occurred after Oct. 7, according to data gathered by the SIG. Antisemitic incidents also picked up online, with 975 registered cases in 2023, up from 853 the previous year. Nearly half of the 2023 incidents were logged after Oct. 7, the SIG found.
Following the stabbing of the Jewish man in Zurich, Swiss Jewish leaders expressed concern that the severity of the situation facing the community had not been grasped by the wider population.
“The fact that such an event does not generate a national outcry is a real problem,” said Johanne Gurfinkiel, the secretary-general of Cicad, an NGO that monitors antisemitism.
The post Teen Who Stabbed Jewish Man in Zurich Was Radicalized Online, Swiss Police Reveal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey Left Fuming After Israel Demolishes Key Military Bases in Syria
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – Turkey was left fuming after at least three air bases in Syria where it hoped to deploy its forces were devastated by Israeli air strikes this week.
The Israeli strikes the T4 and Palmyra air bases in Syria’s Homs province and the main airport in Hama province. Israeli attacks came despite Ankara’s efforts to reassure Washington that a deeper military presence in Syria was not intended to threaten Israel.
Turkish military teams in recent weeks scoped out all three sites, four officials speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters.
Strikes at T4 “destroyed the runway, tower, hangars and the planes that were grounded. It was a tough message that Israel won’t accept the expanded Turkish presence,” said one of the intelligence officials who spoke to the news agency.
Ankara is positioning itself to play a major role in the new Syria, filling a vacuum left by Iran, in an expansion of Turkish sway that has put Israel—embroiled in a multi-front war of survival for the last year and a half—on edge.
The post Turkey Left Fuming After Israel Demolishes Key Military Bases in Syria first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Despite Credible Accusations of Antisemitism, UN Renews Albanese’s Rapporteur Mandate Until 2028
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – The United Nations Human Rights Council has renewed the mandate of Francesca Albanese as Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, extending her hugely controversial tenure by three more years, in spite of fierce opposition from Israel and the US over her vast track record of biased and bigoted statements. Albanese, who has held the position since 2022, was reappointed with the automatic support of the 47-member council.
“The renewal of Francesca Albanese’s mandate is a disgrace and a moral stain on the United Nations,” said Danny Danon, Israel’s UN envoy. “Albanese is a notorious antisemite who has repeatedly expressed not only biased views against Israel, but also hateful rhetoric targeting the Jewish people as a whole.”
The Italian lawyer and academic’s numerous objectionable statements included rehashing the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the US is “controlled” by the “Jewish lobby,” obsessively comparing Israel to Nazi Germany—including saying that “the trajectory of the genocide as I say, this has been the dormant gene of the colonial project that Israel has enforced in Palestine”—, insinuating that Israel and the CIA were behind the deadly 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, denying the antisemitic nature of the extremist ideology espoused by Hamas and more.
The post Despite Credible Accusations of Antisemitism, UN Renews Albanese’s Rapporteur Mandate Until 2028 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Health Ministry Revises War Death Toll, Removes Nearly 2,000 Names
In response to the UN’s accusation of war crimes, Israel released instances from the Gaza Ministry of Health where the falsified fatality records.
i24 News – The Gaza Health Ministry has revised its official war casualty count, removing 1,852 names from the death toll since October.
This adjustment brings the current death toll to 50,609, as reported by a Sky News investigation. The revision follows the discovery of errors, including the inclusion of individuals who died of natural causes or were still alive but imprisoned.
The majority of the corrections—nearly 97%—came from an online form that allowed families to report deaths when bodies were not found. Zaher Al Wahidi, head of statistics at the Gaza Health Ministry, explained that many of the reported deaths were related to natural causes, such as heart attacks or pneumonia, often triggered by the surrounding destruction. “Perhaps they were near an explosion and had a heart attack, or living in [destroyed] houses caused them to get pneumonia or hypothermia,” Al Wahidi said.
This marks the largest revision of the death toll since the start of the conflict. Previously, names submitted through the online form were added to the official list before undergoing judicial review.
Gabriel Epstein, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, emphasized that there is “no reason to believe that the errors are the result of deliberate manipulation.” Of the 1,852 names removed, 41% were men aged 18 to 60, while 59% were women, children, and the elderly.
Professor Michael Spagat, chairman of Every Casualty Counts, a civilian casualty monitoring organization, noted that the revision impacts the accuracy of earlier death toll reports, acknowledging that the quality of previous lists must be downgraded.
Additionally, between August and October, the ministry removed 1,441 names, 54% of which were from hospital records. This error was attributed to staff members mistakenly listing the wrong people as deceased due to a lack of access to the central population register.
The post Gaza Health Ministry Revises War Death Toll, Removes Nearly 2,000 Names first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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