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US-Israeli Officer Believed to Be Alive in Gaza Was Killed on Oct. 7, IDF Says
The Israeli military revealed on Dec. 2, 2024, that Cpt. Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, who was born in New York, was killed during Hamas’s deadly massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
JNS.org — An Israeli soldier previously believed to be among the living hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body taken by the terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces revealed on Monday.
Cpt. Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, was a tank platoon commander in the 77th Battalion of the 7th Brigade. His death was pronounced by the Military Rabbinate based on new intelligence information, and his family was notified.
Neutra was born in New York a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, his mother told an American audience at a Republican Party convention in Wisconsin in July, according to Channel 12 News.
“I passed through [the World Trade Center] on my way home on that terrible day, and here we are after more than 23 years and Omer once again is a victim of a violent terrorist attack,” she was quoted as saying.
Neutra immigrated to Israel to join the military and settled in Kibbutz Afikim south of the Sea of Galilee.
During Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack, Neutra was deployed near Kibbutz Nir Oz on the Gaza border, according to Hebrew media reports.
There were three other soldiers in the tank with him when the attack began: gunner Nimrod Cohen, 20, loader Oz Daniel, 19, and driver Shaked Dahan, 19.
Around 6:30 am, they received alerts of intrusions through the border fence. A second tank nearby headed north, while Neutra’s tank moved south. After 20 minutes, the commander of the other tank reported being hit. Neutra turned around, but his tank never made it.
“They must have been hit hard by an RPG [anti-tank missile],” Amir Daniel, Oz’s father, told Channel 12 News.
The tank caught fire, he continued, “so they had to get out or die of suffocation inside the tank. They made the decision to open the hatches and go out.”
The IDF had previously confirmed the deaths of Dahan, whose body was taken but retrieved by the IDF in September, and Oz, whose body is being held in Gaza. Cohen is still being held hostage in the Palestinian enclave. He was recognized by his family members in a kidnapping footage released by Hamas, according to Channel 12.
“Omer was a man of values, blessed with talents and a Zionist in every inch of his limbs,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, extending his condolences to Neutra’s family.
“He made aliyah to Israel to enlist in the IDF, chose a fighter’s track, and was selected to command and lead. This is what he did at the outbreak of the war on the seventh of October, 2023, when he fought ferociously at the head of his soldiers to defend the Gaza Envelope communities, until he fell,” the premier added.
“We will not rest or be silent until we return him home to be buried in Israel, and we will continue to act resolutely and tirelessly until we return all of our hostages — alive and deceased. May his memory be blessed.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Monday, “Our hearts are with the Neutra family this morning, who, after more than a year of a determined, traumatic, and worldwide struggle, received the devastating news confirming the death of their beloved son, Captain Omer Maxim Neutra, who fell on Oct. 7, and his body abducted by terrorists into Gaza.”
“Over the past year, we had the privilege of meeting his parents, Ronen and Orna, and his brother Daniel — a strong family with extraordinary resilience, who have dedicated their lives since Oct. 7 to doing everything in their power to bring Omer home.”
“I extend my warmest embrace to them and to all the families of the hostages enduring this horrific ordeal.”
The post US-Israeli Officer Believed to Be Alive in Gaza Was Killed on Oct. 7, IDF Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.