Rockets pound southern Israel, IDF calls up 10,000 reservists
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Hamas terrorists continued to barrage southern Israel on Friday, August 22, firing more than 30 rockets at Beersheba, Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot, and the Gaza periphery communities. The Iron Dome defense system intercepted six rockets fired at heavily populated areas.
One man sustained moderate shrapnel wounds when a rocket hit a parking lot in Beersheba. One of the projectiles fired at the Eshkol Regional Council landed just outside a kindergarten. The children were unharmed, but several parked cars were damaged.
According to Channel 2, Israeli Air Force jets struck a terror target in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza around noon on Friday. At least two people were reportedly killed and several others were wounded. Also on Friday, Israel opened the Kerem Shalom border crossing, allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.
On Thursday, the Israeli cabinet approved the Israel Defense Forces’ request to call-up 10,000 reservists. The reservists recruited at this time will relieve reservists that have been on active duty for the past few weeks. The IDF also bolstered the troop deployment near the Israel-Gaza border, placing them on defensive alert.
PA and Hamas leaders meet in Qatar to discuss renewal of cease-fire talks
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Qatar for a meeting with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal to discuss renewing indirect cease-fire talks with Israel.
The meeting between the two Palestinian factions was facilitated by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Qatari News Agency reported.
Abbas arrived in Doha with a delegation of leaders including PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Cairo cease-fire talks negotiator Azaam al-Ahmed, and PA Commander of General Intelligence in the West Bank Majed Faraj, the Palestinian news agency WAFAreported.
Peace talks in Cairo collapsed this week after Hamas launched a fresh round of rockets at Israel, despite a cease-fire. Israel has responded by assassinating three senior Hamas terrorists as well as targeting another senior leader, Mohammed Deif. There are conflicting reports on whether or not Deif was killed in the airstrike.
The meeting between Abbas and Mashaal came amid reports that Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas are undermining Egyptian-led efforts to forge a permanent cease-fire.
The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat quoted a senior official from Abbas’s Fatah party as saying that Qatar had threatened to expel Mashaal if Hamas accepted Egypt’s cease-fire proposal.
Additionally, it was reported that Egypt has refused to allow Qatar to play a role in the cease-fire negotiations unless it apologizes for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Christian organization brings 500 volunteers to Israel to help farmers
(JNS.org) A group of 500 Christian volunteers has traveled to Israel to support farmers in Judea and Samaria as part of a trip organized by the American Christian organization HaYovel.
The visiting volunteers—from the U.S., Canada, Norway, and New Zealand, among other countries—are working on farms throughout Judea and Samaria in order to support Israel’s economy during the conflict with Hamas.
“Right now is the most important time to support Israel,” HaYovel founder Zac Waller told Israel National News.
Before the trip, Waller recorded a music video titled “Israel, You’re Not Alone” to express his personal support for the Jewish state.
The visit by HaYovel volunteers comes as other Christian groups and leaders are traveling to Israel to express their solidarity. Earlier this month, a group of 51 Christian pastors toured Israel as part of a visit sponsored by Christians United For Israel.
This week, former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum led a delegation of political and Christian religious figures on a solidarity mission to Israel with his conservative grassroots group, “Patriot Voices.”
During a visit to the Western Wall tunnels in the City of David, Santorum remarked on the historical connection between Israel and Christians.
“Walking through the City of David, seeing the excavations and seeing the bible come to life, is really quite remarkable… It’s a great start to the understanding of Jerusalem, not just for Jews, but for all of us,” Santorum said.
Israeli NGO requests that U.S. extradite Hamas leader over murder of Jewish teens
(JNS.org) The Israeli legal NGO Shurat HaDin has written a request to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that calls for the extradition of Turkey-based Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri to stand trial for June’s murder of three Israeli teens. One of the teens, Naftali Frenkel, was an American citizen.
“Turkish authorities cannot allow a statement by a senior Hamas terrorist condoning and taking responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of innocent teenage boys announced on Turkish soil, and at the same time claim that Turkey is a humane country,” Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in the letter.
“We are confident that an investigation into the evidence of the kidnapping and murder of Frenkel will result in a strong foundation for the indictment and extradition of senior Hamas leader al-Arouri from Turkey,” the letter added.
In a video recording of a conference in Istanbul, al-Arouri all but confirmed that Hamas was behind the kidnapping and murder of the three teens.
“There was much speculation about this operation, some said it was a conspiracy,” al-Arouri told a group of delegates from the International Union of Islamic Scholars, according to a video posted online by the group’s organizers.
“The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron,” he said, referring to the Hamas wing’s kidnapping of the Israeli teens.
Ohio Jews mourn death of IDF lone soldier
(Cleveland Jewish News/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Columbus, Ohio, Jewish community is mourning the loss of one of its lone soldiers as the Israel Defense Forces continues to investigate the death of Cpl. David Menachem Gordon, whose body was found Aug. 19 in central Israel with gunshot wounds.
Gordon, 21, had been missing since about noon Aug. 17, when he was last seen at a military base in central Israel. His army-issued assault rifle was by his side, according to the IDF.
Lane Schlessel, director of the Ohio chapter of Friends of the IDF, said he did not have any information about the cause of Gordon’s death.
“I’m extremely sorry for the loss of the family’s loved one,” Schlessel said. “My support and thoughts and prayers are with them always. As a lone soldier (with no immediate family in Israel), his service was greatly appreciated.”
Bob Lane, vice president of Jewish community relations for the Jewish Federation of Columbus, said that Gordon’s family has lived in Columbus for less than one year. Lane said he did not know the family personally, and he was not sure where Gordon was from originally.
“This certainly is a tragedy, and the Columbus Jewish community mourns with his family,” said Lane. “David and his family are in our thoughts and prayers as we move through this very difficult and tragic time.”
Gordon, who entered the Israeli army in August 2013, was a member of the Givati Brigade. According to his Facebook page, he completed basic training in January and served in the 424th Shaked Infantry Battalion. He will be buried with full military honors at Mount Herzl, Israel’s national cemetery in Jerusalem, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Temple U. Jewish student punched and called ‘kike’ by SJP members
(JNS.org) A Temple University student was punched in the face and called anti-Semitic slurs by members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on the Philadelphia campus Wednesday.
Daniel Vessal, a campus fellow of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and a member of the Jewish fraternity AEPi, was assaulted during “Templefest,” an annual event for students to gain information about various campus clubs before the start of classes. He was called a “kike” and a “baby killer,” TruthRevolt reported.
“I’m walking down Polett Walk, one of the main walkways through Temple University, and I see the SJP table,” Vessal told TruthRevolt. “I go up to them and I really just wanted to see what angle they were coming from. I went up to the table and started talking to them. I said, ‘Listen, you shouldn’t be protesting Israel—if anything protest the terrorists.’”
“This one girl sitting at the end of the table was just laughing and laughing at me,” he continued. “As she was laughing at me, people at the table were calling me a ‘baby killer.’ I said when she stops then maybe we could have a genuinely peaceful conversation. And then this kid just socks me in the face as hard as he can. My glasses flew off. After a two-second blur I had no clue what had happened. I couldn’t believe the kid actually hit me.”
Vessal added, “When the police came over and were filing the report, the kids at the table were screaming, ‘You Zionist pig, you racist, that’s what you get.’”
Police briefly detained the student who threw the punch, but then released him, according to Vessal. “I don’t understand why after physical assault he just got sent home. This was not anti-Israel at all, it was completely anti-Semitic,” he said.
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