Hamas ramps up recruitment of female terrorists, trains girls as young as 15
(JNS.org) Hamas is reportedly trying to recruit more women into its ranks and is now offering weapons training programs for teenage girls as young as 15, Israel Hayom reported Monday.
Prior or 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the Gaza Strip’s ruler allowed women to join the terrorist organization only as support staff, but after the conflict ended, Hamas apparently also began recruiting women for active duty.
Hamas is reportedly actively recruiting girls and women between the ages of 15 and 25, and teaching them how to fire handguns and rifles. Women who join the organization are reportedly also offered hand-to-hand combat training, as well as field skills training such as learning how to scale walls and learning how to avoid obstacles like burning tires.
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Israel, Cyprus to boost regional cooperation
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Sunday in Jerusalem, where the two leaders discussed a wide array of regional concerns such as terrorism and energy interests.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu and Anastasiades spoke about the need for regional stability, including countering extremism and terrorism. Additionally, the two leaders discussed emergency response cooperation and the utilization of the Aphrodite and Ishai offshore gas fields.
“Cyprus and Israel are two small democracies in the eastern Mediterranean. We also share common challenges, and also common opportunities: in security cooperation, in gas, in emergency cooperation, commerce, tourism—many, many fields,” Netanyahu said following the meeting.
In his remarks, Anastasiades praised his strong working relationship with Netanyahu, saying he is “looking forward” to discussions on “how to enhance our bilateral relations in the fields of energy, security, economy and trade, to exchange views on the regional developments, to brief [Netanyahu] on the negotiations about the Cyprus problem, and of course to prepare for the next trilateral meeting later this year with our Greek colleague here in Jerusalem, in order to continue the work which we started in Nicosia last January.”
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Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics team takes gold in Azerbaijan
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel’s national rhythmic gymnastics team won several medals, including a gold, at the International Federation of Gymnastics World Cup finals over the weekend in Baku, Azerbaijan. This was the team’s last international competition before the Rio Olympics.
Israeli team members Yuval Filo, Alona Koshevatskiy, Ekaterina Levina, Karina Lykhvar, and Ida Mayrin won the gold medal in the ribbon exercise on Sunday, while Russia took the silver medal and Spain won the bronze.
Competing in the clubs and hoops finals on Sunday, the Israeli team finished fourth. Israel won the silver medal on Saturday in the all-around competition.
Israeli gymnast Neta Rivkin won a bronze medal in the ball exercise. Rivkin, perhaps the most prominent member of Israel’s team, will represent the Jewish state in the rhythmic gymnastics individual competition in Rio. It will be her third Olympic Games.
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German government donating millions to BDS groups, report says
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A new report released Sunday claims that despite statements to the contrary, the German government has been donating millions of euros to groups promoting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The NGO Monitor watchdog group has found that between 2012 and 2015, Germany funneled at least $4.4 million to some 15 Israeli organizations, and 42 percent of the donations went to groups supporting an international boycott against Israel and policies negating Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
The report found that the German Economic Cooperation and Development Ministry operates a Civil Peace Service (Ziviler Friedensdienst) project in Israel, but in fact, on the ground the project is headed by a different German group, KURVE Wustrow, which has partnered with two local organizations—the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.
NGO Monitor argues that the Coalition of Women for Peace actively supports the BDS movement, including heading a project titled “Who Profits from the Occupation,” a database of potential boycott “targets.” The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee promotes violent riots across Judea and Samaria, and its Twitter account often features posts encouraging violence, the report said.
The German Embassy in Israel said that Germany “remains committed to the two-state solution and devising sustainable peace in the Middle East. The German government opposes any boycott of Israel, including BDS activities, as such action undermines the peace process. The German government’s funding policy seeks to support selected projects via earmarked funds.”
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New museum to tell Israel’s story as the ‘start-up nation’
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The foundation stone of a new museum dedicated to Israeli innovations was laid at an official ceremony on Thursday at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former President Shimon Peres attended the ceremony. The center, which will be completed in 2018, will present visitors with the history of Israel as the so-called “start-up nation,” becoming a leader in the fields of science and technology.
Exhibitions will showcase groundbreaking Israeli inventions that have changed the lives of millions worldwide, such as the drip irrigation system; cherry tomatoes; the ReWalk bionic walking assistance system for paraplegics; the Waze mobile navigation application; ICQ, the first instant messaging computer program; amniocentesis; the USB flash drive; the stent that revolutionized the treatment of cardiovascular disease; and more.
The center will also include a digital library, where visitors will be able to use of state-of-the-art technology that tells the stories of cutting-edge Israeli inventions.
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Donald Trump in RNC speech vows to work with Israel on fighting terror
(JNS.org) In a speech accepting the GOP nomination for president at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland last week, businessman Donald Trump said that the U.S. “must work” with all of its allies to destroy the Islamic State terror group and broader radical Islamic terrorism.
“This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel,” he said.
“We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and Syria,” said Trump. “My opponent has called for a radical 550-percent increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people….Anyone who endorses violence, hatred, or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.”
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U.S. Army officer who rescued Jews during Holocaust dies at 99
(JNS.org) A U.S. officer who helped liberate 2,500 Jews during the Holocaust has died at the age of 99.
On April 7, 1945, Lt. Frank Winchester Towers, who was the division liaison officer of Regiment 743 of the 30th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army during World War II, approached (with his regiment’s tanks) a stopped train in which there were 2,500 Jewish prisoners bound for the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The Nazis stopped the train because they were ordered to destroy it and drown the passengers in the Elbe river.
When the U.S. regiment approached, the passengers shouted, “We’re Jews!” Towers helped his regiment rescue the prisoners by mobilizing ambulances and other vehicles, and helped the freed prisoners get to an American-run field hospital.
In 2011, Towers visited Israel, where he met 55 of the 700 children who were rescued from the train to Theresienstadt. Later, he was able to contact 226 survivors from that train. He has spent his later years speaking at Holocaust events throughout the U.S.
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Top Israeli foreign ministry official meets with leader of Chad
(JNS.org) Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold met with President Idriss Deby of Chad at his presidential palace in the city of Fada on July 14 in another sign of the Jewish state’s move to bolster ties in Africa, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.
“Chad is a central country on the African continent,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It is a Muslim, Arabic-speaking country that deals with radical Islamic terrorism and this year holds the rotating chairmanship of the African Union.”
A former French colony, Chad once held close diplomatic ties with Israel as part of David Ben-Gurion’s “periphery doctrine” until they cut relations with Jerusalem in the 1970s.
The meeting in Chad comes on the heels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s week-long visit to Africa earlier this month, where the Israeli leader sought to deepen ties with several key African states such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda in order to bolster the Jewish state’s economic, security and diplomatic support in the region.
Earlier last week, Israel and Guinea, a Muslim-majority nation in western Africa, announced that they have re-established diplomatic relations for the first time in 49 years.
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