Wed 28 May 2025
Six hundred days since the October 7th attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is close to a complete defeat of Hamas. Survivors call for an inquiry into ex-Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
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North Wales Chronicle
22 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Israel says it has recovered the bodies of two hostages from Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai had been recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency. 'Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the dear families. Our hearts ache for the most terrible loss. May their memory be blessed,' he said in a statement. Kibbutz Nir Oz announced the deaths of Ms Weinstein, 70, and Mr Haggai, 72, both of whom had Israeli and US citizenship, in December 2023. The military said they were killed in the October 7 attack and taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. The army said it recovered the remains of Ms Weinstein and Mr Haggai overnight into Thursday from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The couple were taking an early morning walk near their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of October 7 when Hamas militants burst across the border into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. In the early hours of the morning, Ms Weinstein was able to call emergency services and let them know that both she and her husband had been shot and send a message to her family. The couple were survived by two sons and two daughters and seven grandchildren, the kibbutz said. Ms Weinstein was born in New York and taught English to children with special needs at Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small community near the Gaza border. The kibbutz said she also taught meditation techniques to children and teenagers who suffered from anxiety as a result of rocket fire from Gaza. Mr Haggai was a retired chef and jazz musician. 'My beautiful parents have been freed. We have certainty,' their daughter, Iris Haggai Liniado, wrote in a Facebook post. She thanked the Israeli military, the FBI and the Israeli and US governments and called for the release of all the remaining hostages. Hamas-led militants are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies. Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly two million Palestinians. The US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to broker another ceasefire and hostage release after Israel ended an earlier truce in March and imposed a blockade that has raised fears of famine, despite being eased in recent weeks. But the talks appear to be deadlocked. Hamas says it will release the remaining hostages only in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. It has offered to hand over power to a politically independent Palestinian committee. Mr Netanyahu has rejected those terms, saying Israel will only agree to temporary ceasefires to facilitate the return of hostages. He has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and sent into exile. He has said Israel will maintain control over Gaza indefinitely and will facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its population to other countries. The Palestinians and much of the international community have rejected such plans, viewing them as forcible expulsion that could violate international law.
South Wales Argus
43 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Israel says it has recovered the bodies of two hostages from Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai had been recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency. 'Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the dear families. Our hearts ache for the most terrible loss. May their memory be blessed,' he said in a statement. Kibbutz Nir Oz announced the deaths of Ms Weinstein, 70, and Mr Haggai, 72, both of whom had Israeli and US citizenship, in December 2023. The military said they were killed in the October 7 attack and taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. The army said it recovered the remains of Ms Weinstein and Mr Haggai overnight into Thursday from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The couple were taking an early morning walk near their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of October 7 when Hamas militants burst across the border into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. In the early hours of the morning, Ms Weinstein was able to call emergency services and let them know that both she and her husband had been shot and send a message to her family. The couple were survived by two sons and two daughters and seven grandchildren, the kibbutz said. Ms Weinstein was born in New York and taught English to children with special needs at Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small community near the Gaza border. The kibbutz said she also taught meditation techniques to children and teenagers who suffered from anxiety as a result of rocket fire from Gaza. Mr Haggai was a retired chef and jazz musician. 'My beautiful parents have been freed. We have certainty,' their daughter, Iris Haggai Liniado, wrote in a Facebook post. She thanked the Israeli military, the FBI and the Israeli and US governments and called for the release of all the remaining hostages. Hamas-led militants are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement on Thursday (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File) Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly two million Palestinians. The US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to broker another ceasefire and hostage release after Israel ended an earlier truce in March and imposed a blockade that has raised fears of famine, despite being eased in recent weeks. But the talks appear to be deadlocked. Hamas says it will release the remaining hostages only in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. It has offered to hand over power to a politically independent Palestinian committee. Mr Netanyahu has rejected those terms, saying Israel will only agree to temporary ceasefires to facilitate the return of hostages. He has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and sent into exile. He has said Israel will maintain control over Gaza indefinitely and will facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its population to other countries. The Palestinians and much of the international community have rejected such plans, viewing them as forcible expulsion that could violate international law.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Trump is right to protect American citizens. We should protect ours
Sometimes the best policies are the ones that produce the shrillest wails from the Left. Such may be the case with Trump's latest travel ban, which by rights should spark serious soul-searching in Britain. Overnight, the President announced restrictions on the citizens of 12 countries. This was a response to the recent terror attack on Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is alleged to have thrown firebombs and sprayed burning petrol at a Jewish vigil on Sunday in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Although Egypt is not on the list, Homeland Security officials said Mr Soliman was in the country illegally, having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022. So far, so Trumpian. (He took similar measures during his first term, after all, and they were repealed by Joe Biden who called them 'a stain on our national conscience'.) But then came the kicker. 'We will not let what happened in Europe happen in America,' Trump said. Ouch. If the months of Trump 2.0 have so far shifted the Overton window across the West, allowing even the likes of Sir Keir Starmer to contemplate – at least rhetorically – tackling immigration, then such a travel ban should be welcomed on these shores as well. Already, the usual suspects are accusing Trump of being 'racist'. But a glance at the range of countries on the list shows that this is not a question of race, or even religion. Rather, it is a question of homeland security, and that holds a stark lesson for Britain. A few months back, official data revealed that though foreigners comprise just 15 per cent of the population of our country, they commit 41 per cent of all crime and up to a quarter of sex crimes. In the first nine months of 2024, almost 14 per cent of grooming suspects were Pakistani, five times their share of the population. Two nationalities – Afghans and Eritreans – were more than 20 times more likely to account for sexual offence convictions than British citizens, according to the data. Overall, foreign nationals were 71 per cent more likely than Britons to be responsible for sex crime convictions. Based on convictions per 10,000 of the population, Afghans with 77 convictions topped the table with a rate of 59 per 10,000, 22.3 times that of Britons. They were followed by Eritreans, who accounted for 59 convictions at a rate of 53.6 per 10,000 of their population. In March 2025, data from the Ministry of Justice revealed that foreigners, who claim £1 billion a month in benefits, were also responsible for large proportions of violence, robbery, fraud and drug offences, between 2021 and 2023. There was no data for terrorism offences or acts of anti-Semitism. But does anybody want to hazard a guess? Which brings us to a fundamental question. Why? Why does Britain need to allow the criminals of the world to come to our shores to abuse women and girls, run criminal enterprises, foster terrorism and anti-Semitism, and claim benefits in the process? Obviously not all foreigners from these countries behave in this way. But facts aren't racist. Large numbers are pulling down our pants, spanking our buttocks and pulling them up again. In fact, the problem is not one of race but one of politics and culture. In my new book, Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself, which is coming out at the end of September, I look at groundbreaking research published in April by cognitive scientists Scott Barry Kaufman and Craig Neumann. They found that 'citizens in democratic countries have more benevolent traits, fewer malevolent traits, and greater well-being' than those living under autocratic regimes. Based on a study of 200,000 people from 75 countries, people living under autocracies were found to be much more likely to exhibit the 'Dark Triad' of negative personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In democracies, by contrast, more people displayed the 'Light Triad' of humanism, faith in humanity and 'Kantianism', or treating people with dignity in their own right rather than viewing them as a means to an end. Obviously, this is not related to race. Russians are hardly black, but they hardly live in a democracy either. It is a case of cognitive development. The problem occurs when, in an age of global travel, 'Dark Triad' migrants who grew up in despotic regimes encounter gullible 'Light Triad' officials in the democracies, whose empathies are easily played upon. That is why we find British judges ruling that an Albanian convict should avoid deportation because his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, a Pakistani drug dealer could stay so he could teach his son about Islam, and a paedophile of the same nationality should not be sent home since it would be 'unduly harsh' on his own children. These real-life cases, reported by the Telegraph, provide a clear collision of the 'Dark Triad' traits in the criminals and the 'Light Triad' tendencies in the judges. It is a chemical reaction waiting to happen, and the vast majority of the population, wherever they are born, are suffering the consequences. In other words, we are being taken for fools. No foreign criminal has a God-given right to set up home in Britain just because he fancies it. This is our home, and although we are delighted to welcome strangers, that generosity should be withdrawn from those who nick our television and threaten our children – even if their own happen to like the chicken nuggets in our fridge. Trump has now thrown down the gauntlet. What is the British Government going to do to set our own house in order? Will it take an anti-Semitic outrage like the firebombing in Colorado before the Prime Minister takes action? Will he take action even then?
