Israel says it has recovered the remains of 2 more hostages held in Gaza
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli forces have recovered the remains of two additional hostages held in Gaza, the office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.
One of the hostages, Yair Yaakov was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, during Hamas' attack on southern Israel and his body was taken into Gaza. The identity of the second hostage whose body was recovered was not immediately disclosed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Shocked' and ‘sickened' Democrats react with fury to video of Padilla's removal
WASHINGTON (AP) — When videos first rocketed around the Internet Thursday afternoon showing security officers forcibly removing Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla from a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in California, senators in both parties were already gathered together for a long series of votes. There are strict rules against using cellphones on the Senate floor. But senators immediately shared the video with each other anyway. 'I showed it to as many people as I could,' said Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. That included Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who she said seemed 'as shocked as we were.' The videos, which showed officers aggressively pushing Padilla out of Noem's press conference and eventually restraining him on the floor outside the room, shook Senate Democrats to the core. Beaten down politically for months as President Donald Trump has returned to power and ruled Washington with a united Republican Congress, the Democrats' anger exploded as they skipped their traditional Thursday flights home and stayed on the floor to speak out against the incident, calling it the latest and most inflammatory example of what they say is Trump's gradual assault on democracy. The incident came just days after U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal charges alleging she assaulted and interfered with immigration officers outside a detention center in New Jersey. 'What was really hard for me to see was that a member of this body was driven to his knees and made to kneel before authorities,' said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, his raised voice booming through the Senate chamber walls. 'This is a test. This is a crossroads. This is a day in which the character of this body will be defined.' Washington Sen. Patty Murray said it was the closest she had come to tearing up on the floor in her 32 years in the Senate. Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks said she was so angry she was shaking. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine waved around a pocket Constitution and said the administration is trying to make Padilla and others 'afraid to exercise their rights.' Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said what he saw 'sickened my stomach' and demanded immediate answers 'to what the hell went on.' Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation. 'This is what a dictatorship looks like,' said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen. 'We have to stand up.' Pleading for Republicans to speak out against the incident, New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said that 'this is not a time to put your finger up in the air and figure out which way the wind is blowing, to try to think through what type of reaction might come from the White House if we speak out against this.' Senate Republicans were mostly silent on the situation. Thune said that he would have a response, 'but I want to know the facts, find out exactly what happened.' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she had seen a clip of the video on the Senate floor and it was 'disturbing,' though she said she didn't know the details of what came before it. 'It looks like he's being manhandled and physically removed, and it's hard to imagine a justification for that,' Collins said. Other Republicans were less sympathetic. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican, raised his voice when asked about the incident and said that Padilla should have been at work in Washington. He said he had not watched the video. 'Was he being disruptive?' asked South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who also had not seen the video. 'He got what he wanted, he's on video.' Padilla was forcibly removed from the press conference after introducing himself and saying he had questions for Secretary Noem amid immigration raids in his state that have led to protests. Video shows a Secret Service agent on Noem's security detail grabbing the California senator by his jacket and shoving him from the room as he yells, 'Hands off!' Later video shows Padilla on his knees and pushed to the ground with several officers on top of him. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Padilla 'chose disrespectful political theater and interrupted a live news conference.' They defended the officers' conduct and claimed erroneously that Padilla did not identify himself and said Secret Service believed him to be an attacker. The Democrats described Padilla, the son of immigrants from Mexico, as a 'kind and gentle person' and said that disrespect is not a crime in the United States. They also invoked the end of Trump's last presidency, when a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol and sent them running. 'I have never, ever — other than January 6 — been so outraged at the conduct of an administration,' said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz.
Vancouver Sun
an hour ago
- Vancouver Sun
Jewish student group calls on TMU to discipline incoming interim dean over anti-Israel social posts
Hillel Ontario is calling on Toronto Metropolitan University to investigate Maher El-Masri, a recently appointed interim associate dean, because the group says he has 'repeatedly engaged with and spread extreme, antisemitic, and deeply polarizing content on his social media account.' Hillel Ontario, a Jewish student organization with a presence on nine campuses across the province, including TMU, sent an action alert last Thursday alongside several screenshots of social media posts from an account Hillel says belongs to El-Masri. The X account is under El-Masri's name and the biography describes the user as the 'son of (a) Nakba survivor,' referring to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The account states that the user is in Ontario, has a Palestinian flag for its profile picture and a background quote claiming 'humanity is failing the Palestine test.' One message Hillel highlighted from the account concerned a post about Noa Marciano, an Israeli intelligence soldier abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, during its invasion of Israel. Marciano later died in captivity. 'This is what is so scary about people like her,' the TMU professor wrote beneath a graduation photo of Marciano, which claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike. 'They look so normal and innocent, but they hide monstrous killers in their sick, brainwashed minds.' Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Marciano's friend, Ori Megidish — another hostage rescued by Israeli forces in late October 2023 — said she was killed by a doctor in al-Shifa hospital. Her parents said the same thing in subsequent interviews. 'I hate everyone who directly or indirectly caused this indignity to the most honorable and most dignified people on Earth,' an undated post flagged by Hillel reads alongside broken heart emojis, an apparent reference to the conflict in Gaza. In December 2023, El-Masri was interviewed by CBC for a story about his brother, who he said was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza while searching for food. El-Masri has continued to post about the conflict on the X account, which remains open to the public. 'Israel is a baby killer state. It always has been,' he wrote on June 6, a day after the Hillel notice. Some of his posts compare Israel to Nazi Germany, a comparison deemed antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). On May 7, 2025, El-Masri commented on a photo of a proposed humanitarian zone in Gaza. 'The irony of history: The last time such a concentration camp was erected, it was by the Nazis!' El-Masri returns to the point repeatedly throughout his social media feed. 'How could a people who have endured the worst human persecution in the holocaust carry this deep hate and inflict unimaginable pain on a nother (sic) people who, in fact, had nothing to do with the holocaust!!!!' he wrote last June. 'When the victims of the holocaust call for a holocaust,' El-Masri wrote in early May 2025. He has also downplayed the role of Hamas in the conflict on several occasions. 'This is NOT a war against Hamas. This is a genocidal war against the very existence of the Palestinian people,' he wrote in August 2024. In May 2025, he argued that ''Hamas' is the zionists' code word to dehumanize the Palestinian people.' National Post reached out to El-Masri for comment but the professor responded with an email ordering the Post not to contact him anymore. He described the allegations around the content of his social media account as a 'smear campaign.' Liat Schwartz, a Jewish TMU student in the same department as El-Masri, called his online statements alarming, 'especially since I'm openly Jewish.' Schwartz, the president of a pro-Israel group on campus, called on university leaders to protect 'the well-being of Jewish and Israeli students,' saying El-Masri's presence 'makes me feel profoundly unsafe and unheard within my own faculty.' Hillel Ontario called on TMU to rescind El-Masri's appointment as interim dean. 'TMU's decision to promote Dr. El-Masri, despite his extensive history of promoting antisemitic and extremist content, is egregious,' Jay Solomon, the group's chief advancement officer, told the Post in a written statement. 'Those in leadership positions must be held to the absolute highest standard, and ensure that all students — including Jews and Israelis — feel supported. This appointment sends exactly the opposite message. TMU must act swiftly in removing El-Masri and alter their process to ensure this doesn't happen again.' University spokesperson Jessica Leach underscored the personal impact the ongoing conflict was having on members of the university community but said that El-Masiri's 'posts do not reflect the position of the university.' 'The posts are his personal views as a faculty member, with no mention of or affiliation with TMU. The university is reviewing this matter,' she said in a written statement encouraging university members 'to be respectful, collegial, and empathetic.' Leach initially challenged Hillel's press release, claiming the organization was mistaken and El-Masiri was not a dean. When asked if El-Masiri had ever held the position of dean, interim or otherwise, Leach wrote the Post that he had not. Her response was contradicted by Hillel, who shared with the Post an email sent in early June apparently from the Faculty of Community Services dean announcing El-Masiri's appointment. 'Dr. El-Masri has a demonstrated track record of excellence in teaching, research and service, and he is widely respected for his enormous engagement with health care systems in Toronto, across Ontario, and even globally,' the email says. TMU later followed up with a statement confirming that El-Masri has been appointed an assistant dean, but he has not yet assumed the post. 'His appointment as interim-acting Assistant Dean is not effective until July 1. Until that time, Dr. El-Masri is the director of the school of nursing, a faculty-level position. Directors within faculties, such as Dr. El-Masri's position, are not administrators. They are full members of the Toronto Metropolitan Faculty Association (TFA),' the statement says. El-Masri is scheduled to be the convocation speaker for the Faculty of Community Services graduation event on June 18. Steven Tissenbaum, a recently retired TMU business professor, said the university's failure to properly deal with allegations of antisemitism has coloured life at the downtown Toronto campus since the October 7 massacre. He called the administration's failure to discipline dozens of law students who signed a letter defending 'all forms of Palestinian resistance' days after the Hamas atrocities 'the real defining moment' for him. 'Jewish professors at large recognize that TMU is not a place to be,' Tissenbaum told the Post, explaining this realization is spreading to Jewish students and families as well. Two other academics from TMU reiterated Tissenbaum's point but wished to remain anonymous because they are still actively teaching at TMU. 'I am writing to let you know that it is worse for faculty and staff,' one tenured academic, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote the Post after an earlier story chronicling the harassment Schwartz and other Jewish students experienced on campus was published. 'Faculty who are demonstrably Jewish have been attacked, harassed, and threatened, and some have even resigned.' Tissenbaum taught at TMU for nearly three decades and said the university has grown increasingly insensitive to the concerns of Jewish academics and students. He was particularly alarmed by the university's faculty association passing a motion in May recognizing anti-Palestinian racism (a new term which advocates for the dismantling of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism) at a time of increased Jew hatred. 'The undercurrents of antisemitism have been there,' he said, recalling a time in the nineties when someone drew a swastika on his desk. When he raised the incident during a university diversity and equity session, Tissenbaum says he 'was ghosted' and that no one responded to his concerns. 'It's always been there, but what's happened since October 7 is that it provided a spark for people to be outwardly aggressive with their antisemitism.' Tissenbaum decided to retire early from TMU. He stepped away in August 2024. 'I retired primarily due to the increased antisemitism being experienced on campus due to the lack of administrative support from the president down,' he wrote the Post. Although Tissenbaum said he did not feel physically threatened on campus, he believes the treatment Jewish students have endured in recent years is not conducive to a healthy learning atmosphere. The entrepreneurship professor sees TMU's troubles since the October 7 terrorist attacks as part of a broader national malaise. 'What's happening in TMU is a microcosm of what's happening everywhere else. Canada is not a safe place,' he said. 'TMU is not a safe place for Jewish students. It's not a future.'
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
Trump administration tells immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela they have to leave
MIAMI (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it has begun notifying hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that their temporary permission to live and work in the United States has been revoked and that they should leave the country. The termination notices are being sent by email to people who entered the country under the humanitarian parole program for the four countries, officials said.
