The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.
Antisemitic acts quadrupled in France last year — Jewish council
Antisemitic acts in France nearly quadrupled in 2023 compared with the previous year, a Jewish organization says, reflecting a surge in discrimination since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.
Citing figures from the French interior ministry and a French-Jewish security watchdog, the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) says there were 1,676 antisemitic acts last year compared to 436 the year prior.
Nearly 60 percent of those acts were attacks involving physical violence, threatening words or menacing gestures, CRIF says in its report.
Worryingly, nearly 13 percent of antisemitic acts last year took place in schools, most of them in junior high schools.
“We are witnessing a rejuvenation of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts. Schools are no longer a sanctuary of the Republic,” the report says.
The spike in antisemitism is the worst on record, according to CRIF, which has figures dating back to 2012.
The organization cautions that its tally reflects only acts “that have been the subject of a complaint or a report to the police.”
France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community and the largest number of Muslims on the continent, although no precise figures are available as the country’s census does not include religious identity.
Freed hostage says she met Hamas leader in a tunnel, was kept in dire conditions
A 72-year-old woman held captive by Hamas for nearly 50 days told Channel 12 Wednesday that she was held at length in a dark, humid tunnel where she met Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar and helped pass the time with an informal lecture series by her knowledgeable fellow hostages.
Adina Moshe was taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. She was freed in late November.
Sinwar visited Moshe and a group of fellow hostages deep underground, she said.
“Hello. How are you? Everything OK?” Moshe said Sinwar told them in the Hebrew he had learned during a long incarceration in Israel. She said the hostages bowed their heads and did not respond. Another visit followed three weeks later, she said.
Moshe said terrorists raided the home she shared with her husband, David, who was shot in the leg. They snatched her out from the window of her house’s safe room and another terrorist went back in to shoot her husband dead, she said. Before being killed, he blew her a farewell kiss, she said.
White House decries deadly strike on UN shelter in Gaza, avoids casting blame
The White House decries a strike earlier today on a UN shelter in Khan Younis, but avoids assigning blame in a relatively rare statement on an individual strike in Gaza.
“We are gravely concerned by reports today of strikes hitting a UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) facility — with subsequent reports of fires in the building — in a neighborhood in southern Gaza where more than 30,000 displaced Palestinians had reportedly been sheltering,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson says.
At least 9 people were killed and 75 people were injured in the strike on a vocational center that has been functioning as a shelter for roughly 800 displaced Palestinians, according to UNRWA.
The IDF said it launched an investigation into the incident but has already determined that it’s air and artillery forces were not responsible. It said it was still looking into its ground forces’ operations in the area but also was checking to see if the blast was caused by an errant Hamas rocket.
“While we don’t yet have all the details on what happened and will continue to seek further information regarding today’s incidents, the loss of every innocent life is a tragedy,” Watson says.
“This conflict has already resulted in the devastating deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and we mourn every single civilian life that has been lost. It’s heartbreaking to see children killed, injured, and orphaned.”
“The United States is unwavering in our support for Israel’s right to defend itself, consistent with international humanitarian law, against Hamas terrorists who hide among the civilian population and want to annihilate the State of Israel.”
“But Israel retains a responsibility to protect civilians, including, humanitarian personnel and sites,” she continues, suggesting that the IDF could have been behind the strike.
“As President Biden has been clear from the earliest days of this crisis, the United States will also continue working to increase life-saving humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to bring home all of the hostages held there,” the White House statement adds.