Author: Blazingcatfur

After days of silence, a trio of York University student unions released a joint statement refusing to back down from its controversial position about the Israel-Hamas war.

In a post late Tuesday night, the York Federation of Students, York’s graduate student Union and Glendon College union reaffirmed the stance they took in an Oct. 12 statement about the conflict in the Middle East, calling the attacks on Israeli civilians days earlier an “act of resistance.” They also took aim at the university, rejecting York authorities’ demands for union executives to retract their original statement and step down.

A Palestinian man sought by Belgian police for having declared he “wanted to die as a martyr by explosion” was arrested on Wednesday, October 24th at a hotel in Anderlecht, a municipality in the Brussels Capital Region, Belgian media report.

He has been detained for questioning.

Hamas has declared it will turn Palestinian tragedy into ‘joy’ should the Israeli Defence Forces launch a ground assault of Gaza in a sinister message delivered today.

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri said that ‘despite the enemy’s crimes… the resistance is well’, adding that Hamas and other Islamist groups ‘will turn your tragedies into joy, in the event of a ground invasion’ in a statement to Palestinians, suggesting Hamas fighters would inflict huge losses on the IDF.

Al-Arouri declared Hamas was preparing for war, telling Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar TV that ‘the battles have not begun yet’ ahead of the much-anticipated IDF assault.

In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza.

IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.

The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory. pic.twitter.com/oMdSDR84rU

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 26, 2023

Queen Rania of Jordan has been eviscerated today for an extraordinarily outspoken interview in which she attacked the US and Israel for striking Gaza and questioned whether Israeli babies had really been killed by Hamas on October 7.

In the interview with veteran CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour last night, Queen Rania – whose parents are of Palestinian descent but who grew up in Kuwait – said there was a ‘glaring double standard’ around the world when it came to sympathy for the war’s victims.

She made a brief concession that she ‘of course’ condemned Hamas’ killing of Israeli civilians, but spoke mostly of the need for increased support of Palestinians and a halt to Israel’s ground strikes.

There are any number of sobering lessons that might be drawn from the obscene celebrations of mass murder that have erupted across Canada in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacres in Israel, when “special forces” units of the Hamas terrorist organization carried out the bloodiest pogrom in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

Israel isn’t the only target.

In the 18 days since the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas murdered over 1,400 people, the network of terrorist proxies aligned with the Islamic Republic that populate the Middle East have taken similar aim at U.S. forces throughout the region. U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria have come under at least 13 drone and missile attacks. Last week, the Iran-aligned Houthi militia fired off a fusillade of rockets and unmanned vehicles “potentially headed for Israel” that were intercepted by an American Navy destroyer in the Red Sea.

The tunnels in Gaza initially had some basic characteristics in common with other excavation sites in Israel and elsewhere in the world, such as burial caves, mines, and hiding systems. “However,” says Prof. Roskin, “each tunnel system is different and uniquely related to the geological, geographic and geopolitical conditions in place. What is interesting about Hamas is that the rate of growth of the tunnels, not only in size, but also in purpose, complemented the development of the organization’s operational concept. It began with the smuggling of goods, progressed to the smuggling of weapons, and later evolved into attack tunnels. At these stages, the organization’s perception was tactical.

Getting around downtown Chicago is a challenge at the best of times. Weekdays feature a constant flow of carefully and swiftly moving traffic; weekends all the more so.

But it is a city of 2.5 million people, in a tri-state metro area of 9 million. Back in the days when Chicago was known as “The City that Works” – a generation ago, at least – the city fathers took great care to minimize any event that threatened to jeopardize that title.