World
Lawmakers hold moment of silence for slain Omer Neutra as thousands mourn in hometown synagogue
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday night held a moment of silence for American-Israeli Omer Neutra who was determined this week to have been killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, after it was believed that he had been alive for more than a year.
Neutra, 21 years old, was a tank platoon commander in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and was among the first to respond to the Hamas attack that ultimately killed some 1,200 people and initially saw the abduction of more than 250 men, women and children.
His parents, Orna and Ronen, who spoke with Fox News Digital just days prior to the tragic development, believed their son was still alive after the IDF had long assessed that he, along with Nimrod Cohen, another soldier from his tank, were taken hostage into Gaza and remained alive.
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“For 420 days Omer’s parents and his brother Daniel have done everything they can with the love and support of hundreds of thousands of others to free their son from captivity,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who represents the Neutra family’s district, said from the House floor. “Every day they soldiered on through alternating deep sorrow and brief bursts of hopefulness. They went from crushing anxiety to steely determination.
“Just a few days ago we learned that this courageous young man, this bright light, this courageous idealist, made the ultimate sacrifice,” Suozzi continued. “Omer had not been alive for the last 422 days, he was murdered on Oct. 7.”
Footage from the attack on Omer’s tank showed the commander, as well as three others, Shaked Dahan, Oz Daniel and Nimrod Cohen being pulled from the military vehicle by Hamas terrorists and being taken captive.
Daniel and Dahan had previously been assessed to have been killed following the attack, and according to the IDF, intelligence now suggests Omer, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, was also killed on Oct. 7. 2023.
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The Israeli military has not said how they came by this new information and the fate of Cohen remains unknown.
In a memorial service held for Omer on Tuesday in the Long Island synagogue where he reportedly celebrated his bar mitzvah years earlier, Omer’s father Ronen, said the news had left them “breathless and empty.”
“For over a year now, we’ve been breathing life into your being, my beautiful boy,” Orna said through tears, according to reports. “With the hope and love of so many, we kept going and going and going, keeping you alive, speaking your name from every outlet, pushing any hint of despair, not stopping to breathe or to take in the deep pain of your absence.”
“Now things are clear,” she said to the reported 1,500 attendees at the service. “But not as we’d hoped.”
Onra and Ronen have described their son as loving, a good friend and an athlete, but they also highlighted his ability to lead and how his actions on Oct. 7, 2023 saved lives.
Omer’s body is believed to still be held by Hamas along with the six other American hostages, only three of whom are still assessed by the IDF to be alive at this time, including Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen and Keith Siegel.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s body was recovered after he, along with five others, were discovered to have been murdered by Hamas in the tunnels in Gaza in August.
There are still 100 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza following the recovery of Itai Svirski’s body on Wednesday, an Israeli hostage taken during the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023.
The IDF confirmed he “was murdered in captivity by his captors, and his body was held hostage in the Gaza Strip.”
World
Why is the opposition capture of Hama in Syria so important?
Opposition fighters in Syria captured the strategic city of Hama on Thursday in a matter of hours.
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which means the Committee for the Liberation of the Levant, led the offensive as they stormed the city. Government forces quickly retreated.
Inhabitants appeared to welcome what many described as the liberation of their city from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s clutches.
One HTS fighter, who did not want to give his name, told Al Jazeera after entering Hama: “Thank God we liberated the city of Hama and now we are securing [it]. With God’s blessing, we will enter the city of Homs next.”
Analysts and observers believe antigovernment fighters could capture most of the country, but say Hama has a particular value for the Syrian opposition.
This is what we know about the strategic and symbolic significance of the city.
Why is Hama so significant in Syria?
The city witnessed one of the most brutal acts of repression in Syrian history, analysts and observers say.
In 1982, al-Assad’s father, Hafez, who was then president, ordered the killing of members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were occupying the city.
The targeted people were part of a movement trying to remove the al-Assads from power and had taken over the city after ambushing army troops.
They killed senior officers and leaders within the government and looted their homes, according to a report by the European Council for Foreign Relations, a think tank based in the United Kingdom.
The group’s operations attracted widespread support and triggered an uprising against the government in the city.
The government responded by bombing Hama for several days while Syrian troops moved in to crush the uprising.
In the following weeks, Syrian forces laid siege to the city, going door to door to kill, torture and arrest any young men they believed to be with the opposition, according to Amnesty International.
It is estimated that between 10,000 and 40,000 people were killed in Hama – the precise figure is still unknown.
“It was the awareness of the mass arrests and executions that terrified people,” said Robin Yassin-Kassab, an expert on Syria and the co-author of, Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War.
“[The episode] made Syria a kingdom of silence,” he told Al Jazeera.
The 2011 Syrian uprising momentarily shattered that barrier of fear.
As protests swept the country, inhabitants of Hama gathered and sang “Yalla erhal ya Bashar,” which translates to “Come on and leave, Bashar!”
Protesters in Hama carried olive branches and crowds reached more than 500,000 people, activists told Al Jazeera in 2011.
What did the Syrian regime do to Hama in 2011?
All across Syria, government forces violently repressed demonstrations in 2011, including in Hama.
For more than a decade, the regime barrel-bombed cities and arrested and tortured activists and perceived opponents.
The government often relied on Alawi, as well as Shia, armed groups, both from Syria and across the region, to crack down on protesters.
The Alawi sect in Syria is an offshoot of Shia Islam to which al-Assad and his family belong.
Yassin-Kassab said many believe the barrier of fear has been shattered for a second time after rebel groups captured Aleppo and now Hama within days.
In Hama, scenes of prisoners of conscience being liberated from the central prison prompted celebrations by Syrians.
In the city, inhabitants tore down a statue of Hafez al-Assad.
“I presumed Hama is where [the government and its loyalists] would put up a serious fight … but they weren’t capable,” said Yassin-Kassab.
“After Hama [was liberated], I thought to myself: ‘The Syrian revolution is back.’”
Is Hama strategically important?
Very much so.
The capture of Hama allows rebel groups to keep moving down the Aleppo-Damascus M5 highway towards Homs, which if captured, could split apart the regime’s strongholds.
Opposition fighters appear to have reached the outskirts of the city, according to reports, while thousands of people have fled.
Homs has a larger population of Alawis than Hama, but HTS has reportedly offered assurances that minorities in Syria will not be harmed.
The city is effectively a gateway to Syria’s capital, Damascus, as well as to the coastal provinces of Tartous and Latakia, which are Alawi heartlands and where Russian naval and air bases are located.
If Homs falls to the opposition, then opposition fighters are likely to push on to try to take Damascus, said Yassin-Kassab.
“I do think if Homs falls, then that will be the beginning of the end for the [Assad regime],” he told Al Jazeera.
World
Berlin's new panda twins have been named. Meet Leni and Lotti, or Meng Hao and Meng Tian
BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s new panda twins now have names — or rather, two names apiece.
The two female cubs, born at the Berlin Zoo on Aug. 22, were introduced Friday as Meng Hao and Meng Tian (“good dream” and “sweet dream.”) Alternatively, they also answer to the very Berlin names of Leni and Lotti.
The pair, who lay on their bellies on a mattress and peered at photographers as the Chinese ambassador to Germany and Berlin’s mayor unveiled their names, are the second pair of giant pandas born in Germany.
The first were their elder brothers Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, who became far better known by the German names Pit and Paule. The cubs were born in August 2019 and were a star attraction in Berlin until they were flown to China nearly a year ago — a trip that was contractually agreed from the start but delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
All are the offspring of mother Meng Meng and father Jiao Qing, who arrived in Berlin in 2017.
Zoo director Andreas Knieriem said the youngsters are growing fast, putting on nearly 100 grams (3.5 ounces) per day and now weighing in at almost 6 kilos (13.2 pounds) each.
Giant pandas have difficulty breeding and births are particularly welcomed. There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and a few hundred in captivity worldwide.
Meng Meng was artificially inseminated in March. Female pandas are fertile only for a few days per year at most.
China gifted friendly nations with its unofficial mascot for decades as part of a “panda diplomacy″ policy. The country now loans pandas to zoos on commercial terms.
World
South Korean lawmakers support suspending president’s powers after short-lived martial law declaration
South Korean lawmakers are calling for suspending the constitutional powers of President Yoon Suk Yeol after his short-lived martial law declaration earlier this week, raising the prospects of impeachment.
Opposition parties are pushing for a parliamentary vote on Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday, calling his martial law declaration an “unconstitutional, illegal rebellion or coup.”
President Yoon shocked democratic allies by declaring martial law late Tuesday night, sending the East Asian country into chaos. South Korea’s parliament voted to cancel martial law just six hours later, but the episode has effectively frozen the country’s politics. Thousands of protesters have marched in the streets of Seoul since Wednesday, calling for Yoon to resign and be investigated.
Still, passing an impeachment motion would need support from some members of the president’s People Power Party to get the required two-thirds majority. The opposition parties who jointly brought the impeachment motion have 192 seats combined. PPP has 108 lawmakers.
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During a party meeting, PPP leader Han Dong-hun said it was important to suspend Yoon’s presidential duties and power quickly, saying he poses a “significant risk of extreme actions, like reattempting to impose martial law, which could potentially put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger.”
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Han said he had received intelligence that the president had ordered the arrests of unspecified politicians based on accusations of “anti-state activities” during martial law.
Han leads a minority faction within the ruling party, and 18 lawmakers in his faction voted with opposition lawmakers to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree.
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If Yoon is impeached, he would be suspended until the Constitutional Court rules on whether to remove him from office or restore his presidential power.
The main liberal opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said in a televised speech Friday that it was crucial to suspend Yoon as “quickly as possible.”
Lee said Yoon’s martial law enforcement amounted to “rebellion and also a self-coup.” He said Yoon’s move caused serious damage to the country’s image and paralyzed foreign policy, pointing to criticism from the Biden administration and foreign leaders canceling their visits to South Korea.
President Yoon has issued no response to Han’s comments. Nor has he made any public appearances since he made a televised announcement that his martial law was lifted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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