From PressTV
Israel opens dams’ gates, floods Gaza
Hundreds of Palestinians have been forced to evacuate their homes in the Gaza Strip because of a move by the Israeli regime to open the gates of several dams surrounding the besieged area.
“The [Israeli] army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which led to the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel,” GAZA’s Civil Defense Directorate (CDD) said in a statement on Sunday.
“Opening the levees to the canal has led to the flooding of several Palestinian homes, and we had to quickly evacuate the afflicted citizens,” the statement further read.
The directorate also lashed out at Tel Aviv for opening the dams without giving prior notice to Gaza’s residents, saying the regime intentionally discharged a huge amount of water in the direction of the strip.
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From PressTV
Thousands of homeless Palestinians in Gaza struggle amid cold snap
Tens of thousands of Palestinians left homeless after Israel’s latest military aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip are still struggling to cope with harsh winter conditions in the impoverished territory.
Many Gaza residents displaced and left homeless by last summer’s brutal bombing and shelling of the blockaded territory by the Israeli military forces continue to face difficult conditions in their efforts to keep warm amid cold snap across the besieged enclave.
A large number of Palestinian families are still living in tents put up outside their devastated homes. Power supply is patchy and motorists are faced with fuel shortage despite pledges of international assistance for the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure in Gaza.
Heavy rainfall and flooding have already deteriorated the conditions there as the Israeli regime continues to maintain a crippling economic blockade on the Palestinian territory, which has been in place since 2007.
From Russia Today
‘Flagrant aggression:’ Damascus livid after Turkey’s incursion onto Syrian soil
The Syrian government has said a Turkish incursion into the north of the country was an act of “flagrant aggression.” Damascus said it would hold Ankara responsible after they went into Syria to evacuate personnel and relics from a holy tomb.
Syria said the Turkish government had informed the Syrian consulate in Istanbul about its plans regarding the tomb of Suleyman Shah in northern Syria. Shah was the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire.
However, Turkey didn’t wait for permission from Damascus and mounted a rescue operation to the tomb, to salvage its relics and evacuate 40 Turkish soldiers who had been guarding it.
From Russia Today
Israel opens dams forcing hundreds of Gazans out of flooded houses (PHOTOS)
Over 80 houses have been flooded and hundreds of Palestinians forced to evacuate after Israel opened the gates of several dams on the border with the Gaza Strip, inundating the Gaza Valley in waters up to 3 meters high.
In the wake of a recent severe winter storm in the region, Israeli authorities opened the floodgates to discharge the accumulated water. Residents of eastern Gaza reported injuries as well as deaths of livestock and poultry, caused by the Israeli action which allegedly came without prior notification, Gaza’s Civil Defense Directorate (CDD) said Sunday.
“The [Israeli] army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which resulted in the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel,” the CDD announced, according to Palestinian News Agency WAPA. “Opening the levees to the canal has led to the flooding of several Palestinian homes, and we had to quickly evacuate the afflicted citizens.”
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From The Times of Israel
Israel snaps up 14 F-35 stealth fighters
$2.82-billion deal allows for the purchase of a further 17 planes and includes integration of weapons, avionics
Israel has signed a deal to purchase 14 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the US, with the option of another 17, the Defense Ministry announced on Sunday.
In an agreement inked over the weekend, Israel will obtain the aircraft as part of a total $2.82-billion package that began with the purchase of 19 of the fighters in 2010.
The F-35, manufactured by US firm Lockheed-Martin, is considered the most expensive weapons system ever developed. With a price tag of some $110 million apiece — and development costs of over $400 billion — it has yet to enter front-line service even in the US, after a string of development problems delayed its deployment.
Considered a 5th-generation fighter, the F-35 has stealth technology giving it a very low radar signature as well as advance avionics and flight capabilities.
Included in the deal is the cost of integrating Israeli-manufactured electronics and weapons systems to work with the plane as well as logistics, support equipment and training programs.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Marginalizing extremists is priority as religions envoy, David Saperstein says
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Rabbi David Saperstein, the new U.S. envoy for religious freedoms, said one priority will be to identify moderates in religious communities who could marginalize extremists.
Speaking Friday at his swearing-in at the State Department, Saperstein said he would work with U.S. civil society groups “in shaping policies that contribute to isolating and delegitimizing extremist religious voices.”
Saperstein, who headed the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center for 40 years, said he would seek to protect the right not to believe as well as the right to practice religion. He listed as another of his priorities the repeal of anti-blasphemy and apostasy laws.
That’s a signal that the Obama administration will intensify its pushback against attempts in international forums by some Muslim nations in recent years to equate blasphemy with religious discrimination.
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From The Times of Israel
White House rebuffs report of AIPAC snub over Netanyahu
Source says Treasury Secretary Jack Lew likely to attend major confab, rejecting reports Obama looking to give cold shoulder, but AIPAC official says signals are clear that top-level official not coming
A White House source denied that an upcoming meeting of leading pro-Israel lobby AIPAC would be shunned as payback for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress, in a report published Sunday.
The unnamed official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, accused Netanyahu’s supporters of a “psychological warfare” ploy for circulating rumors that the White House will only send a low-ranking representative to the coming meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to make the prime minister’s current rift with the US administration seem like an issue with US Jews too.
“Netanyahu has a difficult problem with Obama and with the administration,” the source said, according to Haaretz. “Now he’s trying to turn it into a problem between the Jews and the Obama administration.”
On Friday, The Associated Press reported that administration officials said the White House was planning on sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of AIPAC, as part of giving Netanyahu the cold shoulder. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry have all addressed the annual conference, attended by some 14,000 participants, in recent years.
Although the White House has not yet announced who will be attending the AIPAC event, scheduled for March 1, Haaretz reported US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is believed likely to go.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Holocaust film ‘Ida’ wins Oscar
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — “Ida,” a Polish film about a Catholic woman who discovers she is the Jewish child of Holocaust victims, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The spare black-and-white drama, set in Poland in 1962, won international plaudits but also drew criticismin Poland for its portrayal of Polish complicity in the sins of the Holocaust.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Richard Dreyfuss to play Bernie Madoff in ABC drama
(JTA) — Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss will play Bernie Madoff in a multiple-episode drama on the ABC network.
The drama will be based on the book “The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth,” the Hollywood Reporter wrote last week. ABC’s chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, wrote the book.
Several high-profile actresses are in the running to play Ruth, Madoff’s wife, who was the director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
A premiere date and the number of episodes to be screened has yet to be determined.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Sydney rabbi removed as Chabad emissary over child sex abuse scandal
SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – A senior Chabad rabbi was delisted as an emissary from the New York-based organization as the fallout continues from Australia’s Royal Commission into a child sex abuse scandal.
Rabbi Yosef Feldman, a former director of Sydney’s Yeshivah Center, which houses Chabad headquarters there, was delisted last week after making controversial comments to the commission, including his suggestion that pedophiles who had not committed sex crimes for two decades should be treated with leniency.
Feldman, a son of Chabad’s chief rabbi in Sydney, sparked a storm of protest by Orthodox rabbis and mainstream Jewish leaders.
His delisting came as Rabbi Avrohom Glick, who had resigned from all his posts at Yeshivah College in Melbourne, where he was principal during the time of the abuse in the 1980s and ’90s, also tendered his resignation from the spiritual committee of the Yeshivah Center. Victims were outraged that he had kept the post, which Glick had described as “his calling” during the commission hearings.
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From The Times of Israel
Sephardi chief rabbi says he won’t validate municipal conversions
Yitzhak Yosef vows to not respect new provisions easing process; Orthodox MK Elazar Stern calls for his resignation
Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said he will ignore a government directive recognizing conversions performed by municipal rabbis, vowing to.
Yosef vowed to block the conversions in remarks that were captured on tape and published Wednesday by Orthodox news website Kikar Shabbat. The chief rabbi said he would withhold his signature, which is required to complete the conversion process.
“They went ahead and made a law that municipal rabbis can perform conversions and then went over my head,” he said.
“The chief rabbi of Jerusalem can perform conversions, the chief rabbi of Shoham can perform conversions – they already converted a few people in Arad,” he said. “The chief rabbi has the authority to stop this. I gave an order to the head of the [Chief Rabbinate’s] Conversions Department that all the conversions they are now performing, I won’t sign them, I won’t approve, I won’t sign something that is contrary to halachah (Jewish religious law).”
Last November, the government adopted legislation that ended the monopoly on conversions held by the Conversions Department.
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