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| World News |
| Joe Biden reduces all but three US federal death sentences to life imprisonment |
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Joe Biden has announced he is changing the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on death row in America to life imprisonment. The US president made the announcement weeks before Donald Trump takes office after his victory in November’s presidential election. President Biden’s announcement spares the lives of people convicted of killings and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals. Only three federal inmates still face execution – Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers. Roof carried out the 2015 racist killings of nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina. Tsarnaev carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260. Bowers killed 11 members of the congregation at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in a 2018 shooting – the deadliest antisemitic attack in the country’s history. |
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| Israel News |
| Coalition leaders reportedly agree on how to fire AG |
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Coalition leaders have agreed on how to move forward with firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, given growing calls in the government for her termination, according to Hebrew media reports. The reports come after a fiery meeting of coalition leaders to discuss the matter of the attorney general’s ouster, from which Justice Minister Yariv Levin was said to storm out. Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich denies that coalition leaders discussed legislation to revamp the judicial selection committee during the meeting, following reports that Levin had left after accusing the finance minister of refusing to support his legislative initiative. |
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| Over 30 Injured in Chabad Seminary Fire in Jerusalem |
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A large fire broke out on the top floor of a dorm of a Chabad girls’ school on Rechov Dovid Yellin in Jerusalem early Monday morning, injuring more than 30 people and requiring rescue forces to extricate dozens of girls from the burning building. Twelve firefighter and rescue teams were deployed to the scene and found a large number of girls at the Ohr Chaya Seminary dorm who were trapped by smoke and fire. The forces rescued the girls from the building and treated them at the scene. Some were evacuated to Shaare Tzedek and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals, including three in serious condition who suffered from smoke inhalation and two in moderate condition. Both the girl, who was moderately injured, and the staff member, who was seriously injured, are fully conscious and receiving oxygen. Doctors are awaiting the results of tests, which will determine the length of hospitalization. |
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| Ex-Mossad agents detail exploding Hezbollah pager operation that ‘broke’ Nasrallah |
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| Screen capture from video of a former senior Mossad operative speaking to CBS News about the pager attack on terror group Hezbollah in a segment aired December 22, 2024. (CBS News: Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law) |
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Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents have shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie-talkies three months ago. One of them said the psychological effect the attack had on Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who he asserted saw pagers blow up operatives right next to him, was “the tipping point of the war.” The agents spoke in English with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities. On September 17, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon suddenly began to explode, injuring those holding them, and killing over two dozen. A day later, hundreds of walkie-talkies also blew up, injuring or killing scores more. The attacks, swiftly attributed to Israel, came as Israel began to step up a counteroffensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which began striking Israel almost immediately after the allied Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn’t realize it was buying from Israel, which it has sworn to destroy. “We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.” Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, began in 2022 after Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said. The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity. Mossad also tested numerous ringtones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket. The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more. He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad. Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel. Michael said the Mossad had “an incredible array of possibilities” for creating foreign companies with no traceable link to Israel. By September 17, Hezbollah terrorists had 5,000 pagers in their pockets. When Israel triggered the attack, the pagers began beeping, and users were instructed to push two buttons simultaneously for an incoming encrypted message, a feint aimed at ensuring both their hands were on the device when it exploded. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons, Gabriel said. The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of those killed in the pager attacks. Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters. In addition, the psychological effect the attack had on Nasrallah, was “the tipping point of the war,” Gabriel said. He asserted that the veteran Hezbollah leader saw pagers exploding and injuring people who were right next to him in his bunker. In the days after the attack, Israel’s air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Nasrallah was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker. By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas-led terrorists in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. Michael said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too. We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.” |
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