Islam - MENA > Heroic Canadian Died in Kfar Aza; Fighting intensifies at Lebanon border; Anderson Cooper Video from Israel

..

Fifth Canadian confirmed dead in Hamas attack

threw himself on grenade

By Stewart Bell  Global News

Posted October 15, 2023 1:33 pm

Updated October 16, 2023 2:54 pm

TEL AVIV, Israel—The fifth Canadian citizen confirmed dead in the Hamas attack on Israel threw himself onto a grenade to save his girlfriend, his mother said on Sunday.

Ayelet Shachar-Epstein said her 21-year-old son, Netta Epstein, was sheltering with his girlfriend in a safe room at the Kfar Aza kibbutz when Hamas gunmen somehow broke inside.

They shot him and tossed the explosive at the couple but Epstein smothered it with his body, his mother told Global News. His girlfriend, Irene Shavit, survived and was later rescued.

Click to play video: '5th Canadian confirmed dead from Hamas attack in Israel'

Epstein was born in Israel but had Canadian citizenship through his grandmother, who was born in Montreal, said his mother, also a Canadian. He served in the Israel Defence Force until August.

“It’s really important that the world knows what we went through,” Shachar-Epstein said. “The people that live on our kibbutz are peace-loving people that hold their hands out for peace.”

“And what’s been done to us is slaughter.”

Israeli-Canadian Netta Epstein, 21, and his mother Ayelet Shachar-Epstein. Family Handout

Shachar-Epstein also survived the Oct. 7 attack by hiding in a different safe room at Kfar Aza. But her mother, son, and two brothers-in-law were among the 70 killed at the kibbutz that day. A nephew is missing.

After the alarms first sounded at the kibbutz near the Gaza border at around 6:30 that morning, Shachar-Epstein messaged her son on WhatsApp, and they kept in touch until he died.

The following is a condensed transcript of their messages:

Mother: Grandmother was shot and she is killed.

Son: Ok. What was she killed from? Was it a rocket or was it terrorists?

Mother: It was terrorists.

Son: F**k.

Mother: The remnants of the bullet is next to her.

Son: Ok. Help grandpa.

Mother: How about you?

Son: We’re hanging in there.

Mother: Is Irene afraid?

Son: Both of us are afraid.

Mother: Of course you are. ❤️❤️❤️ I love you my boy.

Son: ❤️

Mother: Call me now.

Son: What’s happening. Write to me.

Mother: Ofir [his uncle, who was the mayor of the municipality] is killed.

Son: Ya daddy already wrote to me. How did it happen? Do you know?

Mother: It was a terrorist that shot him.

Son: Mommy what’s happening? Give us a report.

Mother: We’re in the safe room, it’s locked. Did you lock?

Son: Yes.

Mother: Terrorists entered the house next door. And could be in the house across the street.

Son: I know.

Mother: Are they shooting in your neighbourhood?

Son: Yes and there’s yelling in Hebrew and there’s massive shooting and there’s a car that’s beeping all the time and I don’t understand what’s going on. They’re outside my apartment.

Mother: Ok my sweetheart just hold Irene tightly. I love you. The soldiers are on the way to you.

Son: We still hear them.

Unable to reach her son, Shachar-Epstein instead messaged his girlfriend’s phone. Her son responded, but then she lost contact with him again.

When she finally got through, the girlfriend wrote: He’s been shot by a shotgun and there was a grenade and I’m hiding under the bed.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca

Israelis near Lebanese border evacuated as fighting

with Hezbollah intensifies

By Darryl Coote

 

Palestinians stretcher an injured man following an Israeli strike on building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday.

The United Nations reported that more than 400,000 Palestinians have already fled northern Gaza in the wake of a 

massive Israeli aerial bombardment in which killed more than 2000 Palestinians half of them children and women. 

Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Israel announced Monday it was evacuating residents near the Lebanese border, as fighting with Hezbollah intensified amid fears that its war against Hamas might expand.

The Israel Ministry of Defense and the IDF announced in a joint statement that residents of northern Israel living within 1.2 miles of the Lebanese border would be evacuated to state-funded guesthouses.

The order, which affects 28 communities comes after the IDF had closed a roughly 2.5-mile zone south of the Lebanese border a day prior.

Overnight, the IDF said its warplanes had conducted airstrikes on Hezbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon. On Sunday, the IDF hit several targets of the Lebanese militant group while documenting anti-tank missile attacks on Israeli communities and gunfire from across the border at soldiers.

During the war, which is entering its 10th day Monday, the IDF has repeatedly exchanged violence with Hezbollah, but fighting intensified over the weekend, with United Nations peacekeepers reporting its headquarters in the southern Lebanese city of Naqoura was hit by a rocket and they are working to verify who fired it.

"We remind all the parties involved that attacks against civilians or U.N. personnel are violations of international law that may amount to war crimes," UNIFIL said in a statement.

Dashcam records terrorists shooting Israelis at point blank range

October 15, 2023

CNN’s Anderson Cooper was escorted by the IDF to the location of the Nova music festival in Israel, where 260 people were brutally murdered.

Bits and Bites From Around the World > Zuckerberg Colonizing Hawaii; New Years: Car-Burning Celebration in France; Riots in Germany; In NYC, Something Very Different

..

Zuckerberg continues to ‘colonize’ Hawaii

The Facebook founder expands his not-so-virtual empire with his latest land purchase

FILE PHOTO: Hanalei Beach, Kauai, Hawaii, US, August 22, 2018. © REUTERS/Sue Horton

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has bought another 110 acres of land on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, assuming ownership of territory that includes a reservoir and a pristine forest, despite protests from locals.

The social media tycoon and his wife now own 1,400 acres of land on the island, much of it protected agricultural and conservation land. The latest addition to their $100 million Ko’olau Ranch includes the Ka Loko reservoir, where a dam collapsed in 2006 after 40 days of rain, killing seven people, local media reported this week. The disaster was blamed on the previous owners, from whom the Zuckerbergs bought the property in November for $17 million.

The billionaire has previously faced accusations of trying to “colonize” Kauai. The couple’s actions on purchasing their first mansion on the island in 2014 were hardly neighborly, with the billionaire opting to build a wall around the 707-acre property to block locals from accessing Pila’a Beach, which had been a spot loved by locals and travelers alike. Zuckerberg was subsequently accused of attempting to force tenant farmers from their land – a quest he finally gave up three years later, apologizing in the local paper for his attempted takeover. 

The Zuckerbergs also own most of Kahu’aina Plantation and Larsen’s Beach, having acquired an additional 600 acres in April for $53 million. The security team assigned to protect the pair and their investments costs more than half as much, running to $23 million, according to local media.

That team is probably worth the money, given how many signatures have been accrued on a Change.org petition asking the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to “Stop Mark Zuckerberg from colonizing Kauai.” Over a million people have signed the petition at the time of writing.

The Zuckerbergs are far from the only tech billionaires expanding their footprints across Hawaii’s tropical paradise islands. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought a $78 million estate on Maui in November after leaving his wife, staking claim to a marine fishing reserve with his partner Lauren Sanchez. 

His presence can’t be sitting too well with the locals, as even they are not permitted to fish or conduct commercial activity in the area. He also recently snapped up a huge piece of property for his parents on the island. Meanwhile, Oracle’s Larry Ellison owns almost the entire island of Lanai.

**Happy New Year**

In France, instead of fireworks they celebrate by burning cars

Hundreds of vehicles torched on New Year’s Eve

France’s interior minister praised the ‘decrease in violence’ despite

damage to hundreds of cars

FILE PHOTO. ©  Global Look Press / Keystone Press Agency / Sadak Souici

A total of 847 cars were set ablaze in France in the early hours of the first day of the new year, the Interior Ministry said, with hundreds of people detained over the destruction.

The mass burning of parked vehicles has become an infamous and much lamented ‘tradition’ in France, where hundreds of vehicles are torched almost every New Year’s Eve. 

This year, however, fewer cars were damaged than before, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who attributed the decrease to a bigger police presence and speedy action by relevant public services.

Darmanin thanked police and civil security personnel on Twitter for the “decrease in violence.” Despite the efforts of security officials, hundreds of cars were still set ablaze – but Darmanin noted the number was smaller than in 2019, when more than 1,300 vehicles were torched.

Some 95,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed to the streets of the French cities on Saturday night to maintain law and order, as well as enforce the government’s Covid-19 restrictions that put a cap on participants at gatherings. Around 32,000 firefighters and civil security officials also aided in dealing with the nighttime incidents.

In the French city of Strasbourg alone, 87 cars were set on fire, around 30 people were arrested and four police officers were injured, according to the French media. The city saw the rioters mounting particularly fierce resistance and clashing with law enforcement, including by pelting the officers with firecrackers.

The total number of detentions and arrests was also slightly higher than in 2019, with 441 people arrested throughout France.

The practice of car-torching became popular among youths in poor French neighborhoods in the 1990s and it became particularly widespread on New Year’s Eve. It also reached an unprecedented scale during three weeks of riots that engulfed the suburbs of the French capital, Paris, and other cities back in 2005. At that time, 8,810 vehicles were burned.

Chaos spreads from France into Germany on New Years Eve

City descends into violence & chaos on New Year’s Eve

Police in Germany are tallying damage and searching for suspects

following celebrations that spiraled into riots

©  Global Look Press / Sebastian Willnow

The German city of Leipzig saw its streets turn into an arena for intense clashes between police and rioters on New Year’s Eve as hundreds gathered in the city’s east.

Soon after the clock struck midnight, the Leipzig police began receiving the first reports about violence and property damage. Officers had to respond to almost 170 calls in Leipzig and its surrounding areas in just over two hours on Saturday (Friday???) night, police said in a statement. They called it a “sharp increase” in comparison to an “ordinary Friday night.”

A crowd comprising “hundreds” of people gathered at Eisenbahnstrasse Street in the city’s east, with the area quickly becoming an arena for clashes between rioting revelers and law enforcement. Police vehicles were pelted with various objects, including firecrackers. The rioters also set up barricades from shopping carts and set them on fire. 

Photos from the scene showed officers in riot gear moving through thick smoke coming from the burning barricades. The Eisenbahnstrasse has previously gained notoriety due to local crime rates and the drug trade. It was even dubbed Germany’s “worst street.” 

So, it sounds like this is the domain of Muslim migrant street gangs. But, European media would never make that distinction.

Police said several of their vehicles were damaged but that the clashes resulted in no injuries and were under control at around 2am local time. It is still unclear who initiated the violence and what motivated the rioters.

It is not the first time Leipzig has seen clashes on New Year’s Eve. The city has for some time been known as a center of left-wing violence. Last year, unknown assailants set vehicles belonging to the German Army – the Bundeswehr – on fire. Two years ago, the city saw riots in the Connewitz district – an area which saw a massive police deployment this year and remained largely peaceful on Saturday night.

Leipzig was not the only German city that witnessed clashes between rioters and police on New Year’s Eve, as similar incidents were reported in Stuttgart and Dresden but they were smaller in scale. 

And in America, CNN hosts celebrate New Years

by getting drunk on live TV

Anderson Cooper tries to stop colleague’s drunken rant

against NY Democrat mayor

Andy Cohen refused to stop talking despite his uncomfortable co-host’s attempts

to end the conversation

Fireworks are set off at midnight during the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration © AP / Ben Hider

CNN host Anderson Cooper awkwardly tried to shut down his co-host’s drunken rant about New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage.

After Cooper and fellow CNN New Year’s Eve Live co-host Andy Cohen downed shots – presumably with tequila – on live television, Cohen unloaded on the Democratic mayor as Cooper repeatedly tried to get him to stop.

“Let me tell you something. Watching Mayor de Blasio doing his victory lap dance after four years of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York… The only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been,” Cohen shouted with slurred words, as Cooper begged, “Don’t go on a rant. Don’t, don’t, don’t… Is that how you want to start the new year?”

Cooper became increasingly uncomfortable as Cohen refused to cease the rant, grabbing his co-host by the coat as Cohen celebrated the fact that he wouldn’t have to watch the outgoing mayor celebrate “as the city comes apart” next New Year’s Eve.

Actually, he didn't look all that uncomfortable to me at any time in the sequence. He looks too drunk to be uncomfortable. Have you ever seen a live program where the hosts are drunk? A national program? Take a look for yourself.

After serving two terms as mayor of New York City, de Blasio was succeeded by fellow Democrat Eric Adams on January 1. De Blasio has been described as one of the worst mayors in the city’s history for overseeing a significant rise in crime and disorder in the city after taking over from the previous mayor, Mike Bloomberg.