geneva_convenience

Khalil’s March 7 email came after an earlier Jan. 31 email he sent, in which he urged the school “to take immediate action to protect international students at Columbia facing severe and pervasive doxing, discriminatory harassment, and very possibly deportation in retaliation for the lawful exercising of their rights to freedom of speech, expression, and association…”

Khalil cited a threatening post by the pro-Israel organization Betar in January. In the post, the group wrote that he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live” – a statement Khalil “unequivocally” denied making in his email to university officials. Betar also wrote that ICE⁩ “is aware of his home address and whereabouts” and that they “have provided all his information to multiple contacts.”

“He’s on our deport list!“ Betar added.

Weiss heads the radical Nachala settlement organisation and calls for the complete annexation of the occupied West Bank and resettlement of the war-torn Gaza Strip, once inhabited by settlers before Israel left the enclave in 2005.

Like many extremist Israeli leaders, her inciteful language against the Palestinians has led to violent settler attacks.

Two professors from Israel’s Ariel University and Ben-Gurion University submitted Weiss' candidacy for the award for her "decades-long efforts in strengthening Jewish communities and promoting regional stability".

NEW YORK CITY—On Saturday night, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents entered a student residential building at Columbia University in uptown New York and detained Mahmoud Khalil, one of the lead negotiators on behalf of pro-Palestine protesters at 2024’s Gaza solidarity encampment.

In a sweeping attack on the First Amendment, the Trump administration said this week it would begin revoking visas of “Hamas sympathizers,” specifically citing Columbia University students. The detention followed a two-day targeted online campaign against Khalil by pro-Israel groups and individuals, including Columbia’s high-profile pro-Israel professor, Shai Davidai.

Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, was with him at the time. A statement by the pro-Palestine group Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) stated that he was “abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges.” At the time of writing, Khalil is still being detained at a DHS facility in New Jersey, according to a database for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and an American green-card holder, was detained by DHS officials around half past eight as he was entering the Columbia residential building he lives in. He was returning from an iftar, breaking the day-long fast observed by many Muslims during the month of Ramadan.

A robotic private spacecraft designed to provide crucial data for returning humans to the moon toppled over as it landed on the lunar surface, bringing an immediate and premature end to the mission, its operators said on Friday.

Athena, a probe launched by the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site near the moon’s south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an “incorrect attitude”.

On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” it said in a statement confirming that the 15ft (4.6 meter) spacecraft was on its side.

Asked about the Trump administration's position on Israel's withholding of food and other basic needs for Palestinians, Tammy Bruce - holding her first briefing - indicated that it's Hamas that makes conditions too dangerous for aid to be delivered.

"Aid can only be delivered in a safe framework, so as long as it is something that is unsafe or we can't guarantee the safety of something moving in, that is going to be stopped," she said. "It is not a withholding, but it certainly feels it's a reflection of the framework of the situation on the ground," she added.

"The hostages have got to be released. They need to be released now, the bodies they are holding, everything, everyone needs to be released. And without doing that, there is no path forward," she continued, indicating that the Israeli blockade is indeed being used to squeeze Hamas.

Ten Democrats joined with House Republicans on Thursday to censure Rep. Al Green for his protest during President Donald Trump’s address to Congress this week — a formal condemnation of the Texas Democrat’s actions.

The 10 Democrats who voted with Republicans to censure Green were: Ami Bera of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Laura Gillen of New York, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Tom Suozzi of New York.

It remains to be seen whether Green faces further reprimand for his actions, as a group of conservative lawmakers plans to file a measure to strip the congressman of his committee assignments. The House Freedom Caucus said they expect that to be brought to the floor next week. Lawmakers ultimately voted 224-198 to censure Green, with the congressman and freshman Democrat Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama voting “present.”

In a revealing moment during her recent CPAC speech, Donald Trump’s newly appointed UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, openly took credit for the ousting of multiple Ivy League university presidents on Israel’s behalf.

“Do you remember that famous Congressional hearing with the anti-Semitic university presidents from Harvard and Penn?” she asked the crowd. “I should say former presidents after my questions. Five down and so many to go.”

The joint investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found Unit 8200 trained the AI model to understand spoken Arabic using large volumes of telephone conversations and text messages, obtained through its extensive surveillance of the occupied territories.

According to sources familiar with the project, the unit began building the model to create a sophisticated chatbot-like tool capable of answering questions about people it is monitoring and providing insights into the massive volumes of surveillance data it collects.

“We tried to create the largest dataset possible [and] collect all the data the state of Israel has ever had in Arabic,” the former official, Chaked Roger Joseph Sayedoff, told an audience at a military AI conference in Tel Aviv last year. The model, he said, required “psychotic amounts” of data.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists gathered at Columbia University on Wednesday to protest former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, who was speaking at the university as part of a campaign against the BDS movement, which advocates for a boycott of Israel.

The protesters, who chanted "Free Palestine" and called for Bennett to be barred from speaking, accused him of being a "war criminal."

In flyers for the demonstration, the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) claimed Bennett had previously boasted about killing many Arabs and said he had "no problem with that." Another flyer quoted Bennett as saying he would do everything in his power to ensure that "Palestinians will never have their own state," and referred to Palestinian children as "terrorists."

Over 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside of the 116th and Broadway gates on Tuesday to protest an appearance from former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Columbia/Barnard Hillel, the School of International and Public Affairs’ Institute of Global Politics, and the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life co-hosted Bennett for an event, which was moderated by SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo.

Spokespeople from the Kraft Center and SIPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Columbia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition co-organized the protest. The two organizations, along with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, promoted the protest in a joint Instagram post on Tuesday, displaying the invitation email for the event.

TikTok is to be investigated by the UK’s data protection watchdog, which is looking into whether social media algorithms are serving up inappropriate or harmful content to children.

Growing concerns over how social media platforms are using data generated by children’s online activity have prompted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to launch an investigation into the Chinese platform, along with the forum site Reddit and the image-sharing site Imgur.

It will look at how TikTok uses the personal information of 13- to 17-year-olds to deliver content recommendations to them, and also examine Reddit and Imgur’s use of age assurance measures, such as how they estimate or verify a child’s age, which can then be used to tailor their experience on the platform.