Weekly Review
The Gaza health ministry announced that 436 Palestinians were killed in 24 hours after Israel launched strikes that Israel says hit over 320 targets, including the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church.1 2 Palestinian officials stated that hundreds were killed at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital following a blast the United States has said was caused by a rocket misfired by a terrorist group within Gaza.3 4 The Palestinian Red Crescent said the Israeli military told them to evacuate the Al-Quds hospital, where more than 400 patients were receiving care and 12,000 displaced people were seeking refuge.5 It was reported that, since Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 95 Palestinians in the West Bank and distributed a message in which they announced “a day of revenge,” called Palestinian residents rats, and compared their home to sewers; two Palestinians were killed by settlers while attending the funerals of three other victims of Israeli violence.6 7 U.S. President Joe Biden’s summit with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Jordanian King Abdullah II was canceled after the monarch called it off.8 “American leadership is what holds the world together,” said Biden in a speech in which he requested $14 billion in military defense spending for Israel.9 10 “What we see in Gaza is the misuse of U.S. arms,” said a former U.S. State Department official who resigned over the provision of military funding to Israel.11 In Illinois, a six-year-old Palestinian American boy died and his mother was left in critical condition after their landlord stabbed them multiple times.12 13At least 300 people were arrested in Washington, D.C., after attending a protest in support of a ceasefire of the Israel-Hamas war; citing safety concerns for their staff and guests, a hotel in Houston withdrew as host of an event arranged by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights that was scheduled for later this week; and three students had job offers revoked because they signed a letter blaming Israel for the violence.14 15 16 “No American should accost another for their beliefs,” Jim Jordan posted on X, after it was revealed that Congress members who hadn’t voted for him to become Speaker of the House had received death threats.17
Baltimore was ordered to pay $48 million to three wrongfully convicted black men who each spent 36 years in prison, and a black man who was exonerated after 16 years of incarceration was murdered by the police during a traffic stop in Georgia.18 19 In upstate New York, a white judge was removed from the bench for pointing a gun at a black man in his court eight years ago.20 The judge in Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud case told the former president to keep his voice down while a witness was testifying against him, and former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, who once vowed to “release the Kraken,” and Kenneth Chesebro, known by his schoolmates as “the Cheese,” pleaded guilty.21 22 23 24 25 A Texas court ruled that Alex Jones can’t avoid paying Sandy Hook families the $1.4 billion he owes them, even if it leads to bankruptcy.26 Canada recalled 41 of their diplomats from India after the Indian government announced that Canadian officials would no longer have diplomatic immunity, one month after Canada alleged the Indian government may have been involved in the murder of a Sikh separatist.27 The Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons was heckled before his speech about the ills of heckling, and Ontario MPP Sarah Jama was censured and removed from the New Democratic Party caucus after releasing a statement that condemned “all occupation of Palestinian land” but did not condemn Hamas.28 29 A train carrying hundreds of members and officials of the European Parliament took a wrong turn and ended up at Disneyland.30
An Atlanta woman returned from vacation to find a home she owned had been mistakenly torn down, and a New Orleans tattoo shop owner was cleared of charges in a ransom plot to turn the Jefferson Davis memorial chair into a toilet.31 32 “Regret? Of course not. This was my big success,” said Pyotr Pavlensky, who once nailed his scrotum to Russia’s Red Square, after he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for publishing a Parisian mayoral candidate’s sex tapes.33 34 “It may be a little risqué for some people, but it’s all in the name of fun,” said a resident of Grantsville, Utah, who was ordered by city officials to remove his Halloween display of a skeleton pole-dancing.35 “I acted according to my faith,” said a Czech priest who smashed carved pumpkins that local children had left near his church, and gardeners mowed around the corpse of a North Carolina man, believing him to be a Halloween decoration.36 37 A Polish man who pretended to be a mannequin in a shop window in order to steal merchandise was charged with theft.38 An Englishwoman criticized recreational paragliders who made her think “Hamas was invading Doncaster.”39 —Megan Evershed
