🔵 Israel Mass Protests

Author

Citizen Frank
August 17, 2025

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Good evening. It’s Sunday, August 17.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Israel on Sunday, launching a nationwide general strike backed by the families of the hostages taken by Hamas — while demanding a cease-fire deal to free the captives and end the war in Gaza.

Demonstrators gathered in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and on major highways around the major Israeli cities, blocking the streets in defiance of the ongoing conflict, which escalated last week after lawmakers approved plans to invade Gaza City.

At least 30 protesters were arrested Sunday after flooding the streets, some burning cars and tires on roadways, sparking clashes with police trying to reopen the thoroughfares, The Times of Israel reported.

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European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington to present a united front in talks with President Donald Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and firming up U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table.

Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around the Ukrainian president after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelenskyy’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office encounter.

“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,” said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s military mission at the United Nations.

Three people were killed and nine others wounded when up to four gunmen opened fire in a possible gang-related shooting at a Brooklyn hookah lounge around closing time early Sunday, authorities said.

It was the second mass shooting in the city in weeks — occurring after a nut stormed a swanky Midtown skyscraper late last month and shot dead four innocent people before turning the gun on himself.

“I can easily stand here and tell you that we have driven down crime, that we have removed over 2,000 illegal guns off our street,” a grim-faced Mayor Eric Adams told reporters during a briefing on Sunday’s violence and mentioning the other recent mass shooting.

A Michigan city council member was caught on camera stuffing an election drop-box with apparent absentee ballots just days before he won his re-election bid in a local primary.

Hamtramck City Council member Abu Musa was seen in the passenger seat of a car on Aug. 1 handing stacks of paper to the car’s driver, who then dumped them into a nearby ballot box, footage obtained by Local 4 appears to show.

Musa held onto his re-election spot in the primary four days later on Aug. 5, beating out 11 other candidates with 1,129 votes.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has been quietly pardoning migrants with decades-old criminal histories — including at least one who killed another man.

The Dem governor recently granted the extreme act of clemency to 13 migrants, including Somchith Vatthanavong, a 52-year-old Laotian man who entered the US illegally and was convicted of manslaughter in 1990, the New York Times first reported.

Vatthanavong, who fled to the US after the Vietnam War, claimed to the outlet that he was defending himself during an altercation outside a pool hall when he fatally shot a man.

A judge on Saturday expanded Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) restraining order against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and his political organization, Powered by People, over its fundraising for state Democratic lawmakers who fled Texas amid the redistricting battle.

A Tarrant County judge ruled that O’Rourke and his political group are barred from sending money out of the Lone Star State, coming after Paxton sought to revoke the charter of O’Rourke’s organization, which he accused of committing bribery.

“The Court finds that harm is imminent to the State, and if the Court does not issue this order, the State will be irreparably injured. Specifically, Defendants’ fundraising conduct constitutes false, misleading, or deceptive acts under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, because Defendants are raising and utilizing political contributions from Texas consumers to pay for the personal expenses of Texas legislators, in violation of Texas law,” 348th District Court Judge Megan Fahey said in a four-page Saturday order.

In a large-scale operation targeting suspects in the online sexual exploitation of minors, eight people were arrested, including Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, 38, an employee of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Las Vegas police said Friday.

All detainees are charged with attempting to entice minors online to commit sexual acts. The directorate confirmed the arrest and said the employee has gone on leave until the findings are clarified.

A senior official at the Cyber Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office was arrested on suspicion of links to pedophilia. A joint operation by Las Vegas police and the FBI over the past two weeks led to the arrest of eight suspects, including Alexandrovich, 38, from Israel. After questioning, Alexandrovich returned to Israel and was placed on leave from the directorate.

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