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Instagram is making teen accounts private by default as it tries to make the platform safer for children amid a growing backlash against how social media affects young people’s lives. Beginning Tuesday in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, anyone under under 18 who signs up for Instagram will be placed into restrictive teen accounts and those with existing accounts will be migrated over the next 60 days. Teens in the European Union will see their accounts adjusted later this year. Meta acknowledges that teenagers may lie about their age and says it will require them to verify their ages in more instances, like if they try to create a new account with an adult birthday. The Menlo Park, California company also said it is building technology that proactively finds teen accounts that pretend to be grownups and automatically places them into the restricted teen accounts. The teen accounts will be private by default. Private messages are restricted so teens can only receive them from people they follow or are already connected to. “Sensitive content,” such as videos of people fighting or those promoting cosmetic procedures, will be limited, Meta said. Teens will also get notifications if they are on Instagram for more than 60 minutes and a “sleep mode” will be enabled that turns off notifications and sends auto-replies to direct messages from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. While these settings will be turned on for all teens, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to turn them off. Kids under 16 will need their parents’ permission to do so. “The three concerns we’re hearing from parents are that their teens are seeing content that they don’t want to see or that they’re getting contacted by people they don’t want to be contacted by or that they’re spending too much on the app,” said Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta. “So teen accounts is really focused on addressing those three concerns.” The announcement comes as the company faces lawsuits from dozens of U.S. states that accuse it of harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. In the past, Meta’s efforts at addressing teen safety and mental health on its platforms have been met with criticism that the changes don’t go far enough. For instance, while kids will get a notification when they’ve spent 60 minutes on the app, they will be able to bypass it and continue scrolling. That’s unless the child’s parents turn on “parental supervision” mode, where parents can limit teens’ time on Instagram to a specific amount of time, such as 15 minutes. With the latest changes, Meta is giving parents more options to oversee their kids’ accounts. Those under 16 will need a parent or guardian’s permission to change their settings to less restrictive ones. They can do this by setting up “parental supervision” on their accounts and connecting them to a parent or guardian. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said last week that parents don’t use the parental controls the company has introduced in recent years. Gleit said she thinks teen accounts will create a “big incentive for parents and teens to set up parental supervision.” “Parents will be able to see, […]

The Hezbollah terror group formally blamed Israel for the pager blasts that wounded at least 2,700 and killed eight of its operatives in Lebanon on Tuesday, warning the Jewish state will get “its fair punishment.

“After examining all the facts and data about the attack, we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” Hezbollah said in an official statement, according to a translation by Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen channel, which is affiliated with the terrorist organization.

The Hezbollah statement added, “This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression from where it expects it or does not expect it,” per Al Mayadeen.

More than 2,700 Hezbollah terrorists were wounded and at least eight were killed across Lebanon on Tuesday when their communication devices exploded, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad confirmed.

Approximately 200 Hezbollah terrorists were in critical condition in 100 different hospitals, Beirut’s health minister announced some three hours after the explosions were first reported at 3.30 p.m. local time.

Senior Hezbollah officials were said to have been wounded in the blasts. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also hurt in one of the explosions, Tehran’s semi-official Mehr outlet reported.

In its first official statement on the incident, Hezbollah had said that the explosions, “the causes of which are still unknown,” killed at least three of its terrorist operatives, while wounding a large number of others.

The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the incident, which came just hours after the Israeli Cabinet added the return of citizens displaced from their homes in the north to the country’s war goals, bringing a potential major clash with Hezbollah closer to reality.

The IDF’s Home Front Command has reportedly informed local authorities of a possible escalation on the border with Lebanon but stressed that there are currently no changes to instructions for citizens. JNS

{Matzav.com Israel}

The IDF is developing a massive plan to secure its porous border with Jordan, Israeli media outlets reported on Monday. Israel’s border with Jordan, the longest it shares with its neighbors, has been neglected over the years and has increasingly been exploited by Iran in the past year to arm terrorist organizations in Yehudah and Shomron. In the coming days, the IDF will present its plan to close the open border with Jordan to senior officials in the Defense and Finance Ministries to secure budget approvals and funding sources. The plan will include three phases, with the immediate phase involving deploying hundreds of surveillance means, including cameras and radar systems on towering poles, along the 400 kilometers between Eilat and Hamat Gader, a hot springs site near Ramat HaGolan and the Jordanian border. Rapid mobile security forces will be trained to respond to smuggling and infiltration attempts, including via the use of large combat and surveillance drones, along with other aircraft. Additionally, the long border, which largely has no fence, like in the Aravah, or has a rusty, low, and outdated fence, like in the Jordan Valley, will be equipped with a proper security barrier. At the same time, a new IDF Eastern Division will be established to oversee the entire area, with two to three regional brigades primarily composed of permanent field security forces specializing in the sector. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Air France, the Lufthansa Group, and British Airways have all suspended flights to Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv until at least September 19th. The airlines are likely anticipating a potential Hezbollah response after close to 4,000 Hezbollah terrorists were injured in a series of pager blasts in Lebanon and Syria. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Roughly two months after the expiration of the mandate of both of Israel’s chief rabbis, their acting replacement is also out of a title as of Monday, along with the rest of the Chief Rabbinate Council.

The result of a political power struggle between the Rabbinate and the High Court of Justice over women’s representation and the clergy’s independence, this development may affect kosher certification and several other areas of life in Israel unless it’s addressed soon, according to both critics and advocates of the Rabbinate.

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Beyond its practical implications, the temporary breakdown within the Chief Rabbinate underlines growing tensions between an interventionist judiciary that critics say is excessively liberal, and state-employed clerics who opponents say are too rigid and inattentive to the needs of the public.

On Monday, the government submitted a bill that would extend the mandate of the Chief Rabbinate’s Council, the Rabbinate’s governing body, until Dec. 31. Separately, elections for chief rabbis are scheduled to be held this month.

The Council lost its legal mandate because of the rabbinate’s refusal to hold elections under the terms dictated in January by the High Court of Justice. Ruling on a petition by a feminist group, the court cited equality grounds in ordering the Rabbinate to consider appointing women to an elections-related position that the Rabbinate designates for rabbis only. Women cannot serve as rabbis in Orthodox Judaism.

The Rabbinate declined to hold elections under those terms, leading to the expiration of the mandate of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi chief rabbis on July 1 without successors. The court appeared to back down from this demand, facilitating the scheduling of elections for later this month. Meanwhile, though, the mandate of the Council, whose makeup is also determined in the elections, expired on Sept. 16, voiding the authority of its chair from continuing to fulfill the duties of the chief rabbis.

The bill extending the Council’s mandate will ensure the saga’s resolution, Yehuda Avidan, the director-general of the Religious Services Ministry, told JNS on Tuesday. He blamed the “overzealous court” for the impasse and added that the Rabbinate’s handling of the situation blocked judicial encroachment without compromising people in need of the institution’s services.

At stake are important areas of life entrusted to the Rabbinate, which in Israel is a state organ. It regulates kosher certification, conversion to Judaism and family and marital issues for Jews through the rabbinical court system, which is part of the judiciary and functions as a family court.

Kosher meat certification will not be affected because certification crews are already overseeing the production abroad (Israel imports most of its meat), according to a source within the Rabbinate. The crews will complete their missions, and the Council will have regained its mandate by the time they return, the source assured JNS.

Ritual circumcision, or milah, as well as divorces and marriages, are handled by religious councils, which are local municipal branches of the Rabbinate, the source added. The expiration of the Council’s mandate does not affect the local branches’ work but it does prevent the appointment of new staff, according to the source.

“In essence, you have a small gap that will be resolved quickly and remain unnoticeable to those who rely on the Rabbinate’s services,” said Avidan.

Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of the Jerusalem-based ITIM nonprofit, which has been a longtime critic of the Rabbinate, said in a statement that the crisis “shows we need a profound change in the religious establishment so it would be better connected and more diverse, but we have to begin by making it compliant to the law.”

Avidan dismissed Farber’s criticism and defended the decision not to hold elections in the Chief Rabbinate under terms dictated by the court.

“It was a classic slippery slope. The court’s demand that women be appointed to a position reserved for rabbis would have created a precedent that before long would lead to new demands to appoint women city rabbis and ultimately women chief rabbis. We value women and respect them but this does not comply with Jewish tradition, whose preservation the Rabbinate is entrusted to maintain,” Avidan told JNS.

The Rabbinate this month agreed to hold elections on Sept. 29 in Jerusalem. The decision to hold elections followed a High Court of Justice ruling on Aug. 8 that effectively lifted the court’s previous requirement that women be considered to serve under the title of “rabbi” on the Chief Rabbinate’s electing assembly of 150 people.

In the context of a 1980 law regulating the Chief Rabbinate’s work, the designation of “rabbi” may apply also to women versed in Jewish law, the court ruled in January. The Rabbinate must therefore consider appointing women to a category of 10 rabbis whom chief rabbis may by law appoint to the electing assembly, according to the ruling. Its Aug. 8 ruling cleared the path for scrapping the entire category of 10 appointed rabbis and allowed an election with only 140 delegates.

Half of the remaining 140 delegates comprise 70 municipal rabbis affiliated with the Chief Rabbinate, who are all men. The other half is made up of delegates who are not rabbis, including mayors, lawmakers, cabinet ministers, and other public representatives, some of whom are women.

“The court eventually realized it could not coerce the Rabbinate to declare women as rabbis or consider them for rabbinical positions, opening the road to an election. Better late than never,” said Avidan. JNS

{Matzav.com Israel}

A key employee who labeled a doomed experimental submersible unsafe prior to its last, fatal voyage testified Tuesday that he frequently clashed with the company’s co-founder and felt the company was committed only to making money. David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former operations director, is one of the most anticipated witnesses to appear before a commission trying to determine what caused the Titan to implode en route to the wreckage of the Titanic last year, killing all five on board. His testimony echoed that of other former employees Monday, one of whom described OceanGate head Stockton Rush as volatile and difficult to work with. “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.” Rush was among the five people who died in the implosion. OceanGate owned the Titan and brought it on several dives to the Titanic going back to 2021. His testimony began a day after other witnesses painted a picture of a troubled company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration. The company, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. OceanGate’s former engineering director, Tony Nissen, kicked off Monday’s testimony, telling investigators that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years before Titan’s last trip. “‘I’m not getting in it,’” Nissen said he told Rush. When asked if there was pressure to get Titan into the water, Nissen responded, “100%.” But asked if he felt that the pressure compromised safety decisions and testing, Nissen paused, then replied, “No. And that’s a difficult question to answer, because given infinite time and infinite budget, you could do infinite testing.” OceanGate’s former finance and human resources director, Bonnie Carl, testified Monday that Lochridge had characterized the Titan as “unsafe.” Lochridge is expected to provide more perspective on what caused the implosion. Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community. During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display. One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing. When the submersible was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said. Scheduled to appear later in the hearing are OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein and former scientific director, Steven Ross, according to a list compiled by the Coast Guard. Numerous guard officials, scientists, and government and industry officials are also expected to testify. The U.S. Coast Guard subpoenaed witnesses who were not […]

Sky News in Arabic reported on Tuesday evening that Israel’s Mossad is behind the explosion of Hezbollah operatives’ communication devices in Lebanon. According to the report, the Mossad inserted explosive materials into the batteries of the communication devices and detonated them by raising the temperature of the batteries. The Mossad spy agency intercepted Hezbollah’s communication devices before they were delivered to the group. The Mossad reportedly attached PETN, a powerful explosive, to the devices’ batteries and remotely triggered the explosions by increasing the batteries’ temperature. It was also reported that the insertion of the explosive materials was carried out before the devices reached Hezbollah. A Lebanese security source told Al Jazeera that the pagers were pre-loaded with explosives before they reached Hezbollah. The source noted that each explosive charge embedded in the pagers did not exceed 20 grams. Hezbollah reportedly received the devices five months ago. Some of the operatives felt that their devices were overheating and disposed of them before they exploded. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

On Sunday, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) special forces conducted an operation attacking a Russian military base inside Syria, according to a source in Ukrainian military intelligence. The special forces attack, conducted 1,000 miles from Ukraine, targeted a UAV storage and manufacturing facility on the southeastern outskirts of Aleppo.

Video from the operation was obtained by the Kyiv Post, showing a HUR flag visible behind a berm near a garage used as a Russian base. Filmed by an intelligence officer taking part in the operation, the footage captures an explosion at the Russian facility followed by the detonation of ammunition. According to military experts, the footage suggests the explosions were triggered by small arms fire, not a larger weapon such as an RPG. The small arms fire was likely directed at pre-staged explosives inside the facility.

According to the Ukrainian special forces, the Russian base targeted in the attack was used to produce “camouflaged improvised explosive devices,” and for weapon storage.

Ukraine has reportedly carried out multiple attacks on Russian forces inside Syria, including an attack on Russian positions in the Golan Heights.

Russian forces have played in key role in helping Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad stay in power, however Russia has redeployed many of it’s forces to the Ukrainian front. Russia has also established recruitment centers in Syria to hire mercenaries to fight in Ukraine.

Back in 2023, the chief of Ukrainian special forces, Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, said that Ukraine would “destroy Russian war criminals anywhere in the world they may be.”

{Matzav.com}

Thousands of Dati Leumi Yeshiva students were filmed singing and dancing in dozens of major Yeshivos around Eretz Yisroel, Tuesday. The boys broke into joyous singing as word spread of the high number of deaths and wounded in the “Hezbollah pager explosions”. As of this posting, nearly 4,000 Hezbollah terrorists have been maimed or killed in the attacks. Hezbollah members recently began using the pagers that exploded after the group’s leader ordered them to stop using cell phones over concern that Israeli intelligence could track the devices. Experts have shared two competing theories as to how hundreds of pagers could have exploded simultaneously. One theory is that there was a cybersecurity breach, causing the pagers’ lithium batteries to overheat and detonate. Another is that this was a “supply chain attack,” where the pagers were tampered with during the manufacturing and shipping process. Regardless, this was an incredible operation by the Israeli Mossad – despite that Israel has not yet commented on the incident. YESHIVA KEREM BIYAVNEH: YESHIVA MITZPAH RAMON: YESHIVA MITZPEH YERICHO: YESHIVA ELON MOREH: YESHIVA BET-EL: YESHIVA MERCAZ HARAV:   YESHIVA SDEROT: YESHIVA ITAMAR: YESHIVAT HAKOTEL: (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Israel’s Defense Ministry and the IDF on Monday completed the process of equipping 97 rapid-response civilian teams along the northern border. On October 9, several terrorists infiltrated Israel from Lebanon and were eliminated by IDF forces and other terrorists were killed while still inside Lebanon. However, IDF officials have warned that the threat of a ground infiltration from Lebanon still exists. The civilian security teams in communities near the border received weapons, including 9,000 assault rifles, combat and rescue gear, medical equipment, and uniforms. Defense Ministry Director-General Maj.-Gen. (res) Eyal Zamir said: “Since the start of the war and as part of our lessons learned, the ministry has been working to strengthen the emergency resonse units that fought heroically on October 7th.” “After re-equipping the communities in the Gaza border area, we are now completing the re-equipment of approximately 100 units in the north with combat equipment, including the Arad – an advanced rifle developed in Israel. This initiative is part of our policy to strengthen border defense while increasing independent production of high-quality Israeli weapons.” The 97 teams are defending yishuvim in the Upper Galil, Ma’ale Yosef, Mevo’ot HaChermon, Merom HaGalil, Mateh Asher, Metula, and Shlomi, as well as cities such as Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, and Ma’alot-Tarshiha. The second stage of the operation – equipping security teams in Ramat HaGolan – is now ongoing, and when completed, will increase the number of fully equipped security teams to 120. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

The United States is still working with Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

Mediators from Washington were in talks with their counterparts from Cairo and Doha on what the document must contain to ensure “it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” said Miller, according to Reuters.

There is no timetable for presenting the new draft agreement, but “we are working expeditiously to try to develop that proposal,” he said, according to the report.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that more than 90% of the issues have been agreed to by Israel and Hamas.

“So we’re down to a handful of issues, not even a handful of issues, that are hard but fully resolvable in our judgment. And as we’ve said before, when you get down to the last 10%, the last 10 meters, those are almost by definition the hardest ground to cover, but we believe that these are fully resolvable,” said Blinken.

“Right now, we are working with our Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to work together to bridge any remaining gaps, and in the coming time, very soon, we’ll put that before the parties and we’ll see what they say,” the top American diplomat continued.

In Monday’s comments, Miller confirmed the two main obstacles to reaching an agreement: Jerusalem’s insistence on maintaining security control of the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, called the Philadelphi Corridor; and specifics in regards to the Palestinian terrorists to be released from Israeli prisons for Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

A Hamas delegation led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya met with mediators in Doha on Sept. 11, including Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.

The terrorist group currently holds 101 hostages in Gaza, including 97 out of the 251 abducted during the Oct. 7 attack. JNS

{Matzav.com Israel}

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Tuesday that the United States was not involved in the detonation of pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and was not tipped off in advance about the incident, which Hezbollah has blamed on Israel. “The US was not involved in it. The US was not aware of this incident in advance, and at this point, we’re gathering information,” Miller said during a press briefing. He added that Washington is still in the process of collecting details about the unprecedented event, which left thousands of Hezbollah members injured. “We’re collecting information in the same way that journalists are across the world to gather the facts about what might have happened,” Miller added. The explosions, which occurred across several Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, are being investigated by both local authorities and international observers. Hezbollah has pointed fingers at Israel for the incident, though no official claim of responsibility has been made by the Israeli government. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The State Department says the United States was not involved in the pager explosions in Lebanon and is still gathering information about the incident.

The Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi, held a situational assessment this evening (Tuesday), with the participation of the General Staff Forum, focusing on readiness in both offense and defense in all arenas. The IDF Spokesperson clarifies that at this time, there is no change to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines. The public is asked to remain alert and vigilant, and any change in policy will be updated immediately.

Meta said it’s banning Russia state media organization from its social media platforms, alleging that the outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow’s propaganda. The announcement drew a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday. The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said late Monday that it will roll out the ban over the next few days in an escalation of its efforts to counter Russia’s covert influence operations. “After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a prepared statement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lashed out, saying that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” and that “Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves.” “We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call. RT was formerly known as Russia Today. Rossiya Segodnya is the parent company behind state news agency RIA Novosti and news brands like Sputnik. “It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West — who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better,” RT said in a release. Rossiya Segodnya did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Meta’s actions comes days after the United States announced new sanctions on RT, accusing the Kremlin news outlet of being a key part of Russia’s war machine and its efforts to undermine its democratic adversaries. U.S. officials alleged last week that RT was working hand-in-hand with the Russian military and running fundraising campaigns to pay for sniper rifles, body armor and other equipment for soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They also said RT websites masqueraded as legitimate news sites but were used to spread disinformation and propaganda in Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere. Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two RT employees of covertly providing millions of dollars in funding to a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish English-language social media videos pushing pro-Kremlin messages. Moscow has rejected the allegations. Meta had already taken steps to limit Moscow’s online reach. Since 2020 it has been labeling posts and content from state media. Two years later, it blocked state media from running ads and putting their content lower in people’s feeds, and the company, along with other other social media sites like YouTube and TikTok, blocked RT’s channels for European users. Also in 2022 Meta also took down a sprawling Russia-based disinformation network spreading Kremlin talking points about the invasion of Ukraine. Meta and Facebook “already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” RT said in its statement. Moscow has fought back, designating Meta as an extremist group in March 2022, shortly after sending troops into Ukraine, and blocking Facebook and Instagram. Both platforms — as well as Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, which is also blocked — were popular with Russians before the invasion and the subsequent crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical speech. The social media platforms are now only accessible through virtual private networks. (AP)

Reports in Lebanon indicate that over 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists were injured in the pager explosions earlier today, with 200 critically injured, and 9 confirmed dead.

Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the explosions, releasing a statement which said: “After reviewing the facts, we hold the Israeli enemy responsible for this attack, which harmed civilians and resulted in deaths and injuries.”

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu held consultations with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and other Defense officials, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv. The current events have likely postponed the firing of Gallant for the time being, with a source close to Bibi telling Channel 13: “It is not feasible to replace the Defense Minister in the midst of a complex security situation; the decision was made – but it will probably not be implemented in the immediate future.”

Reuters reported that the exploding pagers were in fact the latest model, only brought in by Hezbollah in recent months. Al Hadath also reported that the pagers had only been recently distributed to Hezbollah terrorists.

The explosions occurred in multiple locations, including ‘dozens’ of simultaneous explosions inside Syria. In Damascus, a car exploded after a device inside detonated.

According to Lebanon’s LBCI network, the explosions may have been caused by an overloading of the batteries inside the pagers. Some terrorists reportedly felt their pagers heating up, and discarded them before the explosions.

Reports from Al-Hadath also indicate that the wounded include senior Hezbollah terrorists, and their staff. The network reported that the son of senior Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah was injured in the explosions. An-Nahar in Lebanon reported that the son of a Hezbollah Member of Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, is among those killed.

Hezbollah has informed Reuters that Hezbollah terror head Hassan Nasrallah was not injured in the explosions.

{Matzav.com}

Iran’s foreign minister has strongly condemned what he and other officials say was an Israeli attack in which hundreds of pagers exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reports that Abbas Araghchi makes the comments in a phone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib. The explosions occurred in the suburbs of Beirut and in other areas that are strongholds of Iran-backed Hezbollah, as well as in Syria. IRNA reports that during the phone call, Araghchi offered condolences and expressed solidarity with the Lebanese government and nation. He also says Iran is ready to provide treatment for the injured people or their transfer to Tehran. (AP)

A flame that towered over a southeast Houston suburb had subsided Tuesday, but continued to burn following a massive pipeline explosion after a vehicle drove through a fence and struck an above-ground valve, officials said. “Progress has been made as first responder crews worked through the night. The fire is significantly smaller,” according to a statement from the city of Deer Park. City officials have said investigations by police and local FBI agents have found no preliminary reports that would suggest a coordinated or “terrorist” attack and that “this appears to be an isolated incident.” The investigation included efforts to learn more about the driver of a vehicle that was incinerated by the pipeline explosion as flames scorched the ground across a wide radius, severed adjacent power transmission lines and ignited homes at a distance. Police did not provide any information about the person’s condition. An evacuation area included nearly 1,000 homes and initial shelter orders included schools. The City of La Porte said it has slightly reduced the evacuation area south of the pipeline fire, but did not say how many people were affected. Operators shut off the flow of natural gas liquids in the pipeline, but so much remained in the miles of tubing that firefighters could do nothing but watch and hose down adjacent homes. The statement by Deer Park said Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based owner of the pipeline, expects the fire to burn itself out later Tuesday. Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. described intense heat from the fire that has continued burning for nearly 24 hours as ladder trucks showered houses from above. Firefighters initially were dispatched Monday morning, after an explosion at a valve station in Deer Park, adjacent to La Porte, rattled homes and businesses, including a Walmart. Deer Park officials said an SUV drove into the valve after going through a fence on the side of the Walmart parking lot. Deer Park spokesperson Kaitlyn Bluejacket has said four people were injured. She didn’t provide details about the severity of the injuries. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement that 20 miles (32 kilometers) of pipeline between the two closed valves had to burn off before the fire would stop. Anna Lewis, who was walking into the nearby Walmart when the explosion happened, said it sounded “like a bomb went off.” She said everyone inside was rushed to the back of the store and then taken across the street to a grocery store before being bussed to a community center. “It scared me,” she said. “You really don’t know what to do when it’s happening.” Geselle Melina Guerra said she and her boyfriend heard the explosion as they were having breakfast in their mobile home. “All of a sudden we hear this loud bang and then I see something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,” said Guerra, who lives within the evacuation area. Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight in the area, including some that have been deadly, raising recurring questions about the adequacy of industry efforts to protect the public and the environment. Both Energy Transfer and Harris County Pollution […]

The number of injured in Lebanon stands at 3600 and continues to rise, close to 400 /seriously critically injured

A Jewish mass grave containing 23 bodies was located Tuesday in Belarus, local media reported.

The remains of 12 adults and 11 children between the ages of one and 7 were uncovered in the town of Strešyn in the country’s southeastern Gomel region, which was occupied by the Nazi Germany in August 1941.

The local Jewish population was forced into a local ghetto and its property was looted by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

According to the assessment of the Belarus authorities, the Jewish mass grave contains the remains of some of those who did not survive the conditions in the ghetto, Israel’s Kan radio reported.

No evidence of execution was found on the remains, but keys and a rusty rifle bullet were uncovered in the grave.

The official news agency of Belarus, Balta, reported that a local who bought a house in Strešyn about 15 years ago had discovered the bodies during agricultural work he carried out on the grounds. But he chose not to report the find to anyone, even though he and many of the local residents knew that these were the remains of Jews who died in the local ghetto.

The news come at a time when Belarussian authorities are belatedly acknowledging that Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, after years when they were promoting a controversial narrative of a “Belarusian genocide” during World War II.

About 40,000 Jews lived in Gomel in 1939, comprising nearly 30% of the total population.

Most of the Jews were able to leave the district before Aug. 19, 1941, when the city was occupied by German troops.

The Jews who remained were incarcerated in three ghettos where mortality rates were very high.

The total number of Holocaust victims from Gomel is estimated at 3,000-4,000.

Five years ago, about 1,000 bodies were found in the southwestern Belarusian city of Brest near the border with Poland, in a dark reminder of the Holocaust.

(JNS)