by tyler | Oct 31, 2023 | CNN, world
Here’s a look at the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 US citizens were held captive for 444 days.
1978 – Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s authoritarian rule sparks demonstrations and riots.
January 16, 1979 – The Shah flees Iran and goes to Egypt.
February 1, 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran, after 14 years in exile, to lead the country.
October 22, 1979 – The Shah is allowed to enter the United States to receive medical treatment for cancer.
November 4, 1979 – Iranian students demonstrating outside of the US embassy in Tehran storm the embassy and take 90 people hostage including 66 Americans. The students demand the extradition of the Shah from the United States. Ayatollah Khomeini issues a statement of support for the students’ actions.
November 5, 1979 – The Iranian government cancels military treaties with the US and the Soviet Union, treaties that would permit US or Soviet military intervention.
November 6, 1979 – Premier Mehdi Bazargan and his government resign, leaving Ayatollah Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council in power.
November 7, 1979 – US President Jimmy Carter sends former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Senate Intelligence Committee staff director William Miller to Iran to negotiate the release of the hostages. Ayatollah Khomeini refuses to meet with them.
November 14, 1979 – Carter orders Iranian assets in US banks frozen.
November 17, 1979 – Khomeini orders the release of female and African-American hostages. They are released November 19 and 20, bringing the total number of US hostages to 53.
December 4, 1979 – The United Nations Security Council passes a resolution calling for Iran to release the hostages.
December 15, 1979 – The Shah leaves the United States for Panama.
January 28, 1980 – Six American embassy employees, who avoided capture and hid in the homes of Canadian Embassy officers, flee Iran. In 1997 it is revealed that, along with the Canadian government, the CIA made the escape possible.
March 1980 – The Shah returns to Egypt.
April 7, 1980 – President Carter cuts diplomatic ties with Iran, announcing further sanctions and ordering all Iranian diplomats to leave the United States.
April 25, 1980 – Eight US servicemen are killed when a helicopter and a transport plane collide during a failed attempt to rescue the hostages.
July 11, 1980 – Another hostage is released due to illness. The total number of US hostages is now 52.
July 27, 1980 – The Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.
September 12, 1980 – Ayatollah Khomeini sets new terms for the hostages’ release, including the return of the late Shah’s wealth and the unfreezing of Iranian assets.
November 1980-January 1981 – Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his delegation work through mediators in Algeria to negotiate the release of the hostages.
January 19, 1981 – The United States and Iran sign an agreement to release the hostages and unfreeze Iranian assets.
January 20, 1981 – The remaining 52 US hostages are released and flown to Wiesbaden Air Base in Germany.
December 18, 2015 – Congress passes a budget bill that includes a provision authorizing each of the 53 hostages to receive $10,000 for each day they were held captive. In addition, spouses and children will separately receive a one-time payment of $600,000.
November 19, 2019 – The act is amended to include victims of the September 11 terror attacks, reducing the amount of available funds to compensate the former hostages.
by tyler | Oct 26, 2023 | CNN, world
Lewiston. Monterey Park. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde. Nashville. Louisville.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
America’s relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.
As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here’s a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people.
The Falkland Islands – a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war – is home to the world’s second-largest stash of civilian guns per capita. But with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is almost half that of the US. Yemen – a country in the throes of a seven-year conflict – has the third-highest gun ownership rate at 53 guns per 100 people.
While the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to calculate due to a variety of factors – including unregistered weapons, the illegal trade and global conflict – SAS researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million civilian guns available, which is around 46% of the world’s civilian gun cache.
About 44% of US adults live in a household with a gun, and about one-third own one personally, according to an October 2020 Gallup survey.
Some nations have high gun ownership due to illegal stocks from past conflicts or lax restrictions on ownership, but the US is one of only three countries in the world where bearing (or keeping) arms is a constitutional right, according to Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Comparative Constitutions Project. Yet the ownership rate in the other two – Guatemala and Mexico – is almost a tenth of the United States.
The gun debate in those countries is less politicized, Elkins said. In contrast to the US, Guatemala and Mexico’s constitutions facilitate regulation, with lawmakers more comfortable restricting guns, especially given concerns around organized crime, he said. In Mexico, there’s only one gun store in the entire country – and it’s controlled by the army.
In the US, firearm manufacturing is on the rise, with more Americans buying guns.
In 2018, gun makers produced 9 million firearms in the country – more than double the amount manufactured in 2008, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More recently, January 2021 marked the biggest annual increase since 2013 in requests for federal background checks necessary for purchasing a gun – a nearly 60% jump from January 2020.
And in March 2021, the FBI reported almost 4.7 million background checks – the most of any month since the agency started keeping track more than 20 years ago. Two million of those checks were for new gun purchases, making it the second highest month on record for firearms sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearms industry trade group that compares FBI background check numbers with actual sales data to determine its sales figures.
Almost a third of US adults believe there would be less crime if more people owned guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey. However, multiple studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, gun-related deaths tend to be more frequent, including by suicide, homicide and unintentional injuries.
It is then unsurprising that the US has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita. The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019.
The gun-related homicide rate in Washington, DC – the highest of any US state or district – is close to levels in Brazil, which ranks sixth highest in the world for gun-related homicides, according to the IHME figures.
Globally, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from the highest rates of firearm homicides, with El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras topping the charts.
Drug cartel activities and the presence of firearms from old conflicts are both contributing factors, according to the 2018 Global Mortality From Firearms, 1990-2016, study.
But gun-related violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is also exacerbated by weapons that come from the US. About 200,000 firearms from America cross Mexico’s border every year, according to a February 2021 US government accountability office report, citing the Mexican government.
In 2019, about 68% of firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico and sent to the ATF for identification were traced back to the US. And around half of guns the ATF checked after they’ve been seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama were manufactured in or officially imported to the US.
While personal safety tops the list of reasons why American gun owners say they own a firearm, 63% of US gun-related deaths are self-inflicted.
Over 23,000 Americans died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 2019. That number accounts for 44% of the gun suicides globally and dwarfs suicide totals in any other country in the world.
At six firearm suicides per 100,000 people, the US rate of suicide is, on average, seven times higher than in other developed nations. Globally, the US rate is only lower than in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with relatively high gun ownership (22 guns per 100 people).
Multiple studies have reported an association between gun ownership and gun-related suicides.
One of those studies, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, found that men who owned handguns were almost eight times as likely to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds as men who didn’t own a gun. Women who owned handguns were 35 times as likely to die by firearm suicide, compared to those who didn’t, according to the 2020 study, which surveyed 26 million California residents over a more than 11-year period.
Regular mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is the only developed country where mass shootings have happened every single year for the past 20 years, according to Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University.
To compare across countries, Silva uses a conservative definition of a mass shooting: an event that leaves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter, and that excludes profit-driven criminal activity, familicide and state-sponsored violence. Using this approach, 68 people were killed and 91 injured in eight public shootings in the US over the course of 2019 alone.
A broader definition of mass shootings reveals an even higher figure.
The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit based in Washington, DC and which CNN relies on for its reporting of mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident leaving at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter, and does not differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.
They counted as many as 417 mass shootings in 2019. And in 2022, 213 mass shootings have already been recorded.
State gun policies also appear to play a role. A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that US states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings.
US President Joe Biden’s administration renewed calls for gun reform after mass shootings in Colorado, South Carolina and Texas last year. In March 2021, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require unlicensed and private sellers, as well as all licensed sellers to do federal background checks before all gun sales – and to ensure that buyers are fully vetted before making the sale.
The bills are now stuck in the Senate where, despite some Democrats’ efforts to build bipartisan support, there has been no indication they have the votes to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.
For decades, political roadblocks have stalled such efforts in the US. And that partisan divide is reflected in the population as well, with 80% of Republicans – and 19% of Democrats – saying gun laws in the country are either about right or should be less strict, according to the April Pew survey.
Meanwhile, mass shootings continue to drive demand for more guns, experts say, with gun control activists arguing the time for reform is long overdue.
Researchers from Washington University at St Louis’ Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute presented this argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2018, saying that the US government’s “failure” to prevent and reduce gun-related violence through “reasonable and effective domestic measures has limited the ability of Americans to enjoy many fundamental freedoms and guarantees protected by international human rights law,” including the right to life and bodily integrity.
UN bodies have also underlined these concerns, pointing to America’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow gun owners in at least 25 states to use deadly force in any situation where they believe that they face an imminent threat of harm, without first making any effort to deescalate the situation or retreat. A 2019 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights report said that the law can encourage people to respond to situations with lethal force, rather than use it as a last resort.
In a 2020 essay published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, gun control advocate Rukmani Bhatia said that the US gun lobby has seized a rights-based narrative “to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry, and use firearms.”
Stand your ground legislation, she said, “warps people’s understanding about their rights to security and, in the worst cases, empowers them to take away another person’s right to life.”
Meanwhile, countries that have introduced laws to reduce gun-related deaths have achieved significant changes.
A decade of gun violence, culminating with the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, prompted the Australian government to take action.
Less than two weeks after Australia’s worst mass shooting, the federal government implemented a new program, banning rapid-fire rifles and shotguns, and unifying gun owner licensing and registrations across the country. In the next 10 years gun deaths in Australia fell by more than 50%. A 2010 study found the government’s 1997 buyback program – part of the overall reform – led to an average drop in firearm suicide rates of 74% in the five years that followed.
Other countries are also showing promising results after changing their gun laws. In South Africa, gun-related deaths almost halved over a 10-year-period after new gun legislation, the Firearms Control Act of 2000, went into force in July 2004. The new laws made it much more difficult to obtain a firearm.
In New Zealand, gun laws were swiftly amended after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Just 24 hours after the attack, in which 51 people were killed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the law would change. New Zealand’s parliament voted almost unanimously to change the country’s gun laws less than a month later, banning all military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Britain tightened its gun laws and banned most private handgun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996, a move that saw gun deaths drop by almost a quarter over a decade. In August 2021, a licensed firearms holder killed five people in Plymouth, England, marking the worst mass shooting since 2010. After the incident, police said the gunman’s firearm license had been returned to him just months after it was revoked, due to assault accusations. The British government then asked police to review their licensing practices and said that they would be bringing forward new guidance to improve background procedures, including social media checks.
Many countries around the world have been able to tackle gun violence. Yet, despite the thousands of lost lives in the US, only around half of US adults favor stricter gun laws, according to the recent Pew survey, and political reform remains at a standstill. The deadly cycle of violence seems destined to continue.
For gun ownership rates, CNN relied on the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. It estimates civilian arm stocks using a combination of gun sales and registration figures, public surveys, expert estimates and cross-country comparisons. The gun ownership rate per 100 people is not the same as the share of people that own guns, as some may own multiple guns and others may own none.
For firearm deaths totals and rates, CNN used the Global Burden of Disease database compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Firearm-related deaths include physical violence (homicide), self-harm (suicide) and unintentional injuries. While rates are preferable for cross-country comparisons, in the case of suicides we illustrated the totals to highlight the gap between the US and other countries.
When comparing US statistics with other developed countries we used a UN definition found in the United Nations’ World Economic Situation and Prospects report – which intends “to reflect basic economic country conditions” and is not strictly aligned with the UN Statistics Division’s classification known as M49.
To estimate numbers on mass shootings, including incidents, fatalities, and injuries in the US, CNN typically relies on data from the Gun Violence Archive. To enable international comparisons for this story, we also used data compiled by Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University. Silva’s definition is narrower than CNN and the GVA’s because it excludes incidents involving profit-driven criminal activity, familicide and state-sponsored violence.
This story has been updated.
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, world
Eligibility: In order to be eligible for the CNN Heroes Awards Program (the “Awards Program”), nominees must be at least thirteen (13) years of age or older as of December 10, 2023 and some portion of nominee’s activities must have taken place on December 10, 2023 or be ongoing, and nominees can not have previously been selected as a CNN Hero Finalist or Winner (“Eligible Nominees”). CNN Heroes may be nominated as set forth herein or chosen by CNN. Nominations submitted in prior years of the Awards Program which meet all requirements of these legal disclosures will also be considered Eligible Nominees. People submitting nominations (“Nominator(s)”) must be at least thirteen (13) years of age as of December 10, 2023. The Awards Program is open to Eligible Nominees worldwide who are citizens of countries other than Voided Countries (defined below). Citizens of Voided Countries are ineligible to enter or win. In addition to those countries set forth on the list below, the Awards Program is also void in those countries where the Awards Program, its mechanisms, its Terms and Conditions and/or its awards or any part(s) of them are prohibited by any applicable law, regulation, guideline or ordinance (“Voided Country”). CNN may determine in its sole discretion at any time during the Awards Program that a country is a Voided Country. At any time, at CNN’s discretion, a Nominee may be deemed ineligible for nomination or participation in the Awards Program, be deemed ineligible to receive a monetary prize under the Awards Program or have the monetary prize otherwise due such person as part of the Awards Program (if any) donated to a charitable organization selected by CNN in its sole discretion. Employees, and their immediate family members, of (1)WarnerMedia, LLC and its subsidiaries; (2) sponsors of the Awards Program; and (3) advertising and promotional agencies directly involved in the Awards Program (the “Awards Program Entities”) are not eligible to participate in the Awards Program or submit nominations. Cable News Network, Inc. (“CNN”) and the sponsors of the Awards Program shall herein be collectively referred to as the “Sponsors”.
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Judging for the CNN Heroes Award: CNN will choose each CNN Hero from all Eligible Nominees and eligible individuals chosen to be profiled by CNN as CNN Heroes (“Hero” or “Heroes”). Heroes deemed solely by CNN to meet the requirements set forth herein may be presented online and on-air for public viewing and some may be subject to voting for the CNN Hero Award. It is in CNN’s sole discretion to determine which Heroes advance to the voting phase.
• A CNN Review Panel (the “Panel”) will select ten (10) potential finalists (the “Finalists”) and an alternate from the group of Heroes.
• The final round of judging will be done by an online viewer vote conducted on www.cnnheroes.com. Viewers will have the chance to vote in an online poll for the CNN Hero Finalist whose accomplishment, impact and story best exemplifies a CNN Hero. The Finalist who collects the most votes will be the potential winner of the CNN Hero of the Year Award (the “Winner”). The Winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony.
Please note that even if a Finalist may appear to be a leader or Winner online during the online voting, that Finalist has not yet been declared the Winner. CNN shall declare all official Winners. All Finalists are subject to verification by CNN and must meet all eligibility requirements including the execution and return of all necessary releases, or they may be disqualified. The decisions of the Panel will be final and binding. If more than one nomination is received for a particular Eligible Nominee, CNN, in its sole discretion may consider any of the nominations for that individual in its judging. Whether a nominator is identified and which nominator is identified, if there are multiple nominations for one individual, is in the sole discretion of CNN. CNN is not bound by any voting or judging mechanism set forth herein as it maintains sole discretion to name Finalists and Winners and provide awards.
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Awards:
• 10 Finalists: Each Finalist will receive Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000)
• 1 Winner: The Winner will receive One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($100,000.00)
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by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, world
The final round of judging will be done by an online viewer vote conducted on www.CNNHeroes.com. Viewers will have the chance to vote in an online poll for the Finalist whose accomplishment, impact and story best exemplifies a CNN Hero. Voting for the CNN Hero of the Year begins November 1, 2023 (8:30 a.m. ET) and continues until Tuesday, December 5, 2023 (11:59 pm PT).
Subject to the CNN Heroes Legal Disclosures and the terms herein, the Finalist from the top 10 CNN Heroes who collects the most votes will be the winner (the “Winner”). The Winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony.
Eligible votes must be submitted using a verifiable email or Facebook account. Limit of 10 votes per day, per method. Votes exceeding the limit will not be counted.
Please note that even if a Finalist may appear to be a leader or Winner online during the online voting, that individual has not yet been declared a Winner. CNN shall declare all official Winners. All Finalists are subject to verification by CNN and must meet all eligibility requirements including the execution and return of all necessary releases, or they may be disqualified. The decisions of the Judges will be final and binding. Whether a nominator is identified and which nominator is identified, if there are multiple nominations for one individual, is in the sole discretion of CNN.
CNN reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Finalist and/or void the votes of any individual who directly or indirectly tampers with the voting process and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Awards Program. Votes generated by script, macro or other automated means will be void. Sponsors assume no responsibility for any error, omissions, interruption, deletion, defect or delay in operation with transmission, communications, line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or allegation of submissions. Sponsors are not responsible for any problem or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, equipment or software, failure of any vote to be received on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any website, phone lines, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to a participant’s computer related to or resulting from participation in this Awards Program. Sponsor is not responsible for votes not received due to an individual’s account settings, spelling, or other end user error. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT BY A PARTICIPANT OR USER TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE AWARDS PROGRAM IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSORS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. In the event of sabotage, acts of God, terrorism or threats thereof, computer virus or other events or causes beyond the Sponsor’s control, which corrupt the integrity, administration, security or proper operation of the voting process, Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify entrants and/or modify, cancel or suspend the Awards Program. In the event of cancellation, Sponsor reserves the right to award prizes from among all eligible, non-suspect entries received prior to the event requiring such cancellation. False or deceptive votes and/or acts will render the respective Finalist ineligible.
For additional information and details please see the full Legal Disclosures at https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/world/cnn-heroes-legal-disclosures-2024/index.html
by tyler | Oct 23, 2023 | CNN, world
Rapid melting of West Antarctica’s ice shelves may now be unavoidable as human-caused global warming accelerates, with potentially devastating implications for sea level rise around the world, new research has found.
Even if the world meets ambitious targets to limit global heating, West Antarctica will experience substantial ocean warming and ice shelf melting, according to the new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Ice shelves are tongues of ice that jut out into the ocean at the end of glaciers. They act like buttresses, helping hold ice back on the land, slowing its flow into the sea and providing an important defense against sea level rise. As ice shelves melt, they thin and lose their buttressing ability.
While there has been growing evidence ice loss in West Antarctica may be irreversible, there has been uncertainty about how much can be prevented through climate policies.
The researchers looked at “basal melting,” when warm ocean currents melt the ice from beneath. They analyzed the rate of ocean warming and ice shelf melting under different climate change scenarios. These ranged from the ambitious, where the world manages to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, to the worst-case, where humans burn large amounts of planet-heating fossil fuels.
They found if the world limits temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it is not on track to do, climate change could still cause the ocean to warm at three times the historical rate.
Even significantly cutting planet-heating pollution now will have “limited power” to prevent warmer oceans from triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, the report found.
“It appears that we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice melting over the 21st century,” said Kaitlin Naughten, an ocean modeler with the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the study.
West Antarctica is already the continent’s largest contributor to global sea level rise and has enough ice to raise sea levels by an average of 5.3 meters, or more than 17 feet. It’s home to the Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday glacier,” because its collapse could raise sea levels by several feet, forcing coastal communities and low-lying island nations to either build around sea level rise or abandon these places, Naughten said.
While the study focused on ice shelf melting and did not directly quantify the impacts on sea level rise, “we have every reason to expect that sea level rise would increase as a result, as West Antarctica speeds up this loss of ice into the ocean,” Naughten said.
Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved with the study, said the findings are “sobering.” They build on existing research that paints an alarming picture of what’s happening to the planet’s southernmost continent, he told CNN.
“The thing that’s depressing is the committed nature of sea level rise, particularly for the next century,” Scambos told CNN. “People who are alive today are going to see a significant increase in the rate of sea level rise in all the coastal cities around the world.”
The only way to really stop the rapid ice melting, Scambos said, would be not just to cut levels of planet-heating pollution but also to “remove some that has already built up.” This will be “a real challenge,” he said.
Some scientists sounded a note of caution about the study. Tiago Segabinazzi Dotto, senior research scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in the UK, said it should be “treated carefully” as it is based on a single model.
However, its conclusions do agree with previous research in the region, he told the Science Media Center, giving “confidence that this study needs to be taken in consideration for policymakers.”
Naughten and her colleagues acknowledged their study has limits — predicting future rates of melting in West Antarctica is very complex and it’s impossible to account for every possible future outcome. But, looking at the range of scenarios, the report authors said they were confident the melting of ice shelves is now unavoidable.
“The question of doom and gloom is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about with this study, because how do you tell such a bad news story?” Naughten said.
“Conventional wisdom is supposed to give people hope, and I don’t see a lot of hope in this story,” she added, “but it’s what the science tells me and it’s what I have to communicate to the world.”
West Antarctic ice shelf melting is one impact of climate change “we are probably just going to have to adapt to and that very likely means some amount of sea level rise we cannot avoid,” Naughten said.
But although the outlook is dire, humanity cannot give up on slashing fossil fuel emissions, Naughten said. Devastating impacts can still be avoided in other parts of Antarctica and the rest of the world, she noted.
by tyler | Oct 13, 2023 | CNN, world
When he heard that Hamas militants were attacking a music festival his family was attending, Ben said Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, for his mother.
“I didn’t know what to do. I said please kill her because it would be better than being kidnapped,” Ben, whose surname CNN is not using for security concerns, said on Wednesday. “It’s a nightmare. I said ‘please kill her, don’t take her there.’”
Over WhatsApp, he watched, helpless, as his mother and younger brother sent updates for eight hours, telling him that they were hiding in small bushes, hearing gunfire and people walking past saying “Allahu Akbar.”
“(Every message) took about two minutes to arrive and in between there was no communication,” he said. “Every two minutes you are tearing your hair out to get an answer.”
Eventually, Ben heard of a secure location, sent the map to his brother and they managed to escape from the festival.
The next morning, Ben flew to Israel from London where he lives with his British wife and children.
He is one of many Israelis returning home from abroad as their country’s long-running conflict with Hamas escalates into a war not seen on this scale for a generation. To cope with the increasing demand, Israeli airlines El Al, Israir and Arkia added more flights on Tuesday to repatriate military reservists, Reuters reported.
Cutting short holidays or uprooting their everyday lives overseas, these Israelis are returning for funerals, in preparation for being called up into the military reserves, carrying supplies back with them, or to help protect their communities.
At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel following Hamas’ deadly and brutal attack on October 7 when its militants broke through the heavily fortified border from Gaza, leaving atrocities in their wake.
Israel has responded by hammering Gaza with airstrikes and halting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave. At least 1,417 people have been killed in Gaza in the days since, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and the enclave’s only power station ran out of fuel on Wednesday.
Straight after seeing his family when he landed in Israel, Ben went to Lod, a city about nine miles southeast of Tel Aviv, where there had previously been outbursts of violence.
There he joined friends in forming an impromptu neighborhood watch, to ensure the situation remained calm. He has since helped to deliver donated food and is planning to drive to the south of the country as there aren’t enough drivers to take people to their families.
“At least there’s something that I can do,” he said. “I couldn’t stay in London and just watch it all happening on TV.”
Another returning Israeli is 30-year-old Guy, who works in cybersecurity and has lived in London for the last five years. CNN is not using his surname for safety reasons. Guy traveled back to Israel on Wednesday after learning that six of his friends were missing after attending the Supernova music festival. Two of the group have since been confirmed dead.
He told CNN that he is returning to be a military reservist, and for the funerals of his friends, who were part of a “close circle” that often went to trance music festivals, like Supernova, alongside Palestinians too.
“The generation born since the Yom Kippur War have never seen anything like this,” he said. “They have had the opportunity to believe in peace and the two-state solution… we grew up with that… The people that go to these festivals participate as citizens of the world who essentially just want to celebrate life.”
Israel has called up 300,000 reservists to fight for its military, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, Maj. Doron Spielman told CNN Wednesday, a mobilization on the scale of a major country such as the United States, despite Israel’s relatively small population of 9.7 million, according to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics in April.
“There’s not a family that does not have somebody that’s been called up. Or, unfortunately, since we’re such a small country, a family that does not have friends, or loved ones that are still missing,” Spielman told CNN.
Though there are some exemptions, every Israeli citizen over the age of 18 is required to serve in the IDF. After finishing their service, many take lengthy trips overseas, a kind of post-service rite of passage.
After completing his military service, 22-year-old Ben, who also asked to keep his family name confidential, had intended to explore Asia for several months. But he abandoned those plans on Saturday when he learned of Hamas’ attack while in a mountain village in Nepal. He has since returned to Israel and is on standby to serve as a reservist in a reconnaissance unit.
In a telephone call from Nepal on Monday, prior to his flight on Tuesday, Ben said he thought there were more than 100 Israelis in Kathmandu alone trying to return.
“It feels really hard to be so far away and there isn’t much you can do,” he said. “You’re worried about the people there and all you do all day is watch the news and look at your phone. It’s impossible to be away right now.”
Ilan Fisher, 29, is another Israeli expecting to be called up for reserve duty, he told CNN on Wednesday. He was on vacation in Melbourne, Australia on the day of Hamas’ attack, attending the wedding of two close Australian friends, both of whom also live in Israel.
Though Fisher has had multiple offers to remain in Melbourne, he intends to fly back on Sunday and expects to be drafted back into the army’s media department.
“Given the situation there right now, how dire it is and how dire it will be, I don’t really have another choice but to go back,” he said.
Some Israelis are rushing back for other reasons. Rachel Gold, 27, had been on vacation in Toronto and had the idea of taking supplies back to Israel with her friend, Jessica Kane, who had been visiting her parents in New York.
After putting out a call on social media, they raised $15,000 to buy supplies and flew back on Monday evening with two other friends, carrying 13 large check-in cases, four carry-on bags and several backpacks with them. The luggage was stuffed with supplies including head torches, flashlights, underwear, socks, toothbrushes, portable chargers, hydration pouches and protein bars.
Kane, 26, told CNN that her family are religiously observant and so she did not hear of the attack until her father learned of it by word of mouth while in synagogue.
“Initially I didn’t believe it. I thought it was being sensationalized,” she said. “We very quickly went on our phones. I had a few missed calls from the army and had a million red alert notifications about missiles falling. It was incredibly, incredibly difficult.”
The friends were met at the airport on Tuesday by volunteers who immediately took the donations to deliver to the south of Israel. Gold is now on a military base in the south, having been recruited as a reservist.
“Being here is a lot more comforting than being away,” she told CNN. “I felt desperately helpless just sitting at home watching the news and thinking what else I can do beyond sending money. Being here at least I feel part of it and taking action and doing things, plus I’m not glued to the news all day. Being here is a little bit less scary than being abroad.”
