letterswithoutborders

Senator John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, and his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, traveled to Israel this week to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This marks Fetterman’s second visit to Jerusalem since taking office in 2022. Exchanging of Gifts During their meeting, Fetterman presented Netanyahu with a framed news article about efforts to memorialize Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni Netanyahu, in Philadelphia. Yoni, an Israeli soldier, was killed during the 1976 Entebbe rescue mission. In return, Netanyahu gifted Fetterman a silver-plated version of a pager model used in Israel’s September 2024 military operation. The operation, which involved sabotaging and detonating pagers used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, resulted in 42 deaths and over 4,000 injuries. Referencing the device’s historical significance, Netanyahu remarked, "This is a silver-plated beeper. The real beeper is, like, one-tenth the weight. It’s nothing, but it changes history." F...

  Hezbollah translates to, "God's Army" in Arabic. The group was formed in 1982 as a militia in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon during the Fifth Arab-Israeli War . Formation Before the invasion, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had used Southern Lebanon as a base for attacks against Israeli targets. In retaliation, Israel launched an invasion to expel the PLO and install its ally, Bachir Gemayel, as Lebanon’s president . This military campaign devastated 80% of villages in Southern Lebanon , displacing approximately 400,000 people . In response, Hezbollah emerged as an armed resistance movement to expel the Israeli forces. Hezbollah gained prominence during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990 ) as a resistance movement primarily representing Lebanon's Shia community. The group focused on fighting Israeli and Western forces stationed in Lebanon. Although Hezbollah clashed with the Amal Movement for influence in Shia-majority areas a...

  Arrest Pro-Palestine Activist, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested on Saturday, reportedly due to his activism. Khalil was apprehended by two plainclothes Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents at the Columbia university-owned apartment building where he lives with his wife, a US citizen. DHS agents reportedly informed Khalil that the U.S. Department of State had revoked his student visa, despite the fact that he is a lawful permanent resident with a green card. According to a news release by Writers Against the War on Gaza, when Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, showed the agents his green card, “one agent was visibly confused and said on the phone, he has a green card." “However, after a moment, the DHS agents stated that the State Department had ‘revoked that too.’ Khalil’s wife then phoned his attorney, who spoke with the agents in an attempt to intervene,” the group said. “When Khalil’s attorney requested that a copy of the warrant be emailed to her,...