16-Year-Old Arrested in Connection With Antisemitic Attack on Rabbi in France

Ailin Vilches Arguello

Demonstrators in Paris gather in memory of Mireille Knoll, a Holocaust survivor brutally murdered in an antisemitic assault. Photo: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes.

Authorities in France have arrested a 16-year-old teenager in connection with the antisemitic attack on the Rabbi of Orléans, local media reported, as the country continues to face a rise in antisemitic incidents since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.

Arie Engelberg, the rabbi of Orléans, was attacked on Saturday afternoon while walking home with his nine-year-old son from the synagogue in the city, located south of Paris.

According to Engelberg, the attacker asked if he was Jewish, and when the rabbi replied yes, the assailant began hurling antisemitic insults, including “all Jews are sons of —,” and attempted to film him.

“I decided to act, and I pushed his telephone away,” the rabbi told BFM television. The attacker then allegedly started punching Engelberg and bit him until several people stepped in to help.

“I’m OK, thank God, my son, I’m getting better and better,” the victim said. “We’ve had an enormous amount of support.”

French authorities are treating the incident as an antisemitic hate crime. According to local media, the suspect, arrested on Saturday night, was known under at least three identities – including one Moroccan and two Palestinian – but police are still verifying the assailant’s identity, as he was not carrying any documents when detained.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin confirmed the suspect was transferred to a psychiatric facility shortly after being arrested.

Over the weekend, approximately 300 people gathered at Bastille Square in Paris to denounce the attack. A silent march is also planned for Tuesday evening in Orléans.

In an interview with BDM, Engelberg said “it was just a question of time before suffering an antisemitic attack.”

But he explained that what matters is “how we react and to what degree.”

“I won’t change anything – actually the opposite,” he said. “I will continue to walk with pride, to express my Judaism with pride and to direct the Jewish community of Orleans.”

France is home to the largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack, calling antisemitism “a poison,” and expressed his solidarity with the rabbi’s family.

“The attack on Rabbi Arié Engelberg in Orléans shocks us all,” Macron wrote in a post on X. “I offer him, his son, and all our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith my full support and that of the nation. We will not give in to silence or inaction.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also condemned the attack, calling for “zero tolerance for antisemitism.”

“This is a vile and intolerable act,” Saar wrote in a post on X. “The resurgence of antisemitism in France and across Europe is not only alarming – it is a wake-up call to European governments, leaders, and civil society. Antisemitism is dangerous, and it demands an uncompromising response.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews – denounced the attack, saying that “antisemitism is not ‘residual.’”

“Those who minimize, relativize, or justify hatred of Jews by a conflict 4,000 km away bear an immense responsibility,” Arfi posted on social media, referring to those targeting Jews over the war in Gaza.

Antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by CRIF.

The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.

In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.

The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.

One such incident occurred in June, when a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a Paris suburb. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack.

Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

Barbarzyńskie rozbijanie naszej cywilizacji

Brendan O’Neill
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Nowy raport nie pozostawia wątpliwości: 7 października doszło do wyjątkowo barbarzyńskiego ataku na Żydów i człowieczeństwo.

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Zredukowali Żydów do popiołu. W 2023 roku faszystowska armia spaliła Żydów . Ci Żydzi nazywali się Ram Itamari, 56 lat, kierownik transportu, i jego żona Lili Itamari, 63 lata, nauczycielka. Byli w swoim domu w kibucu Kfar Aza w południowym Izraelu 7 października 2023 roku, gdy pojawiła się banda antysemitów. Uzbrojeni mężczyźni zobaczyli Żydów przez okno, więc podpalili dom. Płonął w tak wysokiej temperaturze, że gdy w końcu weszły tam władze Izraela, nie znalazły śladu ciał. Archeolodzy potrzebowali trzech tygodni przesiewania popiołu, by odkryć kawałki kości. Przebadano DNA. To byli oni.

Brendan O’Neill – brytyjski dziennikarz, redaktor naczelny magazynu „Spiked” , autor głośnej książki A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable.

China Has Set Up Iran’s Next War in the Middle East

Gordon G. Chang

• Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.
• Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.
• Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.
• There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.
• If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran has a nuclear weapons program because of China. China helped Iran possess both missiles and uranium enrichment capability. Pictured: Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi (R), China’s Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov hold a press conference in Beijing on March 14, 2025. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz on March 16^th.

Waltz’s demand was in fact more comprehensive. He said that Iran must also hand over, among other things, missiles and uranium enrichment capability.

China helped Iran possess both. Beijing has set the stage for the next war in the Middle East.

On missiles, there is no doubt where Tehran got its delivery systems. “Most of Iran’s liquid-fueled ballistic missiles, including all its longest-range ones, are North Korean missiles with new paint,” Bruce Bechtol, author of North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa: Enabling Violence and Instability, told Gatestone.

“The missiles are probably why Trump is now dealing with Iran’s nukes.”

And where did North Korea get the technology that it sold to Iran? Some came from China. “The North’s submarine-launched KN-11 looks awfully like China’s Jl-1,” said Bechtol.

Pyongyang could not have sold missiles to Iran — and certainly could not transport them through Chinese airspace — without Beijing’s approval.

On enrichment, China proliferated directly and indirectly.

Indirectly, it proliferated through the nuclear black market ring headed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. China, sometime around 1974, started helping Pakistan build a nuclear device. As proliferation analysts note, China’s help was crucial, substantial and continuous.

Then, the infamous Khan, known as the father of the Pakistani bomb, merchandised China’s technology, including China’s blueprints for at least one warhead, to various countries across the Middle East and North Africa. Iran was one of Khan’s customers, especially for parts for centrifuges, the machines that purify uranium to bomb-grade. Khan used Chinese military installations to facilitate transfers to Iran.

Apart from transfers through the Khan ring, China directly dealt with the Iranian regime. For instance, a Chinese enterprise, Zheijiang Ouhai Trade Corp., arranged the surreptitious transfer of “critical valves and vacuum gauges” to Iran for use in its uranium enrichment program. Before that, another Chinese entity was involved in the sale to Iran of 108 pressure transducers, instruments that monitor gas centrifuges.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the dissident group that in 2002 disclosed the secret nuclear facilities in Arak and Natanz, charged in September 2005 that the covert Chinese trade in centrifuges continued into that year.

China also aided Iran in areas beyond enrichment. In June 2002, for instance, the US State Department publicly noted that China had violated pledges it made in October 1997 to the United States to stop aiding specific Iranian nuclear projects.

In November 2003, the Associated Press reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff had identified China as one of the probable sources of equipment used in Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Chinese specialists were working in that program at least as late as fall 2003 according to Michael Ledeen, writing in the Wall Street Journal.

In September 2005, the National Council of Resistance of Iran charged that China had secretly sent Iran beryllium the previous year. This metal, subject to international export controls, is used in neutron initiators to trigger nuclear weapons. The allegation is consistent with other reports about Iran’s covert attempts to source beryllium at that time.

Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.

Now, the U.S. does not have a choice. As the Heritage Foundation pointed out in an October 2024 report about Iran, “The United States is at a critical juncture.”

“Recently, the U.S. government disclosed that it believes Iran has activated its nuclear weapons program that it previously believed had been discontinued in 2003,” Anthony Celso, a professor of security studies at Angelo State University, told Gatestone.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in February of last year issued its Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The document included this sentence: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”

Fast-forward to July 23, 2024, when ODNI released another report on the topic. The latter report did not include that assessment. From this and other indications, including comments of Senator Lindsey Graham after he received a classified briefing that month, it is clear that the U.S. intelligence community now believes Iran is racing toward the bomb.

Tehran almost certainly has one by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.

That boast appears accurate. In the following July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken essentially corroborated the statement by announcing that “instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon,” Iran was “probably one or two weeks away from doing that.”

In short, Iran then was a bomb-in-the-basement state, just a “couple turns of the screw” from having an actual weapon.

The IAEA in January 2023 discovered that Iran possessed uranium enriched to 83.7% in the underground Fordo facility. There are no peaceful uses for uranium enriched to that purity.

Since then, there have been additional disturbing indications. Last month, for instance, the agency revealed that Iran possessed enough 60%-enriched uranium to make six weapons if that uranium were enriched to 90% purity, which would not be that difficult.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.

There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.

If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

Reports: IDF Strike Targets Vehicle in Southern Lebanon

i24 News and Algemeiner Staff

Alleged Israeli strike targets vehicle in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shaeb. Photo: i24/social media/27A

An alleged Israeli strike targeted a vehicle in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shaeb on Sunday, with several wounded reported.

The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that a man named Hassan al-Zein was killed in the IDF drone strike. According to the pro-Hezbollah newspaper, al-Zein’s cafe was also struck this morning. Other Lebanese sources say al-Zein has ties to Hezbollah.

Later, a strike was reported in Labbouneh, also in southern Lebanon.

This comes as Israel has ramped up its attacks against Hezbollah, following violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon. Over the weekend, Hezbollah launched rockets against northern Israel’s Metula for the first time in months, prompting a swift IDF response.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said that Radwan Salim Awada “Abu Nasser” had been killed in the Tyre area during an IDF raid.

22.03.2025, atak Izraela na Liban (Fot. REUTERS/Karamallah Daher)

Izrael zaatakował cele w Libanie. To odpowiedź na przechwycone rakiety

Wojciech Podgórski/PAP

Wczesnym popołudniem siły zbrojne Libanu powiadomiły o zlokalizowaniu i zniszczeniu trzech prowizorycznych wyrzutni rakietowych, które zostały wykorzystane podczas porannego ataku na Izrael.

Od końca listopada 2024 r. obowiązuje rozejm, który zakłada wycofanie się z południa Libanu zarówno wojsk izraelskich, jak i sił Hezbollahu oraz przejęcie kontroli nad tym terenem przez regularną armię libańską. Mimo to część izraelskich oddziałów pozostała na kilku przygranicznych posterunkach. Lotnictwo Izraela wielokrotnie atakowało też cele na terytorium Libanu, zastrzegając, że były to operacje wymierzone w siły Hezbollahu naruszające rozejm.

W ubiegłym tygodniu rządy Izraela i Libanu zgodziły się na rozpoczęcie rozmów w sprawie wytyczenia granicy lądowej między oboma państwami. Obecnie oddziela je tzw. Niebieska Linia, uznawana za faktyczną granicę, ale wciąż toczą się spory o jej dokładny przebieg. W rozmowach na ten temat, obok zainteresowanych stron, uczestniczą też przedstawiciele USA i Francji.