Israel PM adviser says ‘we have to fear’ for safety of Americans held hostage by Hamas in Gaza

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused Monday to condemn comments from a top progressive lawmaker who called for "balance" when condemning Hamas' use of sexual violence against Israeli women.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said "we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinian" when asked specifically about mass rape committed by Palestinian militants, during an interview Sunday with CNN. When asked about Jayapal's comments, Jean-Pierre reiterated that using rape as a weapon of war was "reprehensible," but stopped short of condemning the congresswoman.

"I can only speak for the president — that's who I can speak for," Jean-Pierre told Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich during the daily White House press briefing Monday. "We've been clear that what Hamas did is absolutely reprehensible, full stop. We're going to continue to be clear about that."

"We think rape and the use of rape — being used as a weapon — that is also reprehensible and that's full stop and I'll just leave it there," she continued. "That's speaking for the president of the United States and I think I've been very clear on that."

After Jean-Pierre was pressed about Jayapal's comments in particular, she again declined to address the congresswoman's remarks directly.

"I just commented on it. I just laid out what we believe is unacceptable," she added.

Fox News' Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.

A brand-new menorah stands high outside the Chabad House near San Diego State University, after the previous one had been vandalized three times in the last two years.

"This happened, and it was outside our control, but what we can control is showing that love always wins against hate," Chalom Boudjnah, Rabbi and Director of Chabad House at SDSU told Fox News Digital.

The latest act of vandalism against the menorah in March left the structure broken on the ground, and it was all caught on tape.

"It was done in a vicious act. You can see where one person, who covered himself up, went straight at the menorah, pushed it down to the breaking point. Really, really vile and hateful," Boudjnah described.

But despite the attack, Boudjnah said it ignited the passion in their spirit more and that's when they decided to rebuild the menorah — even with mounting hate crimes and acts of antisemitism happening across the country.

"It's been a burden on our community, but we are reminded that we have to stand strong. We didn't let this ruin anything. Instead, we came together and decided to build something beautiful and strong," Boudjnah said.

Fox News' Stepheny Price contributed to this report.

Investors most likely linked to Hamas received financial windfalls following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel after making bets on Israeli securities in the weeks leading up to the massacre that killed at least 1,200 people, according to researchers. 

In a report titled "Trading on Terror?," law professors Robert Jackson Jr. of New York University, and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University, detailed suspicious trading activity. 

The report details how so-called short sellers made risky bets against stocks that paid off. 

Read the full article about Hamas by Louis Casiano

Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian supporters clashed at a demonstration in New York City on Monday.

What appeared to be thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered to block the roadway of the Williamsburg Bridge to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

One protestor wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh was seen shouting "F--k the Jews!" and waving a Palestinian flag.

A pro-Israel supporter was also heard chanting "Israel lives!" and waving a flag at a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, prompting negative reactions.

Dozens of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers were observed at the scene.

EXCLUSIVE: Sheryl Sandberg told Fox News Digital that "politics are blinding us to something that is completely obvious"—condemning Hamas for rape and other sexual violence committed against Jewish women on Oct. 7.

Sandberg, the founder of "Lean In" and former chief operating officer of Facebook, spoke to Fox News Digital on the sidelines of an event hosted by Israel at the United Nations headquarters on Monday.

The event, hosted by Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, featured an address from Sandberg, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a video address by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and testimonials from Israeli police officers, and others about the brutality of Hamas’ attacks and to "expose the horrors and shocking acts of sexual violence committed" against women on Oct. 7.

Read the full article about Sheryl Sandberg by Brooke Singman

A large gathering of pro-Palestinian protestors flooded the Williamsburg Bridge's roadways on Monday afternoon, as the Israel-Hamas war continues in the Middle East.

The demonstrators shouted phrases such as, "New York did nada, long live the intifada," and, "Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terror state," according to FOX 5 New York.

The group of protestors, which appeared to contain hundreds of people, began at 2:30 p.m., FOX 5 reported.

Protestors were also seen carrying a banner with the Arabic word intifada written, which means "uprising."

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., responded to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and other hard-left figures on Monday after she seemed unable to explain why there was a hesitation among some progressives to condemn Hamas' sexual violence against Israeli women. 

CNN's Dana Bash asked Torres why it was so difficult for progressives to "unequivocally call out the barbaric sexual violence against Israeli women.""Look, there’s often been a double standard against Israel when it comes to condemning the sheer butchery and barbarism of Hamas," Torres said.

"Public officials have a moral obligation to speak with clarity rather than caveats. And I found it deeply troubling, for example, that the UN Women, the so-called women’s rights arm of the United Nations, went 50 days without commenting on or condemning the sexual atrocities that Hamas perpetrated against Israeli women. For me, this is not about politics. This is about decency. It is indecent to deny or downplay or ‘both sides’ the rape and sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7."

Read the full article on Richie Torres by Hanna Panreck

A doctor treating freed Hamas hostages in Israel says survivors are suffering from an unprecedented level of "extremely severe psychological abuse" endured during captivity. 

"I can tell you that on behalf of all the medical and psychological teams treating those who return, the mental states we encountered have no precedent in medical literature. We feel that we have to rewrite the textbooks of post-trauma," Dr. Renana Eitan told "Sunday Night in America."

Eitan revealed the Tel Aviv Medical Center is actively treating more than 15 former hostages and described their "severe physical and mental abuse."

Read the full article about Hamas hostages by Christopher Lopez

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin did not mince words at the news of an Old Dominion town's art and music festival canceling a Hanukkah menorah lighting.

On Sunday, LoveLight Placemaking, the nonprofit that runs Williamsburg, Virginia's 2nd Sundays Art and Music Festival, canceled a scheduled menorah lighting featuring a local rabbi, citing Israel's war against the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas."

Singling out the Jewish community by canceling this Hanukkah celebration is absurd and antisemitic," Youngkin tweeted on Monday.

Read the full article about Glenn Youngkin by Houston Keene

A school district superintendent in Northern California issued a warning to teachers planning to hold a pro-Palestinian "teach-in" this week, saying the lesson plan is not aligned with the district's teaching protocols.

Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell issued a statement on the matter without specifically calling out the organizers of the planned Wednesday event, FOX San Francisco reported. 

"I want to again make clear that our expectation is that all educators, in every classroom across the District, take seriously their responsibility to adhere to principles of education, and to keep their personal beliefs out of the classroom," Johnson-Trammell said.

Read the full article about Oakland Unified School District by Louis Casiano

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday that the U.S. believes Israel killed 'too many Palestinians' at the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.

"I don't think it is a secret that we think that too many Palestinians were killed in the opening weeks of this conflict," Miller said at a briefing. "We want to see Israel take additional steps to minimize civilian harm. We talked about them when we were in Israel last week."

He added that the U.S. has been "very transparent" with Israel about its opinions on the fatalities, but that he does not believe Israel is purposefully targeting civilians.

"I have I have not seen evidence that they [Israel] are intentionally killing civilians," Miller explained. We believe that far too many civilians have been killed."

"But again, this goes back to the underlying problem of this entire situation, which is that Hamas has embedded itself inside civilians, inside civilian homes, inside mosques, in schools, in churches," he continued. "It is Hamas that is putting these civilians in harm's way."

The U.S. State Department confirmed on Monday that 220 American citizens are still trapped in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas escalates.

Spokesperson Matthew Miller said that over 1,000 American citizens, legal permanent residents and family members of Americans have left Gaza since the war began.

"There are around 750 who are left," he explained. "That includes 220 American citizens. The rest are family members or legal permanent residents."

Miller also said that he could not confirm a report of an American dying in Gaza.

"Unfortunately, if the report is true, it's in northern Gaza where we have just [have] very limited information and very limited communications abilities and very limited ability to investigate or even reach people," he continued. "So it's something that we're still trying to confirm at this point."

An Israeli government spokesman, who went viral for his reaction to a question he was asked about the value of Palestinian versus Israeli lives in the hostage swap with Hamas, spoke with Fox News Digital about the uphill battle Israel has faced from much of the media following the October 7 terrorist attack. 

During an interview on Sky News, interviewer Kay Burley suggested to Eylon Levy that because Israel would get back 50 hostages taken by Hamas last month in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners in the agreed-upon temporary cease-fire deal, it placed less value on Palestinian lives. 

"I was speaking to a hostage negotiator this morning," Burley said. "He made the comparison between the 50 hostages that Hamas promised to release, as opposed to the 150 prisoners that are Palestinians that Israel has said that it will release."

Read the full article about Kay Burley by Kendall Tietz

Actress Gal Gadot called out the silence on Hamas' use of sexual violence on Sunday in a post on social media, arguing that "the world has failed the women of October 7th." 

"We claim we stand against rape, violence against women. We will not let women be victimized and then silenced. We say we believe women, stand with women, speak out for women."

She said the world has failed to call the situation what it is, "an urgent emergency that demands a decisive response." 

Read the full article about Gal Gadot by Hanna Panreck

FIRST ON FOX: More than a dozen state attorneys general signed a letter to media outlets such as the New York Times and Reuters, putting them "on notice" that providing material support to terrorist organizations such as Hamas is illegal, Fox News Digital exclusively learned. 

"We will continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or State laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad. Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law," 14 state attorneys general stated in a letter to the chiefs of CNN, The New York Times, Reuters and The Associated Press on Monday afternoon. 

Republican Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird spearheaded the letter, which detailed concerns that journalists embedded with Hamas may actually have deep connections with the terrorist organization "and may have participated in the October 7 attack." 

Read the full article about Hamas coverage in the media by Emma Colton

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin reportedly told TF1 television on Sunday that the country was "durably under threat from Islamist terrorism" after a prosecutor identified the French 26-year-old born to Iranian parents accused of fatally stabbing a German tourist and injuring two others steps away from the Eiffel Tower in Paris over the weekend. 

At a news conference on Sunday, France's top anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said suspect Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, a French national, recorded a video speaking in Arabic before the attack in which he swore allegiance to the Islamic State group, used a name to introduce himself that referred to the Islamic State in Afghanistan and expressed support for Islamic extremists and jihadists operating in various areas around the world, including in Africa, Iraq, Syria, Egypt's Sinai, Yemen, Iran and Pakistan. 

Ricard said Rajabpour-Miyandoab and three others, including family members and associates, were taken into police custody for questions after the attack. 

Read the full article about Islamic terrorism by Danielle Wallace

Columbia University's administration has shut down a pro-Palestinian student group's planned discussion that aimed to justify Hamas' Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians, Fox News Digital learned Monday. 

A group that calls themselves the "Columbia Social Workers 4 Palestine" was advertising an event to discuss the "Significance of the October 7th Palestinian Counteroffensive." 

What would have been the group’s second so-called "teach-in and discussion" had been advertised to be taking place in a room of the Columbia School of Social Work on Wednesday, according to a flier that circulated on social media. 

Read the full article about Columbia University by Danielle Wallace

As Israeli Defense Forces resumed military operations to eradicate the Hamas terrorist threat last Friday, the Biden administration is inserting itself into Israel’s war planning process, teaching the Israelis – who’ve been fighting for their survival for decades – how to properly prosecute the conflict. 

Washington warfare "experts" – who arguably haven’t secured a single clear military victory since 1945 – insist that Israeli military strategists alter their war plans to make their combat operations more targeted and their strikes more accurate, in order to minimize casualties, especially among civilians. 

The Biden administration’s demands, while noble-sounding, are misguided and unreasonable. Implementing these requirements, at the expense of achieving the main mission of eliminating Hamas and its entire supporting infrastructure, will likely prolong the conflict, ultimately resulting in many more Israeli and Palestinian deaths. Here’s why.

Read the full article about President Biden by Rebekah Koffler

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday that the Biden administration condemns reported sexual violence carried out by Hamas militants against Israeli women and girls and would support a United Nations investigation on the matter.

"We have been briefed extensively on a number of their findings. We don't, of course, have our own independent assessments to make right now," Miller said while describing the U.S. interactions with their Israeli counterparts.

"But we have seen Hamas commit atrocities both on October 7th and since October 7th. And we obviously condemn those atrocities and support Israel's actions to hold Hamas accountable for them," he continued.

The United Nations said last week that it would investigate sexual violence Israel claims Hamas terrorists committed against Israelis during their invasion on Oct. 7.

Miller said the U.S. would "certainly support" a U.N. investigation and "The Israeli government is conducting one and they have our full backing in doing that."