This is a day of enormous joy and relief for Emily Hand and her family. An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned, and we breathe a massive sigh of relief. Our prayers have been answered.

We met with Israeli women’s organizations & heard about the work of the Civil Commission for crimes against women & children.
We remain alarmed by gender-based violence reports on 7 Oct & call for rigorous investigation, prioritizing the rights, needs & safety of those affected.

We remain alarmed by gender-based violence reports on 7 Oct & call for rigorous investigation, prioritizing the rights, needs & safety of those affected.

The Maryland attorney general on Tuesday suspended a member of Maryland’s Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention for posting messages on social media that harshly criticized the actions of the Israeli government in the Palestinian territories.

Zainab Chaudry, director of the Maryland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is one of 20 members of the commission, which the state’s top law enforcement officials convened to combat escalating reports of hate crimes. In recent weeks, following a deadly terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas last month and Israel’s retaliatory attacks in Gaza, Chaudry’s scathing social media posts have drawn ire from state officials who see her opinions as extreme and divisive.

The University of Alberta says it has fired the director of its campus sexual assault centre after she signed an open letter calling reports of sexual violence during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel an “unverified accusation.”

University president Bill Flanagan issued a statement Saturday afternoon saying that “effectively immediately” the director of the U of A Sexual Assault Centre “is no longer employed by the university.”

The centre and its director, Samantha Pearson, were listed as signatories to a petition from Ontario MPP Sarah Jama and Victoria Coun. Susan Kim which called on MPs who support a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza to resign in protest.

The letter took particular issue with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who it said “repeated the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence.”

Israel’s military on Sunday released video of what it said was a 55-meter section of a fortified tunnel running 10 meters beneath the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, seeking to bolster its allegations that Hamas has used the largest medical center in the Palestinian enclave as a base for its military operations.

The military released two videos, one of which appeared to have been filmed by a drone and shows parts of a metal spiral staircase. A longer video, which appeared to have been recorded by a robot or a camera carried by an animal, starts out above ground and shows the descent to a cloister-like tunnel with utility cables along one wall that leads to what Israeli officials described as a blastproof door.

The door had a firing hole in it, the military said, adding that such doors are used by Hamas “to block Israeli forces from entering the command centers and the underground assets belonging to Hamas.”

The New York Times verified that both videos were recorded at Al-Shifa Hospital, which Israeli forces stormed last week.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Protesters on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge have blocked all westbound lanes Thursday morning.

No cars are currently able to get into San Francisco. Westbound lanes of the bridge can be seen empty as traffic backs up.

Images show six cars blocking the lanes as the protesters call for a cease-fire in the Middle East.

Protesters were lying down with white sheets over their bodies that say "Stop the genocide."

CNN — The body of a 71-year-old hiker who went missing in August was found in the southern Colorado mountains and his loyal terrier, which had survived in the wilderness, was still at his side, a rescue group said.

Rich Moore embarked with his Jack Russell Terrier, Finney, on August 19 with plans to summit Blackhead Peak – a 12,500-foot elevation peak in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains – and never returned, according to a Facebook post from Taos Search and Rescue.

Moore, who was from nearby Pagosa Springs, was missing for about ten weeks until a hunter stumbled across his remains on October 30, about two and a half miles east of the mountain top, and Finney was there alongside him, according to the volunteer rescue group.

Finney had lost about half of his body weight when he was discovered but appeared to be in relatively good shape, according to Taos member Delinda Vanne-Brightyn, who responded to the initial search for Moore.

“It just brings us all to tears the loyalty of that dog,” she told CNN on Monday.