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The pipes of a medieval organ, buried for centuries and discovered near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, are once more filling a Jerusalem monastery with ancient melodies.”This is a window into the past… we have the opportunity for the first time in modern history of listening to a medieval sound which is a thousand years old,” said David Catalunya, a Spanish researcher who has worked for more than five years to bring the 11th-century instrument back to life.”And it’s not through a recreation or a hypothetical reconstruction, but it’s really the original sound: the same vibration that the Crusaders heard at the Nativity Church,” he told AFP.Dating nearly as far back as the invention of the instrument itself, it was discovered in 1906 at the Biblical birthplace of Jesus Christ.Catalunya pulls on small tabs to play the organ — which he fondly refers to as a “miracle” — expelling a formidable ringing from the otherwise modest wooden instrument.Currently housed in the Monastery of Saint Saviour in Jerusalem’s Old City, the instrument is set to be displayed in a museum of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.”It’s like finding a living dinosaur, because it’s something we knew existed but we only know from fossils, so there’s very limited evidence,” said Alvaro Torrente, a musicologist who participated in the restoration project.”This is not a fossil, this is the real object and the real sound,” he told AFP.- Chance discovery -It was discovered “almost by chance”, according to Father Eugenio Alliata, a Franciscan archaeologist attached to the mission in charge of several holy sites, including the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.During construction of a pilgrim hostel, a set of 222 copper pipes and a bell carillon were unearthed near the site.It was seemingly buried with “utmost care”, according to Catalunya, meaning researchers were able to reconstruct the instrument with painstaking care.Koos van de Linde, one of the world’s leading organ specialists who also consulted on the project, said that “the hope the Crusaders who buried these pieces had, that one day they would resound again, was not in vain.”It was an immense honour to witness and participate in their resurrection,” he continued.To the experts, the instrument is unique not just for its complexity — 18 pipes producing a single note — or what Catalunya says is an “incredible state of preservation”, but also its antiquity.While the oldest organs studied by historians are from the 15th century, this one was built in the 11th century in France before being transported to Bethlehem by Crusaders in the 12th century, Catalunya said.”The Christians of Europe brought to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem the most avant-garde musical instrument used at the time in liturgy: the organ, an instrument designed to become the emblem of sacred music,” Torrente told AFP.He hopes the discovery will spark more interest in what the research team simply calls the “Bethlehem organ”, which Torrente says has not yet sung all its tunes.

A documentary about an Israeli ex-soldier’s efforts to rescue his family from the October 7 Hamas attacks premiered under heavy police presence on Wednesday, after initially being cut from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) lineup. Groups supporting Israel and the Palestinians faced off outside the venue before the screening of “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which charts how retired Israeli general Noam Tibon saved his family and others during the 2023 Hamas attack.There were no reported incidents of violence during the protests.  The Canadian-produced film drew significant attention ahead of TIFF, after it was briefly withdrawn from the festival. Organizers cited a lack of “legal clearance” for certain footage used, triggering protests from more than 1,000 entertainment industry figures including Amy Schumer and Debra Messing, who signed a petition accusing TIFF of silencing Jewish voices. TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey denied reports that director Barry Avrich was asked to secure rights to use actual Hamas bodycam footage of the attacks.”At no point did we ask the filmmakers to seek approval or clearance from Hamas, a terrorist organization,” Bailey told the Globe and Mail newspaper this week. “That is, of course, something that we wouldn’t do.”Before introducing the film on Wednesday, Bailey conceded TIFF mishandled the film’s submission process. “I want to apologize, especially to the Jewish community, for mistakes I made in the lead up to this day,” he told a packed 2,000-seat venue in downtown Toronto. – ‘Flag of a family’ -The film recounts Tibon’s journey from Tel Aviv to Nahal Oz, a kibbutz on the border with Gaza, where his son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters were hiding in a safe room after Hamas fighters entered the community. Avrich said he was drawn to the story as a father, and that it does not have a political message. “This film is wrapped in the flag of a family,” he told the premiere audience. Protesting outside the venue, Palestinian-Canadian Bassem Ramli told AFP he was not objecting to the contents of the film specifically, but opposed TIFF’s decision to allow the former Israeli army general on its red carpet.  “This person does not deserve to be celebrated as a hero, let alone at this time,” the 39-year-old said. “Would it be OK to have, say, a senior Russian general being right now celebrated as a hero? I don’t think this is something that would be really accepted,” he added. Waving an Israeli flag outside the theatre, Jeffrey Raphael teared up when asked about the anger surrounding the film. “I understand there is perspective from Palestinians in the film festival, so why can’t we hear other perspectives?” the 55-year-old said. The Hamas attacks resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,656 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.During the post-premiere Q&A, when the moderator mentioned the Palestinian toll from the Israeli offensive, substantial numbers of the apparently pro-Israeli audience booed and jeered. 

The S&P 500 rose to a fresh record Wednesday behind a surge in Oracle shares as markets looked ahead to key consumer pricing data expected to influence US interest rate decisions.The Federal Reserve has been widely expected to cut interest rates at its meeting next week, but there is debate about whether the central bank …

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Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov arrived in Israel on Monday, a day after she was released more than two years after her kidnapping in Baghdad.Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the release of Tsurkov, who had been held hostage since March 2023.”Elizabeth Tsurkov, who had been held hostage in Iraq and was released last night, has landed in Israel,” said a joint statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the Mossad intelligence service.The statement added that she had transited through Cyprus, while Israeli media said she would be taken to Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv.While Iraq said “outlaws” kidnapped Tsurkov, Trump announced she was released by the powerful pro-Iran Kataeb Hezbollah group.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Tsurkov “was just released” by Kataeb Hezbollah “after being tortured for many months”, and had arrived at the US embassy in Baghdad.Sabah al-Numan, the military spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said later in a statement that “following extensive and high-level security and intelligence efforts… authorities succeeded, on September 9, in locating and reaching the site of her detention.”Tsurkov was delivered to the US embassy to “facilitate her reunion with her sister, a US citizen,” he added. The former captive’s sister, Emma Tsurkov, thanked Trump, his special envoy Adam Boehler, the US embassy in Baghdad and the non-profit group Global Reach for their roles in securing the release.”My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days,” she posted on social media.Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University and fellow at the Washington-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, went missing in Iraq in March 2023.She had likely entered Iraq on her Russian passport and had travelled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.Her research focused on the Levant, and she worked extensively on Syria during its civil war as well as on Iraq. She speaks English, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic.Numan said Tsurkov was kidnapped by a “group of outlaws” without naming any party, and added that Iraq’s security forces “will continue to pursue all those involved in this crime and ensure they are held accountable.”- ‘Peace through strength’ -In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the release, saying US measures against hostage diplomacy played a key role.”Less than a week after @POTUS (Trump) signed an executive order to strengthen efforts against hostage diplomacy, Princeton student Elizabeth Tsurkov has been released,” Rubio wrote.”This is peace through strength in action,” he added, thanking Iraq’s Sudani for his support.Tsurkov was active on social media, with tens of thousands of followers on X. She describes herself as “passionate about human rights”.In Baghdad, she had focused on pro-Iran factions and the movement of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr as part of her research on the region.She was abducted as she was leaving a cafe in the Iraqi capital’s Karrada neighbourhood, an Iraqi intelligence source told AFP in 2023.Israeli authorities blamed Kataeb Hezbollah for her disappearance, but the group implied that it was not involved.- Kataeb Hezbollah? -In 2023 Kataeb Hezbollah did not claim the abduction, but a source in the group told AFP Tuesday Tsurkov was released to spare Iraq any “conflicts”.She “was released according to conditions, the most important of which was to facilitate the withdrawal of US forces without a fight and to spare Iraq any conflicts or fighting”, the source said.”She was released and not liberated. No military operation was carried out to free her,” the source added.Like other armed groups trained by Iran during the war against the Islamic State group (IS), Kataeb Hezbollah was integrated into the regular security forces as part of the Hashed al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF).However, the faction has developed a reputation for sometimes acting on its own.The group and other Iran-backed Iraqi factions have been calling for the withdrawal of US troops deployed in Iraq at Baghdad’s invitation as part of the anti-IS coalition. US forces in Iraq and neighbouring Syria were repeatedly targeted by Kataeb Hezbollah and other pro-Iran groups following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.They have responded with heavy strikes on Tehran-linked targets, and the attacks have halted.The US and Iraq have announced that the anti-IS coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq in 2025, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region in the country’s north.