Thursday afternoon’s news was mostly about local politics, as Yisrael Beytenu, Jewish Home, and Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu revealed more information on their campaigns and lists of Knesset candidates.
In the evening, a terror raid in Belgium erupted into a gunbattle, with reports of explosions, automatic gunfire and multiple dead and wounded. Police closed off several streets in downtown Verviers, an east Belgian town. The death toll in the raid, which was initially reported as three, was later updated to two dead.
The Times of Israel liveblogged events as they unfolded.
A full half of Avigdor Liberman’s list for the next Knesset includes fresh faces.
Some 65 candidates have been appearing before the party committee, which selects the list without holding primaries. The committee is guided by the principle of favoring individuals already affiliated with the party, like Safed Mayor Ilan Shochat or former head of the Likud branch in Kiryat Tivon, Ilan Kadosh.
Liberman will present the final list next week.
Yisrael Beytenu now also boasts a TV personality: Sharon Gal, anchor on Channel 20, was chosen after surveys showed he appeals to the younger generation of right-wing voters. Gal became a media hero for this demographic during last summer’s Gaza war, when he skewered Arab and left-wing interviewees on his Channel 20 show.
Gal is the most prominent outside newcomer on the list.
Sharon Gal. (photo credit: courtesy Radio Tel Aviv)
Yehudit Shilat, who stands a realistic chance of becoming a Knesset member for the Jewish Home party, says “there is no such thing” as same-sex marriage, Haaretz reports.
Last year Shilat said in a radio interview that “legislation for the benefit of homosexuals, that is pushing a gay-lesbian agenda through legislation, creates a public discourse that changes the social climate… and makes gay and lesbian ideas a progressive and legitimate phenomenon.”
Shilat, a Jerusalem resident, is the third woman elected in the Jewish Home primary held on Wednesday. She is currently placed 12th on the party list, in a position reserved for a female MK.
The United Kingdom’s Royal Mint issued a new medal commemorating Holocaust survivors.
Chancellor George Osborne and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, who commissioned the silver medal, said it was vital to keep ‘retelling’ the story of the murder of six million Jews.
The medal shows the words “Liberation 1945” breaking through barbed wires on the back. The front commemorates the 11th Armored Division, which liberated the Belsen camp, and a stylized eternal flame that has come to symbolize the Holocaust victims
See images here.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had committed crimes against humanity comparable to those behind the Paris attacks that left 17 dead.
“Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu, as the head of the government that kills children playing on the beach with the bombardment of Gaza, destroys thousands of homes … and that massacred our citizens on an aid ship in international waters, has committed crimes against humanity,” Davutoglu said.
— AFP
Read full story here.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said up to 700 Turkish nationals have joined the Islamic State jihadist group, sounding the alarm over the risk of attacks inside Turkey if the extremists return home.
“There are around 500-700 Turkish citizens who have joined the ranks of IS,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by Turkish media.
“A common concern about the foreign fighters is: What will happen when they return to their homeland? We have this concern too,” he said as he returned from a trip to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only recognized by Turkey.
— AFP
US Secretary of State John Kerry says Thursday that massacres in two Nigerian towns by the “evil” Islamist group Boko Haram this month constituted a “crime against humanity.”
“What they have done with respect to the slaughter recently is a crime against humanity nothing less,” Kerry tells a news conference during a visit to Bulgaria.
“It’s an enormously horrendous slaughter of innocent people and Boko Haram continues to present a serious threat not just in Nigeria and the region but to all of our values and all of our sense of responsibility regarding terrorism,” he said.
“Boko Haram is without question one of the most evil and threatening terrorist entities on the planet today,” he said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry gives a press conference with the Bulgarian prime minister on January 15, 2015. (photo credit: Rick Wilking/AFP)
— AFP
One of the world’s leading female soccer teams, FFC Turbine Potsdam, will visit Israel on January 18-23 to mark 50 years since the establishment of German-Israeli diplomatic relations.
Turbine Potsdam is a top team in the women’s Bundesliga, the professional soccer league in Germany, and is one of the leading teams in Europe.
B’nai B’rith World Center Trustee and B’nai B’rith Frankfurt Lodge President Ralph Hofmann initiated the visit.
FFC Turbine Potsdam, posing for a team phto. (photo credit: Courtesy, B’nai B’rith)
The list of candidates for Jewish Home as the vote count nears its close on Thursday:
According to the Jewish Home regulations, leader Naftali Bennett can appoint around 20 percent of the candidates regardless of primary results. Polls predict the party is likely to win around 15 seats, placing former Im Tirzu leader Ronen Shoval in a borderline slot regarding his chances of entering the next Knesset.
Journalist Yinon Magal (L) shakes hands with Jewish Home Party leader Naftali Bennett (R) after declaring his intention to join the party, December 27, 2014. (screen capture: YouTube/Naftali Bennett)
PA President Mahmoud Abbas says the elections in Israel will not change anything in the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians and threatens the PA will demand that Israel take over responsibility for a continuation of the status quo in the Palestinian territories.
“The Israelis have given us nothing, not before and not after the elections. We do not trust whoever gets elected to give us anything new. The matter calls for an international decision,” the PA president is quoted by Channel 10 as saying.
This is not the first time Abbas has made such a threat. “If Israel continues this situation we will say: ‘Take back responsibility for this.’ We are a still an occupied state, and the occupier should bear the burden of occupation,” Abbas says during an meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) talks to Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah al-Khaled al-Sabah during a meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on January 15, 2015. (photo credit: Mohamed el-Shahed/AFP)
Israeli short “Aya” will represent Israel at the next Academy Awards.
The 40-minute-long film starts Sarah Adler and Ulrich Thomsen and was produced by Israeli actress Yael Abecassis.
Directed by Oded Bin Nun and Michal Brezis, the film tells the story of two strangers who meet at the airport. The man, played by Ulrich Thomsen, mistakenly thinks the woman (played by Sarah Adler) is his chauffeur, and she decides not to correct him.
Sarah Adler in a scene from Israeli short ‘Aya,’ Israel’s entry in the short film category for the Academy Awards (photo credit: Courtesy, screen capture)
Yael Abecassis, who produced the Israeli short film “Aya,” says “We will return to Israel with the statuette. Israel deserves an Oscar.”
Speaking to Ynet, Abecassis says “Israeli cinema at the Oscars, I am excited and this is amazing. I am now in Paris and we saw the announcement live.”
Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde filed a complaint with Israel Police on Thursday regarding an anonymous email that was sent to senior editors at the paper on Wednesday threatening to bomb the editorial offices of the newspaper in Jerusalem.
The email, directed at Linde, demanded in broken English that a ransom of $2 million in cash be placed in a specific location in Jerusalem or else the threat will be realized.
Police officers, including cybercrime specialists, came to the Jerusalem editorial offices and questioned employees who received the email. Officers deployed around the building as well as around the paper’s offices in Tel Aviv.
The Post featured a reproduction of a Charlie Hebdo caricature on its front page Thursday, and it was unclear whether the threat was related to the publication of the cartoon.
Linde said, “We take threats like this seriously” but “as a pluralistic paper loyal to its readership, we are committed to freedom of expression and to publishing diverse points of view for our readers.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement on Wednesday blasted French weekly Charlie Hebdo’s new cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as “very offensive,” warning it will lead to more “terrorism and extremism.”
“What the French magazine did again is very offensive to the feelings of more than 1.5 billion Muslims across the world, and to all those who follow monotheistic religions,” said Hezbollah in a statement.
“It is an act that contributes directly to supporting terrorism, extremism and fundamentalists,” the Shiite Muslim movement added.
The new issue of the satirical magazine, published on Wednesday, features a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed on its cover holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign under the headline “All is forgiven.”
— AFP
Incoming Supreme Court Chief Justice is sworn in at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem with President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attending. Also at the ceremony are outgoing chief justice Asher Grunis, opposition leader Isaac Herzog, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein, past justices and others.
Naor praised Grunis and said his years as chief justice were years when the court “flourished.”
“As a justice, president Grunis dealt with all matters pertaining to the court and in all matters he penned important verdicts. In his rulings he emphasized the need to act with restraint when examining the constitutionality of Knesset legislation,” says Naor.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Miriam Naor seen with outgoing Deputy Supreme Court President Asher Grunis at a ceremony in Jerusalem, January 15, 2015. (photo credit: Alex Kolomoisky/Flash90)
Fatah published on its Facebook page Thursday an image of Netanyahu photoshopped (badly) to look like he’s wearing a Nazi uniform. In the accompanying Arabic text, the movement claims that “the picture was designed by a Jewish youth!” according to Palestinian Media Watch.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu photoshopped to look like he is wearing a Nazi uniform in an image posted by Fatah on its Facebook page, January 15, 2015. (photo credit: Courtesy PMW)
Moshe Kahlon, head of the new Kulanu party, reveals his top ten for the Knesset and will officially preset the candidates in a press conference in Givat Brenner Thursday night.
Following Kahlon at No. 1, the candidates are
2) Yoav Galant
3) Tsaga Malako
4) Michael Oren
5) Rachel Azaria
6) Eli Alaluf
7) Yifat Shasha-Biton
8) Eli Cohen
9) Roi Volkman
10) Merav Ben Ari
11) Shay Babad
An unidentified man smashed a window at a Jewish library near Marseille and shouted an anti-Semitic threat.
The man took a hammer to a window at the Aleph library in Villeurbanne, near Lyon in eastern France, on Wednesday afternoon, the news website 20minutes.fr reported.
When an attendant rushed to the building’s entrance, the man said, “We’ll get all of you Jews,” before mounting a scooter that was being driven by someone else. The man was wearing a scooter helmet that concealed his face.
Police arrived at the scene approximately four hours after the attack, according to the report.
Meanwhile, in the southern city of Marseille, which is home to France’s second-largest Jewish community, Jewish schools during working hours are under permanent police protection provided by machine-gun toting officers, the Swiss Tribune de Geneve reported Tuesday.
— JTA
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan makes an appearance in the northeastern part of Nigeria, the epicenter of Boko Haram violence, for the first time in two years. The visit seemed to be part of an election campaign.
An AFP reporter at the scene says Jonathan arrived in Maiduguri, the capital of the Borno province and the historic stronghold of Boko Haram, accompanied by Nigerian army Chief of Staff Alex Badeh and escorted by about 200 soldiers.
— AFP
A show scheduled for Friday by Dieudonné, who has been investigated for Facebook comments inciting terrorism and has been convicted of anti-Semitic actions, has been canceled.
The operator of the hall in the city of Metz where Dieudonné was scheduled to appear announced Thursday that the show will not take place.
Dieudonné has been the subject of investigation since Monday when he paraphrased the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag and wrote on Facebook “Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly,” or “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly,” referencing the name of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and also the name of Amedy Coulibaly, one of the terrorists who attacked the editorial offices of the magazine last week.
— AFP
The Rabbinical Court instructs the release of G, a 48-year-old Haredi woman who was arrested at the court’s order on Tuesday and was cuffed to her hospital bed for nearly 48 hours.
G was detained after refusing to sign divorce papers. Her arrest goes against a ruling by a family court.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor says at the UN that “the Palestinians are under the impression that the United Nations is their personal vending machine – they can insert grievances and dispense claims against Israel at will. Ever since the UN voted to accept the Palestinians as a non-member observer state in 2012, the Palestinians have discovered that the UN is the gift that keeps on giving. This institution gives and gives and doesn’t expect anything in return.
“When it comes to making New Year’s resolutions, I can assure you that the Palestinian’s resolution imposing terms for a peace deal was not what we had in mind. I would be hard-pressed to conceive of a more biased proposal. It didn’t address Israel’s long-term security needs. It didn’t demand an end to Palestinian terrorism. And it didn’t recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people,” says Prosor.
A Malian described as a “hero” after he helped hostages at a Jewish supermarket hide during last week’s Paris attacks will be awarded French nationality Tuesday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says.
Lassana Bathily, who has lived in France since 2006 and applied for French nationality in July of last year, is praised for his “bravery” in a statement by Cazeneuve, which also says the 24-year-old Malian’s naturalization will be granted at a ceremony on Tuesday.
— AFP
The purported leader of a militant group that has staged several small attacks over the past year in the Egyptian capital urges holy war, or jihad, calling on the young to join the extremists’ fight.
The call comes in an hour-long interview with a man identified as Magd Eddin al-Masri, who claims to be the leader of Ajnad Misr, or “Egypt’s Soldiers,” a group that surfaced as part of a rising insurgency in Egypt following the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.
The interview by the group’s media arm was posted on social networking sites on Sunday. It is the first public appearance of al-Masri, which is Arabic for “the Egyptian,” and a move apparently aimed at gaining more prominence in the group’s campaign of retribution for the government’s crackdown on Islamists.
— AP
A Kenyan newspaper apologizes for reproducing a caricature of Prophet Muhammad featured in the Paris-based Charlie Hebdo magazine in its first issue since it was attacked by Islamic extremists.
The Star, Kenya’s third largest newspaper, says that many Muslim readers complained about the picture, which was published in Wednesday’s issue.
The Star says it sincerely regrets any offense and pain caused by the picture and will bear Muslim sensibilities in mind in future. Islam generally forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
— AP
The Arab League will examine the possibility of establishing a special intervention force that will comprise contingents from several Arab armies, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby says.
El-Araby says the mechanisms that will enable establishing such a force and the legal aspects should be discussed, Israel Radio reports.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says that despite the PA’s wish to join the International Criminal Court at the Hague, the PA has no intention of pressing charges against Israeli officials if Israel agrees to return to peace talks in the coming weeks.
Abbas makes the comments during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo, according to Lebanese paper Al Akhbar.
The report says Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair had previously voiced to Sisi international concern over the Palestinians turning to the ICC and the repercussions of an Israeli response to such moves.
Hackers have targeted about 19,000 French websites since a rampage by Islamic extremists left 17 dead last week, a top French cyberdefense official says, as the president tries to calm the nation’s inflamed religious tensions.
Calling it an unprecedented surge, Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyberdefense for the French military, says about 19,000 French websites faced cyberattacks in recent days, some carried out by well-known Islamic hacker groups.
— AP
Belgian police launch an anti-terrorism operation in the eastern town of Verviers on Thursday, with reports saying there were three deaths.
“An operation is under way,” a source in the mayor’s office tells AFP without giving further details, while another official says separately that it was “jihadist-related.”
Belgium’s public broadcaster RTBF reports three deaths but there was no immediate confirmation.
— AFP
An anti-terror operation in Belgium left many victims, in the east of the country, according to Belgian media.
“An operation is underway,” several sources close to the Belgian government tell AFP. A public channel reports at least three dead so far; no official confirmation of the toll has yet been given.
The Belgian public prosecutor announces he will hold a press conference presently “on the operation related to terrorism in Verviers.”
On social media, people who witness the unfolding incident speak of police forces deployed near the city center. Some reports seeing police wearing special protective vests, and hearing explosions and shots fired.
Israel’s Channel 2 reports automatic rounds fired in the town.
The scene of the anti-terror raid in the Belgian town of Verviers, in east Belgium, January 15, 2015. (photo credit: Screen capture)
The anti-terror raid in the town of Verviers was directed at three individuals who recently returned from Syria.
Witnesses say police broke into the suspected hideout of the suspects as snipers were watching over them from roofs nearby.
According to Belgian French-speaking paper La Libre, the Belgian government is mulling raising the terror alert level in the country from 2 to 3 (on a scale of 4).
Opinion polls published by Israel’s two nightly news shows put the newly named Zionist Camp — the merged Labor-Hatnua list — slightly ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud with two months to go before the March 17 elections.
Labor party leader Isaac Herzog and Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni at a Labor party event in Shefayim at which the Labor primary results were announced, January 14, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The polls suggest, however, that Isaac Herzog’s left-of-center Zionist Camp and Netanyahu’s right-of-center Likud could each struggle to form a coalition, and that if the figures hold firm, some kind of unity government between them might become a likely option. However, the electorate has proved itself volatile in years past, and the poll findings are likely to keep shifting in the weeks ahead.
Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Tel Aviv, January 1, 2015. (Amir Levy/Flash90)
Channel 10’s findings were as follows: Zionist Camp 24 seats; Likud 20; Jewish Home 16; Arab parties (Ra’am-Taal/Balad and Hadash) 12; Yesh Atid 10; Kulanu 10; United Torah Judaism 7; Shas 6; Meretz 6; Yisrael Beytenu 5; Ha’am Itanu 4.
Channel 2’s poll findings were as follows: Zionist Camp 25 seats; Likud 23; Jewish Home 16; Yesh Atid 11; Kulanu 8; Yisrael Beytenu 7; Shas 7; United Torah Judaism 7; Ra’am-Taal/Balad 6; Meretz 5; Hadash 5.
A witness tells Belgian paper Le Soir: “It was six o’clock, and I was in my car facing the Palais de Justice, I heard two explosions. I stopped. I was alone in the street and I saw two young people 25 or 30 years old of North African descent, dressed in black and running down the road. They were both carrying bags the same color.”
The witness says that when she tried to return to her car she notices police have cordoned off all the streets in the city center.
Belgian media reports that no police were injured in the anti-terror raid.
Residents report gunfire and blasts in Verviers.
“I heard a sort of explosion, followed by several gunshots,” one local tells RTBF. “For the moment, I cannot tell you any more because I don’t dare go out to see what is happening.”
Another local resident says “machine guns were firing for about 10 minutes.”
— AFP
Le Soir reports that Belgian police are conducting an operation in Brussels as well as in Verviers, the scene of Thursday evening’s shootout.
The Verviers suspects were affiliated with Amedy Coulibaly, the Paris kosher supermarket killer.
The suspects were planning to carry out attacks in Brussels as a followup to the attacks in Paris.
New images emerge of the arsenal found in the home of Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed Jews in a Paris kosher market last week.
The arsenal includes AK47 assault rifles, dynamite and tear gas, as well as black ISIS flags, ammunition, and several IDs.
See the images here.
The Shin Bet security agency announces that it arrested seven residents of the Galilee in November and December of last year on suspicion of organizing an Islamic State cell in Israel.
The suspects, from the northern towns of Nazareth, Sakhnin and Dir Hanna, held secretive meetings in which they discussed “Salafi jihadist” ideology akin to that of the Islamic State and prepared to set out to fight in Syria, the Shin Bet says in a statement.
Among other activities, the Shin Bet says that the group trained by preparing Molotov cocktails and slaughtering animals to steel themselves ahead of beheading infidels in Syria.
