Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
A prominent Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for 48 days faces an “immediate risk” of death, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday, urging Israel to allow his family to visit in line with international conventions.
The appeal in the case of Khader Adnan comes as Israel is pushing legislation that would allow force-feeding of detainees. The bill, endorsed by the cabinet last week, is opposed by the Israeli Medical Association, whose president has denounced the practice as a form of torture.
It’s the second marathon hunger strike for Adnan, a 36-year-old senior activist in the militant Islamic Jihad group in the West Bank who has been held by Israel without charges for almost a year. In a previous stint in administrative detention in 2012, Adnan went on a 66-day fast to press for his freedom, sparking weekslong hunger strikes by hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
The Red Cross said Tuesday that he is in critical condition and asked Israel to allow family visits, as guaranteed by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Sivan Weizman of the Prison Authority said Adnan is under medical supervision at an Israeli hospital. She declined comment on his condition. She said three more detainees have begun hunger strikes over the past two weeks.
— AP
A prominent Turkish sculptor risks over four years in prison on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after being locked in a dispute with the Turkish strongman over one of his works.
In March, a court found Erdogan guilty of insulting Mehmet Aksoy for calling the artist’s “Monument of Humanity” — created to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia — a “monstrosity.”
The Ankara court ordered Erdogan to pay Aksoy 10,000 Turkish Liras ($3,750) in damages for insulting the renowned sculptor.
But now, prosecutors are seeking 56 months in prison for Aksoy on the grounds that he insulted the president in a comment on the controversy.
Prosecutors say that Aksoy implied that Erdogan’s earnings were illegitimate, an allegation the sculptor denies.
— AFP
Kurdish fighters and their allies have captured a Syrian military base once held by the Islamic State group, activists and officials said Tuesday, moving within some 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the extremists’ de facto capital.
Taking the Brigade 93 base further squeezes the extremists, especially after they lost a major supply line when the Kurds captured the town of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border last week.
However, even with the aid of US-led airstrikes, battling even closer to the Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa could prove costly for the Kurds and allied rebel factions.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Kurdish activist Mustafa Bali said Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, captured the base Monday night. Both said YPG fighters and their allies later entered parts of the nearby town of Ein Issa, the last major residential area north of Raqqa, which the Islamic State group considers the capital of its self-declared “caliphate” across Syria and Iraq.
Kurdish fighters of the YPG, sit on their pickup in the town of Ein Eissa, north of Raqqa city, Syria, Tuesday, June 23, 2015. (The Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units via AP)
— AP
A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion in the past month finds that the majority of respondents oppose a new armed uprising against Israel, but few have faith in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution.
The survey, conducted by Dr. Nabil Kukali between May 27 and June 15, asked 1,000 Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem a battery of questions.
Asked whether they’d support or oppose the outbreak of a third intifada should peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority fail, 54% opposed, 28.7% voiced support, and 17.2% said they didn’t know. A similar poll conducted in September 2014, after the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, found that 60% of Palestinian respondents supported a return to armed popular uprising, compared to 41% two months prior.
Concerning Netanyahu’s commitment to a “fair and lasting two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” 1.6% said they were confident; 9.9% said they were somewhat confident; 29.2% answered not so confident; 50% said not confident at all; and 9.3% were undecided.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to two incidents on Monday in which Druze residents of the Golan Heights attacked IDF ambulances carrying injured Syrians, killing one.
“I view this with utmost gravity. We will not allow anyone to take the law into their hands,” Netanyahu says at a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv. “We will not allow anyone to hinder IDF soldiers in their mission. We will locate those who perpetrated this lynch and we will deal with them to the fullest extent of the law.”
Netanyahu calls on leaders of the Druze community, “a splendid community with whom we have a brotherly bond, citizens of the State of Israel,” to push for calm and to entreat their coreligionists to “respect the law, respect IDF soldiers and do not take law into your hands.”
It wasn’t clear who perpetrated the lynching, or whether they were citizens of the State of Israel. The vast majority of Syrian Druze living in the Golan Heights do not have Israeli citizenship.
Islamic State group fighters have destroyed two ancient Muslim mausoleums in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, the country’s antiquities director said Tuesday.
Maamoun Abdulkarim said IS jihadists blew up the tombs of Mohammed bin Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin, and Nizar Abu Bahaaeddine, a religious figure from Palmyra, three days ago.
Bin Ali’s burial place is located in a mountainous region four kilometers (almost three miles) north of Palmyra, in central Syria.
Photos published by IS depicted two armed men carrying canisters, apparently filled with explosives, walking up the rocky hill to the site.
Abu Bahaaeddine’s tomb, nestled in a leafy oasis about 500 meters (yards) from Palmyra’s ancient ruins, is said to be more than five centuries old.
IS has destroyed at least 50 mausoleums dating between 100-200 years old in the regions under its control in north and east Syria, the antiquities director said.
“They consider these Islamic mausoleums to be against their beliefs, and they ban all visits to these sites,” Abulkarim said.
Ten days ago, fighters from the jihadist group also destroyed a number of tombstones at a cemetery for Palmyra residents, Abulkarim told AFP.
“All tombs with marble designs were destroyed. For them, graves should not be visible,” he said.
— AFP
The Religious Affairs Ministry announces that it will double its security budget for the Mount of Olives cemetery following a string of incidents in which gravestones were vandalized.
Religious Affairs Minister David Azoulay took a tour of the site Tuesday, Israel Radio reports, and says that even though there are 5,000 plots available at the site, people are concerned about desecration of the graves because of the lack of security.
Former Shin Bet chief and Likud minister Avi Dichter says Israel erred in not cooperating with a UN Human Rights Council probe into last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to the Knesset Channel, he says Israel blew an opportunity to weigh in on the issue.
Israel did not allow UN investigators into the Gaza Strip to investigate claims of war crimes during Operation Protective Edge, nor did it cooperate with their investigation in Israel.
He says that ahead of the arrival of a Gaza blockade-busting flotilla next week, Israel should “take advantage of the present days to show all the photos which back up the IDF’s morality in all conflicts.”
Outgoing British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould hosted an Iftar meal, the traditional breakfast after sundown during Ramadan, for the Israel’s Arab community Monday evening as a farewell event.
Over 100 prominent Arab leaders, including MK Ahmad Tibi, Iksal Mayor Abd il Salam Darawshe and heads of several other Israeli towns, attended the meal in Iksal, south of Nazareth.
“The British Embassy’s Iftar is an opportunity for me to thank the Arab community for their friendship these past five years,” Gould says in a statement. “It is also a chance to celebrate with the Arab community some of the things we have done together over that time. This includes the work the embassy has done to improve planning in Arab towns; serious efforts to build business links between the UK and the Arab community; supporting Arab tech entrepreneurs through the UK Israel Tech Hub; and our support for the Equalizer that brings together Arab and Jewish children together to play football.
“I am happy to have the chance to wish Israel’s Arab citizens Ramadan Kareem.”
Gould ends his five-year appointment as the UK’s envoy in Tel Aviv on Friday.
British Ambassador Matthew Gould attends a farewell Itfar meal in Iksal ahead of leaving his post, with Ahmad Afifi (right) and Imad Younis (center). (UK in Israel/Facebook)
The Islamic State releases a new video in which it executes a number of prisoners in novel, gruesome ways.
The first group of people are locked in a cage, which is submerged in a lake until they drown. The second are placed in a car, which is then hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. The last group has explosives strapped to their neck, which are then detonated.
#Iraq #ISIS #Nineveh 1- #ISIS releases a new video for the execution of a large group of young people in #nineveh pic.twitter.com/5eZGoUVbzK
— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_Sl) June 23, 2015
Syria’s state news agency called on readers to share photos of summertime fun in Syria, but almost too predictably the hashtag #SummerinSyria was quickly hijacked by Twitter users sharing images of civil war atrocities.
Now that #summer is upon us, snap us your moments of summer in #Syria using the hashtag #SummerInSyria pic.twitter.com/sutvUuZUoj
— SANA English (@SANA_English) June 22, 2015
One user poked fun by cropping President Bashar Assad’s face onto the body of Dr. Evil, the villain from the comedy film Austin Powers, saying “Summer in Syria, had me a ‘blast'” alongside a picture of a barrel bomb.
#SummerInSyria pic.twitter.com/29G158sLPI
— Amoola (@amaal_dani) June 23, 2015
More than three million people have been displaced by conflict in Iraq since the start of 2014, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.
The IOM put the number of displaced at 3,087,372, with more than a quarter million of those who most recently fled their homes coming from Ramadi, which the Islamic State jihadist group seized last month.
More than 2.6 million of the total are from Anbar, Nineveh and Salaheddin — three provinces located west and north of Baghdad that have been the hardest hit by fighting between IS and pro-government forces.
IS launched a brutally effective offensive last June that overran the northern city of Mosul and then swept south towards the capital.
Prior to that, anti-government fighters seized all of the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi west of Baghdad, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee.
— AFP
Queen Elizabeth II is leaving Tuesday on a state visit to Germany that will include her first trip to a former concentration camp site.
She and her husband Prince Philip plan to visit the Bergen-Belsen camp where diarist Anne Frank and her sister Margot died just weeks before the British liberated it on April 15, 1945.
She will visit a memorial dedicated to the sisters and meet with aging survivors and liberators of the camp.
“It is fitting the queen should go,” said Bernard Levy, 89, who helped liberate the camp as a young soldier and has been asked by the queen to attend the wreath-laying ceremony.
“Holocaust education is so paramount, and many kids of today don’t really know about it. The queen going there lends credence.”
He said many who saw the horrors at the camp, or suffered as prisoners, tried to put the experience behind them but are now finding that they want to talk about it. He places himself in that category.
“After 70 years there’s been a revival of people who want to say something before they die,” said Levy, speaking on behalf of the Holocaust Educational Trust.
— AP
A Saturday, April 20, 1985 photo from files showing the memorial site of former Nazi concentration camp Bergen Belsen near Celle, Germany. (AP/Heribert Proepper, File)
Polish police say two British teenagers have been detained and questioned on suspicion they stole objects that belonged to the victims of the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp.
Regional police spokesman Mateusz Ciarka said a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old were seen Monday taking objects from the site of the former camp’s warehouses, where the Nazis kept victims’ belongings. Ciarka said Tuesday that part of an old hair-cutting machine, two pieces of reinforced glass from the warehouses and some buttons were found on the teens.
They denied any wrongdoing but were held in police custody overnight, pending questioning by the prosecutors Tuesday.
If convicted of stealing objects of special historic value, they could face up to 10 years in prison. Polish courts have previously handed out suspended prison terms and heavy fines.
— AP
The IDF reportedly sent out a directive instructing army ambulance drivers to avoid the Golan Heights’ four Druze villages, hours before a mob attacked an ambulance and killed a wounded Syrian, Ynet reports.
A Jordanian government spokesperson says Amman doesn’t intend to allow Druze refugees to enter the Hashemite Kingdom should there be massacres of the sect in southern Syria.
“If Jordan can help Syrians in a way which is in line with the humanitarian framework and with our policy concerning Syria, we will help,” Muhammad al-Mumani tells Arabic-language media. “But we won’t intervene in the Syrian issue.”
Mumani’s remarks come after reports of a meeting between King Abdullah of Jordan and Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt about safeguarding Syrian Druze.
Jordan is home to roughly 30,000 Druze.
Following yesterday’s attacks on ambulances carrying Syrian wounded in the Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invites Druze leaders for a meeting at his office in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
“I view this with utmost gravity,” Netanyahu said earlier in the day. “We won’t allow anyone to take the law into their own hands. We will not allow anyone to hinder IDF soldiers in their mission. We will locate those who perpetrated this lynching and we will deal with them to the fullest extent of the law.”
A mob of Druze living in the Golan Heights attacked an IDF ambulance on Monday and killed a wounded Syrian being transported for treatment in Israel.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat tweets a photo of him lighting the Ramadan cannon, used to mark the end of the fast. He wishes Muslim worshipers a Happy Ramadan.
Firing the historic Ramadan cannon in Jerusalem to mark the evening's end of daily fast #RamadanKareem pic.twitter.com/lHgQSccZH5
— Mayor Nir Barkat (@NirBarkat) June 23, 2015
They sound like something out of Q’s laboratory from James Bond. Israel Police arrest seven people on suspicion of selling pens that were modified to fire .22 bullets.
The Israel Police shared a photo of one of the pens on the official Twitter feed and said officers opened an investigation.
http://t.co/6knm2QKS8I
The IDF launches an investigation to find out who leaked to the Golan Druze the arrival of Syrian injured, Channel 10 reports.
The IDF is investigating the possibility that a soldier leaked the information that Syrian wounded were being transported to residents of Majdal Shams.
The mob ambushed the IDF ambulance, blocking the road with ATVs, before attacking the Syrian wounded, Channel 2 reports. One of the injured was killed by the mob, a second more grievously injured, and two IDF soldiers suffered light injuries.
A military court has sentenced an IDF soldier to three years in prison for selling a combat rifle to a gang in the central city of Lod for NIS 54,000.
The sentence was one of the most severe handed down to an active duty soldier in recent years, Ynet reports. The soldier’s punishment was cut to three years as part of a plea deal.
The Israel Police announce that Tel Aviv district police chief Bentzi Sau will take over as interim national police chief when Yochanan Danino steps down in 10 days.
The Obama administration will tell families of Americans held by terror groups that they can communicate with captors and even pay ransom without fear of prosecution — part of a broad review of US hostage guidelines that will be released Wednesday.
President Barack Obama, in a softening of longstanding policy, ordered the review last fall after the deaths of Americans held hostage by Islamic State militants. The families of some of those killed complained about their dealings with the administration, saying they were threatened with criminal prosecution if they pursued paying ransom in exchange for their loved ones’ release.
Two people familiar with the review said there will be no formal change to the law, which explicitly makes it a crime to provide money or other material support to terror organizations. However, the administration will make clear that the Justice Department has never prosecuted anyone for paying ransom and that that will continue to be the case.
— AP
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