Elie Leshem is deputy editor of The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
The Knesset Finance Committee votes 7-6 against the natural gas deal between the government and a conglomerate of gas companies. The decision, which goes against the wishes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says that the deal should not be treated as a security issue — a measure that would have enabled the prime minister to pass it without paying heed to regulatory concerns.
However, the committee debate was a mere technicality, and its members lack the authority to hold up the deal, which has been a source of ongoing controversy amid claims that the conditions are too favorable to the gas companies. As acting economy minister, Netanyahu will be able to approve the agreement now that the vote has taken place, even if it is not declared a security issue.
According to Israeli media, a father of one of the suspects in the killing of three members of a Palestinian family earlier this year attacks presidents Reuven Rivlin and Barack Obama in a vicious Facebook post.
“I didn’t see a kippa on the head of the Fuhrer Reuven Rivlin as he was lighting candles at the Arab’s place in the black house, and I’m convinced that he didn’t utter the blessings for lighting [the candles],” wrote the man, whose son has been held by the Shin Bet in recent weeks over his suspected involvement in the fatal firebombing in the Palestinian village of Duma in the West Bank in July.
US President Barack Obama helps Israeli President Reuven Rivlin light the menorah during a Hanukkah reception at the White House in Washington, DC, December 9, 2015. (Photo by AFP Photo/Jim Watson)
Rivlin lit Hanukkah candles with Obama at the White House last week. Pictures of the event showed that he was wearing a kippa.
“But even if he did wear a kippa and uttered the blessings,” the suspect’s father continued, it was the greatest act of malicious hypocrisy “in the history of the Jewish people, to my mind.”
Right-wing activists have been critical of security forces for their methods of interrogating the suspects in the attack — whose identities, along with other details of the case, have yet to be cleared for publication — who have been denied the right to an attorney at their interrogation sessions.
Israel welcomes the Turkish president’s overtures and talk of normalization earlier today.
“Israel has always sought stable relations with Turkey and is constantly looking for ways how to get there,” the Foreign Ministry’s director-general, Dore Gold, says.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan had told journalists that “normalization with Israel” is possible if the sides can reach a compensation deal for the victims of an Israeli naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed 10 Turkish citizens in 2010, and if Israel lifts a blockade against Palestinians.
— Raphael Ahren and agencies
Early reports are coming in of a car-ramming and stabbing attack near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem.
Several people are wounded — reports at the moment are saying the number is 4 — and the attacker has been “neutralized.”
Police confirm that there was a car-ramming attack near the Chords Bridge in Jerusalem.
Up to nine people are injured, Israel Radio reports — one of them in serious condition and the rest lightly hurt.
The attacker was shot.
Reports say the vehicle used in the suspected attack was a white Mazda.
The attacker plowed into a bus station next to the bridge, reports say.
The Magen David Adom first-aid service confirms that one victim of the attack is in serious condition.
The driver of the car, who was shot by a civilian at the scene, is also in serious condition, reports say.
Here are several pictures from the scene in the aftermath of the attack:
תמןנות מפיגוע הדריסה בגשר המייתרים בירושלים pic.twitter.com/AXXxBYAgGk
— שי ויספיש (@shai0527) December 14, 2015
The suspected attacker, who was shot shortly after ramming into people at the bus stop, has died, reports say.
He was reportedly a resident of East Jerusalem.
All of the wounded in the apparent attack have been evacuated to hospitals in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reports. One of the wounded, who is in serious condition, is reportedly a toddler.
Meanwhile, footage from the scene shows that a water main was damaged during the apparent attack and burst, spurting water dozens of feet into the air.
@LiSteinitz pic.twitter.com/uGIVe3MoFW
— li-at steinitz (@LiSteinitz) December 14, 2015
The perpetrator of the attack was from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat.
The man, who was shot dead at the scene, possessed an Israeli identity card, Arab reports say.
Police uncover an ax inside the car that was used to ram into pedestrians at a bus stop in Jerusalem.
They suspect that the apparent attacker intended to exit the car with it and attack Israelis after his car came to a stop.
המחבל בפיגוע הדריסה סמוך לגשר המיתרים חוסל. ברכבו נמצא גרזן שעמד לשמש אותו כדי לתקוף ישראלים. (צילום: דוברות המשטרה) pic.twitter.com/GWvcfsvGmz
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) December 14, 2015
Magen David Adom says that, in all, 11 people were injured in the attack, two of them moderately and the others lightly.
The attack took place only several hundred meters from MDA’s Jerusalem headquarters.
MDA paramedics sent all of the injured to hospitals in Jerusalem.
Six people were sent to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, including two people in moderate condition — an approximately 65-year-old woman and an 18-month-old baby — who had injuries to their limbs, and four who were lightly wounded.
Five additional people, who were lightly injured in the attack, were sent to Hadassah Ein Kerem for further treatment.
— Judah Ari Gross
Police say the attacker in the car-ramming attack was from Beit Hanina in northeastern Jerusalem, and that he was approximately 21 years old.
Earlier reports had said he was from nearby Shuafat.
The Israel Police issues a statement about the attack:
When the Arab assailant arrived at the bus station on Herzl Boulevard, he drove up on the sidewalk and plowed into the civilians waiting there.
A member of the security forces, a security guard and an armed civilian who saw the attack take place quickly and accurately shot the attacker before he was able to get out of his car and approach the civilians.
Within the vehicle, next to the terrorist, Jerusalem Police officers found an ax.
— Judah Ari Gross
Police say the attacker’s name was Abed el-Muhsen Hassuna.
They earlier said he was from Beit Hanina in northeastern Jerusalem.
Moshe Aichel, the first medic at the scene of the attack, relates:
I was standing on the other side of the highway when I heard gunshots. Immediately, I crossed the street toward the location of the incident. I saw a vehicle on the sidewalk, next to the bus stop. Inside the stop and just next to it, there were a number of people lying on the ground, bleeding from wounds on their arms and legs. I reported to the Magen David Adom call center on the incident and together with the large group of MDA medics who arrived at the scene, we administered medical treatment to the victims and sent them to Jerusalem hospitals.
— Judah Ari Gross
Video from the aftermath of the attack shows emergency medical personnel milling about and tending to wounded as water continues to gush out of a busted fire hydrant:
A doctor speaking to Channel 2 at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center says that doctors are trying to save the foot of the toddler who was hurt in the attack.
He says that there is a small chance to save the foot, and that the baby, who is about 18 months old, is going into surgery.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says that the recent “outburst” of violence — unlike Hamas, he doesn’t call it an “intifada” — is due to “depression” that has consumed Palestinian youth as a result of the seeming unattainability of the two-state solution, Israel’s actions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, and ongoing construction in West Bank settlements.
Addressing a rally in Ramallah to mark the PA’s Anti-Corruption Day, Abbas says a justified popular uprising has begun. He says the youth feel hopeless and can’t find a solution, so they go and riot in the streets.
Abbas claims that Israel has broken all of its agreements with the PA and lists indignities of the occupation as well as such crimes as the killings by Jewish extremists of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir in 2014 and three members of the Dawabsha family in Duma last summer.
A French nursery school teacher was attacked Monday by a man wielding a box cutter and scissors, citing a “warning” from the Islamic State jihadist group, sources in the police and prosecutor’s office say.
The assault comes after IS in November urged its followers to kill teachers in the French education system for teaching secularism and being “in open war against the Muslim family.”
The 45-year-old man was stabbed in the side and throat while preparing for his class at a school in Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris, but his life was not in danger, a police source said.
The attacker was dressed in overalls and a balaclava and arrived without a weapon but grabbed what appeared to be a box cutter that was lying in the classroom as well as a pair of scissors.
According to local prosecutors the man shouted: “This is Daesh. This is a warning.” Daesh is another name for IS.
The attacker fled after stabbing the teacher and the probe has been taken over by anti-terrorism investigators.
— AFP
The father of the toddler who is in danger of losing his foot in the wake of the attack speaks to Channel 2 at the hospital.
Binyamin Sitbon talks to the media from Shaare Zedek Hospital after his 15-month-old son was wounded in a December 14, 2015 terror attack at the entrance to Jerusalem (screen capture: Channel 2)
“His condition is more or less good,” he tells a reporter. “He’ll be okay, God willing.”
The father, Binyamin Sitbon, says his son’s foot was “caught,” apparently under the attack’s car, and “collapsed completely.”
He adds that he wasn’t present at the scene of the attack and was informed by his sister-in-law.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises security and medical forces for their response in the wake of the attack in Jerusalem.
“Their swift action saved lives,” he says at a Knesset faction meeting of his Likud party.
“We’re facing a new kind of terrorism,” carried out by “individual” attackers, Netanyahu continues.
“We’re acting to fight this terror and I have no doubt that we will prevail over it,” he says.
A picture circulating on social media appears to show an Israeli man shooting the Arab terrorist who carried out the car-ramming attack in Jerusalem.
Police say the attacker intended to exit the car and attack Israelis with an ax, when he was shot dead by an armed civilian and two others.
רגע חיסול המחבל מפיגוע הדריסה בירושלים כל הפרטים >> https://t.co/YmsoHvi6A3 צילום: עד ראייה pic.twitter.com/yEUMuZkrIH
— חדשות 2 (@Channel2News) December 14, 2015
A profile of John Kerry in The New Yorker touches on the relationship between the US secretary of state and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is often described as Kerry’s friend.
The piece, written by the magazine’s editor in chief, David Remnick, quotes “American officials” who describe Netanyahu as “myopic, entitled, untrustworthy, routinely disrespectful toward the president, and focused solely on short-term political tactics to keep his right-wing constituency in line.”
The piece goes on to describe the “sources of Kerry’s exasperation with Netanyahu.” Quoting State Department aides, it says these “range from the injustice of settlement building in the West Bank to the way he employs Yitzhak Molcho, his lawyer and confidant, to stifle even the most inconsequential negotiation.”
John Kerry, left, and Benjamin Netanyahu meet in Jerusalem on November 24, 2015. (Alex Kolomoisky/POOL)
Remnick quotes Kerry as saying that, in 2010, Netanyahu balked at plans to revive the peace process between Israel and Syria, despite assurances from President Bashar Assad that “he was ready to make a deal.”
Kerry said he even had a letter that Assad “wrote and signed proposing a structure by which he was willing to recognize Israel, have an embassy there, make peace, deal with the Golan, et cetera.”
But Netanyahu, he told Remnick, was unwilling to move forward with talks: “Bibi came to Washington, and one of the first things out of his mouth in the Oval Office was ‘I can’t do this. I’m not going to — I just can’t.'”
Latest reports say 14 people have been listed as wounded in the Jerusalem attack, up from 11.
The condition of the baby who was injured in the foot is now being described as “serious” rather than “moderate,” although his wound hasn’t changed.
He is being moved from Shaare Zedek Medical Center to the Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem in an effort to save his foot.
“In order to exhaust all possibilities for saving the baby’s foot, we sent the baby to [Hadassah] for a form of surgery called ‘micro-surgery,'” Shoham Rubio, Shaare Zedek’s spokeswoman, says.
— Judah Ari Gross contributed
A French prosecutor says a man who claimed earlier today that he was attacked as a “warning” from the Islamic State group invented the story.
The man, a nursery school teacher, had said he was attacked by a man wielding a box cutter and scissors.
— AFP contributed
Three Israelis are lightly wounded when their car is pelted by rocks near the settlement of Beit Arye in the northern West Bank.
The three are administered preliminary treatment by Magen David Adom emergency personnel at the scene and then evacuated for further care.
The public security minister sides with a police sapper who shot to death a teenage Palestinian attacker at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market last month after she was already on the ground.
Gilad Erdan says he “laments” the announcement yesterday by the Police Investigation Unit that it had interrogated the cop on suspicion that he fired at the Palestinian girl after she no longer posed a threat.
The investigation was opened following a decision by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, on the advice of the state prosecutor.
In a statement, Erdan says he “can’t comprehend why security forces are constantly judged on decisions made in a split second at the scene of a terror attack, as if it’s a laboratory and one can instantly know what additional weapons or explosives are on the terrorists’ person, and if they are truly worn out or rather are still capable of stabbing someone who approaches them.”
The interrogation of the officer marked the first time in the recent wave of terror attacks that someone has been investigated for shooting at a suspect during an attack. Over the last two months, dozens of Palestinians have been killed while carrying out attacks against security forces and civilians.
“I respect the Police Investigation Unit’s authority,” Erdan continues, “but I hope the investigation will be concluded soon and the case will be closed, because we have to support the security forces who save lives time and again.”
Here is footage from the incident in question, which saw two teenage Palestinian cousins attacking passersby in Jerusalem before they were subdued (one was killed and the other wounded) by the sapper and another man:
— Times of Israel staff contributed
US President Barack Obama delivers a statement about his strategy for defeating the Islamic State group.
You can watch it here:
Obama says the Islamic State has been suffering significant blows amid the ongoing international military effort against it, including losing “40 percent of populated area it controlled in Iraq.”
Obama says the US has been hitting the Islamic State group “harder than ever.”
He goes on to list IS higher-ups who have recently been killed by coalition forces in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, and goes on to threaten the group’s top brass directly.
“Our message to ISIL leaders is clear,” he says, using one of the acronyms for the group. “You are next.”
Obama says the US strategy of hunting down Islamic State leaders, training forces and stopping the group’s financing and propaganda is progressing.
The president makes the remarks after meeting with his national security team at the Pentagon. The rare meeting outside the White House is part of a public relations drive to ease Americans’ worries about domestic terrorism ahead of the holidays.
Obama is making the case for his broad counterterrorism strategy, including his ongoing campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
— AP
A baby who was seriously injured in the car-ramming attack earlier today has come out of surgery.
There’s no initial word as to whether the microsurgery, which was aimed at saving the baby’s leg, was successful.
Soldiers killed hundreds of Shiite Muslims this weekend after their group opened fire on the convoy of Nigeria’s army chief, the Shia Islamic Movement and military reports say. Other reports put the number of dead at about 20.
Shiite leader Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenah Ibrahim, are in military custody, Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state tells The Associated Press. The movement had earlier reported that Zakzaky’s wife was among the dead from the military raids in northern Zaria town, along with two of their sons and Zakzaky’s deputy.
“They were arrested alive and are receiving medical attention,” El-Rufai says in an email message that implied the couple may have been wounded.
Zeenah Ibrahim called AP early Sunday to report that soldiers were besieging her home in a “pre-planned attack to assassinate the sheikh.” She said hundreds of Zakzaky’s followers surrounded the house to protect the leader.
— AP
The attorney for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in exchange for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay, says the soldier’s case has been referred for trial by a general court-martial.
Attorney Eugene Fidell says the convening authority did not follow the advice of the preliminary hearing officer who had recommended that Bergdahl’s case be moved only to a special misdemeanor-level military court. Fidell says in a statement that he had hoped the case would not go in this direction.
Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was held by the Taliban for nearly five years after he walked off his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009.
He was charged in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
— AP
The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, tells the UN secretary-general that today’s car-ramming attack in Jerusalem was a result of Palestinian “incitement.”
“Such horrendous acts of terror are a direct result of the malicious incitement and violent rhetoric coming from the highest levels of leadership of the Palestinian Authority,” he says in a letter to Ban Ki-moon, according to a statement from Israel’s UN mission.
Danon continues, “On December 5th, Saeb Erekat, a senior PA official and a top aide to [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas, paid his condolences to the family of a Palestinian terrorist, a member of the Palestinian security services who shot an Israeli soldier and a civilian bystander… When the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator in the peace process visits the home of a known terrorist and advocates violence, it is no wonder that Israel’s repeated calls to the Palestinians for a resumption of the peace talks fall on deaf ears.”
According to the statement, Danon called on Ban to “condemn the constant incitement by the Palestinian Authority and the ongoing wave of terror attacks, and to call on the Palestinian Authority to put an end to this culture of hate once and for all.”
Channel 2 reports that a former senior staffer of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was grilled by police under caution today “for a variety of offenses” before being released.
The report, which named neither the man nor the suspicions against him, says he was employed by the prime minister until about a year ago, at which point he began to work for the elections campaign of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
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