Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
President Reuven Rivlin welcome visiting Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and says the shared history of genocide connects the Jewish and Rwandan people.
“We are two nations that understand the horror of genocide, and we must show what humanity can achieve with cooperation and understanding,” Rivlin tells Kagame. “The phrase ‘never again’ is not just a lesson for the Jewish People, it is a lesson for the whole world. We are a member of the family of nations, and we have mutual responsibility to one another.”
The president goes on to thank Kagame for his country’s past support of Israel at the United Nations, and welcomes Rwanda’s upcoming role on the UN Human Rights Council.
“This is a body which is always against Israel,” Rivlin says, “so we welcome all those who are prepared to speak for us.”
Echoing an emphatically pro-Israel speech Kagame delivered at AIPAC earlier this year, Rivlin says that “Israel is, without question, a friend of Rwanda.”
Netanyahu thanks Kagame for his country’s support of Israel in international forums, blasting the UN for “denying history.”
“We see how you stand up for Israel in international forums, and you already expressed a simple principle… which is that bilateral relationships should be reflected in multilateral forums,” he says at the welcoming ceremony held at the President’s Residence.
“There is a dissonance between us and a few other nations still,” Netanyahu says, calling recent measures taken at UNESCO “absurd,” and a “denial of history, of the Bible.”
“These absurdities still take place in international forums, and they cause damage to those forums. They cannot change the truth,” he adds. “My hope is that over time, over a decade, this will change in international forums.”
A UK court rule that British government arms sales to Saudi Arabia are legal, in a case that relied in part on secret evidence.
British group Campaign Against Arms Trade brought the case to the High Court, saying British bombs and fighter jets were being used to fuel violence in Yemen, where a Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels has killed more than 10,000 people since 2015.
Some of the evidence in the case was presented in secret on national security grounds.
Two High Court judges rule that Britain’s international trade secretary acted “rationally” in concluding that there was no “clear risk” of violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition.
Campaign Against Arms Trade says it plans to appeal the judgment.
— AP
Syrian government forces launch an attack on rebels in a southern province on Monday despite a ceasefire, a monitor says, but state media claims the assault was against the Islamic State group.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, says the assault in Sweida province began this morning, almost 24 hours into an internationally brokered ceasefire.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman says the groups under attack have received support from the US-led coalition fighting IS.
He says the regime had captured a string of hilltops and villages in the area. But Syrian state media names those same positions as territory that government forces had captured from IS.
— AFP
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of threatening to cut the Israel Police budget in a bid to have the cops drop the corruption probes against him.
At the weekly faction meeting, Lapid refers to a bill by Likud MK David Amsalem that would see the police budget handled by the Public Security Ministry.
“The timing is not coincidental,” he says, pointing to a series of arrests of Netanyahu confidants on Monday in the so-called submarines affair. “This isn’t a technical decision. This is a threatening letter.”
“There is no chance in the world, no way, that this process [Amsalem’s bill] goes ahead and the prime minister is not behind it. It’s personal,” says Lapid.
He says the government is intimidating the police, “scaring the gatekeepers, scaring the investigators, scaring the entire system.”
At the meeting, Lapid reiterates that Netanyahu ought to cancel his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban over his praise for a Nazi-allied leader. But he says he “won’t defend” George Soros, amid an ad campaign in Hungary seen as anti-Semitic against the Jewish billionaire who is critical of Israel.
He also refers to the Labor party primaries, emphasizing that the next election over who will be prime minister will be between Likud and Yesh Atid.
— Marissa Newman
President Kagame thanks Rivlin and Netanyahu for their hospitality and warm words, and says his country is eager to expand its cooperation with Israel in both the private and public sectors.
“Cooperation between our countries has blossomed in many areas among them technology, agriculture, and energy, as well as security,” Kagame says at a welcoming ceremony at Rivlin’s residence in Jerusalem.
“We appreciate what Israel has to offer in these and other fields, and we are very happy to be working with you,” he says. “Rwanda is open for business and we look forward to welcoming private sector delegations from Israel even more frequently in the future.”
The Rwandan leader goes on to say that following Netanyahu’s visit to Africa last year, Israel has “continued to follow through on its commitments and objective of scaling up engagement across Africa.”
“We are looking forward to reinforcing our cooperation with Israel on common challenges and issues of mutual interest,” Kagame concludes.
Ahead of another visit by US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt to the region, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says he “doubts” a peace deal can be reached directly with the Palestinians.
Rather, he is recommending the US and Israel focus on normalizing ties with moderate Arab states “until there will be no choice for the Palestinians” but to reconcile with Israel as well.
A peace deal needs “a lot of goodwill,” he says at the start of the weekly Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting. He points to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s condemnation of the killing of Palestinian attackers who had killed an Israeli police officer Hadas Malka by Damascus Gate in June and the recent decision by UNESCO to declare the Hebron Tomb of the Patriarchs an “endangered” site, at the Palestinians’ prodding.
“I ask, where is the goodwill?” he says.
“Let’s leave the bilateral route aside,” he says of peace efforts. He urges Israel to “invest all its effort” in normalizing with Arab state, leaving the Palestinians no choice but to follow suit.
Liberman also denies that Israel is negotiating with Hamas for the release of the bodies of two IDF soldiers. But he says unspecified efforts to return the bodies are “unceasing.”
“There is no breakthrough, period,” he says, disputing reports.
— Marissa Newman
The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin says the Kremlin is unaware of a meeting between Donald Trump’s senior staff and a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign where the Russian reportedly said she had information about Hillary Clinton.
US President Donald Trump’s eldest son changed his account of the meeting he had with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign over the weekend, saying yesterday that Natalia Veselnitskaya told him she had information about Clinton. A statement from Donald Trump Jr. one day earlier made no mention of Clinton.
Asked about the reports, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the Kremlin does not know who the lawyer is and added that the Kremlin “cannot keep track” of every Russian lawyer and their meetings in Russia or abroad.
— AP
Iraqi forces are engaged in “heavy” fighting with the Islamic State group as they battle to clear the last jihadist-held pockets in Mosul’s Old City, a senior commander says.
Lieutenant General Sami al-Aridhi, a senior commander in the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, says the jihadist-held territory had been reduced to an area of the Old City of about 200 by 100 meters (yards).
“They do not accept to surrender,” Aridhi tells AFP. “They say in a loud voice: ‘We will not surrender, we want to die.'”
But “operations are in their final stages,” and “it is likely that (the fighting) will end today,” he adds.
Aridhi says his forces had information that there were between 3,000 and 4,000 civilians in the small area still under jihadist control but that could not be independently confirmed.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Mosul yesterday to hail his forces for securing victory in the city but said he was holding off on making a formal announcement of victory until the last IS resistance was eliminated.
— AFP
Education Minister Naftali Bennett says he will oppose releasing Hamas prisoners in exchange for the bodies of two IDF soldiers — Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin — being held by the Gaza terror group.
“The security of the citizens and soldiers of Israel requires us to vote in the cabinet against the release of terrorists for information, for the bodies of soldiers, since we must bring back our boys not with a deal, but with an attack,” says Bennett at the start of the Jewish Home faction meeting. “That is, by increasing the pressure on Hamas in Gaza and on its terrorists in Israeli prisons.”
“The time has come to change the equation and change the holding of the bodies of abducted soldiers from an asset to a burden,” he says. “When they hold the bodies of our soldiers, each day should be more difficult [for Hamas] than the last.”
He says concessions to the terror group will only encourage them to kidnap other soldiers and urges Likud ministers to adopt his position.
— Marissa Newman
Bennett also defends the prime minister on the submarine deal, amid a series of arrests earlier today including of some people said to be Netanyahu’s associates.
“As a cabinet member who supported the submarine deal, I wish to say that to the best of my knowledge, the motives in approving the deal, formulating it, and advancing it, were solely security [-related],” he says at the start of the Jewish Home faction meeting.
“I have no doubt the prime minister acted in accordance with the law, I give him full support and I am convinced, based on the information I have right now, that there was no fault in his behavior,” Bennett adds.
This morning, police detained six people for questioning, including a number of former senior public officials, suspected of corruption in the potentially fraudulent purchase of naval vessels from Germany.
— Marissa Newman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicts a first reading of the contested Jewish nation-state bill will be approved before the Knesset goes on break at the end of the month, downgrading earlier estimates that it would be passed into law by July 30.
He also announces that Russia and Israel will sign a final deal granting pensions to Russian immigrants tomorrow at the Foreign Ministry, resolving a years-old economic crisis for thousands of elderly Israelis.
“This will give a pension to thousands of Israelis who worked in Russia in the past,” he says, noting that he discussed the issue personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At the start of the weekly Likud faction meeting, Netanyahu outlines his recent and future meetings with world leaders, including the Indian prime minister last week in Israel, the Rwandan president who is visiting Israel this week, and planned visits this month to Paris and Budapest — where he will also meet with Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian and Czech leaders.
“Israel is breaking many barriers,” he says.
Netanyahu says world leaders express “admiration” for Israel, specifically for is technology, cybertechnology, high-tech sector, and counterterrorism intelligence.
— Marissa Newman
Two Palestinians are injured in border clashes with Israeli security forces in the northern Gaza Strip, according to reports in Palestinian media.
The Wafa news site says IDF soldiers used tear gas and opened fire at a group of Palestinians who approached the border fence adjacent to Jabaliya.
According to the report, one young man is in critical condition after being struck in the head with a tear gas canister, and another man is being treated for a gunshot injury to his foot.
Intelligence minister Yisrael Katz proposes joining five settlement areas into the Jerusalem municipality, while also removing around 100,000 Palestinians from the city’s census.
Katz says residents of the Jerusalem-area settlements in the West Bank would be able to vote in the city’s municipal elections but the settlements would not be under full Israeli sovereignty.
“Those settlements, those towns — Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, Givat Zeev, Beitar Illit and Efrat — will become part of Jerusalem but without changing their status — without applying Israeli sovereignty to those places,” Katz tells reporters.
Some of the settlements are more than 10 kilometers (six miles) from Jerusalem.
Simultaneously around 100,000 people living in Palestinian neighborhoods outside the Israeli wall surrounding the city would be removed from the city’s census, with a new municipality built for them, Katz says.
The move would make Jerusalem’s official demographic balance significantly more Jewish.
Katz says the bill would be discussed this week by the cabinet, but did not as yet have the full support of Netanyahu.
— AFP
Firefighters are working to put out a brush fire adjacent to Route 44 at the Beit Dagan junction outside Rishon Lezion, a police spokesman says.
Route 44’s eastbound lanes have been closed to traffic, and police are urging drivers to use alternative routes.
[mappress mapid=”6239″]
A cholera outbreak in Yemen has now surpassed 300,000 suspected cases, the Red Cross says as the war-torn country reels from disease as well as the threat of famine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the cholera epidemic “continues to spiral out of control” since it erupted in April.
“Today, over 300,000 people are suspected to be ill. More than 1,600 have died,” it says in a Twitter post.
ICRC regional director Robert Mardini says about 7,000 new cholera cases were being recorded daily in the capital Sanaa and three other areas.
#Yemen's cholera epidemic continues to spiral out of control. Today, over 300,000 people are suspected to be ill. More than 1,600 have died. pic.twitter.com/YFiaNyujlk
— ICRC (@ICRC) July 10, 2017
The collapse of Yemen’s infrastructure after more than two years of war between the Saudi-backed government and Shiite rebels who control Sanaa has made for a “perfect storm for cholera,” according to the World Health Organization.
— AFP
Egyptian police killed six militants who allegedly adhered to the Islamic State group’s beliefs when a gunfight erupted during a raid on their Nile valley hideout, the government says.
The militants opened fire on the police earlier today as they approached the hideout in Dairut, a town in the southern province of Assiut, the interior ministry says in a statement on its Facebook page.
The police were acting on intelligence that “a group of terrorists who adhere to the beliefs of the Islamic State group were hiding in a residential apartment in uninhabited buildings”, it says.
When the six militants opened fire, the police shot back and killed them.
The militants were using the hideout as “an organisational base and to prepare to carry out a series of terrorist operations within the southern provinces,” the ministry says.
The police found a bomb, five automatic weapons, ammunition, military uniforms, and “educational publications containing the concepts and slogans of the (IS) group,” it adds.
— AFP
For the second day in a row, a fire breaks out on a military base in Nahal Sorek, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Today’s fire is smaller than yesterday’s and the firefighting teams working in the area have the blaze under control and should have it out shortly, according to a fire department spokesperson.
The spokesperson, Yoram Levy, says the fire department is looking into the possibility that both today’s and yesterday’s fires were started by arsonists, as they originated from multiple sources around the same time.
However, he stresses that the investigations have only just begun and it is too soon to be certain.
Four airplanes and 12 firefighting teams were used in today’s fire, as compared to the six planes and 18 teams called in to tackle yesterday’s blaze.
The large army base is home to the IDF’s Ammunition Center, which stores and maintains the military’s weaponry, including everything from simple bullets to advanced missiles.
The munitions do not appear to be at risk from the fire.
— Judah Ari Gross
The Israeli man who was arrested last week in Thailand for weapons possession and operating a visitors center illegally has reportedly been hospitalized in Koh Samui for unknown reasons.
According to a local Chabad rabbi, Nati Hadad was taken to a government hospital on the island after being “injured in his cell,” reports in Hebrew-language media said.
His family members are preparing to fly to Thailand to visit Hadad.
Israeli Consul to Thailand Orit Shani is reportedly looking into the incident.
US President Donald Trump’s eldest son is appearing to acknowledge that he took a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign to hear information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump Jr. says on Twitter that the meeting “went nowhere but had to listen.” He also downplayed the Trump Tower meeting, noting in a tongue-in-cheek fashion that it’s common for members of campaigns to seek damaging information about opposing candidates.
Trump Jr.’s tweet is the latest shift in his explanation of the meeting first reported by The New York Times. Trump Jr. initially said the meeting focused on a disbanded Russian adoption program. A day later, he acknowledged he took the meeting because he was told the attorney might have information “helpful” to the Trump campaign.
— AP
Authorities nab two antiquities thieves in the West Bank attempting to make off with artifacts dating back to the Byzantine era.
The Palestinian suspects are arrested between the West Bank city of Bethlehem and the settlement of Tekoa, with three columns from a nearby Byzantine church inscribed with pseudo-Greek text in the back of their work truck.
The Civil Administration’s archaeological unit says an investigation into the incident has been opened.
A music publicist says he set up a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump’s eldest son, on behalf of a client in Moscow named Emin Agalarov.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Rob Goldstone says the lawyer said she had information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee that she thought Donald Trump Jr. might find helpful.
Goldstone says Trump Jr. agreed to squeeze the meeting into a tight schedule.
Trump appeared in a music video with Agalarov in 2013. The video was filmed while Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant.
— AP
An IDF soldier was detained by Military Police after he shot up an empty car belonging to an officer from his base in central Israel, the army says.
As the car was empty, there were no injuries, but damage was caused to the vehicle and two others that were next to it.
הרכב שנורה ע"י חייל צה"ל, השייך לקצין בבסיס ממרכז הארץ @OrHeller pic.twitter.com/JqFmhhwxKi
— חדשות 10 (@news10) July 10, 2017
The army says the incident is still being investigated by Military Police, but that it appears as though the soldier shot the cars intentionally, not as a result of a weapon malfunction.
The IDF would not specify in what unit the soldier served or on what base the incident occurred, other than to say that it was “a base in the center of the country.”
— Judah Ari Gross
Iraq’s prime minister returns to Mosul and declares “total victory” in the fight against the Islamic State group there, though some fighting is expected to continue.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has congratulated Iraqi troops on their “victory” on previous occasions despite ongoing clashes. The latest announcement came in a statement posted on Twitter.
Hours earlier, reporters from The Associated Press saw heavy fighting still underway. It was not immediately clear if the clashes had ended.
US-backed Iraqi forces launched a massive operation to retake Mosul in October, and in recent days, they had confined the remaining few hundred militants in an area measuring less than a square kilometer (about a third of a square mile).
Al-Abadi visited Mosul on Sunday to congratulate the troops, even as fighting still raged nearby.
— AP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly be summoned by police to testify in the corruption investigation into a multi-billion dollar arms sale.
According to Channel 2, investigators from the 433 anti-fraud unit are expected to question the prime minister whether he knew of the corruption allegations against Avirel Bar-Yosef when he named him deputy head of the National Security Council in 2016.
Bar-Yosef’s candidacy was later withdrawn when it emerged that he was suspected of accepting bribes in exchange for promoting the interests of German businessmen involved in the development of Israel’s offshore gas fields.
Netanyahu is not a suspect in the case.
The loss of Mosul is a “decisive blow” against the Islamic State group, but does not mark the end of the war against the jihadists, the US-led coalition says.
“This victory alone does not eliminate (IS) and there is still a tough fight ahead. But the loss of one of its twin capitals and a jewel of their so-called caliphate is a decisive blow,” Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the US-led operation against IS, says in a statement.
— AFP
Polls close in the Labor Party’s leadership primary.
Turnout stands at 57 percent, with 29,743 casting votes out of 52,505 eligible party members.
Results are expected after 10 p.m.
Initial results from Labor primary say Avi Gabbay is the new party leader.
According to the party, the former Kulanu minister beats veteran lawmaker and former Labor leader Amir Peretz with 16,080 to 14,734.
The IDF General Staff visited the F-35 stealth fighter jet squadron in the Nevatim air base in southern Israel today, the army says.
The inspection of the F-35 fighter jet, known in the IDF as the Adir, came after a trip to the “Aleh Negev — Nahalat Eran” rehabilitation center in the Negev desert, which is run by retired IDF general Doron Almog.
During the visit, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said: “The General Staff started the morning with a visit to the Aleh Negev rehabilitation village, meeting volunteers, workers and handicapped residents, and ended the trip with a visit to the Adir squadron, which is operationally at the cutting edge of the Israel Defense Forces — this shows the power of the IDF and its status as a people’s army.”
— Judah Ari Gross
Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni welcomes the election of Avi Gabbay as the new chairman of the Labor Party, expressing hope he will “inspire a renewed and genuine hope for replacing this government and offering Israel and its citizens a different, better path.”
Ousted Labor head Isaac Herzog congratulates Avi Gabbay on his “impressive victory” in the party’s leadership race.
In a tweet, Herzog says he will “stand by him in order to strengthen the Labor party and replace this government.”
Former prime minister Ehud Barak says the election of Avi Gabbay as the new Labor leader is evidence of “a revolution” within the party.
“Members wanted victory,” he says in a tweet. “Bibi is sweating, and rightfully so.”
Zionist Union MK Stav Shaffir congratulates Avi Gabbay for winning the Labor party’s leadership vote in a major upset.
In a tweet, Shaffir writes “Victory! We are starting a new path.”
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid welcomes Gabbay as the new leader of the Labor party, saying the Israeli political landscape “needs good people.”
“I am glad that Gabbay decided to contribute his knowledge and experience to the citizens of Israel,” he says in a video message posted on Twitter.
