Gavin Rabinowitz is a news editor at The Times of Israel
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has named current OC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi as the army’s new deputy chief of staff, the army says.
Today’s announcement is part of a wide-ranging shake up of the General Staff that also includes naming a new air force chief.
Kochavi has been head of the northern command for the last two years and previously also served as the head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi at the Herzliya security conference in 2012. (Yehoshua Yosef/Flash90)
Kochavi will be replaced by current Home Front Commander Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick.
The IDF says the new head of the Israel Air Force will be current Head of Planning Directorate Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin.
— Judah Ari Gross
At least 30 Afghan civilians, including women and children, were killed in a NATO airstrike today in the volatile northern province of Kunduz, Afghan officials say.
“Afghan forces and coalition troops conducted a joint operation against the Taliban insurgents. In the bombardment 30 Afghan civilians were martyred and 25 others were wounded,” provincial spokesman Mahmood Danish tells AFP.
There is no immediate comment from NATO.
— AFP
Afghan security forces inspect the site of a suicide bombing that targeted a gathering of the local tribal elders in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province on October 31, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / NOORULLAH SHIRZADA)
The UN refugee agency says survivor accounts indicate as many as 240 people have died in two shipwrecks off Libya. No bodies have been recovered.
UNHCR spokeswoman in Italy Carlotta Sami says 31 survivors of two shipwrecks who arrived today on the Italian island of Lampedusa reported that their boats capsized in heavy seas.
Migrants wait to be rescued as they drift in the Mediterranean Sea some 20 nautical miles north off the coast of Libya on October 3, 2016. (AFP/Aris Messinis)
Sami says 29 people survived the first wreck, reporting that about 120 people had gone missing. And in a separate operation, two women found swimming at sea told rescuers another 120 people had died in that wreck.
In both cases, most of the people on board appeared to have been sub-Saharan Africans, but Sami said aid workers were still ascertaining details.
Sami says the latest reported deaths bring to over 4,220 the number of people dead or missing in the Mediterranean this year, the highest toll on record.
— AP
A Belgian court backed the eventual extradition to France of the suspect in a deadly attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014, prosecutors say
French national Mehdi Nemmouche, 31, is also suspected by Paris of being among the captors of four French journalists who were kept hostage in Syria.
A picture released on June 1, 2014 shows the 29-year-old suspected gunman in the Brussels Jewish Museum attack, French-Algerian citizen Mehdi Nemmouche. (photo credit: AFP)
“This morning, the pre-trial chamber of the Brussels court of first degree has declared enforceable the European Arrest Warrant that had been issued by the French judicial authorities against Mehdi Nemmouche,” the Belgian federal prosecutor says.
He can be sent to France “when Belgium no longer needs him” in relation to the Jewish Museum attack in which four people were killed, a spokesman for the prosecutor tells AFP.
On May 24, 2014 a gunman opened fire in the entrance hall of the museum in the center of the Belgian capital, killing two Israeli tourists, a French volunteer and a Belgian museum receptionist.
File. Extra police deploy in Belgium after a May 2014 attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels (Joods Actueel/FLASH90)
Nemmouche was arrested six days later in the southern French port city of Marseille and sent to Belgium two months later, where he faces trial at an unspecified date in the future.
French authorities have identified him as one of the jihadists who kept four French journalists hostage until they were freed in April 2014 in Syria.
In September 2015 France extradited another suspect in the Jewish Museum attack — Mounir Atallah — to Belgium.
— AFP
President Vladimir Putin is signing off on a decree today granting Russian citizenship to US action hero actor Steven Seagal, the latest high-profile passport handed out to a Western celebrity.
Hollywood star Seagal and judo-loving Kremlin tough guy Putin have struck up a bromance in recent years, with Seagal visiting Russia repeatedly and defending Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
This file photo taken on September 04, 2015 shows Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shaking hands with US action movie actor Steven Seagal in Vladivostok. (AFP PHOTO / SPUTNIK / ALEXEI DRUZHININ)
“He was asking quite insistently and over a lengthy period to be granted citizenship,” says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The bromance between Steven Seagal and Vladimir Putin has been sealed https://t.co/lzTW0Jk1O0 pic.twitter.com/iPGiLlKWrG
— The Independent (@Independent) November 3, 2016
“He is well known for his warm feelings towards our country and has never hidden them,” he says.
— AFP
The IDF says it has received initial reports of an attempted stabbing attack near the Ofra intersection in the West bank.
The army gives no further details from the incident near Ramallah.
Ynet says no one is hurt in the attack, but the assailant has been shot and killed.
— Judah Ari Gross
The IDF confirms initial reports that a Palestinian assailant has been shot and killed, during an attempted stabbing attack against Israeli soldiers near the Ofra settlement.
According to the army, the man, armed with a knife, approached soldiers who were standing guard at a bus stop outside the West Bank settlement, northeast of Ramallah.
A knife allegedly used in an attempted stabbing attack on IDF troops outside the Ofra settlement in the West Bank on November 3, 2016. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
In response, the soldiers opened fire, killing the as-yet-unnamed assailant.
“There were no injuries among our forces,” the army adds.
— Judah Ari Gross
Rebel fire on government-held parts of Syria’s Aleppo on Thursday killed 12 civilians and wounded 200, state news agency SANA reports.
It says rockets and gunfire hit neighborhoods including Halab al-Jadida, where rebels launched a fierce attack today.
Smoke billows in the background on November 3, 2016, at an entrance to Aleppo during a rebel offensive to break a three-month siege of the opposition-held east of Syria’s second city. ( AFP PHOTO / Omar haj kadour)
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a toll of 11 civilians killed, including four children, and at least 100 people wounded.
— AFP
A record of nearly $14 million was raised by the American Friends of Magen David Adom at an event in Los Angeles.
Some $5 million of the total, which goes to support the services of Magen David Adom in Israel comes from a single donor, Maurice Kanbar, the creator of SKYY vodka.
Magen David Adom is an official Red Cross affiliate, and the donation will go to build a new blood services center in Israel.
Magen David Adom paramedics arrive at the Belinson Hospital in Petah Tikva with the victim of a stabbing attack in the West Bank town of Ariel, March 17, 2016. (MDA)
— JTA
The Health Ministry says 6,000 portions of blood that were rechecked for syphilis after a scare are all clear.
“All the results are correct and prove the safety of the (blood) donations,” the ministry says today.
The ministry ordered a retest of the blood in early October after the European manufacturer of the kits used to check the blood for syphilis said they may be faulty.
Test tubes filled with blood samples (Illustrative photo credit: Rebecca Zeffert/Flash90)
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirms the identity of a man who was shot dead by soldiers while allegedly trying to stab them near the West Bank settlement of Ofra.
The ministry says he is 23-year-old Maan Nasser al-din Abu Qara from the town of Mazra’a al-Qibliya, north of Ramallah.
No soldiers were injured in the incident
— Dov Lieber
An Iranian airline, backed by the country’s notorious Revolutionary Guard and used to ferry weapons and fighters to support Syria’s government, is aquiring rights to fly commercial routes in more than a dozen European and Asian countries in spite of US terror-related sanctions.
Mahan Air, the country’s second-largest carrier, is under terror-related sanctions. The US acuses the company of providing “transportation, funds transfers and personnel travel services” to the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Forces, flying them and weapons to Syria to train Hezbollah militants, Syrian army troops and others.
A US Treasury official tells The Associated Press that the US has been trying to get these countries to cooperate with US efforts to block the airline’s financial network, but has met with stiff resistance.
In this March 1, 2015 file photo, Yemeni airport, security and transportation officials greet a plane from the Iranian private airline Mahan Air after it lands in Sanaa, Yemen. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)
Washington doesn’t want to restrict travel to and from Iran, the official says, noting that the country’s main carrier, Iran Air, can fly around the world since the nuclear deal was implemented in January. The official was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
But the US has no leverage to change EU laws allowing Mahan in. All it can do is ask the countries to ban Mahan and go after companies providing services to the airline, including banks, baggage handlers and cargo and freight companies.
The agreement Iran and six other world powers signed last year ended some of the sanctions that had punished and isolated Iran for its nuclear program. But sanctions for ballistic missile research, terrorism, human rights violations and money laundering remain in place.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is a vast, powerful military conglomerate, with naval, air and ground components organized in parallel to the conventional Iranian military. It is the country’s biggest economic player, with a hand in virtually every sector, from oil and gas to auto-making, telecommunications, construction, farming and beyond.
— AP
An “extremely rare” handwritten poem by Anne, penned shortly before she went into hiding from the Nazis, is to be auctioned and could fetch up to 50,000 euros ($55,000), the auctioneers say.
The poem was written in the friendship book of the older sister of Anne’s best friend, and is signed by the Jewish teenager and dated March 28, 1942, auctioneers Bubb Kuyper says.
Anne Frank, age 12, at her school desk in Amsterdam in 1941. (AP Photo)
The auction of the 12-line long text, written with black ink on white paper, is reportedly only the fourth time that something in the young diarist’s handwriting has gone up for sale, according to the Dutch daily NRC.next.
She died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in early 1945 less than a year after the Nazis found her and her family members hiding in an Amsterdam attic.
“Autographs by Anne Frank are excessively rare and have come onto the market only sporadically in the past 35 years,” the auctioneers say.
— AFP
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber is planning a second visit to Israel, Hebrew language media report.
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber performs during a concert in Tel Aviv, April 14, 2011. (photo credit Gili Yaari/Flash 90)
Bieber is expected to perform in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park in May 2017, Ynet says.
His last visit in 2011 was marred by clashes with the paparazzi and reports he failed to show up for a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A large number of computers at a Geneva hotel that hosted delicate Iranian nuclear talks last year were infected with malware used for espionage, Swiss prosecutors say.
The Swiss Attorney General’s office (OAG) however says it had closed its investigation, since it had failed to determine who was behind the spying.
Representatives from world powers and Iran posing prior to the announcement of an agreement on Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, April 2, 2015. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)
Israel, which was vehemently opposed to the nuclear deal, was accused of espionage after a Russian-based security firm said a computer worm widely linked to Israel was used to spy on the negotiations.
Israel denied the accusations.
“Investigations revealed that a significant number of computers (servers and clients) at a hotel in Geneva had been infected with a form of malware,” the OAG says.
Investigators had however turned up “no evidence as to the identity of the perpetrators,” it says.
— AFP
French warplanes have tripled their rate of airstrikes to support Iraqi forces since the start of the offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants, the French military says.
France carried out 63 airstrikes on targets around Mosul between October 17 — when the operation to take back Iraq’s second-largest city began — and November 1, a spokesman says.
Iraqi army vehicles drive through the village of Gogjali, a few hundred metres of Mosul’s eastern edge, on November 2, 2016, as they head towards the city during the ongoing operation to retake it from Islamic State group jihadists. (AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC)
In all, French jets launched 75 strikes in both Iraq and on IS targets in Syria during the same period.
French jets, operating as part of the international coalition against IS, fly from bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean.
— AFP
The Public Security Ministry says it will collaborate with the popular Waze traffic navigation app to help reduce traffic jams in Israel.
This will include “a two-way flow of information” from traffic police to Waze and vice versa, the ministry says.
A man holds an iPhone displaying the Waze app (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“Police have to be at the forefront of technological innovation and to use advanced systems like Waze,” says Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.
Shared information will include traffic flows, incidents and planned changes to roads.
Egypt is denying that Egyptian soccer fans planned to attack Ghana national soccer team’s Israeli coach Avram Grant during a November 13 FIFA World Cup qualifier match against Egypt.
Reports that originally came from Ghana media said the Egypt Football Association uncovered a plan by extremist local fans to attack Grant.
Israeli soccer coach Avram Grant in 2009 (Abir Sultan/Flash90)
But Osama Ismail a spokesman for Egypt’s Football Association, denies this, telling Alarabiya.net that Ghana’s Israeli coach is “welcomed by Egypt’s football Association and Egyptian fans.”
He also says that Egyptian fans respect Grant and his team regardless of his nationality or religion.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett says that issues behind a strike at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have been resolved and classes will start again next week.
“Pleased to announce that studies at Hebrew University will open next week. The crisis is behind us,” he writes on Twitter.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, July 7, 2016. (Flash90)
The university had delayed opening studies by more than two weeks due to a dispute over its budget with the education ministry. The university said it did not have enough money to fund the academic year. “We regret the harm that might be done to the students, teaching faculty and staff,” it said.
Bennett did not give details of the agreement.
The entrance to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Wikimedia Commons)
The head of Israel’s largest labor union is threatening a country-wide general strike if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with plans to shut Israel’s public broadcaster.
Histradrut Labor Federation chief Avi Nissenkorn tells Israel Radio he won’t stand by if the government tries to shut down the public broadcasting system.
Avi Nissenkorn, chairman of the Histadrut Labor Federation, at a press conference in Jerusalem, October 7, 2014. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Netanyahu is embroiled in a row over the issue. In 2014 Israel decided to shut the ailing Israel Broadcasting Authority, which politicians at the time described as increasingly irrelevant and costly, and replacing it with a new broadcasting corporation called “Kan.”
Now, Netanyahu wants to reverse the decision or possibly close both.
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