Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s developments as they unfolded.
According to a preliminary probe of a deadly West Bank bus crash, the vehicle flipped after the driver sped through a curve, the Walla news website reports.
One woman in her 20s is pronounced dead in the crash. One person is seriously injured, three are moderately hurt, and dozens are lightly injured.
Ambulances and security personnel arrive on the scene of a deadly bus accident near Kochav Hashachar in the West Bank on November 26, 2015. (Magen David Adom)
Police update the number of seriously injured bus passengers to eight.
Iran is reducing its nuclear activities under a deal with six world powers, but a senior UN official says he cannot guarantee that everything it is doing is peaceful.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano speaks Thursday to the IAEA’s 35-nation board.
Amano says he is “not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,” and thus cannot conclude that “all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
His comments reflect IAEA constraints on monitoring Iran. But Amano says Tehran will soon enact an agreement giving his agency greater inspection powers
Iran says it does not want nuclear arms but has committed to nuclear program cuts under a deal, in return for the removal of crippling economic sanctions.
— AP
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano of Japan, during a news conference after a meeting of the IAEA board of governors at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, June 8, 2015. (AP/Ronald Zak)
President Vladimir Putin says that Russia had not received any apology from Turkish leaders over the downing of a warplane, nor any proposals to compensate Moscow.
“We still have not heard any articulate apologies from Turkey’s highest political level nor any proposals to compensate for the harm and damage, nor promises to punish criminals responsible for their crimes,” Putin says at the Kremlin in televised remarks.
“We believe treacherous stabs in the back from those who we considered partners and allies in the anti-terror fight to be absolutely inexplicable,” Putin says.
Putin, who speaks ahead of talks with French President Francois Hollande, reiterates his call for the creation of a broad coalition to fight the Islamic State group which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.
“We will continue our attempts to reach agreement with all the partners,” he says.
— AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II (not pictured) at the Bocharov Ruchei state residence in Sochi on November 24, 2015. (AFP PHOTO / POOL / MAXIM SHIPENKOV / AFP / POOL / MAXIM SHIPENKOV)
Despite Jewish security concerns throughout Europe, Berlin is about to get a new kosher supermarket, this one serving customers located in the former West Berlin.
The “Daily Markt” kosher supermarket in the Charlottenburg district adds a new option to those already existing in Berlin, including the
Kosher Life supermarket, which opened in 2008 in the former East Berlin, as well as a few smaller shops and bakeries.
They are designed to meet the needs of small but growing communities of observant Jews in the German capital, but draw non-Jewish customers as well, owners say.
A partner in the Daily Markt, store manager Evgeny Bort, says in a statement that he was optimistic that, despite security concerns and the recent European Union decision to require relabeling of products made in the West Bank and Golan Heights, people would patronize the shop.
“We can’t let terrorism stop us and interfere with our lives,” Bort says. He also says that he does not worry about the politics of labeling, and is only concerned with making it easier to purchase kosher food in Berlin.
— JTA
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists his country does not buy any oil from the Islamic State group, lashing out at Russian charges after the downing of a warplane on the Syrian border.
“They claim Turkey is buying oil from Daesh,” Erdogan says in Ankara, using another name for IS. “Shame on you. Those who claim we buy oil from Daesh are obliged to prove it. If not, you are a slanderer.”
— AFP
A Hezbollah TV station says a joint operation by the Lebanese militant group and Syrian security agents killed an Islamic State figure suspected of involvement in Beirut’s deadly bombing earlier this month.
AL-Manar TV says Abdul-Salam Hendawi, also known as Abu Abdo, died in an ambush in an IS-held area in Syria’s central province of Homs.
It says Hendawi was responsible for bringing into Lebanon two suicide bombers who carried out the November 12 attack in southern Beirut. The attack killed 43 people and wounded more than 200.
Thursday’s report did not say when the ambush on Hendawi took place. It added that his main job was to transport suicide attackers from the northern Syrian city of Raqqa into Lebanon.
The Islamic State group did not immediately confirm Hendawi’s death.
— AP
Emergency personnel inspect the debris at the site of a twin suicide bombing in Burj al-Barajneh, in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut on November 12, 2015. (AFP PHOTO / ANWAR AMRO)
Russia is preparing a raft of retaliatory economic measures against Turkey after Ankara downed its warplane in Syria, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says Thursday.
“The government has been ordered to work out a system of response measures to this act of aggression in the economic and humanitarian spheres,” Medvedev tells a cabinet meeting in televised comments.
— AFP
French authorities extend a measure banning fans from visiting teams from attending soccer matches in the wake of the Paris attacks.
The French soccer league says all professional matches this weekend all across the country will be played without traveling fans in accordance with a decision by the Interior Ministry.
It says the measure will be implemented during Champions League, Europa League, French league and French Cup matches until mid-December “because of a lack of availability of security forces under the emergency state” as well as due to a major climate change meeting in Paris from November 30 to December 11.
Security checks including metal detectors, bag searches and body pat-downs have been reinforced at stadiums after attackers on November 13 targeted France’s national stadium as well as bars, restaurants and a concert hall in Paris, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds. Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the carnage.
— AP
Supporters invade the pitch of the Stade de France stadium at the end of the international friendly soccer match between France and Germany in Saint Denis, outside Paris, November 13, 2015. (AP/Christophe Ena)
The Israel Defense Forces confirms that the bus that flipped over in the West Bank was an army vehicle.
All the passengers on board the bus were soldiers, it says.
The army withheld the information until the family of the woman who died in the crash could be informed.
— Judah Ari Gross
Egypt’s Coptic Pope Tawadros II leaves for Jerusalem Thursday for the funeral of a senior cleric, the first visit by the head of Coptic Christians in decades, a church spokesman says.
He will attend the funeral of Archbishop Anba Abraham, the head of the Coptic Church in the Holy Land who died on Wednesday at the age of 73.
Egyptian Copts were forbidden from visiting Israel by their late Pope Shenouda III in protest at Israel’s control over East Jerusalem.
Shenouda passed away in 2012 after leading the ancient orthodox church for 40 years.
“The visit is to attend the funeral and nothing more,” church spokesman Boulos Halim tells AFP.
“The position of the church remains unchanged, which is not going to Jerusalem without all our Egyptian (Muslim) brothers.”
Despite the ban, hundreds of Egyptian Copts have visited Israel over the past few years during Easter.
— AFP
The Palestinian Authority security services have thwarted dozens of stabbings by young Palestinian men and women seeking to kill Jewish Israelis, The Times of Israel has learned.
The Palestinians say more than 100 attacks have been foiled since October 1.
The attacks were at various stages of planning. In many cases, teenagers had written on their Facebook pages that they intended to carry out attacks against Jews and were willing to die in the process.
The security services located them through social media operations and then arrested or detained them, or told their families to ensure they didn’t carry out an attack.
— Avi Issacharoff
The soldier killed in the bus crash is identified as 19-year-old Stav Partush from Maale Adumim.
Her family has been notified.
An Israeli defense company wins a four-year, $200 million contract to build UAVs for Switzerland, Reuters reports.
Elbit Systems will supply Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) with “900 heavy fuel engine systems as well as an advanced ground segment for command, control and communications,” the report says.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu vows that Ankara will not apologize to Moscow over the downing of a warplane on the Syrian border.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier his country had not received any apology from Turkish leaders.
“We don’t need to apologize on an occasion that we are right,” Cavusoglu says.
“But we said on the phone yesterday (Wednesday) that we are sorry,” he adds, referring to a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
— AFP
Iran says a senior diplomat missing since the Saudi hajj stampede in September has been found dead.
Tehran had accused Saudi Arabia of kidnapping Ghazanfar Roknabadi because he previously held sensitive positions for the Iranian government, such as the post of ambassador to Lebanon.
The daily IRAN newspaper reports that officials identified Roknabadi through fingerprints and a DNA test. Iranian state television says his body was exhumed in Mecca and would arrive in Iran on Saturday.
Iran, which lost 465 pilgrims in the September 24 stampede in Mina, repeatedly has blamed the Saudi government for the disaster, accusing it of mismanagement.
An Associated Press count shows at least 2,389 people died in the crush. The official Saudi toll of 769 people killed has not changed since September 26.
— AP
Saudi emergency personnel stand near bodies of Hajj pilgrims at the site where at least 717 were killed and hundreds wounded in a stampede in Mina, near the city of Mecca, at the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia on September 24, 2015. (STR/AFP)
The Great Mosque of Brussels is evacuated and 11 people decontaminated Thursday after the discovery of a suspicious package containing white powder as the EU capital remained on highest possible terror alert.
“A parcel was found at the entrance to the mosque and found to contain white powder. We are taking all preventative measures in case it is anthrax but it is a precautionary measure,” says fire services spokeswomen Anne Wibin, who was at the scene.
The mosque, the city’s biggest, is located just a few blocks from the major EU institutions and many embassies.
Belgium has been under a heavy security clampdown in the wake of the Paris attacks on November 13 with two Belgium-linked suspects still on the run.
Wibin says eleven people, including two police offers, were being decontaminated as precautionary measure.
“There is absolutely no danger to anyone,” she says.
— AFP
A picture taken on November 26, 2015 shows ambulances, police and fire fighter vehicles outside the mosque after a suspect letter with powder was found at the Great Mosque in Brussels on November 26, 2015. (AFP PHOTO / BELGA / ERIC LALMAND)
An Iranian news agency claims that General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations wing, is behind the rescue of the Russian pilot downed in Syria.
Soleimani was reported lightly injured earlier this week near Aleppo.
After the pilot was downed by Turkey on Tuesday, “credible information was obtained that a number of special Turkish units had been sent to the scene to take the Russian pilot captive to blackmail Russia later,” the semi-official Fars News Agency reports, based on a report in the Persian-language version of the Russian Sputnik news agency that quotes an unnamed Syrian officer.
“While the Russians were planning for another operation to free the pilot immediately, General Soleimani contacted them and proposed them that a special task force unit be formed of Hezbollah’s special forces and Syrian commandos who have been trained by Iran and are fully familiar with the geographical situation of the region to be tasked with the ground operations and Russia provide them with air cover and satellite intelligence.”
The alleged operation to rescue the Russian pilot was carried out by eight Hezbollah fighters and 18 Syrian commandos and covered by Russian satellites and air force. The team “saved the pilot after infiltrating 6 kilometers behind the enemy lines, killing the terrorists operating in there and destroying their hi-tech equipment,” it says.
“Soleimani promised them to return the Russian pilot safe and sound; a promise that was kept in the end, according to the Syrian officer,” the report says.
The Russian defense minister said Wednesday that the second Russian pilot downed by Turkey had been saved.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. (YouTube/BBC Newsnight)
Moroccan security forces have broken up a “terrorist cell” linked to the Islamic State (IS) group and arrested its three members, including a woman, the interior ministry says Thursday.
The cell, operating in the cities of Fez, Casablanca and Ouled Taima, followed “instructions from the terrorist group and was planning… attacks in the kingdom,” a statement says.
This is the third time Morocco has announced the arrest of people affiliated with IS since the group carried out a bombing and shooting spree in Paris on November 13 that left 130 people dead.
— AFP
Belgian authorities have launched a raid in southern Belgium linked to the Paris attacks but did not detain any suspects.
The raid in Sambreville, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Brussels and close to the French border, was carried out around noon. The area was cordoned off and a mobile lab was on place.
The federal prosecutor’s office refused to divulge any further details.
— AP
Police hear the first testimony against MK Yinon Magal (Jewish Home) on allegations of sexual harassment, the Ynet news website reports.
Magal has been accused of harassment by at least three employees who worked under him at the Walla news website, where he was editor-in-chief before entering the Knesset.
It is not yet clear if the women plan to press charges.
MK Yinon Magal seen at an anti-violence and anti-homophobia rally, attended by thousands, in Tel Aviv, August 1, 2015 (Photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Argentinean lawmaker Rabbi Sergio Bergman is tapped to serve as Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development.
Bergman, who will start his new position on December 10 when the new government is sworn in, is believed to be the only rabbi serving as a government minister outside of Israel.
Bergman will be part of the Mauricio Macri’s new center right government, after being named by Macri in 2011 to head the his party’s slate of the parliamentary candidates for the Buenos Aires City Municipal Legislature and in 2013 to head the list of National parliamentary candidates, winning both elections. He is the rabbi of the oldest synagogue in Argentina which is part of Fundación Judaica, a network of Jewish institutions founded and led by Bergman.
— JTA
The father of Stav Partush, the soldier killed in the crash earlier Thursday, is a volunteer firefighter who arrived at the scene of the collision to evacuate victims, not knowing that his daughter was among them, Channel 2 reports.
IDF soldier Stav Partush, 19, was killed in a bus accident on November 26, 2015 (Facebook)
Four of the main suspects in the Paris attacks were on a list of radicalized people compiled by Belgium’s intelligence services as early as June this year, officials say.
The list of 85 individuals included alleged Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, brothers Brahim and Salah Abdeslam and newly named suspect Mohamed Abrini, they say.
The list was sent by the intelligence agencies to the local authorities in Molenbeek, a run-down Brussels district dubbed a haven for extremists, they said.
This undated image taken from a jihadist website on Monday Nov. 16, 2015 shows Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris terror attacks on November 13. (Jihadist video via AP)
“I confirm that they featured on a list sent in June 2015 by the Threat Analysis Coordination Agency to the mayor of Molenbeek and the local police chief,” a local government source tells AFP on condition of anonymity.
The latest revelations will raise fresh concerns about Belgium’s handling of a growing Islamic extremist threat, with several major terror plots having roots in the country.
Abaaoud, a Belgian-Moroccan dual national who was killed in a French police raid days after the Paris attacks, is the presumed organizer of the atrocities. Brahim Abdeslam, a French national living in Belgium, blew himself up outside a cafe in the attacks on November 13 while his brother Salah fled to Belgium shortly after the attacks, sparking a huge manhunt.
The arrest warrant issued for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, suspected of involvement in the November 13, 2015. terror attacks in Paris. ‘Do not intervene yourself,’ warns the message issued November 15, 2015.
Belgian-Moroccan Abrini is the subject of an international European arrest warrant and was seen driving a car with Salah Abdeslam on the eve of the attacks.
— AFP
The head of the IAEA says the report on the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program won’t be clear-cut.
Amano says that although IAEA now has a “better understanding” of Iran’s past activities, his report next week will not be a “black and white assessment.”
“This is like a jigsaw puzzle. We have pieces, we have a better understanding and we will analyse and provide an assessment,” he tells reporters.
“This is not an issue which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no.””
The final report — which diplomats say will be released next Tuesday or Wednesday — is expected to be presented to the IAEA’s board of governors on December 15.
— AFP contributed
A senior Israel Air Force officer says if a Russian jet entered Israel’s airspace, it would not be shot down.
“Russia is a central player [in Syria] and cannot be ignored,” the officer says, according to Hebrew media. “Our policy is that we don’t attack or shoot down any Russian planes. Russia is not the enemy. We’re trying to avoid any confrontation with it. In order to avoid putting pilots into questionable situations, we’re not getting close — not them to us, and not us to them.”
The briefing at which the officer spoke comes after Turkey shot down a Russian plane this week.
A senior German police official says some of the migrants reaching Europe are Islamic State radicals planning terrorist attacks, but the refugee influx is not systemically used by extremists to bring members into the EU.
The Austria Press Agency cites German federal police chief Hans-Georg Maasen as saying that some who blend in with the migrants fought with IS and are planning a “combat mission” once they arrive in Europe. He says Thursday that his office knows of 7,900 Islamic radicals in Germany who advocate violence to advance their goals, with some trying to win migrants to their cause.
He says German authorities receive one or two “fairly concrete tips” a week of planned terrorist activity. And he describes IS extremists as “combat-hardened professionals” more dangerous than those from al-Qaeda.
— AFP
Migrants move through a field after crossing from Croatia, in Rigonce, Slovenia, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015. (AP/Darko Bandic)
An Egyptian television presenter has been sentenced to six months in jail for falsely accusing 26 men of debauchery in an undercover report from a public bathhouse, lawyers and state media say Thursday.
The men were arrested in a night-time raid on the Cairo bathhouse in December after the female presenter, Mona Iraqi, tipped off police, claiming it had become a “den of male sex.”
Iraqi filmed the raid, including footage of the near-naked men. The film was broadcast days later on private Al-Qahira Wel Nas satellite television.
— AFP
President Reuven Rivlin visits the home of IDF soldier Ziv Mizrahi, 18, who was stabbed to death at a West Bank gas station this week.
“No words can comfort such a loss,” Rivlin tells his parents. “On a personal level, this is the greatest tragedy. At the national level we are in battle, but we will win. We have returned to our country and our homeland, We have known triumphs and tragedies and our fight for this country is not over.”
Ziv Mizrahi, an 18-year-old IDF soldier from Givat Ze’ev, was killed in a stabbing attack at a West Bank gas station on November 23, 2015 (screen capture: Channel 2)
Mizrahi’s mother, Daphna said her son was “a child who cared for everyone. He was a beloved brother and a great son.”
“Ziv was very close to his grandmother. He didn’t stop caring for my mother, his grandmother, and he was diligent in calling and asking after her well-being at every opportunity,” she added. “Every Friday when he returned from the army, his grandmother would prepare all his favorite foods for him. Now Ziv watches over us from above.”
President Reuven Rivlin visits the bereaved family of Ziv Mizrahi, who was stabbed to death at a West Bank gas station. November 26, 2015 (Mark Neyman/GPO)
Stav Partush, 19, who was killed earlier today, will be buried at 10:30 p.m. at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery, Channel 2 reports.
Belgian authorities lower the terror alert in Brussels from the maximum — level 4 — to level 3, Reuters reports.
Belgian soldiers stand at the Grand Place in Brussels on November 22, 2015. The Belgian capital was locked down for a second day on November 22 with police and troops on the streets as the authorities hunted for several suspects linked to the Paris attacks. (Photo by AFP Photo/John Thys)
Berlin police say they are raiding a mosque after the arrest of two people suspected of belonging to an Islamist extremist group.
Police spokeswoman Patricia Braemer says the two suspects were arrested before the raid of the mosque Thursday in the city’s western neighborhood of Charlottenburg. She did not give any further details on the suspects or the raid because the search was still ongoing.
In September, Berlin police raided eight buildings after a months-long investigation into suspected Islamist extremists involved in violent activities. Police said at the time there was no evidence that suspects had been involved in planning attacks in Germany.
— AP
A Palestinian is reportedly killed in clashes with the IDF north of Hebron.
Russia on Thursday says its forces had wiped out Syrian rebel groups operating in the area where one of its jets was brought down, unleashing a huge bombardment after rescuing a pilot.
“As soon as our pilot was safe, Russian bombers and artillery of the Syrian government forces carried out massive strikes in the indicated area for an extended period,” military official Igor Konashenkov tells Russian news agencies, adding that “the terrorists operating in that area and other mysterious groups were destroyed.”
— AFP
Israeli forces shot dead a 19-year-old Palestinian Thursday during a clash in the southern West Bank, Palestinian medics say.
They identify him as Khaled Jawabrah from Al-Arub refugee camp, north of the flashpoint city Hebron, where the confrontation took place. The Israeli army has no immediate comment.
— AFP
Belgian emergency services evacuated the biggest mosque in Brussels and decontaminated 11 people on Thursday after the discovery of a suspicious package containing what turned out to be flour, officials say.
With the EU capital on its highest terror alert, firefighters in chemical suits and gas masks were called in to the Great Mosque of Brussels amid fears that white powder in the package could be anthrax.
“It was just flour. Everything is negative, the cordon has been lifted,” Brussels fire brigade spokesman Pierre Meys tells AFP after the mosque was sealed off for three hours, adding that the substance had been analyzed at a laboratory.
— AFP
US soldiers are in Kobani, the town in northern Syria nearly destroyed in fierce fighting with the Islamic State group, to train Kurdish forces to battle the jihadists, Kurdish sources say Thursday.
Mustapha Abdi, an activist in the town on the Turkish border, tells AFP the American instructors had arrived “in recent hours.”
A source with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units says the Americans would help plan offensives on two Syrian cities held by IS — Jarablus and the jihadists’ Syrian “capital,” Raqa.
— AFP
In this Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 photo, a Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighter shows the extent of the damage from a truck bomb in Kobani, Syria. (Photo credit: AP/Jake Simkin)
The wedding of Sarah Tehiya Litman and Ariel Beigel begins in Jerusalem.
Litman’s father and 18-year-old brother were gunned down in a West Bank terror attack on November 13.
The wedding is open to the public beginning at 10:30 p.m. and is expected to draw thousands at Jerusalem’s Binyanei HaUma.
Watch the wedding live below:
בואי כלה. שרה תחיה ליטמן יוצאת מביתה. מזל טוב!! עוד עדכונים על החתונה של כל עם ישראל >> https://t.co/BUl1DzTZ7A pic.twitter.com/2pRYBj0oP8
— אריה יואלי (@aryeyoeli) November 26, 2015
Rabbi Ya’akov Litman, who was killed in a terror attack near the West Bank city of Hebron on November 13, 2015. (screen shot: Channel 2)
18-year-old Netanel Litman, who was killed in a terror attack near Hebron on November 13, 2015. (courtesy)
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army says Khaled Jawabrah, 19, who was killed by IDF fire, had “a lit Molotov cocktail in hand” and was attempting to hit Israeli cars with it.
Forces on site shot him with a small-caliber live round, the spokeswoman says.
— AFP
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that Turkey would have acted differently if it had known that a warplane its forces downed on the Syrian border this week was Russian.
“If we had known if it was a Russian plane maybe we would have warned it differently,” Erdogan tells France 24 television, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not answered his call after Tuesday’s incident that has seriously damaged ties.
— AFP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, on November 16, 2015. (Adem Altan/AFP)
As part of the traditional Jewish wedding service, ashes are sprinkled on the bridegroom’s forehead in remembrance of the two Temples.
At the Litman wedding, dirt was taken from the scene of the terror attack near Hebron, where Rabbi Yaakov Litman and 18-year-old Netanel Litman were killed, and “which absorbed their blood,” for the ceremony, the rabbi says.
Sarah Techiya Litman, whose father and brother were killed in a terror attack two weeks ago, is married in Jerusalem on November 26, 2015 (YouTube screenshot)
Sarah Techiya Litman, whose father and brother were killed in a terror attack two weeks ago, is married in Jerusalem on November 26, 2015 (YouTube screenshot)
The huppah comes to an end, and the two are married. Dancing breaks out as hundreds of wedding-goers escort the newlyweds out of the huppah.
Malian special forces arrest two suspects Thursday over a siege at a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako that left 20 people dead, security sources say.
“Two suspects linked to the attack last week at the Radisson hotel have just been arrested and they are being interrogated,” one of the sources tells AFP.
The identity of the suspects and their alleged role in Friday’s jihadist attack on the 190-room Radisson Blu hotel is not immediately known.
Another security source says a telephone had led to the capture of the two, but gives no further details.
Armed men held 170 guests and staff in a siege that lasted about nine hours last Friday before Malian and international forces stormed the hotel.
— AFP
Malian security forces evacuate a man from an area surrounding the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako on November 20, 2015. (AFP/Habibou Kouyate)
Belgium’s prime minister announces that the alert level in Brussels has been lowered because a threat of an attack is no longer considered “imminent.”
Charles Michel says the subways system will be fully reopening on Friday. But he says that despite the lowering of the threat to its second-highest level, an attack remained “possible and likely.”
He doesn’t immediately give details why the level in the capital could be reduced.
— AFP
An advocacy group is offering Donald Trump sensitivity training after the Republican presidential candidate appears to mock a reporter with a disability.
At issue is what The New York Times interprets as Trump’s attempt Tuesday to “ridicule the appearance” of journalist Serge Kovaleski.
Trump challenged recollections by Kovaleski and others about the 9/11 aftermath during a speech. Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were seen celebrating the attack.
Trump said, “Poor guy, you oughta see this guy,” then gestured in a jerky fashion as if imitating Kovaleski’s movements.
The Ruderman Family Foundation says Kovaleski has a congenital condition affecting joint movement. The foundation offered Trump sensitivity training sessions to help him better understand people with disabilities.
— AP
The 16-year-old Palestinian girl who, along with her 14-year-old cousin, stabbed a 70-year-old Palestinian man in central Jerusalem this week, says she will file a complaint against a policeman for shooting her, Channel 10 reports.
“She asked me to come with her to Jaffa street,” she says of her cousin. “I didn’t plan on hurting anyone, suddenly she took out scissors and scratched someone who was there. I didn’t understand what she was doing. People starting screaming ‘terrorist’ and I was afraid they would attack me, so I took out scissors to protect myself. Suddenly they shot me and I was hit with a chair and I lost consciousness.”
Her 14-year-old cousin was shot dead on the scene.
In a still image from security camera of the scene, a young Palestinian girl (center) lashes out with a pair of scissors in an attack in Jerusalem on November 23, 2015 (screen capture: Channel 2)
Some 200 volunteers for the Magen David Adom ambulance service attend the wedding of Sarah Tehiya Litman and Ariel Biegel.
Netanel Litman, 18, who was killed in the November 13 terror attack, was a MDA volunteer. Some of his friends are among the attendees.
“I felt compelled to come to bring joy to the wedding,” Avishai Shapira, a friend of Netanel’s, says. “The feeling is mixed. On the one hand, there is a great sadness and everything is still fresh, but on the other hand, there is the happiness of this wedding, which is a happy and moving moment. And today, I feel like I need to leave the sadness aside and make the bride and groom and family happy at this important event.”
MDA volunteers dance outside the wedding of Sarah Tehiya Litman and Ariel Biegel in Jerusalem (Courtesy)
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