Gavin Rabinowitz is a news editor at The Times of Israel
The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party opens its first congress in seven years today as the 81-year-old seeks to fend off opponents while talk of who will eventually succeed him mounts.
The election of members of Fatah’s parliament and its central committee beginning Friday will signal the direction the oldest Palestinian party will take at a time when Abbas is weakened by his own unpopularity and internal dissent.
While the aging leader has said he has no intention of stepping aside anytime soon, talk of who will eventually succeed him as Palestinian president has intensified. He has not publicly designated a successor.
— AFP
BEIRUT (AP) — Renewed airstrikes killed at least 10 civilians today in Syria’s besieged eastern part of Aleppo as they were fleeing government advances in the opposition held-enclave, opposition groups reported.
France is calling for an urgent Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Aleppo, where fighting continued as government forces seek to break down rebel defenses in the deeply divided city, once Syria’s commercial center.
The opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said new airstrikes left at least 10 civilians killed, while a rescue group in eastern Aleppo put the figure at 25. The Syrian Civil Defense, a team of first responders, say the airstrikes hit a group of civilians fleeing to Bab al-Nairab district from government advances in the north.
In swift and dramatic advances, Syrian government and allied troops pushed their way into northern parts of opposition held eastern Aleppo in the last couple of days, touching off a wave of panic and flight from the besieged enclave. Many of the fleeing civilians headed to government and Kurdish-controlled areas while others were driven deeper into the remaining rebel-held zones.
— AP
Colombian authorities say they have rescued a sixth survivor of the crash of a charter plane carrying members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense Real.
“The rescue of a sixth survivor, player Helio Hermito Zampier Neto, who is in the process of being evacuated, is confirmed. The possibility that other people will be found alive has not been ruled out,” Colombia’s disaster risk management agency say.
This photo taken on November 23, 2016 shows Neto (L) of Brazil’s Chapecoense vying for the ball with Ezequiel Cerutti (R) of Argentina’s San Lorenzo, during their 2016 Copa Sudamericana semifinal second leg football match held at Arena Conda stadium, in Chapeco, Brazil. (UNGRD). / AFP PHOTO / NELSON ALMEIDA
Israel’s largest supermarket chain Shufersal says some of the hummus sold under its store brand is infected with listeria.
Shufersal says it was informed by the Salatei Shamir company, which manufactures the hummus for the supermarket, that some containers that were sold to the public were infected.
Shufersal says the problematic packs were the one-kilogram tub with an expiration date of January 5, 2017.
Those who may have purchased the infected hummus are asked to call 1-800-68-68-68.
Listeria can cause serious illness and small children, pregnant women, the elderly or people with compromised immune systems are particularly vulnerable.
A Shufersal supermarket branch in Kiryat Hayovel, Jerusalem (Wikimedia Commons, Utalempe, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Donald Trump’s hunt for a secretary of state is veering into dramatic terrain, with the president-elect summoning Mitt Romney back for a second look.
Trump has a follow-up meeting today with the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, who has become a symbol of the internal divisions agitating the transition team.
He also plans to sit with Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On Monday, Trump spent an hour with retired Gen. David Petraeus, a new contender.
Aides were divided over Trump’s choices, particularly the prospect that Trump could tap Romney for the top-tier diplomatic post. In an unusual public airing of internal machinations, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday warned that the president-elect’s supporters would feel “betrayed” if he tapped Romney as secretary of state.
— AP
President-elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney leave the clubhouse after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP)
Cyber attacks from Russia are now so common that Germany must learn to cope with them as part of daily life, Chancellor Angela Merkel says, after Europe’s top economy suffered its largest ever online assault.
Merkel says she did not know who was behind the attack that left almost a million Deutsche Telekom clients offline, but added that “such cyber attacks, or hybrid conflicts as they are known in Russian doctrine, are now part of daily life and we must learn to cope with them.”
— AFP
900,000 #Routers Knocked #Offline in #Germany amid Rumors of #CyberAttack:https://t.co/pVMcMEddQW #Router #Cyber #Hacker #EU #CyberSecurity pic.twitter.com/4WXQqRG96n
— SpecGhost (@SpecGhost) November 28, 2016
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been unanimously reelected the head of Fatah, even before the seventh congress of the party has begun, the PA’s official news agency Wafa reports.
The Fatah party opens its first congress in seven years today.
The election of members of Fatah’s parliament and its central committee beginning Friday will signal the direction the oldest Palestinian party will take at a time when Abbas is weakened by his own unpopularity and internal dissent.
— Dov Lieber
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaking at a rally marking the 12th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, November 10, 2016. (AFP/ ABBAS MOMANI)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with visiting Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who is making his first visit as president outside the Americas.
The two leaders agreed to boost cooperation in the fields of water, agriculture, technology, health and intelligence, the prime minister’s office says.
The prime minister also urged Guatemala’s predominantly Christian population to come visit the holy sites in Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meets with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales (L) in Jerusalem on November 29, 2016. (Haim Zach / GPO)
The Magen David Adom rescue service is calling on the public to come and donate blood, amid a shortage of certain types.
MDA spokesman Zaki Heller says there is a particular shortage of the O+ and the RH-negative types (A-, B-, O-.)
Heller says the shortage is causing difficulties in supplying hospitals with enough blood for transfusions.
Illustrative photo of blood donated to Israel’s blood bank (Rebecca Zeffert/Flash90)
The Health Ministry says consumers bought some 360 tubs of hummus that had been tainted with listeria.
The ministry says in total 2,300 tubs were contaminated and most have now been removed from the shelves.
It called on consumers to be careful with one-kilogram tubs of store brand hummus sold by Shufersal.
A ceremony is to be held in the British Parliament tonight to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Israel Radio reports.
The ceremony is expected to be attended by several British lawmakers and Israel’s ambassador to London, Mark Regev, the radio says.
This is one of several events planned for the year ahead to mark the centenary the declaration issued by foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour in 1917.
In September, UK Prime Minister Theresa May highlighted the fact that the UK and Israel will soon mark the 100-year anniversary of the “UK’s support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people,” in the signing of the declaration.
The Balfour Declaration (Wikipedia)
Dutch lawmakers today voted to approve a ban on wearing the Islamic full-face burqa in some public places such as schools and hospitals.
“The law is adopted,” says the speaker of the Dutch Lower House of parliament, Khadija Arib, referring to the resolution which will also ban burqas from public transport.
The Senate must now approve the resolution for it become law.
— AFP
Illustrative photo of Muslim women wearing burqas (AFP/Torsten Blackwood/File)
A light aircraft is set to make an emergency landing at the Sde Dov airfield near Tel Aviv, the Magen David Adom Rescue services says.
The rescue service says its teams are standing by.
#BREAKING A small #aircraft is on approach to #SdeDov #airport for an #emergencylanding. @Mdais #paramedics responding. #SavingLives #EMS pic.twitter.com/ZSYXMaRCYl
— MAGEN DAVID ADOM (@Mdais) November 29, 2016
A light aircraft carrying 11 people on board has safely landed in at the Sde Dov airport in Tel Aviv.
The plane had reported engine trouble and emergency forces scrambled teams to meet it.
Turkish prosecutors are demanding multiple life sentences for 47 people suspected of leading a coup, saying they sought to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a plot he says left him 15 minutes from death, state media says.
Erdogan, who was holidaying at a hotel in the upmarket Aegean resort of Marmaris with his family on the night of the July 15 coup, had rushed to Istanbul by plane to escape the conspiracy.
Forty-seven suspects — 44 of whom are under arrest while three are on the run — have been charged with 17 different crimes including an “attempt to assassinate the president,” the state-run Anadolu news agency says.
Prosecutors have sought six life sentences for each of the suspects, who include an alleged “assassination team” of 37 soldiers suspected of seeking to execute the plan.
No date has yet been given for the start of the trial.
— AFP
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses a NATO parliamentary assembly meeting in Istanbul, Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. (Kayhan Ozer, Presidential Press Service, Pool photo via AP)
Brazil football legend Pele and Argentines Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi are leading sporting tributes today to the Brazilian footballers killed in a plane crash in Colombia.
Players of the Chapecoense Real team were among 81 people on board the doomed flight that crashed into mountains in northwestern Colombia.
“Brazilian football is in mourning. It is such a tragic loss,” Pele, 76, tweets.
“My sincere condolences to the families of the deceased. Rest in peace.”
Colombian officials say just six people were thought to have survived, including three of the players.
— AFP
Rescuers search for survivors from the wreckage of the LAMIA airlines charter plane carrying members of the Chapecoense Real football team that crashed in the mountains of Cerro Gordo, municipality of La Union, on November 29, 2016. ( AFP PHOTO / RAUL ARBOLEDA)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is urging Muslims to defend the Palestinian cause, striking a tough stance on Israel despite improved ties between the two nations.
The president of majority Muslim Turkey says “it is the common duty of all Muslims to embrace the Palestinian cause and protect Jerusalem” and that safeguarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque should not be left to children armed with nothing but stones. Located in the Old City of Jerusalem, the hilltop compound is sacred to Muslims and to Jews, who revere it as the Temple Mount
Speaking at a parliamentary symposium on Jerusalem in Istanbul, the Turkish leader also criticizes an Israeli proposal to make mosques reduce the volume of loudspeakers issuing the call to prayer.
His comments come as Israel and Turkey prepare to exchange ambassadors as part of a reconciliation deal.
— AP
View of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, in the Old City of Jerusalem, with the Mount of Olives behind it, on September 29, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
President Reuven Rivlin tells a meeting of religious leaders that it would be better to find a compromise before lawmakers pass a law that would limit when mosques can use loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer.
“I thought that perhaps such a meeting could have an impact on the whole public, and that it would be a shame that a law should be born which touches on the issue of freedom of faith of a specific group among us,” Rivlin tells the clerics at a meeting at his home.
The draft law is due to go before the Knesset on Wednesday. The planned bill has sparked opposition around the Muslim world, including today from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warns today that hopes for a two-state peace settlement between Israel and a future Palestine are fading fast.
Marking the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” Ban warns that settlement building and home demolitions undermine Israeli democracy.
November 29 marks the 69th anniversary of the United Nations recognizing the Partition Plan that called for the creation of the state of Israel.
But he also criticizes the Palestinians’ “paralyzing lack of unity” and warned that their infighting has damaged their own democracy and the rule of law.
And he tells both sides that unless they act to revive hopes for peace, “they risk entrenching a one-state reality.”
— AFP with Times of Israel
Israeli forces have foiled an arson attempt near a major West Bank checkpoint, the Defense Ministry says.
Surveillance cameras identified the three Palestinians setting a fire in an open area near the checkpoint to the west of Ariel.
Troops were sent out and caught them, the statement says.
A spate of devastating wildfires in recent days has been blamed on arson.
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Elaine Chao to become transportation secretary, according to a Trump source.
The source has knowledge of the pick but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the pick, which is expected to be announced Tuesday afternoon.
Chao, 63, was labor secretary under president George W. Bush and the first Asian American woman to serve in a president’s Cabinet. She also is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Donald Trump picks Elaine Chao to be his transportation secretary https://t.co/ou73yyBw7c pic.twitter.com/ZAXKFbZDcJ
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 29, 2016
Chao came to the United States from Taiwan with her family at 8 years old. Her family settled in New York, where her father became a wealthy shipping magnate. She became head of the Peace Corps and deputy secretary of Transportation before taking over the Labor Department.
As Labor secretary, her job was to protect the nation’s workforce, including setting safety standards and addressing issues related to wages and retirement. She updated overtime regulations for “white-collar” workers and rules intended to force unions to disclose more details on their financial condition to members.
— AP
President Reuven Rivlin has reportedly asked Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to help foil the passing of a bill to limit when mosques can use loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer.
Hebrew media reports say Rivlin called Kahlon and asked him to allow his Kulanu party members to vote freely when the bill comes up in the Knesset on Wednesday.
President Reuven Rivlin, right, meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during the funeral for late former president Shimo Peres at Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem, on September 30, 2016. (Photo by Mark Neyman/GPO)
Kahlon did not say whether he would impose coalition discipline in the vote that has raised objections across the Arab world.
Earlier today Rivlin hosted an interfaith meeting of religious leaders in a bid to find a compromise on the issue.
Saudi Arabia got a rare snowfall today.
Many took to to social media to celebrate the rare snow in the desert kingdom.
Snow in Saudi Arabia is a forewarning of coming winter. Winter 2017 will be worse this year. https://t.co/p7TgahUml3 pic.twitter.com/nDlEydvUAl
— Betsey Lewis (@betseyJLewis1) November 29, 2016
Knesset Chairman Yuli Edelstein tells opposition lawmakers that a a first reading and preliminary vote on the controversial Regulation bill will go ahead on Wednesday as scheduled, Walla reports.
Opposition politicians had sent a letter to Edelstein asking him to delay the bill, arguing that passing the bill to retroactively legalize settlements and outposts built on private Palestinian land would open up Israel to war crimes charges.
The Pentagon says today that intelligence errors resulted in a US-led coalition air strike in Syria in September that reportedly killed around 90 Syrian government forces.
There were “errors in the development of intelligence, as well as missed opportunities for coalition members on duty to recognize and voice contrary evidence to decision makers,” the US military’s Central Command says in a statement following a six-week probe into the September 17 attack near Deir Ezzor.
The US-led coalition is focused on attacking the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq and does not want to get involved in Syria’s brutal civil war.
Australian, Danish, British and American planes all took part in the air strike, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group has said killed at least 90 regime troops.
—AFP
A 7-year-old boy on a bicycle died after being struck by a vehicle in the Tekoa settlement of the West Bank, the Magen David Adom medical service says.
The incident occurred in the main square of the central West Bank settlement, according to a Times of Israel reporter who was on the scene.
—Judah Ari Gross
One hundred anti-Semitic incidents occurred in the 10 days following the presidential election, representing about 12 percent of hate incidents in the US recorded by a civil rights watchdog.
The report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center looked at 867 hate incidents that occurred in the 10 days following the election of Donald Trump. The incidents targeted various minority groups, including Jews, immigrants, African-Americans, Muslims and the LGBT community. Incidents counted had been submitted through the watchdog’s website or reported in the media.
Of the 100 incidents classified as anti-Semitic, 80 were “vandalism and graffiti incidents of swastikas, without specific references to Jews,” while others targeted Jews more overtly, such as the harassment of individuals or vandalism of a synagogue, the report said. Many of the vandalism incidents included references to Trump, the nonprofit says.
— JTA
Nazi-themed graffiti was found in the town of Wellsville, New York, on the same day that Donald Trump was declared the winner in the presidential election, Nov. 9, 2016. (Twitter via JTA)
A 7-year-old boy who was killed while riding a bicycle in the Tekoa settlement in the West Bank was accidentally run over by a police car, police say.
Paramedics who arrived at the scene found the child under the car and were forced to declare him dead, the Magen David Adom rescue service says.
— Judah Ari Gross
IDF Brig. Gen. Ofek Buchris, who was charged with rape, sodomy and sexual assault against two female subordinates between 2010 and 2012 has reached a plea deal with the prosecution, Hebrew media reports.
Buchris, who has until now denied the charges, will admit to a series of sexual assault charges, but not to rape, Channel 2 reported.
The report says the deal likely means Buchris won’t go to jail.
His accusers will be given an opportunity to object to the deal.
Ofek Buchris speaks to reporters outside his Galilee home after an indictment was filed against him, charging the brigadier general with rape, sodomy and other indecent acts on July 21, 2016. (Screen capture: Walla news)
Workers complete a massive shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear plant’s exploded reactor today, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in the world.
The half cylinder-shaped shelter is locked in place over the plant’s reactor No. 4 after being moved in on hydraulic jacks for two weeks. It marks a significant step toward containing the consequences of the world’s worst nuclear accident, which occurred 30 years ago in what is now Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko describes the new shelter as “the biggest moving construction that humanity has ever created.”
Workers will now begin dismantling unstable parts of the original cover, the so-called sarcophagus, which was built over the reactor shortly after the disaster to contain radiation.
The April 26, 1986 explosion at the reactor sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe and forced the evacuation of about 115,000 people from the plant’s vicinity. A 30-kilometer (19-mile) area around the plant has remained largely off-limits and the town of Pripyat, where the plant’s workers once lived, was turned into a ghostly ruin of deteriorating apartment buildings.
The new shelter is 275 meters (843 feet) wide and 108 meters (354 feet) tall and cost about 1.5 billion euros, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. More than 40 governments have contributed to funding its construction, which involved 10,000 workers.
—AP
A view of a new shelter installed over the old sarcophagus housing the destroyed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Chernobyl, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided on a whim to cancel his speech at the opening night of the Fatah Congress, reportedly in order to give time for others to talk.
He will speak tomorrow evening.
Half the hall was falling asleep after two hours of speeches by a variety of non-Palestinian politicians, including a Chinese Communist Party member, who spoke in Arabic, and an Irish EU Parliament member.
Meanwhile, here’s the scene outside Shuqayri hall in the Muqata’a for the Fatah congress: pic.twitter.com/Jij8p17asL
— Grant Rumley (@GrantRumley) November 29, 2016
The most notable speech was by Khaled Mashaal, the political chief of the rival Hamas faction. He did not attend the congress, nor give the speech via satellite. Instead, a surrogate read his speech.
Mashaal repeated his recent calls for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and said his movement will do whatever needs to be done to bring this about.
— Dov Lieber
A minor earthquake is felt in Eilat this evening, causing no injuries or damage.
The quake measures 4.4 on the Richter Scale, according to the US Geological Survey, and is centered some 8 kilometers west of the town of Dahab in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
an hr ½ ago #earthquake 4.4 has hit South Sinai, Egypt, 30.0km, 8:01 م جرينتش+3 (EMSC) https://t.co/JhXTR9UFMY pic.twitter.com/fIRCVMFSoB
— (قروب العواصف) (@GroupStorms) November 29, 2016
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