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The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Erdan names Sau as acting police chief
Israel Police Deputy Commissioner Benzi Sau in a photo from May, 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)
Israel Police’s Tel Aviv District Commander Deputy Commissioner Benzi Sau will be the acting chief of police upon the departure of Commissioner Yohanan Danino next week.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan decided that Sau will remain in the position for the coming months until a permanent police chief is appointed.
According to Israel Radio, Sau’s appointment to the position will be brought to the government’s approval on Sunday.
2nd Islamic State bomber said to hit Kobani
A second Islamic State group suicide bomber hit the Syrian border town of Kobani on Thursday, hours after the jihadists reentered the symbolic Kurdish town, a monitoring group says.
Casualties are reported in the attack near the border crossing with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said without immediately giving any figures.
— AFP
IS said to execute 23 Kurds near Kobani
Islamic State group fighters executed at least 23 Syrian Kurds, among them women and children, in a village south of the border town of Kobani on Thursday, a monitor says.
“Islamic State forces shot dead at least 23 people in the Kurdish village of Barkh Butan, including women and children and residents who had taken up arms to fight,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
IS launched a surprise attack on Kobani on Thursday, using at least two suicide car bombs and clashing with Kurdish forces.
Kobani, on the border with Turkey, is an important symbol in the battle against the jihadists, having been secured by Kurdish militia with US-led air support in January after four months of ferocious fighting.
— AFP
An ambulance waits in Suruc in Turkey’s in Sanliurfa province to transport wounded people near the Syrian border town of Kobane on June 25, 2015. (AFP)
Ichilov Hospital director steps down
Gabi Barabash, director of the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, announces he is stepping down.
Barabash says he will resign after “exhausting” the position, Ynet reports. A former director-general of the Health Ministry, Barabash is one of the strongest figures in the Israeli health system.
“One cannot overlook the fact that I have been running this hospital for more than twenty years and this is certainly a good time for me and for the hospital to be refreshed,” Barabash writes in a letter announcing his retirement.
State Control C’tee to query PM over expenses
Chairwoman of the State Control Committee Karin Elharar (Yesh Atid) will summon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a discussion on the State Comptroller’s critique of expenses at the Prime Minister’s Residence. Elharar says the discussion will take place during the current Knesset session and adds that “the public has the right to know.”
“The report points to many failings regarding use of public monies. The committee will examine whether these monies were used inappropriately. The public deserves to know whether persons in office are acting improperly and using the public’s money. The State Control Committee is not meant to be a rubber stamp, but a deterrent authority and a body formulating the norms of appropriate conduct by the government,” Elharar says.
“I intend to work as is customary and attempt to coordinate with the Prime Minister’s Office and work with them,” she adds.
The recent State Comptroller’s report raised questions on the management of the Prime Minister’s Residence regarding expenditure on food, cleaning, gardening and logistics.
The State Control Committee is traditionally headed by an MK from the opposition.
Chairwoman of the State Control Committee Karin Elharar leads a committee meeting in the Knesset on June 08, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
UN pleads for Syria refugee aid to speed up
The United Nations said Thursday there is an acute shortage of money to provide aid to refugees from Syria and their hosts in neighbouring countries, appealing for funding to be speeded up.
Some 3.9 million people have fled the civil war in Syria, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says the shortage is hampering assistance to them and to more than 20 million people in the countries hosting them.
The UNHCR says that, of $4.53 billion (4.04 billion euros) required under the so-called Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, only $1.06 billion, or 23 percent, had been received by the end of May.
Commissioner Antonio Guterres says that this “massive crisis requires far more solidarity and responsibility-sharing from the international community than what we have seen so far.”
— AFP
Girl, 4, badly hurt after fall from 2nd floor
Paramedics were scrambled this afternoon to treat a four-year-old girl who fell two stories to the ground from a building in Bnei Brak and was seriously injured.
A preliminary investigation shows that for as-yet unclear reasons, the girl stumbled from a window in her home and hit her head.
Rescue teams from the Hatzallah first aid organization gave the girl initial treatment and she was hospitalized in serious condition.
Micro-drone crashes near Gaza border fence
A micro-drone crashed near the Gaza Strip border fence, Israel Radio reports. Earlier the drone was seen flying in the Strip’s airspace.
Yesh Atid MKs meet Druze community leader
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and MK Yaakov Peri met with Druze community leader Moafaq Tarif in Julis, in the center of Israel today.
Tarif and other Druze leaders met yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
Lapid said upon meeting Tarif: “First of all I would like to commend the sheikh for his swift and resolute condemnation of the terrible lynching that was perpetrated against wounded rebels arriving from Syria. Our alliance with the Druze community is engraved in stone and it eternal. It is based on our friendship, on the [Druze community members’] enlistment in the IDF and on the duty to obey the law. No one in Israel can, and no one should take the law into their hands. The State of Israel is committed to help the wounded who arrive here because of humanitarian reasons. We must steer clear of involvement in what is going on in Syria. We are obligated to the Druze, we are obligated to friendship and we are all obligated to abide by the law.”
Peri said that “Israel’s vague policy regarding what happens in Syria is a necessity of reality. The Druze of Syria are the brothers of our Druze brothers in Israel and this is where our humane concern for them arises from. The security establishment will know how to answer the needs of the Druze community.”
Tarif thanked the Yesh Atid MKs and said that the Druze community was “undergoing trying times. We are worried about what is happening in Syria and especially our brothers there.” Tarif added: “I turn to all the youngsters to listen intently and notice what words on our streets constitute incitement. There are a lot of lies, a lot of disinformation. This is all meant to create confusion in the Druze community and will end up harming us. The community and the religious leaders will all convene at the grave of Jethro and they are all united, all of them condemned the incident. Assaulting wounded people is against our path. We condemn it.”
Druze community leader Sheikh Moafaq Tarif (left) meeting with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid (center) and the party’s MK Yaakov Peri in Julis, in the center of Israel on Thursday, June 25 2015. (Courtesy)
Hamas claims responsibility for drone
The micro-drone that crashed near the Gaza border fence was operated by Hamas, according to a statement issued by the group.
“We launched several UAVs for special missions deep in Israel’s territory,” the group said in a statement.
The IDF was following the drone throughout its flight, Ynet reports. When it crashed, soldiers from the IDF’s Engineering Corps arrived to examine it after it crashed.
Hamas launched a UAV in the past, during Operation Protective Edge. It was intercepted and downed by a Patriot missile.
‘Dark forces trying to damage flotilla boats’
Israeli-born Dror Feiler, a left-wing activist participating in the flotilla making its way to the Gaza Strip, says that “unknown hands” tinkered with one of the boats making their way to the Strip, damaging it. Speaking to a Nazareth-based radio station, Feiler says, “the anonymous saboteurs did work that can only be done by professionals.”
Feiler is quoted by Haaretz as saying that if the boat would set sail it would get stuck in the middle of the sea. “Someone came to sabotage the boat and damaged the propellers, just as they did in 2011,” he says. “There are ‘dark forces’ trying to stop us in all sorts of ways. It’s someone who knows what they’re doing.”
The flotilla is expected to reach Gaza in three days, making few stops along the route for fear that it will not be allowed to continue on the journey if it docks at a port of a country with good relations with Israel, like Cyprus.
PA hands documents to ICC detailing Israeli ‘war crimes’
The Palestinian Authority filed documents at the International Criminal Court at The Hague today documenting alleged Israeli violations of international law.
The documents refer to three issues: The recent round of fighting in the Gaza Strip, building in the settlements and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
According to Haaretz, PA officials are hoping that following the publication of the UN report on Operation Protective Edge earlier this week, the ICC will be more inclined to open an investigation into Israel’s alleged war crimes.
The documents were handed by PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki. According to a senior Palestinian official, the documents include data on damage to property and to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Additionally, the PA claims that holding most security prisoners outside the West Bank constitutes a violation of international law.
Palestinain Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki, March 22, 2011. (screen capture: YouTube/PeresCenter)
PA names youth soccer teams after terrorists
Palestinian youths will be playing a soccer tournament in the town of Abu Dis during Ramadan, and some of the participants will be playing on teams named after terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians, Palestinian Media Watch reports, citing Arabic-language media reports.
According to PMW, among the teams in the tournament is the Martyr Abu Jihad team (named after a man responsible for the deaths of 125 Israelis), the Martyr Khaled Nazzal team (after a man responsible for the Ma’alot massacre, in which 22 schoolchildren and five adults were killed), the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa team (named after a terrorist responsible for multiple terror attacks) and the Mutaz Hijazi team (named after the man who shot and attempted to murder Rabbi Yehuda Glick in November 2014.
According to the NGO, presenting murderous terrorists as heroes to children by naming sporting tournaments after them is a long-standing policy of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, and was documented numerous times in the past.
The practice, notes the NGO, continues unabated despite the PA’s pledges to cease incitement.
Israel calls PA handing of documents to The Hague ‘a provocation’
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon says the Palestinian Authority’s decision to submit to the International Criminal Court at The Hague documents detailing alleged Israeli war crimes is “no more than a provocation and manipulation of the court. We hope the prosecutor will not fall into this trap,” Nahshon adds.
Earlier today, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki submitted documents to the ICC in an effort to convince the court to open a criminal investigation against Israel. The document does not contain, however, a lawsuit against the State of Israel.
Hundreds attend slain farmer’s funeral
Hundreds of people are attending the funeral of David Bar-Kapara in Rehovot. Bar-Kapara, 70, a resident of Rehovot, was found Wednesday afternoon near Pedaya, in serious condition, with signs of violence on his body. He succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter at Assaf Harofeh Hospital.
His son Elya said, “Evil men killed you in the place you so cherished… I believe the Israel Police will do their work loyally. May God help us.”
The chief rabbi of Rehovot, Simha Kook, said, “How long will these murderers come and attack Israel? King David said, ‘the Lord is a god of vengeance. How long will evil men prevail?’ Here, in the center of the country, so close, the angels of destruction come to wreak havoc.”
Religious Affairs Minister David Azoulay said, “The deceased was murdered in cold blood because he is Jewish. The murderer knew that he was a Jew and only then carried out the murder. This is hatred of Jews pure and simple.”
Two seriously wounded in Hadera drive-by shooting
Two people were seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting in Hadera.
The two were shot by an assailant on a motorcycle passing near a store they were in, on Hillel Yafeh Street.
Police set up roadblocks in the area in an effort to capture the shooter.
Magen David Adom teams from the Sharon Region gave the wounded initial treatment and evacuated them to the Hillel Yafeh Hospital in the city.
Joint List MK slammed for joining flotilla by colleagues in party
Joint List MK Masud Ganaim criticizes his colleague in the party Basel Ghattas for the latter’s participation in a flotilla heading to the Gaza Strip.
Ghattas did not coordinate his participation in the flotilla with his fellow MKs in the party. Posts by Facebook users on Ghattas’s page criticize him for taking a stand for the Palestinian in Gaza instead of serving his electorate.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Ganaim says that Ghattas did not consult with his colleagues in the party before leaving the country and told no one of his plans.
Joint List MK Masud Ganaim at his Knesset office, March 10, 2014 (Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)
Herzog wants gas debate moved from cabinet to Knesset
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) asks Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) to transfer the authority to make a decision on the issue of natural gas from the cabinet to the Knesset. Herzog says his request represents all factions of the opposition.
Herzog tells Edelstein the decision is one of historic significance and cannot be made secretly, without transparency and without being preceded by a proper public and parliamentary debate.
The security cabinet, a small top-secret forum of senior ministers, decided earlier today to pass discussions on the natural gas reservoirs to the full cabinet. The decision came after Economy Minister Aryeh Deri refused to approve a draft decision on the issue due to a clause that allowed the deal to progress despite the opposition it faces from Antitrust Authority chief David Gilo.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog on June 1, 2015 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
British teens sentenced in theft of Auschwitz artifacts
Two British teenagers arrested in Poland for stealing artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum were fined and given suspended sentences.
The teens, on a class trip from The Perse School in Cambridge, England, were fined 1,000 Polish zloty ($2,600), given one-year probation, which was suspended for three years, and released by local police, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.
The teens, both 17, were found to have buttons, a fragment of a hair clipper and a piece of a spoon that belonged to prisoners of Birkenau in their backpacks.
They were charged with “misappropriation of objects that are artifacts of special cultural significance,” the Krakow Gazette reported.
The school said in a statement that the boys “picked up the fragments in the Canada section of the camp. They co-operated fully with the authorities and admitted taking the items. They are deeply sorry for the offense they have caused.”
School headmaster Ed Elliott said: “There will be a full and thorough investigation into what occurred. I want to hear directly from the boys as to what led them to take these items. I want to ensure that all necessary lessons are learnt. The opportunity to be able to visit Holocaust sites carries with it the duty to treat those sites with the utmost respect and sensitivity.”
Deputy Inspector Mariusz Ciarka of the Malopolska police told the local media that the teens did not appear to realize the gravity of their alleged crime and were unfamiliar with “the dramatic history associated with Auschwitz. In contrast, museum staff are particularly sensitive to these types of incidents.”
— JTA
State Department human rights report slams Iran
The annual State Department report on human rights contains harsh criticisms of countries with which America is trying to enter détentes, including Iran, Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Iran, the report says, has the second-highest rate of executions in the world, “after legal proceedings that frequently didn’t respect Iran’s own constitutional guarantee to due process.”
Other severe human rights violations in the country, the report says, include restrictions on freedom of expression, religion and the media, as well as the arbitrary and unlawful detaining, torturing, and killing of Iranian nationals.
On Cuba, the report says that while Havana eased travel restrictions in January to a large extent, the government nevertheless denies passport requests for certain opposition figures, or harasses them upon their return to the country.
The US eased travel restrictions on its side as part of a historic agreement between President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro signed in December, aimed at normalizing ties between the two former Cold War rivals.
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