Jerusalem mayor huddles with protesters, trying to calm violence

Liberman lauds ‘glorious Israeli’ seen in Nepal

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman says during a press conference on Thursday that Israel is helping the Nepalese people following the devastating earthquake last week “in every possible way.”

Liberman sends his “condolences and sympathies” to the Nepalese people, and said Nepal was “a very friendly country.”

The foreign minister thanked India and China, which, he said, helped in the efforts to rescue Israelis stuck in the country.

The foreign minister then referred to recent media reports that highlighted Israeli tourists in various places acting crassly and abusing staff at hotels and planes: “We talk a lot about the ugly Israeli. I want to talk about the glorious Israelis. We [have seen] the Jewish people at its best, Israelis acting responsibly toward one another.”

“How they helped each other, Magen David Adom, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the IDF and insurances companies: All cooperated and really did an outstanding job. The field hospital is a point of pride for Israel,” the foreign minister said.

The foreign minister boasted that other countries, including major powers, did not do “even a quarter” of what Israel has done so far to help both its nationals in Nepal and the locals hurt in the quake. He ended his comments with a wish that the last Israeli still missing, Or Asraf, will “come home safely.”

— Raphael Ahren

China, Russia to hold drills in Mediterranean

The navies of China and Russia plan to hold joint drills in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in mid-May.

China’s Defense Ministry says the “Joint Sea 2015” exercises will feature nine surface ships, including three from China that are currently taking part in anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia. It says the drills involve rescue, resupply and other missions, including live-firing, far from home ports.

The exercises show China’s continued engagement with Russia at a time when Moscow has been shunned by much of the international community over its support for separatist rebels in Ukraine.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to attend commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow on May 9.

— AP

Israel sending 10 tons of goods to Nepal

Israel is sending 10 tons of supplies to Nepal. The goods are sent courtesy of the Israeli Embassy in India.

https://twitter.com/AssafMoran/status/593725116015464448

Iran says warships at entrance to key Yemen strait

Two Iranian destroyers, sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect commercial ships, reached the entrance of Bab el-Mandab, a strategic strait between Yemen and Djibouti, Iran’s navy says Thursday.

“We are present in the Gulf of Aden in accordance with international regulations to ensure the safety of commercial ships of our country against the threat of pirates,” the head of the Iranian navy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari is quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

The navy sent the Alborz and Bushehr destroyers to patrol the entrance to the strait, he adds.

Bab el-Mandeb, a narrow body of water separating Yemen and Djibouti, is the key strategic entry point into the Red Sea, through which around 4 million barrels of oil pass each day on ships headed to or from the Suez Canal.

— AFP

UN envoy urges Palestinian unity, end to blockade

The UN’s new Middle East peace envoy urges Palestinian factions to unite and Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, on his first visit to the territory.

“I strongly believe that it will hurt the cause of the Palestinian people if division, if the lack of unity, is not addressed as soon as possible,” Nickolay Mladenov, who was appointed in February, tells reporters in Gaza City.

“I hope that the United Nations will be able to support the efforts to strengthen this unity,” he says.

Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis months after a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas wrought devastation in the Strip, with the international community warning of further conflict without Palestinian reconciliation and a lifting of Israel’s blockade.

“We in the United Nations, along with our partners in the international community, have a responsibility to ensure that Gaza is not just being reconstructed… but that the blockade which stops access to construction materials, to movement of people, goods… is lifted,” Mladenov says.

— AFP

Hamas slams PA for arresting its activists in West Bank

Hamas criticizes the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas, claiming the PA is arresting Hamas student activists in Judea and Samaria for fear of the group’s rising popularity in the West Bank, NRG reports.

Hamas officials demand that the PA release all Hamas activists held in PA jails in the West Bank and to refrain from any future arrests. Additionally, the officials said they see Abbas as solely responsible for the persecutions.

The Gaza-based terror group said arrests of students identified with Hamas were an act of revenge by the PA after Hamas won the elections for the student body at Bir Zeit University. Hamas called for elections in all Palestinian universities and claimed the PA is preventing such a move because it knows Hamas will gain support.

Hamas student unions recently won in Bir Zeit as well as in the Hebron Polytechnic school.

Yesh Atid to protest ‘Netanyahu’s fire sale’

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid will speak at a demonstration on Friday morning at the Kaplan Junction in Tel Aviv planned in response to reports of Likud’s concessions to United Torah Judaism in coalition talks.

“Over the past few days we have been witness to a fire sale by Prime Minister Netanyahu. The coalition agreement signed between the Likud and United Torah Judaism takes Israel backwards and revokes all the changes in social priorities made by Yesh Atid over the past two years. Canceling the Equality in National Service bill, canceling the study of core subjects in all schools and bringing back criteria which discriminate against the general public and in favor of the Haredi population with regards to housing, taxation and education are just the tip of the iceberg. The agreement diverts budgets of around NIS 5 billion and significant public resources to one sector at the expense of the middle class and the most vulnerable in society.”

The party did extremely well in the previous election on a platform which highlighted sharing the burden of military service fairly between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis. Some of its bills remain unlegislated but others are still in the pipeline of Knesset committees. Likud has promised UTJ, however, that it will reverse the process. The promise was intended as a carrot to lure UTJ to sign the coalition agreement.

Ethiopians protest at police HQ in Jerusalem

200 Ethiopian Israelis are demonstrating outside the police headquarters in Jerusalem against “violence and racism directed at Israelis of Ethiopian descent.”

The demonstration comes in the wake of several cases of police violence against Ethiopian Israelis in recent months.

Police Chief Commissioner Yohanan Danino said he would establish a special team to examine the community’s claims and formulate ways to deal with the problem, Ynet reports.

‘US expects next Israeli gov’t to recommit to 2 states’

The Obama administration expects a commitment to the two-state solution from the next Israeli government and from the Palestinian Authority, National Security Adviser Susan Rice says.

“President Obama has made clear that we need to take a hard look at our approach to the conflict, and that resolving it is in the national security interest of the United States,” Rice says at the annual meeting of the Arab American Institute.

“We look to the next Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate — through policies and actions — a genuine commitment to a two-state solution,” she said.

Obama administration officials said they would “reevaluate” their approach to advancing peace in the wake of comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of his reelection last month in which he appeared to count out a two-state solution.

The reevaluation included reconsidering the degree to which the United States shields Israel from critical resolutions in international forums such as the United Nations.

Netanyahu said he had been misunderstood and had only meant that he counted out the two-state solution for the moment, contingent upon, among other things, a more accommodating Palestinian Authority.

Rice’s speech appeared to be a signal that the Obama administration is now in a wait-and-see mode, and is willing to give Netanyahu time to form a new government to see whether he has recommitted to the two-state solution.

Rice, to applause, also decried Israel’s settlement policies.

“Like every US administration since 1967, we have opposed Israeli settlement activity and efforts to change facts on the ground,” she says. “It only makes it harder to negotiate peace in good faith.”

— JTA

Tel Aviv hosts May 1 march today

Thousands of youths are marching in Tel Aviv to mark Workers’ Day.

This year in Israel the annual May 1 march was brought forward by a day so it would not occur on a Friday. During the march, from Kikar Hamedina in Tel Aviv to the Histadrut House on Arlozorov Street, several streets in the city will be closed.

In the Histadrut House, HQ of the Histadrut Labor Union, chairman Avi Nissenkorn will make an address.

More than 20 killed in Syrian regime strikes

Syrian government forces have carried out a series of air raids and shelled several areas in the country’s northwest in an apparent attempt to halt a rebel advance, killing at least 20 civilians, activists say.

State-owned news agency SANA said troops were targeting “terrorists.” The government refers to all of its armed opponents as terrorists.

Islamist insurgents, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, have been gaining territory in Idlib province in recent weeks, seizing the provincial capital of the same name, the town of Jisr al-Shughour and an important military base.

Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij is on an official visit to Iran, Syria’s main ally.

“There must be a stance to evaluate ways to confront terrorism, particularly after the recent escalation,” al-Freij says in a press conference with his Iranian counterpart. “Our views are identical on the upcoming steps to deal with terrorism,” he says, without elaborating.

— AP

Rivlin meets with Ethiopian Israeli students

President Reuven Rivlin meets with 80 Ethiopian-Israeli students, and speaks about a video that apparently shows an Ethiopian soldier being beaten by police, which was published by Channel 2 news this week.

“The shock that we all felt when we saw those pictures — which I am pleased to say immediately led the Israel Police to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident and its awful outcome — is still deeply felt,” the president tells the students, according to a statement issued by his office.

“We cannot sit back in the face of anger and shouting – incidents such as these must serve as a warning sign and an opportunity to conduct some genuine and thorough introspection,” he says. “I believe, and have even discussed with the police chief, that the police will do all in its power to conduct an investigation and correct what needs correcting, to ensure such events are not repeated.”

Tax on homes bought for investment to rise

The purchase tax on new homes bought for investment will be raised to 20-25 percent, according to the coalition agreement between Kulanu and Likud, Ynet reports.

Currently, purchase tax on homes bought for investment stands at 5%-10%. The tax will be applied from the first shekel, and not as it is currently, imposed only above a threshold amount.

Likud also agreed to another of Kulanu’s demands, namely that all housing companies working under the wing of the Housing Ministry will build at least 700 homes for public housing every year.

Contractors that will promise to sell homes below the market price will be able to purchase plots of land at a significantly lower price.

Gulf ministers meet as Yemen conflict rages

Gulf foreign ministers meet in the Saudi capital for talks on their military operation in Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels have defied airstrikes and refuse to give ground.

Ministers from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, huddle in Riyadh as warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition press on with attacks on rebel positions.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah, chairing the meeting, says the air campaign in Yemen demonstrates the Gulf monarchies’ commitment to helping their impoverished neighbor.

“The Decisive Storm operation showed the GCC’s historical responsibility towards Yemen,” he says.

Gulf nations “will work with the international community to achieve legitimacy and unity” in Yemen, he says, before the ministers continue their meeting in a closed session.

— AFP

MDA trains Nepalese students in first aid

24 Nepalese students in Israel were given first aid training from Magen David Adom before returning to Nepal.

24 Nepalese students studying in Israel,received emergency &1st Aid training from @Mdais before returning to #Nepal pic.twitter.com/Tly4NL9Uxg

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) April 30, 2015

Iran’s seizure of cargo vessel likely related to 2005 case

Danish shipper Maersk Line that chartered a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel which Iranian forces have seized says the reason for stopping MV Maersk Tigris could be related to a 2005 cargo case.

Maersk Line spokesman Michael Storgaard says they “learned” Thursday that an Iranian appeals court had ruled the company must pay $3.6 million for a 10-container cargo delivered a decade ago on behalf of an Iranian company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the cargo never was collected, according to Storgaard, adding it eventually was disposed of by local authorities.

Storgaard said Copenhagen-based Maersk Line will “do everything we can to resolve this matter” with Iranian authorities.

He added the ship and crew aren’t theirs. MV Maersk Tigris, operated by Rickmers Ship Management in Singapore, was boarded on Tuesday.

— AP

Director of Chabad House pilots chopper

The co-director of the Kathmandu Chabad house director piloted a borrowed Nepali helicopter to bring food and water to hikers stranded in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Rabbi Chezky Lifshitz took the plane to the mountainous region of Dhunche on Wednesday, according to Chabad. Twenty-five Israeli hikers were later airlifted from the area and will be sheltered in the Chabad house.

The rescue came after a mission to deliver food and a satellite phone to the hikers by motorcycle failed due to blocked roads.

Lifshitz had been communicating with many of the Israelis stuck in the mountain regions in remote areas like Dhunche and Syrabrubesi, Chabad reported. He used satellite phones fixed with GPS that the hikers are carrying, then relayed their locations to the Nepalese government.

His wife, Chani, with the assistance of Israelis stranded at the Chabad house, prepared and distributed hundreds of bowls of dal bhat, a lentils-and-rice local food staple, to people in their neighborhood, whose own supplies of food have practically run out. She also prepared another 2,000 meals to be distributed further afield.

— JTA

Young boy, woman rescued by Norwegian-Israeli team

A 15-year-old boy is rescued after nearly five days buried under the rubble.

According to the BBC, a huge crowd cheers as the boy, Pemba Lama, emerges blinking after not seeing real daylight since the earthquake on Saturday.

He is carried away with a brace strapped around his neck, and taken to the IDF’s field hospital in Kathmandu.

He tells the BBC: “There were so many people around me in the rubble. They were screaming.”

Meanwhile, a woman by the name of Krishna is pulled out of the rubble by Nepalese soldiers and a huge team of experts from France, Norway and Israel.

She was working in a Kathmandu hostel when the quake struck, BBC reports.

She was trapped in the rubble with the bodies of three people, including her own uncle.

— AFP contributed to this report.

IsraAID led efforts to rescue woman

Shachar Zahavi, the director of IsraAID, an NGO that sends delegation to disaster zones, tells The Times of Israel that the NGO’s team led the efforts to rescue a Nepalese woman pulled from under the rubble in Kathmandu today.

FBI helped arrange unsuccessful ransom for Warren Weinstein

The FBI helped arrange a ransom payment from the family of Warren Weinstein, the Jewish-American government contractor who had been held hostage by al-Qaida from 2011.

News of the unsuccessful ransom attempt for Weinstein, who was accidentally killed in January by a US drone strike, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The family paid a “small amount” in 2012 to people who claimed to be guarding Weinstein, Reuters reported. They first had received proof that he was in their custody.

The FBI reportedly was aware of the payment. US officials had said they would not negotiate with al-Qaida for his release as a matter of policy when it comes to hostages.

In the drone strike, US forces had targeted an al-Qaida-linked compound in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, the White House announced last week. Until the announcement, information about the raid had been classified.

Weinstein, 73, of Rockville, Md., was kidnapped in August 2011 in Lahore, Pakistan, while working for J.E. Austin Associates, a private company that advises Pakistani businesses. During his captivity, Weinstein appeared in several videos appealing directly to US and even Israeli officials to effect his release.

— JTA

IsraAID looking for another survivor in rubble

IsraAID’s Search and Rescue Team (SAR) in Kathmandu rescues Krishna Devi Khadka, a woman in her late 20s who was stuck in a hotel for five days in an air pocket covered by a body, the NGO says in a statement.

The complicated extraction lasts for hours, with IsraAID’s SAR team leading international efforts that included SAR teams from France, Norway, and Nepal. After hours of work, the team finds her and sends in the medical team from IsraAID’s Mexico-based partner CADENA to set up an IV drip and stabilize Khadka.

As Khadka is sped away in an ambulance, the team returns to the building as signs of a potential second survivor are felt.

No evidence Ehud Barak took kickbacks, police say

Police say there is currently no evidence for allegations raised by disgraced former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who said one of his predecessors in office, Ehud Barak, took “tens of millions” in bribes when he served as defense minister.

Police investigated following something Olmert told his former aide Shula Zaken in a phone call recorded by Zaken without his knowledge.

“He took bribes in millions, in tens of millions, this lunatic will end up in jail,” Olmert told Zaken in the recording. He was alleging that Barak took kickbacks on arms deals between Israel and countries buying Israeli-made weapons.

According to Channel 2, police will tell Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein that unless new evidence emerges on the matter, there is no cause for a criminal investigation against Barak.

Israeli NGOs spread to remote villages of Nepal

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The Joint Israelife Disaster Response team, comprising volunteers from Israel’s paramedic organizations ZAKA, United Hatzolah and F.I.R.S.T., visits Kagatiguam as part of an effort to canvas areas farther from Kathmandu to determine the extent of the damage.

“The way Nepal is laid out is with so many villages, and we know these villages are totally demolished,” says Mati Goldstein, the director of ZAKA International and a member of the Isralife Disaster Response Team.

Goldstein, who has volunteered at more than a dozen international disasters, says that the death toll in Nepal is actually a lot lower than it could have been, because Nepal’s earthquake came at 11:56 a.m., when most people were out of their homes.

Haiti’s 2010 quake killed 250,000 people and injured more than a million, because the main earthquake hit at 4:53 a.m., when most people were still asleep in their homes.

Using the coordinates of the earthquake’s epicenter, the Israelife team is trying to determine which villages may have been hard hit but remain as yet unvisited by aid organizations.

They are coordinating their work with the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and at the end of the day report things like the number and kinds of injuries, deaths, and the extent of the damage.

— Melanie Lidman

Several wounded in Ethiopian Israelis’ protest

Police are using tear gas and other crowd-control methods in an effort to contain a demonstration of Ethiopian Israelis, who are alleging that racism played a part in a recent police brutality case.

Some 1,000 people are demonstrating in Jerusalem, and have been walking with an aim of reaching the Prime Minister’s Residence.

At least three police officers and eight demonstrators are wounded, Channel 2 reports.

A reporter on the scene says the demonstration, which began quietly with some 200 people, has become violent.

He adds that it is unclear why police are trying to prevent the demonstrators from reaching the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The demonstrators were confronting police at the bottom of Jerusalem’s Agron Street, about 300 meters from the residence.

Mayor Barkat at Ethiopian Israelis’ demo

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has come to speak with the demonstrators who are blocking Agron Street in Jerusalem.

Barkat huddling with protesters, tries to calm them

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and Yesh Atid Pnina Tamano Shata were trying to calm the violence as Israeli protesters from Ethiopian descent clashed with police at the bottom of Agron Street this evening.

“I’ll go speak to the District Commander of police,” Barkat says in a clip shown on Channel 2 news.

“I came back from a council meeting, I did not know of the protest, you have a democratic right to protest,” Barkat tells the demonstrators. Even as the protest was improvised and did not receive a permit from the police, Barkat tells the protesters, they have a right to voice their grievances.

PM calls on protesters in Jerusalem to avoid violence

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls on protesters to avoid violence as a demonstration of Israelis of Ethiopian descent, who are protesting police violence against members on the community.

“I strongly condemn the beating of the soldier from the Ethiopian community and those responsible will answer for it,” Netanyahu says. “But at the same time, no one should take the law into their hands. Immigrants from Ethiopia and their families are dear to us, and the State of Israel is making great efforts to make their integration in society easier. We will continue this also in the next government.”

— Raphael Ahren

Netanyahu thanks Indian PM for help in search efforts

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday afternoon and conveyed his condolences to the Indian people for the losses suffered in the recent earthquake, a statement from his office says.

The prime minister thanked his Indian counterpart for the assistance of Indian helicopters in rescuing Israelis and for Israeli planes’ landing in Indian territory.

Netanyahu noted that major efforts were now being made to locate Israeli citizen Or Asraf who has defined not made contact. Netanyahu thanked Modi for his willingness to aid in the search effort.

The two prime ministers also spoke about expanding and enhancing bilateral cooperation in continuation of the steps that have been taken since their meeting in September of last year.