Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
The Israel Resilience party calls the criticism of Benny Gantz over his remarks on the controversial nation-state law “hysterical,” saying the Netanyahu government “shot our Druze brothers in the back – we will heal [the wound].”
Earlier, Gantz vowed to Druze leaders that he would do everything in his power to “fix” the legislation and said that Israel should work to strengthen bonds with the minority community.
The Likud party immediately attacked Gantz, saying his remarks put him in the same ideological basket as Hatnua chief Tzipi Livni and Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid.
“When Ganz attacks the national law and Tzipi Livni congratulates him for it, everyone knows the obvious: Ganz is left, just like Lapid,” the party said in a statement.
Gantz is seen as one of the only possible threats to a Netanyahu victory in the April 9 elections.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that Saudi Arabia’s king and crown prince have reaffirmed their commitment to hold the killers of journalist Jamal Khashoggi accountable.
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “both acknowledge that this accountability needs to take place,” Pompeo says in Riyadh following talks with the two men.
— AFP
Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party says an adviser to a regional leader who published a manipulated image of the country’s president dressed in Nazi uniform has quit over the matter.
The party’s Vrancea county branch says Constantin Guguianu has resigned his post and from the party, days after he posted a fake photo on social media of President Klaus Iohannis wearing a Nazi helmet emblazoned with a swastika.
The party distanced itself from his action in a statement, saying it firmly condemned “this kind of behavior.”
The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Holocaust Study also criticized the smear, saying it could encourage similar “gaffes.” Guguianu later deleted the post.
In recent months, several senior Social Democrats including two ministers have made jibes about Iohannis, an ethnic German, linking him to the Nazis.
— AP
Palestinian officials say scuffles have broken out on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City after guards at the mosque refused to allow an Israeli policeman to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap.
Firas Dibs, a spokesman for the Islamic authority that oversees the site, says scuffles erupted between dozens of worshipers and police after the guards closed the doors to the mosque and barricaded themselves inside. He says the director of the mosque was lightly wounded.
شرطة الاحتلال تحاصر مسجد قبة الصخرة في المسجد الأقصى المبارك وتمنع دخول المصلين .#الأقصى_في_خطر pic.twitter.com/UCJkBKZYRj
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) January 14, 2019
The Temple Mount — site of the Biblical Jewish temples, and which houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine — has often been the epicenter of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians as the holiest site in Judaism and third-holiest site in Islam.
Israeli police could not immediately be reached for comment.
— with AP
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan lashes out at Israel Resilience party leader Benny Gantz after the ex-IDF chief vowed to Druze leaders that he would do everything in his power to “fix” the controversial nation-state law passed by the current Likud government.
Erdan calls Gantz’s remark “shameful,” and says the Likud party’s “covenant with our Druze brothers is eternal and unshakable.”
In a statement, Erdan blames Gantz for the death of Druze border guard Madhat Yusuf in 2000, who bled to death after being shot in clashes in the West Bank.
“When Palestinian terrorists shot border guard Madhat Yusuf, Benny Gantz was one of those commanders who turned his back on him, and did not do ‘everything in his power’ to save his life,” he says.
He says that perhaps Gantz should “just go back to shutting up.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that talks are under way on Washington’s proposal to establish a “safe zone” in flashpoint border areas of northeastern Syria, where tensions are rising between Turkey and Kurdish militia.
“We want to make sure that the folks who fought with us to down the (Islamic State group) have security… and also that terrorists acting out of Syria aren’t able to attack Turkey,” Pompeo says.
“We want a secure border for all the parties,” he says in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the latest leg of a whirlwind Middle East tour.
Washington is holding talks with all relevant sides about such a “safe zone,” he adds.
His comments come a day after US President Donald Trump in a tweet pushed for the creation of a 20-mile (30-kilometer) “safe zone,” without saying who would create, enforce or pay for it.
— AFP
Croatia’s government formally cancels a $500 million deal to buy 12 used fighter jets from Israel after it collapsed over US objections.
State TV says the government made the decision at today’s session.
Israel and Croatia reached a tentative deal in March for the sale of the upgraded F-16 Barak fighter planes, pending US approval to allow the American-made technology to be purchased by a third party.
The deal ran into trouble after Washington said Israel needed to strip off upgrades that were added after Israel took delivery of the aircraft from the United States some 30 years ago.
The sophisticated electronics and radar systems were crucial in Croatia’s decision to buy the F-16s from Israel instead from the US or Greece, which also bid for the contract.
— AP
Two men have arrested for allegedly ordering 2 kilos of methamphetamine through the mail, police say.
The suspects purchased the crystal meth from a drug dealer in Mexico, who shipped the drug to Israel concealed inside the figurines of a nativity set, according to a statement.
Police say customs agents who processed the package when it arrived at Ben Gurion airport last week reported it as suspicious and found the drugs.
An undercover police officer delivered the package to a 33-year-old man in Yavne. He and his 41-year-old accomplice were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking.
Poland’s health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event.
Lukasz Szumowski says that the doctors who were fighting to save Adamowicz’s life informed him the mayor had died.
Prosecutors say that the man accused of stabbing the mayor will be subjected to a psychiatric examination.
— AP
A senior US official says the US will step up efforts to counter Iran’s “dangerous activities” around the region including the financing and activities of proxy organizations such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Referring to the Iran-backed group, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale also says it is “unacceptable” to have a militia outside the control of the state and unanswerable to the people of Lebanon, digging attack tunnels into Israel and threatening regional stability.
A former US ambassador to Lebanon, Hale makes the remarks after meetings with Lebanese officials.
He also reiterates that the US will be bringing American troops home from Syria but says America remains committed to ensure the Islamic State group remains unable to remerge.
— AP
US President Donald Trump says he has “never worked for Russia,” assailing reports that raised questions about his ties to Vladimir Putin as a “big fat hoax.”
Trump’s comments to reporters at the White House follow a Washington Post report over the weekend that said the president has kept his top aides in the dark about his private conversations with the Russian leader.
A separate report in The New York Times revealed that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting on Russia’s behalf after he sacked the bureau’s director in 2017.
— AFP
President Reuven Rivlin visits children from developing countries being treated for heart conditions at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon by the Save a Child’s Heart humanitarian organization.
“It is a wonderful example of how Israeli excellence works together with our concern and sense of obligation towards humanity. Israel was once a developing country,” the president says in his remarks. “We became the startup nation because we needed these solutions.”
“We often quote the saying ‘He who saves a single life is as if he has saved the whole world.’ Behind each heart is not just a child, but a family, friends and community – a whole world,” he said.
Save a Child’s Heart was founded in 1995 at Holon’s Wolfson Medical Center, with the mission to improve the quality of pediatric cardiac care for children from developing countries. It has saved the lives of more than 4,700 children in 57 countries, according to the organization.
Police launch an investigation after a human bone were found on the Achziv Beach in northern Israel earlier today.
According to a police statement, a local resident found one of the bones while he was walking along the beach over the weekend. He reported the bone to authorities, who collected it for forensic testing.
The tests were completed earlier this afternoon determined that the bone was indeed human. Police said forensic scientists were working to build a DNA profile for the deceased person, and detectives were combing the scene for more human remains.
The police statement stressed the bone is not necessarily an indication of foul play.
Tehran is preparing to launch a satellite into orbit from its Imam Khomenei Spaceport in northern Iran, an Israeli satellite imagery firm says, citing photographic evidence of the area.
Israel and the United States, among others, are concerned that Iran’s space program could be used to further develop the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced earlier this month that Iran would be launching two satellites into space “using our domestically made rockets.”
According to the Israeli satellite imagery analysis firm ImageSat International, this appears to be imminent, as large numbers of personnel have arrived at the Khomenei Spaceport in recent days and the launch site has been prepared for use.
“ISI satellite imagery reveals that the launch preparation process is in its final stages,” the firm says.
Images provided by the company show trucks and private vehicles around the spaceport.
“It is our assessment that the missile that will carry the satellite is already in a construction site, and that checks are being performed on it and on the launcher,” ISI says.
— Judah Ari Gross
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry denies claims by the outgoing IDF chief over the weekend, who said the IDF has carried out thousands of airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria in recent years.
“The Zionist War Ministry’s comments are baseless, false, misleading, and is an attempt to justify the failures of the regime in the region,’ ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi says according to the official IRNA news agency.
He says Iran “does not have a military base and military presence in Syria and was present at the request of the Syrian government for advisory mission and fighting the terrorists.”
Ghasemi adds that the recent military victories by the Syrian regime have “caused the Zionists to be angry.”
IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot revealed to the New York Times the scale of Israel’s ongoing military campaign to thwart Iranian entrenchment in Syria on Friday. He said that Israel “struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit.”
Egypt is hosting its first-ever regional gas forum with several government delegations attending, including the Israeli Energy minister, in the first such official visit since its 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
Speaking after attending the closed meeting in Cairo this afternoon, Yuval Steinitz applaudes the Egyptian initiative, saying that the discovery of gas in the Eastern Mediterranean and the establishment of an organization to coordinate its management are helping to bring countries together.
“Developing gas reserves is not just financially and environmentally beneficial, but also geopolitically and diplomatically significant,” Steinitz says in a statement issued by his office.
In a recent sign of warming ties between the former enemies, Israel will begin exporting gas to Egypt in two to three months as part of a $15 billion corporate deal signed last year, he said. The first batches will be from the Tamar field and, within 10 months, the Leviathan field which will open later this year.
The head of a jihadist group dominated by members of the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria voices support for Turkey’s plans to attack Kurdish forces.
Turkey has for weeks threatened to launch a vast cross-border offensive against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which controls most of northeastern Syria. Ankara considers the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be a terrorist organization.
The head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, does not offer direct military support, but makes it clear that he supports the YPG’s removal from eastern Syria, where it has been battling the Islamic State (IS) group.
“We consider the PKK to be an enemy of this revolution. It controls areas inhabited by large numbers of Sunni Arabs,” he told the HTS-affiliated Amjad media outlet, referring to the YPG.
The YPG extended its influence beyond Kurdish heartlands in northeastern Syria, when it took the lead role in the US-backed ground battle against IS.
— AFP
Knesset Member Bezalel Smotrich wins the National Union primaries, ousting Uri Ariel as leader of the sub-faction of the Jewish Home party.
According to the National Union, 83 of the 129 party members voted for Smotrich to lead the national religious party.
Ariel has served as National Union chairman since 2012 and has been in the Knesset since 2001. The Agriculture Minister announced that if he does not win the leadership race, he would retire from the Knesset altogether.
— Jacob Magid
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira asked Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit to investigate whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu improperly received money to fund his legal bills, the Walla news site reports.
The report says Shapira alleges that Netanyahu received $300,000 from businessman Nathan Milikowsky to fund his legal defense without getting the necessary permission from the State Comptroller’s Office.
The Jerusalem municipality is preparing for an approaching snow storm tomorrow, warning residents to take extra precautions against the inclement weather expected to lash the capital on Wednesday.
A statement from the city says it will operate 150 snow plows and tractors to clear and salt the roads, and “urged residents to “act responsibly and listen to instructions of the municipality and security officials.”
Israel has been battered by heavy winds and rains in recent days, causing extensive flooding in in both northern and southern Israel. On Wednesday evening, temperatures are forecasted to drop, bringing strong winds, hailstorms and snow in the north and center of the country.
President Donald Trump warns his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan against harming Kurdish military units that have been closely allied to US forces in Syria.
“The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey’s security concerns in northeast Syria, while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders says in a statement.
US forces are set to depart from Syria where they worked closely with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers to have terrorism links. Turkey has welcomed the planned US withdrawal from Syria, announced abruptly by Trump to the consternation of other NATO allies.
But there are concerns in Washington that Kurdish groups are being abandoned to attacks in the future by the far more powerful Turkish military.
On Sunday, Trump warned the US would “devastate” ally Turkey’s economy “if they hit Kurds.”
— AFP
