ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 427
Joshua Davidovich is The Times of Israel's Deputy Editor
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Gil Sheffer, a former bureau chief for Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been named as the former senior official accused of sexually assaulting an artist.
On Wednesday night, Channel 2 reported Sheffer had been put under house arrest as police investigated the claim against him.
His name had been kept under gag order until now.
The accuser claimed she saw Sheffer at an event and he suggested giving her a lift back to the city where they both live. During the journey, he allegedly sat next to her on the back seat, plied her with alcohol, and touched her against her will, Channel 2 said.
The man allegedly took her to an apartment where there were other men, forced her to perform for them, and tried to kiss her against her will.
The case has been under police investigation for more than a month. On Tuesday, Sheffer was questioned under caution and ordered to house arrest for five days.
His lawyer, Gil Fridman, told Channel 2 that the claims were “baseless.”
In 2012, Sheffer was investigated by the attorney general over claims he had sexually assaulted another woman 15 years earlier. The case was dropped because the statute of limitations had passed though the woman wrote a letter to Netanyahu asking her not to continue his employment.
Sheffer left his post in 2013 to enter private life, and denied at the time it had anything to do with the accusations against him.
— with Times of Israel staff
Ofek Buchris, a brigadier general accused of raping and sexually assaulting two women serving under him, is expected to release a statement in the coming hours admitting some guilt and apologizing to his accusers.
The statement will come as part of an agreement reached with the military prosecution, which is expected to punish Buchris by demoting him and entailing a suspended prison sentence, but no actual jail time.
According to the Walla news website, the letter will be released along with Buchris’s lawyer and will be “laconic and short.”
Belgian authorities have charged a woman and a man with terrorism offenses over an August machete attack on two policewomen that was claimed by the Islamic State group.
The prosecutor’s office says 36-year-old Sabrina Z. and 37-year-old Farid L., who were detained in a series of raids on Wednesday, were charged by a Belgian judge who is investigating the attack in the southern city of Charleroi.
The assailant was shot dead in the incident.
“They were both indicted for participation in the activities of a terrorist organization and attempted murder in a terrorist context,” the office says in a statement.
Three other people detained in the raids were released, while another is still being held for questioning.
— AFP
Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich has responded to swirling rumors that someone in his party is being accused of sexual assault.
The name of the accused is being kept under wraps in the media.
Smotrich, appearing on Knesset TV, says his wife called him this morning to ask if it was him.
“I know my colleague, it’s hard to believe he’d do a thing like this,” he says.
Precious snowflakes have begun falling on Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights, the first blast of the white stuff this winter, as the season’s inaugural storm is set to bluster through the region.
The snow comes with high winds and rain, which drenched northern Israel overnight and has begun to move south into the rest of the country, leading to flash flood fears in some areas.
אז החורף מתחיל להערם לו בשקט. חרמון עכשיו. קרדיט: לירון מילס pic.twitter.com/Vbf1TAObiB
— R.I.C (@ronald121_h) December 1, 2016
Temperatures are expected to drop overnight during the peak of the storm hits.
The storm comes at the end of a long and unseasonable dry spell which saw a rash of wildfires break out.
Sara Netanyahu, the wife of the prime minister, is being grilled by anti-corruption police as part of an investigation into spending at the Prime Minister’s Residence.
During the interrogation, police are expected to make Netanyahu and Ezra Saidoff — a former deputy director for operations at the Prime Minister’s Office — face new witnesses, after new evidence came to late in the case, according to an earlier report.
Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the Jerusalem Labor Court on October 29, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
In May, Israel police recommended prosecuting the prime minister’s wife for aggravated fraud for allegedly appropriating public funds earmarked for the Prime Minister’s Residence for private use.
But during a review of the case, the State Prosecutor’s Office asked the police to continue investigating and as a result, new evidence has come to light, according to Channel 10.
Two of the cases involve her using state money to order food for personal use, and a third case involves using public funds to pay for a caretaker for her elderly father.
A bill expanding Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s power will be brought to parliament next week, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says.
“We will submit our proposal for constitutional reform to the Turkish national assembly next week,” Yildirim tells journalists in Ankara.
Turkish protesters shout slogans and hold a placard reading “This is not an accident, but a massacre’ during a demonstration in Istanbul on December 1, 2016, following a deadly fire in the southern region of Adana. (AFP/ OZAN KOSE)
He adds it will be put to a referendum in “early summer” if approved by the parliament.
— AFP
Jerusalem City Hall has released an official map of its plans for the fourth light rail line, a 23-kilometer (some 14 miles) ride that will link the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and Malcha mall in the south of the city, to the northern neighborhood of Ramot.
According to the plan, one spur of the Blue Line will pass through the German Colony neighborhood and replace Emek Refaim Street, a bustling hub of shops and restaurants that has suffered in recent years due to the opening of the First Station entertainment complex nearby.
A map of the four planned Jerusalem light rail lines, released by City Hall on December 1, 2016. (Jerusalem City Hall)
Some locals have fought the plan, saying the years of roadwork will destroy the quaint neighborhood and its unique character.
In a Facebook post, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat says he listened to those opposed, but in the end made a “not-simple decision” for the good of the city.
“The train will enliven Emek Refaim, will replace the soot and traffic jams with advanced transportation, green, fast and clean,” Barkat writes. “It will bring many people to the street to the immense benefit of business and be good for shops, residents and those who love the German Colony.
The spur of the Blue Line to pass through the neighborhood will start at the Malcha Mall. It will meet up with the second spur, coming from Gilo and travel down Derekh Hebron, before the two meet up near the First Station complex.
There is currently one line of the light rail, with three more planned.
Buzz Aldrin, the 86-year-old retired US astronaut, who was among the first men to walk on the Moon, has been evacuated from the South Pole for medical reasons, the National Science Foundation said Thursday.
Buzz Aldrin, as he arrives for the Clive Davis & The Recording Academy’s 2016 Pre-Grammy Gala in Beverly Hills, California, February 14, 2016. (AFP/ MARK RALSTON/File)
The request to evacuate Aldrin, who was described as an “ailing visitor,” was issued to the NSF by a private tourism firm named White Desert, a statement said.
A humanitarian medical evacuation flight was dispatched to NSF’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and would take Aldrin to New Zealand “as soon as possible.”
No details about Aldrin’s condition were released, and NSF said it “will make additional statements about the patient’s medical condition only as conditions warrant.”
In 1969, Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men to walk on the Moon, as part of the Apollo 11 mission.
— AFP
President Vladimir Putin has adopted a conciliatory tone to international rivals in a key speech, saying Russia has “never looked for enemies” in the international community.
“We do not want confrontation with anyone. It is not needed — not by us, our partners, the international community,” Putin said during an address on the state of the nation.
Journalists watch a live broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Federal Assembly address at a press room at the Kremlin in Moscow on December 1, 2016. (AFP /Natalia KOLESNIKOVA)
“As opposed to some of our foreign colleagues who view Russia as an adversary, we are not looking, and have never looked, for enemies. We need friends.”
In a pointed aside, Kremlin strongman added that Russia would nevertheless “not allow its interests to be infringed upon.”
— AFP
The Health Ministry has destroyed nearly two tons of poultry after a processing plant was found to be unsanitary and possibly damaging to public health.
The ministry says 1,680 kilograms (3,703 pounds) from the Of Yerushalayim Mehadrin plant in the West Bank’s Binyamin Industrial Zone have been destroyed.
“During an inspection, the poultry was found to have thawed and improperly marked, and kept in unsanitary conditions,” the ministry says in a statement. “Improper handling, storage and selling of meat not following standards required by law could impact public health.”
Brig. Gen. Ofek Buchris has released a letter admitting responsibility for actions he’s been accused of and denying some media reports.
“In the wake of various media reports, I clarify that I fully admit to the charges against me and I take full responsibility for the actions detailed therein,” the short note reads.
“I would like to add that the media reports related to the plea bargain citing those who claim to be close to me do not represent me,” the statement adds.
Buchris is accused of sexually assaulting two officers who served below him. The letter is supposed to be part of a plea bargain that will see him charged with a lesser offense of improper relations and avoid jail time.
Earlier reports indicated the letter would also include an apology to the victims, though that does not appear to be included.
A Syrian religious leader who once threatened suicide bombings in Israel and elsewhere is rejecting claims he encouraged terrorism in Europe during a meeting before an Irish parliamentary committee.
Syria’s pro-regime Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun makes the comments during a rare visit outside Syria that has triggered outrage from human rights groups.
“They say that I said I will send terrorists to Europe to kill themselves. I don’t know why they lie in their translations,” the top Sunni cleric says, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter.
“I said, don’t bombard Syria or Lebanon. If fire gets burning in Syria or Lebanon there are dormant cells in the world that will be awakened. I feared for Europe,” he adds.
However, a 2011 speech of his available on YouTube suggests otherwise.
Hassoun issued a clear warning against intervention in Syria, saying: “From the first round fired, the sons of Syria and Lebanon will become fighters who will carry out suicide attacks on the land of Europe and Palestine.
“I say to Europe and the United States: we will prepare the fedayeen (fighters) if you strike Syria, because now it’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” he said at the time.
— AFP
A Kenyan prosecutor has charged two Iranian men with collecting information to facilitate a terrorist act after they were allegedly found with video footage of the Israeli embassy.
State Prosecutor Duncan Ondimu says in court that Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahim and Abdolhosein Gholi Safaee were arrested Tuesday in an Iranian diplomatic car on Bishops Road, Nairobi, after they had come from visiting Kamiti Prison where they saw two other Iranians who have been jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges.
Ondimu says the suspects were taking the pictures using a mobile phone, including when they were intercepted.
A Kenyan driver, Moses Keyah Mmboga, who was chauffeuring the vehicle belonging to the Iranian Embassy has been charged with the suspects and also faces a separate charge of “abetting terrorism.”
— AP
For what some in Israel hope may be the last time, the US president has taken a pass on enacting a Congressional order to move the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The waiver, allowed for “national security,” has been used by every president since the act was passed in 1995, and Obama has been no exception.
Israelis waiting for US visas line up at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. (AP/Eitan Hess-Ashkenazi/File)
US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to move the embassy once he takes office, though skeptics note Trump’s tendency for saying a lot of things.
Palestinians have warned that if the embassy is moved, it will have serious diplomatic consequences.
Close to 2,000 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed in November across the country, along with hundreds of civilians, the United Nations says.
The spike in casualties comes as a major offensive to retake the Islamic State group stronghold of Mosul, Iraq’s largest military operation in years, enters its seventh week.
According to the UN mission in Iraq’s monthly tally, 1,959 Iraqi forces were killed last month and at least 450 others wounded.
The toll includes members of the army, police who are engaged in combat, the Kurdish peshmerga, interior ministry forces and pro-government paramilitaries.
The UN statement also says at least 926 civilians were killed, bringing to 2,885 the number of Iraqis killed in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict last month.
“The casualty figures are staggering, with civilians accounting for a significant number of the victims,” the top UN envoy in Iraq, Jan Kubis, says.
— AFP
One of the officers who accused Brig. Gen. Ofek Buchris of sexual assault says she accepts the note released by him in which he takes responsibility for his actions, her lawyer says.
“The admission is full, he took full responsibility, and whoever says otherwise should be renounced,” the lawyer says, according to Ynet. “Given the letter of Brig. Gen. Buchris, the officer accepts the plea bargain.”
Ofek Buchris, the former military brigadier general accused of rape and other sexual crimes against subordinates, seen at the Jaffa military court on September 29, 2016. (FLASH90)
The plea bargain will see Buchris charged with the lesser crime of improper relations with a subordinate, for which he will receive a demotion but no jail time.
Earlier reports had indicated the accuser had wanted to put the affair behind her.
The Senate will vote in about two hours on legislation that would renew a decades-old law that allows the United States to slap companies with economic sanctions for doing business with Iran.
Backers of the 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act say extending the law allows the US to punish Tehran should the country fail to live up to the terms of the landmark nuclear deal.
If the Senate approves the House-passed bill, it will be sent to President Barack Obama, and he is expected to sign it into law. The House last month voted overwhelmingly, 419-1, to approve the extension. The act, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, expires at the end of the year.
Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said passage of the bill would be met with an Iranian response.
“If these sanctions are extended, it will surely constitute a violation of the [nuclear deal] and they [the US] should know that the Islamic Republic will definitely react to it,” he said without elaborating.
A senior Obama administration official says the sanctions renewal bill heading toward passage doesn’t violate the terms of the nuclear deal, which clears the way for Obama to sign it should the Senate pass it.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell depart from a meeting on Capitol Hill, November 30, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images/AFP)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says preserving the sanctions is critical to blunt Iran’s “persistent efforts to expand its sphere of influence” throughout the Middle East.
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said renewing the law is necessary if the US wants to retain “a credible deterrent” of snapping sanctions back into place should Iran cheat on its obligations under the nuclear deal.
— with AP
A day after the UN Security Council passed its toughest ever sanctions on North Korea, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman chided UN envoys from around the world for not doing anything about the Hermit Kingdom and focusing too heavily on Israel.
“When you look at what’s happening in North Korea, where a crazy leader has taken his people hostage and breaks all international laws on nuclear weapons and other subjects, there’s no real, stable action from the Security Council or any other UN body, to stop it,” Liberman says while meeting in New York with envoys from Canada, Russia, India, Italy, Greece and others, according to a translation of his remarks back into English.
Liberman’s statement, while likely delivered in English, is only initially sent to reporters in Hebrew.
“All of this adds on to other issues, like the absurd and cynical anti-Israel resolutions by UNESCO and the Human Rights Council … all this is proof that the UN, including the Security Council, is not doing their job and isn’t relevant to the goings on the world,” he says.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, fourth right, and Israel envoy to the UN Danny Danon, fifth left, meeting with UN envoys from around the world in New York December 1, 2016. (courtesy)
The Security Council on Wednesday unanimously imposed its toughest ever sanctions on North Korea, placing a cap on its key coal exports after the state’s defiant nuclear tests.
The new sanctions resolution, which was spearheaded by the United States and came after three months of tough negotiations with fellow veto-wielding council member China, passed by a 15-0 vote.
The resolution demands that North Korea “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” and takes aim at the state’s exports of coal — its top external revenue source.
Pyongang responded earlier Thursday that the move would not deter its nuclear program.
— with AFP
The lawyer for a soldier who accused Brig. Gen. Ofek Buchris of sexual assault has lashed out over a letter admitting guilt sent out earlier today, saying it lacks on empathy and shows him to have done the absolute minimum.
“The suspect’s letter, while being feeble, laconic and missing any real empathy for the accuser of the damage caused to her by his actions, still prevents any renouncing of the plea deal, both by him or others,” the lawyer says, according to Ynet. “The suspect, who lied during the whole investigation, discredited the reliability of the accusers and didn’t prevent mudslinging at them, alongside taking responsibility for his action, seemingly lacked the magnanimity to offer a real and sincere apology.”
Earlier, Buchris issued a short note saying he admitted to what he is charged with and took “full responsibility” for his actions, as part of a plea bargain that will see him avoid jail time.
The lawyer also says that by skimming over his crimes, Buchris did both his accusers and potential future victims a great disservice.
Despite unhappiness over the letter, she and the other accuser, an officer, both give their okays to the plea deal.
The US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq says 54 civilians were “inadvertently killed” in seven air strikes between March and October.
Smoke rises after an airstrike by US-led coalition warplanes as Iraqi security forces advance towards the Shuhada neighborhood of Fallujah, Iraq, Friday, June 3, 2016, during fighting between Iraqi security forces and the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
“Although the coalition makes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some cases casualties are unavoidable,” the coalition says in a statement.
A July 18 strike that killed 100 IS fighters also killed as many as 24 civilians, the statement adds.
— AFP
Russia’s space agency says an unmanned cargo space ship that blasted off to the International Space Station has crashed due to an unspecified malfunction.
Roscosmos says in a statement Thursday that the Progress MS-04 cargo craft crashed at the altitude of 190 kilometers (118 miles) over the remote Russian Tyva region that borders Mongolia. It says most of the space ship’s debris burnt as it entered the atmosphere.
The ship had lifted off as scheduled Thursday evening but stopped transmitting data 383 seconds after the launch.
JUST IN: Russian space agency says its unmanned cargo ship bound for the Int’l Space Station is a loss and burned up in the atmosphere. pic.twitter.com/WVSUGQ5wyw
— ABC News (@ABC) December 1, 2016
Roscosmos says the crash of the ship will have no impact on the operations of the orbiting lab that is currently home to a six-member crew, including three cosmonauts from Russia, two NASA astronauts and one from the European Union.
— AP
Along with heavy rains and high winds, a roiling winter storm blowing through Israel has also brought with it a spectacular light show.
The Israel Electric Company says it has recorded 2,672 lightning strikes across Israel from 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to 5:30 p.m. today.
According to the Electric Co., the multi-year average for all of December is 2,250 lightning strikes.
People walk in the rain on Jaffa street in downtown Jerusalem on December 1, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
In Jerusalem, there are reports of a number of fallen trees and power outages from the high winds, but no injuries.
The Anti-Defamation League is praising the Associated Press and other news organizations for making sure to describe “alt-right” as a racist and bigoted movement.
“’Alt-right’ has the sound of something that’s cool and trendy, and we know that’s deliberate on the part of the racists who try and couch their bigotry in more palatable terms in an effort to appeal to a broader audience and young people,” Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the anti-hate watchdog group says in a statement. “News organizations bear a special responsibility to ensure that readers don’t misconstrue this term and deserve praise for recognizing this and providing clear guidelines for the proper usage of the term.”
The AP recently sent out a style note telling writers and editors to include a definition of “alt-right” as a “white nationalist movement.”
“Avoid using the term generically and without definition, however, because it is not well known and the term may exist primarily as a public-relations device to make its supporters’ actual beliefs less clear and more acceptable to a broader audience. In the past we have called such beliefs racist, neo-Nazi or white supremacist,” a blog post on the subject from the AP’s VP for standards reads.
The AP Stylebook is considered an industry standard for many of the world’s top news organizations.
UN human rights experts say “ethnic cleansing” is under way in South Sudan after visiting the country where violence has soared since a peace deal collapsed in July.
“There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages; everywhere we went across this country we heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back,” says Yasmin Sooka of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
“Many told us it’s already reached a point of no return.”
Sooka was part of a three-member team which traveled to battleground towns including Bentiu, Malakal and Wau to gather facts about the situation in the world’s youngest country.
Jarring testimony gathered by the team during their 10-day visit shows a nation on the brink of “catastrophe,” says a statement issued by the commission.
— AFP
The ADL says remarks recently uncovered by US Rep. Keith Ellison “raise doubts” about his candidacy to head the Democratic party.
In a recording that recently surfaced of a 2010 speech, Ellison, a Minnesotan who became the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006, he can be heard questioning why US policy in the Middle East is tied to its alliance with Israel.
“The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of seven million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of seven million. Does that make sense? Is that logic,” he says in the speech, according to the ADL.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., speaks during the first day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“Rep. Ellison’s remarks are both deeply disturbing and disqualifying. His words imply that US foreign policy is based on religiously or national origin-based special interests rather than simply on America’s best interests,” ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt says in a statement. “Additionally, whether intentional or not, his words raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government, a poisonous myth that may persist in parts of the world where intolerance thrives, but that has no place in open societies like the US.”
Ellison has been critical of many Israeli policies, but has been a staunch proponent of the two-state solution and a number of Jewish groups have come to his defense amid a campaign against him taking up the DNC chair.
Some have pointed to Ellison’s youthful involvement in the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam movement, though he renounced the group in a 2006 letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council in Minnesota, a group that he has become friendly with.
He is considered a front-runner in the race against Howard Dean and others, gaining the backing of figures from the party’s establishment as well as the insurgent left that backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his unsuccessful bid this year for the party’s presidential nomination.
— with JTA
French President Francois Hollande announces he will not run for re-election next year.
A photo taken on December 1, 2016 in Paris, shows a TV screen displaying French President Francois Hollande delivering an official statement at the Elysee Palace. AFP/OLIVIER MORIN)
“I have decided that I will not be a candidate,” Hollande says in a solemn TV address to the nation.
“In the months to come, my only duty will be to continue to lead my country.”
Hollande’s popularity had hit rock bottom after a term in office marked by U-turns on major policies, terror attacks, high unemployment and embarrassing revelations about his private life.
A new poll on Wednesday predicted he would win just 7.0 percent of votes in the first round of next year’s election in April — strengthening critics in the Socialist party who view him as a lame duck.
— AFP
