ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 432
The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they unfolded.
The White House announces a new package of artillery ammunition for Ukraine as the pro-Western country gears up for an expected counter-offensive against Russian invasion.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the package will include ammunition for the HIMARS multiple rocket system and artillery rounds. Details were to come later from the Pentagon.
The package, “as part of our ongoing efforts to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s brutal invasion,” will “include more ammunition for US-provided HIMARS rocket systems and anti-armor systems, as well as additional artillery rounds,” Jean-Pierre says.
The United States is leading an unprecedented effort by NATO and other allied countries to supply Ukraine with weaponry and other aid as the country pushes back against a Russian onslaught that began in February 2022.
Ukraine is preparing an attempt at a counter-offensive driving Russians back from swaths of occupied territory in the east and south of the country.
An Israeli bus driver reports coming under fire near the Tapuah Junction in the West Bank.
According to the Rescuers Without Border emergency service, there are no injuries in the incident.
A military spokesperson says the incident is under review.
The Knesset was supposed to vote today to approve Likud MK May Golan’s appointment as the next minister for the advancement of women’s status.
However, her name was dropped from the agenda at the last minute, and Channel 12 reports that this is because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pressuring Golan to forgo the ministerial position in order to instead become Israel’s next consul general in New York.
Ex-MK Asaf Zamir resigned from the post last month in protest of the government’s judicial overhaul effort.
Channel 12 says that Netanyahu’s effort to send Golan to New York is motivated by his desire to break apart a camp within the Likud led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, which has grown increasingly influential in recent months.
Golan would likely be the most right-wing lawmaker to take the diplomatic position, given her ties to Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party. In 2013, Golan ran on the list of the Otzma L’Yisrael party, a precursor to Otzma Yehudit that failed to make it into the Knesset. She more recently joined the Likud party serving briefly in the Knesset in 2019 before re-entering parliament in 2020 and remaining ever since.
Golan’s planned appointment to become the first-ever minister for the advancement of women’s status sparked outcry from women’s rights activists who said she has served as an obstacle to gender equality.
Last month, Golan voted against a bill that would have mandated an electronic monitoring system to track domestic abusers. Experts and proponents of the legislation say the tracking would save lives.
In July 2021, Golan opposed a bill that would have permitted the storage of forensic samples taken from victims of sexual crimes for an unrestricted time. That bill was designed to help victims in producing evidence that could be used in trials.
Efi Nave, the former head of the the Israel Bar Association who had been suspected of advocating for the judicial appointment of a woman with whom he was romantically involved, is planning to run for his old job, Hebrew media reports.
Nave resigned as head of the bar association after his arrest in 2019, though the state prosecution announced that it had closed the criminal case against him two years later.
Some 200 people are protesting outside the Israel Police’s Tel Aviv headquarters following a decision by law enforcement to close a case into an apparent homophobic attack in the city where rocks were thrown through the window of an apartment where a pride flag was hung from the window.
Meanwhile, Channel 12 reports an uptick in violent attacks against members of the LGBTQ community in Israel.
Shuval Hachmon, who lives where a pride flag was torn down, tells the protesters, “No one should live in fear in their own country — on the streets and even more so in their home.”
כ-200 מפגינים מול מטה מחוז תל אביב של המשטרה אחרי הפרסום ב״הארץ״ על סגירת תיק זריקת האבנים לעבר דירה עם דגל להט״ב ובצל דיווחים על עליה באלימות נגד הקהילה. שובל חכמון שגר בדירה החזיק את הדגל הקרוע ואמר: ״אף אחד לא צריך לחיות בפחד במדינה שלו, ברחובות שלו ועל אחת כמה וכמה בבית שלו״ pic.twitter.com/TTDZKX1tM4
— Bar Peleg (@bar_peleg) April 19, 2023
Dozens of supporters of the judicial overhaul are protesting outside the home of former Supreme Court chief justice Aharon Barak.
“May God strike you,” one of the protesters can be heard shouting at Barak through a megaphone.
The 86-year-old Holocaust survivor has long been the target of right-wing anger regarding the current state of the judiciary, with his critics claiming he acted to give it too much power.
״שאלוהים יכה בך״. הפגנה ממש עכשיו על דלת ביתו של אהרן ברק. אדם בן 86, שמגיעים להלך איימים עליו ועל אישתו המבוגרת שלא בקו הבריאות. הפגנה שאירגנו אם תרצו. טיפת מוסר. בושה. pic.twitter.com/yq6BMMgHXn
— נריה קראוס Neria Kraus (@NeriaKraus) April 19, 2023
Hundreds of protesters are demonstrating against the government’s judicial overhaul plans in Rehovot, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the factory of an alternative meat company, Steakholder.
Protesters carry Israeli flags, cry chants of “shame” and “democracy or rebellion,” and call for Netanyahu’s imprisonment.
A water cannon is deployed in what is the first time that the controversial crowd control measure has appeared in the city, the Ynet news site reports.
Labor chair Merav Michaeli is in Washington where she met yesterday with Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.
The two discussed “US-Israel alliance, regional security in the Middle East, and relations between Israelis and Palestinians” with the two “affirming their mutual concern for peace, freedom and stability in the Middle East,” according to a statement from Ossoff’s office, which recycles old talking points and does not divulge any substantive details about the meeting.
Ossoff has been one of the more engaged senators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, teaming up with lawmakers from across the aisle for several initiatives and meeting with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.
US Secretary of State urged Niger to normalize ties with Israel during a visit last month in the West African country, Axios reports.
Blinken raised the issue during his meeting with Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, Axios says.
Blinken updated Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on his effort in a phone call later that month. Cohen proposed that Niger participate in the next ministerial meeting of the Negev Forum, according to the report.
Israeli officials tell Axios that Niger is willing to normalize ties with the Jewish state but would like to receive incentives from the Biden administration in return.
The US has already been seeking to bring new countries into the Negev Forum, including several from Africa, though the Biden administration failed to convince any of them to join the January meeting of working groups in Abu Dhabi, two officials from Negev Forum countries told The Times of Israel last month.
Its efforts to expand the forum, which currently includes the US, Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt, are ongoing, though Arab members have held off on finalizing a date for the next ministerial summit amid discomfort with the political situation in Israel, the officials said.
The Niger Embassy in Washington and the State Department did not respond to Axios’s requests for comment.
Israel and Niger had diplomatic ties in the 1960s and again from 1996 to 2002 but they broke down both times amid upticks in violence between Israelis and Palestinians
At the request of prosecutors, a court has thrown out indictments against several Israelis charged with entering a wildcat outpost in the West Bank following the partial repeal of a law making it illegal to stay there.
Rabbi Elishama Cohen, who heads a makeshift yeshiva at Homesh, was indicted along with other rabbis and students at the religious cemetery for violating the 2005 Disengagement Law ordering the evacuation of four settlements in the northern West Bank as part of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
In March, the Knesset rolled back part of the legislation as part of efforts to legalize the outpost at Homesh, which activists have repeatedly tried to reestablish since it was evacuated. The new law only applies to the area around Homesh and the other three settlements.
In light of the change, the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court has ordered the closure of the cases against Cohen and the others.
The decision is hailed by lawyer Moshe Polski of the far-right legal aid group Honenu, who represented the defendants, and the dean of the yeshiva at Homesh.
“Along with our happiness over the cancellation of the Disengagement Law, we still expect the yeshiva to soon be regulated,” Shmuel Wendy says in a statement.
The decision was also hailed by Yossi Dagan, a member of the ruling Likud party who heads the Samaria Regional Council where Homesh and another settlement that was razed as part of the Disengagement are located.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara and Transportation Minister Miri Regev meet with the dozen-plus Israelis who have been chosen to light torches at the official state Independence Day ceremony next week.
As Israel’s enemies attempt to portray Israeli society as being torn apart by the debate over the judicial overhaul, Netanyahu says the stories of each of the torch lighters demonstrate that “the complete opposite is happening.”
“Keep up the good work and continue to learn from others. There is much to learn. there is much to be thankful for and cherish. I want to thank you in advance on behalf of all the citizens of Israel,” Netanyahu says in a statement issued by his office.
The funeral for iconic Israeli artist Yehonatan Geffen will take place Friday at 11 a.m. at the Nahalal cemetery in northern Israel, Hebrew media reports.
One of two Israelis wounded yesterday in a terror shooting attack in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarah has been released from the hospital.
He and one other person were rushed to hospitals in Jerusalem in moderate condition. The other wounded Israeli remains in the hospital in moderate condition.
The Israeli army announces it is imposing a closure on border crossings between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip during Memorial Day and Independence Day next week.
The closure is set to begin on Monday, April 24, at 5:00 p.m. and last until Wednesday, April 26, at 11:59 p.m.
Still, the Israel Defense Forces says the border crossings for Palestinians will reopen next Thursday “subject to a situational assessment.”
Such closures are standard practice during festivals and holidays, in what the military says is a preventative measure against attacks at those times, which are seen as periods of increased tension.
Exceptions during the upcoming closure will be made for humanitarian and other outstanding cases, but will require the approval of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
A protest group representing reservist soldiers calls on its activists to not demonstrate against the government’s planned judicial overhaul on Israel’s Memorial Day next week.
“On the coming Memorial Day, we will not protest because our hearts will be with our brothers and sisters in arms who fell in battle, we will bow our heads for them, we will cry and hug the families,” the Brothers in Arms group says in a statement.
“We call on all the brothers and sisters in arms to leave their protest shirts at home and not to come to the cemeteries with them,” the group adds.
Some members of bereaved military families have called for politicians, notably National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, to be barred from memorial ceremonies.
Divers and rescue teams are searching for a young woman who was swept away in the Sea of Galilee after the kayak she was in with her partner capsized.
The Peace Now settlement watchdog says the government has established a new settlement in the heart of the West Bank by greenlighting a project for 189 homes in the illegal outpost of Zayit Ra’anan.
Zayit Ra’anan is considered a neighborhood of the Talmon settlement in the central West Bank, even though 2.5 kilometers separates the two.
The project for 189 homes was greenlit in a private meeting of the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Subcommittee in February, Peace Now reveals.
“The establishment of new settlements as neighborhoods of existing settlements is a familiar method of the government and is done in order to reduce criticism, both international and local, towards the move,” the left-wing group writes in a statement.
While the international community considers all settlements illegal, Israel differentiates between settlement homes built and permitted by the Defense Ministry on land owned by the state, and illegal outposts built without necessary permits, often on private Palestinian land. However, outposts are sometimes established with the state’s tacit approval, and successive governments have sought to legalize at least some of the 100-plus unrecognized communities as a result.
The 189 homes will sit on 50 acres that was seized by the state under absentee property laws. The land is believed to originally belong to Palestinian farmers in the nearby villages of Ras Karkar and Deir Ammar, who were barred by Israel from it.
“From a political perspective, the establishment of the settlement of Zayit Raanan is part of a plan to create a ‘settlement bloc,’ in an area adjacent to Ramallah from the west, with the aim of impeding the expansion of the Palestinian city and other Palestinian villages and towns around the area. Virtually, the bloc creates Palestinian enclaves surrounded by settlements from almost every direction, which negatively impacts Palestinian development and access to their lands,” Peace Now says.
Staff members at Ashdod’s Assuta Hospital nursery play Yehonatan Geffen’s hit song “How a Song is Born” for newborn babies who’ve just arrived in the ward, shortly after hearing the news of the Israeli musical and literary giant’s passing.
עם היוודע דבר פטירתו של יהונתן גפן, בתינוקייה בבית החולים הציבורי אסותא באשדוד השמיעו את שיריו ליילודים @bokeralmog pic.twitter.com/BymhQhLxlf
— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) April 19, 2023
An Israeli professor wanted by US authorities has gone missing in Cyprus where he was arrested pending extradition, Cyprus media reports.
Gal Luft was arrested on an Interpol-issued warrant on suspicion of weapons trafficking.
In February, he tweeted, “I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US. The US, claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer.
“[The Department of Justice] is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim and Hunter Biden.”
“Shall I name names?”
Local police confirm that Luft went missing on March 28 and that his car was found abandoned on the island a day later.
I've been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US.
The US, claiming I'm an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren't tragic.
I've never been an arms dealer.
DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe,Jim&Hunter Biden.
Shall I name names?
— Gal Luft (@GalLuft) February 19, 2023
Russia warns South Korea against sending weapons to Ukraine after Seoul opened the door to possible military aid to Kyiv in the event of a large-scale civilian attack.
An ally of Washington, Seoul has provided non-lethal and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, but has so far ruled out military aid.
But South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol told Reuters earlier today that “if there is a situation the international community cannot condone, such as any large-scale attack on civilians… it might be difficult for us to insist only on humanitarian or financial support.”
The Kremlin says the start of arms supplies would mean indirect involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
“Unfortunately Seoul has taken a rather unfriendly stance,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells reporters.
“The start of arms supplies will indirectly mean a certain stage of involvement in this conflict,” he adds.
President Isaac Herzog eulogizes musical and literary giant Yehonatan Geffen, who passed away earlier today at the age of 76.
Herzog describes Geffen as “someone who knew how to capture the smallest and biggest moments, and turn them into eternal texts.”
“It is hard to imagine the existence of Israeli art, our hymns, the worlds of literature and theater without his unique and unforgettable contribution.”
Washington urges Turkey and Hungary to quickly ratify Sweden’s NATO membership bid, which has been blocked for months due to a series of disputes with the two nations.
“We look forward to soon welcoming Sweden as the 32nd (member of NATO). And to be clear, we look forward to that happening before the (NATO) summit in July. So we encourage our allies, Turkey and Hungary, to ratify Sweden’s accession as soon as possible,” US defense chief Lloyd Austin says on a visit to Sweden.
Shas lawmaker Moshe Arbel becomes the government’s newest minister, officially taking over the Health and Interior ministries, after party leader Aryeh Deri was forced out of his posts in January.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asks for “forgiveness” for his country’s World War II crimes, while marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
“I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans here,” Steinmeier tells Holocaust survivors and others in the Polish capital, where he became the first ever German head of state to speak at the commemoration.
Steinmeier later slams Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for his Ukraine invasion.
“With his illegal attack on a peaceful, democratic neighboring country… the Russian president has broken international law… This war brings immeasurable suffering, violence, destruction and death to the people of Ukraine,” Steimeier says at the uprising commemoration.
Leader of the Opposition Yair Lapid announces he will not attend the traditional torch-lighting ceremony which ends Memorial Day and opens Independence Day, due to societal divisions he says the government has created with its radical judicial overhaul program.
In a message to Transportation Minister Miri Regev, he says he loves the State of Israel “but in three months you have divided Israeli society and no fake fireworks performance will cover that up.”
On Tuesday it was reported that Regev had decided that the live broadcast of the ceremony would give way to a recording of a rehearsal of the event should the actual torch-lighting ceremony be interrupted by anti-government protesters.
Earlier today, Lapid said the central TV stations should not agree to Regev’s proposal, insisting that the torch-lighting ceremony “is not a propaganda broadcast.”
His decision comes against the background of severe societal tensions over the government’s controversial judicial reform program, which has led to bereaved families to warn some government ministers and MKs not to attend Memorial Day services.
Eli Ben-Shem, chairman of the Yad Labanim organization, warns of verbal and even physical confrontations if ministers and MKs who did not serve in the IDF attend Memorial Day events at military cemeteries.
“They need to exercise common sense, otherwise there will be a catastrophe. [The military] cemeteries are the holy of holies of the State of Israel. If we will see violence and shouting over the graves of our children – I would want to die,” Ben- Shem tells Kan Radio.
The Israel Defense Forces reportedly targeted sites belonging to the Hezbollah terror group in southern Syria late last night.
According to a Syrian opposition-affiliated journalist, several sites in the Quneitra area, near the border with the Golan Heights, are hit.
This morning, the IDF drops flyers in the area of the reported attack, warning the Syrian army against collaborating with Hezbollah.
There is no comment on the alleged strike by Syria’s state media or other regime-affiliated outlets.
Israel frequently warns the Syrian army against working with the Iran-backed terror group in the area on Israel’s border.
طائرات مسيرة #إسرائيلية تلقي منشورات ورقية على تل أحمر غربي وبلدة كودنة في محافظة #القنيطرة جنوب غرب #سوريا
هذه منشورات ألقيت بعد استهداف مدفعي #إسرائيلي بالأمس على سرية صيدا #الجولان وتل أحمر غربي #إيران #إسرائيل #سوريا pic.twitter.com/4yVqfB84Ca— Nour Abo Hasan (@nourabohsn) April 19, 2023
The Jerusalem municipality has withdrawn its support for a project to build a new neighborhood for Palestinian residents in the northern part of the capital, Haaretz reports.
Tel Adaseh would have been the first Jerusalem neighborhood built for Palestinian residents since 1967, when Israel took over East Jerusalem after the Six Day War. The area for the neighborhood sits on land owned by Palestinian residents of Beit Hanina, Haaretz reports.
Citing a source familiar with the matter, the paper says that Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion ordered his office to shelve the plan amid fears that its advancement would harm him ahead of the municipal election this fall.
“I stand here at these sacred moments, in a place where whole branches of our people were cut down, destroyed, tortured, and exterminated,” President Isaac Herzog says in his speech at Poland’s official ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
“In a place where Jewish hope and faith faced challenges the likes of which humanity had never known. And I cannot help but imagine the daughters and sons of my people, ‘beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths never divided.’
“I imagine what they would have said, what they would have thought, if in those dark hours, in the stench of the sewers and suffocating cellars, staring down the barrels of guns and tanks, someone had whispered in their ears that eighty years later, we—the Presidents of Poland, Israel, and Germany—would be standing here and saluting their heroism and swearing an eternal oath together to their sacred memory, an oath with a singular core: never again.”
Herzog then turns to his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.
“I thank you for your colossal efforts and your commitment to the task of remembrance and commemoration, including right here, in this place.”
“We must remember: there is nothing postmodern or relativistic about Holocaust remembrance. Absolute evil existed, in the form of the Nazis and their accomplices. And absolute good existed, in the form of the victims and the rebels, from every nation. And in passing this heritage down to posterity, it must reflect this indisputable axiom,” he says.
“The heroism of the resistance and the rebels and the imperative to remember that terrible chapter of history, when the Jewish People faced complete annihilation and destruction rained down upon Poland and many other countries, offer a platform for important dialogue between Poland and Israel and for the advancement of friendship between our peoples.”
Yehonatan Geffen, an iconic author, poet, songwriter, journalist and playwright, has passed away at the age of 76.
Geffen’s 1978 album “The Sixteenth Sheep” is one of the best-selling in Israel’s history.
He is survived by his wife Nurit and his three children, Natasha, Shira and famous singer Aviv.
Below is one of his hit songs, “The Little Prince.”
Likud lawmaker Miri Regev’s Transportation Ministry has released a summary of its proposed budget after concluding negotiations with Bezalel Smotrich’s Finance Ministry.
Labor chair Merav Michaeli tears into the government for funneling 25 percent of the Transportation Ministry’s budget for infrastructure to serve West Bank settlers, who make up less than five percent of Israel’s population.
NIS 160 million ($43.74 million) will go toward improving existing West Bank roads, NIS 156 million ($43 million) will go toward the paving of the Issawiya interchange, NIS 80 million ($22 million) will go toward the establishment of a highway around East Jerusalem, NIS 500 million ($137 million) will go toward the expansion of a highway connecting the Ariel and Tapuah junctions, NIS 300 million ($82 million) will go toward a new road connecting the Migron settlement to Qalandiya, NIS 150 million ($41 million) will go toward a new road in Alfei Menashe, NIS 200 million ($54.67 million) will go toward a road that bypasses the Palestinian village of Funduq, NIS 2 billion ($547 million) will go toward upgrading the West Bank’s main north-south highway Route 60. and NIS 366 million ($100 million) will go toward expanding the access road into the Beit El settlement
Supporters of such projects argue that road infrastructure in the West Bank has been neglected for decades, leading to safety risks and constant traffic jams. They note that the roads are used by both settlers and Palestinians and that improving them is in the interest of both populations.
Opponents argue that the projects further entrench Israel’s presence in the West Bank, making separation from the Palestinians all the more difficult. Moreover, they say that the projects advanced by the government prioritize the transportation needs of settlers over or at the expense of those of Palestinians.
Michaeli highlights the “second-class citizen” campaign that supporters of the judicial overhaul have launched in which they claim that protesters are denying them the fruits of their election victory.
“Bezalel Smotrich and Miri Regev are leading the ‘second-class citizens’ campaign; but at the same time, they are taking hundreds of millions from the public purse to build roads that will be used mainly by the settlers. (Less than 5% of the population will receive 25% of the budget. Crazy),'” Michaeli tweets.
“Make no mistake, this is mainly at the expense of investing in roads in periphery towns. This is how the Likud government perpetuates the weakness of the periphery for decades,” she says
Jerusalem residents, no need to panic! The loud sounds of warplanes you’ve been hearing above you are just the IDF practicing for the annual Independence Day flyover.
The aerial demonstration, known in Hebrew as the matas, features fighter jets, transport planes, acrobatic aircraft, and helicopters flying over major Israeli cities and towns to delight local residents with a show of military power.
Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid says talks on legislation granting ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service should be folded into ongoing negotiations at the President’s Residence over the government’s effort to overhaul the judiciary.
Speaking at the start of his Yesh Atid faction’s weekly meeting in the Knesset, Lapid says the topic must be negotiated on to prevent a further rift in Israeli society.
His remarks come after representatives from Yesh Atid and fellow opposition party National Unity reportedly raised the matter during negotiations with coalition representatives the day before.
Coalition officials rejected the idea yesterday, claiming there was no time to include the subject in the talks, Haaretz reports. The two sides are holding talks at President Isaac Herzog’s official residence in an effort to reach an agreement on the planned judicial changes that have sparked mass protests for months with critics warning the overhaul will remove checks and balances to parliament’s power, degrading Israel’s democratic character.
At the beginning of the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with some of his coalition partners to discuss potential new legislation on the military draft, weighing lowering the age at which members of the ultra-Orthodox community can continue to get a formal exemption from service.
“I suggest to the government – and especially to the ultra-Orthodox parties: Hold a dialogue on the conscription law,” Lapid says. “Sit down together, talk about it at the president’s house, at least try to see if it is possible to reach an agreed outline that will not lead us to an even bigger rift.”
A small Israeli military drone crashed in Syrian territory overnight, the Israel Defense Forces says.
The drone, a Skylark model, was on a reconnaissance mission when it fell out of the sky due to a technical fault, according to the military.
There is no fear of information leaking from the device, the IDF adds.
The “sky rider,” as it’s known in Hebrew, is a tactical surveillance drone created by Elbit Systems and operated by the IDF’s Artillery Corps.
The miniature unmanned aerial vehicle can be launched by one or two people, depending on the model, and once airborne provides a live video feed to soldiers on the ground.
Many such comparatively inexpensive UAVs have crashed in hostile territory over the years.
The official state ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising commences in the Polish city.
Presidents Isaac Herzog of Israel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and Andrzej Duda of Poland are addressing the ceremony, which is taking place in front of the Memorial to the Ghetto Heroes on the hallowed ground where the fighting erupted.
The presidents will go later to Warsaw’s Nozyk synagogue and attend an evening concert by the Polish-Israeli Youth Symphony Orchestra.
