ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 372
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Police say that one person is dead and a suspect is in custody after a shooting at a two-year college in Oklahoma.
Midwest City Police Chief Sid Porter says the shooting on the campus of Rose State College appeared to be “domestic-related.” The school in suburban Oklahoma City has about 13,000 students.
The school had issued an alert telling students and employees to shelter in place before police announced they had a suspect in custody.
A two-year college in Oklahoma is telling students and employees to shelter in place due to reports of an active shooter on campus.
Rose State College issues the alert at midday. The school is in Midwest City, a suburb of Oklahoma City. It has about 13,000 students.
It is not immediately known what prompted the alert.
Longtime CNN host Don Lemon is out at the cable news network a little over two months after apologizing to viewers for on-air comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, CNN announces.
“CNN and Don have parted ways,” CNN chair and CEO Chris Licht says in a memo to staff that was also posted on the network’s communications Twitter account. “Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”
CNN did not provide a public explanation for Lemon’s departure. But on the “CNN This Morning” co-host’s own Twitter account, Lemon contended the news came as a surprise to him and characterized it as a firing. He had appeared on his show that morning.
“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned,” he writes in a statement posted shortly after 12 p.m. Eastern. “After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network.”
In mid-February, Lemon caused an uproar when, during a discussion on “CNN This Morning” with co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins about the ages of politicians, he said that the 51-year-old Haley was not “in her prime.” A woman, he said, was considered in her prime “in her 20s, 30s, and maybe her 40s.”
Military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi addresses the main Memorial Day opening ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, saying he hopes the controversy over the judicial overhaul will remain outside of the military cemeteries.
“Tomorrow, we will stand in the cemeteries by the side of the [bereaved] families. I hope that on this day, which is above all, we will be faithful to our heritage and devote ourselves exclusively to solitude with the memory of the fallen and with our pain over their passing. Above all, and beyond all controversy,” Halevi says.
“Controversy is, perhaps, the most beautiful gift the Jewish people gave to humanity. The people of Israel have been carrying Hillel and Shammai for about 2,000 years,” Halevi says, referring to two schools of Jewish thought.
“In the Gemara, it is said that although Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel were divided, they did not refrain from marrying each other. To teach you, that affection and deep friendship are needed to fulfill the saying: ‘Truth and peace loved.’”
The biblical Hebrew expression is typically used as a concluding line when calling for compromise, positive communication, or mutual understanding, even if the dispute remains.
“Out of our responsibility to protect the memory of the fallen, tomorrow we will keep the affairs of the hour outside the cemeteries,” Halevi says, referring to the judicial overhaul. “We will allow families, commanders, and soldiers to… honor the memory of the fallen.”
President Isaac Herzog calls on Israelis to hearken the sirens that blare to remember the country’s fallen as a call for unity at a time of national “discord.”
Speaking at the main Memorial Day ceremony at the Western Wall after Israelis across the country stand for a minute of silence to commemorate the fallen, Herzog says: “I ask myself, I ask us: what other country in the world has such a special sound? It is the sound of pain and of hope, of grief, and of pride. It is the sound of the State of Israel.”
“A sound that calls on us to pause for a moment, to lock in the sanctity, to remember and to connect — together. This year, in the grips of these days of discord, this sound is more powerful, more searing, more pained and more painful than ever.”
“This year, more than ever before, this sound calls on us, in the heart of the stillness that cries out: all of us, together! Their sacrifice has not been in vain; it shall not have been in vain.”
“I appeal to you, my brothers and sisters, citizens of Israel, at this sacred moment, from here, the wall of longing and tears, from which the Divine Presence has never moved, and I ask us to mourn and grieve — together; may we let that feeling of longing envelop us — together. May we let that sound of our collective pain ring loudly on this Memorial Day, free of discord, as we cry for our sons and daughters. As we refuse to find comfort, for they are no more.”
Herzog has been leading efforts at dialogue, amid widespread protests to the government’s judicial overhaul plans.
Israel is remembering its 28,468 fallen soldiers and terror victims at a ceremony at the Western Wall.
Israelis bow their heads at 8 p.m. for a minute of silence as sirens sound throughout the country in remembrance of the country’s 28,468 fallen soldiers and terror victims.
Fifty-nine soldiers were killed during their military service since Israel’s last Memorial Day, according to figures released by the Defense Ministry on Friday. Another 86 disabled veterans died due to complications from injuries sustained during their service.
The numbers brought the total to 24,213 of those who have died during service to the country since 1860.
In addition, 4,255 terror victims have been killed.
The nationwide ceremonies for Israel’s Memorial Day, which begins at sundown, started in the afternoon with a commemoration event at the Yad Labanim memorial for fallen soldiers in Jerusalem.
The siren also marks the start of the main national ceremony, which takes place at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
A second two-minute siren will sound tomorrow at 11 a.m., launching the daytime commemoration ceremonies for fallen soldiers centered on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl. A ceremony commemorating terror victims will be held at 1 p.m.
Israel is offering to mediate between warring factions in Sudan.
“Since the start of hostilities in the country, Israel has been working different channels to bring about a cease-fire and the advancement in recent days is very encouraging,” says Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.
“If there is a way Israel could assist in ending the fighting, we would be very happy to do so,” he says.
The head of a memorial organization for fallen Israeli soldiers pleads with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir not to attend a Memorial Day ceremony in Beersheba.
Eli Ben Shem, chairman of Yad Labanim, has repeatedly warned that there could be chaos and even violence at official Memorial Day commemorations next week, given deep societal divisions over the government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system, with Ben Gvir, particularly divisive.
Ben Shem, speaking to Channel 12, suggests Ben Gvir instead attend a ceremony to commemorate “over 1,800 police who fell.”
“You’re the minister. That’s where you should be. Instead, you are choosing to go to Beersheba, where, yes, there are families who want you, but lots of families who don’t,” he says.
“Respect the will of the families, so that the [bereaved] families can mark the day unified and respectfully,” he asks.
Fox News says it has “agreed to part ways” with Tucker Carlson, its popular and controversial host, less than a week after settling a lawsuit over the network’s 2020 election reporting.
The network says in a press release that the last program of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired Friday.
“We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the press release from the network says.
Carlson became Fox’s most popular personality, after he replaced Bill O’Reilly in Fox’s prime-time lineup in 2016. He has also consistently drawn headlines for controversial coverage, including most recently airing tapes from the January 6 Capitol insurrection to minimize the impact of the deadly attack.
There was no immediate explanation from Fox about why Carlson was leaving. A text message to Carlson seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Fox agreed last week to pay Dominion Voting Systems more than $787 million and acknowledged that some of its reporting following the 2020 election — which allowed former president Donald Trump’s aides to amplify false charges of election fraud — was incorrect.
But that reporting mostly concerned other shows, not Carlson’s. His name did come up during the case, primarily because of email and text messages that were revealed as part of the lawsuit.
Carlson and other Fox hosts were caught in private messages doubting their own network’s allegations about Dominion’s role in the supposed election fraud, while also being concerned that Fox was losing audience among Trump fans at the time. In some of them, Carlson privately criticized Trump, saying he hated him passionately.
A few weeks ago, Carlson devoted his entire show to an interview with Trump.
“Fox News Tonight” will air in Carlson’s 8 p.m. ET prime-time slot, hosted by a rotating array of network personalities, for the time being.
Residents of the town of Zichron Ya’acov appeal to the Supreme Court after police bar them from holding an Independence Day march with Israeli flags, and other “signs of protest.”
The residents say that during a recent meeting with police, they were told that Israeli flags and copies of the Declaration of Independence “have been categorized as signs of protest.”
The appeal to the High Court claims this is the first time Israelis have been banned from waving their national flag in Israel.
“We as a municipality would be happy for every citizen and every resident to carry the Israeli flag and the Declaration of Independence everywhere,” says Zichron Ya’acov Mayor Ziv Deshe.
“The authority to decide on the approval of processions and business licensing is in the hands of the police and therefore we will adhere to the instructions of the police in regards to maintaining public order,” he says.
Israeli flags and copies of the Declaration of Independence have been a mainstay of anti-government protests against the judicial overhaul.
A military officer has meted out additional punishments to Golani troops who led their company to desert their training base last week in apparent anger over being given a new commander.
Col. Yiftah Norkin, the commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, has ruled that two soldiers will be given short jail sentences, 15 days and 20 days, and a third soldier will be denied furlough for 28 days.
Last week Norkin ruled that the entire company would be given suspended sentences, and would have to complete an educational program on discipline.
The three soldiers given additional punishments are accused of leading the brief desertion.
Golani soldiers have a history of mass desertion over alleged unfair treatment in the military.
The government asks for the petitions against the state demanding it immediately demolish the illegal Bedouin encampment of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank to be dismissed, insisting that the timing of such action is squarely within the purview of the government itself.
Despite ultranationalist leaders in the cabinet including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir having repeatedly called for the immediate demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, the state argues there is no room for judicial intervention since it is a diplomatic issue which the court should not involve itself in.
The government nevertheless insists in its response that its position is that Khan al-Ahmar should be evacuated and demolished and that the question is not whether to do so, but when and how.
“The petitioners have not proved any cause which would justify court intervention in the broad discretion the political echelon has regarding the manner and timing of the implementation of the demolition orders in the [Khan al-Ahmar] compound,” wrote the state.
The state says the timing of the demolition as demonstrated by classified materials shown to the court “is a complex and sensitive question, the consequences of which exceed mere construction and planning laws.”
It added that the evacuation of the encampment could have consequences for Israel’s foreign relations and security.
The right-wing Regavim organization, which is one of the petitioners demanding Khan al-Ahmar be immediately demolished, denounces the government’s position, saying “the Israeli government has created the silver platter on which we will be handing the Palestinian Authority a state in the heartland of Israel: the illegal outpost known as Khan al-Ahmar.”
Dr. Alon Schwartz, the head of the trauma department at Shaare Zedek hospital, says the seriously wounded victim from the Jerusalem car-ramming attack has not been identified yet and is undergoing emergency surgery.
“The one wounded person has not been positively identified — an elderly man aged between 60 or 70. He arrived partially conscious and was sedated and intubated in the ER,” Shwartz says.
“He is now in the operating room for an urgent intervention,” he adds.
A second victim, a woman in her 30s, was conscious and suffering injuries to her limbs, he said, adding that she would also be operated on soon.
The prices of dairy products will rise sharply next week, the Agriculture Ministry announces.
From May 1, a raft of milk products that are subject to government price controls will rise by 16%.
A 1-liter carton of 3% milk will jump from NIS 6.23 to NIS 7.23, while a 250-gram tub of soft white cheese will rise from NIS 4.98 to NIS 5.77.
A 200-millimeter sour cream will now cost NIS 2.81, up from NIS 2.4.
Dairy prices in Israel are a sensitive issue and have sparked reactions that often snowball into mass demonstrations against the high cost of living. In 2011, the so-called cottage cheese protest sparked weeks of social unrest that resulted in supermarkets lowering dairy prices and policy reforms aimed at lowering consumer prices.
Arnon Milchan, an Israeli Hollywood film producer who is a key witness in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, will not be coming to Israel to testify, the prosecution tells the court.
The prosecution says Milchan is willing to testify by video. The judges have yet to decide whether to accept the proposal.
Case 1000 — one of the three cases Netanyahu faces charges in — involves suspicions that he illicitly accepted gifts including cigars and champagne from two billionaires, Milchan and Australian magnate James Packer.
Milchan was not charged in the case, while Netanyahu was indicted for fraud and breach of trust. The premier is also charged with fraud in the other two cases, and bribery in one of them. He denies all wrongdoing.
Speaking at a ceremony ahead of Memorial Day at the Yad Lebanim memorial center, Prime Minister Benjamin calls for unity in the nation.
“We say to the people of Israel, we are ‘united under the stretcher’; our sons and our daughters continue to shoulder the stretcher, the burden of responsibility for the fate of our nation,” Netanyahu says.
His comments come in the wake of the mass protests against his government’s judicial overhaul plans that critics say will undermine democracy.
As part of widespread anger against the government, hundreds of elite army and air force reservists threatened to stop showing up for reserve duty, sparking warnings from security officials that Israel’s security was being imperiled.
“We are marking 75 years of independence, sacrifice, 75 years of brotherhood,” Netanyahu says.
“The memories of the fallen from Israel’s wars and the terror attack will continue to be embedded among us from generation to generation,” he says.
The alleged assailant who carried out the car-ramming attack in Jerusalem is identified by security officials as 39-year-old Khatem Najma.
Najma, who was shot dead by an armed civilian, is married and a father of five from East Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa neighborhood.
He had no known prior security offenses but is known to have mental health issues.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a suspected car-ramming attack at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market is “another attempt to murder Israeli citizens.”
Netanyahu is speaking at a ceremony to open Memorial Day events as Israel commemorates those fallen in war and terror.
“Minutes ago, not far from here, there was another attempt to murder Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu says, adding that the incident “reminds us that the Land of Israel and the State of Israel were acquired through many tribulations.”
Medics raise the injury toll in the suspected car-ramming attack near Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market to five.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says one of the victims, a man in his 70s, is listed in serious condition.
A woman in her 30s is listed in moderate condition, and three others are listed in good condition, including a 50-year-old man and two men aged 25.
The five are being taken to Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals in Jerusalem.
Police say the driver who is suspected of carrying out a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem has been “neutralized.”
Dozens of officers are at the scene, police add.
The suspect’s condition is not immediately clear. Some initial reports said he was shot.
Police say they are still investigating the background of the incident.
ערב יום הזיכרון, דיווח על פיגוע דריסה ברחוב כי"ח בירושלים סמוך לשוק מחנה יהודה.
במד"א מדווחים על טיפול ב-3 פצועים: גבר כבן 50 במצב קשה,
ו-2 נשים בשנות השלושים במצב בינוני בהכרה מלאה עם חבלות בגופן pic.twitter.com/P2til8xLkC— דנה בצלאל • dana betzalel (@danabetzalel) April 24, 2023
Medics say one of the victims of the suspected car-ramming attack in Jerusalem is listed in serious condition.
The man, in his 50s, was struck by a car near the Mahane Yehuda market, the Magen David Adom ambulance service says.
Another two women in their 30s are listed in moderate condition, MDA adds.
Three people are wounded in a suspected ramming attack near Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, medics say.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says the three are in varying conditions on Ki’ach Street.
Initial reports suggest the suspected assailant has been shot, although police have not yet commented.
A video promoting the planned “million man march” of the right wing on Thursday seeks to resurrect a decades-old rift over an ethnic slur.
The video encouraging people to join the demonstration in Jerusalem to counter the mass anti-government protests posits the opposition to the judicial overhaul as part of a so-called struggle by liberal Ashkenazi elites to keep down Sephardic Jews.
The video shows first Likud prime minister Menehem Begin responding angrily to slurs and then shows public figures using apparently derogatory terms over the last three decades.
Repeated throughout are people using the term “chah’chahim,” an old pejorative based on how Arabic-accented Hebrew sounded to Ashkenazi-Israeli ears.
הפגנת המליון! pic.twitter.com/TEIYXauVoi
— ענת בר – ענתניהו???????? (@uTKJAbcp48zw3lJ) April 23, 2023
The use is an allusion to an infamous incident ahead of the 1981 election in which Israeli TV personality Dudu Topaz branded Likud voters “chah’chahim” at a Labor party rally, drawing a fiery counter-speech from Begin.
“We are bringing back justice,” the promo says.
Police say that they have located the body of a man who has been missing since mid-March when a crane collapsed into the sea.
The crane collapsed due to strong winds at the Rutenberg power station on the coast near Ashkelon. Another man who was also killed in the incident was found a day later.
Police say that after intensive searches the body has been located under the wreckage, but has not yet been retrieved.
The Israel Electric Corporation identifies the victim as Nir Dekel and says it hopes the discovery will help ease the pain of his family.
A Palestinian man who stabbed and wounded two Israeli soldiers in a terror attack in central Israel earlier this month has been charged with attempted murder.
According to an indictment filed at the Central District Court, 22-year-old Muhammad Awadeh from the West Bank town of Dura near Hebron did not have an entry permit to Israel when he carried out the attack on April 4.
The indictment says after Awadeh decided to carry out an attack, he armed himself with a knife and infiltrated into Israel through a gap in the West Bank security barrier.
Awadeh spent some time in Israel, including at his father’s home in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa, the indictment says.
On April 4, Awadeh boarded a bus and got off at Nir Yitzhak junction, next to the Tzrifin base, after spotting soldiers. The indictment says he followed them for a short while before attacking them from behind with a knife.
One of the soldiers was seriously hurt, but despite his injuries, he managed to fight off Awadeh, who sought to steal his weapon and lay on top of it so that it could not be yanked away until civilian passersby overpowered the assailant.
Awadeh is charged with a terror act of attempted murder, a terror act of grievous bodily harm under aggravated circumstances, illegal possession of a knife, and illegal entry into Israel.
He will be held until the end of legal proceedings.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with a delegation of US Democratic congresspeople, led by House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Netanyahu thanks them for their support for Israel and highlights the importance of Israel’s alliance with the US, his office says.
Netanyahu also discusses the need for action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and efforts to expand the Abraham Accords.
Global military spending grows for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to an all-time high of $2.24 trillion, with a sharp rise in Europe, chiefly due to Russian and Ukrainian expenditure, a Swedish think tank says.
Spending globally increased by 3.7% in real terms, but military expenditure in Europe was up 13% — its steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, says in a report. Military aid to Ukraine and concerns about a heightened threat from Russia “strongly influenced many other states’ spending decisions.”
The independent Swedish watchdog says that last year, the three largest arms spenders were the United States, China and Russia, who between them accounted for 56% of global expenditure.
The rise “is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” said Nan Tian, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.
Several states significantly increased their military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others announced plans to raise spending levels over periods of up to a decade. Some of the sharpest increases were seen in countries near Russia: Finland (36 %), Lithuania (27%), Sweden (12%) and Poland (11%).
The UK government slaps sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as part of new restrictions on Tehran for alleged human rights violations.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announce a travel ban and assets freeze on four individuals and the IRGC “in its entirety.”
A young Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces during a raid near the West Bank city of Jericho on Monday morning, Palestinian health officials say.
The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry says it was informed of the death of 20-year-old Suleiman Ayesh Hussein Awaid, after he was shot by Israeli troops in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp adjacent to Jericho.
The Israel Defense Forces says troops had entered the camp to arrest a wanted Palestinian.
“During the activity, two suspects were spotted fleeing the scene. The soldiers responded with live fire,” the IDF says, adding that the suspects had been hit.
The IDF did not say if the suspects were armed or had attempted to attack troops.
Images circulating online appeared to show Awaid brandishing an assault rifle, and wearing paraphernalia of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, indicating his affiliation with the terror group.
A man tries to set fire to himself and a Defense Ministry rehabilitation center for wounded veterans in the northern town of Tiberias.
The ministry says the man was quickly stopped as he tried to pour a flammable liquid on the building.
Medics took the man to a local hospital for an evaluation. The hospital said he was lightly wounded.
The Defense Ministry says that the man was apparently disgruntled as his application to be recognized as a wounded veteran had been dismissed in 2012.
The incident comes on the eve of Israel’s Memorial Day.
In 2021, Itzik Saidyan, a former soldier suffering from PTSD, set himself on fire and was critically wounded in a protest that sparked a national reckoning over Israel’s treatment of wounded soldiers.
