Czech president says his country plans to move its embassy to Jerusalem

Mengistu family sees ‘new developments’ in effort to return son Avera from Gaza

The brother of Avera Mengistu, an Israeli man being held by Hamas in Gaza, tells Hadashot television news that there are “new developments” in the efforts to bring Mengistu home.

Ilan Mengistu speaks after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, in a meeting described by the Prime Minister’s Office as “part of the ongoing contact the prime minister has maintained with the families of the soldiers and civilians held by Hamas.”

“It was a very important meeting,” Ilan says afterwards. “We were updated on new developments. Naturally, I can’t give details about what was said at the meeting, but the government has a very strong sense that there are opportunities here,” Ilan adds.

Avera Mengistu has been in Gaza since he crossed over the fence of his volition in September 2014. He is known to be mentally ill, and his family fears for both his physical and mental health in Hamas custody.

Ilan says that despite the assurances the family apparently received from the prime minister, the Mengistu family would “continue to sit in our protest tent” outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem “until we see the steps and actions that we have called for…. I think this is a humanitarian issue. This is a civilian who has no connection to the conflict, and the government needs to hold its head high and demand that his rights be protected.”

Umm al-Fahm man moderately hurt in shooting

A 43-year-old man is moderately hurt in a shooting in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.

He is hospitalized at Haemek Hospital in Afula.

There is no immediate information on the circumstances behind the shooting.

150 grapevines uprooted in Jewish-owned Jordan Valley vineyard

Some 150 grapevines are discovered uprooted in an apparent vandalism attack against a Jewish-owned vineyard in the settlement of Tomer, located in the Jordan Valley north of Jericho.

Police are launching an investigating after the vineyard owner filed a complaint saying that unknown persons carried out the vandalism late last night.

Netanyahu meets Romania counterpart Dancila, thanks her for backing embassy move

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with his Romanian counterpart Viorica Dancila at his office.

According to a statement from the PMO, Netanyahu thanked Dancila for her support for a Romanian government decision to begin the process of moving the Romanian embassy to Jerusalem.

1,100 Russian Jews at Auschwitz to hear of Polish rescue, betrayal of Jews

Russia’s main Jewish group is sending its largest delegation ever to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland, where participants will hear about Polish bravery but also complicity in the Holocaust, a top rabbi from Moscow says.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia will send 1,100 teenagers and young adults to Auschwitz on April 30 as part of its annual Eurostars weeklong trip, which brings Russian Jews to Western Europe, Federation President Alexander Boroda tells JTA. “It’s our largest delegation so far,” he says.

At the state-run museum, the participants in the program, which began in 2006, will learn about “the death machine” that the Nazis operated to kill approximately four million Jews at Auschwitz alone, says Boroda, a Chabad rabbi. They will hear about the efforts of many Poles to save Jews from the genocide. But they also will be taught about “Polish traitors who betrayed Jews to the Nazis and helped the Nazis,” he says.

Both rescue and betrayal, Boroda adds, occurred in Poland on a larger scale than any other European country.

The treatment of complicity by Poles in the Holocaust is a sensitive issue in Poland, further complicated by the passing in January of controversial legislation in Warsaw that criminalizes blaming the Polish nation or Poles for Nazi crimes.

— JTA

Donors pledge $4.4 billion in Syria aid for 2018, UN says

International donors will pledge $4.4 billion in aid of the Syrian conflict at a Brussels conference, a senior UN official says, well short of the amount hoped for.

“My best guess is that by the end of the day we will have heard pledges for 2018 of $4.4 billion,” Mark Lowcock, the head of UN aid agency UNOCHA, tells a news conference in Brussels.

“I want particularly to thank the EU, Germany and the United Kingdom who have made exceptionally large pledges today,” Lowcock says.

Pledges of a further $3.3 billion for 2019 and after were expected at the conference, which groups more than 80 countries, aid groups and agencies, he adds.

The UN official had earlier told AFP he hoped to see $8 billion pledged on Wednesday, warning that some programs for refugees and displaced Syrians may need to be cut if funds are not forthcoming.

— AFP

Two reportedly swept away in flash floods as powerful storm hits Israel

Heavy rains, hail and strong winds hit Israel Wednesday in an unusually powerful storm for this time of the year.

A 17-year-old Israeli is swept away by flash floods at Mamshit River in the Negev. He is located after a search by rescuers, and is being treated. His condition is unclear.

Israeli and Palestinian authorities are searching east of Hebron after unconfirmed reports that a Palestinian girl may have been swept away in the area in a similar flood.

Hail is falling in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere. Route 40 south of the southern town of Mitzpe Ramon is closed by authorities amid fears of flash floods in the desert riverbeds traversed by the road.

Rishon Lezion floods sweep through streets, enter city’s malls

Streets in Rishon Lezion turn to rivers as floods batter the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv and its suburbs.

מדינה מתוקנת pic.twitter.com/ULbSYWdDOX

— רועי ברק (@ronenbergen) April 25, 2018

Floodwaters enter Rishon’s Rothschild Mall.

17-year-old swept away in Negev flash flood dies of wounds

The 17-year-old who was swept away by flash floods at Mamshit River near the southern city of Yeruham has died, officials say.

The youth was found by rescuers after the waters carried him off. Attempts at resuscitation failed.

UK Jewish groups call meeting with Corbyn ‘a missed opportunity’

The two British Jewish umbrella groups call their long-anticipated meeting with Labour head Jeremy Corbyn “a disappointing missed opportunity regarding the problem of anti-Semitism” in the party.

The Board of Deputies of British Jewry and the Jewish Leadership Council say in a statement following Tuesday’s meeting that they “welcomed Mr. Corbyn’s personal involvement in the discussion and his new comments recognizing and apologizing for anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, but he failed to agree to any of the concrete actions we asked for” in a letter last month.

The London-based Jewish Chronicle cites Labour sources as saying that the meeting was “positive and constructive, serious and good humored.”

The Jewish Chronicle cites unnamed sources as saying that the Jewish leaders at the meeting stressed that the expulsion of former London mayor Ken Livingstone from the party and the misuse of the term Zionism were “key issues that needed to be resolved in order to start rebuilding relations with the community.” They also stressed to Corbyn the importance of the adopting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, definition of anti-Semitism.

“Following that demonstration [in Parliament Square on March 26] we wrote to Mr. Corbyn to set out six areas of concrete action he and the party could take to address the anti-Semitism that has grown under his leadership,” the Jewish groups’ statement read. “These represented the minimum level of action the community expected after more than two years of inactivity. Today we met Mr. Corbyn to convey in no uncertain terms the Jewish community’s feelings to him in person and to discuss his response to our proposals. It was a difficult yet important meeting.

“We are disappointed that Mr. Corbyn’s proposals fell short of the minimum level of action which our letter suggested.”

— JTA

Rishon Lezion school evacuated, authorities race to save cars amid rising waters

The Yadlin school in Rishon Lezion is being evacuated amid fears for the students as floodwaters enter the building.

Meanwhile, the city, Israel’s fourth-largest, is seeing police, firefighters and municipal tractors and trucks deployed in flooded streets in a bid to rescue vehicles before they are swept away by the rising water.

Dozens of schoolchildren get hypothermia on rain-soaked desert hike

At least 62 schoolchildren are being evacuated from a riverbed where they were hiking near the southern desert town of Arad as flash floods hit the area. Over 40 of them are reportedly suffering from hypothermia, according to the Walla news site.

Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov airport closed due to storm

The Sde Dov airport in northern Tel Aviv, which is mostly used for short-distance flights within Israel, is closed due to stormy weather, which includes hail in the vicinity of the airport and powerful winds.

One flight from Eilat to Sde Dov is diverted to Ben Gurion Airport.

German music award scrapped over winner’s anti-Semitic lyrics

The organizers of Germany’s Echo Music Awards say they would scrap their main annual prize due to a row over winners this year, a rap duo who have been slammed for anti-Semitic lyrics.

“The Echo brand is so badly damaged that a complete new beginning is necessary,” says Germany’s Music Industry Association, adding that the “Echo will be no more.”

A maelstrom of outrage erupted after the Echo’s Hip-Hop/Urban prize was handed this month to rap duo Kollegah and Farid Bang, who in their song “0815” say their bodies are “more defined than Auschwitz prisoners.”

The prize, which is based on sales, had gone to the act after they sold more than 200,000 copies of their album “Young, Brutal and Handsome 3.”

Star conductor Daniel Barenboim this week became the latest high-profile musician to return an earlier Echo award in protest.

Barenboim, 75, said in a statement that the rappers’ lyrics are “clearly anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic and contemptuous of human dignity.”

The award’s organizers noted that while the “events surrounding this year’s awards…cannot be reversed, we want to ensure that such a mistake does not repeat itself.”

— AFP

Amid Iran deal dispute, France’s Macron urges US not to retreat from world stage

French President Emmanuel Macron receives a warm, three-minute standing ovation from US lawmakers Wednesday before delivering — in English — a rare address to Congress, urging America to help “reinvent multilateralism.”

He is expected to urge members of the US Congress to work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal.

Macron shakes hands with senators and representatives, and presses his hand to his heart several times before a speech that touches on the two countries’ shared history and international challenges.

“Our two nations are rooted in the same soil, grounded in the ideals of the American and French revolutions,” Macron says. “We have worked together for the universal ideals of liberty, tolerance, and equal rights,” he adds, hailing Congress as a “sanctuary of democracy.”

After multiple meetings with US President Donald Trump and a lavish state dinner on Tuesday at the White House, Macron sought to expand on his world vision — and convince America not to retreat from the world stage.

“Today, the international community needs to step up our game and build the 21th century world order based on the perennial principle we established together after World War II — the rule of law,” Macron says. “We can build the 21st century world order based on a new breed of multilateralism, based on a more effective, accountable, and result oriented multilateralism,” he says. “The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism. You’re the ones now who have to help to preserve and reinvent it.”

— AFP

Palestinian girl feared swept away in flash floods is found, condition unknown

The Palestinian family of a girl believed swept away by a flash flood in the southern West Bank tells Israel they have located her.

Israeli police and military rescue teams, in parallel with a Palestinian search effort, were combing the riverbeds east of Hebron for the girl, who was reported missing by the Palestinians amid a powerful storm battering the country that is causing flash floods in riverbeds throughout the southern Negev and in the West Bank.

The girl’s condition is not immediately known.

France’s Macron assures US Congress Iran will ‘never’ possess nuclear weapons

French President Emmanuel Macron tells the US Congress Wednesday that Iran will “never” be allowed to develop atomic weapons, as the fate of the 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran hangs in the balance.

“Our objective is clear,” Macron tells lawmakers on the final day of a state visit during which he and US President Donald Trump called for a broader “deal” that would also limit Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for jihadist groups across the Middle East.

“Iran shall never possess any nuclear weapons. Not now. Not in five years. Not in 10 years. Never,” Macron says.

— AFP

Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov Airport reopens

Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov airport reopens after briefly closing Wednesday due to an unusually powerful storm.

Brazilian governor apologizes for hosting Hezbollah official

The governor of Brazil’s Sao Paulo state apologizes to the Jewish community for welcoming a Muslim clergyman accused of having ties with Hezbollah.

Gov. Marcio Franca welcomed Sheikh Bilal Mohsen Wehbe as part of a Lebanese delegation visiting the state government headquarters on April 17. On Saturday, Veja magazine’s online edition revealed that the meeting took place and that the shkeikh “is the main name of the terrorist group Hezbollah in South America.”

A day later, the Sao Paulo Jewish Federation released a statement condemning the meeting.

“Unfortunately, Gov. Marcio Franca and his team ignored the organization’s links to smuggling and drug trafficking in the Triple Frontier region between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, as well as its radical stance calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, and gave legitimacy to a group recognized as terrorist by countless democratic countries,” the statement said, referring to Hezbollah.

Franca apologized to Jewish officials that he welcomed on Monday, including the president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, the country’s umbrella Jewish organization. During the meeting organized by Congressman Floriano Pesaro, who is Jewish, the governor said he was not familiar with the names in the Lebanese delegation and admitted that “the check may have been flawed.”

— JTA

37 schoolchildren safe after their bus is swept off a Negev road in flash flood

Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital offers details about the story of several dozen schoolchildren caught in flooding and evacuated from a Negev riverbed, many of them suffering hypothermia.

According to the hospital, the 37 youths and six adults were on a bus that was caught in floodwaters and carried off the road.

“All the evacuees are only lightly hurt. Some are suffering from shock, some from mild injuries to their arms and legs,” a senior hospital official says.

Czech president says his country plans to move embassy to Jerusalem

Czech President Milos Zeman says his country plans to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The comment comes at an event hosted by the Israeli embassy in the Czech Republic in honor of Israel’s Independence Day.

According to Zeman, the move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will take place in three stages, the first beginning next month with the opening of an honorary consulate in Israel’s capital.

The second stage, he says, is the move of the Czech cultural, economic and tourism center to Jerusalem. The embassy would move in the third stage, he says, without specifying a time frame for the final step.

Minister says Czech embassy decision will cause other countries to do the same

Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin, who also serves as Jerusalem minister, welcomes Czech President Milos Zeman’s announcement today that Prague plans to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“Implementing this announcement will undoubtedly bring other countries to follow the example set by [US] President [Donald] Trump and move their embassies to Jerusalem,” Elkin says in a statement.

He promises his ministry “will do all we can to help” any country that makes the same decision.

Czech foreign ministry says Prague still abides by EU policy on Jerusalem

The Czech Foreign Ministry issues a “clarification” after the country’s president promises to move his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“The Czech Republic fully respects [the] common policy of the European Union, which considers Jerusalem as the future capital of both the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine,” the statement says.

The statement explains that the Czech position “only acknowledged what is standard practice by other States when making their official visits to Israel. According to usual diplomatic practice, States have their embassies in the capitals of the receiving States. This is why the Czech Republic has decided, as a first step, to open an honorary consulate (led by Honorary Consul Mr. Dan Propper) in May and a new Czech Centre by the end of this year, both in West Jerusalem. Our presence in Jerusalem should enhance our mutual cooperation in many fields.”

“This step in no way prejudges the final agreement concerning Jerusalem, the same way as it is not being prejudged by diplomatic representations of several European countries that are seated in East Jerusalem.”

Liberman welcomes Czech announcement on embassy move

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says in a statement on Twitter that he “congratulates Czech President Milos Zeman on his decision to move the Czech Embassy to Jerusalem. The leadership role played by US President Donald Trump [in announcing a similar move on December 9] augurs a change in the attitudes of nations around the world toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem is our eternal, beloved capital, and we will continue to strengthen and to build her.”

Jerusalem mayor welcomes Czech president’s embassy move announcement

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat welcomes the announcement by Czech President Milos Zeman that his country plans to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In a statement, Barkat calls the announcement “a brave decision to stand for the values of truth and justice.”

He says he has instructed city officials “to assist in any way possible with moving the embassy and the Czech mission.”