ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 368
The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they unfolded.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai reprimands officers who demonstrated outside the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department (PIID) yesterday as their commander was being questioned over allegations they used excessive force against protesters opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul.
Shabtai sends a message to police commanders to clarify norms of behavior for officers.
“Support for comrades is important and indicates the spirit of the force, but it must be done without harming symbols of government,” Shabtai says in his message, according to the Ynet news site. “I will not agree to this.”
The message comes after the chief of the Tel Aviv police’s Yasam special patrol unit, Yair Hanuna, and four other officers were questioned by the PIID.
Dozens of Hanuna’s fellow uniformed officers from the unit gathered outside, obstructing the flow of traffic on the Tel Aviv street, and cheered as he arrived.
Some of them shouted: “We love you!”
The King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence holds a gala to mark the launching of its King Hamad Peaceful Coexistence Award in honor of Bahrain’s monarch.
Hundreds attend the ceremony, including officials, ambassadors, diplomats, religious leaders, cultural, media figures and former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
In a speech at the dinner, the center’s chairman Dr. Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa highlights Bahrain’s efforts to advance peaceful coexistence.
Khalifa says “that the Kingdom of Bahrain is known as a country of civilizations, openness to other cultures, and is a safe place for everyone to practice their religious beliefs and rituals freely, based on the values of protecting freedoms, respecting diversity, and building bridges of coexistence and harmony,” according to a press release from the center.
Agudath Israel of America, a leading US Orthodox umbrella group, admonishes US lawmakers for weighing in on the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul.
The Biden administration, US Congress members and an array of US Jewish groups have criticized the Netanyahu coalition’s unilateral push to remake the judiciary.
Agudath had not previously commented.
“American lawmakers and other government officials, while they are entitled to their opinions, should not be seeking to use their positions of power to meddle in the internal affairs of another sovereign democratic state,” Agudath says in a statement.
“What form, if any, judicial reform in Israel should take is a matter for Israelis to determine, through Israel’s vibrant democratic process.”
“The United States would rightly resent another nation’s attempts to influence our own internal political affairs. Members of Congress and other American officials should ponder that, and leave Israeli issues to Israelis.”
The group says it takes no position on the legislation.
Police shut down Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street in the direction of the Ayalon Highway as hundreds of anti-government protesters begin gathering at the site.
Kaplan Street has been the epicenter of mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul plan and demonstrators have frequently tried to shut down the highway, the main thoroughfare through the city.
Marches are being held in Tel Aviv and nearby Raanana, Kfar Saba and Hod Hasharon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu breaks his silence on attacks by coalition MKs on the military’s top officer in the West Bank, IDF’s Central Commander, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox.
“The denigration of Gen. Fox is unacceptable and not worthy,” Netanyahu says. “Gen. Fox is an admired officer who works tirelessly to defend all the citizens of Israel.”
His comments come days after MK Avichay Buaron charged that for Fox, “allowing movement rights for Palestinians is more important than hermetically protecting Israelis.”
His comments were echoed today by far-right coalition MK Limor Son Har-Melech.
“I unequivocally back the comments by MK Avichay Buaron,” Son Har-Melech, of the Otzma Yehudit party, told Kol Berama radio. Fox “consistently ensures the welfare of Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria, and [is] against Jewish residents,” she said, using the biblical name for the West Bank.
The chief of the Tel Aviv police’s Yasam special patrol unit, Yair Hanuna, is released after several hours of questioning by the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department (PIID) over allegations they used excessive force against protesters opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul.
Hanuna, and four other officers who are questioned with him, are freed with no conditions or restraints except for discussing the content of the questioning, the Walla news site reports.
Dozens of Hanuna’s fellow uniformed officers from the unit gathered outside, obstructing the flow of traffic on the Tel Aviv street, and cheered as he arrived.
Videos from demonstrations last week showed police kicking protesters who were lying on the ground, throwing burning pallets toward them, dragging activists by their hair and using violence during arrests of those allegedly blocking roads and highways, including those who were not resisting arrest.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, announce that they are separating after 18 years of marriage.
The two say in statements posted on Instagram that they made the decision after “many meaningful and difficult conversations.”
A statement from the prime minister’s office says both have signed a legal separation agreement.
The couple were married in 2005. They have three children, 15-year-old Xavier, 14-year-old Ella-Grace and 9-year-old Hadrien.
“They remain a close family and Sophie and the prime minister are focused on raising their kids in a safe, loving and collaborative environment,” the statement from his office says. “The family will be together on vacation, beginning next week.”
His office requests respect for their privacy.
Trudeau is the second prime minister to announce a separation while in office.
His father, Pierre Trudeau, separated from wife Margaret in 1979, and the two divorced in 1984.
The High Court of Justice rules against a petition to evacuate the illegal West Bank outpost of Homesh.
The court finds that the relocation of Homesh from private Palestinian land to public land is sufficient to resolve the demands of private Palestinian landowners in the area that they regain access to their land.
The Yesh Din organization which represented the Palestinian landowners denounces the decision which they say de facto authorizes the establishment of a new Homesh settlement and testifies to “the apartheid rule” in the West Bank.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lauds the decision, however, and thanks Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for his help in assisting with the relocation of the Homesh outpost.
Palestinian landowners have for years sought the removal of the outpost, consisting primarily of a yeshiva, from their private land, which the state agreed to evacuate in 2022.
In May this year, Gallant permitted settler activists in conjunction with the Samaria Regional Council to build a new yeshiva in the middle of the night on a different plot of land, defined by the state as public land, close by to the original yeshiva, albeit without construction permits and in contravention of the designated land use of the area.
The US has given Israel the OK to sell the David’s Sling missile defense system to Finland, the Defense Ministry says.
In April, Finland announced that it wanted to purchase the system the day after it joined the NATO military alliance.
However, the move needed the approval of the US, which jointly developed the system. The deal is worth some 316 million euros ($345 million).
David’s Sling, produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, is a capable of intercepting rockets and missiles at a range of 40-300 kilometers (25-185 miles)
David’s Sling, also known as the Magic Wand, has been operational in Israel since 2017 and makes up the middle tier of Israel’s multi-layer missile defense capabilities, which also included the short-range Iron Dome and a top level of Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, which are intended to engage long-range ballistic missiles.
This marks the first foreign sale of the system.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the leader of the Tree of Life Congregation, who survived the attack, says the death sentence handed to the shooter is a chance for the community to move forward and heal.
“In the years we have spent waiting for this trial to take place, many of us have been stuck in neutral. It was a challenge to move forward with the looming specter of a murder trial,” says Myers.
“Now that the trial is nearly over and the jury has recommended a death sentence, it is my hope that we can begin to heal and move forward,” he says.
“As we do, I have my faith, bolstered by the embrace and respect with which my community has been treated by our government and our fellow citizens. For this and the seriousness with which the jury took its duty, I remain forever grateful,” he says.
The World Jewish Congress welcomes the jury’s decision to impose the death sentence on the Pittsburgh synagogue killer Robert Bowers.
“Today’s decision represents a measure of justice for the slaughter of 11 Jewish worshippers on that fateful day in 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue. Nothing can ever bring back the people killed in the attack, the deadliest act of antisemitism in the history of the United States,” says WJC President Ronald Lauder.
“The jury’s decision is a stark reminder to remain vigilant about countering antisemitism, wherever it may hide. I call on American leaders to amplify their efforts to protect Jewish communities across the country so that such a tragedy never again takes place,” he says.
“May the survivors of the attack and the victims’ families find some comfort from the jury’s decision and may the memory of the 11 people killed be for a blessing.”
The gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers will be sentenced to death for perpetrating the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history.
Robert Bowers spewed hatred of Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three congregations had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, also wounded two worshippers and five responding police officers.
The same federal jury that convicted the 50-year-old Bowers on 63 criminal counts recommends that he be put to death for an attack whose impacts continue to reverberate nearly five years later.
A judge will formally impose the sentence later.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken marks Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, commemerating the hundreds of thousands of members of the community killed by Nazi Germany and its allies.
Many countries mark the genocide on August 2, a date on which 2,897 Roma and Sinti men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“As we commemorate all the Romani lives taken by the Nazi genocide against Roma, we reaffirm the dignity and human rights of all and renew our commitment to condemning and countering the racism and discrimination that Roma and Sinti face today,” Blinken says.
“We emphasize the importance of remembering the genocide of Roma. And we acknowledge that history has often neglected this genocide, which has contributed to the prejudice, inequality, and exclusion that Roma and Sinti communities still experience. We call on all governments to work together to end discrimination, segregation, and marginalization against Roma and Sinti,” he says.
A monument in unveiled of the late Israeli president Shimon Peres at his birthplace in Belarus to mark 100 years since his birth.
The monument was erected in the Belarus town of Vishneva in the courtyard of the home where the Israeli statesman and Nobel Peace Prize winner was born.
“Today, as we unveil this monument marking Shimon Peres’s 100th birthday, we honor his exceptional life dedicated to peace and innovation,” says Efrat Duvdevani, Director-General of the Peres Center for Peace.
The Israeli Medical Association releases a position paper supporting the rights of same-sex couples to adopt as the Supreme Court discussed a petition to overturn discrimination within the Adoption Law.
The organization bases its argument on overwhelming amounts of academic and clinical research indicating that the placement of a child in a loving and supporting home regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents is in the best interests of the child.
Current Israeli policy allows only same-sex couples to adopt children for whom no heterosexual married couple can be found. Also, same-sex couples are made to wait longer to adopt and must legally adopt as individuals and not as a couple.
The petition to the court was filed in July 2017 by the Association of Israeli Gay Fathers, together with the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform movement, against the Social Affairs Ministry and the attorney general.
Following deliberations, the state promised to amend the law. Six years later, the Knesset has still not taken any legislative action to eliminate the discrimination and the court may decide to intervene and take a more interpretive stance.
According to the IMA, there is 40 years’ worth of research on LGBTQ adoption and the leading American organizations dealing with child and adolescent physical and mental health have all taken position in favor of same-sex couple adoption since the early 2000s.
The IMA states that “as professionals, we call on the Justice Ministry and Welfare Ministry to adopt the majority opinion among professionals in Israel and around the world that LGBTQ individuals are qualified to adopt children just like heterosexuals.”
“The discrimination based on sexual orientation in this matter must end,” it says.
A jury has reached a decision on whether the man who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.
Robert Bowers perpetrated the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history when he stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 and opened fire, killing members of three congregations who had gathered for Sabbath worship and study.
The same federal jury that convicted Bowers in June on 63 criminal counts says that it has reached a decision on the sentence. The decision will be announced shortly.
The jury must be unanimous in order to impose a death sentence. Otherwise, Bowers will be sentenced to life without parole.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir meets with members of a police unit that is facing internal investigations over violence used against demonstrators at recent anti-government protests.
The meeting comes as the chief of the Tel Aviv police’s Yasam special patrol unit, Yair Hanuna, and four other officers were being questioned by the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department (PIID) over allegations they used excessive force against protesters opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul.
The far-right minister tells the officers that they have his complete backing and that the “PIID won’t bother them.”
“You are our heroes and on my beat, you will have complete backing,” Ben Gvir says, adding that “while I don’t support violence, from the videos I have seen, the force used against demonstrators was proportional.”
Ben Gvir calls the PIID actions “strange and very grave in my eyes.”
Opposition MK Matan Kahana says Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is misleading the public about the number of Air Force pilots refusing to show up for duty and its effect on the readiness of the military.
“Gallant is misleading the public, the number no longer volunteering is four times what is being reported,” Kahana, a National Unity member and a former fighter pilot, tells Channel 12 news.
Gallant has warned that the military could be harmed by the reservists’ protests against the judicial overhaul, but intimated that the situation was under control at the moment.
The IDF is capable of carrying out its tasks,” but there were concerns moving forward if readiness deteriorates further, Gallant reportedly told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday
He said Israel’s enemies “believe, mistakenly, that they have the opportunity to take advantage of what they perceive as a weakness.”
Mosquitos carrying West Nile virus were found in the southern Arava area, the second time the disease has been detected in Israel this year, the Environment Ministry says.
The ministry says the infected mosquitos were found in along Route 90 in the communities of Yotvata, Paran and Elipaz, just north of Eilat.
It instructed local authorities to keep a closer eye out for mosquitos with West Nile virus and if needed “immediately carry out preventive measures and pest control,” according to a statement.
Those infected with West Nile virus typically experience flu-like symptoms and recover within a week, but in some cases the disease is fatal. According to the Health Ministry, one person has died this year from the virus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in Jerusalem to discuss expanding cooperation in agriculture, innovation, and food security, his office says.
They also focus on growing the bilateral economic relationship.
“Israel is returning to Africa,” says Netanyahu in a statement, “and Africa is returning to Israel, and this will benefit everyone.”
Netanyahu’s senior security and diplomatic advisers also join the meeting.
A British tourist has filed a police report, claiming she was raped by an Israeli man and filmed by three of his friends in Athens, Greek media reports.
According to the Protothema news site, the incident occurred on Thursday when the woman, 21, met the man in a nightclub in the Greek capital. The man invited her back to his place.
According to the report, while the two were engaged in consensual relations, three of his friends appeared and began filming them.
The woman then tried to leave, but the man forced her to stay and raped her, she told police.
The report says charges were filed against the man.
A jury resumed deliberations today over the sentence for a gunman who killed 11 Jewish worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, weighing the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Jurors got the case yesterday and deliberated about seven hours before being sent home. Deliberations resumed around 8:30 a.m. this morning.
Robert Bowers perpetrated the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history when he stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 and opened fire, killing members of three congregations who had gathered for Sabbath worship and study.
The 50-year-old truck driver was convicted in June of 63 federal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death.
Prosecutors have called for Bowers to be put to death, saying the attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews. Bowers spread antisemitic content online before the attack and told police at the scene that “all these Jews must die.” He has since expressed pride in the killings.
Russia damaged almost 40,000 tons of grain in an overnight strike on southern Ukrainian warehouses near the Danube, Kyiv’s infrastructure minister says.
“The Russians attacked warehouses and grain elevators — almost 40,000 tonnes of grain were damaged,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in an English-language post on social media, adding that the grain was destined for Africa, China and Israel.
These photos show the lives of hundreds of millions of people. In Ukraine, in Europe, in Africa. The photos show the destroyed infrastructure of the ports of the Danube cluster. Last night, Russia attacked them with Iranian drones. These are the very ports that have become the… pic.twitter.com/DFCI2muwEC
— Oleksandr Kubrakov (@OlKubrakov) August 2, 2023
China’s capital records its heaviest rainfall in at least 140 years over the past few days after being deluged with heavy rains from the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri.
The city records 744.8 millimeters (29.3 inches) of rain between Saturday and Wednesday morning, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau says.
The number of confirmed deaths from the torrential rains around Beijing rises to 21 after the body of a rescuer was recovered.
At least 26 people remain missing from the rains.
Standing on Israel’s border with Lebanon as tensions rise with Hezbollah, President Isaac Herzog warns the powerful Shiite terror group not to test Israel’s resolve.
“I want to tell our enemies — especially Hezbollah on the other side of the border — don’t be mistaken,” he says. “The IDF is strong, it is united. It is capable and will protect and defend our sovereignty and the security and well-being of the people of Israel. This is our top priority.”
Herzog also expresses sympathy for Lebanon’s citizens: “We extend our hands to the Lebanese people. They don’t deserve this, they don’t deserve the Iranian spell that kills and ruins many parts of their country. They definitely don’t deserve the involvement of Hezbollah, which undermines their stability and well-being.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid urges Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai to issue orders to police to respect those taking part in anti-government protests, following a series of violent incidents at recent demonstrations.
In a statement, Lapid calls on police to “respect the hundreds of thousands of citizens who express their democratic rights, to refine the procedures for the use of force, for investigations and arrests, and above all to ignore political calls whose purpose is to lead to a severe division in the people.”
“It will be a disaster if in the State of Israel, police become a tool in the hands of a convicted criminal used to fulfill the violent and anti-democratic policies of a messianic minister,” the statement says referring to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“The police must act with maturity and responsibility and rise above the minister’s desire to ‘fill Ichilov [hospital] with the wounded,'” he says.
IDF Chief of staff Herzi Halevy tours Israel’s northern border with Lebanon amid heightened tensions with the Hezbollah terror group.
Halevi toured the new security barrier that Israel is building along the border entirely within Israeli territory.
In recent weeks, Hezbollah activity has repeatedly been spotted along the border with Israel, in incidents that Israel has referred to as deliberate provocations, including setting up two tents beyond the UN-recognized Blue Line.
The Knesset legal adviser has asked the High Court of Justice to be allowed to file a separate motion in a hearing next week against a law passed in March that prevents the court from ordering a prime minister to recuse himself from office.
The rare move represents a rare split with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who in an extraordinary filing last week requested that the court strike down the law; if her stance is accepted, it would mark the first time the court struck down one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws.
“It is not possible to overstate the precedent of the position of the attorney general. The court has never nullified a basic law and the AG is seeking to do so for the first time,” writes Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik, according to the Walla news site.
Tourists who had to flee wildfires on Greece’s Rhodes island can return for a free week next year, the prime minister says.
Fed by scorching temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds, a two-week inferno sparked chaos at the peak of Greece’s busy summer tourist season.
Tens of thousands of visitors and locals fled from hotels and villages on Rhodes and hundreds more were evacuated in Corfu and other areas.
“The Greek government will offer one week of free holiday on Rhodes next spring or fall for all of those whose holiday was cut short due to the wildfires,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tells Britain’s ITV channel.
Border Police release photos of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir wearing military fatigues during a visit to a base yesterday.
It is not immediately clear why Ben Gvir and his assistant Hanamel Dorfman were dressed in army gear.
Neither of the two ever did military service and Ben Gvir, as a government minister, is supposed to represent civilian control over the force.
The move drew widespread derision online, with many saying that Ben Gvir was trying to channel Ukraine leader Vlodomyr Zelensky, who has only worn olive dress since his country was invaded by Russia last year.
The opposition Yesh Atid party joins in petitions filed to the High Court of Justice against the reasonableness law passed by the Knesset last week, which curtailed judicial oversight over the decisions of elected officials.
The petition filed by MKs Karine Elharrar and Yoav Segalovich claims that the law was not properly considered during the legislative process and that it disrupts the system of checks and balances between authorities.
The High Court of Justice will hear petitions it has accepted against the law on September 12, convening for the first time a 15-judge panel for the hearings.
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut said Monday she had decided that every justice on the court would preside over the hugely significant and potentially explosive hearing on the law.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to commit to abiding by the court’s decision should it strike down the law.
