The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they happened.
The head of the Israel Defense Force’s West Bank division slams attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in recent months, during a change ceremony for the commander of the Binyamin Regional Brigade.
“Our mission is, first and foremost, to provide security and ensure that the IDF prevents terror so that the civilians are able to continue their daily routine. That said, we will enforce law and order,” says Brig. Gen. Avi Blot, the head of the Judea and Samaria Division.
“The IDF will not stand silent when lawbreakers enter villages, set fire to property and risk lives. For actions like these, we say loud and clear — this is unethical, not Jewish, it does not contribute to security and last week showed it is also dangerous,” he continues.
Addressing the outgoing commander of the Binyamin Regional Brigade, Col. Eliav Elbaz, who had come under repeated attack by settlers, including during a condolence visit to a terror victim, Blot says: “The fact that you, Elbaz, had to endure vilification by people who do not represent the community, as you arrived to pay condolences, is outrageous and worthy of condemnation.”
Elbaz says the past two years as the commander of the Binyamin Regional Brigade were the “longest, most intense years I have experienced.”
“Two years with over 2,000 arrest operations… two years of accomplishments and failures… two years of cooperation,” he says.
But Elbaz adds that during this time, “on the fringes of the community, there grew and developed Jewish civilians who behave in a criminal, unethical manner and shame me as a Jew.”
“Despite the enormous difficulty and the heavy personal price I knew I would pay, I had no doubt for a moment ever since, a leader and commander does not avoid confrontation, does not cut corners, and is at the front, especially when it is difficult and unpleasant,” he adds.
The incoming head of the Binyamin Regional Brigade, Col. Liran Biton, says he feels “privileged” to take command of the unit. “We have many challenges ahead of us,” he says.
A demonstrator stabbed a cop at a protest in Tel Aviv against law enforcement’s handling of a probe into a deadly hit-and-run, according to police.
A statement from the force says the officer was taken to a hospital for medical treatment, without specifying his condition.
Police are searching for the suspect after he fled the scene.
The incident came as police declare the demonstration a riot, saying some protesters acted violently toward officers and ran on the Ayalon Highway — blocking traffic in both directions.
The coastal city’s Jabotinsky and Arlozorov streets are also blocked.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is heading to the United States tonight to meet with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, his office says.
Gallant will also brief envoys of various countries and members of the UN Security Council on Israeli defense matters, his office adds.
An unarmed Palestinian is arrested by Israeli troops while attempting to cross into Israel from the Gaza Strip this evening, the military says.
The Israel Defense Forces says the suspect, who tried to infiltrate through the barrier in the northern part of Gaza, is taken for further questioning.
Video showing what appears to be the trail of an anti-aircraft missile, as a business plane allegedly carrying Wagner chief Yegveny Prigozhin falls from the sky.
There is no still no official confirmation if Prigozhin was on the plane, where he was listed as a passenger.
⚡️ Самолёт, который разбился в Тверской области, принадлежит Евгению Пригожину, утверждают издание Baza и журналистка Ксения Собчак. На борту бизнес-джета Embraer, как утверждается, были 7 человек, они погибли.
Видео: соцсети pic.twitter.com/EzyZ3PbVT8
— ЭХО (@echofm_online) August 23, 2023
MOSCOW — A business jet en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed today, killing all ten people on board, Russian emergency officials say. Mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list, officials say, but it isn’t immediately clear if he was on board.
Unconfirmed media reports say the jet belonged to Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company.
Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, says Prigozhin was on the passenger list. However, it’s not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight.
A group of demonstrators block traffic on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway to protest law enforcement’s handling into the investigation of a hit-and-run in Netanya earlier this year in which a 5-year-old boy was killed.
A ministerial panel established to address rampant violent crime in Arab towns tasks the Shin Bet security service with assisting police operations “against criminal organizations in all related to the municipal elections,” says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office after the forum convenes.
The statement from the Prime Minister’s Office stresses the agency will act in accordance with its “mission and role under the law.”
The move comes as Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have called to involve the Shin Bet in the fight against crime, something not explicitly in the agency’s remit, though it is tasked under a 2002 law “with maintaining state security and maintaining the order of the democratic regime and its institutions against various threats.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich again reiterates his refusal to transfer hundreds of millions in budgeted funding to Arab municipalities, as ministers convene to discuss record levels of homicides in the communities.
“Organized crime relies on money,” he says in a statement, “and most of this money, which is the State of Israel’s, instead of serving Arab Israeli citizens… reaches the same protection collectors.”
Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party, calls for oversight mechanisms to ensure the money reaches its intended target.
“We will hold a dialogue with all the relevant government ministries, formulate these mechanisms and only then release the funds,” he says.
The US Office of Palestinian Affairs says that it’s “deeply concerned by reports that Israel demolished a Palestinian school in the West Bank community of Ein Samiya” northeast of Ramallah.
“Demolitions and the displacement of Palestinians from their communities exacerbate tensions and threaten the two-state solution,” the diplomatic office writes on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Israel demolished the school, which was funded by the European Union, last week on the grounds that it was built without the necessary permits. Palestinians say they are forced to build illegally as Israel almost exclusively reserves permits in Area C of the West Bank for settlers.
Earlier this year, the remaining Bedouin residents of Ein Samiya fled the village following years of intimidation and violence from settlers in nearby illegal outposts.
The Israel Defense Forces says it has notified the families of two Palestinian terrorists behind recent deadly attacks that their homes are slated for demolition.
The home of Muhannad Faleh Shehadeh — a Hamas gunman who carried out a shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Eli in June with another terrorist, killing four Israelis — in the town of Urif is to be razed, the IDF says.
The IDF says it has also notified the family of Hassan Qatnani — a Hamas gunman who carried out a deadly shooting attack on the Dee family in the Jordan Valley in April, with another terrorist — that their home in the Askar refugee camp on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus is slated for demolition.
The home of Khaled Mustafa Sabah, the second terrorist behind the Eli terror attack, has been slated for demolition since August 11.
The military says it is still examining the possibility of demolishing the home of Moaz al-Masri, the second terrorist behind the Jordan Valley attack.
As a matter of policy, Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks.
The families of the terrorists can still appeal the decision to raze the homes to Israel’s High Court of Justice. But such attempts rarely succeed, though in some cases the court can limit the demolition order to only the parts of the house used by the terrorist.
Wadi Ara’ara Mayor Mudar Younes, who is also director of the National Council of Arab Mayors, slams calls to delay the upcoming municipal elections in Arab locales that have been rocked by surging violent crime.
“What have we come to? A state that is prepared to give up residents’ democratic right because the government is not fulfilling its [law] enforcement duties,” Younes tells the Kan public broadcaster.
The head of Iran’s ground forces, Kiumars Heidari, says defense cooperation with Russia is expanding every day as he wraps up a visit to Moscow.
Russia and Iran have boosted defense ties since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, with Tehran supplying Moscow with drones.
Opposition MK and National Unity party leader Benny Gantz makes a condolence call to the central city of Tira, two days after municipal director Abdel Rahman Kashua was killed amid surging criminal violence in Israel’s Arab community.
Gantz, who is accompanied by Ra’am party chief Mansour Abbas, hits out at far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir over the killings, calling on Netanyahu to fire him.
“The ministers who is supposed to be looking out for individual security lacks the management capabilities and the will to help Arab society. He wants to form a private militia instead of making sure there are police officers,” Gantz says, referring to Ben Gvir’s push to establish a national guard under his control.
Meanwhile, a minister in Netanyahu’s Likud party hits out at Ben Gvir, in anonymous comments to the Ynet news site.
“Ben Gvir is obsessed with media, that is all that interests him. The noise he makes does not help,” the unnamed minister is quoted as saying. “He babbles all day, which causes damage both domestically and internationally.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams meets today with Israeli police and security officials, as well as Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and President Isaac Herzog, on his third and final day in Israel.
A former police captain, Adams has pressed a public safety agenda and said he plans to discuss tools to “make our city safe” during his visit to Israel’s National Police Academy.
He will also meet with representatives from the Shin Bet.
This evening, he is slated to meet with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, after attending a reception with business leaders in the city.
The leaders of armed Palestinian factions in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are taking heightened precautions over concerns they could be targeted by Israel following several recent deadly terror attacks, according to Arabic-language media reports.
Sources in the “resistance” tell the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site that Palestinian figures in Lebanon have also adopted enhanced security measures, saying they take the Israeli threats seriously.
In comments to the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar daily, a source warns of a “major escalation” if Israel carries out any targeted killings.
A motorcyclist critically hurt after being struck by a bus in Tel Aviv has died at a local hospital.
Traffic police are probing the incident.
India’s lunar spacecraft landed safely near the Moon’s little-explored south pole on Wednesday, sparking wild celebrations and applause among technicians guiding the mission.
“Chandrayaan-3 has successfully soft-landed on the Moon,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announces at its headquarters.
BEIRUT — Angry protesters raid the local offices of the ruling Baath party in a southern Syrian province, as protests intensify against the national government during a severe economic and financial crisis battering the war-torn country.
Opposition activists say protesters also partially blocked a highway that links the Druze-majority Sweida province to the capital Damascus in anti-government rallies that broke out last night.
The demonstrations were sparked by worsening living conditions and inflation that surged after Syrian President Bashar Assad’s decision last week to double public sector wages and pensions.
Protests have so far not spread to government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, the capital Damascus and the largest cities, including Aleppo and Homs.
However, they have also taken place in the nearby Daraa province that borders Jordan. The region’s economy has deteriorated and crime has risen since government forces reclaimed it in 2018.
The Syrian government has not responded to the protests.
The country’s economy has been struggling after years of conflict, corruption and mismanagement, and Western-led sanctions over accusations of government involvement in war crimes and the illicit narcotics trade. The United Nations estimates that about 90% of the population lives in poverty.
Sweida province is home to the country’s Druze minority, and has mostly isolated itself from Syria’s conflict, now in its 13th year.
“These are the largest protests that have taken place in Sweida,” Rayan Maarouf, Editor-in-Chief of local activist media collective Suwayda24, tells The Associated Press. “At one point most people were neutral or unsure, but now they don’t believe their lives can improve without political change.”
The Syrian pound’s value against the dollar declined to a new all-time low, down from 7,000 at the beginning of 2023 to 15,000 pounds to the greenback. At the start of the conflict in 2011, the dollar was trading at 47 pounds.
The European Union denounces a pair of Palestinian terror shootings in the West Bank this past week in which three Israelis were killed, saying it is “appalled” by the attacks.
“We express our condolences to the families of the victims. The EU strongly condemns terrorism in all its forms,” a spokesperson for the bloc’s diplomatic service says in a statement.
The statement also says the EU is “gravely concerned by the continuing wave of violence in Israel and in the occupied West Bank, that is causing the loss of both Israeli and Palestinian lives.”
“The EU has repeatedly expressed its concerns about the increasingly high number of casualties of the violence this year. We call on all parties to deescalate the situation and refrain from actions that could increase the cycle of violence,” it adds.
About a month after it was passed into law by the Knesset, new legislation is expected to be utilized to help prosecute a major crime figure suspected of running a protection racket in the north.
Rami Ismail, a resident of Tuba-Zangariyye, was arrested two weeks ago after threatening a construction site manager in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona that he must pay protection money if he does not want the building site — a hospital project — to be vandalized. The owner instead called the police, and Ismail was arrested near the city.
Prosecutors inform the Tiberias Magistrate’s Court today that they intend to charge Ismail with blackmail, threats and obstruction of justice. They also request that he be held in custody until the end of proceedings. His remand is extended through at least Sunday.
Prosecutors are said to be aiming to utilize legislation passed earlier this year which mandates a minimum three-year prison sentence for criminals convicted of protection rackets. The law also allows the court to seize funds it believes stemmed from such behavior even before a conviction has occurred.
According to Ynet, Ismail was convicted in 2019 of similar crimes but received just a few months behind bars.
Police say that Ismail is a a well-known crime figure in the area who has been threatening business owners for more than a decade. Upon his arrest — and once again today — police requested that other victims come forward, although they believe many are too afraid to speak out.
PRISTINA, Kosovo — A statue bearing the names of 23 Kosovo Albanians who rescued Jews from the Holocaust during World War II is inaugurated today in the capital, Pristina.
The “Wall of Honor” statue is placed in a park in Pristina in the presence of some of the rescuers’ descendants, political leaders, and the US and German ambassadors.
Some 500 Jews lived in Kosovo, then part of former Yugoslavia, at the beginning of the war. Many were arrested, deported to nearby prisons or Nazi-managed camps and almost half of them died.
Local Albanians helped scores of Jews to escape, usually taking them to neighboring Albania.
Leke Rezniqi’s great-grandfather Arslan rescued Jewish physician Chaim Abrabanel, who was working in Skopje, now in North Macedonia. Arslan Rezniqi sheltered him and worked with another Albanian, Arif Alickaj, to prepare false documents and take Abrabanel safely to Albania.
“That shows only the example of the uniqueness of Albanian rescue,” Leke Rezniqi tells The Associated Press. “He promised with the highest level of promise, the concept of the besa (‘trust’ in Albanian), that means that you never betray that promise, even though you would have to sacrifice your own family.”
In 2008 Arslan Rezniqi was the first Kosovar to be included in the “Righteous Among the Nations” list from Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews from the Holocaust.
Since 2021, Leke Rezniqi has lived in Haifa, Israel. Abrabanel’s niece Rachel-Shelly Levy-Drummer helped him to emigrate and gain Israeli citizenship.
Nowadays, 56 Jews live in the western Kosovar town of Prizren.
The statue shows that “the remembrance of those who risked their lives to save their fellow human beings is a tradition that commemorates a rare, bright light in one of the darkest periods of human history,” according to Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin meets with Likud MK Yuli Edelstein as part of what Hebrew media reports describe as an effort to ensure he has the support to advance additional bills in the government’s judicial overhaul program.
A number of anti-government demonstrators rally outside Edelstein’s home in Herzliya as the two talk inside.
Edelstein was one of several lawmakers in the ruling party who signaled they may not back further legislation without broad support, after the coalition passed the first law in the planned shakeup of the judiciary in a vote that was boycotted by the opposition and engendered protests and mass public opposition.
“This thing where any time there’s a compromise [on offer] someone in the coalition vetoes it or makes threats — that’s over,” Edelstein told Channel 12 news last month.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine says today that Russian strikes on its sea and river ports have destroyed 270,000 tons of grain in the space of a month.
“In total, 270,000 tons of grain have been destroyed in a month of attacks on ports,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov says on social media.
Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine who was linked to the leader of an armed rebellion, has been dismissed from his job as chief of the air force, according to Russian state media. The report today comes after weeks of uncertainty about his fate following the short-lived uprising.
Surovikin has not been seen in public since armed rebels marched toward Moscow in June, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner mercenary group. In a video released during the uprising, Surovikin urged Prigozhin’s men to pull back.
During his long absence, Russian media have speculated about Surovikin’s whereabouts, with some claiming he had been detained due to his purported close ties to Prigozhin.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing an anonymous source, reports that Surovikin has been replaced as commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces by Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov, who is currently head of the main staff of the air force.
The agency frequently represents the official position of the Kremlin through reports citing anonymous officials in Russia’s defense and security establishment.
The Russian government has not commented on the report, and The Associated Press is not able to confirm it independently.
Russian daily newspaper RBC wrote that Surovikin is being transferred to a new job and is now on vacation.
The Wagner uprising posed the most serious challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule and reports circulated that Surovikin had known about it in advance.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant holds meetings with top IDF commanders in the West Bank and settler leaders at the Central Command base in Jerusalem, following a series of deadly terror attacks in the area.
According to his office, Gallant was briefed on the search for the Palestinian terrorist who killed an Israeli father and son at a carwash in Huwara over the weekend and instructed the officers to increase the military’s focus on gathering illegal firearms.
The statement added that during his meeting later with settlement mayors, Gallant thanked them for their “complete support” of the security forces, which have been blamed by some settlers and far-right lawmakers for the recent attacks.
“This is of critical importance for the residents and soldiers,” he was quoted as saying.
The Israel Defense Forces has launched a manhunt for a suspected Palestinian gunman who allegedly opened fire at settlers in the northern West Bank.
Shortly before noon, settlers at the Dorot Illit Farm, located near the settlement of Karnei Shomron and the Palestinian town of Biddya, reported that a masked Palestinian opened fire at them.
The Israelis were unharmed, and the gunman fled the scene.
The IDF says that upon receiving the report, troops began to search the area for the suspect.
