ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 572
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Thousands of participants in a women’s rights march in Bnei Brak trek through a traffic artery of the predominantly Haredi city, provoking some hostility but also hospitality.
The protesters, many of them flying Israeli flags, gather around a speaker’s podium opposite the Mor Institute on Jabotinsky Street, which connects Bnei Brak with Ramat Gan. Police break up several confrontations, mostly between non-Haredi men, and early arrivers to the rally.
The rally, organized jointly by several women’s rights groups and groups protesting the judicial overhaul, is a reaction to multiple cases reported in recent weeks of exclusion and harassment of women who allegedly did not conform to religious requirements of modesty and conduct, organizers say. Several women were documented over the summer being denied service or segregated aboard public buses.
“We’ve come to protest the attempt by the government, in cooperation with the Haredi leadership, to make Israeli less liberal, less equal to women,” says Amit Aharon of the Pink Front organization.
A few hundred Haredi men and women watch the rally, which began with a march from Ramat Gan Stadium, and some of them speak with participants.
“This is not about human rights, this is about being brave against Haredim,” Oz Kostika, a 27-year-old special education professional, tells one protester. “You know nothing will happen to you here, but if you go to an Arab village and protest the oppression and murder of women there, they will throw stones at you.”
Inbal Bar-Sela, 57, came from Haifa to Bnei Brak “to show solidarity with all women,” she says. “This includes Haredi women, some of whom, including a woman I know personally, can’t drive or they’ll suffer social consequences. Their sons won’t get into good yeshivas. That’s not fair and I am going to make a stand against it.”
Dana Bezalel, a Haredi woman, set up what she calls a welcoming station near the rally point, serving protesters with bottles of water and wristbands emblazoned with the words “love thy neighbor.” She says it’s an attempt at dialog.
“They came here to make a point. I want to welcome them into this city and hear everything they have to say, tell them where I think they’re wrong,” she says of the marchers. “But I also want to tell them that because of the anti-Haredi sentiment in media, I, as a 34-year-old Haredi woman, am more afraid of harassment and targeting when I walk on Rothchild Avenue in Tel Aviv than in Bnei Brak.”
Controversial works on wind turbines on the Golan Heights are reportedly expected to resume next week.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, no deal has been reached between the government and the Druze community, which held fiery mass protests against the project in June, causing work to halt.
The Prime Minister’s Office tells Ynet that “there is still an attempt to reach an agreement, since the works were halted – the efforts are ongoing.” Nevertheless, “as a first step, there has been a decision to renew some of the turbine work.”
When the project was halted in June, the PMO originally said it would restart no later than August 1.
Before former US president Donald Trump is expected to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on charges related to his efforts to remain in power after his 2020 election loss, dozens of his supporters are already gathering outside the facility.
It will be the fourth time this year that Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, is booked on criminal charges. But unlike his previous arrests, which happened in courthouses just before initial appearances before a judge, this time he will be turning himself in at a notoriously troubled jail.
Also different from his previous surrenders: authorities are expected to take a booking photo of the former president.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped Moshik Aviv to serve as the next head of the Public Diplomacy Directorate.
The Prime Minister’s Office says that Aviv has served in “senior roles in service to the country over the past decade,” including heading the public diplomacy and state ceremonies department of the Culture Ministry for the past eight years.
Lior Haiat most recently served in the role under prime minister Yair Lapid last year until Netanyahu took office. Since then, the position has remained open. Netanyahu also did not appoint anyone to serve in the role from 2015 until he left office in 2021.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expresses his “condolences” over a plane crash thought to have killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin yesterday.
“First of all I want to express words of sincere condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin says, describing Prigozhin as a man who made serious “mistakes” but “achieved results.”
Putin says an investigation will look into the circumstances of the crash.
Prigozhin was branded a “traitor” by Putin after his short-lived rebellion against the conventional Russian army on June 23-24. Most Western officials believe Moscow deliberately downed the plane as an act of revenge.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls to congratulate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after India became the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon yesterday.
“Good job! You reached a historic achievement for India and the whole world,” Netanyahu tells Modi, according to a readout from his office. “Congratulations from the depths of my heart and from all the citizens of Israel.”
According to the PMO, Modi sends Netanyahu best wishes ahead of Rosh Hashanah, and invites him to visit India soon.
The US renews demands that Russia free Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and another detained American after a Moscow court extended the journalist’s detention.
“The claims against Evan Gershkovich are baseless. Once again, we call for Russia to immediately release Evan and also to release wrongfully detained US citizen Paul Whelan,” a State Department spokesperson says.
A woman is hit and seriously wounded by a police vehicle that was driving along the light rail tracks in downtown Jerusalem.
Magen David Adom paramedics say that the woman, around 20, was brought to Shaare Zedek hospital while unconscious with head wounds and in serious condition.
Police say they are looking into the incident, which occured on Jaffa Street in the center of the capital.
Two US officials tell the Reuters news agency that they believe a surface-to-air missile fired inside Russia took down the plane carrying Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin yesterday.
The officials stress to the news site that the information is still preliminary and their probe is ongoing.
Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants are presumed dead in a plane crash that is widely seen as an assassination to avenge a mutiny that challenged President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
The police officer who has been accused of branding a Palestinian suspect with a Star of David mark on his face has reportedly been sent to house arrest amid an ongoing investigation.
According to the Ynet news site, the police officer has also been ordered to stay away from police activity for at least 12 days, following an initial probe by the Police Internal Investigations Department. Ynet suggests that the unusual move points to the strength of the case against the officer and the likelihood that other activities will also be investigated.
Police have said that the mark on the suspect’s face was made by the shoelaces of the police officer.
Arwah Sheikh Ali, a 22-year-old resident of the Shuafat refugee camp, claimed the officers had covered his eyes and bound his hands and feet before branding his left cheek as they violently arrested him at home for suspected drug trafficking. He also told reporters his wife and kids were present.
WASHINGTON — Former prime minister Ehud Barak tears into the AIPAC lobby during remarks at a virtual event hosted by anti-judicial overhaul activists.
“AIPAC [has] made it a rule to almost broadcast a unison of support for the government — not [just] in these last nine months, but let’s say in the last five years,” Barak tells USA for Israeli Democracy, a group made up of expats and American Jews.
“I’m yearning to hear mature voices from American leadership of the Jewish people in America,” continues Barak, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the government. “When you have issues that are in dispute in Israel, I would expect American Jewry to represent the same spectrum of voices. It’s more mature… We should not be immune [to] criticism.”
Comparing the current debate to the two ancient Jewish schools, the 81-year-old ex-premier urges those at the event to follow the path of the more openminded Beit Hillel, as opposed to the more stringent Beit Shammai, “who was so confident like AIPAC.”
The pro-Israel lobby has long maintained a policy of refraining from criticizing sitting Israeli governments and has largely avoided weighing in on the judicial overhaul, even as more and more establishment Jewish organizations in the Diaspora have raised alarm that it could harm Israel’s democratic character.
AIPAC brought more than two dozen Democrats to Israel last week and the group avoided meeting with anti-overhaul protest leaders despite their requests. It did, however, meet with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.
A spokesperson for AIPAC does not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The High Court of Justice rejects an appeal against demolishing the home of a 13-year-old Palestinian who stabbed a Border Police officer in Jerusalem earlier this year.
The justices ruled 2-1 in favor of allowing the demolition of Muhammad Bassel Fathi Zalbani’s home in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem.
In February, Zalbani stabbed 22-year-old Staff Sgt. Asil Sawaed in the head and neck on a bus at a checkpoint near East Jerusalem’s Shuafat Refugee Camp. The teenager has since been charged with aggravated murder and is expected to be placed in a juvenile detention center, due to his age.
A civilian security officer who had boarded the bus with Sawaed opened fire at the teen attacker, but one of the shots hit the Border Police officer in the thigh. Zalbani was not hit by the gunfire, and was detained. Sawaed died en route to the hospital from wounds caused by the stabbing and gunfire.
Tel Aviv University announces that beginning the fall, 10 percent of students admitted to the first year of its six-year School of Medicine program will be from underrepresented populations: Haredim, Ethiopian Israelis, and outstanding and high-potential students from the north and south of the country — the social and economic peripheries.
There will be a total of 12 of these students, and any unfilled spots from within one population group will be offered to candidates from the other groups. Applicants from all of these groups will benefit from adapted admission requirements, especially regarding noncognitive and personality assessments.
“All candidates admitted to the school must meet all academic requirements. Adaptations will only be made in noncognitive national tests, in which we have found that individuals from these groups have lower chances for success. We have no doubt that these candidates can and will do well in their studies and become excellent physicians, as expected from all alumni of TAU’s School of Medicine,” says Prof. Ido Wolf, head of the school of medicine.
A German federal court says it has rejected an appeal by a military officer who posed as a Syrian asylum-seeker and was convicted last of year of plotting to attack prominent politicians.
The officer, 1st Lt. Franco Albrecht, was convicted by the Frankfurt state court in July 2022 of preparing a serious crime meant to endanger the state, fraud and violations of weapons laws. The court, which found that he had right-wing extremist views, sentenced him to 5 1/2 years in prison.
The Federal Court of Justice says in a statement that judges rejected his appeal in an Aug. 8 decision, finding that it was “clearly unfounded” and no legal errors had been made to his detriment.
Albrecht was accused of plotting to kill prominent politicians and blame the attack on refugees. Prosecutors alleged that his targets included then-Justice Minister Heiko Maas and the Jewish head of an anti-racism organization.
The Shin Bet security agency reveals that in July, four Israeli civilians were arrested for suspected ties to the Hezbollah terror group, and were involved in smuggling Iranian-made explosive devices into the country.
According to the Shin Bet, three residents of the northern Arab town of Kafr Qasim were arrested over suspicions they had smuggled into Israel “a large number of quality weapons.” The agency says two Iranian-made explosive devices, among other weapons, were seized.
In a separate raid in the central city of Lod, security forces arrested another Israeli planning to use a similar explosive device for a criminal-related bombing.
“The Shin Bet investigation revealed that Hezbollah worked to recruit and operate an infrastructure of smugglers in Israel for the purpose of distributing unusual illegal weapons to various parties, including criminal elements,” the agency says.
The Shin Bet names the suspects as Jalal Khursa, 28, Ahmed Issa, 30, and Muhammed Issa, 39, from Kafr Qasim, and Nuh Assam, 30, from Lod. They were indicted today on various weapons offenses.
“This affair once again illustrates the efforts of terror elements from Hezbollah and Iran to exploit the Arab citizens of Israel for [terror] activities against the state,” a senior Shin Bet official says.
“It also emerged in the investigation that the line between [terror] and criminal [activity] is extremely thin,” the official adds.
Firefighters struggle against strong winds and hot, dry conditions to tame multiple wildfires burning for days in northeastern Greece and on the fringes of the country’s capital.
The wildfires have left 20 people dead over the last week. Eighteen of those, including two boys aged between 10 and 15, are believed to be migrants who crossed the nearby border with Turkey. Their bodies were found by firefighters near a shack in a burnt forest area in northeastern Greece.
Sixty firefighters have been injured battling the flames, fire department spokesman Ioannis Artopios says.
Elsewhere in Europe, fires on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, northwestern Turkey near the border with Greece, Portugal and Italy were being brought under control, officials say.
Dozens of firefighting aircraft, including from other European countries, and hundreds of ground forces are faced with tackling numerous fires across Greece. Yesterday alone, firefighters battled 99 separate blazes across the country, authorities say.
A Moscow court rules that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich must stay in jail on espionage charges until the end of November, Russian state news agency Tass reports.
Gershkovich has been sitting in jail since the end of March when he was detained in the city of Yekaterinburg, almost 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) east of Moscow, while on a reporting trip. The latest ruling means he faces spending at least eight months in prison.
Gershkovich, a 31-year-old US citizen, arrived at the Moscow court in a white prison van and was led out handcuffed, wearing jeans, sneakers and a shirt. He appeared in court to hear the result of the prosecution’s motion to extend his arrest from Aug. 30.
Journalists outside the court were not allowed to witness the proceedings. Tass says the hearing was held behind closed doors because details of the criminal case are classified.
Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are among six countries set to join Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in the BRICS economic bloc next year, the bloc announces, a move that will likely throw more scrutiny on Beijing’s political influence in the Persian Gulf.
The United Arab Emirates, Argentina and Ethiopia are also set to become new members of BRICS from 2024.
BRICS was set up in 2009 as a group of emerging market economies and has become one of the leading voices for more representation of the developing world and the Global South in world affairs.
It currently represents around 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP, although that is set to increase with the new members, which include three of the world’s biggest oil producers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.
Recently, questions have been raised over if BRICS is taking an anti-West turn under the influence of China and Russia amid Beijing’s deteriorating relationship with the United States and Russia’s standoff with the West over the war in Ukraine.
Mohammad Jamshidi, the political deputy of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, calls the decision to add his country “a historic move.”
“A strategic victory for Iran’s foreign policy,” Jamshidi writes on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “Felicitations to the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution and great nation of Iran.”
Overnight the Israeli military measured the home of a Palestinian accused of carrying out a deadly terror attack in the West Bank town of Huwara over the weekend, in preparation for its demolition.
The alleged terrorist, reported by Palestinian media to be a member of the Bani Fadl family from the town of Aqraba, near Nablus, has not yet been arrested.
The Israeli defense establishment is aware of the terrorist’s identity, and therefore took the unusual step of preparing his home for demolition despite not having arrested him yet.
تغطية صحفية: الاحتلال يأخذ مقاسات منزل عيسى بن فضل في بلدة عقربا والذي يتهم الاحتلال نجله بتنفيذ عملية حوارة قبل أسبوع. pic.twitter.com/mb4de86Ket
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 24, 2023
Palestinian media outlets publish footage showing markings on the interior walls of the home, left there by combat engineering troops.
As a matter of policy, Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks.
In the terror attack in Huwara on Saturday, Shay Silas Nigreker, 60, and his 28-year-old son Aviad Nir were shot to death by the Palestinian terrorist while they were at a carwash in the Palestinian town.
An explosion rips through a Hamas site in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinian authorities say, killing one member of the terrorist group and seriously wounding another.
The Gaza-based interior ministry does not reveal the cause of the blast, but says it killed Ashraf Hussein, a member of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
The Qassam Brigades acknowledges that Hussein was killed in what the group describes as an accidental explosion.
There was no information about what kind of terrorist facility was affected in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, or about the extent of damage caused. Gaza’s Hamas rulers have a number of training sites and underground facilities used for manufacturing weapons and storing raw rocket material. Accidental explosions have been reported in the past at bomb laboratories and munitions storehouses.
