ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 471
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hits back at the widespread criticism of him by politicians over the publication of his meeting with his Libyan counterpart, which has prompted Tripoli to fire its foreign minister and vow not to pursue ties with the Jewish state.
On X, formerly Twitter, Cohen lists his ministry’s perceived achievements, saying they were preceded by multifaceted “discreet preparation.”
“It is a shame that political rivals who haven’t made any significant achievement are quick to comment without knowing the details and to accuse [me] of a leak that never happened,” he says in reaction to accusations that his ministry jumped the gun and leaked the meeting to the press without proper coordination with Libya.
“The attacks won’t deter the Foreign Ministry and its excellent employees from keeping working tirelessly for the benefit of the State of Israel and to create and strengthen ties with our many friends around the globe, and particularly in the Arab world.”
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, Hassan Nasrallah, threatens Israel, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas and other “Iranian proxies” against targeting Israel.
“For any Israeli assassination against a Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian person or anyone else, that is carried out on Lebanese territory — there will be a severe reaction and we will not be silent about it,” Nasrallah says.
“We will not allow a return to assassinations in Lebanon and we will not accept changes to the rules of conflict. Israel must understand this,” Nasrallah says.
Three people have been injured in a shooting in the northern town of Nazareth, police say, with Hebrew media reporting that one of the victims is a candidate for mayor.
Reports identify the victims as candidate Musab Dukhan, his brother and another relative.
Police say the three are being evacuated to the hospital in good condition.
The shooting is the latest to target local Arab politicians amid a broader crime wave in the community.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would involve the Shin Bet security service in assisting police operations in combating some crime in the Arab community, particularly when it came to crime related to municipal elections.
Several candidates have been shot in recent weeks in attacks blamed on organized crime.
Iraq has hanged three people convicted for a 2016 bombing that killed more than 320 people in a Baghdad shopping district and was claimed by the Islamic State group, the prime minister’s office says.
The bombing was one of the world’s deadliest after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
At least 323 people were killed in the car bombing that sparked raging fires in Baghdad’s Karrada shopping area early on July 3, 2016, as it teemed with people ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, during a meeting with victims’ families, informed them “the rightful punishment of death sentence was carried out against three key criminals found guilty of their involvement in the terrorist bombing,” his office says in a statement.
![[Illustrative] An El Al Israel Airlines Boeing 747 at the John F. Kennedy International Airport (Photo: iStock/Maciej_Bledowski)](https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2020/03/iStock-1082069374-640x400.jpg "[Illustrative] An El Al Israel Airlines Boeing 747 at the John F. Kennedy International Airport (Photo: iStock/Maciej_Bledowski)")
An El Al flight from Ben Gurion Airport to JFK in New York was delayed for more than an hour after birds flew into the cargo bay while baggage was being loaded, Hebrew media reports.
Flight LY 011 eventually departs after the birds are removed.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh visits the Palestinian embassy in Tripoli amid protests over his foreign minister meeting her Israeli counterpart and vows there will be no normalization with Israel, the Libya Observer news site reports.
During his visit, al-Dbeibeh again reiterates that he had no knowledge of Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush’s meeting in Rome with Eli Cohen, and says he has fired her.
During the meeting al-Dbeibeh “reaffirms Libya’s refusal to normalize relations with the Zionist entity,” the report says.
Libyan officials have said al-Dbeibeh was aware of the meeting and gave the go-ahead amid US-brokered talks to reach a normalization deal with Jerusalem.
قالت السفارة الفلسطينية لدى #ليبيا، إنّ رئيس حكومة الوحدة الوطنية عبدالحميد #الدبيبة أعلن خلال زيارته للسفارة الاثنين، إقالة وزيرة الخارجية والتعاون الدولي نجلاء المنقوش من منصبها.
للمزيد:https://t.co/vxADkequjt— ليبيا أوبزرڤر – The Libya Observer (@lyobserver_ar) August 28, 2023
Lebanese authorities have arrested a Russian national suspected of spying on the Iran-backed Hezbollah group on behalf of its arch-rival Israel, a security official tells AFP.
Hezbollah had told Lebanese security forces that a Russian citizen “was recruited by the Israelis for a reconnaissance mission of their headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut and south Lebanon,” the official tells AFP.
Security forces arrested him around two weeks ago at Beirut airport while he was trying to flee with his wife and child, the official says.
It came after Hezbollah told security forces that the suspect had tried to break into an apartment in Beirut’s southern suburb, a stronghold for the group.
Following his arrest, he was interrogated at the general security department and then referred to military prosecutors who are now in charge of the investigation.
On Friday, the interim chief of Lebanon’s General Security agency Elias al-Baysari said authorities had arrested “a two-person network with ties to the enemy [Israel] at Beirut airport, and who were tasked to carry out operations” in Lebanon.
“We interrogated them and referred them to the competent military judiciary,” he added, without providing details on the nationality of the detained.
On Saturday, the Russian embassy in Beirut said it was “aware” of the arrests and “taking the necessary steps to clarify the details of the circumstances,” according to state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
A judge sets a March 4, 2024, trial date for Donald Trump in the federal case in Washington charging the former president with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting a defense request to push back the case by years.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan rebuffed claims by Trump’s attorneys that an April 2026 trial date was necessary to account for the huge volume of evidence they say they are reviewing and to prepare for what they contend is a novel and unprecedented prosecution. But she agreed to postpone the trial slightly beyond the January 2024 date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution team.
“The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” Chutkan says.
If the current date holds, it would represent a setback to Trump’s efforts to push the case back until well after the 2024 presidential election, a contest in which he’s the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.
The March 2024 date would also guarantee a blockbuster trial in the nation’s capitol in the heat of the GOP presidential nominating calendar, likely forcing Trump to juggle campaign and courtroom appearances, and it would come the day before Super Tuesday — a crucial voting day when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs.
“I want to note here that setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant’s personal or professional obligations,” Chutkan says.
Police say a suspect has been arrested on suspicion he stabbed an officer at a protest in Tel Aviv last week against law enforcement’s handling of a probe into a deadly hit-and-run that killed a boy several months ago.
Police say the suspect is a 23-year-old resident of the city of Holon.
The incident occurred during a protest, led by members of the Ethiopian community, who accuse authorities of racism and leniency toward the driver who hit 4-year-old Rafael Adana in May.
The officer who was stabbed was moderately wounded and taken to Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital for medical treatment, police said.
Israel’s envoy to Romania meets with the head of a local right-wing party accused of antisemitism, breaking a boycott by Israel of the party and drawing criticism from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and from Romanian political figures.
Ambassador Reuven Azar met George Simion, head of the populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) opposition party, which currently holds 12 percent of parliament seats but is predicted by some to become a major political force in the near future.
The meeting at the parliament in Bucharest — approved by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen — was also attended by a prominent settler leader in the West Bank, Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, who has been working to facilitate support for settlements among right-wing European parties.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a review of Israel’s natural gas export policy, the PMO says in a statement.
Energy Minister Israel Katz presented the country’s current gas reserves, export volume, and demand forecasts for the next 25 years. They also discussed the political benefits and means of exporting gas to Mediterranean countries and further into Europe.
Netanyahu ordered the establishment of a team consisting of the Energy and Finance ministries, as well as the National Economic Council, to examine future policy and impact on the economy.
He also underscores that the government’s aims in its natural gas policy are to lower the cost of living, while taking advantage of the diplomatic benefits Israel’s natural gas offers.
Israeli anti-overhaul protesters demonstrate outside a hotel where Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is staying in New York, ahead of his meetings at the UN.
Several dozen protesters call on Gallant to “rescue Israel from Bibi and end the Kahanist government,” the protesters say in a statement, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his nickname.
The protesters chant “Gallant, Erdan, Israel is not Iran,” and “Gallant, Gallant, wake up, Israel is worth more,” as Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan arrives to meet with Gallant.
The protesters, led by the expat activist group UnXeptable, have hounded Israeli government officials in the New York region throughout the year. They plan to protest outside the UN later today, and outside the Israeli consulate tomorrow, as Gallant holds meetings at both locations.
Gallant will discuss renewing the mandate of UNIFIL forces in Lebanon in his meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Army Radio reports.
Lebanon has asked to change the mandate to make UNIFIL coordinate its activities with the Lebanese army, which would further limit the UN peacekeeping force’s already limited abilities on the Israel-Lebanon border, the report says.
France supports Lebanon’s request, while Israel, the US and the UK oppose it, the report says.
Last month, Gutteres blasted the Israeli military for its counter-terror operation in Jenin, saying the IDF has “obviously” used excessive force.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemns alleged Israeli strikes on an international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, calling them “cowardly.”
It accuses Israel of “threatening freedom of aircraft movement” and “the safety of international civil aviation,” in a statement carried by SANA.
The Syrian state news agency, SANA, said that at around 4:30 a.m., Israeli Air Force warplanes fired their missiles from over the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, and targeted Aleppo International Airport.
It said the airport was forced shut temporarily due to heavy damage caused to the runway by the strikes.
Israel did not comment.
AFP contributed to this report.
Iranian police arrest pop singer Mehdi Yarrahi for releasing a song against women’s compulsory wearing of the veil, the judiciary says.
A day earlier, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website announced that a “legal case” had been filed against Yarrahi “following the release of an illegal song which defies the morals and customs of the Islamic society.”
The singer has now been “arrested by order of the Tehran prosecutor,” Mizan Online says.
The action comes almost a year after the September 16 death in custody of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini, 22, triggered months of protests around the country.
Amini had been detained for an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code requiring that a woman’s head and neck be covered.
Yarrahi was defiant after the announcement of the “legal case.”
“Don’t cry, I am the nightmare of this judge,” he says in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, adding that “let’s continuously talk about the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s murder.”
Iranian singer-songwriter Mehdi Yarrahi faces a legal case over his song performance, which judicial authorities have deemed "inconsistent with the values and norms of Islamic society."#Iran #MehdiYarrahi pic.twitter.com/97uU2RJkQy
— HRANA English (@HRANA_English) August 28, 2023
Washington is furious with Israel for revealing last week’s meeting between the foreign ministers of Israel and Libya, the Walla news site reports.
The Biden administration tells Israel that the episode will deter other countries from embarking on a normalization process with Israel, according to the report.
A US official also says it “killed” the conversation with Libya about recognizing Israel.
US President Joe Biden was aware of the meeting, says Walla, and encouraged Tripoli to attend, but was under the impression that the meeting was secret and would remain so.
American officials are also unconvinced by the Foreign Ministry’s explanation that they released their statement about the meeting in reaction to a leak, saying that Israel could have just chosen not to comment on the leaks and minimized the damage.
Rights monitors condemn a ban on women visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, the latest curb shutting women out of public life under Taliban government rule.
The Taliban government’s morality ministry closed the Band-e-Amir national park to women over the weekend, claiming female visitors were failing to cover up with proper Islamic dress.
The park, 175 kilometers (110 miles) west of Kabul, is renowned for its striking blue lakes surrounded by sweeping cliffs.
The Bamyan province park is a hugely popular spot for domestic tourism and is regularly swarmed with Afghans relaxing at the shore or paddling the waters in rented boats.
Human Rights Watch’s associate women’s rights director Heather Barr tells AFP the decision to ban women was “cruel in a very intentional way.”
“Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature,” she says in a separate statement.
“Step-by-step the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison,” she says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets in his office with Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.
According to Netanyahu’s office, they discuss “the major challenges and opportunities that stand before Israel and the US, and the need for cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence.”
Netanyahu is joined by National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Chief of Staff Yossi Fuchs.
The Likud party slams former prime minister Ehud Barak for reposting a video in which a professor compares Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a host of leaders who have lost touch with reality, including Adolf Hitler.
Barak, a prominent critic of the government, posted a video of Prof. Ichak Adizes from March saying that Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant indicated that he was determined to drag the country down with him to stay in power. (Gallant was quickly reinstated.)
Adizes compared Netanyahu to Slobodan Milošević, Donald Trump and even Hitler in his final days.
The Likud party issues a scathing statement saying that Barak “continues to incite toward the murder of a prime minister of Israel and compares him to Hitler.”
The statement also slams the police and judicial authorities for not taking action.
“After dozens of complaints against inciters like him, where is law enforcement, which has not summoned him for questioning?” Likud says.
The Airports Authority announces that there will be severe delays in flights from Ben Gurion airport to the UK and on flights coming into Israel after Britain’s air traffic control system was hit by a breakdown that slowed takeoffs and landings across the UK.
The Authority urges passengers to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.
UK flight control operator National Air Traffic Services says it was experiencing an unexplained “technical issue” that could delay flights today, the end of a holiday weekend and one of the busiest travel days of the year.
The service says it had “applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety” and that engineers were working to find and fix the fault. It says UK airspace remained open.
It does not give an estimate of how long it would take to fix the problem, or what had caused it, but European air traffic authority Eurocontrol warns of “very high” delays because of a “flight data processing system failure” in the UK.
AP contributed to this report
A Libyan security agency denies authorizing the departure of the Tripoli-based government’s foreign minister on a flight to Turkey after protests flared over a meeting she had with her Israeli counterpart.
The Internal Security Agency (ISA) says Najla Mangoush had not been authorized to leave Libyan territory.
Multiple officials confirm she left Turkey, but the ISA denies this.
“Surveillance cameras will prove this” is false, the ISA says in a statement.
Mangoush “is on the travel ban list until she submits to the investigation,” says the security agency.
Officials confirm that Libya’s suspended foreign minister Najla Mangoush has fled to Turkey amid protests over her meeting with her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen.
Salmin Asaad, an aide to Mangoush, tells the New York Times she fled due to “safety concerns.”
A Libyan foreign ministry official also confirms her departure, speaking to The Associated Press.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh has now fired his foreign minister Najla Mangoush over her meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Reuters reports.
The report comes hours after the prime minister announced he was suspending Mangoush and setting up an inquiry into the meeting.
Two senior Libyan government officials tell The Associated Press that Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who heads the government of national unity in the capital, Tripoli, did know about the talks between his foreign minister and Israel’s chief diplomat.
One of the officials says Dbeibah gave the green light for the meeting last month when he was on a visit to Rome.
The prime minister’s office arranged the encounter in coordination with Najla Mangoush, he says.
The second official says the meeting lasted for about two hours and Mangoush briefed the prime minister directly after her return to Tripoli. The official says the meeting crowned US-brokered efforts to have Libya join a series of Arab countries establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.
The official says normalization of relations between Libya and Israel was first discussed in a meeting between Dbeibah and CIA Director William Burns, who visited the Libyan capital in January.
The Libyan premier gave initial approval for joining the US-brokered Abraham Accords, but he was concerned about public backlash in a country known for its support for the Palestinian cause, the official says.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.
Former Israeli consul general to New York Assaf Zamir jumps into Tel Aviv’s mayoral race, announcing a joint run with incumbent Ron Huldai.
Huldai would be mayor and Zamir his deputy.
Zamir previously filled the post as deputy to the five-term mayor Huldai, and unsuccessfully challenged him for city hall control in 2018.
“There’s a lot to do in the city and a lot of challenges stand before us,” Zamir writes in a Facebook post announcing his run.
“I firmly believe that together we can continue to move the city forward and protect it as Israel’s liberal beacon, illuminating the darkness and signaling the correct way forward.”
After leaving Tel Aviv politics, Zamir entered Knesset with the Blue and White party, served as a minister, and later broke with his party and became Israel’s consul general in New York.
As accusations swirl around Israel publicizing the details of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s meeting with his Libyan counterpart, the Foreign Ministry releases a statement:
“The Foreign Minister and Foreign Ministry are committed to expanding Israel’s foreign relations…the leak about the meeting with Libya’s foreign minister did not come from the Foreign Ministry or the Foreign Minister’s office.”
Earlier today, an Israeli diplomat told The Times of Israel that Jerusalem decided to reveal the meeting several days earlier than intended because it had been leaked to the media already.
Customs officials at Ben Gurion airport detain a man found trying to smuggle 34 exotic birds into the country.
The birds, with an estimated value of 70,000 euros, were found stuffed into a suitcase in what officials call “deplorable conditions with no space between animals.”
Charges are filed against the suspect, a 40-year-old man from the center of the country.
The birds are transferred for veterinary care.
Officials call on the public to only buy pets from licensed traders.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slams the US as “hypocrites” after the Biden administration condemned National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for saying that Jews’ right to travel and live safely in the West Bank is more important than Arabs’ freedom of movement.
Smotrich backs up his fellow far-right colleague, telling Army Radio that “there is no country more moral than Israel and anyone in the world who attacks us is a hypocrite.”
“I’m not even talking about the Americans, what they did in Afghanistan or in Iraq. They can’t lecture us about morality or human rights, that is the greatest hypocrisy.”
Speaking on Thursday, a State Department spokesperson condemned Ben Gvir’s remarks as inflammatory and likened them to racist rhetoric being dangerously amplified by senior officials.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says that Israel will not make any concessions to the Palestinians as part of any normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.
“We will not make any concessions to the Palestinians, it’s a fiction,” Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party, tells Army Radio.
Smotrich says that while Israel is interested in the US-brokered deal with Riyadh, “it has nothing to do with Judea and Samaria,” he says, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names.
His comments come days after the US reportedly warned Israel that it will have to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians to secure a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer that Israel is “misreading the situation” if it does not believe significant gestures to the Palestinians are necessary to assuage the Saudis, who he said will need to demonstrate tangible results to other Arab and Muslim countries if they are to make a deal with Israel.
