The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they happened.
WASHINGTON — The United States calls fresh unrest in Baghdad “disturbing,” urging Iraqis to abstain from violence that has left at least eight dead after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he was quitting politics.
“Reports today of unrest throughout Iraq are disturbing,” says National Security Council spokesman John Kirby after Sadr loyalists stormed the government palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone in reaction to his announcement.
“Iraqi institutions are not being allowed to function. This in turn increases the risk of violence,” Kirby says.
“Security, stability and sovereignty should not be put at risk… We urge those involved to remain calm, to abstain from this violence and pursue peaceful avenues of redress,” he says.
Kirby denies reports that the US embassy in Iraq, also located inside the Green Zone, is being evacuated.
“There’s no evacuation going on at the embassy,” he said.
SUKKUR, Pakistan — Tens of millions of people across swaths of Pakistan are battling the worst monsoon floods in a decade, with countless homes washed away, vital farmland destroyed, and the country’s main river threatening to burst its banks.
Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman says a third of the country is underwater, creating a “crisis of unimaginable proportions.”
Officials say 1,136 people have died since June when the seasonal rains began, but the final toll could be higher as hundreds of villages in the mountainous north have been cut off after flood-swollen rivers washed away roads and bridges.
The annual monsoon is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but it can also bring destruction.
This year’s flooding has affected more than 33 million people — one in seven Pakistanis — according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
“It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Rehman tells AFP, adding the economic cost would also be devastating.
This year’s floods are comparable to those of 2010 — the worst on record — when more than 2,000 people died.
Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton expresses optimism that a salary agreement can soon be reached between the Finance Ministry and teachers unions, averting a possible strike when schools are expected to open this Thursday.
“If the sides have good will and the intention to reach a deal, we can close this in a few hours,” Shasha-Biton tells Channel 12 news. “We hope that during the day tomorrow we’ll reach a deal.”
She adds that she spoke with Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, saying he also sounded optimistic.
However, senior Treasury officials tell the Kan public broadcaster that nothing has been finalized and clauses haven’t been signed.
BAGHDAD — Eight supporters of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been killed and 85 others wounded today after clashes broke out in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, medics tell AFP.
The announcement raises an earlier toll of two al-Sadr supporters killed and 22 others wounded in the clashes with supporters of a rival faction. The army announced a nationwide curfew from 7:00 p.m. local time.
While in the Swiss city of Basel to mark 125 years since the First Zionist Congress, President Isaac Herzog is photographed standing in the famous pose struck by Theodore Herzl on the balcony of the hotel where the event was held.
The photo of Herzl, who is credited with having “founded the Jewish state” with the first gathering in 1897, was taken in 1901 during the Fifth Zionist Congress.
Herzog tweets a copy of the photograph, adding a quote from Herzl: “Zionism is an infinite ideal.”
Defense Minister Benny Gantz calls to keep Israeli national security issues out of the rough and tumble of election politics, after Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly traded barbs over a potential renewed Iran nuclear deal.
“Iran’s effort to breakout to a nuclear bomb does not differentiate between governments,” Gantz says in a statement. “Against the Iranian threat, we must all remain united and focused on the target.”
WILMINGTON, Delaware — Elon Musk’s legal team is demanding to hear from Twitter’s whistleblowing former security chief, who could help bolster Musk’s case for backing out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company.
Former Twitter executive Peiter Zatko — also known by his hacker handle “Mudge” — received a subpoena Saturday from Musk’s team, according to Zatko’s lawyer and court records.
The billionaire Tesla CEO has spent months alleging that the company he agreed to acquire undercounted its fake and spam accounts — and that he shouldn’t have to consummate the deal as a result.
Zatko’s whistleblower complaint to US officials alleging Twitter misled regulators about its privacy and security protections — and its ability to detect and root out fake accounts — might play into Musk’s hands in an upcoming trial scheduled for October 17 in Delaware.
Zatko served as Twitter’s head of security until he was fired early this year.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid says he doesn’t want to tussle with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s positioning vis-a-vis a renewed Iran nuclear deal, warning it harms Israel’s security, after his Yesh Atid party and the former premier went had a public back-and-forth.
“There is great importance in a united Israeli stance against the Iranian effort to obtain a nuclear weapon. I call on the opposition leader and everyone not to let political considerations harm our national security,” Lapid says in a statement.
The Health Ministry says inspectors made a snap visit last week to a factory producing Tnuva’s “Sunfrost” frozen vegetable line, after animal parts were recently found several times.
The ministry says the factory’s food safety and control plans need improvement and that more supervisors are needed at the various stages of production, including sorting to ensure no foreign objects are present.
CAIRO — Sixteen rights groups urge Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end their siege of the country’s third-largest city, as the internationally recognized government said an overnight rebel attack killed at least 10 troops.
The groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, say in a joint statement that the Houthi blockade of Taiz has severely restricted freedom of movement and impeded the flow of essential goods, medicine and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents.
“Houthi restrictions have forced civilians to use dangerous and poorly maintained mountain roads that are the only connection between Taiz city’s besieged population and the rest of the world,” says Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
The Houthis have imposed a siege on the government-held Taiz, the capital of the province by the same name, since March 2016. The southwestern city is the junction of two crucial highways: an east-west road leading to the coastal city of Mocha on the Red Sea, and another north-south, to Sanaa via Dhamar and Ibb provinces.
The joint statement says Houthi-manned checkpoints prevented residents from bringing in essential items such as fruit, vegetables, cooking gas, dialysis treatment packets, and oxygen cylinders. They also “unlawfully confiscated some of these items,” it says.
“The siege of Taiz has become nothing more than a card on the negotiating table,” says Radhya Al-Mutwakel, chairperson of Mwatana for Human Rights.
Reopening the roads of Taiz and other provinces are part of the UN-brokered truce between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government, which initially took effect in early April and was extended twice, the second time until early October.
Both sides reported violations of the cease-fire but the truce has been the longest lull of fighting in Yemen’s war, now in its eighth year.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party hits out at opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to his criticism after receiving a security briefing from the premier on the emerging Iran nuclear deal.
“Along with the tremendous damage he caused during his tenure, the opposition leader continues to sabotage and endanger the security of Israeli citizens. While Netanyahu continues to produce and direct detached videos, the Israeli government led by Lapid will do everything to guard national-security interests,” the party says in a statement.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press after he was briefed by Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the emerging Iran nuclear deal.
“I’m more worried after the meeting than before,” Netanyahu says outside the Prime Minister’s Office, while vowing support for any “resolute” move against Iran.
He accuses Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz of “falling asleep on duty” over the past year and says they should be lobbying the US Congress and speaking out in the American media.
“I have a clear message for the ayatollahs in Tehran: On November 1, we’ll bring strong and decisive leadership to Israel that will ensure that with or without a deal, they will never have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu says, referring to Israel’s upcoming Knesset elections.
BAGHDAD — At least one demonstrator, a follower of an influential Shiite cleric, is killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces who use tear gas, gunfire and physically shove back crowds after hundreds stormed the government palace.
Three Iraqi officials confirm the death in violence that broke out after the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced he would resign from Iraqi politics and his angry followers stormed the government palace in response.
Medical officials say 12 protesters injured by tear gas and physical altercations with riot police were taken to the Ibn Sina hospital.
An Associated Press photographer heard gunshots being fired and several wounded protesters bleeding and being carried away.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s army declares a nationwide curfew from 7:00 p.m. local time.
WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department has completed its review of potentially privileged documents seized from former US president Donald Trump’s Florida estate this month and has identified “a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information,” according to a court filing.
Today’s filing from the department follows a judge’s weekend order indicating that she was inclined to grant the Trump legal team’s request for a special master to review the seized documents and to set aside any that may be covered by claims of legal privilege.
A hearing is set for Thursday in federal court in Florida.
The Justice Department says in its filing that it will disclose more information later this week.
BAGHDAD — Live fire rocks Baghdad’s Green Zone after hundreds of supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed the government building in the fortified area, an AFP journalist says.
Witnesses tell AFP that the shots were fired by supporters of a rival Shiite bloc, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, hours after al-Sadr announced his “definitive retirement” from politics amid a protracted political crisis.
Security forces also fired tear gas to disperse the Sadrists at the entrance to the Green Zone, a security source tells AFP.
An official photo has been issued from the security briefing that Prime Minister Yair Lapid is holding with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, after reports said the latter’s office resisted the release of images from the meeting.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived for a security briefing with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, as Iran and world powers appear poised to sign an agreement restoring the 2015 nuclear deal.
A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office says Lapid will brief Netanyahu on the Iran deal and “the diplomatic and defense activities that Israel is leading to influence the issue,” along with other unspecified national security issues.
“On issues of national security, Israel has no opposition and coalition,” Lapid is quoted as saying in the statement.
The two are joined in the meeting by the premier’s military secretary, Brig. Gen. Avi Gil.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have begun a counterattack to retake the southern city of Kherson currently occupied by Russian troops, a local government official says today.
“Today there was a powerful artillery attack on enemy positions in… the entire territory of the occupied Kherson region,” Deputy of Kherson Regional Council Sergey Khlan tells Ukraine’s Pryamyi TV channel.
“This is the announcement of what we have been waiting for since the spring — it is the beginning of the de-occupation of Kherson region.”
VIENNA — A 75-year-old Austrian citizen of Iranian origin, jailed in Iran on charges of espionage, has been given a five-day release from prison, his daughter tells AFP today.
“He was freed for medical reasons after three and a half years’ detention,” says Fanak Mani, the daughter of Massud Mossaheb.
Mossaheb is being held at Evin prison, near the capital Tehran. A photo posted on the Free Massud Twitter account shows him smiling, supporting himself on a crutch, with his wife by his side.
Mossaheb was the general secretary of the Austro-Iranian Society, an organization set up to encourage exchanges between the two countries.
He was arrested in Tehran in January 2019 while he was accompanying a visiting group of Austrian scientists. Accused of spying for Israel and Germany, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
His family has raised concerns about the state of his health on several occasions.
More than 10 dual nationality Iranians from Western countries are being held by the authorities in the country.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International have condemned their detention as “hostage-taking” for political ends, as a means to put pressure on Western powers to win concessions.
A worker has died at a factory in Rishon Lezion after being fatally struck by a tractor.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says paramedics found the 40-year-old unconscious, and later pronounced him dead.
The driver of the tractor has been detained for questioning, according to the Walla news site.
A court agrees to extend the remand of a man filmed getting out of his car and threatening a fellow driver with a machete on a road in northern Israel, in an act of road rage.
Ori Pinchas Schori, a 71-year-old from Karmiel, will remain in custody another four days.
“I really thought it was a terror attack,” he says during a hearing at the Acre Magistrate’s Court.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Fuel leaks have forced NASA to scrub the launch of its new moon rocket on a no-crew test flight.
The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest.
The 322-foot Space Launch System rocket was set to lift off this morning with three test dummies aboard on its first flight, a mission to propel a capsule into orbit around the moon.
The shakedown flight, when it happens, will be a big step forward in America’s quest to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago.
NASA hopes to send four astronauts around the moon in 2024 and land humans there as early as 2025.
The offices of Prime Minister Yair Lapid and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu are at odds on whether to put out a photograph from their scheduled security meeting on Iran later today, according to Hebrew media reports.
The reports say Lapid’s office wants to release a photo of the two, arguing it would project Israeli unity to the world, while Netanyahu’s office argues the premier is seeking to use the image for political reasons.
Lapid and Netanyahu released competing photos from their recent security meeting, the first such briefing the opposition chief had attended since losing the premiership over a year ago.
BAGHDAD — Hundreds of followers of an influential Shiite cleric storm Iraq’s government palace shortly after he announced he was withdrawing from politics, further deepening an unprecedented political crisis.
Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers storm the Republican Palace, a key meeting place for Iraqi heads of state and foreign dignitaries, for the first time. On July 30, they stormed the parliament building to deter al-Sadr’s rivals from forming a government.
Iraq’s military swiftly announces a citywide curfew for civilians and vehicles today to quell rising tensions and the possibility of clashes.
Al-Sadr’s protesters fill lavish waiting rooms in the palace and chant slogans in support of the cleric.
Former Mossad chief Danny Yatom has cut business ties with Nevo Cohen, a fellow co-founder of the CIY Global, for recently agreeing to sign on as campaign manager for far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir, the Walla news site reports.
Yatom confirms the move in a tweet, but doesn’t comment on the reason.
“I have decided to break off business ties with Nevo Cohen and to dismantle the company in which we are partners,” says Yatom, who also is a former Labor lawmaker.
The two are among several founders of CIY Global, which describes itself as a political campaigning agency.
BEIRUT — The granddaughter of a former Lebanese president and ex-diplomat announces her candidacy for the cash-strapped country’s upcoming presidential elections on a platform critical of Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah.
The country’s political woes are compounded by its crippling economic crisis, which the World Bank says is the worst worldwide in over a century. The Lebanese pound has lost over 90% of its value against the dollar, with three-quarters of its population living in poverty.
Tracy Chamoun, 61, the granddaughter of late former president Camille Chamoun, calls for key reforms to rescue Lebanon’s comatose economy and reestablish trust with international donors. But she especially criticizes Hezbollah’s influential role in politics and security, its arms, and its impact on Lebanese relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
“Lebanon cannot continue without its independence and sovereignty and without a clear defense strategy,” Chamoun says at a press conference in Beirut. “Lebanon cannot be ruled by one group, and its decisions related to peace and war can only be done through its institutions.”
Chamoun comes from a prominent Christian political family. Her grandfather, the late president, founded the right-wing National Liberal Party. She also is the daughter of Dany Chamoun, who led the party’s “Tigers” militia in the Lebanese civil war from 1975 until 1990.
Five gunmen assassinated her father in 1990 alongside his second wife Ingrid, and their sons, 5 and 7. The couple’s youngest daughter, 11 months old, survived. Chamoun, then 30, was living in London.
Chamoun was Lebanon’s ambassador to Jordan from 2017 until her resignation in August 2020, days after the Beirut Port explosion that killed over 200 people and wounded over 6,000 others.
The term of the incumbent president, retired military general and Hezbollah-allied Michel Aoun, ends on October 31.
The Biden administration is pressuring Israel to make good on its pledge to operate the Allenby Bridge border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan 24/7, as Israeli officials acknowledge Jerusalem won’t meet the planned September 30 deadline to do so, the Walla news site reports.
According to the report, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised the matter with Defense Minister Benny Gantz during their meeting in Washington last week, after American Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides pressed Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli.
The news site says the US pressure and frustration has led to a blame game between the transportation and defense ministries, with each claiming not to be responsible for the September 30 deadline.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz holds talks with top Japanese officials after arriving in Tokyo earlier today.
Among the Japanese officials he meets with today are Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno and National Security Adviser Akiba Takeo. He also holds talks with Rahm Emmanuel, the US ambassador to Japan.
He is due to meet tomorrow with his Japanese counterpart Yasukazu Hamada and Japan’s foreign minister.
Gantz’s office says the visit, which follows a trip to the US, is meant to mark 70 years of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Tokyo and is the first time in over a decade that an Israeli defense minister has visited Japan.
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr says today he is quitting politics, after a nearly-year long political stalemate that has left the country without a new government.
“I’ve decided not to meddle in political affairs. I therefore announce now my definitive retirement,” says al-Sadr, a longtime player in the war-torn state’s political scene.
President Isaac Herzog urges the International Atomic Energy Agency to continue its probe of Iran, after his Iranian counterpart said Tehran won’t return to the 2015 nuclear deal unless the UN watchdog shutters its investigation into uranium traces found at unexplained sites.
“The IAEA’s independence is critical. It should be strictly adhered to, including its ability to investigate violations of nuclear developments in Iran,” Herzog says in Bern at a press conference with Swiss President Ignazio Cassis. “The Iranian president’s statement today is perfectly clear: it says, ‘We don’t respect the independence of the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate open cases,’ which are major cases involving enriched uranium, located by IAEA inspectors.”
“I call on the international community, including from here in Switzerland, a loyal member of the international order, international law, and the international community, to do everything to ensure the IAEA’s independence and of course to deny Iran nuclear weapons,” Herzog adds.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen says Israel carried out “countless operations” against Iran’s nuclear program when he led the spy agency, also hitting out at the emerging nuclear accord between Iran and world powers.
“Without going into too many details, I can tell you the Mossad had many successes in the fight against Iran’s nuclear program,” Cohen, speaking in English, says at an event in Switzerland marking 125 years since the First Zionist Congress. “We operated around the world and on Iranian soil itself. In the very heartland of the ayatollahs.”
He notes the operation to snatch the Iranian nuclear files, which he says shows Tehran has lied about the military dimensions of its atomic program.
Noting the ongoing nuclear talks, Cohen says Israel “will continue to do whatever needs to be done” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms if a deal is signed.
“We can never allow a regime that calls for our destruction to get its finger on the nuclear trigger,” he says.
