US blasts Iran over Hamas support, says regime showing ‘true colors’

IDF soldier goes missing from Golan Heights base

The IDF is searching for a soldier who went missing from his base in the Golan Heights yesterday afternoon.

Searches were ongoing for the combat soldier across northern Israel.

Israel frees Palestinian clown after 20-month detention

A Palestinian clown accused by Israel of membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group and held without charge for 20 months is released.

Mohammad Abu Sakha, 26, tells AFP on Thursday he was released the day before from administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel detains suspects without trial for periods of several months, renewable indefinitely.

Protesters in London call to free Palestinian clown Mohammad Abu Sakha in January 2016 (YouTube screenshot)

Abu Sakha had been part of the Palestinian Circus School in Bir Zeit in the occupied West Bank since 2008, first as a student and later as a clown and teacher.

He says Israeli forces never told him the exact reason for his arrest in December 2015 or how long he would be detained.

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency accused him of being a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the Jewish state considers a terrorist group.

— with AFP

German case against Auschwitz medic, 96, to be thrown out

German prosecutors call Thursday for the case of a 96-year-old former Nazi medical orderly at the Auschwitz death camp to be thrown out because he was deemed unfit for trial.

Hubert Zafke had faced charges of 3,681 counts of being an accessory to murder in the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

But concerns over his mental and physical health had led to repeated postponements of the trial, which began in February 2016 in the northeastern lakeside town of Neubrandenburg.

Stefan Urbanek, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office, says in a statement that medical evaluations in March and July this year had found the wheelchair-bound Zafke “unfit to stand trial.”

Former SS medic Hubert Zafke, 95, accused of aiding in 3,681 murders in Auschwitz in 1944, attends his trial on September 12, 2016 at the court in Neubrandenburg, Germany. (AFP/dpa/Bernd Wüstneck)

“The experts reached this conclusion after having diagnosed dementia in October 2015, leading to a determination that Zafke could only stand trial on a limited basis,” Urbanek says.

“Now the dementia has reached a severity that the defendant is no longer able inside and outside the courtroom to reasonably assess his interests or coherently follow or give testimony.”

Urbanek says prosecutors were required by law after receiving this independent medical evaluation to submit a motion to dismiss the case.

Proceedings against Zafke, a farmer’s son who joined the Nazi party’s elite police force the Waffen-SS at age 19, had already been halted last October following complaints that the judges were biased.

An activist with the International Auschwitz Committee rolls up a poster featuring Holocaust victim Anne Frank outside the regional court of Neubrandenburg during the first day of the trial against former SS medic Hubert Zafke, accused of aiding in 3,681 murders in Auschwitz in 1944, on February 29, 2016. (AFP/John MACDOUGALL)

The charges against Zafke focused on a one-month period in 1944 when 14 trains carrying prisoners — including the Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank — arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Frank, who arrived in Auschwitz with her parents and sister, was later transferred to another camp, Bergen-Belsen, where she died in March 1945, just two months before the Nazis were defeated.

— AFP

Russia warns US against using force over North Korea

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urges Washington not to use force against North Korea, as tensions surge after the latest missile test by Pyongyang.

In a phone call late Wednesday with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov “underscored…the need to refrain from any military steps that could have unpredictable consequences,” the foreign ministry in Moscow says.

Russia’s lead diplomat says any attempts to toughen sanctions against North Korea would be “counterproductive and dangerous” while condemning Pyongyang’s shooting of a missile over Japan as a “gross violation” of United Nations resolutions.

Early on Tuesday, the reclusive state fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 over Japan, prompting US President Donald Trump to insist that “all options” were on the table in an implied threat of preemptive military action.

The UN Security Council denounced North Korea’s latest missile test, unanimously demanding that Pyongyang halt the program.

— AFP

Rivlin calls Abbas to wish him a happy Eid al-Adha

President Reuven Rivlin calls PA President Mahmoud Abbas to wish the Palestinians a happy Eid al-Adha, which begins this evening, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports.

European Jewish Congress slams Poland’s ‘lack of concern’ over anti-Semitism

In an unusually harsh condemnation, the European Jewish Congress says the Polish government has a “staggering lack of concern” about anti-Semitism and a “transparent divide-and-rule tactic” vis-a-vis Jews.

The statement Thursday follows an open feud between leaders of Polish Jewry on whether Poland has seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents or sentiment since the rise to power of the nationalist Law and Justice Party in 2015.

The EJC statement offers support for the organization’s Poland affiliates, the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the Jewish Community of Warsaw, in their fight with other Jewish organizations in Poland.

The fight erupted earlier this month when leaders of the affiliated groups blamed the government for allowing if not encouraging an alleged increase in anti-Semitism. Other Jewish leaders disputed this claim, saying it constitutes a partisan tactic against the ruling party by the EJC affiliates.

“The EJC notes the staggering lack of concern from the government of Poland to the growth and normalization of anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric in the country in recent times,” the statement reads. “The transparent divide-and-rule tactic of senior leaders of the Law and Justice Party in seeking to choose its selected Jewish interlocutors over the heads of official and representative community organizations in Poland leaves us staggered and reminds us of much darker times in Europe when governments chose their Jews.”

— JTA

Abbas expresses hope for ‘security and stability’ in talk with Rivlin

Speaking to Rivlin ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday, Abbas expresses hope for “security and stability.”

“President Abbas expressed his hopes the Palestinian and Israeli peoples will enjoy security and stability,” Wafa reports.

— Dov Lieber

Lithuanian troops train at former concentration camp

Lithuanian soldiers pitch tents on the grounds of a former concentration camp for Jews in Kaunas, where they are training to fight Russian troops.

A battalion of special forces troops camped Monday at Kaunas’ Seventh Fort, the first of dozens of concentration camps set up by Nazi Germany after its 1941 eastward invasion, the Kauno Diena news website reports Thursday. The deployment is part of a military drill titled “Crusader Wolf III.”

The troops pitched tents on the grounds of the former concentration camp. The report did not say whether the deployment included a kitchen and latrines. Questions by JTA about the exact nature of the deployment were not immediately answered by the Lithuanian foreign ministry.

Privatized by the government in 2009, the Seventh Fort, a disused 18-acre red-brick bunker complex, is run by a nongovernmental organization headed by Vladimir Orlov, a 38-year-old amateur historian and military enthusiast.

His organization charges entrance fees to the grounds, where it operates summer camps for children and hosts private events. Revenues are used for the site’s preservation as an educational institution where the genocide is taught, alongside Lithuanian military heritage, Orlov told JTA last year. He declined to say how much revenue the site generates and how much is spent on commemoration.

The remains of 5,000 murdered Jews are buried at the fort in mass graves that are marked by a few poles and rocks. Relatives sometimes visit the site to light candles in memory of the dead.

The Jewish Community of Lithuania last year said the privatization was a “huge mistake” that happened despite its stated opposition.

— JTA

Iraq retakes Tal Afar and rest of Nineveh province from IS

Iraq’s government declare on Thursday that its forces had retaken the northern city of Tal Afar and the rest of Nineveh province, once almost entirely controlled by Islamic State group jihadists.

“Our happiness is complete, victory has arrived and the province of Nineveh is now entirely in the hands of our forces,” says a statement from the office of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

— AFP

Buckingham Palace sword man charged with terror offense

A man arrested wielding a sword outside Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace residence has been charged with a terror offense and is due in court later today, London police say.

Mohiussunnath Choudhury, 26, is accused of “engaging in conduct in preparation for giving effect to his intention to commit an act or acts of terrorism,” police said.

— AFP

Palestinians suing Greek Orthodox church for selling property to Israelis

A lawyer says more than 300 Palestinian Christians and associations filed a complaint against the Greek Orthodox patriarch for allegedly selling property to Israelis.

The church is a major property owner in the Holy Land. The Greek clergy has rejected demands by the Palestinian flock to open the books on property deals.

Nabil Mushahwar says Thursday that a complaint over “selling land to the enemy” — potentially a capital offense in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — was filed with the Palestinian attorney general.

The church declined comment Thursday.

Last month, an Israeli court upheld the sale of prime church property to companies representing Jewish groups that seek an expanded presence in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The church had challenged the deal as an illegal transaction by the previous patriarch.

— AP

Russia says it foiled IS suicide bombing in Moscow

Russia’s top domestic security agency says it has detained two suspects from ex-Soviet Central Asia accused of plotting attacks on civilians in Moscow on behalf of the Islamic State group.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, says that one of the suspects was planning to carry out a suicide bombing. It said a powerful homemade explosive device was found at his apartment. The agency said another man was preparing to attack civilians with a knife and put out a video statement pledging adherence to the IS.

The FSB said the suspects were planning to launch the attacks on Friday, the beginning of the school year in Russia.

Earlier this month, the FSB arrested four suspects accused of planning suicide bombings on Moscow’s transit system and shopping malls.

— AP

French comic, convicted of anti-Semitism, set to travel to N. Korea

French comedian Dieudonne, who has been convicted of racist and anti-Semitic comments in the past, announces that he plans to travel to North Korea next month.

Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala will travel there on September 9 along with far-right writer Alain Soral, who has already visited Pyongyang to “work for peace,” the comedian says in a video posted on YouTube last week.

“At a time when the United States is organizing military exercises on the Korean peninsula, I believe we have to take action,” Dieudonne says, adding that he would take part in a “peace festival” in Pyongyang.

The comedian has often made headlines, most notably with his trademark “quenelle” hand gesture that looks like an inverted Nazi salute, but which he insists is merely anti-establishment.

File:French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala (screenshot: YouTube)

— AFP

Iran complying with nuclear deal, UN watchdog says

Iran remains in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, a UN atomic watchdog report showed Thursday, even as growing tensions between Tehran and Washington threaten to torpedo the landmark agreement.

The quarterly assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), seen by AFP, showed that Tehran’s nuclear program, including its enrichment activities, is still in adherence with the accord.

— AFP

Netanyahu visits south Tel Aviv after court’s ruling on migrants

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits south Tel Aviv, meeting with Israeli residents to discuss the influx of African migrants to the area in recent years.

The prime minister’s visit comes on the heels of a Supreme Court decision allowing Israel to continue with its controversial practice of deporting illegal migrants to an unnamed third country. The court also said the government cannot jail those who refuse to go for more than 60 days.

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have indicated they will submit new Knesset legislation to expand the government’s deportation powers.

IAEA says Iran has not exceeded cap of low-enriched uranium

The IAEA report says Iran has not exceeded the limit of low-enriched uranium.

Its stock of low-enriched uranium — used for peaceful purposes, but when further processed for a weapon — did not exceed the agreed limit of 300 kilograms (661 pounds), the report says.

It adds that Iran “has not pursued the construction of the Arak… reactor” — which could give it weapons-grade plutonium — and has not enriched uranium above low purity levels.

Iran’s stock of heavy water, a reactor coolant, remained below the ceiling of 130 tons throughout the previous quarter, with Iran exporting 19.1 tons.

Iran has previously inched above an agreed ceiling of 130 tons. The plant producing the heavy water was shut for maintenance earlier this year and has now restarted, the IAEA says.

— with AFP

Plume from flooded Texas chemical plant ‘incredibly dangerous’

The plume of fumes from a flooded Texas chemical plant is “incredibly dangerous,” the head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says Thursday.

Two explosions were reported overnight at the chemical plant in the town of Crosby and officials have ordered residents within 1.5 miles (three kilometers) of the facility to evacuate.

“The bottom line is that we do what’s called plume modeling,” FEMA Administrator Brock Long says at a press briefing. “And that’s what we base a lot of the evacuations on. And so by all means, yes, the plume is incredibly dangerous.”

The plant operated by Arkema Inc produces organic peroxides, which have a number of commercial uses, including plastics, pharmaceuticals and construction materials.

The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office said there had been “a series of chemical reactions at the @Arkema_Inc Crosby facility” overnight.

“There has been intermittent smoke, please stay clear of the area,” it said.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said one deputy had been taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes from the plant, while nine others drove themselves there as a “precaution.”

— AFP

Body of missing IDF soldier found; army investigating

The soldier who went missing yesterday in the Golan Heights has been found dead, the army says.

An investigation into the circumstances of his death is opened.

The soldier’s family has been notified.

Netanyahu vows to ‘give back’ south Tel Aviv to residents

Touring south Tel Aviv, an area that has seen a large influx of African migrants in recent years, Netanyahu vows the government will “give back” the neighborhood to its Israeli residents.

“We are here on a mission to give back south Tel Aviv to the Israeli residents,” says the prime minister. “I’ve heard the residents, and what I hear is pain and crisis.”

Many local residents had protested the asylum-seekers and accused the  government of “abandoning” them.

Netanyahu was accompanied by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Culture Minister Miri Regev.

Suspected IS suicide bomber hits Libya checkpoint, kills 2

A suspected Islamic State militant drove his explosives-laden car into a checkpoint east of the coastal Libyan city of Sirte on Thursday, killing two policemen, military officials say.

The officials said the blast at Nofaliya, 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of Sirte, also wounded two soldiers from the Libyan National Army, LNA.

The attack and the resulting death toll were reported by Col. Muftah Amgharief, from the security force guarding oil facilities in eastern Libya, and Faisal Ahbale, spokesman for the army’s 101st Brigade. The incident and the death toll were also reported by the LNA spokesman on his Facebook page.

— AP

Regev says south Tel Aviv residents ‘refugees in their own country’

Likud Minister Miri Regev says the residents of south Tel Aviv are “refugees in their own country.”

Denouncing the influx of African migrants to the neighborhood, Regev says the newcomers “are not refugees.”

“They are infiltrators,” the culture minister says of the largely Sudanese and Eritrean migrants.

“The residents of south Tel Aviv are the ones who became refugees in their own country,” she says, while touring south Tel Aviv with Netanyahu and Erdan.

Regev calls on the government to circumvent this week’s Supreme Court ruling preventing the open-ended detention of migrants through Knesset legislation.

“We need [criminal] enforcement against the employers who pay the salaries of the infiltrators they employ,” she adds. “We need advocacy efforts to landlords who rent their apartments to infiltrators not to allow them to do as they please with the properties, without oversight, including dividing the apartments.”

Culture Minister Miri Regev tours south Tel Aviv on August 31, 2017 (Eli Sabati/courtesy)

Hezbollah chief says he met Assad in Damascus

The head of Lebanese Shiite terror movement Hezbollah, who has lived in hiding for a decade, said Thursday he had traveled to Damascus to seek the Syrian president’s approval for a jihadist evacuation deal.

“I personally went to Damascus” to see President Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah told thousands of his supporters in a televised speech.

Hundreds of Islamic State group fighters and civilians were evacuated Monday from the border region between Lebanon and Syria under a ceasefire deal and headed toward eastern Syria.

— With AFP

Screen capture of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah during an interview with Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, February 20, 2017. (screen capture: IRANIANTVCHANNEL/YouTube)

Amsterdam to beef up security after Barcelona attacks

Amsterdam is beefing up its security measures following the deadly Barcelona terror attacks two weeks ago, including looking at shortening lines at major attractions, the city’s mayor says Thursday.

Mayor Eberhard van der Laan says he and law enforcement officials have spoken “with several large tourist attractions about the current terror threat.”

“The meeting was organized because of the recent attacks in Spain” that left 16 people dead, Van der Laan says in a letter, published on the Amsterdam’s city council’s website.

The Netherlands has so far been spared the terror strikes that have rocked its European neighbors recently.

But top Dutch security and intelligence officials have been keeping a wary eye on events.

— AFP

Netanyahu says he spoke to Israel Hayom editor 1.5 times a week

Per a court order, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals how frequently he spoke with the Israel Hayom daily’s owner, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and its former editor-in-chief Amos Regev.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court accepted an appeal by Channel 10 journalist Raviv Drucker, and ordered the prime minister to release the information on the phone calls, citing the public interest.

In a Facebook post, the prime minister says Thursday that in 2012-2015, he spoke to Adelson on average 0.75 times a week, indicating there were 117 phone calls with the Israel Hayom owner during that period. Netanyahu writes that he spoke to Regev some 1.5 times a week on average, over 230 calls overall, during those three years.

US billionaire businessman Sheldon Adelson (L) meets with Benjamin Netanyahu during a ceremony at the Congress Hall in Jerusalem, August 12, 2007. (Flash90)

“I will tell you something that everyone knows: All the politicians in Israel speak to publishers, editors-in-chief and journalists,” writes Netanyahu. “Between politicians and the media there is a constant and ongoing dialogue — this is what is accepted in democracies.”

“I am opposed in principle to revealing the conversations that take place between politicians and journalists,” he writes. “In my opinion, this intervention in the complicated ties between the media and politics does not serve democracy, rather the opposite.”

Netanyahu writes that Adelson is a “very close friend for 30 years.”

Israel Hayom is widely regarded as strongly pro-Netanyahu in its orientation and the phone calls were demanded to shed light on the extent of any links between Netanyahu’s administration and the daily — as well as any possible conflicts of interest.

Amos Regev, chief editor of Israel Hayom daily newspaper arrives for questioning in the so called ‘Case 2000’ affair at the Lahav 433 investigation unit in Lod, January 17, 2017. (Roy Alima/Flash90)

The decision came as Netanyahu faces deepening legal trouble in a group of criminal probes, including suspicions that he tried to arrange more favorable coverage from the publisher of a rival publication in exchange for curbing Israel Hayom’s circulation numbers.

Both Adelson and Regev has given police testimony in the corruption probes against the prime minister.

US shutters Russia’s San Francisco consulate in retaliation

The United States is retaliating against Russia by forcing closure of its consulate in San Francisco and scaling back its diplomatic presence in Washington and New York.

The State Department says the move is in response to the Kremlin forcing a cut in US diplomatic staff in Moscow. Spokesman Heather Nauert says the move brings the US and Russia into “parity,” with each having three consulates in the other country.

Moscow forced the cut in American diplomatic staff earlier this year in retaliation for US sanctions. Washington had to reduce its diplomatic staff by 755 people.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said the US would respond by September.

The Russian offices must close by Saturday. The order affects Russia’s “chancery annex” in Washington and a “consular annex” in New York.

— AP

Russian FM voices ‘regret’ at US order to close San Francisco consulate

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday expresses “regret at the escalation of tensions” after the US ordered Russia to shut its consulate in San Francisco.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Lavrov as Washington announced it is ordering Moscow to shut the consulate, the Russian foreign ministry says in a statement. “In response the minister expressed regret at the escalation of tensions in bilateral relations,” it said.

— AFP

Pence lands in Texas to survey Harvey’s wreckage

US Vice President Mike Pence is visiting with Texas storm victims and surveying the damage close to where Harvey first slammed ashore as a Category 4 hurricane.

The vice president landed in Corpus Christi, Texas, and was greeted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Pence and his wife, Karen, are being joined by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, and other Cabinet members.

Pence will be traveling to the coastal town of Rockport to see the devastation caused by the storm that set a rainfall record and severely flooded the Houston area. Residents of Rockport were among the first in the U.S. hit by Harvey.

Pence’s visit comes two days after President Donald Trump visited Corpus Christi and Austin for briefings with local officials.

— AP

‘Gas All Jews,’ swastika drawn on South African campus message boards

The University of Pretoria in South Africa condemns hate speech after “Gas All Jews” and swastikas are found drawn on campus message boards.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies umbrella organization contacts the university’s vice chancellor to express its concern about the graffiti on message boards in the humanities building.

“The University of Pretoria condemns any form of discrimination and hate speech and will not hesitate to act against anyone found guilty of this type of behavior,” the university says in a statement. “When the University became aware of a notice board that was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti on its Hatfield campus, we immediately removed it and notified campus security to investigate the incident.”

The board praises the university for the “swift removal” of the offensive boards as soon as the graffiti was reported by the South African Union of Jewish Students.

Mattis says he and Trump on same page on N. Korea

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday denies any divergence of views with Donald Trump over the response to North Korea’s recent missile launch, after he appeared to undercut the president’s tough rhetoric.

Mattis had argued Wednesday that there was still room for diplomacy in dealing with Pyongyang’s provocative ballistic missile launches, shortly after Trump said negotiations were “not the answer.”

“‘Diplomatic’ can include economic sanctions, United Nations sanctions, it’s not just talking. I didn’t contradict anything the president said. We’re not talking to the North Koreans right now,” Mattis tells reporters at the Pentagon.

“I agree with the president… We should not be talking right now to a nation that’s firing missiles over the top of Japan, an ally,” he adds.

“We’re working diplomatically with Secretary (of State Rex) Tillerson in the lead, and I maintain behind that military options for the president, to back up the diplomacy. But we’re not done with diplomacy.”

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis holds a press briefing at the Pentagon on May 19, 2017. (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

— AFP

US blasts Iran’s Hamas support, says it shows regime’s ‘true colors’

The United States on Thursday describes remarks by a Palestinian Hamas leader boasting of strong military ties with Iran as a “stunning admission” that showed Tehran was violating a UN ban on arms exports.

Hamas leader Yahya al-Sinwar, who heads the Palestinian terror movement in Gaza, tells reporters on Monday that Iran was the “biggest supporter” of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

“The Iranian military support to Hamas and al-Qassam is strategic,” said Sinwar, adding that ties with Iran had “become fantastic and returned to its former era.”

In a statement, the US mission to the United Nations recalls that Iran is barred from exporting weapons under a key UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“Once again, Iran is showing its true colors,” says US Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Iran must abide by UN resolutions or decide “whether it wants to be the leader of a jihadist terrorist movement,” she adds.

“It’s long past time for the international community to hold Iran to the same standard that all countries who actually value peace and security are held to.”

— Agencies

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley testifies during a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill onJune 28, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images via JTA)