Foreign Ministry: US Jewish gravestone vandalism a ‘source of worry’

Health Ministry warns hospitals will stop treating Syrians

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman announces that Israeli hospitals will stop treating sick Syrians brought across the border except those in life-threatening conditions, starting next week.

Litzman says the new policy is in response to what he says is the treasury’s continuing refusal to fund medical care for the Syrians, leaving the hospitals to foot the bill.

Over the last four years, Israel has treated thousands of injured Syrians who arrive at the border, regardless of which side they fight on in the country’s six-year civil war.

“These patients receive dedicated and professional care, which puts a significant strain on hospital resources, on operating rooms, manpower, equipment and medical devices,” a letter from the Health Ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office reads, complaining that the health system has only been partially compensated.

Decision on Haifa ammonia tank to come by Wednesday

The Haifa District Court says it will delay a decision on whether to uphold a ruling forcing an ammonia plant in the city to close for a few days.

Judge Tamar Sharon Netanel says a decision on the matter will come on Wednesday at the latest.

The hearing lasted some three hours, during which some 3,000 people protested outside the courtroom.

Last week, the Haifa Court for Local Affairs gave Haifa Group until February 26 to remove the Ammonia chemical from its tank on the bay. An earlier ruling had given the company until February 22 to clear out the container.

After initially signaling that it would abide by the ruling, the company filed a last-minute appeal, slamming the Haifa municipality as “demagogues” trying to “sow fear among the public.”

Officials say that tens of thousands of people could die if the tank should rupture, or a delivery ship is hit by a missile.

–– with Raoul Wootliff

Haifa mayor vows to continue environmental fight

Speaking after a court says it will only decide on shutting a Haifa ammonia storage tank in the coming days, Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav thanks the thousands who came to protest and the schoolkids who called a strike in a solidarity, vowing to continue fighting until the famously polluted city is cleaned up.

“We won’t stop until they remove the ammonia tank and we need to move on to the next step, stopping the expansion of refineries and curbing pollution,” he says, according to Channel 10.

India rages at US after 1 killed, 1 hurt in suspected hate crime

Delhi is demanding the US take strong action after an Indian man was killed and another wounded in a suspected hate crime in the midwestern state of Kansas.

The two men, who had been living in the US for the last few years, were shot at a bar outside Kansas City late Wednesday. The FBI is trying to determine if the shooting was a hate crime.

“USA should respond to this incident. American President and people of America, they should come out openly to condemn such actions… and then take strongest action,” Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu is quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed and Alok Reddy Madasani, 32, wounded in the attack. Both men worked as aviation systems engineers for GPS manufacturer Garmin.

“These kind of incidents involving racial discrimination are shameful,” Naidu says in the southern city of Hyderabad where the victims’ families live. “They will dent the image of USA. So the US President, administration and civil societies should unequivocally respond and condemn such incidents.”

US authorities have arrested 51-year-old Adam Purinton, who allegedly told the men “Get out of my country!” before opening fire.

— AFP

Christians continue to flee Sinai over IS threat

Egypt’s interior minister says he did not advise Christians in north Sinai to leave their homes, after a string of sectarian killings there sent hundreds fleeing and raised accusations the government is failing to protect the minority.

Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar says he is committed to fighting terror across the country, including in north Sinai, where Islamic State-affiliated jihadists have stepped up targeting of Christians in recent weeks, including gunning down a Christian man in his home Thursday.

Official Nabil Shukrallah of the Evangelical Church in Ismailia, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Cairo, says that over 100 families from the city of el-Arish and nearby had passed through the church since Friday.

He says the families arrive scared, exhausted and in need of supplies, which were being stockpiled at the church via donations from several parishes. They are then transported to be housed in and around the city, in private homes and now also housing provided by the government.

— with AP

Germany saw 10 attacks on refugees a day, numbers show

Germany saw more than 3,500 attacks against refugees and asylum shelters last year, amounting to nearly 10 acts of anti-migrant violence a day as the country grapples with a record influx of newcomers according to numbers seen by AFP.

The assaults left 560 people injured, including 43 children, the ministry said in a written response to a parliamentary question.

The government “strongly condemns” the violence, the letter says.

There is no immediate comparison with previous years as it was only introduced as a separate category under politically motivated crimes in 2016.

— AFP

Fire breaks out at Swedish refugee center

Swedish police say at least 15 people have been injured when a fire broke out overnight at one of the country’s largest refugee centers outside of Vanersborg in southwestern Sweden.

Police spokesman Tommy Nyman says two people were taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries after jumping out of a second-floor window to escape the blaze and 15 people in all were treated for smoke inhalation.

He said police received the alarm at 4:15 a.m. Sunday and all 158 people in the building were evacuated. Firefighters extinguished the flames.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Nyman said police would open an investigation.

Last year, there were 112 fires at Swedish refugee and reception centers, most of them arson.

— AP

Yad Vashem asks Amazon to take Holocaust denial off shelves

The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has asked Amazon to stop selling literature on its site that denies the genocide of 6 million Jews during World War II and otherwise promotes anti-Semitism.

Yad Vashem’s director of libraries Robert Rozett says he has dispatched a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos offering his assistance to “curb the spread of hatred.”

Rozett says that Yad Vashem has approached Amazon before on the subject but the internet retailing giant insisted it would not halt sales of offensive and inciting material, citing freedom of information.

Rozett says he hoped that given the recent spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, particularly a vandalism attack on a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Amazon would reconsider its position.

He says he has yet to hear back

— AP

Jewish group cancels Brazil art show after Israelis’ works stolen

A Jewish women’s group called off an exhibition in Rio after a set of paintings by 35 Israeli women – Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze – was stolen.

“We are totally overwhelmed. It’s a feeling of impunity, a lack of security from all sides,” Silene Balassiano, president of the Brazilian arm of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, or WIZO, told JTA.

The paintings of the “Women and Their Olive Trees” exhibition, which conveys a message of coexistence and tolerance, disappeared on Wednesday while being transported from Sao Paulo to Rio, Brazil’s two largest cities and home to the largest Jewish communities, a distance of about 250 miles.

“They have traveled around the world and have been seen by hundreds and hundreds of people. They were in the country’s financial heart and did not make their way out due to a theft. It’s shameful to all of us and to all Brazilians,” added Balassiano.

— JTA

Russians march to mark opposition leader’s killing

Thousands of Russians are marching through Moscow shouting slogans including “Russia will be free!” and “Putin is war!” to mark two years since opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down outside the Kremlin.

Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister, was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His February 27, 2015, death, in what appeared to be a contract killing, sparked an outpouring of anger and fear from Russia’s beleaguered opposition movement.

The protest in Moscow is the largest opposition gathering since a similar memorial march for Nemtsov last year. Moscow police said 5,000 attended the event but organizers but the figure in the tens of thousands.

“It’s very important that after two years people continue to come out and show their solidarity with the ideas for which Boris Nemtsov fought for and gave his life,” says opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who was Nemtsov’s friend and colleague, Interfax news agency reported.

Participants carry Russian flags, banners of opposition political parties and placards with quotes from Nemtsov including “If there’s Putin, there’s no Russia,” and “Our only chance left is the street.”

Many carry cardboard Russian flags with bullet holes in them.

— AP

Trump hits lowest-ever approval rating for new president

A poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal shows that US President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 44 percent, which they say is the lowest ever for a new commander in chief.

The survey, conducted among 1,000 respondents last week, shows that 48 percent of Americans disapprove of the president, and 32 percent think he’s not cut out to be president.

Presidents generally enjoy a honyemoon of 60 percent or higher approval ratings in their first few months. The previous low in the modern era was set by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, who both polled at 51 percent approval during their first month in office.

Christian aid worker leaves Sudan after being freed by Bashir

A Czech Christian aid worker sentenced to 24 years in jail has left Sudan after President Omar al-Bashir ordered his release, a foreign ministry official says.

Petr Jasek, 53, had been arrested in December 2015 and sentenced last month.

A member of a small Protestant Czech church called Cirkev Bratrska, Jasek had traveled to Sudan to help local Christians, according to Czech media reports.

Sudanese authorities said he had entered the country “illegally” from neighboring South Sudan and gone to the conflict-riven state of South Kordofan.

In January, a court found him guilty of entering Sudan without a visa, spying, taking pictures of military installations and inciting hatred, according to his lawyer.

But on Sunday Bashir pardoned him and ordered his release, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour announced at a joint press conference with his visiting Czech counterpart Lubomir Zaoralek.

— AFP

Son of Nazis to return artworks to Poland

The son of a former Nazi governor is set to return three paintings stolen by his mother from Krakow’s national museum in 1939, ending a years-long quest to repatriate the art works, the Guardian reports.

Horst Waechter, 78, the son of SS general Otto Waechter, will return to the Polish government a painting of a palace, a map of 18th-century Poland, and an engraving of Krakow, just some of the hundreds of items stolen by his mother, who was charged with decorating her husband’s office, and other Nazi officials.

Waechter, who lives in a castle in Austria, says he has tried for years to return the works, but was thwarted by the fact that nobody wanted to deal with the son of a Nazi because of his tainted legacy. He says he is returning the works in memory of his mother, though he admitted that she was a proud Nazi who never renounced her views.

He also says his father, who died while trying to escape to Argentina after the war, was just a part of the Nazi machine and was killed for something he did not do.

“This is probably the first time that the member of a family of one of the most important Nazi occupiers is giving back art that was stolen from Poland during the war,” Polish politician Ryszard Czarnecki says.

German archaeologists kidnapped in Nigeria freed

Two German archaeologists who were kidnapped while working at a dig site in northern Nigeria last week have been released and are doing well, the German foreign ministry says.

“The two archaeologists from the Goethe University in Frankfurt are free. They are in the care of the German embassy in Abuja,” a source at the ministry says.

“They are doing well under the circumstances,” the source adds.

— AFP

Netanyahu: Petition on submarine affair possibly obstruction

Responding to a High Court petition by opposition MK Erel Margalit that seeks to compel an investigation into possible conflicts of interests in the purchase of German submarines, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawyer goes on the attack against the lawmaker.

“Margalit’s push for an investigation, encroaches on police powers, his method bordering on obstruction of justice. This petition is nothing but a direct continuation of an unbridled attack launched by the petitioner against the sitting prime minister for improper reasons.”

US tells Russia to halt Ukraine violence

The United States is calling on Russia to “immediately” observe the ceasefire in Ukraine, accusing combined Russian and separatist forces of targeting international monitors.

“We call on Russia and the separatist forces it backs to immediately observe the ceasefire, withdraw all heavy weapons, and allow full and unfettered access to the OSCE monitors,” the State Department says.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner says the United States is closely monitoring growing violence in eastern Ukraine and the failure of the combined Russian and separatist forces to abide by a ceasefire agreed to two years ago in Minsk.

“We condemn Friday’s targeting of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) monitors and the seizure of a SMM unmanned aerial vehicle by combined-Russian separatist forces,” Toner says, referring to the civilian observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

— AFP

Israel accuses top UN employee in Gaza of being Hamas mucky-muck

An Israeli military agency is demanding that the UN Relief and Works Agency fire a teacher at the head of its employee union, claiming that he was elected to a senior position in Hamas.

Suhail al-Hindi, a school principle in Jabaliya is accused by COGAT of “lying to the UN about his position” within the Hamas terror group.

“Despite the fact that UNRWA belongs to and is financed by the UN, it surprisingly allows employment of a senior member of a terrorist organization,” COGAT says in a statement. “Due to the severity of the situation, the head of COGAT, Major General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai called on UNRWA to terminate al-Hindi immediately.”

The statement also says Mordechai directly approached the UN on the matter.

In 2011, al-Hindi was suspended by UNRWA for three months after appearing at an event next to Ismail Haniyeh, then the leader of Hamas in Gaza. The Gaza teachers union called a strike at the time to protest the move.

Al-Hindi has repeatedly denied links to the group, which is the de facto ruler of Gaza.

TV report: At least 15 Gaza tunnels reach into Israel

Channel 2 news reports that a “senior source” says Israeli officials believe there are at least 15 Hamas tunnels stretching under the Gaza border into Israel, what they term “attack tunnels.”

On the channel’s website, the information is cited to “cabinet sources.”

The report comes days ahead of a state comptroller report said to show that Israeli politicians and army brass were unprepared to take on the tunnel threat before the 2014 war with Gaza.

Headstones found broken in Jewish Philly cemetery

Dozens of headstones have been found knocked over and broken at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, apparently the second such anti-Semitic attack in a week.

Police are investigating the damage at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in the Wissinoming neighborhood, but have not said if the incident is a hate crime, according to the local ABC affiliate.

New Jersey resident Aaron Mallin, who made the discovery when visiting his father’s grave, told the station he hoped it was not an anti-Semitic attack.

“I’m hoping it was maybe just some drunk kids. But the fact that there’s so many it leads one to think it could have been targeted,” Mallin said.

Last week, over 150 headstones were damaged at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, leading to a national outcry.

Man found dead in Beitar Ilit synagogue

Police are investigating after a man was found dead of a bullet wound in a synagogue in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Beitar Ilit.

Police say the incident is apparently suicide after an initial investigation.

The victim, shot in the head, has not yet been identified.

Foreign Ministry spokesman condemns Philadelphia cemetery vandalism

On Twitter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon speaks out against the Philadelphia cemetery vandalism, calling it “shocking and a source of worry.”

“#Jewish cemetery desecration is shocking and a source of worry. Full confidence #US authorities catch and punish culprits,” he writes.

#Philadelphia Jewish cemetery desecration is shocking and a source of worry . Full confidence #US authorities catch and punish culprits .

— Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) February 26, 2017

When asked if he is speaking for himself or the Foreign Ministry, Nahshon says the statement is “semi-official.”

— with Raphael Ahren

Pope mulling trip to South Sudan

Pope Francis says he’s studying the possibility of going to South Sudan, the East African nation suffering famine and civil war.

Francis says while visiting an Anglican church in Rome that Anglican, Presbyterian and Catholic bishops had asked him to “please come, even for a day.”

The pope says they asked him to visit with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Anglican leader who also has decried the suffering in South Sudan.

Francis and his aides are studying the possibility. He didn’t specify if they were considering a trip just by him, or one with Welby.

The pope has demanded concrete actions to get food to starving people in South Sudan. The United Nations and others have accused the nation’s government of blocking or restricting aid deliveries.

— AP