ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 371
The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.
Labor lawmaker Emilie Moatti says she has tested positive for COVID-19.
“Friends, I just informed the party that I also, like many of us, tested positive for coronavirus. I feel reasonably well, I had some fever. I think it’s going to be okay,” Moatti writes on Twitter.
Her announcement comes shortly after Yamina’s Yomtob Kalfon also tests positive.
At least 10 Knesset members have come down with the virus in recent days, including Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The mayor of Rahat, an Arab-majority city in southern Israel, demands the government end tree planting in the south, amid violent protests and government infighting over the KKL-JNF program.
“The government must stop the planting in the Negev immediately. Residential areas are more important than planting trees,” Fayez Abu Sahiban tells Army Radio.
“The Bedouins are the ones that caused Ra’am to be part of the Bennett government, and if the government doesn’t solve this issue, the Bedouin won’t have oxygen to keep going.”
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid exchange barbs over a KKL-JNF tree planting program in southern Israel, as Bedouin protesters scrapped with police and held up traffic in the Negev over the program.
The protesters see the tree planting program as claiming Bedouin land. The coalition’s Ra’am party, whose support is based in Arab communities in the Negev, has threatened to boycott the coalition over the planting.
Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party attended a planting ceremony in the south earlier today.
“No one will stop the planting of trees in the Land of Israel,” Netanyahu tweets. “I give full backing to the security forces and demand [Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett immediately condemn the incitement by Ra’am.”
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Bennett’s chief political partner, hits back at Netanyahu, railing at “12 years of the abandonment of the Negev and neglect of the Bedouin problem” during the former premier’s tenure.
Lapid also voices support for halting the tree plantings.
“Just as the Netanyahu government stopped the plantings in 2020, it’s possible to stop now to reorganize,” he says in a statement.
“Politicians on both sides need to calm the area instead of fanning the flames,” Lapid adds.
He also condemned the rioting and voiced backing for police.
Police in southern Israel say they are dealing with protests by Bedouin, who are apparently angered over tree plantings by the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael, including a ceremony in the JNF-controlled Yatir forest attended by MKs earlier in the day.
Two officers are injured while trying to quell the demonstrations near Segev Shalom in the northern part of the Negev desert, a statement says.
“Police at Segev Shalom junction have gained control over the incident,” a police statement says, but notes that police activity is continuing.
Police earlier closed Route 25 from Segev Shalom to Nevatim, just outside Beersheba, due to the protests. According to authorities, protesters hurled stones at a car and a bus on the road and blocked a nearby passenger train by piling rocks on the tracks. The stones were later removed so the train could continue.
Videos and pictures show tires and garbage bins on fire in the road.
مظاهرات وإحراق إطارات في الداخل المحتل في أماكن عدة للمطالبة بإطلاق سراح جميع المعتقلين من النقب pic.twitter.com/dxNSsEx7t7
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) January 11, 2022
המהומות סביב נטיעות קק"ל בנגב ממשיכות: צמיגים הובערו סמוך למחלף שגב שלום@SuleimanMas1 pic.twitter.com/2JaAW4bDZ5
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 11, 2022
“Officers will allow freedom of protest so long as it is within the confines of the law and with no tolerance for those who break it,” police say in a statement.
Yamina MK Yomtob Kalfon tests positive for COVID-19, joining a long line of officials who have been infected over the past week.
Yesterday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tested positive for COVID, and at least half a dozen other MKs also have the virus. Public Security Minister Omer Barlev also recently tested positive.
So far, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — who has been vaccinated three times — has continued to test negative despite his exposure to several COVID patients.
Ra’am chief MK Mansour Abbas is reportedly vowing to not vote with the coalition moving forward due to anger over ongoing plantings of trees in the south by Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael-Jewish National Fund.
In comments cited by Channel 12 news, Abbas says “we will not vote with the coalition under the plantings in the south are stopped.” Such plantings are seen as an attempt by the KKL and Jewish groups to mark territory in the south that Bedouin groups claim belongs to them.
“I can’t continue to live with this,” Abbas is quoted as saying. “I can’t continue like this, I have absorbed more difficult things in the past, but when they shoot straight in my chest I can’t stand it anymore. The south is Ra’am.” He reportedly vowed to cease voting with the coalition until the issue is solved.
Earlier today, a delegation of Likud MKs took part in a tree-planting ceremony in the KKL-controlled Yatir Forest in the south. Separately, the MKs faced criticism for planting trees during the shmita sabbatical year.
With an extremely narrow 61-seat coalition, every vote in the Knesset can come down to a single vote, and the opposition has in the past voted against bills it supports just to embarrass the current government.
The Health Ministry revises its COVID data for yesterday, now saying that 41,154 people were confirmed positive for coronavirus Monday, several thousand higher than reported this morning.
The ministry has only recently begun counting both PCR and antigen positive tests in its official data, after a new testing policy went into effect this week prioritizing PCR tests for those over 60.
According to the new data, there are currently 194,523 active COVID cases in the country, with 703 hospitalized and 253 of those in serious condition.
So far, 413,576 people in Israel have received a 4th dose of the COVID vaccine.
The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official tells lawmakers, as he describes an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, testifying just days after the nation observed the one-year anniversary of the violent insurrection at the US Capitol, says the number of FBI investigations into suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the spring of 2020.
“We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies,” Olsen says.
Jill Sanborn, the executive assistant director in charge of the FBI’s national security branch who testified alongside Olsen, says the greatest threat comes from lone extremists who radicalize online and look to carry out violence at so-called “soft targets.”
A meeting of the COVID cabinet is underway this evening, as experts warn that the Omicron wave will not peak for several weeks.
According to reports, health experts will tell the cabinet ministers that the current infections will double once again and reach hundreds of thousands of new daily cases sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.
Experts believe that serious cases in the current wave — which stand at around 250 now — will continue to rise, but won’t surpass the rates seen during the Delta wave last year, which saw a peak of around 1,200 serious cases at one time.
However, due to the great uncertainty around the Omicron variant, hospitals are being warned to prepare for up to 2,500 serious cases at one time, in order to be ready for the worst case scenario.
Eight Jewish and pro-Israel groups pen a letter to the US Senate urging it to move forward with supplemental funding to replenish the Iron Dome missile defense system.
“Withholding funding for our closest ally while terrorists continue to threaten their people puts Israel in grave danger, increases the likelihood of innocent Palestinian and Israelis being harmed in another round of conflict and hurts American standing and national security interests,” the groups write in the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Despite overwhelming bipartisan support for the measure, Republican Senator Rand Paul has repeatedly blocked the vote from moving forward.
“One person’s objection should not undermine the overwhelming bipartisan will of the Senate nor stand in the way of ensuring Israel has the tools necessary to keep its people safe,” they write.
“While we understand the supplemental Iron Dome funding would likely be included in a final omnibus spending package, the delay and even the prospects of a second continuing resolution undermine Israel’s security when the need to replenish this defensive system is urgent.”
The letter is signed by Christians United for Israel; The Jewish Federations of North America; Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America; the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; the Union for Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League.
