ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 616
Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
The Times of Israel is liveblogged Tuesday’s developments as they unfolded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubles down on denials of wrongdoing in the graft case.
“Bibitours — nothing! A claim of illicit campaign funding — nothing! A claim of skewing primary results — nothing! A claim of receiving gifts abroad and funding for flights — nothing!” the prime minister writes on Facebook, listing past allegations against him.
“Years of daily persecution against me and my family have been confirmed yesterday as having been nothing,” the prime minister says. He is referring to a statement from the attorney general clarifying that these four issues were part of the initial probe into the prime minister, but have since been closed due to lack of evidence.
“Will someone in the media apologize for the thousands of headlines, hours of broadcasting ‘investigative journalism at its best’ that have turned out to be total nonsense? Certainly not [Channel 10 reporter Raviv] Drucker.”
“I repeat: There will be nothing — because there isn’t anything,” he says of the ongoing investigation.
Turkish state media airs new footage on Tuesday of a man believed to be the Islamic State gunman who killed 39 people at a nightclub, showing a grim selfie video of the suspect as he circles Istanbul’s most famous square.
The camera never leaves the man’s unsmiling face as he walks through Taksim square, one of Istanbul’s prime tourist spots, during the 44-second video broadcast Tuesday on state-run Anadolu television and other media.
It wasn’t immediately clear if it was filmed before or after the New Year’s massacre at the Reina nightclub, or how the footage was obtained.
The gunman is still at large. Authorities haven’t publicly identified him, and police denied that Kyrgyz passport information circulating in Turkish media belonged to the gunman.
— AP
Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper says a woman identified by Turkish media as the wife of the Istanbul nightclub massacre suspect has told police she did not know her husband was a member of the Islamic State group.
IS has claimed responsibility for the New Year’s Eve attack that killed 39 people at the Reina nightclub. Police are still searching for the gunman.
The woman is detained in the central town of Konya as part of the investigation. Neither she nor her husband has been identified by name. Hurriyet says on its online edition Tuesday that the woman said she learned about the attack on television and told police she didn’t know her husband harbored “sympathies toward” the Islamic State group.
Media reports say the gunman flew to Istanbul from Kyrgyzstan with his wife and children on November 20. From there they drove to the Turkish capital, Ankara, by before arriving in Konya on November 22.
The family rented a studio in Konya, paying three months of rent upfront. The gunman told the estate agent he had arrived in Konya in search of work, according to the report.
Hurriyet said the gunman returned to Istanbul December 29.
— AP
The man shot dead in the northern city of Haifa earlier is identified as a 45-year-old rabbi who was tasked with overseeing conversions to Judaism.
Another man, 48, moderately injured by gunfire in Haifa moments after the initial shooting, is also said to be a religious official linked to Israel’s Rabbinate, according to Hebrew media reports.
Police are searching for the perpetrators and investigating whether there is a connection between the two shootings.
A gag order is imposed on the case.
Turkish authorities on Tuesday detain two foreign nationals at Istanbul’s main airport suspected of links to the attack on a nightclub claimed by Islamic State jihadists that left 39 dead, the Dogan news agency says.
The pair were detained on entering Ataturk International Airport and have been taken to Istanbul police headquarters for questioning, it adds.
— AP
Ambulances are seen at the site of an armed attack January 1, 2017, in Istanbul, Turkey. (AFP PHOTO / YASIN AKGUL)
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pledges to hold President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to account — and warns against a “Twitter presidency.”
The New Yorker says Senate Democrats will hold Trump to his promise to “Make America Great Again” — as long as that means creating jobs, raising incomes, giving real opportunities to the disadvantaged and protecting civil rights.
But Schumer says, “We’ll fight him tooth and nail when he appeals to the baser instincts that diminish America and its greatness.”
The newly elevated Senate Democratic leader says the issues confronting America are so complex that “we cannot tweet them away.”
Schumer ‘s comments come in prepared remarks he is delivering later Tuesday as Congress convenes for its first session of 2017.
— AP
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) arrives for a Senate Democratic caucus organizing meeting to elect their leadership for the 115th Congress, Wednesday, November 16, 2016, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The first reprint of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in Germany since World War II has proved a surprise bestseller, heading for its sixth print run, its publisher says Tuesday.
The Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IfZ) says around 85,000 copies of the new annotated version of the Nazi leader’s anti-Semitic manifesto had flown off the shelves since its release last January.
However, the respected institute says that far from promoting far-right ideology, the publication had enriched a debate on the renewed rise of “authoritarian political views” in contemporary Western society.
— AFP
A German edition of Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ (‘My Struggle’) at the Berlin Central and Regional Library (Zentrale Landesbibliothek, ZLB) in Berlin, Germany, December 7, 2015 (AFP/Tobias Schwarz)
President-elect Donald Trump announces Tuesday he has nominated Reagan-era lawyer Robert Lighthizer, described as an advocate of greater protectionism, as US trade representative.
Trump’s choice for one of his last remaining senior appointments signals that he plans to go ahead with the tough trade policies he promised during the presidential campaign.
Trump opposes the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by President Barack Obama and the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, saying they cost American jobs. He has also criticized what he calls unfair trade practices by China.
Lighthizer was deputy US trade representative when Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s.
“He has extensive experience striking agreements that protect some of the most important sectors of our economy, and has repeatedly fought in the private sector to prevent bad deals from hurting Americans,” Trump says of Lighthizer in a statement announcing the appointment.
“He will do an amazing job helping turn around the failed trade policies which have robbed so many Americans of prosperity,” Trump adds.
Lighthizer says in the statement: “I am fully committed to President-elect Trump’s mission to level the playing field for American workers and forge better trade policies which will benefit all Americans.”
— AFP
“The Boss” is questioning whether President-elect Donald Trump is ready to take office.
During an interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast released Monday, Bruce Springsteen says he questions whether Trump “is simply competent enough to do this particular job.”
Springsteen is a high-profile Democrat and appeared with Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Springsteen says he understands how Trump got elected. He says the Republican played working class fears over a changing economy, increasing diversity and the Islamic State group.
He tells Maron that he has “felt disgust” over elections before, “but never, never the kind of fear that you feel now.”
Springsteen says he plans to do his best to play a “very, very small part” in trying to ensure America maintains its ideals.
— AP
Education Minister Naftali Bennett says he hopes a military court acquits IDF soldier Elor Azaria, accused of shooting a disarmed Palestinian stabber in the West Bank city of Hebron last March.
The verdict in the Azaria case is expected Wednesday.
“I hope he is acquitted,” Bennett tells Army Radio. “If he isn’t acquitted, I believe he should be pardoned right away and shouldn’t sit in prison.”
Elor Azaria, center, during a hearing in his manslaughter trial at a military court in Jaffa, August 28, 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Turkey’s interior minister says authorities have thwarted a total of 339 possible attacks in 2016, most of them by Kurdish militants.
Suleyman Soylu tells parliament Tuesday that the foiled attacks include 313 planned attempts by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and 22 by the Islamic State group.
The minister says authorities seized 247 explosive devices, 23 car bombs and detained 23 would-be suicide bombers last year.
Speaking a day after the IS claimed responsibility for the deadly attack at a popular Istanbul nightclub, Soylu says some 80 of the attacks were thwarted in the past three months.
More than 3,506 IS suspects were detained in 2016, including 1,531 foreign nationals, the minister says.
Soylu says authorities had stepped up security on public transportation such as trams and buses as well as airports and at train and bus terminals.
— AP
Britain’s ambassador to the European Union, Ivan Rogers, resigns less than three months before the UK is due to trigger the process to leave the bloc, a source tells AFP.
The BBC reported last month that Rogers had told UK ministers that EU countries believe a trade deal with Britain might take 10 years to achieve — a report rejected by Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman.
Rogers had been in his post since November 2013, having been prime minister David Cameron’s Europe adviser.
— AFP
Senior House Republicans say a vote is scheduled for Thursday on a measure that reaffirms US support for Israel after the Obama administration refused to veto a United Nations resolution criticizing the Middle East ally on settlements.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, say in a statement that the administration “has lost all credibility when it comes to Israel.”
McCarthy and Royce called Washington’s UN Security Council abstention a “stunt” that “hurt our ally Israel and made peace in the region even more difficult to achieve.”
— AP
Hundreds of people attend the funeral of a Jordanian businessman who was among the 39 people killed in the shooting at Istanbul’s Reina nightclub.
The funeral for 44-year-old Nauras Assaf, a Christian, is held Tuesday in the town of Fuheis in central Jordan. Assaf’s wife was wounded in the attack and is recovering in a hospital in Turkey.
Jordan’s ambassador to Turkey, Amjad al-Adayleh, was among those attending the funeral.
Al-Adayleh says, “This attack is condemned by all religions, not only by Islam and Christianity.”
— AP
Unconfirmed reports say two people are hurt in a possible car-ramming near the city of Afula.
There is no immediate comment from police.
Channel 10 says the two injured people in the alleged car-ramming attack are police officers.
The two are seriously hurt, the TV report says.
The driver in the suspected car-ramming attack in the northern West Bank, near the city of Afula, is arrested and taken in for questioning, Channel 10 reports.
The two injured Israelis are female Border Police officers, according to Hebrew reports.
There are conflicting reports on the nature of the incident near Afula.
Channel 10 reports that four motorcycles hit an army post, lightly injuring two female police officers and three Palestinians. That report says one of the motorcycles managed to flee the scene.
Channel 2 says two motorcycles were involved in the collision, and says one male police officer is lightly hurt, while a female police officer is moderately injured.
State Department spokesman John Kirby says he is unaware of any efforts by the incoming Trump administration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
“We’re not privy to any moves, any decisions or active efforts to go ahead and move the embassy,” he tells CNN. “If that’s happening, and I’m certainly in no position to judge, we’re not aware of specific moves that are being made to that end. Our position has been and remains that moving the embassy is not constructive to the peace process, it’s not the right thing to do,” he says, adding that this “wise” policy has been also upheld by previous US administrations.
At the scene of the suspected car-ramming, the Magen David Adom emergency service says it is treating a 20-year-old woman with light-to-moderate injuries to her limbs and a young male with a light face injury.
Police confirm that four motorcycles are involved in the incident in the northern West Bank.
According to police, police officers signaled the drivers to stop at a checkpoint. Three of the four bikes managed to break through the barrier and fled the scene. One of the motorcycles, carrying two passengers, hit the two officers at the site.
Four people — the police officers and two passengers — are lightly or moderately injured, police say.
Police say all leads are being investigated, not classifying the incident as a suspected terror attack.
Police say the Israeli police officers and Palestinian bikers injured in the collision have been taken to the hospital for further treatment.
The officers are lightly hurt; the bikers are moderately-to-seriously injured, police say.
Lebanon is bidding farewell to two of its three victims of the New Years’ Eve attack in an Istanbul nightclub.
Hundreds attend emotional funerals held Tuesday for two of the victims, Haykal Mousallem and Elias Wardini. A third victim, Rita Shami, will be laid to rest Thursday.
The bodies of the three arrived Monday night in Beirut, wrapped in red, white and green Lebanese flags. On Tuesday, relatives and friends of Wardini, a 26-year-old fitness instructor who was engaged to be married, set off fireworks as his white coffin arrived at a church in the district of Ashrafieh.
Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced one hour of national mourning for the victims. Four Lebanese were also wounded in the Istanbul attack.
— AP
President-elect Donald Trump will be given “more information” from the intelligence community about Russian interference in the US election in the coming days.
That’s according to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who briefly addresses reporters on Tuesday as he entered Trump Tower.
Asked about Russia, Pence says “the president-elect will be receiving more information about that and other topics on the world stage” over the course of the coming days.
Trump’s team has been skeptical about intelligence reports that determined Russia interfered with the 2016 election.
Pence ignores a question about whether he had lost confidence in the US intelligence community. Instead, he says it is “a new season” for America’s role in the world.
He adds, “The world will see that with our president-elect taking office that America will be standing tall in the world again, engaging the world again, and standing firmly for America’s interests.”
— AP
An Israeli advocacy group is criticizing what it says is an “exceptionally low” prosecution rate by the Israeli military in cases of violence committed by soldiers against Palestinians.
Yesh Din says the army opened 186 criminal investigations into suspected offenses against Palestinians in 2015, but just four of those investigations yielded indictments.
The group, in an annual report released Tuesday, says the figures were based on the most up-to-date figures from the military. The report says the figures illustrate the military’s “inability and unwillingness” to address unlawful conduct.
— AP
The Egged bus company announces a 24-hour bus strike in Jerusalem and its outlying suburbs, starting Wednesday at 5 a.m.
Illustrative: Israelis waiting to board an Egged bus in the center of Jerusalem, January 17, 2012. (Miriam Alster/ Flash90)
An airstrike in Syria on Tuesday killed at least 25 members of former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front including senior figures, a monitor says.
Unidentified aircraft “hit a major base of Fateh al-Sham near to the town of Sarmada” in the northwestern province of Idlib, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman tells AFP.
— AFP
Netanyahu will be questioned under caution for a second time on Friday morning, Channel 2 reports.
The interrogation will take place at the premier’s residence in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu, who has denied any wrongdoing, was questioned Monday night by police for over three hours on graft suspicions.
Netanyahu’s attorney, Jacob Weinroth, tells Channel 2 the prime minister can be “very relaxed” during the probe, as the allegations against him will prove to be false.
Jacob Weinroth, @netanyahu's lawyer tells @Channel2News the prime minister can be "very relaxed" about the criminal investigation into him
— Raoul Wootliff (@RaoulWootliff) January 3, 2017
Police now suspect the twin shootings in the northern city of Haifa on Tuesday, in which one Israeli man was killed and another injured, may be an act of terrorism, Channel 10 reports.
Initially, police believed the two men worked together in a rabbinical court and suspected the two killings some 30 minutes apart were linked to gangland activity, according to the TV report.
However, the victim was later identified as a van driver, rather than a rabbinical official. As a result, the Israel Police are concerned the attack may have been terrorism and the armed shooter — said by some eyewitnesses to be a woman — may still be in the area, the report says.
Netanyahu is downplaying the “futile” Paris peace summit on January 15, but is concerned resolutions from the confab will be translated into a UN Security Council resolution.
“The Paris summit is a futile summit,” says Netanyahu. “But there are signs they will try to turn resolutions reached there into another resolution at the Security Council. Therefore, the main effort is to prevent another UN resolution and this will preoccupy us in the coming period.”
French President Francois Hollande (R) welcomes President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas upon his arrival on July 21, 2016 at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris. (AFP Photo/Pool/ Stephane de Sakutin)
US President-elect Donald Trump warns Tuesday against releasing any more terror suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison, in a bid to preempt any moves before Barack Obama leaves office.
“There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield,” tweets Trump.
There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
There are 59 prisoners remaining at the controversial detention center, only a handful of whom have been tried for alleged crimes. Many are in legal limbo. Obama came to office vowing to shutter the facility, saying detention without trial did not reflect American values.
But he has run up against political and legal hurdles, Pentagon foot dragging and stubborn Republican opposition in Congress. With Guantanamo’s closure blocked, Obama’s White House has focused on whittling down the number of inmates.
George W. Bush had released or transferred around 500 inmates before leaving office, Obama has released or transferred around 179.
Obama’s administration is reportedly eyeing further transfers before Trump is sworn in on January 20 — the president-elect having on the contrary vowed to “load (Guantanamo) up with some bad dudes” once in office.
— AFP
US lawmakers vote Tuesday to retain congressman Paul Ryan as speaker of the House of Representatives, making him a critical player in Congress as Donald Trump prepares to assume the presidency.
House members vote 239 to 189 to re-elect Ryan to the key post over the top Democrat, former speaker Nancy Pelosi. Five lawmakers vote for other figures.
Ryan, 46, will lead the 115th Congress, which gaveled into session on Tuesday 17 days before Trump’s inauguration.
— AFP
PA President Mahmoud Abbas tells Meretz party activists he would attend the Paris peace summit, and was “disappointed” Netanyahu chose to skip it, the Ynet news website reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, September 15, 2010 (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)
Bill and Hillary Clinton plan to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, putting the 2016 presidential rivals on the same platform only weeks after their tough campaign.
Aides to the former president and former secretary of state say the Clintons will attend the January 20 inauguration. The announcement came shortly after former President George W. Bush’s office said he would attend along with former first lady Laura Bush.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has largely avoided the public eye since Trump’s come-from-behind victory in November.
— AP
Hillary Clinton, holding hands with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, waves to a crowd outside a New York hotel as she arrives to speak to her staff and supporters after losing the race for the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
