Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is leaving for a visit to Europe billed as of “prime importance” after the US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
Rouhani is headed to Switzerland and is scheduled to travel on to Vienna tomorrow, where the nuclear deal was signed in July 2015.
The visit will be an “opportunity to talk about the future of the (nuclear) agreement,” Rouhani tells reporters at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, in images broadcast by state television.
“In the current context of the withdrawal of the United States… and the intense negotiations between Iran and Europe to find a way to preserve this agreement,” the trip “is of prime importance,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said Saturday.
— AFP
German authorities say they have arrested a 27-year-old German woman suspected of being part of the Islamic State group’s “morality police” in Iraq.
Federal prosecutors said Monday that Jennifer W. traveled to Iraq via Turkey and Syria in September 2014, where she joined the extremist group.
In a statement, prosecutors said she patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul, ensuring that women adhered to the dress and behavior codes imposed by IS.
W., whose surname wasn’t released for privacy reasons, was arrested by Turkish police in January 2016 after applying for a passport at the German embassy in Ankara. She was deported to Germany days later.
Prosecutors said she was arrested in southern Germany on Friday and her home in northern Germany searched. She’s accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.
— AP
An Israeli Arab Greek Orthodox priest who leads an initiative to integrate Christian Arabs into the IDF was the subject of a year-long police investigation into various criminal offenses, according to reports in Hebrew media.
The investigation into Gabriel Naddaf was closed six months ago, and police have recommended the case against Naddaf be closed. The State Attorney’s Office have not yet decided whether to indict the priest.
The Haifa District Court lifted the gag order on details of the case yesterday.
The reports did not indicate what police were investigating, but two years ago Channel 2 news published recordings of conversations between Naddaf and young Israeli and Palestinian men, which the priest purportedly promises to help them in exchange for sexual favors.
Naddaf is controversial figure in Israel for openly calling on Christian Israelis to serve in the IDF. His activities have drawn criticism from Arab MKs and even threats against his family.
Naddaf has denied the allegations against him, and has maintained the recordings were faked by critics in the Arab and Palestinian communities who he said were trying to thwart his work promoting the IDF.
Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay says that fellow opposition party Yesh Atid is betraying Israeli soldiers and its own voters by supporting government legislation addressing ultra-Orthodox military enlistment set for a vote later today.
Speaking at the opening of his party’s faction meeting in the Knesset, Gabbay says that the current proposal will have no effect on the military draft.
“Not one ultra-Orthodox [seminary student] who would not have been enlisted yesterday will be enlisted tomorrow as a result of this law,” he says. “Let’s be honest about that.”
Claiming that the party “effectively joined the government,” Gabbay lashes out at Yesh Atid, whose leader Yair Lapid has vowed that his party will support the bill. A vote by Yesh Atid lawmakers in favor of the bill could allow its passage, despite threats from ultra-Orthodox members of the coalition to oppose the legislation. A failure to pass the bill could portend the government’s collapse.
“This is what it looks like when a party has given up. This is what a betrayal of our soldiers and its own voters looks like, and this is what a party that has switched sides looks like,” Gabbay said of Yesh Atid.
“Yesh Atid has stopped believing that ‘we can beat them.’ Instead, they say ‘we will join them.'”
— Raoul Wootliff
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid hits back at claims made by his Zionist Union counterpart that he has “effectively joined the government” by announcing support for legislation addressing ultra-Orthodox military enlistment set for a vote later today.
Lapid says that Avi Gabbay is “playing political games rather than working for the good of the country.”
“The role of the opposition is not to oppose good and proper laws for the State of Israel and the people of Israel; the role of the opposition is to offer an alternative, our job is to offer the country a better direction and values,” Lapid tells his Yesh Atid faction meeting at the Knesset.
“A strong, optimistic vision is the way to be an opposition, and whoever wants to lead the country is first and foremost measured by the ability to show national responsibility,” he continues.
Rejecting Gabbay’s assessment that the current bill will not change ultra-Orthodox enlistment rates, Lapid says that coalition ultra-Orthodox parties “Shas and United Torah Judaism will vote against the bill because they know it will mean more being enlisted,” adding that the law is supported by the IDF and its chief of staff.
— Raoul Wootliff
A public opinion survey reveals that Israelis are skeptical about the potential for success of an expected peace plan from the Trump administration.
The survey by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University indicates that nearly three-quarters of respondents think the plan has a low chance of success. The survey did not ask respondents why they think so.
The survey also found that that 77 percent of respondents think Israel’s interests are important to US President Donald Trump, whereas more than 60 percent think the Palestinians’ interests are not important to Trump.
The survey published today, which has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points, included 600 Jewish and Arab respondents.
— AP
A regime offensive in southern Syria has forced more than 270,000 people from their homes, the United Nations says.
“We were expecting the number of displaced in southern Syria to reach 200,000, but it has already exceeded 270,000 people in record time,” says Mohammad Hawari, the spokesman for UN refugee agency UNHCR in Amman.
Nearly two weeks of ferocious airstrikes and barrel bombing have seen regime forces retake swaths of rebel-held territory in the southern province of Daraa.
— AFP
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says legislation addressing ultra-Orthodox military enlistment set for a vote later today “will be a great contribution to the defense establishment and the state of Israel.”
Speaking at his Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting at the Knesset, Liberman claimed victory for the bill, saying that had it not been for his party, the government would have passed a bill permitting vast exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.
“I want to remind all those present here of another meeting at the end of the last winter session at which Yisrael Beytenu stood our ground and prevented another law, a bad law,” he says. “We said we would require two things — a law that is accepted by the IDF and that can pass the Supreme Court, this does both.”
Liberman thanks the opposition’s Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid for supporting the bill, while taking a swipe at the Zionist Union, which has vowed to oppose it.
“I welcome their decision because it shows their real place — between Meretz and the Joint (Arab) List,” he said of the Zionist Union. “They have lost what it means to be a party of statesmen.”
— Raoul Wootliff
A French employee of his country’s consulate accused of smuggling dozens of guns from Gaza to the West Bank in an official car appeared in a Beersheba court.
Romain Franck, a 24-year-old French citizen, is accused along with several Palestinian suspects of using a diplomatic vehicle to smuggle dozens of guns from Gaza to the West Bank.
After Franck’s lawyer requested more time to prepare his case and asked for an official translation into French of the charge sheet, the judge adjourned the trial to September 16.
Franck allegedly took advantage of reduced security checks for consular vehicles to transport 70 pistols and two assault rifles from Gaza to the West Bank.
Israeli authorities have stressed he acted on his own without the consulate’s knowledge, adding that diplomatic relations with France were not affected.
— with AFP
Jordan’s foreign minister says he will hold talks with his Russian counterpart over the conflict in Syria.
Ayman Safadi said he will head to Moscow tomorrow.
Russia backs a Syrian government offensive in the southern province of Daraa, which has displaced tens of thousands of Syrians, sending most of them toward the Israeli or Jordanian borders.
Safadi says his meeting with Sergey Lavrov will produce more understandings and will “take us more steps forward to contain this crisis and prevent more destruction.”
Safadi said Amman has open channels with Damascus and Moscow and the talks will focus on reaching a ceasefire and halting the displacement.
— AP
Authorities have arrested a Belgian married couple of Iranian heritage and charged them with preparing an extremist attack in France against the Iranian opposition there.
The federal prosecutor’s office say that the two, both in their thirties, are suspected of planning a bomb attack Saturday against an Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin, in the French town of Villepinte, which is close to Paris.
The office says the couple was detained while in their Mercedes, which contained about half a kilogram of TATP explosives and a detonator. After their detention, police raided five more homes over the weekend but did not elaborate on the results.
Prosecutors say a suspected accomplice was detained in France. An Iranian diplomat in Vienna was also detained in Germany.
— AP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hits back at reports detailing leaks from police investigations into his wife Sara Netanyahu’s conduct at the Prime Minister’s Residence, saying that she has been “trampled on by the media for 20 years.”
Speaking to Likud supporters at the party’s faction meeting at the Knesset, the prime minister thanks them “for all the support, not just for me, but for my wife.”
“She is going through a hard time now with constant attacks from the media, not just now but for 20 years the media have trampled on her,” he says to applause from party activists.
Sara Netanyahu was indicted last week along with Ezra Saidoff, a former deputy director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, on charges of fraud and breach of trust. The two are accused of fraudulently charging some NIS 359,000 ($100,000) in gourmet meals to the state’s expense between 2010 and 2013.
Recent days have seen several reports of testimony she gave police in the investigation, including transcripts of her criticizing staff and complaining that she and her husband have to eat schnitzel every night.
Netanyahu says the media is focusing on “rubbish” rather than the “incredible work she does for the people of this country every day.”
“She does so much, how she helps lone soldiers, bereaved families, Holocaust survivors,” he says. “So different from the person that the media is trying to present.”
In a possible jab at critics who have demanded Netanyahu step down amid his wife’s legal troubles, Netanyahu says support from the public “doesn’t just support us, it encourages us to continue for many years to come.”
— Raoul Wootliff
Four Palestinians are injured by IDF gunfire in the southern Gaza Strip, apparently after they tried to breach the security fence, according to Palestinian media.
News outlets in the coastal enclave report that the four youths were taken into Israeli territory after they were shot, presumably to receive medical treatment in Israel.
The incident is said to have occurred east of the city of Rafah in the southern Strip.
— Judah Ari Gross
The IDF spokesperson says one of the four Palestinians who attempted to breach the Gaza border fence earlier this afternoon was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
He was one of four Gazans who sneaked across the fence and set fire to an abandoned IDF outpost, east of the city of Rafah in the southern Strip.
Another Gazan is reportedly in critical condition. Another suspect was taken for questioning in Israel.
Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran accuses Tehran of being behind an alleged plot to bomb a meeting of opposition figures in Paris at the weekend.
“The terrorists from the mullahs’ regime in Belgium assisted by its terrorist-diplomats planned this attack,” says a statement sent to AFP in French, which also calls for Iranian embassies to be closed in Europe.
— AFP
Seven former American ambassadors to the United Nations are calling on the Trump administration to restore funding to the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the ex-envoys from both Republican and Democratic administrations said withholding funds from the UN Relief and Works Agency will have national security implications for US partners in the region, including Israel and Jordan. The agency faces a major budget shortfall due in part to the suspension of US assistance.
The US has been the top donor to the agency, and last year provided $364 million. But in January, the Trump administration announced it was withholding more than half of its initial installment of $125 million until the agency implements structural changes.
— AP
The FBI announces the arrest of a professed supporter of Al-Qaeda who was planning to target members of the US military and their families with a bomb attack on a July 4 parade in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts, who also used the name Abdur Raheem Rafeeq, told an undercover agent that he wanted to load up a vehicle with explosives and blow it up during the US national day celebrations on Wednesday.
“His desire: to kill military personnel and their families,” sayd FBI special agent Steve Anthony.
FBI and Justice Department officials said Pitts, a US native with “an extensive criminal history” was arrested yesterday after discussing how to carry out the attack with the undercover agent.
Pitts was charged with attempting to provide support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
— AFP
The Knesset Ethics Committee slaps a one week ban on Joint (Arab) List chairman Ayman Odeh over a confrontation he had with police officers in May.
The punishment comes following a complaint to the committee by Likud MK’s Oren Hazan and Nava Boker about Odeh’s conduct at the Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa while he was visiting Arab Israeli activist Jafar Farah who was being treated for a broken knee he sustained after his arrest at a demonstration against Israel’s response to protests along the Gaza border.
Odeh was caught on camera challenging a police officer at the hospital who blocked his way, calling him a “zero,” and asking him “who do you think you are?”
The committee found that “the language used by MK Odeh was lowly and foul and broke the ethics rules placed on parliament members.”
Boker said at the time that she had asked the Knesset Ethics Committee to discipline Odeh over the confrontation.
“We cannot remain silent when Knesset members humiliate [police], harm them and turn them into a punching bag,” she tweeted.
— Raoul Wootliff
Two US senators visit the northern Syrian town of Manbij, where talks between Washington and Ankara narrowly avoided a standoff between the NATO allies earlier this year.
Lindsey Graham from South Carolina and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire tour the town with members of the Manbij Military Council.
“The aim of the visit was to see the security situation in Manbij,” said its spokesman Sherfan Darwish.
The MMC is linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that ousted the Islamic State group from Manbij in 2016 with help from a US-led coalition.
US Senator @LindseyGrahamSC and @SenatorShaheen are in Manbij to see the situation on the ground & discuss with Manbij military and civilian councils to strengthen stability and security in the region @shervanderwish pic.twitter.com/mvLm0QR46T
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) July 2, 2018
American and French coalition troops are still stationed in Manbij, but there were fears earlier this year they could be caught up in a clash with Turkey.
Ankara had pledged to march on Manbij after seizing the nearby area of Afrin from Kurdish fighters it sees as “terrorists.”
But the US and Turkey agreed on a “roadmap” last month that avoided a confrontation, and Turkish troops began patrolling areas to the town’s north under the deal.
— AFP
Firefighters are working to put out a large brush fire in the northern Negev that was apparently sparked by firebomb-bearing kites flown over the Gaza border.
The blaze near the Shikma stream has burned 200 dunams so far, and firefighters have not been able to bring the fire under control.
United Torah Judaism party head Yaakov Litzman is threatening to quit the coalition if the bill formalizing military enlistment for ultra-Orthodox students is passed by the Knesset.
“We must reach a situation so that anyone who wants to study in a yeshiva in Israel can do so undisturbed,” he says. “If the draft law passes, we will leave the coalition.”
Litzman’s threat comes hours before MKs are due to hold a first vote on the contentious legislation, which has pitted the Knesset’s opposition parties against each other.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has arrived in Switzerland for talks expected to focus on salvaging progress from the Iran nuclear deal after the Trump administration’s walkout.
Rouhani begins a two-day visit to the neutral Alpine nation, starting in Zurich before heading to Bern, the capital, for deal-signings, talks and a news conference on Tuesday.
Since 1980, shortly after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Switzerland has held the “protecting power mandate” on behalf of the United States in Iran. It recently became an intermediary between Iran and regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Rouhani is leaving Iran just as protests have erupted in the country’s south, and Trump said he got Saudi Arabia to agree to increasing oil production — which could lower the price of oil, possibly impacting Iran’s economy.
— AP
President Reuven Rivlin rejects a request for clemency from former tourism minister Stas Misezhnikov, who is serving a 15-month prison term on breach of trust charges, Hebrew-language media reports.
Misezhnikov, a Yisrael Beytenu lawmaker who served as minister in 2009-2013, was prosecuted for allotting ministry funding for a student festival in 2012 in the southern port city of Eilat and then asking organizers to employ his romantic partner in return. Organizers complied, paying her tens of thousands of shekels during the period in question. The ministry’s funding came to some NIS 1 million ($270,000).
The charges against Misezhnikov were linked to a massive corruption investigation into a number of Yisrael Beytenu party officials.
A New York grand jury charges disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein with additional sexual assault charges in a case dating back to 2006, prosecutors announced Monday.
Previously charged with rape and sexual assault against two women, he faces an additional count of criminal sexual act in the first degree, and two counts of predatory sexual assault against a third woman.
The new charges are punishable by a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life imprisonment, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance says.
— AFP
An Iranian general earlier today accused Israel of manipulating weather to prevent rain over the Islamic republic, alleging his country was facing cloud “theft,” before being contradicted by the nation’s weather chief.
“The changing climate in Iran is suspect,” Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization reportedly told a press conference earlier today.
“Foreign interference is suspected to have played a role in climate change,” Jalali was quoted as saying, insisting results from an Iranian scientific study “confirm” the claim. “Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain.”
Iran’s own meteorological service strikes a skeptical note, however.
General Jalali “probably has documents of which I am not aware, but on the basis of meteorological knowledge, it is not possible for a country to steal snow or clouds,” said the head of Iran’s meteorological service Ahad Vazife, quoted by ISNA.
“Iran has suffered a prolonged drought, and this is a global trend that does not apply only to Iran,” Vazife says.
— AFP
A Thai youth football team of 12 teenaged boys and their 25-year-old coach were “found safe” today deep in a cave in northern Thailand nine days after they went missing, a provincial governor tells reporters.
“We found all 13 safe… we will take care of them until they can move,” Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn says.
— AFP
The UN envoy for Yemen was in Sanaa for talks with rebels aimed at finding a solution to fighting in the port city of Hodeida, which the insurgents hold.
Martin Griffiths is set to meet with the Iran-allied Huthi rebels, who control the capital along with the Red Sea city of Hodeida, home to the country’s most valuable port.
The British diplomat did not make a statement upon his arrival at the Yemeni capital’s international airport.
Griffiths had already been leading UN diplomatic efforts on ending Yemen’s three-year conflict when a UAE-backed government offensive was launched to retake Hodeida port on June 13.
— AFP
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews are protesting the upcoming Knesset vote on a contentious bill that would formalize the conscription of yeshiva students to the IDF.
Protesters gathered at the grave of late Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, singing songs and reciting prayers in a bid to increase pressure on the ultra-Orthodox Shas party to veto the legislation.
Former Republican lawmaker Ron Paul tweets and later deletes a racist and anti-Semitic cartoon showing minorities with exaggerated and stereotypical features punching Uncle Sam.
The cartoon features a Jewish man with a large hooked nose, a Chinese man with slanted eyes, a black man with large lips, and a third figure that social media users identified as a neanderthal. All four are draped in a red cape made from the Soviet flag and are captioned as saying: “Cultural Marxism!”
jesus fucking christ man pic.twitter.com/eaLMve87Ex
— Patrick Blanchfield (@PatBlanchfield) July 2, 2018
Paul, who is notorious for his associations with the far right, was swiftly criticized for the post by Twitter users.
The retired lawmaker later replaced the image with one that says “political correctness,” with a “no” symbol over it.
Are you stunned by what has become of American culture? Well, it's not an accident. You've probably heard of "Cultural Marxism," but do you know what it means? … More here: https://t.co/bqyiekaSkX pic.twitter.com/9bm5EA17tk
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) July 2, 2018
The Israel Defense Forces announces a new round of appointments for brigadier generals, again failing to offer a new position to the controversial Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter.
Winter, a former head of the Givati Brigade, has reportedly threatened to leave the military, if he does not receive command over a division or a similar position appropriate to his background.
Winter came under public scrutiny over his role in the 2014 Gaza war, which he described at the time as a religious conflict, drawing ire and condemnation in Israel.
The controversy over his lack of an appointment has also raised accusations that the army refuses to promote him because he is a devout Jew, something the army fiercely disputes.
— Judah Ari Gross
The State Department is suggesting some countries continuing to import Iranian oil could avoid sanctions after restrictions are set to be re-imposed in November.
The restrictions follow the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Director for policy planning Brian Hook says the US is “not looking to grant licenses or waivers,” but “we are prepared to work with countries that are reducing their imports on a case-by-case basis.”
The announcement follows comments from US President Donald Trump aired by Fox News Sunday that European allies will face sanctions if they continue to trade with Iran.
The Trump administration began to dismantle sanction relief for Iran after pulling out of the landmark 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran in May, and has faced significant push back from key European allies.
— AP
A Joint (Arab) List MK brands his colleagues “murderers,” as he voiced opposition to legislation that would see Israel deduct the Palestinian Authority’s tax revenues by the amount it pays out to convicted terrorists.
Addressing the plenum, Jamal Zahalka slams former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, who initiated the bill, accusing him the “murder of thousands of people.”
Turning to lawmakers, Zahalka says, “You support the murder of Palestinian children, and you sit here and yell how Palestinians are the terrorists.”
“The initiators of the law are shameless. You are the occupiers, you are the murderers, terrorists, and thieves.
Harvey Weinstein will be back in court soon to face new charges alleging a sex crime against a third woman.
The Hollywood mogul is scheduled for arraignment on Monday, July 9.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said Monday that an updated indictment alleges the Hollywood mogul performed a forcible sex act on the woman in 2006.
The new charges join previous ones alleging forcible sex acts in 2004 and 2013.
A representative for Weinstein had no immediate comment.
— AP
Iran’s foreign minister dismisses a plot to attack an Iranian opposition rally in France as a “false flag ploy” designed to overshadow a tour by his country’s president to Europe.
“How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its ‘plotters’ arrested,” Mohammad Javad Zarif tweets, referring to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s tour of European countries that began on earlier today.
“Iran unequivocally condemns all violence and terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all concerned to uncover what is a sinister false flag ploy,” he says.
How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its “plotters” arrested. Iran unequivocally condemns all violence & terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all concerned to uncover what is a sinister false flag ploy.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) July 2, 2018
