PM to ask High Court to give Knesset more time to pass enlistment law — report

South Africa says it will not be reinstating envoy recalled during Gaza protests

South Africa is not reinstating its ambassador to Israel until further notice, the country’s foreign minister announces.

“I’m very glad that I recalled the ambassador, because we could have not been in the situation that we are at now. It’s been a violation that has been going on for a long time, and we can’t be looking away,” International Relations Minister Lindiwe Sisulu says.

“We are holding back on our ambassador until we are certain that we are making headway. For us this is an unacceptable situation, completely unacceptable.”

Ambassador Sisa Ngombane had been recalled to Pretoria in May in protest of Israeli troops killing Palestinian protesters who tried to breach the Gaza border fence.

— Raphael Ahren

Iran threatens to retaliate after Dutch expel two diplomats

Iran protests against the Netherlands’ expulsion of two of its diplomats and threatened to retaliate for the “unfriendly and destructive move.”

A spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service AIVD told AFP on Friday that two employees of Iran’s embassy had been expelled on June 7, without providing further details.

The Dutch ambassador to Tehran has subsequently summoned to express Tehran’s “severe protest” at the move, Iran’s foreign ministry said in an online statement.

“As earlier announced to the ambassador of the Netherlands, the Islamic Republic reserves the right to retaliate,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi says in the statement.

The expulsion was “illogical and illegitimate” and Qassemi called on “Dutch officials to refrain from leveling baseless and absurd accusations.”

Qassemi also calls on the Dutch government to explain “its move to shelter the criminal and terrorist members” of an Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen.

Tehran banned the People’s Mujahedeen in 1981 and the European Union put the group on a terror blacklist between 2002 and 2009.

The two Iranian diplomats were expelled long before arrests announced on Monday by French, Belgian and German authorities of six people — including an Iranian diplomat based in Vienna — on suspicion of involvement in an alleged plot to attack a Mujahedeen rally in a Paris suburb on June 30.

Tehran has said the alleged plot was a “false flag ploy” to harm Iran and that two people arrested in Belgium were members of the Mujahedeen.

— AFP

PA prime minister heading to Turkey for Erdogan inauguration, official agency reports

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah is traveling to Turkey to attend Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inauguration on Tuesday, according to the official WAFA news agency.

Erdogan was re-elected to a new five-year term as Turkish president in late June.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas is not attending Erdogan’s inauguration, WAFA indicates.

The 83-year-old Palestinian leader has not traveled abroad since coming down with pneumonia in late May.

Abbas, however, is scheduled to fly to Moscow to attend the final match of the 2018 World Cup and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jibril Rajoub, a senior Fatah official, told the official PA news agency two weeks ago.

The final match is scheduled to take place next Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to be in Moscow later this week as well.

— Adam Rasgon

PM says he wants ‘excellent coalition’ to last ‘almost until the end of the term’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells coalition leaders that he would like his government to stay intact “almost until the end of the term.”

If no early elections are called, the vote is slated to take place on November 19, 2019.

The prime minister referred to his coalition as an “excellent” one.

Also in the meeting, Netanyahu quarrels with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon after asking him to pass legislation granting mandatory arbitration to employees in the event of a labor dispute.

“Even your own party, they would not let you pass such legislation,” Kahlon shoots back, evidently frustrated that the prime minister was passing on responsibility for the legislation on his office.

“You are a philosopher who can only talk and let others do your work for you. You have been prime minister for ten years and four years before that. And you will be in another twenty years – and you still will never actually do anything,” he adds.

Netanyahu avoids getting into a shouting match with the minister, simply responding that other coalition leaders have prevented passing such legislation in the past, but he would like to give it another go.

Tens of thousands return home after south Syria ceasefire deal

Tens of thousands have returned to their homes in southern Syria since a ceasefire deal was struck between regime ally Russia and rebels to end more than two weeks of deadly bombardment, a monitor says.

The deal was largely holding despite airstrikes on two areas that killed four civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, as rebel evacuations under the deal were postponed.

President Bashar Assad’s regime is determined to retake control of the key southern province of Daraa bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, seven years after protests there sparked Syria’s civil war.

Since June 19, a deadly regime bombardment campaign on the province had caused more than 320,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations, many to the sealed border with Jordan.

— AFP

First boys rescued from Thai cave — local reports

The first four of twelve boys trapped in a flooded Thai cave along with their football coach have been pulled out by rescue teams, according to local reports.

An ambulance has been filmed leaving the site.

Authorities have highlighted the tiny passageway near a T-junction, or Sam Yak in Thai, as the most dangerous element of the journey for the “Wild Boars” team that began Sunday morning, but there are many other potential pitfalls in the rescue operation.

WATCH: BBC footage of ambulance leaving cave site amidst reports first boys from trapped football team have been rescued #thamluangcave #thamluang #ถ้ำหลวง #13ชีวิตติดถ้ำ #13ชีวิตรอดแล้ว #พาหมูป่ากลับบ้าน #ThailandCaveRescue pic.twitter.com/qu441ZuiJH

— Howard Johnson (@Howardrjohnson) July 8, 2018

— with AFP

German police arrest 10 after man punched in ‘anti-Semitic’ attack

German police arrests 10 people over an alleged anti-Semitic attack in a Berlin park, with local media reporting that both victim and suspects are Syrians.

The 25-year-old victim was wearing a chain with a Star of David, which police said was ripped from the victim’s neck by one of the men, while spewing “anti-Semitic insults.”

The group, aged between 15 and 25, including three women, have been detained following the assault in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Police did not give the names or nationalities of the suspects or the victim, but German daily Welt reported that all involved are Syrians.

Police said the victim had approached the group in a park to borrow a lighter, but his cigarette was snatched away.

Judge orders hearing to examine possibility of releasing Duma firebomb suspect to house arrest

A Central District Court judge has ordered a hearing later this week to examine the possibility of releasing to house arrest one of the suspects in the 2015 Duma terror attack.

The decision comes against the wishes of the State Attorney’s Office, which has requested that the 20-year-old remain behind bars until the end of proceedings against him.

Last month, a panel of Central District Court judges ruled to throw out confessions given under duress by the unnamed suspect, who was a minor at the time of the firebombing that killed three members of the Dawabsha family.

The remaining admissions of guilt that were ruled admissible in the case against did not directly tie the suspect to the 2015 attack, leading the defense to submit a request to release the 20-year-old, who has been in jail since December 2015.

The prosecution has insisted that it still has enough evidence to prosecute the alleged accomplice despite the dropped confessions.

‘Terrorist group’ kills 8 Tunisia security forces – ministry

Eight members of Tunisia’s security forces have been killed in a terrorist attack near the border with Algeria, the interior ministry said.

“Eight members of the national guard were killed in an ambush by a terrorist group” in the Ain Sultan area of Jenduba border province, spokesman General Sufyan al-Zaq tells AFP.

— AFP

Mother jailed with her 4 children agrees to be deported back to Nigeria

A Nigerian mother whose joint incarceration with her four children drew heavy criticism in Israel has agreed to be deported over immigration offenses.

A spokeswoman for the Population Immigration and Border Authority tells The Times of Israel that the government is currently coordinating flights for the five of them.

Channel 10 reports that the family is already at Ben Gurion International Airport.

The mother, Marcy, arrived in Israel in 2010 and has remained in the country illegally. She had been jailed with her four children at Givon Prison for over three weeks.

The jailing of the children was first revealed in reports in the Maariv daily and Channel 10 television, with the most recent report airing on Thursday and triggering a flurry of criticism that led Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to appeal to the Nigerian embassy in Israel to convince Marcy to leave the country.

Israeli navy holds joint exercise with French army

The Israeli Navy completed an extended exercise with the French military off the southern French coast yesterday, its first time conducting such a drill in over 50 years, the army says.

Two Israeli warships, the INS Kidon and INS Eilat, took part in the exercise off the coast of Toulon in southern France.

The drill, which began in late June and ended Saturday, included a large variety of scenarios, the army says, including “cooperation with helicopters, firing cannons, training with fighter jets to simulate missiles fired at the troops’ ships, a mass casualty event, the rescue of casualties and more.”

The head of the Israeli Navy, Maj. Gen. Eli Sharvit, met with the head of the French fleet, Admiral Christophe Prazuck during the exercise.

“In the current age, in which there are many revolutions and changes, the view of the Israeli Navy needs to be global,” Sharvit said during the meeting.

“Therefore, the joint exercise with the French fleet, which gave both sides knowledge and new, meaningful capabilities, represents another turning point in strengthening the navy from the standpoint of its international activities,” Sharvit said.

In addition to the exercise, the French Navy has also sent its Dixmude helicopter carrier to Israel’s Haifa port, where it will dock from July 7 to 11, “as part of the cooperation between the two countries’ navies,” the French embassy says.

— Judah Ari Gross

Democratic House candidate pushes back on anti-Semitism accusations

A Somali-American Muslim woman running to succeed Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison in Minnesota has pushed back against accusations of anti-Semitism over comments she made against Israel.

In a 2012 tweet, Minnesota State Representative Ilhan Omar accused Israel of “evil doings” as the Israeli military carried out an aerial campaign meant to halt rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and other terror groups.