The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they happened.
The Republican-led US House of Representatives approves a deal to avert a partial government shutdown due to start this weekend, ending one part of a long-running row over the federal budget.
The vote comes on the eve of President Joe Biden’s annual State of the Union address, with the Democrat preparing to deliver a career-defining speech as he bids for a second term against Republican rival Donald Trump.
Five months into the fiscal year, Congress still has not approved the 12 annual spending bills that make up the federal budget, with several departments facing deadlines of midnight on Friday night to keep the lights on.
Today’s House vote to approve a $460 billion package — thrashed out over months of intense bipartisan negotiations — takes the United States a step closer to keeping the government funded through the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
The bill — funding the departments of agriculture, justice, interior, transportation, housing, veterans affairs, commerce and energy — must still pass the Senate before President Joe Biden can sign it into law and avert a partial shutdown.
However, the bill covers less than a third of overall discretionary spending, and some of the most contentious battles have been put off for a second bill that needs to get to Biden’s desk by March 22.
That tranche covers the military, border security, Congress, and various other federal departments and agencies.
Saudi Arabia blasts Israel for advancing plans for another 3,500 settlement homes in the West Bank earlier today.
Riyadh’s foreign ministry describes the move as an attempt to “Judaize large parts of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in contravention of all international resolutions, international human rights law and the United Nations Charter, and contradicting efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.”
The kingdom reiterates its call for a two-state solution on the pre-1967 lines.
Religious Zionism MK Tzvi Sukkot adds his voice to the growing condemnation coming from within the government in response to the Likud party’s disdain of the state commission of inquiry into the 2021 Meron disaster.
“As someone who has visited [Meron] for decades, unfortunately, I can say that overcrowding and overlapping were the defining symbol of Mount Meron on Lag Ba’omer,” the ultranationalist MK writes on X, describing “desperate disorder, together with urgency and chaos on narrow slippery stairs” as being the norm at the hilltop gravesite.
“The attempt to define the findings of the commission of inquiry as political is sad, infuriating and disrespectful to the dozens of victims,” he adds.
Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV reports that US and British airstrikes have targeted Yemen’s Hodeidah airport.
There was no immediate comment from US or British officials.
Earlier, the US vowed to hold Yemen’s Houthi rebels accountable for a strike on a bulk carrier that killed two, apparently the first fatalities in the Iran-backed rebel group’s attacks on shipping.
“We will continue to hold them accountable. We call on governments around the world to do the same,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
The US condemns the latest settlement approvals made by Israel earlier today.
“Settlements continue to be a barrier to peace. Settlements continue to be inconsistent with international law,” US State Department Matthew Miller says, reiterating a stance that was voiced for the first time last month by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when Israel announced its intention to advance plans for thousands of new settlement homes, which were formally green-lit earlier today.
In characterizing settlements as inconsistent with international law, Blinken restored historic US policy on the issue and rejected a stance implemented by the former administration,
“These settlements don’t just harm the Palestinian people, but they ultimately weaken Israel’s security and weaken the prospects for a lasting agreement that would provide real peace and real security for the Israeli people,” Miller says.
South Africa appeals to the International Court of Justice for additional measures to be implemented against Israel in its war with the Hamas terror organization in Gaza, doing so in light of what it says are “new facts and changes in the situation in Gaza.”
In the application to the World Court, South Africa writes that the “Republic of South Africa is compelled to return to the Court in light of the new facts and changes in the situation in Gaza — particularly the situation of widespread starvation — brought about by the continuous egregious breaches of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by the State of Israel.”
It requests that either additional provisional measures be enacted against Israel or that existing measures be modified “in order urgently to ensure the safety and security of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, including over a million children.”
In January, the UN’s top court ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide. Israel and its Western allies rejected the allegation as baseless.
The key demands made by the court on January 26 were for Israel to “prevent and punish” incitement to genocide, and “enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to Gaza to alleviate civilian suffering in the territory.
Israel says it does all it can to spare civilians and is only targeting Hamas terrorists. It says Hamas’s tactic of embedding in civilian areas and institutions makes it difficult to avoid civilian casualties.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is attending a meeting with war cabinet minister Benny Gantz and UK National Security Adviser Tim Barrow, Gantz’s office says in a statement.
The meeting follows earlier talks between Gantz and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron says he spoke with Israel war cabinet member Benny Gantz earlier today about Israel’s duty to provide aid to Gaza and Britain’s concern at the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah.
“I made clear the steps Israel must take to increase aid into Gaza, and the UK’s deep concern about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah,” Cameron says. “These are tough but necessary conversations.”
On Tuesday, Cameron said he would tell Gantz that patience was running thin over the “dreadful suffering” in Gaza.
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party demands Likud retract the “shameful statement” made by the party earlier today in which it derided the inquiry into the deadly Meron crush as a ‘political weapon’ used against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his opponents.
“I call on the Likud spokesman to withdraw his shameful response to the commission of inquiry into the Meron disaster and its findings,” Arbel says. “We must all respect the dead and their families and guarantee that we will do everything to implement the committee’s findings in full to save human lives.”
Likud MK Eli Dallal also appears to criticize his own party, writing on X that “if there is nothing good/smart/or leaderly to say, it’s better not to say anything!”
The IDF announces the death of a soldier killed during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip today, bringing the toll of slain troops in the ground offensive against Hamas to 247.
He is named as Staff Sgt. David Sasson, 21, of the Oketz canine unit, from Ganot Hadar.
Another 12 soldiers were wounded, five of them seriously — three of the Commando Brigade and two of the Oketz unit — in the same battle against Hamas operatives, the IDF says.
In a separate incident in southern Gaza, another soldier of the Commando Brigade was seriously wounded.
In comments apparently aimed at the ultra-Orthodox community, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says enlisting in the military is the only way to ensure the deaths of soldiers amid the war are not in vain.
“We paid heavy prices in the war and lost commanders and troops. We will guarantee at all times that their sacrifice will not be in vain. There is no way to do this except to enlist for meaningful service, wear the uniform, and become commanders,” Halevi says at a Navy officers’ graduation ceremony in Haifa.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet later today at the White House with several families of the American hostages in Gaza, a US official confirms.
Top US officials have met repeatedly with the relatives of the hostages since October 7, as Washington has been closely involved in efforts to secure their release.
Of the 134 Israelis still being held by Hamas, six of them are American citizens believed to still be alive.
The IDF and Shin Bet say the commander of Hamas’s rocket unit in central Gaza was eliminated in an airstrike in the past day.
Amar Atiya Darwish Aladini was responsible for Hamas’s rocket fire from the so-called central camps over the past several decades, at least from the 2008 war, according to a joint statement.
The IDF and Shin Bet say Aladini “played a central role in the preparations” for the terror group’s October 7 onslaught, and directed rocket fire on Israeli cities and IDF troops in Gaza amid the fighting.
The IDF says it also carried out strikes on several Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya over the past day, in response to rocket fire on Sderot.
The targets included hideout apartments where terror operatives were gathered and weapons were stored, other weapon depots, rocket launchers, and tunnels, it says.
A missile fired from Yemen hit a bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, with the crew reporting at least two dead and six wounded, a US official says.
The missile caused “significant damage” to the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned vessel, the official says, adding that its “crew reports at least two fatalities and six injured crewmembers and have abandoned the ship.”
After a months-long investigation, the Shin Bet has concluded that Palestinians who entered Israel from Gaza for work prior to the October 7 Hamas terror assault did not provide Hamas with intelligence information that would assist with the assault, Channel 12 reports.
According to the report, the Shin Bet has investigated some 3,000 Gazans who had permits to work in Israel to assess if they had provided the terror group with information about the communities they were planning on attacking and concluded that no such concerted effort had been made.
“There’s no concern that the people who were investigated passed information to Hamas as a result of their work in Israel,” Channel 12 states.
The report adds that 16,000 Gazans had permits to work in Israel, meaning that the Shin Bet investigation examined roughly 18% of the workforce.
Many countries that paused funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency are likely having second thoughts and payments could resume soon, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide says.
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations that some of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel that launched the current war in Gaza
Norway, a top donor to UNRWA, has maintained its funding and transferred 275 million crowns ($26 million) in February, its regular annual contribution, and says more could come. It is also lobbying countries that have paused funding to resume.
“I think that a large number of those countries who suspended are (having) second thoughts,” Barth Eide tells Reuters in an interview, citing the recognition from these nations that “they cannot punish the whole Palestinian society.”
“This is increasingly recognized and agreed by many,” he says after meeting Norwegian aid organizations to take stock of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“But then, of course, they need an honorable way out, which means they are hoping, I think — without speaking for individual countries — that they will get something from these investigations that suggest that they can say: “Well, we needed to suspend, but now we’re back.'”
The UN is conducting an internal probe into the UNRWA allegations, while former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is leading an independent review.
Earlier today, Qatar and Iraq both pledged to give an extra $25 million to the UN agency.
Explosions rang out in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa on Wednesday during a visit to the Black Sea hub by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the pair tell reporters.
“We heard the sound of sirens and explosions that took place near us. We did not have time to get to a shelter,” Mitsotakis says according to an official Ukrainian translation.
“It is a very intense experience… It’s really different to read about the war in newspapers, and to hear it with your own ears, see it with your own eyes,” he adds.
Zelensky says the strike had left “dead and wounded” but he did not have figures.
“You can see who we are facing. They don’t care where they strike,” he says in a joint press conference.
Both were visiting the southern port city of Odesa, which has been under renewed fire ever since Russia exited an agreement protecting Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea in the summer of 2023.
The Labor party submits a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a state commission of inquiry finds him personally responsible for the April 2021 Mount Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of a second-century sage in northern Israel despite numerous safety warnings ahead of time.
“The State Commission of Inquiry regarding the disaster at Mount Meron placed personal, direct and clear responsibility on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that he knew about the danger, ignored the many warnings that were sent to him and did not oversee the implementation of the government’s decisions on the matter,” Labor says in a statement asserting that the government “must be replaced now.”
“This is a government that is dangerous to the State of Israel, that does not know how to take responsibility, neither for the Mount Meron disaster nor for the October 7 disaster,” the statement says.
Labor’s announcement comes after Netanyahu’s Likud party accused former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett of turning the 2021 Mount Meron disaster “into a political weapon” against their successor. In response, Lapid accused Netanyahu of “harming the memory” of the victims in an attempt to evade responsibility.
Following the release of the commission’s findings, Labor leader Merav Michaeli called Netanyahu “dangerous for as long as he sits in the prime minister’s chair.”
Multiple no-confidence motions against Netanyahu brought by Labor and Lapid’s Yesh Atid have failed in recent months.
Speaking from his hospital bed in Hadassah Medical Center after he was injured in a terror attack at a bus station in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, 64-year-old Tzvi Tal recounts the moment he realized he had been stabbed.
“I was waiting at the station for my bus and suddenly I felt someone slap me on the back,” he tells the press. “I turned around and saw that he was running away, and I felt like something had been left in my back and realized that there was a knife there.”
As he was alone at the bus stop at the time, he says he resorted to trying to flag down cabs and other vehicles in the street to seek help, although many passed by without stopping as the knife wasn’t visible to them and they didn’t realize what had happened.
He says that the perpetrator of the attack, a 14-year-old boy, had been at the bus station with him and he assumed that he had also been waiting for the bus, but in the end “he was waiting for me.”
Tal, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, says “we’re sitting on a powder keg” in Jerusalem, and attributed his escape with relatively minor injures to a higher power.
“The reason things like this don’t happen every other second is because someone is watching over us, making sure that it doesn’t,” he says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the findings of the Meron disaster inquiry is “a shameful disgrace” to the memory of the 45 people killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite in 2021.
“The attempt to discredit Maj. Gen. Yanai and Rabbi Mordechai Karlitz, the former mayor of Bnei Brak, as if their considerations were political, only proves the low level to which Netanyahu has stooped in his attempts to avoid responsibility for a disaster in which a state investigative committee determined emphatically that he was guilty,” Lapid says.
Earlier, the Likud party released a statement accusing Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who ordered the state commission of inquiry, of using the disaster as a “political weapon” against Netanyahu.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who is responsible for planning Israel’s Independence Day events, announces that in light of the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza the traditional national Independence Day fireworks show will not be held this year.
She calls for the heads of local municipalities to follow suit and cancel the fireworks portion of their festivities.
In 2022, several major cities in Israel including Tel Aviv, Herzliya and Netanya, announced that they would no longer be holding fireworks shows, citing objections from military veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Independence Day will take place on May 14.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited the Eli premilitary academy earlier today and met with the students to discuss the importance of serving in the IDF and of balancing religious obligations with national service, his office says in a statement.
His visit came amid fierce debate over the military draft exemptions currently enjoyed by members of the ultra-Orthodox community, and after he vowed last month to put an end to the practice.
During his visit, Gallant met with the students and teachers and heard about the graduates of the school who fell amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
The students at the religious Zionist academy, he said, are proof that “it is possible to hold a weapon in one hand and a [Jewish study] book in the other.”
Telling the students that Israel will pursue Hamas “everywhere, all over Israel, across the Middle East,” Gallant said he believes that the war against the Gaza terror group is “the end of an era and the beginning of an era — the route we are traveling these days will be the one that leads us for years to come and the way we will live in the Middle East.
“I think that faith and Torah study are one of the most important foundations of the people of Israel, and when I see that it takes place alongside similar excellence on the battlefield, I want to tell you that as the defense minister, I am proud that there are soldiers like you in the IDF,” Gallant added.
“Study and fighting are the two areas that guarantee our future, and in both there is also a mutual guarantee. The ability to continue learning, and on the other hand to be able to defend the State of Israel and what we have, is the proof that without physical existence there is no spiritual existence.”
Three crew members are missing from the Barbados-flagged bulk carrier True Confidence and four others have been badly burned after the vessel was damaged off Yemen earlier today, a shipping source says.
A British monitoring agency reported earlier that a merchant vessel had been damaged in an attack south of Yemen and coalition forces were supporting it. The ship’s owner said it had been hit by a missile presumed to have come from Yemen’s Houthis.
The shipping source, who declines to be identified, says the vessel appeared to have been abandoned.
There is no immediate claim of responsibility for any attack. But Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping since mid-November.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency says it received a report of an incident 54 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s port city of Aden. It says authorities are investigating the incident but gave no further details.
A US defense official says smoke was seen coming from the True Confidence. The official, who declines to be named, tells Reuters a lifeboat had also been seen in the water near the ship.
The IDF says fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon town of Yaroun, and another building in Kafra.
Artillery shelling was also carried out to “remove a threat” in the area of Kfarhamam, the IDF adds.
Earlier today, an explosive-laden drone launched by Hezbollah at Metula was downed by troops, the IDF says.
The IDF says no injuries were caused in the incident.
The IDF says fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon town of Yaroun, and another building in Kafra.
Artillery shelling was also carried out to "remove a threat" in the area of Kfarhamam, the IDF adds.
Earlier today, an explosive-laden drone… https://t.co/4YFAv7odLm pic.twitter.com/8cKZ40mM4n
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 6, 2024
Foreign Minister Israel Katz calls out past and present female leaders and ministers, asking them to speak out in the wake of the UN report accusing Hamas of sexual violence on October 7 and beyond.
Turning to “distinguished women leaders,” Katz says on X that “it is critical to hear your voice as international women leaders, in order to put an end to the atrocities that Israeli women are going through in the captivity of the Hamas.”
He tags US Vice President Kamala Harris, Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s FM Annalena Baerbock, former US first lady Michelle Obama, past US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and the leaders of Iceland, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, and more.
Katz includes an image of 19-year-old Naama Levy, a hostage who was filmed being dragged into a jeep with the seat of her pants soaked in blood.
Distinguished women leaders,
Following the publication of the @UN report on sexual violence committed by the Hamas terror organization, it is critical to hear your voice as international women leaders, in order to put an end to the atrocities that Israeli women are going through… pic.twitter.com/LRmQM3jQMK— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) March 6, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party accuses former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett of turning the 2021 Mount Meron disaster “into a political weapon” against Netanyahu, after a state commission of inquiry found him personally responsible for the incident, in which dozens of Jewish pilgrims people were trampled to death.
“The Meron disaster is a tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims. In practice, the government has already implemented necessary conclusions” and last year’s pilgrimage was carried out without incident, a Likud spokesman says in a statement promising to “examine the need to draw additional operational lessons to prevent the recurrence of a disaster of this kind.”
“However, we are sorry that for the first time in the country’s history, the government headed by Bennett and Lapid established a commission of inquiry against its predecessor on the political right, and that a key member of the commission is Lapid’s associate, Shlomo Yanai, who received an offer from him for a place on the Yesh Atid list for the Knesset,” the spokesman alleged.
“Lapid’s cynical and deliberate attempt to turn the Meron disaster into a political weapon will not succeed.”
The Likud spokesman’s statement stands in stark contrast with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, also a member of Likud, who served as public security minister at the time of the disaster and was also listed as one of those bearing personal responsibility by the commission.
“Since the Meron disaster, I carry with me the grief of the families,” he says, admitting that while there was “a long-standing failure in organizing the event and the infrastructure of the place” it still “happened on my watch… and therefore I am responsible.”
The state commission of inquiry established by then-prime minister Bennett in June 2021 in the wake of the disaster released its final report today, stating that there was “a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses that visit the site.”
However, it declined to recommend any sanction for the prime minister.
The IDF says troops have captured hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives during its ongoing raid on the Hamad Town residential complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
The Commando Brigade’s Maglan and Egoz units, along with the Navy’s Shayetet 13 and Shin Bet agents, have been carrying out building-to-building searches in Hamad. The IDF says the high-rise towers in the neighborhood are used by Hamas.
The commandos captured “many” operatives who surrendered to them in the neighborhood, including a Hamas sniper squad commander and two other commanders, the IDF says.
The IDF says the troops also seized firearms, explosives, and military equipment, including scuba gear, in the buildings.
At the same time, the IDF says the 7th Armored Brigade is encircling the Hamad area, and with the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504, are capturing terror operatives trying to flee with evacuating civilians.
So far, the IDF says the troops have captured 250 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, some of whom participated in the October 7 terror onslaught and are members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force.
The IDF says the interrogations of the operatives provide helpful information for its continued operations in Gaza.
Labor leader Merav Michaeli joins the chorus of opposition voices condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the findings of the Meron disaster commission of inquiry.
“The lies and evasions do not mask the reality: Netanyahu is personally responsible for the disaster. That was true for Mount Meron; regarding the October 7 disaster it is a million times truer,” she writes on X, formerly Twitter.
“Netanyahu is dangerous for Israel. He was dangerous for Israel in the Meron disaster, in the October 7th disaster and he is dangerous for as long as he sits in the prime minister’s chair.”
The National Security Council issues a warning that “Muslim terrorist organizations see Ramadan as an opportunity to carry out attacks and acts of violence.”
In its travel warning ahead of the Muslim holy month, which begins next week, the NSC says that jihadist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda increasingly call on their followers to carry out attacks and that it expects terrorist organizations to use the war in Gaza and tensions around the Temple Mount to encourage supporters to attack Israeli and Western targets.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials have already called for actual harm to Israelis during Ramadan,” the NSC warns.
At the same time, the NSC does not change any existing travel warnings to any countries.
A merchant vessel has been damaged in an attack south of Yemen and coalition forces are supporting it, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency reports.
British security firm Ambrey reports that the ship was damaged and some crew are being loaded into lifeboats.
“Ambrey observed an Indian Navy military vessel drifting in the vicinity of the last known position of the affected vessel. Further reports stated that rescue and salvage operations were underway,” it says.
The attack Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden targeted a US-owned Barbados-flagged bulk carrier called True Confidence, which earlier had been hailed over radio by individuals claiming to be the Yemeni military, officials said. The Houthis have been hailing ships over the radio in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since launching their attacks, with analysts suspecting the rebels want to seize the vessels.
The Houthis do not immediately claim the attack, though it typically takes several hours for them to acknowledge an assault.
The United States is calling on Iran to dilute all of the uranium it has enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the weapons-grade level of roughly 90%, in a statement denouncing many of Tehran’s recent nuclear moves.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report to member states last week that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% had fallen slightly in the past quarter as it had diluted, or “downblended,” more of its most highly enriched material than it had produced.
Iran still has enough of that material, if enriched further, to fuel two nuclear weapons by a theoretical IAEA definition, and enough for more bombs at lower enrichment levels, the report seen by Reuters showed.
“Iran should downblend all, not just some, of its 60% stockpile, and stop all production of uranium enriched to 60% entirely,” the United States says in a statement on Iran to a quarterly meeting of the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors.
“We continue to have serious concerns related to the stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran continues to maintain,” the US statement said.
“No other country today is producing uranium enriched to 60% for the purpose Iran claims and Iran’s actions are counter to the behavior of all other non-nuclear weapons states party to the[Non-Proliferation Treaty],” it adds.
An opposition bill to draft ultra-Orthodox and Arab youth fails to pass a preliminary reading 36-61 in the Knesset plenum.
The legislation, proposed by Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, would have required all 18-year-olds, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Circassians, to either enlist in the military or perform alternate national service, or face legal sanctions such as travel restrictions and the loss of certain tax benefits.
“We are in a much more complex and difficult situation” following October 7 “and therefore the demand for a conscription law is not a spiteful proposal,” Liberman says, arguing that Israelis must “rise above all political interests and understand that these are basic security interests.”
“There can no longer be a story of goals and quotas,” he adds in which appears to be a veiled criticism of Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who has proposed separate legislation relying on a quota system to mobilize previously exempt yeshiva students.
Liberman’s remarks spur an angry response from Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem, who accuses Liberman and Lapid of pushing the issue out of political concerns.
“We will carry out a dialogue with the Haredi community and find a real solution” that includes allowing young men to continue their Talmudic studies, Amsalem insists.
The issue of Haredi exemptions from Israel’s mandatory draft has received renewed attention since the outbreak of war in Gaza, and in particular in recent weeks, after the IDF and government proposed changes to the security service and reserve service laws that would see a significant increase in the length of time conscripts and reservists serve, due to manpower shortages caused by the war and hostilities on the northern border.
National Unity ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot last week presented their own outline for the establishment of a “unified recruitment directorate” to oversee exemptions. While they did not propose specific quotas of Haredi recruits, Gantz indicated that the number should increase gradually year-over-year, and said that while most Haredim would be drafted under the plan, there would still remain an “elite who will continue to study, and many will serve at the same time as studying.”
The Attorney General’s Office recently told the High Court that without an extension to a government resolution from June 2023 — which temporarily permitted the government to not draft ultra-Orthodox men while a solution was formulated — the state will not be legally entitled to continue exempting the group from military conscription and will need to start enlisting them on April 1.
The findings of a multi-year probe into the 2021 Mount Meron disaster will be implemented ahead of the Lag B’Omer pilgrimage in May, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush’s office announces, following the publication of the state commission of inquiry’s report into the deadly crush.
“We are currently studying the committee’s recommendations and are preparing to begin the process of implementing them immediately,” says a spokesman for the senior United Torah Judaism lawmaker, who is tasked with overseeing the annual Jewish pilgrimage.
“We will work to incorporate the relevant recommendations into the outline of the celebration that was drawn up for this year’s Lag B’Omer,” he adds, while appearing to indicate that changes to the budget will be needed to do so.
Police say officers detained a teen suspected of stabbing a man waiting at a bus station in northeast Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood.
The assailant, a 14-year-old East Jerusalem Palestinian, initially fled the scene, but was caught a short while later in the area, police say.
The victim was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem with light-to-moderate injuries, medics say.
Police say the stabbing was a terror attack.
Hadassah Hospital says the man is in moderate condition and stable.
A Jordanian report claims to detail Hamas’s proffer for a ceasefire deal, which proposes the release of hostages in exchange for high-level Palestinian prisoners one week after a permanent ceasefire goes into effect.
According to the report in A-Rai al-Youm, among the prisoners whose release is demanded by Hamas are top terror convict Marwan Barghouti, in jail for multiple murders; top Hamas bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti; PFLP head Ahmad Sadat; Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank; and Abbas al-Sayed, a senior Hamas member responsible for planning bombings that killed dozens of Israelis. Israel would also have to release all sick prisoners, anyone over the age of 60 or under 18, and all women, as well as 57 people freed in the Gilad Shalit deal and re-arrested.
Under the deal, no hostages would be released for the first week of the ceasefire, and Israel would agree to carry out a complete withdrawal from Gaza before a second group of hostages was released.
Hamas also demands complete freedom of movement in Gaza and for unfettered aid access.
According to the report, the terror group’s representatives told Egypt that the proposal was nonnegotiable and represented their final position.
Nearly every element is likely a nonstarter for Israel.
A man was stabbed on Neve Yaakov Street in northeast Jerusalem, medics say.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says the man, 64, is in good-to-moderate condition and is being taken to Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus.
The assailant apparently fled the scene.
Police are investigating the circumstances of the stabbing.
If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in office, “the next disaster is only a matter of time,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares after a state commission of inquiry finds the prime minister personally responsible for the April 2021 Mount Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of a second-century sage in northern Israel despite numerous safety warnings ahead of time.
“The report published today shows that the disaster could have been prevented. The writing was on the wall. It indicates criminal negligence, arrogance and disconnection, it indicates complete irresponsibility,” Lapid tells reporters. “If Netanyahu were an ordinary citizen, he would stand trial today for causing death by negligence and go to prison.”
“Out of respect for the victims of Mount Meron, to prevent his next disaster, he should go home,” says Lapid, who has also repeatedly called for Netanyahu’s ouster following the October 7 massacre. The report “leaves no room for doubt” as to the prime minister’s personal responsibility, he adds.
“What happened in Meron is neither an accident nor a fault, it is a pattern of neglect, of negligence, of dangerous national irresponsibility,” he tells reporters.
Although the report found that there was “a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses that visit the site,” it declined to recommend any sanction for Netanyahu.
War cabinet minister Benny Gantz welcomes the findings of the commission, calling it “a life-saving report that should be studied in all government ministries and emergency bodies” — but declines to call for Netanyahu’s resignation.
Like Lapid, several lawmakers draw a line between Netanyahu’s alleged negligence around Meron and the failures in the leadup to the October 7 massacre, for which Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility.
“There is a direct line from the Carmel disaster, the Meron disaster, and the failure of October 7 — the prime minister and his cabinet’s avoidance of responsibility for managing the affairs of the state,” Yesh Atid MK Mickey Levi says. “Somehow they always don’t know, don’t hear, don’t see.”
Just as the prime minister was “responsible for the Meron disaster, he is also responsible for the October 7 disaster” and cannot continue to avoid responsibility, Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky tweets.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara will relaunch criminal investigations into those responsible for the April 2021 Meron pilgrimage crush, after a state commission on the deadly disaster wrapped up its work, the Ynet news site reports.
Her predecessor Avichai Mandelblit froze criminal inquiries in July 2021 in order to give the state commission precedence to look into the tragedy, in which 45 people were killed during a pilgrimage at the grave of a second-century rabbi.
The state commission report released today specifically calls for the probes to be reopened, noting that its inquest “is no substitute for the work of criminal investigatory bodies.”
Nikki Haley will suspend her US presidential campaign Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, according to people familiar with her decision, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Three people with direct knowledge who speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly confirm Haley’s decision ahead of an announcement scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023. She spent the final phase of her campaign aggressively warning the GOP against embracing Trump, whom she argued was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.
Her departure clears Trump to focus solely on his likely rematch in November with Biden. The former president is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.
Haley’s defeat marks a painful, if predictable, blow to those voters, donors and Republican Party officials who opposed Trump and his fiery brand of “Make America Great Again” politics. She was especially popular among moderates and college-educated voters, constituencies that will likely play a pivotal role in the general election. It’s unclear whether Trump, who recently declared that Haley donors would be permanently banned from his movement, can ultimately unify a deeply divided party.
Haley leaves the 2024 presidential contest having made history as the first woman to win a Republican primary. She beat Trump in the District of Columbia on Sunday and Vermont on Tuesday.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is due to travel to Cyprus later this week as the bloc works toward establishing a possible humanitarian corridor in support of Gaza through the Mediterranean island, her spokesperson says.
“Our efforts are focused on making sure that we can provide aid to Palestinians,” the spokesperson said during a briefing with journalists, adding: “We all hope that this opening [of the corridor] will take place very soon.”
Police chief Kobi Shabtai says he accepts responsibility for his role in the Meron disaster and is ready to step down once the government decides he should, welcoming a report that finds him and other top officials personally responsible for the deadly 2021 crush.
“Commissioner Shabtai, as he has always done in all his roles, accepts full responsibility,” a police statement says. “Commissioner Shabtai asked to resign at the start of the year, but acceded to the government’s request that he remain given the war situation. Commissioner Shabtai will step down, after 40 years of service, once the government decides on it.”
Others named in the report, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, have yet to respond.
An organization representing families of the 45 victims of the Meron disaster calls on the government to take the recommendations of the state commission seriously, calling the report a “first step toward justice.”
“It’s insane that we had to wait almost three years to hear what was obvious — those responsible for the success of the pilgrimage, when it succeeded, were also responsible for its failure. A failure that ended with 45 dead and over 100 injured.”
“We now call on the government: Be responsible, take these conclusions and adopt them, take to heart these findings that are written in blood.”
An explosion in the vicinity of a Barbados-flagged, US-owned cargo ship off the port of Aden in southern Yemen was reported by a nearby vessel, British security firm Ambrey says.
The ship, located approximately 57 nautical miles southwest of Aden, was hailed by an entity declaring itself to be the “Yemeni Navy” and ordered to alter course, Ambrey says.
Ambrey cautions other ships to steer clear of the bulker, which matches the “targeting profile” of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
British maritime security agency UKMTO also reports an “attack” southwest of Aden, without elaborating.
The Israel Police says in a statement it will appoint an internal team to study and implement the findings of a state commission into the 2021 Meron disaster, along with the recommendations regarding senior officers who bear personal responsibility for the pilgrimage crush, which left 45 dead.
The committee’s recommendations regarding crowd control will be acted on by law enforcement authorities to ensure the public’s safety for large events, police add.
Among the findings of the State Commission of Inquiry into the Meron crush during a pilgrimage on Lag Ba’Omer in April 2021 is the idea that officials should have known a disaster of this type was only a matter of time and worked to fix the problems instead of ignoring them, comparing the saga to a “Greek tragedy, whose end was known from the start.”
“The writing was on the wall well before the disaster, written in big block letters, in a clear, sharp way, but were not paid attention to… Many of the findings in the report were open and known to all. The terrible result that it could lead to was known.”
Of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the report’s authors write: “There is a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses that visit the site, especially on Lag B’omer. Even if, in the name of caution, we assume Netanyahu didn’t have concrete knowledge of the matter, given what happened he should have known about it.”
The state commission of inquiry into the deadly 2021 Mount Meron crush finds former public security minister Amir Ohana personally responsible for the disaster, recommending that he not be appointed to the job again.
The report says police chief Kobi Shabtai also bears responsibility and that he should be removed from his post, but given Israel’s current security challenges, adds that the government should wait on his ouster until it feels the time is better.
Yaakov Avitan, who had been religious services minister at the time, is found personally responsible as well in the 322-page report. The commission recommends he not be made a minister again.
Forty-five men and boys were killed on April 30, 2021, in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of second-century sage rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron in northern Israel during the annual Lag B’Omer celebrations, after 100,000 worshipers, mostly members of the ultra-Orthodox community, crowded into the holy site despite longstanding warnings about the safety of the complex.
A state commission of inquiry has found Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally responsible for the April 2021 Mount Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of a second-century sage in northern Israel despite numerous safety warnings ahead of time.
However, the inquest offers no operative recommendation for Netanyahu.
The Hezbollah terror group says two of its men were killed in the Lebanese town of Houla amid operations against Israel.
The group announced the death of one man, Hassan Hussein, 60, last night, and now announces the death of a second man, Ali Hussein, 24.
It is not clear if the two are related.
The deaths bring Hezbollah’s toll in the conflict to 234.
The IDF said yesterday afternoon it had carried out strikes in Houla, targeting a building used by Hezbollah.
Yesterday, the terror group had also claimed three civilians were killed in the strike on Houla.
Israel has asked eight member countries to convene the UN Security Council for an emergency session on special representative Pramila Patten’s report accusing Hamas of sexual crimes on October 7 and beyond.
The countries are the US, UK, France, Malta, Ecuador, Japan, Slovenia, and Switzerland, Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s office tells The Times of Israel.
“With grave urgency,” wrote UN Ambassador Gilan Erdan to his counterparts, “I request that you call to convene an emergency Security Council meeting, following yesterday’s release of SRSG Paten’s [sic] mission report on the horrific atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli women and girls on October 7th.”
“The Security Council must fully commit itself to ensuring the immediate end of Hamas’ sexual crimes, and work to secure the release of all hostages,” he continued, also asking them to designate Hamas a terror organization.
Erdan also asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to convene the body, though it is the member states that typically do so. Guterres invoked the rarely used Article 99 to convene the Security Council in December to raise the alarm about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
An Israeli planning body has advanced permits for 3,500 new homes in West Bank settlements near Jerusalem, government ministers announce.
The homes are planned for the large settlements of Maale Adumim and Efrat and the smaller one of Kedar, according to statements from settlement leaders as well as ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock.
The statements do not offer a settlement-by-settlement breakdown of how many new units were advanced by the Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration, which oversees settlement planning in the West Bank.
The council, which is under Smotrich’s aegis, has not met since June due to the war in Gaza, according to reports. Settlement leaders had pushed for it to convene in order to get the ball rolling on new home approvals in West Bank settlements.
The homes in Maale Adumim and Kedar are now at the public comment period stage, while those in Efrat have been advanced to final approval, according to a notice posted online by Strock.
In a tweet, Smotrich declares that 18,515 homes have been approved in the West Bank over the past year, a record.
“The enemies try to harm and weaken us but we will continue to build and be built up in this land,” he says.
At least 86 Palestinians were killed and 113 wounded in the previous 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says, raising the death toll in the Strip since October 7 to 30,717.
The figures, which cannot be verified, do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Israel said earlier that troops killed over two dozen terror group operatives in the past day.
The share of “uncommitted” votes in Minnesota’s Democratic primary has dropped slightly, to 18.9 percent, with some 95% of the ballots tallies.
In Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis, the share of “uncommitted” votes is up to 26%.
Several other states, which have also tallied around 95% of the vote, also record significant numbers of protest votes meant to telegraph dissatisfaction with the party’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war, often beating out also-ran Dean Philips and others challenging US President Joe Biden for the party’s nomination.
In North Carolina, 12.7% choose “no preference.”
Tennessee records 7.9% “uncommitted” votes.
A total of 6% of Alabaman Democrat voters back the “uncommitted” option.
Only 3.9% in Iowa voted “uncommitted,” though it’s still enough to beat out Phillips.
In Massachusetts, where 84% of votes have been tallied, 9.4% pick “no preference.”
In Colorado, with 78% of the votes tallied, 8% have picked “Noncommitted Delegate.”
An IDF soldier seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in the northern West Bank yesterday is no longer in life-threatening danger and is recovering after undergoing surgeries, Beilinson Hospital says.
The medical center lists his condition as good.
The soldier was stabbed by a Palestinian teenager at an army post at the Yitzhar Junction. Troops opened fire, killing the assailant.
A leader of Switzerland’s Jewish community is demanding “concrete” action after the weekend stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish man, allegedly by a teenager pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The 50-year-old Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and seriously injured in Switzerland’s largest city, Zurich, late Saturday, authorities said.
“The fact that such an event has not caused a national outcry is a real problem, because it brings to light a lack of awareness of how serious the situation is,” says Johanne Gurfinkiel, leader of Intercommunity Coordination Against Anti-Semitism and Defamation.
Gurfinkiel says there has been a “massive” rise in antisemitic acts in Switzerland in recent years and that the number had shot up 68 percent in 2023 due to the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“We now expect more concrete measures, for example, for the president [of Switzerland] to call an emergency meeting with representatives of the groups concerned to hear their expectations and suggestions,” he is quoted as saying in an interview with daily newspaper Arc Info.
A joint statement by Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, calls for “an immediate and durable humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, after days of diplomatic wrangling over the text.
“We condemn attacks against all civilians and civilian infrastructure, leading to further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza including restricted access to food, water, and other basic needs,” says the statement, released at the end of a three-day summit in Melbourne.
It also calls for the release of hostages.
Singapore had balked at an earlier suggestion that the statement condemn “the use of starvation” in the Gaza Strip, language that would have infuriated Israel.
Diplomats also argued over whether the statement should call for a total ceasefire — or a perhaps more temporary “humanitarian” pause.
ASEAN includes the Muslim-majority nations Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, while Australia is a strong backer of Israel, although it has previously called for a ceasefire and been critical of the level of casualties.
Israeli strikes in Gaza over the past day killed Hamas officers and terrorists who participated in the October 7 onslaught, the Israel Defense Forces says in a morning update.
Fighter jets struck two terrorists who participated in the massacre in Nir Yitzhak on October 7, the IDF says.
Additionally, the army says two platoon commanders and a squad commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba force were targeted in a separate strike.
It does not specify where either strike took place.
In the northern Gazan city of Beit Hanoun, the IDF says a fighter jet struck a building where two Hamas operatives were seen fleeing, publishing footage of the attack.
בהכוונת מכלול האש של החטיבה הצפונית באוגדת עזה מטוס קרב תקף וחיסל שני מחבלים במרחב בית חאנון שנמלטו למבנה צבאי.
מטוסי קרב תקפו שני מחבלים שלקחו חלק בטבח בניר יצחק ב-7 באוקטובר ושהו בתשתית צבאית >> pic.twitter.com/vRf0PrnT9h
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 6, 2024
The army says Nahal Brigade soldiers in central Gaza killed some 20 Hamas gunmen over the past day, including with sniper fire and by calling in airstrikes.
One airstrike was carried out against a site from which operatives fired rockets at troops inside Gaza. The IDF says secondary explosions after the strike indicated that additional rockets were stored there.
In southern Gaza, the Commando Brigade pressed into the Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis, scanning buildings, locating firearms and killing several Hamas operatives, the IDF says.
In the same area, Givati Brigade troops called in a strike by an attack helicopter on a Hamas gunman and killed another operative who was approaching them.
Elsewhere in Khan Younis, the IDF says the Bislamach Brigade ambushed and killed a five-man Hamas cell.
A victory speech by Democrat Adam Schiff following Tuesday’s primary win in California is seemingly cut short as raucous protesters repeatedly interrupt him with shouts of “Free Palestine,” “Ceasefire now” and “Let Gaza live.”
Some protesters were removed, but many were spread throughout the crowd, forcing Schiff to first try and speak above the bellowing before appearing to hurry his remarks, pausing several times.
Some reports suggest Schiff had been forced to cut his speech short by the protest.
Congressman Adam Schiff takes the stage in Hollywood “It looks like we’re going to the general!” – but a group of roughly 20+ “ceasefire now” protesters interrupts Schiff and he has paused his remarks….trying to talk over them, but having a difficult time @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/111WGKcOZy
— Josh Haskell (@abc7JoshHaskell) March 6, 2024
Adam Schiff’s entire victory speech tonite was interrupted by protesters chanting for a ceasefire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/zptVYFagu1
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) March 6, 2024
More of Adam Schiff being interrupted thru his whole speech. At one point, an aide asked if he wanted to stop and he waved her off and continued. pic.twitter.com/jLGfkY5FOo
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) March 6, 2024
BREAKING: Jews for Ceasefire, including @IfNotNowLA & @JVP_LA, and allies just completely shut down Adam Schiff's Super Tuesday speech. He gave up on his prepared remarks and left the stage.
As Jews, we cannot be silent as the people of Gaza are slaughtered. Let Gaza Live! pic.twitter.com/niEhxphqTv
— IfNotNow????✡️ (@IfNotNowOrg) March 6, 2024
Schiff, a Jewish congressman who has been outspoken in support of Israel’s right to defend itself, changed directions Tuesday and endorsed the Biden administration’s call for a Gaza ceasefire as part of a broader agreement that would include the release of hostages.
“My position is the same as the administration,” Schiff says.
Schiff will face off against former baseball star Steve Garvey for the US Senate seat long held by the late Dianne Feinstein.
Photos published in Hebrew-language media show heavy damage to an industrial chicken coop in northern Israel reportedly hit by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon overnight.
טיל נ"ט שנורה הלילה גרם לנזק כבד בלול תרנגולים במושב אביבים@rubih67 pic.twitter.com/YOIuoPEu2v
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 6, 2024
No injuries to humans are reported in the attack on the fowl in Avivim, a small town less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the Lebanon border.
There is no comment on the attack from the Israeli military.
The United States has revised language in a draft UN Security Council resolution to back “an immediate ceasefire of roughly six-weeks in Gaza together with the release of all hostages,” according to the text seen by Reuters.
The third revision of the text — first proposed by the United States two weeks ago — now reflects blunt remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris calling on Israel to do more to ease the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
The initial US draft had shown support for “a temporary ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war. The Biden administration has refrained from calling for a permanent ceasefire, noting that leaving Hamas intact would allow it to continue threatening Israel, even as it has stepped up rhetoric critical of Israel’s war effort over the humanitarian toll.
Washington has vetoed three draft council resolutions – two of which would have demanded an immediate ceasefire – during the five-month-long war. Most recently, the US justified its veto by saying that such council action could jeopardize efforts by the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages.
Washington has said it plans to allow time for negotiations on its draft and will not rush to a vote. To pass, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China.
Mediators have proposed a short-term truce lasting only a few days to buy time and build trust between Israel and Hamas as efforts for a more comprehensive six-week pause in fighting flounder, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The idea is being pushed by both US and Arab parties to the talks in Cairo, the paper says.
The report also quotes an Israeli official detailing US Vice President Kamala Harris’s criticism of Israel’s war effort in a Monday meeting with war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, saying that the White House is harboring “criticism and mistrust” toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“There were harsh messages on aid and strategic clarity moving forward,” the official says.
According to the official, Gantz told US officials in his meetings that “finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah is like sending in firefighters to put out 80% of a fire.”
Some 20 percent of Democrats in Minnesota backed “uncommitted” in the primary ballot as voters continued to show disagreement with the White House’s support for Israel’s war on the Hamas terror group in Gaza, Edison Research says, with about half of the votes counted.
The protest vote garnered support in six other states that had “uncommitted” on the ballot: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee. Backing in those states ranges from 3.9% in Iowa to 12.2% in North Carolina as votes were still being tallied.
US President Joe Biden easily swept the Democratic primaries in any case.
Students, suburban women and liberal Jewish activists were among those who joined Muslim Americans to vote uncommitted, Edison says.
Organizers in Minnesota had said they did not expect the protest to attract the same level of support as it did in Michigan, home to a large Arab American population, where more than 100,000 people, or 13% of all voters, staged a similar protest last week.
Minnesota’s main cities house a sizeable Somali American population and liberal Democratic Congress member Ilhan Omar, a fierce critic of Biden’s Israel policy, represents a district in the state.
“That is a powerful way to send the administration a message,” says Christian Peterson, 22, a law student at the University of Minnesota. “Biden needs to stop sending military aid to Israel.”
The anti-Biden effort had backers from a wide range of Democrats in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, known as the Twin Cities, Reuters interviews showed.
Walter Fromm, 26, a Minneapolis activist and self-described anti-Zionist Jew, says the uncommitted movement, which is organizing in Georgia and Pennsylvania, among other key battleground states in the presidential election, will “continue to grow … state by state and continue to win delegates.”
“I’ve reached out to my entire Jewish community here in the Twin Cities,” as well as friends across the United States, he says.
None of the voters Reuters interviewed say they planned to support Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.
A Biden campaign official who asks not to be identified by name says Biden has heard the voters participating in the “uncommitted” campaigns.
“He shares their goal for a just, lasting peace – and he’s working tirelessly to that end,” she says, pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris’s recent comments backing an “immediate ceasefire” and recent US airdrops of food in Gaza.
A senior US official says he made a solidarity visit to an East Jerusalem Palestinian activist’s home, which was demolished by Israel last month.
George Noll, who serves as the US Office of Palestinian Affairs’ chief of mission, met Fahkri Abu Ziab “amid the rubble of his East Jerusalem home, which was in his family for generations,” his office tweets.
“We again condemn Israel’s demolition of this home which has spread fear in an entire community,” the US Office of Palestinian Affairs adds.
This is the second time the US has condemned the February 14 demolition in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
Israel said Abu Ziab did not have the necessary permits, even though such building approvals for Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are overwhelmingly rare.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Andrew Miller visited Abu Ziab’s home ahead of its demolition last month in an apparent show of support.
“These acts obstruct efforts to advance a durable and lasting peace and security that would benefit not just Palestinians but Israelis,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last month. “They damage Israel’s standing in the world, and they make it ultimately more difficult for us to accomplish all the things we’re trying to accomplish that would ultimately be in the interest of the Israeli people, and so we condemn them and will continue to urge that they not continue.”
The Hamas terror group appears to reject the latest Israeli truce deal offer, but says it will continue to negotiate through mediators.
In a statement to the press, Hamas says Israel has refused to meet the group’s demands for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced Gazans to their homes in the north and “provisions for the needs of our people.”
Despite laying out what appears to be many of its original demands, aside from the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages, the terror group claims it showed the “required flexibility” in talks.
“We will continue to negotiate via our brotherly mediators to reach an agreement that fulfills our people’s demands and interests,” the statement reads.
LOS ANGELES — US Representative Adam Schiff will advance to a November election to decide who will fill the US Senate seat held for three decades by the late Dianne Feinstein.
It’s not yet clear who will emerge from a crowded field of contenders to take on Schiff in the fall. California puts all candidates, regardless of party, on the same primary ballot and the two who get the most votes advance to the general election.
Democrats are expected to easily hold the Senate seat in November, a relief for the party as it seeks to defend a narrow majority. But the campaign still represents a new era in California politics, which was long dominated by Feinstein and a handful of other veteran politicians.
Fellow Democratic Representatives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, and former baseball star Steve Garvey, a Republican, are among the race’s other top contenders.
Schiff gained national attention as a leading antagonist to former president Donald Trump during his years in the White House. He was a leading voice during Trump’s two impeachments, prompting House Republicans to take the extraordinary step of censuring him after they gained control of the chamber.
That only deepened his appeal in the Democratic stronghold of California, helping Schiff become a favorite of the party’s establishment with endorsements from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, most of California’s congressional delegation and former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
With that high-powered support, Schiff was a fundraising powerhouse, an important advantage in what became a massively expensive primary campaign.
The seat is expected to stay in Democratic hands. Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in California since 1988.
The race is California’s first open US Senate contest since 2016. Even before Feinstein announced in early 2023 she would not seek re-election, many of the state’s ambitious Democrats were eagerly awaiting their shot at the coveted seat.
Republican longshot candidate Nikki Haley wins the party’s primary election in Vermont on Super Tuesday, according to US network projections, blocking Donald Trump from a clean sweep of victories.
Haley also won the capital Washington at the weekend, but is far behind Trump and is facing calls to drop out of the race to take on Democrat Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile says it will exclude Israeli firms from Latin America’s biggest aerospace fair, to be held in Santiago in April.
“By decision of the Government of Chile, the 2024 version of the International Air and Space Fair (FIDAE), to be held between 9 and 14 April, will not have the participation of Israeli companies,” a defense ministry statement says.
It doesn’t give a reason, but the government of leftist President Gabriel Boric has been critical of what he has called Israel’s “disproportionate” response to the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Chile, which has the largest Palestinian population outside the Arab world, recalled its ambassador to Israel late October to protest Israel’s “unacceptable violations of international humanitarian law” in Gaza.
Israel’s Ambassador in Chile Gil Artzyeli tells AFP he hasn’t been contacted by the government with the FIDAE news.
“We cannot say we are surprised taking into account the (Chilean) government’s doctrine towards Israel,” he says.
Some Jewish supporters of Arsenal are criticizing the English soccer team after a number of supporters decided to turn away from a match over the weekend, as they “felt unsafe” due to an anti-Israel demonstration held by pro-Palestinian protesters outside the squad’s Emirates Stadium in London.
According to The Guardian, around 20 fans are believed to have chosen not to attend the Women’s Super League game on Sunday between Arsenal and Tottenham after they saw the protest, which was organized by the pro-BDS group Football for Palestine, and feel the team put them at risk by not having security curb the rally.
The British newspaper quotes one fan who felt “betrayed” by Arsenal upon seeing the protest.
The Jewish Gooners fan club tells the daily “a number” of its members and their relatives “felt unsafe” and “decided to return home without seeing a ball being kicked.” The report says demonstrators distributed pamphlets, slapped up stickers — including one that said “Anti-Zionist” — and tried to interact with fans as they arrived.
“Despite the various assurances from the club in the run-up to the game, it seems that on this occasion it was not possible to ensure an inclusive environment for all football fans,” adds the group, which was formed last year to combat antisemitism.
Arsenal said in response that the protest was in a public area and therefore could not be restricted.
“The safety of all supporters attending our matches is our top priority. Prior to Sunday’s fixture, we worked with the Metropolitan Police to ensure there was a plan in place to keep the impact of any demonstration to a minimum,” it said. “Instances where prohibited items were identified inside the stadium were dealt with swiftly by our stewards.”
WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump have begun racking up early wins as states across the country hold Super Tuesday elections, moving them closer to a historic rematch despite a lack of enthusiasm from many voters. The results could ramp up pressure on Nikki Haley, Trump’s last major rival, to leave the race.
Super Tuesday features elections in 16 states and one territory — from Alaska and California to Vermont and Virginia. Hundreds of delegates are at stake, the biggest haul of the race for either party.
Biden and Trump start off the night by winning Virginia. Biden also won Vermont and Iowa, where Democrats previously held a presidential preference contest but didn’t release their results until Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — US forces have shot down one anti-ship ballistic missile and three one-way attack unmanned aerial systems launched from Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the USS Carney in the Red Sea, the US Central Command says.
US forces later destroyed three anti-ship missiles and three unmanned surface vessels in self-defense, CENTCOM says in a statement.
A large US shipment of flour for Gaza remains stalled, nearly two weeks since Israel agreed to a new framework for its delivery and 46 days since it was first announced by the White House, a US official tells The Times of Israel.
The official does not elaborate on what is causing the continued delay but says the the flour capable of feeding 1.5 million Gazans for five months should be delivered in the coming days.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller references the flour shipment when asked at a press briefing about Israeli ministers blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
“You have seen ministers in the Israeli Government block the release of flour from the port at Ashdod; you have seen ministers of the Israeli Government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in to Kerem Shalom,” he says, referring to far-right cabinet members Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir respectively. “All of those things are obstacles coming from ministers inside the Israeli Government that we have called out, that we have said are unacceptable, and that we have said should end.”
On February 22, a US official told The Times of Israel that the new arrangement Israel has agreed to will allow for the flour shipment to move forward after Smotrich blocked its transfer for over a month.
The flour would be ferried into Gaza by the World Food Program rather than the UNRWA relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the official said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu privately informed the Biden administration that Israel approved the shipment in early January. The White House announced the development on January 19.
The shipment arrived at the port in Ashdod, but Smotrich blocked its transfer to UNRWA, which came under fire last month over allegations that 12 of its staffers participated in the October 7 terror onslaught.
The delay has angered the Biden administration, which has repeatedly noted in recent weeks that Israel is violating the commitments it made to the president.
War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz has wrapped up his visit to Washington and is en route to London, where he will meet with Foreign Minister David Cameron before returning to Israel on Wednesday night, his office says.
Earlier today in Washington, Gantz met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He also briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
