ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 428
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they happened.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would block President Joe Biden from withholding weapons from Israel.
The Republican bill passed 224 to 187, with 16 moderate Democrats joining 208 Republicans who voted in favor.
Three Republicans voted against along with 184 Democrats.
The bill is almost certain not to advance further, given that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he doesn’t plan to allow a vote on it and that Biden has pledged to veto.
For the second night in a row, Israeli settlers have attacked a truck in the West Bank, thinking it was delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, Hebrew media reports.
Last night, they looted the truck and assaulted the driver, leaving him on the road at the Givat Assaf junction, bleeding and writhing in pain.
Tonight, the settlers torched the vehicle and assaulted the driver. He was reportedly moderately injured.
The Foreign Ministry says South Africa was “presenting biased and false claims” that “rely on unreliable Hamas sources,” in response to a case brought to the UN’s top court accusing Israel of genocide on Thursday.
“Israel acts in accordance with international law and its humanitarian obligations,” a statement from the Foreign Ministry says. “While implementing measures to minimize harm to civilians and civilian facilities.”
The ministry calls on the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, “to reject South Africa’s appeal and to bring the abuse of the Court to an end.”
The prestigious Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam reverses its decision from earlier this week to postpone a concert by Israeli performers over fear of anti-Israel protests.
The Jerusalem Quartet concert planned for Saturday will take place as scheduled thanks to increased security arrangements that ensure that it can safely be held, management says in a statement.
The statement follows plans by members of the Jewish community of the Netherlands to host the Jerusalem Quartet at an open-air concert on a square opposite the Concertgebouw. The initiative was in the final stages of production when the Concertgebouw reinstated the concert, Ronny Naftaniel, a former leader of Dutch Jewry, tells The Times of Israel.
The postponement provoked furious reactions by many Dutch Jews, including Holocaust survivor Salo Muller, who wrote a letter to the Concertgebouw in which he drew comparisons between its decision to not allow Israeli performers to play and the exclusion of Jews in the lead-up to World War II. Leading musicians in the Netherlands also spoke out against the move.
Canada has imposed sanctions on four Israeli individuals accused of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, joining allies including the United States and Britain in attempts to deter growing settler violence.
The sanctions, Canada’s first against what the foreign ministry described as “extremist Israeli settlers,” target individuals accused of engaging directly or indirectly in violence and violent acts against Palestinian civilians and their property.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel will abolish its free trade agreement with Turkey and also impose a 100% tariff on other imports from Turkey in retaliation for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to halt exports to Israel.
The plan, he says, will be submitted to the cabinet for approval.
After more than a week of significant decreases in the amount of humanitarian aid going into Gaza due to the IDF’s operations in Rafah, the number of trucks is picking back up, according to Israel’s COGAT:
Latest humanitarian updates:
🚛We've opened inspection routes from Judea and Samaria.
🚛The Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings are open, and aid is arriving to Gaza via multiple routes: from Jordan, the Ashdod port, and Judea and Samaria.
🚛365 Trucks were transferred to Gaza… pic.twitter.com/11wXxTCHxC
— COGAT (@cogatonline) May 16, 2024
The head of the IDF’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, accused far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich of completely undermining Israeli law enforcement efforts to clamp down on illegal Israeli construction in the West Bank, an internal document uncovered by The New York Times reveals.
Enforcement on illegal construction has dwindled “to the point where it has disappeared,” Fox writes, highlighting the role of Smotrich, who serves as a minister within the Defense Ministry in charge of settlement affairs.
Fox says Smotrich and his allies have been blocking measures the government had promised Israeli courts it would implement, to crack down on illegal construction in the West Bank.
The document is part of a damning NYT report showing how far-right extremists have managed to capture the halls of power in Israel.
Sixty percent of respondents to a Channel 12 poll say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a day after Gallant accused Netanyahu of ducking vital decisions on post-war Gaza and demanded that the prime minister rule out post-war Israeli military and civil control of the Strip.
The poll found only 23% of respondents believe Gallant should be fired. It said 47% of Netanyahu bloc voters also don’t think Gallant should be fired, compared to 38% who do.
Asked whether Gallant should resign, 47% said no and 39% said yes.
Asked what the Gaza “day after” solution should be, 40% said Israeli military rule (as advocated by far-right members of the coalition), and 40% said Palestinian entities backed by international actors (as Gallant advocated). The survey question offered no other options.
Netanyahu fired Gallant in March 2023, after the defense minister warned about the danger to national security of rifts that he said were extending into the military over the government’s judicial overhaul plans. Amid public protests, Gallant was reinstated two weeks later.
As for respondents’ voting preferences were elections held today, the poll showed a fall in support for Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, still far ahead on 29 seats, but two down on the last survey in late April and eight down on the party’s height three months ago.
Nonetheless, the so-called anti-Netanyahu bloc led by Gantz would win 65 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, while the pro-Netanyhu bloc would muster 50.
The party’s fared as follows (2022 election results in parentheses): National Unity 29 seats (12); Likud 19 (32); Yesh Atid 16 (24); Yisrael Beytenu 11 (6); Shas 10 (11); Otzma Yehudit 9 (14, in an alliance together with Religious Zionism); United Torah Judaism 8 (7); Hadash-Ta’al 5 (5); Ra’am 5 (5); Religious Zionism 4; Meretz 4 (0).
Labor, Balad and New Right parties all scored below the Knesset threshold.
Were Gallant to set up his own party, it would win six seats, the poll found — taking 4 seats from National Unity, one from Yesh Atid and one from Yisrael Beytenu.
The survey, by Midgam, was conducted today by phone and internet among a 502-strong representative sample, with a 4.4% margin of error.
The military announces the death of a reservist who was killed earlier today in an “operational accident” on the border with the Gaza Strip.
He is named as Sgt. Maj. (res.) Ran Yavetz, 39, of the Bislamach Brigade’s 6828th Battalion, from Modiin.
Yavetz was killed and another four troops were lightly hurt in a blast caused by Israeli munitions in a military zone near the Black Arrow memorial site on the border.
The incident is under further investigation.
Two hundred and seventy-nine soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Gaza Strip.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari in a press conference says there is no damage to the Israeli Air Force’s ability to detect incoming threats, after a Hezbollah explosive-laden drone struck a grounded missile-detecting blimp last night.
He says the drone struck “a balloon that was on the ground” at a military base near the Golani Junction, some 35 kilometers from the Lebanon border. The aerostat, known as Sky Dew, is not yet operational.
“There are no injuries and there is no damage to the IDF’s ability to build an aerial image of the area. The IDF acts against Hezbollah’s drones and the aerial threat on all borders,” he says.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari in a press conference says the military and Foreign Ministry have notified the families of Thai national hostages Sonthaya Oakkharasr and Sudthisak Rinthalak, that they were killed during the October 7 onslaught and their bodies are held by Hamas in Gaza.
The two had worked in agriculture in the border community of Be’eri.
“On October 7, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered 39 Thai nationals, and kidnapped 31 Thai nationals to Gaza. Like them, other foreign nationals were abducted, including from Tanzania, Nepal, Mexico, the US, and France,” Hagari says.
“The terrible cruelty of Hamas was used against anyone that stood in its way, without distinction of their origin,” he says.
2 אזרחי תאילנד שנחשבו כחטופים, סונטיה אוקרסרי וסותטיסאק רינטלאק, נרצחו ב-7.10 וגופותיהם מוחזקות ע"י חמאס. יהי זכרם ברוך@ShaIsrael2 pic.twitter.com/4yiLjnfHkI
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) May 16, 2024
แถลงการณ์เรื่องการเสียชีวิตของตัวประกันคนไทย ๒ รายในกาซากระทรวงการต่างประเทศได้รับแจ้งจากสถานเอกอัครราชทูต ณ…
Posted by กระทรวงการต่างประเทศ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand on Thursday, May 16, 2024
Spain has refused permission for an Israel-bound ship carrying arms to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena, Transport Minister Oscar Puente says.
The Marianne Danica was carrying a cargo of arms to Israel and had requested permission to call at Cartagena on May 21, Puente tweets.
It was carrying nearly 27 tons in explosive material from India’s Madras, El Pais reports.
The Foreign Ministry, which Puente says denied the authorization, does not immediately reply to repeated requests for comment.
Danica Maritime, the company managing the Marianne Danica, does not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The reports come amid a spat between the ruling Socialists and their hard-left partners over allowing the transit of vessels carrying arms to Israeli ports.
US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel says the “humanitarian conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate and vital border crossings have closed at a time when moving more aid is critical,” as Israel expands its operations in Rafah.
Israel shut the border crossing when it began operating there last week. It has since traded blame with Egypt as to why it has been unable to reopen. Even if it were to reopen, though, there doesn’t seem to be any body immediately available to operate the Gaza side. Israel stripped from control from Hamas, and proposed that the Palestinian Authority would begin replace the terror group.
However, Ramallah has rebuffed the effort, which was conditioned on them not identifying officers as belonging to the PA due to opposition from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, a US official said.
“Israel needs to do more to urgently provide sustained and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance to enter both northern and southern Gaza, including facilitating efforts to get the right type of assistance to the most vulnerable,” Patel says.
The State Department clarifies that the US has not seen Israel intentionally restricting or stopping the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
There have been repeated attacks on aid convoys by Israeli extremists who are believed to sometimes receive intel from within the Israeli security forces so that they can intercept and loot the trucks.
At an Arab League summit meeting in Bahrain, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas criticizes Hamas for its October 7 slaughter in southern Israel, because, he says, it gave Israel the “pretext” to carry out devastating attacks on Gaza.
“The military action that Hamas carried out, at its own decision, on that day, October 7, gave Israel even more excuses and reasons to attack in the Gaza Strip, an attack it has continued with full force, with murder, destruction and uprooting,” Abbas says, according to a Channel 12 translation.
“We oppose harming civilians, all civilians,” Abbas adds.
Abbas also reportedly issues veiled threats to cancel recognition of Israel, and to cease security cooperation with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to reporters in southern Israel near the Gaza border, says he’s going to speak face-to-face soon with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, after Gallant yesterday demanded that he publicly rule out post-Hamas Israeli military or civil governance of Gaza, and suggested that “Palestinian entities” and other “international actors” should govern the Strip.
Asked if he still trusts Gallant and whether the two can work together, Netanyahu replies: “If you’re talking about what the defense minister said yesterday, then what I have to say to him I’ll first say one-on-one, and not here.”
Asked if that meeting will come soon, he says, “Absolutely.”
Netanyahu fired Gallant 14 months ago for warning about the divides in Israel caused by the coalition’s judicial overhaul plans, before rehiring him amid a public outcry. Some coalition members, notably far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, have called on Netanyahu to fire Gallant again now.
A reporter says that what Gallant is essentially advocating is bringing the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza, to which Netanyahu replies: “I firmly oppose switching Hamastan for Fatahstan” — referring to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
He repeats his frequent summation that the PA “funds terrorism, supports terrorism, educates for terrorism,” and says it is “running a global campaign against us — at the World Court in The Hague and at all the institutions of the UN that are coming to choke us.”
Letting the PA back into Gaza “after what happened here” would be “a prize for terror,” he says. “They were in Gaza — there, over that dune. And what happened? Hamas booted them out and took over.” What happened in 2007 would happen again, he warns.
“We’re not making that mistake again…. If somebody wants to bring in the PA, they should say so clearly.”
Referring to Gallant’s allegation that he refuses to make decisions on post-Hamas Gaza, Netanyahu says, of bringing the PA into Gaza, “That’s a decision I refuse to make.”
Netanyahu is asked why, unlike the chief of staff and Shin Bet head, he refuses to state that he was responsible for the catastrophe of October 7: “The government is responsible for protecting Israel’s security. The IDF and the security branches are responsible for protecting Israel’s security,” he replies. “Clearly, there was a failure here. As for assigning responsibility, the degree of responsibility, all those things, everybody, me included, will have to give answers to tough questions.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held a meeting yesterday with ambassadors from 17 countries with citizens taken hostage by Hamas, the White House says.
The countries represented were Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
“The group discussed their collective call for Hamas to immediately release the hostages and ways to bring an end to the crisis,” a White House readout says.
Sullivan also relayed that US President Joe Biden continues engaging with the leaders of Israel, Qatar and Egypt to try and secure a ceasefire and hostage deal.
The US indicates that it doesn’t support the Arab League’s call from earlier today to deploy a UN peacekeeping force in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to protect Palestinians until a two-state solution is actualized.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel says the US doesn’t have a formal position on the idea before making a caveat.
“Candidly, the addition of security forces could potentially put [Israel’s current] mission [against Hamas] into compromise,” he says.
The Biden administration is looking into sanctioning the extremist Israelis involved in the recent spate of attacks targeting humanitarian aid convoys for Gaza civilians, two US officials tell The Times of Israel.
The sanctions would be levied through the executive order signed by US President Joe Biden in February, which allowed the Treasury Department to designate Israelis involved in violent activity in the West Bank, the officials say.
The attacks in the West Bank largely started last month when Israel agreed to expand the aid route from Jordan to ensure that more assistance gets into Gaza.
The far-right group Tzav 9 has led many of the protests in both the West Bank and within Israel proper, aiming to block aid trucks from reaching Gaza. The group argues that the assistance is being co-opted by Hamas — a charge the US denies. Israel has also made a point in recent months of stressing the amount of aid it is allowing into Gaza, indicating that it, too, doesn’t believe the assistance is for Hamas.
Tzav 9 also argues that the aid should be used as leverage to secure the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, but rights groups say doing so would violate international law.
Since the attacks on aid convoys in the West Bank are a relatively new phenomenon, it is unclear whether the administration will be able to put together the legal cases necessary for justifying sanctions against involved individuals by the time the US issues its fourth batch of settler sanctions in the coming weeks, one of the US officials says.
Individual members of the Israeli security forces are believed to be tipping off the far-right activists regarding the location of the aid trucks once they’re en route to Gaza, enabling their interception by those who have blocked the convoys from proceeding, and looting their contents.
Early on in the war, when the attacks were happening regularly near Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings into Gaza, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir signaled to police, which are under his jurisdiction, to take a lax approach on the crack down, an Israeli official said.
While the US has thus far avoided including Ben Gvir himself in its sanctions, it began targeting individuals in his inner circle in the last batch, designating Benzi Gopstein, the head of the anti-miscegenation Lehava group.
The second US official says this strategy could well continue in subsequent rounds of sanctions.
One potential candidate is Ben Gvir’s chief of staff Chanamel Dorfman, who has a long history of involvement in extremist activity, including in the West Bank.
Commenting on the extremists’ attacks on the aid convoys earlier this week, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this.”
“We are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government and it’s something that we make no bones about – this is completely and utterly unacceptable behavior.”
The State Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Israeli troops operating in southern Gaza’s Rafah located several primed rocket launchers with long-range projectiles, the military says.
According to the IDF, some of the launchers were used in attacks on Israeli cities in recent months.
Troops of the 414th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit, using drones, located the primed launchers and demolished them, the military says.
In a different area of Rafah, the IDF says troops located another rocket launching site with dozens of launchers, before it was also demolished.
The site had also been used in recent attacks on Israeli cities, including last week’s barrage on Beersheba, according to the military.
The military says it carried out strikes against some 10 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon a short while ago, including buildings where operatives were gathered.
The IDF also confirms that earlier today it carried out a drone strike on a vehicle with two Hezbollah operatives, near the southern Lebanon towns of Qana and Seddiqine.
According to the IDF, the pair were “en route to carrying out an immediate terror attack” against Israel.
Fighter jets, meanwhile, struck several Hezbollah sites, including a building and an observation post in Mays al-Jabal, another building in Kafr Qila, and two more buildings in Naqoura and Houla, where operatives were gathered, the IDF says.
מוקדם יותר היום כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקפו חוליית מחבלים במרחב קנא שבשטח לבנון שהיו בדרכם לממש מתווה טרור מיידי לעבר שטח הארץ.
במקביל, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר תקפו והשמידו לאורך היום באופן נרחב שורת מטרות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאלה בשטח לבנון>> pic.twitter.com/fYxPkGbSDJ
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 16, 2024
The Arab League has called for a United Nations peacekeeping force in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem during a summit dominated by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The “Manama Declaration” issued by the 22-member bloc called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented.
The declaration also calls on “all Palestinian factions to join under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization,” which is dominated by Hamas’s political rivals, the ruling Fatah movement.
The Arab League adds that it considered the PLO “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
The summit in Bahrain “strongly condemned the attacks on commercial ships,” by the Houthis, saying they “threaten freedom of navigation, international trade, and the interests of countries and peoples of the world.”
The declaration adds the Arab nations’ commitment to “ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea” and surrounding areas.
The upcoming Saturday night rally for the hostages will have an international tone, announces the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
The group is calling on the global community to join the effort for the release of 132 captives in Gaza, noting that Hamas is holding hostages from 24 different countries.
Speakers will include US ambassador Jack Lew, UK ambassador Simon Walters, German ambassador Steffen Seibert and Austrian ambassador Nikolaus Lutterotti, as well as video messages from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and talk show host Dr. Phil, who was just in Israel, interviewing hostage families and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hostage family members holding foreign citizenship will also speak, including US citizen Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui Dekel-Chen is a hostage; Argentinian-Israeli Itzik Horn, whose sons Eitan and Yair Horn are held captive; Ayala Yahalomi, sister of French-Israeli hostage Ohad Yahalomi and Russian-Israeli Evgeny Kozlov, whose son Andrey Kozlov is a hostage.
Musical performers on Saturday night will include Lola Marsh, Eurovision 2018 winner Netta Barzilai, singer-songwriter Noga Erez, American singer Montana Tucker and Israel’s Eurovision 2024 performer Eden Golan who will sing “October Rain,” the original version of the official Eurovision entry “Hurricane,” which had several verses removed by organizers because they referred to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
The Hezbollah terror group announces the deaths of two members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.
They are named as Muhammad Fares, from the Beirut area, and Ali Ayoub, from Ain Qana.
The announcement comes after Lebanese media reported an IDF strike on a vehicle between the south Lebanon towns of Seddiqine and Rmadiyeh earlier today, killing two.
Their deaths bring the terror group’s toll since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip to 300.
In South Africa’s final presentations at the ICJ, its representatives claim that Israel has genocidal intent against Palestinians and that the only way to prevent genocide is a court order instructing Israel to halt its entire military campaign in Gaza and not just Rafah as it had originally requested.
Attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi cites comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who was quoted by Haaretz at the end of April as saying, “There are no half-measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nusseirat – total annihilation,” as evidence of Israeli genocidal intent and also plays a video of IDF soldiers before entering the southern Gazan city of Rafah praying and then singing, “We will dismantle Rafah.”
Attorney Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh urges the court to intervene due to “the severity of the situation involving horrific human suffering,” which she says “mandates that the court to now order Israel to cease military operations” and claiming that Israel has ignored previous ICJ orders.
“South Africa cannot but reiterate what is the power of this court to do, what the drafters of the Genocide Convention called on it to do, to listen to that desperate cry for help from Gaza and order Israel to cease fire,” she says.
Israel will respond to South Africa at tomorrow’s hearing.
The head of the United Nations assistance mission in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, says that a recent increase in unannounced mass executions of people convicted under anti-terrorism laws was a cause for great concern.
Daniel Hemo, who was one of the five IDF soldiers killed in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza yesterday, donated his bone marrow to save a woman’s life toward the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the Ezer Mizion Jewish bone marrow registry reveals.
Hemo was found to be a match for a woman in her 60s, days before the war’s outbreak.
On October 7, he was supposed to be discharged from the army in order to begin the process of the donation, but it was put off due to the Hamas onslaught.
On that day, his 202 Paratrooper’s Battalion fought off Hamas terrorists in Israeli border towns in the south.
Later that month — while he was fighting in Gaza — the condition of his intended recipient worsened and his commander agreed to discharge him so that he could go through with the donation and save the woman’s life.
The donation went forward successfully on October 26.
Hemo eventually returned to fighting in Gaza where he was killed yesterday.
Incoming rocket sirens are sounding in several towns in the Western Galilee.
Footage posted to social media purports to show at least one heavy rocket impact in the area.
There are no immediate reports of injuries in the latest attack from Lebanon.
Rocket impacts reported in the Western Galilee, as sirens sound in the area. pic.twitter.com/nQ0FTf8jiy
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) May 16, 2024
South Africa’s legal representatives to the International Court of Justice say that Israel has “choked off” the Rafah and Kerem Shalom goods crossings into Gaza, which they say “have plunged Gaza into unprecedented levels of humanitarian need.
“Closure of crossings means that starving Palestinians are now further deprived of food,” says Prof. Max du Plessis.
The Defense Ministry’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) says, however, that Kerem Shalom has reopened since being shut down on May 5 after a nearby attack by Hamas, and states that 248 trucks of humanitarian aid were inspected and transferred to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, along with two fuel tankers.
“Israel has the power to determine whether every Palestinian in Gaza lives or dies. History warns us what happens next. We cannot stand by and wait for it to happen again,” says South African attorney Dr. Adila Hassim.
In describing what she alleges are Israel’s genocidal actions, Hassim asserts that Israel has killed 14,000 Palestinian children in Gaza, although the UN on May 8 revised that figure downwards 7,797.
Hassim also cites claims that mass graves have been discovered at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis where she alleges Israel executed Palestinian men, women and children. Open source information has indicated that these graves were dug and filled by Palestinians before Israeli forces entered the hospital.
Any ship from any company heading to Israeli ports will be targeted by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis in any area their capabilities can reach, not only limited to the Red Sea region, the group’s leaded Abdulmalik al-Houthi says in a televised speech.
The Israeli military says an explosive-laden drone launched from Lebanon crashed and exploded in an area near the northern community of Metula earlier today, injuring three soldiers.
One of the troops is listed in serious condition, and the other two are lightly hurt as a result of the blast.
The IDF says it is investigating the incident.
Hezbollah claimed that the drone was armed with missiles that were launched at IDF targets in Metula.
Three of the five fatalities in Wednesday’s friendly fire shooting are buried in Karnei Shomron, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously, following one earlier funeral.
The funeral of the fifth is on hold in anticipation of the soldier’s parents’ arrival from Argentina.
Thousands attend the funerals of Staff Sgt. Betzalel David Shashuah of Tel Aviv at the city’s military cemetery in Kiryat Saul; of Staff Sgt Gilad Arye Boim of Karnei Shomron; and of Capt. Roy Beit Yaakov of Eli on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
The family of Shashuah, 21, write in a statement that “the most important thing for him was unity among the People of Israel.” The family, who requested no media coverage at Shashuah’s funeral, describes him as a devoted son who was looking forward to serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
Shashuah, who led a religiously observant lifestyle, volunteered to serve on the front even though he was furloughed ahead of his discharge, his family says. “He was a hero of the People of Israel,” they write.
Boim is laid to rest at the military plot of the cemetery of his settlement of about 8,000 residents in the West Bank. He is the eighth soldier from Karnei Shomron to fall since October 7.
“A boy of light and kindness, a loyal soldier of this good land, was killed defending the homeland. The People of Israel Live,” writes Boim’s uncle, Kalman Libeskind, a prominent Kan broadcast journalist.
Roy Beit Yaakov’s father, Avidan, in a statement called him “a quiet and gentle combatant, humble and goal-oriented.”
The family of Sgt. Ilan Cohen, who was born in Argentina and served in the IDF as a lone soldier, is on its way to Israel for the funeral, which is expected to take place in Jerusalem.
The fifth casualty, Daniel Chemu, was buried in Netanya ahead of the other funerals.
The troops belonged to the 202 Paratroopers’ Battalion.
Jordan’s King Abdullah says that militant groups that smuggle drugs and arms should be confronted.
The US-allied kingdom foiled a suspected Iranian-led plot to smuggle weapons to help opponents of the ruling monarchy carry out acts of sabotage, two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the matter earlier told Reuters.
An official source told state news agency PETRA on Wednesday that the kingdom had in fact foiled an attempt by “foreign-backed militants” to smuggle arms into its territory, seized the arms and detained the smugglers in March.
“We should confront armed militant groups who commit crimes above the law, especially smuggling drugs and arms which is what Jordan has been thwarting for years now,” the king says at an Arab League summit held in Manama, avoiding naming Iran as responsible for the plot.
Israel continues to evade efforts to reach a ceasefire in its war with Hamas in Gaza, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose country has mediated in the conflict, tells Arab leaders at a summit in Manama.
Sissi adds that Israel is pursuing its military operations in Rafah, the southern border city between Egypt and Gaza, and using the city’s border crossing from its Palestinian side “to tighten the siege of the enclave.”
Israel and Egypt have traded blame for the responsibility of the crossing’s closure, which has been a vital route for aid to the coastal territory, where a humanitarian crisis has deepened and some people are at risk of famine.
Israel said on Tuesday that it was up to Egypt to reopen the Rafah Crossing and allow humanitarian relief into the Gaza Strip, prompting Cairo to denounce what it described as “desperate attempts” to shift blame for the blockage of aid.
“We found Israel continuing to escape its responsibilities and evade efforts exerted to reach a ceasefire,” Sissi says.
“Those who think that [only] security and military solutions are able to secure interests or achieve security [are] delusional,” Sissi adds.
South Africa’s representatives in the International Court of Justice denounce Israel for what they call its “ongoing genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza in a vitriolic opening salvo against Jerusalem.
South Africa Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela accuses Israel of ignoring previous ICJ orders and instructions from the UN Security Council and says that “Israel’s genocide has continued apace since last court hearing and has just reached a new and horrific stage” in the current operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.
Prof. Vaughan Lowe, who represented South Africa in its January application, alleges that it is “increasingly clear” that Israel’s actions in Rafah are designed to achieve its “endgame for Gaza to be utterly destroyed as an area of human habitation.”
Lowe again denies that Israel has a right to self-defense, as he did in January, despite having previously written that “no state is obliged by law passively to suffer the delivery of an attack.”
Lowe tells the court that if it does not intervene now, “the possibility of rebuilding a viable Palestinian society in Gaza will be destroyed” and says that “Israel’s declared aim of wiping Gaza from the map is about to be realized.”
Hezbollah claims to have carried out an attack against Israeli military positions near the northern border community of Metula using an armed drone.
In a statement, the terror group says the drone launched two missiles at the IDF targets.
It would mark the first time Hezbollah has used a drone that launches missiles, rather than explosive-laden drones which it has used repeatedly amid the war.
Hezbollah’s claims cannot be immediately verified.
The IDF has not yet commented on the incident.
Roman Gofman, the incoming military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is promoted to the rank of major general.
Gofman is replacing Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, who served as the prime minister’s military secretary for the past three years.
The ceremony earlier today is attended by Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, as well as other generals.
Gofman, who until recently served as the commander of the Tzeelim training base, was seriously wounded during clashes with Hamas terrorists near Sderot during the October 7 onslaught. He later recovered.
The International Court of Justice begins hearings on South Africa’s fourth application against Israel accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, on this occasion asking it to order Israel to halt its operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.
South Africa’s latest suit alleges that the current operation will make life in Gaza untenable due to the already severe humanitarian situation in the territory, widespread destruction in other parts of the Strip, and the importance of the Rafah Border Crossing in supplying Gaza with aid.
South Africa therefore argues that a full Israeli assault on Rafah would violate the clause of the Genocide Convention that prohibits “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The application erroneously stated that the critical Kerem Shalom crossing, through which the large majority of aid enters Gaza, is closed, although it reopened on May 8. The Coordination for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, an agency of the Defense Ministry, has noted that a new goods crossing has also been opened up on Gaza’s northern border with Israel for the supply of aid.
Former head of the International Law Department at the State Attorney’s Office Yuval Kaplinsky has said that the urgent manner in which the ICJ agreed to hear South Africa’s application indicates it could be ready to issue sharp orders against Israel, based on its previous orders on South Africa’s requests when no hearings were held at all.
The Palestinian Authority government has not received the financial support it expected from international and regional partners, President Mahmoud Abbas says at an Arab League summit.
“It has now become critical to activate the Arab safety net, to boost the resilience of our people and to enable the government to carry out its duties,” Abbas adds.
He laments Israel still withholding millions in tax revenue — to protest funds for Gaza which Jerusalem says may end up in Hamas’s hands — which he says has created a “dire situation.”
Ticket sales for an Israel-Belgium soccer match in Brussels in the UEFA Nations League have been paused due to security concerns.
The game is scheduled for September 6 at King Baudouin Stadium.
“The Royal Belgian Football Union is in constant contact with the security services, the city of Brussels and the federal government,” the soccer body says in a statement. “The security situation is being analyzed and developments are being closely monitored.”
Federation CEO Piet Vandendriessche says: “Safety comes first, always.”
Ticket sales for other Belgium home matches against France on October 14 and Italy on November 14 are going ahead as planned.
Hundreds of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have repeatedly taken to the streets of Brussels since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Belgium has been hit repeatedly by extremist attacks. Last year, a soccer game between Belgium and Sweden was suspended at halftime following a gunman fatally shooting two Swedes in Brussels before kickoff.
British police charge a man with multiple counts of racially aggravated criminal damage, after a series of anti-Muslim incidents last October and November at the office that serves Palestinian interests as well as mosques and businesses in the capital.
Police say Jonathan Katan was arrested last November after red paint was thrown or sprayed at a number of different locations on 11 occasions between October 16 and November 18.
Katan, 61, from Ealing in west London, is charged with 11 counts of racially aggravated criminal damage, and two other offenses relating to hate crime, the Metropolitan Police says in a statement. He is due to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court tomorrow.
“This [case] demonstrates how seriously we take allegations of hate crime against any of our communities,” Chief Superintendent Sean Wilson says in the statement.
There has also been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Britain since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7 massacre by the Islamist Palestinian terror group Hamas.
Earlier this week, two men appeared in court facing charges of having planned to attack and kill members of the Jewish community and others with automatic weapons in the northwest of the country.
Bahrain’s king calls for an international Middle East peace conference at the start of an Arab League summit held under the shadow of the Israel-Hamas war.
“[We] call for an international conference for peace in the Middle East, in addition to supporting full recognition of the state of Palestine and accepting its membership in the United Nations,” says King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the summit’s host.
Mansour Abbas, the head of Israel’s Islamist Ra’am political party, departed today for a diplomatic visit to the United arab Emirates, Channel 12 news reports, without citing a source.
Abbas’s office doesn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Times of Israel.
Abbas will reportedly meet Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and others, with the meetings focusing on efforts to stop the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, efforts to advance a hostage and truce deal, and the state of affairs for Israel’s Arab minority in the shadow of the war.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, following an assessment on the Gaza border, near Rafah, says more troops will be deployed to the city in the southern Gaza Strip as the military presses on with an operation against Hamas there.
The visit took place yesterday, Gallant’s office says in a new statement.
“This operation will continue with additional forces that will enter [the area]. Several tunnels in the area have been destroyed by our forces and more tunnels will be destroyed soon,” Gallant says in remarks provided by his office.
Overnight, the IDF deployed the Commando Brigade to Rafah, joining the 162nd Division’s Givati and 401st brigades which have been there since earlier this month.
“This operation will intensify and Hamas is not an organization that can regenerate itself now. It has no reserves, it has no ability to manufacture weapons, it has no supplies, it has no munitions, it has no ability to properly treat terrorists who are injured, and this means that we are wearing it down,” Gallant adds.
The IDF expects the Israeli government to approve widening the offensive in Rafah, as it has done so far in stages.
Two people were killed in the reported Israeli strike on a vehicle in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese media.
The strike reportedly took place on a road between the towns of Seddiqine and Rmadiyeh.
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem visited Gaza City today, his church says, where he delivered a “message of hope, solidarity and support” to people in the war-torn territory.
“His Beatitude, Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, entered Gaza and reached the parish of the Holy Family for a pastoral visit,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem says in a statement, adding that he presided over a mass.
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu joins other far-right politicians in calling for the replacement of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant following a high-profile public spat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday about Gaza’s future.
“If Gallant had respect for Israeli democracy, he would vacate his seat. [Likud’s Agriculture Minister Avi] Dichter or Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter can replace him. Gallant does not represent the will of the people,” Eliyahu tells Army Radio.
Dichter is a former chief of the Shin Bet security agency while Winter is a controversial senior IDF officer, popular among right-wing politicians, who is set to be demobilized after being left without a role for nearly two years.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — the latter of whom leads Eliyahu’s Otzma Yehudit party — called for Gallant’s ouster last night after he directly challenged the prime minister’s postwar thinking for the Gaza Strip in a televised address.
Egypt has rejected an Israeli proposal for the two countries to coordinate to reopen the Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, and to manage its future operation, two Egyptian security sources say.
Officials from the Shin Bet security service presented the plan on a visit to Cairo yesterday, amid rising tension between the two countries following Israel’s military advance last week into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by war have been sheltering.
The Rafah crossing has been a main conduit for humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and an exit point for medical evacuees from the territory. Israel took operational control of the crossing and has said it will not compromise on preventing Hamas from having any future role there.
The Israeli proposal includes a mechanism for how to manage the crossing after an Israeli withdrawal, the security sources say. Egypt insists the crossing should be managed only by Palestinian authorities, they add.
An Israeli official who requests anonymity says the delegation traveled to Egypt “mainly to discuss matters around Rafah, given recent developments,” but declines to elaborate.
Egypt’s foreign press office does not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After three hours, the military says it has captured a Palestinian suspected of stabbing a noncommissioned officer at Yitzhar Junction in the northern West Bank earlier today.
The military says the suspect was detained in the town of Awarta, not far from where the attack took place.
Lebanese media reports an Israeli strike on a vehicle between the southern Lebanon towns of Seddiqine and Rmadiyeh.
No further details are immediately available.
US Democrats are deeply divided over President Joe Biden’s handling of both the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the anti-Israel US campus protests, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found, fraying the coalition that he relied on four years ago to defeat Republican Donald Trump.
Some 44% of Democratic registered voters responding to the May 7-14 poll say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the crisis. Democrats who disapprove of his response are less likely to say they will vote for Biden in the November 5 election — no small concern given his tight rematch with Trump.
Overall, just 34% of registered voters approve of Biden’s handling of the war, including 53% of Democrats, 31% of independents and 22% of Republicans.
Among the registered Democrats who disapprove of Biden’s response to the Gaza conflict, about 77% say they will vote for him in November, compared to about 93% of those who approve of his Gaza response.
Some 38% of registered Democrats say they support the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests at US universities and cities, compared to 38% who say they do not. Registered independents lean against supporting the protests 58% to 23%, while Republicans overwhelmingly oppose the protests 81% to 8%.
Some 33% of Democrats agree with a statement that the protests reflect an antisemitic view, while 37% disagree. Some 45% of independents agree with that statement and 30% disagree. Some 67% of Republicans agree and 14% disagree.
The poll, conducted online, surveyed 3,934 US adults nationwide, including 3,208 registered voters. It had margins of error of about 2 percentage points for responses from all registered voters, about 3 points for registered Republicans and Democrats and about 4 points for independents.
Ignoring legal objections by the Attorney General’s Office, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill to lower Haredi yeshiva students’ age of exemption from military service.
The high-level committee announces its desire to pass the proposal, first advanced during the short-lived previous government, under a rule allowing the revival of legislation from previous Knessets.
In a statement yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he was pushing for the passage of the revision to the National Service Law “in order to bridge the differences and bring about a broad consensus” after negotiations with the ultra-Orthodox parties on enlistment legislation failed to produce an agreed-upon version.
But his announcement drew immediate condemnation, including from war cabinet minister Benny Gantz — who had initially proposed the legislation two years ago — as just another political maneuver.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has conditioned his support for any enlistment plan on that of Gantz, also panned the legislation, stating that “a draft law that will be brought unilaterally by some of the coalition factions, I will not [allow it to pass] and the defense establishment will not advance it,” he said at a press conference.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s decision to approve the law comes shortly after the Attorney General’s Office told Justice Minister Yariv Levin that there is a legal impediment to its advancement because it is based on obsolete data and was revived without consulting with the security services.
If passed, the legislation would lower the age of exemption from mandatory service for Haredi yeshiva students from the current 26 to 21 while “very slowly” increasing the rate of ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
When promoting the bill two years ago, Gantz insisted that it constituted an interim measure and needed to be accompanied by efforts to extend the national service requirement to both Haredi and Arab Israelis.
A blast occurred earlier today near troops at a military position close to the Black Arrow memorial site on the Gaza border, the IDF says.
The IDF says the blast was caused by Israeli munitions, and the incident is under further investigation.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) is planning to alter its schedule and add Friday to the trading week in a bid to strengthen the Israeli bourse’s global profile, it says.
The exchange hopes a decision to shift away from Israel’s Sunday to Thursday workweek to one that overlaps more with Wall Street and European bourses will win inclusion in global index provider MSCI’s Europe category.
Reassigning Israel to a new region like Europe could open the door to more passive inflows for the Israeli capital markets, but MSCI in 2022 rejected shifting the country to a new region, citing differing market trading days as a key reason.
MSCI, which provides equity, fixed income and hedge fund indexes, upgraded Israel to a developed market from an emerging one in 2010.
Under the TASE’s proposal, in collaboration with the Israel Securities Authority and Bank of Israel, trading would move to either Monday through Friday or Sunday through Friday in which trading on Sundays would begin at 12 p.m. local time.
Trading volume on Sundays is usually far lower than the rest of the week and trading ends 90 minutes earlier on that day.
It is yet to be decided how extended trading will fit around the start of Shabbat — the Jewish sabbath — on Friday afternoon, when most Israeli businesses close.
The shekel currency, however, is already traded on Fridays and more services keep running during Shabbat in Tel Aviv than in most other Israeli cities.
The TASE asks that public comments on the plans be submitted by June 30.
Israel’s economy recovered sharply in the first quarter of 2024 after a steep contraction in late 2023 that followed the start of war in Gaza against Palestinian terror group Hamas last October.
The Central Bureau of Statistics says in an initial estimate that gross domestic product (GDP) grew an annualized 14.1% in the January to March period, just shy of a Reuters consensus of 15.3%.
Growth was led by a rebound in consumer spending and renewed investment, particularly in residential building.
Fourth-quarter GDP was revised to a 21.7% contraction from a prior estimate of a 21.0% shrinkage in economic activity.
Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva says that after receiving initial medical treatment, the IDF noncommissioned officer who was stabbed in a West Bank attack is now regarded as lightly wounded.
Medics previously said the man was moderately injured.
He will remain hospitalized for medical supervision, says Dr. Yossi Shaya, the deputy chief of the hospital’s Emergency Department.
Israeli fighter jets a short while ago struck a Hezbollah rocket launching position in southern Lebanon that was used to fire some of the estimated 40 projectiles at the Golan Heights this morning.
The IDF says no injuries were caused in the rocket barrage, which Hezbollah claims targeted three military bases.
Some of the 40 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, the military says.
Meanwhile, a building where Hezbollah operatives were gathered in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab, and another building in Halta, have been struck, the IDF says.
The military also says that repeated sirens that sounded in the northern border community of Zar’it were triggered by five projectiles launched from Lebanon. No injuries were caused in the attack, according to the IDF.
בהמשך להתרעות שהופעלו בצפון הארץ מוקדם יותר היום זוהו כ-40 שיגורים שחצו משטח לבנון לעבר מרחב רמת הגולן.
מתוכם מספר שיגורים ייורטו בהצלחה על ידי לוחמי ההגנה האווירית. אין נפגעים, כוחות צה"ל תקפו את מקורות הירי.זמן קצר לאחר מכן ובתום זיהוי מקור השיגור, מטוסי קרב של חיל-האוויר… pic.twitter.com/CMS4quBmkJ
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) May 16, 2024
German authorities say they have banned a group that showed solidarity with “Palestinian resistance in all forms” and raided properties linked to it.
The interior ministry in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous, says it has banned the Palestine Solidarity Duisburg group. It accuses the group of spreading antisemitic narratives.
The ministry says police have searched four properties in the city of Duisburg linked to the group.
The region’s top security official, state Interior Minister Herbert Reul, says the move “sends the right signal” and adds in a statement that “in many cases nothing other than hatred for Jews is hidden behind solidarity with Palestine, as in the case of the organization banned today.”
In November, Germany’s federal government implemented a formal ban on activity by or in support of the Hamas terror group and dissolved Samidoun, a group that was behind a celebration in Berlin of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught in Israel.
The Attorney General’s Office tells Justice Minister Yariv Levin that there is a legal impediment to advancing a bill from the last Knesset backed by the previous government which would slowly increase the rate of ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF.
Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon points out to Levin that the bill was drawn up in 2021 on the basis of data that is no longer up to date, and notes that the IDF and the security establishment were not consulted by the government about its proposal to recycle the old bill.
“The reality that the state and the IDF are currently going through is totally different from when the bill was being formulated… including fierce, active combat on numerous fronts at the same time,” the Attorney General’s Office says in a statement to the press.
“An [ultra-Orthodox] enlistment arrangement cannot be accepted if it ignores security requirements, the security establishment, its economic consequences, and its impact on the public,” the statement adds.
Limon adds at the end of his letter that the Attorney General’s Office therefore opposes the bill. This means it cannot be advanced as government legislation, although it could be advanced as a private member’s bill.
Within the last 24 hours, some 11,000 people have signed an online letter urging the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to go ahead with two concerts by the Jerusalem Quartet, after the Dutch venue announced Tuesday that the Thursday and Saturday concerts by the Israeli ensemble had been canceled because of safety concerns “due to announced demonstrations, and recent developments surrounding protests in Amsterdam.”
According to classical news site SlippedDisc, more than 250 musicians and well-known artists signed the initial letter before it was released online.
The quartet’s cellist Kyril Zlotnikov, in a Facebook post yesterday, called the decision to cancel the concerts a “capitulation to bullying and terrorism.”
The Jerusalem Quartet, an established string quartet with a 30-year history, last week performed a sold-out show at Wigmore Hall in London.
Amsterdam has seen in recent days a series of sometimes violent anti-Israeli demonstrations and subsequent arrests relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Israel’s Arrow defense systems helped thwart Iran’s massive missile and drone attack last month, and a number of countries are now interested in purchasing the technology, says the developer’s chief executive.
Iran’s overnight attack between April 13 and 14, repelled by Israel’s multi-tiered defense shield with the help from allies, included more than 100 ballistic missiles.
The Arrow system, according to the Air Force, “carried out the main part” in their interception.
That success immediately drummed up global interest, says Boaz Levy, CEO at state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the project’s main contractor.
The US is a partner in the Arrow project and Boeing is involved in its production.
“A number of countries have approached us asking for information,” Levy tells Reuters. “I’m very optimistic that there will be more deals for the Arrow system, especially after the very special demonstration we did.”
He declines to name any of the countries since talks are in the early stages.
The Israel Police’s Jerusalem District Commander Deputy Commissioner Doron Turgeman announces that he will be retiring in July after 36 years in the police and other security bodies.
According to a police statement, Turgeman, 53, has notified Commissioner Kobi Shabtai of his intention to step down. Before that, he will oversee Jerusalem Day events and the Jerusalem Pride Parade.
Shabtai accepts Turgeman’s request, wishing him good luck and thanking him for his decades of service.
The victim of the stabbing attack in the northern West Bank is an IDF noncommissioned officer, the military says.
The IDF says the NCO was stabbed at Yitzhar Junction while in his vehicle. The stabber then fled the scene.
The military says it has launched a manhunt for the assailant, and is blocking roads in the area.
The NCO is listed in moderate condition.
Hezbollah claims responsibility for the rocket barrages on the Golan Heights this morning.
In a statement, the terror group claims to have targeted three military bases in the area with some 60 Katyusha rockets. The IDF reported that some 40 rockets crossed the border in the attack.
Hezbollah says the attack is a response to last night’s Israeli strike in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek.
Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva says the Israeli man wounded in the stabbing attack earlier in the northern West Bank is in moderate condition.
The IDF has launched a manhunt for the stabber.
The stabbing reportedly took place in the Huwara area, and the wounded man reached a nearby military position after being attacked.
Some 40 rockets were launched from Lebanon in two barrages at the Golan Heights a short while ago, according to the military.
Meanwhile, Lebanese media report Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab.
غارة تستهدف بلدة عيتا الشعب pic.twitter.com/IhhTDmnL1r
— bintjbeil.org (@bintjbeilnews) May 16, 2024
The latest exchange of fire comes following IDF strikes on Hezbollah targets deep in Lebanon after the terror group fired an explosive drone at a sensitive military facility in northern Israel, which came after a top Hezbollah field commander was killed in a drone strike.
The US navy’s destroyer the USS Mason intercepted an inbound Houthi anti-ship missile over the Red Sea on Monday, US Central Command says in a statement, after Yemen’s Houthis said yesterday that they had targeted the warship.
The US forces also destroyed two drones, Central Command says.
Yesterday, the Houthis said they had also targeted a vessel called Destiny in the Red Sea, as part of a campaign of attacks the Iran-backed group says it is carrying out in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
A US official tells Reuters there is no evidence of an attack on Destiny in recent days. “Our reporting indicates that the vessel and crew are safe, with no issues,” he says.
Israel Police have arrested for questioning a man in his 50s from Beersheba, after his partner was found dead in her apartment.
The woman, in her 40s, was found dead in her home in Beersheba last night, police said, after her son reported finding the body.
An investigation has been launched and will likely include an autopsy to determine the cause of death, police say in a statement.
An Israeli man has been stabbed near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, the military and medics say.
His condition is not immediately known.
The incident is presumed to be a terror attack.
Egypt has reportedly formed a panel of international law experts that will look into potential steps Cairo is weighing against Israel, as the country fumes over the IDF’s offensive in Rafah.
According to UAE news site The National, which cites unnamed sources, the panel is to also include constitutional experts and senior intelligence officers.
The report says further details on the panel’s makeup and mandate are unknown, but elaborates that it “reflects the depth of anger Cairo feels over the seizure by Israel on May 7 of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, as well as its rapidly expanding ground operation in the border city.”
It adds that contrary to previous reports, Egypt will not suspend the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Moves being mulled include downgrading the country’s diplomatic representation in Israel, and withdrawing Egypt’s ambassador.
Four Dutch political factions agree in their coalition pact to look into finding the appropriate timing for moving the embassy of the Netherlands in Israel to Jerusalem.
The draft agreement, which Dutch media reports was finalized last night, follows the November general elections in the Netherlands, in which the pro-Israel, far-right Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders received the highest share of the vote with 37 seats out of 150 in the Dutch lower house out of 150.
On Jerusalem, the draft states that research will be conducted into “the appropriate time in which the move of the embassy to Jerusalem can occur.”
A separate clause states that the Holocaust will be included in the integration exam that anyone seeking Dutch citizenship needs to pass. That clause is one of several outlining a tougher immigration policy for the Netherlands. Another clause states that the Netherlands will work to obtain an “opt-out” from the EU policy on absorbing asylum seekers.
The other coalition partners are the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy of caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte; the New Social Contract center-right party and the Farmer–Citizen Movement, a conservative party that was born out of protest against climate-relate policies.
The identity of the next prime minister is not yet known. Wilders, an anti-Islam firebrand who in 2016 was found guilty of inciting discrimination against Moroccans, is widely thought to have agreed not to preside as prime minister as per the conditions of some of his party’s future coalition partners.
The US military has finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip, the US Central Command says, with officials poised to begin ferrying humanitarian aid into the enclave via the sea.
US troops anchored the pier at 7:40 a.m. local time, CENTCOM says in a statement, stressing that none of its forces entered the Gaza Strip.
“Trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days,” the statement says. “The United Nations will receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza.”
It isn’t immediately clear which UN agency will be involved.
Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore, but there are also two US Navy warships near the area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both ships are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops off shore and allies on the beach.
The United States has demanded that the Israeli government transfer to the Palestinian Authority tax revenue it has been withholding from it, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
The Finance Ministry has confirmed that it has decided not to transfer tax revenues this month, with various Hebrew media reports putting the withheld sum at NIS 170-200 million ($46-54 million).
The Palestinian Authority said earlier this week that it would only pay public sector employees 50% of their March salaries, after Israel withheld the transfer due for the month of April, and that the arrears will be paid once the financial situation allows.
According to Kan, senior US officials have recently employed heavy pressure on top Israeli officials to transfer the money, warning that failure to do so would “cause an acute economic crisis” in the West Bank and could inflame tensions. The tension is increasing ahead of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to Israel.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s move is in protest of PA efforts “fighting against the State of Israel,” an apparent reference to reports that Ramallah has been pushing for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for top Israeli officials for alleged breaches of international law in Gaza during the ongoing war against Hamas, as well as leading “unilateral” moves to upgrade its status in the United Nations.
Israel collects hundreds of millions of shekels in Palestinian tax revenue, which Smotrich held up earlier in the war over concerns that the portion of the funds that Ramallah uses to pay for services and employees in Gaza — roughly NIS 260 million ($73 million) monthly — could wind up in the hands of Hamas.
Although Hamas wrested control of Gaza from the rival Fatah faction in 2007, the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Fatah, continues to fund some health and education services in the enclave.
An agreement was eventually reached in February for Israel to transfer the payments to the PA via Norway to ensure no money is diverted.
More sirens indicating potential rocket attacks and hostile aerial invasions from Lebanon are sounding in northern Israeli communities, as tensions with Hezbollah flare.
The alerts sound in the area of Mount Meron in the Galilee.
There are no immediate further details.
Five IDF soldiers are injured after being hit by a car in Haifa, in what police say is likely a traffic accident and not an intentional attack.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says the five young men have been taken to the city’s Rambam Medical Center. One of them is moderately hurt with wounds to his head and limbs, while the other four are lightly hurt.
Police say they have “located” the driver who hit them and started an investigation, stressing the incident was likely an accident.
Five Israeli soldiers were killed and another seven were wounded, including three seriously, in an incident of so-called friendly fire in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya yesterday, the military announces.
The slain troops are named as
The soldiers all served in the Paratroopers Brigade’s 202nd Battalion.
According to an initial IDF probe, a tank operating alongside the paratroopers in the Jabaliya camp fired two shells at a building where they were gathered at around 7 p.m.
The tank forces had arrived at the area in the morning hours, and several hours later, the paratroopers reached the area and established a post in the building. Later in the evening, another group of paratroopers reached the area and notified two of the tanks there that they were entering the building.
The tank forces had later identified a gun barrel from one of the windows of the building and believed it was enemy forces, leading them to fire two shells.
The incident is being further probed.
The IDF’s Commando Brigade was deployed to southern Gaza’s Rafah overnight, joining the 162nd Division which has been operating in the eastern part of the city since earlier this month.
The move comes as the Israeli government is expected to approve widening the offensive there.
The IDF confirms that a Hezbollah explosive-laden drone launched from Lebanon hit a sensitive military facility near the Golani Junction in the Lower Galilee last night.
Two drones were launched in the attack, with one being downed by air defenses.
The second explosive drone struck the site, and the damage is currently being evaluated by the military.
In response, the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes overnight in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek.
The strike targeted a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing plant, used to build guided munitions and drones, according to military assessments.
Three Palestinians have been killed overnight in clashes with IDF forces during a crackdown on terror funding in the West Bank, according to Palestinian Authority officials and Hebrew media.
Hebrew media says the raids targeted offices allegedly involved in funneling money to terror purposes in Tulkarem, Nablus, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tubas and other locations.
In Tulkarem in the northwest of the territory, troops came under attack — though none of them were hurt — and returned fire, according to the reports.
Three men were killed in that clash, the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry tells AFP, adding that several others were injured.
It identifies those killed as Ayman Ahmad Mubarak, 26, Husam Imad Daabas, 22 and Mohammed Yusif Nasrallah, 27.
According to the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA, the three men were killed during an Israeli raid on the town shortly after midnight.
Hostile aircraft invasion alerts are sounding in Kiryat Shmona and other towns in the upper Galilee.
The incident comes as Israel and Hezbollah have increasingly traded fire, including during the night, following the killing of a Hezbollah field commander earlier this week.
The IDF Home Front Command says after a few minutes that “the incident is over,” without providing further details.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is working to get a group of American doctors out of Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah Border Crossing, the White House says.
The State Department said earlier this week that the government was aware that American doctors were unable to leave Gaza, after the Intercept reported that upwards of 20 American doctors and medical workers are trapped in Gaza.
The Palestinian American Medical Association, a US-based non-profit, said on Monday that its team of 19 healthcare professionals, including 10 Americans, had been denied exit from Gaza after a two-week mission providing medical services at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a city near Rafah in southern Gaza.
Israel seized and closed the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 7.
“We’re tracking this matter closely and working to get the impacted American citizens out of Gaza,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters.
Jean-Pierre says the United States is engaging directly with Israel on the matter.
The Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military ground operation in Rafah, but Jean-Pierre says efforts to get the doctors out are continuing regardless of what happens there.
“We need to get them out. We want to get them out and it has nothing to do with anything else,” she says.
IRVINE, California — Police have taken back a lecture hall from pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating against Israel who for hours occupied the building at the University of California, Irvine, then cleared a student encampment that stood for more than two weeks, witnesses says.
Officers from about 10 nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus after university officials requested help because protesters had occupied the lecture hall, leading the school to declare it a “violent protest,” police and university officials say.
About four hours later, police had ejected the protesters from both the lecture hall and the plaza that had been the site of the encampment, according to the university and Reuters witnesses.
“The police have retaken the lecture hall,” UC Irvine spokesperson Tom Vasich says by telephone from the scene. “The plaza has been cleared by law-enforcement officers.”
Vasich says there were a “minimal number of arrests” and characterizes the protesters as “begrudgingly cooperative.”
🚨Drone footage I took of police making arrests on students in helmets and gas masks at UC Irvine – follow for live updates pic.twitter.com/XHm9aaPVZP
— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) May 16, 2024
The university says all classes will be held remotely on Thursday, asking employees not to come to campus.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Incoming rocket sirens sound in the town of Metula near the border with Lebanon, with anyone there told to immediately take shelter.
Police release video footage of an attempted stabbing attack on officers near Jerusalem’s Old City.
In the clip, several Border Police officers can be seen questioning the assailant, who then pulls a knife from his pocket and lunges at the nearest cop before being shot and falling to the ground.
Citing an initial investigation, police say the attacker appears to have acted on his own and that the force is working to identify him.
תיעוד: ניסיון הפיגוע במזרח ירושלים וניטרול המחבל | לידיעה המלאה >>> https://t.co/c9O2sSTn0W
צילום: דוברות המשטרה pic.twitter.com/IJA9Xrb5yw— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 16, 2024
A suspect tried to stab a Border Police officer outside a police station in East Jerusalem before being shot by cops at the scene, according to police.
A police statement says the assailant was “neutralized” and that none of the officers were hurt in the suspected attack.
מחבל ניסה לדקור באמצעות סכין לוחמי מג"ב סמוך לתחנת המשטרה שלם במזרח ירושלים – ונוטרל בירי השוטרים, אין נפגעים@yoeli_brim
(צילום: דוברות המשטרה) pic.twitter.com/kTuSi1a6MI— גלצ (@GLZRadio) May 16, 2024
The US military says that it has destroyed four “uncrewed aerial systems” in an area of Yemen controlled by Iran-backed Houthis.
US Central Command says on the social media site X that the systems presented an imminent threat to US and coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region.
The president of a state university in Northern California announces that’s he now on leave, less than a day after endorsing an academic boycott of Israel as part of an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators to take down their tent encampment that has been strongly denounced by Jewish groups and lawmakers.
In addition to an academic boycott, Sonoma State University’s Mike Lee agreed to the establishment of an “advisory council” of Students for Justice in Palestine — whose national umbrella organization praised the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught — to ensure compliance with the deal, which also includes a section on “disclosure and divestment.”
Yesterday the President of Sonoma State University aligned the campus with BDS, a movement whose goal is the destruction of Israel, home to 7M Jews.
Several other UC & CSU campuses are doing this more subtly. Sonoma State simply said the quiet part out loud.
The mask is off. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DDUiIzKcTG
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) May 15, 2024
“My goal when meeting with students at the encampment was to explore opportunities to make meaningful change, identify common ground and create a safe and inclusive campus for all. I now realize that many of the statements I made in my campuswide message did just the opposite,” Lee writes in an email.
“In my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalized other members of our student population and community. I realize the harm that this has caused, and I take full ownership of it. I deeply regret the unintended consequences of my actions,” he continues, while saying “the points outlined in the message were mine alone.”
“As I step away on a leave, I will reflect on the harm this has caused and will be working with the chancellor’s Office to determine next steps.”
BREAKING: Sonoma State President Mike Lee on leave 24 hrs after endorsing anti-Israel encampment demands. Thank you @calstate Pres Garcia, Jewish Caucus' @Scott_Wiener and @AsmJesseGabriel, @JPACcalifornia @JFedLA and countless community members who weighed in with @SFJCRC. pic.twitter.com/6F1T3LB4yT
— Tyler Harris Gregory 🏳️🌈🇮🇱🌁🎗️ (@TyeGregory) May 15, 2024
A collision between a pair of buses in Tel Aviv left eight people injured, including a man in serious condition with numerous significant wounds, the Magen David Adom ambulance service says.
The ambulance service says three people were moderately wounded and the other four were lightly hurt.
WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are urging US President Joe Biden to expand its sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers, providing additional tailwind for use of the tool that Washington began using earlier this year for the first time.
“We urge the Administration to ‘follow the money’ and take further actions against any private entities that finance or sponsor violence against Palestinian civilians or facilitate property destruction, illegal seizure or dispossession of land from Palestinians in the West Bank,” reads a letter to Biden and Treasurt Secretary Janet Yellen penned by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Ben Cardin, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jack Reed and Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner.
The Biden administration has issued three rounds of sanctions against violent settlers and additional batches are expected in the coming weeks and months, US officials tell The Times of Israel.
Israel has failed to crack down on settler violence, which has intensified since October 7, leading the Biden administration to issue an executive order allowing these financial sanctions for the first time.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators wearing masks have pitched tents and placed fake bloody corpses outside the home of a University of Michigan board member, raising tension with the school as part of their ongoing protest against Israel amid its war in Gaza against Hamas.
Sarah Hubbard, chair of the university’s governing board, says the 6 a.m. demonstration at her home in Okemos involved 30 people.
“They approached my home and taped a letter to my front door and proceeded to erect the tents. A variety of other things were left in the front yard,” Hubbard tells The Associated Press. “They started chanting with their bullhorn and pounding on a drum in my otherwise quiet neighborhood.”
She and her husband stayed inside. Okemos is 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Ann Arbor campus.
The protesters left 30 to 45 minutes later when Meridian Township police arrived, Hubbard says. No arrests were made. Three tents and fake corpses wrapped in red-stained sheets were left behind.
Jordan Acker, another member of the Board of Regents, says someone with a face covering left a list of demands at his home at 4:40 a.m.
See more here: https://t.co/M4oyuQieWo pic.twitter.com/kzOos2T364
— Jordan Acker (@JordanAckerMI) May 15, 2024
Protesters at the Ann Arbor campus have an encampment on the Diag, a prominent public space.
The group is demanding that the university’s endowment stop investing in companies with ties to Israel. But the university insists it has no direct investments and only less than $15 million placed with funds that might include companies in Israel. That’s less than 0.1% of the total endowment.
“There’s nothing to talk about. That issue is settled,” Hubbard says.
In social media posts, a coalition calling for divestment acknowledges the protest and says it will “remain relentless in the struggle for a free Palestine.”
“Please stop complaining on Twitter and come to the encampment to actually negotiate,” the group says, referring to Hubbard.
The university says the protest at her home is not free speech. “The tactics used today represent a significant and dangerous escalation,” spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen says.
School officials have not disclosed any plans to break up the encampment on campus, which was created in April.
“We would prefer that they would leave on their own,” Hubbard says.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration welcomes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance a plan for the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.
Gallant warned in an address earlier this evening that failing to find a replacement for Hamas will undermine Israel’s military achievements, as the terror group would be able to regroup and reassert control of Gaza.
“We share the defense minister’s concern that Israel has not developed any plans for holding and governing territory the IDF clears, thereby allowing Hamas to regenerate in those areas. This is a concern because our objective is to see Hamas defeated,” a senior Biden administration official tells The Times of Israel in a statement.
Lebanese media report Israeli airstrikes in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold some 100 kilometers from the border.
The reports describe the Israeli strike as the largest in the Baalbek region amid the war. They also say multiple targets were hit in the Nabi Chit and Brital areas.
عاجل : ينفذ الطـ يران الحـ ربي الاسـ رائيلي عدوانا جويا واسعا مستهدفا عدد من اطراف بلدات البقاع الشرقي لاسيما النبي شيت الطيبة الخريبة بريتال بغـ ارات عنيفة سمع دويها في ارجاء محافظتي بعلبك الهرمل . pic.twitter.com/6Jdnyf2xF6
— موقع النبطية (@Nabatiehorg) May 15, 2024
The strikes come after the terror group launched an explosive-laden drone, striking an area deep in northern Israel, marking the furthest attack carried out amid the war.
بعلبك منذ قليل pic.twitter.com/AS9fgvcShE
— أحمد عباس ياسين || Ahmed A. Yassine (@ahmedyassine30) May 15, 2024
