Gavin Rabinowitz is a news editor at The Times of Israel
The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.
An ABC poll has Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton for the first time since May in the wake of the FBI’s renewed email investigation.
With one week before the election 46 percent of likely voters support Trump in the latest results, with 45 percent for Clinton, ABC says. Third-party candidate Gary Johnson has 3 percent, a new low ,and Jill Stein, 2 percent.
ABC notes a significant drop of strong enthusiasm for Clinton by 7 points since the start of tracking, Trump’s strong enthusiasm has held steady in tracking, which started October 20.
However, this poll does not take into account the Electoral College and ABC notes that “vote preference results a week out are not necessarily predictive of the final result. Mitt Romney was +1 vs. Barack Obama in comparable tracking poll results in 2012, for example, and John Kerry was +1 vs. George Bush a week out in 2004.”
A 30-year-old Palestinian woman carrying two knives is arrested after trying to enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, police say.
Police say the woman was behaving suspiciously as she tried to enter the flash-point holy site. Border police searched her and found the weapons.
Recent days have seen a spike in Palestinian shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks in the West Bank.
— Judah Ari Gross
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says Turkey is considering reinstating limited use of the death penalty if there is an agreement between political parties.
“If there is consensus with other political parties on this demand of the people… limited arrangements can be made,” says Yildirim in a speech in Ankara.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim speaks during the AK Party’s group meeting at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, on November 1, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN)
He says it would not be used retroactively, but did not elaborate further.
Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004 as part of reforms introduced in its bid to join the European Union. It has not executed anyone since 1984.
But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested Turkey could bring back the death penalty in the wake of the failed July coup.
— AFP
A man is charged with impersonating medical staff at a Jerusalem hospital and raping a new mother, Hebrew language media reports.
The prosecutor asks the Jerusalem District Court that the suspect, identified as Razek Hazam, be held in custody until the end of proceedings, NRG reports.
The Jerusalem District Court building in East Jerusalem. (Screen capture Google Maps)
The incident occurred last month at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
NRG says the man impersonated a hospital worker and told the woman he needed to carry out an examination, before assaulting her.
He is also charged with assaulting two other patients and stealing from a nearby grocery store.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas says that peace is a strategic goal of the Palestinians and they are committed to a two-state solution, Channel 2 reports
Abbas is speaking in the West Bank town of Bethlehem where he is meeting visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (R) shakes hands with visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on November 1, 2016. Mattarella is on a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. ( AFP PHOTO / POOL / Fadi Arouri)
Abbas also reportedly says he is willing to make peace with Israel.
The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has been dormant since the collapse of a US-led initiative in April 2014.
Elite Iraqi forces recapture a village and a television station on the edge of Mosul, commanders say, as they press forward with the operation to retake the jihadist-held city.
“We finished clearing Gogjali and took control of the Mosul television station building,” Staff Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi tells AFP.
Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service members carry an injured comrade during clashes with Islamic State jihadists on the eastern edges of Mosul, on October 31, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC)
Another senior commander also confirms in a statement that the village and the TV station have been recaptured.
— AFP
The Turkish military is deploying tanks and artillery to southeastern districts near the Iraqi border, military sources say.
The 30-vehicle convoy left Ankara for Silopi, the sources tell AFP, adding that it was now close to Adana province in southern Turkey.
The sources did not explain why the convoy was being sent.
— AFP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says allegations of misdeeds, including rape and intimidation, should not tarnish the reputation of slain former minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
Netanyahu is talking at a memorial for Ze’evi, also known as Gandhi. There have been calls to cancel the memorial following the publication in April of an extensive investigative TV report detailing serious allegations against Ze’evi.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset memorial for assassinated Israeli politician Rehavam Ze’evi, October 12, 2010. (Abir Sultan/Flash 90)
“Gandhi is not here to defend himself. The right to a good name is a basic right for the living and, just as much so, for the dead,” the prime minister says.
“There is a cloud above Gandhi, but on the ground there is a legacy of achievement and action for the state, and for all this we all have to be thankful,” he says.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira says the government has failed to return some 85 percent of Holocaust victim’s assets to survivors and heirs.
In his annual economics report, Shapira says that since the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets was set up in 2006, it has recovered property worth NIS 1.8 billion ($470 million) and returned just NIS 280 million ($73 million.)
Dozens of Jewish Holocaust survivors wear phylacteries and the tallit prayer shawl as they dance with the Torah after performing their bar mitzvahs, on May 2, 2016, at the Western Wall in the Jerusalem’s Old City. (AFP/Menahem Kahana)
“This should be urgently acted on, because to our regret, the generation of survivors is shrinking every day,” Shapira writes.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira attends a a State Control committee meeting at the Knesset on June 02, 2014. (photo credit: Flash90)
In cases where the original owners of the property or their descendants can’t be identified the company is supposed to use the funds it recovers to assist and support other survivors.
Although in the past it has provided NIS 750 million ($195 million) worth of support, in 2015 its budget was reduced and in 2016 it stopped funding entirely.
— Stuart Winer
A car bomb targeting a military checkpoint on a road leading to Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri exploded today, killing all nine people in the vehicle, police and witnesses say.
It is unclear if any soldiers were hurt in the attack, which is being blamed on Boko Haram extremists.
IIllustrative photo of Nigerian army soldiers on patrol on March 5, 2015. (Photo credit: AFP/SUNDAY AGHAEZE)
Preliminary reports indicate that those killed were the driver and passengers in the explosives-laden minivan, says police deputy superintendent Victor Isuku.
Boko Haram has recently stepped up attacks after a months-long lull caused by a leadership struggle in the Islamic State-affiliated group.
— AP
Final evidence was given today at the trial of Elor Azaria, the soldier on trial for killing a wounded and disarmed Palestinian attacker in Hebron earlier this year.
IDF Sgt. Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier who shot dead a Palestinian attacker in Hebron, seen during a court hearing at a military court in Jaffa, September 11, 2016. (Flash90)
The last witness called for the defense was Hadas Gips of the National Center of Forensic Medicine, Walla reports. She was the 52nd witness to give evidence in the trial that has bitterly divided Israel.
The prosecution and defense will now present their closing arguments, with the verdict expected in the coming months, Walla says.
Israeli Meir Brand has been appointed as a vice president of technology giant Google, Haaretz reports.
Congratulations, Meir! Israel's Meir Brand appointed @google VP https://t.co/wznDgVABiN pic.twitter.com/JB2trdjHgl
— Invest in Israel (@investinisrael) November 1, 2016
Brand, who currently is CEO of Google Israel. will continue as Google’s director for EMEA Emerging Markets (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), as a board member of Google EMEA, and head of Google Israel, Haaretz says, quoting an email from Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Bulgarian authorities say they had seized a record amount of over 13 million euros’ ($14.4 million) worth of counterfeit notes, most of them recovered by scuba divers in a reservoir.
The huge haul of 500-euro bills, most of which had been stashed for safe keeping underwater by a dam in southern Bulgaria, was discovered after police were alerted to their imminent entry into circulation, says chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov.
“This is one of the largest amounts of counterfeit euros ever encountered (worldwide),” he says after one of the counterfeiters confessed to the ploy and led authorities to the hiding place.
Scuba divers pull almost €12 million in counterfeit notes out of a dam in #Bulgaria https://t.co/VbdSeRiA5H pic.twitter.com/Ymx9P7spQv
— Balkan Insight (@BalkanInsight) November 1, 2016
Tsatsarov says the fake notes were “of an extremely high quality” and their stay in the water only gave them a used look.
The European Central Bank decided earlier this year to stop issuing the violet-colored 500-euro bills around the end of 2018 over fears that they are favored by criminals for money laundering and even terrorist financing.
— AFP
Some 250 new immigrants from war-torn Ukraine arrived in Israel today and will settle in northern and central Israel.
Many of the new immigrants, constituting 117 families, came to Israel from shelters in Ukraine established for people displaced in the fighting, says the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, who assisted them.
250 new immigrants from the Ukraine landed in Israel on November 1, 2016. Many had been living in shelters after being displaced by fighting. (courtesy: IFCJ)
“The day-to-day situation in the Ukraine now is awful,” says one of the new arrivals, Olga. “I am so grateful for this opportunity to come and live in Israel.”
There was a poor turnout at the Knesset today for a ceremony to mark 15 years since the killing of minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
Only a few dozen lawmakers and members of Zeevi’s family attend this ceremony.
Commemorations for Ze’evi, also known as Gandhi, have been marred by a recent investigative TV report detailing severe allegations — including anonymous testimony by a female soldier who said she was raped by Ze’evi while he was an IDF general.
The program said a number of senior officers were aware of the incident and helped Ze’evi hide his crime. Numerous other women were also quoted alleging intimidation and harassment at the hands of Ze’evi.
Slain tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi, assassinated by the PFLP in 2001. (Flash90)
Speaking at the Knesset ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoes his comments from a memorial ceremony earlier in the day.
“There is a need to act with great caution,” Netanyahu says of Ze’evi’s reputation. “Particularly when a person is not there to defend themselves.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the commander of the peacekeeping force in South Sudan following a damning report showing that the blue helmets failed to protect civilians during a recent outbreak of violence in Juba.
Ban “has asked for the immediate replacement of the force commander,” says UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
UN peacekeepers salute during a memorial service for two colleagues who were killed in an attack on the UN compound in Juba, South Sudan, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. (AP/United Nations Mission in South Sudan)
A UN inquiry finds that a lack of leadership in the UN peacekeeping mission culminated in a “chaotic and ineffective response” to an outbreak of violence.
The investigation set up by Ban found that peacekeepers maintained a “risk-averse posture” during the heavy fighting in the capital from July 8 to 11.
— AFP
Up to 600,000 children are among the civilians trapped in jihadist-held Mosul, Save The Children say, calling for safe corridors as Iraqi forces advanced on the city.
“It is a critical moment to protect children and open safe routes to allow the 1.5 million civilians, including about 600,000 children, still trapped in the city to leave safely,” says the charity.
An Iraqi refugee child who fled Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under the control of the Islamic State, due to the Iraqi government forces offensive to retake the city, washes dishes at the UN-run al-Hol refugee camp in Syria’s Hasakeh province, on October 31, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / DELIL SOULEIMAN)
Iraqi forces reached the edges of Mosul on Tuesday, two weeks into a massive operation to retake the city they lost to the Islamic State jihadist group in June 2014.
— AFP
The latest Wikileaks release reveals that the Clinton campaign looked to undermine the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee as far back as December.
Among the options discussed in the hacked campaign documents was forcing the chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, out of office after the party’s convention.
Other options outlined in a memo by top campaign aide Heather Stone would have kept Wasserman Schultz in place, but in a weakened capacity.
Former DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaks during a Florida delegation breakfast, Monday, July 25, 2016, in Philadelphia, during the first day of the Democratic National Convention. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The memo urged “systemic shifts at the DNC leadership level” to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency.
Wikileaks has been releasing thousands of hacked emails from campaign chairman John Podesta.
Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation just before the convention last summer after an earlier Wikileaks hack of party emails showed party officials had favored Clinton over challenger Bernie Sanders.
— AP
A 27-year old woman and her two children were wounded when a fire broke out in their south Tel Aviv apartment, rescue workers say.
The children, aged 4 and 2, are moderately hurt, suffering from smoke inhalation, the Magen David Adom Rescue Service says. The woman was lightly injured.
It’s not immediately clear what caused the blaze in the three story building.
Pope Francis, who has repeatedly called on Europe to open its doors to more migrants, says today that governments have the right to be cautious about integrating migrants.
“I think that, in theory, you can’t close your heart to a refugee,” the pope says while flying back from a two-day visit to Sweden.
“Governments must be open to receive them, but also do the calculations regarding their reception (capabilities), because one must not only receive a refugee but also integrate them,” he adds.
Pope Francis talks with journalists aboard a plane during the flight back from Malmo to Rome, on November 1, 2016, after a two-days visit in Sweden. (ETTORE FERRARI / POOL / AFP)
Last year Europe saw an influx of more than one million asylum seekers in the worst such crisis since World War II.
“It isn’t human to close the doors and the hearts,” the pope argues, adding that in the long run there would be political gains to be had by being more welcoming.
Sweden has a long tradition of accepting foreigners, and let in 245,000 refugees in 2014 and 2015.
— AFP
Police are likely to again question the prime minister’s wife Sara Netanyahu regarding allegations she misused state funds in their private residence, Channel 10 reports.
Channel 10 says that after reviewing evidence, the state prosecutor asked police to carry out further investigations, which will include summoning her for additional questioning, the report says.
The case revolves around allegations the first couple spent public funds on garden furniture and electrical repairs at their private villa in the coastal resort town of Caesarea.
Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and advocate Yossi Cohen in the Jerusalem Regional Labor Court, October 29, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Also, a former butler has accused Sara Netanyahu of pocketing cash from deposit refunds for empty bottles returned from the official residence between 2009 and 2013, money that should have gone to the treasury.
The news comes after Menny Naftali, a former caretaker at the Prime Minister’s Residence, spent several hours answering questions today.
Naftali was awarded NIS 170,000 ($43,735) in damages by a court that accepted his claims of mistreatment by Sara Netanyahu.
Transport minister Yisrael Katz plans to extend the Jerusalem light rail system to several communities around the city, including some Jerusalem neighborhoods over the Green Line and West Bank settlements.
The Jerusalem Light Rail passing the Notre Dame Pontifical Institute. (Shmuel Bar-Am)
Katz says he wants four new lines of the rail system to reach Ma’aleh Adumim, Adam, Givat Ze’ev and the Qalandiya crossing.
The move is likely to draw international criticism, but Katz says this will not deter him.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz arrives at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on September 4, 2016 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
“There will be those who will come and say we need to make an artificial divider for those residents who live over what was called the Green Line, he says.
“We obviously don’t accept this,” he says.
