ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 470
The Times of Israel liveblogged Sunday’s events as they happened.
Police say two people were injured during a brawl between a pair of families at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, with sounds of gunfire heard in video from the scene.
Officers trying to restore order outside the hospital have arrested 14 suspects, police say.
The two injured people required medical treatment, according to police, which did not specify their condition. Police say the two are from the nearby Bedouin city of Rahat.
שני תושבי רהט נפצעו מדקירות בקטטה שפרצה בין שתי משפחות בדואיות בחניון של בית החולים סורוקה בבאר שבע. במקום נשמעו גם קולות ירי@Itsik_zuarets
(צילום: עמאר אסדי) pic.twitter.com/SW3mJtkIl1— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) November 14, 2021
Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash approves giving COVID-19 vaccines to kids ages 5-11, adopting the recommendation made by a government panel of medical experts last week.
A Health Ministry statement says the start date of the vaccine campaign will be announced in the coming days.
JOHANNESEBURG — The South African government says it is dissociating itself from a decision by the reigning Miss South Africa to take part in the annual Miss Universe in Israel.
The decision came after growing calls for the reigning Miss South Africa to boycott the pageant over alleged Israeli rights violations against Palestinians.
Local beauty pageant organizers have been adamant that the recently crowned Miss SA Lalela Mswane should go.
“It has proven difficult to persuade the Miss SA pageant organizers to reconsider their decision to partake in the Miss Universe event,” the arts and culture ministry says in a statement.
The government therefore “withdraws its support,” following the organizers’ “intransigence.”
The pageant is slated to be held in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat on December 12.
“The atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians are well documented and government, as the legitimate representative of the people of South Africa, cannot in good conscience associate itself with such,” the ministry says.
South Africa backs the Palestinian cause, with formal diplomatic relations established in 1995, a year after the end of apartheid.
It downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv in 2019 and pulled out its ambassador.
Miss SA pageant organizers last week argued that the Miss Universe pageant is not a “politically inspired event.”
Forging ahead could “prove disastrous to her (Mswane’s) future and public standing as a young, black woman,” warns Arts Minister Nathi Mthethwa.
In a statement, the ruling ANC party urged the organizers “to hear and listen to the overwhelming call for the Miss South Africa team to boycott the upcoming apartheid Israel hosted Miss Universe.”
The Israel Defense Forces updates its rules of engagement to allow soldiers to more easily open fire at suspected thieves and smugglers in a bid to crackdown on crime, the military says.
Under the IDF’s new open-fire regulations, troops can now use deadly force in cases of thefts of weapons and ammunition from military bases, break-ins at bases and firing ranges, smuggling attempts along the Israeli-Egyptian border. In the past, soldiers could only open fire in those circumstances if their lives were in immediate danger.
The change was made following years of public and internal criticism of the military’s rules of engagement and after a review of the policies, the IDF says. The recommendation was presented to IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, who signed off on the change, the military says.
“Rules of engagement are coordinated with an up-to-date assessment of the situation and operational challenges. In recent weeks, the IDF has been working to implement the changes, to include the necessary changes into relevant training programs, so that soldiers will be briefed on their bases from now on with up-to-date orders in accordance with their operational region,” the military says.
Israeli officials believe the coming 48 hours will be critical in seeking to secure the release of an Israeli couple detained in Turkey after photographing a presidential palace, according to television reports.
Channel 13 news says officials believe that if not the saga is not resolved in the next two days, the couple could remain in Turkish custody for years.
The network also reports that other Israelis have been snapping photos of the palace in Istanbul without incident. And a Turkish journalist tells Channel 12 that thousands of people would be facing espionage charges if taking pictures of the palace is considered to be an act of spying.
A separate report by Channel 12 news quotes unnamed diplomatic officials saying they have been unable to get a response from Turkey on the matter.
Earlier, a Channel 13 news reporter was detained while broadcasting live from Turkey. The reporter, Ali Mograbi, was later released.
Mograbi says it was noticeable that policemen were tailing him all day.
When he started a live broadcast in the street they came and told him to stop. They then took him and made sure he deleted all the photos he had taken before releasing him and telling him not to leave the hotel, he says.
Israeli weapons-maker Elbit Systems launched a new venture in the United Arab Emirates today, an announcement that comes ahead of visits to Dubai by senior Israeli military officials.
The manufacturer of the Hermes armed drone and cutting-edge surveillance technology, among other products, hails the announcement as a product of the so-called Abraham Accords that saw Israel establish diplomatic ties with several Arab states including the UAE last year.
The new venture, Elbit Systems Emirates, “will seek to foster a long-term cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces,” the Israeli firm says in a statement.
Company vice president Ran Kril says, “The Abraham Accords provide a sound basis for business collaborations in the region,” calling the UAE one of the region’s “important new markets” for Elbit.
Israeli Air Force commander Amikam Norkin was in the UAE over the weekend to attend the Dubai Airshow, after his Emirati counterpart visited Israel last month to observe Israel’s largest-ever joint military drill.
Defense Minister and former Israeli military chief of staff Benny Gantz and other senior defense officials are due to visit Dubai next week to inaugurate “the first ever national pavilion” at the air show, Gantz’s office says in a statement.
Other leading Israel defense industry firms, including giant Rafael, will participate in the exhibit, his office says.
LONDON — British police say that counterterrorism officers are investigating a car explosion at Liverpool Women’s Hospital that left one person dead, although it has not been declared a terrorist incident.
“Unfortunately, we can confirm that one person has died and another has been taken to hospital where he is being treated for his injuries, which thankfully are not life threatening,” Merseyside Police say in a statement.
“We are keeping an open mind as to what caused the explosion, but given how it has happened, out of caution, counterterrorism police are leading the investigation,” it adds.
Investigators believe the car involved was a taxi, which exploded shortly after pulling up at the hospital in northwest England.
Footage posted on social media shows thick black smoke pouring into the air outside the hospital.
PARIS, France — French prison guards thwarted an escape attempt from the Paris region’s second-largest jail today, with French media identifying the would-be escapee as a suspected Islamic State sympathizer who dug a hole in the wall of her cell and rappelled out on knotted sheets.
The Justice Ministry says the prisoner was caught this morning. Guards immediately inspected all of the women’s cells at the Fresnes prison to ensure that other prisoners were accounted for, and an investigation was opened, the ministry says.
It gives no other details.
Broadcaster France Info says the detainee was jailed after she traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State group. It says motion detectors alerted guards that she had escaped from her cell, after she climbed down on bedsheets through a hole.
New Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar traveled to Egypt today for talks with Egyptian spymaster Abbas Kamel, according to Hebrew media reports.
Bar was part of an Israeli delegation that also reportedly included Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s national security adviser, Eyal Hulata. It was Bar’s first trip to Egypt since being approved as the security service’s new leader last month.
There is no immediate statement from the Shin Bet or the Prime Minister’s Office.
Starting next week, Israel will kick off its national campaign to administer coronavirus vaccines to kids aged 5-11, Channel 12 news reports.
Shipments of the special doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children are expected to arrive in the coming days, according to Hebrew media reports.
Last week, a government panel made up of medical experts gave the approval to give vaccines to kids in that age group, but no official date has been announced for when the shots will start to be available.
PARIS — French far-right presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour comes under fire today for delivering a blistering attack on ex-president Francois Hollande’s migration policy during commemorations marking the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Zemmour, an ultra-nationalist TV pundit who has made no secret of his desire to run for president in April’s election, made the remarks during a visit last night to the Bataclan theater in Paris, where 90 concertgoers were massacred during a series of coordinated attacks across the French capital on November 13, 2015.
The attacks, which left 130 people dead in total, were carried out by a 10-man Islamic State (IS) cell, mostly French and Belgian nationals, some of whom had travelled to Syria to join IS and returned to France to carry out the attacks.
Addressing reporters outside the Bataclan, 63-year-old Zemmour accused France’s then Socialist president Hollande of “criminal” negligence for failing to detect those attackers who slipped into Europe among a huge influx of Syrian migrants.
“He knew there would be terrorists and did not protect the French and took the criminal decision to leave the borders open,” said Zemmour, who is polling strongly on an anti-Islam, anti-immigration platform, despite having yet to formally announce his candidacy.
Hollande, who was called to testify this week at the trial of 20 people charged over the bloodshed, including the sole surviving member of the IS cell behind the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, accuses Zemmour of an “unsubstantiated, obscene and shameful” attack.
“It’s obscene to be in front of the Bataclan and to be talking about a war of civilization,” Hollande tells a Jewish community radio station, Radio J, referring to Zemmour’s characterization of the attacks.
Survivors and relatives of the victims of the Paris attacks also denounce Zemmour, who is Jewish, for playing politics on the anniversary of the massacre.
TUNIS, Tunisia — Thousands of Tunisians gathered near the country’s parliament today to protest a presidential power grab they have deemed a “coup.”
It’s the latest rally opposing Tunisian President Kais Saied’s July 25 decision to sack the government, suspend parliament and seize an array of powers, citing an “imminent threat” to the country — the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings against autocracy.
More than 3,000 protesters gathered, shouting “The people want to bring down the coup d’etat” and “Kais’s project is a civil war” and branding the president an “agent of colonialism,” AFP correspondents report.
Some demonstrators carried signs reading “No to the intimidation of the media” and demanding “an independent judicial authority.”
The protesters “shut down all the streets, the avenues, the motorways,” says Jawhar Ben Mbarek, a figure of the Tunisian left.
“After shutting down the state, Saied has shut down the institutions, the constitution. He has shut down the country,” he charges.
Social media users share images of police using cars and minivans to block protesters from reaching the suburb of Bardo, where the parliament building is located.
LONDON — UK Queen Elizabeth II has a “sprained back,” Buckingham Palace says, and had to miss today’s Remembrance service in London — her first planned public appearance since resting on medical advice.
The ceremony honoring fallen troops is close to the monarch’s heart and her absence will deepen concerns over her health after she stepped back, on medical advice, at the end of last month and spent a night in hospital undergoing unspecified tests.
She then resumed “light duties,” but pulled out of a scheduled attendance at the UN climate change summit in Glasgow after being advised to rest.
“The Queen, having sprained her back, has decided this morning with great regret that she will not be able to attend today’s Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph,” a palace statement says.
“Her Majesty is disappointed that she will miss the service.”
Her son Prince Charles placed a wreath on her behalf, as in previous years.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — The Qatar-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera says today its bureau chief in Sudan was detained by security forces, a day after mass protests across the country against last month’s military coup.
The network says on Twitter that Sudanese forces raided the home of El Musalmi El Kabbashi and detained him.
The development comes after security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas yesterday to disperse protesters denouncing the military’s tightening grip on the country.
The Sudan Doctors Committee says a 15-year-old protester died today of gunshot wounds to his stomach and thigh, raising the death toll to six people.
In a later statement, Al-Jazeera says El Kabbashi had been arrested at his home in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. The broadcaster says it held the Sudanese military responsible for his safety.
“Al-Jazeera condemns in the strongest terms the reprehensible actions of the military and calls on the authorities to release El Kabbashi immediately and to allow its journalists to operate unhindered, free to practice their profession without fear or intimidation,” the channel says.
Sudanese officials can’t be immediately reached for comment.
Thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to the streets across Sudan on Saturday to rally against the military coup last month. The takeover has drawn international criticism and massive protests in the streets of the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
Government ministers approve a NIS 500 million (over $160 million) development plan for communities in the Negev Desert, as part of the transfer of military bases to southern Israel.
A government statement says the plan is aimed at “strengthening” towns in the Negev, citing the “considerable wage disparities” between communities around Beersheba and those in central Israel.
The plan includes funds for a public hospital, transportation and “a military-academic-industrial ecosystem,” among other things.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman all hail the plan’s approval in a joint statement, and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi also praises the move.
TEHRAN, Iran — At least one person has died after two moderate earthquakes strike the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, state TV reports.
State TV quotes Azizollah Konari, the Bandar Abbas governor, as saying a 22-year-old man died when an electric pole fell on his head as a result of the earthquake.
Iran’s Seismological Center says that the quakes struck Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz in midafternoon, about 1000 kilometers (640 miles) south of the Iranian capital of Tehran. It says the magnitudes were 6.4 and 6.3 and the heaviest temblor struck at a depth of 18 kilometers (about 11 miles).
The epicenter is located some 60 kilometers (some 36 miles) southwest of Bandar Abas port in Hormozgan province.
There is no immediate report of damages. The USGS report sets the earthquakes at magnitudes of 6 and 6.3.
State TV says the quake was felt in Kerman and Fars provinces, both located in the north of Hormozgan province.
Iran lies on major seismic faults and experiences one earthquake a day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party comes out against legislation setting term limits on the premiership.
A statement from the party says Netanyahu, now opposition leader, “rejects any law that limits terms, whether it applies to him or not.”
Netanyahu served over 14 years as prime minister, including 12 consecutively since 2009. The bill approved today by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which would limit prime ministers to eight years in office, is not retroactive and wouldn’t apply to Netanyahu if eventually okayed by the Knesset.
“Parliamentary democracies don’t limit the terms of prime ministers but leave the public to choose in free elections who will continue to lead it,” Likud says.
The party notes the lengthy terms of some heads of government in Canada and Germany, including the latter’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Markel.
“No one thought that Canada or German aren’t model democracies,” Likud says.
BERLIN — A young man was severely injured today when he fell off a slab that’s part of the German capital’s memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust.
The 21-year-old tourist, whose name isn’t released in line with German privacy rules, fell several meters (yards) and was taken to the hospital with head injuries, the German news agency dpa reports.
Police are still investigating the cause of the accident, dpa reports. Local Berlin media says the young man was an Italian tourist who had underestimated the height when jumping off the slab, which was in an unlit part of the memorial.
The memorial, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate that opened in 2005, is open around the clock. Visitors are supposed to refrain from activities such as running and jumping from one slab to another.
Earlier this month, Berlin’s police chief apologized for an incident in which officers were pictured practicing push-ups on part of the memorial.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation unanimously approves a bill setting term limits on the premiership.
Now with government backing, the proposal — which would limit prime ministers to eight years in office — must clear three Knesset plenum readings before becoming law.
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, the bill’s sponsor, hails the vote.
“Term limits (instead of a term with limits) are an important principle at the foundation of the perception that the government works for the wellbeing of the citizens instead of itself and its survival,” Sa’ar writes on Facebook.
If passed into law, the bill will not be retroactive and thus not bar former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from running to regain the premiership.
Sa’ar is also seeking to advance legislation that would prevent anyone under serious indictment from forming a government, which would apply to Netanyahu. The ex-premier is under indictment in a trio of graft cases. He denies wrongdoing.
Police have arrested two people for suspected involvement in a deadly shooting in Jerusalem this afternoon.
Officers are looking for additional suspects.
A fire has broken out in Shoham Forest in central Israel, with numerous firefighting teams on the scene to battle the blaze.
Due to the smoke from the fire, authorities at Ben Gurion Airport have decided to switch aircraft to a different runway, leading to the delay of several arriving flights, according to the Ynet news site.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has asked ministers “to keep a low profile” concerning an Israeli couple being held in Turkey after they took photographs of a presidential palace, according to Hebrew media reports.
Citing unnamed ministers, the Walla news site says Bennett asked them not to address the matter in the media, warning it could harm efforts to free the pair.
The reports come after Bennett himself said in public remarks at the start of the meeting that “we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue.”
Turkish authorities detained Natali and Mordy Oknin, residents of Modiin, on Thursday for photographing President Recep Tayyup Erdogan’s palace in Istanbul. The couple and their family insist they didn’t know it was illegal to do so.
VIENNA — Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg says that a nationwide lockdown will begin tomorrow for those not vaccinated against COVID-19 or recently recovered, as the EU member fights a record surge in cases.
Around 65 percent of Austria’s almost nine million people are vaccinated, below the EU average of 67 percent, while daily increases in infections have hit records this week.
“The situation is serious… We don’t take this step with a light heart but unfortunately it is necessary,” Schallenberg tells reporters.
The lockdown means people over 12 who are neither vaccinated nor recently recovered will not be allowed to leave the house except for reasons such as buying essential supplies, exercise or seeking medical care.
The lockdowns across the Alpine country are to be enforced with random spot checks for the next 10 days. After that it will be reviewed, Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein says.
Parliament — controlled by Schallenberg’s conservative-Green coalition — is expected to approve the measure later today.
Schallenberg and Mueckstein call again on those who have not yet been vaccinated to get the shot.
Also starting tomorrow, Vienna is becoming the first region in the EU to offer shots to children from the age of five to 11 at a vaccination center in the Austrian capital.
Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center pronounces the death of a man critically wounded in a shooting in the German Colony neighborhood in the city.
The hospital says a second person shot in the incident, whose condition isn’t specified, is conscious and in stable condition.
Israel’s top health official suggests COVID-related travel restrictions could be imposed on some European countries due to rising infection levels in a number of countries.
“We may return to classifying some countries as red, and then it will be prohibited to travel to them,” Nachman Ash, director-general of the Health Ministry, tells the Ynet news site.
Ash doesn’t specify on which countries health officials may recommend reimposing travel restrictions.
He says that there’s “no intention” to bar the entry of tourists or reimpose sweeping restrictions on travel abroad. He adds that currently the number of infected travelers among arrivals at Ben Gurion Airport is low.
Ash attributes the current coronavirus outbreaks in Europe to the declining effectiveness of vaccination against COVID-19 over time.
“I have no doubt about it,” he says.
He also says in the interview that “as long as the disease exists in certain places in the world… then there is a danger of bringing morbidity.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda denounces displays of antisemitism at a nationalist rally on Poland’s Independence Day that included chants of “Death to Jews” and the burning of a text on Jewish rights.
“The barbarism carried out by a group of hooligans in Kalisz is contrary to the values on which the Republic of Poland is based,” he writes on his Twitter account.
Noting the current crisis on Poland’s border with Belarus, Duda adds that it’s “even an act of treason.”
CAIRO — The son and one-time heir apparent of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has announced his candidacy for the country’s presidential election next month, Libya’s election agency says.
Seif al-Islam submitted his candidacy papers in the southern town of Sabah, the agency says today in a statement.
Gadhafi’s son was captured by fighters late in 2011, the year when a popular uprising toppled his father after more than 40 years in power. Moammar Gadhafi was later killed amid the ensuing fighting that would turn into a civil war.
In a video released by the elections office where he registered, Seif al-Islam addresses the camera and says that God will decide the right path for the country’s future. He wears a traditional Libyan robe and turban and spectacles.
Seif al-Islam was released in June 2017 after more than five years of detention, and in July told The New York Times in an exclusive interview that he was considering a run for the country’s top office. Libya is set to hold presidential elections on December 24, after years of UN-led attempts to usher in a more democratic future and bring the war to an end.
The long-awaited vote still faces challenges, including unresolved issues over election laws and occasional infighting among armed groups. Other obstacles include the deep rift that remains between the country’s east and west, split for years by the war, and the presence of thousands of foreign fighters and troops.
Two people are wounded – one of them critically – in what police describe as a “violent incident and shooting” in Jerusalem.
Police say officers were called to the scene of the shooting in the city’s German Colony neighborhood and that they are looking into the matter.
There is no immediate word from police on a suspected motive, though Hebrew media reports say it was a “criminal” incident and not terror-related.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says its paramedics are treating the two men, and trying to resuscitate one of them, a man of around 30 who suffered a gunshot wound. He was taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
The other man, whose condition wasn’t specified, left the scene on his own, according to MDA, which also did not say how he was wounded.
