Adiv Sterman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister rejects claims by Britain and the United States that a Russian airliner that crashed in the Sinai may have been brought down by a bomb.
Investigators “have as yet no evidence or data confirming the theory” of a bomb attack, Hossam Kamal says in a statement.
“The theory of a detonation in the Russian plane is not based on facts,” he adds. “Egypt is committed to a full and thorough investigation, in order to establish the facts in the eyes of the whole world.”
Kamal also defended the security of Egypt’s airports, saying they had passed regular audits by Egyptian authorities and international organizations.
“All of Egypt’s airports meet international standards for security measures,” he says.
Britain and Ireland have temporarily suspended flights to and from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the plane took off from on Saturday bound for Saint Petersburg before crashing 23 minutes later, killing all 224 people on board.
The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group, which is waging a deadly insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, has claimed it downed the plane.
— AFP
At least five people are killed in an explosion in the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal on the border with Syria, a security source tells AFP.
“There was an explosion inside the town of Arsal. We don’t know what caused it, but there are a number of dead or wounded,” the source says.
He could not specify how many were killed in the town, a Sunni Muslim enclave in the mianly Shiite Bekaa Valley that hosts many Syrian refugees as well as rebel fighters in the surrounding countryside.
— AFP
Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the appointment of Ran Baratz as the head of public diplomacy and media in the PMO. Baratz had earlier this year accused US President Barack Obama of making anti-Semitic comments, and said that President Rueven Rivlin was an insignificant personage.
“Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Obama this Tuesday,” Herzog says in a statement. “What would he say to him? I appointed a new head of public relations that called you ‘anti-Semitic’?
Ran Baratz delivers a lecture at The Jewish Statesmanship Center. (screen capture: YouTube/mmedinaut)
“Such a person who slings mud at Obama and Kerry, slings mud at the world, and at President Reuven Rivlin, is not worthy to be the head of Israel’s advocacy and that is why he must go home immediately,” Herzog concluded.
Baratz, 42, was tapped Wednesday as media adviser and head of public diplomacy and media in the PMO.
Two Muslim holy sites at the Temple Mount site will be exempt from monitoring by security cameras, Jordan’s king says, in an apparent attempt to allay Palestinian concerns about his plan to install the cameras inside the hilltop compound.
The compound has been at the epicenter of current Israeli-Palestinian violence. Jordan, the custodian of the site, last month proposed security camera monitoring in efforts to defuse tensions. Israel welcomed the plan but the idea was met by Palestinian criticism. Although Israel and Jordan initially said cameras would be installed within days, the plan now appears delayed, with Jordan’s King Abdullah II saying they wouldn’t be in place for some six weeks.
“To be very clear, there will be no cameras inside the mosque,” Abdullah says.
Palestinian girls sit in front of the Dome of the Rock in the Temple Mount compound on October 23, 2015. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
The Temple Mount compound is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is the holiest site in Judaism, and was the home to the two biblical Temples. Muslims believe it is the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. It is the third holiest site in Islam and houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and gold-topped Dome of the Rock.
— AP
The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev cancels a lecture by Benzi Gopshtain, the head of extremist right-wing group Lehava, five days ahead of its scheduled date.
Gopshtain says his invitation to speak at the university was met with strong opposition, and was therefore canceled.
The university says the cancellation was due to timing considerations, Israel Radio reports.
Lehava chairman Bentzi Gopshtain is brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem on December 16, 2014 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Lehava was established as an organization that aimed to prevent marriage between Jews and Arabs, which is prohibited according to Jewish law. The group has become identified with the extreme Jewish right and its members have been seen patrolling downtown Jerusalem on nights looking, they claim, for mixed couples.
Their vigilante patrols have often escalated into scuffles and there were several instances over the past year where members of the organization have beaten Arabs who came to town for a night out.
The Southern District Prosecution files at the Beersheba District Court an indictment against a 40-year-old resident of Haifa, accusing her of espionage and of aiding enemy forces.
Nassrin Hassan Abdullah Hassan, an Israeli citizen, is married to a Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip, where she had lived in recent years. She was arrested by the Shin Bet security service on October 18.
Haifa resident Nassrin Hassan Abdullah Hassan, 40, who was arrested on suspicion of espionage, aiding enemy (Shin Bet)
During an investigation by the Shin Bet, it was revealed that Hassan had been recruited in October 2013 by Kataeb Al-Mujahidin, a Gaza-based terrorist group linked to several attacks against Israel. The Shin Bet says she collected information on behalf of the group concerning security arrangements at government buildings and infrastructure in Haifa.
According to the Shin Bet, Hassan also confessed to having agreed to carry out terrorist attacks inside Israel.
A suicide bomber kills at least five people at a Muslim clerics’ meeting in the Lebanese town of Arsal on the border with Syria, a security source tells AFP.
The source says that the bomber entered the meeting of Syrian clerics and “detonated an explosive belt, leaving five people dead and six wounded until now.”
He says the head of the local clerics’ committee, Sheikh Othman Mansur, was among the wounded.
Arsal is a Sunni Muslim enclave in mainly Shiite eastern Lebanon and hosts many Syrian refugees as well as rebel fighters in the surrounding countryside.
Illustrative photo of Lebanese army soldiers at a checkpoint at the entrance of Arsal, a Sunni Muslim town in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border, Feb. 2, 2013 (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
“The explosion definitely targeted this meeting… where usually no less than 15 people are gathered,” Arsal resident Abu Ibrahim tells AFP by telephone.
He says the committee’s deputy head, Omar al-Halabi, had been killed.
“I just went to the hospital, and there were people crying and screaming,” he says.
Arsal was the scene of fierce fighting in August 2014 between Lebanese security forces and jihadists of al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group. As they withdrew from Arsal, the jihadists took dozens of Lebanese police and soldiers hostage and still hold them in the hilly terrain on the town’s outskirts.
The French presidency says it will deploy its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to boost its operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
France launched airstrikes against the jihadists in Syria in October, after a year of bombing IS in Iraq.
— AFP
UK Prime Minister David Cameron says he will call Russian President Vladimir Putin to explain Britain’s concern about the “strong possibility” that a bomb may have brought down a Russian jet over the Sinai on Saturday.
“I’ll be calling President Putin in a moment or two to discuss this with him,” he tells reporters, adding that he would “explain to him why we’ve taken the action we’ve taken” by suspending passenger flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh.
“If that Russian airliner was brought down by a terrorist bomb, that does have very real implications,” he says, adding: “Because it’s a strong possibility, it’s right to act.”
“We need to see the results of that investigation. The reason we’ve acted before that is because of intelligence and information that we’ve had that gave us the concern that it was more likely than not a terrorist bomb.”
Cameron says 20,000 British holidaymakers would be repatriated from Sharm el-Sheikh and explained that British airlines would be flying empty planes to the Red Sea resort to bring them back.
“We’re working round the clock with the Egyptians to put in place the necessary security measures at the airport,” he says ahead of a meeting in Downing Street with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
“We want to start as soon as possible. There are a relatively simple and straightforward set of things that need to happen at Sharm el-Sheikh airport to give us greater certainty of safety at that airport,” he adds.
Some 224 people, most of them Russian tourists, were killed when the plane bound for Saint Petersburg plummeted to the ground 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday.
— AFP
Russia buries the first victims of the plane crash in Egypt, with hundreds of mourners laying flowers and lighting candles for the dead in ceremonies around the country.
Most of the 224 people killed when the A-321 plane came down in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula at the weekend were from Saint Petersburg and the surrounding region.
Both London and Washington have said the flight from the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh may have been downed by a bomb, a claim dismissed by Russia and Egypt.
— AFP
Germany’s Lufthansa Group says it’s suspending all flights to and from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh “due to the current situation on the Sinai Peninsula.”
The airline says that two weekly flights of subsidiaries Edelweiss and Eurowings would be affected. It says it will work with the German Foreign Ministry and trip organizers to make sure that any passengers already in Sharm el-Sheikh are safely returned home.
The Foreign Ministry tells The Associated Press there are currently 50 Germans known to be in the resort area.
Other Lufthansa Group airlines have already changed routes so as to fly around Sinai.
Lufthansa says flights to Cairo will not be affected by any of the new measures.
— AP
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in the central Israeli city of Givatayim air pollution rates were 25.5 times higher than the normal average over the past day.
Tel Aviv in a dust storm, November 4, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
In the West Bank city of Ariel, pollution was 21.6 times higher, in Tel Aviv 21.5, in Jerusalem 20.5, and in Arad 15.7.
Pollution rates are expected to drop by tonight, with rain showers across the country set to clear the air.
A suspected terrorist is shot and subdued by security forces after attempting to stab a soldier in the Etzion Bloc in the West Bank, north of Hebron.
No injuries are reported in the incident.
IDF forces foiled an attack at a crowded bus stop in the West Bank’s Gush Etzion Junction.
A Palestinian, armed with a knife, attempted to stab soldiers at the bus stop, according to an IDF spokesperson.
BREAKING: Palestinian terrorist shot & killed after attempting to stab IDF soldiers near Gush Etzion. pic.twitter.com/U0kKsOxreM
— Israel News Flash (@ILNewsFlash) November 5, 2015
Forces at the scene responded to the threat and shot the assailant.
No injuries were reported. The assailant’s condition is still unclear.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says British experts looked at security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport 10 months ago and were “happy” with what they found.
El-Sissi says British teams conducted the checks at London’s request. But he says Egypt is “completely ready to cooperate with all of our friends” on ensuring the safety of foreign tourists.
The UK grounded all flights to and from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula Wednesday, saying information suggested a Russian airliner that crashed Saturday may have been downed by a bomb.
Britain’s action was condemned as premature by Egyptian officials, and overshadowed el-Sissi’s official visit to London.
Speaking after a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron in 10 Downing St., el-Sissi said the two countries were “working intensively together in a spirit of close co-operation … to address this and get back to normal as soon as possible.”
— AP
A Nazareth woman who was shot when she brandished a knife at a bus station in the city of Afula last month says she meant no harm to anyone, a day after she was released to house arrest in light of a court ruling that found her to have not intended to carry out a terror attack.
“I did not threaten anybody, and did not mean to hurt anyone,” Asra’a Zidan Abed, 30, says, according to Channel 10.
“[Security forces] could have taken away the knife without hurting me,” Abed charges. “Still I’m not mad at anybody, I am a graduate of the Technion [in Haifa] and want with my certificate to contribute to society and continue to live in peace and quiet with everyone.”
Abed will not face charges for attempted murder. Instead, she faces minor charges of carrying a dangerous weapon.
Police and Shin Bet investigators say they believe Abed did not plan to stab anyone when she wielded the knife at the Afula station, but was pretending to be a Palestinian terrorist in the hope that she would be shot by security forces.
Earlier in the investigation police said they thought Abed may suffer from mental health issues. Suspicions were confirmed after discovering a history of suicide attempts and hospitalizations, the police said at the time. Investigators think she was trying to commit suicide, having recently lost custody of a child.
During the incident, she was moderately injured after being shot in the leg.
Abed will remain under house arrest pending her trial.
The largest movement of Judaism in the US passed the most far-reaching resolution in support of transgender rights of any major religious organization, saying that it’s a continuation of a tradition of inclusion in the Reform Jewish movement.
Members of the Union for Reform Judaism attending its biennial meeting in Orlando approved on a voice vote the resolution, which calls for congregations and camps to have gender-neutral bathrooms and encourages gender-neutral language at Reform Jewish institutions. It also suggests training on gender issues for religious school staff and encourages advocating on behalf of the transgender community.
There was no opposition, although three conference attendees who said they were in favor of the resolution asked if preschools and religious schools would be affected. Union for Reform Judaism leaders said they would be, but they weren’t asking congregations to spend extra money on new facilities.
After the resolution passed, most of the 5,000-attendees in the meeting hall stood up and applauded.
The resolution is approved in a year when transgender issues have never been more visible, thanks to Caitlyn Jenner and others, but Union for Reform Judaism officials say it has been in the works for some time and is part of a tradition of inclusion that dates back decades. The Union of Reform Judaism in 1977 passed a resolution affirming the rights of gays and lesbians.
More than 6 million Jews live in the United States, less than 2 percent of the nation’s population, and more than a third of all Jews in the US identify with the Reform movement, according to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center. Less than a fifth of them identify with Conservative Judaism — sort of a middle-ground ideologically between the more liberal Reform movement and traditional Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox Jews account for 10 percent of US Jews, and Reconstructionist and other smaller movements make up 6 percent.
— AP
Ran Baratz, who was tapped as media adviser and head of public diplomacy and media in the PMO, apologizes for several remarks he made about President Rivlin and US President Obama.
“I apologize for the hurtful things that I published online in relation to the president, the US president and other public officials,” he writes on Facebook.
“I’m sorry I did not update the Prime Minister before. The words that I published were written frivolity and sometimes jokingly, in a manner fit for social networks and a private person,” he says.
Baratz, 42, had said on October 25 that Rivlin was an insignificant personage, after the Israeli leader flew back to Israel from the Czech Republic in coach. He also accused Obama of anti-Semitism earlier this year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemns past remarks by Ran Baratz, who was tapped Wednesday as media adviser and head of public diplomacy and media in the PMO.
“I read for the first time the statements published by Dr. Ran Baratz online, including about the president, the US president and public officials in Israel and the United States,” Netanyahu writes.
“They are unworthy and do not reflect my views nor government policy,” the prime minister adds.
“Dr. Baratz apologized for his words, sought to clarify them in a meeting with me, and we agreed to meet upon my return to Israel.”
Earlier this year, Baratz, 42, accused US President Barack Obama of anti-Semitism. He also suggested that President Rivlin was an insignificant personage.
Palestinian officials say a fisherman was shot and killed by Egyptian naval forces off the Gaza coast.
Nezar Ayyash of Gaza’s fishermen union says the man was “working normally” when a nearby Egyptian navy gunboat shot him.
Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra says the 18-year-old fisherman was shot in the abdomen and died after being brought to a hospital.
Egypt has had tense relations with Hamas, the Islamic terrorist group ruling Gaza, since the 2013 military overthrow of President Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood had close ties to the group.
Egypt and Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza when Hamas seized power there in 2007, and over the past two years Egypt has moved to shut down border tunnels that Hamas relies on for cash and smuggling.
— AP
A woman is shot to death in a parking lot in the Arab Israeli city of Tira.
Police launch an investigation into the incident.
France advises against non-essential travel to Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort, following the crash of a Russian airplane in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday.
US and UK experts have said “intelligence and information” indicates that a bomb was likely responsible for the crash that killed 224 people.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the apology of newly appointed PMO media adviser Ran Baratz over remarks he made concerning US President Obama “was warranted.”
Earnest adds that ultimately, Prime Minister Netanyahu will be the one to decide who will work for him.
Shortly after Baratz was tapped as media adviser and head of public diplomacy and media in the PMO, a slew of his controversial comments came to light, including Facebook posts in which he mocked President Rivlin as a “marginal figure,” and accused Obama of anti-Semitism.
Three hundred sixty-nine US House members want the Palestinian Authority president to condemn violence in Israel and renew direct peace negotiations.
Lawmakers are asking Abbas not to incite violence, to continue security cooperation with Israel, and to agree to renew peace talks without conditions.
Their letter says Abbas and other Palestinian Authority figures are inciting violence and that unless calm is restored there’ll be little chance for a two-state solution.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a press conference with United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon following a meeting at the Muqata presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on October 21, 2015. (AFP/Abbas Momani)
The letter comes ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Washington visit next week.
Rep. Ed Royce, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Republican chairman, and New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat, released the letter.
The US says it can’t rule out the possibility of terrorism in the crash of a Russian plane in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the US hasn’t determined what brought down the Metrojet flight last Saturday, killing all 224 people on board.
Earnest says he can’t discuss what US intelligence officials have learned so far.
He also says the administration is reviewing what steps it can take to enhance security on commercial flights to the United States from certain countries.
Islamic State terrorists are taking responsibility for the crash — as a response to Moscow’s recent military intervention in Syria against the extremist group. But IS hasn’t provided any evidence to support that claim.
— AP
Italy’s civil aviation authority ENAC says it has asked Italian airlines to conduct their own extra security checks at Sharm el-Sheikh’s airport in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The move came a day after Britain suspended all flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh over suspicions that the Russian plane that crashed in Sinai over the weekend may have been brought down by a terrorist bomb.
ENAC says that the extra security checks will be done “as a precaution” while awaiting word on what caused the October 31 crash. It noted that British airliner easyJet had cancelled flights from Italy to Sharm el-Sheikh.
The Red Sea resort has long been popular with Italian vacationers.
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