ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 424
The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they unfolded.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly faces criticism after telling gay soccer fans heading to the World Cup in Qatar that they should show some “compromise” and be “respectful of the host nation.”
The comments were quickly disavowed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office, while a senior figure in the opposition Labour party called them “shockingly tone deaf.”
Homosexual activity is criminalized in Qatar and Cleverly was asked about the issue in the wake of British activist Peter Tatchell being questioned by police after holding a one-man protest in front of Qatar’s National Museum, holding up a sign accusing the country of jailing members of the LGBTQ community.
“I have spoken to the Qatari authorities in the past about gay football fans going to watch the World Cup and how they will treat our fans and international fans,” Cleverly tells LBC Radio. “They want to make sure that football fans are safe, secure and enjoy themselves, and they know that that means they are going to have to make some compromises in terms of what is an Islamic country with a very different set of cultural norms to our own.
“One of the things I would say for football fans is, you know, please do be respectful of the host nation. They are trying to ensure that people can be themselves and enjoy the football, and I think with a little bit of flex and compromise at both ends, it can be a safe, secure and exciting World Cup.”
Qatar has said all are welcome at the World Cup, including LGBTQ fans, but that visitors should respect the country’s conservative culture, in which public displays of affection — even among heterosexuals — is taboo.
Qatari law calls for a prison sentence of one to three years for adults convicted of consensual gay or lesbian sex.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid reiterates that the Hadash-Ta’al party will not be part of any future coalition he could establish after the elections.
In an interview with Channel 12, Lapid condemns Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman for referring to five slain members of a Palestinian terror group as “martyrs” and asserting that their “resistance” was a response to “the occupation.”
Lapid says this is another example of why Hadash-Ta’al, two of the three parties that currently make up the Joint List, will not be in any future government of his.
Lapid declines to bran the party “supporters of terror” and also refuses to rule out getting outside support from the party to set up a government.
Lapid says he will give specifics on how he plans to form a government once the final results come in after the November 1 vote.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid dismisses criticism from the Likud party that IDF raids in recent days against the “Lion’s Den” terror group in Nablus were an election stunt designed to boost his prospects.
“I don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” Lapid says in an interview with Channel 12.
“This is part of the [ongoing] operation, it is an operation that has been conducted since the end of March against the terrorist organizations,” Lapid says.
“We will use all our tools to thwart terrorism — 370 terrorist attacks have been prevented since the end of March,” he says.
“We have said from day one there will be no connection at all between security and politics, the fact is that we always do the smart thing and quietly,” he says.
President Isaac Herzog again says the Israel-US relationship should remain above politics, ahead of elections in both countries and some friction over far-right lawmakers in Israel.
Herzog has delivered the same message several times during his two-day visit to the US.
“We have elections in Israel and you are having midterm elections in the United States. But one thing is clear, and I think this visit epitomizes it best, is that our friendship, our strong bond, transcends all political differences, and opinions and parties,” Herzog says while meeting US President Joe Biden at the White House.
“I hope that together we can continue to work towards the well-being of the State of Israel, the United States, and the world at large,” he says.
During a meeting at the White House with Israeli President Herzog, US President Biden highlights Israel’s maritime border agreement with Lebanon, which is expected to be finalized on Thursday.
“Tomorrow, Israel and Lebanon are going to sign an agreement to establish a permanent — permanent — maritime boundary,” Biden says, adding that it took “guts” for Israel to make the deal.
“I think it’s a historic breakthrough–it took a lot of courage for you to step up and step into it, and it took some real guts, and I think it took principle and persistent diplomacy to get it done,” he says.
“I compliment you and I compliment the government,” Biden says, adding that the deal should have significant benefits for both Israel and Lebanon.
Biden stresses Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel.
“I’ve often said, Mr. President, were there not an Israel, we’d have to invent one,” he says.
The two are now holding a meeting alongside US Secretary of State Blinken, US Ambassador to Israel Thom Nides, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog and other top officials from both sides.
President Isaac Herzog and US President Biden meet at the Oval office in Washington.
Herzog calls the visit “an expression of true friendship.”
“You are a true friend of Israel Mr. President. The United States is our closest strongest historical ally,” he says, adding that the two will discuss the “Iranian challenge.”
“Today the Iranian regime is crushing thousands of Iranian citizens, men and women while demonstrating and simply pleading to have their own liberties and this is an example of how Iran is working, crushing its own citizens moving towards nuclear weapons and supplying lethal weapons that are killing innocent citizens in Ukraine,” Herzog says.
He thanks Biden for helping broker the Lebanon border deal and says the two will discuss the “inclusion and integration of Israel in the Middle East.”
Prime Minister Yair Lapid responds to criticism that his Yesh Atid party is growing at the expense of left-wing parties Labor and Meretz which could possibly cause them to fail to cross the election threshold.
In an interview with Channel 12, Lapid says it’s natural that the public wants to support a major party. However, he says that he doesn’t believe his coalition partners will fail to make it.
“We are monitoring the polls all the time,” he says, noting that all recent polls have shown Labor and Mertz making it through.
If one of them fails to make it, it would likley mean that his rival Benjamin Netanyahu would be able to form a government.
Lapid is asked why he did not force Labor and Meretz to unite in the same way that Netanyahu united smaller parties to the far right.
Lapid says the public doesn’t want him to act like Netanyahu.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he sees a “positive trend” in Kyiv’s relations with Israel after the two countries shared intelligence on about 400 Iranian drones that Russia has used in its invasion.
“So we are at the beginning of cooperation, this is a positive trend in relations with Israel,” Zelensky said during a press conference in Kyiv, adding that “after a long pause, I see us moving forward.”
Ukraine has been frustrated with Israel’s refusal to supply it with weapons, with Israel apprehensive about harming ties with Russia which has a large military presence in Syria.
TOI staff contributed to this report
President Isaac Herzog arrives at the White House ahead of his meeting with US President Joe Biden.
Herzog will sign the guest book before meeting with Biden, where the two will give a joint statement.
Likud activists have reportedly been given excel sheets containing the phone numbers of party supporters who failed to vote in the last election, the Haaretz daily reports.
The lists reportedly even include details on their ethnic backgrounds.
It is not clear where Likud gets the details from, given they were supposed to have destroyed voting lists from previous elections.
Some of those targeted by calls tell Haaretz that they never agreed to have their details disseminated.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to rally his supporters after the last elections saw low turnout in areas that are usually Likud strongholds.
The United States is imposing new sanctions on members of Iran’s intelligence agency, leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, prison wardens and others, acting 40 days since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while being held by the morality police.
The US government’s sanctions arm designated 10 members of Iran’s leadership with financial blocks and penalties, continuing a string of actions imposed against Tehran for its repression of protestors and disrupting internet access.
Targeted in the latest sanctions were the commander of the Guard’s intelligence organization, its deputy commander, wardens from a number of prisons and an Iranian company that conducts social media filtering.
Separate sanctions from the State Department were levied against individuals and companies that engage in and train people in hacking, and others.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US “will continue to impose costs on individuals and entities in Iran who engage in the brutal repression of the Iranian people.”
Russian investigators raid the home of Ksenia Sobchak, the glamourous daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s one-time boss, in a move that has sent shockwaves through the country’s political scene.
Sobchak, a 40-year-old TV star, has often been critical of Putin, but many Russian opposition figures have described her as a tool of the Kremlin. In 2018, she became a liberal challenger in Russia’s presidential election, finishing a distant fourth with about 1.7% of the vote in what her critics described as a Kremlin effort to add a democratic veneer to Putin’s sweeping re-election.
Investigators say that the search at Sobchak’s luxury home in a prestigious Moscow suburb was part of a probe into alleged wrongdoing by her media director, Kirill Sukhanov, who was arrested on charges of extortion.
Sobchak yesterday rejected the accusations against Sukhanov as “ravings and nonsense” and described his arrest as part of the authorities’ efforts to stifle independent media.
The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies said that Sobchak had fled Russia. Tass claimed she had bought tickets to Dubai and Turkey to mislead the authorities but eventually left for Belarus, from where she moved to Lithuania.
Sobchak hasn’t commented on the allegations and her whereabouts were unknown.
A report in April said has obtained Israeli citizenship.
Citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, the Haaretz daily said both Sobchak and her son were recently granted citizenship.
The newspaper said Sobchak’s maternal grandfather is Jewish, as is her baby’s father, actor Maksim Vitorgan. Under Israel’s Law of Return, anyone with a Jewish grandparent can immigrate to the country.
TOI staff contributed to this report
Defense Minister Benny Gantz takes off for Turkey for a first official visit, the first by a defense chief in over a decade, his office says.
Gantz is slated to meet his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, tomorrow morning, according to a schedule published by his office.
The planned meeting will mark another step in a year-long process that has seen the countries inch back toward full diplomatic relations after over a decade of frayed and frozen ties.
A defense official tells the Walla news site that the trip will likely not see any weapon sale deals being signed between the sides.
Lebanese politician Michel Moawad urges lawmakers to back his bid for the presidency, denouncing Hezbollah’s “stranglehold” on the crisis-hit country.
MPs have been unable to pick a successor to President Michel Aoun whose term ends next week, stoking fears of a political crisis that would further compound three years of economic meltdown.
“I am practically the only serious candidate running for the presidency,” Moawad tells AFP in an interview, adding that he has “support from a large majority of the opposition.”
Moawad, 50, is the presidential candidate who received the largest backing in Lebanon’s divided parliament, mostly from lawmakers opposed to the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
But he is still far from securing the number of votes needed to snatch the position.
“To change the balance of power, we must first unite the opposition, because we are divided,” said Moawad.
He said that “Hezbollah’s stranglehold” on Lebanon has pushed the country further into “Iran’s sphere of influence” and accused the group of trying to impose a candidate who abides by its rules.
Iranian state-run media is reporting that gunmen opened fire at a major Shiite holy site in the southern city of Shiraz, killing at least 15 people.
The official website of the judiciary says two gunmen were arrested and a third is on the run.
The state-run IRNA news agency reported the casualty toll.
Sunni extremists have targeted holy sites sacred to the country’s Shiite majority in the past. The attack comes as Iran has been convulsed by anti-government demonstrations for over a month.
#BREAKING
Nine dead in Iran 'terrorist attack': #Judiciary's news website #AFPIran's #FarsNews Agency says “gunmen” have killed at least 13 people & wounded several others.
Two gunmen involved in the shooting at the shrine in Shiraz have been arrested#Shiraz #Iran pic.twitter.com/yfpNlDGv0O
— ???? Sarwar ???? (@ferozwala) October 26, 2022
Prime Minister Yair Lapid defends his wife for walking out of an interview, apparently after being asked about his military service.
“I’m not sure it’s a great journalistic accomplishment to make my wife cry,” he tells Channel 13.
Lapid says that while the clip published by Channel 13 shows his wife Lihi ending the interview over the question about his IDF service, she actually became upset over repeated questions about Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara, a controversial figure in Israel.
“She came for an interview about the Paralympics, a topic close to her heart, and then she was asked a lot of questions about Sara Netanyahu. Lihi never says a bad word about anyone, she didn’t want to hurt anyone. Sara had done nothing bad to Lihi or to me, so she, tears came to her eyes and left, and returned home with tears in her eyes,” Lapid says.
In answer to questions about his compulsory military service, Lapid says: “I served in Bamahane,” referring to the IDF magazine.
Netanyahu himself was less sympathetic, tweeting a picture of himself from his time in an elite commando unit, with the caption “I know where I was in the army.”
Many of Israel’s previous leaders served in elite units or were top generals.
France’s envoy to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, will attend Thursday’s signing ceremony for the maritime boundary agreement between Israel and Lebanon, the Quai d’Orsay announces.
Paris, which has significant influence in Lebanon, played an active role in mediation.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid went out of his way to thank France’s President Emmanuel Macron for keeping talks moving when they hit rocky patches.
Pope Francis greeted the brother of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead during an Israeli operation in the West Bank, the Vatican’s official journal reports.
Anton Abu Akleh was with his wife and two daughters when he briefly met the pontiff during the weekly papal audience in St Peter’s Square, the Osservatore Romano says.
Shireen Abu Akleh, whose family is from the Melkite Greek Catholic church, was a veteran reporter with Al Jazeera.
She was shot dead in May while covering an Israeli army operation in Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank.
The Israeli army said in September that one of its soldiers had likely shot Abu Akleh after having mistaken her for a terrorist.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid will attend the UN climate change conference, known as COP27, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held from November 6 to18 and Lapid will arrive on November 7, his office says.
The conference comes a week after Israel holds national elections.
On November 7, Israel will join countries around the world in Egypt at @COP27 and join hands in the fight against climate change.
Proud of the work Israel is doing to create a safer, greener and more sustainable future for all. #COP27IL pic.twitter.com/c4rBTmGlqc
— Alon Ushpiz (@AlonUshpiz) October 26, 2022
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg rejects Russia’s claims that Ukraine might be preparing to use a radiological “dirty bomb.”
“This is absurd. Allies reject this blatantly false accusation, and Russia must not use false pretexts to escalate the war further,” Stoltenberg tells reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated the claim today, saying “We know about the plans to use the so-called dirty bomb for provocations.”
Moscow’s statements about an alleged “dirty bomb” followed Putin’s warning last month about his readiness to use “all means available” to fend off attacks on Russia’s territory.
NATO’s Stoltenberg underlined that the 30-nation military organization “will not be intimidated or deterred from supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense for as long as it takes.”
Lihi Lapid, the wife of Prime Minister Yair Lapid, halts an interview with Channel 13 TV over questions about his military service.
Toward the end of the interview, which was posted on social media, she is seen to be flustered and walks off camera and asks her advisers: “They are asking stupid questions about Yair’s army service.”
She was asked what her husband really did during his time in the army, with the interviewer saying there were conflicting reports about what he did before becoming a reporter for the military magazine Bamahane, where he spent most of his compulsory military service.
“There are reports that he was in the anti-aircraft or tanks before suffering an asthma attack,” Channel 13 correspondent Neria Kraus asks, before Lapid walks away.
Krause tells TVbee that Lapid asked to redo the interview, but she refused.
“You have to ask the hard questions,” she says.
Drilling company Energean says the first gas has started flowing at the Karish field off the coast northern Israel, a day before Israel is set to sign a maritime border deal with Lebanon.
Energean says it is “pleased to confirm that first gas has been safely delivered at the Karish field, offshore Israel.”
It says the gas flow is being steadily ramped up in preparation to begin delivering gas to customers in the “next couple of days.”
Two further wells are expected to be opened in the coming days.
Israel is set to sign a deal with Lebanon tomorrow that marks the maritime border and puts Karish firmly on Israel’s side.
The Karish gas field has been at the center of the conflict with Lebanon over gas drilling rights, with terrorist group Hezbollah repeatedly warning it could attack if gas extraction begins without an agreement being reached over drilling rights.
Russian President Vladimir Putin oversees the training of Moscow’s strategic deterrence forces, troops responsible for responding to threats of nuclear war, the Kremlin says.
“Under the leadership of… Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with ground, sea and air strategic deterrence forces, during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place,” the Kremlin says aid in a statement.
State television shows Putin overseeing the drills from a control room.
More sabre rattling by Putin during "nuclear exercises" at the Kura site, #Kamchatka.#Russia launces air launched cruise missiles from long-range Tu-95MS aircraft and here a Sineva ballistic missile from a sub in the Barents Sea#RussiaIsATerroristState pic.twitter.com/hEYcbv2pWJ
— Tim White (@TWMCLtd) October 26, 2022
The drills included launching test missiles from the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East and from the waters of the Barents Sea in the Arctic.
The exercises also involved Tu-95 long-rage aircraft, the statement says.
President of the Conference of European Rabbis and former Moscow chief rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt met with Pope Francis earlier this week to discuss both Russia’s war against Ukraine and the issue of kosher slaughter in Europe, his office says.
The two religious leaders met in Rome on Sunday, Goldschmidt says.
Goldschmidt served as chief rabbi of Moscow until July when he was formally ousted from his position some four months after leaving Russia shortly after the start of the invasion. Since then he has fiercely criticized Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin for the war and for the subsequent crackdown on civil life in the country.
He has been chastised by other Russian rabbis for choosing to leave his congregation in order to more freely oppose Russia’s war.
“It is an honor to continue voicing the concerns of the Jewish communities of Europe before Pope Francis, who received me with such a warm welcome. I believe religious leaders must proclaim what they believe is right, morally and for their followers, however outspoken these messages may be. For decades and especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I have done this,” Goldschmidt says following his meeting with the pope.
A senior member of the Hamas terror group speaks in support of the Israel-Lebanon maritime deal set to be signed tomorrow.
“Lebanon, at the end of this deal, will get its economic rights, and the Lebanese resistance will succeed in imposing its conditions on Israel. It’s Lebanon’s right to possess the entirety of its rights,” Suhail al-Hindi, a prominent member of the Hamas Politburo, says in an interview.
The deal, which will delineate the maritime border, allows cash-strapped Lebanon to explore for gas in the Qana field but gives Israel a portion of the proceeds.
Israel and Lebanon are technically still at war and the deal does not touch on the land border. However, it is seen as Lebanon, including the powerful Hezbollah terror group, tacitly recognizing Israel.
“The Lebanese resistance is speaking from the position of what’s good for the Lebanese people and the preservation of their rights,” Hindi adds.
He also says he hopes it could eventually lead to Hamas tapping the gas fields of Gaza.
“That gas belongs to the Palestinian people. It is not right for Israel to possess it. We’re keeping our eyes on the riches of Palestine and will not let Israel steal them.”
Iranian security forces open fire on protesters who massed in their thousands in Mahsa Amini’s hometown to mark 40 days since her death, a human rights group says.
“Security forces have shot tear gas and opened fire on people in Zindan square, Saqez city,” Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions, tweets without specifying whether there were any dead or wounded.
Despite heightened security measures, columns of mourners had poured into Saqez in the western Kurdistan province to pay tribute to Amini at her grave at the end of the traditional mourning period.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after her arrest in Tehran by the notorious morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic dress code for women.
The signing ceremony for the maritime boundary agreement between Israel and Lebanon is slated to take place tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time at the UN base in Naqoura, the Prime Minister’s Office announces.
The cabinet still has to approve the deal at its 10:30 a.m. meeting in Jerusalem, but is expected to do so overwhelmingly.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid will sign the agreement in his office at noon, then the Israeli negotiating team will take part in the afternoon ceremony along with a Lebanese delegation, US special envoy Amos Hochstein, and UN officials.
It remains unclear whether Israeli and Lebanese officials will sit in the same room at any stage of the signing ceremony.
The Israeli team will make a statement to the press at 5 p.m. Hochstein will travel to Jerusalem for a 7 p.m. meeting with Lapid.
Jews made nearly 8,000 visits to the Temple Mount over the past month, the largest number in modern history, according to an activist group.
Throughout the Hebrew month of Tishrei — the period in which the Jewish high holidays are celebrated — Jews made 7,959 visits to the flashpoint esplanade. That number is larger than the entire number of annual visitors a decade ago when just over 7,700 visits were made in 2012.
The number is also significantly up from the approximately 6,000 visits to the Temple Mount by Jews in the same month last year.
The figures provided by the organization Beyadenu, an umbrella group representing a number of Temple Mount activists, refer only to the number of visits made by Jews, not to the total number of visitors, making it unclear if this unprecedented number comes from more people visiting the site or from a smaller number visiting the site many times or, most likely, some combination of the two.
In the past few years, a small but dedicated group of Jewish activists have turned visiting the Temple Mount — once widely considered to be forbidden under Jewish law — into a mainstream practice for both religious Jews and secular right-wing Israelis.
This major shift has repeatedly prompted Muslim authorities to claim that Israel was changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, which Israeli officials have denied.
A 10-year-old boy is killed after being hit by a cement mixer truck while walking on Torah Mitzion Street in Jerusalem, police say.
Police say they are investigating the cause of the deadly crash.
Medics say they found the boy with massive injuries and were forced to declare him dead at the scene.
UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed warned opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu against including far-right lawmakers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in his government if the Likud chief wins next week’s election, a senior official familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel.
The message was passed along during a meeting that took place last month when bin Zayed was visiting Israel, the official says, confirming a report in the Axios news site.
Bin Zayed cautioned that the inclusion of such extremist lawmakers in Netanyahu’s government risked upending ties with the UAE in addition to the Abraham Accords more broadly, the official says.
The Israeli opposition leader assured the top Emirati diplomat that he was handling the matter, without elaborating further, the official says, clarifying that the meeting between bin Zayed and Netanyahu was still a warm one.
Bin Zayed is not the first Israel ally to warn Netanyahu against partnering with Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s Religious Zionism party, but those concerns have largely been coming from more progressive circles.
Netanyahu has not accepted the criticism, though, and he fumed at Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez when he raised the issue last month. He declared yesterday that he would not “bow [his] head” to US lawmakers warning him against Ben Gvir and that the far-right lawmaker would indeed be a minister in his government if he wins the November 1 election.
Both sides have declined to comment on last month’s meeting.
A woman who had another couple’s embryo mistakenly implanted in her womb during fertility treatments gives birth to a girl at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv.
The hospital, which refers to the newborn only as “the baby about which there was recent public discussion,” says in a statement that both mother and child are doing well and that the newborn is undergoing checkups.
In a statement via her attorneys, the mother says, “I am tired and exhausted. I have fulfilled my life’s dream. I wanted a baby for many years and went through grueling treatments until this long-awaited moment. I ask that they allow me to raise her and leave me alone.”
The error occurred during fertility treatments at Rishon Lezion’s Assuta Medical Center.
Assuta is still searching for the biological parents, although attorneys for the woman have asked to end the process, with the couple vowing to keep the baby.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reiterates claims that Ukraine is preparing a provocation using a “dirty bomb” in a video call with his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe, according to Moscow’s defense ministry.
“The situation in Ukraine was discussed. Army General Sergei Shoigu conveyed to his Chinese counterpart concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb,'” the ministry says in a statement.
In a separate statement earlier in the day, it said Shoigu also voiced the same “concerns” in a phone call with India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.
At its most basic, a dirty bomb is a conventional bomb laced with radioactive, biological or chemical materials which are disseminated in an explosion.
Shoigu accused Ukraine of planning to use a “dirty bomb” in calls with several NATO counterparts on Sunday, claims dismissed as “dangerous” lies by Kyiv.
A Spanish man trekking from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup is believed to be under arrest in Iran where he went missing more than three weeks ago, his family says.
“We learned this morning from the (Spanish) foreign ministry that there’s a 99% chance he is arrested,” Celia Cogedor, the mother of 41-year-old trekker Santiago Sánchez, tells The Associated Press.
“We are filled with hope,” she says.
Sánchez’s sister is due to meet tomorrow with officials at the Spanish Foreign Ministry in Madrid to learn further details.
???? Santiago Sanchez, a Real Madrid fan walking to the Qatar World Cup from Madrid has been reported missing in Iran.
Sanchez's family last heard from him on October 2nd, a day after he crossed the Iraq-Iran border.
(Source: @AP) pic.twitter.com/QeGcpyOdtK
— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) October 25, 2022
The foreign ministry says in a statement that the Spanish embassy in Tehran is in touch with Iranian authorities about Sánchez. It declines to provide further details.
Five people are injured after a driver loses control of his vehicle and plows into a supermarket in the central city of Yehud.
The Magen David Adom rescue service says medics treated five people at the scene and took them to the hospital.
Among those injured were three passersby, including a 70-year-old man in moderate condition, and two others who were lightly hurt. Two passengers in the vehicle were also lightly wounded.
The driver of the vehicle apparently pressed the accelerator instead of the brake, sending the car right into the store.
