ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 366
The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they happened.
Several hours after the West Bank terror attack near Kiryat Arba, shots are fired at Israeli troops from a passing vehicle near the Palestinian town of Bani Na’im, the military says.
The soldiers are said to have shot back at the gunmen, who have fled by car.
There are no casualties in the incident and the IDF is searching for the perpetrators, the statement says.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev mourns the death of an Israeli man who was among those wounded in the Kiryat Arba shooting attack.
“Palestinian terror will not break or beat us. We will continue to fight it will all determination and strength, day and night, wherever the terrorists and their senders,” Barlev writes on Twitter.
President Isaac Herzog, meanwhile, says he is “shocked” by the attack.
“I pray for the quick recovery of the wounded,” he says, while hailing security forces.
A man seriously wounded in the shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba earlier is a medic who arrived to treat the victims.
“While I was running to get medical equipment, I heard the medic I was with shout: ‘I’m injured, they shot at me,'” says Magen David Adom medic Yisrael Lior, who arrived with another medic to treat a father and son wounded by gunfire near Hebron.
“We took cover, and while I was providing life-saving treatment to the medic I was with, we called in additional forces,” he adds.
The seriously wounded medic and three other Israelis — one of whom has since died — were taken to hospitals in Jerusalem for treatment.
A 27-year-old Israeli man is lightly hurt after stones are hurled at his car near the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Amos, medics say.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says medics are taking the man to the Shaare Zedek medical center in Jerusalem with a head injury.
An Israeli man hurt in tonight’s shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron has succumbed to his wounds at the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem.
The man, in his 50s, was brought to the hospital in critical condition.
Another man remains listed in serious condition at the Shaare Zedek hospital.
Another three people were lightly hurt in the attack.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz holds a snap assessment with military chief Aviv Kohavi, and the head of the Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, following tonight’s shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Gantz instructs officials to “formulate operational measures according to the situation,” his office says.
His office adds that Gantz vows security forces will capture those involved in the attack, and wishes the victims a full recovery.
The all clear is given after a suspected infiltration alert sounded in the West Bank settlement of Elazar, in the Etzion settlement bloc.
The military’s Home Front Command briefly instructed residents to remain inside their homes, and to lock doors and windows.
The alert followed a shooting attack near the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron earlier, during which five people were hurt, including one critically and one seriously.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid says he is praying for the Israelis wounded in a shooting attack in Kiryat Arba tonight and hails the Israeli forces who “neutralized” the Palestinian assailant.
In a statement, Lapid says reinforcements will be deployed to the area.
“Terror won’t defeat us, we’ll act with a strong hand,” he vows.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu visits the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak in a bid to boost Haredi turnout in Tuesday’s elections, with final election polls showing his right-religious bloc on the cusp of a majority.
“According to our data, there is a Haredi seat that is sitting at home and not going out to vote,” Netanyahu says.
“The left is counting on the Haredi community not coming in masses to vote.”
Netanyahu addresses the crowd from the bulletproof “Bibibus,” which he has been campaigning in ahead of the November 1 vote.
The condition of an Israeli man injured in the shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron earlier tonight has worsened.
The Hadassah Ein Karem hospital says it has received three victims from the attack, including a man in his 60s listed in critical condition.
Two others, a 49-year-old and a 19-year-old are being treated at the Jerusalem hospital in light condition.
Earlier, the Magen David Adom ambulance service reported that four Israeli men were hurt in the attack. The fourth victim, a man in his 50s, has been taken to the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, where he is listed in serious but stable condition.
WASHINGTON — Russia’s suspension of its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed vital grain exports from Ukraine amounts to “weaponizing food,” the White House says in a statement today.
“Russia is again trying to use the war it started as a pretext for weaponizing food, directly impacting nations in need and global food prices, and exacerbating already dire humanitarian crises and food insecurity,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson says in a statement.
Three Israelis are hurt in the shooting attack near Hebron, medics say.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service says its medics are taking to a hospital a man in his 50s who is listed in serious condition, another man in his 50s listed in moderate condition, and a third man in his 30s listed in good condition.
MDA adds that a Palestinian man, 37, also hurt lightly injured in the attack, will be taken by Red Crescent to a West Bank hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces says an alleged Palestinian assailant was shot by a civilian security guard.
“IDF forces have begun searching the area for additional suspects,” the military adds.
The annual rally to mark the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is held in Jerusalem’s Zion Square.
“A great and brave Israeli leader who led Israel to great achievements and peace – was called here, by many people, a traitor. Here they shouted ‘death to Rabin,'” Labor party leader Merav Michaeli tells the crowd, referring to a right-wing protest at Zion Square ahead of the murder.
“Here Itamar Ben Gvir handed out the poster of Rabin in SS uniform. The same Itamar Ben Gvir who now disguises himself as a care bear and is trying to hide and rewrite history,” she adds.
Michaeli rips opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who like now as head of the Likud party at the time, for attending that 1995 demonstration.
“Anyone who denies that Yitzhak Rabin’s murder was political and that the incitement against him was organized and planned against him, are complicit with the instigators who stood here in Zion Square in their attempts to rewrite history,” she says.
Channel 12 news estimated turnout at around 1,000.
No members of the Rabin family attend this year’s rally, which comes days before the November 1 election. The annual event is usually held on the Saturday immediately before or after November 4, the date Rabin was gunned down by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir.
Traditionally held at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, the site of the assassination, the rally was held in Jerusalem this year due to construction work currently underway in the square.
At least two Israelis are hurt by gunfire in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, medics say.
One of the victims is listed in serious condition, while the other is listed in light condition, according to first responders.
It is not clear if the shooting was directed toward the home of Otzma Yehudit MK Itamar Ben Gvir, as he has claimed.
The Israel Defense Forces says it is looking into the incident, without providing further details.
SEOUL, South Korea — At least 120 people are killed and 100 more injured as they are crushed by a large crowd pushing forward on a narrow street during Halloween festivities in the capital of Seoul, South Korean officials say.
Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, says the death toll could rise and that an unspecified number among the injured are in critical conditions.
He says 74 of the dead have been sent to hospitals while the bodies of the remaining 46 who had been kept on the streets were being transported to a nearby gym so that workers could identify them.
Officials say it was believed that people were crushed to death after a large crowd began pushing forward in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul.
Shots are fired toward the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, medics and officials say.
According to the Rescuers Without Borders emergency service, at least one person is seriously hurt and an alleged Palestinian assailant was shot dead.
Otzma Yehudit MK Itamar Ben Gvir claims the shots were directed toward his Kiryat Arba home.
“My family is currently secured [as we come] under a shooting attack on our home,” Ben Gvir says on Twitter.
Speaking by phone with Channel 12 news, Ben Gvir says he wasn’t home at the time, but his wife and children were.
Three Netanya residents are detained after a brawl between anti-Netanyahu protesters and supporters of the former prime minister in the central coastal city.
According to a police statement, officers detained a couple involved in the scuffle, as well as a demonstrator who sprayed mace, which set off the violence at the rally.
TEHRAN, Iran — The trial of five Iranians charged with offenses that can carry capital punishment over protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death opened Saturday in Tehran, the judiciary’s news website says.
The Islamic Republic has witnessed a wave of protests over the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16 after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
The street violence, which authorities have dubbed “riots,” has led to dozens of deaths, mostly among demonstrators but also among the security forces.
Hundreds of protesters including women have been arrested.
“The first hearing of a number of defendants from the recent riots opened this morning at Tehran’s revolutionary tribunal,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website says.
Charges have been filed against more than 1,000 individuals in provinces across Iran in connection to the protests, the judiciary said on Wednesday.
The Israel Meteorological Service Service is forecasting rain and possible thunderstorms across most of the country on Tuesday, when Israelis will cast their ballots for the next Knesset.
It also predicts that temperatures on election day will be lower than the seasonal average.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu hits out at Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak for evoking Hitler to warn over the inclusion of far-right figures in a potential government led by the former premier.
“[Ben Barak] is comparing me to Hitler and Likud supporters to supporters of the Nazi party,” Netanyahu says in a video statement.
“What a disgrace, what incitement.”
US President Joe Biden has drafted a letter to Prime Minister Yair Lapid guaranteeing America’s commitment to the full implementation of the maritime boundary deal with Lebanon, and to Israel’s security and economic rights contained in the agreement, according to a senior US official.
The text of the letter was concluded between Israel and the US yesterday and Biden is expected to sign it early this coming week.
In the letter, Biden also stresses the US commitment to supporting Israel’s ability to defend itself and deter its adversaries, including its gas infrastructure and ships in the Mediterranean.
The US also recognizes the buoy lines stretching westward from Rosh Hanikra as the status quo line and opposes any attempt to change the lines without Israel’s agreement.
Washington also commits to supporting Israel’s economic rights in the Qana gas field and underscores that it will prevent Hezbollah from receiving any revenue from it.
Biden commits to standing with Israel against any attempts to violate the maritime boundary agreement.
The final text of the letter will not be released, according to an Israeli official.
Top Biden administration officials expressed concern to President Isaac Herzog during his trip to Washington over the possible inclusion of far-right political figures in Israel’s next government, the Walla news site reports.
Citing Israeli and US sources, the report says both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised the matter in Herzog’s respective meetings with them, though neither specifically mentioned Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich or his electoral partner Itamar Ben Gvir.
The two are running on a joint slate that is allied with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and a pair of ultra-Orthodox factions, which polls have forecast will fall just short of a majority in the November 1 election.
“There is concern in the administration and it was expressed to Herzog,” US officials told the news site.
The report says Herzog told Blinken and Sullivan not to rush to any conclusions after the publication of exit polls when voting ends Tuesday evening.
“The democrat process needs to be allowed to do its thing,” he was quoted as saying.
Herzog reportedly added: “Every country has a mess in its political system — you are also experiencing this here in the US.”
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine criticizes Russia’s decision to pull out of a grain shipment deal, saying that Moscow’s blaming a drone attack was a “false pretext.”
“Moscow is using a false pretext to block the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people. I call on all states to demand that Russia stop its hunger games and recommit to fulfilling its obligations,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says on Twitter.
Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir rails at a member of Prime Minister Yair Lapid Yesh Atid party’s evocation of Adolf Hitler to warn over the prospect of the far-right leader’s inclusion in a government led by opposition chief Benjamin Netanyahu,
“You have crossed the last red line,” Ben Gvir tweets. “I demand Yair Lapid announce Ram Ben Barak’s expulsion from the party this evening.”
President Isaac Herzog denounces the assault on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband by a man who has spread conspiracy theories about Jews and the 2020 American elections, leaving him with a fractured skull.
“Shocked by the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi and relieved that my friend Speaker Pelosi, who welcomed me so kindly this week, is safe,” Herzog says in a statement.
He adds: “Attacks on elected officials and their families are attacks on democracy itself. On behalf of the people of Israel, praying for Paul’s recovery.״
The head of Balad said party things have never been better for the Arab nationalist party, despite polls showing it well below the minimum vote threshold.
“The Israeli press doesn’t know a lot about what is happening on the ground,” Sami Abou Shahadeh tells Channel 12 news.
“I want whoever wants to really talk about the truth to look at the pictures from Balad rallies.”
“Balad has never had days like these,” he adds.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said her Jewish Home party wouldn’t support legislation that would terminate opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial or to get rid of core subjects at ultra-Orthodox schools, if her Jewish Home party joins a government with the former premier’s right-religious bloc.
“We won’t give our votes to a French law, to ending the trial, to legislation to cancel core studies. These things won’t be part of the coalition deal,” says Shaked, whose party has consistently polled below the minimum vote threshold.
MOSCOW — Russia says it’s suspending its participation in the agreement that allowed grain exports from Ukraine, blaming alleged drone attacks on Russian ships in Crimea.
“In light of the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” the Russian Defense Ministry announces on Telegram.
Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak insists he was not comparing any Israeli political figure to Adolf Hitler, after evoking the Nazi German leader to warn against the prospect of opposition chief Benjamin Netanyahu assembling a government with the far-right after Tuesday’s election.
“Let’s be clear — I did not compare nor will ever compare anyone in the State of Israel or the world to Hitler,” Ben Barak tweets.
“The attempt to portray it as a comparison is not accurate and it is unfortunate that someone is trying to portray it thus.”
MOSCOW — Russia says that it will raise the Nord Stream pipeline blasts and an alleged drone attack in Crimea, both incidents in which Moscow has alleged British involvement, at the UN Security Council.
“The Russian side intends to draw the attention of the international community, in particular through the UN Security Council, to the series of terrorist attacks against Russia in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, including the involvement of Great Britain,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says on Telegram.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops have moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian military officials report today as their forces fight to retake a province overrun by invading soldiers early in the war.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region had previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands of residents who fled to other Russia-held areas ahead of an expected Ukrainian advance.
“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine says in an update.
“All equipment and medicines are being removed from Kherson hospitals.”
The military’s claims can’t be independently verified. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address last night that the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.
Elsewhere today, at least one Russian ship suffered damage in a major port in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Ukraine and Russia offer different versions of what happened and who is to blame.
The Russian Defense Ministry says a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged pre-dawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol.
The city, Crimea’s largest, hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The ministry says Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones. Earlier, the Kremlin-installed governor of Sevastopol reported an “ongoing” drone attack.
An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry gives a different account, claiming that the “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Anton Gerashchenko writes on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.
Neither side’s claim can be immediately verified.
PARIS — Protests over Mahsa Amini’s death spread in universities across Iran, even as the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards tells them: “Do not come to the streets.”
Security forces had targeted a hospital and a student dormitory overnight, a rights group says, as the protest movement that flared over Amini’s death enters a seventh week.
Amini, 22, died in custody on September 16 after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress rules for women based on Islamic sharia law.
Security forces have struggled to contain the women-led protests that have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.
Students protested today, the start of the working week in Iran, at campuses in Tehran, Kerman in southern Iran and the western city of Kermanshah, among others, online videos show.
“Shameless, shameless,” students shout as they clashed with security personnel at a university in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, in footage published by the 1500tasvir social media channel.
They turn out even as Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, tells demonstrators: “Do not come to the streets! Today is the last day of the riots.”
