ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 429
The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.
The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigns for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
It later was publicized that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
Rota steps down after meeting with the House of Commons’ party leaders later today. All main opposition parties called for Rota to step down, and government House leader Karina Gould earlier said that she believes lawmakers have lost confidence in Rota.
Gould said Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Polish minister indicated that his country could seek to extradite Hunka for his crimes.
The Tel Aviv soccer derby between Maccabi and Hapoel is delayed by at least half an hour amid crowd trouble and arrests over fans stockpiling weapons.
Police say 70 Hapoel Tel Aviv fans are detained for questioning after officers uncover a store of fire bombs, flares and iron bars that the fans planned to use in confrontations with their rivals.
Amid heightened security, long lines form at the entrance to Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium and some fans try to break through the turnstiles.
Police could be seen using mounted officers and batons on fans trying to get in.
Clashes also break out between rival fans outside the stadium. There are no immediate reports of casualties.
משוגע לגמרי
ההרוג הראשון קרוב pic.twitter.com/xNCsFtwR4s— Rico (@Ricoooooos) September 26, 2023
Members of the coalition slammed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for his plans to hold a public prayer service in Tel Aviv on Thursday at the site of the controversial street prayer in Dizengoff Square on Yom Kippur.
Among those criticizing Ben Gvir were National Religious party MK Simcha Rothman, Shas leader Aryeh Deri and Likud MK Yuli Edelstein. Media reports say fellow far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich was also angry at the move.
“Itamar, your intentions are good, but your actions are not,” says Rothman, one of the main architects of the government’s judicial overhaul.
“The answer to the provocations of an extreme progressive and noisy minority that does not want a Jewish and democratic state here is not a counter-provocation that will lead to the expansion of the burning and hatred that will unite a wide public around those extremists,” he says.
“On one side Ben Gvir, on the other [former prime minister Ehud] Barak. In between an entire nation that is sick of provocations,” Edelstein wrote.
The planned prayer announced by Ben Gvir is a response to scuffles that occurred Monday night in the square over the segregation of men and women during an annual street prayer service that the Rosh Yehudi organization has been holding there on Yom Kippur since 2020.
Despite a city order barring gender segregation in a public place, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, the organizers put up a bamboo frame with Israeli flags hanging down.
“I say to those anarchists that tried to eject worshipers on Yom Kippur — I and my friends from Otzma Yehudit are coming on Thursday to the same spot, let’s see you try and eject us,” Ben Gvir says in a video posted Tuesday on X.
Tourism Minister Haim Katz speaks to Channel 12 news from Saudi Arabia where today he became the first Israeli minister to lead an official delegation to the kingdom.
“They received me very nicely, we landed in the afternoon, there were lots of people in the welcome committee, everybody looked the same, it was wonderful,” Katz says.
He declines to respond to a question on whether the Israeli flag will be flying at the UN World Tourism Organization event in Riyadh, implying that the fact he was allowed to lead an official delegation was enough of a concession from the Saudis.
“We came into Saudi Arabia by the front door, but before that, they wanted to bring us in through the back door. I said that if I come to Saudi Arabia, it would be officially representing the State of Israel and that is enough,” he says.
The visit comes as Israel and Saudi Arabia move to normalize ties.
Katz also refuses to be drawn on whether he would support a deal with Riyadh if it involves giving a green light for a Saudi nuclear program or concessions to the Palestinians.
Katz says he trusts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make the right decisions.
Channel 12 also sends a correspondent to Jeddah to produce an item on how Saudis feel about possible Israeli-Saudi ties, however, the reporters do not identify themselves as Israeli.
The full broadcast will air tomorrow.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi will land in Saudi Arabia on Monday evening to attend the Universal Postal Union’s 2023 Extraordinary Congress in Riyadh, his office tells The Times of Israel.
Karhi will speak at the UN conference, which runs from Sunday to Thursday next week.
Karhi is flying through another country in the region, and has his visa already. He will bring a small delegation with him to the kingdom, which does not recognize Israel.
Karhi, a religious Jew, will not have a porch on which to build a Sukkah during the Sukkot holiday next week, but will bring a lulav and etrog with him.
His visit follows that of Tourism Minister Haim Katz today, the first minister to lead an official Israeli delegation to the kingdom.
The Israel Defense Forces say they have attacked two more Hamas military posts in the Gaza Strip after violent riots along the border.
The army says an attack helicopter fired on one post, while a tank shelled another.
The IDF says the posts were at the site of violent protests along the border.
The High Court of Justice issues a temporary injunction asking the government to explain why Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has not faced disciplinary sanctions despite years of inciting remarks.
The injunction comes following an appeal from the Reform Movement, the Women of the Wall, and the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, citing years of hate speech.
The groups said they had appealed to the government 16 times in the last four years, but no action was taken. The position of city chief rabbi is a government-appointed position and he faces the same restrictions as other civil servants.
Earlier this year, Amar said it was “unbearable” that an openly gay man, Likud lawmaker Amir Ohana, was made Knesset speaker, calling the move an abomination.
In 2021, Amar compared the LGBTQ community to animals and mocked religious participants who take part in Pride Parades.
“They did the abomination parade, which they are supposedly proud of,” Amar said. “Wild animals don’t behave this way,” he added.
He has also called Reform Judaism more of a threat to the religion than secular Jews.
US President Joe Biden’s decision to stand alongside United Auto Workers pickets today on the 12th day of their strike against major carmakers underscores support of labor unions that appears to be unparalleled in presidential history.
Labor historians say they cannot recall an instance when a sitting president has joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of the more ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited labor leaders alongside mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision that was seen at the time as a rare embrace of unions as Roosevelt tried to resolve the dispute.
Biden will be arriving one day before former US president Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, goes to Detroit to hold his own event in an attempt to woo auto workers even though union leaders say he’s no ally.
Lawmakers often appear at strikes to show solidarity with unions, and Biden joined picket lines with casino workers in Las Vegas and auto workers in Kansas City while seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
But sitting presidents, who have to balance the rights of workers with disruptions to the economy, supply chains and other facets of everyday life, have long wanted to stay out of the strike fray — until Biden.
“This is absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever walked a picket line before,” said Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and an expert on US labor history. Presidents historically “avoided direct participation in strikes. They saw themselves more as mediators. They did not see it as their place to directly intervene in a strike or in labor action.”
The IDF says it is launching fresh strikes in the Gaza Strip.
The military says it will provide further details later.
The announcement comes after an IAF drone hit a Hamas post near Rafiah following further riots and incendiary balloons launched along the border.
צהל תוקף כעת שוב ברצועה, בפעם השניה בשעה האחרונה, הפעם באמצעות טנק.
זאת אגב, עמדת חמאס שהופצצה קודם לכן… מה אומרים? לא אומרים. pic.twitter.com/l4SL8eXyQW— almog boker (@bokeralmog) September 26, 2023
The Air Force drones carried out a strike on a Hamas post near Rafiah in the Gaza Strip after violent riots on the border.
This is the third day in a row that Israel has hit Hamas sites after the terror group renewed riots on the border in recent weeks.
During riots today at several sites along the border, demonstrators set off explosive devices and tried to destroy an IDF post.
Palestinians also sent off incendiary balloons across the border, setting a fire in the Shaar Hanegev region.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government urges the speaker of the House of Commons to resign for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
Rota is meeting with the House of Commons’ party leaders later today. Two opposition parties called for Rota to step down on Monday, and government House leader Karina Gould says that she believes lawmakers have lost confidence in Rota.
Gould says Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine.
“It is time for him to do the honorable thing,” Gould said.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly also urges him to resign.
“It is completely unacceptable. It was an embarrassment to the House and Canadians, and I think the speaker should listen to members and step down,” Joly says.
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $75 million to the US Virgin Islands to settle claims that the bank enabled the sex trafficking acts committed by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
JPMorgan says that $55 million of the settlement will go toward local charities and assistance for victims. Another $20 million will go toward legal fees.
The Virgin Islands, where Epstein had an estate, sued JPMorgan last year, saying its investigation had revealed that the financial services giant enabled Epstein’s recruiters to pay victims and was “indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise.”
Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova slams Israel after the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission said that Jerusalem had supplied Ukraine with equipment to help it deal with a possible nuclear accident.
“If the forefathers of the current Israeli elites knew that their direct descendants were sponsoring a regime that glorifies their murderers and the ideology of the Holocaust,” Zakharova writes in a Telegram post, repeating a Russian refrain that Ukraine is a Nazi regime.
According to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster, Zakharova’s remarks were in response to Israel Atomic Energy Commission Director General Moshe Edri’s statement to the recent General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In his speech, Edri said “Israel had this year donated equipment to Ukraine as part of Israel’s commitment to treaties to prevent nuclear accidents.”
The UN atomic watchdog has repeatedly expressed concern after Russia seized control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, and fighting has continued to rage around it.
A Lebanese journalist with the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar station films himself within touching distance of an Israel Defense Forces tank on the border.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, the tank was at the site to protect Defense Ministry workers erecting a new border barricade at the site.
“Face to face with an Israeli tank,” writes Ali Shoeib in the post.
Soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) can be seen in the video standing by without intervening.
وجهاً لوجه مع دبابة إسرائيلية#مزارع_شبعا pic.twitter.com/yPvi7AWSv1
— علي شعيب || Ali Shoeib ???????? (@alishoeib1970) September 26, 2023
Israel and Lebanon do not have a formal border due to territorial disputes; however, they largely abide by the United Nations-recognized Blue Line between the two countries.
The Blue Line is marked with blue barrels along the border and is several meters from the Israeli fence in some areas, which is built entirely within Israeli territory.
The IDF has been working on a new border wall with Lebanon to replace an aging fence in the area. The engineering work, which typically takes place to the north of Israel’s fence but within Israeli territory, has sparked several minor clashes on the border in recent months.
Police are investigating reports that an Arab man was stabbed by several Jews on the Bat Yam promenade on Yom Kippur eve, the Ynet news site reports.
The man was hospitalized in moderate condition.
The suspects fled the scene and police are investigating the motive for the attack, Ynet said.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has “granted permission” for direct nuclear talks between Iran and the US, the Amwaj.media news site reports.
The report, citing senior Iranian sources, says that negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani is ready to meet with Biden administration officials in Oman.
The report says Tehran now wants to return to the point where talks broke off last year.
The report comes days after the US said it refused a request by Iran’s foreign minister to visit Washington last week, pointing to concerns about Tehran’s record including past detentions of US citizens.
The plans by Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were also first reported by Amwaj.media.
The head of the organization that staged a controversial street prayer in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv distances his group from Public Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s plans to pray there in solidarity with the organization.
“It appears to associate us with Ben Gvir, when this is not true at all,” Israel Zeira, the founder of the Rosh Yehudi group, tells The Times of Israel of the minister’s plans to lead an afternoon prayer on Dizengoff Square on Thursday.
“We don’t hold prayers as a political statement, it’s not our way and we don’t agree with this,” Zeira adds.
The planned prayer announced by Ben Gvir, a far-right politician, is a response to scuffles that occurred Monday night in the square over the segregation of men and women during an annual street prayer service that Rosh Yehudi has been holding there on Yom Kippur since 2020.
Despite a city order barring gender segregation in a public place, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, the organizers put up a bamboo frame with Israeli flags hanging down.
Protesters pulled down the flags and broke up the frame. Police did not intervene in the scuffles, in which secular and observant Jews argued loudly on Judaism’s holiest day.
Rosh Yehudi says the frame did not violate the city’s ban. However, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai says he views the frame as a violation.
“I say to those anarchists that tried to eject worshipers on Yom Kippur — I and my friends from Otzma Yehudit are coming on Thursday to the same spot, let’s see you try and eject us,” Ben Gvir says in a video posted Tuesday on X.
Tourism Minister Haim Katz lands in Saudi Arabia for a UN event, becoming the first Israeli minister to lead a delegation to the kingdom, his office says.
Katz is on a two-day visit as part of a United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) event.
“Tourism is a bridge between nations,” Katz says, according to his office. “Cooperation in the field of tourism has the potential to bring hearts together, and economic progress.”
“I will work to advance cooperation, tourism and the foreign relations of Israel,” he says.
Katz’s visit comes as Israel and Saudi Arabia edge closer to a normalization deal.
In March this year, Saudi Arabia had refused to issue visas for an Israeli delegation to a similar UNWTO event.
The Knesset Finance Committee authorizes the transfer NIS 816 million ($235 million) to local authorities, including some NIS 200 million ($52 million) to Arab towns and municipalities.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had been holding up the transfer to Arab communities for several months claiming that the money was being used to fund organized crime.
He eventually acceded to pressure, including from the Shin Bet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the condition that a monitoring system could be set up.
Smotrich’s representative in the committee, Omer Rahamim, says the money will only go through once the system is in place.
Arab MK Aida Touma-Sliman complains it’s a ploy to further delay the money, which is earmarked for education, welfare and construction.
Far-Right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir dares secular activists to try and disrupt a prayer service he and his Otzma Yehudit party leaders plan to hold in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
“I say to those anarchists that tried to eject worshipers on Yom Kippur — I and my friends from Otzma Yehudit are coming on Thursday to the same spot, let’s see you try and eject us,” Ben Gvir posts on X.
“I call on all of you, secular, religious, traditional, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, come — prayer belongs to all of us, it’s the Jewish state,” he says.
The activists that clashed with worshipers in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square were not objecting to public prayer, but to the organizers setting up gender-segregation barriers in the event at a public space in defiance of a city order that was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Energy Minister Israel Katz and ministry Director General Yaakov Blitstein meet with the CEO of Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company Masdar to advance a trilateral project in which Jordan will supply solar energy to Israel and receive desalinated water from Israel in return.
An Energy Ministry statement says the aim of the meeting was to complete the professional work and prepare contracts for signing at the annual UN climate conference COP28 to be held in Dubai starting the end of November.
Political and commercial agreements will have to be signed after that.
Also at the meeting are representatives of Israel’s water and electricity authorities, the Finance Ministry, and Israel’s point person for the project, retired Brig. Gen. Asher Ben Lulu.
Last month, Katz met with the Jordanian ministers responsible for water, energy and environment and the UAE’s Industry and Innovation minister.
Earlier this month, Masdar representatives visited Israel.
In June, Katz discussed the project with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Affairs John Kerry.
Iran sentences four people to death for selling contaminated bootleg alcohol that killed 17 people and sent dozens more to hospital in June, the judiciary says.
The sale and consumption of alcohol has been banned in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, giving rise to a huge illicit trade in smuggled or bootleg alcohol, some of it adulterated with poisonous methanol.
In June, at least 17 people died and 191 were admitted to the hospital with symptoms of methanol poisoning after drinking adulterated alcohol.
The Farda Briefing: Cases Of Fatal Alcohol Poisoning Rise In Iran #Iran #alcohol https://t.co/2ozozrjQlB pic.twitter.com/EbjutNJtw0
— Eli Dror (@edrormba) June 22, 2023
Judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi says 11 defendants had been charged with the capital offense of corruption on earth over the distribution of toxic liquor in Alborz province, west of Tehran.
Of the 11, four were sentenced to death while the rest received prison sentences of one to five years, Setayeshi says, adding that the convicts can appeal to the Supreme Court.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make a visit to Turkey in the next two months.
“I think Netanyahu’s visit to Turkey, which was postponed due to illness, will take place around October-November, and contacts are still ongoing in order to hold it at the most appropriate time,” Erdogan says.
Netanyahu was due to travel to Turkey in July, but postponed the trip as he had a pacemaker implanted.
The two leaders met for the first time last week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
It came amid a warming of ties between Israel and Turkey after years of animosity between the two countries’ leaders. President Isaac Herzog was hosted by Erdogan last March in Ankara — the first high-level Israeli visit since 2008 — and Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met the Turkish leader in February.
Then-prime minister Yair Lapid met with Erdogan in New York during last year’s General Assembly.
Two Arab Israeli residents of East Jerusalem, Hadar Barani, 35, and Mohammad Nimar, 19, are charged with transferring money to the Hamas terror group.
The two are charged in Jerusalem District Court with contact with a foreign agent and contributing to terrorist acts.
Prosecutors ask that they be held in custody until the end of proceedings.
Newly appointed Saudi ambassador to Palestine Nayef al-Sudairi arrives in Ramallah to present his credentials to the Palestinian Authority.
His arrival comes as Saudi Arabia edges closer to a normalization deal with Israel.
Al-Sudairi presents his credentials to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and to Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who praises the depth of the deep-rooted historical and fraternal relations that bind the two people, according to the official Wafa news agency.
Al-Sudairi pointed to the statements of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salaman last week, “in which he clearly indicated his great interest in the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian people,” Wafa says.
He also refers to statements also made by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, “regarding the importance of the Palestinian issue and its solution on the basis of the two-state solution leading to the establishment of the State of Palestine.”
Al-Sudairi, who is also ambassador to Jordan, was recently appointed the first-ever non-resident Saudi ambassador to Palestine and consul general to Jerusalem.
Al-Sudairi says Saudi Arabia plans to open a consulate in East Jerusalem.
The visit comes as Israel and Saudi Arabia move closer to inking a US-brokered deal that would see Riyadh giving up on its earlier demand for a Palestinian state before normalization. However, the Saudis are still reportedly demanding significant Israeli concessions to the Palestinians as part of the deal.
