Sep. 3: US announces charges against six top Hamas leaders over Oct. 7 onslaught

Despite PM’s assertions, Israel told mediators it will withdraw from Philadelphi in deal’s 2nd phase

View of the Philadelphi Corridor between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, on July 15, 2024. (Oren Cohen/Flash90)

Israeli negotiators told mediators in recent days that they still support a complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Philadelphi Corridor in the second phase of the hostage deal, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments on Monday that Jerusalem must maintain a military presence there indefinitely, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

Confirming a Haaretz report, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel that hours before Netanyahu’s press conference, Mossad chief David Barnea flew urgently to Doha yesterday in order to inform Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani of Jerusalem’s position.

Notably, Netanyahu’s office does not deny the reports.

It instead argues that the security cabinet has not yet discussed the second phase of the deal.

The US said earlier today that Israel has agreed to the latest proposal, which requires the IDF to withdraw from heavily populated areas along the Philadelphi Corridor during the first, six-week phase of the deal. The statements from Biden administration spokespeople left open the possibility for Israeli troops remaining in other parts of the corridor that are not adjacent to heavily populated areas of the Egypt-Gaza border-stretch.

After US President Joe Biden said Sunday that he was close to presenting a final proposal to the sides by the end of the week, the Kan report says the Washington plans to do so by Friday.

Report: US warned UK suspending Israel arms sales could harm ceasefire efforts

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, walks with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane, Laos, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, Pool)

The US had privately warned Britain against suspending arms sales, amid concerns it could damage attempts to broker a ceasefire, a senior government source tell The Times.

US announces criminal charges against Sinwar, 5 other Hamas leaders for Oct. 7 attack

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's Gaza Strip chief, waves to supporters in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)

The Justice Department announces criminal charges against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and five other leaders of the terror group in connection with its October 7 onslaught against Israel.

The criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, resulting in death.

“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’s operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland says in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.”

“As outlined in our complaint, those defendants — armed with weapons, political support, and funding from the Government of Iran, and support from Hezbollah — have led Hamas’s efforts to destroy the State of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim,” Garland adds.

The other Hamas leaders charged are Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by Israel on July 31; Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, who helped plan last year’s attack and was killed by Israel in March; Khaled Mashaal, another Haniyeh deputy based in Doha and a former leader of the group; Muhammad Deif, the longtime Hamas military wing chief, who Israel killed in July; and Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon.

The impact of the case may be mostly symbolic given that Sinwar is believed to be hiding out in tunnels underneath Gaza and at least three of the other defendants named by the Justice Department are thought to have been killed. But US officials say at least one person, whom they did not name, is expected to be brought to New York for prosecution.

Saudi Arabia lashes Israel over Egypt-Gaza border stance

In a statement, Saudi Arabia condemns Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border represents a security threat, backing Egypt’s insistence that Israeli troops withdraw from the area.

Riyadh “strongly condemns and denounces” Israel’s comments on the corridor, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry says, accusing Israel of making “futile attempts to justify continued violations of international laws and norms.”

Israel says the area is a major smuggling artery and Netanyahu claimed Monday that pulling troops out of the area would allow Hamas to both re-arm and spirit hostages out of the Strip.

Egypt, which razed thousands of homes on its side of the border nine years ago to create a buffer zone with Gaza, has said that the smuggling is no longer an issue and rejects an Israeli presence on the Gazan side of the frontier.

Saudi Arabia “affirms its solidarity and support for Egypt,” the statement reads.

Impatient Security Council could take action to end Gaza war, envoy warns

Patience is running out among United Nations Security Council members and the 15-member body will likely consider taking action if a ceasefire cannot soon be brokered between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, says Slovenia’s UN envoy, who heads the council for September.

“There is a rising anxiousness in the council that it has to move one way or the other – either there is a ceasefire or that the council then reflects on what else we can do to bring the ceasefire,” says Samuel Zbogar. “I’m pretty sure that in September it will have to go… one way or the other, not because we want [it to], but because I think the patience is out,” he says.

The Security Council in June adopted resolution 2735, which backed a three-phase plan, laid out by US President Joe Biden, for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas. But Zbogar says the council may trash the resolution and seek another path, noting that “there are many tools that council has at [its] disposal.”

“But to start, I think one would be to establish that we have to move on from 2735 because for the past three months, the council was waiting [for] implementation of that resolution,” he says.

Trump says conflicts could turn into World War III, days after warning of Israel’s demise

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says the conflict in Ukraine or fighting in the Middle East could end up turning into a massive global war, continuing to attack US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s handling of world affairs under US President Joe Biden.

“We have to get those wars settled. I’ll tell you, you have to get Ukraine done,” Trump says on the Lex Fridman podcast released Tuesday. “That could end up in a third world war. So could the Middle East. So could the Middle East.”

Asked about his negotiating tactics, the real estate mogul turned former president appears to endorse the use of military pressure as a bargaining chip.

“I think the stick probably is generally more successful in that we’re talking about war,” he says, though there is no indication the comment is specifically meant to refer to talks on a hostage release and ceasefire deal in Gaza. “But the kind of destruction that we’re witnessing now, nobody’s ever seen. It’s a terrible thing. And we’re witnessing it all over. We’re witnessing it in all parts of the world and a lot of things are going to get started.”

Here's my conversation with @realDonaldTrump

It's here on X in full, and is up everywhere else too. Links in comment.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction
1:09 – Psychology of winning and losing
3:51 – Politics is a dirty game
5:28 – Business vs politics
8:04 – War in Ukraine
9:53 -… pic.twitter.com/64pCfH8JPs

— Lex Fridman (@lexfridman) September 3, 2024

On Ukraine, he claims he’ll end the war there, and claims he has a secret plan for other areas as well, though not this neck of the woods.

“I have a very exacting plan how to stop Ukraine and Russia, And I have a certain idea — maybe not a plan, but an idea — for China,” he adds.

The interview comes days after Trump told Fox News that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon “Israel is gone, it will be gone.”

US says it rejects ongoing IDF presence in Philadelphi Corridor, urges flexibility in talks

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a news briefing at the State Department, July 18, 2023, in Washington. (AP/Nathan Howard)

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says the US has “made very clear what we believe about the possibility of an ongoing Israeli presence in Gaza — that we [are] opposed to it.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared yesterday that Israel will not leave the Egypt-Gaza border stretch for the foreseeable future.

Reiterating what White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said early, Miller asserts that Israel agreed to a bridging proposal that requires it to withdraw in the first phase from heavily populated areas in Gaza, including those that lie along the Philadelphi Corridor.

However, Miller later explains that accepting the bridging proposal doesn’t amount to accepting its implementation.

“The bridging proposal [isn’t] the end of the road. There are a number of implementing details that we need to reach agreement on,” he says, following White House spokesperson John Kirby in ceasing to characterize the bridging proposal that the US submitted last month as a “final” offer.

He says the US will continue engaging partners in the region “over the coming days” to reach a final agreement, insisting that progress was made during talks last week, while noting that details on various parts of the agreement still need to be worked out.

“Ultimately, finalizing an agreement will require both sides to show flexibility. It will require that both sides look for reasons to get to ‘yes’ rather than reasons to say ‘no,'” he adds.

The spokesperson admits that hostage negotiations aren’t currently taking place but clarifies that the work toward an agreement is ongoing.

He reiterates US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s declaration last month that Israel has accepted the US bridging proposal and stresses that Hamas still must do the same.

US demands justice for executed hostages, hails Goldberg-Polin as ‘American hero’

The Biden administration “demands justice” for the six hostages, including an American citizen, who were killed by Hamas last week, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declares during a press briefing.

“We grieve for all of them, and we demand justice for all of them,” he says, noting that the terror group’s leaders will likely be the ones held responsible for the killings, whether in court or on the battlefield.

“The United States has shown that we have a long memory when it comes to bringing to justice those responsible for the deaths of American citizens,” Miller says.

Hamas leadership’s instructions for guards to kill the hostages if they sense that Israeli troops are nearing “shows what a depraved organization Hamas actually is,” the State Department spokesperson says.

Calling for a hostage deal to save those still being held in Gaza, Miller says Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American executed by Hamas, was an “American hero.”

“Hersh was a young man known by his family and friends, for his kindness, for being a gentle soul, as someone who loved traveling, who loved music,” he continues.

“Tragically, any deal to bring home the hostages will come too late for him, but there are dozens of hostages still remaining in Gaza, still waiting for a deal that will bring them home,” Miller says.

“It is time to finalize that deal. The people of Israel cannot afford to wait any longer. The Palestinian people, who are also suffering the terrible effects of this war, cannot afford to wait any longer,” he asserts.

Cops arrest protester for ripping poster of fallen soldier hung by hawkish group

A torn picture of slain soldier Cpt. (res.) Elhanan Meir Kalmanson in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. (Israel Police)

Police say they have detained a person suspected of ripping down a picture of a soldier killed in battle near Gaza, next to a Jerusalem anti-government protest.

Posters from the Gvura Forum showing pictures of soldiers killed in Gaza and calling on the government to press its military offensive so their deaths won’t have been in vain are hung in various areas around Paris Square, which abuts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence, the locus for protests in the capital.

The flyers appear alongside other banners backing calls for a hostage deal and ceasefire, reflecting ideological divisions over Israel’s priorities in waging a campaign to eliminate the Hamas terror group.

According to police, the suspect tore down a poster showing Cpt. (res.) Elhanan Meir Kalmanson, 41, who was killed on October 8 while battling Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri.

Police describe the suspect as a protester, indicating that he peeled off from the main demonstration.

The arrest comes a day after a former judge in Beersheba was filmed tearing down posters hung by the Tikva Forum, another hardline group representing families of October 7 victims and soldiers killed in fighting since then.

Netanyahu tells Gantz, Eisenkot to pipe down, Israel doing great without them in war cabinet

In response to addresses by former war coalition member Benny Gantz and observer Gadi Eisenkot accusing him of getting in the way of a hostage deal and worrying about political survival more than Israel’s security, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says the former IDF chiefs should butt out.

The statement lists Israel’s various achievements since National Unity pulled out of the government and the war cabinet in June, including the killings of shadowy Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, Hezbollah military head Fuad Shukr, a preemptive strike on Hezbollah rockets last month, a strike on Houthis in Yemen and the IDF’s capture of the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, which he terms “Hamas’s armament pipeline.”

“Whoever does not contribute to the victory and the return of our hostages, it would be best not to get in the way,” says the Prime Minister’s Office of his former political partners.

Report: PMO rejects freedom of information request for relevant IDF intel documents ahead of Hamas attack

In this handout photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva tour an disclosed intelligence base, May 23, 2023. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

The Prime Minister’s Office has rejected a freedom of information request for all or any documents that Benjamin Netanyahu received from the IDF Intelligence Branch in 2023 warning ahead of October 7 of the possibility of an attack by Hamas, Channel 12 news reports.

It says the IDF has stated that four “warning letters” were sent, but that the PMO has denied that it received any warning about a possible attack by Hamas from Gaza, and that all the Intelligence Branch documents it received prior to the invasion and slaughter assessed that Hamas was deterred from attacking.

The request for the material was made in a June 16 letter sent to the IDF and the PMO by the Movement for Freedom of Information and the Hatzlacha Movement for the Promotion of a Fair Society. After some back and forth, the PMO replied with a final rejection two days ago, the report says.

The initial request asked for “all the documents, interactions, assessments and briefings sent to the PM and his representatives in the course of 2023 regarding the dangers, risks and possible implications stemming from social processes, and their connection to the likelihood of war or a deteriorating security situation regarding any element, including Hamas,” the report says.

After the PMO said it had received no such warnings, the two movements suggested that the PMO make public all the IDF intel material it received referencing Gaza, after it is approved by the military censor to make sure there is no harm to national security.

In response, the PMO said it had consulted with Netanyahu, and it had been decided that the documents could not be published in light of their “security classification” and ongoing “sensitivity.”

The PMO also said there was only a single one-on-one meeting between Netanyahu and then-IDF intelligence chief Aharon Haliva in 2023, the report says.

Haliva announced his resignation in April, taking personal responsibility for the failure to prevent the October 7 Hamas invasion and massacre, and stood down in August.

Israel at its lowest point ever, Netanyahu reneged on hostage deal proposal, Eisenkot charges

National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot attends a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset on July 31, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

National Unity MK and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot says that he takes the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor seriously, but accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “delegitimizing” the defense minister and IDF officers in his statements about who should control the Gaza-Egypt border.

Appearing at a press briefing with fellow former IDF chief and National Unity party head Benny Gantz, Eisenkot also says the Iranian threat has been ignored while Netanyahu has been in office.

“Israel is at its lowest point since its founding,” claims Eisenkot, pointing out that Israel has yet to achieve any of its war aims.

He says that Netanyahu made sure that every minister supported the hostage proposal of May 27, “but quickly went back on it for political reasons.”

Hostage family members rage against ‘Mr. Abandonment’ at Tel Aviv protest

Israelis attend a rally calling for the release of Israelis held in Gaza, outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, September 3, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

In Tel Aviv, chants of “You’re not alone — we’re with you” greet relatives of hostages who get up to speak to the 2,000-person strong crowd demanding a hostage deal.

A group representing people arrested at anti-government rallies says two protesters have been detained at the demonstration.

Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, tells ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government their “names will be written in the history books with the blood of the hostages who were murdered in Gaza.”

“You have one way to avoid that fate — abandon the hangman from Aza Street,” she says, referring to the address of Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence. “Replace him with someone who will bring a deal.”

Ifat Kalderon, cousin of hostage Ofer Kalderon, accuses Netanyahu of harming the negotiations by ordering the assassination of top Hamas officials and “causing the death of the hostages,” riffing on his former nickname of Mr. Security.

“The military pressure, which never led to progress in the negotiations, has turned into a veritable mortal danger for the hostages,” she says. “And you, Mr. Abandonment, have lost the way.”

She calls on her cousin Ofer to stay strong, and thanks the crowd for coming to the protest.

Eli Albag, father of hostage Liri Albag, calls on the crowd to hoist their phones in a moment of silence for the six slain hostages recovered from Gaza over the weekend and the six slain hostages recovered the week before.

Protesters hold their phones up in a moment of silence for 12 hostages whose bodies the IDF recovered from Gaza in recent weeks, at a 2000-strong anti-government demonstration calling for a truce-hostage deal with Hamas, outside the IDF headquartes in Tel Aviv. pic.twitter.com/Pftj9VnwjX

— Noam Lehmann (@noamlehmann) September 3, 2024

Bring home hostages, deal with Hezbollah and go back to Philadelphi as needed, Gantz says in rejoinder to PM

National Unity leader Benny Gantz attends a plenum session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, August 14, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

National Unity party leader Benny Gantz says that Gaza must be sealed off from Egypt, but disputes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that not permanently holding the Philadelphi Corridor will hamstring troops or represent an existential threat to the state.

Netanyahu argued last night that Israel would be unable to retake the area if troops pulled out, but Gantz says it’s possible.

“At the first cabinet meeting of the war, I said that kids who haven’t even started 9th Grade yet will have to fight in Gaza. That’s our reality. Anyone who thinks we won’t be able to return to fight [in Gaza], anyone who thinks that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar will raise his hands [in surrender] and accept an arrangement for years, is still sleeping on October 6,” Gantz says.

“I’m telling you the truth, citizens of Israel: Just as we went into Gaza with the ground operation when he [Netanyahu] hesitated, just as we went ahead with the framework for the return of the hostages that he tried to play for time [in November], just as we returned to fight as we needed too after that previous framework, so too, exactly, we will return to the Philadelphi Corridor if and when necessary, just as we will return to Zeitoun and Khan Younis and every other place,” says Gantz, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces.

“If Netanyahu does not understand that everything has changed after October 7, if he doubts that Sinwar will be eliminated and we’ll always get to where we need to, if he is not strong enough to stand up to international pressure,” says Gantz, “he should resign and head home.”

While acknowledging that controlling the corridor is important to thwart arms smuggling into the Strip, Gantz argues that leaving troops there would leave them vulnerable to attacks and won’t stop tunnel building. IDF troops deployed in isolated watchtowers along the narrow strip would be “sitting ducks,” he says.

Israel’s security establishment has accepted a plan for an underground system to stop smuggling tunnels, Gantz says, accusing Netanyahu of knowingly refusing to advance the plan or meet Egypt’s president on the matter.

“The story isn’t Philadelphi,” he says, “but the lack of true strategic decisions.”

He tells Netanyahu to be “very careful” when scaring people by “throwing around the term ‘existential threat’. True, our enemies want to destroy us, and in the past year, under your government and your responsibility, our enemies indeed managed to carry out the idea of invading Israeli territory, capturing communities, and activating a ring of fire around us from many fronts.” But the IDF must and can face up to this, with the proper infrastructure and resources, and with the “advancing of broad regional and international alliances.”

“The Philadelphi Corridor is an operational challenge, but it is not an existential threat to the State of Israel.”

Rather, he says, Iran and its axis of proxies and allies pose the real existential threat, and should be the focus of Israel’s military attention. He also urges a shift toward the north, where Hezbollah attacks have forced tens of thousands from their homes.

A hostage deal must be finalized, he says.

“The important thing is that we reach a deal to bring the hostages home and we implement it,” Gantz tells the briefing. “We must ensure that an underground barrier is built along the Philadelphi Corridor and internalize that we have to release damned murderers.”

Gantz concludes by telling Netanyahu he “is no longer capable of confronting the real existential threat,” and repeats his call for new elections.

Answering questions, Gantz says there is an inherent contradiction in Netanyahu’s central claim last night that he can and must resist international pressure so that Israel remains deployed at the Philadelphi Corridor, but that international pressure would prevent a return to the corridor if Israel left it now in the context of a hostage deal.

“As I said, if there is a need to return and again take control of the [Philadelphi] Corridor, we’ll rightly have to do so. Netanyahu can’t claim that he is strong and tough enough to remain there [now], but not strong and tough enough to go back there [later],” says Gantz.

Retaking the corridor would be a “serious operation” for the IDF, “but this is not the existential threat to the State of Israel” that Netanyahu depicted.

Gantz: Netanyahu lied to public, won’t bring the hostages home

National Unity party leader Benny Gantz accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of getting in the way of hostage deals throughout the war, and worrying primarily about his political survival.

Gantz says Netanyahu lied to the public yesterday when he laid out his case for why maintaining a military presence in the Philadelphi Corridor should trump reaching a hostage deal with Hamas.

“The prime minister did not look the public in the eye and tell the truth: That he won’t bring the hostages home, he won’t truly protect the south, he won’t return the residents of the north to their homes, he won’t prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he says in a televised address.

Gantz says he is not surprised, since during his time in the war cabinet, Netanyahu consistently got in the way of progress toward hostage deals, including around the week-long deal that eventually took place in November. He also criticizes Netanyahu’s battle planning, saying the prime minister “hesitated” and thus thwarted what would have been the earlier expansion of the war to Khan Younis and later to Rafah. “And when we wanted to open a corridor on the Morag Route in order to quickly tackle the southern [Gaza] front, without the diplomatic complications of the Philadelphi Corridor, Netanyahu refused.”

He claims that Netanyahu has refused to make the swift, safe return of residents to northern Israel a goal of the war.

“It doesn’t surprise me because Netanyahu is focused on political survival, and harms our strategic ties with the United States while Iran is progressing toward a nuclear weapon,” he says.

“We must bring back the hostages,” says Gantz, “even at a very heavy price.”

Report: Netanyahu tells IDF to prepare for possibility of taking over distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to IDF troops in Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, July 18, 2024. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the IDF to prepare for the possibility that it will be required to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza from international welfare organizations, Channel 12 reports.

At this stage, it says, Netanyahu has instructed the IDF to do the staff work to examine the logistics, operational mechanisms and manpower required.

In answer to a question at his press conference yesterday, Netanyahu said Israel was “very close” to dismantling Hamas militarily, “but we still need to deprive it of its capacity to rule. That means we need to find an alternative for all or a considerable part of the distribution of humanitarian aid. We are working on that now, and we will achieve that, because it is part of the ‘day after.'”

Tonight’s TV report says that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, in discussions in recent days, has expressed opposition to the IDF taking on the role, regarding it as inappropriate for the army. Halevi has reportedly said it would place soldiers at unnecessary risk, and that such work is precisely what the international organizations are set up to do.

It cites an anonymous source familiar with the issue saying, “Soldiers should not be hurt, heaven forbid, distributing sacks of flour.”

The TV report notes that the idea has been raised in the past, but was dropped.

It says such a move would also carry implications for international law, since it would make Israel increasingly responsible for the Gaza Strip. Along with Netanyahu’s stated determination at his press conference to maintain Israeli military control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, it would mean Israel was moving increasingly toward the military governance of Gaza.

The report also says the IDF has estimated that full military governance of Gaza would cost Israel some NIS 40 billion (almost $11 billion) annually.

It quotes the IDF Spokesman’s office saying it does not comment on closed-door discussions, and that the IDF will implement any decision by the political leadership.

Israel has repeatedly highlighted Hamas’s commandeering of humanitarian aid brought into the Strip.

US says it won’t speak to UK curbing of arms licenses, but will continue supporting IDF

Asked about the United Kingdom’s decision to suspend some arms licenses to Israel, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says “every nation can speak for themselves on how and to what degree that they support Israel.”

“We’re going to continue to do what we have to do to support Israel’s defensive capabilities. That support continues today,” Kirby says during a press briefing.

In announcing the UK’s decision, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said London was concerned the weapons covered by the decision “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Kirby says the US has not seen Israel committing war crimes.

“We’ve reviewed individual reports… about compliance with international humanitarian law, and as we speak, there’s been no determination by the United States that they have violated international humanitarian law,” the White House spokesperson reiterates.

Execution of hostages will color talks, US says, but deal still possible

The White House says Hamas’s “execution” of six Israeli hostages last week has influenced the way that ceasefire negotiations are conducted in the coming days, but it only underscores further the importance of securing a deal.

“The executions over the weekend just underscores how important it is that we keep hope alive and keep going,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says in a press briefing. “I’d be lying to you if I said that the work going on yesterday, today, tomorrow and the days ahead [is] not going to be informed, shaped or colored by our own grief, sorrow, shock and outrage about what Hamas did.”

“Yes, of course, a deal is possible. The president wouldn’t be personally engaged the way he is, and he wouldn’t have taken the time over the weekend to meet with his team if he didn’t believe it was something we can achieve,” Kirby says.

“We are still actively working on this. We are still in constant consultations with Qatar, Egypt and Israel. Qatar and Egypt are in touch with Hamas. We’re going to do what we can to get it done,” he asserts, while declining to provide a timeline.

He also appears to walk back the White House’s characterization of the bridging proposal for a hostage deal that it submitted last month to Israel and Hamas as “final,” declining to use the terminology.

“We’re working on a proposal that will secure the release of the remaining hostages and will include massive and immediate relief for the people of Gaza and also result in a stoppage of the fighting,” Kirby says.

A senior administration official briefing reporters on August 16, the day that the proposal was submitted, repeatedly called it a “final bridging proposal.”

The shift from the White House appears to be an admission that the proposal it presented last month will still undergo significant changes, if not being tossed out completely.

Protesters gather at intersections around country as hostage relatives excoriate Netanyahu coalition

Protesters at Nahalal Junction on September 3, 2024. (Courtesy: Hostage and Missing Families Forum)

Protesters demonstrating against the government and in favor of a hostage deal have gathered at a number of intersections around the country, according to the Hostage and Missing Families Forum.

Crowds of several dozen to several hundred people, waving signs and flags, are seen gathered near Rehovot, Hod Hasharon, near Nahalal in the lower Galilee, and elsewhere.

In Tel Aviv, the crowd has swelled to thousands, according to media reports, with relatives of hostages delivering angry speeches from atop a van in the middle of Begin Boulevard.

“The Philadelphi axis is the biggest bluff there is,” says Eli Albag, father of hostage Liri Albag, referring to an area on the Gaza-Egypt border where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded troops remain, turning it into a major sticking point in talks.

“Netanyahu thinks Israel’s people are dummies. Hezbollah, Iran, the West Bank, Gaza — the most important axis is the Ben Gvir-Smotrich axis. That’s the most dangerous axis to the nation of Israel,” he says, according to the Ynet news site.

US says Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of Philadelphi route, mum on details

View of the Philadelphi Corridor between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, on July 15, 2024. (Oren Cohen/Flash90)

The White House says that an Israel-approved framework for a hostage deal meant to close gaps between the sides includes an IDF withdrawal from heavily populated areas along the Philadelphi Corridor, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel must keep its forces deployed on the Gaza-Egypt border stretch and would do so for the foreseeable future.

“The deal itself, including the bridging proposal that we started working with… includes the removal of Israeli Defense Forces from all densely populated areas… in phase one… and that includes those areas along and adjacent to that corridor,” says White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby in a briefing with reporters. “That’s the proposal that Israel had agreed to.”

Kirby declines to clarify when asked whether this means that the US supports allowing Israeli troops to remain in less densely populated areas along the Philadelphi Corridor.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

While reiterating the deal’s requirement for Israel to at least partially withdraw from Philadelphi, the White House spokesperson acknowledges that Jerusalem is publicly stressing that it “would need some security along that corridor.”

“I’m not going to get into a debate with the prime minister over what he said over the weekend,” Kirby says.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)

Netanyahu argued yesterday that allowing troops to withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border, which Israel says is a major smuggling artery, would result in arms and equipment for making weapons and digging tunnels again being smuggled into the Strip and the possibility of hostages being smuggled out.

He said Israel would retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor for the foreseeable future, describing its presence there as crucial to preventing Hamas from rearming, and vital to Israel’s future.

UN Security Council agrees to discuss execution of hostages

This combination of six undated photos shows hostages, from top left, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi; from bottom left, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Carmel Gat. (The Hostages Families Forum via AP)

The United Nations Security Council will discuss the conflict between Hamas and Israel and the crisis in the Palestinian territories on Wednesday in the wake of the summary execution of six hostages in Gaza. Even routine bureaucratic questions about the meeting are sparking disagreements between UN members.

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon wrote on X early Tuesday that, “following my urgent request, the UN Security Council will finally convene on Wednesday for the first time since the October 7 massacre to hold an official discussion on the hostages.”

The UN ambassador from Malta, which served as Security Council president in April, wrote back to Danon on X that the council had adopted a November 15 resolution that called for the release of all the hostages during humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

“At the time of adoption your representative stated in the Council that Israel will not implement the resolution,” she wrote. “Stop spreading misinformation.”

France, the United Kingdom and the United States backed Israel’s request for a Security Council meeting. Israel wrote in a press release Tuesday that “the Security Council must condemn the terrorist organization Hamas and demand the immediate release of the abductees.”

Algeria, another Security Council member, separately requested a meeting on the Middle East crisis that will be part of Wednesday’s meeting.

US cancels shore leave for warship after Marines attacked in Turkey

US Marines assigned to the USS Wasp amphibious warship that is in port in Turkey have had their shore leave canceled following an attack on two Marines during a port visit to Izmir, a US defense official told The Associated Press.

The Wasp has been sailing in the eastern Mediterranean in a show of support for Israel and to be able to come to Israel’s defense if the war in Gaza escalates into a larger regional conflict.

A second military official says no changes are anticipated to the Wasp’s in-port schedule. The official does not have further details to share on what prompted the attack on Monday, saying that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is still looking into it.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday that authorities detained 15 members of an anti-American youth organization who physically assaulted two US military personnel in the city of Izmir.

Protesters demanding a hostage deal block traffic in Tel Aviv for 3rd straight day

Protesters demanding a hostage release deal block traffic on Tel Aviv's Begin Street on September 3, 2024. (Noam Lehmann/Times of Israel)

Some 300 people begin blocking traffic on Tel Aviv’s Begin Street, outside the Kirya military headquarters, for the third consecutive day of protests to demand a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, after the IDF recovered six recently slain captives from Gaza over the weekend.

A man wearing a mask with the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lies on the street next to a mock grave. “I added clauses. Hostages died. Sorry,” reads a sign on the floor in front of the premier’s likeness.

Protesters accuse Netanyahu of thwarting a deal with 11th-hour demands for Israel to retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.

One protester holds a sign reading: “In the third temple, Netanyahu offers human sacrifice.” The protesters chant “the hostages are in Gaza for too many hours, the blood is on the hands of the horror government,” as others yell “it’s now or never — there’s a deal on the table.”

UN chief: Polio vaccine campaign in Gaza amid fighting pauses a ‘rare ray of hope’

A health worker administers the polio vaccine to a Palestinian child in Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip on September 1, 2024. (Eyad Baba/AFP)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres describes pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to allow children to be vaccinated against polio as a “rare ray of hope and humanity in the cascade of horror,” his spokesperson says.

“If the parties can act to protect children from a deadly virus… surely they can and must act to protect children and all innocents from the horrors of war,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says.

IDF says two Palestinian gunmen killed near Tulkarem

IDF commandos killed two Palestinian gunmen during a raid near the West Bank city of Tulkarem a short while ago, a military source says.

Troops of the Duvdevan Commando Unit surrounded a building in the Tulkarem suburb of Danaba where the gunmen were holed up.

The Palestinians opened fire at the commandos, who returned fire, killing the pair. M16 rifles were recovered from their bodies, the IDF source says.

No soldiers are hurt in the incident.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry names the pair as Rami Abbas and Nour Zait. The ministry says it was informed of their deaths from the PA’s General Authority of Civil Affairs, indicating that their bodies are being held by Israeli authorities.

The PA health ministry also says a 16-year-old girl, identified as Lujain Osama Musleh, was killed by Israeli fire in Kafr Dan, near Jenin, earlier today.

The IDF has not yet commented.

Israeli troops have been operating in Kafr Dan for days, demolishing a house in the town earlier today.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Swimmer Ami Dadaon speeds to second Paralympic gold with 200m freestyle win

Israeli swimmer Ami Dadaon celebrates after winning gold in the men's 200m freestyle at the 2024 Paris Paralympics in September 3, 2024. (Lilach Weiss Rosenberg)

Israeli swimmer Ami Dadaon has won a gold medal in the men’s 200m freestyle S4 disability class at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, his third medal of the Games so far and his second gold.

Dadaon, 23, clinches the gold in 2:49.26, finishing more than three seconds ahead of silver-medal winner Roman Zhadanov of Russia, who is competing as a neutral athlete. Dadaon, who was born with cerebral palsy, holds the world record in the event of 2:44.84, which he set in Tokyo.

On Friday, Dadaon will swim in his final Paralympic race, the 50m freestyle.

So far in the Games, Dadaon has won gold in the 100m freestyle and silver in the 150m individual medley.

Overall, Israel has already racked up seven medals in Paris, including four gold medals; in Tokyo, the Israeli delegation took home nine medals, its best finish since Athens 2004.

Gantz, Eisenkot to deliver ‘truth on Philadelphi Corridor’ in reply to Netanyahu

Gadi Eisenkot (left) and Benny Gantz at the launch of the new National Unity party, August 14, 2022, in Kfar Maccabiah. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two former army heads who now sit in the Knesset opposition, will deliver a televised address later tonight responding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that Israel cannot agree to a hostage deal if it means pulling troops from the Gaza-Egypt border.

Gantz, who heads the National Unity Party, and Eisenkot, a party MK, will make the case for a hostage deal in what is widely seen as a rejoinder to a televised address from Netanyahu arguing that Israel must remain in control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor to prevent smuggling of weapons into the Strip, or people out of it.

The two say they plan to “disprove Netanyahu’s claims and expose the truth about the Philadelphi Corridor and the hostages,” Channel 12 reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) with outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz at a ceremony in honor of incoming IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot (not seen) at the PM’s office in Jerusalem, February 16, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

According to Gantz’s office, he will argue that Israel can return to the Philadelphi Corridor if needed, but time is running out to save the hostages.

Gantz was the IDF’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2015, and was followed by Eisenkot, who served in the role until 2019, a period that coincides with the lion’s share of Netanyahu’s time in power.

The two were part of the war cabinet until June, when National Unity pulled out of the governing coalition to protest Netanyahu’s handling of the issue.

UN rights chief calls for probe into Hamas execution of six hostages

UN human rights chief Volker Turk is calling for an independent investigation into reports that Gaza terror groups executed six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered this week.

“We are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime,” the UN Human Rights Office says on X, adding that Turk “calls for [an] independent, impartial and transparent investigation and for perpetrators to be held to account.”

#Gaza: We are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime. @volker_turk calls for independent, impartial and transparent investigation and for perpetrators to be held to account.

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) September 3, 2024

The six, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were apparently executed as Israeli troops neared the southern Gaza tunnel where they were being held captive.

Bomb-laden drone sparks fire near Lebanon border — IDF

An explosives-laden drone crashed into scrubland in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, sparking a bushfire, the Israel Defense Forces says.

Firefighters are attempting to douse the flames near Manara in the Galilee panhandle after the attack, which did not trigger warning sirens.

Sirens did sound in the border towns of Arab al-Aramshe and Hanita in the Western Galilee, where the IDF says troops successfully shot down a drone that infiltrated from Lebanon.

Hezbollah says it targeted soldiers in Manara with “appropriate weapons.” It does not claim the attack near Hanita.

Netanyahu set to return to US for United Nations speech, meetings — official

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to use a red marker on a map of 'The New Middle East,' as he addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to return to the US later this month to deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

Netanyahu will likely address the 79th session of the gathering of world leaders in New York City on September 26, the official says.

He will also meet world leaders on the sidelines of the confab, the official says, though the schedule is still being crafted.

Netanyahu flew to Washington in late July for high-level meetings with US President Joe Biden and others, though tensions between Jerusalem and Washington remain high.

On Monday, Biden appeared to show exasperation with Netanyahu over the inability to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, saying the Israeli leader was not doing enough and that he would speak with him “eventually.”

Netanyahu responded that he could not believe the US president would blame him.

Women’s goalball team advances to semifinal in Paris

Israel's women's goalball team competes against Canada in the quarterfinal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics on September 3, 2024. (Keren Isaacson)

Israel’s women’s goalball team beats Canada 5-1 in the quarterfinal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, advancing to tomorrow’s semifinals.

Israel will face a rematch against China in the semifinal game tomorrow, after losing 1-6 to the team in an earlier round. If Israel’s six-woman team pulls out a win in the semifinal, it will be guaranteed a silver or gold medal. If it loses, it will advance to the bronze medal match on Thursday.

Goalball is a team sport played by those with visual impairments, in which athletes throw and attempt to block a ball with bells embedded inside.

Elsewhere in Paris, swimmer Ami Dadaon — who has already won two medals at the Paralympic Games — will compete in the men’s 200m freestyle in the S4 disability category, after he advanced to the final this morning with a first-place finish. Dadaon holds the world record in the event, which he set at the Tokyo Games.

Fellow Israeli swimmers Ariel Malyar and Veronika Guirenko failed to advance to their finals after competing earlier today.

Tennis ace Sasson bounced from Paris Paralympic Games semifinal

Israeli tennis player Guy Sasson competes in the semifinal of the men's quad singles at the 2024 Paris Paralympics on September 3, 2024. (Lilach Weiss Rosenberg)

Israeli tennis player Guy Sasson loses his semifinal match in the men’s quad singles at the 2024 Paris Paralympics to the Netherlands’ Sam Schroder.

Missing out on the final, Sasson will now instead compete in the bronze medal match on Thursday against Turkey’s Ahmet Kaplan.

Sasson, 44, lost to Schroder in the 2024 Australian Open, and then several months later beat him at the 2024 French Open to take his first major singles title.

UTJ head says Hamas, not Netanyahu, blocking hostage deal, offers prayers

Yitzhak Goldknopf, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism, defends the government’s handling of the hostage issue, denying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for the failure to reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

“Make no mistake, there is no deal here that we oppose. There is no deal at all because Hamas opposes it,” the senior Haredi politician states.

“The hostages call out to us: Yell and shake the heavens,” he continues. “Instead of blocking roads and strikes, we are doing what we can to stir the heavens and the earth through prayer and laments, so that all the hostages remaining in Gaza will be quickly returned to their families.”

Settlers, including one under US sanctions, indicted over assault on lost Bedouin travelers

The torched car of several Arab Israeli women who were attacked after mistakenly entering the Givat Ronen West Bank settlement outpost on August 9, 2024. (Screenshot via social media used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

The State Attorney’s Office indicts two settlers from the illegal West Bank outpost of Givat Ronen on charges of terrorism, aggravated bodily harm, and damaging property motivated by racism, among other charges, a rare move reflecting increased international pressure to hold extremists accountable for attacks on Palestinians.

The indictment was filed over an incident in Givat Ronen in August in which five Arab Israeli citizens were attacked, threatened and verbally abused by the two suspects after they mistakenly drove into the illegal settlement.

David Hasdai, a known settler extremist sanctioned by the US in February, was indicted on charges of perpetrating an act of terrorism, aggravated bodily harm, arson, and damaging a vehicle and damaging property on racist motives.

David Chai Chasdai appears at a hearing at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on July 2, 2013. (Yossi Zeliger/FLASH90)

Yaakov Goelman is charged with causing deliberate damage to property with racist motivation, and blackmail through threats with racist motivation.

On August 9, Lamis al-Jaer, a resident of the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel, mistakenly drove into Givat Ronen in the northern West Bank with her 2-year-old daughter and three other female relatives in the car.

Hasdai and others chased after the vehicle and began pelting al-Jaer’s car with rocks and stones smashing the windscreen and injuring the women inside the vehicle, according to the indictment. They eventually escaped from the car and ran away on foot, until they were rescued by Israeli security forces.

Their car was set ablaze by the settlers, while Goelman shouted at the women “You must be from Gaza” and “You were happy on October 7.” He then stole one of the women’s phones, called her grandmother, and threatened to kill her granddaughter, the indictment says.

Indictments over settler violence are rare, especially when involving Palestinian victims. In July, the High Court of Justice noted that out of 231 open or completed police investigations into settler violence in the Judea district in the Southern West Bank, not one indictment has been filed since November last year.

EU says tugs abandoned bid to tow burning tanker due to safety issues

The European Union naval mission in the Red Sea says salvagers have abandoned an attempt to tow away a burning oil tanker targeted by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The salvage attempt had been aimed at moving the ship before it begins leaking oil, threatening a massive environmental disaster in the Red Sea.

“The private companies responsible for the salvage operation have concluded that the conditions were not met to conduct the towing operation and that it was not safe to proceed. Alternative solutions are now being explored by the private companies,” the Aspides naval mission says in a tweet.

It says it has been protecting tugboats that tried to tow the ship since September 1.

The Iran-backed Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged tanker on August 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued the Sounion’s crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.

Last week, the Houthis released footage showing they planted explosives on board the Sounion and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the rebels have done before in their campaign.

That came hours after Iran claimed the Houthis had given permission for a salvage operation to take place.

Gantz: Netanyahu has lost his way, but he’s not a murderer

MK Benny Gantz attends a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, at "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv, August 17, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

National Unity chief Benny Gantz slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for conflating his personal interests with those of the wider country, calling such an approach “dangerous.”

Speaking at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference following the deaths of six hostages at the hands of Hamas, Gantz also speaks out against rhetoric in recent days portraying Netanyahu as a “murderer.”

“Netanyahu is not a murderer, and I condemn the incitement against him,” he says. “[Hamas head Yahya] Sinwar is a murderer, Hamas and Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard are our enemies. But Netanyahu has lost his way and sees himself as the state. And this is dangerous,” he declares.

Netanyahu, he says, is “the godfather of the concept of surviving in power at any cost.”

Gantz also condemns Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has refused to appoint a new Supreme Court president ever since former president Esther Hayut retired in October last year.

“Even during these hard days, the justice minister continues to harm the judicial system and the citizens of Israel, refusing to convene the to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and do the basic thing, elect a Supreme Court president after over a year,” he says.

Last week, the High Court of Justice on Tuesday told Levin to bring the appointment of a new Supreme Court president and two new Supreme Court justices to a vote in the Judicial Selection Committee, and to begin preparations for such a vote “in the coming days.”

Gantz calls for a legislative Basic Law to “regulate the rules of the game” and determine a definition for quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, the procedure for their passage and how laws may be invalidated by judges.

Hezbollah attacks border town as IDF carries out fresh strikes on group

Several anti-tank missiles were launched from Lebanon at the border community of Arab al-Aramshe a short while ago, the IDF says.

There are no injuries in the attack, which is claimed by Hezbollah. The terror group claims it targeted an Israeli intelligence unit.

Separately, the IDF says it carried out an airstrike against a building in southern Lebanon’s Markaba where a group of Hezbollah operatives were identified.

Fighter jets struck another Hezbollah site in Rihan, the IDF adds.

It releases footage of the strikes.

Several anti-tank missiles were launched from Lebanon at the border community of Arab al-Aramshe a short while ago, the IDF says.

There are no injuries in the attack.

Separately, the IDF says it carried out an airstrike against a building in southern Lebanon's Markaba where a… pic.twitter.com/f4VBncIY06

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 3, 2024

Hezbollah earlier claimed it shelled a radar station near the Shebaa Farms.

IDF bombs Gaza City college it says housed Hamas command center

The IDF says it carried out an airstrike against a group of Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within a former Gaza City college.

شهـ.ـداء وجرحى بقصف طيران الاحـ.ـتلال الإسرائيلي مبنى كلية نماء في منطقة أرض الشنطي شمال غرب مدينة غزة. pic.twitter.com/MEpOTneVKP

— fadia miqdadai (@fadiamiqdadi) September 3, 2024

According to the military, Hamas was using the Namaa’ college to plan and carry out attacks against troops and the country.

The IDF says it took “many steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including using precision munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.

“The Hamas terror organization systematically violates international law, brutally exploiting civilian institutions and the population as a human shield for terror activity,” the military says.

In recent months, dozens of airstrikes have been carried out against Hamas sites embedded within schools and other sites used as shelters for civilians, according to the IDF.

Shas said talking to opposition in bid to widen coalition, weaken Ben Gvir

Then-finance minister Yair Lapid, left, talks to Shas chairman Aryeh Deri at the Knesset in March 2013. (Isaac Harari/Flash90)

Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, is reportedly pushing to expand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in an effort to dilute the influence of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Citing unnamed political sources, the Ynet news site says that the longtime Netanyahu ally has been pushing to include the opposition Yesh Atid, New Hope, National Unity and Yisrael Beytenu parties in the coalition in order to counter Ben Gvir. In pursuit of this goal, Deri has been in touch with National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot and Yesh Atid’s Elazar Stern, the website reports.

The Shas-backed Rabbis Bill has been repeatedly stymied as part of an ongoing dispute with Ben Gvir, who has said that he would continue to hold it up until he was given greater influence over the course of the war in Gaza by Netanyahu.

The ultra-Orthodox party has also expressed opposition to Ben Gvir’s repeated statements that Jews can legally pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Last month, Channel 12 reported that Deri and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid had discussed cooperating on a resolution affirming a halachic ruling from the Chief Rabbinate dating back to 1967, according to which Jews are forbidden from ascending the holy site.

While the secularist Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu parties are staunchly opposed to many of the religious proscriptions Shas seeks in the law, Israel’s often-mercurial political arena has seen former enemies get in bed together in the past.

Iran summons Aussie ambassador over support for LGBTQ rights

Iran has summoned Australia’s ambassador in Tehran over the publication of online content it deemed “norm-breaking,” the semi-official ILNA news agency says, a day after state media said the post “promoted homosexuality.”

The post on the embassy’s official Instagram account celebrated “Wear it Purple Day” and expressed dedication to creating “a supporting environment where everyone, especially LGBTQIA+ youth, can feel proud to be themselves.”

ILNA quotes Australian Ambassador Ian McConville as saying the post was not intended to insult the Iranian people and their values, and that the Islamic Republic was not mentioned in it.

The post remains on the embassy’s Instagram account.

In 2022, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described homosexuality as part of the “moral depravity” widespread in Western civilization.

Overhaul champion Rothman sparks hubbub with claim courts helped Hitler

MK Simcha Rothman, head of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, leads a meeting in the Knesset on January 8, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Speaking at a high-profile legal conference, lawmaker Simcha Rothman ignites something of a furor by claiming that courts helped put Adolf Hitler in power.

“When Hitler rose to power in Germany he didn’t burn the courthouses, he burned the parliament because parliaments are always the enemy of dictators. The courts helped him,” Rothman says at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference in Tel Aviv.

Rothman, a lawyer and Religious Zionism MK, is widely seen as one of the main proponents and architects of the government’s paused effort to overhaul Israel’s legal system by shifting power away from the courts and diluting their role as a check on government power.

According to the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial, after Hitler rose to power in 1933 he reformed the courts to align them with Nazi goals, essentially using a bastardized version of Germany’s judicial system to pass various anti-Jewish laws, before creating a special People’s Court to tighten control over the system. “The People’s Court became part of the Nazi system of terror, condemning tens of thousands of people as ‘Volk Vermin’ and thousands more to death for ‘Volk Treason,'” according to the USHMM.

Jordan hails UK arms halts to Israel, urges countries to impose ‘complete arms embargo’

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, May 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi praises the British suspension of some arms exports to Israel yesterday, and calls for “a complete arms embargo on Israel” from countries around the world.

“Unless consequences are real, Netanyahu will not end his aggression on Gaza and the West Bank, and will not stop violating international law and threatening the security of the whole region,” says Safadi.

Jordan’s military cooperates closely with Israel on securing their mutual border and on counterterrorism.

Gantz attracts left-wing ire by posing alongside Ben Gvir at Haredi wheeler-dealer’s family event

Some in the left wing slam Benny Gantz after the chairman of the centrist opposition National Unity party was photographed last night alongside National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government at the wedding of a prominent ultra-Orthodox political figure’s daughter.

“Benny, I understand you are getting under the stretcher again,” tweets Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats party, a Labor party rebrand, using a Hebrew expression that means taking part in a group effort — implying that Gantz is aiding right-wing efforts to preserve Netanyahu’s embattled rule by nurturing relationships with his allies.

Gantz was one of many public figures — including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and New Hope chairman and Netanyahu critic Gideon Sa’ar — who attended the wedding of the daughter of Motti Babchik, a senior adviser to Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.

Babchik, a prominent member of the Gur Hasidic group, carries significant influence in ultra-Orthodox circles. He was previously an aide to former UTJ chief Yaakov Litzman. During his association with Litzman, Babchik was arrested on suspicion of corruption and bribery, although the case was later closed.

According to a report by Channel 12 in July, Gantz and Babchik met at the time as part of the former’s efforts to cultivate political relationships with the ultra-Orthodox.

בני, אני מבין ששוב אתה נכנס מתחת לאלונקה? pic.twitter.com/vnpbtd847F

— Yair Golan – יאיר גולן (@YairGolan1) September 3, 2024

Smotrich says war costing $54-68 billion; presents 2025 budget plan, including steps to deal with $9.5b fiscal gap

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks at a press conference at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem on September 3, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich presents a state budget plan for 2025 with a deficit target of 4 percent of gross domestic product, which will necessitate NIS 35 billion ($9.5 billion) in fiscal adjustments.

“We are in the longest and most expensive war in Israel’s history with about NIS 200-250 billion ($54-68 billion) in direct costs,” says Smotrich at a press conference in Jerusalem. “This war began with a huge crisis between the state and its citizens and we had to rebuild trust.”

“The decisions we made for an expansionary economic policy during the war were the right ones, which kept the society and the national resilience alive, and kept the economy going as well,” he argues.

The Finance Ministry’s deficit ceiling is in line with the recommendation by the Bank of Israel. For this year, the government had to raise the 2024 budget deficit target to 6.6% of GDP from a planned 2.25% approved before the war, due to higher defense spending as a result of the war with Hamas. Israel posted a budget deficit of 4.2% in 2023.

To meet the budget deficit target set for 2025, Smotrich cites several spending and tax measures to deal with the fiscal hole of NIS 35 billion. Among the measures is the freezing of planned tax changes and benefits. They include merging the two lowest income tax brackets of 10% and 14%. The step would affect the low-earning working population that currently pays a minimum rate of 10% and would be taxed according to the 14% income bracket. Other measures that are being proposed are a freeze on salaries of public sector pay.

Coalition party says it’s boycotting budget discussions until Haredi education gets funds

The United Torah Judaism party has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it will boycott discussions about the state budget until the issue of funds for private ultra-Orthodox education is resolved, Hebrew media reports.

This would mean the coalition will lack the needed majority to pass budget-related matters in the Finance Committee and the Knesset plenum.

Last month, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur to cut daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who refuse to obey military draft orders, drawing Haredi fury.

In a letter to the minister, Baharav-Miara explained that since the High Court has ruled that members of the ultra-Orthodox community must be inducted into the army — as are the bulk of Israelis — there is no longer a legal basis for the state to fund daycare for those who don’t comply.

In Israel first, robot is used by doctors to completely remove patient’s pancreas

Dr. Eli Kakiashvili, right, during an operation using a robot to completely remove a patient's pancreas, in the summer of 2024. (Roni Albert)

Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya says that a robot has been used for the first time in Israel to completely remove a patient’s pancreas.

The 78-year-old patient was diagnosed with multiple cystic tumors of the pancreas. Although this type of tumor is not considered cancerous, doctors say that left untreated, it could develop into a malignant pancreatic tumor in the future.

“The use of the robot allows surgeries to be performed without opening the abdomen,” says Dr. Eli Kakiashvili, head of the Department of Surgery A, who led the operation with the assistance of Dr. Gregory Bogoslavsky.

“The robot maximizes the surgeon’s capabilities to achieve maximum precision, reduce complications and allow for faster patient recovery,” Kakiashvili says.

The surgery also included the removal of all four parts of the duodenum, spleen, part of the stomach, extrahepatic bile ducts, and the gallbladder, followed by the reconstruction of the digestive system.

The operation, which lasted about seven hours, was highly successful. After a few days of hospitalization in the surgical ward, the patient was discharged home in good condition.

German FM to visit Israel this week, meet counterpart Katz on Friday

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock delivers a statement to the media prior to the start of a European Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on May 27, 2024. (François Walschaerts/AFP)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will be in Israel later this week, Israel’s Foreign Ministry tells The Times of Israel.

She will meet with Foreign Minister Israel Katz in Tel Aviv on Friday, and is also expected to meet with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

She was last in Israel in June, when she addressed the Herzliya Security Conference.

Slain hostage Lobanov’s widow refuses to meet Netanyahu as he visits family home

Alex Lobanov, pictured here with wife Michal, was the head barman at Supernova, when he was captured on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists who attacked the desert rave (Courtesy)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pays a condolence visit to the family of Alex Lobanov, one of the six hostages who were murdered by Hamas late last week shortly before their bodies were found and brought back to Israel.

But while Alex’s parents Oksana and Gregory meet the premier in their home in Ashkelon, two days after the funeral, the dead captive’s widow Michal refuses to meet Netanyahu or speak to him on the phone.

Netanyahu spoke on the phone with Alex’s parents two days ago and issued a rare apology over their son’s death.

“I want to tell you how sorry I am, and I ask for your forgiveness for not succeeding in bringing Sasha home alive,” he told Oksana and Gregory, using their son’s shortened name, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Israel confirms over 161,000 polio vaccines administered in Gaza in campaign’s first 2 days

Israeli authorities release figures on the polio vaccination push in Gaza that correspond to what the World Health Organization is saying.

The IDF’s Southern Command and the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories say that on Sunday, the first day of the campaign, approximately 86,683 people were vaccinated. Yesterday, approximately 74,346 people were vaccinated.

The World Health Organization in Gaza confirms that it has vaccinated over 161,000 children under 10 in the central Strip versus a projected 150,000.

The drive comes after an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza contracted polio and suffered partial paralysis, in the first case of the disease in the enclave in 25 years.

The drive is staggered across three geographic regions of Gaza, beginning in the central Strip on September 1-3, then in southern Gaza on September 4-6, and finally in northern Gaza on September 7-9.

The campaign, which involves two doses, aims to cover over 640,000 children under age 10 over the next nine days.

US documentary to air extensive new footage from Netanyahu’s questioning in graft cases

An American documentary on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to be screened at a film festival in Toronto next week, with previously unseen footage of the Israeli premier being questioned by police between 2016 and 2018.

According to Variety magazine, the recordings of the corruption investigation were leaked to renowned director Alex Gibney last year and feature interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife Sara and his son Yair, as well as of friends, associates and household staff.

He was ultimately charged with fraud and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019, as well as with bribery in one of them. The trial, which began in 2020, is ongoing and likely to take years to wrap up.

Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing in the cases against him and claims that the charges were fabricated in a witch hunt led by the police and state prosecution, and facilitated by a weak attorney general.

TIFF Docs scores a big one! Festival adds THE BIBI FILES, which features never-before-seen police interrogation footage of Netanyahu. Doc by Oscar winner Alex Gibney and Alexis Bloom will screen as work in progress. #TIFF24 https://t.co/y5c0BLlNn8

— POV Magazine (@POVmagazine) September 2, 2024

“These recordings shed light on Netanyahu’s character in a way that is unprecedented and extraordinary,” Gibney is quoted as saying by Variety. “They are powerful evidence of his venal and corrupt character and how that led us to where we are at right now.”

The report adds that the recordings, consisting of thousands of hours of interviews, have not been screened locally or abroad, due to Israel’s privacy laws.

Gibney collaborated with director Alex Bloom on the documentary, who says that Netanyahu’s “character comes through very strongly in the recordings.”

“I would say the difference between this film and a news item or something that you might see on PBS about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that this is a very human look at the people in the news headlines,” she is quoted as saying.

The film is scheduled to screen on September 10 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre as part of the film festival.

Netanyahu bashes Britain over ‘misguided’ arms halts, says it will embolden Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasts the British government for its decision to suspend some arms licenses to Israel, calling it a “shameful” move that will not deter Israel and will embolden Hamas.

“This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens,” the premier writes on X.

“Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas,” he continues.

Netanyahu stresses that Israel is conducting a “just war with just means, taking unprecedented measures to keep civilians out of harm’s way and comporting fully with international law.”

The prime minister compares Israel’s fight against Hamas to Britain’s fight against the Nazis in World War II.

“With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future,” concludes Netanyahu.

This shameful decision will not change Israel's determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 3, 2024

Lufthansa to resume flights to Israel starting Thursday

Lufthansa aircrafts parked at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, September 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Probst,file)

Germany’s Lufthansa will resume its flights to Tel Aviv from Thursday, according to an update from the company, one of a number of airlines to alter their schedules amid fears of an escalation in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The airline announced in early August that it was suspending flights to the Jewish state, repeatedly extending the suspension measures until up to and including tomorrow.

Lufthansa said in an emailed statement last night that its flights to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, would remain suspended up to and including September 30.

Comptroller: Political, security chiefs are failing to take responsibility for Oct. 7, hindering probes

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman speaks at the Israel Bar Association annual conference in Tel Aviv, September 3, 2024. (Israel Bar Association)

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman excoriates the country’s political and military leaders for impeding inquiries into the Hamas invasion and massacre of October 7, and says not one leader has taken responsibility in an appropriate or timely fashion.

Englman upbraids the army specifically for resisting his effort to conduct a review of the military’s actions in the lead-up to and following the onslaught, and chastises the Prime Minister’s Office for holding up and interfering with his review.

“In Israel, as of September 2024, there is no one who has taken personal responsibility with action alongside it — not at the political level, not at the security and military level, and not at the civilian level,” the state comptroller declares.

He laments routine leaks from classified forums, such as the security cabinet, in which various senior officials and politicians have leaked information designed to push responsibility onto others.

“There has not been a single person among the elected officials, bearers of public office, military leaders and the security establishment, who has met the proper standard and the expected time when it comes to upholding the value of bearing responsibility,” Englman tells the Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s top military intelligence official, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, who headed the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, resigned in April over his role in the failures leading to October 7, while the commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, resigned his post in June for the same reason.

Englman criticizes the defense establishment for trying to stop his review of the military’s actions before October 7, saying it has “built high and impassable walls which have led to the stymying of the review,” adding that “the Prime Minister’s Office, for its part — even though it has provided material — is still putting up obstacles which are hindering and disrupting the required professional activities.”

The state comptroller adds: “All of them, at different levels of severity, do not convey the public and principled resilience expected of them, which at its foundation is a readiness [to accept] real criticism, without limitation, even if the results are biting and tough.”

He says he believes it is “very doubtful if it will be possible to restore this value in the future.”

IDF says it found and destroyed kilometer-long Hamas tunnel in northern Gaza

A kilometer-long Hamas tunnel found by IDF troops in northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya, in an image published on September 3, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

A kilometer (0.6 mile)-long Hamas tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip, which featured a track for logistic transportation, was recently demolished by combat engineers, the IDF says.

The military says it had prior intelligence on the tunnel, located in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, and that in recent weeks it was uncovered and destroyed by the Gaza Division’s combat engineers and the elite Yahalom unit.

The tunnel was over a kilometer long, and inside troops found weapons, electrical infrastructure, and a track used to transport equipment.

WHO says it’s ahead of polio vaccination targets for Gaza children

The World Health Organization in Gaza says it is ahead of its targets for polio vaccinations in Gaza on day three of the mass campaign.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, tells reporters that it has vaccinated over 161,000 children under 10 in the central Strip in the first two days of its campaign versus a projected 150,000.

“Up until now, things are going well,” he says. “These humanitarian pauses, up until now they work. We still have 10 days to go.”

Lapid: Netanyahu bases his politics on hate and division, Israel can unite around liberal values

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid speaks at the Israel Bar Association annual conference in Tel Aviv, September 3, 2024. (Israel Bar Association)

Once again slamming Benjamin Netanyahu’s press conference last night — in which the prime minister made clear he would not agree to Israel leaving the Philadelphi Corridor, even for the first 42-day phase of a hostage-ceasefire agreement — Opposition Leader Yair Lapid alleges that the “only thing that concerns [the prime minister] is how to continue the war, so that the government does not fall apart.”

“Instead of the government protecting the lives of citizens and soldiers, the lives of citizens and soldiers are safeguarding the government,” Lapid declares during a speech at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference.

“In the last week, six hostages were murdered. Five soldiers were killed. Three policemen were murdered. One of them is the father of a young policewoman who was murdered in Sderot on October 7. It was not an unusual week. This is the life this government offers us,” Lapid says, arguing that under Netanyahu’s leadership “we have become a frightened nation” that sticks close to fortified rooms for protection.

“The government offers us [the possibility] to be a country where the only glue that holds it together is hatred. We have a government that deals all day with the question of who it hates. It hates Arabs, hates leftists, hates the LGBT, hates the media, hates the gatekeepers, hates Einav Zangauker for having her son taken hostage,” he continues. He slams the government over issues ranging from settler violence to the Temple Mount and the judicial overhaul.

“Who wants to live in such a country?” he asks. “This is the disaster government, and after every disaster they preach to us that we need to unite and that ‘together we will win.’ Do you want to unite the people? Me too, very much so. I have only one question: around what? Around what values ​​do you want to unite the people?”

“Do you want to unite the people around Ben Gvir? Around the ceremonies of Miri Regev? If Israel is not a decent, law-abiding, responsible, life-sanctifying country, what are we uniting around?”

“I want to remind you — there is another option,” he says. “An open, liberal democracy, national, Zionist, optimistic, sophisticated, innovative, with a strong civil society. With a functioning government that knows how to run things. With a welcoming and tolerant Judaism that is the thing that connects us, not the thing that causes us to fight.”

Turkey claims to have arrested Mossad financial manager in the country

People wave Turkish and Palestinian flags during an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protest in Istanbul, Turkey, August 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Turkey allegedly arrested a Mossad spy from Kosovo last week who was operating in the country, according to Turkish security sources.

According to the sources, MIT, the Turkish national intelligence agency, arrested Kosovar Liridin Rexhepi, who it claims was a “financier for the Israeli intelligence.”

MIT alleges that Rexhepi managed Mossad’s financial network in Turkey, sending money to informants who “were filming with drones, conducting psychological warfare against Palestinian politicians and collecting information about the situation in Syria.”

The sources say that MIT followed Rexhepi once he entered Turkey on August 25, and that Istanbul’s Counterterrorism Police detained him on August 30. Rexhepi admitted to making cash transfers to informants via Western Union and was sent to prison pending a court appearance.

MIT claims that Mossad has been sending money to its spies in Turkey from Eastern European countries, especially Kosovo. Some of the funds were transferred to informants in Syria. They also used cryptocurrencies, according to the Turkish security sources.

Turkey announced a series of arrests of individuals with alleged links to the Mossad earlier this year.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of the most bitter critics of Israel’s war on Hamas on the international stage.

Acting Supreme Court chief: Justice minister harming public by holding up judge appointments

Deputy President of the Supreme Court Uzi Vogelman arrives at a Supreme Court hearing, March 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman criticizes Justice Minister Yariv Levin for holding up important appointments in the judiciary during a speech at the Israel Bar Association, saying his actions are impeding the ability of the courts to assist Israeli citizens.

Vogelman, who will soon be retiring from the court, also implicitly criticizes Levin’s preferred candidates for at least one of the two — soon to be three — empty slots on the Supreme Court, saying that only the most experienced and professional jurists are fit to serve on Israel’s highest court.

Levin’s two preferred candidates are highly conservative legal academics and neither has ever served as a judge.

“Without [the justice minister’s] approval or agreement it is not possible to advance many processes for the public,” says Vogelman, noting that Levin has stymied the appointment of a new president for the court, and says he has acted similarly regarding the presidents for the Jerusalem District Court and National Labor Court, as well as vice presidents and registrars for other courts.

“In addition, it is fitting that the most experienced, professional and outstanding jurists be appointed to the Supreme Court. Jurists who represent all the diversity of Israeli society. This is for one clear goal: to benefit the Israeli public as a whole,” Vogelman insists in his speech.

Levin has refused to call a vote on appointing a new president for the Supreme Court since the liberal members of the Judicial Selection Committee, which the justice minister chairs, have a majority to appoint Justice Isaac Amit as the new president, whom Levin opposes.

Levin offered to give Amit the presidency in return for the appointment of one of his two candidates, but Vogelman has reportedly refused.

First bird flu outbreak of season detected in northern poultry coop, ministry says

Illustrative: A 'Keep Out' sign at Moshav Beit Herut in central Israel warns of a bird flu outbreak, November 28, 2022. (Agriculture Ministry)

The season’s first outbreak of bird flu has been identified at Moshav Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel, the Agriculture Ministry announces.

The disease is discovered in a nine-building poultry coop containing 8,700 14-week-old turkeys.

All poultry houses within a range of 10 kilometers (six miles) have been quarantined.

The ministry says the strain of flu identified carries a low risk for illness in humans, provided that precautions are taken and infected fowl are dealt with by professionals with appropriate protection.

Bird flu outbreaks have been reported overseas in recent weeks, in countries including France, Germany, Poland and the US.

Between September and December last year, there were five cases of bird flu — starting in Moshav Sde Ya’akov in the north. Four kibbutzim were affected.

Since March 2006, when the first cases of bird flu were discovered in Israel, bird flu has been discovered almost every year during the bird migration season.

The Agriculture Ministry urges consumers to buy poultry meat and eggs only from regulated retailers and to cook the products well.

IDF Ground Forces chief Tamir Yadai resigns, will take time off for personal reasons

Then-commander of the Judea and Samaria Division Tamir Yadai during an interview on January 6, 2014. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

The chief of the IDF Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, is resigning from his position due to personal reasons, the military says.

Yadai has served as the head of the Ground Forces for the past three years.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved Yadai’s request, the military says.

Yadai is expected to step down within the coming weeks, once a replacement officer is found. It is not immediately clear who will be replacing him.

Yadai will be on furlough for the time being, and will later submit his candidacy for “significant positions” in the military, the IDF adds.

‘Don’t you dare’: Herzog warns against reviving judicial overhaul divisions, in plea for unity

President Isaac Herzog speaks at the Israel Bar Association annual conference in Tel Aviv, September 3, 2024. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Speaking to the Israel Bar Association, President Isaac Herzog cautions the government against resurrecting its highly divisive judicial overhaul legislation from last year, issuing a strident call for unity and insisting that “the soul and future of the nation are at stake.”

Referencing the bitter fight over the sweeping reform that gripped Israel in 2023, Herzog says he sees the “fracture that weakened our resilience and strength is beginning to return to our lives.”

“I hear the voices and initiatives of those who seek to return us months back to the same arena where it all began, I recognize the dangerous fumes in the air and I warn against them here, and honestly ask: Is this what Israeli society needs now?” continues Herzog. “Is this what thousands of bereaved families need? This is what tens of thousands of families are asking for who don’t sleep at night out of worry for their loved ones at the front, because they are evacuated, or God forbid because their loved ones are kidnapped and held by brutal murderers? Is this what the wounded in body and soul are shouting to us? I say clearly — No!”

Herzog’s speech comes two days after hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets demanding a hostage-ceasefire deal after the army recovered six bodies of hostages executed by the Hamas terror organization. It also comes weeks after Justice Minister Yariv Levin reportedly pushed for the renewal of the government’s legal overhaul, which has been frozen since October 7.

“Don’t you dare,” says Herzog. “Let us recover and heal after the terrible break. We must not make fateful decisions regarding the country’s core values without a broad consensus, and an in-depth and shared dialogue.”

Herzog urges all sides of the political spectrum to leave their echo chambers.

“It won’t help us if everyone climbs barricades on every issue,” he says. “Listen for a moment to other parts of the nation, to your sisters and brothers, to whole communities in Israel that think a little differently.”

Herzog, who spoke at the funeral of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin yesterday, also says that Israel’s leaders have “an urgent and immediate task — to act to the best of their ability to save those who can still be saved, and to return all our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters to their homes in peace. This is a supreme moral, Jewish and humanitarian order of the State of Israel to its citizens.”

IDF confirms it killed Hamas commander who led Netiv Ha’asara onslaught on Oct. 7

Burned cars are seen at moshav Netiv Ha'asara near the border with Gaza Strip, November 17, 2023, after the Israeli community was attacked during the Hamas cross-border onslaught on October 7. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Ahmed Fawzi Nasser Muhammad Wadiyya, a Hamas Nukhba commander who led the massacre in moshav Netiv Ha’asara on October 7, 2023, is seen in CCTV footage from the attack that day. (Israel Defense Forces)

A Hamas Nukhba force company commander who led the invasion of Netiv Ha’asara on October 7 was killed in a recent airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the military and Shin Bet say, confirming reports.

Ahmed Fawzi Nasser Muhammad Wadiyya was among eight Hamas terrorists killed in an airstrike on a compound used by the terror group near Gaza City’s al-Ahli hospital, the IDF says.

The military says that Wadiyya was the commander of a Nukhba force company in the terror group’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion. On October 7, he raided Netiv Ha’asara using a paraglider, and oversaw the massacre there.

Wadiyya was the terrorist who drank cola in the Taasa family home, in front of the children of Gil Taasa who was murdered in the onslaught in front of his children.

The other seven terrorists killed in the Gaza City strike were also members of the Daraj-Tuffah Battalion, according to the IDF.

The IDF says that one was involved in supplying the bombs used by the terror group to breach the Gaza security barrier on October 7.

The strike took place outside the hospital, and the military says it took various steps to mitigate harm to civilians.

UK minister: Export license suspension won’t have ‘material’ impact on Israeli security

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, right, meets with his British counterpart, UK Secretary of State for Defense John Healey at the Israel Defense Forces HQ in Tel Aviv, August 2, 2024. (Shachar Yurman/Defense Ministry)

Britain’s defense minister John Healey says the country’s suspension of 30 of its 350 arms export licenses to Israel will not threaten Israel’s ability to defend itself.

“It will not have a material impact on Israel’s security,” he tells Times Radio, the day after the suspension was announced.

IDF said to kill Hamas commander who led moshav invasion on Oct. 7, drank Coke from victim’s fridge

Or Taasa, left, and Gil Taasa. (Courtesy)

The IDF has reportedly killed an elite Hamas commander who led the invasion of Moshav Netiv Ha’asara on October 7, and who was filmed drinking Coca-Cola from the fridge of a home there moments after murdering a man in front of his young children inside the same home.

Israeli outlets report, without citing sources, that the Israeli victim’s family was told yesterday that the IDF and the Shin Bet have now taken out Ahmed Wadiyya in an airstrike that killed eight Hamas members near Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital.

Wadiyya, said to be a company commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces, raided the Israeli community on the morning of October 7 using a paraglider, and oversaw the massacre of 22 residents.

One of the victims was Gil Taasa, 46, who had been in his home with his two youngest sons, Koren, 12 and Shay, 8.

Gil, a senior firefighter in the Ashkelon fire station, grabbed his gun and shot at the terrorists until he ran out of bullets, his son Koren later recounted in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster.

Then, the terrorists threw a grenade into the shelter they were hiding in: “There’s no way he wasn’t afraid but he decided to save us and he jumped on the grenade… there was an explosion, I saw smoke, suddenly we were covered in blood.”

Koren said the terrorists came to check that Gil was actually dead, then drank the cola that was in the fridge and left the house. The two wounded brothers ran next door to their mother, where they hid in their safe room for hours until they were evacuated.

Gil’s oldest son Or, 17, had left early that morning to go fishing with some friends on the Zikim beach, where he was murdered in the onslaught.

Report lays out Hamas’s fear campaign to silence mentions of its fatalities in Gaza

Displaced Palestinians leave the perimeter of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

A report delves into the Hamas terror group’s strategy of avoiding publishing the names of its members killed in the war in Gaza, and into its intimidation campaign aimed at barring Gazans from any mention of such fatalities.

Despite no formal ban, there is an unwritten rule deterring Gazans — even family members of slain Hamas fighters — from publicly mourning their loved ones in a way that identified them with the terror group’s military wing, the Haaretz daily reports, citing unnamed residents of the Strip.

“There is fear to talk publicly about Hamas operatives, including operatives who have been killed,” one is quoted as saying, citing reasons such as fear of being branded a “traitor” or a “collaborator,” and fear of being harassed by Hamas.

“The prevailing assumption on the streets is that if the names of slain gunmen are published, people around the world will identify less strongly with the Gazans’ suffering, and this will give legitimacy to bombing Gaza,” another resident is quoted as saying. “As long as there are clips and stories about the civilian population, nobody says a thing. But if anyone dares to criticize Hamas or to mention the name of a slain fighter, they will call them a traitor and treat them as such.”

This is in contrast to Hamas’s strategy in the West Bank, where it proudly publishes the names of its members killed by the IDF, and to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which maintains a detailed list of that terror group’s fatalities in the near-daily cross-border skirmishes since October 8.

“This is a war of survival also for Hamas’s image around the world,” a third local is quoted as saying. “When armed operatives aren’t mentioned, when their deaths aren’t mentioned, they don’t exist in the discourse.”

The latter adds that another factor is fear that Israeli forces will focus on and harass family members of slain Hamas members.

A fourth resident tells Haaretz that the fog is often so dense that even relatives often don’t know that their loved ones have joined Hamas, or that they have been killed, and that information about these issues is passed quietly as rumors from one to another.

Israel said expecting ICC decision on warrants soon, with officials cautiously optimistic

Israel expects the International Criminal Court (ICC) to announce within days or weeks its decision on whether to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the Haaretz daily reports, citing unnamed Justice Ministry sources.

The sources are cited as estimating that the chances of the warrants being issued aren’t high since it would be “unreasonable” for the court to announce three warrants, two against Israeli leaders and one against the October 7 massacre mastermind. This is because the original request sought five warrants, three of them against Hamas leaders, but two of those leaders — Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif — have since been assassinated.

Another factor said to be contributing to the optimistic assessment is the dozens of legal briefs filed last month to the court, many of them supporting Israel’s position.

However, the failure inside Israel to form a state commission of inquiry into wartime decisions, as well as what is seen as inadequate prosecution by the Israeli justice system of wartime wrongdoing, are seen as factors that raise the chances of the warrants being issued, the report says.

Security Council to discuss Hamas hostages for 1st time since Oct. 7, Israel’s UN envoy says

Ambassador Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, speaks during a UN Security Council meeting on situation in the Middle East at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, August 22, 2024. (Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN)

Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon says the Security Council will convene tomorrow (Wednesday), at his urgent request, for an official discussion of the issue of hostages held by Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza.

In a tweet, Danon says it will be the first such discussion since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

“It is sad that it took the council 11 months to do this, and only after the barbaric, cold-blooded murder of six hostages by Hamas terrorists,” Danon says, thanking the representatives of the US, Britain and France for facilitating the meeting.

“The Security Council must condemn this Nazi terror group and demand the immediate release of all the hostages.”

Top coalition official Deri said to slam vote to stay in Philadelphi as ‘big mistake’

Shas leader MK Aryeh Deri (right) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a Shas party meeting at the Knesset, January 23, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, one of the closest political allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has in recent days voiced criticism of the Netanyahu-pushed security cabinet vote in favor of remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor under any deal, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

“The vote on Thursday was a big mistake that tied our hands,” the outlet quotes Deri as telling the premier in a recent closed meeting, without citing a source.

“But from the moment we voted and what happened happened, we must not change the decision,” he reportedly added, referring to Hamas’s murder of six hostages whose bodies were later recovered by the IDF.

Deri is not a voting member of the security cabinet and didn’t take part in Thursday’s vote, but he does frequently take part in its meetings.

Shas and Netanyahu refuse to comment on the content of the report.

Rocket sirens sound in areas close to the Lebanon border

Rocket warning sirens sound in communities close to the Lebanon border.

The sirens are activated in several locations in northern Israel including in Rosh HaNikra and Shlomi.

Biden says he’ll speak to Netanyahu ‘eventually,’ after criticizing his approach to hostage deal efforts

Asked by reporters when he’ll speak to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next, US President Joe Biden responds, “eventually.”

Hours earlier, Biden told reporters that Netanyahu wasn’t doing enough to secure a hostage deal.

Netanyahu responded by declaring that he couldn’t believe Biden would say such a thing after Hamas had killed six hostages last week, including an American and that international pressure should be directed at the terror group.

But Israel’s security establishment has grown exasperated over Netanyahu’s handling of the hostage negotiations, asserting that his raising of new demands regarding the withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza has risked the lives of the hostages.

Netanyahu has rejected the criticism, saying only a firm negotiating stance and more military pressure will secure the hostages’ release.

Palestinians report four lightly injured in drone strike in West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp

Palestinian media report an Israeli drone strike on a building in the West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp.

The report adds that four people were lightly injured in the alleged strike, which it says took place in Tulkarem’s Al-Hamam neighborhood. One of the injured is said to be a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent.

A number of Palestinians were detained in clashes with the IDF elsewhere in Tulkarem, the report adds.

Earlier on Monday night, the IDF said it carried out a drone strike against a group of Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at troops in the city of Tulkarem.

It said that further details would be provided later.

‘This guy torpedoed everything in one speech:’ Source familiar with hostage talks said to bemoan PM’s presser

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

A source familiar with the ongoing hostage release-ceasefire deal negotiations believes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu torpedoed their efforts with his press conference on Monday night, CNN reports.

According to the report, negotiators had continued work on the ceasefire proposal even in the aftermath of the IDF extraction of the bodies of six hostages from Gaza, who had been executed by Hamas terrorists just days before troops found them.

However, after Netanyahu doubled down on his demand for Israel to remain in control of the Philadelphi Corridor during a press conference on Tuesday night, an unnamed source familiar with the negotiations tells CNN, “this guy torpedoed everything in one speech.”

UK chief rabbi denounces government decision to partially suspend arms exports licenses to Israel

The Chief Rabbi of the UK Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis denounces the decision taken by the British government to suspend 30 out of some 350 arms export licenses to Israel.

In a statement on X, Mirvis says that it “beggars belief” that a decision such as this was made “at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six hostages murdered in cold blood by cruel terrorists were being buried by their families. ”

He warns that the decision will “serve to encourage” enemies of Israel, and accuses it of feeding into “the falsehood that Israel is in breach of International Humanitarian Law, when in fact it is going to extraordinary lengths to uphold it.”

“Britain and Israel have so much to gain by standing together against our common enemies for the sake of a safer world. Surely that must be the way forward,” Mirvis adds.

It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six…

— Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) September 2, 2024

Britain said Monday that it would immediately suspend dozens of arms export licenses due to the risk that the equipment could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Unlike the United States, Britain’s government does not give arms directly to Israel, but rather issues licenses for companies to sell weapons, with input from lawyers on whether they comply with international law.

The export licenses pertain to components for Israel’s aerial systems, including fighter jets, helicopters, and drones. It does not pertain to the F-35 program, which is a multinational project that pools parts before disbursing them to participating countries, including Israel.

The suspension could be lifted in the future if the UK assesses that the risk of violations has diminished.

US blasts NYC anti-Israel protest where some waved Hamas flags

The White House rips into an anti-Israel protest that was held earlier today in New York and included the waving of flags of the Hamas terror organization.

Seven thousand people attended the protest, four of whom were arrested after clashing with police.

“As President Biden and Vice President Harris have said, there is absolutely no place in America for the poison of antisemitism – none,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates says in a statement to The Times of Israel.

“They and the entire Biden-Harris Administration condemn any individual associating with the repugnant terrorist organization Hamas.”

“It is especially heinous to express support for Hamas on the same day as the funeral for an innocent American hostage who they brutally murdered,” Bates adds, referring to Hersh Goldberg-Polin whose body was recovered by the IDF over the weekend after his Hamas captors killed him along with five other hostages.

“This is a moment for all Americans to come together and stand against antisemitism and against the sickening hate and evil that Hamas represents,” says the White House spokesperson.

WATCH

TODAY: Woman boldly flaunts a Hxmas flag in NYC. pic.twitter.com/KaZLaZcHT3

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 2, 2024

CENTCOM confirms two oil tankers attacked by Houthis, one of them carrying 2 million barrels of oil

Iran-backed Houthi rebels carried out ballistic missile attacks against two crude oil tankers in the Red Sea on Monday morning, US Central Command confirms.

In a statement posted on X, CENTCOM says that the two vessels were identified as the Panama-flagged and owned, Greek-operated MV BLUE LAGOON I and the Saudi-flagged, owned and operated MV AMJAD.

Both crude oil tankers were targeted with “two ballistic missiles and a one-way attack uncrewed aerial system,” CENTCOM states.

It adds that the MV AMJAD was carrying around two million barrels of oil, close to twice the amount that was aboard the Greek-owned tanker that has been on fire in the Red Sea since August 23.

“These reckless acts of terrorism by the Houthis continue to destabilize regional and global commerce, as well as put the lives of civilian mariners and maritime ecosystems at risk,” CENTCOM states.

It adds that it will “continue to work with international partners and allies to protect commerce and mitigate potential impacts to the environment despite the irresponsible and careless actions of the Iranian-backed Houthis.”

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On the morning of Sep. 2, the Iranian-backed Houthis attacked two crude oil tankers, the Panama flagged/owned, Greek operated MV BLUE LAGOON I and the Saudi flagged, owned, and operated MV AMJAD, with two… pic.twitter.com/IdqIVpkRNN

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 2, 2024

IDF carries out drone strike on Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on troops in West Bank

The IDF says it carried out a drone strike against a group of Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at troops, during an operation in the West Bank city of Tulkarem a short while ago.

Further details will be provided later, it adds.