Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel liveblogged events as they unfolded on Sunday.
A Palestinian prisoner has fled an Afula hospital. Police are searching for him and ask the public for help. The 32-year-old convict is not named, but police have put out a photo.
לפני זמן קצר עצור שהובא על ידי חיילים לבדיקה רפואית בבי"ח העמק בעפולה נמלט.נסיבות המקרה בבדיקה, כוחות משטרה גדולים עורכים סריקות בשטח. pic.twitter.com/1sWESBkOxo
— Furat Nassar (@nassar_furat) January 29, 2017
The mother of a woman who was killed over the weekend says she was sure that the husband premeditated the murder.
Ravit Crasanti, mother of Dor Crasanti-Sela, says that “he waited for us to leave the house and then committed the slaughter.”
She asks for people to attend the funeral “and see what treasures they took from us.” The funeral is this evening at 6:00 p.m.
Fierce battles between Yemeni government forces and Shiite rebels on the country’s west coast have killed more than 100 fighters in the past 24 hours, officials say.
The bodies of at least 90 Houthi rebels were taken to a hospital in the Red Sea city of Hodeida, which is controlled by the insurgents, while 19 dead soldiers were taken to the southern port city of Aden, the medical and military sources say.
— AFP
A petition calling for the British parliament to ban US President Donald Trump from making a state visit to the UK is skyrocketing, garnering almost 95,000 signatures. Parliament will have to discuss the issue once it breaks 100,000.
Iran summoned Switzerland’s ambassador, who represents Washington’s interests in Tehran, to protest US President Donald Trump’s visa ban on Iranians, the foreign ministry said.
Swiss ambassador Giulio Haas was “handed a letter of protest on the recent executive order by the US President and the imposed limitations and discriminatory behavior against Iranian citizens traveling to America,” said spokesman Bahram Ghasemi.
A senior diplomat told the ambassador that Trump’s order was “baseless, discriminatory and unacceptable.”
Ghasemi said Iranian citizens have been victimized by “US-backed terror groups” for decades, and been law-abiding citizens wherever they have settled.
Haas said he would communicate the protest promptly to the US State Department.
Tehran and Washington have not had direct diplomatic relations since Iranian students stormed the US embassy in 1980 and held staff hostage for 444 days.
With more than one million Iranians living in the US, Trump’s visa ban — which covers seven Muslim countries — has caused chaos for students, businessmen and families.
— AFP
The Syrian army said on Sunday that it had recaptured a flashpoint area from rebels near Damascus that supplies the capital’s water.
Wadi Barada had been the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks between regime and rebel forces that tested a fragile nationwide truce and left 5.5 million people in Damascus facing water shortages.
— AFP
The US military says a service member has been killed and three others wounded in raid in Yemen targeting a local al-Qaeda affiliate.
US Central Command said in a statement Sunday that another service member was injured in a “hard landing” in a nearby location.
It says the aircraft was unable to fly afterward and “was then intentionally destroyed in place.”
It says 14 fighters from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were killed in the assault and that US service members captured “information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots.”
Yemeni security and tribal officials say the assault in central Bayda province killed three senior al-Qaeda leaders.
— AP
The mother of a boy who was murdered Friday in a quadruple homicide in the northern town of Migdal says there was nothing about the alleged attacker that raised her suspicions.
Natan Atiya was injured and his brother was killed when their neighbor allegedly went on a rampage, killing his wife and two children. Atiya’s mother tells Channel 10 he’s recovering.
The mother of the woman who was killed said earlier today that she suspected the murder was premeditated.
A Palestinian man was arrested outside the West Bank settlement of Talmon, north of Jerusalem. A knife was found on his person, Israel Radio reports.
Hundreds of people have turned out for the first funeral of the victims of Friday’s quadruple homicide in the northern town of Migdal as Nahman Atiya, 11, is laid to rest.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump hosted several members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet for a Shabbat dinner.
The London-based Daily Mail published photos of food and caterers, flowers and a makeup artist arriving at the Kushner’s new home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, DC. Local Chabad rabbi Levi Shemtov also was photographed outside of their house on Friday afternoon.
Photos showed Secret Service agents inspecting boxes of food as well as floral arrangements, and the delivery men who brought them, that arrived at the couples’ home.
— JTA
Police say trailer homes recently brought to the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran are illegal.
Two mobile homes were donated to the village on Saturday.
Police demolished 12 homes in the village on January 18. A police officer and one of the villagers were killed in violent clashes that ensued.
The events at Umm al-Hiran have caused widespread outrage and fear in Israel’s Arab community over the policy of home demolitions.
— Dov Lieber
Nahal Infantry Brigade commander Col. Amos Hacohen steps down from his current position for “personal reasons,” the army says.
Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir received Hacohen’s request to leave the military on Sunday morning.
It has been accepted by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot.
Col. Dan Goldfus, who was meant to eventually take over for Hacohen in the Nahal Brigade anyway, will step into the position in the next few weeks, the army says.
— Judah Ari Gross
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is asked by NBC about the Trump administration not explicitly mentioning Jews in its Holocaust Remembrance Day message.
“I don’t regret the words, Chuck,” Priebus says. He insists there’s no harm or ill-will meant.
The WH statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day didn't explicitly mention Jews. @Reince's defense: "I don't regret the words, Chuck." #MTP pic.twitter.com/mFYQ2pyeKi
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 29, 2017
Police extend the remand of the prime suspect in a quadruple homicide in Migdal, and send him for psychiatric evaluation, Channel 2 reports.
The man’s wife, Dor Crasanti-Sela, and two children are being laid to rest after they were stabbed to death over the weekend. Another boy, a neighbor, was killed as well.
Jordan has sentenced a man to five years in prison for planning to cross the border into Israel and stab Israelis “to help my brothers in Palestine.”
Joint List leader Ayman Odeh is the first Israeli politician to issue a statement about Trump’s executive order banning entry to citizens of seven countries.
“That the head of a state uses the laws of the country to discriminate and put down parts of the population is a sign of the rise of totalitarian regimes,” Odeh says in a statement. “I am proud and excited to see masses of Americans taking to the streets against Islamophobia and racism. Joint demonstrations in the streets without distinction of race and nationality is the hope for the future, for both the United States and here.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog is urging former prime minister Ehud Barak to rejoin the Labor party and make a political comeback.
Sitting alongside the former defense minister at a Labor party event in Tel Aviv, Herzog also announces that Brig. Gen. Dani Arditi, a former chairman of the National Security Council and counterterrorism adviser to three prime ministers, will be joining the Labor party.
“I am very happy that you, Ehud, are returning to public life and call on you to rejoin the Labor party,” Herzog says.
“Ehud, I very much enjoy your tweets, and I have no doubt that they echo in the public and on Balfour [street in Jerusalem, at the Prime Minister’s residence]. But the people here expect you to come down from the balcony and join [the party]. Tweets and Twitter aren’t everything.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog calls on Ehud Barak to rejoin the Labor Party on January 29, 2017. (courtesy)
Herzog says he is not ruling out any political alliances — both within the Knesset or outside it.
“My worldview says that you don’t need to fear the entry or return of good forces to politics and the party. The opposite is true. The more that come, the better,” says Herzog.
— Marissa Newman
The head of the Arab League expressed “deep concern” Sunday about US President Donald Trump’s restrictions on citizens of seven Muslim majority countries entering the United States.
The new regulations “are unjustified restrictions on the entry of citizens of several Arab nations to the US, in addition to the consequences of suspending the acceptance of Syrian refugees,” Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement.
— AFP
Former prime minister Ehud Barak says that he has no intention to run for the premiership, despite a near constant criticism of Netanyahu on social media. Speaking at a Labor Party meeting, Barak says he doesn’t want to run in elections at this time, even with his former party.
He didn’t spare criticism of the government, however, saying Netanyahu and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett are “brainwashing the public and mixing up national security and the security of the two-state solution,” Army Radio reports.
The Education Ministry reports a severe shortage of English teachers in Israeli schools, particularly in towns and cities outside the country’s demographic center, according to Channel 2.
Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi said Sunday he will not attend next month’s Academy Awards, comparing President Donald Trump’s visa ban on seven Muslim countries to the actions of hardliners in his own country.
Farhadi, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for “The Salesman,” said in a statement carried by Iranian news agencies that he had initially planned to attend the ceremony in Los Angeles, but had been forced to change his mind.
— AFP
Israel’s Ambassador to Mexico, Yoni Peled, was summoned for a dressing down by the Mexican government over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vocal support for Trump’s border wall.
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