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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Thursday, December 26, 2019

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Composite photo: Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar accompanied by his wife Geula Even Sa'ar arrives to cast his primary ballot in Tel Aviv (left); Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and wife Sara cast their ballots at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem (right) on December 26, 2019 (JACK GUEZ / AFP; courtesy)

Netanyahu, Sa’ar seek to rally voters amid bad weather, claims of irregularities

By Michael Bachner and Raoul Wootliff

Confusion as many voters receive conflicting times for start of vote in Likud primary; PM claims ‘immense forces’ acting to help his rival, whose campaign HQ alleges voter fraud

Likud MK Gideon Saar arrives with his wife Geula Even-Sa'ar, a former TV news anchor, at a voting station to cast his vote in the Likud leadership race, in Tel Aviv, on December 26, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Right-wing, restrained: Gideon Sa’ar, the man battling Netanyahu for Likud helm

By Stephen WEIZMAN

Then-Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar speaks to the press after casting his ballot in the party's primary election, in Tel Aviv on December 26, 2019. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Likud members vote as Sa’ar mounts longshot challenge to Netanyahu’s leadership

By ToI Staff and AFP

Likud party members at a voting station to cast their vote in primaries for the Likud leadership, in Tel Aviv, on December 26, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Reporter's notebook

In Tel Aviv, Likud ballot station is an island of calm amid the raging storm

Atmosphere at polling station doesn’t match that of the weather outside, or the hotly contested campaign, as party members brave the rains to choose between Netanyahu and Sa’ar

Live updates (closed)

Exit poll has Netanyahu winning Likud leadership race with over 70% of vote

Sa’ar forecast to fall short of 30% threshold that his supporters were hoping for in uphill primary battle against longtime party chief

9:17 pm

Exit poll has Netanyahu winning Likud leadership race with over 70% of vote
9:04 pm

Polls close in Likud leadership race between Netanyahu, Sa'ar
9:04 pm

Likud comptroller says irregularities recorded at several polling stations

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he is taken offstage during a Likud primary campaign rally in Ashkelon as rocket alerts sound, December 25, 2019. (Screenshot: Ynet)

Netanyahu again rushed offstage at event as Gaza rocket fired at Ashkelon

By Judah Ari Gross

Iron Dome intercepts incoming projectile, in case similar to attack in September in which terrorists launched missile during premier’s speech in the south

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum pauses during an interview with The Associated Press in Gaza City, February 7, 2012. (AP/Hatem Mousa)

Hamas, Israel trade barbs after rocket fire during Netanyahu rally

Illustrative: An Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 27, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Israeli aircraft strike Gaza after rocket attack near Netanyahu event

By Judah Ari Gross and ToI Staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on April 4, 2019. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/POOL/AFP)

Netanyahu: Putin said that if I were not PM, Israel and Russia would be at war

In interview ahead of Likud primary, PM refuses to answer questions on whether he will seek immunity from prosecution or what he’ll do if High Court rules he can’t form government

A composite image shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Gideon Sa'ar, right. (Flash90)

Sa’ar you ready for this? 6 things to know for December 26

Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz speaking at a party faction meeting in Ramat Gan on December 15, 2019. (Elad Malka/Blue and White)

Gantz on Sa’ar’s proposal to appoint Netanyahu as president: ‘Moral bankruptcy’

By Raoul Wootliff

Illustrative photo of a vaccination. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Israelis scramble for flu vaccine as deaths from aggressive virus mount

Health services report multifold increase in demand for protection against disease amid early season surge in those seriously stricken by illness

Illustrative image of a baby holding hands (boonchai wedmakawand; iStock by Getty Images)

1.5-year-old girl dies of flu complications in 3rd death in 2 days

International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda addresses the 18th session of the ICC Assembly of States Parties in The Hague, December 2, 2019. (Courtesy International Criminal Court)

Profile

From The Gambia to The Hague: Meet Israel’s new public enemy number one

By Raphael Ahren

Beirut floodwaters sweep away Jewish graves

By AFP

At least 4 graves in only Jewish cemetery in Lebanese capital damaged; of thousands of Jews who once lived in Israel’s northern neighbor, only 29 remain today

A booking image of Lin Helena Halfon taken upon her arrest in Tampa, Florida, on December 16, 2019. (Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office)

Israeli woman, 26, charged with grifting $1m from Florida husband, 77

By AP and ToI Staff

Lin Helena Halfon arrested in US after trying to cash checks taken from Tampa businessman Richard Rappaport, whom she recently married, leading to suspicions of fraud

Anna Sacks on one of her trash walks. (Patricia López Ramos)

‘Trash walking’ Jewish activist urges corporate US to #DonateDon’tDump overstock

By Renee Ghert-Zand

Palestinian protesters riot along the security fence east of Gaza City as smoke billows from fields across the fence caused by an incendiary device attached to a kite and flown across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, on May 15, 2019. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

Gaza groups say border protests to stop until March, resume infrequently in 2020

High Commission for the March of Return says demonstrations will occur on a monthly basis, plus whenever there is a need and ‘during prominent national occasions’

Illustrative: A balloon carrying an incendiary device is flown out of the Gaza Strip on May 31, 2019 (Hassan Jedi/Flash90)

Israel unveils new laser system to shoot down Gaza’s incendiary balloons, drones

Pope Francis looks at the crowd after he delivered the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for 'to the city and to the world' ) Christmas' day blessing from the main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2019. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Pope hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace, end to Syrian war in Christmas message

By AP

SoundCloud screenshot image: US President Donald J. Trump welcomes Austin Polonski of San Francisco, California, on stage December 11, 2019, during an afternoon Hanukkah Reception in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

ToI Podcast

LISTEN: Jews are a religion and a people — until the NYT claims Trump thinks so

ToI’s analyst Haviv Rettig Gur talks about the long-term push-pull relationship between American Jews and Jewish Peoplehood in light of US President Trump’s new executive order

The meek shall inherit the earth but they won’t catch their bus

These days, I size up my opponents in the line. The seminary girls are always an easy target. They’re new and on a spiritual high

My go-to Israeli writers in 2019

These authors have been invaluable to me as I work to tell Israel’s story to Americans

Sarah Ansbacher

‘Why does everyone hate your people?’

It’s not every day that a German tourist comes out and asks such a taboo question, but he did, and I answered, and they listened

Cuts and burns: Welcome to my damn food blog

Is there a latke recipe? Sure. But also Carp Roe Mayo, Quick & Easy Salmon Tartare, and a drink that hooks grapefruit up with arak

Join The Times of Israel Community!

Help support our journalism and enjoy the site ADS FREE - for as little as $6 a month

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A screengrab circulating on social media purporting to show an alleged Israeli airstrike targeting Iranian assets in the Syrian city of Masyaf on April 13, 2019. (Screengrab/Twitter)

5 said killed in airstrikes on pro-Iranian militias in eastern Syria

By Judah Ari Gross

Monitor reports back-to-back attacks on Hezbollah, Shiite groups near Iraqi border, where Israel has allegedly conducted a number of strikes

An Iraqi anti-government protester holds a national flag as he stands by a fire at a makeshift roadblock in the southern city of Basra late on December 25, 2019. (Photo by Hussein FALEH / AFP)

Iraqi protesters torch buildings, block roads over PM pick

An Iraqi demonstrator gestures as tyres burn during a protest in Iraq's shrine city of Karbala, south of the capital Baghdad, on December 22, 2019. (Mohammed SAWAF / AFP)

Iraqi protesters proudly boycott Iranian goods as anger simmers

By Salmane Ameen

More Headlines

An overturned quad bike pulled from a river bed after a flash flood swept away its two riders, leaving a boy, 14, missing, December 26, 2019 (Israel Fire and Rescue Services)

Boy, 14, missing after being swept away by flood in northern riverbed

By Stuart Winer

Illustrative image of someone smoking. (Tunatura; iStock by Getty Images)

Medical cannabis startup finds way to get full weed benefits, without the smoke

By Shoshanna Solomon

Jay Ruderman presents Marlee Matlin, an Oscar-winning actress who is deaf and Jewish, with the Morton E. Ruderman Award in Tel Aviv, June 19, 2017. (Erez Uzir via JTA)

Jewish group pitches Hollywood on casting actors with disabilities

Boxed Coca-Cola bottles lined up at the Coca Cola factory in Bnei Brak, November 23, 2009. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90)

Coca-Cola Israel fined NIS 39 million for monopoly violations

By Stuart Winer

Sammy's Bagels in Teaneck, New Jersey. (Google Street View)

New Jersey police probing kosher bagel shop altercation as hate crime

Michael Bloomberg at an on-stage conversation at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting, December 11, 2019, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Bloomberg said spending unprecedented sums on Democratic primary campaign ads

Fire damage to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, April 16, 2019. (Gigarama.ru via AP)

Notre Dame rector says 50% chance cathedral cannot be salvaged

By JEFFREY SCHAEFFER and Angela Charlton

Gal Gadot poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' in central London, November 25, 2018. (Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Gal Gadot to co-produce movie on Israeli-Palestinian love story

Illustrative photo of a police patrol car in Jerusalem, September 20, 2017. (Times of Israel/Stuart Winer)

Police try to bring man in by lying that his mother was hospitalized

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion is joined by some of the participants at the annual Colel Chabad Chanuka Retreat on Hanukkah 2019 (Courtesy Shneur Shif)

Holiday lightHanukkah Chabad retreat hosts widowed spouses and their kids

Italy's Aterballeto performing 'Antitesa,' coming to Israel the first week of January 2020 (Courtesy Aterballeto)

Whirl into the New YearStyle-shifting Italian dance troupe to perform in Israel

By Jessica Steinberg

Allee Willis at the 49th annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards gala at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday, June 14, 2018, in New York. (Brad Barket/Invision/AP)

Allee Willis, ‘Friends’ theme songwriter, dies at 72

By AFP

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