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Tag: Israeli

  • Israeli forces raze down Palestinian school in Masafer Yatta

    The school served 22 students from four different villages in the southern occupied West Bank region, where Palestinian residents face forcible displacement.

    Israeli forces demolished a newly constructed Palestinian primary school in the southern occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region, where residents face the ongoing threat of forced displacement.

    According to locals and officials, the Israeli army raided the area on Wednesday morning and demolished the school in the village of Isfey al-Fauqa.

    “The Israeli occupation forces demolished a school while it was in session and students were inside,” said Nidal Younis, the head of Masafer Yatta’s local council.

    “They used sound bombs to scare the children and get them out of the school,” he explained.

    The Israeli High Court of Justice revoked on Wednesday an interim injunction freezing a demolition order against the school, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

    The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories – COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for administrative affairs in the occupied West Bank – said it demolished a building built illegally in an area designated as a closed firing zone.

    The institution was built about a month ago and had been operating for less than two weeks. It served 22 students from four different villages in Masafer Yatta, up to the fifth grade.

    It is one of more than a dozen schools built across the occupied West Bank under a programme by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education with funding from the European Union, Fadi al-Umour, an activist from Masafer Yatta, told Al Jazeera.

    All the schools built as part of this project are located in Area C – the 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli military control – and are intended to challenge Israeli restrictions on Palestinian development there.

    The European Union Delegation to the Palestinians said that it was “appalled by the news” of the demolition.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Education condemned the demolition in a statement on Wednesday morning and described it as a “heinous crime”.

    “It is an addition to the series of ongoing crimes by the occupation against the educational sector, and its targeting of children, students, educational cadres, and institutions [is] without regard for international charters and laws,” the statement continued, adding that such practices are “a flagrant violation of students’ right to safe and free education”.

    The ministry said it had organised, just a day prior to the demolition, a visit by a delegation of diplomats and United Nations officials to the Isfey al-Fauqa school.

     

    The school demolition comes days after an 18-year-old Palestinian student was shot dead by Israeli forces while he was on his way to school just outside of the Jenin refugee camp in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Al-Umour, who is the coordinator of Masafer Yatta’s protection and resilience committee, explained that “the construction of the Isfey school had not yet been completed when it was demolished, but the school was already operating”.

    He added that the army also confiscated furniture from the school, including the students’ chairs, and said the school serves the four villages of Tuba, Isfey al-Fauqa, Isfey al-Tahta, and Mughayyer al-Adeed.

    The nearest other school to the villages is about four kilometres away.

    “This occupation targets everything – it targets our homes, education, our water, solar panels,” said Younis, the council head. “They think this will pressure people to leave so that they can displace them, so that they can ethnically cleanse Masafer Yatta.”

    Masafer Yatta, which falls in Area C, is a region south of Hebron, where some eight villages, home to more than 1,200 Palestinians, including 500 children, are facing imminent forced displacement by Israeli authorities based on a May 2022 ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice.

    The ruling concluded a more than two-decade legal battle waged by the residents against their displacement. The Israeli army now has the green light to demolish their homes and force them out at any moment under the pretext that they live in an Israeli army “firing zone”.

    Many families in this region lived there prior to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967. They make their living as shepherds and farmers, but face a myriad of oppressive Israeli military policies including restrictions on maintaining and developing their homes, and barriers to accessing the electricity grid and water network.

    They are also surrounded by a belt of illegal Israeli settlements and live under systematic Israeli police, army and settler violence.

    An international digital campaign has been launched by activists and action groups in Palestine and abroad, under the hashtag #SaveMasaferYatta, in the hope of drawing attention to the imminent risk facing the residents and pressuring Israel to cease its displacement efforts.

  • Interpol SA arrests Israeli fugitive wanted for several attempted murders

    South African police have announced the arrest of an Israeli suspected of belonging to a mafia gang and wanted for attempted homicide.

    The 46-year-old man is associated with a major crime organization called Abergil, named after brothers Meir and Yitzhak Abergil who were extradited more than a decade ago to the United States, and had been the subject of an Interpol red notice since 2015, the police said in a statement on Thursday.

    “Israel’s most wanted man,” according to South African police, was arrested in the early hours of the morning along with seven other suspects in a house in Bryanston, an affluent suburb north of Johannesburg.

    Photos and videos of the arrest, shared by the police, have circulated widely on social networks, showing stocky men in shorts or pajamas, sitting on the floor hiding their faces or lying on their stomachs, their hands shackled with plastic handcuffs.

    According to information from their Israeli counterparts, the South African police say the main suspect belongs to “a notorious gang involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and other criminal activities.

    In 2003 and 2004, he “allegedly placed a bomb under a man’s car in Israel on two occasions. As a result of the first explosion, five people were seriously injured, but all miraculously survived,” the statement said. In the second incident, again targeting the same person, this time he placed a bomb on the roof of a vehicle, leaving three people seriously injured.

    The police also seized 12 firearms, including five assault rifles and seven pistols, 40,000 U.S. dollars and three stolen motorcycles, the statement said.

     

    Source: African News

  • Gershon Koffie scores first ever goal for Israeli top-flight side Hapoel Kfar Saba

    Gershon Koffie scored his first goal for Hapoel Kfar Saba on Saturday as they beat Hapoel Raanana FC at home in the Ligat ha’Al playoffs round.

    The 28-year-old scored the opening goal of the match six minutes into the second half.

    Koffie was making his 23rd league appearance for the club.

    Two minutes from time, Omer Fadida added the second to seal the win

    Hapoel Kfar Saba is fifth on the table after 28 rounds of matches.

    Source: Ghana Soccernet

  • Malka Leifer: Rape-accused ex-principal fit for extradition to Australia

    An Israeli woman facing 74 child sex charges in Australia is mentally fit to face extradition, a court has ruled.

    Malka Leifer, the former principal of a Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne, fled to Israel in 2008 after accusations were raised against her.

    Extradition hearings were delayed for two years as Ms Leifer, 54, said panic attacks prevented her coming to court.

    But a Jerusalem district court judge said expert opinion was followed in ruling Ms Leifer fit for the process.

    Judge Chana Lomp set 20 July 2020 as the date for a renewal of the extradition process to take the suspect back from Israel to Australia.

    The case has dragged on for more than five years, damaging relations between the two countries.

    Dave Sharma, Australia’s former ambassador to Israel, said in October the delay in extraditing Ms Leifer was “not only an affront to justice but deeply traumatic for the victims of this abuse”.

    Ms Leifer, who was not in court on Tuesday, allegedly raped and indecently assaulted girls at the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel School in Melbourne, Australia.

    Australia attempted to extradite her between 2014 and 2016, but the attempt failed after Ms Leifer was found mentally unfit for trial.

    Undercover private investigators later filmed her shopping and depositing a cheque at a bank, leading Israeli authorities to investigate and arrest her in February 2018.

    In January this year, a panel of psychiatrists found that Ms Leifer was faking her mental illness to avoid extradition, paving the way for Tuesday’s decision.

    In a 40-page ruling, Judge Lomp said Ms Leifer’s mental problems “were not psychotic problems of mental illness as in its legal definition”.

    “My impression is that the defendant is exacerbating her mental problems and pretending to be mentally ill,” Judge Lomp wrote. “Therefore, my conclusion is that the defendant is fit to stand trial and the extradition process on her case should be renewed.”

    The decision was welcomed by the former teacher’s alleged victims. One, Dassi Erlich, said the ruling was “huge”.

    “This abusive woman has been exploiting the Israeli courts for six years! Intentionally creating obstacles with endless vexatious arguments that have only lengthened our ongoing trauma!”, Ms Erlich said in a statement.

    One of Ms Leifer’s lawyers, Tal Gabay, however told reporters the decision was “not clean of doubt”. “It’s not a black-and-white case,” he said.

    Yehuda Fried, another member of the defence team, said they hoped Israel’s supreme court would overturn the decision.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Israeli prime minister faces Jerusalem court

    Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu goes on trial for corruption on Sunday, the first time a serving leader will have done so in the country’s history.

    Mr Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust – allegations which he strongly denies.

    The 70-year-old has rejected calls by opponents to step down while he fights the cases.

    It comes just a week after he was sworn back into office as head of a rare national unity government.

    His political rival, Benny Gantz, agreed to share power following three inconclusive elections in under a year.

    Mr Netanyahu is expected to attend the opening session of the trial, which is being held at Jerusalem District Court.

    The leader of the right-wing Likud party is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having been in power continuously since 2009. He also served a term in office from 1996-1999.

    What is Benjamin Netanyahu accused of?

    Mr Netanyahu has been indicted in three cases, known as 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000:

    -Case 1,000 – Fraud and breach of trust: he is accused of receiving gifts – mainly cigars and bottles of champagne – from powerful businessmen in exchange for favours

    -Case 2,000 – Fraud and breach of trust: Mr Netanyahu is accused of offering to help improve the circulation of Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot in exchange for positive coverage

    -Case 4,000 – Bribery, fraud and breach of trust: as PM and minister of communications at the time of the alleged offence, Mr Netanyahu is accused of promoting regulatory decisions favourable to the controlling shareholder in the Bezeq telecom giant, Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for positive coverage by Mr Elovitch’s Walla news site

    Mr Netanyahu has strongly denied all the charges against him, branding them a “witch-hunt” by political opponents, and has vowed to clear his name.

    How can the prime minister serve and stand trial at the same time?

    Such a thing has never happened before in Israel, so there is no precedent.

    A former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, stepped down as party leader when he was under investigation for corruption in 2008 but technically remained prime minister until elections the following year – polls which brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power.

    According to Israeli law, a prime minister charged with a crime is not required to resign.

    Under the power-sharing deal with Benny Gantz, a new role of “alternate prime minister” was created, which means when the two men switch positions in 18 months’ time, Mr Netanyahu will still occupy a prime ministerial office and stay on as Mr Gantz’s deputy.

    What does the trial mean for the country?

    In short, a serving prime minister occupying the most powerful office in the land simultaneously trying to clear his name and avoid jail-time.

    Opposition leader Yair Lapid called it “an embarrassment” and “horrible for the spirit of the nation” though it is not expected to affect government policy. Mr Netanyahu is still likely to press ahead with plans to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley – territory in the occupied West Bank – in the coming months, a move certain to infuriate the Palestinians.

    Opinion in Israel as to whether he should carry on as prime minister is split: critics say the spectacle of a trial makes Mr Netanyahu’s job untenable, but his supporters – including his party – say he has been democratically elected and should not be forced out.

    Even if he is convicted, Mr Netanyahu will not be required to resign unless and until any appeals are exhausted – which could, in theory, be many months or years into the future.

    In Ehud Olmert’s case, the former prime minister went on trial in 2009 and after he was convicted only began serving his sentence in 2016 due to the long legal process.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Israeli convicted of West Bank arson attack that killed three Palestinians

    An Israeli court has convicted a Jewish settler of murdering three members of a Palestinian family in a 2015 arson attack in the occupied West Bank.

    Judges found Amiram Ben Uliel threw a firebomb into a home in the village of Duma, killing Saad and Riham Dawabsha and their 18-month-old son Ali.

    Ali’s brother Ahmed, who was then four, suffered severe injuries but survived.

    Ben Uliel was also found guilty of attempted murder, but was acquitted of belonging to a terrorist organization.

    His lawyers said he planned to appeal against the convictions at the Supreme Court, arguing that Israeli investigators had forced him to make a false confessions.

    Ben Uliel, who is 25 and from the settlement of Shilo, sat with his head down as he was found guilty of three counts of murder by the Lod District Court on Monday.

    Israeli media reported that he confessed to the crime three times.

    Two of the confessions were ruled inadmissible because they were extracted by physical force or soon after physical force was used, according to the Haaretz newspaper. The third was accepted by the judges, who said it was supported by detailed evidence, including his reconstruction of the crime scene.

    Following the verdict, Ben Uliel’s lawyers said it was “a black day” for Israel, on which a court had convicted “a man whose innocence cries out to the heavens”.

    Ahmed Dawabsha’s grandfather Hussein said: “The trial was for others, not for me.”

    “It won’t bring back my daughter; her husband and my grandson won’t return, but I don’t want another child to be in Ahmed’s place,” he was quoted as saying by Haaretz. “We experienced a great trauma, and I won’t forget it in 100 years. I don’t want this to happen to another family.”

    In a rare statement, Israel’s domestic security service, the Shin Bet, described the verdict as “an important milestone in the fight against Jewish terrorism”. Ben Uliel’s crimes represented a “severe crossing of a red line”, it added. The night-time attack on the Dawabsha family’s home in July 2015 sparked international condemnation and inflamed Israeli-Palestinian tensions, contributing to a rise in violence.

    Saad, Riham and their children were asleep when masked assailants threw a firebomb through their bedroom window and daubed walls with slogans in Hebrew, including the word “revenge”.

    Ali died during the ensuing blaze, while his parents succumbed to their wounds later in hospital. Ahmed spent months in hospital undergoing treatment for burns.

    In 2016, Israeli prosecutors charged Ben Uliel with murder and a second suspect, a minor who has not been named, with being an accessory to murder.

    According to the indictment, the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of a settler in a drive-by shooting one month before.

    Last year, a court approved a plea deal in which the minor admitted to conspiring to set fire to the Dawabsha’s home.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Chinese ambassador to Israel found dead in Tel Aviv home

    The Chinese ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, has been found dead in his home north of Tel Aviv, according to the Israeli foreign ministry and police.

    No cause of death was given, and Israeli police on Sunday said it had opened an investigation.

    Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that Du was found in the early morning by the envoy’s staff in his home in Herzliya.

    He said police were at the scene investigating the circumstances surrounding Du’s death.

    Media reports said according to an initial assessment, Du appears to have died of a cardiac arrest, but there was no official confirmation.

    Yuval Rotem, Israel’s director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he spoke with China’s deputy ambassador to express condolences and pledged to “help the Chinese embassy with anything they may need along the way”, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

    Du had arrived in Israel in February. He had previously served as China’s envoy to Ukraine, according to the embassy’s website.

    He is survived by a wife and son, both of whom were not in Israel.

    Israel enjoys good relations with China.

    The ambassador’s death comes just two days after he condemned comments by visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who denounced Chinese investments in Israel and accused China of hiding information about the coronavirus pandemic.

    Source: aljazeera.com

  • Palestinian shot dead after ramming car into Israeli soldiers – Army

    A Palestinian rammed a car into Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Thursday before being shot dead, the Israeli army said.

    “An assailant drove at a high speed towards (Israeli) soldiers adjacent to a military post near the community of Negohot, southwest of Hebron,” an army statement said.

    One soldier was wounded while another opened fire on the driver, it added. A spokeswoman for the military confirmed the driver had been killed.

    The Palestinian health ministry confirmed he was a Palestinian, and his family named him as Bahaa Al-Awawdeh.

    The wounded soldier was taken to hospital for treatment, the army statement added.

    The incident came a day after a 15-year-old Palestinian was killed in clashes with the Israeli army in the Fawwar refugee camp in Hebron.

    On Tuesday an Israeli soldier was killed when a rock was thrown at him during a raid near Jenin in the northern West Bank.

    Separately Thursday, hundreds of Israeli Arabs protested in the village of Arara against the killing of a man from the community outside a hospital in Tel Aviv.

    The man, who Israeli media reported had psychiatric issues, stabbed a guard at the hospital on Wednesday before being shot, Israeli police said.

    Tensions have been high as Israel prepares to swear in its first government in nearly 18 months on Sunday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supporting annexation of some parts of the West Bank.

    Source: france24.com

  • Israel further eases virus measures for shops, restaurants

    The Israeli government Friday approved new steps to ease its lockdown measures for retail and service businesses, in the hope of reinvigorating the collapsing economy.

    While malls will remain closed, all other shops will be allowed to reopen if they follow strict measures such as limiting the number of customers on the premises, a joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the finance and health ministries said.

    Wearing face masks in public became mandatory earlier this month, and will also be required in stores.

    Hairdressers and beauty salons will be permitted to reopen with client limits, while restaurants and cafes, which over the past weeks have been delivery-only, can start selling takeaway.

    Less than a week ago, Israeli authorities announced the reopening of certain shops including hardware stores.

    The new measures will come into effect at midnight Saturday and will apply until May 3, the statement said.

    Also Friday, the government voted to provide support worth eight billion shekels (over $2.2 billion) to the self-employed and to small businesses.

    Israel announced its first case of the novel coronavirus on February 21, and has since officially declared more than 14,800 cases, including 193 deaths.

    The country took rapid measures to impose social distancing and has been in lockdown for weeks.

    A poll published Friday in Maariv newspaper found 60 percent of Israelis surveyed had a favourable view of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions to prevent the spread of the virus.

    But the same percentage thought his handling of the economy was poor.

    Before the coronavirus crisis, Israel had an unemployment rate of around 3.4 percent, but that has jumped to around 25 percent since the shutdown.

    Source: france24.com

  • Netanyahu asks Israelis to wear face-masks in public

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the country’s citizens to wear face masks in public in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus.

    In a televised address to the nation, Mr Netanyahu told people they could make improvised masks if needed.

    Wearing face masks is compulsory in some countries, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, while Austria has told people to wear them in supermarkets.

    But in many other parts of the world, including the UK and the US, it’s still perfectly acceptable to walk around bare-faced.

    However US health authorities are now debating whether to recommend face coverings for everyone when they go out in public. US media say a CDC internal memo says even simple cloth masks could help reduce transmission.

    Since the start of the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said people only need to wear face masks in two situations:

    1. if they are sick and showing symptoms 2. or if they are caring for people who are suspected to have coronavirus

    However, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said the organisation continued “to gather all available evidence and to evaluate the potential use of masks more broadly to control Covid-19 transmission at the community level”.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Israeli elections: Netanyahu and Gantz take ‘significant step’ towards deal

    Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his main opponent, Benny Gantz, have taken “a significant step” towards forming a unity government, Israel’s president has said.

    Reuven Rivlin was speaking after hosting a meeting for the two rivals.

    No details of the talks have been made public. But a joint statement said chief negotiators for the two main parties would meet on Tuesday.

    Last week’s general election – the second this year – ended in deadlock.

    In a bid to broker a solution, President Rivlin has recommended the new government includes both Mr Gantz’s Blue and White Alliance, which won 33 seats, and Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, which won 31.

    Read:Israel election result too close to call

    Mr Rivlin has said he will do everything he can to avoid a third general election this year.

    Speaking after Monday’s two hours of talks at his offices in Jerusalem, he said: “We have taken a significant step forward tonight.”

    Addressing Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz he added: “Now it is your turn. The responsibility for establishing a government falls on you, and the people expect you to find a solution and to prevent further elections, even if it comes at a personal and even ideological cost.”

    In their joint statement, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz said negotiators from their parties would meet on Tuesday and the two leaders would then meet President Rivlin again on Wednesday.

    Earlier on Monday, Israeli-Arab lawmakers recommended that former army chief Mr Gantz should become prime minister.

    Read:Trump floats possible defense treaty days ahead of Israeli elections

    The Joint List, a bloc of Arab parties that came third in the election, said it wanted to remove Mr Netanyahu from power.

    It was the first time since 1992 that an Arab political group has issued an endorsement for an Israeli prime minister.

    Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List, told President Rivlin that his alliance’s priority was to prevent Mr Netanyahu from serving another term.

    The Joint List won 13 seats in the election. If Mr Gantz had the endorsement of all 13 seats, he would still fall short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat legislature.

    Last week’s election was called after coalition talks collapsed following April’s poll.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Israeli fire kills three Palestinians in besieged Gaza Strip

    At least three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials and local media, hours after three rockets were allegedly fired from the blockaded enclave.

    Maan news agency said on Sunday at least one other Palestinian suffered “critical” injuries following the overnight attack.

    Palestinian Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that three bodies had arrived to the Al-Andalusi hospital in the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, as well as one person with a serious injury.

    He identified the three dead as: Mahmoud Adel al-Walaidah, 24, Mohammed Farid Abu Namous, 27, and Mohammed Samir al-Taramsi, 26.

    Read:Israelis kill Hamas commander in undercover Gaza raid

    In a statement on issued late on Saturday, the Israeli army said an attack helicopter and tank had fired at “armed suspects” along the fence that separates Israel from the besieged Gaza Strip, home to more than two million Palestinians.

    In an earlier incident on Saturday night, Israeli air raids hit parts of the northern Gaza Strip, including an open field used to grow crops, as well as a position belonging to a Gaza-based resistance movement, according to local media reports.

    Medics said that Israeli forces only allowed for Palestinian ambulances to enter the area hours after it had launched the attacks.

    The Israeli military said three rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel, two of which had been intercepted by its Iron Dome aerial defence system.

    There was no immediate comment from any of the major armed groups in Gaza, including Hamas, the group that governs the strip. No Israelis were hurt.

    Read:Palestinian Journalists Syndicate refuses U.S. invitation to visit White House

    Israel has waged three wars in Gaza since 2008.

    The Gaza Health Ministry said that since the start of the weekly Great March of Return protests last year, the Israeli army has killed more than 300 demonstrators and wounded 17,000 others, who were officially referred to hospitals.

    The protests that began on March 30, 2018, demand that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homes from which they were expelled during the founding of Israel and for a complete lifting of the 12-year Israeli blockade of Gaza.

    The intensity of the protests has decreased since Israel and Hamas reached an informal ceasefire in May, following the worst round of fighting since a 2014 war between them.

    Under the truce – brokered by the United Nations and Egypt – Israel agreed to take steps to ease aspects of its crippling blockade on Gaza but Palestinians have accused it of slowing implementation and not taking enough measures to ease the crippling economic conditions in the coastal enclave.

    Source: aljazeera.com