Amy Spiro is a journalist and works at The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel blogged Wednesday’s events as they unfolded.
Israeli government officials are pleased with the statements via the Thirteenth Channel and its reporter, Gil Tamary, apologizing if Muslims were angry about the broadcast of theirs to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while justifying it as a journalistic achievement, a source in Jerusalem familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.
Non-Muslims are prohibited from visiting the city under Saudi law and such a resolution is considered an affront to sensitivities.
The source declines to say that government officials were concerned when drafting the apology statements.
During his official trip to Morocco, Israeli army leader Aviv Kohavi visits the local Jewish network in Marrakech’s Old City.
Kohavi visits the local Jewish cemetery and attends a prayer service at the Great Synagogue of Slat al-Azama, according to the Israel Defense Forces, adding that he met with members of the network who fought in the Yom Kippur War and then returned to Morocco.
“Kohavi paid tribute to the members of the network and thanked them for their contribution to the other Jewish people in the State of Israel and in the Jewish diaspora,” the IDF said in a statement.
“The Kingdom of Morocco is the best friend of the State of Israel, and our bond is an example of a deep and special bond between two nations over a non-unusual heritage. I feel pride and admiration at the idea of bringing them together. “, the Jewish network of Morocco, some of whom fought for the State of Israel, and are now running here for the Jewish network and to deepen the bond with Israel,” Kohavi said in his comments provided through the IDF.
Later, Kohavi and the head of the IDF intelligence division, Brigadier General Amit Saar, meet with the commander of the air base “Ben Guerir”.
The IDF says the two men were “informed through the base commander of the risk of local drones and won a presentation related to the base’s F-16 fighter jet squadron. “
“Commanders also cooperate between the air forces of the two armies,” the IDF added.
On the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, NASA announces that it is looking for the launch at the end of August of its new lunar rocket.
NASA will conduct the more than month-long lunar test flight with three mannequins, but no astronauts, starting Aug. 29. There are also two launch dates in early September, before NASA has to pull out for two weeks.
NASA’s Jim Free notes that the verification flight initiates “our Artemis program to return to the moon. “The area agency’s new lunar program is named Artemis in honor of Apollo’s double sister in Greek mythology.
The 30-stage Space Launch System rocket and the attached Orion capsule are lately in the Kennedy Space Center hangar, following maintenance resulting from last month’s countdown test. Fuel leaks and other technical problems occurred during NASA’s repeated launch tests on the platform.
NASA officials assure reporters that the messes have been resolved and that testing is nearing completion. August 18.
Fourteen fire crews and six firefighting planes are racing to extinguish a blaze in the northern Jordan Valley, according to fire and rescue services.
Boris Eisenberg, the chimney leader at Tiberias Station, says efforts are largely directed at the western bank of the Jordan River.
– כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 20, 2022
Firefighters and rescue say that despite fighting the chimney for six hours, the flames are still not under control.
Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, reportedly expressed his disgust at Yair Lapid’s concept of prime minister because of his scathing statements about russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to a Twelfth Channel report, Viktorov said in closed-door meetings that Prime Minister Lapid could simply “cause trouble” in Moscow-Jerusalem relations.
The report highlights a number of statements made through Lapid as foreign minister that were highly critical of the Russian invasion, while then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took a more diplomatic approach. Lapid accused Moscow of war crimes and Russian forces of “killing innocent civilians. “”
The network cites a reaction from the Russian embassy in Israel as saying it has taken note of “some statements and comments” from Israeli officials, but expects Israel to “address the issue in an impartial, balanced and considerate manner. “
Israel has avoided aligning itself too much with either aspect as one of the few countries that has relatively warm relations with Ukraine, some other Western democracy and with Russia, which controls the airspace over Syria, in which Israel operates to target Iranian proxies.
Israel has continuously sent aid shipments to Ukraine, adding bulletproof vests and helmets, but has not asked the army for help.
Police have begun working to evacuate illegal outposts set up in the West Bank through the radical settler organization Nachala, according to eyewitnesses and activists.
Nachala says police use “violence and brutality” to eliminate those who showed up the day before to look for new outposts. The motion calls on Prime Minister Yair Lapid to avoid evacuation, as they claim “the public has chosen” their approach.
Hundreds of Nachala activists checked to identify new outposts of illegal settlements in various parts of the West Bank.
In “Nofei Yehuda”, just outside Kiryat Arba, more than a hundred activists, adding families with young people and small babies, set up many tents and planned to spend the night.
Police and border police then ordered the evacuation of the site and the dismantling of the shops. The militants do not and voluntarily fold their tents. His plan, one executive said, is to move to the next site and install Nofei Yehudah there instead. , until you return to the next site.
Israeli police and military had in the past asked Nachala’s supporters to stay away because their activity is illegal, and Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said those who broke the law would be punished.
Prime Minister and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid went into cross mode and called for “a strong Yesh Atid” as “the thing” that a solid government “without extremists” can provide.
“These elections have been imposed on us, but they may only be an exclusive opportunity to get out of trouble. Establish a broad and solid national government, without extremists. Only one thing will allow this to happen: a large and strong Yesh Atid that will stabilize the Israeli ship,” the prime minister said in remarks ahead of his party’s faction assembly in Tel Aviv.
While, on the one hand, he calls for national unity, Lapid also distinguishes his party and alleged political partners from those led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
The upcoming November 1 elections, like the 4 that have preceded them since 2019, are quickly shaping up to be the fifth referendum on whether or not the Likud leader will be in charge.
“The resolution presented to the citizens of Israel is not between Netanyahu and me. The selection is between the long term and the past. The selection is between those who think only of their own intelligence and those who think of the intelligence of others. state,” the prime minister said.
At the same time, Lapid draws attention to wanting to unite in the face of challenges, adding the continuation of the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the burden of living and that “Israeli democracy is in existential danger. “
“In difficult times, the Israelis have been able to separate the fights and pass and paint together. That’s what we want to do now,” Says Lapid.
After many years, the army censor says the media can now report that the Israel Defense Forces are armed drones to strike targets.
“He found that there were no obstacles to the publication of the IDF’s use of attack drones as a component of its operational activities,” the censor said after reviewing the matter.
For years, the IDF did not say these were armed drones, and Israeli journalists seeking to report on it clashed with the IDF censor.
Yesterday, the IDF attacked a Hamas post in the Gaza Strip in reaction to gunfire from an armed drone towards a border town.
The MK Orit Strock of the Religious Zionism Party arrives at the Gush Etzion meeting area and completes delivery to those seeking to identify new illegal outposts in the West Bank.
Struck says, “I actually help what Nachala is doing,” the military and police say such activity is illegal.
Nachala is a right-wing colonization organization.
“The other people who have come here make explicit the principles I’m on,” he adds. “All the land of Israel belongs to us and we are forbidden to abandon it to the Palestinian Authority.
Strock accuses Defense Minister Benny Gantz of giving “free rein to the Palestinian Authority to build and take all the land left in Judea and Samaria and de facto annex it and create a Palestinian state without any agreement, only by illegally seizing land. “I came here to put an end to that.
The Jerusalem trial is extending the pre-trial detention of a Palestinian accused of stabbing and wounding an Israeli on a bus in the capital’s Ramot community on Tuesday.
According to police, the suspect, who was recently hospitalized after being shot dead, will remain in custody until Sunday.
His detention is expected to continue next week.
The arrest and summons to a military court of a senior Lebanese Maronite cleric after a trip to his parish in Israel has provoked outraged reactions from Christian leaders.
As patriarch of the diocese of Haifa and the Maronite Holy Land, Moussa al-Hajj, along with other devout Christian figures, is allowed to cross Lebanon’s southern border and enter Israel, unlike Lebanese citizens.
While Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war, Hajj visited Israel because he runs a network of Lebanese Maronite Christians living there, many of whom are refugees who collaborated with Israel in the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.
But he was interrogated for eight hours earlier this week as he returned from Israel, according to local media, before a military court summoned him today for further questioning.
The Hajj ignored the army court’s summons, issued for violating boycott legislation imposed on Israel and for engaging in money laundering, said an official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because it is legal to speak to the press.
The British Conservative Party Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss as the two finalists in an election to update Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The couple arrived first and momentarily in a vote by conservative lawmakers. Commerce Minister Penny Mordaunt came in third and was eliminated.
The race pits Sunak, a former Treasury leader who ran Britain’s economy during the pandemic, and Truss, who led the UK’s reaction to russia’s invasion of Ukraine as foreign secretary.
The two contenders will spend the next few weeks campaigning for the votes of some 180,000 Conservative Party members across the country, who will vote by mail or online. The winner of the party leadership vote will be announced on the fifth of September and will automatically be prime minister.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid meets with Haim Naim and Meshi Ben Ami, the two civilians who helped arrest a terrorist who stabbed a man on a bus in Jerusalem yesterday.
“It’s hard to imagine, but you two civilians would have died,” Lapid told them. “You stored lives. It is a civic obligation. “
Lapid grants them a certificate of recognition.
“Very few people are capable of having the strength and courage to react,” he says. “The terrorist started stabbing and Haim threw a stone at him and shot him, and Meshi used his gun and neutralized him. brave and very impressive.
The Israeli victim was injured in the attack and the Palestinian assailant was shot and wounded through Ben Ami and taken to hospital.
State Attorney Glenn Ivey is expected to have defeated former Congresswoman Donna Edwards in the number one Democratic race for Maryland’s fourth congressional district, which has noted unprecedented spending through pro-Israel groups.
Ivey, who won the $6 million Super PAC from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project, has a 51-35% lead over Edwards with 68% of the votes counted, which was enough for the big networks to call the race in his favor.
Edwards got his own approval from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as J Street, which spent more than $700,000 in the race, largely on classified ads attacking Ivey for taking money from AIPAC, which approved more than a hundred Republicans seeking to cancel the 2020 election after the Jan. 6 uprising.
Celebrating Ivey’s victory, AIPAC said that “once again, the Democratic electorate has proven that being pro-Israel is wise politics and wise politics,” adding that “our participation in democratic procedure will continue throughout this election cycle. “
The Democratic Majority for Israel, which sits a little to the left of AIPAC and donated $426,000 to Ivey’s campaign, says, “We are thrilled that the Democratic electorate in Maryland’s 4th district decided to look to the long term by electing a proud pro-Israel African-American. “progressive leader. With extensive experience on Capitol Hill and in local government, Glenn Ivey.
Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej called an Israeli television report through an Israeli Jewish journalist visiting Mecca “stupid. “
A report broadcast Monday on the Thirteenth News Channel of journalist Gil Tamari visiting the Saudi holy city of Mecca, which is banned for non-Muslims. Tamary and the network later apologized for the report.
“I think it’s stupidity, stupidity and completely irrelevant only to audiences,” Frej, who is the Muslim minister at the moment in Israel’s history, told Kan Public Radio. Frej says this would only harm the saudi-Israeli normalization option.
“It’s a sacred position for Muslims. . . For what?You need a report from there, send a Muslim journalist!. . . the damage will be significant.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid meets with the lead officer of the american pro-Israel lobby organization AIPAC.
Lapid tweeted that the trio discussed U. S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel, as well as “the historic Jerusalem Declaration reaffirming the unwavering alliance between the United States and Israel. “
“Strengthening bipartisanship for this alliance is a very sensible priority,” Lapid added.
We talked about @POTUS to Israel and the historic Jerusalem Declaration that reaffirms the unbreakable alliance between the United States and Israel.
Strengthening bipartisanship for this alliance is a more sensible priority. ??????????????????pic. twitter. com/shTXJCgCYE
– יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) July 20, 2022
At least civilians are killed and 20 injured in northern Iraq when a bombing attributed to neighboring Turkey hit a park in autonomous Kurdistan, according to two officials.
Five other people were killed in Turkish shelling at the border, in addition to a child, a woman and an Arab tourist, and about two dozen others were injured, Mushir Bashir, mayor of Zakho, told AFP.
A local government official gave an account.
The Israel Defense Forces will conduct military trainings starting and over the next few days in southern Israel.
The military said explosions may be heard in the domain and that some roads may be temporarily blocked.
The training was planned in advance, according to the IDF.
Dozens of young people in an operation to identify outposts of illegal settlements in the West Bank arrive at the Gush Etzion crossroads and prepare to move to their designated sites.
Children and women as young as thirteen are participating in the operation organized by the radical Nachala Settlement movement amid a heavy presence of armed police, border police and military personnel.
Left-wing Peace Now activists trying to thwart a Nachala organization in the northern West Bank have been ordered to return to the Green Line, they say.
Operation Nachala won from the Likud and devout Zionist lawmakers, prominent rabbis and other public figures.
Police say there is a large volume of traffic on nearby roads and highways and ask drivers to drive carefully, pay attention to commandos and use routes of choice.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said the Nachala movement’s attempts “undermine the ability of Israeli police and IDF to protect Israeli citizens” and that those who engage in “illegal actions” will be treated.
Israel Defense Forces leader Aviv Kohavi is expected to revoke the army pension of an officer facing sex crime charges, according to the army.
Lt. Col. Dan Sharoni, who has been accused of filming dozens of his subordinates while they were naked and collecting sex photographs of infantrymen and civilians for at least 8 years, reached a settlement with army prosecutors.
The deal, subject to approval by an army court, will see Sharoni demoted to the rank of soldier, and will pay reimbursement to the 49 victims, totaling NIS 250,000 ($72,000), according to the IDF.
Prosecutors have no easy time getting him jailed for several years.
On Monday, Ynet announced that Sharoni’s conviction would be delayed until he was old enough to get the military’s lucrative retirement program.
“The plea agreement does not come with an agreement related to the payment of the retirement pension,” the IDF said, adding that Kohavi will most likely deny Sharoni the retirement program.
COVID Czar Salman Zarka reiterates his call for Israelis returning from abroad to have PCR tests after arriving home, which are no longer mandatory, due to considerations about a new subvariant.
Zarka says the BA2. 75 subvariant is “mainly in India, but not only there. The arrival of new variants is worrying. “
In particular, he said, those returning from India, South Africa, Malta and Botswana will be screened after their return.
And while Zarka says he expects the sixth existing wave of COVID in Israel to start receding soon, he warns that a new seventh wave is most likely to be this fall. The timing is expected around the Nov. 1 election, he said, “and we are in discussion with the Central Election Commission to make sure all citizens are going to vote. “
Under a final barrage of cheers from his recently mutinous MPs, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulls out of his most decisive event in Los Angeles in Parliament, signing and saying, “Up to Los Angeles Vista, Bathrough!”
In an explosion of old verbiage opposed to his critics, Johnson defends his tumultuous three years in place — from Brexit and COVID vaccines to Ukraine — and praises the hopefuls fighting to succeed him, while fending off opposition attacks at his prime minister’s final session.
– AML (@LBC) July 20, 2022
Johnson, 58, says his tenure has been “the greatest privilege” of his life.
“We have reshaped our democracy and restored our national independence. . . I’ve helped this country during a pandemic and helped save another country from barbarism and frankly that’s enough to move forward,” he says. Mission in general part fulfilled”.
Likud MK Miri Regev is calling on right-wing lawmakers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to join forces ahead of the Nov. 1 election.
“We will do everything we can to get Itamar Ben Gvir and Smotrich to perceive things together,” Regev told Army Radio. “If they love this country more than their ego, they can solve [their] problems. “
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich stood together on the list of devout Zionists in the last election and were in talks this week to re-register in the forces, disagreements continue.
Likud sees their union as a positive thing for none of the parties, none of which is unwavering with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, to fall below the electoral threshold.
French President Emmanuel Macron calls for a return to israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a press conference alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The French president insists on the need to “renew the direct political discussion between Israelis and Palestinians. “He warns that violence can erupt at any time and that negotiations can be “a difficult path, but we have no alternative. “
Macron met with Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Paris two weeks ago, Lapid’s first vacation abroad, and then made similar comments, noting that “there is no choice but to resume political dialogue. “
In his own comments, Abbas denounced the Israeli murder and murder earlier this year of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh “with blood without bloodshed and without reason. “
“Who killed her? We need them to find out who did it,” he says.
He also repeats comments he made with U. S. President Joe Biden in Bethlehem last week, calling for the resumption of talks on the basis of a two-state solution.
Russia’s military targets in Ukraine are no longer “solely” in the east of the country, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that Western arms shipments have replaced the Kremlin’s calculation.
“Geography is now different. It is only about the DNR and the NRL, but also about the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region and a number of other territories,” Lavrov told state media in an interview. “This procedure continues, constantly and persistently. “
MP Yamina Nir Orbach, one of the latest coups to topple the outgoing governing coalition, has publicly called on the party’s new leader, Ayelet Shaked, to reconsider her electoral approach.
“The experiment failed, it’s time to start over,” Orbach says in a video of the crusade circulating on social media and WhatsApp. “I appeal to my friends: there is no more room for experimentation. to sign up for the house of the faithful right.
Yamina, formerly led by Deputy Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, broke away from the classic national-religious Jewish Home party to attract a greater diversity of voters, but failed to win a significant slice of the electoral pie. Lately, the party votes below the electoral threshold in the maximum polls, although those polls are not reliable.
Proud of his role in breaking up the coalition, Orbach’s video appears to be aimed at two audiences: the Likud and his former political hotbed of Yamina.
Orbach has not yet reached an agreement with either side, but resources familiar with the matter verify that he still hopes to get a ministerial position in the Likud.
Likud has signaled that it will not offer Orbach a guaranteed spot on its list, and resources familiar with the matter say it will not run for a spot in the primaries.
Despite the examples beyond where the Likud has reneged on its promises to provide ministerial posts, Orbach can simply pursue a course of action that positions him in the Knesset but allows him to be appointed externally.
The European Commission is urging EU countries to reduce their demand for herbal fuel by 15% in the coming winter months to triumph over “blackmail” in Russia’s energy supply.
In a statement, the EU executive also called on member states to grant it special powers to impose the call for cuts if Russia cuts off fuel supplies in Europe.
“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia uses power as a weapon and therefore, in any case, whether it is a primary partial shutdown of Russian fuel or a general shutdown. . . Europe will have to be prepared,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. he told reporters.
Tehran says its nuclear policy has not changed and it still adheres to a fatwa banning weapons of mass destruction, after an Iranian official said the country is capable of making atomic bombs.
“As far as the issue of weapons of mass destruction is concerned, we have the fatwa,” or devout edict, of Iran’s ideal leader banning the manufacture of such weapons, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
The fatwa states that the use of atomic bombs and other weapons of mass destruction is haram, or forbidden by Islam, and the Iranian government cites it as a guarantee of Tehran’s clever intentions.
“It turns out that there has been no replacement in the vision and position of the Islamic Republic of Iran” in relation to nuclear policy, Kanani told a news conference.
His comments came in response to comments made by Kamal Kharazi, head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, to Al Jazeera on Sunday about Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons.
“It’s no secret that we have the technical ability to make atomic bombs, but we haven’t made a resolution about it,” Kharazi said, before reiterating Iran’s position that it doesn’t need to make a nuclear bomb.
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