The Times of Israel livestreamed Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s haredi coalition partners are not finding it easy for the government’s entire judicial reform legislative procedure to be halted indefinitely and brought forward if there is broad agreement, according to a report.
Quoting the head of one of the ultra-Orthodox factions in the Knesset, journalist Ishay Cohen of the Kikar HaShabbat news site said on Channel Twelfth that the Haredi coalition partners are deeply concerned about Netanyahu’s conduct and feel that he is trying to divert grievances from himself towards the Haredi community. She added that she opposes recent incidents of discrimination against women by ultra-Orthodox bus drivers and passengers.
The report says the haredi parties have divided Israelis too much and are even willing to have Justice Minister Yariv Levin leave office, as he threatens to do if spending does not move fast enough.
The report adds that if other opposition deal review expenses are put to a vote, haredi parties will vote against them.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah seeks war with Israel, warning that if war breaks out between the Jewish state and Lebanon, “there will be no Israel. “
In a televised speech marking 17 years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, the leader of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist organization says the IDF has gradually “weakened” since it allegedly “defeated” it in 2006.
“I say to the enemy: according to all the evidence, you will return to the Stone Age if you move on to war,” Nasrallah said, according to the Al-Manar website, echoing a risk recently made by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who opposed it. to Lebanon.
Nasrallah also claims that a Hezbollah truck, believed to involve Iranian anti-tank missiles, which overturned last week in the Christian village of Kahale, triggering violent clashes with the local community, a “natural accident. “
A standoff has escalated between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners over whether to legislate a “waiver clause” to exemptions from judicial review of army projects for haredi men.
Several Hebrew media outlets cite unidentified resources in Netanyahu’s Likud party as saying that no such waiver will be introduced, which will likely face intense opposition and galvanize foreign consequences, despite the Likud’s commitment in coalition agreements to legislate it, as the “situation has changed. “
But the resources of the haredi Shas and Yahadut HaTorah parties reportedly insisted that the promise be kept, and an anonymous haredi minister explicitly threatened to topple the party and call early elections on the issue.
“The instruction we gained from the rabbis is unequivocal: without an enlistment law that includes a clause nonetheless on this issue, we will leave the government,” the minister was quoted as saying by the Kikar HaShabbat news site.
“There will be no parties, Netanyahu will not be there to postpone this or ask for compromises. That is the position of the rabbis, even to the accusation of going to the elections.
An Israeli man has been arrested in Turkey for more than a week, after officials at Antalya airport discovered a decorative bell they say is an ancient artifact that he says he bought at a local market for $100, presents a receipt and says it is a mass-produced product.
https://twitter. com/ynetalerts/status/1691142498897326080
The Acre resident is suspected of trying to smuggle an ancient artifact out of the country and the Turkish government refuses to accept any intervention through Israeli officials in the case, Hebrew media reported.
His wife and children were allowed to fly out of Turkey last week at the end of a family vacation, and his son Shlomi called for help, speaking to several media outlets.
“We want the most important officials in the country,” he told Ynet. “My father is an elderly user with medical disorders and his scenario is not pleasant. He needs to move from home and is under very high intellectual pressure.
The relatives returned to Turkey with their release. A local lawyer estimated those efforts will take several weeks.
An airstrike killed at least 26 other people in Ethiopia’s Amhara region the previous day, a hospital official and a resident told AFP, as the region continues to be rocked by deadly clashes.
“Twenty-two bodies were taken to the hospital, while another 4 who were seriously injured died shortly after arriving at the hospital” in Finote Selam, the hospital official said, while one resident said he had “assisted in the burial of the bodies of 30 victims. “
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with a senior Fitch Ratings official before the company confirmed Israel’s A credit rating and strong outlook, public broadcaster Kan and the Twelfth Channel reported.
The reports imply that the assembly helped convince Fitch officials that the government has given up on adopting a “nevertheless clause” as part of its judicial reform and is no longer an automatic majority coalition on the judicial variety committee.
Earlier in the day, the Egyptian president welcomed the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders, Sisi’s spokesman said, adding that they had discussed the hypothesis about Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel.
Sisi met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the coastal city of El Alamein, Egyptian presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said.
During a tripartite meeting, the leaders discussed “the progress of the Palestinian cause” and expressed a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian standoff with East Jerusalem as the long-term Palestinian capital, Fahmy said in a later statement.
But while the issue of imaginable Israeli-Saudi normalization is not mentioned in the official statement, a Palestinian source close to the matter told AFP that it is the key issue on the table.
The summit was held “to discuss U. S. efforts to achieve normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and the Palestinian Authority’s demands to sign such an agreement,” the source said.
The Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, and the Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Shelley, meet in Abu Dhabi with the Minister of Industry and Technology of the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Al Jaber, and the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Jordan, Saleh al-Kharabsheh, the Minister of Water, Muhammad Al-Anja, and Minister of Environmental Protection Mu’ Awiyah Radaida. They are joined through White House weather aide David Livingston.
According to Israel, representatives are discussing the final stages of the water-for-electricity agreement between Israel and Jordan, which will be signed at the COP28 climate convention in Dubai.
They are talking about a 4G deal that is expected to be signed at the November convention between Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
Hundreds of protesters converge on the front of Moshav Ramot near the Sea of Galilee, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embarking on a new holiday, a day later than originally planned, after the prime minister forced him back to hold a series. of high security brass gaskets.
– כאן חדשות (@kann_news) August 14, 2023
Anti-Netanyahu demonstrators wave Israeli flags and wear T-shirts with pro-democracy slogans calling for resistance against the government’s judicial reform, as the minister’s convoy arrives.
Some protesters waited and staged a protest flyover over the Moshav and the Sea of Galilee this morning, with symptoms calling Netanyahu a “liar. “
— חנה קים (@hkim14050017) August 14, 2023
“The lying, divisive and inciting tyrant is cooperating with messianic enemies from within,” protest organizers said in a statement. “The defendant will not enjoy the pleasures of life at our expense while destroying our country. “
Last week, Netanyahu’s last vacation on the Neve Ativ network in the Golan was also accompanied by protests. First, the police did not allow the protesters to enter the network, prompting them to form a tent camp nearby.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was running with security chiefs to tackle the country’s “great challenges,” a day after Hebrew media reported he had shouted at IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi and other top brass about his inability to prevent a wave of refusals. to report to workin protest of the government’s judicial reform.
In a brief message, Netanyahu tweeted that he “works day and night with the defense minister, army chief, senior IDF officials and security forces to jointly ensure Israel’s security in all circumstances. “
A 7-year-old boy is seriously injured after falling from a balcony on the third floor of a residential construction in the predominantly haredi town of Bnei Brak.
According to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, the boy was transported to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva with multisystem trauma.
More than 10,000 chickens died in the north during the excessive heatwave, prompting a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture that this happened in replaced chicken coops without integrated air conditioning and refrigeration systems.
The ministry adds that due to the excess in egg and poultry markets, there is no shortage despite the large deaths of laying hens and birds raised for the meat industry.
“The need to improve poultry houses becomes more appropriate year after year due to climate change,” says Dr. Tamir Goshen, the ministry’s veterinary director.
– Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) August 14, 2023
Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer said no extraction missions are planned from Gondar in Ethiopia for citizens claiming to have Jewish roots.
Sofer said this, according to the Ynet news site, during a meeting with activists who rushed to increase Ethiopia’s immigration quotas following their protest rally in Jerusalem, in which many Israelis of Ethiopian descent demanded that more people be allowed to enter Israel from Africa. country amid fighting between rival factions in their northern provinces.
“Today proves that we are not brothers,” the Fight for the Return of Ethiopian Jews, an unofficial alliance of activists, said after the meeting. of the hell of war, they are directly to blame for their fate. “
Last week, Israel extracted another 204 people who the government says are Israeli or eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return for Jews and their family members.
Ethiopia has thousands of other people who claim to have Jewish roots but are not eligible to immigrate under this law. This group, known as Falash Mura, emerged from Ethiopian Jews who switched to Christianity under duress in the nineteenth century.
The Falash Mura were again concentrated in Ethiopia, while Israel extracted in the 1990s and 1980s what is considered the largest and oldest Jewish presence in Ethiopia, known as Beta Israel. He had re-specialized in the country to be allowed to immigrate.
At a Sofer meeting, his office sidestepped the factor by referring only to immigration under the Law of Return.
“Any other eligibility application to make aliyah to Israel under the Law of Return will be thoroughly examined and processed,” his workplace said. Sofer listened to questions posed by immigration activists Falash Muraa “and responded that the matter is being seriously considered as and will be dealt with in an orderly manner,” Sofer’s said.
The Jerusalem District Court is rejecting lawyers’ request that Yehiel Indore, the main suspect in the shooting death of a Palestinian this month, be sent to space arrest.
Indore is suspected of shooting dead 19-year-old Qusai Jamal Matan during a clash on August 4 in the Palestinian village of Burqa. maximum time of his detention in a hospital until he was transferred to a medical center of the penal service.
Indore was sentenced Friday by a lower court to remain in detention until at least this week after law enforcement requested a 10-day extension, saying they had significant evidence for his case.
In today’s ruling, Judge Alexander Mor states that while Indore’s self-defense claim is legitimate, the lower court’s ruling is moderate and does not justify intervention.
At the hearing, a police officer argued that Indore’s editing of occasions is incompatible with the descriptions and topography of the area, which “refutes the argument of self-defense. “
The representative said the answers to Indore’s interrogation showed “selective memory,” and the suspect went into detail when describing Palestinians and their movements, while avoiding the main points when asked about the Jews involved.
Indore’s lawyer, Nati Rom of the Hosenu law group, s Indore had “cognitive problems” and that “his emotional and cognitive state is deteriorating now that he is no longer hospitalized. “
Another hearing on Indore’s removal is scheduled for tomorrow.
A soldier convicted of reckless murder for the murder of a comrade at a military base near Jerusalem earlier this year, will be sentenced to 3 years in prison as part of a plea deal.
The Israel Defense Forces said the army police soldier, named Pvt. Binyamin Fentaye, who entered a room at the Anatot base on the night of January 2, took a weapon that was not his and “performed actions” that led him to open fire, killing the corporal. Baruch Kabarta.
The soldier is also charged with obstruction of justice after he allegedly tried to dissuade the soldier from offering main points about the shooting.
Following a mediation procedure between prosecutors and the soldier’s defense team, Fentaye confessed to the rate of reckless homicide, and the parties requested that he be sentenced to 3 years in prison, to the IDF.
In addition, the soldier will get a suspended sentence and will be ordered to pay reimbursement to Kabarta’s family, which has already been done as part of the mediation process.
Prosecutors told the army court that the agreed sentence is “more severe” compared to similar cases of death as a result of accidental failures and that it “reflects the severity with which it views the case and aims to avoid long-term mistakes. “nature. ” nice. “
The will will officially deliver judgment on August 30.
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen is scheduled to fly today to Paraguay and Uruguay, where he will attend the inauguration of Paraguay’s new president, Santiago Peña, in Asuncion. He will also meet with the presidents and foreign ministers of both countries.
Paraguay moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, then brought it back to Tel Aviv a few months later with the election of a new president. In retaliation, Israel closed its embassy in Asuncion and reopened it.
Peña said he would bring the embassy back to Jerusalem, which is likely to be announced this week with the reopening of the Israeli embassy.
Most likely, Cohen will also meet with officials from other countries at Peña’s inauguration. He is expected to return to Latin America in the coming months, focusing on Central America.
Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, who is widely known for exerting influence over his father, posts a Facebook post criticizing IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi for failing to crack down on reservists who refused to run as a component of the coalition’s judicial reform.
The publication, written by right-wing journalist Erez Tadmor, claims that Halevi “will be remembered as the greatest failed leader in the history of the IDF. “
Yair Netanyahu removed the post after it was widely reported in the media.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a former IDF chief, questions Halevi’s support, allegedly in reaction to the controversy, saying he is “one of the most remarkable officials I have met in all my years in the IDF and security forces: a brave, honest, serious, sensible, and meticulous commander.
“To the Israeli country largely because of the fact that in those complex times, Chief of Staff Halevi is at the head of the IDF. “
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issues a brief response to a series of incidents of discrimination against secular women by bus drivers or haredi passengers in recent days.
“The State of Israel is a flexible country, in which no one will put limits on the use of public navigation and in which no one will dictate where you will sit,” he said. “Those who do this are breaking the law and will have to be punished. “
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid will meet Thursday for a regular briefing on regime security, Lapid said.
This assembly took a position 3 months ago.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcome Fitch Ratings’ joint confirmation of credit rating A and Israel’s strong credit outlook.
Both men argue that the resolution “proves what we have said many times from the beginning: Israel’s economy is strong, solid and resilient thanks to our guilty and conservative policies. “
Denigrating public attention to widespread fears of possible economic consequences as a result of the coalition’s far-reaching judicial reform plan, they add: fake panic campaigns on news networks.
Energy Minister Israel Katz is in Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE Minister of Technology and Industry Sultan Al-Jaber and Jordanian Environment, Water and Energy Ministers.
They will discuss a water-for-electricity allocation negotiated through the UAE between Israel and Jordan, in which Israel supplies desalinated water in exchange for the force produced through Jordanian solar force fields. The solar installation will be built through an Emirati company.
According to an updated memorandum of understanding signed by the 3 countries last November, tangible progress should be made through the COP28 convention to be held in Dubai next November.
Katz, who is expected to be foreign minister later this year, is the first Israeli minister to stop in the United Arab Emirates since Netanyahu’s government came to power in December.
– ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) August 13, 2023
Construction of a questionable wind turbine project in the Golan Heights, which sparked widespread protests from members of the Druze community, has not resumed despite the Prime Minister’s Office telling the company that the project could not be operational again. later than August 1.
In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a temporary halt to the allocation following widespread violent protests and established an inter-ministerial committee to address the issue.
In a letter sent by Netanyahu’s army secretary, Avi Gil, to Energix, the project’s company, developers were told the committee would deliver its findings by July 19 and asked to delay construction until early August.
However, the Committee has met twice and plans to meet for a third time. It has yet to provide any results, according to Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site.
Lately, Energix is willing to wait a little longer in hopes that the challenge can be properly resolved, Zman Yisrael reports, but notes that if the state continues to block the project, it could open itself up to a refund claim, as the company has done. it has already invested about NIS 500 million ($133 million).
The National Transplant Center reports that on Sunday, the corneas of Chen Amir, Tel Aviv municipal patrolman, were indeed transplanted at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital. a anonymous.
Amir, a 42-year-old married father of 3, was killed on August 5 by a Palestinian terrorist from Jenin whom Amir and his wife were seen acting suspiciously in Tel Aviv’s bustling Nahlat Biyamin neighborhood. The gunman, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, did not respond to calls from Amir and his spouse. As the two patrol boats exited their motorcycles, the terrorist opened fire with a pistol, killing Amir in the head. Amir’s colleague chased the terrorist and shot him dead.
After Amir was officially declared dead in Ichilov, his wife said she and her husband were in favor of organ donation and had organ donation cards. As a result, Amir’s corneas and tissues (skin and tendons) were donated for transplantation.
The Israeli soldier who collapsed and died this morning near the city center of Elad is called Pvt. Ltd. Hillel Nehemiah Ofan, 20, from Carmei Tzur’s West Bank agreement.
Ofan, who served in Yahalom’s elite combat engineer unit, was posthumously promoted to corporal.
The army is investigating the cases that led to Ofan collapsing and dying. First responders reported suffering from heat stroke or dehydration.
Fitch Ratings confirms Israel’s A credit rating with a solid outlook, as it did in March, while continuing to warn that it opposes the prospect of the government advancing more parts of its judicial reform.
In its report, Fitch states that the maximum score “balances a diversified, resilient, high-value-added economy and sound external finances against a higher public debt-to-GDP ratio, persistent security hazards, and a history of volatile governments that have hampered policymaking. “
Echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments in talks abroad, Fitch said that “the government’s initial judicial reform program has been watered down, but it remains highly debatable and pits civil society and the political opposition against each other. “
It points to the passage of the reasonableness law and Netanyahu’s stated plan to replace the composition of the judicial variety commission, while noting that this plan would no longer aim to give the full coalition over the variety of judges, and the shelving of the plan. to approve a “notwithstanding clause”.
“Fitch believes that adjustments may have a negative effect on Israel’s credit measures if weaker institutional controls lead to worse political outcomes or sustain negative investor sentiment or weaken governance indicators,” the report said.
But on a more positive note, it adds: “Fitch considers that the existing measures are unlikely to cause a drastic exodus of skills and capital into the high-tech sector. “They still have to drape.
Fitch forecasts “GDP expansion of around 3. 1% in 2023 and 3. 0% in 2024, according to the Bank of Israel’s (BOI) forward-looking estimate of around 3. 8% in line with the year and then 6. 4% in 2022, due to base effects, slow global expansion and tight financial policy.
As for Israel’s emerging inflation, Fitch predicts that it “will continue to slow through the end of the year as import costs fall and final inflation slows with moderation in consumption and investment. “
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