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Tag: Jerusalem

  • Two wounded in shooting in Jerusalem, police say, after synagogue attack leaves seven dead | CNN

    Two wounded in shooting in Jerusalem, police say, after synagogue attack leaves seven dead | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two people were wounded in a shooting attack in Jerusalem on Saturday, emergency services say, the day after a gunman killed at least seven people near a synagogue in the city.

    The two men injured in the City of David area of Jerusalem on Saturday, one aged 22 and one in his 40s, are father and son, according to police. A 13-year-old who police say shot and wounded the pair was “neutralized and injured” by “two passers-by carrying licensed weapons.”

    Tensions in Israel and the Palestinian territories remain high after Friday’s shooting, which police chief Yaakov Shabtai described as “one of the worst terror attacks in the past few years.” The shooter in that attack was also later killed by police forces, according to police.

    “As a result of the shooting attack, the death of 7 civilians was determined and 3 others were injured with additional degrees of injury,” police said.

    Five of the shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency rescue service said: four men and a woman. Five people were transported to hospitals, where another man and woman were declared dead. Among the wounded is a 15-year-old boy, the MDA said.

    The attack occurred around 8:15 p.m. local time on Friday, near a synagogue on Neve Yaakov Street, according to a police statement.

    Shabtai said the gunman “started shooting at anyone that was in his way. He got in his car and started a killing spree with a pistol at short range.” He then fled the scene in a vehicle and was killed after a shootout with police forces, police said.

    Police identified the gunman as a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem, saying in a statement that he appeared to have acted alone. East Jerusalem is a predominantly Palestinian area of the city, which was captured by Israel in 1967.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged people against revenge attacks on Friday night. “I call on the people not to take the law into their own hands. For that purpose we have an army, police and security forces. They act and will act according to the cabinet instructions,” he said.

    Friday’s incident came one day after the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records.

    On Thursday, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded several others in the West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, prompting the Palestinian Authority to suspend security coordination with Israel. A tenth Palestinian was killed that day in what Israel Police called a “violent disturbance” near Jerusalem.

    Overnight, on Friday morning local time, Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza strip after rockets were fired towards Israel.

    Israel’s controversial National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the scene of the attack on Friday evening, telling people who were chanting angrily that “it cannot continue like this.”

    “I can tell you, [the people chanting] you are right. The burden is on us. It cannot continue like this,” Ben Gvir, who also leads the far-right Jewish Power party, said.

    Some people on the scene were chanting support for Ben Gvir, saying “You are our voice, we support you.”

    CNN’s Hadas Gold and team, who were also at the scene of Friday night’s shooting, heard what sounded like celebratory gunfire and car horns honking from the nearby predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina.

    The White House condemned the “heinous terror attack” at a synagogue in Jerusalem on Friday and said the United States government has extended its “full support” to Israel, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

    The US State Department also condemned the “apparent terrorist attack” in Jerusalem “in the strongest terms.”

    “This is absolutely horrific,” said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel. “Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to those killed and injured in this heinous act of violence.”

    Patel said no change to the schedule of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank was expected.

    Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks with Israeli forces on January 27, 2023.

    The European Union, France and the UK also condemned the shooting.

    “I am appalled by reports of the terrible attack in Neve Yaakov tonight. Attacking worshippers at a synagogue on Erev Shabat is a particularly horrific act of terrorism. The UK stands with Israel,” Neil Wigan, the British ambassador in Israel wrote on Twitter.

    The EU ambassador to Israel, Dimiter Tzantchev, also condemned the “senseless violence,” saying in his tweet, “Terror is never the answer.”

    And the French embassy in Israel tweeted that the incident was “all the more despicable as it was committed on this day of international remembrance of the Holocaust.”

    United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also condemned Friday’s deadly attack, his spokesman said.

    “It is particularly abhorrent that the attack occurred at a place of worship, and on the very day we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” he said.

    Guterres also expressed worry “about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory,” urging all “to exercise utmost restraint.”

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  • Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank with tensions high after outbreak of violence | CNN Politics

    Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank with tensions high after outbreak of violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah next week has gained new urgency after a wave of deadly violence in Israel and the West Bank.

    His trip, which also includes a stop in Egypt, was already expected to be complicated, as it will be the top US diplomat’s first visit to Israel since the new Israeli government, which includes ultra-nationalists and ultra-religious parties, took power.

    Now, Blinken is poised to face a rapidly escalating crisis that shows no signs of de-escalation.

    At least seven people were killed in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Jerusalem Friday that is being described as a terrorist attack. Israeli police said the gunman, who was killed by police, was a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem who appeared to have acted alone.

    On Thursday, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded several others in a raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin. Another Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli troops later that day in the town of al-Ram, adding to the death toll on what was the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records. Then overnight on Friday Israel launched air strikes on Gaza after rockets were fired towards Israel.

    The Palestinian Authority responded to the Jenin raid by announcing that it will cease security coordination with Israel starting immediately.

    While US officials have indicated that the days of violence will not upend the top diplomat’s trip, the White House on Friday condemned the “heinous terror attack” on the synagogue and State Department officials on Thursday expressed concern about the security situation following the Jenin raid.

    “There is the potential for things to worsen in security terms, in terms of protests or any other kind of kinetic action,” Barbara Leaf, the top State Department official for the region, told reporters on Thursday ahead of the synagogue shooting, adding that the department is in close touch with diplomatic and security personnel on the ground. She also urged the two sides to retain and deepen security coordination.

    The Biden administration has been careful in its language and sought to publicly avoid criticizing the new government in Israel, which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and includes controversial far-right government ministers. Over the past few weeks, US officials have held numerous engagements with the new government – Blinken’s trip follows visits by national security adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director Bill Burns. Israel is one of the US’s staunchest allies and the importance of the relationship was underlined earlier this week as the two nations launched their largest joint military exercise ever on Monday.

    Aaron David Miller, who served for two decades at the State Department as an analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues, told CNN that he has “never seen an administration engage with a new Israeli Government as frequently and as early and at as senior level as this one.”

    “I think their strategy was basically to say, ‘OK, you formed this government, your hands are on the wheel. You told us you’re in charge, and we’re now going to engage with you directly and intensely. Because if things head south, you’re the one who’s going to have to be responsible with respect to controlling your own ministers,’” he said. Miller said he predicts the relationship between the two administrations will be publicly non-confrontational, especially as Biden looks to ensure he is seen as pro-Israel ahead of a potential US reelection campaign.

    The far-right elements of the new Israeli government, meanwhile, have already exacerbated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

    The new national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism. Earlier this year, after being named minister, he visited the Jerusalem compound known as Temple Mount by Jews and the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary by Muslims, in a move that drew international condemnation.

    Although he visited during open hours for non-Muslims, his visit was seen as controversial because Ben Gvir has publicly called for changes to the delicate status quo agreement that governs the compound.

    State Department spokesman Ned Price responded at the time by saying that the US believed the visit has “the potential to exacerbate tensions and to provoke violence.”

    Although the Biden administration has advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there has been very little movement and seemingly few active efforts toward that goal. It is something that Blinken will address during his meetings with Israelis and Palestinians, said Leaf, the State Department official.

    Miller said he does not expect any progress to be made on this issue during Blinken’s visit, which will instead be more of an “extended condolence call” due to the synagogue attack in Jerusalem Friday.

    Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the advocacy group J-Street, which pushes for a two-state solution, said that he believes Blinken’s trip is well-timed, and sends an important message about American involvement.

    He said the administration should try to articulate both privately to the new Israeli government as well as publicly the things that the US would find unacceptable, such as “plans for what amounts to de facto annexation of territory on the West Bank.”

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  • Armenian museum reopens in Jerusalem’s Old City

    Armenian museum reopens in Jerusalem’s Old City

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    JERUSALEM (AP) — A hundred years after taking in scores of children whose parents were killed in the Armenian genocide, a 19th-century orphanage in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter has reopened its doors as a museum documenting the community’s rich, if pained, history.

    The Mardigian Museum showcases Armenian culture and tells of the community’s centuries-long connection to the holy city. At the same time, it is a memorial to around 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks around World War I, in what many scholars consider the 20th century’s first genocide.

    Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

    Director Tzoghig Karakashian said the museum is meant to serve as “a passport for people to know about the Armenians” and to understand their part of Jerusalem’s history.

    The museum reopened in late 2022 after a more than five-year renovation project. Before that, the building — originally a pilgrim guesthouse built in the 1850s — served as a monastery, an orphanage for children who survived the genocide, a seminary and ultimately a small museum and library.

    Jerusalem is home to a community of around 6,000 Armenians, many of them descendants of people who fled the genocide. Many inhabit one of the historic Old City’s main quarters, a mostly enclosed compound abutting the 12th-century Armenian cathedral of St. James.

    But the Armenians’ link to the holy city stretches back centuries, from monks and pilgrims during the late Roman Empire to Armenian queens of Crusader Jerusalem.

    The museum’s centerpiece, filling the sunlit courtyard, is an exquisite 5th or 6th century mosaic adorned with exotic birds and vines discovered in 1894 on the grounds of an ancient Armenian monastery complex. It bears an inscription in Armenian dedicated to “the memorial and salvation of all Armenians whose names the Lord knows.”

    For decades, the mosaic remained in a small museum near the Old City’s Damascus Gate. In 2019, the Israeli Antiquities Authority and the Armenian Patriarchate undertook the laborious task of removing the mosaic floor and transporting it across town to the newly refurbished museum.

    From elaborately carved stone crosses known as “khachkars” to iconic painted tiles and priestly vestments, the museum showcases Armenian material art, while also excelling in telling the Armenian story of survival. While Jerusalem changed hands as empires rose and fell, the Armenians remained.

    “Surviving means to not be seen,” said Arek Kahkedjian, a museum tour guide. “We survived without people knowing what or who we are, and today we feel ready to show you and teach about the history and heritage, about the culture, and to show you how we advance and modernize with the times.”

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  • Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

    Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    It was a rare embrace between one of Israel’s most controversial politicians and an Arab ambassador. Itamar Ben Gvir and the United Arab Emirates’ Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja clutched each other’s hands in a warm greeting in Tel Aviv in early December.

    “Birds of a feather flock together,” wrote a columnist in Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, arguing that the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel gain recognition from four Arab states including the UAE in 2020, did little to moderate Israel’s position on the Palestinians. Ben Gvir, he said, was “a superstar in the UAE.”

    Israel on Thursday swore in what is likely to be the most right-wing government in its history, led by six-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben Gvir, an extremist who has been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, became national security minister. Bezalel Smotrich, who supports abolishing the Palestinian Authority and annexing the West Bank, became finance minister.

    Both politicians were invited to national day celebrations in December hosted by the UAE and Bahrain, which were among the nations that normalized relations with Israel, along with Morocco and Sudan in 2020.

    “The Emirates are here to show that unity equals prosperity,” Al Khaja was cited by the Times of Israel as saying at his country’s national day celebration, where he was photographed with Ben Gvir. “We will continue to use diplomacy to deepen connections through friendship and mutual respect.”

    The public embrace of figures that are hated in the Arab world – and are divisive within Israel itself – is a rare gesture on the part of Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel.

    Egypt and Jordan, who recognized Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, have had what observers have called a “cold peace” with Israel.

    In his phone call to congratulate Netanyahu on returning as prime minister, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “emphasized the need to avoid any measures that would lead to tension and complicate the regional situation.” Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned in a CNN interview last month that his nation was “prepared” for conflict should the situation change at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, of which he is the custodian.

    The rightward direction of Israeli politics puts Israel’s new Arab partners in an awkward position regarding the Palestinian cause, which remains a central issue among Arab publics.

    “It is awkward not just for us (in the UAE), but for everybody, in America, and all over the place,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the UAE, told CNN. “It is a dilemma, but the way to deal with it is just to wait and see.”

    An opinion poll by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in July 2022 showed that support for the Abraham Accords had dropped in Gulf countries to a minority view, including the UAE and Bahrain, where more than 70% of the public views the agreement negatively. The data however also showed that around 40% of people in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain support maintaining business and sporting ties with Israel.

    The normalizing states appear to be cognizant of that. On Friday, all four Arab states continued the tradition of supporting the Palestinians at the United Nations by voting at the General Assembly to seek the International Criminal Court’s opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Netanyahu called the vote “despicable.”

    But Israeli media has reported that behind the scenes, the Emiratis have also been sending messages of concern to Netanyahu about the inclusion of extremists in his government. Ahead of the Israeli elections, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed warned Netanyahu against including Ben Gvir and Smotrich in his government, the Times of Israel reported, citing a senior official. Axios, which first reported the news, said Netanyahu didn’t respond.

    The move would be a rare case of one of Israel’s Arab partners showing a preference for the country’s domestic politics.

    The UAE foreign ministry didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Israeli analyst Zvi Bar’el wrote in Haaretz that the December move to embrace Ben Gvir may have been linked to Abu Dhabi’s desire to steer Israeli policy, adding that it made the UAE “the Arab country with the greatest influence on the new Israeli government.”

    The effectiveness of the UAE’s diplomacy within Israel remains to be seen. So far, Israel’s extremist minister seems unrestrained.

    Less than a week since he was sworn in, Ben Gvir made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound escorted by Israeli police on Tuesday. The mosque, which lies in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, is in an area known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. It is the third holiest site for Muslims and the holiest for Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount. Under current arrangements, non-Muslims aren’t allowed to pray there and Ben Gvir wants to change that.

    The UAE “strongly” condemned Ben Gvir’s visit without naming the minister, and called for the need to respect Jordan’s custodianship of the holy site. It later joined China in calling for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the matter.

    “However unhappy they (Bahrain and the UAE) might be towards the emergence of Israel’s most right-wing government, it’s clear that they’ve chosen to air these concerns privately, and have stopped short of letting them stand in the way of what they see as an important strategic relationship,” Elham Fakhro, a research fellow at the Centre for Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, England, told CNN.

    But the UAE has said earlier that the more friendly ties with the Arab world weren’t a green light for Israel to expand its territory. In June 2020, Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, warned Israel that its relations with Arab nations would suffer if there is any “illegal seizure of Palestinian land.”

    Abdullah, the professor from the UAE, said that Abu Dhabi may have some leverage over Israel that it may use privately at times, but added that ultimately “everybody knows that nobody today has any leverage over Israel. Even America.”

    Still, the UAE-Israel relationship is not everlasting, he said. “This relationship is going to be dictated by the UAE… When it doesn’t serve the interest of the UAE… it can collapse at any time.”

    With additional reporting by Nadeen Ebrahim

    Turkey’s ruling party mulls bringing elections ‘slightly’ forward

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party is considering a “slight change” on the date of elections scheduled for mid-June, Reuters cited AK Party spokesman Omer Celik as saying on Monday. Since the date of the elections corresponds with the summer holiday season, the party is evaluating bringing it “slightly forward,” he said.

    • Background: Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled to be held on June 18, and Erdogan previously said elections would be held in June. The date change would not amount to snap elections, Celik said.
    • Why it matters: The elections are set to take place as Turkey faces soaring inflation and an economic downturn that could hurt Erdogan’s prospects for re-election. But the government has of late tried to win back voter support through populist moves including wage hikes, retirement benefits, social aid, energy and agriculture support.

    Amnesty condemns Iran for upholding protester death sentence

    Amnesty International on Monday condemned the Iranian supreme court’s decision to uphold the death sentence of protester Mohammad Boroughani, who according to Iranian state media is accused of stabbing a security guard during a protest.

    • Background: Boroughani will be executed under the “moharebeh law,” or waging war against God, the state-aligned Tasnim news agency said. Prior to the supreme court’s confirmation of the sentence, he was sentenced to death by a revolutionary court during a group trial in Tehran presided by notorious judge Abolghasem Salavati, Amnesty said.
    • Why it matters: The protester is among 26 others identified by Amnesty last month as being at risk of execution in connection to the country’s nationwide protests. Iran has already carried out two protest-related executions over the past months of unrest. CNN has verified that at least 43 detainees are facing execution. The situation has drawn strong criticism from several European countries, including Germany, France and Britain.

    Iran’s judiciary indicts two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage

    Iran has indicted two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage and working against the country’s national security, Reuters reported, citing the semi-official Student News Network on Tuesday. The agency did not give the names of the three or say where or when they were indicted.

    • Background: Belgium’s justice minister said last month that Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele had been sentenced to 28 years in prison in Iran for what he called a “fabricated series of crimes.” Iranian media aired a video in October in which two French citizens appeared to confess to spying. The video sparked outrage in France, which said the detainees were “state hostages.”
    • Why it matters: A total of seven French citizens are being held in Iran, France’s foreign minister said in November. Iran has accused foreign adversaries of fomenting the wave of unrest that erupted three months ago. The protests mark one of the boldest challenges to the country’s leadership since its 1979 Islamic Revolution and have drawn in Iranians from all walks of life.

    Regional: #HalaRonaldo (Hello, Ronaldo)

    Soccer fans in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are celebrating the arrival of famed Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo in Riyadh, who touched down in the kingdom on Tuesday ahead of his unveiling ceremony with the Al Nassr Football Club.

    Twitter was flooded with images of Ronaldo wearing the club’s yellow and blue colors, smiling on large billboards in the Saudi capital. Memes showed “sheikh Ronaldo” dressed in Arab attire, and another showed him wearing a jersey with the “Just do it” slogan for his sponsor Nike crossed out and replaced with “inshallah” – God-willing in Arabic.

    A magazine in Saudi Arabia even put out ads for a full-time “Ronaldo correspondent,” Esquire magazine reported.

    “Welcome to the greatest player in the world,” tweeted one Saudi user, sharing a video of a framed photograph of Ronaldo holding his Al Nassr jersey.

    “The streets of Riyadh welcome Ronaldo,” tweeted one Kuwaiti social media influencer, saying Saudis are lucky their country has become home to such a high-status player.

    The celebrations quickly faded for some, however, when a video showing Ronaldo mistakenly refer to his new home as “South Africa” on Tuesday went viral. “So, for me it’s not the end of my career to come in South Africa. This is why I wanna change. And to be honest I don’t really worry about what the people say,” the soccer star said at a press conference in Riyadh on Tuesday.

    Some joked that Ronaldo accepted a large sum to play in Saudi Arabia only to get the country’s name wrong.

    Al Nassr FC announced on December 30 that the footballer was joining their team, tweeting a photo of Ronaldo in its jersey. The 37-year-old was a free agent and immediately available due to his high-profile break-up with Manchester United last month.

    By Nadeen Ebrahim

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  • Israeli ultranationalist minister visits Jerusalem holy site

    Israeli ultranationalist minister visits Jerusalem holy site

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    JERUSALEM — An ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet minister visited Tuesday a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site for the first time since taking office in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government last week. The visit is seen by Palestinians as a provocation.

    Earlier in the day, Palestinian officials said a 15-year-old boy was killed by Israeli army fire near the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. The Israeli military said its forces had shot a person involved in violent confrontations with soldiers.

    In Jerusalem, Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary flanked by a large contingent of police officers.

    Ben-Gvir has long called for greater Jewish access to the holy site, which is viewed by Palestinians as provocative and as a potential precursor to Israel taking complete control over the compound. Most rabbis forbid Jews from praying on the site, but there has been a growing movement in recent years of Jews who support worship there.

    The site has been the scene of frequent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces, most recently in April last year.

    The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which acts as custodian of the contested shrine, condemned Ben-Gvir’s visit “in the strongest terms.”

    Ben-Gvir’s stated intention of visiting the site earlier this week drew threats from the Islamic militant group Hamas.

    Ben-Gvir wrote on Twitter after his visit that the site “is open to all and if Hamas thinks that if it threatens me it will deter me, they should understand that times have changed.”

    Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that Ben-Gvir entering the site on Tuesday was “a continuation of the Zionist’s occupation aggression on our sacred places and war on our Arab identity.”

    “Our Palestinian people will continue defending their holy places and Al-Aqsa mosque,” he said.

    Ofir Gendelman, who has long served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Arabic-language spokesman, released a video showing that the “situation is completely calm” at the holy site following Ben-Gvir’s departure.

    The hilltop shrine is the third-holiest site in Islam and an emotional symbol for the Palestinians. It sits on a sprawling esplanade that also is the holiest site for Jews, who call it to the Temple Mount because it was the location of two Jewish temples in antiquity.

    The competing claims to the site lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have sparked numerous rounds of violence in the past.

    Ben-Gvir is head of the ultranationalist religious Jewish Power faction and has a history of inflammatory remarks and actions against Palestinians.

    A day earlier, opposition leader Yair Lapid, who until last week was Israel’s prime minister, spoke out against Ben-Gvir’s intended visit, saying it would “lead to violence that will endanger human lives and cost human lives.”

    His visit came following months of mounting tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. On Monday, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem said 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2004, a period of intense violence that came during a Palestinian uprising. It said nearly 150 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

    The Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids into Palestinian cities and towns since a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 last spring. A fresh wave of attacks killed at least another nine Israelis in the fall.

    In Tuesday’s shooting incident, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Adam Ayyad, 15, died of a bullet wound to the chest. The Israeli military said Border Police officers came under attack in the Dheisha refugee camp next to Bethlehem. It said troops shot at people throwing firebombs and confirmed that a person was shot.

    The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

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  • Today in History: December 21, Pilgrims go ashore

    Today in History: December 21, Pilgrims go ashore

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    Today in History

    Today is Wednesday, Dec. 21, the 355th day of 2022. There are 10 days left in the year. Winter begins at 4:48 p.m. EST.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 21, 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman concluded their “March to the Sea” as they captured Savannah, Georgia.

    On this date:

    In 1620, Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts.

    In 1891, the first basketball game, devised by James Naismith, is believed to have been played at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. (The final score of this experimental game: 1-0.)

    In 1913, the first newspaper crossword puzzle, billed as a “Word-Cross Puzzle,” was published in the New York World.

    In 1914, the U.S. government began requiring passport applicants to provide photographs of themselves.

    In 1945, U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton, 60, died in Heidelberg, Germany, 12 days after being seriously injured in a car accident.

    In 1976, the Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant broke apart near Nantucket Island off Massachusetts almost a week after running aground, spilling 7.5 million gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.

    In 1988, 270 people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pam Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, sending wreckage crashing to the ground.

    In 1991, eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

    In 1995, the city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.

    In 2009, the Obama administration imposed a 3-hour limit on how long airlines can keep passengers waiting inside planes delayed on the ground.

    In 2015, the nation’s three-decade-old ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men was formally lifted, but major restrictions continued to limit who could give blood in the U.S.

    In 2020, President-elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations were safe. The Vatican declared it “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used fetal tissue from abortions.

    Ten years ago: The National Rifle Association said guns and police officers were needed in all American schools to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings,” taking a no-retreat stance in the face of growing calls for gun control after the Newtown, Connecticut, shootings that claimed the lives of 26 children and school staff. President Barack Obama nominated Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state.

    Five years ago: The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to denounce President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, largely ignoring Trump’s threat to cut off aid to any country that went against him. Papa John’s announced that founder John Schnatter would step down as CEO; the company had apologized for his comments criticizing the NFL leadership over protests by players who knelt during the national anthem.

    One year ago: In an effort to fight the omicron coronavirus variant surging through the country, President Joe Biden announced that the government would provide 500 million free rapid home-testing kits, increase support for hospitals under strain and redouble vaccination and boosting efforts. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the nation’s third-largest city would start requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination at restaurants, bars, gyms and other indoor venues. Figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic.

    Today’s Birthdays: Talk show host Phil Donahue is 87. Actor Jane Fonda is 85. Actor Larry Bryggman is 84. Singer Carla Thomas is 80. Musician Albert Lee is 79. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is 78. Actor Josh Mostel is 76. Actor Samuel L. Jackson is 74. Rock singer Nick Gilder is 72. Movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg is 72. Actor Dennis Boutsikaris is 70. International Tennis Hall of Famer Chris Evert is 68. Actor Jane Kaczmarek is 67. Country singer Lee Roy Parnell is 66. Former child actor Lisa Gerritsen is 65. Actor-comedian Ray Romano is 65. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is 60. Country singer Christy Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 60. Rock musician Murph (The Lemonheads; Dinosaur Jr.) is 58. Actor-comedian Andy Dick is 57. Rock musician Gabrielle Glaser is 57. Actor Michelle Hurd is 56. Actor Kiefer Sutherland is 56. Actor Karri Turner is 56. Actor Khrystyne Haje is 54. Country singer Brad Warren (The Warren Brothers) is 54. Actor Julie Delpy is 53. Contemporary Christian singer Natalie Grant is 51. Actor Glenn Fitzgerald is 51. Singer-musician Brett Scallions is 51. World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb is 48. Rock singer Lukas Rossi (Rock Star Supernova) is 46. French President Emmanuel Macron is 45. Actor Rutina Wesley is 44. Rock musician Anna Bulbrook (Airborne Toxic Event) is 40. Country singer Luke Stricklin is 40. Actor Steven Yeun is 39. Actor Kaitlyn Dever is 26.

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  • Israel deports Palestinian activist to France

    Israel deports Palestinian activist to France

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    JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday deported a Palestinian lawyer and activist to France after claiming he has ties to a banned militant group, drawing a rare condemnation from the French government.

    The expulsion of Salah Hammouri underscored the fragile status of Palestinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, where most hold revocable residency rights but are not Israeli citizens. It also worsened a brewing diplomatic spat with France, which had repeatedly appealed to Israel not to carry out the expulsion.

    “I’m happy to announce that justice was served today and the terrorist Salah Hammouri was deported from Israel,” Israel’s interior minister, Ayelet Shaked, announced in a videotaped statement early Sunday. The expulsion capped months of legal wrangling.

    Hammouri, who was born in Jerusalem but holds French citizenship, landed in Paris just before 10 a.m. local time. Wearing a black track suit and black and white keffiyeh, or Palestinian headscarf, around his neck, he was greeted by his wife and a group of supporters.

    Some hugged him, and others clapped in support.

    Speaking to reporters, Hammouri accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and said his deportation was meant “to show the generations that nobody can resist Israel.” He vowed to fight the order.

    “I will continue my right to resist against this occupation until I have the right to go back to my country,” he said.

    Israel says Hammouri is an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that it has labeled a terrorist organization. He has worked as a lawyer for Adameer, a rights group that assists Palestinian prisoners that Israel has banned for alleged ties to the PFLP.

    He spent seven years in prison after being convicted in an alleged plot to kill a prominent rabbi but was released in a 2011 prisoner swap with the Hamas militant group. He was not charged or convicted in the latest proceedings against him.

    Israel, however, claimed he continued his activities with the banned group, stripped him of residency, and placed him last March in administrative detention — a status that allows Israel to hold suspected militants for months at a time without charging them or putting them on trial.

    Shaked ordered the deportation when his detention order expired. Israel’s Supreme Court had rejected an appeal against the decision to revoke Hammouri’s residency status. His lawyers have complained that the decision was based on secret evidence they were not allowed to see.

    France’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s deportation of Hammouri after he landed in Paris, saying it has “taken full action, including at the highest level of the state, to ensure that Mr. Salah Hamouri’s rights are respected, that he benefits from all legal remedies and that he can lead a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was born, resides and wishes to live.”

    It was not clear what, if any, steps the French government might take.

    The Israeli human rights group HaMoked, which had defended Hammouri, condemned Sunday’s expulsion. A Jan. 1 hearing on the matter had been scheduled, and it was not immediately clear how Israel was able to push ahead with the deportation.

    “Deporting a Palestinian from their homeland for breach of allegiance to the state of Israel is a dangerous precedent and a gross violation of basic rights,” said the group’s director, Jessica Montell. “HaMoked will continue to fight against this unconstitutional law.”

    Last year, Hammouri was among six human rights activists whose mobile phones were found by independent security researchers to have been infected with spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group.

    It was not known who placed the spyware on the phones. Israel said there’s no connection between the terror designation of Adameer and five other Palestinian rights groups and any alleged use of NSO spyware. Israel has provided little evidence publicly to support the terrorism designation, which Palestinian groups say is meant to muzzle them and dry up their sources of funding.

    Shaked, a member of a small nationalist party, failed to win re-election to parliament in elections last month.

    Aryeh Deri, who is expected to to assume the post in the new government, said Hammouri’s deportation was “the end of a long but just legal process” and congratulated Shaked for carrying it out.

    The new government is still being formed by designated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It will have to pass special legislation to allow Deri to serve as a minister because of his recent conviction on tax offenses.

    Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most important religious sites, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. It considers the entire city to be its capital, while the Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

    While Jews in the city are entitled to automatic citizenship, Palestinians are granted residency status. This allows them freedom of movement, the ability to work and access to Israeli social services, but they are not allowed to vote in national elections. Residency rights can be stripped if a Palestinian is found to live outside the city for an extended period or in certain security cases.

    Palestinians can apply for citizenship. But few do, not wanting to be seen as accepting what they see as an occupation. Those who do apply, however, face a lengthy and bureaucratic process.

    The Haaretz daily reported this year that fewer than 20,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem, some 5% of the population, hold Israeli citizenship, and that just 34% of applications are approved. It cited information from the Interior Ministry delivered by Shaked to a parliamentary inquiry.

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  • Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

    Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

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    BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Business is bouncing back in Bethlehem after two years in the doldrums during the coronavirus pandemic, lifting spirits in the traditional birthplace of Jesus ahead of the Christmas holiday.

    Streets are bustling with tour groups. Hotels are fully booked, and months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting appears to be having little effect on the vital tourism industry.

    Elias Arja, head of the Bethlehem hotel association, said that tourists are hungry to visit the Holy Land’s religious sites after suffering through lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent years. He expects the rebound to continue into next year.

    “We expect that 2023 will be booming and business will be excellent because the whole world, and Christian religious tourists especially, they all want to return to the Holy Land,” said Arja, who owns the Bethlehem Hotel.

    On a recent day, dozens of groups from virtually every continent posed for selfies in front of the Church of the Nativity, built on the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born. A giant Christmas tree sparkled in the adjacent Manger Square, and tourists packed into shops to buy olive wood crosses and other souvenirs.

    Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Bethlehem, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank just a few miles southeast of Jerusalem. In pre-pandemic times, thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world came to celebrate.

    But those numbers plummeted during the pandemic. Although tourism hasn’t fully recovered, the hordes of visitors are a welcome improvement and encouraging sign.

    “The city became a city of ghosts,” said Saliba Nissan, standing next to a manger scene about 1.3 meters (4 feet) wide inside the Bethlehem New Store, the olive wood factory he co-owns with his brother. The shop was filled with Americans on a bus tour.

    Since the Palestinians don’t have their own airport, most international visitors come via Israel. The Israeli Tourism Ministry is expecting some 120,000 Christian tourists during the week of Christmas.

    That compares to its all-time high of about 150,000 visitors in 2019, but is far better than last year, when the country’s skies were closed to most international visitors. As it has done in the past, the ministry plans to offer special shuttle buses between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve to help visitors go back and forth.

    “God willing, we will go back this year to where things were before the coronavirus, and be even better,” said Bethlehem’s mayor, Hanna Hanania.

    He said about 15,000 people attended the recent lighting of Bethlehem’s Christmas tree, and that international delegations, artists and singers are all expected to participate in celebrations this year.

    “Recovery has begun significantly,” he said, though he said the recent violence, and Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank, always have some influence on tourism.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in parts of the territory, including Bethlehem.

    The Christmas season comes at the end of a bloody year in the Holy Land. Some 150 Palestinians and 31 Israelis have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, according to official figures, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but stone-throwing youths and some people not involved in the violence have also been killed.

    The fighting, largely concentrated in the northern West Bank, reached the Bethlehem area earlier this month, when the Israeli army killed a teenager in the nearby Deheishe refugee camp. Palestinians held a one-day strike across Bethlehem to protest the killing.

    Residents, however, seem determined not to allow the fighting to put a damper on the Christmas cheer.

    Bassem Giacaman, the third-generation owner of the Blessing Gift Shop, founded in 1925 by his grandfather, said the pandemic was far more devastating to his business than violence and political tensions.

    Covered in sawdust from carving olive-wood figurines, jewelry and religious symbols, he said it will take him years to recover. He once had 10 people working for him. Today, he employs half that number, sometimes less, depending on demand.

    “The political (situation) does affect, but nothing major,” Giacaman said. “We’ve had it for 60-70 years, and it goes on for a month, then it stops, and tourists come back again.”

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  • Dominique Lapierre, French author and journalist, dies at 91

    Dominique Lapierre, French author and journalist, dies at 91

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    NICE, France (AP) — French writer Dominique Lapierre, who was celebrated for his historical work on the World War II struggle to liberate Paris and a novel depicting a life of hardship in a Kolkata slum in India, has died. He was 91.

    Lapierre died Friday, a local newspaper in southern France reported Monday, citing an interview with the author’s wife, Dominique Conchon-Lapierre.

    She told the Var Matin newspaper that Lapierre died “of old age” and that she was “at peace because (her husband) is no longer suffering.”

    French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak praised Lapierre as an author and journalist whose travels around the world – from Mexico to India, New York City to Jerusalem – made him an “eyewitness of the 20th century” and enriched his novels with facts.

    “We have lost a great writer, who was generous in his texts and was generous in his life,” Abdul Malak said in a statement.

    In 1964, Lapierre drew on archived material to co-author with American writer Larry Collins a recounting of the liberation of the French capital in August 1944. The book — “Is Paris Burning?” — was made into a movie by French filmmaker Rene Clement. Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola were listed among a group of screenplay writers.

    Lapierre was born in 1931 in the western French city of Chatelaillon to a diplomat father and a mother who had worked as a journalist. In the 1950s, Lapierre worked as a journalist and a foreign correspondent for Paris-Match. He lived most of his life in the French Riviera town of Ramatuelle with Conchon-Lapierre, his wife of 56 years.

    Lapierre had a special bond with India and spent a lot of time in Kolkata, a city that was nicknamed “The City of Joy” after his 1985 novel with that title. The book, which chronicled the life of a rickshaw puller in a Kolkata slum, was adapted by Roland Joffé into a 1992 film.

    He also donated generously to several charities engaged in humanitarian work in Kolkata.

    Two of his other books —“Freedom at Midnight” and “Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster” — were histories of events in India. Lapierre was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award, in 2008.

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  • Palestinians say 3 men killed by Israeli fire in West Bank

    Palestinians say 3 men killed by Israeli fire in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Three Palestinian men were killed by Israeli fire during separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday.

    They were the latest deadly incidents in a mounting surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence and soaring tensions, less than a week after a bombing in Jerusalem killed two Israelis.

    The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that clashes erupted between Israeli forces and residents north of the city of Hebron in the West Bank.

    The Israeli military said soldiers shot at Palestinians who hurled rocks and improvised explosive devices at the forces operating in the town. The army said the Palestinians also shot at the troops, and two army vehicles got stuck due to mechanical issues.

    The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed near Hebron as Mufid Khalil, 44, and said at least eight other people were wounded by live fire in the incident.

    In a separate incident, two brothers identified by Wafa as Jawad and Dhafr Rimawi, 22 and 21, were killed by Israeli fire during clashes with troops near the village of Kafr Ein, west of Ramallah in the northern West Bank early Tuesday.

    The Israeli military said troops operating in the village came under attack from suspects throwing rocks and firebombs, and soldiers responded with live fire. It said it was reviewing the incident.

    Later on Tuesday, a Palestinian driver rammed his car into an Israeli pedestrian near a West Bank settlement north of Jerusalem in what the army said was a deliberate attack. Paramedics said they treated a 20-year-old woman for serious injuries. Police said officers pursued and shot the driver. The driver’s condition was unknown.

    Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been surging for months amid nightly Israeli raids in the West Bank, prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people in the spring.

    More than 138 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making it the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    In a new report, the army described a fragile situation in the West Bank, where it has carried out nearly nightly arrest raids since March. It said it has mobilized thousands of troops and arrested some 2,500 Palestinians and confiscated around 250 weapons since March

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.

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  • Hospital: 2nd Israeli, wounded in Jerusalem blasts, dies

    Hospital: 2nd Israeli, wounded in Jerusalem blasts, dies

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    JERUSALEM — An Israeli man died Saturday from wounds he sustained in twin blasts that hit Jerusalem earlier this week, bringing to two the number of dead in the explosions that Israeli police blamed on Palestinians.

    Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem announced that Tadesse Teshome Ben Madeh had died. He was critically wounded in one of the blasts at the city’s bus stops.

    “The trauma and intensive care teams of Shaare Zedek fought for his life, but unfortunately his injury was very fatal,” the hospital said.

    The first explosion occurred near a typically crowded bus stop on the edge of the city. The second went off about half an hour later in Ramot, a settlement in the city’s north. One of the blasts immediately killed Aryeh Schupak, 15, a dual Israeli-Canadian national who was heading to a Jewish seminary when the blast went off.

    The blasts wounded about 18 Israelis, three of them seriously.

    While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombing attacks have been very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.

    No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem explosions.

    Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been surging for months, amid nightly Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people in the spring.

    More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

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  • One person dead and dozens injured after two explosions at bus stops in Israel

    One person dead and dozens injured after two explosions at bus stops in Israel

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    One person dead and dozens injured after two explosions at bus stops in Israel – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    At least one teenager is dead and multiple people are injured following two explosions near bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday. Police suspect Palestinian militants are responsible, although no one has yet to take responsibility for the acts of terror. CBS News contributor Robert Berger discusses.

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    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • Jerusalem explosions leave 1 dead and several injured as Israeli-Palestinian tension soars

    Jerusalem explosions leave 1 dead and several injured as Israeli-Palestinian tension soars

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    ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-JERUSALEM-CONFICT-BLAST
    A member of the Israeli security forces walks a sniffer dog at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, November 23, 2022.

    MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty


    Jerusalem — Two blasts went off near bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring at least 14, in what police said were suspected attacks by Palestinians. The first explosion occurred near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where commuters usually crowd waiting for buses. The second went off in Ramot, a settlement in the city’s north.

    Police said one person died from the wounds and Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said four people were seriously wounded in the blasts.
     
    The apparent attacks came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are high, following months of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people. There has been an uptick in recent weeks in Palestinian attacks.
     
    The violence also comes as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding coalition talks after national elections and is likely to form what’s expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government ever.


    Benjamin Netanyahu poised to make comeback as Israel’s next prime minister

    03:47

    Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist lawmaker who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Netanyahu, said the attack meant Israel needed to take a tougher stance on Palestinian attackers.
     
    “We must exact a price from terror,” he said at the scene of the first explosion. “We must return to be in control of Israel, to restore deterrence against terror.”
     
    Police said their initial findings showed that explosive devices were placed at the two sites. The twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and police closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the fist explosion went off. 

    At least 7 injured after explosion in West Jerusalem
    Israeli police officers conduct an investigation following an explosion near a bus stop that left at least seven people injured in West Jerusalem on November 23, 2022.

    Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency/Getty


    Video from shortly after the first blast showed debris strewn along the sidewalk as the wail of ambulances blared. A bus in Ramot was pocked with what looked like shrapnel marks.
     
    “It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here,” Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio. “I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”
     
    While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombing attacks have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.
     
    The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
     
    “The occupation is reaping the price of its crimes and aggression against our people,” Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said.
     
    Israel said that in response to the blasts, it was closing two West Bank crossings to Palestinians near the West Bank city of Jenin, a militant stronghold.
     
    More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the military incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
     
    At least five more Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.
     
    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinians seek the territories for their hoped-for independent state.

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  • One person dead after two explosions rock Jerusalem, Israeli police say | CNN

    One person dead after two explosions rock Jerusalem, Israeli police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two explosions shook Jerusalem early Wednesday, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others in a suspected “combined terror attack,” according to an Israeli police spokesperson.

    The first explosion occurred at a bus station near the entrance of Jerusalem at 7:06 a.m., injuring at least 11 people, including a person who later died, the spokesperson said.

    After a second explosion almost half an hour later at the city’s Ramot junction, at 7:30 a.m., three people were evacuated with minor injuries, police added.

    Initial investigations indicated that explosive devices were placed at both blast sites and a search is underway for suspects, the police spokesperson said.

    After the first blast, two paramedics from Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross affiliate, said they found two seriously injured people lying on the ground when they arrived at the scene.

    “We were at the MDA station by the entrance to the city when we heard a large explosion,” they said. “We immediately headed to the scene in large numbers, including ambulances, MICUs (mobile intensive care units) and medicycles.”

    “Two seriously wounded were lying nearby, a 16-year-old in the bus stop and a 45-year-old on the sidewalk.”

    This is a breaking news story. More to come…

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  • Twin blasts shake Jerusalem, killing 1 and wounding several

    Twin blasts shake Jerusalem, killing 1 and wounding several

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    JERUSALEM — Two blasts went off near bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring at least 14, in what police said were suspected attacks by Palestinians.

    The first explosion occurred near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where commuters usually crowd waiting for buses. The second went off in Ramot, a settlement in the city’s north. Police said one person died from the wounds and Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said four people were seriously wounded in the blasts.

    The apparent attacks came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are high, following months of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people. There has been an uptick in recent weeks in Palestinian attacks.

    The violence also comes as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding coalition talks after national elections and is likely to form what’s expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government ever.

    Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist lawmaker who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Netanyahu, said the attack meant Israel needed to take a tougher stance on Palestinian attackers.

    “We must exact a price from terror,” he said at the scene of the first explosion. “We must return to be in control of Israel, to restore deterrence against terror.”

    Police said their initial findings showed that explosive devices were placed at the two sites. The twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and police closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the fist explosion went off. Video from shortly after the first blast showed debris strewn along the sidewalk as the wail of ambulances blared. A bus in Ramot was pocked with what looked like shrapnel marks.

    “It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here,” Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio. “I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”

    While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombing attacks have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.

    The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.

    “The occupation is reaping the price of its crimes and aggression against our people,” Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said.

    Israel said that in response to the blasts, it was closing two West Bank crossings to Palestinians near the West Bank city of Jenin, a militant stronghold.

    More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the military incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    At least five more Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinians seek the territories for their hoped-for independent state.

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  • Israeli soldiers fatally shoot Palestinian rock thrower

    Israeli soldiers fatally shoot Palestinian rock thrower

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Health Ministry said Saturday that Israeli forces shot and killed a young man in the occupied West Bank.

    The ministry said Musab Nofal, 18, was hit with a bullet in the chest and died at hospital in the city of Ramallah. Another Palestinian was also seriously wounded.

    The Israeli military said Nofal and the second Palestinian were hurling stones at Israeli vehicles traveling on a West Bank road near Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, damaging several cars. Soldiers aimed live fire toward the rock throwers, it added.

    The violence was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has killed more than 130 Palestinians this year, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    The violence came as a political shift is underway in Israel after national elections, with former longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power in a coalition government made up of far-right allies, including the extremist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in response to the incidents said Israel would soon take a tougher approach to attackers.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and has since maintained a military occupation over the territory and settled more than 500,000 people there. The Palestinians want the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, for their hoped-for independent state.

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  • 4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

    4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in separate incidents on Thursday, including one who had stabbed a police officer in east Jerusalem and three others in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.

    The violence flared as Israel tallied the final votes in national elections held this week, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to lead a comfortable majority backed by far-right allies.

    Israeli troops operating in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, a militant stronghold, killed at least two Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said one of those killed was a local commander. Residents said he was killed while at the butcher, where he was preparing meat ahead of his wedding this weekend. The Israeli military did not immediately provide details on the operation.

    Earlier Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. Israeli police said it happened during a raid in the territory and alleged the man threw a firebomb at the forces.

    In a separate incident Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed a police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, and officers opened fire on the attacker, killing him. The officer was lightly wounded.

    The violence came as a political shift is underway in Israel after national elections, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power in a coalition government made up of far-right allies, including the extremist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in response to the incidents said Israel would soon take a tougher approach to attackers.

    “The time has come to restore security to the streets,” he tweeted. “The time has come for a terrorist who goes out to carry out an attack to be taken out!”

    The violence was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has killed more than 130 Palestinians this year, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    The violence intensified in the spring, after a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people, prompting Israel to launch a months-long operation in the West Bank it says is meant to dismantle militant networks. The raids have been met in recent weeks by a rise in attacks against Israelis, killing at least three.

    Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and people uninvolved in the fighting have also been killed.

    Also on Thursday, Israel said it was removing checkpoints in and out of the city of Nablus. Israel had imposed the restrictions weeks ago, clamping down on the city in response to a new militant group known as the Lions’ Den. The military has conducted repeated operations in the city in recent weeks, killing or arresting the group’s top commanders.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and has since maintained a military occupation over the territory and settled more than 500,000 people there. The Palestinians want the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, for their hoped-for independent state.

    ___

    Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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  • Judges, ministers, now army chief: Settlers rise in Israel

    Judges, ministers, now army chief: Settlers rise in Israel

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    JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military has long had a cozy relationship with Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Those ties are about to deepen.

    For the first time, a settler will serve as chief of staff of Israel’s military, becoming the enforcer of Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, now in its 56th year.

    Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi’s nomination was approved on Sunday and he is expected to begin his three-year term on Jan. 17.

    Halevi’s rise caps the decades-long transformation of the settler movement from a small group of religious ideologues to a diverse and influential force at the heart of the Israeli mainstream whose members have reached the highest ranks of government and other key institutions.

    Critics say the settlers’ outsized political influence imperils any hope for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and endangers the country’s future as a democracy. They say Halevi’s appointment lays bare just how interconnected settlers and the military truly are.

    “It isn’t surprising that we’ve come to a point where the chief of staff is a settler too,” said Shabtay Bendet of the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.

    Others say Halevi, currently deputy chief of staff, has had a distinguished military career and his place of residence won’t affect his decision-making. He served as head of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, as well as military intelligence and led the Southern Command, from where he oversaw operations in the Gaza Strip.

    Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised Halevi as an ethical officer. “I have no doubt that he is the right man to head the military,” Gantz said upon nominating him.

    The military declined to make Halevi available for an interview.

    Born just months after the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank, and raised in Jerusalem, Halevi is a descendant of a rabbi seen as the father of the modern settler movement.

    Halevi lives in Kfar HaOranim, a settlement that abuts the invisible line between Israel and the West Bank.

    Many of those moving to Kfar HaOranim might have been drawn by cheaper housing prices in a central location between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, rather than a radical ideology. Yet choosing to live in a settlement often indicates even some nationalist political inclination. Many Israelis are still hesitant to visit parts of the West Bank.

    A search through some of Halevi’s past speeches and public statements did not reveal his opinion on the Jewish settlement enterprise.

    The settler movement embraced the incoming army chief.

    “We are proud that the new chief of staff is a resident,” said Israel Ganz, the head of the regional settlement council that includes Kfar HaOranim. He said he expects any chief of staff to operate with a belief in the “righteousness” of Jewish settlement and “deepening the roots” of Jewish settlers.

    Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their hoped-for state, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

    Since 1967, the settler population has grown to some 500,000 people, who live in more than 130 settlements and outposts in the West Bank. Nearly 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, most of them in semi-autonomous population centers administered by the Palestinian Authority.

    Much of the international community considers the settlements illegitimate and obstacles to peace, while Israel views the territory as its biblical heartland and critical to security.

    A two-tier system is in place in the West Bank, with settlers enjoying the same rights as citizens in Israel, while Palestinians are subject to military rule. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank but it is hobbled in many aspects by the occupation.

    For Palestinians, soldiers are the most visible enforcers of the occupation. Under international law an occupying military is meant to protect civilians under its rule, but Palestinians typically view soldiers as hostile to them.

    Soldiers man the checkpoints that Palestinians must cross through to enter Israel or the ones that are set up between their cities, disrupting their journey. Soldiers often conduct arrest raids in Palestinian autonomous areas, in search of suspected militants. Palestinians accused of violence are tried, and almost always convicted, in military courts. Israel sees those measures as essential to its security.

    Critics also say the military turns a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians, which has been intensifying in recent months, including rampages that have also targeted soldiers. In one case last week a settlement guard on a Defense Ministry salary was seen joining forces with a settler in a clash with Palestinians. The military says troops work to prevent breaking of the law by both Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank.

    For settlers, the military buttresses their presence in the West Bank. Soldiers protect settlements. The military escorts settlers when they want to visit sensitive sites or hold a march or protest. A defense body headed by a general is in charge of approving settler housing, and some of the military’s top commanders are settlers.

    Oded Revivi, mayor of the Efrat settlement, said he didn’t believe Halevi’s place of residence would influence the way he ran the military in the West Bank, which he said is dictated by policies made by elected officials.

    “He was chosen because of his career, because of his achievements during his career,” he said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with where he lives.”

    Over the years, settlers reached key positions in Israeli institutions.

    The country’s current roster of Supreme Court judges includes at least two settlers. Settler politicians have long served as Cabinet ministers, including Avigdor Lieberman, who has been Israel’s foreign, defense and finance minister. Settlers have held key positions in cultural institutions and in bodies that allocate land. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was previously a settler leader, though he did not live in a settlement.

    That integration, part of a years-long concerted effort by settlers, is hardly questioned by Israelis.

    Many Israelis give little thought to the occupation, and news media often ignore the approval of new settler housing, unless it draws international rebuke. And pushback against the settler narrative is often officially silenced. Schools in liberal Tel Aviv were recently prohibited from showing maps that demarcate the West Bank, indicating it as distinct from Israel.

    The world of culture, once a mainstay of liberalism and Israel’s dovish left, has embraced settlers, featuring them on reality TV shows, while artists and musicians are increasingly agreeing to perform in settlements or accept funding from settler sponsors. One popular rocker who had often denounced settlers apologized to them at a recent concert in the Beit El settlement.

    Diana Buttu, a Palestinian commentator, said having a settler as chief of staff raises concerns that the military’s conduct toward the Palestinians will worsen, further entrench Israel’s occupation and make the creation of a Palestinian state all the more unlikely.

    “There’s this fiction that people in the international community seem to have that somehow there’s Israel and then there’s the settlements — as though they are separate and apart from one another,” she said. “But really, in reality, we see that it’s all one.”

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  • Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

    Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Jewish West Bank settlers stormed through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said Thursday, throwing stones at Palestinian cars and using pepper spray on Israeli troops who were trying to disperse the settlers.

    The settler rampage late Wednesday comes days after a similar incident in the same area and as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are surging over Israeli raids in the West Bank and an uptick in shooting attacks by Palestinians.

    The rampage took place near Huwara, a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank near the city of Nablus, where a group of disaffected youth has taken up arms against Israel and in frustration with the Palestinian leadership’s close security ties to it.

    Palestinian militants in the area have carried out several roadside shootings in recent weeks. The area is home to a number of hardline settlements, whose residents often intimidate Palestinians and vandalize their property.

    Critics accuse Israel of turning a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians and treating them with impunity, while being heavy-handed with Palestinian assailants or protesters. Settler violence has in the past also led to confrontations with soldiers which often sparks condemnations from politicians but rarely leads to a solution to the problem.

    The military said dozens of settlers ran through the town, throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. The settlers used pepper spray on the battalion commander as well as another soldier. The settlers sprayed another two soldiers at a nearby checkpoint, the military said.

    It was not immediately clear why the settlers were allowed to continue to another location after the initial incident.

    In a statement, the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, condemned the violence.

    “This is a very serious incident that embodies shameful and disgraceful criminal behavior that demands strict and swift justice,” he said.

    The violence comes as tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have surged in recent months.

    More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2015.

    The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel and more in recent violence. The Israeli military says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinian seek for their future state.

    Israel has since settled some 500,000 settlers in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.

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  • Palestinians: 2 killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank

    Palestinians: 2 killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians on Saturday in an exchange of fire that erupted during a military raid in the West Bank, according to Israeli and Palestinian accounts, in the latest confrontation that has made 2022 the deadliest year of violence in the occupied territory since 2015.

    The raid occurred in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the site of repeated clashes between Israeli forces and local gunmen and residents. The camp is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants and the army often operates there.

    Palestinian officials said soldiers entered the camp early Saturday and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported two dead and 11 wounded, three of them critically. The official Wafa news agency said both of the dead were 17-year-old boys.

    The Israeli military said it had arrested a 25-year-old operative from the Islamic Jihad militant group who has previously been imprisoned by Israel. It said the man had recently been involved in shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers.

    It said soldiers opened fire during the raid when dozens of Palestinians hurled explosives and opened fire. “Hits were identified,” the statement said, giving no further details.

    Just before noontime, the Israeli forces appeared to withdraw from the area.

    The killing occurred a day after two Palestinian teenagers, ages 14 and 17, were killed by Israeli fire in separate incidents elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Rights groups accuse Israeli forces of using excessive force in their dealings with the Palestinians, without being held accountable. The Israeli military says it opens fire only in life-threatening situations.

    Israel has been operating throughout the territory, especially in the northern West Bank, since a spate of deadly attacks in Israel last spring. Some of the attacks were carried out by Palestinian assailants from the area.

    Israel says it is forced to take action because Palestinian security forces, who coordinate with the military in a tense alliance against Islamic militants, is unable or unwilling to crack down. Palestinian security forces say the military raids have undermined their credibility and public support, especially in the absence of any political process. The last round of substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks ended in 2009.

    Most of those killed are said by Israel to have been militants. But local youths protesting the incursions as well as some civilians have also been killed in the violence. Hundreds have been rounded up, with many placed in so-called administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold them without trial or charge. Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year.

    The violence is also fueled by deepening disillusionment and anger among young Palestinians over the tight security coordination between Israel and the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which work together to apprehend militants.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in some 130 settlements and other outposts among nearly 3 million Palestinians. The Palestinians want that territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for their future state.

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