The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they happened.
Members of the Jewish community in Paris accuse staffers at the Israeli embassy there of trying to torpedo the visit last week of far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Channel 12 reports.
The report says the acting ambassador did not greet Smotrich at the airport or meet with him during his visit. (The last ambassador, a political appointee by former Prime Minister Yair Lapid quit rather than represent the current government.
The report quotes unnamed members of the Jewish community as saying the embassy told local officials not to meet with Smotrich as an act of protest against the controversial judicial reforms being pushed by the government.
The Foreign Ministry says the charges will be investigated, but notes that the minister was in Paris for an annual two-day ministerial summit hosted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD.)
Israel has a separate mission to the OECD in Paris that should have been responsible for Smotrich’s visit.
Last week, French officials and leaders of the three main Jewish community organizations in the country were said to be refusing to sit down with Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party.
Smotrich’s office reached out to multiple French counterparts for meetings and was turned down, a French official told The Times of Israel at the time.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voices hope that a successful offensive by Ukraine would force Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending his invasion of Ukraine.
“Success in the counteroffensive would do two things — it would strengthen its position at any negotiating table that emerges, and it may have the effect as well of actually causing Putin to finally focus on negotiating an end to the war that he started,” Blinken tells reporters.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is holding a series of meetings with top police commanders, sounding them out, as he seeks a new police commissioner, Channel 13 reports.
The current commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, has repeatedly clashed with the far-right minister, who has sought to exert greater control over the force. His term ends in January and the report says he is unlikely to ask for a one-year extension, and would not be given one if he did.
Channel 13 says the meetings so far are unofficial, sounding out the current regional commanders on their interest in the job and their world views.
Israel has informed the US that it plans to announce “thousands” of new settlement homes later this month, an Israeli official says.
The official, confirming a report first published by the Walla news site, tells The Times of Israel that it was not clear whether the settlement plans would all be approved in back-to-back meetings of the Civil Administration’s High Planning Subcommittee, as is traditionally the case, or whether the meetings would be spread out over several weeks.
According to Walla, the Biden administration, which is opposed to all settlement construction, is pushing Israel to hold off on the announcement or scale it back.
The Israeli plans come after the US last week pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay plans to advance the highly controversial E1 settlement project.
President Isaac Herzog speaks out against reservists refusing to serve to protest government actions, calling the act “forbidden.”
Speaking at a ceremony to honor outstanding reservists, Herzog spoke out against the movement, which gained widespread traction as a means of protesting the government’s judicial overhaul plans.
“As citizens, reservists have the same full rights to any opinion and to protest as any citizen in a healthy democracy,” Herzog says.
“But as soldiers in uniform, refusal is out of bounds. It is forbidden to endanger the security of Israel,” he says.
Before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze the judicial overhaul to allow for talks hosted by Herzog, reservists — who are a key part of the army’s routine activities, including in top units — were increasingly warning they will not be able to serve in an undemocratic Israel, which they charge the country will become under the government’s plan.
US President Joe Biden is undergoing a root canal after experiencing some dental pain – a procedure that will take him out of commission for at least one public event today.
Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, says in a memo released by the White House that Biden reported the pain in his lower right premolar yesterday. The president had an initial root canal that day, and he “tolerated the procedure well” with no complications, O’Connor said.
This morning, Biden had “further discomfort” in his mouth, which O’Connor said was expected. An endodontal specialty team from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will complete Biden’s root canal at the White House.
He was scheduled to appear at College Athlete Day on the South Lawn at the White House, which hosts NCAA champions from various men’s and women’s sports from the 2022-2023 season. Vice President Kamala Harris will instead attend in Biden’s place, the White House said.
Later today, Biden is scheduled to meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and host a reception for chiefs of mission, although it is unclear whether those events would still take place.
Biden’s health is under minute scrutiny as he runs for a second term in 2024. He would be 86 by the time he left office if he wins re-election.
Israel is sending hundreds of thousands of liters of water and over 10 tons of food to the Kherson area in Ukraine to help victims of the attack on the Khakovka Dam.
The locally purchased aid, a joint initiative of the embassy in Kyiv and Mashav, will be delivered today by Ukrainian organizations that work with the embassy.
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who was personally involved in the project, says that “Israel will continue to help Ukraine and its citizens.”
“We see this as a supreme moral value,” he says.
Israel is providing substantial humanitarian assistance to the people of #Kherson following the deliberate destruction of #KakhovkaDam. @IsraelinUkraine and @MASHAVisrael have sent to the area above 200,000 liters of drinking water and about 10 tons of canned food. The assistance… pic.twitter.com/V3IgSQ85wt
— Michael Brodsky (@michael_brodsk) June 12, 2023
Three British nationals who went missing after a scuba diving boat they were cruising in caught fire in the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast have died, a UK-based tour operator says.
Egyptian authorities say the three went missing when a medium-sized scuba vessel named “Hurricane” went up in flames off the southern Red Sea resort town of Marsa Alam yesterday. The blaze was caused by an electrical short circuit in the boat’s engine room, they say.
We “must accept that three of our much-valued dive guests, who had not participated in the dive briefing early on the morning of June 11, perished in the tragic incident,” the UK-based Scuba Travel says in a short statement.
Missing Divers from Red Sea Liveaboard Fire Pronounced Dead ???? https://t.co/cBRzIO3Ucp pic.twitter.com/mShJBr7tpF
— The Scuba News (@TheScubaNews) June 12, 2023
The company did not say how it determined the three are dead and Egyptian authorities have said only that they are missing. Scuba Travel has not identified the three.
The Netherlands and Canada jointly file a complaint against Syria before the United Nations’ highest judicial body, alleging the regime of Bashar Assad has tortured thousands of civilians, in violation of a UN convention.
The pair say Syria has “committed countless violations of international law” and want the International Court of Justice to issue provisional measures ordering Damascus to halt an alleged widespread torture program against anyone opposed to the government during the country’s long-running civil war.
The Dutch first announced three years ago a plan to hold Syria accountable for what it called “horrific crimes,” asking Assad’s government via diplomatic note to enter into negotiations under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Canada joined the process in 2021.
The 1984 treaty requires parties to enter into mediation before bringing the dispute to The Hague-based court. The complaint says that the process has failed.
National Unity leader Benny Gantz says that his party will put aside politics to reach an agreement on how to reform the judiciary, provided it adheres to five principles the party continues to advocate.
“National Unity will not hesitate to reach agreements if they meet the principles we set. No political consideration will stand between us and what is right for the State of Israel,” he says.
The principles, Gantz adds, are: “that there will be no political control over the appointment of judges and gatekeepers, a comprehensive Basic Law will be promoted and established, effective judicial review will be maintained, there will be an improvement in citizen services, and no less important – agreeing to no second round [of judicial reforms], and certainly not in the current Knesset.”
The former defense minister calls Wednesday’s vote to elect two lawmakers to the committee that selects judges a “decisive moment,” and says giving one seat to the opposition alongside the government is part of the formula to make progress.
“This is not the time to play games, this is not the time for deals and not the time for political exercises,” he says.
Gantz also reiterates his call for Netanyahu to fire National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“He doesn’t have the ability, he doesn’t have the required trust of the top echelons of the police and Arab society, and I don’t even know if he has a real desire to solve the problem,” Gantz charges. “The responsibility is too great – the situation is too serious.”
Similarly, he dismisses the idea of enlisting the Shin Bet to fight Arab community crime as a “magic solution” that “is misleading the public.”
Rather, he says, “comprehensive, systemic work is needed” to solve the problem.
“The government should take pride in investing in Israel’s Arab citizens. In employment, infrastructure, education, and fighting crime. They deserve it by merit – not by grace,” he adds, asking the government to form a special cabinet to tackle Arab community crime.
Hassan Shaalan, a journalist with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, says he and his family are receiving death threats from organized crime groups.
In an article published today in the paper, Shaalan says he was threatened after refusing to publish certain details they were demanding.
Shaalan does not name those threatening him but says they are the same people involved in protection rackets.
“You won’t stay alive very long, your place is in the grave, you are our target,” the threats say.
The article comes as the Arab communities face a wave of killings, much of it linked to organized crime.
Shaalan has faced threats and violence before. In 2021 shots were fired at his home. Several weeks later, after moving, an explosive device went off at his new house.
Thread #Israel: Bombe explodiert im Haus des israelisch-arabischen Journalisten #HassanShaalan von @ynetalerts, gerade mal zwei Wochen nachdem Bewaffnete auf das jetzige Haus des Reporters geschossen hatten. 1/x pic.twitter.com/7pnAL83eGC
— affeu (@affeu2) June 27, 2021
Shaalan says this time he did not even bother reporting the threats to the police as he has lost all faith in them.
Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas dismisses proposals to involve the Shin Bet in fighting crime in Arab communities, saying the idea is not feasible.
“It points to an attitude that doesn’t deal with the issue seriously,” he says.
Instead, Abbas demands that the cabinet immediately deploy resources to combat crime in Arab society.
Opening his Islamist Arab party’s Knesset faction meeting, Abbas says he expects the government to next week bring a new cabinet decision “that puts this issue at the top of priorities for the government,” alongside manpower and funds to take action.
“We continue to move towards a real catastrophe and a real crisis that affects all areas of Arab society,” Abbas says, as 102 Arab Israelis were killed in violent circumstances since the start of 2023 — a threefold increase over the same period last year.
Two weeks ago, Ra’am sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter outlining requests to improve personal security. Today, Abbas says he “still hasn’t received any response.”
Earlier this morning, the government razed five illegally built homes in the Bedouin village of Ar’arat an-Naqab, located in the southern Negev region.
“What are the priorities? What’s so urgent for Netanyahu’s government to destroy homes on this day?” Abbas says.
“We’re still licking our wounds,” the Ra’am chief adds, saying that Arab society “feels abandoned” by the government.
Last week, Ra’am snubbed a Netanyahu-hosted meeting to discuss crime in Arab society, calling it a “show” and letting the premier sit down alone with Hadash-Ta’al.
Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al, the only two majority-Arab parties in the Knesset, are currently in a near-complete communication breakdown.
When asked by The Times of Israel why Ra’am is not collaborating with the other Knesset party placing this issue at the top of its list, Abbas said that Hadash-Ta’al’s “attitude brought us to this point.”
The party also blames Hadash-Ta’al, which criticized Ra’am’s 2021 decision to mainstream into an Israeli coalition, for toppling the coalition of which it was part and helping to return Netanyahu to power.
Senior Hadash-Ta’al lawmaker Ahmad Tibi slams law enforcement and the government for their inability to stop a recent surge in violent crime in Arab communities.
“The Israel Police can stop this fight between crime organizations, but it doesn’t invest the effort,” Tibi says at the outset of his party’s Knesset faction meeting.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Tibi says, does not prioritize countering crime, as “he’s busy instead dealing with prisoner dental treatments and shower time” — two terror inmate living conditions that Ben Gvir has tried to limit.
Since the start of the year, 102 Arab Israelis have died as a result of violent crime.
Amid rising death tolls from violent crime in Arab communities, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calls for the use of “unusual tools,” such as administrative detentions and Shin Bet involvement.
“Yes, we need to bring in the Shin Bet and the tools that it has” and “we need to enable administrative detentions,” Smotrich says in response to reporter questions at the outset of his Religious Zionism party’s Knesset faction meeting.
“There needs to be a set of tools to enable the government to work,” including “unusual tools.”
“People are afraid to leave their homes today, and justifiably,” he adds.
Administrative detention is a controversial practice whereby individuals can be held without charge practically indefinitely, and are not granted access to the evidence against them.
Israel currently only employs it for terror suspects.
While it is rarely used against Jewish suspects, nearly 1,000 Palestinians are currently held in custody under the practice.
More than 50 volunteer divers grab some 400 pieces of garbage weighing a total of 120 kilograms (265 pounds) from the seabed in the first of several marine cleanup operations this month to mark World Oceans Day.
The first dives take place off the beaches of Jaffa and Herzliya in central Israel and Dor-Nachsholim in the north.
Most of the trash is made up of single-use plastic, food wrappers, and drink cans.
The divers come from Mishmar Hayam (Guards of the Sea), an organization of divers committed to cleaning up the Mediterranean. They are being supported by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Environmental Protection Ministry.
In a separate initiative on Saturday, volunteer divers from the Beach Patrol joined up with the navy to clean nine tons of garbage from the floor of the Red Sea in the Gulf of Eilat in southern Israel.
The second gathering of the Negev Forum will likely take place in Morocco in mid-July, a diplomatic official tells The Times of Israel.
The precise date will be nailed down in the upcoming meeting of the steering committee of the six-state body.
It is almost certain that the name will be changed to something more regional and less Israel-specific, but the final decision on the name has yet to be made, says the official.
The Negev Forum brings together Israel with its Abraham Accord partners — the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco — along with the US and Egypt.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says he will call on the Shin Bet to investigate the ongoing surge in violent crime in Arab communities.
“I asked the Shin Bet to come in and investigate all of the murder cases in Arab society,” the Otzma Yehudit leader says, in remarks to open his Knesset faction meeting.
Security and legal officials have come out against the expansion of the Shin Bet’s mandate from terror to domestic crime.
Ben Gvir says his yet-to-be-enacted plan to expand a National Guard with 1,000 new police officers will help solve the problem, which he also blames on his predecessors.
The far-right party leader also sends a message to his coalition, which is currently negotiating with the opposition on changes to the judiciary in order to solve a national rift over the government’s judicial overhaul plan.
“We don’t have a mandate to do a fake reform,” he says. “We can’t disappoint our voters.”
The Environmental Protection Ministry fines Gadiv Petrochemical Industries NIS 2.9 million ($800,000) for allowing cancerous and polluting substances to leak from pipes onto land and into the Mediterranean Sea.
The ministry says the January 2019 incident, contravenes the factory’s toxin permit and the Hazardous Materials Law.
The materials turned out to be volatile organic solvents, including benzene — which is known to be carcinogenic — toluene and xylene.
Gadiv forms part of the Bazan petrochemical conglomerate located in Haifa Bay in northern Israel in one of the most densely populated areas of the country.
Bazan’s refinery imports crude oil to make a range of refined products (distillates) for industry, transport and agriculture. Subsidiaries make products ranging from bitumen for road surfaces to waxes, oils, lubricants and polymers.
Both Bazan and its subsidiaries – including Gadiv – have been fined multiple times for polluting the environment.
JPMorgan Chase reached a settlement in a class action lawsuit with victims of financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. He was found dead in jail on Aug. 10 of that year, at age 66. A medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.
Terms of the settlement are not disclosed.
“The parties believe this settlement is in the best interests of all parties, especially the survivors who were the victims of Epstein’s terrible abuse,” the bank says in a statement.
Litigation is still pending between the US Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, as well as JPMorgan Chase’s claims against Jes Staley.
The settlement is subject to court approval.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Lithuanian PM Ingrida Šimonytė to discuss the Iranian threat, according to the Israeli readout.
Netanyahu tells his counterpart that a nuclear Iran will harm regional stability and threaten the entire world.
“Israel and Lithuania have excellent relations that will only grow stronger during your visit,” says Netanyahu. “You are a welcome friend here in Jerusalem.”
They also discuss expanding cooperation in innovation, cybertech, and AI.
Yesterday, Šimonytė addressed the AJC Global Forum and visited Yad Vashem.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announces the appointment of Seffy (Yosef) Zinger as the new head of the Israel Securities Authority.
Zinger, 44, a partner in the Corporate and Securities Department at the Herzog Fox & Neeman law firm since 2018, will replace Anat Guetta as chairperson of the Israel Securities Authority. Guetta stepped down in April after more than five years in office.
In recent years, Zinger has been overseeing the bankruptcy and insolvency practice at Herzog Fox & Neeman, advising Israeli and multinational companies on a wide range of complex issues in corporate and securities law, including the restructuring of the IDB Group, cross-border international transactions, and financing the privatization of the Haifa port.
Before that, Zinger held a number of positions at the Justice Ministry in the areas of insolvency and taxation in the counseling and legislation department.
Commenting on the appointment, Smotrich says Zinger possesses experience in both the private and public sectors, in the economic sphere in general and in the securities sector in particular.
The Israel Securities Authority oversees and supervises a broad range of activities in the capital market, including the trade and corporate securities in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange; the staging of initial public offerings (IPOs) by companies recruiting capital from the public; the operation of mutual funds that offer the public a range of liquid and convenient investment avenues; and the operation of financial agents including investment consultants and portfolio managers.
National Unity party leader Benny Gantz denies that the opposition is ready to agree to a piecemeal judicial deal in exchange for placing an opposition lawmaker on the Judicial Selection Committee.
“I don’t know of any deal” relating to the panel, Gantz says, minutes after fellow opposition party leader Avigdor Liberman said he believed that an agreement would be made ahead of Wednesday’s election to choose committee members.
“I don’t know what Liberman based his remarks on. I don’t know what he knows,” Gantz says.
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman says he believes that the opposition will give in to coalition demands in exchange for securing a representative on the panel that picks Israel’s judges.
Liberman, who is boycotting the ongoing judicial overhaul negotiations, says he “assesses” that an agreement will be announced on Wednesday, prior to the Knesset’s vote on appointing two lawmakers to the panel.
In line with coalition negotiator statements and media reports, Liberman says the deal would curtail the judicial test of reasonableness, allowing the government to reinstate Shas leader Aryeh Deri as a minister.
According to Liberman, that is “the core” of any deal, strengthening “Netanyahu’s messianic coalition.”
The High Court disqualified Deri’s appointment as health and interior minister earlier this year, citing them as “unreasonable in the extreme” in light of Deri’s financial crimes.
Liberman says that such a deal will not stop the coalition’s plan to weaken judicial power. “There is no doubt that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will legislate the laws desired by [Justice Minister] Yariv Levin,” he says.
Liberman says he won’t join a coalition led by Netanyahu, but says that a liberal Zionist option is available. “No one pushed him. This is the option he chose,” Liberman says of Netanyahu’s decision to ally with far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
The former finance and defense minister compares Israel to Lebanon before its road to collapse. “If we don’t change the trend, within four years, we’re on the same path,” he says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sends his condolences over the death of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
“I was deeply saddened by the passing of Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family and to the people of Italy,” Netanyahu writes.
“Silvio was a great friend of Israel and stood by us at all times. Rest in peace my friend.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with ultra-Orthodox parties this evening to discuss a looming deadline to resolve the Haredi military enlistment policy.
While the High Court of Justice gave the government until the end of July to pass a new law setting out rules for military exemptions granted to religious scholars, the enlistment law itself is set to expire on June 30, 2023, likely accelerating the government’s response timeline.
If the government fails to either pass a law or receive a High Court extension before the deadline, the Defense Ministry would have to decide to either enlist draft-age Israelis engaging in full-time religious study or risk being in violation of the law.
United Torah Judaism is currently against delaying new legislation further.
However, new enlistment legislation is not currently ready, confirm sources within the coalition, and it is said that a new law will be pushed off until the Knesset’s winter session, beginning in October.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid and the chief defense attorney in the Netanyahu trial, Amit Hadad, exchange sharp words in court about the Yesh Atid leader’s reliability as a witness.
Hadad, cross-examining Lapid during his first day of testimony in the Jerusalem District Court, implies that the opposition leader lied in the past about his military service.
“Perhaps the court will think that you once told stories and you are now as well,” says Hadad, to which Lapid counters that he will “not cooperate with malicious gossip.”
Hadad continues to press Lapid on the issue of his conflicting stories about his IDF service, and the opposition leader replies: “There’s a problem with liars: They think everybody else is lying, and everyone who is corrupt thinks that everyone else is corrupt too.”
Lapid is in court to testify about his discussions with Netanyahu and with Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan back in 2013, when the Yesh Atid chief served as finance minister.
Lapid has testified that Netanyahu brought up the issue of a potential tax break for returning citizens that would benefit Milchan, but that nothing ever came of it. Netanyahu is accused in Case 1000 of accepting lavish gifts from the billionaire in exchange for attempting to help him with tax and US visa issues.
An unarmed Palestinian has been arrested by Israeli troops as he attempted to infiltrate into Israel from the Gaza Strip early this morning, the military says.
The Israel Defense Forces says soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras identified the suspect attempting to cross the security barrier in the central part of Gaza.
Troops dispatched to the scene arrest the suspect and take him to the Shin Bet security agency for further questioning.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip frequently attempt to illegally enter Israeli territory, often with hopes of fleeing the beleaguered enclave.
The US will return to the UN cultural agency UNESCO, which it quit in 2019 together with Israel over its bias against the Jewish state.
UNESCO director Audrey Azoulay writes to other member states that the US has informed her of its intention to rejoin the organization next month.
“This is a strong act of confidence, in UNESCO and in multilateralism. Not only in the centrality of the Organization’s mandate – culture, education, science, information – but also in the way this mandate is being implemented today,” Azoulay says in a statement.
Then-US and Israeli leaders Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu both fully withdrew from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2019.
Last year US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel supported the return of the US. However, since then Netanyahu has returned to power.
Israel was angered by decisions that included recognizing the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank, as a Palestinian world heritage site in danger.
The Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered as the biblical burial place of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs. Israel says the Hebron resolution — which refers to the city as “Islamic” — denies thousands of years of Jewish connection there.
Advocates for a US return say that Azoulay has successfully addressed charges of bias.
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