Amid Qusra chaos, Katz asserts he’ll transfer civilian enforcement in West Bank from IDF to police
Times of Israel · LC · trust 43/100
An armed settler was filmed firing into the air and then pointing his weapon at Palestinians and Israeli activists who had arrived at privately owned Palestinian land in the Beit Sahour area near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.
According to Mia Biran, a “Combatants for Peace” activist who was at the scene and spoke with The Times of Israel, around 100 Palestinian and Israeli activists arrived at the site this morning together with the Palestinian owners of the privately owned land, following a settler takeover of an abandoned building that raised concerns that settlers would take control of the entire area.
Biran says that after the group reached the building and began removing Israeli flags that settlers had hung there and replacing them with Palestinian flags, shots were fired.
The site is on the outskirts of Beit Sahour, in Area C, which is under Israeli civilian and security control. There is also a military post in the area.
“Eight to 10 settlers arrived, all of them armed,” says Biran.
After people shouted in Hebrew, “Don’t shoot,” the gunfire stopped, according to Biran. The settler who fired into the air can then be heard shouting, “Get out of here.”
In another video, another settler can be heard shouting, “You’re messing with the wrong people.”
Biran adds that soldiers arrived at the scene shortly afterward and said it was a closed military zone, but did not present an order and did not remove the settlers from the area.
Longtime Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern has announced that he is resigning as a Knesset member with the party after 11 years in office.
Stern has indicated in recent interviews that he is likely to join Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party ahead of the national election scheduled for October 27.
In a statement, Stern says that he is “convinced that if I remain in politics,” he and Yesh Atid will continue to collaborate in a way to “get the State of Israel out of the very serious situation that the current government has brought us into.”
Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid — who has joined forces ahead of the election with former prime minister Naftali Bennett in the B’Yachad party — says he thanks Stern “for his many years of friendship and partnership in working for the State of Israel and wishes him success in the future.”
Yashar is polling significantly ahead of the B’Yachad slate in recent surveys.
Stern was the subject of controversy in 2021 over comments he made asserting that he had ignored sexual harassment complaints during his time as head of the IDF’s Manpower Directorate. In response to the backlash, Stern dropped his candidacy for head of the Jewish Agency but remained a member of Knesset.
The Israel Airports Authority says in a statement that significant delays are being caused at Ben Gurion Airport due to a confluence of factors, including the ongoing presence of American refueling tankers.
In a statement, the IAA says that it experienced a backlog of 90 flights in just three hours due to traffic congestion over Greece, a high amount of summer flight traffic and US refueling planes parked at the airport.
“When a large number of flights arrive in close proximity, a reduced availability of parking spaces reduces operational flexibility and increases pressure on ground systems,” the IAA says, denying reports that a shortage of workers is causing delays.
The IAA says the high volume of activity — with more than 90,000 passengers slated to pass through the airport today — causes delays, including onloading and offloading luggage and “the entire handling chain.”
The IAA website shows that 10 of the 17 flights slated to depart between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. today were significantly delayed.
The ongoing presence of US tankers at Ben Gurion Airport has been a point of contention , and Transportation Minister Miri Regev vowed last month that only 20 would be allowed at the airport at any given time, with the rest redirected to military bases around the country.
It is not immediately clear if the limit of 20 tankers has been enforced at Ben Gurion Airport amid US pressure to allow more to stay on the ground there.
Kevin Rideout, a US missionary who was kidnapped in Niger, has been released and is in good health, says the Christian group he worked for.
Rideout, 50, was kidnapped from outside his home in the Nigerien capital Niamey last October, according to SIM International. At one point, he was believed to be held in neighboring Mali by the Sahel branch of the Islamic State group.
But it was unclear which group held Rideout at the end of his captivity as he may have been moved, the New York Times reports, citing an unidentified US official.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has made Rideout’s release a priority in its latest strategy on African Sahel states, after years of fighting extremism found limited success.
“We are grateful to confirm that our good friend and brother in Christ, Kevin Rideout, has been released after over nine months in captivity,” SIM International says in a statement.
“Kevin is in good health in the care of US officials,” the group says, adding that he will soon be reunited with family.
Hadash MK Ofer Cassif says he was briefly blocked from entering the West Bank village of Qusra where extremist settlers have laid siege to Palestinian homes.
Cassif, the only Jewish MK in the Arab-majority party, says in a statement that he arrived today at Qusra “to see with my own eyes what’s going on and to try and assist the besieged Palestinian families, who are being denied food, water and medicine just to protect a den of terrorists that was reestablished again today.”
הגעתי היום לכפר קוסרה כדי לראות במו עיניי את המתרחש ולנסות לסייע למשפחות הפלסטיניות הנצורות, מהן מונעים מזון, מים ותרופות רק כדי להגן על קן טרור מתנחבלי שהוקם היום שוב.
בכניסה לכפר עיכבו אותי כוחות הכיבוש בטענה שמדובר בשטח B, ולאחר זמן קצר אף הוציאו צו שטח צבאי סגור, ניכר… pic.twitter.com/77GjIBIDUL
— Ofer Cassif עופר כסיף عوفر كسيف (@ofercass)…
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