JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an affidavit before the Supreme Court on Sunday, described as a “liar” the country’s internal security chief, whom the government is trying to fire.
Netanyahu’s response came almost a week after Shin Bet head Ronen Bar himself made a sworn statement to the court. It accused the prime minister of demanding personal loyalty and ordering him to spy on anti-government protesters.
Bar’s dismissal, announced by the government last month but frozen by the country’s top court, triggered mass protests.
The unprecedented move to fire the head of the Shin Bet security agency has been contested by the attorney general and the opposition, which appealed Bar’s firing to the Supreme Court.
“The accusation according to which I allegedly demanded action against innocent civilians, or against a non-violent and legitimate protest during the protests of 2023, is an absolute lie,” Netanyahu said in his court statement.
In his own affidavit, Bar had said “it was clear” that in the event of a potential constitutional crisis, Netanyahu would expect Bar to obey the prime minister and not the courts.
Netanyahu countered: “There is no proof supporting these remarks.”
Bar had also denied accusations by Netanyahu and his associates that the Shin Bet had failed to warn in time about Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
“Nothing was hidden” on that night from the security apparatus or the prime minister, Bar said.
Netanyahu countered before the court that Bar “did not accomplish his mission” that night.
“He did not wake up the prime minister. He did not wake up the minister of defense. He did not wake up the soldiers of the army,” or others before the attack, Netanyahu alleged.
The prime minister’s 23-page document said Bar “failed in his role as chief of Shin Bet and lost the confidence of the entire Israeli government as far as his ability to continue to manage the organization.”
Netanyahu’s office had already made similar public comments immediately after Bar filed his affidavit.
An April 8 Supreme Court hearing on the government’s plans to fire Bar ruled that he “will continue to perform his duties until a later decision.”
Israel PM calls security chief ‘liar’, in court filing
https://arab.news/vte6p
Israel PM calls security chief ‘liar’, in court filing
- Bar’s dismissal, announced by the government last month but frozen by the country’s top court, triggered mass protests.
Egypt detains over 200 activists ahead of Gaza aid march
CAIRO: Egyptian authorities have detained more than 200 pro-Palestinian activists in Cairo ahead of an international march aiming to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza, organizers said on Thursday.
Thousands of people taking part in the Global March to Gaza planned to travel to Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian territory on Friday to call for increased humanitarian aid access.
“Over 200 participants were detained at Cairo airport or questioned at hotels across Cairo,” said the march’s spokesperson, Saif Abukeshek.
The detainees included people from Algeria, Australia, France, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain, and the US, he said.
Plainclothes officers entered Cairo hotels on Wednesday with lists of names, questioning activists, and in some cases, confiscating phones and searching personal belongings, said Abukeshek.
“After interrogations, some were arrested and others were released.”
At Cairo airport, some detainees were held for hours without explanation, Abukeshek said, adding others were deported, without specifying how many.
More than 20 French activists who had planned to join the march were held at Cairo airport for 18 hours, he said.
“What happened was completely unexpected,” Abukeshek said.
Footage shared with AFP showed dozens of people with their luggage crammed inside a holding room at the airport.
“We’re locked up here in this room with so many people — some 30-40 people,” a German national said in one video.
“I called the embassy and they told me their people are trying to figure things out,” she said.
Another video obtained by AFP shows more than 30 people aboard a deportation flight from Cairo chanting in French: “The world is with you ... Gaza ... Gaza.”
One French traveler, briefly detained and released on Thursday, said he had been held in a room at Cairo airport with around 15 others.
He said he saw between 50 and 60 people being stopped, including elderly people and families.
The Greek contingent said in a statement that dozens of Greek nationals were among those held at Cairo airport, but were later released after 10 hours in custody.
The Global March to Gaza said several people were being released after diplomatic staff arrived at Cairo airport to provide “consular assistance to the detained participants.”
Cairo Security Directorate chief Tarek Rashid did not respond to a request for comment.
After 21 months of war, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, which the UN has dubbed “the hungriest place on Earth.”
Another convoy dubbed Soumoud, or steadfastness in Arabic, left the Tunisian capital on Monday, hoping to pass through divided Libya and Egypt — which organizers say has yet to provide passage permits — to reach Gaza.
The Soumoud convoy arrived in Tripoli — the Libyan capital controlled by the internationally recognized government — on Wednesday.
It remains uncertain whether the convoy will be allowed into eastern Libya.
The Global March to Gaza, which is coordinating with Soumoud, said around 4,000 participants from more than 40 countries would take part in the event, with many having already arrived ahead of the Friday march.
According to the plan, participants are set to travel by bus to the city of El-Arish in the heavily secured Sinai Peninsula before walking 50 km toward the border with Gaza.
They would then camp there before returning to Cairo on June 19.
Israel has called on Egyptian authorities “to prevent the arrival of jihadist protesters at the Egypt-Israel border.”
Such actions “would endanger the safety of (Israeli) soldiers and will not be allowed,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
In response, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said that while it backs efforts to put “pressure on Israel,” any foreign delegations visiting the border area must receive approval through official channels.
“We will continue despite what happened because the current numbers in Egypt and those expected to arrive are enough to organize this march,” Abukeshek said.
Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’ of sovereignty after Israeli incursion
- One person killed and 7 captured during the pre-dawn operation in Beit Jin, Interior Ministry says
DAMASCUS: Syria’s Interior Ministry condemned an Israeli incursion in southern Syria, saying Israeli forces killed one person and abducted seven others, calling it a “blatant violation” of the country’s sovereignty.
“We affirm that these repeated provocations constitute a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that “these practices cannot lead the region to stability and will only result in further tension and turmoil.”
The Israeli military said those detained during the pre-dawn raid on Beit Jin were suspected of planning attacks against Israel, and that weapons also were found in the area.
They were taken back to Israel for questioning, the military said.
One person was killed and seven captured in the operation, Syria’s Interior Ministry said, while the father of the young man killed said he had a history of mental illness.
Since the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in early December, Israeli forces have moved into several areas in southern Syria and conducted hundreds of airstrikes throughout the country, destroying much of the assets of the Syrian army.
Local broadcaster Syria TV described Thursday’s raid as being carried out by about 100 Israeli troops who stormed Beit Jin, near the border with Lebanon, and called out the names of several people targeted for arrest through loudspeakers.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said such incursions spike tensions in the region.
“Such repeated provocative acts are a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
Village official Walid Okasha said that Israeli troops had entered the outskirts of Beit Jin in recent months, but that this was the first time they entered the center of the village.
He added that Thursday’s operation came four days after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the village, inflicting casualties.
“They came targeting specific people,” said Okasha, who denied that Hamas members were in the village.
He said the seven people taken to Israel were all Syrians and that two of them were members of the country’s new security forces.
He said the man who was killed suffered from mental illness.
Ahmad Hammadi identified the victim as his son and told the AP that he had a history of schizophrenia.
He said his son was shot dead in front of his home, and that he had no links to Hamas.
He said two of the captured men were his nephews. Hussein Safadi said his two sons, Ahmad, 32, and Mohammed, 34, were captured, adding that his younger son, who raises goats, had lived in Lebanon for years until recently.
He said his younger son was a member of the armed opposition against Assad and recently joined the security forces of the new authorities. As for why Israeli forces seized his sons, “we don’t know the reasons,” Safadi said.
During a visit to France last month, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that his country is holding indirect talks with Israel to prevent hostilities from getting out of control.
Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis
- Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported
RABAT: Egypt blocked activists planning to take part in a march to Gaza, halting their attempt to reach the border and challenge Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory before it could begin.
Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported.
To draw attention to the humanitarian crisis afflicting people in Gaza, marchers have for months planned to trek about 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) from the city of Arish to Egypt’s border with the enclave on Sunday to “create international moral and media pressure” to open the crossing at Rafah and lift a blockade that has prevented aid from entering.
Saif Abu Keshek, one of the activists organizing the march, said that about 200 activists — mostly Algerians and Moroccans — were detained or deported.
But those arriving to the Cairo International Airport on Thursday afternoon were allowed into Egypt, the Spain-based activist added. Organizers have not received approval from Egyptian authorities for Sunday’s march and were evaluating how to proceed, he said.
An Egyptian official on Thursday said more than three dozen activists, mostly carrying European passports, were deported upon their arrival at the Cairo International Airport in the past two days.
The official said the activists aimed to travel to Northern Sinai “without obtaining required authorizations.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
King Tut gold mask to leave Cairo museum after nearly 100 years
- King Tutankhamun’s treasures to move to new Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza Pyramids
- More than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb will be displayed at the $1-billion megaproject opening next month
CAIRO: After nearly a century in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, King Tutankhamun’s iconic gold mask and remaining treasures are set to move to the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids.
Visitors have just days left to see the boy king’s world-famous gold funerary mask before it joins more than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb at the GEM, a $1-billion megaproject opening on July 3.
“Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here in Tahrir,” said museum director Ali Abdel Halim.
“All are set to be moved soon,” he told AFP, without confirming a specific date for the transfer.
The government has yet to officially announce when or how the last artefacts will be relocated.
Still on display are the innermost gold coffin, a gilded coffin, a gold dagger, cosmetic box, miniature coffins, royal diadem and pectorals.
Tutankhamun’s treasures, registered at the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir square in 1934, have long been its crown jewels.
But the neoclassical building — with faded cases, no climate control and aging infrastructure — now contrasts with the high-tech GEM.
Once open, the GEM is believed to be the largest in the world devoted to a single civilization, housing more than 100,000 artefacts — with over half on public display.
In a dedicated wing, most of King Tut’s treasures will be exhibited together for the first time in history since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the young pharaoh’s intact tomb in 1922.
His mummy will remain in its original resting place in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings as it is “a vital part of the archaeological site,” Egyptian officials have said.
A virtual replica, however, will be displayed at the GEM using virtual reality technology.
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, long the historic heart of Egyptology, has lost in 2021 other star exhibits: 22 royal mummies including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut that were relocated in a widely watched state procession to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo.
Still, it is home to around 170,000 artefacts, according to the museum director, including treasures from Yuya and Thuya — Tutankhamun’s ancestors — and items from ancient Tanis, such as the golden funerary mask of King Amenemope.
A total of 32,000 artefacts have already been relocated from storage and display halls at the Tahrir museum to the GEM.
The museum’s director said the space left behind by Tutankhamun’s collection will eventually be filled by a new exhibition “on par with the significance of Tut’s treasures.”
Syria condemns Israeli incursion into Damascus countryside
- Atrack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction, Foreign Ministry said
- Israeli forces entered Beit Jinn in Qatana area killing one civilian and detaining others
LONDON: The Syrian Arab Republic condemned an overnight incursion by Israeli forces into its southern territory, resulting in the death of a civilian and the detention of scores of residents.
“(The) escalation represents a clear violation of international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, including the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that the attack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction and called on the UN Security Council “to take decisive steps to halt those repeated attacks and ensure respect for international law, in order to preserve regional security and stability.”
Syria’s Ministry of Interior said on Thursday that the Israeli forces killed one civilian and “kidnapped seven others during a raid in the town of Beit Jinn, (in the) Damascus countryside” overnight.
The Israeli forces, comprised of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry vehicles, along with reconnaissance drones, entered Beit Jinn in the Qatana area in the country’s southern territory, 12 km from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“These practices cannot lead to stability in the region and will only lead to further tension and unrest,” the Ministry of Interior said.
Israeli forces took the detained Syrians into the territories it controlled following the fall of the Assad regime in December, and their fate remains “unknown,” the ministry added.
