JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli official on Wednesday said he led a secret investigation into 16-year-old Palestinian protest icon Ahed Tamimi and her family, in part because their appearance — including “blond-haired, freckled” children in “Western clothes” — made them seem less like “real” Palestinians.
The stunning comments by Michael Oren, a deputy minister and former ambassador to the US, promptly drew accusations of racism from the family — the latest twist in a case that has turned into a public relations headache for Israel.
The case revolves around Israel’s handling of Ahed Tamimi, who was arrested on Dec. 19 for slapping two Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home four days earlier.
Video of the scuffle quickly spread, giving Ahed worldwide attention. The girl, noticeable for her long blond curls, and her mother are now being held in jail. Ahed faces charges that carry up to 14 years in prison.
Oren told The Associated Press that he had led a classified parliamentary investigation into the Tamimis two years ago in which Israeli security agencies and diplomats participated.
The family has a long history of leading protests against Israeli policies in the West Bank that often turn into clashes with soldiers in their village of Nabi Saleh and Ahed has been involved in highly publicized scuffles with soldiers in the past.
Oren said his investigation looked into whether the protests were genuine or whether the family members were provocateurs, paid to send children to clash with soldiers.
Derisively calling the skirmishes caught on tape “Pallywood,” Oren claimed that “someone” was funding the unrest to harm Israel’s image, without providing evidence.
“The Tamimi family and those claiming to be part of the Tamimi family have been provoking Israeli soldiers for many, many years now,” he said. “The children were chosen on the basis of their external look, to look Western, freckled, and blond-haired.”
“They were dressed as Westerners,” he added. “They don’t dress the way children dress in the West Bank, for a very specific purpose: To get soldiers to react violently to them, to take pictures of this violence and to spread it around the world in order to delegitimize, discredit the state of Israel.”
He called it a “very sophisticated operation” that has succeeded in manipulating the Western press.
In an interview with Israeli Channel 10 TV, Oren claimed one boy appeared in different videos with a cast on one arm at one protest, and on his other arm at another protest, before disappearing from demonstrations altogether.
In a statement from his office, Oren said: “In discussions held in the committee, the issue of the family’s credibility was raised and if it really is a real family.”
Ahed’s father, Bassem Tamimi, called Oren’s investigation “silly and stupid” and said the investigation was racist.
“We, the Tamimi family, were here in Palestine before the creation of Israel, and we will stay,” he said. “Denying that Palestinians could be blond reflects racism in the Israeli society.”
Ahed has been celebrated by Palestinians as a national hero, and Israel’s treatment of her has drawn the attention of international activists, human rights groups and UN officials.
In the Dec. 15 video, she is seen approaching two soldiers standing outside her home. She yells at them, tells them to leave, then kicks and slaps them as they stand silently.
The family says the girl was upset because a young cousin had been shot in the head and seriously wounded with a rubber bullet fired by Israeli troops. But the altercation drew outrage in Israel over what some had seen as a humiliation of the military.
In a reflection of the tensions, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered the popular Army Radio station to ban any songs composed by Yehonatan Geffen, a leading journalist and songwriter, because of a poem he published that praised Ahed. Israel’s attorney general ruled that Lieberman has no authority over the station’s programming.
Opposition lawmaker Nachman Shai, a former chief military spokesman who is often critical of the government, acknowledged that the incident has become part of the war for the “hearts and minds” of people around the world.
But he said Israel had no choice in how to handle the case.
“She does not deserve to return home as if nothing happened,” he said. “You cannot ignore it, because that will cause other Palestinians to follow her.”
Tamimi was arrested in an overnight raid on Dec. 19, and her mother was arrested when she visited her daughter at a police station.
An Israeli military court has ordered they both be held for the duration of their trial — a process that is expected to take months. Ahed has been charged with 12 counts of attacking soldiers in five incidents going back to April 2016, while her mother has been charged with incitement. A cousin arrested with Ahed has been released on bail.
The family lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said the trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 31, Ahed’s 17th birthday. She said she was hopeful the prosecutors would not seek the maximum 14-year sentence for the girl and would agree to a reduced sentence of several months.
Ahed is currently being held in a special prison wing for minors, where her conditions have improved, Lasky said. For the first week while she was interrogated, she said Ahed was not provided with a change of clothes or a coat, and threatened with the arrests of other family members if she did not talk.
Asked about Oren’s investigation, she said she was “ashamed” to hear a parliamentary committee was dealing with “wild conspiracy theories.”
Israel official doubted Palestinian protest icon, her family
Israel official doubted Palestinian protest icon, her family
Macron, on Egypt visit, to go near Gaza to show support for ceasefire
- A draft accord on treating Palestinian wounded brought out of Gaza is to be signed during the visit
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will go to an Egyptian port near the Gaza Strip next week to highlight concerns over the conflict in the Palestinian territory, his office said Thursday.
Macron will go to Arish, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gaza, next Tuesday during a visit to Egypt, officials said.
Macron will meet humanitarian and security workers next Tuesday to stress his “constant mobilization in favor of a ceasefire,” his office said in a statement.
Arish is a transit point for international aid intended for Gaza.
But food and other supplies have not been able to use the nearby Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was suspended last month.
Macron is to go to Egypt on Sunday and on Monday will meet the country’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Egypt has been a mediator in the Israel-Hamas conflict since the Ocxtober 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Macron will stress “the urgency” of securing a new ceasefire so that Gaza’s population is no longer has to bear a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Israeli strikes are ended and Israeli hostages in Gaza are freed, the French leader’s office said.
A draft accord on treating Palestinian wounded brought out of Gaza is to be signed during the visit.
Deadly fire on Gaza ambulances possible Israeli ‘war crimes’: UN official
- Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation” into the March 23 incident that Israeli officials have claimed was an attack on “terrorists”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The death of 15 medics and humanitarian workers in Gaza after shots were fired at their ambulances raises further concerns of “war crimes by the Israeli army,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Thursday.
“I am appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, which raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military,” said Volker Turk, before the UN Security Council.
Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation” into the March 23 incident that Israeli officials have claimed was an attack on “terrorists.”
The bodies of 15 rescuers and humanitarian workers, including eight from the Palestinian Red Crescent and one from the UN, were found near Rafah in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called a “mass grave.”
OCHA had said Tuesday that the first team was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, and that other emergency and aid teams were struck one after another for several hours as they searched for their missing colleagues.
This is “one of the darkest moments in this conflict that has shaken our shared humanity to its core,” said the president of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society Younes Al-Khatib before the UN Security Council on Thursday.
“The souls of Mostafa, Ezzedine, Saleh, Riffat, Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed Al-heila, Ashraf and Raed are asking for justice. Can you hear them?” he asked, demanding to know the fate of a 16th team member still missing.
“It’s worth noting, also, that during the communication with the team, the dispatch could hear a conversation in Hebrew between the Israeli forces and the team, meaning some were alive, still alive, when they were under the control of the Israeli forces,” Al-Khatib said.
The Israeli army has indicated it is investigating the “incident of March 23, 2025,” while claiming its soldiers had fired at “terrorists.”
Turk also condemned Israel for blocking the entry of humanitarian aid for a month and resuming its military operations, saying “the blockade and siege of Gaza,” and the subsequent suffering of civilians “constitutes a form of collective punishment.”
It “may also amount to the use of starvation as a method of war,” he said.
Turk expressed alarm over “inflammatory statements by senior Israeli officials about seizing, dividing, and controlling the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
“All of this raises serious concerns about international crimes being committed and contradicts the fundamental principle of international law regarding acquisition of territory by force.”
The war was triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hundreds of thousands flee as Israel seizes Rafah in new Gaza ‘security zone’
- Airstrike kills at least 27 Palestinians, including women and children, inside a school building
GAZA: Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced “security zone” they intend to seize.
A day after declaring their intention to capture large swaths of the crowded enclave, Israeli forces pushed into the city on Gaza’s southern edge, which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City in the north.
FASTFACT
The assault to capture Rafah is a significant escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 27 Palestinians, including women and children, inside a school building that served as a shelter for displaced families in Gaza City, local health authorities said.
The Israeli military claimed the attack hit key Palestinian “terrorists.”
Medics said three missiles slammed into the Dar Al-Arqam school building in Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, and the Israeli military said it struck a command center that militants had used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli civilians and army troops.
Rafah “is gone, it is being wiped out,” a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, said via a chat app.
“They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property,” said the man.
The assault to capture Rafah is a significant escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
In Shejaia in the north, one of the districts where Israel has ordered the population to leave, hundreds of residents streamed out on Thursday, some carrying their belongings as they walked, others on donkey carts and bikes or in vans.
“I want to die. Let them kill us and free us from this life. We’re not living, we’re dead,” said Umm Aaed Bardaa.
In Khan Younis, where a strike killed several people, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent: “There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep,” he said.
Israel has not spelled out its long-term aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said troops were taking an area he called the “Morag Axis,” a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.
They fear Israel intends to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless while Israel seizes some of Gaza’s last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.
Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations call a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel’s military said on Thursday it was investigating the deaths of 15 Palestinian aid workers found buried in a shallow grave in March near Red Crescent vehicles, an incident that caused global alarm.
The military said troops fired on the cars, believing they carried fighters.
Israel’s stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas militant group, which ran Gaza for nearly two decades.
But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas returned to control during the ceasefire.
Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce temporarily; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that permanently ends the war.
Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza’s Beit Lahiya on Wednesday. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.
The war began with an attack on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023 with gunmen taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.
Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel’s order to leave as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there.
However, a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the cities.
The movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment.
“Others stayed because they don’t know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained,” said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.
Lebanese leaders reach consensus on border demarcation to present to US envoy
- President Aoun tells top military officers: Lebanon’s interests are above everything else
- Joseph Aoun: It is the state that protects Lebanon, not its sects
BEIRUT: Lebanese leaders have reached a unified position on border demarcation to present to Morgan Ortagus, the US envoy, who is scheduled to arrive in Beirut before the end of the week.
President Joseph Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, agreed that there “will be no negotiations with the Israeli side regarding (a) prisoner swap or withdrawal from the Lebanese hills still occupied by the Israeli Army,” a source in the government told Arab News on Thursday.
“However, Lebanon is open to discussing disputed land border points,” the source added.
“Regardless of the US envoy’s proposals, the Lebanese stance remains unchanged,” said the source, who clarified that the Lebanese Army “is fulfilling its duties by being deployed south of the Litani River and confiscating weapons in the border area, as acknowledged by the US side overseeing the ceasefire monitoring committee and the UNIFIL forces.”
The source said that the military had made significant progress on the issue, destroying weapons and ammunition seized from Hezbollah sites.
Aoun told top security officials on Thursday that Lebanon’s interests comes above anything else.
He was speaking during a visit to the leadership of the Internal Security Forces and the General Security Directorate.
“We have a great opportunity to seize at all levels, and we must show the people that we are mature enough to build the state and that we will build it,” he said.
The president called on security bodies to “remain unaffiliated with anyone, serve only Lebanon’s interests, and enforce the law,” noting that “the world is ready to help us, but we must first help ourselves.”
Aoun stated: “Lebanon’s interest comes above anything else. It is the state that protects Lebanon, not its sects. Parties and sects prioritize their interests, whereas your duty is to serve Lebanon.
“You must reject any demands or interference that might harm the nation’s interests and prompt people to respect the law, keeping in mind that no request outside the law will be tolerated.”
Also on Thursday, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi, the highest Maronite religious authority in Lebanon, said the time “has come to unify weapons in Lebanon, as stipulated in the Taif Agreement.”
He also told the Lebanese Editors Syndicate that the military “needs strengthening and support from other nations, but the solution now is diplomatic, as we are incapable of engaging in war, and no one can confront Israel.
“What has the resistance achieved with all its weapons against the Israeli war machine,” he asked, adding “now is not the time for normalization with Israel, as there are other issues that must be addressed first, such as border demarcation and disarmament.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from the five positions it controls in Lebanon.
He was speaking during a visit to an Israeli military site in southern Lebanon — one of the five hills still occupied since the ceasefire declaration in November.
At the site, which is near the Israeli settlement of Margaliot, Katz stated Israel’s presence at the five locations will be determined not by time but by the situation on the ground.
“Only if Hezbollah disarms and withdraws from the border can we discuss the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from these positions, and this matter is being coordinated with the Americans,” he said.
Katz anticipated “an increase in activity among Palestinian organizations, including Hamas, in Lebanon and Syria.”
He stated: “We are working to prevent the arming of Hezbollah and Palestinian organizations. The challenge will begin and intensify.”
Katz claimed that Hezbollah “is not a protector of Lebanon.”
He added: “The Iranians now realize that it is no longer capable of defending them.”
Elsewhere, an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle on the main road between Bint Jbeil and Yaroun in the border area.
The drone struck the vehicle from behind, resulting in two injuries, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
The Israeli military conducted airstrikes around Naqoura and one strike in the town’s center, targeting pre-fabricated homes as replacements for the destroyed houses and facilities.
These pre-fabricated facilities were being used to meet citizens’ needs, serving as a substitute for the municipal building, destroyed by Israel following the ceasefire, said Naqoura Mayor Abbas Awada.
He highlighted that recent aggression occurring in proximity to UNIFIL headquarters falls “under the jurisdiction of the five-member ceasefire monitoring committee and UNIFIL forces.”
Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Authority reported that Israeli strikes destroyed a “newly established civil defense center and damaged ambulances and firefighting vehicles.”
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Armed Forces have taken proactive measures, with military units removing “engineering obstacles placed by Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory” near Al-Labouna in the Tyre region.
The military also closed an unauthorized dirt road created by Israeli units in the same area.
In an official statement, the Lebanese Army Command affirmed its ongoing commitment to “addressing Israeli violations through close coordination with the ceasefire monitoring mechanism and UNIFIL.”
The Army Command condemned Israel’s “persistent violations of Lebanese sovereignty and targeting of civilians across multiple regions.”
In another development, UNIFIL Western Sector Commander Gen. Nicola Mandolisi conducted his first meeting with Khirbet Selem Mayor Mohammed Rahhal.
Their joint statement highlighted “UNIFIL’s commitment to facilitating the safe return of displaced residents and supporting Lebanese military operations through strategic partnerships with the Fifth Brigade and the Second and Fifth Rapid Intervention Regiments, key components in regional stabilization efforts.”
South Sudan clashes kill 30: local official
- The attack in northern Ruweng Administrative Area began earlier in the week
- Local media reported that some of those killed were members of the armed groups
JUBA: At least 30 people were killed when a northern South Sudanese town was briefly overrun by an armed youth group, a local official said Thursday, following a cattle raid.
Clashes involving pastoralists and settled farming communities are common in the world’s youngest country, but this incident comes as tensions rise over South Sudan’s fragile political situation.
The attack in northern Ruweng Administrative Area began earlier in the week when a group of armed youth stole lambs before they were scared off by security forces, said Simon Chol Mialith, the local Minister of Information.
The following day, he told AFP, the group returned in greater numbers and attacked Abiemnom, and although “the youth and the security forces tried to defend the town, they were overrun by the Mayom armed youth.”
On Wednesday the South Sudan People’s Defense Force (SSPDF) drove the group from the settlement, Mialith said, where calm has now been restored.
“The number has risen to 30 people confirmed dead and over 40 persons wounded,” he said, without giving further details.
Local media reported that some of those killed were members of the armed groups, but AFP was unable to confirm this.
The incident comes as forces allied to President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar clash across the country, sparking regional concern and threatening a fragile peace deal in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war.
South Sudan has been bedevilled by instability and insecurity since independence in 2011, and despite its natural oil resources remains deeply impoverished.
