JERUSALEM: Israel's parliament approved on Sunday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new unity government, ending more than a year of political deadlock, but he still faces a trial starting next week for alleged corruption.
His decision to share power with former rival, centrist Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, opens the way for Netanyahu to proceed towards a pledged annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, land that Palestinians seek for a state.
After three inconclusive elections, the conservative Netanyahu will remain prime minister for 18 months before handing over to his new partner.
Gantz, a former armed forces chief, will be Netanyahu's defence minister and "alternate prime minister", a new position that Netanyahu will hold when Gantz takes the helm.
By assuming that "alternate" premiership once he hands over to Gantz, Netanyahu hopes to avoid having to resign under legal rules that allow a prime minister to remain in office even if charged with a crime.
Israel's longest-serving leader, Netanyahu, 70, first came to power in 1996 and has served three consecutive terms since 2009. He goes on trial on May 24 on charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud, which he denies.
"The people wanted unity, and that is what it got," Netanyahu told parliament, citing a desire to steer clear of a fourth election and the need for a national battle against the coronavirus crisis.
Lawmakers ratified the new administration by a vote of 73 to 46.
Netanyahu can now push forward his plan to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, territory Palestinians want for their own independent state.
"These regions are where the Jewish nation was born and rose. It is time to apply Israeli law on them and write another great chapter in the annals of Zionism," he said.
But while Netanyahu has set July 1 as a starting point for cabinet discussions on the highly contentious issue, there is no publicly stated deadline for annexation of land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Palestinians have vehemently opposed such a move, urging international sanctions against Israel in response. It would be certain to heighten tensions in the West Bank and Gaza.
"These colonial and expansionist positions confirm once again his (Netanyahu's) ideological enmity towards peace," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Gantz, 60, had cited the criminal charges against Netanyahu after the latest election in March when he again pledged to his own voters that he would not serve in a government with the veteran conservative leader.
Angering many of his supporters and splitting his own party, he made a deal in the end, saying the coronavirus crisis made national unity an imperative.
The new cabinet will have a record 36 ministers. Several new posts have been created to ensure both Netanyahu and Gantz can bring loyalists on board.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid ridiculed the public-health rationale behind the coalition, noting the number of Israeli COVID-19 victims on ventilators had fallen so steeply that the new government "could place a minister next to each bed".
Netanyahu's new Israeli government approved, eyes West Bank annexations
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Netanyahu's new Israeli government approved, eyes West Bank annexations
- Netanyahu will remain prime minister for 18 months before handing over to his new partner
- He can now push forward his plan to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley
Sudan’s army shells Omdurman in push to oust RSF from capital region
The army ousted the RSF from its last footholds in Khartoum on Wednesday but the paramilitary RSF holds some areas in Omdurman, directly across the Nile River, and has consolidated in west Sudan, splitting the nation into rival zones.
Khartoum residents expressed delight fighting was over for the first time since it erupted in April 2023.
“During the last two years the RSF made our life hell killing and stealing. They didn’t respect anybody including women and old men,” teacher Ahmed Hassan, 49, said by phone.
The war has ruined much of Khartoum, uprooted more than 12 million Sudanese from their homes, and left about half of the 50 million population suffering acute hunger in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Overall deaths are hard to estimate but a study published last year said the toll may have reached 61,000 in Khartoum state alone in the first 14 months of the conflict.
The conflict has added to instability around northeast Africa, with Sudan’s neighbors Libya, Chad, Central African Republic and South Sudan each weathering internal bouts of conflict over recent years.
In a video posted on Thursday from the recaptured presidential palace, army chief Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan declared: “Khartoum is free.”
The RSF said in a statement that it had never lost a battle, but that its forces had “strategically repositioned and expanded across the battlefronts to secure their military objectives,” without naming Khartoum or other locations.
While the seizure of Khartoum marks a significant turning point, the war looks far from over.
Residents in the western state of Darfur said the RSF was shelling army positions in Al-Fashir, the main city there, on Thursday.
RETREATING RSF
RSF fighters pulling out of Khartoum on Wednesday via a Nile dam 40 km south redeployed, some heading into Omdurman to help stave off army attacks and others heading west toward Darfur, witnesses said.
The army controls most of Omdurman, home to two big military bases, and looks focused on driving out the last RSF troops to secure control over Khartoum’s entire urban area. Thursday’s shelling was directed at southern Omdurman.
The RSF still holds a last patch of territory around the dam at Jebel Aulia south of Khartoum, two residents of the area said, to secure a line of retreat for stragglers.
Residents of a village in North Kordofan state said they had seen an RSF military convoy with dozens of vehicles passing through on its way west.
The army and RSF had been in a fragile partnership, jointly staging a coup in 2021 that derailed the transition from the Islamist rule of Omar Al-Bashir, a longtime autocrat ousted in 2019.
The RSF, under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, developed from Darfur’s janjaweed militias and Bashir developed the group as a counterweight to the army, led by career officer Burhan.
Under an internationally backed transition plan the RSF was meant to integrate into the army, but there were disputes over how and when that should happen and fighting broke out.
In Khartoum the RSF quickly spread through residential districts, taking most of the city and besieging the better-equipped army in big military bases that had to be resupplied by air.
The army’s capture of Khartoum could open the way for it to announce the formation of a government. The RSF has said it would support the formation of a rival civilian administration.
Six dead in tourist submarine sinking off Egypt resort: state media
- The website of the state-owned Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said the deceased were all foreigners
- Investigations were underway to determine what caused the accident
CAIRO: Six tourists died on Thursday when a tourist submarine sank off the resort of Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, state media reported.
The website of the state-owned Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said the deceased were all foreigners, adding that 19 others were injured.
Investigations were underway to determine what caused the accident, according to the newspaper, which said the injured were transported to nearby hospitals along with the bodies of the deceased.
Hurghada, a bustling tourist city some 460 kilometers (285 miles) southeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, is a major destination for visitors to Egypt.
The Red Sea coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast are major draws, contributing to the country’s vital tourism sector which employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.
While dozens of tourist boats sail through the coastal area daily for snorkeling and diving activities, the website of Sindbad Submarines, the vessel owner according to Akhbar Al-Youm, says the company deploys the region’s “only real” recreational submarine.
Israel intercepts two missiles launched from Yemen
- The Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas fighters
DUBAI: The Israeli military said on Thursday it had intercepted two missiles launched from Yemen before they crossed into Israeli territory, after sirens sounded in several areas in Israel including Jerusalem.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at Israel in support of Hamas fighters. The United States has been striking Houthi strongholds in Yemen since March 15, with President Donald Trump vowing to hold Iran responsible for any attacks carried out by the group.
The Houthis are an armed movement that has taken control of the most populous parts of Yemen despite nearly a decade of Saudi-led bombing.
The group is also part of what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance” — a network of anti-Israel, anti-Western regional militias that also includes the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose capabilities Israel significantly reduced in an air and ground campaign last year.
Hamas says spokesman killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
- A fragile ceasefire that brought weeks of relative calm to Gaza ended on March 18 with Israel resuming its bombing campaign across the territory
GAZA: Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed one of its official spokesmen in Gaza on Thursday, the latest high-ranking operative targeted since Israel resumed its bombardment.
The group said in a statement it mourned the loss of Abdul Latif Al-Qanou who was killed in what it called a “direct” strike on a tent he was in, in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza.
A fragile ceasefire that brought weeks of relative calm to Gaza ended on March 18 with Israel resuming its bombing campaign across the territory.
According to the health ministry in Gaza, at least 855 people have been killed since.
Qanou is the latest Hamas official to be killed in recent Israeli strikes.
Israel’s military said last week it had killed the head of Hamas’s internal security agency, Rashid Jahjouh, in an air strike.
Days earlier, Hamas had named the head of its government in the Gaza Strip, Essam Al-Dalis, and interior ministry head Mahmud Abu Watfa, among a list of officials it said were killed in strikes.
The Israeli military confirmed it had killed Dalis, a member of Hamas’s political bureau who became the head of its administration in Gaza in June 2021.
Hamas has also confirmed the deaths of Salah Al-Bardawil and Yasser Harb, both members of its political bureau.
“The occupation’s targeting of the movement’s leaders and spokespersons will not break our will,” Hamas said Thursday.
Israel parliament passes judicial reform law, opposition challenges
- The opposition, which swiftly filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, views these judicial reforms as signs of Netanyahu’s authoritarian shift toward an illiberal democracy
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament Thursday passed a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges, defying a years-long movement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial reforms that saw massive street protests.
The approval comes as Netanyahu’s government, one of the most right-wing in Israel’s history, is locked in a standoff with the supreme court after beginning proceedings to dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, head of the internal security agency.
The opposition, which swiftly filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, views these judicial reforms as signs of Netanyahu’s authoritarian shift toward an illiberal democracy.
The legislation was approved by a vote of 67 in favor and one against, with the opposition boycotting the early-morning vote.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has 120 lawmakers.
The overall judicial reform package had sparked one of the largest protest movements in Israel’s history in 2023 before being overtaken by the war in Gaza.
The war began following the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Yair Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, announced on social media platform X that he had filed an appeal with the supreme court against the law on behalf of several opposition parties, just minutes after the parliamentary vote.
According to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who sponsored the bill, the measure was intended to “restore balance” between the legislative and judicial branches.
In his closing remarks ahead of the vote, Levin slammed the supreme court for what he described had “effectively nullified the Knesset.”
“It has taken for itself the authority to cancel laws and even Basic Laws. This is something unheard of in any democracy in the world,” said Levin, the key architect of the judicial reforms.
“But our supreme court didn’t stop at trampling the Knesset; it placed itself above the government. It can annul any government action, compel the government to perform any action, cancel any government appointment.”
Levin said with the new bill the country was “opening a new page.”
“It is hypocrisy and one-sided to say that the Knesset is forbidden to act while the court is allowed to act in the middle of a war,” Levin said.
“The days of appeasement and silencing are over, never to return. I am proud to stand here and demand justice, and I am even prouder to deliver justice.”
Currently, judges — including supreme court justices — are selected by a nine-member committee comprising judges, lawmakers, and bar association representatives, under the justice minister’s supervision.
Under the new law, which would take effect at the start of the next legislative term, the committee would still have nine members: three supreme court judges, the justice minister and another minister, one coalition lawmaker, one opposition lawmaker, and two public representatives — one appointed by the majority and the other by the opposition.
The government’s judicial reforms package, first unveiled in early 2023, had triggered massive street protests that effectively divided Israeli society.
Netanyahu’s detractors warn the multi-pronged package could pave the way for authoritarian rule and be used by Netanyahu to quash possible convictions against him in his ongoing corruption trial, an accusation the premier denies.
Protesters had rallied weekly against the government reforms since they were unveiled.
Rallies have once again erupted in key cities, and on Wednesday thousands protested against the bill before it was approved in parliament.
Netanyahu had slammed the opposition on Wednesday during a speech in parliament.
“You recycle the same worn-out and ridiculous slogans about ‘the end of democracy’. Well, once and for all: Democracy is not in danger, it is the power of the bureaucrats that is in danger.
“Perhaps you could stop putting spanners in the works of the government in the middle of a war. Perhaps you could stop fueling the sedition, hatred and anarchy in the streets.”
