JERUSALEM: Israel’s new Defense Minister Israel Katz, known for his abrasive style, is a long-time ally and loyalist of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a dramatic announcement late on Tuesday, Netanyahu sacked defense minister Yoav Gallant over what he said was a breakdown in trust during the Gaza war against Hamas.
“Over the past few months that trust has eroded. In light of this, I decided today to end the term of the defense minister,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office.
The statement added that he had appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to take Gallant’s place.
Katz, 69, labelled by Israeli media as a “bulldozer” for his direct and sometimes abrasive style, is considered both close and loyal to Netanyahu.
After his appointment, Katz vowed to defeat Israel’s enemies and achieve the country’s war goals.
“We will work together to lead the defense establishment to victory over our enemies and to achieve the goals of the war: the return of all hostages as the most important moral mission, the destruction of Hamas in Gaza, the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the containment of Iranian aggression, and the safe return of the residents of the north and south to their homes,” he said in a statement.
A member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, in which he was previously president of the party’s convention, Katz has held multiple cabinet roles going back to 2003.
As foreign minister, Katz drew international attention for his pointed attacks on world leaders and international organizations that had expressed opposition to Israeli military actions, particularly in Gaza.
He spearheaded a diplomatic battle against the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and last month Israel’s parliament banned the agency from working in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.
On Monday, Katz instructed his ministry to formally notify the United Nations that Israel was canceling its agreements with UNRWA.
Last month Katz triggered outrage when he declared UN chief Antonio Guterres “persona non grata in Israel” and wrote in a post on X that he would ban him from entering the country.
Before serving as foreign minister, Katz’s most notable role was as minister of transport.
He spent a decade in the post from 2009-2019, but had also held the energy and finance portfolios in various Netanyahu cabinets.
Aviv Bushinsky, a political commentator and Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, told AFP that Katz was likely to be more in tune with the prime minister than his predecessor Gallant.
“I cannot recall an incident when Israel Katz was in opposition to Netanyahu with anything,” Bushinsky said.
“It is true he does not have any military experience, but he was a very good transport minister and has sat in the cabinet for many years,” he added.
“Besides, Netanyahu thinks he can run the show himself — and he has managed to run the show even though Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two generals, quit the government.”
Born in the coastal city of Ashkelon, Katz has been a prominent player in Israeli politics since becoming a member of parliament, the Knesset, in 1998.
Today he is among the highest-ranking ministers in the Likud party.
Married with two children, Katz is a resident of Moshav Kfar Ahim in southern Israel.
‘Bulldozer’ Katz, long-time ally of Israel’s Netanyahu
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‘Bulldozer’ Katz, long-time ally of Israel’s Netanyahu
- Katz, 69, labelled by Israeli media as a “bulldozer” for his direct and sometimes abrasive style, is considered both close and loyal to Netanyahu
Turkiye’s top diplomat meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus
- Hakan Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders
- Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Bashar Assad’s fall
ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, Ankara’s foreign ministry said.
A video released by the Anadolu state news agency showed the two men greeting each other.
No details of where the meeting took place in the Syrian capital were released by the ministry.
Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders, who ousted Syria’s strongman Bashar Assad after a lightning offensive.
Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Assad’s fall.
Kalin was filmed leaving the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, surrounded by bodyguards, as broadcast by the private Turkish channel NTV.
Turkiye has been a key backer of the opposition to Assad since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.
Besides supporting various militant groups, it has welcomed Syrian dissenters and millions of refugees.
However, Fidan has rejected claims by US president-elect Donald Trump that the militants’ victory in Syria constituted an “unfriendly takeover” of the country by Turkiye.
Syria’s de facto ruler reassures minorities, meets Lebanese Druze leader
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as ‘a new era far removed from sectarianism’
- Walid Jumblatt said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria
Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed Al-Sharaa hosted Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on Sunday in another effort to reassure minorities they will be protected after Islamist militants led the ouster of Bashar Assad two weeks ago.
Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as “a new era far removed from sectarianism.”
Sharaa heads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the main group that forced Assad out on Dec. 8. Some Syrians and foreign powers have worried he may impose strict Islamic governance on a country with numerous minority groups such as Druze, Kurds, Christians and Alawites.
“We take pride in our culture, our religion and our Islam. Being part of the Islamic environment does not mean the exclusion of other sects. On the contrary, it is our duty to protect them,” he said during the meeting with Jumblatt, in comments broadcast by Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed.
Jumblatt, a veteran politician and prominent Druze leader, said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria. Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.
Sharaa, dressed in a suit and tie rather than the military fatigues he favored in his militant days, also said he would send a government delegation to the southwestern Druze city of Sweida, pledging to provide services to its community and highlighting Syria’s “rich diversity of sects.”
Seeking to allay worries about the future of Syria, Sharaa has hosted numerous foreign visitors in recent days, and has vowed to prioritize rebuilding Syria, devastated by 13 years of civil war.
Pope Francis again condemns ‘cruelty’ of Israeli strikes on Gaza
- Comes a day after the pontiff lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday
- ‘And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty’
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis doubled down Sunday on his condemnation of Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip, denouncing their “cruelty” for the second time in as many days despite Israel accusing him of “double standards.”
“And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty,” the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.
It comes a day after the 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to Gaza’s rescue agency.
“Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” the pope told members of the government of the Holy See.
His remarks on Saturday prompted a sharp response from Israel.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman described Francis’s intervention as “particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7.”
“Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people,” he added.
“Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” the Israeli statement said.
This was a reference to the Hamas Palestinian militants who attacked Israel, killed many civilians and took hostages on October 7, 2023, triggering the Gaza war.
The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
That toll includes hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
At least 45,259 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in the Palestinian territory, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Those figures are taken as reliable by the United Nations.
Iran’s supreme leader says Syrian youth will resist incoming government
- Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war
- Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country.
Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family’s decades-long rule. Syria had long served as a key conduit for Iranian aid to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address on Sunday that the “young Syrian has nothing to lose” and suffers from insecurity following Assad’s fall.
“What can he do? He should stand with strong will against those who designed and those who implemented the insecurity,” Khamenei said. “God willing, he will overcome them.”
He accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government in order to seize resources, saying: “Now they feel victory, the Americans, the Zionist regime and those who accompanied them.”
Iran and its militant allies in the region have suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year, with Israel battering Hamas in Gaza and landing heavy blows on Hezbollah before they agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last month.
Khamenei denied that such groups were proxies of Iran, saying they fought because of their own beliefs and that the Islamic Republic did not depend on them. “If one day we plan to take action, we do not need proxy force,” he said.
Four killed in helicopter crash at Turkish hospital
- Footage from the site showed debris from the crash scattered around the area outside the hospital building
ANKARA: Four people were killed in southwest Turkiye on Sunday when an ambulance helicopter collided with a hospital building and crashed into the ground.
The helicopter was taking off from the Mugla Training and Research Hospital, carrying two pilots, a doctor and another medical worker, the health ministry said in a statement.
Mugla’s regional governor, Idris Akbiyik, told reporters the helicopter first hit the fourth floor of the hospital building before crashing into the ground. No one inside the building or on the ground was hurt. The cause of the accident, which took place during heavy fog, was being investigated.
Footage from the site showed debris from the crash scattered around the area outside the hospital building, with several ambulances and emergency teams at the scene.
