TEL AVIV, Sept 25 (The African Portal) – Police prosecutors file an indictment against a man in his 40s who allegedly threatened to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Police say the suspect burst into the Kiryat Gat police station on Monday, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, threatened officers and announced his intention to buy a gun and shoot the premier three times.
He was arrested on the spot and interrogated at the station, where he was then taken into custody.
Alongside the indictment filed today by police, officers also request to keep him in detention until the end of legal proceedings against him.
IDF officer killed in Gaza City combat, the first fatality in army’s new offensive
The Israel Defense Forces announced early Tuesday that a tank officer had been killed in fighting in Gaza City the previous day.
The slain soldier was named as Maj. Shahar Netanel Bozaglo, 27, a company commander in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion, from Migdal Haemek.
According to an initial IDF probe, during the ongoing offensive in Gaza City on Monday, a Hamas operative fired an RPG at one of the 77th Battalion’s tanks, injuring the officer.
Bozaglo was taken to a hospital, where his condition worsened until he succumbed to his injuries.
He was the first soldier to be killed in the IDF’s new offensive against Hamas in Gaza City, launched last week.
“Operational discipline, push each other all the time. We’ll look for the enemy and find them,” Bozaglo told his troops before entering Gaza last week, in a video published by the IDF after his death.
“Operational discipline, push each other all the time. We’ll look for the enemy and find them,” Bozaglo told his troops before entering Gaza last week, in a video published by the IDF after his death.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that 38 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 200 were wounded by Israeli fire in the Strip one the past 24 hours. Gaza authorities do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that 38 Palestinians had been killed and nearly 200 were wounded by Israeli fire in the Strip one the past 24 hours. Gaza authorities do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The IDF has not yet commented on its strikes in Gaza in the past day.
Israel has called on Gaza City’s roughly 1 million Palestinian residents to flee ahead of the offensive there. According to fresh IDF estimates Tuesday, some 640,000 Palestinians have so far evacuated to the Strip’s south.
The rate of Palestinians leaving the area has increased in recent days, as the IDF advances deeper into Gaza City.
The Gaza City offensive has been criticized by Israeli hostage families and, according to widespread media reports, by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir himself, who is said to have told ministers it would needlessly endanger troops and the remaining 48 captives.
Aid agencies have warned that the offensive would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza City, where the UN declared a famine last month in a report rejected by Israel.
On Monday morning, an officer was seriously wounded when gunmen opened fire on troops in the city. Troops killed Hamas gunmen in the firefight, the military said. Medical sources in the Hamas-run Strip reported at least 29 people were killed by Israeli fire, 25 of them in Gaza City.
Air defenses also shot down a rocket launched from Gaza City at the Israeli border community of Nahal Oz on Monday afternoon. The attack did not cause damage or injuries and was preceded by sirens activated in open areas, the Israel Defense Forces said.
It was the second rocket launch in as many days from Gaza City, which the IDF seeks to take over in the ground offensive launched last week.
Meanwhile, the IDF said it had struck and destroyed the Gaza City building from which Hamas fired two rockets at Israel’s southern port city of Ashdod on Sunday.
The IDF strike was carried out by the 215th Artillery Regiment, which is operating in Gaza City under the 162nd Division, the military said. Other forces of the division demolished Hamas infrastructure and killed 15 gunmen who were identified near the troops, according to the military.
Also in Gaza City, the 98th Division directed an Israeli Air Force drone strike on a Hamas weapons manufacturing site, and another drone strike that killed a cell of operatives who had been identified near the troops, the IDF said.
In the Strip’s south, a drone strike was also carried out on a building where soldiers from the IDF’s Gaza Division had spotted several Hamas operatives, the military said.
Calls to reopen medical corridor to West Bank
Dozens of Western nations called on Monday for the reopening of the medical corridor between Gaza and the West Bank, offering to provide financial aid and medical staff or equipment to treat Gaza’s patients in the West Bank.
“We strongly appeal to Israel to restore the medical corridor to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, so medical evacuations from Gaza can be resumed and patients can get the treatment that they so urgently need on Palestinian territory,” the countries said in a joint statement released by Canada.
Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Poland were among the two dozen signatories of the statement. The United States was not listed as a signatory.
“We furthermore urge Israel to lift restrictions on deliveries of medicine and medical equipment to Gaza,” the statement said.
There was no immediate reaction from Israel. In the past, Israel has rebuffed calls to allow Gazans to receive medical care in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, most recently during a meeting this month between Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and his Danish counterpart, when Saar cited “security concerns.”
Israel has allowed some Gazans to be evacuated to Arab and European countries for treatment. Palestinians say this is no substitute for wider access to hospitals in other Palestinian territories.
Aid agencies said in late August that only a trickle of the aid that was needed, including medicine, had been reaching people in Gaza since Israel lifted a blockade on aid in May. The World Health Organization said in May that Gaza’s health system was at a breaking point. Israel controls all access to Gaza and says it allows enough food aid and supplies into the enclave.
Credit: The Times of Israel
