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German Police Kill Suspect in Exchange of Fire Near Israeli Consulate in Munich
Police secures the area after German police opened fire on a suspect after seeing someone who appeared to be carrying a gun near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in central Munich, Germany, Sept. 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Anja Guder
German police shot dead a man in an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich on Thursday, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.
“Due to the intervention of the police, the perpetrator was stopped,” Herrmann told reporters. A police spokesperson in the Bavarian state capital said the man had a “long-barrelled gun” that proved to be an old rifle.
The incident occurred on the anniversary of the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes. The motive of the gunman in Thursday’s incident was not immediately known, but Herrmann said police would try to clarify whether it had any link to the anniversary.
The suspect was a teenage Austrian national who had recently traveled to Germany and lived in Austria’s Salzburg area near the border with Bavaria, the Standard newspaper and Spiegel news outlet reported.
He is said to have been known to security authorities as an Islamist, they added.
Police in Munich declined to comment on the report and said they were not currently sharing information about the suspect.
The Israeli foreign ministry said the consulate was closed on Thursday for a commemoration of that massacre and no one from the consulate staff was injured in the incident.
The museum and research institute, which focuses on the history of Germany’s 1933-45 Nazi regime, is located near the Israeli consulate in Munich’s Maxvorstadt neighborhood.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the exchange of fire as a serious incident. “The protection of Israeli facilities has top priority,” she said.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened polarization in Germany’s political climate. On Sunday, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win a regional election since World War Two.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he had spoken to his German counterpart.
“We expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning,” Herzog posted on X, adding that on the day of remembrance for the Olympics massacre, “a hate-fueled terrorist came and once again sought to murder innocent people.”
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West Bank: Over 60 Arrested, Weapons Seized as Hamas Network Thwarted
Illustrative. Israeli forces keep guard at the scene of what the Israeli military said is a ramming attack near Hebron, in the West Bank, August 30, 2023. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
i24 News – The Shin Bet security agency said on Sunday that it had thwarted one of the biggest Hamas networks in years, arresting more than 60 operatives and seizing 22 weapons of various types.
After the raid in the Hebron area of the southern West Bank, the Shin Bet said that the operatives planned to perpetrate terrorist attacks “in the immediate future.” In addition, the operation solved a shooting attack that occurred at the Bani Naim junction 15 years ago, during which four Israelis – Yitzhak and Tali Ames, Kochava Even Haim, and Avishai Schindler – were murdered.
Some of the weapons seized were confirmed to have been used in the Jerusalem checkpoint attack in November, 2023, during which Corporal Avraham Patna was slain.
The operation lasted three months and was conducted jointly between the Shin Bet, Israel Police, and the Israel Defense Forces. A Shin Bet official called it “the largest and most extensive investigation case” in a decade.
Most of the senior Hamas officials arrested had been previously imprisoned, the Shin Bet said, and had “worked to recruit, arm, and train additional Hamas operatives, residents of the area, in order to carry out shooting attacks and IEDs against Israeli targets.”
As part of the training, the recruits trained to use weapons, including at shooting ranges, collected intelligence, and produced and assembled bombs. They were organized into approximated 10 terrorist cells.
The large-scale raid yielded 22 weapons seized, along with the arrest, as well as 11 grenades and large stockpiles of ammunition. The operation also discovered an underground hideout where the weapons and munitions were stored, which was also used to hide wanted terror suspects.
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Trump: ‘Really Great Countries’ Want to Join Abraham Accords After Iran war
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-US President Donald Trump, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed display their copies of signed agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, September 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Brenner/
i24 News – US President Donald Trump said “some really great countries” wish to join the Abraham Accords, speaking on Sunday to Fox News.
Trump said Iran was “weeks” away from its nuclear threshhold before Israel launched a surprise operation that lasted 12 days.
The US joined the operation last month, bombing the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility with never-before-used GBU-57 series MOPs (Massive Ordnance Penetrators), as well as other nuclear sites in Isfahan and Natanz with Tomahawk missiles.
Shortly after, Trump pushed for a ceasefire. Dozens of Israeli civilians were killed in the flare-up, while hundreds of Revolutionary Guards members and senior officials in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs were killed.
The US and Iran have restarted negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, with Trump reiterating that uranium enrichment is a red line. “Enrichment doesn’t mean like air conditioning and it doesn’t mean to jack up your car. Enrichment is a bad word,” he said.
“I won’t let that happen,” he concluded.
Regarding the success of the strikes against Iranian facilities, he stressed that the enriched uranium stores were buried underground and that the nuclear sites were “destroyed.” Trump also lambasted early reports that suggested only superficial damage had been inflicted, saying that the source that leaked the preliminary assessment should be “prosecuted.”
The B-2 bombers who conducted the mission, Trump said, would be invited to meet him at the White House.
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IAEA Chief Says Iran Could Be Enriching Uranium Within Months
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi arrives on the opening day of the agency’s quarterly Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
Iran could be producing enriched uranium in a few months, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi was quoted as saying on Sunday, raising doubts about how effective US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program have been.
US officials have stated that their strikes obliterated key nuclear sites in Iran, although US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran is enriching uranium to worrisome levels.
“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi told CBS News in an interview.
“Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,” he added, according to the transcript of an interview on “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan due to air on Sunday.
Saying it wanted to remove any chance of Tehran developing nuclear weapons, Israel launched attacks on Iran earlier this month, igniting a 12-day air war that the US eventually joined.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Grossi, who heads the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said the strikes on sites in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had significantly set back Iran’s ability to convert and enrich uranium.
However, Western powers stress that Iran’s nuclear advances provide it with an irreversible knowledge gain, suggesting that while losing experts or facilities may slow progress, the advances are permanent.
“Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology,” Grossi said. “So you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have.”
Grossi was also asked about reports of Iran moving its stock of highly enriched uranium in the run-up to the US strikes and said it was not clear where that material was.
“So some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved,” he said.
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