Uncategorized
‘Today, I won’t condemn’: Some Netanyahu allies are declining to decry Sunday’s West Bank settler riot
(JTA) — The day after hundreds of settlers rioted in the Palestinian West Bank village of Huwara, torching houses, shops and cars, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned their actions from the floor of parliament, declaring, “We won’t accept a reality where all do as they wish — igniting houses, torching cars, intentionally injuring innocents.”
Other lawmakers in Netanyahu’s coalition denounced the riot while expressing understanding for the settlers who rioted. But earlier on Monday, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, Tali Gottlieb, stood up at the same dais and struck a different note.
“They asked me: ‘Don’t you condemn what happened in Huwara?’ I said to them, ‘Not today,’” Gottlieb declared as Netanyahu looked on from the floor of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. “Tomorrow, but not today.”
Gottlieb attributed her delay in decrying the settler violence to her focus on the two Israeli victims of a shooting attack earlier on Sunday, when a gunman from Huwara killed two brothers driving on a thoroughfare that runs through the town. The settler riot in Huwara was a response to the attack. A Palestinian was killed in a town to Huwara’s south amid the riot, and dozens were injured.
“So today, I won’t condemn,” Gottlieb said subsequently in her speech. “Today, I am just sending a unifying message to the people of Israel.”
Gottlieb was not the only member of Knesset to stop short of condemning the riot. While many lawmakers in Netanyahu’s government have criticized the rampage and declared that it doesn’t represent Israel’s values, a number of his partners have shown sympathy for the rioters or even endorsed their actions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, recently put in charge of settlers’ civilian affairs, indicated a measure of understanding for the riot, even as he came out against vigilantism.
The small but significant measure of support for the rioters comes as Israel’s government, which includes far-right parties, contends with a growing wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel. Terror attacks have killed more than a dozen Israelis, most of them civilians, while Israeli raids have killed dozens of Palestinian militants and a number of civilians. But if Sunday’s riot indicates that some settlers feel emboldened to settle scores on their own, the response to their actions shows that they have support from a few members of the sitting government and its allies.
“A closed, burnt Huwara — that’s what I want to see,” said Zvika Fogel, a lawmaker from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party and a member of Netanyahu’s coalition, according to the Times of Israel. “That’s the only way to achieve deterrence. After a murder like yesterday’s, we need burning villages when the IDF doesn’t act.”
The chair of Fogel’s party, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, gave a speech from the site of an illegal West Bank settlement outpost in which he called for the Israeli military to “cease the policy of containment” and said “the enemy needs to be cut down.” He evinced sympathy for the rioters even as he condemned their actions.
“I understand the difficult feelings, but this is not the way,” he said. “We do not take the law into our own hands. The government of Israel, the state of Israel, the security forces, they are the ones who need to cut down our enemies.”
Yishai Fleischer, a pro-settler activist who has served as Ben-Gvir’s spokesman, also sympathized with the rioters while criticizing their actions. “Vigilante behavior is generally wrong and is certainly illegal,” he tweeted. “However, years of Israel’s abandonment of policing and looking away from the jihadism, illegal weapons, and no-go zones, that have grown within us – have led to wanton Arab terrorism – and now to a human reaction.”
Another advocate for the settlements, Smotrich, condemned vigilantism alongside other Israeli leaders, writing on Twitter, “It is forbidden to take the law into one’s hands and create dangerous anarchy that will likely go out of control and cost human life.”
But screenshots show that he liked a since-deleted tweet from a regional settlement official declaring that Huwara “needs to be wiped out today.”
Later in the day, another Twitter user wrote a viral series of tweets both condemning the riot and endorsing “collective punishment of the family and surroundings of the terrorist.” The tweets also appeared to compare the riot with the weekly nonviolent mass protests in Tel Aviv of Israel’s proposed judicial reform.
Smotrich shared the tweets along with the message: “The whole thread.”
—
The post ‘Today, I won’t condemn’: Some Netanyahu allies are declining to decry Sunday’s West Bank settler riot appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
UK Counterterrorism Police Investigate Arson at Jewish Memorial Wall
An Orthodox Jewish man walks by at a wall showing pictures of protesters killed during anti-government demonstrations in Iran, in Golders Green, London, Britain, March 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor
Police said on Tuesday they were investigating suspected arson at a memorial wall in a part of north London that is home to a large Jewish community, amid a recent spate of such incidents in the British capital.
London’s Metropolitan Police said the investigation was being led by Counter Terrorism Policing, though it was not being treated as a terrorist incident. They said no arrests had been made.
The incident occurred on Monday at the site of a memorial wall dedicated to people killed in Iran in a bloody crackdown after anti-government protests spread across the country in January. Police said the memorial wall had not been damaged.
“We recognize that this incident will heighten concerns in the Golders Green area, where residents have already faced a series of attacks,” Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said in a statement.
Over the last month, counter–terrorism officers have arrested more than two dozen people as part of investigations into attacks on Jewish-linked premises, including the torching of ambulances belonging to the Jewish volunteer emergency service Hatzola in Golders Green on March 23.
Police said after an arson attack at a synagogue this month that they were investigating possible Iranian links to the incidents. A pro-Iranian government group has said it was responsible.
Uncategorized
Ukraine in Diplomatic Tussle With Israel Over Grain Kyiv Says ‘Stolen’ by Russia
A farmer operates a combine during the start of the wheat harvesting campaign in a field near the town of Starobilsk (Starobelsk) in the Luhansk Region, a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine, July 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
Ukraine and Israel traded diplomatic blows on Tuesday as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned what he said were grain purchases from occupied Ukrainian territory “stolen” by Russia and threatened sanctions against those attempting to profit from it.
Kyiv considers all grain produced in the four regions that Russia claims as its own since invading Ukraine in 2022 as well as Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, to be stolen and has protested over its export to other countries.
Russia calls the regions its “new territories,” but they are still internationally recognized as Ukrainian. Moscow has not commented on the legal status of grain collected in them.
“Another vessel carrying such grain has arrived at a port in Israel and is preparing to unload,” Zelenskiy said on X, adding: “This is not – and cannot be – legitimate business.”
“The Israeli authorities cannot be unaware of which ships are arriving at the country’s ports and what cargo they are carrying,” added Zelenskiy.
Ukraine on Tuesday summoned Israel‘s ambassador over what Kyiv described as Israeli inaction in allowing shipments of grain to enter the country from Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Ukraine‘s foreign ministry said in a statement it handed the ambassador a “note of protest.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Kyiv has not provided any evidence for its claims.
“The vessel has not entered the port and has yet to submit its documents. It’s not possible to verify the truth of the Ukrainian claims,” he told a news conference in Jerusalem.
Saar said Ukraine had not submitted any request for legal assistance and rejected what he called “Twitter diplomacy.”
“Israel is a state that abides by the rule of law. We say again to our Ukrainian friends, if you have any evidence of theft submit it through the appropriate channels,” he said.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters that Kyiv has provided “extensive information and proof” that the cargo was illegal before going public. The foreign ministry published a timeline of its actions and contacts with Israeli authorities.
“We will not allow any country in any geography to facilitate illegal trade with a stolen grain that finances our enemy,” Tykhyi said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Tuesday, saying Russia would not get involved. “Let the Kyiv regime deal with Israel on its own,” he said.
Traders have told Reuters that it is impossible to track the origin of wheat once it is mixed.
UKRAINE PREPARING SANCTIONS PACKAGE
Anouar El Anouni, EU foreign affairs spokesperson, said the bloc had taken note of reports that a “Russian shadow fleet vessel” carrying stolen grain had been allowed to dock at Haifa. He said the European Commission had approached Israel‘s foreign ministry on the issue.
“We condemn all actions that help fund Russia‘s illegal war effort and circumvent EU sanctions, and remain ready to target such actions by listing individuals and entities in third countries if necessary,” he said.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine was preparing a sanctions package against those transporting the grain and the individuals and legal entities attempting to profit from the scheme.
Zelenskiy said Kyiv has taken “all necessary steps through diplomatic channels,” but the ship had not been stopped.
“Russia is systematically seizing grain on temporarily occupied Ukrainian land and organizing its export through individuals linked to the occupiers,” Zelenskiy said.
“Such schemes violate the laws of the State of Israel itself,” he added.
Ukraine expected Israel to respect Ukraine and refrain from actions that undermine bilateral relations, he added.
Uncategorized
Britain Challenges Court Decision That Palestine Action Ban Was Unlawful
Protesters from “Palestine Action” demonstrate on the roof of Guardtech Group in Brandon, Suffolk, Britain, July 1, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Britain on Tuesday sought to uphold a ban on anti-Israel group Palestine Action, which it has designated a terrorist organization, after a court ruling that the move unlawfully interfered with freedom of expression.
Palestine Action, which had increasingly targeted Israel‑linked defense companies in Britain with a particular focus on Israel’s largest defense firm Elbit Systems, was proscribed under terrorism laws last year.
London’s High Court ruled in February that the ban was unlawful, although it remains in force pending the outcome of the government’s appeal, which began on Tuesday.
Lawyers for Britain‘s interior minister, Shabana Mahmood, told the Court of Appeal that the finding that the ban had a significant impact on freedom of expression was “overstated and wrong.”
Huda Ammori, who co-founded Palestine Action in 2020 and brought the successful challenge, argues proscription has imposed “severe restrictions on the fundamental free speech and assembly rights of vast numbers of people.”
UK APPEAL COMES DURING CRIMINAL TRIAL
Palestine Action was banned shortly after a June break-in at the Royal Air Force’s Brize Norton air base, in which activists damaged two military planes.
The ban placed the group on a par with Islamic State or al Qaeda, making membership a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
More than 2,700 people have since been arrested for holding signs in support of Palestine Action, though charges could be dropped if the High Court‘s ruling is upheld.
After February’s decision, London’s Metropolitan Police said it would pause arrests while reviewing its position, but resumed enforcement earlier this month, arresting over 500 people.
The High Court‘s decision was announced shortly after six people charged over the 2024 raid on Elbit were all acquitted of aggravated burglary.
Those six are currently on trial for criminal damage, with one defendant also accused of assaulting a police officer with a sledgehammer. All have pleaded not guilty.