Outside the courthouse, he is one of the most powerful men in the Middle East, overseeing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, its occupation of southern Lebanon and recent strikes in Syria.
As he stepped into a cramped and sweltering underground courtroom in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel morphed into the defendant in Case 67104-01-20 — charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, saying he was being hounded for his hawkish security policies.
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Last week judges ruled that Netanyahu, indicted in 2019, must testify three times a week, forcing the longtime Israeli leader to juggle between the courtroom and the war room at Israel’s Defense Ministry, minutes away from the courthouse.
„I would ask myself the same question: do we even have intelligence services, do they work? And if they do, who’s ‘processing’ the results of their work? If this is some ‘masterstroke,’ a planned maneuver, then what’s happening with our troops in fallen Damascus, and what about the embassy?”
(December 9, 2024)
Syrian opposition leaders had agreed to guarantee the safety of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions in Syria, the source told news agencies.
(December 9, 2024)
Qatar‘s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters requests for comment about the contacts with HTS, a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union, Turkey and the U.N.
(December 4,2024)
One has to decide to what extent such notions as reconciliation, appeasement or friendship have any reliable meaning when dealing with Qatar or Turkey.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, with its well-known loyalty to both Turkey and Qatar, could not have moved its troops without Qatari instructions.
Funding for the Free Syrian Army is part of a budget allocated by Doha since the Qatari leadership decided to overthrow President Assad at the beginning of the civil war.
The health ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that at least 44,786 people have been killed in more than 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
„The Israeli occupation forces targeted a multi-storey house in Beit Hanoun, this house belongs to the Kahlout family,“ said Basal.
„So far 16 people have been identified and they were taken from under the rubble. The rest remain under the rubble,“ said Basal adding that „until now civilians are trying to take them out. We’re talking about at least five children and five women“.
„Together with the prime minister, I have instructed the [military] to establish a sterile defence zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence,“ Katz said during a visit to a naval base in the Israeli city of Haifa.
He claimed it was in order to „to prevent the establishment and organisation of terrorism in Syria“.
In turn, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights reported over 250 Israeli airstrikes on Syria in 48 hours.
These strikes follow Sunday‘s attacks on strategic locations in Syria, where Israel targeted a major security complex and missile research center in Damascus‘s Kafr Sousa district, as well as military sites in southern Syria.
With the eruption of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Hamas chose to remain neutral in the civil strife that followed, putting it at odds with Damascus.
By 2012, the group’s leadership were forced to leave Syria after being pressured to publicly support Assad, a position they refused to take.
The group eventually voiced its support for the Syrian revolution, effectively severing its ties with Assad.
Nearly 10 years later, Hamas restored relations with Assad’s government, sending a delegation to meet the toppled president in the Syrian capital in 2022.
Russia maintains its military bases and embassy in Syria after the overthrow of the government of Bashar al-Assad. The agreements with Turkey are obvious.
Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the opening of a front in Syria. Israeli forces occupied Mount Hermon from the Syrian side in the Golan Heights, from where the Syrian army withdrew, Israeli and Arab media reported. N12 TV channel noted that „in fact, this is the first IDF presence in the area after the Yom Kippur War.“
„In light of the current developments in Syria, the impact of which on this country and the entire region is yet to be realized, Russia has requested urgent closed-door consultations of the UN Security Council. In particular, it is important to know what is going on in this environment around the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights. We expect that these consultations will ne held in the second half of the day on Monday, December 9,“ he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Citing sources in the area, Haiti’s Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) also said the attack targeted “all elderly people and Voodoo practitioners who, in (Micanor’s) imagination, would be capable of casting a bad spell on his son,” and left the bodies of victims mutilated in the streets.
At least 184 people were killed in the massacre, including an estimated 127 elderly men and women, the United Nations said.
The killings were carried out by Micanor Altes, who goes by the names Wa Mikanò” and Monel Felix, between Friday and Saturday in the Wharf Jérémie section of Cité Solei in Port-au-Prince, and on the advice of a local Vodou priest who accused the community’s elderly residents of being responsible for the child’s ailments.