The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they happen.
Retired US general calls for ‘violent’ response to Iran over proxy attacks
Retired four-star Marine general Frank McKenzie, who led US forces in the Middle East until retiring in 2022, says the Biden administration’s indecisive response to attacks in the Red Sea and against US troops at bases in Iraq and Syria has failed to deter Iran and its proxies carrying them out.
“Even before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Iranian forces were launching missile and drone strikes on our bases across the region, acting through proxies that gave them a measure of deniability,” he writes in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “Our response has consistently been tentative, overly signaled and unfocused.”
“To reset deterrence, we must apply violence that Tehran understands,” McKenzie writes.
Asked whether Operation Prosperity Guardian, the coalition dispatched to protect Red Sea shipping lanes, might target Houthi positions with strikes to prevent them from attacking ships, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US Naval forces in the Middle East, says the 22-nation coalition is purely defensive in nature.
“Anything that happens outside of the defensive aspect of this operation is a completely different operation,” he says.
Palestinians say teen killed in overnight West Bank raids
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that a teen was killed by Israeli forces during a raid on Beit Rima, near Ramallah in the West Bank.
The 17-year-old is named as Asid Tariq Anis Al-Rimawi.
Clashes are also reported in the Balata refugee camp adjoining Nablus.
Gunfire and explosions can be heard in footage posted online showing heavy IDF machinery operating in the camp.
pic.twitter.com/gN5xcnQKoZ
One was injured by Israeli occupation bullets inside Balata camp, east of #Nablus, coinciding with clashes & sounds of explosions inside the camp.#WestBank #Palestine #Breaking
????A military bulldozer accompanied by occupation vehicles storms Balata…— ⚡️???? World News ????⚡️ (@ferozwala) January 5, 2024
????#URGENTE || Las fuerzas de ocupación israelí disparan contra una ambulancia durante el asalto al campamento de Balata, Cisjordania ocupada pic.twitter.com/Opsl7hTVB7
— Palestina Internacional Broadcast (@pbi_es) January 5, 2024
Ministers fume over attacks on IDF head, ask if panel ‘fit to make defense decisions’
A minister quoted by the Kan public broadcaster says screaming from a cabinet meeting that went down in flames as ministers squabbled over an IDF probe could be heard down the hall, and another derides the “unhinged incitement” against army chief Herzi Halevy.
“This was a despicable discussion that blew up,” another minister is quoted saying. “They attacked the army. Some of the senior defense officials left in the middle.”
Yet another minister tells the station that the government needs to rethink whether the security cabinet is currently made up “is fit to make decisions on our defense policies.”
“What happened there was a shameful embarrassment,” the minister tells the station. “You can criticize the IDF, but they want after the chief of staff relentlessly.”
According to the Ynet news site, the meeting ended after 3 hours as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent everyone home.
Kan reports that as he did so, the premier told Halevi “Sometimes, you need to listen to the ministers.”
High-level meeting on post-war Gaza blows up as ministers protest IDF probe — reports
A meeting of the high-level security cabinet intended to discuss what Gaza will look like in the post-war period was put on ice after it descended into a shouting match as right-wing ministers attacked IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Hebrew language news sites report, citing sources with knowledge of the meeting.
According to the Walla news site and others, ministers attacked Halevy over the makeup of a panel formed to probe the military’s mistakes in the lead-up to the October 7 massacres, which will include Shaul Mofaz, who was defense minister from 2002 to 2006.
Once ministers Miri Regev, David Amsalem and Itamar Ben Gvir got wind of Mofaz’s involvement, they began to protest loudly to Halevi during the meeting over the fact that he had “appointed people behind the Gaza disengagement,” Walla reports.
“You appointed Mofaz? Are you crazy,” the Kan broadcaster quotes Regev saying.
According to the Kan, the trio were also perturbed by the timing of the announcement, with fighting still ongoing.
After current Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hushed the trio and came to Halevi’s defense, Ben Gvir began attacking military planners for continuing to rely on what critics describe as a failed conception of geopolitics exposed by the attacks.
This prompted war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff and defense minister, to explode that “this is a professional investigation, what does it have to do with the disengagement and conceptions? The chief of staff is fucking probing what happened to serve our battle aims and our ability to plan for a confrontation in the north,” Walla reports.
As others shouted back, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended the meeting, according to the reports.
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 in a unilateral move that some on the far-right hope to see reversed following the war against Hamas in the Strip, a veritable non-starter. Regev herself is largely identified with the pull-out thanks to her role as IDF spokesperson at the time.
Jordanian airstrikes in southern Syria target alleged Iran-linked drug smugglers
Jordan launched several aerial raids inside Syria Thursday against suspected warehouses and hideouts of Iranian-backed drug smugglers, local and regional intelligence sources say.
The strikes took place in southern Syria, near the Jordanian border.
The army has stepped up a campaign against drug dealers after protracted clashes last month with dozens of infiltrators from Syria linked to pro-Iranian militias, carrying large hauls who crossed its border with weapons and explosives.
Data published by Jordan’s official mouthpiece Petra Thursday showed a more than three-fold increase in drug-related crimes from 2013 to 2022 “prompting an escalation in confronting drug dealers.”