The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.
NY museum fires 3 employees for wearing keffiyehs in violation of new dress code
New York City’s Noguchi Museum says it fired three employees after they violated its updated dress code by wearing keffiyeh head scarves, which have become an emblem of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Last month, the art museum — founded by Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi — announced a policy prohibiting employees from wearing anything that expressed “political messages, slogans or symbols.”
“While we understand that the intention behind wearing this garment was to express personal views, we recognize that such expressions can unintentionally alienate segments of our diverse visitorship,” it says in a statement.
Natalie Cappellini, one of the three gallery attendants who was fired, takes to Instagram to say the museum leadership is weaponizing the term “political” against the Palestinian cause.
Reuters is unable to reach the other two fired employees.
Smotrich said set to propose shuttering 5 ministries in effort to curb deficit spending
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will propose closing five government ministries as part of a Treasury plan set to be unveiled in the coming days to get Israel’s ballooning deficit spending in check amid the continued economic strains of the ongoing war, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
According to the report, Smotrich will propose that each of the coalition’s five parties offer to close one of the ministries they hold, though officials at the Finance Ministry have recommended that twice that number be shuttered.
The report adds that the move is an effort to tamp down criticism after Smotrich’s recent budget proposal did not include the closing of ministries seen as superfluous or cuts to coalition spending, and also says it’s meant to quiet opposition from the Histadrut labor federation.
UNRWA says 6 staffers killed in Nuseirat, where IDF struck Hamas operatives in school
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA says six staffers were killed in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday, marking what it says is the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident.
There is no immediate comment to UNRWA’s statement from the Israel Defense Forces, which earlier said it struck Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within a UN school in Nuseirat that is being used as a shelter.
Far-right MK confronts wounded terrorist in hospital bed: ‘We’ll make sure they kill you’
Far-right MK Zvi Succot burst into a hospital room where a wounded terrorist was being treated and told the man he would work to have him put to death.
Succot, of the Religious Zionism party, was at Jerusalem’s Shaarei Zedek hospital when he learned that the Palestinian who carried out a deadly truck-ramming attack earlier in the day at a West Bank bus stop was being treated there.
Succot entered the room and told the man, “We’ll make sure they kill you. The State of Israel will kill you. We will pass a law to kill you.”
He is then escorted out of the room by a soldier.
Succot posts a video of the incident on X.
בעת ביקור בבית החולים שערי צדק גיליתי במקרה שמאושפז שם לא אחר מהמחבל שביצע את הפיגוע הקשה בגבעת אסף.
זה מה שהיה חשוב לי להגיד לנאצי הזה: pic.twitter.com/3byCWrQrG8— צבי סוכות (@tzvisuccot) September 11, 2024
Several far-right and right-wing lawmakers have been pressing for Israel to implement the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists.
The attack, in which the assailant drove his fuel tanker at speed into an IDF guard post next to the bus stop, killed Staff Sgt. Geri Gideon Hanghal, 24, of the Kfir Brigade’s Nahshon Battalion, from the northern city of Nof Hagalil.
The attacker was shot and wounded by soldiers and an armed civilian.