The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they happen.
US, UK foreign ministers reaffirm commitment to Israel’s security, Gaza ceasefire in joint statement
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy reaffirm their commitment both to Israel’s security and to achieving a lasting ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in a joint statement summarizing the discussions held during a US-UK Strategic Dialogue in London last week.
During the Dialogue, the two diplomats “underlined their support for Israel’s security and the importance of avoiding any escalatory action in the region which would undermine the prospect for peace and progress towards a two-state solution,” the statement reads.
It adds that the two discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for “all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and for Israel to facilitate the flow of aid,” while at the same time welcoming the ongoing polio vaccination campaign, the first stage of which was declared a success by the World Health Organization.
Lammy “expressed the United Kingdom’s clear support for the ongoing mediation efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to conclude the agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages,” the statement adds.
The two also discussed the threat that both Iran and Russia pose to the West, after Russia received ballistic missiles from Iran to use in its war against Ukraine.
To that end, the statement adds that Blinken and Lammy noted the continued instability that Iran brings to the Middle East “through its proliferation of advanced weaponry, alongside providing financial and political support to its partners, including Lebanese [Hezbollah], Hamas, the Houthis, and other groups in Iraq and Syria.”
Asked who won US presidential debate, Israel’s top diplomat says bluntly, ‘Kamala Harris’
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said bluntly earlier this evening that Kamala Harris won Tuesday’s debate against US presidential rival Donald Trump.
Interviewed on Channel 12 news, Katz was asked: “Who won the debate? Did you watch it?”
“Who won it? Kamala Harris,” Katz responded.
“Even he says so,” marveled one of his interviewers, surprised that Katz would be so undiplomatically definitive.
“I watched the debate,” Katz went on, but then hurriedly added that Harris won “in the debate. There’s still a long time to go” till the elections.
He was then asked about Trump’s assertion in the debate that if Harris wins the election, Israel will not exist two years from now, and did not directly address the question.
“Israel will be and will exist forever,” he said, adding that Trump “wanted to show his great commitment to the State of Israel. And that’s how he presented it.”
Katz also denied that government discussions have related to concerns over a potential Harris election victory, saying there were no discussions of that nature, “formal or informal. It’s not Israel’s business to deal with that. We’ll await the results of the election. The assumption has to be that we don’t intervene there [in their domestic politics] and they don’t intervene here.”
15 arrested at anti-government Tel Aviv rally; right-wing agitators berate protesters, steal shirt
The anti-government, pro-hostage deal rally on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, which organizers say drew hundreds of thousands, disperses relatively peacefully but not without arrests, after police arrested 15 people according to the Detainee Support Organization, which represents people arrested at anti-government rallies.
Reports say that according to police, some were caught with shredded tires and a substance suspected to be flammable.
Meanwhile, young right-wing agitators clash with some protesters who remain even as traffic resumes on the central traffic artery, though none of the agitators are arrested.
For the second straight time, this week’s rally merges with — or rather, subsumes — the weekly anti-government rally on neighboring Kaplan Street.
Officers chase away a band of youth who come at the end of the rally to taunt and clash with the few remaining protesters, ripping down posters in their wake.
Passing a stand offering free water to protesters, a pair of youths shout: “For leftists it’s with cyanide.”
Some 20 of them steal a shirt from an anti-government vendor’s stand. The youth, pushed off to Kaplan Street, attempt to hold the shirt to a flame until officers once again come to chase them off.
They linger for another 45 minutes on the Kaplan-Begin interchange, where they taunt a group of protesters that headed home remaining in front of the IDF headquarters’ Begin Road entrance.
https://twitter.com/noamlehmann/status/1835044182269804655
Earlier, near the interchange, various left-wing groups outside the rally’s mainstream demanded an end to the killing in Gaza.
A woman walked around wearing a sign that assails protesters for ignoring the “criminal killing in the West Bank and Gaza.” On her mouth was another sign reading: “Silence is a crime.”
A 20-strong group called on Israelis to refuse military service as they waved flags of the far-left Antifa movement and hoisted a banner of Hadash, an Arab-Jewish communist party.
Protesters wave Antifa flags and hoist a @hadash banner on the outskirts of Tel Aviv's pro-hostage deal rally.
'Soldier – attention! Refusal is an option!'
The banner reads: 'In Gaza and Sderot, children want to live.' pic.twitter.com/dlsmNyuz7j
— Noam Lehmann (@noamlehmann) September 14, 2024
Nearby, a man lay in a pool of mock blood next to a rubber head of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Tomatoes cost NIS 22.90 [$6], but blood is free,” read a sign on the installation.
Netanyahu said expected to address UN on Sept. 27, spend 5 days in US, including Shabbat
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address the UN General Assembly on Friday, September 27, and will therefore spend the weekend in the United States due to Shabbat, the Ynet news site reports, without citing sources.
The report says the premier will fly aboard the “Wings of Zion” official plane to New York on Tuesday, September 24, and will spend five days away from the country amid preparations for a potential war in Lebanon.
Netanyahu previously spent an unplanned weekend in the US in July after meeting both candidates in the country’s elections, in meetings that were held later in the week than initially expected.