Israel shuts down Hezbollah-threatened ammonia facility

JERUSALEM: Around 800 people will be laid off in the court-ordered closure of a major Israeli ammonia storage facility previously threatened by Hezbollah, the owners announced Wednesday.
The head of US-owned Haifa Chemicals, Jules Trump, told Israeli army radio the company was dismissing 800 workers in two plants that processed the ammonia.
“We have lost hundreds of millions of shekels (tens of millions of dollars) in recent months because, contrary to the promises of the government, there is no alternative solution on the horizon,” he said.
The Israeli Supreme Court last week confirmed a ruling ordering the closure of the 12,000 ton facility located in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, giving the company until Sept. 18 to empty it completely.
The ruling brought to an end a years-long legal battle over the site.
Residents and environmentalists had been warning of the risks of an accident or explosion at the container in the densely populated Mediterranean port city.
Hezbollah said in 2016 that a missile strike on the tank would have the effect of a “nuclear bomb,” increasing calls for its closure.
The militant group, which targeted the Haifa area in a 2006 war with Israel, echoed warnings from experts and activists cited in Israeli media that “tens of thousands of people” would be killed in case the container was struck.
Ammonia, used in fertilizers, is poisonous to humans.
Haifa Chemicals sells some of the ammonia that the group imports to chemical plants, weapons companies and wastewater treatment plants.
Palestinian arrested after stabbing Israeli
A Palestinian stabbed and critically injured an Israeli in a town near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, police said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the 19-year-old Palestinian stabbed the 42-year-old Israeli in Yavne.
The suspect was apprehended at the scene, and the victim taken to hospital with “critical” injuries, a later police statement added.
The Shin Bet security agency named the assailant as Ismail Ibrahim Abu Aram, born in 1998, and said he had no previous record of security-related offenses.
Israeli soldiers later searched Abu Aram’s home in Yatta, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, a spokeswoman confirmed.
Footage released by Israeli authorities showed the man apparently browsing in a supermarket before attacking an employee.
The man manages to fight off the attacker but is stabbed several times.
A wave of unrest that broke out in October 2015 has killed more than 290 Palestinians or Arab Israelis, 44 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP toll.
Israeli authorities say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
Others were shot dead in protests and clashes, while some were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) accused Israel of staging provocative actions and inflaming tensions with the Palestinians in a crisis over security measures at a key holy site in Jerusalem.
Turkey hosted an extraordinary meeting in Istanbul of foreign ministers from the OIC that Ankara called to discuss the tensions in its current capacity as chairman of the body.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains vehemently critical of the Jewish state’s policy toward the Palestinians.
The meeting brought together foreign ministers and top officials from key Muslim nations.