TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his government plans to charge ahead with an overhaul of the country's judicial system, despite fierce criticism from top legal officials and protests against the changes that drew tens of thousands of people.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, has made the legal changes the centerpiece of his new government's agenda and the surging opposition to them is presenting an early challenge for the Israeli leader. Opponents say the changes could help Netanyahu evade conviction in his corruption trial, or make the court case disappear altogether.
The overhaul would weaken the power of the Supreme Court, granting legislators the ability to pass laws the court has struck down with a simple majority, as well as give the government greater power over the appointment of judges and limit the independence of government legal advisers.
The proposed changes have sparked an outcry from the Supreme Court's top justice, who in rare criticism called the overhaul an “unbridled attack on the justice system.” The country's attorney general has also spoken out against the plan, as have many of her predecessors, and tens of thousands protested the proposed changes in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
Despite the opposition, Netanyahu told a meeting of his Cabinet that voters cast their ballots in November elections in support of his campaign promise to overhaul the justice system.
“We will complete legislating the reforms in a way that will correct what needs correcting, will totally protect individual rights and will restore the public's faith in the justice system that so much requires this reform,” Netanyahu said.
A poll released Sunday painted a more complex picture.
The survey found that 58% of Israelis believe the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn laws passed by parliament if they conflict with democratic principles. The survey, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in October, just before the election, questioned 1,092 people and had a margin of error of 2.8%.
The poll was part of the nonpartisan institute's annual “Israeli Democracy Index.” The same survey, however, found that public trust by Israeli Jews in the Supreme Court fell to 42% last year, down from a multiyear average of 59.5%. Trust in parliament was just 18.5%, it said. Levels of trust were slightly lower among the country's Arab minority.
There have been calls in the past to reform Israel’s justice system, which was given greater clout in the 1990s and has been seen since by critics as being too interventionist in the process of lawmaking. But the sweeping changes sought by Netanyahu’s justice minister have raised an alarm among opponents who see them as a death knell to Israel’s system of checks and balances and in turn, its democratic fundamentals.
Netanyahu and his allies see the changes as a way to ease the process of governance and recalibrate what they say is an imbalance between the country's executive and judicial branches.
The proposed changes, tabled weeks after the government was sworn in, have exposed how deeply polarized Israeli society is, torn between preserving the country's liberal and democratic ideals or shifting away from them. They have also shown how quickly the country's government, its most right-wing ever, is intent on advancing its policies, many of which have sparked criticism, including from unexpected quarters.
Netanyahu heads a government of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties who at times in the past have seen their agendas thwarted by Supreme Court decisions or unfavorable counsel by government legal advisers. That prompted them to make sure the legal changes were a top priority during negotiations to form the government. Netanyahu, eager to return to power under the shadow of his corruption trial, appeared to be generous to his partners in the talks.
Among those concessions was a promise to make Avi Maoz, head of a small, radical, religious ultranationalist party who has repeatedly spouted anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, in charge of certain educational programs. The Cabinet approved the pledge Sunday, despite an outcry from mayors and Israeli parents when it was initially discussed.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, who normally wields a largely symbolic role, has stepped in to bridge the divide over the judicial changes. In a statement, Herzog said he was working to avert “a historic constitutional crisis" in a series of meetings with political figures. Hundreds of people protested outside his residence in Jerusalem on Saturday.
Netanyahu has claimed the overhaul will be carried out cautiously and with parliamentary oversight.
Netanyahu moving ahead on legal overhaul despite outcry
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Netanyahu moving ahead on legal overhaul despite outcry
- Overhaul would weaken the power of the Supreme Court and politicize the appointment of judges
Western nations urge Israel to comply with international law in Gaza
All countries belonging to the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies, apart from the United States, signed the letter, along with Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
The five-page letter comes as Israeli forces bear down on the southern Gaza city of Rafah as part of its drive to eradicate Hamas, despite warnings this could result in mass casualties in an area where displaced civilians have found shelter.
“In exerting its right to defend itself, Israel must fully comply with international law, including international humanitarian law,” the letter said, reiterating “outrage” for the Oct. 7 Hamas raid into Israel which triggered the conflict.
Israel denies blocking humanitarian aid and says it needs to eliminate Hamas for its own protection.
The Western nations said they were opposed to “a full-scale military operation in Rafah” and called on Israel to let humanitarian aid reach the population “through all relevant crossing points, including the one in Rafah.”
“According to UN estimates, an intensified military offensive would affect approximately 1.4 million people,” the letter said, underscoring the need “for specific, concrete and measurable steps” to significantly boost the flow of aid.
The letter recognizes Israel made progress in addressing a number of issues, including letting more aid trucks into the Gaza Strip, the reopening of the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and the temporary use of Ashdod port in southern Israel.
But it called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to do more, including working toward a “sustainable ceasefire,” facilitating further evacuations and resuming “electricity, water and telecommunication services.”
Since Oct. 7 Israel’s Gaza offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, local health officials say.
Gaza fighting rages after Israel vows to intensify Rafah offensive
- Fierce battles overnight in and around the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip
- Israeli warships launched strikes on Rafah, on the border with Egypt
RAFAH: Fighting raged Friday in Gaza after Israel vowed to intensify its ground offensive in Rafah despite international concerns for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the southern city.
With Gazans facing hunger, the US military said “trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore via a temporary pier” it set up to aid Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Witnesses reported fierce battles overnight in and around the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Israeli helicopters carried out heavy strikes around Jabalia while army artillery hit homes near Kamal Adwan hospital in the camp, they said.
The bodies of six people were retrieved and several wounded people were evacuated after an air strike targeted a house in Jabalia, Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said.
Rescue teams were trying to recover people from under the rubble of the Shaaban family home on Al-Faluja Street in the camp, it added.
Witnesses said Israeli warships launched strikes on Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have been sheltering.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that it “targeted enemy forces stationed inside the Rafah border crossing... with mortar shells.”
The war broke out after the October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Out of 252 people taken hostage that day, 128 are still being held inside Gaza, including 38 who the army says are dead.
Israel vowed in response to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive on Gaza, where at least 35,303 people have been killed since the war erupted, according to data provided by the health ministry of Hamas-run territory.
Intensified ground operations
Israel has vowed to “intensify” its ground offensive in Rafah, in defiance of global warnings over the fate of Palestinians sheltering there.
Israel’s top ally the United States has joined other major powers in appealing for it to hold back from a full ground offensive in Rafah.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday said “additional forces will enter” the Rafah area and “this activity will intensify.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Thursday that the ground assault on Rafah was a “critical” part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas and prevent any repetition of the October 7 attack.
“The battle in Rafah is critical... It’s not just the rest of their battalions, it’s also like an oxygen line for them for escape and resupply,” he said.
The Israeli siege of Gaza has brought dire shortages of food as well as safe water, medicines and fuel for its 2.4 million people.
The arrival of occasional aid convoys has slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
UN denounces ‘intimidation and harassment’ of lawyers in Tunisia
- Civil society in the North African country condemned the arrests as a crackdown on dissent in the country
- The European Union expressed concern this week over the arrests
GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday denounced recent arrests of lawyers in Tunisia, saying the detentions, which have also included journalists and political commentators, undermined the rule of law in the North Africa country.
“Reported raids in the past week on the Tunisia Bar Association undermine the rule of law and violate international standards on the protection of the independence and function of lawyers,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.
“Such actions constitute forms of intimidation and harassment.”
The arrests have sparked condemnations by Tunisia’s civil society and have sparked an international backlash, which Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has slammed as foreign “interference.”
Civil society in the North African country condemned the arrests as a crackdown on dissent in the country that saw the onset of the Arab Spring.
The European Union expressed concern this week over the arrests, while the United States said they contradicted the universal rights guaranteed by the country’s constitution.
Saied, who seized sweeping powers in 2021, on Thursday ordered the foreign ministry to summon ambassadors of several countries and inform them that “Tunisia is an independent state,” in a video released by his office.
Lebanon state media reports fresh Israeli strikes in south
- Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh
- The NNA reported “victims” without elaborating
BEIRUT: Israeli air strikes hit on Friday an area of southern Lebanon far from the border, Lebanese official media said, following days of escalating clashes between Israel and armed group Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed group, a Hamas ally, has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh,” two adjacent villages about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Israeli border just south of the coastal city of Sidon.
The NNA reported “victims” without elaborating, and an AFP photographer saw ambulances heading to the targeted sites.
The strikes hit a pickup truck in Najjariyeh and an orchard, the photographer said.
Hezbollah — which has intensified its cross-border attacks in recent days, prompting Israeli strikes deeper into Lebanese territory — announced Friday it had launched “attack drones” on Israeli military positions.
It came a day after the powerful Lebanese group said it had attacked an army position in Metula, a border town in northern Israel, wounding three soldiers.
Hezbollah said the attack was carried out with an “attack drone carrying two S5 rockets,” which are normally launched from jets.
Also on Thursday the group announced the deaths of two of its fighters in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. The NNA said they were killed when their car was targeted.
Hezbollah earlier on Thursday said it had launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights.
Israel retaliated with overnight air raids on Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold near the Syrian border.
Earlier this week Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli base near Tiberias, about 30 kilometers from the Lebanese border — one of the group’s deepest attacks into Israeli territory since clashes began on October 8.
The Wednesday strike came a day after the death of a Hezbollah member, which Israel said was a field commander, in an attack on southern Lebanon.
The cross-border fighting has killed at least 415 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 80 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
UN rights chief warns Sudan commanders of catastrophe in Al-Fashir
- Violence escalated near Sudan’s Al-Fashir this week
GENEVA: The UN human rights chief said on Friday he was “horrified” by escalating violence near Sudan’s al-Fashir and held discussions this week with commanders from both sides of the conflict, warning of a humanitarian disaster if the city is attacked.
Hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering in al-Fashir without basic supplies amid fears that nearby fighting will turn into an all-out battle for the city, the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the western Darfur region.
Its capture would be a major boost for the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as regional and international powers try to push the sides to negotiate an end to a 13-month war.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for High Commissioner Volker Turk, said Turk had held two parallel phone calls this week with Sudan army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, urging them to de-escalate.
"The High Commissioner warned both commanders that fighting in (al-Fashir), where more than 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people are currently encircled and at imminent risk of famine, would have a catastrophic impact on civilians, and would deepen intercommunal conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences," she said at a UN press briefing in Geneva, adding that Turk was "horrified" by recent violence there.
The UN human rights office said at least 58 people had been killed around al-Fashir since last week.
