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TEL AVIV: Dozens of Israeli air force reservists said Wednesday they’ll refuse to show up for duty if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government moves ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary.
The threat comes after Netanyahu said his government would proceed with the overhaul after talks with the opposition to find a compromise faltered. Coalition legislators have since been advancing a legal change to what’s known as the “reasonability standard” that critics say would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power.
Israeli media reported 110 air force veterans signed the letter Wednesday saying that if the law moving ahead in parliament now, or any other law proposed as part of the overhaul, is passed, the reservists will not show up for duty.
“Legislation like this grants the government limitless power with no restraint by the judiciary and it will bring us to a point of no return,” the letter said. “We will not serve the military of a country that is not democratic.”
Airmen are seen as the cream of the military’s personnel and irreplaceable elements of many of Israel’s battle plans. Similar letters from reservists in other forces have also been issued in recent days.
Netanyahu’s government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary plunged Israel into an unprecedented crisis earlier this year, prompting a chorus of threats from reservists, who make up the backbone of the country’s mostly compulsory military, that they would not show up for service if the plan is followed through.
As the threats mounted, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant delivered a speech to the nation about his concerns the overhaul presented to the military, dissent which led to Netanyahu firing him in a move that sparked mass spontaneous protests and a day-long labor strike.
That pressure prompted Netanyahu to pause the overhaul. But once compromise negotiations stumbled, Netanyahu said he was pressing ahead. Another bill in the pipeline would limit the influence of the bar association, a key player in choosing judges, which recently overwhelmingly elected to its leadership a staunch opponent to the overhaul.
The overhaul has also sparked a protest movement that draws tens of thousands each Saturday and which during the height of the crisis blocked major roads and stopped trains, succeeding at one point in forcing Netanyahu to be airlifted to the airport for an overseas trip rather than drive.
With the legislation moving ahead, the protests are set to once again ramp up pressure, with another day of disruption planned next week.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, and allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials.
Critics say the plan would upend Israel’s delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship.
AL-MUKALLA: The Houthis have escalated their attacks on Yemeni government troops in Al-Dhale governorate, rejecting international appeals to de-escalate the conflict and cooperate with UN-brokered mediation efforts to end the war.
At least six soldiers have been killed and several others injured in shelling and ground attacks in the Al-Fakher and Al-Thawkhab regions since Wednesday. The attacks came despite Western ambassadors threatening to isolate the militia group if it did not bring an end to the fighting.
Fuad Jabari, Dhale front spokesperson, told Arab News on Sunday that the Houthis had bombarded southern forces in contested areas of Al-Dhale with tanks, mortars and heavy machine guns while bringing in reinforcements from other provinces, presumably in preparation for more aggressive attacks.
“The Houthi escalation coincides with their so-called defense minister’s visit to the Al-Dhale front. For the first time in a very long time, they employed tanks and mortar projectiles in their attacks,” Jabari said, adding that the southern forces had thwarted the Houthis’ attempts to capture new territory.
Similarly, Yemen’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that a Houthi-fired drone was shot down over army-controlled territory in the northern province of Jouf’s Al-Jadafer.
That came after Houthi Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Al-Atefi visited battlefields in Jouf, Taiz and Lahj, and threatened to restart military operations across the country if the Houthis’ opponents did not fulfill their demands.
Last week, the ambassadors of the US, UK and France urged the Houthis to de-escalate and negotiate with the Yemeni government to reach a peace agreement, threatening to isolate them if they resumed military activities.
“The international community is committed to supporting the progress of a sustainable, UN-led peace process in Yemen,” they said in a joint statement.
“We call on the Houthis to renounce definitively any military option. Any return to conflict would lead to their total isolation by the international community. The people of Yemen deserve peace.”
Meanwhile, Rashad Al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, has directed Taiz Gov. Nabeil Shamsan to form a committee to investigate the shooting incident at an Eid celebration in Taiz and bring the offenders to justice.
Residents said on Saturday that armed men attacked a football field where hundreds of people had congregated to celebrate Eid and honor veteran Yemeni musician Mohamed Mohsen Atroush.
But a military source told Arab News that the guards of a local government official fired into the air to disperse a fight between groups of individuals attempting to remove images of Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, a presidential council member and the nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Taiz was at the heart of Arab Spring-inspired protests in Yemen that resulted in the removal of Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2011.
In videos posted on social media, people were seen fleeing the stadium amid deafening gunfire.
The incident provoked uproar in the besieged city, with residents demanding an end to the disorder and proliferation of firearms.
“Why don’t they stop this from happening?” Huda Al-Hakimi, a photographer from Taiz, said on Facebook.
“Suddenly, your happiness is replaced by dread and despair. What is the reason for this disregard for human life?”
JERUSALEM: Israel has approved the purchase of a third squadron of F-35 stealth fighter jets in a deal worth $3 billion, the Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.
The additional 25 aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin will bring the number of F-35s in Israel’s air force to 75, the ministry said, adding that the deal will be financed through the defense aid package Israel receives from the United States.
Israel was the first country outside the United States to acquire the F-35. In May 2018 its air force chief said that Israel was the first to use the plane in combat.
The F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter and in Israel by its Hebrew name “Adir” (Mighty).
Lockheed Martin and engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney have agreed to involve Israeli defense companies in the production of aircraft components, the Israeli ministry added.
DUBAI: Iran will refrain from sending a new ambassador to Sweden in protest over the burning of a Qur’an outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday.
A man tore up and burned a Qur’an outside Stockholm’s central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays.
Swedish police charged the man who burned the holy book with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban it.
Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s charge d’affaires on Thursday to condemn what it said was an insult to the most sacred Islamic sanctities.
“Although administrative procedures to appoint a new ambassador to Sweden have ended, the process of dispatching them has been held off due to the Swedish government’s issuing of a permit to desecrate the Holy Qur’an,” Amirabdollahian said on Twitter on Sunday.
He did not specify how long Iran would refrain from sending an ambassador to Sweden.
While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Qur’an demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed freedom of speech.
In its permit for Wednesday’s demonstration, Swedish police said that while it “may have foreign policy consequences,” the security risks and consequences linked to a Qur’an burning were not of such a nature that the application should be rejected.
AMMAN: Israeli warplanes targeted a Syrian air defense battery from which an anti-aircraft missile was launched toward Israel, an Israeli military spokesman said early on Sunday.
The warplanes also attacked other targets in the area, while no casualties were reported from the Syrian missile, said the spokesman, Avichay Adraee.
Syrian state media SANA earlier said the country’s air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile strike across central parts of the country and downed most of the missiles.
Quoting an army statement, the Syrian Arab News Agency said missiles that flew over parts of Lebanon’s capital Beirut hit locations in the vicinity of the city of Homs, resulting only in material damage.
Israel has in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah
The Israeli strikes are part of an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict that has been going on for years with a goal of slowing Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria, Israeli military experts say.
Tehran’s influence has grown in Syria since it began supporting President Bashar Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.
Fighters allied to Iran, including Hezbollah, now hold sway in areas in eastern, southern, and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.
JERUSALEM: Israel is not nearing an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser said, as talks between Tehran and Washington have sought to cool tensions.
Tzachi Hanegbi said it was still unclear what will come of talks Israel’s main ally the US has held with Iran in recent weeks in an effort to outline steps that could limit Tehran’s nuclear program and de-escalate tensions.
Nonetheless, no agreement would obligate Israel, which views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, Hanegbi told Channel 13 television.
Asked whether an Israeli decision on a preemptive strike against Iran was any closer, Hanegbi said:
“We are not getting closer because the Iranians have stopped, for a while now, they are not enriching uranium to the level that in our view is the red line.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set a ‘red line’ on Iran’s uranium enrichment at bomb-grade 90 percent fissile purity.
Hanegbi added: “But it can happen. So we are preparing for the moment, if it comes, in which we will have to defend the people of Israel against a fanatic regime that is set on annihilating us and is armed with weapons of mass destruction.”
Netanyahu has set a “red line” on Iran’s uranium enrichment at bomb-grade 90 percent fissile purity. Iran has ramped up enrichment to 60 percent purity in recent years.
Having failed to revive a 2015 nuclear deal that had capped Tehran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent, Iranian and Western officials have met to sketch out steps that could curb its fast advancing nuclear work.
The 2015 agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to make it harder for Tehran to develop the means to produce nuclear arms. Iran denies it has such ambitions.
Then-US President Donald Trump ditched the pact in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Tehran responded by gradually moving well beyond the deal’s enrichment restrictions.