The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they happen.
New York State landmarks are illuminated orange in honor of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, New York Governor Kathy Hochul says. “Our hearts are broken as we mourn Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were brutally murdered by Hamas in an act of callous and unthinkable cruelty,” Hochul says in a statement. “I join the millions around the world honoring their memory and demanding that Hamas immediately return the remains of Shiri Bibas home to Israel.” Fourteen state landmarks will be illuminated tonight, including One World Trade Center, Niagara Falls, the Empire State Plaza in Albany, Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, and several bridges.
Red Cross says it transferred body received from Hamas to Israeli authorities The Red Cross says it has handed over a body it collected from Hamas in the Gaza Strip this evening to Israeli authorities. Hamas has claimed that the body belongs to hostage Shiri Bibas. The IDF has not yet commented. Residents of the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel line the highway where a police convoy passes by as it transports the remains for identification to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv.
Accused of Nazi salute at CPAC, Steve Bannon says it was just a wave Steve Bannon was accused of making a Nazi salute as he concluded a speech at a conservative gathering where US President Donald Trump is slated to speak this weekend, but Bannon says the gesture was merely a wave. Bannon, who once served as Trump’s chief strategist and helped lead his 2016 Republican campaign, was onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington on Thursday evening when he extended his right arm in the air, his palm flat, after imploring the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — a reference to what Trump shouted after an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during last year’s campaign. Steve Bannon, after calling for Trump to be President for life, did a Nazi salute on stage at CPAC. Nazism has officially taken over the GOP. The few remaining conservatives have a choice: either leave the party and obstruct it—or choose to be complicit.pic.twitter.com/94o5Kj69Le The gesture drew immediate backlash due to its similarities with the right-arm salute linked in history to the Nazis and their allies. “Steve Bannon’s long and disturbing history of stoking antisemitism and hate, threatening violence, and empowering extremists is well known and well documented by ADL and others,” the Anti-Defamation League, an antisemitism and human rights watchdog, wrote on X in response. “We are not surprised, but are concerned about the normalization of this behavior.” Meanwhile, French far-right National Rally president Jordan Bardella said he had canceled his scheduled speech at CPAC on Friday in reaction to what he described as “a gesture referring to Nazi ideology.” “While I was not present in the room, one of the speakers allowed himself, out of provocation, a gesture referring to Nazi ideology. As a consequence, I made the immediate decision to cancel my speech,” Bardella said in a written statement. Bannon, speaking to a French journalist from Le Point news magazine, says the gesture was not a Nazi salute but was “a wave like I did all the time.” “I do it at the end of all of my speeches to thank the crowd,” Bannon says.
Man convicted of attempted murder of Salman Rushdie, says ‘Free Palestine’ as he leaves court A New Jersey man has been convicted of attempted murder for stabbing author Salman Rushdie multiple times on a New York lecture stage in 2022. Jurors delivered the verdict after deliberating for less than two hours, also finding Hadi Matar, 27, guilty of assault for wounding a man who was on the Chautauqua Institution stage with Rushdie at the time. Matar ran up to Rushdie as he was about to speak on Aug. 12, 2022, and stabbed him more than a dozen times before a live audience. The attack left the 77-year-old prizewinning novelist blind in one eye. Rushdie was the key witness during seven days of testimony, describing in graphic detail his life-threatening injuries and long and painful recovery. Matar, who stood for the verdict, looked down at the defense table but had no obvious reaction when the jury delivered the verdict. As he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he quietly uttered, “Free Palestine,” echoing comments he has frequently made while entering and leaving the trial. The judge set sentencing for April 23. Matar could receive up to 25 years in prison, which District Attorney Jason Schmidt noted is the maximum for a conviction on attempted murder in the second degree. A separate federal indictment alleges that Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was motivated to attack Rushdie by a 2006 speech in which the leader of the terror group Hezbollah endorsed a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989 after the publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. A trial on federal terrorism-related charges will be scheduled in US District Court in Buffalo.
German police say they arrested a suspect in the stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that seriously injured a man. Berlin’s police department gives no details on the identity of the suspect or his possible motive. “Our forces have detained a suspect in the vicinity of the crime scene,” city police post on X. “Investigations continue.” Video of the scene showed emergency vehicles and heavily armored police lined along one side of the memorial site, a vast field of gray concrete pillars where the attack took place. The memorial is across the street from the US Embassy. The victim “was so seriously injured that he had to be taken by the fire brigade to the hospital for emergency treatment,” police spokesperson Florian Nath says. A man with a knife stabs several people in Berlin. pic.twitter.com/6NB6vXN5xV
The Red Cross collected a body from Hamas in the Gaza Strip a short while ago, two officials, including a senior Arab diplomat, tell The Times of Israel. The body has not yet been handed over to the Israel Defense Forces. Once in Israeli hands, the remains will be taken to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification. Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardwai tells Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television that the group handed over the body of Shiri Bibas. Hamas previously claimed Thursday to return Bibas’s body to Israel along with the bodies of her two sons Ariel and Kfir. The body purported to be Shiri’s was found to be that of a Gazan woman.
Report: Bus driver got passengers off minutes before blast Thursday night It says that on one bus in Tel Aviv, a terrorist boarded shortly after 8 p.m. with a bomb held in a bag, while several people were on the bus. He sat down in the back and attempted to hide the bag below a seat, the network reports, before leaving. A woman whose suspicions were raised told the driver there was a suspicious item on board. The driver called his superiors, who told him to get all the passengers off. As he told them he was minutes from a bus park, his bosses told him to head there to keep the vehicle away from passersby. After parking the bus, the driver got off, and police were called, but the bomb went off before they could arrive, destroying the vehicle. Three empty buses exploded in quick succession in parking lots in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon yesterday night and one or two more bombs were discovered on additional buses in Holon. (There have been conflicting reports on the matter, and much of the case is covered by a gag order.) No casualties occurred as a result of the explosions. Channel 12 says all bombs apparently had the writing, “Revenge from Tulkarem” on them.