The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.
Polish president said to urge Netanyahu not be arrested if he attends Auschwitz memorial event Polish President Andrzej Duda has asked the country’s government to guarantee Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be arrested if he attends a key Holocaust memorial event in the country later this month, Bloomberg reports. Last month, Polish media reported that Netanyahu will avoid attending late January events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp, fearing he may be arrested due to Poland’s commitment to respecting an ICC arrest warrant issued against the premier for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In a letter sent yesterday to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Duda asks for Netanyahu’s potential stay to be “unhindered” due to the events’ “absolutely exceptional circumstances,” Bloomberg reports, saying it has seen a copy of the letter. Duda calls on the Polish government to “devise an adequate formula” to both guarantee Netanyahu isn’t arrested and assure the country respects international law. However, Bloomberg notes Duda has frequently been at odds with the Polish government, suggesting the latter may not cooperate with the president’s request. Netanyahu’s office says the premier hasn’t been invited, but Polish officials reportedly believe that the lack of contact from Israeli counterparts is linked to fears he will be arrested.
Report: Israel mulling international summit that would divide Syria into cantons Israeli government and security officials have reportedly been holding covert talks about the future of Syria, including an initiative for an international summit that would discuss a proposal to split Syria into different administrative divisions (cantons) in order to guarantee the safety and rights of all Syrian ethnic groups. The Israel Hayom daily, without citing a source, says top officials in the security establishment and the government have discussed the possibility since the fall of the Assad regime last month, and Energy Minister Eli Cohen has proposed holding the international summit during which it would be weighed. The developments reportedly happened during a security cabinet meeting two days ago helmed by Defense Minister Israel Katz, ahead of an imminent discussion led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The ministers are also said to have discussed Turkey’s influence in Syria and ways to counter it, as well as suspicions regarding new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and fears for the Druze and Kurdish minorities. The goal of holding the international summit would be to enable Israel to defend itself from the threats posed by the Islamist former rebel groups that are now in power and aren’t committed to a decades-old Israel-Syria ceasefire agreement. “The main fear is that an idea that is identified with Israel will necessarily not be accepted in Syria, which is why the discussions on the matter are classified,” Israel Hayom says in its report.
Man shot dead in Tira, marking 2025’s first homicide in Arab community amid crime epidemic A 51-year-old man was fatally shot in his car early this morning in the central city of Tira, says a police spokesperson. Paramedics have declared the victim dead at the scene. “When we arrived at the scene, we saw the injured man lying unconscious without a pulse,” says Magen David Adom paramedic Mohammad Habashi. “We immediately performed medical tests but his injury was critical and we had to pronounce him dead on the spot.” Officers are combing the area and collecting forensic findings as part of the ongoing investigation. Additional officers have been deployed in the city, says a spokesperson. The incident marks this year’s first killing in an Arab town, signaling a potential continuation of the soaring homicide rate that has plagued Arab communities over the past two years. The Abraham Initiatives, a watchdog that tracks violent crime in the Arab society, counted 230 Arab Israeli murder victims in 2024. It recorded 244 homicide victims in 2023, which was more than double the previous year and an all-time record by a big margin.
Otzma Yehudit MK quips that rebel Almog Cohen has decided to defect to Likud A member of Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party suggests that wayward party MK Almog Cohen has decided to jump ship after defying the party’s positions this week. “Otzma Yehudit is a faction with values and ideology,” MK Yitzhak Kroizer tells the Kan public broadcaster. “Whoever is uncomfortable with these values is welcome to get up and go. “Almog Cohen has decided to move over to the Likud,” he alleges, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling party. “He is welcome to join their WhatsApp groups.” That is a jab after Otzma Yehudit yesterday removed Cohen from all its groups on the popular messaging app. Despite being part of the coalition, Otzma Yehudit has been opposing a series of budget-related bills in the Knesset in an effort to secure more funds for the police force, which Ben Gvir overlooks. Failure to pass the budget by March would topple the government, and coalition members have been lambasting Ben Gvir and his party. Cohen has recently been defying Otzma’s position and voting with the coalition.
US settles with Johns Hopkins over rise in antisemitic, anti-Arab incidents The US Education Department notes concerns about discrimination against people of Jewish and Arab ancestry at Johns Hopkins University and reaches a settlement with the institution to resolve the complaints. The university has agreed to review its anti-harassment policies and to provide training to staff and students on addressing discrimination and harassment based on ancestry and ethnicity, according to the settlement posted online by the Education Department. “Discrimination of any kind, including antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, is not only at odds with university policy, but is also antithetical to our most fundamental values,” a spokesperson for Johns Hopkins tells the Baltimore Banner news website. Rights advocates have noted rising antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents, including during campus protests, since the Hamas terror group launched its deadly October 7, 2023, onslaught in Israel, sparking the still-ongoing war in Gaza.
In a speech last week, Iran’s top general in Syria said the Islamic Republic was “defeated very badly” by the fall of Syria’s Bashar Assad, despite the repeated public downplaying of its significance by Iranian leaders. “I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of,” says Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati in a recording of the speech, according to the New York Times. “We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow and it’s been very difficult.” Esbati also said ties with Assad had been strained prior to the Syrian regime’s collapse over his refusal to let Iran-backed militias to open a new front against Israel from Syria, and accused Russia of saying it was bombing rebel forces when it was in fact dropping munitions on open fields. Despite Assad’s ouster, Esbati said Tehran will still look for ways to enlist fighters in Syria regardless of political developments there. “We can activate all the networks we have worked with over the years,” he is quoted as saying. “We can activate the social layers that our guys lived among for years; we can be active in social media and we can form resistance cells.” “Now we can operate there as we do in other international arenas, and we have already started.”
Jerusalem said blocking UN investigation on Hamas sexual violence that also requires probe of Israel Israel is reportely blocking the United Nations from launching an investigation into Hamas’s sexual violence during its October 7 onslaught because doing so would also require allowing the UN to probe alleged sex crimes committed Palestinians in Israeli detention. The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten already published a report last year on the sexual violence perpetrated during the October 7 attack, but said her mandate at the time wasn’t broad enough to allow for a determination on whether Hamas could be added to the UN’s blacklist of entities suspected of committing sexual crimes. Patten has urged Israel to sign a framework agreement with her UN office, similar to the one Ukraine signed in 2022 that allowed for an investigation into sexual violence perpetrated by Russia, the Haaretz daily reports. The agreement would also require Israel to grant the UN access to its detention facilities to probe allegations of sexual violence committed by Israeli security forces — a request Israel has denied, according to the report. “The office is exploring a future mission to the region after receiving an invitation from the Palestinian Authority regarding reports of conflict-related sexual violence against Palestinians as well as outreach by the Government of Israel for a follow-up visit on the 7 October attacks and their aftermath,” Patten’s office says. Haaretz cites unnamed sources who warn that Israel’s refusal to grant Patten’s office access to conduct her probe into Hamas’s October 7 sexual violence could backfire, as it could lead to Israel being added to the UN blacklist, while Hamas would be left off it. In a statement to the newspaper, the Foreign Ministry doesn’t comment on whether it will allow Patten’s office to launch an investigation but does insist that it is working to coordinate a visit from the UN special representative.
A Quaker group denounces the New York Times for rejecting an ad that claimed Israel is committing genocide amid the war with Hamas in Gaza. According to the American Friends Service Committee, the proposed ad said, “Tell Congress to stop arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza now! As a Quaker organization, we work for peace. Join us. Tell the President and Congress to stop the killing and starvation in Gaza.” A statement from the organization says the newspaper told it in response that there are “differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.” That explanation doesn’t assuage the group’s general secretary, however, who accuses the New York Times of engaging in “an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth.” “Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalized in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world,” says Joyce Ajlouny in the statement.