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Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid is expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week, in another sign of warming ties between Jerusalem and Ankara.
The PM’s office said Lapid would depart for New York on Monday night, ahead of his address to the 193-member General Assembly on Thursday. Local media reported that the meeting with Erdoğan is slated to take place on Tuesday.
Only last month, Israel and Turkey agreed to restore full diplomatic relations. The two countries recalled their respective ambassadors in 2010 after the Israeli Navy intercepted a flotilla transporting weapons to the Gaza Strip, an incident that resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals. Following an attempt at mending ties, Turkey withdrew its ambassador in 2018 when the United States announced that it would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The process of rapprochement with Israel started earlier this year. In March, President Isaac Herzog met with Erdoğan in the Turkish capital. Three months ago, then-foreign minister Lapid visited Ankara, after his Turkish counterpart traveled to Jerusalem, the first high-level visit by a Turkish official in 15 years.
Meanwhile, in related news, a coalition of Palestinian NGOs sent a letter this week demanding that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas pressure the UN to “withdraw recognition of Israel.” The letter, signed by multiple groups with documented terror ties, also urged Abbas to call on the international community to impose sanctions on the Jewish state and to repeat his accusations that Israel is an apartheid state.
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Israel’s security forces launched a manhunt after a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at a Jewish religious school in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills on Thursday evening. An 18-year-old Israeli student sustained injuries in the incident.
Paramedics confirmed that the young man was hit in his upper body and was taken to a hospital for medical treatment. According to local reports, the wounded teenager was a yeshiva student who was learning inside the building when the terrorist started shooting.
Roads in the area were closed, and the Israel Defense Forces placed nearby communities under lockdown. Eventually, the IDF’s Home Front Command issued a statement that it was safe to go outside.
The Palestinian assailant fled the scene and remains at large.
Shooting attack at Carmel Yeshiva,
An 18 years old student was wounded pic.twitter.com/zenCmO8ikr— Adin – عدین – עדין (@AdinHaykin1) September 15, 2022
In the wake of multiple shooting attacks targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers in Judea and Samaria, security officials have warned of another eruption of violence, with some Israelis viewing the recent events as the possible start of a “third intifada,” or terror uprising.
Israel has carried out near-nightly incursions into Palestinian Authority-administered towns and cities, which it said prevented “hundreds of attacks” in recent months.
The IDF initially stepped up its operations in the disputed territory after a wave of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people, mostly Israelis, earlier this year. Three of the most deadly attacks were perpetrated by terrorists from the Jenin area in the northern West Bank.
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel on Friday that the terror group’s missiles are “locked on” the disputed Karish gas field, claimed by both Israel and Lebanon. “The red line to us is that there should not be extraction from Karish,” Nasrallah reportedly said in a televised speech.
His comments came after Israel’s Energy Ministry announced it “was preparing to connect the Karish reservoir to the Israeli system,” adding: “As part of the next stage of the project, planned for the upcoming days, the rig and natural transmission system from the rig to the national network will be tested.”
Jerusalem and Beirut, which do not have diplomatic relations, are currently holding indirect talks mediated by the United States over the rights to the offshore gas installation and to demarcate a maritime border between the two countries.
Karish is at the heart of simmering tensions, which stem from a 2010 dispute over 330 square miles of the Mediterranean Sea that lie along the boundary between the two countries. Israel considers this area part of the northernmost boundary of its territorial waters, while Beirut claims it to be part of its southernmost boundary.
On September 9, US mediator Amos Hochstein reported “progress” in the negotiations, while noting that “still more work needs to be done.”
Hezbollah has repeatedly threatened to attack Karish. In July, the IDF downed three drones launched by Hezbollah toward the gas rig. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has said that Lebanon will suffer “dire consequences” if the Iran-backed terror organization torpedoes the maritime talks.
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Chile’s government on Saturday announced that it had rescheduled the acceptance of credentials of the new Israeli ambassador, a day after a diplomatic row erupted between Jerusalem and Santiago over the latter’s decision to postpone the formality.
The ceremony will now take place on September 30. In a statement, the Chilean Foreign Ministry explained that the decision to delay the acceptance of Israeli ambassador Gil Artzyeli’s credentials was a response to the death of a 17-year-old Palestinian teenager in the West Bank during an Israel Defense Forces operation.
Notably, Uday Salah was a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a US-designated Palestinian terror group. Santiago’s move drew strong condemnation from Israel, which summoned Chile’s ambassador to express its disapproval.
Uday Salah was killed Thursday in Kafr Dan during clashes with IDF troops. Later, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades mourned his death and said it would seek revenge. All while Chile's President @gabrielboric refused to take the new Israeli ambassador's credentials citing Salah's death. pic.twitter.com/eJOsjrbgzd
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 16, 2022
On Saturday, Chile’s acting Foreign Minister Ximena Fuentes Torrijo called Alon Ushpiz, director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and apologized for the incident. In the conversation, Torrijo expressed her “permanent will to maintain a fraternal and constructive relationship with the State of Israel and its people, based on respect, dialogue and cooperation.”
For his part, Ushpiz stated that those who wish to play a positive role in promoting peace and negotiations, as indicated by Santiago, cannot at the same time promote a boycott of Israel.
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Over the weekend, a massive sinkhole randomly opened up on one of Israel’s busiest traffic arteries, the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, disrupting the Sunday morning commute for thousands of drivers in the coastal city.
Responding to the incident, Transportation Minister Meirav Michaeli called on commuters not to arrive in the Tel Aviv area in private vehicles.
The pit, which spanned one of the highway’s southbound lanes, prompted authorities to close several lanes, as well as the nearby exit. It is unclear what caused the sinkhole. However, some noted that the city is constantly undergoing vast infrastructure and construction work.
Despite the region being heavily populated, particularly with drivers heading to and from family meals for the weekend on Saturday, Fire and Rescue Services reported that no people or cars had fallen in.
Sinkhole in the Ayalon South highway exit to HaShalom junction.
17.09.2022 19:26 #TelAviv #sinkhole pic.twitter.com/p0Ryc2aUiB
— Thomas Schlijper תומאס סלייפר🎗️ (@schlijperisrael) September 17, 2022
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Featured Image: Senat RP/Polish Senate via Wikimedia Commons, Shalev Shalom/TPS, Patrick Gruban via Flickr
