by tyler | May 12, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday will have President Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing unprecedented challenges that could end his two-decade rule.
Voters will decide the fate of Turkey’s democracy less than three months after a February 6 earthquake killed more than 50,000 people and displaced more than more than 5.9 million across southern Turkey and northern Syria.
The elections also take place amid a serious economic crisis and what analysts say is democratic erosion under Erdogan’s government.
Analysts predict a record voter turnout this year, and a tight race between Erdogan and the main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and presidential nominee for the six-party Nation Alliance bloc.
More than 1.8 million voters living abroad already cast their votes on April 17, Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported Wednesday, citing the country’s deputy foreign minister.
Turkey’s demographics are also expected to play a role. Most of the provinces struck by the February earthquake were strongholds of Erdogan and his AK Party. But Supreme Election Council (YSK) chief Ahmet Yener said last month that at least 1 million voters in quake-stricken zones are expected not to vote this year amid displacement.
And even if Kilicdaroglu wins the election, some analysts say Erdogan may not hand over power to his successor without a struggle.
Here’s what you need to know about the vote that could become a pivotal moment in Turkey’s modern history:
Turkey holds elections every five years. Presidential candidates can be nominated by parties that have passed the 5% voter threshold in the last parliamentary election, or those who have gathered at least 100,000 signatures supporting their nomination.
The candidate who receives more than 50% of votes in the first round is elected president, but if no candidate gets a majority vote, the election goes to a second round between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the first round.
Parliamentary elections take place at the same time as the presidential elections. Turkey follows a system of proportional representation in parliament where the number of seats a party gets in the 600-seat legislature is directly proportional to the votes it wins.
Parties must obtain no less than 7% of votes – either on their own or in alliance with other parties – in order to enter parliament.
The vote will take place Sunday, with candidates casting their ballots for both elections at the same time. The second presidential ballot, if it takes place, will be held on May 28.
Polls open on at 8:00 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) and close at 5 p.m. (10 a.m. ET). Results are expected after 9 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) local time.
The pool for this year’s presidential election narrowed to three candidates on Thursday, when Muharrem Ince pulled out of the race.
Apart from Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, right-wing Ancestral Alliance candidate Sinan Ogan is also running.
Centrist Homeland Party leader Ince said he had withdrawn following a “slander campaign” against him. He has faced weeks of lurid allegations on social media in Turkey and the Ankara public prosecutor’s office said Thursday it had opened an investigation into potential blackmail.
His party, Homeland, will however remain in the parliamentary race.
The 59-year-old ran for president in 2018 but lost against Erdogan. In March this year, he broke away from Kilicdaroglu’s CHP and joined the presidential race. He initially rebuffed calls by his former party to pull out amid concern that he’d take votes away from Erdogan’s rival.
Ince did not endorse any of the remaining candidates, and his name will also remain on the ballot. His withdrawal is a potential boost to Kilicdaroglu.
A lawmaker representing the CHP since 2002 – the same year that saw Erdogan’s AK Party rise to power – Kilicdaroglu, 74, climbed up the political ladder to become his party’s seventh chairman in 2010.
Born in the eastern, Kurdish-majority province of Tunceli, the party leader ran in Turkey’s 2011 general election but lost, coming second to Erdogan and his AK Party.
Kilicdaroglu represents the party formed 100 years ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey and a die-hard secularist. He stands in stark contrast to Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted party and its conservative base.
Despite his secular leanings, however, the opposition candidate and his alliance have vowed to represent all factions of Turkish society, which analysts say was demonstrated in his diverse coalition.
Reacting to Ince’s withdrawal from the race, Kilicdaroglu on Friday accused Russia of interfering in the election campaign.
“Dear Russian friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, deep fake content and tapes that were exposed in this country yesterday,” he said on Twitter. “If you want the continuation of our friendship after May 15, get your hands off the Turkish state. We are still in favor of cooperation and friendship.”
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, rejected the accusation in a briefing, calling those who spread such rumors “liars.”
“Russia does not interfere in the internal affairs and electoral processes of other countries,” Peskov said. “We place great value on our bilateral relations with the Turkish side, because the Republic of Turkey has so far taken a very responsible sovereign and well-thought-out position on a whole range of regional and global problems that we are facing.”
Turkey, a NATO member that has the alliance’s second-largest army, has strengthened its ties with Russia in recent years. In 2019, it even bought weapons from the country in defiance of the US.
Erdogan has raised eyebrows in the West by continuing to maintain close ties with Russia as it continues its Ukraine onslaught, and has caused a headache for NATO’s expansion plans by stalling the membership of Finland and Sweden.
When the US Ambassador to Ankara Jeff Flake paid a visit in March to Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan lashed out against him, calling the US diplomat’s visit a “shame,” and warning that Turkey needs to “teach the US a lesson in this election.”
Analysts have said that even if Erdogan is ousted in the polls, a foreign policy u-turn for Turkey is not a given. While figures close to the opposition have indicated that if victorious, it would reorient Turkey back to the West, others say core foreign policy issues are likely to remain unchanged.
Turkey has, however, also been useful to its Western allies under Erdogan. Last year Ankara helped mediate a landmark grains export deal between Ukraine and Russia, and even provided Ukraine with drones that played a part in countering Russian attacks.
High in voters’ list of concerns is the state of the economy and the damage caused by the earthquake. Even before the February disaster, Turkey was struggling with rising prices and a currency crisis that in October saw inflation hit 85%.
That impacted the purchasing power of the public and is “fundamentally the reason why Erdogan’s popularity has been eroded,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and chairman of Istanbul-based think-tank EDAM. “That is going to be the major handicap for Erdogan,” he said.
Voters are also casting their ballots based on whom they see as more capable of managing the fallout from the earthquake, as well as shielding the country from future disasters, analysts say, adding that Erdogan’s popularity had not taken the expected political impact.
“There is a debate about which electoral platform provides the right solution to address these vulnerabilities and enhance Turkey’s resilience to these national disasters,” Ulgen said.
Apart from the economy and the government’s management of Turkey’s frequent natural disasters, voters are likely concerned with Erdogan’s turn away from democracy – something the opposition has campaigned to reverse.
Some analysts say that if Erdogan loses the vote by a small margin, it opens up the possibility for him to contest the results.
And if past experience is a gauge, then the president and his AK Party may not take a defeat lying down.
During the 2019 Istanbul and Ankara mayoral election, the AK Party lost control of the country’s financial hub and capital, prompting party officials from both cities to reject the results, citing voter irregularities.
The CHP’s lead in Istanbul was a particularly narrow one, and eventually led to the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) ruling in favor of a re-run that the opposition strongly objected to.
CHP Istanbul mayor candidate Ekrem Imamoglu then went on to win the election re-run, dealing a blow to Erdogan.
Ulgen cast doubt on the YSK’s independence, saying it may give in to potential demands for a recount. The body will be the ultimate arbiter of the race, he said.
A 2023 report by Freedom House said that the judges of the YSK, who oversee all voting procedures, “are appointed by AKP-dominated judicial bodies and often defer to the AKP in their decisions.” The AK Party’s “institutional dominance” in the media and other branches of society also “tilts the electoral playing field” in Erdogan’s favor, the Washington DC-based advocacy group said.
by tyler | May 9, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Three Islamic Jihad commanders and multiple family members were among the 13 Palestinians killed as Israeli jets and helicopters struck multiple targets in Gaza overnight in what Israel described as an operation targeting “kingpin terrorists,” leading to threats of retaliation.
One of the three Islamic Jihad commanders killed overnight was working on capabilities to launch rockets from the West Bank toward Israel, IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters during a briefing, Hagari said Tariq Muhammad Ezzedine was involved in Islamic Jihad operations in the West Bank, including bringing “improvised rockets that will be launched from the West Bank into Israel to harm civilians.”
Rockets have never been fired from the West Bank into Israel.
Islamic Jihad confirmed three of its commanders were killed in the overnight operation along with their wives and children.
The commanders killed were Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, secretary of the Military Council in the al Quds Brigades; Khalil Salah al Bahtini, commander of the Northern Region in the al Quds Brigades; and Ezzedine, one of the leaders of the military wing of the al Quds Brigades in the West Bank, the group said.
The group vowed a “response” to Israeli airstrikes, calling the attacks an “aggressive, heinous massacre.”
Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, issued a similar statement, promising a “firm response from the unified resistance forces, whose unity is manifested in its greatest form in the field.”
Hagari said the operation had been planned since last Tuesday, when Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets toward Israel following the death of its former spokesman while on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
But, the IDF did not have the “operational conditions” until overnight.
“On the day on which the rockets were fired last week, I ordered – together with the Defense Minister – the preparation of an operation to target the arch-terrorists that would, in effect, hit the senior leadership of the organization in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday at the start of a security cabinet meeting.
“Our principle is clear: Whoever harms us – we will strike at them and with great force. Our long arm will reach every terrorist at a time and place of our choosing,” he added.
The IDF launched a further stike on Tuesday, saying its air force targeted “a terrorist squad” belonging to Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
“The squad was taking Anti-tank guided missiles by car to a launch pad in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. IDF soldiers monitored the activity of the squad and struck it while they were on their way to the launch pad,” IDF said.
The Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza said two people were killed and two others injured in that attack east of Khan Younis, although they have yet to identify them, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 15.
The Al Shifa hospital in Gaza said those killed in the overnight strikes were members of four families plus one other individual.
The dead included five women and four children, a list of the dead released by the Al-Shifa Medical Complex showed.
One of the Palestinian men killed in Israeli airstrikes was a prominent dentist, Jamal Khaswan, who died along with his wife and son, the Ministry of Health added. Khaswan was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al-Wafa Hospital, the ministry said, praising him as a scientific and practical man of great determination.
He held Russian citizenship, according to the Russian Representative Office in Ramallah. The Russian Mission said Khaswan and his wife left behind two orphaned children who are also Russian citizens.
The Ministry of Health added that 20 people had been injured, including three children and seven women.
When asked about civilians who were also killed in the attack, IDF spokesperson Hagari said they were not intentionally targeted.
“In every operation we try to create that we will have the minimize the harm of civilians and minimize collateral damage,” Hagari said. “Unfortunately, we had women and children that were dead. We would rather have no uninvolved personnel dead in our operations but it’s hard we’re working against terrorist who are conducting their activity day and night amongst civilians. We are trying to create conditions for minimum harm of people in our operations.”
Hagari said that while the IDF focused specifically on Islamic Jihad, the military is prepared for any expanded scenario.
“We are ready all our capabilities especially in the defense the Iron Dome all around the country and also planes are ready,” he said.
Islamic Jihad said Ghannam, 62, was also commander-in-chief of the al Quds Brigades and has been wanted for over 20 years, having survived five previous assassination attempts.
He had worked in Yasser Arafat’s Fatah and the Popular Resistance Committees, secular Palestinian militant groups that predate the emergence of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the group said.
The IDF accused Ghannam of coordinating weapons and money transfers between Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the militant group which runs Gaza. It called him one of the most senior members of Islamic Jihad.
Calling the strikes “Operation Shield and Arrow,” the IDF said its fighter jets and helicopters hit 10 Islamic Jihad targets, including what it said were “rocket production workshops in Khan Yunis,” weapon manufacturing sites, military compounds, a concrete manufacturing site and a military post in southern Gaza.
Video from Gaza showed explosions lighting up the night sky and the rubble from buildings hit by the strikes.
The latest violence came almost a week after Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza exchanged fire following the death of a prominent Palestinian hunger striker in an Israeli prison.
Israel conducted strikes on what it said were targets belonging to Hamas as dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel on May 2.
It followed the death of Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad former spokesman who became a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli detention policies, in Israeli custody after 87 days of hunger strike.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen cut short a three-day official visit to India in the wake of the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
He said he had received a security update immediately on landing in New Delhi on Tuesday, when he was due to travel to the city of Agra and then to the financial capital Mumbai on Wednesday, according to an itinerary published by India’s Ministry of External affairs.
Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost two million people crammed into 140 square miles.
Governed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah.
Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said he did not know if there would be more follow up strikes.
“We don’t know yet where we go. It’s still early,” he said. “We’re ready for as long as it takes. The big question is Hamas. What will they decide to do?”
by tyler | May 8, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
At the height of election campaigning and just three weeks before polls were set to open, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated Turkey’s first nuclear plant in a virtual ceremony, in a move that further tethered the two Black Sea neighbors.
The event last month saw the inaugural nuclear fuel delivery at the Akkuyu plant in Mersin province, which is the first in the world to be built, owned and operated by one company – that is Russia’s state atomic energy company Rosatom.
With that, Turkey extended its energy dependence on Moscow at a time when its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies were reducing such links to deprive Russia of leverage against them. It entrenched Moscow’s presence in Turkey for the long term just as Erdogan was set to head into an election that some polls predict could push him out of power.
The strengthening ties between Erdogan and Putin have caused jitters in the West, with some watching the upcoming elections with anticipation of a possible Erdogan exit.
The Turkish strongman knows this. When the US Ambassador to Ankara Jeff Flake paid a visit in March to Erdogan’s main electoral rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan lashed out against him, calling the US diplomat’s visit a “shame,” and warning that Turkey needs to “teach the US a lesson in this election.”
Polls suggest a tight race between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, with the likelihood of the May 14 election going into a second ballot if no candidate wins a majority vote.
But analysts have said that even if Erdogan is ousted in the polls, a foreign policy u-turn for Turkey is not a given. While figures close to the opposition have indicated that if victorious, it would reorient Turkey back to the West, others say core foreign policy issues are likely to remain unchanged.
Over the past two decades, Erdogan’s Turkey has repositioned itself from a staunchly secular, Western-oriented nation to a more conservative, religiously oriented one. A NATO member that has the alliance’s second-largest army, it has strengthened its ties with Russia, and in 2019 even bought weapons from it in defiance of the US. Erdogan has raised eyebrows in the West by continuing to maintain close ties with Russia as it continues its Ukraine onslaught, and has caused a headache for NATO’s expansion plans by stalling the membership of Finland and Sweden.
Turkey has, however, also been useful to its Western allies under Erdogan. Last year Ankara helped mediate a landmark grains export deal between Ukraine and Russia, and even provided Ukraine with drones that played a part in countering Russian attacks.
“I think there are areas where we will see radical change if the opposition wins, and many of our colleagues and European diplomats in Ankara are asking to what extent Turkey will pivot back to its Western allies,” said Onur Isci, an assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, noting that if the opposition wins, the first thing it will do is mend fences with the West.
But even if relations with the West are repaired, there will be limits to Turkey’s pivot back to the West, he said, given how deeply intertwined Turkish and Russian economies have become, especially as regards energy.
Much of Erdogan’s foreign policy has been driven by economic considerations, Isci said. And that is likely to continue into the next government.
Turkey is a key trading partner for Russia, as well as a hub for thousands of Russians who fled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pouring money into real estate and other sectors.
Trade between the two has been on the rise, and last month Putin said that Russia was keen on deepening its economic ties with Ankara, noting that bilateral trade surpassed $62 billion as of 2022, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. That makes Russia among Turkey’s biggest trade partners.
The European Union, as a bloc, however remains Turkey’s largest trade partner, with bilateral trade reaching around $219 billion, according to the European Commission. Meanwhile, trade with the US stood at approximately $33.8 billion in 2022, according to the US Census Bureau.
Russia’s geographical proximity to Turkey, as well as its economic interests in Ankara, will probably mean that a different leader to Erdogan would still maintain good relations with Russia, while firmly anchoring Turkey within its Western democratic alliances, Murat Somer, a political science professor at Koc University in Istanbul, told CNN.
“In terms of the country’s outlook, it very much will be oriented towards the democratic West,” said Somer, noting that this would not mean a complete end to disagreements with Western countries.
After several delays, Turkey this year allowed Finland to finally join NATO, but it continues to stand in the way of Sweden’s membership, saying it houses Kurdish “terrorist organizations,” referring to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU.
Issues over Sweden’s accession may, however, be resolved with or without Erdogan.
“It’s highly likely that no matter who wins the elections, Ankara will ratify Sweden’s membership later in 2023, after the new anti-terror legislation comes into force in Sweden,” Nigar Goksel, Turkey Director at International Crisis Group, told CNN.
The opposition has been keen to note that “constructive steps to eliminate Turkey’s security concerns” are essential if Sweden’s membership is to be approved.
But while relations with the EU might improve if the opposition wins, the road may be longer and more challenging with the US, experts say.
“When we mention Turkey’s relationship with the West… we sometimes take both ends of the Atlantic (as one),” Isci said. “Turkey’s relationship with the US has hit a dead end, and has been going downhill for a very long time.”
Whether Erdogan or the opposition wins, he said, Turkey will try to “disentangle its relationship with the US and the EU,” given Ankara’s reliance on its European trading partners.
Additional reporting by CNN’s Elizabeth Wells
by tyler | May 8, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
The European Union canceled a diplomatic reception to celebrate Europe Day in Tel Aviv due to take place on Tuesday to avoid giving a platform to Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the EU delegation to Israel said Monday.
“Regrettably, this year we have decided to cancel the diplomatic reception, as we do not want to offer a platform to someone whose views contradict the values the EU stands for,” the EU delegation to Israel said on Twitter.
“We don’t endorse the political views of Mr. Ben Gvir,” EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano had said earlier on Monday. “We don’t endorse the political views of his party because they are in stark contradiction with all the values the European Union stands for and believes in.”
Ben Gvir – the leader of the nationalist Jewish Power party, who has been convicted of inciting anti-Arab racism — fired back that the EU was practicing “undiplomatic gagging.”
“It is a shame that the European Union, which claims to represent the values of democracy and multiculturalism, practices undiplomatic gagging,” Ben Gvir said in a statement. “It is an honor and a privilege for me to represent the Israeli government, the heroic IDF soldiers and the people of Israel in every forum, friends know how to voice criticism and true friends also know how to hear such.”
The decision for the EU to call off the reception went to the top of the bloc’s foreign policy leadership, an EU diplomat told CNN Monday.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “was directly involved,” the diplomat said, asking not to be named discussing internal EU deliberations.
The diplomat said the EU was mystified by the Israeli government decision to send Ben Gvir to the reception.
“Nobody understands why – who had this genius idea, which is not doing good to anybody,” the diplomat said.
Israeli government officials told CNN that there is a rotation of government ministers who attend diplomatic events, and that it happened to be Ben Gvir’s turn.
by tyler | May 8, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Iran hanged two people on Monday who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy, according to the judiciary news agency Mizan.
Yusef Mehrdad and Sadrullah Fazeli Zare were arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to death in April 2021 for running online “anti-Islam groups and channels,” Mizan said.
Authorities convicted both after they were found to be members of a Telegram channel titled “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Members of the Telegram channel allegedly shared opinions insulting Islam. One member allegedly said that they set religious books on fire, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom claimed. Iran’s state-run AlAlam said Mehrdad was filmed burning the Quran.
Zare and Mehrdad were denied family visits and phone calls for eight months after their arrest. Mehrdad reportedly went on hunger strike in February 2022 to protest the authorities’ refusal to allow him to make phone calls, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said.
United Nations experts have previously called on Iran to stop the persecution of religious minorities, under what they described as a policy of targeting dissenting beliefs and religious practices, including Christian converts and atheists.
“Such state-sanctioned intolerance furthers extremism and violence. We call on the Iranian authorities to de-criminalize blasphemy and take meaningful steps to ensure the right to freedom of religion or belief,” the experts said in a statement published in August.
The executions come days after the execution of a dual Swedish-Iranian national, Habib Chaab, who was convicted for leading a national Arab separatist group accused of attacks in Iran.
A joint report issued by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) revealed at least 582 executions were carried out last year – a 75% increase from the previous year.
It was the highest number of executions in the Islamic republic since 2015, according to the report released last month.
The report found there was a “surge” of executions in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September. Amini’s death sparked a months-long national uprising, which was eventually quashed by a brutal police crackdown.
by tyler | May 4, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Israeli forces killed the suspected gunmen who shot dead a British-Israeli mother and two of her daughters last month, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Richard Hecht told CNN Thursday.
They were among at least three Palestinian men killed in the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, authorities said.
Palestinian militant group Hamas named the operatives and confirmed they were the killers of the British-Israeli settlers Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee.
Lucy Dee, 48, was killed alongside Rina, 15, and Maia, 20, when a car they were traveling in was shot at in the Jordan Valley in April. The sisters were killed in the shooting while their mother succumbed to her wounds in hospital several days later.
They had been on a “family outing” during the Passover holiday, according to a statement issued by the council of Efrat, the Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank where they lived.
The Al Qassam Brigade, the militant wing of Hamas, said the men killed Thursday were Hassan Qatanani, Muath al-Masri, and Ibrahim Jaber.
The brigade called them “heroes of the Jordan Valley operation that was carried out about a month ago, in which three settlers were killed, in response to the occupation’s crimes against Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the assault on Muslim women.”
The Dee family’s deaths came at a time of heightened tensions and increased violence in the region, following Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Dozens of rockets were launched from Lebanon, Gaza and Syria into Israeli territory, followed by Israeli retaliatory strikes.
The Israel Defense Forces Thursday morning released the same names for the men killed in Nablus.
They were located following “an extensive ISA (Israel Security Agency) and IDF intelligence and operational effort,” the security forces said.
“During an exchange of fire, both of the terrorists were killed. In addition, Ibrahim Jaber, a senior operative who aided the two terrorists, was killed,” the military statement said. It also said two M-16 rifles and an AK-47 were found in the apartment where the men were discovered.
At the time the Dees were killed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the killings as a “heinous attack” by “terrorists” and instructed Israeli police “to mobilize all border police units in reserve and the IDF to mobilize additional forces,” according to his office.
Thousands of mourners attended their funerals.
A statement from the Dee family on Thursday said they were “delighted to hear that the terrorists were eliminated today.”
“Most of all, that it was done in a way that apparently did not endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers, because that was one of the most important things from our family’s perspective,” the statement said.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said, “Israel’s defense establishment will reach any terrorist that harms our citizens.”
“I commend our security forces for neutralizing the terrorists who conducted the terror attack in Hamra, which took the lives of Lucy Dee, and her daughters Rina and Maya,” he said.
In a separate development on Thursday, a Palestinian woman was shot and killed after stabbing an Israeli soldier in the flashpoint town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, officials said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health named her Iman Ziad Ahmad Odeh, 26.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said she was shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers and transferred in a critical condition to Nablus Hospital, where she died.
The victim of the stabbing was 20, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday. He was mildly injured and taken to hospital.
“The soldier was lightly injured, pushed away the assailant and neutralized her along with an additional soldier in the area,” the IDF said
