Key events
Appeal to supreme court over Israel intel chief sacking
Israel’s opposition and an NGO said on Friday they had filed a petition against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the internal Shin Bet security agency.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a pro-democracy pressure group, denounced in a statement “an unlawful decision … posing a real risk to the national security of the State of Israel”, while opposition leader Yair Lapid’s centre-right party said it has filed an appeal with the supreme court, and denounced what it called “a decision based on flagrant conflict of interest”.
Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously on Friday morning to dismiss Bar, according to reports. It marks the first time in Israeli history that the government has fired the head of the domestic security agency, reports the Times of Israel. Bar’s final day will be 10 April.
Tens of thousands of Israelis had taken to the streets over the past few days to call for a new ceasefire in Gaza and to protest against what they say is an attack on the country’s democracy by the rightwing governing coalition of Netanyahu.
The immediate trigger for the anger was Netanyahu’s plan to dismiss Bar, but the prime minister’s decision to shatter a two-month-old truce in Gaza with waves of lethal airstrikes has fuelled the demonstrations.
Key highways were blocked and police made at least 12 arrests amid heated scenes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. More protests are expected in the coming days as the campaign “gathers momentum and energy”, campaigners said.
More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other key developments:
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At least 91 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured in a third day of Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to medical officials in the strip, who said a high proportion of the dead were women and children. Among those pulled alive from rubble on Thursday was a month-old baby girl, but her parents and brother were killed.
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Warnings telling Palestinians to evacuate areas in the north and east of Gaza to avoid being trapped by fighting have been issued by the Israeli military, suggesting ground assaults could be imminent, although Israel appears to be relying on air power for now. Thursday’s strikes appeared concentrated on the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis and the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
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A strike on a family home in Abasan al-Kabira, a village near Khan Younis, on Thursday killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European hospital, which received the dead. The home was within an area covered by a recent evacuation order.
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In its first military response to the Israeli offensive since the ceasefire was broken, Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv in Israel on Thursday. No casualties or damage were reported.
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Iran’s supreme leader said Friday that US threats against his country “will get them nowhere”, after US president Donald Trump warned of possible military action against the Islamic republic.
