LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison for shooting and wounding two Jewish men as they left synagogues in Los Angeles last year, federal prosecutors said.
Jaime Tran, 30, pleaded guilty in June to two counts of hate crimes with intent to kill and two counts of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
The February 2023 shootings had raised fears among the city’s Jewish community after officials said the victims were targeted because they wore clothing that identified their faith, including black coats and head coverings. Both men survived.
Tran told law enforcement that he looked online for a “kosher market” and decided to shoot someone nearby, according to an FBI affidavit.
Tran had a “history of antisemitic and threatening conduct,” the affidavit said, citing a review of emails, text messages and unspecified reports.
“Targeting people for death based solely on their religious and ethnic background brings back memories of the darkest chapters in human history,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said. “We hope the sentence imposed today sends a strong message to all in our community that we will not tolerate antisemitism and hate of any sort."
In 2022, the FBI affidavit said, Tran emailed former classmates using insulting language about Jewish people and also threatened a Jewish former classmate, repeatedly sending messages like “Someone is going to kill you, Jew” and “I want you dead, Jew.”
“As millions of Jewish Americans prepare to observe the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Justice Department reaffirms its commitment to aggressively confronting, disrupting, and prosecuting criminal acts motivated by antisemitism, or by hatred of any kind,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement. "No Jewish person in America should have to fear that any sign of their identity will make them the victim of a hate crime.”
FILE - Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, at podium, addresses community members and other local, state law enforcement officials in a town hall on antisemitic violence at YULA Boys High School in Los Angeles Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Israel's prime minister issued a warning to Iran Monday, just days after an airstrike south of Beirut killed the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which is backed by Tehran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.” Later Monday, officials in Washington confirmed Israeli troops were conducting small raids across the border in Lebanon, but provided no details.
Hezbollah’s acting leader promised the group will fight on following the death Friday of its long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has also assassinated several of the group’s top commanders in recent days. Naim Kassem said in a televised statement that if Israel launches a ground offensive, the group’s fighters are ready. He said the commanders killed have already been replaced.
An airstrike early Monday hit an apartment building in central Beirut — the first to hit in the heart of the Lebanese capital in nearly a year of conflict — and killed three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, leftist Palestinian faction. Videos showed ambulances and a crowd gathered near the building on a busy, shop-lined thoroughfare in a mainly Sunni district.
Another Israeli airstrike early Monday killed six people, including two sisters and a child, in central Gaza, Palestinian officials said.
Here is the latest:
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief is calling for de-escalation and a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, saying civilians are suffering the brunt of the increasing violence.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appeal for “diplomatic avenues to be given space” was delivered by U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Monday.
Israel’s escalating airstrikes have affected about one million people and about 100,000 have fled to neighboring Syria, Dujarric said.
He said the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has been unable to deploy its troops from their bases because of the intensity of the fighting.
On the humanitarian front, the United Nations plans to launch an emergency appeal on Tuesday to help meet the needs of the one million people affected by the violence, Dujarric said.
The U.N. World Food Program has delivered food to more than 65,000 people in shelters in recent days, and the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has opened seven emergency shelters that are accommodating 1,400 people.
SOFIA, Bulgaria – A Bulgarian government jet has returned to Sofia with 89 nationals who were evacuated from Lebanon.
Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, who welcomed them at the Sofia Airport on Monday, said the government was discussing all options for future evacuations.
“We will evacuate the Bulgarians from Lebanon in the safest way, regardless of the cost. The most important thing is that it is done in the most secure and safe way. There is nothing more expensive than human life,” Glavchev said.
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Elena Shekerletova, 160 out of about 400 Bulgarians who live in Lebanon have said they want to be evacuated.
“More than half arrived on the first flight, while more requests have been processed. A new flight will be scheduled as soon as a group is assembled, and travel is safe,” Shekerletova said at the airport.
“In less than 24 hours, our embassy organized an evacuation, including for the baby who had no documents,” said 38-year-old mother of two Jana Sharaf, holding her 20-day-old infant.
“On Tuesday the bombing started and very quickly it became very scary, very bad. We didn’t know where the bombs would fall, what they were targeting. It was very scary.”
JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military has declared three communities along Israel’s northern border to be a “closed military zone,” in a possible precursor to a ground invasion of Lebanon.
The order Monday restricts entry and exit from the communities to military forces only. The towns are Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi.
The order does not necessarily mean that Israeli troops will invade Lebanon immediately. Areas can also be declared closed military zones if an imminent threat is detected.
But the Israeli army has heavily beefed up forces along the border with Lebanon in recent days, and commanders have said they are prepared to send in forces if the government gives the order.
BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers are calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and have expressed support for U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
“Arms should now be silenced, and the voice of diplomacy should speak and be heard by all,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters after chairing an emergency meeting Monday.
“The sovereignty of both Israel and Lebanon has to be guaranteed,” Borrell said. “Any further military intervention would dramatically aggravate the situation and has to be avoided.”
Borrell said ministers of the 27-nation EU discussed the need for increased humanitarian aid and close coordination “to be prepared for any emergency situation.”
Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said he and his counterparts discussed possibly evacuating European nationals from Lebanon.
Both underlined the importance of the peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL. “The safety and security of U.N. peacekeepers is paramount,” Borrell said.
WASHINGTON — Israel has launched small, precision raids across the border in Lebanon and a larger ground operation is being planned, according to two officials.
It was not clear if Israel had made a final decision on a broader operation. The Israeli military did not comment.
The U.S. official and the Western official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
It was not clear what the small ground raids entailed and there have been no reports of direct clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants on Lebanese soil.
— By Matthew Lee. Samy Magdy contributed from Cairo.
LONDON — Relatives of some of the Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza say they fear Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon will further delay a deal that could lead to their loved ones' release.
“It takes away from the hostages,” Sharone Lifschitz said during a news conference Monday in London.
She continued, “If there is a ground incursion, then they are telling us nothing will happen for two weeks or three weeks or five weeks.”
Lifschitz's parents were kidnapped when Hamas-backed militants raided southern Israel on Oct. 7. Her mother, Yocheved, was freed in November but her father, Oded, is still being held.
Relatives of hostages with connections to the U.K. held a private meeting Monday with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy in hopes of increasing pressure for the hostages’ release.
Stephen Brisley’s sister Lianne Sharab and two nieces were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, and his brother-in-law Eli Sharabi is a hostage. He says the Israeli government insists the hostages are its top priority, but “that’s not the impression I get at the moment.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they shot down another American-made MQ-9 Reaper drone over the country, with videos purportedly showing a surface-to-air missile striking it.
Responding to queries from The Associated Press, the U.S. military acknowledged an MQ-9 was “downed but we have nothing additional to provide.”
The attack comes as the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip approaches. The Houthis have targeted ships traveling through the Red Sea over the war as U.S.-led airstrikes pound their positions in Yemen. That has imperiled a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion of trade pass through it, as well as crucial shipments of aid to war-torn Sudan and Yemen.
The Houthis also continue to launch missiles targeting Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes from the Israelis this weekend on the port city of Hodeida.
The Houthi-run broadcaster Al-Masirah claimed shooting down the MQ-9, hours after video footage circulated online showing the purported missile striking the aircraft over Yemen’s Saada province. A single image online also appeared to show wreckage of the drone, with pieces resembling that of an MQ-9.
BEIRUT — France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has urged Israel to refrain from launching a ground offensive in Lebanon and to reach a cease-fire with the Lebanese group Hezbollah after nearly two weeks of escalating tit-for-tat strikes across Israel's northern border.
“There is still hope, but there is little time left,” Barrot said during a news conference in Beirut Monday, just hours after an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the heart of the Lebanese capital. “I therefore urge Israel to refrain from any ground incursion and to cease fire.”
He also urged Hezbollah to stop firing on Israel, saying it “bears heavy responsibility in the current situation, given its choice to enter the conflict” after ally Hamas’ Oct. 7 deadly incursion into southern Israel.
Barrot was in Lebanon to delivery medical aid and hospital equipment.
He expressed solidarity with the Lebanese people, saying they are “caught in a war (they) did not choose,” and said France will provide flights for any French nationals who want to leave Lebanon.
UNITED NATIONS — Syria’s top diplomat is warning the United Nations General Assembly that Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, Gaza, the occupied Golan Heights and his own country are propelling the region to the edge of perilous “escalation and confrontation.”
Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh spoke Monday on the final day of the assembly’s annual top-level meeting. He exhorted all countries to work toward ending “Israeli aggression” and to hold the nation accountable. He accused the United States and other, unnamed nations of giving Israel “immunity, impunity, and unlimited support.”
“This large-scale Israeli aggression, which is unfettered by any restrictions and limitations, is pushing the region to the brink of a dangerous escalation and confrontation whose consequences cannot be predicted,” he said.
JERUSALEM — In a speech addressed to the Iranian people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamic Republic of subjugating its citizens and indicated the Israeli military is capable of assassinating Iran’s leaders.
“Every day, their (Iran’s) puppets are eliminated. Ask Mohammed Deif. Ask Nasrallah,” Netanyahu said. “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.”
He was referring to the head of Hamas’ military wing, who Israel says it killed in a July strike in Gaza, and the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a strike on Friday. Hamas has not confirmed Deif’s death.
Over the past week, Israel has killed seven high-ranking Hezbollah commanders and officials. Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer and sponsor, has vowed to retaliate.
“Iran’s tyrants don’t care about your future,” Netanyahu said. “When Iran is finally free, that moment will come a lot sooner than people think. Everything will be different.”
Hamas’ political leader, Ismael Haniyeh, was assassinated in July in a strike on Tehran, and Iran blamed Israel. Israel has not confirmed or denied it was behind that killing.
DAMASCUS, Syria — More than 5,000 displaced people are finding shelter in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus after fleeing Israeli airstrikes in neighboring Lebanon.
They are among tens of thousands who have crossed the border into Syria in the past two weeks as the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group intensified, with Israel dramatically expanding its aerial campaign across the country.
The overcrowded suburb called Sayyida Zeinab has welcome the displaced, offering them hotel rooms and other accommodation. The Shiite militant Hezbollah group, which fought alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad during Syria’s civil war, maintains a strong presence in the predominantly Shiite Muslim suburb.
The cross-border flow was a striking reversal in fortunes given that Lebanon is still hosting more than one million Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country that began in 2011.
“The situation in Lebanon is tragic,” said Futoon Abbas, a displaced Lebanese woman from the eastern city of Baalbek that has been at the receiving end of heavy Israeli bombardment the past few days. “It was by the mercy of God that we got here,” she said, adding the road was very dangerous.
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Hezbollah’s leader killed in a recent Israeli airstrike a “brutal terrorist” but says the U.S. will keep working on de-scalating the conflict in the Middle East.
President Joe Biden similarly said over the weekend that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah ’s death was a “measure of justice” for thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese victims of a four-decade “reign of terror.”
Biden said an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided and that he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but didn’t say when.
Blinken, speaking Monday at the opening of a meeting of foreign ministers in a global coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, said the U.S. is working with partners on a diplomatic resolution to ensure security for Israel and Lebanon and allow people driven from their homes along the border by months of rocket strikes to return.
He says the U.S. is still working on a cease-fire and hostage release deal in Gaza, an effort that has stalled.
“Diplomacy remains the best and only path to achieving greater stability in the Middle East,” Blinken said.
A billboard with a huge portrait of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is installed on a building as minarets of a mosque are seen, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The billboard reads in Farsi on top left: "The beginning of Nasrallah." (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Mourners attend a rally commemorating slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A mourner holds up a poster of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a quotation of him: "We will definitely win" at Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) St. in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli soldiers work on on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A cat walks past a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Mourners attend a rally commemorating slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, shown in billboard, at Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli firefighters and police bomb squad work at a site hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, near Nahariya, northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Families rest on Beirut's corniche after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A Lebanese man looks through his apartment window at the scene where an Israeli airstrike hit a building early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows the site of an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
A man passes by a damaged car where an Israeli airstrike hit a nearby building in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Damaged apartments, right, are seen in a building that was hit by Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Damaged cars are parked in front of a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Yemenis stand in front of a portrait of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
A large fire and plume of smoke is visible in the port city of Hodeida, Yemen, on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, after Israeli strikes on the Houthi-controlled city. (AP Photo)
A Lebanese policeman looks at damaged apartments that were hit by Israeli strike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People look up at a damaged building that was hit by Israeli strike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People walk past damaged cars near a building hit by an Israeli airstrike early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Policemen and civil defense workers stand next to damaged cars near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Policemen and civil defense workers inspect a damaged car near a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Women pass the damaged cars where an Israeli airstrike hit a building in Beirut early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A damaged apartment is seen on a building that was hit by Israeli strike, in Beirut early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Damages are seen on a building that was hit by Israeli strike, early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Lebanese soldier passes next to damaged cars where an Israeli airstrike hit a building in Beirut early Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
