JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s attorney general has ordered police to open an investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife on suspicion of harassing political opponents and a witness in the Israeli leader’s corruption trial.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara made the announcement in a terse message late Thursday, saying the investigation would focus on the findings of a recent report by the “Uvda” investigative program into Sara Netanyahu.
The program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs. Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organize protests against political opponents and to intimidate Hadas Klein, a key witness in the trial.
The announcement did not mention Mrs. Netanyahu by name, and the Justice Ministry declined further comment.
But in a video released earlier Thursday, Netanyahu listed what he said were the many kind and charitable acts by his wife and blasted the Uvda report as “lies.”
“My opponents on the left and in the media found a new-old target. They mercilessly attack my wife, Sara,” he said. He called the program ”false propaganda, nasty propaganda that brings up lies from the darkness.”
It was the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the Netanyahus — highlighted by the prime minister's ongoing corruption trial. The pair have also had a rocky relationship with the Israeli media.
Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of cases alleging he exchanged favors with powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. Netanyahu denies the charges and says he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by overzealous prosecutors, police and the media.
The report obtained correspondence between Sara Netanyahu and Hanni Bleiweiss, a former aide to the prime minister who died of cancer last year. The messages indicated that Sara Netanyahu, through Bleiweiss, encouraged police to crack down violently on anti-government protesters and ordered Bleiweiss to organize protests against her husband's critics. She also told Bleiweiss to get activists in Netanyahu's Likud party to publish attacks on Klein.
Klein is an aide to billionaire Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and has testified in the corruption case about her role in delivering tens of thousands of dollars worth of champagne, cigars and gifts to Netanyahu for her boss.
According to the report, Bleiweiss also was instructed to organize demonstrations outside the homes of the lead prosecutor in the corruption case, Liat Ben-Ari, and then Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who had issued the indictments, and protests and social media campaigns smearing political opponents.
According to the report, Bleiweiss was a loyal aid to Netanyahu for decades. But while she was ill, it said Sara Netanyahu mistreated her, prompting her to share the messages with a reporter shortly before her death.
Sara Netanyahu has been accused of abusive behavior toward her personal staff before. This, together with accusations of excessive spending and using public money for her own extravagant personal tastes, has earned her an image as being out of touch with everyday Israelis. In 2019, she was fined for misusing state funds.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees police and has repeatedly said the attorney general, Baharav-Miara should be fired over a series of grievances against her, said the latest announcement was another reason for her to be dismissed.
“Someone who politically persecutes government ministers and their families cannot continue to serve as the attorney general,” he said.
And Justice Minister Yariv Levin, another Netanyahu ally and critic of Baharav-Miara, accused her of focusing on “television gossip.”
“Selective enforcement is a crime!” he said in a statement.
AP correspondents Eleanor H. Reich in New York and Isaac Scharf in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
FILE - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from left, his wife Sara Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog, attend a ceremony marking the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7 2023 that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel, Oct. 27, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, attends the fifth day of testimony in his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. (Debbie Hill/Pool Photo via AP)
Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at Israel early Friday, hours after a wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen's main airport as the World Health Organization’s director-general was about to board a flight there.
Three people were killed and dozens were wounded in the Israeli airstrikes, including a member of the U.N. plane’s crew, the U.N. said. The crew member underwent surgery and was in stable condition, it said Friday.
The Israeli military said the Houthi missile was intercepted by its air defenses on Friday before it entered Israeli territory. For several days this past week, Houthi launches have set off air raid sirens in Israel. The Houthis have also been targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel's war in Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
Hamas ignited the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage by Palestinian militants. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, although only two-thirds are believed to still be alive.
Here’s the latest:
BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes carried three airstrikes deep into eastern Lebanon on Friday for the second time since a ceasefire ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel a month ago, Lebanon’s state-run news agency said.
No casualties were reported in the strikes on the Bekaa Valley town of Qousaya and the target remained unclear. The Israeli military said its air force struck “infrastructure used to smuggle weapons via Syria” to Hezbollah near the Janta crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, about 9 kilometers (5 miles) north of Qousaya. Israel accused Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 of overseeing smuggling operations from Iran through Syria, adding that it had killed the unit’s commander in early October.
Since the ceasefire took effect on Nov. 27, the Israeli army has conducted near-daily operations in southern Lebanon, including shootings, house demolitions, excavations, tank shelling and airstrikes. These actions have killed at least 27 people, wounded more than 30 and destroyed residential buildings, including a mosque.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, said it has observed “concerning actions” by Israeli forces, including the destruction of homes and road closures.
On Thursday, the Lebanese army accused Israeli troops of breaching the ceasefire by encroaching into southern Lebanon. Israeli bulldozers erected dirt barricades to block roads in Wadi Al-Hujayr.
The Lebanese army later on Thursday said that following intervention by the ceasefire supervision committee, Israeli forces withdrew, and Lebanese soldiers removed the barriers to reopen the road in the area.
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire, which ended the 14-month war, demands that Hezbollah and Israeli forces withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, allowing Lebanese troops to gradually deploy south of the Litani River.
JERUSALEM — Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a missile toward Israel early Friday, hours after Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes on Yemen’s main airport.
The Israeli military said the Houthi missile was intercepted by air defenses before it entered Israeli territory. Air raid sirens were set off in several areas in central Israel.
A day earlier, a wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s main airport outside the capital, Sanaa, killing three people and wounding dozens of others, according to the U.N.
The strikes hit just as the World Health Organization’s director-general was about to board a flight at the airport. Israel said it attacked infrastructure used bv the Houthis.
For several days this past week, Houthi launches have set off air raid sirens in Israel. The Houthis have also been targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor, saying their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, Israeli jets bombed Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people. The U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days.
TEL AVIV — A Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed to death an 83-year-old woman in Israel on Friday, police said.
The attack took place in the town of Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast outside Tel Aviv. Police said the attacker was arrested.
A medic with Israel’s emergency services, Kobi Avriel, said first responders found the woman unconscious on the sidewalk outside a nursing home with stabbing wounds. The Tel Aviv Ichilov Medical Center said she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Israel has experienced an increase in attacks amid a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the military’s nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and offensives in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
UNITED NATIONS – An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the U.N. humanitarian office said.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said Thursday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on Dec. 23.
“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps," OCHA said.
On another issue, OCHA quoted a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in Britain, that since Dec. 8 -– when Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted --- episodes involving explosive ordnance have killed more than 70 civilians including a dozen children and five women, with scores more injured.
OCHA said mine experts have identified 109 new minefields across Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Latakia since Nov. 26. So far, it said experts have destroyed more than 850 individual items of explosive ordnance.
Elsewhere, OCHA said Israeli forces on Wednesday reportedly wounded six civilians when they opened fire in Al-Suweisah town in Quneitra province, which includes the Golan Heights. It said residents were ordered to evacuate and Israeli forces imposed a curfew.
Smoke rises from the area around the International Airport following an airstrike, as seen from Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. The Israeli military reported targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis at the Sanaa International Airport, as well as ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif, and Ras Qantib, along with power stations.(AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
Workers walk past broken glass in Sana'a International Airport following Thursday's Israeli airstrikes on Yemen, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. The Israeli military reported targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis at the Sanaa International Airport, as well as ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif, and Ras Qantib, along with power stations Thursday Dec. 26..(AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
A man looks at the damage in the control tower of Sana'a International Airport following Thursday's Israeli airstrikes on Yemen, Friday, Dec. 27, 2024. The Israeli military reported targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis at the Sanaa International Airport, as well as ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif, and Ras Qantib, along with power stations Thursday Dec. 26..(AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
