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‘God gave us this city’: Israeli nationalists join Jerusalem Day protest to mark city’s capture

Israeli nationalist demonstrators chanted “Death to the Arabs”, “May your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard” in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation. The annual assertion of Jewish control over Palestinian east Jerusalem has grown more extreme in recent years, and Thursday’s event culminated with the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest Islamic site in the city. Most Palestinians in the Muslim quarter of the Old City had shuttered their shops and gone home before the march began, but members of radical Jewish groups who had entered scuffled with Palestinian residents still there, with both sides throwing chairs at each other, until separated by policewho entered the city that afternoon in force. “I’ve come to show all the world that this is our city. This is the Holy Land. God gave us this country and this city,” a 19 year-old marcher, Ariel Amichai, said. Asked what the intended message of the march was to Palestinians in Jerusalem, he replied: “That they must leave. This is our country. And they can’t just be here and try to stab us or kill us.” Amichai, who is from Modi’in, 43km from Jerusalem, said he believed that Jerusalem Day, marking the capture of the east side of the city in 1967, was the only day when Jews could enter the Muslim quarter through the Damascus Gate, though Israeli Jews and Palestinians use the gate on a daily basis. Marchers were bused in from around Israel and from settlements in the occupied West Bank in a vast operation funded by the Jerusalem municipality and government ministries. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also took part in Thursday’s march. Once Palestinians had left the old city, much of the tension was between government-backed marchers and members of a Jewish group, Standing Together, which had come to protect Palestinian residents from political violence. Suf Patishi, a Standing Together organiser, said a record 400 volunteers had turned up in hi-vis vests in the organisation’s trademark purple, on a day fraught with risks. “We wanted to really cover each and every corner of the city to make sure that we prevent attacks against Palestinians,” Patishi said. “Yes, it is dangerous to us, but nothing like the danger to the Palestinians that are living here.” There were a few religious Jews among the protective cordon of counter-protesters. An ultra-orthodox man with a long grey beard and gold coat, said he had come from northern Israel and gave his name only as David. “I’ve become appalled by the violent behaviour of people in my community,” David said. “I’m a man of faith, religious, and they’re doing this in our name, and I felt I should do something to contrast that. This is a desecration of God’s name, so the only way to remedy that is to do the opposite, a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of God’s name.” On the al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, Ben-Gvir danced with supporters singing “the Temple Mount is in our hands”, as he unfurled an Israeli flag. The national security minister has led a campaign to erode the 59 year-old status quo, dating back to the Israeli capture of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, under which non-Muslims are forbidden from praying in the sacred area. On Thursday evening, Ben-Gvir wrote on his Telegram social media account: “59 years after the liberation of Jerusalem, I raised the Israeli flag on the Temple Mount and we can proudly say: We have returned governance to the Temple Mount.”

Israel says it will sue New York Times over article on sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyahu, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, have threatened to sue the New York Times for defamation over the publication of an essay by Nicholas Kristof detailing allegations that Palestinian women, men and children have been raped and sexually abused in Israeli military detention. “Following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times,” Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs wrote in a social media post on Thursday. “They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” Netanyahu added in a statement to Reuters. “We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.” The Times has not responded to Israel’s legal threat but the paper has repeatedly defended Kristof’s reporting over the last few days. Kristof’s interviews with 14 men and women “were corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in – that includes family members and lawyers”, said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, in a statement posted on Wednesday. “Details were extensively fact-checked, with accounts further cross-referenced with news reporting, independent research from human-rights groups, surveys and in one case, with U.N. testimony. Independent experts were consulted on the assertions in the piece throughout reporting and fact-checking.” It is not clear in which jurisdiction Israeli officials would bring the lawsuit or whether defamation claims could even be filed by a government. “There is no chance a US court would countenance such a case,” said David A Logan, a professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law and media law expert. There is a legal consensus, he added, that the first amendment bars lawsuits or prosecutions of critics of government brought by the government. Mark Stephens, an expert in international media law, called the idea of Israel suing the Times “ludicrous”. “Libel is about hurt feelings, being shunned and avoided and isolated as a human (sentient) being,” he said in an email. “This is as much about politics as it is about law – and courts are alert to the difference.” Kristof’s piece, which was published in the Times’ opinion section on Monday, details allegations of sexual abuse, including rape, at the hands of Israeli prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators, and sometimes involving dogs. In the piece, Kristoff wrote that he found the victims he interviewed by asking around among lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers and “ordinary Palestinians”. He noted that while he was able to corroborate many of their stories, in some cases “it was not possible, perhaps because shame left people reluctant to acknowledge abuse even to loved ones”. He notes that “there is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes” and extensively quotes Israeli officials’ rejection of the story’s allegations. The Guardian has also published accounts of sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli custody, and recently reported that Israeli soldiers and settlers were using sexual assault as a tool to force Palestinians out of their homes in the occupied West Bank. Allegations of sexual assault of detainees in Israeli detention have also been documented by Israeli and international human rights groups such as B’Tselem and Save the Children, among others. But Kristof’s story prompted furious backlash against the Times from Israel supporters. “Have they – the NY Times – no sense of decency and journalistic responsibility?” wrote Deborah Lipstadt, a former envoy to combat antisemitism under the Biden administration. Earlier this week, Israel’s foreign ministry accused the Times of purposely having published Kristof’s piece the night before the publication of an official Israeli report alleging systematic sexual violence by Hamas on and following 7 October 2023. The statement prompted the Times to issue a public response rejecting the allegations. The paper also publicly rejected allegations of internal discussions at the Times about “source credibility and lack of evidence”. “There is no truth to this at all,” Stadtlander said then. It is not the first time Israeli officials have threatened to sue the Times. Last year, Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News that the Times “should be sued” over its coverage of starvation in Gaza. “I’m actually looking at whether a country can sue the New York Times,” Netanyahu said at the time. “And I’m looking into it right now, because I think it’s such a – it’s such clear defamation. I mean, you put a picture of a child that’s supposed to then represent all these supposedly starving children, yet they put in this picture of a child who has cerebral palsy.” Israel did not follow through on that threat. A spokesperson for the Times said at the time that “attempts to threaten independent media providing vital information and accountability to the public are unfortunately an increasingly common playbook, but journalists continue to report from Gaza for the Times, bravely, sensitively, and at personal risk, so that readers can see firsthand the consequences of the war.”

For anxious Taiwan, Trump’s silence after Xi talks is best possible outcome

Before this week’s summit between the Chinese and US presidents, Taiwan had been cast as the anxious bystander. Observers suggested that Taipei feared the unpredictable and transactional Donald Trump might overturn Washington’s longstanding support for the island democracy, which Beijing claims as a breakaway province, during Thursday and Friday’s talks. But while the US president hailed his “great” meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, when the leaders emerged on Thursday afternoon, he took an uncustomarily muted approach as he sidestepped questions on Taiwan. A White House readout of the meeting published later also omitted mention of the country. Trump may have been reading the room. Shortly before the meeting, Xi took a firm tone, declaring that “Taiwan independence” and peace in the Taiwan strait were “incompatible”. Xi said: “If it is handled properly, the relationship between the two countries [China and the US] will remain generally stable. If it is not handled well, the two countries will collide or even conflict, pushing the entire Sino-US relationship into a very dangerous situation.” Wen-Ti Sung, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said Xi’s tone was “surprisingly firm for summit diplomacy”. That was intended to signal to Trump that the “Taiwan issue remains the reddest of red lines” for Beijing. Xi’s message was “get Taiwan right and we are friends; get Taiwan wrong and we might become foes before you know it”, Sung said. Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs issued a swift and firm retort to Xi, saying: “The Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to one another.” But beyond this customary sparring, Taipei will be quietly pleased at the meeting’s outcome, not least the silence from Washington, according to William Yang, a senior analyst focusing on China for the Crisis Group. While Trump and Xi are to meet again on Friday, Yang believes that will be focused on trade and investment deals, and Taipei may have already breathed a “sigh of relief”. Yang said: “[Taipei] would welcome Taiwan being mentioned as little as possible. They’d rather have Taiwan not mentioned than Taiwan mentioned in a way that marks a departure from longstanding US policy.” Before Trump’s arrival in Beijing on Wednesday evening, Xi had been expected to press him on arms sales to Taipei. Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, despite never having ruled it, and refuses to renounce the right to use of force to take it. Washington acknowledges China’s claim without endorsing it, and maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity in which it says it could – but may not – intervene to protect Taiwan should the island be invaded. The US also supplies Taiwan with the means to defend itself, through arms sales. Before the meeting, China’s Taiwan affairs office reiterated its “consistent and unequivocal” opposition to these arms sales, condemning Washington’s “military ties with China’s Taiwan region”. In December, the Trump administration angered Beijing by announcing an $11bn (£8bn) weapons package for Taiwan. Another package worth about $14bn has reportedly been awaiting Trump’s signoff for months, with a bipartisan group of US senators last week urging him to move forward with it. The president now faces added impetus to do so, after Taiwan’s parliament ended a 16-month impasse on Friday when opposition parties passed a much-reduced $25bn defence budget financing those purchases.” Before Trump’s meeting with Xi, commentators speculated the US president’s need for Beijing’s support to end his intractable war with Iran could set the stage for some kind of “grand bargain”, in which he made concessions on US support for Taiwan. But the tenor of Xi’s statement suggests the Chinese leader “may not want to place Taiwan within that framework”, said Alexander Huang, chair of the Taiwan-based thinktank the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies. Huang said: “Xi did not openly ask Trump to say or commit something on Taiwan. This is because Xi believes the Taiwan question should be handled strictly between [Taipei and Beijing]. Openly asking Trump for specific words or actions would give the impression that Taiwan is a bargaining chip up for trade.”

Ukraine hit by second day of large-scale Russian missile and drone strikes

Russian missiles and drones are pounding Ukraine for a second day, as almost continuous heavy attacks hit the country, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of an assault that has killed at least eight people, including a 13-year-old, and injured 44 in the capital. The overnight attacks followed heavy daylight raids with missiles and drones across the country on Wednesday, one of the longest single attacks of the war. “As of now, already five people have been reported killed in Kyiv as a result of last night’s Russian attack,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote in a statement on social media. “There must be a just response to all these strikes,” he added, saying he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to prepare options for retaliation. The assault began at 3am on Thursday with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles fired by Moscow, with the sound of explosions echoing through Kyiv. Water and power supplies were disrupted in the east of the city. The scale of the Russian attacks and their intensity appeared to put paid to claims by the US president, Donald Trump, that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was close, following recent remarks by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that the war may be approaching an end. Ukraine’s air force said the latest attack involved 56 missiles of various types and almost 700 drones. Separately, Ukraine reported that Russian drones on Thursday had struck a UN vehicle in the southern city of Kherson. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said a large apartment block had collapsed in the city’s Darnytskyi district. “Eighteen apartments have been destroyed. A rescue and search operation is ongoing. According to preliminary information, 11 people have been rescued from the building,” he told local media. “Forty people have been injured in the capital as a result of the enemy large-scale attack. Among them are two children. Thirty-one of the injured have been taken to hospital, including one child.” Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said “more than 10 people were still believed to be missing” from the attack. Wednesday’s daytime raids killed at least 14 people and injured more than 80 others. They appear to have included “double-tap” strikes aimed at first responders sent to the sites of attacks, and also struck two dozen sites associated with Ukraine’s railway system and other critical infrastructure. After strikes in western Ukraine close to the Hungarian border, Hungary summoned Russia’s ambassador on Thursday, a stark example of the change brought about by the election of Péter Magyar as prime minister after years of cosy relations between Budapest and Moscow under his predecessor Viktor Orbán. The scale of the recent raids led to warnings that Russia was attempting to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence systems by swarming them with drones and missiles. In a late afternoon post on Wednesday, Zelenskyy had described the raids as “one of the longest [and most] massive Russian attacks against Ukraine”, suggesting Moscow’s aim was to spoil the “political atmosphere” during Trump’s visit to China. He added that Ukraine’s intelligence had assessed Moscow was attempting to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defences through the scale and intensity of the attacks to cause “as much grief and pain as possible”. The attacks followed Trump’s latest claims of progress in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which were offered on Wednesday with scant detail and followed similar unfounded claims. “The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” the US president told reporters as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.” His comments followed remarks by Putin in a speech last weekend that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was possibly coming to an end. The attacks came as Ukraine’s battlefield prospects appeared to have been improving in recent months. It has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering other countries expertise on how to counter attacks thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.

Canadian officer accused of spying for China acquitted of charges

A retired police officer Canada accused of being an agent for China has been acquitted of national security charges after prosecutors failed to prove he acted illegally. William Majcher, who served in the RCMP’s financial crime unit, was charged in 2023 over allegations he had breached Canada’s Security of Information Act by helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China. On Wednesday, Martha Devlin, a British Columbia supreme court justice, found Majcher was not guilty of a charge under Canada’s Security of Information Act. Devlin said the crown, which brought a rarely used charge against Majcher had “failed to meet its burden” in this case. The closely watched case came amid fears that China was interfering in Canadian elections and operating clandestine “police stations” throughout the country to threaten dissidents. Majcher, who lives in Hong Kong and works as a private financial and cybersecurity investigator, was arrested in Vancouver in 2023. At the time, police alleged he “used his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China”. But the case unspooled at trial, with the crown unable to convince a judge that anything illegal occurred. Devlin said she found evidence by prosecutors was “entirely circumstantial” and that the arrest by the RCMP appeared to be based on a “hunch or generalized suspicion”. She also questioned a meeting between Majcher and Peter German, his former boss and an anti-money-laundering expert. In the meeting, Majcher explained his working relationship with the Chinese government. “I find it at least reasonable to infer that Mr Majcher would not direct the attention of a former high-ranking law enforcement official towards his activities with the [People’s Republic of China] if Mr Majcher intended and understood those activities to be aimed at unlawful extortive conduct,” Devlin wrote. Majcher told reporters after the verdict that he was “very grateful” to both the judge and his wife. Majcher said the three years of legal fighting had been “devastating” for his wife and young children. “That’s time I’ll never get back, they’ll never get back.” Majcher’s lawyer Ian Donaldson told reporters after the verdict that foreign interference fears may have influenced the RCMP’s investigation and the “very significant public resources” it took up. “Today, of course, with irony, America is thought to be the enemy and China is our friend,” he said.

NDIS cuts could leave some participants with a funding gap. How will the changes affect you?

Funding for some services within the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be slashed – even in cases where participants could be left with a funding gap – as part of a sweeping proposal to drastically curb the scheme’s annual growth. The proposed changes, revealed on Thursday, will also grant the health minister, Mark Butler, god-like powers to reduce overall funding for support categories, determine pricing guides and caps for services and support, and the ability to change NDIS rules without state and territory approval for the first 12 months. The changes form part of a major savings measure designed to tip $36.2bn back into the federal budget over the next four years. As we peel back hundreds of pages of legislation and accompanying explanatory documents, here’s what you need to know. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email How is NDIS eligibility changing? Starting with one of its most contentious proposals, Labor’s plan will establish a legal framework to determine who can, and cannot, access the NDIS. Butler said this will be focused on limiting scheme entry to people with “substantially reduced functional capacity”, which will be determined by a standardised, evidence-based tool. The bill will also clarify the meaning of permanence and only grant participants access to the NDIS if they can first show they have exhausted “all appropriate” treatment options. Finally, it will include more detail on how NDIS eligibility may be limited for individuals already accessing support from other mainstream services. For example, if a person is receiving workers compensation or motor vehicle accident scheme support, they may not be eligible for the NDIS. What other NDIS changes are planned? As foreshadowed by Butler, the legislation will rework plan reassessments – when a participant requests additional funding for their NDIS plan because of unexpected or unbudgeted costs. The proposed changes will narrow such requests to moments of “significant and ongoing” change to participants’ needs. The NDIS determines support funding on a “reasonable and necessary” basis, but the bill will add sustainability and equity to funding considerations. Plans will be suspended if reasonable attempts to contact a participant go unanswered. Plans can be revoked entirely if a participant cannot be contacted after being suspended for at least 90 days. Basic registration details will be required for a number of NDIS providers. The National Disability Insurance Agency will be given new monitoring and investigation powers to deal with any wrongdoing but will need to undertake risk assessments before approaching participants. Other changes include: Payments made to participants who have not kept appropriate records can be raised by the NDIA as debts. Providers without records could be handed a civil penalty. NDIS supports will need to be claimed within 90 days of delivery, reduced from two years. Automation for processing claims and payments will be allowed. Who will decide how the NDIS changes? While some specific changes to the NDIS are yet to be determined, the proposal will expand the health minister’s powers considerably. One of those changes includes the ability to reduce funding for whole groups of supports. There are four main funding groups within a participant’s budget: core, capacity building, capital and recurring. Core supports include personal care and transport, capacity building includes therapies and work programs, and capital supports include home modifications and assistive technology. Last month, Butler flagged he intended to claw back funding for social and community participation activities (within the capacity building funding pool) because it had grown “substantially bigger”. Daily activities (also within capacity building funding) are also on the downsizing list. The minister will also have final say over maximum prices for NDIS supports and services. Finally, the bill includes a 12-month “Henry VIII” clause to give the minister sweeping powers to directly change NDIS laws without needing the support of states and territories. Are the changes centred on cost? While the government has talked up its focus on returning the NDIS back to its “original intent”, there’s no doubt the scheme’s fast-growing cost is the government’s main priority. In the bill’s explanatory document, there is also a suggestion the funding reduction could result in a funding gap for some participants. “To improve consistency and equity across the scheme, the application of ‘reasonable and necessary supports’ must link to consideration of what is reasonable for the scheme to fund,” it said. “This means funding for some NDIS supports may be less than the actual cost of providing or acquiring the support.” The federal budget papers revealed the government hopes to save $36.2bn from the changes, and limit the scheme’s growth to an average 3.6% until 2030. Are the changes set in stone? The bill has been introduced to parliament but it will be sent to an inquiry due to report back in June. It will hold at least two public hearings. At a press conference on Thursday, Butler suggested many of the details were still being worked through and would be consulted on with the technical advisory group – members of which will be chosen by the minister and the NDIA, and will include people with lived experience of disability. As for the questions around a potential payment gap for some supports, Butler provided a cryptic response. “There’ll be quite differentiated pricing in place. What we’re doing is providing the minister with the power to implement that, and that will become clear as we develop the detail over time,” he said. For now, watch this space.