Israel SC strikes down PM Netanyahu backed law that limited court oversight

Jerusalem: Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law limiting its own powers, a momentous step in the legal and political crisis that gripped the country before the war with Hamas, and pitted the court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

The court’s 8-7 ruling has the potential to throw Israel’s national emergency government, formed after the Oct. 7 attacks, into disarray and reignite the grave domestic turmoil that began a year ago over the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul plan. Mass protests brought the country to a near-standstill at times, in one of the deepest political upheavals Israel had faced in its 75 years, and led to warnings of possible civil war.

The court, sitting with a full panel of all 15 justices for the first time in its history, rejected the law passed by parliament in July that barred judges from using a particular legal standard to overrule decisions made by government ministers.

The much-anticipated decision did not come as a total surprise to Israelis. A television station last week reported on a leaked draft of the ruling. But it heralds a potential showdown that could fundamentally reshape Israeli democracy, pitting the power of the government against that of the judiciary.

Netanyahu’s political allies and their supporters want to make Israel into a more communal and nationalist state. Their opponents, who hold mildly secular vision of the country, accused the government of undermining democracy by lowering the barriers to a majority doing whatever it pleases.

Yariv Levin, the Israeli justice minister widely seen as the architect of the judicial overhaul, vowed to resume efforts to pass the package of controversial bills that included the newly overturned measure. He accused the high court of sowing divisiveness at a time when the nation is in danger.

Opponents of the judicial overhaul feared it would make the court much less able to prevent government overreach, and also make it much easier for the government to end the prosecution of Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges.

The timing of the decision was crucial: two retiring justices would have been ineligible to participate in the decision had it been delivered after mid-January. Legal analysts have calculated that without those justices, the court would have ruled to uphold the law, 7-6.

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Israel broadens airstrikes in Lebanon, killing displaced families without warning

News Network

November 13,2024

Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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