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Setback to Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks as far-right Israeli official visits contested Jerusalem holy site
Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparked anger Thursday with another visit to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, threatening to disrupt ongoing discussions about a cease-fire in the devastating war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Ben-Gvir said he went to the contested Jerusalem hilltop compound where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands to pray for the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza, “but without a reckless deal, without surrendering.”
Standing in front of the golden-domed mosque, Ben-Gvir said he was “praying and working hard” to ensure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t bow to international pressure, including from Israel’s most important ally the United States, to agree to a cease-fire in the war that officials in Hamas-run Gaza say has killed more than 38,600 Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir visited the Al-Aqsa compound, referred to as the Temple Mount by Jews, previously in May — an act of protest as various nations unilaterally recognized a state of Palestine. The U.S. government called that visit “unacceptable,” warning against “any unilateral actions that undercut the historic status quo.”
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That status quo is laid out under an agreement that sees the holy site administered by Jordan and an Islamic endowment called the Waqf. Under that long-standing agreement, Muslims are allowed to pray at the site, but Jews and Christians are not. Ben-Gvir has long decried that arrangement as discriminatory and called for greater Jewish access.
Prior to his membership in Netanyahu’s Cabinet, the far-right nationalist was convicted eight times on criminal charges, including racism and supporting a terrorist organization. As a teen he espoused views considered so extreme that he was banned from serving his compulsory military service.
As a key member of Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government, Ben-Gvir has the power, and has threatened to use it, to deprive Netanyahu of his current parliamentary majority, which could lead to early national elections that polls show the prime minister is unlikely to win.
His second provocative visit to Al-Aqsa came as Israeli strikes across central and northern Gaza reportedly killed at least 13 more people, amid fierce fighting across the decimated Palestinian territory.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had killed two senior commanders of the Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad group in airstrikes — one of whom it said had taken part in the Hamas-orchestrated Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw the militants seize about 240 others as hostages. It was that attack that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
A report published Wednesday by the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch organization accuses Hamas and its allies of committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity during its terrorist attacks. The report makes it clear that the attack was deliberately planned to kill civilians and take hostages.
It provides a detailed list of alleged war crimes by Hamas that include the willful killing and kidnapping of civilians, the use of human shields and sexual and gender-based violence including forced nudity and posting sexualized images on social media. The organization said it was unable, however, to gather verifiable evidence of rape — noting that this does not mean it did not occur.
HRW told CBS News that due to lack of access, it had been unable to compile a comprehensive report on Israel’s conduct in Gaza. It said evidence had been found of Israel committing war crimes, including denying humanitarian aid, using starvation as a weapon of war, targeting aid workers and unlawful airstrikes.
The report came as Netanyahu faces huge pressure at home to reach a deal to get the remaining hostages — about 80 of whom are still believed to be alive — back home from Gaza. He was jeered in the Israeli Parliament on Thursday by opposition politicians for his failure to clinch an agreement.
Netanyahu has consistently blamed Hamas for the impasse, accusing the group last week of “clinging to demands that endanger Israel’s security.”
The Israeli leader is expected to visit Washington next week, where he will address the U.S. Congress. His critics say it’s a waste of time unless he’s able to announce an agreement to secure the release of the Israelis who have now been held in Gaza for almost 300 days.
A coalition of conservation groups and Native American tribal citizens on Friday called on President Joe Biden to designate nearly 140,000 acres of rugged, scenic Badlands as North Dakota’s first national monument, a proposal several tribal nations say would preserve the area’s indigenous and cultural heritage.
The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would encompass 11 noncontiguous, newly designated units totaling 139,729 acres in the Little Missouri National Grassland. The proposed units would hug the popular recreation trail of the same name and neighbor Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th president who ranched and roamed in the Badlands as a young man in the 1880s.
“When you tell the story of landscape, you have to tell the story of people,” said Michael Barthelemy, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and director of Native American studies at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. “You have to tell the story of the people that first inhabited those places and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the landscape, how the people worked to shape the land and how the land worked to shape the people.”
The U.S. Forest Service would manage the proposed monument. The National Park Service oversees many national monuments, which are similar to national parks and usually designated by the president to protect the landscape’s features.
Supporters have traveled twice to Washington to meet with White House, Interior Department, Forest Service and Department of Agriculture officials. But the effort faces an uphill battle with less than two months remaining in Biden’s term and potential headwinds in President-elect Trump’s incoming administration.
If unsuccessful, the group would turn to the Trump administration “because we believe this is a good idea regardless of who’s president,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said.
Dozens if not hundreds of oil and natural gas wells dot the landscape where the proposed monument would span, according to the supporters’ map. But the proposed units have no oil and gas leases, private inholdings or surface occupancy, and no grazing leases would be removed, said North Dakota Wildlife Federation Executive Director John Bradley.
The proposal is supported by the MHA Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe through council resolutions.
If created, the monument would help tribal citizens stay connected to their identity, said Democratic state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, an MHA Nation enrolled member.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service. In a written statement, Burgum said: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly develop our vast energy resources.”
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven’s office said Friday was the first they had heard of the proposal, “but any effort that would make it harder for ranchers to operate and that could restrict multiple use, including energy development, is going to raise concerns with Senator Hoeven.”
A city in New Mexico has reached a $20 million settlement with the family of a woman who was shot and killed by a police officer now charged with second-degree murder.
Teresa Gomez, 45, was fatally shot in October 2023 shortly after a Las Cruces police officer on a bicycle approached her while she sat in a parked car with another person, authorities said. Body camera video shows the officer shot Gomez three times as she tried to drive away.
The officer, identified by the city as Felipe Hernandez, was charged in January and fired months later from the Las Cruces Police Department.
“This settlement should be understood as a statement of the City’s profound feeling of loss for the death of Gomez and of the City’s condolences to her family,” the city of Las Cruces said in a news release sent Friday.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. His trial is scheduled for June 2. The Associated Press sent an email Saturday seeking comment from Hernandez’s attorney.
A lawyer for the Gomez family said her relatives are grateful to the city “for recognizing the injustice of Teresa’s death,” the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
“They trust that the city will redouble efforts to make sure no other family suffers the tragedy of losing a loved one to abusive police conduct,” Shannon Kennedy said in a statement to the newspaper.
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