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Jun 11, 2023

Security chiefs slam ministers for using cabinet meeting on terror wave to bicker

The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded. Following tonight’s quadruple homicide in the northern Arab town of Abu Snan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene a

The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.

Following tonight’s quadruple homicide in the northern Arab town of Abu Snan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene a meeting tomorrow of the ministerial committee responsible for addressing the Arab crime wave.

The committee consists of Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Social Equality Minister Amichai Chikli, Economy Minister Nir Barkat and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Commenting on the quadruple homicide in Abu Snan, National Unity chair Benny Gantz says, “Four have been murdered, four families are grieving. Arab society is in a state of collapse, and the prime minister is busy making empty statements. There are no magic solutions here. A determined and responsible policy of the entire government is required. A national challenge of this magnitude cannot be left in the hands of Ben Gvir. Mr. Prime Minister, the responsibility is on you.”

A seemingly unarmed Palestinian man was critically wounded after being shot in the back of the head by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank town of Beita, south of Nablus on Monday afternoon.

Haaretz reports that the Police Internal Investigations Department has opened up an initial investigation into the matter.

President Isaac Herzog calls for decisive state action following the quadruple homicide in the northern Arab town of Abu Snan.

“Today, every citizen of the Arab community in Israel lives in terrible fear, heavy grief and deep anxiety. Each of those murdered is a complete world to their family and loved ones. This is an emergency that requires decisive measures by the state to eradicate crime and violence and prevent the further loss of life. My condolences to the grieving families from the last few days – from Tira to Abu Snan.”

During a recent ministerial meeting on the ongoing Arab crime wave with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the Shin Bet security service, a number of ministers recommended that Israel cancel or delay the October municipal elections in Arab towns due to the uptick in threats and violence facing candidates for office, Channel 12 reports.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara rejected the idea, noting that it would violate Arab citizens’ democratic rights.

One of the four victims killed earlier tonight in Abu Snan was running in the upcoming race. The director of Tira gunned down last night was also targeted in a dispute related to the upcoming election.

Channel 12 quotes a security establishment source who tears into ministers for using today’s cabinet meeting on the ongoing terror wave to bicker amongst themselves and leak their statements to the press.

“The meeting was insane and not professional and was characterized by arguments between ministers that were not substantive,” the source says.

The criticism appears to be directed at far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who is believed to have leaked selective quotes to the media in which he tears into Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for pushing back on his demands for punitive measures to be taken against the Palestinians.

The source says a substantive decision on the matter will be made by a smaller forum of ministers, given Netanyahu’s lack of trust in cabinet members like Ben Gvir — whom he appointed.

Netanyahu has said Israel will hit back at the terrorists who have been targeting Israelis along with those responsible for sending them out to carry out attacks.

The source says that the premier is implying that Israel will target Iran in response to the uptick in violence, indicating that IDF counter-strikes might extend beyond the West Bank.

The source adds that during the cabinet meeting, members of the security establishment stressed the need to strengthen the Palestinian Authority, which has been working to clamp down on terror elements in the West Bank — a message that was not welcomed by the far-right ministers.

The source also tells Channel 12 that the security establishment still opposes launching a wide-scale military operation in the West Bank akin to the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield, despite such demands byBen Gvir and other far-right lawmakers.

Since the beginning of the year, some 1,560 wanted Palestinians have been detained by Israeli troops, and 750 illegal firearms have been seized, according to fresh statistics from the Israel Defense Forces.

IDF troops have carried out more than 1,900 separate arrest operations in the West Bank during the same period, according to the data.

Four people were killed in a shooting in the northern Arab town of Abu Snan, Magen David Adom says.

Medics were forced to declare their deaths shortly after arriving at the scene.

One of the victims was a candidate for mayor in the upcoming municipal elections in Abu Snan, Channel 12 says.

The shooting comes hours after a 30-year-old Arab Israeli was seriously wounded in the southern Bedouin town of Rahat.

The deaths Monday brought the number of fatalities linked to criminal violence in Israel’s Arab community to 156 since the start of the year, mostly in shootings. During the same time frame last year, 68 were killed.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi hosts US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, for a farewell visit, as his four-year tenure comes to an end.

Halevi awards Milley a medal of appreciation following an honor guard at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv.

”Your time was defined by unprecedented joint actions and operative coordination in which we significantly improved stability in the Middle East,” says Halevi in remarks provided by the IDF.

“The strategic alliance between Israel and the US continues to be a significant pillar of our national security, and it has been strengthened over the past two years with the transition of the IDF to CENTCOM, under your leadership and command,” he adds.

Milley says that the two nations “share common values ​​and interests. I wish the IDF and the civilians of the State of Israel regional peace and security.”

Last week, the Walla news site reported that Milley was seeking to assess the extent of damage to the army’s readiness caused by some volunteer reservists’ refusal to report for duty in protest of the judicial overhaul, during his visit.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with visiting New York City Mayor Eric Adams in Jerusalem.

“The two discussed the unlimited possibilities for cooperation between New York City and the State of Israel in the fields of technology, innovation and tourism,” Netanyahu’s office says.

“You are a great friend of Israel,” Netanyahu told Adams, according to the Israeli readout. “You live in a city that is the intellectual, cultural and financial center of the world, and we are another center of sorts.”

After their meeting, the pair attended an exhibit from Aleph Farms, taste-testing lab-grown meat and other alternative proteins being developed by the Israeli company.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plan to pour hundreds of millions of dollars toward West Bank settlements and outposts will not be brought before the cabinet for its approval next week as he had hoped following pushback from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, Hebrew media reports.

National Security Council chair Tzachi Hanegbi warned that the plan could harm Israel’s national security, ostensibly referring to international pushback it would surely receive — something Israel is looking to avoid as the US works to broker a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Hanegbi recommended that the plan be re-examined and that an alternative version be submitted in its place, Hebrew media says.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he met with activists opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul during his visit to Israel “to hear their diverse perspective.”

“Had an honest conversation with two leaders in Israel’s protest movement this morning about numerous issues at play here,” Adams says on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A photo from the meeting shows Adams with protest leaders Karine Nahon and Gigi Levy-Weiss. Eric Goldstein and Dan Rosenthal from the UJA Federation of New York, which helped organize Adams’s trip, are also in attendance.

New York’s Israeli protest group applauds Adams for taking the meeting with their Israeli counterparts.

“New York City is a symbol of liberty and democracy. It is also the seat of the largest Jewish and Israeli community in the world outside of Israel,” says Shany Granot-Lubaton, leader of the Israeli activist network UnXeptable’s branch in New York. The group had pushed for Adams to meet with protesters during his three-day trip to Israel this week.

“We strongly support the right decision of our mayor, Eric Adams, to meet with the protest leaders for Israeli democracy and represent the values ​​NYC is proud of,” Granot-Lubaton says. “We expect every elected official to do the same as Adams and meet the protest leaders on their visits in Israel. This is the right thing to do.”

Had an honest conversation with two leaders in Israel's protest movement this morning about numerous issues at play here.

I appreciate the opportunity to hear their diverse perspective. pic.twitter.com/F4JY74oP9V

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) August 22, 2023

New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive advocacy group that also pushed for Adams to meet with protesters, says it is “pleased” about the meeting.

Adams’s office last night announced his plan to meet with “leaders in the protest movement” this morning, hours before his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Other top public officials in New York, including Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and City Comptroller Brad Lander, have participated in expat-led protests against Netanyahu’s coalition.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is asked during a press briefing to confirm reports that US President Joe Biden is considering meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the G20 conference next month in order to discuss a potential Israel-Saudi normalization deal.

Sullivan dodges the question, using it to instead reiterate why Washington is committed to securing such a normalization deal, while providing no new information regarding the effort.

“Peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be a big deal. It would establish a more integrated, more stable Middle East region. It would help create a circumstance in which the countries of the region, including those who have signed the Abraham Accords, Israel and Saudi could collaborate on everything from economics to technology to regional security.

“That would benefit the United States of America in a fundamental way because we have an interest in a more integrated, more stable Middle East where de-escalation as opposed to escalation is the [word] of the day.

“The United States also has an interest in a constructive effective relationship and partnership with both Israel and Saudi Arabia, as we work on a range of mutual interests. We see this both through the prism of our relationship with each country, their relationship with each other and the relationship of a peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia to the larger cause of regional stability.

“From our perspective, it is worthy to pursue this objective. There are a lot of elements to this, we need to work through all of them, and we will do that in as effective and systematic way as we can. As in when we have more to report to you, we will report it.”

“Finally on MBS, I don’t have anything to announce on the G20, but as we get closer and start firming up what exactly the schedule will look like, we’ll share more on the question of bilateral meetings,” Sullivan says.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s office has apparently begun leaking partial quotes from today’s cabinet meeting on the ongoing West Bank terror wave.

According to the quotes distributed to Hebrew media, Ben Gvir calls during the meeting for the IDF to impose closures and partial lockdowns of Palestinian villages, in addition to erecting more checkpoints throughout the West Bank, rescinding entry permits for Palestinian laborers, carrying out targeted assassination of Palestinian terror leaders in the West Bank and further tightening the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appears to push back. “There is a danger of friction and you have to pay attention to it. It used to be a few dozen [terrorists] and today it is already hundreds,” he says, explaining that violent events have a tendency to snowball in the West Bank.

Gallant adds that the IDF has been stretched thin due to an uptick in settler violence and Palestinian terror groups have exploited this weakness to carry out more attacks.

Responding to far-right coalition lawmakers’ attacks on IDF chiefs, Gallant says, “These soldiers protect the [West Bank] highways used by these members of Knesset to then go to news network studios and attack [the IDF commanders].”

Ben Gvir fires back, saying, “I feel like I’m in an imaginary movie. People are being murdered, including a mother in front of her daughter. A few days ago a father and his son were gunned down, and you keep talking about the danger of friction and the danger of [Jewish] nationalist crime. Are we crazy? I’m starting to think we’re in Switzerland, as if these are our only problems. This meeting is about terrorism. We need to come up with operative measures for what to do to combat terrorism and not deal with nonsense.”

A source familiar tells the Walla news site that the security establishment’s representatives in the cabinet meeting also pushed back against Ben Gvir’s proposals, insisting on continuing a policy of differentiating between terrorists and the rest of the Palestinian population, whose livelihood Israel has an interest in easing.

Channel 14 accidentally airs footage of a Universal Studio ride during a segment on the damage caused by Tropical Storm Hillary.

זה לא הצפות בקליפורניה… זה מתקן בפארק יוניברסל סטודיוס ???? pic.twitter.com/EFrgMZp4Gh

— Matan Amir (@matan_amirr) August 21, 2023

הסצנה ״The Big One״, שהופץ אתמול בטעות כסרטון מהשטפונות בקליפורניה, הוא ללא ספק הרגע הכי מדהים ב-Studio Tour ביוניברסל סטודיוס.רעידת אדמה במטרו גורמת לאדמה לקרוס מלמעלה, משאית נופלת ממש לידכם, הרכבת התחתית מתנגשת, שריפה בוערת וכמובן שיטפון מציף הכל.

צפו.pic.twitter.com/jKImjR0wEy

— Matan Amir (@matan_amirr) August 22, 2023

Police publish footage showing officers from the elite Yamam counterterrorism unit arresting the two suspected Palestinian terrorists behind the deadly shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday.

The pair, who are relatives, were detained early this morning in Hebron, less than 24 hours after the shooting attack that left 42-year-old Batsheva Nigri dead and 40-year-old Aryeh Leib Gottleib seriously wounded.

Police publish footage of Yamam officers arresting the two suspected Palestinian terrorists behind the shooting attack near Hebron. pic.twitter.com/QSFnPIeL1H

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) August 22, 2023

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again pledges to employ the Shin Bet security agency as part of the government’s effort to combat organized crime in Arab communities.

Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have made such pledges in the past but have yet to fulfill them amid pushback from the Shin Bet and leaders of Arab communities.

The call comes in a statement issued in response to last night’s killing of Tira municipality director Abed Rahman Kashua.

In a separate incident on Monday, a man in his 30s was shot dead in the northern town of Reineh.

The deaths Monday brought the number of fatalities linked to criminal violence in Israel’s Arab community to 152 since the start of the year, mostly in shootings. During the same time frame last year, 68 were killed.

Al Jazeera reports that Hamas had taken responsibility for yesterday’s deadly shooting attack near Hebron, citing a source within the Gaza-based terror group.

This would contradict yesterday’s announcement by the Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, which claimed its fighters were the ones responsible for the attack that killed 42-year-old Batsheva Nigri.

Military prosecutors file an indictment against two Palestinians, Bassel Shehadeh and Hamed Sabah, for allegedly aiding in the planning of the deadly terror attack near the West Bank settlement of Eli in June in which four Israelis were killed.

According to the indictment, the pair allegedly supplied the weapons to the Hamas gunmen who carried out the attack, and themselves planned an additional attack.

Shehadeh and Sabah are accused of practicing shooting several times over the course of several months, and being in contact with terror elements in the Gaza Strip in order to finance their activities and to improve the planning of the attack.

The pair allegedly supplied firearms and ammunition to Muhannad Faleh Shehadeh and Khaled Mustafa Sabah — the Hamas terrorists who carried out the Eli shooting — and coordinated the attack plans with them, the indictment says.

They were arrested by Israeli forces on June 21, before they managed to carry out an additional attack, the military says.

According to the charge sheet, Shehadeh and Sabah are indicted with four counts of intentionally causing death — the West Bank military court’s equivalent of murder — and several other security offenses.

They will be held until the end of legal proceedings.

Three Israelis competed in the Gamers8 video game tournament in Saudi Arabia.

Shahar Shoshan and Lotan Giladi’s team took home the top prize after their team defeated a team on which the third Israeli, Guy Iloz, was placed.

The trio stayed in Riyadh for eight days for the tournament after having entered Saudi Arabia on Israeli passports and receiving visas from local authorities.

They were given a round-the-clock security detail and were told to keep a low profile while in the country, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

דיווחנו ב-#הבוקרהזה: שלושה גיימרים ישראלים השתתפו בימים האחרונים בטורניר גיימינג יוקרתי gamers8 בסעודיה במשחק הפעולה קאונטר סטרייק. קבוצתם של שניים מהישראלים, שחר שושן ולוטן גלעדי, VITALITY זכתה במקום הראשון אחרי שניצחה בגמר את קבוצתו של הישראלי השלישי, גיא אילוז, ENCE >> pic.twitter.com/AoqPwCnL8q

— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) August 22, 2023

The donated organs of a 10-year-old girl who died of complications from electrocution have been transplanted into four children at hospitals around Israel.

Following resuscitation efforts in the field, Rawad Gabua was brought in critical condition to the trauma room at Soroka Medical Center pediatric emergency department in Beersheba 10 days ago.

Her condition stabilized and she was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit for further treatment. Unfortunately, her condition deteriorated and doctors were forced to declare her dead yesterday morning.

The hospital’s staff approached Rawad’s Bedouin family about the possibility of organ donation.

“It’s a defining moment when we meet with families from all sectors and religions who understand that organ donation is a lifesaving mitzvah,” says Sarah Regev, Soroka’s transplant coordinator.

Rawad’s heart was transplanted into a 7-month-old boy at Sheba Medical Center and her liver into a 5-year-old girl at Schneider Children’s Hospital. Boys age 12 and 13 each received one of her kidneys.

The security cabinet has finished its emergency meeting on the latest uptick in West Bank violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says the security cabinet agreed on “a series of decisions to target terrorists and authorized the prime minister and the defense minister to act on the matter.”

Netanyahu’s office does not elaborate on what those decisions are.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to approve new settlement construction in response to yesterday’s shooting that killed 42-year-old Batsheva Nigri.

“The cabinet supports the commanders and soldiers of the IDF and the members of the security forces in their activities against terrorist elements for the security of the citizens of Israel,” Netanyahu’s office says in a statement that follows a series of attacks by far-right coalition lawmakers against the IDF.

Binyamin Tau, the grandson of prominent nationalist Rabbi Zvi Tau, has been named as the 20-year-old suspect arrested last night after hurling stones at Palestinian vehicles and Israeli troops in the West Bank.

A magistrate’s court has released Tau to house arrest.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh rules out any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and calls for unifying the ranks of the Palestinian “armed resistance” in the West Bank and for escalating attacks, following Monday’s deadly terror shooting near Hebron.

At a meeting of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders held in Gaza, Haniyeh calls for improved coordination between armed factions in the West Bank and notes that the Oslo agreements and any other attempts at a political solution have failed, according to a report by the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News.

The meeting is held to commemorate the 54th anniversary of an arson attack at the Al-Aqsa mosque by a mentally unstable Christian Australian on August 21, 1969.

A spokesman for the PIJ says, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque fire is still burning in our hearts,” and he urges the Palestinian Authority to stop all forms of cooperation with the Jewish state.

He further calls for stronger support by the Arab and Muslim world, both on the diplomatic level and with money and weapons for armed factions.

JTA — The Anti-Defamation League agrees with Leonard Bernstein’s family: Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose in the upcoming “Maestro” biopic is not an antisemitic portrayal of the celebrated Jewish conductor.

“Throughout history, Jews were often portrayed in antisemitic films and propaganda as evil caricatures with large, hooked noses. This film, which is a biopic on the legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein, is not that,” the group, which monitors and responds to antisemitism, writes in a statement first published by TMZ.

The American Jewish Committee also sent the celebrity news site a statement defending Cooper, writing: “We do not believe that this depiction harms or denigrates the Jewish community.”

After the film’s trailer dropped last week, criticism erupted over Cooper’s apparent prosthesis. Some said Cooper’s appearance was redolent of antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish noses, while others went further and said it was a literal embodiment of “Jewface,” a critical phrase that has come to refer to portrayals of Jews by non-Jewish actors. The ADL’s statement does not weigh in on the broader question of Jewface.

Visiting New York City Mayor Eric Adams sits down with a senior settler leader in a meeting facilitated by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

Adams and Binyamin Regional Council chair Yisrael Gantz discussed cooperation in the fields of tourism and education, Gantz’s office says.

Adams agreed to tour the settlements with Gantz the next time they meet, the Binyamin Regional Council’s office says.

“Binyamin and Israel have an important friend in the mayor of New York City,” Gantz says in a statement.

There was no readout from the mayor’s office.

US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley has taken roles at both Yale and Princeton’s global affairs schools for the fall semester.

Malley is currently on leave from the State Department due to a security clearance review and is reportedly under FBI investigation over an alleged mishandling of classified documents.

“While I am on leave from the State Department, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with the next generation of public servants at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University,” Malley says in a Princeton press release.

Yale’s website says Malley is “on leave from the US State Department where he had been serving as Special Envoy for Iran since January 28, 2021.”

It’s unclear when or if Malley will be returning to government, and the US State and Justice Departments decline to comment on the matter.

A pair or recent shootings by the IDF — one of a seemingly unarmed Palestinian with special needs near Qalqilya and another that killed an unarmed Palestinian who was walking away from soldiers in Beita — expose the army to investigations by the International Criminal Court, Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel writes.

Harel notes that the shootings come as the government is advancing a judicial overhaul aimed at radically curbing the power of the High Court, which is supposed to probe such incidents of alleged misconduct.

“As long as the government is challenging the judicial system on the one hand while it expands settlements and friction in the territories on the other, such actions by soldiers are more likely to lead Israel closer to the Hague,” Harel writes.

Senior coalition lawmaker Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) tears into the High Court of Justice for rejecting a government request to delay a hearing on the legality of the “reasonableness” law.

“With all my heart, I wanted to believe that the High Court is not deliberately striving to create a constitutional crisis as part of its war to preserve its excessive power at the cost of dragging the State of Israel into chaos. But reality proves that this was a completely naive thought,” Rothman tweets.

“The High Court [is acting as if it has] no limits, and in a democracy, there must not be an authority whose powers have no limits,” he adds.

Nearly two dozen masked settlers attacked Border Police last night near Beit El in the central West Bank, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

The settlers were hurling stones at Palestinian vehicles when the Israeli troops arrived at the scene to push them back.

The settlers burned tires, hurled stones at the border cops and doused them with pepper spray, Kan says.

One of the settlers was arrested and one Border Police officer was lightly injured.

No Palestinians were injured by the stone throwing.

Arwah Sheikh Ali, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who claims that Israel Police officers branded his face with a Star of David during a brutal arrest last week, has submitted an official complaint to the Police Internal Investigations Department.

Ali still needs to be examined by a police forensic expert to determine the source of the wound, though law enforcement says it has been in touch with his lawyer.

Police claim the mark on his face was caused by the laced-up part of an officer’s boot against the suspect’s face while they subdued him. The triangle on the face of the suspect seems to match the pattern of the shoelaces in the photo of the arresting officer’s boot provided by police but not a middle-section line in the scar on his face.

At a remand hearing last week, Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Judge Amir Shaked noted that police have no explanation for why the bodycams were not working on all 16 officers who participated in the arrest of the man for suspected drug offenses in East Jerusalem’s Shuafat refugee camp.

Hamas has managed to recruit dozens of members of the Palestinian Authority security forces, using them as fighters and for intelligence, the Kan public broadcaster reports, without citing any sources.

The PA has only been able to pay its forces 80% of their salary due to Ramallah’s financial woes.

Israel has been withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that it collects on the PA’s behalf, saying it is because the PA grants stipends to those who have carried out attacks against Israelis and to attackers’ families.

Israel assured the US months ago that it would take steps to boost the PA but has yet to do so, and yesterday’s Hebron-area terror attack will likely further delay the process, as members of the far-right coalition have called for “revenge” against the Palestinians.

Last month, a senior officer in the PA’s Preventive Security Service revealed in a meeting that the PA faces an uphill battle in its attempt to curb terror in the West Bank, where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been recruiting impoverished youths to carry out attacks.

The Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested a suspect who allegedly sold two terrorists the vehicle they used in yesterday’s deadly Hebron area attack, the Israel Hayom daily reports, citing a Palestinian source.

The source says the PA received intelligence on the matter and its forces arrested the suspect last evening. The suspect, who owns a scrapyard in the southern West Bank, admitted during a subsequent interrogation that he sold the terrorists the vehicle.

TEHRAN — Iran’s Defense Ministry unveils a drone resembling America’s armed MQ-9 Reaper, claiming that the aircraft is capable of staying airborne for 24 hours and has the range to reach the country’s archenemy Israel.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency publishes a photograph of the drone, called the Mohajer-10, on display at a conference marking Defense Industry Day with what appeared to be smoke-machine fog underneath it.

“Mohajer” means “immigrant” in Farsi and has been a drone line manufactured by the Islamic Republic since 1985.

IRNA says the drone is able to fly at up to 24,000 feet with a speed of 210 kph (130 mph), carrying a bomb payload of up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). It also says the drone could carry electronic surveillance equipment and a camera. Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is also on site viewing the drone.

“Today, we can firmly introduce Iran as an advanced and technologic nation to the world,” Raisi says in comments aired on state television.

He reiterates Iran’s stance about friendly relations with “all countries in the world,” adding that Iran’s armed forces will cut off any hand that will reaches out in an attempt to invade Iran, state TV reported.

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