Arab-Israeli towns put on lockdown for week
With the number of coronavirus cases continuing to climb, the first lockdown of Arab-Israeli towns was imposed on residents in an attempt to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
As part of the closure of the Arab-Israeli towns of Deir el-Asad and Beineh, located in the Galilee region in northern Israel, police set up several roadblocks and will not allow for the exit and entry of non-residents into the towns, except for essential workers and in urgent and humanitarian cases.
The police will enforce the closure and troops from the Home Front Command will supply residents with food and other essential goods. The troops will also help
Whitmer said on Friday she was hopeful her state, which suffered one of the country’s fastest-growing coronavirus infection rates, can begin to restart parts of its economy on May 1. But she urged doing so cautiously to avoid reigniting the outbreak just as it was being brought to heel.
Responding to Trump’s critique later in the day, Whitmer said Michigan will re-engage its economy when it’s safe, adding: “The last thing I want to do is to have a second wave here.”
Trump also took renewed aim at one of his favorite political foils, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, suggesting on Twitter that his state, the US epicenter of the outbreak, had asked for too much assistance
that was never fully used.
At his daily news briefing, Cuomo shot back saying Trump should “maybe get up and go to work” instead of watching TV, and accused the president of favoring the airline industry and business cronies in a recent bailout package that left little for the states.
The flare-up in political sparring came as the number of known coronavirus infections in the US surpassed 700,000, the most of any country. At the same time, the tally of lives lost from COVID-19 has soared to more than 35,000. New York state accounts for nearly half those deaths.
While the death toll continued to climb, the rate of hospitalizations and other indicators have been leveling off, a sign that drastic social-distancing restrictions imposed in 42 of the 50 US states were working to curtail the outbreak.
Stay-at-home orders and the closure of non-essential businesses have also strangled US commerce, triggering millions of layoffs and forecasts that America is headed for its deepest recession since the economic collapse of the 1930s.
The result has been mounting pressure to ease the shutdowns, leading to clashes between Trump, who had touted the strength of the US economy as the best case for his re-election in November, and governors in hard-hit states who warned against lifting restrictions too quickly.
Trump, who played down the coronavirus threat in its early stages, had been pressing to restart idled businesses as soon as May 1, at first declaring “total” authority to do so and branding governors who resisted his approach, many of them Democrats, as “mutineers.”
In the end Trump acknowledged it was up to the governors to decide when and how to relax the restrictions they themselves had imposed since last month, presenting new federal guidelines on Thursday as recommendations.
While the guidelines call for a phased-in, science-based strategy in keeping with the advice of leading health experts, the plan hinges on widespread testing to gauge the scope of infections and how many people might have developed immunity to the virus.
At a White House briefing on Friday, Trump’s coronavirus task force members, through statements and graphics, pushed back against criticism
from some governors and lawmakers that limited testing ability is impeding the country’s return to normalcy.
“We believe today that we have the capacity in the United States to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into phase one in the time and manner that they deem appropriate,” US Vice President Mike Pence told reporters.
Cuomo argued earlier that the Trump administration was foisting responsibility for a massive testing program on the states without providing necessary financial resources.
“Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? No. That is passing the buck without passing the bucks,” Cuomo said.
Even as Cuomo was addressing reporters, Trump immediately took to Twitter in Washington to fire back, saying he “should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining.’”
Trump struck a more conciliatory tone during the White House briefing. Asked about criticism leveled at him earlier in the day by Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat who accused Trump of “fomenting domestic rebellion” with his “LIBERATE” tweets, the president demurred.
Trump denied he was suggesting that Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia lift their stay-at-home orders altogether, but added, “I think elements of what they’ve done are too much.”
Of the protesters, Trump said, “These are people expressing their views.” He added, “They seem to be very responsible to me... But they’ve been treated a little bit rough.” •
Bekaa Valley.
In a video uploaded to social media, the vehicle’s four occupants are seen leaving the car after a first strike struck the ground near the vehicle. Several moments pass and the occupants are seen running back to the Jeep and taking four large bags before it is destroyed by a second missile.
It’s unclear if the first missile simply missed its target or if this was deliberate, in order to warn the occupants and give them time to escape the vehicle before destroying it – a method known as “knocking on the roof” – in an operation targeting a specific piece of equipment rather than the passengers in the car.
The Al-Arabiya news site suggested that the strike had been targeting Mustafa Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in an alleged joint Israeli-American operation. Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah operative, is active in the Lebanese terror group’s attempt to establish a military foothold on the Syrian Golan Heights and has smuggled weapons to the group.
Though Israel usually refrains from targeting terror operatives in an attempt to avoid retaliation, several drone strikes blamed on the Jewish state have killed Hezbollah operatives in southern Syria on the Golan Heights, where the group has been trying to establish a permanent military presence.
Last week the IDF accused the Syrian army of helping Hezbollah, publishing video footage from the border showing a senior Syrian Arab Army officer along with a number of other military officers and the head of Hezbollah’s southern command walking along the border.
“Even during the coronavirus period, the new commander of the Syrian army’s 1st Division, Lua’a Ali Ahmad Asa’ad, continues to help and allow the Hezbollah terror group to establish a front on the Golan Heights,” the IDF said in a statement. “In the clip, the new division commander is seen on a patrol of the front, including passing through areas known to be used by Hezbollah, with the head of Hezbollah’s southern command, Hajj Hashem.”
Israel’s military said the Syrian regime would be held responsible for all enemy activities emanating from its territory.
“Consider this a warning,” the IDF said.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report. •