ISRAEL: woman arrested after burning her 7-month-old daughter

Baby in hospital illustration 

A young woman was arrested and will be charged with child abuse related charges after she allegedly abused her little daughter, according to police reports in Israel.

Be’er Sheva Police said that a 20-year-old mother was arrested on Wednesday.

A local city hospital called police after the baby was admitted to their facility with severe injuries.

Hospitals are required by law to report child abuse to the police.

A police investigation discovered the mother burned her young child.

The woman will be brought before a Magistrate's Court for a bail hearing when police complete their investigation.

Police and the Israel Welfare Authority decided to transfer the child to foster care upon being released from the hospital.
The child was listed as in good condition.

20-year-old Haredi woman tortured, raped, in Jerusalem forest

Scene of the incident 

By: Eva Fett
Police are desperately trying to catch a suspect, who brutally tortured and raped a Haredi woman in Jerusalem, according to police reports.

Jerusalem Police have launched an investigation by a special team, after last night’s attack on a 20-year-old woman, who was found lying in the woods in the Sanhedriya neighborhood.

Police now suspect that the incident was planned in advance.

Police are also collecting DNA from the scene and the young woman, in order to expedite the criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, the woman was hospitalized after suffering from carve wounds and burns.
The attacker carved the letters B and D onto the woman.

The young woman was found suffering from serious injuries by passersby, who heard her shouting from the woods and went to check on her.

The passersby immediately called the police. Emergency workers, who arrived at the scene, gave the young woman primary care. Then, she was taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

Police are still trying to determine whether she was raped in the woods or if she was dumped there after being attacked.

The woman also suffered bruises all over her body, probably as a result of a struggle that took place between her and the attacker.

Israel to run for U.N. Security Council seat for 2019-20

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Israel said on Thursday it plans to run for a rotating seat on the U.N. Security Council for the time ever for 2019-2020, although U.N. diplomats said it will not be easy for the Jewish state to win.

"We're going all out to win," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor told Reuters. "It's about time."

Winning a Security Council seat requires a two-thirds majority in the 193-nation General Assembly. Candidates are proposed by the five regional groups but election to the council is done by the full assembly.

Prosor said Israel will be vying against Germany and Belgium for two seats allotted to the "Western European and Others Group." Technically Israel should be a member of the Asia-Pacific Group along with the other states in the Middle East. But predominantly Muslim states blocked its admission to that group.

In 2000 Israel was admitted to the Western European and Others Group, which includes the United States, on a temporary basis. In 2004 its membership in that group was permanently renewed.

Israel has occasionally held posts as vice president of the U.N. General Assembly but it has never been a member of the Security Council, the most powerful and prestigious body at the United Nations with the authority to impose sanctions or authorize the use of military force to enforce its decisions.

Securing a council seat will not be easy, U.N. diplomats say. Most members of the 120 non-aligned bloc of developing nations are either cool or openly hostile towards Israel. General Assembly votes on issues related to Israel and the Palestinians are usually unfavorable for the Israelis.

In November 2012, a General Assembly vote on a Palestinian bid to gain implicit recognition of statehood by upgrading its U.N. observer status to that of "non-member state" - something the Israelis strongly opposed - highlighted how isolated Israel can be at the United Nations. There were 138 votes in favor of the Palestinian request, 41 abstentions and only nine against.

There are 10 rotating Security Council members who serve for two years at a time. Each year five rotating members are replaced. The five permanent veto-wielding members are the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.
General Assembly elections for next year's Security Council will be on October 17.

U.S. talks with Iran must be based on concrete steps by Tehran - Kerry

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TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the United States hopes to engage with the new Iranian administration, but Tehran must first prove it is willing to end the stand-off over its nuclear weapons program.

If Iran intends to be peaceful, "I believe there is a way to get there," Kerry told a news conference in Tokyo after a meeting of U.S. and Japanese defences and foreign ministers.

Kerry expressed hope that engagement with President Hassan Rouhani's government can succeed but said nothing would be taken at face value.

Discussions would be based on a series of steps that guarantee "we have certainty about what is happening," Kerry said.

In a charm offensive at U.N. meetings in New York last week, Iran expressed willingness to resolve the 10-year-old dispute with the United States over its nuclear program, a move that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as a ruse concocted by a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

Addressing Netanyahu's concerns over talks with Iran, Kerry said: "We are firmly determined that Israel's security remains paramount."

He dismissed suggestions that the United States was being played by Iran.
"There is nothing here that is going to be taken at face-value and we've made that clear," Kerry said. "The president has said, and I have said, that it is not words that will make a difference, it's actions, and the actions are clearly going to have to be sufficient."

The United States, Israel and other countries accuse Iran of using its nuclear program to try to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes only.

"It would be diplomatic malpractice of the worst order" for the United States not to explore opportunities, said Kerry, who met his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif at the United Nations last week, the highest-level official meeting between the United States and Iran in more than three decades.

"We are going to look very very carefully at this. We hope it could work because we think the world would be better off," Kerry said, adding: "A country that genuinely wants to have a peaceful program does not have difficulty proving that it is in fact peaceful, so this ought to be able to be done.

"The test we face over these next weeks and months, not a long period of time, is to determine whether or not that is in fact what Iran intends," Kerry added.

Gaza Man Hanged in 30th Palestinian Execution

(GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip) — Masked executioners in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Wednesday hanged a man who was convicted of stabbing to death an acquaintance over money, ignoring protests by human rights activists who say the territory’s legal system is flawed.

Hani Abu Aliyan, 28, was executed in a security compound in the presence of relatives of the victim, a first for a criminal case in Gaza. Previously, only security officials had witnessed executions.

At Wednesday’s execution, the 17th since Hamas overran Gaza six years ago, four masked security men escorted Abu Aliyan to a noose erected on a small platform surrounded by black plastic tarps. Abu Aliyan wore a hood, spoke to a cleric and uttered a Muslim prayer before he was hanged, a witness said.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry released pictures of the executioners and rows of armed security men, also masked, standing on the sides.

The family of the victim was informed of the impending execution late Tuesday, but only given details about the time and place shortly before it took place.

“They searched us and took our phones before escorting us to the area where the makeshift hanging stage was built,” a relative of the victim said. “They brought him in surrounded by security. He talked to the sheik before they took him for the hanging. After a few minutes, a doctor confirmed his death.”

The relative said it was difficult watching someone lose his life. “Then I told myself its divine justice. God is avenging the victims.”

Both witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because Hamas ordered those in attendance not to talk to the media.

Human rights groups had called on Hamas to halt all executions, saying Gaza’s justice system is badly tainted, including by forced confessions.

Gaza’s attorney general, Ismail Jaber, said the law was respected throughout Abu Aliyan’s case, including an appeal. He said the executions were not meant to become public spectacles like the stonings and beheadings that are common in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Abu Aliyan was convicted of two killings, including sexually assaulting and bludgeoning to death a boy when he himself was only 14.

The case against Abu Aliyan began in 2009, when he turned himself in to police after allegedly stabbing to death an acquaintance during a financial dispute. His lawyer had claimed Abu Aliyan was abused during interrogation and confessed to the earlier killing after being tortured.

Executions have aroused little public opposition in conservative Gaza, where tribal customs and Islamic religious law, or Shariah, call for putting to death convicted killers.

Hamas seized Gaza in 2007 and has firmly entrenched its hold on the territory, home to about 1.7 million people. The Hamas-run justice system and past executions have been criticized by human rights groups.
According to an Associated Press count, it was the 30th death sentence carried out by Palestinian authorities since 1994. Of those, 28 took place in the Gaza Strip.

The rival Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank has not carried out the death penalty since President Mahmoud Abbas took office in 2005.