Prosecution Witness in Netanyahu’s Trial Killed in Light Plane Crash

 

Haim and Esti Garon, both about 70, were killed on Monday when their Cessna 182 light aircraft, with an Israeli registration, crashed near the Greek island of Samos. The official reason for the crash that was provided by Greek authorities was technical difficulties ahead of the landing. Garon received his pilot’s license only 10 years ago and according to his relatives who spoke to Yedioth Aharonoth, Garon and his wife had taken off from Haifa on their way to North Macedonia. They were scheduled to make a fueling stop in Samos.

Garon, who used to serve as Deputy-Director of Engineering and Licensing at the Communications Ministry, was registered by the State Attorney’s Office as witness number 170 in the trial against Benjamin Netanyahu in Case 4000, in which the former prime minister is accused of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. His testimony would have covered the defendant’s involvement in regulatory favors to his co-defendant Shaul Elovitch, an Israeli businessman and the owner of Eurocom Group, one of the largest private holding groups in Israel.

An alarm was sounded Monday night on the island of Samos, located in the eastern Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey after the plane disappeared from the radar around 8 PM. Greek authorities discovered shortly thereafter that the plane had crashed into the sea before landing, about a mile south of the airport. According to local media reports, three boats rushed to the scene of the crash, including a Coast Guard boat and a fishing boat. A Greek Air Force Super Puma helicopter was also sent to the scene of the crash.

The Cessna 182 Skylane, first introduced in 1956, is a very reliable aircraft with an impressive safety record over many years.

Home sick home: Inside the 9/11 terrorists’ Florida luxury hideaway

 

A well-connected Saudi family hosted frequent visits from 9/11 terrorists at their Sarasota, Fla., home while they were in the area flight training, according to documents released by the FBI in 2013.

And while they were in training for the devastating attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people 20 years ago, they were not roughing it in squalor.

Located in the exclusive community of Prestancia, where Michael Jordan once rented a home, the residence was owned by Esam Ghazzawi — a prominent Saudi interior designer, businessman and adviser with long ties to the Saudi royal family. 

The daughter of Ghazzawi, Anoud al-Hijji and her husband, Abudlazziz al-Hijji, lived there with their two young children.

The tropical abode — and former high-jacker hangout — is quiet with four bedrooms and three bathrooms spread out on a spacious 3,750-square-foot property. It’s located in a gated golf course community, which residents tout for its top-notch “security.”

Despite denying any involvement with the terrorists, the al-Hijjis abruptly fled their Sarasota home in a rush two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.

“They left behind valuable items, clothing, jewelry and food in a manner that indicated they fled unexpectedly without prior preparation or knowledge,” one FBI analyst wrote. 

A 2002 memo from an FBI field agent with the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force noted “many connections” between the al-Hijji’s and three of the pilot hijackers — Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan Alshehhi, according to the Herald-Tribune. The three learned to fly planes at Huffman Aviation in the nearby city of Venice. Records list them as frequent visitors to the al-Hijji household.

Atta and Alshehhi were the two men in the cockpits when jets slammed into the World Trade Center towers.

At the time, the FBI had attempted to hide the Saudi connection for years until the newly released document in 2013 proved otherwise.

In August 2019, US District Court Judge William Zloch ruled the FBI has, for the last seven years, unlawfully withheld a narrow window of detail of its investigation into what went on at the al-Hijji household. 

None of the information pertaining to al-Hijji made it into the “9/11 Commission Report” released in 2004. Those records were only obtained after a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted by Florida Bulldog, an online investigative journalism watchdog, years after the official books were closed and with the help of Florida Sen. Bob Graham. 

Graham had been informed of the more specific conditions that the al-Hijji’s left the home in. He described them as “urgent conditions — a new car left in front of the house, food in the refrigerator and clothes in the washer.” Toys floated in the swimming pool, dirty diapers lay in the bathroom, and clothes and jewelry remained in closets and drawers.

“Further investigation of the [al-Hijji] family revealed many connections between the [al-Hijji family] and individuals associated with the terror attacks on 9/11/2001,” a portion of the 2013 declassified FBI documents stated.

The FBI had determined that the couple, along with Anoud’s father, had left the United States and were back in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh.

In 2003, however,  Anoud and her mother quietly traveled back to Sarasota, paid the homeowners’ fees and arranged for the sale of the house.

The home sold in October 2003 for $440,000, and was listed two months later, in December, for $589,000, property records show. It was last sold for $450,000 in 2015. 

Ghazzawi initially purchased the Florida home in 1995.

While his daughter was living in the home with her husband, Anoud wore a 10-carat heart-shaped diamond ring and Westernized clothes, reports Sarasota Magazine.

She and her husband, Abdulazzi, owned three cars: a Range Rover, a Lexus and a brand-new PT Cruiser. Neighbors revealed they didn’t socialize much with them and the family didn’t belong to the country club at Prestancia. But, they did enjoy going to the movies at Sarasota Square Mall.

The house was ornately decorated, with Persian carpets on the floors, statues and expensive furnishings.

The home has seen renovations over the years since the al-Hijjis abandoned the property.

Other terrorists involved in 9/11 frequented another Sarasota home in the town of Nokomis. 

Most recently, the brother of the mastermind behind the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, listed his longtime Bel-Air home.

Raphael Yaacov Blugrond Killed While Getting a Lulav

 

Reb Raphael Yaacov Blugrond, z’l, 75, who lived in the frum community in Baltimore for many years, fell to his death on Sunday night in northern Israel after apparently climbing a palm tree to pick a lulav.

The niftar was found on Road 90 between Kfar Korazim and Kfar Nachum.

MDA paramedics confirmed his death and ZAKA Northern District volunteers were called to the scene and tended to kavod hameis.

Reb Blugrond, z’l, was born and grew up in Tzfat and as an adult moved to the United States, where he lived in Baltimore for many years. He later moved back to Israel and settled in his hometown of Tzfat, where he was dedicated to the Ari shul, serving as the gabbai.

A loving father and grandfather, he left behind four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“A 75-year-old man apparently stopped at the side of the road to pick lulavim and fell from the tree,” said ZAKA volunteer Moti Cohen.

“When we arrived at the scene, we found that man lying lifeless next to a tree behind the guardrail with multi-system injuries. A MDA paramedic could do nothing but confirm his death.”

The circumstances of the incident are being investigated by the police.

White House livestream cuts Biden mid-sentence as he goes off script

 

An official White House livestream of President Joe Biden’s remarks was abruptly cut off mid-sentence on Monday — just days after a report revealed that some White House staffers have stopped listening to him speak in public for fear he’ll veer wildly off-message.

Biden was meeting with officials in Boise, Idaho, to discuss the wildfires raging across the western United States when he turned his attention to George Geissler of the National Association of State Foresters.

“Can I ask you a question?” Biden asked. 

“Of course,” Geissler answered.

“One of the things that I’ve been working on with some others is —” Biden said before the audio and video coverage stopped without warning.

The livestream — which also included translation by an American Sign Language interpreter — was then replaced by a message that said “THANK YOU FOR JOINING,” according to a clip posted on Twitter by the research arm of the Republican National Committee.

The incident marked the latest example of the White House cutting short its online coverage of Biden, 78, who’s publicly admitted being a “gaffe machine” throughout his long political career.

Official livestreams of the president were interrupted last month, as he was about to answer a reporter’s question on his decision to withdraw the US military from Afghanistan, and in March, when he said he’d be “happy to take questions” during a virtual meeting with Democratic lawmakers, according to Fox News.

Last week, Politico reported that “many” people who work in the White House will either mute Biden or turn off live coverage of his public appearances because they’re worried he’ll take questions from reporters.

“I know people who habitually don’t watch it live for that reason,” one unidentified official reportedly said.

Biden — who has a habit of responding, sometimes angrily, to shouted questions following his public appearances — has repeatedly acknowledged that his aides have told him to stick to his prepared remarks.

“I’m not supposed to be answering all these questions,” he told reporters during a White House news conference about the coronavirus in May.

Last week, he even worked the instruction into a post-Labor Day speech honoring labor unions.

“Now, I’m supposed to stop and walk out of the room here,” he said to laughter, according to an official transcript.

“I’m going to stop. But with your permission, I’m going to walk into the room because I want to say hello to all of you.”

In May, White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted during a podcast interview that letting Biden field queries from reporters was “not something we recommend,” adding, “In fact, a lot of times we say, ‘Don’t take questions.”

But, she added, “He’s going to do what he wants to do because he’s the president of the United States.”

Dead Sea pool turns BLOOD RED puzzling experts where the Bible says God sent angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah

 A pool of water located close to the Dead Sea in the biblical region of Moab - modern day Jordan - has mysteriously turned blood red.

Water from the red lagoon just inside the Jordanian border is being sampled by workers from Jordan's Ministry of Water and Irrigation to determine the cause of the unsettling phenomenon which is as yet unexplained.

The images have sparked a furor on social media, with blood red waters carrying much significance in the Old Testament as one of the 10 plagues God cast upon the Pharaoh of Egypt to free the Jews from slavery. 

According to the biblical tale, God turned the waters of the River Nile into blood, which killed the fish and prevented the Egyptians from drinking the foul water, in the first of 10 plagues that came as the Pharaoh's punishment for refusing to free his Jewish slaves.

The eastern shores of the Dead Sea where the blood red pond is located also happens to be where the two legendary cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stood before they were destroyed by God for their 'wickedness'.

The head of the Water and Agriculture Committee of the Al-Karak Council, Fathi Al-Huwaimel, said that the authorities have been contacted to work on identifying the source of the water.

But although the cause of the mysterious crimson waters remains unknown for now according to Jordan's ministry spokesperson Omar Salameh, a few theories have been posited as to why a lagoon isolated from fresh water could suddenly change color.   

Stabbing At Jerusalem Central Bus Terminal

 

A terrorist stabbed to what appears as two Yeshiva Bochrim at the Jerusalem Central Bus Terminal on Monday afternoon.

Both victims are in moderate condition and being treated by United Hatzalah and Magen David Adom.

The victims were rushed to the hospital.

Security forces neutralized the terrorist.

Due to the nature of the incident, United Hatzalah’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit is on scene providing emotional stabilization to a number of people at the scene.

The stabbing attack which left two Israelis moderately injured outside Jerusalem's Central Bus Station Monday afternoon was stopped when a Border Police officer saw what was happening and shot the terrorist.

The officer told Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai and Jerusalem District Commander Doron Turgeman, "We saw a lot of people coming out of the store and screaming, and we went in with our weapons drawn. Two policewomen entered from one entrance, I entered from another entrance, and I recognized the terrorist from where I was standing."

Two 25-year-old men were moderately wounded in the stabbing and evacuated to Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center. The terrorist, a 17-year-old Arab was taken to the same hospital in serious condition.

Public Security Minster Omer Bar-Lev praised the Border Police for quickly ending the attack. "Congratulations to the Border Police who successfully stopped the attack on the Jerusalem Central Bus Station. These are heroines who bravely sought contact with the terrorist and handled the situation professionally, quickly and efficiently."

"In addition to the neutralized terrorist, a 17-year-old resident of the Hebron area, the police arrested two people who assisted him. We are prepared for any scenario," Turgeman added.

Dogs Need "kaporos" also... they do a lot of Aveirois

Watch Premishlaner Rebbe perform "Darkei Amoirie" Pagen Ritual

 

Need to go to the post office in Israel? Bring your vaccination card

 

Israelis may soon need a vaccination card or proof of prior COVID infection in order to visit the post office, under a new plan being advanced by the government’s Communications Minister.

According to a report by Yediot Aharanot, Minister Yoaz Hendel (New Hope) is drawing up plans to limit access to the more than 500 post office branches across the country, imposing the Green Pass system for anyone looking to mail a package, receive registered mail items, use the post office bank, or use any other of the post office’s services.

Under the Green Pass system, entry is restricted to people who received a coronavirus shot less than six months ago, were verified as having recovered from COVID, or have a recent negative COVID test.

Minister Hendel has already consulted with the Health Ministry regarding his plan to impose the Green Pass system at all post office branches.

However, legal experts are warning Hendel that a comprehensive ban on the unvaccinated would likely be rejected by the courts, given the need for access to the post office to pay national insurance bills and other tax payments.

The minister is considering a compromise arrangement, whereby post offices will offer a limited number of hours for the unvaccinated.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told ministers that the government's patience for unvaccinated Israelis "has run out", and vowed to impose stricter measures for ensuring adherence to the Green Pass system and to prevent fraud.

'We didn't kidnap Eitan,' says boy's aunt. 'All we did was bring him home'

Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the Italian cable car accident that claimed the lives of 14 people including both his parents and his younger brother, is now at the center of a custody dispute, with his relatives in Italy pitted against others in Israel. On Saturday, his Italian relatives reported that his grandfather had kidnapped Eitan after taking him out for a few hours; later, it emerged that Eitan had been flown back to Israel without the permission of his Italian relatives.

Gali Peleg, Eitan’s aunt, objected to the wording of accounts that accused her branch of the family of “kidnapping” her nephew.