The Israeli military said Friday that it launched “wide-scale” airstrikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip shortly after Palestinian militants fired three rockets into Israel, two of which were intercepted.

There were no reports of casualties or major damage from the exchange of fire overnight, which came amid heightened tensions after President Donald Trump released his Mideast plan, a U.S. initiative aimed at ending the conflict that heavily favors Israel and was rejected by the Palestinians.

Palestinians have called for large protests after Friday prayers, including at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem that is sacred to Muslims and Jews. 

Recent relative calm

Gaza has been relatively calm in recent months as Egyptian and U.N. mediators have worked to shore up an informal truce between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules the coastal territory.

Hamas has curbed rocket fire and rolled back weekly protests along the frontier that had often turned violent. In return, Israel has eased the blockade it imposed on Gaza after Hamas seized power from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have rejected the Trump plan, which would allow Israel to annex all of its Jewish settlements, along with the Jordan Valley, in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians were offered limited self-rule in Gaza, parts of the West Bank and some sparsely populated areas of Israel in return for meeting a long list of conditions.

Hamas has vowed that “all options are open” in responding to the proposal, but is not believed to be seeking war with Israel. Palestinian militants have fought three devastating wars with Israel since the Hamas takeover.

Friday protest

Palestinians have held small, scattered protests in recent days condemning the Trump initiative, and larger demonstrations are expected after Friday prayers, including at the Jerusalem holy site known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

It is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and is home to the iconic gold Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque. It was also the location of the First and Second Jewish Temples in antiquity. The Western Wall nearby, the only remnant of the Second Temple, is the holiest place where Jews can pray.

The hilltop shrine is managed by an Islamic trust under Jordanian stewardship, and day-to-day affairs are governed by informal understandings with Israel known as the “status quo.” Non-Muslims are allowed to visit during certain hours, but Jews cannot pray there.

In recent years, increasing numbers of religious and ultra-nationalist Jews have visited the site, stoking fears among the Palestinians that Israel intends to one day partition it, as it has done to a similar site in the West Bank town of Hebron that is sacred to both faiths.

The status quo

Israel has repeatedly said it has no intention of changing the status quo and accuses Islamist groups of spreading unfounded rumors to incite violence. The Trump plan, which heavily favors Israel, says the status quo should “continue uninterrupted.”

But the plan also says “people of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.”

Palestinians view the sprawling esplanade as the last bit of territory that is fully theirs and the Dome of the Rock as a symbol of their national cause. Muslim worshippers have clashed with police there on numerous occasions in recent years in response to perceived infringements. A provocative visit to the site by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing politician who went on to become prime minister, ignited the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2000.

The site is part of the Old City in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured, along with the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 war. The Palestinians view east Jerusalem as their capital and want all three territories to form their future state.

Trump’s Mideast plan would create a disjointed Palestinian state with a capital on the outskirts of east Jerusalem, beyond the separation barrier built by Israel. The rest of Jerusalem, including the Old City, would remain Israel’s capital.

The plan would allow Israel to annex large parts of the West Bank almost immediately, while Palestinian statehood would be heavily restricted and subject to several preconditions that the Palestinians have always rejected.

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Surrounded by the millions of monarch butterflies that Mexican environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez fought to protect until his mysterious death, relatives and friends paid tribute to him Thursday.

Gomez Gonzalez’s sudden disappearance two weeks ago had sparked an outcry in Mexico, an increasingly violent country where activists are routinely threatened, harmed or killed as a result of their work.

Gomez Gonzalez, who worked passionately to protect a Mexican forest where monarch butterflies spend the winter, suffered head trauma as well as drowning, authorities announced Thursday night, potentially adding weight to the fears that he was murdered.

Even before the announcement, relatives of Gomez Gonzalez speculated his death wasn’t accidental.

“Something strange is happening, because they’re finishing off all the activists, the people who are doing something for society,” the dead man’s brother, Amado Gomez, said Thursday at the funeral.

Gomez Gonzalez’s body was discovered Wednesday in a holding pond near the mountain forest reserve that he had long protected. Michoacan state prosecutors said that an initial review indicated a drowning and found no signs of trauma, but their latest statement said more detailed autopsy results produced evidence of a head injury.

Authorities gave no other information on the injury and did not say how it might have been inflicted. They said an investigation continued.

Grinding poverty and gang violence fuel twin threats to the butterfly reserve — illegal logging and encroaching plantations of avocados. The latter is the only legal crop that provides a decent income in this region.

Gomez Gonzalez had spent a decade working as an activist, though he became best known for posting mesmerizing videos of the black and orange insects on social media, urging Mexicans to treasure the El Rosario reserve, a world heritage site.

His brother said Gomez Gonzalez, an engineer, was so compelled to do something after the number of butterflies dropped dramatically that he eventually gave up his job to work on projects aimed at protecting them.

“This was his passion,” his brother said. “He loved promoting the butterflies, filming them, researching them.”

He also worked to persuade about 260 fellow communal land owners that they should replant trees on land cleared for corn plots. By local accounts, he managed to reforest about 150 hectares (370 acres) of previously cleared land.

Like other places in the world, increasingly scarce water also plays a role in the conflict. Gomez Gonzalez and other communal land owners had asked the nearby town of Angangueo for payments in return for water they receive from clear mountain streams that survive only because the forests are protected.

“A lot of the communal landowners fear that with his death, the forests are finished,” Amado Gomez said.

“I would like to ask the authorities to do their job and do more to protect activists like my brother, because lately in Mexico a lot of activists have died,” he said. “With his death, not only my family lost a loved one; but the whole world, and the monarch butterfly and the forests lost, too.”

London-based Global Witness counted 15 killings of environmental activists in Mexico in 2017 and 14 in 2018. In an October 2019 report, Amnesty International said that 12 had been killed in the first nine months of that year.

Millions of monarchs come to the forests of Michoacan and other nearby areas after making the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) migration from the United States and Canada. 
They need healthy tree cover to protect them from rain and cold weather.

Reuters contributed to this report.
 

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The U.S. senators weighing the removal of President Donald Trump from office completed a final day of questioning Thursday. The Senate impeachment trial now enters an uncertain phase as Republicans appear to have enough votes to block Democrats’ request to hear testimony from key administration officials. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the final vote in the impeachment trial could quickly follow.
 

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The Israeli prime minister came to Moscow on Thursday to discuss the U.S. Mideast peace plan and take an Israeli woman who had been jailed in Russia back home.

Benjamin Netanyahu made a stopover in Moscow after visiting Washington where President Donald Trump as he unveiled his long-awaited Mideast peace plan Tuesday.

Trump’s plan envisions a disjointed Palestinian state that turns over key parts of the West Bank to Israel. It sides with Israel on key contentious issues that have bedeviled past peace efforts, including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements, and attaches nearly impossible conditions for granting the Palestinians their hoped-for state.

Trump and Israel’s Netanyahu Tout Middle East Peace ‘Deal of the Century’

President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his long-awaited Middle East peace plan will be announced Tuesday, and said “many of the Arab nations” agree with it

Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin as they sat down for talks in the Kremlin that he wants to discuss the plan and hear his opinion about it.

“You are the first leader I am speaking with after my visit in Washington for Trump’s Deal of the Century,” he said. “I think there is a new opportunity here, maybe even unique opportunity, and I’d like to discuss it with you and hear your insights.”

Trump called his plan a “win-win” for both Israel and the Palestinians, and urged the Palestinians not to miss their opportunity for independence. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the plan as “nonsense” and vowed to resist it.

Putin didn’t talk about Trump’s plan in his opening remarks, and Russian officials so far have refrained from comment — a careful stance reflecting the Kremlin’s desire to maintain warm ties with Israel and its hopes for rapprochement with Trump’s administration.

The Israeli leader’s visit comes a day after Putin pardoned 26-year-old Naama Issachar, who was arrested in April at a Moscow airport, where she was transferring en route from India to Israel. Russian authorities said more than nine grams of hashish were found in her luggage. She was convicted and sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison.

Putin asked Netanyahu to give his regards to Issachar and her mother.

“I would like to thank you on behalf of all the people of Israel for granting a pardon to Naama Issachar,” Netanyahu said. “This moves all of us and our gratitude is on behalf of all Israeli citizens, from the heart.”

He added that Russia-Israel relations are now “the best they have ever been.”

Issachar got on the plane with Netanyahu and sat with him and his wife on the way home.

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Tokyo prosecutors issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, who skipped bail while awaiting trial in Japan and is now in Lebanon.

Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon, so he’s unlikely to be arrested. Lebanon has indicated it will not hand over Ghosn.

Tokyo prosecutors also issued arrest warrants for three Americans they said helped and planned his escape, Michael Taylor, George-Antoine Zayek and Peter Taylor.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Takahiro Saito declined to say where the three men were thought to be staying. He said Michael Taylor and George Zayek are suspected of helping Ghosn flee by hiding him in cargo at a Japanese airport and getting him into a private jet to leave the country.

Saito would not say if Japan has asked U.S. authorities for help, though he said all options were being explored. Japan and the U.S. have an extradition treaty.

Michael Taylor is a former Green Beret and private security specialist. Peter Taylor appears to be his son. Security footage released earlier showed Zayek and Taylor transiting Istanbul Airport at the same time Ghosn allegedly passed through Turkey on his way to Beirut.

Prosecutors suspect Peter Taylor met several times with Ghosn in Tokyo, starting in July last year, to plot his escape. Saito said Ghosn was given a key to a hotel room in Osaka near the Kansai Airport that Ghosn left from.

Prosecutors say Ghosn broke the law by violating bail conditions that required him to stay in Japan, mostly at his Tokyo home.

“We want to stress that the act of fleeing was clearly wrong,” Saito told reporters. “We need to erase the misunderstanding.”

Separately, Saito said prosecutors on Wednesday forced open a lock to search the Tokyo office of Ghosn’s former defense lawyer Junichiro Hironaka for records of people Ghosn met with while out on bail, and other materials. Prosecutors are asking a judge for help in accessing contents of a computer Ghosn used at Hironaka’s office that the lawyer has refused to hand over, citing attorney-client privilege.

Ghosn has said he is innocent of allegations he under-reported his future income and committed a breach of trust by diverting Nissan money for his personal gain. He says the compensation was never decided on or received, and the Nissan payments were for legitimate business purposes.

Ghosn has lashed out at the Japanese judicial system, saying he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions.

He contends others at Nissan Motor Co., which he led for two decades, drove him out to prevent a fuller merger with its French alliance partner Renault.

Ghosn’s dramatic escape, while under the watch of surveillance cameras inside and outside his home is an embarrassment for Japanese authorities.

He is believed to have traveled by train to Osaka and then left via Kansai Airport, reportedly by hiding in a box for audio or musical equipment. Ghosn has not shared specifics of his escape.

The maximum penalty under Japanese law for illegally leaving the country is one year in prison or 300,000 yen ($2,750) in fines, or both. The maximum penalty for hiding a criminal or helping a criminal escape is three years in prison or 300,000 yen ($2,750) in fines.  

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in London on the cusp of Britain’s departure from the European Union for talks focused on a post-Brexit free trade deal and the U.K.’s decision to allow the Chinese tech company Huawei to play a role in the country’s high-speed wireless network.

As President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial nears a close in Washington, Pompeo was to meet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday to re-register American concerns about Huawei and the possibility that its entry into the market could affect U.S.-Britain intelligence cooperation. Pompeo and Johnson are also expected to discuss Iran, Trump’s Middle East peace plan, Libya and Venezuela.

U.S. officials said they believed the British decision on Huawei wouldn’t greatly affect negotiations on a trade deal, but could hurt other aspects of the relationship upon which Britain is counting after its divorce from the EU that takes effect on Friday.

“We were urging them to make a decision that was different than the one that they made, and now we’ll have a conversation about how to proceed,” Pompeo told reporters traveling with him on the trip to Europe and Central Asia that will also take him to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

“Our view of Huawei has been that putting it in your system creates real risk,” Pompeo said. “This is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party with a legal requirement to hand over information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

“We’ll evaluate what the United Kingdom did,” he said. “It’s a little unclear precisely what they’re going to permit and not permit, so we need to take a little bit of time to evaluate that. But our view is that we should have Western systems with Western rules, and American information only should pass through trusted networks, and we’ll make sure we do that.”

The U.S. has been lobbying European allies to ban Huawei over concerns it could be compelled to help with electronic eavesdropping after Beijing enacted a 2017 national intelligence law. U.S. officials also worry that 5G networks would rely heavily on software, leaving them open to vulnerabilities, and have repeatedly warned they would have to reconsider intelligence sharing with allies that use Huawei. The company has denied the allegations.

On Tuesday, Britain decided to let Huawei have a limited role supplying new high-speed network equipment to wireless carriers, ignoring Washington’s warnings that it would sever intelligence sharing if the company wasn’t banned.

Britain’s decision was the first by a major U.S. ally in Europe, and follows intense lobbying from the Trump administration as the U.S. vies with China for technological dominance.

“There’s big, broad national security issues,” Pompeo said. “Our militaries operate together. There are enormous trade issues. There’s big commercial issues. And there are obviously issues that relate to telecoms and their security.”

Trump has pledged that the U.S. and Britain will negotiate a major free-trade deal as soon as Brexit is complete and officials have already begun discussions on the plan.

Britain will leave the EU on Friday after 47 years of membership, becoming the first country to leave the bloc.

The London stop is the first on a five-nation tour of Europe and Central Asia that Pompeo is making.

The centerpiece of the trip will be a two-day stop in Ukraine that begins later Thursday when Pompeo will become the most senior U.S. official to visit Kyiv and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the impeachment process began last year.

Ukraine is at the center of the impeachment charges against Trump who is accused of obstructing Congress and abuse of office for withholding critical military aid to the country in exchange for an investigation into alleged corruption by the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival. Those allegations got a boost earlier this week when a manuscript of former national security adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book was revealed to echo the claim.

The Senate is expected to vote on hearing impeachment witnesses, including possibly Bolton, on Friday. Bolton maintains that Trump was in fact withholding the aid in exchange for a public pledge of a probe into Biden as witnesses testified before the House impeachment inquiry.

Ukraine has been delicate subject for Pompeo, who over the weekend lashed out at a National Public Radio reporter for asking questions about why he has not publicly defended the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post early after unsubstantiated allegations were made against her by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

Pompeo has twice postponed earlier planned trips to Ukraine, most recently in early January when developments with Iran forced him to cancel. In Kyiv, Pompeo said he plans to discuss the issue of corruption but demurred when asked if he would specifically raise the Bidens or the energy company Burisma for which Hunter Biden worked.

“I don’t want to talk about particular individuals. It’s not worth it,” he said. “It’s a long list in Ukraine of corrupt individuals and a long history there. And President Zelenskiy has told us he’s committed to it. The actions he’s taken so far demonstrate that, and I look forward to having a conversation about that with him as well.”

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