Remarks to erase Palestinian town 'inappropriate': Israeli PM Netanyahu
Tel Aviv, Mar 5: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remarks by a key Cabinet ally calling for a Palestinian town to be erased were inappropriate in a Twitter thread early Sunday, after the United States demanded that he reject the statement.
In the thread, posted in English shortly after midnight, Netanyahu did not appear to condemn the remarks outright and implied that the ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, misspoke.
Netanyahu thanked Smotrich for later walking the comments back and "making clear that his choice of words" was "inappropriate." The bulk of the thread urged the international community to seek condemnations from the Palestinians over attacks against Israelis.
It appeared to be his first public response to Smotrich's remarks since they were made on Wednesday.
Netanyahu's Twitter thread underlines how the Israeli leader has had to balance the ideologies of the far-right members of his government with the expectations of Israel's chief ally, the United States. Smotrich is the head of one of several ultranationalist parties that help make up Netanyahu's government, Israel's most right-wing ever.
Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank last week rampaged through the Palestinian town of Hawara, where earlier in the day two Israeli brothers were killed in a Palestinian shooting attack. Later in the week, Smotrich said the town should be erased by Israeli forces and not by private citizens.
Smotrich later backtracked, saying he didn't mean for the Hawara to be erased but for Israel to operate surgically within it against Palestinian militants. Still, his earlier comments sparked an international outcry. The U.S. called them repugnant and urged Netanyahu to "publicly and clearly reject and disavow them." The United Nations and Middle East powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia also condemned Smotrich's remarks.
In a Hebrew tweet posted around the same time as his English thread, Netanyahu said even foreign diplomats make mistakes, an apparent reference to a report by Israeli Channel 12 that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides made disparaging remarks about Smotrich ahead of his visit to Washington this week, saying he would "throw him off the plane," if he could. The U.S. Embassy denied the ambassador had made the remarks.
Smotrich, in a tweet Saturday, said he was "convinced that he didn't mean to incite to kill me when he said I must be thrown from the plane just as I didn't mean to harm innocents when I said Hawara must be erased."
In his tweets, Netanyahu wrote that "it is important for all of us to work to tone down the rhetoric" amid a spiraling wave of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
"That includes speaking out forcefully against inappropriate statements and even correcting our own statements when we misspeak or when our words are taken out of context," he posted.
Netanyahu then slammed the Palestinian Authority for not condemning Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and the international community for not demanding condemnations from the Palestinians.
Israel has long claimed the international community has a double standard in its expectations from Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians seek for their future state. Israel maintains a 55-year, open-ended occupation over Palestinians in the West Bank and a blockade, along with Egypt, of the Gaza Strip.
It is important for all of us to work to tone down the rhetoric lower the temperature.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 4, 2023
That includes speaking out forcefully against inappropriate statements and even correcting our own statements when we misspeak or when our words are taken out of context >>
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Jharkhand horror: Man kills live-in partner, chops body into 40 pieces
Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.
