Israeli Attorney General Warns Netanyahu Defied Conflict of Interest Rule

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
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Israeli Attorney General Warns Netanyahu Defied Conflict of Interest Rule

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo: Reuters)

Israel's attorney general on Friday warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he has violated the Supreme Court's conflict of interest ruling, which barred him from direct involvement in his government's divisive plans for a judicial overhaul.

Netanyahu’s far-right government has barreled ahead with plans to weaken the Supreme Court and grant politicians less judicial oversight in their policymaking despite massive protests from across Israeli society.

On Thursday, just hours after his coalition passed a law that would protect the Israeli leader from being deemed unfit to rule because of his corruption trial and claims of a conflict of interest, Netanyahu defiantly pledged to proceed with the overhaul.

Netanyahu contended that stripping the attorney general of the power to remove him from office was necessary to clear the way for him to participate in the negotiations on the judicial overhaul in spite of her instructions, and try to “mend the rift” in the polarized nation, The Associated Press reported.

“Until today my hands were tied,” Netanyahu said in a prime-time TV address Thursday, referring to the change in the law on removing a prime minister.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara thoroughly disagreed, sharply criticizing him in a letter Friday for violating a conflict of interest agreement that had allowed him to continue leading the country while charged with corruption, bribery and breach of trust. The deal Netanyahu was pressed to sign in 2020 prevented him from being involved in legislative issues or key judicial appointments that could affect his ongoing trial.

“Your statement last night and any further actions by you that violate that agreement are completely illegal and in conflict of interest,” Baharav-Miara wrote in Friday's letter. “The legal situation is clear — you must avoid any involvement in measures to change the judicial system.”

The contentious law that makes it harder to remove Netanyahu from office, passed late Wednesday by a slim majority of 61 in the 120-seat parliament, does not undo the court's earlier conflict of interest ruling, Baharav-Miara said. The consequences of Netanyahu's violations of the agreement were not immediately clear.

Netanyahu, on an official visit to Britain, did not immediately respond to her letter.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a good governance organization, warned of a constitutional crisis. It pledged to file a petition urging that Netanyahu be held in contempt of court. “A prime minister who does not obey the court and its orders is an anarchist,” the group said.

Supporters of the judicial overhaul say it will restore power to elected legislators and make the courts less interventionist. Critics say the move upends Israel’s system of checks and balances and pushes it toward autocracy.



UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
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UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)

More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year — about the same number as the year before — according to UN health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children.

In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89% of children under one year old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85% completed the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023.

Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children.

In January, US President Trump withdrew the country from the WHO, froze nearly all humanitarian aid and later moved to close the US AID Agency. And last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was pulling the billions of dollars the US had previously pledged to the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the group had “ignored the science.”

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has previously raised questions the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine, which has proven to be safe and effective after years of study and real-world use. Vaccines prevent 3.5 million to 5 million deaths a year, according to UN estimates.

“Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

UN experts said that access to vaccines remained “deeply unequal” and that conflict and humanitarian crises quickly unraveled progress; Sudan had the lowest reported coverage against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

The data showed that nine countries accounted for 52% of all children who missed out on immunizations entirely: Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.

WHO and UNICEF said that coverage against measles rose slightly, with 76% of children worldwide receiving both vaccine doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the extremely contagious disease. WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.

The US is now having its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, while the disease has also surged across Europe, with 125,000 cases in 2024 — twice as many as the previous year, according to WHO.

Last week, British authorities reported a child died of measles in a Liverpool hospital. Health officials said that despite years of efforts to raise awareness, only about 84% of children in the UK are protected.

“It is hugely concerning, but not at all surprising, that we are continuing to see outbreaks of measles,” said Helen Bradford, a professor of children’s health at University College London.

“The only way to stop measles spreading is with vaccination,” she said in a statement. “It is never too late to be vaccinated — even as an adult.”