LIBYAN LEAK
Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush was fired on August 28 in the wake of Israeli media reports that she had met Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen a week before in Rome. After her dismissal order was signed by Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, Mangoush reportedly fled from Libya to Turkey. Israel said the meeting between the two foreign ministers, facilitated by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, had addressed cooperation in a wide range of areas, including agriculture and water technology. Opposition leader Yair Lapid blamed Cohen’s lack of diplomatic experience for the Libyan snafu, claiming that his leak of the meeting to the media “reflected a serious failure of judgment.”
TERROR ATTACK
Sgt. Maxim Molchanov, 20, a lone soldier from Ukraine, was killed and five others wounded in a truck-ramming terror attack at the Maccabim checkpoint near Modi’in on August 31. The 41-year-old Palestinian terrorist then fled in his truck to the Hashmonaim checkpoint where he was shot dead by security forces. Molchanov, who lived in Herzliya and served in the IDF’s Artillery Corps, was off-duty at the time of the attack.
JERUSALEM STABBING
An Israeli man in his twenties was moderately wounded in a stabbing attack at the Shivtei Israel light rail station near Jerusalem’s Old City on August 30. The terrorist, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy from Beit Hanina, was shot dead by an off-duty Border Police officer at the scene.