strikes

A former senior member of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ staff has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors, admitting he called in a fake bomb threat to City Hall late last year that was blamed on anti-Israel sentiment, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Brian Williams, a longtime law enforcement oversight official who served as Bass’ deputy mayor of public safety, agreed to plead guilty to a single count of threats regarding fire and explosives, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the next few weeks.

“In an era of heated political rhetoric that has sometimes escalated into violence, we cannot allow public officials to make bomb threats,” U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a news release announcing the deal. “My office will continue its efforts to keep the public safe, including from those who violate their duty to uphold the law.”

In a statement to The Times, Williams’ lawyer Dmitry Gorin said his client “has demonstrated his unreserved and full acceptance of responsibility for his actions.”

“This aberrational incident was the product of personal issues which Mr. Williams is addressing appropriately, and is not representative of his character or dedication to the city of Los Angeles,” Gorin said.

Williams was participating in a virtual meeting at City Hall on Oct. 3, 2024, when he used the Google Voice application on his personal phone to place a call to his city-issued cell phone, according to the plea agreement.

Williams admitted he left the meeting and called Scott Harrelson, a top aide to the LAPD chief. According to the plea, Williams falsely stated that he had just received a call on his city-issued cell phone from an unknown male caller who made a bomb threat against City Hall.

At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat, according to the plea agreement.

About 10 minutes after calling the LAPD, according to the plea, Williams texted Bass and several other senior mayoral officials a message that read: “Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.’ I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat.”

Soon after, LAPD officers searched the building and did not locate any suspicious packages or devices, according to the agreement. Williams told the officers that a man called and said: “I’m tired of the city support of Israel, I have decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the Rotunda.”

Williams showed the officers the record of an incoming call, which appeared as a blocked number on his city-issued phone. According to the plea deal, that call was the one Williams had placed from Google Voice.

Williams followed up with the mayor and other high-ranking officials some time later with several other texts, saying that there was no need to evacuate City Hall.

“I’m meeting with the threat management officers within the next 10 minutes. In light of the Jewish holidays, we are taking this thread, a little more seriously. I will keep you posted,” the text read, according to federal authorities.

Federal authorities revealed they were looking into Williams last December, when FBI agents raided his home in Pasadena. It sent shock waves through City Hall and the Police Department, where many expressed incredulity at the prospect of a respected government official faking a bomb threat.

Before the case was turned over to the FBI, detectives from the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division conducted surveillance that led them to conclude that Williams was responsible for the bomb threat, sources previously told The Times.

Williams, who was the deputy mayor overseeing the police and fire departments, was on leave because of the criminal investigation in January when Pacific Palisades was engulfed in flames, killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 structures.

“Like many, we were shocked when these allegations were first made and we are saddened by this conclusion,” said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass.

Bass named a former FBI official to replace Williams in early April. The official, Robert Clark, led anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles during his time with the Bureau before retiring in 2016 and serving as a law enforcement consultant and director of public safety for the city of Columbus, Ohio, among other roles.

Williams has held a variety of government positions spanning more than three decades. He had spent nearly two years as a deputy mayor in Bass’ office, working on issues such as police hiring, public safety spending and the search for a new police chief.

Previously, Williams was a deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor James K. Hahn, who held office from 2001 to 2005. Before that, he spent several years as an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles.

From 2016 to 2023, Williams was the executive director of the Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission, according to his LinkedIn page.

Working in Bass’ office, Williams oversaw the Police Department, the Fire Department, Port Police, Airport Police and the city’s emergency management agency, according to his hiring announcement. He was also a member of the mayor’s inner circle, playing a key role in the monthslong search for a new police chief that ended with the hiring of Jim McDonnell.

When Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman was sworn in last year, Williams was the city official chosen to address the audience on behalf of the mayor. He was also a fixture at police graduations, news conferences, community meetings and other events across the city, often wearing a well-pressed suit and a bowtie.

Williams’ attorney Gorin called his client “a career public servant who has worked closely with law enforcement, community groups, public safety and prosecuting agencies throughout his many years in local government and has devoted his life to the service of others.”

Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement that Williams “not only betrayed the residents of Los Angeles, but responding officers, and the integrity of the office itself, by fabricating a bomb threat.”

“Government officials are held to a heightened standard as we rely on them to safeguard the city,” the statement read. “I’m relieved that Mr. Williams has taken responsibility for his inexplicable actions.”

Thousands of hotel, bar and restaurant staff are planning industrial action in the Balearics. The UGT union says there will be a mass walkout on June 6 followed by several days of strike action in July, the height of the busy tourist season

Chaos is due to befall hotels Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca as workers prepare to strike.

The holiday islands could face significant disruption in June and July as thousands of hospitality workers plan further strike action. Unless a last-minute agreement is reached, a mass walk-out is planned for June 6, followed by several days of strikes in July, during the height of the tourist season.

The UGT workers’ union has warned strikes are nearing as no progress is being made regarding their demands for improved pay and conditions. The union warns the industrial actions will greatly affect holidaymakers and urges hotels to do everything possible to prevent it.

“If we don’t see the possibility of an agreement in principle, we will call a strike lasting several days,” declared the general secretary of its Services federation on the islands. The union has made it clear that their goal is to exert maximum impact on tourists.

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At the same time, overtourism protests are due to break out across major resort cities. They include plans to occupy beaches and super-glue apartment locks.

Protests are set to take place in Platja de Palma and Palmanova-Magaluf. The UGT, the largest union in the sector, is playing a key role in negotiating the Collective Agreement of the Balearic hotel industry.

A strike involving thousands of hotel workers, including restaurant and bar staff and cleaners, already took place on May 1. On June 6, the first of the new protests will occur outside the headquarters of the Mallorca hotel federation.

Demonstrations are scheduled for the end of June in Platja de Palma and Palmanova-Magaluf, with the peak planned for July, featuring several days of strikes over alternate weeks.

On June 6, a protest is planned for 10am at the UGT office in Palma. Following the update on negotiation progress, attendees will hold a midday rally outside the Mallorcan Hotel Federation building.

Another demonstration is set to take place at Platja de Palma at the end of next month, with a worker’s march culminating in a rally in front of the local hotel association headquarters. A similar protest will target the Palmanova-Magaluf area, highlighting the workers’ unrest in key tourist hubs around the Bay of Palma.

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The unions are fighting for adequate housing and addressing issues such as tourist overpopulation without life quality improvements for workers, increased job demands, salaries not matching living costs, and pay inequality for identical work.

The union wants wages to rise by 19 per cent across the three years to 2027, while the offer from employers flags at 8.5 percent.

In other recent protest news, the CEO of Jet2 Steve Heapy expressed fears that tourist levies could rise in response to overtourism protests in Spain, which have been rumbling on for years and are due to disrupt key destinations this summer. The CEO told a roundtable event at the Spanish embassy in London that he opposed tourist taxes, but feared rises would prove “irresistible”.

In its latest assault on Gaza’s decimated healthcare system, Israel has once again targeted the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, this time with drones, as its forces are also carrying out a ground offensive in the north and south of the bombarded territory.

Health officials said late on Sunday that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” forced it to shut down.

It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli air strikes last year also forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoon hospitals to stop providing health services.

“There is direct targeting on the hospital including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr Marwan al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility, which had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside.

Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals during its 19-month war on Gaza. Human rights groups and United Nations-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare system.

Earlier, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital in the besieged enclave’s north, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the latest strikes – which have been ongoing since Saturday – indicate that Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals are intensifying.

“The medical teams are really suffering, and we have a few numbers of medical teams and staff … and a lot of people are in need [of] more medical care,” Abu Salmiya said by phone from the hospital on Sunday.

Thousands of sick and wounded people could die, he warned. Blood donations are urgently needed.

This has been underscored by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which confirmed that Israeli forces besieged the facility in Beit Lahiya, adding that “a state of panic and confusion is prevailing”.

The ministry later said that Israel had cut off the arrival of patients and staff, “effectively forcing the hospital out of service”.

With “the shutdown of the Indonesian Hospital, all public hospitals in the North Gaza Governorate are now out of service”, it said.

Gaza’s healthcare facilities have been targeted repeatedly throughout Israel’s deadly assault that began 18 months ago.

Other facilities in the north that have been bombed, burned, and besieged by the Israeli military since the start of the war include Kamal Adwan Hospital, al-Shifa Hospital, al-Ahli Hospital, and al-Awda Hospital. Dozens of other medical clinics, stations, and vehicles have also come under attack.

The targeting of health facilities, medical personnel and patients is considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.

Israel has also battered several hospitals in Gaza’s central and southern areas, including Deir el-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

Earlier this week, Israel struck two hospitals in Khan Younis. Nine missiles slammed into and around the courtyard of the European Gaza Hospital, killing at least 16 people, while an attack on the Nasser Medical Complex killed two people, including a wounded journalist.

Incessant attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector have left it reeling, devastating its ability to function, while doctors say they are out of medicine to treat routine conditions.

Hospitals have also been on the verge of total collapse amid a brutal and ongoing blockade, where Israel continues to bar the entry of much-needed medical supplies, fuel, and other humanitarian aid including food and clean water.

The crisis in Gaza has reached one of its darkest periods, humanitarian officials warn, as famine also looms.

Israeli air strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the last 72 hours.

Strikes over the weekend have also put the European Hospital, the only remaining facility providing cancer treatments in Gaza, out of service.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said dozens of Palestinians have been wounded, and doctors say “they’re facing numerous challenges in treating injuries because of a lack of medical supplies”.

“Israeli air strikes in Gaza are still escalating as drones and fighter jets hover in the sky,” Khoudary said.

The death toll has reached the same level of intensity as the earliest days of the war, said Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, an independent group in London that tracks recent conflicts.

She says preliminary data indicate the number of incidents where at least one person was killed or injured by Israeli fire hovered around 700 in April. It’s a figure comparable only to October or December 2023 – one of the heaviest periods of bombardment.

In the last 10 days of March, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates, an average of 100 children were killed or maimed by Israeli air strikes every day.

Almost 3,000 of the estimated 53,000 killed by Israel since October 7, 2023, have lost their lives since Israel broke a fragile ceasefire on March 18, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Among those killed in recent days include a volunteer pharmacist with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, who was killed with her family in a strike on Gaza City on May 4.

A midwife from Al Awda Health and Community Association was also killed with her family in another strike on May 7.

A journalist working for Qatar-based television network Al Araby TV, along with 11 members of his family, was also killed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises more strikes if the group continues to launch attacks on Israel.

Israel says it has launched strikes on the Yemeni ports of Hodeidah and as-Salif in response to the Houthi rebels firing missiles towards Israel, days after the Yemeni group agreed a truce with the United States.

The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on “terrorist infrastructure” on Friday, saying on X that the two ports had been used by the Houthi rebel group to “transfer weapons”.

Al Masirah TV, a Houthi-affiliated outlet, also reported Israeli strikes on the two ports. The extent of any damage was not clear, and there no immediate reports of casualties.

The Houthis have carried out a campaign of attacks against Israel in self-proclaimed solidarity with Palestinians after Israel launched its assault on Gaza in October 2023.

Israel has carried out strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.

Friday’s attacks were the first since US President Donald Trump agreed to a ceasefire deal with the Houthis earlier this month, with the US halting its attacks on Yemen and the group agreeing to end its attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

Israel was not included in that agreement, and its military said it intercepted several missiles fired from Yemen towards Israeli airspace this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the attacks are “just the beginning”, describing the Houthis as “just a tool”, alleging that Iran was “behind them”.

“We will not stand idly by and allow the Houthis to harm us. We will strike them with greater force, including at their leadership and all the infrastructure that enables them to attack us,” he said in a statement posted on the government’s social media account.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz pledged to “hunt down and eliminate” Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi if the rebel group continued “to fire missiles at the State of Israel”.

Alluding to recent Houthi attacks on Israel, Katz indicated leader al-Houthi would meet the same fate as Hamas commanders Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon – all killed in Israeli attacks over the last year.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Jordan’s capital Amman, said that since Israel broke a ceasefire agreement with Hamas back in March – killing almost 3,000 since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry – the Houthis had launched “at least 34 different projectiles” towards Israel.

She said that Israel’s policy “moving forward” would be to strike back. “For every missile that’s fired, they’re going to be conducting these types of air strikes,” she said.

Reporters Without Borders and Truth Hounds found that Russia’s attacks on hotels intended to ‘discourage’ war coverage.

Russian attacks have increasingly hit hotels hosting journalists in Ukraine, in what could constitute “war crimes”, according to a new report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Truth Hounds – a Ukrainian organisation founded to document war crimes – released the report on Friday. It found that Russian attacks on hotels housing journalists moved from being “isolated events” early in the conflict in 2022 to a “sustained threat” by 2025.

At least 31 strikes on 25 hotels being used by journalists have been recorded since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, the report states.

“These attacks appear to be part of a broader Russian strategy aimed at intimidating journalists and suppressing independent media coverage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” the report said.

The hotels hit are mainly close to the front line. Only one was being used for military purposes at the time of the attack, the NGOs said.

“In total, 25 journalists and media professionals have found themselves under these hotel bombings, and at least seven have been injured,” it stated.

According to the RSF, at least 13 journalists have been killed while covering Russia’s war on Ukraine, with 12 of the deaths on Ukrainian territory.

Types of attacks

The report highlighted that the attacks followed a clear pattern, occurring at night, using ballistic missiles launched at civilian hotels that were not “legitimate military targets”.

“Our analysis therefore suggests that these attacks are neither random nor incidental but are instead part of a broader strategy aimed at discouraging independent reporting from the front line,” the authors concluded.

Due to the safety obstacles to reporting from a war zone, 13 percent of respondents to a survey said there had been a “reduction” in assignments to high-risk areas, affecting how the war is covered.

The report called for legal measures to prosecute crimes against journalists at “national and international jurisdictions”, specifically the International Criminal Court.

AN EARTHQUAKE of magnitude 6.3 has hit the holiday hotspot island of Crete, Greece.

The quake was at a depth of 83km, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said.

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Citizens in Israel have reported feeling shockwaves from the earthquake, especially in the centre of the country including Tel Aviv, The Jerusalem Post reports.

It comes after the idyllic Greek island of Santorini was plunged into a state of emergency in February as a total of 7,700 tremors shook the isle in two weeks.

Around 7,700 earthquakes have shaken the Santorini-Amorgos seismic zone since January 26.

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