The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they unfold.

The Knesset Economy Committee approves for second and third reading an amendment to the Water Law which will see some NIS 3.5 billion ($940 million) invested in upgrading treated wastewater infrastructure, including building a national wastewater carrier.

Farmers have long complained about steep water costs, saying it affects their competitiveness.

Israel is already a world leader in the use of treated wastewater for agriculture. Roughly 85% of all sewage and grey water is treated for use in farmers’ fields.

Wastewater is cheaper than freshwater. In areas where wastewater is limited, the cost of freshwater will be reduced.

The Shin Bet denies opening any investigation aimed at rooting out members of outlawed extreme right groups from the police or among the political leadership, after a Channel 12 news report claimed they had opened such a probe, linking the move to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

A statement from the agency clarifies that “there was no Shin Bet investigation on the matter, toward police or politicians, and there is no Shin Bet probe now either.”

The statement says Shin Bet head Ronen Bar clarified the matter with police chief Daniel Levy in a phone call.

The Channel 12 report had included a Shin Bet statement that appeared to at least partially confirm the report, with the agency noting its role in thwarting outlawed Kahanist groups from gaining a foothold in state institutions.

On X, Ben Gvir, a former Kahane disciple, says Bar should be put on trial “for trying to engineer a coup against democracy,” adding that he won’t be satisfied with the Shin Bet’s chief’s firing, currently in the process of being implemented amid a bruising fight with the judiciary.

“Bar is a criminal and a liar,” he alleges.

Hamas confirms that senior official Ismail Barhoum was killed in an Israeli strike earlier today.

In a statement, the group says Barhoum, a member of the terror group’s political bureau, was killed in an Israeli strike in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis while undergoing treatment there.

Earlier Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the IDF “successfully eliminated” Barhoum, who he says was “the new Hamas prime minister in Gaza, who replaced Issam Da’alis, the previous prime minister who was eliminated a few days ago.”

Out of the 20 members of Hamas’s political bureau elected in 2021, 11 have been assassinated during the war in Gaza, and seven are either certainly or highly likely to be outside the Gaza Strip.

Politicians across the political spectrum denounce Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf after a video emerges of the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party dancing to an anti-Zionist, anti-enlistment anthem at a wedding, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quick to praise the ally for “disavowing” the ditty.

In a widely distributed clip, Goldknopf can be seen in the middle of a circle of young Haredi men singing that they “don’t believe in the government of infidels” and “won’t show up at their [army] recruitment offices.”

“This is not the Deep State — it is subversion from within the government that is harming the State of Israel,” says National........

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