Magen David Adom paramedics arrive at the scene of a suspected terror attack outside of a Tel Aviv hotel on April 23, 2017
The Defense Ministry suspended single-day work permits for Palestinians to enter Israel Sunday, hours after a Palestinian teen injured four in a stabbing attack on Tel Aviv’s beachfront.
The attacker, identified as an 18-year-old from the Nablus area of the West Bank, apparently entered Israel with one such pass, as part of a group known as “Natural Peace Tours,” which is supposed to forge relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, a defense official said. He was not named
The ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said the one-day permits granted to different organizations and groups will be “frozen” until an investigation of the matter can be conducted, the official said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri speaks during a news conference as UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major-General Michael Beary (L) listens at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri asked the United Nations on Friday to help Lebanon and Israel move toward a permanent ceasefire and end what he called Israel’s “continuous violations” of Lebanese territory.
Israel and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah group fought a month-long war in 2006 that concluded with a cessation of hostilities but without a formal peace deal.
“I urge the U.N. secretary general to support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire. This is long overdue and my government is committed to move this agenda forward,” Hariri said.
The $1.4 billion Rawabi development, 25 miles north of Jerusalem
When Bashar Masri wants a sense of the ebb and flow of Israeli-Palestinian relations, he has two options: He can glance out the window or check his bank statement. Masri’s office overlooks Rawabi, a new town 25 miles north of Jerusalem that’s endured years of delays he blames on the Israeli occupation. And the ups and downs of his bank balance reflect the money backers in Qatar are willing to devote to the project—a barometer of the faith Gulf investors have in the Middle East peace process. “Rawabi was built knowing today’s politics and the high risks involved,” Masri says, sitting at a desk cluttered with maps and blueprints in the prefabricated building where he manages the development.
The project offers stark evidence of the perils of doing business in the occupied territories. Rawabi was conceived in 2010 as a magnet for upwardly mobile Palestinians eager to leave their dusty villages and crumbling cities. It was expected to take five years and cost $750 million to build, but the opening date has been repeatedly pushed back, and the final price tag is likely to hit $1.4 billion, as Masri says he’s battled Israel over water hookups, links to the electric grid, and access for construction vehicles. While violence in the West Bank and war in Gaza have halted construction on several occasions, the goal is to create something that’s “occupation-proof,” says Masri, 56, a scion of a wealthy Palestinian family. He estimates his investors will sustain a $100 million loss if there’s no progress toward peace but could turn a profit if the two sides reach a resolution. “We are building Rawabi to survive under the current difficult circumstances,” he says. “But obviously we hope for better days.”
Recent admissions by The New York Times and The Washington Post of errors in their coverage of Israel are rare exceptions to the “culture” of anti-Israel bias that permeates both newspapers, media watchdogs say.
The Times admitted April 16 it was wrong not to mention Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti’s five murder convictions in the biographical line of his recent op-ed. In March, the Times acknowledged that an unsigned editorial erred in claiming the U.S. has always viewed Israeli settlement construction as “illegal.”
Meanwhile, The Washington Post April 17 published a rare correction on its op-ed page. The one-paragraph item stated, “The March 28 Richard Cohen op-ed, ‘Will Israel Win the West Bank but Lose its Soul?,’ incorrectly stated that Israel reserves some roads for Jews only. The country closes some roads to virtually all Palestinians, but they are open to all Israeli citizens and to other nationals, regardless of religious background.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaking at a Security Council meeting in New York City, April 12, 2017
A number of Arab states heeded the plea by Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, to focus more in a Middle East debate on the threat posed by Iran than on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Haley, this month the president by rotation of the U.N. Security Council, convened a council session on the Middle East.
“How one chooses to spend one’s time is an indication of one’s priorities,” she said in her opening remarks.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with AFP news agency in Damascus
Israel’s military said on Wednesday it believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces still possess several tonnes of chemical weapons, issuing the assessment two weeks after a chemical attack that killed nearly 90 people in Syria.
Israel, along with many countries, blames the strike on Assad’s military. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said French intelligence services would provide proof of that in the coming days.
A senior Israeli military officer, in a briefing to Israeli reporters, said “a few tonnes of chemical weapons” remained in the hands of Assad’s forces, a military official told Reuters.
United Nations Security Council meeting, April 20, 2017
It’s high time the United Nations Security Council set its sights on Iran, rather than Israel, United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said during the Security Council’s monthly meeting on “the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”
“Every month the Security Council convenes a meeting on the Middle East. We have lots of meetings on specific countries and conflicts in this region but this debate is our opportunity to talk about the Middle East as a whole. Regrettably, these monthly meetings routinely turn into Israel-bashing sessions. That’s the way the Security Council has operated for years. It’s a formula that is absurdly biased against one country. It’s a formula that is painfully narrow in its description of the conflicts in the region,” said Haley, who is this month’s president of the Security Council.
Israeli policemen stand guard at the scene of a Palestinian ramming attack at the Gush Etzion Junction, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem
Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian driver who rammed his car into a bus stop in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday injuring a pedestrian, the army and a hospital spokesman said.
An army statement said the car rammed a bus stop at Gush Etzion Junction, a busy intersection near a cluster of Israeli West Bank settlements, injuring an Israeli civilian. Troops responded by shooting at the driver.
Pictures from the scene showed a car that had collided with the back of a bus standing in a bus stop.
Water-Gen Ltd., an Israeli company whose technology captures humidity in order to make drinking water out of air, is not likely to experience the cash-flow squeeze that afflicts many fast-growing companies.
That’s because Russian-Israeli entrepreneur and billionaire Michael Mirilashvili, who is also the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, bought control of the company last summer, and because it has high-profile advocates. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned it in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” about Israel’s high-tech prowess. At the AIPAC conference last month, Harvard Law professor and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz took the stage to showcase its technology. In September, the company presented its solution at the United Nations.
Not bad for a firm that employs some 30 people, mainly engineers, in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion. It was set up in 2010 by entrepreneur Arye Kohavi, a former combat reconnaissance company commander in the Israeli Army who previously set up a firm that developed e-learning software.
The dates of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Israel—the first trip of its kind by a holder of his office—have been set for July 5-6 as the two countries mark 25 years of diplomatic relations.
While the details of Modi’s itinerary are still being worked out, reports indicate that his visit will focus on building stronger economic, agricultural and hi-tech ties.
According to the Hindustan Times, “Though Israel is among the top four military hardware suppliers to India, with more than $1 billion in annual sales to New Delhi, the Modi government is keen to ensure that this visit is not focused on defense ties alone, but encompasses long term economic and technological cooperation, resulting in a free-trade agreement.”
Author Netzach YisraelPosted on Categories News
