Hamas is holding back the distribution of one million litres of fuel in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations official said on Monday, joining Israeli claims that the Islamists were stage-managing a crisis. However, the official, who requested anonymity, added that the current quantities of fuel and industrial gasoline stored in Gaza are sufficient for only several days.
Israel warned on Thursday it will retaliate against Hamas, blaming the Palestinian Islamist group for a deadly explosion of violence in the Gaza Strip that followed a month of relative calm. Israeli authorities said they temporarily shut down the Nahal Oz fuel terminal following Wednesday’s attack.
Israel’s former president Moshe Katzav was due to appear in court on sexual-harassment charges on Tuesday, becoming the country’s first former head of state to go on trial. The Jerusalem District Court set the hearing after rejecting a postponement request by Katzav’s lawyers, who claim they were not given full access to prosecution documents.
Israeli authorities have decided to distribute gas masks to civilians, starting next year, to prepare for a possible non-conventional weapons’ attack, public radio reported. It said Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced the decision during a closed-door meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and members of his security Cabinet.
Israel has turned away more sick Palestinians from Gaza seeking treatment since Hamas seized control of the enclave and several have died each month unnecessarily. The World Health Organisation said Israel denied entry permits to 18,5% of patients seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in 2007 versus 10% in 2006.
A play about the United States activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed at the age of 23 by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, will be performed for the first time in Israel on Sunday, on the fifth anniversary of her death. The single-actor play My Name Is Rachel Corrie will first be performed in Arabic in Haifa, northern Israel.
The United States is not satisfied with the pace at which Israel is moving to implement a long-stalled peace ”road map”, US and Western officials said ahead of a key meeting to assess compliance with the plan. Officials said Washington also believed the Palestinians needed to do far more to meet their obligations to boost security.
Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have been holding off from violence that could jeopardise Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire, officials from both sides said on Monday. A truce deal may be key to United States-brokered peace efforts and also benefit Hamas Islamists.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire in a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding about 10 in the most lethal attack in Israel in two years, emergency services said. ”It was a slaughterhouse,” said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service.
British humanitarian agencies on Thursday said the situation in the Gaza Strip was the worst in 40 years and urged the European Union to hold talks with Hamas. ”The situation for 1,5-million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than at any time since the beginning of the Israeli military occupation in 1967,” the eight NGOs said in a joint report.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks suspended over an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. Signalling a willingness by Israel to hold fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would not be further attacks on Gaza if Palestinian militants stop rocket salvoes.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes on the Gaza Strip as long as rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory continues. ”The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues,” a senior official quoted the premier as saying.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a Middle East trip on Wednesday after failing to secure a resumption of peace talks as Palestinians insisted on a truce and Israel vowed more strikes on Gaza. Rice met senior Palestinian negotiators and Israeli ministers at the end of a visit aimed at mending peace efforts hobbled by Israeli attacks.
The Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a study by an Israeli psychology professor. Benny Shanon said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.
No image available
/ 29 February 2008
Deputy Israeli Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said on Friday the Palestinians would bring on themselves what he called a ”bigger holocaust” by stepping up rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. ”Holocaust” is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
No image available
/ 13 February 2008
Israel’s Asian restaurants went on a one-day spring-roll strike Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu. The restaurants are angry at government plans to purge Japanese, Chinese and Thai eateries of Asian cooks.
No image available
/ 12 February 2008
Israeli leaders vowed on Monday to step up their war against Hamas and predicted the Islamists’ grip on the Gaza Strip would end within months. Two days after a rocket wounded an Israeli child in a country grown used to barrages that do little damage, Defence Minister Ehud Barak pledged to step up the military campaign.
No image available
/ 11 February 2008
Israel threatened to topple the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers on Monday following a surge of cross-border rocket attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group. ”I believe a combination of steps against Hamas in Gaza will bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Israel’s Vice-Premier, Haim Ramon, told reporters. ”They will not last. It will take a few months.”
No image available
/ 5 February 2008
Israeli police were on a heightened state of alert on Tuesday a day after Palestinian militants carried out the first suicide attack in the Jewish state in a year. ”Our forces have been placed on a heightened state of alert as we fear a wave of terrorist attacks after Monday’s attack in Dimona,” Bertie Ohayon, a senior police officer, told public radio.
No image available
/ 30 January 2008
Blankets of snow brought the Holy City of Jerusalem and other cities across the Middle East grinding to a halt on Wednesday as icy weather gripped the mainly desert region. Snow blocked roads to the Jordanian capital, Amman, and schools, universities and banks were shut in the desert kingdom.
No image available
/ 24 January 2008
Israel wants to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory’s border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005 but still controls its northern and eastern borders.
No image available
/ 16 January 2008
A right-wing party quit Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government on Wednesday, condemning his peace talks with the Palestinians and leaving him even more politically vulnerable. Olmert had his majority in the 120-member Parliament cut from 78 seats to 67 after Yisrael Beiteinu’s defection.
No image available
/ 14 January 2008
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, on Wednesday night refused to rule out further settlement building in East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, highlighting the deep gulf between Israel and the Palestinians that confronts George W Bush on his first visit to Israel and the West Bank as president.
No image available
/ 11 January 2008
The Israeli government said on Friday it endorsed United States President George Bush’s call during his visit for a rapid peace agreement but made clear it does not see the final establishment of a Palestinian state this year. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesperson said that Israel hoped for a ”historic agreement” in 2008.
No image available
/ 10 January 2008
Embarking on his first visit to Jerusalem as United States President, George Bush pressed Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday to seize what he called an historic opportunity and make tough concessions for peace. Defying sceptics who doubt he can deliver on a pledge to seek a deal on a Palestinian state before he leaves office in a year, Bush said he was ”very hopeful”.
Snipers patrolling rooftops, streets and entire city blocks sealed off and thousands of police and soldiers on duty — Israel and the Palestinian Authority are going on full alert for United States President George Bush’s visit. For weeks, Israeli and Palestinian officials have grappled with how to ensure the safety of the leader of the world’s sole superpower.
No image available
/ 26 December 2007
Israel and the Palestinians head into 2008 pledging to seal an ever-elusive peace deal by the end of the year, but with their revived negotiations off to a rocky start. The talks held since the two sides relaunched the Middle East peace process after a nearly seven-year hiatus have been overshadowed by expansion of Israeli settlements.
No image available
/ 11 December 2007
An Israeli judge has ordered the country’s prison authority to pay an inmate over 000 in compensation after he complained of having to share a cell with cockroaches. Mordechai Yehudai filed a lawsuit complaining of poor hygiene, a lack of fresh air, broken windows and inmates who smoke in a handful of cells, a spokesperson for the Israel Prisons Service said.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
Senior Israeli officials warned on Friday that they were still considering a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh United States intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. Although Israel says it wants strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral attack.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
Israeli archaeologists said on Wednesday they have unearthed a palace complex dating back to the first century AD in an Arab neighbourhood just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. Archaeologists discovered a structure that is ”relatively big in size and subdivided into main halls”, said Doron Ben-Ami, the project director.
No image available
/ 4 December 2007
Israel said on Tuesday it believed that Iran had restarted its atomic-weapons programme and that a United States-backed campaign to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions must continue despite a US report it had halted the work. ”It is vital to pursue efforts to prevent Iran from developing a capability like this,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
Israel’s top court has upheld a government decision to reduce the Gaza Strip’s fuel imports, but postponed planned electricity cuts to the Hamas-ruled territory, Israeli officials said on Friday. Israel began reducing the amount of fuel oil, diesel and petrol allowed into Gaza last month as part of economic sanctions.