The Israeli government was looking on Wednesday to accelerate its preparations for the pull-out from the Gaza Strip as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon voiced concern about the state of readiness. Sharon was chairing a meeting of a committee specially formed to prepare for the pull-out.
Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi said on Tuesday he feels ”true anguish” for an ultra-Orthodox teen who was abducted and beaten after striking up a relationship with the cleric’s daughter, but pinned the blame for the growing scandal on his wayward son. Rabbi Shlomo Amar was to be questioned by police on Tuesday.
Israel’s military intelligence chief praised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday for his efforts to disarm militants, countering claims by the government, which has frozen plans to transfer responsibility for security. ”There is determined activity on his part in terms of his aims and intentions,” General Aharon Zeevi said.
Israel stepped up security measures on Friday ahead of the Jewish Passover festival, sealing off the Palestinian territories, as an opinion poll shows that most settlers will not oppose the Gaza pull-out. The entire West Bank was closed off until Sunday in a bid to avert the threat of attacks during Israel’s most popular holiday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave a strong indication on Monday that he will delay the withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip to avoid clashing with a Jewish mourning period. Sharon said: ”I think a decision will be taken tomorrow [Tuesday] during a meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee” that is coordinating the withdrawal.
Israel was piling pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to end rocket attacks by militant groups in the Gaza Strip ahead of a summit on Monday between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and United States President George Bush in Texas. A flare-up of violence over the weekend brought tensions between the two sides to a high point.
Thousands of Israeli police have been deployed in Jerusalem’s old city for Muslim Friday prayers amid fears Palestinian anger would erupt over a planned gathering of Jewish extremists at a holy site. Palestinian groups warned Israelis that any extremist action around the compound at the meeting in two days time would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
Israeli police sought to counter the increasingly virulent tactics of extremists opposed to the Gaza Strip pullout on Thursday by beefing up intelligence and banning a protest due to be held in Jerusalem’s disputed mosque compound. Meanwhile, the supreme court was also hearing petitions which argued the whole pull-out is illegal.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas expressed satisfaction on Wednesday after United States President George Bush warned Israel against expanding any of its settlements in the occupied territories. Bush warned Israel that there could be ”no expansion” of settlements in Palestinian territories under the US-backed road map to Middle East peace.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday stepped up pressure on opposition MPs to back his 2005 Budget, which Parliament must pass within two weeks or the government will collapse, jeopardising his planned Gaza evacuation. The 2005 state Budget has been touted as the last political chance for staunch opponents to scupper Sharon’s plan to quit Gaza.
Leaders and dignitaries from about 40 countries were in Jerusalem on Tuesday to attend the opening of a -million Holocaust museum that focuses on the personal tragedies of the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi genocide. The new Holocaust History Museum at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem memorial took 10 years to complete.
Israel insisted on Monday that Syria is to blame for a Tel Aviv suicide attack as a car packed with explosives was discovered in the West Bank, casting a shadow over efforts to forge peace in the Middle East. Israeli intelligence briefed European Union ambassadors on its alleged involvement in Friday’s bombing.
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/ 28 February 2005
Israel looked set on Monday for a U-turn by deciding not to destroy the homes of settlers due to be uprooted from Gaza, as a special unit was established to combat extremist violence threatening the pull-out. Meanwhile, in the fallout from Friday’s suicide attack in Tel Aviv, Israeli officials briefed European Union ambassadors on Syria’s alleged involvement.
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/ 21 February 2005
Settlers vowed on Monday they will not allow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to drag Israel towards ”disaster” after the historic vote to leave the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of Palestinians were released from prison. ”The disaster that Sharon plans on bringing on to Israel is immoral for human beings,” said a settlers’ spokesperson.
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/ 17 February 2005
Your chewing gum has just lost its flavour, but there is no garbage can in sight. What do you do? According to Jewish law, get ready to swallow it. A prominent Israeli rabbi has ruled that spitting gum on a sidewalk or hiding it under a desk is a violation of Halacha or Jewish law.
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/ 10 February 2005
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signalled in a newspaper interview on Thursday that he is ready to release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners involved in deadly attacks — a key Palestinian demand and significant Israeli concession — if militants hold their fire during Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this summer.
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/ 5 February 2005
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are to hold their first summit this week in Egypt, the highest-level talks between the two sides for more than four years. There is growing international pressure to secure a comprehensive ceasefire by Palestinian armed groups and an Israeli commitment to curtail its attacks.
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/ 28 January 2005
The Israeli army’s chief of staff, General Moshe Yaalon, ordered on Friday an end to ”offensive operations” in the Gaza Strip after the deployment of thousands of Palestinians security forces in the territory. Yaalon also said that targeted killing operations of militants in the West Bank will only be carried out with his own authorisation.
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/ 26 January 2005
Israel and the Palestinian Authority resumed diplomatic contacts on Wednesday, after a two-week freeze, and Israel agreed to suspend targeted killings of Palestinian militants — two more steps toward a ceasefire and a resumption of peace talks.
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/ 18 January 2005
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with army chiefs in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and was briefed on plans to put a halt to rocket attacks by Palestinians, officials said. ”We must make the strongest possible effort to prevent the firing [of Qassams and mortars] at Israeli communities,” Sharon told troops in Gaza.
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/ 16 January 2005
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday gave his army orders to crush militants in the Gaza Strip as the Palestine Liberation Organisation called for an end to attacks that ”harm the national interest”. ”The current situation is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue,” Sharon said.
Time of crisis for new Palestine leader
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/ 12 January 2005
Rebels in Ariel Sharon’s Likud Party declared on Wednesday that they will support his 2005 Budget, giving the prime minister a temporary lift in his efforts to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The 13 rebels, who oppose the withdrawal, were threatening to vote against Sharon’s Budget in a parliamentary vote later in the day.
An off-duty soldier on Monday called on fellow troops to disobey orders to tear down structures during a violent confrontation at an unauthorised West Bank settlement — a sign of trouble ahead when Israel’s government orders evacuation of entire settlements in the summer. The incident on Monday was the first of its kind, according to the military.
Hundreds of Israeli settlers danced, sang and studied Jewish texts in the rain outside Parliament on Monday in a sit-in against government plans to dismantle settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. The protest was part of a mass campaign by settlers against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza ”disengagement plan”.
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/ 29 December 2004
Two Israeli grandmothers, one 78 and the other 60, were arrested after scrapping with a grocer and his elderly mother in a bungled robbery attempt, the Maariv newspaper said on Sunday. The grannies were spotted on closed-circuit television cameras making two sweeps around the area in Lod, near Tel Aviv.
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/ 23 December 2004
A 12-strong group of nationalist Israeli MPs have signed a petition promising to obstruct physically the ”immoral” evacuation of settlers from their homes in the Gaza Strip, Parliament sources said on Thursday. The petition was drawn up by National Religious Party leader Effi Eitam, who quit Ariel Sharon’s government in June.
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/ 22 December 2004
British Prime Minister Tony Blair pursued his quest to bring peace to the Middle East on Wednesday, unveiling plans for a conference to help prepare the Palestinians for statehood after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Meanwhile, opposition to the Gaza pull-out is gathering steam among the settlers.
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/ 20 December 2004
Leading Jewish settlers were meeting on Monday to decide whether to call for civil disobedience in protest at Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and isolated settlements in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has all but signed a deal that will enable him to evacuate settlers from Gaza and the West Bank by the end of 2005.
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/ 10 December 2004
Although Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will embrace Blair as a ”great friend” of Israel when Blair arrives for the two-day visit on December 21. Israel is increasingly wary that British Prime Minister Tony Blair will use his impending visit to force the pace of the peace process.
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/ 7 December 2004
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was trying on Tuesday to rally support for a reshaped coalition to implement his planned pull-out from Gaza, where two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in a new wave of violence. While enjoying high public approval ratings, Sharon is unable to rely on the loyalty of his party members.
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/ 22 November 2004
Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank will be able to use the compensation they receive from Israel to build homes in other West Bank settlements, the director of the agency responsible for evacuating settlers said last week. ”They are free people — they can go where they want. They can go to Canada, Jerusalem or any of the settlements in the West Bank,” he said.
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/ 18 November 2004
Israeli troops killed three Egyptian police officers mistaken for Palestinian militants along the Gaza-Egypt border early on Thursday, in what the army called a ”professional and operational” mishap. Israel immediately apologised and opened an investigation into the incident, which threatens to increase tensions between the two countries.