Deborah Brand - Page 21

A Sharia court run by the ruling Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip ruled Monday that women need to request the permission of a male guardian, often her father and sometimes her own son, to travel, sparking an outcry from Palestinians and human rights groups ahead of planned elections later this year.

Out of half a million Israelis who have received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, only 544 people were diagnosed with the coronavirus — four of whom were severe cases — amounting to a 93 percent efficacy rate, an Israeli healthcare provider said.

The Biden administration has issued an ultimatum saying that if American planes are not allowed to fly emergency planes to Israel, Israeli planes will not be allowed to land in the US, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported Saturday.

The November killing of the mastermind behind the Iranian nuclear program was carried out using a one-ton gun smuggled into Iran in separate pieces by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to a report by The Jewish Chronicle on Wednesday.

The Golan Heights will always belong to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s failure to endorse the Trump administration’s 2019 recognition of the zone.

Iran’s intelligence minister warned Tuesday his country would pursue nuclear weapons if sanctions on Tehran are not lifted, directly contravening the regime’s longstanding official stance that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

An Iranian cleric on Tuesday warned against approaching people who have been vaccinated for COVID-19, claiming the vaccine has turned them into homosexuals.

United Nations nuclear inspectors have found traces of undeclared radioactive material at Iranian nuclear sites that could indicate work on nuclear weapons, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal story citing diplomats briefed on the matter.

Israel on Sunday condemned the International Criminal Court after it ruled The Hague has jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation against Israel for alleged war crimes.

Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, together with the former envoys to the U.S. and Israel were nominated on Sunday for a Nobel Peace Prize by attorney Alan Dershowitz for spearheading the normalization deals between Israel and several Arab countries.

Iran’s military spokesperson on Wednesday warned the “slightest mistake” on Israel’s part would compel his country to “level Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

Israel’s military chief on Tuesday warned President Joe Biden against reentering the 2015 nuclear deal, even with modified terms, and added he had ordered his forces to lay the groundwork for strikes against Iran.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on Wednesday criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to improve U.S. ties with the Palestinians, listing a host of reasons opposing the move, including corruption and incitement against Jews.

Israel’s military chief on Tuesday warned Iran’s uranium enrichment of up to 20 percent purity could mean the country was “months, maybe even weeks” away from obtaining the bomb.

The Palestinian leadership’s claim Israel is preventing the Palestinians from accessing coronavirus vaccines is a “false and grotesque” blood libel, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. and U.N. Gilad Erdan told the Security Council on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden has appointed former anti-Israel activist Maher Bitar, who was also heavily involved in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, to the role of senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council.

President Joe Biden plans to reopen the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington shuttered by the Trump administration as well as reinstate U.S. aid to the Palestinians, acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Israel has seen a 60 percent drop in hospitalizations for people aged 60 and over in the three weeks after receiving the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine, an Israeli healthcare provider has shown, and only 0.015 percent of people were infected with the coronavirus in the week after receiving their second shot.

Israel this week announced it has opened its embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), four months after the two countries signed the historic normalization deal brokered by the Trump administration.

In a bid to combat the spread of coronavirus, Israel on Monday approved a week-long closure of the country’s airport.  The country also expanded its velocious vaccination drive on Sunday to include 16- to 18-year-olds.

The Biden administration’s rumored appointment of former national security official Robert Malley as special envoy to Iran has sparked an outcry, with critics saying the move would only benefit the ayatollahs and would send a “chilling signal” that the new American administration does not care about Tehran’s regional terror nor its human rights infractions.

January marked Israel’s deadliest month of the coronavirus outbreak so far, with 998 deaths, according to numbers released by the Health Ministry.

If President Joe Biden reenters the Iran deal, it could trigger a crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, an Israeli television report citing “a very senior Israeli official” said Wednesday.

The Palestinian leadership on Wednesday briefly congratulated Joe Biden on his inauguration, but its main focus was hailing the departure of “bully” Donald Trump. While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated Biden with a terse statement saying he looked forward

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his inauguration, but urged the new president to continue what his predecessor, Donald Trump, had started, both in forging peace deals between Israel and Arab countries and in confronting Iran.

The official Twitter account of the U.S. Embassy in Israel changed its name following the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris from “U.S. Ambassador to Israel” to “U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza” — but changed it back hours later.

As President Donald Trump leaves office ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday, here’s another look at 12 foreign policies the outgoing president did for Israel that helped reshape the Middle East.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, and Mauritania were in the final stages of closing a normalization deal with Israel, but time ran out as Donald Trump’s presidency drew to a close, two U.S. officials told The Times of Israel this week.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday hailed the end of “tyrant” President Donald Trump’s “ominous reign,” which, he claimed, caused problems for the whole world.

Iran is producing half a kilo of uranium enriched  to 20 percent purity per day, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Monday, constituting a clear violation of the 2015 nuclear accords.

n Iranian-American businessman has been sentenced by a Tehran court to 10 years in jail for spying, NBC news reported, in what the newspaper said could jeopardize president-elect Joe Biden’s plans for diplomacy with the Islamic Republic.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday hailed President Donald Trump’s envoy to Israel David Friedman, saying “there was never a better ambassador.”

France’s Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian on Saturday warned Iran aimed to acquire nuclear weapons and blamed President Donald Trump for allowing it to happen.

The Biden administration has already unrolled its plan to return to the 2015 nuclear deal and has begun holding quiet talks with Iran, an Israeli TV station reported Saturday.

Israel’s national water carrier Mekorot will sign a deal in the coming days to provide Bahrain with desalination technology, possibly marking the first of many similar agreements between the Jewish state and Gulf countries following the U.S.-brokered normalization accords.

Iran has started work on uranium fuel for a research reactor in the capital of Tehran, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, constituting the latest violation of the nuclear deal.