Israel security - Page 12

TEL AVIV – A Palestinian Liberation Organization official slammed President Donald Trump’s alleged plan to formally renounce the Palestinian “right of return” for millions of refugees and their descendants to Israel on Sunday, describing it as “worthless nonsense.”

JERUSALEM – The newly appointed head of the PLO Commission of Prisoners vowed to continue ensuring that terrorists and their families receive a monthly stipend.

TEL AVIV – Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday re-floated a controversial idea to transfer jurisdiction of certain Arab-Israeli towns to a future Palestinian state. 

JERUSALEM — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser says there’s no timetable for releasing the administration’s much-anticipated Mideast peace plan.

TEL AVIV – Over half a million Israelis are now eligible to receive gun licenses after authorities significantly eased regulations with the stated aim of combating terror.  Any Israeli who has completed level 07 rifle training in the military, which includes

Incendiary balloons from Gaza sparked two fires in southern Israel on Sunday, firefighters said. One blaze erupted near Kibbutz Or Haner while the second spread in the Be’eri forest.

Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs “top the list” of shared global concerns U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton will broach on his current visit to Israel.

The head of the Shin Bet security agency has warned cabinet ministers that excluding the Palestinian Authority from a long-term ceasefire deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip will send a message that terrorism is rewarded, Israeli television reported Thursday.

TEL AVIV – The Shin Bet security agency on Wednesday flatly denied a claim made by American-Iranian author and former CNN host Reza Aslan, who said he was detained and threatened by security agents at a border crossing and told he might not see his children for a long time.

A key coalition ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday harshly criticized any deal for a long-term ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, adding that ministers in his party will oppose it.

TEL AVIV – Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned that Israel’s next round of conflict with the Hamas terror group was a “matter of when, not if,” ahead of a meeting between senior defense officials to discuss easing up on restrictions imposed on the Gaza Strip following mortar and rocket fire. 

TEL AVIV – Israel could oust the Gaza-ruling Hamas, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Sunday as a report emerged that the terror group’s leaders were in the IDF’s crosshairs.

The military has field-tested a new fighting method combining infantry, tanks and combat engineering into one unified force, as part of a major military reform meant to streamline the Israel Defense Forces, the army said Sunday.

The Israeli navy fired warning shots at a flotilla that set sail from a Gaza Strip port on Saturday in the latest attempt to breach the maritime blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt on the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

Wrapping up a four-hour meeting on Gaza, Israel’s high-level security cabinet on Thursday instructed the military to “continue acting forcefully” against terror groups in the Strip, amid an intense flare-up in violence over the last day that saw the worst exchange of fire since the 2014 war.

WASHINGTON — The United States condemned the Hamas terror group on Thursday for launching some 180 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli population centers and defended Israel’s military response in the worst exchange of fire since the 2014 war.

After two days that saw the worst exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas since the 2014 war, a fragile truce prevailed Friday in Gaza, with no rocket attacks or airstrikes since an apparent ceasefire went into effect at midnight.

The Israeli Air Force on Thursday evening destroyed a building in the northern Gaza Strip, which reportedly served as a headquarters for the Hamas terrorist group, hours after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave struck just outside the southern city of Beersheba.

TEL AVIV – Following a barrage of more than 180 rockets, the IDF issued directives to residents of southern Israel on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, instructing them to close down summer camps and stay near bomb shelters. 

TEL AVIV – Moments after a Palestinian official from the Gaza Strip declared the end of violence early Thursday afternoon, a fresh barrage of rockets was launched at southern Israeli towns.

Hamas said Wednesday it was treating Egypt’s efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire “with an open mind,” as a delegation from the terror group reportedly left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Border Crossing for meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

With rockets falling on Sderot and snipers firing from Gaza on civilians, the security cabinet was scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss a possible five-year truce with Hamas.

The Israel Air Force retaliated by striking targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening after 19 people were treated for injuries resulting form rocket attacks from Gaza against southern Israel.

TEL AVIV – The Israel Air Force on Tuesday appointed the first female head of a flight squadron.

A senior Hamas member signaled the terror group was optimistic regarding efforts to broker a ceasefire with Israel Tuesday, saying talks on an agreement would likely wrap up by the end of August.

TEL AVIV – The Shin Bet security agency on Monday confirmed it had questioned two American leftwing activists, including former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders Simone Zimmerman, at the border between Israel and Egypt on Sunday night.

The Security Cabinet discussed the proposed ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza for five hours on Sunday. During the meeting, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot briefed the ministers on the situation in the strip.

TEL AVIV – Former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders Simone Zimmerman was detained for questioning by the Shin Bet security agency at the border between Israel and Egypt for three hours on Sunday night.

Hamas said on Sunday it was “disgusted” by the stance its rivals in Fatah have taken toward Egyptian and UN efforts to end the crisis in the Gaza Strip, and charged Fatah with wanting Gaza to remain under siege and shelling.

TEL AVIV – Incendiary balloons flown over the Gaza border sparked more than 40 fires in southern Israel over the weekend, the most since Hamas declared a ceasefire last month. 

IAF aircraft attacked two cells launching incendiary balloons toward Israel from Gaza on Saturday afternoon. So far, no injuries have been reported.

TEL AVIV – The IDF on Tuesday released a video showing Israel’s raid on Syria in May that destroyed more than 50 Iranian targets in the most extensive military strike in the country since 1974.

The Israeli military says it targeted and killed seven “armed terror operatives” who had crossed into Israeli territory in the southern Golan Heights.

Israel reimposed a blockade on fuel deliveries to Gaza on Thursday citing a resurgence in kites carrying firebombs over the border and signalling a brief pause in tensions may be ending.

Twenty-nine fires erupted in Israeli communities ‎near the Gaza Strip border Tuesday, as Palestinian ‎arson terrorism continued to wreak havoc near the ‎volatile frontier. ‎

A group of “highly active” hackers based in Iran have been found to be trying to steal vital information from governments in the Middle East.