Israel security - Page 15

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities have foiled over 200 Palestinian attacks by monitoring social media and sifting through vast amounts of data to identify prospective assailants ahead of time, according to Israel’s public security minister.

The military kicked off a surprise exercise in the Golan Heights on Sunday, calling up reservists amid ongoing tensions over Iran’s presence in nearby Syria.

Sappers detonated an improvised explosive device found near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday, police said. Border police manning a station just outside the tomb noticed the suspicious device and immediately cleared the area and summoned the sappers.

TEL AVIV – Israel has requested intervention from the UN Security Council, saying that the Hamas terror group is working with Hezbollah to establish missile factories and training camps in southern Lebanon.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza leader of the Hamas terror group’s political bureau, said Thursday that Palestinian protesters will “bring down the walls” surrounding the Strip during mass demonstrations expected on the border Friday.

The Israeli military is preparing for massive riots along the Gaza security fence on Friday afternoon, potentially on par with violent clashes that took place on May 14, in which tens of thousands of people participated and some 60 Palestinians were killed, a senior army officer said Thursday.

Israel’s navy successfully completed a complex training program last week led by a flotilla of missile boats, including both defensive and offensive attacks at sea, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced Wednesday.

The latest plan by Iran to expand its nuclear enrichment capacity was aimed squarely at producing nuclear weapons to be used against Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned.

President Reuven Rivlin urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday to speak out against the incendiary kites coming from Gaza and attempts to infiltrate Israel from the strip.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Shin Bet security service says it has uncovered a plot to target Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

TEL AVIV – Whatever will they come up with next? Gazan rioters have added a creative new weapon to their arsenal. Instead of attack kites, young Palestinians have adopted another child’s toy to spread fires on Israeli soil: helium balloons. 

TEL AVIV – Gazan preschoolers at a school backed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group recently held a graduation ceremony in which the children brandished toy machine guns as they acted out the execution of an Israeli solider and the kidnapping of a Israeli civilian.

The UK’s permanent representative at the UN Security Council  has condemned repeated mortar and rocket attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel.

Israeli troops thwarted an attempted car-ramming attack Saturday in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, the army said.

NATO is not obliged to come to the aid of partner Israel if Iran attacks, secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg revealed, amid rising tensions between the Middle East rivals.

TEL AVIV – The IDF released additional information on the more than 65 sites it targeted in the Gaza Strip in response to the 100 rockets and mortars launched from terrorist groups there, saying the targets included weapons manufacturing facilities and a stash of unmanned submarines that Hamas was preparing to use for attacks on Israeli naval targets and underwater infrastructure.

Israel is holding “advanced talks” with Russia on a potential withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria, Hadashot TV news reported Thursday.

Australia has demanded assurances from the Palestinian Authority that Aus­tralian aid has not funded payments to terrorist “martyrs” or their families.

Israel plans to act against Iran anywhere in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, as Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman prepared to fly to Moscow for talks about removing the Islamic Republic and its proxy armies from the war-torn country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israel’s military had delivered the “harshest blow” in years to Gaza terrorist groups, which he said are inspired by Iran, in his first comments on the most serious flare-up since the 2014 war.

TEL AVIV – The IDF on Tuesday destroyed what it said was a “unique” Hamas attack tunnel that extended some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) into both Israeli and Egyptian territory.

TEL AVIV – Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas blamed his most recent hospitalization on President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the subsequent opening of the U.S. embassy there earlier this month.

TEL AVIV – Of the more than 70 mortars and rockets fired into Israel from Gaza-based terror groups on Tuesday, several were made in Iran and smuggled into the coastal enclave, the army said.

The UN Security Council is expected to meet in emergency session Wednesday to discuss continuing Palestinian terrorist rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Tuesday condemned the Gazan attack on Israel that began in the early hours and continued through the evening.

One of the rockets fired by terrorist groups from Gaza at southern Israel Tuesday struck equipment that provides electricity to the southern Gaza Strip, knocking out power to thousands, a spokesperson for Israel’s Electric Company said.

The Israeli military struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in response to an early morning barrage of at least 28 mortar shells from Gaza at communities in southern Israel, with the Hamas terror group identifying one of the targets as its training facility.

More than two dozen mortar shells were fired at southern Israel in at least three separate barrages Tuesday morning as sirens blared throughout the area, the army said, amid heightened tensions along the Gaza border.

Israel and Russia have reached a secret agreement to distance Iranian forces from the border area in southern Syria, Israeli TV reported Monday, as Jerusalem and Moscow sent differing messages regarding the extent of their tolerance for Iran’s military presence in that country.

TEL AVIV – An explosives-laden drone flown over from the Gaza Strip was found in Israeli territory last week, the IDF said Sunday.

TEL AVIV – Three hundred “attack” kites have been flown over from Gaza into Israel over the past month and a half, sparking some 100 fires and millions of shekels of damages to local farmers.

An Israeli tank fired on an Islamic Jihad position in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, killing three people, after Palestinians planted an explosive device along the security fence in the latest exchange along the restive border, the army said.

TEL AVIV – Four Palestinians hurled firebombs and breached the border fence from Gaza into Israel on Saturday morning, the IDF reported. 

Israel has notified Russia of its decision to expand its “red lines”—as it pertains to operations against Iran in Syria—to the entirety of its northern neighbor’s territory rather than just the southern portion of the country as it had so far, the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported Saturday evening.

Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected two petitions against the Israeli army’s use of live ammunition last week to quell a Gaza protest, in which 59 Palestinians died.

Israeli aircraft carried out a series of strikes against Hamas positions in the southern Gaza Strip late Saturday night, following a border breach earlier in the day, the army said.