Examples of continuous Israeli harassment/murder of Palestinians
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The Living Force
November 18, 2018 - Netanyahu in Political showdown to avoid early Israeli Election
Netanyahu in political showdown to avoid early Israeli election | Reuters
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem October 28, 2018. Oded Balilty/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would make a last-ditch effort on Sunday to avoid the collapse of a coalition government weakened by the resignation of his defense minister.
With political pundits predicting an early election in March, Netanyahu, head of the right-wing Likud party, was to meet later in the day with his finance minister, who is leading a charge within the coalition toward a snap poll.
The minister, Moshe Kahlon of the center-right Kulanu party, will urge Netanyahu to set an election date promptly, Kulanu officials said.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s resignation, announced on Wednesday over what he described as the government’s lenient policy toward an upsurge of cross-border violence with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, left the government with a majority of only one seat in parliament.
That put the fate of Netanyahu’s coalition at the mercy of any of its partners, who have seen the four-term prime minister’s popularity take a rare hit in an opinion poll that showed Israelis were unhappy with him over Gaza.
Netanyahu described his planned meeting with Kahlon as “a last attempt to prevent the collapse of the government”.
Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said it would be “unnecessary and wrong to go to an election during this sensitive period for our security”.
ROCKETS, AIR RAIDS
Kahlon said on Hadashot TV news on Saturday that it was impossible to run a coalition with control of just 61 of parliament’s 120 seats.
Kahlon’s call was echoed by members of the nationalist Jewish Home whose head, Naftali Bennett, asked to succeed Lieberman as defense chief but was turned down by Netanyahu on Friday.
On Sunday, Israeli media reports said Netanyahu was now prepared to offer Bennett the post in a bid to keep Jewish Home in the coalition.
Such a move, the unconfirmed reports said, would also be aimed at forcing Kahlon to consider the risks to his own party, which also courts nationalist voters, in being portrayed as the main factor behind the collapse of a rightist government.
A poll published on Wednesday by Hadashot showed Likud falling from 30 to 29 parliamentary seats after months of polls that have shown it gaining power.
Only 17 percent of respondents were happy with Netanyahu’s policy toward Gaza, where he agreed to a ceasefire - dubbed by Lieberman as “surrender” - after militants from its ruling Hamas group launched almost 500 rockets into Israel on Monday and Tuesday and Israel carried out dozens of air raids.
Netanyahu’s re-election chances could also be affected by a series of corruption cases against him in which Israel’s attorney-general is weighing his indictment.
An election would complicate promised moves by the United States toward reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts that collapsed in 2014. The Trump administration has said it would unveil a peace plan soon.
Sun Nov 18, 2018 - Dozens of Israeli Settlers Break into Al-Aqsa Mosque
Farsnews
Dozens of Jewish settlers accompanied by Israeli security units forced their way into Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, according to local sources.
WAFA reported that the extremist Israeli settlers and students of Talmudic yeshivas broke into the holy mosque in groups, under heavy protection from Israeli police.
In late 2015, repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Jewish settlers and Israeli security personnel sparked months-long tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
2018-11-13 - Turkey is First in Calling For an End to Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza
Turkey is First in Calling For an End to Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza - Eurasia Future
Turkey leads the world in condemning Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza
While the leaders of the Arab world fell silent and with no statements from Washington forthcoming, the Turkish government has been the first to openly call for an end to Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza that have resulted in the deaths of multiple Palestinians in less than 48 hours. President Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has stated,
To understand the significance of Turkey’s ever strengthening solidarity with Palestine and Israel’s increasingly consecrated anti-Turkish alliance in the region, one must understand how recent events in this respect have been unfolding.
Israel’s geopolitical moves against Turkey
Formed in 2015, the fledgling Craiova Group is a partnership between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania aimed at fostering deeper cooperation between the four south-eastern European nations. While the group has generally been far less notable in terms of its aims and accomplishments vis-a-vis the Three Seas Initiative linking Baltic eastern and central Europe with the European nations of south-east, this month the Craiova Group came into its own as the official organization which will carry out Israel’s attempt to isolate Turkey in the wider eastern Mediterranean region.
On the 2nd of November, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu took part in a Craiova Group summit in Varna, Bulgaria. There, Netanyahu said,
At present, Ankara and Nicosia are in the midst of a heated row regarding rights to offshore gas fields in the waters off the island of Cyprus. At present, while there is no realistic plan for Nicosia to militarily enter the Turkish North of the divided island, Nicosia is opposed to Turkish plans to begin extracting gas in the waters off of the disputed territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (aka Northern Cyprus). To put it another way, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the government in Nicosia clearly cares about controlling the waters off of Cyprus more than it cares about controlling the island’s total landmass.
But far from being just a new chapter in the age old Hellenic-Turkish disputes of the region, this particular conflict is also being driven by Israel whose government is keen to see Tel Aviv, Nicosia and Athens work jointly on an East Med pipeline that excludes Turkey while at the same time impinging on offshore territory that Turkey claims it has an inalienable right to exploit. Now, Israel looks to bolster these plans which have already seen Egypt pivoting ever closer to Tel Aviv and Nicosia by also drawing Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania into the project.
When one remembers that during the ultimately brief Turkish-Israeli rapprochement of 2016, there were talks of a joint gas project between Tel Aviv and Ankara, the underpinnings of the present conflict become all the more clear.
To understand the background of the severe downgrade in Turko-Israeli relations that has now become a rivalry for energy supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean, it is important to understand the following that was originally published in Eurasia Future in May of this year:
—
The Turkish government has just announced the effective expulsion of Eitan Na’eh, Israel’s Ambassador to Ankara. According to the Daily Sabah,
From healthy relations to the ultimate strain
Of course, Turkey was the first Muslim majority nation to recognise Israel and prior to recent decades, Ankara and Tel Aviv have had a generally healthy relationship. This dramatically changed in 2010 when Israeli commandos illegally boarded the MV Mavi Marmara in international waters. The MV Mavi Marmara was a privately chartered Turkish flagged ship carrying mostly Turkish activists on their way to Gaza in order to deliver much needed humanitarian supplies to besieged Palestinians. The gruesome raid killed ten Turks and resulted in the lowest ebb in Ankara-Tel Aviv relations until now.
Pipeline politics no more
The incident resulted in the expulsion of Tel Aviv’s ambassador to Ankara and a formal downgrading in relations. In 2016, the two sides reconciled, primarily out of pragmatic motives. At the time, both Israel and Turkey hoped to jointly participate in a pipeline that would transport gas from northern Iraq through Turkey and into Israel.
However, since then, the plans for such Turkey to Israel East Mediterranean pipeline have stalled. Instead, Tel Aviv has pivoted closer to Turkey’s regional rival Egypt (which has said next to nothing about Palestine in recent days), while most importantly there is now talk of an EU sponsored East Mediterranean pipeline between Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Italy.
According to the pro-Brussels New Europe,
“The EastMed gas pipeline would circumvent Turkey, which has increased tensions with Cyprus, Greece and Israel recently, providing a way to transport newly discovered gas supplies from the East Mediterranean to Europe. The talks in Nicosia in May follow a memorandum of understanding regarding the EastMed pipeline, which was signed in December.
According to the Public Gas Corporation of Greece (DEPA), the EastMed will connect the recently discovered gas fields in the Levantine Basin, in the southeast Mediterranean, with mainland Greece and is projected to carry 8-14 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to Greece and Europe.
According to DEPA, the approximately 1900 kilometer long pipeline (700 kilometers on-shore, 1200 off-shore) consists of the three following main sections, as well as compressor stations located in Cyprus and Crete: a pipeline from the fields to Cyprus, a pipeline connecting Cyprus to Crete, and a pipeline from Crete crossing mainland Greece up to the Ionian coast.
From there the EastMed can link up with the offshore Poseidon pipeline enabling the delivery of additional diversified sources from the Levantine to Italy and beyond. The EastMed pipeline is preliminarily designed to have exit points in Cyprus, Crete, and mainland Greece as well as the connection point with the Poseidon pipeline”.
The deal to create such a pipeline was sealed in December of 2017 while glowing reports from pro-EU media touted the deal as a means of allowing Europe to decrease its dependence on Russian gas while also offering Israel a chance to swap Turkey for EU partners. As Turkey’s long paralytic bid to join the EU is now de-facto over, both Europe and Israel’s cooperation over a new East Mediterranean gas pipeline has the effect of drawing Russia and Turkey into an even closer partnership than the one they are currently in.
At the moment the Turkstream pipeline designed to bring Russian gas into Europe via Turkey is a major joint project between Moscow and Ankara. Now, both the EU and Israel are looking to challenge this route with a pipeline of their own in a similar region. In reality, there is enough demand for gas in Europe and Israel to mean that both pipelines can coexist, but the geopolitical optics are clear enough. Tel Aviv has joined forces with the most anti-Ankara states in the EU in order to cut Turkey out of Israel’s future.
The importance of Turkey’s Soft Power in the Sunni Muslim world
President Erdogan has already proved himself to be the ‘Sultan of Soft Power’ in the wider Sunni Muslim world. Without clear leadership from Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Qatar and with Saddam’s always controversial Iraqi government long out of power, Erdogan has positioned himself as a champion for Palestine not only in Turkey and the Sunni Arab world but beyond. Because of this, one should never underestimate how far Turkey will take its support of Palestine vis-a-vis Tel Aviv, not least because the more Erdogan voices his opinions in support of Palestine, the more he is respected and supported both in Turkey and far beyond.
Israel supporting Turkey’s main rivals
Because Israel has taken clear moves away from Turkey and towards its hated Hellenic rivals, officials in Ankara who in the past may have been hesitant to sever ties with Tel Aviv because of economic considerations may now be much closer to doing so. Israel’s intensifying military cooperation with both Greece and Cyprus are a further sign that when it comes to Turkey, Tel Aviv is doing everything in its power to replace its once healthy Turkish partnership with that of countries with notoriously poor and always heated relations with Ankara.
Then there is the issue of Kurdish ethno-nationalism in both Syria and Iraq. Uniquely in the world, the United States and Israel are supporters of Kurdish separatism both in northern Syria and northern Iraq. President Erdogan has already made it clear that this is one of several red lines that Israel can cross in respect of maintaining even semi-normal relations. During the attempted illegal Kurdish succession from Iraq in the autumn of 2017, Erdogan posed the following rhetorical statements to Kurdish secessionists in Iraq,
Finally, it is not only in the Middle East and Mediterranean where Israel has taken up common positions with Turkey’s adversaries. In the United States, the powerful Israel lobby has joined forces with the comparatively smaller but still influential US based Hellenic and Armenian lobbies to protest the sale of US made F-35 jets to Ankara. While the move ultimately failed, it demonstrated that unlike in the past where the US Jewish lobby did not try to antagonize Turkey, in 2018, it is willing to team up with lobbies whose primary objective is to promote grievances against Turkey.
Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising that Gilad Erdan, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud faction has called for Tel Aviv to recognize the events of 1915 as an “Armenian Genocide”. If Israel were to officially to do this, it would represent a clear break between Tel Aviv and Ankara and quite possibly a point of no return. The more Turkey stands up for Palestine, the more voices like those of Erdan will become amplified in arguing for a move that is less about Armenia (a traditionally anti-Zionist nation) than about sending a clear message to Turkey that the partnership has run its course.
—
To summarize the background to the current conflict: after it became clear that plans for a joint Turko-Israeli gas project fell through, Tel Aviv pivoted its regional gas ambitions to Turkey’s main regional adversaries including and especially those in Nicosia and Athens. At the same time, as it became clear that President Erdogan was not going to back down in his support for Palestine, Tel Aviv began strengthening its military contacts with Nicosia, Athens and even Cairo. Simultaneous to this, statements from Israeli on supporting a YPG/PKK led Kurdish insurgency in Syria became ever more pronounced while in the United States, the influential Israel lobby teamed up with the traditionally anti-Turkish Hellenic, Armenian and Kurdish lobbies in an effort to stall delivery of American made (and partly Turkish designed) F-35 fighter jets to Ankara.
Now in addition to taking the side of Cairo and more overtly taking the side of Nicosia in their offshore gas disputes with Ankara, Israel is now looking to draw Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania into this wider anti-Turkish alliance.
Part of the worry is that while for Israel and the Hellenic states of Europe the anti-Turkish endgame of the East Med Pipeline and the simultaneous strengthening of military ties is an overt strategy, for Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia (a nation with rapidly improving ties with Turkey) there is a danger of being suckered into a geopolitically fractious conflict when neutrality would best serve the interests of Belgrade, Sofia and Bucharest. Thus, there is a real possibility that under the cunning leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, “#nokebab” might transform from a racist online trend into the formal foreign policy of countries that stand to gain little by antagonising Turkey.
Netanyahu in political showdown to avoid early Israeli election | Reuters
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem October 28, 2018. Oded Balilty/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would make a last-ditch effort on Sunday to avoid the collapse of a coalition government weakened by the resignation of his defense minister.
With political pundits predicting an early election in March, Netanyahu, head of the right-wing Likud party, was to meet later in the day with his finance minister, who is leading a charge within the coalition toward a snap poll.
The minister, Moshe Kahlon of the center-right Kulanu party, will urge Netanyahu to set an election date promptly, Kulanu officials said.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s resignation, announced on Wednesday over what he described as the government’s lenient policy toward an upsurge of cross-border violence with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, left the government with a majority of only one seat in parliament.
That put the fate of Netanyahu’s coalition at the mercy of any of its partners, who have seen the four-term prime minister’s popularity take a rare hit in an opinion poll that showed Israelis were unhappy with him over Gaza.
Netanyahu described his planned meeting with Kahlon as “a last attempt to prevent the collapse of the government”.
Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said it would be “unnecessary and wrong to go to an election during this sensitive period for our security”.
ROCKETS, AIR RAIDS
Kahlon said on Hadashot TV news on Saturday that it was impossible to run a coalition with control of just 61 of parliament’s 120 seats.
Kahlon’s call was echoed by members of the nationalist Jewish Home whose head, Naftali Bennett, asked to succeed Lieberman as defense chief but was turned down by Netanyahu on Friday.
On Sunday, Israeli media reports said Netanyahu was now prepared to offer Bennett the post in a bid to keep Jewish Home in the coalition.
Such a move, the unconfirmed reports said, would also be aimed at forcing Kahlon to consider the risks to his own party, which also courts nationalist voters, in being portrayed as the main factor behind the collapse of a rightist government.
A poll published on Wednesday by Hadashot showed Likud falling from 30 to 29 parliamentary seats after months of polls that have shown it gaining power.
Only 17 percent of respondents were happy with Netanyahu’s policy toward Gaza, where he agreed to a ceasefire - dubbed by Lieberman as “surrender” - after militants from its ruling Hamas group launched almost 500 rockets into Israel on Monday and Tuesday and Israel carried out dozens of air raids.
Netanyahu’s re-election chances could also be affected by a series of corruption cases against him in which Israel’s attorney-general is weighing his indictment.
An election would complicate promised moves by the United States toward reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts that collapsed in 2014. The Trump administration has said it would unveil a peace plan soon.
Sun Nov 18, 2018 - Dozens of Israeli Settlers Break into Al-Aqsa Mosque
Farsnews
Dozens of Jewish settlers accompanied by Israeli security units forced their way into Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, according to local sources.
WAFA reported that the extremist Israeli settlers and students of Talmudic yeshivas broke into the holy mosque in groups, under heavy protection from Israeli police.
In late 2015, repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Jewish settlers and Israeli security personnel sparked months-long tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
2018-11-13 - Turkey is First in Calling For an End to Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza
Turkey is First in Calling For an End to Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza - Eurasia Future
Turkey leads the world in condemning Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza
While the leaders of the Arab world fell silent and with no statements from Washington forthcoming, the Turkish government has been the first to openly call for an end to Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza that have resulted in the deaths of multiple Palestinians in less than 48 hours. President Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has stated,
“These attacks have once more shown Israel’s unlawful, tyrant and occupant stance. These attacks on the Gazan people should be immediately stopped. The international community, which has kept silent over Israeli attacks, should take responsibility and act”.
Recent years have seen Turkey intensify its pro-Palestinian rhetoric while at the same time, Tel Aviv has consolidated an anti-Turkish alliance in the eastern Mediterranean. Simultaneous to these developments has been the elevation of Turkey’s prestige in Palestine and in Gaza in particular where civilians facing a consummate humanitarian crisis have found that while the capitals of the Arab world turn their collective backs on Palestine, Ankara is the place from whence strong condemnation of aggression against Gaza is derived.To understand the significance of Turkey’s ever strengthening solidarity with Palestine and Israel’s increasingly consecrated anti-Turkish alliance in the region, one must understand how recent events in this respect have been unfolding.
Israel’s geopolitical moves against Turkey
Formed in 2015, the fledgling Craiova Group is a partnership between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania aimed at fostering deeper cooperation between the four south-eastern European nations. While the group has generally been far less notable in terms of its aims and accomplishments vis-a-vis the Three Seas Initiative linking Baltic eastern and central Europe with the European nations of south-east, this month the Craiova Group came into its own as the official organization which will carry out Israel’s attempt to isolate Turkey in the wider eastern Mediterranean region.
On the 2nd of November, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu took part in a Craiova Group summit in Varna, Bulgaria. There, Netanyahu said,
“I am here at the summit of four countries – Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Romania.This is the first time that they have invited a leader outside these four countries to participate in their summit. This is a great honor for Israel and reflects Israel’s rising status in the world.
Each one of the leaders has individually told me that they will try to improve their consideration of Israel in relevant votes both at the EU and the UN. They all want to promote the gas pipeline from Leviathan to Europe and the Balkans.They are also very interested in Israeli gas and Israeli technology, and they would very much like Israel’s friendship. This is a good sign”.
Netanyahu also discussed making the Craiova Group integral to Tel Aviv’s plans to construct the East Med Pipeline, a joint Israeli-Hellenic project that will see a gas pipeline travelling from disputed Israeli waters through to disputed Cypriot waters and finally into mainland Europe via The Hellenic Republic. But while Netanyahu’s speech talked about unity against the supposed threat of Islam which clearly played to the sentiments of many in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania where the racist anti-Turkish/anti-Muslim hashtag “#nokebab” has become a cultural phenomenon, the pipeline alliance that Israel is trying to secure is clearly aimed at boxing Turkey into a corner in its own territorial waters.Each one of the leaders has individually told me that they will try to improve their consideration of Israel in relevant votes both at the EU and the UN. They all want to promote the gas pipeline from Leviathan to Europe and the Balkans.They are also very interested in Israeli gas and Israeli technology, and they would very much like Israel’s friendship. This is a good sign”.
At present, Ankara and Nicosia are in the midst of a heated row regarding rights to offshore gas fields in the waters off the island of Cyprus. At present, while there is no realistic plan for Nicosia to militarily enter the Turkish North of the divided island, Nicosia is opposed to Turkish plans to begin extracting gas in the waters off of the disputed territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (aka Northern Cyprus). To put it another way, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the government in Nicosia clearly cares about controlling the waters off of Cyprus more than it cares about controlling the island’s total landmass.
But far from being just a new chapter in the age old Hellenic-Turkish disputes of the region, this particular conflict is also being driven by Israel whose government is keen to see Tel Aviv, Nicosia and Athens work jointly on an East Med pipeline that excludes Turkey while at the same time impinging on offshore territory that Turkey claims it has an inalienable right to exploit. Now, Israel looks to bolster these plans which have already seen Egypt pivoting ever closer to Tel Aviv and Nicosia by also drawing Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania into the project.
When one remembers that during the ultimately brief Turkish-Israeli rapprochement of 2016, there were talks of a joint gas project between Tel Aviv and Ankara, the underpinnings of the present conflict become all the more clear.
To understand the background of the severe downgrade in Turko-Israeli relations that has now become a rivalry for energy supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean, it is important to understand the following that was originally published in Eurasia Future in May of this year:
—
The Turkish government has just announced the effective expulsion of Eitan Na’eh, Israel’s Ambassador to Ankara. According to the Daily Sabah,
“Na’eh was asked to leave Turkey indefinitely by the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs following the Israeli bloodshed and his tweets”.
The move comes as Erdogan has openly challenged other nations that have formal relations with the occupier entity to question whether such relations are beneficial to the Muslim world. The clear targets of Erdogan’s challenge are President Sisi’s Egypt – Turkey’s hated East Mediterranean rival, a waffling Jordanian monarchy and Turkey’s pro-FETO (Gulenist) Albanian nemesis in the western Balkans.From healthy relations to the ultimate strain
Of course, Turkey was the first Muslim majority nation to recognise Israel and prior to recent decades, Ankara and Tel Aviv have had a generally healthy relationship. This dramatically changed in 2010 when Israeli commandos illegally boarded the MV Mavi Marmara in international waters. The MV Mavi Marmara was a privately chartered Turkish flagged ship carrying mostly Turkish activists on their way to Gaza in order to deliver much needed humanitarian supplies to besieged Palestinians. The gruesome raid killed ten Turks and resulted in the lowest ebb in Ankara-Tel Aviv relations until now.
Pipeline politics no more
The incident resulted in the expulsion of Tel Aviv’s ambassador to Ankara and a formal downgrading in relations. In 2016, the two sides reconciled, primarily out of pragmatic motives. At the time, both Israel and Turkey hoped to jointly participate in a pipeline that would transport gas from northern Iraq through Turkey and into Israel.
However, since then, the plans for such Turkey to Israel East Mediterranean pipeline have stalled. Instead, Tel Aviv has pivoted closer to Turkey’s regional rival Egypt (which has said next to nothing about Palestine in recent days), while most importantly there is now talk of an EU sponsored East Mediterranean pipeline between Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Italy.
According to the pro-Brussels New Europe,
“The EastMed gas pipeline would circumvent Turkey, which has increased tensions with Cyprus, Greece and Israel recently, providing a way to transport newly discovered gas supplies from the East Mediterranean to Europe. The talks in Nicosia in May follow a memorandum of understanding regarding the EastMed pipeline, which was signed in December.
According to the Public Gas Corporation of Greece (DEPA), the EastMed will connect the recently discovered gas fields in the Levantine Basin, in the southeast Mediterranean, with mainland Greece and is projected to carry 8-14 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to Greece and Europe.
According to DEPA, the approximately 1900 kilometer long pipeline (700 kilometers on-shore, 1200 off-shore) consists of the three following main sections, as well as compressor stations located in Cyprus and Crete: a pipeline from the fields to Cyprus, a pipeline connecting Cyprus to Crete, and a pipeline from Crete crossing mainland Greece up to the Ionian coast.
From there the EastMed can link up with the offshore Poseidon pipeline enabling the delivery of additional diversified sources from the Levantine to Italy and beyond. The EastMed pipeline is preliminarily designed to have exit points in Cyprus, Crete, and mainland Greece as well as the connection point with the Poseidon pipeline”.
The deal to create such a pipeline was sealed in December of 2017 while glowing reports from pro-EU media touted the deal as a means of allowing Europe to decrease its dependence on Russian gas while also offering Israel a chance to swap Turkey for EU partners. As Turkey’s long paralytic bid to join the EU is now de-facto over, both Europe and Israel’s cooperation over a new East Mediterranean gas pipeline has the effect of drawing Russia and Turkey into an even closer partnership than the one they are currently in.
At the moment the Turkstream pipeline designed to bring Russian gas into Europe via Turkey is a major joint project between Moscow and Ankara. Now, both the EU and Israel are looking to challenge this route with a pipeline of their own in a similar region. In reality, there is enough demand for gas in Europe and Israel to mean that both pipelines can coexist, but the geopolitical optics are clear enough. Tel Aviv has joined forces with the most anti-Ankara states in the EU in order to cut Turkey out of Israel’s future.
The importance of Turkey’s Soft Power in the Sunni Muslim world
President Erdogan has already proved himself to be the ‘Sultan of Soft Power’ in the wider Sunni Muslim world. Without clear leadership from Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Qatar and with Saddam’s always controversial Iraqi government long out of power, Erdogan has positioned himself as a champion for Palestine not only in Turkey and the Sunni Arab world but beyond. Because of this, one should never underestimate how far Turkey will take its support of Palestine vis-a-vis Tel Aviv, not least because the more Erdogan voices his opinions in support of Palestine, the more he is respected and supported both in Turkey and far beyond.
Israel supporting Turkey’s main rivals
Because Israel has taken clear moves away from Turkey and towards its hated Hellenic rivals, officials in Ankara who in the past may have been hesitant to sever ties with Tel Aviv because of economic considerations may now be much closer to doing so. Israel’s intensifying military cooperation with both Greece and Cyprus are a further sign that when it comes to Turkey, Tel Aviv is doing everything in its power to replace its once healthy Turkish partnership with that of countries with notoriously poor and always heated relations with Ankara.
Then there is the issue of Kurdish ethno-nationalism in both Syria and Iraq. Uniquely in the world, the United States and Israel are supporters of Kurdish separatism both in northern Syria and northern Iraq. President Erdogan has already made it clear that this is one of several red lines that Israel can cross in respect of maintaining even semi-normal relations. During the attempted illegal Kurdish succession from Iraq in the autumn of 2017, Erdogan posed the following rhetorical statements to Kurdish secessionists in Iraq,
“Who will recognize your independence? Israel. The world is not about Israel?…
…“You should know that the waving of Israeli flags there will not save you!”
Traditional Anti-Turkish lobbies in the US team up with the American Jewish lobby…“You should know that the waving of Israeli flags there will not save you!”
Finally, it is not only in the Middle East and Mediterranean where Israel has taken up common positions with Turkey’s adversaries. In the United States, the powerful Israel lobby has joined forces with the comparatively smaller but still influential US based Hellenic and Armenian lobbies to protest the sale of US made F-35 jets to Ankara. While the move ultimately failed, it demonstrated that unlike in the past where the US Jewish lobby did not try to antagonize Turkey, in 2018, it is willing to team up with lobbies whose primary objective is to promote grievances against Turkey.
Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising that Gilad Erdan, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud faction has called for Tel Aviv to recognize the events of 1915 as an “Armenian Genocide”. If Israel were to officially to do this, it would represent a clear break between Tel Aviv and Ankara and quite possibly a point of no return. The more Turkey stands up for Palestine, the more voices like those of Erdan will become amplified in arguing for a move that is less about Armenia (a traditionally anti-Zionist nation) than about sending a clear message to Turkey that the partnership has run its course.
—
To summarize the background to the current conflict: after it became clear that plans for a joint Turko-Israeli gas project fell through, Tel Aviv pivoted its regional gas ambitions to Turkey’s main regional adversaries including and especially those in Nicosia and Athens. At the same time, as it became clear that President Erdogan was not going to back down in his support for Palestine, Tel Aviv began strengthening its military contacts with Nicosia, Athens and even Cairo. Simultaneous to this, statements from Israeli on supporting a YPG/PKK led Kurdish insurgency in Syria became ever more pronounced while in the United States, the influential Israel lobby teamed up with the traditionally anti-Turkish Hellenic, Armenian and Kurdish lobbies in an effort to stall delivery of American made (and partly Turkish designed) F-35 fighter jets to Ankara.
Now in addition to taking the side of Cairo and more overtly taking the side of Nicosia in their offshore gas disputes with Ankara, Israel is now looking to draw Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania into this wider anti-Turkish alliance.
Part of the worry is that while for Israel and the Hellenic states of Europe the anti-Turkish endgame of the East Med Pipeline and the simultaneous strengthening of military ties is an overt strategy, for Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia (a nation with rapidly improving ties with Turkey) there is a danger of being suckered into a geopolitically fractious conflict when neutrality would best serve the interests of Belgrade, Sofia and Bucharest. Thus, there is a real possibility that under the cunning leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, “#nokebab” might transform from a racist online trend into the formal foreign policy of countries that stand to gain little by antagonising Turkey.
Decisive UN Resolution Vote Condemning Israel Occupying Golan Heights
18 November 2018
Islamic World News Analysis Group: On Friday UN resolution voted supporting Syrian authority over Golan heights in which only Israel and USA voted against.
Most of Golan height in despite of resolution 350 is occupied by Israel.
USA being angry with the result, not being able to submit lawful evidences, opposing the voting by “it is biased against Israel and Syrian government is not qualified”.
While most of Golan inhabitants are Druze and emphasized on authority of Syrian government and declined Israel occupancy, some violent confrontation happened between them and Zionist forces.
Palestinians continue to protest along the Gaza border, demanding their right of the return to the lands and to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. #Gaza #GreatMarchOfReturn
PressTV-EU academic body votes to boycott Israel universities
Fri Nov 23, 2018 07:10AM
The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) has approved with an overwhelming majority a motion to boycott Israeli academic institutions that are based in the West Bank.
The EASA voted in favor of the motion in an online poll "in overwhelming numbers to express their solidarity with colleagues in occupied Palestinian territories," the body reported on its website on Friday.
As many as 830 participants supported the move in the poll, while only 21 voted against it, and 37 abstained.
The motion had been presented at the body's annual general meeting in Stockholm in August when it received 164 votes in favor, and zero against.
It argues that the institutions solely serve the Israelis, something that warrants the EASA's "non-cooperation."
The motion also seeks "to express its solidarity with Palestinian academics and students suffering the brunt of these discriminatory policies as well as with the Israeli colleagues of the Israeli Sociological Association and Israeli Anthropological Association, who oppose the same policies."
The EASA's Israeli counterpart, the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA), thanked the European body for the support after the meeting.
The IAA had itself decided in June to refuse cooperation with the three institutions of higher education in the illegal settlements built across the West Bank, namely Ariel University, Orot College, and Herzog College.
Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) had passed a law in February, forcing the institutions out of the authority of a body managing higher education in the West Bank and making "the Israel Council for Higher Education" responsible for their affairs.
Matan Peleg, the CEO of the right-wing Zionist Im Tirtzu organization, however, called the IAA’s praise for the European body a “disgrace,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
“While decision-makers and Israeli universities invest resources and effort to combat the international BDS movement, they ignore the fact that the ‘BDS from within’ phenomenon is occurring under their noses," Peleg said.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations to initiate “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.” The movement has attracted considerable support among many international bodies, especially NGO's.
“Only this week, we were reminded of the harmful effects that ‘BDS from within’ has on Israel,” added Peleg, referring to the recent move by home-renting company Airbnb, which removed its rental listings in the West Bank.
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Friday morning kidnapped three Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their boat off the northern coast of the besieged Gaza Strip.
A local committee documenting Israeli violations against Gaza fishermen said that an Israeli naval force kidnapped the fishermen, Mohamed al-Sultan, 27, Yousef Saadallah, 35, and Ahmed Saadallah, 25.
The committee added that Israeli gunboats intensively opened fire at the boat the fishermen were aboard off the shores of al-Sudaniya area in northern Gaza before rounding them up and towing their boat to an Israeli port.
Israeli gunboats are around Gaza fishermen almost every day, harassing them, shooting at them, damaging their boats, and making arrests. Sometimes fishermen are injured or killed during gunfire attacks.
Under the 1993 Oslo accords, Palestinian fishermen are permitted to fish up to 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, but since then Israel has kept reducing the fishing area gradually to a limit of three nautical miles as part of its blockade on Gaza.
Fishermen and human rights groups also say that, since the 2008-09 war in Gaza, the Israeli army has been regularly enforcing a limit even closer to the shore.
There are more than 230 settlements across the West Bank, which Israel occupied during a war in 1967. The structures are considered to be illegal under the international law on grounds that they have been constructed on occupied land.
Netanyahu stated that anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism in a video sent to Vienna after he cancelled his participation in a conference. I guess too many people have been logically drawing a line of separation between these two.
In the process, he called the ongoing genocide committed by Israel in Palestine, and a bloody destabilisation of other nations by proxy wars, the Jewish "right to self-determination". At least that's how I understood the part where he said "vicious efforts to demonize the Jewish state and deny the Jewish people the right to self determination" are a "new form of anti-Semitism."
Bibi is a real craftsman when it comes to using euphemisms and lies. Oh, how I dislike him.
Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism says Netanyahu in Vienna conference
Israeli academics and artists warn against equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
In the process, he called the ongoing genocide committed by Israel in Palestine, and a bloody destabilisation of other nations by proxy wars, the Jewish "right to self-determination". At least that's how I understood the part where he said "vicious efforts to demonize the Jewish state and deny the Jewish people the right to self determination" are a "new form of anti-Semitism."
Bibi is a real craftsman when it comes to using euphemisms and lies. Oh, how I dislike him.
Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism says Netanyahu in Vienna conference
Israeli academics and artists warn against equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
There was Haley not going out with a bang after US-sponsored anti-Hamas draft fails at UNGA which included:
Aljazeera had a picture with the details of who voted for and against the resolution: UN rejects US-drafted resolution to condemn Hamas
A new European Union declaration could make it harder to criticize Israel as a racist state without being dubbed an anti-Semite.
Politicians in Brussels on Thursday rubber-stamped the document.
The declaration asks all EU governments to “endorse the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism employed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.”
The move, passed by EU member states’ home affairs ministers, has already been condemned by a number of Israeli and French academics.
The declaration was spearheaded by Austria, whose coalition government includes ministers who are members of a neo-Nazi party.
The EU meeting that formally adopted the declaration on Thursday included several ministers from a number of right-wing parties which have encouraged anti-Jewish bigotry.
Austria’s interior minister Herbert Kickl was one of them.
He is from the Freedom Party, an anti-Muslim organization led by neo-Nazi Heinz-Christian Strache (now the vice-chancellor of Austria).
Kickl was accused of Nazi language in January, when he called for authorities “to concentrate asylum seekers in one place.”
His language seemed deliberately calculated to invoke the Holocaust – albeit this time primarily targeting Muslim asylum seekers.
Bogus definition
As long reported by The Electronic Intifada, the IHRA “working definition” was conceived as a powerful, Israel-backed method to stifle criticism of the state and its crimes against Palestinians.
Israel and its lobby groups have been laying on immense pressure all over Europe in the last two years for it to be adopted.
The “working definition” has been condemned by numerous Palestinian trade unions and other civil society groups, as well as by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK and trade unions from all over Europe.
As the website EUobserver reported last week, Israeli embassies routinely “refer to the IHRA definition” when they file formal diplomatic complaints against EU criticisms of Israeli war crimes in Palestine. Such criticisms are toothless, considering that the EU often enables Israel’s crimes.
In the UK, Israel lobby groups successfully pressured the opposition Labour Party to adopt the “working definition.”
But even that was not enough, and a great media stink was made about the party’s initial reluctance to adopt all the accompanying “examples” that that IHRA’s document claims are anti-Semitic.
Several of these 11 “examples” mention Israel.
One even mischaracterizes the simple act of stating the fact that Israel is an institutionally racist state – “a racist endeavor” in IHRA parlance – as an example of “anti-Semitism.”
Austria has already endorsed the “working definition” and, as EUobserver reported, its coalition government led the push for the declaration.
Austrian neo-Nazis
Currently holding the EU’s rotating presidency, Austria had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take part in a Vienna conference last month.
The declaration approved by the EU was drafted during that conference, which targeted anti-Zionism. Netanyahu had agreed to attend the conference but canceled because of instability in his coalition government.
Austria wanted an even more extreme version, and one of its earlier drafts called on EU states to adopt the definition “including illustrating examples.”
This was taken out of the final declaration, which describes the definition as “non-legally binding.”
This disingenuous phrase is used in the IHRA document itself. In reality though, the definition is constantly used to police speech critical of Israel.
Events this year in the UK’s Labour Party illustrate that more than ever.
As part of the years-long, manufactured anti-Semitism “crisis” engineered by critics of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Israel lobby groups demanded the party also adopt the IHRA’s 11 “examples” of anti-Semitism.
Labour’s ruling national executive capitulated to this pressure in September. But that has only encouraged the witch-hunters, who continue trying to punish elected representatives critical of Israel.
Media hysteria over the “crisis” has led to a witch hunt targeting left-wing and pro-Palestinian Labour activists.
The hysteria has spilled over from the Labour Party to wider society.
The “working definition” is now being used to push people out of their jobs.
Suspended for calling Israel racist
Paul Jonson, an employee of Dudley Council near Birmingham, was suspended from his job in October after he helped organize a protest against a local member of parliament Ian Austin – an outspoken promoter of Israeli propaganda.
What was Jonson’s “crime”? Posting on Facebook the phrase “stand with Palestine, Israel is a racist endeavor” as part of his promotion of the protest.
A campaigner with local Palestine solidarity groups, Jonson told The Electronic Intifada that council bosses have cited the IHRA “working definition” – which the local authority has adopted – as justification for his suspension.
The council’s chief executive told a local paper in October that Jonson was under investigation.
Jonson told The Electronic Intifada that the paper’s headline about his “suspension” was the first he’d heard of it.
Up until then, managers had assured him he was not suspended, and they were only making preliminary discussions about a complaint received from the Campaign Against Antisemitism – a misleadingly titled anti-Palestinian propaganda group.
He says that up until then, he’d only been told to “refrain from work until further notice.”
But the same day the story was leaked to the press, managers brought him in for another meeting and then suspended him.
Jonson suspects Ian Austin was behind the complaint. The MP is a patron of the group which lodged it.
Local trade unionists have called for Jonson to be reinstated, as has the left-wing group Jewish Voice for Labour.
A petition calling for his reinstatement has now gathered more than 600 signatures.
angelburst29
The Living Force
08/12/2018 - Netanyahu briefs Putin on anti-tunnel operation on Lebanese Border - Kremlin
Netanyahu briefs Putin on anti-tunnel operation on Lebanese border - Kremlin
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Israel's crackdown along its border with Lebanon on tunnels it said were dug by Hezbollah, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
Netanyahu said this week that the tunnels were meant for use by Hezbollah fighters to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon and carry out attacks. The Israeli military sent mechanical diggers, troops and anti-tunneling equipment to the border to shut them down.
During their phone call, initiated by Netanyahu, "The President of Russia stressed the importance of ensuring stability in the region," the Kremlin statement said.
spokesman for Netanyahu had no immediate comment. Given Russia's powerful position with Hezbollah's allies in neighbouring Syria, Israel may be seeking Russian understanding for its latest moves against the Shi'ite group.
Russia has lent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad critical support in the Syrian civil war. Lebanese Hezbollah is also aiding Assad, as is its backer Iran.
Israel has largely stayed out of the Syria conflict, but it has launched dozens of air strikes against what it said were advanced weapon deliveries to Hezbollah, with whom it fought a war in 2006.
Israel is worried that Iran, its arch-foe in the region, is using the Syria conflict to entrench its forces in Syria permanently and has vowed to stop Tehran from doing so.
The relationship between Russia and Israel has been strained since September, when Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing the downing of a Russian military jet by Syrian air defences following an Israeli air strike nearby.
In October, Moscow said it had delivered S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria, where Israel has struck Iranian targets.
The United Nations peacekeeping Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) confirmed the existence of a tunnel near the "blue line" frontier between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday, describing it as a "serious occurrence".
So far the Israel-Lebanon border has remained quiet but there are fears of escalation. On Friday, an Israeli cabinet minister said Israel was prepared to take action in Lebanon against the cross-border tunnels if it deemed it necessary.
08/12/2018 - Israel says fired at Hezbollah operatives on Lebanon Border
Israel says fired at Hezbollah operatives on Lebanon border
Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border opened fire at suspected Hezbollah activists on Saturday, the military said, the first such incident since Israel launched a crackdown on cross-border tunnels into its territory.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, however, said the Israeli soldiers shot into the air when they saw a Lebanese army patrol near the border demarcation, known as the "Blue Line".
There were no reports of casualties.
Israel said the suspects approached an area on the Israeli side of the border where its forces were carrying out an operation to shut down tunnels that were dug across the border by Hezbollah.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters that three civilian-dressed individuals identified as Hezbollah operatives tried to use the heavy fog and rain in the area "to approach and interfere with, or to take, sensors" that had been deployed there by the army.
But Lebanon gave a different account of the incident. "Israeli enemy soldiers shot into the air following their deployment near the Blue Line in Kroum al-Sharaqi region to the east of Meis al-Jabal village," NNA said.
The Israelis "were surprised, due to thick fog, by a routine Lebanese army patrol inside the Lebanese territories," it added.
Israel's military said on Tuesday it had found passages dug across the Israel-Lebanon border to be used for carrying out attacks inside Israel. It sent mechanical diggers, troops and anti-tunneling equipment there to shut them down.
The situation has so far remained calm on both sides of the border. But the Israeli operation has brought renewed attention to a frontier across which Israel and the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.
The Israeli military has said its activity would, for now, stop on the Israeli side of the border. But a cabinet minister said on Friday that Israel was prepared to take action in Lebanon against cross-border tunnels if deemed necessary.
December 09, 2018 - Gazans defy violent response to their attempts to end Israeli blockade
Gazans defy violent response to their attempts to end Israeli blockade
Residents of besieged strip defy violent response to their attempts to end long-standing blockade.
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Palestinian factions have not shied away from using financial incentives to ensure wide participation in the protests. (AFP)
For eight months in a row, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been taking part in weekly protests along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel and sustaining serious injuries in lopsided confrontations with Israeli army soldiers.
Doctors Without Borders now says the extremely large number of people in need of treatment for bullet wounds has overwhelmed the territory’s healthcare system.
The international humanitarian organization said this week that most of the 3,000 people it has treated since March were shot in the legs, with about a quarter suffering from infections that, if left untreated, could lead to lifelong disabilities or limb amputations.
For 28-year-old Mohammed Yassin, the casualties are not mere numbers. As someone who was shot in the arm while taking part in protests in eastern Gaza’s Al-Zaytoun, a neighbourhood adjoining the security fence separating the Hamas- ruled territory from Israel, he stands to bene t personally if medical-aid groups tend to those local hospitals cannot adequately treat.
On a recent morning, Yassin stood in a queue outside a medical centre in Gaza operated by an international humanitarian organization waiting for his turn to consult doctors. He said he feared his arm may have to be amputated due to the lack of specialised treatment in the territory, which has been continuously under an Israeli blockade since 2007 when Hamas seized control after a violent power struggle with Fatah.
The Great March of Return movement, as the weekly protests are called, was born when tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza began confronting Israeli soldiers on March 30, called Land Day by Palestinians, which coincided with the annual commemoration of the founding of the state of Israel.
Since that day, Palestinians from across the social spectrum, living in poverty and isolation in the besieged coastal enclave, have been marching after prayers every Friday towards the heavily fortied border, braving the Israeli army’s live rounds, rubber-coated metal bullets and tear-gas salvos. Along the way, women and children started joining the young men, who are often armed with slings and stones.
Israel has responded with an iron fist, but the confrontations have continued unabated. In November, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, agreed to a transfer of Qatari cash totalling $15 million into Gaza as part of a deal apparently aimed at persuading Hamas to end the protests in exchange for Israel easing its blockade.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has given warning time and again of its inability to cope with the high number of casualties owing to a shortage of medicine and supplies.
The latest figures provided by the ministry put the total number of Palestinian deaths since March 30 at more than 200, including 37 children, and the number of wounded at 22,267. Of the latter, 46.3 percent have suffered injuries caused by live rounds red by Israel.
Yassin, the man with the injured arm, says his condition could improve with treatment abroad, but he is unable to travel through the Rafah crossing, the only connection for Gaza’s two million inhabitants to the outside world via Egypt. He told Arab News he rejected an opportunity for amputation at the local facility of the international organization where he is currently being treated.
Looking to the future, Yassin hopes to save his injured arm, take care of his family and live a full life. But that will take a great deal of effort and determination given that he has lost his job, which earned him about 30 shekels ($8) a day and was enabling him and his wife to raise a family of four little children.
Still, Yassin is fortunate compared with hundreds of other young men, one of them being Mohammed Al-Issawi. The 23-year-old has been injured four times in course of the border protests: shot in various places on his body - once in the leg while taking part in protests east of Al-Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza - and struck by a tear-gas canister.
Even so, Al-Issawi, who shares his home with 13 other family members, says he has no regrets about taking part in the protests that have taken such a high toll on his health. “God has not written martyrdom for me yet,” he told Arab News, his words reflecting resilience and resignation in equal measure. Protest movements in Palestine usually start o as spontaneous uprisings but tend to get co-opted by political factions with the passage of time. For what is presumably a mix of self-interest and cost control, the West Bank-based Palestinian
Authority, dominated by the secular Fatah, has ruled that the casualties of the Great March clashes will not come under the purview of a body called Institution of the Martyrs and the Wounded, making their families ineligible for monthly cash assistance.
However, other Palestinian factions have not shied away from using financial incentives to ensure wide participation in the protests. For instance, Hamas, Fatah’s Islamist rival, has been giving $500 to the family of each victim of Israeli shooting and $200 to each of the wounded. But Al-Issawi, who is unemployed, dismisses the idea that his participation in the protests is motivated by pecuniary advantage. “I will wait for my treatment to be completed so that I can go back to join my friends at the border until the siege is broken,” he told Arab News.
Al-Issawi’s denial is echoed by Youssef Barakat, who has injuries in his left leg. The 23-year-old Palestinian, who is single and lives with his family of 10, says he has not received any compensation since he suffered a gunshot wound while taking part in the Nakba Day demonstrations of May 14 in an area east of Gaza’s Al-Bureij refugee camp.
“We see no option of getting rid of the siege and the impoverishment,” Barakat says stoically, “other than by continuing to confront the enemy.” But more patients with bullet wounds would spell trouble for Gaza’s authorities when the existing caseload of injuries and trauma is already far larger than its network of hospitals, eld medical units and primary health-carecentres can handle. Suheir Zaqout, ICRC spokesperson in Gaza, told Arab News that although doctors in Gaza try their best to save lives and minimise loss of limbs, the waiting list of people seeking treatment for serious injuries keeps getting longer.
For his part, Munir Al-Bursh, who heads the Gaza health ministry’s pharmacy department, said gunshot injuries caused by Israeli snipers are complicated because of their severity. The snipers have killed about 170 people and wounded thousands more, according to reports. The survivors require a large number of surgeries, which tax the skills of even the best medical specialists in the territory, Al-Bursh told Arab News.
The low-intensity border conflict has left many residents of Gaza stuck between despair and hope. Many dream of leaving Gaza and starting life anew somewhere else. At age 24, Mahmoud Quzat has been left with permanent disability since being struck in his right leg by live rounds during protests in Shajaiya, a neighbourhood east of Gaza City, on August 3. “If I had the money, I would migrate to find a secure and stable place,” he told Arab News.
Anxiety and fear of being condemned to a life of unending tension or being reduced to just a statistic in a struggle that has de ed a lasting solution, that, too, in a region rife with brutal wars and humanitarian crises, has yet to dampen Palestinians’ determination to end the Israeli blockade.
Even as he contemplates a better future that looks elusive to most Gazans, Quzat expresses no remorse about his continued involvement in the weekly protests near the border fence. “What do we have to lose?” he says philosophically. “We have already lost half of our lives to 12 years of siege and division.”
Netanyahu briefs Putin on anti-tunnel operation on Lebanese border - Kremlin
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Israel's crackdown along its border with Lebanon on tunnels it said were dug by Hezbollah, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
Netanyahu said this week that the tunnels were meant for use by Hezbollah fighters to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon and carry out attacks. The Israeli military sent mechanical diggers, troops and anti-tunneling equipment to the border to shut them down.
During their phone call, initiated by Netanyahu, "The President of Russia stressed the importance of ensuring stability in the region," the Kremlin statement said.
spokesman for Netanyahu had no immediate comment. Given Russia's powerful position with Hezbollah's allies in neighbouring Syria, Israel may be seeking Russian understanding for its latest moves against the Shi'ite group.
Russia has lent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad critical support in the Syrian civil war. Lebanese Hezbollah is also aiding Assad, as is its backer Iran.
Israel has largely stayed out of the Syria conflict, but it has launched dozens of air strikes against what it said were advanced weapon deliveries to Hezbollah, with whom it fought a war in 2006.
Israel is worried that Iran, its arch-foe in the region, is using the Syria conflict to entrench its forces in Syria permanently and has vowed to stop Tehran from doing so.
The relationship between Russia and Israel has been strained since September, when Russia accused Israel of indirectly causing the downing of a Russian military jet by Syrian air defences following an Israeli air strike nearby.
In October, Moscow said it had delivered S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria, where Israel has struck Iranian targets.
The United Nations peacekeeping Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) confirmed the existence of a tunnel near the "blue line" frontier between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday, describing it as a "serious occurrence".
So far the Israel-Lebanon border has remained quiet but there are fears of escalation. On Friday, an Israeli cabinet minister said Israel was prepared to take action in Lebanon against the cross-border tunnels if it deemed it necessary.
08/12/2018 - Israel says fired at Hezbollah operatives on Lebanon Border
Israel says fired at Hezbollah operatives on Lebanon border
Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border opened fire at suspected Hezbollah activists on Saturday, the military said, the first such incident since Israel launched a crackdown on cross-border tunnels into its territory.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, however, said the Israeli soldiers shot into the air when they saw a Lebanese army patrol near the border demarcation, known as the "Blue Line".
There were no reports of casualties.
Israel said the suspects approached an area on the Israeli side of the border where its forces were carrying out an operation to shut down tunnels that were dug across the border by Hezbollah.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters that three civilian-dressed individuals identified as Hezbollah operatives tried to use the heavy fog and rain in the area "to approach and interfere with, or to take, sensors" that had been deployed there by the army.
But Lebanon gave a different account of the incident. "Israeli enemy soldiers shot into the air following their deployment near the Blue Line in Kroum al-Sharaqi region to the east of Meis al-Jabal village," NNA said.
The Israelis "were surprised, due to thick fog, by a routine Lebanese army patrol inside the Lebanese territories," it added.
Israel's military said on Tuesday it had found passages dug across the Israel-Lebanon border to be used for carrying out attacks inside Israel. It sent mechanical diggers, troops and anti-tunneling equipment there to shut them down.
The situation has so far remained calm on both sides of the border. But the Israeli operation has brought renewed attention to a frontier across which Israel and the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.
The Israeli military has said its activity would, for now, stop on the Israeli side of the border. But a cabinet minister said on Friday that Israel was prepared to take action in Lebanon against cross-border tunnels if deemed necessary.
December 09, 2018 - Gazans defy violent response to their attempts to end Israeli blockade
Gazans defy violent response to their attempts to end Israeli blockade
Residents of besieged strip defy violent response to their attempts to end long-standing blockade.
1 / 3
2 / 3
3 / 3
Palestinian factions have not shied away from using financial incentives to ensure wide participation in the protests. (AFP)
For eight months in a row, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been taking part in weekly protests along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel and sustaining serious injuries in lopsided confrontations with Israeli army soldiers.
Doctors Without Borders now says the extremely large number of people in need of treatment for bullet wounds has overwhelmed the territory’s healthcare system.
The international humanitarian organization said this week that most of the 3,000 people it has treated since March were shot in the legs, with about a quarter suffering from infections that, if left untreated, could lead to lifelong disabilities or limb amputations.
For 28-year-old Mohammed Yassin, the casualties are not mere numbers. As someone who was shot in the arm while taking part in protests in eastern Gaza’s Al-Zaytoun, a neighbourhood adjoining the security fence separating the Hamas- ruled territory from Israel, he stands to bene t personally if medical-aid groups tend to those local hospitals cannot adequately treat.
On a recent morning, Yassin stood in a queue outside a medical centre in Gaza operated by an international humanitarian organization waiting for his turn to consult doctors. He said he feared his arm may have to be amputated due to the lack of specialised treatment in the territory, which has been continuously under an Israeli blockade since 2007 when Hamas seized control after a violent power struggle with Fatah.
The Great March of Return movement, as the weekly protests are called, was born when tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza began confronting Israeli soldiers on March 30, called Land Day by Palestinians, which coincided with the annual commemoration of the founding of the state of Israel.
Since that day, Palestinians from across the social spectrum, living in poverty and isolation in the besieged coastal enclave, have been marching after prayers every Friday towards the heavily fortied border, braving the Israeli army’s live rounds, rubber-coated metal bullets and tear-gas salvos. Along the way, women and children started joining the young men, who are often armed with slings and stones.
Israel has responded with an iron fist, but the confrontations have continued unabated. In November, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, agreed to a transfer of Qatari cash totalling $15 million into Gaza as part of a deal apparently aimed at persuading Hamas to end the protests in exchange for Israel easing its blockade.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has given warning time and again of its inability to cope with the high number of casualties owing to a shortage of medicine and supplies.
The latest figures provided by the ministry put the total number of Palestinian deaths since March 30 at more than 200, including 37 children, and the number of wounded at 22,267. Of the latter, 46.3 percent have suffered injuries caused by live rounds red by Israel.
Yassin, the man with the injured arm, says his condition could improve with treatment abroad, but he is unable to travel through the Rafah crossing, the only connection for Gaza’s two million inhabitants to the outside world via Egypt. He told Arab News he rejected an opportunity for amputation at the local facility of the international organization where he is currently being treated.
Looking to the future, Yassin hopes to save his injured arm, take care of his family and live a full life. But that will take a great deal of effort and determination given that he has lost his job, which earned him about 30 shekels ($8) a day and was enabling him and his wife to raise a family of four little children.
Still, Yassin is fortunate compared with hundreds of other young men, one of them being Mohammed Al-Issawi. The 23-year-old has been injured four times in course of the border protests: shot in various places on his body - once in the leg while taking part in protests east of Al-Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza - and struck by a tear-gas canister.
Even so, Al-Issawi, who shares his home with 13 other family members, says he has no regrets about taking part in the protests that have taken such a high toll on his health. “God has not written martyrdom for me yet,” he told Arab News, his words reflecting resilience and resignation in equal measure. Protest movements in Palestine usually start o as spontaneous uprisings but tend to get co-opted by political factions with the passage of time. For what is presumably a mix of self-interest and cost control, the West Bank-based Palestinian
Authority, dominated by the secular Fatah, has ruled that the casualties of the Great March clashes will not come under the purview of a body called Institution of the Martyrs and the Wounded, making their families ineligible for monthly cash assistance.
However, other Palestinian factions have not shied away from using financial incentives to ensure wide participation in the protests. For instance, Hamas, Fatah’s Islamist rival, has been giving $500 to the family of each victim of Israeli shooting and $200 to each of the wounded. But Al-Issawi, who is unemployed, dismisses the idea that his participation in the protests is motivated by pecuniary advantage. “I will wait for my treatment to be completed so that I can go back to join my friends at the border until the siege is broken,” he told Arab News.
Al-Issawi’s denial is echoed by Youssef Barakat, who has injuries in his left leg. The 23-year-old Palestinian, who is single and lives with his family of 10, says he has not received any compensation since he suffered a gunshot wound while taking part in the Nakba Day demonstrations of May 14 in an area east of Gaza’s Al-Bureij refugee camp.
“We see no option of getting rid of the siege and the impoverishment,” Barakat says stoically, “other than by continuing to confront the enemy.” But more patients with bullet wounds would spell trouble for Gaza’s authorities when the existing caseload of injuries and trauma is already far larger than its network of hospitals, eld medical units and primary health-carecentres can handle. Suheir Zaqout, ICRC spokesperson in Gaza, told Arab News that although doctors in Gaza try their best to save lives and minimise loss of limbs, the waiting list of people seeking treatment for serious injuries keeps getting longer.
For his part, Munir Al-Bursh, who heads the Gaza health ministry’s pharmacy department, said gunshot injuries caused by Israeli snipers are complicated because of their severity. The snipers have killed about 170 people and wounded thousands more, according to reports. The survivors require a large number of surgeries, which tax the skills of even the best medical specialists in the territory, Al-Bursh told Arab News.
The low-intensity border conflict has left many residents of Gaza stuck between despair and hope. Many dream of leaving Gaza and starting life anew somewhere else. At age 24, Mahmoud Quzat has been left with permanent disability since being struck in his right leg by live rounds during protests in Shajaiya, a neighbourhood east of Gaza City, on August 3. “If I had the money, I would migrate to find a secure and stable place,” he told Arab News.
Anxiety and fear of being condemned to a life of unending tension or being reduced to just a statistic in a struggle that has de ed a lasting solution, that, too, in a region rife with brutal wars and humanitarian crises, has yet to dampen Palestinians’ determination to end the Israeli blockade.
Even as he contemplates a better future that looks elusive to most Gazans, Quzat expresses no remorse about his continued involvement in the weekly protests near the border fence. “What do we have to lose?” he says philosophically. “We have already lost half of our lives to 12 years of siege and division.”
Sattelite Images Reveal Impact Of Recent Israeli Strikes On Syria's Damascus
27.12.2018 -
#ISRAEL#MAPS 27.12.2018 - 4,372 views
3.1 (14 votes)
Sattelite Images Reveal Impact Of Recent Israeli Strikes On Syria’s Damascus
Israel’s ImageSat International released sattelite images showing the alleged impact of the December 25 Israeli airstrikes on targets in western Damascus. Pro-Israeli sources claim that the strikes destroyed a warehouse with Iranian Faj-5 rockets, which were set to be delivered to Hezbollah.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
- Syrian War Report – Dec. 26, 2018: Israel Strikes Syria. S-300 Is Not Employed
- Syrian Air Defense Forces Repel Israeli Airstrikes In Western Damascus (Videos)
- Video: Syrian Surface-To-Air Missile Returns Back, Slams Building Near Damascus During Dec.25 Israeli Raid
Related:
SouthFront on Twitter
Syrian War Report – Dec. 27, 2018: Large Number Of Syrian Troops Deployed Near Manbij
The cheek of this... 
I should be used to their pathological ways by now but somehow I still find this shocking. Bring on the "total destruction of Israel" the C's predicted already!
Israel to seek $250bn from Arab countries that expelled Jews to ‘restore their rightful property’
I should be used to their pathological ways by now but somehow I still find this shocking. Bring on the "total destruction of Israel" the C's predicted already! Israel to seek $250bn from Arab countries that expelled Jews to ‘restore their rightful property’
angelburst29
The Living Force
A U.S. appeals court has revived a $1 billion lawsuit by Palestinians seeking to hold billionaire Sheldon Adelson and more than 30 other pro-Israel defendants liable for alleged war crimes and support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
February 19, 2019 - Palestinians' lawsuit in US vs. Adelson, others is revived
Palestinians' lawsuit in U.S. vs. Adelson, others is revived
FILE PHOTO: Casino magnate and Republican political contributor Sheldon Adelson stands to be recognized as he attends a ceremony where U.S. President Donald Trump is awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to his wife Miriam Adelson in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S. November 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a federal district judge wrongly concluded in August 2017 that all of the plaintiffs’ claims raised political questions that could not be decided in American courts.
The plaintiffs, including 18 Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans as well as a Palestinian village council, alleged a conspiracy among many defendants to expel non-Jews from the disputed territories, and accused the defendants of committing or aiding in genocide and other war crimes.
Other defendants included the billionaire Larry Ellison, Bank Leumi BM and Bank Hapoalim BM, construction and support companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and Volvo AB, 13 nonprofits, and the United States.
February 19, 2019 - US Palestinian Mission to merge with Israel Embassy in March
U.S. Palestinian mission to merge with Israel embassy in March
A man walks next to a road sign directing to the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, February 18, 2019. Picture taken February 18, 2019 REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The decision to create a single diplomatic mission was announced last October by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who did not say at the time when this would take place. “The merger of the consulate and the embassy will take place on March 4th or 5th, at which point the position of the consul-general will end, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the date has not been announced yet by Washington.
February 19, 2019 - Palestinians' lawsuit in US vs. Adelson, others is revived
Palestinians' lawsuit in U.S. vs. Adelson, others is revived
FILE PHOTO: Casino magnate and Republican political contributor Sheldon Adelson stands to be recognized as he attends a ceremony where U.S. President Donald Trump is awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to his wife Miriam Adelson in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S. November 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a federal district judge wrongly concluded in August 2017 that all of the plaintiffs’ claims raised political questions that could not be decided in American courts.
The plaintiffs, including 18 Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans as well as a Palestinian village council, alleged a conspiracy among many defendants to expel non-Jews from the disputed territories, and accused the defendants of committing or aiding in genocide and other war crimes.
Other defendants included the billionaire Larry Ellison, Bank Leumi BM and Bank Hapoalim BM, construction and support companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and Volvo AB, 13 nonprofits, and the United States.
February 19, 2019 - US Palestinian Mission to merge with Israel Embassy in March
U.S. Palestinian mission to merge with Israel embassy in March
A man walks next to a road sign directing to the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, February 18, 2019. Picture taken February 18, 2019 REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The decision to create a single diplomatic mission was announced last October by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who did not say at the time when this would take place. “The merger of the consulate and the embassy will take place on March 4th or 5th, at which point the position of the consul-general will end, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the date has not been announced yet by Washington.
angelburst29
The Living Force
I'm curious - how the Israel's Hebrew University attained possession of a collection of 110 manuscript pages written by Albert Einstein?
Trove of Einstein papers goes on display in Jerusalem March 6, 2019
Part of a collection of 110 manuscript pages written by Albert Einstein that were unveiled by Israel's Hebrew University are seen on display at the university in Jerusalem March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s Hebrew University put on display on Wednesday a collection of 110 manuscript pages written by Albert Einstein, many of which it said had never been shown in public before.
They include hand-written mathematical notes, most from 1944 to 1948, and also an appendix - which the university said had been thought lost - to a paper on unified field theory that the German-born physicist presented to the Prussian Academy of Science in 1930.
Einstein, who developed the theory of relativity, a pillar of modern science, tried unsuccessfully for decades to prove another concept - that electromagnetism and gravity were different manifestations of a single fundamental field.
Hebrew University said it had received the papers as a donation to its 80,000-item Albert Einstein Archives from a foundation in Chicago after they were purchased from a private collector in North Carolina.
These papers reflect the way Einstein was thinking, the way Einstein was working. Most of them, in his handwriting, are mathematical calculations with very little text,” said Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, academic adviser to the archives.
“They are summaries of his notes; whenever something struck him, a new idea, he sat down immediately and scribbled it, looking for its consequences,” Gutfreund told Reuters.
Einstein, who settled in the United States after renouncing his German citizenship when Adolf Hitler came to power, bequeathed his scientific and personal writings to Hebrew University. (???)
Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. He died in New Jersey in 1955.
Far-rightists cleared for Israel election, Arab party blocked
Israel's election board has approved far-right Jewish candidates accused by rivals of racism for next month's election while disqualifying an Arab party that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said supported terrorism.
Netanyahu election rival pledges to 'separate' from Palestinians
The centrist Blue and White party posing the biggest election challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged a policy of "separation" from Palestinians in occupied land on Wednesday, but stopped short of backing their goal of statehood.
Trove of Einstein papers goes on display in Jerusalem March 6, 2019
Part of a collection of 110 manuscript pages written by Albert Einstein that were unveiled by Israel's Hebrew University are seen on display at the university in Jerusalem March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s Hebrew University put on display on Wednesday a collection of 110 manuscript pages written by Albert Einstein, many of which it said had never been shown in public before.
They include hand-written mathematical notes, most from 1944 to 1948, and also an appendix - which the university said had been thought lost - to a paper on unified field theory that the German-born physicist presented to the Prussian Academy of Science in 1930.
Einstein, who developed the theory of relativity, a pillar of modern science, tried unsuccessfully for decades to prove another concept - that electromagnetism and gravity were different manifestations of a single fundamental field.
Hebrew University said it had received the papers as a donation to its 80,000-item Albert Einstein Archives from a foundation in Chicago after they were purchased from a private collector in North Carolina.
These papers reflect the way Einstein was thinking, the way Einstein was working. Most of them, in his handwriting, are mathematical calculations with very little text,” said Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, academic adviser to the archives.
“They are summaries of his notes; whenever something struck him, a new idea, he sat down immediately and scribbled it, looking for its consequences,” Gutfreund told Reuters.
Einstein, who settled in the United States after renouncing his German citizenship when Adolf Hitler came to power, bequeathed his scientific and personal writings to Hebrew University. (???)
Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. He died in New Jersey in 1955.
Far-rightists cleared for Israel election, Arab party blocked
Israel's election board has approved far-right Jewish candidates accused by rivals of racism for next month's election while disqualifying an Arab party that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said supported terrorism.
Netanyahu election rival pledges to 'separate' from Palestinians
The centrist Blue and White party posing the biggest election challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged a policy of "separation" from Palestinians in occupied land on Wednesday, but stopped short of backing their goal of statehood.
angelburst29
The Living Force
Newly revealed Albert Einstein letters provide glimpse into his genius mind (4 photos)
Newly revealed Albert Einstein letters provide glimpse into his genius mind
Ahead of Albert Einstein's 140th birthday, 110 manuscript pages penned by the German scientist were unveiled by an Israeli university on Wednesday (March 6), providing a glimpse into the genius mind of the legendary scientist.
The documents were presented at a press conference held by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, of which Einstein was a founding father.
angelburst29
The Living Force
Israeli warplanes bombed Hamas targets in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza early on Friday after Israel's military said militants had fired two rockets toward the city of Tel Aviv.
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza after rockets fired toward Tel Aviv
Israeli soldiers are seen on top of an armoured personnel carrier (APC) near the border between Israel and Gaza on its Israeli side, March 15, 2019. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The air strikes, the heaviest in five months, hit about 100 military targets belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza, the military said. These included a rocket manufacturing site, a naval post and weapons facility, and a Hamas headquarters, it said.
Palestinian news media reported strikes throughout the densely populated coastal strip that is home to two million Palestinians. Four people were wounded, health ministry officials said.
The exchange was the most serious since a botched Israeli commando incursion into Gaza last November.
In the aftermath of that episode, dozens of Israeli air strikes killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, and destroyed several buildings. Rocket attacks from Gaza sent residents of southern Israel to shelters, wounding dozens and killing a Palestinian laborer from the occupied West Bank.
Gaza rockets rattle Tel Aviv, but hurt none; Hamas denies responsibility
Two rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at the Tel Aviv area on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in the first such attack there since the 2014 war in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli military sounds rocket alarms in communities near Gaza
The Israeli military said its rocket sirens were activated in communities near the Gaza Strip border on Friday soon after it carried out air strikes against Hamas targets in the enclave.
Hamas denies responsibility for rockets fired into Israel
The Gaza Strip's dominant Hamas Islamists denied responsibility on Thursday for rockets fired into Israel, saying the attack took place as it held truce talks with Egyptian mediators.
Israel says it does not know who fired Gaza rockets, but Hamas responsible
Israel's military said on Thursday it did not know who fired two rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv but it held Hamas responsible.
March 14, 2019 - Israel says it struck 100 Hamas targets after rocket attack
Israel says it struck 100 Hamas targets after rocket attack
Israeli media reported that Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system opened fire on March 14, 2019. (File/AFP)
In Gaza, health officials reported four people wounded, including a husband and wife in the southern town of Rafah. There were no further details. The office building struck by Israel had been used by Hamas' office of prisoner affairs.
The sudden outbreak of violence comes at a sensitive time for both sides, and it appeared that Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers had incentives to end the fighting.
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza after rockets fired toward Tel Aviv
Israeli soldiers are seen on top of an armoured personnel carrier (APC) near the border between Israel and Gaza on its Israeli side, March 15, 2019. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The air strikes, the heaviest in five months, hit about 100 military targets belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza, the military said. These included a rocket manufacturing site, a naval post and weapons facility, and a Hamas headquarters, it said.
Palestinian news media reported strikes throughout the densely populated coastal strip that is home to two million Palestinians. Four people were wounded, health ministry officials said.
The exchange was the most serious since a botched Israeli commando incursion into Gaza last November.
In the aftermath of that episode, dozens of Israeli air strikes killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, and destroyed several buildings. Rocket attacks from Gaza sent residents of southern Israel to shelters, wounding dozens and killing a Palestinian laborer from the occupied West Bank.
Gaza rockets rattle Tel Aviv, but hurt none; Hamas denies responsibility
Two rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at the Tel Aviv area on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in the first such attack there since the 2014 war in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli military sounds rocket alarms in communities near Gaza
The Israeli military said its rocket sirens were activated in communities near the Gaza Strip border on Friday soon after it carried out air strikes against Hamas targets in the enclave.
Hamas denies responsibility for rockets fired into Israel
The Gaza Strip's dominant Hamas Islamists denied responsibility on Thursday for rockets fired into Israel, saying the attack took place as it held truce talks with Egyptian mediators.
Israel says it does not know who fired Gaza rockets, but Hamas responsible
Israel's military said on Thursday it did not know who fired two rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv but it held Hamas responsible.
March 14, 2019 - Israel says it struck 100 Hamas targets after rocket attack
Israel says it struck 100 Hamas targets after rocket attack
Israeli media reported that Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system opened fire on March 14, 2019. (File/AFP)
In Gaza, health officials reported four people wounded, including a husband and wife in the southern town of Rafah. There were no further details. The office building struck by Israel had been used by Hamas' office of prisoner affairs.
The sudden outbreak of violence comes at a sensitive time for both sides, and it appeared that Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers had incentives to end the fighting.
