Category Archives: Israel

Fears of escalating conflict as gunman injures two Israelis in East Jerusalem

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Shooting comes hours after seven people killed outside synagogue and two days after deadliest Israeli raid in West Bank for 20 years

Two Israelis have been shot in occupied East Jerusalem hours after a gunman killed seven people outside a synagogue, as the worst violence in years across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories continues to escalate.

Israel’s ambulance service said a father and son, in their 50s and 20s, were badly hurt in the incident in a Jewish neighbourhood near the Old City on Saturday morning. Police said the assailant had been shot by an armed passerby. There were conflicting reports on his condition.

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Tense but calm after deadly Jenin raid triggers Israel-Gaza rocket fire exchange

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Palestinian Authority suspends security cooperation after nine people were killed by Israeli defence forces

Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories remained tense but calm after an exchange of rocket fire between the Gaza Strip and Israel triggered by a deadly raid in the West Bank.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) entered the Jenin refugee camp, in the north of the occupied territory at about 7am (5am GMT) on Thursday acting on intelligence suggesting a cell linked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad was planning to carry out imminent attacks, the army said in a statement.

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Concerns over escalating violence after Israeli forces kill nine Palestinians during West Bank raid

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Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza on Friday morning, to which Israel responded with missile strikes

Washington has raised concern over the escalation in Israeli-Palestinian violence after Israeli forces on Thursday killed nine Palestinians during a West Bank raid in the deadliest single day in the territory in decades.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he feared the security situation could worsen after two rockets were fired from Gaza early on Friday and Israel responded with airstrikes on the territory.

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Israeli forces kill nine Palestinians during West Bank raid

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Palestinian leaders cut security ties with Israel after deadly gun battle at Jenin refugee camp

Israeli forces have killed nine Palestinians during a raid in the north of the occupied West Bank in the deadliest single day in the territory in years, prompting Palestinian leaders to cut security ties with Israel and leaving international mediators scrambling to prevent the violence from escalating.

A 61-year-old woman and a male civilian were among the dead, the Palestinian health ministry said, and about 20 more people were seriously injured in the violence on Thursday morning. Two of the casualties were claimed by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another four by Hamas, and one by the armed wing of the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

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Bank of Israel governor says judicial reform could hurt economy – reports

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Amir Yaron said to have warned PM that erasing democratic checks and balances could deter crucial foreign investment

The governor of the Bank of Israel has warned Benjamin Netanyahu that his new government’s proposals for sweeping judicial reform could damage the country’s economy, according to Israeli media reports.

Prof Amir Yaron met the Israeli prime minister on Tuesday, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, after requesting an “urgent meeting”.

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Melbourne university first in Australia to take up controversial definition of antisemitism

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International code adopted as part of ‘anti-racism commitment’ could be used to shut down genuine criticism of the state of Israel, critics warn

The University of Melbourne has become the first tertiary institution in Australia to adopt a controversial international definition of antisemitism, in a move critics say could be used to shut down legitimate criticism of the state of Israel.

On Wednesday, the university announced it would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as part of its broader “anti-racism commitment”.

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Huge protest in Israel over rightwing government’s judicial changes

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Estimated 100,000 people took to streets in Tel Aviv in what protesters described as ‘fight for Israel’s destiny’

An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in what protesters described as a “fight for Israel’s destiny” over sweeping judicial changes proposed by the new far-right government.

Israel’s longtime prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned to office last month at the helm of a coalition of conservative and religious parties that make up the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

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‘Attack on freedom’: Israel moves to claw back state funds from critical films

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Culture minister’s attack on two documentaries set in Palestinian territories part of campaign to silence dissent, film-makers say

Israel’s culture minister is attempting to revoke state funding from two documentary films dealing with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, increasing concerns that the country’s new hard-right government will follow through on promises to crack down on dissenting voices.

The minister, Miki Zohar, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, has pledged to “revoke funding that promotes our enemy’s narrative” and withhold grants from films that “present Israeli soldiers as murderers”. He has also said he will require film-makers to sign a declaration they will not use state funds to create content that “harms the state of Israel or IDF soldiers”.

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Netanyahu told by Israel’s supreme court he must fire key ally from cabinet

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Prime minister’s coalition in jeopardy after Aryeh Deri ruled ineligible for government due to tax offences

Israel’s supreme court has ruled that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, must fire a key ally from the country’s new cabinet, presenting the Israeli leader with a potential coalition crisis and deepening a rift over the power of the courts.

Ten of 11 judges on the high court found that Aryeh Deri, the influential head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party who has served repeatedly in Netanyahu’s previous governments, is disqualified from serving as a minister after he was convicted last year for tax offences and placed on probation as part of a plea deal. Deri has pledged not to quit and met Netanyahu after the ruling.

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Israeli forces kill 14-year-old Palestinian boy in West Bank

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Army says soldiers opened fire in refugee camp near Bethlehem after people threw molotov cocktails at them

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian boy near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, where the army said they opened fire after people threw molotov cocktails.

Omar Khmour, 14, was shot in the head early on Monday in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the southern West Bank and “succumbed to his wounds”, the Palestinian ministry said.

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Iranian hardliners urge revenge on UK after Alireza Akbari’s execution

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Newspaper editor calls for UK agents to be named, despite zero evidence British-Iranian dual national was a spy

Iranian hardliners are urging their government to exact revenge on the UK and deliver a blow to its spying network by revealing the true names of the British intelligence agents who supposedly worked with Alireza Akbari, the British-Iranian dual national who was executed on Saturday for allegedly spying for the UK.

The call – made by Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the Kayan, the newspaper closest to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – shows hardliners are intent on a confrontation with Britain over the issue.

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Palestinian shot dead by Israeli troops at West Bank checkpoint

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Israeli army said man had tried to grab a soldier’s gun during ‘scuffle’ at crowded checkpoint

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian motorist in the occupied West Bank during what a witness said was a scuffle at a crowded checkpoint, with the Israeli army saying the man had tried to grab a soldier’s gun.

Palestinian medics summoned to the scene near Silwad village on Sunday said they found 45-year-old Ahmed Kahleh with a fatal bullet wound to the neck. Kahleh’s son had been pepper-sprayed, they said. Reuters was not immediately able to reach him for comment.

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Abbas allies fear new Israeli government intends to destroy Palestinian Authority

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Minister says ultranationalists in coalition want to dismantle body and create ‘new reality in the West Bank’

Senior allies of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have expressed fears that Benjamin Netanyahu’s new ultranationalist coalition in Israel will seek to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA), established after the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

The Palestinian social development minister, Ahmad Majdalani, said members of the government intended to destroy the authority, which administers a degree of self-rule in parts of the West Bank and is considered by Abbas as the institutional building block for a future Palestinian state.

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Biden’s response to Israel’s far-right government: avoid confrontation

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As Netanyahu takes an aggressively anti-Palestinian line, the White House will seek to avoid the humiliations heaped on Obama

The more things change in Israel, the harder Joe Biden is working to make sure they stay the same.

The new far-right government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes openly anti-Arab racists, is already causing concern in the White House with commitments to expand illegal settlements in the occupied territories and annex Palestinian land.

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Israel security minister bans Palestinian flag-flying in public

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Itamar Ben-Gvir’s order follows series of punitive steps against Palestinians since Israel’s hardline government took office last month

Israel’s national security minister has ordered police to ban Palestinian flags from public places in the latest crackdown by the country’s new hardline government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir’s order follows a series of other punitive steps against the Palestinians since taking office late last month.

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Palestinian foreign minister says Israel has revoked his travel permit

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Riad Malki says permit rescinded, after hardline government announced series of punitive measures against Palestinians

The Palestinian foreign minister says Israel has revoked his travel permit, after the hardline Israeli government announced a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians days ago.

Riad Malki said in a statement that he was returning from the Brazilian president’s inauguration when he was informed that Israel had rescinded his travel permit, which allows top Palestinian officials to travel easily in and out of the occupied West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians.

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Harvard Kennedy School condemned for denying fellowship to Israel critic

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ACLU and Pen America back former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth and say decision ‘raises serious questions’

Leading civil rights organisations have condemned Harvard Kennedy School’s denial of a position to the former head of Human Rights Watch over the organisation’s criticism of Israel.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the refusal of a fellowship to Kenneth Roth “profoundly troubling”. PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression, said the move “raises serous questions” about one of the US’s leading schools of government. Roth also received backing from other human rights activists.

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Israel’s far right hits ground running, and ripple effects are already being felt

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Ultranationalist religious rulers sworn in last week have made explicit what was previously obscured: annexation

Glancing up and staring directly into the camera, the suspect who broke into the centuries-old Jerusalem cemetery appears to spot the CCTV equipment recording his hate crime. Seemingly unfazed, he looks down again, focusing on the task at hand – pushing over a stone cross and smashing it to pieces.

The two young males who vandalised more than 30 Christian graves last weekend showed little concern about hiding their identities while carrying out a religiously motivated attack. They did not cover their faces as they systematically destroyed headstones on a bright Sunday afternoon in the heart of the holy city. Such is the confidence with which the suspects, believed to be teenage Israeli extremists arrested on Friday, now operate.

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Harvard blocks role for former Human Rights Watch head over Israel criticism

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Kennedy School allegedly bowed to donors unhappy with organisation accusing Israel of apartheid in occupied territories

The dean of one the US’s leading schools of government blocked a position for the former head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) over his organisation’s criticism of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy offered Kenneth Roth a position as a senior fellow shortly after he retired as director of HRW in April after 29 years. Roth is highly regarded within the human rights community for the part his organisation played in advances such as the creation of the international criminal court and the prosecution of major human rights abusers.

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Israeli government plan to limit judicial powers sharply criticised

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Grave concerns over Netanyahu coalition’s plan to invalidate supreme court decisions with simple majority

Civil liberties and human rights advocates have expressed grave concerns about a plan by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Israeli government to limit the power of the judiciary, saying it will encourage authoritarianism and put minority rights in imminent danger.

“If they succeed, it’s a different system, a different Israel,” said Dan Meridor, a former justice minister, stressing that in the absence of a constitution, the country’s courts serve to protect people from “being at the mercy of the governing majority”.

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