Analysis – Israeli hostages complicate plan for ‘mighty vengeance’ against Hamas
Jerusalem/Dubai, United Arab EmiratesReuters Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s options for hitting Hamas over its deadly incursion into Israel could be reined in by concern for the many Israelis seized in the raid, as a nation scarred by past hostage crises faces perhaps its worst one yet. In a dramatic assault launched from Gaza on Saturday, […]
Jews spitting on the ground beside Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land sparks outrage
JerusalemAP A video that shows ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground beside a procession of foreign Christian worshipers carrying a wooden cross in the holy city of Jerusalem has ignited intense outrage and a flurry of condemnation in the Holy Land. The spitting incident, which the city’s minority Christian community lamented as the latest in […]
Protests rock Israel as it passes curbs on some Supreme Court powers
JerusalemReuters Israel’s parliament on Monday ratified the first bill of a judicial overhaul sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after last-gasp compromise efforts collapsed and failed to ease a constitutional crisis convulsing the country for months. The amendment limiting the Supreme Court’s powers to void some government decisions if it deemed them “unreasonable” passed by […]
Fitted with pacemaker, Netanyahu to attend key vote as crisis spirals
JerusalemReuters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “doing excellently” after an unscheduled pacemaker implant and would on Monday attend a key judicial reform vote that has brought nationwide protests to a boil and stirred calls for compromise. With the country ensnared in its worst domestic crisis in decades, President Isaac Herzog on Sunday […]
Palestinians defiant and angry after Israel’s Jenin raid
Jenin, West Bank Reuters Palestinian militant fighters paraded in Jenin on Wednesday and angry crowds confronted senior Palestinian Authority officials, accusing them of weakness, after one of the largest Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank in years. The two-day operation, which the Israeli military said targeted infrastructure and weapons depots of militant factions […]
Israeli troops start withdrawing from West Bank’s Jenin
Jenin, West Bank Reuters Israeli forces began withdrawing from the Palestinian city of Jenin on Tuesday, a defence source and Reuters witnesses said, after carrying out one of their biggest military operations in the occupied West Bank for years. Two Reuters witnesses said they saw convoys of Israeli military vehicles leaving Jenin in what appeared […]
Essay: When religion gets political
TIM COSTELLO, a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity in Sydney, says seeking political power to impose and enforce a religious vision is a growing problem around the world…
Tens of thousands protest against planned Israeli judicial overhaul
Tel AvivReuters Tens of thousands of Israelis joined protests across the country, now entering their 20th week, on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contested plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court. The planned overhaul, which would give the government control over naming judges to the Supreme Court and let parliament override many rulings, […]
Israel kills senior Gaza commanders as rockets cause first death in Israel
Gaza/Jerusalem, Israel Reuters Israel killed the head of Islamic Jihad’s rocket force and his deputy, pressing an operation that has cost 30 lives in Gaza including women and children, while Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes inflicted a first fatality in Israel on Thursday. Amid mediation efforts by Egypt, neither side seemed ready to douse the worst […]
Israel would no longer be the country “my son died for”: memorials marred by anger
Beersheba, Israel Reuters Tensions ran high as ceremonies commemorating slain Israeli soldiers and victims of attacks turned into protests on Tuesday, far from the decades-old tradition of Memorial Day unity. Despite calls from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leaders to put disagreements aside over plans by the far-right government to strip Israel’s highest court […]