Israeli President Isaac Herzog (3rd R) and Emirati Ambassador to Israel Mohamed al-Khaja (2nd R) pose at the new UAE embassy in Tel Aviv on July 14, 2021. – The United Arab Emirates opened its embassy in Israel, housed in Tel Aviv’s new stock exchange building, in the latest step solidifying ties after a US-brokered normalisation deal last year. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
The United Arab Emirates opened an embassy in Israel Wednesday, housed in Tel Aviv’s new stock exchange building, in the latest normalisation move under a deal brokered by Washington last year.
The venue in the heart of Israel’s financial district highlighted the central role economic cooperation has played since the UAE became only the third majority-Arab country to recognise the Jewish state.
At the ceremony, attended by new Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Emirati ambassador Mohamed al-Khaja called the embassy opening “an important milestone in the growing relationship between our two countries”.
“The UAE and Israel are both innovative nations, we can harness this creativity to work towards a more prosperous and sustainable future for our countries and our region,” he said.
Herzog called for the “historic agreement” with the UAE to be “extended to other nations seeking peace with Israel.”
Israel and the UAE have signed a raft of deals — ranging from tourism to aviation to financial services — since normalising ties as part of the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by former US president Donald Trump’s administration.
Wednesday’s ceremony, held in the lobby of the stock exchange building two floors below the embassy, came after Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made a landmark visit to the UAE last month, opening an embassy in Abu Dhabi and a consulate in Dubai.
The Palestinians were outraged by the UAE’s decision to establish ties with Israel, which broke with decades of Arab consensus that there should be no normalisation of ties without a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Following the UAE deal, Israel normalised relations with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, accords that also sparked Palestinian protests.
But Israel and UAE have sought to emphasise the economic dividend offered by normalisation.
Lapid told Emirati media last month that bilateral trade has reached over $675.22 million since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020.
Israel’s spate of normalisation deals were agreed under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lapid was an architect of the coalition that ousted Netanyahu last month, but has, along with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, vowed to keep up Netanyahu’s policy of pursuing deeper ties in the Arab world.
Israel on Monday began administering a third shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to patients with compromised immune systems, as cases in the country rise, the health ministry said.
Those immediately eligible for a third shot include people who have had heart, lung and kidney transplants and some cancer patients.
“There is accumulating evidence that patients with immunosuppression do not develop an adequate antibody response after two doses of the vaccines,” a health ministry statement said.
It added that the decision to give a third dose was spurred by the rising daily case tally.
Israel’s initial vaccine rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab was among the world’s fastest, and it succeeded in bringing confirmed daily cases down to single digits last month.
With more than 85 percent of the its adult population fully inoculated, Israel had removed all its pandemic containment restrictions, restoring indoor dining and removing caps on large gatherings.
But the emergence of the Delta variant — first identified in India in April — has led to a surge in transmission, with several hundred new infections now recorded daily.
Experts have said there are clear signs the vaccine is less effective in preventing mild illness against the Delta variant.
Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv said it will give a third shot to several heart-transplant patients on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a visit to the COVID-19 vaccination facility in Jerusalem on January 6, 2021. (Photo by Marc Israel SELLEM / POOL / AFP)
Israel was approaching the end of an era after the last-minute formation of a motley coalition that could in the next few days oust veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid announced the deal just minutes before a midnight Wednesday deadline, prompting celebrations into the early hours by the premier’s opponents and a defiant show of support by his fans.
On paper, the prospective coalition commands a slender majority in parliament but a confidence vote is not expected for several days, giving Netanyahu time to woo potential defectors among the unlikely bedfellows ranged against him.
With the threat of possible jail time hanging over him in his ongoing trial on corruption charges, the 71-year-old is unlikely to allow his record 12 straight years to end without a messy fight, analysts warned.
On Thursday, the master political operator was already on Twitter, seeking to play on any last-minute misgivings among right-wing lawmakers about allying with the left against him.
“All lawmakers who were elected with votes from the right must oppose this dangerous left-wing government,” he said.
On Twitter, Netanyahu’s Likud party called on former right-wing allies to “immediately withdraw” their signatures.
The new coalition would see the religious-nationalist Naftali Bennett serve as prime minister for two years before Lapid, a secular centrist, would take the helm.
Should last-minute defections scupper the “change” alliance, Israel would likely have to hold yet another election, the fifth in just over two years.
“Opening the champagne right now is a bit hasty,” said Tamar Hermann, a political scientist at the Israel Democracy Institute.
– ‘I succeeded’ – Lapid, 57, a former TV presenter who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, put his own prime ministerial ambitions on hold to broker the coalition deal.
“I succeeded,” he proclaimed, less than an hour before the deadline.
“I promise that this government will work in the service of all of the citizens of Israel, those who voted for it and those who did not,” he wrote on Facebook.
The announcement capped four frenzied weeks of negotiations since President Reuven Rivlin tasked Lapid with trying to form a government after Netanyahu failed.
Bennett, 49, an estranged former protege of Netanyahu, was the linchpin of the deal to unseat him.
On Sunday, Bennett, head of the far-right Yamina bloc, announced he would join Lapid to end the “madness”.
On the right, the new coalition includes the hawkish New Hope party of Netanyahu’s former ally Gideon Saar, and secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party.
Also part of the alliance are the Labor party, the dovish Meretz party, and the centrist Blue and White party of Defence Minister Benny Gantz.
For the first time in Israeli’s history, the embryonic coalition also includes an Arab Israeli party, the Islamic conservative party Raam.
It released pictures of its leader Mansour Abbas signing a coalition agreement alongside Bennett, a staunch supporter of the Jewish settler movement.
Speaking on army radio Thursday, Abbas said: “We obtained the legitimacy to influence the Israeli political system and not just to be present there in the Knesset.”
Raam previously ran as part of the Arab-led Joint List but broke away over differences with its communist and Arab nationalist members. Joint List lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman said she would oppose the new deal because “getting rid of Netanyahu and keeping his path is a political mistake.”
– Emulate Trump? – Allies of Netanyahu lashed out at the coalition.
Far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party, attacked the coalition’s dependence on the votes of Arab lawmakers and accused Bennett of cooperating with “a terrorism supporter who identifies with Israel’s enemies”.
Yamina member Matan Kahana hit back, telling public radio: “I’m convinced this government will be even more right-wing than the government of Netanyahu.”
Netanyahu’s son Yair called Bennett “filth” in a tweet.
Netanyahu biographer Ben Caspit predicted the incumbent would fight the new government tooth and nail, doing everything he could to block its formation and then battling it from the opposition benches if necessary.
Caspit said Netanyahu could try to emulate his ally, former US president Donald Trump, who gave an incendiary address to supporters before they launched a deadly raid on the US Capitol.
“He is trying to burn it all,” Caspit said of Netanyahu. “He still thinks he will succeed against all odds.”
Washington on Thursday assured it would remain a staunch ally of the Jewish state regardless of who is in power.
“Regardless of what happens, regardless of what government is in place, our stalwart support, our ironclad support for Israel will remain,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (R) listens to his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi during a visit at a building that was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, on May 20, 2021, in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. (Photo by Gil COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed his support for Israel as he visited Thursday, and called for a ceasefire between the Jewish state and the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas.
“I came here to express my solidarity… Israel has the right to defend itself against this massive and unacceptable attack,” he said at joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi in Tel Aviv.
Maas visited after 10 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Militants in the blockaded Gaza Strip have fired more than 4,000 rockets towards Israel, said the Israeli military, which has responded with devastating air strikes.
“Let me say it again very clearly: For us the security of Israel and the security of all Jews in Germany are non-negotiable and Israel can always rely on that,” said Maas.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (L) and his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi visit a building that was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, on May 20, 2021, in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
The German foreign minister said he had been in “nearly constant contact” with Ashkenazi during the past week, as well as diplomats in Cairo, Doha, Amman and Washington.
“I hope that the efforts to reach a ceasefire will also be successful,” he said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (L) and his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi visit a building that was hit by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, on May 20, 2021, in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. (Photo by Gil COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
Maas is scheduled to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah. He has no plans to meet with Hamas, which the European Union considers a terrorist organisation.
West Darfur State is one of the states of Sudan, and one of five comprising the Darfur region.
Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen has led a delegation to Khartoum, a spokesman said Tuesday, months after Sudan and the Jewish state struck a deal to normalise ties.
The Monday visit marked the first time an Israeli minister headed a delegation to the African state, Cohen’s office said.
Sudanese state media did not report the visit.
The Israeli intelligence ministry said members of the delegation met head of state General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Defence Minister Yassin Ibrahim for talks on “diplomatic, security and economic issues”.
“A first-ever memorandum on these topics was signed between the Sudanese defence minister and Cohen,” it said.
The sides also discussed “deepening intelligence cooperation”.
“The Sudanese authorities briefed the Israeli delegation on their progress on cancelling the law boycotting Israel, and amending the law imprisoning Sudanese migrants, including to Israel, who return to Sudan,” the ministry added.
Sudan agreed to normalise ties with Israel in October last year and an Israeli delegation visited Khartoum the following month.
On January 6, Sudan signed the “Abraham Accords” normalising ties with Israel, making it the third Arab country to do so after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain last year.
Morocco also normalised its ties with Israel in December.
Khartoum signed the accords less than a month after Washington removed it from its “state sponsors of terrorism” blacklist as part of a quid pro quo.
But protests against normalisation have continued in Sudan. On January 17, dozens of protesters gathered outside the cabinet office in Khartoum and burned the Israeli flag.
Until last year, Egypt and Jordan were the only Arab countries to have recognised Israel, in bilateral peace deals struck decades ago.
Other Arab governments refused to normalise relations until Israel reached a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians and its other neighbours.
Cohen said his visit to Khartoum “laid the foundations for many important collaborations that will help Israel and Sudan, boost regional stability, deepen our ties with Africa and lead to more agreements with states in the region”.
A Israeli healthcare worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a woman at the Kupat Holim Clalit clinic in Jerusalem, on January 14, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
The number of people inoculated in Israel for coronavirus passed the two million threshold Thursday, with the prime minister saying there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Israel “will become the first country to emerge from the corona crisis,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted.
“We see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, all smiles as he watched an Israeli woman become the second millionth to receive the Covid-19 jab.
“I am the second millionth,” to be vaccinated in Israel, read a sign held by 22-year-old Margaret Alsoso as she received her first dose of the vaccine in the city of Ramla near Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu — who faces yet another re-election contest and a corruption trial over the coming weeks — has sought to highlight his personal role in the inoculation campaign.
The prime minister was the first to get the jab on December 19, when Israel launched its inoculation campaign with the vaccine made by US-German pharma alliance Pfizer-BioNTech.
In early January authorities said two million people would receive a two-dose Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the month.
As of Thursday only 150,000 people had received both of the two doses.
But as Israel pushes aggressively with its vaccination drive, it is also witnessing a surge in the pandemic with some 9,000 coronavirus cases registered daily.
The country, currently in its third national lockdown, has recorded more than 523,000 cases, including around 3,850 deaths, according to the health ministry.
– Obligations to Palestinians –
Amnesty International has called on Israel to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip, saying the Jewish state is obliged to do so under international law.
Israel has come under harsh criticism after Public Security Minister Amir Ohana last month said Palestinian prisoners would be the last to receive the vaccines.
Five Israeli human rights organisations on Monday filed a supreme court petition urging authorities to vaccinate Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Thursday the first doses of the vaccine would be distributed to prisons next week, adding that a medical committee would decide who would get the first jabs.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a rights group, 190 Palestinian inmates, out of around 4,400 held in Israeli jails, have tested positive for coronavirus since April.
The Palestinian Authority has not publicly said whether it has sought vaccines from Israel.
But on Monday the Palestine Liberation Organisation called on the international community “to hold Israel to account” and ensure the Jewish state provides vaccines to all Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
Smoke and flames are seen following an Israeli air strike in the Khan Yunis town of the southern Gaza Strip on September 16, 2020. – Israel bombed sites in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said, after rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory into Israel the previous evening. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP)
Israel bombed Gaza on Wednesday after militants fired rockets through the night, overshadowing the signing of landmark normalisation deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in Washington.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the militants of seeking to stop the peace deals, Israel’s first with an Arab country since 1994.
But Gaza ruler Hamas warned Israel it faced an escalation if the bombing continued, barely two weeks after a renewed Egyptian-brokered truce halted near-nightly exchanges across the border through August.
The signing of the two agreements at a White House ceremony hosted by President Donald Trump prompted protest rallies across the Palestinian territories.
The deals broke with decades of Arab consensus that there would be no normalisation of relations with Israel until it had made peace with the Palestinians and drew accusations of “betrayal” against the Western-backed Gulf states.
At least 15 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip between 8 pm (1700 GMT) Tuesday and early Wednesday, nine of which were intercepted by Israeli air defences, the military said.
One hit the southern port city of Ashdod, wounding at least two people, emergency services said.
“We were surprised by the rockets,” said Ilanit Levy, a 45-year-old resident of Sderot, an Israeli town close to the Gaza border.
“It’s because of the agreements. Maybe they wanted to say that they don’t want peace with us, that they want to damage the agreements,” she added.
The Israeli military said fighter jets responded with strikes on Hamas military targets.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire.
But Israel held Hamas responsible, warning it would “bear the consequences for terror activity against Israeli civilians”.
– Cloud over Gulf deals –
The rocket fire came as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed accords establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and Netanyahu accused the militants of seeking to derail them.
“They want to prevent peace, they won’t. We will hit everyone who tries to harm us, and we will extend a hand of peace to all who reach out to us to make peace,” the prime minister said in a statement.
The landmark agreements prompted demonstrations on Tuesday in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Clutching Palestinian flags and wearing blue face masks for protection against coronavirus, demonstrators rallied in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority.
Trump said the agreements “will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region.”
“After decades of division and conflict we mark the dawn of a new Middle East,” he said.
Speaking later to reporters, he said Israel would enter into similar deals with up to nine other countries, including regional power Saudi Arabia.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned that the deals would “not achieve peace in the region” until the US and Israel acknowledged his people’s right to a state.
“Peace, security and stability will not be achieved in the region until the Israeli occupation ends,” he said.
Abbas warned that “attempts to bypass the Palestinian people and its leadership, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, will have dangerous consequences”.
Israel’s arch-foe Iran said the UAE and Bahrain were reaching out to a regime that is “committing more crimes in Palestine every day”.
“Some of the region’s countries, their people are pious Muslims but their rulers understand neither religion nor (their) debt … to the nation of Palestine,” President Hassan Rouhani told his cabinet on Wednesday.
In Gaza, protesters trampled on and set fire to placards bearing images of the leaders of Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov arrived in Gaza on Wednesday for pre-scheduled meetings with Hamas officials.
Hamas has joined the Palestinian Authority in condemning the UAE and Bahrain accords as a “betrayal” of their cause.
The new rocket fire came after militants launched rockets and balloons fitted with incendiary devices across the border through much of August, drawing retaliatory Israeli air strikes.
Late last month, the two sides renewed an Egyptian-brokered truce under which Israel has allowed financial aid from the gas-rich state of Qatar to flow into impoverished Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets supporters at his Likud Party headquarters in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv early on April 10, 2019. Thomas COEX / AFP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on the path of victory in Israel’s election on Wednesday after nearly complete results put him in position to form a right-wing coalition and further extend his long tenure in office.
The results from Tuesday’s vote came despite corruption allegations against the 69-year-old premier and put him on track to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister later this year.
His Likud party looked set to finish with a similar number of seats in parliament to his main rival, ex-military chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance, Israeli media reported.
But with 97 percent of the votes counted, results showed the Likud and other right-wing parties allied to him with some 65 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
The results would seem to leave President Reuven Rivlin, whose task it is to ask one of the candidates to form a government, with little choice but to pick Netanyahu.
Intensive coalition negotiations will follow and could drag on for days or even weeks.
Final results were expected by Thursday afternoon, with ballots for soldiers and other special categories of voters yet to be counted.
The close race between the two main parties had led to uncertainty after polls closed on Tuesday night and exit surveys were released.
Both Netanyahu and Gantz claimed victory after the initial exit surveys that gave Blue and White the most seats.
But even then Netanyahu appeared best placed to form a coalition, with both parties, in any case, falling far short of an outright majority.
‘Magnificent victory’
Netanyahu spoke in the early hours of Wednesday at the Likud’s post-election party in Tel Aviv and called it a “magnificent victory.”
As he walked onto the stage to chanting crowds, he planted a kiss on the lips of his wife Sara.
“It will be a right-wing government, but I will be prime minister for all,” he said.
Earlier while addressing cheering supporters who waved Israeli flags at an event hall in Tel Aviv, Gantz called it a “historic day.”
Speaking to journalists outside his home on Wednesday morning, Gantz said, “we’re waiting until the end of the results.”
“This is a historic accomplishment. There has never been a party so large, so significant, with so many good people that was founded in such a short period of time.”
The vote had long been expected to be close, even with Netanyahu facing potential corruption charges.
Fighting for his political life, Netanyahu spent the weeks ahead of the vote campaigning furiously to energise his right-wing base.
Gantz, a newcomer to politics, mounted a strong challenge by brandishing his security credentials while pledging to undo the damage he says Netanyahu has inflicted on the country with divisive politics.
The election was in many ways a referendum on the premier who has built a reputation as the guarantor of the country’s security and economic growth, but whose populism and alleged corruption left many ready for a change.
He engaged in populist rhetoric that critics said amounted to the demonisation of Arab Israelis and others.
Netanyahu faced further criticism on election day when members of his Likud party brought small cameras into polling stations in Arab areas.
Arab politicians called it an attempt at intimidation, while Netanyahu said cameras would prevent fraud.
True to form, Netanyahu issued a deeply controversial pledge only three days before the election, saying he planned to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank should he win.
Extending Israeli sovereignty on a large scale in the West Bank could be the death knell to already fading hopes for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
It is a move long championed by Israel’s far right.
King Bibi
Netanyahu sought to portray himself as Israel’s essential statesman in the run-up to the vote and highlighted his bond with US President Donald Trump.
He spoke of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the annexed Golan Heights.
He also used Trump-like tactics, calling the corruption investigations a “witch hunt” and denouncing journalists covering them.
On Tuesday, he continually warned the Likud was at risk of losing as a result of what he said was low turnout among supporters, claims widely seen as a bid to motivate right-wing voters.
Turnout was 67.9 percent compared to 71.8 percent in the last election in 2015.
Gantz, a 59-year-old former paratrooper, invoked the corruption allegations against the premier to make his case that it is time for him to go.
He called Netanyahu’s annexation pledge an “irresponsible” bid for votes.
Gantz said he favoured a “globally backed peace agreement” with Israel holding on to the large West Bank settlement blocs, adding that he opposed unilateral moves.
He sought to overcome Netanyahu’s experience by allying with two other former military chiefs and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid to form his alliance.
Netanyahu has been premier for a total of more than 13 years.
But “King Bibi,” as some have called him, now faces the prospect of becoming the first sitting prime minister to be indicted.
The attorney general has announced he intends to charge Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust pending an upcoming hearing.
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was battling to keep his government afloat on Friday after Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman quit over a ceasefire deal for Gaza.
Left with a single seat majority in parliament after the walkout by Lieberman and his hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party, most media saw little way for Netanyahu to avoid calling a snap general election.
The veteran prime minister was expected to hold crunch talks later on Friday with his other main right-wing rival, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, whose religious nationalist Jewish Home party has threatened to quit unless he is given Lieberman’s job.
The Gaza ceasefire, which ended the worst flare-up between Israel and the territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas since a 2014 war, faced its first major test later on Friday as Palestinian demonstrators were expected to gather along the border for mass protests that have triggered deadly violence in previous weeks.
The deal has already drawn heavy criticism, however, in Israeli communities near the border that faced barrages of rockets earlier this week.
Hundreds joined a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Thursday despite a promise from Netanyahu of more public money for emergency services.
Pro-Netanyahu freesheet Yisrael Hayom daily predicted that the prime minister would do all he could to avoid a general election while his hard-won security credentials were at issue.
“Holding elections with the fiasco in Gaza in the background cracks the image of the ultimate leader that he has built over the course of years,” it said.
“The chances of stopping this speeding train appear impossible, but Netanyahu is still trying.”
The eight lawmakers of Bennett’s far-right Jewish Home party are not the only threat to Netaynahu’s razor-thin parliamentary majority.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, whose centre-right Kulanu party hold 10 seats, has reportedly told Netanyahu that a snap election is necessary to provide a stable government to keep the economy on track.
But Yisrael Hayom said Bennett was key to efforts to avoid an early election and could yet prove Netanyahu’s political salvation.
“Naftali Bennett as defence minister and Netanyahu as prime minister could together project stability and embark on a coordinated offensive against anyone who gets in the way,” it said.
In a speech on Thursday, Bennett did not reiterate the resignation threat but made his case for why he should get the defence post.
“The most dangerous thing for the state of Israel is that we begin to think that there is no solution to terrorism, to terrorists, to missiles,” he said.
“There is a solution. When Israel wants to win, we will win.”
There were no official details of when or where Bennett would meet Netanyahu on Friday or what public statements if any would be made.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening calling for tougher action against Hamas which has portrayed the ceasefire and Lieberman’s resignation as a victory.
Netanyahu — flanked by Kahlon, Interior Minister Arie Deri and army top brass — met with the leaders of Israeli border communities.
He briefed them on military efforts to quell Hamas attacks and also announced a 500 million shekel ($139 million, 119 million euro) two-year package to improve emergency medical and social services, a government statement said.
With a major domestic political battle on his hands, Netanyahu cancelled a planned two-day visit to Austria next week for a conference on anti-semitism and anti-Zionism.
There has long been speculation that Netanyahu would call a general election before its scheduled date of November 2019.
Police have recommended he be charged in two separate corruption cases and the attorney general is expected to announce in the coming months whether to put him on trial.
Analysts say the prime minister would be better positioned to fight any charges with a fresh mandate from the voters.
But he would not have chosen to go the polls with voters’ attention focused on the Gaza ceasefire and his rivals’ efforts to outbid his security credentials.
The aunt of Yasser Abu al-Naja, a Palestinian youth in his early teens who was killed in border clashes near Khan Yunis, reacts at a hospital morgue in the Gaza Strip on June 29, 2018. SAID KHATIB / AFP
Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians, one in his early teens, in border clashes Friday in the southern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP a Palestinian youth aged about 13 was shot in the head near the town of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, without giving his name or exact age.
He added that 24-year-old Mohammed al-Hamayda was fatally wounded in the stomach by Israeli fire in a separate incident east of Rafah.
The Israeli army said that throughout the afternoon, “thousands of Palestinians participated in extremely violent riots and committed various acts of terror in several locations along the Gaza Strip security fence.”
An English-language statement said a hand-grenade and rocks were thrown at soldiers.
Israeli forces responded with “large amounts of riot dispersal means and in specific cases where these means did not succeed in negating the threat, resorted to live fire in accordance with the standard operating procedures,” it said.
The army said the reported death of the boy would be examined.
Since protests broke out along the Gaza border on March 30, at least 137 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.
The majority were involved in protests but others were seeking to breach or damage the border fence.
No Israelis have been killed.
On Thursday, Abdel Fattah Abu Azoum, 17, was hit in the head by fire from an Israeli tank near Rafah in southern Gaza.
The Israeli army said he and a companion were trying to break through the border fence.
Israeli border guards detain a Palestinian man (L) during clashes with Palestinian protesters north of Ramallah in the Israeli occupied West Bank, on December 22, 2017, as protests continue in the region amid anger over the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as its capital. ABBAS MOMANI / AFP
A Palestinian died on Saturday after being wounded by Israeli fire during a protest on the Gaza border against US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the health ministry said.
Sharaf Shalash, 28, sustained bullet wounds last Sunday during a demonstration east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
His death brings to 11 the number of Palestinians killed since US President Donald Trump announced on December 6 that he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.
Nine protesters have died in clashes with Israeli troops, two of them on Friday. Two others were killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza earlier in the month.
Shalash and the two Palestinians killed on Friday were buried on Saturday, in Gaza City, Beit Hanun and Jabalia.
After the Shalash funeral in Jabalia, Palestinians went to the border with Israel where they threw stones at soldiers, who responded with tear gas and live bullets.
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Zakaria al-Kafarneh, who was killed during clashes with Israeli troops. Photo: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP
Two Palestinians were killed as youths clashed with Israeli soldiers on the Gaza border on Friday in a new protest against US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the health ministry said.
The third Friday since US President Donald Trump’s controversial announcement on Jerusalem was again billed by Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas as a “day of rage”.
Hundreds of Palestinian protesters at various points along the Gaza border threw stones at Israeli forces, who responded with smoke grenades and live and rubber bullets, AFP correspondents said.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Zakaria al-Kafarneh, 24, died after being shot in the chest in clashes near Jabalia, in northern Gaza.
A second man, 29-year-old Mohammed Mohaisen, died later in clashes east of Gaza City, it said.
Six other Gazans were shot and wounded by soldiers using live ammunition, and one was in a critical condition, the ministry said.
One man dressed as Santa Claus holding a Palestinian flag was shot in the leg east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, eyewitnesses said.
In the occupied West Bank, clashes broke out in Ramallah, Hebron and other major cities, with smaller protests across the territory, including near the Jewish settlement of Beit El.
Osama Najar, spokesman for the health ministry in the West Bank, said they had seen protests in more locations than on previous Fridays.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had dealt with dozens of injuries during the West Bank clashes, including at least seven hit by live ammunition.
The clashes broke out after the weekly Muslim prayers, with minor scuffles in Jerusalem.
The army said in a statement that around 1,700 “rioters are hurling firebombs and rocks and rolling burning tyres… In order to disperse the riot, troops are responding with riot dispersal means”.
In Gaza, around 2,000 Palestinians were taking part in protests, the army said, with soldiers firing “live rounds selectively towards main instigators”.
The army’s estimates were down from 2,500 and 3,500 in the West Bank and Gaza respectively the previous Friday.
There have been near daily protests across the Palestinian territories since Trump’s controversial December 6 announcement that he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.
Ten Palestinians have died, eight in clashes and two in an Israeli air strike on Gaza.
Fridays, traditionally a day of protest for Palestinians, have seen the most violence.
