The Palestinian Authority announced on Thursday evening that it has decided to halt security coordination with Israel.

The announcement was made after an emergency meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah to discuss the repercussions of the Israeli military operation in Jenin Refugee Camp, during which nine Palestinians were killed and 20 others injured, including four who are reported in critical condition.

In 2020, the PA took a similar decision but backtracked after five months.

“The security coordination with the Israeli occupation government is no longer existent as of now” said PA presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudaineh, accusing Israel of committing a “massacre” against the Palestinians.

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Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-729723

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Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are expected to demand from the US that control over Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem be restored to the Muslim authority that administers the site, Palestinian sources say.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II were to raise the issue with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the region this weekend, the sources said.

Amman and the PA are seeking to return the running of the Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam — to how it was before the start of the intifada in September 2000, and before the visit of then-opposition Likud leader Ariel Sharon, when the Waqf was responsible for Jewish visitors’ access to the site.

The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, controlled by Jordan, administers the Islamic sites at the compound, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Sharon’s visit is often said to have been the pretext for the Second Intifada, which broke out just a few weeks later and which saw hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings that claimed the lives of over a thousand Israelis during a span of five years.

Until 2000, the entry of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount was coordinated with the Waqf. The site was closed to Jews from 2000 until 2003, as the Second Intifada raged. Since then Israel Police have overseen visits by Jewish visitors. Under Israel’s regulations, imposed after the Old City was captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray on, the Temple Mount.

The demand for Muslim oversight on Jewish access to the Temple Mount was first made by the Palestinian Authority on Thursday. “Israel must restore control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf,” said one official close to Abbas. “This is one of the only measures that can help calm the current situation.”

Palestinian sources also told The Times of Israel that Abbas will tell Kerry during their meeting in Amman on Saturday that he is interested in renewing peace talks with Israel and abiding by previous agreements, but that Jerusalem must first freeze all settlement activity and release the final 26 prisoners it had agreed to free last year as part of a US-brokered concession to Abbas.

Israel had agreed to release a total of 104 security prisoners jailed before the 1993 Oslo Accords in four phases. It went through with three of the four releases, setting free some of the worst orchestrators of terrorism, before talks collapsed in April 2014.

Senior Palestinian officials also told The Times of Israel that Israel had tried to create friction between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority by conveying messages to King Abdullah II warning him that Abbas’s inciting statements endangered Jordanian interests on the Temple Mount.

Abbas is expected to demand deeper American involvement in any renewed political process with Israel, and warn that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues with his current policies, he is dooming the region to more violence and bloodshed.

When asked if they understood that meeting their demands would spell the end of the Netanyahu-led government, the sources said the Israeli prime minister must choose between his government and a willingness to make peace.

The PA’s demands for Waqf control of the Temple Mount come amid a wave of Palestinian terror and violence which has seen 10 Israelis killed in the past month and a half. More than 40 Palestinians have also been killed — about half of them while carrying out attacks, and most of the rest in clashes with Israeli security officials in the West Bank and on the Gaza border.

Israel has accused Abbas and the PA of partial responsibility for the terror surge, with Netanyahu repeatedly castigating Abbas for telling “lies” about purported Israeli plans to change the status quo at the Temple Mount and for inciting violence over the issue. Netanyahu, who has denied any such plans and offered to meet Abbas without preconditions, has also vowed to make no concessions to the Palestinians in response to the current surge in terrorism.

The PA officials said that their security forces have prevented a series of recent attacks on Israeli targets, including stabbings, shootings and the planting of explosives. PA security forces have also been active during Palestinian demonstrations to prevent the use of live fire against IDF soldiers, and intervened when a gunman opened fire on soldiers during a recent protest near the Beit El settlement, they said.

Israeli security officials have acknowledged the value of the ongoing PA security coordination.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office denied that Israel has offered to reduce the number of Jewish and non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount in an effort to calm tensions at the site and help end the wave of terror attacks. Arab diplomatic officials had told The Times of Israel that this offer was rejected by Palestinian and Jordanian leaders as not going far enough to meet their demands.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-jordan-want-muslim-control-over-jewish-visits-to-temple-mount/

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(April 6, 2022 / JNS) Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Wednesday that if a new nuclear deal is not signed with Iran, other measures must be taken.

“If needed, we can move forward with economic pressure, intel, diplomatic pressure, power projection and regional counterterrorism efforts,” said Gantz, according to a defense ministry spokesperson.

Gantz made the remarks during a policy and security briefing for the 80 foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel, together with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

Gantz also presented the diplomats with information on the rapid advance of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Since August 2021, Iran has raced forward. Iran has increased its enriched uranium stockpile to 50 kilograms at [at an enrichment level of] 60%. We are running against [the clock]. The international community must insist on a solid agreement,” he said.

Regarding the recent wave of terrorist attacks in the country, Gantz said Israel was talking all necessary measures, including preemptive operations, to prevent further attacks.

Gantz concluded his remarks by presenting confidence-building measures undertaken with the Palestinian Authority since “Operation Guardian of the Walls” last May. He also called on the international community to invest in the P.A.

Lapid presented the ambassadors with an overview of the March 27 Negev Summit, and spoke of the importance of regional cooperation in the fields of security and the economy.

In addition, Lapid provided the ambassadors with information about the humanitarian aid Israel is providing to Ukraine and reiterated Israel’s condemnation of the Russian invasion.

Both Gantz and Lapid emphasized Israel’s condemnation of the invasion and its humanitarian efforts, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s mediation efforts.

Source: https://www.jns.org/israeli-defense-minister-calls-for-plan-b-if-iran-deal-not-signed/

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“We also share and are united in addressing the challenges posed by Iran, including it’s nuclear program. There is no daylight between us on the fundamental proposition that Iran must not be allowed to acquired a nuclear weapon.”

He says the US will maintain that stance regardless if a new Iran nuclear deal is reached.

“Deal or no deal, we will continue to work together and with other partners to counter Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region,” he says.

He hails Israel’s “important diplomatic efforts” to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, and praises Israeli humanitarian support such as the establishment of a field hospital in western Ukraine.

Blinken also reiterates US support for a two-state solution and welcomes meetings between Israeli ministers and top Palestinian Authority officials, “including Defense Minister Benny Gantz.”

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-deal-or-no-deal-well-keep-working-with-israel-to-counter-iran/

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Leaders of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) warned supporters to be vigilant against what they believe to be increasing anti-Israel positions from leaders, and the trend of encroaching tolerance for anti-Semitic rhetoric masked as anti-Zionism, during the organization’s annual gala on Sunday.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the gala was held as a webcast, highlighted by video addresses from leaders and activists in the ZOA, as well as politicians such as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The event was hosted by Jewish Iranian-American journalist Lisa Daftari, who personally praised the ZOA for its work in teaching about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, a cause she is intimately involved in.

Mort Klein, president of ZOA for the past 28 years, told viewers that advances which the ZOA supports often get reversed by various governments — dating back to the time Great Britain restricted immigration at the outset of World War II despite international treaties giving Jews the right to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine in 1920.

“Britain turned around and slammed shut the doors to Israel, just at the moment when millions of Jews faced annihilation in Europe,” Klein said.

Today too, according to Klein, the ZOA needs to remain vigilant against what he said was the Biden administration backtracking advances made during the Trump administration.

Klein listed the Trump administration’s pro-Israel accomplishments that the ZOA had long backed, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, recognizing the legality of settlements in Judea and Samaria, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, adding sanctions against Iran, defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), supporting Israel in the United Nations, opposing the International Criminal Court’s investigations into Israel’s alleged war crimes and cutting off funding of the Palestinian Authority over payments to the families of terrorists.

Almost all these policies have been reversed by the Biden administration, Klein noted.

“We are now facing an administration that is moving to backtrack on some of these very important advances. We’re at a critical moment when Israel and her leaders and all of us who love Israel must stand strong against what this administration is trying to do,” Klein said.

Klein read the words of then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden from 1995 in support of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which enshrined in American law that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel and that the U.S. embassy should be moved there. At the time, Biden emphasized how despite efforts by various empires and regimes tried to sever Jewish ties to Jerusalem, “the Jewish people returned to claim what many rulers have tried to deny them for centuries, the right to peaceful existence, their own country, in their own capital.” Yet today, the Biden administration is working to open a Palestinian consulate in western Jerusalem.

“Such a consulate would undermine Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, it violates the Jerusalem Embassy Act, will likely result in violating the Oslo Accords which prohibit the Palestinian Authority from engaging in foreign relations,” Klein said. “The consulate is a diplomatic insult and danger to Israel and the Jewish people.”

Klein said that opening the consulate would be a reward to the “fascist, terrorist dictatorship” of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who he said will continue to encourage Arabs to kill Jews.

The ZOA has placed giant banners on major buildings in Jerusalem, urging Israeli leaders and citizens to say “no” to the consulate. The organization has also urged other Jewish groups to join this effort.

“But no Jewish group has — I’m sorry to say, it pains me to say — not AIPAC, [American Jewish] Committee, not the ADL, not the Conference of Presidents and not any of the other major groups have done so,” Klein said. “We must urge them to do so to support the Israeli government.”

Klein said that the Biden administration is also undermining Israel’s right to build settlements in Judea and Samaria, which was recognized as legal by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, there are no restrictions on Palestinians building in the same areas. Klein called these actions from the Biden administration blatantly anti-Semitic.

He also pointed to Biden’s warning against the scourge of anti-Semitism during a commemoration of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, but then asked why Biden and Democratic leaders do not condemn by name the anti-Semitic comments by progressive members of Congress.

“While Israel was being bombarded with over 4,400 Hamas rockets, President Biden shockingly, strongly praised the Jew-hater Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who opposes Israel’s very existence,” Klein said. “Shortly after Tlaib again promoted boycotting Israel and called Israel an apartheid state, Biden disgracefully said to Rashida Tlaib … ‘I admire your intellect. I admire your passion. I admire your concern for so many other people. You’re a fighter, Rashida Tlaib, and God thank you for being a fighter.’ What a disgraceful episode in Biden’s administration.”

He also raised alarm about numerous Biden administration appointees who, according to Klein, had a record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements. This was so alarming, he said, that ZOA established a webpage to list and document the statements of 20 appointees.

‘Fighting for Truth’
“The fact that thousands of us are gathered here at this virtual gala shows that so many of us, such huge number of us, do care,” Klein concluded. “We will continue to be strong and with the help of Almighty God and with the help of the Jewish Zionists and evangelical Christians Zionists and remarkable Israeli people, we will overcome all of these serious but temporary obstacles and will ultimately re-strengthen U.S.-Israel relations and promote the truth of the Arab Islamist war against Israel and the West, and will finally implement the moral, principled, wise policies that will strengthen and benefit both Israel and America.”

The event also featured a brief address by the ZOA’s newly elected board chairman, attorney David Schoen, who served on Trump’s legal team during his Congressional impeachment hearings.

“Tonight, we celebrate an organization that is dedicated to fighting for truth, an organization that is brave and bold, and an organization that is determined to share and promote facts,” Schoen said. “As we look around the world at the end of 2021, we see increasing anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad, including violent attacks on college campuses and synagogues across the country, and a harsh anti-Israel climate on Capitol Hill. Israel bashing has become the norm as few are willing to stand against the current in order to shut down the lies.”

ZOA presented the Mortimer Zuckerman Award for Outstanding Jewish Philanthropy to Gloria Kaylie and her late husband Harvey, as well as the Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award to activist Rubin Margules.

“Like Mort, I was born in a [displaced persons] camp in Germany — in Bamberg, Germany. My father and mother were liberated from concentration camps in which nearly all their former families were murdered. So too my wife’s family,” Margules said. “My father was consumed with pride by the emergence of the State of Israel, a haven then and now for the Jewish people and a source of pride to all of us. He taught me love of Israel and even more importantly, that we must do what it takes to ensure that never again means never again!”

Source: https://unitedwithisrael.org/biden-administration-abandoning-israel-appointing-antisemites-says-zionist-leader/

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Israel has threatened Hamas with targeted killings in response to the recent wave of terror in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Monday, according to i24 News.

Recent terror attacks included, for example, the shooting deaths of Eli Kay in Jerusalem’s Old City in November and of Yehuda Dimentman in Samaria last week. In both instances, other victims were wounded.

The warnings were sent to the Gaza-based terror group by Egyptian security officials who are now visiting the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the report said. There was no comment from Hamas in response.

The Egyptian delegation had traveled to Gaza for negotiations with Hamas on preserving the ceasefire with Israel and on ways to rebuild the Strip.

Hamas reportedly pleaded for a “legitimate struggle until the occupier is expelled from all Palestinian lands and the settlers are evicted,” the report added.

On Saturday, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also based in Gaza, agreed to increase cooperation and ramp up terrorist attacks, particularly in Judea and Samaria.

Source: https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-threatens-hamas-with-targeted-killings

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Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly via video-link from Ramallah [Getty]

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday said that Israel “had one year ahead to end the occupation” of the West Bank.

Abbas made this statement in a speech addressing the UN General Assembly, adding that if the occupation doesn’t end, “we will head to the International Court of Justice, to have a decision on the legitimacy of the occupation on the borders of 1967”.

Speaking via video-link from Ramallah, Abbas hinted that he could withdraw recognition of Israel.

“If the occupation continues, what does our recognition of Israel within its 1967 borders mean?” he said.

Abbas also strongly condemned the Israeli government’s stated policy of not negotiating with his Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet said that he won’t meet the Palestinian president.

Abbas accused Israel of “evading a political solution”, warning that “undermining the two-state solution will open the doors for alternatives that will be imposed by facts on the ground, including the return to the Resolution 181 partition plan of 1947”.

He added that Israel’s practices of “ethnic cleansing and annexation”  will “consecrate the reality of a single racist state”, saying that the international community “has failed to hold Israel accountable, allowing it to “behave as a state above the law”.

Israel has constructed hundreds of illegal settlements in the West Bank, where approximately 600,000 Israelis live.

Dialogue with the US

The Palestinian president criticized “the states who give money and weapons to Israel, who uses them to kill Palestinians”. His remarks came one day after the US Congress approved $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome system.

However, Abbas also referred to “our constructive dialogue with the American administration to restore US-Palestinian relations”. On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden told the UN General Assembly that he supports the creation of a Palestinian state, saying that it is “the best way” to ensure Israel’s future. Biden, however, added that “we are still a long way from that goal at this moment”.

In addition, Abbas called on UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres to organize an international peace conference “under the auspices of the international quartet only”, as well as to “activiate the UN resolutions concerning international protection for the Palestinian people”.

Abbas referred to the UNGA emergency meeting resolution of June 2018 that requested the UN Secretary General to present “recommendations for an international protection mechanism for Palestinians”.

The international quartet on the Middle East is made up of four countries and organizations involved in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – the United States, the European Union, the UN, and Russia.

Elections and reconciliation with Hamas

Concerning internal Palestinian politics, Abbas said that municipal elections will be organized in the Palestinian territories “in the coming months”.

He also referred to the presidential and legislative elections, which were planned for last May before Abbas called them off in April. He insisted that “we did not cancel the elections, but we postponed them until we have a guarantee that we can hold them in Jerusalem”.

Palestinians last went to the polls in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections.  Abbas’s official term as Palestinian president ended in 2009, but no presidential elections have been held since then.

In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip following a deadly conflict with Abbas’s Fatah movement. Abbas said that he was “working to form a national unity government” with Hamas which would “help to begin the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip”.

The besieged Gaza Strip is still suffering the effects of 14 years of crippling Israeli blockade and four wars which have happened since 2008.

The 85- year-old Palestinian president said during his speech that “I’ve struggled all my life for peace, and I have followed the legal and peaceful ways, but I have found no partner for peace in Israel.

“We thank the international community for helping the Palestinian people build their institutions and economy, but the time has come to take steps that could put an end to occupation,” he added.

Source: https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/abbas-gives-israel-one-year-end-occupation-west-bank

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Defense Minister Benny Gantz at a state memorial ceremony marking 7 years since Operation Protective Edge at the National Memorial Hall at the entrance to the military cemetery on Mount Herzl, June 20, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday said Israel and the United States had restored intelligence ties and were working to develop a “Plan B” if the stalled talks between Washington and Tehran regarding a fresh Iran nuclear deal sputter out, following a meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden last week.

Gantz warned that if Iran becomes a nuclear state, it will trigger an international arms race in which many other nations, in the Middle East and beyond, will attempt to acquire an atomic bomb.

“The United States and Israel share intelligence information, and the cooperation with the United States in this field is only getting stronger. We are working with them in order to establish a Plan B and to demonstrate that if there is no deal, other activities will begin, as President Biden said,” the defense minister said, speaking to military correspondents ahead of the Jewish New Year next week.

On Friday, the US president told a joint press conference with Bennett that his administration was “ready to turn to other options” if diplomatic talks with Iran failed, likely alluding to the possibility of clandestine operations and military strikes.

The White House meeting came a day after US officials told the New York Times that Israel’s previous administration had downgraded intelligence sharing with the US after Biden took office. Bennett has sought to restore ties with US Democrats after their relationship with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu became frayed, though Iran was the focus of the Friday meeting.

Gantz did not specify what the “Plan B” could entail, but Israeli officials have signaled a need for a credible military threat to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

Gantz’s comments joined a flurry of threats by Israeli defense officials toward Iran in recent days, including Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, who told reporters last week that the military was preparing plans and funding for a potential military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“We are allocating resources in order to strengthen our ability to act against challenges in the region, chief among them Iran,” Gantz said.

US President Joe Biden (right) shakes hands with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as they meet in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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The defense minister made his comments during an extended briefing with reporters at the Defense Ministry’s offices in Tel Aviv’s Kirya military base, focusing on Iran along with his meeting Sunday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the lingering threats from the Gaza Strip following May’s conflict with terror groups there, the Middle East in general and the ongoing efforts by the government to pass the budget and fund the Defense Ministry’s programs.

“A defense budget allows us to rearm and allows for the operational ability that we need, alongside important social considerations. We are working to improve fortifications in the north and to build the [Lebanese border] barrier that was held up for years,” Gantz said.

Referring to recent efforts by the government to encourage ultra-Orthodox men to perform national service, the defense minister said he was working to expand this in order to get a larger majority of Israelis to enlist, warning that if this is not accomplished within the next decade, Israel will be forced to move to a professional, volunteer military.

“The goal is to get more than 70 percent of people to serve each year, when today we only have roughly 50 percent,” Gantz said.

The defense minister said he instructed the IDF to begin preparing for the possibility that it will have to continue to support the national pandemic response through the end of 2022, after initially planning to scale back the military’s involvement in these efforts following this year’s massive vaccination drive.

Strengthening the PA

Gantz reiterated his support for strengthening the Palestinian Authority, which works closely with Israel on security issues, particularly against Hamas and other terror groups in the West Bank. However, the PA is often maligned in Israel for its financial support for terrorism in the form of stipend to the families of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli on terrorism charges or killed as they perpetrated terror attacks, as well as for its repeated efforts to gain unilateral recognition as a state in international forums such as the United Nations.

“I told Abbas that we aren’t going anywhere and that the Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. I went to the meeting in order to build confidence and preserve the interests of the State of Israel and the important ties we have with the Palestinian Authority, which I believe we need to strengthen,” Gantz said.

“As the Palestinian Authority gets stronger, Hamas gets weaker, and so long as it has greater governance, we will have more security and we will have to act less,” he added.

The defense minister did not bring up the possibility of renewed peace talks with the Palestinians, and an official close to the prime minister told reporters earlier in the day that “there is no diplomatic process with the Palestinians nor will there be.”

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech regarding the Coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), at the Palestinian Authority headquarters, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 5, 2020. (Courtesy Flash90)

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Regarding the Gaza Strip, which has recently seen a significant increase in violence along the border, Gantz said Israel was maintaining its policy of making full reconstruction and further development of the enclave contingent upon the release of two Israeli civilians and the remains of two fallen IDF soldiers from Hamas captivity.

The defense minister said the military would also continue to strike more forcefully than it did in the past in response to low-level violence along the border, such as the launching of balloon-borne incendiary devices.

“We said that what had been will not be again, and what had been is not what is happening now. This is in terms of the nature and strength of our retaliations, in the different mechanism through which Qatari funds are being transferred, also on civilian issues and on the dependence of reconstruction on the captives, as I said at the end of the operation,” Gantz said.

Echoing similar comments made recently by IDF chief Kohavi, the defense minister warned that Israel may be at the outset of a fresh round of fighting in Gaza, continuing the campaign from May’s 11-day conflict, known in Israel as Operation Guardian of the Walls, if the violence along the border continues.

“Our strikes in Gaza have been precise and have hit rearmament facilities that are painful for Hamas and that deny it capabilities. I cannot promise that we will not have to continue with a 12th day of Guardian of the Walls,” he said.

Gantz also noted that rocket attacks from Lebanon, which began during Operation Guardian of the Walls, appeared to be the work of Palestinian terror cells linked to Hamas.

During the fighting in Gaza, three rounds of rocket fire were launched at northern Israel, causing neither injuries nor damage. A fourth attack was launched on July 20 and a fifth on August 4 by these Palestinian cells.

Israeli self-propelled howitzers fire towards Lebanon from a position near the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona following Hezbollah rocket fire from the Lebanese side of the border, on August 6, 2021. (JALAA MAREY / AFP)

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“We have seen that Hamas International is trying to create an infrastructure in Lebanon,” Gantz said.

The IDF does not see these cells as a major threat, but has allocated additional intelligence resources to monitoring them. The main threat in Lebanon remains the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist militia.

After Israel retaliated forcefully to the August 4 attack, Hezbollah fired 19 rockets at northern Israel, the first time the organization has openly launched such an attack since the 2006 Second Lebanon War. These rocket attacks from Lebanon raised the specter of a potential two-front war in the future, in which Israel would have to fight both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“The humanitarian situation in Lebanon is very worrying, but so are the rearmament efforts of Hezbollah. We are prepared for the possibility of fighting on the northern front, including a situation in which we would be fighting on northern and southern fronts,” Gantz said.

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Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-us-working-on-plan-b-if-iran-nuke-talks-fail-gantz-says/

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Illustrative: Explosions light up the night sky above buildings in Gaza City as IDF planes hit the Palestinian enclave, early on June 16, 2021. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

Israel Defense Forces jets struck a series of targets in Gaza late Sunday night, hours after incendiary balloons launched from the Strip sparked several fires in southern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said warplanes hit several buildings in a Hamas military base, as well as unspecified “infrastructure and utilities used for activities” of the terror group.

It noted the base was located “adjacent to civilian sites, including a school,” without providing details.

According to the Hamas-affiliated al-Resalah, Israeli planes bombed areas west of Gaza City, before striking to the east of Khan Younis. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Palestinian media reported that terrorists fired from machine guns at Israeli aircraft over the Gaza Strip, amid the airstrikes, and managed to down a drone.

An IDF spokesperson said the military was not aware of any reports of drones that had been shot down.

The army said the airstrikes came in response to incendiary balloons launched into Israel.

“The IDF will respond aggressively against continued terror attempts out of the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a statement.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qasim mocked the Israeli airstrikes as a “failed attempt to show its own impotent power and restore its army’s battered image after it was shaken” during the recent fighting between the two sides.

“The noble resistance is ready to deal with all options, nor will it allow the occupation to impose its equations,” said Qasim, referring to the balance of deterrence between Hamas and Israel.

On Sunday afternoon, Gaza-based terror groups launched incendiary balloons into southern Israel, sparking a number of fires, a Fire and Rescue services investigator determined.

In response to the arson attacks, Israel announced it was cutting the Gaza Strip’s fishing zone in half, from 12 nautical miles to six, effective immediately and until further notice on Sunday night. Prior to May’s conflict between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza, Palestinian fisherman could operate up to 15 nautical miles from the coast.

“This follows the launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, which is a violation of Israeli sovereignty,” Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, said in a statement.

According to the fire department, three small brushfires were ignited in the Eshkol region of southern Israel, in the first arson attacks from the Gaza Strip since early July.

“A fire investigator from the Southern District Fire and Rescue Services found that the blaze was caused by the launching of incendiary balloons,” a fire department spokesperson said. There were no injuries or damage to property reported.

In its statement, COGAT said the attacks were ultimately the responsibility of the Hamas terror group, the de facto ruler of the Strip.

Bonfires in southern Israel allegedly sparked by incendiary balloons launched by Gaza-based terror groups on July 25, 2021. (Moshe Brochi)

Hamas has warned of a return to fighting should Israel seek to again tighten restrictions on the blockaded Gaza Strip. The coastal enclave has seen tighter controls than usual since the 11-day May conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli authorities prevented 25 trucks bearing Qatari-funded fuel from entering the Gaza Strip. An Israeli defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cited a failure by Palestinian Authority officials in Gaza to coordinate with them.

PA officials in Gaza rejected the claim, saying that the United Nations and Qatar were responsible for directly coordinating with the Israeli side. Both the UN and the office of Qatar’s Gaza envoy declined to comment.

“Further restrictions on Gaza will only generate an explosion in the face of the occupation,” Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou told official Hamas radio on Sunday evening.

The Israeli defense official said Sunday night that the fuel was expected to enter the Gaza Strip on Monday, but that “nothing was set in stone.”

Supporters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group prepare balloon-borne incendiary devices to launch toward Israel, east of Gaza City, on June 15, 2021. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)

Israel regularly responds with airstrikes against Hamas positions in Gaza after incendiary balloon attacks. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has repeatedly said that he will not allow such incidents to occur without a response.

“Israel is interested in calm and has no interest in harming Gaza residents, but violence… will be met with a strong response,” Bennett told the cabinet following such strikes in early July.

During the war, Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rockets caused at least $290 million worth of damage to the Gaza Strip, international assessors reported in early July.

Israel and Hamas have been conducting indirect negotiations in Cairo in an attempt to strengthen the fragile ceasefire between the two sides. Israeli officials have said they will condition allowing the reconstruction of Gaza and easing the heightened restrictions on reaching a prisoner exchange with Hamas that secures the return of Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who died in 2014 fighting.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-strikes-gaza-after-incendiary-balloons-spark-fires-in-south/

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President Biden sought to take credit for a cease-fire Thursday between Israel and Hamas, despite reports that it was Egypt that brokered the peace.

Biden, who spoke at the White House, included a sentence in his remarks commending Egyptian officials for their “critical role” in ending the fighting. But he repeatedly emphasized the intensive work he said was done by his own administration.

“Over the last 11 days, I spoke with the prime minister six times. I’ve also spoken with President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority more the once and part of our intense diplomatic engagement,” Biden said, “And I want to also thank secretary of state, the secretary of defense, our national security adviser, and everyone on our team for their incredible efforts to bring this about, this outcome that we’re about to see.

“You know, we’ve held intensive, high-level discussions, hour by hour, literally, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and other Middle Eastern countries, with an aim of avoiding this sort of prolonged conflict we’ve seen in previous years when the hostilities have broken out.”

Biden vowed to help Israel replenish its Iron Dome system and to work with the Palestinian Authority to rebuild Gaza.

Biden said he’d spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the cease-fire and commended him on his decision to bring hostilities to a close.

“The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas,” Biden said.

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Biden said the prime minister had also shared his appreciation for the Iron Dome system, Israel’s missile defense that was built with help from the U.S. Biden said the system “has saved the lives of countless Israeli citizens, Arab and Jew.

“I assured him of my full support to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome system to ensure its defenses and security in the future,” Biden said.

Biden said he’d also spoken with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is a member of the Fatah Party rather than Hamas.

ISRAEL OFFICIALS APPROVE CEASE-FIRE WITH HAMAS 

“I send my sincere condolences to all the families, Israeli and Palestinian, who have lost loved ones and my hope for a full recovery for the wounded,” he continued. “The United States committed to working with the United Nations, and we remain committed to working with the United Nations and other international stakeholders to provide rapid humanitarian assistance and to marshal international support for the people of Gaza and the Gaza reconstruction efforts.”

“We will do this in full partnership with the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, Palestinian Authority,  in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal.”

The deadly fighting that erupted after heightened tensions left at least 12 Israelis and 230 Palestinians dead in the crossfire in the worst breakout of violence since the 2014 Gaza war, according to reports.

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Hamas has fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israel over the past 11 days in response to a clash between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters, and the IDF struck back with devastating airstrikes.

The post Biden tries to claim credit for cease-fire between Israel and Hamas first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.