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Reservists who declared that they would not serve in the IDF because they were “morally opposed” to Israel’s policies in Judea and Samaria are not the problem, Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz said Sunday. Going on record as one of the few MKs who did not criticize 43 leftist reservists in an elite intelligence unit for…

Ex-minister Yossi Peled, 73, a former IDF general, suffered a heart attack Sunday and was taken to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he is under anesthesia and artificial respiration. The hospital said that he has undergone an operation and his condition is defined as serious. In the Likud primaries held in December, 2008, Peled…

Recent studies show that more hareidi Israelis are joining the workforce – and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) is very pleased. Commenting on the phenomenon, Bennett said that the increase was exactly what he and Finance Minister Yair Lapid had intended when they pushed through legislation on requiring IDF service for all Israelis. “This…

After younger Israelis got their “treat” Saturday night, with the appearance of pop star Lady Gaga before thousands in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, it’s the older generation’s turn for some entertainment – and that will come in the form of a concert on Sunday night by crooner Tony Bennett, who will sing his heart out…

A group of European jihadist fighters, disenchanted with fighting for the Islamic State and who desired to return home, were imprisoned by their commanders several days ago. According to reports, the group’s weapons were confiscated and they were marched to a punishment center in the ISIS-controlled city of Raqqa, in Syria. The group consisted of…

Amid all the talk of empowering “moderate” Iraqi elements in order to combat the rise of the Islamic State (or ISIS), some might argue that the finer and sometimes more inconvenient points of the reality on the ground – such as American airstrikes directly aiding Iranian-backed militias, and the rampant corruption of the Iraqi government…

The Socioeconomic Cabinet approved on Sunday Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel’s proposal to increase by 5,000 the quota of permits for Palestinian construction workers from Judea and Samaria allowed to work in pre-1967 Israel.  Minister Ariel said regarding the decision, “We require 5,000 Palestinian workers in the construction industry to increase the supply of housing. Contractors…

Not for the first time, an Egyptian commentator (this time a political scientist) has demanded that the Jews compensate Egypt for the gold they took on their way to freedom from slavery. According to tradition the slaves – who had not been paid for their back-breaking labor for the generations they were enslaved – were…

Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s Gaza government, has joined Hamas politburo head Khaled Mashaal’s call to indict Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. In a meeting with reporters in Gaza, Haniyeh expressed opposition to direct talks with Israel, and stressed that the Palestinian terrorist groups will not disarm. He called on…

John Kerry on Saturday held talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, as well as meeting the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby. “Egypt is on the frontline of the fight against terrorism, particularly when it comes to fighting extremist groups in Sinai,” Kerry told a Cairo news conference…

MK Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid) on Saturday said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s handling of the new budget proposed by Finance Minister Yair Lapid could cause the government coalition to collapse. “Netanyahu is turning the issue of the budget into a showdown with the Finance Minister, which may lead to new elections in the near…

Opposition Chairman and Labor Party leader MK Yitzchak Herzog, a reserve officer in Military Intelligence’s 8200 Unit, sharply criticized on Saturday 43 reservist officers and soldiers from the same unit, who signed a letter of insubordination following Operation Protective Edge. “Proper disclosure, I am a major in Unit 8200 and have accompanied it for decades,”…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon reacted with disgust Saturday night to a letter of refusal signed by leftist reservists from an elite intelligence unit. The letter, signed by 43 reserve officers and soldiers, called for insubordination after accusing the elite intelligence Unit 8200 of being an “inseparable part of the military control of the territories,” referring to…

Hamas politburo head Khaled Mashaal, an undisputed war criminal of the highest degree, said in a news conference in Tunisia that Hamas would like to utilize the current period of time to consolidate what it sees as its accomplishments in the latest confrontation with Israel. Mashaal spoke of several steps that must be taken simultaneously:…

A spokesperson for “moderate” Syrian rebel factions spoke to Channel 2 near the Golan Heights on Friday, saying in a rare interview that locals are preparing for “total war” against the extremist Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS) organization.  “There will be total war against IS in the south,” a rebel leader, who wished to remain…

Residents of the Golan Heights reported hearing sirens on Friday evening, at around 10:00 p.m. Israel time. One rocket exploded in an open region in the northern Golan, causing no physical injuries or damages. The rocket is believed to a spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria. In recent days rebels, among them Al-Qaeda’s…

Germany announced a ban on the Islamic State on Friday, saying it aimed to prevent the group from recruiting young jihadists in Germany, Reuters reported. Coinciding with the launch of a broad U.S. campaign against the Sunni terrorists, which could include air strikes in Syria as well as Iraq, Germany introduced an immediate ban making…

Members of the IDF’s elite 8200 unit have published a counter-letter to their colleagues, Walla! News reports Friday night, after 43 fellow reservists alleged to the press that the unit was guilty of “human rights violations.”  “We are veterans of Unit 8200, soldiers and reserve soldiers, past and present, who wish to express shock, disgust and total…

A Bedouin man threatened an IDF officer at gunpoint Friday evening, according to Walla! News, on the Tse’elim firing ranges in the south.  Two Bedouin men from the nearby village of Bir Haraj drove into the shooting range on ATVs, an officer on base reported, and refused to leave the area despite the natural threats to…

Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin (Likud) called for the immediate dismissal of 43 reservists from the IDF’s elite 8200 Unit on Friday afternoon, after they announced their refusal to serve in the IDF due to leftist beliefs and misconceptions about the IDF’s self-defense operation in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. Levin, a former 8200 soldier himself, scathingly…

Iran on Friday called on the United Nations’ atomic agency to condemn Israel over the drone which Iran claims it recently brought down above the Natanz uranium enrichment site. According to Reuters, Iran said that Israel committed an “act of aggression” by sending the drone. Iran’s envoy to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)…

Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, suspected of killing four people at Brussels’ Jewish Museum in May, was remanded in custody for another three months on Friday, judicial officials said. Nemmouche, 29, of Algerian origin and who spent more than a year fighting with Islamic extremists in Syria, has been charged with “murder in a terrorist context” after an Israeli couple, a French…

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Friday that neo-Nazi vandalism and threats against a local newspaper in eastern Germany were “unacceptable and must be stopped.”  This week, vandals sprayed the words “Jews” and the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil” on the office windows of the Lausitzer Rundschau, a newspaper known for its coverage of far-right groups. The week…

Israel has a “responsibility” to stop Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS), President Reuven Rivlin stated Friday. “Fighting evil, in the form of ISIS and those like it, is not simple,” Rivlin stated, at an event honoring fallen Druze soldiers held in the village of Muhraka.  “The West has already understood that it could…

Hamas’s exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, declared on Friday that his group would not hold direct negotiations with Israel, AFP reported. The comments come a day after another Hamas leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, hinted that direct negotiations with Israel might be needed. “If the situation remains as it is now… Hamas could find itself forced to…

Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh on Friday urged the Palestinian Authority’s leadership to sign the Rome Statute and hold Israel accountable for its “crimes in Gaza” at the International Criminal Court. Haniyeh said in a statement quoted by the Ma’an news agency that “signing the Rome Statute is the right for every victim and stalling…

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday it would be inappropriate for Iran to attend an upcoming meeting in Paris on how to defeat the Islamic State group, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Speaking to reporters in the Turkish capital, Kerry said he has not been formally asked about whether Iran should participate…

The United States on Thursday reiterated the need for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The call was made in a statement published by the State Department following the latest round of Strategic Dialogue between Israel and the U.S. Israel’s Minister for Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Yuval Steinitz and Deputy Secretary…

A family accidentally drove into the Arab neighborhood of Wadi Joz in Jerusalem on Thursday night, and nearly paid for the wrong turn in Israel’s capital city with their lives. After entering the neighborhood, the family car was beset upon by a hail of potentially lethal rocks and massive bricks that broke the windshield, in…

Kidnapped women are generally not allowed to speak with their families – except when the objective is simply to increase suffering, as is the case with Islamic State (IS, or ISIS) captor/torturers of young girls. Among the many acts of ISIS horror, it has perhaps been forgotten that an unknown number of teenaged Yazidi girls…

In the wake of Operation Protective Edge, a new project has been launched to “turn death into life,” by planting 100,000 new fruit trees in the exact areas where over 1,000 Hamas terror missiles fell. Many of the new fruit trees will be planted in the actual holes left by the impact of the rockets,…

Nationalist activist Baruch Marzel of Hevron, a member of the Otzma Leyisrael party that barely missed out in the last elections, criticized the Jewish Home party on Thursday – a day after it passed a controversial new party constitution expanding its chairperson’s authority. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Marzel argued the supposedly religious Zionist party had turned into…

Forty-three reserve force captains and soldiers in the prestigious Unit 8200, an elite intelligence corps responsible for collecting SIGINT (signal intelligence) and code decryption, have submitted a letter of insubordination to the Israeli media. The soldiers, who include extremist leftist activists, complained that their service to Israel’s security “harms innocents.” “There is an idea that…

Iran and world powers remain far apart over Tehran’s nuclear program and a “difficult road” lies ahead, a senior Iranian negotiator said on Thursday, according to Reuters. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke after a day of talks in Vienna with the three European members of the group of six major powers that is…

Anti-Semitic attacks nearly doubled in France in the first seven months of 2014, the country’s main Jewish group said Thursday. A total of 529 anti-Semitic actions or threats were registered up to the end of July, against 276 for the same period last year, the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said, citing figures gleaned from the French…

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) visited eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount on Thursday with members of the Internal Affairs Committee, where he told Arutz Sheva that he is convinced the wave of terror in the capital will only increase in coming days. “The loss of control over Jerusalem, and by continuation also over Gaza, started on the…

A South African Jewish online publication on Friday apologized to the country’s outspoken retired Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu for publishing an article comparing him to Adolf Hitler. The weekly South African Jewish Report (SAJR) had by Friday pulled down the article it had posted on its website the previous day. “The paper apologizes unconditionally to the Archbishop,” it said, adding, “the offending piece has…

Britain will not participate in any airstrikes on Syria but otherwise is ruling nothing out as it considers how to support U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to root out the Islamic State group, the British foreign secretary said Thursday, according to The Associated Press (AP). Obama on Wednesday authorized U.S. airstrikes inside Syria for the…

A Colorado woman plead guilty to conspiracy to support Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS) on Wednesday, according to the US Department of Justice. Shannon Conley, 19, was arrested in April as she tried to board a flight to Turkey to join the Islamists.  Conley joined the US Army Explorers to gain training in armed combat,…

Rob Ford, the controversial mayor of Toronto, was hospitalized on Wednesday with stomach pains, and was discovered in examinations to have a large tumor in his abdomen. Ford was struck with the pains while having breakfast with his brother, City Council member Doug Ford, and went to a family doctor who sent him to the…

Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, who is favored to replace Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 elections, has sharply criticized newly proposed legislation to cancel the citizenship of terrorists. The law would give authorities the power to cancel the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens who served in a foreign army or organization…

Adva Biton, the mother of four-year-old rock terror victim Adelle and three other daughters, gave birth to her first son on Friday. Adelle just returned home two weeks ago after a grueling rehabilitation period, after being wounded in an attack last March by Arab terrorists who threw rocks at the family car near Ariel, causing it to…

A court has leveled unprecedented criticism against State Attorney Shai Nitzan, who has previously been accused of a strong left-wing bias, over the “scandalous” bias he showed as Deputy Attorney General. The details of the case emerged in the trial of Uri Baram, who three-and-a-half years ago published videos against Nitzan. On Wednesday the court accepted the…

Israel’s justice ministry has charged a border policeman with assaulting and injuring a 15-year-old Palestinian-American dual national in July, according to the indictment seen by AFP Thursday. The policeman, whose name remains under a gag order, was indicted at Jerusalem magistrate’s court on Wednesday for using “excessive force” that could not be justified against Tariq Abu Khder at a July 3 demonstration in the Jerusalem neighborhood…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s 14th International Conference on Counter-Terrorism Thursday. This is the full text of his English address. “Thank you, Professor Reichman, for that introduction. “There’s no meaningful power without responsibility. Well, you could have it but it’s worthless or worse, it could be very dangerous. So all…

The protest will be held on Monday, September 22 at 4:00 p.m. at the Lincoln Center and is being organized by Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art (COPMA), JCC Watch, the Zionist Organization of America, Stand With Us, Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI) and the Rambam Mesivta yeshiva. First produced in Brussels and…

A Palestinian Arab taxi driver attempted to run over IDF soldiers near Ariel in Samaria Thursday afternoon, before being apprehended by police.  The soldiers tried to arrest the taxi driver at a nearby bus stop, as the would-be passengers fled. After a chase, the soldiers managed to apprehend the driver and hand him over to…

Sirens have sounded in the Kiryat Shmona and Metula areas, near the Lebanese border, on Thursday night, according to the Home Front Command.  No injuries or damage have been reported.  The IDF Spokesperson’s Office stated shortly after the event that the siren was a false alarm.  Tensions have heightened along the Lebanese border recently, after…

Speaking on the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 combined terror strikes on the United States, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel mourns those who were killed in the attacks, alongside the US. “On 9/11,” he reminded his audience at the annual International Institute for Counter-Terrorism conference in Herzliya, “the people in…

On a bright and sunny day in June, New York witnessed two solidarity rallies – one for the three Israeli teens kidnapped in Judea and Samaria, the other against terrorist group Boko Haram after it abducted 319 girls from a school in Chibok in northern Nigeria back in April. The two communities came together to…

Cuba has sent six tons of drugs and medical supplies to Gaza, official media reported Thursday. The government-run Cubadebate website said the humanitarian shipment was delivered by  officials at Cuba’s embassy in Cairo to the Hamas representative there. Cubadebate said Palestinian officials expressed their thanks for Havana’s “noble gesture” that “will alleviate the difficult situation Gaza is facing,” as hospitals continue to…

Israel has found an opportunity to start [its] ethnic cleansing [in Gaza],because the Arabs are [currently] busy with what is going on in their countries – as in Iraq IS (Islamic State) expelled the Christians and nobody in the [entire] world objected… There is something unclear about the US position. Of course, it is [the US] that stands behind these [radical] factions…

A CIA spokesman said on Thursday that a new intelligence assessment estimates that the Islamic State (IS) group can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria, The Associated Press (AP) reported. That figure is up from a previous estimation of 10,000, noted the report. The new assessment is based on a review…

Over 130 police officers have been injured in Arab rioting in Jerusalem, according to police spokesman Asi Aharoni – who marked Ramadan as the “turning point” for the Holy City which saw a bloody descent into chaos in Arab neighborhoods two months ago.  “Ramadan this year was particularly tense,” Aharoni stated, in an interview with Channel…

The United States on Thursday received the backing of 10 Arab countries for a “coordinated military campaign” against Islamic State fighters, Reuters reported. According to the report, after talks in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State John Kerry won backing from 10 Arab countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals…

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Thursday the release of 45 Fijian UN peacekeepers who were kidnapped by members of the Syrian jihadist rebel group Al-Nusra Front. “The Secretary-General welcomes the release of the 45 United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) peacekeepers who had been forcibly taken on 28 August 2014 by armed…

A 47-year-old woman from Syria who was seriously wounded by a mortar round that exploded close to her home was brought on Thursday to the Ziv Medical Center in the city of Tzfat. Relatives who brought the woman to the border with Israel told IDF soldiers who were stationed there that the woman was wounded…

Former Canadian Minister of Justice, Professor Irwin Cotler spoke to Arutz Sheva last week on the importance of hasbara, or explaining facts and myths about Israel.  “I think hasbara is part of diplomacy; every government engages in it,” Cotler began, speaking to reporters at IDC Herzilya’s 14th International Conference on Counter-Terrorism. “The question is not whether you engage…

A Palestinian Authority (PA) official said Thursday the results of an autopsy prove that a Palestinian Arab prisoner Israel said had committed suicide actually died of a blow to the head. “We deny it was suicide,” said Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian committee for prisoners in a press conference on the fate of Raed Abdel…

44 Fijian UN peacekeepers have been released by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria, according to Al Jazeera. The soldiers are scheduled to cross into Israel later today, from where they will be transported back home. The report comes not long after a video of the captives – apparently filmed two days ago – was…

Once again, Israel is not part of an international coalition to “defend the Middle East”, even though Israel is at the heart of the Middle East – and it’s all Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s fault, said Labor Party and opposition head Yitzchak Herzog. US President Barack H. Obama is planning to build an international coalition…

Leading Republican Senator and Christian supporter of Israel Ted Cruz (R-Tx) was booed off stage at a gala dinner in support of the Middle East’s embattled Christian minority, after voicing support for Israel. Cruz was the keynote speaker at the event, hosted by the recently-founded In Defense of Christians (IDC) organization. In his speech, he…

Officials in Ramallah and Gaza claim that there is little or no support there for ISIS, the Islamist terror group that has conquered large parts of Iraq and Syria. A report in the Palestinian Authority-controlled daily Al-Quds al-Arabi quoted top officials as saying that despite trying, the group had been unable to make inroads among…

As polls show strong support for Jewish Home among the electorate – and rapidly slipping support among voters for her Hatnua party – Justice Minister Tzippy Livni said Thursday that as far as she was concerned, the party headed by Nafatali Bennett had no place in the coalition. “Jewish Home is a party based on…

A Jerusalem-based cell of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) has threatened to kill Twitter employees and target its offices if the social media site does not stop closing down ISIS accounts. Al Musra Al Maqdisia (The Supporters Of Jerusalem), which pledged allegiance to ISIS in February, was among several Islamic State-linked groups and…

Gadi Yarkoni, the last Israeli to be injured in Operation Protective Edge, was out of danger on Thursday, doctors said. Yarkoni is the administrator of Kibbutz Nirim in the Gaza border area. He was severely injured by a Hamas rocket just minutes before the cease-fire at the end of the 50-day war took effect. Yarkoni,…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak at a Berlin rally against anti-Semitism on Sunday to condemn hate speech and attacks against Jews that spiked amid the latest Gaza conflict. The event comes 75 years after the outbreak of World War II, during which Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews, a crime that remains a source…

In an interview Thursday, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said that the US and Israel would continue to cooperate diplomatically and militarily in the wake of US President Barack Obama’s speech Wednesday night laying out a strategy for fighting ISIS, the Islamist terror group that has conquered large parts of Iraq and Syria. Speaking…

A leading Fatah party member has compared Hamas’s methods of executing and brutalizing its political opponents in Gaza to the gruesome executions carried out by the “Islamic State” terrorist group, or ISIS. In an interview with the Palestinian Authority’s official TV station, Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi expressed his anger over a string of…

Anti-Semitism across the globe during Israel’s fifty-day self-defense operation against Hamas, Operation Protective Edge, drew heavily on Holocaust and Adolf Hitler references, according to a report released Thursday.  The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked anti-Semitic activities around the globe during the operation, and cited examples from fourteen different countries, from Argentina to the UK.  Many of…

Hamas’s exiled deputy leader said on Thursday the terrorist group could be forced to negotiate directly with Israel, ahead of planned talks in Cairo to consolidate a truce. But an Israeli minister dismissed any possibility of talking directly with the Islamist movement, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and glorifies killing…

Two soldiers who were involved in leaking a list of IDF soldiers killed in action during Operation Protective Edge were punished by their commanders in a military trial, Channel Two reported Thursday. One of the soldiers was sentenced to a week in the brig, and the second was given a “stern warning” about repeating his…

Nine years after being arrested for violating the law during a rally protesting the disengagement, Kiryat Arba resident and mother of four Miriam Schlissel got a knock on the door several week ago. Turns out she had been indicted for rioting, and no one told her about it. Now, the Israeli justice system wants its…

After years of ambiguity over whether or not individuals who suffered property losses due to violence associated with the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Knesset Finance Committee on Thursday authorized regulations governing compensation for such damage. The decision comes on the backdrop of a significant increase in violence and attacks by Arabs against Jews. The enactment of…

After two years on the run from Israeli authorities suspected sex-offender Rabbi Eliezer Berland has reportedly been arrested in Amsterdam’s international airport, and will soon be extradited back to Israel. Berland, who founded and leads the Shuvu Banim hassidic sect, was accused of sexually molesting several female followers in Israel but fled the country to…

Was 9/11 a US conspiracy by George Bush to get rid of the CIA? Yes, according to this guy: Obviously it can’t be true though – he didn’t mention the Jews…

Israel’s deputy foreign minister warned Thursday that Hamas was likely to resume “violence” if it feels it has made no political gains from upcoming talks in Cairo. The remarks came just two weeks after Israel and the Islamist terrorist group that dominates Gaza agreed a truce to end a 50-day war that killed more than…

Some 40 Jordanian parliamentarians have demanded that the Jordanian government prevent the national electricity company from signing an agreement to import gas from Israel, the Jordanian-based Ammon News website reported on Wednesday. In a memorandum submitted by MP Khamis Attia during a session yesterday, the group said: “We the undersigned deputies call on the government…

On the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, New York mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday that such an attack could happen again. “The responsibility I have today was generated by that horrible day,” de Blasio told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “My role now is to look out for…

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Wednesday that France was prepared to take part in air strikes on Islamic extremists in Iraq “if necessary,” according to AFP. “In Iraq… we support the formation of an inclusive government. We will participate if necessary in an aerial military action,” Fabius said in a speech in Paris.…

U.S. President Barack Obama declared on Wednesday night that Washington will form a broad coalition to combat the Islamic State (IS). In a speech to the nation regarding the threat from the terrorist group, Obama said that “the greatest threat comes from Middle East and North Africa, one of them is Islamic State.” IS is…

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday called for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), claiming that doing so would help the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Restarting peace talks, she said, would “create a strong axis with Arab countries that terrorism is a common enemy to…

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), confirmed on Wednesday that chlorine gas was used in attacks in northern Syria this year, according to the BBC. The OPCW, which is the international body seeking to implement global laws banning chemical weapons, said it had found “compelling confirmation” of the use of chlorine, in…

William Schabas, the Canadian professor who was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to head a commission of inquiry into Israel’s military operations in Gaza, on Wednesday insisted that he is not anti-Israel, despite the many remarks he has made in the past proving the contrary. Speaking to the Arab-language newspaper Asharq al-Awsat,…

Housing Minister Uri Ariel said on Wednesday evening that the Tekuma faction of the Jewish Home, which he heads, will consider its next step following the approval of the Jewish Home’s new constitution, which Ariel opposes. “Unfortunately, our requests to pass a joint constitution after a union of the two parties went unanswered,” said Ariel,…

The bottom floor of the Ichud Shivat Zion synagogue in Tel Aviv was severely damaged by a fire several days ago, in a blaze which destroyed many holy books and damaged several rooms and hallways. This week, Arutz Sheva spoke to the synagogue’s staff about the damage – and plans for reconstruction.  “I came a bit…

The European Union (EU) warned Wednesday that violence could re-ignite in Gaza within “months” if Israel and Hamas fail to consolidate a fragile ceasefire through serious talks. The EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, and John Gatt-Rutter, envoy to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Gaza, spoke to journalists in Jerusalem just two weeks after a bloody and destructive conflict in the…

A beheaded corpse was found in the Sinai Peninsula Wednesday, residents said – bearing a note from a terror group linked to the Islamic State (IS) alleging the victim was an “Israeli spy.”  “This is the fate of all who prove to be traitors in their homeland,” the note said, claiming the victim “worked for…

Gaza’s Hamas-run “Ministry of Interior and National Security” has banned Gazans from public celebrations, including weddings, according to a directive published Wednesday.  An Interior Ministry official stated that the decision was made “in the public’s best interest” and “in mutual responsibility and concern” for families of Palestinian Arabs killed and wounded during the fifty-day battle…

Hamas’s exiled deputy leader said Wednesday that indirect talks with Israel to consolidate a Gaza ceasefire are to resume in Cairo in mid-September. Fifty days of deadly fighting between Israel and Hamas terrorists ended on August 26 with an open-ended truce agreement. Under terms of the deal, the parties agreed to resume Egyptian-brokered negotiations within a month to discuss key issues, including…

The Jewish Home Party voted on a new constitution at Tel Aviv University Wednesday, amidst a controversy over political control that may see a split over what some claim are different values.  Tensions over the vote ran high, as a clash broke out between MK Moti Yogev and a security guard after Yogev requested that…

Jerusalem District Police Yossi Pariente and Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch visited the scene of a vandalized French Hill gas station on Tuesday, vowing to Arutz Sheva reporters at the scene to stop vandalism in the neighborhood. Arab thugs attacked the gas station earlier this week, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.  “We really see this as a…

Murdered American journalist Steve Sotloff was not “sold to Islamic State” by “moderate rebels,” the White House stated Tuesday night.  “As it relates to the specifics of this matter, based on the information that has been provided to me, I don’t believe that is accurate, but I do know at the same time that this…

A Jewish school in Australia has built a bomb-proof wall to protect it and an adjacent synagogue, in a dramatic – and expensive – response to a spate of anti-Semitic incidents which has left Australia’s Jewish community feeling shaken. The Yeshiva Center in Bondi has erected the concrete wall, and installed dozens and CCTV cameras…

Jerusalem Councilman and former mayoral candidate Moshe Leon has demanded a repeat committee discussion on the recent approval of 2,200 new housing units for Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem. Leon said this is the first time Arab construction in the capital is being approved on such a large scale. He warned that the decision would encourage rampant illegal Arab…

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has revealed his intentions to establish an independent investigative committee into the IAF airstrikes on UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza – despite the rampant use of such schools as terror sites. Speaking to the London-based Arab paper Al Hayyat as cited by Yedioth Aharonoth, Ban called for the…

Jewish Home MK Yoni Chetboun said Wednesday morning that he and the other opponents of the party constitution proposed by Chairman Naftali Benntt have gathered the required signatures to force tonight’s vote on the constitution to be a secret ballot. “There is unrest on the ground, and I am sure that religious Zionism will say…

The Jewish Home Convention will take place Wednesday evening at Tel Aviv University, with 1,180 Central Committee members set to vote on a controversial party constitution proposed by its chairman, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett. Opponents of the constitution want the vote to be carried out through secret ballots, so that members vote their conscience without…

Hollywood star couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, affectionately known as “Brangelina,” who finally tied the knot in France last month, have been learning an Israeli martial art for their new film By The Sea. According to a source quoted in the British Mirror, Pitt and Jolie have been taking Krav Maga self-defense classes with their…

Aside from the physical destruction wrought by Hamas’s recent terror war on Israel, the escalation of rocket and tunnel terror from Gaza since July has also taken a serious economic toll from the Jewish state by causing a sharp decline in tourism. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, tourist entries to Israel in August…

An Arab rioter was shot dead early Wednesday morning as he took part in clashes attacking IDF troops in Al-Amari north of Ramallah, with Palestinian Authority (PA) sources decrying the incident, even as the IDF reports he was shot while trying to kill soldiers. The rioter, 22-year-old Taysir Qatari according to PA medics cited by AFP,…

Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Tzvi Mazel, tells Arutz Sheva that the reports regarding an Egyptian offer to Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, to enlarge Gaza by adding territory to it from the Sinai Peninsula, are a hoax. “I find it hard to believe that an offer like that was made by the Egyptian president,”…

The jihadist Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) regime imposing brutal Muslim law on the large areas of Iraq and Syria it has captured now has its sights primarily set on Italy, according to senior sources in that nation. “The principal target of IS remains the West and every symbol that represents it – historically, politically, culturally,” Italian…

A senior British MP condemned the boycott movement against Israel Tuesday, branding it as a manifestation of pure anti-Semitism and comparing it to Nazi boycotts against Jews. Speaking at the Holocaust Education Trust, Former Education Secretary and current Conservative Party Chief Whip Michael Gove warned of what he termed as the “resurgent, mutating, lethal virus of…

The IDF is opening a criminal investigation into two strikes in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, Israeli media reported Wednesday, and whether or not they targeted civilians, breaking international law.  The strikes are among the clashes during the war which faced the fiercest media backlash: an IAF strike on July 16 in which four children…

UK rabbis expressed their concern to Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi David Lau this week that if legislation proposed by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party changing the conversion process passes, they will be unable to recognize converts from Israel. In a conference of rabbis in London, local rabbis spoke to Rabbi Lau about the ramifications the…

Defeating global terrorist networks requires a “counter-network” of intelligence services and other parties to take the fight to them, according to Dr Boaz Ganor, the founder and Executive Director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT). Speaking to Arutz Sheva at the 14th International Conference on Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Dr. Ganor emphasized that states and agencies combating…

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said he is “not aware” of an Egyptian offer to the Palestinian Authority to establish a Palestinian state in Sinai and Gaza. In any case, he told Arutz Sheva, no diplomatic initiative is possible at this point, until Mahmoud Abbas “proves he is able take control of the Palestinian Authority, demilitarize…

President Barack Obama is preparing to ask Congress to pay for a multibillion-dollar plan to expand the military campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants, an unnamed administration official told the Wall Street Journal / Live Mint website. While the proposal hasn’t been made final and the total amount is still being calculated, it will…

The Bank of Israel on Wednesday released the first samples to the Israeli market of its new 50 shekel (just under $15) banknote that is posed to enter circulation. Training was held in Jerusalem to prepare businesses to recognize and accept the bill and to reduce confusion as the bill enters common usage. Specifications were provided…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon landed in the Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan on Wednesday, becoming the first Israeli defense minister ever to visit the country, which is located strategically on Iran’s northern border along the Caspian Sea. Arriving in the capital city of Baku, Ya’alon is to hold a two-day historic diplomatic visit with Azerbaijani President Ilham…

Israel on Wednesday hailed US efforts to form an alliance to fight jihadists in Syria and Iraq but raised concerns of a rapprochement between Washington and Israel’s arch-foe Iran. “I praise the American initiative to take action and form a coalition against the Islamic State, and hope those efforts will succeed,” Foreign Minister Avigdor  Liberman…

Egypt will host a donors conference on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip on October 12 in Cairo, the Egyptian foreign minister said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The announcement carried on the state news agency came after Norway’s foreign minister held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the issue, the report noted.…

A group of 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji taken hostage in the Golan Heights two weeks ago will be released soon, the Fiji government said Tuesday night, according to AFP. “Fijian troops will soon be released. More details to follow,” the Ministry of Information said in a one-line statement on its official Facebook page. Details…

Hassan Abboud, the leader of the Syrian Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, has been killed with other top commanders in a bomb blast at a meeting, the BBC reported on Tuesday. Activists said a suicide bomber detonated a vest in the attack in the north-western town of Ram Hamdan. Ahrar al-Sham is part of the…

Opposition leader MK Yitzhak Herzog (Labor) was assured by officials in Washington on Tuesday that the United States will not compromise on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Herzog met at the White House with President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, and deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken, and told them that the…

Russian officials have traveled to Iran’s capital to boost economic ties between the two countries, The Associated Press (AP) reported on Tuesday. Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and Alexander Novak, Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, oversaw a meeting of businessmen in Tehran, calling on them to increase trade, according to the report. Zanganeh…

Palestinian Arab terrorists who are serving time in Israeli jails announced on Tuesday night that they will start a hunger strike on Wednesday. The mass hunger strike is a response to the death of an Arab terrorist jailed in Israel, who committed suicide by hanging himself at the Eshel prison in Be’er Sheva. The terrorist,…

A number of bronze shoes were stolen from the riverside Holocaust memorial ‘Shoes on the Danube’ in Budapest, Hungary, The Budapest Beacon reported on Tuesday. It is not known whether the incident was racially motivated or simple theft, the report said. The memorial by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay, which was erected on the left…

Technology juggernaut Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 on Tuesday, the newest entry in its highly popular line of cellular phones, along with its foray into the smart-watch market entitled the Apple Watch. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen and comes in dark black and gold, while the iPhone 6 Plus features a 5.5-inch screen.…

Greece on Tuesday ratcheted up its punishments for racism, anti-Semitism and hate speech, in a move prompted by the surprise rise of a neo-Nazi party.   A new law approved by parliament sets prison sentences of up to three years – up from two years – and fines of up to 20,000 euros ($26,000) for…

Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov claimed on Tuesday that the joint Israeli and American test of an Arrow (Hetz) 2 interceptor missile, conducted in a simulated ballistic missile attack by Iran, failed. According to Konashenkov the target missile, which was supposed to be shot down in the test, was found by Russia in the…

Former President Shimon Peres coordinated a goodwill soccer game for “peace,” in which 80 Israeli and Arab children participated last Monday. According to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the “friendly” match was nothing less than a “crime against humanity.” Leading the charge against the game, in which children aged six to 16 played in Kibbutz Dorot,…

Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces have reportedly arrested Fares Kawasmeh, a Hevron-based member of the Hamas-linked Kawasmeh clan that conducted the abduction and murder of Naftali Frenkel (16), Eyal Yifrah (19) and Gilad Sha’ar (16) on June 12. Hamas senior sources on Tuesday afternoon confirmed reports cited on Channel 10 about the arrest. According to the reports,…

The United Nations (UN) and Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday called for international donors to supply $550 million to the Hamas terror enclave of Gaza, despite the fact that Hamas has already restarted construction on its terror tunnels to attack Israel. The appeal seeks to repair damage caused in the 50-day Operation Protective Edge, which…

As the INS Tanin, Israel’s fourth and most advanced Dolphin class submarine, is making its way to Israel from Germany, it has elicited criticism from various German political leaders in terms of continuing the supply of weapons to Israel. According to a report in Die Welt, Germany’s Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has recommended a cutback in…

Murdered journalist Steven Sotloff was kidnapped and sold to the radical Islamic State terrorist group, or ISIS, by one of the “moderate” rebel groups to whom the US government has considered offering support, according to his family’s spokesman. Barak Barfi told CNN that Sotloff – who was Jewish and a joint US-Israeli citizen – was…

A fugitive rabbi fleeing sex-crimes charges in Israel has once again evaded police in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who heads the Shuvu Banim hassidic sect, was conducting a wedding for one of his followers at a house when police attempted to arrest him. However, relatives and other supporters managed to spirit him away,…

The controversy over the Jewish Home party’s new constitution continues to rage among party MKs, revealing what could be described as a crossroads for the religious-Zionist party, as well as for the religious-Zionist community in Israel as a whole. The new constitution grants the party leader, currently Naftali Bennett, greater power to decide who is…

“Provocation”, “a Moroccan Muslim”, “an Ayatollah”: the appointment of a young Morocco-born woman as France’s education minister has sparked a wave of attacks that has renewed concerns about racism in the country. Najat Vellaud-Belkacem is one of the brightest lights in President Francois Hollande’s deeply unpopular government. The 36-year-old telegenic Hollande protegee was appointed last…

Israel’s honorary consul to Wales, UK has called for the dismissal of the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cardiff, the country’s capital, after the latter dismissed Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians as “firing toy rockets” at an August rally. Labor party councillor Ali Ahmed’s comments were made at a hard-left “No NATO” rally, as part of…

Arab foreign ministers said on Monday they will back Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to lobby the United Nations to set a deadline for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, The Associated Press (AP) reported. The PA’s ambassador to Egypt, Jamal al-Shobaki, said that the Arab League resolution issued a day earlier…

It’s a comparison that Hamas’s leadership can’t stand, but Jewish-American rapper Ari Lesser has released a new single comparing Hamas – the Islamist terrorist organization which rules the Gaza Strip – to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadi groups. The song, which is simply entitled “Hamas,” focuses significantly on the group’s cynical use of…

The Jewish museum in Brussels will reopen on Sunday under tight security, in a message of defiance after terrorist Mehdi Nemmouche, a former torturer for the brutal Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Syria, shot dead four people there in May. “We should not give free rein – I dare say – to bastards,” the museum’s secretary general…

The New York Jewish community and its supporters will stage an historic march on September 14 in downtown Manhattan, protesting the recent skyrocketing wave of anti-Semitism and media culpability in an event entitled “Silence? Never Again!” In the wake of the 50-day counter-terror Operation Protective Edge, studies have found global the rate of anti-Semitic incidents…

Palestinian Authority (PA) officials on Tuesday claimed Israel committed a “war crime,” after an Arab terrorist jailed in Israel committed suicide by hanging himself. Israel Prison Service spokesperson Sivan Weizman told AFP the prisoner hung himself in the bathrooms at Eshel Prison in Be’er Sheva, adding that a medical team had tried to revive him but that…

Syrian rebels strengthened their hold of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights on Tuesday morning, conquering the mountain Al-Mal in the Quneitra region where they have recently been capturing control from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces. In conquering the strategic point on Tuesday, rebel forces killed roughly ten Syrian soldiers according to Arab news…

US-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday accused Israel of “illegally” sending almost 7,000 illegal immigrants back to their home countries in Africa. “Israel’s convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law,” claims HRW in the 83-page report. HRW, whose head Kenneth Roth directly condoned Hamas…

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri on Tuesday denied reports that Hamas was planning to imminently resume rocket fire against Israel. “Hamas denies what has been reported on an Israeli website – and not from Ismail Haniyeh’s lips – about the decision to renew the conflict at the end of the ceasefire,” he said. Zuhri was…

Five weeks following the arson of a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany, Germany police placed two German nationals under arrest for the crime. At the height of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, amid a major surge in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the synagogue, seriously damaging the building’s facade. Security cameras managed to film three suspects. One of…

Residents of cities throughout Israel had front-row seats to a successful test of the IDF’s long-range missile defense system Tuesday. The Israeli Defense Ministry, together with the American Missile Defense Agency (MDA), conducted a drill simulating a ballistic missile attack by Iran on Israel, firing a single Arrow (Hetz) 2 missile in what was described…

Sometime in the coming days a governmental committee is to convene to decide whether a new Qatari-funded Arab city in the heart of Samaria will be populated. It is currently expected that Israel will remove the last barrier blocking the city – which is already near completely-built – and allow the city to be connected…

The tension between Hamas and Fatah continued on Monday, with Hamas accusing Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas of trying to sabotage a fragile reconciliation agreement. According to AFP, Hamas’s accusation came after Abbas accused Hamas of running “a shadow government” in Gaza. In a sharply worded attack on Hamas, Abbas on Saturday…

As the U.S. considers how to expand operations against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Iraq, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday that President Barack Obama needs to weigh all the consequences of what could be a lengthy campaign, and what could go wrong, according to The Associated Press (AP). Speaking to reporters in…

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday denied reports that he had offered to establish a Palestinian state in the Sinai Peninsula, the website of Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper reported. In a speech to mark national teachers’ day and which mostly dealt with education, Sisi stressed that no one can make such promises and that there…

Communications Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) recently received an offer to be appointed as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Channel 2 News reported. According to the report, the current ambassador, Ron Prosor, has indicated that he wishes to conclude his term earlier than expected, and the role was offered to Minister Erdan. This is not…

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, underwent prostate surgery on Monday and was recovering at a government hospital in Tehran, The Associated Press (AP) reported, citing Iranian state media. The 75-year-old Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters and has been Iran’s top leader since 1989, was reported to be in “good condition”…

Iran is far apart from the six world powers negotiating with it over scaling back its nuclear program, but that gap could be narrowed in talks next week, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Monday, according to Reuters. Iran and the powers failed to meet a July 20 target date for an agreement…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned on Monday that Iran is trying to renew its aid to Hamas. Speaking at the 14th International Conference of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Ya’alon also pointed out that Turkey and Qatar are supporters of Hamas, and called on the international community to speak up over…

Terror attacks in Jerusalem have grown exponentially over the past few months, a Shabak (Israel Security Service) report Monday said. According to the statistics, three terror attacks occurred in the city in March 2014. In April 7 terrorist attacks took place, while in May and June, there were already 22 attacks, In July and August,…

An Israeli woman who converted to Islam and married a Muslim Arab was sentenced to a year in prison Sunday after she smuggled her husband into Israel illegally. The woman illicitly took advantage of the trust the state put in her as a security official stationed at the Meitar checkpoint, on the road between Hevron…

The Jerusalem Municipality and the National Lottery, in conjunction with the Ariel Municipal Company and Moriah, dedicated the Jerusalem HaPayis (Lottery) Hall on Monday, due to be the largest sports hall, leisure hall, and culture center in the Middle East. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat spoke at the hall’s opening ceremony.  “We’ve been dreaming about this…

As polls show Naftali Bennett increasing in influence and more Israeli voters supporting the right, Yesh Atid head and Finance Minister Yair Lapid said that he intended to stay in the government and provide a bulwark defense against the growing influence of the right. “The peace process is on hold, and a regional conference on…

Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust will be honored with a new memorial in the Polish capital Warsaw paid for by the children of survivors, organizers said Monday. “It will be a gesture of gratitude, not from a government, or a city, but from the Jewish diaspora, from those Jews who were saved and whose descendants now want to…

Israel is providing intelligence, including satellite photos and classified information, to support the efforts of the US-led coalition against the organization “Islamic State” (IS; formerly known as ISIS) in Iraq, a Western diplomat stated to Walla! News Monday.  The diplomat stated to the Israeli daily on condition of anonymity that, once the information has been processed…

Stray gunfire from Syria wounded an Israeli soldier in the Golan Heights on Monday, the army said. “An IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldier was injured by errant fire from internal fighting in Syria. He was evacuated to hospital,” an army statement said, without elaborating. The soldier is reportedly from the Armored Corps., which is currently stationed along the Israeli-Syrian…

The Eshel Hashomron hotel unilaterally canceled an event that was to be held by anti-missionary activists. One of the activists organizers of the event, Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov, intends to sue, said his attorney, Itamar Ben-Gvir. In a letter issued by the hotel’s management, Ben Ya’akov was told that the event, set for this Wednesday, had been…

In his first public speech since the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge, Economics Minister and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett sharply criticized the Israeli left, accusing them of having outmoded world views that they have refused to update. “I cannot believe the things I hear from supporters of the left,” said Bennett. “They speak…

Minister of Communications Gilad Erdan (Likud) said an alleged proposal by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to establish a Palestinian Arab state in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, was an example of the type of “innovative” solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been sorely lacking until now. Speaking at an Institute for Counter-Terrorism conference…

Although most in the political establishment agree that elections are not in the offing, a new poll released Monday shows that if elections were held today, the Likud would retain its strength as the biggest party in the Knesset. Running this time without Yisrael Beytenu, the Likud would garner 28 Knesset seats. The Knesset Channel‘s…

British women and Islamist extremists have joined forces again, international media reported Monday – this time, to suppress women’s rights in Islamic State (IS; formerly ISIS) territory in Syria.  Tens of female jihadists from the UK have joined IS’s al-Khaansa Brigade which operates to punish women ‘deviating’ from strict moral and modesty codes in the IS…

During the course of intense Arab rioting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Jerusalem Councilman Aryeh King reports that a massive explosion was miraculously averted in the north-eastern neighborhood of French Hill. King arrived at a gas station in the Jewish-majority neighborhood on Sunday night, and reports that dozens of Arab rioters attempted to ignite the fuel…

Hiddush, the liberal Movement for Religious Freedom and Equality, on Monday debunked the figures spread by the Yesh Atid party the day before, which bragged of a dramatic increase in hareidi IDF enlistment over the last year thanks to a new draft law. According to Hiddush, the claims of a dramatic increase are “as accurate…

A media gag order was lifted on Monday on the testimony of the main complainant against the extremist Messianic cult exposed the day before, which brain-washed Jewish women into taking drugs and having sex with Arab men in order to “bring the redemption.” The Lehava anti-assimilation organization led police in gathering evidence and exposing the cult, which has…

Goel Ratzon, 63, was convicted Monday of most of the counts of sexual abuse he was accused of, including rape and rape of a minor. He was acquitted of the charge of enslavement. Ratzon was arrested in 2010 and accused of being the leader of a harem cult with at least 17 wives, who gave…

Leaders and residents of the south expressed frustration at the government, after a senior diplomatic source revealed assessments on Sunday showing that despite the ceasefire Hamas has restarted construction of rockets and terror tunnels to attack Israeli civilians in the region. “Continued tunnel digging towards our communities is a cause for war,” Hof Ashkelon Regional…

The Israeli government has rejected New Zealand’s new ambassador Jonathan Curr because he was also accredited to the Palestinian Authority. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully said that the dual representation’s never been a problem in the past, according to NewsTalkZB. “McCully says there are various ways of achieving diplomatic representation under the changed circumstances…

Mehdi Nemmouche, the terrorist behind the deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May, planned to launch a terror attack along the Champs Elysees, the Fifth Avenue of Paris, on France’s biggest national holiday, Buzzfeed reported on Sunday, citing the French newspaper Libération. According to the report Nemmouche, who has been extradited to…

Egyptian president General Abdel Fatah A-Sisi has offered Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas to cede 160 square kilometers of the Sinai Peninsula adjoining Gaza to the PA, thus creating a Palestinian state five times the present size of Gaza. In return, the PA would stop demanding that Israel return to the 1967 borders. The offer…

Israel will prosecute any individual who expresses public sympathy or admiration for the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS), the Islamist group that has taken control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, said Israel Police Commander Yochanan Danino. Danino’s comments come in the wake of a report in the daily Yisrael Hayom newspaper Friday…

With the Shemitta year fast approaching, farmers and students will be able to get a first-hand look at how to conduct themselves in accordance with the Jewish laws that apply to this special year at six “model farms” that the Knesset Agricultural Lobby will be funding. The Committee will spend NIS 900,000 on the project,…

Hamas’s ‘greatest victory’ in fifty-day Operation Protective Edge was swaying the hearts and minds of the Western media, its deputy political leader Ismail Haniyeh insisted, in a clip of an August 29 speech newly released Monday.  “In this war, we won the media war as well,” Haniyeh stated. His words were translated by the Middle…

The war with Israel may be over, but now the fight is turning inward with bitter rivalry between Fatah and Hamas threatening to shatter a fragile Palestinian unity deal.  In the latest spat between the factions, Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of running a “shadow government” in Gaza, prompting the Islamist movement to…

Members of the Knesset Interior Committee on Thursday will conduct a special tour of the Mount of Olives in order to examine up close the security arrangements there. The tour comes after hundreds of complaints by Jewish visitors to the huge cemetery located on the Mount of rock-throwing attacks by Arabs, and vandalism of the…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende on Monday, focusing mostly on the regional threats to the Middle East from Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS).  “You came here during a turbulent time,” Netanyahu began. “Among the international community there is a growing awareness to the threat of terrorism and…

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s office wasted no time on Monday denying reports that Egypt had offered the PA a state in the Sinai Peninsula, in return for the PA agreeing to forego demands on the 1949 Armistice lines as borders. Al-Tayyib Abd Al-Rahim, Secretary-General of Abbas’s office, told the Palestinian Arab Ma’an News Agency that…

Slowly but sure, without great fanfare, the Ramat Givat Zeev neighborhood north of Jerusalem, is breaking sales records and is moving steadily towards realizing the dream of this unique neighborhood in the Jerusalem Hills. The sales department of Nofei Israel, the developer of the project, has reported heightened interest, and the signature of many contracts.…

Saudi Arabia has launched the construction of a high-security five-layered fence on the border with Iraq to protect the desert kingdom from “infiltrators and smugglers,” according to state media quoted by RT. The fence will cover 900 km (560 miles) of Saudi Arabia’s northern frontier, SPA state news agency reported. Watchtowers, night vision and radars…

Two separate technical malfunctions hit two different Israeli airlines on Monday – one on a cross-continental flight by the international airline El Al, and the other a Cessna 208 Caravan single-propeller airplane from the domestic aviation company Ofek Jets. In the first instance, an El Al flight with 150 passengers aboard was set to take off…

The United Stated, Israel and Saudi Arabia have jointly created the Islamic State group, an Iranian lawmaker said Sunday, according to PressTV. “The [IS] terrorist group is the joint product of the U.S., the Zionist regime [of Israel] and Saudi Arabia in the region and there is no doubt about that…,” the spokesman for Iranian…

A shirt worn by a member of the Navy SEAL team during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 went on show in New York on Sunday, AFP reports. The garment is part of an exhibition at the National September 11 Memorial Museum portraying the decade-long hunt to find the Al-Qaeda…

Tunisia’s main Islamist party, Ennahda, said on Sunday it would not contest a presidential election in November, in the interest of ensuring an inclusive government for all Tunisians, according to Reuters. Ennahda is one of the two front-runners to win next month’s parliamentary election and provide the next prime minister, but opposition groups say its…

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird has expressed Canada’s determination to act against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) which has declared an Islamic caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq. In an article he wrote and which was first published in The Globe and Mail newspaper, Baird said that IS poses a threat not…

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, who is being tried in Jordan on terror charges, on Sunday denounced the beheading of U.S. journalists by the Islamic State (IS), AFP reported. Speaking to reporters from the dock at a Amman courthouse Sunday, Abu Qatada repeated his condemnation of IS that controls swathes of territory in Iraq and…

MK Miri Regev (Likud) on Sunday issued a warning to Hamas’s former Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, after he threatened that Hamas would resume the rocket attacks against Israel. In a sermon he gave this past Friday, Haniyeh declared that Hamas would resume the rocket fire towards Israel on September 25 unless Israel ends its naval…

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is trying to cool the tensions in his group’s relations with the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas spoke to Arab journalists in Cairo on Saturday night, warning that the unity deal he sealed with Hamas in April is on the brink of collapse. Speaking in the wake of…

Police in the German city of Wuppertal are investigating several young men who announced themselves to be “Sharia police”, Russia Today (RT) reports. According to the report, the group was patrolling the streets, urging people to refrain from various sorts of activities and entertainment. The young men wearing orange safety vests with the words “Sharia…

Ireland is considering dropping out of the UN peace force on the Golan Heights, after dozens of Filipino peacekeepers were kidnapped by Islamist rebel groups on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border. Speaking Sunday, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said that he did not want to see Irish soldiers serving on behalf…

They stick out like a sore thumb in the steamy bustle of Guatemala’s capital: 230 haredi Jews, some speaking broken Spanish and eking out a makeshift living in a decrepit office building. They belong to the extremist Lev Tahor cult, and had been residing in a Mayan Indian village until Thursday, when they were abruptly…

The Ambassador for the European Union (EU) in Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, admitted last week that several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organization that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria. Hybaskova made the revelation at the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, but refused…

The newly re-elected mayor of the second-largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki, also known as Saloniki or Salonica, wore a yellow Star of David at his swearing-in ceremony in the city town hall last week. Mayor Yiannis Boutaris, 72, explained his gesture in connection with the fact that over 90 percent of the city’s population was…

In a further sign of the rapid deterioration of the April “unity agreement” between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), a leader in the Gaza-based terrorist group ordered members in Judea and Samaria to resist summonses for investigation by PA security forces. Senior Hamas leader and spokesperson Hussam Badran slammed the “escalation in the amount…

Iranian authorities say they have arrested a man suspected of attempting to sabotage the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The man is a Ukrainian national who worked as an “expert” together with Russian contractors at the site, according to AP, quotin Iranian daily Hamshahri. He has not yet been named, and details surrounding his alleged “sabotage”…

For the first time a recent poll has found that a majority of Scottish voters support choosing independence from the UK in a September 18 national referendum. The poll, carried out by YouGov for The Sunday Times, sampled 1,084 respondents between September 2 and 5, and found that 51% want to break away from the UK, with…

An emergency situation was declared at Ben Gurion International Airport on Saturday night, after an El Al plane suffered an engine malfunction, forcing it to conduct an emergency landing with only one engine and 194 passengers on board. Rami Nir, Head of Ground Operations for the Israel Airports Authority, told Arutz Sheva that at 2:15 a.m. on…

The US Air Force has reportedly bombed Islamic State positions near the Haditha Dam in western Iraq.  Iraqi forces and local Sunni Arab tribesmen are currently in control of the dam, which is the second-largest in Iraq and controls the flow of the Tigris River. The airstrikes are apparently an attempt to prevent an advance…

The constant terrorism of rock throwing in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem is becoming an increasing threat, not only for Jews who happen to pass near such neighborhoods but for residents of all parts of the capital city. CityPass, the company operating Jerusalem’s light rail system, announced Sunday morning that “due to continued and repeated rock…

The brutal Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organization has continued its bloody string of executions, this time finding fit to shoot two female doctors to death after they refused to treat members of the terror group. According to reports six people, including three women, were executed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by…

The state must immediately release a ship seized in 2012 which tried to break through the sea blockade the Israeli Navy is maintaining off the coast of Gaza. According to Haifa Regional Court Judge Ron Sokol, the fact that the state waited ten months between seizing the ship and asking for legal recognition of the…

Syrian rebels have made fresh advances near the Israeli Golan Heights in Quneitra province, where 26 troops and 17 rebels were killed in a battle on Saturday, a monitoring group said. Fighting has raged in the province since August, when rebels and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front took control of a border post. “Rebels have since…

If history is an indication, it may be a very long time before anything gets built on land in Gush Etzion that was declared state land last week. Another declaration by the government over a decade ago has been winding its way through the court system, and it was only on Sunday that the High…

A radical new law regulating the public activities of business and cultural groups on Shabbat is just another attempt “by those in Yesh Atid and Hatnua to harm Judaism and the entire Jewish world,” said MK Eli Yishai (Shas). “It’s also just another sad attempt by these MKs who are doing poorly in the polls…

Economics Minister Naftali Bennett and Environment Minister Amir Peretz reached a compromise on how much consumers who choose to use plastic grocery bags supplied by supermarkets will have to pay. While the bill originally called for a 60 agurot (18¢) charge for each bag “purchased,” the compromise will set the charges significantly lower. Bennett had…

A Jerusalem court on Sunday rejected a petition by the Education Ministry for an injunction against the use of a secular school by a hareidi girls’ school in Ramat Beit Shemesh. The court accepted the Beit Shemesh municipality’s argument that as the owner of the building, the municipality could allocate classroom space as it saw…

Largely in response to an Arutz Sheva report on a counter-anti-Semitism event hosted by the Permanent Mission of Palau to the UN, organizers say that there has been a surge of over 500 RSVPs for the event. The organizer of the historic event, Ms. Ugoji Eze, CEO/President of the Eng Aja Eze Foundation, proudly remarked, “It looks like it’s going to…

Rabbis of the religious-Zionist Tzohar organization decried the refusal of city rabbis in Petah Tikvah to register members of the Ethiopian community for marriage. According to reports, Ethiopian community members who seek to get married in the city are sent elsewhere. In Israel, all marriages must be officiated by a religious official – depending on the…

“Moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has bragged of his regime’s role in aiding Hamas’s terror war against Israel, even as Iran is locked in a final round of negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program. Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the “victory” of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only…

As the government worked over the past year on a bill that would require hareidi youths to serve in the IDF – or possibly serve time in prison – leaders of the hareidi community swore that youths would go to jail en masse if necessary to avoid being taken out of yeshiva study halls. Yet…

The Arab League said Sunday that it would back military action led by the US and Europe against IS (aka ISIS or ISIL), the Islamist group that has taken over large portions of Syria and Iraq. US President Barack H Obama said in an interview Sunday that the US would step up its aerial campaign…

Jack the Ripper was a 23-year-old Polish immigrant called Aaron Kosminski, according to an author claiming to have exposed the serial killer’s true identity using DNA evidence. Russell Edwards, 48, who describes himself as an “armchair detective”, believes he has identified the infamous Victorian serial murderer for the first time. The Independent reported that he…

Dozens of Arabs rioted in the Wadi Joz area of Jerusalem Sunday following the death of Mohammed Abu Sankara, 16, who was injured during another riot a week earlier. He was in a coma for a week and succumbed to his wounds Sunday. The rioters are hurling rocks and fireworks at police, according to Voice…

Egypt arrested seven men on Saturday for taking part in a gay wedding video that went viral on social media, accusing them of inciting debauchery and undermining public morals. The arrest of two other participants is pending. The video purporting to show the country’s first gay marriage and featured two men exchanging rings surrounded by friends.  “Nine of…

President Barack Obama said he will explain to Americans and congressional leaders this week his strategy to deal with and ultimately defeat the Islamic State terrorists, who he said could eventually become a threat to the United States. Obama will make a speech on Wednesday to “describe what our game plan’s going to be,” and…

Two weeks after the IDF’s counter-terror operation Protective Edge in Gaza was halted by a ceasefire, a senior diplomatic source says that Hamas has renewed its production of rockets and the smuggling from Egypt, and is rebuilding its attack tunnels. The terror group is smuggling in materials for restoring its rocket array, says the senior source.…

During 50 days of war against Hamas in Gaza, one of the stated goals of Israel was the demilitarization of Gaza. Officials and politicians from parties both right and left demanded that Israel ensure the disarmement of Gaza as a condition of instituting a permanent ceasefire, and as a prerequisite for allowing Gaza to rebuild…

Hundreds of people gathered over the weekend at a synagogue in Miami, Florida for a service in memory of Steve Sotloff, the American-Israeli journalist who was brutally beheaded by terrorists from the Islamic State (IS). According to a report in Kol Yisrael radio, Sotloff’s parents were in attendance and said that their son’s happiest moments…

The Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist group confirmed on Saturday that its leader Ahmed Godane had been killed in a U.S. airstrike this week and named a new leader, Reuters reported. U.S. forces struck Godane’s encampment in south-central Somalia with Hellfire missiles and laser-guided munitions on Monday, but the Pentagon did not confirm his death until Friday.…

Egypt on Saturday charged ousted president Mohammed Morsi and several other people with endangering national security by leaking state secrets and sensitive documents to Qatar, Reuters reported. Security sources had said last month that Egypt was investigating the ousted Muslim Brotherhood president in connection with documents they said were leaked to Qatar and its satellite…

Middle East studies expert Dr. David Bukay of the University of Haifa ridicules intelligence experts trying to downplay the danger posed by the extremist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which has captured large swathes of Iraq and Syria in recent months. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Bukay explained “today they have nearly 20,000 fighters; it’s a…

Concerns that a young Nigerian tourist hospitalized in Jerusalem’s Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital may have been carrying the lethal Ebola virus were dismissed on Saturday night, as test results revealed she did not have the disease. It was found in the tests that the tourist was suffering from an infection in her digestive system, as opposed…

A senior member of the Palestinian Arab negotiating team that reached a ceasefire deal with Israel on August 26 in Cairo said Saturday that restarted talks on larger demands will begin in another two weeks. Qais Abd al-Karim, a leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) terrorist group that is a…

A freed French hostage has said the terrorist behind the deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May was among his Islamic extremist captors in Syria, and was part of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terror group. Writing on the website of his former employer Le Point magazine, Nicolas Henin said Mehdi Nemmouche, who…

The Lebanese army says it is looking into reports that the Islamic State terrorist group has beheaded another of its soldiers Saturday. An IS commander told Turkey’s Anadolu news site that the soldier – identified as 24-year-old Abbas Medlej – was executed after trying to escape. An image of a masked man holding a severed head in front…

Knesset Coalition Chairman MK Yariv Levin (Likud) on Saturday indicated in a TV interview that the coalition may be in for a shake-up in the near future – and that “childish” Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) does not have high chances of being invited back in. “We must weigh the possibility of a change…

Before Shabbat began on Friday evening, residents of the northern Jerusalem neighborhood Pisgat Ze’ev reported to the 100 police emergency hotline that they heard gunshots from the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Shuafat towards their direction. Police forces that arrived on the scene found two bullets, one lodged in the rear windshield of a car and…

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to combat anti-Semitism, the White House said in a statement. “The President met with Turkish President Erdogan today in Newport, Wales, where both leaders were attending the NATO Summit. They exchanged views on how best to cooperate in the struggle against ISIS and…

The United States said Friday it has “no plans” for any military coordination with Iran in the fight against Islamic State fighters operating in Iraq and Syria, AFP reported. “We are not going to coordinate military action or share intelligence with Iran and have no plans to do so,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf…

U.S. and Iranian officials on Friday met for a second day of negotiations in Switzerland as they work towards hammering out a full nuclear deal ahead of a November deadline, AFP reports. The U.S. team, led by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman, began meeting Thursday with an Iranian delegation…

New York’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is in the process of revoking a license plate reading “HAMMAS,” which it says never should have been issued in the first place, New York Magazine reported on Friday. The DMV said the “patently offensive” plate can be read as a message of support for Hamas which is…

Opposition leader and Labor party chairman MK Yitzhak Herzog on Friday spoke with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the first conversation between an Israeli leader and Abbas since the end of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Writing about the conversation in a post on his Facebook page, Herzog said he had asked the PA…

Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Al-Nusra Front, on Friday threatened Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims they must support its cause or “pay the price”, Reuters reports. The group said the coming period would be decisive for anyone who stood with the Lebanese army, the report said. The statements were made in a video which purported to show several…

A two year-old has been declared dead on Friday, according to Magen David Adom (MDA) medics, in the second serious baby-left-in-car incident in Israel in 24 hours.  The child was left in the car, which was parked in the city of Yehud, as the infant’s mother, sister, and aunt were shopping, according to a preliminary…

The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that Ahmed Abdi Godane, leader of the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist group, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Somalia this week, Reuters reported. “We have confirmed that Ahmed Godane, the co-founder of Al-Shabaab, has been killed,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said in a statement. Kirby said…

US President Barack Obama urged NATO to intervene in Islamic State’s conquests of Iraq and Syria Friday, ending a two-day conference with the international body stating that it has “a critical role to play in rolling back this savage organization [IS] that is causing chaos in the region.” “There is unanimity that (IS) poses a significant…

An odd social media trend transcended political and cultural boundaries, international media reported Friday, after the popular “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” (#ALSicebucketchallenge) has sparked a movement to make burning the Islamic State (IS) flag viral instead.  Dubbed the #BurnISISFlagChallenge, hundreds of Lebanese activists have taken up the North American trend – which has become a…

The Lebanese military said one person was killed as Israel blew up a suspicious device after it had been detected in southern Lebanon on Friday. The official National News Agency (NNA) said earlier that a spying device had been found and blown up. “A military intelligence patrol found a suspicious device near the town of Adlun,” the army said in…

A Nigerian tourist in her twenties was hospitalized in isolation at Shaarei Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem Friday, after rising concerns that she may have tested positive for Ebola, according to Walla! News. The tourist complained of high fever before being rushed to hospital, the news site said, and tests were conducted on her to diagnose…

At least three Canadians who joined Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS) and other Al Qaeda-offshoot groups in Syria were directly involved in abducting and interrogating two US journalists, CBC News confirmed earlier this week. Sources told the Canadian news outlet that the three took part in the imprisonment of Theo Curtis and Matt Schrier,…

The reclusive son of a Nazi-era art dealer who amassed a giant secret collection snuck a Monet with him into the Germanhospital where he died in May, investigators said Friday. The executor of Cornelius Gurlitt’s estate discovered the French Impressionist artwork in a suitcase handed over to him by the clinic this week. “The work on paper shows…

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Friday dismissed Jerusalem Councilman Aryeh King from his position on the municipal coalition, due to an administrative petition King submitted to the Jerusalem District Court over recent Arab building plans. In the letter to King, Barkat wrote “coalition members can’t do conflicting things – both being part of the coalition that…

Police forces were alerted and rushed to save a one-and-a-half year old infant from suffocation in a locked car in Elad, located in Israel’s coastal plain area to the east of Tel Aviv, in what appears to be an egregious case of negligence. Two police from the Rosh Ha’ayin station were called to the scene on…

The 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji who were abducted by Al Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front rebel forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights last Wednesday are to “stand trial” under sharia (Islamic law), according to a Britain-based monitoring group. Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the commander of…

The leadership of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group in Syria and Iraq took a sharp blow on Thursday, as roughly 20 senior figures, including a top aide to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were killed in airstrikes according to the Iraqi defense ministry. In airstrikes on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul,…

A senior leader of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has launched a new international campaign against Israel, calling on nations of the world to cancel the citizenship for IDF soldiers after Operation Protective Edge. The Fatah leader, Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Member of the Fatah Central Committee and former PA cabinet minister, stated there was…

The West has long threatened to stop donating to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if it continues to pay salaries to its terrorists – and so the PA has found a “creative solution”: It will give the money to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and the PLO will pay the salaries instead. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas…

Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee visited Gush Etzion on Thursday, days after Israel’s announcement that it would declare 4,000 dunams of land in the region as state land. During the visit, Huckabee met with MK Danny Danon (Likud), who explained why it was inappropriate to use the term “annex” when referring to…

Hamas is not willing to discuss the possibility of demilitarizing weapons from its “military wing,” the Al-Qassam Brigades, or other Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza, one of its leaders announced Friday.  In his first Friday sermon after the war, Ismail Haniyeh, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, said that Hamas does not…

French prosecutors have launched a probe into a controversial comic widely accused of anti-Semitism for mocking the decapitation of American journalist James Foley in a video, AFP reports Friday.  Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, whose trademark “quenelle” salute – a stiff-arm gesture widely seen as a disguised Nazi salute – is no stranger to controversy and has been fined several times in France…

Reports on Friday indicated that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei authorized his army to coordinate joint military operations with the United States against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Iraq. Iranian sources in Tehran told BBC Persian about the development, which comes as the Sunni extremist group that has conquered vast swathes of Iraq and Syria…

France for the first time has become the country with the highest numbers of aliyah (immigration to Israel), according to the French office of the Jewish Agency for Israel on Friday. “France is today the leading country for Jewish emigration to Israel. It has never been before,” said Ariel Kandel, who heads the French office of…

Former Yesha Council director and Binyamin Regional Council head Pinhas Wallerstein was called on to help develop the Gaza Belt communities, and has been doing so while staying at Kibbutz Nahal Oz even as it came under intense Hamas mortar and rocket fire. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Wallerstein recounted how Energy Minister Silvan Shalom (Likud), who also serves…

Gila Tragerman, the mother of four-year-old Daniel hy”d who was killed by a Hamas mortar shell on August 22 while in his Kibbutz Nahal Oz home, criticized the United Nations (UN) on Friday morning for their culpability in her son’s death. “It is unthinkable that from within UN buildings, schools and hospitals, terror infrastructures are…

The deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament Ahmad Bahar has accused the national unity government and its prime minister Rami Hamdallah of “negligence” towards Gaza, the Ma’an news agency reported on Thursday. Speaking at a symposium held in Gaza City, Bahar urged the government to fulfill its duties in Gaza, particularly the reconstruction of buildings…

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Thursday that the United States is concerned that the most dangerous terrorist groups could get a hold of chemical weapons if Syria is hiding any stockpiles. Power spoke to reporters after the Security Council received a briefing from Sigrid Kaag, who heads the international effort…

Egyptian officials expect the Israeli negotiating delegation to arrive in Cairo within a week to continue indirect talks, sources in Egypt told the Ma’an news agency on Thursday. Egypt has been in contact with both Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli officials this week to determine a date for further talks following a cessation to hostilities…

More than one hundred people demonstrated on Thursday evening at the Ariel junction in Samaria, in protest over the danger presented by Palestinian Arab workers who use the subsidized public transportation buses for Jews living in Judea and Samaria. The residents are warning that these Arabs are a security threat since they are being allowed…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his condolences on Thursday evening over the passing of comedy icon Joan Rivers, who died earlier in the day at the age of 81. “Joan Rivers brought laughter to millions around the world and was proud of her Jewish heritage and a vocal supporter of the State of Israel. We…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned on Thursday against cuts to the defense budget. “The Middle East is changing. The great armies have been replaced by bloodthirsty terrorist groups, that are skilled and trained, and armed from head to toe not only with weapons but also with ideology that challenges the world order and the West…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday sent his condolences to the family of journalist Steve Sotloff, who was beheaded by terrorists from the Islamic State. “Steven was murdered because for the terrorists he was a symbol of the West – the same culture that extremist Islam wants to eradicate,” Netanyahu said, speaking at an event…

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday defended the policy of not paying ransom to terrorist groups for the release of kidnapped civilians. “I know it is difficult to hear and I have thought about this very carefully. I am absolutely convinced that the policy of not paying ransoms to terrorists for kidnaps is right,”…

Dear Sir, My name is Gila, I am an Israeli citizen, and I am a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, near the border with Gaza.  A week ago, we lost our elder son, Daniel, 4.5 yrs old, who was killed by a mortar shell, fired from Gaza into Israel deliberately. I address you after your announcement to Prime…

Bat-Galim Sha’ar, the mother of abducted and murdered 16 year-old Gilad, spoke passionately about the need to stop terror and bloodshed Thursday after new details were revealed about her son’s murder.  “Even during the difficult days we went through, after we found out that Gilad was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, we stated that we rely…

The IDF returned fire at a Syrian army position along the northern border Thursday afternoon, after a mortar shell struck Israeli territory. Sirens were heard throughout throughout the Golan Heights earlier, as a mortar shell had struck in an open field in the northern Golan. No damage or injuries were reported. A military spokeswoman told AFP…

MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beytenu) was sworn in to the Knesset Thursday. Miller, who served in the 17th and 18th Knessets (2006-2013) replaces former MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen (Likud), who is Israel’s new ambassador to the OECD. Miller was placed in the 33rd slot on Likud-Beytenu’s joint list in the elections for the present, 19th Knesset,…

Former head of IDF Intelligence Amos Yadlin on Wednesday expressed a contrarian opinion on the dangers of the terrorist group ISIS, responsible for the beheadings of two journalists, as well as thousands of “infidels” in Iraq and Syria who do not subscribe to their particular brand of Islam. According to Yadlin, there’s nothing to fear…

The Hesder Yeshiva Association on Thursday reported that the number of students in its institutions grew at the beginning of the academic year. As of the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, when the new yeshiva sessions begin, the number of students in Hesder yeshivas grew by 5%. In the Hesder program, students…

Deputy Education Minister MK Avi Wortzman (Jewish Home) applauded the conviction and sentencing of ex-Balad MK Sa’id Nafa, who will be spending the next year in prison. Nafa was convicted Thursday for traveling to an enemy country and meeting with foreign agents. At issue was a trip Nafa organized to Syria in 2007. The indictment…

An indictment was submitted today (Thursday) against the mastermind of the kidnap and murder of Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Frenkel, as more details emerge about the circumstances of their abduction. With the completion of the interrogation of the suspects, several new pieces of information have been released for publication. One month…

Yiska Hetzroni, 24, of Kiryat Arba, had a premonition that something bad was going to happen to her that day. “I knew it was going to happen to me,” she told Arutz Sheva. “I had a feeling before I left the house and I told my husband that I have a bad feeling. I was…

Media personality Joan Rivers has died after being taken off life support, her daughter Melissa said in a statement Thursday night. She was 81. Rivers is survived by Melissa, 46, and grandson Cooper Endicott, 13. “It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers,” Melissa Rivers said in a statement released…

A new UN probe of allegations that Iran worked on nuclear weapons has stalled, according to diplomats, leaving investigators not much further than where they started a decade ago and diminishing US hopes of reaching deal with Tehran by the November deadline that had been set, according to a report by Fox News. Two weeks…

The investigation into the travel spending habits of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) has ended, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein announced Thursday night, bringing what the Israeli media calls the “Bibitours affair” to a close. In May 2013, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira announced that he would launch an investigation into rumors of the Netanyahu family’s spending on…

A St. Louis-based publishing company caused some controversy Thursday, after it re-released coloring books to educate children about Islamist terrorism to include pages on the evils of Islamic State (IS, or ISIS) and asked for educators to incorporate them into their curricula.  The coloring books, entitled “The True Faces of Global Evil Terrorism” and “We…

The legality of Israel’s declaring about 4,000 dunams (close to 1,000 acres) of land as “state land” in Gush Etzion is undisputed, rights group Regavim noted Thursday – despite the actions of leftist groups, the media, and the international community to defame Israel as “annexing” land claimed to be “occupied territory.”  Sunday’s announcement sparked widespread…

Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) sent an open letter Thursday to party chairman and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, in which he warned that Bennett’s attempts to push through a party constitution could lead to a split in its ranks. The letter was also addressed to members of the central committees of the…

Garik Zylberbord, 47, a prominent member of the Jewish community in Ukraine, was killed in Donetsk while trying to stop pro-Russian rebels from robbing his neighbor’s home on Saturday, reports Chabad.org. Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski, a close friend of Zylberbord, described him as someone who became closer to his Judaism over the years, being circumcised (his…

The Grimhøjmoskeen mosque in Aarhus, Denmark, has openly declared support for Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS), claiming a state under Sharia law is a matter of national-religious pride.  “An Islamic state will always be what Muslims long for, therefore we cannot help but to support the Islamic State. Even if it makes mistakes,…

The United States’ UN Ambassador, Samantha Power, said Wednesday that Washington is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s decision to turn 4,000 dunams of land in the Etzion Bloc region into state land. The US “position on settlement activity is very well known,” she told reporters. “We have long made clear our opposition to settlement activity. We’re…

An antique Torah scroll that was discovered in the home of a Polish family was returned to Israel this week. The scroll had been hidden in the family’s house by their Jewish neighbors with the onset of World War II. The Torah scroll was discovered at the village of Wrubleski Filipov northern Poland. A group…

Former MK Sa’id Nafa will be spending the next year in prison. Nafa was convicted Thursday for traveling to an enemy country and meeting with foreign agents. At issue was a trip Nafa organized to Syria in 2007. The indictment against Nafa includes charges against him and 16 other individuals, most of them Druze sheikhs,…

If the government intends to eliminate one of the offices of the Chief Rabbi, it should be that of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, said Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef. Speaking to yeshiva students in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef pointed out that his office – that of the Rishon LeZion, the head of the Sephardic community in…

US President Barack H Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron intend to build an international coalition against ISIS, the terror group that has conquered large portions of Iraq and Syria. In the wake of the revelation of a second video showing the beheading of a Western journalist by ISIS this week, Obama and Cameron…

Israeli citizens who wave the flags or display other symbols associated with ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, or other terror organizations, will be subject to arrest and prosecution, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has decided. A report in Yisrael Hayom quoted a letter sent by Weinstein’s aides to members of the Justice Ministry staff. The letter says that,…

In its latest canard against Israel, Palestinian Authority television has compared the demolition of a 12-story building in Gaza that was a Hamas headquarters outpost to the destruction of the World Trade Center. A video clip from PA television, released by Palestine Media Watch (PMW), places the two attacks side by side, and implies that…

Former Judea and Samaria Council head Dani Dayan warned that those who opposed the designation of 4,000 dunams (988 acres) of land in Gush Etzion as state land, along with other plans such as the continued development of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, are seeking to demoralize and eventually destroy the entire…

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a sharp warning to the Islamic State group, saying after the United States is done grieving the death of two American journalists, their killers will have to answer for their actions. “They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought…

A group of Jordanian deputies demanded on Wednesday that the kingdom stay out of any war against Islamic State jihadists who have captured swathes of territory in neighboring Iraq and Syria, AFP reports. 21 MPs, who represent various factions in the 150-seat parliament, sent a memorandum to speaker Atef al-Tarawneh demanding “the government not involve…

The United States is hoping for unanimous approval of a UN resolution calling for global action against the growing phenomenon of foreigners traveling to fight for terrorist groups, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press (AP). Power told reporters that foreign fighters like those in Iraq and Syria participate in “brutal…

A Saudi court on Wednesday sentenced 22 Saudi citizens, an American and a Yemeni to jail terms of between two and 27 years on terrorism charges, Reuters reported, citing the official news agency SPA. The court said charges ranged from “the establishment of a terrorist cell planning to targeting oil pipelines,” having weapons, and planning…

Retired general Andrew Leslie, one of the Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau’s top advisers, has accused Israel of firing “indiscriminately onto Palestinian women and children” during the recent operation in Gaza. According to The Toronto Sun, Leslie’s remarks were made August 19 but only surfaced this week when transcripts of his remarks, including a…

Finance Minister Yair Lapid declared on Wednesday that he would quit the government should taxes be raised following Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. “Israeli citizens will not be required to pay more taxes following Operation Protective Edge,” Lapid told Channel 2 News, adding, “I will not sit in a government that once again reaches into…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) met with rabbis from the Tzohar rabbinical organization Wednesday night, to thank them for their work during Operation Protective Edge.  “We passed trying times,” Netanyahu began. “An important part of this test was safeguarding the strength of the people and the great unity of the nation.” “It is good to…

The United Nations nuclear watchdog is expected to issue a report this week showing little progress is being made in its long-running investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Iran, diplomats told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. The unnamed diplomats said the quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran was likely to…

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Wednesday announced the formation of an Indian branch of his terrorist group, Reuters reported. The Al-Qaeda leader declared the new branch would spread Islamic rule and “raise the flag of jihad” across the subcontinent. In a 55-minute video posted online, Zawahiri also renewed a longstanding vow of loyalty to Afghan…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Wednesday signed a declaration which designates the Islamic State (IS) and the Lebanon-based Abdullah Azzam Brigades terrorist groups as unlawful organizations. The designation allows for legal action and other measures against these organizations, as well as against anyone fundraising for them or carrying other activities associated with these organizations. The…

The UN Security Council on Wednesday demanded the release of 45 Fijian peacekeepers held in the Golan Heights by Syrian Al-Nusra Front terrorists, according to AFP.  The 15 members of the council unanimously approved a declaration condemning “in the strongest terms” the detention of the Fijians. They were captured almost a week ago, when the rebels stormed a Golan Heights crossing.…