Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have risen sharply following the discovery of attack tunnels and awarning by the terror chief’s deputy head this weekend that its rockets can now hit the entire country “even Tel Aviv”. Last week, Israel began a major military operation on its northern border in order to Read more…
Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal difficulties deepened further on Saturday with police recommending new bribery charges against him. In potentially the most serious of several cases involving the prime minister – known as “Case 4000” – police have recommended that he face charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust, and fraudulently accepting Read more…
Thirty years ago this month, Yitzhak Shamir eked out a narrow win in Israel’s general election. That election marked the last occasion when an Israeli government has managed to serve out its full term. Coalition crises and prime ministers “cutting and running” in a bid to capitalise on political opportunities Read more…
The risk of all-out war between Israel and Hamas appears to have receded today. An uneasy ceasefire brought to an end an intense round of rocket attacks which threatened to blow off course a truce between the two sides which had been months in the making. Some 460 rockets were Read more…
Ordinary Gazans oppose the bloody, Hamas-led weekly border protests and want a ceasefire with Israel, newly released polling shows. The research – carried out among representative samples of approximately 500 randomly selected Gazans during early October by the Bethlehem-based Palestine Centre for Public Opinion and by a Ramallah-based organisation – shows the conflict-weary Read more…
The “machineries of repression” utilised by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to crush their opponents and silence dissenters has been detailed in a shocking new report by Human Rights Watch. A two-year investigation by HRW, Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent, accuses both the PA, which runs the West Bank, and Read more…
Rarely has an American administration invested such hope in – or kow-towed so nakedly to – a Middle Eastern state in the manner which Donald Trump’s has done since taking office last January. The president’s entire strategy for the region appears to have been shaped by a belief that Saudi Read more…
Iran may be planning to unleash a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Europe, the US media has reported. The fears have been sparked by the arrest of a senior Iranian diplomat, accused of helping to prepare an attack on a rally of dissidents in Paris. The foiled plot, suggested the Washington Read more…
A fatal terror attack that killed two Israeli citizens in the Barkan industrial park in the West Bank has cast a renewed spotlight on the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying salaries to convicted terrorists. Last Sunday a Palestinian worker at the industrial park killed two of his colleagues. Kim Levengrond Read more…
The fragile working relationship between Israel and Russia in Syria – which gave Israel freedom of manoeuvre in Syrian skies – has come under severe strain after the downing of a Russian Ilyushin military intelligence plane, killing the 15 servicemen on board. The incident, which occurred in mid-September, saw Syrian Read more…
The Trump administration is to end US funding to coexistence programmes that bring Israelis and Palestinians together, it has emerged. The US currently provides $10m for the projects – one quarter of the money invested globally in civil society peace and reconciliation work between Israelis and Palestinians. The American move is Read more…
The Trump administration has decided to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a body which provides humanitarian assistance for Palestinian refugees. The decision amounts to a $350m cut from the organisation’s $1.2bn annual budget. Evaluation of the Trump administration’s decision often balances the agency’s vital humanitarian Read more…