Yearly Archives: 2017

Israeli Security Forces Bust Large Hamas Ring in Samaria

June 19, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

Israel’s security forces were successful in thwarting attempts by Hamas to establish a broad terror network in the Samaria region.

Israel’s security forces have exposed in recent months a broad Hamas terror infrastructure in Shechem (Nablus) that was striving to reestablish a hold in Judea and Samaria, the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) announced Wednesday.

An active Hamas terror cell was also uncovered. It was in the advanced stages of planning terror attacks but was caught before the plan could be implemented.

In total, some 40 terrorists, including senior Hamas members who have previously served time in Israeli jails for terror activity, were arrested in the joint IDF-Shin Bet operations against the Shechem terror network.

According to the Shin Bet, the terrorists revealed during questioning that Hamas has been working to establish their operations in Samaria through the founding of a central command center in Shechem, including the appointing of local commanders and a clearly defined breakdown of spheres of responsibility to promote the Hamas agenda, namely, education, finance, charity, legal, communications, intelligence research, provision of economic assistance to the families of Hamas prisoners jailed in Israel and actual terror activity.

The security agency stressed that the arrests expose “once again the many efforts the Hamas leadership on the ground and abroad exerts to build a wide, stable and continuously funded infrastructure capable of carrying out independent actions in Samaria…. All of this is done in order to strengthen the organization’s hold on the area and to prepare the ground when the time comes to carry out terror attacks.”

Terror Directed from Qatar

The cell was directed by the Hamas leadership in Qatar. Husam Badran, previously of Shechem and also known as the Hamas spokesman, was directly involved in the decision-making process and in giving orders, and he sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance the terror activities.

Hamas spokesman Hussam Badram

Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran. (alresalah)

The money was transferred by way of gold and jewelry that was purchased in Jordan and then smuggled, with the assistance of a gold merchant from Shechem whose store in the city is used to launder money for Hamas. In total, some $1 M in jewelry and gold was uncovered in the operation.

The Shin Bet also uncovered an armed Hamas cell from the Jenin area that had acquired binoculars and night-vision equipment to use in planned terror attacks.

The terror operatives were using code names, aliases, couriers, USB drives and holding secret meetings in an attempt to conceal their activities. Indictments against them will be submitted to the Judea and Samaria military court in the coming days.

By: United with Israel Staff

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Israeli prime minister bows to a demand of the right, prompting criticisms of racism and weakening democratic values.

June 19, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

 Jerusalem — Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, says he will introduce a law defining Israel as a Jewish state, giving high-level support to a controversial idea that has long been a demand of the Israeli right.

The state has never before officially defined itself as Jewish, though legislators have introduced bills to that effect over the past few years.

 

In a speech on Thursday, Netanyahu called Israel’s Jewish identity “the most basic ingredient of our national life”.

 

“It is my intention to submit a Basic Law to the Knesset that would provide a constitutional anchor for Israel’s status as the national state of the Jewish people,” he said in Tel Aviv’s Independence Hall, the site where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel in 1948.

 

Israel has never had a constitution; instead it has a series of “Basic Laws,” which are meant to someday be incorporated into a formal charter.

 

It’s unclear what practical impact the law would have: 66 years after independence, Israelis still disagree sharply on how a “Jewish state” should be governed.

 

The measure could simply be a symbolic declaration. But it could also go much further, requiring Israeli courts, for example, to interpret the law according to halakha, Jewish religious law.

 

Regardless of Netanyahu’s intent, the law would provide a basis for future governments to pass illiberal legislation.

 

“Behind these nice words, he may be hiding plans to put particular Jewish values as superior to democratic values,” said Yedidia Stern, a vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute.

 

“For example, if it means that Hebrew should be the only language of the country, the only formal language, then I’m against it.”

 

Netanyahu’s proposal has already received strong support from the right. Uri Ariel, the housing minister and a member of the conservative Jewish Home party, was quick to praise the prime minister. “I congratulate [Netanyahu] for his support of this law,” Ariel said. “It will pass in the Knesset. It has a majority.”

 

‘Racist’ law

 

The most vocal opposition came from Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who said hours after Netanyahu’s speech that she would oppose the law.

 

“I will continue to defend the values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and will under no circumstances allow anyone to weaken its democratic values and subordinate them to Jewish ones,” she said.

 

Mohammed Barakeh, a member of the Hadash party, called it a “racist law” that would discriminate against Palestinians, who make up one-fifth of the Israeli population.

 

The question of Israel’s identity became a central one during nine months of US-brokered negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which stalled last week.

Netanyahu insisted that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for talks, a demand rejected by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Critics said the demand was a ploy by Netanyahu to scupper negotiations.

 

Abbas reiterated in a speech on Saturday that he would “never” grant Israel that recognition, saying that the PLO recognised Israel in 1993 and did not have to go further.

Netanyahu’s speech came days after Palestinian towns were targeted in two “price tag” attacks, in which car tyres were slashed and a star of David spray-painted on a mosque.

A Jewish man was also arrested for giving the Roman Catholic bishop of Nazareth a letter which told Christians to leave Israel within a week or be killed.

Source: Al Jazeera
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Israeli bombardment of Gaza escalates

June 19, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

Israeli army carries out 160 airstrikes in Gaza overnight, stepping up a bombardment in which dozens have been killed.

Tel Aviv – The Israeli army carried out 160 airstrikes in Gaza overnight, escalating a bombardment that has killed at least 27 Palestinians and wounded more than 100.

Local media reported on Wednesday morning that one of the airstrikes targeted the house of a commander in the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. An unknown number of casualties were reported.

The latest strikes killed an 80-year-old woman at Al-Mughraqa village in southern Gaza City, according to al-Qedra.Another blew up the house of Hafez Hamad, a leader of the military wing of Islamic Jihad. He was killed along with at least four women and children, according to neighbours and hospital officials.

The Israeli cabinet has authorised the army to call up 40,000 reservists. Only a fraction of them have so far been mobilised, though officials hinted at a lengthy campaign in Gaza.

“We are preparing for a battle against Hamas which will not end within a few days,” defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, said on Tuesday.

Four rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel between midnight and sunrise, the army said, three of them at the southern city of Be’er Sheva.

A salvo of five rockets was fired at Tel Aviv during the morning rush hour. Most of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, and could be heard exploding south and east of the city centre.

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they fired M-75s, a locally-made model with an 80km range.

One rocket was also fired overnight at Hadera, about 100km from Gaza, the longest-range strike yet.

Five members of Hamas were also killed in a makeshift naval commando attack on a military base in Zikim, near the southern city of Israel.

There were clashes overnight throughout the occupied West Bank between Palestinians and Israeli troops. At least six people were injured near Ramallah, and protests were also reported in Bethlehem and Hebron.

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Israeli Bees to Help Save Japanese Crops

June 19, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

Israeli bees are flying to the rescue in Japan in order to help pollinate their crops.

 

Israeli bumblebees are on the way to Japan to help make up for a lack of bees there caused by the increased use of pesticides in rice fields, Israel Hayom reports.

The Israeli bees are receiving “first class” treatment on their way to Japan and are being sent inside spacious hives, each of which contains an impregnated queen bee and 50 worker bees that supply her needs.

These special bees were raised and engineered by the Bio Bee firm, based at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in the Jordan Valley.

The bees will be deployed throughout Japan, where they will work busily to pollinate the produce, a process vital to ensure a good harvest, which in many instances cannot succeed without bees. As the bees suck up nectar from a flower, they shake it, which helps distribute the pollen.

bees

(Pixabay)

Bio Bee’s mass-produced earth bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) are created for pollination purposes only. They have been uniquely bred to carry out their mission even when the temperature drops, as well as in rainy, cloudy weather, when bees do not naturally work and prefer to huddle up in their warm hives.

This method has been successfully used in Israel for years. Israeli farmers are also affected by the global decline in the honeybee population. The advantage of these particular bees is that they tend to stay inside the closed greenhouse, rather than flying out to cultivate other people’s fields.

There has been a general drop in the global bee population, but the situation in Japan is especially acute because of the pesticide spraying of rice crops there. Many bees died after they ingested the poisoned nectar.

By: United with Israel Staff

shutterstock_196518893

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Israel: Arab States Seeking Nuclear Weapons Against Iran

June 19, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

Israel has picked up signs of the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Arab states seek nuclear weapons to counter Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned.

Moshe Ya’alon said Sunni Arab nations were not reassured by last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers and were making their own preparations for nuclear weapons.

According to a report in The Telegraph, Israel has picked up signs of the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Arab states seek nuclear weapons to counter Iran, Ya’alon warned.

 

 

 

 

 

“We see signs that countries in the Arab world are preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, that they are not willing to sit quietly with Iran on brink of a nuclear or atomic bomb,” Ya’alon said.

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