Date: Friday, July 11, 2014
07/10/2014 22:28
At the end of Operation Protective Edge's third day, PM states campaign to continue, expand; premier gives no indication of when, whether IDF will send ground troops in to Gaza Strip.
Binyamin Netanyahu speaks at the Knesset on Monday Photo: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu emerged from a marathon security cabinet meeting on Thursday at the end of Operation Protective Edge’s third day, saying the campaign would continue and expand.
Netanyahu issued a statement saying the operation was progressing as planned, and that “more stages were expected.” Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating from the Gaza Strip had been hit hard by the IDF attacks, and would be hit even harder as the operation continued, he said.
The prime minister gave no indication of when or whether ground troops would be committed to the campaign, nor what steps needed to be taken by the other side for Israel to halt the operation.
One official said it was clear that what Israel might have accepted two weeks ago in terms of “quiet for quiet,” it would not accept now. Netanyahu, the official said, would not agree to a situation whereby yet another cease-fire would be declared, which Hamas would then take advantage of to “tend to its wounds” and restock missiles for the next round.
Barkat: Hamas rockets don’t discriminate The official refused to say what exactly Israel was demanding in order to halt the operation. Rather than having a grocery list of demands, Israel has parameters, one of which is ensuring Hamas will be unable to rearm after the campaign, which is aimed at severely depleting Hamas’s rocket stockpile and degrading its ability to manufacture projectiles.
While neither Netanyahu nor Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon nor IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen Benny Gantz gave any indication of a decision being made to commit ground troops, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared Thursday that Israel was about to launch a ground operation.
He called for an unconditional cease-fire, saying that all his efforts to end the violence had failed.
Abbas claimed that the government had already approved a ground operation, which – he added – would begin in the coming hours late Thursday evening.
He pointed out that the IDF had asked Palestinians living close to the border with Israel to leave their homes and move deeper into the Gaza Strip.
Abbas told residents of east Jerusalem who visited him in his office in Ramallah that Israel was seeking to expel Palestinians from their lands and homes.
“But we say to them that we’re not leaving,” he said. “We don’t have weapons, but we will remain steadfast and fight with words. If Israel has missiles and weapons, this doesn’t mean that we will surrender. We will fight in a civilized way that disturbs others.”
The two sides should agree to an unconditional truce, Abbas added. “The most important thing now is to avoid bloodshed,” he said. “The Egyptians have held contacts with the two sides, but these efforts have unfortunately failed.”
Abbas said he spoke with American officials and demanded that Israel halt its military operations unilaterally so that he could persuade Hamas to stop its attacks. These efforts also failed to end the fighting, he said.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who earlier this week broke with Netanyahu partly over his unhappiness that the prime minister was not responding more forcefully to the rocket fire from Gaza, cited that restraint positively in a letter sent on Thursday to his colleagues from around the world.
The letter, part of Israel’s diplomatic campaign to garner understanding and support for Operative Protective Edge, said that since the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens on June 12, Hamas has fired nearly 300 rockets at Israeli cities, “putting millions of Israeli lives at risk. Families have been forced into shelters, summer camps for children closed, and all normal daily activities have been impacted.
This is unacceptable.”
Israel, said Liberman, who has advocated taking over Gaza, has “shown great restraint prior to this operation. Our intention was to restore the calm without a major military operation.
However, Israel’s repeated efforts to achieve calm were met with increased rocket fire by what is becoming a Hamas terrorist state.”
As part of the effort to explain Israel’s actions, Netanyahu continued speaking with world leaders on Thursday, holding a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The prime minister, his office said, told Putin that Hamas was hiding behind civilians, and was responsible if they were unintentionally harmed.
During a meeting Netanyahu held with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday, he was asked why the government did not cut off Gaza’s water and electricity, and replied that Israel could not take measures like “the Russians did to the Chechens.”
Over the past two days, Netanyahu has also spoken to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, British Prime Minister David Cameron and US Secretary of State John Kerry.
The purpose of these conversations, one official said, was to create an atmosphere of understanding for what Israel was doing. For the most part, he said, that understanding exists in the West, though that atmosphere could change as the media broadcast more and more pictures of casualties in Gaza.
Liberman, in his letter, said Hamas “is a recognized terror organization... motivated by the most radical ideology, including a charter that calls for the murder of all Jews. Hamas is responsible for 80 suicide bombers that have killed nearly 1,000 Israeli civilians.”
This group, he wrote, “seeks to establish an Islamist state characterized by human rights violations, violent repression of minorities, women and non-Muslims.” He called on the PA government to immediately dissolve its partnership with Hamas, and on the international community to “take action to dismantle the Hamas terrorist infrastructure” and to “demonstrate understanding for Israel to exercise its legitimate right to self-defense.”
As part of the campaign to explain Israel’s position to the world, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi held a briefing for foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel.
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Date: Thursday, July 10, 2014
July 10, 2014 9:50 AM
WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — President Barack Obama has reportedly not spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since violence flared up between Israel and Hamas this past week.
The Times of Israel reports that the Israeli prime minister has spoken with Secretary of State John Kerry, but has yet to have a conversation with Obama or Mideast adviser to the White House Philip Gordon.
“Gordon met with his opposite numbers from the Israeli national security team,” an official from the prime minister’s office told The Times of Israel.
Gordon was in Israel and the West Bank earlier this week and met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Times of Israel reports that Netanyahu has spoken with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault in Gaza Thursday hitting hundreds of Hamas targets, as Palestinians reported 16 people killed in strikes that hit a home and a beachside cafe and Israel’s missile defense system once again intercepted rockets fired by militants at the country’s heartland.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Israel struck more than 320 Hamas targets overnight, focusing on underground tunnel networks and rocket launching sites. That brought the total number of targets hit to 750 in three days of the massive offensive that has killed at least 80 Palestinians.
CBS News reports that a family of eight was mistakenly killed in the airstrikes. Gaza residents were holding funerals for the victims Thursday morning.
Lerner said Israel has already mobilized 20,000 reservists for a possible ground operation into Gaza, but for the time being Israel remained focused on maximizing its air campaign. A ground invasion could lead to heavy civilian casualties on the Palestinian side while putting Israeli ground forces in danger.
Neither side is showing any sign of halting their heaviest fighting since an eight-day battle in late 2012. Israel says that Hamas must cease rocket fire from Gaza for Israel to consider a truce. Militants have fired hundreds of rockets, striking across the length of Israel and disrupting life across the country. No one has been seriously harmed as the “Iron Dome” defense system has intercepted at least 70 of the projectiles destined for major population centers.
The Health Ministry in Gaza has reported 81 deaths thus far, saying about half were women and children though the exact breakdown remains unclear.
Israel accuses militants of deliberately endangering civilians by using homes and other civilian buildings for cover.
The military has also directly targeted the offices and homes of known militants that it says are used as command centers. The military typically contacts the families first to ask civilians to evacuate before striking its targets.
(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
JERUSALEM — Jul 9, 2014, 7:12 AM ET
By DANIEL ESTRIN Associated Press
Israel Hit by 150 Rockets Targeting 10 Cities
The Israeli army on Wednesday intensified its offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing at least 14 people on the second day of a military operation it says is aimed at quelling rocket fire against Israel.
The offensive has set off the heaviest fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas since an eight-day battle in November 2012. Militants have unleashed rocket salvos deeper into Israeli territory than before, and Israel mobilized thousands of forces along the Gaza border for a possible ground invasion into the Palestinian territory.
Israel's defense minister warned the offensive would be long-term.
"The operation against Hamas will expand in the coming days, and the price the organization will pay will be very high," Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said.
Since the offensive began Tuesday, Israel has attacked more than 400 sites in Gaza, killing at least 41 people. The strikes came after militants fired more than 160 rockets at Israel, including one that reached the northern Israeli city of Hadera for the first time. The city is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Gaza.
The army said it attacked more than 160 sites in Gaza early Wednesday, including 118 concealed rockets launching sites, six Hamas compounds — including naval police and national security compounds — 10 militant command centers, weapons storage facilities and 10 tunnels used for militant activity and to ferry supplies in from Egypt. The border between Gaza and Egypt has effectively been closed for months.
Gaza health official Ashraf Al-Kedra said Wednesday's airstrikes killed one militant in south Gaza, an 80-year-old woman, the son, wife and neighbor of a Hamas militant, and three others whose affiliation was not immediately known.
Israel's army said it targeted a militant with the Islamic Jihad militant group who had launched rockets toward Israel. Separately, Islamic Jihad claimed that one of its militants was killed with his mother and four siblings, but Al-Kedra said they were all civilians.
Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies and have fought numerous times over the years. But until recently they had been observing a truce that ended the previous hostilities in 2012.
Tensions have been rising since the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank on June 12. Israel accused Hamas of being behind the abductions, although it provided no proof.
Israel then launched a crackdown on the group's members in the West Bank and arrested hundreds of people. Hamas, which controls Gaza, responded by stepping up rocket fire.
The situation deteriorated last week after the bodies of the three were found, followed a day later by the abduction of Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem — who was later found burned to death in what Palestinians believe was a revenge attack. Six Jewish Israelis were arrested in the killing.
It was a sharp contrast to the large number that hit Israeli cities the night before, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other areas of the country.
In amateur video obtained by The Associated Press, guests at an outdoor wedding in the city of Holon, near Tel Aviv, ran screaming for cover as a rocket was intercepted in the sky, blowing up. The bride and groom rushed down the aisle as a second rocket whizzed above.
By early Wednesday, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Israel's south, and the army said two rockets were apparently intercepted above the central Israeli city by an anti-missile battery. In total, at least seven rockets were fired toward Israel on Wednesday, and the "Iron Dome" anti-missile system intercepted about half of them mid-air, the army said. There were no reported injuries.
Lerner, the army spokesman, told reporters that the military's aim was to take a "substantial toll" on Hamas and to deplete its rocket capabilities. He said the army would gradually ramp up its strikes on Gaza.
"The organization is going to pay for its aggression. It is literally holding us hostage with its rockets," Lerner said. "The country is not willing for this situation to continue."
About 2,000 people attended a funeral for eight Palestinians, including at least one militant, four adults and two children, who were killed Tuesday.
In the attack, an airstrike flattened the home of a Hamas militant in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Israel's military said it had called the home shortly before the airstrike to warn civilians to leave.
A security official said the army has been telephoning homes, or firing small projectiles dubbed "knock on the roof," to warn civilians to leave buildings before demolishing homes. The official said the army also warns militants about such attacks if civilians are with them.
Hamas is far weaker than the last round of fighting with Israel in 2012.
At the time, Egypt was governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' close ally. Following its ouster in 2013, Egypt's new government became hostile to Hamas and closed a network of smuggling tunnels used by the group as an economic lifeline, and as a way to smuggle in rockets.
An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing Israeli tactical strategy, said Israel could make more significant achievements against Hamas now than in previous rounds of fighting.
"Things are different now," the official said. "Their ability to rebuild their arsenal is far more limited."
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Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Published on July 7, 2014 from The Washington Free Beacon
Hamas outlines conditions to end terror as violence peaks
Multiple Palestinian terror groups renewed calls for violence against Israel and urged Arabs to rise up over the weekend, causing concern that a third Palestinian intifada could break out amid escalating violence between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Violence hit new heights over the weekend as Palestinian rioters took to the streets around Jerusalem, and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip continued firing rockets on Israeli civilians.
Arab-Israelis in East Jerusalem rioted and clashed with Israeli police following the death of Arab teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who was murdered by Israeli citizens in an apparent revenge attack for the abduction and killing of three Jewish teens by Hamas.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a radical terror group, dropped leaflets in Khdeir’s hometown of Shuafat, outside Jerusalem, over the weekend in a bid to stoke tensions and incite Arab-Israelis to launch a popular uprising against Israel, otherwise known as an intifada.
PFLP leaders called on Twitter and elsewhere for the “development of popular mobilization into a popular intifada.”
The PFLP was among several Palestinian militant groups urging Arabs to take up arms against Israel.
The radical Al-Qassam Brigades released propaganda posters warning Israel that more attacks are imminent.
“All the cities are close to Gaza,” read one Hebrew language poster featuring an armed militant carrying rockets.
The Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, an armed offshoot of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee, held a press conference in Gaza over the weekend featuring armed masked militants.
The terror group’s spokesman said that armed Palestinian groups would not sign onto a ceasefire until Israel removes all presence from various territories,according to reports.
The PFLP, in its leaflets to Arabs around Jerusalem, called for citizens to erect “popular defense committees” across the West Bank and Jerusalem “as a means of self-defense” from Israeli attacks, according to a translation of the flyer provided to the Washington Free Beacon by Oren Adaki, an Arabic language specialist at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The PFLP emphasized the murder of Khdeir and vowed that it would not “pass by without punishment.”
The terror group also called on Palestinian Authority security forces to join the fight against Israel and join “the people of Palestine in their confrontation against the violence and terrorism of the [Israeli] settlers,” according to the page-long leaflet.
Additionally, it instructed Palestinian civilians “to prepare for a long and hard battle against the occupation and emphasized the importance of transforming Israel’s occupation into a failed project,” according to Adaki. “The PFLP highlighted the necessity of adopting a popular resistance program focused on the various forms of national struggle that would serve the interests of the Palestinian people.”
As riots break out inside Israel, Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip continue to bombard Israel with rocket attacks.
At least 14 rockets hit Israel on Monday morning and several dozen struck over the weekend, bringing the total number of attacks to 150 since June 14, when hostilities first broke out.
Senior Hamas officials said on Monday that the attacks would continue until Israel abides by several conditions.
Hamas will not sign a ceasefire agreement until Israel completely removes its presence from the Gaza Strip and ends its blockade of the territory, which is meant to prevent arms from flowing across the border.
Hamas foreign relations head Osama Hamdan “ruled out the possibility of a large-scale Israeli aggression on Gaza” over the weekend and “warned that his movement might resort to unexpected scenarios in case the reconciliation agreement terms were not implemented in full,” according to reports posted on Hamas-affiliated websites.
Terrorism expert Matthew Levitt said that the calls for a new intifada are not likely to resonate with Palestinians.
“If the loudest voice you hear calling for an intifada is the PFLP that’s comment enough on the disinterest among most Palestinians for renewed widespread violence,” said Levitt, director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
Hamas is seeking to leverage the situation by imposing demands on Israel that cannot be met, Levitt said.
“Hamas is eager to find an issue that will resonate with its constituency, and improve its really desperate situation right now, and it has latched onto the Gaza closure,” Levitt said.
“Meanwhile, it is also continuing to try to kidnap Israeli soldiers,” he added, noting that Israeli military officials confirmed that six militants killed inside an illegal tunnel last night were preparing to carry out a kidnapping operation.
As violence increases on all sides—including among disparate Palestinian factions—the unity deal between Hamas and Fatah appears to have disintegrated.
“For all intents and purposes the unity government is done,” said FDD’s Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst for the U.S. Treasury Department.
“I don’t see unity,” he said. “Cooperation between Hamas and Fatah looks dead, and no one is even talking about whether the unity government is functioning. We’re right back to where we were” before the agreement, when the PA urged restraint in the face of Hamas violence.
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Date: Monday, July 7, 2014
Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. on Sunday praised his government for the swift arrests in the killing of an Arab teen, saying those found guilty will not be lauded as heroes and urging Palestinian leaders to pursue those behind similar killings.
“They will not be hailed as heroes,” Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer told “Fox News Sunday.” “There will not be public squares named after them.”
Six Jewish men were arrested this weekend in connection with the killing of the Palestinian Arab teenager, whose death last week has sparked days of violent protests in Arab areas of Jerusalem and northern Israel.
Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, was abducted early last week, and his charred body was found a short while later in a Jerusalem forest in what Palestinians say was a revenge killing for the earlier deaths of three Israeli teens.
Police have been investigating various motives in the Khdeir death, including criminal and personal.
“There’s strong suspicion that there are nationalist motives behind this,” Dermer said.
He wants Palestinian leaders to rigorously investigate the deaths of the three Israeli teens, on which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blaming the militant Islamic group Hamas.
The series of killing and the resulting, violent protests have brought concerns that the country will be plunged into war.
This weekend, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip stepped up rocket attacks on southern Israel, drawing Israeli air strikes in retaliation. The militants have fired more than 15 rockets and mortars into Israel, the military said. Overnight, Israel carried out air strikes on 10 sites in Gaza.
When Dermer was asked Sunday by ABC News whether he thought the violence would lead to all-out war, his response was “I hope not.”
He also responded to the release Sunday of Tariq Abu Khdeir, a 15-year-old Palestinian American who was badly injured in clashes with Israeli police. He was sentenced to nine days of home detention.
Dermer said his country condemns the use of excessive force but that Tariq Khdeir “was not an innocent bystander pulled out of a school yard.”
He said Khdeir was masked and joined several others in attacking police.
“But that doesn’t excuse the use of excessive force,” Dermer added.
The parents of Khdeir, who goes to school in Florida, say their son was beaten Thursday by Israeli police during clashes over the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The two youths were cousins.
As Tariq returned to his family Sunday, he was crying and appeared badly bruised, with both eyes and his mouth swollen. "I feel better, I am excited to be back home," he said.
Amateur video of what Tariq's father Salah said was the beating aired on a local television station, and he said he could recognize his son from his clothing.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Sunday that a judge at a hearing that morning allowed Tariq to be released under house arrest while the criminal investigation is conducted and that an official from the U.S. Consulate General was present.
The teen's family was asked to post bail, and Tariq is restricted to his uncle’s home in the Beit Hanina area of East Jerusalem. He is also permitted to make arrangements to visit medical facilities if needed. If the investigation is concluded promptly, the youth should be able to return to Florida as planned with his family later this month, Psaki said.
She also repeated what she said Saturday, that the U.S. wants "a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for the apparent excessive use of force.”
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Date: Thursday, July 3, 2014
By YOSSI MELMAN
LAST UPDATED: 07/03/2014
The rescue was organized by an Israeli-American humanitarian activist with the help of Syrian opposition leaders, the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Absorption.
A Syrian boy crosses through the Quneitra border crossing between Israel and Syria, as seen from the Israeli side of the Golan Heights [Illustrative] Photo: REUTERS
News of the recent escape of a Jewish family from Syria to Israel was cleared for publication Thursday.
The mixed Jewish-Muslim family fled the battlefields of Syria a few weeks ago, with two family members leading the way and the rest following later on. They made their way through several dangerous road blocks manned by Assad's Syrian military and various militias of the opposition. Eventually they managed to leave Syria and fly to Israel.
Once a flourishing community of thousands, the remaining Jewish population in Syria numbers around 20, all of whom live in Damascus. Though they are allowed leave the country, they have seemingly decided to ride out the conflict.
The rescue operation was facilitated by Moti Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who has been involved in recent years in humanitarian efforts for Syrian refugees.
In the course of his humanitarian activity he fostered connections with leaders of the Syrian opposition, and enlisted their help to get the Jewish family out of the country.
The Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Absorption were also privy to the secret efforts. The family, who asked not to be named, is now living in a government absorption center north of Tel Aviv.
To bring the family to Israel, Kahana also cooperated with Israel Flying Aid, an NGO led by Gal Luski. The organization is dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to countries with whom Israel does not have diplomatic relations, but who find themselves in the midst of natural or human-made disasters.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Luski and representatives of her organization last week. Netanyahu also met with Israel's youth movement, which collected several tons of food, medication, clothing and other supplies for the Syrian refugees in Jordan and Turkey. Netanyahu praised their work.
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Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014
July 2, 2014: An Israeli police officer gestures in the Jerusalem Forest where a body was found.Reuters
Israeli police discovered the body of a Palestinian teen in a forest west of Jerusalem Wednesday, leading to clashes with Palestinians and fears that the crime may have been a revenge attack for the murder of three Israeli teens whose bodies were found in the West Bank earlier this week.
Hundreds of angry youths blocked the Holy City's light rail and threw stones at Israeli security forces, who responded with rubber bullets, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities also used tear gas against the crowds.
Rosenfeld added that police received reports Wednesday that an Arab teen was forced into a car. A body was later found, but police have not yet established whether the two incidents are related.
He said security was heightened in Jerusalem, with extra units dispatched and the city's light rail train service cut short to avoid the scene of the violence. Police also closed a key holy site in Jerusalem's Old City to visitors after rock throwing there.
Israeli officials urged calm as police investigated the incidents, hoping to contain the violence.
"Everything is being examined. There are many possibilities. There is a criminal possibility as well as a political one," Israel's public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, told Israel Radio. "I am telling everyone, let us wait patiently."
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel was being held responsible for the death and called on it to "find the killers and hold them accountable," according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
There was no immediate word on casualties resulting from the clashes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged authorities to swiftly investigate the "reprehensible murder" and called on all sides "not to take the law into their own hands."
The Arab teen, identified as 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was approached by a car early Wednesday and then forced into it before it sped off, his cousin Saed Abu Khdeir told The Associated Press.
The discovery comes after several hundred right-wing Israeli youths marched through Jerusalem on Tuesday, demanding revenge for the murders of the Israeli teens. Five Palestinians were attacked, two of whom required medical treatment, and 50 people were arrested after violent confrontations with police that lasted several hours in the capital's center.
Israel has accused Hamas of abducting and killing the three teens, and has arrested hundreds of its members across the West Bank. Rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has meanwhile intensified, and been met with Israeli air strikes.
On Tuesday, thousands attended the funerals of Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, the three Jewish seminary students who disappeared last month and whose bodies were found Monday in a field near the West Bank city of Hebron.
The three young men were buried side by side in the central Israeli town of Modiin. Mourners arrived in large convoys of buses arranged for the ceremony.
Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres eulogized the teens at the joint funeral, located near the boys’ family homes, according to the Jerusalem Post.
"Today has spontaneously become a national day of mourning,” Netanyahu said.
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Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Partially buried bodies of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel, who were kidnapped on June 12, found in a field north of Hebron; cabinet meets in emergency session
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF June 30, 2014, 8:30 pm Updated: June 30, 2014
The three kidnapped teens, from left to right: Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel (photo credit: Courtesy)
The site where the bodies of three slain Israeli teens were found near Halhul (screen capture: YouTube)
Israeli searchers on Monday discovered the bodies of three Israeli teenagers, who were abducted on June 12, north of Hebron in the West Bank.
The bodies were found near Halhul on Monday afternoon. Israeli security forces, which had been conducting extensive searches in the area, sealed off the area and declared it a closed military zone. Hebron was also sealed off.
A search team from the local Kfar Etzion field school, along with IDF soldiers from an elite unit, found the teens. The local volunteers had been asking for two weeks to join the search.
Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gil-ad Shaar, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were kidnapped on the night of June 12 at a hitchhiking post outside the settlement of Alon Shvut in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem.
The bodies were found at about 5 p.m., bound and partially buried, in an open field in a hard to access area known as Wadi Tellem. The site was less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from where the teens had been abducted.
The parents were informed on Monday evening that the bodies had been found. Relatives gathered in the three family homes; some spokespeople for the families thanked the Israeli security forces for their efforts to locate the teenagers, and thanked the public for their support and solidarity.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned the families and expressed his condolences.
State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki called the news of the killings “a tragedy,” and urged continued cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s security forces despite “the pain on the ground.”
The three Israeli teenagers had been killed soon after their abduction, and the bodies were apparently disposed of hurriedly. The bodies were not in a good condition when they were found, Channel 2 said. “It was a harrowing sight.”
Parents of three abducted teens — Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel — attend a rally calling for their release, in Tel Aviv, Sunday, June 29, 2014. (Photo credit: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Forensic experts identified the bodies at the scene. The bodies were flown to the Abu Kabir Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv on Monday evening for definitive identification. Israelis placed mourning candles outside the institute later Monday night.
Israel’s security cabinet convened in emergency session. Among other decisions, it was expected to demand that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sever his unity government partnership with Hamas.
Israeli soldiers begin a search operation in the village of Halhul, near the West Bank town of Hebron, on June 29, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/HAZEM BADER)
Israeli authorities on Thursday had named two Hamas members as prime suspects in the kidnapping.
The two, Amer Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme, have been missing from their homes in Hebron’s Hares neighborhood ever since the kidnapping took place. The two were allegedly in the car in which the three were abducted.
Amer Abu Aysha (left) and Marwan Kawasme (right), suspected by Israel of kidnapping three Israeli teens. (photo credit: Courtesy)
The two were still at large on Monday night, and Israel’s security forces were making intensive efforts to track them down.
IDF troops surrounded the homes of the two suspects late on Monday evening.
Hamas leaders in the Hebron area were reported to have made themselves scarce, anticipating that they would be sought by the security forces. Hamas has not taken responsibility for the kidnapping and killings; a Hamas spokesman was quoted warning on Monday night that “any Israeli response will open the gates of hell.”
IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz was in the Halhul area, overseeing the ongoing operation.
Hamas officials in Hebron confirmed the two suspects were members, and said Israeli troops had targeted the men’s homes since the beginning of Operation Brother’s Keeper. The officials said troops had entered the homes several times, conducting intense searches and confiscating items as evidence.
Israelis hold signs during a rally calling for the release of of three kidnapped teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel — in Tel Aviv, Sunday, June 29, 2014. (Photo credit: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
On Sunday night, tens of thousands of people crowded into Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to show support for the families of the three kidnapped teenagers, under the banner “Singing Together for Their Return.” President-elect Reuven Rivlin and the parents of the kidnapped teens highlighted the speaker list.
Since the start of Operation Brother’s Keeper to find them, 18 days of searches had seen the arrests of over 400 Palestinians, a majority of them members of Hamas.
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Date: Monday, June 30, 2014
06/30/2014 14:20
Prime minister warns Hamas that it must stop violations of Operation Pillar of Defense de facto ceasefire or Israel will be forced to act; briefs Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense C'tee on effort to find kidnapped teens.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, June 30, 2014 Photo: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned on Monday that Israel would take action to stop rocket fire from Gaza if the quiet which followed Operation Pillar of Defense continues to be violated.
Netanyahu was speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, hours after some 15 rocketsfrom Gaza were fired at southern Israel, causing damage to a number of homes in the western Negev.
The prime minister warned Hamas that it is responsible for reining in the rocket fire. "I want to make clear that if the silence from Operation Pillar of Defense is violated and the shooting continues, their are two options: either Hamas will stop the rocket fire, or we will."
More than two weeks after three Israeli teens were kidnapped in the West Bank, Netanyahu said that Israel's "first goal was and remains to bring the boys back in peace."
Netanyahu said that he had instructed the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and IDF to use "any means" to find and bring home the kidnapped teens.
FADC chairman Ze'ev Elkin said that the committee had held a series of in depth discussions since Operation Brother's Keeper began and was seeking further clarification from Netanyahu on where the operation stands and what further steps will be taken in the future.
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Date: Thursday, June 26, 2014
A man holds up an image of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinians rally in the center of the West Bank city of Nablus in support of Abbas during his visit to Washington, Monday, March 17, 2014. (photo credit: Jaafar/Ashtiyeh/AFP)
Palestinian support for a two-state solution with Israel has dropped to below the 30 percent mark, according to a new poll commissioned by the US-based think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, though most respondents said they were opposed to violent resistance.
Marking a notable shift in Palestinian public opinion, 60 percent of the population surveyed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (55% and 68%, respectively) said that the five-year goal “should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea,” according to the poll, a position meaning the elimination of Israel. Meanwhile, less than 30% (31% in the West Bank, 22% in Gaza) would like to “end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to achieve a two-state solution.”
In contrast, 53% of Palestinians supported the two-state solution in a December 2013 poll conducted by the Hebrew University.
Numerous other statistics from the survey confirmed the downward trend of support for a two-state solution as an end to the conflict. Two-thirds of respondents said that a two-state solution would be “part of a ‘program of stages,’ to liberate all of historic Palestine later” and that “resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.”
On a more promising note, a majority of respondents registered opposition to violent resistance against Israel, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where 70% said Hamas should maintain a ceasefire with Israel and 57% said that Hamas should accede to the PA unity government’s renunciation of violence. In the West Bank 56% said that Hamas should adhere to the ceasefire and 50% said it should renounce violence altogether.
The poll showed that a clear majority of Palestinians — 62% of the West Bank and 73% of Gazans — support nonviolent “popular resistance against the occupation” and see it as a useful tactic.
Perhaps surprisingly, Hamas seems to have gained little political clout for its alleged abduction of the three Israeli teenagers, despite popular support for the kidnapping on the street. Asked who should lead the Palestinian Authority in the next two years, 65% chose Fatah leaders, with Mahmoud Abbas leading (30%), then Marwan Baghouti (12%), Mohammed Dahlan (10%) and others (13% combined), while various Hamas leaders only won 9% of support in the West Bank and 15% in Gaza.
The Palestinian public also appeared to exhibit some short-term pragmatism, with over 80% saying they “definitely” or “probably” wanted to see more job opportunities for Palestinians in Israel. A majority said they also wanted Israeli companies to offer more jobs to Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza.
The Washington Institute said the poll was conducted by “a leading Palestinian pollster” on June 15-17 through face-to-face interviews among 1,200 adult Palestinians, with a 3% statistical margin of error.
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