Haaretz reports for a first time, Israel could charge an entire family for murder after a Palestinian who killed three Israelis posted his intent on Facebook. Reportedly, the family saw the post and were debating how to intervene when the slaining happened: “The military prosecution is expected to indict five relatives of Omar al-Abed, who stabbed to death three Israeli civilians in the settlement of Halamish last month. The five would be charged with failing to prevent a crime. According to sources in the prosecution, the family members were aware of Abed’s plans to carry out an attack but did not try to stop him. Expected to be charged are Abed’s father, Abed al-Jalil, his mother, Ibtisam al-Jalil, two of his brothers and another relative. As far as is known, the main piece of evidence against the family is a Facebook post Abed wrote a few hours before the attack. ‘I am writing my will and these are my last words. I am young, I have not yet reached the age of 20, I have many dreams and aspirations,’ he wrote.”

Israeli-American Ronit Dinson makes the decision to leave Tel Aviv and return to the U.S., “Am I coward for saying “khalas” (Arabic for “enough”), I want out of here?  Or, are there just too many avenues that have dead-ended here in Israel?  I want the same thing that all Israeli Jews, Arabs, and asylum seekers want, to live in peace with my family and for my future children to have equal opportunities.  I don’t see this happening here in Israel unless the apartheid structure finally ends and all people have equal rights, regardless of their nationality, race, or religion.”

The Times of Israel reports, “Five homes in the Shaarei Tikva settlement in the northern West Bank were reportedly built on land allocated to the Palestinians under the Oslo agreements.”

In the wake of the Gulf crisis, Hamas leaders left Qatar and are looking for a new base for their foreign headquarters. Al-Monitor reports, Algeria is likely the group’s next move, “The Saudi-backed Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported July 17 that Hamas is searching for a foothold in Algeria to shelter its officials who left Qatar in early June. Algeria received an official request from Hamas to establish a representative office for the movement on its territories, but it has yet to respond.”

Haaretz profiles women from the former USSR who married men from Gaza and moved to the besieged Strip to raise families, Elena Hamida, from the Ukraine, tells Haaretz, “she loves Gaza. ‘I’ve gotten used to it, as far as I am concerned everything here is fine. The only thing I don’t like is that it’s impossible to leave [the Gaza Strip].” What about the electricity? “You can live without electricity. It used to be hard, now it’s alright. But I don’t want to return to Ukraine. There’s a war there, too, and I have children, I worry. There are those gangs there I am afraid that my boy would become a junkie, or start drinking. There, I simply would not be able to keep an eye on them. If it’s one child it’s possible, but not three. One of them for sure would find himself in bad company.’ And in Gaza that can’t happen? ‘Here it’s possible to keep an eye on them. There, I would not be able to do that.”

The State Department finds Israeli settlements, settler attacks, changes to the status quo at al-Aqsa mosque and a lack of progress on Palestinian statehood are the driving cause of violence.

Israel advances a law that will make secret its operations to suppress the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the law would exempt government agencies from complying with FOIA requests that could reveal its fight against BDS, and its overseas civilian partners that seek to hide their relationship with the Israeli government.

The Times of Israel reports, “Canadian food inspectors have ordered liquor stores to stop selling wines made in the West Bank, saying their label identifying them as Israeli contravenes Ottawa’s policy on the territory … News of the order emerged with the issue of a letter Tuesday from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to liquor vendors, detailing the ruling by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency a week earlier ‘that ‘Product of Israel’ would not be an acceptable country of origin declaration for wine products that have been made from grapes that are grown, fermented, processed, blended and finished in the West Bank occupied territory.’ The ruling extended to wines from ‘any other territory occupied by Israel in 1967’ that carried such a label, which would be ‘considered misleading,’ specifically mentioning the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as the West Bank.”

For the moment, swimming in beaches in southern Israel is banned indefinitely after pollution from Gaza made it way north following an electricity crisis where the absence of power has shut down the Strip’s only sewage treatment plant. Haaretz reports, “Beaches in southern Israel were closed to swimmers on Wednesday due to pollution, after power shortages in nearby Gaza led a sewage treatment plant there to shut down. The electricity shortages in the Gaza Strip appear to have caused untreated sewage to flow just over the border into Israel’s Mediterranean waters. The Health Ministry banned swimming on the beaches at Zikim and Ashkelon National Park after sewage was detected in the water. Officials suspect that the pollution is sewage that was left untreated after the plant was shuttered due to severe electricity shortages in Gaza, and that it drifted north onto Israeli beaches. There is no forecast as to when the beaches will reopen.”

Ron Kampeas reports for the JTA: “Haim Saban, a major donor to the Democratic Party, is backing a bill that would slash funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops payments to Palestinians jailed for attacks on Israelis. The participation of the Israeli-American entertainment mogul in the initiative of the lobbying affiliate of the Israeli-American Council is significant because Democrats until now have been reluctant to back the bill as it stands.”