An emerging cease-fire agreement aimed at calming months of violence on the Israel-Gaza border will last for three years and see a significant easing of the blockade on the Hamas-controlled territory, Lebanon’s Al-Akbar newspaper reported Saturday.
Israeli political and military sources tell Haaretz they no longer plan to deal with Hamas through the PA. Abbas wants increased tensions between Hamas and Israel as it affords him leverage. “In the near term, he plans to increase the punitive measures against the organization, the officials say.”
On Wednesday Israeli police removed Coptic priests holding a sit-in at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City and arrested one. The clergy were protesting a renovation dispute that arose because the historic site’s roof is nearing collapse.
Will Australia follow the U.S. and move their embassy to Jerusalem? Australia’s Prime Minister said Tuesday he is considering recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and shifting his embassy from Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will soon change course in his response to protests in Gaza and deliver “very painful blows,” so long as the demonstrations continue.
A French court ruled to end requiring retailers to label goods originating from the West Bank, overturning a 2016 law where products from the settlements could no longer be stamped “made in Israel.” The JTA reports, “Earlier this year The Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel think tank, initiated a legal action challenging the labeling requirements on behalf of Psagot Winery LTD, an Israeli vineyard whose European distributors are subject to the labeling rules.”
Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian child on October 3, when they shot him with a high-velocity gas bomb in the head. Ahmad Samir Abu Habel, 15, was killed hours after Ibrahim Ahmad al-Arrouqi, a 78-year-old farmer, was killed in his fields.
Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.) led a letter of 35 U.S. Senators to President Trump to express strong opposition to his decision to cut more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinian people. “We are deeply concerned that your strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from women and children is misguided and destined to backfire,” the senators wrote.
Israeli army shot and wounded 54 Palestinians during the Great Return March in Gaza yesterday, killing one of them, Karim Mohammad Kollab, 25, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza confirmed.
On Sunday the U.S. State Department cancelled the visas for Palestinian ambassador to the U.S.’s wife and children who are living in Washington DC, following the Trump administration ordering closed the PLO diplomatic mission.