Archive for Mid-East News

| December 15, 2013
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Israel sends Hamas fuel for Gaza power plant

 

 

As cold weather & flooding takes its toll on Gaza, Hamas & Fatah come to agreement for Israel to begin transferring fuel to the only power plant in Hamas-ruled Strip after a 50-day shutdown.

By AFP

Israel began transferring fuel to the Gaza Strip’s sole power plant Sunday, a Palestinian official said, as the Hamas-ruled enclave struggled to deal with massive flooding caused by winter downpours.

Household gas enters Gaza - Screenshot from Coordinator of Government Activities in Territories

Household gas enters Gaza – Screenshot from Coordinator of Government Activities in Territories

Raed Fatuh, a Palestinian Authority official in charge of the transfer of goods between Gaza and Israel, said Israel would be transferring 450,000 liters of fuel to the plant, which has been shut down for some 50 days. Continue Reading »

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| December 15, 2013
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UN: Flooded Gaza ‘disaster area’ with 4,000 Gazans evacuated from homes

 

United Nations Relief Works Agency calls northern Strip “disaster area” with reports of flood be two meter high in some places.

By REUTERS
 

 

GAZA – More than 4,000 people have been evacuated from flood-damaged homes in northern Gaza in what the United Nations has called “a disaster area”, officials said on Saturday.

Palestinian civil defense members evacuate people from flooded houses in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Palestinian civil defense members evacuate people from flooded houses in the northern Gaza Strip. – Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Flooding has been so severe that access to many homes is by rowing boat and water is reported to be two meters (more than six feet) high in some places. Continue Reading »

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| December 13, 2013
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The Wackos in Washington

 

In regard to the Mideast, bad ideas never die, no matter how impractical, improbable or implausible.

By MARTIN SHERMAN

 

 

Enough is enough. At some stage there must be a limit to the verbal garbage – I resist the strong temptation to employ a somewhat coarser epithet – that one can be subjected to before giving vent to pent-up exasperation and outrage.
US Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the Saban Forum in Washington, December 7, 2013. Photo: Ralph Alswang/Courtesy Saban Forum

US Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the Saban Forum in Washington, December 7, 2013. Photo: Ralph Alswang/Courtesy Saban Forum

A spade is still a spade.

Of late, this limit has been breached with increasing frequency – particularly when the matter of the “Palestinian issue” is broached.As
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| December 13, 2013
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French Town Honors Imprisoned Assassin of U.S. & Israeli diplomats

The city council of Bagnolet voted on Wednesday to make the incarcerated Lebanese terrorist, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, an honorary resident.

 

 

PARIS — A suburb of the French capital honored a man imprisoned for helping to murder diplomats from Israel and the United States.

George Ibrahim Abdallah - Photo: France24

George Ibrahim Abdallah – Photo: France24

A majority of aldermen in the city council of Bagnolet east of the French capital voted on Wednesday to make the Lebanese citizen Georges Ibrahim Abdallah an honorary resident, calling him a “communist activist” and “political prisoner” who “belongs to the resistance movement of Lebanon, his country,” French media reported Friday.

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| December 13, 2013
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Australian group: Gaza’s Palestinians delight in the ‘worst case of animal cruelty’ in history

 

Barbaric video exhibits cattle imported from Australia being tortured on streets of Gaza, with bystanders participating, filming & cheering.

By

 

 

Shocking footage of cattle exported from Australia being tortured and killed in the streets of Gaza is being described by an Australian animal rights group as the worst animal cruelty case it has ever seen in the live export industry, The West Australian news reported Thursday.

Animal cruelty in Gaza

Animal cruelty in Gaza – Photo by Screenshot/Animals Australia

Footage compiled by Animals Australia shows bulls being “knee-capped by a man armed with an assault rifle, another stabbed in the eye and other having their throats hacked open in the streets.” Continue Reading »

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| December 12, 2013
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Israel’s Defense Minister: Iranian embassies are terror bases

 

Israel’s Minister of Defense:  Iranian embassies in 5 South American countries, use their diplomatic mail to smuggle weapons and explosives.

Many of the people who serve in these embassies are intelligence agents & members of the Revolutionary Guard.

By Israel Hayom Staff

Speaking to high school students in Dimona on Tuesday, Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon laid out his position on Iran.

 Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon thinks Iran is trying to destroy Western culture – Photo: Dudi Vaaknin

“The Iranian regime is a radical Islamic-Shiite regime, whose goal is to defeat Western culture. This is not Iran against Israel. It’s Iran against Western culture,” he said. Continue Reading »

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| December 12, 2013
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Abbas Honors Arab Terrorist for Murdering 125 Israelis, Almost Exclusively Jews

Slain Palestinian terrorist Abu Jihad receives PA’s Star of Honor by Abbas: ‘He was the model of a true fighter & devoted leader.’

By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

 

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has granted a post-mortem honor to arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis in numerous terror attacks that he planned, including a bus hijacking in 1978, in which 37 civilians were murdered.

Official PA TV News reported that Abbas, in order “to honor the founding leaders and the first generation of the Palestinian revolution and the PLO, and out of loyalty to their history of struggle,” chose to decorate Abu Jihad with “the highest order of the Star of Honor.” Continue Reading »

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| December 11, 2013
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Israel blamed for Record number of ‘honor killings’ among Palestinians

Last November, Rasha Abu Ara, a 32-year-old mother of 5, was beaten to death & strung from a tree.

Palestinian Minister of Women’s Affairs Rabiha Diab blamed domestic violence toward women on Israel.

By REUTERS

 

 

A silvery green olive grove set in the red soil of a Palestinian village is a crime scene – testament to a practice so sensitive that it is spoken of only in whispers.

A Palestinian woman votes

A Palestinian woman votes – Photo: Mohamad Torokman/Reuter

One night in late November, Rasha Abu Ara, a 32-year-old mother of five, was beaten to death and strung from a gnarled tree branch as a gruesome badge of “family honor” restored. Continue Reading »

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| December 11, 2013
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1 in 5 Gazans receiving EU salaries don’t actually work

European Court of Auditors, which ‘lost’ 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in Gaza, reported that at one place, out of 125 paid Palestinian employees, 90 weren’t working.

By

 

 

European Union auditors are recommending that the EU stop paying the salaries of Palestinian civil servants in Gaza who don’t work.

Gaza parade.

Palestinians gather around Hamas militants as they take part in a military parade marking the first anniversary of the eight-day conflict with Israel, in Gaza City November 14, 2013.- Photo: Reuters

The findings were made public Wednesday by  in EU financial support to the Palestinian Authority has been used. Continue Reading »

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| December 11, 2013
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Israeli officials: US admits Iran will get $20 billion in sanctions relief – not $7 billion as Obama said

 


U.S. administration officials admitted to Israeli colleagues that American negotiators greatly underestimated the economic benefits Iran would reap from Geneva’s P5+1 accord.

By

 

 

Senior officials in the administration of President Barack Obama have conceded over the past few days in conversations with colleagues in Israel that the value of the economic sanctions relief to Iran could be much higher than originally thought in Washington, security sources in Israel told Haaretz.

Tehran

The Iranian economy is already showing signs of growth. – Photo: AP

In official statements by the United States immediately after the agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program was signed in Geneva between Iran and theF six powers at the end of November it was said that the economic relief Iran would receive in exchange for signing the agreement would be relatively low – $6 billion or $7 billion. Continue Reading »

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| December 10, 2013
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Al-Hayat Report: White House draft includes a 15-year IDF presence in West Bank

 

 

Arabic-language media reports content of US security suggestions for Israel-PA. (PA leak?)

American proposal includes radar posts in mountains, IDF in Jordan Valley, joint patrols at border crossings.

By Elior Levy

The US security outline for any proposed peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will include a 15-year interim agreement, Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, and radar posts on West Bank mountains, the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, June 30, 2013.- Photo: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, June 30, 2013.- Photo: Reuters

The report noted the US administration shared its security proposals with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Continue Reading »

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| December 10, 2013
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Pro-Israel orgs stepping back from confrontation with White House over Iran

AIPAC’s executive director calls for pro-Israel organizations & groups to focus on passing new & stricter sanctions as a means of shaping a final anti-Nuclear deal with Iran.

By

 

 

When it comes to the deal between Iran and major powers, Israel and the pro-Israel community are retreating from a strategy of confrontation and working instead to influence the contours of a final agreement.

U.S. President Obama speaking at the 2011 AIPAC convention.

U.S. President Obama speaking at the 2011 AIPAC convention. – Photo: AP

In a conference call last week, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s executive director, advised pro-Israel activists and leaders not to confront the Obama administration directly over the “difference of strategy” between the United States and Israel on Iran. Continue Reading »

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| December 10, 2013
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Al-Jazeera Sacks its Reporter for Questioning Arafat ‘Assassination’

One of the original authors of the network’s coverage of Swiss investigation, Ken Silverstein was reportedly fired after citing media bias.

By Tova Dvorin

 

An Al-Jazeera reporter was fired last week for questioning the objectivity of the investigations surrounding the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, according to The Washington Free Beacon. The reporter was part of the network’s investigative team into the death, which was controversially declared a “poisoning” by Swiss officials in October.

Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat, not yet dead

 

Al-Jazeera has been one of the prime networks advocating the theory that the PLO leader was poisoned by polonium in 2004, and has been actively presenting the story with that bias since 2012. Continue Reading »

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| December 10, 2013
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Zahar: Following Rouhani election, Hamas renewed ties with Iran

A senior Hamas official reports his organization will not be bound by “Oslo 2″and goes further claiming Fatah’s Abbas does not represent the Palestinian people.

By YASSER OKBI
 

 

Hamas announced Monday that the government in the Gaza Strip renewed its ties with Iran following the election of Hassan Rouhani as Iranian president.

Mahmoud Zahar

Mahmoud Zahar- Photo: Courtesy of Channel 1

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar sad that relations had never been completely severed, but were affected by events in Syria.

According to Zahar, Hamas made clear that it was not involved in the Syrian conflict and would not claim allegiance to either side in the country’s civil war. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: ,
| December 9, 2013
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Terrorist Behind Eilat Rocket Attack Killed by Egyptian Army

In a shootout, Egyptian soldiers shot to death Ibrahim Abu Atiyeh, leader of the terrorist group responsible for recent rocket attacks on Eilat in August.

By David Lev

 

Egyptian sources said Monday night that Egyptian Army soldiers had eliminated Ibrahim Abu Atiyeh, a terrorist belonging to the Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Beit al-Makdis terror group. Abu Atiyeh was a leader of the group, which has claimed responsibility for a recent rocket attack on Eilat in August. Abu Atiyeh  was killed in a shootout with Egyptian soldiers in northern Sinai.

The group has been at odds with Eypt’s new military government, and has attempted to kill Egyptian officials, including the country’s interior minister. Continue Reading »

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