Israel News

Jerusalem must remain a united city, but there will be a place for a Palestinian capital within its boundaries, Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a rare interview published on Thursday with the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

Yisrael Beiteinu leader MK Avigdor Lieberman called on fellow opposition lawmakers to join forces and challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox allies in the upcoming elections.

The Israel Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency for the first time demonstrated a multilayered air defense system using the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow weapon systems in a recent series of tests.

Israel has successfully completed an air defense exercise that tested the abilities of the Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept cruise missiles for the first time, the Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.

The US is making a mistake by leaving the Middle East to its own devices and this could lead to a conflagration between Israel and Iran, wrote former Turkish MP Aykan Erdemir and former US Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman in an article for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Hamas vowed on Monday to continue the fight against Israel “until the liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River.”

Oman and Indonesia could be next in line to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in the coming weeks, a diplomatic source said Sunday.

Israel established full diplomatic relations with Bhutan for the first time on Saturday night.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday that the Palestinians are prepared to resume talks with Israel and that fresh negotiations should be based on resolutions passed by the United Nations on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Jerusalem Post reports. Abbas made the announcement during a visit to Ramallah by Spain’s Foreign Minister Arancha González.

Israel and Morocco agreed Thursday to normalize relations in a U.S. brokered accord that Israel’s prime minister described as “another great light of peace.”

A day after he announced his departure from Likud and the formation of a new political party to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the country’s leadership, Gideon Sa’ar was off to an extraordinarily strong start Wednesday. Polls on Israel’s three major news networks forecast his nascent New Hope party getting between 15 and 18 seats if the country goes to elections — shaking up the political landscape and introducing several potential paths to coalitions that do not include Netanyahu, while seriously narrowing the premier’s path to leading the next government.

Israeli authorities are set to unveil previously off-limits structures within King Herod’s palace-fortress Herodium, which the tyrannical Roman-era leader interred as his enormous burial plot.

Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn and Welfare Minister Itzik Shmuli on Wednesday approved the draft of a bill that will change a decades-old law permitting adoption only for heterosexual couples and allow same-sex couples to be equally eligible.

The Knesset House Committee decided on Wednesday by a ten-to-seven vote to advance the Knesset dispersal bill.

Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar, long seen as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival within Likud, on Tuesday announced he was quitting Likud and will form his own right-wing party, to be called “New Hope,” and run for the premiership in the next election.

Leading Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal has described Israel as a Western colonizing power that is holding Palestinians in concentration camps, Ynet News reports. Formerly the Saudi ambassador to the US and the UK and head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki made his remarks Sunday at the Bahrain Security Conference.

Over 64% of Arab-Israelis support forming an Arab-Jewish party for the next Knesset elections, although the voter participation rate among Arab-Israelis is not expected to be high at just 55.6%, according to a new study by the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

The first delivery of Pfizer vaccines will arrive in Israel on Thursday, according to multiple Hebrew media reports on Monday evening.

Some 61% of the Israeli public would be interested in being vaccinated for the coronavirus, a new survey has found. Some 18% would refuse to be vaccinated.

Hardline Iranian daily Kayhan on Sunday called on Tehran not to delay in exacting vengeance for the assassination of the country’s nuclear mastermind last month.