Israel News

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid on Tuesday cheered Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s decision to throw his Blue and White party’s support behind a preliminary reading of a bill to dissolve the Knesset and call early elections.

Watergen, an Israel-based company that has developed technology that generates drinking water from the air, has signed a strategic agreement with the Emirati Al-Dahra company to bring its water solutions to the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the region.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party is expected to give initial backing to a bill to dissolve the Knesset and call early elections when it comes up for a vote Wednesday, TV reports said Monday evening, amid widespread speculation that Israelis will soon find themselves at the ballot box for the fourth time in under two years.

Saudi Arabia reportedly granted permission for Israeli airlines to use its airspace on Monday, just hours before the first Israeli flight to the United Arab Emirates was set to take off, following a flurry of a diplomatic activity including reported US in.

Iran made clear Sunday it was considering attacking Israel’s port city of Haifa to avenge the killing of its top nuclear scientist.

White House adviser Jared Kushner will travel to Saudi Arabia this week, in an apparent last-ditch effort to broker a normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel, according to a report on Sunday.

Amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said Sunday that the army will continue to operate forcefully as needed against Iranian entrenchment in Syria.

Airstrikes likely carried out by Israel killed at least 19 pro-Iran militia fighters in war-torn eastern Syria, a war monitor said Thursday.

Israel is on a high-speed train to new elections — the fourth in two years — as rumblings during the past few weeks over a possible government collapse manifested in a verbal threat by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed have been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, the Jerusalem Post reports. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lord David Trimble of Northern Ireland has nominated the two leaders for their pioneering agreement to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE.

The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that he is planning to make his first official visit to Bahrain in the near future, the Jerusalem Post reports. Like Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain has recently signed a US-brokered normalization agreement with Israel.

The United States this week rapidly deployed several heavy bombers to the Middle East this week in an apparent threat to Iran, amid swirling speculation that US President Donald Trump plans to take military action against Tehran before President-elect Joe Biden enters office.

In a move aimed at pressuring the centrist Blue and White party to break ranks with the coalition amid an ongoing deterioration of relations within the government, opposition leader Yair Lapid said Monday that he’ll lead a proposal next week to disperse the Knesset and call new elections.

Israel’s Channel 12 has reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen flew to Saudi Arabia Sunday for a secret meeting with officials there, All Israel News (AIN) reports. Although the meeting has not been confirmed by the Prime Minister’s office, the news has caused speculation that, following Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia may become the next Arab state to normalize relations with Israel.

Iran on Sunday vowed to defeat any Israeli attempt to harm its role in Syria, saying the era of “hit and run” attacks by Israel there was over, days after Israel carried out airstrikes on the Syrian army and Iranian paramilitary targets in the country.

The IDF struck Hamas targets in Gaza overnight on Saturday, after Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket toward Israel, setting off air raid sirens in the southern city of Ashkelon, the military announced.

Israel is in the final stages of talks with British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to purchase “millions” of doses of its vaccine, which is currently under trial, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Friday.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that the US will withdraw government funding from organizations it identifies as engaging in “hateful BDS conduct,” the Washington Examiner reports. Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) is an international Palestinian-led, non-violent movement that challenges what its founders describe as “Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”

A blast hit the Al Arish-Al Qantara natural gas pipeline in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, witnesses and local authorities said.