Israel News

Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK have dropped by 13 percent in 2020 compared to the year before, likely due to COVID-19 lockdown regulations, but the 789 events reported between January and June still represent the third-highest number on record for that period, according to a study by a British watchdog group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s peace plan was still on the table, although neither leader gave any indication as to when Israel would extend sovereignty to those parts of the West Bank the plan provides for, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The Israel Defense Forces deployed additional reinforcements to the country’s Lebanese and Syrian borders on Tuesday, indicating it was bracing for more violence along the frontiers after an alleged attempted attack by the Hezbollah terror group the day before.

The Israeli military confirmed on Monday there had been a “security incident” on the country’s northern border with Lebanon and said its forces were engaged in “ongoing combat” with Hezbollah militants.

Israeli attack helicopters on Friday night struck several military targets in southern Syria belonging to the Syrian military, in response to munitions fired at Israel earlier in the day, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Long before the coronavirus outbreak, the Shin Bet security service was secretly tracking Israelis’ cellphones in a clandestine program to fight the Islamic State terror group that lasted for at least two and a half years, and may still be ongoing, according to a television report Sunday.

Following demonstrations in Tel Aviv, protestors took to the streets of Jerusalem this week to prevent the passing of a controversial law that would give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government powers to impose extensive COVID-19 restrictions on the population without parliamentary oversight until June 2021, CBN News reports.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Thursday beefed up defenses on the country’s northern border with Lebanon in anticipation of a potential attack after Hezbollah accused Israel of killing one of its fighters during an alleged air raid in Syria on Monday.

Just a few miles away from Jerusalem’s Old City, archaeologists have unearthed an administrative storage center from the time of Kings Hezekiah and Manasseh about 2,700 years ago.

The Twitter social media platform has again determined that the Jewish Star of David constitutes “hateful imagery” and has locked the accounts of several users who posted the star on their profile, the Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday. Twitter made the exact same determination in February 2018, but overturned its decision following outrage expressed by users.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service thwarted attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers by a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell, which was trained and financed by Iran and Hezbollah, the agency announced on Tuesday.

Airstrikes that killed at least five Iranian-backed militiamen in Syria on Monday have been attributed to Israel, Ynet News reports. Israel has not confirmed it was behind the strikes, which reportedly hit targets near Damascus airport and the southern city of Daraa.

Military sites linked to Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were targeted Monday in Israeli strikes near Damascus, according to a monitoring group.

Around two-thirds of US voters describe themselves as pro-Israel and oppose reducing American security aid to the Jewish state, according to a new poll.

Restrictions preventing foreign visitors from entering the country due to the coronavirus pandemic will be extended until the beginning of September, the Israel Airports Authority announced Monday.

The government on Sunday approved the advancement of the Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline project, a massive 6 million Euros ($7 billion) venture that will carry gas from Israel’s offshore oil fields to Europe, the news website The Marker reported.

Israel’s Water Authority has confirmed that two cyber-attacks were carried out against the country’s water infrastructure in recent weeks, Ynet News reported Thursday. These attacks follow an alleged attack by Iran on Israel’s drinking water in April. In a statement, the water authority said no damage had been caused in the latest attacks.

A military spokesman for Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, has confirmed that one of its commanders had been a spy for Israel and had now defected to the Jewish state, Media Line reported Thursday. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Israel is drawing up a secret list of military and intelligence officials who might be subject to arrest abroad if the International Criminal Court in the Hague opens an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli officials are anticipating the likelihood of renewing a nationwide lockdown as the country had 1,575 new cases of COVID-19 Monday, the Times of Israel reports. With a population of fewer than nine million residents, Israel has now had over 43,000 cases, including over 23,000 currently active cases and 375 coronavirus related deaths.