Israel News

Angry at the government shutdown and peeved over attempts to stifle anti-Israeli boycotts, Senate Democrats on Tuesday filibustered a bill that would have strengthened U.S. relationships in the Middle East while punishing the anti-Israel boycott movement.

In news stories that were scarcely noted last year, Prof. Avi Shimhon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top economic advisor, and Meir Ben Shabbat, Israel’s National Security Advisor, were reportedly instructed to develop a mechanism to assess the threat of strategic investment by external actors in Israel’s critical infrastructure. Their task was described as a run-of-the-mill bureaucratic one. But it was clear that Israel’s leadership was reassessing foreign strategic investment in the state, including Chinese plans for the reconstruction and operation of the state’s largest seaport in Haifa.

As Israel lobbies the US to recognize its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Jordan’s foreign minister on Tuesday presented his visiting American counterpart with an opposing view of the matter.

Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a single rocket into Israel early Monday, which was intercepted by the Iron Dome system, the army said. There were no reports of injuries.

US Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas on Sunday again called on the United States to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

In a live statement to the press on prime time Monday evening, advertised ahead of time as ‘special’ and ‘dramatic,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that police allow him to face the state’s witnesses who have testified against him in the three corruption cases in which he is a suspect.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Sunday that the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan – the ‘deal of the century’ – will be presented ‘within the next several months.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on the U.S to recognize Israeli sovereignty of the disputed Golan Heights.

National Security Adviser John Bolton raised US concerns on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over China’s creeping role in Israel’s critical infrastructure, particularly its upcoming management of Haifa Port, a frequent dock for the US Sixth Fleet.

The Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has committed to spark an escalation on the southern front if Israel enters a military conflict with Lebanon’s Hezbollah on the north, said the Palestinian faction’s leader, Ziad Nakhala, in an interview to the state-owned Iranian TV channel Al-Alam.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had almost all of his requests accepted during his meeting in Brazil with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a senior Israeli diplomatic official said Wednesday.

Tensions between Hamas and Fatah have intensified in the past few days as the two Palestinian rival parties continue to exchange allegations and insults.

Syria and Iran were on the agenda Tuesday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in Brasilia against the backdrop of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration.

The United States and Israel officially quit the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency at the stroke of midnight, the culmination of a process triggered more than a year ago amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias.

The United States and Israel are working to block a renewed Palestinian Authority drive to become a member state of the United Nations.

The security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel hangs in balance due to a new US legislation, which is expected to take effect next month, that threatens to bankrupt the government in Ramallah and collapse its security apparatus.

An Israeli security official on Wednesday confirmed responsibility for overnight airstrikes in Syria, saying the air force had hit a series of targets involved in Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group.

An intelligence report issued by the satellite imaging company ImageSat International (ISI) on Thursday revealed the aftermath of the recent airstrikes in Syria, largely attributed to Israel.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was not worried that pulling troops out of Syria could endanger Israel, citing vast American military aid to the Jewish state and saying it could defend itself.

Brushing aside Russian criticism of a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria overnight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday doubled down on Israel’s policy of attacking Iranian-linked targets in Syria.