Today, 25th April 2001, at 11AM the sirens sounded throughout Israel and every Israeli stood for 2 minutes of silence remembering all the soldiers who have died in the wars which the Arabs have conducted against Israel.
In the wake of yet another car bomb attack in the Israeli town of Or Yehuda on April 23, senior police officials declared it was nothing short of a miracle that only 8 people were lightly injured. T
On April 6th, a picture of a Palestinian boy was widely circulated by the Palestinian Authority "showing" this boy being taken from a riot scene by Israeli soldiers. It was quite a visual picture that played into the image the Palestinians are trying to create: defenseless Palestinians harassed by hardened Israeli soldiers.
The widely divergent approaches of American and European leaders to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been on display in recent days, with a visiting US Congressman blaming PLO chief Yasser Arafat for on-going violence, while a Belgian diplomat has come down hard on Israel.
Iran is planning to host a two-day international conference this week called to build support for the Palestinian intifada, and PLO chief Yasser Arafat could be the guest of honor.
A roadside bomb exploded this morning on the Trans-Samaria highway close to the Jewish town of Ariel. A reinforced military bus, carrying soldiers to bases in the area, was the apparent target of the attack. No one was injured when the bomb blew up as the bus passed by.
Israeli officials say they are hopeful that mortar attacks upon Israeli civilian centers will subside after Yasser Arafat announced yesterday that Palestinians carrying out such assaults would be punished.
Israelis stood in silence for two minutes this morning as sirens wailed throughout the Jewish State in memory of the five million Jewish adults and one million children slaughtered in the Nazi holocaust of World War Two.
Palestinians fired additional mortar shells this morning at an Israeli civilian settlement and army positions in the Gaza Strip, just hours after Israeli forces began pulling out of a small portion of Palestinian-controlled land in the northeast portion of the strip.
The violent crisis that has rocked the Lord's land since the Jewish year 5,761 began last September 28 deepened significantly last evening.
Three Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed and five wounded overnight in an Israeli air raid on a Syrian radar station near the Beirut-Damascus highway in eastern Lebanon.
Never one to turn down an important meeting, PLO chief Yasser Arafat hosted an unusual pair of Israeli envoys of late, Omri Sharon -the controversial son of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - and Labor dove Yossi Beilin.
The normally tense mood in Hebron eased somewhat over the start of the Passover holidays, as thousands of Jews visited the small Israeli enclaves to celebrate the biblical feast and visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
This week's talk of a possible peaceful end to the over half-year violent crisis rocking the Promised Land has quickly evaporated as the smoke of conflict rose to new levels overnight and this morning in the Gaza Strip.
Renewed high level contacts on Wednesday between Israeli and Palestinian political and security officials are being followed up today by fresh tensions and violence.
Despite renewed political and security contacts, there has been no let up in recent days in the Palestinian-initiated war against Israel, as IDF forces responded with increasingly heavier firepower to Palestinian mortar and sniper attacks.