Israel-Palestinian Conflict

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Wednesday that while security cooperation with the US is beneficial, it is not “essential” and Israel knows how to act on its own.

Israel carried out air strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning after 16 rockets were fired at Israeli towns from the enclave hours earlier, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. The escalation comes on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday, which this year coincides with the Islamic religious month of Ramadan.

On April 2, 2023, Israel reportedly attacked several targets in Syria’s Homs province associated with the Syrian army and Iran-backed militias. Syrian state media reported that five military personnel were injured in the attack.

Syria’s foreign ministry on Tuesday warned that Israel risked dragging the region toward “total escalation” after another overnight airstrike near Damascus attributed to the Jewish state.

Israel has launched a fresh round of airstrikes on the Damascus area as loud blasts rattled the Syrian capital, the country’s state media reported overnight Tuesday, in the fourth such attack attributed to Israel in less than a week.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II expressed on Sunday a commitment to “safeguard” Jerusalem’s holy sites, in a meeting in Amman with Muslim and Christian religious leaders from the city.

The IDF confirmed that the drone that invaded Israeli airspace from Syria and that it brought down on Sunday was Iranian.

Tens of thousands Israelis gathered Saturday for mass demonstrations in the streets of Tel Aviv against the judicial overhaul despite compromise talks. The protesters who have taken the streets for the 13th straight week also blocked both routes of the Ayalon Highway in the city, as Israel Police had to deploy water cannons to clear it.

Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority has petitioned the Environmental Protection Ministry to allocate NIS 20 million ($5.6 million) a year to help protect endangered griffon vultures, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. Vultures play a vital role in keeping the environment safe and clean.

The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes in the Syrian capital Damascus shortly after midnight on Friday, for the second night in a row, according to Syria’s state-run media outlet.

Loud explosions were heard in the Damascus area overnight Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Mass protests against the Israeli government’s controversial judicial overhaul plans will likely continue unabated because Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has lost the trust of the people, analysts predict.

Israel successfully launched a new spy satellite into orbit. The Ofek 13 was sent into space early on Wednesday from a launch site in central Israel, the Israel Ministry of Defense announced. The launch was under the auspices of the Defense Ministry’s Space and Satellite Administration in the Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

Representatives from coalition and opposition parties gathered at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday evening to begin negotiations over the government’s contentious judicial overhaul plans, in the first face-to-face talks between the sides after three turbulent months of a legislative blitz and nationwide mass protests.

Following the first round of talks with President Isaac Herzog to reach a compromise on judicial reform, the Yesh Atid delegation says they pushed for a significant reform — including a constitution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged his nation to avoid civil war after suspending planned judicial reforms that prompted protests and strikes across the Jewish state.

In a breakthrough for medical research, scientists at Israel’s Tel Aviv University have developed a “hybrid micro-robot” the size of a biological cell that can target and capture damaged cells, the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reports.

Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for calm as hundreds of thousands of people stopped working Monday to protest his planned overhaul of the country’s judiciary.