Israeli officials met with a high-level Quartet delegation this week, despite the fact that it includes an EU representative with whom Israel has said it will not meet on a bilateral basis to discuss the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.
A new survey released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah showed that a majority of Palestinian respondents support the current wave of terror stabbings and a violent intifada and oppose a two-state solution with Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set off an uproar in Israel on Sunday after warning that the country, through its continued West Bank occupation, will become a “binational state.”
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri released a new audio message yesterday titled “To Unite for the Liberation of Jerusalem,” criticizing Israel’s “attacks against the al-Aksa Mosque” and calling for more attacks against Israel and the West.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday he would meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Germany this week, followed by talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas after more than two weeks of unrest between Israelis and Palestinians.
Demonstrating a new level of tension with Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority declared on Wednesday that his people were no longer bound by mutual agreements with Israel, including the Oslo Peace Accords, which created the foundation for the Middle East peace process.
Rioting continued for a second day on the Temple Mount on Monday, following violence at the holy site during the Muslim Id al-Adha festival a day earlier.
Dozens of police officers entered the Temple Mount complex early Monday morning after dozens of Palestinians holed up in al-Aksa mosque began hurling stones and firebombs at them, police said.
The Palestinian Authority, Jordan and the Arab League slammed the Israeli government for an operation during which police officers found pipe bombs on the Temple Mount in the Old City in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Palestinian officials said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will propose to the U.N. Security Council to set a deadline for an Israeli withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, to pave the way for a Palestinian State as part his “day after” plan following the current conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli and Palestinian delegations restarted indirect talks in Cairo over the weekend, however Israeli officials were skeptical a truce could be reached by Monday’s midnight deadline. Over the weekend, Hamas threatened a “war of attrition” if its demands were not met. Meanwhile, Israel threatened “harsh strikes” if Hamas broke the ceasefire with any type of fire against the Jewish state and Israeli officials said “quiet and security’ will be restored ‘one way or another.’
The security cabinet convened in Tel Aviv on Friday morning to discuss the cease-fire agreement and negotiations taking place between Israel and the Palestinians in Cairo, the Jerusalem Post reported.
As Operation Protective Edge enters its fifth week, Israel and Hamas have agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a 72-hour ceasefire beginning Tuesday morning.
Tensions intensified internationally as a U.N. run school was caught in the midst of a battle that left 19 Palestinians dead, and scores more injured. Nevertheless, Israel called up another 16,000 reservists as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pressed forward with its campaign against Hamas vowing to destroy every terrorist tunnel. Meanwhile, the U.S. allowed Israel to resupply its grenades and mortar rounds from a U.S. munitions store located in Israel.
After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry failed in bringing a ceasefire to the region, U.S. President Barack Obama called and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu to agree to a ceasefire late Sunday night as Operation Protective Edge enters its 21st day. Since the beginning of the operation, 2,538 rockets have been fired into Israel. The death toll in Gaza move above 1,000, while the Israel Defense Forces have lost 43 soldiers.
Israel sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip on Thursday evening to find and destroy terror tunnels and destroy Hamas’ infrastructure, Israeli officials said.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu left Knesset members in shock this past Monday by suggesting that Israel would have to “separate” from the Palestinians, according to a report which appears in Friday editions of the nationalist-religious newspaper Makor Rishon.
“Jerusalem is the heart of the nation. It will never be divided,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said. He spoke on Tuesday night, at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav Kook, to mark the anniversary of the capital’s reunification, 47-years ago. From 1948 and until the Six-Day War in 1967, the city was split between Israel and Jordan.
Israel wouldn’t need the security barrier, if acts of incitement and terrorism against it stopped, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Pope Francis on Monday at the start of their meeting at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.
Pope Francis arrived on Sunday evening at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where he was scheduled to meet with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.