Israel-Palestinian Conflict

Jerusalem on Thursday responded to the looming French peace initiative, which is to involve an international effort forcing peace talks on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

An IDF battalion commander stationed on Israel’s border with Lebanon on Wednesday said the Hezbollah terror group’s recent activity was “reminiscent of what they did before the Second Lebanon War.”

A White House official indicated on Monday that the Obama administration was ready to offer Israel the largest military aid package offered to any country over the course of US history.

The Russian press reported at the end of last week that Russia was seeking to enter the Israeli natural gas industry, following a meeting in Russia last Thursday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday labeled his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day as “very successful,” adding that the two countries reached understandings over issues that had previously not been sufficiently clarified.

Russian forces fired on Israeli Air Force planes at least twice in recent weeks, according to a Friday morning report in the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to travel to Russia Thursday morning for a quick round of a meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin during which the leaders are expected to discuss Syrian fighting and weapons sales to Iran.

At a model Passover sacrifice ceremony on the Mount of Olives attended by approximately 400 people, several public figures expressed the hope that the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa mosque will soon be removed from the Temple Mount.

A bomb exploded on a bus in Jerusalem Monday afternoon, injuring over 20 people as it and other vehicles were engulfed in flames, and ratcheting up tensions in a city just recovering from a months-long wave of violence.

UNESCO, the United Nations body responsible for protecting historical and archaeological sites throughout the world, has changed its language for the Temple Mount, acquiescing last week to a request by the Palestinian Authority that it refer to the site using the term “Al-Aqsa mosque” only.

The Obama administration says it “will carefully consider” what are expected to be a series of United Nations Security Council Resolutions aimed at Israel in the coming months, generating accusations in Congress that Washington is preparing to abandon Israel at the U.N., according to State Department officials and congressional sources apprised of the measure.

Unlike last time Israel faced a hostile resolution at the United Nations Security Council, in December 2014, this time there is virtually no chance that it will fail to garner the required majority.

Israeli intelligence has confirmed to the German newspaper Bild, that Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist army that has vowed to destroy the Jewish state, has acquired advanced Russian anti-aircraft weapons systems that were given by the Russian military to the Syrian armed forces, reports The Times of Israel. The SA-17 Buk missile battery is a game changer and will directly threaten Israeli aircraft operating in northern Israel and the region.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks in “two languages” when articulating his policies on Israel, a Jerusalem-based research institute reported on Wednesday.

Development of the advanced F-35 fighter jet is moving along as expected and Israel “has our commitment” that the first F-35s it ordered will arrive this December, Lockheed Martin Vice President Gen. (ret.) Gary North said Sunday at a Tel Aviv national security conference organized by the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies and Israel Defense.

Once again, there are reports of rivals Hamas and Fatah drawing together ahead of an agreement on Palestinian unity.

The Israel Air Force is “highly disturbed” by the drastic rise in the threat of ballistic missiles to Israel, and the ongoing Middle Eastern arms race, a senior air force official said on Sunday.

Envoys from the Middle East Quartet, made up of the US, Russia, EU and UN, met in Jerusalem earlier this week to work on a report it is expected to release in a number of months on the steps needed to create a political environment conducive to a relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The director of the US National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, reportedly paid a secret visit to Israel last week to discuss cooperation in cyber-defense, in particular to counter attacks by Iran and its Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah.

Speaking via satellite from Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the American Public Affairs Committee’s closing plenary session that the terrorist attacks Tuesday morning in Belgium highlighted Israel’s own struggle against the murderous and extremist imperative of its enemies.