White House special adviser Jared Kushner and US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt will reportedly travel to Israel and other Middle East countries next week for talks with regional leaders on when to present a Trump administration peace plan, as well as to seek ideas on resolving the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday appointed a new head of its Southern Command, at a time of heightened tensions in the area which includes the volatile Gaza Strip front.
Despite relative calm returning to southern Israel after more than 100 mortars and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, Israel is at its closest point to war since Operation Protective Edge four years ago, a senior IDF officer in the Southern Command said on Thursday.
Israel is pointing a finger at Iran for being behind the most serious escalation on it’s southern front in four years.
One of the rockets fired by terrorist groups from Gaza at southern Israel Tuesday struck equipment that provides electricity to the southern Gaza Strip, knocking out power to thousands, a spokesperson for Israel’s Electric Company said.
Thousands of Israelis spent the night in bomb shelters as terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired some 40 rockets and mortar shells at communities near the coastal enclave early Wednesday, with several of the projectiles being intercepted by Iron Dome. There were no reports of injuries.
Israeli warplanes hit some 25 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip late Tuesday and early Wednesday in a second wave of retaliatory strikes, the army said, as Palestinian terror groups continued to fire mortars and rockets into Israel.
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile shield shot down a barrage of mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after sirens sounded in southern Israel, warning residents to find shelter.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed late Sunday that a drone originating from the Gaza Strip that had been equipped with explosive materials was discovered in Israeli territory last week.
Three Palestinians were killed when the Israeli military struck an observation post in the southern Gaza Strip after an explosive device was placed on the security fence with Israel.
Israeli Air Force jets targeted underground terror infrastructure in the northern Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning, the IDF said. Two further targets belonging to Hamas naval forces in Gaza were also targeted.
Palestinian protests on the Gaza-Israel border have dropped off over the past two days, amid reports that Egyptian officials intervened to restore calm.
Fifty of the Palestinians killed in a protest in the border region between the Gaza Strip and Israel earlier this week were Hamas members, Hamas Politburo member Salah Bardaweil said on Wednesday.
Israeli forces were gearing up Tuesday for a second straight day of Palestinian protests and the prospect that they may spread, after hours of bloody clashes on the Gaza border Monday left at least 58 Palestinians dead and thousands more injured.
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday morning that a baby was among those killed during violent border clashes along the territory’s border with Israel the previous day, bringing the overall death toll in the day’s bloody events to 58.
Despite the festive atmosphere, guests of Monday’s inauguration of the American embassy in Jerusalem were acutely aware of the deadly violence taking place at the same time along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army is deploying three additional brigades to Gaza and the West Bank at the start of what Israeli security officials believe could be an extremely violent week of Palestinian protests coinciding with the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the military said Saturday.
A Hamas-affiliated Palestinian engineer from the Gaza Strip was shot dead on Saturday near the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in an assassination blamed on the Mossad.
In preparation for the expected protests and riots along the border between Israel and Gaza, the IDF dropped leaflets in Gaza on Friday morning warning residents of the Gaza Strip against trying to use violence against Israeli civilians and soldiers, as well as to damage, cross or even come near the border fence.
European groups recently passed on to Hamas a wide-reaching proposition to solve the humanitarian crises in Gaza, The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv reported on Monday.