Israel has reportedly agreed to set up a floating dock in Cyprus to receive goods bound for the Gaza Strip as a way to ease the rehabilitation of the ailing Palestinian enclave, conditioning the plan on the return of two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers held by the Hamas terror group.
Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Thursday that there is a ‘very high chance’ a military operation will occur in Gaza in the near future.
On their current Mideast tour, senior Trump administration officials are getting a close-up view of some of the towering obstacles to their yet-to-be-released blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Rocket sirens blared in the south throughout the early morning hours Wednesday, as barrages totaling some 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israeli towns, prompting three rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the escalation of violence in Gaza is ‘a warning to all how close to the brink of war the situation is,’ and he is urging Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers to recommit to the cease-fire that ended their 2014 war.
The IDF struck a target in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, two hours after it fired warning shots in the same area toward Palestinians who were preparing airborne incendiary devices near the Bureij refugee camp.
In a public relations blow to Israel’s right to self-defense the United Nations General Assembly voted not to condemn Hamas violence and in favor of international protection for the Palestinian people along the Gaza border, in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
With a huge majority, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning Israel for using ‘excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate’ force during the recent clashes at the Gaza border and calling for an “international protection mechanism” for Palestinian civilians.
The Trump administration is responding to a scheduled Wednesday vote in the UN General Assembly condemning Israel’s recent actions in Gaza with a counter-vote, in which the 193-nation body would separately vote to condemn Hamas.
The United States has decided to change tactics at the United Nations and instead of merely settling for defending Israel, it is now going on the offensive against countries that refuse to condemn the Hamas terror organization.
Israel has complained to the UN Security Council, saying that Hamas is working with Hezbollah to establish missile factories and training camps in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria reported Saturday.
The Israeli military is preparing for massive riots along the Gaza security fence on Friday afternoon, potentially on par with violent clashes that took place on May 14, in which tens of thousands of people participated and some 60 Palestinians were killed, a senior army officer said Thursday.
Incendiary kites launched from Gaza continued to ravage land in southern Israel on Tuesday, sparking fires in as many as 10 different locations.
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.
Nikki Haley, US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the UN, tore into the organization on Wednesday for what she characterized as a lackadaisical response to the firing of over 70 rockets on Israel from Gaza the day before.
The Israeli military on Thursday released satellite images and details of the more than 65 targets it struck in Gaza in response to massive mortar and rocket attacks by terror groups from the coastal enclave on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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.
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.