Gaza terror groups fired two rounds of rockets at southern Israel late Wednesday and early Thursday, with each drawing a separate IDF response in what amounted to the largest exchange of fire since last May’s 11-day war.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is enraged because Egypt, Qatar and other parties chose to hold direct contacts on ways of preventing further escalation with Israel in the aftermath of the recent tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, a senior official with the ruling Fatah faction said.
Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip, targeting a “weapons manufacturing site” for Hamas, the Israeli military said.
Israel shot down a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip on Monday, the Israeli military said, the first such attack in months as tensions in Jerusalem drew angry pro-Palestinian rhetoric from Jordan and US mediation efforts.
Leaders of the Hamas terror group which rules Gaza called for an escalation against Israel Wednesday, after Israeli counter-terrorism agents made arrests in the West Bank town of Silwad and after a Jewish extremist group called for sacrifices to be made on the flashpoint Temple Mount during the month of Ramadan, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.
IDF forces surrounded a house in the village of Silwad, near Ramallah on Wednesday evening, after receiving credible information of an imminent terror attack that was going to launched before Passover.
Hamas and other Gaza terror groups threatened violence if a Jewish group follows through with plans to offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount on Friday, the eve of Passover.
In Beirut, Lebanon, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PJI) and Hamas officials met to discuss how the groups should engage and increase their actions against Israel.
The US Senate approved $4.8 billion in military aid to Israel as part of its $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package.
After months of delay due to internal political disputes, the US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved an additional $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has upheld the Shin Bet security agency’s use of mobile-phone tracking technology to monitor and threaten Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site last year.
The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) published its 2022 annual Strategic Report claiming Iran is only weeks away from achieving nuclear capability.
The IDF struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night in retaliation for the two rockets that had been fired earlier from Gaza towards central Israel earlier that morning, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced on Saturday night.
Israeli troops operating in the Hebron region in the southern West Bank have arrested more than 100 Hamas members in recent days who were planning to carry out terror attacks, Channel 13 reported on Monday.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) stuck an agreement on Sunday to step up terrorist attacks against Israel, especially in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The large-scale Hamas terror plot uncovered by the Shin Bet intelligence agency and broken up in recent weeks is “the most dangerous tactical-operational infrastructure I recall in recent years,” a senior former defense official told JNS.
The Israeli Security Agency (ISA / Shin Bet), in cooperation with the IDF and the Israel Police, uncovered in recent weeks an extensive Hamas infrastructure that was directed by senior Hamas officials abroad and which operated throughout Judea and Samaria in order to perpetrate various attacks – including on a large scale – in Judea and Samaria, and in Jerusalem.
Israel was on edge late Sunday after a suspected Palestinian militant opened fire in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing one Israeli man and injuring at least four others, including a rabbi.
The IDF is stepping up plans to strike rocket stockpiles in the Gaza Strip held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a preemptive move meant to limit the terror groups’ ability to operate during the next round of conflict with Israel, according to a report from Walla News.
The United Kingdom will designate Hamas as a terror organization on Friday and outlaw support for the group, with violators liable to face up to 10 years in prison, the British Embassy in Israel confirmed.