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Seventy thousand Gazans from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah were in the dark Sunday night after a Hamas rocket hit the power line that supplies electricity to those places. It's not clear when Israel Electric Company workers will be able to repair the system, but they are apparently in no rush to do so. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the IEC not to risk the lives of its employees in trying to restore power to the affected sector in Gaza, an operation that could take hours. As Operation Protective Edge enters its seventh day, many Israelis are demanding that...

Sirens sounded in the Tel Aviv area on Friday morning at approximately 10:45 a.m., in what Hamas claims to be its first attack targeting the Ben Gurion International Airport. The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system shot down three rockets over the Tel Aviv area, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Office. However, shrapnel from the intercepted rockets has fallen in multiple places throughout the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, including one near a gas station; no injuries or damage have been reported. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, boasting that this is the first time they have specifically targeted Ben Gurion Airport,...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared on Thursday that his country’s ties with Israel would not return to normal unless Israel ceases its offensive on Gaza, AFP reports. "You will first stop this oppression. If not, it is not possible to realize normalization between Turkey and Israel," Erdogan said in the central Anatolian city of Yozgat after a dinner breaking the daily Ramadan fast. .....

South Africa’s ruling party on Thursday issued a statement in which it compared Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza to the actions of the Nazis during World War II. The statement by the African National Congress (ANC) did not mention the rocket attacks from Gaza which led Israel to launch Operation Protective Edge. “The African National Congress (ANC), condemns in the strongest terms, the barbaric attacks on the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza,” said the statement by the party’s Deputy Secretary General, Jessie Duarte. “As we move towards the month of August and are reminded of [the] atrocities of Nazi Germany, surely...

Hamas has instructed Gaza residents to ignore text messages and phone calls urging them to evacuate buildings, in an apparent effort to grow its supply of "human shields." The calls and messages are sent by Israeli military officials in order to give civilians time to evacuate the area, and are communicated before the IDF targets a house terrorists were using as cover for firing missiles at Israel or for other military purposes. The Hamas-run Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry said in a message to Gaza residents that the messages "are designed to weaken our resolve and to sow panic and fear...

IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, has approved all of the plans for an IDF ground offensive into Gaza, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz said Wednesday evening. He added that the pressure on Gaza will grow in the coming hours and the IAF attacks will become even more intense. According to statistics released by the IDF Wednesday, about 300 rockets have been fired at Israel since Operation Protective Edge began two days ago. Seventy-two rockets hit Israel in the course of Wednesday, by about 8:00 p.m. ..... One rocket scored a direct hit on a home in...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday night call for an immediate end of Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip. Abbas also urged the international community to intervene instantly to put an end to the Israeli attacks which, he cautioned, would plunge the region into more destruction and instability. Abbas affirmed the need to maintain the truce in the Gaza Strip to "save the lives of our people and their property and spare the innocent." He said that the PA leadership was holding contacts with several Arab and international parties...

Former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin rejected criticism over a lack of deterrence against Hamas on Saturday, insisting that the only reason rockets have not reached Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv is due to the threat of IAF retaliation. "It is not true that there is no deterrence," Yadlin stated. "Hamas can fire hundreds of rockets at Tel Aviv and Beersheba, and does not actually do so." Despite this, Yadlin admitted that another operation in Gaza is likely on the horizon. "I have no doubt we are looking at another round with Hamas," admitted Yadlin. "It will be very difficult."...

A rocket fired by Gaza terrorists on Wednesday night, shortly before 1:00 a.m. exploded near a home in the city of Sderot and caused it minor damages. The rocket hit a local power line and caused blackouts in parts of the city, but there were no reports of physical injuries. Two other rockets exploded in open areas in the Shaar Hanegev region. There were no physical injuries or damages. The latest rocket fire follows a barrage of at least 20 rockets that were fired at southern Israel on Wednesday. A continuous rain of rockets have been fired on Israel this...

..... Here is what I had to say the next morning in the following dispatch for Arutz Sheva…note the date and note that it still hurts: A Dreamer Dreams in Cherry Hill First posting: March 29, 2004 Israel's grand diplomat, Shimon Peres, came to New Jersey this past Sunday night, to a synagogue in Cherry Hill, and found an audience of some 1,500 that agreed with him from A to Z, or if you please, from Aleph to Tav. He is a charmer and he charmed. He is a dreamer and he dreamed. None of this is so simple, of...

n IDF Navy force opened fire Monday at a Palestinian Arab boats that strayed from the permitted zone in the waters off of southern Gaza. The boats were lightly damaged and two of the people aboard them were taken to questioning. Voice of Israel public radio adds that Gaza Arab media reported that two Palestinian fishermen suffered moderate injuries from shots fired at them by the Egyptian Navy, off of Rafah. It is not clear if the two reports refer to the same incident, or to two different ones. Gaza, which is controlled by a genocidal Islamist Hamas regime, shares...

<p>Egypt is continuing its crackdown not only on Sinai terrorism but on Gaza’s Hamas rulers as well.</p> <p>The Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported that Egyptian border forces destroyed 10 tunnels and seven homes in the Sinai on Saturday, as part of new campaign to create a buffer zone along the border with Gaza that would extend 500 meters in some places.</p>

A recent report from January, which the media has kept a tight lip on, has exposed the widespread human rights abuses of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The report, from the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), charges PA and Hamas for repeated cases of torture, oppression, assaults on freedom of expression and academic freedoms, as well as ignoring court orders. In January alone the report notes ten Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza were killed through "anarchy, lawlessness and misuse of weapons," reports Mosaic Magazine. In the same month, ICHR reports...

A video uploaded to Youtube by an Arab-language user called GazaTube claims to show security camera footage documenting the IAF strike that targeted an Islamic Jihad terrorist in Gaza earlier Sunday. The video appears to show a relatively small explosion, possibly by a missile that had pinpointed its target. A bus that had been driving nearby was also damaged – and, apparently, a donkey was badly hurt as well. The terrorist has been identified as Ahmed Sa’ad, who was seriously injured and taken to a hospital. Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq8j9_wzErA Sa'ad had been riding a motorbike when he was hit by a...

Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to celebrate the death of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The Palestinians handed out candy to drivers, shopkeepers and passersby, while others set fire to portraits of Sharon, the Palestinian news agency Safa reported. The agency said that the celebration took place in the town of Bani Suhaila east of Khan Yunis. Dozens of residents gathered in the center of the town, chanting “Allahu akbar” as women ululated in joy over Sharon’s death, the agency said. .....

While snow pummeled the Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Northern areas of Israel over the weekend, the Tel Aviv area and the Western side of Israel faced torrential rains and flooding Saturday. Total damages have been estimated to be over 300 million shekel thus far, according to Channel 2. The floods have also proved deadly. Saturday evening, the bodies of two men were found in the Tze'elim Stream, near Arad. The stream had been flooded in the storm and had drowned the two men, who had been in the midst of a hike, medics stated. Rain also hit Hamas-controlled Gaza...

The one-year-old granddaughter of Hamas’s Gaza Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has died, The Associated Press (AP) reported Wednesday. The girl was brought to Israel in grave condition last week, with a serious infection of the digestive tract which affected her nervous system. She was returned to Gaza a day later after Israeli doctors concluded they could not help her. A statement from Haniyeh's office quoted by AP said the girl, named Amal, died at a children's hospital in Gaza. Amal's father wrote on his Facebook page that she had suffered brain damage. Haniyeh's office declined comment on the granddaughter's seeking...

Two Arab Christian female Israelis who enlisted in the army this week have criticized MK Hanin Zoabi for her strong opposition to having Arabs join the IDF. The two told Channel 10 News that MK Zoabi, who has in the past told Arutz Sheva that Israel should “prepare the prisons” if a law requiring Arab Israelis to enlist in the army is passed, does not represent them nor, in fact, does she represent many other Israeli Arabs who want to serve in the army. "There was some opposition in the village to my enlisting, but I know very well what...

MK Avigdor Lieberman, Head of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Saturday that if he were prime minister, he'd order the IDF to conquer Gaza. Speaking on Voice of Israel radio, Lieberman said that there is "a dubious quiet" in Gaza at the moment, which is being used by Hamas for building its power. Regarding the rebellion and coup in Egypt, Lieberman said that he has no doubt that jihadist elements in Sinai will try to take advantage of the situation in order to hurt Israel. He said that Israel has an interest in Egypt's stability. Lieberman said...

The Hamas terror organization has accused Western and Arab spy agencies on Saturday of operating in Gaza , claiming it has obtained a list of alleged collaborators. "The Gaza Strip is swarming with Western intelligence agencies, such as the American, British, French and German services," said Mohammed Lafi, an internal security chief, quoted on the Hamas interior ministry website. "They all target Gaza and Hamas," he said, while also implicating unnamed Arab intelligence services. The security services has "a list of collaborators who will be arrested once the time for them to repent has run out," the official said. Some...