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The Foreign Ministry summoned the Irish ambassador to Israel, Alison Kelly, following the passage of a BDS bill by the Irish Senate. Ambassador Kelly will be reprimanded by the ministry. The so-called “Occupied Territories Bill” outlaws the trade of goods from Judea and Samaria and imposes prison sentences and heavy fines on those who do not comply with the law. Jerusalem is awaiting the return of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from Russia before holding a meeting on taking further steps against the Irish move. Earlier, the Foreign Ministry issued a response to the Irish decision saying that “the Irish Senate...

n a major story that came and went, President Obama shut down a major drug operation run by Hezb'allah because he didn't want to upset Iran's mullahs and endanger his Iran deal. Seems the Iran deal was considerably more important to his "legacy" than any concern about drug-dealing, the opioid epidemic, or just the idea of putting terrorists who finance themselves through the global drug trade out of business. Politico did the story about how Obama shut down Project Cassandra, so it should have gotten attention, yet it didn't. The whole thing recalls something security expert Rachel Ehrenfeld memorably told...

A Democratic candidate for a seat in the California state assembly blames Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinians and has offered her support for anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Maria Estrada, a candidate for California’s District 63 representing the southeast suburbs of Los Angeles, garnered the second most votes, some 28 percent, in a top-two primary on June 5 for the November election. She will run against incumbent and fellow Democrat Anthony Rendon, who also serves as Speaker of the California State Assembly. In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and...

Does Iran really want to nuke Israel? Is Israel stronger than Iran? A top security expert explains Israel ranked eighth most powerful country in the world North Korea expanded missile facility during talks with Trump, analysts say Pompeo downplays North Korea's rebuke of 'gangster-like' denuclearization demands North Korea reportedly extended an offer to Israel in 1999 to nix its agreements to sell missile technology to Iran and other enemy states that posed a threat to the Jewish state at the time - if Israel paid Pyongyang $1 billion in cash. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published...

A series of maps of Judea and Samaria, focusing on the placement of Jewish communities and Israeli military facilities in the area, provoked a dramatic change in the Obama administration’s policies vis-à-vis Israel, a report by The New Yorker claims. According to the report Monday, a presentation by then-Secretary of State John Kerry to President Barack Obama in the waning days of the administration ‘shocked’ the president into taking a more aggressive stance towards Israel, withholding America’s veto on a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria. The Obama administration, like its predecessors, had...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel imposed sanctions on the Gaza Strip and its dominant Hamas Islamists on Monday in retaliation for attacks by Palestinians using burning kites and helium balloons carrying blazing rags. People taking part in more than three months of protests at the Gaza border have started scores of fires by sending the balloons and kites into Israel, vexing its advanced military which is used to dealing with more conventional weapons. With southern residents and his far-right coalition partners calling for an end to the blazes, even if that required killing the kite- and balloon-fliers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the immediate closure of the main cargo crossing with the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to Palestinians launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. Netanyahu vowed to use a "heavy hand" against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, and said more steps would be taken, without elaborating. Israel's military said the Kerem Shalom crossing is shut until further notice except for humanitarian aid, medical supplies and food. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the move "a new crime against humanity" and called on the international community to intervene.

The Gulf Arab state of Qatar has called on Israel to issue thousands of entry permits to Gazans living in the Hamas-ruled Strip, allowing them to work in Israel, arguing that such a move would reduce tensions and end the ongoing wave of “kite terrorism” and balloon bomb attacks. Since March 30th, tens of thousands of Gaza rioters have gathered on the Israel border, clashing with IDF forces and attempting to breach the security fence. In recent weeks, however, the rioters have shifted from direct attacks on the border to the use of improvised explosive or incendiary devices, attached to...

Reports say Syrian air defense systems fired at planes, coming in from Jordan, and heading towards T4 airbase used by Iran Reports in Syria say an airstrike hit the site of a known Iranian airbase in Syria's Homs region. Reports on Syrian television attributed the attack to Israel. According to the official Syrian news agency SANA, Syrian air defense systems were fired as warplanes, purportedly coming into the country from Jordan, approached the T4 base near Tiyas. The planes, which reports said were flying low to avoid detection, passed through the al-Tanf area where U.S. forces have a base...

US Army soldiers train with an M2 Bradley IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). Active Protection Systems that shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles must be carefully designed to avoid killing nearby friendly infantry. Even as the US Army races to install Trophy Active Protection Systems on its M1 Abrams heavy tanks, Trophy’s manufacturers are testing slimmed-down versions they want to sell the US for lighter vehicles, especially the aging M2 Bradley troop carrier. While other technologies look promising, Trophy is still the only non-Russian system that’s combat-proven to shoot down incoming anti-tank rockets and missiles. What’s more, US Army testing of the...

Hamina Class FAC in Finnish Navy service. Finland has selected Israel’s Advanced Naval Attack Missile to replace its current MTO85M system, a derivative of Swedish RBS15 that will reach the end of its life cycle in the 2020s. IAI’s Gabriel has beaten four other competitors evaluated by Finland’s MOD, including Kongsberg’s NSM, MBDA’s Exocet, Boeing’s Harpoon and Saab’s RBS15. IAI Gabriel 5 Advanced Naval Attack Missile is heading to Finland next year, replacing RBS15 on the Hamina-class missile boats and future Squadron 2020 corvettes. Image: IAI The selection of Israel’s Advanced Naval Attack Missile marks an important achievement for IAI,...

Slovakia will open a cultural embassy in Jerusalem for now. But that appears to be a prelude to a larger move. “Slovakia is on its way to relocating its embassy to Jerusalem,” Head of the Slovak National Council Andrej Danko told Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the visiting delegation of Slovak lawmakers announced the Eastern European country would open a cultural center in the Israeli capital. The move, when it materializes, would mark a break from European Union policy on Jerusalem. Slovakia would join the Czech Republic and Bulgaria as the other European Union member states to...

As Syrian government forces press on with a furious offensive against rebel-held areas in the country's south, Israel is quietly acknowledging that President Bashar Assad's forces will soon be on its doorstep, laying down red lines for postwar relations with the Syrian leader. Israel's main concern is to keep archrival Iran, an Assad ally, as far away from its border as possible — along with its proxy, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. "Our demand is that the Iranian forces will go out or withdraw from Syria as a whole, and in it specifically southwest Syria," said a senior Israeli military official.It...

Germany has been brokering an exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, and in recent weeks has proposed a concrete arrangement, the London-based Arabic language Al-Hayat newspaper said Thursday. In the deal, Israel would release Hamas terrorists it is holding in prison, in exchange for the remains of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin, Hy”d, and Oron Shaul, Hy”d, along with Israelis Avraham Mengistu and Hisham a-Sayad. According to the report, Germany has been trying to broker a deal for the past three years — almost since the end of Operation Protective Edge, when both Goldin and Shaul went missing in a battle...

With the case of the Aquarius ship, Spain of the new socialist government of Pedro Sánchez showed its welcoming and open face. But quietly and far from the cameras, all concentrated in the port of Barcelona, ​​Spain itself was becoming the most hostile European nation to Israel. First there was the decision of the third largest city of the country, Valencia, to embrace the boycott of Israel by proclaiming itself a "zone free from Israeli apartheid". Then the leader of the third largest Spanish party, Pablo Iglesias Turrión, head of Podemos, defined the Jewish state as a "criminal and illegal...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that the demand that Iran withdraw completely from Syria "is unrealistic." In a meeting with Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, Lavrov argued that Iran is one of the strongest countries in the region...

The Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday convicted an Israeli hacker, who had terrorized institutions in the United States and airlines from his home in the southern city of Ashkelon, of thousands of counts of extortion and making false statements. The hacker was on trial on trial for making hoax bomb threats against Jewish community centers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel for several months. ...

Australia on Monday announced it had ended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) government over concerns the funds could be used to assist Palestinians convicted of political violence. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Australia would no longer be giving its yearly funding of A$10 million (€6.9 million, $7.5 million) to the World Bank’s trust fund for Palestinian recovery and development. “I wrote to the Palestinian Authority on May 29, to seek clear assurance that Australian funding is not being used to assist Palestinians convicted of politically motivated violence,” Bishop said in a statement. “I am confident that previous Australian...

An Iranian general accused Israel of manipulating the weather over the Islamic Republic, claiming on Monday the Jewish state was stealing clouds and snow and contributing to climate change. Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali made the remarks while speaking at a conference on agriculture in Tehran, where he claimed Iranian scientific centers have confirmed a foreign role in the drought conditions across the country. "Foreign interference is suspected to have played a role in climate change," Jalali said, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. “Joint teams from Israel and one of the neighboring countries make the clouds entering into...

Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer refused the Fraenkel family's request to reconsider the low compensation imposed on Iran and Syria as those responsible for the kidnapping and murder of their son Naftali, along with Eyal Yifrach and Gil-Ad Sha'ar. The verdict set a compensation of $ 4.1 million, while the suit demanded $ 340 million, an amount that was common in previous similar suits. The suit was based on the fact that Naftali's family had American citizenship. The judge explained her decision with an outrageous statement that also imposed responsibility on the Fraenkel family, which she asserted had exposed itself to...