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At least 20 Kassam rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip hit the western Negev over the weekend. No injuries were reported in the barrage of attacks from Friday night through Sunday, in which residents of some of Israel's southern communities spent time in bomb shelters. One Kassam on Sunday, a regular school day, landed near a Sderot school, Ynet reported. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the crossings between Israel and Gaza to remain closed Sunday. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on Barak to reconsider the truce with Gaza. "There is no truce in Gaza," Livni said...

Excerpt - The U.S. Army's European Command deployed an early-warning radar system in Israel last week along with a 120-member support team, the weekly Defense News reported. The move marks the first permanent presence in Israel of American military personnel. The high-powered radar system is meant to augment Israel's defenses against Iranian ground-to-ground missiles. According to Defense News, more than a dozen transport aircraft delivered the radar, its ancillary systems, equipment and technicians, as well as maintenance and security specialists to the Nevatim Air Force Base in the Negev. It has not yet been made operational. ~ snip ~

Five Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza into the western Negev Wednesday morning, just a few hours before US President George W. Bush's expected arrival in Israel. Three rockets landed around Kibbutz Zikim, while the other two hit outside Sderot. No injuries or property damage were reported. Palestinian sources later reported of a loud blast sounding in the northern Strip, the result of an IDF strike in the vicinity. Eyewitnesses said at least one person was killed and four others were injured. A short while later another Qassam fired from northern Gaza landed near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar...

Palestinians in northern Gaza Strip launched a Qassam rocket Sunday morning towards western Negev. No one was injured. Security forces are trying to locate the rocket's landing site.

Yeshiva Head: No One Hurt, Thank G-d - No Thanks to Gov´t by Hillel Fendel Five more rockets were fired at Sderot and the western Negev today, with one landing just outside the office of the Yeshiva dean in Sderot. No one was hurt. The Kassam rocket attacks on the citizens of Sderot and other Negev towns continue incessantly. Two rockets hit Kibbutz Be'eri, causing light damage to a barn. Another rocket rained down on the Hesder Yeshiva in Sderot shortly before 10 AM. "I was in my office preparing for a class," Yeshiva Dean Rabbi David Fendel said, "and...

Scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have identified why it is good for us to consume large quantities of tomatoes - and say that the best way to eat them is cooked up with some olive oil and cheese. Scientists have long believed that the carotenoids found in fruits and vegetables have a cancer preventive effect. In particular, studies have found that as the consumption of tomato products increases, risk of certain types of cancer decreases - even more so than when a variety of vegetables are eaten. Over the years, studies have found that the risk of up...

Supreme Court Strikes Blow at Settlement of Negev, Galilee 17:28 Feb 27, '06 / 29 Shevat 5766 By Ezra HaLevi Israel’s Supreme Court struck a blow to government plans to develop the Negev and Galilee, ruling on Monday that the state may not define Jewish towns as “priority areas” any more than Arab ones. The court heard a petition brought by the Adalah Arab-rights advocacy group. Adala claimed a double standard in a state plan to finance educational institutions in areas given the status of “national priority” by the government – most of which were Jewish towns. According to the...

Negev Jews are latest sacrificial lambs Did Mofaz delay defenses to maintain support for disengagement? By Ryan Jones January 24th, 2006 Israel's left-wing establishment, of which Ariel Sharon's disengagement-minded Kadima Party is the newest star, has for more than a decade insisted Israelis must offer themselves as sacrifices on the alter of peace. A new State Comptroller's report released Sunday indicates the Jewish residents of towns and cities bordering the Gaza Strip are the latest victims of this logic. The contents of the report seem to suggest the Sharon government, and in particular Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, purposefully delayed the...

Israel's disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria will have a greater impact on the future of the country than anyone anticipates. Ideologies have developed and imploded in a dangerously short time. A basic tenet of national religious thinking has been undermined by the removal of state sponsorship. The foundations of a large and diverse Orthodox community - not incidentally significant contributors to Israel's national consciousness - have been shaken. Denuded of state sponsorship, the theological foundations of religious-Zionist doctrine have been undermined, their contradictions exposed. The dream of Greater Israel has been shattered. Deep psychological reactions must necessarily flow from...

Aug. 2, 2005 14:26 Settlers accept deal on Sderot protest By MATTHEW GUTMAN AND YAAKOV KATZ Police and settler leaders finally reached a last-minute deal close to midnight Monday night after days of heated negotiations on the fate of an anti-disengagement rally in the southern Negev town of Sderot Tuesday. Heads of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip agreed to hold a "short" rally in Sderot between 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. and then move on to Ofakim for the night. Negotiations will resume on Wednesday to discuss the continuation of the rally, as the...

Sharon: IDF Has Total Political Backing 23:23 Jan 18, '05 / 8 Shevat 5765 (IsraelNN.com) Following a four-hour meeting today with senior IDF Southern District Commanders, the prime minister reiterated the military has the total backing of the government and political community to take whatever actions are necessary to bring an end to shelling attacks against Sderot, western Negev, and Gaza communities.

Miriam Mushkan came to Beersheba from her kibbutz along the border of the Gaza Strip to shop and get away from the Kassam rocket threats. She pulled up to a red light on the corner of Shazar and the main Rigar Boulevard in front of city hall. Suddenly the No. 7 bus behind her exploded. She gunned her Subaru ahead and bus No. 12 blew up, splattering her windshield with blood, flesh, and body parts. "I tried to get away, driving in circles, until a policeman stopped me and told me to pull over," said Mushkan, 40. "They wanted to...

Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket Wednesday morning that hit a house in a west Negev kibbutz, causing damage but no casualties. The rocket was launched from the Beit Hanun area of the northeast Gaza Strip around 6 A.M. It penetrated an exterior wall of the home, hit a closet and landed on a bed. At the time of the strike, a mother and two children, a one-month-old infant and a boy, 8, were in the bed. None of the three were wounded. The boy attempted to touch the rocket and was lightly burned on his fingertips. "The Qassam lay between...

Israeli Armored Force Enters Northern Gaza -Source Mon Mar 22, 5:12 PM ET JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sent armored vehicles into the northern Gaza Strip (news - web sites) Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets from the territory into Israel, a military source said. The source said a small number of armored vehicles had entered a zone about 1,000 feet from a border fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel's Negev region, after at least four rockets had been fired from Gaza. The move came hours after the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and threats by angry...

Palestinians fired eight Qassam missiles into the Negev on Sunday, media sources report. Three missiles landed in an open space within the town's residential area. There were no injuries and no damage was sustained. Two missiles on kibbutz land in the area, and two nearby. The missiles were apparently launched from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Sderot residents were requested to remain in their homes in case more missiles were fired. Five reservist batallions will be deployed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the framework of a limited mobilization of reservists who received call up notices...

Defying the post-Zionist trends and the increasingly materialistic spirit of modern-day Israel, a small group of American immigrants and Israelis is hoping to establish a new agricultural settlement in the Negev, in the latest sign that, despite the odds, Ben-Gurion's dream of settling the Negev, and plain old Zionism is still alive and kicking. "The 'old-fashioned' idea is to establish a new agricultural yishuv in the Negev based on Zionistic values," said the group's dynamic leader, Florida-born Yisrael Tytell. Over the last six months, the 28 year old Tytell, who moved to Israel from the United States two years ago...

16:19 Negev police to start painting camels with luminous paint, as part of effort to reduce number of accidents they cause

Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky (Shinui) instructed two ministerial bodies to prepare a plan to resettle Israelis uprooted from the West Bank in the Negev and the Galilee, Y-Net reported on Sunday. "I believe that the Negev and the Galilee present an attractive destination for those requesting to settle in an excellent environment with a high standard of living and surrounded by much greenery," he said. "As such, I will thank you if you start preparing, as soon as possible, a settlement program, both within current towns and establishing new ones, for absorbing those uprooted from Judea, Samaria and Gaza." The...

Israel is poised to build the largest solar power plant in the world. The solar power station is being planned in the Negev and will also be the first ever built in Israel. The web based Israel21c.org reports that the facility will be based on technologies developed in cooperation with the Ben-Gurion University's National Solar Energy Center, part of the Blaustein Institute for Desert Research in Sde Boker. "Israel is prominent on the world stage for developing solar technology, but until now, we haven't really harnessed that knowledge for our own needs," Prof. David Faiman, director of the Solar Energy...

Mar. 3, 2003 Three Kassam rockets fire at Sderot (UPDATE) By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday fired three Kassam rockets at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot. Six people were treated for shock as the rockets exploded in an open field near the town. The six were taken to the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon for treatment. IDF sappers have found the remains of one of the rockets and were busy defusing it. Palestinians have repeatedly fired rockets at Sderot and nearby settlement after IDF raids on the Gaza Strip. Earlier in the day...