Free Republic

The EU has completed the biggest photovoltaic solar field in Gaza, the European Commission announced on Thursday. The field will provide 0.5 Megawatts of electricity per day to fuel the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant. The EU-funded Southern Gaza Desalination Plant currently provides drinking water to 75,000 inhabitants in the Khan Younis and Rafah governorates. With the new energy field and new investments foreseen it will eventually reach 250,000 people in Southern Gaza by 2020. Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, commented, “Limited energy supplies in Gaza are one of the main challenges when improving access...

At a time when the Trump administration’s robust defense of Israel at the United Nations is shaking up an institution that has long been hostile to the Jewish state, the biggest bloc of developing nations at the U.N. has decided to bestow its presidency on the “State of Palestine.” The move looks likely to increase pressure on the U.S. and Israel in the U.N. General Assembly, where the U.S. already invariably loses Israel-related votes by heavily lopsided margins. There is no sovereign state of Palestine, but the self-rule Palestinian Authority chaired by Mahmoud Abbas has since 2012 enjoyed the status...

The official Palestinian Authority (PA) news agency Wafa reported on Monday about the incident in which a heavy boulder crashed into the egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but noted that the incident involved “a rock that had been cut off from the wall of the Western Al-Aqsa Mosque.” Wafa wrote in its report, “The Al-Buraq Wall (the Islamic name of the Western Wall) is part of the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the control of the forces of the occupation, who call it the Wailing Wall.” …

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...

JERUSALEM, Israel – The Palestinian Authority accused Australia of making a declaration of war following its decision to withhold financial aid to the PA if it continues to reward terrorists and their families. It's one more nation pressuring the PA to stop a policy many call "pay to slay." The controversial policy provides money to convicted Palestinian terrorists and their families for attacks on Israelis. The payments coming from this fund add up to more than $330 million each year. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop objected to the policy saying, "I am concerned that in providing funds for this aspect...

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...

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...

Rioters hurl rocks, Molotov cocktails and a bomb at troops, incendiary balloons spark 15 fires in Israel; small Israeli drone downed; over 100 Palestinians said hurtTwo Palestinians were killed Friday in violent demonstrations along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said. A 13-year-old was fatally shot in the head and a 24-year-old man died of gunshot wounds to his leg and abdomen, the ministry said. According to some reports, the boy was shot while sabotaging the border fence. A paramedic told AP the teenager was throwing stones “very close to the fence” before he was shot.Around...

The Chicago Dyke March, an LGBT pride parade, prominently featured Palestinian flags one year after ejecting marchers waving Jewish flags. Participants in Sunday’s march can be seen waving Palestinian flags in a video posted by the Windy City Times, a newspaper serving Chicago’s LGBT community. Marchers also waved Mexican, Puerto Rican and rainbow flags, and chanted “No pride in occupation, no pride in deportation,” according to the newspaper. The march this year was explicitly “a very pro-Palestinian event,” according to the Windy City Times. Last year, three women were ejected from the Dyke March for waving rainbow flags emblazoned with...

The U.S. has reportedly suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority amid ongoing Middle East peace talks. I24 News, which is based in Israel, reported Monday that the U.S. froze funding as part of the Taylor Force Act, which requires Palestinian officials to end payments to terrorist groups and take steps to stop those groups’ behavior. The news outlet, citing a White House official and a Senate aide, also reported that certain Palestinian programs have been put on hold because the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID have not received a budget for the coming year. USAID provides funding for...

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are relentlessly flying a variety of airborne arson and explosive devices into Israel, causing hundreds of fires, millions of shekels in damageFor over two months, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been flying kites, birthday balloons and inflated latex condoms into Israel, relying on the gentle Mediterranean coastal breeze to push them across the border. Silly as they may sound, these weapons are no joke. Most of them carry metal mesh pouches containing a burning piece of coal or oil-soaked rag, which have sparked hundreds of fires in southern Israel, destroying thousands of acres of...

Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces along the border with Gaza began preparations for mass riots by tens of thousands of Palestinians. Four thousand Palestinians gathered and burned tires in five locations along the Israel-Gaza border fence Friday afternoon, according to the IDF spokesperson's unit.

An incendiary kite flown from Gaza sparked a major fire in an open field across from the Sapir College in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, near the southern city of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon. Heavy smoke covered the college building as firefighters were dispatched to the area and worked to prevent the fire from spreading to the nearby road and into the college. There were no reports of injuries. On Tuesday afternoon, fires broke out in seven other locations in the Gaza vicinity, four in the Eshkol Regional Council and three in Sha’ar Hanegev. Firefighters gained control of the fire...

Remembering the movement to exterminate the Jews of the Middle East. When International Farhud Day was proclaimed at a conference convened at the United Nations headquarters on June 1, 2015, its proponents wanted to achieve more than merely establish a commemoration of the ghastly 1941 Arab-Nazi pogrom in Baghdad that killed and injured hundreds of Iraqi Jews. Farhud means violent dispossession. The Farhud but the first bloody step along the tormented path to the ultimate expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from across the Arab world. That systematic expulsion ended centuries of Jewish existence and stature in those lands.  Jews had thrived in Iraq for 2,700 years, a...

Stay tuned for a special announcement about FBC's Future Plans at the end of John's Update. Not a single day passes by without the discerning Christian seeing the aftermath of a society that is coming "Unhitched and Unhinged" as they travel down a path that leads to their certain destruction. From the Irish cheering the ability to kill children in the womb up to 20 weeks of age, to the emergence of the Turkish President setting the stage for a move against Israel, to the false teachings and open hostility toward our Jewish friends exhibited by the "Christ at the...

CNN appears to be on a mission to help Hamas destroy Israel. CNN has spent the past month actively assisting Hamas terrorists with media propaganda dissemination as the terrorists continue their attempt to overtake Israel. CNN headlines always point the finger at Israel as a culprit, and always shower Palestinian terrorists with white lies to bolster them. CNN stories are propagandizing art. A story about months of continuous attacks on Israeli border and infrastructure by terrorists and their recruits becomes a story of a nurse killed due to Israeli overreaction to what CNN described as “largely unarmed” “protests,” a regurgitation of Hamas...

The United States vetoed on Friday a Kuwaiti-drafted UN Security Council resolution that condemned Israel's use of force against Palestinian civilians, underlining Washington's differences with friends and foes alike over the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Later, a second, US-drafted resolution that blamed Hamas for the violence and upheld Israel's right to defend itself failed to attract any other country's support when it was put to vote in the 15-member council. Blasting the council majority, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the two votes showed it was willing to blame Israel and unwilling to blame Hamas, the Islamist group that...

The Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction called Israel “worse than Hitler,” according to a report by Palestinian Media Watch. According to Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi, Israel’s goal is to “break the dignity” of the Arab world, “crush” it, and “steal its resources.” Israel will turn to this task after it is “done with” the Palestinians. To reach these objectives, Israel is using the US as a tool. Al-Qawasmi claimed Israel “rules over the American decision-making and the American Congress” and controls everything the US is doing in the region. In another interview, Al-Qawasmi stated that Israel is worse than “Hitler,...

Israel condemned PA efforts to have Israeli political and military officials prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for “war crimes” against rioters on the Gaza border. The Foreign Ministry said that the PA appeal to The Hague was “a cynical move that is not legally valid. The PA continues to abuse the tribunal for political purposes rather than to promote political negotiations.” "It is ridiculous that the Palestinians do this while they continue to incite to terror and use children and women as human shields to cover their violent attempts to harm the security of Israeli citizens."...