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Jerusalem Police clashed with some 300 Palestinians who tried break though a roadblock in south Jerusalem on Thursday. Police dispersed the Palestinians using stun grenades. No one was wounded in the incident. The Palestinians were attempting to make their way towards the Temple Mount in the Old City. Security services had restricted the number of Muslim male worshippers allowed onto the Temple Mount to those over the age of 40, while no such restrictions were placed upon women or Israeli Arabs. Jerusalem Police had increased its presence throughout east Jerusalem and the Old City in preparation for the second Friday...

The High Court of Justice on Thursday unanimously upheld a petition submitted by Palestinian residents of several West Bank villages and ruled that the state must reconsider within a reasonable timeframe an alternative route for the separation fence in the area of the northern West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe. The panel nevertheless rejected a July 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Hague and ruled that Israel had - for security reasons - the authority in principle to build a separation fence in the West Bank, beyond the 1967 Green Line border.

The Israeli High Court on Monday asked the Zionist Regime to ask the Palestine Authority to "assume responsibility" for several synagogues left in the Gaza strip's evacuated Jewish settlements. The court ordered Sharon to "determine whether there is room" to formally appeal to the Palestinian Authority with a request that it safeguards the synagogues in Gush Katif after the final withdrawal of the Israeli occupation. The powerful religious establishment argued that the destruction of the synagogues would undermine the "safety" of synagogues around the world. The small synagogues are the last remaining standing buildings in the vacated Jewish settlements in...

The Palestinians are planning to mark Israel's Independence Day by sounding a siren as an expression of mourning. The siren will be sounded throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip at noon on Sunday, and Palestinians have been asked to stand still for one minute to protest the establishment of Israel. Palestinians have been marking Israel's independence with demonstrations and rallies marking what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe. Zakariya al-Agha, head of the PLO's refugee department, confirmed on Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority was planning to mark this year's "Nakba anniversary" by sounding a siren as Israel does to...

On Wednesday Caterpillar Inc. will hold its stockholder meeting in Chicago. Some have proposed a resolution for Caterpillar to stop selling its products to Israel because of Israeli policies. This is part of a wider campaign by some churches to weaken Israel by pressing for selective divestment of companies selling their products to the Jewish state. Jews and Christians have special concern for the Holy Land, and that concern must be channeled into constructive action. Yet the divestment initiatives under consideration by the World Council of Churches and certain American Protestant churches are wrong -- for Christians, for Jews and...

A new poll commissioned by the National Jewish Democratic Council says American Jews will still vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, despite US President George W. Bush's policies toward Israel, which have been widely praised by the Jewish community. The poll, released on Monday, said American Jews preferred Kerry to Bush by a 75 to 22 percent margin. The survey of 817 likely Jewish voters was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research between July 26 and 28, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent. Respondents said in 2000 they had voted for Vice President...

A ceremony launching the Geneva Ininitiative in a Swiss convention center on Monday became a festival of anti-Israel bashing. Internaitonal, Palestinian, and Israeli speakers took turns criticizing Israeli settlements and the security fence, calling them the main obstacles to middle east peace. "The road map's first basic phase has been substantially rejected as the Israeli government has ignored mild American objection and continued to colonize Gaza and the far-reaches of the West Bank and to build an enormous barrier wall on Palestinian land," Former American President Jimmy Carter said. A letter from Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat endorsing the initiative...

Israel will not end the siege on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters until the fugitives inside surrender, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday. Besieged and beleaguered, Arafat was left with just one building standing in his city-block-sized headquarters compound on Monday, after Israeli bulldozers knocked down numerous buildings during the last three days. Code-named "A Matter of Time, the Israeli operation against Arafat's Mukata compound follows last week's suicide bombing on a bus in Tel Aviv in which six Israelis were killed. A day earlier another suicide bomber killed an Israeli policeman in...

SHORTLY after 4 a.m. on 5 September 1972, eight heavily armed terrorists from Black September, a faction of the PLO, arrived on the outskirts of Munich and scaled a perimeter fence protecting thousands of athletes sleeping in the Olympic Village. Carrying assault rifles and grenades, they ran to Apartment One, 31 Connollystrasse, the building housing the Israeli delegation to the 1972 ‘Games of Peace and Joy’, and crept into the foyer. Yossef Gutfreund, a 6ft 5in wrestling referee, was the only one woken by the faint sounds outside. As he crept to the door, it opened just a few inches....

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been marred by many casualties on both sides. Between the start of the second Intifada almost two years ago and the end of June, the war had killed 561 Israelis and 1,499 Palestinians. But a new study claims that these numbers obscure the reality of the conflict, combining combatants with the non-combatants and suicide bombers with their civilian victims. As much of the case swinging world opinion against Israel hinges on the perception that Israel has killed far more Palestinian innocents than vice versa, these numbers possess a political importance beyond simple accounting. If they are...

War & ResponsibilityWho is to blame for the deaths of innocents in Gaza.By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz any people, in Israel and abroad, have said that the Israeli strike in Gaza against the number-two man in the terrorist Hamas organization, Salah Shehadeh, was mistaken on several levels. One criticism focuses on the large number of Arabs killed, including children, in the Gaza raid against the terrorist leader. Another criticism focuses on the policy of assassinating terrorist leaders in general, saying that, in fact, such raids do not prevent terrorism, rather they encourage retaliation by the organization thus struck. And a final...

John Sununu was chief of staff at the White House when Secretary of State James Baker and the first President George Bush came the closest any American administration has ever come to causing an Israeli government real pain. By refusing to guarantee an Israeli loan unless settlement expansion plans were dropped, they threatened damage to the Israeli economy, undid a Likud prime minister and helped the Labour party and Yitzhak Rabin into power. Sununu also happens to be descended from an old Jerusalem family. So, even though his time in government was brief and now well in the past, when...

A faction of the Fatah is threatening to target senior Israeli government and army officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in response to Israel's killing of senior Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh and 14 other Palestinians, among them nine children, in Gaza earlier this week. The group, known as "The Return Brigade," also threatened former prime minister Ehud Barak, OC Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, his predecessor, Lt.-Gen. (res.) Shaul Mofaz, Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, Education Minister Limor Livnat, and Minister of Internal Security Uzi Landau, IDF major-generals Avi Malka and Giora Ireland, and politicians Avigdor Lieberman...

Israel Searches for Militants Who Killed 8 in Bus AmbushBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 8:40 a.m. ETEDITOR'S NOTE -- This report was submitted to Israel's military censor and some material was deleted.EMMANUEL, West Bank -- Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman Wednesday as they mounted a massive manhunt in the rocky hills of the West Bank for militants who ambushed a bus near a Jewish settlement, killing eight Israelis.See the rest of the article here.

Television news executives and observers say they are troubled by CNN's new policy of not broadcasting comments by suicide bombers or their families. But Eason Jordan, who heads CNN's news-gathering, said the policy is meant only to be a "safeguard" and was not in response to criticism in Israel of CNN's Mideast coverage.Jordan has instructed staff not to air or report suicide-bombers' statements "unless there seemingly is an extraordinarily compelling reason to do so."The edict was made after CNN faced press criticism in Israel for airing an interview late last month with the mother of a Palestinian suicide bomber several...

Hamas is threatening to use chemical weapons in future attacks against Israeli targets, claiming "slaughter will bring slaughter," Channel 2 reported last night. According to the report, Hamas issued a statement after conducting a strategic debate which generated the decision to use chemical weapons in addition to conventional bombs. "When we reach that stage [using chemical weapons], the gates will be opened to develop suicide attacks with Allah's help," the report said, quoting from the statement issued by the movement yesterday. The statement claimed that the aim is to further harm those hit by shrapnel in a bomb blast and...

Israel on Saturday rescued a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was kidnapped by Hamas and was going to be forced into being a suicide bomber, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon revealed to members of the House International Relations Committee yesterday. Sharon provided no other details about the incident or the boy, and no other information was immediately available about the previously unreported incident. Sharon wrapped up his sixth visit to the US with a warm reception from Congress, which has nearly finalized approval for $200 million in supplemental aid for Israel. Sharon was due last night to depart for London, where he...

BEIRUT, 23 May — As 12 of the 13 Palestinian fighters exiled by Israel left Cyprus for European countries yesterday, the International Red Cross stated that their “transfer” outside the occupied Palestinian West Bank was illegal under humanitarian law. Citing Article 49 of Annex 4 of the Geneva Conventions, Vincent Lusser, spokesman for the Middle East department of the ICRC in Geneva, told The Independent that “transfers outside occupied territory are illegal and that covers the 13 men.”The EU has claimed that “humanitarian” concern prompted them to give temporary exile to the 13 Palestinians, all of whom spent weeks in...