By PETER BAKER September 30, 2016 JERUSALEM — From across the ocean and across the Green Line, they came on Friday to the mountaintop sanctuary of Mount Herzl to bid farewell to Shimon Peres, marking what one called the “end of the era of giants.” But the question of the moment was whether it was a funeral for a man or for his dream. Twenty-three years after Mr. Peres […]
JERUSALEM — Israeli prosecutors on Tuesday charged a Palestinian employee of the United Nations in the Gaza Strip with providing material assistance to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, including helping to build a jetty for its military wing. The accusations against the employee, Waheed Al Bursh, came after Israel leveled charges Thursday against a Palestinian employee of World Vision in Gaza, saying he had […]
HUSAN, West Bank — The Sabateen clan recognized the dewy-eyed boy in the World Vision sponsorship card from his birth date and the striped collar of his cardigan. His mother used to make him wear that sweater on special occasions. It was their Othman, who turned 18 on Monday but at the time was 5. None of his relatives recalled signing him up for the World Vision […]
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has canceled a contentious directive known as the Hannibal procedure, which calls for the use of maximum force to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even at the risk of harming them. A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with army rules, said on Tuesday that the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, had given instructions several […]
KABUL, Afghanistan — An American journalist for NPR was killed on Sunday afternoon along with his Afghan translator in a Taliban ambush in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan military confirmed. NPR also confirmed their deaths on Sunday. The victims were identified as David Gilkey, a photographer and videographer who was part of a four-person NPR team embedded with Afghan Special Forces in Helmand Province, and his translator, Zabihullah […]
By DIAA HADID May 31, 2016 JERUSALEM — Three Palestinians convicted of murder were executed in the Hamas-controlled coastal territory of Gaza on Tuesday, less than a week after Hamas lawmakers called for the resumption of capital punishment. The three men had exhausted their appeals, and the families of the victims refused a last-minute request to spare the men, who were executed at police headquarters in Gaza City, according […]
Israeli investigators on Wednesday near the body of a Palestinian who was killed after he and two others attacked border police officers in East Jerusalem. By ISABEL KERSHNER February 3, 2016 JERUSALEM — Three Palestinian men armed with automatic rifles, knives and pipe bombs attacked Israeli border police officers in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one officer and wounding another. The three assailants were fatally shot by officers at […]
When President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority told the United Nations on Wednesday that the Palestinian people “cannot continue to be bound by” agreements with Israel, what was he repudiating? Mainly, he was talking about the Oslo peace accords, which Mr. Abbas’s predecessor, Yasir Arafat, signed in 1993 and 1995 with Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli leader who was later assassinated by an extremist Jew. Those accords […]
Middle East By ISABEL KERSHNER September 18, 2015 JERUSALEM — Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, called Pope Francis to brief him on the “ongoing Israeli aggression in occupied East Jerusalem, and particularly against Al Aqsa Mosque.” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, that “Israel is acting against the violence on the Temple Mount” and “is strictly maintaining the status […]
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected calls from opposition politicians for Israel to accept refugees from Syria, saying that Israel was “a very small country that lacks demographic and geographic depth.” He also said that plans to construct a fence along the eastern border with Jordan would go ahead. The Israeli news media has been dominated in recent days by the dramatic reports and […]
Middle East Memo From the West Bank In the 10th year of a four-year term in the absence of national elections, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has lost the public’s confidence. A poll published on Tuesday showed trust in him falling to 16 percent from 22 percent in March. By JODI RUDOREN September 1, 2015 RAMALLAH, West Bank — Mahmoud Abbas, the aging Palestinian president, may be paving the way […]
Middle East Patients waited to receive medical-transfer documents in Gaza City in August. By JODI RUDOREN August 31, 2015 GAZA — The medical report details some worrying conditions: chronic dyspnea — a shortage of breath that could be a sign of heart or lung disease — and bronchial asthma. It says the patient, a 28-year-old woman from Gaza City, relies on “continuous medication” and an inhaler. But the woman […]
INTERNATIONAL. The enduring impasse between Israel and the Palestinians in the peace negotiations and their changing internal political dynamics has made it impossible for them to resolve the conflict on their own. Leaving them to their own devices is no longer a viable option as the continuation of the conflict is hazardous and potentially explosive. The resumption of bilateral peace negotiations with US mediation alone will not […]
In a widely watched terrorism lawsuit that drew the attention of the Obama administration, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that the Palestinian Authority would have to post $10 million and an additional $1 million monthly to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that had killed and injured Americans. The bond amount was much lower than lawyers […]
KIBBUTZ SUFA, Israel — Looking out across the perimeter fence of this small rural community in southern Israel, along the border with Gaza, Eyal Shalev, 23, sees a battlefield. Last summer, during Israel’s 50-day war with Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Shalev was on the other side, in a tank. His younger brother, Sgt. Shachar Shalev, who was fighting with the Paratroopers Brigade inside Gaza, was critically injured […]
GAZA CITY — At this time last year, as the missiles and bombs rained down in Israel’s lopsided seven-week war against Gaza, I wrote about our struggle to survive during the holy month of Ramadan. This year, another Ramadan has passed, Eid al-Fitr is over and the reality on the ground has changed very little. The same dreadful conditions are creating desperation among Gaza’s inhabitants, whose lives […]
GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles. The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of […]
A Dubai Cares funded programme in Palestine is helping preschool teachers to get children reading and using their imagination. While Dubai Cares supplies teacher training in Gaza, it also reaches children with books and supplies brochures for parents and teachers on how to best use the resources at hand. However, Reem El Bohisi, a teacher at Hekayat Preschool in Deir Al Balah who took the training, said […]
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Friday named a hawkish political rival who opposes a Palestinian state as his next ambassador to the United Nations. The naming of Danny Danon as the new ambassador is the latest in a string of appointments by Mr. Netanyahu that indicate he will not bow to mounting international criticism and efforts to isolate Israel. Mr. Danon is an […]
GAZA — The new road known as Jakar Street is a rough dirt expanse that Hamas bulldozers cleared parallel to the fence separating this restive Palestinian strip from Israel. Jakar comes from a slang Arabic term that suggests provocation, stubbornness, an effort to vex or annoy or irritate. Leaders of Hamas, the militant movement that dominates Gaza, have been variously quoted as saying that they built the […]
Laith al-Khaldi who was shot of Friday during a demonstration near Ramallah, died on Saturday. By DIAA HADID August 1, 2015 RAMALLAH, West Bank — A teenager who was shot while protesting the arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler died from his wounds early Saturday, according to family members and residents. It was the sixth fatal shooting by Israeli security forces in recent weeks, and the latest death […]
DUMA, West Bank — Residents of this Palestinian hamlet still awake on a hot summer night heard the screams and rushed to the Dawabsheh home. Outside, Saad, 32, lay writhing on the ground. Nearby, his wife Riham was still on fire. Their 4-year-old son was could be heard cyring inside the burning house and his brother, 18-month-old Ali, was already dead. Witnesses and officials attributed the attack […]
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities have uncovered a network of Hamas militants suspected of involvement in a shooting that killed an Israeli man and wounded three others in the West Bank in June, Israeli security officials said Sunday. Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said in a statement that the military and the police had arrested four Palestinians this month — three residents of the West Bank village […]
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Five Palestinian men, including at least three members of the military wing of the Fatah faction, were arrested on Wednesday, accused of planning and executing a particularly audacious shooting last month, the Israeli military and police said. The shooting, which killed one Israeli man and wounded another, came amid a wave of attacks targeting Israeli civilians and military forces in the occupied West […]
