Israeli father and son, ages 40 and 18, killed in shooting attack near Hebron
(JNS.org) In the latest fatal attack during the current terror wave in Israel, a Jewish father and son—ages 40 and 18—were shot dead Friday near the Judea and Samaria community of Othniel in the southern Hebron hills while driving with five other relatives to a family event in Meitar.
The terrorist who ambushed the car is believed to have been waiting on the side of the road for an Israeli vehicle to drive by, Haaretz reported. Two other passengers were wounded and taken to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. Amid the search for the perpetrator, the town of Yatta was placed under a closure.
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Iranian president calls Israel illegitimate, urges Palestinians to return
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) “Israel in its current form is not legitimate,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the television channel France 2 on Wednesday ahead of his trip to Paris.
Rouhani—who has been perceived as a moderate by the Obama administration and elsewhere in the Western world—said that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants dating back to 1948 should return to “Palestine…and vote, and whichever [political] system they choose, we will be in agreement with that.” He added that after all the Palestinians “wandering abroad” return, elections for new leadership should be supervised by the United Nations.
This would result in a single state, rather than two states for two peoples, Rouhani explained.
“We say that everyone must meet to vote on the entire Palestinian territory as it was in its pre-1948 borders,” he said, according to translations of the interview. “We say that all Jews, all Muslims, all Christians, and all people who are from Palestine and are wandering around the world must be able to return to Palestine.”
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1,500-year-old wine presses found in southern Israel
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Two wine presses that date back some 1,500 years were discovered in the southern Israeli city of Netivot.
As part of standard preparations for the construction of a new residential neighborhood, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) conducted digs outside the city. Youths from Netivot and Ashkelon were encouraged to volunteer on the project along with future IDF recruits who are spending a year performing community service before they enlist in the army’s Nahal Brigade.
The excavation unearthed the remains of a village dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries C.E., when the Byzantine period gave way to Islam. The findings included a workshop, buildings, and two wine presses. Ilan Peretz, who supervised the dig for the IAA, said that “one of the most impressive finds of [this] excavation is a sophisticated wine press that was used to mass-produce wine. First, the grapes were trampled. Then the juice was funneled into canals, which led to a pit that was used to let the sediment settle. From there, the wine was piped into vats lined with stone and marble, where it would ferment until it was put into clay bottles called ‘Gaza jugs.’ Hundreds of those have been found all over the site.”
“The site was dated based on a cross etched into seashells that adorned one of the vats of the wine press,” added Peretz.
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Israel planning pilot underground cemetery project
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Plans to build Israel’s first-ever entirely underground cemetery are underway in Hadera, in an effort to solve the space shortage for burial grounds in the country.
The cemetery is a pilot project that will be repeated in other cities if deemed successful. It will reach a depth of 8.2 feet underground, using a “Sanhedrin burial style,” with two levels of burial niches. On top of the complex, there will be a section for traditional burials.
Tzahi Yitzhak Levinsky—head of the Levinsky architecture firm, which is responsible for the project—said, “The goal is to maximize our use of the land, to ensure adequate access and to follow the guidelines of Jewish law….Currently, there are 900 graves dug in a dunam (1,076 square feet); now, we will be able to have 1,470 graves in a dunam.”
“Above ground, there will be a floating roof, a fair distance from the graves, to allow for natural light, ventilation, and room for two levels of graves underground,” he added.
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Israeli High Court approves demolition of 5 terrorists’ homes
(JNS.org) Israel’s High Court of Justice on Thursday rendered a unanimous ruling allowing the state to demolish the homes of five Palestinian terrorists involved in the killing of four Israelis.
Among the terrorists whose homes have been condemned are the murderers of Naama and Eitam Henkin, a couple from Neria who were gunned down in front of their children in October, as well as Malachi Rosenfeld and Danny Gonen, who were shot and killed in separate terrorist attacks in late June.
“Razing homes is an unusually harsh measure, mostly as it harms a terrorist’s family, who is often ignorant of his nefarious plans. Nevertheless, at times there is no choice but to employ demolition as a measure of deterrence,” Israeli Chief Justice Miriam Naor said, Israel Hayom reported.
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Jewish Dems’ leader clarifies remarks questioning Christian support for Israel
(JNS.org) Greg Rosenbaum, board chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), issued a clarification on Thursday for an earlier remark that Republican evangelical Christians support Israel because they are “building a stairway to heaven on the backs of the Jews in Israel.”
During a session moderated by Jewish Insider founder Max Neuberger at this week’s General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Rosenbaum—referring to recent comments by former Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann—had said, “In the 83 percent [of Republicans] that support Israel [in a recent Gallup poll], what are their motives?…I’ve always said, you’ve got evangelical Republicans supporting Israel because they are building a stairway to heaven on the backs of the Jews in Israel. We don’t get to go with them, unless—as Michelle Bachmann said over the weekend—all of the Israeli Jews convert to Christianity, as soon as possible. So you have to look beyond the numbers to really understand how the parties shake out in support of Israel.”
On Thursday, Rosenbaum followed up on his initial comments by saying in a statement, “To be clear, my remarks were meant to refer specifically to those evangelical Christians who agree with former Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s offensive statements surrounding Israel and the ‘biblical prophecy,’ specifically her call to convert as many Jews as possible in the context of ‘seeing the fulfillment of scripture right in front of our eyes, even while we’re on the ground’—not the many Christians, both Republicans and Democrats, who disagree with her.”
Regarding the initial comments, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) called on Rosenbaum to apologize “to the millions of Christians he stereotyped and slandered.”
“If he ever bothered to talk to pro-Israel Christians, Rosenbaum would learn that believing Christians support Israel for the same reasons as observant Jews,” said CUFI board member David Brog, the New York Observer reported. “This support has nothing to do with salvation, which Christians believe stems from faith alone. Christian love of Israel is rooted in the promises of the book of Genesis.”
JFNA spokesperson Rebecca Dinar told the Salomon Center for American Jewish Thought, “Federations work closely with pro-Israel churches and church leaders across the continent. We strenuously object to any characterization that calls into question their motives for supporting the State of Israel.”
Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks, who was Rosenbaum’s fellow panelist in the JFNA session, said, “The reality is that we should not be in the business of ascribing motives to our friends and to people who want to support Israel.”
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Obama administration voices support for EU labels on Judea-Samaria products
(JNS.org) The Obama administration expressed support for the new European Union guidelines requiring member states to stop carrying the “Made in Israel” label for products made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
“We do not believe that labeling the origin of products is equivalent to a boycott,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “And as you know, we do not consider settlements to be part of Israel. We do not view labeling the origin of products as being from the settlements as a boycott of Israel.”
Toner described the EU’s move as “technical guidelines” that would help European consumers understand the origin of products.
“Consumers will then be aware of the origin of a product when purchasing it, as they are made aware for products across the globe,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has harshly criticized the EU’s labeling initiative, saying that the decision is “hypocritical and constitutes a double standard.”
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New Israeli consulate opens in Munich near Hitler’s former office
(JNS.org) A new Israeli consulate opened in Munich, Germany, in close proximity to Adolf Hitler’s former office and the former headquarters of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party.
Israelis will now be able to apply for visas and renew their passports at the new consulate building, which was rented out to the State of Israel.
Bavarian State Minister Horst Seehofer, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, and President of the Israeli Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria Charlotte Knobloch attended the opening ceremony of the new consulate.
“There is no place for xenophobia or Anti-Semitism in this country,” Seehofer said at the ceremony, the German TV news channel Bayerischer Rundfunk reported.
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Hezbollah rocked by IDF airstrike in Syria, twin suicide bombings in Beirut
(JNS.org) Reports have revealed that a Hezbollah weapons depot was the likely target of a purported Israeli airstrike in Syria on Wednesday night, while a southern Beirut stronghold of the Iranian-backed Shi’a Muslim terror group was also rocked by twin suicide bombings on Thursday that left dozens dead.
Pro-Assad regime operatives on Facebook said that the strike, which was near the Damascus airport, hit “military outposts near the airport, and there is a high probability that it was IDF warplanes that struck,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
“Israeli warplanes entered from south Lebanon, arrived at Qalamoun and flew above the international airport in Damascus where they struck nearby military outposts,” Syrian opposition activist Ahmed Yabrudi said.
Meanwhile, twin suicide bombings targeted a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern Beirut suburb of Burj al-Barajneh, killing at least 35 people and wounding nearly 200, Lebanon’s Daily Star reported.
According to initial reports, the attack was likely carried out by Syria-based jihadist terror groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front.
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White House rejects request to recognize Israeli sovereignty in Golan Heights
(JNS.org) The Obama administration will not accept Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a senior White House official told Haaretz, following Netanyahu’s meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House earlier this week.
White House officials said that due to instability in Syria, changing the Golan Heights policy could cause complications in U.S.-Syria relations.
“I think that it was clear the U.S. is not going to change its position about the future of the Golan. We always said it has to be negotiated in line with [U.N. Security Council resolutions] 242 and 338. This has been and remains our position and it will not change,” one official stated.
Another White house official affirmed that changing the U.S. position on the Golan Heights could put the opposition in Syria in a “very awkward position,” and that “it will expose the opposition to regime accusations that they are allies with people who want to give up the Golan.”
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Israeli forces disguised as Arab family with pregnant woman arrest terrorist
(JNS.org) An undercover Israel Defense Forces unit disguised as an Arab family, including a pregnant woman, on Thursday covertly entered a hospital and arrested a terrorist.
The IDF, Border Police, and Shin Bet security agency learned that 20-year-old Azzam Azat Shabadan Shalaldeh, suspected of stabbing and injuring an Israeli last month, was hiding out in the Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron. They joined forces to perform a covert operation in which some agents were in ordinary clothes posing as a family bringing another operative, disguised as a woman in labor, to the hospital.
A relative of Shalaldeh attacked the agents and was shot and killed, the Shin Bet said, adding that security forces “will not allow safe refuge for terrorist operatives, whoever they are.”
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