Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas hosts terrorists’ families at his office
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met Wednesday in his office with the relatives of 11 terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis in recent weeks.
Thirty-one Israelis have been killed and 302 have been wounded in the wave of Palestinian terrorism that began several months ago. Among those at the meeting at the Mukataa government compound in Ramallah were relatives of Baha Alian, one of two terrorists who killed three Israelis in a shooting attack on a bus in Jerusalem on Oct. 13, and of Bezeq employee Ala Abu Jamal, who killed one man in a ramming attack in central Jerusalem, also on Oct. 13.
According to Israel Radio, Abbas and the families discussed issues including the fact that the 11 terrorists’ bodies are still being held by Israel. The families demanded that Abbas pressure Israel to return the remains. He reportedly said the Palestinian Authority was doing everything it could on the issue.
The meeting took place just hours after three Palestinian terrorists carried out a shooting and stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate that killed 19-year-old border policewoman Cpl. Hadar Cohen and seriously wounded another border policewoman. All three terrorists were killed in the attack.
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Hamas terror tunnels reach deep into Israel, Gaza official warns
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A senior Hamas official warned Wednesday that the Palestinian terrorist group’s efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip’s terror tunnel grid are advancing rapidly, and that some tunnels dug under the border already run deep into Israeli territory.
“Israeli technology will not be able to stop the resistance as long as Hamas exists,” Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Oman-based Alwatan News. “Even if Israel is able to uncover a tunnel, or two, or 10, they [the tunnels] run deep under Israel, beyond Gaza, into 1948 territory.”
He added that regardless of the tunnel grid, Hamas had “other advanced measures” with which it could fight Israel. The Israeli military had destroyed Hamas’s terror tunnel network during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
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CBS headline spotlights Palestinian terrorists as victims, ignores slain Israeli
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Israeli Foreign Ministry slammed CBS News on Wednesday over its report on a terrorist attack near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, which carried a headline reading, “3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on.” The Palestinians identified in the headline were actually the terrorists who carried out the attack, which killed 19-year-old Israeli Border Police officer Hadar Cohen.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon blasted the media outlet’s “gall” for focusing solely on the deaths of the Palestinians, and ignoring the fact that they were terrorists. This was “unprecedented chutzpah, a slanted and false headline,” Nahshon said.
After the Foreign Ministry, as well as Israel’s National Information Directorate at the Prime Minister’s Office and Government Press Office, all contacted CBS, the headline was changed to “Israeli police kill 3 alleged Palestinian attackers.” It was later changed again, to “Palestinians kill Israeli officer, wound another before being killed.”
Government Press Office Director Nitzan Chen said, “This will not be tolerated. This time we will consider revoking the press credentials from reporters and editors who neglect to do their job, and present readers with headlines that have nothing to do with reality.”
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13-year-old girls who ‘came to kill Jews’ stab Israeli guard in Ramla
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Two 13-year-old girls stabbed an Israeli security guard near the central bus station in Ramla on Thursday. During the course of their interrogation, one of the girls declared, “We came to kill Jews.”
The girls, one a longtime resident of an Arab neighborhood in the mixed Jewish-Arab city and the other a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel who recently moved to Ramla, approached a metal detector checkpoint wearing their school backpacks. When the guard manning the checkpoint asked them for identification, the two girls pulled out knives from their backpacks and stabbed him in the leg and the arm. The guard, age 25, sustained light injuries.
Ramla Mayor Yoel Lavi rushed to defend his mixed city, saying Thursday, “We are talking about two minors who have been arrested and the police are currently investigating the circumstances of the attack. This incident is not typical of the Arab sector in Ramla. Ramla is a multicultural city where Jews live alongside Arabs in coexistence and good neighborly relations. We will continue to maintain good neighborly relations regardless of sector. The school system has been instructed to initiate dialogue on the issue in schools.”
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Top IDF general: Israel sharing intelligence with allies to fight Islamic State
(JNS.org) A top general in the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that Israel is sharing intelligence with allies who are fighting against the Islamic State terror group, the Associated Press reported.
Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon said Iran is still considered the biggest threat to Israel, but that the Jewish state will participate in the global coalition to fight Islamic State.
“From Israel’s perspective, we definitely see Daesh (Islamic State) as an enemy,” Alon said.
Alon expects the battle against Islamic State to be a long one, even though the coalition fighting the jihadist group has made some progress.
“I don’t think that Daesh will collapse in the coming months or year,” he said. “It won’t be easy. Not short and not easy.”
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Palestinian security forces arrest 5 pro-Iranian operatives in Bethlehem
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority security forces have reportedly arrested five pro-Iranian operatives in Bethlehem who had been receiving funds from Iran while working in Hamas-ruled Gaza to carry out terror attacks against Israel.
The Jerusalem Post, citing an Israel Radio broadcast, reported that the leader of the pro-Iranian operatives, Hisham Salem, confirmed that they did operate in the West Bank and were expecting financial and military aide. “A-Sabrin,” as the five-member terror cell is called, had been operating in Gaza in the past years before their arrest two weeks ago.
The operatives were from “A-Sabrin,” a Shi’a Muslim movement that has been known for receiving financial support from Iran to operate in Gaza, where the majority of Palestinian Muslim residents are Sunnis.
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Israel becomes official member of U.N. Committee on Space Affairs
(JNS.org) The Israel Space Agency (ISA) will become an official member of the United Nations Committee on Space Affairs following the signing of an agreement of cooperation, the Israeli Science, Technology and Space Ministry announced Wednesday.
The accord between the U.N. Office of Space Affairs and the ISA will allow Israeli experts to influence global projects such as helping rescue teams during disasters by using satellites in real-time.
“Israel will be able to contribute more of our know-how and abilities for peace, and pave the way for expanding international cooperation in space. We will be in the small circle of countries that influence world priorities in the field,” said Daniel Brook, an ISA adviser on international cooperation.
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Japanese airline VP calls Israeli travel market ‘important’
(JNS.org) The senior vice president of All Nippon Airways (ANA), the largest airline in Japan, said on a visit to Israel that the Israeli travel market is important for Japan.
“The Israeli market is important to us. We recognize its great and growing potential, and are interested in the passenger traffic between the two countries,” said ANA’s Yutaka Ito, just weeks after the airline launched flights from Tel Aviv to Japan via Europe, reported the Israeli business news outlet Globes.
About 20,000 Israelis flew to Japan last year, with the figure growing each year, according to Ito. This has led to the airline establishing an office in Israel.
In an effort to attract Israeli visitors to Japan, the second secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Israel, Osamu Maruyama, said during the visit by ANA representatives that “in contrast to the common belief that Japan is expensive, we’re actually cheaper than Israel in many ways.”
Maruyama, who will also make a presentation at the 22nd annual International Tourism Exhibition in Israel next week, said that “a bottle of Coke [in Japan] costs an average of NIS 4—one third to one half of the price in Israel. Two sushi rolls cost NIS 3-4—a quarter of the price in Israel. A single room in a business hotel in central Tokyo costs NIS 230 a night, and a double room in a Western-style hotel costs NIS 470.”
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Netherlands denies halting Holocaust reparations for survivors living in Israel
(JNS.org) The Netherlands Foreign Ministry is denying reports that it decided to stop making Holocaust reparations to survivors residing in Israel who are receiving equivalent benefits from the Israeli Finance Ministry, an allegation that was first publicized by the Knesset Finance Committee on Tuesday.
“These reports are incorrect,” the Embassy of the Netherlands to Israel wrote in a statement posted on its website. “It is in no way the intention of the Dutch government to stop these payments.”
This allegation is not the first time the Dutch government is embroiled in this controversy. Last year, the Dutch government decided to cut pension payments to a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor because she resides in a Jewish village in Judea and Samaria, later backtracking on the decision in response to protests by Holocaust survivor groups.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 10 reported that Holocaust survivors receiving a monthly payment from the Dutch government will no longer receive the payment from the Israeli Ministry of Finance.
“The Dutch government is trying to find a technical loophole to save a few bucks on the backs of Holocaust survivors, while the Israeli government announced the termination of the allowance,” said 87-year-old Dutch Holocaust survivor Abraham Roth in testimony before the Knesset Finance Committee on Tuesday, reported Yedioth Ahronoth. Roth added that many Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivors would rather give up Israeli reparations than reparations from the Netherlands.
“The Dutch have a responsibility to the survivors and the crimes committed in their territory, and they cannot shirk it. The two governments cannot deny their obligations towards the survivors,” Roth said.
After being briefed on the renewed allegation against the Dutch government, Knesset Finance Committee members were outraged, with Finance Committee Chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Foreign Ministry “intervene” on the matter with the Dutch government.
All Knesset members in attendance at Tuesday’s Finance Committee meeting backed Gafni, with one MK saying, “There is consensus within the committee regarding the rights of Holocaust survivors and it is the State of Israel’s duty to do everything possible to ensure they receive what they deserve,” Israel Hayom reported.
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Israeli Border Police officer killed, 2 wounded in Jerusalem terror attack
(JNS.org) Two female Israeli Border Police officers and a young man were seriously wounded in a Palestinian terror attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday. One of the female officers, 19-year-old Hadar Cohen, later died from her wounds.
Three terrorists armed with knives, explosive devices, and three automatic guns aroused suspicion at the border and were asked to provide identification documents. One of the terrorists began firing and injured the two women. The Israeli Border Police unit responded immediately by shooting all three terrorists dead.
Israeli police said that the wounded officers prevented a much larger attack by stopping the terrorists. According to Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, bomb disposal experts neutralized two pipe bombs carried by the terrorists at the scene.
The three terrorists were identified as Ahmed Rajeh Zakarneh, Mohamed Ahmed Kmail, and Ahmed Najeh Abu Al-Rub from Qabatiya, in the Jenin area. The terrorists were all 20 years old.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said before Cohen’s death that “together with the entire nation of Israel, I am praying for the recovery of the wounded. To you, the Border Police forces, men and women, protectors of the walls of Jerusalem, I thank you in the name of the nation for your service against fighting against the murderous terror that sees no boundaries.”
Meanwhile, the Hamas terror group applauded the attack and called it a “severe blow” to Israeli security measures, the Jerusalem Post reported.
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