IDF uncovers terror tunnel along Gaza border
(JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces uncovered a cross-border Hamas attack tunnel on Thursday amid a flurry of attacks along the Gaza border over the past few days.
“IDF units are securing southern Gaza border communities,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement. “This tunnel was dug by the Hamas terror organization to carry out attacks in Israeli territory against Israeli civilians and security forces, and to harm Israeli sovereignty.”
According to an IDF security source, it is unclear if the tunnel was dug before or after 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, but that the tunnel is in “reasonable condition.”
“We will investigate it and then destroy it,” the IDF source said, the Jerusalem Post reported.
On Wednesday, Hamas launched a series of rocket and mortar attacks on IDF units along the border of Gaza, which prompted the Israeli Air Force to launch two waves of airstrikes overnight Wednesday against nine Hamas targets inside of Gaza.
Hamas’s military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement saying that they will not “allow a continuation of Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip.”
“The Zionist intrusions, since yesterday evening, constitute a clear breach of the 2014 agreement to reach a calm, and a new aggression against the Strip.”
The recent spate of attacks and threats from Gaza have come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Gaza border on Tuesday where he noted the relative calm along the border since the end of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
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Merkel to Netanyahu: German policy toward Israel won’t change
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone on Wednesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who clarified that a recent report in German newspaper Der Spiegel that she intended to reconsider Germany’s special relationship with Israel was incorrect.
At a press conference on Wednesday, a German government spokesperson stated unequivocally that there would be no change in German policy toward Israel.
Israeli officials described Netanyahu’s conversation with Merkel on Wednesday as “very good.”
On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold met in Berlin with the German national security adviser and German Foreign Ministry officials. The Der Spiegel report on supposed tensions between Netanyahu and Merkel was one of the topics of conversation.
Gold told Israel Hayom that in his talks with German officials he had “heard no intention to re-examine relations [with Israel].”
“Governments always have different approaches, but there is nothing that will lead to a re-examination of relations,” Gold said. “The assertion made by the Der Spiegel report is completely baseless.”
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MLK Jr.’s son to honor activism for Ethiopian-Jewish immigrants to Israel
(JNS.org) Martin Luther King III, the son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., will visit Israel this Sunday to honor activists who have worked on behalf of Ethiopian-Jewish immigrants to Israel.
King III and the Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky will hold a special ceremony in Jerusalem recognizing Israeli singer Idan Raichel, former Member of Knesset Pnina Tamano-Shata, and journalist Anat Saragusti for their activism for the Ethiopian-Israeli community.
The honorees will receive the 2016 Unsung Hero Award from the Drum Major Institute, a civil rights organization established in 1961 by King Jr.’s advisor Harry Wachtel and revived in 1999 by King III, New York attorney William Wachtel, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young.
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Abbas admits to Norway that PA still pays Palestinian terrorists’ salaries
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas admitted that the PA is paying salaries to terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons despite previous public assurances that such payments had ended, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported.
In a meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende confronted the Palestinian leader on the PA payments to terrorists, according to the Norwegian daily newspaper Dagen. Abbas confirmed that such payments still exist, but said that the salaries are not paid with Norwegian funds.
“In the meeting, I emphasized that this support program in which financial payments are increased the [longer] the prisoners serve time [in prison] is unacceptable and should be abolished. I emphasized that with the political and economic challenges that Palestinians now face, it is in their own best interest to abolish this program,” said Brende. “Abbas responded by repeating assurances that Norwegian funds are not going to finance the program.”
PMW has been documenting—including through a recently released report—how the PA continues to accept funds from Western countries while promising that the foreign aid will not be used to pay imprisoned terrorists, even though the payments have persisted. According to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Norway gave the Palestinians about $77 million in foreign aid last year.
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Israeli Justice Ministry drafting law on criminalizing torture of suspects
(JNS.org) In response to a request this week by the United Nations’ Committee Against Torture (CAT) that Israel criminalize torture, Israel’s attorney general within the country’s Justice Ministry, Dr. Roy Schöndorf, confirmed that Israel is drafting new legislation that would outlaw torture of suspects during interrogation, Haaretz reported.
An Israeli delegation is currently taking part in a review by CAT in Geneva to determine if Israel is in compliance with the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
CAT’s chairman, Jen Modvig, strongly recommended that Israel “introduce the crime of torture as defined in the convention” because there has not been any “penalty…commensurate with the seriousness of the crime” defined in Israeli legislation.
The representatives from Israel were presented with a list of questions from the committee that ranged from the treatment of Palestinians to prisoner rights and administrative detention, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem-based watchdog group NGO Monitor, which submitted a report to CAT in support of Israel, cited the “disproportionate focus” and “double standards” on Israel at the U.N., as well as in the submissions about Israel by other NGO groups to the committee.
“The NGO submissions relating to Israel generally erase the context of Palestinian terrorism, minimize Palestinian violence, and characterize individuals responsible for murder and other serious crimes as ‘political prisoners.’ They also seek to expand the definition of torture to include any form of discomfort inflicted on the prisoner, including swearing at them, and restrictions on family visits,” wrote Anne Herzberg, the legal advisor for NGO Monitor, in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
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