3 Arabs from Jerusalem suspected of vandalizing Jewish gravestones
(JNS.org) The Jerusalem Central Investigative Unit of the Israel Police on Monday arrested three Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem’s A-Tor neighborhood who are suspected of vandalizing Jewish gravestones on the Mount of Olives.
The police launched the investigation after dozens of headstones were smashed. The oldest suspect, a 22-year-old man, denied the allegations of vandalism, while two youths ages 15 and 12 admitted to damaging the gravestones. Investigators were told that the suspects used concrete blocks and stone fragments to break the gravestones, Israel Hayom reported.
In late September, a police source reported that some headstones at the Mount of Olives had been severely damaged, “as if someone had tried to shatter the entire grave.”
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Syrian state-run news agency launches Hebrew-language website
(JNS.org) The Syrian government’s official news agency, SANA, has launched two news pages on its website in order to “convey the truth about what is taking place in Syria” to readers in Israel and Iran.
SANA officially launched versions of its website in Hebrew and Persian, joining the existing pages in Arabic, English, French, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Spanish.
The editor and translator of the Hebrew page, Khalid al-Hamad, said that it is necessary to address Israel “in its own language, which can far better serve the Resistance and its project against the occupation,” Haaretz reported.
Al-Hamad added that the new website would help expose the role Israel has been playing in Syria’s civil war. The Syrian government has long blamed outside entities for instigating the rebellion, including Israel’s Mossad and America’s CIA.
Israel has tried to avoid getting involved in the Syrian civil war and has only launched limited strikes when its interests are directly affected, such as responding to stray artillery fire in the Golan Heights or striking weapons conveys destined for the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
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Israeli Arab man jailed for fighting with Islamic State
(JNS.org) An Israeli Arab man was sentenced to 22 months in prison for illegally entering Syria and fighting for the Islamic State terror group.
Umm al-Fahm resident Ahmad Shurbaji, 23, was sentenced by Haifa Magistrate’s Court for illegal exit to an enemy state and illegal military training.
The indictment against Shurbaji, first presented in May by Haifa District Attorney Meital Chen, said Shurbaji and three of his friends decided to leave Israel to join the Syrian rebels in their fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in January 2014.
Shurbaji and his friends joined an armed rebel faction with connections to Islamic State and were then recruited by the group to participate in military training, which provided them with theoretical and practical knowledge in weapons and terrorist strategies.
Upon returning to Israel in April, Shurbaji was arrested by Israeli authorities at Ben-Gurion International Airport. While in Syria, he took part in several battles, participated in military tours, and was posted at checkpoints under Islamic State control. He is one of at least 10 Israeli Arabs that Israel’s Shin Bet security agency believes have joined Islamic State.
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Netanyahu secretly meets Jordan’s King Abdullah over Temple Mount tension
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah met secretly in Amman on Saturday in an effort to ease tensions over the Temple Mount.
According to a report published in Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper on Monday, the two leaders agreed to increase coordination between the Israeli government and the Jordanian Waqf, which oversees the Temple Mount site under the terms of the 1995 Israel-Jordan peace treaty.
The report also said that Netanyahu’s statement on Saturday night calling on Israeli politicians to ease their rhetoric on the Temple Mount was directly related to his meeting with Abdullah.
Last week, Israel temporarily closed the Temple Mount to all worshippers after an Arab man’s attempted assassination of activist Yehudah Glick, a promoter of Jewish access to the Temple Mount. The preventative move came against the backdrop of weeks of increased Muslim riots and assaults on Jewish residents, including the recent Palestinian terror attack on a Jerusalem light rail station that killed two people. But after pressure from U.S. and Muslim leaders, the Israeli police decided to re-open the Temple Mount ahead of Muslim prayers on Friday.
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