Middle East

By TOI staff Perhaps the best-kept secret in Israel’s Christian community is the growing phenomenon of Israeli Arab Christians visiting Lebanon for religious pilgrimages coordinated by the Palestinian Authority. Israel considers Lebanon — along with Iran, Iraq and Syria — an enemy state and laws forbid citizens to trade with and travel to those countries. […]

By TOI staff The Times of Israel was subjected to a particularly pernicious hacking attack on Thursday. We constantly work to improve security on the site, which is subjected to relentless attacks by hackers. On this occasion, they were able to breach our defenses. The attack was apparently carried out by Turkish hackers affiliated with

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) announced that he intends to take part in a rally in memory of late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Saturday night in Tel Aviv. “This is a national event, the unity of the people is more important than ever, and there’s a huge attempt here to change the discourse

By Dov Lieber The military wing of the Palestinian terror group Hamas on Wednesday released previously unseen footage of Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier held captive in Gaza from 2006 to 2011. The footage shows Shalit sitting among his uniformed captors, wearing the shirt he was eventually released in. In the next scene, he is

By Judah Ari Gross The Israel Defense Forces suspended construction on the underground barrier being built around the Gaza Strip on Wednesday out of concern that workers might come under attack by a Palestinian terror group in Gaza whose tunnel was destroyed in an Israeli detonation on Monday, according to a senior IDF officer. “The

Hamas handed over control of the Gaza Strip’s borders with Egypt and Israel to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday in the first key test of a landmark Palestinian reconciliation accord agreed last month. Nazmi Muhanna, the Palestinian Authority’s top official for border crossings, formally received control of the Rafah crossing with Egypt from his Hamas