Middle East

Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi says Israeli plans to incorporate West Bank settlement blocs around Jerusalem into the city could kill hopes for an independent Palestinian state. A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party has said that draft legislation to form a “Greater Jerusalem” municipality would go to a ministerial committee on

By Tamar Pileggi The High Court of Justice on Thursday rejected a petition that would prevent Tel Aviv mini-markets from operating on Shabbat, infuriating ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who vowed to bypass the court with fresh Knesset legislation.. In her final ruling from the bench, outgoing Justice Miriam Naor underscored the need for religious pluralism in Israel.

A new poll commissioned by Channel 10 found that an overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose a controversial bill that would bar police investigations into a sitting prime minister. According to the poll, fully 71% of Jewish Israelis said that that they oppose the law while 19% said they supported it. Ten percent said that they

Haredi MKs from United Torah Judaism party are planning to vote against the “Greater Jerusalem” bill proposed by Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), Kan reported Thursday. This coming Sunday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation is set to vote on the “Greater Jerusalem” bill, potentially securing coalition support for the proposal. If passed by the committee, the

Nearly two decades after the first Netanyahu government abandoned plans to extend the municipal borders of Jerusalem to include Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, a similar proposal is heading to a critical vote which could ensure its passage during the Knesset”s winter session. Dubbed the “Greater Jerusalem” law, the bill would annex several towns

By Dov Lieber Israeli police on Wednesday stormed a hotel in East Jerusalem to close down an event sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, which has been banned by Israeli authorities from holding political events in the city. The conference, which was to be held at the St. George Hotel, was entitled “The Muslim and Christian

By TOI staff Hamas will not dismantle its military wing, the terror organization’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said on Tuesday. But he added that Hamas’s weapons should be subject to the authority of the Palestine Liberation Organization, an organization dominated by the rival Fatah group. “As a nation, we are still in the throes