Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — The tourism minister of Israel’s new hardline government on Sunday promised to invest in developing the West Bank, calling the occupied area “our local Tuscany.”

Haim Katz made the comments days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government took office, promising in its coalition guidelines to make West Bank settlement construction a top priority. His coalition includes far-right settler leaders in top posts.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Israelis.

30 Dec 2022; MEMO: More than 100 former and retired Israeli diplomats have sent a letter to the new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warning him that his government's extremist policies will harm Israel's foreign relations.

The letter came as Netanyahu's government was officially sworn in yesterday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military said its prosecutor has filed indictments against two soldiers who allegedly hurled an explosive device at a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank, a rare instance of Israeli troops facing serious charges over an offense against Palestinians.

29 Dec 2022; MEMO: Ten Israeli rights groups pledged to assist the International Criminal Court (ICC) in advancing its ongoing investigations into crimes committed in Palestine, B'Tselem said on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — After five elections that have paralyzed Israeli politics for nearly four years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally returned to power with the government he has long coveted: a parliamentary majority of religious and far-right lawmakers who share his hard-line views toward the Palestinians and hostility toward Israel’s legal system.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn into office Thursday, taking the helm of the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in Israel’s history and vowing to enact policies that could cause domestic and regional turmoil and alienate the country’s closest allies.

Netanyahu took the oath of office moments after parliament passed a vote of confidence in his new government. His return marks his sixth term in office, continuing his more than decade-long dominance over Israeli politics.

28 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Aviv Kochavi, said yesterday that his forces had improved their readiness to strike Iranian nuclear targets.

Speaking at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, Kochavi said: "The level of preparedness for an operation in Iran has dramatically improved."

"If the army is ordered to act against the Iranian nuclear program, it will accomplish the mission assigned to it," he added.

28 Dec 2022; MEMO: The Knesset (Israel's parliament) on Wednesday passed into law a bill that expands the authority of incoming National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over the police force.

Sixty-one lawmakers voted in favor of the law against 55 in its third and final reading.

The bill stipulates that the police will be subject to the authority of the government and subordinated to the public security minister.

29 Dec 2022; MEMO: The daughter of an executed Israeli spy has requested help from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to return his body from Syria.

In an interview with the i24NEWS Arabic outlet, Sophie Ben-Dor, the daughter of Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen, called on the UAE and its ambassador in Israel to help in the return of Cohen's body, almost six decades after his execution at the hands of Syrian authorities in May 1965 on espionage charges.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming hard-line government put West Bank settlement expansion at the top of its list of priorities on Wednesday, vowing to legalize dozens of illegally built outposts and annex the occupied territory as part of its coalition deal with its ultranational allies.

The coalition agreements, released a day before the government is to be sworn into office, also included language endorsing discrimination against LGBTQ people on religious grounds, as well as generous stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who prefer to study instead of work.