Israel

17 May 2022; MEMO: Israel's coalition government is facing potentially fatal differences among its political partners less than a month after it lost its parliamentary majority. The issue has arisen after Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman criticised Defence Minister Benny Gantz on Monday for his meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

HERZLIYA, Israel, May 17 (Reuters) - Iran is working on advanced uranium centrifuges at new underground sites being built near its Natanz nuclear plant, Israel's defence minister said on Tuesday, giving figures that appeared to go beyond those published by a U.N. watchdog.

Centrifuges are used to purify uranium for civilian projects or, at higher levels, to make bomb fuel. Iranian progress in the field is being watched by world powers trying to resurrect a nuclear deal with Tehran, which denies having military designs.

JERUSALEM, May 16 (NNN-PNA) – Israel’s inflation reached four percent in Apr, from a year earlier, with a monthly increase of 0.8 percent, the Israeli Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Apr’s rise also beat the 3.5-percent in March, to hit a new record high since June, 2011, mainly due to a 5.5-percent price increase in fresh vegetables, and a 2.8-percent increase in clothing, said the statistics bureau.

It is also the third consecutive month, for the year-on-year consumer price index (CPI), floating above the government target range of 1-3 percent.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land on Monday condemned the police beating of mourners carrying the casket of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, accusing the authorities of violating human rights and disrespecting the Catholic Church.

JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israel and the Palestinians wrangle over the investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, several independent groups have launched their own probes. One open-source research team said its initial findings lent support to Palestinian witnesses who said she was killed by Israeli fire.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A 21-year-old Palestinian man died Saturday from a head wound sustained last month after Israeli police fired rubber bullets at stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators during violence at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

Israel’s Hadassah hospital announced the death early Saturday, saying only that Waleed Shareef had died weeks after being hospitalized with severe head injuries. His family confirmed the death.

12 May 2022; MEMO: Head of the Joint List bloc, which includes six Arab MKs, Sami Abu Shehadeh, has resigned over members' secret talks with the Israeli coalition government, Arab48 reported yesterday.

Abu Shehadeh, who is the head of the Balad Party, said that he would discuss his party's partnership with the Joint List in a meeting with party members.

12 May 2022; MEMO: Since the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh yesterday morning, Israeli officials have been trying to shift blame onto Palestinians instead of Israeli occupation forces.

According to Arab48, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said that Israeli media officials met half an hour after Abu Akleh's targeting and decided to try to change international headlines.

10 May 2022; MEMO: The Joint List, a coalition of three Arab political parties in Israel, has voted with the government against a no-confidence motion submitted by opposition parties, including Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, Yedioth Ahronoth has reported.

11 May 2022; MEMO: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Tel Aviv does not need permission from the United States to build settlements in the occupied West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reported.

"Israel is a sovereign state and does not ask for permission to operate in its territory," Lapid told reporters in the Knesset yesterday.