Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — As police protected them, three Jewish men stepped forward, placed their hands out at chest level and began reciting prayers in low tones in the shadow of Jerusalem’s golden Dome of the Rock.

Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, were once unthinkable. But they have quietly become the new norm in recent years, flying in the face of longstanding convention, straining a delicate status quo and raising fears that they could trigger a new wave of violence in the Middle East.

GAZA, Aug 24 (NNN-WAFA) – Israeli fighter jets, late yesterday, attacked posts and facilities belonging to the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.

Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesman said that the attack was made, in response to the launch of incendiary balloons towards southern Israel.

The posts and facilities belong to al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas armed wing in southern, central and northern Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian security sources.

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - New Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett plans to push for a new Iran strategy during his first White House visit, saying he will urge U.S. President Joe Biden not to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

Biden's aides hope the talks will set a positive tone for his relationship with Bennett, a far-right politician and high-tech millionaire who ended Benjamin Netanyahu's record 12-year run as prime minister in June.

JERUSALEM, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in Israel has reached 1,005,511, almost a year and a half since the first case was detected in the country, the Israeli Ministry of Health said on Tuesday morning.

Israel thus became the 35th country with more than 1 million infections, according to the World Health Organization.

The country reported its first COVID-19 case on Feb. 27, 2020, as an Israeli who had returned from Italy tested positive.

25 Aug 2021; MEMO: Twenty-nine people have died of coronavirus in Israel over a 24-hour period, the Ministry of Health announced last night, marking the highest death rate recorded in a single day since February.

Monday's death toll brings the total deaths in Israel due to infection with coronavirus to 6,856, Israel's Kan TV channel said.

22 Aug 2021; MEMO: A state inquiry into a stampede in April at a Jewish pilgrimage site that killed 45 people, among them US and Canadian citizens, began hearing testimonies on Sunday to determine what led to Israel's worst civilian disaster, reports Reuters.

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli government commission investigating a deadly accident at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April held its first day of hearings Sunday, almost four months after the stampede at Mount Meron left 45 people dead.

The April 29 incident at the Jewish festival in northern Israel was the deadliest civilian disaster in the country’s history. Around 100,000 worshipers, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, attended festivities despite coronavirus regulations limiting outdoor assemblies to 500 people, and in spite of longstanding warnings about the safety of the site.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military bombed Palestinian militant weapons sites in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in response to a violent demonstration on the perimeter fence that left an Israeli police officer critically injured, the army said.

JERUSALEM, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett received a third shot of Pfizer/BioNtech's (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, after Israel extended its booster campaign for people over 40 to try to curb the Delta coronavirus variant.

New cases in Israel have surged since Delta's emergence and Bennett, 49, has sought to avoid an economically painful national lockdown by ramping up third doses.

20 Aug 2021; MEMO: Israeli authorities yesterday allowed goods to enter the Gaza Strip through the Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing for the first time since the last aggression in May.

An official source told Anadolu Agency that trucks loaded with goods had entered Gaza "under the Israeli forces supervision." He added that the shipment had included "cement for construction projects managed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)."