Israel

23 Oct 2020; MEMO: The Israeli authorities on Thursday demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqib in the Naqab desert for the 179th time since the year 2000, Anadolu Agency reported.

The agency quoted a member of the Local Committee for the Defence of Al-Araqib, Aziz Al-Turi, stating that this is the fourth time the village, which is inhabited by 22 families, has been demolished since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

22 Oct 2020; MEMO: An Israeli delegation made a rare visit to Sudan on Wednesday to discuss normalising ties, Israeli public broadcaster Kan radio said, as a minister predicted a possible diplomatic breakthrough between the two countries, Reuters reports.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Channel 13 News that he believed Israel was “very close to normalising ties with Sudan”.

22 Oct 2020; MEMO: The Israeli occupation authorities on Wednesday banned the student branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the occupied West Bank, calling it an “illegal and terrorist” organisation, Quds Press reported.

JERUSALEM (AP) — While the world will be closely watching the U.S. election, some countries will be watching more closely than others.

A number of world leaders have a personal stake in the outcome, with their fortunes depending heavily on the success – or failure – of President Donald Trump.

Perhaps none has so much riding on a Trump victory as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader, who had a rocky relationship with President Barack Obama, has praised Trump as “the greatest friend” Israel ever had in the White House.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli official predicted on Wednesday that the United States would announce another deal establishing ties between Israel and an Arab or Muslim country before the U.S. election.

“I have a reasonable basis to believe that the announcement will come before Nov. 3 - that, if you’ll permit me, is what I understand from my sources,” Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis told Israel’s Army Radio.

JERUSALEM, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military announced Tuesday that it has uncovered a cross-border tunnel entering Israel from the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza Strip.

The underground tunnel, discovered inside the Israeli territory, was dug from Khan Younis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said.

The IDF has so far uncovered about 20 such tunnels in recent years, the last one over a year ago.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli prosecutors on Wednesday recommended charging a police officer with reckless killing in the deadly shooting of an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this year.

The decision came nearly five months after the shooting of Eyad Hallaq. Hallaq’s family, which had criticized the slow pace of the investigation and prosecutors’ claim that security cameras in the area had malfunctioned, condemned Wednesday’s decision. They said prosecutors should have filed much tougher charges.

21 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israel’s High Court will look into the petition related to exporting Israeli arms used to carry out ethnic cleansing in Rwanda in the 1990s, Arab 48 reported on Tuesday.

According to a report published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, the High Court will look into the case despite the objection of the public prosecution.

21 Oct 2020; MEMO: Blue and White Chairman and alternate Israeli Prime Minister Benny Gantz warned early this week that he was thinking of ousting the coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel reported.

Gantz threatened that if the dysfunction of the coalition government continued and the budget for 2021 was not approved, he might decide to oust the government.

20 Oct 2020; MEMO: The head of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Yossi Cohen, has said that Israel and Saudi Arabia maintain peace relations, however they remain outside the official diplomatic framework, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported.

The paper quoted Cohen as saying that the normalisation of relations with Arab countries gives Israel a “strategic depth” to confront the axis of evil led by Iran as well as the dangers it poses, especially the nuclear programme, terrorism and regional expansion.