3 juillet 2008

     Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the closure of all crossings into the Gaza Strip Thursday afternoon in response to a Kassam rocket attack earlier in the day. The crossings will remain closed on Friday, officials said. More than 70 trucks worth of supplies were transferred to Gaza throughout the day. The crossings were reopened on Wednesday, after they were closed for two days due to rocket and mortar attacks earlier in the week. The Kassam rocket fired Thursday landed near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev... [Lire la suite]

      Iran expressed readiness to freeze its uranium enrichment program in return for lifting the international sanctions imposed on it, Channel 2 analyst Ehud Ya'ari revealed Thursday evening. He cited unnamed Western officials as the source of the new development. Iran has staunchly resisted repeated incentive packages offered by the West in return for halting it enrichment program and has also intermittently limited access of IAEA officials to its nuclear sites. The West, spearheaded by the US and Israel,... [Lire la suite]

        Vice Premier Haim Ramon (Kadima) told Army Radio on Thursday morning that Israel should treat the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Jabel Mukaber and Zur Baher as Palestinian villages, and revoke the permanent residency status of their residents. Ramon spoke the day after a resident of Zur Baher took a bulldozer on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem, ramming into a bus, cars and pedestrians, killing three and wounding dozens. In March, a resident of Jabel Mukaber gunned down eight people at the Mercaz Harav... [Lire la suite]

         "There is no way to fence-off the Arabs of east Jerusalem and every home of a potential terrorist," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday evening in a series of consultation meetings following the deadly attack in central Jerusalem. Olmert held several high-profile consultations with cabinet ministers and top defense and diplomatic officials in his government, seeking to draw lessons from the two terror attacks carried out in Jerusalem by residents of the eastern part of the city... [Lire la suite]