Salem-News.com Israel articles

As Gaza Death Toll Tops 1,000, UN Calls for Immediate Cease-Fire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the call by Hamas for a cease-fire, saying the group violated its own call for a brief stoppage in violence.

(GAZA CITY) - With more than 1,000 people killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting in New York early Monday and announced "strong support for an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire" in Gaza.

The call for a cease-fire came after Hamas and Israel began firing again at each other Sunday after a temporary cease-fire failed.

Battle in Gaza Hits Day 20 as Death Toll Passes 1,000

Rocket barrage fired toward southern and central Israel after cabinet agrees to extend humanitarian ceasefire.

(TEL AVIV) - An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed early on Sunday by a mortar shell near the Gaza border as Israel's Operation Protective Edge entered its 20th day.

Hours earlier, Israel's security cabinet voted to extend a humanitarian cease-fire that began on Saturday morning until midnight Sunday.

Israel Agrees to Truce Extension; Hamas Answers by Launching Rockets

Late on Saturday, militants ignored an Israeli announcement that it would extend the truce by four hours and resumed firing rockets into Israel.

(JERUSALEM) - Israel's security cabinet approved extending the humanitarian ceasefire begun early on Saturday until midnight local time 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, an Israeli government official said.

"At the request of the United Nations, the cabinet has approved a humanitarian hiatus until tomorrow -- Sunday -- at 24:00. The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will act against any breach of the ceasefire," the official, who was not named, said in a statement.

Palestinians Pour Into Streets to Gather Food, Dead as Truce Holds

Israel's military pledged to hold fire for 12 hours but said it would carry on searching for tunnels used by militants.

(GAZA CITY) - Palestinians in the Gaza Strip poured into the streets on Saturday to recover their dead and stock up on food supplies after a 12-hour humanitarian truce agreed by Israel and Hamas took hold on the 19th day of their conflict.

Women in the northern town of Beit Hanoun wailed as medics pulled three dead relatives from a home struck overnight by an Israeli air strike, with hospital officials saying 85 bodies had been found after the guns fell silent at 1.00 a.m.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

"Leave or Die" is the message, yet there is no where to leave "to".

(LONDON) - ¹³When the Magi (the three wise men) had gone an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” ¹⁴So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt...

That was then, when the infant Jesus could find a safe haven and sanctuary in Egypt. Which is more that can be said for the children of Gaza today looking to find a safe haven in present day Egypt under the dictatorship of Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi. Two thousand years ago when the world was under the hegemony of the Roman Empire it was a very different world from today.

US Urges Ceasefire Between Israelis and Palestinians as Death Toll Climbs Over 800

The urgency was spurred on Thursday by the killing of 15 people as they sheltered at a U.N. run school in the northern Gaza Strip, which local officials blamed on Israeli shelling.

(JERUSALEM ) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire on Friday as the civilian death toll soared, and further violence loomed between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

With Israel and Hamas-led Islamist fighters setting seemingly irreconcilable terms for a truce that mediators hope will begin by a Muslim festival next week, Kerry worked the phones from Egypt, while aides made clear his patience was waning.

404 Students Donate Scholarship Funds to Gaza`s Shifa Hospital

These students know the struggle, they all live in long-term “relocation” camps themselves.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - 404 Palestinian students from Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps, 194 of whom are women and 210 are men, with academic majors ranging from medicine and engineering to business and computer science have agreed to transfer this semester’s tuition grants to Gaza as an act of solidarity with their countrymen.

As casualties were being brought into Shifa hospital by the minute, some in ambulances, others in cars and trucks, Ms. Hajj announced to Lebanese media that, “This act of solidarity with our countrymen under siege in Gaza is to help with emergency medical supplies and to deliver the message that every Palestinian in Lebanon is of Gaza.”

Violence Spills Over to West Bank; Death Toll Nears 800

Israeli troops have killed two other Palestinians this week in smaller confrontations in the West Bank, territory Israel captured along with Gaza in a 1967 war.

(WEST BANK ) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinian protesters and wounded about 100 on Thursday in confrontations with several thousand people demonstrating in the occupied West Bank against a 17-day-old Israeli offensive in Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military confirmed troops had used “riot dispersal means” against protesters who threw rocks and firebombs at them and blocked a road with burning tires.

Hamas Pricks Israel`s Soft Under-Belly, Ben Gurion Airport

The British gave up Lydda airport in April 1948 and IDF soldiers captured the airport on 10 July 1948, in Operation Danny, when the population was driven out as part of Israel's ethnic cleansing programme.

(LONDON) - Hamas has hit Palestine's bloodthirsty occupier where it could hurt real bad -- in the soft under-belly that is Ben Gurion airport. The Resistance has achieved this by lobbing a rocket too close for comfort and causing air carriers in the United States and Europe to halt flights to Tel Aviv after warnings from governmental agencies concerned about passenger safety.

"The carriers are making the right call," said Robert Mann, an airline consultant in Port Washington, New York.

Israel Continues to Pound Gaza Strip as Kerry Arrives

The mounting civilian casualties have driven international efforts to halt the third major round of violence between Israel and Gaza since 2009.

(TEL AVIV) - Israel doesn’t plan to stop its Gaza Strip offensive as long as the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers continue to pose a threat, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Israel in pursuit of an elusive truce deal.

“There is no reason to stop here if Hamas continues to threaten, continues to fire,” Livni, her country’s former chief negotiator with the Palestinians, told Israel Radio.