APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday, February 2, 2018
Quote of the day:
The WUJS Executive Resolves:
- To call upon the Government of Israel to immediately halt deportation plans and to implement sound asylum policies in line with international law and Jewish values.
- To call upon our friends - the Israeli public, Jews and other allies around the world - to express our readiness to help Israel and work together with Israel in coping humanely with the challenges of the global refugee crisis.
-- The World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) - which represents 600,000 students in 38 countries - officially
adopted a resolution opposing Israel's policy to expel Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers
Front Page:
Haaretz
- Israeli threats to strike Lebanon not intended to provoke war, but to distance it
- Israel presents $1b rehabilitation plan for Gaza, but demands Palestinian Authority take over
- German FM in highly critical speech: Is Israel ready to pay the price of perpetual occupation?
- "I'm more optimistic about Iran's future than Israel's": A talk with an activist who fled the Islamic Revolution as a child
Israel Hayom
- IAF hits Hamas post in Gaza in response to rocket fire
- Poll predicts Likud victory if elections were held now
- Polish PM: Poles, Jews bound in pursuit of Holocaust truth
- PA leader to address Security Council amid tensions with US
Times of Israel
- Defense minister said seeking creation of vast medium-range missile array
- Jewish groups blast Polish Senate's passing of Holocaust bill
- Mother of fallen soldier held by Hamas: Israel abandoned my son
- Analysis: America's good cop/bad cop strategy to get the Palestinians to negotiate
Ynet News
- Abbas to address UN Security Council on February 20
- Israeli tennis match marred by pro-Palestinian rally
- WUJS: Migrant expulsion plan is "scandalous"
- 7 convicted of affiliation with terror group
i24 News
- US targets Hezbollah financier with sanctions
- Father of slain Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin slams new Israeli plan for Gaza
- Exclusive: Israel's full $1bn wishlist to save Gaza from humanitarian collapse
- Israel stalling visit by Polish national security head citing new Holocaust law
News Summary:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will address the Security Council on February 20, and he is expected to ask the council to grant Palestinians full UN membership. Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Dannon called this address an attempt to "end any possibility of negotiations with Israel." The US has already threatened to cut aid to countries who voted in favor of the UN resolution condemning the US's recognition of Jerusalem, and it would likely veto a Palestinian bid in the Security Council.
The Israeli Air Force bombed a Hamas post last night after a rocket was fired at Israel. The IDF also arrested four Palestinians who crossed from Gaza into Israel carrying knives and a grenade, and the IDF suspects they may have been trying to get arrested to escape the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel has presented a $1 billion humanitarian assistance plan to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip, providing the Palestinian Authority takes over responsibilities for civilian life from Hamas. The plan would focus on desalination, electricity and natural gas infrastructure projects, and upgrading the industrial zone at the Erez border crossing.
Quick Hits:
- Haaretz correspondent Gideon Levy describes his recent trip to Amman in which he took a flight with fellow Israelis to Amman, met with Palestinian artist Tamam al-Akhal, and visited Al-Baqa’a refugee camp. Levy reflects on the state of Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab relations.
- Yossi Verter's piece in Haaretz contrasts Prime Minister Netanyahu's success and status abroad with the trouble he faces at home. Verter discusses possible upcoming elections and the increased role that Meretz hopes to play in the next government.
- Israeli officers arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian girl as an "illegal alien" in East Jerusalem, while she was on a bus begging for money. They sent her to Gaza despite her protests that she and her family lived in the West Bank, because the Civil Administration had her father registered as a Gaza resident. Her father left Gaza in 2000 without an exit-permit and has lived in the West Bank ever since, her mother is registered as a West Bank resident, and she hersef was born in the West Bank and had never been to Gaza. She was reunited with her parents two weeks later. The family's lawyer said that the authorities never bothered to tell her parents she had been released.
- Hundreds of American Jews organized by If Not Now and All That's Left wrote letters of solidarity to Ahed Tamimi, delivering them to her father Bassem, for her birthday on January 31, and demonstrations were held in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC.