Today’s Top Stories
1. Violence erupted along the Gaza-Israel border with a weekend of rockets and air strikes, but an Egypt-brokered ceasefire has taken hold. Over the course of the weekend, some 200 rockets/mortars were fired at Israel and the IDF struck 40 different targets, including weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, training sites and command centers. Too many developments to summarize so see below for all the details.
2. Unfolding coverage of last week’s Benjamin Netanyahu-Vladimir Putin summit reports that Israel has accepted Bashar Assad rule in Syria in exchange for Iranian and Shiite forces being kept “tens of kilometers” from the Israeli border. The New York Times explains:
With Syrian government forces raising the national flag on Thursday over Dara’a, birthplace of the revolt against Mr. Assad, the endgame of the Syrian civil war seemed to be fast approaching. And with it, time could be running out for Israel to dislodge Iran from Syria by diplomatic means.
Adding to the urgency is a summit meeting on Monday between Mr. Putin and President Trump in Helsinki, where Iran and Syria are expected to be on the agenda. Mr. Netanyahu moved up his meeting in Moscow by several days to make a last pitch to Mr. Putin before the meeting.
But a commitment to keep Iranian forces tens of kilometers from Israel was a far cry from ejecting them completely from Syria, which Mr. Netanyahu has been lobbying Mr. Putin to do. And even that commitment was not confirmed by Russian officials.
Netanyahu conferred with President Donald Trump ahead of the US leader’s meeting with Putin tomorrow.
3. JTA: Prominent British journalist Paul Mason is accused of beating a man protesting against Labour anti-Semitism.
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Israel and the Palestinians
• Here’s the rundown on the weekend violence, based on Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and Times of Israel reports one and two.
-Friday afternoon: IDF officer moderately wounded by grenade thrown by a 15-year-old Palestinian along the Gaza border. The teenager was killed by responding soldiers. In a separate incident, a Palestinian teenager was shot and killed trying to breach the border fence. Israel retaliated with air strikes on Hamas targets in the Strip, including a site used for manufacturing terror balloons
-Friday night: Hamas responded by firing more than 30 rockets. An Israeli family four was all injured when their Sderot home was hit by a rocket. Another mortar hit the courtyard of an empty synagogue.
-Saturday morning: Israel responded by destroying a terror tunnel and other targets including a high-rise building (it was meant to be the Palestinian national library). Hamas continued firing rockets.
-Saturday night: Hamas announced a ceasefire with Israel brokered by Egypt. This ceasefire reportedly includes a gradual stopping of terror kites. (The ceasefire didn’t take hold right away.)
– Sunday morning: IDF gives all clear to southern residents as ceasefire appears to hold. Later in the morning, the head of a Fatah-aligned rocket unit and his 13-year-old son were killed in a “work accident.”
-Sunday afternoon: Israel strikes Hamas cell launching incendiary kites during ceasefire. No reports of further rocket fire.
DISTURBING⚠ #Hamas??☠️ rocket from #Gaza hitting Israeli civilians in the southern town of Sderot. If you're worried too many people might see this, you may relax. Mainstream media never show how #Palestinians start violence. They're more into showing how Israel ends it ? pic.twitter.com/gP8lH64mg7
— Elad Ratson (@EladRatson) July 14, 2018
• PA chief Mahmoud Abbas is taking flak for his World Cup visit amid the Gaza violence.
• “Israeli intelligence suggests that Hamas terrorists have recently begun adding timers to the fire kites and balloons, seeking to delay their combustion in hopes of keeping them airborne for a longer period of time and thereby increasing their range inside Israeli territory,” per Israel HaYom. The report also indicates IDF concerns that Hamas will soon launch exploding drones.
A kite with a timer mechanism landed this week in Moshav ?Shekef, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Gaza ?Strip, raising concerns that Hamas was field-testing their new devices.
• Israeli ambassador urges top UN environmental advocate to condemn Hamas arson attacks. This HonestReporting video recently examined the environmental impact of the terror balloons and kites.
• Congress demands State Department release a secret report that’s said to blow the lid on Palestinian refugees.
• Israel shut down a PA-backed conference in eastern Jerusalem.
The Ministry of Public Security said the conference was deliberately scheduled to take place on the anniversary of a terror attack at the Temple Mount last year, in which Israeli police officers Haiel Sitawe and Kamil Shnaan were killed by three Arab Israeli gunmen who had stashed their weapons on the Mount.
• The Irish government plans to block legislation that would criminalize the import and sale of goods and services from West Bank settlements. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill heads to parliament’s lower house after being approved by the Senate. The minority government opposes the legislation saying that A) it prefers action settlements be in the context of a common European Union policy and B) the bill violates EU trade agreements. Details at the Irish Times (click via Google News).
Mideast Matters
• Israel fired a Patriot missile at a Syrian drone flying in the demilitarized zone running between the two countries on Friday. It’s the second time in less than a week the IDF fired on a Syrian drone.
• The Independent visited injured Syrians hospitalized in Israel, and to displaced Syrians on the border seeking refuge in Israel.
Despite being told there is no place for them in Israel, Syrian families camped close to the Israeli border say if it was permitted they would consider relocating to Israel, even after decades of fierce hostilities.
“Escaping the killing machine of Russia and the militia forces has made us think of allying with what we consider to be the devil. We all think about going to Israel but it is not allowed. Everyone is trying to escape death because the Jordanian border is blocked,” says Ammar, 27, a father-of-two who is in Rafid, on the border.
“It’s strange for us that Israel is more humanitarian than our Arab brothers. I once even heard people saying they hope that Israel would include this area in the Golan,” he adds.
Window Into Israel
• A Knesset committee held an emergency meeting on earthquake preparedness. The Jerusalem Post was on hand as northern mayors, emergency responders and Home Front Command officials described a “grim” state of readiness. More at the Times of Israel.
• The Washington Post takes a closer look at a contentious “Nation-State bill” under Knesset debate. A controversial ‘segregation’ clause was dropped from the legislation.
• Karim Jumhour, the seven-year-old kidnapped Israeli Arab boy, was released after three days in captivity in Ramallah — or, according to the PA, in the Israeli town of Lod(?!) . Reports indicate the boy was kidnapped by relatives or a crime family over a financial dispute with Jumhour’s parents.
Around the World
• Der Spiegel takes a deep dive look at the BDS movement setting its sights on upcoming German cultural festivals. “The development raises the question of where the line is crossed between criticizing Israel as a state and anti-Semitism.”
• Paypal shut down account of major French BDS organization.
• Miami Beach man planned to burn down condo to ‘kill all the Jews,’ police say.
Commentary
• Worth reading: Liel Leibovitz weighs in on the five commandments of not falling for fake news and malicious spins on social media when the next Gaza war inevitably begins.
• Lots of spilled ink and burnt pixels on Netanyahu, Trump and Putin puzzling over Syria:
– Avi Issacharoff: Israel is preoccupied with Iran, and all the kites in Gaza won’t change that
– Herb Keinon: Netanyahu’s high stakes game of chess with Putin in Moscow
– Zeina Karam: Emerging deal on Syria will likely curb, but not end, Iran’s presence
– Yossi Melman: Israel needs Trump and Putin in Syria
– Noa Landau: Russia-Israel deal is clear: Iran away from border, Assad’s rule accepted
– Jonathan Spyer: Is southern Syria heading for ‘Lebanonization?’
– Eliora Katz: Iranians are now chanting ‘Death to Palestine’ (click via Twitter)
– Marc Schulman: Is Netanyahu wise to put all of Israel’s eggs in the Trump-Putin basket?
• Plenty of commentary on the weekend’s Gaza flare up . . .
– Prof. Eyal Zisser: Hamas’ dangerous gamble ?
– Zvi Bar’el: Hamas has a strategy, Israel has only tactics
– Yoav Limor: Hamas wary of full-fledged conflict
– Amos Harel: Israel tries to change rules of the game against Hamas
– Ron Ben-Yishai: How the incendiary balloons and kites could lead to war
• Here’s what else I’m reading this weekend . . .
– Tzipi Livni: Pushing the Palestinian ‘right of return’ doesn’t help peace
– Yoni Michanie: How-many-state solution?
– Bassam Tawil: Why do Palestinian leaders oppose helping their people?
– Yaakov Katz: With Trump as president, why isn’t Netanyahu building more settlements?
– Ehud Rosen: The spider’s web: The roots of BDS and the campaign to delegitimize Israel
– Paul Gross: Jeremy Corbyn and defining anti-Semitism
– Dia Chakravarty: Is Labour still completely blind to the prejudice in its own ranks?
– Sohrab Amari: The Iranian terror state targets Europe
• Last but not least, Hannah Weisfeld responds to UK Labour maven Jon Lansman‘s defense of the party’s controversial definition of antisemitism.
Featured image: CC BY Issac Villanueva; Khamenei via YouTube/ali javid; Assad via YouTube/Asem Saleh; Netanyahu via YouTube/BBC Newsnight; Putin via YouTube/Time; Trump via YouTube/CBS News; Irish flag CC0 Pixabay; Miami CC BY-NC vgm8383; map and puzzle vectors by Vecteezy;
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