| 1 |
Following repeated threats against Israel from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Jerusalem has conveyed “strong warnings” to the Lebanese terror organization, local media reported. The messages, reportedly relayed through the United States and France, warned the Iranian-backed group that further attacks on Israel’s Karish gas field would be met with a strong response by the Israel Defense Forces.
Jerusalem and Beirut, which do not have diplomatic relations, are currently holding indirect talks mediated by the US over the rights to the offshore gas installation and to demarcate a maritime border between the two countries. On Monday, Senior Hezbollah officials threatened to strike Israel’s gas fields.
Karish is at the heart of simmering tensions, which stem from a 2010 dispute over 330 square miles of the Mediterranean Sea that lie along the boundary between the two countries. Israel considers this area part of the northernmost boundary of its territorial waters, while Beirut claims it to be part of its southernmost boundary.
“The Lebanese state is incapable of making the right decision that would protect Lebanon and its riches, therefore the resistance [sic] must take this decision,” Nasrallah told Hezbollah’s Al-Mayadeen TV, stressing: “All of Israel’s gas fields are under threat from our missiles — not just Karish.”
Nasrallah continued: “The ships that extract the gas are Israeli, even if under a Greek banner. If the extraction of gas from ‘Karish’ begins in September before Lebanon gets its rights, we will have a problem.”
Earlier this month, the IDF downed three drones launched by Hezbollah toward the gas rig. The UAVs were found to have been unarmed and are believed to have been a part of a propaganda exercise by the terrorist group.
| 2 |
An Israeli military plane in May was targeted by Russian anti-aircraft fire in Syrian airspace, Defense Minister Benny Gantz revealed on Tuesday. The S-300 missiles missed their mark, he said, calling it a “one-off incident.” According to Gantz, the launch happened when the aircraft “were no longer around.”
Since 2015, Putin has supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and the armed forces of the Russian Federation have become the primary actor in Syria.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force has been forced to carry out airstrikes on Iranian military assets in Syria, in what has become known as the “war between wars” with the Islamic Republic. By sending fighters, weapon systems and other military hardware to areas close to Israel’s border, Tehran is attempting to create a new front with the Jewish state.
To prevent Israel and Russia from clashing inside Syrian territory, Jerusalem and Moscow have in recent years maintained a so-called deconfliction mechanism. Israel’s coordination with Russia is “a situation that is stable right now, I think,” Gantz stated this week. “But we are always reviewing this story as if we only just began it now.”
The defense minister’s announcement came amid diplomatic tensions between Israel and Russia over the former’s condemnation of the war on Ukraine and the latter’s steps to shut down the local branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which facilitates immigration to the Jewish state.
| 3 |
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Tuesday that Israel should be labeled an apartheid state and urged the United Nations General Assembly to establish a committee to verify such a claim.
“The Palestinian narrative evokes experiences of South Africa’s own history of racial segregation and oppression,” Pandor claimed. She reportedly made the accusations at a meeting of Palestinian Authority heads of missions in Africa held in Pretoria, one of South Africa’s three capital cities.
Pandor’s “apartheid” claim comes in the aftermath of reports which charged that Israel should be considered a regime that has committed “the crime of apartheid” against Palestinians.
The most recent report, released in February by Amnesty International, alleged that Israel has for over seven decades sought to establish “Jewish domination and control over specific areas of strategic importance,” while treating Palestinians and Israeli Arabs as “inferior non-Jewish racial group[s].”
HonestReporting has thoroughly debunked the apartheid libel, including in a January 2022 article titled,”‘Apartheid’ Myth: The Improper Use of False and Misleading Claims Regarding Israel.” As we explained, Amnesty and other anti-Israel NGOs had to resort to formulating a totally new definition of apartheid in order to place Israel in the docket.
| 4 |
Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas this month used a call with Pope Francis to incite the Catholic Church against Israel, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) uncovered. According to the report, the PA chairman repeated the libel that the State of Israel “attacks” Christian and Muslim holy sites.
“His Honor [Abbas] updated Pope Francis on the attacks to which the Christian and Islamic holy sites are being subjected, especially the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, both in Jerusalem,” an official PA TV segment translated by PMW stated.
This seems to be an ongoing theme from Abbas, who earlier this year said that the “occupation [Israel] desecrates the sanctity of our holy sites.” In March, he even called on Christians to join the fight against Israel.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, then asserted that there is regular desecration and vandalism of Christian sites in Israel’s capital, as well as rising violence against worshippers. However, police data does not support this claim.
Meanwhile, global Christian charity Open Doors attributed the steep decline of Christians in the region to “Islamic oppression,” explaining that “Islamic extremist militants” in the Palestinian Authority-administered West Bank were causing Christians to fear violent attacks.
Recommended Reading
- UN Official: Social Media Largely Controlled by Jewish Lobby, NGOs (Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post)
- The PA’s True Colors (Jalal Bana, Israel Hayom)
- Counter-Terror Is Working in Judea and Samaria, but What Comes Next? (Yoav Limor, Jewish News Syndicate)
- AI Device Tells You Why Your Baby Is Crying (Simona Shemer, NoCamels)
- When a Jewish Group Fought Antisemitism With Radio Shows and Comic Books (Andrew Silow-Carroll, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
