Today’s Top Stories
1. Acceding to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ request, the Israeli cabinet decided to reduce electricity to Gaza by 40 percent, putting a squeeze on Hamas. A source told Haaretz:
Military commanders believe that further reductions in the electricity supply to Gaza are likely to hasten escalation in violence. However, the official said that Israeli army officials who participated in the meeting did not advise leniency toward Hamas.
2. The International Red Cross does a lot for Palestinian security prisoners, most recently facilitating an end to a recent hunger strike. Yet Hamas spit in the face of IRC by rejecting a Red Cross request for information about Israelis held in Gaza:
Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou said: “The case of Israeli soldier prisoners is in the hands of the movement and it alone takes decisions over this issue.”
“It will not comply with such demands from the Red Cross,” he added.
The ICRC had called on Hamas to respect it commitments to International Humanitarian Law in regards to its Israeli soldiers. It had demanded that the movement submit a report on their fate.
Head of the ICRC delegation in Israel Jacques de Maio said that regardless if the prisoners were civilians or soldiers, they are all protected by International Humanitarian Law.
Hamas holds two Israeli nationals — both civilians with mental health conditions who are thought to be alive. In 2014, Avera Mengistu, of Ethiopian descent, managed to cross a barbed wire fence into Gaza, while in 2015, Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin, somehow traversed the border.
Hamas also holds the remains of IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in separate incidents during the 2014 Gaza conflict.
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3. A New York Times report on US cyberwarfare against Islamic State also sheds new light on the intelligence President Donald Trump disclosed to Russian diplomats. Haaretz summed up the Israel-angles.
Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.
The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation.
4. Settlement Tourism No Holiday For The Sunday Times: Journalist botches opportunity to bring much-needed context to the issue of settlements.
5. Ignoring Israeli History Won’t Make It Go Away: An Irish commentary omits crucial — and inconvenient — historical facts explaining the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Whether you agree with the idea of settlement enclaves or not, this Haaretz report is going to raise a ruckus in the Knesset, Ramallah, Washington . . .
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior Trump administration officials that in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, Israel will seek to allow isolated settlements that won’t be annexed to its territory to remain in place as enclaves that would be under Israeli sovereignty . . .
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who attended the meeting with Haley, told Haaretz that Netanyahu spoke about adopting a model like the one that exists along the border area of Netherlands and Belgium, in which each country has small enclaves in the other country’s territory.
• Jerusalem Post: A PA official who beat cancer thanks to the treatment he received at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital “donated tens of thousands of shekels for the building of a recovery room in its pediatric oncology department.” Unfortunately, he can only be identified as M.
• Terror attacks in Europe are driving NATO closer to Israel, reports Haaretz.
Around the World
In 2016, Kansas exported $56.7 million in commodities to Israel and imported $83.7 million from Israel, according to the Kansas Department of Commerce.
• Swastika painted inside Star of David on Rio Jewish club’s wall.
• Anti-Semitic graffiti discovered at Virginia Jewish summer camp.
Commentary/Analysis
• Tweet of the day goes to Yair Rosenberg. He was responding to a Mehdi Hasan piece in The Intercept claiming that Israel launched the Six-Day War because it wanted to annex new territory, not because it was under threat.
Actually, the Israeli security cabinet transcripts from the war were declassified this June & showed Israel's gov had no idea war was coming https://t.co/eIfTuFWDcC
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) June 12, 2017
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Ben-Dror Yemini: The occupation festival
– Michael Oren: Six days that helped put Palestinians on the map
– Nadav Shragai: A familiar illusion
– Douglas Murray: When did British voters start rewarding anti-Semitism?
– Wall St. Journal (staff-ed): Hezbollah in the Bronx (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-SA Kamil Porembinski; cyber CC0 Pixabay; Kansas CC BY-SA Wikimedia Commons;
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