Israelis
Settlers in occupied West Bank agree to evacuate illegal outpost
Israeli settlers who constructed an unapproved outpost near Beita in the occupied West Bank said they have agreed to withdraw from the site. Tensions in the occupied West Bank reached new highs in the past months with the Evyatar settlement being one of the focal points of clashes as settlers refused to evacuate the land and Palestinians demonstrated against their presence. Several Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded by Israeli forces supporting the illegal settlers. According to a statement on Wednesday by the Samaria Regional Council, a settlers’ organisation, the Israelis are due to leave by Friday following a compromise offered to them by the Israeli government. The Samaria Regional Council also reportedly said the settlement’s structures will not be demolished, but rather...
Ramadan: Israel, Palestinians clash on Gaza border as Jerusalem violence continues
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Saturday drawing retaliatory air strikes, the Israeli military said, after nightly Ramadan clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police had resumed in Jerusalem. The pre-dawn exchange of fire broke months of relative quiet on the Israel-Gaza frontier, though it did not appear to signal a wider escalation after the military said it was not imposing any safety restrictions on Israelis living near the border. In Jerusalem, Israeli-Palestinian tension has been higher than usual during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Protests turned violent on Thursday with scores of arrests and injuries. The unrest resumed on Friday night, when Palestinian youths gathered outside the walled Old City and scuffled with hundreds o...
Israeli study: South African coronavirus variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine
The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit. But among patient...
Israeli court limits use of spy agency to track coronavirus cases
Israel’s top court ruled Tuesday the government must curb its use of the domestic spy agency to track coronavirus infections, saying “draconian” surveillance constituted a blow to democracy. The government began using the Shin Bet’s surveillance technologies in March 2020, when Covid-19 infections began to spike. But the supreme court quickly blocked such practice, saying legislation was needed to authorise the programme. Tracking was discontinued in June but the following month, amid another infection surge, parliament passed a law allowing the surveillance when “an epidemiological investigation cannot be completed otherwise”. Initially approved for three weeks, that has measure has been repeatedly extended since while details of how information was obtained were kept secret. Critics crie...
Israel plans to reopen restaurants in March, restart tourism with Cyprus
Israel plans to reopen restaurants around March 9 and restart tourism with Cyprus as part of a gradual return to normality thanks to a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, officials said on Sunday. With more than 41% of Israelis having received at least one shot of Pfizer Inc’s vaccine, Israel has said it will partially reopen hotels and gyms on Feb. 23 to those fully inoculated or deemed immune after recovering from COVID-19. To gain entry, these beneficiaries would have to present a “Green Pass”, displayed on a Health Ministry app linked to their medical files. The app’s rollout is due this week. Nachman Ash, the national pandemic-response coordinator, said the reopening of hotel dining rooms, restaurants and cafes would happen “around March 9”. “We want to open gradually, carefully so we don’...
ICC ruling brings hope for Palestinians, dismay for Israelis
Many Palestinians see a ruling by the International Criminal Court that it has jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories as a belated chance of justice for victims of Israeli attacks. But for many Israelis, Friday’s ruling is worrying because they say they are the “good guys” defending themselves against Palestinian violence. The ruling, delivered by a pre-trial chamber of three ICC judges, could lead to criminal investigations of Israel and Palestinian militant groups including Hamas. No probe was expected in the near future, however. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she would now examine the decision and pointed to the 2014 Gaza war between Israel and militant groups in Hamas-controlled Gaza, the 2018 Gaza border protests and Israeli settlements in occupied territory. In Khan Youni...
