Middle East Update

IDF troops killed a senior Hamas commander in Gaza on August 22 as a group of armed Palestinians approached the border fence. This comes a day after the deaths of two children and three gunmen during a clash between IDF troops and Palestinian militiamen in the same border area. In Tuesday’s (August 21) disputed incident, [...]

P.A. chairman Abbas charged on August 22 that the IDF’s stepped-up operations to counter terror cells in Gaza are threatening the peace process. Israel has intensified its anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip over recent days, carrying out airstrikes on Hamas and other radical militias that have left six Palestinians dead, including [...]

Following a counter-terrorism operation in central Gaza on Monday August 20, in which six enemy gunmen were killed by IDF ground troops, Hamas threatened that it may soon use weapons far more dangerous and lethal than the Kassam rocket.

An IAF helicopter struck a car full of Islamic Jihad terrorists between Khan Younis and the Kissufim Crossing Tuesday August 21, killing at least three terrorists. Six Hamas terrorists were killed and one more wounded in an air strike on their pick-up truck as it drove though central Gaza’s al-Bureij neighborhood Monday [...]

The largest chartered flight of the summer filled with new immigrants (olim) from North America touched down Tuesday morning at Ben Gurion International Airport. With help from the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization, 225 North American Jews arrived to make their new home in their ancient homeland. More [...]

By Eitan Ben Eliyahu, ynetnews.com
The Brodet Committee was persuaded to substantially increase the IDF defense budget. To this end, it recommended boosting the defense budget to NIS 70 billion (roughly $15 billion) over the course of the next ten years, and relied on coming up with resources totaling NIS 30 billion (roughly $7 billion) from [...]

Preparations are underway for the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism, and groups such as NGO Monitor and UN Watch are warning that the 2009 conference will be a repeat of the disastorous 2001 conference held in Durban, South Africa, which labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and equated Zionism with racism.

According to a recent survey published in the quarterly journal Foreign Policy, some 14% of foreign policy elites in the US do not believe that Israel plays a crucial role in US security interests, a higher figure than past findings. The survey is one of several indicators of a recent intellectual trend that looks negatively [...]

The European Union on Tuesday August 21, announced it would resume payments to Israeli companies for fuel supplies provided to Gaza power stations that generate electricity for the crowded coastal Strip.

Syria has reportedly taken delivery of the first round of Russia’s advanced Pantsyr-S1E anti-aircraft missile and artillery defense systems. Previously, Russia and Syria signed an agreement to transfer 50 systems for $900 million; however, other sources report 34-36 systems. The Israeli military is concerned the new system can down Israel’s best jet fighters even while [...]