Edited by: TJVNews.com

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conveyed his condolences to Egypt following the death of his “personal friend” former President Hosni Mubarak, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91.

“On behalf of the citizens and Government of Israel, I would like to express deep sorrow on the passing of President Hosni Mubarak,” Netanyahu stated.

Mubarak, “my personal friend, was a leader who led his people to peace and security, to peace with Israel. I met with him many times. I was impressed by his commitment; we will continue to follow this common path,” the statement read.

He sent his condolences to Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah A-Sisi, to the Mubarak family and to the Egyptian people.

During his 30 years in office, Mubarak maintained a cordial relationship with Israel, which upheld the peace between the two countries but did not develop into a closer and more productive association.

On occasion, Mubarak hosted meetings relating to the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process and served as a broker between them.

The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu added that he sends condolences to Egypt’s current president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, as well as to Mubarak’s family and to the Egyptian people.

The Israeli prime minister was one of the first international leaders to comment on Mubarak’s passing, according to the TOI report.

Israel’s embassy in Cairo took to Twitter to express “great sadness” at the former president’s death.

Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in the village of Kafr el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia. His family, like that of Sadat, and Gamal Abdel Nasser before him, was lower middle class.

After joining the air force in 1950, Mubarak moved up the ranks as a bomber pilot and instructor and rose to leadership positions.

TOI reported that the former Egyptian president maintained close ties with all Israeli leaders. His last meeting with Netanyahu, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, took place in January 2011 — about a month before he was deposed.

Mubarak rose to power after Islamic extremists assassinated his predecessor Anwar Sadat, then steered the nation through the turmoil that buffeted the Middle East with wars, terrorism and religious extremism.

TOI reported that Mubarak, who served as president 1981-2011, maintained a cool peace with Israel and kept Egypt relatively free of the grip of Islamic extremism. He engineered Egypt’s return to the Arab fold after nearly a decade in the cold over its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas mourned Mubarak’s passing “with great sorrow.” He lauded the former Egyptian leader’s “support of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people in achieving their rights to freedom and independence.”

            (TPS & TOI)

By: Baruch Yedid

A Palestinian Authority (PA) court in Hebron convened on Tuesday to discuss a claim filed by a resident demanding that the PA return to his possession a rare collection of coins, banknotes, stamps, research literature and various archaeological finds it had confiscated from him.

The rare collection was confiscated by the PA’s intelligence about a year ago from Anwar Zre’ir, 80, who has devoted his life to research and has accumulated thousands of rare items over the course of 50 years.

Zre’ir, known as Abu Noor, fears that the PA will sell his collection and severely harm his research while concealing the rare historical evidence.

Abu Noor’s relatives told TPS that the PA learned of the existence of the rare collection through an article published on the Al Arabiya Channel about a year and a half ago, and has since repeatedly confiscated parts of the collection.

“Three times the tourist police knocked at his house with an order from the PA’s Antiquities Authority demanding that he hand over the antiques to them and confiscated books of historical value, some of them from the British Mandate,” the Zre’ir family told TPS.

Some evidence suggests that this incident is part of the PA’s efforts to take over archaeological finds and antiquities in the area.

About two years ago, the PA updated its Antiquities Act, stating that any item that preceded 1917 is legally considered an archeological finding. Until the law was amended, the PA relied on a Jordanian law of 1966 that stipulated that only items dated prior to 1700 would be considered antiquated items that the PA can confiscate.

Abu Noor’s associates claim that this is no coincidence, as the PA seeks to place its hand on findings that preceded the beginning of Zionism and the Balfour Declaration for political reasons and to hide evidence of the existence of a political Jewish entity prior to modern Israel.

During the Bethlehem Antiquities Exhibition in 2005, the PA’s Governor of Bethlehem Salah Ta’amari was shocked to find coins from the Greek and Roman periods with evidence of Jewish presence in the area on display. Ta’amari had the findings removed and made sure that they were not presented to the ambassadors and consuls invited to the exhibit.

Since the confiscation of the private collection, the Zre’ir family has accumulated evidence that the PA is investing efforts to put its hand on historical and ancient findings.

It has become clear, for example, that the Hebron Rehabilitation Commission is also a partner to the antique theft and its people are trading in historical findings discovered during the rehabilitation process.

In preparation for Tuesday’s court hearing, the PA invited expert witnesses to determine that the confiscated findings meet the definition of antiquity according to the new law while Zre’ir is struggling to prove that the artifacts confiscated from him are not legally considered archeological artifacts in other parts of the world.

Eitan Melet, who deals with the theft and destruction of archeology, told TPS that the PA’s law amendment “is a very significant change, because the Israeli Antiquities Law, which only applies to finds dating back to 1700 and earlier, will not be able to handle ‘newer’ findings while the Authority applies its law to another 217 years of history and allows it to confiscate ancient artifacts not defined in the Mandatory and Jordanian Law as antiquities. The Authority ousted us through legislation.”

(TPS)

By: TPS Staff

After lagging behind its main rival Blue and White in the polls in recent months, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud has taken the lead just a week ahead of the elections, according to several polls published Monday.

Several polls published in the last 24 hours project that Likud is in the lead with 35 seats, and Blue and White is right behind with 34 seats.

The right-wing block, led by Likud, is projected to receive 57 mandates, still four short of the 61 required to form a government.

Blue and White and the left receive only 44 mandates.

Israel will go out in a week to vote for its leadership, the third time in the past year.

The right-wing and religious parties, who are natural coalition partners, are expressing optimism over the prospects of achieving the 61 required seats and forming a government.

However, political pundits have said that unless some real surprise or miracle occurs, Israel may be forced to face a fourth round of elections.

In December, AP reported that Netanyahu scored a landslide victory in a primary race for leadership of the ruling Likud party, which gave him an important boost ahead of the country’s third election in less than a year.

The strong showing by Israel’s longest-serving leader could give him another opportunity to form a government following the March election, after falling short in two previous attempts this year. By easily fending off Likud lawmaker Gideon Saar, Netanyahu also kept alive his hopes of winning immunity from prosecution after being indicted last month on a series of corruption charges.

“A giant victory,” Netanyahu tweeted early Friday, just over an hour after polls closed.

“Thanks to the members of Likud for the trust, support and love,” he added. “God willing, I will lead Likud to a big victory in the coming elections.”

In a tweet, Saar congratulated Netanyahu and said he would support the prime minister in the national election. “I am absolutely comfortable with my decision to run,” he added. “Whoever isn’t ready to take a risk for the path he believes in will never win.”

Official results released by Likud showed Netanyahu capturing 41,792 votes, or 72%, compared with 15,885 votes, or 28%, for Saar.

In September’s election, both Likud and its main rival, the centrist Blue and White party, were unable to secure a parliamentary majority and form a government on their own.

The two parties together captured a solid majority of parliamentary seats, leaving a national unity government as the best way out of the crisis. But Blue and White has refused to sit in a partnership with Netanyahu when he is under indictment.

Opinion polls predict a similar outcome in the March election, raising the possibility of months of continued paralysis. The country already has been run by a caretaker government for the past year.

Netanyahu, who has led the country for the past decade, maintained his position atop the political right by cultivating an image as a veteran statesman with close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders.

             (TPS & AP)

By: Benjamin Brown

International runners have been barred from competing in the Tel Aviv Marathon, set to take place on Friday, as fears over Coronavirus run high in Israel.

Organizers stated that “as a precaution against the potential spread of Coronavirus,” the Ministry of Health had ordered the ban. Marathon officials are set to contact foreign runners and will refund entry fees, the statement read.

Israel has been on edge following the spread of the virus internationally. On Sunday, the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv reported that a second Israeli had tested positive for Coronavirus having returned home from Japan.

The patient was on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner and returned to Israel early Friday morning. The hospital stated that the patient did not contract the virus in Israel and has been quarantined since returning from Japan.

Meanwhile, around 15 Israelis were among some 3,700 passengers trapped on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in the Japanese port of Yokohama after it was placed under quarantine for two weeks following the discovery of several cases of coronavirus onboard at the beginning of the month.

Dozens of passengers have already been removed from the ship and hospitalized after testing positive for the virus. Two have died of the virus while four Israelis are being treated in hospitals in Japan.

Some 200 people across Israel have been sent into quarantine in their homes after it was discovered over the weekend that a group of South Korean tourists who had recently visited Israel had been infected with the virus. Additionally, 200 South Korean tourists currently in the country are set to be quarantined.

some 30 members of a group of South Korean pilgrims who had recently visited Israel were diagnosed with the virus after returning to their country, where hundreds of civilians have already been infected.

Israel’s Health Ministry launched an investigation to locate the Israelis who may have had contact with the Korean group while it was in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced that Australia and Italy would be added to the list of countries with entry restrictions, joining Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and China. Foreigners who have traveled to any of the listed countries within the past 14 days will be prohibited from entering Israel, whereas Israeli residents will be forced to undergo a 14-day home quarantine.

The Tel Aviv marathon is, ironically, sponsored by South Korean tech giant Samsung.

   (TPS)

By: TPS Staff

Armenia’s Ambassador to Israel Armen Smbatyan, who has to date worked from the Armenian capital Yerevan, is to become the permanent Ambassador to Israel and is expected to arrive in Israel soon.

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian last Tuesday signed an order to amend the decision of March 31, 2018, in which Smbatyan was appointed ambassador to Israel, residing, however, in Yerevan, from where he has worked remotely to this day. According to the Armenian news agency, Armenpress, Smbatyan’s place of residence is to be relocated to Tel Aviv.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Israel were established in April 1992 and, in September 2019, the Armenian government approved the decision to open a permanent embassy in Israel with TPS learning that Armenian diplomats have arrived in Israel in the past days and are preparing the embassy for its opening soon.

In 2016, it was reported that the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee decided to recognize the Armenian genocide at a meeting initiated by Meretz Chairwoman MK Zehava Galon.

“It is our moral obligation to recognize the holocaust of the Armenian nation,” said the committee’s chairman and Shas MK Yaakov Margi.

Israel had previously abstained from recognizing the genocide in order to avoid negative repercussions on its relationship with Turkey. Israel signed a reconciliation agreement with the country following a strain in bilateral relations since the summer of 2010.

Nevertheless, in 2016 MK Margi called upon Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to follow through on remarks he made the previous year at a committee meeting at which he said that he would work to have the Knesset formally recognize the Armenian genocide.

“I will try to promote the issue and I hope that MKs will know the right way to vote at the moment of truth,” Edelstein said in July of 2015.

“I visited one of the Armenian memorial sites and it is very hard to ignore what I saw there,” he continued . “I expect that I and the Knesset behave appropriately so that we can make decisions according to the moral standards of a democratic state.”

MK Galon also lamented Israel’s continued failure to recognize the Armenian genocide.

“Each year we instill false hope in the people sitting here,” said Galon. “It dishonors the Knesset to continue going on and on about this issue, year after year, without reaching a decision that the State of Israel and the Knesset recognize the genocide of the Armenian people.”

Georgette Avakian, chairwoman of the Armenian National Committee in Jerusalem, echoed remarks made by Margi and Galon.

“The Knesset and the president of the State of Israel must recognize the genocide of our people,” she insisted.

Eli Belozerkowski, Israeli Ambassador to Armenia and Moldova told TPS: “We welcome the rise in Israeli-Armenian relations and we welcome the expected arrival of Ambassador Armen Smbatyan in the coming weeks, as well as the preparations for opening a permanent embassy in Israel.”

Speaking to TPS, Belozerkowski added: “It should be noted that last January, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, who attended the main event for the liberation of the Auschwitz Extermination Camp held at Yad Vashem, visited Israel with President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and lectures in several places in the country, including the Technion and the Technological Institute in Holon.”

             (TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) on Sunday night carried out a series of strikes against Islamic Jihad terror targets in the Gaza Strip and in Syria in response to the massive rocket fire launched by Islamic Jihad terrorists at Israel earlier in the evening.

Islamic Jihad terrorists launched a massive barrage of some 30 rockets on civilian targets throughout Israel’s south, sending hundreds of thousands of citizens running for shelter.

About half of the rockets exploded in open space and the rest were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system. No one was directly injured by the rocket fire, but several people were treated for shock and others were treated for injuries incurred while seeking shelter.

In response, the IAF bombed targets in Gaza, including a strike on an Islamic Jihad terror squad that was preparing to fire rockets from Gaza at Israel. four terrorists were reportedly hit.

In Damascus, the IAF hit an Islamic Jihad site the IDF said was “a significant anchor for the terror organization in Syria.”

The site was used for terror-related research and the development of weapons meant for production in the Gaza Strip and for local production in Syria, the IDF said.

In addition, tens of pounds of AP, a material used as rocket fuel, were manufactured each month at the site, and it also served as a training center for terrorists.

The Islamic Jihad said two of their men were killed in the strike.

The Syrian army claims that it “immediately confronted” the missile fired by the IAF “with high competence and destroyed the majority of them before reaching their targets.”

In Gaza, the IAF struck underground infrastructures and sites used to store raw materials used for rocket production in Rafah.

In Khan Yunis, the IAF bombed the regional headquarters which included a compound for training.

The IDF stated that it will “respond firmly to Islamic Jihad terror operations that endanger Israeli citizens and violate its sovereignty.”

The IDF “views the rocket attacks against Israeli territory with severity, is in high readiness and will continue to act as necessary against attempts to harm Israeli civilians,” it stated.

The intense exchange of fire began on Sunday morning when the IDF exposed and targeted an Islamic Jihad cell that was in the process of planting an explosive device meant to hit IDF soldiers operating on the Gaza border fence. Two terrorists were killed and another two were injured in the incident.

Later in the day, an IDF tank and bulldozer confronted Gazans as the IDF recovered one of the terrorists’ bodies, presumably as a bargaining chip for later negotiations with the terrorist organizations.

School on Monday was canceled at various locations in the south, leaving some 65,000 students at home.

The IDF shut down several routes and canceled train travel in the vicinity of the Gaza.

             (TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

A global money-laundering watchdog has announced that it has placed Iran on its blacklist of money-laundering states after the Islamic Republic failed to crack down on its terror funding.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Friday that it blacklisted Iran after it failed to fulfill 10 promises made to pass and enforce laws against financing terrorist groups.

Iran has “significant strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and financing of proliferation,” FATF stated, calling on all members to apply “enhanced due diligence, and in the most serious cases, countries are called upon to apply counter-measures to protect the international financial system from the ongoing money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing risks emanating from the country.”

It is now taking take measures to further discourage and hinder foreign investment in Iran, deepening the country’s already severe economic isolation.

The FATF, an intergovernmental group based in Paris, has given Iran several chances to comply.

Dr. Shlomit Wagman-Ratner, who represented the Israeli delegation at the FATF, welcomed the announcement as “an important and courageous decision, demonstrating the professionalism of the organization and its determination to fight terrorist financing threats.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz added that the decision “of this professional and respected body reflects Iran’s risk to the international financial system.”

Israel “hopes that the international financial system will adopt the FATF decision and the countries of the world will take effective financial preventive measures to protect the global economy from terrorist financing and money laundering threats coming from the Iranian regime,” he added.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commended FATF for calling on members to “re-impose countermeasures needed to protect the world from terrorist financing threats emanating from Iran.”

“Iran must behave like a normal nation or it will continue to pay for its funding of terrorism,” he said.

Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, according to the US State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism for 2018 released in November, a dubious title it has held for several consecutive years.

The report notes that Iran has spent nearly one billion dollars per year to support terrorist groups that “serve as its proxies and expand its malign influence across the globe.”

These groups include Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. The three are bent on Israel’s destruction, and as Tehran’s proxies, act on its eliminationist intentions toward Israel.

Iran has also engaged in its own terrorist plotting around the world, particularly in Europe, the report said.

            (TPS)

By: TPS Staff

The United Nations’ International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has repeatedly ignored complaints submitted by the Israeli Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) over the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) use of child soldiers, in violation of international law.

Most recently, PMW authored an extensive and detailed report to UNICEF describing how the PA recruited child soldiers and terrorists in 2019.

PMW’s report shows how the PA indoctrinates Palestinian children to hate Jews and Israel and brainwashes them to admire murderers and seek Israel’s destruction.

The report further shows how the PA pays substantial financial rewards to the child terrorists.

PMW’s report also shows how the PA leadership openly admits that child terrorists are the PA’s soldiers.

“While UNICEF, overtly and covertly, collaborates with a host of Palestinian NGOs, who provide them with claims of alleged abuses of the rights of the Palestinian children by Israel, UNICEF does nothing to gather information about the PA or other Palestinian terror groups recruitment of children,” PMW said in a statement Monday.

Conversely, UNICEF annually releases its report on “Children and Armed Conflict,” which routinely blames Israel for its alleged maltreatment of Palestinian children.

PMW noted that “the way to protect Palestinian children from conflict is not to criticize Israeli law enforcement. It begins with identifying the clear factors that drive the Palestinian minors to participate in violence and terror,” and listed six steps to prevent such occurrences.

The recommendations include a demand of the PA that it “immediately desist from indoctrinating Palestinian children to hate Jews and Israel, and to believe in the destruction of Israel,” and that it “immediately desist from paying financial rewards to the child terrorists.”

PMW submitted the report to UNICEF, which has so far failed to respond.

Maurice Hirsch, head of legal strategies at PMW, pointed out that the report “explains why Israel is required to take law enforcing measures against the Palestinian minors, who are being indoctrinated and recruited by Palestinian leaders to be child soldiers and to engage in terror attacks against Israelis.”

Itamar Marcus, director of PMW added that “if UNICEF had any serious concern for Palestinian children, it would not criticize Israel for arresting child terrorists, but would thoroughly condemn the PA for creating child terrorists. The indoctrination, brainwashing and rewarding of child terrorists by the PA is clear child abuse by the PA leaders.”

The Israeli watchdog concluded by stating that it “is hopeful that with this report before them, UNICEF will finally acknowledge and condemn the recruitment of child soldiers/terrorists by the PA that PMW has been documenting for years, and thereby fulfill both their obligation to the international community as well as to Palestinian children.”

(TPS)