

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced Tuesday that it had busted a terror cell, thwarting a planned attack with improvised explosives and guns on Jews praying at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.‘Israel should be annihilated,’ senior Iran aide says
Many Jews visit Joseph’s Tomb, surrounded by Palestinian Authority controlled areas, without coordinating with the IDF, and the cell planned to take advantage of that extra vulnerability.
Terrorists have successfully carried out attacks on such worshipers at the tomb in the past, including the 2011 attack which killed a nephew of former Likud minister Limor Livnat.
According to the Shin Bet, who arrested the cell in conjunction with the IDF, the terrorists' activities were directed and provided arms by Muhammad Darwish, an Islamic Jihad operative in the Gaza Strip.
While the cell-members had clearly carried out initial actions toward perpetrating the attack, it was unclear from the Shin Bet how imminent the attack was or the circumstances of the cell’s arrest.
Each member of the cell had a specific role in the attack, according to the Shin Bet. One of the members was responsible for supplying weapons, another gathered intelligence and two of the operatives were tasked with carrying out the attack.
One of the operatives, Nassim Muhammad Ramadan Rashid Damiri, 30 of the Tulkarm refugee camp, had previously been incarcerated several times in Israel and is known as a Tanzim-Fatah operative.
A senior Iranian official on Tuesday said Israel “should be annihilated,” and that the thawing relations with the West would not translate into a shift in Tehran’s position concerning the Jewish state.IDF ‘more ready than ever’ to strike Iran, security official says
Hussein Sheikholeslam, a foreign affairs adviser to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, told Iranian media that contrary to remarks by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, “Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan.”
Hammond was in Iran on Monday for the reopening of the UK embassy in Tehran, and said that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had indicated a “more nuanced approach” to Israel’s existence. Hammond said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “revolutionary sloganizing” should be distinguished from “what Iran actually does in the conduct of its foreign policy.”
“We’ve got to, as we do with quite a number of countries, distinguish the internal political consumption rhetoric from the reality of the way they conduct their foreign policy,” the Guardian quoted Hammond saying.
The Israeli military is readier now than it ever has been to carry out a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities should it be instructed to do so, a senior security official told Walla news Monday.
“Every year that passes, the IDF improves,” the unnamed official said. “We never stand still. The professional level increases. In the coming year we will receive another submarine, F-35 fighter jets and other platforms. Intelligence is improving as well,” he said.
He noted that Israel’s defensive capabilities against Iranian retaliation were also constantly improving.
But the news site noted that the military option had essentially been suspended in recent years and would not be easily reinstated unless there is a fundamental change in the political landscape, or a serious development in Iran’s alleged progress towards a nuclear bomb.
The Israeli military unlawfully demolished at least 39 structures in Bedouin Palestinian communities in the West Bank on August 17 and 18, 2015. The demolitions left 126 people homeless, 80 of them children. Four of the communities where the demolitions took place are targeted by an Israeli government plan to forcibly “relocate” 7,000 Bedouin.B'Tselem also says that this is against international humanitarian law. The UN had stated that previously and I fisked that UN statement.
Such destruction of private Palestinian property and the forcible transfer of Palestinians violate Israel’s human rights obligations and the laws of occupation. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from destroying private property or forcibly transferring the protected population unless strictly necessary for military reasons. Israel does not claim the demolitions or planned relocations are justified for military reasons.
The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.Under international law, Israel must do everything possible to respect the laws that were in place before the occupation - meaning the laws from the previous Jordanian and British and Ottoman governments.
Under the general rule, as its qualifications ‘all measures in his power’ and ‘as far as possible’ confirm, public order and civil life are not results that must be guaranteed by an occupying power, but only aims it must pursue with all available, lawful and proportionate means. One may argue that the required standard of action is below that with which human rights instruments expect states to comply in fulfilling human rights, in particular social, economic and cultural rights, since, as discussed below, the occupying power is not sovereign and its legislative powers are limited.There is obviously a tension between the Hague provisions to ensure public order and civil life and to "respect, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." But to demand that the latter, written in very strong language, trumps the former, and not doing so is a violation of international law, is clearly wrong.
Israeli air strike hit Joudeh family in their garden. 4 children & mother killed. http://t.co/gcEFrcDfMc #50days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/f6FM4eG1Eo— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 24, 2015
Israeli military drones fired at least one (1) missile at approximately 16:15 on Sunday evening 24/08/2014 at the home of Isam Mustafa Gouda Goud [Joudeh], located near the Shouri Mosque in Tal al-Zaatar in Jabalya in GNG, killing his wife Rawya Ibrahim Mohamed Mohamed Gouda (43) and his children: Tasneem (14), Raghd (12), Mohamed(8) and Usamama (6) injuring a child Thae’r (13) with serious injuries to different parts of his body causing the amputation of his right leg. ... The centers researcher, Isam Gouda reported that the family were targeted as they sat in their garden, while the father was inside the house when he heard a loud whistle and saw smoke and dust filling the garden... Issam cannot find a reason as to why he and his family were targeted by the planes.No militants killed, only women and children. Sounds pretty bad for the IDF.
Polish reporter Wojciech Cegielski spent a month in Gaza during last summer's war. He has no doubt Hamas used people as human shields.Gaza Strip’s middle class enjoys spin classes, fine dining, private beaches
I spent a month in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. It was one of the worst and deadliest months I have seen in my life. The reality there was much more complicated than was seen from a safe distance in Europe or the United States.
Yes, Israel bombed Palestinian houses in Gaza. But Hamas is also to blame for its cruel and selfish game against its own people. I do not have hard evidence but for me, spending a month in the middle of this hell, it was obvious that they were breaking international rules of war and worst of all, were not afraid to use their own citizens as living shields.
The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when I’ve heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting with me a flat near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing.
From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.
When we calmed down, we started to analyze the situation. It became obvious that the man or his supervisor wanted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy civilian houses, which our tiny street was full of. Whoever it was, Hamas, Iz al-Din al-Qassam or others, they knew that the IDF can strike back at the same place from which the rocket was fired. Fortunately for us, the rocket missed its target in Israel.
Alongside the Hamas training camps and bombed-out neighborhoods, there is a parallel reality where the wafer-thin Palestinian middle class here is wooed by massage therapists, spin classes and private beach resorts.Western Media Discovers '5-Star Gaza'
Media images beamed from the Gaza Strip rightly focus on the territory’s abundant miseries. But rising from the rubble of last summer’s devastating war with Israel are a handful of new luxury-car dealerships, boutiques selling designer jeans and, coming soon to a hip downtown restaurant, “Sushi Nights.”
This is the Gaza outside the war photographer’s frame, where families of the small, tough, aspirational middle class will splurge on a $140 seaside villa with generator power to give their kids a 20-hour staycation with a swimming pool and palm trees.
This is the sliver of Gaza, a coastal enclave with the highest unemployment rate in the world, with personal trainers, medium-rare steaks, law school degrees and decent salaries.
The surviving bureaucrats, doctors, factory managers and traders in the middle class who haven’t abandoned Gaza often say they are squeezed between the Israeli blockade, with its tight restrictions on travel and trade, and the Palestinian leadership, including the Islamist movement Hamas, which has controlled the strip since 2007 and has fought three fruitless wars with Israel in six years.
Western media has often been criticized by Israel for only on rare occasions presenting Gaza as anything other than an open-air prison suffering from Israeli blockades, but an unusual glimpse into the glamorous life of Gaza's middle class made its way to light on Sunday.Leading BDS writer courageously condemns Matisyahu ban (then post disappears)
Articles such as an Economist expose in 2012 detailing golden Porsches and Hummer's cruising the streets of Gaza under corrupt Hamas rule were joined by a Washington Post report, revealing on Sunday how the "other half lives" in the terrorist enclave.
The article begins by noting how under-reported the middle class aspect of Gazan life is in Western media, commenting, "this is the Gaza outside the war photographer's frame."
Benjamin Norton is a leading author who favors the boycott movement (BDS) against Israel.
Norton writes for the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website, as well as a slew of other places on the topic of how bad Israel is. While I don’t agree with most of what Norton says, he certainly is prolific and an upcoming opinion-leader in that sphere.
So when I saw Norton pen a column severely criticizing the ban on American Jewish musician Matisyahu at the behest of a Spanish branch of the BDS movement, I was, well, surprised. All the more so because leading American BDS activists like Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal were seeking to justify the ban because Matisyahu was too pro-Israel.
Norton wrote at his own website, Cancellation of Matisyahu’s Performance Blatantly Defies BDS
While I disagree with some of the characterizations — for example, in reality BDS does boycott individuals, and it is not a peaceful movement which seeks justice for all — the overall point was pretty much the point that Zionist supporters of Matisyahu are making: Keep politics out of music, and don’t single out Jews for extra political scrutiny.
Now the post, however, is gone.
That’s a shame. It was a good post.
And it stands in contrast to Norton’s subsequent post at Mondoweiss, which uncritically repeats the party-line by the leader of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, that cancellation of Matisyahu’s appearance was justified because Matisyahu allegedly is a “bigot” (i.e., he is Zionist and supports Israel):
Radical groups like the Islamic State target the vulnerable and alienated. While some in Gaza are attracted to the jihadist ideology, their numbers are extremely low. The failure of the Islamic State to take root here is partly because of nationalist sentiment and the focus of Palestinian demands for freedom from this remote-control occupation and endless siege.Omer is distinguishing betweee the Islamic State and other Gaza groups, calling only IS "jihadist."
President Reuven Rivlin hosted this morning, (Monday,) the regional and municipal heads of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, including chairman of the Judea and Samaria Council, Avi Roeh.Iran Deal Will Trigger Major War in Middle East
President Rivlin welcomed the delegation to his residence and spoke of the recent wave of terror attacks in Judea and Samaria.
“This house is your house, the house of all the citizens of Israel," he began. "Over the past months, and especially over the last few days, the communities of Judea and Samaria have faced very serious terror attacks. And so especially at this time, this meeting is more crucial than ever."
"As always, the pioneers go before the camp," he continued. "It is they who encounter the most opposition and pay, along with the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, the heaviest price."
"The settlements are at the forefront of the struggle, and the price paid by the settlers, is a painful price indeed."
Rivlin then encouraged the IDF to continue its work protecting the people of Israel.
If someone had asked you a year ago what would be the most efficient way to cause a major war in the Middle East, you might well have said: Giving the mullahs in Iran the opportunity to get advanced conventional weapons, ICBMs, nuclear weapons and tens of billion of dollars to fund terrorist organizations and destabilize other countries in the region. You might have argued that a regime that does not hesitate to attack targets in Washington or Berlin might not be the most prudent one to shower with gigantic quantities of money and the deadliest weapons.A warning to Tehran
If one knows anything about the regime in Iran, it is difficult to understand how U.S. President Barack Obama's agreement with Iran could create anything other than chaos and war in the Middle East.
The content of the Iran nuclear agreement creates the perfect conditions for a major war in the Middle East -- one that could spread and start a major regional conflict.
Despite what President Obama likes to say, it is not true that the agreement "permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" or "cuts off all of Iran's pathways to a bomb". The agreement means that the U.S. has accepted that after 15 years, or sooner, Iran may build as many bombs as it likes.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, since its founding in 1979, has had an ideology that seeks to "export the Islamic revolution." The phrase is not just a catchword for the mullahs. They have done it in practice, if necessary by force. After coming to power in 1979, the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called on the Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq to revolt and establish an Islamic republic. The mullahs' effort to export the Islamic revolution to Iraq was one of the causes of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted eight years and resulted in possibly a million deaths. Despite intense resistance from Arab countries, Khomeini's Islamic revolution has been successfully exported to Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
The swift Israeli reaction on Thursday and Friday to the launching of four rockets from Syria at the Galilee and Golan shows how deep is the Israeli intelligence penetration of Iran’s military. It was not the first time that precise and updated intelligence data enabled Israel to prevent terrorist attacks from Syria sponsored by Iran, or to execute attacks against Bashar Assad’s regime, or whatever is left of it.
The rocket launchings – which caused no casualties or damage to property, except sparking fires in open fields – didn’t surprise IDF Intelligence.
They were expecting some sort of an attack against Israel from the Syrian Golan and prepared themselves for the eventuality.
Israel’s response was gradual but fierce. First, Syrian Army positions were attacked with artillery and missiles. Later, a senior Israeli officer revealed sensitive intelligence information by naming a senior Iranian officer and holding him responsible for ordering the rocket attacks. He is Saad Ezadi, in charge of the Israeli desk in the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The military source also said that, although the rockets were fired by members of the pro-Iranian Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, those who ordered it were the commanders of the Quds Force.
Revealing the name of such an important operative is unusual and is aimed at signaling to the Iranians that we know a great deal about them, so they had better watch out.
It was also good intelligence work that enabled the Israel Air Force on Friday to strike the car carrying four or five Islamic Jihad operatives who took part in firing the rockets the night before, hitting them some 15 kilometers inside Syria.
The Quds Force, led by the charismatic Maj.-Gen. Qassen Sulimanie, one of the most influential officials in Iran, already has a forward command post on the Syria side of the Golan. Its goal is to recruit local agents and terrorists who in return for cash would be ready to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel.
21 Aug: Air strike on 3 militants kills/injures many civilians, including kids. Proportionate? http://t.co/zqdLq72LVC http://t.co/4DnCCSAaDN— AIUSA Israel/OPT/PA (@IOTPA) August 21, 2015
All three were top leaders. They are the very definition of valid targets. (Interestingly, Al Akhbar doesn't say a word about the civilians killed.)Hamas suffered a severe blow on Thursday when Israeli warplanes managed to assassinate three of its top commanders. They were: Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum, and Raed al-Attar, who commanded Rafah's military brigade and had been one of the top figures on the occupation army's hit list for a quarter of a century.
According to Israeli intelligence reports, Attar – born in 1974 and a father of two – heads al-Qassam's commando unit and is in charge of smuggling weapons from the Sinai into Gaza. According to Yediot Ahronot, Attar was one of the most powerful Hamas leaders and was in charge of the Rafah region on the Egyptian border. The area is where Hamas built the tunnels, which provided them with the necessary equipment and supplies to build their military capacity.
Informed sources from al-Qassam's leadership told Al-Akhbar that Attar was one of the Brigades’ security masterminds. He was behind dozens of operations, in addition to Shalit's capture. The sources maintained that he supervised and ran the Rafah battle without fear, especially in al-Zanna area to the east, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy.
The sources explained that targeting Attar and two other al-Qassam commanders in Rafah meant that Hamas suffered a serious blow in southern Gaza, due to the military status of the three leaders.
Israel succeeded in eliminating one of the most wanted people on its intelligence lists since 1991. He was 41-year-old martyr Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, aka Abu Khalil; a member of Hamas’s supreme military council, head of the al-Qassam Brigades in South Gaza and one of the founders of the Brigades in the city of Rafah.
...According to Israeli sources, Abu Shamaleh was the most important among those it murdered yesterday. He had been involved in several attacks against the occupation and supervised several operations in Barakin al-Ghadab, Mahfouza, Jardoun, Tarmid, and al-Wahm al-Mutabaddid in which Shalit was captured. He was also a prominent commander in al-Furqan, Hijarat al-Sijjil, and al-Asf al-Makoul battles.
...As soon as the martyrdom of 45-year-old Mohammed Barhoum, aka Abu Osama – one of the most influential al-Qassam Brigades founders in Rafah – was announced, al-Qassam Brigades issued a statement eulogizing him as one of the leaders of the first generation of Brigade members.
..He also planned and organized several suicide operations inside the 1948-occupied territories, until Israel announced its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
The withdrawal allowed Barhoum to assist the Brigades leadership in southern Gaza to design and develop locally-made missiles. According to sources, the martyred commander had a profound impact on the development of the Brigades’ missiles system. This was in addition to his supervision of several tunnels in the far south of Rafah, on the borders with Sinai.
The house of the Rashid Munawar Dawabsheh in Duma village, south of Nablus was set on fire after midnight last night.Then came this:
Spokesman Samir Dawabsheh Dawabsheh said a little while ago that the house caught fire as a result of throwing a Molotov cocktail and that it was caused by arson.
He guessed that the culprit is the invisible hands of the occupation authorities and intelligence.
He added that the fire broke out empty room, with no injuries, only one case had been suffocation.
Local Palestinian sources reported on Monday at dawn the burning of the house in the town Duma southeast of Nablus, without causing any loss of life, while there were suspicions about the settlers.Then:
Official settlements monitr in the northern West Bank Ghassan Daghlas said in a press statement that the burning of the house of Rashid Munawar Dawabsheh was caused by arson, which led to the burning of one of the rooms with a family member injured taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
Palestinian police began an investigation into the circumstances of the incident.
Dahglas pointed out that this incident was similar to that of the incident of the burning house of the family of the martyr Saad Dawabsheh in the same town at the hands of settlers, four weeks ago, where in both incidents it involved throwing burning materials through the house window, but this time the actors did not write on the walls to show their identity .
Dahglas said it was too early to confirm the identity of the perpetrators, calling for caution from rushing to charge the settlers so the occupation cannot take advantage of the incident to acquit settlers for the earlier crime if it is proven they have no connection with the new incident.
Zakaria al-Sadda, official fieldworker for Rabbis for Human Rights, said in a statement, "According to my experience and my follow ups on settler attacks, we can rule out the possibility that they caused the burning of this house, and that the most likely cause is due to an electrical fault."Al-Sadda didn't say that he inspected the house and found evidence for an electrical fire, he said that it is unlikely that settlers did it and therefore it must have been an electrical fire - and not arson.
Chairman of the Duma village Abdul Salam Dawabsheh said that the fire, which broke out in the house of the village at dawn Monday, is likely to be due to an electrical fault, not the settlers as reported in some news.There are photos of children in the hospital so this official who so confidently says that it was an electrical fire is already shown to be lying:
And Dawabsheh told Raya News "that one room of a house belonging to Munawar Dawabsheh burned and is unlikely that settlers were behind it due to the presence of guards," denying injuries.
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