US money transfer sites used in Dubai assassination: report
JULY 31,10 1:00PM
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US websites that allow employers to transfer money to far-flung employees may have been used to secretly finance the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, a US newspaper reported Saturday.The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that US investigators cooperating with Dubai police believe several US-based companies were used to cover the tracks of whoever funded the January operation.The murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of Hamas, was carried out by a team of undercover assassins that Dubai alleges were dispatched by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.Israel has said there is no evidence linking it to the assassination, but the Journal pointed out that the case is delicate for the United States, which is a key Israeli ally but also has good relations with Dubai and the United Arab Emirates as a whole.The newspaper, citing unnamed US and international investigators, said there was no indication that companies used to transfer money to the assassins knew of their role in the plot.Instead, US investigators believe, suspects might have posed as freelancers in order to get money in a way that obscured their funding source, and used the money for operational expenses, such as buying plane tickets,the Journal said.The money was loaded onto pre-paid credit cards by online payment companies that are often used by firms that need to pay workers in remote locations where it can be difficult to cash checks or wire payments, the newspaper said.The report said it was unclear how US investigators had managed to trace the suspected money transfers.
Dubai earlier this year identified 13 US-issued pre-paid card accounts, but all those linked to the cards had used false passports.Mabhuh was found dead in his room in the Al Bustan Rotana hotel near Dubai airport on January 20. He had been drugged and then suffocated.Dubai police released extensive surveillance camera footage afterwards that they said showed a team of 27 suspected assassins linked to Mossad.
Obama warns Abbas against failure to resume direct talks
JULY 31,10
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – US President Barack Obama has warned Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas that failure to resume direct peace talks with Israel could undermine US-Palestinian ties, Palestinian officials said on Saturday.
Obama made the warning in a letter to Abbas but also pledged to rally Arab, European and Russian support for the Palestinians if direct negotiations resume, a Palestinian official told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity.In the letter, President Barack Obama warned president Mahmud Abbas that his refusal to enter into direct negotiations with Israel next month will have consequences for American-Palestinian relations, the official said.The 16-point letter had a carrot-and-stick approach, he added.Obama stressed it is high time to resume direct negotiations with Israel and told Abbas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to resume direct negotiations.The letter warned that Obama will absolutely not accept the rejection of his recommendation to move to direct negotiations and that there will be consequences for such a rejection in the form of a lack of trust in president Abbas and the Palestinian side,the official said.Obama pledged that his administration would work to extend a partial Israeli moratorium on Jewish settlements due to expire in September if Abbas resumes direct negotiations, he added.But in case of a refusal its assistance on that issue will be very limited, he said, quoting from the letter in Arabic.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat confirmed to AFP that Abbas received a letter from the US president on July 16.
The president received on July 16 a letter from Obama in which he calls on the Palestinians to enter into direct negotiations and that these negotiations will lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Erakat said.In the letter Obama assured Abbas that the US administration will strive to put an end to (Jewish) settlements if direct peace talks go underway but that its role would be less if this does not happen, Erakat said.The revelation comes after the Arab League agreed in principle on Thursday to the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, stressing however that Abbas had the final word on whey they should start.The Palestinian official who declined to be named said Obama expects direct peace talks to begin at the onset of August and to address thorny issues such as borders and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.Abbas, who is holding US-brokered indirect talks with Israel, has conditioned going into face-to-face talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a raft of demands rejected by Israel.He wants a complete end to settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967, and has said negotiations on a Palestinian state's borders must be based on the pre-1967 borders.He has threatened to turn to the UN Security Council if there is no progress on his demands by September, when the four-month indirect talks with Israel are due to end.
Israeli air strike kills Hamas commander in Gaza
By Nidal al-Mughrabi - JULY 31,10
GAZA (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike has killed a Hamas military commander and rocket-maker in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist group that rules the Palestinian territory said on Saturday.Issa Batran, whose caravan was hit by a missile, was the first Hamas commander killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza since Israel wound up a three-week military offensive there in January 2009.
Hundreds of Hamas supporters attended his funeral.
The Israeli military said it launched air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza after a rocket fired from the enclave exploded in the city of Ashkelon.The air strikes also hit a training camp used by Hamas and smuggling tunnels along Gaza's southern border with Egypt. Several people were wounded by debris, Palestinian medics said.Hamas said Batran was a rocket-maker and the head of its military wing in the central Gaza Strip. The militant group has a rocket arsenal of crude, homemade projectiles and longer-range rockets smuggled in through tunnels under the border with Egypt.Batran escaped an Israeli attack on his house in January 2009 during a devastating military offensive aimed at stopping daily rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli cities. His wife and children were killed in the attack.Israel carried out the air strikes on Friday after militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on Israel's Mediterranean coast, blowing out the windows of an apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area.No one was injured by the blast, which police said was caused by a 122mm, Chinese-made Grad rocket. But the attack ended more than a year of calm for the Israeli city closest to Gaza.It was the most serious attack on Ashkelon, which has a population of 125,000 and lies on the coast about 12 km (7 miles) north of the Gaza Strip, since Israel ended a three-week military offensive in Gaza in January 2009.The offensive largely ended rocket fire into Israel from the Gaza Strip.(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Joseph Nasr, editing by Jon Hemming)
Syrian, Saudi leaders tackle tension in Lebanon
By Yara Bayoumy – Fri Jul 30, 5:41 pm ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Lebanon's rival leaders on Friday to stave off a crisis over a tribunal that may indict Hezbollah members in the killing of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri.
Hariri's 2005 assassination set off a huge political tremor in Lebanon, where the repercussions are still playing out five years later. The dramatic joint Saudi-Syrian visit to Beirut demonstrated urgent Arab concern to calm tensions in Lebanon.
A statement from the Lebanese presidency said the leaders had discussed ways to reinforce national accord and Lebanon's stability and stressed the need to avoid violence.Assad and Abdullah are alarmed by the political ferment set off by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah this month when he said Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri had told him the tribunal would indict rogue Hezbollah members for his father's killing.Nasrallah says Lebanon must reject any such indictments from the tribunal, which he calls an Israeli project.Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, who was at the meeting, said the issue was raised during the closed-door talks.The (meeting) discussed the tribunal decision ... and how it will reflect on the situation in Lebanon, he told Reuters.We consider this a very sensitive and dangerous subject, (that is) putting the tribunal under Israel's service against the resistance.Hariri, a Saudi ally whose unity cabinet includes Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian factions, supports the U.N.-backed tribunal's efforts to bring his father's assassins to justice.The Hague-based tribunal says talk of indictments is speculation and the prosecutor will file them when he is ready.Disputes between a Hariri-led alliance and Hezbollah brought Lebanon close to renewed civil war in 2008, when the Shi'ite guerrillas briefly overran Beirut. But a Qatari-brokered deal backed by Damascus and Riyadh has provided relative calm since.Lebanese political analyst Suleiman Taqi al-Deen said the Saudi-Syrian visit was important, exceptional and pre-emptive.It is the first time it happens before a situation in Lebanon explodes. It is an understanding to defuse the Lebanese problem because if it explodes its consequences will be very dangerous on the region, he told Reuters.
FLURRY OF TALKS
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman held talks with the visiting Saudi and Syrian heads of state and then hosted a lunch attended by Lebanese politicians.In side meetings, Abdullah visited Hariri's house, Assad conferred with pro-Syrian Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem met Hezbollah lawmakers.Motorcades then whisked the heads of state, who had arrived together on a Saudi aircraft from Damascus, back to the airport, before the scheduled arrival of the Emir of Qatar.Interior Minister Ziad Baroud told reporters that more work would be needed to build on the summit in Beirut. The challenges in the region are very big. So this kind of embrace at the highest levels is necessary, he said. Assad's visit was his first to Beirut since the bombing that killed Hariri and sparked an outcry in Lebanon. Pressure from the United States, France and Saudi Arabia eventually forced Assad to end Syria's 29-year military presence in its neighbor. Hariri, then leading a broad anti-Syrian coalition, at first accused Damascus of killing his father. U.N. investigators also implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials. Syria denies any hand in the elder Hariri's assassination or later political killings of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon. Since he became prime minister last year, Hariri has dropped his anti-Syrian rhetoric and has visited Damascus several times to forge a rapprochement with Assad, who has also improved relations with Western powers and developed close links with Turkey. The Saudi monarch was last in the Lebanese capital for a 2002 Arab summit, when he was still Crown Prince, and he is the first Saudi king to come to Lebanon for decades.
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Mark Heinrich)
U.N. rights body tells Israel to end Gaza blockade
Fri Jul 30, 9:57 am ET
GENEVA (Reuters) – Israel must lift its military blockade of the Gaza Strip and invite an independent, fact-finding mission to investigate its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a United Nations rights body said on Friday.The U.N. Human Rights Committee also told Israel to ensure that Palestinians in the occupied territories can enjoy the fundamental civil and political freedoms that Israel had pledged to uphold in the main international human rights treaty.Israel maintains that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, although it says that the treaty does apply to Jewish settlers there, committee member Christine Chanet said.There are no Israeli settlers in Gaza itself.In Israel's written responses to the committee, one could see a total discrimination in the sense that settlers benefited from the pact, she told a news briefing.We have maintained our position on the applicability of the covenant. We are stronger because the International Court of Justice has said we were right on this position, she added, referring to the World Court's 2004 advisory opinion.
Chanet, a former French judge and international human rights expert, said: It is very difficult to have a real dialogue (with Israel).
AID FLOTILLA
The committee's non-binding recommendations add to pressure on Israel to explain what happened in its attack on May 31 on an aid flotilla in which nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed, damaging relations between Israel and Turkey.
Israel admitted errors in planning the raid but justified the use of lethal force saying its marines came under attack from activists wielding knives and clubs. Activists deny this.There was no immediate reaction from Israel on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath but the government has repeatedly condemned the U.N. human rights bodies in Geneva as biased.The recommendations are the latest in a series of reports and sessions in which Israel has been on the defensive at the United Nations over its policies in Gaza and the West Bank.On July 23, another U.N. rights forum, the Human Rights Council, appointed a team of international experts to investigate the raid on the flotilla and called on all parties to cooperate.The committee is a body of 18 independent experts, mainly prominent in international and human rights law, that monitors the implementation of the Covenant by the 166 countries including Israel that have signed up to it.The recommendations on Israel's regular report to the committee on its compliance included calls for investigations into human rights abuses including killings in Israel's military offensive in Gaza between December 27, 2008, and January 18, 2009.Israel should also refrain from holding criminal proceedings against children in military courts, the committee said.There are hundreds of children (being held),Chanet said.The committee also told Israel to end extra-judicial executions of terrorist suspects, make torture illegal, end construction of settlements in the occupied territories, stop building a wall cutting off some of the territories from other regions, and stop destroying homes as a collective punishment.It asked Israel to say in its next report due by July 2013 what action it had taken on these and other recommendations. (Reporting by Jonathan Lynn and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Israel skeptical on Iran sanctions
Fri Jul 30, 8:51 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Israel is skeptical that a new round of sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program will be effective, but there is still time for them to work, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday.They're determined to get nuclear military capability. We see it, he said on MSNBC's Morning Joe television program. I don't believe that sanctions will work.But he said that despite skepticism, Israel was willing to give the latest round of United Nations pressure on Tehran more time to have an effect.I think that the essence of it we still believe it's still time for sanctions, to see whether they're working. But as I said, we have to realize, we cannot wink in front of tough realities, however tough they might be.The Security Council slapped a fourth set of sanctions on Iran in June over Tehran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment work, the most sensitive part of the country's controversial nuclear program, which many nations fear masks a drive for nuclear weapons.Barak said Israel was pleased that sanctions were eventually agreed to after extensive negotiations in the Security Council, but he said the consensus text was somewhat diluted to get a wider foreign support.We say all the way there should be an extremely effective sanctions. If they don't work, we recommended to our friends always not to remove any option from the table. We do the same for ourselves, he added.Iran said Friday it was ready to return to the table for talks with the United State, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel, adding it was against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.But Barak warned that Tehran has previously played for time, and cautioned that Iran was engaged in a sophisticated dance.They move. They stop. They open. They close. They go two steps to the right and then once again forward, backward, whatever. They're determined to get nuclear military capability. We see it,he said.
Arabs agree to Israel-Palestinian talks
by Samer al-Atrush – Thu Jul 29, 3:40 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Arab officials agreed in principle on Thursday to the holding of direct Middle East peace negotiations and left it up to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to decide when to start talks with Israel.Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been under pressure from Washington to move forward, and the announcement prompted Netanyahu to express openness to starting talks in the next few days.The United States said it was encouraged by the news from Cairo, while Abbas's rivals Hamas rejected it and his own aides stood firm on his demands.Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani made the announcement after chairing the meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo.He spoke in response to a question about whether they had given Abbas a green light to start talks.I'll be clear. There is an agreement but with the understanding of what will be discussed and how the direct negotiations will be conducted. And we will leave the assessment of the position to the Palestinian president as to when the conditions allow the beginning of such negotiations, he said.The meeting drafted a letter to US President Barack Obama which laid out the general principles of peace talks.Arab League chief Amr Mussa said written guarantees were required for direct talks.There must be written guarantees ... and the negotiations should be serious and final status talks,he said.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the letter included demands that Israel first halt settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem and agree to its 1967 frontiers as the starting point of the discussion of final borders.The Arabs demanded in their letter to Obama that the reference point of the Palestinian state be the 1967 borders, with agreed-upon exchanges of land and a halt to settlements,he said.Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, annexing the latter in a move not recognised by the international community. It views the entire city as its eternal, undivided capital.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Palestinian position has Arab and international support, and we want there to be an Israeli response that allows for the creation of a suitable climate to go to direct negotiations.In Jerusalem, a statement from Netanyahu's office said: In response to the Arab League decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he is ready to start, already in the next few days, direct and frank talks that with the Palestinian Authority.In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said we're encouraged by what we've heard today coming out of Cairo.But the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, slammed the position of Arab ministers, saying it rejects any Arab call to resume negotiations with the occupation and considers it a grave political error.Abbas has conditioned the talks on an Israel guarantee for Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders between the Jewish state and east Jerusalem and the West Bank.He also wants an end to settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel acceded to US pressure to limit settlement building in the West Bank until September, when a moratorium ends. The Palestinian leader repeated his conditions on the eve of the meeting in an interview with Egyptian newspaper editors, the official Egyptian MENA news agency reported on Thursday. Abbas said he would tell the meeting that if there was no serious vision relating to the 1967 borders and an end to settlements then I cannot enter direct negotiations,adding he would immediately enter negotiations if his demands were guaranteed.He complained about pressures I have never faced before in my life from Washington and the European Union. Abbas suspended direct negotiations with Israel after its offensive on the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008 in response to rocket fire.
Gaza lingerie shops eyed by Hamas police
Wed Jul 28, 1:16 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Hamas on Wednesday announced new regulations on shops selling women's clothes as part of a campaign to safeguard public morality in its Gaza enclave.The police said shops selling women's clothes must not have dressing rooms or tinted windows, and that the mannequins on display out front must be modestly dressed.It is absolutely forbidden to place any photographic device inside the shop and it is forbidden to display revealing clothes in front of the shop,a statement said.The edict came nearly two weeks after Hamas banned women from smoking water pipes in public places and is the latest step taken by the Islamist movement to crack down on the mingling of the sexes in the conservative territory.Hamas denies seeking to impose Islamic law in Gaza, which has always been a conservative society, and has only taken a few limited steps to enforce modesty since it seized power in June 2007.Last year it ordered women lawyers to wear the hijab, or Muslim headscarf, in court and banned women from riding on motorcycles. It has also banned men from working in women's beauty salons.
Israeli police, Palestinian youths clash in east Jerusalem
Tue Jul 27, 3:26 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli police and some 200 Palestinian youths clashed on Tuesday in a part of occupied east Jerusalem where a controversial Israeli archaeological project is underway, an AFP photographer reported.Police and border guards fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the demonstrators, some of whom were throwing rocks, witnesses said. Five Palestinians were reportedly injured, and one arrested.A police spokesman said calm was restored after local Palestinian officials called on the demonstrators to disperse, adding that no arrests were made.Palestinians are angered by an Israeli plan to raze 22 Arab homes to make way for an archaeological park, and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has urged Washington to block the controversial project.The park, which is planned for a crumbling Arab neighbourhood just outside the walls of the Old City, was approved by Jerusalem city council in Junein a move that drew criticism both at home and abroad.Washington has warned that it undermines trust and could hinder the indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that started in May.
Gan Hamelech, the Hebrew name for the area outside the Old City, is known as Al-Bustan to its mostly Arab residents.Under the plan, 22 homes would be razed, while another 66 would be legalised. The 88 homes all had been slated for demolition because they were built without Israeli permits.Al-Bustan is part of the so-called Holy Basin and is believed to be the site of ancient Jerusalem during the time of the biblical kings David and Solomon.It is now a crowded Arab neighbourhood in a part of the city seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised internationally.Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem as its eternal and indivisible capital while the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
Natural gas could lead to new Lebanon-Israel war By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 27, 6:31 am ET
BEIRUT – The discovery of large natural gas reserves under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean could potentially mean a huge economic windfall for Israel and Lebanon, both resource-poor nations — if it doesn't spark new war between them.The Hezbollah militant group has blared warnings that Israel plans to steal natural gas from Lebanese territory and vows to defend the resources with its arsenal of rockets. Israel says the fields it is developing do not extend into Lebanese waters, a claim experts say appears to be correct, but the maritime boundary between the two countries — still officially at war — has never been precisely set.Lebanon's need for the resistance has doubled today in light of Israeli threats to steal Lebanon's oil wealth, Hezbollah's Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine said last month. The need to protect the offshore wealth pushes us in the future to strengthen the resistance's capabilities.The threats cast a shadow over what could be a financial boon for both nations, with energy companies finding what appear to be substantial natural gas deposits in their waters.Israel is far ahead in the race to develop the resources. Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel's energy needs for the next two decades.In June, the U.S. energy company Noble Energy, part of a consortium developing the fields, predicted that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field — Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.Israel relies entirely on imports to meet its energy needs, spending billions to bring natural gas from Egypt and coal from a variety of countries. So just freeing the country from that reliance would have a major impact.
When Tamar begins producing it could lower Israel's energy costs by a $1 billion a year and bring $400 million a year in royalties into government coffers. That suggests a total of about $40 billion in savings and $16 billion in government revenues over the total yield of the field. Those numbers would only rise as Leviathan comes on line.Israel's always looked for oil, said Paul Rivlin, a senior research fellow with Tel Aviv University's Dayan center.But I don't think it ever thought of itself as becoming a producer. And now that you've got a high-tech economy that's doing quite well, this comes as an added bonus.Hezbollah's warnings, however, quickly followed the announcement by Houston, Texas-based Noble Energy.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, warned that Israel is turning into an oil emirate while ignoring the fact that the field extends, according to the maps, into Lebanon's territorial waters.Israel's Petroleum and Mining commissioner at the National Infrastructure Ministry Yaakov Mimran, called those claims nonsense,saying Leviathan and the other two fields are all within Israel's economic zone.Those noises occur when they smell gas. Until then, they sit quietly and let the other side spend the money, Mimran told the Israeli daily Haaretz.Maps from Noble Energy show Leviathan within Israel's waters. An official with Norway's Petroleum Geo-Services, which is surveying gas fields in Lebanese waters, told The Associated Press that from Noble's reports there is no reason to think Leviathan extends into Lebanon. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his company to speak on the subject.The rumblings are worrisome because Israel and Hezbollah each accuse the other of intending to spark a new conflict following their devastating 2006 war. That fighting, in which Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid sparked a massive Israeli bombardment, killed about 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.Since then, there has been a rare interval of peace. Hezbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran, has not fired a rocket into Israel since. Israeli officials, however, say they believe Hezbollah has managed to triple its prewar arms stockpile to more than 40,000 rockets.The warnings from Hezbollah and Berri could be as much for domestic consumption as directed as Israel, aiming to press for the passage of a long-delayed draft oil law, needed before any Lebanese fields can be developed.Oil and gas exploration has been a source of disagreement between Lebanese politicians over the past decade. The change of several governments and disputes over what company should do the surveying have caused delays. In October, Petroleum Geo-Services said fields in Cypriot and Lebanese waters may prove to be an exciting new province for oil and gas in the next few years, noting signs of deposits in Lebanon, though their size is still not known. It is very encouraging for Lebanon, the PGS official told AP.
Any finds could help Lebanon's government pay off what is one of the highest debt rates in the world, at about $52 billion, or 147 percent of the gross domestic product. Israel and Lebanon are among the few countries in the Middle East without substantial, lucrative natural resources. Israel has built a place for itself with a powerful high-tech sector, while Lebanon has boomed in recent years with tourism and real estate investment. While the gas may not transform them into Gulf-style spigots of petro-cash, it would be a major boost.Rivlin doubts Israel could become a significant exporter, saying nearby countries don't need or aren't willing to buy from it, and the costs of liquifying gas for transport to further markets like Europe may be prohibitive. But Eytan Gilboa, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, said that with the world so hungry for energy, Israel won't have a problem finding buyers. But the development raises security worries, as the offshore gas infrastructure could become a target. During the 2006 fighting, Hezbollah succeeded in hitting Israeli warships off Lebanon with its rockets. Once those rigs start producing gas, it's going to be difficult to secure them, Gilboa said.So on the one hand, you reduce dependency on imports in times of crisis, but at the same time, you make yourself vulnerable because those sites are exposed.Associated Press Writer Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
Israel to hit Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks: defense minister
Mon Jul 26, 6:26 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Monday that Israel will strike directly at Lebanese institutions if the militant group Hezbollah launches rockets at Israeli town.Barak, who held talks in Washington on Monday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made clear in an interview that his government will not tolerate any more Hezbollah attacks.If Hezbollah fires a rocket into Tel Aviv, we will not run after each Hezbollah terrorist or launcher, Barak told The Washington Post.We will see it as legitimate to hit any target that belongs to the Lebanese state, not just to Hezbollah, he added.When asked to comment on the Barak interview, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said: Israel has a right to self defense. Obviously we'd rather see a launch of peace talks rather than rockets.Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has said Israel is trying to justify a war against Lebanon that it could launch when it wishes and has complained of Israeli surveillance flights over Lebanese territory, The Post pointed out.Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have escalated amid reports that Lebanese activists plan to dispatch aid ships to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip despite an Israeli blockade, the newspaper said.Barak called the aid ships an unnecessary provocation, according to The Post.
France upgrades diplomatic ties with Palestinians By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jul 26, 12:55 pm ET
PARIS – France is upgrading its diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Territories to try to spur international efforts toward creating a Palestinian state, the French foreign minister said Monday.Bernard Kouchner said the Palestinian diplomatic representation in France — which was called a delegation and headed by a general delegate — will henceforth be considered a mission headed by an ambassador, chief of mission.The French government said the decision concerns the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas — and notably does not mention the Gaza Strip, ruled by the militant Hamas since 2007.Similar upgradings are under discussion in Spain and Greece, Deputy Palestinian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Khreisheh said in a telephone interview. He said the United States made a similar move last week, upgrading the Palestinian presence from a PLO media office in Washington to a Mission of Palestine in Washington. The change enables the Palestinians to raise their flag there for the first time, Khreisheh said.The move appeared to be largely symbolic, with a counselor at the Palestinian mission welcoming the change while acknowledging it will not alter the mission's functions.
Kouchner said the change in status was aimed at supporting efforts to create a Palestinian state and guarantee its credibility.Only the extremists profit from the status quo. The moment has come to shake things up, Kouchner's statement said. If we wait, we will make the chances for peace retreat.Ghassan Khatib, the spokesman of Abbas' government, hailed the French announcement as an indication of the growing understanding of the international community of the Palestinians right to independence and statehood.We believe this is a result of the efforts made of the Palestinian Authority to confirm to the world that it deserves independence and that it can turn into a state,he said in Ramallah.The spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in France, Nina Ben-Ami, said only that we were not consulted on the matter, and we have no comment.We hope that all European countries would upgrade our diplomatic presence, said Khreisheh, the deputy Palestinian foreign minister, adding that France is the first western European country to make such an upgrade.The Palestinian Authority has 58 full-fledged embassies in Arab, Islamic and African countries, as well as former Socialist countries in Eastern Europe, Khreisheh said.
He said 54 countries have set up so-called representative offices in the Palestinian territories, including 22 EU members, seven South American countries, as well as Japan, China, Sri Lanka and India. They are all known as representative offices because, under the interim peace deals with the Israelis from the 1990s, the Palestinians are not permitted to host full-fledged embassies.The French Foreign Ministry said France has no other diplomatic mission that shares the Palestinians' new status. The French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec has a delegation in France, alongside the Canadian Embassy, he said.Taipei has a representative office in France instead of an embassy. Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, and China has repeatedly warned that any Taiwanese moves to formalize its de facto independence could be met with war.Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh and Dalia Nammari in Ramallah contributed to this report.
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza tunnels
Mon Jul 26, 2:27 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli warplanes fired missiles at targets across Gaza on Monday, damaging a series of tunnels along the territory's border with Egypt, sources on both sides said.Palestinian security officials said Israel had carried out four raids overnight, two of them along the frontier, one in central Gaza and one in the north.Three cross-border tunnels sustained heavy damage in the raids, although noone was hurt in the attack, officials from the Hamas-run security forces said.Warplanes also targeted an empty house in Beit Hanun in northern Gaza, causing serious damage, as well as an open area in Nusseirat, south of Gaza City, they said.The Israeli military confirmed the attacks along the border and in the north but made no mention of Nusseirat.The Israel air force struck a weapons manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip and two weapons-smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, a statement said.The attacks came after Gaza-based militants fired four missiles into southern Israel over the weekend.Figures cited by the military indicate that more than 100 rockets or mortar rounds have been fired into Israel since the beginning of the year.Israel has repeatedly targeted the tunnels on the Egyptian border in retaliation for rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled enclave.Most of the tunnels are used to smuggle in basic goods but Hamas and other militant groups reportedly use their own tunnels to bring in arms and money.In December 2008, Israel launched a devastating 22-day war on Gaza in a bid to halt near daily rocket fire from the besieged Palestinian territory. The war claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.Since the end of the operation, militants have fired more than 350 rockets or mortar rounds into Israel, the military says.
Israel and U.S. sign deal to upgrade Arrow missile shield
Mon Jul 26, 12:25 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel and the United States have signed an agreement to make the Arrow II ballistic shield capable of shooting down missiles at a higher altitude, the Israeli Defense Ministry said on Sunday.The Arrow III will allow Israel to deal with the threat of ballistic missiles with long range and will give it the ability to shoot down weapons of mass destruction outside the atmosphere, the ministry said in a statement.Israel, which describes its Arrow system as a defense against Iran, says the upgraded version will cap off its multi-tier air defenses.The Arrow is jointly produced by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the American firm Boeing Co. and has absorbed close to $1 billion in direct U.S. funds since its 1988 inception.The Israeli air force said last year that the Arrow III would take more than four years to complete and that would depend on what resources were made available for the project.The United States, Western powers and Israel suspect Iran's civilian nuclear program is designed to produce a nuclear bomb. Tehran denies this.Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has hinted it could resort to force to prevent Iran attaining the nuclear means to threaten its existence.Iran has threatened to retaliate for any attack on its nuclear facilities by firing medium-range missiles at Israel.(Reporting by Dan Williams; Writing by Joseph Nasr, Editing by Alison Williams)
Four Gaza rockets hit southern Israel: army
Sun Jul 25, 4:29 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Gaza-based militants fired four rockets into southern Israel over the weekend, a military spokesman said on Sunday.None of them caused any casualties or damage, the spokesman said, adding that since the start of the year around 90 rockets or mortar rounds had been fired into southern Israel.In December 2008, Israel launched a devastating assault on Gaza in a bid to halt near daily rocket fire from the besieged Palestinian territory.Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day war.After a year of quiet following the assault, Gaza militants have recently stepped up the cross-border rocket fire.
Israel slams UN council's Gaza flotilla probe
Sun Jul 25, 6:01 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Sunday dismissed moves by the UN Human Rights Council to open its own probe into a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, saying the panel was biased.This panel of experts is not intending to look for the truth but to satisfy the non-democratic countries which control the Human Rights Council, who have an automatic anti-Israeli majority, a senior Israeli official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.His remarks came two days after the UN body named a panel of experts to investigate whether the commando operation, in which nine Turkish activists were shot dead, breached international law.Although Israel has yet to respond officially to the council's request for cooperation, the government was widely expected to refuse to have anything to do with it. An official statement is expected out later this week.Speaking to Israel HaYom newspaper, a senior official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said there was no chance Israel would cooperate with such a biased investigation.It is clear that this is a biased committee with a biased mandate, which was established by a council that deals with Israel in a tendentious and truly obsessive way, he told the paper, which is considered close to Netanyahu.
However, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily reported that Israel was likely to agree to cooperate with the work of another UN committee examining the raid -- an international panel proposed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon which will include both Turkish and Israeli participation.Although the committee has not yet been set up, Israel has been in consultations with Ban over its composition, the paper said.In return for its cooperation, Israel has asked that the committee begin its work only after the Jewish state has completed its own internal probe, and that the panel's findings take precedence over all other international probes into the raid, the paper said.
Israel has consistently rejected calls for an international independent investigation into the raid and instead launched two internal inquiries.Troops involved in the raid say they resorted to lethal force only after being attacked when they rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Turkish passenger ferry Mavi Marmara in international waters.But the activists who were on the ship say the naval commandos opened fire as soon as they boarded.The 47-member Human Rights Council condemned the raid as an outrageous attack during an emergency session just days after the operation and decided to set up a commission of inquiry.The panel is due to present its findings in mid-September.
Hamas thrives in Gaza's besieged economy
by Mai Yaghi – Sun Jul 25, 1:04 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The tranquil lawns of the seaside Garden Resort are a high-end oasis in the impoverished Gaza Strip -- and a new source of income for the Hamas-linked charity that owns it.The beach club, one of several commercial ventures recently launched by groups and individuals linked to Hamas, illustrates the Islamist movement's growing dominance of an economy crippled by a four-year-old Israeli blockade.The 1.25 million dollar (one million euro) resort is owned and operated by the Islamic Foundation, a charity established by Hamas's spiritual founder, Ahmed Yassin, that has long provided aid to poor families and orphans.Some 2,000 people have visited each weekend since the foundation established the club and an adjacent fish farm earlier this year, with most paying the eight dollars per family admission fee and many dining at its restaurant.These projects provide a service to citizens in order to relieve the burdens of the (Israeli) occupation and the devastating war, said foundation chairman Abdelrahim Shihab.The project encourages economic growth ... But our priority is the citizen and not the investment.Israeli and Egyptian border closures imposed after the capture of an Israeli soldier in June 2006 and tightened when Hamas seized power a year later have devastated Gaza's private sector, sending unemployment above 40 percent.
But the sanctions have had little visible impact on Hamas, which taxes and regulates a thriving trade carried out through hundreds of smuggler tunnels beneath the Egyptian border that supply most of Gaza's daily needs.Hamas regularly pays the salaries of over 20,000 civil servants and security forces, and at the start of the year the Hamas-run government approved a 540-million-dollar (377-million-euro) budget, with nearly 90 percent of revenue coming from undisclosed foreign aid.Iran and several international Islamic charities provide aid to the group -- which is pledged to Israel's destruction and listed as a terrorist organisation by the West --through mostly secret channels.The economy in the Gaza Strip has thrived in the face of the Israeli siege, Hamas economy minister Ziad al-Zaza told AFP. But the government is determined to invest firstly for the benefit of the citizen.He attributes Hamas members' growing role in the economy to the ouster of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority led by the rival Fatah movement, which sidelined Hamas until the Islamists drove it out in June 2007.The sons of Hamas were prevented in the past from working and participating, but today there are opportunities for them, he said.They can start to have a clear presence because of their expertise.The Islamic Foundation has launched eight projects in all, including bakeries, farms, a supermarket and a restaurant, and had a nine million dollar budget in 2009, according to Shihab.Fifty percent of the revenues of these projects go to establishing new projects to serve the people, he said.Any for-profit project must advance the goals of the association and its expansion and continuation.Just down the beach another Hamas-linked charity, whose headquarters were destroyed by an Israeli air strike during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, has established the Freedom Resort, which includes a new 250,000 dollar wedding hall, according to its director, Saber Abu Kirsh.
Hamas is also widely believed to be behind a new shopping mall that opened this week in Gaza City with a ceremony attended by several Hamas ministers and professors at the Hamas-linked Islamic University. The mall's manager, Siraj Abu Selim, denied Hamas was involved in the three million dollar (2.3 million euro) project, but refused to give the names of any of the mall's owners or chief investors. Zaza said the government had encouraged the establishment of several commercial projects but had not provided any funding for them.It plays a more direct role in other projects, however, including the Bisan City tourist village on the northern edge of the territory.The sprawling facility, which includes gardens, playgrounds, football fields, a petting zoo and restaurants, attracts some 6,000 people every weekend, many of whom are brought in on government-subsidised buses.And despite the fact that almost all building materials have to be smuggled into the territory, the park includes a new wedding hall and work is under way on what managers say will be an Olympic-sized swimming pool.The 1.5 million dollar project, built on government land under the supervision of Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad, charges 75 cents for adult admission, with children entering for free.The 270 dunam (67 acre, 27 hectare) park abuts an 84 dunam cattle and chicken farm as well as food processing facilities, also operated by the interior ministry.
Some visitors on a recent weekend were surprised by the charges.The ticket price is fine for me, but it would be a lot for some people, said Umm Jalal al-Ayubi, who came with her three children.It's a government-owned place. It should be free.The high-end beach resorts have also proven popular, but many wonder how Hamas-linked groups can build new facilities when thousands of homes severely damaged or destroyed during the war remain in ruins. Abu Kamal, a 53-year-old man whose home was destroyed during the Israeli assault launched in December 2008 in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket attacks, grumbled at the eight dollar admission fee at the Garden Resort.The priority should be to rebuild Gaza and build new homes for those of us who had ours destroyed by the occupation during the war,he said.
