UNGRC probe to continue despite Schabas resignation
By Herb Keinon and Tovah Lazaroff
The Jerusalem Post, Page 1
The UN Human Rights Council plans to complete its Gaza probe even though legal expert William Schabas, who headed the investigation, resigned Monday after Israel revealed he had worked briefly as a paid consultant for the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The report is to be presented to the UNGRC on March 23, during its 28th session in Geneva, the UN body said on Tuesday.
Reacting to Schabas's resignation, Netanyahu said Israel had acted in accordance with international law during last summer's conflict when it defended itself against rocket attacks from Gaza, while Hamas had used civilians as human shields to fire on Israeli civilians.
Hamas fast rebuilding forces in Gaza
By Yaakov Lappin
The Jerusalem Post, Page 2
Hamas and allied terrorist organizations in Gaza have spent recent months intensively rebuilding their guerrilla terrorist capabilities, which sustained significant damage during Operation Protective Edge last summer.
"Their aim is to recover the military infrastructure that was damaged and return it to full capabilities and broaden it," according to a recent report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Tel Aviv, which is a part of the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center founded by leading members of the Israeli intelligence community.
To that end, Hamas has allocated the necessary funds, personnel, and equipment, despite the shortages suffered by the civilian sector in the Strip, the study found. Its domestic security bodies are part of the effort.
Hamas: PA helped Israel during Gaza war
By Khaled Abu Toameh
The Jerusalem Post, Page 2
Hamas said on Tuesday that it has evidence that the Palestinian Authority's security forces had provided Israel with information that led to the killings of Palestinians and the demolition of houses during Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip last summer.
Salah Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, told the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aksa TV station that his movement possesses documents proving that the PA security forces had supplied Israel with details about figures and houses not only associated with Hamas, but also with Fatah and Islamic Jihad.
The documents would be presented to top Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed during his upcoming visit to the Gaza Strip, Bardaweel said, adding that Hamas is also planning to present the documents to representatives of various Palestinian factions.
East Jerusalem mother of two joins Islamic State
By Avi Issacharoff
The Times of Israel website
Palestinian security forces have discovered that an Israeli Arab resident of East Jerusalem, a divorced mother of two, flew to Syria and joined the ranks of the Islamic State, senior Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
The Arab Israeli woman is currently in Raqqa, Syria, the city that is considered the terror group’s organizational hub in Iraq and Syria. Her children live in a village near Jerusalem.
The officials further said the PA has detained 15 Palestinians in the West Bank for links to the jihadist group, and said a senior IS-linked commander from the Sinai Peninsula, who is wanted by Egypt, is hiding out in the Gaza Strip.
The 15 suspects were arrested in recent months by the Palestinian security apparatus in the West Bank, the officials said. Several of them were held for identifying with the jihadist group ideologically, while others for concrete links to the Islamic State.
To date, the PA has arrested dozens of people on similar charges, but most have been released. Among others, a Palestinian woman holding citizenship of a Western country was suspected of having ties with IS. She was arrested, sentenced, and served time in prison before she was released.
The Palestinian officials said the Palestinian security forces maintain close coordination with the Israeli security forces on the subject of Islamic State in the West Bank, and both sides have been working to thwart the establishment of any cells of the extremist group in the region.
Israeli forces have arrested several citizens in past months for involvement with the Islamic State. A resident of Nazareth was indicted on Sunday for joining up with the terror group and taking part in fighting in Iraq. Last month, the Shin Bet arrested seven other Israeli citizens who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, which has been illegal for Israelis to do since September.
Abbas calls to probe Palestinian daily over Muhammad cartoon
By Elhanan Miller
The Times of Israel website
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered an investigation into the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah for publishing a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad on Sunday.
According to official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Abbas emphasized the need to “take deterrent measures against the perpetrator of this grave mistake,” adding that “holy religious symbols, and particularly prophets, should be respected.”
The caricature, by the award-winning cartoonist Muhammad Sabaaneh, depicted a man sitting on a globe, holding a briefcase shaped as a heart, as light spreads from his hands next to a caption reading “our prophet Muhammad.” Page 14 of Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah was not available on the newspaper’s online archive Tuesday.
Satirical depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo have been criticized by Muslim pundits and were used to justify a terror attack against the weekly on January 7 that left 12 people dead, including the magazine’s editor and main contributors.
Iran boasts of rocket aid to Palestinians, Hezbollah
By Stuart Winer
The Times of Israel website
The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s missile division boasted on Monday that his country has provided short- and mid-range ballistic rocket technologies to its allies, including the Palestinians and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
IRGC aerospace force commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that information and skills to locally produce military rockets were also given to the governments of Syria and Iraq.
“The IRGC’s Aerospace Force has developed to a stage in the field of missile industries that it can mass-produce different types of short- and mid-range missiles,” Hajizadeh said, according to a report by the semi-official FARS news agency.
Israeli defense officials have often voiced concerns over the spread of mid-range missiles to Hezbollah and the Palestinians that put all of Israel within striking distance.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has helped Iraq, Syria, Palestine and the Lebanese Hezbollah by exporting the technology that it has for the production of missiles and other equipment, and they can now stand against the Zionist regime, the ISIL [Islamic State group] and other Takfiri [apostate] groups and cripple them,” Hajizadeh said.
He also claimed that Iran was developing its own radar and drone technologies that were being exported to other countries.
In 2013 Hajizadeh made various claims as to the improved accuracy of Iranian ballistic missiles, including a supersonic anti-ship missile, the so-called Persian Gulf missile, which has a range of over 250 kilometers.
Israel has vowed to prevent what it terms “game-changing” technologies from falling into the hands of Hezbollah. Several airstrikes over the past three years, attributed to Israel and carried out amid the continuing civil war in Syria, were said to have targeted advanced weapons shipments heading to the Lebanese terror organization.
Last month a helicopter attack on a convoy near the Syrian town of Quneitra on the Golan Heights, apparently carried out by the IDF, killed six Hezbollah members and at least one Iranian, Mohammed Ali Allahdadi, a decorated Iranian general who was reportedly advising the Syrians on their war effort.
Hezbollah, Syria and Iran have all vowed to strike at Israel in the wake of the attack, and last week a Hezbollah attack along Israel’s northern border killed two IDF soldiers. There have been conflicting reports as to whether Israel knew that Allahdadi was in the convoy hit during the airstrike.
Obama meets Jordan’s Abdullah, condemns murder of pilot
By AFP
The Times of Israel website
US President Barack Obama decried the “cowardice and depravity” of the Islamic State on Tuesday, saying the apparent burning alive of a Jordanian pilot would only strengthen international resolve to destroy the extremists.
Obama also offered his condolences to King Abdullah II, who is currently in Washington and who met Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry.
The White House would not speculate on whether the video was released to coincide with King Abdullah’s visit to Washington.
Obama said First Lieutenant Moaz al-Kasasbeh’s “dedication, courage and service to his country” represented “universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL.”
“Today, we join the people of Jordan in grieving the loss of one of their own,” the president added, as his administration reaffirmed its intention to give Jordan $3 billion in security aid over the next three years.
“As we grieve together, we must stand united, respectful of his sacrifice to defeat this scourge,” Obama said after the latest in a wave of grizzly filmed murders.
Kassasbeh was captured in December when his F-16 jet crashed over northern Syria, a mission that was part of the US-led coalition campaign against the jihadists.
On Tuesday a slickly produced 22-minute video surfaced online showing a man who appeared to be the pilot engulfed in flames inside a metal cage.
Jordanian state television said that Kassasbeh was killed on January 3.
The slaying would redouble international commitment to ensure the Islamic State group “are degraded and ultimately defeated,” said Obama.
The extremists seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria last year, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” and committing a wave of atrocities.
Countries as diverse as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Jordan responded with “Operation Inherent Resolve,” an air-led campaign to pummel the jihadist group.
US Central Command meanwhile admitted that the Islamic State still had the ability “to conduct small-scale operations,” despite months of airstrikes.
But, it said, “their capacity to do so is degraded and their momentum is stalling.”
Attacks have hit the group’s “ability to command and control forces; recruit, train and retain fighters, produce revenue from oil sales, and maintain morale.”
Islamic State had offered to spare Kassasbeh’s life and free a Japanese journalist in return for the release of a female would-be suicide bomber on death row in Jordan.
Jordan to execute jihadi prisoner after pilot killed
By Jonathan Beck
The Times of Israel website
The Islamic State terrorist group released a video Tuesday showing the burning to death of captured Jordanian pilot Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Jordan vowed revenge, and as an initial step security officials announced that on Wednesday the country will carry out the execution of a female prisoner that IS sought in exchange for Kasasbeh.
Earlier Tuesday, eight people were killed and at least 24 were injured in a traffic accident in the Negev Tuesday. The fatalities were all women from a Bedouin tribe.
Meanwhile, the Labor-Hatnua joint list for the Knesset was announcing its socioeconomic plan, drafted by Manuel Trajtenberg. The Times of Israel followed events as they unfolded.
Hamas claims Egypt fired at Gaza security outposts
By AFP
The Times of Israel website
GAZA CITY – Hamas accused Egypt’s army of firing at Palestinian security outposts in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, just days after Cairo declared the Islamist movement’s military wing a terrorist group.
Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry condemned “the Egyptian army for firing this morning directly at two positions along the southern Gaza border.”
“It was without justification, and there had been no incursion from the Palestinian side” of the tiny coastal strip, which borders Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The statement, which did not refer to any casualties, called for an immediate investigation into the incident.
The claim comes at a time of high tension between Hamas and Cairo.
On Saturday, an Egyptian court banned Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and ruled that it is a terrorist group.
Since the military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013, the Egyptian authorities have accused the Palestinian group that controls Gaza of aiding jihadists who have increased their attacks on security forces in Sinai.
In early January, Egypt began work on doubling the width of a buffer zone along the border with Gaza to prevent militants infiltrating from the coastal territory.
The buffer zone was created following a suicide bombing on October 24 that killed 30 Egyptian soldiers and wounded scores.
Top White House aide to visit Israel despite flagging ties
By Tamar Pileggi
The Times of Israel website
A mid soaring tensions between Jerusalem and Washington, a top adviser to the Obama Administration will reportedly visit Israel this month to meet with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Philip Gordon, a special assistant to US President Barack Obama and the White House coordinator for the Middle East, is expected to arrive in Israel February 15, according to a report by i24news Tuesday.
The focal point of Gordon’s visit will likely be the ongoing nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers ahead of its March deadline for a draft agreement, as well as a recent Palestinian diplomatic effort to join the International Criminal Court.
In recent months, Israeli-US ties have become increasingly strained over US policy on Iran and the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks last year.
Gordon, who is a staunch supporter of the nuclear negotiations with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, has worked closely on both diplomatic initiatives.
Gordon’s planned visit to the region comes just two weeks before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled address to Congress on the dangers of a nuclear Iran, a move that sparked angry backlash by US officials and led to the latest falling out between Obama and the Israeli leader.
After the Israel-Palestinian negotiations collapsed last summer, Gordon harshly criticized Israeli policies and indicated that the government was not committed to peace.
Gordon said that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank dehumanized Palestinians, and warned it would ultimately lead to regional instability.
“How will Israel remain democratic and Jewish if it attempts to govern the millions of Palestinian Arabs who live in the West Bank? How will it have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security and dignity?” Gordon said during Haaretz’s July Israel Conference on Peace.
The deputy spokesperson for the White House National Security Council confirmed the trip, and said that Gordon would deliver a speech at the
Institute for National Security Studies’ annual conference in Tel Aviv, according to the i24news report.