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Hand-picked articles from people on the ground in Israel as well as analysis from our partner ministries to keep you informed, so you are equipped to pray effectively for Israel as we are instructed to do in the Bible.

Will a Flawed UN Report Lead to a Blacklisting of Israel?
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Will a Flawed UN Report Lead to a Blacklisting of Israel?

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Jerusalem, 7 June, 2023 (TPS) — A draft United Nations report accuses the Israeli military of killing 32 Palestinian children and maiming others or using them as human shields. Israeli diplomats are blasting the report, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks. At stake is whether the Israel Defense Forces will be listed in the report’s annex — a de facto blacklisting that would trigger further consequences.

On Sunday, NGO-Monitor, a Jerusalem-based organization that monitors the activities of non-governmental organizations, issued a report of its own debunking the UN claims.

The report in question is a yearly report on “Children and Armed Conflict,” issued by the UN Secretary General. The CAAC, as it is referred to, lists grave violations, including killing, maiming or abducting children, recruiting children into armed groups, sexual violence against children, attacks against schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access for children.

NGO-Monitor found that the working group of Palestinian NGOs on which the UN’s data is based are linked to terror groups or are actively seeking Israel’s blacklisting and even redefining grave violations to smear Israel. It also found that few of the incidents reported could even be independently verified.

Itai Reuveni, NGO-Monitor’s director of communications, told the Tazpit Press Service that “the NGOs that report to this mechanism are supposed to be neutral and professional,” but that wasn’t the case with the Palestinian NGOs.

Moreover, much of the data regarding Gaza came from the Strip’s Health Ministry, which is run by the Hamas terror organization.

“Some of the NGOs are connected to terrorism. Some are very anti-Israel and are involved in the apartheid campaign and the BDS campaign. They’re also clear that their aim is to put the IDF on this annex,” Reuveni said.

According to NGO-Monitor’s findings, “This ‘working group’ includes Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), designated as a terrorist entity by Israel in October 2021 over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. It also includes other PFLP-linked groups – Al-Mezan and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) – and NGOs such as B’Tselem that use the “apartheid” libel and lobby governments and international institutions to sanction Israel.”

NGO-Monitor also pointed to various statements made by the organizations declaring that getting the IDF added to the annex was their overriding objective.

Reuveni stressed that the Palestinian working group “inserted new categories of violations and definitions so that Israel can be included next to the worst countries like Syria, Iran and Iraq.”

“For example, only in the case of Israel, are they treating the use of tear gas under maiming. Maiming is considered to be a grave violation of children’s rights. But only in the case of Israel are they treating tear gas as an illegitimate lethal weapon.” Tear gas was not mentioned in any other international conflict addressed by the CAAC report.

Other examples of “grave violations” being redefined against Israel and no other country included the detention of minors, attacks on schools and restrictions on humanitarian access.

Asked about the consequences of the Israel Defense Forces being blacklisted, Reuveni said it would be “a major blow to the ability for Israel to make its case in other places, like the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court.”

He added that a formal blacklisting would also fuel calls for arms embargoes and other boycotts.

“It will be used in all the anti-Israel campaigns, intensify them, and give them a legitimate stamp that the IDF is on the same list as ISIS, Al-Qaida and different militias in Africa,” he said.

Reuveni also said that listing Israel in the CAAC annex would also retroactively legitimize the activities of various NGOs and UN agencies monitoring Israeli activities that technically have no mandate. He explained that when a country is added to the annex, the UN establishes a monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) made up of NGOs and UN figures to provide further oversight.

“The weirdest thing is that even though the IDF is not on the list, there is a functioning MRM here in Israel,” Reuveni explained. “If Israel is added to the list, the MRM will become legitimate and its mandate will become official.”

Without a mandate, Reuveni said, “Nobody knows what they do and they can basically do whatever they want. They created a punishment for Israel before the verdict was even given.”

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Brothers Killed In Terror Attack To Be Buried Together In Jerusalem

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Jerusalem, 27 February, 2023 (TPS) — Settlers began lining the roads and junctions on Monday afternoon as the bodies of Hillel and Yagael Yaniv were about to be brought to Jerusalem for burial.

The brothers, from the community of Har Bracha in Samaria, were killed in the Palestinian village of Huwara, south of Shechem (Nablus) on Sunday when their car was rammed by Palestinians, forcing it to the side of the road. The brothers were then shot to death at point blank range. Israeli security forces are still searching for the terrorists.

Hillel was studying in a “hesder” program which combines military service with religious studies in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the 21-year-old was a staff sergeant in the Israeli Navy, who served in a patrol boat squadron.

Yagael, who was two weeks away from his twentieth birthday, was studying in a similar hesder program in the coastal town of Givat Olga. He was trying to qualify to serve in a combat unit.

Uri Pinsky, head of the Hesder Yeshivot Association, said the brothers were heading home from their yeshivas at the time of the attack.

“We would like to send a big hug to the dear family, to the settlement of Har Bracha, to the Kiryat Shmona and Givat Olga yeshivot, and to all the students of the hesder yeshivot and Torah students everywhere and anywhere, and call from here on the IDF and the government of Israel not to rest or be quiet until security is restored everywhere throughout our country, to exterminate our wicked enemies and to allow a Jew to travel to yeshiva, home and anywhere he wants with security,” Pinsky said.

The boys’ mother, Esti Yaniv, said, “We have suffered a huge slap in the face from God. We are trying to find the good things and the grace that we were prepared —  that we had a family Shabbat, that we had good conversations with the boys yesterday, that we took family photos. God sends us graces. Even with this painful blow, He sends us graces.”

Meanwhile, the Israel National Transplant Center announced on Monday that the brothers carried the organization’s card signifying that they wanted their organs donated. The Center said that with the consent of the parents, Hillel and Yigal’s corneas would be donated to people waiting for transplants to restore their sight.

 

Header Image: Photo by Rotem Ori/TPS on 27 February, 2023, https://tps.co.il/articles/brothers-killed-in-terror-attack-to-be-buried-together-in-jerusalem/

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Palestinian Prisoners Launch Disobedience Protest, Threaten Mass Hunger Strike Over Ramadan

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Jerusalem, 16 February, 2023 (TPS) — Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began a campaign of disobedience on Thursday and threatened to launch a mass hunger strike during Ramadan against measures taken by Israeli Prison Service in recent days.

But a former senior commander told the Tazpit Press Service that an initiative by Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir may be about more than reducing shower times and closing prison bakeries.

In recent days, Ben-Gvir instructed prison officials to provide one hour of running water in each wing after prisoners were found to be deliberately wasting thousands of liters of water by letting showers and faucet taps run for hours at a time. Ben-Gvir also ordered the closure of bakeries inside the Ketziot and Nafha prisons which provided prisoners with fresh pita bread.

Other steps reportedly being discussed include limiting family visits, halting the sale of certain foods and items in the canteens, and restricting families from sending clothes to prisoners.

Dozens of prisoners were recently moved from the Hadarim Prison in central Israel to the Nafha Prison in the Negev, and Palestinian sources told TPS they are concerned that Ben-Gvir plans to break up the prison organizations.

Yishai Fleisher, an advisor to Ben-Gvir, told the Tazpit Press Service, “Terrorists who murder and maim for jihadist and Israel-hating reasons should not expect a fun and rewarding life filled with fresh pitas, entertainment, and university courses waiting for them. Israeli prison should be a form of deterrence, and not a reward.”

The Status Quo

The former senior Israeli Prison Service commander explained to TPS that “the main goal is quiet” for both prison officials and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).

“The Shin Bet wants quiet, minimum energy in dealing with the prisoners so this is also giving up values ​​and budget,” he said.

The former commander said that the Shin Bet operates in prisons by appointing a handful of prisoners as leaders. The Shin Bet and guards then deal with the prisoners through these leaders. The status quo is that regular prisoners and guards cannot talk to each other without one of the prisoner leaders being a middleman. According to the source, the leaders benefit from this arrangement by getting perks which are often spread to other prisoners, and the Shin Bet benefits by getting quiet.

“This is a fundamentally rotten system,” he said.

“Conditions given to them in the wings – there are 10-15 cells around a courtyard, and a room assigned to be a supermarket. They have a supermarket. Fresh fruit, huge apples, metal cans. A box like this turns into a knife in a second. Meat, fresh breads, whole trucks of bread every day,” the source said. “Illusory conditions it’s unbelievable. Beyond the food, they have the supermarket that has everything good. Sweets everything.”

“The rooms – when you enter the room you see a jungle – everyone has half a house there – clothes pots pans stoves for cooking, everything is crowded with so many things they can hide many things – make knives toothbrushes, cans, cell phones. You don’t know where to start looking,” he said.

“There is a special unit that takes everything out, and dismantles the room to dig through the piles of garbage to find the things they managed to hide. If they didn’t give them all these conditions – but only clothes, it would be easier to find things.”

The former commander praised Ben-Gvir’s measures, but stressed that the status quo between the prisoners and guards is “the root of the problem.”

Ben-Gvir’s measures “will cause a lot of noise – but in the end it will have an effect,” he said.

Disobedience and Hunger Strike

Palestinian sources told TPS that the approximately 4,800 Palestinians will collectively refuse to cooperate with prison officials by not obeying orders, locking themselves in their cells, refusing to let guards search their cells, and not wearing prison uniforms.

The Ramadan hunger strike, if it happens, would be the largest mass hunger strike staged by the Palestinians, with prisoners affiliated with Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups participating.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during daylight hours and break their fast at sundown. The hunger striking prisoners will not eat at night either. Ramadan begins at sundown on March 22.

“For the first time since 2004, an agreement has been reached by all the Palestinian factions, in the PA territories, Gaza and abroad, and even inside the prisons, according to which the strike must be held and the prisoners taken back,” a very senior Palestinian Authority official told TPS.

Baruch Yedid contributed to this report.

Header Image: Photo by TPS on 9 September, 2021, https://tps.co.il/articles/palestinian-prisoners-launch-disobedience-protest-threaten-mass-hunger-strike-over-ramadan/ , February 16,2023

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Photo by Shalev Shalom/TPS on 25 October, 2021
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Netanyahu’s UAE Visit Postponed Amid Fears Of Palestinian Violence Over Temple Mount

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first official visit to the United Arab Emirates has been postponed due to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Tuesday morning visit to the Temple Mount.

Tazpit Press Service sources in Abu Dhabi with ties to the UAE government said, “We cannot host Netanyahu right now, especially when there is a chance of escalation.”

On Monday, the Prime Minister’s Office had confirmed that Netanyahu’s first foreign trip as Prime Minister would be to the Emirates, though no specific date was announced. It was widely assumed the visit would be next week.

Arab sources reported that “UAE diplomats acted vigorously the past two days to persuade Netanyahu not to allow Ben-Gvir to visit the Temple Mount.” They characterized Abu Dhabi-Jerusalem discussions as having “significant tension.”

The UAE is concerned that Palestinian violence will escalate in the next few days, especially during the Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, located on the Temple Mount. Netanyahu’s presence in Abu Dhabi during an escalation would be politically and diplomatically awkward for the Emiratis.

“We congratulated Netanyahu when he won the elections, but we cannot accept a situation in which the Abraham Accords will be used as a cover for acts against the Palestinians, like changing the status-quo in East Jerusalem or annexing the West Bank,” sources in Abu-Dhabi told TPS.

Many Arab countries, including Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have condemned Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount. But an escalation of Palestinian violence is not certain.

“Ben-Gvir’s visit to the mountain very early in the morning, under heavy security, was an act of cowardice and surrender. Therefore, it does not require a military response”, a Palestinian source told TPS. “Nevertheless, we are concerned by this move and by what seems as the beginning of extreme policy by the new Israeli government.”

In Gaza, Hamas also sent uncertain signals.

A Palestinian source told TPS, “The leadership of Hamas was caught off guard by Ben-Gvir’s move, which puts it in a very difficult position after it promised to respond to any provocation in Al-Aqsa.”

After the numerous condemnations from the Arab world and the postponement of the visit in the UAE, Netanyahu’s office published a press release stating: “The Prime Minister is obligated to keep without change the status-quo in the Temple Mount, yet we shall not surrender to threats by Hamas.

“In accordance with the status-quo, Israeli ministers have visited the mountain more then once in the past few years, Including former Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan. Therefore, the claim of a change in the status-quo is baseless.”

Although Netanyahu was Prime Minister when Israel signed the Abraham accords with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco in 2020, he never publicly visited those countries because of Israel’s repeated election campaigns and coronavirus travel restrictions.

The Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples were built, is the holiest site in Judaism. The delicate status quo governing it goes back to 1967, when Israel liberated the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six-Day War.

Fearing a religious war, then-defense minister Moshe Dayan agreed to let the Islamic Waqf, a Muslim trusteeship, continue managing the holy site’s day-to-day affairs, while Israel would maintain overall sovereignty and be responsible for security. According to the status quo, Jews and non-Muslims would be allowed to visit the Temple Mount, but not pray there.

In September, the number of Jews visiting the Temple Mount crossed the 50,000 threshold for the first time in modern history, according to Beyadenu, an organization working to advance Jewish ties to the holy site.

While Judaism is the holiest place in the world for Jews, rabbis are increasingly divided over Jews ascending to the Temple Mount. For centuries, the widespread rabbinic consensus was that the laws of ritual purity still apply to the site. But in recent years, a growing number of rabbis have argued that ritual purity laws don’t apply to all sections of the Temple Mount and encourage visits to permitted areas to maintain Jewish connections to the Mount.

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Knesset Advances Controversial Police Legislation For Itamar Ben-Gvir

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Controversial legislation expanding the authority of the National Security Minister over the Israeli Police passed its first parliamentary hurdle on Tuesday afternoon with the bill passing its first reading by a vote of 63-53. The legislation is now returning to a Knesset committee ahead of two more Knesset votes which will be held on Monday.

The vote was delayed by a more than four-hour-long filibuster by opponents of the legislation. The Center-Left bloc ended its filibuster after the Right-wing bloc agreed to delay the final votes.

Benjamin Netanyahu has until Wednesday night to present his Cabinet and coalition agreements to the Knesset for approval.

The Knesset still needs to pass two more legislative bills as a precondition for Shas and the Religious Zionism parties to join the coalition.

Shas leader Aryeh Deri is expected to serve as both Minister of Health and Interior, and then rotate into the Minister of Finance. He resigned from the Knesset in January as a part of a plea agreement in which he admitted to tax offenses. He was given a suspended prison sentence, but current laws bar him from a cabinet position for seven years.

The Knesset also needs to pass legislation allowing Religious Zionism leader Betzalel Smotrich to effectively serve as an independent minister within the Defense Ministry to oversee construction in Judea and Samaria. The Defense Minister currently oversees construction in those areas.

The Law’s Impact on the Police

Yaakov Borovsky, an Israeli lawyer who served as a superintendent in the Israel Police and as a consultant in the state comptroller’s office discussed the significance of the “Ben-Gvir law” and what it means for the police force with the Tazpit Press Service.

“The amended bill is an attempt by each of the parties to improve their legal status or preserve their status. Ben-Gvir wants the budget to be under his control,” Borovsky said.

According to Borovsky, a Cabinet minister overseeing the police who says he will bring the budget, not let anyone touch it, set general policy but not interfere in investigations “will do good for the police.”

Borovsky said he does not share concerns that the legislation would enable Ben-Gvir to “politicize” the police force.

“If God forbid he does it, there are enough mechanisms to stop him. There is a section in the police order that says the commissioner is responsible for carrying out the order,” he said. “A minister can give an order to the commissioner and not to the police officers themselves. You cannot take the police officers and turn them into a private political agenda.”

He said the effects of the law will raise salaries and draw back people who left the police force for other jobs. “Those who left are the first to return. 2,000 police officers leaving a year is a disaster. Trained people don’t go because they don’t like it here, they go because of the money.”

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Senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad Figure Arrested In Counter-Terror Raids

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

A senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure was arrested by Israeli security forces during counter-terror raids across Judea and Samaria on Sunday night.

Yahya Saadi, who is suspected of terror activity, was arrested in the village of Jabariat, in Samaria. He is the son of Bassem Saadi PIJ commander whose arrest in August sparked two days of Gaza rocket fire and Israeli retaliation.

In other raids, three suspects affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were arrested in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. The suspects threw improvised explosive devices and firebombs at the Israeli security personnel who returned fire. According to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, a 22-year-old Palestinian identified as Omar Manna was killed.

Joint operations between the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet and Border Police also took place in the villages of Qalqiliya, Hussan, Deir Istiya, Ni’lin, Kifal Harat, El Bira, Beit Kahal, Samua, Tapuh, Beit Awwa and the Jilzon Refugee Camp.

Overall, 14 suspects were arrested.

In a separate development, Israel Police arrested a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of the Shuafat Refugee Camp near Jerusalem on Monday morning after an M-16 rifle was found in his car at the Shuafat checkpoint in eastern Jerusalem.

An Israeli soldier was killed in a shooting attack at the same checkpoint in October.

In an ongoing sweep against terror in Judea and Samaria, the IDF has thwarted 500 terror attacks and arrested more than 2,500 suspects. Operation Wave Breaker was launched by the IDF following a surge of Palestinian terror attacks in the spring which killed 19 people. Overall, 31 people have been killed in Palestinian terror attacks in 2022.

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This Israeli ‘Barn Owl’ Drone Protects Forests — And More

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

As forest fires become an increasingly global concern, a special drone protectively hovering over Israeli forests may be the solution. The Tinshemet drone — Hebrew for barn owl — has a thermal imaging system that is not only providing early warning for Israeli fighters, it is proving useful in other unexpected ways.

“We call it the ‘Tinshemet’ [Hebrew for barn owl] because it sees every little thing happening in the area accurately from above,” explains Haim Teperberg, Enforcement Manager for the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) to the Tazpit Press Service.

The KKL-JNF is a non-profit organization that specializes in the developing Israeli land, especially planting trees.

“Today, the Tinshemet monitors forests throughout the entire land of Israel,” day and night, he explained.

Forest fires around the world have been a rising challenge in recent years. An annual report on forest fires released on October 31 by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre found that 5,500 square km of land inside the European Union was burnt in 2021, making it the second-worst year for fires since officials began tracking the data. Italy was the most devastated country, accounting for one-quarter of the EU’s burnt areas.

2022 has not been kinder in the US. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, the US support center for wildland firefighting, 61,390 wildfires have burned 7,251,835 acres this year. The NIFC stresses that this year is already above the 10-year average of 6,859,200 burnt acres.

Even when relatively smaller fires are expensive to fight. Forest fires in the Jerusalem Hills in August 2021 destroyed 25,000 dunams (more than 6,100 acres) and cost Israeli taxpayers 34 million shekels ($9.9 million). JNF officials said afterwards that it would take the woodlands 25-40 years to recover.

Forest fires are usually caused by unattended campfires, the burning of debris, sparks caused by mechanical malfunctions, lightning strikes, carelessly discarded cigarettes and deliberate arson.

The Tinshemet’s cameras work in tandem with another camera perched atop a 10-meter high mast. Both have thermal imaging capabilities that spot sources of heat that are hotter than the surrounding area. According to Teperberg, the system can even detect the lighting of a cigarette several kilometers away.

Thanks to the Tinshemet’s technology, JNF personnel “are able to scan lands tens of kilometers away and prevent illegal dumping, unauthorized border crossings for land that is situated on Israel’s borders, vandalism, arson and even naturally occurring forest fires,” Teperberg said. “As a result, KKL-JNF’s technology and enforcers staff and have become an important element for various environmental bodies.”

The technology has proven useful in other areas beyond forestry, including, “missing persons, forest rescue operations and antiquities thefts in open areas. We have already had cases where we caught antiquities robbers,” Teperberg noted.

He added that, “to the best of my knowledge, several American companies have showed interest and even purchased the system from the Israeli manufacturer.

“Thanks to the Tinshemet, many disasters that could easily open newscasts are avoided, primarily extreme forest fires. In the future, the system will be even more developed. With this type of technology, KKL-JNF continues to lead the fight against climate crisis. As large forest fires gear up across the world, it is promising to see KKL-JNF working to enhance their monitoring and life-saving capabilities.”

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Bank Of Israel Raises Interest Rates 0.5 Percentage Points To 3.25%

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

The Bank of Israel (BOS) is raising interest rates again. The bank announced Monday that it will increase the interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 3.25 percent.

This is the sixth time this year that the BOS has raised the rate.

It was just seven weeks ago when the BOS raised interest the last time. At the beginning of October, the Bank raised the rate by 0.75 percentage points to 2.75 percent.

The reason for the continued raises in the interest rate is simple – inflation. While the rate of inflation in Israel is not as bad as in Europe or the U.S., it is still high. At the end of October, the inflation rate for the previous 12 month period was 5.1%.

The BOS said that inflation in Israel is above the upper bound of the target range, at 5.1 percent over the past 12 months. Inflation can be seen across the board in a wide range of Consumer Price Index CPI (CPI) components.

The BOS explained economic activity in Israel remains strong. The labor market remains tight, and the GDP level remains higher than the long-term trend. However, the BOS said that monetary policy tightening and moderation of activity abroad are expected to lead to some slowdown in economic activity in Israel as well, and a number of indicators are showing signs of the beginning of such a process.

Home prices in Israel increased in the past 12 months by a rate significantly higher than the pace of recent years. However, the number of home purchases continues to decline, and the volume of new mortgages taken out in recent months declined significantly.

The BOS said that since its previous monetary policy decision, the shekel strengthened by 3 percent against the US dollar, and by 0.7 percent in terms of the nominal effective exchange rate. In contrast, the shekel weakened by 2.8 percent against the euro.

Economic activity abroad is moderating, and the risk of a recession is increasing, mainly in Europe, in view of the continuing war in Ukraine and the energy crisis in Europe, high inflation and monetary tightening, and the slowdown in China. In contrast, the easing in the supply chains is continuing, with a decline in shipping costs.

In short, the BOS said that the Israeli economy is recording strong economic activity, accompanied by a tight labor market and an increase in the inflation environment. The Committee has therefore decided to continue the process of increasing the interest rate. The pace of raising the interest rate will be determined in accordance with activity data and the development of inflation, in order to continue supporting the attainment of the policy goal

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Abbas Statehood Push Likely To Meet Dead End, Former Palestinian Diplomat Warns

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

While the Palestinian Authority leadership lauds the the advancement of its efforts to refer the Israeli “occupation” to the International Court of Justice, one former senior Palestinian diplomat told the Tazpit Press Service that the move may be a dead end for PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The UN General Assembly’s powerful Fourth Committee on Friday voted in favor of the move by a vote of 98 countries in favor, 17 against and 52 abstentions. The resolution now moves to the General Assembly itself, where all 193 members will have an opportunity to vote.

That vote is expected to take place in December. The US does not have veto power in the General Assembly.

Dr. Nasser Kidwa, who previously served as the PA’s Foreign Minister and is a nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, praised the decision as “historic,” but told TPS, “The question that is now being asked in the internal Palestinian arena is, ‘Will the Palestinian leadership under Abu Mazen know how to take advantage this achievement and leverage it?’”

As a former Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Kidwa laid much of the groundwork for Ramallah’s current diplomatic offensive. According to Arab media reports, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki will set out in the coming days for meetings in Europe and North Africa to muster political support for the next Palestinian step: The acceptance of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations.

The Palestinians are currently a “non-member observer state,” the same UN status as the Vatican.

According to sources in Fatah, Jerusalem and Washington can no longer prevent Abbas from taking unilateral measures. “The political pressures from Israel and the United States are no longer deterring Abu Mazen, due to the serious situation at home,” a Fatah official told TPS.

The Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah are pressuring Abbas to withdraw from the agreements with Israel. Speaking at the UN one year ago, Abbas threatened to turn to international institutions if Israel didn’t withdraw from Judea and Samaria.

“In my opinion, Abu Mazen prefers to face the external political pressures rather than the internal pressures from home, when the Palestinian Authority under him is getting weaker,” another Fatah official told TPS.

In the past, the Israeli threat to annex Judea and Samaria was a credible deterrent against Palestinian unilateralism. But the Palestinians may feel they have nothing to lose faced with a new right-wing Israeli government whose coalition members openly advocate annexation.

Explaining the timing of the resolution for the International Court of Justice ruling, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said, “We decided to raise the proposal due to the Israeli aggression in the West Bank, and in light of the results of the Israeli elections, in which extremist elements won. We thought this was the right moment for it.”

Despite the Palestinian maneuverings, Kidwa estimates that Abbas will eventually bow to US pressure “because this is a significant conflict with the American administration and because this step also requires the decision of the United Nations Security Council” where the US has veto power.

Kidwa fell out of favor with Abbas in 2021 by opting to run against the PA President in elections which were subsequently cancelled. After living in France for a period of time, Kidwa now resides in Gaza.

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Israeli Breakthrough Sharply Reduces Chemotherapy’s Harmful Side Effects

by The Israel Insider
written by The Israel Insider

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found a way to sharply reduce the harmful side effects of chemotherapy for breast cancer patients.

The study identified the mechanism that generates a cancer-promoting inflammatory environment in response to chemotherapy. The researchers also found that by adding an anti-inflammatory agent to the chemotherapy, metastasis  —  the spread of cancer to other parts of the body — can be prevented.

The research team was led by Prof. Neta Erez of the Department of Pathology at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the findings were published in the science journal, “Nature Communications.”

“In many cases of breast cancer, surgical removal of the primary tumor is followed by a chemotherapy regimen intended to kill any remaining malignant cells – either left behind by the surgeon or already colonizing in other organs,” Prof. Erez explained.

“However, while effectively killing cancer cells, chemotherapy also has some undesirable and even harmful side effects, including damage to healthy tissues. The most dangerous of these is probably internal inflammations that might paradoxically help remaining cancer cells to form metastases in distant organs. The goal of our study was to discover how this happens and try to find an effective solution.”

The TAU team created an animal model for breast cancer metastasis with mice receiving the same treatment as human patients: removal of the primary cancerous tumor by surgery, followed by chemotherapy. The mice were also monitored for metastatic relapse.

Indeed, metastatic tumors were found in a significant number of the mice, prompting the researchers to examine the lungs at an intermediate stage for tiny micro-metastases.

“In humans this interval between chemotherapy and detection of metastatic tumors is an inaccessible ‘black box’. Working with an animal model we could check what actually happens inside this ‘box,’” Prof. Erez said.

“We discovered a previously unknown mechanism: the chemotherapy generates an inflammatory response in connective tissue cells called fibroblasts, causing them to summon immune cells from the bone marrow. This in turn creates an inflammatory environment that supports the micro-metastases, helping them grow into full-fledged metastatic tumors.”

Moreover, the TAU team discovered that the fibroblasts secreted proteins which “recruited” the body’s immune cells and “trained” them to support the cancer.

As result, she said, “chemotherapy, administered as a means for combating cancer, achieves the opposite result.”

The TAU team then began combining the chemotherapy with a drug that blocked the proteins. The percentage of animals with no metastases doubled from 32% to 67%. The researchers also found that percentage of mice with extensive cancer colonization in the lungs dropped from 52% to 6% when the inflammation inhibitor was added to the treatment.

“We identified an inflammatory mechanism through which chemotherapy inadvertently supports the growth of metastatic tumors, and also discovered an effective solution: combining chemotherapy with an inflammation inhibitor. We hope that our findings will enable more effective treatment for breast cancer, and perhaps other types of cancer as well – to prevent metastatic relapse and save numerous lives worldwide,” Prof. Erez said.

According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately 264,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. In an estimated 60% of breast cancer patients, the cancer spreads to the lungs or bones.

The CDC also notes that 42,000 women die of breast cancer every year.

Prof. Erez’s research team included Lea Monteran, Dr. Nour Ershaid, Yael Zait, and Ye’ela Scharff — all from TAU — in collaboration with Prof. Iris Barshack of the Sheba Medical Center and Dr. Amir Sonnenblick of the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center.

The study was funded by the European Research Council, the Israel Cancer Association, and the Emerson Cancer Research Fund.

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