Israel

Left to Right, some key players in the Israeli elections coming up on Jan. 22: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, Tzipi Livni of the New Movement Party and Shelly Yachimovich of Labor. (Yossi Zamir/Miriam Alster/Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Two months ago, the strategy for victory was clear: To unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in elections on Jan. 22, Israel’s handful of center-left parties had to unite under one banner and choose a leader who could challenge the Israeli prime minister on issues of diplomacy and security.… Read more »

People waiting in line for food packages at a distribution center for needy in Lod, near Tel Aviv, September 2012. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The numbers tell a consistent storyline: Nearly one in four Israelis lives in poverty. A report last week by Israel’s National Insurance Institute showed that 1.8 million of Israel’s 8 million people live below the poverty line. In 2011, the year for which the report… Read more »

Palestinians celebrate in the West Bank city of Ramallah after the U.N. General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a nonmember state, Nov. 29, 2012. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — How the United States treats the Palestinians’ new status as a non-member state at the United Nations depends on how Palestinians plan to use it — as cudgel or outstretched hand. Beneath the outcries of disappointment at the lopsided U.N. vote, both the United States and… Read more »

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announcing his retirement from politics at a news conference at the Defesne Ministry office in Tel Aviv, Nov. 26, 2012. (Roni Schutzer/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Is Ehud Barak a calculating political survivor or a military man who, in his own words, “never had any special desire” for political life? Will he be remembered as a warrior or as a seeker of peace? And what will he do next? Barak’s announcement… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When the first two sirens went off, Shoshana Leshaw ran from her second-floor bedroom down to the bomb shelter in the basement. By the time the third and fourth sirens wailed, she went no farther than the stairwell. “It’s almost like you’re sick of the… Read more »

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, sitting, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announce a cease-fire with Hamas at a news conference in Jerusalem, Nov. 21, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

(JTA) – As Israel and Hamas mostly stilled their guns Wednesday night after reaching a cease-fire agreement, ending eight days of intense bombardment, both sides took home some new lessons about their foes. By firing longer-range rockets capable of reaching Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Hamas demonstrated for the first… Read more »

Moshe Bahta, director of the Ibim Absorption Center, briefing his staff, Nov. 18, 2012. (Adam Soclof)

IBIM, Israel (JTA) – The explosion occurred close enough to Stesyahu Alema to shake his apartment, where he sat with his wife and two of his five children. But he didn’t flinch. None of them did. “There are a lot of people with me, so I don’t need to… Read more »

Israeli soldier praying next to a tank along the Israel-Gaza border, Nov. 18, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90/JTA)

KFAR AZA, Israel (JTA) — In some ways, Israel’s latest confrontation with Hamas looks like past conflicts in the Gaza Strip. Operation Pillar of Defense has left some key Hamas leaders dead, depleted weapons supplies and hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza. “We are exacting a heavy price… Read more »

Kiryat Malachi residents crying at the funeral of Itzik Amsalem on Nov. 16, 2012. Amsalem was killed in a missile attack the day before. (Ben Sales)

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel (JTA) — They pick through the tangled foliage, Orthodox men with long beards and black kipahs, wearing white gloves and bright yellow vests, searching for body parts. A few yards over and four stories up, construction workers drive drills into a bombed apartment building. They speak… Read more »

Memorial candles lit for Kiryat Malachi casualties in the apartment building where they were killed by a Gaza rocket. (Anav Silverman/Tazpit News Agency)

It’s Thursday evening in Kiryat Malachi and the city of nearly 21,000 residents is strangely quiet. The usually busy city center is empty of people—most of the stores and restaurants have been shut down. There are no high school students loitering around, and no elderly folks smoking hooka or… Read more »

Lone soldier Stephen Segal (in purple beret)

The firing of missiles from Gaza into Israel and Israel’s Nov. 14 killing of Ahmed Jabari, the chief of Hamas’ military wing, initiated the call-up of Israel Defense Forces’ reserves. The situation escalated over the following week, and since Nov. 21, a precarious cease-fire has taken hold. For members… Read more »

The Iron Dome defense system firing missiles to intercept incoming rockets from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90/JTA)

SDEROT, Israel (JTA) — Wage war to make peace. That’s the idea behind Israel’s strikes this week against Hamas targets in Gaza, including Wednesday’s attack that killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari. What’s not clear is how far Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense will go, what price Israeli civilians… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hours after three Israelis in southern Israel were killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, a rocket struck the outskirts of Tel Aviv, bringing the conflict between Israel and Hamas to a new intensity. On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces reportedly sent ground trips to the… Read more »

Ever since terrorists based in Gaza started firing missiles into Israel several years ago, the residents of Kiryat Malachi have been worried.  Over the years, missiles have fallen around the town but have landed in open areas just outside of the municipal borders.  All of that changed this morning… Read more »

Smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City, Nov. 14, 2012. (Edi Israel/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Israeli army began moving infantry units to the south and calling up reservists in preparation for a further escalation of hostilities with Hamas after an Israeli airstrike killed Hamas’ military chief in the strip. Ahmed Jabari and a passenger were killed by an Israeli missile… Read more »

Haredi Orthodox Jews watching the victory speech of President Obama at the American Center in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Most Israelis were asleep as the polls closed in America and voters waited for the results, but on one rooftop in central Tel Aviv a party with loud classic rock music and flashing lights was going strong. It was the pro-Obama election-watching party of Israel’s… Read more »

Members of HaNoar Ha'Oved V'HaLomed, a left-wing youth group, attending the rally in memory of the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv, Oct. 27, 2012. (Roni Schutzer/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — About a year before Guy Ben-Simon was born, his parents attended the Tel Aviv rally where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. It was a night of shock and sadness, they recalled for him while he was growing up. They had called all of their friends, telling… Read more »

Walter Ferguson’s childhood encounter with birds piqued a lifelong interest.

Road kill, for most people, is something you try not to look at too closely and leave behind. But for Walter Ferguson these misfortunate animals could be a prized treasure. Ferguson, one of the world’s preeminent wildlife artists, would never wish for a little creature to be maimed. However,… Read more »

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, of Likud and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu holding a joint news conference announcing that their two parties are joining forces ahead of the upcoming Israeli general elections, Oct. 25, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and fealty to his late father’s nationalist vision? Is he a true right-wing ideologue whose apparent concessions to Israeli-Palestinian peace are but feints? Or… Read more »

Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman after she said the Shema Israel prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 16, 2012. (Women of the Wall)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Last week’s episode was hardly the first time Israeli police stopped activist Anat Hoffman while she was leading a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall in violation of Israeli law. But this time, police actually arrested Hoffman — a first, she says — and… Read more »