Israeli airstrike kills militant commander in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- An Israeli airstrike killed a top Palestinian militant commander and a second militant in Gaza on Friday in the highest profile attack against the coastal strip in months.


The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying the slain commander Zuhair al-Qaissi was plotting an infiltration attack into Israel similar to one his group carried out in August that killed eight people. In a statement, the military warned Gaza's Hamas rulers against any retaliation for the strike.


Palestinian witnesses said Israeli drones were seen hovering above just moments before a vehicle exploded into flames, just outside of Gaza City.


Al-Qaissi was the top commander of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committee, a large militant group aligned with Hamas. The group's spokesman confirmed his death. He identified the second casualty as Mahmoud Hanini, who hails from the West Bank and was released from an Israeli prison five years and deported to Gaza.


"The coward Zionists have committed an ugly crime and they know the price that they are going to pay," said the spokesman, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Mujahid.


Israel often targets Gaza militants it says are preparing attacks, but tensions have been relatively calm in recent months with Israel mostly targeting smuggling tunnels from Egypt and refraining from targeting individuals. Al-Qaissi, 55, who is also known as Abu Ibrahim, is the highest profile casualty in Gaza in months.


Another Gazan was seriously wounded in the attack. His identity remains unclear.


The Israeli military said that al-Qaida was also in charge of transfering funds from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to other militant groups in Gaza.

News analysis: Shootings, attacks test Israeli-Egyptian relations

JERUSALEM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The killing of Egyptian policemen and soldiers Thursday apparently by Israeli troops, who were in hot pursuit of militants responsible for attacks earlier in the day within Israel, have strained relations between the two nations.

On Saturday, an Israeli diplomat in Egypt delivered a statement from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressing his regret over the killing and proposing a joint investigation during a meeting at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

But officials in Egypt were unimpressed by the Israeli gesture.

"The Israeli statement was positive on the surface, but it was not in keeping with the magnitude of the incident and the state of Egyptian anger toward Israeli actions," Egypt's official news agency MENA quoted an Egyptian cabinet statement as saying on Sunday.

Israeli analysts told Xinhua that the cool reaction of Egyptians is an indication to how much the relations between the two countries have declined since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February.

CHANGES ON GROUND

Mubarak was considered a strong ally by Israel because of similar views on many regional issues. During his 30 years in power, Israel could count on the southern border to be relatively quiet and demand few military resources. However, after Thursday's attacks, that could all change, according to Prof. Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research for International Affairs Center.

"Clearly, it will have to be a military priority to reinforce the border," Rubin said, adding that "It means re-establishment of the southern command as a regularly functioning front."

Missile from Gaza hits Israeli school bus; 2 hurt

An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday, wounding two people, including one child critically, Israeli officials said.

Israeli tanks quickly retaliated by opening fire across the border, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding seven other people, Palestinian medics said.

The sudden outbreak of violence illustrated the fragile situation along the Israel-Gaza border, where small bouts of violence can quickly escalate into heavy-scale warfare.

After a two-year lull, tensions have been rising between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza over the past few weeks. From Israel's perspective, Thursday's attack was the most serious of this period.

Israeli officer testifies in US activist lawsuit

An Israeli military commander testifying Sunday in a civil lawsuit over the death of American activist in the Gaza Strip eight years ago said the young woman and other activists ignored army warnings to move before she was crushed by an armored bulldozer.

Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia, Washington, was killed in March 2003 as she tried to block the Israeli military vehicle in a dangerous area along the Gaza-Egypt border. The activists believed the Israelis were about to demolish nearby Palestinian houses.

The border zone was the scene of some of the worst fighting in the Gaza Strip before Israel pulled its soldiers and settlers out in 2005.

The infantry major, the officer commanding the force on the day of Corrie's death, spoke as a lawsuit filed last year against Israel by Corrie's parents progressed through an Israeli court. He was the first soldier involved in the incident to appear openly in the courtroom, where previous witnesses testified from behind a screen to conceal their identities. The major's name was not made public, however, and he was identified only by his initials, S.R., according to military regulations.

6 Israeli lawmakers to study US Jewish community

Six Israeli lawmakers are headed to the United States this weekend to learn more about the American Jewish community.


The visit to Brandeis University and New York City, starting Sunday, comes amid concerns about a growing gap between American and Israeli Jews.


The six-day Ruderman Fellows Program aims to give the legislators a detailed understanding of the structure and history of the American Jewish community.


The packed schedule includes meetings with American Jewish leaders in areas such as academics, business and philanthropy.


Program officials say Israeli Jews sometimes don't understand the communities' differences, such as the diversity in American Jewish life and practice.


Program founder Jay Ruderman says more understanding among Israeli leaders can ensure differences don't harden into divides. He says that would severely damage the small global Jewish community.

Israeli airstrike kills 2 Gaza militants

Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket squad in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing two militants as the military prepared to activate a new defense system to shoot down incoming rockets.

Islamic Jihad, a militant group that frequently attacks Israel, confirmed two members were killed in the airstrike, while a third was critically wounded. The group did not specify whether they were in the process of launching rockets.

Gaza militants, including Islamic Jihad and the territory's Hamas rulers, had said over the weekend that they would halt their fire if Israel did. It was not clear whether they were reneging on that pledge or whether the air strike hit a rogue group of militants ignoring the cease-fire overture.

A spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry, Ihab Ghussein, accused Israel of seeking to perpetuate the violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had "no interest" in escalating things.

"But we won't hesitate to employ the might of the military against those who would attack our citizens," Netanyahu added in remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Weeks of stepped-up rocket and mortar attacks have drawn fears of renewed war and led to new calls in Israel for the military to deploy the $200 million Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

The Israeli military said the system should begin operating on Sunday near Beersheba, southern Israel's largest city. A second anti-missile battery will be deployed in another large southern city, Ashdod, the military added, without specifying an exact date.

Gaza militants rocket Israel, drawing reprisals

Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip on Thursday in response to militant rocket and mortar attacks, stoking concerns that a grave new round of hostilities will fill the vacuum left by an impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Two years of relative calm have been unraveling in recent weeks with acts of violence against Israelis - including a deadly bombing in Jerusalem on Wednesday that killed an unidentified female British tourist - and Israeli reprisals against Gaza militants, which in one case killed four Palestinian civilians.

Militants operating near the Israeli border sent at least seven rockets and mortars flying at Israeli communities throughout the day, drawing a pair of air attacks. No injuries were reported on either side.

Because of the superiority of Israel's military, its enemies consider hitting Israeli cities as the most effective strategy in a war against the Jewish state. At least two rockets this week have landed in Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel.

Israel's inability to halt the rocket fire has drawn public criticism, especially since Israel has spent an estimated $200 million developing a system that is meant to shoot down the short-range rockets that militants use. Although officials have repeatedly promised the Iron Dome is ready to be deployed, it so far hasn't been used in the field.

Home Front Minister Matan Vilnai, who oversees civil defense, refused to discuss the holdup in an interview on Israel Radio Thursday.

Israeli security officials have said little about the investigations into Wednesday's bus stop bombing and the knife killings of five members of a family in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank two weeks ago. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said there were gag orders preventing discussion of either probe. He said only that Jerusalem police remained on a heightened state of alert.

The rising wave of violence has been the fiercest since Israel went to war in Hamas-ruled Gaza more than two years ago to try to curb years of frequent rocket attacks.

On Thursday, Israel filed a complaint with the U.N. about the rising wave of attacks on its citizens.

Israeli strike misses target, kills 4 Palestinians

Even as British RAF Typhoons took to the skies from this southern Italian air base, there was mounting tension between allies about who should command the mission to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone in Libya.

After heated exchanges between NATO ambassadors in Brussels, the alliance announced Tuesday an operation to enforce the arms embargo against Libya. But it went no further on deciding if or when NATO would take command of the mission already under way, in which several allies are participating.

In a statement, NATO only said that it had plans on the table to enforce the no-fly zone "if needed."

The backdrop was a simmering feud between France and Italy that turned more cynical by the hour. Italy is demanding that NATO take a lead role in the military and political decision-making during the remainder of the Libyan mission.

But resistance within the alliance mounted even as the United States expressed its desire to take a back seat in the operation and hand over any command role to European allies. France seemed most reluctant to submit to NATO command, but Germany and Turkey also voiced objections.

These countries also argue that Arab League nations would be shut out of any decision-making if NATO took control.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he continues to believe it was right not to participate in the United Nations-sanctioned mission. He noted that Germany is not alone in its skeptical view of military action, pointing to the fact that other European nations are not taking part either.

Westerwelle also refused to comment on whether NATO should take a leading role in enforcing U.N. resolution 1973.

"That is for the coalition of the willing to debate," Westerwelle said.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told French media that NATO would play a role in the mission in coming days but that France, Britain and a council of other coalition partners would make political decisions. One NATO official described this to CNN as putting the alliance's assets at the disposal of the coalition, but NATO would have no formal political role.

Israel hands Russia ownership of Jerusalem site

Israel is handing back ownership of a czarist-era landmark in the heart of Jerusalem to Russia, defusing a long-simmering dispute between the two countries right before Israel's leader visits Moscow.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has not disclosed the agenda for Thursday's visit but he is expected to urge Moscow not to sell sophisticated missiles to Syria and to support efforts to keep Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

The return of ownership of the property known as Sergei's Courtyard, approved in 2008, appeared to be a goodwill gesture ahead of the visit.

The hewn stone building, built in 1890 to accommodate Russian pilgrims to the Holy Land, is a prominent edifice on the Jerusalem landscape with its soaring turret and lush garden. About a dozen workers were moving crates out of the building Monday and loading them into trucks.

"Israel is vacating Sergei's Courtyard in accordance with the understandings reached between Israel and the Russian Federation," an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

The site was named for Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a son of Czar Alexander III, and is part of a complex known as the Russian Compound. Israel bought most of it from the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, paying with oranges because it didn't have hard currency.

Israel seized control of it after the Soviet Union severed ties with the Jewish state following the 1967 Mideast war. The two countries restored ties in 1991 and negotiations to return the courtyard ownership to Russia began in the 1990s.

Hamas fires dozens of rockets at Israel

Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 rockets into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said, while Hamas police beat up and confiscated equipment from reporters.

A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia.

The violence comes amid increasing calls for reconciliation between Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his bitter rivals, the Islamic militant group Hamas. Abbas is seeking U.N. recognition for a Palestinian state by the fall and is currently lobbying for votes worldwide. Hamas used force to disperse a reconciliation rally in Gaza. Some reporters were later beaten up, threatened and briefly detained.

Israeli police spokesman Tamir Avtabi said Gaza militants fired 54 mortar shells at Israeli border communities within 15 minutes. He said two Israeli civilians were lightly wounded by shrapnel and residents were advised to stay at home or in bomb shelters.

Hayim Yellin, head of the Eshkol region where the mortars exploded, said they were the same type as those intercepted on a cargo ship last week loaded with weapons Israel said were sent by Iran to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will file a complaint at the U.N. after Saturday's unusually large barrage of rockets. In a statement, Lieberman said the Palestinians "primary goal is destroying Israel."

Last survivor of Israel's first parliament dies

The last surviving member of Israel's first parliament has died.

Tawfik Toubi was a founding member of the Israeli Communist Party and two of its offshoots. He died Saturday at 88.

Toubi was born in 1922 in what was then British-controlled Palestine. He served in the Knesset, or parliament, from its establishment in 1949 until he resigned in 1990.

In all, he was elected to 12 terms.

His funeral was taking place in his hometown of Haifa on Sunday.

Israel approves settlement construction

Israel said Sunday it has approved hundreds of settler homes after five members of an Israeli family - including three children - were knifed to death as they slept in a West Bank settlement over the weekend.

The attack and the government's response threatened to drive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking even further out of reach. Israel, which blames the attack on Palestinian militants, is liable to set aside an emerging peace initiative it had planned to propose, while the planned construction of new settler homes only deepened Palestinian mistrust of Israel.

The settlement construction, approved Saturday night by the Cabinet's ministerial team on settlements, would take place in major West Bank settlement blocs that Israel expects to hold on to in any final peace deal, the prime minister's office said in a text message to reporters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under domestic pressure to respond harshly to the killings, is a member of that team.

Between 300 and 500 apartments and homes were approved for construction, said a government official speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release this information to the media

Palestinian opposition to settlement construction on lands they want for a future state has brought negotiations to a virtual standstill over the past two years, with Palestinians refusing to negotiate directly with Israel as long as it persists.

"We condemn this act of accelerated settlement construction," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We urge the international community to intervene and implement the two-state solution. This is the only way out of this vicious circle of violence and counter-violence."

Settler leader Dani Dayan called the government's move "a very small step in the right direction."

Although ground has been broken on as many as 500 apartments and homes since an Israeli moratorium on new West Bank settlement construction expired in late September, the government is holding up approvals on hundreds of other homes, to the settlers' chagrin.

Israel pursues attackers who killed settlers

The Israeli military launched a massive search Saturday for suspected Palestinian militants after an Israeli family of five - including two young children and a baby - were knifed to death overnight as they slept in a West Bank settlement.

Footage from the scene broadcast on Israeli media showed children's toys covered in blood and furniture tipped over.

Israeli officials said Palestinian militants infiltrated the settlement and killed the couple and the children, ages 11 and 3. A baby also was killed.

Israeli media said two young children were asleep in another part of the house and survived. Another family member, a 12-year-old girl, was away at a youth group function when the attack occurred. She found the carnage when she came home and alerted authorities.

Military officials said they had made arrests, but wouldn't provide details.

"This was a very harsh terror attack, a whole family was wiped out by despicable cowardly murderers who came in the dead of night and killed innocent children, a woman and man as they slept," said Avi Mizrachi, commander of the military's Central Command.

The attack at Itamar settlement is the first against settlers in months and the deadliest in years, marking a rare outburst of violence during a relatively calm period. It comes as Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts are at a standstill and could complicate efforts to restart them.

Itamar is a small, isolated settlement in the northern West Bank that has rocky relations with the nearby Palestinian towns and villages.

Palestinian security forces also were searching for suspects, Nablus governor Jibril Bakri told The Associated Press.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the attack.

"Violence does not justify violence, we condemn it completely, whoever does it and whoever the victims are," Fayyad told the Associated Press.

Israel: Iranian experts operating in Gaza

A senior Israeli military official says the Islamic militant Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip now looks "much like an army," thanks to direct assistance from Iranian and Hezbollah agents stationed there.

He told The Associated Press that Hamas has recovered from its war against Israel two years ago. He said the militant group now has a "vast amount" of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and a "very big arsenal" of rockets that can strike deep inside Israel, as well as a sophisticated communications system.

He says Hamas could not have developed this expertise without foreign help.

The official, a senior officer in the Israeli military's Southern Command, spoke on condition of anonymity under military guidelines barring publication of his name.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A top Israeli diplomat says smuggling of arms from Egypt into the Gaza Strip has grown following the unrest in the Arab world.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says Israel has observed "increased activity" in Gaza. He accused militants of "trying to take advantage of the uncertainties in the region to booster their capabilities to attack Israeli cities and Israeli citizens."

Ayalon says explosives and terrorists are also being smuggled. Gaza militants have fired thousands of rockets at Israel in recent years.

Gaza is bordered by Israel and Egypt. After the militant group Hamas seized control in 2007, both nations imposed a blockade.

Hamas uses a vast network of tunnels under the Egyptian border to smuggle in both civilian and military supplies.

Israeli PM: Military must remain in West Bank

Israel's prime minister declared Tuesday that his country must retain a strategic section of the West Bank under any future peace deal - a position unlikely to win Palestinians over to his reported plan to offer them a temporary state.

In a rare visit to the occupied territory, Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel's security depends on maintaining a military presence in the Jordan Valley - a strip of West Bank land along the border with Jordan. Without troops there, Israel fears militants could smuggle weapons into the West Bank.

"The Jordan Valley is Israel's line of defense," Netanyahu said atop a rocky hilltop overlooking the valley. "There is no alternative. It will remain that way in any future situation and any future deal. The military must remain here along the Jordan border."

Netanyahu has made similar comments in the past. But the location and the timing - just as officials say he is working on a new diplomatic initiative - were notable, signaling that any new plan would fall far short of Palestinian demands.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, for a future state. Israel captured all three areas in 1967, then withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas militants overran Gaza two years later.

Israeli PM: World conditioned to back Palestinians

Israel's leader has accused the international community of automatically siding with the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Palestinians are refusing to make peace overtures, "instead preferring to take advantage of the international community's Pavlovian reflex in their favor."

Peace talks broke down in September. The Palestinians blame Israel for the stalemate, saying continued Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is preventing the resumption of talks.

Netanyahu reportedly is considering making an unspecified interim offer, but the Palestinians have rejected provisional arrangements and want nothing short of an accord for a permanent Palestinian state.

Israel: No Palestinian peace deal possible now

Israel has concluded that a final peace deal with the Palestinians cannot be reached at this time and is weighing alternatives to try to prove that it is interested in keeping peacemaking with the Palestinians alive, officials said Thursday.

With popular protests shaking up the Mideast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fierce international pressure to prove he is serious about gietting peacemaking moving again, especially after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel's West Bank settlement construction last month.

Israeli officials are meeting with international mediators, including U.S. envoy Dennis Ross and representatives of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers - the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia - due to arrive in the region next week.

Government officials say Netanyahu is expected to deliver a major policy speech on peacemaking in the coming weeks, hinting at a change in direction away from direct talks on a peace treaty.

Privately, officials say Netanyahu is considering a phased approach to peacemaking, but contrary to published reports, it is not clear if he is open to the concept of a Palestinian state within temporary borders.

Israel: Iranian naval vessels are provocation

A senior Israeli official says Tehran's decision to send two naval vessels through the Suez Canal is part of an Iranian campaign to gain "hegemony and control" over the Middle East.

The warships sailed through the canal en route to Syria earlier Tuesday in what Israeli officials say is a provocation by the Iranian regime. It's the first time Iranian military vessels have sailed into the Mediterranean since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Israel's vice prime minister, Silvan Shalom, told reporters the move is part of an Iranian struggle "against the West for hegemony and control in the Middle East."

He says Iran's goal is to show the Arab world "who the new leader is in the Middle East."

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

CAIRO (AP) - Two Iranian naval vessels traveled through the Suez Canal on Tuesday en route to Syria, officials said, the first time in three decades that Tehran has sent military ships through the strategic waterway.

Canal officials said the ships - a frigate and a supply vessel - had reached the Mediterranean Sea by about 4 p.m. local time.

Israel saw the passage as a provocation. Israeli officials refused to comment Tuesday, though earlier this week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he viewed the move "with gravity."