Israel News

The head of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip, Ahmed Jabri, was killed at 7:30 a.m. New York time Wednesday by an Israeli missile at the start of a major Israeli military Gaza offensive called Pillar of Defense, a retired Israeli general said on a conference call organized by The Israel Project, a pro-Israel education organization.

Rounds of fighting in southern Israel and the constant rocket fire on towns and cities bordering the Gaza Strip have not only physically endangered the safety of residents, but have also had a telling effect on their psychological health.

The ERAN Association for Emotional First Aid has reported an increase of 22 percent in the number of Israelis in the south who have contacted it in recent days for assistance. More than 150 rockets have been fired at southern Israel since Saturday night, Israeli officials said.

Tel Aviv — Tamara Cohen and other Israelis near the Gaza Strip call it a “haslama,” Hebrew for escalation. 

They are several daylong violent spasms in which the Israeli army and Palestinian rocket launchers trade blows, sending one million running for cover and forcing school cancellation. Eventually, a cease-fire is achieved, and life returns to a sense of near normalcy.

But after four years of this, a month in which southern Israelis were subjected to two separate rocket upsurges from Gaza has residents and politicians fed up.

An exit poll of 1,572 Jews who hold dual American-Israeli citizenship cast their absentee ballots overwhelmingly for Romney — 85 percent to just 14 percent for Obama. The poll, which has a margin of error of 2.5 percent, was conducted Oct. 22-24 and found that the No. 1 issue for voters was Israel and its related issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and Palestinians. Some 61 percent of voters listed it as No. 1.

Jerusalem — The moment President Barack Obama declared victory, Israelis — both pundits and private individuals — began pondering what it could mean for Israel-U.S. relations.

“We want the best for the U.S. because we love the American people, but I hope we won’t need their government because, while I respect Obama, I don’t trust him,” said Michal Yehoshua, a 21-year-old government employee, sipping hot coffee during a break.

Tel Aviv — 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 those who had not heard that the prime minister had been killed.

“They cried,” said Guy, 16, repeating his parents’ story. “Everyone cried. It was very hard to unite after that because something bad had happened.”

Israel’s military censor authorized for publication the testimony of an army officer who said he killed PLO cofounder Abu Jihad in 1988.

Nahum Lev, the commander of the operation which ended in Abu Jihad’s death in Tunis, told a reporter for Yedioth Ahronoth in an interview before his own death in 2000 that he had killed Abu Jihad, who cofounded the Palestine Liberation Organization. 

Lev died in a car accident. The censor only recently lifted a ban on publication, and the interview appeared in Friday's paper.

Tel Aviv — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jerusalem — By all accounts they are a seemingly negligible constituency.

Israeli settlers rioted and battled security forces during the razing of a West Bank outpost.

The settlers threw stones and rolled burning tires at police and Israel Defense Forces soldiers during the early Thursday morning evacuation of the HaSruga outpost located near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, south of Nablus.

Some settlers reportedly also entered Palestinian villages in the area.