Report: 28 Hezbollah missile launch sites aimed at Israel |Arutz Sheva

The Alma Center’s Research Department initiated a project to find the locations of missile launching sites in South Lebanon adjacent to the civilian population, as part of what is known as the “Human Shield tactic”.

In their report, Alma notes that, despite the fact that a large proportion of Hezbollah’s missiles are located in south Lebanon, the information in public sources on the subject is scarce.

The primary source of Alma‘s project was the Wikimapia.org website.

“The first locations we found were all close to civilian infrastructure”, the report states, “which drove us to further the research on the subject and thus find 28 missile launching locations and the sites connected with these locations”.

According to the report, the missiles are medium-range missiles – “The same as those subject to the Hezbollah missile precision guided missile project (PGM’s)”.

The report explains that “as part of its modus operandi, Hezbollah stores its weapons in civilian structures and in the proximity of densely populated areas throughout Lebanon, with highest concentration in the capital city of Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and southern Lebanon”.

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Why Israel is seeing a coronavirus spike after initially crushing the outbreak | Stuff

A man voluntarily presents himself at an Israeli testing station

Israel’s deft handling of its coronavirus outbreak this spring won praise at home and abroad, but the virus has returned, with cases now increasing faster than ever and health officials warning that hospitals could be overwhelmed by the end of the month.

Israelis across the political spectrum are asking what’s gone wrong and demanding to know how their government could have fumbled so badly after getting it so right.

An Israeli official with knowledge of the pandemic response said government researchers have traced the bulk of new infections to a single category of activity: public gatherings, particularly weddings.

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Qassem Soleimani deemed ‘unlawful’ | Stuff

Qassem Soleimani funeral procession

The drone strike that had the stamp of approval from US President Donald Trump and killed Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani​ has been labelled “unlawful”.

A report conducted by the United Nations said the targeted drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3 that killed 10 people violated a UN charter that prohibited the threat or use of force against other states.

After claiming responsibility for the attack, the US asserted it was “in response to an escalating series of armed attacks” spanning months.

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Israel thought it had crushed COVID-19. Then cases surged — and restrictions were reinstated | JTA

Benjamin Netanyahu

It was just two months ago that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory over the new coronavirus.

Ten weeks after recording its first cases, Israel had imposed a series of draconian restrictions, causing the number of new cases to plunge. Fewer than 250 people had died. A contact tracing system was up and running.

So Netanyahu felt confident about suggesting that the danger had passed. Israel, he said in a press conference from his office on May 4, is “a model for many countries, and the world is learning from us.”

That hasn’t changed. But now, with a second wave of infections surging across the country, the world may be taking different lessons from Israel: what happens when a society relaxes its guard too early.

After recording more than 1,000 cases in 24 hours, Israel reimposed steep restrictions on its population on Monday, just a little over a month after fully lifting a nationwide lockdown that saw much of the population stuck at home.

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‘Stuck’ Israeli family gives New Zealand lockdown five stars | Times of Israel

The Shabtai Family just before lockdown

Though a dream trip turned into a plague-cation with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Shabtai family says NZ government’s response was better than anything they’d get at home

By IRA TOLCHIN IMMERGLUCK4 July 2020, 2:48 pm

This past December, Noa and Ilan Shabtai, small business owners from Ramat Gan, embarked on their dream vacation to New Zealand along with their three children. They had planned an extended trip with lots of travel, but things quickly changed with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, after spending months in New Zealand during lockdown, the family has no small appreciation for their host country. In early June New Zealand’s government announced that the virus has been effectively eradicated locally.

“So long as that last infected person hadn’t been given a certificate of health, the entire country remained under restrictions,” Noa Shabtai said on a video call from New Zealand with Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site.

“Even with zero new sick people. Wherever we went, we had to first register with the COVID-19 app, so that the authorities could track us. It was incredible to see how, up until the very last minute, everyone adhered to the 2-meter [6-foot] distancing rule in public spaces and followed all of the directives,” said Shabtai.

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Does Israel train America’s police forces? | Spectator

Show me who you lie about and I’ll tell you what you are. The big lie in this, our season of historical illiteracy and gratuitous destruction, is that the Jews are responsible for police killings of black Americans. How? The racist police of Amerikkka are trained by the Zionists.

That’s right. America has no history of violence against blacks and no history of anti-black policing. In the new blood libel, America was one big interracial paradise before the Jews taught Derek Chauvin to put his knee on George Floyd’s neck.

‘Israel security forces are training American cops despite history of rights abuses,’ tweeted Charlotte Greensit in 2017. Greensit, an editor at the left-conspiracist website the Intercept, was promoting a demi-literate promotion of this conspiracy theory by Alice Speri. Greensit is now the managing editor of the New York Times’s opinion page. As she slithered up the greasy pole, Greensit deleted thousands of old tweets, this one included. But the snail-trail of slander is quite clear, and not at all new.

As soon as the Ferguson, Missouri protests began in August 2014, the slogan ‘Ferguson is Palestine’ appeared on the placards. When the Movement for Black Lives, a group affiliated with Black Lives Matter, promulgated a common platform in August 2016, its only foreign policy was that Israel must be shunned and destroyed as an ‘apartheid state’ that commits ‘genocide’ against the Palestinians. Another big lie.

In the same month, Amnesty USA claimed that ‘hundreds’ of American law enforcement officials from many states had received ‘training on crowd control, use of force and surveillance’ from Israel’s ‘national police, military and intelligence services’. That’s not true.

Amnesty’s claims are routinely cited as fact by the hard left and radical black identity groups. Its report and the libel it fosters have filtered into outlets as varied as the the British communist newspaper the Morning Star, the Washington Post and the website of the New York Review of Books.

‘The Israeli military trains US police in racist and repressive policing tactics, which systematically targets Black and Brown bodies,’ tweeted the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which rejects Israel’s existence, in late May.

This is also inaccurate. As Amnesty itself admitted, the programs that took American officers to Israel were for ‘police chiefs, assistant chiefs, and captains’. Amnesty’s report contained no evidence that American officers received any information, let alone ‘training’, from their Israeli peers on relevant matters such as the militarising of the American police, targeting minorities for traffic stops and minor violations, or using deadly force in routine encounters.

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Over 40% of Jewish community now considers antisemitism a big problem in New Zealand | J-Wire

There’s been a significant increase in the amount of Jewish New Zealanders who think antisemitism is a “very big” or a “fairly big” problem, according to a new survey of New Zealand’s Jewish community.

Back in 2008 when the last such survey – Changing Jewry (Gen08) – was conducted, more than four out of five respondents (84%) thought that antisemitism was not a serious issue in New Zealand.

But in the Shifting Jewry 2019 (Gen19) survey, which was launched last weekend, 44% of respondents indicated that they thought antisemitism was either a “very big” or a “fairly big” problem.

While 50% still do not think antisemitism is a serious issue in New Zealand, the growth in the number of respondents that do is considerable.

For report co-author Jim Salinger, the change in perceptions of antisemitism is one of the big changes in this survey, as compared to three earlier community surveys.

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Israel could annex parts of the West Bank on July 1. Here’s what you need to know. | JTA

Israeli PM Netanyahu and Speaker of the Knesset, Gantz

While the world has had its attention fixed on the George Floyd protests and the ongoing threat of COVID-19, a political development with monumental implications has been brewing in the Middle East: Israel’s potential annexation of parts of the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised his supporters during multiple election campaigns last year that he would make areas outside of the country’s borders part of the state.

Now his chance is fast approaching. The terms of a government coalition deal he struck with political rival Benny Gantz allow Netanyahu to put annexation to a government vote as early as July 1. The pair reportedly differ over details, but the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is trying to broker an agreement.

What happens with annexation has potentially steep stakes for Israel’s relationship with the United States, with its allies in Europe and beyond, and with American Jews. Some of the country’s fiercest supporters oppose Netanyahu’s annexation push.

The opposition and other factors complicate the chances of annexation happening on July 1, but the possibility remains on the table. So here’s what you need to know before that important date.

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Netanyahu vows all settlements will be annexed July 1, but other lands may wait | Times of Israel

US President Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told settler leaders on Sunday that he still intends to annex all West Bank settlements on the July 1 date that is the earliest allowed by his coalition deals, but he acknowledged that annexing other lands allocated to Israel under the Trump peace plan will likely take more time, several participants in the meeting told The Times of Israel.

The remarks reaffirmed Netanyahu’s self-declared July 1 target date for extending Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements but also appeared to mark the first time he has admitted to long-reported delays by the joint US-Israeli team tasked with mapping out the further territories to be annexed, mainly in the Jordan Valley.

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NZ expresses concerns over proposed Israeli annexation plans | Winston Peters

Winston Peters, NZ Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today expressed the serious concern of the New Zealand Government about the proposed annexation by Israel of parts of the West Bank. The comments are in advance of the 1 July date set by Israel for a vote on annexation.

“New Zealand is a long-standing supporter of Israel’s right to live in peace and security.  However, successive New Zealand governments have also been clear that Israeli settlements are in violation of international law and have negative implications for the peace process,” Mr Peters said.

“The New Zealand Government’s view is that annexation would gravely undermine the two-state solution, breach international law, and pose significant risks to regional security.  We call on Israel to reconsider these plans.

“New Zealand has consistently pursued a principled and balanced approach to the Middle East Peace Process and continues to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“This Government stands ready to assist in any constructive way we can to support this process,” Mr Peters said.

“It is critical now for Israel and Palestine to work towards a negotiated, two-state solution. Both sides have legitimate issues and grievances and these have to be addressed through direct negotiations, with the aim of seeing Israel and a Palestinian state existing side by side, in peace and security,” Mr Peters said.

Source: Peters, W (23 Jun 2020). NZ expresses concerns over proposed Israeli annexation plans. NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs. www.beehive.govt.nz. Accessed 24 Jun 2020.