Tribulation Watch: Kerry announces renewal of direct peace negotiations

End Of Days News

On sixth visit to region, US secretary of state says ‘difficult road ahead is worth travelling’; sides expected in Washington next week

“We have reached an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming negotiations. This is a significant and welcome step forward,” said Kerry at a press conference in Amman.

“We know that challenges lay ahead. Both sides understand that the dfficult road ahead is worth travelling. They have courageously recognized that in order to live side by side, they must begin by sitting together in direct talks,” said Kerry.

“I look forward to seeing my friends from this region in Washington next week” or shortly after, he added.

Kerry was back in Amman Friday evening after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah earlier, where he was a guest at the Iftar meal with the Palestinian leader in the West Bank city.

“Mr. President, you should look happy,” a cheerful-looking Kerry said to Abbas in front of reporters as they sat before the closed-door talks began.

Kerry stepped up his drive Friday to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, facing Palestinian reluctance over his formula for resuming peace talks after nearly five years.

Kerry held more than 90 minutes of talks Friday morning with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a US official said.

At a stormy late-night meeting of their leadership Thursday, Palestinians balked at dropping a main condition for talks with the Israelis. They demand a guarantee that negotiations on borders between a Palestinian state and Israel would be based on the cease-fire line that held from 1949 until the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-announces-renewal-of-direct-peace-negotiations/

YET if Israel does not make "PEACE" with these folks, they are the bad guys...RIGHT? When have you ever heard Israel say someone does not have the right to exsist?

End Of Days News

In Gaza, Islamic cleric rejects Israel’s existence

prominent Islamic scholar declared Thursday that Israel has no right to exist, during a landmark visit to the Gaza Strip in which he was feted as the “imam of the Arab Spring.”

“This land has never once been a Jewish land. Palestine is for the Arab Islamic nation,” Yusuf al-Qaradawi said.

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-gaza-islamic-cleric-rejects-israels-existence/

UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza

End Of Days News

Jerusalem had been blamed for death of BBC correspondent’s son during mini-war, but otherwise critical report finds shrapnel from Hamas misfire responsible

 

 

A United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.

 

The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.

 

Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.

 

The report, released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday, criticizes both Israel and the Palestinians for failure to abide by international law during the conflict.

 

Images of the bereaved father tearfully holding the corpse of his 11-month-old baby went around the world during Operation Pillar of Defense, the eight-day military campaign during which the Israeli Air Force carried out 1,500 airstrikes on Gaza and Palestinian terrorists fired about 1,500 rockets at Israel’s south.

 

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/un-clears-israel-from-charge-it-bombed-11-month-old-baby/

Rights group accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

End Of Days News

Human Rights Watch says Israel carried out unneeded airstrikes on Gaza; Israeli watchdog group slams HRW’s ‘baseless claims’

 

 

JERUSALEM — A US-based rights group says Israel violated laws of war in a series of airstrikes during an eight-day military operation last November against the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip.

 

Human Rights Watch says it counted 14 airstrikes in which there didn’t appear to be a valid military target, and four others that targeted militants but used disproportionate force.

 

HRW says the attacks killed more than 40 Palestinian civilians. It cites a bomb attack on a Gaza home that killed a father and two children, ages 4 and 2. The group released the report late Tuesday.

 

Israel’s air assault came after increased rocket fire and other attacks by Gaza terrorists on Israel’s south.

 

A previous report by HRW late last year accused Hamas of war crimes for firing over 1,500 rockets at Israel and causing the deaths of civilians in Israel and Gaza during Operation Pillar of Defense.

 

That report also blasted terrorists for putting Gaza residents in the line of fire. The nongovernment organization’s research in Gaza found that armed groups repeatedly fired rockets from densely populated areas, near homes, businesses and a hotel, unnecessarily placing civilians in the vicinity at grave risk from Israeli counter-fire.

 

Also in December, the group pounded Israel for journalists’ deaths in Gaza during the conflict.

The military had no immediate comment. In the past, it has accused Hamas of using civilians for cover.

 

The Israeli watchdog group NGO Monitor said, however, that HRW possessed “neither the military expertise nor the appropriate fact-finding methodology” to make its assessments and conduct proper investigations. “Such judgments require knowledge of the military intelligence possessed by Israeli commanders at the time of the strikes, and information on intent of the officers. In contrast, HRW’s ‘evidence’ consists solely of its inability to identify ‘indication[s] of a legitimate military target at the site at the time of the attack’ and Israel’s refusal to explain its operational decisions to the NGO.

 

NOG Monitor also noted that HRW’s latest press release was “its seventh document relating to the November 2012 fighting in Gaza and Southern Israel. The disproportionate obsession and political agenda are further seen by HRW’s decision to conduct ‘field investigations’ on that particular conflict, at a time when the UN estimated that over 10,000 people were killed in the Syrian civil war in the month of January 2013 alone.”

 

It also criticized HRW for failing to wait for a response from the IDF. Said NGO Monitor, “The real reason HRW does not want to wait for the IDF report is because it will demonstrate that HRW’s claims are baseless, as happened with Israeli responses to the 2009 Gaza conflict and the 2006 Lebanon War.”

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/rights-group-accuses-israel-of-war-crimes-in-gaza/