Saturday

Cross posted with the Center on Public Diplomacy

Israel's 2009 war on Gaza has been exhaustively documented: some 1,400 Palestinian deaths (compared to 13 for Israel), a vast, rubble-strewn landscape, international condemnation culminating in the hard-hitting and controversial "Goldstone Report" from the UN, and a blockade, tacitly approved by the U.S. and EU, that led to a humanitarian crisis, and ultimately to the high-seas catastrophe this week on the Free Gaza flotilla.

JERUSALEM — Israeli forces seized a Gaza-bound aid vessel swiftly and without meeting resistance on Saturday, preventing it from breaking a naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory days after a similar effort turned bloody.

Israel lost one of its most widely known religious judges on Saturday, Rabbi Yaakov Nissan Rosenthal. Chief Rabbi Amar was one of his students.

Egypt security forces along the border with the Gaza Strip have raised their readiness level over a planned Hamas rally, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported on Saturday, after learning that the Hamas-led Palestinian demonstrators intend to forcibly breach the border.
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The BBC's apology for an anti-Israel comedy skit is cowardly, Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle said in an open letter published in British media outlets Saturday, saying he was right to criticize Israel for being an "aggressive terrorist state."
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Kuwait intercepted an Iranian spy cell meant to provide Tehran with information on U.S. targets in the Gulf emirate, the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Qabas reported on Saturday.
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The United States will continue supporting Israel in the United Nations, the White House was quoted as saying by Army Radio on Saturday, denying reports that Washington offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to allow the UN Security Council to censure Israel over its West Bank policy so to encourage the Palestinians to participate in peace talks.
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The Education Ministry is asking the nation's schools not to prepare for the Lag BaOmer bonfires on Saturday so as not to desecrate the Sabbath.

Egyptian police released on Wednesday an Israeli who illegally crossed into the Sinai Peninsula on a motorbike this past Saturday.
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Malta filed an official protest with Israel on Sunday after a Maltese woman was shot and injured by Israel Defense Forces soldiers during a protest in Gaza on Saturday.
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