Jerusalem, Israel News

The top United Nations envoy to the Middle East today reiterated Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for an immediate end to demolitions, evictions and the instalment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighbourhoods, as he visited the Sheikh Jarrah area in East Jerusalem, outside a house that was occupied by settlers.

A senior Hamas movement's official revealed Tuesday that Israel has agreed to free 400 Palestinian prisoners in the first stage for the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza.

While Israel negotiates temporary stop-work orders on illegal settlements, it has for decades been preventing Palestinians from carrying out construction on their own lands.

The Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli Ambassador Nevo Dani on Thursday to demand a halt to "unilateral" work carried out by Israel on the outer walls of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Jerusalem, as it has so many times in the past, is today occupying center stage in the world theater.

President Barack Obama is delaying moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

European leaders plan to publicly demand next week that Israel's capital be cut in two, to be divided between the Jewish state and the non-existent state of "Palestine." The EU will issue its call newly empowered by the Lisbon Treaty, which came into affect Tuesday, and which Europeans regard as placing them on a par with the United States.

WASHINGTON a ' The UN is currently marking the historic date of November 29 1947, the day in which it approved the partition plan separating Israel into two states a ' Jewish and Arabic.

An American convicted of selling military secrets to Israel more than two decades ago is reportedly opposing a prisoner swap between the Jewish state and the militant Palestinian Hamas group.

A promising, independent Palestine is quietly being developed, with Israeli assistance.

B?NAI B?RITH CONDEMNS E.U. PROPOSAL TO DECLARE EAST JERUSALEM CAPITAL OF PALESTINIAN STATE ­B?nai B?rith International is appalled that the European Union will act on a proposal to declare East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian nation­sidestepping the fundamental process of negotiations.

Leaders of the Jewish settlement movement poured concrete for the foundations of a synagogue Wednesday in this West Bank settlement south of Jerusalem.

A 'welcoming' committee of Arabs and foreign anti-Israel activists, including those from the United States and Sweden, attacked Jews with clubs and stones Tuesday as a new family moved into a home in eastern Jerusalem.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The fate of one prisoner locked in an Israeli jail could release the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process from its own jail provided the timing is right.

Last year set an all-time record for the number of Arab residents of East Jerusalem who were stripped of residency rights by the Interior Ministry.

Pope Benedict XVI sits during his visit to Patriarch Theophilos III at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem on May 15, 2009 in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel.

Jerusalem, Nov 30 : Israel would likely release 980 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas more than three years ago, the State Prosecution said.

Israel's foreign ministry said Tuesday that a Swedish-led push for the European Union to call for the division of Jerusalem and the recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state would trip up Europe's own efforts to play a role in Middle East peacemaking.

The Islamist Hamas -run government ruling Gaza has approved a legal change that will allow for the execution of convicted drug dealers, its attorney general said on Monday.

An inspector surrounded by Israeli border police issues a stop work order to Jewish settlers building homes in the Jewish settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank yesterday, as a settler films a videotape of the event Israeli settler leaders vowed yesterday to resist the government decision to impose a temporary ease on West Bank settlement building ...