Israel News

JERUSALEM : Local Christian Arabs and pilgrims from around the world made their way down the cobbled Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem Friday, where Jesus is believed to have walked to his crucifixion.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton called on Israel to reverse recent actions, such as announcing new settlements in the occupied West Bank, to bolster faltering peace talks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will be investigating the sudden rise in the number of US visas rejected for young Israelis, after an initial report saw that the visa rejection rate has doubled since 2009.

Suspected Jewish extremists set fire to a mosque and sprayed racist graffiti in the town of Umm al-Fahm on Friday, an Israeli police spokesman said.

Unidentified assailants on Friday vandalized a mosque in the northern town of Umm al-Fahm, torching the front door of the house of worship and spray-painting a racist invective on its wall.

Two suspects, thought to be linked to the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, were arrested in Thailand last week.

2. FEARS RISE OVER DEATH TOLL IN KOREAN SHIP SINKING An anxious search, facing bad weather and sea conditions, has so far failed to locate nearly 300 passengers still missing in the accident that killed nine.

File - Israeli soldiers atop armored vehicle patrol the area in the occupied Shebaa Farms, Lebanon, Friday, Sept.

"Nothing prepares you for Gaza; no amount of UN humanitarian reports, no amount of newspaper articles, no amount of human rights investigations.

Palestinians gathered across the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday for rallies of solidarity with Israeli-held prisoners, as peace talks near collapse after the Jewish state refused to free long-serving inmates.

Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service says it has detained a young Israeli Arab journalist for traveling to Lebanon, which Israel considers an enemy country.

This bustling center of Palestinian life is just a 20-minute drive from Jerusalem, but for Israelis it might as well be on the other side of the world.

Hundreds of Israeli mourners gathered in the Mt. Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem on Wednesday for the funeral of Baruch Mizrachi, the police intelligence officer who was killed while driving with his family to a Passover seder on Monday night near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.

Dozens of worshippers were hurt Wednesday morning in fierce clashes with Israeli forces who stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound via the Moroccan and Chain gates.

The suspected aggressor, 38-year-old Lasaad Tounsi, is believed to have caused minor injuries to Morris Bachiri, a Jewish merchant from El Hara El Kabira, on Monday by assaulting him with a sharp object, the French-language news website African Manager reported Tuesday.

A poll commissioned by the haredi weekly Mishpacha newspaper and published in its special Passover edition found that the secular Israeli public has a largely positive attitude towards members of the haredi community as individuals, although opinions towards communal haredi positions were less favorable.

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday issued a first official condemnation of the murder of senior Israeli Police officer Baruch Mizrahi, who was shot on Monday evening near Hebron.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says Palestinian rioters hurled stones and firecrackers on Wednesday from atop the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

Israel's leading charitable organizations and tens of thousands of volunteers nationwide rallied together to assist needy families for the holiday.

File - Palestinian men look at mobile phones displayed under the logo of the Al-Wataniya Palestine phone company at a shop in the West Bank city of Jenin after Israel permitted it to operate on October 14, 2009.