The Iranian regime – second only to Turkey in imprisoning journalists last year, and identified by Freedom House as among “the worst of the worst” for press freedoms – widened its crackdown on reporters throughout this month. The Green Voice of Freedom, a site associated with the Green Movement that emerged...

Officials from the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas this week threatened President Barack Obama with violence and “catastrophe” during his upcoming March visit to the region. Issa Qaraqe, the Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs and a member of the Western-backed Fatah faction, instructed the president to pressure Israel to...

A 21-year-old Ethiopian immigrant to Israel has been crowned the country’s Miss Israel 2013. Yityish (Titi) Aynaw told the audience during the competition’s spoken-word portion that her candidacy was an apt demonstration of Israeli diversity: A panel of judges at the International Convention Center Haifa on Wednesday awarded the title...

Egyptian, Palestinian, and Israeli sources tell The Tower that the Iran-backed terror group Hamas is now believed to have been responsible for Tuesday’s rocket strike on the Israeli city of Ashkelon, the first and so far only violation of the ceasefire that ended Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Egyptian media,...

Israel’s pundit class is increasingly converging on the opinion that, for the first time in several political cycles, Israel is heading for a coalition government without any religious parties. Channel 2 political correspondent Amit Segal went so far as to tell Army Radio [Hebrew] that a configuration of only secular parties was...

On-again off-again reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have reportedly shifted from temporarily off again to something more than just temporarily delayed.  Hamas cancelled the scheduled February 27 meeting in Cairo between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, and no date...

Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who in recent weeks has belittled Israeli efforts to seek rapprochement, mocked Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad for not militarily attacking the Jewish state, and accused Jerusalem of “state terrorism” — declared Wednesday that Zionism is a “crime against humanity”: Speaking in Vienna at a United...

An Egyptian court has declared that the smuggling tunnels linking the Egypt-controlled Sinai Peninsula to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip constitute a threat to the country’s national security. As such… A Cairo court ruled on Tuesday the government must destroy all tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, removing a route...

Speculation continues to swirly in Israel over reports that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been taken to Iran for medical treatment, possibly for cancer. Reports of Nasrallah’s ill health – which appeared on the front pages of Israel’s leading dailies Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv earlier today – were first aired Tuesday...

A political alliance between two relative newcomers appears to be complicating efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new coalition, after his Likud party emerged as the winner in Israel’s January election and was tasked by Israel’s president Shimon Peres with creating the next government. Yair Lapid and his Yesh...