Israeli border police on Friday apprehended a man they believed was on his way to a suicide attack. The police, near the Tapuach Junction in Samaria, noticed a man, believed to be in his twenties wearing a heavy coat in 95 degree heat. Israel Hayom reports that initially the suspect refused to stop:...

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State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki has flatly rejected reports published initially by Agence France Press (AFP) and reprinted in the Jerusalem Post, Al-Arabiya and other outlets according to which Washington had extended an invitation to the newly picked prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Rami Hamdallah. In the earlier report, an unnamed Palestinian official...

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In an interview last night with Gwen Ifill of PBS NewsHour, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israel’s decision to wait “to see what happens with the Hamas reconciliation” was “appropriate.” Toward the end of the interview in which the Secretary addressed various foreign policy issues, Ifill asked him if...

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Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday officially asked sitting Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to lead a planned government agreed to by the rival Fatah and Hamas factions, as analysts expressed deepening worries that the terms of the unity deal would lock in an unprecedented arrangement fundamentally altering the status of...

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The May 28 deadline for a Hamas-Fatah Palestinian government has been and gone and it is suggested it might still take another week before any announcement of a coalition cabinet. While Hamas remained publicly confident a deal would be brokered by May 29, representatives of Fatah, the party of Palestinian...

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Various outlets and aggregators late last week carried public reports about a string of Hamas rallies in what has until recently been the Fatah-dominated West Bank, as concerns deepened that an impending unity agreement between the two traditional Palestinian rivals would allow Hamas to halt a year-long downward spiral by...

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According to a report Monday, reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas are progressing and the two Palestinian factions have “no disputes” on the makeup of a consensus government. Ma’an reports on comments made by Fatah negotiator, Azzam al-Ahmad: “I think this is the final meeting before forming the government. We...

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Bloomberg’s Tel Aviv-based reporter Jonathan Ferziger this week conveyed assessments indicating that a recently inked unity deal between the Palestinian Fatah faction and the rival Hamas organization – which is aimed at paving the way for a single government agreed to by both sides – may trigger the financial collapse of the...

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Reuters on Wednesday conveyed statements from Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, doubling down on his organization’s commitment to the eradication of Israel, especially and specifically in the context of an anticipated agreed government between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Fatah organization. Meshaal declared that Hamas had made...

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Hamas-linked media reported late Tuesday that progress had been made in locking in plans – established under a late April agreement between the group and its rival Palestinian faction – under which a consensus government would be formed to control municipal Palestinian institutions in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and in...

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