Israel and Cyprus will hold joint military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea later this month. The exercise will focus on search and rescue operations and on protecting the two countries’ natural gas assets: The Ministry of Defense in Cyprus announced that in the context of the cooperation between the Republic...

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A NATO initiative to bring together Israel and six Arab states situated along the Mediterranean has been scrapped after Turkey and Egypt raised objections. Turkish diplomats scrambled to deny that their moves had anything to do with ongoing anti-Israel diplomacy being conducted by the Islamist Justice and Development party of...

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Officials from the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) are blasting Turkey’s announcement that a date has been set for a visit to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which PA officials have lobbied the U.S. to stop: The PA believes that Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza...

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Slowly, quietly, the new divided Egypt – divided between the Muslim Brotherhood and its opponents – is changing the space where Egypt meets the Gaza Strip. While the smuggling of goods through the Rafah tunnels has begun returning to its old patterns, the scope of that smuggling has dropped off...

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Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, fresh off a two-week trip to the Middle East, has called on the European Union to designate Hezbollah, which he calls “a grave threat to security and stability in the Middle East and beyond.” Designating Hezbollah in Europe would severely impact the terror group’s fundraising...

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Egyptian security forces operating in the Sinai Peninsula have seized several caches of weapons and explosives this week, which officials believe were destined for use against both Israel and Egypt. Officials told the Ma’an News Agency that among the cache contained anti-aircraft shells, grenades, and anti-tank mines intended for the bordering...

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Arabic media outlets are reporting that a high-level Israeli security delegation landed in Cairo on Thursday to meet with Egyptian intelligence and military officials. The leak to Ma’an News Agency is said to have come from an airport official. Focus on the Sinai Peninsula If confirmed, the news will be...

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is delaying a planned trip to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which if carried out would widely be viewed as a diplomatic victory for the Iran-backed terror group. He will now delay the trip at least until after he meets with President Barack Obama in May....

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An upcoming meeting designed to facilitate Israeli-Turkish reconciliation has been postponed until late April, as worries deepen that backsliding by top Turkish officials may delay or even scuttle rapprochement between the two countries. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was maneuvered last month by U.S. officials into accepting reconciliation terms that he had...

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The Israeli military last week published video of Palestinian children as young as elementary school-age being used to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers. The dramatic footage sparked a debate that deepened this weekend with the publication of legal analysis identifying the tactic as a war crime: As stone-throwing Palestinian children have been...

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