‘Massive’ ancient wall uncovered in Jerusalem

An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say. Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones is a marvel to archaeologists

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State Dept.: Policy against new Israeli settlements stands

The State Department is sticking with a strict no-new-settlements policy toward Israel, its spokesman said Thursday, but he held out the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians might eventually take a different path. “The position that the secretary has stated remains our position,” spokesman P.J. Crowley said at his daily briefing

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Israel hits back over Swedish organ harvesting article

Israel on Sunday withheld the press credentials of a Swedish newspaper in retaliation for a controversial piece that suggested the Israeli army kidnapped and killed young Palestinians to harvest their organs. The journalists need the credentials to report from Gaza

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Israel defends Jerusalem evictions

Israel moved to defend itself in the face of international criticism Monday over its eviction of dozens of Palestinian families from a neighborhood of Jerusalem they have lived in for generations. “I think a lot of the criticism is simply not fair,” said Mark Regev, a government spokesman, who described the dispute as a legal one between two private parties over who had title to a property in East Jerusalem.

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Jews protest Arab construction in Israel

More than 1,000 police officers were deployed to the southern Israeli Bedouin town of Rahat on Sunday morning as two dozen Jewish right-wing extremists protested what they said was unlawful Arab construction on neighboring hilltops. Several hundred Bedouin residents who are Israeli citizens held a counter-demonstration in the center of town. About 25 protesters arrived in two buses under police presence.

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Israel strips ‘catastrophe’ of nation’s birth from books

Israeli textbooks for Arab school children will no longer say that Arabs refer to the period surrounding the birth of Israel as al-Nakba, or "the catastrophe," Israel’s education minister said Wednesday. In a statement explaining the decision, Gideon Sa’ar said there is “no reason” for the birth of Israel “to be presented as a ‘catastrophe or shoah.'” After Israel was created in 1948, a war broke out between the Israelis and Arabs, and some 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes. Arabs commemorate the displacement every year with Nakba Day

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