Gaza Strip

Israel's foreign minister has threatened to expel the UN's special envoy for offering to help transfer Qatari funds to the Gaza Strip, Channel Two television reported.
      

A compromise formula this week saved Israel from being sanctioned by world football governing body FIFA and has bought the Jewish state time, but serves as a harbinger of growing diplomatic and public impatience with perceived Israeli intransigence in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel said on June 15 Hamas militants had abducted three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank, warning of "serious consequences" as it pressed on with a search and detained dozens of Palestinians.

The two 16-year-olds and a third man aged 19 disappeared on June 12 night in the West Bank, where they were seminary students in a Jewish settlement.

The Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel from global football goes visible at the FIFA. The Palestinian side hopes the campaign will ease Israeli pressure on local football The scene is set at next month’s World Cup in Brazil for a showdown between Israel and Palestine – albeit off the pitch, given that neither qualified for one of the world’s most important sporting events.

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know” is a famous saying of French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It was quoted by Yaşar Yakış, former foreign minister during the first Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, when he visited the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) last week to speak at a closed event.