Gaza Strip

Israel has found the bodies of three missing teenagers, accusing Hamas of their murder and vowing to make the Islamist movement pay.

"This evening, we found three bodies and all the signs indicate that they are the bodies of our three kidnapped youngsters," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers at the start of an emergency session of his security cabinet on June 30.

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.
      

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.

Palestine's new unity government was sworn in at Ramallah on Monday.

The forging of an administration that is to be politically non-affiliated is a result of the reconciliation deal between the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah reached in end-April this year.

A long-awaited Palestinian unity government was sworn in before president Mahmud Abbas on Monday after a landmark reconciliation deal with the Islamist Hamas that has infuriated Israel.
      

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.