LLX News

By: Amy Spiro – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

In his first meeting with a foreign leader since becoming PM, Bennett thanks visiting President Hernández for ‘having done a brave and justified deed for the State of Israel’

Honduras officially moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on Thursday in the presence of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and visiting Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.

“Mr. President, you are a true friend of Israel,” Bennett told Hernández shortly before the inauguration ceremony at the Technological Park in the Malha neighborhood of Jerusalem. “The Jewish people have a long memory, and you will be recorded in the pages of history as having done a brave and justified deed for the State of Israel.”

Thursday’s ceremony made Honduras the fourth country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, following the United States, Guatemala and Kosovo.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/honduras-becomes-4th-country-to-open-embassy-in-jerusalem/

By: Chris Mitchell – CBN News; cbn.com

For the first time in twelve years, Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu’s term as prime minister ended Sunday after Israel’s parliament approved a new government formed by Yamina leader Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid.

On Monday, the new government posed for the traditional picture with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

Bennett’s supporters cheered after the announcement, then he exchanged a brief handshake with Netanyahu before taking the oath of office as the new prime minister.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/june/naftali-bennett-becomes-israels-new-prime-minister-ending-netanyahus-12-year-reign

By: Emily Jones – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – On Sunday, Israel’s parliament will vote on the formation of a government that would end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule as prime minister.

Netanyahu’s political opponents wanted the vote to happen this week, but setting it at a later date gives the embattled prime minister more time to try to stop the government from forming.

The so-called “change coalition” consists of politicians from the right, left, and center who have many ideological differences but are united in their desire to oust Netanyahu from office. Netanyahu’s goal is to peel any right-wing defectors away from the coalition, forcing his opponents to lose their razor-thin parliamentary majority and destroying the coalition.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/june/vote-on-new-israeli-government-to-be-held-next-week

By: Chris Mitchell – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – After marathon negotiations, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett succeeded in forming a coalition government at the 11th hour Wednesday night. It could mean the end of the 12-year rule of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Members of the new coalition called it a new beginning.   

“This government will work for all the citizens of Israel, those that voted for it and those that didn’t. It will do everything to unite Israeli society,” Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, said.

Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli said Israel “made history.”

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/june/netanyahu-opponents-reach-coalition-deal-to-oust-him

By: Chris Mitchell, CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – Opposition leader Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid Party hopes to present a new coalition government to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin before his June 2^nd deadline.

If successful, it would be the first Israeli government in more than ten years without Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. 

Lapid has a complicated task and is trying to form a coalition with parties from the left, right, and center along with a first – an Arab Islamist party. They have one common denominator: their opposition to Netanyahu.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/june/deadline-looms-as-netanyahu-opponents-try-to-form-new-coalition-without-him

By: Nasser Atta – ABC News; abcnews.go.com

Osama al-Zebda, 33, was an engineer for the militant group.

A U.S. national and his father who were working for Hamas as engineers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza earlier this month, a source from the group confirmed to ABC News.

Osama al-Zebda, 33, was born in the U.S. while his father, Jamal al-Zebda, 64, studied at the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech, according to the Hamas source. Osama lived in the U.S. for five years, his wife told ABC News. The father and son moved back to Gaza after living for a few years in the United Arab Emirates.

“We are aware of reports of a U.S. citizen killed in Gaza,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-citizen-working-hamas-killed-israeli-air-strike/story?id=77890472

By: Yaakov Lappin – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

As the current firepower of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad demonstrates, Gaza’s factions have not been resting on their laurels in recent years, exploiting a period of quiet to create a domestic industry of weapons production.

Almost the minute Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, the area became a hotbed of terror. Some 18 months later, after Hamas seized the territory in a violent coup from its internal Palestinian rival, Fatah, the Islamist-ruled enclave had turned into a heavily armed fortress, which hosts a terrorist army that is funded and assisted by Iran.

On Thursday night local time, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Twitter that “air and ground” troops were striking targets in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas “will pay a heavy price” for its barrage of rockets on the Jewish state, nearly 2,000 and counting.

https://www.jns.org/what-are-israels-options-on-how-to-confront-palestinian-terror-groups-in-gaza/

By: Agencies and Times of Israel Staff; timesofisrael.com

Iranian supreme leader says ‘fighting this despotic regime is everyone’s duty’; protesters burn Israel, US, Indian flags in Pakistan; kids rally in Syria; flag drawn on Iraqi road

In a speech to mark the annual al-Quds Day, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called Israel “not a country, but a terrorist base” and said its downfall was imminent.

“Israel is not a country, but a terrorist base against the nation of Palestine and other Muslim nations,” Khamenei said in live televised remarks.

“Fighting this despotic regime… is everyone’s duty,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei also stressed that “the decline of the enemy Zionist regime has begun and will not stop.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-al-quds-day-irans-khamenei-says-israel-is-a-terrorist-base-not-a-country/

By: Yori Yalon – Israel Hayom; israelhayom.com

“Jerusalem’s future is also the future of the State of Israel. It is here, in the city that comprises the full range of Israel’s demography,” President Rivlin says.

The population of Jerusalem is approaching 1 million, a review published by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research ahead of Jerusalem Day, showed.

On Tuesday, JIPS researchers presented President Reuven Rivlin with a statistical review of the capital for 2021, which showed that Jerusalem continues to be the largest city in Israel. At the end of 2020, the capital’s population comprised 952,000 residents.

The average age in Jerusalem, 24, was much lower compared to the national average, 30. In Tel Aviv, the average age was 36, in Haifa, 38.

At the same time, the Jewish population in the capital is statistically older than the Arab one. In 2019, the average Jewish resident was 26 years old and the Arab resident was 22.

According to JIPS data, Jerusalem experienced a negative net migration last year, with 8,200 residents having left the city. Most of those who move to and from Jerusalem are Jews.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/05/05/ahead-of-54th-jerusalem-day-capitals-population-nears-1-million/

By: Anugrah Kumar – The Christian Post; christianpost.com

China’s communist authorities are continuing their crackdown on Christianity by removing Bible Apps and Christian WeChat public accounts as new highly restrictive administrative measures on religious staff went into effect Saturday.

Father Francis Liu from the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness said in a tweet that some Christian WeChat accounts, including “Gospel League” and “Life Quarterly,” were no longer available online, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-shuts-down-bible-app-christian-wechat-accounts.html