WarSclerotic

A long-awaited US plan for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal will include the most-detailed proposals ever offered to the parties, a White House official said Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the plan would include a major economic component, according to Reuters.

The White House has yet to announce a schedule for releasing the plan, and the official said a strategy for rolling it out was still being developed.

Expectations that the White House would begin pushing the plan ramped up last month when top White House aide Jared Kushner and senior negotiator Jason Greenblatt toured the region, apparently to drum up support for the scheme in Israel and among Arab allies.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2nd from right) meets at his Jerusalem office with the ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer (right); White House adviser Jared Kushner (center); US Ambassador David Friedman (second left); and special envoy Jason Greenblatt, on June 22, 2018. (Haim Zach/GPO)

US President Donald Trump has long promised to try and reach the so-called “deal of the century” to end the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but his efforts have derailed since his decision to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority has castigated the move, declared the US no longer an honest broker in negotiations, and rejected any plan the White House may come out with, with PA President Mahmoud Abbas calling it the “slap of the century,” earlier this year.

The Palestinians have refused to meet with the US to discuss peace overtures since December, when Trump announced the move and declared he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, June 27, 2018. (Alaa Badarneh/Pool Photo via AP)

Abbas, who did not meet with Kushner or Greenblatt, also protested last month after signals emerged that the plan may seek to deal with the West Bank and Gaza as two separate entities.

Israeli reports earlier this month indicated the plan had been put on hold with tensions between Israel and Gaza on the rise. A shaky calm on the volatile border since Saturday had managed to push both sides from the brink of war, but the quiet was broken Wednesday after an Israeli officer was shot by a Gazan sniper and Israel responded with strikes on Hamas positions, killing three members of the terror group.

The administration official said experts were working on finishing up the main parts of the proposal and the economic package and did not offer any details on what the proposals might contain.

Previous US plans have included proposals and maps dealing with potential land swaps, security guarantees and other issues, but have left out thornier issues like Jerusalem and the Palestinian demand for refugees and their descendants to return to pre-1967 Israel.

This Sunday, June 24, 2018 file photo offers a view of the plenum hall of what was to be a Palestinian parliament in Abu Dis in the West Bank. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File)

It’s not clear if the US plan will address those sticking points. Trump has said in the past that his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital took the issue “off the table.” Some reports have indicated the US may offer Jerusalem suburb Abu Dis as a capital instead of East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians demand be the seat of their future state.

It’s unclear what type of economic package may be on the table, but the comment comes a week after an op-ed in the Washington Post from Kushner, Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called on Gaza’s Hamas rulers to end their support for terror in exchange for lavish US aid.

On Tuesday, US envoy Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council that the US continued to be one of the biggest financial supporters of the Palestinians, far outstripping Muslim countries which are more vocal supporters of the Palestinian cause.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting at UN Headquarters, July 24, 2018 in New York City. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP)

The US has frozen millions in aid to the UN’s refugee agency for the Palestinians, and has cut funding for the PA over Abbas’s refusal to enter negotiations and Ramallah’s payments to terror convicts and their families.

She threatened that the largess could be cut further if the PA continued to castigate Washington.

“We are not fools. If we extend a hand in friendship and generosity, we do not expect our hand to be bitten,” she said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had thanked the Israeli army for destroying an Islamic State missile launcher which fired two rockets at Israel that landed in the Sea of Galilee.

According to the Russian ministry, the IDF strike Wednesday apparently also killed a number of IS fighters.

On Thursday, Israeli police sappers and naval divers were carrying out searches in the sea to try and find and identify the two projectiles. Beaches on the eastern shore of the lake were closed to bathers.

“Russian armed forces’ command in Syria used the existing communication channels to thank the IDF leadership for killing terrorists and stopping a massive provocation,” the ministry said in a statement later Wednesday reported by Sputnik news which provided an English translation.

“A precision strike by jets and IDF artillery operatively destroyed Daesh terrorists and their rocket launchers,” the ministry said, referring to the terror group by its Arabic acronym.

The ministry said that by firing the missiles IS was “seeking to provoke Israel’s strike on positions of the Syrian government army,” the Tass news agency reported.

Israel has in the past hit Syrian military positions after their stray fire landed in Israeli territory.

Russia, along with Iran, is providing military assistance to Syrian President Bashar Assad is his bid to quash a civil war which has raged for over seven years.

Israeli aircraft targeted a position in southern Syria on Wednesday evening in response to apparently errant fire from the fighting that triggered sirens throughout the Golan Heights hours prior.

The Israeli Defense Force said it targeted the rocket launcher that fired the two projectiles toward Israel, though it did not identify the party responsible.

Hours earlier the Emek Hayarden Regional Council said two projectiles landed in the Sea of Galilee in the north of the country, without causing any injuries or damage.

Israelis enjoy the beaches of the Sea of Galilee, northern Israel, on April 1, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The projectiles were believed to have been fired from the southern part of the Syrian Golan Heights, where the Syrian regime has been completing its campaign against the last rebel villages remaining in the area.

Incoming rocket sirens blared across the Israeli Golan Heights, sending residents of the area scrambling to bomb shelters.

The military said the system was triggered after it identified projectiles launched in the direction of Israel. No missile defense systems were fired, however. The IDF was investigating why the defense systems were not activated.

The projectile fire came a day after the Israeli Air Force shot down a Syrian fighter jet that traveled two kilometers into Israeli airspace.

In light of the heavy Russian presence in Syria, Israel in September 2015 set up a mechanism with Moscow — involving work groups led by the deputy chiefs of both militaries — to avoid conflicts and potentially fatal misunderstandings.

However, senior air force official have stressed that this system is limited: Israel does not inform the Russians before conducting airstrikes in Syria, nor does Russia let the Israelis in on its plans.

Israel has acknowledged carrying out several aerial raids on Iranian targets in Syria, and is suspected of carrying out several more aimed at preventing Iranian military entrenchment in the country or the supply of advanced weapons to Iran’s proxy, the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon.

Jerusalem and Moscow are reportedly working on arrangements for southern Syria and the border area after the regime regains control of the region.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced Thursday morning their forces were going on high alert, deploying at the highest readiness level in expectation of a possible full-blown war with Israel.

The announcement follows Wednesday night’s sniper fire from Gaza that moderately wounded an IDF officer near Kissufim, followed by retaliatory strikes by IDF tanks and planes that targeted multiple Hamas installations and left three members of the terror group dead.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes. It named them as 28-year-old Ahmad al-Basous, 29-year-old Abada Farawna and 27-year-old Muhammed al-Ara’er.

Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, later said the three were its members.

“Israel will pay in blood for its latest crimes,” the group said in a Thursday morning statement.

Following the exchange of fire, nine rockets were launched early Thursday from Gaza toward Israeli towns, eight landing in uninhabited areas and one getting shot down by the Iron Dome system. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Rocket sirens rang out in the Eshkol region just after 5:30 a.m., sending residents of three communities in the area scrambling into bomb shelters.

Earlier, sirens had sounded in the Hof Ashkelon, Shaar Hanegev and Sdot Hanegev areas at about 11:30 p.m. and just after midnight.

The IDF responded to the rocket fire, firing tank shells at seven Hamas posts along the border.

Late Wednesday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman convened a meeting at army headquarters in Tel Aviv with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat to discuss the rising tensions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was updated by the group by telephone, according to Army Radio.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot seen during an emergency meeting at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, on July 20, 2018, following widespread Israeli strikes on Hamas targets across Gaza after a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier. (Ministry of Defense/Ariel Hermoni)

The outburst of violence came after several days of calm following intense Israeli airstrikes in the Strip over the weekend in retaliation for the shooting death of an IDF soldier on the border Friday. On Tuesday, UN mediator Nickolay Mladenov said the sides were “minutes from war” before a tacit ceasefire was reached.

The soldier injured by sniper fire from southern Gaza on Wednesday was rushed to Soroka hospital in Beersheba, where he underwent surgery for gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, according to a hospital spokesperson. His condition was initially described as serious, but improved after the surgery. He is currently said to be in moderate condition.

According to the IDF, the sniper fire came as a group of IDF soldiers arrived at a part of the fence that saw a group of 20 minors rioting on the other side. The minors were used as a decoy by the sniper to fire on the soldiers.

An undated photo of Sgt. Aviv Levi of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, who was killed by sniper fire from Gaza on July 20, 2018. (Courtesy)

Some Hebrew media reports cited initial army assessments that the sniper was not acting on behalf of Hamas, the terror group that rules Gaza. Military sources told Army Radio late Wednesday, however, that Hamas had encouraged the demonstration by young Gazans at the fence, drawing an IDF patrol, and then its snipers opened fire on the soldiers. The sources said the same sequence played out on Sunday, when IDF soldier Aviv Levi was shot dead by a Gaza sniper at the border.