1. ISRAEL DENIES PALESTINIAN SECURITY TRAINEES TRANSIT TO EGYPT… Israel has refused to allow up to 85 Palestinian security officers transit to Egypt where they were to receive training as part of preparations for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. According to a report by the French news agency AFP, citing Egyptian border police, 45 are security personnel scheduled to begin a 7-week training course and 40 are Palestinians who are to attend the Egyptian police academy. The Palestinians were allegedly prevented by Israel from entering Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which Israel controls. There has been no comment from Israeli officials on the report.
2. ISRAELI EXPERTS FEAR TEMPLE MOUNT COLLAPSE UNDER WEIGHT OF RAMADAN THRONGS… Israeli experts fear the possibility that an area of the Temple Mount could collapse under the weight of hundreds of thousands of Muslims expected to come to the site for Ramadan prayers. Israel Radio reported Sunday morning that experts fear a combination of construction and earthquakes have left the foundations too weak to support the mass of people that assemble on Fridays in particular during the holy month that begins in three weeks. While Israel’s Antiquities Authority has expressed certainty that there will be some form of collapse, the Muslim Trust, or Waqf, in which Israel has placed day-to-day authority over the Temple Mount, denies there is a problem. Israeli officials have asked Jordan to intercede in the potentially explosive issue. Authorities have indicated that Israel will use police to prevent access to problematic areas if the Waqf does not do so itself.
3. METAL WORKSHOP IN GAZA HIT BY HELICOPTER-LAUNCHED MISSILES… Israel helicopters fired missiles into what was described as a metal workshop located in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning. Israeli sources claimed the workshop was used to assemble mortar shells, such as the one that killed a 24-year old Israeli woman on Friday. Tiferet Tratner was killed when a mortar landed on the roof of a home in the Israeli community of Neveh Deqalim on Friday morning. Tratner, who immigrated to Israel from the United States, was evacuated to a hospital in Beer Sheva where she died of her wounds. On Saturday, a 55-year old Palestinian man was killed and five people injured when an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles into Khan Younis. Israeli military sources said that their troops spotted a missile being readied for launch in the same spot as the one that killed Tratner the day before and were able to strike the location before the weapon could fire. Notwithstanding Israel’s efforts, mortars were still hitting Israeli communities in the Gush Katif area of Gaza as late as Sunday morning.
4. AMERICAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BELIEVES SADDAM’S WMDs ARE IN SYRIA… American Army Intelligence still believes that Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction are hidden in Syria. The Middle East News Line reports that the army believes the transfers were made between the end of the year 2002 and early 2003.
5. PERES HOLDS COMMANDING LEAD IN PARTY SUPPORT… Shimon Peres maintains a commanding lead as the choice of the rank-and-file to lead the opposition Labor Party according to a new poll commissioned by the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot. In head-to-head polling against heirs-apparent to lead the party, the elder statesman maintains a 17-point lead over former prime minister Ehud Barak, his nearest rival. Peres also far outdistanced all comers in the survey’s assessment of how the top five on the Labor list will look in the next election. In Israel, there is no constituent representation. The party submits a list in the order in which seats would be assigned based on the support the party receives at the polls.
6. MOTOROLA-ISRAEL CHIEF: ISRAEL LOSING OUT TO INDIA, CHINA… The head of one of Israel’s most prestigious offshore subsidiaries says Israel is losing out to India and China on economic competitiveness and runs the risk of losing important hi-tech firms now located in Israel. Elisha Yanay, Motorola’s regional head, told the financial newspaper Globes that engineers in both India and China earn far less than their American counterparts, tipping the economic equation in their favor over Israel. He warned that unless the government sweetens the pot with incentives, Israel could lose important foreign companies. According to Globes, Yanay’s comments echoed a similar admonition to a parliamentary committee by Baruch Gindin, the managing director for Gartner’s Israel operation, who warned that Intel and Motorola might leave Israel for India and China.
7. ARABIC NEWSPAPER: ARAB INTEL TO MOSSAD… The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayyat is reporting that the intelligence service of an Arab government has been providing Israel’s Mossad spy agency with information about Hamas, including its activities around the world. It is believed that Egypt is the unnamed nation. According to the paper, Israel has been given information about Hamas bureaus in Damascus, Beirut, and Tehran, among other data. The report credits Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with attempting a strategy to separate Palestinian terrorist organizations and Syria from Iran and ultimately bring Iran back into the fold. Among carrots reportedly offered by Mubarak to Syria is support in its attempt to reclaim the Golan Heights from Israel.
8. EGYPTIAN CLERIC OKAYS SYNCHRONIZED CALLS TO PRAYER… The Grand Mufti of Egypt, the nation’s chief interpreter of Islamic law, has in effect approved a proposal by Egypt’s Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq to transmit a standard call to prayer from all of Cairo’s minarets at exactly the same time. There have been complaints that the calls, which are broadcast over loudspeakers, often result in a noisy cacophony that can last up to 15 minutes because of different schedules kept by different muezzins. Grand Mufti ‘Ali Jum’a said in a statement on Saturday that the four schools of Islamic law all agreed that the call to prayer could be standardized throughout a community.