What's New

Resources updated between Monday, December 24, 2018 and Sunday, December 30, 2018

December 29, 2018

Incendiary balloons found near the Gaza border with Israel

"Incendiary balloons were found Friday morning near the northern Gaza border in Sdot Negev Regional Council, beside a kindergarten. A police bomb disposal unit was dispatched immediately.

After several weeks with no sight of incendiary balloons or kites, the police released a message asking the public to be on their guard regarding suspicious objects, whether they are balloons or kites. They may contain explosives and/or incendiary materials that may endanger the public's safety.

They emphasized the importance of informing children of the dangers inherent in these foreign items.

At any sight of a suspicious object, Israelis are requested to report to the nearest Israel Police station and to leave the work around the item to the police."

Incendiary balloons launched from Gaza found next to Israeli kindergarten Document

December 28, 2018

United Nations Headquarters

Funding the United Nations Is Making Less Sense Than Ever Article

December 27, 2018

Hamas terrorists (File photo)

The U.N. must do better to condemn terrorism Article

Hamas security forces (File photo)

Palestinians: Silencing and Intimidating Critics

Israeli soldiers near the attempted car-ramming attack against a group of Israeli soldiers and civilians near the entrance to Nablus, December 26, 2018

Palestinian terrorist attempts West Bank car-ramming attack Document

December 25, 2018

December 24, 2018

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

"As Syria's government consolidates control after years of civil war, President Bashar al-Assad's army is doubling down on executions of political prisoners, with military judges accelerating the pace they issue death sentences, according to survivors of the country's most notorious prison.

In interviews, more than two dozen Syrians recently released from the Sednaya military prison in Damascus described a government campaign to clear the decks of political detainees. The former inmates said prisoners are being transferred from jails across Syria to join death-row detainees in Sednaya's basement and then be executed in pre-dawn hangings.

Yet despite these transfers, the population of Sednaya's once-packed cells - which at their peak held an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 inmates - has dwindled largely because of the unyielding executions, and at least one section of the prison is almost entirely empty, the former detainees said.

Some of the former prisoners had themselves been sentenced to hang, escaping that fate only after relatives paid tens of thousands of dollars to secure their freedom. Others described overhearing conversations between guards relating to the transfer of prisoners to be killed. The men all spoke on the condition that their full names not be disclosed out of fear for their families' safety.

According to two former detainees who have passed through the Damascus field court, located inside the capital's military police headquarters, the rate of death sentences has sped up over the past year as the attitudes of court officials hardened. These two men had each appeared twice before a military field court judge, once earlier in the war and once this year, and were able to compare the way this secretive court operates..."

Syria's once-teeming prison cells being emptied by mass murder Document