Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved a series of measures making it easier for Palestinian Christians to participate in Easter festivities and in the Pope’s visit next month.

The Israel Civil Administration will be issuing entry certificates to Palestinian Christians who meet set security criteria, allowing them to enter Israel without limits on the age of those who are eligible or the number of certificates that can be obtained.

The certificates will allow these Palestinians to participate in celebrations in Jerusalem and Nazareth and to visit family members in Israel.

At the same time, Christians living in Israel will be allowed to enter Bethlehem and Jericho in order to participate in Easter celebrations there.

So far, about 10,000 certificates have been issued and the civil administration predicts that, by the time of the Pope’s arrival, another 5,000 will be issued.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Israeli intelligence sources say Iran has renewed its efforts to smuggle weapons through Sudan into Gaza. This follows on the heels of Israel’s bombing and destruction a convoy of trucks carrying smuggled weapons through Sudan, which had been bound for Hamas in January.

Following the bombing, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards tried getting at least one other convoy through Sudan, but reports indicate Egyptian authorities turned it back.

This time, agents of Iran’s allies – Syria and Hezbollah – have lent their assistance to the operation by working out of Yemen and various African countries. Following the bombing and Egyptian efforts to block the Gaza-bound arms shipments, Iran realized its smuggling operations had been discovered and decided to change tactics by relying on allied agents.

Hamas leaders who live in Damascus, Syria have also visited Sudan several times since Israel bombed the convoy, reportedly in an effort to renew the smuggling operations. Thus far, the terror group has succeeded in smuggling into Gaza heavy machine guns, dozens of rockets, tons of explosives and anti-aircraft missiles.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

The Spanish Office of the Public Prosecutor informed the Israeli Foreign Ministry yesterday it had submitted a request to a Spanish judge asking him to dismiss a legal complaint against certain high-ranking Israeli officials.

The prosecutor’s office asked Hon. Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles, the investigating magistrate, to dismiss the complaint, which was lodged in connection with the Israeli Air Force’s bombing of a house containing a Hamas leader and 14 bystanders. Everyone inside the house was killed. The incident has commonly been referred to as the “Shehadeh matter.”

In a detailed 28-page submission to the court, the Spanish prosecutor’s office analyzed the legal and factual situation in the case and determined Spanish courts lacked proper jurisdiction to try the case. The decision was made on the basis of Spanish and international law and because “the State of Israel is a democratic state with an independent judiciary, which has primary jurisdiction over the incident, and which is currently investigating the matter in its own legal system.”

Because Israel currently has the case under legal review, the Spanish prosecutor found Israel “is in accordance with and above the international minimum standards required to a State that applies the Rule of Law.”

The Spanish case was said to be the first of many cases where Israel critics abroad are turning to their local courts to demand that Israeli officers be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”

At least five cases are now pending in British courts against Israeli army officers who hesitate to visit Great Britain on official or private sojourns, for fear of arrest on British soil.

Although the Israelis have been spared a trial in Spain, the Spanish legal theory of universal jurisdiction, however, has not let six former Bush administration off the hook. A Spanish judge currently is reviewing charges against David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Douglas Feith and William Haynes II – all former Bush administration officials – in connection with the waterboarding of al-Qaida mastermind Abu Zubaidah.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Israeli border guards shot and killed a 16-year-old Bedouin girl Saturday afternoon after she fired several pistol shots at their base, located a short distance from Hura, the Israeli south Negev town where she lived.

The girl, identified as Basma Awad al-Nabiri, arrived at the base wearing traditional Bedouin dress, which initially led the border guards to believe she wasn’t a threat. However, that quickly changed after she pulled her gun out and began firing four or five shots at a sentry who then pushed her back.

“She seemed dazed, disconnected from reality,” the sentry said. “I spoke to her in Arabic. I told her that it wasn’t worth it to keep shooting and hurting people. I tried to soften her, to convince her to throw away the gun, that we wouldn’t hurt her.”

While he tried coaxing her to give up, he also called for backup, as she reportedly ran for cover and continued firing. The sentry and other backup guards who arrived on the scene kept trying to coax her to lay down her weapon.

However, she refused to lay down her pistol and kept shooting until an arriving Israeli officer shot and killed her, while the sentry and other border guards took cover.

Israeli intelligence remains skeptical that she acted alone and on her own initiative.

“It is unlikely that a teenage girl would perpetrate a terror attack on her own initiative without someone in [her] town brainwashing her, providing her with a handgun and teaching her to shoot,” said a high-ranking officer of the Israeli intelligence who is investigating the attack. “Our goal is to get to whomever sent her.”

Israeli investigators confiscated the girl’s computer and papers containing correspondence she had engaged in with terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and others. She reportedly received information on how to perpetrate the attack on related Web sites.

Her notebooks, seized by Israeli police, contained poems about her desire to be a “martyr” and about her anger over the Arab world’s failure to destroy Israel.

According to her teachers, she attended to the Amal Hura high school, where she was an outstanding member of a program for gifted students.

Israeli police said yesterday they had arrested the girl’s uncle, brother and mother on the assumption they had advance knowledge of the attack. Some in Israel are saying such an attack by a Bedouin is unprecedented.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

On Saturday, for the second time in four days, Israeli troops identified terrorists who were in the process of planting a bomb near the Gaza border fence.

This time, the Golani infantry Brigade opened fire on the armed men and killed two of them.

The armed men were identified drawing near the border fence to the north of the Karni crossing, not far from Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

The soldiers who were dispatched to the scene crossed the border and charged the terrorists. After the incident was over, the troops found the bomb the terrorists had been planning to plant and, in searches of the area, found a pistol, a wire cutter and barbed wire.

One of the terrorists who were killed was identified as Jamil Koufa, a 22-year-old Islamic Jihad terrorist who was involved in the planning and execution of past terror attacks.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, he planted a bomb in March 2008 that killed two Israeli soldiers. Last January, he was involved in killing a Bedouin tracker leading an Israeli Army patrol.

In Israel, the Bedouins who are citizens of Israel are conscripted to full Israeli army service. Israeli Arabs, by contrast, are exempt from compulsory Israeli army service.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

A year ago, the Jerusalem Western Wall (Wailing Wall) Heritage Foundation conducted a survey of the state of the wall, the only remaining part of the Second Temple, which the Romans destroyed in 70 A.D.

The survey revealed the deterioration of the stones in the wall. This led the Israel Antiquities Authority to take urgent action and conduct an extensive physical and engineering study of the wall’s condition. This culminated with the submission of a plan to conserve one of Judaism’s holiest sites.

The plan focuses on the conservation treatment of the stones in the Western Wall and their stability, in accordance with their degree of preservation and the level of risk they present to the visiting public.

The project to conserve the stones in the Western Wall, in particular, and the conservation and development of the Western Wall compound in general, is one of the most complex projects of its kind ever undertaken in Israel.

The Jerusalem Western Wall compound project is an example of the enormous task that confronts us in conserving and presenting Israel’s cultural heritage. It is important on both the national and international levels because the site sees large numbers of visitors.

Consequently, it needs constant maintenance, and preserving the wall’s appearance for the future is a serious challenge.

This undertaking requires knowledge and professionalism in a wide range of fields.

The project is being directed by the Israel Antiquities Authority Conservation Department, which is staffed with architects, engineers and conservators who specialize in different areas.

The conservation department manifests the authority’s obligation to create a body that will lead the way in the field of conservation in Israel, as a result of the state’s responsibility to the cultural heritage in its territory.

In touching the stones of the Western Wall, the conservators of the Israel Antiquities Authority are touching what has been the very heart of Jewish heritage for generations.

The Israel Conservation Department is engaged in preserving heritage sites that date to a variety of periods. A professional team of 55 people implements the conservation work: conservators, architects, engineers, planners, chemists, geologists and archaeologists.

David Bedein can be contacted at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

A pickax-wielding Palestinian terrorist provided the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its first major test Thursday, less than 48 hours after taking office.

The terrorist infiltrated the Jewish community of Bat Ayin in Etzion Bloc region near Bethlehem and murdered Shlomo Nativ, a 13-year-old Israeli boy, splitting his skull with a pickax.

The terrorist then axed a 7-year-old boy, Yair Gamliel, also wounding him in the head, but he was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and was reported to be out of danger. He is the son of Ofer Gamliel, one of three men who were convicted in 2003 for a bomb plot against a Palestianian girls school in East Jerusalem. The elder Gamliel is serving a 15-year sentence for the plot.

A Bat Ayin resident, Avinoam Maimon, fought with the assailant and wrestled the pickax from him. Afterward, the terrorist fled the area.

“He tried to stab me. I kicked him, he kicked me…,” he said.

“I saw the 7-year-old boy running, the ax-wielding terrorist was running after him,” Mr. Maimon said. “I ran toward the terrorist and he tried to raise the ax over me with the aim of killing me… First, I caught the hand holding the ax so that he couldn’t kill me. I somehow managed to grab the axe. He succeeded in escaping and I shouted to run after him.”

A terrorist group calling itself the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh, named for the Hezbollah terror mastermind who was killed last year, claimed responsibility for the attacks in an e-mail to The Associated Press. The same e-mail also said the terror group Islamic Jihad also was involved.

Shaul Goldstein, head of the Etzion bloc’s regional council, told the Jerusalem Post he believed the murder was intended to test the new Israeli government and its response.

“This attack demonstrates clearly that we must not release anymore terrorists,” Mr. Goldstein said.

Mr. Netanyahu promised a tough and speedy response to the attack, saying he viewed it with the “utmost gravity.”

Israeli security forces combed the area throughout the day in search of the killer.

The funeral for Shlomo Nativ was held at the Etzion cemetery; he is survived by his parents and eight brothers and sisters.

The Etzion bloc, which hovers over the strategic Hebron-Jerusalem road, was founded in the 1930s and was overrun by the Arab legion in the aftermath of the 1948 war.

The Arab legion massacred the largest community in the Etzion bloc, Kfar Etzion, on the day of Israel’s independence in 1948.

In 1967, after the Six Day War, Israel reclaimed the area and reconstructed the Jewish communities which comprise the Etzion bloc.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Media outlets from around the Middle East extensively reported on the swearing-in of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his new government. Some leading Arab networks broadcast live segments of the speeches made by Mr. Netanyahu and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told various media he would “cooperate with any government that is committed to final-status arrangement negotiations for the two peoples,” other neighbors were less than accommodating.

Syria and Iran, Israel’s two biggest threats in the Islamic world, issued few words except to lambaste what they called the swearing-in of “a new racist Zionist enemy government” in “occupied Palestine.”

Hamas sources said the inauguration of the Netanyahu government was of no concern to them, saying, “This is one criminal replacing another criminal.”

The Palestinian leadership spent time recently preparing its response to the new Israeli government, through consultations with its allies in the Arab world.

Senior Palestinian Authority sources told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom Mr. Abbas had met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during the Arab League’s recent Doha summit to update them regarding the Palestinian Authority’s position on cooperation with the Netanyahu government.

The Palestinian sources also said Mr. Netanyahu’s statements were “vague with regard to the continuation of the peace process, and this is worrying.”

During news reports on the swearing-in of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, Egyptian media gave extensive commentary on statements made two days ago by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

According to Mr. Gheit’s statements, his government believes “the composition of the new [Israeli] government does not project optimism regarding the continuation of the peace process.”

The Egyptian media also quoted last night senior sources in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry who said “the Egyptian government will find it difficult to work properly with the Israeli Foreign Ministry headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Throughout Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s career, he has often warned of the potential danger posed to Israeli security by an adjacent Palestinian state. He has specifically warned that allowing the Palestinians to have such a state could give terrorists an opportunity to arm themselves with U.S.-made Stinger missiles and shoot down incoming civilian or military aircraft.

But reports from earlier this week show his fears have been realized. As he was being sworn in as prime minister of Israel, the Middle East Newsline confirmed reports that Hamas terrorists have acquired the U.S.-made handheld anti-aircraft missiles. These four Stinger systems were acquired from smugglers in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in 2008 and deployed in the 22-day war against Israel in January.

Hamas military deployed the Stingers against Israeli Air Force Apache attack helicopters during strike missions in the northern Gaza Strip.

A Hamas source disclosed that gunners deployed Stinger along with heavy machine guns in attacks on Israeli helicopters during the war in the Gaza Strip. One Stinger surface-to-air missile was launched, but the missile veered off course and instead struck a Hamas gunner squad.

Meanwhile, Hamas has been ordering the Russian-origin SA-16, or Igla-1, surface-to-air missile system, with a range of three miles.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com