Shelling kills Negev man

An Israeli man was killed and four other people were wounded last Thursday when Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a mortar shell into Kibbutz Nir Oz in the western Negev. Amnon Rosenberg, 51, a father of three from nearby Kibbutz Nirim, was killed when the shell hit outside the paint factory at Kibbutz Nir Oz, southwest of Sderot. Three of the casualties were moderately wounded and the fourth sustained minor wounds in the strike. All the victims were hit with shrapnel from the shell. Not long after the mortar shell strike, Palestinian doctors said a four-year-old girl was killed and her mother wounded by an Israel Air Force attack on Gaza.

Abbas wants Hamas talks

Mahmoud Abbas called for reopening dialogue with Hamas. In a televised speech last Wednesday evening to the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Authority president offered no details about future talks.  In his address, Abbas criticized Israel for continuing to build in the settlements and he pledged to call for new presidential and parliamentary elections if the dialogue with Hamas is successful, Associated Press reported.

Israel identifies remains

Israel confirmed that body parts received from Hezbollah belong to Israeli military servicemen killed in the Second Lebanon War. Military sources said that DNA testing performed on human remains repatriated from Lebanon determined that they came from a four-man air crew whose helicopter was shot down by Hezbollah during the 2006 war and an infantryman hit by a missile in a separate battle. Hezbollah handed over the body parts June 1 after Israel freed a Lebanese-born Jew who had completed a prison term for spying. Nine soldiers killed in the 2006 war were not buried intact, Israeli sources said.

More houses for Jerusalem

Israel announced plans to build hundreds of new homes in Jewish neighbourhoods of eastern Jerusalem. The Housing Ministry said June 1 that it would invite construction bids for 763 new housing units in Pisgat Zeev and 121 in Har Homa. The projects, Housing Minister Zeev Boim was quoted as saying, are part of the Israeli government’s effort to “bolster” the capital. Pisgat Zeev and Har Homa are on land that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and where Palestinians want to found a state, though they are included in Jerusalem municipal limits. The Palestinian Authority denounced the new housing plans, saying they contravened the U.S.-sponsored “road map” peace plan that requires a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.