Daybreak: Gaza Ceasefire Tentatively Holding
Plus Israel takes credit for further sanctions, and more in the news
March 16, 2012
Beer Sheva Israel this week.(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
• The political head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad says the group is signed onto the ceasefire. Here’s hoping for a quiet weekend in and near Gaza. [Haaretz]
• In an unpredecented move, an international consortium for financial telecommunications expelled Iran’s banks. It’s a further putting of the screws to the Islamic Republic—which Israel says it made possible by talking of using force. [Haaretz]
• Rabbi Moshe Hagar, leader of the Vitznitz Hasidim, died at 95. Roughly 10,000 families mainly in Israel, Brooklyn, and Rockland County, New York, are Vitznitz Hasidic. [NYT]
• Meeting with a Jordanian delegation, Prime Minister Fayyad said, “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine”—music to King Abdullah II’s ears. [Arutz Sheva]
• Four more Sunni Arab states, including the influential Qatar, joined Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in closing their Damascus embassies. [NYT]
• Persian Jews in Israel fear for family in Iran if there is an attack. [AP/Haaretz]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
