Israel News for 6-19-2019
Terrorist Nabbed
A Jordanian man wielding a knife was apprehended by Israeli troops after he crossed into Israel from Jordan today.
Qatar Talks
A technical delegation from Qatar met with the Israel Electric Corporation in Tel Aviv on Sunday and with officials in Gaza on Monday to discuss a Qatari offer to pay for the completion of a new Gaza electricity line. The new line – known as Line 161 – would provide 100 megawatts to Gaza, which currently gets a total of 120 megawatts from Israel, short of the 500 megawatts to 600 megawatts that Palestinians say they need.
A Palestinian official said, “It will make a difference. Maybe we will not have electricity 24/7, but people may begin to feel there isn’t a power crisis anymore.” An Israeli official said, however, that Line 161 would take around three years to complete and that it was not clear if or when the Netanyahu government might approve it.
Qatar has been recently pumping tens of millions of dollars into Gaza.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian delegation of senior security officials is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Thursday to discuss the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.
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Bahrain Meetup
The US has decided not to invite Israel to the Bahrain conference next week, since the Palestinians will not be there either. They are boycotting the event. However, a small Israeli business delegation will be in attendance. A source briefed on the invitees said they include Yoav Mordechai, a former general who stepped down as head of Israel’s military-run COGAT liaison agency last year and now heads Novard, an international consultancy. US officials organizing the conference say that they want to keep it non political.
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Gas Deal
Egypt has agreed to pay a $500 million fine to Israel for backing out of an agreement to provide natural gas. Under the deal, Egypt will pay the fine over eight and a half years to the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation. The fine was cut from $1.7 billion in a settlement agreement reached on Sunday, according to Egypt’s oil ministry.
At the time that the gas supply was cut off, Egypt was supplying Israel with more than 40 percent of its natural gas needs to produce electricity. Terrorists blew up the gas line three times during the first six months of 2011. Egypt canceled gas exports to Israel in 2012.
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Defense Contract
Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) announced today that it has been awarded a $73 million contract from Diehl Defence GmbH & Co. KG to provide J-MUSIC Directed Infrared Counter Measure (DIRCM) systems for the German Air Forces’ Airbus A400M aircraft. The contract will be performed over a four-year period.
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Haifa Port
Israel Ports Development and Assets Company and the planning authorities are proceeding with the construction of Haifa Bay Port by a Chinese company despite protests from the US government against Israel’s use of a Chinese company to build the port which is used by the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet.
The US Senate is considering passing a resolution stating that the US, “has an interest in the future forward presence of United States naval vessels at the Port of Haifa in Israel, but has serious security concerns with respect to the leasing arrangements of the Port of Haifa as of the date of the enactment of this Act and should urge the Government of Israel to consider the security implications of foreign investment in Israel.”
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