“Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Thursday, in coordination with the IDF and Palestinian Authority (PA), a closure of  Bethlehem due to concerns on the spreading of coronavirus. Both Israelis and Palestinians will be restricted from entering and leaving the city.  The decision by Bennett to close the city was made on the basis of several cases of coronavirus originating from the Bethlehem area.  The closure will take effect on Thursday evening until a new announcement is made on access.”

“The Palestinian Authority government confirmed the first coronavirus cases in the West Bank Thursday and declared a two-week ban on tourists visiting cities and sites including Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said seven cases had been confirmed in the Bethlehem area south of Jerusalem.”

“Amazon has extended free shipping to the Palestinian controlled areas of the West Bank. The move comes after the Financial Times’ reported last month that Amazon has provided free shipping to Jewish settlements in the West Bank since November on purchases of more than $49 but not to the Palestinian Authority. Amazon’s proposal that residents of the Palestinian Authority were entitled to free shipping, if they simply clicked on Israel as their place of abode, was not greeted warmly by the Palestinian Authority. But an Amazon spokesman has now told the Financial Times, ‘There are multiple technical, legal and logistical challenges that have prevented us from offering our free shipping promotion to our customers in the Palestinian Territories. We have been working on a solution to some of these challenges and are now providing access to the free delivery promotion to our customers in the West Bank.'”

“Israeli police revealed Feb. 25 the arrests of 58 Palestinians suspected of belonging to a network that transforms airsoft guns into assault rifles. The police claimed that some of these rifles were used during attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Israel. The Jerusalem Post cited the Israeli police spokesman as saying that most detainees hailed from Hebron in the southern West Bank. So far, seven of them have been indicted and 300,000 shekels ($87,000) have been frozen in bank accounts, according to the paper. Two airsoft weapon shops in Kfar Kinna within the Green Line and Kafarakab near Ramallah have been shut down. Israeli police accused those arrested of purchasing airsoft weapons from Israel and buying parts online from abroad to convert airsoft weapons into M16s in underground labs. The police clarified that they had seized, in cooperation with the Israeli Tax Authority, a product container that reached Ashdod Port through the United States carrying electrical devices and toys. Upon searching the container, they found hundreds of hidden M16 parts and combat equipment that a citizen from Adna in Hebron had purchased.”

“Palestinians had a small moment of celebration when the UN Human Rights Council on 12 February released its database of businesses profiting from Israeli settlements. But for Azmi Shuqeir from Al-Zawiya village in the northern West Bank, the celebration was short-lived. The multinational that has been exploiting his land for his entire life was not included in the list. HeidelbergCement, a German building materials firm, was one of several companies well-known for their implication in the Israeli occupation, that were left out of the long-awaited database.”

“Qatar has agreed to provide more funds to the Gaza Strip after meeting with Israeli representatives. Israeli military liaison to the Palestinian territories Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rokon met Feb. 25 in Jerusalem with Qatari Ambassador to the Palestinian territories Mohammed al-Emadi and UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov to discuss the latest round of escalation between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Israel’s Kan channel reported the meeting Feb. 26, days after cross-border violence erupted Feb. 23 when the Israeli army killed a Palestinian man in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis. A precarious calm prevailed after midnight the next day. Israel’s Walla News website had reported Feb. 22 that Mossad Director Yossi Cohen and Herzi Halevi, chief of the Israeli Southern Command, met earlier that month with senior Qatari officials to cut a deal with Hamas.”

“It seems Israel is preparing for a rough confrontation with Hamas, but nobody knows when. Threats of a sudden military operation against Hamas might include airstrikes targeting senior Hamas leaders to kill as many of them as possible, infiltration of Israeli special units to Gaza with air coverage or abduction of Hamas political and military leaders. Emad Abu Awad, Israeli affairs’ expert at Vision Center for Political Development in Turkey, told Al-Monitor, ‘Israel’s threats against Hamas are linked to the Israeli elections. Nobody knows if the [operation] might be imminent or might happen next year. Hamas’ military strength is increasing and Israel does not have a successful strategy to deal with it. Therefore, the Israeli operation is at a standstill.’ He added, ‘But the increasing pressure on Hamas in Gaza will expedite the process, despite the assumption that Israel has a regional inclination to stir an internal coup in Gaza against Hamas through a popular uprising against the living conditions in the besieged enclave.’”

“Ten Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured on Thursday in a fire that broke out at a bakery in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The deceased included six minors, two adult women and two adult men, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. An initial investigation found that a gas leak inside the bakery led to a fire breaking out, followed by an explosion of several gas containers, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said. The blaze spread to nearby stores and facilities, it said.”

[Video] “Experts say Israeli policies and wars are to blame for a deepening water crisis in Gaza that will have detrimental effects on public health, especially on the most vulnerable segment of society: children.”

“Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party is expected to recommend to President Reuven Rivlin that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz be tasked with forming a government, according to Hebrew media reports Thursday neither confirmed nor denied by the party. With Liberman’s backing, Gantz could receive more recommendations than Netanyahu, complicating Rivlin’s choice of who to give first shot at forming a government.”

“The current tally leaves Netanyahu’s Likud along with other parties from the outgoing government with 58 seats, three shy of a bare majority…The law imposes strict restrictions on individual Knesset members who leave their parties to join another or to become independent MKs. According to the law, any lawmaker elected this week who quits his or her party but doesn’t resign from the Knesset would not be able to run in the next election on the slate of any party represented in the current Knesset. Such defectors could only run in the next election as a candidate for a new party.”

“Of the roughly 460,000 settlers, 29.7 percent of voters cast their ballots for Likud — a jump of 7.3 percentage points over the September election. Likud has been the most popular party beyond the Green Line in the past, but that has generally been the case when the national religious parties were split. Moreover, the 6.9 point gap in support between Netanyahu’s party and the second most popular one, Yamina, is the largest it’s been in decades.”

Dahlia Scheindlin writes, “Despite these pitfalls, a new government still seems more likely than a fourth election. If Netanyahu does end up forming and leading a coalition of 58 right-wing and religious loyalists, with a few additional members who are amenable to this base, it is reasonable to assess what such a government might do. A new right-wing government will almost surely prioritize two things: annexation of Palestinian land and limitations on Israeli courts’ judicial independence. With a year’s worth of urgent national social and economic priorities waiting to be addressed, including a worrying budget deficit, a new right-wing government will almost surely prioritize two other areas: annexation of Palestinian land and limitations on Israeli courts’ judicial independence. Neither policy direction is new for Netanyahu, but the policies could now move at a fast pace.”

“The Israeli right’s inability to deal with the Joint List’s growing political power became crystal clear on Wednesday evening. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indulged in a racist calculation that delegitimized the more than half a million people who voted for the Joint List on Monday — saying he had won among Zionist voters because ‘Arabs are not part of the equation”’— Likud MK Miki Zohar appeared on television and proposed that his party overcome its failure to reach 61 seats by approaching Palestinian voters in order to save the right.”

“The continued collapse of the Labor Zionist parties has left little doubt that Odeh and the Joint List represent the real ideological opposition to the Israeli right. The merger of Labor, Meretz, and Gesher (a small centrist party) garnered slightly more than 250,000 votes and won only seven seats on Monday. Few see a future for the Labor Zionist parties, which formed a parliamentary majority on their own in the late 1960s, and held 56 seats as recently as 1992, under the premiership of Yitzhak Rabin. ‘I think, with great pain and sadness, that both Meretz and Labor have completed their historical role,’ former Meretz chair Zahava Galon said last December. But across the Israeli left, there is no consensus on what kind of political configuration should come next.”

“Senior White House officials were quoted Thursday by an Israeli television network as saying that they intended to green-light Israeli annexation of swaths of West Bank land within months if the Palestinians don’t return to the negotiating table. According to Channel 13, the sources said they intend to go ahead with the implementation of the peace plan unveiled earlier this year by US President Donald Trump’s administration.”