Ambulance in Israel. MediaPhoto.org, CC BY-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Two people have died and 167 injured, give of them seriously, after a stand supporting dozens of worshippers collapsed during a Shavuot celebration on Sunday night. The events took place in Givat Zeev, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank near Jerusalem. The accident occurred at a synagogue that was still under construction, raising…

Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Crown Copyright, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Coalition talks following Israel’s fourth election in two years have taken a dramatic turn in response to the country’s ongoing conflict with Hamas. Last week, the Islamist Ra’am party announced that it would suspend talks with the anti-Netanyahu “change bloc” in response to the outbreak of conflict. A second change came when…

Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: Crown Copyright, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Benjamin Netanyahu’s mandate to form a coalition government following Israel’s March general election expired on Tuesday night. After 28 days of negotiations, Netanyahu announced that he had failed to persuade enough other parties to join a government led by his Likud party. Netanyahu’s efforts ultimately failed when Bezalel Smotrich, leader…