Israel is ready to cede parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians in the framework of a peace deal, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday ahead of the start of talks in Washington.

Partition in Jerusalem – at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — would include a “special regime” for managing the city’s holiest sites, Barak told Haaretz.

He said the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank on Tuesday should not stop the talks starting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Wednesday for their first face-to-face negotiations, has
publicly balked at dividing the city.

Barak’s disclosure suggested the Netanyahu government was willing to yield on Jerusalem, including its walled Old City where al-Aqsa, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, abuts the Western Wall, the vestige of Judaism’s two ancient temples and today a Jewish prayer plaza.

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Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that there was no reason why building should not restart in the major West bank settlement after a 10-month freeze expires next month.

The determination to continue building is likely to alarm Palestinians, who are pushing for an Israeli promise to continue the freeze ahead of peace talks in Washington, due to start on September 2.

Palestinian negotiators have repeatedly threatened to walk out of talks if the freeze is broken.

“We cannot punish tens of thousands of citizens who have served in the army and live in legal communities,” Lieberman said. “We should take natural growth into consideration, as did the previous administration.”

The foreign minister, who leads the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, also repeated a previous promise to evacuate his own home in the settlement of Nokdim – but only “if we can arrive at a complete peace agreement that will end the conflict”.

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As foreign governments flock to condemn Monday’s rocket attack in Jordan and Israel, authorities continue to believe that militants in Egypt are responsible. Jordanian officials appear convinced that the rockets came from the Sinai region of Egypt and have even said they know the identity of the group behind the attack—but declined to elaborate.

“We can now say without hesitation that the Grad rocket was launched from Sinai,” said an official close to the investigation speaking on condition of anonymity.

Egypt denies any responsibility for the attack. Authorities claim they have a “heavy security presence” in the Sinai Peninsula, and that no suspicious activity was reported in the area.

“These reports are completely untrue. No traces of rockets launched from Sinai were found. Such rocket fire requires logistic preparations that cannot exist in Sinai,” an Egyptian official said.

No group has assumed responsibility for the attack so far, but “Global Jihad” elements are considered strong suspects. Israel, the United States and Russia are pinning blame on Hamas, saying the Palestinian group wants to disrupt indirect peace talks between Israel and Palestine.

Hamas denies any involvement in the attack, stating that the Israeli occupation was simply looking for a scapegoat to justify aggression in the Gaza Strip. “Hamas in not interested in leading the Palestinian people into war, while its wounds are still open. The enemy knows we did not fire those rockets,” said Dr. Salah Al Bardawil of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

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Three Lebanese soldiers were killed Tuesday as Lebanese and Israeli Armies exchanged fire close to the Blue Line, security officials said.

The incident erupted in the southern village of Adaysseh, where Lebanese Army soldiers fired warning shots at a nearby Israeli patrol, who were attempting to cut down a tree on the Lebanese side of the technical fence. The patrol responded with rocket salvos. The situation quickly escalated with an Israeli helicopter gunship firing at a Lebanese Army armored vehicle.

Witness and Army officials confirmed that three soldiers had died, in addition to several civilian casualties. Lebanon’s Al-Manar television reported that a high-ranking Israeli official was killed.

“The Israelis fired four rockets that fell near a Lebanese army position in the village of Adaysseh and the Lebanese army fired back,” a security official in the area told AFP, adding that two houses were damaged by the rockets.

A Lebanese army spokesperson said the clashes erupted after Israeli soldiers attempted to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side of the fenced border.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Washington on Monday evening to meet with President Barack Obama for the fifth time since the two leaders took office.

A senior source in Jerusalem said that Netanyahu hoped the meeting would enable him to regain Obama’s trust after months of tension regarding West Bank settlement construction. Netanyahu was planning to present Obama with a number of proposals for coordinating progress in the Middle East peace process, said the source.

Netanyahu and Obama have not yet managed to establish close and intimate working relations since taking leadership of their respective countries. The level of trust between the two appears very low, making it difficult to yield significant progress in the peace process.

Obama is not convinced that Netanyahu is serious in his declared intentions regarding the process, and the Israeli premier is not confident that the current American administration is committed to maintaining the same relations with Israel as those held by its predecessors.

Netanyahu will present Obama with a few new ideas for the political process, and he hopes that the consolidation of a new policy outline will assist the two countries in overcoming the “hurdles” that will surface when the temporary settlement freeze ends in September.

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The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee is set to approve an unprecedented master plan that calls for the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, a move largely based on construction on privately owned Arab property.

The committee’s proposal would codify the municipality’s planning policy for the entire city. In essence, Jerusalem would uniformly apply its zoning and construction procedures to both halves of the city.

Before giving the go-ahead, the committee will give objectors to the plan 60 days to submit their reservations. This is the decisive stage in the planning process, because only rarely are plans altered.

Once the 60-day period expires, the plan’s approval is a fait accompli. Such a development would probably invite a hail of criticism from the Palestinians, Arab countries and the international community.

The United States has recently communicated its expectation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will prevent any change in the city’s status quo pending the conclusion of final-status talks with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington early next month.

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Turkey has closed its airspace to Israeli military flights following a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Turkish prime minister and officials said Monday.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters in Toronto that Turkey imposed the ban after the May 31 raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a six-vessel international aid flotilla, according to Anatolia news agency. The prime minister, who is in Canada to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations, did not elaborate.

On Sunday, Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Turkey had not allowed a plane carrying Israeli military officers, en route to a tour of memorial sites in Auschwitz, Poland, to fly over Turkish airspace.

The transport plane, with more than 100 commissioned and noncommissioned officers on board, was forced to make a detour, the paper said.

The Israeli military “refrained from responding officially to the event so not to exacerbate the rift in relations,” the newspaper added.

A Turkish government official said the ban was for Israeli military flights and that commercial flights were not affected. It was not a blanket ban and each flight request would be assessed case-by-case, the official added. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules that bar officials from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.

The Israeli prime minister’s office had no comment on Erdogan’s statements.

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The office of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Tuesday defended plans to demolish Palestinian houses in the city’s eastern sector to make way for a tourist center, after Defense Minister Ehud Barak lashed out at authorities over the project.

Barak, who is in the United States for a series of meetings with top officials, faced criticism and demands for explanations after the Jerusalem municipal planning committee decided to destroy 22 houses in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, which it says were built illegally.

“Instead of helping the municipality strengthen the city and confront the serious neglect inherited over many years in the eastern part of the city, the defense minister acts without checking the facts,” said a statement from the mayor’s office.

“The new plan for Silwan allows for the addition of thousands of housing units for the Arab sector and the resolution of hundreds of construction violations. Barak should be one of the primary supporters of the plan,” the statement continued.

Earlier Tuesday, Barak criticized Jerusalem authorities, saying they “have shown a lack of common sense and sense of timing – and not for the first time.”

The city’s plan would raze 22 Palestinian homes and construct a tourism center in their place. An additional 66 homes built without the proper permits would receive approval retroactively.

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Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi on Monday received a threatening letter, apparently from far-rightists, claiming that he had only “180 days to live” and that his death would be “sudden and cruel”.

The letter from a group dubbing itself “Pulsa Denura” was the second death threat received by the United Arab List MK in the last two days. The group’s name derives from the Aramaic phrase ‘whip of fire’, a death curse far-rightists have in the past issued against former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon.

“Because of your poisonous stance against Israel and Zionism, the management of this group has issued a pulsa denura against you,” claimed the letter. “You have 180 days to live. Your death will be sudden and cruel, accompanied by great pain… it is time to prepare your will. Your friend in terrorist organization will be happy to prepare an infirmary for the last days of your life.”

Tibi responded to the letter by accusing his right-wing colleagues of inciting the threats, and lodged a complaint with Knesset security.

The “pulsa denura threat” came just a day after Tibi received a number of voice messages on his cellular phone, in Hebrew, telling him: “Your days are numbered… dirty Arab. I promise you, your days are numbered. You and all Arabs will die. If a dear prime minister can be murdered, what is it to kill you?”

United Arab List chairman Talab al-Sana also received death threats on Monday, apparently from members of the public angered by his reaction to Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid convoy.

Sana’s office received an anonymous fax message reading “you’re dead”. The MK also lodged a complaint with Knesset authorities after suffering verbal abuse as he entered the parliament building in Jerusalem.

Last week the UAL party leader caused anger among Israelis when he compared navy commandos to Nazis after an Israel Defense Force raid on the ‘Mavi Marmara’, a Turkish protest ship, left nine activists dead.

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Iran has called on the Middle East countries to send joint aid convoys to the Gaza Strip, as worldwide condemnation of an Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla continues.

“Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili proposed the sending of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza from the Persian Gulf, with the cooperation of regional countries,” Fars News Agency reported.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Oman’s visiting Parliament Speaker Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Isa’ee.

Israel drew worldwide condemnation by attacking a Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla last week, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens of others.

Tel Aviv, which has remained defiant of international calls for an end to the three-year blockade it has imposed on Gaza, seized control of a second Gaza-bound aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, on Saturday.

Jalili’s remarks come as Iran’s Red Crescent announced Monday that two Iranian aid ships carrying humanitarian relief and medical supplies for the people of Gaza would set sail for the coastal sliver in the upcoming days.

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