JERUSALEM (Reuters) – American football, not the most genteel of sports, is proving to be an unlikely force in bringing together Israelis and Palestinians.

Nationals from the two territories, who have been in conflict for years, have formed the Judean Rebels, a squad that practices and plays American football every week on a field in Jerusalem.

The sport is rarely played in the Middle East but many of the Israeli members of the team immigrated from the United States and live in settlements in the occupied West Bank.

They and their four American-born Palestinian gridiron colleagues say their love of the sport transcends politics.

Musa Elayyan said all he, brothers Mohammed and Ayub and cousin Ramzi wanted to do was play football.

“I played in high school and suddenly going ‘cold turkey’ — it was kind of hard,” the 22-year-old Palestinian said.

AMATEUR LEAGUE

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel named a new army chief on Sunday, choosing a general who led troops in its Gaza war to face future challenges that could include a nuclear Iran and missile threats from Islamist militants.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced he had picked Major-General Yoav Galant as chief of staff, a decision that came several weeks earlier than expected after a scandal erupted over alleged lobbying for the country’s top military position.

As head of Israel’s Southern Command, Galant led forces in the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza war on Islamist militants in which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

A United Nations inquiry later accused both Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and Israel of war crimes, but leveled most of its criticism at Israel.

The choice of a successor to current army chief Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, due to step down in February, has been clouded by scandal.

Allegations that Galant had hired a publicist to smear a rival candidate for the post has dominated Israeli headlines, which focused on suspicions of back-stabbing in the military’s senior ranks.

But police said on Thursday the accusations were not true and a document at the heart of the affair was a fake.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A discharged Israeli female soldier was condemned by Israeli and Palestinian authorities on Monday for posting pictures of herself on Facebook posing next to bound and blindfolded Palestinians.

Former conscript Eden Abergil is seen in two pictures from her album entitled “Army — The best period of my life” next to hand-bound and blindfolded Palestinian men at an undisclosed location in the occupied West Bank.

The other 26 pictures visible from the album show Abergil posing with friends and comrades from her army service days.

Abergil, who could not be reached for comment, is no longer directly answerable to the military because she has been discharged but an army spokesman said she could still be called to account for her actions.

“In light of the fact that she was discharged last year, all the details have been turned over to commanders for further attention,” the spokesman said.

He declined to say what action might be taken against Abergil but said the military was looking to see if a case could be brought against her. A police spokesman said he was unaware of any civilian complaint lodged in the matter.

“This is shameful behavior by the soldier,” the military spokesman added.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s military failed to prepare adequately for what turned into a deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla, according to findings of a military inquiry quoted by the Israeli media on Monday.

The official report into the May 31 incident, in which nine pro-Palestiniam Turkish activists were killed, was set to be released later in the day by a military commission led by Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general.

A civilian panel is conducting a separate investigation into the interception that triggered an international outcry and severely strained Israel’s relations with its once-close Muslim ally Turkey.

Quoting from what it said were portions of the military commission’s report, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said the findings pointed to “flawed preparation (in intelligence) prior to the arrival” of the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara.

The “battle guidelines” issued to commandos who raided the vessel were flawed as was the intelligence.

Israel said the troops acted in self-defence in opening fire on passengers who attacked them with metal rods and knives as the Israelis boarded the ship.

PAINTBALL GUNS

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet granted wider powers on Sunday to a commission investigating a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, enabling the panel to compel witnesses to appear and testify under oath.

But the decision did not constitute a broadening of the inquiry’s mandate to include an examination of Israeli political leaders’ decision-making in ordering the May 31 interception in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed.

A government statement said the cabinet granted the five-man panel led by former Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel subpoena powers and that witnesses would be sworn in, effectively exposing them to perjury charges for any false testimony.

Turkel had asked the government for those specific powers and has said he would summon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi to appear.

Netanyahu has said he, Barak and Ashkenazi would testify. Other military personnel are not due to appear before the panel but will be questioned in a separate military investigation.

Amid an international outcry over the raid, Israel had rejected a proposal by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for an international inquiry, but appointed two foreign observers — David Trimble, a Northern Ireland politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Canadian jurist Ken Watkin — to the panel.

INTERNATIONAL LAW

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel would free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners if the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas releases Gilad Shalit, the soldier its militants captured four years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

In a live address to the country, Netanyahu said Israelis wanted Shalit back safely but the nation could not “pay any price” because past experience showed many Palestinians released had returned to carry out attacks on Israelis.

“The German mediator’s offer which we agreed to accept called for the release of 1,000 terrorists. This is the price I am prepared to pay to bring Gilad home. I said yes to the deal and it is ready for immediate implementation,” Netanyahu said.

He was referring to a moment last December when a deal and a prisoner exchange brokered by the German mediator, who has preferred to act out of the media’s glare, appeared imminent but did not come to fruition.

Media reports at the time spoke of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, although until Thursday there was never official confirmation from the Israeli side.

Netanyahu said, however, that Israel would not meet any demand from Shalit’s captors.

“But there are prices that I am not prepared to pay and they are not included in this difficult deal,” Netanyahu said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel would free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners if the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas releases Gilad Shalit, the soldier its militants captured four years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

In a live address to the country, Netanyahu said Israelis wanted Shalit back safely but the nation could not “pay any price” because past experience showed many Palestinians released had returned to carry out attacks on Israelis.

“The German mediator’s offer which we agreed to accept called for the release of 1,000 terrorists. This is the price I am prepared to pay to bring Gilad home. I said yes to the deal and it is ready for immediate implementation,” Netanyahu said.

He was referring to a moment last December when a deal and a prisoner exchange brokered by a German mediator, who has preferred to act out of the media’s glare, appeared imminent but did not come to fruition.

Media reports at the time spoke of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, although until Thursday there was never official confirmation from the Israeli side.

Netanyahu said, however, that Israel would not meet any demand from Shalit’s captors.

“But there are prices that I am not prepared to pay and they are not included in this difficult deal,” Netanyahu said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is examining ways to ease its Gaza blockade, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday, calling the current policy counterproductive and confirming remarks by Middle East envoy Tony Blair that change is likely.

“It is time to end the closure in its current form. It does not provide any value to Israel. From a diplomatic standpoint it causes great image problems,” Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog told Israel Radio.

International pressure has mounted to lift or ease what Israel calls its “closure” of the enclave, run by Hamas Islamists, since naval commandos stormed a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31, killing nine pro-Palestinian activists.

An Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would convene his cabinet on Wednesday to discuss a plan to widen the range of goods allowed into Gaza through army-controlled border crossings.

Herzog said Israel had informed Blair, who briefed EU foreign ministers on Monday, that it intends to “permit an easier passage of goods” to the Gaza Strip.

“At the moment, they are working on the technical details … of an updated formula that would also prevent smuggling of munitions to the Gaza Strip,” Herzog said.

Blair said on Monday that Israel had agreed in principle to begin easing the Gaza blockade “in days”. In his remarks, Herzog gave no timeframe for revising the policy.

MASADA, Israel (Reuters) – Music lovers have found cause to celebrate in a groundbreaking spectacular opera event at one of Israel’s most important landmarks.

The staging last week of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco on a patch of desert on the shores of the Dead Sea with the historic mountain of Masada as a backdrop has taken Israel Opera to new realms, its director said.

“We know how to mount an opera in an opera house as it is something we have been doing for 25 years, but it is not easy to build an opera city in the middle of the desert,” the Israel Opera’s general director Hanna Munitz told Reuters.

Outdoor opera is not a new concept and a number of well established, popular festivals have captivated audiences at ancient settings worldwide. But with no infrastructure to hand, the task at Masada was daunting and expensive.

“We came to virgin desert and we had to build everything: infrastructure, to flatten the rough terrain, to build roads, electricity … a stage and a huge tribune for 6,500 people,” Munitz said.

Masada is a flat-topped mountain where King Herod the Great built a fortress completed in 31 BC.

According to ancient historian Josephus it was the site of a Roman siege that ended in 73 AD when hundreds of Jewish rebels known as Sicarii committed mass suicide rather than fall as slaves to the Romans.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s navy boarded a ship carrying aid to Gaza without incident on Saturday, five days after killing nine people on a Turkish aid ship to enforce what Washington calls an unsustainable blockade.

The navy, whose actions on Monday triggered an international outcry, took control of the Rachel Corrie and sailed it to Ashdod, where it docked, the Israeli military said.

The Irish-owned cargo vessel had ignored the navy’s orders to divert and allow its cargo to be unloaded and inspected before delivery to Gaza.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said all 19 passengers and crew had signed deportation papers and most would leave the country on various flights on Sunday.

“The process went very smoothly and they will be flying out through Ben-Gurion Airport during tomorrow,” Haddad said.

She added that six Malaysian citizens and one Cuban would leave the country via the Allenby Bridge land crossing to Jordan.

The army said the ship had been boarded in the Mediterranean “with the full compliance of the crew and without incident”.