JERUSALEM, Dec 1 (Reuters) – FIFA has given a Druze Arab from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights permission to play for Israel even though he is not a citizen of the country, the Israel FA said.

Maccabi Haifa’s Weaam Amasha is the leading Israeli league scorer this season with 12 goals from 13 matches and he has notched six in European club competition but he was unable to play for Israel because he does not own a passport.

He was born in the Golan Heights territory which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981 in a move that has not been recognised internationally.

Golan Druze are entitled to Israeli citizenship since the annexation, but most of them, including Amasha, have not taken up the offer, citing historic links to Syria. Amasha goes overseas with Maccabi Haifa on an Israeli-issued travel document which is not a full passport.

“FIFA have decided to take the special case into consideration and will allow (Amasha) to play for the national team without a passport,” an Israeli FA statement said.

Amasha told reporters on Thursday that he was pleased a solution had been found.

“I have been waiting for this news for a long time and like any player, I want to improve and play at the highest level. Now I must wait to be called up,” Amasha said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet decided on Monday to continue to withhold tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority and international envoys ended talks with no sign of a breakthrough in efforts to restart peace talks.

The freeze on the transfer of funds collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority was imposed on November 1, a day after the Palestinians won full membership of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as part of their unilateral drive for statehood.

The money includes duties on goods imported to the Palestinian territories, amounting to some $100 million per month and is vital to the payment of civil servants’ salaries.

“There is no change in the Israeli position of a temporary withholding of funds,” a government official told Reuters after cabinet ministers voted narrowly in favor of the extension.

Israeli Army Radio said Defense Minister Ehud Barak had pushed for the freeze to be lifted, cautioning that a cash crunch could weaken the Palestinian Authority, which cooperates with Israel in stopping anti-Israeli violence in the West Bank.

UNESCO was the first U.N. agency to admit the Palestinians as a full member since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for a full seat at the United Nations on September 23 in the absence of peace talks that collapsed more than a year ago.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official said the Israeli cabinet decision, taken while international envoys were in the region trying to restart negotiations, was “an indication Israel is continuing its political and economic war against the authority.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Former President Moshe Katsav raped a former aide and molested two other women who worked for him, Israel’s Supreme Court said on Thursday, upholding his conviction in a lower court and a seven-year jail term.

“He misused his high position and defiled the bodies and dignity of (his accusers),” the three-justice panel said in a unanimous ruling against Katsav’s appeal and ordered him to report to jail to begin serving his sentence on December 7.

Katsav, 65, was president from 2000 to 2007. He was convicted in December of twice raping an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s and sexually assaulting two other women who worked for him while he was president.

“The ruling of the Supreme Court reaffirms that everybody in Israel is equal before the law. Presidents and dignitaries must (also) be held to account for their actions,” prosecution attorney Naomi Granot said after the verdict was given.

Katsav had consistently denied the charges. The court said his version of events had been “fundamentally unreliable.”

“He fell from dizzying heights to a deep abyss,” it said in its ruling. “It is hard to see someone who served as an official symbol of the state going to jail.”

Parliament elected Katsav president in 2000 in a surprise victory over Shimon Peres, Israel’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning elder statesman. Peres then succeeded Katsav as president, an appointment observers say has restored dignity to the post.

ACRE, Israel (Reuters) – An Israeli mother-and-daughter play performed at a recent theater festival climaxed with the tale of the killing of a Gaza doctor’s family, a 2009 event that brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict deep into Israeli living rooms.

“Explosive: War tourism” culminated with the sounds of an audio recording of Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish’s cries, heard live at the time on Israeli TV, as he pleaded in a phone call to an Israeli reporter friend asking him to get the army to stop shooting at his house.

Three of Abuelaish’s daughters and a niece were killed by a tank shell during Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The annual Acco (Acre) Festival of Alternative Israeli Theater held in the Mediterranean coastal town in northern Israel is a haven for unconventional shows, and the performance by Naomi Yoeli and her daughter, Galia, was no exception.

“It is a very painful performance about an impossible situation of violence,” said Galia Yoeli, who with mother Naomi, provided a snapshot of how Israeli-Palestinian relations have evolved over decades of conflict.

Israel investigated the killings and acknowledged that two tank shells had hit Abuelaish’s house in Jabalya refugee camp. But it said the action was “reasonable” because two suspected militants were spotted on the house’s upper level.

About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis were killed in the war Israel launched with the declared aim of curbing cross-border rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed from five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to a joyous reception, but may need time to recover from his time kept in sun-deprived isolation and other injuries, his father said.

Noam Shalit said they were reunited in Israel and that his noticeably gaunt and pale 25-year-old son would require care for improperly healed shrapnel wounds. He said his captors had also treated him “roughly” at times.

“He will undergo a process of rehabilitation. We hope the process will be as quick as possible,” Noam Shalit told well-wishers who feted his son’s return to his Israeli hometown.

“We hope he can resume normal life,” he added.

Being deprived of sunlight while also being locked in isolation with nobody to communicate with save for his captors were other issues that may weigh on his son’s ability to pick up where he left off, Shalit said.

The soldier himself seemed utterly overwhelmed as he was seated for what Israeli pundits saw as a forced interview with Egyptian television, conducted before he even had a chance to telephone his family waiting in Israel.

“I don’t feel so good from this whole event … to see so many people after such a long time … after not having seen people for such a long time. I am on edge,” Shalit said in Hebrew to questions fired at him in English and Arabic.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was freed from five years of isolated captivity in the Gaza Strip Tuesday to a joyous reception, but other former captives said coping with liberty again would also pose tough challenges.

Initial footage showed the 25-year-old Shalit in a daze as his former captors and Egyptian mediators, who helped facilitate his release, escorted him on his short journey to freedom.

In a hasty Egyptian television interview organized before he was returned to Israel, Shalit appeared overwhelmed and daunted by the multi-lingual exchange in Arabic, English and Hebrew.

“I don’t feel so good from this whole event … to see so many people after such a long time … after not having seen people for such a long time. I am on edge,” Shalit said in Hebrew.

The soldier was abducted in June 2006 by militants who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip and grabbed him from his tank, holding him incommunicado ever since.

They used him as a bargaining card to negotiate the freedom of 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli jails for carrying out attacks against Israelis.

Mickey Zeifa, an army reserve colonel who was held as a prisoner of war by Egypt in the 1973 Middle East war, said Shalit would require careful management to enable him to settle back to the life he knew before his capture.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A long-awaited prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas began before dawn on Tuesday when the first of hundreds of Palestinian inmates were bused from their jails to border crossings where they will be swapped for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The first phase of the exchange, expected to take several hours, will end a saga that has gripped Israelis over the five years of Shalit’s captivity in Gaza.

A long and heavily guarded convoy left a prison in Israel’s southern Negev desert where the majority of inmates had been held. A small group of female prisoners departed from a second jail in the center of the country.

Most prisoners will be taken to the Kerem Shalom crossing that borders Egypt and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Others will be released in the West Bank.

Egypt, which helped broker the deal, will receive Shalit from his Hamas captors and hand him over to Israel at the same time as the 477 Palestinians are officially released.

The deal received a green light from Israel’s Supreme Court late on Monday after it rejected petitions from the public to prevent the mass release of prisoners, many serving life sentences for deadly attacks.

Shalit, now 25, was abducted in June 2006 by militants who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip and surprised his tank crew, killing two of his comrades. He has since been held incommunicado and was last seen looking pale and thin in a 2009 video shot by his captors.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Islamist Hamas rulers prepared to implement a prisoner swap on Tuesday in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians.

The deal was given the all-clear by Israel’s highest court late on Monday after it rejected petitions to block the swap by relatives of Israelis killed by some of the Palestinians to be released.

The first phase of the exchange was expected to begin on Tuesday at around 0400 GMT (6 a.m. local time) and should end a saga that has gripped Israelis over the five-plus years of Shalit’s captivity in Gaza.

Egypt, which has been credited as a major player in brokering the deal, will receive Shalit from his Hamas captors and hand him over to Israel at the same time as Israel starts to free the Palestinians at various locations.

Shalit, now 25, was captured in June 2006 by militants who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip and surprised his tank crew, killing two of his comrades.

After his return, Shalit will be flown by helicopter to an air base in the center of Israel where he will be greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other leaders and close family. Later he will be flown to his home in northern Israel.

Hamas were readying a heroes’ welcome in Gaza for 295 of the 477 prisoners set for freedom in the first phase who were due to be sent to the Israeli-blockaded territory. Of those going to Gaza, 41 will then be exiled abroad.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli police Friday arrested a man suspected of defacing a memorial to assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in an apparent protest against an impending Palestinian prisoner swap.

A police spokesman said the man, whom he declined to name, was the son of a couple killed in a Jerusalem pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2001.

Islamist group Hamas has said that two Palestinians who helped carry out the attack were among 1,027 prisoners Israel has agreed to free in return for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted by Gaza militants in June 2006.

“His parents were killed in the bombing and he was apparently protesting against the prisoner exchange. He is still being questioned,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Television footage from the scene showed the memorial covered in white paint and sprayed graffiti on a wall calling for Rabin’s killer to be freed and the words “price tag” — a slogan associated with hardline Jewish West Bank settlers.

Debate has raged in Israel over the release of convicted killers in such a large number in exchange for one person. Many of those opposed are relatives of people killed in attacks who say the freed prisoners will return to militancy.

The 2001 pizzeria bombing killed 15 people and came in the early stages of the second Palestinian Intifada. One of those held responsible for the attack was a young woman, Ahlam Tamimi, who drove the suicide bomber to the target.

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – Prospects of a long-elusive deal with Hamas to secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners began to take off in July, Israel’s negotiator said on Tuesday.

David Meidan, who did the talking for Israel, said Israeli intelligence identified three months ago that the Islamist movement which rules the Gaza Strip and holds Shalit had become more pragmatic and was ready to do a deal with Egypt as mediator.

“From that point on things took off,” said Yoram Cohen, head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, who briefed reporters along with Meidan.

Rumours of an imminent prisoner-swap agreement with Hamas that would bring Shalit home have surfaced on several occasions in the past three years, and on two occasions a deal was thought to be very close, but final agreement eluded the two sides.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government and Hamas had initialled a prisoner swap pact last Thursday and had finalised it on Tuesday.

Israel will free 450 people in the coming days in the first phase of the exchange while Hamas releases Shalit, who was 19 when he was abducted by the Gaza border in 2006. A further 550 Palestinians would be freed later.

Cohen said 203 would go into exile in countries not yet named, 110 would go home to the West Bank and East Jerusalem and 131 to Gaza. Six Israeli Arabs would also be released.