JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Maccabi Haifa won the Israeli league title with a game to spare after beating Hapoel Kiryat Shmona 2-0 Monday, a result that put them six points clear of Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Haifa’s steady form in the 16-team Premier League secured a 12th title for the club from Israel’s northern port city who along with Hapoel have consistently been one the country’s top sides over the past three decades.

Compared with previous championships when they totally dominated their opponents, Haifa did not always produce sparkling performances this season but no other team could match their consistency.

A capacity 15,000 crowd at Haifa’s Kiryat Eliezer Stadium cheered the victory and witnessed a fireworks display from their seats, refraining from the pitch invasions that have been a regular feature of championship celebrations in recent years.

Haifa needed one point to secure the title and, after a lacklustre first half, attacking midfielder Lior Refaelov scored with a 63rd-minute penalty and struck again 10 minutes later.

Haifa can complete the double when they play Hapoel Tel Aviv in the State Cup final next week, a first-ever meeting between the sides in the competition.

Haifa, Israel’s first representatives in the Champions League group stages in 2002, will play in the latter stages of the competition’s qualifying rounds aiming to reach the group stage for the third time.

JERUSALEM, May 16 (Reuters) – Maccabi Haifa won the Israeli league title with a game to spare after beating Hapoel Kiryat Shmona 2-0 on Monday, a result that put them six points clear of Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Haifa’s steady form in the 16-team Premier League secured a 12th title for the club from Israel’s northern port city who along with Hapoel have consistenty been one the country’s top sides over the past three decades.

Compared with previous championships when they totally dominated their opponents, Haifa did not always produce sparkling performances this season but no other team could match their consistency.

A capacity 15,000 crowd at Haifa’s Kiryat Eliezer Stadium cheered the victory and witnessed a fireworks display from their seats, refraining from the pitch invasions that have been a regular feature of championship celebrations in recent years.

Haifa needed one point to secure the title and, after a lacklustre first half, attacking midfielder Lior Refaelov scored with a 63rd-minute penalty and struck again 10 minutes later.

Haifa can complete the double when they play Hapoel Tel Aviv in the State Cup final next week, a first-ever meeting between the sides in the competition.

Haifa, Israel’s first representatives in the Champions League group stages in 2002, will play in the latter stages of the competition’s qualifying rounds aiming to reach the group stage for the third time. (Editing by Ed Osmond; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinians, its finance minister said on Sunday, fearing the money will be used to fund Hamas after President Mahmoud Abbas struck a unity deal with the Islamists.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), led by U.S.-backed Abbas, asked foreign powers to stop Israel from blocking the transfers, which make up 70 percent of its revenues. A senior Palestinian official said Israel, by its action, had “started a war.”

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had suspended a routine handover of 300 million shekels ($88 million) in customs and other levies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians under interim peace deals.

In an interview on Army Radio, Steinitz said Israel feared the money would go to fund Hamas, an Islamist militant group that runs the Gaza Strip and whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel had threatened sanctions last week in response to Abbas’s surprise announcement of a unity deal with Hamas that envisages the formation of an interim government and elections later this year.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the PA was “in contact with all international influential forces and parties to stop Israel from taking these measures,” the official WAFA news agency reported.

“Threats … will not deter us from concluding our reconciliation process. It is our policy and we must work harder to end our divisions as soon as possible,” added Fayyad.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Sunday it has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinians in response to their U.S.-backed president’s agreement to forge an alliance with rival Hamas Islamists opposed to peace talks.

A senior Palestinian official in the occupied West Bank said Israel had no right to withhold Palestinian funds.

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had suspended a routine handover of 300 million shekels ($88 million) in customs and other levies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians under interim peace deals.

In an interview on Army Radio, Steinitz said that Israel feared the money would be used to fund Hamas, an Islamist militant group that runs the Gaza Strip and whose founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel had threatened sanctions last week in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement of a unity deal with Hamas that envisages the formation of an interim government and elections later this year.

“Peace is possible only with those who want to live in peace with us, and not with those who seek to destroy us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet on Sunday.

He said he would tell the leaders of Britain and France, during a visit there later in the week, that Israel sought peace but would “stand firm against those who want to harm us and endanger our existence.”

JERUSALEM, April 23 (Reuters) – Maccabi Haifa suffered a setback in their effort to regain the Israeli league title on Saturday when they lost 2-1 at home to Maccabi Netanya at the start of the playoffs.

Haifa had 70 points at the end of the regular season and a five-point lead over defending champions Hapoel Tel Aviv but under the playoff system, where points are halved, their lead is now only two points and Tel Aviv could overtake them on Monday.

Saturday’s loss could prove a psychological blow for the club that lost the title to Hapoel on goal difference in the final seconds of last season.

Under the controversial playoff system, which is in the second year of a two-season experiment, all points accrued are cut by half after 30 rounds of play and the 16-team league is split into three groups.

Teams who ended the regular season with an odd number of points had their total rounded up.

The top six sides play each other for the championship and places in Europe next season, the bottom six play to avoid the two relegation spots and one relegation playoff place and the middle four play for cash incentives.

Some clubs, such as Haifa, oppose the system, saying it diminishes their dominating performances in the earlier part of the season and gives less deserving clubs an unfair chance of catching them.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Former Aston Villa manager John Gregory quit as coach of Israeli Premier League Ashdod on Monday, less than a year into a three-year contract after a run of poor results and media reports he was about to be replaced.

The former England midfielder said he and Israeli assistant Itzik Ovadia agreed to leave after hearing that Yossi Mizrahi, a former Ashdod coach, could be returning next season.

“The speculation around a new coach coming made us think about it and if we are not going to be here next year we may as well go now,” said Gregory in a video interview with the sports website www.one.co.il.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make but we both decided it was in the best interests of everybody.”

Ashdod ended the season 13th in the 16-team league, meaning they must fight to avoid relegation in a six-club playoff.

Gregory, who also used to manage Derby County and Queen’s Park Rangers, was in charge of relegated Israeli side Maccabi Ahi Nazareth last season.

“It was a great privilege to have John Gregory at our club,” said Ashdod chairman Jacky Ben Zaken.

JERUSALEM, April 18 (Reuters) – Former Aston Villa manager John Gregory quit as coach of Israeli Premier League Ashdod on Monday, less than a year into a three-year contract after a run of poor results and media reports he was about to be replaced.

The former England midfielder said he and Israeli assistant Itzik Ovadia agreed to leave after hearing that Yossi Mizrahi, a former Ashdod coach, could be returning next season.

“The speculation around a new coach coming made us think about it and if we are not going to be here next year we may as well go now,” said Gregory in a video interview with the sports website www.one.co.il.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make but we both decided it was in the best interests of everybody.”

Ashdod ended the season 13th in the 16-team league, meaning they must fight to avoid relegation in a six-club playoff.

Gregory, who also used to manage Derby County and Queen’s Park Rangers, was in charge of relegated Israeli side Maccabi Ahi Nazareth last season.

“It was a great privilege to have John Gregory at our club,” said Ashdod chairman Jacky Ben Zaken.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli police have arrested two Palestinian teenagers on suspicion of stabbing to death a Jewish couple and three of their children while they slept in a West Bank settlement, a police spokesman said on Sunday.

The killings on the night of March 11 in the settlement of Itamar in the occupied West Bank caused shock in Israel and drew condemnation from the Palestinian Authority that exercises limited self-rule in the area.

Police said Amjad Awwad, 19, and Hakim Awwad, 18, from Awarta, a Palestinian village neighboring Itamar, were in custody. Hakim was detained on April 5 and Amjad on April 10, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

He said the two were suspected of having killed Udi Fogel, 37, his wife Ruth, 36, and three of their five children, Yoav, 10, Eldad, four, and three-month-old Hadas.

“The two planned and carried out the attack with knives, they first killed children Yoav and Eldad before moving into the parents’ bedroom and killing them and baby Hadas who was sleeping with them,” Rosenfeld said.

He added that the Fogel house was the second they broke into after first entering a house that was empty. The were also found to be in possession of an assault rifle and ammunition taken from the Fogels, added Rosenfeld.

He said five other members of the Awwad family were also arrested as suspected accomplices and all were being held by the Shin Bet undercover internal security service, although he did not know whether any had yet been charged.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Four Israeli female opera singers braved unfamiliar territory on Wednesday to perform at a prominent outdoor Jerusalem landmark and sing classical arias in the midday traffic to promote an upcoming opera festival.

Cars, bendy-buses and garbage trucks rumbled along unfazed and traffic lights shifted oblivious to the cadence of the caressing sounds as the singers each took their turn to bellow out music probably never before heard at the scene.

“We are promoting the opera festival … it is a bit weird to sing here but it is special,” said mezzo-soprano Yifat Weisskopf.

The singers from the Tel Aviv-based Israeli Opera were promoting an opera festival inaugurated last year that will center around the outdoor venue at the foot of the fortress mountain of Masada on the shores of the Dead Sea.

The main work being performed at the festival in June is Aida by Verdi, with his lesser-known opera named Jerusalem to be performed next to Jerusalem’s old city walls.

After singing arias by Mozart, Verdi and Gershwin the performers quietly made their way down from the imposing suspension bridge built for a new light-railway that was undergoing final trials even as the singers performed.

Any fears that ultra-Orthodox Jews, who believe the sound of a woman’s voice in song is blasphemous, would take offence and protest, came to nothing as few of them even noticed an event they are almost certain to ignore anyway.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel must not let the Gaza Strip’s Islamist Hamas rulers dictate terms of a ceasefire after a recent escalation of fighting, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.

Calm returned to Gaza Strip and southern Israel overnight after four days of cross-border violence in which 19 Palestinians died, with United Nations and Egyptian mediators having helped to negotiate a truce.

Lieberman, who leads the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, a main coalition partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, told Israel Radio that Hamas would use any lull to regroup before another round of fighting.

“The aim of calm is a serious mistake because calm is used (by Hamas) to smuggle more and more arms,” Lieberman said, adding that Hamas was obtaining increasingly powerful rockets.

“At this rate they will also reach Tel Aviv,” he said.

The latest violence began last Thursday when Hamas militants hit an Israeli school bus with an anti-tank rocket, critically wounding a teenager. This attack sparked the worst fighting since a 2008-09 Israeli offensive into Gaza.

However, neither side appeared keen on a major confrontation, indicating they wanted to avoid escalation.