JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will allow 300 Palestinians living and working in Libya to enter the West Bank in the coming days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

“Because of the current violence in Libya I received a personal request from (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas … that Israel allow a number of Palestinians to leave Libya and to enter the Palestinian territories … so Israel will enable 300 Palestinians to enter the Palestinian areas,” Netanyahu said.

Those Palestinians Israel will allow in had gone to Libya from former homes in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, a Palestinian official said, effectively classifying them as refugees or descendents of refugees who flew or were forced to leave their homes during the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation.

Hussein al-Sheikh, head of civil affairs for the Palestinian Authority said those coming from Libya would travel into the West Bank via Jordan.

Netanyahu, who was speaking alongside visiting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said the move was made as a humanitarian gesture because the Palestinians were under threat and because there was a “concern for their safety and their very lives.”

The official Palestinian news agency said Abbas had “welcomed Israel’s decision, has expressed his appreciation and considers it as a step in the right direction.”

Palestinian officials estimate that there are more than 30,000 Palestinians living and working in Libya. Abbas has asked Netanyahu to allow in more.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu richly rewarded Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday for leaving his Labour Party, giving four cabinet posts to his five-member breakaway faction.

On Monday, Barak and four allies bolted the center-left Labour party, Israel’s dominant political force for generations but lately reduced to a junior coalition member in Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

The defection removed the risk that a left-wing rival could have replaced Barak as Labour leader and pulled the whole party out of the ruling coalition, potentially bringing down the government over the freeze in peace talks with the Palestinians.

Labour’s remaining eight-member faction in parliament responded to Barak’s defection on Monday by pulling its three cabinet members out of the government. With Barak’s allies, Netanyahu still controls 66 seats in the 120-member parliament, a comfortable governing majority.

Under Tuesday’s deal, Barak kept his own job and another defector already in the cabinet kept a seat. Netanyahu gave two of Labour’s vacated seats to fellow defectors in Barak’s new faction, known as Atzmaut, or Independence. The fifth defector was also given a job, to chair a parliamentary committee.

“We have an agreement,” a spokeswoman for Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party said in a text message to reporters.

The deal means Barak now controls only one fewer seat in the cabinet than Labour before the split, despite commanding a parliamentary faction that is less than half as big.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Maccabi Tel Aviv sacked manager Avi Nimni after a poor run of results that culminated in a 3-0 drubbing by Maccabi Haifa, the club said on Tuesday.

“Maccabi Tel Aviv announce their decision to remove Avi Nimni from his position as manager,” a statement on the club’s website (www.maccabi-tlv.co.il) said.

“The ownership feels that the team’s performances to date have fallen short of the clear goals and expectations set out at the beginning of the year.”

Maccabi are Israel’s richest club who claim also to have the biggest fan base in the country but are in third place in the Premier League standings on 29 points, eight adrift of leaders Haifa and six behind second-placed Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Maccabi’s Canadian owner Mitch Goldhar has spent $35 million this season building a team to challenge for top honours according to media reports but with the season just past the halfway point that aim now appears to be remote.

“I am concerned at the inability of the team to achieve satisfactory results… performances and patterns to date show that we are not on course,” Goldhar said.

MIZRAHI LEAVES

JERUSALEM, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Maccabi Tel Aviv sacked manager Avi Nimni after a poor run of results that culminated in a 3-0 drubbing by Maccabi Haifa, the club said on Tuesday.

“Maccabi Tel Aviv announce their decision to remove Avi Nimni from his position as manager,” a statement said on the club’s website (www.maccabi-tlv.co.il) said.

“The ownership feels that the team’s performances to date have fallen short of the clear goals and expectations set out at the beginning of the year.”

Maccabi are Israel’s richest club who claim also to have the biggest fan base in the country but are in third place in the Premier League standings on 29 points, eight adrift of leaders Haifa and six behind second-placed Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Maccabi’s Canadian owner Mitch Goldhar spent a reported $35 million this season on building a club that would vie for top honours but with the season just past the halfway point that aim now appears to be remote.

“I am concerned at the inability of the team to achieve satisfactory results … performances and patterns to date show that we are not on course,” Goldhar said.

Maccabi have not yet announced plans for a replacement, nor made any comment on the future of coach Yossi Mizrahi who worked in tandem with Nimni.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Avi Cohen, Israel’s best-known soccer player in the late 1970s and early 80s and a league title winner with Liverpool, died on Tuesday from head injuries suffered in a traffic accident, his son Tamir Cohen said.

Cohen, who was 54, was thrown from his motorcycle after a collision with a car in Tel Aviv on December 20.

Doctors declared Cohen brain dead on Tuesday, Tamir told reporters gathered outside Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital where the former soccer star had been treated.

“To our great sadness, a health ministry committee was in the hospital today and confirmed that our father is indeed brain dead. Which is to say, he has died,” a tearful Tamir Cohen announced.

Tamir, who plays for Bolton Wanderers in England, had flown from Britain to be at his father’s side.

Cohen’s 18-year playing career began in 1974 with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He went on to make 64 appearances for Israel, 33 as captain.

A defender, he played when Israel were affiliated to FIFA’s Asia and then Oceania confederations.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Avi Cohen, Israel’s best-known soccer player in the late 1970s and early 80s and a league title winner with Liverpool, died on Tuesday from head injuries suffered in a traffic accident, his son Tamir Cohen said.

Cohen, who was 54, was thrown from his motorcycle after a collision with a car in Tel Aviv on December 20.

Doctors declared Cohen brain dead on Tuesday, Tamir told reporters gathered outside Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital where the former soccer star had been treated.

“To our great sadness, a health ministry committee was in the hospital today and confirmed that our father is indeed brain dead. Which is to say, he has died,” a tearful Tamir Cohen announced.

Tamir, who plays for Bolton Wanderers in England, had flown from Britain to be at his father’s side.

Cohen’s 18-year playing career began in 1974 with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He went on to make 64 appearances for Israel, 33 as captain.

A defender, he played when Israel were affiliated to FIFA’s Asia and then Oceania confederations.

JERUSALEM, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Avi Cohen, Israel’s best-known soccer player in the late 1970s and early 80s and a league title winner with Liverpool, died on Tuesday from head injuries suffered in a traffic accident, his son Tamir Cohen said.

Cohen, who was 54, was thrown from his motorcycle after a collision with a car in Tel Aviv on December 20.

Doctors declared Cohen brain dead on Tuesday, Tamir told reporters gathered outside Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital where the former soccer star had been treated.

“To our great sadness, a health ministry committee was in the hospital today and confirmed that our father is indeed brain dead. Which is to say, he has died,” a tearful Tamir Cohen announced.

Tamir, who plays for Bolton Wanderers in England, had flown from Britain to be at his father’s side.

Cohen’s 18-year playing career began in 1974 with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He went on to make 64 appearances for Israel, 33 as captain.

A defender, he played when Israel were affiliated to FIFA’s Asia and then Oceania confederations.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deal could be an outcome if the parties fail to reach agreement on major core issues in peace talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

When asked about Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s comment that the best option could be a long-term interim pact because a permanent deal was not possible, Netanyahu said:

“If … we perhaps reach a (dead end) on Jerusalem and perhaps (a dead end) on refugees, then possibly the outcome could be an interim agreement. It is possible, I cannot rule it out,” Netanyahu said in an interview on Israel’s Channel 10 television.

It was the first time Netanyahu had said there could be an alternative path in peace talks to the U.S.-brokered negotiations that stalled after Israel refused to extend a partial West Bank building freeze on September 26, although he declined to discuss details of such a move.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected outright the possibility of an interim peace deal saying the matter of Jerusalem and refugees had to be resolved and could not be deferred to a later date.

“This is unacceptable to us, because it would exclude two vital issues, Jerusalem and the refugees. Jerusalem is a red line as it is to be the capital of a future Palestinian state … going back to talk about a state without determining its borders is unacceptable, and it will not lead us to a true peace,” Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdaineh said.

Netanyahu said in the event the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state he would be willing to jeopardize coalition agreements to pursue a peace deal.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s firefighting services require a major overhaul after years of neglect, an official report said on Wednesday, days after the country was forced to ask for international help to douse its worst-ever forest blaze.

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss’s findings, compiled over several years and published two days after the fire in northern Israel that killed 42 people was extinguished, called for major changes and upgrades to the service.

“In view of the current circumstances, in an emergency (the fire services) could collapse under the strain which they are expected to face,” a passage in the 40-page report said.

With a paltry 1,500 firefighters catering for a population of some 7 million and almost no aerial dousing capability, Israel’s shortcomings were cruelly exposed in the blaze which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed a “national tragedy.”

Many of the country’s firefighters and their ageing and inadequate appliances were left helpless in the face of the blaze and Israel frantically recruited international help, with 35 aircraft coming to the rescue from 10 countries.

Local media assessed the cost of the damage in the Carmel mountain fire at around 2 billion shekels ($550 million) with scores of houses either totally or partially destroyed and 5,000 hectares of forest, some 5 million trees, burnt to a cinder.

Netanyahu said Israel would have to set up its own aerial firefighting capability because it was the only way to battle major forest blazes in the hot, tinder-dry summers.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel on Wednesday revealed plans to build new homes on West Bank land it has annexed as part of its Jerusalem boundaries, a move likely to further hamper any resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

The plan to build 625 homes in the urban area of Pisgat Zeev adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem was approved by an Israeli Interior Ministry committee last week, some two years after it was originally proposed, Israel Radio said.

The plan will probably hinder U.S. efforts to revive direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which were launched on September 2 but suspended by Palestinians after Israel refused to extend a partial freeze on West Bank settlement building on September 26.

Israel has insisted that building in the urban areas it annexed to Jerusalem following their capture in a 1967 Middle East war were never included in the freeze. Its move to annex the West Bank land has not won international approval.

Pisgat Zeev, founded 25 years ago, is one of its largest Jewish “neighbourhoods,” as Israel refers to it, with some 50,000 inhabitants.

But despite Israel’s insistence on exempting Jerusalem from the freeze, building plans in the city were quietly put on hold after an embarrassment with Washington over tenders disclosed during a visit by Vice President Joseph Biden in March.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group Peace Now, which monitors Jewish settlement building, has estimated that settlers hold some 13,000 construction permits throughout the West Bank issued before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the 10-month freeze a year ago.