Mideast Report

Poll shows 26 percent of settlers would move

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Only 26 percent of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be willing to move to communities within Israel if peace is reached.

According to the poll commissioned by the Israeli group Peace Now, 55 percent of the 414 settlers polled said they would not move even if offered money.

Knesset members fight over Gay Day

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Secular and fervently religious legislators in the Israeli Knesset fought Tuesday over a planned gathering of gay Israelis to mark International Gay Day.

Shas Knesset member David Azulai, warning the event would spark violence, called the gathering a "shame for the people of Israel." The event is being organized by Yael Dayan of the Labor/One Israel bloc and Yossi Sarid of the far-left Meretz Party.

4-year-old boy dies after dad set him afire

TEL AVIV (JPS) -- Idan "Jeffrey" Tivoni, a 4-year-old boy whose father set him on fire May 19, died here Saturday.

His baby sister died almost immediately in the same incident

Their father, who was separated from their mother, was visiting with his children at a Tel Aviv home run by the Women's International Zionist Organization.

After asking a social worker to leave the room for a moment, he poured flammable liquid on them and set them afire.

The boy suffered severe burns over 100 percent of his body and was kept completely sedated at the Rabin Medical Center's Beilinson Campus. His mother was with him when he died.

Two officials accused of fraud, taking bribes

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- Shimon Sheves, former director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, will be tried on charges of accepting a bribe, fraud, breach of trust and extortion.

Sheves told Israel Radio this week he is "shocked" by the decision to prosecute him.

Sheves served for many years as Yitzhak Rabin's closest aide and headed the Prime Minister's Office until June 1995, five months before Rabin's assassination.

Meanwhile, Israeli police last week recommended indicting outgoing Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi on bribery and fraud charges. Hanegbi is accused of misusing funds as head of a nonprofit organization he formed when he was a member of parliament in the mid-1990s.