Shorts: Mideast

Is Hamas leader softening stance?

jerusalem (jta) | Hamas' top politician called for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We don't seek a vortex of blood in the region," Ismail Haniyeh, the incoming Palestinian Authority prime minister, said this week. "We want rights and dignity ... and to put an end to this decades-old, complicated situation."

Haniyeh offered to travel to the United States and Europe, where Hamas is blacklisted as a terrorist group, to explain his policies. Hamas seated its 25-member Cabinet this week.




More bird flu in Israel?

jerusalem (jta) | Israeli officials are tackling a new suspected outbreak of bird flu.

Agriculture Ministry workers culled close to 30,000 chickens at a farm outside Jerusalem on Wednesday, March 29 after receiving indications that they had been exposed to the deadly H5N1 virus.

The Jewish state's first outbreak of the flu, earlier this month, cost some $5.1 million to contain. Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim declared that contagion over last week, but warned there could be new waves of the flu, given its appearance in neighboring Gaza, Egypt and Jordan.




Doctors save Palestinian girl

petach tikvah | Doctors at Schneider Children's Medical Center saved the life of a 1-year-old Palestinian girl by performing a rare operation on her trachea.

Marwa Rafid Madhoun of Gaza was born with a trachea less than 1/10 of an inch wide. According to doctors, children her age have tracheas an average of about 1 inch wide.

Due to her narrow trachea, Marwa utilized only a quarter of her lung capacity. The rare defect from which she suffered is found in 1 in 200,000-250,000 children.

"The infant arrived barely alive," said Dr. Tommy Schonfeld, director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. "She weighed [about 10 pounds]. She refused to eat, suffered from pneumonia and required intensive ventilation. The color of her skin was blue and it was clear that she did not have much time to live."




Assad: Holocaust numbers exaggerated

washington (ynetnews) | In an interview on American public television, Syrian President Bashar Assad this week said the number of Holocaust victims is exaggerated.

The Syrian leader added that he did not know whether the killing of Jews was carried out through shootings or the use of gas chambers, noting he is not an expert on the matter.

The methods or numbers are not important, Assad argued Monday, March 27 on the Charlie Rose Show, adding that what happened in the Holocaust is the "same thing" now happening in the Palestinian territories.




Israel is biggest U.S. investor in Middle East

jerusalem (jta) | Israel is the largest Middle Eastern investor in the United States.

The U.S. State Department published foreign investor rankings last week. Israel was first from the Middle East, with $4.1 billion, followed by Kuwait, with $1.2 billion.

Those sums were dwarfed, however, by major European nations, which tended to top $100 billion in investment. The release, in the wake of the Dubai ports flap, noted the minuscule scale of Middle East investment: "Investment in the U.S. from Africa and the Middle East is less than $10 billion, only 0.6 percent of the total foreign investment in the U.S."




'Lost Jews' group gets Jerusalem Prize

jerusalem (jta) | A group that helps "lost Jews" around the world return to the fold received the prestigious Jerusalem Prize.

Shavei Israel received the prize this week "for lending a hand to Jews and their descendants all over the world, educating them and assisting them in returning to Judaism," the award read.