Israelis

The man named Yosef cradled a toddler in his arms, fought back tears and reflected on the tragedy that had struck his friends, the Weisses, who used to live down the hall from him in an apartment block in this Jerusalem suburb. Yosef, 28, heard on the radio Sunday night that four Israeli civilians had burned to death when Palestinians pelted a bus with firebombs near the West Bank city of Jericho. Not until yesterday did he learn that the victims were Rachel Weiss, 26, and her three sons, ages 10 months to 3 years.

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's senior coalition partner says that reaching a final peace agreement with the Palestinians is unrealistic at the current time and that the sides should instead pursue an interim arrangement. Finance Minister Yair Lapid's assessment, delivered in a published interview Sunday just days before the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, throws a contentious idea into the mix as the United States searches for ways to restart peace talks.

TEL AVIV, Israel - More than 400,000 Israelis poured into streets across the country Saturday night, Israeli media estimated, in a show of strength behind a social protest movement that has rocked the country for two months. The demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and elsewhere against Israel's high cost of living, its housing crisis, and distorted distribution of wealth marked the high point - so far - of a summerlong grassroots protest movement that has ballooned from a few tents in Tel Aviv to a nationwide phenomenon that has delivered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government its most serious domestic crisis.

JERUSALEM - An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program could trigger a monthlong war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli cabinet's civil defense chief warned in an interview published Wednesday. It was the most explicit assessment yet of how the government sees events unfolding in the aftermath of an Israeli attack. Matan Vilnai, stepping down as the "home front" cabinet minister to become Israel's ambassador to China, described the scenarios to Israel's Maariv daily.

Geography and topography have given Israel a healthy harvest that would warm the heart of any cardiologist: olives instead of cows, grains and beans instead of beef, coastline instead of grazing land. There's a healthy life- affirming freshness about Israeli cuisine that reflects the vitality of the country. Despite its often uneasy mix of beliefs and backgrounds, Israel seems to live in culinary harmony with the Arabs, borrowing freely from the flavors of Africa and the East. The outcome?

Andean flute music wafts from Victor Chico's open trailer window and gets lost in the wind gusting up the mountain from the plain west of the River Jordan. "It is rather curious," shrugged Chico, a Peruvian mestizo whose Incan and Spanish ancestry shows in his golden skin, his dark eyes and his hair straight and black beneath his knitted yamulke. Raised as a Roman Catholic, he is now an Israeli Jew, one of 56 Peruvians who found Judaism in the Andes, converted and last month immigrated to Israel.

The exhibition of contemporary Israeli painting at the Port of History Museum confirms the oft-made observation that Israel is a European country plunked down in the Middle East. The work presented by seven Israeli artists varies in its dedication to indigenous themes, but it's all Euro- internationalist at its roots. The seven, all men, are Tsibi Geva, Menashe Kadishman, Gabi Klasmer, Uri Lifshitz, Joshua Neustein, Izhar Patkin and Shaoul Smira. (The show was to have included a woman, Tamar Getter, but her current work wasn't available.

JERUSALEM - Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 96, who clung throughout his life to the belief that Israel should hang on to territory and never trust an Arab regime, died Saturday at a nursing home in the town of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. Israeli media said Mr. Shamir had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for years. In his younger days, Mr. Shamir served as a Jewish underground leader who fought the British as well as Arab militias before Israel's creation in 1948.

The homeless Israelis who had been given refuge by Palestinian authorities in the West Bank town of Jericho have returned to Israel for the Jewish New Year, and a court has lifted a ban on their return to their homes in a Jerusalem suburb. A Jerusalem judge on Thursday said leaders of the group could return to Mevasseret Zion, and the Israelis left Jericho on Tuesday and Wednesday in anticipation of the decision. They left so quietly that at least one official at Israel's internal security ministry was not aware as late as Thursday that they had begun to leave.

Amid all the talk of border demarcation and water-sharing arrangements, nonbelligerency pacts and aviation rights, the average Israeli really only has one question: "When do we get to go to Petra?" For years, the red-stone ruins of Jordan's leading tourist attraction have held an almost mystical attraction for Israelis. The most daring Israelis, and perhaps reckless, stole across the armed border to see the ancient buildings and tombs carved into a sandstone canyon. This fascination stands in marked contrast with the almost lackadaisical attitude of many Israelis to the historic summit yesterday between King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and their pact to end the technical state of war. Peace with the Egyptians, prompted by President Anwar el-Sadat's journey to Jerusalem 17 years ago, was unprecedented.

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's senior coalition partner says that reaching a final peace agreement with the Palestinians is unrealistic at the current time and that the sides should instead pursue an interim arrangement. Finance Minister Yair Lapid's assessment, delivered in a published interview Sunday just days before the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, throws a contentious idea into the mix as the United States searches for ways to restart peace talks.

JERUSALEM - Once a year, Israel's Jewish war veterans don suit jackets and uniforms dripping in Red Army medals, the shiny bronzes and silvers pinned to their chests in tight rows like armor. About 500,000 Jews served in the Soviet Red Army during World War II. Most of those still alive today - about 7,000 - are said to live in Israel. Every year on Victory Day, which falls on Thursday this year, they parade in uniform throughout Israel to celebrate Nazi Germany's surrender to the Soviet Union.

JERUSALEM - Israeli forces have carried out an air strike against a shipment of sophisticated missiles bound for the Lebanese political and military organization Hezbollah, officials in Washington, Lebanon, and Israel told reporters Saturday. The strike took place about 4 a.m. Friday at an air defense facility on the periphery of Damascus International Airport, according to a Lebanese security official who was in the Syrian capital at the time. The airport is known to be the destination for weapons flown in from Iran both for the Syrian government and for its ally Hezbollah.

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister on Monday said that Iran is steadily edging closer to nuclear weapons capability but has not yet reached the "red line" he drew in a speech to the United Nations last fall. Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his assessment as Israel took delivery of the fifth of six advanced submarines it has ordered from Germany. The "Dolphin" class vessels are believed to be capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads and could play an important role in any future conflict between Israel and Iran.

JERUSALEM - Israel shot down a drone Thursday as the plane approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon, raising suspicions that the extremist group Hezbollah was behind the infiltration attempt. Hezbollah denied involvement, but the incident was likely to heighten Israeli concerns that the Shiite extremists were trying to take advantage of the unrest in neighboring Syria to strengthen their capabilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in a helicopter in northern Israel at the time of the incident, said he viewed it with "utmost gravity.

JERUSALEM - In a landmark ruling on the struggle over prayer at Judaism's holiest shrine, an Israeli court ruled Thursday that women could legally pray at the Western Wall wearing prayer shawls, contrary to Orthodox practice enforced at the site. The ruling came after a string of incidents in recent months in which police detained women who wore the shawls while worshiping at the shrine, saying they had broken a law requiring prayer according to "local custom. " The arrests created an uproar in American Jewish communities and exposed a divide between Israel, where the Orthodox rabbinate has authority in Jewish religious matters, and the Jewish diaspora, where the more liberal Reform and Conservative movements are dominant.

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts. President Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. On a trip to Israel last month, Obama secured a pledge from Turkish and Israeli leaders to normalize ties that broke down after a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed eight Turks and a Turkish American.

Ram Karmi, 82, a leading Israeli architect whose work is both celebrated and controversial, has died. Mr. Karmi won the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor, in 2002 for his architecture. With sister Ada Karmi-Melamed, he designed Israel's Supreme Court, and with a New York firm, he co-designed the newest terminal at the Ben Gurion International Airport. Both buildings were lauded but Mr. Karmi's other designs provoked criticism, including his Tel Aviv central bus station, a concrete labyrinth of staircases and escalators.

Israelis mark independence JERUSALEM - Israelis celebrated 65 years of independence Tuesday, with more than a million people pouring into national parks despite unusually blustery weather. As flags fluttered from windows, streetlamps, and buildings across most of the country, families braved whipping winds and rain to indulge in the holiday's traditional pastime - the park barbecue. The festivities began Monday night, just a day after the country mourned its war dead during its annual Remembrance Day commemorations.

BEIRUT - Syrian rebels on Saturday seized a major air defense base in a strategic region in the south near the Jordanian border, the latest battlefield triumph for fighters seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad, activists said. Fighters with a rebel group active in the south stormed and seized control of the base used by the 38th Division after a 16-day siege, according to a statement posted on websites of the group known as the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. The base near the village of Saida is situated along the international highway linking the Syrian capital, Damascus, with Jordan to the south.