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Daybreak: Gaza Ceasefire Tentatively Holding

Plus Israel takes credit for further sanctions, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
March 16, 2012
Beer Sheva Israel this week.(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
Beer Sheva Israel this week.(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

• The political head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad says the group is signed onto the ceasefire. Here’s hoping for a quiet weekend in and near Gaza. [Haaretz]

• In an unpredecented move, an international consortium for financial telecommunications expelled Iran’s banks. It’s a further putting of the screws to the Islamic Republic—which Israel says it made possible by talking of using force. [Haaretz]

• Rabbi Moshe Hagar, leader of the Vitznitz Hasidim, died at 95. Roughly 10,000 families mainly in Israel, Brooklyn, and Rockland County, New York, are Vitznitz Hasidic. [NYT]

• Meeting with a Jordanian delegation, Prime Minister Fayyad said, “Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine”—music to King Abdullah II’s ears. [Arutz Sheva]

• Four more Sunni Arab states, including the influential Qatar, joined Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in closing their Damascus embassies. [NYT]

• Persian Jews in Israel fear for family in Iran if there is an attack. [AP/Haaretz]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.