By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
An ancient seal bearing an archaic Hebrew inscription dating back to the 8th century BCE has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.  
The seal excavated in the City of David bears the name of a public official from the 8th century BCE.
 Carla Amit
The find reveals that by 2,700 years ago, clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals instead of the symbols that were used in earlier centuries.
The state-run archeological body said the seal, which was discovered near the Gihon Spring in the City of David outside the walls of the Old City, bears the Hebrew name Rephaihu (ben) Shalem, a public official who lived in the Jerusalem neighborhood during this period.
The excavation, which is being carried out by Haifa University Professor Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, also uncovered pottery shards that date back to the Iron Age 2 (8th century BCE), which they used to date the seal, as well as fragments of three bullae, or pieces of clay that were used to seal letters or goods.
The discovery revealed ...   more »

Sources: Tehran armed Palestinian terrorists, may escalate regional violence
By Aaron Klein
JAFFA – Long-range rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli cities the past few days were manufactured in and imported from Iran, according to Israeli security officials speaking to WND.
In a major escalation, Hamas the past few days has been firing long range Grad rockets at the strategic Israeli port city of Ashkelon, home to some 125,000 Israelis about 11 miles from Gaza. Ashkelon houses a major electrical plant that powers most of the Gaza Strip.
Grad rockets are longer-range projectiles similar to the Katyusha rocket, which the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group successfully used in 2006 to barrage northern Israel, killing 42 Israeli civilians and reportedly wounding over 4,000. The Grad travels up to 12 miles and delivers a larger payload than the Qassam rocket, which can travel about four to five miles and is the usual rocket of choice for Palestinians. 
At least three Grad rockets landed in Ashkelon today, wounding a woman who had used her body to protect her two children.  A least a dozen Grads slammed into Ashkelon since Friday, causing injuries to civilians and massive damage to houses and buildings.
At ...   more »

One thing Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i has never been accused of is rushing his words. One of the more deliberate speakers in Israeli politics, he is one of the least likely candidates to be caught shooting from the hip or making a slip of the tongue.
Nor is it technically correct that he did so, when he told Army Radio on Friday that by continuing their stepped-up attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon, the Palestinians would be "bringing upon themselves a greater 'shoah' because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in air strikes or on the ground."
It is Reuters's grievous error to have mistranslated the word "shoah" as "Holocaust" (referred to in Hebrew as Ha'shoah), the carelessness of the international media to have picked it up, and the cynicism of Israel's enemies to exploit it as a rhetorical weapon. Still, Vilna'i would have done better not to have uttered any kind of word even remotely connected with those associations, when there is no shortage of other expressions he could have more appropriately used in that context.
It's a small point, but perhaps a telling one. A degree of carelessness while making such ...   more »