Israeli DM issues entry ban against Palestinian official over "subversive activity"

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman banned the entry of a Palestinian official to Israel over alleged "subversive activity," Lieberman told Israeli reporters in a briefing on Wednesday.

The newly-appointed Defense Minister, known for his hawkish views and militant statements, barred the entry permits of Mohammed Al-Madani, a member of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, and a close associate.

Al-Madani also serves as the chief of the Palestinian Authority's Committee for Interaction with Israeli society. He will not be allowed to enter Israel from the West Bank.

Throughout the years, Al-Madani had coordinated meetings between Israelis and Palestinians from the West Bank. The Shin Bet Security Agency said in a report presented to Lieberman that the Palestinian official had "embarked on subversive activity within Israeli society that included an attempt to establish a political party," according to a statement from the Defense Ministry, confirming the entry ban.

Lieberman told reporters the Palestinian official has allegedly met with Jews and with Arab Bedouins" in activity that is considered "illegal efforts by a foreign agent to establish a political party," the Ha'aretz daily reported.

The daily noted that Al-Madani had met in the past with noted Mizrahi Jews, whose origins are from Arab states from the Middle East and northern Africa, and with members of the Bedouin community and Arab tribes that reside in the southern Israeli Negev Desert, in order to start a dialogue.

On a related matter, a defense ministry official told Israeli reporters in a briefing on Wednesday that the next conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will mark the end of the Palestinian Hamas movement's rule in the enclave.

"The next clash must be the last from the point of view of the Hamas regime," the Jerusalem Post quoted the source as saying.

He added that Israel must not initiate hostilities, but added it is likely that a future clash will be "unavoidable." The source also said Israel "will not tolerate an endless war of attrition," according to the Jerusalem Post.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip since 2007, and Israel have fought in several rounds of conflicts in the past decade which left the enclave in ruins. In the summer of 2014, Israel launched a mini war against the Hamas militants in the Strip, during which more than 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed while tens of thousands displaced.

It ended by a delicate cease-fire mediated by Egypt. Since then there have been sporadic and seldom rocket attacks, with the Israeli army retaliating in airstrikes. Some tensions also heightened in recent months amid the discovery of two tunnels by the military, allegedly planned to be used to facilitate attacks against Israelis by Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Tensions were also heightened by the recent wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians throughout Israel and the West Bank territories, which claimed the lives of 33 Israelis and 205 Palestinians.

Hamas, claiming attackers of a recent Tel Aviv attack which killed four Israelis as their own, vowed last week to carry out further strikes through its operatives during the Muslim holy month of the Ramadan.

Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip territories during the 1967 Mideast War. Endit