IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon is against the expulsion of Yasser Arafat. He told a closed forum of Central Command officers yesterday that expelling the arch-terrorist would restore his \"legitimacy,\" and that Israel would be better off continuing to ignore him and allowing him to \"wither away.\" Yaalon\'s predecessor, Lt.-Gen. (res.) Sha\'ul Mofaz, was a strong proponent of deporting Arafat...



An Israeli search-and-rescue team set off this morning for the Siberian peninsula of Taymyr to help search for a missing Russian helicopter that disappeared last night. The plane was carrying 13 geologists and 8 crew members. Moscow reports that inclement weather conditions are making search operations difficult...



Firefighting teams, including planes, are on the scene at the Gamla Nature Reserve in the Golan, fighting a large fire that went out of control. Gamla is the reconstructed site of a Jewish last-stand battle against the Romans around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple over 1,930 years ago...