For nearly a year now, the Ministry of Interior’s Population and Immigration Authority and the Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) have been avoiding the publication of working procedures governing the departure from the Gaza Strip by Israeli civilians who reside in the strip.

(Hebrew – Gisha)

The State Comptroller has published his report on the “Harpaz document” scandal. The report says that those in IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi’s office and his associates led a campaign to gather dirt on Defense Minister Ehud Barak and that Ashkenazi was at least partially aware.  Further, the report determines that Chief of Staff aide, Col. Erez Weiner, discussed ways of obtaining slanderous information about Barak and his surroundings with Boaz Harpaz, who forged the Harpaz document. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

The Ministry of Defense has approved the construction of 523 housing units in the settlement settlement of Gva’ot, located in the West Bank’s Gush Etzion region. (Ynetnews)

(Hebrew – Walla!)

Disabled IDF veterans entitled to cars for handicapped persons were warned by the Ministry of Defense that if they did not return the vehicles given to them by the state for a limited period they would be fined NIS 500 per day directly from their monthly allowance.

Michael Azoulay has been charged with insulting a public servant due to an article he published in which he criticized Yaakov Nagel, who holds a senior position in the Defense Ministry, for his role in the development of the Iron Dome missile defense system and the thwarting of the importation of a laser canon for the defense of southern communities.

(Hebrew)

According to Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, two years ago the Ministry of Defense requested NIS 2.8 billion to build a 200km-long fence on the Israel-Egypt border excluding Gaza, while the Israeli Roads Company requested NIS 1 billion for the same work.

(Hebrew)

Settlers from the Ramat Gilad outpost are in negotiations with the Ministry of Defense in an attempt to reach an agreement by which seven mobile homes for which a demolition order has been issued will be moved to a different location and will not be demolished.

(Hebrew)

The IDF and Ministry of Defense tried to prevent the broadcast of a video clip, in which Defense Minister, Ehud Barak and Chief of General Staff, Benny Gantz, are seen making jokes about female soldiers who participated in an IDF drill.

(Hebrew)

The Ministry of Defense approved two construction plans containing 119 housing units in the settlement of Shilo in the Binyamin Sector.  The plans retroactively approve 40 housing units which were constructed without permits.

Minister of Finance Yuval Shteinitz (Likud) said in a deliberation of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the security establishment’s budget is not being handled with transparency and that he has no means to conduct oversight of it.

(Hebrew)