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Applicants for German citizenship will be required to explicitly affirm Israel's right to exist under a new citizenship law which came into effect on Tuesday.

The new law shortened the number of years that a person must have lived in Germany in order to obtain a passport, from eight to five years. It will also allow first-generation migrants to be dual citizens.

As part of the shake-up, new questions were added to the country's citizenship test, including about Judaism and Israel's right to exist.

Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in a blast that engulfed their armoured vehicle in southern Gaza, in the biggest loss of life for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a single incident since January.

The deaths came amid continuing fighting around Rafah in which at least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes.

According to the IDF, the squad of combat engineers were in a convoy of half a dozen armoured vehicles returning from a mission at about 5am on Saturday morning in the Tal al-Sultan area of the southern Gaza city when their vehicle was destroyed.

According to reports in the Israeli media, the IDF was investigating whether the vehicle exploded after being targeted or following the accidental detonation of explosives which the soldiers had been transporting in their vehicle.

The explosives had been stored on the vehicle’s exterior, a tactic reportedly used to avoid harm to the occupants in the event of detonation. The blast occurred after several other vehicles had already passed the same location, and killed all those inside immediately.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed Monday and six wounded in combat in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

The soldiers' group was made up of soldiers in training, and was hit when a booby trapped building exploded in the Shabura neighborhood in Rafah's east.

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IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi met with the holder of the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the US State Department, who accused Israel of "systematically" sexually abusing Palestinian woman, the general explained in an interview on 103FM.

Is it the official US position that IDF soldiers rape Palestinian women?

"When we meet with a State Department official holding the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio, every word she utters, as far as I'm concerned, is an official US position. Ultimately, she is a government official. When she says, for example, 'You did not provide evidence that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid and you are starving the population,' what is she talking about? The IDF spokesperson shows [proof] every other day that Hamas is stealing food.

The Dutch government is looking for ways to bypass the court’s ban on delivering parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel, NOS reports based on internal documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Last month, the Court of Appeals in The Hague ruled that the Dutch State must stop “any (actual) export and transit of F-35 parts with final destination Israel.” According to the court, there is a real risk of Israel using those fighter jets, kept up and running with parts delivered by the Netherlands, to commit serious violations of humanitarian law of war in the Gaza Strip.

The State went into cassation against the ruling but has to adhere to it until the next ruling. The government is looking for ways around that, NOS found. The Ministry of Defense has asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to have its diplomats think of alternative ways to get F-35 parts to Israel by sending them from other countries and not the Netherlands.