News in Brief

A Gaza militant was killed yesterday after the Israel Defense Forces shelled the northern Gaza Strip, said the armed wing of the pro-Hamas Popular Resistance Committees. The PRC said in a statement that one of its members was killed by an Israeli tank shell near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia as he carried out a military intelligence mission near the border with Israel. Local residents said the IDF fired four artillery shells at the area. (DPA and Haaretz Staff)

Police arrested a man yesterday for allegedly killing his wife in their Lod home. The 30-year-old woman was found dead, with strangulation marks on her neck. Police said the man allegedly killed her after a loud, intense fight, which relatives said they heard from outside. The relatives called to the husband to come outside, so they could try to calm him down. He later told them that he strangled his wife, and that she was lying unconscious inside, police said. Neighbors said the couple has four children, of whom the eldest is 12. They were at home during the alleged murder. (Yaniv Kubovich)

Berlin-based media conglomerate Axel Springer AG will hold a special board meeting in Israel, Haaretz has learned. The session will be attended by the company's top executives and senior editors of its leading publications. The company did not reveal the reason for the decision, though it appears to be a gesture of solidarity with Israel. Axel Springer publishes dozens of newspapers and magazines that are sold throughout Europe, among them the popular tabloid Bild Zeitung and the prestigious daily Die Welt. (Ofer Aderet)

The driver of a truck that slammed into a car and killed five family members last Monday was released to house arrest by the Be'er Sheva District Court yesterday. Mohammed al-Jabor, a resident of the Negev town of Rahat, is suspected of manslaughter over the Arava road accident. He may not leave the country for the next year, and his driver's license was suspended for 90 days, the court ruled. Al-Jabor told police that his attention was diverted after the overhead glove compartment flipped open and hit him in the head. "As I was driving, I felt something fall on my head, I don't remember what," he told his attorney, Kamel Elzuadna. (Yanir Yagna)

A report released yesterday implicated Ben-Gurion Airport flight controllers in a near collision between two passenger planes at the airport that occurred in late 2009. The Israel Airports Authority reported that a landing Lufthansa passenger passed dangerously close to an El Al jetliner about to take off, adding that the two flight controllers implicated in the episode were both reassigned in its wake. The report revealed that the two planes passed each other at a distance of 250 meters. (Zohar Blumenkrantz)

An Israeli human rights group is urging the American alternative rock band the Pixies to cancel their June 9 concert in Israel. "As much as some of us are huge fans and would love to hear your show, we won't cross the international picket line that is growing in numbers steadily nowadays to come and see you," the group Boycott! wrote yesterday. The organization urges academics and artists to shun Israeli institutions in protest of the government's policies in the West Bank. "The picket line might not always be visible; yet it is there. " (Noya Kochavi)