"We'll be celebrating it on Temple Mount," said the group Hozrim El Ha-Har ('We will Return to the Mount' in Hebrew) on Thursday. The group has told its followers to gather on Monday at the external walls of the Temple in "conditions of purity", ie to have already carried out their ablutions. In one area of Jerusalem a lamb was 'sacrificed' by the activists on Thursday using a method described in Biblical texts.

The initiative is likely to aggravate existing tensions in East Jerusalem between Arabs and Jews, said Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour in a letter to the UN secretary general, the head of the Security Council and that of the General Assembly. Mansour was quoted by Palestinian media as saying that "Israeli government representatives and right-wing groups linked to the settlers' movement are trying to create inter-religious tension in order to destabilize the situation" concerning the dispute over the holy sites, especially Temple Mount.

Mansour added that "the constant incursions of extremists into the area around the Al-Aqsa mosque and the restrictions imposed on Palestinian worshipers may aggravate the political climate", and called for firm intervention by the international community and the UN Security Council.

Associations of these organizations will hold training and explanation sessions in western occupied Jerusalem about "Temple Mount Oblations" in al-Aqsa mosque yards, according to Al Ray. The sessions will be followed by other activities starting from next Monday on the anniversary of Jewish "Passover", Al-Aqsa foundation said in a press release.

The associations invited Jewish families and their children for group break-ins of al-Aqsa mosque on the 14th, 16th and 17th of this month to perform Talmudic rituals, the foundation added. It assured, via social networks, that the break-ins will be protected by Israeli forces. The foundation considered such activities as attempts by the Israeli occupation to impose a fait accompli in al-Aqsa mosque.

Israeli settlers and politicians have lately been violating the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, almost on a daily basis, and always under the protection of armed occupation forces, which often attack Palestinian worshipers who try to protect their holy site.

“The emerging deal, if it includes the release of murderers with Israeli citizenship, harms Israeli sovereignty, and not only that - it is being done when the Palestinians have not cancelled their requests to join international organizations,” he added. "Therefore, if a proposal for release of Israeli murderers comes before the Cabinet, the Jewish Home will oppose it,” Bennett declared. “If the proposal will pass - the Jewish Home will resign from the government, which frees murderers with Israeli citizenship. Enough is enough.”

“On this evening of Passover, it is important to remember that we went from slavery to freedom so we that we can have an Israeli legal system which will protect the citizens of Israel - not a system that is being blackmailed by a gang of terrorists and which releases murderers,” said Bennett. “This is an act of extortion and surrender to terrorism which we cannot accept.”

Dismissing suggestions that Israel was responsible for the collapse of peace talks by building homes in Jerusalem, Bennett pointed out that the talks had already ground to a halt after PA leader Mahmoud Abbas refused to even recognize Israel's existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people, while simultaneously demanding Israeli recognition of a ‘Palestinian homeland.’ "The reality… is that the era of these negotiations is over - it's time for plan B… a new approach," he said. "The approach that we've been applying for 20 years now clearly has reached its end."

Responding to his interviewer's claim that "there has been Palestinian life in Jerusalem for thousands of years," he retorted: "You're talking about a Palestinian presence? Has there ever been a Palestinian state? Show me what its flag was, show me what its anthem was, show me who its leader is - show me anything that mentions the word 'Palestinians' more than 65 or 80 years ago.

"There has never been 'Palestinian state' - that's one of the big lies that they've managed to press forward. The reality is that it's been the Jewish land for 3,000 years, it's still our land."

The traditional defense is to kill these flying vectors with chemical insecticides. But that hasn’t worked in Brazil or other tropical countries where dengue is a leading cause of illness and fatality. Last year, Brazil reported 1.4 million cases of dengue, which is endemic in three of the 12 host cities for this summer’s World Cup. There is no vaccine. The most severe form of the illness, dengue hemorrhagic fever, can lead to shock, coma and death.

That’s where the “Franken-skeeter” comes in. The insects are genetically modified (GM) in a laboratory with a lethal gene designed to devastate the Aedes aegypti population and reduce dengue's spread. “We need to provide alternatives because the system we have now in Brazil doesn’t work,” said Aldo Malavasi, president of Moscamed, a Brazilian company that’s raising and testing the GM mosquitoes in Jacobina, located in eastern Bahia state. “We have thousands and thousands of cases of dengue and that costs a lot for the country. People are unable to work.”

But like with genetically modified foods, manipulating the genes of blood-sucking insects and then setting them free is raising concerns about potential impact on human health and the environment. Critics contend that more laboratory studies must be carried out before releasing highly mobile GM insects into the environment. “They are even harder to recall than plants are if anything goes wrong,” says Helen Wallace, director of the British environmental group GeneWatch.

His words suggest there is a possible opening to prevent the imminent collapse of the peace process, which had appeared to be in tatters last month when Israel failed to release 26 prisoners, prompting the Palestinians to sign up to 15 United Nations conventions. Under the US-mediated agreement last year, Israel promised to free 104 prisoners in four groups of 26. The Palestinians had agreed not to use their upgraded membership of the UN to sign any international conventions.

Mr Steinitz said it would be possible to release the Arab Israelis - but only if America were to free Jonathan Pollard, a former US Naval Intelligence analyst who was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. “If America - or Abu Mazen and America - want us to release some Israeli prisoners, terrorists who are Israeli citizens, then I would put it like this: without the release of Pollard it will be impossible to pass such a decision in the cabinet. With the release of Pollard, it’s going to be very hard, but it might be possible to convince the cabinet to approve it,” he said.

Pollard, who passed highly classified US military information to Israel for several years, has been in an American prison since 1987. Every president since Ronald Reagan has refused to free him, but the White House has recently declined to rule out this option.

However, Mr Steinitz insisted that Israel bore no responsibility. “My reading of the map is very clear and very reasonable,” he said. “We are ready to negotiate. We were ready to release convicted terrorists from jail - although between 70 and 80 per cent of Israelis in opinion polls were against it. But it’s impossible to justify the release of another group of terrorists from jail unless this is helpful for peace talks.”

"More than that, Kerry clarified that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made courageous decisions throughout the process." While Kerry did tell the Senate "it is the responsibility of the two sides to make decisions" and that "both sides took negative steps," Kerry's sharpest vitriol was saved for Israel, in a phrasing that hinted Israeli actions led to the failure of talks last week.

"Israel didn't release the Palestinian prisoners on the day they were supposed to be freed, and another day passed, and another day, and then another 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem, and 'poof'...that was sort of the moment," charged Kerry.

The final batch of terrorist releases, set for March 29, was put on hold given the total lack of progress in talks, and the widespread protest to the unpopular move. It was officially cancelled last Thursday, after Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Abbas requested to join 15 UN agencies last Tuesday, in breach of the peace talk conditions. Kerry simply noted before the senate that Abbas's move was "clearly unhelpful."