JERUSALEM (AP) — It was supposed to be a record-breaking year for tourist visits to Israel. But all that changed when the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas prompted jittery travelers to cancel trips en masse, leaving empty hotel rooms and barren tourist sites in their wake.

The summertime fighting delivered a serious hit to Israel's thriving tourism industry, causing losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and sparking concern that aftershocks may continue well after the war.

"Our challenge is how to prevent more cancelations. Despite a month having passed since the war, there is still an image among tourists that it is not safe to travel here," said Oded Grofman of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association.

Israel's war against Hamas came at the beginning of the peak tourist season, which includes July and August and runs through the Jewish High Holiday season and early winter.

Israel launched the war July 8 in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and to destroy a network of tunnels used to attack Israelis. More than 2,100 Palestinians and 72 people on the Israeli side were killed. Israel and Hamas signed a cease-fire on Aug. 26.

None of the casualties on the Israeli side occurred in the country's tourist hubs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which endured rocket attacks but were largely protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Still, gruesome images of the war beamed around the world scared tourists away. One rocket that landed near Israel's international airport spurred American and European airlines to suspend flights for 48 hours, sending a chill through the local tourism industry.

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In this Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 photo, people enjoy the beach on the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, I …

Before the war, the country hoped for a record-breaking year for tourist visitors. Since the second Palestinian uprising subsided nearly a decade ago, Israel has enjoyed a tourism boom, with as many as 3.6 million foreign visitors to the country last year. Tourism is now an estimated $5 billion industry and provides more than 110,000 jobs in Israel.

But the war caused a 31 percent drop in foreign visitors to Israel during that period compared to 2013, with the decline in August reaching 36 percent. The amount of visitors during that month was the lowest since February 2009, shortly after fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants. Israel's Tourism Ministry estimates the losses to be upward of $544 million. A postwar influx of visitors for the Jewish holidays is expected to bring some relief, but not enough to salvage a miserable season.

Merchants in Jerusalem's Old City, a top tourist destination, say they are still feeling the sting. The area's cobblestone streets are typically filled with tourists purchasing chintzy wares and cheeky T-shirts and visiting the holy sites. But they've been eerily empty over the summer.

"When the Gaza war started it just went down," said Kevork Kahvedjian, whose family has run a shop selling old photos in the Old City since 1949. "There were no people at all, none. It was as if there was a curfew or something." Kahvedjian said his sales declined as much as 90 percent.

Beyond tourists, the war also drove away foreign acts, with many artists slated to perform this summer — among them Neil Young, the Backstreet Boys and Lana Del Rey — pulling out. Singer Lady Gaga did end up performing in front of a crowd of 20,000 people in Tel Aviv, however.

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Actress Sharon Stone prays at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, during her tour March 12, 20 …

The slump in tourism comes amid a wider economic slowdown in Israel, which emerged intact from the 2008 global financial crisis though is now suffering from timid growth. The Bank of Israel has taken measures to stimulate the economy, dropping interest rate levels to 0.25 percent — the lowest ever — but some economists fear the country may be headed toward a recession. The Gaza war and its side effects may compound the sluggish growth.

Mirit Craven Schneider was among the droves of tourists who canceled trips to Israel because of the war. She was set to spend two weeks touring the country with her husband and three young children in what would have been their first trip to Israel.

"Once everything started happening, it was very concerning," said Craven Schneider, a first grade teacher from Houston, Texas. "We didn't want to be there with air raid sirens going off, and the kids having to spend time in bomb shelters."

The industry is hoping to bounce back. Israel's Tourism Ministry is set to launch new campaigns in markets in the U.S., Germany and Russia meant to target niche travelers, including Jewish and Christian communities. This year is largely unsalvageable, but officials hope that the numbers will rise again.

"People abroad might feel that things here are unsafe but this is a very, very safe country," Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said. "This is exactly the kind of perception that we would like to share with all of our potential visitors."

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Follow Tia Goldenberg on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tgoldenberg .

Image of Gaza war deals blow to Israel's tourism

Merchants in Jerusalem's top destination say they’re still feeling the sting from the 50-day conflict with Hamas.
Drove away concerts

BEIRUT (AP) — U.S.-led coalition air raids targeted towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State group, including one strike that hit a grain silo and reportedly killed civilians, activists said Monday.

Washington and its Arab allies opened their air assault against the extremist group last week, going after its military facilities, training camps, heavy weapons and oil installations. The campaign expands upon the airstrikes the United States has been conducting against the militants in Iraq since early August.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said coalition forces hit Islamic State group facilities overnight in Aleppo, Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir el-Zour provinces. It said there were casualties, including civilians, but did not have exact figures.

One of the strikes hit a grain silo in the extremist-held town of Manbij in Aleppo province, setting it ablaze, the Observatory and the Aleppo Media Center activist group said. Another activist collective, the Local Coordination Committees, also reported what it said were coalition air raids on Manbij.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said the strike on the grain silo killed civilians, but he didn't have an exact number.

"They killed only civilians there, workers at the site. There was no ISIS inside," he said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State group. The airstrikes "destroyed the food that was stored there."

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A general view shows damage at a base of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, that was targeted by what …

There was no immediate comment or confirmation of the strikes from the U.S. or its allies.

In Deir el-Zour province, a strike overnight attributed to the coalition hit the entrance to the Conoco gas plant, Syria's largest, according to the Observatory. It said the facility itself was not damaged.

More raids Monday morning struck the town of Tel Abyad on the Syria-Turkey border, according to a resident on the Turkish side on the frontier.

Mehmet Ozer told The Associated Press by telephone that the raids hit an abandoned military base and an empty school, sending pillars of smoke and dust into the air. He said Islamic State fighters cleared out of the military base about three or four months ago.

"They (the coalition) must not have fresh intelligence," Ozer said.

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Turkish tanks roll to take positions along the Turkey-Syria border near Suruc, Turkey, Monday, Sept. …

Two shells from the fighting on the Syrian side of the border landed on Turkish soil in the town of Suruc, an AP journalist on the frontier said. Turkey's military moved tanks away from the army post in the area, positioning them instead on a hill overlooking the border.

The Islamic State group has seized control of a huge chunk of Syria and neighboring Iraq, and has declared the establishment of a self-styled caliphate ruled by its strict interpretation of Shariah law. Its brutal tactics, which include mass killings and beheadings, have helped galvanize the international community to go after the militants.

The U.S.-led campaign aims to roll back the extremists' gains in Syria and Iraq, and ultimately to destroy the group.

The coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan. Several European countries also are contributing to U.S. efforts to strike the Islamic State group in Iraq, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Britain.

Despite the international efforts, Islamic State fighters have pressed ahead with their offensive against Syria's Kurds in the city of Ayn Arab, also known as Kobani, on the Turkish border.

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A Syrian Kurdish refugee woman and her child wait after crossing the Turkish-Syrian border near the …

Ismet Sheikh Hassan, a senior official in the Kobani region for the Kurdish militia, said the extremists fired rockets and tank shells at the city from the southeast, while some 1,000 militants amassed to the west. He said a 50-year-old woman was killed by the shelling.

More than 100,000 people have fled across the border to Turkey to escape the onslaught, while the U.S.-led coalition on Saturday targeted the attacking Islamic State fighters for the first time to try to stem their advance.

The purported civilian casualties in Manbij would add to the 19 civilians that the Observatory says have already been killed in the coalition airstrikes. The Observatory gathers its information from a network of activists across Syria.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said that it had confirmed the deaths of at least seven civilians — two women and five children — from apparent U.S. missile strikes on Sept. 23 in the village of Kafr Derian in Idlib province. The New York-based group said two men were also killed in the strikes, but that they may have been militants.

It based its conclusions on conversations with three local residents.

"The United States and its allies in Syria should be taking all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians," said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. government should investigate possible unlawful strikes that killed civilians, publicly report on them, and commit to appropriate redress measures in case of wrongdoing."

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Associated Press writer Desmond Butler in Antakya, Turkey, and Mohammed Rasool in Suruc, Turkey, contributed to this report.

When fighter jets from the United Arab Emirates took part in airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria on Monday night, the mission was led by a woman, the country’s ambassador to the United States said Thursday morning.

The pilot, Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri, was among the first women to graduate from the Emirates’ air force academy after it began to admit women, and became the nation’s first female fighter pilot.

“She is a fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission,” the ambassador, Yousef Al Otaiba, said on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.”

When American tanker-jet pilots contacted the flight to arrange for midair refueling, Mr. Otaiba said, they paused for about 20 seconds after hearing a woman’s voice in reply.

While women do face barriers in the conservative Islamic society of the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Otaiba said the debate over the role of women in society showed a crucial difference in the divergent visions of moderates and extremists in the Muslim world.

“I think it’s important for us moderate Arabs, moderate Muslims, to step up and say this is a threat against us,” Mr. Otaiba said of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The United States-led coalition that mounted airstrikes against the Islamic State on Syrian territory this week includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. On Thursday, coalition aircraft struck 12 small oil refineries controlled by the Islamic State, Pentagon officials said.

Major Mansouri, 35, was profiled in The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper, in June. She said she had wanted to become a pilot since high school, but had to wait until women were permitted. She earned an undergraduate degree in English literature and worked for the armed forces in other capacities.

She graduated from Khalifa bin Zayed Air College in 2007, the newspaper reported. She now flies the Block 60 model of the American-built F-16 fighter jet.

In the newspaper profile, the major offered some advice for women who wanted to follow in her footsteps: “Be prepared, as it is a time- and effort-consuming field that requires a great deal of passion.”

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Raw: Afghanistan Swears in New President

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan swore in Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as its second elected president on Monday, embarking on a new era with a national unity government poised to confront a resilient Taliban insurgency by signing an agreement with the United States that would guarantee a continuing American military presence.

As Hamid Karzai left the political stage, the new president was locked into an uneasy partnership with his defeated rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who became the country's first chief executive. With a hug for the cameras, both sides appeared determined to reach across factions and avoid a descent into an abyss similar to what has happened in Iraq, where the government's failure to mend lingering sectarian divisions following a full U.S. withdrawal helped give rise to the brutal Islamic State group.

The new Afghan government was expected Tuesday to sign a security agreement that provides a legal framework for the United States to keep about 9,800 troops in the country to train, advise and assist Afghan national security forces after the current international combat mission ends Dec. 31. That number of troops is expected to be cut in half by the end of 2015, and the U.S. would leave only about 1,000 in a security office after the end of 2016.

Karzai, the outgoing president, had refused to approve the deal, which is intended to help Afghan security forces combat the resilient Taliban insurgency.

The Afghan government also is expected to sign an agreement this week with NATO that would outline the parameters of 4,000 to 5,000 additional international troops — mostly from Britain, Germany, Italy and Turkey — to stay in Afghanistan in a noncombat role after the end of this year.

Without a post-2014 residual force, U.S. military officials say there is a risk that the Afghan security force will deteriorate, units would run out of fuel, pay systems would fail and there would be a reduction in the overall readiness of the Afghan police and army. They say al-Qaida is in "survival mode" in Afghanistan, but that if all international forces left this year, the terrorist network would see it as a victory, regroup and again use the region to plan and conduct operations against the West.

But there are serious questions about the ability of the Afghan security forces to take on the militants, even with a residual U.S. force — down from a high of more than 130,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan several years ago.

"Afghanistan doesn't have the full military necessary to defend the country," said Mohammad Doud Kalakani, a member of the Afghan parliament. "No air force, no tanks, limited artillery."

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said Monday that he hoped President Barack Obama will view the signing of the security agreement as a "roadmap for a robust continued engagement, and not a path to premature withdrawal."

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Afghanistan's new President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (L) shakes hands with Afghanistan's Chief Justice …

McKeon also wants the administration to rethink its plans to draw down U.S. forces. "We are witnessing now in Iraq what happens when the U.S. falters on that commitment and adopts a posture inconsistent with our security interests," McKeon said.

U.S.-Afghan relations will likely improve under Ghani Ahmadzai, a 65-year-old numbers-based technocrat who worked at the World Bank. Karzai, the country's only leader since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, frequently criticized the U.S. government and irritated American leaders with his mercurial behavior; Karzai was criticized in turn for his inability or unwillingness to tackle corruption in his own government.

On Monday, however, Karzai wore a wide smile as he greeted his presidential guards upon entering the palace, where he presided over the first peaceful transfer of power in the nation's history. It was made possible by a constitution that he helped draft and that prohibited him from serving a third five-year term.

Ghani Ahmadzai's first act in office was to swear in Abdullah as chief executive, a role that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry helped create to give voice to both Afghanistan's northern and southern flanks of power.

"Afghans have taken a moment of challenge and turned it into a moment of real opportunity," Kerry said Monday in a statement congratulating both men.

The deal settled months of political tensions that threatened to push the fragile country into civil war. But it remains to be seen how well the two Afghan leaders will work together, and whether the agreement will last. They still must agree on Cabinet appointments.

The nearly six-month-long election was marred by allegations of massive vote fraud, a staple of Afghanistan's last two presidential votes. Ghani Ahmadzai won a June runoff with 55 percent of votes cast, according to official results, though 1 million votes were thrown out. Abdullah's coalition continues to believe the election was stolen but accepted the chief executive compromise to avoid violence.

Bloodshed may be in Afghanistan's future anyway. Taliban militants this summer — for the first time since attacks truly picked up in 2005 — fought Afghan Army troops instead of the powerful U.S. and NATO military machine. The Afghan army saw its fatality rate skyrocket and the Taliban make gains.

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Afghanistan's new President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai takes the oath during his inauguration as presiden …

Ghani Ahmadzai has said he would also welcome talks with the Taliban, who control vast rural sections of southern and eastern Afghanistan.

"We are tired of war," he said in his inauguration speech. "Our message is peace, (but) this doesn't mean we are weak."

Peace did not prevail on Monday, according to police reports. A suicide bomber detonated explosives at an intersection that leads to Kabul's airport, killing a half dozen people. A bigger attack took place in eastern Paktia province, where a car bomb and gunfire attack by militants sparked a battle that killed seven Taliban fighters, four police officers and two civilians.

The dual attacks served as a reminder that Taliban violence remains a part of daily life despite the deaths of more than 2,000 U.S. service members in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban regime for harboring al-Qaida militants responsible for 9/11.

"I hope Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai can bring peace and the rule the law in Afghanistan as former Afghan President Hamid Karzai could not bring peace," said Abdul Rahman, a 30-year-old police officer. "Our people have been suffering from the instability and poverty."

The new president made pledges sure to please not only the international community but many Afghans as well. Ghani Ahmadzai said that women will play a prominent role in government and that corruption will be tackled. He introduced his wife to the country, a sharp contrast to Karzai's wife, who almost never appeared in public.

Ghani Ahmadzai wore a dark black turban popular in the country's south as he swore in his two vice presidents and then Abdullah and his deputies.

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, spoke first and thanked Karzai for his service and the people of the country for casting votes in the millions despite threats by Taliban militants.

"We are committed as one in the national unity government," Abdullah said. "Our commitment will be fulfilled together as a unified team to create national unity."

Ghani Ahmadzai then congratulated Karzai for a peaceful and democratic transition of power, and he thanked Abdullah for making the national unity government possible.

"We want to be held accountable. I am your leader but I am no better than you. If I make mistakes, you should hold me accountable," Ghani Ahmadzai said.

Though Kerry played a big role in reaching the deal, he did not attend the inauguration. Only one world leader was in attendance: Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain.

Karzai, who has cautioned the successor government about its future dealings with the U.S., took a bold swipe at the U.S. during his farewell address last week. "They should take a careful path with America and the West," Karzai said.

The U.S. has invested $104 billion in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, pave roads, upgrade hospitals, build schools and help modernize the nation, but the United States was omitted from a list of countries Karzai thanked in his speech. The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham, said Karzai's remarks were ungrateful and not representative of widespread Afghan public opinion.

In his statement, however, Kerry paid tribute to Karzai, who inherited a broken country when the Americans and their allies chose him more than a decade ago as a leader they hoped could cross ethnic lines, embrace former enemies and bring Afghans together.

"It's no secret that our relationship with President Karzai has been punctuated by disagreements," Kerry said. But "he is a nationalist, a patriot, and an important figure who stepped forward when his country needed him, and helped profoundly shape one of the most challenging periods in Afghan history that has seen remarkable progress."

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AP correspondent Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.