Israel Update 24.1.19

IRAN FIRED A MISSILE FROM SYRIA TOWARDS ISRAEL ON SUNDAY

Israeli fighter jets struck Iranian and Syrian military targets, air defence batteries and Iranian Quds Forces positions throughout Syria early Monday in response to the firing of a missile by Iranian forces in Syria toward the Golan Heights. The missile was intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system above thousands of Israeli tourists at the Mount Hermon ski resort.
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The Israeli interception of the missile was caught on a skier’s camera:
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The advanced missile, launched by Iranians at northern Israel had a range of over 200 km. and carried a payload of hundreds of kilograms of explosives.
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“The firing of the missile [from Syria at Israel], a launch that could have killed civilians, was fired by Iranians out of Damascus within an area that we were promised that there would be no Iranians,” said an IDF spokesman. Israel has worked closely with the US and Russia to try to get Iranian and Hezbollah forces to leave Syria where they have been fighting alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Assad since the civil war started there some eight years ago.
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HIZBULLAH TUNNELS

The United Nations’ envoy to the Mideast said Tuesday that peacekeepers in Lebanon have not been given access by the Lebanese government to tunnels stretching into Israel, which U.N. officials say violate a case-fire resolution that ended a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
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GAZA BORDER VIOLENCE CONTINUES

The Israel Air Force launched airstrikes against multiple Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, following two border clashes earlier in the day, including one in which a sniper shot an IDF officer on his helmet, causing light injuries.

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Some 14,000 Gazans rioted in several locations along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday, hurling stones, burning tyres and throwing grenades and explosives at IDF troops.
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Danny Danon Israeli Ambassador to the UN: Many try to claim that the events on the border between Israel and Gaza are “nonviolent” protests. .. But “nonviolent” protestors do not carry knives, wire-cutters and firebombs. Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar even said this characterization was intentionally deceptive, as the riots were “not a peaceful resistance.” These riots are simply the next battle tactic in Hamas’ ongoing war against Israel and the Jewish people. When faced with a similar situation – in which tens of thousands of rioters rush its border, wielding weapons and proudly proclaiming their intent to kill its civilians – what nation would not take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty and protect its people?
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Israeli Ambassador to the UK Mark Regev has also defended Israel’s actions at its border with Gaza after nine months of protests and violence. He said: “Everyone who knows anything knows it [the Gaza border] is a war zone. So why are you bussing women and children into a combat zone?… In Gaza we pulled out, we redeployed behind the 1967 line, which is, from the international community’s point [of view], the recognized border. If we can’t defend that border, what border would you have us defend?”
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ATTACK THWARTED

A Palestinian man left his vehicle on Monday evening at a checkpoint outside Nablus in the West Bank and charged at a soldier while holding a large knife, before being shot by IDF troops.
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CHAD

P.M. Netanyahu and Chad President Deby announced the resumption of diplomatic relations(severed in 1972) during Netanyahu’s visit. Netanyahu said, “ We discussed how to deepen our cooperation in every field beginning with security, but also agriculture, food, water, energy, health and many more.” “It’s significant for us that Chad is a country with a Muslim majority that seeks the friendship of Israel.”
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BRITAIN & ISRAEL

Israel has been invited to take part in a British aerial drill later this year, in the first joint exercise of its kind between the two countries. The Cobra Warrior exercise, scheduled for September, will be the first time that Israeli and Royal Air Force fighter jets openly train together.  read more here

Britain and Israel agreed “in principle” on a post-Brexit trade deal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. UK-Israel trade surged by 75% in the first half of 2018, as the value of annual trade between the two countries passed the $10 billion mark for the first time.
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An Israeli team of scientists working with the British Museum have created a computer program that can reassemble artefacts from hundreds of fragments based on analysis of photographs. Niv Derech and Ayellet Tal, of the Israel Institute of Technology, and Ilan Shimshoni, of the University of Haifa, created the algorithm.
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SPORT

UK Labour party deputy leader Tom Watson has called for the international Paralympic Swimming World Championships being held in Malaysia to be cancelled if the country refuses entry to Israeli competitors. He said “The UK must demand this decision is reversed or the world championships must move to a country where the ideals of the Olympic movement are upheld.”
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THE UN

The UN Stabilization Mission in Mali is using radar made by Israel’s RADA Electronic Industries to provide its bases with early warning of incoming projectiles. Three systems using RADA’s Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar (MHR) were set up in Nov.-Dec. 2018.
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The UN on Monday elected Israel as Vice-Chair of the 19-nation Committee on NGOs, which oversees the work of human rights groups.
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FINLAND

Finland is ordering ELM-2311 Compact Multi-Mission Radars from Israel Aerospace Industries. They will be used for detecting artillery, mortars or rockets, as well as for fire observation and air surveillance.
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ROUTE 4370

Motorists, both Jews and Arabs alike, are praising the new Eastern Ring road, Route 4370, as being a game-changer in alleviating the recurrent traffic jams in the area. Jewish and Arab leaders participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month… One of those in attendance at the ceremony was Akram Abdel-Rachman, a retired business leader in the Jerusalem Arab community and resident of the city’s southern Sharafat neighborhood. When asked why he backed the new route while others, including the Palestinian Authority leadership criticized it, Abdel-Rachman said that he supports “any project that eases the life of residents in the area. It’s a blessing.” 
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THE P.A.

On January 9, PA President Mahmoud Abbas began serving the 15th year of his four-year term. There has been no presidential election since 2005 and Abbas governs by decree.
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INCLUSIVITY

Tsofen, an organization working to better integrate Israeli Arabs into Israel’s high-tech sector, was founded by Paz Hirschmann and Sami Saadi. A decade ago, there were 300 Arab engineers or software engineers in Israel’s high-tech workforce. Today there are 6,000. More than 100 Israeli start-ups are either co-founded or co-owned by both Arabs and Jews,
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Sireen Ibraheem Nijeem, a fulfillment and demand specialist at smart energy-tech company SolarEdge, is one of the pioneering Israeli-Arab women shattering the hi-tech glass ceiling, Alaa Halumi, a product owner at construction management platform developer BuilderEdge, currently finishing her master’s in software engineering, has noticed an increase in female Arab students starting to learn similar subjects.
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WATER TECHNOLOGY

Watergen, the Israeli firm with unique technology to extract fresh water from the air, has partnered with the American Red Cross to develop a new Emergency Response Vehicle to provide fresh water to disaster zones.. The ERV has already been deployed, providing clean water for emergency services fighting the November 2018 wildfires in California.
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TECHNOLOGY

Israeli technology company Mobit Telecom, in cooperation with the German Aerospace Centre, has developed a tiny, watch-shaped satellite transmitter to locate people lost in areas which aren’t covered by cellular networks..
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INNOVATION

Israel has the 5th most innovative economy out of 60 countries, according to Bloomberg’s annual Innovation Index,
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THE E.U.

Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs estimates EU funding to organizations promoting boycotts against Israel to be well above 5 million euros per year. Some of these organizations also receive funds directly from EU member states.
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COMMUNICATION

The Israeli Defence Ministry unit known as COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) has launched its first Internet radio broadcast in a new effort to improve relations with Palestinians. Emad Abu Awad, an expert on Israeli affairs said, “COGAT’s radio seeks to break the barriers between Israel and the Palestinians, boost dealings with the Israeli Civil Administration and lay the foundations of an economic peace between the two sides.” read more here

NEW AIRPORT

The new Ramon Airport near Eilat was opened on Monday, named in memory of astronaut Ilan and pilot Assaf Ramon. The airport is the first entirely civilian airport to open since Israel’s independence
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COMMENT & OPINION

JPost Editorial: What were those Hezbollah tunnels built for? Is there any doubt that they were to be used in the next war with Israel? If this “act” of war becomes part of a sustained activity, everyone knows what comes next: all-out war. Israel will defend itself and bomb over and under all locations engaged in that Third Lebanon War, targeting the missile launch sites that emanate alongside homes in the small Lebanese villages short kilometers north of the border. In those villages – Hezbollah uses “every third house in southern Lebanon,” in which are Lebanese grandmothers playing with their grandchildren, sitting over an entranceway to a tunnel. There are hospitals, supermarkets and schools. All are being used to cover Hezbollah terrorist activity and all will be fair targets in a future war. The photographs of the casualties will be on page 1 in every newspaper in the world, and the UN Security Council will meet to condemn Israeli aggression.

Then the Security Council will meet. Not today, when the blatant evidence of these acts of war being perpetrated along Israel’s sovereign border is being ignored. Only then.

It is shameful that the United Nations, and almost every country in the world, is not speaking out against these self-evident truths: the tunnels were a new underground frontier to be used by (Hezbullah) to infiltrate fighters, as an opening salvo in a future war accompanying the launching of rockets, missiles and mortar shells.
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