Israel Update 5.9.19
ISRAEL & THE UK
For the first time Israeli airforce jets have flown in UK airspace to joining 50 aircraft from the German, Italian and American air forces for the 20-day Cobra Warrior exercise, a high-intensity tactical drill.
Defence cooperation between Israel and Britain has been increasing in recent years.
Israeli PM Netanyahu arrived in London today Thursday for a brief meeting with Boris Johnson. His visit also includes a meeting with Mark Esper, the new US Defence Secretary, who is also visiting London.
HURRICANE DORIAN
In the wake of Hurricane Dorian, IsraAID, the Israel-based humanitarian aid agency, is sending to emergency support to the Bahamas.
Their emergency response team includes trauma experts, water engineers and disaster specialists and will provide emergency equipment such as water filters, blankets and tents. IsrAID has sent Israeli experts to 51 countries.
BRAZIL
An Israeli 11 member delegation of firefighters and rescue experts left for Brazil on Tuesday evening to help the local authorities with search-and-rescue and wildfire operations.
Turning down other offers of international help over the worst fires in the Amazon in years, Brazil has accused foreign countries, particularly in Europe, of trying to meddle in its affairs.
HEZBOLLAH
Hizbullah fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military post on the Lebanese border on Sunday in what it called payback for an Israeli airstrike a week earlier that killed two Lebanese operatives in Syria and a drone strike in Beirut that destroyed machinery to enable Hizbullah to produce high-grade rocket propellant for its precision-guided missiles.
An Israeli army spokesman, confirmed that one missile “penetrated” a military vehicle, but said no one was harmed.
Half an hour earlier, five soldiers had been inside the IDF armoured personnel carrier destroyed by a Hizbollah anti-tank missile on Sunday. Israel and Hizbullah were “30 minutes away from war,” said an Army Radio presenter.
On Sunday afternoon, “I was hanging laundry outside, when suddenly a missile flew over our heads,” said Dvora Biton, a mother of four who spent the afternoon in a local bomb shelter with six other families.
“We live right on the border, and there were no rocket alert sirens, with everyone just running wherever they had to
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi on Sunday told the head of UNIFIL “We will not accept Hizbullah’ precision missile project on Lebanese soil. The state of Lebanon and UNIFIL must bring an end to Iran and Hizbullah’s precision missile project in Lebanon.”
Hizbullah has set up a production and conversion site for precision missiles, the IDF announced on Tuesday. Israel has identified the establishment of a dedicated assembly line for precision weapons, and the transfer of sensitive and dedicated equipment including machines designed to manufacture missile motors and warheads. Iran is providing the special machinery, trains production operators, and regularly provides guidance and support.
Hezbollah is believed to have over 150,000 missiles, but only a small number of them can be guided to specific sites. Israel fears in a future war, the terror group could use a barrage of precision missiles to attack sensitive facilities and overwhelm its air defences. Read more here
And see Comment article below.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva said in a report that it was “concerned about statements by Palestinian officials, as well as in school textbooks, that promote hate speech against Israelis.” The panel called on the PA to stop hate speech and incitement to violence that fuels anti-Semitism” and to “remove any derogatory comments and images from school curricula and textbooks that perpetuate prejudices and hatred.” In addition, the panel found that Palestinian laws and policies failed to implement UN treaties on racism, or to properly investigate complaints for acts of racial discrimination
The UN’s anti-racism committee criticized the Palestinians for the first time in history, calling on Ramallah to combat “hate speech and incitement to violence…”
The PA’s current school curriculum “is more radical than the curriculum that came before” and “is suffused with ideas of martyrdom [and] Jihad,” according to IMPACT-se, a research institute that analyzes how textbooks measure up to UNESCO standards for acceptance, peace and tolerance. IMPACT-se’s CEO noted that there “is a strategic decision by the P.A. to radicalize 1.3 million school children. This curriculum was not created by accident.” He wants Palestinian children to be “taught that the way to resolve conflict is through peacemaking and not continual war.”
MEDICAL
The world’s first drug to prevent proliferation of cancerous cells, developed by Israeli scientist Dr. Sharon Shacham, has just received FDA approval. During a pivotal trial 40% of leukaemia patients saw their tumours shrink, while patient life expectancy increased by three to five times thanks to the treatment. The drug is currently undergoing advanced clinical trials for patients with myeloma, lymphoma, sarcoma, uterine cancer and brain cancer.
FOOD TECHNOLOGY
Aleph Farms is growing steak from the stem cells of cows. Their CEO says: “We can produce meat more efficiently in a way which is more ethical, more sustainable and healthier “. At SuperMeat, they extract stem cells from chickens…And as to our taste of the future? It was surprisingly normal.
JUDO
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry criticized an Egyptian judoka, for refusing to shake the hand of his Israeli opponent who defeated him in the semifinals of the World Judo Championships. The ministry issued a statement that “sports needs to be kept separate from politics.”
An Iranian judoka who was allegedly pressured and intimidated into throwing a match to avoid facing off against an Israeli opponent has requested asylum in Germany. His family was also threatened. He then congratulated the Israeli gold medal winner. Read more here & Read more here
RUNNING
Israeli distance runner Lonah Chemtai-Salpeter on Sunday clocked a time of 30:04 in the Tilburg Ten Miles race in Holland cutting 17 seconds off the European women’s record for the 10K, set in 2003.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
The largest renewable energy project in Israel – a vast $1.13 billion thermo-solar power plant in the Negev – was inaugurated last week. The 121-megawatt solar power facility will supply electricity to 70,000 households in Israel.
COMMENT & OPINION
Yoav Limor: The message conveyed on Tuesday – revealing Hizbullah’s precision missile factory in Lebanon and the military base being built by Iran in eastern Syria – cannot be mistaken: If the activity there doesn’t cease, Israel will have to make it cease. Both cases involve substantiated information, backed by satellite images and detailed explanations. They illustrate the depth of Israel’s intelligence penetration into the axis linking Iran to Lebanon, but also the determination of this axis to continue operating. The purpose of exposing Iran and Hizbullah’s activities is to create legitimacy for Israeli action and attempt to foil the enemy’s activities without the need for military force.
Bassam Tawil: When Rina Shnerb, 17, was killed in a bomb explosion when her family was visiting the popular Ein Buvin spring in the West Bank on Aug. 23, the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA reported that “a female settler was killed and others injured near the Dolev settlement.” Other Palestinian new editors and journalists called her a “soldier.” In fact, Rina was born and raised in the central Israeli city of Lod, had never lived in the West Bank, and was too young to be in the IDF. Palestinian media has again engaged in a campaign of fabrications and lies to justify the murder of an innocent Jewish teenager.
In the eyes of Palestinians, all of Israel is “occupied” and a “settlement.” When Palestinians fired three rockets at the Israeli city of Sderot on Aug. 25, Palestinian media outlets reported that Sderot is a “settlement.”
Ali Adi: The Arab citizens of Israel will admit that they prefer the Israeli government to an Arab one, even if from their comfortable positions at Israeli universities they prefer to call it “the occupation.”… I embrace my Israeli identity: I am an Israeli Arab because it’s important to me to distinguish myself from the wider Arab culture. It’s important to me to turn my back on what is happening in Syria and what happened in Lebanon and the story of Egypt’s tragic fall. Because when I’m Israeli, I can feel proud sometimes. Recently, I have seen archived material about the First Lebanon War. Despite the fact that stories about a war don’t exactly warm the heart, I am filled with pride to hear and see Lebanese residents, including Palestinian refugees, express faith in Israeli soldiers and ask them for protection from other actors in the civil war. The truth, which the entire Arab world already acknowledges, that the Israeli army is more humane and considerate than the Arab armies, fills me with pride.
Read more here
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