Israel Update 30.9.21

COUNTER-TERRORISM

 

 

Raids that targeted members of a Hamas cell in the West Bank overnight Saturday, and killed five terrorist suspects, prevented major terror attacks, including a series of kidnappings and murders and a large-scale attack in Jerusalem. Read more here

 

 

Israeli security forces early Monday carried out further operations in to disrupt alleged plans for major terror attacks, using new intel gained following the arrest of some 20 suspected members of a Hamas cell. In these raids a significant cache of explosive devices intended to be used in a terror attack in the capital in the coming days was found. Read more here

 

 

A Palestinian woman was shot after she attempted to stab police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City early Thursday morning.Read more here

 

 

BAHRAIN

 

 

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid arrived in Bahrain on Thursday to inaugurate Israel’s embassy in Manama and hold talks with Bahraini officials in the first official visit by an Israeli cabinet member. Read more here

 

 

 

Gulf Air flight GF972, the first commercial flight between Bahrain and Israel landed Thursday at Ben Gurion airport. Read more here

 

 

 

IRON DOME FUNDING

 

 

The U.S. House of Representatives in a 420-9 vote approved $1 billion to help Israel replace missile interceptors used during the Gaza conflict in May, reflecting widespread bipartisan support in Congress for Israel. Eight Democrats and a Republican opposed the measure while two Democrats voted “present” – similar to “abstain”. Read more here

 

 

 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “I thank the…Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee…for your leadership in bringing this [legislation] to the Floor to further express the will of Congress, in a bipartisan way, for the security of Israel. Iron Dome is a purely defensive system…co-developed by the United States and Israel and has saved thousands of lives.  Read more here

 

 

 

CORONAVIRUS IN ISRAEL

 

 

 

(Figures from last week’s Update in brackets for comparison)

 

 

3,550 (5,921) new cases of coronavirus were confirmed on Wednesday in Israel.  639 (723) patients were hospitalized in serious condition, of them, 219 (197) were connected to ventilators. The death toll since the start of the pandemic stood at 7,734 (7,592). 3,326,167 Israelis have received the third dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Thursday morning. Israel’s Green Pass system, which permits the vaccinated access to a variety of spaces and activities, will no longer apply to those who have not received a third booster shot by Sunday.Read more here

 

 

 

PM Bennett instructed Israel’s four health funds on Wednesday to step up efforts to get more Arab citizens of Israel vaccinated, as around 40% of all serious covid-19 cases in the country are among the Arab population.  Read more here

 

 

 

CO-OPERATION WITH JORDAN

 

 

Mohammed Al-Hadid, president of the Jordanian Red Crescent, spoke of how training in Israel helped equip paramedics in his country to face the Covid crisis.  He said that the Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom was “a fantastic organization. I sent a cohort of Jordanian students to Israel.”  “They spent four years there and made lots of friends. MDA trained them and trained them well. Now many of them are working in our centre and were instrumental in the Covid crisis.” He added that Jordanians will be taking part in a workshop in Tel Aviv in December to prepare for earthquakes in the region. Read more here

 

 

 

MASKS

 

 

The Israeli mask company Sonovia has released a report from a leading Italian textile-testing laboratory showing that its fabric eliminates the COVID-19 Delta variant particles with over 99.95% effectiveness. The same lab had reported earlier that the unique fabric, which is coated in zinc nanoparticles, also protects against the British variant of COVID-19 and H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu. Read more here

 

 

 

CERN

 

 

 

Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici of the Racah Institute of Physics at Hebrew University was recently elected as president of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Read more here

 

 

 

GAZA

 

 

 

An IDF  spokesman said that Hamas “continues to manufacture thousands of rockets and upgrade their offensive capabilities, including rocket ranges and underground tunnels, attack UAVs [and] naval forces..they continue to deliberately position these in close proximity to civilians in order to use them as human shields, knowing that the IDF adheres both to our morals and to the rule of international law.” Read more here

 

 

 

 

IRAQ

 

 

More than 300 Iraqis, including tribal leaders, last Friday called for normalization of ties with Israel at a conference in autonomous Kurdistan organized by the New York-based Centre for Peace Communications, drawing condemnation from Baghdad. Iraqi Kurdistan maintains cordial contacts with Israel, but the federal government in Baghdad does not have diplomatic ties with Israel. Read more here

 

 

Participants at the conference are now facing arrest warrants, death threats and the loss of jobs, but Kurdish authorities are refusing to turn over the wanted Iraqis who were their guests. Read more here

 

 

 

It is both necessary and inevitable that Iraq recognizes Israel and joins the Abraham Accords, a senior official in Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, has said. Read more here

 

 

 

THE EUROPEAN UNION

 

 

The European Parliament, one of three legislative branches of the EU, advanced an amendment on Tuesday that would condition more than $23 million in European funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on changes to Palestinian Authority textbooks, which have often been accused of incitement to violence. Brussels is the PA’s largest single donor — paying the salaries of its civil servants, including those who design PA curricula — and sent over $157 million in aid to UNRWA in 2021. Read more here

 

 

 

DEFENCE

 

 

The Czech government will buy four Spyder short-range air defence system batteries from Israel by 2026 to replace obsolete Soviet-made weapons. Read more here

 

 

 

As tension continues to simmer between India and China over Ladakh, New Delhi will be buying four Heron MK II UAVs from Israel Aerospace Industries and will deploy them to the area for surveillance purposes. Read more here

 

 

 

Israel’s Air Force received three new F-35 stealth fighter jets on Sunday from the U.S., and
now has 30 F-35s, part of an order of 50. Read more here

 

 

 

UNILEVER/BEN & JERRY’S

 

 

Texas has officially added Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever to a list of companies that boycott Israel over the former’s decision to cease the sale of its products in West Bank settlements, a further step on the path to the state divesting some $100 million from the companies. So far eight states are known to have triggered similar reviews that could result in divesting from Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever. In addition to Texas, Arizona and New Jersey, New York, Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Rhode Island have launched formal proceedings. Read more here

 

 

EXPO 2020

 

 

Israel is gearing up to take part in Expo 2020 Dubai which opens on  Friday, a year after normalization of ties with the UAE.  Read more here

 

 

 

 

INNOVATION

 

 

Koch Industries’ venture capital arm, Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), and Porsche have invested in Israeli deep data startup proteanTecs, a developer of an advanced software solution to monitor the health and performance of electronic systems before they become faulty. Read more here

 

 

German automotive giant BMW and South Korean electronics multinational LG were among some of the biggest brands worldwide to unveil new products this month using smart glass technology developed by Israeli company Gauzy. Read more here

 

 

 

For around 30 years, battery technology hasn’t changed . Now an Israeli start-up Addionics aims to change the status quo with an electric car battery that has longer range and faster charging. Read more here

 

 

CLEAN-TEC

 

 

Israeli clean-living technologies have recently reached new locations in Latin America. = Home Biogas which produces a system that converts food leftovers into clean cooking gas and garden fertilizer, recently signed distribution agreements with companies in Chile and Peru. Aura Air, which creates air filtration and disinfection devices, has had its devices installed at the Chile location of multinational mining giant BHP.  Trials of Aura Air have shown that the device neutralises various viruses including SARS-CoV-2, at a rate of 99.9%. Read more here

 

 

 

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

 

 

Israel’s Technion has been rated the number one institute leading machine-learning research in Europe in a rating by CSRankings. The Technion’s Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems research centre has led groundbreaking research both in Israel and worldwide. Read more here

 

 

 

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

 

Wisam Al-Hardan: The most infamous act in the Iraqi tragedy was the mass exodus and dispossession of the majority of our Iraqi Jewish population, a community with 2,600 years of history, in the mid-20th century. Through their forced migration, Iraq effectively cut one of its own principal veins. In striving to rebuild Iraq, we must reconnect with the whole of our diaspora, including these Jews.
We demand that Iraq join the Abraham Accords. We call for full diplomatic relations with Israel. We will seek face-to-face talks with Israelis. The writer is leader of the (Sunni) Sons of Iraq Awakening movement.Read more here 

 

 

 

 

Ben-Dror Yemini: New Arab voices are the hope for a peaceful future. A growing number of Israeli Arabs advocate for the country against its detractors, often exposing themselves to online abuse, in the belief that a Jewish and democratic Israel is benefiting their own communities. Read more here