Israel Update 25.8.22

GAZA

During the recent round of fighting in Gaza, a missile launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) veered off course and killed 7 people, including 4 children, and injured 21, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported. Israel reported that of the 1,100 PIJ rockets fired toward Israel, 200 fell inside Gaza.
A local resident said, “Everyone knows that the missile that fell on Saturday was a local missile, but no one dares talk about it, especially to the media and the press, let alone name names….Whoever holds the PIJ responsible for the missiles that veered off course is deemed unpatriotic…During the four previous wars, a lot of (Gazan) rockets fell on fields and rooftops, even on people, killing them or seriously injuring them. In 2008, I lost my best friend in one of the explosions caused by resistance rockets, and in 2014 one of them fell on my aunt’s house and left her child totally disabled.”  Read more here

Reportedly a deadly explosion on Tuesday that killed two and wounded several others was due to improperly stored weapons in the home of a terror group member. The IDF has repeatedly accused Hamas and other terror groups of operating within civilian areas inside the Gaza Strip. Read more here

ISRAEL & GAZA

Gazans can choose peace and economic development, but if they do not, Israel will defend itself, Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement summing up Operation Breaking Dawn  on 8 August, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and PIJ took effect.

“I want to turn to the residents of Gaza and say to them: there is another way,” Lapid said. “We will know to defend ourselves against anyone who threatens us, but we also know to give work and a livelihood and dignified life to anyone who wants to live peacefully beside us. Read more here

After the recent fighting, Israel was quick to reopen the crossings to allow 14,000 Gaza residents to continue to work in Israel.

Israeli policies toward Gaza over the past eight months have led to improvement in the Gaza economy. During the recent fighting, 7,000 Gazans remained in Israel for work. 250,000 Gazans have already applied for work permits in Israel.  Read more here

Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said Israel is employing “a proactive civilian policy aimed at the general public” in Gaza. Exports from Gaza to the West Bank are expected to rise by 27% this year, while exports from Gaza to Israel were expected to rise by 94%.  Read more here

CO-OPERATION

Israel’s Civil Administration has issued a building permit to the Palestinian Water Authority to build a 30-km. pipeline to transport treated wastewater for agricultural use from the Al Bireh Treatment Plan, near Ramallah, to Palestinian farmers in the Jericho Valley. Read more here

 Israeli energy companies Enlight Renewable Energy and NewMed Energy announced that they have signed agreements to launch renewable energy projects in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. The projects will focus on solar and wind power production, and energy storage. Read more here

From August 1 up to 2,000 Jordanian hotel workers and up to 300 Jordanian workers in construction, industry and general sectors, were once again allowed to enter the Eilat region of  Israel for work on a daily basis, as was the case before the corona pandemic. Read more here

MEDICAL AID TO EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Israeli oral and maxillofacial surgeons Oded Nahlieli and Michael Abba have performed complex procedures on dozens of children in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea on the African West Coast since 2014. On their most recent trip, they trained local doctors to use a remote surgical collaborative system developed by ORVizio an Israeli startup which allows surgeons in Israel to guide complex surgeries anywhere, in real time.  Read more here

TERROR ATTACKS

Seven people were injured, two seriously, in a Palestinian shooting attack at a bus near Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday 14/8. A pregnant woman who was shot while sitting in a nearby car underwent emergency childbirth. The attacker a resident of eastern Jerusalem, later turned himself in to police. Read more here

Palestinians opened fire on an Israeli bus full of passengers near Silwad in the West Bank on Saturday night in the third such shooting incident in the past month. The bus was hit by at least eight bullets but the bus driver accelerated away from the terrorists and no-one was injured. Read more here

COUNTER TERRORISM

The Israel Security Agency announced Monday an indictment against three Israeli Arabs associated with ISIS. Two were arrested in July  and charged with plotting to carry out a terror attack in Israel under the auspices of ISIS, as well as planning to join the group’s jihadist activities abroad. A week later, security forces arrested the third. Read more here

Three Palestinian women from Nablus with a makeshift submachine gun in their car were arrested Saturday near a checkpoint in the West Bank. Read more here

DEFENCE

The Czech army and Defence Ministry is starting negotiations with the Israeli government about the purchase of three medium combat drones costing $62.3 million.Read more here

SUSTAINABILITY

Israel-based UBQ Materials developer of advanced materials made from unsorted household waste, announced that PepsiCo is launching eco-friendly Lay’s potato chip display stands throughout Europe, made in part with UBQ bio-based thermoplastic substituting conventional oil-based plastics. Read more here

ECONOMY

Israel’s GDP grew 6.8% in the second quarter of 2022, after contracting by 2.7% in the first quarter.The strong growth was attributed to a return to post-Covid routine with recoveries in the tourism, aviation, hospitality, restaurant and transport services sectors. Read more here

GAS

Israel’s natural gas production surged 22% in the first half of the year, as the government plans to increase exports that will make their way to Europe.
Production rose to 10.85 billion cubic metres year-on-year through June from the Tamar and Leviathan fields, with exports amounting to 42% of the total.
The gas is first sent to Egypt and then re-exported to the EU. Read more here

SPORT

Israeli gymnast  Artem Dolgopyat, who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, struck gold again on Sunday at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championship in Munich, despite having an injured foot. Read more here

Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko won a  gold medal in the 200m Individual Medley at the European Championships in Rome, having successfully defended her 2021 title in the same event.Read more here

Israel won the gold medal in the team marathon event at the European Athletics Championship in Munich. Mahru Teferi won a silver in the individual runners’ competition,  while Gashau Ayale won the bronze medal.Read more here

Football: Maccabi Haifa has advanced to the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2009. Read more here

ENTERTAINMENT

Israeli singer Noa Kirel, who will represent Israel in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest,  performed in front of an audience of 33,000 in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park on Wednesday night (Embedded video) Read more here

COMMENT & OPINION

JPost Editorial: Much can be learned about people by understanding who their heroes are. When a Palestinian terrorist went on a shooting spree in Jerusalem wounding eight innocent people including a pregnant woman, the reaction of a segment of Palestinian society is to term the operation “heroic,” thereby coronating its perpetrator a hero.
How is peace possible with those who view as heroic the shooting of a pregnant woman? What kind of accommodation can possibly be made with those who view such a despicable act as heroic?… When the only voices Israelis hear after Palestinian attacks are those of men distributing celebratory sweets, or praising the actions as heroic and calling for more and more and more, then any talk of accommodation seems discouragingly remote and hollow. Read more here

Giles Fraser. Rector of St Mary’s, Newington.(A regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s “The Moral Maze”):
Once the sirens start wailing, we have 90 seconds to make it to the bomb shelter in the public park 500 yards behind the house. If the boys are asleep in bed, that means we have 90 seconds to get them up and carry them to the shelter. When the sirens go, you just run. Or choose to stay in bed and console yourself with the statistical improbability of a hit, or cower in the corridor and hope for the best.
Of course, I inwardly weep for the children of Gaza who have been killed in this latest exchange. But it is estimated that in the last few days, more of Gaza’s children have been killed by the clowns of Islamic Jihad and their misfiring rockets than by Israeli action.
Islamic Jihad has never been interested in peace. They seek the violent eradication of Israel, insisting on “the jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation.” Their modus operandi is to deliberately target civilians rather than military targets – on public buses, in restaurants. Islamic Jihad exists to kill Jews. And Israel, which exists to protect Jews, has absolutely every moral right to defend itself against them. Attacking their leadership – the people planning to kill Jews – is what protecting Jews means in practice. Read more here

Ohad Zemet: British readers who are not exposed to Israeli media know nothing about how their news is being made, or about the terror of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, or the system of intimidation and violent silencing of journalists. This blindspot over coverage of Palestinian violence is not only denying people from knowing the truth, but it also contributes to blocking any path forward to improving the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and bringing this conflict to an end. Read more here