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Israel Update 16.2.23

FURTHER TERROR ATTACKS IN JERUSALEM

 

Last Friday three Israelis were killed when a Palestinian Arab from eastern Jerusalem, accelerated into a group waiting at a bus stop. The fatalities were Yaakov Yisrael Paley, 6, his brother Asher Menahem Paley, 8; and Alter Shlomo Lederman, 20, who was married two months ago. The boys’ father, 42, remains hospitalized. Two other men in their 20s are in serious condition. Read more here

 

 

Palestinian streets erupted in celebration after Friday’s car-ramming terror attack.Read more here

 

 

Staff Sgt. Asil Sawaed, 22, from the Bedouin village of Hussniyya, died after being stabbed by a terrorist (13) at a checkpoint on Monday. He had also been accidentally hit by gunfire from a civilian security guard, aiming at the terrorist. Read more here

 

 

An Israeli teenager was hurt in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday afternoon, and the Palestinian assailant (14) was arrested. Read more here

 

 

The government on Tuesday announced a plan to “boost personal security” in Jerusalem including adding fortifications to all bus stops in the city to protect from ramming attacks. The reinforcement efforts would begin immediately with 300 bus stops defined as top priority, with a further 700 to follow. Read more here

 

 

POSTSCRIPT TO ISRAELI AID FOR TURKEY’S  EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

A delegation of more than 160 Israeli search and rescue experts returned on Monday afternoon, after spending the past week saving civilians trapped under collapsed buildings in Turkey. The IDF Home Front Command teams, which also included some Magen David Adom paramedics and Fire and Rescue Service officials, rescued 19 people from the rubble. Thanking them for their efforts, Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, said the Home Front Command teams were among the first at the scene of the 7.8-magnitude quake and its aftershocks. Read more here

 

 

The 19th Turkish person rescued by Israeli military search and rescue experts on Friday, more than 120 hours after the earthquakes, was a 9-year-old boy Ridvan. The Israeli team had rescued his father and sister earlier in the week. Read more here

 

 

Radar that helps rescuers see through walls was used by the IDF Home Front Command’s search and rescue unit to help locate survivors. Israeli company Camero-Tech supplied its Xaver 400 and 100 systems to the expedition.Read more here

 

 

 

A delegation of more than 150 Israeli medical experts returned to Israel on Wednesday, after a week of treating wounded survivors. The teams, which had established a field hospital at an abandoned medical centre, included military medics, logistics support, and Health Ministry doctors, nurses and paramedics. The hospital treated around 470 victims, including 150 children and several  Syrian refugees. The teams also performed ten surgical and orthopaedic operations. Read more here

 

 

 

Among the patients in the Israeli military field hospital were Syrian refugees living in Turkey. Lt. Col. Aziz Ibrahim, an Arabic-speaking nurse and a commander in the IDF Medical Corps recounted how he had given a 4 year old orphan some halva from his rations and also how the boy’s uncle had said to him “You Israelis treat us better than our people.” Read more here

 

 

 

Sight Diagnostics’ OLO innovative Israeli-made device that can speed up blood test diagnosis to improve treatment was in use in Israel’s field hospital. The device requires only two drops of blood and can deliver results in 10 minutes,   to accurately diagnose the general condition of survivors and speed up the provision of appropriate medical treatment to increase  chances of survival. Read more here

 

 

However:

A delegation from the United Hatzalah emergency response organization to Turkey had to cut short its mission and return early to Israel over security concerns, the group said Sunday. Its 40 volunteers, mainly medical professionals, returned earlier than scheduled, because of an unspecified “concrete and immediate threat”. On Saturday, Austrian military and German civilian rescue workers suspended their search operations in Turkey due to a worsening security situation.  Read more here

 

Footnote:

Some Syrians reported that disaster relief aid arrived directly in Damascus from several Arab and European countries and was taken from the airport by the regime’s agents and transported through mafia organizations linked to the regime to markets for sale. Read more here

Video showing international aid purportedly being sold in the streets of Damascus.View here

 

CO-OPERATION

 

Two months ago, Izz ad-Din Dar Yassin, 18, was fighting for his life at a Palestinian hospital following a near-fatal work accident. When his condition worsened, he was transferred to Rambam Hospital in Haifa where after initial treatment in the Intensive Care Unit, he was transferred to the Department of Plastic Surgery, where he’s going through rehabilitation and is set to be discharged in two weeks. One of his doctors said “The situation was so complex that we couldn’t tell if he’d make it or not”.  Read more here

 

 

COVID 19

 

The rules requiring masks in medical facilities and retirement homes, and the requirement for visitors to present a negative COVID test at retirement homes have been cancelled. Obligatory home isolation quarantine for those diagnosed with the virus will end on May 15.  Read more here

 

 

 

COVID shots should become an annual norm if coronavirus infection rates are at low levels, according to a recommendation from the Health Ministry’s vaccine committee. Read more here

 

 

MEDICAL TECH

 

 

Israeli innovators have turned tech made for fighter pilots into an augmented reality headset to help eye surgeons. The Beyeonics One is an adaptation of the head-mounted displays used by pilots and it performed well when deployed for the first time for endothelial keratoplasty, a complex procedure to remove abnormal matter from the cornea. The device has received the CE mark in Europe and FDA approval in the US where it has been used instead of the old-fashioned surgical microscope.Read more here

 

 

AUTO-TECH

 

Technology developed in Israel for Harman, which designs and manufactures connected products such as audio and video systems, advanced driver assistance software (ADAS) and smart city solutions for carmakers, will be integrated by Ferrari in all future vehicle lines  including, starting this year, cars built for Formula 1 races. Read more here

 

 

BAN ON SOME HAIR STRAIGHTENERS

 

 

Israel is the first country to ban some salon hair-straightening treatments containing glyoxylic acid which can cause (inter alia)  kidney failure, according to recent research by doctors at Shaare Zedek hospital.Read more here

 

 

MEDICAL INNOVATION

 

 

Israeli startup Early trains rats with its patented system to detect lung cancer by smell-testing urine samples, with reportedly 93% accuracy. Read more here

 

 

Some chronic heart disease patients have to take several diuretic pills daily as well as periodic 6-hour infusions to drain fluid build-up, causing unpleasant side effects.  Now, at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, the Microclimate Suit is being trialled. It harnesses the body’s natural sweating mechanism to expel excess fluids and instantly evaporates them, alleviating symptoms of heart failure without side effects and without changes in blood pressure or kidney function as can happen with current methods. Read more here

 

 

FOOD-TECH

 

 

An Israeli startup has become the first to use the spirulina algae as a plant-based meat and fish substitute and its first product will be a smoked salmon substitute. SimpliiGood  has developed the technology to give spirulina the texture of beef, fish, or seafood by compressing its cells into ’tissues’. Read more here

 

ENERGY

 

 

 

Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek al-Mulla hosted Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz in Cairo on Sunday. They discussed increasing the supply of eastern Mediterranean gas through Egypt, and then exporting it to meet part of international energy needs caused by the current geopolitical crisis. Read more here

 

 

Israel has exported crude oil material for the first time, with a shipment headed to Europe from the country’s offshore Karish gas field. Read more here

 

 

WILDLIFE RESCUES

 

 

25 sea turtles are undergoing rehabilitation at the Sea Turtle Rescue Centre in Mikhmoret, Israel, after being injured in a severe winter storm. They will be eventually be released back to the sea after recovery.Read more here

 

 

Using acupuncture alongside traditional methods, staff at Again Hula Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre are nursing a severely injured lesser spotted eagle back to health. Read more here

 

 

 

 COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Gil Troy: Imagine the hate required to run over fellow humans at a bus stop. Imagine the evil required to keep accelerating when you notice six- and eight-year-old brothers standing there, innocently chatting with their dad. And imagine the perversity involved in celebrating such murders, proving – again – how deep anti-Jewish demonization has been drilled into too many Palestinian hearts, deforming their souls.
Until the world acknowledges this wickedness, more such murderers will be mass-produced – with Western dollars. Too many Blame-Israel-Firsters discount this cultivated ugliness which mocks their delusions that peace will descend once Israel retreats, creating a Palestinian dictatorship next door. Read more here

 

 

Avi Benlolo: Despite the work being done to promote peaceful solutions in the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, the UN appears to insist on keeping Israel’s very existence in question and ensuring Palestinians remain as permanent refugees. The UN established the only permanent refugee organization in the world, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Millions of refugees poured out of Syria during the civil war, but no dedicated UN agency was founded for them…most have acclimatized to their new homes – as refugees generally do. Of all the refugees past and present, the Palestinians are the only ones who have their own permanent exhibit near the UN General Assembly.
After the Arab world went to war against the newly founded State of Israel in 1948, instead of absorbing the refugees into their host countries, UNRWA deliberately kept them in refugee camps. From a human rights point of view, that is completely unfair to the millions of children who have had their futures stolen from them by the UN and their host countries which refuse them citizenship.
Read more here