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Israel Update 2.3.23

FURTHER  TERROR ATTACKS 

 

Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, two brothers from Har Bracha, were murdered on Sunday in a terrorist shooting attack in Huwara (West Bank). A Palestinian gunman opened fire from close range at their car while it was caught in a traffic jam on the Route 60 highway, then fled. There have been several shooting attacks against Israeli motorists in Huwara, through which Israelis regularly travel in order to reach communities in northern Samaria. Read more here

 

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the rabbi of the Har Bracha settlement said that the fate of the Jewish people has always been “to carry the flag of morality, and to bring a blessing to the world… we did not return to our land to dispossess Arabs of their property but to add blessing to the world,” and “Whoever rises up against us, we will fight them and we will win — all within the confines of the law, through the army and the police.”

Esti Yaniv, the mother of the terror victims called for unity among Israelis saying “People, we are brothers. We love the country, we love the army and we want security. The army is everyone’s and we shouldn’t use it for anything political.”   Read more here

 

Israeli-American Elan Ganeles, (27) visiting Israel for a wedding, was murdered while driving near Jericho on Monday after two gunmen in a car opened fire at his vehicle on Route 90. The terrorists then continued driving and opened fire at two other cars before fleeing towards Jericho.Read more here

 

An Israeli bus caught fire after being hit by a firebomb on Monday night near Beit Sira, west of Ramallah. As it reached the Modiin checkpoint, the passengers were able to evacuate. Read more here

 

Also on Monday, an Israeli family driving in the West Bank was hit with at least four bullets fired by gunmen in a passing vehicle on Monday. The driver was lightly hurt.Read more here

 

A Palestinian terrorist fired six shots at a synagogue in Havot Yair on Saturday morning. The gunman was arrested by the IDF and his weapon was seized. Read more here

 

AFTERMATH OF TERROR ATTACKS

 

Israeli troops on Wednesday afternoon arrested two of the alleged terrorists who carried out Monday’s deadly shooting attack near Jericho. A Palestinian suspect was killed during the raid.   Read more here

 

Following the murder of Hallel and Yagel Yaniv on Sunday, dozens of Jewish extremists rioted in Hawara, torching houses and cars. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog released a strongly worded statement in which he condemned the “cruel and violent rampage”. Meanwhile Israelis donated over NIS 1 million ($272,750) within less than 24 hours for Palestinians whose homes and businesses had been destroyed. Israeli police have detained several suspects allegedly involved in the riots. Read more hereRead more hereRead more here

 

The IDF and the Israel Security Agency arrested eight Palestinians on Monday suspected of shooting attacks since December against Israeli soldiers and civilians.Read more here

 

 In 2017, the Israeli government approved a plan to construct bypass roads throughout Judea and Samaria (West Bank), including the Huwara Bypass Road, to improve security for Israeli motorists while creating safer and modernized roads for Jewish and Arab drivers alike.
Israel’s current minister of transportation, Miri Regev, toured the bypass road construction site this week and vowed to complete it much sooner than planned. Yigal Dilmoni, former CEO of the council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, said “the Arabs have been impeding the construction by building illegally on the route and damaging the construction site, causing delays. It’s a very important road which the Arabs also want as it alleviates traffic since drivers avoid having to go through the village [Huwara] and getting stuck in traffic.” Read more here

 

IRANIAN THREAT

 

A confidential quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency distributed to member states on Tuesday found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site.  Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal limited Tehran’s uranium enrichment to 3.67% – enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. Iran has been producing uranium enriched to 60% purity – a level that has no civilian use. Uranium at 84% is nearly at weapons-grade levels of 90%. Read more here

 

Germany’s Foreign Minister said Tuesday that Iran is threatening the security of the whole Middle East. She said there could be “no plausible civilian justification” for Iran enriching uranium to 84%.  Read more here

 

The head of the IDF Operations Directorate, revealed Wednesday that Iran had twice attempted to attack Israeli-linked vessels in the Arabian Sea in February. He said “In the last month, Iran tried twice to attack vessels in the Arabian Sea and failed, and it did so using drones, which we also see being used in the Ukraine-Russia war.” Read more here

SHEBA HOSPITAL

 

Sheba Medical Centre, in central Israel, has been recognized as one of the world’s best hospitals for a fifth consecutive year. The ranking evaluated the best hospitals across 28 countries, including the US, the UK and France. Sheba ranked as the number one hospital in both Israel (also for the fifth year running), and the Gulf and Middle East regions. Read more here

 

UKRAINE & RUSSIA

 

Concern that the secrets of Israel’s military technology could be captured by Russian forces in Ukraine, rather than fear of a Russian military reprisal, is what is driving Israel’s reluctance to supply Ukraine with an air defence system, according to Oleg Vyshnyakov, Israel’s honorary consul for western Ukraine.Read more here

 

Russia is offering $350 a month to Palestinian residents of Lebanon to join the conflict in Ukraine, a security source in the Lebanese government said Monday. Some 300 individuals have already completed rapid training in Russia and have been deployed to the frontlines.Read more here

 

MOROCCO

 

 Israeli drip irrigation manufacturer Netafim has opened a manufacturing plant in Kenitra, Morocco, that it is hoped, will generate 200 jobs and help strengthen the country’s agricultural sector.Read more here

 

DEFENCE

 

Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems has been awarded two contracts worth $252 million to supply an unnamed European NATO member country with artillery systems. The announcement came more than a month after Denmark said it was in talks with Elbit for new mobile artillery to plug a “critical gap,” after pledging all 19 of its French-made Caesar howitzers to Ukraine.Read more here

 

INNOVATION

 

 

A vibrating armband that eases migraine pain has just received FDA approval for preventative treatment in the US. The battery-powered Nerivio device, developed by Israeli startup Theranica is already approved there as treatment for acute migraines. Read more here

 

FOOD TECH

 

Israeli food producer  Vgarden will manufacture its vegan deli meats at a new factory opened by supermarket chain Tiv Taam, which will help it meet demand for its products overseas. They will be manufactured in Tiv Taam’s new facility in Haifa. Read more here

 

Israel ranked second after the US in alternative protein investments in 2022 according to a report published Sunday by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Israel. Last year, 60% of all investments in Israeli food tech companies went to alternative protein startups. The alternative protein sector includes plant-based substitutes for meat, dairy, and egg, cultivated dairy, meat and seafood made from cells, and various fermentation processes and products. Read more here

 

ARCHAEOLOGY

 

A hiker in Israel’s Judean lowlands region recently discovered a 2,500-year-old pottery shard inscribed with the name of the Persian king Darius the Great. It is the first discovery of an inscription bearing the name of Darius I anywhere in Israel and comes at a special time as King Ahasuerus, the son of Darius features in the Book of Esther, read every year on the holiday of Purim which occurs next week. Read more here Video 1.5min:View here

 

When archaeologists excavated the remains of two brothers from more than 3,500 years ago in Megiddo, northern Israel, they weren’t expecting one to have a square-shaped hole in his skull. The precisely cut hole is the result of one of the earliest known brain surgeries performed in the Middle East, also known as a “trephination,” in which a piece of the skull is removed. Read more here

 

SPORT

 

Mirna Sayeh, 22 from Bethlehem has become the first female Palestinian basketball player in the Israeli Premier League.Read more here

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

Jonathan S Tobin: In terms of media coverage, the most important event in the Middle East in the last week was a riot carried out by Jews in Huwara following a terrorist attack by Palestinian Arabs that took the lives of two young Jewish men. That this is so is, in a sense, understandable. Terror attacks against Jews are commonplace events. In the last five weeks alone, 13 Jews were slain by Palestinian terrorists.

Yet examples of Jews attempting to exact some sort of revenge for terrorism are actually rare. Events on the scale of the riot in Huwara are almost unknown. Incidents of Jewish violence amount to a fraction of the number of attacks of all sorts on Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Even at the worst of times, support for violence against Arabs is limited to a tiny segment of Israeli opinion. It is not merely condemned by a broad sector of the public and the Knesset; those who engage in it are subject to prosecution

Terrorism against Jews and Israelis is not only widely supported by Palestinian Arabs but embraced by their political parties. This includes the supposedly moderate Fatah Party that runs the Palestinian Authority, as well as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, whose public support is rooted in their record of violence rather than state-building or bettering the lives of their constituents. Financial support for those who kill and wound Jews is official PA policy; terrorist murderers and their families benefit from their crimes.

The support that the PA retains in the international community and the willingness of the Biden administration to resume aid to it – regardless of its legal obligations to cut it off because of the 2017 Taylor Force Act that ties assistance to the Palestinians to their ending this “pay to slay” policy – demonstrates the world’s indifference to anti-Jewish terror.

Jews should condemn extralegal violence and/or acts of revenge that will do nothing but aid the cause of their enemies. Yet as long as terrorism is cheered by Palestinians, don’t blame Israel for the continuation of the conflict or the Israeli people for feeling frustrated by the free pass the murderers get from those who dare to lecture terror victims about morality. Read more here