Archive for month: October, 2018

Terror Stabbing
A terrorist stabbed a 32 year old IDF reserve soldier who was standing at a bus stop in Samaria on Thursday. Other soldiers in the area fired at the terrorist, but he managed to flee without getting hit. Soldiers did however hit some nearby vehicles, and one woman from Elon Moreh was lightly wounded from shrapnel. The wounded soldier was moderately wounded and fully conscious when evacuated to hospital. Later in the night, security forces captured the terrorist, a 19-year-old Palestinian from the village of Jamma’in south of Nablus.

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Shiva Calls
PM Netanyahu, along with his wife Sara and son Yair, visited the families of Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hagbi, who were killed in the Barkan terror attack on Sunday. Afterwards the PM tweeted, “Today we visited the families of Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hagbi. Our hearts, just as the hearts of the entire nation, are torn at the loss of their loved ones. We will catch the abominable murderer and bring him to justice.”

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Hebron Housing
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced on Thursday that he intends to have the government approve on Sunday the construction of 31 new apartment units in the Hezekiah neighborhood of Hebron. Lieberman tweeted that the recently approved plan includes new housing, kindergartens and public spaces.

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Danish Tribute
President Rivlin participated in a ceremony in Denmark commemorating the rescue of Denmark’s 7,000 Jews by the general population during the Holocaust. Jews were hidden in private homes and churches before being ferried to Sweden in fishing boats in October of 1943. The operation was organized by the Danish resistance. Jewish homes and possessions were watched over by neighbors and returned to their owners after the war. Around 500 Jews were captured in raids and deported to concentration camps. Representatives of Denmark’s Jewish community and other Danish officials participated in the event, which was held in a Church attic where Danish clergy concealed about 80 Jews before they were sent to safety in Sweden.

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Terror Investigation
The investigation by the Shin Bet into the vicious terror attack this week in which 2 Israelis were murdered has revealed that the terrorist forced an Arab cleaner in the building, at gunpoint, to bind Kim Levengrond Yehezkel’s hands with cable tie taken from the company’s storeroom. The terrorist then allowed the cleaner to flee the building before proceeding to murder the young woman. The cleaner, a 20-year-old resident of Nablus, was questioned by the Shin Bet, but at the moment he is not under arrest. There is still no known reason for why the terrorist wanted Kim’s hands bound.

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Meanwhile, Sarah Vettori, who was shot and wounded by the terrorist said that a Palestinian warehouse worker saved her life by pulling her under the table and helping stop the bleeding with tissue paper. The worker, Basel, comes from the same village as the terrorist.

Vettori said, ”Basel saved my life. I was vaguely conscious and Basel, who ran into the office where I was hiding, pulled me under the table and reassured me when he said: ‘Habibti, habibti (My dear, my dear).’ He stroked my face in an attempt to keep me conscious until the ambulance arrived.”

She added, “When I was lying there wounded, I asked Bassel for a glass of water because I felt thirsty, but he said that water shouldn’t be given in these situations, and when I arrived at the hospital the doctors said it is forbidden to drink water (in the case of gunshot wounds), so Basel was correct.”

Vettori, a mother of three, was released from the hospital on Monday since it turned out that the bullet that struck her went right through her body.

The Alon Group, which owns the recycling factory where the attack took place, has decided to keep the factory closed until further notice.

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Student Detained
In a first-of-its-kind case, the state has held an American graduate student at Ben Gurion Airport for a whole week, accusing her of supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Lara Alqasem, a 22-year-old American citizen with Palestinian grandparents, landed at Ben-Gurion Airport last Tuesday with a valid student visa, but she was barred from entering the country and ordered deported. Alqasem is a former president of the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. She remains in custody while she appeals.

Last year, the Knesset passed a denying entry to any foreigner who “knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel.” Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said yesterday that he would drop his efforts to expel her if she apologizes and renounces her BDS support.

In her appeal, Alqasem has argued that she never actively participated in boycott campaigns, and promised the court that she would not promote them in the future. Her attorney claims that all she wants to do is to study in Israel.

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Ancient Find
the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem announced yesterday that archaeologists have uncovered the oldest known instance of the word “Jerusalem” spelled out in full, on an ancient stone carving that was once part of an ancient pottery workshop. The carving says “Hananiah son of Dodalos from Jerusalem” — dates to the first century A.D., making it about 2,000 years old.

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UN Out
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat accused UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees) of operating illegally and promoting incitement against Israel, and plans to remove the agency from Jerusalem. Barkat said schools, clinics and sports centers, among other services operated by UNRWA in east Jerusalem, will be transferred to Israeli authorities. The municipality did not provide an exact timeline but it said schools serving 1,800 students would be closed by the end of the current school year.

Barkat said, ”The US decision (to cut $300 million in aid to UNRWA) has created a rare opportunity to replace UNRWA’s services with services of the Jerusalem Municipality. We are putting an end to the lie of the ‘Palestinian refugee problem’ and the attempts at creating a false sovereignty within a sovereignty.”

UNRWA was founded after Israel’s War of independence in 1949 to support around 700,000 displaced Arab refugees. The agency currently aids over 5 million descendants of those original refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza.

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Terrorist Shot
Early yesterday, a terrorist threw an explosive device at soldiers during a military operation in the Qalqilya refugee camp in Jerusalem. Soldiers opened fire on the attacker, wounding him. No soldiers were injured. During a strip search of the terrorist, several additional explosive devices and a Molotov cocktail were found strapped to his body.

Later in the day, an 8 year old boy was caught on video running up to a security checkpoint, throwing a knife at the soldiers there and then fleeing the scene. No one was injured. The IDF is searching for the boy. So much for, “I believe the children are the future”.

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To watch Whitney Houston singing the classic song, click here.

More Troops
The IDF has decided to send reinforcements to the Southern Command amid the high tensions on the Gaza border over the next few days. The IDF said in a statement that the decision was made “to continue the determined policy to thwart terror attacks and prevent infiltrations into Israel in the border fence area of the Gaza Strip. The IDF is prepared and ready for a variety of scenarios and considers the Hamas terror organization responsible for everything that happens in and from the Gaza Strip.” In recent weeks, there has been a spike in Palestinian rioting in Gaza, as well as in the launch of incendiary balloons and kites.

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Morocco News
Morocco’s King Mohammad VI has decided to include Holocaust education into his country’s high school curriculum. The King called antisemitism the “antonym of freedom of expression,” and that, “It manifests the negation of the other and is an admission of failure, insufficiency and inability to coexist.”

He said, “For all that, the battle against this plague can not be handled carelessly. [The battle] is fought neither with the military nor with money, it above all depends on education and culture,” he added, explaining that, “This battle has a name: education. And in the interest of our children, it is important for us to win it because they will be the beneficiaries and our ambassadors in the future.”

Only around 2,000 Jews currently live in Morocco. While the country has no official diplomatic relations with Israel, it does permit Israel tourists to visit.

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Late Flights
According to the flightstats website, which tracks information about dozens of airlines and airports all over the world, El Al was ranked 39 out of 41 airlines for punctuality. According to flightstats, 65.5% of El Al’s flights landed on time and 34.5% landed late. The only rated airlines with higher rates of delay than El Al were Ethiopian Airlines (a 36% rate of late flights) and EgyptAir (36.6% late flights).

The most on-time airline in September 2018 was Sri Lankan Airlines, with Delta a close second (87% on time).

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New Apartment
US billionaire and Republican supporter Sheldon Adelson has bought a $40 million penthouse apartment in the Akirov Towers in Tel Aviv. The Adelsons already own another apartment in the complex.

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