Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-30-2022

News Update

Security forces arrested nine terror suspects in overnight West Bank raids.

The IDF said that it would change its previous position and provide full security to illegal Jewish West Bank settlement outposts, amid a surge in terror attacks. For more, click here.

The IDF released footage from a deadly shootout between Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorists in Jenin on Wednesday in which at least four terrorists were killed and several others wounded. To see video, click here.

The US State Department deputy spokesman called for an investigation into the death of a 7 year old Palestinian boy who allegedly died of a heart attack caused when Israeli troops entered his home to search for terror suspects who threw rocks at Israeli vehicles on a nearby road. The IDF said, “The IDF is familiar with the claim of the boy’s death. And according to preliminary examination, his death had nothing to do with the IDF’s activities in the area.”

The Central Election Commission (CEC) voted 9-5 to disqualify the Arab Balad party from running in the upcoming election because Balad does not accept Israel as the Jewish state. The party is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court claiming there is no ground for the ruling.

The Israeli shekel is at its weakest against the US dollar since April 2020, at 3.55 shekels per 1 dollar. For more, click here.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-23-2022

News Update

Last night, a terrorist drove up to the Shilat Junction near Modiin, exited his vehicle, and began opening car doors and attempting to attack people with a knife and pepper spray. Eight Israelis were lightly injured. The terrorist, an Arab Israeli from east Jerusalem was shot and killed by an off-duty Border police officer who happened to be at the scene. The terrorist had attempted to open the officer’s car door and stab his wife. The officer managed to drive away, then stopped and exited his vehicle and went back to neutralize the terrorist.

On Thursday, an Israeli was lightly hurt in a suspected car-ramming attack in the Palestinian village of Huwara near Nablus. Soldiers at the scene shot and wounded the terrorist. This is the third attack in the Nablus area in 24 hours after a shooting attack in the nearby settlement of Har Brakha and another reported shooting at a military post in the area.

The Shin Bet announced that it had arrested a Hamas terror cell suspected of involvement in a shooting attack on Israeli vehicles in the West Bank earlier this month.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Thursday an increase in work and trade permit quotas for Gaza Palestinians by 1,500 starting next week, after Rosh Hashanah. This will raise the total work permits to 17,000.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid addressed the UN General Assembly yesterday. In his speech he supported a two-state peace solution saying, “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.” For more, click here.

Israel has agreed to sell an advanced air defense system to the United Arab Emirates.

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is reportedly considering moving the British embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Truss met with Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-21-2022

News Update

The IDF announced the successful completion of testing on the Gabriel 5 anti-ship naval missile system. The missiles were launched from the German made Sa’ar 6-class corvette Navy ship.

Thailand has signed a contact to buy Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) made by Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems for 4 billion baht ($107.67 million). The Thai navy said the drones would be used to patrol the sea to protect the country’s maritime sovereignty, shipping routes and assist in sea rescue operations. The drone system is already used in many countries including the Philippines, Switzerland, the European Union and Canada.

On Tuesday, a 28 year old terrorist from a village in the West Bank killed an 84 year old Israeli woman in Holon, near the construction site he worked at that was already near the woman’s home. The terrorist was found dead today in Tel Aviv, an apparent suicide.

Palestinian security forces and militants agreed to a truce today to end violent clashes between the two groups primarily in Nablus, that stem from anger at the Palestinian Authority by many Palestinians. For more, click here.

As we approach the end of the Jewish year, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) is reporting that Israel’s population is at 9,593,000. The breakdown is 74% Jewish, 21% Arab and 5% listed as other. According to the data, 45.3% of Jews in the country define themselves as secular, 19.2% consider themselves marginally observant, 13.9% are partially religious, 10.7% are religious and 10% are ultra-Orthodox. Data also shows that 89.3% of Israelis are satisfied with their lives. Among Jews that percentage reached 91.5% , compared to 70.7% among Arabs. The report also found that 70.4% of Jews are satisfied with their economic situation, compared to 51.1% of Arabs.

The average wealth of an adult in Israel shot up by 17.6% in 2021 to $273,500, putting Israel among the six largest gainers in the world, according to the thirteenth annual Global Wealth Report published by the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI). For more, click here.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-19-2022

News Update

The Shin Bet and the IDF arrested 7 members of a Hamas terror cell in Nablus and Hebron who were planning attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

IDF troops identified 4 Syrians approaching the Israeli border in the Golan Heights. The Syrians began throwing “suspicious objects” across the border fence. Troops moved to arrest them. One of the Syrians was shot and wounded. He was then evacuated to an Israeli hospital for treatment and questioning. The other 3 Syrians fled the scene.

Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has revised its code of conduct to require support for Israel’s right to exist, and employees who fail to do so may now be fired. The DW code made public on Sept. 1 declares that “Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust is also a reason for which we support the right of Israel to exist.” In 1967, the Axel Springer company, one of Germany’s biggest media conglomerates that now owns Politico and Insider, established “corporate principles” that include “support [for] the Jewish people and the right of existence of the State of Israel.” For more, click here.

Thousands of Israel Police and Border Police officers will be stationed across Jerusalem throughout the upcoming High Holy Days to prevent terrorist activity. The Police said they will also conduct a series of preemptive arrests of potential high-risk suspects by the beginning of the holiday season.

Israel is aiming to break the Guinness World Record in speed dating later this week at an even in Tel Aviv. The “Speed-date Moonlight” event is scheduled to be held on Thursday, with 500 men and 500 women participating. The current record was set at an event in Ireland with 964 participants.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-16-2022

News Update

Last night, terrorists fired shots at a yeshivah in the settlement of Carmel in the Mount Hebron area in Judea. The shots were fired from outside of the settlement. An 18 year old yeshiva student who was in the midst of a class was wounded in the attack and is in stable condition.

Security forces operating in villages near Jenin arrested several suspected accomplices of the terrorists who shot and killed Major Bar Falah on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid met on Thursday with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Jerusalem. Lapid told the Foreign Minister, “My friend, we are changing the middle east together,” he added. “We are moving it from war to peace. From terror to economic cooperation.”

Forty political parties submitted their final lists for the upcoming November 1 election. The latest polls are predicting that no faction will have enough seats to form a coalition government.

Former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard got engaged on Wednesday to Rivka Abrahams-Donin, who is the granddaughter of a British Jewish officer who was part of a team that tracked down and captured the Nazi commandant of Auschwitz.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-14-2022

News Update

IDF Major Bar Pelah, the deputy commander of the elite Nahal reconnaissance unit, was killed in a shootout with Palestinian terrorists near the security fence north of Jenin last night. The two terrorists were spotted near the barrier and confronted by the IDF unit. The terrorists opened fire at the soldiers, who then returned fire. Pelah, 30, was killed in the firefight. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, “Major Bar Pelah, a warrior and a commander, the deputy commander of Nahal, was killed tonight in operational activity and there are no words to console the family, his partner and friends for the loss of their dearest. Bar fought terrorism with every fiber of his being and led his soldiers in his last hour. The operational activity in which he was killed thwarted a major attack and saved human lives. We are all hurting his demise with you.”

The al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, affiliated with Fatah, claimed responsibility for the overnight attack and released a video of gunmen opening fire at the Jewish settlement of Har Brakha near Nablus. The gunmen were identified by the Palestinians as Ahmed Abed and Abdul Rahman Abed from the village of Kafr Dan near Jenin. The former was also reportedly a member of the PA’s security apparatus.

Shots were fired at a Defense Ministry tractor working along the West Bank partition fence in the Jenin area on Tuesday, in the same area as the shootout in which Major Pelah was killed.

Defense officials have presented Prime Minister Lapid with more than 70 concrete warnings about imminent terror attacks during the upcoming holiday season. A senior defense official added that security forces will continue making preemptive arrests of terror suspects throughout the holiday season as opposed to previous years in which Israel tried to keep tensions on the ground in check.

Border Police arrested three people on Tuesday suspected of organizing transportation for undocumented Palestinian workers entering Israel. The forces uncovered a fake floor, covering a small chamber where 17 illegal Palestinians were hiding.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have reportedly offered $200 for each new shooting attack against Israelis, as long as a video of the attack is posted on TikTok.

Staff Sgt. Meiran Mizrahi was convicted of reckless manslaughter and sentenced to 26 months in prison by a military court for accidentally shooting his comrade 23-year-old Staff Sgt. Yonatan Granot of the Nahal Brigade on February 23, 2021. Mizrahi received a further two-year suspended sentence, was demoted to the rank of private and ordered to pay Granot’s family NIS 12,000 in compensation. To read more, click here.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-12-2022

News Update

Security forces arrested 12 terror suspects in overnight raids in the West Bank. In Jenin, a terror suspect attempted to escape and was shot and killed. Troops came under attack during a raid near Jerusalem and shot and wounded at least 2 of the attackers. No troops were hurt.

Prime Minister Lapid met with German President Steinmeier in Berlin today and thanked him for his support. He also urged Germany to reject a new nuclear deal with Iran.

Mossad Chief David Barnea said today that the Mossad has foiled dozens of Iranian terror plots aimed against Israeli business people, tourists and diplomats. He said, “We captured armed Iranian terrorists in Cyprus and in Turkey, managed to prevent an attack minutes before it was to begin.” He also said, “The talks on a return to the [Iran] deal only empower the regime in its policy of terror. If they are not made to answer for that, they will continue to spread terror around the world, in a manner that provides the leadership with plausible deniability. Even if just a fraction of that money is diverted to terrorism, our challenge and that of the world to fight it will be huge. This is one of the major faults of the deal – as I told American officials during my visit to Washington. The deal will bring Iran closer to a bomb. It may be positive in the short term but not in the long run.

The Spirit of Zionism political alliance, led by Yamina leader Ayelet Shaked and Derekh Eretz chief Yoaz Hendel, split after Hendel said he could not support joining a narrow coalition led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, should one be formed following the November 1 elections. Recent polling showed the alliance was short of the number of Knesset seats needed to pass the electoral threshold. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and the Jewish Home chairman Yossi Brodny are expected to announce a joint run in the elections.

Labor party leader Merav Michaeli rejected Prime Minister Lapid’s request that Labor run on a joint list along with Meretz in the upcoming elections. Both parties are currently very close to falling short of the votes needed to pass the electoral threshold.

The ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah have yet to agree to run in a united block, as they have done in recent elections under the name United Torah Judaism (UTJ). If they run separately, neither might garner enough votes to pass the electoral threshold.

An Israeli woman has been arrested by order of Chief Rabbi David Lau, who heads up the Rabbinical High Court, for refusing for the past 4 years to attend any of the court proceedings related to her accepting a divorce from her husband. Rabbinical Court Administrator Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan said the court had tried to refrain from such an extreme ruling but, “Unfortunately, the woman refused to cooperate and insisted on trapping her husband in a marriage that was only legal on paper. I hope the woman will understand her situation in the coming days and agree to a divorce.” The woman can be held in jail until she agrees to accept the divorce.

India’s economic growth has led to growth in its trade with Israel. It is now Israel’s seventh largest export destination, not including arms exports. India is one of the world’s biggest arms importers, and Israel is second only to Russia in arms sales to it. For more, click here.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-9-2022

News Update

Terrorist shot at 2 cars near the Palestinian town Huwara in the northern West Bank, breaking the windows and slightly injuring the driver of one of the cars. The IDF is searching for the terrorists.

Last night, a terrorist with a hammer attacked a soldier near a military post in the West Bank. The soldier shot and killed the terrorist, while sustaining minor wounds.

Security forces arrested four Palestinians on Thursday for their suspected involvement in a terrorist attack on a bus carrying soldiers in the Jordan Valley earlier this week. During the raid, troops were attacked by armed locals who threw explosives at them. One soldier was lightly injured by shrapnel and was taken to Emek Medical Center in Afula.

Shin Bet data shows that 172 attacks were carried out against Israeli targets across the West Bank in August, including 23 shootings, compared with 113 attacks and 15 shootings in July. The number of Molotov cocktail-throwing incidents jumped from 75 in July to 135 in August.

The company running the Karish offshore gas field says that gas should start flowing in the next few weeks. Lebanon claims that the field lies within its maritime borders.

Israel announced that it will open an economic attaché’s office in Morocco in 2023. For more, click here.

According to the Accountant General’s estimate, Israel had a fiscal surplus of NIS 9.8 billion, or 0.6% of GDP, for the twelve months to the end of August 2022. Servicing the national debt, which amounts to over NIS 1 trillion, will cost some NIS 34 billion in 2022. To read more, click here.

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-7-2022

News Update

Security forces arrested 25 terror suspects and seized firearms overnight in an extensive crackdown on terrorist activity throughout the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. A Palestinian who threw an explosive device at troops was shot and killed.

An alleged Israeli strike against the Aleppo International Airport destroyed a weapons depot, damaged the runway and killed 3 and wounded 5. MK Ram Ben Barak, chairman of Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the attack on Syria’s Aleppo International Airport came as a warning to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for allowing terrorist activity against Israel to take place in his country’s territory. Syria is allowing Iran to use its civil airports to smuggle in arms and technology to be given to Hezbollah and other Iran backed terror organizations.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid visited an F-35 fighter jet squadron at an Air Force base in southern Israel on Tuesday and commented, “If Iran continues to try us, it will discover Israel’s long arms and capabilities.” He added, “It’s still too early to know whether we succeeded in thwarting the nuclear deal, but Israel is prepared for any threat and any situation. We will continue to act on all fronts against terrorism and against those who seek to harm us. As agreed between me and President Biden, we have full freedom of action to act as we see fit in order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threat.” On Monday, Lapid met with a bi-partisan U.S. delegation headed by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez in Jerusalem, where he reiterated Israel’s opposition to a new Iran nuclear deal.

Great Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss says she is committed to the Conservative Party’s outlook on Israel, saying, “There is no greater friend to the UK than Israel.” On the campaign trail, she even suggested that she would be open to moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She has commented that she has many Jewish friends and that her first boss was an Orthodox Jew. She said, “I want to see the scourge of antisemitism eradicated. That means driving it out from our culture, starting with the schools.”

Israel news summary

Israel News for 9-5-2022

News Update

Security forces arrested 17 terror suspects in West Bank raids last night. Palestinians attacked troops, resulting in one Palestinian being shot and killed.

Security forces are hunting for a third suspect in the terror attack against a bus carrying IDF soldiers in the Jordan Valley yesterday. The two other terrorists have been arrested. In the attack, armed terrorists blocked the road in the front of the bus with their vehicle and fired at the bus. One soldier was severely wounded and 5 other soldiers and a civilian were lightly wounded.

The terrorists were armed with M-16 rifles, which they received from a terrorist organization along with funding. The third terrorist has been identified as Maher Al-Sayeed – a 50-year-old farmer living in a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley. He was last arrested three weeks ago when he tried to re-route water from Israeli territory to his agricultural fields, and he is known to have been involved in numerous incidents of illegal activity.

Last night, an improvised explosive device was thrown at an IDF position near the village of Nabi Saleh in Samaria. Four soldiers were lightly wounded by shrapnel.

The IDF has, for the first time, appointed a female officer to command a Home Front Command search and rescue unit. Lt. Col. Yarden Shukron Yifrah, a mother of three, will command the 498th Shahar (Dawn) Battalion, tasked with rescuing civilians in events such as rocket attacks, earthquakes, and other serious incidents and disasters. The battalion, which is also combat trained, has mostly been operating in the West Bank, making arrests, confiscating weapons and securing roads and settlements. According to the IDF, the battalion had foiled at least five terror attacks against civilians in recent months.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz has chosen deputy chief of staff General Herzi Halevi as his candidate to become the 23rd chief of staff of the IDF. Halevi, 54, is married with four children. He will have to be approved by a special committee and then by the Cabinet.

Crime reporter Nadal Ijbaria was found critically wounded in his car in the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm on Sunday and died shortly afterward in the hospital. For more, click here.

The Globes has an interesting article about the progress made, both economically and diplomatically, as a result of the Abraham Accords, in the 2 years since they were signed. To read the article, click here.