Israel News for 8-28-2019
Gaza Unrest
The Palestinian health ministry reported that 2 policeman were killed when the motorbike they were riding exploded, in a neighborhood south-west of Gaza City. The ministry added that two other men and one woman were injured in the blast. The IDF said it had no knowledge of Israeli military involvement in the incident.
Hamas has declared a state of emergency and on Wednesday morning began arresting supporters of Islamic State and other Salafist organizations in the Gaza Strip en masse, hours after three policemen were killed in a series of blasts in the coastal enclave, according to Palestinian reports.
An unnamed security source told the BBC that the two explosions that hit police checkpoints near Gaza City on Tuesday evening were the result of suicide bombings carried out by IS and that one of the attackers had previously been detained by Hamas.
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Rockets from Gaza
On Tuesday several rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza. Three of them fell within Gaza and one fell in an empty field in Israel. The IDF bombed a Hamas military post in retaliation.
Egypt threatened Hamas that it would stop acting as a mediating factor between the terror group and Israel if Hamas continues to launch rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
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Iranian Spies
Iran on Tuesday said it sentenced three people — one woman and two men — to lengthy prison terms on security and spying charges. The men were convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. One of the men is Anoush Ashoori, a dual British-Iranian national, who was sentenced to 12 years for ties to Mossad. The other is Ali Johari.
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Election Update
Zehut chairman and former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin met today with PM Netanyahu to discuss offers by the Likud to secure Zehut’s agreement to drop out of the race. The two leaders agreed on a plan to expand the availability of legal marijuana for medicinal purposes, which the Likud is expected to promote as part of an agreement with Feiglin for Zehut to drop out of the race.
In addition, the Likud has offered to cover Zehut’s roughly 3-million-shekel-debt and appoint Feiglin as a minister in the next government in exchange for Zehut’s bowing out of the election.
Feiglin said that the Likud and Zehut are “nearing an agreement in which” he would “give up on the race in exchange for a position in the government.”
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Tech Workers
The Israel Innovation Authority reports that the number of tech employees increased by 19,000 in 2018, and by 11,000 in the first five months of 2019, raising the number of employees in the tech industry to a record 307,000. The figures for tech employees, published by the Central Bureau of Statistics, exclude telecom sector employees. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the average monthly wage in the technology industry was NIS 24,000.
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