Israel News for May 10, 2016

Jerusalem Terror
Earlier today, two women in their eighties were attacked from behind and stabbed by two masked Palestinian terrorists as they were walking along the Golden Promenade in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem along with three other friends. The terrorists fled to the nearby Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Police have launched a manhunt and have already arrested two suspects.

The head of Shaare Tsedek’s trauma unit said that one of the victims was an 86 year old who was stabbed in the back, but there her life is not in danger. The other victim is 80 years old in moderate condition.

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US Gaza Aid
Yesterday, the US announced a $50 million humanitarian aid program for the Gaza Strip. The money will be used over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs and will be distributed by the US Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services.

The aid will be provided despite the fact that the US considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization and has no official relations with the Gaza regime.

Does aiding the population of a terrorist state inadvertently help strengthen that state and enable it to continue its terror activities?

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Memorial Day
Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day will begin tonight. The day will be used to remember the 23,477 who have fallen in defense of Israel since 1860 (the date when the Jewish community in the Land of Israel first moved outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem). The number of those who died includes IDF soldiers, members of the Shin Bet security service, Mossad, Israel Police, Prisons Service and those who died while serving in the pre-state underground militias and the Jewish Brigade in the British Army.

According to the National Insurance Institute, the number of civilians who have been killed in “hostile acts” since the end of the War of Independence is 2,576.

Included in the official Defense Ministry count are those who died as a result of accidents or disease while serving as well as wounded veterans who later died of their injuries.

Since last Yom Hazikaron, 69 military personnel and 31 civilians have been added to the lists of fallen.

The opening ceremony for the Yom Hazikaron events will be held at the Yad Lebanim memorial in Jerusalem, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Defense Ministry Director General Dan Harel and the chief rabbis in attendance.

A one-minute siren will be sounded at 8 P.M., followed by the lighting of a memorial candle at the Western Wall, in the presence of President Reuven Rivlin and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot.

Memorial ceremonies will begin at the same time all over the country. At 9:15 P.M. the “Singing to Their Remembrance” event will be held in the Knesset, with Rivlin, Netanyahu, Edelstein, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan and Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich in attendance.

Tomorrow, a second siren will sound for two minutes starting at 11 A.M. After the siren, the official Memorial Day ceremony will be held on Mount Herzl, with Rivlin, Netanyahu and Eisenkot in attendance.

Other ceremonies will be held simultaneously in military cemeteries all over the country. Ya’alon will speak at the ceremony in the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv.

The official ceremony in honor of civilians killed in terrorist attacks will be held at 1 P.M. tomorrow on Mount Herzl. The torch-lighting ceremony will be held there in the evening, marking the end of Memorial Day and the start of Independence Day.

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New Life
During Operation Protective Edge (Gaza War) in 2014, sergeant Ben Vanunu was killed in an attack on the armored vehicle he was in along with six other soldiers. Today, on the eve of Israel’s Memorial Day, his mother gave birth to a new baby daughter. His father said, “I have no explanation as to how this happened on Memorial Day. God works in strange ways. We remember our son today as we do every day, and we really wish we could have told him that he has a new baby sister. Ben is with us and always will be.”

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