Israel News

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told American Jewish leaders Monday that he plans to visit Israel, a gesture that advances Turkish-Israeli efforts to build diplomatic ties after 20 years of hostilities, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.

Israel has seen a 128% increase in “Aliyah” – Jewish immigration to Israel – since last September, the Jerusalem Post reports. Israel has taken in 60,000 new immigrants in the last year, compared to 28,500 immigrants the country absorbed last year.

Archaeologists and scientists have identified traces of opium on ancient ceramic jugs unearthed at a Bronze Age burial site in Israel’s Tel Yehud, in a discovery they say prove unequivocally the drug was used in the Levant in the ancient world, the Times of Israel reports.

Speaking at the Auschwitz death camp, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi on Monday slammed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi for expressing doubt about the Holocaust, saying that was one of the main reasons Tehran could not be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Israel’s Antiquity Authority (IAA) stated Sunday that an intact burial chamber dating to the time of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, the Biblical Pharaoh associated with Moses, has been discovered at the Palmachim National Park in Rishon Lezion, DW reports.

Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday issued a fresh threat over the offshore Karish gas field partly claimed by Lebanon, warning Israel against beginning extraction amid maritime border talks between Jerusalem and Beirut.

The first poll following the closing of the election lists on Thursday was issued with great fanfare by Kan 11 News Saturday night, and it reveals that, 1. Nothing has changed on the ground, other than the fact that Balad, the crazy, hateful, anti-Israeli Arab list that’s been dumped from the Joint Arab List will not make the cut, remaining well below the 3.25% vote threshold, leaves their former partners with only 4 mandates; and, 2. Everything has changed on the ground because now Lapid can rely on the Joint Arab List to recommend him to the President to take a stab at cobbling a new coalition government.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi is expected to take off for Europe on Sunday with the aim of meeting officials in Poland and France and strengthening Israel’s military cooperation with the nations and discussing the threat it faces from Iran.

The nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is unlikely to be renewed soon, if at all, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Thursday after European leaders voiced doubt about Tehran’s willingness to restore the 2015 agreement.

A senior Israel Defense Forces officer told reporters on Thursday that the military has identified that Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias in Syria are beginning to withdraw from the region following a series of airstrikes attributed to Israel in recent weeks.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield met with Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday to discuss the Biden Administration’s “commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” – but used the opportunity to also continue her boss’s mission of pressuring Israel into accepting the so-called “two state solution.”

Iran’s financing and support for terror proxies is the foremost cause of instability in the Middle East, and the country’s nuclear program could spark a regional arms race, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday.

Mossad chief David Barnea on Monday said Israel would not participate in the “charade” of a renewed nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, and warn that the emerging agreement would “not provide immunity” for Tehran from the spy agency’s operations.

Iran has turned scientific facilities in Syria into bases for the production of advanced missiles and weapons for its proxy forces across the Middle East, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday.

France, Britain, and Germany on Saturday vented their frustration at Iran’s demand in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal that the UN nuclear watchdog close a probe into uranium particles found at three sites, adding that it was jeopardizing the talks.

Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said on Sunday that his security agency has foiled more than 300 “significant” terror attacks so far this year, as the Israeli military has ramped up operations in the West Bank under its direction.

An intelligence report produced by the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern command has assessed that there is a reasonable risk of an armed clash between Israel and Hezbollah in the near future, Israeli media reported on Saturday.

A London-listed company licensed by Israel to extract gas from a maritime field that is in part claimed by Lebanon announced Thursday that it would begin yielding output within weeks.

A scientific breakthrough against COVID-19 has been realized by Tel Aviv University. A team of scientists from the university has demonstrated that antibodies isolated from the immune system of recovered COVID-19 patients are effective in neutralizing all known strains of the virus. This includes the Delta and the Omicron variants. This discovery may eliminate the need for repeated booster vaccinations and strengthen the immune system of populations at risk, according to the researchers.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides on Wednesday said it is his guiding principle to advance a two-state solution with the Palestinians because failure to do so is making it difficult to ensure his “North Star” of “maintaining Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state.”