Israel

06 Jan 2022; MEMO: Deputy Chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, Numan Kurtulmus, yesterday condemned an attack carried out by a far-right Israeli against an Anadolu Agency cameraman, Faiz Abu Rmeleh, in Tel Aviv.

"I condemn this perfidious assault which shows the real face of the unlimited racist Zionist ideology in Israel," Kurtulmus said.

06 Jan 2022; MEMO:Head of Secondary School Teachers Organisation (SSTO) Ran Erez said yesterday that the education system in Israel is experiencing unprecedented chaos, Sama news agency reported.

According to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Erez said that Israel had never experienced such comprehensive chaos in the education system even in its hardest times.

During the 1967 War, he told Kan, Israel was led by one person, but now, there is more than one leader for the education system.

04 Jan 2022; MEMO: The cause of the crash of a military helicopter off Haifa coast in northern Israel remains unknown, a military spokesman said on Tuesday and reported by Anadolu News Agency.

Two pilots were killed on Monday when a Navy helicopter crashed off the coast of Haifa on Monday. Another crew member was injured.

04 Jan 2022; MEMO: After 141 days on hunger strike inside Israeli jails, Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash, reached a deal with Israeli occupation authorities that guarantees his release on 26 February.

The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said in a statement that Abu Hawash ended his hunger strike after reaching a deal that would end his administrative detention on 26 February.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: Some 120 Israeli reservists have refused to take part in a military exercise that coincided with their vacations, public broadcaster Kan reported yesterday.

The soldiers refused the training which came at the end of their operational employment in Gush Etzion in the occupied West Bank.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: A return to the Iran nuclear deal is better than not having a deal, the Jerusalem Post reported Chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, Aharon Haliva, saying.

The paper quoted Israeli news website Walla reporting Haliva saying in a meeting that the restrictions on Iran's nuclear programme within the framework of the deal are better for Israel than total non-compliance with the agreement.

This stance, it added, opposes Mossad chief David Barnea's who was reported not to support the deal.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: Israel's National Planning and Building Council yesterday approved establishing a new Jewish community in the periphery of the occupied Gaza Strip, Anadolu reported.

The new settlement would be given a temporary name – Hanoun – and it will be home to 500 Israeli Jewish families.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel opened to tourists for the first time in nearly two years. After just a month, it slammed shut. On Sunday, as the omicron variant sets infection records, the country will once again crack open — but only to travelers from certain countries.

JERUSALEM, Jan 4 (NNN-PNA) – Two Israeli military pilots were killed and an aerial observer was injured, in a helicopter crash last night, off the coast of northern Israel, the Israeli military said.

The maritime “Atalef” helicopter, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Haifa city, during a training flight with an aerial observer and two pilots on board, a military spokesperson said in a statement.

JERUSALEM, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine boosts antibodies five-fold a week after the shot is administered, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday, citing preliminary findings of an Israeli study.

"A week into the fourth dose, we know to a higher degree of certainty that the fourth dose is safe," Bennett said at Sheba Medical Center, which is giving second booster shots in a trial among its staff amid a nationwide surge in Omicron variant infections.