Two Israeli soldiers injured by Hezbollah blast along Lebanon border
(JNS.org) Two Israeli soldiers were wounded by an explosion near the Lebanon border on Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit said. The Hezbollah terrorist organization later claimed responsibility for the blast.
According to the IDF, the blast was caused by a explosive device planted with the intent of attacking IDF soldiers. A source told Lebanon’s Daily Star that an explosive device went off near an Israeli tank near the Al-Sendaneh area in the Kfar Shuba hills.
Lebanese security sources also told the Daily Star that Israel launched at least 15 explosives in retaliation for the blast.
The incident comes amid growing tension along the Israeli-Lebanese border, which is patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers affiliated with UNIFIL. On Sunday, IDF soldiers fired at a Lebanese cell that was trying to infiltrate Israel.
Israeli defense officials have expressed concern that the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah could cooperate on attacks against Israel.
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Israel takes precautions against Ebola
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a special meeting on Monday to discuss precautions against an Ebola discovery in Israel.
The meeting was attended by Health Minister Yael German, Transportation and Road Safety Minister Yisrael Katz, Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, and representatives of the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Police, and Foreign Ministry.
The countries with the highest risk of Ebola are Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in western Africa. Accordingly, Israel has decided to increase efforts to identify people entering the Jewish state from those countries. The foreign and health ministries have also urged Israelis to avoid traveling to those destinations, according to Israel Hayom.
Foreign Ministry Director-General Nissim Ben-Shetrit said Israel has sent three mobile clinics to Ebola-affected areas in western Africa.
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56 Islamic State flags discovered in northern Israeli city
(JNS.org) Municipal landscapers working in an industrial zone in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth Illit discovered a torn bag containing 56 black Islamic State flags on Tuesday. The flags were handed over to the police and an investigation has been launched, Israel Hayom reported.
Police investigators suspect that the person who possessed the flags was trying to get rid of them. “In light of recent media reports surrounding the [Islamic State’s] illegal status and the illegality of possessing its symbols, it looks as though someone decided against distributing or hanging them,” a police official told Israel’s Channel 2.
About a month ago, membership or any activity suggesting membership in the Sunni terrorist organization was officially outlawed by the Israeli Defense Ministry.
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Hamas official: wiping out Israel would be easier from West Bank
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) If the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas gains a foothold in the West Bank, it would be able to wipe out Israel and establish an Islamic state in its place, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar recently told the Palestinian news outlet Al-Ayyam.
“[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine,” al-Zahar said in a translated interview posted by Palestinian Media Watch on Sunday.
According to al-Zahar, if Hamas could “transfer what it has or just a small part of it to the West Bank,” it “would be able to settle the battle of the final promise with a speed that no one can imagine.”
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Work begins on final tunnel of Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high-speed rail
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz attended a ceremony marking the beginning of work on a massive tunnel that will be the final project of the planned Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high-speed rail line, expected to be completed in 2017.
The tunnel, which will be the longest in Israel at nearly 7 miles, will run between the towns of Sha’ar HaGai and Mevaseret Zion.
Netanyahu said that the ultimate goal is to have a high-speed rail line connecting the entire country from “Kiryat Shimona in the north to Eilat in the south” that could even one day “connect to Jordan in the east,” Israel’s Channel 2 reported.
The high-speed rail line has cost around $1.9 billion and is expected to carry passengers between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in only 28 minutes, including stops at Ben-Gurion Airport as well as the cities of Modiin and Latrun. The current rail connection between the two cities follows an old Ottoman-era rail line that takes considerably more time.
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Christian-Jewish group plans major push for immigration to Israel
(JNS.org) The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) plans to substantially increase its efforts to increase immigration to Israel, especially from countries in the former Soviet Union.
Heading up the initiative will be Eli Cohen, the former head of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s aliyah department. While formal plans have not been announced, the IFCJ, which has in the past worked closely with the Jewish Agency and other immigration-focused Jewish organizations, has indicated that it will likely now work on its own to increase aliyah.
“I view increasing the number of new immigrants to Israel as a Zionist project and as a central pillar of the work of The Fellowship to support Israeli society and assist Jews in need of help across the world,” IFCJ President Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein told eJewishPhilanthropy.
Founded in 1983, the IFCJ promotes understanding between Jews and Christians. The group has raised more than a billion dollars—mostly from Christian donors—for Jewish immigration, social programs in Israel, and aid for struggling Jewish communities around the world.
More recently, the IFCJ has been involved in stepping up aliyah from Ukraine amid the instability and conflict with Russian-backed rebel groups, spending millions of dollars on emergency aid and putting together flights to Israel for the Jewish community there.
Last May, Eckstein was honored with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Raoul Wallenberg Award for his “profound contribution to the Jewish people” as the head of IFCJ.
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David Blatt’s Cleveland Cavaliers rout Maccabi Tel Aviv, 107-80
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Less than five months after leading Maccabi Tel Aviv to its sixth European basketball title, David Blatt, now the head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, routed his former team in an exhibition game on Sunday, with the Cavaliers dominating Maccabi 107-80 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
The 20,562 fans in attendance witnessed Lebron James’s first appearance in a Cavaliers uniform since he left the club in free agency for the Miami Heat four years ago. This summer, James opted out of his contract with Miami and decided to return to the Cavaliers.
Maccabi kept the game close in the first quarter, trailing by only six after the first 12 minutes of play, but the Cavaliers were able to build a 15-point lead by halftime.
“I thought in the first half, Maccabi played very well,” Blatt said. “I knew they would. I know their offense. I know the people involved… I thought that both teams came out of the game more or less with what they wanted.”
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Armed Lebanese group infiltrates into Israel
(JNS.org) Israeli troops shot at a group of armed and unidentified individuals who infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday. One of the individuals was wounded, and the entire group then fled back to Lebanon.
The IDF said in a statement that it “will continue to safeguard the State of Israel’s sovereignty in the border region.”
“As soon as the Blue Line (the U.N.-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon) is breached, it does not matter who penetrated it,” an Israeli military official said, according to Israel Hayom.
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Deadly explosion reported at Iran’s secretive nuclear facility near Tehran
(JNS.org) A deadly explosion has occurred at Iran’s secretive Parchin military base just outside of Tehran, according to reports.
Iran’s semi-official Iranian Students News Agency said that a fire was ignited in an “explosive materials production unit,” resulting in the deaths of two workers.
Citing the Iranian opposition website Sahamnews, the BBC reported that the huge blast came near the Parchin military site, located southeast of Tehran. The explosion was so intense that it blew out windows nearly nine miles away, and the glare from the blast could be seen from a great distance, the opposition website said.
The West has long suspected that Iran has used the Parchin military base as the site for secret tests of technology that can be used for its nuclear weapons program.
In a statement in late September, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz citing “highly reliable information” said that Iran had conducted implosion tests at Parchin, involving neutron sources that would include nuclear material. The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors have been denied access to Parchin by Iran, has via satellite observed suspicious construction activity that could be related to Iran covering up evidence of its nuclear program there.
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