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Israel
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Hamas Sentences Six Gazans to Death
The Hamas terror group, which governs Gaza, announced last week that it had sentenced six Arabs to death as “informants” who were “spying for Israel.”
According to Hamas’ military court, sentences were issued “against a number of informants, including six death sentences [and] other sentences varying between life terms and temporary hard labor, and one acquittal.”
Hamas also promised more lenient terms to those “collaborators” who turn themselves in, adding that “judgments issued have fulfilled all legal procedures. All those convicted were given every legal protection.”
Hamas’ use of the death penalty has come under criticism from the international community.
From a legal standpoint, Hamas is required to request approval from the Palestinian Authority prior to issuing the death penalty. However, in the past, Hamas has carried out executions without receiving permission from Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Since 2007, Hamas has sentenced over 130 people to death and has executed just 25 of them, the B’Tselem organization said. This year, around 13 death sentences have been issued; at least one of those defendants was tried in absentia.
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UN Conference Not Wheelchair Accessible for MK
On Monday, Energy Minister Karine Elharrar, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, was not able to access the United Nations COP26 climate conference and was forced to remain outdoors during proceedings because it was not wheelchair accessible.
On Tuesday morning, when Prime Minister Naftali Bennett got to the conference, he made sure that Elharrar would be granted access.
At the start of his three-way meeting with Bennett and Elharrar Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized to the energy minister for the incident.
For two hours on Monday, organizers refused to let Elharrar enter the large compound in the vehicle in which she arrived, Elharrar’s office said. They eventually offered a shuttle transport to the summit area, but the shuttle was not wheelchair accessible. The energy minister was forced to return to her hotel in Edinburgh after organizers refused to accommodate her.
“The only way they said I could come in was to walk on foot for almost a kilometer, or to board a shuttle that was not wheelchair accessible,” she told Channel 12 news.
“This is scandalous conduct, and it shouldn’t have happened,” Elharrar told the Ynet news site. “I came with certain goals, and I couldn’t achieve them today.”
She noted, “The UN calls on everyone to adhere to the international treaty,” presumably referring to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “So it is appropriate for there to be accessibility at its events.”
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who heads Elharrar’s Yesh Atid party, also weighed in. “It is impossible to take care of the future, the climate, and sustainability if we don’t first take care of people, accessibility, and people with disabilities,” he said in a statement.
UK Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan tweeted that he was “disturbed” by Elharrar’s exclusion. “I apologize deeply and sincerely to the minister. We want a COP Summit that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone,” said Wigan, whose country is hosting the climate conference.
Explosives Mine Uncovered from 1967
Israel’s national mine-clearing outfit on Tuesday uncovered a Syrian military bunker full of explosives on the Golan Heights that had been abandoned following the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel captured the plateau
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from Syria.
The underground bunker was found during ongoing excavations by the ministry’s National Mine Action Authority in an area of the western Golan that held a Syrian outpost, known as al-Murtafa, which was used by the Syrian military to shoot at Israeli communities in the Hula valley below prior to the war.
“During the work, a bunker was discovered, full of hundreds of pieces of ordnance, including mortar shells of different calibers, flares, pyrotechnic munitions, explosives, hunting rifle ammunition and others inside their original packages or spread out,” the Defense Ministry said.3
Once they were removed from the bunker, the munitions were moved to a secure storage facility, where they will be held until they can be safely destroyed.
The Mine Action Authority has been clearing the area around the bunker, which is now home to the Mitzpeh Gadot memorial to the Alexandroni Brigade, as part of its overall effort to open more and more parts of the Golan to hikers and tourists.
According to the ministry, thousands of mines are still buried in the ground in that area.
IDF Simulates Hezbollah Battle
The IDF and the Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) on Sunday launched a week-long exercise simulating an all-out war with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group.
The exercise, which is the first of its kind, aims to gauge how well Israel’s emergency response organizations have internalized the lessons from May 2021’s 11-day Operation Guardian of the Walls, during which, parallel to the Gaza operation, lynchings and large violent riots took place in mixed Arab-Jewish cities around Israel.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the exercise, Home Front Command Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Itzik Bar said, “We will test what we learned and experienced at levels I didn’t anticipate in terms of the domestic front.”
He explained, “What concerns me as the chief of staff of the Home Front Command: One is the issue of precision-guided munitions and the effect that they will have on our ability to function and on things in the world of incoming fire alerts. The second is the rate of fire and Hezbollah’s ability to conduct truly massive rocket barrages at specific geographic areas — I’ll use the phrase ‘demolishing the front line’ — directed fire at the communities near the border.”
He added, “Another thing: We want to see how they are putting into practice the lessons from Operation Guardian of the Walls. We carried out a very significant learning process with many investigations. This exercise is going to test how those lessons were enacted.”
The exercise will last until Thursday and will simulate conflicts similar to Operation Guardian of the Walls, with large riots taking place in mixed cities, Bar added.
However, instead of simulating a conflict with Hamas, the exercise will simulate a conflict in Lebanon and Syria. It will include simulations of the results of massive missile barrages on Israel, chemical weapons attacks, direct hits to toxic chemical storage facilities, nationwide power outages, and overwhelmed hospitals.
The exercise will also mark the first time that NEMA jointly leads a national exercise together with the Home Front Command.
Speaking to reporters, NEMA Di-
rector Yoram Laredo said, “We have a document that we can refer to about how a multi-front war will look in terms of its scope and significance. So our scenario gives us a degree of accuracy about possible events and how we can direct and refine the exercise so that it can be really effective.
“Some aspects that we will be simulating in the exercise: the enemy’s use of disorienting and sedating substances. We will check this out during the exercise, particularly the ability to identify them, with an emphasis on giving clear, focused, life-saving instructions to the civilian population.”
Children and Covid-19
A recent report from the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate and published by Israel Hayom has revealed that a total of 2,500 children were hospitalized in Israel after they contracted COVID-19.
According to statistics from Israel’s Health Ministry, the chance that a child diagnosed with coronavirus will be hospitalized in moderate, serious, or critical condition due to the virus or its complications, including PIMS (Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrom), stands at 1 in 900.
The data also shows that when patients hospitalized in “good” condition are included in the count, the chance that a child will be hospitalized due to coronavirus or its complications rises to 1 in 200.
It also showed that the likelihood of a child being diagnosed with PIMS following a coronavirus infection is about 1 in 3,500. So far, Israel has seen about 150 cases of the syndrome.
The military report noted that most children hospitalized due to PIMS have required treatment in the ICU, and between 1%-2% have died.
In its report, the National Information and Knowledge Center for Coronavirus wrote, “Examination of the infection statistics in Israel and around the world shows that contrary to popular opinion, coronavirus can definitely be dangerous for children as well. While in most cases children experience mild illness, a not-insignificant portion of children who are infected with coronavirus are liable to suffer significant and even dangerous illness.”
Thousands New Housing Units to be Built
The Israeli government on Sunday announced a housing plan for 20222025, aiming to increase the supply of new apartments and end the housing crisis.
The plan was formulated by Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry, Interior Ministry, and Finance Ministry and sets several goals for planning and development, as well as funding for the plan.
In a joint statement, the ministries promised that the plan – which aims to begin construction on 280,000 housing units – will cut some of the bureaucracy involved in real estate, thereby “lowering prices in the immediate time-frame.”
Plans for an additional 500,000 housing units would be pushed forward, and tenders for 300,000 homes on state-owned land would be published. Another part of the plan would include cutting the bureaucracy necessary for demolishing older homes to rebuild, as well as converting offices into residences.
The ministries also recommended forbidding private homes from being used for businesses or as hotels such
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