Booster will also be available to medical teams and immunodeficient people four months after third dose
Israel is set to become the first country in the world to offer a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines in an effort to protect against the Omicron variant.
People over the age of 60 and healthcare workers will be eligible for a second booster shot, the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said on Tuesday night, following a recommendation made by Israel’s panel of pandemic experts.
Continue reading...Barak Ravid has written a fascinating account of four chaotic years in which some progress was nonetheless made
Trump’s Peace is a blockbuster of a book. Barak Ravid captures the 45th president saying “Fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu and reducing American Jews to antisemitic caricatures. Imagine the Republican reaction if Barack Obama had done that. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham would plotz. But Trump? Crickets.
Ravid also delivers a mesmerizing tick-tock of the making of the Abraham Accords, the normalization of Israel’s relations with four non-neighboring Arab states.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Analysis of Kamel Jendoubi’s mobile phone reveals he was targeted in August 2019
The mobile phone of a UN-backed investigator who was examining possible war crimes in Yemen was targeted with spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group, a new forensic analysis of the device has revealed.
Kamel Jendoubi, a Tunisian who served as the chairman of the now defunct Group of Eminent Experts in Yemen (GEE)– a panel mandated by the UN to investigate possible war crimes – was targeted in August 2019, according to an analysis of his mobile phone by experts at Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Continue reading...Participants in a West Bank immersive language project tell of the strong bonds being forged that counter the rise in settler violence
In the plywood hut in which Palestinian Iman al-Hathalin and her family have lived since their home was bulldozed by the Israeli authorities in 2014, the warmth from a rickety samovar is welcome. Outside the only window, the winter sky is blinding white: it floods the room with an icy light and sends shadows dancing up the flimsy walls.
Everyone has been ill lately, it seems, including Hathalin’s two-year-old daughter, who sleeps fitfully on her lap, and Maya Mark, her Arabic-speaking Israeli guest. “It is not exaggerating to say Maya is like my sister,” the 28-year-old said. “I was so worried when she was sick. We are family.”
Continue reading...Officials hopeful that US and European nations will agree Tehran is in breach of its obligations
Tehran’s approach to talks on its nuclear programme in Vienna has become so uncompromising according to Israel’s lead diplomat on Iran, Joshua Zarka, that they “have reached the last stretch of diplomacy”.
Israeli officials said they were hopeful that the US and European nations would agree to put an emergency motion to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stating that Iran was in breach of its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and the 2015 nuclear deal.
Continue reading...Residents of Givat Amal Bet neighbourhood forced out to make way for further gentrification
In one of Tel Aviv’s most affluent neighbourhoods, a collection of ramshackle one-storey homes with rusting roofs known as Givat Amal Bet still sits in the shadow of the high-rise towers looming above.
Israel’s economic centre has recently been named the world’s most expensive city to live in, overtaking Paris and Singapore in the 2021 rankings compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). As the Mediterranean city’s reputation as a global tech hub continues to attract foreign investment, however, and prices for goods and services soar as Israel’s economy makes a strong recovery from the pandemic, locals fear the widening gap between rich and poor is pushing out working-class residents and creating damaging new social divisions.
Continue reading...Talks between PM and crown prince of Abu Dhabi come after full diplomatic links brokered last year
Naftali Bennett is to make the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister to the United Arab Emirates since the two countries established diplomatic ties last year.
On Monday, Bennett will meet Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to discuss “deepening the ties between Israel and the UAE, especially economic and regional issues,” his office said.
Continue reading...Former president was furious over ex-Israeli PM’s acknowledgment Biden won election, book says
Donald Trump spat an expletive about his old ally, Israel’s ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for congratulating Joe Biden on his victory in last year’s election, according to a new book.
Trump lashed out in an interview for a book on US-Israel relations during his presidency, the author Barak Ravid wrote on the Axios website on Friday. Trump’s remarks were also published by the English-language website of Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Continue reading...Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm, alleging governments used its software to abuse rights
Dozens of human rights organisations have called on the European Union to impose global sanctions on NSO Group and take “every action” to prohibit the sale, transfer, export and import of the Israeli company’s surveillance technology.
The letter, signed by 86 organisations including Access Now, Amnesty International and the Digital Rights Foundation, said the EU’s sanctions regime gave it the power to target entities that were responsible for “violations or abuses that are of serious concern as regards to the objectives of the common foreign and security policy, including violations or abuses of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, or of freedom of opinion and expression”.
Continue reading...Tehran accuses Israel of ‘trumpeting lies to poison’ talks aimed at reviving 2015 pact
Iran sought to heighten pressure on western negotiators in Vienna through increasing its use of advanced centrifuges as talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal carried on for a third day on Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Wednesday that Iran had started the process of enriching uranium to up to 20% purity with one cascade, or cluster, of 166 advanced IR-6 machines at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant, which is about 20 miles north-east of Qom. Those machines are far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Cardiologist Elad Maor suspects he caught virus at conference attended by more than 1,200 people
A doctor who was one of the first people in the world to become infected with the Omicron variant says he believes he caught the virus when he was in London for a major medical conference attended by more than 1,200 health professionals.
The disclosure from Elad Maor will raise fears that the variant may have been in the UK much earlier than previously realised – and that other medics could have been exposed to it too.
Continue reading...Six-year-old boy has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel
Israel’s top court has ruled that a six-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy must be returned to relatives there within the next couple of weeks.
Eitan Biran has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel since his parents were killed in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May.
Continue reading...World Health Organization briefing says mutations ‘concerning for potential impact on pandemic trajectory’; Belenenses started last match with nine players following Covid outbreak
G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic, AFP reports.
The meeting was called by G7 chair Britain, which is among a steadily growing number of countries detecting cases of the heavily mutated new strain.
Continue reading...Pact covers Iran as well as cybersecurity, despite controversy over use of Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in UK
Britain and Israel will sign a 10-year trade and defence pact in London on Monday, promising cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity and a joint commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The agreement was announced by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, despite evidence that spyware made by Israeli company NSO Group had probably been used to spy on two British lawyers advising the ex-wife of the ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya.
Continue reading...Red-listing of 50 African countries and use of phone monitoring technology among measures approved by Israel
Israel is barring entry to all foreign nationals and Morocco is suspending all incoming flights for two weeks, in the two most drastic of travel restrictions imposed by countries around the world in an attempt to slow the spread of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus.
Israel’s coronavirus cabinet has authorised a series of measures including banning entry by foreigners, red-listing travel to 50 African countries, and making quarantine mandatory for all Israelis arriving from abroad. The entry ban is expected to come into effect at midnight local time (10pm GMT) on Sunday.
Continue reading...A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries
Continue reading...The ‘Persian Leopards’ are going great guns on the football field, but at nuclear talks in Vienna a far more dangerous game is being played
There is a strikingly topsy-turvy, Saturnalian feel to recent qualifying matches for the 2022 football World Cup. Saudi Arabia (population 35 million) beat China (population 1.4 billion). Canada lead the US in their group. Four-time winners Italy failed to defeat lowly Northern Ireland.
Pursuing an unbeaten run full of political symbolism, unfancied Iran are also over the moon after subjugating the neighbourhood, as is their habit. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE all succumbed to the soar‑away “Persian Leopards”.
Continue reading...The infamous hacking tool is now at the centre of international lawsuits thanks to a courageous research lab
If you were compiling a list of the most toxic tech companies, Facebook – strangely – would not come out on top. First place belongs to NSO, an outfit of which most people have probably never heard. Wikipedia tells us that “NSO Group is an Israeli technology firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”.
Pause for a moment on that phrase: “remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”. Most smartphone users assume that the ability of a hacker to penetrate their device relies upon the user doing something careless or naive – clicking on a weblink, or opening an attachment. And in most cases they would be right in that assumption. But Pegasus can get in without the user doing anything untoward. And once in, it turns everything on the device into an open book for whoever deployed the malware.
Continue reading...Israeli spyware firm goes from bad to worse as scathing Apple lawsuit follows US blacklisting
Shalev Hulio, the co-founder of Israel’s NSO Group, was in Washington DC on a mission to try to resuscitate the surveillance company’s battered reputation on Capitol Hill shortly before the news broke that he had probably arrived too late to make a difference.
With little advance warning to its allies in Israel, the Biden administration announced on 3 November that it was putting the spyware maker – one of the most sophisticated cyber-weapons companies in the world – on a US blacklist, citing use of the company’s software by regimes around the world for “transnational repression”.
Continue reading...South African immigrant Eliyahu Kay, 26, killed in attack before militant shot dead by Israeli police
A Hamas militant opened fire in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday, killing one and wounding four others before Israeli police fatally shot him.
It was not immediately clear whether Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, had ordered the attack or whether one of its members had acted alone.
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