An Israeli airstrike hit Syria’s Latakia port before dawn on Tuesday, the second such attack on the cargo hub this month, Syrian state media reported. Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out airstrikes on its neighbour, mostly targeting Syrian government troops. The Israeli military has in the past defended the strikes as a necessary measure to prevent its enemy Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep
Continue reading...Category Archives: Israel
Israeli airstrike sets port of Latakia ablaze, says Syrian media
Second attack on cargo hub this month reported to have caused ‘significant material damage’
An Israeli airstrike hit Syria’s Latakia port before dawn on Tuesday, sparking a fire that lit up the Mediterranean seafront in the second such attack on the cargo hub this month, Syrian state media reported.
Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out airstrikes on its neighbour, mostly targeting Syrian government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.
Continue reading...Israeli archaeologists find treasure trove among Mediterranean shipwrecks
Hundreds of Roman and medieval coins and artefacts uncovered near ancient city of Caesarea
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered the remnants of two shipwrecks off the Mediterranean coast, replete with a sunken trove of hundreds Roman and medieval silver coins.
The finds made near the ancient city of Caesarea were dated to the Roman and Mamluk periods, about 1,700 and 600 years ago, archaeologists said. They include hundreds of Roman silver and bronze coins dating to the mid-third century, as well as more than 500 silver coins from the middle ages found amid the sediment.
Continue reading...Covid live: fourth vaccine dose ‘could be needed against Omicron’; France ‘could soon have 100,000 cases per day’
Latest updates: German health minister says ‘offensive booster campaign’ needed to fight variant; French health minister says Omicron will be dominant in early January
- WHO’s Europe chief says ‘another storm coming’ as Omicron takes hold
- AstraZeneca aims to produce Omicron-targeted vaccine with Oxford
- Boris Johnson confirms no new Covid restrictions in UK before Christmas
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Researchers in Melbourne, Australia, have turned one of the world’s most-used blood-thinning drugs into a nasal spray which they hope could prevent Covid-19 transmission.
Northern Health medical divisional director Don Campbell and researchers at Melbourne, Monash and Oxford Universities found that heparin can block the transmission of Covid-19 and prevent infection.
It won’t matter if a new variant comes along, this drug will block that protein from infecting the cells.
I’m very confident that we can demonstrate that it will work, and people will be using this before they go to the shops and before they go to school.”
Due to large-scale flooding near the Port of Vancouver … and the global supply chain crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there are delays in the supply of potatoes.”
Continue reading...Israeli PM announces fourth Covid jab for over-60s to tackle Omicron
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...Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policy
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...UN-backed investigator into possible Yemen war crimes targeted by spyware
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...‘We are family’: the Israelis sharing life and hope with Palestinians
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...Israel warns diplomacy proving fruitless in Iran nuclear talks
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...Tel Aviv: poverty and eviction in the world’s most expensive city
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...Israel’s PM, Naftali Bennett, to visit UAE to discuss deepening ties
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...Trump launched profane tirade about Netanyahu in interview – report
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...Rights groups urge EU to ban NSO over clients’ use of Pegasus spyware
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...Iran preparing to enrich uranium, nuclear deal talks in Vienna told
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...Israeli doctor believes he caught Omicron variant of Covid in London
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...Eitan Biran: cable car fall survivor must be returned to Italy, Israeli court rules
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...Covid live news: WHO says ‘very high’ global risk from new strain; Portugal identifies 13 Omicron cases in Lisbon football team
World Health Organization briefing says mutations ‘concerning for potential impact on pandemic trajectory’; Belenenses started last match with nine players following Covid outbreak
- UK Covid live: more cases of Omicron expected in England
- Japan has said it will close its borders to all foreign entrants
- Where has Omicron spread, and why are scientists so concerned?
- Israel seals borders and Morocco bans flights as Omicron Covid fears rise
- Canada confirms two cases of Omicron in travellers from Nigeria
- See all our coronavirus coverage
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...Britain and Israel to sign trade and defence deal
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...Israel seals borders and Morocco bans flights as Omicron Covid fears rise
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...The world is watching: TV hits around the globe
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
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