The Gaza Strip received 20,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine from the United Arab Emirates, a move secured by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ key rival. Health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave said they would be inoculating people on Monday, prioritizing healthcare workers and high-risk individuals.
The shipment to Gaza was arranged by Mohammed Dahlan, a former senior Fatah official who was exiled to Abi Dhabi in 2011 after a political conflict with the PA leadership. He is seen by some as a serious contender to replace Abbas in the prospective Palestinian elections in May.
“The shipment is a generous offer from the brotherly UAE,” Dahlan wrote on Facebook. “We promise our people that we will exert every possible effort to secure more.” Many analysts view the step as an attempt to score points ahead of the election.
Last Wednesday, the Gaza Strip also received 2,000 doses from Abbas’ Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank.
Israeli and Egyptian ministers met in Jerusalem on Sunday to discuss a pipeline that will connect Israel’s offshore gas field to terminals in northern Egypt. The visit by Egyptian Energy Minister Tarek el-Molla was the first official visit by a minister of Israel’s southern neighbor since Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry traveled to the Jewish state in 2016.
El-Molla met with his Israeli counterpart, Yuval Steinitz. Also participating in the meeting were National Security Council head Meir Ben Shabbat, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company Chairman Magdy Galal, Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Amira Oron, and Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Khaled Azmi.
“The two ministers agreed on the construction of (an) offshore gas pipeline from the Leviathan gas field to the liquefaction facilities in Egypt, in order to increase the gas exports to Europe through the liquefaction facilities in Egypt,” Steinitz’s office said in a statement.
The Egyptian Energy Minister also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hailed a “new era of peace and prosperity” following the US-brokered Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
“This began of course with the historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,” Netanyahu said, “but now it is becoming something that can better the lives of all the people in economic terms and we think that this is a great opportunity for regional cooperation – Egypt, Israel and the other countries.”
After hearing the story of Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck, Pope Francis decided to visit her at her home in Rome last weekend, according to the Vatican’s news service. Vatican News reported that the pontiff felt “deeply moved” after reading an interview given by the Hungarian-born Auschwitz survivor and wanted to meet her in person.
Bruck, who is now almost 90 years old and has lived in Italy for decades, was about 13 when she was taken with her family to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Over the course of the war, her mother, father and brother were murdered in various German camps.
The pope, who rarely leaves the Vatican for private visits, spent an hour with Bruck. A Vatican spokesman said the two spoke of her time in the camps and the importance of making future generations aware of what happened.
The pontiff reportedly told Bruck: “I have come here to thank you for your testimony and to pay homage to the people martyred by the insanity of Nazi populism.”
An Israeli-made nanosatellite, built by Tel Aviv University (TAU) students and staff, was sent into the earth’s orbit. The small craft was carried to the International Space Station (ISS) onboard a NASA resupply rocket. From there, ISS astronauts launched it on a globe-circling course.
Mazal Tov! TAU-SAT1, @TelAvivUni’s first nano-satellite, was launched into orbit yesterday from the @NASA facility in Virginia. The satellite –the first to be designed, assembled & tested on an #Israeli campus– will measure cosmic radiation around the earth.
??????@TelAvivUni pic.twitter.com/E6qOXjTMvk
— Israel Nitzan?? (@IsraelNitzan) February 21, 2021
The satellite, named TAU-SAT1, is the first to be developed by an Israeli university. “It’s a big day for TAU,” said Colin Price, head of the Porter Department of Environmental Studies. “We have now joined the ‘Civil Space Revolution,’ called New Space, in which, unlike Old Space, not only giant companies with huge budgets and large teams of engineers can build and launch satellites.”
At an altitude of 400 kilometers above sea level, TAU-SAT1 will orbit the earth at a speed of 27,600 kilometers per hour, or 7.6 kilometers per second, completing a loop around the earth every 90 minutes. The satellite will conduct several experiments, including measuring of cosmic radiation surrounding our planet.
Meanwhile, TAU researchers are already planning on developing their second nanosatellite, named TAU-SAT2.
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- Shlomo Hillel, Who Spearheaded Mass Aliya of Iraqi Jews, Dies at 97 (Ron Kampeas, Jerusalem Post/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
- In Holland, a Torah Scroll Returns to Jewish Hands 80 Years After It Was Hidden From the Nazis (Cnaan Liphshiz, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
- Israel Ranked 2nd in the World for Work From Home Opportunities (Hili Yacobi-Handelsman, Israel Hayom)
