The Israeli security officer critically wounded during Saturday’s riots along the Gaza Strip border has been identified as 21-year-old Barel Hadaria Shmueli. He was shot in the head at point-blank range during clashes at a Hamas-organized event.
Shmueli sustained life-threatening injuries and remains in intensive care following an operation.
Video footage widely shared on social media showed a Gazan — who, according to local reports, is a member of Hamas — opening fire at Shmueli through a small hole in the concrete security fence.
Some two dozen out of hundreds of Palestinian rioters were injured in the violence.
“Our mobilizing masses have come to announce that the path of the Sword of Jerusalem is renewed,” Hamas’ deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, said while referencing the name given by the terror group to May’s 11-day conflict with Israel.
In response, the IDF on Saturday night carried out airstrikes on four Hamas weapons storage sites in the Palestinian enclave.
With the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) set to be extended by the end of the month, Israel is urging the Security Council to expand the role of the peacekeeping body by granting its members greater freedom of movement as well as access to civilian areas where Hezbollah is suspected of concealing weaponry in order to effectively transform Lebanese towns and villages into forward-operating military bases in a future conflict against the Jewish state.
Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan also urged the council to set up a mechanism to ensure that any violation by Hezbollah of Resolution 1701, which formally ended the 2006 war the terrorist group initiated against Israel, be adequately documented.
“The Security Council must realize that UNIFIL’s failure to enforce resolution 1701, and the attacks of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, could force Israel to respond and act against the terror infrastructure in Lebanon,” Erdan warned, adding that such was, in turn, liable to ignite a regional conflagration.
“We urge the Security Council to enforce the 1701 resolution strictly and to significantly strengthen UNIFIL,” Erdan stressed, adding: “We also demand that the Lebanese government take responsibility for what is being done on its territory.”
UNIFIL’s mandate is renewed annually in August.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is slated to travel to Israel for a three-day visit prior to stepping down in September following 16 years in power. Germans will then head to the polls on September 26 to elect a new parliament as well as Merkel’s successor.
The current German leader is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on August 29.
“Germany and Israel are linked by a unique friendship that we want to deepen further. With this in mind, I look forward to working closely with you,” Merkel told Bennett in June during a congratulatory after he was sworn into office.
Merkel will also meet with President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid and other senior officials. As is customary for visiting officials and dignitaries, she will lay a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem before returning to Berlin on August 30.
Israeli officials at the country’s diplomatic mission in Dubai have introduced the first Emirati woman set to attend a university in Israel, days after the United Arab Emirates and the Jewish state marked the one-year anniversary of their normalization agreement as part of the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords.
سمية المهيري – أول طالبة اماراتية التي تلتحق بجامعة إسرائيلية، استمعوا الى قصتها في اجواء يوم الجمعة المبارك. @SamooyHarib
Sumaiiah Almehiri – the first female Emirati student to attend an Israeli university. Hear out her story! pic.twitter.com/K9NRoHQ1Ok
— Israel in Dubai 🇦🇪🇮🇱 اسرائيل في دبي (@IsraelDubai) August 20, 2021
“Blessed Friday and Shabbat Shalom,” Sumaiiah Almehiri said. “I want to tell you that I am attending the University of Haifa, I am coming to Israel, [and] I want to meet you.” An electrical engineer hailing from the UAE and Boulder, Colorado, Almehiri said she is also the founder of the first Arabic-Hebrew language exchange program in the Gulf. She will specialize in nursing in Israel in hopes of becoming a midwife.
The “best thing” she has learned about Israel, Almehiri noted, is that tha state includes a “multi-religious society.”
Since forging the Abraham Accords, bilateral trade between Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem has reached $712 million. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have also normalized relations with Israel under the banner of the agreement.
Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe will bring an ancient Jewish coin to the International Space Station when he travels on the “Rakia” mission early next year, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.
The 1,900-year-old coin was minted during the second Jewish uprising against the Romans, also known as the Bar Kochba revolt (132–136 CE). Stibbe first saw the coin when he recently visited the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls laboratory in Jerusalem. The coin was unveiled to the public in March alongside other rare artifacts excavated from the “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever.
One side of the coin shows a palm tree with the inscription “Shim‘on,” while the other contains a vine leaf with the inscription, “Year two of the liberty of Israel.”
Stibbe said the coin “represents the connection to the land, the love of the country, and the desire of the population of Israel in those years for independence.”
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