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A Holocaust survivor who was seriously injured in May when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit her home in Ashkelon has died from her injuries at the age of 91. Naomi Perlman suffered shrapnel wounds in the blast that killed her caregiver, Soumya Santosh, 32, who was one of the first fatalities in the fighting between Palestinian terror groups and Israel last year.
Perlman sustained extensive leg injuries during the May 11 rocket attack that destroyed her home. After her release from the hospital three weeks later, she entered a nursing home. However, Perlman was readmitted to the hospital several times over the past nine months as her injuries required substantial follow-up treatments and surgery.
Her passing brought the total number of Israelis killed during what was known in the country as “Operation Guardian of the Wall” to 14, of whom 13 were civilians. Perlman is survived by her son Shuki Perlman and daughter Tzipi Malach, eight grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. Her most recent descendant was born last week.
Naomi Perlman was born in 1931 in Sosnowiec, Poland. Her family managed to escape to Ukraine and from there to Uzbekistan. After World War II, the family returned to their home where they found the city destroyed and awash in virulent antisemitism. Their possessions had been confiscated.
Perlman’s family moved to Israel in 1950 and settled in what is now the city of Ashkelon. She met and married fellow Holocaust survivor Yankeleh, raising their family in the southern port city.
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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday invited US President Joe Biden to visit Israel during a phone call. A few hours earlier, Israel’s premier said the nuclear deal that world powers are negotiating in Vienna will make it harder to stave off a nuclear Iran. The Biden Administration is working to rejoin the 2015 accord.
Bennett told his Cabinet on Sunday that the “…agreement and what appear to be its conditions will damage the ability to take on the [Iranian] nuclear program…. Whoever thinks an agreement will increase stability is wrong…. It will temporarily delay enrichment, but all of us in the region will pay a heavy, disproportionate price for it.”
In their call, Biden and Bennett discussed “regional challenges, foremost of which is growing Iranian aggression and steps to restrain the Iranian nuclear program,” according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
World powers have been negotiating on and off with Iran for the past 10 months for the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The nuclear accord restricted Iran’s uranium enrichment until 2030, but placed few, if any restrictions on its ballistic-missile program or funding of terror proxies across the Middle East.
The US left the deal and placed heavy sanctions on Tehran in 2018 due to its malign actions in the region, and evidence that Iran’s nuclear program was a weapons program — contrary to the Islamic Republic’s denials.
Israeli officials are concerned that a renewed deal with Iran will maintain the regime’s time to nuclear breakout at less than six months. One of the flagship goals of the JCPOA in 2015 was to keep Tehran a year away from reaching that crucial stage.
Following Sunday’s call between the two leaders, the White House said in a statement that Biden will visit Israel “later this year.”
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Justice Minister Gidon Sa’ar approved regulations to sanction companies such as Ben & Jerry’s and its parent Unilever over their decision to boycott Israel by preventing them from taking part in state tenders and limiting other benefits. “The State of Israel must fight boycott attempts against its nation, which are part of a broader strategy to delegitimize the Jewish state,” Sa’ar said.
The move comes after Avi Zinger, CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Israel, urged the Israeli government last week to apply a 2011 anti-boycott law against Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, over the ice cream maker’s July decision to cease selling its products in the eastern part of Jerusalem and Jewish communities located in the West Bank.
The regulations, which are pending approval by the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, will apply to companies that have called for boycotting Israel, or anyone participating in such a boycott. They were drafted by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman before being presented to Sa’ar.
Following the approval and passage of the legislation, Lieberman seeks to examine recent actions by Amnesty International and use the mechanisms proposed in the regulations in order to impose restrictions set forth in the law on the organization.
Amnesty UK last week published a controversial report titled, “Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity,” which drew strong criticism from Israeli politicians, as well as US lawmakers.
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Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has urged the African Union to withdraw Israel’s observer status, which it received last July. “Israel should never be rewarded for its violation and for the apartheid regime it does impose on the Palestinian people,” said Shtayyeh at the opening of a two-day summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Summit attendees were meant to vote on whether to maintain Israel’s status, but ultimately the vote was deferred until next year’s assembly. In the meantime, a committee was formed to examine Israel’s standing.
Josh Reinstein, president of the Israel Allies Foundation, told local media that he believes support for the Jewish state will “…continue to grow in Africa, and nothing can stop it.”
He also thanked Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for “his moral clarity concerning Israel. His faith and support have been an inspiration to all of Africa.” Tshisekedi, who also serves as chairman of the African Union (AU), was one of the key proponents of granting Israel observer status in the AU — a move that received strong pushback from some of the union’s 55 member states, including South Africa and Algeria.
Tshisekedi visited Israel at the end of last year and met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, announcing that his country would open a diplomatic and trade office in Jerusalem.
Recommended Reading
- The Abraham Accords Were Not Built on Shifting Sands (Eyal Zisser, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Looming Power Struggle for PA Presidency Could Spell Chaos for Palestinians (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom)
- World 1st: Hope for Paralyzed as Israeli Lab Develops Spinal Cords That Restore Mice Mobility (Nathan Jeffay, Times of Israel)
- ‘My Essay Was Failed for Not Blaming Israel’ Says Leeds University Student (Kirsty Buchanan, The Jewish Chronicle)
- If You Want to Improve Your Health, Ask the Crowd (Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21C)
