| 1 |
Israel has reportedly told US officials that it was behind the assassination of a senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) earlier this week, which was carried out in an effort to warn Tehran against the continued operation of an alleged covert unit the target helped lead.
Israeli officials reportedly claimed that Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, who was shot dead outside his Tehran home on Sunday, had been the deputy head of the so-called Unit 840, a shadowy division within the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force that carries out kidnappings and assassinations of figures outside of Iran, including against Israelis. Khodaei was specifically in charge of Unit 840’s Middle East operations. However, in the last two years he had been involved in attempted terror attacks against Israelis, Europeans and American civilians and government officials in Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia, the UAE and Cyprus.
Iran has never publicly acknowledged the existence of Unit 840 and maintains that Khodaei played a completely different role in the IRGC after joining as a teen, voluntarily enlisting during the Iran-Iraq War and later fighting against Islamic State in Syria on behalf of the Quds Force.
Also on Wednesday, a report citing the huge stash of nuclear documents that Israel seized and spirited out of Iran in 2018 claims that Iranian intelligence accessed confidential UN documents and used them to evade and mislead the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 15 years ago.
At the time the IAEA was probing Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful, on suspicion that it was being used to develop nuclear weapons.
Reacting to the report, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the revelations “a wake-up call to the world.”
| 2 |
A judge in the Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday ruled against four Jewish teenagers who prayed on the Temple Mount, effectively reversing a lower court’s decision. “There is no need to overstate the sensitivity of the Temple Mount, which is one of the most explosive places in the Middle East if not the whole world,” wrote Judge Einat Avman-Moller.
The four were arrested by police and hit with a 15-day ban from the Old City after they had bowed down and recited the “Shema Israel” prayer at the holy site, violating the status quo in which Muslims may visit and pray while non-Muslims are forbidden from partaking in prayer or other religious rituals.
However, the teens appealed the ban, arguing that they had read reports in which Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai promised freedom of worship in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court nullified their 15-day ban on Sunday, a ruling that led to harsh condemnations by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Jordan.
In response, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement, stating that there would be no change to the status quo.
On Monday, Israel Police announced they would appeal the ruling, taking the matter to the district court in Jerusalem.
| 3 |
President Isaac Herzog warned against fake reports regarding the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot in Jenin while covering an IDF raid.
“We have already in the past had cases where we were blamed and the truth transpired later, that there were a lot of fake facts regarding Israel,” Herzog told the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding: “Don’t base yourself on fake facts. Study the facts.”
He was asked about the May 11 shooting of Abu Akleh in the aftermath of a CNN report that Israeli soldiers may have deliberately shot her.
Herzog said that “we have offered the Palestinians a joint investigation as to the circumstances of this very tragic event. Unfortunately, the Palestinians refused. They took the body, they took the bullet. Therefore one cannot substantiate any one of the scenarios without those facts.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll responded directly to the CNN report, which claimed that the gunfire that killed Abu Akleh came from a group of four or five armored Israeli vehicles placed several hundred meters away.
“CNN’s claim that Abu Akleh was killed in a ‘targeted attack’ is devoid of any basis in reality,” stated Roll, adding: “The IDF operates in Jenin solely to prevent terror attacks against Israelis…CNN’s report is full of unfounded conclusions and inaccuracies, and relies on unreliable sources.”
| 4 |
Israel is marking the 30th anniversary of Operation Solomon this week, celebrating the largest-ever individual Aliyah mission from any country in the world.
The covert military operation took place on May 24-25, 1991, when 14,325 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted from Addis Ababa to Israel on nonstop flights involving 35 Israeli aircraft, including Israeli Air Force C-130s and El Al Boeing 747s, which transported them from the war-torn country to safety in Israel in 36 hours.
Operation Solomon was the third aliyah mission from Ethiopia to Israel. It was preceded by Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Joshua in 1985. In the mid-1980s Ethiopian Jews found it virtually impossible to leave the country and only a very small number of them were able to leave and go to Israel.
The Jewish Agency and the Israeli government were the main players in planning and executing Operation Solomon, working with the support of the American Joint Distribution Committee, the American Association for Ethiopian Jews, the Jewish Federations of North America, and more.
For more than 40 years, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government have assisted over 95,000 Ethiopian Jews to move to Israel. Currently, there are more than 150,000 first-generation Ethiopian immigrants and second-generation Ethiopian Israelis living in Israel.
Recommended Reading
- Reconnecting Israel and Diaspora Jewry (Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Palestinians Are Preparing to Kill Jews on Sunday; Will the World Care? (Elder of Ziyon, Algemeiner)
- Hezbollah’s Nasrallah Is Struggling to Stay Relevant – Analysis (Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post)
- FM’s Visit Shows Turkey Eager to Accelerate Reconciliation, but Israel More Cautious (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel)
- Virtual Reality Could Help Avoid Deadly Medical Errors (Brian Blum, Israel21C)
