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This week’s ‘Negev Summit’ hosted by Israel reportedly saw the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain express interest in expanding defense intelligence collaborations with Israel.
Local media reported that, during the conference, officials representing the Gulf partners to the Abraham Accords asked for Israeli military technology, expressing interest specifically in Iron Dome and Arrow defense systems and the Green Pine radar system.
Iron Dome is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of between 4 and 70 kilometers (2.5-43 miles).
The Arrow is a group of anti-ballistic missiles defense systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles during the space-flight portion of their trajectory.
Green Pine Radar Systems are a family of transportable, ground-based radar systems designed to autonomously detect and simultaneously track dozens of tactical ballistic missiles from long ranges under all weather conditions.
According to the report, the defense systems’ developers have already received procurement inquiries and the matter is pending the Defense Ministry’s decision, as it must sign off on any sale of an Israeli-made defense system to a foreign country.
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As Middle Eastern foreign ministers convened in Israel’s southern desert, Jordan’s King Abdullah II met with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Monday against the backdrop of rising tensions between Israel and Palestinians.
Jordan claims a special custodial role in Jerusalem — the Jordanian-backed Waqf religious body administers the al-Aqsa compound. The Jordanian king’s visit to Ramallah was part of an effort to quell friction ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“Welcome to your country. We [Palestinians] and you [Jordanians] are the same,” Abbas told Abdullah, who last visited the PA’s administrative capital in 2017. He added: “This is not an overstatement, we and Jordan are one.”
The past few days have seen two deadly terror attacks linked to Islamic State and committed by Arab Israelis — one that killed four civilians in Beersheba last week, and another in which two police officers were shot dead in the city of Hadera on Sunday.
King Abdullah II met Foreign Minister Yair Lapid earlier this month to discuss strategies for containing unrest during Ramadan. Palestinian officials have repeatedly warned that the West Bank was on the verge of “exploding.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday, prior to the Negev Summit.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz was set to meet with King Abdullah II at the King’s Palace in Amman on Tuesday.
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The fourth coronavirus vaccine resulted in a 78 percent decrease in COVID-19 related deaths in adults aged 60-100, according to a new study by Clalit Health Services. The research, conducted in cooperation with Sapir College and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, examined the effect the second booster shot had on the mortality rates of the population eligible to receive it in Israel.
The researchers examined data from all 563,465 Clalit Health Services members eligible for the fourth vaccine. The median age of the participants was 73 years old, and 53 percent of participants were female.
The study’s authors are hoping that, with the release of their findings, people who have been hesitant up until now will decide to be inoculated with a second booster shot.
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Sasha Zlobjn from Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday became the 10,000th person to immigrate to Israel from former Soviet Union countries since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry said.
More than two-thirds of the 10,000 people who have immigrated to Israel in the past month have come from Ukraine, according to the ministry. The rest have come from Russia and Belarus. As the government considers all of these immigrants from the former Soviet Union as fleeing humanitarian crises — the war in Ukraine and increased repression in Russia and Belarus — the ministry has taken to lumping all of them in one group for the purposes of its statistics.
“The State of Israel sees this as its hour of need, and there is great national and governmental effort toward the absorption of immigrants,” Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata told the 90 Ukrainian refugees who arrived on Zlobjn’s flight.
Israeli officials have estimated that tens of thousands of people from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will immigrate to Israel in the coming weeks and months in light of the war.
Recommended Reading
- Israel Nabs 12 Suspected Islamic State Members in Arab Sector (Liran Levi, YNet)
- Palestinians’ New Threat Proves Only Their Fading Influence (Ken Cohen, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Statements Are Not Enough (Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel Hayom)
- Lessons We Learn From COVID Will Enable Us to Utilize New Insights (Nir Levy, Jerusalem Post)
- Israeli Researchers Unveil Country’s First Quantum Computer (Simona Shemer, NoCamels)
- Oscars 2022: The Most Memorable Jewish Moments (Andrew Lapin, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
