Israeli army opens two coronavirus wards for civilians in Rambam Hospital in Haifa

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — The Israel Defense Forces opened two civilian coronavirus wards in an underground parking complex designed to be used for medical purposes during wartime.

The opening of the wards at Rambam Hospital in Haifa mark the first time the military has opened medical wards for civilians.

The wards, which opened to patients last month, are in a facility constructed after the hospital came under fire during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The wards will be staffed by about 100 members of the military’s medical staff, the IDF said in a statement. Over the last week, medical personnel assigned to the wards underwent training by Rambam staff, according to the IDF.

The effort is part of the military’s Operation Tribe of Brothers to help battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Israeli firefighters battle 250 blazes over hot, dry weekend

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Thousands of Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes over the weekend as a result of fires burning across the country.

Some 250 fires, including 13 identified as very large, spread throughout the country, including the West Bank. Dozens of homes were burned.

Fire and Rescue Commissioner Dedi Simchi told the Kan national broadcaster that some of the fires in the West Bank are believed to have been deliberately set by Palestinians.

Firefighting aircraft flew over 150 sorties to dump flame-retardant foam on the fires, according to the report. Most of the fires started on Friday and were brought under control by the end of the day Saturday.

Some 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

Israel has been suffering from a record-breaking heatwave in recent weeks.

Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat tests positive for the coronavirus

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat has tested positive for the coronavirus.

The Palestine Liberation Organization made the announcement Thursday on Erekat’s Twitter feed.

Erekat has quarantined at his home in Jericho, Al Jazeera reported. He met days ago with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the PLO executive committee, all of whom have since tested negative for the virus.

Erekat is considered at high risk for complications from the coronavirus since he had a heart attack in 2012 and a lung transplant due to pulmonary fibrosis in 2017. He is 65 years old.

Erekat has led the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel for the last 25 years. He is the secretary general of the PLO.

Israel’s oldest man dies at 117

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Israel’s oldest man, Shlomo Sulayman, has died at the age of 117.

Sulayman died Sunday with is family by his side, according to Ynet. He is survived by six children as well as “dozens of grandkids, great and great-great grandkids.”

Sulayman was living on his own and his mind was clear until the very end, said his grandson Gil Radia, who said that confinement to his home in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic did his grandfather “harm.”

“Until the pandemic, he would go to the synagogue, even at the age of 116. He was a very modest man, which is why everyone loved him. But I guess the isolation at home contributed to his health deteriorating,” Radia said.

Sulayman, who his family says was born in 1903, immigrated from Yemen to Israel with his wife and four children in 1949. Two other children were born in Israel. Sulayman served in the Israel Defense Forces and worked in agriculture. His wife died several years ago at the age of 94.

Jewish American Paul Milgrom shares Nobel Prize in economics for auction theory discoveries

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Jewish American economist Paul Milgrom will share the Nobel Prize in economics with American economist Robert Wilson for their work in auction theory, the the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday.

The laureates’ theoretical discoveries in their studies of how auctions work have improved auctions in practice, according to the prize committee. Milgrom and Wilson have “used their insights to design new auction formats for goods and services that are difficult to sell in a traditional way, such as radio frequencies. Their discoveries have benefitted sellers, buyers, and taxpayers around the world.”

Milgrom, 72, raised in a Jewish family in Detroit, earned a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1979 and is now the the Shirley and Leonard Ely Jr. Professor of Humanities and Sciences there. Wilson was his thesis advisor.

He is not the first Jewish Nobel laureate this year — last week, scientist Harvey Alter shared the prize in medicine and poet Louise Gluck won the prize in literature.

Milgrom is known for analyzing the bidding strategies in a number of well-known auction formats, demonstrating that a format can give the seller higher expected revenue when bidders learn more about each other’s estimated values during bidding.

Tens of thousands of Israelis renew protests against Netanyahu

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Tens of thousands of Israelis reportedly demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in hundreds of sites across Israel on Saturday night, renewing a movement that had been halted by a sharp second wave of the coronavirus.

The country’s second COVID-19 lockdown has kept Israelis from going far from their homes, so many smaller protests erupted in different locales. For instance, fewer than 100 people gathered in Jerusalem’s Paris Square, the site of large past protests. A group of people on bicycles were fined for trying to ride in front of Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea earlier on Saturday.

But as they did regularly for months earlier in the year, the protesters decried Netanyahu’s botched coronavirus pandemic response, his handling of the economy and his alleged involvement in multiple corruption scandals. Hundreds were able to gather in Tel Aviv, including many in Rabin Square and Habima Square.

Police claimed that there were several injuries due to protester violence.

Israel is in the midst of a strict second nationwide lockdown instituted to stop the rapid spread of the coronavirus. On Saturday, a report claimed that the health ministry believes the lockdown will last for months.

IAEA: Iran lacks sufficient uranium for nuclear bomb

(JNS) — International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi told the Austrian daily Die Presse on Saturday that Iran still lacks enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb.

This, said Grossi, is in spite of the fact that “the Iranians continue to enrich uranium, and to a much higher degree than they have committed themselves to. And this amount is growing by the month,” according to Reuters.

Regarding how long it would take for Tehran to produce a nuclear weapon, Grossi said, “In the IAEA, we do not talk about breakout time. We look at the significant quantity, the minimum amount of enriched uranium or plutonium needed to make an atomic bomb. Iran does not have this significant quantity at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reported, the Iranian rial fell to a new low against the dollar on Saturday as its economy struggles under the coronavirus and new U.S. sanctions.

The dollar was selling for 304,300 rials on the unofficial market, according to the foreign-exchange site Bonbast.com.

Netanyahu to ‘immediately’ bring 2,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel

(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Ethiopian counterpart, Abiy Ahmed, on Friday that he intends to bring to Israel some 2,000 Ethiopian Jews currently in Addis Ababa and Gondar waiting to immigrate.

In a phone conversation during which the two leaders discussed regional issues, Ahmed readily agreed to the move and stressed the special bond between the people of Ethiopia and Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Ahmed also congratulated Netanyahu on the Abraham Accords — the U.S.-brokered peace agreements that Israel reached with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain last month — saying that the positive ramifications of the deals will only be understood by future generations, according to the statement.

Netanyahu and Ahmed also discussed the possibility of deepening agricultural cooperation between the two countries.

Approximately 13,000 Jews currently reside in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and in Gondar in the northern part of the African country.

According to AP, most live in poverty and are waiting to be taken to Israel, which they consider their homeland. Many have family members who have been living in Israel since “Operation Solomon” in 1991, when Israel airlifted some 14,500 Jews out of Ethiopia in less than two days.

“Some 250 people have left for Israel within the past year until COVID-19 came. Now the travel has stopped, but Israeli officials are conducting interviews online,” Nigusie Alemu Eyasu, program director for the Ethiopian Jews Community, told AP.

Last October, Netanyahu phoned Ahmed to congratulate him on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Netanyahu also said that he had been “impressed” by Ahmed’s visit to Israel the previous month.

During that visit, which took place in early September 2019, Netanyahu hailed his Ethiopian counterpart as “one of the most important and influential leaders in Africa.”

Slow and steady: Israeli Health Ministry rolls out lockdown exit strategy

By Maytal Yasur Beit-Or and Ariel Kahana

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The Israeli Health Ministry released its COVID-19 lockdown exit strategy late Saturday night, detailing a gradual lifting of the measures limiting economic and public activity over four months.

According to Channel 12 News, if morbidity data supports rolling back the lockdown, the plan will be set in motion on Oct. 18, with target dates for the various stages of easing the restrictions.

The Health Ministry said that exiting the lockdown at this time could be considered as recent days have seen a steady drop in both the morbidity rate and the number of daily cases. According to the report, before the first stage of the plan can be implemented, the number of daily cases must drop to 2,000. This will allow opening preschools as well as businesses that do not receive customers.

At this point, the restriction on traveling more than 1,000 yards from one’s home will be lifted, as will restrictions placed on protests and family gatherings. Restaurants will be able to offer takeaway, as opposed to delivery only, and Ben-Gurion International Airport will resume full operations.

Once the number of daily cases drops to 1,000, the ministry will instate the second stage, currently slated for Nov. 1, which will see the first-to-fourth grade students resume classes. Synagogue services will reopen and elective medical procedures will resume.

The third stage of the plan, slated for mid-November—assuming the daily number of cases drops to 500—will see retailers with in-store customers open, as well as gyms and shopping malls.

Once the daily case tally drops to 250, which the ministry said could happen by late November, restaurants and cafes will be able to resume operations in full, as will various leisure venues.

The Health Ministry has set no specific targets to mark the fifth stage of the exit plan, saying only that it is likely to take place in late mid-December. The fifth stage includes allowing pools, hotels and guest houses to reopen.

The sixth stage, slated for late December, will see museums and entertainment venues open and allow the resumption of group sports.

Next, in what the ministry believes will be early January 2021, the education system will resume full operations, and in the final and eighth stage, in late January, audiences will be allowed at sporting events, clubs and bars.

Channel 12 News reported that Education Minister Yoav Gallant has stated that he plans to fight to reopen schools as soon as possible, arguing that it has been proven that the student body has little to no effect on overall morbidity.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Imam in Syracuse: ‘Women are never free from the men of their family’

(MEMRI via JNS) — The imam of the Masjid Bilal Ibn Rabah mosque in Syracuse, N.Y., said in a Friday sermon earlier this month is that the greatest danger to society is the freedoms daughters are given.

In the sermon, delivered at the mosque on Oct. 2, Imam Khadar Bin Muhammad said that it was the job of men to “straighten out” the behavior of the women in their families.

He said that according to Islam, it is impermissible for a Muslim woman to live alone, that women should not work, and that fathers should regularly “check in” on their daughters at school to make sure that they are practicing Islam properly.

Warning about the dangers of social media and technology, he further said that fathers should always have control over the affairs of their daughters.

“[Women are] never free from the men of [their] family. … There’s no freedom like that,” he said.

Infidel men, whom he compared to predatory wolves, cannot resist an opportunity to “filthy” Muslim women, he added.

The sermon was uploaded to the Warrior Scholar Institute YouTube channel. On Oct. 9, Bin Muhammad announced on his Facebook page that he has relocated to Bursa, Turkey.

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem: Islamic law requires Muslims to wage jihad against Israel

The UAE and Bahrain will have to “answer to Allah” for signing accords with the Jewish state, says cleric Muhammad Ahmad Hussein.

(JNS) Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Hussein said that Islamic law obligates Muslims to “fight against the thieving Jews.”

According to a report published on Monday by Palestinian Media Watch, in a Sept. 18 interview with Palestinian Authority TV, Hussein stressed that “if an inch of the Muslims’ lands is stolen, jihad ‎becomes a personal religious commandment for everyone.”

The P.A. defines ‎the State of Israel as stolen Islamic land (waqf ), an ‎inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, according to PMW.

Therefore, said Hussein, Shariah law prohibits Palestinians from recognizing Israel, within any borders, and commands that every Muslim has a personal duty to ‎wage war against the Jewish state until the “Muslim” land is freed.

He further stated, according to PMW, that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which last month signed peace agreements with Israel, are ‎‎“twisting” these religious rulings. He claimed that doing so is “forbidden,” and that both Gulf states will ‎have to answer to Allah for it.

“The fact that the Muslims cannot—in some ‎of the Islamic lands, or in some of the Arab lands—restore [their lands], ‎doesn’t mean that the ruling has changed. No, the religious ruling is ‎firm, valid and present,” Hussein insisted.

“The minimum we demand from those (i.e., the ‎UAE and Bahrain) who are trying to twist the texts is that they read the ‎texts correctly and not distort them … ,” he said.

Australia halves its financial aid to UNRWA

(JNS) — The Australian government has followed in U.S. footsteps and cut financial aid to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, according to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade budget papers.

While the aid reduction was not officially announced by the Australian government, according to a report published on the website of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council on Friday, it was listed in the 2020-21 budget papers, released on Oct. 6.

According to the budget estimate, Australia will give $10 million to UNRWA in 2020-21, compared to $20 million in 2019-20.

Separately, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview published on Monday in The Guardian, “We are constantly in crisis mode when it comes to the cash flow. UNRWA is constantly running after the cash.”

The Trump administration cut Palestinian aid in 2018.