Tagged IDF

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel has offered Lebanon humanitarian assistance after a massive explosion at Beirut’s waterfront killed at least 30 people and injured thousands. Israel’s defense minister Benny Gantz announced the offer on Twitter. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli army and at least one Israeli hospital also offered… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli soldier rescued a Palestinian resident of Hebron from a mob of Jewish settlers and was attacked by the mob himself. By Monday morning, four people had been arrested in the attack, including a minor and two teens. The soldier from the Golani Brigade stationed… Read more »

The body of Israeli soldier Zachary Baumel, an immigrant from the United States who went missing in Lebanon some 37 years ago, recently was returned to Israel. Baumel disappeared on June 10, 1982, in a battle at the beginning of the Lebanon War along with two other Israeli soldiers,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Staff. Sgt. Joana Chris Arpon isn’t Israeli, or even Jewish. Her service in the Israel Defense Forces is personal. Arpon, 20, is the daughter of Filipino parents who came to the Israel to find work. She said she enlisted as a combat soldier because an Israeli army  team rescued her… Read more »

Tree of Life in Green Valley The gold leaves on the “Tree of Life” at Green Valley’s Beth Shalom Temple Center honor men and women whose efforts have been especially significant to the congregation. The temple added a leaf at its Feb. 3 Shabbat service in gratitude to Tamara… Read more »

NETANYA, Israel (JTA) – One fit young soldier scales a rope. Two others practice hand-to-hand combat. A large group marches across the sand. But those were just the inspirational photographs on the walls. The actual soldiers crowded in the one-room building here on the Orde Wingate army base were… Read more »

Jerusalem (TPS) – Jerusalem-based startup Zore has developed a unique lock for weapons that would prevent them from being used by any unauthorized personnel. The founders of the company have already raised almost half a million dollars and argue that the product is more efficient and user-friendly than traditional… Read more »

  JERUSALEM (JTA) — “Lone wolf” terrorism in Europe is making headlines around the world. But in Israel, the phenomenon of angry or troubled individuals taking up arms is old news. Since October, Israelis have endured a wave of violence that has been carried out largely by individual Palestinians without backing from terrorist… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — He was an outspoken politician with little military experience, appointed by a rival and promising to bring a new approach. Current and former officials at the Defense Ministry called his appointment an “enigma,” fretting that “it will take some time until he understands how things work”… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Sitting in front of a computer at the center of Israel’s largest army base, a soldier stares at the screen, moving pixel by pixel over a satellite photograph, picking out details and finding patterns. A few years ago N.S., who has autism, thought the Israel Defense Forces wouldn’t take him.… Read more »

Few people who are now furiously debating the Iranian deal have actually read the 160 pages of the agreement. I doubt it if they will ever do, and anyway, it will not sway them from their entrenched positions. Those who support it would stick to what President Obama has… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s last governing coalition — divided on war, peace and economics — did agree on one thing: Israel’s religious policies needed to change. Now it appears that the incoming coalition will be organized around the opposite principle: Those changes must end. A coalition agreement signed… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Almost as soon as news of Nepal’s devastating earthquake reached the wider world, Jewish aid groups began mobilizing humanitarian efforts to help the victims. In Israel, that meant dispatching first responders to Nepal; in America, it mostly meant raising and allocating money. How is the… Read more »

WARSAW (JTA) — In a carriage bound for the Warsaw Zoo, Moshe Tirosh could sense his parents’ fear and the strong odor of alcohol wafting from the direction of the driver and his horse. The trepidation that rainy night in 1940 was from the Nazi soldiers guarding the Kierbedzia… Read more »

Now that the applause after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in Congress has faded away, we are left with the question: Was he right or wrong to deliver that speech? Opponents of the move (like myself) believe that the speech has accomplished nothing except to further alienate the White… Read more »

Two officers in an elite intelligence unit, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of their activities, are among several groups of Israelis who have announced their refusal to participate in certain Israeli military activities. (Ben Sales)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israel Defense Forces oppresses people, the letter said. The army creates inequality, perpetuates injustice and corrupts social values. The letter didn’t come from a foreign protest group, but from teachers and graduates of one of Jerusalem’s elite high schools, the Israeli Arts and Sciences… Read more »

For the past several years, and again this year, I have been honored to be chosen to read the Torah in my synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah – and each year I struggle with the troubling text and try to figure out what it is saying… Read more »

Palestinians viewing what used to be a tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, Aug. 5, 2014. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

OR YEHUDA, Israel (JTA) — Something that looks like a can of soda could be Israel’s high-tech answer to the network of tunnels that Hamas has created under the Gaza border. A sensor known as a geophone can detect underground movement based on the sound generated by the movement,… Read more »

Israeli soldiers leaving the Gaza Strip seen near the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled coastal area, Aug. 4, 2014. (Flash90)

(JTA) – Now that the latest Gaza conflict appears to be over — or nearly so — it’s time to take stock of the winners and losers. Who won the war? Perhaps more than the other two Gaza conflicts in the last six years, Israel is the clear winner… Read more »

A Palestinian man kissing a baby killed in an attack on a United Nations school in the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanoun, July 24, 2014. (Emad Nassar/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Shortly after dawn on July 30, a bomb hit a United Nations school sheltering thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting in Gaza, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens. The attack on the Jabalia Elementary Girls School was the fifth attack on U.N.… Read more »