Israel Active

In 2007, there were only some 300 Arab engineers in the industry. Today, there are an estimated 5,000 Arab computer programmers and software engineers employed across Israel.

Two Israeli-trained Palestinian Arab doctors, travel from St John’s hospital in Jerusalem to Gaza every two months to perform eye operations on local Gazans. They have conducted 60 corneal transplants since the beginning of this year.

In unprecedented footage, the IDF allowed an Israeli TV crew to film it opening the border gates to Syria, and allowing in a group of 21 mothers and their 23 children, who were then transported to Israel’s Ziv hospital in Safed for medical treatment. Syrian doctors had selected the patients.

This video summarizes Israeli help for wounded and sick Syrians since the day in 2013 when seven injured Syrians requested help from the IDF.

Adar Gandelsman (Miss Israel) and Sarah Idan (Miss Iraq) publicized their friendship ahead of November’s Miss Universe competition. Gandelsman posted on Instagram, “Get to know, this is Miss Iraq and she’s amazing.”  Idan posted “peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

I reported previously that Israel was providing observation balloons and unmanned aerial vehicles to protect UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, Atul Khare, has now agreed to expand and upgrade the systems.

1,000 pilots and crews from India, the US, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and Israel took part in the 11-day exercise “Blue Flag” launched from Israeli Air Force’s Ovda base. The goal was to simulate extreme scenarios and fly in coalition as realistically as possible.

Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID has helped build a center for the study of science and technology in South Sudan. 10,000 youth will train at the center in the next 3 years to become engineers, technicians etc. and contribute to the country’s economic and social development.

The Israeli government is now partnering with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to continue providing Africa with electricity.

Over 30 Palestinian Arabs joined dozens of Israelis as guests at the sukkah of Efrat mayor Oded Revivi in Judea. The event included music from a joint Muslim-Jewish group, and was attended by Efrat’s Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.