Israel Active

Israel is opening a new embassy in Kigali, Rwanda. “This is part of the expansion of Israel’s presence in Africa and of the deepening cooperation between Israel and African countries,” Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Nairobi.

Israel and NATO have signed an agreement on the protection of classified information. The agreement will help expand the sharing of intelligence between Israel and NATO.

Britain is buying Israel's Iron Dome short range missile defense system to protect the Falkland Islands. A UK Defense Ministry spokesman said, "we selected Rafael for a £78 million contract to provide the main computer system and boost our defense of the Falkland Islands."

As predicted previously , Israel’s new 20-shekel and 100-shekel bank notes are about to be distributed. They feature Israel’s greatest poet, Rachel Bluwstein (1890-1931) and Leah Goldberg (1911-1970) - poet, author, playwright, teacher, literary translator and researcher.

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.