Israel Active

As for the past 25 years, the Jerusalem Municipality has been giving out hundreds of free trees to Christian residents. Getting trees this year was more difficult because they come from southern Israel. Many of the farms where the trees are harvested were destroyed by Hamas.

12,000+ foreign workers have arrived or returned to Israel since Oct. 7 including 2,218 in agriculture - half of them from Thailand; 100 are from Sri Lanka out of an eventual total of 10,000. 400+ of 5,000 Malawians arrived last month, and 1,500 are expected from Kenya.

Singapore’s first ambassador to Israel, Ian Mack, presented his credentials to Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The two countries have had diplomatic relations since 1969, but Singapore has never posted an ambassador to Israel. Singapore’s embassy in Tel Aviv, opened in 2022.

JNF-USA has added new dates for its volunteering missions to Israel.

Ola Baker Salameh (see previously) is the Israeli-Arab manager of the new ScienTech accelerator for Arab science entrepreneurs (see above).  She previously founded GrowOn – a consultancy to help Arab healthcare startups. She also lectures at Israel’s Technion and Tel Aviv University.

Volunteers from the Israeli Arab city of Kfar Kassem, east of Tel Aviv, joined with the IDF to simulate emergency responses to mass casualty incidents. The comprehensive drill involved local United Hatzalah Arab volunteers and the IDF’s Home Front Command.

Arabs and Israelis from Haifa have united during their leisure time to help Arab Israeli farmers bring in the harvest. The farmers were short-staffed due to the lack of Palestinian Arab workers and the temporary absence of Thai workers.

Many of the IDF’s heroic efforts go unnoticed, such as the rescue of abandoned animals from Gaza. They include cats, dogs, parrots, owls, and even a neglected, malnourished lion from the Gaza Zoo. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority is working with the IDF to bring the lion to safely.

In the middle of fighting a war, IDF reservists discovered a 4-year-old Gazan girl who had got lost, stumbled barefoot into an IDF camp, and fallen asleep. They cleaned her up, bandaged her injured feet and then arranged an ambulance to take her to the safe civilian area of Southern Gaza.

Prof. Shulamit Levenberg of Israel’s Technion Institute (see previously) has been chosen to be a fellow of the prestigious American National Academy of Inventors. She is a founder of Aleph Farms (see ), NurExone (spinal cord regeneration) and Nanosynex (see ).