Israel Active

There are so many unbelievable aspects of the near-disastrous Flydubai incident. The Indian captain who, although stabbed, managed to open the cockpit door a fraction. Passengers overpowering the terrorist co-pilot, the plumber who leveled out the damaged plane, the reserve pilots, and more.

Ari Spitz (see previously) spent six weeks in a coma and walked out of hospital with three prosthetic limbs. He is now studying for a law degree at Bar-Ilan University. He was also selected to light a torch during Israel’s 78th Independence Day ceremony.

Tel Azekah is an Iron Age Judean stronghold in central Israel referenced in the Book of Joshua and the story of David and Goliath and has been slowly excavated for the past 16 years.

Three well-preserved large storage jars dating back to the Middle Bronze Age were discovered during excavations in ancient Shiloh, site of the Biblical Tabernacle. Likely to have held grapes and wine, the jars were unearthed just days before the Ancient Shiloh Wine Festival.

A 300-meter section of Jerusalem’s Hasmonean period Lower Aqueduct has been uncovered during construction of a new south-Jerusalem neighborhood. Using gravity, it carried water from Solomon’s Pools, south of Bethlehem, to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

The IDF’s Maglan elite special operations unit, used a children’s remote ‑ controlled toy plastic car to locate a concealed rocket launcher hidden inside a booby‑trapped building. They attached a small helmet‑mounted video camera to the car, and entered without risking soldiers’ lives.

Itamar Galinsky, who was critically wounded during the fighting in Lebanon nearly two years ago, has returned to reserve duty in the same unit in which he was serving when he was wounded.

Capt. Shahar Gamla, 23, was killed by an explosive drone in Lebanon. His heart was transplanted into a 54-year-old man, his lungs into a 47-year-old man, a liver lobe to a 7-year-old girl, the rest of the liver to 69-year-old man, and his kidneys to a 37-year-old man and a 72-year-old woman.

House of Heroes, founded by former IDF resilience trainer Sagi Dovev, uses Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and other sparring styles to help rehabilitate some of the 26,200 soldiers wounded since Oct 7, 2023.

The IDF’s new “CPR GO” combat‑medic interface was created jointly by the IDF Medical Corps, the Lotem technological unit, and Israeli defense‑tech engineers from Elbit. It allows medics to tap a wounded soldier’s helmet and instantly view that soldier’s medical history.