Global computing giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise , which has previously secured several major IDF contracts, had won the supercomputer construction tender worth tens of millions of shekels putting it in charge of building the supercomputer that will deliver advanced capabilities and is considered of strategic national importance. However, Israeli defense industry sources have raised concerns over Hewlett Packard Enterprise's selection of a private company as the subcontractor to establish and operate the facility housing the supercomputer. This decision comes despite the fact that Rafael, the government-owned defense company, also competed for the project which demands exceptionally high security protocols.

"There are areas you don't privatize to a private company when you have a government alternative, especially not after October 7," one source said. "A private company doesn't maintain the security capabilities of a defense company like Rafael, and choosing one neutralizes all the advantages a government company has in information security. But more seriously – private companies always aspire to be acquired or go public, they're looking for an tech-exit acquisition by someone else. If that private company that won the project is sold in the future to a foreign entity, there is a real risk that Israel's most classified secrets will leak into foreign hands."

Over the past five years, Israel has invested substantial resources and budgets in establishing supercomputers that will serve as national infrastructure for artificial intelligence research and development, available to the defense establishment, academia and Israeli high-tech companies. These computers are constructed with tens of thousands of processors operating in parallel, providing massive computing capabilities essential for analyzing enormous amounts of data and training artificial intelligence models.

Within this framework, two defense projects were launched about three years ago, each costing tens of millions of shekels, to establish computers for the defense establishment. These computers are designed to help collect and analyze vast amounts of data and generate insights using artificial intelligence.

"Hewlett Packard Enterprise is among the few in the world that can provide data processing and storage capabilities on such an insane scale," a source familiar with the tender details explained. "Software developers build the programs that will run on the supercomputer, but for these programs to operate they need a lot of hardware. A company like Hewlett Packard Enterprise is among the few in the world that can provide data processing and storage capabilities on such an insane scale, so choosing them makes sense." Hewlett Packard Enterprise will provide the computer processors and storage servers it manufactures for the project. However, according to the Defense Ministry tender terms, the physical infrastructure for the supercomputer – meaning the facility where these tens of thousands of processors and servers will be housed – will be established by a subcontractor chosen by Hewlett Packard Enterprise itself, in cooperation with the IDF.

According to a defense industry source who spoke with Israel Hayom, this clause was problematic from the outset, as it removed the state's ability to control who would establish and operate a strategic facility of national importance. After the war began, this clause proved even more concerning. "Since October 7, these are exactly the facilities that have become targets for attack, especially from Iran," the source, a former senior IDF officer, explained. "The vast majority of missiles and UAVs fired at Israel from Iran during the war were aimed at strategic facilities exactly of this type."

However, the tender terms, which were signed before October 7, cannot be modified. After conducting a process to identify a subcontractor, Hewlett Packard Enterprise this week selected a private Israeli company to establish the facility where the supercomputer will be housed. This was despite Rafael, the government company, also competing for the project as mentioned.

Rafael, which specializes in developing and manufacturing advanced weapons and works in close cooperation with the IDF, consequently maintains advanced systems and capabilities for securing facilities and information security. "Rafael, alongside Israel Aerospace Industries, is a company regulated at the national secret-keeping level," explains a source familiar with the details. "Therefore it has security and information security systems at the highest level possible, just like an operational unit." However, according to the same source, the IDF did not want Hewlett Packard Enterprise  to choose Rafael for the supercomputer project, claiming the government company is too "bureaucratic" and cumbersome. They preferred a private company.

According to sources in Israel's defense industry, this decision could become an information leak risk. "Rafael has the proven capabilities to provide the Defense Ministry with a facility secured and protected at the highest level," says a defense industry source. "Rafael's ownership structure also ensures the continuity of facility operations over years."

The Defense Ministry issued the following statement: "The Defense Ministry leads numerous enhancement projects and collaborations with defense industries and Israeli and international technology companies, including in AI domains. All projects are accompanied by technology and cyber content experts for security purposes."

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Foreign Ministry officials expressed hope the Israeli couple arrested for photographing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's home, would soon be released from prison.

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Natalie and Mordy Oknin's attorney, Nir Yaslovitzh, met with Mordy in prison Monday. He was set to meet with his wife Natalie Tuesday.

Following the meeting, Yaslovitzh said the appeal against their extended remand would be summited by Friday. Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry officials said efforts to free the couple were ongoing, and that talks were held between high-ranking Israeli and Turkish officials and diplomats.

Yaslovitzh said it was thanks to the many efforts of the Prime Minister's Office, the Foreign Ministry, and the local consul that he had been able to meet with Mordy in prison.

Mordy "was very excited to see me, someone who spoke Hebrew. I gave him strength and explained his situation to him. I explained to him that an entire country is following his story and he wasn't even aware of what is going on in our country."

He said, "I explained to him the future steps I intend to take. I tried to instill in him a spirit of hope and faith that he would succeed in getting out of the place he is now in. He asked me a lot of not-so-simple questions like how long will this go on, how the Turkish system works, why he is under arrest in the first place, and why they [the Turks] don't understand I'm not a man who engages in espionage."

According to the attorney, "Mordy is staying in a separate room from the other prisoners, and I understand the rationale behind that and that is why I am happy they separated him so that they don't hurt him.

"Mordy was investigated once, laconically and briefly," Yaslovitzh said, noting he would ask for better conditions for Oknin while he in prison.

"I can say the meeting included quite a few tears, both his and my own. I promised him I would bring him back to Israel, and I intend to do just that," he said.

Following talks with the Turks, a consular visit with the couple was approved. While Israel is pressing for that meeting to be held as soon as possible, a date has yet to be set.

"The visit is a step in the right direction, but the goal is to bring them home," an official with knowledge of Israeli efforts to free the couple said.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is also personally involved in the issue, the official said.

Sima Duvdevani, the head of the Foreign Ministry's department for Israelis overseas, met with the couple's relatives in Modiin Monday to update them on recent developments in the case and the steps the ministry intended to take.

Prior to their arrest in Istanbul, the Oknins had shared a video to an Israeli friend of theirs who had expressed trepidation about traveling to Turkey. In the video, Natalie is heard saying: "You have nothing to fear. It's fun in Turkey, safe in Turkey. You speak Hebrew freely, travel and walk around, and they love us Israelis." Mordy said: "There are a lot of Israelis and a lot of delicious food and there are fun places to visit. Come and have fun. Everything is safe."

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A unique touring experience in Jerusalem offers travelers an opportunity to learn the complex history and current reality of one of the most celebrated and controversial cities in the world from different perspectives.

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Cramped into an area a third of a square mile, nearly 40,000 people live within the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, 75% of whom are Muslim.

Arab Palestinian tour guide Husam Jubran and Jewish Israeli tour guide Sharon "Morgie" Morgenstern of Abraham Tours are dedicated to conflict resolution and a peaceful future between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Holy Land.

Morgie wishes for those living in the area to figure out how to "live together respectfully."

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"Each of us comes with our own history, our own background... if we are able to hear each other... that's a huge step," she said.

Together, the two guides are doing their part to forge a future of peace and understanding between Muslims and Jews in the region.

Abraham Tours gave i24News correspondents a first-hand experience of its popular Dual Narrative Tour in Jerusalem, in anticipation of Israel opening back up to tourists.

The tour took the correspondents through the famous Cotton Market, where Muslim worshippers have walked for centuries to access and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jubran said his only goal was to help change the "perception of this country… of my people, and hopefully to create a different future."

"Whether I'm Jewish, or Muslim, or Christian, if I understand the history... that also can help me understand some of the pain because we're human, and we've all suffered," Morgie said.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Alon Livne is a renowned fashion designer whose pieces have shown at Paris Fashion Week and been worn by superstars such as Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. In his newest campaign, images of women modeling his dresses have been altered to the extreme.

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"It's no secret that every photo undergoes Photoshop, retouching, and countless manipulations to attain the desired result. The differences between the 'before' and 'after' are sometimes unfathomable. You increase, decrease, stretch, and smooth," Livne explained.

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"In my new campaign, I pushed the increasingly blurred boundaries, and with the help of Photoshop, I created an avatar, alien-like figure to take the platform one step further," the designer said.

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An image-editing tool, Photoshop has been the focus of intense media attention in recent years due to its extensive use by Instagram influencers and the fashion industry amid increasing concerns over its negative impact on young people's body image.

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An Israeli tourist was the victim of an antisemitic assault while vacationing in Italy.

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Elad Forgash was shopping in the city of Pisa in Italy's Tuscan region on Aug. 31 when he entered a store to purchase a few sculptures as souvenirs from his trip.

"I started talking to the salesman while he wrapped up the sculptures. He told me he was from Bangladesh and asked where I was from, and I replied 'Israel.' He told me he hated Israel and the Jews because they are killers. I didn't get worked up about it. I just returned the bag with the sculptures and said I would rather not buy from him.

"When I turned around, he hit me in the head with the sculptures. Luckily, there were tourists who filmed him and he ran away, and the police and an ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital."

Elad said he suffered a fracture in his eye socket and his nose and would need to have surgery when he returned to Israel.

Police in Pisa are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

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Following the game, in which the Czech Republic won 84 to 78, Czech coach Ronen Ginzburg told Israel Hayom: "They [the Iranians] were very nice. We exchanged a few words before the game, and after the game, the coach [Mehran Shahintab] wished me luck going forward."

As for the game, Ginzburg said winning "is better than losing, certainly to Iran."

In April, the International Judo Federation slapped Iran with a four-year ban from its matches, citing "repeated and severe breaches" of the organization's statutes and the values of Olympism. The move was a conclusion of IJF proceedings against the Islamic republic in the wake of its orders to judoka Saeid Mollaei to avoid facing an opponent from Israel at the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo.

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Sixteen years have passed since Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, and to mark the occasion, the Gush Katif Heritage Center is hosting a conference in Jerusalem.

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The conference, to be held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, will include a documentary theater production by spoken word artist Zvia Margaliot based upon texts written during the disengagement.

One portion of the performance centers on a dialogue between an IDF soldier's mental checklist in preparation for the disengagement and a speech delivered by a resident of Neve Dekalim to prepare his friends for the nonviolent struggle against the community's eviction.

"I am not from Gush Katif, I live in Jerusalem. But like every other national religious person, I was involved in the struggle against the disengagement. Nevertheless, until I had kids, I wasn't qualified to understand what they went through over there, the abyss people reached," Margaliot said.

Margaliot, who has competed in poetry slam competitions, said: "Four years ago, the Gush Katif Center contacted me, and I did a spoken-word piece for them about the disengagement. Later, I proposed documentary theater. It has power. Three pieces I wrote and directed will be shown at the conference. One of them is based on the personal diary of an 18-year-old young woman who documented her emotions during the disengagement."

Margaliot said it was emotionally difficult to read the stories of people who were forced to leave their homes.

"This is a story that has influence even 16 years later," she said. "Families have fallen apart, some people became ill, got divorced. I also know people who say they lost their sanity. It's important to me, through this performance, to expose the influence the disengagement had on people, still today. The lack of trust in the judicial system among members of this public is the result of the disengagement. There are all kinds of things that need to be talked about," she said.

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Israeli singer Noga Erez is facing backlash after an interview she gave to a UK magazine in which she voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has come to light.

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Asked by the London-based Huck magazine in March for her opinion on artists such as former Pink Floyd founding member Roger Waters' support for the BDS movement, Erez replied: "I have a complex answer to this question. I was very happy when Radiohead came to Israel. Even if something terrible happens in the country, it does not mean that people who live in it are part of it or they want it – and that is the case in Israel."

Erez, who has grown increasingly popular in Israel and around the world over the last year, told Huck: "90% of the 40,000 people who filled the audience at that Radiohead show do not want the occupation to continue. I believe BDS did an important job in putting the spotlight on the situation, but I hope all the effort, time, and money they put into it will be invested in discourse and connection. There are a lot of people on both sides who want it. Governments will not do it, it is very difficult to do. It's from the inside, and that's what makes the conflict deeper."

On Twitter, Israelis took Erez to task for her remarks, with one user tweeting a screenshot of a text message wishing she had died in a rocket attack: "Dear Noga Erez, BDS did not do a particularly good job if I received 200 of these kinds of messages over the last 24 hours."

Another Israeli wrote: "Noga Erez, it was nice while it lasted. Bygones" as another tweeted: "Noga Erez, you have really disappointed us."

Erez has yet to respond to the criticism.

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The findings are the results of a survey on Israelis' financial behavior carried out by Sapio Research at the initiative of Bank Hapoalim's Financial Growth Center ahead of An IDC Herzliya conference titled "From Crisis to Growth" to be held on Monday.

Around half of Israelis, 51%, report that one year of the coronavirus pandemic has increased their desire to learn how to better manage a budget and improve their financial habits. A majority of Israelis, 80%, have learned how to manage a budget as they go.

Nearly one-third of Israelis, 30%, rely on family and friends for guidance when making financial decisions, while 21% said they researched the subject online. Just 5% of Israelis said they had met with a professional one-on-one for guidance, while 6% said they had taken a course on the subject. Nine percent of Israelis said they had gone to employees at their bank for advice.

While 43% of Israelis said they were on a set budget, a vast majority, 84%, said they needed significant guidance in financial issues.

Nearly all Israelis surveyed, 97%, agreed it was important to formally educate children on how best to manage their money.

Around half of Israelis, 53%, reported receiving no financial guidance, and just one-third said they were knowledgeable of the details of their pension plans.

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On March 31, 2002, days after the suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, there was another suicide bombing, this one at the Matza restaurant in Haifa. Sixteen Israelis, including three fathers with their children, were killed. The bomber, Shadi Tubasi, was an Israeli citizen who lived in Jenin. His mother, Naja, originally from the village Muqabla in the Gilboa Regional Council, had married a man from Jenin 30 years earlier, and even though she never returned to her home village, she retained Israeli citizenship.

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Thanks to the "family reunification" policy, through Naja, her husband and children – including her suicide bomber son – all obtained Israeli citizenship. Shadi exploited his, and the freedom of movement it gave him, to travel to Haifa where he carried out his horrific attack. About a third of the households in his village Muqabla were comprised of mixed Palestinian and Arab Israeli couples.

Back then, before Israel's citizenship and entry laws were amended by a temporary order that revoked citizenship or residency from Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who had married Arab Israelis, dozens of Palestinian terrorists used their Israeli citizenship to perpetrate terrorist attacks in Israel.

In November 2012 another naturalized citizen, Mohammad Abdel Jafari Nasser, took advantage of his Israeli ID card – which he received under the family reunification law – to carry out a terrorist attack on a Tel Aviv bus, which left 26 Israelis wounded. In October 2015 it was Mohand al-Uqabi, 21, the son of an Israeli father and a mother from Gaza, who murdered IDF solider Omri Levy at the Beersheba Central Bus Station. In December 2017, Khaled Abu Jaudah murdered IDF Sgt. Ron-Yitzhak Kokia at a bus stop in Arad. Abu Jaudah was also the child of a Palestinian from the West Bank who had married an Arab Israeli.

Yet another Palestinian who became Israel in 1993, after he married an Arab Israeli woman from Haifa, is Omar Barghouti, founder of the global BDS movement. Today, he lives in Acre. Barghouti might not be a terrorist, but he believes that the Jews are not a people, supports Palestinian right of return, and has reservations about dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. A few years ago, the Interior Ministry cancelled Barghouti's travel documents.

According to figures from the security establishment for 2001-2016, children of family reunification represent about 5% of the country's Arab sector, but comprise 15% of Arab Israeli terrorists. When it comes to residents of Jerusalem, the number of children of family reunification involved in terrorism is 12 times their proportion of the population.

The same trend can be seen in Arab residents of the Negev, where children of family reunification make up 12% of the population. From 2000-2017, 44 Negev residents were involved in various types of terrorist activity (attacks, planning attacks, recruiting attackers or helpers, transferring money to fund terrorism, purchasing weapons, etc.).

Haifa District Court Judge Abraham Eliyakim, who a few years ago approved the revocation of the citizenship of Alaa Ziad, a terrorist from Umm al-Fahm who carried out a combined car ramming and stabbing attack near Gan Shmuel in October 2015, wrote in his ruling that "the second generation of family reunification such as Ziad (the son of a Palestinian father) are under inherent pressure between two loyalties or two identities."

After reviewing a classified opinion from the Shin Bet security agency, Eliyakim wrote that the second generation of family reunification "still preserved their Palestinian identity and Israel is seen as an enemy state in a conflict with their people. The family circle, given the family relationships with Judea and Samaria and Gaza, has an inherent influence on the upbringing and identification with the Palestinian mentality and narrative. Moreover, they come into contact with an environment that does not rule out terrorist or reject violence toward the Israeli public."

Eliyakim also observed that "even terrorist organizations have marked this population as potential recruits for terrorist activity, based on shared valued, their ability to move freely, and their knowledge of Israel."

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This is the background for the order that has been renewed annually since 2003, which revoke citizenship, residency, and sometimes even presence in Israel from Palestinians who married Arab Israelis. On July 6 of this year, the order currently in place will expire, but at the moment the new government is not securing a majority to pass it again. The four Ra'am MKs announced that they would not support a renewal of the order. MK Ibtisam Mara'ana of Labor and the Meretz members, have also announced they will not support it. The Likud and the other parties in its bloc, who every other year supported the order, are threatening to vote against it as a political move.

Opponents of the measure are suggesting alternatives. The Left is talking about a compromise in the form of changes to the interim orders that would soften it to allow Palestinian partners to drive inside Israel, enjoy public health benefits, and even give citizenship to 2,000 families who asked for it before the temporary order was enacted in 2003.

On the Right, the Likud is suggesting that the interim measure be replaced by a permanent law, Basic Law: Immigration, an idea that has the support of the Religious Zionist Party, the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and MK Amichai Chikli of Yamina. This proposal would, for the first time, establish rules about entry to Israel and the receipt of temporary and permanent residency, and Israeli citizenship, as well as grounds on which these could be denied or revoked.

'They aren't in any hurry'

 Researcher Adi Schwartz observes that there is not necessarily a plan to weaken Israel by having Palestinians adopt citizenship.

"It's not that the naturalized citizens sit down and say, 'We're part of a plan to destroy the state of Israel.' An individual from Ramallah, Hebron, or Jaffa, or Bedouin from the Negev, don't necessarily intend as individuals to destroy us as a Jewish state," Schwartz explains, adding that the true story is "an Arab environment and collective that surrounds us, which does not recognize our borders or the entity known as Israel."

"As far as this collective is concerned, the whole project of Israel, in which Jews are the majority, isn't legitimate and should be eradicated. According to this view, the issue of family reunification is just another tool. Since the entire area is theirs anyway and there is no difference between Hebron, Beersheba, Ashdod, or Ashkelon, it really is a creeping implementation of the right of return in a different way, at their own pace. They aren't in any hurry," Schwartz says.

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