The treasure consisted of 97 pure gold coins and dozens of gold earring fragments, each embedded with pearls, semi-precious stones, and glass.

"This is one of the most significant Byzantine-period treasures discovered on land in Israel, unique for its combination of jewelry and gold coins from different emperors' reigns. Additionally, fabric remnants were found on some coins – traces of the cloth bag in which the treasure was hidden," said Dr. Michael Eisenberg from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, co-director of the excavation expedition.

Among the coins, researchers discovered a particularly rare item: a tremissis likely minted in Cyprus in late 610 by Emperor Heraclius the Elder and his son during their rebellion against Emperor Phocas. This is only the second coin of its type ever found in Israel. "This is a rare find that adds an important layer to understanding the political and economic history of the period," explained Dr. Danny Syon, numismatist of the excavation expedition.

The treasure was discovered accidentally in late July 2025. Eddie Lipsman, a metal detector operator accompanying the expedition, passed near a large stone when his device began signaling the presence of metal. When the stone fell between two walls, the signal intensified, and within moments, gold coins began emerging one after another from the archaeological section. "The device went crazy, I couldn't believe it – gold coins started appearing one after another," Lipsman recounted. Researchers delayed announcing the discovery to ensure no additional finds remained in the area and to complete the initial research phase.

The treasure includes 97 gold coins and delicate jewelry. Some coins are full-value solidus, but halves (semissis) and thirds (tremissis) were also found. They date from Emperor Justinus I (518-527 CE) to the early reign of Emperor Heraclius (610-613 CE). "Gold is a noble metal, and finding coins and jewelry approximately 1,400 years old that look brand new is a rare experience," said Dr. Eisenberg. Dr. Arleta Kowalewska added, "The earrings are the biggest surprise for me. Delicate craftsmanship combining semi-precious stones and pearls – I hope contemporary jewelers will recreate this beauty."

The ancient city of Susita, overlooking the Sea of Galilee from the east, was an important Christian center during the Byzantine period, serving as a bishop's seat with at least seven active churches. The site has been excavated for 26 years by the University of Haifa's excavation expedition led by Dr. Eisenberg and Dr. Kowalewska. This marks the first discovery of a gold treasure of this scale in the city. In recent years, researchers have uncovered remains linked to the Sasanian conquest, including the burning of the Martyr Theodorus Church, leading to speculation that local Jews may have participated in the rebellion alongside the Sasanian army against Byzantine rule.

Dr. Dror Ben-Yosef, archaeologist and heritage supervisor for the Northern District of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, stated: "Susita National Park is a mountain of surprises spanning 1,000 years of history. Excavating the site has shed new light on both the pagan and Christian worlds. Susita's story teaches us about the cultural and religious currents and subcurrents present in the land simultaneously, as well as about the diversity of its residents. To understand the complexity of the area approximately 1,400 years ago, one needs only to climb Mount Susita and look west toward Tiberias, the Jewish city. While a wealthy Christian community developed in Susita around seven churches, Tiberias residents maintained a Jewish lifestyle centered on synagogues."

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A major water park in northern Israel has been temporarily shut down after a deadly amoeba infection left a 10-year-old boy fighting for his life. The incident has triggered health warnings and prompted over 70 people to seek medical evaluation.

The Health Ministry announced Thursday that the 10-year-old likely contracted the deadly pathogen at Gai Beach Water Park on the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Kinneret. His condition remains life-threatening. Northern medical centers reported that "more than 70 individuals who visited Gai Beach, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, have sought medical attention at northern hospitals. All those examined were found to be healthy and without symptoms, and were subsequently discharged."

According to Ziv Medical Center, "The 10-year-old boy's condition remains critical. He is currently sedated and on ventilator support. The pediatric team at Ziv Medical Center swiftly identified the potential threat, even before laboratory confirmation was available. A decision was made to initiate broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment immediately. We are hopeful that this rapid response, including the prompt administration of treatment, will prove life-saving for the child, whose condition, as mentioned, remains critical."

According to Dr. Hilel Frankenthal, pediatric critical care physician at Ziv Medical Center, "This previously healthy child arrived at Ziv Medical Center's emergency department after experiencing four days of illness. Upon initial assessment of the child, who was brought in by his parents, suspicions were raised regarding infection with the rare amoeba. The medical team immediately began preparations to administer appropriate treatment, even before receiving definitive test results. The treatment regimen included medications not typically stocked in hospitals, which were rapidly sourced and delivered to Ziv."

The primary concern lies in the disease's high mortality rate. "Globally, only a few hundred cases have been reported and diagnosed, with very few survivors. The team's quick identification of the condition has provided crucial time, and we are all hoping this will be instrumental in saving the child's life," Dr. Hanna Farah, pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Ziv Medical Center, said.

The Health Ministry called on anyone who visited the Gai Beach Water Park park in recent weeks and is experiencing one or more of the following symptoms – fever, headache, blurred vision, or vomiting – should seek immediate medical attention. Those not exhibiting any symptoms are not required to undergo examination, even if they visited the park.

Earlier this month, a 26-year-old Israeli man died after contracting the amoeba. From the moment of hospitalization, medical teams employed all available resources, including drug therapies and surgical interventions, in an attempt to save the patient's life. Despite these efforts, his condition continued to deteriorate, ultimately resulting in his death. The mortality rate for this amoeba infection is approaching 100%.

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Rejoice, Israeli heavy metal fans! Following a year of limited events due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kineret Open Air is bringing together the country's best rock groups for a first-of-its-kind festival in northern Israel.

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No less than 20 groups are scheduled to appear at the two-day event, set to begin on Oct. 22, at Jordan Park right next to the Sea of Galilee.

"The aim of KOA is to provide Israeli fans with the experience of international heavy metal festivals using local talents," the producers said in a statement. "The decision came after almost all major events of the genre were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic – such as the summer Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, or the annual Hellfest festival held in France."

Fans will have the chance to see performances by Israel's most well-known heavy metal and rock bands, such as Walkways, Shredhead, Prey For Nothing, Scardust, Subterranean Masquerade, Desert, Dukatalon, Lehavoth, Dim Aura, Sinnery, Ketoret, DPS, Artland, Revision The Dream, Ostra Torn, Twisted Mind, Delicate Disorder, Bzaat, Unleash the Pain, and more.

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The water level of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel rose by half a centimeter on Monday, bringing the water level to 209.255 meters (686.53 feet) below sea level, the Water Authority reported.

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In March 2020, thanks to heavy winter rains, the lake reached its highest water level in 16 years.

The lake is now just 45.5 cm (18 inches) below upper Red Line, the point at which the water level poses a flood risk.

If the water reaches the upper Red Line, the Water Authority will have to open a dam at Kibbutz Degania to allow excess water to spill into the Jordan River.

In other water news, Israel announced on Sunday that 17 beaches had been declared safe for public use after being cleaned up following a massive tar spill off the Mediterranean coast last month.

A joint statement from the environmental protection, health, and interior ministries announced that the following beaches were safe to use: Acre's Argaman and Tmarim beaches; Ashdod's Lido, Oranim, Keshatot, Riviera beaches; Ashkelon's Delilah North, Delilah South, and Ashkelon National Park beaches;  Haifa's Bat Galim, Hof HaCarmel, and Dado Zamir beaches; Herzliya's Nof Yam and HaSharon beaches; and the Zikim beach in the Hof Ashkelon regional council.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Archaeologists in Israel say they have discovered the remnants of an early mosque –  believed to date to the earliest decades of Islam – during an excavation in the northern city of Tiberias.

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This mosque's foundations, excavated just south of the Sea of Galilee by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, point to its construction roughly a generation after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, making it one of the earliest Muslim houses of worship to be studied by archaeologists.

"We know about many early mosques that were founded right in the beginning of the Islamic period," said Katia Cytryn-Silverman, a specialist in Islamic archaeology at Hebrew University who heads the dig. Other mosques dating from around the same time, such as the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the Great Mosque of Damascus, and Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, are still in use today.

Cytryn-Silverman said that excavating the Tiberian mosque allows a rare chance to study the architecture of Muslim prayer houses in their infancy and indicates a tolerance for other faiths by early Islamic leaders. She announced the findings this month in a virtual conference.

When the mosque was built, around 670 CE, Tiberias had been a Muslim-ruled city for a few decades. Named after Rome's second emperor around 20 CE, the city was a major center of Jewish life and scholarship for nearly five centuries. Before its conquest by Muslim armies in 635, the Byzantine city was home to one of a constellation of Christian holy sites dotting the Sea of Galilee's shoreline.

Under Muslim rule, Tiberias became a provincial capital in the early Islamic empire and grew in prominence. Early caliphs built palaces on its outskirts along the lake shore. But until recently, little was known about the city's early Muslim past.

Gideon Avni, chief archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, who was not involved in the excavation, said the discovery helps resolve a scholarly debate about when mosques began standardizing their design, facing toward Mecca.

"In the archaeological finds, it was very rare to find early mosques," he said.

Archaeological digs around Tiberias have proceeded in fits and starts for the past century. In recent decades the ancient city has started yielding other monumental buildings from its past, including a sizeable Roman theater overlooking the water and a Byzantine church.

Since early last year, the coronavirus pandemic halted excavations and lush Galilean grasses, herbs and weeds have grown over the ruins. Hebrew University and its partners, the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, plan to restart the dig in February.

Initial excavations of the site in the 1950s led scholars to believe that the building was a Byzantine marketplace later used as a mosque.

But Cytryn-Silverman's excavations delved deeper beneath the floor. Coins and ceramics nestled among at the base of the crudely crafted foundations helped date them to around 660-680 CE, barely a generation after the city's capture. The building's dimensions, pillared floor-plan, and qiblah, or prayer niche, closely paralleled other mosques from the period.

Avni said that for a long time, academics weren't sure what happened to cities in the Levant and Mesopotamia conquered by the Muslims in the early 7th century.

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"Earlier opinions said that there was a process of conquest, destruction and devastation," he said. Today, he said, archaeologists understand that there was a "fairly gradual process, and in Tiberias you see that."

The first mosque built in the newly conquered city stood cheek by jowl with the local synagogues and the Byzantine church that dominated the skyline. This earliest phase of the mosque was "more humble" than a larger, grander structure that replaced it half a century later, Cytryn-Silverman said."At least until the monumental mosque was erected in the 8th century, the church continued being the main building in Tiberias," she added.

She says this supports the idea that the early Muslim rulers – who governed an overwhelmingly non-Muslim population – adopted a tolerant approach toward other faiths, allowing a "golden age" of coexistence.

"You see that the beginning of the Islamic rule here respected very much the population that was the main population of the city: Christians, Jews, Samaritans," Cytryn-Silverman said. "They were not in a hurry to make their presence expressed into buildings. They were not destroying others' houses of prayers, but they were actually fitting themselves into the societies that they now were the leaders of."

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A day after the heaviest rainfall seen in coastal Israel in over a quarter century caused massive flooding and damage, the forecast called for more floods in the Jordan Valley, the Judean Desert, and Dead Sea areas on Friday.

Light rainfall was forecast for the coast throughout Friday night.

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Scattered showers were forecast for northern and central Israel on Saturday, too.

Thursday saw especially heavy rainfall in Tel Aviv and Hod Hasharon, the Ashdod-Ashkelon area, and Nahariya and the western Galilee. All of these areas saw over 100 millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain.

This November has seen considerably more rainfall than average, and for coastal Israel, it has been the rainiest November since 1994.

Some areas of Israel's coast have already seen over 40% of their average annual rainfall.

In related news, the Sea of Galilee is rising and as of Friday morning was up by 1.5 centimeters (0.59 inches), putting its upper level at 209.94 meters (688.7 feet) below sea level.

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Another surprising phenomenon, last noted 17 years ago, is a steady flow in the Dan spring, which has increased slightly.

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Data provided by the Water Authority's Hydrological Service indicate that over the course of August, the water level in the Sea of Galilee dropped by 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) due to reduced pumping. The current level is the highest since 1993, when the level of the lake at the start of September stood at 209.33 meters (687 feet) below sea level, or 0.73 meters (2.4 feet) below the upper Red Line, the point at which shoreline facilities start flooding.

The level of the Dead Sea also dropped by 14 cm. in August, putting the water level at the lowest point on earth at 434.86 meters (1,427 feet) below sea level.

However, vacationers seeking to cool off in creeks and rivers in northern Israel should exercise caution: samples taken from several creeks in the north have indicated unacceptably high levels of water pollution, the source of which has not yet been identified.

Swimming in the following rivers and creeks has been designated temporarily hazardous: Hasbani River; the Jordan River at Hamisha Bridge; the Jordan River at Huri Bridge; the Jordan River at Meitzad Ateret; the Devorah waterfall in the Gilabon Stream; Majrase; Yehudiya; Mashoshim; the Horeb pool in the Tzalmon creek; and the Tzalmon creek at the flour mill.

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If it reaches full capacity, the dam regulating its water flow to the Jordan River will be opened entirely. Officials don't expect this to happen before next winter unless some unusual weather event takes place.

The Sea of Galilee has benefited from an unusually rainy winter. About a month ago, the Water Authority reported that the water level was higher than it had been in 17 years, standing 49 cm (19 inches) short of the Upper Red Line.

This means that from March 23 to April 14, the lake rose by a foot.

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The water level currently stands at -209.29 meters (687 feet below sea level), only 49 centimeters (19 inches) short of the Upper Red Line, the point at which a dam would have to be opened to prevent flooding, the Israel Water Authority reported Monday.

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Monday's measurement represents a rise of 2 cm (0.78 inches) since Sunday.

The Water Authority has measured the water level of the Sea of Galilee  –  Israel's main freshwater source  –  daily since 1969. To date, the lowest level recorded was measured in November 2001, when the lake retreated to a level of -214.87 meters (705 feet) below sea level, a measurement which has come to be known as the Black Line.

The last time the Sea of Galilee reached the Upper Red Line was the winter of 2003-2004. 

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On Friday morning, search and rescue teams located the body of a teen who was swept away in Yarka Creek on Thursday.

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Omri Abu-Najab, 14, had reportedly tried to cross the swollen creek in an all-terrain vehicle. A 23-year-old man who was with him managed to fight his way out of the rushing water.

Video: Hof District Search and Rescue Services

Video: Search and rescue workers look for Omri Abu-Najab on Thursday

On Thursday, a man who was swept away in Tzalmon Creek and was found in critical condition was pronounced dead at Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed.

According to the man's relatives, he had gone out to shut the gate to the family's goat pen. When he failed to return, the family notified the police, who began searches and eventually found him by the creek.

The rain this week brought the heaviest single-day rainfall in northern Israel since records have been kept. As of Thursday evening, the Sea of Galilee had risen 8.5 cm (3.3 inches), mostly as a result of a downpour that dropped some 65 mm (2.5 inches) of rain.

The northern Golan Heights saw 150 mm (5.9 inches) of rain, which increased the water levels and flow in the Jordan River and in the creeks on the Golan Heights.

Which region got the most rain? As of Thursday evening, it was the western Galilee, which was drenched with nearly 200 mm (7.87 inches) of rain. Swells were reported in the Hilazon and Beit Ha'emek creeks.

The Sharon region, northeast of Tel Aviv, saw over 100 mm (3.9 inches) of rain, which caused the Hadera and Alexander creeks to swell.

According to the Israel Meteorological Service, the current storm, which started on Dec. 25, has dropped the most rain ever seen in northern Israel in a single day.

"The heavy rain that fell in northern Israel wiped out the deficit that had existed," said meteorologist Lior Sudri of the company Meteo-Tech.

"Before the storm started, the total rainfall had been about half the average for this time of year. Now the amount of rain is close to the average, and has even surpassed it in some places," Sudari said.

Snowfall was reported on Mount Hermon, with accumulation of 7.9 inches on the lower slopes and 15.7 inches on the upper. The Mount Hermon ski facilities were shut due to the storm.

Elsewhere on Thursday, a commercial vessel that was supposed to dock at the Ashdod Port was driven off course by the storm and went aground on the beach south of the port. No injuries were reported.

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