Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee has named former Israel Hayom Knesset correspondent Gideon Allon the recipient of the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award in Media.

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Allon is now retired after decades as a journalist, including 31 years as a Knesset reporter, 17 at Haaretz and 14 at Israel Hayom, where he was a member of staff from the paper's founding.

"Allon followed political struggles with uniquely in-depth writing, covered the Knesset plenum and parliamentary activity, and what was happening behind the scenes of the parliament," the prize committee wrote.

Gideon Allon began his path in journalism in 1960, writing for Maariv's youth newspaper. In the 1970s, he hosted the radio program "Shirim ve'shearim." Prior to being assigned the Knesset beat, he covered legal affairs, aliyah and absorption, the President's Residence, and Jerusalem municipal affairs.

Allon is the author of three books: one on the law to hold direct elections for prime minister published in 1995; one on the battles doctors in Israel's public healthcare system are waging to change their status, published in 2009, and a third summing up 40 years of his work as a journalist.

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IDF forces were scrambled to the Lebanon border fence overnight Sunday after a two people were spotted trying to breach the fence and cross into Israeli territory.

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Initially, the suspects were thought to be two illegal migrants from Sudan. IDF forces let off several flash bombs to illuminate the area where they had been seen. Helicopters were called in to help the search.

Residents of nearby communities, including moshavs Betzet and Shlomi and Kibbutz Hanita, were ordered to stay inside. Several roads were barricaded during the incident.

Following sweeps of the area, the IDF said that the breach was not an attempted terrorist attacks and informed residents of communities in the vicinity that they were free to go about their business.

The IDF has handed the search for the infiltrators over to the Israel Police.

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A month after the Meron disaster, the head of the Mevo'ot HaHermon Regional Council Beni Ben Muvchar issued an administrative cancellation order for a religious festival due to a lack of safety precautions. The celebration was scheduled to take place in a month at the gravesite of Rabbi Yonatan Ben Uziel. It gathers tens of thousands of visitors annually.

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"Every year, the Holy Sites Authority submits a request for the celebration 30 days before the event [as is required by law], but this year for the first time, they submitted no request," Ben Muvchar explained.

What is even more surprising, he added, was that the council invited the representatives for a meeting, but they did not arrive.

"The police, the fire and rescue services and Magen David Adom told me the site is not safe, and I decided to issue the cancellation order. Also, representatives of the Local Planning and Building Committee inspected the site and discovered that all structures had been built without permits."

In a letter he sent to the Holy Sites Authority, Ben Muvchar also added that the Planning and Building Committee's engineer deemed the site's bear-loading walls at risk of collapsing, that the access routes to the area were winding and narrow, that the site had no safety rails and "according to experts, there are no suitable escape routes for rescue vehicles."

The council extended the cancellation order to include several days before and after the original date of the festival after it found out that worshippers planned to arrive at the site earlier and stay until the festival on Saturday (June 5).

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The Israeli military prevented an attempted infiltration along the Israel-Lebanon border in the late hours of Friday night.

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According to available details, military lookouts identified several suspects cutting the border fence and digging beneath it. Troops deployed to the area opened fire at the suspects, who fled back to Lebanese territory.

The IDF said that a search of the area revealed items suspected as explosives. A military official later said that the evidence at the scene pointed to a plot to infiltrate into Israel and carry out an attack in the Metula area.

According to media reports, three suspects breached the fence and crossed into Israel. They were then joined by four others and started a fire in Israeli territory, presumably as a distraction.

Security forces engaged and opened fire. At least one suspect was shot in the leg before he and the others fled back to Lebanon.

BREAKING: A short while ago, IDF tanks fired warning shots toward a number of rioters who crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.

The suspects sabotaged the fence and set a fire in the area before returning to Lebanese territory.

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 14, 2021

The residents of the Metula area were ordered to stay indoors while the incident was taking place.

Earlier on Friday evening, three rockets fired from the Syrian Golan landed in the sea off the coast of northern Israel.

The IDF stressed that its radar system identified that the projectiles were headed toward an unpopulated area so no sirens were triggered not was there a need to engage air defenses.

An official with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group, was quick to tell Lebanese media that these were not Hezbollah rockets.

Al-Jazeera TV cited a Lebanese security services spokesman as saying that the rockets were fired from a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

"The source of the rockets fired at Israel is unclear, and the investigation continues. The rockets that were fired towards northern Israel came from the vicinity of the Rashidiya, in Tyre," the Qatari outlet reported.

Later on Friday, a little-known Syrian-based Palestinian group by the name of "Tahir Brigades" claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.

Lebanese media said President Michel Aoun ordered Beirut's Foreign Ministry to notify the UN of the incident, while Prime Minister Saad Hariri said the incident was a violation of the 2006 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday condemned the "anarchy" of Jewish-Arab violence in cities across the country after a day of tumultuous unrest, while President Reuven Rivlin warned of a civil war between the country's Arabs and Jews.

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Violent confrontations erupted in Lod, Acre, Jerusalem, Haifa, Bat Yam, Tiberias and many other locations, with multiple people injured, some of them seriously, leading Netanyahu to announce he was considering deploying the IDF inside towns to restore order.

More than 400 people were arrested.

Perhaps the most shocking scene of the night, and one that elicited expressions of disbelief and horror from Israeli leaders, was footage of hundreds of Jewish extremists in Bat Yam vandalizing Arab property and then assaulting an Arab driver in his car, dragging him out of the vehicle and beating him savagely.

Senior MDA medic Firas Reis said: "We were near the area when we saw the wounded man lying unconscious and suffering from a bleeding head injury. We immediately began life-saving medical treatment that included bandaging and breath support and evacuated him in stable condition for further treatment at the hospital."

In Jerusalem, an Arab was stabbed by Jews and seriously injured at the Mahane Yehuda market on Wednesday.

"Death to Arabs" was chanted in many locations of Jewish rallies.

Meanwhile, in Acre, a Jewish man was also assaulted by Arab rioters and hit with rocks and iron bars, and was hospitalized in critical condition.

In Tamra, a Jewish man was stabbed and assaulted by an Arab mob, with an Arab paramedic saying the attackers almost burned the man inside his car before he helped evacuate him to safety.

In an incident in Haifa, an Arab driver found himself in the midst of a mob chanting "Death to Arabs." As he was pelted with stones, the driver turned the vehicle around to escape but hit one of the rioters, 26, causing him moderate injuries. The driver, 20, sped away but was later detained by police.

The broadcast on Channel 12 News on Wednesday night cut to a phoned-in appeal by Rivlin to "please stop this madness."

"We are endangered by rockets that are being launched at our citizens and streets, and we are busying ourselves with a senseless civil war among ourselves," said the president.

The president also launched a scathing attack on Arab leaders within the country for their inaction.

"The silence of the Arab leadership about these disturbances is shameful, giving support to terrorism and rioting and encouraging the rupture of the society in which we live and in which we will continue to live once all this has passed," he said in a statement.

Netanyahu visited Lod and Acre and said that "nothing justifies" Jews attacking Arabs or Arabs attacking Jews. 

"It doesn't matter to me that your blood is boiling. You can't take the law into your own hands," he said.

Netanyahu also decried the "anarchy" of Arabs rioters "setting synagogues alight, setting cars alight, assaulting police, attacking peaceful innocent civilians. We can't accept it."

Despite large police mobilization under a state of emergency and a nighttime curfew, Lod was again the scene of street battles between Jewish and Arab mobs Wednesday night. Shortly after Netanyahu spoke, the police reported two people injured in a shooting there. A synagogue and cars were torched in the city.

According to Channel 12 News, the Border Police will deploy 10 companies – some 1,000 officers – to keep the peace in the cities affected.

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett called the scenes in Bat Yam "un-Jewish, immoral, inhuman." His number two, Ayelet Shaked, decried the "moral bankruptcy" of such an attack.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz called the Jewish-Arab violence "no less dangerous than the Hamas rockets."

Gantz, who signed off on the order to deploy Border Police troops to cities, stressed that IDF soldiers will not be involved in civilian policing operations.

"We must not win the Gaza battle and lose at home," he said.

Joint Arab List chairman Ayman Odeh and Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas both condemned the violence on Arabic-language radio, while asking Arabs not to leave their homes so as not to be attacked by Jewish mobs.

The two Arab Israeli political leaders also stressed the need for Arab youth not to respond with violence against people or property.

"The madness must be stopped," Odeh said.

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Israel might be one step closer to establishing a state commission of inquiry into the Lag B'Omer disaster that left 45 people dead and 150 injured. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit confirmed Monday that there is no legal impediment to establishing such a commission, not even in the case of a provisional government.

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"Although the decision to form such a commission by a provisional government has certain complications, under these difficult circumstances, these complications do not create a legal impediment," he submitted in response to Justice Minister Benny Gantz's request for the attorney general to express his position on the feasibility of such a probe.

According to Mendelblit, the complexity of the incident, the chain of decision-makers, and the mismanagement of the sacred site over multiple years extend beyond the scope of the work of the Israel Police. Therefore, he said, establishing a single body responsible for the thorough investigation of all parties involved in the matter is justified.

Meanwhile, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman visited Mount Meron Tuesday as part of preparations for his review of the events that lead to the disaster.

He said the audit would include the circumstances that led to tragedy, the preparation of the various bodies involved ahead of time, and the actions taken by them since his office's last review of Lag B'Omer festival policies in 2011.

On Monday, Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai convened a police senior command meeting at the Northern District Headquarters in Nazareth and said he would not let the police "become anybody's scapegoat for the continued misconduct of many different bodies."

Over the weekend, police officers across the country changed their profile pictures to that of Northern District Commander Maj. Gen. Shimon Lavie, in support of the commander who oversaw the security arrangements for the Lag B'Omer celebrations and took responsibility for the disaster on Friday.

Those who expressed their support "are police officers who used to be under his command," one officer said. "I too used to be his subordinate and I can testify that he is a wonderful person, humane, moral, and exceptional in his qualities."

Lavie's associates do not expect him to resign. "Is the police to blame? Who built the ramp? It is not even something the police does," one of them said. "The sacred site receives millions of shekels in donations. Where did all the money go?"

Meanwhile, the Knesset held a special session Monday devoted to the incident.

"It is our fundamental duty to examine every aspect of the Meron disaster," Prime Minister Netanyahu said. "After the period of mourning is over, we will examine in an orderly, thorough and responsible fashion every matter that is connected to gatherings on the mountain in the present and past."

Netanyahu said the investigation would include "arrival, security, entry, exit, the allocation of time and security forces and, above all, the engineering changes that are required at the site, and the issue of expropriation, management, and responsibility."

At the meeting, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said the terrible disaster was fated, but that "does not exempt us from scrutiny and self-examination."

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday announced that Sunday would be a "day of national mourning" over the disaster that stuck the traditional Lag B'Omer gathering at Mount Meron overnight.

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Dozens of people were crushed to death in a stampede that broke out in the early hours of Friday morning at the prayer compound, where tens of thousands of mostly ultra-Orthodox worshippers had gathered. At least 45 people were confirmed dead and 150 people were injured, with dozens in serious condition and several defined as critical.

Visiting the scene later Friday morning, the prime minister said, "The disaster at Mount Meron is one of the most difficult tragedy's to strike Israel. We will conduct a thorough investigation to make sure this type of tragedy never happens again.

"Sunday will be a national day of mourning. Let us all come together and pray for the victims and their families and for the wounded's speedy recovery," he said.

The incident happened at around 1 a.m. but the specific cause of the disaster at the main celebration honoring Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd-century sage and mystic who is buried there, was not immediately clear.

Initial reports said a stand had collapsed at one of the services where thousands of people were taking part. However, Magen David Adom said the tragedy was caused by overcrowding at a narrow pass at the prayer compound.

A police official said dozens of participants in the service had "slipped" on a metal floor, falling on those around them and causing a crushing domino effect.

At around midnight Thursday, organizers had estimated that some 100,000 people were at the site, with an additional 100,000 expected to arrive by Friday morning.

Police, deployed at the compound by the thousands, shut down the event and were evacuating all the participants. Roadblocks were set up to prevent people from arriving at the scene.

The Israeli military was called in to assist in the rescue efforts, sending medics, helicopters, and specialized search and rescue teams. Efforts were compounded by the fact the mobile telephone services in the area had collapsed.

The site was so densely populated, that search and rescue authorities said there were struggling to evacuate those trapped.

Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai arrived at the scene to supervise the forces personally. Police and rescue teams evacuated tens of thousands of people from the scene through the compound's parking lots.

Israel Railway began operating trains from northern station Carmiel to Tel Aviv to help clear crowds from the scene.

Magen David Adom rescue service Director-General Eli Bin said the wounded were rushed to the Ziv Hospital in Safed, the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Poriya Hospital in Tiberias, and Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

President Reuven Rivlin called it a "heartbreaking tragedy."

"This is a terrible, painful day. A heartbreaking tragedy. Our prayers and thoughts are with those injured and with the families of those killed and missing in the awful tragedy at Har Meron last night. I send my heartfelt thanks to those working without a break since last night to rescue and give medical treatment." he tweeted.

"This is the time to embrace the families. To help all those looking for their loved ones. To take those injured to our hearts. To weep together."

Shas leader Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said he was "heartbroken over the disaster at Meron. I pray for the wounded's speedy recovery and send my support to the rescue services at the scene."

Opposition Leader Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid tweeted, "I've been anxiously following the terrible disaster at Meron. Israel as a whole is praying for the victims' recovery. This is a sad, difficult night."

During his visit to the scene, Netanyahu noted, "There were heartbreaking scenes here. People who were crushed to death, including children."

He further urged the public not to spread rumors about the identity of the dead and praised first responders "whose fast work prevented a much larger disaster."

Upon arriving at the scene, Netanyahu was greeted with boos from bystanders still in the area, who called out, "Bibi's responsible, a criminal." Some of the protesters threw bottles in his direction, local media reported.

The event was the first huge religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The country has seen cases plummet since launching one of the world's most successful vaccination campaigns late last year.

Health authorities had nevertheless warned against holding such a large gathering.

By mid-morning, the police and emergency serviced had finished clearing the scene. The bodies of those crushed in the stampede were transported to the National Center of Forensic Medicine in central Israel for identification.

Northern Police District Commander Maj. Gen. Shimon Lavie told local media that "as district chief, I bear full responsibility, for better or for worse. We are currently gathering information and evidence to get to the truth about what happened. I'm willing to face any investigation."

Still, criticism grew in the immediate aftermath, with some saying the tragedy could have been prevented as the narrow, metal-floored walkway has for years been known a potential bottleneck on the compound.

Haredi journalist Arye Erlich tweeted in 2018, "The narrow exit path that leads from the Toldos Aharon Hassidic dynasty lighting ceremony creates a human bottleneck and terrible pushing, at levels of a real threat of being crushed."

Senior police officers told Israel Hayom the Mount Meron disaster was "a fiasco, start to finish."

"When it comes to an event in a specific area; when every police officer in the district knows every inch of the place, and there are specific orders on how to handle things, this cannot be the result," a senior police officer said.

A former top Northern District officer refused to absolve rabbis from partial responsibility for the events.

"The real bosses on the ground at Mount Meron are the Haredi leaders. They have the final say on who gets in or not. That's insane. The power of each Hassidic dynasty is reflected in how things take place on the ground and the police tend to seek compromises with them.

"This is a case of failed management," he continued. "They [the police] should never have allowed so many people into the compound. There are things that have to be verified: were the plans for this event approved [by police brass]? What was the expected capacity? You have to stop letting people in when it's met. Were emergency exits marked? Was the scene under control? All of this has to be reviewed," he said.

Around mid-morning Friday, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit ordered the Police Internal Investigations Department to review the incident for any criminal negligence on the part of police officers at the scene. The decision followed eyewitness accounts that accused police of blocking a key exit route at the bottom of the walkway that had become a death trap.

This is the first disaster of this scope to happen at the Mount Meron compound in 110 years.

In 1911, a roof railing collapsed and 100 people dropped 8 meters (26 feet) down, on the crowd standing beneath them. Eleven were killed and 40 were wounded. Available records show that at the time, 10,000 people had attended the festival.

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An Israeli woman who crossed illegally into neighboring Syria and was returned in a Russian-mediated deal last month was charged in an Israeli court on Sunday, prosecutors said.

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The woman, whose name has not been released, was charged with illegally leaving the country and visiting Syria in violation of Israeli law before the Nazareth District Court, the prosecution said.

Additional details remained under a gag order. Many details remain censored by the IDF.

The woman's attorneys protested the charges, saying, "Contrary to past cases, in which the state's security was harmed and an indictment wasn't issued against people who crossed the border. In this case, it's obvious to all that the young woman didn't harm and had no intention of harming state security."

They added: "It is confounding, therefore, that a woman with no criminal history, who is coping with a complicated personal background, is facing an indictment. After we study the investigation material, we will weigh our next legal steps."

The terms of the deal that secured her release last month still remain murky weeks later. The woman had reportedly jumped the fence along the demilitarized zone separating the Israeli Golan Heights and Syria. In exchange for her release, Israel said it had released two Syrian shepherds who had entered Israeli territory.

Israeli media reports said that Israel paid Russia $1.2 million to supply the Syrian government with coronavirus vaccines as part of the deal.

The released 25-year-old Israeli woman was returned to Israel via Moscow and was questioned by Israel's Shin Bet security agency.

She hails from the predominantly ultra-Orthodox community of Modiin Illit and previously attempted to cross Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip and Jordan. Her identity and motivation for crossing into Syria have not been released.

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Lockdown affects adults more than the elderly, and women more than men, an innovative study by Tel Aviv University and the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo revealed Monday. 

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The country is just now emerging from the third nationwide lockdown imposed over the pandemic. 

Israel reported 700,479 cases and 5,192 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. Some 625,167 have recovered from COVID. More than a third of the population, 3,540,942 Israelis, have received the first dose of the vaccination, and 2,157,100 have been fully immunized.  

Some 169 Israelis participated in the research that examined their quality of life during the second lockdown. One group consisted of participants over the age of 60, the other Israelis between the age of 20 and 40. 

A special application provided researchers with everyday data on participants' mood, stress levels, sleep quality duration, resting heart rate, interaction with other people, and exercise. 

The data revealed that the lockdown significantly affected the mood of adults in relation to the elderly. On a scale from -2 to 2, adults reported an 0.89 decrease in their mood before and an 0.72 decrease during the lockdown. In comparison, the elderly reported a much slighter 0.85 drop in their mood before and 0.8 during the lockdown.

The data showed that the stress level among men decreased during the lockdown, while among women, it increased. One of the explanations that the researchers proposed is based on the Economy Ministry's report that stated that more women than men have been fired since the outbreak of the pandemic or have been sent on unpaid leave. Another explanation offered by the researchers is that women are the ones who usually take care of the children who stay at home when the education system is closed. 

In addition, women have had fewer face-to-face interactions than men. Researchers explain that such casual interactions, with a neighbor on the stairwell or a bus driver, are known to improve mood and reduce depression and anxiety. 

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry reported 7,761 new cases on Tuesday of the 91,209 it administered the day before. There are currently 70,120 active cases in the country. Some 1,710 Israelis are being hospitalized, 404 are in critical condition, and 306 are on ventilators. 

Also on Monday, the Shin Bet security agency announced that Israelis who received both vaccinations and possess a so-called "green passport" that confirms so, will no longer be receiving SMS requiring them to self-quarantine if they came into contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.  

Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen explained that "the rate of the vaccination [campaign] and the number of those recovered significantly reduce the number of those required to self-quarantine."

In the meantime, as malls and restaurants across the country are threatening to open their restaurants starting Thursday in defiance of Health Ministry restrictions, the Israel Police announced that it would continue to enforce regulations as is required, including restrictions on trade, congregation, and the obligation to wear a mask and self-quarantine. 

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Continuing from last week, rain and low temperatures were expected in the coming days across the country. From the north to the south, Wednesday saw intermittent rain with thunderstorms, hail, and strong winds. Temperatures will continue to drop, and temperatures will be colder than usual for the season throughout the day.

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Additional snowfall was expected on Mount Hermon and the Golan Heights and there might be light snow on the peaks of the Galilee and further south in places above 900 meters, such as the hilly region of Samaria, Hebron, Kiryat Arba, and in the highest hills of Jerusalem. 

The Hermon ski resort said in a statement that the storm "system is at its peak this morning [Wednesday], the site is covered with a thick layer of snow that continues to fall intermittently. At the top level about 70 cm (27 inches), at the bottom about 40 (16 inches). The temperature at the peak is -4 degrees Celsius (24  degrees Fahrenheit), at the lowest point -1 (30 degrees Fahrenheit), with fog and strong winds. Snow is expected to stop at noon, but the extreme cold will continue."

The site is closed to visitors due to the coronavirus lockdown. The resort said it hopes to receive an opening permit from the Health Ministry at the end of the lockdown, along with all the guidelines required. 

"Snow without visitors is not snow," said CEO of the Mount Hermon ski resort Refael Nave. 

Also on Wednesday, the Water Authority reported that the Sea of Galilee had risen by six centimeters (2.4 inches) in the last 24 hours. The water level currently stands at -209.795 meters (688 feet below sea level), only 5.99 centimeters (2.3 inches) short of the Upper Red Line. 

Thursday is expected to be partly cloudy to clear with slighly higher temperatures. Friday' s forecast is pleasant, with another slight increase in temperature and a decrease in humidity. 

Saturday will be even warmer, with yet another temperature rise. No significant changes are expected on Sunday. 

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