The Agriculture Ministry is worried that chicken coops where bird flu has been identified could infect residents of nearby communities, the ministry reported Saturday.

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An outbreak of the bird flu was also found at a farm in the southern Golan Heights containing roughly 17,000 turkeys, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The ministry's veterinary services placed the farm under quarantine.

"We are in a war against a virus that may not be visible but is deadly to birds and can be contagious to humans as well," said Agriculture Minister Oded Forer.

"Although cases of infection in humans are rare, they are extremely fatal, with about 50% mortality in humans who have been infected with the disease," Forer said.

In addition to the risk of the bird flu being transmitted to humans, the country could also face a major egg shortage as infected laying hens are destroyed.

Forer has issued instructions to prevent the outbreak from spreading, and to lift quotas on the import of eggs.

On Thursday, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority reported that one in five wild cranes living or migrating through Israel are infected with bird flu.

So far, about 100 birds have died in the outbreak, according to The Jerusalem Post. Authorities expect to remove 25 to 30 tons of carcasses, The Times of Israel reported.

Some 100,000 cranes visit northern Israel's Hula Valley annually. Many stay in the country until early March, then they fly north to nest.

Inspectors are sweeping the Hula Valley for evidence of the virus and searching water bodies in neighboring valleys.

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Energy Minister Karine Elharrar's decision to pause offshore gas exploration for one year place could jeopardize Israel's energy security," industry insiders warned Wednesday.

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Elharrar announced the move earlier this week, saying that offshore gas exploration "can wait" while her ministry focuses on developing other renewable energy sources.

Speaking at the ninth Eilot Renewable Energy Conference held in the southern resort city of Eilat, Elharrar noted that as part of the current policy, she does not plan to pursue the standing recommendations to expand natural gas explorations in the Mediterranean Sea.

She stress the said explorations would be suspended for only one year, "2022 will be the year of renewable energy," she pledged, according to the Times of Israel.

"In the coming year, we will focus on the future, on green energy, on energy saving, and while we're doing that, we'll put to one side the issue of expanding the development of natural gas which, as we know, is a transition fuel," she said.

"In the coming year, the Energy Ministry will not adopt the conclusions of the natural gas policy review report and will not embark on the fourth stage of granting licenses for natural gas exploration."

The announcement set off a storm in the energy industry.

The Forum of Private Electricity Manufacturers in Israel warned that any suspension of offshore gas exploration "could jeopardize Israel's energy security," something that could prove disastrous in the long run.

Elharrar's decision was even more puzzling when considering that only last week, the Energy Ministry said that even under the most optimistic scenario, according to which in 20 years some 85% of Israel's energy sources will be based on solar and wind power, natural gas consumption would still be 66% higher than it is at the present day.

Forum member Chen Herzog, the chief economist at BDO Consulting, said that without sufficient preparations on Israel's part, "The energy crisis that befell Europe could also occur here.

"Not increasing conventional production capacity, the failure of renewable energy [sources] to supply power in extreme climate change, and rising demands could leave Israel without energy. What's absurd is that the policies designed to encourage renewable energy have ultimately led to an increase in coal use and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions."

Former Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz urged Elharrar to reconsider, saying that the United States is "continuing to explore for natural gas in hundreds of areas on land and offshore, as they are in Canada and in most countries of Western Europe," regardless of the development of other energy sources.

The Association of Oil and Gas Exploration Industries in Israel issued a statement slamming the move, saying that the energy crisis in Europe was "the perfect example of the need to continue exploring for further discoveries of natural gas."

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Israel has saved 180 billion shekels ($57 billion) since 2013 thanks to the switch to natural gas, according to a report presented at the Knesset this week by the Energy Ministry.

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Data shows that NIS 51 billion ($16 billion) was saved due to the reduction in the cost of energy production for electricity and industry, and NIS 130 billion ($41 billion) due to the decrease in air pollution following a reduction in coal and fuel oil use.

By 2025, coal-run power plants will fully transition to natural gas, the report said. Between 2019 and 2020, the total supply of natural gas to the economy spiked by 43%. Export of natural gas went from non-existent in 2016 to 4.25 billion cubic meters last year.

The Energy Ministry estimates that by 2045, natural gas consumption by the electricity sector will increase by 150%, and as such, it will continue to serve as a major energy source alongside solar energy and wind power.

Currently, four hospitals and eight Israel Defense Forces camps are connected to the natural gas networks, with many more expected to join in the coming years.

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The State of Israel spends hundreds of millions of shekels on aid for the hotel industry yet continues to fight the vacation rental phenomenon that benefits the middle class, this is the conclusion of a research study by the Kohelet Policy Forum, an Israeli nonprofit think tank.

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According to Kohelet's findings, the Tourism Ministry allocated 110 million shekels (around $35 million) to the sector in 2019. In 2020, the government approved an additional 300 million shekels (around $95 million) in aid for the hotel industry. In addition, the state allocates land for hotels and tourist initiatives without tenders.

A new government plan aims to fight the growing vacation rental field, banning the conversion of residential apartments into guest units.

Kohelet senior researcher Shlomit Kaplan wrote that: "The micro hospitality field is considered one of the most successful applications of cooperative consumerism and has led a real revolution in the world.

"The platform offers a mechanism that provides information on the quality of service and hospitality safety without imposing rigid and uniform standards on the host. The renting out of residential apartments for short periods increases the availability of accommodations without requiring the allocation of lands or the investment of government resources to that end, through the correlation between demand and the offered resource."

As of 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of guestrooms in Tel Aviv was nearly identical to that of the number of hotel rooms in the city. In Jerusalem, short-term rentals made up around 27% of tourist accommodations. According to the study, between 2019 and 2020, the average cost of a one-night stay at a micro guest apartment remained under 600 shekels (around $190).

"In Israel, there is no correlation between the legal situation and the nature of this industry, and the vague legal situation makes it difficult to comply with the rules, encourages a black-market economy, and prevents long-term economic planning," Kaplan wrote.

As for negative effects of the micro hospitality industry, such as the increase in housing prices, changes to the character of a neighborhood, and unfair competition in the hotel field, the Kokelet researchers wrote that "it is difficult to point to a necessary connection between the growth and development of the field and the alleged negative results."

The research pointed to a need for minimal, clear, and easy to implement regulation through a flat tax on income from the micro hospitality field, a permit for the mixed-use of land for both residential and vacation purposes, and exemptions for accommodation facilities that do not constitute a danger to the public.

"One might have expected the state to encourage the home-sharing industry instead of suppressing it," Kaplain said. "The micro hospitality industry offers a wide, economical, inexpensive, and flexible variety of accommodations, which, unlike the traditional hotel industry, operates without a need for financial assistance or subsidies from the state.

"The attempts to impose rigid regulation on the sector around the world have failed and created black markets that harmed public interest without meeting the goal they sought to achieve," she said.

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Renewable energy options in Israel are "near zero," and the country will have no alternative to building additional power stations, an economist for the energy sector in the Budget Department of the Finance Ministry Ido Mor said Tuesday.

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Speaking at the 18^th Israel Energy and Business Convention 2021 at the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel in Ramat Gan, Mor said that "Israel was under-performing in terms of renewable energies, but even if we meet the goals we will have no choice other than to plan and build more power stations."

Mor said that the government's goal of transitioning Israel to 20% renewable energy by 2025 would "require a herculean effort, and we need to prepare for the possibility we won't meet it."

"In any case, moving the economy to electricity in the long term is more important than the short term, and we will need to ensure a supply of electricity when we bring a metro, light trains, electric trains, and more on line. All this requires preparation and more power stations," Mor said.

Chen Herzog, chief economist at BDO Israel, sounded more decisive and told the conference that "it is not feasible to meet the government's goal of 20% renewable energies by 2025," and that "so we don't have excuses in 2030, there need to be goals that can be met, rather than utopian ones."

According to Herzog, regulators would have to admit that Israel would not meet its 2025 goal and take steps to reduce emissions rather that focus solely on renewable energies: "For example, accelerating the developing of electric transportation and construction efficient power stations, as well as developing a competitive market for renewable energies."

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The attorneys representing Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the Israeli public are optimistic after judges at the Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday said they "expect the investigative authorities to clarify them and do everything necessary to prevent future leaks," but they have no reason to be.

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Over the past several years, since the investigations against Netanyahu began, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, who has the authority to probe the leaks from the investigation and the trial, has proven that he is protecting the leakers.

In September 2020, for example, High Court of Justice judges discussed a petition by the attorney representing Shaul Elovitch, who is one of the accused in Case 4,000, that demanded a prove into the serious leaks of material in the case to the media. It was none other than President of the Supreme Court Justice Esther Hayut who took a hard line against Mendelblit's policy of ignoring leaks that would be illegal if they turned out to come from a public officials.

Hayut said the leaks hurt the legal process taking place in court: "The damage is being done to the system as a whole. Isn't it time to do something?" she asked.

Hayut didn't hold back when it came to Mendelblit himself, either. "There is a problem with the decision not to do anything. If you were to come and say, we had carried out a preliminary probe, something that points to some attempt, before saying that there was no point in investigating … we have trouble with this." Later, Hayut turned to a representative of the attorney general and said, "This will come back on you."

We won't keep you in suspense. Despite the harsh comments, Mendelblit was largely unmoved and avoided any investigation of the leaks. This wasn't the first time he has effectively "allowed" leaks in the Netanyahu cases. Back in October 2017, Mendelblit reached out to then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and asked him to probe leaks from the Netanyahu investigations, but the leaks continued to flow like water.

Two years ago, Netanyahu's defense attorneys reached out to Mendelblit and asked him to conduct polygraph tests for members of the prosecution they suspected might be behind the leaks. Again, Mendelblit wasn't too interested in doing so.

Given all this, the "shock" lead prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari expressed over the leaks on Tuesday, as well as her suggestion that Netanyahu's lawyers take the matter to the attorney general, are an insult to the intelligence of the judges, the lawyers, and the public. Ben-Ari knows that there is almost zero chance that the leaker is not part of the State Attorney's Office, but she isn't worried. She also knows Mendelblit's record of not probing leaks, and it's clear that the ceaseless media noise – which goes by biased, twisted leaks of partial information – is a smokescreen that allows him to avoid being held accountable to the public for filing lazy, haphazard indictments that are full of holes. Mendelblit knows you don't switch leakers mid-trial.

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Israel has transferred hundreds of millions of shekels to Ramallah that the Palestinian Authority uses to pay terrorist stipends in violation of Israeli law and in contrast to statements from Defense Minister Benny Gantz. This is according to Israeli nongovernmental organization Palestinian Media Watch's analysis of an official PA report submitted to Western states.

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Israel, which collects taxes on behalf of the PA as part of a mechanism outlined in the 1993 Oslo Accords and transfers the funds to Ramallah monthly, began deducting the sums the PA uses to pay terrorists in July 2018, after the Knesset passed a law to that effect, in an effort to discourage the Palestinian practice. Jerusalem has frozen 1.3 billion shekels ($417.26 million) in tax funds since the law went into effect.

In September, Israel transferred 500 million shekels (around $160 million) to Ramallah, in addition to the tax funds it collects for the PA every month. The move followed a meeting between Gantz and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in late August.

Soon after the meeting, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank, clarified the 500 million shekels had in fact been a loan. It said the funds were in fact an advance on future tax payments, and as a result, the 500 million shekels would not be coming out of taxpayer funds.

According to an English-language budget performance report for the month of September, compiled as part of Ramallah's commitment to transparency to donors and the international community, Israel transferred a total of 1.7 billion shekels (around $545 million) to the PA in September alone.

In the report's appendices, the PA made note of the 500 million shekels it received from Israel but said 100 million of those 500 million had been an advance on future payments, while the PA had been owed the 400 million in payments from "previous months."

According to Ramallah, then, Israel had not in fact provided an advance on future tax funds as claimed but rather transferred money it owed the PA. In other words, Ramallah made clear in the official report it had no intention of repaying 80% of the funds it received from Jerusalem.

The analysis is even more troubling when taking into account that, following Gantz's meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in August, the PA claimed the defense minister had agreed to return "some of our funds held by Israel."

If the PA's budget report is correct, the Israeli government has in effect transferred one-third of tax funds it was legally required to withhold despite Abbas' continued payments to terrorists.

In a statement, Gantz said: "As previously stated, the loan was provided from future repayment funds the Palestinian Authority was supposed to have received from the Israeli tax collection."

Itamar Marcus, the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, said, "The dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as to the nature of the 400 million shekels is unreasonable.

"Could it be that Israel transferred nearly half a billion shekels to the PA without a written agreement indicating it was a loan?" Marcus asked.

"Israel must demand the PA correct the budgetary report to reflect that this is a loan," he said.

The Palestinian Authority routinely spends hundreds of millions of dollars on payments to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israel. The PA's "pay-for-slay" policy is a widely condemned practice that takes a growing cut of Ramallah's budget – funded by donor countries in the West and the Arab world – every year.

"Pay-for-slay" has earned the PA scathing international criticism, but Abbas has vowed to keep up terrorists' payments, even it if bankrupts the PA.

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An Israeli business delegation attended the Expo 2020 Dubai exhibition in the United Arab Emirates this week.

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"The economic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates are just the beginning," Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa Al Hammadi said at an event honoring the Israeli business leaders.

The Emirati official stressed that Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi have begun "a long and fruitful relationship, which will create significant opportunities for innovation by both parties. Our government will continue to support Israeli companies entering the Emirati market."

At the forum, Chief Executive Officer of Bank Hapoalim Dov Kotler invited Emirati finance officials to Israel.

Last year marked the first time the prestigious event featured an Israeli pavilion.

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Iran's nuclear ambitions and aspirations of regional hegemony make fuel its desire to undermine the other regimes in the Persian Gulf, former Mossad intelligence agency Director Yossi Cohen said Sunday.

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Speaking at an Abu Dhabi conference marking the first anniversary of the historic Abraham Accords, Cohen further warned that "Iran poses a bigger threat to the United Arab Emirates than to Israel."

Cohen's remarks came against the backdrop of conflicting reports concerning the progress Iran has been making toward becoming a nuclear-threshold state, as well as on its willingness to resume negotiations on a nuclear deal with the US and European powers.

The Islamic republic insists that its nuclear efforts are strictly for civilian and peaceful purposes, but Israeli intelligence – shared with world powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency – shows that Tehran has and continues to maintain a nuclear military program. Israel deems the latter an existential threat and has stated that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state.

Iran's violations of the 2015 nuclear deal – officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – have rendered it hollow. In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal. President Joe Biden has stated that he seeks to formulate a new deal with Iran, stressing he plans to exhaust all diplomatic options vis-à-vis Iran before devising a "Plan B."

Also on Sunday, Cohen dismissed the rumors that he plan a political career, possibly at the Likud's candidate in the post-Benjamin Netanyahu era.

"I'm a businessman, I'm not eyeing politics," he told senior Israel Hayom commentator Yoav Limor, who is also attending the conference.

Sunday's event was also attended by a delegation of the Israeli Export Institute and Bank Hapoalim, which included dozens of leading Israeli businesspeople and entrepreneurs. The event kicked off the business end of Dubai Expo.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Amir Hayek also spoke at the conference and revealed that Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi were exploring signing a free trade agreement - a move that embodies significant diplomatic implications.

Ron Tomer, president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, told Israel Hayom that such a deal "will dramatically accelerate the economic ties between Israel and the UAE and will open the door to Israeli exporters to other countries in the Gulf and in Africa."

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Israeli cloud security startup WIZ, founded by Assaf Rappaport and partners in 2020, has completed a $250 million Series C funding round, pushing the company valuation to $6 billion, WIZ announced Monday.

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In a blog post on the WIZ company website, Rappaport writes that "WIZ has been adopted by more than 10% of the Fortune 500."

Rappaport also noted that WIZ became the fastest company to reach "unicorn" status (a valuation of $1 billion), a milestone it hit earlier in 2021.

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