Neta Heiman's mother, Ditza, lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz until October 7th, when it was invaded by Hamas Terrorists. She talks about her mother and what happened on video.

"My mother was abducted from her home on Saturday morning.

"At 4pm my sister called me, crying. Someone answered my Mom's phone: 'It's Hamas, it's Hamas.'

"When I imagine my mother there, she's taking care of everyone. I imagine them caring for all the children. That's my mother. She'll take care of everyone if she only can, if they only let her."

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A bipartisan group of 58 lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urging them to add Israel to the US Visa Waiver Program, saying that it would further bolster bilateral ties between the allies.

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The letter – spearheaded by Reps. Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.), Grace Meng (D-NY), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) – notes that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 418,000 Israelis visited the US and spent a total of $1.2 billion annually.

"Israel's participation in this program would grow the US economy, strengthen national security at each of our borders, and increase opportunities for people-to-people exchange, which bolsters our already unique bilateral relationship," the letter stated.

There has been momentum towards Israel joining the Visa Waiver Program in recent months. During his meeting with President Joe Biden in August, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett raised the issue with the president, with the White House saying that the administration would work together with Israel on the issue.

n late October, Mayorkas said that Israel is one of four countries "in the pipeline" for the program.

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Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked met with Mayorkas last week to discuss the program, among other issues, saying that she expects Israel to join by 2023.

The program, in which 40 countries are currently eligible, allows foreign citizens to travel to the US for tourism or business without a visa for up to 90 days.

JNS.org and i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday urged Israelis to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, as Health Ministry officials expressed concern over the growing number of COVID-19 patients in serious condition.

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Israel has recorded 859,875 coronavirus cases since the onset of the global pandemic in March 2020, including 6,459 deaths.

Some 966 Israelis tested positive for the virus on Saturday, and according to the Health Ministry, 97 patients were in serious condition – 30% more than a week earlier.

"The rate in which the number of serious patients is growing is significant, similar to the rate of increase in new cases," Health Ministry chief Professor Nachman Ash told 103 FM Radio, on Sunday.

"It is true that the overall percentage of patients is lower but we are close to 100 patients and it is starting to worry us," he said.

Asked whether the Health Ministry has set a "red line" for a number of patients that would require more drastic government measures Ash said, "When we reach several hundreds of patients, say around 400, it will be very worrisome and will definitely represent a red line requiring further steps. I very much hope we won't get there."

Speaking at the beginning of Sunday's cabinet meeting, Bennett touched on the issue protests that took place to over the weekend following remarks he made last week, castigating Israelis who have not been vaccinated for "endangering all of us."

"The President of the United States Joe Biden recently addressed the phenomenon of non-vaccination, and I quote: 'Millions of Americans are still unvaccinated and unprotected. And because of that, their communities are at risk, their friends are at risk, the people they care about are at risk.' My statements on Thursday to the public made waves, but the truth must be told: more than a million citizens who can be vaccinated - we have not been vaccinated yet. In doing so, they endanger the health and livelihoods of all Israeli citizens," Bennett stated.

"The scientific facts are clear: those who get vaccinated are less sick. Those who get vaccinated are less contagious. Not getting vaccinated endangers you and endangers your loved ones, especially the elderly."

Urging Israelis to get the jab, the prime minister said, "I call on everyone, especially young men and women, and students ahead of the school year - get vaccinated. I saw the demonstrations outside my home on Friday. It is legitimate of course, but the demonstrations will not beat the Delta [varient], vaccination will."

Health Ministry, some 5.7 million Israelis have received at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine.

Over the weekend, Channel 12 News aired a study suggesting that 80% of vaccinated individuals who recently contracted COVID-19 have not infected others in public places such as concerts, restaurants, gyms or event halls.

Another 10% spread the virus to one other person at these venues, and 3% infected two or three others.

Also over the weekend, senior healthcare officials called on the Health Ministry to immediately administer a third shot to all Israelis over the age of 60 and those who are immunocompromised, as well as to all healthcare providers.

The move, currently debated by the government, is seen as controversial, as no country has pursued it at this time, mostly over the fact that the FDA has not deemed it necessary.

Officials pushing the move say that that there is no need to wait for FDA approval, saying that in the few hundred cases worldwide where a third shot – or second booster short – has been administrated, no significant side effects have been observed.

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Sheldon Adelson, who rose from selling newspapers on Boston street corners at age 12 to one of the most successful luxury resort developers, philanthropists and political influencers of his generation, died Monday night at his home in Malibu, California. He was 87.

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Adelson founded and served as Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., the world's largest gaming corporation, from its inception in 1988.

Under Adelson's leadership, Las Vegas Sands pioneered the integrated resort model that now dominates the Strip, combining luxury hotel-casinos with convention centers. Adelson's concept was so popular and financially successful that he became one of the world's wealthiest people. 

Adelson shared that wealth as a generous philanthropist. Along with his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, he underwrote medical research, a private school, drug rehabilitation clinics, and numerous other causes.

Adelson's conservative values, love for the United States and Israel, and his desire to preserve the strongest diplomatic and cultural ties possible between the nations compelled him to embrace and support Jewish causes. He became one of America's most influential political megadonors, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and conservative PACs over the past two decades.

Adelson also was unfailingly loyal to the thousands of people he employed.

After the coronavirus pandemic forced Nevada casinos to shutter in March 2020, Adelson continued providing full pay and benefits to all 10,000 Las Vegas Sands Corp. employees and the 1,200 employees working in the resorts' 14 independently operated restaurants throughout the closure.

Sheldon Adelson was a unique combination: a philanthropist, a devout Zionist, and a true fighter for Israel, and a person who was wholeheartedly determined to safeguard the future of the Jewish people.

His connection to Israel can be traced all the way back to his childhood in Boston, to a poor Jewish family. His father, who arrived in the US from Lithuania as a child, always told him that his fervent wish was to visit the Jewish state.

His father never made it, but when his son arrived in Israel shortly after his death several decades later, the younger Adelson decided to symbolically wear his father's shoes as he disembarked the plane.

For Adelson, who passed away after a long illness on Tuesday, it was clear that the future of the Jewish people should never be taken for granted.

A lot has been said about how Adelson became one of the wealthiest persons in the world. Most Israelis probably don't know just how much Adelson and his wife Dr. Miriam Adelson contributed to their lives on so many levels.

His donations to various projects in Israel and the Jewish world are enormous in scope and reach.

Every young Jew knows about Taglit-Birthright, which has brought hundreds of thousands of Jews on a 10-day tour to Israel thanks to the hundreds of millions of dollars Adelson gave through his foundation.

He also played a major role in establishing new faculties and schools in Israeli academia, expanding their access to many Israelis, including a new medical school at the Ariel University of Samaria. He was also one of the main donors to Israel's leading first-responder organization Magen David Adom and the national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem.

Adelson played a significant role in the attempt to make Israel join the club of nations that have landed a spacecraft on the moon, funding a substantial part of the SPACEIL project to send Beresheet into space. While the craft ultimately crashed, it nevertheless brought the Israeli flag to the moon, thus providing the young boy from Boston a symbolic victory over the anti-Semites.

Adelson's activities to promote Israel's stance and advance the Zionist cause went beyond philanthropy. He was actively engaged in making Israel's case with world powers to make sure Israel was an economic powerhouse and a secure place for all Jews.

One of his key efforts over the years was in trying to convince the US and other nations to recognize Israel's capital. This ultimately bore fruit in December 2017 when President Donald J. Trump declared Jerusalem as Israel's capital and later moved the US Embassy there.

"My heart is in Israel, and Israel is always in my heart. I am a devout Zionist," Adelson said during an Israel Hayom event several years ago.

Adelson played a major role in creating a new platform for Israeli abroad to feel connected by supporting the Israeli-American Council. The organization has become a major success, expanding rapidly in North America, and effectively ending the stigma native Israelis have toward former Israelis who had left their country. The IAC has proved to be a force to be reckoned with in defending Israel in legislative chambers by supporting anti-boycott laws. It is doubtful that such action would have been made possible without Adelson's enormous backing. 

And of course, every Israeli has read or picked up one of the free copies of Israel Hayom, the paper Adelson founded in 2007 that has transformed Israel's media landscape by offering accessible quality journalism without charge. 

Even during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Adelson worked tirelessly to bring Jews to their ancestral homeland. It is thanks to him that dozens of Moroccan Jews arrived in Israel on special flight several months ago, overcoming the many difficulties imposed by the virus that had prevented them from leaving the African country. 

His efforts to make Israel's economy a global player were relentless, speaking at every opportunity and every business forum on the need to invest in the country. 

"My heart is in Israel, and Israel is always in my heart. I am a devout Zionist," Adelson said during an Israel Hayom event. 

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The president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, Dr. Mikhail Mirilashvili, and the director general of the organization, Dr. Haim Ben Yakov, met in Jerusalem with the Israeli President Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin this week, presenting the Israeli head of state with the first reprint of Revisionist Zionist founder Vladimir (Ze'ev) Zhabotinsky's famous works.

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"This is the first reprint of the collection since its publication in 1922 in Berlin. Zhabotinsky's book of feuilletons [short essays] book is a collection of sparkling writings about Jews and the Jewish people, about Russia and the Jewish life, and much more," the organization said in a statement. "President Rivlin was also informed about a large-scale study of the Jewish population of the post-Soviet countries, initiated by the EAJC."

According to the statement, Rivlin thanked the leaders of the EAJC for the publications and "noted the unique literary and lyrical talent of Jabotinsky, as well as his contribution to the upbringing and encouragement of Jewish brothers to rebirth, greatness and freedom."

Rivlin added: "The collection of feuilletons, republished almost a century after its last publication, is of particular importance. It makes the best works of Jabotinsky more accessible among Russian-speaking Jews. Jabotinsky's teachings fit perfectly with the most important activities of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, focused on helping Jews of the former Soviet Union and encouraging Jewish identification, Zionist awareness and repatriation to Israel."

The head of the EAJC thanked Rivlin and said he hoped the publication generates renewed interest among the general public. "Despite the pandemic, Congress does not stop its activities. The EAJC has been supporting various educational and cultural projects for many years, and we will continue doing so in the future,"  Mirilashvili said.

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Hashim Safi al-Din, Riza's father, is Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's cousin and the terror organization's head of the executive council. He has been designated as a terrorist by the US.

He is considered to be Nasrallah's future successor, according to Israel's Channel 12.

At her father's funeral in January, Zeinab Soleimani threatened the US saying, "The families of American soldiers in the Middle East will be waiting for their children to die every day."

She also promised that her father's death would bring a "dark day" to the United States and Israel.

"Crazy Trump, don't think it's all over when my dad became a martyr," she added, as the crowd called, "Death to America!"

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She also called the president a "puppet [in] the hands of the Zionists."

During a meeting in January, Nasrallah told her, "Allah gave me the grand honor to be a part of jihad, and granted your father to end his life as a shahid [martyr]. It's the most beautiful thing possible."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org. 

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The president, who revels in large crowds and had predicted that his first rally in months would be epic, blamed the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behavior by demonstrators outside, but did not specifically acknowledge that many seats in the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena were empty.

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Trump has brushed aside criticism for his decision to hold his first rally since March 2 in Tulsa, the site of the country's bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against Black Americans some 100 years ago.

The president, who has encouraged a militaristic response to the nationwide demonstrations while being accused of showing a lack of empathy for the plight of black Americans, used his speech to take aim at some of the protesters.

"The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments - our beautiful monuments - tear down our statues and punish, cancel, and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control. We're not conforming," Trump told cheering supporters.

Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, the Republican president is trailing in opinion polls to Biden, who has hammered Trump for his response to the protests and the pandemic.

Trump defended his response to COVID-19, saying more testing had led to identifying more cases, seemingly to his chagrin.

"When you do testing to that extent, you're going to ... find more cases," he said. "So, I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'" A White House official said he was "obviously kidding" with that remark.

Hours before the rally, Trump's campaign announced six members of its advance team had tested positive for COVID-19. Only a handful of attendees wore masks inside the arena.

Oklahoma has reported a surge in new coronavirus cases in recent days, and the state's department of health warned that attendees face an increased risk of catching the virus.

While Trump campaign officials said prior to the event that demand far outstripped the capacity of the venue, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence canceled speeches to an expected "overflow" crowd after a few dozen supporters showed up to a space prepared for thousands. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said protesters had "interfered with supporters" trying to enter the rally.

There were some shouting matches and scuffles outside the event between around 30 Black Lives Matter demonstrators and some Trump supporters waiting to enter. There was no sign that any Trump supporters were prevented from entering the arena or overflow area.

Trump warned that, unless he was re-elected, all Americans would endure the "chaos you're seeing in our Democratic-run cities."

"When you see those lunatics all over the streets, it's damn nice to have arms," he said, vowing to protect Americans' rights to bear arms. "Our people are not nearly as violent, but if they ever were it would be a terrible, terrible day for the other side."

The country's racial divide remains a political vulnerability for Trump. His "law and order" reaction to the protests triggered by Floyd's death has put him at odds with the views of most Americans.

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It's not quite as enjoyable as ordering a burger from your car, but Israelis who need to be tested for coronavirus can head to the nearest drive-through testing facility set up by Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA). You don't even have to get out of the car to get swabbed.

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The Israeli coronavirus drive-through concept is now coming to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa.

Congo's Honorary Consul in Israel, Dan Gertler, saw how Israel was handling coronavirus testing and contacted MDA to help with his country's fight against COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Building the drive-through facility is the easy part. What's trickier is the software that manages the entire process, from sampling to sending the swab off to the lab and responding to patients.

"During the long period in which we operated the many drive-through sampling facilities, the technology we used proved itself, along with the effective and safe practices" that prevented infection among MDA's teams, explained MDA Chief Information Officer Ido Rosenblat.

"From the moment they contacted us, we were ready to help and to share our knowledge."

MDA director general Eli Bin added that "the medical capabilities and technologies of Magen David Adom, along the methods we are developing, are among the most advanced in the world. We are now happy to share this knowledge with other medical entities around the world, for the sake of saving human lives."

The MDA project is the latest example of Israel's longstanding tradition of providing aid to the developing world. Israel established MASHAV in 1958, just a decade after the state was established. MASHAV has helped build hospitals, airports, universities and roads in almost every African country. Israel provided food aid to the Congo in 2008.

This article was first published by Israel21c and reprinted with permission from JNS.org. 

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However, in a newly recorded interview on May 21 with the Gazan Voice Podcast, co-founder of the BDS movement Omar Barghouti explained that should the movement's goals be achieved, Israel would cease to exist.

"If the refugees return to their homes [in Israel] as the BDS movement calls for, if we bring an end to Israel's apartheid regime and if we end the occupation on lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, what will be left of the Zionist regime? That's the question. Meaning, what will the two states be based on?" he said.

During the 20-minute interview in Arabic to the Gazan audience, Barghouti appears to have let slip the real objective of the movement he founded.

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"International law and the right of return? There won't be any Zionist state like the one we speak about [in present-day Israel]. There will be two states: One democratic for all its citizens here [Palestine] and one democratic for all its citizens there [Israel]. The Palestinian minority will become a Palestinian majority of what is today called Israel."

Organizations that promote BDS include the Jewish Voice for Peace, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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This new path to punishing Israel has been explored in recent days after a collective measure against Israel on this issue failed to pass in Brussels.

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This new plan essentially circumvents the normal procedures that require consensus among EU members on foreign policy. If it is implemented, the plan would see the hostile countries in the EU cancel various agreements with Israel, as well as projects and programs that are carried out in collaboration with the Jewish state.

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who has been leading the hostile EU policies toward Israel in recent years, admitted on Friday that Austria and Hungary torpedoed a censure of Israel over its sovereignty moves. Israel plans to move toward extending its sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria based on the Trump administration's peace plan. mThe move is likely to pick up pace in the coming months now that a government has been formed in Jerusalem.

The failed motion was to include a warning to Israel not annex territory in order to prevent a rupture between the EU and Israel.

Asselborn drafted a plan with his Irish counterpart that included four points and he said that "a large number of member states were supportive of the move" but it could not be passed because of the Austrian and Hungarian veto.

Asselborn wants the EU to adopt the same policy toward Israel as that it has adopted toward Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

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