Six Palestinian Security Detainees Managed to Escape from a High Security Prison Early Monday Morning. A massive manhunt is searching for the inmates who may have already fled the country to Jordan, or are hiding somewhere in the West Bank. The escape exposed a series of failures in guarding those dangerous inmates. Five of them are members of the Islamic Jihad movement, and one belongs to a more moderate Palestinian faction, Fatah, and is a well known person.
The six managed to escape through a tunnel under the prison, and it took between 1.5-3 hours before their escape was detected and notified of by the prison.
The manhunt was followed by riots in other prison facilities which have Palestinian inmates. There were also several riots in East Jerusalem and other places in the West Bank which are related to the escape and the search for those prisoners.
It is important to say in this context that some of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are under administrative detention, and have not faced trial, some of the detainees are accused of committing terrorism against Israeli citizens.
Among Palestinian society at large the security prisoners are seen as the vanguard of the struggle against the Israeli occupation and they are seen as political prisoners.
There is deep concern among Israeli officials that if the escapees are found, this may be the trigger to initiate extensive civil unrest and riots all over the West Bank and even in Gaza against Israel.
For the First Time, Israeli Doctors Separate one-year Old Twins Conjoined at the Head: a medical team of fifty people performed a twelve-hour surgery to successfully separate the twins, who were conjoined at the head for the first year of their lives. Dr. Lazar, who led the medical team, shared with the press the touching moments following the successful operation, when the baby twins were able to look at each other for the first time: “When the nurses brought the babies together, newly separated, they looked at each other, made noises, and gently touched each other — it was beautiful,” Lazar said. “You could see the communication between them, and it was just so special.”
The successful operation was widely covered by Israeli and international media, since this “life or death” operation is quite rare around the world, and only 20 of them were done in the world so far. The doctors say that both babies are now likely to lead normal lives.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year was at the center of this weeks’ agenda. The Central Bureau of Statistics publish every New Years Eve demographic data about Israeli society. Israel has 9.3 million people, 74% of them are Jews, 21% Arabs and 5% others. 146,000 new citizens were added last year, some of them new immigrants and the others are new born babies. Life expectancy for men in Israel is 80.7 years, and for women 84.4, which is considered to be high in comparison to many other countries.
A strict lockdown was placed on all the Palestinian Territories, and any entry to Israel from the West Bank or Gaza was banned for the duration of the Jewish holidays.
President Isaac Herzog Steps Up as a Prominent Player in Regional Diplomacy, Maintains Contacts with Arab Leaders: Herzog gave interviews to all prime-time TV news shows on the eve of the Jewish new year and spoke of his recent secret visit with Abdullah, King of Jordan. “Jordan is a very important country. I have immense respect for King Abdullah, a great leader, and a highly significant regional actor,” Herzog said in a formal press release. “In our meeting, among the things we discussed were the core issues in the dialogue between our states.” “There is a sense in the region of a desire to make progress, a desire to speak,” he added. Herzog also spoke with PA president Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President A-Sisi, who called to wish him Shana Tova, a happy Jewish new year.
In his interviews to leading TV shows, Herzog was also asked about the possibility of him granting a pardon to former PM Netanyahu, who is standing trial for three counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Herzog refrained from providing a direct and straightforward response, saying that at this point, with Netanyahu’s trial still in progress, the question is purely theoretical. According to Israeli law, the President has the sole authority to grant pardons. to those who were convicted and served time.
COVID-19: Senior Health Officials Cautiously Optimistic as both the Infection Rate and Number of Severe Cases Drop: for the first time in three weeks, the number of new cases caused by a single infection dropped to 0.9, and severe morbidity is declining, although the death toll from COVID-19 continues to rise. Over half of the new cases are among school aged children, as 140,000 of them are currently in quarantine. Senior health officials are also concerned that the number of new cases will rise as people return from the annual traditional pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, to visit the tombstone of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav. So far, 150 new cases were recorded among those returning from the pilgrimage, but health officials suspect falsification of negative COVIS-19 test results by some of them.
For Further Reading:
Prisoners: Here, here, here, here
Rosh Hashanah and statistics: Here, here, here