Thu. December 31st, 2020

Israel Daily News Wrap

Get caught up quickly.

Israel puts a pause on vaccinations; an Israeli gets the first 3D eye; & hear from Jess Manville at the Geneva Initiative on how she became a part of resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict and what to do as a new immigrant in Israel.

1. Israel has been pumping out vaccinations for about two weeks and now it’s time to pump the breaks while medical professionals wait for the next shipment to come in. Whatever is left is going to the round of patients who received the first dose and need a second dose two weeks later in order to have the full immunity the vaccine can offer.
2. Known as the “Tinder swindler” social media is buzzing about a recent stunt by Israeli citizen Shimon Yehuda Hayut. He was extradited from Switzerland to Israel in 2019 and has been convicted for going on Tinder, pretending to be the son of a millionaire and somehow convincing women to lend him large sums of money. He spent 5 months out of a 15-month sentence behind bars for that. Then on Monday, Hayut shared a video on his social media of himself getting vaccinated. Investigations were pursued to understand how a young man managed to be vaccinated while the priority in Israel was given only to medical staff and elderly people. The Clalit medical center where Hayut received the vaccine said that he was pretending to be a paramedic who was with a group of medical staff that came in. In response to the incident, Clalit Health Fund says that, from now on, medical staff coming in for vaccination will be required to present a certificate of proof. Hayut’s fraud victims are furious about his early release.
3. A senior police officer has been charged with assault today for attacking two people at an ultra-Orthodox demonstration in Jerusalem. Footage emerged of him grabbing a 12 year-old boy, violently shoving him to the ground, slapping him, and then pushing another man who was documenting the incident. In the video, the boy is heard calling out, “I didn’t do anything”, after he was thrown to the ground by the officer. According to the indictment, Shimon Marciano, commander of the Jerusalem Lev Habira police station, was in charge of the police force that was providing security for the demonstration, in an attempt to prevent a riot. At one point, the protest turned violent, with insults thrown, trash cans set on fire, and stones being hurled at officers. The senior officer has been charged with two counts of assault. Marciano is not the first senior police officer to be indicted for assault in recent times. The incident comes amid a growing number of acts of police violence that have been documented recently at demonstrations nationwide.
4. The Galilee Medical Center is celebrating a futuristic surgery that took place under its watch. Professor or doctor Masad Barhoumm, director-general oversaw the replacement of the floor of a patient’s eye socket using augmented reality and a 3D Printer which was able to accurately replace the fractured part of a young man’s left eye. He had been injured and was seeing double. The patient was a 31-year-old man from the area in the north of Israel. Doctors say the new technology made the operation precise and faster than usual.

Special Report

Jess Manville is currently the Director of Foreign Relations for the Geneva Initiative, which is a non-governmental organization that focuses on achieving peace in the Middle East. She spoke with host of the Israel Daily News Podcast, Shanna Fuld about her most recent project, which brings women to the negotiating table of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Podcast closing song: Losing Myself by Erica Krall. She’s a talented Israeli DJ who uses household items to create the interesting sounds in her tracks. Here’s her song “Losing Myself.”

Have a great and productive day!