Government

More than 100 leading industrialists and hotel owners and managers gathered for a joint emergency conference of the Manufacturers' Association and the Israel Hotels Association on the subject of the dollar crisis, after the sharp drop in the dollar's exchange rate against the shekel. In the past year the strength of the Israeli Shekel severely damaged Israeli exports and the hotel industry in Israel. During the course of 2017, the dollar exchange rate fell by 8.5% against the shekel (!), And since the beginning of 2018 its rate has fallen by another 1.8%

The annual assistance tool of the Director of Foreign Trade was presented to the exporters' aid funds. "The Israeli economy is at its peak in recent years, the employment situation is the best in recent years, the Israeli debt is lower than in previous years

Intel will invest 5 billion $ in it's plant in Kiriat Gat. In a meeting held at the Ministry of Economy with the participation of Industry and Trade Minister Eli Cohen, Director General Shai Rinsky, Investment Authority Director Nahum Itzkovich and Chief Scientist Ami Appelbaum and representatives of Intel, CEO Yaniv Garti and plant manager Danny Ben Attar, The company intends to expand the production activity at its plant in Kiryat Gat, already during the current year, with an investment of $ 5 billion, which will be completed by 2020.

The investigation of the downing of the Israeli plane by a Syrian missile shows that the pilot was wrong and did not act as required. The pilot's actions were not in the order of priorities that had to be taken when he was shot down. The pilot had to operate defense systems that were apparently preventing the missile from being hit, but he chose to continue the attack and was injured. As a result of the injury, the pilot activated the exhaust seats. He was badly injured and the navigator was lightly injured.

The Shabbat struggle in Ashdod took a turn: After three weeks in which the municipality refrained from imposing fines on businesses operating on the Sabbath, Ashdod Mayor Yechiel Lasri officially announced that he had decided not to distribute further reports to business owners who would open their businesses on Saturday. However, fine reports will be distributed to business owners who will operate their businesses near the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of the city or to synagogues.

The Knesset approved the the State Budget for 2019. 62 Knesset members supported the budget and 54 objected. The total budget - NIS 479.6 billion. This represents an increase of 4.3% compared with the 2018 budget and an increase of 24.9% compared with the budget of 2015. The forecast growth for 2019 will be 3.1%