Articles by July, 2021

About a month after he stopped being prime minister and about 12 years after he began his second term in office, the longest in the history of Israeli governments, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu vacated the official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem on Saturday night. The Netanyahu family left the residence shortly after midnight. Netanyahu agreed on the current evacuation of the center with his successor, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, but then the two agreed that he would vacate the center by Saturday. Prior to the evacuation, one transport truck left the residence hall on...

According to data from the Bank of Israel, in June the public borrowed NIS 11.588 billion. This is a jump of about 93% compared to June last year, when only last month (May) broke an all-time record when mortgages were taken out in the amount of NIS 9.47 billion. Since the beginning of the year, the public has taken out mortgages amounting to NIS 51.7 billion, and assuming that mortgages continue at a similar rate, the public will take out mortgages worth more than NIS 100 billion this year, with an all-time high of more than NIS 78 billion broken last year. . The average annual...

The corona cabinet approved to immediately shorten the duration of isolation to one week, subject to two negative corona tests. This is instead of two weeks of isolation without testing or ten days subject to negative testing. Those who improve the insulation are expected to be fined NIS 5,000. The cabinet is now discussing further restrictions, including a "softened" green label that would require people who are not vaccinated or recovering to present a negative corona test at the entrance to enclosed spaces where there are more than 100 people. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said after...

The Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman, rejected the harsh criticism leveled at him for his decision to introduce a criterion of exhausting earning capacity to subsidize day care centers as early as September - a move that will lead to the cessation of subsidies for 18,000 ultra-Orthodox families. "We did not invent the wheel," Lieberman told reporters at a special briefing with senior officials of his office ahead of the 2022-2021 budget. "I heard all the cries of the robbed Cossack. But we have done it twice already. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did it in 2003 and in...

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett today (Sunday) instructed to increase enforcement of corona restrictions. In a conference he convened, the prime minister ordered the filing of criminal indictments against patients who violate isolation, the definition of events - with an emphasis on marriages - as a priority for enforcement and the regulation of legal approvals for the use of technological means to monitor isolates

An investigation by a global media consortium based on leaked targeting data provides further evidence that military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. From a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International and shared with 16 news organizations, journalists were able to identify more than 1,000 individuals in 50 countries who were...

A slight and disappointing decline was recorded in unemployment in June, despite the end of the unemployment benefit extensions at the end of that month. The unemployment rate according to the CBS 'extended calculation fell from 9.8% in May to 9% in June, a decrease of only 25,000 unemployed. The unemployment rate according to the limited calculation used by the Treasury has dropped from 6.8% to 6.6% and in only 5,000 people. This is according to data from the Labor Force Survey of the Central Bureau of Statistics for June. The real test of the economy will be whether there will be a big...

Data from the Ministry of Health show that yesterday (Monday) 1,372 people were diagnosed with the corona virus, and the positive rate - 1.8% - was the highest in four months. Against the background of the aliyah, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett summoned senior members of the health system to a meeting to be held in the afternoon. Among the guests: executives at the health funds and hospitals. On behalf of the Ministry of Health, the director general will be Prof. Nachman Ash. It should be noted that not all hospital directors or health funds were invited to the meeting. There has been a...

The Ben & Jerrys affair, the ice cream maker that announced Monday that it will not sell its products in the territories, caused a great deal of controversy throughout Israeli politics. However, the company's original decision was even more decisive. According to an NBC report, the intervention of Unilever, the giant corporation owned by Ben & Jerrys, softened the statement. Yesterday, the company announced that it would stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories, and that it would not renew its franchise agreement, under which an Israeli company manufactured the ice cream at a...

The American company Rapid 7 announced Monday the acquisition of the Israeli cyber intelligence company IntSights. The amount of the transaction will be close to $ 400 million and includes a component of the purchase of shares, cash existing in the company's coffers and an amount for employee retention. Following the acquisition, Insights is expected to become the development center of Rapid 7, in Israel. Insights was established in 2015 by Guy Nitzan (CEO), Gal Ben David (CTO) and Alon Arbetz (Director of the Development Center), all three graduates of various technology units in the IDF....