Female combat soldiers receive accolades for stopping terrorists along the Egyptian border; Iran warns of war; and one film rakes in the Ophirs
The terror attack that killed an IDF soldier Friday on the increasingly volatile Sinai border has once again awoken the Israeli press to the danger in the south.
The papers focus their coverage of the attack on two separate areas: the attack itself and the fact that the soldiers who helped fight off the terrorists were women.
Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel Hayom and Maariv all have similar headlines, pointing out that it was a female soldier who killed one of the terrorists. Maariv’s headline reads, “The women warriors who stopped the terrorists.” The paper discusses how a female sharpshooter killed one of the terrorists from 100 meters away before he had a chance to detonate his suicide belt. The article describes the unit that, along with the artillery corps, helped fight the terrorists. A mixed combat unit made up of both male and female combat soldiers, it was established eight years ago and was deployed almost exclusively in the south of the country.
Haaretz’s headline is the only one to exclude the female soldiers from the headline, instead opting for a more descriptive account, “IDF investigation: The terrorists waited until the soldiers approached the refugees and then opened fire.” The headline is an apt summary of the article, which goes into great detail about how the terrorists waited to attack until the soldiers were providing water to a group of refugees.
Yedioth reports that the soldier who was killed in the attack, Netanel Yahalomi, was bringing water to the refugees when he was killed. Yahalomi, 20, was part of a program that allowed yeshiva students to serve in the IDF and also to complete their yeshiva studies. Israel Hayom quotes Yehalomi’s father who stated that his son joined the artillery unit to follow in his footsteps. “He decided to go to artillery corps because that’s where I served. He saw purpose in the army. In his free time he always studied Torah.”
While the Sinai terror attack grabbed the headlines, Iran still lurks in the inner pages of the papers with the latest pronouncement by the head of the Revolutionary Guard making headlines.
Yedioth has the most menacing layout, with a two-page spread with complements its articles with pictures of Iranian missiles over a background of marching, armed Revolutionary Guards. “Iran warns: There will be war, the question is when,” reads the article headline. The article quotes heavily from General Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who made statements to this effect to his commanders.
Israel Hayom also covers Jafari’s statements but includes an article that may help to reassure readers, “The Senate declares: US will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.” The article states that a resolution, that passed by a vote of 90 to 1, also urged the government to continue to apply diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran.
If you still feel nervous about Iran, Maariv’s Page 2 article tells about the West’s surveillance equipment at the Fordo enrichment site, which may have been discovered. The article, which is a translation of a Sunday Times article, states that the Iranians noticed a strange rock and when they tried to move it, it exploded. But that’s not the only trick that the West was using to try to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program. The article also states that the Iranians said that the German company Siemens placed explosives in materials that the Iranians used for the nuclear program (the Iranians discovered the explosives before they could be used).
Tensions are obviously high between Israel and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, but Israel is trying to lower tensions with Jordan over its nuclear program. Haaretz reports that Israeli officials are disputing King Abdullah’s claim that Israel interfered and prevented Jordan from developing a nuclear program for civilian use and instead Israel actually helped the Jordanians to develop such a program. According to the article, the Jordanians asked and received help from Israel. David Danieli of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission stated, “We have no issue with a civilian nuclear energy program in Jordan and the question is why the Jordanians are saying otherwise.”
Energy concerns may be driving Jordan’s nuclear program, but they are also driving Israel to weigh developing a gas field with the Palestinian Authority off the shore of Gaza. Maariv reports that an official report is expected to be published Sunday that states that Israel and Palestinians will work together to develop the gas field Marine, in what the paper calls “a rare moment of cooperation between the two sides.”
Take your time
Saturday night saw a demonstration in the streets of Tel Aviv — not against the price of cottage cheese or the expensive housing market, but rather against daylight saving time. Israel Hayom reports on the controversy surrounding the move, which gave Israelis an extra hour of sleep, albeit almost a month before their European counterparts. The move from daylight saving time is before the holiday of Yom Kippur and designed to make the fast easier. The Knesset had discussed setting the time change to synchronize with European and American time changes but no decision was reached in time for this year. But how massive were these protests that captured Israel Hayom’s attention? The paper states that there were 15 protesters (though the paper puts the number of those protesting in Jerusalem at 20). Not quite the numbers of last year’s social protests.
But what to do with that extra time? Well if the Israeli cinema awards are any indication, you should go see the film “Filling the void.” Yedioth reports that the film ran the table at this year’s Ophir awards, the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars. The film, which among its seven prizes won best picture, best director, and best screenplay, will be the Israeli entry for foreign film at the upcoming Oscars. Yedioth describes the award-winning film as “a love story set in the Haredi world.”
Haaretz’s op-ed is on a topic that will be sure to be recounted more and more as Yom Kippur approaches, the Yom Kippur War. In “The question returns to haunt us,” the paper recounts the feelings that Israel encounters when dealing with the outbreak of the war. “The surprise that the war broke out, the sense of failure and the heavy price – more than 2,600 dead, thousands wounded in body and soul, hundreds of prisoners of war – have left a deep mark on Israeli society.” With that as the basis, the piece briefly recounts the story of the war and its aftermath, including the Agranat Commission, which was created to investigate the war. The paper blames the commission for “totally ignoring the war’s political background,” and concludes that those questions have “returned to haunt us.”
