”Left to die in our homes’: A Ha’aretz investigation details the Israeli army’s failure to defend Kibbutz Nir Oz, where 117 people were murdered or kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza on October 7.

The members of this community and their relatives are wondering: Why did it take seven hours for the security forces to arrive? The government and the army haven’t responded to Ha’aretz enquiries.

The start of that day is well-known: missiles at 6:29am and at 7:15am the Nir Oz WhatsApp group reported that “terrorists dressed as soldiers are near the kibbutz clinic.”

Terrorists came from all sides. Some entered through the main gate that was breached, others from the rear gate. Some broke through the kibbutz’s fence near the vineyards. When they left at 1.00pm they hadn’t encountered a single soldier.

During those seven hours, hundreds of messages were sent on the kibbutz WhatsApp group about terrorists inside houses, attempts to break into safe rooms, wounded, killed and kidnapped. Then there was the avalanche of question marks and panicked pleas.

“Save us, they’re inside our house,” David Cunio wrote at 9:30am. “Where’s the army?” This was a very popular question over the next few hours. At 10:35am, his wife, Sharon, wrote: “Save us, they’re inside our house. Send the army here already.” Sharon kept begging for help, including when the terrorists set the house on fire. At 11:13am she wrote: “The girls are suffocating.”

During all those hours, kibbutz and family members who were away from the community contacted every possible agency including the police, Maged David Adom (Israel’s National Ambulance & Emergency Service, the regional council, army officers and the media. To no avail.

Ultimately, so as not to succumb to the smoke, the Cunio family and others emerged from their burning homes and were kidnapped to Gaza. Sharon and her daughters have returned, but David is still there.

One soldier who was from Nir Oz and was reading the messages in the WhatsApp group. He was on reserve duty with the air force’s search and rescue unit, Shaldag. That morning, he was rushed by helicopter to the Gaza border area. Before that, he tried to inform his unit and the top command about the fighting on his kibbutz, but to no avail.

No helicopter reached Nir Oz, not even a military jeep. “I should have gotten on a helicopter and demanded that they land on our kibbutz,” he later told Nir Oz members.

“You just can’t understand what happened at Nir Oz, why nobody reached them,” Reuma Kedem says. “How could they not see the smoke rising there?” She and her husband live on nearby Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha.

“I can’t understand how the IDF decided to abandon an entire kibbutz,” she adds. “I tried to call Jonny’s mother but a terrorist answered the phone. He told me, ‘It’s over,’ which is when I realized that a disaster had befallen us, that we had been left to die in our homes.”

Meanwhile Rabbi Weissman reported the shocking testimony of Itzik Danino, Mayor of the Community of Ofakim about the events of October 7. Rabbi Weissman said that the video of the testimony was originally posted on January 16 2024.

This is the English translation of Mayor Itzik Danino’s testimony:

“Terrorists in Okafim. Squads of terrorists in Ofakim. Police…all the police of Ofakim are at the terrible nature party in Re’im. There is no army, no security forces. I make a call to the Foreign Minister, who is in the Security Cabinet, to Eli Cohen. Then he tells me, “I’m handling it in front of the National Security Council.”

“I understand from this answer that this is not the solution that I’m looking for. This is not the response that we’re looking for”.

“So then I make a call to the Security Minister, to Yoav Galant, also a little before 7 in the morning. Then I say to him…I’d already regained my composure, and I also understood what I was seeking from him. Then I say to him, “Minister, in these very moments there are squads of terrorists in the city of Ofakim, passing from house to house, and murdering my residents. If there won’t be a helicopter here within a half hour, they will slaughter the city.”

“Then you hear a wireless silence of twenty, thirty seconds, which seems like forever. You’re waiting for an answer, and then he says to you, “I’m handling it.”

“In those moments I feel that I succeeded to make a significant move to rescue my residents. This is a moment of lifting of the spirit during such a difficult and painful event.”

“I wait a half hour, and then I call him again, and I say to him, “Minister, I don’t hear helicopters. I don’t hear the rescue force.” So he says to me, “I’m handling it.”

The first IDF soldier who reached Ofakim was at 2.00pm in the afternoon.

The video may be viewed at: https://rumble.com/v4oewz0-mayor-of-ofakim-tells-shocked-audience-about-betrayal-on-oct-7.html

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Israeli AI scientists create humanoid robot that ‘thinks’ Its way through tasks.

Critics say that robot created to replace humans with no consideration given as to the ethics of the AI involved or how it can expand, the danger to humans or the unemployment/economic disruption that they will cause.

The humanoid robot, Mentee is able to listen to voice commands to complete a range of different tasks. The MenteeBot uses large language AI models (LLMs) to “think” through tasks from start to finish, making its own decisions along the way. The robot is 5’8 in height, weighs about 154 pounds.

Israeli businessman Amnon Shashua, who co-founded Mobileye has announced the launch of a new humanoid robot which has artificial intelligence ie. ability to “think” through requests. Amnon Shashua said: “We are on the cusp of a convergence of computer vision, natural language understanding, strong and detailed simulators, and methodologies on and for transferring from simulation to the real world,” the founder says in a release.

“At Mentee Robotics we see this convergence as the starting point for designing the future general-purpose bi-pedal robot that can move everywhere (as a human) with the brains to perform household tasks and learn through imitation tasks it was not previously trained for.”

The video below shows Mentee at work. In one, the robot is able to determine the location of a kitchen table in an office environment, place fruit in a box without damaging it, and move the box to a specific location. Mentee has a “voice” that the robot uses to communicate when tasks are nearly complete or to affirm that it’s heard the task. It’s able to navigate its environments without them being pre-programmed, as Mentee uses algorithms to map out the 3D physical space around it in real-time, determines its own relative location, and is able to avoid obstacles as a result.

The robot is also able to hold and pass plates and other household objects without breaking them, will change the way it walks when it’s carrying heavier objects, and can walk sideways or bend its “knees” and “elbows.” Mentee has some tread on its feet, which are otherwise flat, but it’s unclear how the robot might fare on uneven terrain.

Mentee is designed for warehouses, homes, and other indoor spaces. The startup’s website delineates between a “domestic assistant” version and a warehouse version. Mentee will be able to carry up to 55 pounds and run for up to five hours on a single charge. The house helper version will be able to handle tasks like doing laundry, placing cutlery and dishes for meals, and learn to complete other chores in real-time, Mentee Robotics says.

MenteeBot’s creators claim their bot can essentially tap into “unlimited” training data because it uses the simulation-to-reality (Sim2Real) machine learning method, which means the bot is trained in a simulated environment and those learnings are then applied to its real-world tasks.

Ynet News gives the warning ‘Until they become self aware;. Well, what does that mean? That means that the robots will have self will and volition. The humanoid robots will have the ability to think any thoughts humans can, but without our moral compass. Once our interests diverge, robots could pose a very serious danger.

Will the humanoid robots pass the Turing test, named for the British mathematician Alan Turing, who once suggested that a machine might be said to “think” if a human could not tell its responses from those of another human.

Israeli scientists mixing AI with robotics is dangerous. Warnings about the dangers of AI becoming sentient or self aware have been reported for quite a while. “The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people…. I thought it was way off…. Obviously, I no longer think that,” Geoffrey Hinton, one of Google’s top artificial intelligence scientists, also known as “the godfather of AI,” said after he quit his job in April 2023 so that he can warn about the dangers of this technology.

A 2023 survey of AI experts found that 36 percent fear that AI development may result in a “nuclear-level catastrophe.” Almost 28,000 people have signed on to an open letter written by the Future of Life Institute, including Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, the CEOs of several AI companies and many other prominent technologists, asking for a six-month pause or a moratorium on new advanced AI development.

This rapid acceleration of AI development promises will result in “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), and when that happens, AI will be able to improve itself with no human intervention. It will do this in the same way that, for example, Google’s AlphaZero AI learned how to play chess better than even the very best human or other AI chess players in just nine hours from when it was first turned on. It achieved this feat by playing itself millions of times over.

See the MenteeBot in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3T9S1Arbdk&t=1s

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Haaretz News holds unnecessary, time wasting and money wasting climate conference in March 2024.

Israel’s pursuit of climate crisis narrative will only lead to draconian measures being taken against innocent citizens.

Wide Awake Media say: “The climate scam is a trojan horse, through which unelected globalist bodies such as the United Nations, are attempting to seize totalitarian control over every minute detail of our lives, under the pretext of ‘saving the planet’.

Unfortunately in Israel they are introducing climate education programs from kindergarten to 12th grade in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and developing a national climate computation center & an adaptation plan for local authorities by 2024.

Greenpeace Founder Patrick Moore says Climate Crisis is based on a false version of what is taking place. Moore says that the climate control is more of a political movement than an environmental movement. They are primarily focused on creating narratives, stories, that are designed to instill fear & guilt into the public.”

He said they operate behind closed doors with other globalist political operatives at the U.N., World Economic Forum and so on, all of which are primarily political in nature. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is “not a science organization” he said. “It is a political organization”.

“The IPCC hires scientists to provide them with ‘information’ that supports the ‘climate emergency’ narrative. Their campaigns against fossil fuels, nuclear energy, CO2, plastic, etc., are misguided and designed to make people think the world will come to an end unless we cripple our civilization & destroy our economy. They are now a negative influence on the future of both the environment and human civilization.”

“Today, the left has adopted many policies that would be very destructive to civilization as they are not technically achievable”. “Many [so-called] ‘environmental’ leaders were now saying that ‘humans are the enemies of the Earth”. He said the new dominant philosophy is that the world would be better if fewer people existed.

Moore said the environmental apocalypse theory is mostly about “political power and control,” adding that he is dedicated to showing people that the situation is not as negative as they are told.

Moore said the young generation today is taught that humans are not worthy and are destroying the earth. This indoctrination has made them feel guilty and ashamed of themselves, which is the wrong way to go about life.

Moore said “carbon neutrality” is a political term, not a scientific one. “It is simply wrong to call CO2 ‘carbon.’ Carbon is an element that is what diamonds, graphite, & carbon black (soot) are composed of. CO2 is a molecule that contains carbon and oxygen and is an invisible gas that is the primary food for all life.

“‘Net-Zero’ is also a political term made-up by activists who are not scientists. According to Moore, Russia, China, and India are 40% of the human population, & they do not agree with this anti-fossil fuel agenda. “If we add Brazil, Indonesia & most African countries, it is a majority of the population who are not climate fanatics” Moore added.

“Another great irony is that many countries with the coldest climates such as Canada, Sweden, Germany, and the UK are the most concerned about warming. Eg. the average annual temperature in Canada is -5.35 degrees Celsius.”

“Solar and wind power are both very expensive and very unreliable. It is almost like a mental illness that so many people have been brainwashed to think entire countries can be supported with these technologies,” Moore said.

“I believe wind and solar energy are parasites on the larger economy. In other words, they make the country poorer than if other more reliable and less costly technologies were used.”

Moore said that wind and solar providers rely heavily on government subsidies, tax write-offs, and mandates, where citizens are forced to buy wind & solar power even if it is more expensive, on the pretext that it is “environmentally friendly. Millions of people pay more for wind and solar energy”.

“They require vast areas of land, are not available most of the time & require reliable energy such as hydroelectric, [coal and natural] gas to be available when wind and solar are unavailable.”

According to Moore, the construction of wind and solar farms uses vast amounts of fossil fuels for mining, transportation, and construction. And in many locations, they don’t produce nearly enough energy in their lifetimes as is required to build & maintain them”.

1,200 scientists and professionals declare: “There is No Climate Emergency”. The absurd notion that humans cause climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’ has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration’ signed by over 1,100 scientists & professionals.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Israeli AG, State Attorney’s Office Chided for Not Investigating Sale of NSO’s Pegasus Spyware to Ghana.

Spain’s High Court reopens an investigation into the use of Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group’s Pegasus software to spy on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and other Spanish politicians. The investigators will share information with France, where politicians and other figures were also targeted. The probe aims to find out who was behind the snooping. No one has yet been accused.

In 2022, the government said software from NSO Group was used to spy on ministers, triggering a political crisis in Spain that led to the resignation of its spy chief. The Spanish High Court started to investigate the matter but shelved the case last year after saying Israeli authorities did not cooperate.

But Judge Jose Luis Calama has decided to reopen its probe after France sent him details of its own investigation into the use of Pegasus software to spy on phones belonging to reporters, lawyers and public figures as well as members of the French government and politicians in 2021.

French President Emmanuel Macron changed his cell phone and phone number in light of the Pegasus spyware case. Calama says that comparing the Spanish findings with technical data France has sent could help move the case forward.

Meanwhile the Israeli Judiciary Ombudsman Judge Menachem Finkelstein reprimanded the State Attorney’s Office and the attorney general for not handling a request to start a criminal investigation against spyware firm NSO and officials within the foreign and defense ministries who approved the sale of spyware to Ghana.

Attorney Itay Mack’s complaint on the office’s delay was found justified by Finkelstein, who added that “for over a year, the request was passed along a number of departments” within the State Attorney’s Office, “and a final decision wasn’t made.”

He stressed that the delay is even graver because the matter involves allegations of criminal offenses by government officials.

In May 2022, a group of over 50 people called to their attention suspicions about the way foreign and defense ministry officials approved the deal.

The group included academics, human rights activists and former Knesset Speaker Avram Burg. They asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to order an investigation of the deal.

The group also brought to her attention a ruling in Ghana convicting three senior government officials for “causing financial loss to the state in connection with the NSO spyware deal, which involved a third party.

The authors of the request asserted that NSO and officials within the Foreign and Defense Ministries approved the deal through a company called IDL without taking minimal caution, like requiring proof of the legality of the deal and payments.

The officials who approved the deal in Israel, the request alleged, were supposed to know that they were involved in corruption and should therefore be investigated for engaging in corruption.

A month after the request, Mack received an answer from the Attorney General’s Office stating that it had been sent to the State Attorney’s Office for further attention.

Later, Mack asked State Prosecutor Amit Aisman to keep him informed on the request’s status but never received a reply. In response to the complaint, the State Attorney’s Office did admit that the request had bounced between departments inside the office without receiving a final decision.

“The ombudsman insisted many times that a public authority is obliged to respond to citizens’ requests within a reasonable amount of time,” Finkelstein wrote in his decision.

“This obligation is anchored in, among other things, the Administrative Procedure Amendment (Statement of Reasons) Act as well as regulations of the state attorney general.”

An investigation by Israeli television show Hamakor two years ago revealed how NSO’s people had installed and operated Pegasus spyware within a safehouse in Ghana, which was disguised as a satellite office of the Communications Ministry. That spyware was used to surveil opposition members in the country.

The Israeli Government has established a committee to probe Police spyware. The committee, proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, has been authorized by the government to investigate illegal police use of cyber-espionage systems in Israel.

The Pegasus Commission – named by the local media – refers to the sophisticated cybernetic instrument created by the Herzliya-based company NSO to penetrate and control mobile phones without their owners knowing they are being spied on and followed. Committee to see if the police exceeded their authority in using spyware and by accessing unauthorized materials.

The Pegasus spyware is compatible with iPhone and Android devices. It can be deployed remotely. Once deployed, it allows the police to access the target phone’s data and sensors, including: location data, texts, emails, social media messages, files, camera, and microphone. All that is required for the police to begin deployment of Pegasus is to enter the target’s phone number into the tool.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Government cloud seeding in Dubai in operation since late 1990’s; Critics quite rightly blame United Arab Emirates cloud seeding experiments for disastrous Dubai deluge.

Climate freaks’ make ludicrous and laughable accusations that excessive downpour due to fake climate change.

On Tuesday April 16 2024, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rains since records began in 1949 which some called ‘Biblical’ when more than 250 millimeters (10 inches) of rainfall in the country and recording more than 100 mm in places like Dubai The flooding that resulted from the UAE’s largest deluge on record was so intense that satellites were still able to see it from space days after the clouds cleared and the last drops of rain fell. The annual rainfall in the UAE averages between 140 to 200 mm. In 2017, The UAE government invested $15 million (£10.8million) in nine rain-enhancement projects.

The floods resulted in the deaths’ of at least four people .A statement by the Philippine’s Department of Migrant Workers said two women suffocated inside their vehicle during the flooding, while a man died when his vehicle fell into a sinkhole. An Emirati man in his 70s also died when his vehicle was swept away by floods in the northern Ras Al Khaimah emirate. It also caused major disruption at Dubai International Airport ,the world’s busiest airport for international travel, flights being diverted and more than 40 were cancelled. Drainage systems throughout the country struggled to cope resulting in flooded roads.

Less than two days after the rain relented, the Landsat 9 satellite passed over the UAE on Friday, April 19 2024, and captured images of large, lingering pools of floodwater. The satellite collects detailed imagery of Earth’s surface and is operated by NASA and the United States Geological Survey.

According to International news media Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist at the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology, confirmed that seven cloud seeding operations took place on Monday April 15 2024 and Tuesday April 16 2024. “For any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE you make the operation,” he told Bloomberg News. The method uses chemicals or electric charges to speed up the condensation process and create artificial rain. One hour of cloud seeding can create up to 100,000 cubic meters of water. The United Arab Emirates carries out hundreds of these operations every year in an effort to supplement its water resources in the arid landscape.

One News Media reader said: “Given that the UAE already heavily relies on cloud-seeding and that flight-tracking data analyzed by the Associated Press showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE’s cloud-seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday April 14 2024, I would say that it’s not just “conspiracy theorists” who think that cloud seeding is behind these storms, but most people!”.

Critics have questioned the efficacy of cloud seeding, while others have warned that creating artificial rain in one place could cause drought elsewhere. There’s also been questions around the concentration levels of chemicals, such as titanium dioxide, used in the operations and whether these are safe.

‘Without more intensive research on titanium dioxide nanoparticles’ ecotoxicity, I would be concerned about a large-scale application like cloud seeding that would affect large surfaces, especially if they are agricultural zones,’ Marie Simonin, a researcher at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), told WIRED in January 2024.

The UAE isn’t the only country that’s been developing cloud seeding, the Jerusalem Post reported that EMS Mekorot, one of the water companies in Israel was involved in cloud seeding in order to increase the amount of rain. As a part of this operation, the clouds are mapped and those with the potential to increase rains and fly light planes to them, where they disperse a silver iodide compound, in addition to 32 ground seeding locations which assist in the operation.

The Jerusalem Post went on to say: Silver iodide is a compound which combines the namesake material with several other elements which cause an increase in the ice concentration inside the clouds and encourage rain to drop from them. During the 1960s and 1970 cloud seeding took place in Israel which produced a large and statistically significant effect on rainfall and indicted a 13% increase of rains in Northern Israel.

“Cloud seeding is a unique technology which we developed as a part of the state of Israel’s actions to maximize water reservoirs in the country.” Amit Lang, CEO of EMS Mekorot said. “These days Israel is a world leader in the field and manages to retain 96% of rain water which come down in its area. Using cloud seeding technology we hope to increase the amount of water conserved.”

Iran has already accused Israel of stealing its water by using cloud-seeding that reduces rainfall over its territory.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

The only place in Israel to get regular snow, Mount Hermon had 400,000 visitors in winter 2022-23; under threat of Hezbollah rocket fire this year it saw the number plunge to zero.

As the only place in Israel to see regular snowfall, the Hermon’s Israeli recreation area drew 400,000 visitors in the winter of 2022-23. Some skied, but most came simply to experience snow, ride a gondola up to a lookout point at an altitude of 7,300 feet, sled and ride the Hermon’s mountain coaster. Over the summer, management invested in numerous upgrades in anticipation of even more visitors.

But this winter not a single paying visitor was able to come to the year-round attraction in the northern Golan Heights. The Hermon was shut down by military order on October 7. The mountain still hasn’t reopened to the public.

This is the first time since the ski mountain, which opened in the winter of 1968-69 after Israel captured the area from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War, that the Hermon has missed an entire season. As a consequence, the entire economy dependent on the mountain is suffering, affecting not just the 300 Hermon employees who have been furloughed but also the hotels, restaurants, sports shops, roadside vendors and other area businesses that depend on tourists.

“We’re 100% down from a regular year,” said Talia Welli, the owner of a sports store in the nearby Druze town of Mas’ade that sells sleds, winter coats, gloves and ski hats in addition to bicycles and other year-round equipment.

“In a regular winter there’s nonstop traffic here every morning and evening,” said a Welli employee who identified himself only as Hamed. “There would be lines at the restaurants. The Friday outdoor market that sells tourists everything from perfume to vegetables would be packed. This year there was nothing. Even the snow didn’t come.

Shahbaa Abu Kheir runs the View Hotel in Majdal Shams, a two-year-old boutique hotel that overlooks small agricultural fields, cherry orchards and the Syrian border. Last winter, the 13-room hotel was fully booked almost every night, with rooms going for over $350 per night, including breakfast.

Then came October 7. “I had full bookings and everyone canceled to run to reserve duty that very day,” Abu Kheir recalled. Since then, the hotel has seen very few guests.

As she was speaking, a Druze family of 10 from Daliyat al-Carmel, just south of Haifa, arrived for check-in. They were the only guests expected that night. “The Druze are the only ones who come now,” Abu Kheir lamented. “We have no way of moving forward. It’s horrible.”

The government provides some compensation for some affected businesses and residents. However, eligibility and the amount paid out depend on a number of factors, including location and type of business, and the compensation often is minimal, nonexistent or late to arrive.

At the Hermon, any government aid that the furloughed workers receive constitutes only a fraction of their regular salaries, according to Nave. “It’s a small amount. It’s not enough to live off of,” Nave said. “I just received my own payments for November and December and it barely covers my property taxes.”

Sania Abu Saleh has a Druze restaurant in Majdal Shams at one of the last bends on the windy road that leads to the Hermon, next door to a ski equipment rental shop that stayed closed throughout this winter. “Normally everybody stops by here to buy Druze pita. They eat hot corn. They sip tea and buy warm sachlav” — a thick milky drink made from corn starch, sugar and spices. “Now I have nothing. There are no people. There’s no work” she said.

Meanwhile in the South half the workers at Eilat Port are at risk of losing their jobs after the southern seaport took a major financial hit due to the crisis in Red Sea shipping lanes, Israel’s main labor federation said. Eilat sits on the northern tip of the Red Sea and was one of the first ports to be affected as shipping firms rerouted vessels to avoid attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi terror group in Yemen.

The Histadrut Labor Federation, the umbrella organization for hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, said port management had announced it intends to fire half of the 120 Eilat Port employees. Officials at the port did not immediately respond for comment.

Eilat, which primarily handles car imports and potash exports coming from the Dead Sea, pales in size compared to Israel’s Mediterranean ports in Haifa and Ashdod, which handle nearly all the country’s trade. But Eilat, which sits adjacent to Jordan’s only coastal access point at Aqaba, offers Israel a gateway to the east without the need to navigate the Suez Canal.

In December 2023, Eilat Port’s chief executive told Reuters that there had been an 85 percent drop in activity since Houthis began their attacks on ships in the Red Sea. He said at the time they may have to furlough workers should the crisis continue.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Critics argue that the chips are dangerous as the car computer systems may malfunction causing dangerous braking and may be controlled from outside the vehicle.

Mobileye said that the new chips containing emergency braking will be installed in 46 million vehicles over the next few years however warnings have been issued in news media that car computer hackers can slam on your brakes at freeway speeds and there are concerns that drivers are willfully surrendering their skills to a machine.

ABC News in America reported that drivers said that the audible alerts, beeps and blinking lights could be distracting and some drivers admitted to disabling car computer safety features. The question is will drivers be able to disable the Mobileye EyeQ6 assisted-driving computer chip and are we quickly surrendering our right to drive freely without hinderance?

It is concerning that car manufacturers are putting in systems that let computers override human judgment, for example what happens when the car software suddenly says to you: ‘I’m Sorry, I’m Afraid I Can’t Make a U-Turn’!

Ynet News recently reported that Self-driving cars have cleared another hurdle on the way to approval in Israel. A Knesset (Israeli Parliament) cross-party ministerial team in March 2024 has reviewed the legality of autonomous vehicle use in Israel, advising to keep current law as is. However, it’s nearly impossible for self-driving vehicles to anticipate what a person or animal will do and take preventative measures to avoid an accident; Self-driving cars may also strike objects, such as lane dividers, causing accidents.

Meanwhile after seven years Mobileye has opened its new Jerusalem office campus.

Mobileye said that the NIS 1 billion-plus ($274.6 million) 128,000-square-meter office complex located at the Har Hotzvim Technical Park in Northwest Jerusalem serves as its new global headquarters and main R&D facility. The campus has four buildings aboveground spread out over 50,000 square meters, including office space, conference rooms and shared meeting work spaces where employees can meet and share ideas. Seven floors were built underground spread across 78,000 square meters. No explanation was given why seven of the complex levels are underground.

The facility includes underground electric vehicle charging stations and parking for bicycles. The campus roof spread over 1,500 square meters includes an open gym, a basketball court, a running track and a cafe with a view of the Jerusalem mountains.

The co-founder of the self-driving auto technologies firm, Amnon Shashua, described the opening of the campus in Jerusalem as a “milestone on Mobileye’s path.” Mobileye is a company developing the controversial self driving or autonomous motor vehicles for public transport, goods delivery, and consumer use. The Intel owned company has been testing self-driving vehicles in Israel since 2018.

Commentators are though critical of self driving vehicles citing the risk of system failures, such as the autopilot activating when it shouldn’t or failing to activate when needed. These glitches can lead to accidents, like crashing into lane dividers or street signs. Self-driving cars may not always stop for pedestrians, posing a danger to those crossing the road.

While the autonomous vehicle can learn and become smarter, it won’t be able to understand all directions. For example, how will it know what to do if an Israel traffic cop is signaling traffic? These are considerations to give before putting trust into a machine. When the weather becomes poor, cameras and sensors face additional interference. This clouds the communication and diminishes reliability. Although AI is incredibly advanced, it will never have human sentiment and the ability to reason based on the physical world.

Self driving vehicles are already being tested on the streets of Israel. In March 2022 the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) passed legislation that allows Mobileye and other companies to pilot autonomous shared transportation, with passengers in the vehicle but without a safety driver on Israeli roads.

The Israeli legislation allows companies and vehicle operators to obtain special licenses from the Ministry of Transportation and to conduct trials with autonomous cars “including for the purpose of transporting paying passengers” and “where an independent driving system replaces the driver”.

In April 2022, the Israel Innovation Authority together with the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, the National Public Transport Authority, and Ayalon Highways, announced that they were launching a NIS 20 million ($6.21 million) national initiative to conduct autonomous public transportation pilots in Israel.

In February 2024 Forbes News reported that self-driving vehicles were involved in double the number of accidents per mile driven as traditional vehicles. In all reality self-driving tech is not reliable enough to handle the variety of situations human drivers encounter each day.

Jerusalem Post readers commented: “Israel’s infrastructure isn’t designed at all for autonomous vehicles. The streets are so narrow and congested as is, it’s a recipe for disaster”. “I don’t trust autonomous vehicles period. This is a disaster waiting to happen”.

Recent events in California have marked a significant uptick in public unrest concerning the proliferation of autonomous vehicles, culminating in a dramatic episode where a driverless taxi was set ablaze in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

In a startling act that caught the attention of both local authorities and national media, a Waymo-operated Jaguar I-Pace was the target of a mob’s fury during Lunar New Year celebrations. Eyewitness accounts and footage shared on social media by the San Francisco Fire Department show the vehicle being vandalized and torched, a sign of escalating tensions between the community and proponents of autonomous driving technology.

The incident has drawn scrutiny toward the safety and societal implications of self-driving cars, a debate that has been simmering in California, which is at the forefront of testing and deploying the technology. With over 9 million miles driven on public roads by test permit holders last year, the state has become a battleground for discussions on the future of driverless vehicles.

Adding fuel to the fire, Safe Street Rebel, an activist group known for its disruptive tactics against autonomous vehicles, has highlighted the potential dangers these cars pose to public safety. Its campaign, started in 2022, involves strategically placing traffic cones on self-driving cars, exploiting their reliance on sensors for navigation and effectively bringing them to a standstill.

The safety record of Waymo, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project has also come under scrutiny. Past incidents, including a fatal accident involving a dog and a recent collision with a cyclist obscured from the vehicle’s sensors, have prompted investigations and raised questions about the technology’s readiness to safely coexist with human road users.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Northern evacuees from Lebanon border harbor few hopes they’ll return home anytime soon. Meanwhile the situation is deteriorating as the Prime Minister’s Office has begun talks with Northern local authority head regarding the possibility that schools will not open on Sept 1 2024.

For four years, Sivan Shoshani Partush recruited families for Kibbutz Malkiya, a community of around 400 that she calls her “little slice of heaven.” It wasn’t a hard sell: spacious homes, beautiful nature, paths winding through manicured lawns, and a slower pace of life than in Israel’s frantic cities. The border with Lebanon is just 200 meters (650 feet) away. Partush would pass it on her daily runs, a feature of the landscape just like the view of the snow-topped Mount Hermon in the winter.

Among over 80,000 Israelis evacuated from northern Israel due to the cross-border fighting, Partush and her children are staying temporarily in another kibbutz. Partush is grimly resigned to the reality that it may be a year before she can return home, if she ever goes back. “We want to go home” she said. Many of the evacuees are living in cramped hotel rooms.

A decision from the Prime Minister’s Office not to send back children to school would mean that tens of thousands of displaced residents of northern communities would continue to stay in hotels into the fall.

After the Hamas attack, Michal Nidam, a high school counselor from Kiryat Shmona, the largest city on the Lebanon border and her children bounced between rented apartments for a few months and they now live in difficult conditions a hotel in Tiberias. Her two teenage daughters have one room, while her two youngest daughters stay with her in another crammed with clothes, snacks and their small dog.

Families are struggling with the transitory living arrangements. Bored teenagers are tempted by drugs, alcohol and other acts of rebellion, while their parents are overwhelmed with the challenges of evacuation, Nidam said.

Another challenge: “Families have been broken up,” Nidam said. Nidam’s mother is in Jerusalem, while her 85-year-old father refuses to leave the city and — wearing army fatigues — volunteers for an emergency preparedness squad. Nidam’s husband and some of her brothers also remained to serve as emergency personnel. Other displaced siblings are spread across the country.

The city of Kiryat Shmona says an estimated 3,000 residents stayed — either through choice or because they perform essential roles. Drivers now steer empty buses down deserted streets in the former northern economic hub. A hardware store is among a handful of shops still open.

Haim Menus, 70, a baker who was wounded in 1998 while serving as a tank driver during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, said he will not leave and that he trusts God to protect him. His hours at the bakery have been slashed because they have so few customers. Menus said his neighbors want to return. “Who doesn’t want to return to his family, his home, the children, schools, kindergartens?” he asked.

‘Evacuating was a mistake’: Israeli’s push to return to border homes. Michael Piha, evacuated resident of Kibbutz Sasa: “Perhaps the biggest mistake was the evacuation because now people realize they can’t go back.”

Kfar Aza – only 2km (1.2 miles) from Gaza was evacuated to hotels and apartments in other parts of Israel. Ayelet and Shachar Shnurman are the first to move back. “In the evening, it’s very lonely,” Ayelet says. “You used to see people walking along the road, coming in to say hello – obviously that’s not happening now.”

During the day, the kibbutz is full of visiting groups: new army recruits, potential donors, journalists, humanitarian organization’s. Kfar Aza has become a kind of museum – its burned and broken houses left frozen on the day of the attack, their entrances roped-off; debris and belongings scattered across the ground.

When the tour groups leave, the couple sit on their veranda, the silence broken only by the whine of Israeli army drones and the regular boom of outgoing artillery. The kibbutz dark, the houses empty.

The public’s curiosity about the slaughter in Be’eri attracts a good number of visitors who want to see the burned and gutted homes personally. Meanwhile, the kibbutz members are trying to salvage the remnants of their lives and aren’t comfortable with the crowds of visitors.

“In my estimate, on an average day, there are between 500 and 1,000 visitors,” says Gili Molcho, secretary of Be’eri. “We receive a very large number of requests. On the one hand, it’s unpleasant to refuse, and on the other hand, people say they’re starting to feel like they’re in a zoo.”

The kibbutz dining room, initially open to visitors, has been closed so residents who have begun eating there again can have privacy. “It’s definitely an issue that troubles us,” Molcho says, “and it’s hard to come to an agreement with those who say they’ve had enough of the visitors”.

Molcho says that even when visitors arrive at the kibbutz security gate and fail to get permission to enter, they drive along the length of the fence and seek an opening or an angle from which they can view the devastation. “It becomes a mission to get rid of the people,” he says. Some of them start arguing. “It’s not easy. We in the [kibbutz] management discuss it almost every week. It’s definitely a disturbance that we have to think about.”

Kfar Azza, too, is fighting off masses of visitors. Hundreds continue to arrive, mostly delegations of soldiers and policemen or officials from other countries and from government ministries. Amid differences of opinion among residents, the management of Kfar Azza recently issued guidelines determining who is allowed to enter. They set a limit for the number of visits per week or day.

A philanthropic foundation named Lion of Judah Israel distributed a flyer that a paid tour of Kfar Azza at the cost of 260 shekels ($70), “including transportation and a personal donation to the [Jewish Agency’s] Fund for Victims of Terror.” Kibbutz members were outraged by this show of commercialization.

Nirit Shalev-Khalifa, heads the Eretz Hefetz project at the Ben-Zvi Institute said: “some visitors go around the kibbutz, picking clementine’s from the gardens – and the most disturbing is the feeling of curiosity that turns into prying.” She says here are ‘tourists’ who are truly disgraceful.” “When people show me their selfies from Kfar Azza, it makes me cringe a little,” says Tomer Ades, a kibbutz resident. “For us, it’s a place of grief and pain, not a tourist site”.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme

Israel borrowed NIS 160 billion in 2023, half of it after the start of the Hamas war in October, amid rising military and civilian spending; public debt jumps to NIS 1.13 trillion.

Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group led to a doubling of the country’s borrowing last year, the Finance Ministry said on April 15 2024.Israel raised NIS 160 billion ($43 billion) in debt in 2023 – half of it, NIS 81 billion, since the outbreak of the war on October 7, the ministry said in a report. It raised NIS 63 billion in all of 2022.

Israel’s Finance Ministry’s Chief Accountant General Yali Rothenberg said that 2023 was a challenging year that required a sharp increase in financing needs and “required tactical and strategic adjustments” in the government’s debt raising plan.

Total debt amounted to 62.1% of the gross domestic product in 2023, up from 60.5% in 2022 due to the spike in war spending, and is expected to reach 67% in 2024. Israel last month raised a record $8 billion in its first international bond sale since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack with very high demand even after Moody’s gave Israel its first-ever sovereign credit rating downgrade in February 2024.

The government in 2023 raised some NIS 116 billion, or 72% of the total, domestically, with 25% borrowed overseas and the rest in local non-tradable debt. As a result, public debt grew 8.7% last year to NIS 1.13 trillion, partly boosted by higher inflation and interest rates, the ministry said. Interest expenses-to-GDP ratio was unchanged last year at 2.4%.In its credit ratings downgrade to A2, Moody’s cited material political and fiscal risks for the country from its war with Hamas.

Lawmakers a month ago gave their final approval to an amended 2024 state budget that added tens of billions of shekels to fund the war with Hamas, with extra spending on defense and compensation to households and businesses hurt by the ongoing war. Expenditure for the years 2023-2024 increased by NIS 100 billion due to the costs of the war, the Bank of Israel said in a report.

Israel plans to take out a loan of $60 billion, freeze hiring in government offices and raise taxes in order to pay for the ongoing war in Gaza said Yali Rothenberg.

Yali Rothenberg also said that in 2023, the government increased spending by about NIS 26 billion due to the war, with an additional NIS 4.7 billion allocated to security, as the Finance Ministry issued special approvals to allow the government to operate outside the budget framework immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7. In an attempt to balance the numbers, the Finance Ministry is planning to raise VAT to 18% in 2025, while in 2024, taxes on tobacco and banking will increase, and public sector wage increases will be frozen.

The Bank of Israel has lowered its growth forecast for the 2024 economy to 2% from a previous forecast of 3%, and in January cut its borrowing costs for the first time since April 2020 to help support households and businesses as the war continues.

Israel’s economy shrank by nearly one-fifth in the last three months of 2023, as war with the Hamas terror group in Gaza took a heavy toll on consumer spending, trade and investment, data released February 2023 showed. The country’s gross domestic product recorded a 19.4 percent drop-off of its annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the preliminary figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The decline marks the deepest three-month tumble since the second quarter of 2020, when the economy plunged almost 30% as the entirely unnecessary and dangerous Government covid lockdowns hurt consumer spending and left many businesses closed.

Preliminary data from the statistics bureau showed that private consumption decreased by 0.7% in 2023 after a 7.4% increase in 2022. The import of goods and services fell in 2023 by 6.9%, after growing 12% in 2022. Exports of goods and services slid 1.1% in 2023 versus an increase of 8.6 in the year earlier.

The OECD lowered the GDP forecast for Israel to 2.3% in 2023 from 2.9% projected before the outbreak of the war and the Bank of Israel shaved its growth outlook in November 2023.Earlier this month, US ratings agency Moody’s cut Israel’s credit rating by one notch from A1 to A2, and changed its outlook to “negative,” citing the impact of the ongoing war on the government’s debt burden, as well as fiscal and political risks.

Finally Israel’s canceled ski season reveals a ripple effect of war: economic hardship in the north. This winter, not a single paying visitor was able to visit the year-round attraction in the Northern Golan Heights.

Martin Blackham, Israel First TV Programme