News Digest — 5/10/24
A Break Down Of Israel’s Population On The Country’s 76th Independence Day
With Israel’s Independence Day coming up next Tuesday (14th), the Central Bureau of Statistics has released new data regarding the country’s population in 2024, comparing the growth of the country to the population 76 years ago, at the state’s founding.
Israel’s population currently stands at nine million people. When broken down into sectors, there are 7.247 million Jews, who make up 73.2% of the population, while the Arab population stands at 2.089 million, making up 21.1% of the population.
The study showed that 564,000 people do not fall into either sector, making up 5.7% of the population.
These numbers show Israel’s population has grown by 189,000 people (1.9%) since last year’s Independence Day. Over the course of the year, 196,000 babies were born, 37,000 people made Aliyah and 60,000 people passed away.
Furthermore, the CBS compared these numbers to the population of Israel 76 years ago, when the country declared its independence. At the time, Israel’s population stood at 806,000 people, showing that the country’s population has increased by 12 times in size.
Israel’s population is considered to be young, with 28% of it consisting of children between the ages of 0-14, while only 12% of the population is made up of adults aged 65 and over.
From looking at the rate of the country’s growth through these numbers, it is expected that by next year, in 2025, Israel’s population will hit the ten million mark.
By Israel’s 100th Independence Day in 2048, it is expected that Israel’s population will reach 15 million.
Netanyahu Responds To US: ‘If We Have To Finish Alone, We Will’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday evening (9th) addressed for the first time the confrontation between the Israeli and American governments and US President Joe Biden’s threat to halt weapons shipments to Israel over Israel’s military operation in Rafah.
“We are on the eve of Independence Day. In the War of Independence, 76 years ago, we were few against many. We had no weapons, there was an arms embargo on Israel, but with fortitude, bravery, and unity within us – we won. Today we are much stronger. We are determined, and we are united to defeat our enemies and protect our lives,” Netanyahu said.
“If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. I have already said that if we have to – we will fight with our nails. But we have much more than our nails, and with the same determination, with God’s help, we will win together,” he said.
National Unity Party chairman, Minister Benny Gantz, also responded to Biden’s threat and said, “The Partnership between the US and Israel is a strategic partnership, and just as importantly – a values-based partnership.”
“I maintain and will continue to maintain a direct dialogue on many sensitive issues that have a dramatic impact on Israel’s security and I believe that the important arms shipments will continue. Beyond the security need, this is an important political statement for the US to continue standing on Israel’s side,” Gantz added.
“Israel has a security and moral obligation to continue fighting to return our hostages and remove the threat of Hamas from the south of the country, and the US has a moral and strategic obligation to provide Israel with the tools required for this mission,” Gantz concluded.
IDF Spokesperson: ‘We Have Everything We Need For Rafah Mission
IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari commented Thursday evening (9th) on US President Joe Biden’s threats to stop arms shipments to Israel if the military operation in Rafah continues.
“The IDF has the necessary armaments for the missions it plans, including for the missions in Rafah. We have everything we need,” Hagari stated.
He further stated that “the US has so far assisted the IDF in an unprecedented manner in the war. What is equally important is the cooperation between the IDF and the US Central Command. The Chief of Staff talks to his counterpart General Kurilla every day.”
“Even when we have disputes, we resolve them behind closed doors. The State of Israel has security interests, we are attentive to the interests of the US and we will uphold this relationship,” he emphasized.
Addressing the operation in Rafah itself, he said, “In the southern Gaza Strip, in the eastern Rafah area, forces of the 162nd Division are continuing to operate against terror targets and the smuggling of weapons in the area of eastern Rafah. This activity supports the intelligence we had – Hamas used the area of the Rafah Crossing for terrorism. We found several terrorist tunnel shafts in the area, which we are currently investigating and scanning, and so far, our forces have eliminated approximately 50 terrorists in this area during encounters and air strikes, and also during scans in the area. Currently, the divisional forces are continuing to operate against terror targets in the area.”
“This evening, we also remember our supreme mission and our obligation to the hostages still held in Gaza. We continue and will continue to do everything to create the conditions for the return of the hostages and bring our dear ones home as quickly as possible,” Hagari said.
Israeli Strike On Car In Southern Lebanon Said To Kill Four Hezbollah Members
Four members of the Hezbollah terror group were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Thursday (9th), Lebanese security sources told the Reuters news agency.
Lebanese media reported that a strike on a car took place in the village of Bafiyeh, some 11 miles from the Israeli border.
Lebanon’s civil defense rescue forces said there were four dead bodies in the car scorched by an airstrike. Two security sources told Reuters that the four killed were members of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, following the strike, announced the death of three members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its terminology for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces to the strike.
The alleged strike came a day after an Israeli soldier was killed in a Hezbollah-claimed mortar and missile attack on an army position in the area of the northern community of Malkia.
The slain soldier was identified as Staff Sgt. Haim Sabach, 20, of the Border Defense Corps’ 869th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit, from Holon.
Since October 8th, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
The skirmishes on the border have resulted in nine civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the death of 14 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 294 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 59 operatives from other terror groups and a Lebanese soldier have been killed.
Israel has threatened to go to war to force Hezbollah away from the border if it does not retreat and continues to threaten northern Israeli communities, where some 70,000 people have been evacuated to avoid the fighting.
Meanwhile, Syrian media reported an alleged Israeli strike on a building in southern Syria on the outskirts of Damascus, early Thursday (9th).
The state-run SANA broadcaster, citing a military source, claimed some of the Israeli missiles launched by fighter jets were downed by Syrian air defenses , and the attack caused “some material losses.”
However, the Britain-based Syrian observatory for Human Rights said the strike targeted a “cultural center” and a “training facility” of the Iraqi Al-Nujaba movement in the Sayyida Zeinab area south of Damascus.
Three members of the group were wounded according to the Observatory, which claims to have a network of sources inside Syria.
Sources within the Iraqi faction, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed to AFP that a “cultural center” belonging to the group was destroyed in the “Israeli” attack, but reported no casualties.
Al-Nujaba does “not have a ‘declared’ military base in Syria,” the sources added.
There was no comment from the IDF. While Israel’s military does not, as a rule, comment on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against iran-backed terror groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade.
Recent months have seen several alleged sorties carried out against sites in Syria as part of Israel’s ongoing efforts to prevent Iran from supplying arms to its proxy Hezbollah, which has stepped up attacks on northern Israel over the past several months amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Worshipers Find Explosives Planted At Joshua’s Altar
Activists from “The Forum for the Struggle for Every Dunam,” this morning, during their usual Friday prayers (10th) at Joshua’s altar, discovered an explosive device had been planted between the stones of the ancient holy site.
The charge, which was described as extremely powerful, was apparently intended to be detonated during visits by Jews to the site believed to be where the Biblical Prophet Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal when the Israelites first entered the Land of Israel more than 3,000 years ago.
Security forces were called to the scene, and a bomb disposal squad neutralized the explosives.
The forum stated that the placing of an explosive at Joshua’s Altar is the direct result of the lack of Jewish presence on the mountain. “The explosive device that awaited the activists this morning is another illustration of the lawlessness that takes place in the mountain area thanks to the absence of a Jewish presence.”
The members of the forum accuse that “since the evacuation of the Jewish farm that guarded the ridge, the takeover efforts of the Palestinian Authority and the Arabs of the area have only gotten stronger. A number of injuries, some of them serious, occurred at the altar, new roads were paved and new Arab buildings were built on the mountain. Today, under the shadow of an advanced construction plan that will include, among other things, the area of the altar itself, terrorists planted an explosive device there in order to harm the activists and thus prevent the only permanent Jewish presence there.”
“The order of the hour is to establish a permanent settlement point on the mountain, otherwise we may completely lose control of the strategic ridge,” added the forum.
The War Against The Jewish Story – Yossi Klein Halevi
• How is it possible that Israel, rather than radical Islamism, would become the villain on liberal campuses? That the most passionate outbreak of student activism since the 1960s would be devoted to delegitimizing the Jewish people’s story of triumph over annihilation?
• The anti-Zionist forces in academia have been preparing the ground for decades, systematically dismantling the moral basis of Zionist and Israeli history. The very origins of Zionism were transformed from a story of a dispossessed people re-indigenizing in its ancient homeland into one more sordid expression of European colonialism.
• Next, the birth of Israel in 1948 was reduced to the Nakba, a Palestinian narrative of total innocence that ignores the ethnic cleansing of Jews from every place where Arab armies were victorious and the subsequent uprooting of the entire Jewish population of the Muslim world.
• Post-1967 Israel was cast as an apartheid state – turning Zionism, a movement representing Jews across the political and religious spectrum, into a racist ideology and reducing a complex national conflict into a medieval passion play about Jewish perfidy.
• Now, with the Gaza war, we have come to the genocide canard. To turn Israel into the world’s arch-criminal requires erasing of the connection between the land of Israel and the people of Israel. In the anti-Zionist telling, a 4,000-year connection that has been the heart of Jewish identity and faith is irrelevant, if not contrived outright by Zionists.
• The relentless war against Israel is also erased. There is never any context to Israel’s actions. Only by erasing Hamas’ atrocities can Israel be turned into the villain of this war. Campus protesters are providing cover for Oct, 7 denial: “The atrocities didn’t happen,” “ you deserved them,” and “we’re going to do it again.”
• Another form of erasure is dismissing the history of peace offers presented or accepted by Israel and uniformly rejected by the Palestinian side. No offer – an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, the re-division of Jerusalem, the uprooting of dozens of Israeli communities – was ever sufficient.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
