10/05 Links: Navy intercepts weapons bound for Gaza; IDF fires on cell crossing from Lebanon

From Ian:

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Navy intercepts weapons-building material bound for Gaza as Hamas bids to rearm

The Israel Navy has intercepted multiple attempts to smuggle weapons manufacturing material into Gaza since the end of the war in August, a senior navy commander told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Cmdr. Eli Soholitski has commanded the navy’s Squadron 916 for two years. Squadron 916, the navy’s largest formation, is responsible for defending the whole sector from Ashdod to the Gaza Strip, and was involved heavily in the 50-day conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad last summer.
He is about to take command of Squadron 32, a missile-ship formation, that secures the northern naval sector.
“Our vessels are ready to go into offensive missions at any time. There have been more than a few attempts to infiltrate the naval closure. We’ve conducted activity against vessels that violated the closure,” Soholitski said.
Hamas fires rockets into the sea every few days, as part of its weapons upgrade program. The launches are used by Hamas arms designers to experiment with various projectile models.
The experiments naturally have attracted the attention of the Israel Navy.
“They are doing experiments and checking their rockets.
This is a part of their domestic weapons production. We did not doubt, at the end of the war, that their focus would be on building more weapons. We monitor every such launch, noting the quality of the rocket and its range,” Soholitski said.
This type of naval intelligence forms a central component of the IDF’s ability to map out future threats, he stated. “We won’t fight Operation Protective Edge again. The next war will be different. On any given day, we have intelligence-based targets that we can attack.”
“We continue to see attempts to smuggle weapons or material to build them. The sea is a very convenient platform for smuggling.

IDF opens fire on cell crossing into Israel from Lebanon

The IDF opened fire on a cell trying to infiltrate into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday.
The IDF said a unit dealing with operational border security identified the cell crossing the Israeli-Lebanese border (the Blue Line).
The unit opened fire with small arms fire, apparently striking one of the suspects.
"The cell fled back into Lebanese territory," the IDF added. "The circumstances of the incident are being checked. The IDF will continue to guard the state of Israel's sovereignty in the border region," it said.
According to Lebanese media reports, Israeli cross-border fire struck and injured a Lebanese soldier near Kfar Shouba.

Jerusalem court: Palestinian Authority must compensate families for 2001 terror attack

The Jerusalem District Court came out with a decision on Sunday that found the Palestinian Authority liable to pay compensation to the families of three people killed in a terror attack in 2001.
In 2009, the estates of Yaniv and Sharon Ben-Shalom, and that of Sharon's brother Doron Yosef Svari, who were killed in a shooting attack on highway 443 in August 2001, sued the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
Justice Moshe's Drori's decision on Sunday held that the PA was legally obligated to pay damages to the victims' families and to those wounded in the attack.
Two daughters of Yaniv and Sharon Ben-Shalom were infants in 2001 and were wounded in the attack. The children have been adopted by their uncle.
"The weapons and the funding were transferred from the Palestinian Authority to the commanders in the terrorist organizations, and the PA knew and understood the purpose for these transfers," Drori stated in his decision that spanned some 1000 pages.

IDF Blog: Eleven Years Since the Maxim Restaurant Suicide Bombing

Eleven years have passed since Islamic Jihad terrorists attacked the Maxim Restaurant in Haifa. A suicide bomber exploded herself, indiscriminately killing Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
On October 4, 2003, two days before Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – several families gathered at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa for lunch. The restaurant was regularly described as the symbol of diversity in the metropolitan city of Haifa because Jewish and Arab Israeli customers frequently sat and dined together.
The day took a drastic turn as an Islamic Jihad terrorist armed with an explosive belt entered the restaurant and detonated the device. Twenty-one people were killed, including 3 children and a baby, and four Arab restaurant employees. Dozens of Jewish and Arab Israeli civilians were injured in the explosion.

We are all Israelis now

The ideology of IS and Hamas is fundamental, militant, totalitarian Islamism. Indeed, Hamas is also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, and its charter spells out its antipathy to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli conflict, calling instead for jihad and the eradication of all Jews. For IS, the goal of a caliphate throughout the Levant will see the execution of every Jew, much as is being meted out to the Yazidis, Kurds and any other non-believer who gets in the way. (Which includes us by the way.) Mr Netanyahu may have a point.
In this issue, Richard Ferguson takes a close look at ‘Sheikh Google’; the sinister online activity taking place under our noses that is ‘radicalising’ our youth, not necessarily of Middle Eastern background. As Tony Abbott pointed out last month: ‘This is a conflict which we understandably wish to avoid, but it is a conflict which sadly, is reaching out to us.’
In the last few weeks we have seen the very real threat of random acts of appalling violence being visited upon our streets as we struggle legally and militarily to work out how best to confront a fanatical foe whose ideology glorifies martyrdom and death.
Much like the Israelis have been doing for decades now, as it happens.

Left-fascism: Post-Marxist War on Jews and Democracy

Recently we have witnessed the rise of the New Left which identifies Israel with the establishment, with acquisition, with smug satisfaction, with, in fact, all the basic enemies … Let there be no mistake: the New Left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism. (Former Israeli former minister Abba Eban, writing in the American Jewish Congress Bi-Weekly in 1973)
Berlin, Paris, Brussels, London, Manchester, Malmo. Just a few of the European cities where the hallmarks of fascism are routinely exhibited by the radical Left.
Irrational, emotional, anti-Semitic, and engaged in violent confrontation against the Jewish people and democratic institutions – say hello to the exponents of left-fascism.
Driven by an extreme post-Marxist, post-colonial ideology, left-fascists are engaged in a long war against Israel – both as a state and as a collective noun for the Jewish people. Viewed as an agent of imperialism and a model of obsolete “Old Testament” principles, Israel is fair game for post-Marxist intellectuals and activists who despise Jewish self-determination and Judeo-Christian ethics.
Left fascism – which is best exemplified by the boycotts, divestments and sanctions movement – is an infantile philosophy that views the world in crude dialectic terms: Israeli/Palestinian; rich/poor; fair/unfair; the West/Islam; war/peace; strong/weak.

IsraellyCool: Top 8 Images Anti-Israel Groups Need To Stop Using

Every now and then an Israel hater will, most likely uninvitedly, send you an “anti-Israel” picture that just makes you facepalm so hard you give yourself a shiner.
The following are examples of those pictures. If you’re anti-Israel you seriously need to stop sharing them. You’re embarrassing yourself.
#8. The Einstein Letter

“Neo-Nazi” does warm up act for anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal.

Dedicated anti-Israel polemicist Max Blumenthal came to Britain’s parliament on Thursday and claimed that Israeli society was dominated by neo-Nazi mobs and Israeli politics by racist politicians. The irony being that, unless I was mistaken, one of the speeches just before Blumenthal’s talk was delivered by James Thring (see photos below).
According to the CST Thring is a “veteran far right activist”. According to Stand For Peace Thring is a “neo-Nazi”. And according to the Jewish Chronicle, quoting anti-fascist campaigners Searchlight, Thring “has been vocally supported by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke”.
Blumenthal then gave a 40 minute talk (see clips below) full of conspiracy theory in which he held Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu solely responsible for the tragic events of the summer.

New Tactic in the Left's War Against Israel: JSIL

We now have the latest obscenity in the war against Israel. It comes from three sources — Al Jazeera television, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine held in London, and the German newspaper Deutsche Welle. These are all enemies of Israel who wish nothing less than its destruction.
Their new propaganda tactic is to equate Israel — which they now refer to as JSIL (the Jewish State of Israel in the Levant) — with ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
According to them, like ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Israel is a terrorist military entity which seeks to recruit foreign fighters into their armed forces, to convert or murder infidels, and to destroy the Palestinians.

'IDF won international praise for conduct of Gaza operation'

In his first interview after Protective Edge, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz says Hezbollah doesn't want another all-out war, there's no momentum for a third Palestinian intifada and ISIS is 'a phenomenon that must be tackled'; he won't, however, be drawn on the issue of Iran.
Almost the only moment during the interview with Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz at which his easy-going and measured tone of voice climbed an octave or two was when it came to criticism of the way in which the IDF operated and was managed during Operation Protective Edge.
"Since the operation, we've already had visits from a great many officers from armies around the world," rose the chief of staff's voice, "and they say to us: What you did in this combat operation, your professional performance, is unprecedented."

Hamas disarming? Forget about it, says top IDF intel officer

Lt.-Col. M., the head of the Palestinian desk at Military Intelligence’s Research Department, was tasked with a near-impossible mission during the 50 days of fighting in Gaza: understand the intentions of Hamas’s leadership, and assess its resilience.
Now M., the man ultimately charged with gauging the Palestinian “enemy,” be it Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, is trying to understand what exactly happened in the last conflict, and how Hamas views things in its wake.
“When we evaluate how Hamas leaders see the war, and I am referring to both public and private conversations, their conclusion is negative. At the same time, they are not entirely devoid of accomplishments,” M. said in a rare interview with Times of Israel.
“For them, the latest round of conflict uncovered some serious problems: The Arab world remained on the sidelines, and an even more resounding failure was that the West Bank public was apathetic. The isolation of Gaza remains, and there are still no signs of the blockade being lifted. The recent war was entirely different for them than Pillar of Defense. There, they had accomplishments. Here, this was a battle over governance, economy, and the public space.”

The importance of media balance on Gaza war

It was a difficult summer for Israel, first and foremost for the majority of Israel's population, which found itself running for shelter on a daily basis for weeks on end, as thousands of Hamas rockets, some Iranian-made, were launched from Gaza.
Meanwhile in the UK, demonstrations against Israel often saw the participation of protesters who openly supported Hamas and compared Israel to Hitler's Nazi Germany, unabashedly spurting vitriolic hatred. One woman was videotaped during a protest saying "Israel is the most evil country in the world", while another said Israel was surely "the anti-Christ". At the same time, anti-Semitism reached unprecedented levels, with over 300 incidents recorded by the UK's Jewish Community Security Trust in July alone.
Looking at the media's role in shaping UK public opinion, a few patterns emerge: Coverage of the conflict by parts of the mainstream media was more mature than in the past; clearly lessons were learned and steps taken to avoid some of the usual pitfalls.

Biden’s New NSA Chief Mocked Israeli Nuke Fears

In advance of the CNAS report’s publication, Kahl wrote an astonishing op-ed in the Washington Post which sought to convince readers that Israel made things much worse than they would have been when it bombed Iraq’s Osirik reactor, and that there would be similar or still more disastrous results should Israel dare to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons plants. Think that’s a mischaracterization? The title of the op-ed is “An Israeli attack against Iran would backfire — just like Israel’s 1981 strike on Iran.”
Kahl warned in his op-ed that if Israel were to strike it would doom the likelihood of Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. “An Israeli strike would also end any prospect of Iran cooperating with the IAEA, seriously undermining the international community’s ability to detect rebuilding efforts.”
It seems Kahl may be the only one still holding out hope that Iran will ever cooperate with the IAEA regardless of any action by Israel. He also claimed Saddam was nowhere near ready to create nukes, so Israel’s Osirik mission was premature and ill-advised.
Why Joe Biden – someone most Israel supporters used to consider reliably pro-Israel, would pick someone like Kahl is a mystery.

Israel to summon Sweden’s envoy over Palestine recognition

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said Saturday evening that actions such as the planned Swedish recognition would hurt peacemaking efforts rather than strengthen them.
“The more international support the Palestinians receive without being required to negotiate and without paying their due in mutual concessions, the less likely an accord becomes,” he told Israel Radio.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said in a statement Saturday that “If the situation in the Middle East is what concerns the Swedish prime minister in his inaugural speech, he would be better off focusing on more pressing matters in the region such as the daily mass killings taking place in Syria, Iraq and other places.”

European Jewish Congress: Sweden’s Recognition of PA ‘Favors Terror’

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) charges Sunday that Sweden’s recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a formal nation “favors extremism and Islamist terror during a period when the Middle East and indeed, European citizens, are directly faced with these threats.”
Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told legislators on Friday that formal recognition of the PA is a statement to present the “two-state” solution as fact, as reported here.
EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor described the decision as “reckless, irresponsible and dangerous.”
“Sweden has placed itself outside the consensus of the European Union and has chosen to reward terror instead of embracing peace through a negotiated settlement,” Kantor said. “What exactly Sweden thinks it is recognizing, the Hamas-Fatah terror coalition that supports unprovoked rocket attacks on civilians in Israel? Or is it two Palestinian states, one in Ramallah and one in Gaza?

JPost Editorial: Jerusalem out of control

There are two layers of problems that confront Israel’s capital. One is the low level “Jerusalem intifada” that has broken out, that has included frequent stoning of the Jerusalem light rail, a third of whose carriages have been damaged, and clashes with police in Arab neighborhoods.
In one case a gas station near Isawiya was ransacked and firebombed. In another a police vehicle was pushed over an embankment.
Attacks on security services and “symbols” of the state such as the light rail are part of a pattern. Attacks on Jewish citizens for making the wrong turn into Arab neighborhoods are deeply shocking and they require a firm and clear response. Citizens must not fear being killed for making the wrong turn into a neighborhood of their capital city.
For years a form of unofficial abandonment of many neighborhoods, such as Isawiya and Sur Bahir, has been the norm for the police. As long as people are not being assaulted, these neighborhoods have become no-go zones, to the extent that the residents feel they can set upon vehicles or individuals. This behavior is not actively confronted by community leaders and it becomes routine for youths after school to make stone throwing an acceptable activity.

False rocket alerts sound in southern communities

Rocket alarms sounded in two Israel towns outside Gaza Sunday morning, breaking several weeks of calm and sending residents scurrying for shelter.
Despite the scare, the Israeli military said the alarm sounded after a missile test within the Strip, labeling the alerts as false alarms, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
The alarms sounded in towns of Nirim, Kisufim and Ein Hashlosha, in the Eshkol region bordering the center of the Strip.

Just Kidding! I Don’t Forgive Anyone. You’re All Going To Die. By The Lord Your God (satire)

The morning after the Day of Atonement, you’re feeling pretty good abut yourself. Yesterday was tough, but you managed to get through the fast, to make a sincere attempt at changing for the better, and maybe even to put some real fervor into your prayers. You might even have felt a weight lifting from your shoulders as the shofar sounded at day’s end. You’d done it, and now maybe things will improve. Well, gotcha! It didn’t work. Every single one of you is going to die.
I could reassure you and say it’s not your fault, but that’s not true. It is your fault. You made horrible choices. Yes, I know all about those lewd fantasies of you and Natalie Portman. Get real, dude. Talk about a forbidden mixture. An abomination. Verily, I say unto thee, yuck. No way a little breast-beating and contrition is going to wipe away THAT aesthetic offense. And you had to go and do it at the most inappropriate moments, too, right there in the synagogue.

Hundreds of Gazans pray at Temple Mount

Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip prayed Sunday at Jerusalem’s most important mosque, the first time Israel has allowed such visits from the coastal enclave since Hamas overran the area in 2007.
The visit was among a package of concessions Israel has made in the wake of a 50-day war against Hamas to coincide with the current Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Israel said it granted some 1,500 permits to Palestinians in Gaza to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque during the three-day holiday, which began Saturday. Some 500 worshipers were expected in Jerusalem on Sunday, with the remainder set to arrive over the next two days.

Cleric to Palestinian Authority TV: True Jihad Is in Palestine

In an interview on the official Palestinian Authority TV, cleric 'Imad Hamato said: "True Jihad is in Palestine in defense of the holy places and of Jerusalem." The interview aired on September 15, 2014.

Archival - Mustafa Tlass: Arafat the Son of 60,000 Whores

In a public address delivered by Mustafa Tlass, then Syrian minister of defense, he called Yasser Arafat a "son of 60,000 whores." He further said: "Yasser Arafat, in his concessions to Israel, resembles a striptease dancer," the difference being that "as the dancer strips, her beauty is exposed, but as Yasser Arafat strips, his ugliness is exposed." The address was broadcast on various Arab TV channels on August 1, 1999.

Jihadist plot to grab Iran’s nuclear secrets

ISIS is urging its members to plan for war with Iran and has ambitions to seize Tehran’s nuclear secrets, according to a manifesto attributed to one of its most senior members.
Most ambitious , if unrealistic, of the aims set out in the document is a plan to get hold of nuclear weapons — with the help of Russia.
It proposes offering the Kremlin access to gas fields it controls in Iraq’s Anbar province, provided Russia, in return, gives up “Iran and its nuclear programme and hands over its secrets”.
It says Moscow would also have to abandon support for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and back the Gulf states against Iran.
The document includes plans to unleash a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing, Nazi-style eugenics and intelligence gathering operations to consolidate and expand the self-declared Islamic caliphate.

Biden apologizes to Turkish President Erdogan for saying Turkey allowed foreign fighters into Syria

Vice President Biden on Saturday apologized to Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for saying the Turkish leader admitted his country made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Biden spoke directly to Erdogan to “clarify” comments made on Thursday at Harvard University and apologized for “any implication" that Turkey or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State or other extremists groups in Syria, the White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become "history to me" over the comments at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, in Cambridge, Mass., unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president who has a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.

Syria warns Turkey: Do not attack ISIS on our soil

Tensions between Syria and Turkey were further exacerbated over the weekend as Syria warned Turkey that if it acts against the Islamic State group (ISIS) in its territory it would consider it an act of "aggression" that would lead to a response.
The warning, issued by the Syrian Foreign Ministry of Friday, came a day after the Turkish military was given authorization to conduct cross-border incursions against ISIS in Syria.
The "declared policy of the Turkish government represents a real aggression against a member state of the United Nations," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
In a separate statement posted on the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, Syria asked the international community to stop Turkey from "the adventures of the Turkish leadership, which is threatening international and regional peace and security."

UAE shocked by Biden suggestion it backed jihadists

The United Arab Emirates has expressed surprise after US Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Gulf state had armed and financed jihadists in Syria, along with other regional powers.
Biden’s remarks were “amazing and ignore the role of the Emirates in the fight against extremism and terrorism,” the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, said in a statement carried late Saturday by the official WAM news agency.
Gargash asked for Biden to clarify the comments, which he said had given “a false impression about the role of the UAE… at a time when it is actually supporting… efforts to overcome” the jihadists.

Danes cautioned about visiting Muslim countries

In a rare move, the Foreign Ministry has changed its travel recommendations to 28 countries with large Muslim populations.
The Foreign Ministry has changed its travel recommendations to 28 Muslim countries in light of Denmark’s military campaign against Isis in northern Iraq.
While the Foreign Ministry's citizen services department (Borgerservice) is not explicitly telling Danes to avoid travelling to the countries, it warns Danish travellers to use caution in the Muslim countries. Among the advice is to be aware of risky situations, and to avoid being either the only foreigner in a particular area or spending a lot of time in areas that have a high concentration of Westerners, such as airports.

Report: This Beheading Thing Getting Old (satire)

The latest instance of the Islamic State’s use of beheading to intimidate the West serves as evidence that the technique no longer carries the novelty it once did, news outlets reported this weekend, and in fact the world is getting irritated by it.
A British aid worker became the fourth man to have his beheading broadcast through social media over the last several months, the most recent case of Islamist radicals combining graphic brutality with media savvy to further political goals. In this case they “retaliated” for the United Kingdom’s decision to join the air war against IS. While the effect of the images and news remains horrifying, correspondents around the globe are reporting that the initial wave of automatic, detailed attention to the story has run its course, and the impact of each subsequent beheading is likely to shrink. More importantly, they say, agitation for greater, more decisive action to destroy the Islamic State becomes more and more probable as beheading gets closer and closer to jumping the shark.
Experts point to the difference in coverage between the American journalist James Foley’s much-publicized execution and that of Briton Alan Henning, which, while covered broadly across the news media and social networks, commanded nowhere near the same amount of sustained attention that Foley’s did. Moreover, the level of emotive, vengeful reactions evident in the Western press and political worlds has also declined, giving way to expressions of grim determination, indicating that beheading is fast becoming so last week.

Archival - Young Nasrallah: Lebanon Should Be Part of the Islamic Republic Ruled by Iran's Leader

In an address delivered by Hassan Nasrallah in the late 1980s, he said: "Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini." The address surfaced on the Internet in 2010.

Iran's Khamenei vows 'Zionist regime and its supporters will go extinct'

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed on Friday that “the Zionist regime and its supporters will one day go into extinction.”
On the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the Iranian leader urged the Islamic world to unite in waging war against the “the enemies of Islam, chief among them Israel.”
“The Muslim nations must take up positions along the arrogant Zionist front which wants to drive a wedge between Muslims,” Khamenei told his deputies. “The scheming enemy wants to fan the flames of war between Muslims. I urge all of you to put Muslim unity at the top of your priorities.”
The leader of the Islamic Republic claimed that Islamic State and al-Qaida are “creations of the West, particularly the Americans and their allies in the region, despite their denials.”

PM: Obama’s positions on Iran did not encourage me

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday had not assuaged his concerns over US policy on the Iranian nuclear threat.
In an interview with Channel 10 news recorded just before Yom Kippur and broadcast Saturday, Netanyahu said that while the US and Israel agree that Iran must be prevented from building nuclear weapons, the two nations have differences over the severity of limitations that must be placed upon the Islamic republic by the international community.
“We both want to prevent Iran from being a nuclear-armed nation, but I say that’s not enough,” Netanyahu said, explaining that he was worried about Tehran’s ability to implement a “breakout” scenario: “They throw out the inspectors, engage all the centrifuges, and produce enough enriched uranium to create the core of a nuclear bomb… That’s something that must be prevented.”
Asked whether the meeting with the American leader had encouraged him on this front, the premier answered that he “can’t say so.”

Politician from Social Democratic Party in Germany withdraws anti-Semitic video

In response to growing criticism of her Facebook posting of a crude anti-Semitic conspiracy video about the Rothschild family, Sabine Wölfle, a German Social Democratic politician, shut down her Facebook page on Thursday.
The working circle of Jewish Social Democrats on Wednesday blasted Wölfle for disseminating a video portraying the Jewish Rothschild family as controlling the world’s finances.
“This morning we became aware that the SPD regional politician Sabine Wölfle posted an anti-Semitic and conspiratorial video on her Facebook page,” the working circle stated.
“We are shocked that a regional politician lacks basic knowledge about the connotations of conspiracy theories, in which the frequently mentioned, all-encompassing, financial power of the Rothschild family stands at the center. We demand a clear apology for the spreading of anti-Semitic propaganda.”

Air pollution levels plunge 99% in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv over Yom Kippur

Cities around Israel experienced dramatic drops in air pollution levels on Yom Kippur – the sole day in the year when traffic essentially ceases to flow – with Jerusalem and the Gush Dan boasting a decrease of nitrogen oxides by a whopping 99 percent.
Throughout the country, air pollution levels plummeted on Saturday, in some places nearly eliminating the presence of nitrogen oxides – contaminants prominent in motor vehicle emissions, the Environmental Protection Ministry explained. The phenomenon was observed most in the country’s big cities, regions typically affected by air pollution emitted from vehicles, according to the ministry.
The Environment Ministry’s air monitoring stations indicated that the concentration of nitrogen oxides in both the Gush Dan and Jerusalem regions dropped by 99% during the holiday, from 104 parts per billion to 2 parts per billion in both places. In the Haifa area, meanwhile, the concentration of nitrogen oxides fell by 77%, from 22 parts per billion before Yom Kippur to just 3 parts per billion during the holiday, the ministry data said.
“The great improvement in air quality on this day is indicative of the impact of transportation as the main source of air pollution in big cities,” a statement from the ministry said.