City Notes: Gov’t to make large investment in Karmiel park

Baby falls from moving car; light plane makes emergency landing; Eilat to host swim competition.

By MICHAEL OMER-MAN
Agmon Hula nature reserve 521 (photo credit: Liat Collins)
Agmon Hula nature reserve 521
(photo credit: Liat Collins)
NORTH
The Tourism Ministry plans to invest NIS 600,000 to develop the Quarry Park in Karmiel, ministry director-general Noaz Bar-Nir said during a visit to the city this week.
In an administrative municipal meeting last week, Karmiel Mayor Adi Eldar thanked his deputy, Rina Greenberg, for her involvement in promoting the park issue and lobbying for an earlier government decision to grant Karmiel status as a national tourism priority. Among other projects in the works are a dance festival and various tourism initiatives, the Local website reported.
Family, friends remember Ahuva Tomer
Friends, family and fellow police commissioners attended a ceremony for Police Asst.-Cmdr. Ahuva Tomer, who died tragically in the line of duty one year ago during the Carmel fire disaster.
Tomer’s mother eulogized her during the memorial, saying her daughter’s memory gave her the strength to continue living.
Tomer was the most senior police official on the scene when a bus full of prison wardens went up in flames on Route 721 near Beit Oren last year. She succumbed to her injuries after four days in the hospital, dying at the age of 53.
A-G orders investigation into Safed rabbi
Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein ordered police this week to open a criminal investigation against Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu for incitement to racism. Eliyahu was one of 50 rabbis who signed a religious ruling stipulating that Jews should not sell or rent property to non-Jews, but that document was not what concerned Weinstein.
According to the attorney-general, Eliyahu has been associated with a spate of aggressive comments against Arab citizens, such as, “Once you give an Arab a place, it takes him five minutes to start doing whatever he wants,” and, “Arabs act under different codes of conduct, and the norm of violence has become their ideology.” The rabbi also reportedly called on Jews to expel Arabs actively from within their neighborhoods.
Baby falls from moving car in HaifaA one-year-old baby in Haifa was in satisfactory condition last week after falling out of his mother’s moving car along with the baby seat into which he was strapped. Police said the car door suddenly flew open in the middle of a turn, and the force threw the baby into the street.
Police were investigating the incident.
CENTER
Police find unattended infant in Ramle
Police officers discovered a completely unattended infant at an apartment in Ramle early this week.
They had come to the apartment to serve an eviction notice, but when they arrived, they realized the front door had been left ajar. Upon entering and searching the apartment, the officers discovered a baby, several months old, lying on a bed without any adult supervision. No one else was in the apartment.
Police took the baby back to the police station, and after half an hour they were able to locate the mother, who was brought in for questioning.
Caregiver allegedly drugged elderly couple
Police last week arrested a foreign worker suspected of drugging the elderly couple for whom he worked.
The affair was discovered when the couple’s son installed cameras in their Ramat Gan apartment after he became suspicious over his mother’s recent hospitalizations. The cameras captured the suspect placing sleeping pills in the couple’s food, according to the report.
The worker is from Nepal and is in his 30s.
Light plane makes emergency landing
A light plane experiencing a malfunction with its landing gear safely made an emergency landing last week after being diverted from Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov Airport to nearby Ben-Gurion Airport. Large numbers of Magen David Adom and firefighting crews were dispatched first to Sde Dov and later to Ben- Gurion in preparation for the emergency landing.
None of the three people on board suffered any injuries.
1 killed, 1 wounded in Jaljulya shooting
One man was killed and another man seriously wounded over the weekend in two separate shootings that police believe may be related, in the Arab town of Jaljulya, near Kfar Saba.
A man in his 30s was found shot and seriously hurt in a vehicle at the entrance to Jaljulya on Route 444. MDA paramedics evacuated the man to Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva.
Shortly afterward, an approximately 20-year-old man was found shot and critically wounded in the town. The man succumbed to his wounds while paramedics were evacuating him to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba.
Police believe both incidents may be part of a conflict between local crime families.
Wolfson nurses walk out to protest overcrowding
For the second time in a week, nurses at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon walked out of operating rooms and internal wards Sunday in protest of dire overcrowding. The nurses claimed that hospital management was not taking any steps to improve the situation. After several hours, the nurses returned to their wards.
Last week, the nurses abandoned the emergency, orthopedic and surgery wards over the same issue.
They objected to being forced to care for a number of patients that surpassed levels agreed upon with hospital management and the Health Ministry.
Ministry Director-General Prof. Ronni Gamzu visited Wolfson last week and said the number of patients arriving at the hospital was more than the facilities could handle.
The nurses’ union threatened to go on strike later in the week.
SOUTH
Course trains Sderot residents in social activism
Following a summer of social protests and increased awareness of socioeconomic issues, a course in social rights and organization began last week in Sderot, initiated by the city’s Sapir College.
The course is an initiative of Dr. Merav Moshe Grodofsky, a senior lecturer at the college, who has been working to promote community organization in the city for the past three years.
The three-month course aims to train Sderot residents as volunteers in their local communities. In addition, a center for social rights is expected to open in the city in February, at the end of the course.
Sapir College president Jimmy Winblatt congratulated the participants and said the school was “deeply committed both to its students and the many communities in its vicinity.”
While promoting social rights and helping local residents, students are also earning course credit.
“This is a welcome combination of academics and community,” he added.
Some 800 of Sapir’s students live on local kibbutzim.
Eilat to host another international swim competition
After hosting the European Open Water Swimming Championships earlier this year, Eilat will once again host a prestigious international open water swimming competition. The World Tour Open Water Swimming Competition will take place off the city’s coast in April, preceding the Olympic Games by four months.
The decision to host the event was made after the success of the European championships in September. The upcoming event will also visit Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Hong Kong and China.
Arab countries attempted to scuttle the competition’s arrival in Israel, but after receiving assurances from the Interior Ministry that any participating athlete would be granted a visa to enter the country, the Swimming Association gave its approval.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai is the only authority able to approve granting a visa to citizens of enemy countries, which some of the participating swimmers are.
Israel Swimming Association chairman Noam Zvi said of the news, “[Hosting] the World Tour Competition in Eilat will be a breakthrough for the Swimming Association.” In the future, he added, he also plans to try and bring pool swimming events and artistic competitions to Israel.
Ashkelon schools hold recycling contest
Ort High School and Neveh Zion Elementary School in Ashkelon were this year’s winners of the city’s annual paper recycling competition, in their respective categories.
The competition, organized by the city’s Department of Sanitation, aims to help encourage recycling, particularly of paper waste.
Collection facilities were placed in schools, although pupils were encouraged to bring paper waste from home as well. Some 40 tons of paper were collected throughout the city during the competition.
The winning schools received cash prizes to purchase school supplies. The top prize is NIS 1,000, second prize is NIS 750 and third prize NIS 500. In addition, the Ashkelon Municipality augmented the prize money, giving NIS 2,000 to the first-place winners and NIS 1,500 and NIS 1,000 to the secondand third-place winners respectively.
Sanitation company director-general Uzi Carmi told the winners: “The city of Ashkelon is among the leading cities in the country in recycling, and you can be proud of your city. There’s no doubt that educating the youth to collect paper waste is very important in order to improve the environment in the country.”


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