From allergy warnings to cult followings: news from around the country.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFJerusalem's annual gay pride parade: July 28.(photo credit: Baz Ratner/Reuters)PROTEST WAVE: The Knesset decided, at the request of the opposition parties, to break temporarily from its summer recess and hold a special session to discuss the wave of social protests.The session will take place either August 10 or the following week. Some 350,000 people took part in protest rallies throughout the country August 6. DOOMSDAY SCENARIO: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said August 7 that Israel should cut ties with the Palestinian Authority ahead of the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations in September, which he says will lead to bloodshed. OUT OUT, OUTPOST: The Supreme Court ruled August 2 that Migron, the largest settlement outpost in the West Bank, must be dismantled by March 2012. Palestinians, who were able to demonstrate proof of ownership of the land on which Migron was built, filed a petition demanding that a state order to destroy the outpost be enforced.The illegally built outpost is now home to 45 families.CRACKDOWN ON ATTACKS: Twelve settlers from Yitzhar in the West Bank and a student learning at the settlement’s yeshiva were ordered to leave the area August 1 on suspicion they were involved in attacks on Palestinians.GAZA ROCKETS: Three mortar shells fell on August 7 in the western Negev, following a spate of rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip the previous week. Israel Air Force jets attacked five targets in Gaza, August 4, in response to the firing of Grad rockets.The Hamas government in Gaza reportedly arrested two members of the al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad group suspected of firing rockets at Israel, the radical Salifist group said in a statement.
PRICE JOLT: The Israel Electric Corporation has raised electricity rates by 10 percent, effective August 8, despite nationwide protests against the spiraling cost of living. The Public Utilities Authority had called for rates to be raised by 20 percent, but Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz was able to reduce it to 10 percent by lowering the excise and purchase tax on diesel, which is being used to produce electricity following numerous attacks on the natural gas supply line from Egypt.CULT FOLLOWING: An alleged cult operating in Jerusalem and Tiberias that abused women and children was uncovered following a 10-week investigation, leading to the arrest of three men, the Social Affairs Ministry said August 2. The 55-year-old group leader, affiliated with the Breslov Hasidic movement, faces charges of sexual abuse, imprisonment and enslavement.LEGALLY SATURATED: Israel currently ranks highest in the world in the number of lawyers, with 585 lawyers per 100,000 people, according to an August 2 report released by the Israel Courts Administration, which compared Israeli statistics with information from 55 other countries. But it only ranks 43rd in its number of judges; 14 new judges have been added to the legal system this year to bridge the gap.WE DEMOLISH, YOU PAY: The Israel Lands Administration filed an unprecedented suit July 26 against 34 Negev Beduin in a Beersheba Magistrate’s court, seeking NIS 1.8 million in damages for the expenses incurred in repeatedly evicting the defendants from state land and demolishing their homes. ALLERGY WARNING: The Health Ministry said July 26 it would push for new legislation requiring food packages to list allergy-causing ingredients more prominently, and may require restaurants to do so as well following the death a week earlier of a 26-year-old woman with a nut allergy, who had eaten a chocolate waffle in a Tel Aviv restaurant, which contained nuts. TINY TREMOR: Israel experienced a minor earthquake August 7, measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scale.The epicenter was off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea, but the quake was felt in the Lower Galilee, the Haifa Bay, Ra’anana, Petah Tikva and other parts of the coastal plain.
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