14 days: UAE mission

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett dedicated the Embassy of Honduras in Jerusalem on June 24. Calling Hernandez a true friend of Israel, Bennett said: “Mr. President, under your leadership Honduras has consistently stood alongside Israel in international institutions even when that was not always popular and even when it occasionally exacted a price.” Honduras is the fourth country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, following the US, Guatemala and Kosovo.

Israel’s new coalition suffered a setback when it lost a key parliamentary vote early July 6 to amend the controversial 2003 Citizenship Law that bars citizenship for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who marry Israelis. The vote was 59-59 as Yamina MK Amichai Shikli sided with the opposition and two members of the Arab Islamist party, Ra’am, abstained. The amended law would have created a six-month extension to allow a panel to examine humanitarian solutions and grant 1,600 Palestinians living in Israel residency rights.

US President Joe Biden assured Israel’s outgoing president, Reuven Rivlin, in a meeting in the Oval Office on June 28, “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” Biden said his commitment to Israel is “iron-clad.”  Rivlin, who handed over the presidency to Isaac Herzog on July 7, said, “Your declaration just now brought Israelis to understand that we have a great friend in the White House.”

Col. Sharon Asman, 43, the new commander of the IDF’s Nahal Brigade, died of a heart attack on July 1 after collapsing during a combat fitness drill at Beit Lid. Asman, who is survived by his wife and two daughters, served in the military for some 25 years, fighting in Lebanon and later in Gaza in 2014, after which he received a military citation for successfully leading his Infantry Battalion into Beit Hanoun despite being wounded. 

Eyal Hulata was named by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on July 11 as the new head of Israel’s National Security Council (Malal). Hulata, 45, served in the Mossad for some 23 years, heading its department for strategic planning and its technology unit. “In light of his years-long experience, performance, and understanding of Israel’s strategic challenges in the security and diplomatic spheres,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, the Israeli father of 12 sent to Boston as a Chabad emissary two years ago and stabbed eight times outside the Shaloh House synagogue and school in Brighton on July 1, said it was a miracle he was alive. Police arrested Khaled Awad, 24, and charged him with assault and battery. “Unequivocally, it was an antisemitic attack,” Noginsky told Channel 12. “I felt he was trying to kill me.” 

Gilad Schalit, the former IDF soldier held by Hamas in Gaza for five years, married Nitzan Shabbat in a private ceremony in central Israel on June 23.  Schalit, who is a security guard at a bank, and his new wife, a social worker, got engaged in 2020 after dating for two years.

Police estimated that almost 100,000 people attended a pride parade and beach party in Tel Aviv on June 25 in one of the largest gatherings of its kind since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. “Pride events in Tel Aviv-Jaffa are a long-standing tradition, centered on a message of equality, acceptance, and human and civil rights,” said Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai. On July 11, the High Court of Justice ruled that within the next six months, same-sex couples and single fathers will be able to undergo the surrogacy process in Israel.