BIRD SANCTUARY

The Israeli tourism sector loses 80% of its income due to the war

The Israeli economy suffered very large losses due to the ongoing war on Gaza as dozens of airlines stopped their flights to Tel Aviv, and the tourism sector received a severe blow.

The Israeli website "Callyst" described the tourism sector as living in a state of collapse and fraud, especially in the Galilee and northern regions that no longer receive any visitors.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel entered 288,000 tourists between January and April 2024 compared to 1.3 million they visited for the same period in 2023, which means that the economy sector lost 80% year-on-year.

Israel received 3 million pre-war tourists who injected up to $5 million into its economy, before the war caused most tourism-linked sectors to be suspended.

Most international airlines have suspended flights to Israel’s airports, while many hotels have been crowded with displaced people from battlefields.

A law immediately after the start of the war has been introduced that allows small and medium-sized companies in Israel to receive compensation covering fixed expenses and part of salaries between October and December last year, provided specific criteria are met.

The compensation was valued at about $300 million received by more than 33,000 companies and facilities. But the law, which expired at the end of last year, left a complex situation as it relied on IDF maps to identify combat areas covered by reparations.

The law does not give companies, which exit the combat zones set by the military, even one kilometer, compensation, which has left a state of conflict as the owners of companies demand the continuation of compensation so that Israel's infrastructure does not collapse in light of the prospects of the tourism sector returning to what it was before the war decline.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich defends the government’s decision to legalize several West Bank outposts and impose a series of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, saying that he is acting to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would pose “an immediate, existential danger to the State of Israel.”

Speaking at a conference co-sponsored by the national-religious Makor Rishon newspaper, the hard-right minister states that Iran seeks to use a nuclear umbrella as cover for more conventional military attacks on Israel using proxies firing tens of thousands of missiles.

“The Iranian regime has an orderly plan for the conventional destruction of the State of Israel,” he says, asserting that a Palestinian state in the West Bank would “multiply Gaza twenty times and place it in an area that topographically and geographically dominates the entire State of Israel.”

“And unfortunately and absurdly, even today, after October 7 and after the Iranian plan is known, there are those who strive for this collective suicide with all their might,” he says, complaining about left-wing and media criticism of the cabinet’s decision to take steps against Ramallah.

“The Arabs of the West Bank can, God forbid, turn Kfar Saba into Kfar Aza, Ra’anana into Be’eri, Netanya into Nahal Oz and Tel Aviv into Sderot within hours,” he continues, slamming politicians like Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot who he claims are pushing for the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip.

He also congratulates Republican candidate Donald Trump for coming out against a Palestinian state during last week’s US presidential debate.

Israelis must “free ourselves from the messianic thinking that characterized the left and the Israeli security establishment over the last decades since Oslo,” he insists, calling “toppling the regime in Iran” a “primary goal” and accusing Tehran of seeking to use Arab Israelis to threaten the country from within.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that we "cannot ignore the inner front of Israeli Arabs," on Sunday. According to him, "the Iranians are counting on their alliance, and we are far from doing what needs to be done to neutralize that chance in advance."

Smotrich added that "another proxy of Iran within our borders is Hezbollah." He said, "there is no escape from a sharp and quick war to take [Hezbollah] out of the game and take away their ability to be part of the plan in coming years. A war in Lebanon will have its prices, and I don't take them lightly. But any price we pay today will be way less than what we would have to pay in the future if we don't act."

hamas releases footage showing theyre still making munitions and yassin rockets/explosives, with aljazeera in the background to prove that this video was shot recently with the tagline "our arming continues"

Israeli Broadcasting Corporation: Political Approval of the transition to the last phase of the war‎

‎Israel Broadcasting Corporation:‎

‎The political echelon agrees to move to the final phase of the war this month.‎

‎This decision was made due to the exchange deal file and tension on the northern front to avoid the spread of the war.‎

‎The third phase involves staying in the Netzarim and Philadelphia axes to put pressure on Hamas.‎

‎The green light given to the army will allow the military operation to continue, but in a different form.‎

The Union of South American Nations includes the State of Palestine to the Free Trade Agreement

The island correspondent said that the Union of South American Nations announced the inclusion of the State of Palestine to the Union's Free Trade Agreement.

Hezbollah announces its biggest air force operation since Oct. 8

Hezbollah said it had marched a technical and electronic reconnaissance center in Mount Hermon in the occupied Syrian Golan.

The party confirmed that it hit spy equipment, intelligence and technical systems and destroyed part of them at the Jabal Hermon reconnaissance center.

For his part, a Hezbollah source told Al-Jazeera that the Electronic Technical Reconnaissance Center in Mount Hermon is being targeted for the first time since the October 1973 war.

The source added that the targeting of the reconnaissance center in Jebel Hermon is the largest operation of the party's air force since last October 8.

He confirmed that the technical reconnaissance center in Jebel Hermon is importantly equivalent to the Israeli base of Meron.