A7News: Doctors tell Israeli family: 'Go To Cleveland'

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Wednesday, Jan. 09 '19, ג' בשבט תשע"ט



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HEADLINES:
1. DOCTORS TELL ISRAELI FAMILY: 'GO TO CLEVELAND'
2. 11 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ISRAELI EX-MINISTER WHO SPIED FOR IRAN
3. ISRAELI WOMAN ATTACKED BY HAMMER-WIELDING ARABS IN SAMARIA
4. LABOR'S MICKEY ROSENTHAL TO RETIRE FROM POLITICS
5. UPDATE ON YAEL FRIEDMAN, EPILEPTIC WOMAN FLOWN TO CLEVELAND
6. STABBING IN JERUSALEM - TERRORISM SUSPECTED
7. NETANYAHU: I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO CONFRONT MY ACCUSERS
8. HAMAS CLAIMS TO HOLD 45 'COLLABORATORS'


1. DOCTORS TELL ISRAELI FAMILY: 'GO TO CLEVELAND'
by Sponsored Content

A Beit Shemesh mother penned a vulnerable letter to the public Sunday morning, telling the "special and challenging" story of her daughter Yael, who suffers from severe epilepsy.

According to mother Sara's retelling, Yael had an entirely normal upbringing. She had no health issues until shortly after her bat mitzvah, when she endured her first seizure. Not long afterward, the epilepsy was diagnosed.

In the years that have followed, Yael's condition has steeply worsened. Recently, the family went through with their best option: major surgery. As the surgery day arrived, Yael and her siblings were both nervous for the procedure, and excited for the promise for a better future. One can only imagine their grief when the surgery was not only unsuccessful, but caused the teenage girl's health to decline. Each seizure has the potential to kill. She now endures a shocking 20 seizures a day.

Doctors have strongly advised the family to fly to the United States as soon as possible, so that Yael can receive life-saving surgery from a specific expert surgeon in Cleveland. With a mother who stays home to tend to her epileptic daughter, and seven other siblings living off of one income, however, this is a sheer impossibility. The Friedman parents have had to do the unthinkable: To tell their daughter that they cannot save her life.

Mother Sara has opened an emergency fund with a lofty goal: To raise enough money to get her daughter the surgery which would reverse her deterioration. "We want our happy Yael back," she writes.

Sara blesses all donors with healthy children of their own. And for those whose kids are able to do such basic tasks as attend school, or be unattended, she has the following powerful words: "Please hold them close and kiss them, because we never dreamed that this would happen."

Donations to save Yael's life are being collected here.


2. 11 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ISRAELI EX-MINISTER WHO SPIED FOR IRAN
by David Rosenberg

A former Israeli government minister accused of spying for Iran is expected to be sentenced to 11 years in prison, after he agreed to a plea bargain deal with prosecutors Wednesday.

Former Minister Gonen Segev agreed to plead guilty to espionage charges and a charge of transferring information to an enemy power. In exchange, prosecutors will drop charges of aiding an enemy of the state. Segev will be sentenced to 11 years in prison as part of the plea bargain.

Segev, who won a seat in the 13th Knesset on the center-right Tzomet party's list, served as Energy and Infrastructure Minister from 1995 to 1996. In 1994, Segev and several other Tzomet MKs broke away from the party, forming the Yiud faction, which joined the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin.

In June, Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency revealed that Segev had been arrested a month earlier on suspicion of committing the offenses of assisting the enemy in a time of war and of spying against the State of Israel.

Israeli investigators said they had found evidence that Segev had been recruited by the Iranian regime, and that Segev had acted as an agent on behalf of Iranian intelligence.

It was further alleged that in 2012, Segev had opened a channel to Iranian intelligence services via the country's embassy in Nigeria. He later came twice to meetings with his operators in Iran.

Segev is staid to have met with his Iranian operators around the world, in hotels and apartments which are believed to be used by Iranian intelligence services. Segev also received a secret communications system to encrypt the messages between him and his operators.

Segev was previously convicted of attempted credit card fraud, and plead guilty to drug smuggling


3. ISRAELI WOMAN ATTACKED BY HAMMER-WIELDING ARABS IN SAMARIA
by Arutz Sheva Staff

An Israeli woman was injured Wednesday morning, after she was attacked by an Arab gang in Samaria.

The incident occurred in the Binyamin district of Samaria, near the Israeli town of Maaleh Levona.

According to initial reports, the Arab gang used their car to block the road, forcing the Israeli woman to stop.

The Arabs immediately jumped out of their vehicle and rushed towards the Israeli woman's car, smashing windows with a hammer.

The Israeli woman remained in her car during the assault, and managed to drive away. She suffered light injuries in the attack.

After escaping, the woman alerted police, and security forces were dispatched to the scene to search for the assailants.


4. LABOR'S MICKEY ROSENTHAL TO RETIRE FROM POLITICS
by Hezki Baruch

MK Mickey Rosenthal (Labor) announced Wednesday that he will not run for the Knesset this year, and will be retiring from politics.

"I am leaving partisan politics, but I am not leaving public life in Israel," said Rosenthal. "I will continue to work on behalf of Israel's character as a Jewish, egalitarian state seeking peace, with more social justice and less corruption."

"I never saw my membership in the Knesset as a goal in and of itself, politics, I believe, should be only a means to an end. I look back proudly over six years of service in the Knesset, including very significant legislation and parliamentary work with depth – not populism."

But Rosenthal also said he held himself accountable for his party's failures, saying "I never was a fan of politics, and I was never great at it."

"I believe with all my heart in really holding public officials personally accountable, and not just in saying so. I was a partner in the failures of the Labor party… and I take responsibility for that."

Rosenthal was first elected in 2013, and served in the Knesset for six years, spanning the 19th and 20th Knessets. Prior to his entry into politics, he worked as a journalist and film producer.


5. UPDATE ON YAEL FRIEDMAN, EPILEPTIC WOMAN FLOWN TO CLEVELAND
by Sponsored Content

Readers of multiple Jewish news outlets were shaken this week by the story of 20-year-old Yael Friedman, a young woman suffering from severe epilepsy in Israel.

To her family's shock, two recent surgeries intended to improve her condition significantly worsened her health.

Each of Yael's seizures is potentially deadly. She now suffers through a shocking 20 seizures a day. In an effort to save her life, doctors urged Yael's family to fly to Cleveland, where she could be operated upon by an expert surgeon.

Yael is currently in Cleveland, post-surgery. The full effects of the surgery have yet to be confirmed. Her parents have used every cent of their income to obtain the surgery, and are currently struggling to afford places to stay, food, or childcare for their 7 other children during the rehabilitation period.

An emergency fund is currently open with the goal of covering the post-op treatments, modest living arrangements, and tickets back to their home country. Though many donors around the world have contributed, the family is still perilously far from their goal. Donations are being accepted here now.



6. STABBING IN JERUSALEM - TERRORISM SUSPECTED
by Orli Harari

A 15-year-old girl was stabbed on Wednesday morning while she was standing at a bus stop in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.

MDA emergency first responders treated the girl at the scene, before evacuating her for treatment at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

Preliminary reports say the victim is conscious and spoke with police investigators. She told authorities that she was stabbed by an Arab man while waiting at the bus stop. The attacker then fled.

The girl is said to be in light-to-moderate condition, with a stab wound in her neck.

Security forces are searching the area for the stabber.


7. NETANYAHU: I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO CONFRONT MY ACCUSERS
by Gary Willig

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a statement on the investigations against him Monday night.

The prime minister claimed that he had sought to question the State's witnesses in the investigations, but was prevented from doing so twice.

""The judicial system is one of the foundations of Israeli democracy," Netanyahu said. Quoting former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, he stated that "there are judges in Jerusalem. So it was, and so it will be."

Netanyahu said that he was "ready for a live confrontation so that the public knows the truth. I am certain of my innocence."

The prime minister dismissed the allegations of Case 4000, known as the 'Bezeq-Walla Affair,' which is considered the most serious and damaging of the investigations against him. He noted that the case was about "positive coverage which I never received."

He accused those behind the investigations of double standards for failing to investigate his political opponents for some of the same things he is under investigation for.

"How is it that you did not interrogate Yair Lapid, who met dozens of times with (Yediot Aharonot publisher) Noni Moses in a secret place?" he asked.

Netanyahu accused the Israeli left of attempting to bring him down through the investigations since they could not defeat him at the ballot box, saying that he "won't make the concessions" the left wants from him, such as his resignation.

Demanding the right to confront his accusers, Netanyahu also claimed that witnesses who could defend him "were not called to testify."

"I am not afraid, I have nothing to hide," he said.

"The prime minister also has the right to due process, I will cover all the things they say, because I know the truth and I am 4,000 percent sure of it," Netanyahu said.


8. HAMAS CLAIMS TO HOLD 45 'COLLABORATORS'
by AFP

Gaza's Hamas rulers said on Tuesday that its security services had arrested dozens of Arabs
since an Israeli undercover operation turned deadly inside the strip, accusing them of aiding the
Jewish state.

The November 11 special forces operation, which Israel said was an intelligence-gathering mission, turned deadly when the undercover soldiers were spotted near Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The ensuing firefight claimed the lives of an Israeli army officer and seven terrorists, including a local Hamas military commander.

"The security services were able to arrest 45 agents after the security incident east of Khan Yunis last November and they are under investigation," Hamas interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum said in a statement.

He did not say if any of those arrested were suspected of involvement in the November incident.

Following the Khan Yunis shootout, Hamas published photos of eight people and two vehicles it said were linked to the Israeli operation, prompting the Israeli army censor to appeal to the public and media not to republish the images.

"Hamas is attempting to understand and analyse the incident that occurred in Gaza on November 11 and any information, even if it seems harmless by those who distribute it, can endanger lives and put state security at risk," the army said at the time.

Hamas, which launched a major investigation into the Israeli mission, did not identify those in the pictures.

The incident prompted Hamas to vow revenge and led to the deadliest escalation between the two sides since a 2014 war.
Terrorists in Gaza fired some 460 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, as well as an anti-tank missile that hit a bus Hamas says was being used by Israel's army.

In all, some 27 Israelis were wounded, three of them severely.

An Arab worker from the Palestinian Authority was killed when a rocket hit a building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Israel hit back with widespread air strikes in the Gaza Strip that saw seven Gazans killed in 24 hours.

A November 13 ceasefire brokered by Egypt ended the fighting that had raised fears of a fourth war between Israel and terrorists in Gaza since 2008.

In December a Gaza military court sentenced six people, including a woman, to death for "collaborating" with Israel.

But the interior ministry said they were not directly related to the November incursion.

According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, 28 executions have been carried out in Gaza since Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave in 2007 from rival faction Fatah.

Hamas and its allies have fought three wars with Israel since 2008 and the Gaza Strip has been under a parial Israeli blockade for a decade.
Israel says the measure is necessary to isolate Hamas and prevent it from
obtaining weapons, though critics say it amounts to collective punishment of
the territory's two million residents.