VFI News May 12, 2020

"Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her." Isa. 66:10

Newspaper headlines across Israel on Thur. morning 7 May 2020 portrayed what looked like the grand opening of an array of festivals. Malls, outdoor markets, and gyms reopened that morning after six weeks of closure, as Israel’s numbers of daily new cases of the novel coronavirus remained in the low dozens. In Jerusalem, patrons lined up early outside Jerusalem's landmark Mahane Yehuda market, where guards checked their temperature before allowing them to enter and made sure the market was not overcrowded. “This is a day of celebration for Mahane Yehuda,” said Tali Friedman, a union representative for the shop owners. “The market is open and we hope it remains open." Pini Tzidkiyahu, who runs a fruit store in the market, told Army Radio: “We will protect the public’s health. The fruit is only in boxes, everyone is wearing gloves and everyone who needs a mask gets one.”

In Tel Aviv, the Carmel and Levinsky markets also reopened Thur. morning, along with several other open-air markets in Haifa and Beersheba. Malls and outdoor markets have been shut since mid-March 2020 as part of a series of sweeping measures put in place by Israel to attempt to contain the virus, though they came at the expense of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Shopping malls and markets will face various restrictions, including limiting the number of shoppers allowed to enter shops to one person for every 20 square meters and working to ensure a distance of two meters between customers. They will also be required to put up signs listing the maximum number of people allowed on the premises. (VFI News)

This year, the Jewish nation has mourned the loss of every life snuffed out by coronavirus, but compared to other Western democracies with advanced economies and health systems, Israel has a lot to be thankful for regarding the number of deaths. One reason involves the mentality of Israelis and the unique culture that exists in this country: Israelis are people used to states of emergency, unlike any other Western democracy. Tell Israelis to enter bomb shelters, they know how to. Tell them to stop their car on the side of the road when an air raid siren goes off and to duck into a ditch, they can do it. Tell them to keep their eyes open on buses, to report suspicious bags on street corners, or to just be hyper-vigilant, Israelis come through. (J.Post/VFI News)

"We went through fire and water, but You brought us to a place of abundance." Ps.66:12

The Israeli startup Sonovia which sped up efforts to manufacture masks using its anti-pathogen fabric at the start of the coronavirus crisis in Israel, has now become a commercial business ready to launch sales. Israeli masks designed with unique anti-pathogen fabric have now entered the USA market. The company’s technology is based on a lab-scale sonochemical process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University. Sonovia started manufacturing its product in March 2020 at a plant near Nahariya when Israel had only 200 patients and has sold 30,000 masks. Sonovia uses lower-cost, metal-oxide nanoparticles, to impart antibacterial protection. The research found the one-step process to be effective. Ultrasonic irradiation causes the formation of antimicrobial metal-oxide nanoparticles and actively impregnates them into textile fibers. Moreover, those fabrics impregnated with the zinc and copper oxides were shown to retain significant antibacterial activity even after 100 wash cycles at 75ºC. (VFI News)

USA President Donald Trump, along with other world leaders, continue to ponder and take stock of the damage being done on a global scale as a result of the carelessness of small groups of mankind. For example, who or what circumstances can be blamed for novel coronavirus? Is it those people eating bats, and pangolins from local Chinese wet markets known for their unsanitary conditions, or a disease that spread as a result of an accident in a Chinese badly-tended weapon's laboratory? And this is not the first time a virus has been loosed upon the world from China. The Asian Flue1956 killed between one and four million people worldwide. In 2002 Sars infected 8,098 and killed 774 in seventeen counties. H7N9 emerged ten years later to strike at least 1,223 people and kill four out of every ten of them. Now, the milder, yet more infectious COVID-19 has sickened some 3.7milliion people resulting in thousands of deaths. The assessment from members of the exclusive intelligence-sharing group seems to undermine forceful claims by Trump and Pompeo in recent days, as they have doubled down on the assertion that the outbreak originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than a wet market in the same region. Trump has said of the pandemic that it is a worse “attack” on the United States than either Pearl Harbor or 9/11, aiming once again at China, which he says should have stopped the disease in its tracks. “It should have never happened,” Trump says of the disease that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year. “Could have been stopped at the source. This is really the worst attack we’ve ever had,” Trump tells reporters. “This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center.” The Japanese assault on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii drew the United States into World War II. The 11 September 2001 jihadist attacks killed about 3,000 people and triggered two decades of war. So far, more than 73,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, and Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted the USA toll could top 100,000 by the end of May 2020. (VFI News)

Please intercede for the total eradication of the COVID-19 and that China will adhere to new policies of sanitation in open-air markets while eliminating foods that are potentially deadly to humans. Further than that, we can only hope and intercede that viruses like coronavirus are not released from China on purpose.

At least two people have died and more than 22 others were injured in an earthquake in northern Iran on Friday 8 May 2020: According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the epicenter of the earthquake was at Damavand, just northeast of the capital, at the depth of 6.2 miles. One resident in the Iranian capital told reporters that the shaking of the ground felt "very strong". Boulders were also seen blocking the roadway leading to the mountainous Damavand area. Many people in Tehran have left their homes out of fear of possible aftershocks. Officials urged people who spent the night outdoors to observe social distancing to limit the spread of the coronavirus that has killed nearly 6,500 and infected more than 103,000 in Iran. They assured the public there was no shortage of petrol as people rushed to gas stations to fill up after the quake.

Also, Iran for the second time this year is expecting widespread swarms of locusts. It will be the worst outbreak of the destructive insects in 50 years. Keith Cressman, senior locust forecaster for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization explained, "The issue this year is that swarms from outside invaded the southwest of the country, while seasonal rains came early" and hatched the local population. Now, new swarms are in Iran for a second visit.  Desert locusts are yellow flying insects that grow to 10 centimeters and are considered the most destructive migratory pest in the world. A swarm covering one square kilometer contains up to 80 million locusts and can eat as much food in one day as 35,000 people. And they move fast – up to 150 kilometers a day. Female locusts lay up to 80 eggs and live three to five months in three stages: egg, hopper, and adult. Originating from the desert known as the Empty Quarter, which spans parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, large locust swarms spread uncontrollably last year to both East Africa and Iran. In late February 2020, Iran was once again infested when seasonal rains arrived early and provided a fertile breeding ground. This year, the insects have invaded at least seven southern provinces. (VFI News)

The USA said two weeks ago that it assessed that Iran had successfully launched a military satellite into orbit for the first time. A year ago, Iran attempted to launch a satellite into space but failed when the satellite failed to reach orbit. It made a similar attempt in Feb. 2020 but was again unsuccessful. USA officials say that Iran’s satellite launches defy UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Resolution 2231 cemented Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States and calls on Iran to refrain for eight years from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons. Following Iran's launch of its "Noor" satellite last month and continued attempts to transfer advanced weapons across the Middle East, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, on Friday 8 May 2020 sent a request to the Security Council to discuss and condemn the Iranian actions. Danon noted that Iran’s actions violate Security Council Resolution 2231, which was passed as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. "The involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps - a terrorist organization - in Iran’s space program exposes the true objective behind it, despite the regime’s claims of its 'peaceful’ nature," Danon wrote to the council members. According to the Israeli ambassador, "these actions constitute a violation of the arms embargo and a ban on Iranian ballistic activity as determined by the Security Council" and "is additional proof of the Iranian regime’s ambitions for regional influence. "Danon added that the Iranian regime continues to divert its national resources from dealing with the coronavirus in favor of its terror ambitions and calls on the Security Council to discuss the violations described in its letter and condemn them. (VFI News)

The coronavirus is only making Jew-hatred worse, according to Ran Ukashi, the director of the B’nai Brith League for Human Rights. Ukashi spoke of “utterly false” notions that Israel developed the COVID-19 virus to boost the pharmaceutical industry and that Orthodox Jews are deliberately spreading the virus. “That’s the nature of the anti-Semitic activity that we are hearing regarding the alleged culpability of Jews in COVID-19,” B’nai Brith CEO Michael Mostyn said. Canada has experienced a record number of anti-Semitic incidents for the fourth straight year - and they’re becoming more violent. According to the annual audit by B’nai Brith Canada, the 2,206 reported incidents in 2019 represented an 8% increase over the previous year. The Jewish community remained the most targeted religious minority in Canada. Violent incidents in 2019 rose by 27%. They included Hasidic children sprayed with tar by construction workers in Montreal and Toronto-area Orthodox Jews being assaulted. (VFI News)

Pray against anti-Semitic lies that spring up given any opportunity. Whether it be diseases, troubled finances, wars, or bazaar religious rights - slander has always been the first tool used in any fresh outbreak of hatred on the part of those who want to see God's people removed from the earth. Pray for the protection of the Canadian Jewish community.

We at Vision for Israel, continue to call upon our readers and donors to help us meet the requests for aid and financial assistance that are pouring into our VFI offices daily.  We are working day and night to meet those needs. Over a million people have been suddenly left jobless and entire families including children are suffering physically and emotionally. We are so grateful for the healing and the gradual passing of the coronavirus in our midst. But the financial aftermath is a disaster for the nation. We need supernatural divine provisions. We ask you also to take the time to review the projects we continue to undergird and the accomplishments that are taking place as you give to Vision for Israel. To see our many areas of outreach, including those to children at risk, entire families in need, the elderly, Holocaust survivors, and much more, go to https://www.visionforisrael.com/en/outreach  There, click on one of the four categories and view the list of the projects with which we are actively involved in that category. Thank you and please give generously now to those amid emergency hardships in Israel.