Israeli medical marvel: bloodstream-sized robot

Incredible:

"Israeli scientists have actually created the imaginary technology depicted by the 1966 science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, in which a submarine is reduced to microscopic size, injected into the bloodstream and able to travel through the body to provide medical treatment.

"A tiny 'submarine' robot has been designed by Dr. Nir Schwalb of the Judea and Samaria College in Ariel and Oded Solomon of the mechanical engineering department of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

They say it has the unique ability to 'crawl' through tubes with the width of human veins and arteries, even going against the flow of blood at the speed in which it passes through blood vessels."

Also guess it's goin' on the British boycott list, huh? Maybe they should use the micro-robot to clear out the crap in their brains.

Go astonish yer'self with more Israeli medical advances here.

Fatah prisoner release: signing a death warrant? (editorial cartoon)

From Haaretz:

"[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert announced the plan on Monday at the close of a four-way summit with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, saying that Israel would only release prisoners not held for deaths of its citizens.

"As a gesture of goodwill toward the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet at its next meeting a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence," Olmert said."

---

"This is a wrong, harmful message that will not strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It will only weaken it," Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to release Palestinian prisoners.

"[Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, also known as] Abu Mazen will be hurt by such a decision," continued Netanyahu. "Giving them guns and releasing their prisoners is a big mistake."

More on Bibi & Co. here.

Hamas: IDF captive being held in bomb-rigged room in Gaza

From Haaretz:

"Channel 2 television reported Sunday that an Israel Defense Forces soldier captured a year ago was being held in the southern Gaza Strip in an underground room inside a booby-trapped building.

"The television report said [Gilad] Shalit was being cared for by two captors with whom he had formed a "cordial" relationship and he was being treated fairly.

"Shalit's living quarters were described as a two-room underground store with enough supplies to last two weeks, accessible down a ladder through a 15-meter deep shaft which the report said was lined with explosives."

There are at present eight Israeli soldiers kidnapped or missing in action:

Almost a year has passed since the unprovoked abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, an action that precipitated widespread confrontation between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. To date no word has been heard from the two captive soldiers, and neither their families nor the government of Israel have any knowledge of their whereabouts or their current state of health.

Two weeks prior to their abduction, on June 25, another soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted as well, this time on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. His family, too, anxiously awaits news from him. Especially grave is the fact that these unprovoked abductions were carried out on sovereign Israeli territory.

Read the following brief bios of the three. For their sakes, and for ours.

And do absolutely not forget Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz, Guy Hever, Zachary Baumel and Ron Arad.

Oh, and speaking of Palestinians holding hostages, of course there's this, a video showing BBC reporter Alan Johnston, held by Palestinian militants, begging for mercy while bound in what appears to be a suicide bomber's vest.

Israeli aid to Gaza: by the numbers (Thursday update)

The IDF just released stats on food, medicine and other aid Israel's trying to pass over to Palestinians through the Erez crossing point with the Gaza Strip. That is, while Hamas' shooters aren't firing at them - or into the backs of terrified Palestinians fleeing into Israel...

(Thursday update) IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT:

• Over 400 tons of food products were transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing: 130 tons flour, 49 tons rice, 49 tons sugar, 5 tons tea, 8 tons milk powder, 33 tons crushed lentils, 19.7 tons lentils, 30 tons margarine, 18.5 tons barley, 34 tons macaroni, 20 tons beans, 15 tons humus and 2 tons soup.
• 7 tons of disinfectants were also transferred through the crossing.
• 160,000 liters of diesel fuel, 40,000 liters of gasoline and 40 tons of gas were transferred via the Nahal Oz fuel terminal.
• 8 injured Palestinians were transferred from Gaza hospitals to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment.
• Overnight, Palestinians at the Erez crossing interested in crossing over to Egypt were assisted to do so.
• Approximately 100 Palestinians with dual citizenships crossed into Israel through the Erez crossing.
• 2 Red Cross surgeons passed into the Gaza Strip through Erez in order to assist hospitals in the region.

C'mon, go on and guess how appreciative Palestinians responded to the humanitarian gesture...

Three people were lightly wounded and at least seven others reported in shock after a barrage of five Kassam rockets hit the western Negev on Wednesday evening, bringing the day's total rocket hits to eight.

More about previous Israeli attempts to aid Gazan Palestinians is here, in a report I prepared almost exactly one year ago about the Karni crossing point (including an exclusive podcast on the scene with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev).

Cargo waiting to cross from Israel into Gaza at
the Karni crossing point, June, 2006.
Ongoing Palestinian terror attacks against troops
and civilian personnel forced the facility's closure.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

More on the current situation in Gaza, as of Wednesday night is here.

Batter up! Israel swings into 1st-ever pro baseball season (UPDATED)

"Holy Land hardball: it only took 5,767 years"

From Ynet News:

The Israel Baseball League is to double the seating capacity of the Yarkon Field on Sunday night to accommodate the expected 2,000 spectators for the league's Opening Night.

“Ticket requests have been awesome,” said IBL’s business operations director Bob Ruxin in a press release. “Israeli communities, youth teams and companies are organizing group outings, droves of North Americans have scheduled visit to Israel to coincide with the Opener, and we even have a fan coming in from India just to catch the first game,” Ruxin continued.

ESPN notes that Israel has drafted legend Sandy Koufax:

Forty-one years after he retired from baseball, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was the final player chosen in the draft to stock the six teams for the inaugural season of the Israel Baseball League.
Koufax, 71, was picked by the Modi'in Miracle in the draft conducted by former major league general manager Dan Duquette, who heads baseball operations for the league.

Former US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, the future commissioner of the country’s first baseball league agrees, saying that “Israel is ready for a third major sport”. More Israel B-ball stats and background here.

...and this just in: proof positive that baseball is clearly referred to numerous times in the Bible (Hey - it even starts off, "In the Big Inning").

Israel Baseball League

WNET New York will air the inaugural game, on Sunday, July 1st.

And closer to home -- umm, depending where you're standing -- American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen just sent me this:

To say Eric Holtz is a baseball fanatic is like saying Michaelangelo could paint. That's why the 41-year-old father of three id leaving his successful clothing manufacturing business in upstate New York this summer to join the first-ever Israeli baseball league and live out his lifelong dream on a baseball diamond in the Holy Land.

Growing contentions that Assad was behind Katyusha attack

Katyusha strike: truck-mounted,
multiple-launch at Israel

From Infolive.tv:

Kuwait's Al Syasah newspaper says Syrian President Bashar Assad is linked to Sunday's Katyusha rocket strike on northern Israel. The report, however, did not detail the reputed extent of the Syrian leader's involvement.

The newspaper on Monday said that Assad was angry over the Arab League's stand on Syria's involvement in Lebanon.

From Ynet News:

Farid Ghadri, a Syrian exile, and head of a Syrian opposition party which calls for the end of the Assad regime, told Ynetnews that Syrian President Basher Assad was responsible for the rocket attacks. Ghadri, head of the Reform Party of Syria, is based in Washington DC, and has just completed a week-long visit to Israel, where he addressed the Knesset, and toured the Golan Heights.

More photos from last summer's war against Hizbullah are here.

Possible cancer cure? Israeli zapper kills brain cancer cells

Hey, remember that UK doctors' plan to boycott Israeli colleagues and medical advances? Hmm. Well, feel free to boycott this, yutzes:

An Israeli-developed treatment that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with electrical fields shows great promise in treating patients with brain cancer.

The Novo-TTF (Tumor-Treating Fields) device, invented by Technion Professor emeritus Yoram Palti, uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells.

"This is a new general modality for treating cancer. In a way it's similar to radiation, it's physical in the same sense, but the major difference is that there are no side effects..."

"This trial showed a big change, and on the basis of these results, the FDA has approved going on to bigger trials. So far, at least in the lab, all types of tumors have been sensitive to the treatment, so we're hopeful that it can treat all forms of cancer," he added.

That's right. A possible miraculous, dramatic cure for certain types of brain cancer - and maybe others. But hey, it's from those awful Israelis, so, like, fagedaboudit, right? More on this developing technology here.

Oh, and while we're at it, talking about them 'orrid Joos? Take a look at this news report video of an Israeli army officer and little Palestinian girl in a Jerusalem health care facility. Stick around for her parents' comments:

Katyusha salvo slams into Israel (video)

Just shook the dust off this map from last summer.
It'll do for the moment, since it's the same ole' same ole...

"Six Katyusha rockets were fired at Israel on Sunday afternoon, landing in Kiryat Shmona and elsewhere in the North, causing damage to property but no casualties.

"One of the rockets hit a car in the industrial zone located in the northern part of the town, and a second rocket landed in a residential area in the southern part of the town. One rocket hit a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon and the location of another three have yet to be found.

"It is the first rocket attack on Israel since the end of last summer's Second Lebanon War when over 1000 rockets were fired at the town and over 4000 at Israel's northern border."

More here.

Update: Since we're talking about Lebanon and war, there's this:

In less than one month, Israel will mark the one-year anniversary of the Second Lebanon War. The Ministerial Committee for Symbols and Ceremonies decided Sunday to hold an official ceremony to mark the occasion.

According to the resolution, a ceremony will be held annually on the 16th of the Hebrew month of Tamuz (around July). The Defense Ministry will be resposible for organizing the ceremony, along with Yad Labanim, an organization that commemorates Israel's fallen soldiers.

More here.

Krazy Kaption Kontest! 'Please place all weapons on the x-ray conveyor...'

Captions, anyone?

A Hamas militant poses inside an X-ray machine, at the passport processing area of the Rafah Border Crossing, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2007.
(AP Photo/Hatem Omar, MaanImages)

Sara Yocheved Rigler: From the ashram to Jerusalem

Sara Yocheved Rigler
Click here or on image to see more photos
(Photos: Dave Bender).

Click on the audio player below to hear an excerpt of her address to the congregation at Ariel Synagogue, Atlanta on Sunday, June 10th.

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(Please be patient: the audio stream may not begin immediately. You can also listen here, if the player above isn't working.) Drop me a note if you'd like to hear more segments of Rigler's talk.

More on Rigler's spiritual trek from a decade at a Buddhist ashram to a devout Jewish outlook and observance in Jerusalem is here. Her latest book, Holy Woman: The Road to Greatness of Rebbitzen Chaya Sara Kramer, is available here.