The impoverished Gaza Strip has long been under strict Israeli border controls, including tight restrictions on anything that might be considered “dual use” and potentially put toward the production of weapons.
But experts who track the weapons arsenals of Hamas and Islamic Jihad estimate that they have managed to stockpile between 5,000 and 20,000 rockets. Over the weekend, the militant groups fired a tiny fraction of them toward Israel – nearly 700 rockets and mortars, according to the Israeli military – and the unusually ferocious barrage at times overwhelmed Israeli air defenses.

(May 7, 2019)—New York, NY—As anti-Semitic incidents rise to unprecedented heights in the United States, Touro College and University System is hosting a discussion on “Building Community in Response to Anti-Semitism.” This event is part of the Touro Presidential Lecture Series and will be held on Wednesday, May 15 at 6:30 PM at Touro’s Lander College for Women on 227 West 60th Street in New York City.

Police have arrested a Washington state man for making death threats against Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. weeks after he posted his intentions on social media.
Chase Bliss Colasurdo, 27, who lives in the Seattle area, indicated that he wanted to murder Kushner, a key White House adviser and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, whom he deemed a traitor, for being Jewish, among other reasons, The Washington Post reported.
Colasurdo was arrested after he attempted to buy a gun, a representative of the US Attorney’s Office in Washington told the Post.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

A new report published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBI) showed that 9 million people were now residents in the Jewish state.
The figures, released just before Israel’s Independence Day, showed population growth remained stable at 2% year-on-year increase. Immigration remains a major part of this trend, with 31,000 new arrivals offsetting a part of the 47,000 deaths.
Israel has historical policies in place to encourage the immigration of Jews from the world over, and they represent the overwhelming majority of new residents. More than 45% of the world’s Jewry now lives in Israel, as opposed to 6% when Israel was created in 1948.
The CBI also forecast that the population of Israel would reach 15.2 million by its 100th anniversary, in 2048.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Sunday said in a statement he “condemns in the strongest terms the launching of rockets from Gaza into Israel, particularly the targeting of civilian population centers. He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint, immediately de-escalate and return to the understandings of the past few months.”
Hamas on Monday slammed the United Nations chief for his statement “reflecting a bias towards the Israeli position and in support of Israel’s aggressive position” following a two-day flare-up that killed 27 Palestinians and four Israelis in the latest escalation between Israel and Gaza militants.

An Israeli court has ordered that a Jewish teen suspected of hurling a stone that struck and killed a Palestinian woman in a car in the northern West Bank last October be released to house arrest.
The 16-year-old suspect, who cannot be named because of privacy laws protecting minors, was charged in January in the death of 47-year-old mother-of-eight Aisha Rabi.
The suspect’s attorney tells The Times of Israel that his client will be released next Tuesday and will wear an electronic monitor.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

Getting an Uber or a Lyft may be impossible – or take longer and cost more – Wednesday when drivers for both companies plan to strike in major U.S. cities to protest what they say are unfair wages and poor working conditions.
Thousands of drivers in at least eight cities – including Los Angeles, New York and Washington – plan to shut off their apps and join rallies outside company headquarters and regional offices, according to labor organizers.
The national day of action comes as Uber prepares for an initial public offering this week, just weeks after Lyft hit the public market.

After media around the world reported that an Israeli missile had killed a baby and its pregnant mother in Gaza during the recent eruption of violence, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization may have inadvertently revealed that a rocket from Gaza was responsible for their deaths.
“A leak from the heroes of the Sarayat al-Quds [Islamic Jihad Jerusalem Brigades] on the circumstances of the death of the baby Saba Abu ‘Arar indicates that a rocket of the resistance exploded inside the family’s home due to a technical failure, and prematurely exploded,” Hamas’s al-Risala News said, according to a report by Israeli news service TPS.

Arafat Irfaiya, 29, who confessed to killing 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in February, has been deemed fit to stand trial following a psychiatric evaluation conducted at the request of his defense team.
The next hearing in Irfaiya’s case is slated to be held at the Jerusalem District Court in June, at which point the Public Defender’s Office will present its response to the indictment, which included counts of committing a terrorist act in the form of premeditated murder, assault and entering Israel without a permit.

A day after Israel and the Hamas terror organization entered into a ceasefire, ending two days for rocket attacks on the Jewish state, an air raid siren was accidentally sounded in an IDF base inside of Tel Aviv.
The incident occurred just after 12:00 p.m. Tuesday at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, when a siren was suddenly sounded, leaving Israelis on nearby streets in panic, with some streets coming to a standstill.
Local police assured residents that there was no security situation in the area, and calmness was soon restored.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}