Winter Olympics
The 2018 Winter Olympics are in full swing an among Israel’s shining stars is Oleksii Bychenko. Oleksii achieved second place last Friday in the Men’s Short Program in the Figure Skating Olympic Competition.

Terrorist sentenced to life imprisonment
Last year, we had a major terrorist incident lead to the deaths of two police officers on the Temple Mount. Numerous terrorists took this as an opportune moment to attempt further attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. The worst of these attacks was one that was carried out on the Salomon family, who were celebrating the birth of a new baby on the day of the attack (July 21^st, 2017). The parents of the baby survived the attack, but the father of the baby lost two siblings and his father in the attack. Although one dissenting judge had suggested capital punishment for the terrorist, a majority vote resulted in the sentence of life imprisonment for the terrorist. May God encounter him during his sentence and bring him to true repentance.

Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran
This past week, Israel shot down an Iranian made drone operated out of Syria that was in the act of carrying out an espionage operation on Israel. In response to this act of espionage, Israel struck 12 strategic military targets in Israel. Israeli aircraft was targeted by Russian made anti-aircraft missiles which resulted in two pilots needing to eject from their jet upon return to northern Israel. One pilot was seriously injured and the other lightly injured in the ejection but both will live to see another day. Israel, the US, Russia, Syria, Iran and Lebanon have of course taken part in a number of discussions in the recent week to ensure prevention of further espionage against Israel in order to avoid any need for further action against Syria or endangering of Israeli soldiers. It is perhaps fortunate that Israel had reason to hit the military targets that it did in Syria, but for now, Israel’s intervention in Syria will return to its normal medical assistance and other humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees.