Israeli TV Hit Shines Light on Only Female Soldier Killed in Yom Kippur War

Israel Hayom / JNS.org

A destroyed Israeli tank is seen during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

 “Valley of Tears,” a 10-part Israeli TV series on the Yom Kippur War, has generated renewed interest in the 1973 national trauma. HBO Max acquired world rights for the series, which focuses on the stories of four soldiers, was created by the Israel network Kan, and began airing on Oct. 19.

Despite the buzz, some viewers have lamented that the show, titled “Sha’at Ne’ila” in Hebrew, all but ignores the role of women during the war.

One such woman was Niva Shaul, who was among the 2,673 Israeli troops killed during the fighting.

Shaul was born in Mishmar Hanegev, a kibbutz in southern Israel that her parents helped found. “She was a quiet girl that always got her way, but did so quietly,” her mother said after the war in a special memorial film. “She loved to dance and sing, her friends loved her and she knew how to listen and dispense advice,” her mother continued.

In 1968, Shaul started serving in the Israel Defense Forces as a stenographer. During her service, she also met her partner, Benny, who was an aircraft maintenance technician, and following her discharge, they moved to central Israel. She would later start working at a travel agency that catered to tourists in Israel. “They were looking to move into a new apartment, but then the war broke out,” her mother said.

During the war, she was called into reserve duty because she had the much-needed telecommunications training. On the third day of the war, she joined a convoy that went toward the southern front in the Sinai. After arriving at the main IDF headquarters in Refidim, the convoy was attacked by a squadron of Egyptian MiGs

“She told me they were about to get married and fixed me a chocolate sandwich, and then the bombing began,” recalled Yair Yam, who served on the battalion she was embedded with during the war. She was laid to rest in her kibbutz, leaving behind two parents and two sisters. She was posthumously promoted.

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Israeli ‘Fauda’ Actor Performs in Dubai With Iranian Singer

Shiryn Ghermezian

Idan Amedi. Photo: Screenshot.

“Fauda” star and Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Amedi recently performed in the United Arab Emirates with an artist from Iran, as evident from a video posted last week on Twitter by “Fauda” co-creator and Amedi’s costar Lior Raz.

Raz shared last Friday a short clip of Amedi performing on stage alongside a female Iranian singer at a venue in Dubai.

Raz wrote in the video’s caption: “Amazing Israeli singer with an amazing Iranian singer with audience from Jordan Lebanon Syria the UAE and it all happens in Dubai this is what peace is all about.”

That same day, Amedi shared on Instagram a video of Dubai’s skyline at night and a caption about the week he spent in the UAE that he would remember “for many years to come.”

In his Hebrew message, he also praised Emiratis as “good people, very smart and heartfelt.”

In September, Amedi blessed his Emirati fans in a video posted on Twitter and said he was excited to visit their country following the normalization agreement reached by the Jewish state and the UAE.

Israel Launches Airstrikes in Syria in Response to Explosive Devices Found on Border

Reuters
and Algemeiner Staff

Israeli Air Force F-15 planes. Photo: Reuters / Amir Cohen.

Israel launched air raids against what it called a wide range of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria on Wednesday, sending a signal that it will pursue its policy of striking across the border despite US President Donald Trump’s election defeat.

Israel said it was retaliating for what it called an Iran-sponsored operation in which Syrians planted explosives near an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights.

Israel has frequently attacked what it says are Iran-linked targets in Syria in recent years, and stepped up such attacks over the past year in what Western intelligence sources describe as a shadow war to reduce Iran’s influence.

But Wednesday’s attacks struck a far wider range of targets than usual, and the Israeli military was more forthcoming about the details than it has been in the past, suggesting a clear intention to send a public message.

Trump, who lost his re-election bid on Nov. 3, has been a strong backer of Israeli military intervention against Iranian forces in Syria. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will try to revive a nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned.

The Syrian state news agency reported that three military personnel were killed and one wounded in “Israeli aggression.”

Lt-Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said eight targets were hit, belonging to the Syrian army or Iran’s Quds Force, in areas stretching from the Syrian part of the Golan Heights to the Damascus periphery.

They included an Iranian headquarters at Damascus International Airport, a “secret military site” that hosted Iranian military delegations, and the 7th Division of the Syrian armed forces, he said. Syrian surface-to-air defenses were hit after firing at Israeli planes and missiles, Conricus noted.

Western countries say the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is responsible for supporting Tehran’s allies in proxy conflicts across the Middle East.

A former Syrian military commander told Reuters the attacks also targeted a base of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah in Syria close to the Lebanese border, alongside bases in the southern Damascus area and outposts in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights where Hezbollah has a presence.

Conricus made no mention of Hezbollah targets.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said at least ten people were killed including five Iranians from the Quds Force, as well as at least two Shi’ite militiamen who may have been Lebanese or Iraqi. A commander in an alliance of regional forces backing Damascus denied there were Iranians or Lebanese among the casualties.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged that there are Iranian forces operating on his behalf in Syria’s civil war, saying Tehran only has military advisers on the ground.

Western intelligence sources say Israeli strikes this year have undermined Iran’s extensive military power in Syria without triggering a major increase in hostilities.

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