Iran's Revolutionary Guards threaten to turn Israel into 'scorched earth'

 

Iran's Revolutionary Guards threaten a devastating response against Israel if Iranian energy facilities are attacked, amid escalating warnings between Tehran and Trump.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday threatened severe retaliation against Israel if Iranian energy infrastructure comes under attack, warning that such an operation would have devastating consequences.

IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohabbi issued the threat in a post on X, which was subsequently removed for violating the platform's rules.

“Any attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure, although it will immediately be repaired by our young scientists, will turn the occupied territories into scorched earth forever and drive its usurpers into the Sinai Desert," Mohabbi wrote.

“The world will see what happens," he added.

The warning came amid an escalating exchange of threats between Iranian officials and US President Donald Trump, following the President's public endorsement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel's October 27 Knesset election.

"Last time you wanted to 'finish the job', Iran emerged even stronger. Want to try your luck again? Be our guest. But be careful; we have unfinished jobs too," Araghchi wrote on social media.

Araghchi also accused Netanyahu of seeking to involve Washington in another confrontation with Tehran for personal political reasons.

"Netanyahu is driving America into another war to stay out of jail, whatever the consequences for Israel-let alone POTUS," he added.

The Iranian statements followed Trump's endorsement of Netanyahu for another term, in which the American President emphasized their cooperation against Iran and warned of the consequences of a change in Israeli leadership.

Addressing Israeli voters in a Truth Social post, Trump praised Netanyahu's record in confronting the Iranian regime.

"To the Great People of Israel: Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its 51 year old chant, 'Death to Israel, Death to America! We will destroy the Little Satan and the Big Satan,'" Trump wrote. "What Country can survive when things such as this are allowed to be said, because eventually, they always end up being true?"

Trump argued that American military and economic measures had substantially weakened Iran but indicated that additional action remained possible.

"It would have been only a question of time until Iran would have put that ominous phrase into effect, but they have been systematically destroyed, both Militarily and Financially, and unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job."

Related articles

• 'Trump will be picking up bodies'
• 'Every time they attack US ships, they will lose tankers'
• Katz to Iran: Attack Israel, we’ll send you back to the Stone Age
• Report reveals chaos at the top of the regime

He also made clear that he regarded Netanyahu's continued leadership as important to the US-Israeli approach toward Tehran.

"If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so," Trump warned.

Israel's Valley of Springs

https://www.jpost.com/travel/article-911785

The gate of Eden: In Israel’s Valley of Springs, ancient history offers a new journey of healing

From shepherding at dawn to dining among Roman ruins, discover the springs, flavors, and history of Israel’s Emek Hama’ayanot.

More than 1,700 years ago, the Talmudic sage Reish Lakish looked out over the Beit She’an basin and left a line the valley still lives by: “If the Garden of Eden is in the Land of Israel, its gate is Beit She’an.”

We came to see for ourselves, as a family, with our two boys: two nights, and a valley that seems to be made mostly of water.

Emek Hama’ayanot, the Valley of Springs, lies beneath the ridge of Mount Gilboa, inside the long scar of the Syrian-African Rift. About 40 natural springs rise here from deep underground, holding steady between 24 and 28 degrees Celsius in every season. Water is the reason people came, and the reason they stayed.

Under the Greeks and Romans, Beit She’an became Scythopolis, the leading city of the Decapolis, a league of 10 Greco-Roman cities, and the only one of them west of the Jordan River. Its builders turned spring water into public fountains, cascading staircases, and great heated baths. Long before anyone coined the phrase “wellness tourism,” this valley was practicing it.

What we found 2,000 years later is a region still in the business of healing: fish ponds returned to wetland, kitchens reopened by reservists home from war, and a holiday village that uses running water to quiet the world.

Inside A Kama suite. Under the curved ceiling, a family of up to six has soft beds, its own kitchenette and espresso machine, and no television – only a terrace and the quiet of the valley. (credit: NOAM BEDEIN)

A village built to slow you down

Our base for both nights was Kama Resort, and it shaped everything that followed.

Its founder, Khen Shalem, never planned to be a hotelier. Trained as a physicist, he moved into filmmaking and won a Student Emmy Award for his short film Abe. After securing the film rights to Meir Shalev’s bestselling A Russian Novel (Roman Rusi), he realized that independent cinema in Israel would not pay its own way. Kama was meant to be a quiet business that would fund the screenplay.

Then the place took hold of him. Today, he says that even with a large budget in hand, he would put every resource back into Kama rather than return to a film set.

Shalem grew up on nearby Kibbutz Nir David, and Kama feels like a memory of that childhood. At its center is a wide green lawn in the spirit of the old kibbutz commons, framed by an avenue of trees. Every unit faces inward, toward the grass, the reflection pools, and the shallow wading pool. He kept the creative work in the valley. Architects Hava Pasder and Ami Dvir, of the firm Artista, drew the plans. Lilach Lempel designed the interiors. Visual artist Dana Stempler Asael photographed the rooms.

The valley is working farmland, and tractors start early. Instead of building walls, Shalem turned to the memory of his father, an archaeologist who studied the Roman water systems of this region and who passed away when Shalem was a boy. A stone aqueduct now runs across the grounds and spills into a waterfall over the wading pool. Its steady rush covers the sound of farm machinery and settles over the whole village like white noise.

The suites are unlike anything else in the valley: rounded vaults modeled on arched aircraft hangars, built with curved-steel Quonset engineering. To get them right, Shalem found Rami, an Israel Air Force veteran who spent his military career building these exact hangars. Inside, the ceiling curves overhead without a single hard angle, and the effect is one of shelter.

Each suite has 42 sq.m. of insulated living space and an 18-sq.m. private terrace. It sleeps up to six, with a double bed and two to four singles, a large bathroom with a walk-in shower, and a kitchenette with a refrigerator, microwave, and espresso machine. There are no televisions, by design. The idea is that you step outside and listen to the valley instead.

Even the safe rooms tell a story. Israeli law requires a fortified room, a mamad, and Shalem shaped Kama’s to echo the 1930s Tower and Stockade (Homa U’migdal) settlements, a nod to the nearby historical outposts of Tel Hashlosha and Migdal George.

Kama Resort has 23 units today, with zoning approval for up to 250. Its lawn can hold corporate retreats of 250 people and gatherings of up to 600. Many guests book their next stay before they check out. From here, the valley’s springs, nature reserves, ruins, and restaurants are all minutes away, and Kama guests receive benefits at leading local restaurants and attractions.

Just outside Beit She’an, Nahal Harod falls through the stone arches of the Kantara Bridge, built in the Mamluk period as a channel to carry spring water to the fields. (credit: NOAM BEDEIN)

Dawn with the flock

Spring and summer in the valley set their own hours. If you want to be outside, you go at dawn.

At 6 a.m., with the sun rising crimson and gold over the mountains of Jordan, we arrived at Havat Nokdey Ruppin, known across the valley as Dir Balak, on the edge of Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin. Ile Shevach, with a background as an emotional therapist, runs the farm with her husband, Tsachi, its master cheesemaker. They built it as an educational farm as much as an agricultural one. The kibbutz children who work here, known as the “Dirnikim,” care for the young goats, handle daily chores, and set much of the barn’s rhythm.

We walked out to pasture with the herd, some 40 mothers and kids, and our two sons found their places on their own.

Eitam, seven, took the front. With a rough wooden staff in hand, he led the herd forward, steering it through body language, low calls, and small shifts in position. His small frame was a silhouette against the rising sun, and the flock moved with his steps. Lavie, 10, took the rear, and the farm’s puppies with it. He watched the ground, kept the pups watered as the heat climbed, and carried them when the desert thorns cut their paws.

Walking beside us, Shevach said that shepherding was humanity’s first school of leadership and responsibility. Animals read the person guiding them instantly: the anxiety, the hesitation, the calm. For a child to earn that trust from a flock, and to show that kind of care on rough ground, is a lesson no classroom can teach. Watching our boys that morning, I understood exactly what she meant.

The farm’s coffee truck was waiting when we came back: excellent espresso, warm, flaky pastries, and cheese made on site from the milk of the goats we had just walked across the fields. It was sharp and clean, with a trace of the wild herbs the herd grazes each morning. Animal, land and table, with nothing in between.

Water finding its way home

Our guide to the valley’s wild eastern edge, along the Jordanian border, was Chen Ravon Sherry, a ranger with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). Her field is rewilding, a conservation approach that pulls back from heavy human intervention and lets natural processes repair damaged ecosystems on their own terms. By the end of our trip, her way of seeing had become the thread running through everything we experienced.

For decades, commercial fish ponds dominated this landscape. They broke up migration routes and disrupted the native springs. Under the Startup Nature campaign, Chen and the SPNI are reversing that, one careful step at a time. They clear old blockages and use gravity and the land’s natural slope to send spring water back into abandoned ponds. The result is a growing chain of wetlands that eventually returns clean water to the Jordan River.

The land has answered. Thick walls of reeds, sweet cane, and native plants have reclaimed the banks. Songbirds fill the air, and native fish move through water that feels untouched.

Along the border fence, the quiet is so complete that the loudest sounds are a fish breaking the surface and the wind in the reeds. That stillness has drawn combat veterans, civilians carrying the invisible wounds of war, and people living with severe PTSD. Many come to volunteer alongside the SPNI rangers, clearing stream paths, tracking wildlife, and checking water levels. It is slow, repetitive work under an open sky. With no sudden city noise and the constant presence of running water, frayed nervous systems slowly settle.

Winter transforms these ponds again. The valley sits on the great migration corridor linking Europe, Asia, and Africa, and ranks as the second most important bird-watching destination in Israel. Thousands of great white pelicans land here in tight formation, alongside black storks, glossy ibises, herons, and raptors riding the thermals off Mount Gilboa. Picture a January morning at the edge of a border pond, pelicans feeding in unison beneath the desert mountains. That is our next reporting trip.

The valley at the table

A landscape can’t fully restore you unless it feeds you too. Every table we sat at in this valley told a story of return: to the soil, home from the front lines, or straight into ancient stone.

Meshek Eliyahu, Moshav Beit Yosef: Our culinary journey began at this family-run farm restaurant, where chef Eliran Ishran cooks farm-to-table in the truest sense. For more than a decade, the family worked at the top of Israel’s competitive restaurant scene. When the war broke out, many of them were called up for months of reserve duty on the front lines, and came home wanting what mattered most: family, soil, and honest cooking.

The kitchen buys directly from valley farmers and has no fixed menu. Each day is built around what was harvested that morning from their own plots and neighboring farms. We ate charred root vegetables with raw tahini and local honey, crisp field greens, and slow-baked bread made from heirloom grains. Every plate felt alive.

Artichoke, at the foot of Mount Gilboa: Where the mountain meets the valley floor, Artichoke puts regional farming at the center of the plate. Artichokes, beets, and fresh herbs are the stars, cooked with real creativity. Children and adults can step off the patio straight into the fields and walk among the rows of crops, while the sheer cliffs of the Gilboa rise behind the tables. Readers who show this article receive a special discount through Yaniv.

Zoara Distillery (Jordan Spirits): Zoara was founded to solve an agricultural problem. Valley packing houses reject millions of kilograms of good dates every year for cosmetic flaws alone. Zoara rescues them, ferments and distills them into a clean, high-proof base, and then turns to the land for flavor: Mount Gilboa pine needles, local ashwagandha, mint, and lemon verbena. Its lineup revives the heirloom Yosef Effendi mandarin, which took silver at the 2024 London Spirits Competition, alongside a bright mulberry gin and Arak Mansour, aged three years in oak barrels in the valley heat. A glass here sums up Emek Hama’ayanot: taking what was discarded or scarred and making it whole again.

Dinner among the ruins

In Beit She’an’s old city, history isn’t behind glass. You eat beside it, and sometimes inside it.

Even Harosha: This wine bar and meat bistro carries one of the valley’s great stories of resilience. Its founder, Shimon Oshri, a retired IDF commander, spent most of his career leading elite units, including the Duvdevan unit. After leaving the army, he bought an old, grease-stained garage along the historical market streets, planning to turn it into a fine bistro.

His first day of construction was set for October 8, 2023. Instead, he went straight back into uniform and spent months commanding troops on the southern front. When he finally came home, he poured himself into finishing the space. He named it for the keystone that locks an arch together and dedicated it to his late mother, a beloved local kindergarten teacher for 42 years.

The setting is extraordinary. The dining room sits inside the moat that Crusader knights cut some 900 years ago to protect their fortress. Its walls are the original hand-cut basalt and limestone arches, softened by sleek industrial steel. The kitchen pairs premium meats with regional wines, but the dish already entering local lore is Shimon’s Schnitzel: huge, golden, wafer-thin, with an unbelievable crunch. It is comfort food raised to an art, and best eaten with a glass of crisp local wine.

Helena: For lunch, Helena gives the most honest taste of the town. It has the bustle of a beloved workers’ lunch spot, and it treats its food with real pride. Helena backs onto the ancient stone of the old quarter, steps from a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater where, in the golden age of Scythopolis, gladiators fought lions. The moment you sit down, the table fills with house-made salads, bright pickles, smoky grilled eggplant, and fiery chili sauces, followed by thin, crisp schnitzels and tender grilled meats. Fast, generous, and done with care, it’s easy to see why locals line up every afternoon.

That amphitheater has never been excavated. The region holds so much history that the Israel Antiquities Authority has left it as it is, wild and silent under the brush. To trace the stone gates where fighters and lions once entered the arena, from your seat at a lunch table, is an experience no museum can offer.

Basilia: For dinner, we went to Basilia, an upscale dairy and Italian restaurant. The kitchen works closely with local growers, so the menu shifts with the valley’s harvests: pasta rolled by hand each day, wood-fired pizzas with blistered, airy crusts, and garden salads built around artisanal valley cheeses. The service is warm, but the real magic is on the open terrace, where the night breeze moves through wheat fields that stretch into the dark. Here, fine dining and fertile earth share the same breath.

The city beneath the city

Early one morning, before the gates opened to the public, we walked Beit She’an National Park with its longtime director, Nissim Bados. He has spent about 40 years excavating and preserving this site. He first arrived in 1986 as a young student, when a large government project brought 450 local workers to the dig to fight unemployment in the region.

Few cities on earth, Nissim told us, can match Beit She’an’s unbroken record: nearly 7,000 years of continuous settlement, with 20 layers of civilization stacked on the central tel alone, from the Chalcolithic through the Canaanite, Egyptian, and Persian eras. The valley’s soil was so fertile it was said to yield seventy times the seed sown.

Under the Greeks and Romans, the city was reborn as Scythopolis, named, as Nissim tells it, for Scythian horsemen from the cold steppes who settled here for the water despite the summer heat. It became the capital of the Decapolis and a crossroads between the Mediterranean and the East. As we walked the great stone avenues of the Cardo and the Decumanus, Nissim pointed to the spot where his team found 32 perfectly preserved gold coins buried beneath fallen columns.

The whole city was built as a celebration of water. Stone aqueducts carried millions of cubic meters from the valley’s springs into public fountains and down monumental staircases. The western bathhouse alone spread over more than seven dunams, warmed by a hypocaust heating system beneath the floors. Wellness, it turns out, was always a pillar of civilization here.

Scythopolis also feels unusually real. Its Roman theater, with remarkable acoustics, is more than 90% original stone, unlike the heavily reconstructed ruins at Caesarea. And what visitors see today, Nissim explained, is only 7%-8% of the ancient city’s 1,700 dunams. The rest lies under the valley floor, frozen as it stood on January 18, 749 CE, when an earthquake leveled the city in seconds. There is enough buried city left, he says, for another 90 years of digging.

Standing in that empty theater as the morning light climbed the stone, I thought back to Chen’s ponds, to water slowly finding its way home to the Jordan. Reish Lakish called this valley the gate of Eden. Two thousand years on, the springs are still running, and the valley is still restoring the people who walk through it.

https://www.jpost.com/travel/article-911785

Israel’s Ambassador Dana Kursh on building bridges beyond diplomacy

 

Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines Dana Kursh brings more than two decades of diplomatic experience to her efforts to strengthen bilateral relations and expand cooperation between the two countries. 

COVER AND BANNER PHOTOS BY RIO DELUVIO; ADDITIONAL PHOTOS FROM THE EMBASSY OF ISRAEL IN THE PHILIPPINES

A career in diplomacy can take a person far from home, requiring them to navigate unfamiliar cultures, build new relationships and represent their country through periods of uncertainty. For Dana Kursh, Israel’s ambassador to the Philippines, fulfilling those responsibilities also means holding on to the person behind the title.

From her childhood in a farming village in northern Israel to postings in the United States, India and now Manila, Kursh has learned that the work calls for more than knowledge and resilience. It requires humility, curiosity and a willingness to connect with people as herself.

From a village to the world

Kursh grew up in Moshav Merhavia, a farming community near Nazareth. As a teenager, she became interested in diplomacy but doubted whether someone with her background could enter the profession.

“I was born and raised in a small village in the north of Israel, 10 minutes from Nazareth. When I became more mature, like at 16 or 17, I started thinking, what do I want to do? I fell in love with learning about diplomacy. But I was sure I would never get in, because I thought it’s either you have to be extremely smart or have some connections. I had neither,” she told The Sunday Times Magazine in a one-on-one interview at the ambassador’s official residence.

Her outlook changed during her second year studying international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Listening to Colette Avital, one of Israel’s pioneering diplomats, discuss her career gave Kursh the resolve to pursue her own.

Ambassador Kursh draws on her diplomatic experience and personal encounters to foster stronger relations between Israel and the Philippines.

“When she finished speaking, I remember telling myself that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to become an ambassador and represent my country,” Kursh recalled.

“At that time, I was still young, and I did not know if I had the intelligence or the connections to enter the diplomatic service. But listening to her talk about her work made me realize that this was something I truly wanted to pursue,” she added.

That resolve led her to pursue a place in the diplomatic service, where, when she applied, only 20 candidates were chosen from 2,000 applicants. Kursh officially joined Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 2001, beginning a career that has taken her on three postings around the world to date.

Her first overseas assignment, in Houston, Texas, introduced her to the responsibilities of diplomacy in times of crisis. During her posting, the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster claimed the life of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. She recalled helping support his family and shielding them from intrusive media attention. Hurricane Katrina followed in 2005, bringing further lessons in assisting people through tragedy.

“I think that experience built my resilience and deepened my understanding of the challenges people face when natural disasters strike. It also helped me understand the role of diplomats in times of crisis. Our responsibility is not only to represent our country but also to look after our citizens, make sure they receive the assistance they need and find ways to help the nation and the people affected,” she said.

Kursh later spent five years in India, first as deputy ambassador in New Delhi and then as consul general in Bangalore, a major technology hub.

She also held various positions at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Jerusalem, including policy adviser to the director general and head of the Agricultural Internship Administration, a program in which the Philippines has historically been a major participant.

From August 2022 until her deployment to Manila in August 2025, she likewise headed the ministry’s Bureau of Training, serving as dean of its Diplomatic Academy. There, she helped recruit and prepare diplomats while championing the use of artificial intelligence in their work.

Across these assignments, she learned that experience does not always mean having all the answers.

“I think one of the things I learned is to not take things for granted and not think I know things. After half a year in a position, you feel that you know it all. ‘Ah, I read the politics, I read history, I know.’ But then, the more you stay in a place, the more you reveal how much you don’t know. So you have to stay modest for that,” she said.

That openness matters in a profession that requires Kursh to take on several roles, sometimes within the same day.

“You are like a lawyer representing your nation. You are being interviewed, so you are a spokesperson. You are negotiating, whether it’s treaty or business things. You are a businessman or businesswoman trying to promote business between Israel and the Philippines. You are doing international cultural diplomacy. You are exporting Israeli arts and culture. You are doing interfaith dialogue,” she enumerated.

Israel marked its 78th Independence Day in June by inaugurating the Digital Learning Resource Center at Jacinto Zamora Elementary School in Pandacan, Manila, in partnership with DepEd Philippines.

The variety is what makes the work meaningful for Kursh despite its difficulties.

“You are not doing something for the salary; you are doing something for the heart, something that you are passionate about. There are complicated things — it’s not perfect, but it is something very meaningful,” she said.

The ambassador said her understanding of diplomacy began when she was a young trainee attending a reception in Istanbul.

“I remember that I smiled all the time, but I only mingled with my batch [of trainees]. Towards the end, I said to myself, enough is enough, Dana. You have to go out there. You have to interact with other people. And at the end of that day, I said, oh, I made the first step,” she recalled.

The experience taught her the importance of reaching beyond familiar circles — a lesson she would later bring to her work preparing future diplomats.

As dean of the Diplomatic Academy, she looked for qualities beyond academic achievement. Intelligence mattered, but so did emotional awareness, language skills, cultural understanding and the ability to withstand adversity. For Kursh, these human qualities remain essential even as technology makes knowledge more accessible.

“With AI, you can learn almost anything in a matter of seconds. But diplomacy is not just about having information or knowing the right answers. You also need to know how to connect with people, understand where they are coming from and build relationships. Technology can help us gain knowledge, but the human connection remains essential,” she noted.

She also believes diplomats must learn how to enter unfamiliar situations without imposing their own customs on others. She recalled attending a Filipino wake shortly after arriving in the country and encountering an open coffin for the first time.

“In Israel we bury our dead immediately. So that was very hard but very powerful. I said a prayer in Hebrew,” she shared.

As unfamiliar as the practice was to her, she recognized in it a shared desire to comfort the bereaved.

“You have to learn the culture. You have to understand. In Judaism, we mourn the dead for seven days. In a similar way [here in the Philippines], the wake enabled people to come and and embrace the bereaved family,” she continued.

For Kursh, the experience demonstrated how different traditions can serve similar human needs. She said understanding those differences requires curiosity and adaptability.

The woman behind the title

Remaining authentic is another challenge Kursh has encountered in her career. It is something she hopes to preserve, even when her approach differs from what people expect of a diplomat.

She once took offense when people told her she did not seem like one. She initially interpreted the observation as criticism but eventually understood that people were responding to her willingness to engage with them personally.

“What they meant is that they felt a person. It wasn’t just someone who gave the messages of the government. It was a person interacting with them and making them think,” she said.

She is also conscious of how public recognition can affect a diplomat’s sense of self.

“People can easily go, ‘Oh, they have standing ovations. It’s for me. It’s for Dana.’ But you need to remember that it’s not for Dana. You are a vessel, and they are standing and clapping for the ambassador of the State of Israel. I’m just a vessel, a messenger,” she said.

As a woman in diplomacy, she has also encountered assumptions about who holds authority. She recalled instances when people addressed her male deputy as the ambassador or mistook her for a diplomat’s wife.

When asked whether being a woman has made her profession more challenging, she replied, “Most of the time, no, [but there are] different cultures, different countries. And there is chauvinism still back home in Israel and other places.”

She next reflected on the pressure women feel to appear strong and composed, even during emotionally difficult moments.

After becoming tearful while speaking during an Oct. 7 commemoration, she questioned whether showing emotion might make others doubt her professionalism.

“Why did I cry? I cannot be a professional woman and cry because women crying, people will say, you know, hysteria is from history, the womb, all of those stereotypes about women and crying,” she recalled thinking.

But friends at the embassy reminded her that her tears reflected her humanity rather than a failure of leadership.

“I think that every person, men and women alike, have special traits that they were given. And we should stay attentive to those,” she said.

That desire to remain true to herself extends to family life. Kursh is raising her 14-year-old son while managing the responsibilities of representing Israel abroad. She values the chance for him to grow up among different cultures but acknowledges how hard it is to balance work and parenting.

She hopes her son will always feel that she is present when he needs her, despite her demanding schedule.

“I hope that at the end of the day, when he sits on the couch, in 20 years from now, he will not say that his mom scarred him too much,” she said with a laugh.

Discovering the Philippines

Kursh first visited the Philippines in October 2015 on an official trip to Manila while serving as Israel’s deputy ambassador to India. She spent a week in the country and brought her young son and mother along, hoping to explore the capital with them.

However, a typhoon disrupted their plans and limited their opportunity to see the city. Although the visit was brief, it became her first memorable encounter with the Philippines.

Returning as ambassador in August 2025 gave her a chance to discover more of the country.

“I think I fall in love more and more every day [with the Philippines]. I know it’s an archipelago with more than 7,000 islands. Gorgeous. But to discover each island and to see how different it is from other places, it’s amazing,” she enthused.

Visits to Ilocos Norte, Davao, Puerto Princesa and Iloilo have since introduced her to regional cuisines, traditions, churches and indigenous communities.

“Every time I go, I become a patriot of the place. Because it’s a different cuisine. It’s a different art. The indigenous tribes are different... the culture. Everything is different,” she said.

Her enthusiasm also extends to Filipino food. She particularly enjoys lumpia prepared in different ways by her Ilocano cook and has grown fond of halo-halo, despite initially questioning why beans were mixed into ice cream.

“I had a problem at the beginning. Why do they put beans in ice cream? But I said, okay, I’m not thinking what I’m eating. I’m just enjoying the taste,” she said, laughing. “And I had it on my birthday when I went to Tagaytay, and I fell in love with halo-halo.”

For Kursh, food offers a way to understand the culture and people of a country.

She also believes Filipinos and Israelis share an appreciation for similar values.

“I think that there are three things that connect us. Faith, family, and food,” she said.

As such, she hopes more Israelis will recognize the compassion and dedication of Filipino workers in Israel, particularly caregivers who develop close relationships with the families they serve.

“Israeli families are fighting to get an OFW caregiver because of their compassion. Because they’re amazing, amazing, amazing! And the Israeli families who have a caregiver know that,” she said, referring to overseas Filipino workers.

At the same time, she wants Filipinos to see Israel beyond its religious significance.

“I would hope that Filipinos will know more than just the Holy Land, more than the Bible perspective. I would hope that many will know more about the fact that it’s a start-up nation land. That it’s a place of innovation,” she said.

A friendship rooted in history

One of the most important historical links between the Philippines and Israel is the Open Door Policy of President Manuel Quezon, which helped more than 1,300 Jewish refugees escape Nazi persecution in Europe and find refuge in the Philippines. The two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1957.

For Kursh, Quezon’s decision remains an example of moral courage and leadership.

“I saw the [biographical] movie, and I was in awe of this leader who chose to do so despite opposition from within, despite opposition from the Americans. Despite his health situation, he said, I have to do the right thing,” she shared. “And he was able to rescue 1,300 Jewish people.”

She hopes the story will continue to inspire both Filipinos and Israelis to understand how individual decisions can change lives.

Her belief in coexistence also draws on memories closer to home. Growing up near Nazareth, she recalled visiting Jenin, now a Palestinian City, and sometimes staying overnight. There, she said, she was known as Ibnat Musa, or the daughter of Moses, after her father.

Those childhood visits inform her belief that people from different backgrounds can live alongside one another.

Acknowledging the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she expressed hope for peaceful coexistence.

That emphasis on relationships between people also shapes her hopes for ties between the Philippines and Israel. She believes the two countries can build on their historical friendship through cooperation that extends beyond government agreements to businesses, universities, nongovernmental organizations and ordinary citizens.

A partnership for the future

Since taking office, Kursh has prioritized cooperation in agriculture, water management, cybersecurity, education and health, with an emphasis on exchanging expertise and developing solutions suited to both countries.

“We don’t just want to sell technology here. We want to make a difference for our children, both in Israel and here, through technology exchange and transfer,” she said. “The Philippines has a lot of talented, young, ambitious people. All of them speak very good English. We face similar challenges in cybersecurity and other areas. We need to work together for a better future.”

She then cited agricultural technology, including Israeli solar pumps used in Philippine rice fields, as an example of practical cooperation. She also wants to expand business ties, encourage government officials to visit, and advance discussions on a free trade agreement.

Tourism and people-to-people exchanges are also central to Kursh’s agenda. She hopes a new direct air link between Manila and Tel Aviv will bring more Filipino pilgrims to Israel and Israeli tourists to the Philippines, while making travel easier for families and businesspeople between the two countries.

“We want more pilgrims to come to Israel. We want more Israelis to come. For that, I put direct flights very high on my agenda. And God willing, on Jan. 3, 2027, we will have the first direct flight coming here to Manila from Tel Aviv,” she said.

Israeli carrier Arkia Airline will operate the routes, with service initially scheduled to run once a week.

For the ambassador, a stronger partnership must also bring academic institutions and civil society groups into the conversation. She firmly believes collaboration can help address shared challenges.

“I want our friendship and our partnership that started in the time of Quezon to continue growing,” she said.

She would like business ecosystems to include not just businesspeople, but also the NGO sector and academia. She said they should connect more closely to find innovative solutions to disasters, climate change and other challenges troubling the world.

Alongside these partnerships, she hopes to foster greater understanding through the stories people read. She would like to see more coverage of the Philippines in Israel and of Israel in the Philippines, helping readers get to know both countries better.

These everyday connections are part of what she hopes will endure beyond her posting. For Kursh, the measure of her tenure will rest not solely on agreements signed or officials met, but also on relationships that encourage people to stay open to perspectives different from their own.

“I don’t want to convert them to love Israel. But I want them to really know that we can be friends even if we disagree,” she said.

That willingness to connect without expecting agreement reflects a lesson she has carried from a farming village in northern Israel to her posting in Manila: she does not need to have all the answers. She needs to remain open to learning and understanding the people around her.

It is in that spirit that she hopes people will feel comfortable turning to her to connect with Israel.

“I hope and pray that I will be able to achieve the goal of connecting with people, and that people will see me as someone they can turn to when it comes to Israel — as a matchmaker who brings people together,” she said.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/10/18/the-sunday-times/cover-story/israels-ambassador-dana-kursh-on-building-bridges-beyond-diplomacy/2447956

Iran, Hezbollah trying to disrupt upcoming Israeli elections, Danon tells UN Security Council

 

“Anyone who attempts to pose a threat or attack Israel will face devastating consequences,” said Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the global body.

Oct. 16, 2026 / JNS)

Iran and Hezbollah are trying to interfere with Israel’s upcoming elections, slated for Oct. 27, Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a provocative, ballistic missile exercise, a cyber attack or a disinformation campaign. We are issuing a clear warning,” the envoy told the council. “Anyone who attempts to pose a threat or attack Israel will face devastating consequences.”

Danon spoke during the council’s quarterly open debate on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, held shortly after the third anniversary of Oct. 7. He said that he had repeatedly presented the council with facts and figures documenting the damage inflicted that day.

“We wanted every member to understand what Israel experienced. We hoped this council would finally address this vicious terrorist entity and designate Hamas as a terrorist organization,” Danon said.

“Clearly, nothing happened. Three years later, Hamas is actively terrorizing the people of Gaza,” he said. “Its arms and tunnels are still in use. The ideology behind Oct. 7 remains alive.”

The Israeli envoy also invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803, adopted in November 2025, which endorsed U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza conflict and welcomed the creation of the Board of Peace to oversee the transitional government and recovery efforts in Gaza.

“Maybe you forgot what you voted on. I will remind you,” Danon said. “Point number one—number one—of the 20-point plan says that ‘Gaza will be a deradicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.’”

He said that Israel takes concerns about Gaza’s humanitarian situation seriously and that it has met with the relevant U.N. official to seek solutions. He also said that addressing those concerns without confronting Hamas would not resolve anything.

“Let’s be clear,” Danon said. “If we keep discussing these concerns while ignoring the main issue, we will keep coming back here, talking in circles, and we won’t go anywhere.”

The Israeli envoy said that there needs to be action against the terrorist group.

Ahmet Yildiz, Turkish ambassador to the global body, spoke on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He called for international sanctions against Israel over its support of expanding Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Yildiz urged member states and other organizations to take “all necessary political, diplomatic, legal and economic measures to halt and dismantle the Israeli colonial settlement system.”

Sarah MacIntosh, the British ambassador to the United Nations, also condemned the Jewish state’s planned construction on the outskirts of Jerusalem and said that the British government is “appalled by the E1 development.”

Critics warn that the project could sever territorial contiguity between Palestinian communities in Judea and Samaria.

London recently moved to tighten economic measures targeting Israeli “settlements,” banning trade with Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

Israel responded by downgrading the British consulate in Jerusalem to a smaller diplomatic mission.

France also criticized the E1 plans and decried the Palestinian Authority for another postponement in a series of election delays. Ramallah has not held a presidential election since 2005 or a legislative election since 2006.

Turkey has faced criticism from Israel over its ties to Hamas and the presence of Hamas officials on Turkish soil.

Jennifer Locetta, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that lasting peace depends on Hamas decommissioning its weapons, including depots and terror tunnels.

“Nothing will be taken on trust,” Locetta said.

She urged the Palestinian Authority to end policies supporting terror and its efforts to secure Palestinian statehood through unilateral recognition.

The authority’s future role in Palestinian governance “depends on actions and results, not just claims,” she said.

Mike Wagenheim

Mike Wagenheim is a Washington-based correspondent for JNS, primarily covering the U.S. State Department and Congress. He is the senior U.S. correspondent at the Israel-based i24NEWS TV network.

https://www.jns.org/news/world/iran-hezbollah-trying-to-disrupt-upcoming-israeli-elections-danon-tells-un-security-counc

• 
  

  
  
  

• Copy
  Link copied
• Email
• Print