Israel shuts down for Yom Kippur, after deadly West Bank terror shooting and with IDF on high alert

 www.timesofisrael.com/israel-shuts-down-for-yom-kippur-after-deadly-west-bank-terror-shooting-and-with-idf-on-high-alert/

A drone view of people attending Selichot prayers before Yom Kippur, in which Jews offer repentance and ask God to forgive their sins, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, early on September 18, 2026. (Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters)

Israel shut down Sunday afternoon for Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, which begins at sundown and ends Monday night.

Times of Israel’s news coverage will resume when the Yom Kippur fast ends in Israel.

The Day of Atonement came amid violence across the region.

In the West Bank, just hours before the start of Yom Kippur, a man in his 30s was killed in a terror attack when a gunman opened fire on Israelis who had gathered for the traditional practice of immersing in a natural spring ahead of the holiday. The IDF later captured the alleged terrorist responsible.

Separately, the army said troops shot dead a Palestinian who allegedly attempted to ram forces in the West Bank with his vehicle. 

Meanwhile, tensions persisted in the war between the US and Iran, and fighting continued between the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and a Saudi-led coalition.

Israeli soldiers remain deployed in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and southwestern Syria, and settler violence has surged in the West Bank, where the Jewish holidays have previously been a time of heightened tension. The holiday season began with Rosh Hashanah 10 days ago, and will continue through Simchat Torah on October 3.

For Israel, it was the first year since 2023 when Yom Kippur arrived without major fighting on any front; Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack took place less than two weeks after the holiday that year. This was also the first Yom Kippur in more than a decade that no Israelis were held captive in Gaza. 

The Israel Defense Forces said Friday it was ramping up its forces on all fronts ahead of the fast day, with additional companies deployed in the Northern, Southern, and Central commands, and a senior officer on duty in each sector during the holiday. 

An Israeli soldier walks along the border with the Gaza Strip, September 6, 2026. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

A senior commander told Channel 13 that the situation in Gaza was “calm” but said the IDF “would not get complacent.” The commander said the army did not discount the possibility that it may have to resume major ground operations in the Strip.

The Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza was closed on Sunday and Monday, and crossings into Jordan and Egypt – including the Allenby Crossing, in the West Bank – were also set to shut down for the holiday, reopening Monday night and Tuesday.

Israel Railways ended its services at 1 p.m., to resume on Tuesday. Buses, both intercity and local, stopped running completely by 3 p.m., with services to resume on Monday night. Light rail lines shut down by 2 p.m.

The last flights in and out of Ben Gurion Airport came and went at around 2 p.m., with the first arrival after the holiday slated for 10:30 p.m. on Monday, and the first departure an hour after that. Israel closes its airspace for the duration of the holiday each year.

A man, wrapped in a prayer shawl, crosses an empty street on Yom Kippur, in Jerusalem. October 2, 2025. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

About three-quarters of Jewish Israelis fast on Yom Kippur, according to an August poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, including about half of those who identify as secular.

Among those who identify as Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox, overwhelming majorities (more than 97%) observe the full fast from sundown on Sunday to nightfall on Monday, while 90% of those who identify as traditional observe either the full fast or a partial fast.

Among secular Jews in Israel, 28% observe a full fast, and 19% a partial fast.

Public prayer in Tel Aviv, on Yom Kippur, October 2, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

A majority (57%) of Jewish Israelis attend synagogue services on Yom Kippur – mostly Orthodox services, though 6% of Jewish Israelis pray at Reform or Conservative services.

About a third of those who attend synagogue on Yom Kippur don’t typically do so on any other day of the year.

Many traditional and religious Jews also attend Selichot services in the days and weeks leading up to the holiday, reciting special penitential prayers, either early in the morning or late at night.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, attend the final Selichot prayers before Yom Kippur at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, in the early hours of September 20, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Tens of thousands attended “selichot” services at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Saturday night, with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation placing the number at some 150,000. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended from a perch above the main event.

מי כעמך ישראל! מאות אלפים ברחבת הכותל המערבי באמירת סליחות לפני כיפור pic.twitter.com/xdIbXT1NI6

— ישראל כהן (@Israelcohen911) September 19, 2026

Driving on the Day of Atonement is considered taboo, and roads are generally empty of cars, save for occasional emergency vehicles. Many secular Israelis also treat the day as a cycling holiday, taking advantage of the car-free roads, including highways.

Yom Kippur is one of the busiest days of the year for emergency calls, with hundreds of extra medics, paramedics, ambulances and volunteers deployed across the country.

Most injuries come from bicycle accidents. Other common Yom Kippur injuries are caused by parents leaving children unattended outside synagogues and by dehydration and complications from fasting.

Israeli Researchers Develop Oil Spill Cleanup Technology

https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-908953

'Sponge of the sea': Israeli researchers develop aerogel that captures, breaks down oil spills

BGU researchers created an aerogel that could capture oil spills while helping oil-eating bacteria degrade the pollutants.

Oil spills occur regularly around the world, but large, catastrophic disasters are much less common than small, everyday leaks.

Thousands of minor spills happen every year during routine tasks like refueling ships, pipeline leaks, or equipment failures on land. In the 1970s, there were between 70 and 100 large tanker spills annually. Fortunately, major marine spills from tanker accidents have dropped by more than 90% since the 1970s, with fewer than 10% per year.

Spills actually occur more frequently on land near storage tanks, industrial sites, and pipelines, but these get more attention because they spread fast and harm fragile ocean and coastal habitats.

Nature is also responsible – the single largest source of oil entering the oceans isn’t human error at all; it is natural seepage from rocks on the seafloor, accounting for about 40% to 50% of all oceanic oil.

Israelis probably remember February 2021, when its most severe and prominent modern disaster – a massive undisclosed spill (estimated at dozens to hundreds of tons of crude oil) sent heavy black tar washing ashore. It contaminated roughly 160 kilometers of Israel’s 195-km. coastline, from Rosh Hanikra to Ashkelon, severely harming marine wildlife like sea turtles and birds. They recall seeing masses of seabirds covered in tar and dying as a result of the environmental catastrophe.

An absorbent is used to show oil slick in the waters off Refugio State Beach on the Californian coast in Goleta, California, United States, May 21, 2015. An oil pipeline that burst along the California coast, fouling pristine beach and stretch of ocean near Santa Barbara, is believed to have spilled (credit: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/REUTERS)

But now, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba are the first to develop a technology that captures and biologically breaks down oil pollution, treating crude oil and fuel pollution in marine and aquatic environments – a promising approach to both immediate containment and long-term environmental recovery.

The BGU technology is aimed at both the immediate capture of hydrocarbons and their longer-term degradation. Lab experiments showed that the material can adsorb approximately 80 to 100 times its own mass in crude oil, fuel, tar, and other hydrocarbons.

It was developed in the university’s Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory, led by Prof. Ariel Kushmaro and Dr. Danit Lisa Karsagi Biron of BGU’s Faculty of Engineering.

They created a porous aerogel made from cellulose fibers – that could be created from used egg cartons, old newspapers, and other paper materials – enriched with nitrogen and phosphorus. These nutrients support oil-degrading bacteria, making it possible for the material not only to capture pollutants but also to speed their subsequent biological breakdown.

The research team said they developed the aerogel using nutrient enrichment, freeze-drying, and pyrolysis (the thermal decomposition of organic materials at high temperatures – typically 300°C to 900°C) in the absence of oxygen, which prevents combustion.

Kushmaro told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that the aerogel provides a surface on which the bacteria can attach, bringing them into close contact with both the adsorbed hydrocarbons and the nutrients they require. In this way, the system creates conditions that support the microbial breakdown of the captured pollutants.

The process can even minimize the need to remove and dispose of contaminated adsorption material after treatment. The technology is currently undergoing patent recognition through BGN Technologies, BGU’s technology commercialization company.

Kushmaro earned his doctorate with distinction from Tel Aviv University and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University’s Kevin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and at Harvard University.

He joined BGU in 2001 and established the microbial ecology and microbial biotechnology lab, which focuses on investigating wastewater microbiology, marine microbial ecology, and the antimicrobial activity of various microorganisms.

The team published their innovative findings in Chemical Engineering Journal Advances under the title “Nutrient-supplemented carbonized aerogels for integrated oil adsorption and biodegradation in water.”

The most unusual aspect of the invention is not simply that an aerogel absorbs 100 times its weight, but the clever idea of turning the material into a little habitat for oil-eating bacteria, so that capture and biological cleanup happen together.

This study, from 1999 to 2002, began with identifying the environmental sensitivity of Israel’s Mediterranean coastline to marine oil spills.

It includes GIS sensitivity mapping (using geographic information systems to analyze and visualize the relative vulnerability of environmental, ecological, or cultural resources to specific human activities or natural disasters) and an analysis of the environmental vulnerability of Israel’s shoreline resources.

The study analyzes the main sources of risk for maritime accidents in the southeastern Mediterranean and develops scenarios for possible oil spill incidents, including an analysis of protection priorities for the various coastal ecosystems, in the event of a large spill.

“We described the form and structure of Israel’s coastline, and measured the physical features of oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers, and meteorological patterns that dominate and control the dynamics of the shorelines, as well as the potential for major oil spills. We also studied the different ways in which oil spills can affect natural ecosystems and socio-economic resources along the coastline of Israel,” Kushmaro said.

The study “aims at determining the relative sensitivity of different types of shoreline and prioritizing the different types of shoreline and coastal resources to be protected following a large oil spill,” he continued.

“We also presented and analyzed data in a clear and useful way for the scientific and environmental communities, and those national authorities responsible for oil spill preparedness and response.”

Sensitivity of the Israeli Mediterranean

One of the main conclusions of the study was that the sensitivity of the Israeli Mediterranean coastline to oil spills “could be considered moderate, compared with other fragile ecosystems. This is mainly because of the form of the sandy beaches and the high exposure of most types of beaches to energetic natural cleanup processes,” Kushmaro said.

“Still, along the southeastern Mediterranean coastline there are ecosystems, habitats, shoreline types and coastal resources that are sensitive to oil spills,” he continued.

The 195 km. of the Mediterranean shoreline of Israel – from the chalky limestone vertical cliffs of Rosh Hanikra on the border with Lebanon to the white sandy beaches of Erez that border the Gaza Strip – are exposed to winds and surface sea current systems and heavy traffic of oil tankers in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. These create a constant threat of a serious oil pollution incident, he said.

Tar has stained nearly 160 km. of Israel’s coastline, devastating nature and wildlife: “There are still tar remnants from the 2021 disaster on some beaches that was called the spill one of the most serious ecological disasters in the country’s history.”

Israeli environmental protection agencies admitted then that the government was underfunded to deal with such disasters, and that there was not adequate legislation in place to prevent such a disaster in the future.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are added to the aerogel, which is hydrophobic and made from cellular fibers with a large amount of surface area, Kushmaro explained.

“When placed on water, it floats on the surface, which causes oil to clump together. It takes between two and three weeks for the oil to disappear. If the oil spill is in the middle of the sea, it can be dropped from a plane. The cellular material itself is biodegradable. We don’t believe that waves, currents, and changing temperatures would interfere with the cleanup,” he said.

It’s unfortunate that the aerogel had not yet been invented to cope with the 2021 catastrophe.

“Even now, it will take a few years. It worked in the lab. Now a company has to be established to test it in the sea and produce the material. We have a world patent on it. Shell, the global British multinational energy and petrochemical company, has already contacted us to ask for information about it,” he continued.

“The Environmental Protection Ministry knows about it, but it’s completely new, and we need regulation.”

“We dream about the possibility that every ship will have the aerogel on board, so that if it causes an oil spill, it can immediately break it down. They can immediately cause it to disintegrate before it causes damage,” Kushmaro said.

Asked what experiment he and his team would most like to do next that they couldn’t accomplish in their lab study, he said: “We would want to do it in a polluted marina. There is oil in all the ports.”

https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-908953

Thousands of ‘Christian friends’ rally in support for Israel in Amsterdam

www.jns.org/news/israel-news/thousands-of-christian-friends-rally-in-support-for-israel-in-amsterdam

People exiting the Christians for Israel and Israel Product Center in Nijkerk, the Netherlands, on July 15, 2025. Credit: Courtesy of Christians for Israel.

“What you’re doing here tonight is amazing and I salute you all,” the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands said.

(Sept. 19, 2026 / JNS)

Thousands of Dutch people gathered at Dam Square in Amsterdam on Thursday evening to show their support for Israel.

The Israeli embassy in the Netherlands described the rally as “heartwarming,” and thanked the attendees on behalf of the Jewish state.

Ambassador Zvi Vapni applauded “our amazing Christian friends,” who came out “despite the rain and wind” and rolled out a large Israeli flag at the heart of the iconic square.

Vapni thanked the attendees in a short video message screened on a stage, saying that Israel and its supporters are facing a “very challenging time.”

The “distorted version of reality” spread by the media, coupled with anti-Israel and antisemitic agendas pushed by politicians in parliament, make it important to let the world know that Israel has many friends in the Netherlands, the diplomat continued.

“What you’re doing here tonight is amazing and I salute you all. You send a message of truth over lies, of courage over fear; you send a message that says, ‘We stand together because we know the truth,’” he said.

Dutch sanctions on Judea and Samaria to take effect on Sept. 22

A Dutch court on Wednesday rejected the petition of a local importer and a Jewish group against the government’s decision to ban the import of goods made or marketed by Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

In their petition for an injunction against the ban, which the government said would come into effect next week, the Israel Product Center and the European Jewish Association (IPC and EJA, respectively) listed five justifications for their case, including E.U. regulations that ensure trade across the bloc, and the freedom of commerce of Dutch citizens.

The Court of The Hague said the EJA, which is a Belgian organization, had no legal standing in the Netherlands and therefore cannot be considered as a petitioner.

The Dutch ban on Israeli-made goods from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights is set to come into effect on Sept. 22. Intentional violations will be considered a criminal act and will carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison or a fine of up to €103,000 ($117,000), according to the decree.

In response, the Israeli government decided to evict the Dutch from the U.S.-led International Gaza Support Center (IGSC), formerly known as the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said last month.

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