Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf warns that residents of northern border communities “are on the verge of collapse.”

By World Israel News Staff

Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev, and the Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf (Otzma Yehudit) has issued an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for immediate government intervention and an economic rescue plan for communities along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

In the letter, Wasserlauf warned that the ongoing conflict with the Hezbollah terror group is pushing residents to their breaking point, both emotionally and financially.

Wasserlauf, who has spent much of his tenure advocating for residents of the embattled northern border region, noted that many communities had yet to fully recover from the first phase of the conflict that followed the Hamas-led October 7 massacre.

The day after the attack, Hezbollah began launching near-daily barrages of rockets, missiles and explosive drones at Israeli communities along the border. Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated for nearly a year and a half, with some only returning home following the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Since hostilities resumed following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran in late February, however, northern residents have once again faced severe disruptions to daily life and renewed threats to their safety amid relentless Hezbollah attacks.

“I spend a great deal of time in the field, meeting with local authority leaders and residents, and I must emphasize that throughout these two and a half years of fighting, I have never witnessed the level of emotional distress and erosion of civilian resilience that I am seeing today,” Wasserlauf wrote.

He urged Netanyahu to move beyond political disputes that have delayed a critical economic support package for the north, arguing that immediate action is needed to help businesses survive and communities function under wartime conditions.

“I am issuing an urgent warning: the residents of the confrontation line are on the verge of collapse. Their resilience is not unlimited. Beyond civilian assistance, what they need most is security,” he wrote.

“Without strong and overwhelming military action that brings this campaign to a decisive conclusion and fundamentally improves the security situation, we risk losing the confrontation line and its residents. If that happens, it will take many years to restore these communities to what they once were,” he added.

The post Northerners’ resilience ‘isn’t unlimited,’ minister warns Netanyahu appeared first on World Israel News.

Ramat Arbel, near the Sea of Galilee, will be built on the same spot as a Second Temple-era town.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The government approved the establishment of a new settlement in the Lower Galilee in its weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted at the meeting that the nascent village of Ramat Arbel is located where a settlement existed in the era of the Second Temple. He called the decision “a holiday for the State of Israel and the pioneer families; it’s very important news for the Jewish settlement [movement].”

The village will be located several kilometers northwest of Tiberias near the Sea of Galilee. For the last year, a handful of young families has been living in temporary housing on the site, which was designated as an “illegal outpost” and partially destroyed last December by Israeli forces.

They had acted on a complaint filed by the neighboring Israeli Arab council of Ilbon that alleged that the residents are “seeking to take over the land” of its own residents.

Ramat Arbel had originally been approved for construction in a 2002 government decision. In 2013 it was rejected by the National Planning and Construction Council because there were allegedly thousands of unoccupied housing units in already existing settlements in the region, which is no longer the case.

In a visit last week to the site, Minister of the Negev and Galilee and National Resilience Yitzhak Wasserlauf thanked the families for their “self-sacrifice for a full year, remaining there 24/7 and not giving up or giving in.”

Standing in front of a hand-painted “Welcome” sign, he added, “We are saying the Land of Israel is ours, we came to settle it, we came to make the wasteland bloom, and with this government decision, this will be the first step towards the establishment of dozens more settlements in the Negev and the Galilee.”

The establishment of the settlement had been included in the coalition agreement between the Likud and right-wing national religious parties Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism.

Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf of the ultra-Orthodox UTJ party also took part of the credit Sunday, saying that Ramat Arbel is “the fourth settlement that the new government is promoting under the leadership” of his ministry.

He noted the three benefits of the Cabinet decision as increasing the housing supply in the country, lowering home prices, and “strengthening Jewish settlement in the Galilee” specifically, where the number of Arabs far outstrips the number of Jews.

Lower Galilee Regional Council head Nitzan Peleg echoed the last point in his response to the government’s announcement, saying, “I welcome the government’s decision to allocate resources for the planning of the settlement of Ramat Arbel as part of our general perception of the need to expand Jewish settlement in the Galilee. We will aid in locating state lands near the settlement that is already de facto there” and “lead a steering team to plan the settlement” with the relevant ministries.

Millions of shekels will now be budgeted for the planning and construction of the village, which is reportedly slated for some 500 families. Minister of Immigration and Absorption Ofir Sofer (Religious Zionism) said that the village “will be geared towards absorbing immigrant families.”

In a celebratory tweet, his party colleague, Minister of National Missions Orit Strock, wrote that “We are stopping the years-long deterioration in the Galilee and promoting a settlement boom that will boost the region and make it flourish. Because you get what you vote for.”

The post After more than 20 years, new Jewish town in Lower Galilee finally receives government approval appeared first on World Israel News.

Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock was visiting a Druze non-profit as controversy swells around a bill saying Zionist values should set public policy.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock praised the Druze sector’s sacrifices for Israel in a visit Tuesday to an umbrella organization that helps strengthen Druze communities throughout the country.

Strock told the leaders of Ophakim La’atid (New Horizons) in Beit Jann that she has great appreciation and respect for the Druze community, which paid a heavy price in blood for the security of the country.

The Orthodox minister from the Religious Zionism party noted that she had made a point to be the government representative at the Remembrance Day ceremony in the Druze military cemetery in Shfaram in her first year in the Knesset because of her gratitude.

She added that she intends to help the Druze community from her ministry as well.

Strock’s visit was part of a series of tours she is making in the Galilee of mission-driven groups and communities in Israel, as part of the National Missions division in her ministry.

It came as controversy swells around a government decision under consideration to make the “values of Zionism” as expressed in the Nation State basic law into “the leading and decisive values in setting public policy, foreign and domestic policy, legislation and actions of the government and all its units and institutions.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the decision “racist” on Tuesday, saying that it discriminates against the Druze sector.

“According to this bill,” he said, “if a Jew evades the IDF draft, he will receive more than [a demobilized Druze soldier].”

Development of the Negev and Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who introduced the proposal, blasted the criticism.

“Zionism is not racism,” he said. “Zionism is the realization of the vision of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. It is time Lapid learned this.”

The Otzma Yehudit minister added that under his bill, all soldiers would receive equal benefits upon completing their IDF service, whether they are Jews or non-Jews.

Ophakim La’atid was established in 2009 to lead the Druze in Israel to become a “progressive, excellent and influential society within the state on the road to equality,” as its website says. Its 12 current projects include promoting leadership skills among Druze youth, building young, strong, core communities in weaker villages, and teaching Israeli society about the Druze population.

At-risk youth are a particular target for the association, which encourages striving for higher education and nurturing a spirit of voluntarism, while preserving the community’s unique heritage. Its 800 members include role models for the youth such as the first IDF Druze combat pilot, the first Druze women who became a lecturer at the Haifa University, the first Druze professor and six NGO chairmen.

The post ‘Zionism is not racism’: Minister praises Druze sacrifices for Israel appeared first on World Israel News.