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2011 in Israel

Events in the year 2011 in Israel.

Incumbents

Events

Domestic events

Global affairs

  • April 18 – Israel becomes CERN nuclear group member.
  • July 10 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces Israel's recognition of the Republic of South Sudan and offers the new state economic help, following its declaration of independence from the Sudan, the previous day.

Arab and Middle Eastern affairs

  • February 5 – Amidst the 2011 Egyptian protests, an explosion occurs at the Arab Gas Pipeline near the El Arish natural gas compressor station in Egypt, which supplies natural gas to Israel and Jordan. As a result, supplies to Israel and Jordan were halted.
  • April 27 – Natural gas supplies to Jordan and Israel are hit by an explosion in the Arab Gas Pipeline in the town of Arish in North Sinai near Egypt's border with Israel with an armed gang believed responsible.
  • June 12 – Beginning of Ilan Grapel affair: Egyptian officials report the arrest of the 27-year-old Israeli-American Ilan Grapel on suspicion of espionage for Israel. Israeli officials have rejected the Egyptian accusations. Later that year, Egyptian officials admitted Ilan Grapel was not a spy, and he was scheduled for release in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners held in Israel.
  • July 12 – Gunmen blow up an Egyptian natural gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan in the town of El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula.
  • September 2 – Turkey expels Israel's ambassador, downgrades ties with Israel to second secretary level and cancels all military agreements with Israel, hours before a UN report investigating the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid is published.
  • September 9 – 2011 Israeli embassy attack: several thousand Egyptian protesters forcibly infiltrate into the Israeli embassy in Egypt, situated in Giza, after breaking down a recently constructed wall to protect the compound. The six embassy staff in a safe room were evacuated eventually from the site by Egyptian commandos, following the personal intervention of US President Barack Obama. Following the attack, the deputy ambassador remained in Cairo, and 85 staff members and their families returned to Israel.
  • September 14 – Israel evacuates the Israeli embassy in Jordan following a warning of a violent anti-Israel demonstration planned to take place near the embassy building. Nearly all the embassy staff returned to Israel at midnight.
  • September 27 – An explosion destroys the Arab Gas Pipeline in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula supplying natural gas to Jordan and Israel.
  • October 11 – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration claim to have disrupted an attempt to bomb the Israeli and the Saudi embassies in Washington DC and an alleged terrorist plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador, with possible links to Iran.
  • October 27 – End of Ilan Grapel affair: Israel releases 25 Egyptian prisoners in order to secure the release of Israeli-American Ilan Grapel, who held been held in Egypt for more than four months on dubious espionage charges.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

The most prominent events related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that occurred during 2011 include:

Notable Palestinian militant operations against Israeli targets<br />

The most prominent Palestinian militant acts and operations committed against Israeli targets during 2011 include:

  • March 12 – Itamar attack: Two Palestinian teens armed with knives infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar and stabbed to death five Israeli family members, including the parents and three of their children, aged 11, 3 and a four-month-old infant.
  • March 23 – 2011 Jerusalem bus bombing: an explosive device was placed in a suitcase on the sidewalk exploded next to bus number 74 near the Jerusalem International Convention Center complex. A woman is killed in the explosion and at least 50 people are injured.
  • April 4 – Israeli actor and peace activist Juliano Mer-Khamis, of both Jewish and Christian Arab origin, is gunned down in the West Bank by masked militants.
  • April 7 – 2011 Israeli school bus anti-tank missile attack: An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip hits a school bus, moderately wounding the bus driver, and critically injuring a 16-year boy who later died of his wounds.
  • August 18 – 2011 southern Israel attacks: Eight people were killed and dozens are injured in southern Israel after a string of terrorist attacks on a highway targeting two civilian buses and cars as well a military bus responding to the attacks. Although no organization took responsibility for the attacks the Israeli security establishment blamed the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Gaza for carrying out the attacks. In retaliation, Israel launched an air raid on the town of Rafah in which six Palestinians militants from the Popular Resistance Committee were killed, among them two seniors in the organization.
  • August 29 – 2011 Tel Aviv nightclub attack: a 20-year-old Palestinian stole an Israeli taxi cab and rammed it into a police checkpoint guarding the popular Haoman 17 nightclub in Tel Aviv, which was filled with 2,000 Israeli teenagers. After crashing into the checkpoint, the attacker jumped out of the vehicle and began stabbing several people. Five civilians and four police officers were injured in the attack.

Notable Israeli military operations against Palestinian militancy targets<br /> The most prominent Israeli counter-terrorist operations (military campaigns and military operations) carried out against Palestinian militants during 2011 include:

  • March 15 – The Israeli Navy intercepts the cargo ship "Victoria", which was carrying a long list of advanced weapons that were smuggled from Iran and were allegedly bound for the militant organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
  • March 16 – The Israeli Air Force attacks a training site of the Palestinian militant group Al Qassam brigades in the southern part of Gaza city in response to a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip at the Israeli southern communities in the Sdot Negev Regional Council in the southern district of Israel. Palestinians reported that three people were killed in the attack and three were wounded.

Notable deaths

  • January 3 – Yosef Shiloach (born 1941), Iranian-born Israeli actor.
  • January 11 – Ze'ev Segal (born 1947), Israeli jurist and journalist.
  • January 13 – Tuviah Friedman (born 1922), Polish-born Israeli Nazi hunter.
  • January 14 – David Coren (born 1917), Israeli politician.
  • January 20 – Sonya Peres (born 1923), Ukrainian-born wife of President Shimon Peres.
  • February 10 – Michael Harsgor (born 1924), Romanian-born Israeli historian.
  • February 24 – Jerrold Kessel (born 1945), South African-born Israeli journalist and author.
  • February 28 – Netiva Ben-Yehuda (born 1928), Israeli author and radio personality.
  • March 12 – Tawfik Toubi (born 1922), Israeli Arab communist politician.
  • March 14 – Giora Leshem (born 1940), Israeli poet and publisher.
  • March 18 – Ze'ev Boim (born 1943), Israeli Knesset member.
  • March 22 – Reuven Shefer (born 1925), Israeli actor.
  • March 30 – Jacques Amir (born 1933), Moroccan-born Israeli politician.
  • March 30 – Tamar Golan (born 1925), Israeli journalist and diplomat.
  • April 4 – Juliano Mer-Khamis (born 1958), Israeli actor, director, filmmaker and political activist of Jewish and Arab origin.
  • April 25 – Avraham Tiar (born 1924), Tunisian-born Israeli politician.
  • May 1 – Moshe Landau (born 1912), German-born Israeli jurist and president of the Supreme Court of Israel.
  • May 5 – Yosef Merimovich (born 1924), Cypriot-born Israeli football player and manager.
  • May 20 – Arieh Handler (born 1915), Israeli Zionist leader.
  • May 24 – Arthur Goldreich (born 1929), South African-born Israeli political activist.
  • June 3 – Sammy Ofer (born 1922), Romanian-born Israeli businessman and the richest man in Israel at the time of his death.
  • June 7 – Gavriel Tsifroni (born 1914), Russian (Lithuania)-born Israeli journalist.
  • June 7 – Haim Yisraeli (born 1927), Polish-born Israeli civil servant.
  • June 10 – Al Schwimmer (born 1917), American-born Israeli businessman, founder of Israel Aerospace Industries.
  • June 16 – Yehuda Kiel (born 1916), Russian-born Israeli educator and bible commentator.
  • June 17 – Nathan Sharon (born 1925), Polish-born Israeli biochemist.
  • June 27 – Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz (born 1913), Russian (Belarus)-born Israeli rabbi.
  • July 29 – Elazar Abuhatzeira (born c. 1941), Moroccan-born orthodox Sephardi rabbi.
  • July 29 – Shulamit Shamir (born 1923), Bulgarian-born wife of former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir.
  • August 5 – Adi Talmor (born 1953), Israeli journalist and news presenter.
  • August 11 – Noah Flug (born 1925), Polish-born Israeli economist, advocate for rights of Holocaust survivors.
  • August 20 – Rafael Halperin (born 1924), Austrian-born Israeli businessman, rabbi and former professional wrestler.
  • August 29 – Ayala Zacks-Abramov (born 1912), Israeli art patron.
  • September 6 – Dan David (born 1929), Romanian-born Israeli businessman and philanthropist.
  • September 11 – Yuli Ofer (born 1924), Romanian-born Israeli businessman and entrepreneur.
  • September 26 – Michael Shor (born 1920), Soviet (Ukraine)-born Israeli security official, former CEO of Israel Military Industries.
  • September 27 – Ida Fink (born 1921), Polish-born Israeli author.
  • October 2 – Moshe Wertman (born 1924), Polish-born Israeli politician.
  • October 2 – Taha Muhammad Ali (born 1931), Arab-Israeli poet.
  • October 4 – Hanan Porat (born 1943), Israeli rabbi, educator and politician.
  • October 4 – Shmuel Shilo (born 1929), Polish-born Israeli actor and director.
  • October 7 – Avner Treinin (born 1928), Israeli poet and chemist.
  • October 23 – Amnon Salomon (born 1940), Israeli cinematographer.
  • November 6 – Peretz Kidron (born 1933), Austrian-born Israeli writer, journalist and translator.
  • November 7 – Dov Schwartzman (born 1921), Russian-born Israeli Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva in Jerusalem.
  • November 8 – Nosson Tzvi Finkel (born 1943), American-born Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
  • November 9 – Shmuel Ben-Artzi (born 1914), Russian (Poland)-born Israeli writer, father in-law of Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • November 21 – Eli Hurvitz (born 1932), Israeli industrialist, former chairman and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
  • December 6 – Peretz Kidron (born 1933), Israeli pacifist, writer, journalist, and translator.
  • December 8 – Roman Baembaev (born 1956), Ukrainian-born Israeli poet.
  • December 8 – Nakdimon Rogel (born 1925), Israeli journalist and broadcaster, author of the Nakdi Report.
  • December 9 – Davida Karol (born 1917), Israeli actress.
  • December 16 – Mark Kopytman (born 1929), Ukrainian-born Israeli composer.
  • December 25 – Gideon Doron, (born 1945), Israeli political scientist; The leader of HaYisraelim

Major public holidays

See also

References

External links