As the fourth week of Israel’s Swords of Iron War to destroy the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza reaches the end of its fourth week, a number of important developments occurred over the past day. The New Israel Shekel rebounded against foreign currencies and more nations made moves outlawing Hamas affiliate organization, and more.
The New Israel Shekel went back up above the 4 Shekels to the US Dollar threshold after falling below it at the end of last week. This may allay some fears that the Shekel might crash as a result of the strains placed on Israel’s economy due to the ongoing war in Gaza.
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In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks. The Shekel lost 6.5% of its value against the US Dollar and fell to an eight-year low below the four to the Dollar mark. But at the end of trading Thursday, the Bank of Israel set its official exchange rate at 3.96 Shekels to $1. The Dollar lost 1.663% of its value against the Shekel and all the other fully convertible currencies were also down against the Shekel.
But it is far too early to tell if this is a sign of a rebound, o if it only resulting from investors taking advantage of the low Shekel. A surge in investment in Israel because of this would temporarily raise the value of the Shekel.
Meanwhile, the U.S. House of representatives passed the Hamas International Financing Prevention Act, which would sanction foreign supporters of both the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. The bill, which was first introduced back in January, passed in a bipartisan vote of 363-46. Now it must be passed by the U.S. Senate to become law.
In a similar move, the German government imposed a ban on the Hamas affiliated organization Samidoun and completely outlawed any activities linked to the terrorist group Hamas.
Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated, “With Hamas, I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy the state of Israel.”
“Holding spontaneous ‘jubilant celebrations’ here in Germany in response to Hamas’s terrible terrorist attacks against Israel demonstrates Samidoun’s antisemitic, inhuman worldview in a particularly sickening way,” Faeser added.
On a sadder note, the Israel Police reported that as of Thursday evening 828 civilians who were victims of the barbaric terrorist attack of October 7 have been identified. This number includes at least 15 Thai citizens who were working at Kibbutzim that were attacked and a number of Israeli-Arabs as well.
There are still several hundreds of bodies yet to be identified and many yet to be recovered.
