The Mayor of Beit Shemesh, Aliza Bloch, visited the scene of the accident in which a 14-year-old boy drowned during a school trip."We hoped to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of this evening, but unfortunately the disaster occurred. The Beit Shemesh municipality will help the family and the community in whatever is required," Bloch said.

Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton (New Hope) is attacking the Ministry of Health and accusing it of inflating the number of verified cases of COVID-19 in order to accelerate the vaccination campaign.According to a report In Channel 12 News In Thursday, Shasha-Biton has been saying in closed conversations at the Ministry of Education that "there are elements in the health system who deliberately perpetuate the hysteria and sow panic in order to speed up the children's immunization project. They inflate the number of tests and the data skyrocket."

A French court In Thursday jailed for 30 years a man who attacked soldiers with machetes outside the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris in 2017, AFP reports.Judges issued a sentence in line with anti-terror prosecutors' demands for Egyptian citizen Abdalla El Hamahmi, 33, who did not react from behind his coronavirus mask as it was read out to him via an interpreter.

American Jews mobilize in response to deadly building collapse in Surfside, Florida.

Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital (Jerusalem) has confirmed the death of an 18-year-old youth who was injured last night in a fight in Beit Shemesh.Police investigating the incident have upgraded their investigation into a murder inquiry and are gathering evidence at the scene.

According to newspaper Haaretz, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid wants to recall Tzipi Hotovely, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, and appoint in her place a former minister from his own party, Yael German. Hotovely is a member of the Likud party.Sources from within the Foreign Ministry have expressed their criticism of the alleged plan to cut short Hotovely's tenure by two years, and several of them told Haaretz that doing so "would be legally impossible" and that Lapid would be unable to implement his plan.

The principal of the school where yesterday's 14-year-old drowning victim learned, along with the boy's teacher, have been released to house arrest.Earlier In Friday morning the two were taken for interrogation, due to suspicion that negligent conduct was displayed.

Jordan accuses Honduras of violating international law by moving its embassy to Jerusalem.