The Southern Wall at the foot of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City was the site of a ceremony Monday, including the slaughtering of two lambs, to mark the Passover. “I am happy that were are having it here at the foot of the Temple Mount,” MK Yehudah Glick (Likud) told The Jerusalem Post. “We started here over a decade and a half ago, with just a handful of people – and now we have hundreds of people coming.”

The Israel Police and the Israel Securities Authority questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara and his son Yair on Monday in relation to the so-called “Bezeq affair” in which the PM is accused of using his influence to assist the telecommunications company in various ways in exchange for positive coverage in the Walla news site which is part of the same business conglomerate. Several other individuals connected to the case were also questioned on Monday.

The Israeli Nature and Parks Authority announced on Monday that archaeological excavations in Jerusalem’s Old City have unearthed a cache of bronze coins from the era of the Roman-Jewish War (66-73 AD) written about by the Jewish historian Josephus. The excavations, part of ongoing work led by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also uncovered several other artefacts from the period.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced on Monday that the omnibus spending bill recently passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Trump includes a large increase in the amount of money budgeted for joint development of missile defence programs with Israel. “I am pleased and excited to announce that the US Congress has approved a record sum for Israel’s missile defence program: $705m. in 2018!” Liberman said.

UN spokesman Farhan Haq told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that “On 22 March, the UN submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel a claim for reimbursement for the losses that the UN had sustained in seven incidents in 2014.” The damage sustained by UN facilities in the Gaza Strip occurred in the context of a war launched from that territory against Israel by the Islamist terror militia Hamas, prompting Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon to reply saying “Everyone knows our intention was to protect our citizens, and not harm anyone else, while Hamas uses UN facilities to hide behind. The blame should go on Hamas.”

The Israeli airstrike on the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 helped to confirm the regional sense of Israeli military power after the failures of the war against Hizbullah in 2006, and undoubtedly also convinced both Washington and Tehran that Israel would consider using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes.

The expanding competition between the Middle East’s heavyweights has reached Central Asia, opening up new opportunities and seemingly closing off other possibilities. Analysts recently held a roundtable discussion about Central Asia’s connections to Iran, Arab countries and Turkey and what those countries are seeking in the region.

The days leading up to the Passover week that begins with the Seder meal on the first night, are very busy ones for most Jewish households.  Everybody is in a hurry! It’s as if they are not only remembering that their nation came out of Egypt, but that they are about to be delivered themselves. Also for Homecare it is a special time and a busy one.