The IDF has been carefully analyzing the enormous amount of data collected from the soldiers’ experiences fighting in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, the Mako website reports.

One of the most important lessons learned from the troops’ combat in the enclave was related to the weight of the load ground soldiers carried with them into battle.

Soldiers carry a rocket launcher weighing some 10 kilograms, for example; the Technological Division of the IDF Ground Arm worked together with the security industry to reduce that weight to seven kilos instead.

Negev machine guns, Tavor and M-16 rifles use 5.56 mm caliber ammunition. Each bullet weighs 12 grams; but with new technology, those bullets will weigh 30 percent less. MAG machine guns may be phased out and the lighter Negev machine guns may replace them. Or they may receive lighter ammunition.

An Egged bus was attacked by Arab terrorists as it traveled Sunday morning on the road to the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Arabs hurled rocks at the Israeli public bus, smashing the windshield and several windows on the vehicle as it reached the Nablus Gate at the Old City entrance.

An IDF soldier was treated at the scene for light wounds to his hand from flying glass.

A dragnet was thrown around the area as Jerusalem District police opened a search to hunt down the attackers.

It might look a little like a video from ‘Krav Maga‘, but this is deadly serious: the Efrat Municipal Council in Gush Etzion is sending its local kindergarten and nursery school teachers and assistants for training in self-defense in case of terrorist attacks. For real.

One of the fastest growing communities in Israel, Efrat lawmakers decided it was better to prepare teachers to confront any possible scenario as reasonably as possible. The most vulnerable of all were those with the youngest charges, those in kindergarten and nursery grades.

The wave of terror that has swept Israel in recent months prompted the Council to make sure the teachers know how to defend themselves and their young charges in case a terrorist penetrates the school’s security fence and gets past the schools’ guards and patrols.

Teachers are to be equipped with pepper spray and taught how to use it effectively as well.

The decision comes in the wake of the horrific terror attack a few months ago that left a synagogue swimming in the blood of four English-speaking rabbis, three dual citizens from the U.S. and one dual citizen from the UK. A Druze police officer also gave his life to redirect the slaughter away from the rest of the congregants during the bloodbath in the Har Nof synagogue that day.

In addition, there have been numerous other terrorist stabbings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Gush Etzion, making it clear the third Intifada is well underway.

“We should not have to wait for something to happen,” said Nava Assis, coordinator for the local effort. “Instead, we must be proactive. It’s better to think one step ahead and create a sense of personal security.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hinted Friday during a visit to IDF soldiers at Rambam Hospital in Haifa that he is thinking about changing the date of his address to the Congress — sort of. A sardonic remark during the news briefing makes it clear the idea is being reviewed in the prime minister’s mind.

Currently set for the week of the AIPAC convention and two weeks prior to Israel’s national elections, the date was arranged directly with Congressional leaders without first informing the White House staff. Seen as a diplomatic faux pas and a way to sabotage the success of talks between world leaders and Iran the move infuriated President Barack Obama and senior staff. Negotiators are hoping to reach an agreement with Tehran by March 31.

The issue has become a festering sore point between Israeli government officials and the Obama administration, which has since ratcheted up its public sniping at Netanyahu at every opportunity possible. Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives have suggested that Israel’s prime minister postpone his speech, which he has already done once.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke with Netanyahu by phone on Wednesday to discuss the matter, saying “Such a presentation could send the wrong message in terms of giving diplomacy a chance.” Netanyahu, who was invited by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to present his views to Congressional lawmakers, has said he will go “anywhere, at any time,” to explain why a nuclear-armed Iran is a threat.

The prime minister told media in Rambam Hospital’s conference room that fixing a procedural problem would be much easier to deal with that the issue that prompted American lawmakers to invite him to speak in the first place: the growing danger facing Israel and the United States.

The current negotiations supported by Obama, said Netanyahu, will result in an agreement “that will leave [Iran] with the ability to develop nuclear bombs. This is an agreement that we oppose and this is the main issue.

“It is possible to resolve procedural problems regarding my appearance in the U.S., but if Iran arms itself with nuclear weapons, this will be much more difficult to resolve – and this is what we oppose and what we are focusing on,” he warned.

Israeli paratroopers shot and killed a Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist Saturday night after he hurled a deadly firebomb at an Israeli motorist traveling in Samaria.

After a brief manhunt the forces shot and captured the second terrorist who also had been targeting Israeli motorists on the same road; he suffered a leg wound. That attacker was hurling firebombs at passing vehicles as well.

The IDF force set out to hunt down the third terrorist as well, who also was attacking passing Israeli vehicles on the road, located near the Jewish community of Yitzhar.

The IDF emphasized to media in its statement that the soldiers were operating according to the rules of engagement.

“I want to bless the soldiers who responded appropriately to the terrorist this evening,” praised Samaria Regional Council head Gershon Mesika. “Unfortunately we already know the awful results that can occur from rocks and firebombs hurled in the name of terror. Still, we must strengthen the soldiers who deal day to day with the enemy and, as we have seen tonight, not hesitate to respond.

“It is crucial that every terrorist know that the moment he intends to throw a rock or a firebomb at an Israeli soldier or an Israeli citizens, his fate is in his own hands.”

Israeli vehicles that travel between the Jewish community of Kedumim and the PA Arab village of Burin are at extremely high risk because the road has become tantamount to a rock-throwing and firebomb field for Arab terrorists in the area.

Since a young girl was critically injured in a terror attack on the road more than a month ago, however, Israeli security forces are taking the matter more seriously and have begun to intensify their protection of motorists in the area. The child and her father were both burned – the little girl nearly died – when their car was struck by a firebomb hurled by Arab road terrorists.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ridiculed Israeli “restraint” and said the IDF needs to deliver a harsh blow to Hezbollah in retaliation for yesterday’s attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others.

The army retaliated with artillery fire to the source of the attack, and one UNIFIL soldier was killed,

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was fierce with words but extremely cautious in the military response. As The Jewish Press wrote here this morning, Israel does not want all-out with Hezbollah, if for no other reason than because it would not end in victory because of Israel’s inability to buck the usual international community’s demand that Israel not try to destroy an enemy.

Lieberman used to be one of Israel’s loudest hawks until he decided to be dovish for the election campaign to try to dig up votes from the middle-of-the road sector.

Crippled by a lack of trust, compounded by a police investigation of several of his Yisrael Beiteinu cronies for bribery, Lieberman on Thursday jumped on Netanyahu for being the dove.

He wrote on his Facebook page Israel needs to deliver a disproportionate response that defeats terrorism” and that Hezbollah “wants a proportionate response because it would lead to a war of attrition and perpetuate the conflict.”

It’s time to take the glove off when dealing with terrorism,” Lieberman said, but as Foreign Minister, he knows very well that there is not enough widespread support among Israelis to attack deliver Hezbollah a death blow, if it can.

He also did not say he would take responsibility for the certain death and destruction in Israel from Hezbollah missiles if Israel were to deliver a “disproportionate response.”

Lieberman desperately needs votes, but he may have lost even more by reverting back to his old position of mowing down the enemy at all costs.

A “disproportionate response” certainly is the correct strategy but only in a better world, which might come if people like Lieberman did not go off the deep end to seek votes.

Ziv Hospital in Tzefat (Safed) reports that the medical condition of five of the IDF soldiers wounded in yesterday’s Hezbollah attack have improved.

All five are now listed as lightly injured.

Later today they will undergo additional medical examinations, and the hospital will decide if they need further treatment, or if they can be released.

The soldiers jumped from their vehicle after witnessing the first vehicle blown up by the long-range anti-tank rocket, and thus saved their lives.