An explosive device attached to a balloon landed in the yard of a kindergarten on a kibbutz in the Eshkol region in the Gaza Belt Thursday morning. Police sappers have neutralized the device.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is set to visit Israel and meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu before the end of the year, Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) reported on Thursday. According to the report, Groysman and Netanyahu are set to sign a free trade agreement between Israel and Ukraine, which has been in negotiations for the past six years.

Elbit Systems and the European Defense Agency have signed a $68 Million deal by which the Israeli defense contractor will provide the EU with their Hermes 900 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

Elbit Systems: ‘The EU choosing the Hermes 900 for its sea defense missions is testament of the quality of the UAV. Elbit’s Hermes 900 is gradually becoming the flagship UAV of many countries – it is operational, it is accumulating thousands of flight hours all over the world, it is the most advanced, it includes advanced intelligence and defense system, and it’s ‘Starliner’ version also includes a system that allows it to fly in civilian air spaces.”

Following the counting of the votes of soldiers and prisoners, Dr. Aliza Bloch, a religious-Zionist former high-school principal and the first woman to ever run for mayor of the city, edged out the incumbent Moshe Abutbul of Shas by a few hundreds votes. Bloch received 22,464 votes to 21,931 for Abutbul. Beit Shemesh has become increasingly ultra-orthodox in recent year, but several hundred Haredi voters are believed to have cast their ballots for Bloch in defiance of religious leaders. 

A large incendiary balloon fire is burning in the Beeri Forest in southern Israel, near the Gaza border.

Firefighter are on scene to deal with the blaze.