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The list of Druze includes prominent Druze figures who are notable in their areas of expertise.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2022) |
The list of Druze includes prominent Druze figures who are notable in their areas of expertise.
The Arab citizens of Israel form Israel’s largest ethnic minority. They are mostly former Palestinian citizens who have continued to live in what became Israel, and their descendants. The majority of Arabs in Israel now prefer to be identified as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Rafael "Raful" Eitan was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (Ramatkal) and later a politician, a Knesset member, and government minister.
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak was an Israeli military officer and politician. He served as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, as a Member of the Knesset, and as Minister of Transportation and Minister of Tourism.
Mordechai "Motta" Gur was an Israeli politician and the 10th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. During the Six-Day War (1967), he commanded the brigade that penetrated the Old City of Jerusalem and broadcast the famous words, "The Temple Mount is in our hands!". As Chief of Staff, he had responsibility for planning and executing Operation Entebbe (1976) to free Jewish hostages in Uganda. He later entered the Knesset and held various ministerial portfolios. Gur wrote three popular children's books and three books about military history.
Majalli Wahabi is a Druze-Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud, Kadima and HaTnuah between 2003 and 2013. He briefly assumed the position of Acting President due to the President of Israel Mr. Moshe Katsav's leave of absence as well as due to Interim and Acting President of Israel Mrs. Dalia Itzik's diplomatic trips abroad that took place during 2007; making him the first non-Jew and the first Druze to be Israel's acting head of state; although assuming it for a mere few short periods during that year.
Salah Tarif is a Druze Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1992 and 2006. When appointed Minister without Portfolio by Ariel Sharon in 2001, he became Israel's first non-Jewish government minister.
Gabriel "Gabi" Ashkenazi is an Israeli politician and former military leader. He previously served as the minister of foreign affairs. He was the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2007 to 2011. Ashkenazi served as a member of Blue and White in the Knesset.
Amin Tarif was a Druzite religious leader in Mandatory Palestine from 1928 and then Israel until his death in 1993. Such was the esteem in which he was held among Druze internationally that Qadi Amin was regarded by many within the community as the preeminent spiritual authority in the Druze world.
The University of Haifa is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming Israel's sixth academic institution and the fourth university. The university has the largest university library in Israel. As of 2019, approximately 18,000 students were enrolled at the University of Haifa. Among Israeli higher education institutions the University of Haifa has the largest percentage (41%) of Arab-Israeli students.
Events in the year 1999 in Israel.
Israeli Druze or Druze Israelis are an ethnoreligious minority among the Arab citizens of Israel. They maintain Arabic language and culture as integral parts of their identity, and Arabic is their primary language. In 2019, there were 143,000 Druze people living within Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, comprising 1.6% of the total population of Israel. the majority of Israeli Druze are concentrated in northern Israel, especially in Galilee, Carmel and the Golan areas.
Salman Zarka is an Israeli physician and the current Director of Ziv Medical Center in Safed. He is a reservist of the Israel Defense Forces in the rank of Colonel, and a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health in the School of Public Health of Haifa University and the Department of Military Medicine in the military doctors top track of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Salman Hamud Fallah, was an educator, writer, and a history researcher who established the Druze Scouts Association in Israel. He was a supervisor at the Druze Education department and a vice president of the Ministry of Education and Culture. Falach wrote more than 80 books in Arabic, Hebrew and English on history and education. As a teenager he moved to Haifa city, where he graduated from secondary school at the Hebrew Reali School in 1954. After graduating his studies for the first and second degree (1963), he fulfilled his PHD at Princeton University in the USA (1997). Dr. Salman Hamud Fallah implemented the legacy of Druze studies as an integral part of the higher education curriculum. In 2017 the Centre of the Druze Legacy was established in his name in his native village Kisra-Smea.
Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh is an Israeli Druze politician and journalist. She became the first Druze woman to anchor a Hebrew-language news program on Israeli television in 2017. In April 2019, she was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Blue and White alliance, making history as the first Druze woman to become a Member of the Knesset. She was subsequently elected to the Knesset as part of the Blue and White alliance in the September 2019 and March 2020 elections. She left Blue and White on 29 March 2020 and joined Yesh Atid. In June 2021, Kamal-Mreeh became the Jewish Agency's first Druze emissary to the US, based in Washington DC.
Events in the year 2022 in Israel.
The Majdal Shams attack, took place on 27 July 2024, when a rocket hit a football pitch in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The resulting blast killed 12 Syrian children belonging to the Druze community and injured at least 42 others, with most of the victims being between the ages of 10 and 16.
Tarif Bader is an Israeli-Druze doctor and a retired IDF officer with the rank of Brigadier General. He currently serves as the Director of Kaplan Medical Center. In the past, he held the position of Chief Medical Officer.