![Dana, the sister of Israeli soldier Tsafrir Bar-Or, mourns during his funeral in Holon near Tel Aviv July 21, 2014. Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinian militants who slipped across the border from Gaza through hidden tunnels on Monday, the military said, as the death toll from the two-week conflict passed 500 amid growing international calls for an end. Non-stop attacks lifted the Palestinian death toll to 496, including almost 100 children, since fighting started on July 8, Gaza health officials said. Isr](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/07/RTR3ZIKF.jpg/RTR3ZIKF.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=gAP967dM)
Daniel Ben Simon is a former Knesset member from the Labor Party. Prior to his political career, he was a journalist with the Israeli dailies Haaretz and Davar. Ben Simon has written four books on Israeli society and is the recipient of the Sokolov Prize, an Israeli journalism award.
![Dana, the sister of Israeli soldier Tsafrir Bar-Or, mourns during his funeral in Holon near Tel Aviv July 21, 2014. Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinian militants who slipped across the border from Gaza through hidden tunnels on Monday, the military said, as the death toll from the two-week conflict passed 500 amid growing international calls for an end. Non-stop attacks lifted the Palestinian death toll to 496, including almost 100 children, since fighting started on July 8, Gaza health officials said. Isr](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/07/RTR3ZIKF.jpg/RTR3ZIKF.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=gAP967dM)
Daniel Ben Simon
![Israeli children play inside a bomb shelter in the southern city of Ashkelon July 10, 2014. At least 74 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's Gaza offensive, Palestinian officials said on Thursday, and militants kept up rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and other cities in warfare showing no signs of ending soon. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (ISRAEL - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST SOCIETY) - RTR3Y0MI](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/07/RTR3Y0MI-1.jpg/RTR3Y0MI-1.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=SJKwjcyx)
Daniel Ben Simon
![10484796_300312903478360_4330489562330271910_n.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/07/10484796_300312903478360_4330489562330271910_n.jpg/10484796_300312903478360_4330489562330271910_n.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=tl914UjE)
Daniel Ben Simon
![A woman prays on one side of a partition at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City February 11, 2013. Israeli police detained 10 women at one of Judaism's most sacred sites on Monday for wearing prayer shawls, which Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, a spokesman said.The incident at the Western Wall highlighted the divisions between the more liberal streams of Judaism and politically powerful Orthodox groups that traditionally limit the role of women in prayer. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (JERUSALEM - Tags](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/06/RTR3DMUX.jpg/RTR3DMUX.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=BbXVO5x9)
Daniel Ben Simon
![Israeli men and women, separated by a green divider, pray in the town of Elad, home of Eyal Yifrach, one of three missing teenagers, June 16, 2014. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared Israel for a long drawn-out operation to find the three missing teenagers as troops expanded the search into a crackdown on the Islamist group accused of abducting them and arrested dozens of its officials. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (ISRAEL - Tags: RELIGION POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR3U421](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/06/RTR3U421.jpg/RTR3U421.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=bsLrEFts)
Daniel Ben Simon
![Ultra-orthodox Jewish bride Esther Rokeach waits for the start of the "mitzva tantz", the custom in which relatives dance in front of the bride after her wedding ceremony, in Jerusalem early June 11, 2014. Thousands gathered on Tuesday to celebrate the wedding of Rokeach, the granddaughter of the spiritual leader of the Belz Hasidim, which is one of the largest Hasidic movements in the world. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (JERUSALEM - Tags: RELIGION SOCIETY) - RTR3T7BC](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/06/RTR3T7BC.jpg/RTR3T7BC.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=DoqWEKTu)
Daniel Ben Simon
![An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is carried on the shoulders by his friends in an "honor gesture" into the Jerusalem central police station on his way to prison, as tens of thousands of religious Israelis protested on June 17, 2010 against a Supreme Court ruling which ordered the jailing of a group of Ashkenazi parents of European origin who have refused to send their daughters to a school with Jewish girls of Middle Eastern, or Sephardic, descent. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAH](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/06/102174938.jpg/102174938.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=QU21oekX)
Daniel Ben Simon
![A fisherman collects fish from a net on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the southern city of Ashdod April 6, 2014. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (ISRAEL - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY) - RTR3K5XW](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/05/RTR3K5XW.jpg/RTR3K5XW.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=DwQ8ItGk)
Daniel Ben Simon
![Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) listens to Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon (2nd R) as Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz (R) sits beside them during an air force pilots' graduation ceremony at Hatzerim air base in southern Israel December 26, 2013. REUTERS/Nir Elias (ISRAEL - Tags: MILITARY POLITICS) - RTX16UH7](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/05/RTX16UH7.jpg/RTX16UH7.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=KF5spt7S)
Daniel Ben Simon
![bnei-yehuda.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/05/bnei-yehuda.jpg/bnei-yehuda.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=IXMPRr3w)
Daniel Ben Simon
![Israeli film director Assi Dayan recieves his trophy from actress Joan Collins during the closing ceremony of the XIX Mediterranean Film Festival in Valencia October 20. Dayan was awarded the maximum prize of the festival, the Golden Palm, for his film "The 92 minutes of Mister Baum".
ES/AA - RTRIKQQ](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2014/05/RTRIKQQ.jpg/RTRIKQQ.jpg?h=c2c5b897&itok=i5GNHHsw)
Daniel Ben Simon