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Olympic bronze medalist in judo Yarden Gerbi has put her name tag up for auction on eBay, saying she will use the money to buy medical equipment for a Tel Aviv hospital.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the top bid stood at $13,000 or NIS 49,089, and was rising rapidly throughout the day.The online auction is scheduled to last one week, until Monday night Israel time.

Gerbi - whose bronze during the Rio Games made her the second Israeli woman to win a medal at the Olympics - said donating the proceeds from the identification tag to the pediatric cancer treatment facility at Ichilov Hospital will make it "more special for society."

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After a recent visit with the children, Gerbi said in a Facebook post she was honored to meet the "real heroes who are fighting every single day to maintain their joy of life."

"I don't know how much money I'll be able to raise, but any amount will help, even if it's not much," she said.

Gerbi added she will dedicate the tag to the winning bidder and sign it for them.

On August 9, Gerbi defeated Japan's Miku Tashiru in the runner-up bout to clinch the bronze in judo, the first Israeli Olympic medal since 2008.

Three days later, fellow judoka Or Sasson brushed off an unpleasant encounter with Egyptian fighter Islam El Shehaby in the over 100 kilogram category, winning two more matches and only narrowly losing to France's legendary Teddy Riner. He then beat Cuba's Alex Mendoza to claim the bronze.

For Israel, the two bronzes from the 2016 Games were a marked improvement on the 2012 showing in London, from which Israel's athletes returned without a single medal.

Gerbi and Sasson returned home last week to a hero's welcome, facing cheering crowds at Ben Gurion Airport.

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Medalist Gerbi auctions her Olympic ID for pediatric cancer

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Olympic bronze medalist in judo Yarden Gerbi has put her name tag up for auction on eBay, saying she will use the money to buy medical equipment for a Tel Aviv hospital. As of Tuesday afternoon, the top bid stood at $13,000 or NIS 49,089, and was rising rapidly throughout the day.The online auction is scheduled to last one week, until Monday night Israel time.

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Activists who campaigned against soldiers coming to volunteer at "baby warehouses" for the children of refugees and migrants in South Tel Aviv may have done the cause a favor, after the organization that organized the trips reports being overwhelmed with requests to volunteer over the past week.

"I think this is the beautiful side of the Israeli society," said Elifelet founder and director Yael Gvirtz, who said dozens of people have called the organization in the past week to volunteer, and a few have even made donations.

"There was a cynical, political step to use these children for an ulterior motive," she said.

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Elifelet offers support, including donations and food,to more than 650 children in the kindergartens, colloquially called "baby warehouses" because overcrowding is a serious issue. These kindergartens offer affordable childcare options to refugees and migrant workers who often have to work long hours, but there is no oversight from the authorities.

Activist Sheffi Paz, a well-known figure in South Tel Aviv opposed to the presence of African migrants, photographed soldiers volunteering with Elifelet, and Channel 10 also did a story about members of the Military Intelligence unit volunteering in kindergartens in South Tel Aviv.

On August 17, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced that soldiers are no longer allowed to volunteer with African migrants. "If soldiers have free time, they should help Holocaust survivors or the needy," he reportedly told the Israel Defense Forces chief. "Charity should begin at home."

In an interview with Army Radio praising Liberman's decision, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan claimed that "none of the 150,000 illegal infiltrators have been categorized as refugees; they don't need to be extended a helping hand or be pulled out of the sea and saved from drowning."

UN figures show Israel is home to about 53,000 African refugees and asylum seekers, most of whom entered the country illegally through the border with Egypt. Among them, 36,000 are from Eritrea and 14,000 are from Sudan.

Compared with regular childcare, which can cost around NIS 2,500 per month, these "warehouses" cost around NIS 600 per month, with the emphasis on caring for the maximum number of children in order to make a profit.

On August 17, a year-old child choked at one of these daycare centers in the Neve Shaanan neighborhood. Magen David Adom paramedics arrived after he was already unconscious and rushed him to the hospital in critical condition. The baby died early Tuesday morning. Gvirtz said almost 20 children have died at these kind of daycare centers in the past five years.

Sheffi Paz slammed the army for coming to volunteer in the area. "I don't want any institution coming to volunteer here. If people come to volunteer privately, we'll deal with them individually," said Paz, who is part of a neighborhood watch group called "Otef Tahana Mercazit" (the Central Bus Station Environs) that has utilized controversial tactics such as harassing African children at local playgrounds.

"I met people from all around Israel; they have no idea what's going on here, why we don't like these Africans and that it's a nightmare when they come here," she said.

"We think the kindergartens are really central to the problem. They are destroying the neighborhood. We think they're using the kids as a political tool to avoid getting deported," she said.

Gvirtz, of Elifelet, said Liberman's decree was "really harmful and dangerous" for the children. For the past three years, at least one group of soldiers has volunteered at the organization each week, usually members of the Educational Corps who are required to do community service as part of the course. Generally the soldiers take the kids out to a park for a few hours so they can get some fresh air.

Elifelet has come in for its own share of criticism, which says that the constantly changing volunteers are detrimental to the children and that the volunteers are not properly vetted. "Tell me, what is better? That children will be inside for the whole day and they won't do anything, or that a group of soldiers will come, accompanied by our volunteers, who will take them to the park?" she asked.

She said the media coverage has attracted groups of people that generally don't volunteer with the organization, including soldiers coming on their own private time and volunteers who are more religious. Previously, volunteers came from a "well-known left-wing activism circle" that is generally secular, she said.

She encouraged Paz and her organization to offer an alternative volunteer program for the soldiers. "Their only activities are yelling at us," she said.

"If the army could use their position to help the neighborhoods in the south rather than just stopping it, there could be a really different outcome."

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Volunteers surge to help South Tel Aviv kids after soldiers are told to stop

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Activists who campaigned against soldiers coming to volunteer at "baby warehouses" for the children of refugees and migrants in South Tel Aviv may have done the cause a favor, after the organization that organized the trips reports being overwhelmed with requests to volunteer over the past week.

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A burst pipe at Jordan's port of Aqaba has spilled at least 200 tons of crude oil into the Red Sea, Israel's foreign and environmental protection ministries said Tuesday.

A joint statement from both ministries said Israel had contacted Jordanian officials to offer assistance with cleaning up the spill.

Environment Minister Ze'ev Elkin and Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold approved the offer to supply Israeli equipment and manpower to help clean-up efforts, but the Jordanians were currently "handling the incident themselves," the statement said.

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Erez Halfon, chairman of the company that runs Israel's Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline, wrote to Jordanian authorities to urge them to accept the assistance of the company's engineers, who he said had the skills and training to contain the spill.

Environmental Protection Ministry officials were closely monitoring the leak's possible impact on Israel's adjacent beach city of Eilat, but did not note any immediate threat to Israeli beaches.

In 2014, in what was described as the worst ecological disaster in Israel's history, a portion of the Trans-Israel pipeline that runs from Israel's Mediterranean coast to Eilat exploded, spilling five million liters of crude oil into the Evrona nature reserve. The explosion happened as workers labored to move the pipe in order to accommodate the construction of a new international airport being built just north of Israel's southernmost city.

In November, a two-day joint Israeli-Jordanian oil spill drill took place in the Gulf of Eilat.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection's Marine Environment Protection Division conducted the exercise with Jordanian marine authorities, the Israel Navy and other partners. They simulated a 50-ton fuel oil spill during the unloading of a cargo ship in the northern part of the Gulf.

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Aqaba spill dumps 200 tons of crude oil into Red Sea

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A burst pipe at Jordan's port of Aqaba has spilled at least 200 tons of crude oil into the Red Sea, Israel's foreign and environmental protection ministries said Tuesday. A joint statement from both ministries said Israel had contacted Jordanian officials to offer assistance with cleaning up the spill.