• Former Miss Israel and IDF combat instructor Gal Gadot stars in “Wonder Woman,” a summer blockbuster that becomes the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, the highest-grossing superhero origin film in the US and worldwide, and the largest opening for a female-led comic book film. Gadot was the highest-grossing actress of the year, amassing $1.4 billion worldwide. Gadot and the movie receive a panoply of accolades from media such as GQ and Rotten Tomatoes.
• Over the course of the summer, Israeli governmental and non-governmental groups send aid and personnel following natural disasters in Texas, Mexico, Haiti, the Caribbean, Florida, Puerto Rico, Nepal and Sierra Leona.
• In a world first, two Israeli patients receive injected lab-grown bone tissue developed by BonusBioGroup.
• Israeli startups raise more than $5 billion, besting 2016’s record of $4.8 billion, according to a year-end report by IVC Research Center.
• The population of Israel reaches 8.793 million.