Facebook and Alibaba Invest in Israel

Facebook and the Chinese giant Internet Alibaba companies have expressed confidence in Israel with hiring and investment announcements.

Facebook, which already operates a development center in Tel Aviv, is hiring another 40 people, including 10 in the area of marketing and 30 engineers, product managers and designers,

Facebook has acquired at least three Israeli start-ups in the past four years.

Facebook Israel general manager Adi Soffer-Teeni announced Monday that the Israel branch is carrying out a special operation for training companies how to use Facebook's platforms, and added, "I believe that other countries around the world will adopt the unique idea devised by our team here."

Development center manager Roy Tiger said that an Israeli team is involved in a project called Safety Check, "an application that enables people to announce their situation quickly in a disaster, such as an earthquake." He added that the application "was successfully used in the recent Hurricane Pam in the Asian Pacific region.

Alibaba announced it is investing tens of millions of dollars in the Israel venture capital firm JVP.

Nearly two dozen Alibaba officials are visiting Israel, including JVP's offices in Jerusalem and its cyber incubator in Be'er Sheva.