The oldest and leading Arab-owned med-tech company in Israel started in a city in the Israeli periphery known more as Jesus’s hometown than a high-tech hub. But for Reem Younis, 59, who grew up in a working-class Christian family in Nazareth, there was no better location to found what has become a giant in Israel’s med-tech industry.

In 1993, alongside her husband, Imad, she established Alpha Omega, one of the world’s top manufacturers of electrodes and other medical devices that record the activity of neurons from within the brain.

Today, researchers and neurosurgeons worldwide use Alpha Omega equipment to guide them, much like the Israeli navigational system Waze, toward the best place to implant deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes inside the brain. These electrodes are used to treat disorders associated with neurological conditions such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.

But if setting up their company in Nazareth was once considered unusual, their newest branch office is even more surprising: Recently, despite the frequent deadly clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the West Bank city since Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7, the couple opened a branch of their multinational company at the Arab American University in Jenin.

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Reem and Imad Younis are both Technion alumni.