Israael Archives

Yuli Edelstein

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein on Tuesday called to rethink Israel’s stance on the Armenian genocide, calling the murders a “moral stain” on humanity.”

“History cannot be changed,” he said during a speech in the Knesset. “The disaster can’t be obscured by diplomacy anymore.”

Armenia recently marked the centenary of a mass killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, at the height of World War I.

“It is no secret that Israel has taken an ambivalent position about the genocide,” Edelstein said, calling Israel’s reaction “too hesitant and too restrained.”

“As the Jewish people, we cannot stay silent,” he addressed MKs in the plenum. “We cannot turn a blind eye or lessen the extent of the Armenian tragedy,”

Four-year-old Shaima al-Masri is lying stricken on her bed in Gaza’s main hospital. She sustained an abdominal injury in a strike when she and her family were returning home from her uncle.

She is one of the latest victims of Israeli airstrikes, which have claimed more than 100 lives including Shaima’s mother and her brother.

“The girl went to visit her sister with her parents. On the road they came under missile fire. When she tried to avoid one, she was hit by a second,” a sobbing Samah al-Masri, the child’s aunt, told RT contributor Harry Fear.

Shaima’s mother and brother died right after the attack, while she and her sister were taken to hospital, where her sister died.

It’s still not clear if the girl will live as her injury is rather serious. Shaima’s aunt is now praying for God to help the child to recover.

“The girl is still under God’s care. Nobody knows if she is going to make it,” said Samah al-Masri

Another Gaza resident told Harry Fear that the strikes start out of nowhere.

“We were sitting by the entrance when the first missile hit the house. The second one soon followed,” says Abed Ibrahim, a Gaza resident, “We carried the sleeping children out and ran away. The children began screaming with fear.”

Fierce rocket fire exchange is continuing between Israeli armed forces and Hamas.