First session of Public Forum on Armenian-Israeli cooperation held in Yerevan

September 24, 2016 By administrator

forum-desc Today, September 24, the first session of the Public Forum on Armenian-Israeli cooperation was held in Yerevan on the initiative of President of RA NA Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Head of Armenia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group, Artak Zakaryan and Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Israel, Head of Knesset Armenia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group, Tali Ploskov.

In his speech, Artak Zakaryan noted that he had the idea for organizing the forum within the framework of his working visit to Israel.

“The forum will serve as a platform for cooperation in scientific, cultural, technological, health, tourism and other business fields between the two countries,” Zakaryan noted.

According to him, the forum will operate on a permanent basis, public order, carrying out its activities both in Israel and in Armenia. Artak Zakaryan stressed that the main objective of the forum is the involvement of interested parties in both countries to develop and implement joint projects, business investments, technological development opportunities, as well as other scientific and cultural exchange programs.

In her turn, Tali Ploskov noted that during her second visit in Armenia she realized that there are many similarities between the two countries and using them will benefit the development of relations between Armenia and Israel.

According to her, one of the main goals of the forum is promoting awareness in Armenian-Israeli business circles and encouraging implementation of investment projects in both countries.

Meanwhile, Artak Zakaryan, welcoming guests from Israel, said that Tali Ploskov first visited Armenia during the April events and now, during the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Armenia’s independence, stressing that as a true friend, the Israeli side visits Armenia in times of joy and in times of sorrow.

Zakaryan noted that for the dialogue between the sides, two co-chairs for the forum will be appointed.

Israeli forces demolish home of Palestinian teen in West Bank

June 11, 2016 By administrator

Israel’s military has demolished the house of a Palestinian teen accused of stabbing an Israeli woman in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli forces destroyed the home of 16-year-old Mourad Badir Adais in Beit Amrah west of Yatta in the occupied West Bank at dawn on Saturday.

Adais, currently held in Israeli detention, is accused of stabbing and killing a female Israeli settler on January 17.

Israeli forces reportedly raided several other homes and a medical lab in Beit Amrah village as well.

Tel Aviv has stepped up its demolitions of Palestinian homes over the past months.

In a report in April, the UN said the Israeli military has tripled its demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories since January.

The demolitions have raised alarm among diplomats and human rights groups over what they regard as the Tel Aviv regime’s sustained violation of international law.

The demolished structures include houses and schools.

Tensions have heightened in the occupied territories since August 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

More than 210 Palestinians, including children and women, have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since the beginning of last October. Some 30 Israelis have also been killed since then.

Nearly 30 female Israeli lawmakers sexually abused: Report

May 31, 2016 By administrator

Nearly 30 female members of Israel’s Knesset have fallen victim to sexual harassment or sexual assault at some point in their lives, a report says.

Of the total 32 current female lawmakers at the Israeli legislature, 28 revealed they had suffered from some sorts of sexual abuses in the past, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported on Tuesday, citing a survey conducted by Israel’s Channel 2.

The report added that two of the lawmakers, Michal Biran from the center-left alliance Zionist Union, and Merav Ben Ari from the centrist party Kulanu, experienced the harassment even after they had entered the Knesset.

“Even today, the fact that I’m a single woman in the Knesset puts me in unpleasant situations. Sometimes people make comments … I don’t want to elaborate, but there was a situation recently in the Knesset,” said Ben Ari, speaking of a recent incident in the Knesset building.

“There was an incident that repeated itself in the planning and building committee, of which I was a member. Another city councilor would make remarks of a sexual nature regarding things that I said, and the whole room would burst out laughing,” said Rachel Azaria from Kulanu party.

“I consulted with the legal adviser and other officials, and they all said there was nothing to be done,” she said, recounting a bitter experience she had when she was a Jerusalem City Council member.

The lawmakers also exposed different kinds of other sexual abuses, which happened on military buses or on the streets.

In December, the Israeli interior minister and vice-premier, Silvan Shalom, was forced to resign after his ex-staffer revealed that she was sexually harassed by her boss and was “touched” against her will, giving details on how he had abused her more than a decade ago.

Subsequently, “several other women also alleged that the minister sexually assaulted them,” according to a December 20, 2015 Ha’aretz report.

The Israeli interior minister is by no means the first top Israeli politician to leave office over sexual misconduct.

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav stepped down in 2007 on charges of raping two women as a cabinet minister in the late 1990s, as well as sexual assault against two of his female staffers as president.

The issue of sexual misconduct is also frequently reported in the Israeli military, which has given rise to heated debates over the past years.

The Israeli military itself says it has launched about 250 investigations into sexual abuse allegations over the past two years. Twelve of the investigations concern alleged rape, up from eight in 2014 and five in 2013.

Source: presstv

Israeli deputy PM admits to visiting Aleppo secretly

May 29, 2016 By administrator

A screen grab from footage released by the Daily Mail on December 8, 2015 showing Israeli forces treating a Takfiri terrorist they rescued from Syrian territory

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ayoub Kara has acknowledged to have paid a clandestine visit to Syria’s Aleppo, which is under the control of foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists.

The Syrian army and its allies have been fighting to wrest control of the country’s second city from terrorists who have reportedly received advanced weapons in recent weeks.

Kara did not say when his visit took place, saying “I won’t get into it,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

“Aleppo today is abandoned… Today when you enter it, you won’t even think that it’s Aleppo. It doesn’t even remind you of Aleppo,” he said instead.

Late last month, Syrian officials and locals confiscated a vehicle loaded with Israeli-manufactured weapons in the southern province of Suwayda.

A military source told Syria’s official news agency SANA that the vehicle was traveling from the eastern countryside of Dara’a to the desert region of Badiya.

Anti-personnel landmines, RPG rounds and launchers, B9 shells, 120 mm, 80 mm and 60 mm mortars, grenades and 23 mm machine-gun rounds were among the confiscated weapons.

Syria says Israel and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups operating inside the Arab country.

The Syrian army has frequently said it had seized Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants.

Israel’s Channel 2 television network recently reported that wounded militants are transferred quietly into the occupied territories for medication and that the number has surpassed 2,100 since 2011.

In December 2015, Britain’s English-language tabloid newspaper Daily Mail said Israel has saved the lives of over 2,000 Takfiri militants at the cost of about USD 13 million since 2013.

Source: presstv

Athens: Israeli defense minister says ISIS funded with ‘Turkish money’

January 26, 2016 By administrator

Israel’s defense minister has alleged that the Islamic State terror group has long been funded with “Turkish money.”

“As you know, Daesh (Islamic State, previously ISIS/ISIL) enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time. I hope that it will be ended,” Moshe Yaalon told reporters in Athens on Tuesday after meeting his Greek counterpart, Panos Kammenos, Reuters reports.

“It’s up to Turkey, the Turkish government, the Turkish leadership, to decide whether they want to be part of any kind of cooperation to fight terrorism. This is not the case so far,” he said.

Earlier, Russia had accused Turkey of shady dealings with ISIS. In December, the Russian Defense Ministry released maps and satellite images it said proved that Turkey was the main consumer of oil smuggled out of Syria and Iraq by the terrorists. The ministry also claimed that the Turkish president and his family were involved in the criminal dealings.

Iran has also said it was in possession of photographic and video evidence of ISIS oil entering Turkey in trucks.

In December, Syria’s envoy to the UN Bashar al-Ja’afari also accused Turkey of supporting terrorist groups. The diplomat appealed to the UN, urging it to end Ankara’s “violations and crimes.”

Turkey has denied the accusations, while the United States last month rejected Russia’s claims that the Turkish leadership was linked to ISIS oil smuggling.

Turkey has “permitted jihadists to move from Europe to Syria and Iraq and back, as part of Daesh’s terrorist network, and I hope this will stop, too,” Yaalon added, according to a transcript of the Israeli minister’s comments provided by the Greek Defense Ministry.

Israeli President recognizes the Armenian genocide at the UN

January 29, 2015 By administrator

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Wednesday before the General Assembly of the United Nations as “cynical” accusations against Israel of genocide and war crimes detrimental to the world body’s ability to fight against the real thing.

Speaking to mark the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance before the assembly, Reuven Rivlin mentioned the Armenian genocide of 1915 – killed more than a million Armenian citizens of Turkey – which is nevertheless not recognized as a genocide by Israel says Haaretz.

Rivlin said: “In 1915, the days of the Armenian Genocide, Avshalom Feinberg of the underground NILI [A Jewish spy network in Ottoman Palestine] wrote the following:” My teeth were clenched in anger, which is the next? I stepped on the holy and sacred land, on the road to Jerusalem, and wondered if this time we were living in 1915 or in the days of Titus or Nebuchadnezzar? And I wondered if I could weep for the hurt of the daughter of my people and if Jeremiah would not have shed tears of blood as for Armenians? “

Rivlin added, “Feinberg wrote that there are exactly 100 years. 100 years of hesitation and denial. In the Land of Israel of that time, on which I was born, no one has denied the murder occurred. The inhabitants of Jerusalem, my parents saw them coming by the thousands, hungry, burning like sticks snatched from the fire. In Jerusalem, they found refuge and their descendants live there to this day. “

Reuven Rivlin called on the United Nations to set red lines beyond which the international community should intervene to stop the genocide. He then said: “At the same time we must remember that the fixing of red lines forces us to stop diluting and cynically exploit them in the name of pseudo-objectivity, as is done in the rhetoric of rights Man with the use of terms such as “genocide” for political purposes. “

Citing the “shameful” UN resolution later invalidated, on Zionism as “his greatest enemy” racism, Reuven Rivlin continued:

“Nevertheless, the absurd comparisons such as this that we Israelis are exposed constantly … not only confuse allied with the enemy, but they undermine the ability of this House to fight effectively against the genocide phenomenon.”

In his introduction, delivered in English, Reuven Rivlin called attention to the current fighting in the north, saying they represented Israel’s struggle against the global challenge of “terrorism.”

“I am here at a time of great tension in our region. My heart and my thoughts are with my people Israel. Terrorism does not distinguish between the blood. In this war, all of us, all the United Nations, the countries of the free world, must form a united front, “said Rivlin.

He delivered the body of his speech in Hebrew – “the same language in which my Jewish colleagues shouted” Shema Israel “as they marched to the gas chambers. The language of my brothers and sisters, we honor today. “.

Thursday, January 29, 2015,
Stéphane © armenews.com

Israeli jets ‘strike near Damascus’ – Syrian army

December 7, 2014 By administrator

Jim Muir reports from Beirut as Syria accuses Israel of carrying out air strikes near Damascus

The Syrian military has accused Israel of carrying out two air strikes on Syria, near the capital Damascus. Report BBC

Israeli planes bombed the area near Damascus international airport and the town of Dimas, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state television.

No casualties were reported. There has been no confirmation of the air strikes from Israel.

Israel has conducted several air strikes on Syria since 2011.

“This afternoon, the Israeli enemy targeted two safe areas in Damascus province, namely the Dimas area and the Damascus International Airport,” the military statement said.

It described the air strikes as “direct aggression” carried out to help the Syrian government’s opponents.

Some installations had been damaged, it added, without elaborating on what had been hit.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, said (in Arabic) that 10 explosions were heard near Dimas, which is located close to the Syria-Lebanon border.

The group also said that there had been eight air raids on areas in the town of Khan al-Sheeh, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, and that a warehouse near Damascus airport had been hit.

Responding to the Syrian accusation, Israel’s military said it did not comment on “foreign reports”.

‘State of war’

The Israeli air force has conducted several air strikes on Syria since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011.

They appear to have been mainly aimed at preventing weapons transfers to Syria’s allies in Lebanon, the militant Hezbollah movement, the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Beirut.

Israel generally does not comment when it carries out attacks outside its borders, he says.

However, Israeli jets were seen constantly flying over parts of Lebanon on Sunday, about 30km (20 miles) from where the alleged attacks are said to have taken place, our correspondent adds.

The Israeli military has also bombed Syrian military sites in the past in retaliation for attacks on the occupied Golan Heights.

Israel seized the region from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Middle East War, and thwarted a Syrian attempt to retake it in 1973.

It unilaterally annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised internationally.

The two countries remain technically in a state of war, and UN observers are deployed to monitor a 70km-long (44-mile) demilitarised zone.

Israeli Drone Caught Spying on Iran ‘Took Off from Nakhijevan’

September 17, 2014 By administrator

NAKHIJEVAN, Azerbaijan—An Israeli spy drone which Iran recently downed on its way to one of the Iranian nuclear site had taken off from an air base in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan (Nakhijevan) exclave, sources say.

The anonymous sources said the Hermes drone, which was taken down by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) forces on Aug. 23 after 300 kilometers of flight, was bound for the Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran.

The revelation about the Israeli drone’s launch site indicates Baku’s involvement in the spying mission, the unnamed sources claimed.

The stealth spy drone was targeted by a surface-to-air missile before it reached the strategic location.

Iran’s nuclear facilities have been a regular target for espionage activities by US and Israeli intelligence services, which have at times used drones for this purpose.

Azeri officials continue to claim that they will never allow their country to be used as a launch pad against Iran, but the Baku government has been serving the Israeli government’s interests in the region.

Israel’s strategic Haifa port receives nearly 40 percent of its oil needs from the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline cutting across Azerbaijan.

In another sign of Azerbaijan’s hostility against the Islamic Republic, a separatist cell calling itself “World Azerbaijanis Congress” recently held an anti-Iran forum in Baku.

The World Azerbaijanis Congress, which was founded in the United States in 1997, seeks the separation of Iran’s northwestern provinces of East and West Azerbaijan and their unification with the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan.

Israel Bombs Gaza While Hamas’ Kidnapping Mastermind Sits in Turkey

August 19, 2014 By administrator

By World News

As Israeli war planes pound Hamas positions in Gaza, the man the country really wants is sitting pretty in Turkey.

Israel Defense Forces began a campaign of retribution against Hamas targets in Gaza on Monday after troops found the murdered bodies of three teenage boys abducted last month near their settlement of Gush Etzion.

But the Hamas commander who is seen by Israel as responsible for a wave of kidnapping attempts in the West Bank is actually based in Turkey. Saleh al-Arouri, that senior Hamas operative, makes his home inside the territory of a NATO ally.

“The Israelis say he was one of the key operational leaders who has been calling for and overseeing these various kidnapping plots over the past two years,” said Matthew Levitt, the director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism & Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s not that he was necessarily on the phone with these kidnappers, but kidnapping in general has been a key focus for Hamas operatives in the last two years and al-Arouri has been encouraging it.”

Now that the man who Israel believes has significant responsibility for the murder of the three teenagers is in Turkey, it could further complicate relations between Ankara and Jerusalem, two former allies that have tried recently to repair a broken relationship.

Turkey has cooperated at times with Israel and the West on contingency planning for Syria during its civil war. But the Turks also maintain close ties to the political wing of Hamas, a group Israel and the United States still designate as a terrorist organization. Indeed, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmed Davutaglu, on Monday talked to Khalled Meshall, the head of the Hamas political bureau, in a telephone call.

Senior Israeli officials confirmed for The Daily Beast that al-Arouri is the Hamas leader who has encouraged, funded and coordinated a campaign to ramp up kidnappings in the West Bank and that al-Arouri now resides in Turkey. Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said, “al-Arouri is a senior Hamas figure with a logistical, operational and financial role in the group’s activities in the West Bank. Any attack that takes place in the West Bank will ultimately raise questions about his involvement.”

Israeli security services last month named two Palestinian Hamas activists, Amer abu Aysha and Marwan Qawasmeh, as the prime suspects in the kidnapping of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach, and Gilad Shaar, the three Israeli teenagers who were found dead under a pile of stones in an open field near Hebron. But the mastermind of the Hamas kidnapping strategy is al-Arouri, Israeli officials say. These officials, however, are loath to talk about him on the record.

Israeli foreign ministry’s delegation visits Armenian Genocide memorial

June 18, 2014 By administrator

June 18, 2014 | 17:23

YEREVAN. – An Israeli foreign ministry’s delegation headed by deputy director general for Eurasia Anna Azari visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial.

The Israeli delegation, the part of which were also Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Armenia Mr. Shmuel Meirom and Director Iran-Iraq Department, Center for Policy Research Mr Nissan Amdur, put flowers at the Eternal Fire and honored the memory of the innocent victims with a minute of silence.

Guests also visited the temporary exhibition of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) and got acquainted with the exhibition which represents the story of the Armenian Genocide, AGMI reported.