Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Israel's Livni Urges U.S. to Step Up Iran Sanctions


JERU.S.ALEM - Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni urged U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to ratchet up sanctions against Iran" without delay," a statement from her Kadima party said on Dec. 3.
It said that the two met in Washington on Dec. 2.
Israeli media said that the meeting took place before Panetta delivered a speech urging Israel to break out of growing regional "isolation" by repairing diplomatic ties with Egypt and Turkey, and renewing peace efforts with the Palestinians.
"The world needs to stop Iran," the Kadima statement quoted Livni as telling Panetta.
"Stronger, tougher sanctions are required without delay."
Israel and much of the international community fear that Iran's nuclear program masks a drive for a weapons capability. Tehran denies any such ambition and says the program is for peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes only.
In his comments on Friday to the Brookings Institution's Saban Centre for the Middle East, a Washington think-tank, Panetta vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying the Obama administration had not ruled out possible military action.
But he warned of the potential downside of any strike, which he said could actually strengthen the Tehran regime while not necessarily destroying all targets.
The Pentagon chief said he understood Israel's anxieties over turmoil in the Middle East but said the Arab Spring offered an opportunity for the country to forge a more secure place in the region.
It was crucial for Israel to reach out and "mend fences" with countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan that share an interest in regional stability, said Panetta, who issued similar appeals in a visit to the region in October.
Israel also needed "to lean forward on efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians," Panetta said.
Livni said that neutralizing Iran and making peace with the Palestinians were both factors for Middle East stability.
"The struggle against a nuclear Iran, and renewed movement in negotiations with the Palestinians will strengthen the pragmatic camp in the region," she told Panetta.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Mossad, IDF Websites Online After 'Server Crash'


JERUSALEM - The websites of Israel's military, Mossad and the Shin Bet intelligence services were back online on Monday after being unavailable the previous day due to what officials said was a "server crash."
The three sites, along with numerous other government websites, crashed on Sunday, two days after the international hackers' group Anonymous apparently threatened to take action after Israel blocked two boats of pro-Palestinian activists from reaching the blockaded Gaza Strip.
All three sites appeared to be working normally on Monday after being unavailable all day on Sunday. A spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose website was not affected, blamed the outage on a "server malfunction" technical glitch rather than an attack by hackers.
"Israeli government websites crashed today because of a server malfunction, not as a result of a cyber attack," Ofir Gendelman wrote in a posting on Twitter late on Sunday.
The sites went down shortly after a video was posted on YouTube, allegedly by "hacktivist" group Anonymous, in which they threatened the Israeli government with retaliation after Friday's interception of two activist vessels that had been hoping to run Israel's naval blockade on the territory.
An earlier attempt to run the Gaza blockade in May 2010 had ended in bloodshed when Israeli naval commandos stormed the lead vessel of a six-ship flotilla, killing nine Turkish activists and sparking a wave of international condemnation - and a flurry of new attempts to reach the coastal enclave.
Entitled "An open letter from Anonymous to the Government of Israel," the video accused the Jewish state of "piracy on the high seas" and warned that if it continued to block ships heading to Gaza "then you will leave us no choice but to strike back," it said. It was not immediately possible to confirm whether the video was posted by Anonymous, which has been involved in scores of hacking exploits, many of them targeting governments. Last year, hackers associated with Anonymous launched retaliatory attacks on companies perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Israel, Gaza Trade Strikes After Attacks

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories - Gazan rockets hit southern Israel on Aug. 19 after a long night of air strikes as Israel sought to smash the militants behind desert attacks that killed eight Israelis.
As the air force pounded targets across the Gaza Strip, militants there lobbed 12 rockets at south Israel early on Aug. 19, injuring two - one seriously and one moderately - in the city of Ashdod, police said.
Several hours earlier, one Gazan was killed and 17 injured as Israel pounded targets across the strip following a day of violence in which gunmen unleashed bloody mayhem on a desert road near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat.
Six Israeli civilians, a soldier and a police officer were killed in several hours of attacks on a desert road some 12 miles north of Eilat.
Israeli warplanes responded immediately, attacking targets in southern Gaza which killed six people, including five militants from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) - the group it said was behind the violence.
The PRC vowed bitter revenge for the attack, which killed its leader and three other top cadres, and on Friday claimed responsibility for firing at least seven rockets and mortars into Israel.
Overnight, the Israeli air force hit seven targets in Gaza, including two training camps for Hamas militants, a weapons factory, two smuggling tunnels and a "terror tunnel."
Palestinian sources reported two more raids on Aug. 19, lightly injuring one person.
"The Israeli Defense Forces will not tolerate any malicious attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers and will not hesitate to respond with strength and determination to any element that uses terror against the State of Israel and until calm is restored," a statement said.
In Egypt, state television said two "unidentified Egyptians" had been killed by Israeli gunfire on Aug. 18 in an area near the site of the attacks; overnight security officials said three Egyptian policemen were also killed in the same area when an Israeli Apache fired a rocket at militants.
Israel officials were quick to point the finger at Gaza, although the territory's Hamas rulers denied any connection to the attacks.
But the Israeli military said it held the Islamist group ultimately responsible for violence coming from the territory it controls.
"If Hamas wants an escalation, it will pay a high price," Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai told public radio on Aug. 19, saying some form of ground operation in Gaza was not out of the question.
"All options are open, including a pin-point (ground) operation," he said.
Both sides were burying their dead on Aug. 19, with funerals in Jerusalem for the soldier and the police officer and a burial procession due to take place in southern Gaza for the five militants and the toddler.
As Israeli police went on high alert across Israel, the country's main newspapers painted a much clearer picture of how events unfolded on Aug. 18 involving an estimated 15 to 20 gunmen, some wearing Egyptian army fatigues.
The first attack saw three gunmen open fire on a packed bus heading to Eilat, injuring seven people. Shortly afterwards, they opened fire on a civilian car in the same area, killing four people.
Then one of the militants detonated an explosives-packed belt he was wearing as an empty bus drove past, blowing himself up and killing the driver.
Further gunfire was directed at another car, killing one man. The soldier and the police officer were killed in two separate gun battles with the attackers which lasted into the evening, the papers said.
Six of the attackers were killed by Israeli troops and special police forces, while the seventh blew himself up; others are believed to have fled across the Egyptian border.
Egypt's state television on Aug. 18 showed footage of rifles, grenades and army uniforms seized during an ongoing security operation in northern Sinai, while in a separate development, security officials said they had uncovered a workshop capable of producing suicide belts.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Israeli, Chinese Defense Chiefs Meet in Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM - China's chief of staff Gen. Chen Bingde for the first time met his Israeli counterpart, Gen. Benny Gantz, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
"The defense minister and the Chinese chief of staff discussed the situation in the region, relations with the Palestinian Authority and the situation in Pakistan and Iran, as well as the fight against global terrorism," the statement said.
During his trip Chen will "meet senior security officials and attend strategic and security briefings, visit the IDF Urban Warfare Training Centre, and observe a display of IDF forces training," an Israeli military spokesman said earlier.
Israeli army radio has described the visit as "historic."
The Israeli military declined to say how long Chen would be in the country.
In June, Barak made a rare visit to Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders, at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie.
Defense ties had been frosty after U.S. intervention twice scuttled Israeli arms deals with China: the sale of advanced Phalcon spy planes in 2000 and of spare parts for Israeli-built Harpy drones five years later.
Chen's visit comes as Israel seeks to convince the international community to vote against a bid by the Palestinians for recognition of a state at the U.N. General Assembly in September.
Israel has in the past also sought tougher measures from Beijing, a key U.N. Security Council member, against Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Israel Nabs Boat Smuggling Weapons on Dead Sea


JERUSALEM - The Israeli military and police captured a boat on the Dead Sea which was trying to smuggle weapons from Jordan, and detained two Palestinians on board, officials said on July 25.
The Israeli military said the boat was smuggling weapons from Jordan and that 10 Kalashnikov assault rifles and 10 magazines were found on board the dinghy.
"This was effectively a smuggling attempt from Jordan to the (Palestinian) territories. They were stopped at dawn. There were 10 Kalashnikovs, and 10 full magazines in the boat," an Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP.
She said the men detained, who were being questioned by police, were Palestinians from the West Bank.
The Dead Sea is the lowest place in the world and it stretches some 43 miles along the border with Jordan, while its northern and western shores touch Israel and the West Bank.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that the boat had come from Jordan.
"There is an ongoing police investigation involving a number of arms that were attempted to be smuggled from Jordan," he told AFP. "Two suspects have been arrested and are being questioned. The arrests were made this morning and a number of weapons were confiscated."
Israel's army radio said the vessel was a dinghy that had come from Jordan and was trying to traffic arms into the West Bank.
Very few vessels are able to sail on the inland lake. Due to the density of the water - the Dead Sea has a salt and mineral content which is seven times more concentrated than sea water - boats float very high and run a considerable risk of capsizing.
It was not the first time the army has stopped a boat containing weapons on the Dead Sea, although such attempts are rare.
In October 2006, Israeli troops thwarted an attempt to smuggle weapons and drugs from Jordan into Israel via the Dead Sea.
A military patrol spotted an inflatable craft approaching from Jordan and gave chase, arresting the two men on board - an Israeli Bedouin from Khirbet Khasif in the southern Negev desert, and a Palestinian resident of Jordan.
Months later, media reports said the navy had started looking into the possibility of organising regular patrols on the sea in an bid to prevent the infiltration of people and weapons from Jordan into the Palestinian territories.
Because of the high salinity of the water, tests were being conducted to examine what kind of patrol vessel could withstand erosion from the salt, they said.
In February 1998, the Israeli army has arrested a Palestinian man after discovering a large quantity of arms on the northern coast of the Dead Sea which had been brought in from Jordan in two motor boats.