Tag Archives: Israel

Iran promises ‘crushing’ response if U.S. designates Guards a terrorist group

Members of the Iranian revolutionary guard march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011.

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran promised on Monday to give a “crushing” response if the United States designated its elite Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group.

The pledge came a week before President Donald Trump announces final decision on how he wants to contain Tehran. He is expected on Oct 15 to “decertify” a landmark 2015 international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, a step that by itself stops short of pulling out of the agreement but gives Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions.

Trump is also expected to designate Iran’s most powerful security force, the Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, as he rolls out a broader U.S. strategy on Iran.

“We are hopeful that the United States does not make this strategic mistake,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA at a news conference.

“If they do, Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive and crushing and the United States should bear all its consequences,” he added.

Individuals and entities associated with the IRGC are already on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, but the organization as a whole is not.

IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Sunday “if the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world.”

Jafari also said that additional sanctions would end the chances for future dialogue with the United States and that the Americans would have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000 km (1,250 mile) range of IRGC’s missiles.

 

“MALIGN ACTIVITIES”

The foreign ministry spokesman Qasemi also denied U.S. accusations that Iran had cooperated with North Korea.

In an interview that was aired on Saturday night, Trump accused Iran of “funding North Korea” and “doing things with North Korea that are totally inappropriate”.

Qasemi called the accusations “baseless”.

“Israel and some specific countries are raising these accusations to create Iranophobia.”

In his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September Trump called Iran “a corrupt dictatorship”, and the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama “an embarrassment”.

The deal, which was also supported by Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, saw Iran agree to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions that had damaged its economy.

The Kremlin said on Monday that any U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal would have “negative consequences.”

Gemran Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Germany was ready to increase pressure on Iran with diplomatic means, but that “we do not want to see this agreement damaged”.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, who supports the nuclear deal, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes it, agreed in a phone call on Monday that they need to be “clear-eyed” about the threat Iran poses to the Middle East.

“They agreed that … the international community should continue working together to push back against Iran’s destabilizing regional activity,” May’s spokesman said in a statement.

Despite the nuclear deal, Washington still maintains its own more limited sanctions on Iran over its missile program and over accusations Tehran supports terrorism.

The Trump administration is seeking to put more pressure on the IRGC, especially over recent ballistic missile tests and what Washington has called its “malign activities” across the Middle East.

U.S. sanctions on the IRGC could affect conflicts in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington both support warring parties that oppose the Islamic State militant group (IS).

The U.S. government imposed sanctions in July on 18 entities and people for supporting the IRGC in developing drones and military equipment. In August, Congress overwhelmingly approved the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” which imposed new sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile program, as well as sanctions on Russia and North Korea.

 

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow, Andrea Shalal and Michelle Martin in Berlin, William James in London; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Peter Graff)

 

Hamas picks new deputy chief whom Israel blames for helping spark Gaza war

GAZA (Reuters) – The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas named as its new deputy chief on Thursday a formerly Turkey-based commander whom Israel has accused of orchestrating a lethal triple kidnapping that helped trigger the 2014 Gaza war.

Saleh al-Arouri’s promotion comes as Hamas seeks to close ranks with U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after a decade-old schism, in an entente Israel says will not revive peace talks unless Hamas recognizes its right to exist and disarms.

The Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas-linked news site, said Arouri, who was born in the occupied West Bank and was exiled by Israel in 2010 after long stints in its prisons, had been elected as deputy to the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“He (Arouri) is now the Hamas movement’s No. 2 man,” the site said. “Twenty-three years of detention and expulsion have not weakened the resolve of the leader Saleh al-Arouri, 51.”

After three Israeli teens were abducted and killed in the West Bank in June 2014, Arouri – then in Istanbul – claimed responsibility in the name of Hamas.

Israel responded with a West Bank security sweep which, along with the revenge killing of a Palestinian youth from Jerusalem by a group of Israelis, spiraled into a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ fiefdom. Gaza health officials say 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, while Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

Israel also pressed Ankara’s Islamist-rooted government to crack down on Arouri, describing him as the mastermind of the kidnappings and other Hamas militant attacks.

Hamas sources said Arouri left Turkey in late 2015 for Qatar and later Lebanon. They declined to give his current location.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Israel sees Assad winning Syria war, urges more U.S. involvement

FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on April 6, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday President Bashar al-Assad was winning Syria’s civil war and urged the United States to weigh in as Damascus’s Iranian and Hezbollah allies gain ground.

Avigdor Lieberman’s comments marked a reversal for Israel, where top officials had from the outset of fighting in 2011 until mid-2015 regularly predicted Assad would lose control of his country and be toppled.

“I see a long international queue lining up to woo Assad, include Western nations, including moderate Sunnis. Suddenly everyone wants to get close to Assad. This is unprecedented. Because Assad is winning, everyone is standing in line,” he told Israel’s Walla news site.

In late 2015, Russia helped Assad turn the tide with a military intervention that put Moscow’s forces in the field alongside Israel’s most potent foes – Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah – opposite Syrian rebels.

The United States has focused its Syria operations on fighting rebel jihadis like Islamic State – dismaying Israel, which has tried to persuade both Washington and Moscow that Iran’s expanding clout is the greater threat.

In its decades under Assad family rule, Syria has been an enemy of Israel, with their armies clashing in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. While largely keeping out of the Syrian civil war, Israel has tried to sway the world powers involved in the conflict and cautioned it could strike militarily to prevent Iran and Hezbollah entrenching further on its northern front.

“We hope the United States will be more active in the Syrian arena and the Middle East in general,” Lieberman said. “We are faced with Russians, Iranians, and also the Turks and Hezbollah, and this is no simple matter to deal with, on a daily basis.”

Lieberman did not elaborate on what actions he sought from the Donald Trump administration, which Israel has been lobbying for reassurances that Iranian and Hezbollah forces will not be allowed to deploy near its border or set up bases within Syria.

“The United States has quite a few challenges of its own, but as a trend – the more the United States will be active, the better it will be for the State of Israel,” Lieberman said.

(The story is refiled to add dropped source in third paragraph)

(Writing by Dan Williams; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Israel says it foiled planned ISIS-inspired attack at Jerusalem holy site

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Thursday it had thwarted a plan by two Israeli Arabs with Islamic State sympathies to mount an attack at a contested Jerusalem holy site where a July gun ambush set off a wave of violence.

The Shin Bet security service described the suspects, aged 26 and 16, as residents of the same Israeli Arab town as three gunmen who on July 14 killed two police guards at a gate to Al-Aqsa mosque compound and were then shot dead.

Israel responded to that attack by briefly installing metal detectors outside the compound, angering Palestinians who saw that as a breach of decades-old access arrangements.

Four Palestinians were killed during ensuing confrontations with Israeli security forces and a Palestinian stabbed three Israeli settlers to death.

The two suspects taken into custody this month “support the Islamic State terrorist group’s murderous ideology and the terrorist attack was meant to be carried out in expression of this”, the Shin Bet said in its statement on Thursday.

It said they had two pistols. “They planned a gun attack at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem similar to what transpired on July 14,” it said without elaborating.

Jews revere the site, where Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock now stand, as the location of their two ancient temples. Attempts by Jews to pray there, in violation of access arrangements, have been a source of tension with Muslims.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognized internationally.

(Reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Roche)

Interpol approves membership for State of Palestine over Israeli objections

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 20, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Interpol voted on Wednesday to admit the State of Palestine as a member over Israeli objections at the international police organization’s general assembly in Beijing.

The decision came despite Israeli efforts to delay a vote and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the Palestinians’ joining the global police agency contravened signed agreements with Israel.

Israel had argued that Palestine is not a state and that it is ineligible to join. Under interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals, a Palestinian Authority was granted limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Shortly before the vote in the Chinese capital, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Israel’s efforts to delay the ballot until next year had failed.

“This victory was made possible because of the principled position of the majority of Interpol members,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said in a statement.

Interpol said membership applications by the State of Palestine and the Solomon Islands were approved at its annual general assembly by more than the required two-thirds majority of votes. The organization now has 192 members.

A Palestinian bid to join last year, at an Interpol conference in Indonesia, was foiled by what Israel said was its diplomatic campaign against it.

In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly upgraded the Palestinian Authority’s observer status at the United Nations to “non-member state” from “entity”, like the Vatican.

The step fell short of full U.N. membership, but it had important legal implications in enabling the Palestinians to join the International Criminal Court and other world bodies.

Netanyahu’s statement said Palestinian membership of Interpol was one of the issues discussed during a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who is visiting the region.

Netanyahu also raised the Palestinian refusal to condemn an attack on Tuesday in which a Palestinian laborer shot dead three Israeli guards in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“The actions of the Palestinian leadership in the past few days directly harm the prospects of achieving peace and the Palestinian diplomatic offensive will not go unanswered,” the statement said.

Some Israeli media commentators have voiced concern that as an Interpol member, Palestine could ask the organization to issue a “Red Notice”, an alert to police worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest an individual, pending extradition.

But the procedure does not appear to pose serious legal problems for Israelis such as government officials and military officers whom pro-Palestinian groups have sought to have arrested by local authorities as suspected war criminals during overseas visits.

A red notice is not an international arrest warrant, and on its website Interpol notes that it cannot compel any member country to detain an individual named in one.

(Editing by Maayan Lubell and Mark Heinrich)

Palestinian gunman kills three Israeli guards at West Bank settlement

Israeli emergency and security personnel work at the scene where a police spokeswoman said a Palestinian gunman killed three Israelis guards and wounded a fourth in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank before himself being shot dead, September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

HAR ADAR, West Bank (Reuters) – A Palestinian man with security clearance to work at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank opened fire at a checkpoint on Tuesday, killing two Israeli security guards and a paramilitary policeman.

The assailant, who was armed with a pistol and also seriously wounded a fourth Israeli, was shot dead, police said.

The incident was unusual in that the 37-year-old man had been issued an Israeli work permit – a process that entails security vetting – unlike most of the Palestinians involved in a wave of street attacks that began two years ago.

A police spokeswoman said the gunman approached Har Adar among a group of Palestinians who work at the settlement, and aroused the suspicion of guards at the entrance checkpoint.

Challenged to halt, the Palestinian “opened his shirt, drew a pistol and fired at the security staff and troopers at close range,” the spokeswoman said.

Residents of the settlement told Israeli media the man worked as a cleaner. One of them, Moish Berdichev, said he had domestic problems – his wife had left him – and speculated he may have carried out the attack knowing he would not survive.

“He was a guy with a good head on his shoulders. It’s a shame. Very sad,” Berdichev told Army Radio.

The Shin Bet internal security service identified the man as Nimr Jamal and said he had “severe personal and family issues, including domestic violence”.

The man lived in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Suriq, the police said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet that the man’s house would be demolished and any work permits issued to his relatives would be revoked.

(Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Egypt’s Sisi, Israel’s Netanyahu meet for first time in public

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) during their meeting as part of an effort to revive the Middle East peace process ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 19, 2017 in this handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency. The Egyptian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have met for the first time in public in what Egypt said was part of an effort to revive the Middle East peace process.

Egyptian authorities said in a statement the two had met on Monday ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Sisi separately met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his residency, where they agreed to continue working toward a two-state solution.

The meeting came just days after Egypt helped broker an agreement with the Palestinian Hamas group to dissolve the administration that runs Gaza and hold talks with Abbas’ Fatah movement, its Palestinian rivals .

For much of the last decade, Egypt has joined Israel in enforcing a land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, a move to punish Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007.

Netanyahu has said in recent weeks that ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors have been improving and that cooperation exists “in various ways and (at) different levels”.

Egypt was the first of a handful of Arab countries to recognize Israel under the U.S.-sponsored peace accord in 1979. But Egyptian attitudes to its neighbor remain icy due to what many Arabs see as the continued Israeli occupation of land that is meant to form a Palestinian state.

In recent weeks, Egypt has hosted delegations from Fatah and Hamas to help reach an agreement between the two sides and talk about the Gaza border. But reunification a decade after their battle for control may hinge on whether complex power-sharing issues can be resolved.

Under pressure from the blockade, Hamas has sought to mend ties with Egypt, which controls their one border crossing. Egypt under Sisi has been wary of ties between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Sisi ousted from power after mass protests.

(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous words in paragraph 2.)

(Reporting by Nadine Awadalla; editing by Patrick Markey/Jeremy Gaunt)

Trump says giving Mideast peace ‘an absolute go’

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, U.S., September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he believed “we really have a chance” to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump has faced deep skepticism at home and abroad over the chances for him to achieve any quick breakthrough, not least because his administration has yet to articulate a strategy for restarting a moribund peace process.

Trump has described peace between Israelis and Palestinians as “the ultimate deal.”

“Peace between the Palestinians and Israel would be a fantastic achievement, and we are giving it an absolute go. I think there’s a good chance that it could happen. Most people would say ‘there’s no chance whatsoever,’” Trump said as he began a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York ahead of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting.

“I think Israel would like to see it. I think the Palestinians would like to see it. I can tell you the Trump administration would like to see it. So we’re working very hard on it; we’ll see what happens. Historically, people say it can’t happen. I say it can happen.”

Trump is also to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later this week.

 

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Writing by Arshad Mohammed and Yara Bayoumy; editing by Grant McCool and Dan Grebler)

 

Mexico accepts Israeli offer to help develop Central America

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto during an address to the media at Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City, Mexico, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday that his country had accepted Israel’s offer to help it and the United States develop Central America, as Israel and Mexico seek to deepen business ties.

Speaking at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pena Nieto added that the two nations had agreed to update their free trade agreement, which was signed in 2000.

“We have agreed to establish and begin the … negotiations to look over this agreement so that the commercial relationship between both nations intensifies and grows,” he said.

Netanyahu was joined by a business delegation including representatives from communications firm AudioCodes Ltd, cyber security firm Verint Systems Inc and Mer Group, which specializes in telecommunications and cyber security.

In Central America, Pena Nieto said Israel’s assistance could bolster the United States and Mexico’s efforts in the region, particularly in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. He noted that Israel brings experience from carrying out development projects in Africa.

The United States and Mexico have been seeking to encourage investment in infrastructure improvements in Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle in an effort to stem migration to the United States.

Netanyahu’s trip marked the first visit to Mexico by a sitting Israeli prime minister, Pena Nieto said. At the close of the news conference, Netanyahu invited Pena Nieto to Jerusalem.

The relationship between the nations was strained earlier this year by a tweet in which Netanyahu appeared to praise U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to build a wall on the Mexican border. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin later issued a statement apologizing for any misunderstanding.

(Reporting by Julia Love and Sharay Angulo; additional reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher)