Ex-Shin Bet head: Territorial expansion ‘will be the end of Israel’

Palestinian demonstrators react during a recent anti-Israel protest in the southern Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
Updated 29 October 2019
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Ex-Shin Bet head: Territorial expansion ‘will be the end of Israel’

  • Ami Ayalon: American Jews have a responsibility to advocate for two-state solution

CHICAGO: A former head of Israel’s Shin Bet secret service warned a gathering of American Jews on Saturday that his country’s efforts to expand its borders and block the creation of a Palestinian state “will be the end of Israel.”

Ami Ayalon, who headed Shin Bet from 1995 until 2000 and served as commander in chief of Israel’s navy, opened the annual J Street convention in Washington on Saturday.

Saying Israel is in crisis, Ayalon warned: “The continuation of the occupation is the single greatest threat to Israel’s safety and our existence as a democracy.”

Ayalon, who is part of the opposition Blue and White political party, said expanding his country’s borders “will isolate Israel even more and increase anti-Semitism around the world.” 

It “will be the end of Israel as the founding fathers of Zionism envisioned it,” he added.

The continuation of the occupation is the single greatest threat to Israel’s safety and our existence as a democracy.

Ami Ayalon, former head of Shin Bet secret service

Ayalon said Israel has succeeded in terms of Arab acceptance of it based on the 1967 borders. 

He cited the 1979 peace deal with Egypt, Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist, the 1994 peace deal with Jordan, and the Arab League’s decision in 2002 to recognize Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal from occupied Arab territories.

“We in Israel … continue to fight … a war in order to expand our border to the east, to build more settlements, and to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state next door,” he said.

“That … is not a just war. It denies the Palestinian right to self-determination, which was recognized by the international community,” Ayalon added.

“Unless we choose a totally different approach, this war will continue for generations to come. It will lead to more violence and terror.”

Ayalon said Israel is being torn apart by the debate over expansion, adding that American Jews have a responsibility to advocate for the two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

“We in Israel … are in too much pain to see clearly … We need you by our side on this long and hard road. We need you to tell us the truth as you see it.”

The J Street conference featured leading activists, policymakers and political leaders discussing the future of the US-Israeli relationship, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American policy in the Middle East. 

Speakers included Democratic presidential candidates such as Michael Bennet, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders.

Also scheduled to speak is Arab-Israeli Knesset member Ayman Odeh of the Joint List, which could play a critical role in blocking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power.


Israel says kills Palestinian involved in soldier murder

Updated 8 sec ago
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Israel says kills Palestinian involved in soldier murder

Abdelaziz Salha was killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in a displacement camp in central Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah early on Thursday
Salha in 2004 was sentenced to life for his part in the killing of Israeli soldier Vadim Norzich in the West Bank

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said a strike on Gaza on Thursday killed a Palestinian who had waved his blood-stained hands at a crowd after a deadly attack on Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank more than two decades ago.
The civil defense agency in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip confirmed Abdelaziz Salha’s death, saying he was killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in a displacement camp in central Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah early on Thursday.
Salha in 2004 was sentenced to life for his part in the killing of Israeli soldier Vadim Norzich in the West Bank city of Ramallah four years earlier, in an incident caught on camera by an Italian television crew and broadcast across the globe.
A second soldier, Yossi Avrahami, was also killed in the October 2000 attack.
The widely shared footage — one of the most well-known images from the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising — showed Salha standing in an upstairs window of the Ramallah police station, waving his blood-stained hands at a crowd.
Announcing his death in an air strike, the military said that since his release from prison in 2011 and “over the past few years, Salha was involved in terrorist activity” in the West Bank.
The army statement said he was “involved in Hamas terrorist activity to this day.”
Salha was sent to Gaza by Israeli authorities after being released from jail, one of 1,027 Palestinians freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was taken hostage by Gaza militants in 2006.

Israel’s hawkish Yoav Gallant driving war in Lebanon

Updated 28 min 27 sec ago
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Israel’s hawkish Yoav Gallant driving war in Lebanon

  • The hawkish politician has repeatedly stressed that Israel must take the fight to Lebanon
  • The near-daily exchanges of fire since early October 2023 have displaced an estimated 60,000 people on the Israeli side

JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a former general who has shaped Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, is a prominent force behind the expansion of the nearly year-long military campaign into Lebanon.
The hawkish politician, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party who at times clashed with him over policy issues, has repeatedly stressed that Israel must take the fight to Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have launched cross-border attacks after Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The near-daily exchanges of fire since early October 2023 have displaced an estimated 60,000 people on the Israeli side, and officials like Gallant have called to push the Lebanese militant group away from the border to allow their safe return.
Military action was “the only way to ensure the return of communities in northern Israel to their homes,” Gallant told visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein last month.
And on September 18, the Israeli minister declared that “the center of gravity” of Israel’s military campaign was “shifting north,” calling it “the beginning of a new phase of the war, which requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
This week Israel announced its ground troops had begun raids against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, after a spate of attacks that had decimated the powerful group’s leadership.
“Gallant was one of the first to support the idea that Israel needed to take the initiative in the north, just days after the October 7 attacks,” said Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical expert at the Middle East-based security consultancy Le Beck.
Calev Ben-Dor, a former analyst at Israel’s foreign ministry, said the “reasoning was that in a war, it is preferable to fight the more powerful foe first, and Hezbollah’s strength far outweighed Hamas’s.”
Now, according to Horowitz, Gallant is seen “rightly or wrongly, as having been prescient, betting on Israel’s ability to regain the initiative.”
A former naval commando, military adviser to late prime minister Ariel Sharon and senior military commander who led Israel’s invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, Gallant has established himself as a “responsible” politician, said Ben-Dor.
“He is considered to be focused on winning the war and the perceived national interest, rather than playing petty politics,” giving him credit even among Israelis “who do not necessarily share his political views,” added the former analyst.
Gallant, 65, faces accusations of war crimes over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 41,788 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Israel had launched its campaign in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
In May, International Criminal Court prosector Karim Khan laid out charges against Netanyahu and Gallant including war crimes, crimes against humanity and intentionally killing and starving civilians, requesting arrest warrants which have yet to be granted.
Gallant has frequently disagreed with Netanyahu, including over controversial judicial reforms that sparked a wave of protests since early 2023 and Gaza truce negotiations.
Horowitz said that the defense minister, who has survived at least one attempt to sack him, is seen as a more “unifying” national figure than the abrasive prime minister and his far-right allies.
Gallant, a father of three, joined Netanyahu’s Likud party in 2019, several years after entering politics with center-right party Kulanu.
Horowitz said that Gallant believes he had been denied a crushing victory against Hamas during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, when he served as the military’s Southern Command chief.
“This has contributed to his image as a strong military leader, who in retrospect was right, especially after the October 7 attacks.”
But during the current war, Gallant was quoted in August by Israeli media as having dismissed Netanyahu’s stated war aim of “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza as “nonsense.”


Lebanon state media says new Israeli strikes hit south Beirut

Updated 58 min 9 sec ago
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Lebanon state media says new Israeli strikes hit south Beirut

  • “Enemy aircraft launched three strikes on (Beirut’s) southern suburbs,” NNA reported
  • A source close to the group said the strike “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office“

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run media said three Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold on Thursday, the latest raids following a night of intense bombardment.
“Enemy aircraft launched three strikes on (Beirut’s) southern suburbs,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
A source close to the group told AFP the strike “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office,” which had already been “evacuated.”
This week, Israel announced that its troops had started “ground raids” into parts of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah, after days of heavy bombardment of areas across the country where the militant group holds sway.
After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.
Last week, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the group’s southern Beirut bastion, a densely packed residential area before residents fled the violence.


Lebanon says it’s monitoring border crossings after Israeli accusations of weapon smuggling

Updated 03 October 2024
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Lebanon says it’s monitoring border crossings after Israeli accusations of weapon smuggling

  • All border crossings were under government monitoring

DUBAI: Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said on Thursday that all border crossings were under government monitoring following Israeli accusations that Hezbollah was smuggling weapons from Syria through the Masnaa border crossing.


Airlines avoid Iranian airspace, hiking up flight times and fuel costs

Updated 03 October 2024
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Airlines avoid Iranian airspace, hiking up flight times and fuel costs

  • “Most airlines have rerouted flights away from Iran,” said FlightRadar24 spokesperson Ian Petchenik
  • Some airlines have said they have resumed most of their operations across the Middle East

LONDON: Airlines are largely avoiding Iranian airspace in their flights over the Middle East, according to flight tracker FlightRadar24, lengthening flight times and hiking up fuel costs as worries over a retaliatory attack from Israel targeting Iran grow.
Turmoil in the Middle East in the last year has led to confusion and upheaval for aviation, prompting airlines to frequently change routes as they reassess the safety of the airspace in the region.
“Most airlines have rerouted flights away from Iran, with the northern route taking flights through Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on their way to Asia, and the southern route flying over Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said FlightRadar24 spokesperson Ian Petchenik.
Some airlines have said they have resumed most of their operations across the Middle East since Iran hit Israel with a ballistic missile attack on Tuesday, leading to flight cancelations and delays.
Petchenik said most strategic changes to flights to avoid parts of the Middle East have been lifted in direct connection with the Tuesday attack.
Late on Wednesday, German group Lufthansa said it would resume flights to Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan using a limited amount of Iraqi airspace, and will resume using Jordanian airspace on Thursday.
It added that flights to Tel Aviv, Beirut and Tehran will remain suspended for the time being.