LONDON: Ukraine is unlikely to receive one of the world’s most effective air defense systems even as Russia subjects it to a daily barrage of missiles, according to The Washington Post.
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense, which boasts a 90 percent success rate against incoming rockets, will stay out of Ukraine’s reach, experts said, as Jerusalem seeks to maintain strategic relations with Russia in Syria and other hot spots.
“Israel has great experience with air defense and Iron Dome, and we need exactly the same system in our city,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. “We have been talking with them a long time about it. Those discussions have not been successful.”
Iron Dome uses radar-directed interceptors to blow hostile projectiles from the sky. Israel depends on it to shield civilians from rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip, with striking success.
Iron Dome is not designed to intercept the type of large, guided missile used in most of the barrages that killed at least 20 people in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro and other cities on Monday, according to military experts in Israel and Washington.
But Ukrainians say the network could help to protect residents from Grad and other smaller rockets that have destroyed apartment buildings, shopping centers and train stations along the shifting front.
“It will definitely be helpful because the Russians also send the drones, they send different kinds of rockets,” Klitchko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Tuesday that Moscow was deploying almost 2,500 attack drones bought from Iran.
“Air defense is currently the No. 1 priority in our defense cooperation,” Zelensky said in a tweet.
Israel’s reluctance to change its stance on Iron Dome has drawn the ire of Ukrainian officials, including its ambassador to Israel and, repeatedly, Zelensky.
“Everybody knows that your missile defense systems are the best,” Zelensky said while pleading with the Israeli parliament for aid in the spring.
“I don’t know what happened to Israel,” he said in an interview with French TV5 channel on Sept. 23. “I am in shock, because I don’t understand why they couldn’t give us air defenses.”
Most analysts say the decision is driven by a perception that Israel cannot arm Ukraine directly without shattering its strategic cooperation with Russia in Syria and other trouble spots that are a top priority for Israel.
“It’s just fear of Putin,” said Yossi Melman, a longtime intelligence analyst and commentator who has denounced Israel’s refusal to provide Iron Dome and other material aid as “morally oblivious.”
“It’s a shame,” Melman said. “We preach to the world about humanity, and right and wrong, but when it comes to our international positions it’s only our narrowest security concerns that are considered.”
Israel has come under fire for its response to Russia’s invasion from the beginning, when then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stood aside from the global condemnation showering down on Putin and, instead, put himself forward, briefly, as a neutral mediator.
Israel has recently become more critical of Russian actions, particularly since Prime Minister Yair Lapid assumed the top job.
“I strongly condemn the Russian attacks on the civilian population in Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine,” Lapid tweeted after Monday’s attacks. “I send our sincere condolences to the families of the victims and the Ukrainian people.”
Israel shields vaunted Iron Dome air defense system from Ukraine
https://arab.news/np25a
Israel shields vaunted Iron Dome air defense system from Ukraine
- ‘Morally oblivious’ decision draws flak as Kyiv warns of Russian drone offensive
- Ukrainians say the network could help to protect residents from Grad and other smaller rockets
Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
MELBOURNE, Australia: A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, according to Australian police documents released on Monday.
The documents, made public following Naveed Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury, said the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
The state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred Monday from a hospital to a prison. Authorities identified neither facility.
The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode, the documents said.
Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before they left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV recorded them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade Daesh group flags wrapped in blankets.
Police also released images of the gunmen shooting from a footbridge, providing them with an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.
The largest IED was found after the gunbattle near the footbridge in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped with the flags.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him with his father expressing “their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State,” police said, using another term for the Daesh Group.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
An impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed Monday as the beachfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will preserve part of the memorial.
Victims’ funerals continued Monday with French national Dan Elkayam’s service held in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago.
The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Monday.
