WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will seek to provide Israel with an additional $70 million in the coming months for its short-range rocket shield, known as the “Iron Dome,” US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said after a meeting with his Israeli counterpart.
So far, the United States has provided $205 million to support the Iron Dome, manufactured by Israel’s state-owned Raphael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The system uses small radar-guided missiles to blow up in midair Katyusha-style rockets with ranges of 5 km to 70 km, as well as mortar bombs.
But top Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama for what they described as inadequate funding of US-Israeli missile defense cooperation in his 2013 budget request released in February amid deficit-reduction requirements.
Legislation moving through the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives would give Israel additional $680 million for the Iron Dome system through 2015, and some House lawmakers are seeking a deal with Israel to share production of the Iron Dome system with US weapons manufacturers. Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget request calls for $3.1 billion in security assistance to Israel, part of a 10-year, $30 billion US commitment, none of which was scheduled to fund Iron Dome.
On Thursday, Panetta said the Pentagon would seek additional funding for the Iron Dome program over the next three years “based on an annual assessment of Israeli security requirements.”
“My goal is to ensure Israel has the funding it needs each year to produce these batteries that can protect its citizens,” Panetta said.
He said the $70 million would be provided this fiscal year, which ends in September.
“This is assistance that, provided Congress concurs, we can move quickly, to ensure no shortage in this important system,” Panetta said in a statement after meeting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Separately, the Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Catherine Bragg, completed a three-day visit to the occupied Palestinian territory Thursday.
During her visit, she visited several vulnerable Palestinian communities and witnessed first-hand the situation on the ground and the humanitarian impact of the occupation on freedom of movement and access to basic social services.
Visiting Susiya in the southern West Bank and neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Bragg met Palestinians who live in fear of their homes being demolished or of being forcibly displaced. "I am extremely concerned about the humanitarian impact of demolitions and displacement on Palestinian families. Such actions cause great human suffering, run counter to international law and must be brought to a halt," she said.
FROM: AGENCIES
US to boost fund for Israel’s rocket shield
US to boost fund for Israel’s rocket shield
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military priso
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
