From PressTV
Israeli forces shoot, injure Palestinian in East al-Quds
Israeli forces have shot and injured a Palestinian man in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), claiming that he had allegedly tried to stab Israeli commuters.
Israeli authorities say the incident took place in the French Hill neighborhood of the occupied territory on Monday.
The forces shot the Palestinian after he allegedly attempted to stab people waiting at a light railway station.
The attacker, whom Israeli forces identified as a 35-year-old Palestinian from the Shuafat refugee camp, was attacked by several Israeli guards.
Israeli media reports say several other guards also opened fire at his legs before overpowering the Palestinian. Nobody else was hurt in the incident.
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From Russia Today
NATO & allies stage thousands-strong drills across Europe
Three sets of military exercises kicked off in Europe on Monday, involving thousands of servicemen from a variety of NATO nations and their allies, amid a wave of similar action across the area.
Estonia is holding its largest-ever military drills. Named Siil-2015 (Hedgehog), the maneuvers involve about 13,000 personnel. The number includes about 7,000 reservists, along with members of the volunteer Estonian Defense League.
Siil-2015, scheduled to last until May 15, also involves forces from the US, the UK, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Poland and the Netherlands. American troops, who are staying in Estonia as part of the massive training operation Atlantic Resolve, will bring four Abrams main battle tanks to the exercise. British, Belgian and German air defense units, as well as several NATO warplanes, will also take part.
READ MORE: NATO ‘Tornado’ military drills in Estonia to use laser training system
The Lithuanian Army is holding its own maneuvers as part of the largest national drills called Zaibo Kirtis (Lightning Strike). The training involves over 3,000 troops. It is focused on joint action by the army and civilian authorities against so-called hybrid threats combining both military and non-military methods of fighting, according to Army Commander Major-General Jonas Vytautas Zukas.
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From Russia Today
Israeli soldiers ‘deliberately fired’ at civilians during Gaza war – NGO
Israeli soldiers were ordered to ‘fire at every person you see’ during the Gaza war, while civilian areas were deliberately targeted with inaccurate weapons, a report by the Israeli group Breaking the Silence NGO asserts.
Breaking the Silence, an NGO run by former Israeli soldiers, spent eight months after Operation Protective Edge ended interviewing more than 60 Israeli servicemen from the army, navy and air force up to the rank of major. The result is 237-page report.
The report tells a different story to the official Israeli narrative that great care was taken to avoid civilian causalities. Critics of Israeli tactics during the Gaza war say the army and the IDF responded disproportionately to Hamas’ rocket attacks.
From Ynet News
IDF veterans describe lax Gaza war rules, indiscriminate fire
Report by advocacy group Breaking the Silence says Israel inflicted ‘massive and unprecedented harm’ to Palestinian civilians during Protective Edge.
Israel inflicted “massive and unprecedented harm” to Palestinian civilians in the 2014 Gaza war with indiscriminate fire and lax rules of engagement, a report said on Monday, citing testimony given anonymously by dozens of troops.
The 237-page report by the Israeli advocacy group Breaking the Silence described how Israel Defense Forces (IDF) left swathes of devastation after they invaded Gaza last July with the stated aim of halting Hamas rocket fire out of the enclave.
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From The Times of Israel
Netanyahu rebuffed Kerry request to visit in recent days
PM told US secretary of state to wait until after he had formed a new coalition; my trip ‘was going to happen sooner,’ confirms Kerry
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Secretary of State John Kerry to hold off from visiting Israel earlier this year because the Israeli leader was busy trying to form a coalition, Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
Shortly after the March 17 elections, Kerry requested to convene with Netanyahu on regional affairs, including peace negotiations with the Palestinians that have been stalled since 2014.
But Netanyahu indicated to Kerry that the timing was not right and he preferred to delay the meeting until after he had hammered out a new coalition, a task he has yet to complete.
There was no immediate confirmation from American officials.
But speaking to Channel 10 in an interview aired Sunday night, Kerry said he hoped to visit Israel in the coming weeks, and indicated that he had planned to come earlier. “I look forward to traveling there and visiting,” he said. “It was going to happen sooner; it may happen now in the next weeks when they get a government.”
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From The Times of Israel
Congressmen call for sanctions against Russia
Foreign Affairs Committee urges Obama to consider financial measures to prevent S-300 missile sale to Iran
WASHINGTON – Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged US President Barack Obama to consider using sanctions to stop Russia’s planned delivery of missiles to Iran.
Republican Representative Ed Royce from California, the committee chairman, and Democrat from New York Representative Eliot Engel, the committee’s ranking member, sent a letter to Obama concerning the proposed delivery of the S-300 surface to air missile system to Iran.
“If completed, the transfer of this sophisticated weapons system would significantly bolster Iran’s military capabilities and introduce new obstacles to our ability to eliminate the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon,” the legislators wrote.
While the UN Security Council does not prohibit the transfer of this weapons system to Iran, the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act and the Iran Sanctions Act do give Obama authority to sanction countries deemed to be aiding Iran’s efforts to acquire weapons, according to the congressmen.
“We are concerned that without such a determination, your recent comments could be interpreted as the United States acquiescing to this transfer,” they wrote.
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From The Times of Israel
Dozens injured in Tel Aviv amid intense clashes between police and anti-racism protesters
Forty-one police and protesters hurt by rocks, stun grenades and tear gas, several demonstrators arrested as anti-racism rally in support of Ethiopian community turns into melee; Netanyahu: there’s room for claims, but not violence
Police ready for Tel Aviv rally
Police in Tel Aviv are preparing for a mass rally by Ethiopian Israelis in Tel Aviv, after similar protests on Thursday night in the capital. The protest aims to highlight racism and police brutality directed at members of the Ethiopian-Israeli community.
While no formal request to hold a rally has been filed, according to Channel 2, police are preparing for the protest, which has been widely publicized on social media.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Liberman: Yisrael Beiteinu party to sit in opposition
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Avigdor Liberman said his Yisrael Beiteinu party would not join the new government coalition and he was resigning as foreign minister.
Liberman, who heads the right-wing party, said in an announcement on Monday that he would submit a letter of resignation later in the day and that Yisrael Beiteinu would enter the opposition.
Liberman’s party garnered six Knesset seats in March’s election. In the January 2013 election, Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ran on a joint ticket and won 31 seats, leading all parties.
Liberman charged in a news conference that Netanyahu plans to open up the government to the left-wing Zionist Union and form a national unity government. He also said that the new government “has no intention of building housing, neither in major settlement blocs nor in Jerusalem.”
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From Russia Today
‘We made a mistake’: Israeli president to Ethiopians after thousands-strong protest
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin has said the country’s government “made a mistake” ignoring the issues of the Ethiopian population. The protesters “exposed an open, bleeding wound in the heart of Israeli society,” the president added.
“It is a wound of a community crying out over its feeling of discrimination and racism that are falling on deaf ears. We must face this open wound straight on,”Rivlin said, as quoted by AFP.
READ MORE: Police fire tear gas during demo against racism, police brutality in Tel Aviv (VIDEO)
“We made a mistake. We didn’t see and we didn’t listen well enough,” the president concluded.
It comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to meet with Ethiopian community representatives to listen to their woes.
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From The Times of Israel
Libyan coastguard intercepts 500 migrants
Boats of refugees seeking to reach Europe brought back to shore; Italians rescue nearly 6,000 in Mediterranean in one day
Libya’s coastguard on Sunday intercepted five boats carrying around 500 mostly African migrants trying to reach Europe and brought them back to shore, an official said.
They were transported in buses to detention centers around the city of Misrata, east of the Libyan capital.
“We will try again, for a second time and a third time. We reach Europe or we die,” one woman said, asking not to be named.
Colonel Reda Issa told AFP that most of the migrants, brought in on an armed coastguard vessel, were Africans.
The boats were intercepted some eight nautical miles off the coast.
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From Russia Today
Enduring Syria war: Photographer documents shattered childhoods (IMAGES)
The Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman has documented the suffering that hundreds of thousands of children have to endure in Syria. He spoke to RT about their plight and how he is trying to raise awareness through his photographs.
Many of the youngsters have been forced into refugee camps to escape the violence following the brutal four-year civil war in Syria. However, they have to live with disabilities and physiological difficulties created by the conflict, which has seen the so-called Islamic State, anti-Assad forces and government troops battle it out in the conflict.
“All these stories we journalists and photojournalists are doing – I hope they have an impact on the politicians. My goal is to get people to care and just give an extra thought to these people,” he told RT.
From Russia Today
6,800 migrants recovered from Mediterranean in 48 hours
In what has become the biggest rescue operation this year, almost 6,800 migrants were picked up from Mediterranean waters over the weekend, Italy’s coastguard said. At least 10 people died as thousands attempted to cross from Libya.
The massive search operation involved three separate rescue missions, Italy’s coast guard said. In one rescue, an Italian Coast Guard helicopter helped to save dozens of migrants aboard a deflating dinghy. One recovery operation saved 311 people, including 16 children, from a fishing boat.
READ MORE: Over 800 migrants dead in Libya shipwreck disaster – UN
A tug, a merchant ship, and a cargo vessel all aided parts of the rescue effort. In one rescue a cargo ship found a dinghy in the waters north of Tripoli containing three dead migrants and 105 survivors. Seven further bodies were found on two large rubber boats packed with migrants.
Those rescued were taken to the islands of Lampedusa and Trapani, Sicily.
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From Ynet News
Jean-Marie Le Pen to face National Front disciplinary over anti-Semitic remarks
Former head of the far-right party summoned for remarks minimizing Holocaust, praising French Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain.
PARIS — The man who for nearly four decades headed France’s far-right National Front may now be on the fast-track to disgrace.
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes before a party disciplinary board Monday over anti-Semitic remarks, in what could be the culmination of a high-stakes family feud. Rising stars within the party — especially his daughter, the current party leader — want to shut him up.
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