| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel chooses new army chief: media reports |
| 2007-01-23 |
| JERUSALEM - A former general with years of experience fighting Lebanons Hezbollah guerrillas has been chosen as the new chief of Israels armed forces, Israeli media reported on Monday. Gaby Ashkenazy, 52, an infantry commander and currently director of the Defence Ministry, will replace Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz who quit last week over his failure to crush Hezbollah in the July-August war, they said. An aide to Defence Minister Amir Peretz said announcement of the appointment was likely later in the day. In a speech after the reports Ashkenazy had been tapped, Peretz did not mention a candidate but said a new military chief would be chosen quickly. Ashkenazy served extensively in southern Lebanon and headed the armys northern command in the final years before Israeli troops, after constant attacks by Hezbollah fighters, withdrew in 2000. Ashkenazy was not in uniform during the fighting in which some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, most of them soldiers, were killed. |
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| Down Under |
| Maj.-Gen. Ashkenazy refused entry to New Zealand |
| 2005-03-15 |
| New Zealand has refused to grant entrance to Major General Gaby Ashkenazy because of strained relations between the two countries. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goth confirmed the incident, saying that refusal was part of the decision not to conduct high-level contacts with Israel, Army Radio reported. Relations between Israel and New Zealand have been tense since last year, when two Israelis, suspected of working for the Mossad, attempted to gain New Zealand passports. |
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| Israel-Palestine |
| Hizbollah Attacks Israeli Posts in Shebaa Farms |
| 2004-06-08 |
| Lebanonâs Hizbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms area Tuesday, one day after Israeli warplanes raided a Palestinian base near Beirut. begging for their turn in the barrel Israeli military sources in Jerusalem said one Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the attack involving anti-tank missiles and mortar shells. Residents in Kfar Shouba village on Lebanonâs border with Israel said Israel responded with artillery fire on nearby villages. Israeli warplanes also flew over the area and were fired on by Hizbollah guerrillas using shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, witnesses said. and they hit nada Hizbollah said it was retaliating for an Israeli attack deep inside Lebanese soil Monday, itself a response to rocket fire at an Israeli navy ship in the Mediterranean earlier that day. "Responding to the recent Israeli attacks, Hizbollah attacked two enemy Israeli positions at 3.05 p.m. (1205 GMT)," the Iranian and Syrian-backed group said in a statement. Despite the violence, the head of Israelâs northern command, said Israel did not want a flare-up with Lebanon. "We have no interest in escalation; we want the north to remain quiet. On the other hand, we cannot allow (the peace) to be broken," Maj. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazy told Israel radio. Hizbollah, which controls the Lebanese border area with Israel, says Shebaa Farms is occupied Lebanese territory, while the United Nations describes it as Israeli-occupied Syrian land. An Israeli military source confirmed Israeli positions were attacked with anti-tank missiles and mortar shells. "There was an attack on several IDF (Israeli army) posts in the area of Har Dov. We are still checking the situation," one source said. |
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| Middle East |
| Israel: Sensitive IAI missile launch recorded by Channel 10 |
| 2003-11-06 |
| Hat tip to Drudge Israel Aircraft Industries was frantically engaged in damage control yesterday after an unprecedented security lapse allowed a Channel 10 television technician to capture an internal screening of a secret missile test via an ordinary satellite dish. The technician said that he captured the unencrypted footage via an ordinary household dish with a one-meter diameter - the kind owned by the tens of thousands in Israel and by millions throughout the Middle East. Thus, as Channel 10âs military correspondent, Alon Ben David, noted, the intelligence services of any hostile country could have captured the film the same way. Anybody believe they didnât know this was going out? How about a veiled warning to Tehran and the blackhats? After the initial shock, IAI officials tried to portray the slip-up as less serious than it seemed. "This a completely unclassified project," IAIâs security officer, Naor Zeidman, told Haaretz. "We do dozens of missile tests. So what? You donât run to the media with every test. We donât even have a customer for this missile. Had this been anything connected to the Israel Defense Forces, I assure you that there would have been IDF encryption on [footage of] the launch." But despite the denials, senior defense officials exerted massive pressure on Channel 10 in an effort to stop it from screening the footage. Moreover, after Ben David asked the defense establishment for comment, IAI was immediately ordered to shut down its internal television network. And, despite the fact that the project was "unclassified," the military censor demanded that Ben Davidâs report be sent to it for approval. According to Ben David, the censor nixed significant portions of the report, including anything that could have identified the missile or revealed technical details such as its range and flight path. In a terse statement released yesterday, IAI said that it "fired a long-range and accurate artillery projectile in a test conducted off the coast of Israel. Not all the goals of the test were achieved." It added that the projectile was developed on the assumption that there is a global market for an accurate, long-range weapon. Malam, the IAI division that conducted the test, is also the maker of the Arrow anti-missile missile, the Shavit satellite launcher and, according to foreign reports, the Jericho surface-to-surface missile. The incident began on Monday, when the Channel 10 technician, doing a routine scan of all frequencies broadcast via Israelâs Amos satellite, captured some unusual pictures that were being broadcast live. The pictures resembled control-room activity before a missile launch and appeared to have been transmitted from one control room to another. However, the technician was unable to capture footage from the second source, as that was encrypted. The technician called Ben David, who advised the technician to monitor that frequency continuously. Over the next 48 hours, Channel 10 thus filmed all the launch preparations plus the tests themselves - which took place over the Mediterranean Sea Tuesday and yesterday mornings. The missile, which was supposed to hit its target within three minutes, went wild after two minutes and fell into the sea. The presence at the launch of high-level officials - including CEO Moshe Keret, Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazy and commander of the ground forces Major General Yiftah Ron Tal - seems to indicate that the defense establishment had high hopes for the missile. Zeidman, however, said that senior IDF officers are invited to all such tests, in the hopes that the army can be persuaded to buy. Today, IAI will begin investigating the lapse. According to Zeidman, Malam was responsible for all the arrangements. |
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| Middle East |
| U.S. boosts military contacts with Israel |
| 2003-01-17 |
| The United States is raising the level of its military coordination with Israel in advance of its expected war against Iraq. Next week, General Charles Wald, deputy commander of the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM), will visit here. Wald, who is in charge of ties with the Israel Defense Forces, will meet with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and senior IDF officers. He will apparently also visit the American soldiers who came to Israel with the Patriot missile batteries. Wald took over as deputy head of USEUCOM just last month, and his trip to Israel is being billed as a get-acquainted visit. Israeli sources, however, predict the talks will focus on the expected war with Iraq. "Our strategic coordination with the Americans is at a much higher level than it was during the 1991 Gulf War," a senior security source said. Wald, a fighter pilot who saw action in both Vietnam and Iraq, is also considered the acting commander of USEUCOM, which has responsibility for Israel. In the U.S. military hierarchy, the official commander of USEUCOM is also the head of NATO's military forces and thus spends most of his time running the NATO command in Brussels. Wald is familiar with the Middle East having served as commander of Central Command's air forces in the late 1990s. Central Command is responsible for the Gulf states. Wald's visit will follow hard on the heels of that of Gen. Charles Simpson, who left the country on Wednesday. Simpson, the director of air and space operations at USEUCOM, has been appointed chief liaison officer with Israel in the event of a war with Iraq. Simpson met with Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazy and other senior officers to set up working procedures for coordination in the event of a war. Other members of the American liaison unit who came with Simpson are staying here to set up a system of communications between the IDF and the Pentagon. In addition, there are currently 600 American soldiers stationed here to man the two Patriot batteries that came to participate in an air defense exercise, Juniper Cobra 3, with the IDF's antimissile batteries. The New York Times reported yesterday that the Patriot batteries will remain here at least through mid-February.. They'll be there until the shooting stops. The Israel Navy and the American Sixth Fleet also conducted a joint naval exercise this week |
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