Reports link Israel Air Force with strike on Syrian military base
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Media outlets in Syria and Lebanon have linked Israel with a loud explosion heard on Wednesday night at a Syrian military base near the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia.
A Syrian news agency reported that naval vessels bombarded the base from the sea, causing heavy damage but no injuries. However, Lebanese media reported that Israel Air Force (IAF) planes flew over Lebanon on Wednesday night, apparently on their way to Syria.
The Lebanese military also said Wednesday that there had been noticeable IAF activity in both southern Lebanon and the border region with Syria. Israel has warned that it will not permit advanced weaponry to be transferred from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IAF has reportedly carried out a number of airstrikes over the past year to thwart such transfers.
IDF turned off special devices that could have predicted Yom Kippur War, documents say
(JNS.org) Newly declassified documents from the hearings of the Agranat Commission, which was formed after the 1973 Yom Kippur War to investigate Israel’s lack of preparedness, show that then-Military Intelligence Director Eli Zeira asked that Israel’s sophisticated devices meant to provide an early warning of any attack remained switched off.
The documents, released Wednesday, show that Menachem Digli, then head of the Intelligence Corps Collection Department, repeatedly asked Zeira to approve the activation of the devices, only to be rebuffed each time. The exact nature and operating methods of the so-called “special means” devices, most likely listening devices developed by Israel’s signal intelligence unit 8200, remain classified.
“All through the week leading up to the war… I kept pressuring [Zeira] to activate them,” Digli told the commission. “There was mounting pressure to turn them on, but the answer was ‘no.’ This was on Oct. 2 (four days before the war).”
Zeira said he was consistently against turning on the special devices because of the risks involved in doing so.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator: uranium enrichment will continue despite talks
(JNS.org) Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Akbar Salehi said that his country will continue to enrich uranium to 20 percent despite recent warm overtures made by Iranian officials at recent negotiations.
“The 20 percent uranium and fuel plates are being produced and built within the country,” Salehi said in an interview, Iranian state-run Fars News Agency reported.
“No stop has occurred in the process of the production and it never stopped before,” Salehi added.
Iran currently enriches uranium to 20 percent at its nuclear facility at Fordo, near the city of Qom. Ending Iran’s uranium enrichment has been one of the key demands of the West since negotiations with Iran began recently.
There were reports following the Oct. 15-17 meetings between Iran and world powers, that Iran would end its enrichment in exchange for a lifting of crippling economic sanctions. However, Salehi denied those rumors.
“The closure of Fordo site is a sheer lie,” Salehi said according to Fars News Agency.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called to force Iran to halt all enrichment, saying that even low levels of enrichment could lead to a nuclear weapon. Iranian and global leaders will meet again in Geneva in early November.
Shurat HaDin files suit against Australian academic for BDS campaign
(JNS.org) Israeli law center Shurat HaDin has filed a legal suit in the Australian federal court against the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University in Australia Jake Lynch for supporting the the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Previously the organization filed a complaint against Lynch at the Australian Human Rights Commission. The new lawsuit states that Lynch’s support of the BDS movement violates Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act and is particularly focused in Lynch’s refusal to sponsor Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon.
Shurat HaDin is seeking a court order requiring Lynch to apologize and renounce his BDS campaign, stating that his participation in and support of the BDS movement has led to “adverse distinction, exclusion, restriction and adverse preference based on the Jewish race, descent, national and ethnic origin of goods, services, persons and organisations,” reported The Australian.
Lynch dismissed the accusations against him, saying he is certain that “we will prove, in court if necessary, that it does not amount to any form of discrimination or racism.”
Holocaust commemoration brings Danish Crown Prince to Israel
(JNS.org) Danish Crown Prince Frederik is visiting Israel Wednesday to commemorate 70 years since the rescue of Danish Jews during the Holocaust.
In October 1943, 7,000 Danish Jews were sent to Sweden by the Danish resistance to escape the Nazis. The Prince is set to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem with Denmark’s education minister and attend a memorial concert by the Jerusalem symphony orchestra.
Prince Frederik will also meet Israeli President Shimon Peres to discuss bilateral relations between the two nations, Israel National News reported.
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