Israel Archives - Armoured & Luxury

Netanyahu says Israel will answer Palestinian unilateralism

April 8, 2014 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says his country will retaliate if the Palestinians take further unilateral steps in pursuit of statehood.

He told a weekly cabinet meeting that Israel would not continue peace talks with the Palestinians at any price.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has applied to 15 UN conventions, accusing Israel of backtracking on its promises.

US envoy Martin Indyk is to meet both sides on Sunday to try to breathe new life into the embattled peace process.

Earlier this week, Israel cancelled plans to free a final batch of Palestinian prisoners, arguing that Mr Abbas’s decision to sign up to several international conventions at the UN had violated the conditions for the release.

Israeli military orders shutdown of Eilat Airport

August 11, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Eilat airport in southern Israel was briefly shut on Thursday after the military ordered the closure of surrounding airspace.

“Security assessments” based on “intelligence and other regional developments” had prompted the move, the military said.

The airport re-opened after a closure of two hours.

Eilat has been targeted in the past by rockets fired by Islamist militants in the neighbouring Sinai peninsula.

Sinai has become increasingly lawless amid the instability generated by the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in early July.

However, there was no suggestion that this closure is the result of an immediate threat to attack the airport.

Eilat airport is a major Red Sea tourist destination.

Obama tours symbolic sites in Israel and West Bank

March 23, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

US President Barack Obama has concluded his trip to Israel and the West Bank by paying his respects to victims of the Holocaust and visiting Bethlehem.

Mr Obama went to the Yad Vashem museum after seeing the graves of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin.

He later toured Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and and flew to Amman for talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

On Thursday, Mr Obama urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks.

The president told an audience of some 2,000 young Israelis in Jerusalem that they could be “the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream” or “face growing challenges to its future”.

“The only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realisation of an independent and viable Palestine,” he warned.

Hours earlier, after holding talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, he urged Palestinians to return to the negotiating table even if Israel did not meet their condition of halting Jewish settlement construction.

Israel coalition talks begin after election deadlock

January 24, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Coalition talks have begun in Israel after near-complete general election results gave right-wing and centre-left blocs 60 seats each in parliament.

President Shimon Peres is expected to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attempt to form a new government.

His Likud-Beitenu alliance lost a quarter of its seats in the Knesset but remains the largest grouping with 31.

He has offered to work with the newly-formed Yesh Atid party, which shocked observers by coming second with 19.

However, its leader, popular former TV presenter Yair Lapid, has demanded reform of a law under which ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students can defer their military service. Religious parties in the current governing coalition are strongly opposed to any changes.