Israel’s Defence Minister has called on world leaders to tighten sanctions on Iran before it enters a zone of immunity against its nuclear programme.
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/ 26 January 2012
Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak warns tougher sanctions are needed against Iran despite the unprecedented oil embargo agreed by the EU this week.
The government must prepare immediately for disruptions in crude oil supply from Iran.
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/ 17 January 2011
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak broke away from his centre-left Labour Party on Monday.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday Israel would consider a limited moratorium on new construction in Jewish settlements.
Israel said on Monday it had approved construction of 50 new homes at a West Bank settlement as part of a plan for 1 450 housing units.
Israel carried out a test launch of its Arrow II interceptor missile on Tuesday, the Defence Ministry said.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud signed a coalition deal with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party on Monday, bringing the leader closer to forming a government.
Israeli leaders and military commanders deemed by Iran to be "war criminals" should be executed, a senior cleric said in a Friday prayer sermon.
Palestinian leaders were urging US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday to push Israel to freeze construction in West Bank settlements.
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/ 19 February 2009
The Israeli president was to hold talks with party officials on Thursday and decide within four days who will be tasked with forming a new government.
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/ 13 February 2009
Final results confirmed the Kadima party narrowly won the election but suggested Likud is better placed to form a government.
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/ 10 February 2009
Israelis began voting on Tuesday in an election that pollsters say is too close to call, with right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
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/ 3 February 2009
Hawkish frontrunner Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed he would smash Hamas if he becomes Israel’s prime minister after next week’s elections.
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/ 26 January 2009
Front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu has moved quickly to deflect allegations his victory could mean conflict with new US President Barack Obama.
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/ 12 January 2009
Israeli leaders trying to find a knockout blow for Hamas militants defying a 17-day-old assault on Gaza have thrown army reservists into battle.
Israel pressed on with its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip for a fourth day on Tuesday despite new international calls for a ceasefire.
Israeli tanks and infantry battled Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in a ground offensive launched after eight days of deadly air strikes.
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/ 29 December 2008
Israeli air strikes flattened Hamas government buildings in the Gaza Strip and targeted leaders of Gaza’s Islamist groups on Monday.
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/ 28 December 2008
Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second successive day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas after 229 people were killed.
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/ 18 December 2008
Violence flared around the Gaza Strip on Thursday on the eve of an expiry of a truce but Israel stressed it would not rush into military operations.
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/ 25 November 2008
Israel has again sealed off the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire, only a day after the border was opened to allow in humanitarian supplies.
Controversial plans for the first new settlement to be built in the occupied West Bank in almost a decade have been revived by Israel.
Barely a year passes without a senior minister begging Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, to go. Last year the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, called on Olmert to step down after the interim report of the Winograd commission on the Lebanese War. On Wednesday it was the turn of Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on Wednesday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to step aside over corruption allegations or face a collapse of his coalition that would disrupt peace talks with the Palestinians. This came a day after an American businessman told a court how he handed Olmert envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a barrage of calls to resign on Friday after he admitted taking cash from an American businessman at the centre of a police investigation into suspected bribery. But Olmert, whose departure could disrupt peace negotiations with the Palestinians, continued with his duties.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday pressed Israel to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians and called Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank ”particularly problematic”. But she said Washington believed an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was still possible before US President George Bush leaves office in January.
The highest and oldest wall is that which separates ”us” from ”them”. This is described today as a great divide of religions or ”a clash of civilisations”, which are false concepts, propagated to provide ”the other” — a target for fear and hatred that justifies invasion and plunder, writes John Pilger.
Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have been holding off from violence that could jeopardise Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire, officials from both sides said on Monday. A truce deal may be key to United States-brokered peace efforts and also benefit Hamas Islamists.
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/ 29 February 2008
Deputy Israeli Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said on Friday the Palestinians would bring on themselves what he called a ”bigger holocaust” by stepping up rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. ”Holocaust” is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
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/ 12 February 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday he was convinced that Iran was leading a secret operation to build nuclear weapons and urged a greater international effort to prevent Tehran from succeeding. ”We are certain that the Iranians are engaged in a serious … clandestine operation to build up a non-conventional capacity,” Olmert said.
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/ 12 February 2008
Israeli leaders vowed on Monday to step up their war against Hamas and predicted the Islamists’ grip on the Gaza Strip would end within months. Two days after a rocket wounded an Israeli child in a country grown used to barrages that do little damage, Defence Minister Ehud Barak pledged to step up the military campaign.