Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman prevented the entrance of 110 Palestinians to Israel, who were planning to attend the joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv next week, on Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars.



In a statement issued on Tuesday, Liberman said: “I will not allow the desecration of Remembrance Day. This ceremony is not a memorial event but a display of bad taste and insensitivity that harms our dear bereaved families.”

In response to the decision, Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle-Families Forum – the organizations that organize the ceremony – said that the defense minister is the one who is desecrating the memorial with his actions.“He is harming Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families who seek to promote a discourse of reconciliation,” a statement said.“This is a political and cynical use of a tool that is meant to be for security purposes, a use whose whole goal is to deal a blow to Israeli and Palestinians bereaved families that seek to commemorate Remembrance Day together, out of the mutual respect and recognition that pain and sorrow are not the exclusive legacy of any side.”Meretz chairwoman Tamar Zandberg said that Liberman is trying to score political points “on the backs of the families who paid the price of this conflict with blood.“Liberman wants to make Remembrance Day into a controversial issue, and use his security authorities to prevent the families from commemorating it as they wish,” she said.“They want to do it in peaceful ways, with a true will to stop the bloodshed. The Netanyahu-Liberman government wants to use the bereavement to create division among Israeli citizens,” she added.This would be the 13th consecutive year that the joint ceremony would be held.It was recently announced that Man Booker International Prize laureate David Grossman, who lost his son Uri in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, would be one of the main speakers at the ceremony. Grossman will receive the Israel Prize on Independence Day.Last year, far-right activists gathered near the entrance to the hall where the event was held, shouted at the attendees and called them “traitors” and “Nazis.” Some protesters spat at the attendees entering the hall and threw water bottles at them.A tweet that appeared on the Twitter account of Education Minister Naftali Bennett after the event said that “if the report is true, I expect from people who grieve over the murderers of babies and people who blew up buses that they be a bit less sensitive about spitting, pushing and water.”Bennett then deleted the tweet, denied that he was the one who wrote it, and said that a student working for him tweeted it from his account.“So when I was visiting the family of Emmanuel Moreno, one of my students tweeted a pointless tweet, and there is a commotion. Relax, this is Remembrance Day,” he tweeted.

var cont = `Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>



`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ });</s>Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman prevented the entrance of 110 Palestinians to Israel, who were planning to attend the joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv next week, on the national Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism.



In a statement issued on Tuesday, Liberman said: “I will not allow the desecration of memorial day. This ceremony is not a memorial event but a display of bad taste and insensitivity that harms our dear bereaved families.”





In response to the decision, Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle – Families Forum - the organizations who organize the ceremony - said that the defense minister is the one who is desecrating the memorial with his actions.“He is harming Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families who ask to promote a discourse of reconciliation,” a statement said.“This is a political and cynical use of a tool that is meant to be for security purposes. His goal is to harm Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families that have asked to commemorate memorial day together, out of the mutual respect and understating that pain and sorrow are not reserved for only one side.”Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg said that by barring the Palestinians, Liberman is trying to score political points “on the back of the families who paid the price of this conflict with blood.”“Liberman wants to make memorial day a controversial issue and use his security authority to prevent these families from commemorating it as they wish,” she said.“They want to do it in peaceful ways, with a true will to stop the bloodshed. The Netanyahu-Liberman government wants to use bereavement to create division among Israeli citizens,” she added.This would be the 13th consecutive year that the joint ceremony would be held.It was recently announced that Man Booker International Prize laureate David Grossman, who lost his son Uri in the second Lebanon war in 2006, would be one of the main speakers at the ceremony. Grossman will receive the Israel Prize two days later, on the 70th independence day.Last year, far-right activist gathered near the entrance of the event hall, shouted at the attendees and called them “traitors,” and “Nazis.” Some protesters spat at the attendees entering the hall and threw water bottles at them.After the event, Education Minister Naftali Bennett appeared to have tweeted on his official account, “If the report is true, I expect people who grieve for baby murderers and people who blew up buses would be a bit less sensitive about spitting, pushing and water.”Bennett then deleted the tweet, denied that he was the one writing it, and said that a student working for him tweeted it from his account.“So when I was visiting the family of Emmanuel Moreno, one of my students tweeted a pointless tweet, and there was a commotion. Relax, this is memorial day,” he tweeted.</s>TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israeli police emergency lines lit up on Thursday after warplanes roared over the Tel Aviv coast, dropping anti-missile flares and performing aerobatics at a time of tension along the border with Syria.

It was just a rehearsal - practice flights are held every year - for the Israeli Air Force’s annual Independence Day national flypast on April 19, but no prior announcement was made.

“Many calls were received from worried citizens about noise from a squadron of planes in the Tel Aviv area,” police said in statement. “We would like to make clear they were training for the Independence Day aerial display. There’s no emergency.”

Under clear skies over Tel Aviv’s Mediterranean beach, two F-15 jets maneuvered through a series of sharp turns, climbs and dives in what appeared to be a mock dogfight as the sound of their engines crackled through the streets.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack, and Israel held top-level security consultations over concerns it might be a target for Syrian or Iranian retaliation.

Trump said on Thursday that a possible strike against Syria “could be very soon or not so soon at all”.

Despite the tensions, the commander of Israel’s armed forces, Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot, flew to Poland on Thursday morning to take part in Holocaust Remembrance Day events.

The Israeli military tweeted a video of him boarding a plane but did not immediately say when he was scheduled to return. A source in the delegation told Reuters, however, that Eizenkot would be back by nightfall.

In Israel, sirens blared for two minutes during the morning to mark the remembrance day, bringing traffic to a standstill as motorists and pedestrians stood to honor the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

Civil defence authorities issued the customary notice beforehand that in the event of a real emergency, the sirens would sound in a rising and falling, rather than a constant, tone.</s>Israelis stop everything on Menachem Begin St in Tel Aviv as the Holocaust Remembrance Day siren is sounded

Israelis stop everything on Menachem Begin St in Tel Aviv as the Holocaust Remembrance Day siren is sounded

Israelis stop everything on Jaffa St. in Jerusalem as the Holocaust Remembrance Day siren is sounded (Seth J Fratzman)Israelis stop everything on Ibn Gabirol St in Tel Aviv as the Holocaust Remembrance Day siren is sounded (Tamar Zieve)</s>The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) made no prior announcement of the F-15 drills, which left residents in Tel Aviv struggling for an explanation.

Police said in a statement that "many calls were received from worried citizens about noise from a squadron of planes in the Tel Aviv area." It cautioned: "We would like to make clear they were training for the Independence Day aerial display. There's no emergency."

The F-15s maneuvered through the sky, practicing drastic turns, climbs and dives in "what appeared to be a mock dogfight," according to the Jerusalem Post. The roar of the F-15 engines was audible in the streets.

​The false alarm comes at a moment when Israel is engaged in conflict on two fronts: with Syria — in its Golan Heights, which Israel occupies with Islamist proxies — as well as Israel's strike last week on the Syrian T-4 airbase in the liberated Homs province — and Israel's violent response to protests in Gaza by Israel's border fence.

This is not the IDF's first oversight to occur at a time when war could break out at any moment — or already has. US Army Colonel David "Mickey" Marcus was accidentally shot to death by Israeli friendly fire while returning to base at night during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli Air Force jets and Navy motor torpedo boats accidentally attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 members of the US military.

During the 2008-09 Gaza War, also called Operation Cast Lead, three IDF soldiers were killed and 24 were wounded when an Israeli tank fired a live round at an abandoned building in which other IDF soldiers were taking cover.</s>Israelis have stood still for a nationwide moment of silence in remembrance of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

A two-minute siren wailed across the country and the nation paid respects to those systematically killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in the Second World War.

As every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, buses and cars came to a halt as Israelis stepped out of their vehicles, standing with heads bowed in solemn remembrance.

People stand still by their cars on a free way as a two-minute silence in memory of victims of the Holocaust in Tel Aviv. Photo: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit.

The sombre day is also marked by ceremonies and memorials at schools and community centres.

Restaurants and cafes in the ordinarily bustling streets of Tel Aviv close, and TV and radio stations play Holocaust-themed programmes.

Dignitaries laid wreaths at Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

A third of the world's Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

Israel was established afterwards in 1948, and hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to the Jewish state.

On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a Holocaust memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem and warned that Iran should not test Israel amid rising tensions in Syria.

"Events of recent days teach that standing up to evil and aggression is a mission imposed on every generation," Mr Netanyahu said.

Mr Netanyahu compared the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the run-up to the Second World War.

He said the agreement "released the Iranian regime from its chains and since has devoured country after country, similar to what happened in Europe in the 1930s".

Israel regards Iran as an existential threat because of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and support for anti-Israel organisations such as the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Tehran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.</s>Israelis have stood still for a nationwide moment of silence in remembrance of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Israelis have stood still for a nationwide moment of silence in remembrance of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

A two-minute siren wailed across the country and the nation paid respects to those systematically killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators in the Second World War.

As every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, buses and cars came to a halt as Israelis stepped out of their vehicles, standing with heads bowed in solemn remembrance. The sombre day is also marked by ceremonies and memorials at schools and community centres.

Restaurants and cafes in the ordinarily bustling streets of Tel Aviv close, and TV and radio stations play Holocaust-themed programmes. Dignitaries laid wreaths at Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

A third of the world’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Israel was established afterwards in 1948, and hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to the Jewish state.

On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a Holocaust memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem and warned that Iran should not test Israel amid rising tensions in Syria. “Events of recent days teach that standing up to evil and aggression is a mission imposed on every generation,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“Today as well, a murderous regime threatens us, threatens entire world peace, this regime explicitly declares that it intends to annihilate us, the Jewish state,” he said, alluding to Iran.

Mr Netanyahu compared the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the run-up to the Second World War.

Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem (Debbie Hill/Pool via AP) He said the agreement “released the Iranian regime from its chains and since has devoured country after country, similar to what happened in Europe in the 1930s”. Israel regards Iran as an existential threat because of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and support for anti-Israel organisations such as the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.</s>A senior Iranian official has warned Israel not to provoke Iran a day after Israel’s prime minister issued a similar warning to Tehran.

Ali Shirazi, an aide to Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying Iran is capable of destroying Israel. He says “if you provide an excuse for Iran, Tel Aviv and Haifa will be razed to the ground.”

At a Holocaust memorial ceremony Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran not to “test Israel’s resolve.”

Iran has repeatedly predicted Israel’s demise, and supports armed groups pledged to its destruction.

Netanyahu has said Israel will not tolerate an Iranian military presence in Syria, especially along the border. Iran has sent troops and allied militiamen to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman bars 110 Palestinians from entering Israel to attend a joint Israeli-Palestinian Remembrance Day ceremony in Tel Aviv.