Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said yesterday that Israel is being run by a “pyromaniac government” and its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla had increased the risks of war in the region.
The Israeli commando attack on a flotilla in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed had “destroyed any chance for peace in the near future,” Assad told the BBC in a television interview.
He said this was so “mainly because it proved that this government is another pyromaniac government and you cannot achieve peace with such [a] government.”
Israel, under mounting international pressure, has formed a five-person panel — including two foreign observers — to investigate events surrounding its May 31 interception of a six-ship convoy heading to the Gaza Strip.
Nine Turks were killed when Israeli commandos boarded one of the vessels heading to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade.
Israel says the marines opened fire after being attacked by activists wielding knives and clubs.
Assad said that even before the raid, he had not viewed the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “partner for peace” in the region.
“No, we definitely don’t have a partner, we know this,” he said. “With this government it’s something different from any previous Israeli government.”
Asked if the attack on the aid convoy had increased the risk of war in the region, Assad said: “Definitely, definitely, but realistically you had this danger before the raid because we had ... other evidence about the intentions of this government, about the intentions toward the peace, about the intentions toward the Palestinians, the intentions to kill Palestinians. This is enough to talk about the danger of war in the region.”
Assad denied he was sending weapons to the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, despite Western powers’ concerns that he is.
In Israel, public television on Wednesday said the government considers the Turkish Muslim charity IHH, involved in organizing the flotilla of aid ships, a “terrorist organization.”
IHH, the acronym for the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is the charity that was involved with organizing the fleet of aid ships.
Public television said that IHH is now part of a list of movements or organizations, such as the Palestinian Islamist Hamas or Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, which are under scrutiny by Israeli intelligence services.
A spokesman for the Israeli defense ministry declined to confirm or deny the report, but a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity that “the IHH charity is considered as criminal in Israel because it supports terrorism and has close links with Hamas.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ygal Palmor said: “Israel will consider a hostile act any bid by enemy countries to break the Gaza blockade” — amid reports aid ships from Iran and Lebanon would try to reach the Gaza Strip.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS