Israel

Operation Orchard was an Israeli airstrike on a nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria carried out just after midnight on September 6,... 2007. The White House and Central Intelligence Agency later confirmed that American intelligence had also indicated the site was a nuclear facility with a military purpose, though Syria denies this. An International Atomic Energy Agency investigation reported evidence of uranium and graphite and concluded that the site bore features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor. IAEA was initially unable to confirm or deny the nature of the site because, according to IAEA, Syria failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation Syria has disputed these claims. In April 2011, the IAEA officially confirmed that the site was a nuclear reactor. According to news reports, the raid was carried out by Israeli Air Force 69 Squadron F-15Is, F-16Is, and an ELINT aircraft; as many as eight aircraft participated and at least four of these crossed into Syrian airspace. The fighters were equipped with AGM-65 Maverick missiles, 500 lb bombs, and external fuel tanks.
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The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a... 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. The conflict began when militants from the group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. The ambush left three soldiers dead. Two additional soldiers, believed to have been killed outright or mortally wounded, were taken by Hezbollah to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed rescue attempt.
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The Operation Changing Direction 11 was the final push by the Israel Defense Forces during the 2006 Lebanon War that began on August 11, 2006, and... ended 3 days later when the ceasefire came into effect. It involved a major force entering Lebanon that salients of reached as far as the Litani river, and aimed to clear the area of Southern Lebanon of Hezbollah militants as best as possible before the ceasefire began. The operation began on August 11 with 30,000 Israeli troops. 20 IDF soldiers were killed and more than 100 injured in heavy clashes on the ground on August 12 with Hezbollah forces in south Lebanon, after Israel dramatically expanded its ground operation in the area. Hezbollah said that they destroyed 21 Israeli tanks, but Israel confirmed that only two tanks were totally destroyed by anti-tank missiles. Also an Israeli transport helicopter was shot down in the Maryamein valley near the village of Yater, and other helicopters scrambled to the area to try to rescue the crew, but all five soldiers onboard were killed. This was the fourth helicopter to crash since Operation Change of Direction was launched on July 12.
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The Battle of Wadi Saluki took place as part of the Litani offensive during 2006 Lebanon War. Israeli infantry and two companies of Merkava tanks... were sent uphill to attack a Hezbollah position. The Israeli troops had no artillery or helicopter support. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles on the Israeli tanks. Eleven tanks were hit by missile fire, and there were casualties inside the tanks. Requests for artillery support were denied because of the large concentration of infantry. Israeli troops managed to fight their way to the top of the hill. After they reached their objective, the Israeli troops withdrew, since Israel approved a UN ceasefire resolution shortly after the battle. Israeli forces claimed to have killed 80 Hezbollah fighters, while 12 Israeli soldiers were killed in four tanks. One Merkava Mark III tank and one Merkava Mark IV tank were destroyed, their crews taking heavy casualties, around 19:20 and 20:45 August 12th respectively. Another two Merkava Mark IV tanks had one and three casualties respectively, also on August 12th.
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The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security,... economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions. There are currently 193 member states, including every internationally recognised sovereign state in the world but Vatican City. From its offices around the world, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year.
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to... stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and co-ordinate domestic and international policies of its members. The OECD originated in 1948 as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation , led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. Later, its membership was extended to non-European states. In 1961, it was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a "very high" Human Development Index and are regarded as developed countries. The OECD's headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, France.
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Amos Gitai , born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israel, is an Israeli auteur filmmaker. He is mainly known for making documentaries and feature films,... surrounding the Middle East and Jewish-Arab conflict. Between 1999 and 2011 seven of his films were entered in the Cannes Film Festival for the Golden Palm Award as well as the Venice Film Festival for the Golden Lion award. Gitai was born in 1950 in Haifa, to Munio Weinraub and Efratia Margalit. His father was an architect of the pre-war Bauhaus movement in Germany. His parents changed the family name to Gitai. Amos holds a degree in architecture from the Technion in Haifa and a PhD in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. The 1973 Yom Kippur War, interrupted his architecture studies as he was called up to reserve service as part of a helicopter rescue crew. While serving, he shot 8mm footage of the fighting, claiming this served as his entry into the world of film making. On his birthday, Gitai's helicopter was shot down by a Syrian missile on the Golan Heights.
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Daniel Adni is an Israeli pianist . He began his training in Haifa, where he made his debut at age 12. He studied with Vlado Perlemuter at the Paris... Conservatory, winning the Premier Prix 3 times. Afterwards he studied with Géza Anda in Zurich . In 1970 he made his London debut. He won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Phillip M. Faucett Prize . He has toured throughout the world and played with the leading orchestras and conductors. In 1999, he and Tessa Katzenellenbogen were married in London, England.
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Ari Folman is an Israeli film director, screenwriter and film score composer. Ari Folman was born in Haifa to Holocaust survivors. His wife is also... a film director. They live in Tel Aviv. Ari Folman's memories of the aftermath of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre which took place when he was a 19-year old soldier, served as the basis for his movie Waltz with Bashir. The film follows his attempt to regain his memories of the war through therapy as well as conversations with old friends and other Israelis that were present in Beirut around the time of the massacre. Since 2006 he has been the head writer of the Hot 3 drama series Parashat Hashavua.
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Matt Schwartz is a multi-instrumentalist record producer a songwriter, an Artist, DJ, and a prolific audio engineer based in the UK. He has... contributed to numerous records since 1995 as an engineer, producer, composer, musician and a songwriter, working with all the UK major record labels, he also had several club chart toppers and a few top 10 chart and airplay charts records in the UK, US and Europe as an artist. Israeli born Matti, came to London in the early 90's, armed with his classical training, some studio experience and serious passion for the art, Matti enrolled into Kingston University's Gateway school of music to come a year later straight into the dance scene working at the Hit-House in Hammersmith in 1994/5 with the likes of Farley Jack Master Funk, Dirty Rotten Scoundrals, Matt Jam and Carl Brown plus many more while producing records with James Reynolds. Matt honed his skills and moved to the BeatFarm studios in 1996/8, making hundreds of records with the likes of Massive Attack, Mica Paris, Arthur Baker, Sara J, Tall Paul, Wamdue Project, JTQ and a host of others while developing unsigned bands and making his own records.
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Syria sirr-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية‎ Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā;... Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî, officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest. In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. The population of Syria is 74% Sunni Muslim, with a 12% Alawi population, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, some 90% of the Syrian population is Muslim, which largely includes Arabs and significant minorities of Kurds, and Circassians.
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Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The... country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. Jordan was founded in 1921, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In antiquity, the present day Jordan was in the heart of the earlier civilizations which prospered in the Fertile Crescent including the Babylonian and the Canaanites.
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Egypt /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic:  جمهوريّة... مصر العربيّة , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers , Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west. Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers , where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
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