Germany Purchases Israeli Arrow-3 Missile for 4 Bln Euros

German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP) 

German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)
German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP) German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)
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Germany Purchases Israeli Arrow-3 Missile for 4 Bln Euros

German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP) 

German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)
German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP) German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, right, receives his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant with military honors in Berlin, Germany, Thursday Sept. 28. 2023. (Britta Pedersen/dpa via AP)

Germany on Thursday signed a letter of commitment with Israel to buy its Arrow-3 missile defense system.

This coincides with foreign and domestic criticism over Berlin’s pursuit to acquire the most advanced defense system.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius signed Israel’s largest-ever single defense contract worth roughly 4 billion euros.

The German government would pay from the €100 billion fund special fund Germany created to boost defense spending in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Gallant called the sale “a moving event for every Jew,” hinting at the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany during World War 2.

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal “historic.”

“Seventy-five years ago, the Jewish people were ground to dust on the soil of Nazi Germany,” Netanyahu said. “Seventy-five years later, the Jewish state gives Germany — a different Germany — the tools to defend itself.”

Germany plans to start using Arrow in late 2025, with the system then being built up step by step. “We see from the daily Russian attacks on Ukraine how important air defense is in general,” Pistorius added.

The United States government on Thursday approved Israel’s request to export the co-developed Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany. The Arrow system was developed and produced by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) in partnership with Boeing.

Die Welt website quoted Frank Sauer, senior researcher fellow at Bundeswehr University in Munich, as saying that the Arrow 3 system is “impressive” in a technical aspect, but it launches medium-range missiles outside the atmosphere. This makes it unsuitable for defense against cruise missile systems or Russian “Kinzhal” because these missiles remain in the atmosphere.

Frank Cohn, another military expert from Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, told the website that strategically, this contract has no significant benefit.

Cohn considered that it would have been better if this amount was invested in purchasing defense systems that could thwart Russian “Kinzhal” missiles or in updating the current Patriot system.

The deal makes sense only in the political terms, he added, hinting at the nature of the German-Israeli ties.

Last week, Pistorius and French Armies Minister Sebastien Lecornu showcased contradicting visions regarding the development of Europe defenses during a joint interview with “Le Monde” newspaper.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."