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Amid Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian synagogue defaced as local anger over Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan grows
(JTA) — Vandals threw red paint on an Armenian synagogue on Tuesday, in the latest sign of increasing tensions between Armenia and Israel as Israeli arms sales have fueled Azerbaijan’s offensive in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The paint was smeared on the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center in Yerevan, what is thought to be the only synagogue in Armenia’s capital city. Most estimates put the number of Jews in Armenia at a few hundred.
The Conference of European Rabbis — an organization of Orthodox rabbis led by the exiled former chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt — tied the act of vandalism to posts it shared from a nationalist Armenian group that had circulated on pro-Armenian social media pages at the time.
“The Jews are the enemies of the Armenian nation, complicit in Turkish crimes and the regime of Aliyev, stained with the blood of the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh,” one post read, referring to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
“The Jewish state provides weapons to Aliyev’s criminal regime, and Jews from America and Europe actively support him,” the post continued, according to the Conference of European Rabbis. “If Jewish rabbis in the United States and Europe continue to support Aliyev’s regime, we will continue to burn their synagogues in other countries. Every rabbi will be a target for us. No Israeli Jew will feel safe in these countries.”
Despite that threat, the Armenian synagogue that was defaced was not burned on Tuesday, according to reports and photos from the scene.
Israel and Azerbaijan have developed close relations in recent years, as Azerbaijan provides Israel with approximately 40% of its oil resources. According to reports, Israel supplied up to 70% of Azerbaijan’s military arsenal in the years leading up to 2020. The Associated Press reported on Thursday that Azerbaijani cargo planes were seen leaving Israel last month.
Israeli officials have said that the arms relationship is partly due to Azerbaijan’s geographic proximity to Iran, a country that routinely calls for violence against Israel. “We have a strategic partnership to contain Iran,” Arkady Mil-man, Israel’s former ambassador to Azerbaijan, told the AP.
Over the past two weeks, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians have fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijani troops began fighting with Armenian rebels, reigniting of a conflict that flared in 2020 and left thousands of fighters dead. The region — which is part of Azerbaijan but has a population that is ethnically and culturally tied to Armenia — was the site of a war in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Armenian officials have begun to express concern over Israel’s military support of Azerbaijan. “For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Armenian Ambassador to Israel Arman Akopian told the AP. “I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland.”
Azerbaijan has also striven to cultivate ties with global Jewish groups, including the Conference of European Rabbis, which is slated to hold a meeting in Baku in November. The Rabbinical Centre of Europe, a group of European rabbis associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, issued a statement last month condemning Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for using the word “genocide” to describe the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Pashinyan also told Agence-France Presse that Azerbaijani troops have created “a ghetto” in the disputed region.
“Senior Armenian government officials… employed the language and comparisons that are appropriate solely to describe the deliberate, systematic and largest genocide in the history of mankind, which the Jewish people have been subjected to: The Holocaust,” the statement read. “Such words as ‘ghetto,’ ‘genocide,’ ‘Holocaust’ and the like [are] in no uncertain terms inappropriate to be part of the jargon used in any kind of political disagreement. Usage of these terms belittles the terrible suffering experienced by the Holocaust victims and the entire Jewish people.”
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The post Amid Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian synagogue defaced as local anger over Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan grows appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.