Life was paralyzed for two minutes across Israel today at 10:00 am as sirens sounded to mark Holocaust Day in memory of the six million Jews who fell victim to Nazism during World War II.
As every year, motorists got out of their vehicles, buses stopped, and passers-by stood in a meditation stop on the streets.
Israelis stood motionless outside shops and offices and on their balconies, as did pupils and students in all schools and universities.
During a ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would oppose any deal that could allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Talks are currently under way in Vienna between Tehran and the international community to try to salvage the 2015 agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
"An agreement with Iran that would pave the way for nuclear weapons (…) would not be binding on us at all," he said.
"During the Holocaust, we did not have the ability to defend ourselves or our sovereignty to do so," Netanyahu added. "Today we have a state, a defense force, and we have the full and natural right as the sovereign state of the Jewish people to defend ourselves against our enemies."
Israel accuses the Islamic Republic of Iran, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, something Tehran has always denied.
Source: RES-EAP