On 20 March 2023, a square dedicated to the Armenian Genocide was inaugurated in the centre of Haifa, Israel, according to the Armenian Cause office in Jerusalem.
The ceremony took place despite strong pressure from the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv. Present at the event were Haifa Mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem, members of the city council, Armenia’s Ambassador to Israel Arman Hagopian, clergymen, and representatives of various communities in Israel and Haifa.
At the beginning of this month, the Haifa city council voted unanimously in favour of officially recognising the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and erecting a monument in the city in memory of the victims.
Haifa thus becomes the second city in Israel to recognise the Armenian Genocide, after Petah Tikva (east of Tel Aviv), where a memorial to the victims was inaugurated in April 2020.
Turkey’s ambassador to Israel had demanded that the country’s government prohibit the installation of the monument in Haifa.
