BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 19. Ambassador of Israel to Azerbaijan, George Deek, has visited the Ally of Martyrs to commemorate the victims of the January 20 tragedy, TurkicWorld reports via the ambassador's Twitter publication.

"As we concluded the conference of Israeli Ambassadors, Aliza Bin Noun, political director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, led our visit to the Alley of Martyrs in Baku, to join the people of Azerbaijan in commemorating Black January," the ambassador said.

On the night of January 19-20, 1990, as a result of military aggression of the units of the Soviet Army and special forces, as well as contingents of internal troops against Azerbaijan, civilians, including children, women and elderly were massacred in the cities of Baku, Sumgayit, Lankaran and Neftchala by order of the USSR leadership.

As a result of the occupying forces’ military aggression 149 civilians were killed, 744 were seriously injured, and 4 people went missing. The Soviet army sent to the country in order to forcefully suppress the mass protests of the Azerbaijani people and the national independence movement started in response to the discrimination policy of the USSR leadership against the people of Azerbaijan, the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands in the territory of present-day Armenia, and Armenia’s unfounded territorial claims against Karabakh, committed an unprecedented massacre against the civilian population grossly violating international law and the Constitution.