TEHRAN - Former Israeli MK Colette Avital reported two incidents during which former President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres harassed her.

According to an interview published in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz, the first incident occurred when they were both on a diplomatic mission in France. The former Israeli prime minister invited Avital to have breakfast at a hotel and sexually harassed her.

Trying to find a new position, she was told that her gender was a barrier to advancement. Avital alleged that she reported the incident to Peres’s former deputy minister Yossi Beilin, requesting not to be left alone with him the next time he came to Paris, where she served as a diplomat.

After three years, she returned to Tel Aviv following Shimon Peres and Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir’s deal to form a unity government in rotation. She tried for a new position but was told that her gender would prove a barrier to advancement.

The second incident occurred during a meeting. After Peres had declined her request for a prominent position, the new prime minister assaulted Avital.

Colette Avital has served in the Israeli regime Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 38 years and has been Tel Aviv Ambassador to Portugal and Consul General in New York.

After these missions, she served in the Israeli parliament in the Labor Party for seven years.