Italian Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col replaced Irish Maj. Gen. Michael Beary as the new commander of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon on Tuesday — a development that was welcomed by a top Israeli diplomat.
Aziz Azbar, head of the Scientific Research and Studies Center in Masyaf, also known by its French acronym ‘CERS’, was killed in a car bombing incident alongside his driver on Saturday night in an alleged Mossad operation, a senior official from a Middle Eastern intelligence agency told the New York Times on Monday.
The Syrian army is expected to complete its takeover of the country’s southwest, near the border with Israel, in the next day or two. This will allegedly restore a familiar situation, in which Syria’s regime is once again stable, even if under the auspices of Russia.
The US Senate easily passed a $716.3 billion defense authorization bill Wednesday that includes funding for Israel to defend itself against Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as ramping up military spending and bolstering America’s posture against Russia while avoiding policy changes that would have antagonized US President Donald Trump.
Israeli jets reportedly carried out a strike Sunday on a missile production facility in northwest Syria that observers say was supervised by Iranians. In the past, the site was allegedly used to produce and store chemical weapons.
French President Emmanuel Macron and President Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels have reportedly agreed on a plan to push Middle East allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to start talks on way to put an end to Syria’s seven-year civil war.
The Syrian army battled rebels in an important town in southwest Syria on Thursday, a media unit run by its ally Hezbollah and a war monitor said, as intensifying air strikes killed dozens of people in the area.
Israel has attacked Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, casting such actions as potentially helping to stem a Syrian Sunni Muslim refugee exodus to Europe.
UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid plans later this year to outlaw Hezbollah in Britain, according to a report in the London-based Jewish Chronicle.
Israel has complained to the UN Security Council, saying that Hamas is working with Hezbollah to establish missile factories and training camps in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria reported Saturday.
Israel and Russia have reached a secret agreement to distance Iranian forces from the border area in southern Syria, Israeli TV reported Monday, as Jerusalem and Moscow sent differing messages regarding the extent of their tolerance for Iran’s military presence in that country.
Twenty one people were killed, including nine Iranians, in Thursday night’s attack on the Dabaa military airport in central Syria, Sky News reported on Saturday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly criticized Hezbollah for operating as the most heavily armed militia and a political party in Lebanon and urged the militant group to halt military activities inside and outside the country, including in Syria.
Israeli jets have continued to strike targets in Syria following the recent Iranian missile barrage against IDF posts in the Golan Heights, a senior Israel Air Force officer said on Tuesday.
Saying the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration had ‘fatal flaws,’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced that the Trump administration was preparing ‘the strongest sanctions in history’ if Tehran does not change its destabilizing ways and forever abandon its drive for nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, placed 10 leaders of Lebanon’s Hezbollah on their terrorism lists on Wednesday, including Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Naim Qassem, Saudi state news agency SPA said.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said Wednesday that a decision has not yet been made on supplying Syria with advanced air defense systems, a development that Israel fears could hamper its efforts to prevent Iranian military entrenchment in Syrian territory and transfers of arms supplies to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
The Israeli military was in a state of high alert in the country’s north Monday, in readiness for possible retaliation by Iran over alleged Israeli strikes on its sites in Syria. Security forces are preparing for the possibility of attempted infiltrations of military bases and communities in the north, Hadashot TV news reported.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Monday praised provisional parliamentary election results as vindicating his Shiite group’s armed operations.
Shi’ite militia groups in Syria are the ones likely to carry out a strike on Israel on behalf of Iran, giving Tehran the ability to deny its role in the attack, according to leading regional experts.