Israel News

A red line’s a red line. That was Israel’s message Wednesday, when it struck a major Syrian arms facility from the air.

Israel launched an aerial attack on Assad posts in Syria overnight, hit a scientific research center where chemical weapons are manufactured and killed two Syrian soldiers, Arab media reported Thursday morning.

Syrian reports said early Thursday that Israeli warplanes struck overnight a facility in northern Syria where the regime has allegedly been stockpiling chemical weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to visit three Latin American countries next week, as a part of his ongoing effort to boldly go where none of his predecessors has gone before.

A majority of Israelis continue to be in favor of an Israerli accession to the European Union (EU), according to a survey released on Tuesday by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German pro-EU think tank.

The Defense Ministry’s weapons development department on Tuesday unveiled nine pieces of technology, including two unmanned submarines and a hybrid gas-electric powerful tank, that are due to enter service in the IDF in the coming years.

The Palestinian Authority Preventative Security arrested Ayman Qawasmeh, the chairman of the Minbar al-Huriyya radio station, in Hebron late Sunday evening, a senior PA security official said on Monday.

Lebanon did not remain silent following the start of a massive IDF drill simulating a war, with a Hezbollah official threatening that ‘the Israelis won’t succeed in surprising us.’

US President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York later this month, Haaretz reported Wednesday citing local officials.

Heads of churches in Jerusalem on Monday criticized what they see as a breach of the status quo in the capital, claiming there is a ‘systematic attempt to undermine the integrity of the Holy City of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and to weaken the Christian presence.’

Diaspora Affairs Minister Bennett has pledged $1 million in relief aid for the Jewish community of Houston, saying, ‘The Jewish state is measured by its response when our brothers around the world are in crisis.’

Russia reportedly threatened to use its veto at the United Nations last week if the Lebanon-based terror organization Hezbollah, its ally in the Syrian civil war, was named in a Security Council resolution to renew the mandate of peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon.

Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers will stage a mock 10-day war against the Hezbollah terrorist group in northern Israel beginning Tuesday, marking the IDF’s largest exercise in nearly 20 years, the army announced Monday, amid tensions over growing Iranian influence in Syria and Lebanon.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went on a PR offensive this week to counter Israeli warnings that a ceasefire imposed by Moscow in Syria is enabling Iran and its terror proxy, Hezbollah, to amass fighters and weapons near the Jewish state’s northern border in preparation for a future war.

Israel’s intensive diplomatic campaign in recent weeks, which included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, trips by senior Israeli defense officials to the United States and more, comes on the heels of updated situation assessments within the defense establishment suggesting that if nothing is done, the weapon manufacturing facilities Iran is building in Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s neighbors to the north, will become operational in the foreseeable future.

Russia has reportedly stationed its advanced S-400 anti-missile defense system near an Iranian arms factory in Syria, which allegedly manufactures long-range guided missiles for Hezbollah to use against Israel.

US officials have agreed to let Iranian-backed militias take up positions in Syria less than ten kilometers from the Israeli Golan Heights, the Arabic daily Asharq Al Awsat reported Thursday.

Forced by a Supreme Court order to reveal the dates of his phone calls with the owner and chief editor of a newspaper seen as staunchly loyal to him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that from 2012-2015 he spoke with American Jewish casino mogul Sheldon Adelson almost once a week and nearly double that with then-Israel Hayom editor Amos Regev.

Two messianic Jews, who are Jewish by birth and who believe Jesus is God and the Messiah, and who sought to get married through the Chief Rabbinate in a Jewish ceremony, have been told by a special panel of the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court that their beliefs put them outside of the Jewish faith and therefore they cannot get married in a religious ceremony.

The Defense Ministry body responsible for authorizing construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank will reportedly be advancing plans for some 3,000 new housing units when it convenes next month.