Several senior commanders from Islamic State who recently fled from Iraq and northern Syria are now based in southern Syria, just across the Golan Heights border with Israel, and are training hundreds of new recruits there, an Israeli television report said.
Hezbollah has more than 10,000 fighters in southern Syria ready to confront Israel, a commander for the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group has said.
The Israel Defense Forces shot down an Iranian-made drone operated by Hezbollah on Tuesday afternoon after the drone entered the demilitarized zone along the border between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights. The Israel Air Force’s aerial defense command fired a Patriot missile and destroyed the drone.
Israel asked Russia and the United States to prevent an Iranian presence, or that of any Shi’ite militia operating under Iranian influence, in southern Syria near the Israeli border in any cease-fire agreement. Israel presented its demand during the talks that preceded the cease-fire agreement in July – but the Russians refused.
Russia has urged Syrian President Bashar Assad not to retaliate against Israel after an airstrike on the country’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, which the Syrian regime attributes to Israel, a senior Russia official dealing with Middle East affairs told Yedioth Ahronoth in an conversation in Moscow over the weekend.
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.
Israel will not tolerate any violation of its security on any front, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday shortly after the IDF retaliated against Syria for the firing of 10 projectiles onto the Golan Heights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
Eight Islamist groups active near Israel’s border in southern Syria have united into one bloc as the country’s Druse come under increasing pressure.
GOC Northern Command, Aviv Kochavi stated on Tuesday, during a ceremony for those killed in the Second Lebanon War, that the calm in the north and the Golan could change in an instant and that Israel must prepare for war on both fronts.
As a result of the fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, the level of alert was raised on the Israeli side, an army spokesperson said Thursday, without confirming that it had been increased to the highest level.
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GOLAN HEIGHTS, 6 March 2000 (Newsroom) — Orthodox Rabbis and evangelical Protestants are among the leaders of a biblically based campaign to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government from transferring the Golan Heights to Syria. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, supported that stance on March 1 with approval of the first reading of a bill that would require a special majority in a referendum on ceding territory.