U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hopes to use his first visit to Lebanon this week to step up pressure on Iran and its local ally, Hezbollah. But he could face resistance even from America’s local allies, who fear that pushing too hard could spark a backlash and endanger the tiny country’s fragile peace.
Recently retired IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot said Monday that Israel came close to all-out conflict with Hezbollah during his tenure.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Israel fears another war with the Lebanese Shi’ite group, and that the United States has imposed sanctions against it because the US and Israel ‘failed in their military campaigns.’
Two Shi’ite militia leaders spoke out over the weekend, with one threatening the US, and the other demanding American troops leave Iraq.
Germany will not designate Hezbollah, an Iranian-back Shiite group, as a terrorist organization according to various news reports.
Iran’s foreign minister accused Israel of ‘adventurism,’ with its campaign of airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria and said he could not rule out the possibility that they could lead to a war between the Mideast arch foes.
The Trump administration on Tuesday made a direct appeal to the Iranian people to reject what it called the ‘corrupt religious mafia’ running their country, rolling out a targeted social media campaign to paint the government in Tehran as an oppressive force more focused on exporting violence and funding terrorism than caring for its own population.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Tuesday evening that Israel struck Hezbollah targets in Syria the previous day. The confirmation runs contrary to the position of the Israeli defense establishment, as senior defense officials refrained from addressing the incident on the Syrian Golan Heights.
Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin warned of a possible conflict between Israel and Lebanon and accused the US of inciting ‘new conflicts’ in the Middle East during an interview in the Russian news agency Sputnik on Saturday.
Israel has discovered a new ambitious precision missile factory being constructed by Iran in Syria together with the Syrian government and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, after Israel bombed and destroyed a previous one, an Israeli TV network reported Thursday evening.
The leader of Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah said Wednesday that he is willing to ask Iran to supply the Lebanese military with weapons and aerial defense systems to confront Israeli warplanes and called on Beirut to accept the offer.
Iran controls the new Lebanese government via its proxy Hezbollah group, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, in his first public comments on the government formed in Beirut last week.
Are U.S. sanctions beginning to have an impact on Hezbollah? Sky News Arabia has reported that the Shiite terrorist organization has postponed a number of payments, including to Hezbollah members as a result of financial difficulties.
Iran will continue supplying high-precision missiles to its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza so they would be able to respond to Israel’s ‘acts of stupidity with hellfire’ said the country’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani on Tuesday.
The chief of the Hezbollah terror group on Saturday warned it could respond to Israeli airstrikes in Syria targeting mainly Iranian positions and what Israel says are weapons shipments.
President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday told his French counterpart that Israel could be forced to strike the Hezbollah terror group’s rocket-building operations ‘in the heart of Beirut,’ a development he warned would drag Lebanon into a punishing regional war that neither side wants.
Israel’s United Nations Ambassador Danny Danon called on members of the United Nations Security Council Tuesday to take action to help stop Iran’s funding of global terrorism — and warned that Israel will act if attacked by terrorists.
Massive Israeli airstrikes on Syria destroyed weapons stores and military positions belonging to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, a war monitor said Monday.
The Israeli strike on Iranian warehouses in Damascus on Friday was timed to target a meeting of Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders who were meeting with Syrian military leaders, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jadira reported Monday.
After confirming that Israel bombed an Iranian weapons depot in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that the Jewish state will strike even harder if it proves necessary to prevent Iran from gaining a military foothold in Syria.