IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis addressed the downing of the Russian plane in Syria on Tuesday after Moscow accused Israel of a hostile provocation and threatened to respond.
Israel struck in Syria on Saturday night, targeting an area near the airport in Damascus, Syrian state media reported. According to the report, several Israeli missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defenses.
An Iranian civil aviation company is suspected of smuggling arms into Lebanon, destined for the militant group Hezbollah and Iranian weapons factories — and western intelligence sources said Monday they’ve uncovered the unexpected routes that Iran apparently took to try avoiding detection.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech marking the first anniversary of the liberation of the Syrian border from the ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra control, and claimed that it could not embark on another fight in Lebanon.
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton arrived in Israel Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks focused mainly on Iran.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said Tuesday that US sanctions against Iran and his Iran-backed group will not have major effects on them and will not lead to regime change in Tehran.
The military has field-tested a new fighting method combining infantry, tanks and combat engineering into one unified force, as part of a major military reform meant to streamline the Israel Defense Forces, the army said Sunday.
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.