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DEBKAfile Special Report May 15, 2011, 3:49 PM (GMT+02:00)

Majdal al Shams, Israeli Golan

Israeli forces on high alert for Nakba Day, Sunday, May 15, failed to seal three national borders on the Golan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against large-scale incursions. Dozens of Syrians and Hizballah invaders were able to overrun the Israeli Golan village of Majd al Shams and hoist Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square; Hizballah-sponsored Palestinian demonstrators breached the Lebanese-Israeli border and damaged IDF installations; and hundreds of Palestinians battered the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip.

The interlopers sustained dozens of casualties including fatalities from Israeli fire these events in which Israelis too were injured. In the Gaza sector 40-50 casualties are reported. Lebanon reports five demonstrators killed.

On the Syrian border, Israeli snipers and helicopters belatedly opened fire to halt the thousands attempting to cross the border, but dozens got through to Majd al Shams. Some were killed or injured by Israeli fire. Three Israel civilians were wounded. Israeli tanks were speeded to the Syrian border to halt the incident.
debkafile reports that despite the high IDF border alert for Nakba Day invasions from neighboring Arab countries, Israeli forces were not deployed in sufficient strength on the Golan border, even though debkafile reported Saturday, May 14 that Damascus planned trouble on the border with Israel as a diversion from the rebellion against the Assad regime.
We also quoted Bashar Assad’s cousin Ramy Makhlouf as threatening Tuesday, May 10, that if the Americans and Europeans did not stop backing the Syrian anti-regime uprising, Damascus would go to war on Israel and/or arm West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs for action against Israel.

While attempting to block demonstrators at Ras a-Maroun from reaching Israel, the Lebanese army is also on high alert on the Syrian border. Fighting between Syrian forces and anti-regime protesters has escalated in Syrian border villages, centering on Tall Kalakh near Homs.

developing…

IDF: Unrest along Israel’s northern borders bears Iran’s ‘fingerprints’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

At least eight people were reportedly killed on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, after IDF troops opened fire on masses of protesters attempting to infiltrate.

By The Associated Press

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday accused Iran of orchestrating two waves of fighting along its northern borders, as Palestinian protesters tried to infiltrate from Syria and Lebanon during demonstrations to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the “catastrophe” of the creation of the State of Israel.

At least eight people were reportedly killed on the two frontiers, when IDF troops opened fire on masses of protesters attempting to infiltrate into Israel. The protests, IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said, bore Iran’s “fingerprints.”

	Hezbollah fighters parade during the inauguration of a cemetery for fighters who died while fighting Israel, in southern Beirut on Nov. 12, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

“We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations,” he said.

The IDF confirmed opening fire as scores of Palestinian refugees spilled into the town of Majdal Shams, which runs along Israel’s border with Syria. At least four people, apparently Palestinian refugees, were killedt.

Mordechai also confirmed that the IDF fired at a crowd of Lebanese protesters who approached the border with Israel and began vandalizing the fence.  The spokesman had no details on the number of casualties, but Lebanese sources said there had been four fatalities.

Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees and its leadership, now facing fierce internal unrest, had in previous years prevented protesters from reaching the frontier fence.

“This appears to be a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian leadership to deliberately create a crisis on the border so as to distract attention from the very real problems that
regime is facing at home,” said a senior Israeli government official who declined to be named.

BBC News – N Korea and Iran ‘sharing ballistic missile technology’.

North Korea and Iran appear to have been exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of sanctions, a leaked UN report shows.

The report, obtained by Reuters, said regular transfers had been taking place through “a neighbouring third country”, named by diplomats as China.

The sanctions were imposed on Pyongyang by the UN after it conducted a series of nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

They ban all trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea.

They also imposed an arms embargo and subjected some North Korean individuals to travel bans and assets freezes.

North Korea has twice tested nuclear devices and said in September last year that it had entered the final phase of uranium enrichment.

The country is believed to have enough plutonium to make about six bombs, but is not thought to have developed a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

‘New challenges’

The report was written by a UN panel of experts monitoring Pyongyang’s compliance with the sanctions.

It said that “prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea] and the Islamic Republic of Iran”, using regular scheduled flights on national carriers Air Koryo and Iran Air.

For arms and related material, “whose illicit nature would become apparent on any cursory physical inspection”, Pyongyang appeared to prefer the use of chartered cargo flights, Reuters quoted it as saying.

The flights would travel “from or to air cargo hubs which lack the kind of monitoring and security to which passenger terminals and flights are now subject”.

This presented “new challenges to international non-proliferation efforts”, said the panel.

The report said North Korea’s uranium enrichment programme was “primarily for military purposes” and so Pyongyang should be “compelled to abandon” it and have it placed under international monitoring.

It also raised concerns about safety at the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, warning of an “environmental disaster” if it were to be decommissioned or dismantled without care.

The report said the transfers travelled through “a neighbouring third country”. The country was not named in the report but one diplomat told the BBC some sanctions-busting takes place through China.

He said Beijing was unhappy with the experts’ report, and that the Chinese member of the panel had not signed off on it.