WarSclerotic

IDF to launch nationwide drill as officials ramp up war rhetoric – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Home front minister says war is not question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ as he launches exercise intended to prepare civilians to its event

Yoav Zitun

“There is no longer a question whether missiles will be launched at Israel’s major population centers, only when it would happen,” Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan said Tuesday ahead of a nationwide drill.

The civil war raging in Syria and ominous Israeli promises to prevent advanced weapons from landing in the hands of terrorist organizations are only part of the background for the annual national emergency exercise set to be held next week.

The drill, held jointly by the IDF Home Front Command and emergency services, aims to prepare the Israeli population for the undesired event of thousands of missiles and rockets hitting population centers and strategic installations across the country, including unconventional weapons from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The simulation will commence Sunday morning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing a week of national emergency.

Erdan (second from left) beside IDF chief Gantz (Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Office)

From Monday until Wednesday the drill will focus on civilian population, in particular practicing speedy retreat to protected spaces. This will be a high-tech drill, as participation will be checked online with the assistance of the Education Ministry, which devised a form asking students whether they and their parents indeed entered sheltered areas.

Additionally, this will be first time the entire early warning system will be put to a test as, besides sirens, civilians will receive alerts via different media including mobile devices, social networks and television broadcasts.

Erdan also said that “in terms of gaps in protection, we prefer to invest in protecting our citizens from conventional threats before investing in shielding the population from nonconventional weaponry. The Iron Dome (missile defense system) will not be ready to cope – as we have seen in the Pillar of Defense operation – with the scope and size of such missiles.”

Head of the Home Front Command Major-General Eyal Eisenberg also spoke of war as a near certainty, saying “We’ll be required to deal with a large volume of rocket fire. Our opponents hold long-range missiles with large warheads and carrying capacity of hundreds of pounds.

“There is no doubt Israel’s home front has never dealt with such a scenario, and we will have to show extraordinary fortitude. These are not easy times, but Israel possesses a far greater destructive capacity compared to our enemies, so I would suggest our neighbors weigh the odds once more before they warm up the engines,” said the commander.

Gantz: If Assad escalates attacks, he’ll bear consequences | JPost | Israel News.

IDF release video of Syria troops, IDF exchanging fire for third time this week; for first time Syrian army post destroyed by cross-border fire as Chief of staff unleashes most explicit warning to date against Assad.

IDF tank patrols Golan Heights Photo: IDF Spokesman Unit

Assad And His Allies Threaten To Open A Front In Golan Heights.

Gantz: Assad will pay the price for Golan escalation. Syria: We fired on Israeli patrol.

Israel troops return fire on Syrian Golan position

Syria and Israel crossed verbal swords Tuesday, May 21, after an overnight exchange of fire on the Golan. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned that Assad would pay the price for bringing terror to the Golan, after Damascus for the first time claimed responsibility for the gunfire on an Israeli Golan patrol Monday. Syria also threatened to strike back for Israel reprisals. The chief of staff refuted the Syrian claim to have destroyed an Israeli army vehicle that crossed to the Syrian side of the border as false.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: “Our policy is clear – we don’t interfere in Syria’s civil war, but neither will we let the fire spill over onto our territory. Last night,” he added, “we destroyed a Syrian army position on the Golan which fired at an IDF patrol.” He spoke during a tour of naval facilities in Atlit and Haifa.

On a visit to the Golan, Gen.Gantz and OC Northern Command Yair Golan ordered Israeli Golan positions to return any fire coming from the Syrian side, a reversal of previous policy.

No one was hurt on the Israeli side. But this time, unlike the two previous incidents, Israeli forces directed a Tamuz rocket at the source of the gunfire and identified a direct hit.

To inflate the episode, the Syrian statement claimed an IDF vehicle damaged in the attack was destroyed.
debkafile’s military sources: Bashar Assad is signaling his readiness for a war on attrition on Israel from the Golan, which our sources predicted was in the works on May 15.
See debkafile Exclusive report of Monday, May 19.

A Syrian-Israeli confrontation loomed closer Tuesday, May 21, with the claim by the Damascus government of responsibility for the gunfire Monday night on an Israeli Golan patrol and threat to strike back at an Israeli target for any Israeli reprisals. No one was hurt on the Israeli side. Earlier, IDF chief of staff Lt. Benny Gantz and OC Northern Command Yair Golan visited Israeli Golan positions with orders to return any fire coming from the Syrian side.

This time, unlike the two previous incidents, Israeli forces directed a Tamuz rocket at the source of the Syrian gunfire and identified a direct hit. To inflate the episode, the Syrian statement claimed an IDF vehicle damaged in the attack was destroyed.
debkafile’s military sources: Bashar Assad is signaling his readiness for a war on attrition on Israel from the Golan, which our sources predicted was in the works on May 16.
Read debkafile Exclusive report of Monday, May 19.

Syria and Hizballah, flushed with the success of breaking the rebel hold on the strategic town of al Qusayr, Sunday, May 19, are making no secret of their plans for the “great confrontation,” i.e. military confrontaiton with  Israel after they win the Syrian civil war.  Israel’s military leaders are taking with the utmost seriousness the words of Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the Hizballah organ Al Akhbar, and a close buddy of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who wrote Monday:
“The rope is taut. It is taut to the limit. Anyone at either end [Israel at one end, Syrian and Hizballah, at the other] need only flex a finger and it will break, and the great confrontation will take place. This is neither a threat, nor an exaggeration or interpretation. This is the situation on the enemy’s northern front. Now means today; it means this hour,” al-Amin wrote.
Israeli intelligence experts have no doubt that the writer penned those words at the behest of his master, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and Bashar Assad.
Israeli spokesmen and media tried hard Monday to play down the scale of the joint force’s success in capturing al-Qusayr, which sits on Syria’s main road to Lebanon and the Damascus high road to the Mediterranean, by harping on the heavy battle losses sustained by Hizballah – 50 dead and many more gravely injured.

But these losses do not detract from the Iranian Lebanese proxy’s pivotal role in the Syrian rebels’ resounding defeat and the Syrian army’s decisive victory.

It cannot be denied that the fateful setback suffered by the Syrian rebels resulted from their being abandoned to their fate at the most critical moment of their uprising by their backers, the US, Turkey, Jordan and the Arab Gulf emirates.

Syrian and Hizballah forces are getting ready to turn east for their next major offensive, the destruction of rebel strongholds in Homs and its outlying villages. Our military sources report the Syrian army has deployed its 14^th Division and an expanded unit of self-propelled artillery for this joint effort. Rebel spokesmen warn that a massacre is in store.

Report: Anti-Israel NGOs receive US funding – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( Unfucking believable!  This must be stopped!!! – JW )

Research institute says some Mideast organizations receiving grants from Washington ‘demonize Israel, promote BDS campaigns targeting Israel’

Ynetnews

A report presented to members of Congress on Tuesday by Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor shows that US Government funding of several political NGOs in the Palestinian Authority and Israel contradicts US policy, has a negative impact on the peace process, and lacks the independent oversight necessary to prevent abuses.

“Some of the NGO grantees conduct activities that sharply contradict program objectives and policies,” said Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor.

“The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), for instance, funded by the US Government, in turn funds political advocacy NGOs that demonize Israel and promote BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns targeting Israel. This activity is entirely inconsistent with US policy.”

The reports mentions that one such organization is MIFTAH ($178,740 in 2007-2012), a Palestinian NGO involved in anti-Israel campaigns and anti-Semitism, including repetition of the infamous blood libel and allegations of “the slaughter of Palestinian children,” according to Steinberg.

Another group, “Windows,” received $750,000 in a three-year grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It is described by the Agency as “a tool for Israeli and Palestinian participants to learn about each other.” But according to NGO Monitor, Windows’ Youth Media Program adopts a “Palestinian narrative of the conflict including highly offensive comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.”

Steinberg said, “Obviously, USAID and NED do not endorse such views, but the funding is indicative of the lack of supervision and transparency in such grants. Self-reporting, without independent evaluation on such complex issues, violates the principles of good governance.”

NGO Monitor urged US officials to conduct “detailed, professional and independent evaluations of NGO activity before grant allocation, during implementation, and at the conclusion of the grant cycle.”

NGO Monitor said it recently received an assurance from US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro that “we have put in place greater policy oversight of grant-making decisions over the past few years.”

Iran acts to expand sensitive nuclear capacity | JPost | Israel News.

Strategic dilemmas – JPost – Jerusalem Report – TheRegion.

The fighting in Syria is part of a complex multi-layered proxy war with huge implications for the future of the Middle East

Photo by: Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry

Strategic decision time is fast approaching the newly installed Israeli government on several fronts. The chaotic Syrian civil war is showing signs of spilling over into northern Israel; Israeli air attacks on weapons stores destined for Hezbollah could trigger cross-border retaliation; the Iranians are close to crossing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nuclear red line; Gaza-inspired terrorist cells are taking root in Sinai; and, on a different but not unconnected plane, Netanyahu will soon have to decide whether or not he truly wants to embrace a vigorous US-led peace effort on the Palestinian track.

“Don’t let the quiet fool you. A storm is brewing,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned in mid-April. With the Arab world in turmoil, torn by internal strife, no one is likely to start a classic land war against Israel. Rather, precisely because of the erosion of central government control and the grinding down of state armies, terror or rocket hostilities launched by rogue non-state actors is the chief concern. Indeed, in Gantz’s view, 40 years of quiet on the Syrian front may be about to come to an end.

IDF officers have already dubbed the Syrian border area “Afghanikan” – a Hebrew play on words meaning “Afghanistan is here.” Some of the opposition irregular forces there identify with al-Qaeda; some even call themselves Taliban. By far the most significant such group is the Salafist Jabhat al-Nusra. Although they only have around 6,000 men, they exert enormous influence, having brought in weapons, won victories on the battlefield, seized oil fields in eastern Syria and taken over food distribution in the areas they control. The danger they pose to Israel is two-fold: Turning their attention to cross-border terror attacks and/or getting their hands on chemical weapons.

To deal with the new Syria threats, the IDF is considering a number of tactical options: First, Gantz is building a new special antiterror force. Already infantry, reconnaissance and armored units have been moved up into the border area and old abandoned positions manned anew. The IDF is also strengthening the border fence and mulling the idea of establishing a buffer zone beyond it to push al-Qaeda elements further back from the border.

For now al-Nusra is fighting alongside the much larger Free Syria Army, the 140,000 strong FSA, even though they have very different ideas about the kind of new Syria they want to build. On the other side of the Syrian divide, there are two large forces: what is left of the Syrian army and a sizable Iran-financed, Hezbollah-led contingent determined to keep President Bashar Assad in power or at least to influence Syria’s orientation the day after his fall. For Israel the immediate danger here is a seepage or deliberate transfer of long-range ground-toground missiles, ground-to-air and groundto-sea missiles and chemical weapons to Hezbollah.

On May 2, the new cabinet met to approve a series of air strikes against strategic weaponry in Syria destined for Hezbollah. The decision to go ahead reflected a new policy: exploiting Assad’s weakness to stop the flow of sophisticated missiles from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah.

According to foreign sources Israeli jets bombed Syrian Scud D ballistic missiles in transit to Lebanon and stores of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles north of Damascus. The Scud D has a range of around 800 kms and the new improved Fateh-110 a range of 300 kms; both are capable of carrying payloads of 500 kilograms. Earlier in January, the IAF bombed a convoy on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon with Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, also weapons Israel considers potential game-changers.

Netanyahu has also repeatedly warned that Israel will act if chemical weapons fall into or are about to fall into “the wrong hands.” That, however, is easier said than done. Syria has around 18 chemical weapons sites, ranging from production installations to storage depots.

Simply bombing them would be highly problematic. By international law, the bombers would be held responsible for any collateral damage caused by the fallout of lethal gases. On the other hand, Israel could bomb convoys transporting chemical weapons to terrorist forces, say Hezbollah, carefully choosing a spot where collateral damage is likely to be negligible or nonexistent.

According to former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former defense minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Hezbollah may have already received some chemical weapons. Netanyahu, however, is determined to prevent them from getting any more.

This could entail a very difficult and complex operation against the chemical sites. Israel and the US are exchanging intelligence on this and the US is reportedly training special commando forces in Jordan.

The chemical weapons issue took on added urgency after reports in late April, first from Israeli intelligence and then corroborated by Western agencies, that one of the sides in the civil war had actually used poison gas, probably the Syrian regime against rebel enclaves.

As a result, US President Barack Obama is also contemplating a dramatic policy change. Up till the reports of chemical weapons usage, he had been careful to supply moderate rebel forces with only non-lethal equipment. Now he is considering arming them with lethal weapons, which could prove a game changer.

The Americans are reportedly very impressed with Gen. Salim Idris, the moderate secularist commander of the rebel Supreme Military Council, which controls the FSA. The thinking is, if they get Western arms they could win the war, or at least force regime change in which the chemical weapons sites are secured. Idris, a Germantrained engineer who defected from Assad’s army last summer, is strongly opposed to al-Nusra. Properly armed, in a best case scenario, he could also defeat the Jihadists.

The fighting in Syria is part of a complex multi-layered proxy war with huge implications for the future of the Middle East. It is largely a struggle between Iranled Shiites supporting the regime and Arab Sunni forces opposing it; there is an element of Russia, with its facilities in the Syrian port of Tartous, against the West; and, as the recent air strikes show, it is also a case of Israel against Iran. On another level, there is a centralized modern state battling forces of ethnic fragmentation; and within the Sunni camp itself, there are radicals seeking to establish an Islamist Caliphate versus a more moderate mainstream. How all this plays out will shape the region. If moderate Sunnis come to power, that would be a major strategic blow for Iran, severing its land connection with Hezbollah in Lebanon and severely weakening its influence across the region as a whole. On the other hand, if the Shiites prevail, the nightmare for Israel and the West of a “Shiite crescent” from Iran, through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon would become a dire reality. And if Syria were to disintegrate into sectcontrolled areas, with Alawites, Shiites, Sunnis, Druze and Kurds all having their own autonomous enclaves, that too would mean a complete reshuffling of the deck on Israel’s northern border. The Iranians have found a way to force the issue in their favor, fighting tooth and nail through Hezbollah. Israel and the West have yet to find an adequate response. Arming the Sunni moderates and imposing no-fly zones to neutralize Syrian air power could be the way to go. The Israeli air strikes in Syria were also a strong message to Iran. Indeed, over the next few months the government will face a huge strategic decision on the Iranian nuclear weapons program. At the UN last September, Netanyahu drew a red line at 250 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent. This could easily be converted to 90 percent weapons’ grade uranium and provide enough fissionable material for a bomb. Possibly with Netanyahu’s warning in mind, the Iranians have been careful to keep their total of 20 percent enriched uranium to well below this figure. They claim to have only 170 kilograms stockpiled after converting 110 kgs to solid reactor fuel. But former chief of Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin says they have kept 80 kgs in an interim powdered state, which could be converted back to the weaponizable form in no more than a week, inflating the stockpile to around the 250 kg red line. In other words, says Yadlin, to all intents and purposes, they have already crossed Netanyahu’s red line. The question is what does Netanyahu do when he too determines that the red line has been crossed, and the Americans argue that there is still time for diplomacy and sanctions? Does he back down and undermine his credibility, or does he act against US wishes? Clearly for Israel, it would be better to leave any military action to the US, given its far greater fire power, its international standing and its capacity to follow up with further strikes, if necessary. Nevertheless, in recent weeks, Gantz and others (including Yadlin) have been trumpeting Israel’s capacity to attack Iranian nuclear installations on its own. This is part of an Israeli policy of creating a credible deterrent. Israeli strategic planners make no secret of the fact that they would also like to see the US making its readiness to use force, if necessary, more credible. They argue that if the Iranians really believe the US is serious about using force against them, they may back down without force having to be used. The threat to southern Israel from alQaeda-linked and other jihadist groups in Sinai also poses a serious strategic dilemma. To a large extent, Israel’s hands are tied. It doesn’t want to strain the peace treaty with Egypt by retaliating in Sinai. Therefore, retaliation for the mid-April rocket attack from Sinai on Eilat took place in Gaza with the targeted assassination of the rocket expert who planned it. Israeli policy is rather to cooperate with Egypt in helping it reassert a larger measure of control in Sinai. So far this low key approach seems to be yielding important dividends. Egypt has been urging Hamas to keep the quiet achieved after last November’s Operation Pillar of Defense. Most significantly, partly due to Egyptian pressure, Hamas has not been replenishing the rockets and missiles used or taken out in the November operation. Clearly, Israel’s strategic outlook would be considerably eased if it were to make real progress with the Palestinian moderates in the West Bank. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s supreme efforts in this direction seem to be bearing initial fruit. His success in persuading the Arab League to accept “comparable, mutually agreed and minor” land swaps between Israelis and Palestinians in the context of a peace agreement, including normalization of ties between Israel and the entire Arab world, could be a game-changer. The Arab League members’ 2002 peace plan had spoken of full withdrawal to the 1967 lines. Their newfound readiness to countenance land swaps makes all the difference: It enables Israel to keep the large settlement blocs and gives the Palestinians an Arab League sanction to make concessions along these lines. True, the Palestinians have long since agreed to the principle of land swaps, and in their 2008 talks with former prime minister Ehud Olmert, the argument was over just how much to swap: Olmert proposed 6.1 percent of the West Bank, the Palestinians countered with 1.9 percent. The Arab League declaration makes continuing this conversation that much easier. The odd man out in all this is Netanyahu. He has never agreed to the principle of swaps based on the ’67 border. And so far his response to the new American initiative has been mixed, at best. Speaking to Foreign Ministry officials in late April, he insisted that the conflict is not over borders but over the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people – implying that he would continue to resist the key ’67 borders plus land swaps principle, at least until the Palestinians changed their tune. There was also a frosty silence from him on the new Arab League position. On the other hand, he told the Foreign Ministry personnel that Israel must go for a two-state solution to avoid the threat of a binational state with a Palestinian majority. This is demographic language Likud leaders rarely use; for Netanyahu to have made such a comment is significant. The region is in the throes of major historic change. For Israel there are real dangers and significant opportunities. In this remaking of the Middle East, there are two diametrically opposed but not impossible outcomes: At one extreme the picture is of a rampant Iran, leading a wide anti-Western and anti-Israel front; at the other, a weakened Iran, no longer on course for nuclear weapons, and an Israel having made its peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world.

How to prevent the former scenario and achieve something approaching the latter will be this government’s biggest challenge.

IDF chief of staff scouts situation on Golan | The Times of Israel.

Minister for strategic affairs tells Knesset committee that Israel is better off without Assad in power

Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in action during a live fire exercise for Israeli army battalion commanders taking place on the Golan Heights, Israel, 04 September 2012. (photo credit: Shay Wagner /IDF/FLASH90)

IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz toured the Golan on Tuesday near the border with Syria, hours after the IDF shot at a Syrian position that had fired at a patrol during the night.

Apparently reporting on the same incident, the Syrian army on Tuesday claimed responsibility for firing on and destroying an Israeli vehicle along “with those in it.”

Speaking earlier at a conference in the north of the country Gantz described the precarious security situation that Israel faces in an unstable and volatile region.

“A day doesn’t go past in which we don’t have to make decisions that could lead us to a sudden and uncontrollable deterioration,” he said. “That is something that will be with us for the near future. We need to be more alert.”

Gantz pointed out that the connection between action and reaction is not always dramatic.

“It doesn’t mean that if we do something on the Golan Heights that there is immediately a big military incident in the Sinai,” he said. “But it could happen. There are other influences, sometimes of less significance and importance, but we can see the connection between Gaza and Sinai, between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and between Syria and Lebanon.”

On Monday the Yuval Steinitz, the minister of international affairs and strategy, said it was in Israel’s interest to see President Bashar Assad removed from rule in Syria — contradicting recent intimations from Israeli defense officials — and revealed that there are European countries hankering for a military threat against Iran’s nuclear program.

Minister of International Affairs and Strategy Yuval Steinitz at a Foreign Affairs and Defense committee meeting in Jerusalem on May 20, 2013. (photo credit: Flash90)

Steinitz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that removing Assad would deal a significant blow to the region’s axis of evil and would weaken both Iran and Hezbollah. By removing Syria from the equation, Iran’s ability to operate through Hezbollah would be weakened, he explained.

“In my opinion, the right thing from our point of view is that the Iranian axis should stop ruling Syria through the form of Assad,” Steinitz said, according to a report in Maariv on Tuesday.

The minister’s comments apparently challenge opinions within the military establishment that prefer Assad’s regime to the prospect of a lawless Syria that might enable extremist militant groups to take up positions right on Israel’s border.

In an interview with the Times of London last week, an unnamed senior defense official said that Israel had originally miscalculated Assad’s ability to maintain control of his country despite an increasingly bloody and gruesome two-year war. “We originally underestimated Assad’s staying power and overestimated the rebels’ fighting power,” he told the Times.

“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” the official said.

Defense Ministry official Maj.-Gen. (Res) Amos Gilad said in an interview with Israel Radio last week that Assad was in total control of his country’s weapons systems and was acting sensibly with regard to Israel, in comments apparently intended to calm escalating tensions between Jerusalem and Damascus following reported Israeli airstrikes earlier this month.

Gilad stressed that Israel was not striving to topple Assad’s regime, and that reported recent IAF attacks on Iranian weapons shipments in Syria en route to Hezbollah were motivated purely by defensive calculations.

Syria’s location as Lebanon’s only neighbor outside of Israel makes it a key transit point for weapons transferred from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Steinitz made it clear that it will act to prevent terrorist organizations from obtaining capabilities that pose a serious threat to Israel.

“Israel is making every effort to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to terror organizations,” he said.

Nonetheless, Steinitz, said the real strategic target was the Iranian nuclear program. He noted that some European countries were becoming nervous about the apparent failure of sanctions against Tehran.

“If the North Koreans today have three nuclear bombs, the Iranian threat to the world is 30 to 50 times as much,” he said. “Right from the start the Iranian infrastructure was built on much bigger proportions. We have received messages from different European countries that told us that the time has come to present a military threat to Iran because sanctions alone are not enough.”

Israel Hayom | IDF fired on from Syrian Golan for third day straight.

Israeli troops shot at a target across the Syrian border early Tuesday in response to gunfire that struck an Israel Defense Forces jeep in the central Golan Heights, the IDF said in a statement.

The statement said an Israeli military vehicle was damaged by shots fired from Syria, but there were no injuries. It said that soldiers “returned precise fire,” confirming that the source of the fire was hit.

The IDF patrol was hit with small-arms fire near the Hizka outpost along the border fence in the central Golan Heights.

On Wednesday afternoon a statement from the Syrian army, published on the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), said that the Syrian army had “destroyed an Israeli vehicle with everyone in it” which entered Syria through the Golan Heights border. The IDF denied the Syrian report, which came about six hours after the cross-border exchange of fire early on Tuesday morning.

Gunfire incidents across the frontier from Syria have recurred in past months during the escalating civil war there in which rebels have sought to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Tuesday’s incident was the third consecutive cross-border shooting this week and points to an escalation of events. IDF artillery units returned fire shortly after the latest incident with a Tammuz guided missile, destroying the source of the fire.

Army Radio reported that the assessment in the IDF is that the fire coming over the Syrian border over the last three nights is not spillover from intra-Syrian fighting but is fire directed at the IDF forces in the area.

The IDF statement said Israel viewed these incidents “with concern.”

On Tuesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned that Israel was constantly at risk of being sucked into a “security deterioration in our region at any moment, a deterioration which could rapidly spin out of control.”

“Not a day goes by when we are not faced with decisions which could lead us to a sudden and out of control deterioration. This is the situation that will accompany us in the near term and we need to be more alert because of it,” Gantz said, touring the Golan Heights to inspect forces there.

Underlying the growing tensions between Israel and Syria, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) and the Lebanese Al Mayadeen network on Monday broadcast images of an Israeli army jeep which the Syrians say is evidence that the IDF is assisting rebels in Qusair. In response to the footage, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that the jeep, which has Hebrew writing on it, was a holdover from Israel’s campaign in Lebanon in the 1980s and has been out of service for years. “This is a cheap propaganda attempt and nothing more,” the spokesman said of the Syrian government report.

Yaalon: We destroyed Syrian Golan position. Damascus: We fired on Israeli patrol.

Israel troops return fire on Syrian Golan position

Syria and Israel crossed verbal swords Tuesday, May 21, after an overnight exchange of fire on the Golan.

When the Damascus government claimed responsibility for the gunfire on an Israeli Golan patrol Monday night and threatened to strike back for any Israeli reprisals, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon shot back by saying: “Our policy is clear – we don’t interfere in Syria’s civil war, but neither will we let the fire spill over onto our territory. Last night,” he added, “we destroyed a Syrian army position on the Golan which fired at an IDF patrol.”

He spoke during a tour of naval facilities in Atlit and Haifa.

On a visit to the Golan, IDF chief of staff Lt. Benny Gantz and OC Northern Command Yair Golan ordered Israeli Golan positions to return any fire coming from the Syrian side, a reversal of previous policy.

No one was hurt on the Israeli side. But this time, unlike the two previous incidents, Israeli forces directed a Tamuz rocket at the source of the gunfire and identified a direct hit.

To inflate the episode, the Syrian statement claimed an IDF vehicle damaged in the attack was destroyed.
debkafile’s military sources: Bashar Assad is signaling his readiness for a war on attrition on Israel from the Golan, which our sources predicted was in the works on May 15.
See debkafile Exclusive report of Monday, May 19.

A Syrian-Israeli confrontation loomed closer Tuesday, May 21, with the claim by the Damascus government of responsibility for the gunfire Monday night on an Israeli Golan patrol and threat to strike back at an Israeli target for any Israeli reprisals. No one was hurt on the Israeli side. Earlier, IDF chief of staff Lt. Benny Gantz and OC Northern Command Yair Golan visited Israeli Golan positions with orders to return any fire coming from the Syrian side.

This time, unlike the two previous incidents, Israeli forces directed a Tamuz rocket at the source of the Syrian gunfire and identified a direct hit. To inflate the episode, the Syrian statement claimed an IDF vehicle damaged in the attack was destroyed.
debkafile’s military sources: Bashar Assad is signaling his readiness for a war on attrition on Israel from the Golan, which our sources predicted was in the works on May 16.
Read debkafile Exclusive report of Monday, May 19.

Syria and Hizballah, flushed with the success of breaking the rebel hold on the strategic town of al Qusayr, Sunday, May 19, are making no secret of their plans for the “great confrontation,” i.e. military confrontaiton with  Israel after they win the Syrian civil war.  Israel’s military leaders are taking with the utmost seriousness the words of Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the Hizballah organ Al Akhbar, and a close buddy of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who wrote Monday:
“The rope is taut. It is taut to the limit. Anyone at either end [Israel at one end, Syrian and Hizballah, at the other] need only flex a finger and it will break, and the great confrontation will take place. This is neither a threat, nor an exaggeration or interpretation. This is the situation on the enemy’s northern front. Now means today; it means this hour,” al-Amin wrote.
Israeli intelligence experts have no doubt that the writer penned those words at the behest of his master, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and Bashar Assad.
Israeli spokesmen and media tried hard Monday to play down the scale of the joint force’s success in capturing al-Qusayr, which sits on Syria’s main road to Lebanon and the Damascus high road to the Mediterranean, by harping on the heavy battle losses sustained by Hizballah – 50 dead and many more gravely injured.

But these losses do not detract from the Iranian Lebanese proxy’s pivotal role in the Syrian rebels’ resounding defeat and the Syrian army’s decisive victory.

It cannot be denied that the fateful setback suffered by the Syrian rebels resulted from their being abandoned to their fate at the most critical moment of their uprising by their backers, the US, Turkey, Jordan and the Arab Gulf emirates.

Syrian and Hizballah forces are getting ready to turn east for their next major offensive, the destruction of rebel strongholds in Homs and its outlying villages. Our military sources report the Syrian army has deployed its 14^th Division and an expanded unit of self-propelled artillery for this joint effort. Rebel spokesmen warn that a massacre is in store.