WarSclerotic

Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri reportedly met on Monday amid increased tensions between Israel and terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah and Hamas are both Iranian-backed terror groups.

Nasrallah and Arouri discussed “the Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip,” “bilateral cooperation” and “coordinating positions regarding various developments,” according to a report from Al-Aqsa TV.

Several pro-Hezbollah news sites also reported the meeting took place, without providing additional details.

The Al-Aqsa TV report did not say where the Nasrallah and Arouri met. In November 2017, the two met in Lebanon, where Nasrallah is believed to be in hiding.

Hezbollah is directly supported by Iran and Hamas’s armed wing also enjoys a level of backing from the Islamic Republic.

The meeting came as tensions around the Gaza Strip spiraled following a rocket fired from Gaza early Monday that hit a home north of Tel Aviv, injuring seven people, and intense Israeli bombardments in retaliation.

It also occurred as the US recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is claimed by Syria, an ally of Hezbollah.

An unofficial ceasefire appeared to be in place starting Tuesday morning, after Israel bombarded dozens of targets in Gaza, including Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s office in Gaza City, and the terror groups fired some 60 rockets and projectiles into the Jewish state.

Israeli security forces inspect the scene of a house that was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in the town of Mishmeret in central Israel on March 25, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

While Hamas has said Egypt successfully brokered a ceasefire between Israel and the terror groups, a senior Israeli official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entourage denied the claim.

“There was no ceasefire,” the senior official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday criticized the US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights the previous day, saying the move was contrary to international law and reminiscent of the way colonial powers used to divide up countries.

“No one could imagine that a person in America comes and gives land of a nation to another occupying country, against international laws and conventions,” Rouhani said, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

US President Donald Trump broke with decades of US policy on Monday by signing a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, a strategic plateau it captured from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War.

“At a time when colonialism dominated, some colonial powers were doing these things and giving part of a country to another, but this is unprecedented in the current century,” Rouhani said during a meeting in Tehran with ministers and other senior officials to discuss flash flooding in some areas of his country that has killed at least 17 people.

His condemnation of Trump’s move followed critical statements from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which both said the development would threaten regional stability. Russia, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey have also denounced Trump’s proclamation.

Iran is a major ally of Syria and has been providing the Damascus regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad with military assistance in quashing a bloody civil war that has dragged on for over eight years.

None of Trump’s allies have followed his policy U-turn, which came in the form of a proclamation signed by the president Monday in the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side.

At the White House, Netanyahu thanked Trump for the “historic” recognition of the Golan Heights, and for his administration’s “incredible support” for Israel.

He recalled the long Jewish history of the mountainous plateau along the Syrian border, while stressing it was “invaluable” to Israel’s self-defense and saying the “historic decision has profound meaning for me and us and all Israelis.”

A warning sign of a minefield near the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights on March 25, 2019. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and extended Israeli law to the territory in 1981, a step tantamount to annexation.

The UN Security Council and successive US administrations have always regarded the Golan as occupied territory whose return would be negotiated as part of a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and Syria.

In the wake of Trump’s proclamation, fellow veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent members Britain and France have both said they will continue to consider the Golan Heights Israeli-occupied in line with council resolutions, as have China and Russia.

Earlier this month Israel said it had identified a Hezbollah terror celloperating on Syrian-held areas of the Golan Heights. The Iran-backed, Lebanon-based group has been trying to create a front on the Syrian Golan for years, but was unable to gain a sufficient foothold in the area until now. However, Syrian leader Assad’s conquest of the border area last year gave the regime-allied group an opportunity to again try to establish the necessary infrastructure with which it could threaten Israel near the border.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration moved Tuesday to break up a group of Iranian-linked companies that has transferred around $1 billion to Iran in violation of US sanctions on the country.

The Treasury announced it had hit a “vast network” of 25 firms, people and Iranian government agencies with sanctions for evading penalties the US put in place last year after withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The sanctions freeze any assets they may have in US jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. But they also open any foreign company or person to US sanctions if they do business with the targeted entities.

The action identifies four firms in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as front companies for Iran’s Ansar Bank, which has been funneling money to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and related groups in violation of US sanctions.

Treasury said the companies had sent roughly $800 million to the bank, which had passed the cash on to the IRGC, its Quds Force component and Iran’s defense ministry. The money was used to pay salaries for employees and foreign fighters, particularly in Syria.

“We are targeting a vast network of front companies and individuals located in Iran, Turkey, and the UAE to disrupt a scheme the Iranian regime has used to illicitly move more than a billion dollars in funds,” Treasury said in a statement.

An Iranian military speedboat patrols the waters as a tanker prepares to dock at the oil facility in the Khark Island, Iran, March 12, 2017. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

The step also imposed an additional layer of sanctions on the defense ministry, which had been previously penalized for development of weapons of mass destruction. The new layer adds support for terrorism to the designation.

Tuesday’s move comes as the administration increases what it calls a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran that focuses heavily on denying it revenue from oil exports.

On Monday, Treasury renewed a warning to international shipping and port operators, advising them of potential sanctions if they allow Iranian tankers into their facilities. It also warned them of exposure to liability claims because most Iranian vessels are self-insured and not able to cover damage costs in the event of an accident.

The Israeli Air Force launched renewed strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night and early Wednesday in response to rocket attacks, amid growing concerns of war in the coastal enclave.

Shortly after the start of the Israeli bombing raids, a rocket was fired from Gaza at an industrial park south of the city of Ashkelon, the army said.

A spokesperson for the city said the rocket had been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system west of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported.

Before dawn Wednesday, a second rocket was fired at Ashkelon. It was also intercepted by Iron Dome, with no reports of casualties, the army said.

Palestinian media reported that Israeli aircraft bombed a number of targets connected to the Hamas terror group around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets targeted a Hamas military complex and weapons manufacturing facility in Khan Younis.

News outlets in the Strip reported that a seven-story building and underground infrastructure belonging to Hamas were also destroyed in the Israeli strikes.

Later, in response to the first rocket fired at Ashkelon, IDF jets hit a Hamas military base in the southern city of Rafah, the army said.

Shortly after 8 p.m., terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip fired a rocket at the southern Israeli Eshkol region. The projectile struck an open field, causing neither injury nor damage.

A man stares at building that collapsed reportedly from Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on March 25, 2019. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)

Hamas and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad — the two largest terror groups in the Strip — said the rocket had not been fired with their permission and had been the work of a small terrorist cell or rogue individual, according to a Palestinian report.

The groups also threatened to respond forcefully against any Israeli retaliatory strikes, saying they would expand the reach of their attacks.

Israel holds Hamas, the Strip’s de facto rulers since 2007, responsible for any fire emanating from the coastal enclave.

In its statement, the Israel Defense Forces said its strikes were in response not only to the rocket fired at the Eshkol region, but also to the launching of several airborne incendiary devices earlier in the day and a cross-border arson attack in which several Palestinian breached the Gaza security fence and set fire to an abandoned Israeli sniper’s nest.

Tuesday night’s rocket fire came amid an unofficial ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group, following a large-scale flareup on Monday and early Tuesday morning that began with a rocket fired from the Strip that flattened a home in a farming community of central Israel, injuring seven people, including two infants.

In response to the rocket strike, the Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, destroying dozens of targets including the office of Hamas chairman Ismail Haniyeh, who’d earlier fled the building, and other locations that the military described as strategic assets for the terror group.

A home in the southern town of Sderot is hit by shrapnel from a rocket attack launched by terror groups in the Gaza Strip on March 25, 2019. (Meital Adri/Sderot Online)

Throughout the Israeli bombing campaign, terrorists in the Strip launched some 60 rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel, causing no injuries, but some damage to buildings in the southern town of Sderot.

The Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket attacks ended around dawn on Tuesday morning, leading to an uneasy calm throughout the day.

On Tuesday night, a senior Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied that a truce had been reached and threatened additional attacks on Hamas targets in the Strip.

“There is no ceasefire agreement. The fighting may resume at any moment,” the official said.

At the same time, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi ordered additional reinforcements to the Gaza border region following consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also serves as defense minister, and other top security officials.

There are fears in Israel that violence will ramp up this week, with Hamas hoping to draw hundreds of thousands of rioters to the fence at the weekend to mark a year since the start of the so-called March of Return protests, which began March 30, 2018.

Israel on Tuesday night warned it was prepared to resume strikes on the Gaza Strip, as additional soldiers were deployed to the border region following a major exchange of fire between the army and Palestinian terror groups in the coastal territory the day before.

Less than an hour after the threats of further Israeli attacks in the Strip, a rocket was fired at the Eshkol region of southern Israel, triggering air raid sirens in the area and sending thousands of residents to bomb shelters.

The projectile apparently landed in an open field, causing neither injury nor damage, an Eshkol spokesperson said.

The resumption of tensions came after a day that saw an uneasy calm over the border region, with the military announcing Tuesday evening it was removing all restrictions on communities in southern Israel beginning the next day, allowing students to return to schools that had been shuttered and businesses to reopen as usual.

The violence began early Monday with a rocket fired at a home in central Israel. On Monday night, following a large exchange of fire, Gaza’s Hamas rulers announced a ceasefire and no further projectiles were launched at Israel since early Tuesday morning.

However, a senior Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied that a truce had been reached and threatened additional attacks on Hamas targets in the Strip.

“There is no ceasefire agreement. The fighting may resume at any moment,” the official said.

Fire and smoke around buildings in Gaza City during reported Israeli strikes on March 25, 2019. (Mahmud Hams / AFP)

At the same time, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi ordered additional reinforcements to the Gaza border region following consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also serves as defense minister, and other top security officials.

The deployment included an additional artillery battalion and the command unit of an infantry brigade. Kohavi also ordered the call-up of more reservists and canceled plans for soldiers currently stationed in the Gaza Strip to move to other regions in Israel, the army said.

The Israeli military had already deployed two additional brigades to the Gaza border region on Monday and called up approximately 1,000 reservists, for air defense and other select units.

Early Monday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a home in a farming community in central Israel and wounded seven people, leading Israel to launch dozens of retaliatory raids on the enclave.

Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of bombing runs and Gazans fired some 60 projectiles at southern Israel, with the violence only waning before dawn Tuesday.

Israeli security forces inspect the scene of a house that was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in the town of Mishmeret in central Israel on March 25, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Though Israelis in the south began returning to their routines on Tuesday, there were a number of minor incidents of violence during the afternoon.

Several Palestinians crossed into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday and set fire to an unmanned military post along the border before slipping back into the coastal enclave, the army said.

Separately, an incendiary balloon launched from Gaza sparked a fire in a field in the Eshkol Regional Council. Security forces operating in the area extinguished the blaze.

Additionally, three airborne explosive devices flown from Gaza detonated over the nearby Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council.

There were no reports of injuries.