Golan Heights

Israeli soldiers on Saturday opened fire at three suspected Hezbollah fighters on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the army said.

TEL AVIV – The IDF’s northern operation to destroy cross-border tunnels dug by Hezbollah came as a “great surprise” to the terror group, which kept the underground program a secret from its own operatives, a senior IDF officer said Wednesday, adding that the Iranian-backed group planned on launching a surprise attack, infiltrating Israel and thus instigating a war.

TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the Hezbollah cross-border tunnels currently being destroyed by the IDF are part of a “daring” broader plan to infiltrate Israel and capture parts of the Galilee.

TEL AVIV – Israel has mobilized artillery and unrolled a partial mobilization of reservists from the Air Force and Military Intelligence to thwart potential attacks from Lebanese terror group Hezbollah following the launch of an IDF operation to destroy cross-border attack tunnels dug by the Iranian-backed group.

The United States opposed on Friday for the first time an annual draft resolution at the United Nations calling on Israel to rescind its authority over the occupied Golan Heights, drawing praise from Israeli officials.

TEL AVIV – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday warned that the IDF will not be able to withstand the number of missiles the terror group has in its possession. He also told the Palestinians not to make a deal with Israel.

TEL AVIV – Days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Golan Heights was sovereign Israeli territory and should be recognized as such but the international community, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that changing its status constitutes a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed during a visit to the Golan Heights to hold on to the disputed territory and insisted that Russia understands Israel’s need to act beyond the northern border to maintain its security.

UNITED NATIONS — Declaring that victory over “terrorism” is almost at hand after more than seven years of civil war, Syria’s foreign minister took to the world stage Saturday and demanded that “occupation” forces from the U.S., France and Turkey leave the country immediately.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister says the country’s border crossing with Syria is reopening for U.N. personnel and will resume operating as before the civil war erupted next door.

JERUSALEM – US ambassador to Israel David Friedman expects the annexed Golan Heights to remain under Israeli control “forever”, according to an excerpt released Thursday of an interview he gave to an Israeli newspaper.

TEL AVIV – The IDF on Tuesday released a video showing Israel’s raid on Syria in May that destroyed more than 50 Iranian targets in the most extensive military strike in the country since 1974.

Israel claimed Syria’s long-running civil war had effectively come to an end Thursday and predicted the Golan Heights frontier between the two countries would be much quieter over the coming months.

The Israeli military says it targeted and killed seven “armed terror operatives” who had crossed into Israeli territory in the southern Golan Heights.

BEIRUT — The Syrian government regained control of the frontier with the Golan Heights for the first time in seven years on Monday, after Islamic State-linked militants gave up their last pocket of territory in the area.

TEL AVIV – The IDF on Wednesday identified Captain Or Na’aman as commanding the Patriot missile which downed a Syrian fighter jet the day before and said she was also the soldier responsible for intercepting a Syrian drone that infiltrated Israeli airspace earlier this month. 

The Iranian regime wants access to water — and fast. That is a big reason the Golan is suddenly of interest.

TEL AVIV – The Islamic State released footage on Wednesday alleged showing the Syrian fighter jet shot down by Israel. According to Syrian officials, IS fighters captured the body of one of the Syrian pilots.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Tuesday that Israel tried to contact the pilot of a Syrian jet before shooting down his plane after it entered Israeli airspace.

AMMAN (AFP) – Israel has evacuated 800 White Helmets rescuers and their family members threatened by advancing Syrian regime forces to Jordan for resettlement in Britain, Canada and Germany, the kingdom said Sunday.

WASHINGTON — US officials say the United States is finalizing plans to evacuate several hundred Syrian civil defense workers and their families from southwest Syria as Russian-backed government forces close in on the area.

Israel and Russia are reportedly holding talks regarding the imminent return of Syrian regime forces to the border region on the Golan Heights, with a view to reestablishing demarcation lines drawn up in 1974.

Incoming rocket sirens blared across the Israeli Golan Heights in the predawn hours of Wednesday morning, sending residents of the area scrambling to bomb shelters in what was later determined to have been a false alarm, the army said.

The potential US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights was the focus of a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Forces loyal to the Russian- and Iranian-backed regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad launched nearly 1,270 airstrikes on rebel-held territory near Israel’s Golan Heights on Sunday alone, marking the latest move in an offensive to clear insurgents out of southern Syria, according to a monitor group.

The IDF on Tuesday transfered aid and care packages donated by Israeli residents of the Golan Heights to Syrians displaced by fighting on the other side of border, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced Wednesday.

DAMASCUS – Israel launched air strikes against three military posts in Syria Wednesday, its army said, after intercepting what it described as the incursion of an unarmed drone into its territory.

Syrian military air defences struck an Israeli warplane and shot down Israeli missiles targeting the T4 air base in Homs province in response to an act of “aggression” on Sunday night, Syrian state media said.

Russian forces loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad killed the son of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the chief of the crumbling Islamic State, while he was hiding in a cave in Syria, Iraqi intelligence agents claimed Thursday.

Syria’s regime and its ally Russia resumed air strikes on the south of the country on Wednesday after rebels said talks over a government takeover had “failed.”

On Monday elements of the Iranian-backed Liwa Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas and the Syrian regime’s Republican Guard were reported to be leading the Syrian regime’s offensive near the Golan, attempting to cut the Syrian rebels territory in half.

Following the historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Trump administration should strongly consider continuing the trend of “recognizing reality” and affirm Israeli sovereignty over the strategic Golan Heights, posited Breitbart Jerusalem chief Aaron Klein.

The Israeli military sent additional tanks and artillery cannons to the Syrian border on Sunday in light of a renewed offensive by dictator Bashar Assad and the Russian military against the remaining rebel holdouts in the country’s southwest, the army said.

TEL AVIV – Tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing a major offensive in the country’s south have pitched tents on the border with Israel over recent days, with the IDF  responding by sending several tons of medical supplies and food over the border and even bringing in six wounded refugees – including four children – into Israeli territory to receive treatment in a local hospital. 

JERUSALEM –  Civilians fleeing Syria’s war will not be allowed to enter Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday adding however that his government will continue providing them with humanitarian aid.