Iran’s recently-inaugurated president Hassan Rouhani has reportedly and explicitly vowed to support Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, the latter having provided critical support for the Syrian regime as it eroded two years of opposition gains. The stance has complicated claims made by the revolutionary-era cleric to the...

Reuters reports Syrians are growing increasingly aware of extensive Israeli efforts to treat victims of the two and a half year conflict raging inside the Arab country. Israel set up a field hospital early in the conflict. Within a few months Syrians were being transported to regular Israeli hospitals –...

Palestinian media is reporting that a massive government strike which occurred yesterday may escalate and expand in the coming weeks. Yesterday 95% of Palestinian government workers launched a one-day strike, after their union chief called on them to do so. The union is promising that next week it’ll be a...

The Egyptian military’s ongoing campaign to uproot terrorist infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula is more and more focusing explicitly on securing the territory’s border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The army is clearing buildings – many of which are used as cover for smuggling tunnels that Cairo blames for facilitating...

A leaked United Nations report, likely set for publication on Monday, piles on evidence linking the Bashar al-Assad regime to the August 21 mass chemical attack on opposition-controlled Damascus suburbs. While the report will not explicitly implicate the regime, it will get pretty close: The UN inspectors left Syria on...

Israeli officials reemphasized today that Jerusalem would enforce its long-established “red line” against any Syrian efforts to transfer advanced weapons, including portions of Damascus’s chemical weapons arsenal, to the Bashar al-Assad regime’s Hezbollah allies: “Our red lines have not changed,” said an Israeli official. “Assad should understand already that he...

Officials linked to the Palestinian Fatah faction declared yesterday that Friday will be the “first day of popular resistance” against Israel, and have called for attacks against Jewish Israelis and the Jewish state: A statement released by the Brigades, which is Fatah’s military wing, called on all units and sleeper...

Turkey continues to veto cooperation between Israel and NATO – extending a policy that stretches back years and which diplomats had hoped would cease amid a U.S.-backed reconciliation effort – according to Greek Ambassador Spiros Lampridis. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Lampridis outlined both the scope of programs nixed by...

Palestinian sources are reporting that two Egyptian tanks crossed the border that separates the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The tanks reportedly stopped short of Palestinian territory but – if confirmed – the reports would be read as a signal that an ongoing Egyptian campaign to root out jihadist...

More than one faction within the Syrian opposition has committed to attacking Israel, and fears have only deepened as jihadists moved to seize areas near Israel’s border with Syria. A Syrian opposition activist stationed in Europe, however, is suggesting that there might be a different future for Israeli-Syrian relations should...