Important Takeaways:
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his appreciation for America’s support for Israel on Sunday, but he explained his charge that the Biden administration is holding up weapons Israel desperately needs.
- Netanyahu stated, “About four months ago, there was a dramatic drop in the supply of armaments arriving from the US to Israel. For weeks we asked our American friends to speed up the shipments. We did it time and time again. We did this in the upper ranks, and in all ranks – and I want to emphasize – we did it behind closed doors. All kinds of explanations, but we didn’t get one thing: the basic situation didn’t change.”
- The White House continues to deny it is slow-walking the weapons shipments, but after October 7th, the administration knocked all bureaucratic barriers out of the way to fast-track weapons to Israel. That, Jerusalem claims, is no longer happening.
- Before Gallant left for Washington, he announced that Israel is prepared for action, if necessary, in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere.
- The Israeli Embassy in Washington’s former liaison to Congress, Yoram Ettinger, told CBN News
- that Hezbollah isn’t just the enemy of Israel but of the U.S. as well. The Iranian-backed group has close ties with Latin American terror organizations and drug cartels and is helping train them for terrorism.
- “They are focusing on the U.S. primarily, much more so than on Israel,” he noted. “Their aim, as they stated, is to bring the great American Satan to submission. At this time, to see the State Department pressuring Israel to switch from the military option on Hamas to the diplomatic option, and leaning on Israel to refrain from preempting an expected Hezbollah war, undermines not only any Israeli interest, it undermines homeland security in the U.S. itself.”
- The Associated Press reports that Iranian-supported terrorist fighters in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan say they’re ready to go to Lebanon and fight alongside Hezbollah if a full war breaks out.
- Iran has even hinted that Tehran may involve its military.
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Important Takeaways:
- Lebanon and Israel have regularly traded cross-border fire since the start of the Jewish state’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas — which, like Hezbollah, is backed by Iran — in the Gaza Strip.
- Fire exchanges have intensified since an Israeli airstrike last week killed a senior Hezbollah commander
- Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: “Israel knows very well that no place will be safe from our missiles and drones”
- He added that Hezbollah has now “obtained new weapons,” but did not share any more details.
- The Hezbollah leader also threatened war against the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, if the European Union member permits Israel to launch military operations from its territory.
- Nasrallah’s speech fans the flames of increasingly heated rhetoric over the past week, as the spike in missiles traded between Israel and Lebanon raises concerns of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
- Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also warned that his country is now “very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel, Hezbollah on ‘brink’ of all-out war, officials warn
- The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) made the warning on Sunday, just a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to meet with Amos Hochstein, a top aide to President Biden. Biden’s administration is pushing Israel to avoid a war in Lebanon, but IDF officials continue to highlight the outsized threat posed by Hezbollah compared to Hamas.
- “Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation,” an IDF spokesman warned Sunday.
- “We are committed to the diplomatic process, however Hezbollah’s aggression is bringing us closer to a critical point in the decision-making regarding our military activities in Lebanon,” he told the Biden representative.
- Hezbollah, however, is far more well-equipped and has more manpower. Their rockets and drone attacks have already forced over 100,000 Israelis to evacuate their homes in northern Israel.
- “Hezbollah is the crown jewel in the Iranian empire of terror and evil and is by far the most powerful Iranian proxy, equipped with nation state capabilities and even more firepower than several European countries have today,” former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Fox News.
- “In a military comparison, Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas,” he added.
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Important Takeaways:
- IDF: Half of Hamas Battalions Destroyed in Rafah; Operation to Last Two More Weeks
- The IDF entered Rafah in early May — against the wishes of the Biden administration — to destroy the four Hamas battalions that remained there, having destroyed at least 18 of the 24 battalions in fighting elsewhere in Gaza since late October. The White House relented but insisted on a slow pace, with limited use of heavy munitions, and care to avoid civilian casualties.
- The IDF raced to secure the Philadelphi Corridor — the road along the Gaza-Egypt border — and the Rafah border crossing. It has since fought a steady, methodical, house-to-house and tunnel-to-tunnel battle against Hamas there.
- The Jerusalem Post reported:
- The IDF on Monday said that its Division 162 has defeated half of Hamas’s battalions in Rafah, including killing at least 550 terrorists, as well as destroyed around 200 tunnel shafts, and eliminated the terror group’s last major rocket inventory.
- Further, the IDF said that within a couple of weeks it would likely be in control of all of Rafah and that the final battles with the remaining two Hamas battalions in parts of Tel al-Sultan and the eastern part of Shabura are already underway.
- Currently, the IDF says Division 162, commanded by Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen, has already achieved operation control of over 60-70% of all of Rafah with all of the 1.4 million or so civilians having long fled to al-Muwasi on the coast, central Gaza and Khan Yunis.
- Once it is concluded, the IDF will shift to a counterinsurgency strategy in Gaza — and will likely shift focus to a potential clash with Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
- There are still 116 Israeli hostages in Gaza, of whom 41 are known to be dead. They are being hidden — possibly underground.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah fired more than 250 rockets into Israel on Wednesday after Israel killed Sami Taleb Abdullah, the most senior Hezbollah commander to be eliminated since October 7.
- This was the largest one-day rocket attack since the war began and included for the first time in this conflict rocket attacks as far south as Tiberias.
- The IDF said most rockets fell in open areas, some others were intercepted, and others fell in other locations.
- Al Mayadeen reported that a number of Israeli military sites, including the Mount Meron air traffic control base, were targeted during the attacks.
- Hezbollah said it carried out at least 17 operations against Israel on Wednesday, including eight in response to what it called the “assassination”.
- Abdallah was senior to Wissam Tawil, a high-level Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike in January, said the sources in Lebanon, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Important Takeaways:
- “We are prepared for a very intense operation in the north. One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the border area.
- Almost eight months of exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed movement, a Hamas ally, have intensified over the past week, with Israel striking deeper into Lebanese territory.
- Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both called in recent days for urgent action to restore security to northern Israel.
- “They burn us here; all Hezbollah strongholds should also burn and be destroyed. WAR!” Ben Gvir said
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Important Takeaways:
- Fires started by Hezbollah rockets and drones ignited and spread throughout northern Israel early this week, posing a new challenge for the Israeli military and leading to public demands for action against the Iranian terror group.
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement Monday evening:
- Over the past few hours, the IDF has been conducting a situational assessment with Israel Fire and Rescue Services to allocate additional means, forces, and firefighting capabilities in order to extinguish the fires in northern Israel.
- At this stage, IDF reserve soldiers, engineer tools, mechanical equipment, fire trucks, and fire tanks were reinforced.
- An IDF Home Front Command’s fire battalion is currently operating at the scene and assisting fire and rescue forces.
- The forces gained control over the locations of fire, and at this stage, no human life is at risk.
- The Commanding Officer of the Northern Command is currently arriving at the Kiryat Shmona Fire Station.
- Six IDF reservist soldiers were lightly injured as a result of smoke inhalation and transferred to a hospital to receive medical treatment. Their families have been notified.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military.
- Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but the one on Thursday appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from within Israeli airspace.
- “Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They’ve been firing more and more.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel beefs up air defenses, calls up troops as Iran payback for Syria strike looms
- Speculation suggests Iran could attack Israel from its own territory rather than through proxies, sparking wider hostilities
- Both Iran and its proxy Hezbollah have vowed that Israel will not go unpunished for the Monday attack on a consular building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus, which killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ most senior official in Syria, along with his deputy, five other IRGC officers, and at least one member of the Hezbollah terror group.
- Zahedi was reportedly responsible for the IRGC’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, for Iranian militias there, and for ties with Hezbollah, and was thus the most senior commander of Iranian forces in the two countries.
- The IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization.
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Important Takeaways:
- A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York
- Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by the US Border Patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas
- Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years
- Ebbadi’s training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” he said.
- Border agents continue to see a surge in migrants whose names appear on the terror watchlist entering the US illegally as crossings continue at record levels.
- Border agents recorded 98 encounters with terror watchlisted individuals at both the northern and southern borders in fiscal year 2022, and almost twice as many, 172, in fiscal year 2023, which ends Sept. 30.
- So far, in the first four months of 2024, 59 people have been apprehended, according to federal data.
- “The federal government has failed to enact border security measures, and the state of Texas, through Gov. [Greg] Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, will continue to take unprecedented action to help secure the border,” DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez said.
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