Nasrallah's latest war speech is
taken literally by Israeli military chiefs - http://www.debka.com/article/23946/Nasrallah's-latest-war-speech-is-taken-literally-by-Israeli-military-chiefs-
The Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's belligerent speech Sunday night, May 25, on the 14th anniversary of the IDF's withdrawal from south Lebanon, was taken by Israel's top military chiefs as the precursor for operational plans to bring his forces up to the Israel border in South Syria and the Golan - not just to fight Syrian rebels, but to challenge the IDF.
This conclusion is shared by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and his deputy Maj. Gen. Gady Eizenkott. debkafile's military sources say they have been watching the spate of reports Damascus and Beirut have been planting in the last fortnight, which describe Hezbollah as poised for a major offensive to prevent Syrian rebels taking Quneitra opposite Israel's Golan border.
The Israeli army is accused of backing them with firepower.
The official Saudi publication Okaz reported Saturday, May 17, that Hezbollah had sent surveillance teams to the battle ground to lay the ground for an operation to keep the vitally important Golan town from falling to rebel forces.
The next day, Sunday, Damascus issued an official notice of the death of Lt. Gen. Hussein Ishaq, Syrian Air Defense Chief, of wounds he sustained Saturday in an Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra attack on the Mleia base outside Damascus.
The Syrian government is known never to report the deaths of high-ranking officers. This unusual release raised suspicions in Western intelligence sources. They wondered what an officer so senior was doing in this small base, and how he came to be caught up in a local firefight.
The answer they came up with was that the late general was sent to Mleia to prepare Syria's air defenses as cover for a Hezbollah operation. The rebels discovered this and ambushed his convoy before it reached the base.
Other Saudi sources disclosed Saturday, May 24 that the Iranian Al Qods Brigades chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who is in charge of his country's military operations in the Syria conflict, had arrived in Damascus to study the state of battle on the Golan, although no other source has confirmed this.
From the Israeli side, our sources report that no major Hezbollah troop advances have been sighted heading in the direction of southern Syria and the Golan - only the advance surveillance teams which turned up briefly last week on the Syrian side of the Hermon range overlooking the Golan.
Nevertheless, Nasrallah's speech set off alarm signals.
In all the many pugnacious speeches the Hezbollah chief has delivered against Israel in his 22 years as secretary general of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, he has never before gone into detail on the intelligence he claims to have obtained on IDF operations. But in his latest peroration, he did just that - in reference to alleged IDF actions in southern Syria.
"When the senior strategist of Hezbollah - or any military group - shows off his intelligence on enemy moves in detail, that is a declaration of war," said one Western military source.
Nasrallah made it clear he was not talking about Israel's medical aid to rebels wounded in battle, but the IDF fire he said was aimed at Syrian units and positions on the Golan. Its purpose, he said, was to carve out a security zone in southern Syria.
"This would not be a 'good fence,'" he said (in reference to the friendly border between South Lebanon and Israel in the years 1978 and 2000, that was manned by the IDF-founded South Lebanese Army). It will be much more than that."
Nasrallah accused Israel of incursions across the "land border between Hezbollah and Israel," including the shooting of farmers. "Until now we haven't reacted, but left it to the Lebanese army and UNIFIL," he said. "But no more: For the next violations, we will hit back at once," he said.
This was taken by Israel's military chiefs as a threat by Hezbollah to make war on Israel from two fronts: Lebanon and Syria.
Israel warns it will hold Abbas
accountable for Hamas - Tovah Lazaroff and Khaled Abu Toameh -
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Israel-warns-it-will-hold-Abbas-accountable-for-Hamas-354846
Israel warned it would hold Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "accountable" for Hamas terrorism as the reconciliation agreement between that group and Fatah moved a step closer toward implementation on Thursday.
"He [Abbas] will be accountable for and responsible for [Hamas]'s violence against Israel," an official in Jerusalem said.
Abbas asked Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to form and head a Palestinian unity government. It's a move that strengthens the possibility that the two groups might really reconcile for the first time since Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in a bloody coup in 2007.
Still, differences between Fatah and Hamas led to the postponement on Thursday of the anticipated announcement that the new government had actually been formed.
Israel suspended talks with the Palestinians when the Fatah-Hamas unity deal was announced and refused to negotiate with Hamas, which it calls a terrorist organization bent on Israel's destruction.
A Palestinian source in Ramallah said the new unity government could be announced next week.
Such an announcement would doom whatever fragile hope remains to resume the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government refuses to negotiate with Hamas.
On Wednesday, US President Barack Obama omitted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a major policy address he delivered in Annapolis, leading to speculation that the US was pulling out of the peace process after an intense period of involvement.
On Thursday, WAFA, the official Palestinian News Agency, said Obama had sent a letter to Abbas in which he stated his commitment to a negotiated peace process.
"As I emphasized during our meeting, the United States remains deeply committed to a negotiated outcome between Palestinians and Israelis that results in an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state living in peace alongside the state of Israel," Obama wrote.
"I am hopeful we can continue to work closely together to achieve this goal and further strengthen the bonds between our two people," the letter said.
Netanyahu's government had suspended talks with the Palestinians to protest Fatah's decision to unify with Hamas, a group that has refused to recognize Israel or renounce violence against it.
Still President Shimon Peres plans to meet Abbas at the Vatican on June 8, after Pope Francis used his trip to the Holy Land earlier this week to invite both leaders to join him there to pray for peace.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Thursday that the two had accepted that the meeting would take place on a Sunday afternoon.
That morning the pope will be presiding at a Pentecost Sunday service in St. Peter's Square.
Francis told reporters on the plane returning to Rome from Israel, that he was not getting directly involved in the stalled Middle East peace process, something he said would be "crazy on my part."
But, he said he hoped the prayer meeting, which comes after flailing diplomatic efforts to end the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, would help create an atmosphere that would assist the eventual resumption of talks.
"Courage is needed to do this and I am praying to the Lord very much so that these two leaders, these two governments, have the courage to move forward. This is the only path for peace," Francis said on the plane.
But an Israeli official warned that such talks would not be possible if the Fatah-Hamas unity pact is cemented.
"Israel is concerned that Hamas will use this pact with the PA to strengthen its presence in the West Bank and in so doing, become a graver threat to Israel and the future stability of the Palestinian authority," the official said.
It said it planned to hold Abbas accountable for Hamas's actions.
"If after this marriage is consummated, there is fire from Gaza into Israel, Abbas will have to understand that the government of Israel will be fully entitled to hold him and his Palestinian Authority accountable for such attacks," the official said.
On Thursday, representatives of the two rival parties held discussions and consultations in a bid to remove the obstacles facing the proposed unity government.
The two sides have yet to reach agreement on the foreign affairs and interior portfolios in the unity government, the source added.
Moreover, Abbas's insistence on keeping Minister for Religious Affairs Mahmoud Habbash in the government has prevented the two sides from reaching agreement on the make-up of the government.
Abbas's decision to entrust Hamdallah with the task of forming a unity government is seen as a way to avoid the crisis with Hamas over the line-up.
In Gaza City, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the reconciliation with Fatah would not become an alternative to "resistance" against Israel.
Haniyeh said the deal would allow Hamas to hold on to its weapons "and defend the unity of our people in the face of occupation."
Haniyeh told reporters that the "resistance that liberated the Gaza Strip is also capable of liberating the West Bank, Jerusalem and the rest of our land."
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