Israel, Russia agree to boot Iran and Hezbollah from northern border - By Anna Ahronheim, Herb Keinon -
The report says Jerusalem and Moscow agreed to allow Israel to maintain its ability to act against Iran's expansion in Syria.
Ahead of an expected regime offensive in southern Syria, Syrian government troops should be the only ones present on the country's southern border, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. The statement carries great significance south of the border in Israel.
"Of course, all non-Syrian forces should be withdrawn on a reciprocal basis," he was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency. "This should be a two-way process. The situation, when only representatives of the Syrian armed forces will be deployed on the Syrian side of the border with Israel, should become the outcome of such work."
Lavrov made his comments at a joint news conference in Moscow with his Mozambique counterpart, Jose Condungua Pacheco. He also touched on the US military camp at al-Tanf on the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border, which has been criticized repeatedly by Moscow.
According to a Channel 2 report, Lavrov's comments are part of an understanding reached between Israel and Russia to keep Iranian and Hezbollah forces away from Syria's border with Israel on the Golan Heights.
According to the report, Israel and Russia have reached an agreement whereby Israel will not intervene to prevent the deployment of Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops to the southern border and the Golan Heights, effectively reasserting Assad's control there, and Moscow will make sure that these troops do not include Iranian or Hezbollah forces.
The report said Israel will also retain its freedom of action against Syrian entrenchment inside Syria.
In addition, according to the report, Russia will call publicly for all foreign forces to leave Syria - something Lavrov did on Monday.
Jerusalem has been urging Moscow for months to ensure that Iran, the Shia militias under its control and Hezbollah leave Syria.
Moscow, according to Israeli officials, recently has become more amenable to the request out of concern that an Israeli-Iranian confrontation in Syria - likely if Iran continues to entrench itself militarily in the country - would endanger Moscow's gains there.
Meanwhile, several Arabic- language media outlets carried unconfirmed reports of indirect negotiations between Israel and Iran.
Another report claimed the Syrian regime has proposed a deal in which Hezbollah and Iranian militias would be pulled some 25 kilometers from the border with Israel's Golan Heights "The Syrian regime has sent a proposal through mediators to regional countries that will ensure the withdrawal of Hezbollah and Iranian militias about 25 kilometers away from the disengagement line in the Golan," an unnamed Western diplomat was quoted as saying by the London-based Al Sharq al Awsat newspaper.
The report also said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield has been working on a deal that would see, among other things, the withdrawal of all Syrian and non-Syrian militias some 20 to 25 km. from the Jordanian border and the formation of a US-Russian mechanism to control the implementation of the agreement.
The Syrian regime allegedly proposed arrangements to allow local councils to govern in the villages of the Syrian Golan, including Beit Jinn, which was recaptured by troops loyal to the Assad regime several months ago.
It also included the possibility of considering reviving the disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel from 1974, allowing for UN troops to monitor the demilitarized zone between the two countries.
Phillip Smyth, a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Jerusalem Post pulling Iranian forces out from southern Syria "requires further definition."
"There are numerous forces, including some that are locally based in southern Syria under the control of Tehran and Lebanese Hezbollah," he said, adding that he has "a hard time believing that Iran will adhere to any arrangement involving their pullout from this zone. How long will it be before they are back in the area? It is a key strategic goal for Tehran to maintain a presence in southern Syria, and they have tried to do this since at least 2013."
Another unconfirmed report on Monday in the Syrian opposition newspaper Zaman al-Wasl claimed the commander of the Syrian Air Force has decided Damascus will no longer allow Iranian- backed Shi'ite militias to use its bases to store ammunition and host fighters.
According to the report, the Assad regime has been in a "panic following recent Israeli attacks."
But according to Aymenn al-Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, it is "highly implausible" that the Assad regime will break its alliance with Tehran "Iran has expended considerable resources to ensure Assad's survival," he told the Post, adding that nevertheless, "Assad recognizes that some actions by Iran or Iranian- backed groups would not be in his interest, such as if they were to clear out border areas with the Golan and establish bases there.
Accordingly, there are certain measures he can take to prevent that outcome: for instance, through trying to bring about reconciliation agreements in the border areas that allow the local rebel factions to act as holding forces, an outcome we have seen in Beit Jinn."
The unconfirmed reports by Al Sharq al Awsat and Zaman al-Wasl come as the Saudi-owned Elaph news site reported that Israel and Iran had been engaged in indirect negotiations in Amman, Jordan, over the weekend.
According to Elaph, "The talks with the Israelis were related to fighting in Syria and the nearing campaign in southern Syria, particularly in Dera'a and Kuneitra."
Iran's ambassador to Jordan pledged not to participate in the upcoming offensive by the Assad regime in southwestern Syria against rebel groups, while Israel agreed not to intervene in the battles in the tri-border area as long as Hezbollah and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias are not involved.
The alleged negotiations were said to be mediated by a Jordanian who carried messages between the Iranian ambassador to Jordan, who was in one hotel room with Iranian security personnel, while senior Israeli security officials, including the deputy head of the Mossad, were in the next room.
On Monday, it was announced that Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman will leave for a working visit to Russia on Wednesday along with the head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.- Gen. Tamir Hyman, at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.
Liberman will also be joined by Zohar Palti, head of the Defense Ministry's Political- Military Affairs Bureau, and other representatives of the defense establishment.
Channel 10, meanwhile, reported that National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat will travel to Washington on Tuesday for his first meeting with new US National Security Adviser John Bolton. The talks are expected to focus on coordinating positions regarding both the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, as well as efforts to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria.
From Iran to Gaza - connecting the dots - By Herb Keinon -
Although feeling the squeeze, Tehran still has areas where it can kick back - where it can pinprick Israel. Gaza is one of those areas.
Listen to the news, and it seems that the country - in relation to security issues - is teetering on the abyss.
Confrontations with Iran in Syria, Hezbollah gaining political strength in Lebanon, tens of thousands on the march in Gaza.
Yet talk to former senior Israeli intelligence officers, both in government and in think tanks, and the situation looks a bit different, even - as one official put it recently - "pregnant with opportunity."
And that opportunity for a positive turn stems from one basic reason: Iran has had a few very bad weeks.
The nuclear agreement with the West, which provided Iran with critical oxygen for its adventurism in the region, is in jeopardy. Tehran has come up against a very determined Israel in Syria, which has bloodied its nose in attacks against its assets inside the country.
Russia is showing signs of impatience with Iran's antics in Syria. Moscow is increasingly concerned that an entrenched Iranian military presence there could lead to a wider confrontation with Israel, something that would endanger the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and therefore put at risk Russia's significant gains in the area.
Furthermore, Iran has had its nuclear archives revealed by Israel, suffered a setback in the election in Iraq, and continues to face daily demonstrations on its own streets.
And, to top it off, the rial is tanking.
In short, Iran is feeling the squeeze, and what is bad for Iran - what weakens Iran in the region - is good for Israel. That's the good news.
The bad news is that Tehran still has areas where it can kick back - where it can pinprick Israel. Gaza is one of those areas.
There are many possible reasons why Islamic Jihad, obviously with a not-too-subtle wink and a huge nod from Hamas, decided on Tuesday to launch the largest barrage of rocket fire against Israel since Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
It could be a revenge attack for Israel's shelling of an Islamic Jihad position in southern Gaza on Sunday, killing three men, in response to the Palestinians' planting of an explosive device along the border fence.
It could be to avenge the death of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives killed over the past few weeks in the "Great March of Return" toward the fence.
It could be because Hamas is cornered, with no significant victories to show for the deaths of so many Palestinians over the past month, and with soured relations with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
It could be a way for the terrorist organizations to show their domestic constituency they are still alive and relevant.
It could be out of frustration that the reconciliation process with Fatah has gone off the tracks. It could be to demonstrate to Israel why a hudna - a long-term cease-fire that some have reported is being discussed by Israel and Hamas through intermediaries - would be worthwhile. It could be because Islamic Jihad and Hamas simply hate Israel and want to see it destroyed and its people killed.
It could also be because Iran has an interest - as its sun appears to be sinking in the north, where its adventure in Syria is not going as well as it had hoped - to make Israel stand up and take notice in the south.
In the Mideast, everything is connected; there are few "localized incidents." Islamic Jihad is, for all intents and purposes, an Iranian franchise, heavily sponsored by the Islamic Republic and ideologically beholden to it.
Having its Gazan proxy shooting rockets at Israel, especially at a time when it seems that Iran's fortunes are waning a bit, is a way for Tehran to signal to Israel that it still has leverage.
And, after all, that is what Iran is after - leverage. That is one of the reasons it is in Syria, and why it has spent tens of billions of dollars on Hezbollah in Lebanon - to gain leverage against Israel, so that if Israel ever attacks Iran to end its nuclear program, Iran would be able to hit back extremely hard through conventional means - whether from Syria, Lebanon or Gaza.
Dangerous Escalation By Islamic Jihad Could Lead To Another Gaza War - By Yaakov Lappin - http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/images/recent/rocketmay312018.jpg
Gaza's second-largest terrorist faction, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is leading the current dangerous escalation of the security situation, which may yet escalate further, and which represents the most serious flare-up of violence since the 2014 armed conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Col. (ret.) Shay Shaul, former deputy head of the National Security Council of Israel, told JNS that PIJ could be motivated by one of two things.
The first is that the terror organization is seeking retaliation for an incident on Sunday, in which three of its members "were killed by our forces, after they conducted an attack," said Shaul.
"The more complex option is that there is an Iranian instruction to heat up the Palestinian arena, as part of the wider conflict between Iran and Israel, in which Iran is constantly absorbing strikes in Syria," he added.
Shaul said that it is too soon to know which of these is the case, adding that the way the confrontation develops will shed further light on the situation.
PIJ launched a large-scale mortar-shell attack on southern Israeli communities on Tuesday morning, two days after losing three of its armed members to an Israeli airstrike, which came in response to a gun attack on an Israel Defense Forces' unit patrolling the Gazan border.
It is this kind of escalatory dynamic that, if not checked, holds the potential to drag Gaza into a new war.
Hamas, which serves as the de facto government in Gaza and its most powerful armed force, is allowing PIJ to operate and is doing nothing to prevent this Iranian-backed force of some 10,000 armed operatives to launch waves of projectile attacks on southern Israeli communities.
"In today's launches, the terror organization [PIJ] used Iran-made munitions," the IDF said in a statement.
So far, Israel has responded to these attacks by launching a wave of intensive airstrikes, hitting more than 35 enemy targets in Gaza, as well as demolishing a Hamas underground tunnel designed to both smuggle arms and enable attacks into Israeli territory.
The targets struck include military compounds, weapons-storage facilities, naval targets, and operational headquarters belonging to PIJ and Hamas.
At the same time, Israel has passed messages to Gaza's factions to calm the situation down and desist fire--or face the consequences.
The coming days will demonstrate whether this message has been received, or whether Gaza and Israel will be plunged into a new conflict just four years after the end of the last one.
Already, however, signs are emerging that the terror factions have made up their mind to escalate things in an unusual manner. By targeting civilians, including children on their way to kindergarten, PIJ knowingly forced Israel into a stringent military response. By continuing to fire throughout the day, PIJ is sending the message that it is not backing down.
'Feels as if they are stepping things up'
Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad, one of the founders of the security coordination between the IDF and the Palestinian Authority, said PIJ and Hamas have been engaged in a struggle and competition over prestige and funds. PIJ, for its part, is concerned with maintaining a good image in front of the Iranians, he said.
Iran, he added, "is seeking to activate organizations, whether in Yemen, the Golan Heights or in Gaza."
PIJ is older than Hamas, established in 1981 with the direct backing of Iran two years after the Islamic revolution, explained Elad. When it was first set up, the organization was named after Iran's first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, he added, before it was criticized for being too Iran-oriented as a Sunni organization. It then changed its name to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The group's founders included Palestinian intellectuals like Fathi Shaqaqi (assassinated in Malta in 1995), and current leader Ramadan Shalah, who is based in Damascus, Syria.
"Hamas's ties with Iran are artificial, motivated by financial interest. But PIJ's connection to Iran is established, older and more significant," said Elad. "Hence, when Iran decides which organization to activate, PIJ is more available. There are internal struggles in Gaza; Hamas does not want to ignite the region. But in recent days, I can't say why, it seems to have allowed PIJ to escalate."
"When I listen to Shalah and to PIJ's spokespeople in Gaza, it feels as if they are stepping things up. They are allowing themselves to escalate," he added.
Meanwhile, the IDF said in its statement that it "is prepared for a wide variety of scenarios."
Iran's Fingerprints All Over Gaza Rocket Campaign Against Israel - Aaron Klein - http://www.breitbart.com/author/aaron-klein/
The sudden, massive barrage of potentially deadly rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip is a transparent attempt by Iran to utilize its Gaza proxies to advance Iran's own aims inside Syria.
Notably, the attacks from Gaza were reportedly carried out in large part by the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, which could not possibly have launched a rocket campaign of that magnitude against the Jewish state without a greenlight from their controllers in Tehran. Hamas took joint responsibility for the attacks, but according to numerous sources, Gaza's Islamist rulers were not the ringleaders.
The rare barrage saw an estimated 180 projectiles fired into Israel within 24 hours, including mass produced Iranian shells that the Israel Defense Forces say were smuggled into Gaza. One of the rockets hit an Israeli kindergarten before schoolkids were due to arrive.
The Jerusalem Post reported on the extent of the attacks:
Three soldiers and several civilians were wounded by the Gazan salvos and evacuated to a hospital. One soldier was moderately wounded in his legs, while the other two sustained light injuries, the army said.
Earlier in the day, a man was lightly wounded in the head by mortar-shell fragments. Another man in Sderot suffered bruises while running for shelter, and another two suffered from shock. One Israeli was lightly wounded by the morning mortar barrage and was taken to Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba in light condition with a shrapnel wound to his hand.
At least 25 mortars from the barrages launched in the morning were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system, the IDF said. Several others struck open areas.
Israel struck back by targeting dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror installations in Gaza. An Egypt-brokered ceasefire appeared to have taken effect by Wednesday evening in Israel.
Islamic Jihad initially claimed the barrage was "revenge" for the IDF's elimination of three of its terrorists who were killed while attempting a border attack earlier this week. Putting aside the distorted logic of "revenge" for an attack that Islamic Jihad itself initiated, the Iran-backed terrorist group's excuse simply doesn't fly. The sheer volume of the projectile attacks - the largest volley since the 2014 Israel-Gaza War - was too great for a tit-for-tat "revenge" exchange. The purpose was pure escalation.
IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis pointed a finger at Iran while stopping short of directly blaming the mullahs. "The Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization is a terrorist organization that is based on Iranian ideology and funding, and today it used Iranian-made weapons," he said.
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former director-general of Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry and former chief of the research division in Military Intelligence, went further, saying the attacks were "encouraged by the Iranians."
There can be little doubt that the attacks were directed by Iran, which stands to gain the most from the attacks. It is in the strategic interests of Hamas to avoid a larger confrontation with the IDF. Hamas, which has reportedly been attempting for months to secure a long-term ceasefire, cannot afford another costly war with Israel. Already the terrorist organization is teetering on the brink after its border riots failed to achieve much, and there is widespread and growing anger in Gaza over the territory's all but collapsed economy. However, since Hamas is cash-strapped and needs Iranian patronage, it wouldn't dare oppose Iran's short-term designs to heat up Israel's southern border.
Iran has been humiliated and strategically devastated by Israel's repeated strikes against Iran-run military bases in Syria, and has been feeling the pressure.
Today, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman is on his way to Moscow amid widespread reports that Israel and Russia are finalizing a deal that would see Iran-backed forces removed from the area of Israel's border with Syria. If the deal is finalized, Iran would lose its foothold along the border, positions that have been the source of one of Tehran's main threats against the Jewish state. Iran could be using the Gaza card as a pressure point to secure more from the negotiations.
Iran has been suffering on other fronts. One report claimed that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has restricted the Iranian military from using the regime's air force hangers for fear of further Israeli strikes. Regardless of the accuracy of that report, the Iranians are clearly desperate to secure their remaining positions in Syria following scores of major Israeli bombing raids.
The IDF released satellite photos showing the devastation its warplanes wreaked on Iranian bases during the bombing campaign earlier this month that marked the largest IDF action inside Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This after Iranian forces in Syria fired a volley of around 20 rockets aimed at IDF positions on the Golan Heights - the first time Iran was accused of directly rocketing Israel.
There have since been more airstrikes in Syria attributed to Israel targeting Iran-run bases. The volleys started after Iran brazenly dispatched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into Israeli territory in February before it was quickly shot down by the Israeli military. An IDF investigation revealed the Iranian drone, sent from the Iran-run T-4 airbase in Syria, was carrying explosives and seemingly deployed to attack an Israeli target.
Iran doesn't want more Israeli bombardments in Syria, so it must be careful not to provoke another fierce response. Instead, Iran seems to be acting to divert Israel's attention to the Gaza Strip. It is likely heating up the southern border, perhaps even briefly, as both retaliation and a signal to Israel that Iranian proxies can be turned on at will. For now.
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