Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed Saturday night, May 25, to expand his movement’s military role in the Syrian civil war and muster tens of thousands of volunteers. Al Qaeda fighters were streaming into Syria, and Israel planned more attacks, he warned. debkafile: His words denote Hizballah's plunge deeper into the Syrian war and an oath to fight for Assad to the end.  The issue is no longer, as Israeli officials insist, keeping advanced Iranian weapons out of Hizballah's hands, but its freeing Syrian forces to fight Israel.

Israeli leaders play down the approaching menace of the Syrian-Hizballah war of attrition backed by Tehran. Bt Prime Minister Netanyahu has set up a war room in his Jerusalem office for keeping track.

Tuesday, May 21, after an exchange of fire on the Golan, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: “Last night we destroyed a Syrian army position which fired on an Israeli patrol.” Damascus earlier took responsibility for the attack and threatened to strike back for Israeli reprisals. 

In its air strike on Syria on May 3, Israel fired stand-off missiles, a tactic for avoiding sending planes into Syrian airspace. This tactic, which Moscow judged to be the precursor for an attack on Iran, will be thwarted by the 200-kilometer range of the S-300 anti-air missiles in Syria.

John Kerry finds the ground slipping from under his feet as he pursues Middle East peace initiatives on behalf of a boss beleaguered by scandal.

Russia has claimed it has penetrated the US missile shield and it no longer poses a military threat to Moscow. If this is true, Israel and the Gulf emirates are exposed to Iranian ballistic missiles unless because their early warning systems are integrated in the US network.

As the Syrian army makes further gains against rebel forces, debkafile reports Hizballah and Israel appear to be in the process of relocating their lines of confrontation from Lebanon to Syria. An Israeli enclave is forming around the IDF medical facilities on the Golan, while Hizballah is taking command of three pockets.

US officials recently gave a video demonstration of an upgraded bunker buster bomb able to destroy Iran’s Fordo underground enrichment plant - in a bid to dissuade Israel from a unilateral attack on Iran, while thousands of Basij militiamen arrived in Syria from Iran.

The big news on Syria this week is the surreptitious pact forged in Beirut by Russia’s visiting deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov witgh Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah which covers their collaboration in the war for keeping Bashar Assad in power and guarantees Hizballah a Russian shield against a potential Israeli ...

US Secretary of State John Kerry has a novel plan for peace talks on two simultaneous tracks – Israel versus the Palestinians and, for the first time in its history, Israel facing the Arab League, debkafile reports exclusively. After obtaining Arab approval for “minor border amendments,” Kerry says more work remains to be done before talks.

President Barack Obama faced a tough decision Friday, April 26, after warning that Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be “game changer.” His failure to take firm action would render the US president’s red lines meaningless. Israel is concerned by the application of this loss of credibility to a nuclear Iran.

The incoming US troops are to shield Jordan and preserve the throne against Syrian attack, al Qaeda incursions or domestic upheavals, as well opening up an option for military intervention in the Syrian civil war. Israel is actively involved in the military boost for the Jordanian king.

Under the plan, which Barack Obama has approved, Israeli military and intelligence officers will establish, arm, fund and train local militias to police the two enclaves under their command

Pushed hard by the US, Turkish officials opened discussions with Israel on the revival of their former military and intelligence collaboration, especially in relation to the Syrian conflict on which they agreed to pool intelligence and work together in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Al Qaeda’s rocket attack on Eilat from Sinai caught Israeli, US and Egyptian intelligence nappy. Israel is getting its act together with new units to man the three borders facing the new al Qaeda presence in Sinai, Syria and Iraq.

After the Damascus units, the Syrian army has distributed protective suits to units in southern Syria and the Golan, amid evidence that chemical weapons have already been used in the Damascus region. As signs abound of both sides’ readiness for chemical warfare, Israeli troops have started handing out atropine injections and IVs against sarin and VX nerve agents to rebels fighting Syrian troops on the Golan and along the Israel-Syrian border - Israel’s first intervention in the Syrian conflict to date.

Korean tensions again shot up Tuesday, April 9, with Pyongyang’s warning of a ballistic missile launch Wednesday at the Pacific and advice to foreigners to leave the South in case of war. In Tehran, the president unveiled two additional uranium-processing facilities at the central town of Ardakan, 120 km from large uranium mines in Saghand. Iran now threatens to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty and so, debkafile reports, carry on developing nuclear weapons away from international oversight like its North Korean partner.

When he visits Ramallah Monday, April 8, US Secretary of State John Kerry will try and talk Mahmoud Abbas) out of launching his “civil intifada (uprising)” against Israel without guns on April 15,  the eve of Israel’s national Day of Remembrance for its War Dead and Independence celebrations. debkafile:  Taking a leaf out of Yasser Arafat’s textbook,  Abbas plans to accompany the peace talks Kerry is trying to set up next month with Palestinian unrest.  But there is no guarantee that his intifada won't explode into violence.

As Israeli offshore gas came on stream, the jockeying for a stake was in full spate. Netanyahu is believed to have been hustled by Washington into picking Turkey as Israel’s energy partner rather than Russia.

Borrowing from Yasser Arafat’s textbook, Mahmoud Abbas plans to stage the third intifada – he promises the Americans a civil campaign without guns – to precede and accompany his first talks with Israel in two years to take place in mid-May under the US aegis.