They have set up a joint military command as a powerful tool of war with red lines for generating Syrian participation in a Hizballah-Israel conflict and advance intelligence-sharing mechanisms.
In its coming issue out Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's exclusive sources detail the Syrian-Hizballah pact's twelve clauses.

We also uncover the outcome of Syrian-Hizballah meddling in Baghdad.
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A top Iranian general said Friday, Sept. 3: "Iran hopes there won't be a need to target the nuclear facility of the Zionist regime, but if there is, Israel would receive dreadful retribution."
Saturday, Sept. 4, Israeli ambassador in Washington Michael Oren reported that Iran's proxy Hizballah had positioned 16,000 rockets in South Lebanon, altogether quadrupling the number ranged on the Israeli border four years ago. They can now reach every part of Israel as far south as Eilat with enhanced precision.

Tehran and its extremist and terrorist allies, having failed to abort Barack Obama's initiative for direct Israel-Palestinian diplomacy, hit back with two belligerent steps. debkafile's sources disclose Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah have set up a joint military command for sinking Israeli warships, and Hamas has brought all 13 Palestinian rejectionist groups under one roof for a bid to intensify terror operations against Israel. They took advantage of Binyamin Netanyahu's single-minded focus on diplomacy.

Another drive-by shooting claimed by Hamas injured Moshe and Shira Morani from Maaleh Efraim at the Rimonim junction near Ramallah Wednesday night, Sept. 1. The couple saved their lives by fleeing their vehicle. debkafile: Hamas has adopted new methods for its latest campaign to sabotage peace talks: Frequent small attacks by cells of unknown perpetrators imported from Syria and Lebanon and carefully compartmentalized.

Western intelligence sources report that on August 30, Hizballah put its forces on a state of war alert and issued a partial call-up of reservists, apparently in preparation for a major attack on Israel in response to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington or during the Jewish New Year festival starting on Sept. 8. Iranian pressure for an attack has intensified in the wake of the Palestinian Hamas's drive-by murder of four Israeli civilians on a road near Hebron gave Tuesday night Aug. 31.

Hamas gunmen killed four Israeli civilians - all residents of Bet Haggai - in their car at the Beni Naim junction near Kiryat Arba Tuesday night, Aug. 31. They are identified as Yitzhak (47) and Tali (45) Ames, parents of six, Cochava Even Haim (37) and Avishai Schindler (24). Hamas warned there was worse to come. Its gunmen sprayed their vehicle with automatic fire then shot their victims at point-blank range.

Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances described in a terse official Russian eulogy as a tragic swimming accident "several days ago." No further details were provided such as where he died. Although he apparently drowned off the shore of Syrian Latakia, his body was recovered from Turkish waters ten days after he went missing.

debkafile reports Israel is believed to have revived its military option against Iran - especially since Iran activated its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr on Aug. 21, thereby placing the Obama administration under enormous pressure. On top of the dire predictions of catastrophe planted on various US op-ed pages, Obama this week sent two big guns to Jerusalem to try and check an Israel attack. A guaranteed US nuclear umbrella, nuclear attack submarines for the IDF and NATO membership may be on offer.

On Aug. 6, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress of the sale to Israel of 60 million gallons of unleaded gasoline, 284 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 100 million gallons of diesel fuel worth an estimated $2bn, saying: "Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces." debkafile notes the date: Ten days after a Japanese supertanker tanker carrying 200,000 tons of oil was attacked heading out of the Strait of Hormuz.

Two mysterious incidents are reported by debkafile in the run-up to the fueling-up of Iran's first nuclear reactor Saturday, Aug. 21. Tuesday, an Iranian F4 Phantom fighter jet was claimed by Tehran to have crashed 6 kilometers north of the Bushehr nuclear reactor in southern Iran. debkafile's military sources report it was shot down by Russian-made TOR-M1 air-missile defense batteries guarding the reactor. Aug.1, three unidentified drones slammed into its dome killing five people.