debkafile reports hundreds of UN Disengagement and Observers Force (UNDOF) soldiers - Indian, Austrian and Filipino - in trucks and APCs in full flight from the Syrian side of Golan into Israel early Monday, March 11. They were urged to leave by their commanders, who said “We can no longer vouch for your safety.” Syrian rebel Islamists are feared vying with Hizballah to seize control of the abandoned 8-sq.km Syrian-Israel separation zone while the IDF is massing reinforcements to keep them out.

When Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5, he heard for the first time in years American criticism of the Israeli army for under-reacting – in this case to the chemical weapons threat emanating from Syria. Israel was also berated for under-estimating this menace and failing to take into account the likely need to send troops into Syria. Barak received official US confirmation that chemical weapons had reached HIzballah.

Bashar Assad has evacuated most of the troops of his 5th Army Division from their permanent bases on the Golan opposite Israeli forces and transferred them along with their artillery to Damascus, debkafile’s military sources report. This step was intended by Assad to reinforce the defense of his capital, while at the same time providing the al Qaeda-linked fighters in rebel ranks direct access to the Israel border. In no time, the jihadists are expected to turn their guns and missiles on Israel.

At least eight officers were killed in a mysterious twin-car bomb explosion Friday, Jan. 25 at Syrian regional intelligence headquarters in Quneitra on Golan Heights. Some of the fatalities were Syrian, but Western intelligence sources disclosed to debkafile that most were high-ranking Iranian Al Qods Brigades and Hizballah officers. The incident sent tensions shooting up on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria and may delay Bashar Assad’s all-out offensive against Syrian rebels - planned with Iranian aid.

Another shell landed near an Israeli position on the Golan Monday, Nov. 12, less than 24 hours after Damascus promised to silence the mortar battery responsible for “stray shells.” The promise came after Israel fired a Tamuz guided missile into Syria as a warning shot.  Monday, Israeli tank fire knocked out the Syrian mortar battery. debkafile: Bashar Assad is provoking the Netanyahu government in the light of its restraint against heavy Palestinian missile fire from Gaza.

Israel’s deteriorating security situation has erupted simultaneously on two fronts. Sunday, Nov. 11, the IDF fired a Tamuz precision guided missile at a Syrian mortar position as a warning after a stray mortar hit an Israel Golan defense post. It was the fourth incident in 10 days. On the Gaza front, the Palestinians shot Grad missiles at Beersheba – one was intercepted by Iron Dome – after shooting 60 missiles in less than 24 hours. They injured four Israeli soldiers Saturday, four civilians Sunday – apparent victims of Katyushas supplied by Hizballah.

Israel has given Damascus a final warning that a military response would be forthcoming if its fighter aircraft infringed the airspace over the Golan demilitarized zones, debkafile reports. The warning, further ratcheting up border tension, was relayed through the UN Disengagement Observer Force in an effort to contain any spillover of the Syrian civil war across Israel’s border. It applied to any ordnance flying across the border and the entry of Syrian forces to the Golan demilitarized zones.

Israeli reservists drafted at no notice, Air Force, Central Command and other IDF units were flown to Israel’s northern Golan border early Wednesday, Sept. 19, for a surprise IDF exercise under the codename “National Asset.” Since early September, the Israeli Defense Forces have been in the midst of preparations which have the appearance of readiness for a real war rather than an exercise. Those preparations peaked Wednesday under the codename which indicated its goal: the defense of national assets.

Israeli border lookout points report that in the last two days, large groups of armed Syrian soldiers have been seen deserting their Golan bases and prowling for water and food, after their regular supplies were stopped and redirected to units fighting anti-Assad rebels. They don’t ask Israeli soldiers for food, but parcels thrown across the fence vanish in a trice. Meanwhile, gangs, some local, some from Jordan and Iraq, are raiding the unguarded Syrian facilities on looting expeditions and stripping them of equipment.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's security machine is creaking judging by its failure to raise thousands of Palestinian and Syrian volunteers to brave the Israeli troops manning the Golan Sunday, June 5. debkafile's intelligence sources reveal that even the few hundred willing to turn out demanded an exorbitant fee: $1,000 for every demonstrator who cut a piece of razor wire from the Israeli border fence and $10,000 for the families of volunteers shot by Israeli troops before they reached their goal.

Israel border units went on night alert Sunday, June 5 after a day spent beating back hundreds of Syrian-Palestinians attempting to storm the Golan border. Syrian TV reported a sit-in protest, claiming Israeli fire killed 20 people and injured 150 injured in round after round of assaults. Twice they breached the fortified border fence at Majd al Shams and Kuneitra but refrained from stepping across. Israeli troops arrested three would-be intruders. Sunday night, Israeli troops were attacked from behind by Majd al-Shams residents hurling rocks. 

Syria's Bashar Assad and Hizballah had more than one objective in bussing thousands of demonstrators to Israel's Golan border Nakba Day, Sun. May 15. One was to show they could easily capture the enclave from Israel and the other, to put a spoke in Egypt's wheel for transferring Hamas' command centers from Damascus to the Gaza Strip. Israeli policymakers failed to appreciate this intelligence and so the IDF's Northern Command officers were taken off guard by the storming of Majd al-Shams.

On Sunday, May 15, Israel's enemies breached three of its borders – Syrian, Lebanese and Gazan - in an operation that caught its government, army and intelligence napping. Their reaction showed them to be muddled and incapable of an organized, rational tactical response to a multiple security crisis. The blanket directive to exercise "maximum restraint,"  a weakness which Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah will have noted, paves the way for the next Syrian step – a military and terrorist offensive to "liberate the Golan."

Israeli forces on high alert for Nakba Day, Sunday, May 15, failed to seal three national borders on the Golan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against large-scale incursions. Dozens of Syrians and Hizballah invaders were able to overrun the Israeli Golan village of Majd al Shams and hoist Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square; Hizballah-sponsored Palestinian demonstrators breached the Lebanese-Israeli border and damaged IDF installations; and hundreds battered the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip.

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