Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, while in Shanghai, faced a sharp dressing-down from President Vladimir Putin Monday, May 6 and a warning that further Israeli attacks on Damascus would not be tolerated.  Putin said highly advanced Russian weapons, including S-300 air defense systems, would be supplied at speed to Syria. 

Syria's Faisal Mekdad said the strike at Syria overnight Sunday, May 5, represented a "declaration of war" by Israel.  Russia Today claimed killed at least 300 members of the Syrian Army’s 501st Unit. debkafile: This unit operates the Mt. Qassioun chemical weapon facility.

Israeli rockets early Sunday, May 5, struck the Jamraya military research center just north of Damascus, causing powerful explosions. debkafile: The Israeli operation in Syria is ongoing as the Syrian army continues to pass Scud D and Fateh-110 missiles to Hizballah units fighting in Syria.

In a striking reversal, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in Abdu Dhabi Thursday, April 25, that US intelligence now believes the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against its own people.

The Israeli Air Force, deployed densely over Syria’s borders with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon to guard against Assad’s promised payback for the IAF’s air strike against Jamraya on Jan. 30 and block the transfer of Hizballah’s advanced weapons to Lebanon, is also in position as potential game changer in the contest between the Syrian army and rebels. Assad is scheming how to move the weapons without evoking an attack, wherea the rebels plan to provoke an Israel-Syrian clash for an opportunity to ride into Damascus.

The Syrian and Israeli armies have been on a high state of preparedness for two months ready a) for Assad to pay Israel back for its attack and b) for Israel to strike weapons transfers to Hizballah in Lebanon. Israel meanwhile imposes no-fly zones over three Syrian borders.

Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has ordered the resumption of weapons transfers to the Lebanese Hizballah, debkafile reports exclusively.  He gave this assurance to Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalilee when they met Sunday, Feb. 3,  four days after Israel’s reported air strike on the Jamraya military complex near Damascus. Israel is anticipating tricks for smuggling the hardware across to Hizballah by sending round-the-clock air force patrols over the Lebanese-Syrian border for monitoring traffic and exercising control.

The Syrian government stated Wednesday night, Jan. 30 that the Israeli Air Force planes had struck an arms depot at Jamaraya near Damascus leaving dead and wounded and damaging military vehicles. There was no Israeli air strike on a Hizballah arms convoy, said the statement from Damascus in response to earlier reports that Israeli air sorties Wednesday had destroyed Hizballah missile and arms convoys ready to cross from Syria into Lebanon. No comment from Israel.

Missile alert sirens sounded across Greater Tel Aviv Saturday, Nov. 17, before an explosion caused by Iron Dome’s interception of one of the two rockets incoming from the Gaza Strip against Israel’s largest conurbation for the third day in a row. The second rocket landed harmlessly on open ground.
Hamas claimed to have launched Iran-made Fajr-5 long-range missile against Tel Aviv. The Iron Dome anti-missile battery was deployed for the first time in Greater Tel Aviv that morning,

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.

The latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly, out last Friday, reveals the unique features of the unmanned Iranian stealth flying vehicle which Israel shot down last Friday. Learn about the haste of US drone, electronic and cyber engineers to find out what secrets the Iranians pirated from the US RQ-170 captured last year and how they were applied.
Along with this rare exclusive was the disclosure of French President Francois Hollande’s resolve to lead a NATO revolt against Obama’s Syrian policy.
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Israeli intelligence and air force waged a cyber battle Saturday, Oct. 6 with unidentified parties, most likely Hizballah or Iran, which sent a satellite-guided unmanned helicopter into Israeli air space through the Mediterranean.  debkafile reports exclusively: For 30 minutes, control of the helicopter swung back and forth between Israeli cyber operators and unknown agents over southern Israel. Finally, four Israeli F-16 fighters shot the trespasser down, the while Israeli cyber experts tried to identify its satellite controller.

The special report commissioned by the Congressional research center on a possibly Israel strike against Iran has some spectacular new findings which debunk the Obama administration’s conventional wisdom on Israel’s capacity. For instance, Israel would only need one-third of its air force to strike Iran.

Israel has developed an improved precision, bunker-burrowing weapon which Israeli Military Industries (IMI) unveiled on March 6 at peak US-Israel friction over a strike against Iran. The 500-pound MPR-500 is an electro-optical bomb that can penetrate double-reinforced concrete walls or floors without breaking apart.  “The lethality, precision… and relatively low weight of the new weapon,” say its manufacturers, “enable its use against multiple targets in a single pass.”  The MPR-500 bridges a gap between the US 250-pound US GBU-39 and the 5,000-pound GBU-28 super-bunker buster.

After an extensive search, the bodies were found in the Ramon Crater, southern Israel, of Maj. Amihai Itkis, 28, from Sde Warburg and Maj. Emanuel Levy, 30, from Maale Adummim, the pilot and navigator whose F16I crashed Wednesday night during a dogfight exercise. The accident is initially thought to have been caused by a miscalculation by the air crew rather than a technical fault. The other F16I planes taking part in the exercise were grounded.