Important Takeaways:
- Within the last month, nearly all major Western and international airlines have announced suspensions and cancelations of their service to both Tel Aviv and Beirut. This also as foreign nationals have scrambled to get out of both countries, given ongoing fears of the outbreak of bigger regional war involving Iran and Hezbollah attacking Israel.
- While American Airlines was among the many carriers announcing temporary pauses in service, it has just issued a surprising lengthy extension to this suspension in flights. On Friday, the Fort Worth-based company announced it doesn’t plan to resume flights to Tel Aviv until April 2025.
- This is a longer cancelation than any other airline, including in all of Europe, so far as a result of the Gaza war and related fears of regional escalation and spillover.
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Important Takeaways:
- Along with a surge of combat aircraft and warships, President Biden dispatched three of his top Mideast advisers, including CIA Director Bill Burns, to the region this week to try to delay Iranian and Hezbollah military retaliation against Israel, and to use that borrowed time to craft an offramp from the collision course that ultimately risks a regional war that could draw in U.S. forces.
- But it is unclear how long Iran and its proxies may hold off. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that an Iranian attack could come with “little or no warning, and certainly could come in the coming days.”
- But multiple sources in the region told CBS News that Iran’s government continues to internally debate whether to use military force as it did on April 13, when it launched hundreds of drones and missiles towards Israel, or whether to conduct a covert intelligence operation.
- The U.S. assesses that Hezbollah could launch an attack with little to no warning.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel is preparing for a large-scale military attack from Iran, defense minister Yoav Gallant, has told his US counterpart.
- It comes as the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has ordered a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine to the Middle East and is telling the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area, as well
- The US and other allies continue to push for Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire agreement over the war in Gaza that could help calm soaring tensions in the region.
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Important Takeaways:
- 5.4-magnitude earthquake in Syria and Lebanon felt by northern Israel residents
- Arabic media says a 5.4-magnitude earthquake just shook Lebanon and Syria, with the epicenter being in the latter country.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani on Sunday that the Chinese Communist Party supports Iran “defending its sovereignty, security and national dignity” prior to an expected Iranian attack on Israel.
- In the context of highly elevated tensions between Israel and Iran, exacerbated by Iran’s belligerent remarks, the Chinese government moved to lend its support to the world’s premier sponsor of terrorism, which is believed to spend $100 million a year on Palestinian terrorists such as Hamas.
- “China supports Iran in defending its sovereignty, security and national dignity in accordance with the law, and supports the Iranian side in its efforts to maintain regional peace and stability,” Wang reportedly told Bagheri, according to the Chinese government newspaper Global Times.
- “Wang said that China has always upheld justice in Middle East affairs and supported all parties in safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests,” the newspaper continued, “especially in supporting the restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians.”
- On Haniyeh’s killing, Wang reportedly said that China “firmly opposes and strongly condemns the act of assassination and considers it a serious violation of the basic norms of international relations.”
- Wang further described the incident with Haniyeh as “a grave infringement on Iran’s sovereignty, security and dignity, and a direct undermining of the cease-fire negotiation process in Gaza, as well as an impact on regional peace and stability.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Twenty miles north of Jerusalem, five Texas Red Angus cows chew on grass, oblivious to the fact that their mere presence in Israel was cited by Hamas as a reason for its massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7. The terror organization’s spokesperson says the cows were a justification for the attack, stating that bringing them to Israel was “an aggression” based on a “detestable religious myth.”
- In Ancient Shiloh, located in Samaria, also referred to as the West Bank, Moriyah Shapira proudly showcases the red heifers, which were brought to Israel after a long, tedious search. The animals comply with a very specific set of characteristics outlined in verses in the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament.
- The Hebrew Bible states that red heifers are necessary for a purification ceremony to enter the Temple or its portable predecessor, the Tabernacle. Moses performed a ceremony with red heifer ashes that were used for the Tabernacle in the Sinai before the Jews entered Israel after his death.
- Hamas has called the importation of the red cows an act of “aggression” because it falsely believes that the presence of the cows may ignite the rebuilding of the Temple, which the group thinks would end Arab control of the Temple Mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli troops launched a new assault Friday into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire deal.
- Officials from Israel and the United States have said they believe Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ newly named top leader and one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, could be hiding in tunnels under Khan Younis.
- The military said Friday its warplanes struck 30 Hamas targets in the city, including fighters and weapons storage sites. It said troops were searching for Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure while engaging in combat “above and below ground.”
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed Thursday that it would send negotiators to talks that mediators have called for on Aug. 15, to be held in either Qatar’s capital of Doha or Egypt’s capital of Cairo.
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Important Takeaways:
- Netanyahu warns of preemptive attack as Tehran speaks of Israel’s annihilation
- “We are prepared both defensively and offensively,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated during a visit Wednesday to the IDF induction base at Tel Hashomer.
- “I know that the citizens of Israel are concerned, and I ask one thing of you: Be patient and level-headed,” he said. “We are striking our enemies and are determined to defend ourselves.”
- Egypt instructed all of its airlines to avoid Iranian airspace for a three-hour period in the early morning on Thursday.
- An Egyptian official was quoted by the state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV as saying that the Iranian authorities said to avoid flying in Iranian airspace because of “military exercises.”
- Many airlines are revising their schedules to avoid Iranian and Lebanese airspace while also calling off flights to Israel and Lebanon
- On Sunday, Jordanian authorities asked all airlines landing at its airports to carry 45 minutes’ worth of extra fuel.
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Important Takeaways:
- As Iran threatens to respond to the suspected Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the regional militias that the Islamic Republic has armed for decades could play a role in any attack.
- Iran relies on militias as an asymmetric threat to squeeze both Israel and the United States.
- Iran’s arming began in earnest in the 1980s with Shiite forces in Lebanon fighting against Israel. They became the Hezbollah militia.
- The arming expanded with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a longtime foe of Tehran.
- Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is one of the most powerful armed groups in the Middle East.
- The militias in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” include: Iraqi militias, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian militant forces, Yemen’s Houthi rebels
- The Houthis follow the Shiite Zaydi faith, a branch of Shiite Islam that is almost exclusively found in Yemen. The rebels claim they’ve recruited 200,000 additional fighters since launching their attacks.
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Important Takeaways:
- Middle East crisis looks set to explode into all out war as America threatens retaliation for rocket blast that hit soldiers in Iraq – as military scrambles destroyers and fighter jets to Israel
- American defense officials are planning for the crisis in the Middle East to become even worse following a rocket blast that injured several soldiers at a military base in Iraq Monday.
- The base in the west of the country was targeted by two Soviet-made Katyusha rockets amid soaring tensions in the Middle East – with Iran threatening to strike Israel as early as Monday night.
- Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Monday night the US was deploying additional fighters, carrier strike groups, ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the region, as Israel awaits retaliation from Iran for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
- ‘These posture adjustments add to the broad range of capabilities the US military maintains in the region, including the USS Wasp amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit operating in the eastern Mediterranean,’ a DOD spokesperson said.
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