ISRAEL FURIOUS THAT AMERICA TOLD THE WORLD ISRAEL STRUCK SYRIA AIRBASE

KING JESUS IS COMING FOR US ANY TIME NOW. THE RAPTURE. BE PREPARED TO GO.

MUSLIM NATIONS (SLAUGHTERED BY NUKES FOR COMING AGAINST ISRAEL)

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:TOBOLSK)
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY) of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.(AFRICAN MUSLIMS,SUDAN,TUNESIA ETC)
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages;(ISRAEL) I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil,(OIL IS IN SPOIL) and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

EZEKIEL 39:1-8,11-18
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back,(RUSSIA-ARAB MUSLIM ISRAEL HATERS) and leave but the sixth part of thee,(5/6TH OR 300 MILLION DEAD RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS I BELIEVE) and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog (RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS) a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers (EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN JORDAN VALLEY) on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog (RUSSIAN) and all his multitude:(ARAB/MUSLIM HORDE) and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.(BURIEL SITE OF THE 300 MILLION,RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS)
12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.(OF ISRAEL)
13 Yea, all the people of the land (OF ISRAEL) shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I (GOD-JESUS) shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD.
14 And they shall sever out men of continual employment,(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB EXPERTS) passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search.
15 And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it,(WON'T TOUCH IT) till the buriers have buried it (PROPERLY) in the valley of Hamongog.(RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS NEW BURIEL SITE)(EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN THE JORDAN VALLEY)
16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.(OF THE ISRAEL-GOD HATERS)
17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl,(500 MILLION MIGRATING BIRDS THREW ISRAEL EVERY SPRING,FALL) and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.(OF THE RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIM ARMIES)
18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19 And ye (MIGRATING BIRDS IN ISRAEL) shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.(RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIM ISRAEL HATERS)
20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.
21 And I (GOD-JESUS) will set my glory among the heathen,(WORLD NATIONS) and all the heathen (WORLD NATIONS) shall see my judgment that I have executed,(AGAINST ISRAELS ENEMIES) and my (GODS) hand that I have laid upon them.(ISRAELS HATER ENEMIES)

South African minister: ‘The Palestinian struggle is our struggle’

Maite Nkoana-Mashabane says ministerial visits stopped, Pretoria ‘curtailing contact’ with Jerusalem ‘regime,’ and ‘losing sleep’ over settlements

By Times of Israel staff November 2, 2013, 7:59 am 30

“The struggle of the people of Palestine is our struggle” and South Africa has decided to “slow down” and “curtail senior leadership contact” with the Israeli “regime,” South Africa’s International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said on Friday. Already, she said, South Africa’s government ministers do not visit Israel.“Our Palestinian friends have never asked us to disengage with Israel [through cutting diplomatic relations]. They had asked us in formal meetings to not engage with the regime,” Nkoana-Mashabane was quoted by South African website News24 as telling a Congress of South African Trade Unions international relations committee meeting on Friday. The Congress of South African Trade Unions supports a boycott of Israeli products and has in the past accused Israel of practicing apartheid.“Ministers of South Africa do not visit Israel currently. Even the Jewish Board of Deputies that we engage with here, they know why our ministers are not going to Israel,” she added.Nkoana-Mashabane further said that South Africa has ”agreed to slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with that regime until things begin to look better.”“The struggle of the people of Palestine is our struggle,” she declared.South Africa on Friday criticized Israel’s plans, announced on Tuesday, to build at least 5,000 new settlement units including some beyond the security barrier, according to reports.“That arrangement there in Palestine keeps us awake,” Nkoana-Mashabane said.“The last time I looked at the map of Palestine, I could not go to sleep. It is just dots, smaller than those of the homelands, and that broke my heart,”" she said, referring to the bantustans that existed in South Africa during the apartheid era.The meeting was also addressed by a group campaigning for the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. According to AFP, the campaign began on “October 25 at Robben Island, the former prison where anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years in jail.”South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu threw his support behind the campaign, calling for the “release of imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi and other Palestinian political prisoners,” according to News24. ”I am proud to associate myself with the global campaign for the freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and other Palestinian political prisoners,” Tutu said in a statement quoted by the website. Barghouti is serving five life terms in Israel for involvement in five second intifada-era murders.

South Africa has been a harsh critic of Israel, with prominent figures often drawing parallels between between the country’s apartheid era and Israel today, slamming Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians, and voicing support for cultural, economic and educational boycotts of Israel.

In June, the former South African ambassador to Israel accused the Jewish state of practicing apartheid and indicated that it is built on “stolen” land.

An anti-Israel rally in Johannesburg last year. (photo credit: CC BY Meraj Chhaya, Flickr)

“I have supported the struggle against Apartheid South Africa and now I cannot be a proponent of what I have witnessed in Israel, and that is, a replication of Apartheid!” Ismail Coovadia proclaimed in a letter to a group of pro-Palestinian filmmakers.That statement drew a harsh reaction from Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem, who said Coovadia was not acting like a diplomat and castigated his “uncouth” rhetoric. He served as ambassador until December 2012.In 2010, after the Mavi Marmara affair — when Israeli forces raided a Turkish boat seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, leading to the deaths of nine Turkish citizens — South Africa temporarily recalled its ambassador and summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest the incident.

Israel ‘furious’ with White House for leak on Syria strike

Jerusalem considers administration’s confirmation of Israeli air attack on missile stores to be ‘scandalous’; TV analyst warns US risks starting ‘major flare-up’

By Times of Israel staff and Yifa Yaakov November 1, 2013, 11:20 pm 341

Israel is fuming with the White House for confirming that it was the Israeli Air Force that struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia on Wednesday, hitting weaponry that was set to be transferred to Hezbollah.Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the strike, one of half a dozen such attacks widely ascribed to Israel in recent months, but an Obama administration official told CNN on Thursday that Israeli warplanes had indeed attacked the Syrian base, and that the target was “missiles and related equipment” set for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.Israel’s Channel 10 TV on Friday night quoted Israeli officials branding the American leak as “scandalous.” For Israel’s ally to be acting in this way was “unthinkable,” the officials were quoted as saying.A second TV report, on Israel’s Channel 2, said the leak “came directly from the White House,” and noted that “this is not the first time” that the administration has compromised Israel by leaking information on such Israeli Air Force raids on Syrian targets.It said some previous leaks were believed to have come from the Pentagon, and that consideration had been given at one point to establishing a panel to investigate the sources.Channel 2′s military analyst, Roni Daniel, said the Obama administration’s behavior in leaking the information was unfathomable.Daniel noted that by keeping silent on whether it carried out such attacks, Israel was maintaining plausible deniability, so that Syria’s President Bashar Assad did not feel pressured to respond to the attacks.But the US leaks “are pushing Assad closer to the point where he can’t swallow these attacks, and will respond.” This in turn would inevitably draw further Israeli action, Daniel posited, and added bitterly: “Then perhaps the US will clap its hands because it will have started a very major flare-up.”

Satellite footage of alleged missile base in Latakia, Syria (photo credit: Wikimapia)

Channel 2 speculated that the US might have leaked word of Israel’s attack as a warning to Israel to desist from such actions. Alternately, it might be seeking to signal that it was part of the tough policy designed to prevent a flow of sophisticated weaponry to Assad. But these and other possible explanations simply didn’t justify the leak, which the TV report described as “illogical” and “foolish.”Jerusalem’s reported anger with the White House over the leak coincided with efforts by the Administration to assure Israel that it is holding to a tough line on Syria and in the effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, and is maintaining its robust military partnership with Israel.On Thursday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, reiterated America’s commitment to thwarting Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions. “Let me be absolutely clear: President Obama is determined to ensure that the Islamic Republic does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” Power said at the Anti-Defamation League’s centennial conference held Thursday in a Manhattan hotel. Addressing the subject of nuclear negotiations with Iran, she said the Obama administration considers a bad deal worse than no deal and that the administration will not accept a bad deal.Later Thursday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told the same gathering that the US is testing Iran’s diplomatic intentions but remains “clear-eyed” on Iran’s role as a state-sponsor of terror and exporter of extremism.

Hagel also announced that the US will fast-track delivery of six advanced Osprey helicopter-airplanes to Israel. “Israel will get six V-22s out of the next order to go on the assembly line, and they will be compatible with other [Israeli defense] capabilities,” Hagel said, anticipating delivery in two years time. NBC News said Israel requested that the delivery of the Ospreys be expedited because of threats from Iran and Syria.

Hagel added that “the Israeli and American defense relationship is stronger than ever, and it will continue to strengthen.”Nonetheless, the ADL’s national director Abraham Foxman, who has close ties to the Israeli leadership, told the conference that American wariness of foreign military involvement is making it seem “weak and retreating.” In unusually bitter comments, Foxman declared that, “The combination of America’s unsatisfactory involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the financial crisis at home, have generated a broader opposition to American military involvement overseas.”

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Citing among other things the recent congressional resistance to authorizing a strike on Syria, Foxman said: “America is being seen as weak and etreating… The world looks at our choices, looks at our public opinion polls, looks at congressional reactions, looks at the paralysis in Washington on budgeting matters and wonders.”The perception of weakness could harm US efforts to get Iran to end its nuclear push, Foxman warned. “I hope that we get our act together.”Israel has been accused of striking Syrian sites several times in the recent past, including in January and May of this year.The Associated Press contributed to this report.

PLO Official: Peace Negotiators Didn't Resign

Senior PLO official denies reports that peace negotiators have resigned over Israel's "settlement construction."-By Elad Benari, Canada-First Publish: 11/1/2013, 10:33 PM-Israelnationalnews

Saeb Erakat-AFP/File

A senior official in the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) denied on Friday reports that peace negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh had submitted their resignation to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef told the Ma'an news agency that reports of the negotiators resigning were not accurate.On Thursday, sources told Ma'an that Erekat and Shtayyeh had presented their resignation to Abbas, supposedly because of Israel's recent announcement that it would promote 1,500 new homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, often erroneously described by anti-Israeli media as an "illegal settlement in east Jerusalem".Informed sources had said that the resignation came in protest of Israel's “non-compliance” with the PA’s demands.Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki told Ma'an that an emergency meeting had been called for next Saturday to "discuss the developments."A United States government official said Friday that PA officials informed the U.S. of their commitment to negotiations with Israel for the agreed upon timetable of nine months.The PA has been critical of Israel’s announcement that it plans to build in Ramat Shlomo. On Wednesday, a spokesman for Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said Israel’s move "destroys the peace process and is a message to the international community that Israel is a country that does not respect international law."Plans to build the homes in Ramat Shlomo were made public almost immediately after Israel freed 26 terrorist murderers as a “gesture” to Abbas in order to continue the renewed peace talks.The PA was informed prior to the latest round of talks that Israel will continue to build in areas which even the PA has accepted in previous negotiations will be within Israeli borders. Nevertheless, Palestinian Authority officials and their supporters have expressed outrage at Israeli plans to build.Responding on Thursday night to reports of the PA team’s resignation, a senior Israeli official said the PA was putting on “a show” in advance of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to the region next week."The Secretary of State will land in the region next week and the Palestinian Authority is trying to pressure Israel into additional gestures," the official said.(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

In midst of Syrian war, giant Jesus statue arises

Improbably, under cover of truce, 12-meter figure installed on mountain overlooking ancient pilgrim route to Jerusalem

By Diaa Hadid November 2, 2013, 3:33 pm 0-The Times of Israel

This Oct. 14, 2013 photo provided by the St. Paul's and St. George's Foundation shows workers preparing to install a statue of Jesus on Mount Sednaya, Syria. (Photo credit: AP/Samir El-Gadban, St. Paul's and St. George's Foundation)

BEIRUT (AP) — In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country’s civil war.

Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient times. The statue is 12.3 meters (40 feet) tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 32 meters (105 feet), organizers of the project estimate.That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on Oct. 14 is remarkable. The project took eight years and was set back by the civil war that followed the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad.Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and the statue’s safety is by no means guaranteed. It stands among villages where some fighters, linked to al-Qaeda, have little sympathy for Christians.So why put up a giant statue of Christ in the midst of such setbacks and so much danger? Because “Jesus would have done it,” organizer Samir al-Ghadban quoted a Christian church leader as telling him.The backers’ success in overcoming the obstacles shows the complexity of civil war, where sometimes despite the atrocities the warring parties can reach short-term truces.Al-Ghadban said that the main armed groups in the area — Syrian government forces, rebels and the local militias of Sednaya, the Christian town near the statue site — halted fire while organizers set up the statue, without providing further details.Rebels and government forces occasionally agree to cease-fires to allow the movement of goods. They typically do not admit to having truces because that would tacitly acknowledge their enemies.It took three days to raise the statue. Photos provided by organizers show it being hauled in two pieces by farm tractors, then lifted into place by a crane. Smaller statues of Adam and Eve stand nearby.The project, called “I Have Come to Save the World,” is run by the London-based St. Paul and St. George Foundation, which Al-Ghadban directs. It was previously named the Gavrilov Foundation, after a Russian businessman, Yuri Gavrilov.Documents filed with Britain’s Charity Commission describe it as supporting “deserving projects in the field of science and animal welfare” in England and Russia, but the commission’s accounts show it spent less than 250 pounds ($400) in the last four years.Al-Ghadban said most of the financing came from private donors, but did not supply further details.Russians have been a driving force behind the project — not surprising given that the Kremlin is embattled Assad’s chief ally, and the Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties. Al-Ghadban, who spoke to The Associated Press from Moscow, is Syrian-Russian and lives in both countries.

Al-Ghadban said he began the project in 2005, hoping the statue would be an inspiration for Syria’s Christians. He said he was inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s towering Christ the Redeemer statue.

He commissioned an Armenian sculptor, but progress was slow.By 2012, the statue was ready, but Syria was aflame, causing the project’s biggest delay, al-Ghadban said.Majority Sunni Muslims dominate the revolt, and jihadists make up some of the strongest fighting groups. Other Muslim groups along with the 10-percent Christian minority have stood largely with Assad’s government, or remained neutral, sometimes arming themselves to keep hard-line rebels out of their communities.Churches have been vandalized, priests abducted. Last month the extremists overran Maaloula, a Christian-majority town so old that some of its people still speak a language from Jesus’ time.On Tuesday a militant Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar al-Gharba, posted a YouTube video of himself smashing a blue-and-white statue of the Virgin Mary.Al-Ghadban and the project’s most important backer, Gavrilov, weighed canceling it.They consulted Syria’s Greek Orthodox Patriarch John Yaziji. It was he who told them “Jesus would have done it.”They began shipping the statue from Armenia to Lebanon. In August, while it was en route, Gavrilov, 49, suffered a fatal heart attack, al-Ghadban said.Eventually the statue reached Syria.“It was a miracle,” al-Ghadban said. “Nobody who participated in this expected this to succeed.”

Davutoglu: Turkey will never cooperate with Israel against a Muslim country

Turkish FM denies involvement in strike on Syrian airbase attributed to Jerusalem, says Ankara’s ‘issues’ with Damascus are ‘based on principle’

By Times of Israel staff November 2, 2013, 12:21 pm 13-The Times of Israel

Turkey on Saturday denied reports of its involvement in an alleged Israeli air strike on a military base in Latakia, Syria on Wednesday, which allegedly targeted “missiles and related equipment” meant for Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.Turkish Foreign Minister Agmet Davutoglu said Saturday: “There is an attempt to give the impression that Turkey has coordinated with Israel. We have issues with Syria, an issue based on a principle. But let me say it clearly: The Turkish government has never cooperated with Israel against any Muslim country, and it never will.”Davutoglu was speaking at a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif Saturday in Istanbul.The Turkish FM slammed the reports, describing them as “black propaganda.” “Those [reports] are attempts to cast a shadow on the Syrian people’s rightful struggle and Turkey’s attitude with principles. It is out of the question for us to participate in any common operation,” he was quoted by Turkish daily Hurriyet as saying.On Thursday, a report by Lebanon’s MTV Thursday cited Turkey as being behind the Wednesday attack in Syria, but subsequent reports claimed Turkey merely supplied intelligence to Israel. The Lebanese report cited Israeli officials who allegedly claimed Turkish involvement came in response to the June 2012 interception of a Turkish jet, which Syrian forces shot down. The pilots were subsequently killed.On Thursday, an Obama administration official told CNN it was Israeli warplanes that attacked the airbase in Latakia. An American security official told AP that the attack occurred in the Syrian port city of Latakia and that the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.

The Israeli government and military establishment have declined to comment, and on Friday it was reported that the government reacted with fury at the leak by the Americans.On Thursday, one Israeli official told Reuters he thought Israel had carried out the strike, but wasn’t certain. Israel has repeatedly warned that any attempt to transfer to Hezbollah chemical or other game-changing weapons would constitute a “red line” and precipitate military action.Earlier Thursday, on the heels of reports that the airbase had contained advanced, Russian-made, anti-aircraft missiles, al-Arabiya reported that Israel had attacked not one, but two targets in the civil war-torn country.Al-Arabiya’s report said two targets had been hit in Syria on Wednesday night — not just the Latakia air defense base, but a target in Damascus as well. Both targets were said to have contained shipments of Russian SA-8 anti-aircraft missiles meant for Hezbollah, which were reportedly completely destroyed.A map of the Latakia airbase posted online shows three batteries of the Russian-made surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile at the base, outside Snobar Jableh in the country’s coastal Latakia region.

Al-Arabiya quoted opposition forces as saying the base held S-125 missiles.The S-125 is especially effective against maneuverable low- to medium-altitude targets, including aircraft. The Egyptians used such missiles with some success during the War of Attrition and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and batteries used by Iraq may have knocked down coalition aircraft in the First Gulf War.The system has undergone improvements since then, but countermeasures have also progressed significantly.A massive explosion was reported at the base late Wednesday night, with some reports that it was targeted by missiles fired from the sea. The Syrian news outlet Dam Press, considered loyal to the regime of Bashar Assad, reported that the site was damaged but that there had been no injuries.Earlier on Wednesday, the Lebanese government news agency reported six Israeli aircraft flying through Lebanese airspace along the coast north of Beirut.

The coastal strip of Syria, encompassing the cities of Tartous, Latakia and Baniyas, is part of a predominantly Alawite portion of the country, which remains loyal to the Assad regime in its lengthy campaign against rebels.Israel has been accused of striking Syrian sites in the past, including in January and May this year. Israel refused to confirm the reports that it targeted weapons transfers, possibly to Hezbollah, which has remained loyal to Assad during the country’s bloody civil war.Syria is reportedly in the midst of upgrading its missile-defense system to the Russian-made S-300, a move Israel has lobbied against.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.