Thursday's dramatic announcement by the Israeli Defense Ministry that the United States gave the green light for the sale of Israeli's Arrow 3 air defense system to Germany – the largest defense export deal in the Jewish state's history – carries powerful historical messages.

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Boaz Levy, president and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, the prime contractor of the Arrow 3 system, said during a telephone press briefing, "One final sentence as a person who has led this project for so many years and as someone whose mother survived the Holocaust, this is a very important moment for me. I believe that the fact that Israelis developed a system that can protect a population from all over the world from ballistic missiles is a very important milestone. For me personally, for IAI and for Israel in general."

Arrow 3 is designed to intercept ballistic missiles in space, and it will in the coming years protect the whole of Germany from the threat of Russian missile attacks.

The Israeli Defense Ministry, German Federal Ministry of Defense, and Israel Aerospace Industries will sign the landmark $3.5 billion defense agreement in the coming weeks, and in 2025, the system will enter into initial operational status before becoming fully operational in 2030.

IAI teams will train the German Air Force on the technical aspects of operating the system. Israel Air Force representatives will also take part in the training, sharing real-world operational lessons with their German counterparts. Later on, German personnel will take over the training programs.

As part of the agreement, IAI's American subsidiary, Stark Aerospace, will continue to produce half of all components for Germany's Arrow 3, just as it does for Israeli Arrow 3 systems.

The US Missile Defense Agency

Moshe Patel, the director of the Defense Ministry's Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO), also could not avoid acknowledging the significance of the deal.

"For us in the State of Israel and specifically in the Ministry of Defense, it's a historic day. First, we are talking about a defense agreement with Germany 78 years after the Holocaust where Israel is selling a system that is going to protect German citizens. Additionally, this system has been co-developed for more than 30 years, even since Arrow 1 until now, together with our colleagues from the US Missile Defense Agency. We are talking about a very major contract – more than $3.5 billion in total. The German government is going to add additional funds because more activities will be carried out in Germany, making it around $4 billion in total overall."

Patel expressed deep gratitude to the US government and the Pentagon for supporting the sale. He stressed that the US-Israeli arrangements regarding the Arrow 3 will not be affected by the contract, meaning that IAI will need to establish new infrastructure for the German program and hire new employees such as engineering and production professionals in Israel and also in the United States.

To meet the 2025 deadline, work needs to begin immediately, Patel said.

Levy added, "We have been a part of this long journey together for several decades, starting with a question raised by President Reagan in the '80s: 'Can you hit a bullet with a bullet? Can you intercept an incoming ballistic missile?' I believe that the work that has been done in Israel at IAI and the Ministry of Defense led us to a position where we have a system that can successfully defend against missile threats."

The Arrow 3 system is designed to intercept exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles. "With its exceptional long-range interception capabilities, operating at high altitudes above the atmosphere, it stands as the top interceptor of its kind. The system employs a hit-to-kill approach for intercepting incoming threats," the ministry said.

Tomer – A Government-Owned Company, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Stark Aerospace are the main subcontractors responsible for the development and manufacture of the Arrow 3 interceptor.

Part of the proceeds from the sale will go to bolster Israeli defense systems, according to the director general of the Defense Ministry, Brig. Gen. (res.) Eyal Zamir.

"This landmark deal, the largest defense export agreement in our country's history, will propel Israeli defense exports to a new record following last year's remarkable achievement of $12.5 billion [in sales]," he stated. "The Arrow 3 agreement reinforces our unwavering alliance with the USA, encompassing strategic, political-defense and industrial cooperation. Notably, system components currently manufactured in the USA for Israel will also be produced for Germany, further strengthening our partnerships with the US industrial base."

Fear of Russia

Ultimately, the deal is the latest reflection of the trend of European states turning to Israel to equip themselves with new capabilities to defend against potential Russian threats.

Earlier in August, Poland announced the purchase of hundreds of Rafael-made Spike anti-armor missiles, completing the purchase through Rafael's Polish defense company partner, Mesko, which will produce and assemble the missile parts in Poland.

Also in August, the US green-lighted a purchase by the Finnish Defense Ministry of the Rafael-made David's Sling air defense system, marking the system's first international sale. David's Sling made its operational debut during the May 2023 escalation ("Operation Shield and Arrow") between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

The deal, valued at some €316 million ($351 million), is the result of a years-long competitive tender and includes interceptors, launchers and radars, which will be connected to Finnish command and control systems.

In recent months, the Netherlands chose Elbit Systems's Precise and Universal Launch System (PULS) for the Dutch Army. While Elbit has not confirmed the sale, it did state in March that it had signed a $133 million contract to supply the PULS rocket system to a European NATO client.

PULS can fire Elbit-made surface-to-surface guided rockets and missiles at a variety of ranges.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Hezbollah's provocations on the Lebanese–Israeli border continue, while deeper within Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terror army continues to amass a monstrous arsenal of some 200,000 rockets, mortar shells, missiles and drones. Hundreds of these threats are capable of targeting strategic sites within Israel.

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This situation raises the question of whether Israel needs to consider a preventive strike, as well as the dilemma that such a strike would pose to military and political decision makers.

With Hezbollah continuously adding matches to the figurative matchbox and chances of a conflict increasing with time, should Israel wait – or seize the initiative?

"It is important to distinguish between two options – a preventive strike and a pre-emptive strike," Lt. Col. (ret.) Orna Mizrahi, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told JNS.

"A pre-emptive strike occurs when you know that a threat is on the way to you, and that war is at your immediate doorstep. A preventive strike is designed to destroy enemy threats even when it is not clear that the situation prior to the strike was leading to war," she said.

Mizrahi, a former deputy national security adviser for foreign policy at the National Security Council of Israel, noted that until now, Israel has reserved preventive strikes for neutralizing emerging nuclear threats – in Iraq in 1981, and in Syria in 2007.

"We have not initiated preventive strikes for conventional build-ups. This presents a dilemma. If taking an initiative leads to war, on the one hand, but the initiative also gives you an advantage because you can strike a significant component of the enemy's force, which is the right course of action? That is the dilemma," she stated.

Col. (res.) Shaul Shay, a former deputy head of the National Security Council of Israel and an ex-intelligence officer at the Israel Defense Forces' Southern Command, noted that Israel's traditional strategic logic has been to avoid conflict with Hezbollah to the extent possible.

Since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel's policy regarding Hezbollah has been one of containment, said Shay. For its part, Hezbollah has also sought to avoid outright confrontation, though for different reasons, he added.

"This has not stopped Israel from engaging in a campaign to eliminate precision weapons and other game-changing threats in next-door Syria. However, the challenge is coming from Lebanon," he said.

It is important to view the actions of Hezbollah in a wider, regional context, according to Shay.

"Iran is at the core of [Hezbollah's] regional activities, and these activities also involve Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Israel is not interested in a clash that turns regional. This is the heavier threat hovering over us," he said.

Such a conflict could involve Hezbollah in Lebanon, spread to Iranian-backed militias and Hezbollah in Syria, and drag in the Palestinian arena, he cautioned. "So long as Israel can prevent this, it will try to do that," he said.

Israel's ongoing campaign in Syria cannot be seen as a major preventive strike, said Mizrahi, but rather constitutes a drizzle of smaller-scale actions, which does not extend to Lebanon.

"This created a situation in which Hezbollah feels protected and continues to build up its force in Lebanon, while the quiet is preserved," said Mizrahi.

Provocations on the border ordered by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah are not designed to lead to full conflict, Mizrahi assessed, despite Nasrallah's growing self-confidence and willingness to take greater risks, such as the dispatching into Israel in March of a terrorist armed with a bomb.

"The Iranians want more such actions from Hezbollah, as Iran's own global situation improves due to the Iranian role in Ukraine and its re-establishment of relations with Gulf Arab states," she said. "The internal situation in Lebanon is also pushing Nasrallah to take steps to portray himself as 'defender of Lebanon,' and to justify possessing an armed force in the face of domestic critics," she added.

"Furthermore, in the past years, the IDF has been completing its northern border security barrier, some of which, according to Hezbollah, violates the Blue Line. Nasrallah claims he is responding to this. The barrier is putting Hezbollah under pressure," she said.

(Immediately prior to the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, the United Nations marked the line of withdrawal with blue barrels – the "Blue Line." The IDF security barrier does not exactly follow the Blue Line, with the distance between the two being hundreds of feet in some places.)

Another factor according to Mizrahi is Israel's own domestic political crisis, which is fueling Nasrallah's perception of the Jewish state as unwilling to launch a major military campaign against him.

"We are clearly in a stage of heightened tensions, and opportunities for miscalculations are large. But Hezbollah believes that [limited] friction with Israel will strengthen it internally in Lebanon, and prove to Iran that it is doing something. This explains the greater risk taking," he said.

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Shay echoed the assessment that Iranian directives and domestic Lebanese needs were driving Hezbollah's increased aggression. An anti-tank missile attack launched in July in the Har Dov area, and provocations near the village of Ghajar, all help bury criticism of Hezbollah in Lebanon, he said.

"Iran is also interested in activating pressure against Israel. Direct Iranian attempts to attack Israeli targets abroad haven't met with much success," said Shay. "Nasrallah's assessment is that these are low-risk actions, that Israel is in a domestic crisis, and hence he estimates that it won't respond in a major way."

Yet just such assessments in Beirut are what led to the major war in 2006, he cautioned, adding, "Hezbollah has to understand that Israel reserves all options on the table."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The extensive IDF operation focused on Jenin is designed to reverse the trend in which this Palestinian city and parts of Samaria became a safe haven for, and hornet's nest of, terrorism.

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Hamas, with which 20% of Jenin residents are affiliated according to IDF figures, has transferred millions of shekels to Jenin terror operatives this year alone, and has dozens of operatives in the city. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is particularly strong in Jenin, counts 25% of the city's population as affiliates. PIJ has also transferred millions to operatives there. These are joined by local terror factions.

PIJ headquarters in Gaza and Syria invest significant efforts and funds in Jenin, flooding it with weapons and training, with the goal of targeting both the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli civilians.

Hamas and PIJ are seeking to ignite an escalation in Judea and Samaria and Jenin is their chosen flashpoint.

In addition to weapons and munitions that saturate the city, there has been an increase in the local production and use of explosives, according to the IDF.

Monday's operation, which involves roughly a brigade-sized ground force, much of it comprising commando units, backed by air power, began with a drone strike at 1:14 a.m. on Monday on a command center in Jenin Camp used by the "Jenin Battalion." This is the umbrella name for local terror factions that are receiving arms and backing from PIJ, Hamas and, to some degree, Iran.

In recent months, no fewer than 50 terror attacks emerged from Jenin, and 19 terrorists who conducted attacks throughout Judea and Samaria escaped to Jenin, according to IDF figures. This is how northern Samaria has become an epicenter of terrorism, leading to a succession of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.

The Israeli military has made it clear that is goal with the current operation is not to hold ground, but to target the capabilities of the growing terrorist threat in the city – bomb-making centers, weapons storage facilities, command posts and more, and to target terrorists themselves, both those affiliated with PIJ and Hamas and those who are not.

Three minutes after the opening airstrike, the IDF began moving its ground forces into the Jenin Camp. In the following hour, the IDF struck from the air an additional five times, with some of the strikes directed to open spaces to divert terrorists and allow the free movement of IDF units.

This need for air power is an illustration of just how far Jenin has descended into the clutches of the local armed factions and PIJ, and how the Palestinian Authority has lost all control there.

The need to use air power to divert hostile forces is an indication that the IDF's freedom of movement has been eroded to a dangerous degree.

It joins the June 19 use of an Apache gunship to conduct missile strikes as part of the rescue effort to extract stranded IDF Panther armored vehicles heavily damaged by IEDs in Jenin, and the June 22 strike by an IAF Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle to eliminate three gunmen in Jenin who were on their way to another shooting attack.

On June 26, Hamas claimed credit for the launch of two failed rockets from the city – a red flag about what would come next if Jenin's "Lebanonization" process were allowed to continue.

The use of air power for the first time in this sector since 2006 is a reflection of the scale of the threat, and of the need for new tools to keep IDF units safe.

Several armed Palestinian terrorists had been killed so far on Monday morning, and the gunmen will likely seek to regroup and attack the IDF in the coming hours.

The operation is, however, ultimately a reflection of a larger strategic problem, namely the power vacuum and chaos in Samaria, which Islamist terrorists are filling effectively. Israel does not want this trend to spread south.

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Ultimately, Israel has decided that it is not in its interest to seize direct control over Area A, and it certainly does not intend to allow Hamas, PIJ and other agents of Iranian influence to take over – leaving the weakened PA as the strategic option preferred by Israel's defense establishment.

Yet the PA's ability to reestablish a degree of control in Jenin after the latest operation is very much in question at this stage.

If it is unable to do so, Israel will need to conduct more frequent "lawn mowing" operations such as this one, to ensure that Samaria's Lebanonization does not progress.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The murderous terror attack at a gas station near Eli in Judea and Samaria on Tuesday marked another stage in the ongoing deterioration of the security situation in the area.

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The two terrorists who shot dead four Israeli civilians before being killed – one by an armed Israeli civilian on the scene, the second a few hours later by Israeli special forces – came from Urif, a village south of Nablus, meaning that violence is spreading southwards from Jenin.

The Palestinian Authority continues to be a non-entity across swaths of Samaria, and the IDF not only has to fill the growing power vacuum, but also prepare for the possibility of launching a larger security operation to clamp down on the increasingly bold terror factions.

While the two terrorists who carried out Tuesday's attack were affiliated with Hamas, they do not appear to be official members of it as far as the IDF is aware, Maj. Nir Dinar, head of the IDF's International Press Department, told JNS.

Dinar added that the military is currently checking to verify whether the terrorists were activated by a wider network.

Presumably, the IDF and Shin Bet security agency are also checking to see whether Hamas in Gaza had direct operational ties to the two-man cell. Hamas, for its part, was quick to claim the terrorists as its own. Whatever the level of cooperation in place between the gunmen and the wider Hamas organization, it is undeniable that Hamas's narrative of terror and violence is gaining the upper hand in Samaria.

A series of situational assessments held on Tuesday by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, first at the scene of the attack, and later at IDF Central Command in Jerusalem, together with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Netanyahu, charted out Israel's next steps in its war on terror.

The results of those decisions will soon be visible on the ground.

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari stated that the military will act anywhere it has intelligence regarding terror plots, adding that in this case there was no such prior warning. But recent events appear to suggest that specific, preemptive actions to thwart terror cells, actions that have undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds of Israelis over the past year, are no longer enough.

On Monday, the IDF had to call in a helicopter strike in Jenin for the first time since 2002, the dark days of the Second Intifada, to facilitate the evacuation of wounded security personnel. What was supposed to be a routine arrest operation became a severely entangled affair, as armored Panther IDF vehicles were targeted by powerful IEDs, and Palestinian gunmen showered them with gunfire.

The IDF returned fire, killing five Palestinian combatants, and after several hours was able to extract its vehicles and units.

These scenes mean Jenin is rapidly spinning out of control, and that IDF freedom of action is under a new level of challenge there. The security situation is changing for the worse.

The recent incidents follow other red flags, including several shootings in the area, such as a drive-by shooting at Israeli civilian and military vehicles on June 13, injuring an Israeli civilian and four soldiers.

On May 30, 32-year-old father of two Meir Tamari was murdered in a drive-by shooting near Hermesh, west of Jenin. In the days preceding that attack, Palestinian gunmen fired on Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria and Gan Ner in Gilboa.

The number of shooting attacks in the first half of 2023 is already at 120 in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank, while for all of 2022 the number was 285. When compared to the number of shootings in 2021 – 61 – or the number of attacks in 2020 – 31 – the wider problem becomes clear.

Samaria is flooded with guns, and with terrorists highly motivated to use them.

According to figures released on Tuesday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the number of significant terror attacks in Judea and Samaria remained elevated throughout 2023.

The security landscape is complex: Localized terror groups with names like Lions' Den and the Jenin Battalions are joined by established terror factions Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which back them with cash, arms and political support.

As local terror entities proliferate despite nightly IDF operations, Hamas and PIJ are deepening their foothold as well. The result is Jewish civilians under constant threat.

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Whereas once Hamas insisted that those who act with its support swear allegiance to it, it has since dropped such conditions, recognizing that a new and more independent generation of Palestinians in Samaria can be activated with incitement and terror financing, without the need for direct allegiance.

If Israel wishes to prevent the violence from engulfing more southern areas where the P.A. currently is still in control – Ramallah, most of Hebron and Jericho – it may need to switch course sooner rather than later, and initiate a larger security operation.

Such an operation won't be a second "Operation Defensive Shield," as conditions on the ground have changed dramatically since 2002, but rather a more limited affair that targets terror infrastructure in Samaria, though still broader than the current pinpoint operations.

This could still have a significant impact and help turn back the tide of terrorism, at least for a time.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Russia could be preparing an option to challenge the West and NATO in the Mediterranean and the Middle East as a means of opening a new global hotspot, former Israeli Ambassador to Russia and Ukraine Zvi Magen has said.

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Magen noted a large-scale naval and air exercise held by the Russian military in the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, which saw long-range nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets carrying hypersonic missiles Russia's Hmeimim airbase in Syria for massive naval drills in the region amid soaring tensions with the West, according to a report last week by Military Times.

"They are in the Mediterranean training and this could form a challenge for NATO's underbelly. This creates all kinds of problems and a new front against the West in the Middle East," said Magen, who also served in Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, and is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "Russia could be preparing an option for regional activity beyond eastern Europe."

Regarding Israel's maneuvering options in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Magen described Jerusalem's situation as a "very difficult challenge."

"On the one side, Israel is a partner of the West and the United States, and it identifies with Western objections to what is happening in Ukraine. On the other hand, Israel is the only country in the world that has a Russian challenge in the form of direct contact with the Russian military on its border with Syria," he stated.

Over the years, Israel and Russia found a "common language" in Syria's skies, enabling neutral mutual activity towards one another, and a mutual refraining for interfering in one another's activities. Russia "did not intervene in our areas and we did not intervene in its operations in Syria and between Russia and its neighbors," Magen recalled.

But in the new reality created by the war in Ukraine, Russia has begun sounding its criticisms of Israel in retaliation to Israel's statement against the war in Ukraine.

Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polansiy on Wednesday released a statement saying, "We're concerned over Tel Aviv's announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights, which contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Russia doesn't recognize Israel's sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of Syria."

Magen described that statement as "different" from past Russian criticism.

"Israel did state its objections to the Ukraine war, and it did so cautiously, while not going further. If, however, Russia continues in its new critical rhetorical position to Israel, Israel will be freer to criticize Russian interests at the rhetorical level," said Magen. "But Israel is in constant contact with the Russian military, so the strategic calculations are complex."

Danny Ayalon, former Israeli Ambassador to the US and a senior research fellow at the Miryam Institute, said that diplomacy has, since ancient times to the modern era, always had to navigate the tensions between "values and interests." He added that ultimately, "interests always win. Here too, due to the importance of Russia regarding our activity against Iran and Shiite militias, our interest is to safeguard keeping relations with Russia on their good side."

On the other hand, Ayalon added, Israel is "not a superpower and it does not have to express its stance on everything. Even if we speak, it would not help. There are bigger states in the world that have not spoken. Israel can issue a minor, proportional statement that says we hope for a rapid ceasefire, and that we are working for the safety of civilians, principally Jews and Israelis in Ukraine."

Ayalon said that the statement by Israel's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday was proportional in that regard. The Foreign Ministry had said, "Israel shares the concern of the international community regarding the steps taken in eastern Ukraine and the serious escalation in the situation. Israel hopes for a diplomatic solution that will lead to calm and is willing to help if asked. Israel supports the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Ukraine."

Yet a statement made by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday carried a significantly harsher tone, saying at a press conference that Russia's attack is "a serious violation of the international order."

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"Israel condemns that attack and is ready and prepared to offer humanitarian assistance to Ukrainian citizens," said Lapid.

Ayalon noted however that not many foreign ministers directly commented on the crisis at press conferences around the world.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where they discussed the ongoing situation and Israel offered humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

The Russian criticism of Israel's presence in the Golan, Ayalon said, is "more than a hint" for Israel, and is likely to end the diplomatic tit for tat between the two countries.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Early on Wednesday, the Syrian Arab Army reported that the Israel Defense Forces fired a number of surface-to-surface missiles from the Golan Heights at military positions in Syria's Quneitra region. There were no reports of injuries, but damage reports surfaced following the attack, which reportedly occurred at around 12:30 a.m. The incident looks like the latest reminder of Hezbollah's ongoing program to entrench itself in southern Syria and prepare attacks against Israel from there.

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A video that was recently obtained by an Israeli security watchdog provides a rare glimpse into that same program.

Earlier this month, the Alma Research and Education Center published a report on the video, which was recorded in 2017 by a Sunni Syrian opposition group named Jaysh al-Ababil after capturing a Hezbollah operative who commanded a terror cell.

In the video, the Syrian captive – Marwan Awad Al Jaber – goes into extraordinary detail in describing Hezbollah's activities in southern Syria.

"The video recording is a rare and live testimony, shedding additional light on the activities of Hezbollah's Golan File Unit against Israel from southern Syria," said the report, referring to the name of the Iranian-backed organization's ongoing attempts to recruit operatives in southern Syria and assign them missions to spy on Israel and prepare cross-border attacks.

"Even now, Hezbollah's Golan File Unit gathers intelligence and waits for an operational opportunity to generate terrorist activity against Israel under Hezbollah's order," the report cautioned.

Tal Beeri, head of Alma's Research Department, told JNS that southern Syria is crowded with multiple attempts by the radical Shi'ite axis to entrench itself – efforts that include the Golan File Unit and Iran's own efforts to set up terrorist infrastructure in the Syrian Golan.

For many of the recruits, he said, particularly Sunni Syrians who have no ideological attachments to Hezbollah or Iran, "money is a central motivation. They earn hundreds of dollars per month doing this – far more than average incomes in the area."

The Syrian rebel force that captured the Hezbollah operative is no longer in control of the area, following the summer 2018 recapture of southern Syria by forces associated with the Bashar Assad Syrian regime and backed by Iranian proxies.

Al-Jaber and his cell were both captured by the rebel group, and in his recorded testimony, he spoke of his Lebanese Shi'ite commanders.

"The advantage of recruiting local residents is that they are part of the territory," said Beeri. "They were born and grew up in this area. This is a unit made up of locals."

Central missions included gathering intelligence on Israel Defense Forces' activity across the border and preparing minefields, as well as anti-tank missile ambushes, rocket launchers, mortar launchers, cross-border infiltration plots and attempted kidnappings.

"They are working all of the time, and they are deployed across southern Syria," said Beeri. "We have exposed 30 such sites where Golan File cells are active. Every operative has his own 'area manager,' who in turn works with their own manager. Above that is a Hezbollah member. These cells can launch an attack at any time. They are planning attacks around the clock."

In 2019, the IDF exposed the head of the Golan File Unit, naming him as senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative Ali Mussa Abbas Daqduq.

Daqduq had gained rich military experience in Iraq, where he was previously sent to set up attack cells against the U.S. military there.

While the extent of Israel's activity against this threat is not fully known, Beeri assessed that when reports of local Syrians killed by UAV or sniper fire surface, it's safe to assume that they formed a "clear and present danger and were about to conduct an attack on Israel."

In any future escalation, he warned, they will be activated.

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"The quiet in this area is deceptive. Under the surface, constant activity is taking place. This is a region that can go from zero to 100 in a second," said Beeri.

The fate of Al Jaber remains unknown to this day.

Jaysh al-Ababil – once a dominant force in south Syria – was affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, a former nemesis of the Shi'ite Iran-led axis.

"For them, it was a big honor to thwart Hezbollah activities," said Beeri.

"It sheds light on activity that has been going on in southern Syria since 2014," he added. "We don't recall another instance of a live testimony like this from the Golan File.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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An Israeli company has turned standard smartphones into neurological monitoring machines backed by artificial intelligence and is about to expand significantly into the American market.

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Mon4t's application enables any smartphone to measure, record and transmit motor and cognitive performance data, as well as affective indicators, related to the patient's mood, letting those who suffer from neurological and psychiatric conditions remain comfortably at home while keeping their doctors fully up to speed on their state.

Ziv Yekutieli, co-founder and CEO of Montfort (Mon4t), spoke to JNS shortly before his scheduled relocation from Israel to New York to set up a branch of the company there. Yekutieli, who holds a Ph.D., studied electrical engineering and medicine at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Tel Aviv University, and previously worked at Intel before co-founding Mon4t in 2017.

He told JNS that Mon4t's technology is designed to monitor the full range of neurological symptoms such as tremors, manner of walking, memory, seclusion patterns and many more indicators. The application can even gauge levels of depression by measuring movements within the home and trips outside of it.

Mon4t's application is currently being evaluated in a pilot run by Israel's Teva Pharmaceuticals giant for remotely monitoring patients who suffer from psychiatric conditions, while a growing number of hospitals and other companies in Israel and the United States have also adopted it.

"All of this data remains private. The patient decides whether to activate the application or not, and the only person who receives access to it is the doctor providing the treatment," said Yekutieli.

"Today, there are over 500,000 people worldwide who suffer from neurological problems. The brain is the organ with the largest number of diseases, ranging from Parkinson's to essential tremor, to cognitive diseases like Alzheimer's and psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia that impairs a patient's behavior," he noted.

Unlike other diseases, however, until now a standard tool to assess symptoms has been conspicuously absent. While most other diseases have a standard manner supported by a medical device to evaluate the patient, neurological diseases have so far lacked such a standard, said Yekutieli. "Neurological diseases have commonalities and differences from one another. Symptoms can vary, but there is a lot of overlap between them that has not been exploited for standardization," he explained.

Until now, doctors seeking to make neurological diagnoses would call in patients to their office and visually observe symptoms such as tremors, how a patient walks and talks, and other rough measurements. Yet such symptoms can vary hugely, depending on a whole range of factors, argued Yekutieli, including "when the patient took a medicine, how well they slept the night before or even how long it took them to find parking. So there was no standardized test, and patients had to come into clinics for non-quantitative checks. This really reduces the quality of care."

While expensive medicines may be needed for neurological diseases, the inability to use standardized tests results in needlessly late treatment, he added, while others have no access to treatment at all. "In the United States, 1 million people have been diagnosed with Parkinson's, but the real figure is closer to 2 million. They cost the United States some $15 billion a year, because the system is, in effect broken."

And as the population ages, the situation is getting worse, he noted.

'Software solves the lack of standardization'

As part of its solution, Mon4t strives to be the go-to application in all neurological diseases for both in-clinic and at-home treatment. "In order to be able to do this, we chose the most common consumer product: the smartphone," said Yekutieli.

While smartphones are not perfect neurological monitoring devices – they are diverse and unregulated – the devices are still ideal for rapidly transmitting required data to doctors and hospitals dealing with brain conditions.

"The software solves the lack of standardization. A single system initiates a set of checks for each disease, and these are instantly transmitted to a cloud, which uses artificial intelligence for 'big data' processing. The doctor receives the medical indicators needed from the extracted raw signals captured by the smartphone," he said.

The technology makes use of a phone's built-in sensors, such as its accelerometer, gyroscope, touchscreen, microphone and GPS to monitor symptoms. The application has access to the relevant testing protocol for each condition and initiates the correct check at any given time.

For most patients using this technology, the diagnosis of their chronic condition has already occurred, and doctors need to follow the progression of their symptoms to study how effective the treatment has been.

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"This is mass chronic-disease management," said Yekutieli. "Doctors want to know whether their treatment is improving the patient condition or not. The fact that doctors need to wait for patients to show up in clinics and to hear from them about how the treatment has worked is sub-optimal. We want neurological decision-making to be based on real-time and quantitative intelligence, so that the treatment will reach its goal. That's like moving from old-fashioned artillery to guided missiles in modern armies."

The application sends timely reminders to patients, including when to initiate check-ups. Examples of tests include holding up the device for 10 seconds, tapping on the screen, voice recording, repeating numbers and passive data collection to complement the active tests.

"The doctor can sit anywhere in the world and provide effective treatment," said Yekutieli.

So far, several Israeli hospitals have begun using the system, including the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer in Ramat Gan, the Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa and the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

In the United States, John Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit – cutting-edge hospitals that conduct research on neurological conditions – have begun using it.

Yekutieli confirmed that "the FDA has approved most of the tests that the application conducts."

Ultimately, he added, the technology boosts neurological monitoring to its most accurate level to date outside of a hospital to the patient's home, which reflects the true situation of patients.

Medical insurers in the United States are pushing the medical industry to prioritize home checks due to the costs they save.

"The world is heading in the direction of home testing," said Yekutieli, and "Mon4t is offering a platform that can evaluate numerous symptoms, anytime, anywhere."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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In recent days, Lebanese President Michel Aoun told a UN envoy that his country is ready to return to indirect negotiations with Israel over the maritime border between the two countries.

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Days later, the US envoy to the maritime negotiations, Amos Hochstein, began conducting shuttle diplomacy, involving meetings with Israel's Energy Minister Karine Elharrar and scheduled meetings with Lebanese officials in Beirut.

The developments represent an American push to seal a border agreement as part of Washington's overall desire to get additional gas to Lebanon, Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, head of the research department at the Alma Research and Education Center, a defense research center in northern Israel, said.

"The Americans are pushing strongly for an agreement," he said.

Last year, regional Arab states and the United States hammered out the details of a plan designed to rescue Lebanon from its severe energy crisis by transferring Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon via pipelines that run from the Sinai Peninsula into Jordan and through Syria to feed Lebanon's Deir Ammar power plant, which has a 450-megawatt capacity. In addition, according to the plan, Jordan will link its electrical grid to Lebanon's via Syria to increase the power supply.

Aoun's announcement comes after Lebanon once again found itself "on the bench" on the issue of underwater gas reserves as other regional actors finalized maritime borders and secured their access to such resources, said Beeri, who served for 20 years in the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence Directorate.

"Lebanon has been out of the economic waters game for a long time. The Syrians have 'taken a bite' from gas reserves to the north – and the maritime border between Syria and Lebanon has never been finalized," noted Beeri.

Instead, Lebanon demarcated its maritime borders independently in 2011, causing a rare complaint from Syria in 2014 to the United Nations over the issue.

According to the current situation, Syria's Block 1 zone overlaps with Lebanon's Block 2 – meaning that Syria has taken 750 square kilometers of maritime territory and began searching for gas using Russian company Capital Oil.

Since then, "no one in the Lebanese government has dared confront the Syrians," said Beeri. "The Syrians have conducted gas searches, and no one in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, has said a word. The only exception is the protest over the matter by the head of the [Christian Lebanese movement] Lebanese Forces, Samir Gaegae, in 2021," he stated.

Syria and Russia are not the only winners from this situation; Hezbollah is likely to receive "gas coupons" from discoveries in the area from Syria's Bashar Assad regime in the event of a discovery of a gas field.

'Not a green light to normalization with Israel'

Meanwhile, Lebanon has found itself shut out from other regional arrangements as well due to its paralysis. In 2010, Israel and Cyprus reached a former maritime border agreement, giving Cyprus access to the Aphrodite gas reserve.

"Lebanon did not want to take part in this due to Israel's involvement; hence, it stayed outside of the talks," said Beeri. Now, Beirut finds itself able to complete for only one maritime area – the sea zone to its south, in which the Karish gas field exists.

Beeri noted that the country "decided that in order to avoid losing again, it had to make its stance extreme."

That approach has resulted in Lebanon demanding a southern maritime border in 2021 that is far south of the line it presented in 2010. The line "just happens" to run halfway through the known Karish gas-field zone – meaning that if the demand is expected, Lebanon can hire companies to simply arrive and begin drilling, skipping over the lengthy search stage, pointed out Beeri.

Hezbollah, for its part, has allowed the Lebanese government to take part in indirect talks, primarily for economic reasons.

"It is clear that some of the gas profits will 'drain' into Hezbollah's accounts," said Beeri. "In addition, politically, it does not want to be remembered as the side that blocked Lebanon from reaching gas. Hence, suddenly, it strikes 'moderate' stances and allows negotiations after Lebanon has faced years of economic crisis that is directly influenced by Hezbollah's activities."

Although Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah routinely accusing Israel of stealing Lebanese resources, including gas, the Lebanese terror organization has left the issue under the portfolio of the Lebanese government.

Its chief concern, Beeri said, is to make it known that it is not a side to the negotiations with Israel and to market itself as the defender of Lebanon's borders.

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"Hezbollah always stresses that the negotiations are part of a national Lebanese requirement, but are not a green light to normalization with Israel," said Beeri. "Hezbollah is telling itself a story that this is purely a military-technical issue, not a normalization affair. That there are no political ties between Israel and Lebanon.

"When Lebanon's former Foreign Minister, Jubran Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement and the nephew of President Aoun, offered in April 2021 to speed-up talks by investing together with Israel in a third-party company to search for gas, he was strongly reprimanded by Hezbollah," noted Beeri. "Hezbollah wants to dance at two weddings – to say that it is present on this issue, but also that it is absent."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The announcement on Jan. 20 by the Israeli Defense Ministry and Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems of the procurement of three new advanced submarines for the Israeli Navy marks a key milestone in the evolution of Israel's fleet, which will consist of six submarines.

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In a reality in which Israel's adversaries are armed with missiles that can strike any land point in the state, the strategic value of Israel's underwater long arm is on the ascent, even more so in light of the expected advanced capabilities that the new Dakar-class submarines are expected to carry onboard.

The class of submarines is named after the INS Dakar, a diesel-electric Israeli submarine that sunk in 1968 in the Mediterranean on its route from Britain to Haifa Port after being purchased from the United Kingdom.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz noted that the new vessels "will upgrade the capabilities of the Israeli Navy and will contribute to Israel's security superiority in the region" – hinting at their multiple abilities, which will include the capacity to remain submerged for more extended periods, gather intelligence off enemy coastlines and strike targets deep in enemy territory or at sea.

The 3 billion euro ($3.4 billion) deal will see the first Dakar-class submarine arrive in nine years, as well as the construction of a submarine simulator in Israel, and spare parts supplies. The German government will subsidize a portion of the agreement via a "unique grant," said the Defense Ministry, in accordance with an agreement signed between the countries in 2017.

The Defense Ministry declined to comment on a report by The Marker business daily published in recent days, which said that Thyssenkrupp had significantly raised the procurement's price, from €1.8 billion (nearly $2.1 billion) to €3 billion ($3.4 billion). The report said that Israel will likely pay €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) out of the total price tag (with Germany subsidizing the rest).

Alongside the deal, the two sides signed an industrial-strategic cooperation agreement that will see Germany's Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology invest €850 million ($973 million dollars) in Israeli industries, including defense companies.

'Most expensive military platform in IDF's inventory'

Past experience has shown that much time passes from the stage of formulating the specifications of new submarines to the production stage.

According to Professor Rear Adm. (Res.) Shaul Chorev, head of the Haifa Research Center for Maritime and Policy Strategy at the University of Haifa, and a former Israel Navy Submarine Flotilla commander, it took no less than 17 years for the 1980 specifications of the first-generation German-made Dolphin submarines to be turned into final vessels.

It is those three late 1990s-era vessels that will be replaced by the Dakar series. They will join three new-generation Dolphin submarines – two of which, the INS Rahav and INS Tanin, are already in the Israeli Navy's possession – and the third, the INS Dragon, reportedly expected at Haifa Base's submarine terminal next year. These vessels are equipped with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems that generate electricity from hydrogen and water.

These diesel-powered submarines can thus remain submerged for longer, and their quiet engines mean they can evade enemy sonar detection with efficiency.

The AIP submarines are equipped with technology that goes back to the early 1990s, so the Dakar submarines will require much newer technological capabilities. This will likely involve, among other things, new engine designs, generators and electronic-sensor systems rather than the older periscopes.

Past disputes over the correct size of the submarine fleet that serves Israel's needs have been a common feature between Israeli governments and the Israel Defense Forces.

It was former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who overruled the IDF's preference for five vessels in the past, opting for six instead, and his decision received the approval of an official ministerial acquisition committee.

It appears as if Netanyahu's call was the correct one to make in light of the dazzling contribution each such platform – the most expensive military platform in the IDF's inventory, pricier than fighter jets – provides to state security.

"Five is the minimum; six is the optimal [number]. Six submarines will provide us with much flexibility, but we can make do with five," Col. L., then head of the Israeli Navy's Submarine Department, told Maariv in 2018.

Each submarine is able not only to travel covertly towards enemy states, gather intelligence and strike targets with great precision, but the platform also, according to international media reports, serves as a fundamental pillar of Israel's nuclear deterrent posture and second-strike capability.

In 2019, Chorev warned in an interview with JNS that "the State of Israel is losing its strategic depth." He noted that "today, the country is at risk from missiles from all directions. As [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah has said, they can strike targets from northern Israel to the Dimona nuclear core. They know all of Israel's strategic targets."

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It is for this reason, he concluded, that it is vital to identify the sea as the source of added Israeli strategic depth.

Submarines are turning into a modern-day elite force due to their underwater stealth movements, and modern naval powers worldwide are increasingly coming to view submarines as the go-to platforms for missions that were more traditionally associated with surface ships in the past.

The Dakar series appears set to represent the last word in Israel's underwater arms race.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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In its annual strategic survey released in recent days, the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies pointed to a central understanding that has rippled through the region. The United States is focusing its attention and resources on dealing with China (and, more recently, Russia), and is unwilling to be significantly involved in further conflicts in the Middle East.

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Washington's enthusiasm for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is one such signal of this intention to detangle from the Middle East.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August was another. The INSS's survey called that withdrawal "winning proof for the countries of the Middle East" that Washington was no longer prepared to commit resources and major attention to the region. Middle Eastern leaders began to understand that even if they still rely on the United States, they must begin to prepare to deal by themselves with challenges.

With this in mind, the coming year forms a golden opportunity for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. Under the agreement so far, Israel has normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – all with quiet Saudi support.

Bringing Saudi Arabia into the accords forms one of the most important strategic goals of the coming year, due to the economic, political and military weight that the Kingdom brings with it to the table. The result of bringing such a dominant Sunni power into the fold could be a strategic game-changer.

The modern Middle East can basically be divided into two opposing camps, or "blue" and "red" colors. The red zones represent Iran's area of radical influence – stretching from Iran itself and encompassing Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. The blue zones represent the moderate regional states.

In the past 20 years, the Iranian red zone has expanded dramatically. This means that when Israeli strategic planners looked at a map in the year 2002, Iran's nuclear program – a severe strategic threat – was located more than 1,000 kilometers from Israel's borders. Now, in addition to the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program itself, Iranian-backed terror armies and Iranian weapons produced by capable Iranian military industries are on Israel's borders.

The radical Iranian-Shiite axis injects weapons and destabilization wherever it expands to. It sends funds and capabilities to radical actors through a range of supply lines. The axis threatens Gulf states and Israel alike; the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen fire Iranian-made drones and missiles at Riyadh and Abu Dhabi; while the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Gaza's terror factions point a large arsenal of projectiles at Israeli cities.

The Iranian axis is ideologically committed to destroying the State of Israel. Those who doubt Iran's penchant to pay prices for its ideology should consider Tehran's willingness to drag its 83 million people through economic crises lasting many years to fulfill a nuclear vision.

Facing this combined threat of nuclear and regional malign activities is the moderate camp in the Middle East.

As the Abraham Accords develop and its members learn about one another's comparative advantage, cooperation between Israel and Gulf states could extend considerably to include capability-sharing, air-force overflights, deploying Israeli air-defense systems in the Gulf and intelligence-sharing.

Israel leads the way in gray-zone military warfighting in the region against Iranian entrenchment efforts. A reported Israeli airstrike overnight between Sunday and Monday near Damascus is the latest apparent indication of Jerusalem's total commitment to continue to enforce its policy of not allowing Iran to entrench itself or its proxies militarily in Syria, and not allowing a "Hezbollah 2" scenario to unfold unchallenged.

Those countries in the moderate camp have managed to safeguard their sovereignty, unlike nations infiltrated and dominated by the Iranian axis. The moderate members remain deeply disturbed by Iranian aggression.

Such concern has created a new readiness to cooperate with Israel to varying degrees. Some of the moderate Sunni countries have been prepared to come openly to the table with Israel, forming the basis for the Abraham Accords, and boosting the moderate architecture of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has yet to cross this threshold officially. Enabling it to do so should form a top objective for 2022.

What unites these members of the moderate camp is a desire to see stability and prosperity in the Middle East.

While in the past, members of this camp had been held back by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict – waiting for progress on the matter – these days, the threat posed by Iran to their security has become more important than their wish to patiently wait for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to come to an end.

The resulting Abraham Accords mean that Egypt and Jordan – the first moderate states to establish ties with Israel – no longer feel isolated. The accords provide them with more confidence and support to move forward with Israel towards cooperation in civilian, economic and defense sectors, as the recent Memoranda of Understanding signed between Jordan and Israel on energy and water agreements (with UAE support) demonstrate.

The Israeli government's push to enhance relations with Egypt and Jordan is welcome news since those countries represent Israel's strategic depth.

Iran is a major threat to all of this, as are the jihadist and Islamist movements of the Middle East.

Expanding the blue zone

This does not mean that the moderate camp will cooperate in offensive military operations against Iran. Still, the growing cohesion of the moderate camp is unmistakably bad news for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei wants to turn as many countries on the map as possible to "red," building more and more proxy threats, and moving the friction away from Iran's borders to maintain his regime's stability and his ability to threaten Israel and Sunni states alike.

The blue camp – and its potential to grow in size and influence – is the antidote to this vision.

And while the United States is disengaging from direct military operations in the region, the blue camp's potential for growth and power still very much depends on American policy and the motivation of Washington to bring additional countries to the diplomatic roundtable.

When Sunni states like Saudi Arabia hold de-escalation conversations with Iran, it's a signal of their lack of confidence in future ironclad backing by the United States. It is therefore imperative for Washington to issue credible assurances of American support for their security.

The truth is that no amount of diplomatic de-escalation talks between Tehran and Riyadh will alter the fundamental animosity that defines Saudi-Iranian relations. The Saudis don't want to get dragged into an all-out war with Iran, but they haven't changed their hostile orientation regarding it either, based on the tangible threat that the Islamic Republic poses to the Kingdom.

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Meanwhile, even though the United States wishes to pivot to the Far East, it may find that the Far East itself leads back to the Middle East. China is investing heavily in the Middle East through its long-term Belt and Road Initiative, purchasing ports and investing in a range of infrastructure.

Iran and China signed a 25-year, $400 billion agreement in March 2021, which ultimately presents financial backing for Iran and enables it to avoid the worst results of American sanctions against it.

This means that China has become a key aspect of the Iranian story in the Middle East.

Under these conditions, the Abraham Accords, together with the shift of Israel into the US Military Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (the Middle East), creates increasing daily tools for joint operations and stability.

Israel can offer many capabilities to boost the moderate camp's shared vision, and so can Saudi Arabia. A normalization agreement that includes Saudi Arabia in it would represent a body blow to Iran's dangerous ambitions.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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