Israel and West Bank
The IDF conducted an overnight raid last week killing Mohammad al-Fakih, the al-Qassam brigade Hamas military fighter responsible for murdering Rabbi Miki Mar in a West Bank drive by shooting earlier this in July. The operation occurred in the Palestinian village of Surif, in which Israeli forces arrested three other militants and demolished the home used as a hideout for al-Fikih.
The IDF will erect over 255 day and night vision cameras on a 10 mile stretch of route 443, the West Bank road between Modiin and Jerusalem that has been the site of terror attacks in recent weeks. The cameras, along with two additional surveillance balloons, will provide real time video feed to IDF central operations rooms.
Israeli security forces arrested two Palestinian men near the West Bank town of Argaman after they attempted to smuggle pistols and M-16 assault rifles from Jordan.
Likud minister of Parliament Yisrael Katz said there is growing support inside the Israeli government to build an offshore seaport for Gaza. The minister added that the proposal should be brought to the cabinet for discussion.
Golan Heights
Israel approved the construction of an extended section of fencing along the northern part of the Israel-Jordan border in the Golan Heights, close to Syria. According to Haaretz, the fence will stop potential terrorists attempting to cross the border.
About 300 Fijian peacekeepers are set to deploy for the Golan Heights at the end of August as part of a standard rotation of troops stationed with United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
The Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah claimed that the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra, fired highly explosive rockets towards Baath City, a Syrian town near the Golan Heights. The blasts came after rebels and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accused Israel of striking the governor’s office in Baath City. However, the Syrian military said the origin of the initial attack is unknown.
The Israeli Air Force bombed targets in Syria in response to stray mortar fire from across the border on July 25th. The IDF reported that no injuries or damage occurred from the shelling.
Iranian news site Fars News Agency, reported that General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a top official of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force, visited towns near the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights. The report did not clarify any further details as to the length or purpose of the visit.
Gaza
Palestinian news site Safa reported that three men in Gaza were sentenced to death, and three others to prison, after being accused of spying for Israel. Hamas security forces allege the men passed intelligence to Israeli officials about terror tunnels, rocket caches, and locations of militant fighters.
A Palestinian Islamic jihad terrorist was killed on July 19th after a terror tunnel collapsed under Khan Yunis, marking the 14th reported cave-in since the beginning of the year. A senior security official told news sources that Hamas continues to build approximately 6 miles of new tunnels each month.
Qatar gave Hamas a $30 million donation on July 22nd to “alleviate suffering and financial distress” of 50,000 Gazan public sector workers who had not been paid. Hamas has not been able to meet its obligations since the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped making payments to the the terrorist group in 2013.
Sinai
The Egyptian parliament issued an extension of a state of emergency in the Northern Sinai on July 19th, a decree first issued in 2014 and renewed every three months since. The National Security Committee issued a report warning of potential abuses in imposing another order, such as illegal detention and the mistreatment of innocent civilians under the emergency laws.
Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan reported that a terrorist cell in Northern Sinai raided a school near the Rafah border on July 24th. Security forces put the school under siege, with the resulting gun battle killing 15 militants, and injuring 12 others.
Osama Askar, chief of the Egyptian joint military command in charge of combating terrorism east of the Suez canal, stressed that the Sinai region is completely under the army’s control, and that the army is achieving great success against regular militant efforts in the region.
The Egyptian military said in a statement on July 27th that its air force killed 25 members of the local ISIS affiliate during an aerial attack on an encampment in the northern Sinai town of Rafah. The military’s operations came in response to the ISIS killing of a police major in al-Arish just days before.
Egyptian Air Force jet fighters struck an ammunition depot in north sinai Rafah city on July 31st, killing 46 militants in the attack.
