News Digest — 3/12/25
Defense Minister Israel Katz Visits Buffer Zone On Mount Hermon Summit
Defense Minister Israel Katz visited, on Tuesday (11th), the IDF posts in the buffer zone on the summit of Mount Hermon, together with the deputy Chief of Staff, MG Tamir Yadai, and the commander of Division 210, BG Yair Falal.
Katz sought to convey a message to the new regime in Syria. “Every morning when Julani opens his eyes in the presidential palace in Damascus, he will see the IDF watching him from the heights of Mount Hermon and will remember that we are here, and in all the security areas in southern Syria, to protect the residents of the Golan and the Galilee from any threat from him and his jihadist friends.”
“Overnight (Tuesday, 11th) , we acted forcefully against military targets and attacked over 40 sites in the area of southern Syria in order to implement the policy we announced and warned about, and to thwart threats to the State of Israel. We will strengthen ties with the residents of the area and soon, on the 16th of the month, the work of the Druze in the Golan Heights communities will begin,” the defense minister concluded.
Katz’s visit to the buffer zone followed reports of a massacre of about 1,000 civilians in Alawite areas in recent days, creating uncertainty over the future of Syria’s minority communities.
Pro-Assad Syrians Ask Israel To Save Them From New Regime Slaughter
Leaders of an ethnic religious group in Syria aligned with the ousted Assad regime have appealed to Israel to intervene militarily against the new government, after soldiers killed over 1,000 members of the minority group.
Since last Thursday (6th), Syrian forces loyal to the new government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Julani, have cracked down on dissidents in the Latakia and Tartus provinces.
The two districts have a majority of Alawites, the ethnic-religious minority group which ruled Syria for decades under the regimes of Hafez and Bashar Assad.
The new government, led by Sunni Islamists, ordered the incursion into the two coastal provinces in response to alleged attacks by supporters of the deposed Assad regime.
On Monday (10th), i24NEWS reported that Alawite leaders had sent letters to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, requesting that Israel take military action to protect the Alawite community.
“Save us from the brutal regime, we will receive you with songs and flowers,” the letter reads in part, while urging the Israeli media to “shed light on the massacres” in Latakia.
In the letter, the Alawite Sheikhs lamented that after “the fall of the Assad regime and the assumption of power in Syria by an extremist Islamist group, the community has been targeted by the new regime with acts of “killing, kidnapping, displacement and intimidation as a method and way to rule and dominate.”
The letter’s signatories requested that the Israeli military “move its planes and forces to protect us,” that the Israel navy be deployed off Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and that Israel’s government “raise the issue of crimes against the Alawites at the international level.”
“We say to the Jewish state, we extend our hands to you and we will be your best and most loyal friends so that you can rid us of this extremist Islamic rule that will be a place for training and preparing groups from which they will launch their fight against You.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned Al-Sharaa over the killings, calling in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper for Europe not to “misread reality” or overlook the massacres in Latakia and Tartus.
Alawite leaders said, “We would like to thank Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar for his words about the Alawites and the revenge and harm they are subjected to, something no Arab, Islamic, or international foreign minister has ever done.
Like the Druze, Syria’s Alawite community formed an autonomous state within the French Mandate for Syria during the 1920s and 1930s, spanning the Tartus and Latakia regions, before it was forcibly incorporated into the Syrian Arab Republic in 1936.
5 Killed In Gaza Strike, Hezbollah Commander Targeted In Lebanon
Reports from Gaza indicate that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike near the Netzarim crossing on Tuesday (11th),
Earlier, Lebanon reported that an Israeli drone attacked a vehicle in Deir al-Zaharani in the southern part of the country. Lebanese media reported one death at the strike site, as well as several additional casualties. The Lebanese newspaper Al-Nahar reported that the target of the strike in southern Lebanon was a senior official in Hezbollah’s air defense unit.
Despite the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, there have been multiple clashes. Efforts to maintain peace are further complicated by political and military dynamics. Hezbollah’s disarmament has become a focal point, with some viewing the ceasefire as a defeat for the group. Meanwhile , Israel has delayed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon, citing security concerns. This has led to accusations from both sides of failing to adhere to the ceasefire terms.
Houthis To Resume Attacks On Israeli Ships After Gaza Aid Deadline Ended
Yemen’s Houthis will resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian Seas the Bab al-Mandah Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, effective immediately, the group announced on Tuesday night (11th).
Any vessel that violates the group’s “ban on the passage of all Israeli ships” will be targeted. This will continue “until the crossings to the Gaza Strip are reopened and aid, food, and medicine are allowed in,” the Hoiuthi terror group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said on behalf o f the Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
This announcement follows al-Houthis’ Friday (7th) statement that the terror group would resume its naval operations against Israel if Israel did not lift a blockade of aid into Gaza within four days.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, also said in February that they would take military action if the US and Israel tried to displace Palestinians from Gaza forcibly.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA, noted on Friday (7th) that al-Houthi warned “that Yemen cannot tolerate the escalation of tension, the prevention of aid-entry into Gaza, or the return of famine to this region of Palestine. The Zionist enemy has significantly reduced its obligations both qualitatively and quantitatively… .”
The Iran-aligned movement staged more than 100 attacks on shipping from November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians following Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. These maritime attacks lessened following the January ceasefire in Gaza.
The US State Department said on March 4 that it was designating the Houthi movement as a “foreign terrorist organization” after US President Donald Trump’s call for the move earlier this year.
Earlier on March 4, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya reported that Houthi radars in Yemen had been targeted in airstrikes.
Israel Is Missing From Air Canada Maps: Passengers Find ‘Palestinian Territory’ In Place Of Israel
A passenger on board an Air Canada flight on Monday (10th) noticed ‘Palestinian territory’ was written on the plane’s map-system on their personal screen instead of Israel NIZ reported on Tuesday (11th).
“A passenger snapped this photo on an Air canada flight from Vancouver to Toronto today, showing that the airline’s map no longer includes Israel,” a pro-israel account posted on X. “Air Canada Care To Explain?”
Several pro-Israel accounts responded to the post and slammed the airline for the map.
“Canada is now part of the great Islamic caliphate,” one account wrote. “That’s what Canadians wanted and that’s exactly what they got.”
Several pro-Palestinian accounts responded as well and called for the airline to keep the ‘Palestinian territories’ on the map.
Air Canada responded in the Twitter thread and said that a third party operates the map system.
“Air Canada has been made aware of a display issue with the interactive map on the IFE systems of its 8737 aircraft,” the airline’s X account responded.
“The issue has affected other carriers using the same system, and we are working with the third party provider on a remedy.”
This isn’t the first time an airline has dealt with a situation similar to this.
Low-cost Irish carrier Ryanair caused a stir when it was revealed that when customers ordered a flight on one company’s website, there was an option to choose “Occupied Palestinian Territory’ when putting in their personal details.
How Hamas Can Be Destroyed With Military Force – Maj. (ret.) John Spenser
Some argue that Hamas cannot be destroyed through military means. However, dismissing Israel’s ability to dismantle Hamas militarily fails to account for the constraints the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) faced in the past 16 months.
During the initial phase of the war, the IDF was forced to operate under significant restrictions not placed on militaries throughout history. Arab nations – especially Egypt – pressured Israel to conduct military operations in a manner that left civilian populations in areas within Gaza rather than relocating them to safer zones outside the battlefield.
Moreover, the Biden administration and other international actors imposed severe limitations on IDF operations. These included withholding military aid, demands to not conduct operations in key Hamas strongholds like Rafah, unrealistic expectations of zero civilian casualties, and frequent pauses in combat due to humanitarian concerns. The IDF was even compelled to limit the scale of its operations from the beginning of the war, prolonging the conflict and allowing Hamas to regroup.
Finally, Israel had to divert substantial military resources to northern Israel to counter Hezbollah attacks and the persistent threats of a large-scale ground assault. Israel also faced attacks from Iran and the Houthis in Yemen, preventing a fully concentrated effort against Hamas. Should military operations resume, they will unfold under a vastly different set of conditions. In addition, Hamas is no longer the formidable force it was at the onset of the conflict, having been degraded into a guerrilla force with weakened leadership and reduced firepower.
The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. (Newsweek)
Lebanon Grapples With Hezbollah’s “Victory” Over Israel – Nabih Bulos
In its myth-making and propaganda, Hezbollah portrays the war with Israel as a victory, a greater triumph than the last major engagement between the two sides in 2006. But the militant group now has to contend with an aftermath that for many Lebanese, including some Hezbollah partisans, looks very much like defeat.
Thousands of its fighters and supporters are dead, the upper echelons of its leadership decimated. Wide swaths of pro-Hezbollah areas are all but flattened; almost 100,000 people remain displaced and Israeli forces still occupy parts of Lebanon.
Hezbollah had vowed its arsenal of long-range missiles would level Israeli cities the instant Lebanese cities were targeted. But that never happened. Hezbollah leadership had no sense of how deeply Israeli intelligence had penetrated its ranks, booby-trapping the group’s pagers and walkie-talkies and picking off its senior commanders, including its secretary-general of 32 years, Hassan Nasrallah.
Despite being its weakest in years, Hezbollah retains a loyal following. Yet not everyone in southern Lebanon agrees. Not a single structure in the hamlet of Bustan survived Israel’s offensive, including the house Ahmed Al-Ahmad, 43, built with money he earned working for more than two decades in Berlin. The promised compensation from Hezbollah has yet to materialize. He said he would return to Berlin to work. But wouldn’t rebuild so long as Hezbollah remained dominant in southern Lebanon.
Ali, 49, a merchant in Tyre, said, “People talk about victory. What victory? All this destruction and death? What was this for? Hezbollah must pay to fix this. And if they don’t, we’re going to kick them out.” Few Lebanese believe the group has the funds to compensate for the damage.
Many Lebanese feel anger toward Hezbollah for dragging the country into an ill-conceived war, said Michael Young, senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “There’s a great deal of mistrust of Hezbollah.” (Los Angeles Times)
