Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon to, among other things, answer questions about reports in Arab media outlets that Israel was behind an airstrike near Damascus International Airport in the morning targeting warehouses full of Iranian weapons bound for the Lebanese Shi’ite terror militia Hezbollah. While declining to confirm the reports, Katz declared that the “attack is consistent with our policy to prevent Iran’s smuggling of advanced weapons via Syria to Hezbollah by Iran.” An Assad regime statement vowed retaliation.

The ancient port city of Caesarea, which served as a regional capital during the Roman Era in the Levant and was mentioned prominently in the New Testament’s Book of Acts, is slated to receive NIS 100 million worth of restoration and refurbishment following a joint effort by Israel’s government and several Israeli and international NGOs. The ancient ruins on the waterfront blend seamlessly into a modern city and beachfront enjoyed by thousands of visitors from around the world every year, but the planned upgrades will improve the site for everyone.

Israeli police announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a 50-year old Palestinian man and recovered hundreds of ancient artifacts from the Second Temple Period which he had stockpiled at his home in the West Bank village of Hawara, near Nablus. The artifacts, which would have been worth a large amount of money on the worldwide black market for antiquities, will be studied by the Antiquities Authority and eventually displayed in museums. In related news, an ancient Torah Scroll was recently recovered from black market traffickers by police in Turkey.

Israel’s national Police force held a ceremony Wednesday on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem to commemorate the 1,467 officers who have been killed in the line of duty since the foundation of the modern State of Israel in 1948. Police Commissioner Insp.- Gen. Roni Alsheich said during the ceremony that with the rise in terrorism aimed at civilians Israel’s “home front has become more front line” and required its Police force to “stretch to its limits to meet complex challenges.”

Rasmea Odeh, who participated in a terrorist bombing of a supermarket in Jerusalem in 1969 which killed two people and wounded several others, was ordered to be deported from the US by a Federal Court in the US city of Detroit to be deported from the US to Jordan following her agreement to plead guilty to lying on her application for emigration to the US by omitting mention of her terrorist activities. In addition to the attack on the supermarket, Odeh was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror militia.

For a candidate whose opponents regularly accuse him of Islamophobia, Donald Trump gained a remarkable following among members of Turkey’s Islamist government.  Nonetheless, there is still reason to fear that relations between the US and Turkey will remain strained.

A recent event held by the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC featured members of the Syrian civil defense organization in which they gave an extensive look at their activities in the south of Syria including their transfer of wounded civilians to Israel for medical treatment.