🇮🇱❌🇸🇾 — Israeli government approves plans to expand settlements in Golan Heights

🇸🇾🇸🇾 — The Military Recruitment Administration (affiliated with HTS) has announced the opening of enrollment for training and membership in the faction.

➡️This comes despite a statement earlier today by HTS leader and de facto Syrian president Abu Mohammad al-Golani, who declared that all factions would be dissolved and that weapons would be centralized under state control. However, HTS appears to be continuing its expansion and consolidation of power.

📝My opinion: It seems Golani might be modeling HTS after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which played a crucial role in consolidating power after the Iranian Revolution. This approach contrasts with the first Iranian revolution, which ultimately failed.

🇮🇱🎥🇸🇾 — Israeli channel i24, the channel that kicked off the 40 beheaded babies story at the start of the war in Gaza was seen in Damascus a few days ago covering the celebrations.

🇮🇱🤝🇸🇾 Israel did not want Assad removed from power, US officials tell Turkey

US officials informed Turkey earlier this month that Israel did not want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad removed from power, even after the rebel offensive that seized cities such as Aleppo and Hama, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan revealed in an interview on Sunday.

“Israel has never wanted Bashar to leave,” Fidan told Al Hadath TV.

“Israel was displeased with the space Bashar had granted to the Iranians. Even after the rebel operation began, the Americans conveyed to us that Israel does not want Bashar to go, even until last day.”

Fidan further disclosed that during a 2016 visit to Turkey, then-US Vice President Joe Biden had informed Ankara that Washington opposed toppling Assad.

“He told us that the US doesn’t want Bashar to go,” Fidan said. “We understood that this wasn’t truly his own stance but rather Israel’s position.”

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-did-not-want-assad-removed-power-us-officials-tell-turkey

🇮🇱❌🇸🇾 — From the Israeli airstrikes on Tartus, seems like the explosion has reached a family that was recording the airstrikes or a direct airstrike has targeted them.