World
Israel faces new Syria challenge as it adjusts to new strategy amid regional power struggle for influence
TEL AVIV — The Israeli Air Force on Thursday struck the headquarters of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Damascus, Syria, amid ongoing instability in the country following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad by an al Qaeda-linked insurgency.
After the fall of Damascus on Dec. 8, 2024, Israel deployed troops to the demilitarized buffer zone with Syria while also launching a diplomatic offensive to shape the balance of power.
“The deployment of Israeli forces is concentrated around the Syrian [side of Mount] Hermon, the high grounds in that area and below that on the northern part of the Syrian Golan Heights — more or less along, but not beyond, the Bravo Line [marking the end of the buffer zone],” Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
EVANGELICAL LEADER SAYS US MUST PROTECT SYRIAN CHRISTIANS FROM ATTACKS BY JIHADI TERRORISTS
The Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, visited and conducted a situational assessment in the Area of Separation in Syria. (IDF)
He continued, “The primary threat is a ground invasion towards Israeli communities on the Golan Heights by various jihadi elements. Until the political and military situation stabilizes and Israel can have security guarantees that there is indeed a sovereign entity in control of Syria, which will limit the approach by various terror organizations, Israeli troops will be deployed.”
While many global players may be willing to turn a blind eye to the carnage in Syria in hopes of resolving the nearly 15-year crisis, analysts say Israel has no such illusions, prompting the IDF to conduct over 300 strikes in the country, including against Assad regime air force bases and suspected chemical weapons sites, in the immediate aftermath of the regime change.
On Sunday, Israel seemingly upped the ante when the new IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, held a situational assessment in the buffer zone with Syria. Zamir was the first chief of staff to have entered Syria.
“Immediately upon the fall of the regime, [Israel] devastated Syrian military capabilities to make sure some advanced capabilities and air defense [systems] would not fall into the hands of this regime and would be cleared in case Israel has any future desire to overfly [in] Syria,” said John Hannah, a Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
Security forces loyal to the interim Syrian government ride in the back of a vehicle moving along a road in Syria’s western city of Latakia on March 9. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images)
“They’ve [also] set up checkpoints in certain Druze areas right on the border [and] declared their willingness to protect the Druze. Israel has a significant Druze minority of its own who are loyal and good citizens of Israel who fight in its army. So, Israel has a deep domestic concern and interest with making sure that Druze communities near its borders [in Syria] are not subject to the kinds of threats and slaughter that we saw over the weekend along the [Syrian] coast,” he added.
RELIGIOUS SLAUGHTER IN SYRIA SHOWS NEED FOR US, EUROPE TO ‘KEEP A CLOSE EYE’ ON ISLAMIST REGIME: GREEK FM
Some 1,000 Alawites, a minority sect of Shiite Islam, as well as a number of Christians were murdered over the course of a few days last week in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia. The killings have laid bare concerns over the new Sunni Islamist government led by al-Sharaa, commander of the al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that deposed Assad.
A banner depicting then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin and reading “Justice Prevails” is displayed along a highway in the Syrian capital of Damascus on March 8, 2022. (Louai Beshara/AFP via Getty Images)
Conricus said that the massacres have validated Israel’s strategy, emphasizing that the persecution of the Alawites, Christians, Kurds and Druze population constitutes a danger to regional stability.
“There is a lot of sectarian violence by various foreign jihadi groups, which is a threat. Until only the Syrian state controls the weapons, Israel cannot jeopardize the life of Israeli civilians,” he said.
“We know Hezbollah and Iranian factions continue to try to smuggle weapons into Syria, with Tehran still trying to operate proxies. This is compounded by Turkish imperialistic behavior, which can lead to confrontation,” he added. “I think trying to keep the borders defined by the French at the end of World War I will be a challenge for the Syrian state.”
BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION SEEKS TO REIN IN ERDOGAN’S TURKEY OVER TIES TO US FOES
Ahmed al-Sharaa Hayat, former al Qaeda terrorist and current Interim President of Syria, in Idlib, Syria, on the border with Turkey on Feb. 7, 2023. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images)
Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum who has reported from Syria, told Fox News Digital that Jerusalem’s aim is for Syria to remain decentralized and weak, rather than united under the leadership of jihadi forces.
“Turkey is the main backer of HTS, and Israel regards Ankara as a hostile country where Hamas had an active operations office. Turkey has been supportive of Hamas in the war,” he said.
“While Russia is opposed to the global bloc led by the U.S., of which Israel is a part, there is no direct clash between the two nations. Russia did not seek to impede Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran in Syria.”
Israel is reportedly pressuring the Trump administration to ensure Syria remains fragmented, by giving the Russians a green light to maintain its bases in the country to counter Turkey.
People wave guns in the air as they gather to celebrate the fall of the Syrian regime in Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 8, 2024. (Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images)
In 2015, Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime, setting up outposts in the Middle East for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Jerusalem and Moscow have created a deconfliction mechanism to avoid direct military encounters when the IDF strikes Iranian terror assets in Syria, along with those destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“HTS is an organization that Israel knows well. It was there for several years prior to fall of Assad and its record shows it is a Sunni Jihadi Islamist organization supportive of [Hamas’] Oct. 7 [massacre] and opposed to Israel and Jews,” Spyer said.
“Israel’s experience prior to Oct. 7, on Oct. 7, and in the Gaza war taught Israelis not to have illusions regarding Sunni Islamists even when they say they are moderate,” he added.
World
Stocks fall and oil prices gain after Trump warns the Iran ‘clock is ticking’
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks mostly retreated and oil prices jumped on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall.
U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled further back from their records. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1% to 60,815.95, a decline led by technology-related stocks. It reached all-time intraday high levels last week above 63,000.
The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond surged to as high as 2.8%, its highest level since the late 1990s, part of a shift toward higher yields as the Bank of Japan gradually raises interest rates and higher energy costs raise expectations of rising inflation. That’s up from around 2.55% just one week ago.
Seoul’s Kospi climbed 0.3% to 7,516.04 after trading lower earlier in the day. It crossed the 8,000 mark for the first time on Friday, supported by buying of technology shares driven by the boom in artificial intelligence, but later declined partly on profit-taking by investors.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.4% to 25,596.68. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 4,131.53, after China reported weaker-than-expected retail data for April.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.5% to 8,505.30.
Taiwan’s Taiex dropped 0.7%, while India’s Sensex fell 0.1%.
Oil prices rose after Trump warned Iran in a social media post that “the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them” following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has set deadlines for Iran and then backed off, so investors have remained cautious about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and how it is impacting global energy flows, including oil and gas. The strait is still mostly closed, and the U.S. has also imposed its own sea blockade on Iranian ports since last month.
A drone strike over the weekend on a United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant added to worries over a potential escalation in the conflict.
Brent crude, the international standard, gained 0.7% to $110.02 per barrel. It was trading at roughly $70 a barrel in late February before the start of the Iran war. Benchmark U.S. crude was trading 0.8% higher to $106.31 per barrel.
“Re-escalation risks are increasing,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a research note. While there has also been a pick up on shipping activities over the past week around the strait, they said, “this can change quickly.”
The pair also noted that the oil market was reacting to the lack of tangible results on the Iran war after last week’s widely-watched summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, even as the White House said both the U.S. and China had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.
U.S. officials had hoped that Beijing could use its influence, given its economic ties with Iran, to help broker a peace agreement and reopen the strait. Trump said last week in an interview that Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the war. So far it’s been unclear how Beijing might do that.
The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury was at around 4.60%, up from 4.47% last Thursday and sharply higher than the nearly 4% level it was holding at before the Iran war.
On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.2% from the record it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.5%.
In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to 158.86 Japanese yen from 158.62 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1635, up from $1.1622.
World
Canada confirms hantavirus case linked to cruise ship outbreak that has killed three passengers
Hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship sparks concern as passengers return to US
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel discusses the Hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, where three deaths occurred. Siegel explains that while human-to-human spread is rare, it’s not impossible. The segment highlights the return of passengers to the U.S. from locations like Tenerife and Praia, raising new public health concerns and emphasizing the need for containment.
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Canadian health officials on Sunday confirmed that one of four Canadians who returned from the MV Hondius cruise ship, the subject of an international Andes hantavirus outbreak, tested positive for hantavirus. Three people connected to the outbreak have died.
The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed the positive test after British Columbia’s top public health officer previously described the case as a “presumptive positive.”
“One individual’s sample was confirmed positive for hantavirus,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials said additional testing will be conducted at a national laboratory. It was not immediately clear whether that testing was for confirmation, strain characterization or another purpose.
CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER DESCRIBES UNCERTAINTY AFTER 3 DEATHS AMID HANTAVIRUS PROBE
Experts say cruise outbreaks get more attention due to public reporting rules, but many travelers still plan to sail as booked. (Myloupe/Universal Images Group)
The development comes as global health officials continue monitoring the rare hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius, which has sickened multiple passengers.
As of May 13, the World Health Organization said 11 cases had been identified in connection with the cruise outbreak, including eight confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case. Those figures included three deaths. The Associated Press later reported that the Canadian confirmation brought the number of people from the ship who had tested positive to 10.
Canadian health officials said four Canadians returned home from the MV Hondius, though only one has tested positive for the virus.
RARE HANTAVIRUS HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION SUSPECTED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP WHERE 3 HAVE DIED
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
The confirmed patient and a traveling companion — identified as a Yukon couple in their 70s — returned from the cruise together. The companion later tested negative, officials said.
A third person in their 70s from Vancouver Island remains in isolation, along with a British Columbia resident in their 50s.
So far, no confirmed U.S. cases tied to the cruise ship have been reported, though WHO said as of May 13 that one U.S.-repatriated passenger had inconclusive laboratory results and was undergoing retesting.
HANTAVIRUS DEATHS ON CRUISE SHIP HIGHLIGHT DANGERS OF RODENT-BORNE DISEASE
Pictured is the MV Hondius, the cruise ship tied to a hantavirus outbreak after a stop in Argentina that left three passengers dead. (Europa Press Canarias via Getty Images)
Last week, however, health officials in Ontario County, New York, announced they were investigating a suspected locally acquired hantavirus case unrelated to the cruise ship.
The Ontario County Public Health Department said there was no risk to the general public. Officials also said the strain typically seen in the United States is not known to spread from person to person.
The outbreak linked to the MV Hondius began after the Dutch cruise ship, carrying 147 passengers and crew members, departed Argentina on April 1 for a South Atlantic voyage.
TRAPPED CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER SHARES UPDATE ON CLEANLINESS OF SHIP AMID DEADLY HANTAVIRUS OUTBREAK
The outbreak has prompted heightened precautions internationally, including in the Netherlands, where Radboud University Medical Center quarantined 12 staff members after officials said a hantavirus patient’s blood and urine were not handled under the strictest protocols recommended for the virus strain.
The outbreak has also sparked comparisons to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital there is “no comparison.”
He noted hantavirus is difficult to spread.
Passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-stricken Hondius cruise ship walk with their belongings after disembarking at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands, on May 12. (Piroschka van de Wouw)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” cases of human-to-human transmission, he added.
The World Health Organization has assessed the risk to the global population as low, while noting that current evidence suggests subsequent human-to-human transmission may have occurred on board. Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to have documented person-to-person transmission, though such spread is considered rare.
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Siegel also noted hantavirus cases have been reported in the United States for decades, though they remain “very rare.”
Fox News Digital’s Brittany Miller and Angelica Stabile, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
World
Moment of collision between two Navy jets at Idaho air show
Two US Navy jets collided during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, sending both aircraft crashing to the ground in front of spectators. All four crew members ejected safely before impact.
Published On 18 May 2026
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