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Iran’s Quds force Commander Visits Syria

Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani. (AP)
Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani. (AP)
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Iran’s Quds force Commander Visits Syria

Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani. (AP)
Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani. (AP)

An Iranian news agency on Saturday reported a visit by the chief of the Quds Force to eastern Syria, a rare public announcement of a trip to the battlefield by the successor of a commander killed by the United States in January.

Esmail Ghaani is the replacement for Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander, who directed its proxy militia in conflicts across the Middle East before he was killed by a US missile strike at Baghdad airport.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Ghaani had visited Abu Kamal, a Syrian town on the border with Iraq, in the past few days. It later deleted the report without explanation. Other Iranian news media made no mention of the visit.

Tasnim quoted Ghaani as describing ISIS fighters as agents of Israel and the United States, a common accusation by Iran.

Israel has regularly struck what it says are positions of Iran and its allies inside Syria. On Tuesday, the Syrian army said it responded to Israeli strikes on southern, central and eastern Syria in which two soldiers were killed.

On Saturday, Iranian media said the bodies of two Revolutionary Guards members killed in Syria four year ago were repatriated after being recently found and identified.

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Israeli Ex-General Says War Did Not End Well for His Country

People walk along Gaza's coastal al-Rashid Street to cross the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip into the north on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
People walk along Gaza's coastal al-Rashid Street to cross the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip into the north on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Ex-General Says War Did Not End Well for His Country

People walk along Gaza's coastal al-Rashid Street to cross the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip into the north on January 27, 2025. (AFP)
People walk along Gaza's coastal al-Rashid Street to cross the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip into the north on January 27, 2025. (AFP)

A former Israeli general who had proposed a surrender-or-starve strategy for northern Gaza says “the war has ended very badly” for Israel.

Giora Eiland spoke to Israeli Army Radio on Monday as tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to the heavily destroyed north in accordance with a ceasefire reached with Hamas.

Eiland said that by opening the Netzarim corridor, an Israeli military zone bisecting the territory, Israel had lost leverage over Hamas and would not be able to restore it, even if it resumes the war. “We are at the mercy of Hamas,” he said.

Eiland was the main author of the so-called Generals’ Plan, which called for giving civilians in the northern third of Gaza a week to evacuate. The whole area would then be declared a closed military zone, sealed off from humanitarian aid, and anyone remaining would be considered a combatant.

Last fall, the plan was presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has not said whether it adopted parts of it. The Israeli military has denied carrying out the plan.

Around the time it was publicized, in October, Israel launched a major operation in northern Gaza and sealed it off, allowing in hardly any aid. Tens of thousands of people were forced out, and the operation caused heavy destruction.

Eiland said Israel had failed to achieve its stated goals, including destroying Hamas, removing it from power, restoring a sense of safety to Israeli border communities or safely returning dozens of hostages abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

He said that Hamas, by contrast, “has largely achieved everything it wanted.”