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Israel Escalates Its 'War Between Wars' Campaign

An Israeli tank in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights (File photo: Reuters)
An Israeli tank in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights (File photo: Reuters)
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Israel Escalates Its 'War Between Wars' Campaign

An Israeli tank in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights (File photo: Reuters)
An Israeli tank in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights (File photo: Reuters)

Israel is escalating its “war between wars” campaign by demanding the removal of Lebanese Hezbollah, along with all Iranian militias from Syria.

As a result, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in several areas in southern Syria warning the regime forces against its collaboration with Hezbollah and Iranian militias.

The leaflet also threatened the commander of the Syrian army’s 112th Brigade, Basil Abu Eid, residing in Quneitra, with assassination.

Addressing Abu Eid, the leaflet said that despite prior warnings, he was still allowing Hezbollah forces to operate in the area under his command.

“Hezbollah has brought destruction and instability to the region. You personally and the army, in general, will pay the price. Now is the time for Hezbollah to leave Syria. Now is the time for Hezbollah to leave the 112th Brigade,” read the leaflet.

Earlier, Israel reportedly attacked sites of the regime and pro-Iranian forces but deliberately avoided Hezbollah’s locations.

Israeli sources considered it an escalation in Israeli goals and demands.

Tel Aviv is no longer satisfied with just removing Iran and its militias from Syria as it now wants Hezbollah out of the country as well. It is also threatening the regime’s army of increased operations.

Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, announced in a meeting with Northern Brigade leaders that the army executed over 50 attacks and many covert operations in 2020, forcing Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to evacuate many of its bases in Syria and withdraw some of its militias.

Kochavi revealed that Iranian bases, camps, and headquarters have been evacuated from the Damascus area as part of a campaign to move them to northeastern Syria.

Within the framework of Tel Aviv’s “war between wars” military activities, the frequency, and quality of Israeli operations have increased in Syria, and so did the range of covert activities.

The Iranian repositioning in Syria slowed down over the past two years as a result of the Israeli activities, announced Kochavi.

The number of Iranian activists in Syria and affiliated militias has also decreased significantly.

A senior Israeli official indicated in a press briefing that President Bashar al-Assad realized that the Iranian presence complicates the situation and contributes to the Turkish expansion in the north.

Assad doesn’t dare to speak with the “rude officials” in Tehran, who insist on using his country as part of their goals to control the region, according to the official.

Iran evacuated some of its sites, however, it kept Hezbollah in its locations. Tel Aviv is trying to prevent that because the party wants to use southern Syria as another front for its war against Israel.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.