A nuclear reactor in IranReuters, Wana News Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced that their monitors in Iran had detected uranium enrichment levels of 84% purity, only 6% less than the amount needed to create a nuclear weapon and the highest levels detected so far in the country, whose leadership is bent on destroying Israel.
Until now, IAEA inspectors have only detected enrichment levels of 60%, and the Islamic Republic even admitted that it enriched uranium to those levels after the United States pulled out of the Iran Deal, formerly known as the JCPOA.
The Israeli defense establishment suggests that Iran can reach 90% uranium enrichment, but at this stage, it is uninterested.
IDF Military Intelligence Directorate Chief Aharon Haliva says, “The time is coming that the international community’s greatest test will come into play: when Iran expresses interest in reaching 90% enrichment.
Israel’s new government has stepped up US-backed talks with Saudi Arabia on developing closer military and intelligence ties in light of growing concerns about Iran, several people familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg.
Officials from the two countries held exploratory meetings ahead of the recent US-Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group gathering on defense and security in Riyadh, six people said. Three of them added that further engagement was expected to take place in Prague to coincide with the Munich Security Conference.
A healing of the historical rift between Israel and Saudi Arabia would represent a significant realignment of regional politics, but a fully-fledged reset of relations may rest on an agreement related to Saudi Arabia’s publicly stated and long-held demand for the creation of a Palestinian state, some of the people told Bloomberg.
Israel has been for years rumored to have behind-the-scenes ties with Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis have vehemently denied those rumors.
Neighbors of the kingdom, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, formalized relationships with Israel in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that his goal is to achieve a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia that would “effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
However, Saudi officials have repeatedly said that a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital is a prerequisite for Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, and Prince Faisal’s comments on Thursday are in line with that.
The Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the Bloomberg report, as did Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry.
Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who travels to Riyadh often to meet with Saudi officials, told Bloomberg that while there is a “profound alignment in threat perceptions between the Israelis and the Saudis and other Gulf Arab governments,” when it comes to Iran, it is not enough on its own to be the basis of Saudi-Israeli normalization.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman may also be dangling normalization with Israel as a way to improve relations with the US, Alterman said, while Netanyahu can talk it up to deflect from troubles at home.
“Will it move beyond friends with benefits? It need not any time soon,” he said.
Five people were “martyred” and 15 others wounded in an “Israeli air aggression, with waves of missiles, targeting areas in Damascus and its vicinity, including residential neighborhoods,” SANA reported early
Sunday morning.
“At 00:22 AM Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression with waves of missiles from the direction of occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in Damascus city and its surroundings, including residential neighborhoods, our air defenses intercepted the missiles and downed most of them,” SANA reported, citing a military source.
The attack on the Damascus area, Feb. 19, 2023. / SOHR
According to the same source, five people were killed, among them a soldier, and 15 civilians were wounded, some of them critical. The attack also destroyed several civilian homes and caused material damage to several neighborhoods in Damascus and its vicinity.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli missiles targeted sites belonging to Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah, in an area between Sayeda Zeinab and Diabiya in the countryside of Damascus, resulting in fires and explosions in the targeted areas, as well as the destruction of an Iranian held area, and a school building.
A missile also landed at the Al-Mazraa roundabout, where a woman was reported dead. The radar battalion was targeted in Tal Masih, south of Shahba, in As-Suwayda.
Destruction in Damascus area following the overnight attack, Feb. 19, 2023. / SANA
Other Syrian opposition sources claim that the damage in the residential neighborhood of Damascus was caused by an anti-aircraft missile fired by the Syrian army, in an attempt to repel the Israeli attack. The director of the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority, Bassem Mansour, said that the Damascus international airport is operating normally and there was no damage there at all. Media outlets affiliated with the Syrian regime reported that the attack was also aimed at a target in the north of the al-Sawidaa district, the Druze Mountain in the south of the country.
This is the second Israeli attack since the beginning of 2023, according to SOHR. On January 2, 7 were killed as a result of Israeli strikes: 3 Syrians and 4 foreigners, as a result of an Israel attack on Damascus International Airport and its surroundings.
In 2022, Israel attacked 32 times inside Syrian territory, using missiles and warplanes. The attacks destroyed 91 targets, including buildings, weapons and ammunition depots, headquarters, centers, and “mechanisms.” 89 soldiers and 121 others were killed in those attacks in 2022.
