Israel was one of first countries to express solidarity with the UK on Wednesday evening following a terrorist attack on the parliament building in London which resulted in several deaths and injuries. “Israel expresses its deep shock at the terrorist attack in London today and its solidarity with the victims and people and government of Great Britain,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said. “Terrorism is terrorism wherever it occurs, and we will fight it relentlessly.”

Three Palestinian men attempted to breach the border between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip near the city of Rafah late Wednesday, resulting in fire being directed at them by patrolling IDF units, killing one and wounding the other two. The incident came amidst large-scale IDF drills in the South and a recent speech in which IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot addressed the threat of cross-border tunnels from Gaza into Israel.

Israeli police announced on Thursday that they have arrested a 19-year old dual US-Israeli citizen in the southern city of Ashkelon on suspicion that he was behind most of the bomb-threats called into Jewish Community Centers in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand over the past few months. Police said the suspect used sophisticated computer and communications equipment to broadcast his calls worldwide, but otherwise released few details of his identity or possible motives.

President Reuven Rivlin’s trip to Vietnam, accompanied by a large delegation of Israeli business leaders, continued to bear fruit on Wednesday as several more bilateral agreements were announced, including memoranda of understanding on projects  in the fields of medicine, energy and informal education. The agreements will see Israeli companies building energy infrastructure and hospitals in Vietnam while training Vietnamese specialists in a wide variety of fields.

Omar Barghouti, a Qatari-born Palestinian man who was granted permeanent residency in Israel in 1994 when he married an Arab-Israeli woman but who has led a worldwide effort promoting the campaign to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel, was arrested on Monday by Israeli authorities for tax evasion, being released hours later on bail but required to turn over his passport to the court and refrain from travelling abroad for the duration of the investigation into the charges against him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is leveraging Russia’s position in Syria to further diminish U.S. influence in the broader Middle East and North Africa. Russia will increasingly constrain U.S. freedom of maneuver in the broader region by expanding its military footprint and its anti-access and area denial zone.