On Sunday, Jews around the world marked Tisha Be’Av, a date on the Hebrew calendar when a long list of calamities have afflicted the Jewish People throughout history, including the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The Western Wall in the capital’s Old City was the site of a procession at the start of Tisha Be’Av on Saturday evening, while riots broke out on the nearby Temple Mount Sunday as Moslem protesters gathered to mark the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha attacked Jewish visitors to the site. Several Israeli political leaders decried the situation whereby Jewish worshipers are unable to visit their holy sites on their holy days without fear of being attacked.

IDF units deployed along the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip were on high alert Monday morning after intercepting several attempts by terrorists to infiltrate into Israel over the weekend. A total of five terrorists were shot dead by IDF troops while attempting to breach the border fence in two separate incidents on Saturday and Sunday morning, respectively. “Your job is to defend the state’s borders and its citizens, and that is what you did here,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi told a group of soldiers while touring the border region.

Reports out of Iran over the weekend indicate that security forces have begun a crackdown on activists opposing the continued rule of the clerical regime headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An open letter posted by activists in June called for reforms, saying among other things that elections held for the national parliament are a sham because only candidates who have sworn personal allegiance to the Supreme Leader and pledged to support his agenda regardless of what ordinary citizens might want or need, are allowed to run for office. Despite the crackdown, demonstrations against the regime have continued in several cities.

Several Palestinian men and one woman suspected of participating in the murder of 19-year old IDF Cpl. Dvir Sorek and dumping his lifeless body near the community of Migdal Oz, south of Jerusalem, were arrested by Israeli security forces over the weekend. Sorek was part of the Hesder programs Machanayim Yeshiva in Migdal Oz, which allowed him to combine Yeshiva study with military service, an option popular among Israel’s Modern Orthodox community.

In less than six weeks’ time, Israeli political parties will once again fight their way to the polls in a general election for the country’s 120-member parliament. At the center of this election campaign, stands outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who according to public opinion polls – remains short of a necessary majority for a vote of confidence – if tasked with heading a new cabinet. A panel of experts share their thoughts.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) is not defeated despite the loss of the territory it claimed as its so-called ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria. It is stronger today than its predecessor Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was in 2011, when the U.S. withdrew from Iraq. AQI had around 700-1000 fighters then.  ISIS had as many as 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria in August 2018 according to a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate. ISIS built from the small remnant left in 2011 an army large enough to recapture Fallujah, Mosul, and other cities in Iraq and dominate much of eastern Syria in only three years.  It will recover much faster and to a much more dangerous level from the far larger force it still has today.

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