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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the air attacks on targets in Syria. He said the bombing was appropriate because Tehran 'crossed a red line.'

According to the Israeli army, Iran has fired about twenty projectiles to targets on the Golan Heights. That shelling from Syria according to that country was not much later answered by Israel with missiles on Syrian targets.

According to the Israeli army, Iran has fired about twenty projectiles to targets on the Golan Heights.

The rocket attack by Israel on an Iranian base in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, certainly killed fourteen people. According to the British-based organization, eight Iranians are among the dead.

Israel has again carried out rocket attacks in Syria. The target was an army base south of the capital Damascus. State press agency SANA has shown images of the havoc caused by the missiles. This shows how the fire service tries to extinguish multiple fireplaces.

Two Russian pilots were killed in a helicopter accident in Syria. According to the Russian news agency TASS, their helicopter crashed during a routine flight over the east of the country.

According to preliminary results, the Shiite movement Hezbollah won the parliamentary elections in Lebanon. According to Lebanese media, Hezbollah and the small Christian and Sunni parties supporting the movement are gaining more than half of the 128 seats.

Israel can better confront Iran later than later, if that is necessary. That said the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who according to the newspaper Haaretz at the same time stressed not to be on escalation.

Belgium is making more soldiers available to the international coalition against IS at the request of the United States. From mid-May, more than a hundred soldiers will be deployed extra. That has been decided by the Council of Ministers.

Human rights activists want to demonstrate with artificial intelligence whether war crimes and crimes against humanity have been or are being committed in Syria. The smart software, called VFrame, can detect suspicious things in videos, for example, and analyze metadata that help to verify the images. That says Hadi Katib, the founder of the 'Syrian archive'.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resume their fight against terrorist group Islamic State at the border with Iraq. The offensive had been shut down earlier because of the Turkish invasion of northwestern Syria.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has entered into a confrontation with Iran by looking at that country for the eyes of the world shortly after an attack on an Iranian rocket repository in Syria. With a theatrical presentation, he revealed 100,000 secret Iranian documents showing how Tehran worked secretly for years on an atomic bomb.

In Syria, some military bases have been targeted by rocket attacks, according to the Syrian army. It is not clear who is responsible for the attacks. The Syrian state television showed images of some heavy rock explosions, including in the neighborhood of Hama and Aleppo. An Iranian militia would also be stationed in Hama.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok (VVD) is impressed by the first performance of his new American colleague Mike Pompeo on the international stage. He calls it 'an illustration of the importance that the US attaches to NATO', that Pompeo did not visit the Foreign Ministers of the Alliance in Brussels until about twelve hours after his appointment. 'Impressive', says Blok.

A number of Western and Arab countries have launched a new initiative in Paris to bring peace to Syria.

The assumed poison gas attack in Syria was staged by a PR machine disguised as an aid organization. Russia wants to convey that message to the world on Thursday afternoon. The country says it has brought several 'dead' and 'wounded' from the videos to the Netherlands to testify.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called on the Americans not to turn away from the world. In a speech to the US Congress, he pointed out to politicians the decisive role that their country has played in 'creating and guarding the free world as we know it today.'

At the international Syria conference in Brussels, a total of 4.4 billion dollars (3.6 billion euros) was pledged for humanitarian aid to Syrians, both in their own country and for relief in surrounding countries. That estimate was made by UN emergency aid coordinator Mark Lowcock. He had hoped for a higher amount.

Experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have again conducted research in the Syrian city of Douma. They looked for traces of a possible poison gas attack. The samples are transferred to the OPCW laboratory in Rijswijk, the organization announced.

Germany donates one billion euros for aid to the ailing population in Syria and Syrian refugees in neighboring countries. Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas announced that on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump once again strongly criticized the nuclear deal with Iran. He called the agreement 'insane' and 'ridiculous.' Trump made that statement during the visit of his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who wants to prevent Trump from withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with Tehran.

The French President Emmanuel Macron is perhaps President Trumps most loyal ally in the West. The Frenchman and his wife Brigitte will be met with respect in Washington for the next three days. Disagreement is enough, however. The hope is that the two political outsiders will find each other on headache dossiers such as Syria, Iran and a possible trade war.

Iraq claims that in the event of air strikes in Syria, 36 fighters of the Islamic State terror group have been killed. An Iraqi army spokesman said the air actions were carried out late last week.

International inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) went to Douma on Saturday to investigate whether that Syrian city has become the target of a poison gas attack. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it known.

The special envoy of the United Nations for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has said on a visit to Moscow that the UN is exerting pressure on the inspectors of the OPCW to do their work in the Syrian Douma. The International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is with experts in Syria to find out whether in the until recently besieged Douma a poison attack has been and who should be held responsible for the use of the poison.

The Dutch government is not going to take children from Dutch Syria out of Syrian camps. The risks are too great.

A better relationship between the United States and Russia can only arise if Russia takes American concerns about the intervention in the elections, the attack with poison gas in Great Britain and the situations in Syria and Ukraine seriously. The new American National Security Advisor John Bolton told the Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov.

The United States suspects that Russia and Syria are trying to keep OPCW researchers out of Douma, where possible an attack has been carried out with chemical weapons. The countries would meanwhile try to eliminate evidence.