The Israeli who jumped over the border fence at Rosh HaNikra and crossed into Lebanon Wednesday apparently has a mental order. Lebanese officials still are holding and questioning 34-year-old Simon Saadati, according to the Beirut Daily Star.

A representative of United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is present at the interrogation, the newspaper added.

“The Israeli can only speak Hebrew, which required the need for a translator and a psychiatrist who is examining if the man suffers from any mental disorder,” a source said. Saadati’s mother has said that her son has run away several times in the past.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday with a delegation of senior members of the U.S.  House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA.)

“The last time I was here, we had a situation during the Second Lebanon War,” said Rep. Royce.

“I was in Haifa and I saw what things looked like, how bad things were at that moment. The Iron Dome, since then, has been a very remarkable development, one more example of the resilience and the creativity of the people of Israel.

“At the same time we have shared values between the United States and Israel, we are all here because we feel the importance of the depth of the relationship, but we also have shared threats. So, Mr. Prime Minister, we look forward to working with you.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “We’re engaged right now in an effort that we appreciate led by President Obama and Secretary Kerry to restart the peace negotiations between us and the Palestinians. We’re eager to do it; we have no preconditions and we think there shouldn’t be any preconditions to restart negotiations.

“We do think that to finish the negotiations, we need two basic pillars: one is that the Palestinians recognize the Jewish state and second that Israel has solid security arrangements. We’re prepared to discuss many things, but I will never compromise on Israel’s security.”

The IDF has confirmed reports that Lebanese soldiers caught an Israeli citizen who jumped over the border fence near Rosh HaNikra, on the northeast Mediterranean Coast.

His identity has not been released, and it is not known if he is Jewish or an Arab, nor are there any clues regarding his motives.

Israeli army officials are investigating how the man crossed the border without being spotted by soldiers.

Lebanese officials are questioning the man, described as 34 years old.

The IDF has launched a surprise call-up of an entire division of 2,000 reserve soldiers for a week-long exercise in the north in the first such maneuver in many years as instability grows on the entire northern border, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Golan Heights.

“This is a special drill, the first of its kind, which simulates a broad-based call-up” to test the system’s capability and preparedness, a senior IDF source said.

The drill is a dry-run, and the mission of reserve officers is to come up with new combat procedures and update plans within 48 hours and prove their flexibility to respond to sudden changes in enemy threats.

The last massive sudden call-up of reserves was prior to last November’s Pillar of Defense counterterrorist campaign, when more than 50,000 reservists flooded the Western Negev and prepared for a ground invasion of Gaza. The IDF sent the soldiers back home without entering Gaza after the Air Force put a temporary end to rocket attacks, which have resumed in the past month.

The exercise coincides with reports that President Barack Obama already has given the go-ahead to the U.S. Armed forces to prepare for a military strike on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces once there is binding proof that he has used chemical weapons against rebels.

The president said at a press conference Tuesday, “We know chemical weapons are being used in Syria,” but he added their still is no confirmed evidence of which side is using them.

It is presumed by virtually all analysts that Assad is the war criminal who has begun to unleash one of the most ghastly weapons in the world, using chemicals to kill and disfigure Syrian civilians.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon tried to play down the entire call-up, but his comments may have been his way of explaining why he did not even know of the surprise exercise.

He said Israeli media were “making a big deal out of nothing” and that “not even a tank” was moved in the exercise.

That is true, but the maneuver is not to meant to move weapons, as was done in the Pillar of Defense call-up. It is meant to test the capability of the reservists to drop everything, report for duty and draw up battle plans.

One IDF officer also played down the significance of the call-up, saying it was planned for several months. That also may be true but only underlines its significance.

Like Obama, the IDF is not acting out of panic, but is preparing for the worst, and for good reason.

The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Jordan and into Lebanon. More than 1 million refugees have flooded Syrian’s neighboring countries.

Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has thrown thousands of its fighters into the civil war, where Al Qaeda is trying to establish a power base if and when Assad falls.

Lebanon has been a seething pot, one degree under the boiling point of another civil war. Hezbollah and pro-Assad parties dominate the government, which is an ongoing political earthquake.

The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper quoted Lebanese sources that Hezbollah is preparing for an “Israeli attack,” which could be its code word for an American strike on Syria.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly met this week with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov to coordinate a common position. Russia has a vested interest in Syria and has everything to worry about since it has been a prime supplier of chemical weapons.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu summed up the situation last week in understated language. “Israel watches with keen interest and concern the latest developments in Syria and Lebanon,”   ”Syria is breaking down and Lebanon is unstable. Both places pose considerable threats to Israel’s security,” he said.

In the background is Iran, Assad’s key ally.

The Islamic Republic has been huffing and puffing, but is not looking for war at least not without a nuclear weapon.

However, like all Arab wars, they have fueled themselves out of control, and it is highly unlikely that anyone is “making a big deal out of nothing” as 2,000 soldiers continue their exercise near the northern border.

Security officials and aides to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered his helicopter to halt its flight route in mid-air and to land after the Israeli Air Force spotted an enemy drone approaching northern Israel Thursday.

The Prime Minister was on his to war to tour the Galilee when the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was spotted off the Haifa coast in the early afternoon.

While the helicopter pilot made an unscheduled landing, F-16 war planes and attack helicopters scrambled into the air.

The drone came within five nautical miles of the Mediterranean Coast when an F-16 blew it up. The Navy conducted a search for fragments of the drone, which anonymous military sources said was manufactured in Iran for Hezbollah.

A gag order on the attempted infiltration was lifted approximately two hours later. By that time, Prime Minister Netanyahu has safely returned to the air and attended a Druze cultural event.

The Israeli Air Force shot down a drone approximately five nautical miles off the Haifa coast as it flew towards the Mediterranean Coast at a height of approximately 6,000 feet. No one has claimed responsibility for the attempted infiltration, but it is assumed that Hezbollah or an affiliated terrorist group tried to penetrate Israeli air space.

A gag order on the IAF interception with a missile fired from an F-16 jet was lifted approximately three hours after the drone was blown up in mid-air.

“Israel is prepared to deal with any threat posed from Syria or Lebanon in the air, land or sea,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said after the IDF announced the incident.

Last November, a drone managed to penetrate Israeli airspace and was downed only after it reached the southern Hevron Hills, approximately 15 miles northeast of Be’er Sheva.

The drone was identified over the Gaza coast. Security officials did not release additional information, and it was speculated – without any confirmation – that the drone may have been headed towards the Dimona nuclear facility but that the IDF electronically took over the drone and directed it over a relatively unpopulated area.

The infiltration also may simply have been an attempt by Hezbollah to test Israel’s ability to detect low-flying drones.

Thursday’s drone may be an attempt by Hezbollah to draw attention away from its involvement in Syria, where heavy casualties have been reported the past several days. Hezbollah’s intense fighting alongside loyalists to Syrian President Bashar Assad further endangers the spread of the civil war into Lebanon, dominated by pro-Assad and Hezbollah parties against fiercely anti-Syria parties.

Hezbollah is largely financed by Iran, and Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian President Bashar Assad desperately need each other. Once one of the links in the “evil of axis” falls, all of the regimes’ leaders will be in danger.

Fierce clashes between Syrian rebels and Hizbullah at the Lebanese-Syria border, coupled with anarchy across from Israel’s Golan Heights, point to increasing chances of jihadist leaders taking control across the Israeli border from the Mediterranean Sea to the Golan.

Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have left the Golan region to back up the defense of Damascus against rebels, the London Guardian reported Sunday.

Mortar shell firing on the Golan Heights, initially errant but later followed by gunfire aimed at Israeli soldiers, have become more commonplace in the strategic mountainous area.

Syria occupied the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War in 1967. It never developed the area and never used it for anything else except as military posts to lob shells on Israel’s agricultural communities below.

Syria’s loss of the Golan to Israel, despite its nearly successful effort to retake it in the bloody Yom Kippur War in 1973, left Israel with a natural fortress of defense along with rich water sources. Every Israeli government since 1967 has encouraged development in the Golan, and more than half of the Golan Heights population now is Jewish. It is the home of major factories, including a winery with an international reputation, and a water bottling plant.

Unlike southern Israel, where the government and the IDF have played footsie with the Palestinian Authority and ensuing Hamas regime for more than 25 years, the IDF is quick to respond to any fire from Syria. The army fired guided missiles across the ceasefire line in the past two weeks.

The absence of the control of Assad, without any justification of his horrendous war crimes, has left Syrian rebels,  Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups in control of most of the area.

“We are seeing terror organizations gaining footholds increasingly in the territory,” IDF Chief of Benny Gantz said last week. “For now, they are fighting Assad. Guess what? We’re next in line.”

Israel can no longer count on the United Nations peacekeeping force to man the demilitarized zone between the Israeli and Syrian borders. Rebels have ambushed and kidnapped U.N. troops, and the United Nations last week admitted it has been forced to “adopt a posture which is somewhat more static.”

As The Wall Street Journal wrote Monday, “In other words, fewer patrols and observation posts.”

The newspaper quoted a report a month ago from the Washington Institute, which stated, “Jihadist tactical gains on the Golan and the bleak outlook for Undof [U.N. peacekeeping forces] are fueling concerns that the days of longstanding quiet along the border are numbered…. Undof’s dissolution or incapacitation would end [up] … turning the area into a ‘hot border’ where jihadists could challenge Israel and provoke retaliation – a dynamic not dissimilar to Lebanon.”

Baruch Spiegel, former IDF commander of the IDF liaison unit responsible for relations with peacekeeping forces, told the Journal, “We have never faced this situation, but we have to act very responsibly. But worst case scenarios can bring us worst case answers.”

The situation in Lebanon  is no better, if not worse. Ostensibly, the Lebanese government controls the country, but in reality, Hizbullah controls southern Lebanon. Sunni Muslims in control of Tripoli engage in violent clashes on a weekly, if not daily basis, in an effort to wage war against the government dominated by Hizbullah’s political party and pro-Syrian parties.

The fragile government fell last week, and the new prime minister, Tammam Salaam, is faced with the influx of nearly one million Syrian refugees, both pro and anti-Assad. He also operates in the shadow of  the Iranian-backed Hizbullah terrorist army, which had deployed itself alongside Assad’s forces.

Another bloody  clash on Sunday between Syrian rebels and Hizbullah left dozens of the terrorist army’s fighters wounded or killed, according to opposition sources quoted by the London-based Arabic language Al Asharq Awsat.

Throughout Lebanon, Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim factions are in all-out war against each other, and as each side gains allies and weapons from Syrian, there are enough arms to blow up the country into a civil war that would make the 15-year civil war in the 70s and 80s look like a schoolyard brawl.

Hizbullah alone has been estimated to have more missiles than most governments in the world.

Fierce clashes have broken out between Hizbullah’s terrorist army and Syrian rebels, increasing the threat that the civil war will spread as far south as Israel’s border with Lebanon, where the fragile government fell last week.

Syrian opposition sources told the London-based Arabic language Al Asharq Awsat that Hizbullah suffered heavy casualties and that dozens of wounded fighters were taken to a Beirut hospital.

Hizbullah reportedly has ringed the hospital and is asking for blood donations.

Meanwhile, the rebels attacked again in Damascus, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more in a business district that houses government bank and finance ministry offices.