The Syrian regime has shown off an IDF jeep, allegedly captured from rebels, as evidence that Israel has been aiding opponents to the regime. A video aired by the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen television channel clearly shows the jeep with an IDF license plate, complete with Hebrew letters.

Even someone not familiar with military vehicles would immediately see that the jeep has seen better days, or years.

In addition, if indeed Israel were deploying special forces in Syria, as Syrian President Bashar Assad claims, they would not be roaming around the country with a jeep.

The vehicle apparently dates back to the 1990s, when Israel maintained a security zone in  southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah terrorists from attacking the Galilee.

“The jeep seen in the video has not been used by the IDF for many years,” an IDF spokesman said. “What this really shows is how deeply entrenched Hezbollah is in Syria.”

Israel abruptly left southern Lebanon in 2000, and the jeep probably was left behind.

Hezbollah may have used it in Syria, where it is fighting along side Assad’s army. The jeep was “captured” during a fierce battle between rebels and the regime at the village of al-Qseir near the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The Syrian official news agency SANA claimed, “The seizure of an Israeli military vehicle which terrorists had been using in al-Qseir refutes the allegations made by Israel to justify its aggression on Syria and proves the scale of Israel’s military and intelligence involvements in the events in Syria.”

Al-Mayadeen also claimed that the Syrian regime recovered military uniforms and communications equipment, but the veracity of the report can be discounted because  it did not show any pictures, except that of the dilapidated jeep.

Another dubious claim comes from the Iranian-controlled Press TV claimed that the Syrian army found Israel-made rockets. Considering the source, it can be assumed that if any rockets were found, they belonged to Assad’s regime or to Hezbollah.

In its latest escalation of the international anxiety over the Syrian civil war, Russia announced on Thursday that a group of five warships from its Pacific Fleet have entered the Mediterranean sea to bolster a new regional task force, according to a fleet spokesman quoted on the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

“The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said.

Novosti said the warships’ immediate destination was Limassol, on the island of Cyprus, where they will join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.

An official from the Russian Embassy in Beirut confirmed to the Daily Star of Lebanon that the ships were indeed in the Mediterranean, adding that it was merely a routine procedure.

First such routine procedure since 1992.

Russia maintains a military base in the port of Tartous, Syria.

Novosti said the vessels – including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, and a tanker and a tug – left the port of Vladivostok on March 19. The Russian plan to expand its naval presence near Syria was announced in April.

A permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March.

It’s like the Cold War never ended.

According to Novosti, a senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force’s command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

The U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet maintains its own permanent presence in the Mediterranean.

Syrian President Bashar Assad visited a Damascus power station on May Day Wednesday in a rare public appearance, according to the regime’s television station.

The television station showed Assad speaking to workers and shaking their hands,

He has tried to show Syrians that all is “business as usual” despite the bloody civil war and charges that he has used chemical weapons against citizens.

Government media disseminate daily reports of Syrian army victories over “foreign terrorists,” whom the regime accuses of using chemical weapons.

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.

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.

Hamas has joined the Syrian rebels and has introduced its tunnel smuggling expertise while training rebels and fighting with them against its former ally Syrian President Bashar Assad, The London Times reported Friday.

Quoting anonymous Western sources, the newspaper stated, “The Qassam Brigades have been training units very close to Damascus. These are specialists. They are really good.”

Hamas reportedly is helping rebels build tunnels for weapons to be used on an assault on Damascus, Assad’s stronghold.

Syria hosts half a million Arabs classified by the United Nations as “Palestinian refugees,” whose support for Hamas would bolster its strength against its rival Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas denied the report and explained that one of its members who was killed outside Damascus last summer had left the terrorist organization.

Hamas’ London-based official Osama Hamdan stated, “We don’t interfere in the internal problems of Syria. Our members there are normal civilians, Syrian Palestinians, who live with their families there.”

However, it is “common knowledge” that Hamas agents are fighting with he rebels in refugee camps, according to a source in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp

Sources also told the London newspaper that Qatar, which has donated a quarter of a billion dollars to Hamas in Gaza and has promised more, may have persuaded Hamas to join the civil war.

De facto Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in Cairo in February, almost at the same time the Emir of Qatar paid an historic visit to Gaza, “I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform.”

Border tensions continued Sunday morning, following attacks by a Syrian military position directed at Israeli territory in Tel-Fars, in the southern Golan Heights. An IDF force spotted the source of the fire returned fire, destroying the position. There were no reported injuries on the Israeli side.

Israel used the Tamuz, a surface to surface guided missile to hit the target.

Saturday night there was fire from the same post at an Israeli jeep, but the Northern Command estimated that it was not intended against IDF forces. This morning, when the fire was repeated, the IDF decided to return fire.

According to a detailed report delivered to the UN headquarters by the UNDOF forces monitoring the Syrian-Israeli border, eight IDF troops had been seen entering on foot into the southern Golan demilitarized zone at the end of last January. A few weeks later, in mid-February, dozens of IDF soldiers were observed penetrating into Syria

The reports also cites several IDF aircraft penetrating into Syria over the same time period.

The same report also blames Syrian military forces for operating inside the demilitarized zone, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, in its war against the rebels. The report states that the Syrian army has been moving equipment and weapons into the zone. “This is a blatant violation of the agreement,” states the report, which also cites a reported Syrian gunfire at Israeli territory: a shell landed inside Israel in late February but failed to explode.

The report says that the IDF has warned in a letter to the UN Security Council that “if the [shelling] event is not handled, the situation could escalate.”

Last Wednesday, the UN forces decided to stop patrolling the border, for fear of a repeat of the kidnapping of 21 UN soldiers from the Philippines.

Four wounded Syrians arrived at the Israeli-Syrian border Tuesday and received medical treatment on site from Israeli soldiers, the IDF website reported.

Two of the casualties were treated adjacent to the border fence and were returned to Syria afterwards. Due to the severity of their injuries, two of the Syrians were transferred to Israeli hospitals for further treatment.