Chronology: August 16 – November 15, 2019

ABBREVIATIONS

• AFP, Agence France-Presse

• AJ, Al Jazeera

• AP, The Associated Press

• AAwsat, Asharq Al-Awsat

• BBC

• Bloomberg

• CNN

• Dawn (Pakistan)

• GN, Gulf News

• The Guardian

• Haaretz

• JP, Jerusalem Post

• JT, The Jordan Times

• MEMO, Middle East Monitor

• MWN, Morocco World News

• The National (UAE)

• NPR, National Public Radio

• NYT, The New York Times

• RFE/RL, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Reuters

• VOA, Voice of America

• WP, The Washington Post

• WSJ, The Wall Street Journal

Arab-Israeli Conflict

See also Israel, Palestinian Territories

Aug. 20: Israel detained Jordanian citizen Hiba al-Labadi en route to a family wedding in the West Bank. Labadi was placed in indefinite detention for allegedly having contacts during a visit to Lebanon with members of the Shi'i group Hizbullah, which Israel deemed a terrorist organization. Israeli authorities did not issue any formal charges against her. After a September visit by an official from the Jordanian Embassy, which issued a formal complaint about her detention, Labadi began a three-week hunger strike in protest of her treatment before it was announced on October 17 that a secret trial had sentenced her to six months detention. [Haaretz, 10/6, 10/15; JP, 10/17]

Aug. 23: Israeli security forces wounded 122 Palestinians during protests at the de facto border with the Gaza Strip. Twenty-six of the wounded were reportedly hospitalized, five of whom in serious condition. Gazans had been holding weekly protests since March 2018 as part of what was billed as the Great March of Return, demanding the right for Palestinians to be able to return to their families' homes in Israel and an end to the 12-year blockade on Gaza. [Haaretz, 8/23]

The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of Iranian-supported Iraqi militias, blamed Israeli drones for at least three aerial attacks on its bases in Iraq. Officials in the United States confirmed that Israeli forces were responsible for carrying out one of the air raids on a base in the northern Salah al-Din Governorate, which allegedly targeted an Iranian weapons depot. The last known Israeli attack on Iraq was on a nuclear facility in 1981. [AJ, 8/23]

Aug. 25: A day after two Hizbullah fighters and an Iranian were killed in an Israeli aerial attack on the southern Syrian village of 'Aqraba, Israeli drones hit a Hizbullah stronghold in Beirut, resulting in no casualties. Lebanese president Michel 'Aoun condemned the attack, calling it a declaration of war. Shaykh Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shi'i movement, also promised retaliation. Hizbullah fought a war with Israel in 2006, and the border with Israel remained sensitive to conflict. [AJ, 8/26]

Sept. 2: In response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Syria, Hizbullah fired missiles at an army base in Israel, hitting a military vehicle but with no casualties reported. Israel retaliated with artillery strikes, marking the most serious exchange of fire over the Israeli-Lebanese border since 2015, when Hizbullah killed two Israeli soldiers with anti-tank missile fire in response to an Israeli attack on a convoy in Syria. One week later, on September 9, Hizbullah claimed it downed another Israeli drone near the border. [CNN, 9/2; Reuters, 9/9]

Sept. 6: At a weekly Great March of Return demonstration with more than 5,000 participants, the Israeli army shot and killed two Palestinian adolescents and wounded an additional 76 people. Of the injured, 45 were deliberately targeted, according to the Gaza Strip government's health ministry. [AJ, 9/6]

Sept. 9: At least 18 pro-government fighters were killed in Syria in airstrikes on positions said to be held by Iranian-backed militias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A Syrian security official and an Iraqi militia official, both of whom denied there were any casualties, held the Israeli military responsible, which Israel did not deny. [AP, 9/9]

Sept. 10: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to annex the Jordan Valley in the West Bank if he won the general election on September 17. Comprising about 30 percent of the West Bank, the Jordan Valley was home to 65...