Daily Digest Online

In a high-profile interview at the Doha Forum, Syria's interim president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, delivered a sharp condemnation of Israel, accusing it of "exporting crises" and pursuing a military campaign against fabricated threats.  Speaking with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Al-Sharaa demanded that Israel withdraw from territories occupied in the past year and fully reinstate the 1974 deconfliction agreement that had maintained a fragile calm for five decades. The Core Accusation: A "Fight Against Ghosts" Al-Sharaa argued that Israel is using broad security pretexts to justify aggression across the region. “Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts,” he stated, suggesting that Israeli leaders exploit the trauma of past attacks to legitimize military actions in neighboring countries like Syria. He framed these actions as an attempt to divert international attention from the conflict in Gaza. A Year of Escalation and Occupatio...

At a farm in central Israel, a former soldier feels the cold skin of a snake wrapped around his forearm. For a moment, the world shrinks. The noise of a passing drone, a helicopter in the distance—the triggers for flashbacks to Gaza—fade into the background. "I'm here with the snake right now," he says. It is the only thing that brings him peace. This is the new frontline of Israel's longest war—one not against Hamas, but against an enemy within: a spiraling mental health crisis that is claiming the lives of Israeli soldiers not with bullets, but through suicide. The death of Tomas Adzgauskas, a Lithuanian-Israeli sniper commander who took his own life after confessing to acts he "cannot be forgiven" for, is a stark, individual tragedy in a devastating national pattern. A Crisis in Numbers The data paints a picture of an army under profound psychological strain. A report by Israel's Knesset Research and Information Cen...