Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Syria will supply his Lebanese militia with “game-changing weapons” Thursday.

Nasrallah spoke less than a week after Israeli officials said Israeli aircraft twice struck shipments of advanced weapons believed to be bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Syria’s response to Israel’s air strikes is to tell Israel that if your goal was to prevent boosting the resistance’s capabilities then take note … [Syria] will give the resistance arms,” Nasrallah said, according to a translation posted on the website of the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper. Read more at The Times of Israel.

Haifa’s mayor ordered the northern city to increase its preparedness and gear up to defend itself against a possible retaliatory attack after Israeli planes reportedly hit targets inside Syria twice over the past three days.

Yona Yahav held meetings in order to coordinate the city’s positions with the Home Front Command, police, fire department and MDA. Procedures for opening shelters and absorption centers were discussed as well.

The move follows the placing of two Iron Dome batteries in northern Israel by the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday, amid reports that Syria saw the strikes as a “declaration of war.”

“City Hall is a body which residents approach in case of emergency and we must prepare accordingly,” Yahav said. Read more at The Times of Israel.

Internet behemoth Google changed the tagline on its Palestinian edition from “Palestinian territories” to “Palestine” on Thursday, in a controversial move that lends online credence to local aspirations of statehood.

Israeli officials indicated their displeasure with the move. Last November, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to upgrade the status of its Palestinian mission to that of non-member observer state. The move was met with strong Israeli and US criticism.

The term “Palestine” is contentious largely because the final status of the Palestinian territories and their borders has yet to be settled through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Talks between the parties have been largely at a standstill for over four years, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s government demanding several preconditions ahead of their resumption. Read more at The Times of Israel.

Three Kurdish children from Iraq in need of lifesaving heart surgery arrived at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon on Tuesday and were personally greeted by Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom.

The children, aged one, three and six, are among the thousands who have been treated by medical staffers, free of charge, as part of the Save a Child’s Heart program based at the hospital.

“I shall continue to support the activities of Save a Child’s Heart,” Shalom said.

“It is essential that we continue to send out the message that Israel is a humane state.

The humanitarian treatment we grant to children is in essence the difference between us and some of our neighbors.

Read More Here at Jerusalem Post