🇹🇷 Turkey's is carrying out large-scale naval exercises across the Black Sea, Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean and Sea of Marmara, including strategically important areas that geographically separate Cyprus from Greece.

The drills are among the largest conducted by the Turkish Navy in recent years, involving approximately 120 vessels, 85 naval and aerial assets, and around 22,700 military personnel. Dunav Intel monitored the activity of at least 3 Bayraktar TB3 UCAVs operating consecutively from the TCG Anadolu, Turkey's drone-capable amphibious assault ship commissioned in 2023.

Over the past year, Dunav Intel has also observed a noticeable increase in Turkish aerial activity in strategically important areas, including the waters off Antalya and over the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Recently, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan employed strong rhetoric against Israel, while also criticizing the expanding strategic cooperation between Israel, Greece and Cyprus.

🔗 Dunav Intel

🇮🇱⚔️🇱🇧🇸🇾 Ceasefires and construction: Satellite images reveal how Israel is cementing its presence in Lebanon and Syria

Israel has developed a string of military bases at strategic locations in newly occupied territory from the Mediterranean to the Yarmouk River. Sources say it looks like they're here to stay

With its sweeping panoramas of south Lebanon and flags rising over 1,000-year-old battlements, the footage Israel released last week of its troops seizing Beaufort Castle was intended to provoke awe and anger.

Between 1982 and 2000, Israel maintained a permanent base at Beaufort Castle, one repeatedly shelled by Hezbollah during a guerrilla campaign that eventually forced the occupiers out.

Israel invaded Lebanon in October 2024, escalating year-long, cross-border clashes with Hezbollah that the Lebanese movement launched in response to the genocide in Gaza.

By the time Israel agreed to fully withdraw in a 27 November 2024 ceasefire agreement, Lebanon was traumatised.

Hezbollah’s leadership had been largely wiped out, 4,000 people had been killed by Israel and more than a million had been displaced from the south and areas of Beirut.

Under the terms of that agreement, the Israelis had 60 days to pull out, with Hezbollah promising to retreat north of the Litani River in return. Yet, despite an extension, the deadline came and went, with Israel refusing to leave five positions it established in the first days of the invasion.

These five bases were all built on hilltop positions, giving a clear line of sight over large stretches of south Lebanon.

The end of Israel’s 2024 invasion of Lebanon dovetailed with dramatic events in Syria that opened the door for a new occupation to the east

Among the first locations seized was the summit of Mount Hermon, which at 2,814 metres is the Levant’s second-highest peak.

Netanyahu triumphantly visited troops there that December, insisting Israel would not retreat for at least a year.

Deep into 2026, Israel remains at the summit. Meanwhile, a series of bases has been established from Mount Hermon’s peak to the Yarmouk River on the Syrian-Jordanian border - a line of control 70km long.

MEE has identified at least 10 Israeli bases and observation posts set up in newly occupied areas of Syria since the fall of Assad.

Eight are within the neutral buffer zone, which was created along the boundary of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after the 1973 Middle East war and is monitored by another UN peacekeeping force, Undof.

Satellite imagery also shows Israel has constructed long lines of earth fortifications along that boundary, known as the Purple Line, including elevated mounds allowing vehicles to ascend for surveillance.

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ceasefires-and-construction-how-israel-cementing-its-presence-lebanon-and-syria