For the first time in five years, Israel on Sunday, December 30 allowed 20 truckloads of building materials into Gaza for use by the private sector, The New York Times reported. One of the first tangible concessions under a ceasefire deal reached after eight days of intensive fighting in November, it signaled a shift in Israel’s approach to the Palestinian enclave. Israeli officials said that construction materials would now be allowed in on a daily basis, in return for Egyptian help in preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. The shipment on Sunday came in addition to 34 trucks of gravel that crossed into Gaza over the weekend from Egypt, which also had Israel’s approval. The materials from Egypt were earmarked for construction projects that the emir of Qatar pledged to pay for when he visited Gaza in October.

The skill required to carry out recent attacks on American banks has convinced United States government officials and security researchers that they are the work of Iran, The New York Times reported Wednesday, January 9. Since September, intruders have caused major disruptions to the online banking sites of Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, PNC, Capital One, Fifth Third Bank, BB&T and HSBC. They employed DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, named because hackers deny customers service by directing large volumes of traffic to a site until it collapses. No bank accounts were breached and no customers’ money was taken. Computer security experts say the attacks showed a level of sophistication far beyond that of amateur hackers. Also, the hackers chose to pursue disruption, not money: another earmark of state-sponsored attacks, the experts said.

The civil war in Syria is testing Iraq’s fragile society and fledgling democracy, worsening sectarian tensions, pushing Iraq closer to Iran and highlighting security shortcomings just nine months after American forces ended their long and costly occupation here, The New York Times reported Tuesday, September 25. Despite nearly nine years of American military engagement, an effort that continues today with a $19 billion weapons sales program, Iraq’s security is uncertain and its alliance with the theocratic government in Tehran is growing. In response, the United States has tried to secure its interests in Iraq. It has unsuccessfully pressed Iraq to halt flights from Iran that traverse Iraqi airspace to ferry weapons and fighters to the Assad government, and is trying to speed up weapons sales to Iraq to secure it as an ally.

“There has not been an engineering feat this large since the days of Herod,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, January 2 as he announced the completion of the bulk of Israel’s border fence with Egypt, The Jerusalem Post reported. Work on the five-meter high fence began in November 2010, and Netanyahu, who shepherded through the massive, 135 billion shekel project, said on a tour of the fence that the model will now be duplicated on the Golan Heights border with Syria, and later on the country’s eastern frontier. Netanyahu said the fence had two primary objectives. The first was to stop the flood of African migrants into the country, and the second – to defend from terrorist attacks originating from Sinai. Netanyahu said there has been a significant decline in attempted attacks from Sinai, which he attributed both to the fence and to Operation Pillar of Defense.

Jordan has drawn waves of refugees in the past, but the current flood from Syria is particularly severe, The New York Times reported Thursday, January 3. While the total number of registered refugees or those awaiting registration with the U.N. agency in Jordan is more than 150,000, many others have not been counted. The flood of refugees is straining the limited resources of the Jordanian government and aid agencies, though agencies say they are also trying to steer funds to poor Jordanians. Foreign assistance is only trickling in, leaving many in need. About 80 percent of Syrian refugees across the region are not housed in camps, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Many of them live in grim apartments along narrow dirt roads, blending in with poor Jordanians. It is challenging to distribute aid to refugees who are scattered across urban areas.

Clashes between Sunni Muslim and Alawite militias have killed at least 17 people in the Lebanese city of Tripoli recently, in perhaps the worst spillover of violence from the civil war in neighboring Syria, The New York Times reported Monday, December 10. Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, has long been the scene of conflict between Sunni Muslims in the city’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood and Alawites in the hilltop section of Jabal Mohsen. The latest conflict began after a number of Sunni fighters from northern Lebanon were killed in an ambush by pro-government forces as they tried to enter Syria to join opposition fighters. Sunnis in Tripoli, angry over videos that purported to show the men’s bodies being stabbed and kicked, attacked Alawites, starting days of clashes between militias wielding rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Lebanese news media put the death toll at 17.

Nuclear experts in the U.S. and Middle East have raised concerns about the security of up to 50 tons of unenriched uranium in war-torn Syria, The Financial Times reported Tuesday, January 8. Although western governments have been heavily focused on the fate of Syria’s chemical weapons since the start of the uprising, government officials and nuclear experts have also expressed fears about what may be a significant stockpile of uranium inside Syria. Iran, which is closely allied to the Syrian regime and urgently needs uranium for its nuclear program, might be trying to seize such a stockpile. Concerns go back to the Assad regime’s attempt to build a nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar in the east of the country. Syria, with assistance from North Korea, was thought to be close to completing the reactor when the facility was destroyed, reportedly by Israeli jets, in September 2007.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization members agreed Tuesday, December 4 to back a Turkish request to send Patriot air-defense batteries to protect populations near Turkey’s border with Syria, The Wall Street Journal reported. NATO said that the Patriot plan was completely defensive in nature and that the missiles would be configured to shoot down any Syrian rockets that enter Turkish air space—but, diplomats say, not aircraft. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also said ministers of the 28-nation alliance “unanimously expressed grave concern about reports that the Syrian regime may be considering the use of chemical weapons.” The plan was approved a day after Turkey dispatched F-16 fighter jets in response to Syrian jet strikes sent refugees across the Turkish frontier and followed other recent spillovers of violence into Turkey. Ankara welcomed the decision, saying “the measures to be taken are in no way offensive.”