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Iran's semi-official Fars news agency claimed yesterday that Israeli helicopters and/or cargo planes unloaded military equipment "meant for attacking a Muslim state" at an airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

According to the report, the IDF built a military base approximately 9 km (5.5 miles) from Tabuk, and while Israeli planes landed there on June 18 and 19, all civilian flights were cancelled at the local airport.

It's an impossible-to-verify report, much like the Times of London's recent claim that Saudi Arabia granted Israel overflight rights to bomb Iran. But we can add a bit of context.

The Times of London reports this morning that Saudi Arabia will allow Israel to fly over its territory in order to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, and that Saudi defense officials have already conducted tests to make sure they don't accidentally shoot down Israeli jets.

Is the report accurate? I have no idea. But I will point out, as a cautionary note, that the Times runs a similar story every few months, all of them thinly-sourced. Here's a virtually identical piece from July 2009, for example (which the Saudi government quickly denied).

Even with Saudi overflight rights, bombing Iran would be a logistical nightmare for Israel.

The Israeli foreign ministry e-mailed a press release to reporters earlier this week insisting that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Need proof? The ministry's e-mail included four photos of well-stocked markets in Gaza City; it also linked to news reports about the opening of Gaza's first Olympic-size swimming pool and a "luxurious restaurant" in Gaza City.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hizballah's deputy leader, refuses to confirm or deny reports that his organization received Scud missiles from Syria. In an interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Qassem said Hizballah is "satisfied" with its current position, and called the Scud reports an Israeli ploy (عربي) to distract attention from their own nuclear program.

The Jerusalem Post reports today that Hizballah admitted receiving Scud missiles from Syria, but insists the missiles are "old and unusable."

The sources added, "Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread across all of Lebanon, in case Israel attacks the country again."

The Jerusalem Post's report is sourced to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai. The original report is available here (عربي); it's attributed to unnamed sources in Hizballah's military wing, who say the group only received a few old, decommissioned missiles. The sourcing is vague, though, and it's a Kuwaiti newspaper (often the Arabic media equivalent of supermarket tabloids).

Hamas officials say they're working to restrict rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, a day after Israeli fighter jets bombed four Hamas facilities across the Gaza Strip.

Israeli jets launched a total of 13 airstrikes late Thursday night, destroying four Hamas buildings, including two reported "training camps" and a media production facility. The bombings injured at least three people, including two children.

Eighty Palestinians and at least one Israeli police officer were injured today during riots in several East Jerusalem neighborhoods (عربي) today, including Ras al-Amud and the Shuafat refugee camp.

The demonstrators, mostly young, threw rocks at police and burned tires; security forces responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowds. Many of the patients treated in Ramallah hospitals suffered facial injuries, according to Al-Jazeera. Nearly 100 people were arrested.

U.S. vice president Joe Biden is wrapping up his Middle East trip with a visit to Petra, in Jordan. A little sightseeing might be a welcome relief after a tumultuous week in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

The phrase "turning point" is grossly overused, but this week really feels like a watershed in the region -- and not at all in a good way. Few observers had high hopes for the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks, but now even that modest dialogue appears off the table. The announcement that Israel is planning another 50,000 homes in East Jerusalem will poison any future talks: How can the Palestinian side negotiate when tens of thousands of illegal homes are considered non-negotiable?

Joe Biden's harsh condemnation of the new construction at Ramot Shlomo -- but the timing of the announcement still made the United States look weak and unwilling to confront Israel.

Here's a funny headline to start your Monday morning: Fayyad is inciting violence.

Fayyad would be Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who's routinely called an Israeli collaborator (and far worse) by his countrymen. But unnamed IDF sources are whispering to the Jerusalem Post that Fayyad is trying to incite an intifada -- because he decided to hold his weekly cabinet meeting in Hebron (عربي), a small act of protest against Israel's decision to list the Tomb of the Patriarchs as a national heritage site.

Several Palestinians were injured in Hebron this morning (عربي) in fighting between protesters and Israeli security forces.

Dozens of marchers allegedly threw rocks at Israeli soldiers near the Tomb of the Patriarchs; the IDF fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at the crowd. Four Palestinians were detained, according to an AFP report. None of the injuries sound serious (عربي).

One more word on Bronnergate: Al-Jazeera's Listening Post program did a thoughtful segment on the controversy this weekend. It discusses Bronner's son's service in the Israeli Defense Forces, but it also explores a bigger question: the extent to which Bronner is enmeshed in Israeli society, and how that affects his coverage.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu thinks the world should immediately slap oil sanctions on Iran -- even if the United Nations doesn't approve.

Netanyahu told foreign Jewish leaders that if the world "is serious about stopping Iran, then what it needs to do is not watered-down sanctions, moderate sanctions ... but effective, biting sanctions that curtail the import and export of oil into Iran."

"This is what is required now. It may not do the job, but nothing else will, and at least we will have known that it was tried. And if this cannot pass in the Security Council, then it should be done outside the Security Council, but immediately.

Netanyahu didn't really elaborate, but for unilateral sanctions to really be effective, they would require a naval blockade -- an act of war. The U.S. has already gone about as far as it can with unilateral sanctions: Washington bans American individuals and companies from doing business with Iran, but it's unlikely that foreign firms -- Royal Dutch Shell, Russia's Lukoil, Chinese companies -- will sacrifice their Iranian contracts because President Obama asks them to.

Not because I'm a huge fan of his or anything. But Nasrallah gave a speech today -- delivered, as usual, via giant video screens in south Beirut -- and much of the reporting on his talk is woefully out of context. Yedioth Ahronoth, for example, headlines its story Nasrallah threatens to attack Ben-Gurion Airport. The Jerusalem Post goes with Nasrallah warns TA will be targeted in next conflict.

These headlines are factually correct -- but they ignore the fact that Nasrallah's speech (عربي) was largely defensive.

The Israeli government will not conduct an independent investigation of the Goldstone Report's findings, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.

It's a single-source report, and it still hasn't been confirmed by the Israeli government. But an unnamed senior official in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Bibi is satisfied with the IDF's internal probe, the preliminary results of which were submitted to the United Nations earlier this month.

Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri made some remarks about Hizballah in an interview with the BBC that are getting a lot of attention in the Israeli press.

The New York Times' public editor, Clark Hoyt, thinks Ethan Bronner should be reassigned from the paper's Jerusalem bureau for the duration of his son's service in the IDF. He bases his recommendation mostly on avoiding the appearance of bias -- rather than any actual bias in Bronner's reporting.

The paper's editor, Bill Keller, disagrees:

It is, in addition to those things, a sign of respect for readers who care about the region and who follow the news from there with minds at least partially open. You seem to think that you... can tell the difference between reality and appearances, but our readers can't. I disagree.

Not to turn this into a media criticism blog, but I agree with Hoyt -- and with Evan, who wrote about Bronner last month.

Benjamin Netanyahu wants everyone in his cabinet to shut up about Syria.

Ehud Barak started this week's escalating Israeli-Syrian spat when he made the wholly sensible argument that the two countries could be headed for another war if they don't resume peace talks.

Israeli officials still haven't responded to The Guardian's report that the el-Bader flour mill in Gaza was destroyed by an air-dropped bomb -- and not a tank shell -- during Operation Cast Lead.

We tracked down a photo of the remains of the bomb; this was taken by a United Nations de-mining team on Jan. 25, 2009, about a week after the war ended.

Hard to tell anything conclusive from a single picture -- but the shape of the ordnance, the lightly tapered body and the flat top, is characteristic of an Mk82 bomb.

Hamas is now walking back claims that its initial investigation into Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's killing exonerated Mossad and placed the blame on unnamed Arab governments.

"The Israeli press is disseminating dozens of stories and versions about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, some of the unfortunately are quoted by Arab and international newspapers, but all of these stories are far from the truth," Moussa Abu Marzouk said.

An Abu Dhabi police commander said the investigation is going well, though he still hasn't identified the killers (عربي).

Hamas apparently tried to retaliate by floating barrels filled with explosives towards beaches in southern Israel. A bomb squad defused one barrel; the other blew up while a police robot was inspecting it. Israeli F-16s launched airstrikes in Gaza within the last few minutes -- likely a response to the failed Hamas attack. The jets targeted an abandoned building and several smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border.

The United Nations is already poking holes in Israel's preliminary response to the Goldstone Report.

The IDF's response says the el-Bader flour mill -- the only working flour mill in Gaza, destroyed during Operation Cast Lead -- was hit by tank shells. But a United Nations de-mining team says it found the remains of a 500-pound Mk82 bomb inside the mill, according to a report in The Guardian by Rory McCarthy.