US military chief said to visit Israel on Monday

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford will visit the Jewish state on Monday to meet his Israeli counterparts, according to a Ynet news report.

Neither the IDF nor the US Embassy will confirm details of Dunford’s itinerary. American protocol dictates that such confirmations only be released once the chairman is en route to his destination.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford presents IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot with the Legion of Merit, outside the Pentagon on August 4, 2016. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

According to Ynet, Dunford will meet with IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. They are set to discuss the fighting in Sinai, where an Islamic State affiliate is engaged in a bloody war with Egyptian forces, as well as the situation in Syria, specifically the chemical weapons still believed to be in the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Iranian government’s attempts to transfer advanced weaponry through the country to the Hezbollah terrorist group.

This would be Dunford’s third trip to Israel in his position as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, but his fourth time meeting with Eisenkot.

— Judah Ari Gross