Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons in the country’s civil war, the Israeli military’s top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday, citing photographic evidence of people "foaming from the mouth."

If the claim by Brigadier-General Itai Brun is confirmed, it would mean Syria’s President Bashar Assad has crossed what the State Department has previously described as a red line that would trigger some form of U.S. response. President Barack Obama also warned Assad using chemical weapons would be a "tragic mistake" that would have "consequences."

Brun told a conference at the Institute of National Security in Tel Aviv that photographs of victims showing foam coming out of their mouths and contracted pupils were signs that a deadly gas had been used.

"One of the main characteristics of the recent events in Syria is the increasing use of ground-to-ground missiles, rockets and chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. There is a wide-range usage of missile, rockets and more by the Syrian weapons array," he said, according to a translated transcript of his remarks provided by the Israel Defense Forces.

"According to our professional assessment, the regime has used deadly chemical weapons against armed rebels on a number of occasions in the past few months," he said.

"For instance, on March 19, 2013, victims suffered from shrunken pupils, foaming from the mouth, and other symptoms which indicate the use of deadly chemical weapons. The type of chemical weapons was likely sarin, as well as neutralizing and non-lethal chemical weapons," he added.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, sarin, a nerve agent, causes symptoms including loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and respiratory failure that can be fatal.

George Ourfalian / Reuters file

Animal carcasses lie on the ground after what residents, Syrian rebels and Assad's regime all said was a chemical weapon attack in Khan al-Assal near the northern city of Aleppo, on March 23.

In March, Assad's regime and the rebels blamed each other for what both said was a chemical-weapon attack in Aleppo.

Responding to Brun’s comments, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a written statement that the United States “continues to assess reports of chemical weapons use in Syria.”

“The use of such weapons would be entirely unacceptable. We reiterate in the strongest possible terms the obligations of the Syrian regime to safeguard its chemical weapons stockpiles, and not to use or transfer such weapons to terrorist groups like Hezbollah,” he added.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces would be a "game changer" and the United States and Israel "have options for all contingencies," Reuters reported.

Hagel met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the news service said, a day after flying in an Israeli military helicopter over the occupied Golan Heights on the edge of the fighting in Syria that has entered its third year.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

/

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

"This is a difficult and dangerous time, this is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever," Hagel, in remarks to reporters before his talks with Netanyahu, said about the United States and Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Belgium for a NATO meeting on Tuesday, that he did not have information that confirmed that the Syrians had used chemical weapons.

Earlier he said the alliance needed to consider its role in the crisis, Reuters reported. "We should also carefully and collectively consider how NATO is prepared to respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat," he added.

Kerry said that the planning the alliance had already done was appropriate. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Syrian activists say Assad loyalists 'massacre' 85 in Damascus suburb

'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

Obama warns Syria's Assad not to use chemical weapons

Mazen Mahdi / EPA

Traffic comes to a stop due to a blockade of burning tires on the outskirts of the Bahraini capital Manama on April 18, 2013.

Mazen Mahdi / EPA

A protester flashes the victory sign after setting tires on fire to block a road on the outskirts of the Bahraini capital Manama on April 18.

 By Reem Khalifa, The Associated Press

Organizers of Bahrain's Grand Prix said Thursday that sporadic protests against the race and violent unrest across the Gulf nation do not pose a threat to the premier international event in the kingdom.

Anti-government groups have stepped up protests against the race in attempts to embarrass authorities, but the demonstrations have been mostly isolated to areas that are hotbeds of opposition to the ruling royal family. Rights groups also are using the race to criticize Bahrain's arrests and other security crackdowns.

Bahrain has faced more than two years of violence between the Sunni-led government and majority Shiites seeking a greater political voice. 

Read full story

Mazen Mahdi / EPA

A bulldozer used by the police to clear the streets passes graffiti in memory of killed protesters that reads "Don't race on our blood," in Duraz village, north of the Bahraini capital Manama, on April 18.

Hasan Jamali / AP

A riot police officer jumps a fence to extinguish a tire fire set by Bahraini anti-government protesters in Sehla, Bahrain, on April 18.

Follow @NBCNewsPictures

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday it had arrested a seven-member group linked to al Qaeda that was planning actions against the Gulf Arab oil exporting country's security. 

State news agency WAM said the members were of various Arab nationalities and had been recruiting, financing and providing logistical support to al Qaeda. They had also sought to expand their activities to other countries in the region, WAM said. 

"The cell was planning actions that would target the country's security and the safety of its citizens and residents, and was carrying out recruitment, and promoting the actions of al Qaeda," WAM said. 

"It was also supplying it [al Qaeda] with money and providing logistical support and seeking to expand its activities to some regional countries," WAM said. 

The United States-allied UAE, a federation of seven emirates and a major trading hub that has supported Western efforts to counter militancy in the region, has been spared any attack by al Qaeda and other insurgency groups.

But some of its emirates have seen a rise in Islamist sentiment in recent years. 

In December the UAE said it had arrested a cell of UAE and Saudi Arabian members of a "deviant group" that was planning to carry out militant attacks in both countries and other states. The phrase "the deviant group" is often used by authorities in Saudi Arabia to describe al Qaeda members. 

There was no immediate word on whether the December arrests were related to those announced on Thursday. Diplomats in the region have said the December arrests were related mostly to Islamist activity in Yemen. 

In 2010, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a merger of al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi branches, said it was behind a plot to send two parcel bombs to the United States. The bombs were intercepted in Britain and the UAE emirate of Dubai. 

The United States has poured aid into Yemen to stem the threat of attacks from AQAP and to try to prevent any spillover of violence into Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter. 

In August 2012, Saudi authorities arrested a group of suspected al Qaeda-linked militants - mostly Yemeni nationals - in Riyadh. 

Saudi Arabia has arrested thousands of suspected militants since attacks between 2003 and 2006 on residential compounds for foreign workers and on Saudi government facilities in which were dozens of people were killed. 

Related:

Report: US democracy workers detained in UAE

TEL AVIV – Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat was hit by two rockets fired from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula Wednesday, but there were was no sign of damage or injury.

Hardline Islamic militant group Magles Shoura al-Mujahddin claimed responsibility in a statement on its website, Reuters reported.

Noa Eliyah / AFP/Getty Images

Israeli policemen inspect the site of a rocket explosion in Eilat, Wednesday.

The statement said the attack was in retaliation for what it described as the Israeli army's attack on protesters demonstrating over the death of a Palestinian prisoner.

Local television showed the casing of the one of the rockets lying in sand at a construction site in the resort city, Al Jazeera reported.

Israel’s military said the rockets caused neither damage nor injury.

The peninsula was demilitarized during the rule of dictator Hosni Mubarak, but since he was swept from power in the 2011 Arab Spring, Islamic militants have begun activities in the region.

Reuters added:

Ran Shauli / AP

The scene of a rocket attack in Eilat, Israel, Wednesday.

Israel deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in Eilat some two weeks ago, a period coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday when the city at the tip of Gulf of Aqaba is packed with vacationers.

But on Wednesday, the system did not intercept the incoming missiles ``for operational reasons'', a military spokeswoman said, without elaborating.

Egypt's military said it was still investigating whether the rockets had come from Egypt.

"We are still investigating to see if they were delivered from Egyptian territories but nothing is confirmed yet," a senior military official told agency AFP.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh lures tourists with sun, sand and cheap deals

Egypt branded more dangerous for tourists than Yemen

Ariel Schalit / AP

Israeli shop owners play backgammon in the Betzalel market in central Tel Aviv on Friday. A Bloomberg survey this week said the Israeli shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked over the last six months.

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Boosted by newly discovered natural resources, Israel is surging ahead economically – a success that is pushing the issue of the country's $3 billion in annual aid from the United States onto the agenda.

The country made its first intervention in the foreign currency market in almost two years Tuesday, buying $100 million to peg back the growing strength of its shekel.

A Bloomberg survey this week said the shekel was the strongest of 31 major currencies tracked over the last six months.

Last week, Israel passed another milestone, a potential gamechanger for its economy. Gas began to flow from gas fields off the coast. By 2015 Israel is expected to be fully energy independent, and may be a net exporter.

And there’s more good news: In this water-challenged region, Israel is well on the way to water independence. Its water desalination industry supplies up to 40 percent of the country’s demand for water, and another 40 percent comes from recycled water from domestic and commercial consumption. Israel reuses its water two to three times.

The boom may give a louder voice to calls for a reduction to the $3 billion worth of financial assistance Israel receives from the U.S. each year – especially in the Washington, where budget battles continue.

U.S. campaign groups such as Stop The Blank Check and the Council for the National Interest have long campaigned for the aid program to end, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul recently joined the debate by saying the U.S. could no longer afford to keep borrowing money and then handing it out to others.

"It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process," Paul told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an Israeli think tank, in January.

'A political football'
That view is echoed by some in Israel, such as Naftali Bennett, a software tycoon and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home political party, who during the recent election campaign said the country needed to free itself from U.S. assistance.

“Our situation today is very different from what it was 20 and 30 years ago. Israel is much stronger, much wealthier, and we need to be independent,” he said.

Michael Koplow, program director of the Israel Institute, a Washington think tank, said: “Foreign aid is always a political football – even more so when it comes to Israel. There is no doubt American attention is focused on its own finances.”

However, he noted that 74 percent of the U.S. aid, which is meant for military and defense equipment, has to be spent with U.S. companies.

“Given that Israel is a reliable military spender, you would have to think the defense lobby is going to make sure this aid continues,” Koplow said.

Even those hostile to the aid think it unlikely that Israel’s prosperity will prompt a change.

“The money doesn’t help alleviate poverty in Israel now, so there is no reason why lack of poverty there would cause it to end,” said Robert Naiman, director of Just Foreign Policy.

Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the U.K.’s Chatham House think tank, said: “It would be a matter of national pride to be economically successful and independent, but providing financial support also gives some leverage with Israel.”

And Israel still has economic problems. Unemployment is relatively low at 6.3 per cent, but the gap between rich and poor is one of the highest of all developed countries, according to the OECD.

“I don’t think a natural gas boom is going to do much to change that,” observed Koplow.

That disparity swept Yair Lapid, an inexperienced but popular new politician, into the finance ministry earlier this year as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition. Most of his support came from the disillusioned middle class whose summer of protests in 2011 changed the country’s priorities from political to social issues.

Now Lapid, 49, has to make good on his election challenge, “Where’s the Money?”

Newspapers on Wednesday reported that Lapid had clashed with officials in his department who proposed increases to tuition fees for university students. Lapid responded on his Facebook page that “if students have to pay more I’ll go home and demonstrate against myself.”

And as the government searches for budgets to cut and taxes to raise, newspapers are full of reports that Israel’s richest man, Idan Ofer, has decided to relocate to London in order to avoid paying more taxes – a motive his associates deny.

He has become a juicy target for critics who have long claimed that the country’s handful of tycoons have been milking the country dry, leaving the poor to foot the bill.

The gap between rich and poor, and how strange this is for Israelis brought up on the kibbutz ethos of “we’re all equal,” was well illustrated by the proverbial taxi driver who told a reporter, “Israel has changed. We all used to wear sandals. If you were rich, you wore better sandals.” 

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

Related:

Analysis: Has Obama's Mideast trip changed the game on the ground?

How much are taxpayers spending on Egypt and Libya?

Full Israel coverage from NBC News

A young Saudi man faces being forcibly paralyzed as a punishment under Islamic sharia law for a crime that left his victim confined to a wheelchair – a ruling condemned by a human rights group Thursday.

Ali al-Khawaher, 24, was convicted of stabbing a childhood friend in the spine during a dispute a decade ago, according to reports in Saudi Arabian media including Al Hayat and Al Watan (link in Arabic).

Under sharia law, courts may set an eye-for-an-eye punishment for crimes – but victims may pardon convicts in exchange for so-called blood money.

In this case, the victim requested $533,000 – an amount he later reduced to $266,000 – but al-Khawaher’s mother told Al Hayat she did not have even a fraction of this money, meaning the court can issue an order for retribution instead.

Although the stabbing happened in 2003, the court order was only issued on Saturday.

“Ten years have passed with hundreds of sleepless nights,” Al Hayat quoted al-Khawaher's mother as saying. “My hair has become grey at a young age because of my son’s problem. I have been frightened to death whenever I think about my son’s fate and that he will have to be paralyzed.”

Amnesty International condemned the punishment.

“Paralyzing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture,” said Ann Harrison, the organization’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director.

“That such a punishment might be implemented is utterly shocking, even in a context where flogging is frequently imposed as a punishment for some offences, as happens in Saudi Arabia," she added. “It is time the authorities in Saudi Arabia start respecting their international legal obligations and remove these terrible punishments from the law.”

Saudi judges have in the past ordered sharia punishments that include tooth extraction, flogging, eye gouging and -- in murder cases -- death, Reuters reported.

U.K. Islamic commentator Ajmal Masroor told the U.K.'s Sky News channel that even most Muslims would be “startled” by the court ruling, adding: "I cannot fathom where they would find a doctor willing to carry out such an act."

NBC News' Lubna Hussain contributed to this report.

Related:

Activists decry 'act of sheer brutality' after Saudi Arabia executes 7 young men

2,080 lashes for Saudi man who raped daughter

Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP

Palestinian security forces carry the body of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, center, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, April 4, 2013.

ANABTA, West Bank -- Thousands of mourners turned out on Thursday for the funerals of three Palestinians, including two teenagers killed by Israeli army gunfire in some of the worst violence in the occupied West Bank in years.

The upsurge in unrest was triggered on Tuesday by the death of Maysara Abu Hamdeya, a 64-year-old prisoner serving a life term in an Israeli jail and suffering from cancer.

Palestinian officials accused Israel of delaying treatment for Hamdeya and gave him full military honors at a funeral on Thursday in Hebron, where masked gunmen fired into the air as his body arrived at a mosque in the divided West Bank city.

In the wave of disturbances that followed his death, four Palestinian youths threw firebombs at an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarm in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the army said.

Soldiers returned fire and killed two teenagers from the nearby town of Anabta -- Amer Nassar, 17, and Naji Belbisi, 18.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel's use of lethal force showed that it wanted to "provoke chaos" in the Palestinian Territories and avoid any moves toward a peace deal.

Bernat Armangue / AP

Palestinian nurses hold posters with the picture of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh with Arabic that reads, "Captive martyr brigade, Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, the captive movement martyr, died on April 2, 2013," outside the morgue of a hospital in Hebron on Thursday.

The wave of violence erupted two weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama paid his first official visit to the region, urging the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume long-stalled peace talks but offering no initiative to break the deadlock.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to travel to Jerusalem again next week to review the stalemate.

First airstrike since truce
The United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli forces had killed nine Palestinians, most of them in clashes in the West Bank, so far this year, compared with three in the same period in 2012.

The bodies of Nassar and Belbisi, their blood-stained faces clearly visible, were carried on stretchers through the packed streets of Anabta, held aloft by uniformed members of the Palestinian security forces.

"O martyrs rest, rest. We will continue the struggle," the crowds chanted as the lifeless teenagers passed by.

Israeli officials urged Palestinian leaders to push for calm, and dismissed suggestions that a third uprising, or Intifada, was brewing in the West Bank -- territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which is now home to more than 340,000 Jewish settlers.

"The term 'Third Intifada' is meant to describe a general breakdown and uprising ... There are no powers there pushing for a third Intifada or general uprising," senior defense official Amos Gilad told Israel Radio.

Underscoring the potential for more violence, the Israeli army said that for a third straight day, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck southern Israel on Thursday. No casualties or damage were reported.

Following initial rocket fire on Tuesday, Israeli jets carried out their first airstrike on Gaza since a truce ended several days of fighting in November.

Alaa Badarneh / EPA

Palestinian women mourn during the funeral of Amer Nassar and Naji Balbisi in Anabta village near the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Thursday.

An al Qaeda-linked group, Magles Shoura al-Mujahadeen, claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying it was responding to the death of Hamdeya.

Israel says Gaza's ruling Hamas movement bears overall responsibility for any rocket fire and has urged Egypt, which helped broker the November truce, to use its influence with the Islamist group.

"The Egyptians are very active. Dialogue with them is constant and their interest is in keeping stability and preventing firing, violence and terrorism," Gilad said.

For the second time this year, the death of a Palestinian prisoner has sparked widespread anti-Israeli disturbances.

In February, Arafat Jaradat, 30, died after an interrogation session. Palestinian officials said he had been tortured, an allegation Israel denied.

Palestinians say Hamdeya complained of feeling sick last August, but was only discovered to be suffering from cancer in January. They say he did not receive adequate treatment and should have been released because of the gravity of the illness.

Israelis said Hamdeya, serving a life term for attempted murder after sending a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem cafe, was a heavy smoker and had received adequate care.

Related:

'Not welcome': Disappointment greets Obama on West Bank visit

Slideshow: Israel and Gaza - 8 days of violence in November 2012

Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza ceasefire

Amr Nabil / AP

A bodyguard protects popular Egyptian television satirist Bassem Youssef, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon Stewart.

Bassem Youssef, a Egyptian satirist, has turned himself in after the country’s prosecutor-general issued an arrest warrant over allegations he insulted the president and Islam.

Youssef, known as Egypt’s version of “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, was released after questioning on a bail of $2,200, an official in the prosecutor's office told Reuters on Sunday.

The comedian is accused, among other things, of undermining the standing of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, Reuters said.

The questioning of the comedian has raised fears over freedom expression in the post-Mubarak Egypt.

The prosecutor general issued the arrest warrant after at least four legal complaints filed by Mursi supporters, the BBC reported.

"It is an escalation in an attempt to restrict space for critical expression," said Heba Morayef, Egypt director at Human Rights Watch told Reuters.

Youssef's questioning came after the prosecutor general issued five arrest warrants for prominent political activists accused of inciting violence against the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that propelled Mursi to power in last year's election.

“The dilemma of Egypt’s new rulers is that they came to power as a result of a radical change in the country, but they refuse to accept other results of this change,” wrote Abdullah Kamal, an Egyptian analyst, on the website of news channel Al-Arabiya.

During a telephone interview with popular television anchor Lamees El-Hadidy on Saturday night, Youssef rejected the accusation that he had insulted Islam, the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph reported.

"If there is anyone who has insulted religion it is those who use Islam as a weapon for political reasons," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

RELATED: 

Morsi issues ominous warning to Egypt opposition

Photo blog: Clashes turn violent outside Muslim Brotherhood offices, dozens injured

More on Egypt from NBC News

Government forces in Syria used chemical weapons against rebels near Damascus, an opposition campaigner told Reuters on Monday. 

Rebels had surrounded an army base in the town of Adra, on the outskirts of Damascus, when soldiers used rocket launchers to fire the weapons at them, killing two fighters and wounding 23, according to activist Mohammad Doumani. The claim could not immediately be verified by NBC News.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

/

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

"Doctors are describing the chemical weapon used as phosphorus that hits the nervous system and causes imbalance and loss of consciousness,” Doumani told Reuters from the nearby town of Douma, where the wounded were transported for treatment.

“The two fighters were very close to where the rockets exploded and they died swiftly. The rest are being treated with Atropine," he added.

There was no independent confirmation of the attack, which follows the death of 26 people in a rocket attack near the city of Aleppo last week. The authorities and rebels accused each other of firing a missile carrying chemicals there.

On Tuesday, both the rebels and the government claimed a chemical weapon was used during fierce fighting, with each side blaming the other for the attack. 

Reporting from inside Syria is increasingly difficult, and independent confirmation of the use of chemical weapons was impossible to ascertain.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday announced that the United Nations will launch an investigation into the allegations.

However, the prospects for a quick conclusion to the probe will depend on cooperation from the warring parties and safety for investigators — problematic conditions in the chaos of the country's civil war, experts say.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

US defense chief: Intel 'raises serious concerns' about Syria chemical weapons

Full Syria coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:23 AM EDT

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas walk in the Church of the Nativity during their visit to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 22, 2013.

Jason Reed / Reuters

Obama meets Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III (3rd left) during a tour of the Church of the Nativity.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Obama walks out of the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

By Matt Spetalnick and Ali Sawafta, Reuters

President Barack Obama made a pilgrimage on Friday to Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

At the Church of the Nativity, Obama ducked to enter through its small Door of Humility. Manger Square, the plaza in front of the church, was almost deserted except for security personnel.

Earlier, Obama visited Israel's most powerful national symbols, paying homage at the Holocaust memorial and the graves of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Jew over peace moves with the Palestinians.

Wearing a Jewish skullcap, Obama rekindled an eternal flame at the Yad Vashem memorial next to a stone slab above ashes recovered from Nazi extermination camps after World War Two.

"We have a choice to acquiesce to evil or make real our solemn vow - never again," Obama said.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

Obama tours the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, alongside Avner Shalev (right), Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

Obama pays his respects in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem after Marines laid a wreath on his behalf.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Obama listens to Netanyahu during their visit to the Children's Memorial at Yad Vashem.

Jason Reed / Reuters

Obama walks with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem.

Previously on PhotoBlog: Obama begins first official trip to Israel