ISRAEL: Officials increased the pomp for President Donald Trump’s arrival in Tel Aviv this morning, and I saw the preparation on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport, where I arrived hours ahead of the president (and have spent the day out of range of his high-security visit, and instead I’m headed to the Golan Heights to begin a close look at Israel’s 1967 borders in conjunction with Philos Project).

Saudi Arabia is financing the creation of hundreds of new mosques in Bangladesh, sparking fear among the nation’s religious minorities.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet approved the mosque project on April 26. The Saudis plan to spend almost $1 billion, according to BenarNews.

SYRIA: The White Helmets who won an Oscar last night are referenced locally as “the Al-Nusra White Helmets” because they are long-aligned with the Islamic rebel-terrorist group and earned their reputation for daring rescues primarily in rebel- and terrorist-controlled Eastern Aleppo.

RUSSIA: The U.S. intelligence community “is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavros today denied the claim.

YEMEN: The Obama administration approved $1.3 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year, despite warnings from legal advisers the sale could implicate the United States—and U.S. military personnel—in war crimes over the Saudi-led air assault on Yemen. Typically, secretaries of defense and state and the director of intelligence sign off on such arms sales, and at that scale and with this tightly controlled White House, with presidential assent.

SYRIA: Islamic State militants marked Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday known as the “festival of the sacrifice,” by hanging prisoners upside down from meat hooks and “butchering them like sheep” in a gruesome new execution video.

9/11: President Obama will mark the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon, while Hillary Clinton plans to visit Ground Zero in New York. Obama faces a dilemma over 9/11 legislation the House passed this morning. Both parties support the legislation, which would allow 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S.