Israeli warplanes have flown over one of the Syrian president’s palaces to warn Damascus against supporting Palestinian fighters who abducted an Israeli soldier, the Israeli army says.

GAZA CITY (AP) — A Palestinian group said Tuesday an abducted Israeli soldier was alive in a “secure place”, as thousands of Israeli and Egyptian troops massed along the borders with Gaza in anticipation of an Israeli invasion.

The United States invasion of Iraq in March-April 2003, and the occupation of the country since then, has cost more than three thou­sand American lives and many tens of billions of dollars, and has brought death to tens of thousands of Iraqis.