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In-Depth Issues:
Israel Seeking to Curb Iran Missile Surge - Yossi Yehoshua ( Ynet News)
Senior IDF officials have warned their U.S. counterparts that Iran continues to expand missile production and could possess at least 5,000 ballistic missiles by the end of 2027.
Iran is currently producing 100 ballistic missiles per month, with output expected to increase.
Israeli officials say Tehran is relying on volume, calculating that even advanced air defense systems have limited capacity against sustained, large-scale barrages.
In June 2025, Iran launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and about 1,000 drones toward Israel.
The IDF said 86% of the missiles were intercepted and 99% of the drones were shot down.
Still, missiles caused significant damage in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Bat Yam, Haifa, and at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.
At the same time, Israel destroyed 120 mobile launchers, along with 35 production sites and ammunition depots, combining interception with systematic efforts to strike launch capabilities before missiles could be fired.
Report: Hizbullah Now Managed by Iranian Officers - Tobias Siegal ( Jerusalem Post)
Hizbullah is currently being overseen by officers from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), rather than its traditional Lebanese leadership, in preparation for a potential military conflict, Al Arabiya and Al Hadath reported Saturday.
Israel Calm as Trump Amasses Forces for War with Iran - Herb Keinon ( Jerusalem Post)
Israelis are watching Trump's war plans closely, assessing whether to adjust schedules and change plans. But they are not panicking.
Israelis believe escalation is possible, and the country is prepared.
Another reason the public reaction remains measured has to do with memory. During last June's 12-day campaign against Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure, Iran retaliated directly with large-scale missile and drone fire.
Israel's airspace closed temporarily. Iran's missiles sent millions scurrying to safe rooms. And then daily life resumed.
Israel's air force and air defense systems performed exceptionally well.
Iran was exposed as largely a paper tiger - capable of inflicting harm through ballistic missiles, but nowhere near as powerful as it had long boasted.
Lived experience tempers abstract fear. The experience Israelis have had with Iranian attacks over the last two years is rendering this current period one of unease, but not of panic.
Israelis have seen Iranian threats acted upon - and lived to tell the tale.
The Future of Gaza Will Be Decided in Mosques - Shimon Refaeli ( Jerusalem Post)
Ahead of Ramadan, three new mosques were inaugurated in northern Gaza, funded by a Turkish religious foundation, with Turkish flags flying prominently on their facades.
One is named after Abdullah Azzam, one of the spiritual fathers of al-Qaeda.
Qatar and Turkey operate in Gaza with significant influence, providing food, shelter, infrastructure, and mosques.
These states, that openly support Hamas and host its senior leaders, understand well that real influence begins with consciousness that is shaped in mosques and schools.
Without deep de-radicalization - a fundamental transformation of values and messages - nothing will truly change.
One cannot build a stable reality when a child in Gaza learns to admire terrorists as "heroes," consumes content that glorifies "martyrs," and listens to sermons preaching war against infidels.
Therefore, the "day after" in Gaza must come together with de-radicalization.
We have already wasted an entire generation since the Oslo Accords, in which we relinquished control and assumed that economic incentives would suffice.
If before Oslo Israelis could travel by bus to Gaza via the central bus station in Beersheba, today that reality seems imaginary.
This is the depth of the shift in consciousness that has occurred there within just one generation.
The battle over tomorrow's Gaza will be decided by the question of who drafts the Friday sermon.
The writer, a policy assistant to former Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, is a senior fellow at the David Institute for Security Policy.
I Am a Catholic and a Zionist - R.R. Reno ( Washington Post)
In early February, at a meeting of a White House commission on religious liberty, one of its members, Carrie Prejean Boller, declared, "Catholics do not embrace Zionism."
In fact, the Catholic Church advances no specific teaching on Zionism.
When it comes to the world's mechanisms for governing, we're free to support what we think best, given theological principles, moral considerations, and historical realities.
For this reason, a Catholic can be a Zionist - or not.
I am a Catholic and a Zionist. My position is that the Jewish people are justified in establishing a sovereign nation in the land of their ancestors.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, argued that Jews must seek a place in which to constitute themselves as a sovereign nation.
Only then would the Jewish people be able to ensure their survival, free from persecution. Hitler's Final Solution would prove him right.
I believe the presence of a Jewish state in the Holy Land is fitting for a simple reason: If God in his providence wishes to preserve the Jewish people in their own sovereign nation, it makes more sense that it would be in the biblical land of their origins than in Arizona or Tahiti.
In affairs of state, the most important norm is peace. This norm strongly favors support for established states.
The State of Israel exists. Undermining its legitimacy and aiding those who seek its destruction is far more likely to lead to widespread violence and inhumanity than its continued existence, whatever one thinks of the circumstances of the nation's founding or its present policies.
I have a final reason for being a Catholic who is a Zionist: I am a patriotic American. The State of Israel is my country's best ally.
Zionism is not a religious obligation; it is a consequence of thinking clearly.
The writer is an American theologian, political philosopher and the editor of First Things magazine. He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University.
"We Are All Jews": Soldier Who Defied His German Captors to Be Awarded Medal of Honor - Claire Barrett ( Military Times)
Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds from Knoxville, Tennessee, alongside thousands of other Americans, was captured by the Germans in Dec. 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and transported to Stalag IX-A.
On Jan. 27, 1945, Edmonds, the highest-ranking American noncommissioned officer at Ziegenhain stalag that day, was told to order his nearly 200 Jewish-American soldiers out of the morning roll call.
Instead, he ordered more than 1,000 of his fellow prisoners to stand together in front of their barracks.
The commandant scoffed that they couldn't all be Jewish. Edmonds was defiant, telling the Nazi: "We are all Jews."
The commandant placed his Luger to Edmonds' forehead and told him to order his Jewish soldiers to step forward or he would be executed.
Edmonds answered: "You can shoot me. You can shoot all of us. But we know who you are. And this war is almost over, and you'll be a war criminal." The Nazi slowly lowered his pistol and walked away.
In 2016, Roddie Edmonds was recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations" - an honorific title bestowed to non-Jewish persons who risked their lives in order to save Jews.
See also The Story of Roddie Edmonds ( XVIII Airborne Corps-Fort Bragg)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- U.S. Military Planning on Iran Has Reached an Advanced Stage - Phil Stewart
U.S. military planning on Iran has reached an advanced stage, two U.S. officials told Reuters. The U.S. military is preparing a sustained, weeks-long operation against Iran that could include striking Iranian security facilities as well as nuclear infrastructure. One of the U.S. officials noted Israel's success targeting Iranian leaders during its 12-day war with Iran in 2025. At the time, regional sources told Reuters at least 20 senior commanders were killed, including the armed forces chief of staff. (Reuters)
- Jordan Becomes a Key Hub for Possible U.S. Strikes on Iran - Riley Mellen
Imagery captured on Friday shows more than 60 U.S. attack aircraft parked at Muwaffaq Salti airbase, tripling the number of jets that are normally there. At least 68 cargo planes have landed at the base since Sunday, according to flight tracking data. Satellite images show F-35 stealth jets there. Soldiers also installed new air defenses to protect the base from incoming Iranian missiles.
(New York Times)
- Hamas Tightens Grip in Gaza - Nidal Al-Mughrabi
"Hamas is advancing steps on the ground meant to preserve its influence and grip in Gaza 'from the bottom up' by means of integrating its supporters in government offices, security apparatuses and local authorities," the Israeli military said in a document presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late January. Israeli military officials say Hamas, which refuses to disarm, has been taking advantage of an October ceasefire to reassert control in areas vacated by Israeli troops.
Hamas has named five district governors, all of them with links to its armed al-Qassam Brigades, according to two Palestinian sources. It has also replaced senior officials in Gaza's economy and interior ministries, which manage taxation and security, the sources said.
A U.S.-backed committee of Palestinian technocrats headed by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority official, "may have the key to the car, and he may even be allowed to drive, but it is a Hamas car," a source said. Hamas has focused on maintaining public order and collecting taxes in its side of the Yellow Line dividing Gaza.
"There is no opposition to Hamas within the Yellow Line now, and it is taking over all economic aspects of daily life," an Israeli military official said.
(Reuters)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- U.S. Readies Extended Campaign to Weaken Iran's Regime - Ron Ben-Yishai
U.S. military planners are now preparing for a broad, sustained campaign across Iranian territory. The emerging concept, according to security assessments in Washington and Jerusalem, envisions a weeks-long "attrition campaign."
Until recently, Pentagon planning reportedly focused on a powerful but time-limited operation that might have inflicted heavy damage on nuclear facilities and missile infrastructure but would likely have left the regime's core power structures intact. U.S. defense officials, alongside senior Israeli security figures, argued that a brief operation would not achieve strategic goals.
The new concept is therefore broader. It is about sustained military pressure across multiple domains. The objectives of the revised American approach include degrading the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia, the backbone of internal repression; further damaging uranium enrichment infrastructure and nuclear weaponization-related facilities; and crippling ballistic missile capabilities.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence assets are collecting high-resolution targeting data. Satellite reconnaissance, signals intelligence, naval surveillance and airborne platforms are feeding data into strike planning systems. (Ynet News)
See also U.S. Confrontation with Iran Has Been Delayed, as Likelihood Increases - Yoav Limor (Israel Hayom)
- Israel Bombs Three Hizbullah Command Centers in Lebanon - Yoav Zitun
Israeli air force jets dropped six bombs on three Hizbullah command centers on Friday in Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The IDF said "a large number of terrorists" from Hizbullah's missile array were eliminated.
(Ynet News)
See also Israel Targeting Hizbullah Ahead of Possible Clash - Yaniv Kubovich
The extensive attack carried out by the IDF in Lebanon on Friday was intended to undermine Hizbullah's capabilities, in preparation for its possible response to a strike on Iran. The attack stems from a change in Israeli perception since Oct. 7. The IDF sees the very existence of weapons in Hizbullah's hands, even without evidence of an intention to use them immediately, as justification for action.
According to Israeli estimates, Hizbullah is in its most dire situation in years. It is having difficulty recruiting operatives, while facing growing criticism in Lebanon. It is also having difficulty paying its members and rebuilding civilian infrastructure in villages damaged in the last round of fighting with Israel.
Senior Israeli defense officials note that in recent months the IDF has prepared operational plans for renewed fighting in Lebanon. Israel's goal would be Hizbullah's complete military defeat. The assessment in the IDF is that, in the event of a confrontation, the intelligence gathered on Hizbullah since the last war will allow for a more severe blow to the organization. (Ha'aretz)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- Banking on Iranian Weakness Is a Mistake - Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
By massacring thousands of Iranians in January, the ruling elite has shown that the regime remains strong.
In the 1979 revolution that brought Iran's theocratic rulers to power, the demonstrations grew once the masses realized that Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was unwilling to slaughter his own people. For those demonstrators, it was both safe and validating to join the opposition.
This time, the elite groups that control Iran's military and economy held together, and the security forces attacked. Even now the regime is expanding its target list, arresting hitherto tolerated members of the Reformist Front political faction. Two recent rounds of talks belie the idea that Tehran will be intimidated.
What seems clear is that the clerical regime no longer views being bombed by America or Israel as an existential threat. This isn't likely to change even if Mr. Khamenei dies. The Islamic Republic is an ideological system with a multilayered elite that benefits from it.
Yet the regime has revealed no plans for addressing the nation's economic decline, widespread corruption, or the ecological problems that create persistent water shortages. At some point, there will be another uprising. Millions of Iranians cannot be suppressed forever. But for now, the lifespan of the Islamic Republic has been extended by its recent killing spree.
Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
(New York Times)
- Cloudy with a Chance of Missiles - David Yaari
When Israelis tune in to the nightly forecast, alongside the chance of rain, viewers are calmly informed of the probabilities of missile fire. Growing up in America, this would have been unthinkable. No American president, Republican or Democrat, would ever tolerate a reality in which missiles could be arbitrarily lobbed onto their sovereign soil. The response would be immediate, overwhelming and unquestioned.
Yet somehow, the world has grown accustomed to the absurdity of routine missile fire directed at Israel. As if this is an acceptable condition of existence. As if this is normal. And God forbid, Israel should respond.
The fact that we can defend ourselves doesn't diminish the intent behind these deadly weapons. Missiles aimed at population centers are designed to kill civilians indiscriminately, and over the years, Israeli civilians have been killed. These missiles are fired at our cities, our homes, our hospitals and schools, with the explicit intention of killing our people, making it very personal.
Over the last 20 years, there have been more "missile fall" days than rainfall days in Israel. Since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2006, Hamas has launched over 50,000 rockets and missiles toward Israeli towns and cities. Hizbullah in Lebanon has spent more than a decade firing missiles randomly into civilian areas. Houthi terrorists in Yemen have launched drones and missiles aimed at Israel. During the 12-day war in June 2025, Iran fired large payload ballistic missiles capable of devastating destruction toward Israel, some of which caused real damage, injuries and loss of life.
It's time to state unequivocally: We will not be the region's dumping ground for missiles. Children should not routinely have to run to shelters in the middle of the night. Families should not lie awake waiting to see what was hit this time. A response that forces aggressors to think 10 times before launching another missile is not escalation; it is prevention.
Remarkably, living with extreme uncertainty has forged an unusually strong civilian society. Israelis have developed a form of resilience that allows life to continue, businesses to grow, families to flourish and happiness to shine, even under potential existential threat. When life is fragile, it is also precious. Israelis live fully because they understand how quickly life can be interrupted.
Being surrounded by neighbors who openly call for the destruction of the Jewish state has strengthened our resolve, deepened our connection to the land, and emboldened younger generations to defend our right to exist.
The writer is CEO of the Texas Israel Partnership. (JNS)
Gaza
- Israeli Foreign Minister to Board of Peace: We Must Ensure that Oct. 7 Never Repeats Itself
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar told President Trump's Board of Peace meeting in Washington on Thursday:
"The State of Israel...stood through...a difficult war, for two years, on seven different fronts, demonstrating resilience and strength. As I stand here, I recall the 925 brave soldiers that gave their lives in a war against pure evil: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah....They went from front to front and charged forward under enemy fire. To them we owe our existence and all our achievements. They will not be forgotten."
"October 7th was the peak of Hamas's ongoing terror campaign, through decades. Hamas raped and murdered women. Killed children in front of their parents. Parents in front of their children. Burned whole families alive. That terrible day will not be forgotten. And we must act to ensure it never repeats itself."
"All previous plans for Gaza failed because they never addressed the core issues: terror, hate, incitement and indoctrination. At the heart of President Trump's comprehensive plan are the disarmament of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, demilitarization of Gaza, and deradicalization of Palestinian society there. It's the first plan to address the root of the problem." (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
- Trump's Board of Peace Must Deradicalize Gaza - Mark Dubowitz and Ben Cohen
President Trump convened his Board of Peace on Thursday, announcing new commitments to fund Gaza's reconstruction and provide troops for a Gaza stabilization force. But so far, everyone's avoided an essential question: How will future generations of Palestinian children be raised and educated - and will they again be indoctrinated with radical hatred of Jews and Israel? If so, then the president's vision of Gaza as a "deradicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors" will remain a pipe dream.
Many of the Hamas terrorists who stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were raised on a steady diet of hatred. As children, they watched a Hamas-produced TV show hosted by a Mickey Mouse knockoff named Farfour, who preached jihad and urged the killing of Jews. Surrounded by smiling children, Farfour vowed to "liberate Jerusalem from the criminal Zionists," repeatedly exhorting: "Kill! Kill! Kill!" A talking bee named Nahoul ranted about "the filth of the criminal Jews." That reality helps explain why hundreds of Gaza civilians joined the rampage on Oct. 7, and many more celebrated in the streets.
The urgent question now is whether the machinery of radicalization that produced Hamas will finally be dismantled. If it is not, a return to war is inevitable. As long as Hamas remains embedded in Gaza's institutions, Palestinian children will continue to be indoctrinated to hate and kill Jews - in schools, on screens and at home.
If Trump wants peace in Gaza to endure, he should establish a Deradicalization Commission through the Board of Peace, charged with dismantling the entire infrastructure of hate.
Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Ben Cohen is a research fellow. (New York Post)
- Two Years in Hamas Tunnels: Nimrod Cohen Tells His Story - Shay Fogelman
On Oct. 7, Nimrod Cohen, 19, was part of a tank crew which reached the Gaza border fence. But the engine overheated and the tank moved very slowly. It then took a hit from an RPG. They couldn't rotate the turret and the tank filled with smoke. He was the only one who got out of the tank alive.
"When we got to Gaza they took me out of the vehicle and tore off all my clothes with a knife, my overalls, everything I had on. They left me completely naked, tied my hands behind my back and took me into a tunnel."
"The young people in Gaza were raised on pure hatred from age zero. They see us as monsters and blame us for taking their land and for their not having a future. It feeds itself, because that's how the next generation grows up. The older people, who maybe worked in Israel and spoke a little Hebrew, saw us as human beings. They behaved more moderately and you could communicate with them, but they were also the ones who educated the younger ones to hate." (Ha'aretz)
Palestinian Arabs
- Three Pro-Palestinian Films Nominated for Academy Awards - Gary Rosenblatt
Three well-produced, deeply biased "historical dramas" nominated for Academy Awards ignore the origins, context and complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and cast Palestinians as noble victims at the hands of violent, inhumane Jews, rather than as aggressors.
"All That's Left of You" offers a fictional multi-generational drama of the suffering of one Palestinian family beginning in 1948. But there is no effort to provide context for the war that began on May 15, 1948, when five Arab armies attacked and sought to destroy the State of Israel, which had declared independence.
"Palestine 36" focuses on the 1936-1939 Arab revolt against British rule in Palestine, casting the Jews in a harsh light. Some historians noted the film avoids mention of Arab violence against Jews that set off the revolt, and the role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who supported and collaborated with Hitler in opposing a Jewish presence in Palestine.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" is based on the true story of the death of a six-year-old Gazan girl trapped in a car in the midst of the war. As she and six relatives fled from the fighting on Jan. 29, 2024, their car was fired on and everyone else in the car was killed. Hind managed to speak by phone to her mother and Palestinian rescue dispatchers and her conversations were recorded. Israeli officials have said IDF forces were not in the area of the car that fateful day. There is no mention of Hamas or its brutal attack that launched the war.
There will be more films like these three because much of the world population and mainstream media are open to the images of Israelis as oppressors and Palestinians as victims.
The writer is former editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week.
(Times of Israel)
See also The Shape-Shifting Story of Hind Rajab - Mark Zlochin
In January 2024, a six-year-old Palestinian girl named Hind Rajab was killed in Gaza City together with six members of her family. Major news outlets turned a chaotic battlefield episode into a tale of deliberate execution. This review traces how a fluid, uncertain battlefield encounter was transformed into a tale of innocence executed - through shifting testimonies, selective omissions, and partisan "forensic analysis" that together manufactured a narrative of deliberate atrocity, meticulously engineered for maximum outrage. On close examination, every single element of this narrative, when examined in detail, proves to be false. (Substack-16Oct2025)
International Law
- How International Humanitarian Law Is Being Manipulated - Catherine Perez-Shakdam
International humanitarian law exists precisely because combatants often exploit civilians to shield themselves from retaliation. The prohibition against human shields is not decorative language. It is a recognition of an ugly truth: that some belligerents deliberately transform civilian proximity into a defensive weapon.
Hamas has refined this practice into an art form. Its tunnels run beneath apartment buildings. Its command structures burrow beneath hospitals. Its weapons caches hide among homes, schools, and mosques. This is not accidental. It is doctrine.
Genocide is not defined by the presence of civilian deaths. It is defined by intent - the demonstrable, deliberate intent to destroy a people as such. This standard exists for a reason. Without it, the term collapses into meaninglessness. Israel possesses the capability to annihilate Gaza's population. Yet Gaza's population continues to exist. Its growth over decades is documented. Its survival, even amid war, is evident. The accusation of genocide therefore rests not upon demonstrable extermination, but upon speculative interpretation.
Democracies with functioning courts, investigative journalism, and internal dissent are subjected to relentless scrutiny. Meanwhile, regimes that operate beyond the reach of accountability are condemned in principle but pursued with noticeably less fervor. The more transparent a state is, the more vulnerable it becomes to legal and moral prosecution. The more opaque and tyrannical a regime, the less susceptible it is to sustained outrage.
There is, in certain quarters, an unmistakable appetite for Israeli culpability - a readiness, even an eagerness, to interpret every military action through the lens of criminality. Israel, as a democratic state engaged in asymmetrical warfare, presents the perfect object upon which to project outrage. Terrorist organizations offer no such opportunities. They do not submit themselves to inquiry. They simply kill. It is therefore easier, and safer, to prosecute Israel in the court of public opinion than to confront those who oppose it.
International humanitarian law is being manipulated - it is being transformed from a universal standard into a selective weapon.
The writer is an associate scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. (Times of Israel)
Observations:
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar told the UN Security Council on Thursday:
- "4,000 years ago, our patriarch Abraham lived and walked in ancient Hebron, Beersheba, and Beth-El. Over 3,000 years ago King David established Jerusalem as our capital. Jewish presence in the Land of Israel - even throughout our long exile - has never ceased for even a day. In the history of nations and states, this is probably the clearest case of proven and documented historic rights of any nation to any land."
- "We are the indigenous people in the Land of Israel. The archeological findings in our ancient sites - including the City of David, the Western Wall Tunnels and others - tell the history of our land. This jug handle is from the Kingdom of Judea - 2,700 years ago. It has the stamp of the Jewish king on it. This coin, from nearly 2,000 years ago, says 'Freedom for Zion.' Found in the Judean desert, it was minted during the second year of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans. How can Jewish presence in our ancient homeland violate international law?"
- "In 1917 the British government issued the historic Balfour Declaration - in order to reestablish a National Home for the Jewish people in our land. The same places in the heart of our ancient homeland you claim that Jews are forbidden to live in and that allegedly violate international law, you recognized as belonging to a National Home for the Jewish people."
- "In 1921, then Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill said on a visit to the Land of Israel: 'It is manifestly right that the Jews should have a National Home and where else could that be but in this land...with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated.'"
- "The claim that Israelis cannot live in Judea and Samaria isn't just inconsistent with international law and Britain's own Balfour Declaration. It's morally distorted. How can Jews be allowed to live in London or Paris or New York, but not in the cradle of our own civilization: Ancient Jerusalem - which you call East Jerusalem, Shiloh, Hebron and Beth-El?"
- "There will be peace one day. It won't be achieved by removing people from their homes - Jews or Arabs. The idea that Jewish communities are an 'obstacle to peace' is outrageous. It's disconnected from the current and past reality in Judea and Samaria. With all due respect, we won't abandon our heritage, security and future to ease other countries' domestic political difficulties."
- "Israel signed the Oslo Accords - and received a murderous intifada of suicide attacks. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. We dismantled our communities - and even our cemeteries. We received the world's largest terror state in Gaza and the October 7th massacre. When will you get it? We will not risk our own existence."
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