Shalom, friends.

We are tracking three pressure points all running against the same six-day ceasefire clock — Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors face-to-face at the State Department at a deadlock, the U.S. naval blockade entering its second day with a $1 billion sanctions-waiver cliff Sunday, and a nine-justice High Court panel hearing the Ben-Gvir dismissal petition [now with the disclosure that the Attorney General activated Ronen Bar’s Shin Bet against the minister and instructed it to keep digging when the inquiry produced nothing]. Much else of we’ve been tracking — Operation Silver Plow’s mop-up at Bint Jbeil, the Cairo “voluntary or by force” framework, the Zini letter, the European procurement realignment — all continued to advance.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Lebanon talks: Leiter and Hamadeh meet at State with Rubio; Israel demands disarmament, Lebanon offers a 15-day pause. See The War Today.

• Hormuz Day Two: USS destroyers transit and clear mines; 34 ships through Monday; sanctions waiver expires Sunday. See The War Today.

• Ben-Gvir hearing: Nine-justice panel sits; Levin preempts ruling; AG’s Shin Bet inquiry against Ben-Gvir surfaces. See Inside Israel.

• Iran ceasefire poll: 61 percent oppose extending the truce to Hezbollah; the country splits 39–41 on Iran itself. See Inside Israel.

• Italy and Serbia: Rome suspends defense agreement; Belgrade announces 50-50 drone JV targeting 80,000 units. See Israel and the World.

• UK per capita Jew-hate: Britain leads the developed world; March of the Living delegation now includes Heaton Park survivors. See Israel and the World.

• Lafarge verdict: Paris court convicts cement maker and eight executives for paying Islamic State and Nusra Front. See Israel and the World.

• Hezbollah commander to NPR: Lebanese disarmament boxes were empty; arsenal intact; Kornet and Konkurs still flowing through Syria. See Briefly Noted.

Below: what the Shin Bet disclosure means for the Ben-Gvir petition the High Court is hearing as you read this, why Italy’s defense suspension matters less than Serbia’s drone joint venture, and the Hezbollah commander on the record telling NPR that all Lebanon handed over were empty boxes.

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Shalom, friends.

The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports takes effect at 10 AM Eastern this morning, CENTCOM enforcement and the War Powers clock that governs how long Washington can actually use force against Iran started running at the same moment. Yesterday’s edition tracked the shape of the Islamabad collapse and Zamir’s readiness order as they broke… by this morning the picture has settled into something more specific — a pressure architecture calibrated to a domestic ceiling Speaker Johnson has already told the White House the House will not raise. The Iranian fiscal wall we flagged a few weeks back arrives just as the April 21 ceasefire expiration, and the Chief of Staff is rehearsing opening scenarios.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Hormuz blockade begins 10 AM ET: CENTCOM enforces full maritime blockade of all Iranian ports today; IRGC declares strait closed. See The War Today.

• Islamabad collapse: Twenty-one hours of U.S.-Iran talks end without agreement; IRGC’s Vahidi personally blocked Iranian delegation from compromising on enrichment or Hormuz. See The War Today.

• Zamir orders IDF onto war footing: Chief of Staff raises alert across all branches; AMAN accelerates Iran target bank; IAF finalizes strike packages for rapid execution. See The War Today.

• Silver Plow — Bint Jbeil closing: Katz names Hezbollah disarmament operation; Division 98 encircles village; IDF says no major fights remain in Lebanon. See The War Today.

• Shakra killed on the Yellow Line: IDF confirms strike killed Nukhba platoon commander who abducted Hersh Goldberg-Polin z”l on October 7. See The War Today.

• ‘No rule of law’ on Haredi draft: Mintz rebukes police from the bench; IDF publicly corrects Cabinet Secretary who misrepresented Zamir to the justices. See Inside Israel.

• Zini letter, political prosecution: Case 4000 cross-examination postponed as Shin Bet warns of Iranian threat to PM; watchdog group treats 2026 threat picture as interchangeable with 2024. See Inside Israel.

• Orban falls, Tisza takes supermajority: Israel’s EU firewall thins as Magyar prepares ICC reversal before the June 2 deadline. See Israel and the World.

• BBC platforms Tucker Carlson: Former Fox host tells British audiences nine million Jews “control” 350 million Americans; former RAF chief warns Starmer in the same week. See Israel and the World.

Below: why the Hormuz blockade is calibrated restraint rather than the escalation it looks like, the 60-day War Powers clock that explains what Trump is actually doing with his “locked and loaded” posture, why Case 4000 is still consuming calendar space during an active war against a regime that has identified the defendant by name as an assassination target, and the Bennett number-two pick that tells you everything about the 2026 opposition bloc.

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Shavua tov, friends.

We’re back. I hope you had a Pesach as full of family and friends as we were fortunate enough to enjoy. The first night was at my rabbi’s table — twenty around it, mostly his family, the kind of warm crowded seder where the Haggadah comes to life. The second night was at a friend’s house, where we sat with a Holocaust survivor whose dignity through the seder was undisturbed by the political shouting that arrived with the meal [the Haggadah always was a political document — just usually different politics]. Shabbat dinner Friday with friends in Alpharetta ended past midnight at their Israeli neighbors’ down the street — Hebrew and English crossing the table for hours, in suburban Georgia, in the kind of community the long arc of this history was supposed to make impossible. That said, the news did not take the break.

The campaign that opened in the days before Purim closed its sixth week into the seder’s recitation of b’chol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloteinu — in every generation they rise against us to destroy us, and HaShem saves us from their hand. One war paused. Two others did not. And the monthly Strategic Assessment publishes later this morning, so today’s brief is the situation report. We’ll take it up to altitude in an hour or so to dig in further.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Lebanon as central front: IDF executes Operation Eternal Darkness — 50 jets, 100 targets, 203 killed in the heaviest Beirut bombardment since 1983. See The War Today.

• Lifshiz z”l falls in Lebanon: Staff Sgt. Touvel Yosef Lifshiz of Beit She’an killed in a Golani firefight April 8 — twelfth Israeli soldier of the renewed offensive. See The War Today.

• Hormuz mine-clearing flashpoint: First US Navy strait transit since the war began; Iran has reportedly lost the maps to its own minefield; IRGC warns military passage will be met with force. See The War Today.

• Islamabad talks collapse: Vance walks after twenty-one hours; Iran rejects US terms; $27 billion, Hormuz, and the uranium stockpile remain the wall. See The War Today.

• Hamas disarmament deadline expires: Framework collapses without compliance; Mladenov’s parallel deadline arrives this week; renewed Gaza operations in preparation. See The War Today.

• Cabinet approves 34 new Judea and Samaria communities: Largest single approval in Israeli history brings the total from 69 to 103. See Inside Israel.

• Iran recruits inside the IDF: Four active-duty combat soldiers in custody on Iran-spying suspicion; Bennett assassination plot foiled in Haifa; Halevi’s phone hacked. See Inside Israel.

• Zamir warns the IDF will collapse: Chief of staff tells cabinet the army cannot sustain operations without three laws; Bismuth’s “conscription” bill exempts the population the IDF needs. See Inside Israel.

• Pakistan’s “mediator” curses Israel: Defense Minister Asif posts that Israel is “evil and a curse for humanity” while hosting the US-Iran trilateral talks in Islamabad. See Israel and the World.

• Russia hands Iran a 55-target Israeli energy list: Moscow delivers a working strike package against Israeli infrastructure; China stages MANPADs for delivery via cutouts. See Israel and the World.

Below: why the Iran truce moved the war to Lebanon rather than ending it, what Vance’s walkout in Islamabad reveals about a regime that still negotiates like it has cards, the cabinet vote that expanded Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria by half in a single afternoon while no one was watching, what four IDF combat soldiers spying for Iran means for the counterintelligence doctrine that has not caught up to the threat, and the institutional cluster — UNHRC, J Street, a cancelled Holocaust commemoration — that sounds like four, but is really one story.

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Shalom, friends.

Israel’s defense establishment said it Monday: the air campaign has largely achieved its military objectives. Fourteen thousand bombs. A chemical weapons lab under a university. Steel plants and gas terminals ablaze. The word they’re using is “completion.” On the ground, the picture is… less tidy. Four soldiers from the same reconnaissance unit fell in a single engagement in southern Lebanon. The Knesset passed the death penalty for terrorists and a wartime budget in the same session — then the Attorney General froze the coalition’s midnight funding gambit. Across the water, Gulf leaders are telling Trump his definition of “done” doesn’t match theirs, and the only Hormuz bypass pipeline is burning. The campaign is entering its final operational phase. The question — who defines “final” — is still open.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Completion phase declared: Israel’s defense establishment says military objectives largely achieved; political leadership orders pivot to economic targeting — steel, gas, industrial infrastructure. See The War Today.

• Chemical weapons center destroyed: IDF strikes IRGC’s Imam Hossein University compound — wind tunnels, chemical weapons R&D, ballistic missile engineering center — all under civilian academic cover. See The War Today.

• Gulf states warn Trump directly: MBZ and MBS press Washington in private not to end the war without constraints on Iran’s nuclear, missile, drone, proxy, and Hormuz capabilities. See The War Today.

• Hormuz bypass destroyed: Iran strikes Habshan-Fujairah pipeline — the primary alternative to the strait; only Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline remains functional. See The War Today.

• Four Nahal soldiers fall in single engagement: Capt. Madmoni z”l, SSgt. Cohen z”l, SSgt. Antis z”l, SSgt. Harel z”l killed in southern Lebanon; toll since renewed offensive reaches ten. See The War Today.

• Death penalty for terrorists becomes law: Knesset passes 62–48; bars exchange of death-sentenced prisoners — targeting the kidnapping incentive the Sinwar precedent illuminated all too well. See Inside Israel.

• AG freezes Haredi budget maneuver: Baharav-Miara blocks NIS 800 million overnight allocation; coalition queues draft exemption bill for post-war passage. See Inside Israel.

• MSF staff knew Hamas was in the hospital: JC investigation — internal messages, staff interviews, and a 2024 debrief confirm MSF personnel in Gaza were aware of Hamas presence and chose complicity. See Israel and the World.

• Israel ends all defense deals with France: Defense Ministry halts procurement over French support for UN arms embargo and defense exhibition restrictions. See Israel and the World.

Below: why the chemical weapons center under an Iranian university changes how you read the “completion phase,” the death penalty provision that dismantles the hostage-exchange incentive structure, what MSF staff said in a debrief about the hospital doors they weren’t supposed to open, and the single pipeline strike that rewrote the Gulf’s leverage over Washington.

The word “completion” appeared in Israeli defense briefings for the first time Monday. It deserves scrutiny rather than celebration. When a military declares its objectives largely met while the political leadership simultaneously pivots to a new target category — economic infrastructure — the language is doing at least some diplomatic work. Trump is expected in Israel for Independence Day to receive the Israel Prize. A defense establishment that tells the White House “we’re nearly done” gives a president looking for a victory lap the narrative he needs to visit. Whether Israel is actually done — or packaging its achievements to match Washington’s timeline — is a question the Gulf states are openly asking and the coming days will answer.

The War Today

Israel Enters “Completion Phase” — Destroys Chemical Weapons Center, Pivots to Economic Targeting

Israel’s defense establishment declared on Monday that the air campaign has entered its “completion phase” — the stage at which initial military objectives are assessed as largely achieved and the political leadership has ordered a pivot to economic infrastructure. IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the military would finish striking all “critical” military production assets within days. The transition is already underway: strikes on two of Iran’s largest steel factories on Friday and major gas infrastructure in the south. Defense Minister Katz ordered additional economic strikes planned to compound the damage. The constraint is Trump’s April 6 deadline: Israel agreed to suspend strikes on energy infrastructure while Washington holds that threat as its own lever, forcing the IDF to target steel, industrial, and dual-use sites instead. The most significant disclosed operation is the destruction of the IRGC’s Imam Hossein University compound in central Tehran — the regime’s primary military academic institution, commanded by Brigadier General-equivalent Mohammad Reza Hassani Shahnegari. The IDF struck the site multiple times, destroying underground wind tunnels used for ballistic missile testing and development, a chemistry center used for chemical weapons R&D, and the technology and engineering center responsible for ballistic missile and weapons development. Multiple countries had sanctioned the university for advancing terror-linked weapons programs. In the latest 24-hour cycle, the IDF struck approximately 170 targets with roughly 400 munitions — including weapons component production, UAV engine facilities, and R&D sites, plus the main Basij compound in Dehgolan and an Internal Security Forces police station in Sanandaj. A fire broke out at the Tabriz petrochemical complex, the largest in northwest Iran. Trump said that approximately 13,000 targets have been struck with roughly 3,000 remaining. The defense establishment assesses Iranian weapons production as “severely degraded, setting Iran back years” and says the conditions for regime change have been achieved “above and beyond” — while acknowledging it remains unclear whether the Iranian population will act. The nuclear dimension remains U.S.-led, including the disposition of Iran’s 400+ kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — enough, Israeli officials say, for 11 warheads.

Assessment: A chemical weapons research center hidden inside a university, under civilian cover, run by a sanctioned IRGC brigadier — that single target could justify the phrase “completion phase” more than any spreadsheet of strike counts. The wind tunnels for ballistic missile testing beneath a campus confirm what the campaign’s architects planned for. The IRGC embedded its most sensitive military R&D inside institutions it assumed would be shielded by their academic designation. They were wrong. The pivot to economic targeting is the more consequential shift. It means the IDF has run through its pre-war military target set and is now generating new categories at political direction — steel plants, gas facilities, industrial zones. Whether this accelerates internal regime pressure or merely adds another line on the damage ledger depends on a timeline Israel doesn’t control.

There is a second reading of “completion phase” that deserves attention. Trump is expected in Israel for Independence Day to receive the Israel Prize — a visit that requires a narrative of success, not an ongoing campaign. A defense establishment that tells Washington “objectives largely achieved” is also giving a president who wants to announce a deal the framing to do it. The language may be operationally accurate and diplomatically strategic at the same time. Israel is racing to lock in irreversible damage before the political ceiling descends — and “completion phase” is the phrase that lets both Jerusalem and Washington claim the ceiling was the plan all along.

Gulf States Tell Trump Directly That Ending the War Short Means Ending the Gulf Economy

UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warned Trump in recent days against ending the war without securing meaningful constraints on Iran’s regional threat — the most direct pressure the Gulf states have applied to Washington since the campaign began. Both leaders framed the current conflict as a “historic opportunity” and told Trump the endgame must leave Iran unable to resume coercion. White House press secretary Leavitt, asked Monday whether restoring Strait of Hormuz navigation is a core war objective, stopped short — describing the administration as “working toward reopening” rather than defining it as a goal of the operation. Trump has apparently told aides he is willing to end the war even if the waterway remains largely closed. For Gulf capitals that have spent a month under missile and drone fire, that distinction is existential. If that wasn’t bad enough for them, Iran sharpened the stakes by striking the Habshan-Fujairah oil pipeline — the key bypass route allowing Gulf oil exports to circumvent Hormuz — leaving only Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline as the sole remaining alternative. On Saturday, Iran hit a UAE aluminum plant and caused heavy damage to two Kuwaiti ports. Monday brought a strike on a Kuwaiti desalination and power plant, which Tehran blamed on Israel. Aluminium Bahrain has shut down 19% of production capacity due to raw material shortages from the strait closure. Brent crude hit $116.71/barrel. Oil prices, now at nearly double pre-war levels, reflect a disruption entering its second month with no resolution mechanism in sight. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, and the U.S. all condemned Saturday’s drone strike on Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani’s home — one of more than 500 Iran-backed militia attacks on the autonomous region in the past month. Iraq’s Defense Ministry found rockets ready to fire at Kurdistan, though it is unclear whether Iraq genuinely thwarted the launch or whether the militias told Baghdad where to look so it could perform cooperation for the cameras.

Assessment: The Leavitt distinction — “working toward” versus “core objective” — is a sentence the Gulf states are parsing most carefully right now. Should Trump declare victory without reopening Hormuz, the economic architecture underpinning Gulf governance breaks. Unfortunately, Iran’s Fujairah strike was maybe the smartest single tactical move Tehran has made since the war started: it removed the Gulf’s primary workaround and handed the continuation argument its strongest evidence. MBZ and MBS are no longer asking Trump to keep fighting — they’re telling him what “ending” must include, and the list is maximalist: nuclear, missiles, drones, proxies, Hormuz, compensation. The Gulf states conditions now exceed Washington’s own stated war aims. The question that hangs over every Gulf capital: does Trump’s definition of “deal” include theirs? The early signals — Leavitt’s careful language, the WSJ report — doesn’t fuel much optimism in their halls.

Four Nahal Soldiers Fall in Single Engagement as Hezbollah Adapts Under Pressure

Four soldiers of the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit (934) fell in a single engagement in southern Lebanon: Capt. Noam Madmoni z”l, 22, from Sderot, team commander; Staff Sgt. Ben Cohen z”l, 21, from Lehavim; Staff Sgt. Maksim Antis z”l, 21, from Bat Yam; and Staff Sgt. Gilad Harel z”l, 21, from Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut. Another soldier was severely injured and two others moderately injured in the same incident. Their deaths follow yesterday’s loss of Sgt. Liran Ben Zion z”l, bringing the toll since the renewed offensive to ten. In separate incidents Monday, two soldiers were seriously wounded by an anti-tank guided missile, a Hezbollah drone strike seriously wounded one and moderately wounded two more, and an additional soldier was moderately injured in an operational accident. Multiple evacuation helicopters — more than eight by Israeli media count — deployed to southern Lebanon under covering at least two ongoing security incidents. The IDF struck Hamza Ibrahim Rakin, deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Unit 1800 — the coordination network linking Hezbollah to Palestinian terror organizations across Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Judea and Samaria — along with the unit’s operations officer in Beirut. Rakin oversaw the transfer of fighters to engage IDF troops in the south. Troops of the 226th Brigade dismantled a command center, located missile launchers, and destroyed five advanced anti-tank missiles intended for launch against Israeli territory, clearing additional weapons caches from underground compounds. Evacuation orders were issued for towns in the eastern Beqaa Valley. Netanyahu, in closed conversations with senior Trump administration officials, stated that a potential U.S.-Iran agreement would not affect the Lebanon campaign, rejected a French ceasefire initiative, and indicated Israel intends to push Hezbollah beyond the Litani. Defense Minister Katz spoke of applying the “Gaza doctrine” to southern Lebanon — systematic demolition and long-term IDF positioning.

Assessment: Four soldiers from the same reconnaissance unit in a single engagement — the heaviest single-unit toll since the renewed offensive began. Yesterday it was a 19-year-old tank commander. Today it’s a team commander and three of his soldiers, all 21 or 22. I've sat with soldiers in rehab wards and on forward bases in the north, in Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria — carrying grief home for people who I never even got to meet. These paragraphs don't get easier to type. The cost is specific, cumulative, and borne by a force whose chief of staff has already warned cannot sustain the current pace. Hezbollah’s casualty-generation capacity has not broken. The elimination of Unit 1800’s deputy commander matters operationally — 1800 is the coordination sinew connecting Hezbollah to Palestinian organizations across theaters, and cutting that link degrades the ability to synchronize cross-front operations. But the ambulance networks, the journalist cover, the anti-tank cells such as those we reported yesterday — these are adaptations under pressure, not indicators of collapse. Bibi’s message to Washington — the Lebanon campaign continues regardless of any Iran deal — draws a line the White House hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Katz’s “Gaza doctrine” language confirms what the security zone expansion signaled last week: Israel is planning for years in southern Lebanon, not months.

Inside Israel

Knesset Passes Death Penalty for Terrorists — and the Logic Is Sound

The Knesset passed Ben Gvir’s death penalty bill on Monday, 62–48 along coalition lines [to be clear: a bill he authored, not one naming him as the defendant — sorry to disappoint half of Twitter] —after a nearly 10-hour debate held in a fortified auditorium — the plenum was unavailable due to the ongoing Iranian missile threat. The law applies in military courts to non-Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria convicted of murder, and in civilian courts to those who “intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel.” Somewhat against expectations, Shas supported the bill per the directive of its Council of Torah Sages, citing the security establishment’s position following October 7. The legislation passed its first reading in November by 39–16 and was revised, under pressure, to give judges the option of life imprisonment rather than a mandatory death sentence. Execution is to be carried out within 90 days by hanging, though the prime minister may delay that up to 180 days. The critical provision: prisoners sentenced to death cannot be freed or exchanged. Israel released thousands of Palestinian security prisoners last fall in hostage negotiations, including roughly hundreds serving life sentences for murdering Israelis. MK Zvika Fogel argued the bill represents “the state’s responsibility towards its citizens and its leadership towards human life.” Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, who cosponsors a separate Oct. 7 tribunal bill, said the coalition “understands that Otzma Yehudit’s bill cannot be implemented and will be struck down by the High Court” — but added, “I am in favor of the death penalty for terrorists.” Labor’s Gilad Kariv plans to petition the High Court. The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. released a joint statement calling the bill discriminatory and urging Israel to abandon it. Hadash-Ta’al’s Aida Touma-Sliman compared it to apartheid South Africa and Jim Crow [a comparison that requires not understanding any of those things].

Assessment: The death penalty bill attacks the most perverse incentive structure in the conflict: convicted terrorists as currency. The Shalit deal released 1,027 Palestinians — including Yahya Sinwar, who went on to plan and execute October 7. Last fall’s exchanges freed another few hundred murderers. The pattern is lethal, terribly predictable, and self-reinforcing. Every release raises the value of the next kidnapping. The bill’s provision barring exchange of death-sentenced prisoners removes the incentive to take hostages for prisoner swaps by making the prisoners irrecoverable. Ben Gvir has been making this argument for years, and the logic has only become more obvious since October 7. I exchanged WhatsApp messages with him yesterday evening after the vote. His closing response was four blue hearts: “💙💙💙💙.” He’s happy, and he should be. It, like much, is a combination of politics and progress. Though as we have previously discussed, the bill has some mechanical problems. It excludes previously sentenced terrorists (like those it was marketed against), seems to provide no additional framework to secure convictions, and leaves the presidential pardon — the actual release mechanism in every past deal — untouched. The 90-day execution window may violate the Geneva Convention’s 180-day mandatory period (handing the ICC exposure the IDF explicitly warned against). The Rothman-Malinovsky bill moving through committee does some of the procedural work this one skips. The logic of the incentive structure is right. That said, the High Court will almost certainly intervene — the judicial establishment has never encountered a security measure it couldn’t find constitutional grounds to block — and the European condemnation was delivered on schedule by four foreign ministers whose countries can’t enforce their own incitement laws. The rabbinical discomfort with capital punishment is real and deserves more than dismissal. Jewish legal tradition set the evidentiary bar for execution so high that the Talmud called a Sanhedrin that executed once in seven years “destructive.” That tension is more than worth exploring. Taking a life should never be an easy or readily accepted thing. But the Talmudic framework did not contemplate a world in which convicted murderers are released by the hundred to secure innocent hostages — and one of those released murderers then organizes the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The ethical question is not abstract: saving a life can sometimes require making another life unrecoverable. The alternative has been tried. The alternative produced Sinwar.

Budget Aftermath — AG Freezes Haredi Funds, Coalition Queues Draft Exemption Bill

Attorney General Baharav-Miara froze the NIS 800 million in Haredi education funding within hours of the budget’s passage — the overnight maneuver we covered yesterday now formally blocked. In a letter to government ministries, Baharav-Miara called the coalition’s reservation “an unlawful attempt to circumvent Supreme Court rulings regarding military conscription” and instructed officials not to execute the transfers. Yesh Atid announced it would petition the High Court to permanently block the allocation — a motion that, given recent precedent, is likely to succeed. MK Gafni called the AG’s intervention “criminal by any standard” and accused her of hostility toward the Haredi public. The freeze sets up a judicial confrontation layered on top of the Hiddush petition from last week, which challenges a separate frozen NIS 98 million allocation and argues even the NIS 800 million already disbursed may exceed lawful entitlements — with a Finance Committee reporting deadline of April 15. The second shoe dropped Monday evening: Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth announced the coalition would resume advancing the Haredi draft exemption bill after the war’s conclusion, as part of a legislative package including extended mandatory service and reserve duty regulation. Bismuth framed the move as fulfilling the chief of staff’s request — but what Zamir actually told the cabinet was that the military would “collapse in on itself” without a conscription solution. The bill on the table is the version drafted after the previous committee chairman was removed for attempting to penalize draft dodgers — critics, including the IDF brass, the AG, and coalition member Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, have warned it enshrines exemptions rather than resolving the manpower shortage. Those critics are correct. Former Chief of Staff Eisenkot called it “an official draft-dodging law” and “a disgrace.” “One hand exempts from service and rewards the draft dodgers, while the other hand extends the service for those who serve.”

Assessment: The coalition’s parliamentary craft lasted less than a day. The NIS 800 million passed at 3 AM; the AG blocked it by Monday evening. Haredi parties extract funding commitments, the AG or the High Court blocks implementation, both sides claim victory, and the underlying issue — who serves and who doesn’t — remains unresolved while soldiers die in Lebanon. [At this point… what else is new? The disfunction is galling.] Bismuth’s framing is an inversion of what Zamir actually said. The chief of staff asked for a conscription law that solves the manpower crisis. What the coalition is drafting is an exemption law in conscription packaging — and the IDF itself has warned it will make the problem worse. Eisenkot’s characterization is properly blunt. Extend service for those already serving. Exempt those who refuse. And call it a solution. Haskel’s dissent from within the coalition — rare and pointed — signals that the political cost of the bill may be higher than the Haredi parties’ leverage warrants. The fiscal picture underneath all of this: NIS 850 billion in spending, a 5.3% deficit, a war costing $1.6 billion per week, and a Bank of Israel forecast that assumes the fighting stops next month. If it doesn’t, the growth assumptions dissolve — and the NIS 5+ billion in coalition payoffs become a line item in a budget that can’t cover the war it’s financing.

Israel and the World

MSF Staff Knew Hamas Was in the Hospital — and Chose Silence

A Jewish Chronicle investigation based on internal messages, staff interviews, and leaked forum posts revealed that Doctors Without Borders employees used terms including “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “fascism,” and “white supremacist logic” in internal discussions about Israel — and that staff in Gaza were aware Hamas militants operated inside hospitals where MSF provided care. A source described a 2024 debrief in which a colleague returning from Gaza stated: “We know there are doors we can’t go through in the hospital, and we know that Hamas is in the hospital.” The colleague said revealing Hamas’s presence might result in being forced to leave Gaza. At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, staff described restricted areas and floors where they were “not welcome.” Michael Goldfarb, a 15-year MSF US veteran, described “selective outrage” and a “permissive environment” for Jew-hate. European colleagues told him Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. A suggestion to send solidarity messages to Jewish staff during a 2021 spike in violence was rejected because “it’s complicated.” Dr. Estrella Lasry, a 14-year staffer and former board member, described “appalling lack of empathy” toward October 7 victims and received an “explicit request” from the MSF not to speak on behalf of Israeli victims “as it would victimise the perpetrators.” She was told she was part of the “Israeli propaganda machine” in a meeting — “and nobody flinched.” Javid Abdelmoneim, who became MSF’s international president in early 2025, had endorsed a full boycott of Israel and reposted messages calling it “a colony of settlers” committing “ethnic cleansing” and “the greatest threat to Judaism.” MSF’s post blaming Israel for the al-Ahli Hospital explosion — later attributed to a misfired Palestinian rocket — remains online. MSF launched a billboard campaign in the UK declaring “We’re witnessing a genocide in Gaza.” Israel banned MSF from Gaza last month after it refused to hand over a staff list; the High Court temporarily halted the ban.

Assessment: The investigation answers the question Israel has been asking — and been called a liar for asking — since October 7: did MSF know Hamas operated in hospitals where it worked? The answer, from MSF’s own staff, is yes. The operational logic is straightforward and damning. MSF’s access to Gaza depends on not reporting what it sees. It chose access over disclosure, then used that access to generate a “genocide” determination based on observations made under conditions it knows are controlled by Hamas. If it were just interested in serving civilians in Gaza, fine. But they weren’t. Which is clear from the billboards in the UK and the blood libels they chose to spread. The internal forum language — “76-year-old crime scene,” “absolute evil of Zionism,” “decolonise our minds” — is the culture that produced and sustains that choice. An organization whose international president called Israel “the greatest threat to Judaism,” whose UK branch ran billboard campaigns declaring genocide, and whose al-Ahli Hospital accusation remains posted despite being factually wrong is not a humanitarian organization. Propogandists and terror sympathizers hiding behind a white coat. Disgusting. Every MSF report from Gaza. Every casualty figure cited. Every claim of Israeli targeting of medical infrastructure — all of it now carries a disclosed institutional bias and a confirmed willingness to conceal the presence of combatants in facilities MSF claims are being attacked without justification. And yet some supposedly logical Jewish friends of mine still send donations to this organization.

Toronto Marches Past Synagogues; Australia Arrests Seven for Targeting Jewish Feminist

Toronto police escorted a pro-Palestinian protest down Sheppard Avenue past Darchei Noam Synagogue, the Toronto Heschel School, and the L’Chaim Seniors Residence on Saturday — one week after Deputy Chief Frank Barredo announced restrictions on such demonstrations in Jewish residential areas. Protesters chanted “all Zionists are terrorists” through megaphones. Israel’s consul in Toronto, Idit Shamir, confirmed groups broke off onto residential side streets. There were no arrests. Police later said the restriction applied only to residential side streets, not the main intersection — a distinction not apparent in Barredo’s original announcement. City Councillor James Pasternak confirmed protesters were “looking for an entry point into the neighborhood to harass the local residents.” The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation called the march a “hate parade” and asked: “Toronto Police would not tolerate a white supremacist parade up and down Jane St. — so why are Toronto’s Jews required to tolerate it?” In a separate Land Day demonstration, a protester identified as an Iranian regime supporter held up a Netanyahu effigy with a noose, spat on it, and stomped on it. Chants included “the only solution is intifada” and “we will sacrifice our souls and our blood for Al-Aqsa.” In Melbourne, Victoria Police arrested and charged seven women — aged 34 to 71 — for defacing the statue of Jewish feminist Zelda D’Aprano with red spray paint on March 6, using umbrellas to block cameras. Six were bailed; an eighth suspect remains at large. Separately, police are searching for a driver who swerved a stolen vehicle at a group of Jews in Melbourne on March 25.

Assessment: Toronto police defined their restriction so narrowly that the mob marched past a synagogue, a Jewish school, and a seniors’ residence — with a police escort — and no one violated anything. The technique is familiar from London: announce enforcement, define the violation down to nothing, then cite lawful demonstration protections when constituents complain. Chanting “all Zionists are terrorists” outside a Jewish school is targeted intimidation of a minority population in the spaces where they live, learn, and pray — and Canadian law enforcement has decided it doesn’t qualify as a problem. Apparently they’ve never cracked open a history text. We know where this leads. The Melbourne arrests are a rare exception: seven women charged for a targeted act of vandalism against a specifically Jewish target, with the camera-blocking suggesting premeditation and awareness that the act was criminal. The pattern across both cities though is consistent. Jewish communities are absorbing escalating physical and symbolic attacks while law enforcement calibrates its response to avoid confrontation with the attackers.

Israel Ends All Defense Deals with France

Israel’s Defense Ministry halted all defense procurement from France, with Director-General Amir Baram deciding to replace French-sourced equipment with Israeli-made alternatives and purchases from friendly countries. The move follows a sequence of French actions since October 7. Such as restrictions on Israeli participation in defense exhibitions, support for a UN General Assembly resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel, and the blocking of parts of the Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show during the June 2025 war — an act Baram called “absolutely, bluntly antisemitic” and accused Paris of using to suppress Israeli industrial competition. The Defense Ministry said France’s actions came “at a time when Israel is fighting a necessary and just war to eliminate the nuclear and ballistic threat facing the Middle East, Europe and the entire world.”

Assessment: The procurement cut is the commercial instrument of a strategic divorce that France initiated. Paris supported a UN arms embargo on Israel — during a war against a state developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles — then physically blocked Israeli companies from competing at a defense trade show. Baram’s “antisemitic” characterization is deliberate and considered: when a European government uses regulatory mechanisms to exclude a single country’s defense industry from competition, while that country fights a war the European country’s own citizens benefit from strategically, the word fits. The practical impact is limited — Israel’s defense industrial base produces most of what it needs domestically, and the remaining gaps can be filled by the U.S., Germany, Italy, and a growing roster of Indo-Pacific partners. The strategic message is the point: France chose a posture, and Israel is treating it as binding. Macron’s government joined the pressure campaign against Israel and is now learning that pressure works in both directions. To our MK and ministry friends: a closer look at France’s facilities in Jerusalem could be warranted.

Briefly Noted

Frontline & Security

• JNS: The Shin Bet dismantled a Hamas cell in Judea and Samaria directed by Mahmoud Radwan — a convicted terrorist released in the 2025 prisoner exchange and deported to Turkey after serving time for the 2001 murder of Yossi Alfasi. Radwan recruited two Azzun residents during a December meeting in Istanbul; indictments have been filed [another released prisoner, another terror network — the Shalit-Sinwar pipeline keeps producing].

• Jerusalem Post: Syria’s army said drone attacks from Iraq targeted several of its military bases near the eastern border — a rare direct strike on Syrian positions since the February campaign began. Damascus deployed thousands of troops to both its Lebanese and Iraqi borders this month but has so far avoided entering the conflict, which might be the smartest decision Assad’s successor has made.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• Jerusalem Post: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, and the U.S. all condemned Saturday’s drone strike on Kurdistan Region President Barzani’s home — one of more than 500 Iran-backed militia attacks on the autonomous region in the past month. Iraq’s Defense Ministry displayed rockets it claimed to have found near Kirkuk; whether Baghdad intercepted them or was told where to look so it could perform cooperation is anyone’s guess.

• Ynet: Senators Markey and Merkley reintroduced the No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act, seeking congressional approval before any U.S.-Saudi 123 Agreement — a deal reportedly permitting Saudi uranium enrichment on its own soil. Riyadh leveraged the Iran war to extract precisely the dual-use nuclear technology the international community denied Tehran for two decades [the non-proliferation regime has a consistency problem, and MBS knows it].

• Algemeiner: A nonbinding DNC resolution calls on Democrats to reject or distance themselves from AIPAC funding — designed less to change policy than to force candidates into a public position on pro-Israel money during primary season. Three new pro-Palestinian PACs entered the 2026 midterms with at least $10 million pledged, backing candidates who support conditioning military aid; the infrastructure for an intra-Democratic war over Israel is now funded and operational.

• The JC: Acumen Risk’s Doron Goldberg argues that Israel’s destruction of Iran’s proxy network won’t extinguish radical Islamist ambition — it will redirect it toward Europe, where 32% of EU citizens would fight for their country, army recruitment hits 64% of target, and the radicalization pipeline documented by Europol is already running at record volume. The thesis tracks our Controlled Surrender analysis. The threat migrates toward societies that won’t fight, militaries that can’t, and populations among which radicalization proceeds largely unchecked.

• Jerusalem Post: Trump revealed a “massive” fortified military complex under construction beneath the new White House ballroom — a $400 million project replacing the demolished East Wing and its Presidential Emergency Operations Center, with bulletproof glass and a drone-proof roof. The National Capital Planning Commission votes Thursday. To my father’s chagrin, critics, historians, and a pending lawsuit have not slowed it.

Domestic & Law

• Jerusalem Post: Complaints against judges rose from 770 in 2024 to 1,100 in 2025, but 92% were rejected on review — and 79% of the 24 justified complaints concerned delays and case management, not misconduct or ideology.

• Jerusalem Post: The High Court heard journalist Omri Assenheim’s appeal against orders to release raw footage from his Eli Feldstein interview — a case testing whether journalistic privilege covers unpublished material or only source identity. Justice Amit suggested the police request for everything on the cutting-room floor resembled a “fishing expedition.” No ruling was issued, but the court appeared open to a middle path that neither grants absolute privilege nor permits blanket seizure.

Economy, Tech & Infrastructure

• Globes: The Bank of Israel held rates at 4% and cut its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 3.8% — down from a January projection of 5.2% — citing the war and a marked increase in global energy prices. The forecast assumes the war ends in April; the 2027 projection of 5.5% growth is the bounce-back scenario, and every week the fighting continues erodes the assumptions underneath it.

Culture, Religion & Society

• The JC: London’s Metropolitan Police will deploy surveillance drones as “first responders” over Pesach, with 260+ additional officers, armed response units, and plainclothes operatives — resources nearly tripled in high-risk areas like Barnet after the Hatzola attack. Commander Conway cited “a confluence of state-backed threats, terrorism, and the destabilising impact on community cohesion” — police language for what the rest of us recognize as a war on Jews conducted on British streets.

• The JC: An essayist makes the case for refusing to surrender the art of antizionist artists — Waters, Eno, Rooney, Bardem, Kneecap [or as a friend renamed them, “Sinn Fein Clown Posse”] — arguing their work belongs to the audience regardless of the creator’s politics. The cultural landscape is dominated by antizionist groupthink, and to that author, declining to relinquish the pleasure is its own quiet act of defiance.

Developments to Watch

Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)

• Trump’s April 6 deadline — deal window or escalation trigger — Pakistan-mediated talks reportedly advancing; Trump says a deal could come “very quickly.” Iran publicly denies direct negotiations. Leavitt warned that private commitments will be tested and failure to deliver triggers military consequences — specifically energy infrastructure, oil wells, and Kharg Island. Israel suspended energy strikes as part of the arrangement. The next six days determine whether the campaign escalates to Iran’s economic lifeline or transitions to a ceasefire framework nobody in the region trusts. LIKELY TO ESCALATE

• Kharg Island ground option live — Two Marine expeditionary units are deploying. Trump said the seizure would be “very easy” and that Iran “has no defense.” Iran’s First VP Aref responded that forces sent to Kharg “would not return from hell.” Oil at $116/barrel. The ground option remains the single biggest escalation card Washington hasn’t played — and the one Tehran appears most afraid of.

• Hormuz bypass destroyed — one pipeline left — Iran’s strike on the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline eliminated the primary alternative export route bypassing the strait. Only Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline remains functional. A strike on that pipeline would shut down Gulf oil exports entirely — no workaround, no redundancy. Iran has demonstrated both the capability and the willingness to target energy infrastructure in every Gulf state. The question is whether Tehran calculates that destroying the last bypass strengthens its negotiating hand or triggers the Kharg operation it’s trying to prevent.

• Iran’s economic collapse clock — late April fiscal wall — Pezeshkian warned the IRGC that without a ceasefire the economy collapses in three to four weeks. The steel factory and gas infrastructure strikes compound the pressure. If the timeline holds, the regime faces a fiscal crisis around late April — but the IRGC rejected Pezeshkian’s demand for returned executive powers. The people with the guns have little interest in the spreadsheets.

• Iran cyber and HUMINT campaign intensifying into Pesach — The National Cyber Directorate reported 50 Israeli security cameras breached and data destroyed across 60 companies since the war began — assessed as supporting damage assessment and operational surveillance. There are parallel cyber escalations targeting U.S. and Gulf entities. Espionage cases in Eilat (air base employee) and Tel Aviv (14-year-old recruited to scout both the Kirya and Sa’ar’s home) confirm an active IRGC HUMINT operation running alongside the kinetic campaign. Low-cost, high-yield, and likely to intensify over the holiday.

Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)

• Netanyahu decouples Lebanon from any Iran deal — Told senior Trump administration officials in closed conversations that a U.S.-Iran agreement would not stop the Lebanon campaign. Rejected French ceasefire. Katz invoked “Gaza doctrine” — systematic demolition and sustained IDF presence. If a ceasefire materializes on the Iran front, Lebanon becomes the sole active theater with no international framework, no enforcement mechanism, and an Israeli military presence the PM has described in terms of years, not months. The cost is five soldiers killed in 48 hours and a chief of staff who says the force cannot sustain the pace.

Judea & Samaria

• Turkey-based Hamas recruitment after prisoner releases — Mahmoud Radwan, released in the 2025 prisoner exchange and deported to Turkey after serving time for the 2001 murder of Yossi Alfasi, recruited a cell in Judea and Samaria within months of his release. The Shin Bet indicted the recruits. The pattern confirms the structural incentive the death penalty bill targets: released prisoners do not retire. They reconstitute — and Turkey is becoming the operational base from which they do it.

Diplomatic & Legal

• Passover global threat window — active through end of holiday — NSC assessment of Iranian-directed targeting of Israeli and Jewish sites worldwide at unprecedented levels. Pesach begins tomorrow night [which is an alarming sentence to type—not ready!]. Specific guidance issued for UAE, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, and Thailand. Ben Gurion Airport remains closed; land crossings through Sinai and Jordan at Level 4. London deployed drones and tripled police presence in Jewish neighborhoods after the Hatzola attack. The FBI linked the Michigan synagogue attack to Hezbollah and Iranian fatwas. Bahrain dismantled a Hezbollah-linked cell trained in Lebanon and planning domestic attacks. The operational window runs through at least the eighth day of the holiday. LIKELY TO ESCALATE

• Death penalty — High Court collision imminent — Labor’s Kariv plans to petition the High Court, joined by Israeli human rights organizations. The EU threatened sanctions. The law’s provision barring exchange of death-sentenced prisoners is the operative mechanism — and the one most likely to draw judicial scrutiny, since it constrains future government action on hostage negotiations. The question isn’t whether the court hears the case — it’s whether it issues an interim injunction before the law is ever applied.

Home Front & Politics

• Hiddush petition — April 15 court deadline — The Finance Committee must report to the High Court on the frozen NIS 98 million Haredi education allocation. Hiddush’s letter argues even the NIS 800 million passed in the budget maneuver may exceed lawful entitlements and could require partial clawback. If the court orders a broader review, the coalition faces a judicial confrontation over wartime budget allocations — layered on top of the AG’s freeze and the draft exemption bill Bismuth just put back on the legislative calendar.

This is the last edition before Pesach. We return Sunday, April 12. The seder begins Wednesday night with a question the Haggadah asks every year and the war answers every day: Mah nishtanah — what has changed? The military campaign has degraded Iran beyond what most analysts predicted a month ago. The political campaign to translate that into a durable outcome has not kept pace. Five soldiers fell in Lebanon in 48 hours. A law designed to prevent the next Sinwar passed the Knesset and will now face the High Court. The Gulf states are placing bets Washington may not honor. And the only Hormuz bypass pipeline is on fire. Somewhere between the completion phase and the seder plate, the country is doing what it always does — absorbing the unbearable and setting the table anyway.

Chag Pesach sameach. Make it count.

— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst

P.S. The last thing you should do before searching for chametz tonight is forward this brief to someone who still thinks MSF is a neutral humanitarian organization. The JC investigation doesn't leave much ambiguity. Neither does our Assessment.

Tip? Share it securely via signal: (@Uri.30) or proton: (uri.zehavi@proton.me).

Shalom, friends.

Israel seems to have abandoned the regime-change theory — the Kurdish invasion collapsed, the opposition never materialized, the IRGC consolidated instead of fracturing — and redirected its entire strike architecture toward destroying Iran’s military-industrial base before Trump calls time. Against that quiet shift, we face: a cluster warhead on the Haifa refinery, a chemical plant fire in the Negev, a 19-year-old tank commander killed in southern Lebanon, and a midnight budget maneuver that slipped NIS 800 million to Haredi schools while the opposition voted for it by accident. Two days before Pesach, Israel is doing what Israel does — absorbing hits that would flatten most countries and cleaning house at the same time. Some of us are doing that quite literally.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Regime change abandoned: Israel pivots airstrikes from destabilization targets to Iran’s military-industrial base after Kurdish invasion plan collapses and opposition fails to materialize; one Israeli source: “a better place, but not a win.” See The War Today.

• 40 weapons facilities struck in Tehran: IAF deploys 80+ munitions against missile assembly, engine R&D, and anti-tank component manufacturing in a single wave; U.S. B-1 and B-52 bombers hit IRGC command centers overnight; Arak heavy water plant confirmed non-operational. See The War Today.

• Security zone expands — years, not months: Netanyahu orders deeper push in southern Lebanon; IDF reaches Ras al-Bayada, eight kilometers north of the border; officials say presence expected “for several months and possibly years.” See The War Today.

• Sgt. Liran Ben Zion z”l killed in Lebanon: 19-year-old fighter from the 401st Brigade killed by anti-tank missile; three soldiers seriously wounded in separate attacks; Hezbollah “super launch” turns Haifa skies yellow. See The War Today.

• Cluster warhead hits Haifa refinery: Iranian ballistic missile strikes oil refinery with cluster munition; Energy Minister confirms no production damage; Negev chemical plant fire and hazmat incident after separate missile impact near Beersheba. See The War Today.

• Budget passes 62–55 with midnight Haredi maneuver: NIS 850.6 billion budget clears the Knesset; coalition slips NIS 800 million to Haredi schools in procedural amendment the opposition voted for without realizing; Finance Ministry DG Rom steps down. See Inside Israel.

• Netzach Yisrael suspended — Bismuth demands reversal: Chief of Staff suspends Haredi reserve battalion after CNN incident in Samaria; committee chairman accuses Zamir of undermining morale and arming enemy narratives. See Inside Israel.

• Iran’s ambassador still in Beirut: Expulsion deadline passed; Saar calls Lebanon “a virtual country occupied by Iran”; Spain closes airspace to aircraft involved in the campaign — another European operational obstruction. See Israel and the World.

• UN installs pro-Hamas academic as rapporteur: UNHRC bypasses top-ranked candidate to appoint Zeina Jallad, who justified October 7 and called for suspending Israel from international organizations. See Israel and the World.

Below: the Kurdish invasion plan that was supposed to break Iran open and why its collapse rewrote Israel’s war aims, what the IDF found inside Hezbollah’s ambulance network, and the midnight budget amendment that produced 109 votes for a policy the Attorney General wanted to thwart.

Read more

Shavua tov, friends.

The war’s fifth week opened with two arrivals — a Houthi ballistic missile over the Negev and an 82nd Airborne brigade heading to the Gulf — and neither changed the trajectory so much as confirmed it. Israel is days from completing the destruction of Iran’s military-industrial base. The Pentagon is drafting ground seizure plans for Kharg Island and Iran’s nuclear sites. Tehran rejected the 15-point proposal, let ten tankers through Hormuz flying Pakistani flags, and lowered the minimum age for war participation to twelve. 12! And at home, the budget vote that determines whether elections come early reaches the plenum floor tonight.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Pentagon ground options: U.S. drafts weeks long plans for Kharg Island seizure, nuclear site raids, and Hormuz island operations as two Marine units and 82nd Airborne deploy. See The War Today.

• Iran rejects 15-point deal: Tehran calls U.S. proposal “one-sided,” demands war reparations, Hormuz sovereignty, and Hezbollah’s inclusion in any agreement. See The War Today.

• Houthis enter the war: First ballistic missile from Yemen since February 28 intercepted over the Negev; Houthis formally declare for Iran and announce Bab al-Mandab blockade plan. See The War Today.

• Military industry near collapse: IDF reports 70% of Iran’s military production struck, 90% of critical sites within days; 15,000 munitions fired since February 28. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: four divisions, 800 killed: Expanded ground operations across southern Lebanon; Hezbollah admits rebuilding missiles, drones, and ground forces during the ceasefire. See The War Today.

• Sgt. Moshe Yitzchak Katz z”l falls in Lebanon: Paratrooper from New Haven, Connecticut killed by Hezbollah rockets; 20+ soldiers wounded in separate attacks Saturday. See The War Today.

• Budget vote tonight: NIS 850 billion budget reaches plenum Sunday evening; passage expected by early Monday — 48 hours before elections trigger. See Inside Israel.

• Chief of Staff: “IDF collapsing”: Zamir warns cabinet that conscription, reserve, and service-length legislation must pass or the military cannot sustain operations. See Inside Israel.

• UAE pushes Hormuz naval force: Abu Dhabi offers its own navy for a multinational task force; France conditions participation on the war ending first. See Israel and the World.

Below: why Iran’s ten-tanker “gift” is a diplomatic sorting mechanism designed to fracture the coalition, what Wafiq Safa’s televised admission means for the ceasefire fight over Hezbollah, Zamir’s warning that nobody in the cabinet answered, and the Turkey-Syria corridor that could cost Israel billions in trade revenue while everyone watches Hormuz.

Read more

Shalom, friends.

The war’s fourth week is compressing — diplomatically, operationally, and politically — into a window measured in days, not weeks. Netanyahu ordered an intensification of strikes against Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure because he believes Trump could announce a halt before the job is done. Tehran responded by listing demands no American president could realistically accept and insisting Hezbollah be wrapped into any deal. In southern Lebanon, IDF troops proved what Israeli commanders long suspected. The Lebanese army lied about disarming Hezbollah. And the infrastructure the IDF is now demolishing was supposed to have been dismantled long ago. At home, the budget vote that determines whether elections come early reaches the Knesset floor today. Let’s track where each of these threads leads.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• 48-hour strike surge: Netanyahu orders IDF to accelerate destruction of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs before a possible Trump-imposed halt; U.S. and Israel grant temporary immunity to two senior Iranian officials for diplomatic contact. See The War Today.

• Tehran’s impossible demands: Iran insists on base closures, war reparations, Hormuz sovereignty, and Hezbollah’s inclusion in any deal — conditions designed to be rejected. See The War Today.

• Lebanese army deception exposed: IDF discovers intact Hezbollah infrastructure in El-Khiam the LAF reported cleared; Defense Minister Katz orders “root treatment” modeled on Gaza’s Yellow Line. See The War Today.

• Caspian Sea strikes sever Russia-Iran pipeline: Bandar Anzali port attack destroyed naval assets and disrupted the sanctions-evasion corridor that moved 300,000 artillery shells to Moscow in 2023. See The War Today.

• Budget vote today: NIS 850 billion budget reaches the plenum; failure by March 31 triggers elections Netanyahu’s coalition would lose at 51 projected seats. See Inside Israel.

• Agmon resigns over anti-Mizrachi slurs: Netanyahu’s spokesman and acting chief of staff quits after Channel 12 exposé — second gatekeeper lost in wartime. See Inside Israel.

• Gulf states break with Arab League: UAE publicly attacks Arab inaction on Iranian aggression; Emirati and Kuwaiti voices predict post-war normalization rush with Israel. See Israel and the World.

• Herzog to Europe — you’re next: President warns European inaction on Iran is strategic negligence, citing 4,000-km missile demonstrated to Diego Garcia. See Israel and the World.

Below: why Iran’s ceasefire demands are a declaration of escalation dominance rather than a negotiating position, what IDF troops found in El-Khiam that the Lebanese army swore wasn’t there, the Caspian Sea strike that quietly did more damage to Russia’s arms supply than two years of Western sanctions, and what Agmon’s resignation tells you about who actually runs Netanyahu’s office during wartime.

The dominant dynamic today is misaligned clocks. Every actor in this war is operating on a different timeline — and each one believes their clock is the one that matters. Netanyahu’s 48-hour surge assumes the military window could close soon. Tehran’s maximalist demands assume pain tolerance outlasts precision strikes. Trump’s immunity gesture assumes four days of diplomatic theater can produce what four weeks of bombing haven’t. The budget vote assumes coalition arithmetic holds for one more Thursday. The friction between these unsynchronized timetables is where the next phase of the war gets decided.

The War Today

Netanyahu Orders 48-Hour Strike Surge as Ceasefire Window Narrows

Netanyahu directed the IDF to intensify strikes over a 48-hour period targeting Iran’s arms industry, nuclear program, and missile capabilities, issuing the directive during a high-level security meeting at the Kirya after receiving senior commander briefings on remaining target sets. The urgency stems from Israeli assessments that Trump could announce a ceasefire or temporary halt as early as this weekend, potentially before Israel achieves its core objectives of degrading Iran’s missile and nuclear capacity below reconstitution thresholds. Israel reviewed a U.S.-drafted 14-point proposal [covered here yesterday] and found it alarming. Officials describe the likelihood of a deal as “somewhere between slim and nonexistent” but fear Trump “could surprise us.” Separately, Washington and Jerusalem granted temporary immunity — a four-to-five-day window — to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, suspending assassination operations to allow diplomatic contact. Tehran has already rejected the framework outright, but of course we’ll go through the motions. Anything to give them an advantage. An Iranian official told al-Mayadeen this week that Iran demands binding guarantees against future war, compensation for damages, closure of U.S. regional bases, and a new legal regime for the Strait of Hormuz — conditions no American administration could accept. The same official said Tehran “does not see a near horizon for a ceasefire” and aims to “punish the aggressor.” Iran separately told intermediaries through six regional sources that any deal must include Lebanon and a halt to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, with Hezbollah receiving “Iranian guarantees” of inclusion. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pressed Washington not to halt operations and to see through regime change. Meanwhile, Trump last week rejected Netanyahu’s proposal for a joint call urging Iranians to take to the streets, reportedly telling him, “Why the hell should we tell people to take to the streets when they’ll just get mowed down” — a reference to the Basij’s massacre of as many as 30,000 protesters in January’s crackdown. Netanyahu issued a solo call tied to the Persian Fire Festival. No demonstrations materialized. CENTCOM reports more than 10,000 Iranian military targets struck, 92% of Iran’s largest naval vessels destroyed, and a 90%-plus reduction in missile and drone launch rates. The Israeli Air Force struck Isfahan’s Underwater Research Center and unmanned naval vessel production facilities. The cabinet authorized mobilization of up to 400,000 reservists. Israeli security forces arrested a 14-year-old Tel Aviv boy on suspicion of spying for Iran. His tasks included filming the Kirya headquarters, scouting an apartment nearby, preparing graffiti, and taking surveillance video targeting Foreign Minister Sa’ar’s home — for which he received $1,170. The National Security Council warned that Iranian-directed terror against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide is at an unprecedented level. Israelis abroad were told to avoid unsecured Jewish events and identifiable Jewish sites, with complete avoidance in UAE, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (the country, not the state).

Assessment: Israel is racing against two clocks — one set in Tehran, one in Washington. The 48-hour surge reflects a calculation that the military window is at risk. Netanyahu’s problem: the campaign has degraded Iran’s conventional capability by every measurable metric, but the regime itself appears to be consolidating rather than fracturing. The pre-war conditions for internal collapse (fiscal crisis, divided elites, national protest movement) were real, and the war interrupted them by giving the IRGC a unifying external threat. Trump’s rejection of the joint uprising call reveals Washington’s actual assessment: regime change is a bonus, not a war aim. The immunity granted to Ghalibaf and Araqchi buys four days of diplomatic theater, nothing more. Tehran’s demands — base closures, Hormuz sovereignty, war reparations, Hezbollah protection — are its declaration that they think they control the escalation ladder through pain tolerance and energy leverage. The question is whether Trump agrees. If he announces a halt before Israel finishes degrading the nuclear and missile programs below reconstitution thresholds, the campaign becomes the most expensive pressure operation in Israeli history (devastating on delivery, inconclusive on outcome).

Lebanese Army Deception Exposed

IDF officers operating in southern Lebanon said the Lebanese Armed Forces lied to Israel about enforcing Hezbollah’s disarmament south of the Litani. Troops intensifying operations in El-Khiam over the past week discovered extensive Hezbollah infrastructure — weapons caches, underground bunkers, command headquarters built adjacent to civilian homes — contradicting LAF reports that the area had been cleared. One officer stated: “They deceived Israel. They claimed they had enforced the decision to demilitarize southern Lebanon. They shared intelligence and reports on entire regions, but based on what we found, it’s clear that nothing was done.” Not really surprising, given that substantial bloc of Shiite LAF personnel are “affiliated” with Hezbollah. Defense Minister Katz ordered “root treatment” of El-Khiam — systematic demolition of all terror infrastructure through engineering operations, modeled on IDF operations east of the Yellow Line in Gaza — with bulldozers already entering the town. El-Khiam’s elevated terrain provides direct line-of-sight fire toward Kiryat Shmona, Metula, and the Ramim Ridge. The town functioned as a launch hub where operatives equipped with anti-tank missiles would fire them against IDF troops and Israeli civilians. Hezbollah fired approximately 120 rockets from residential neighborhoods in Tyre yesterday. The IDF ordered the city’s evacuation and struck terrorist infrastructure. Foreign Minister Sa’ar sent a letter to the UN Security Council reporting more than 3,500 rockets, missiles, and UAVs launched at Israeli territory since March 2, including from areas south of the Litani, and called for Hezbollah’s designation as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, in a televised speech read on his behalf, declared that negotiations under fire amount to “imposed surrender” and vowed fighters would continue “without limits.” Egoz commando troops operating near Mount Dov apprehended a cell commander of the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese Resistance Brigades — an organization that trains in Hezbollah camps but whose members do not formally join the group. Overnight, the IDF struck a Dahiyeh command center and multiple gas stations belonging to al-Amana, Hezbollah’s fuel company, which generates millions in operational revenue. Unfortunately an IDF reservist was severely wounded by Hezbollah rocket fire in southern Lebanon, and a combat officer was lightly injured separately by anti-tank fire. A Lebanese Military Court judge issued arrest warrants against four Hezbollah members accused of smuggling 21 Grad missiles, 3,000 rounds of ammunition, and eight machine guns from the Bekaa Valley into southern Lebanon. Hezbollah-affiliated lawyers attempted to downgrade the charges to misdemeanors to avoid setting a judicial precedent — and protests broke out outside the presidential palace in support of the detainees.

Assessment: The El-Khiam discoveries confirm what Israeli commanders suspected and the LAF actively concealed: UNSCR 1701 enforcement south of the Litani was… well, more or less nonexistent. The LAF chose not to disarm Hezbollah. Then filed reports saying it had. The “root treatment” model imported from Gaza signals that the IDF intends to demolish the infrastructure physically, not negotiate its removal diplomatically. Qassem’s has no mandate to concede anything and every incentive to prove Hezbollah’s relevance to Tehran’s broader strategy, but it also means the Lebanon front remains open-ended — exactly the cost Iran wants to impose. The Lebanese court warrants against Hezbollah arms smugglers are theatre. Hezbollah remains embedded in and in control of huge swaths of the government. Patience is thin with them, but their strength still generally carries the day.

Caspian Sea Strikes Sever Russia-Iran Arms Pipeline

Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Caspian Sea port of Bandar Anzali targeted a key shipping route used by Russia and Iran to transfer weapons — including arms Moscow uses against Ukraine. The strikes destroyed an Iranian Navy corvette, four missile boats, several auxiliary and guard vessels, a command center, and a shipyard. The IDF publicly framed the strikes as degrading Iranian naval capacity. This disrupted the sanctions-evasion corridor through which Iran transferred more than 300,000 artillery shells and one million rounds of ammunition to Russia in just 2023 alone, alongside the Shahed drones Moscow now produces domestically with Iranian technical assistance. Russia operates its own port roughly 600 miles from Bandar Anzali on the same inland sea. The sanctioned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines regularly operates from the port. Russia is reciprocating. Moscow provides intelligence, satellite imagery and improved drone technology to aid Tehran’s targeting of U.S. forces, along with parts to upgrade Shahed communications, navigation, and targeting. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov called the strikes on Bandar Anzali a “dangerous spread of the conflict” to the Caspian, and Kremlin spokesman Peskov warned Russia would view any spillover “extremely negatively.” Ukraine, meanwhile, deployed more than 200 defense specialists to help Gulf states counter Iran’s drone strikes, leveraging interceptor systems developed against the same Shahed variants Russia uses against Ukrainian cities.

Assessment: The Bandar Anzali strikes accomplished three things simultaneously: degraded Iran’s Caspian naval capacity, severed [at least temporarily] a major sanctions-evasion artery feeding Russia’s war machine and Tehran’s coffers, and created a fact on the ground that neither Jerusalem nor Moscow will discuss in the open. Israel benefits from degrading the pipeline without claiming credit, because acknowledging the Russia angle would force a diplomatic confrontation Netanyahu doesn’t want. Moscow benefits from ignoring it because admitting the route existed means admitting it violated its own stated neutrality. The Ukraine angle adds a layer Washington won’t advertise either — Israeli strikes are doing more to disrupt Russian arms supply than two years of Western sanctions achieved on this corridor. The Kremlin’s “extremely negative” language is calibrated displeasure. Russia’s options are limited: it cannot credibly retaliate against Israel while depending on the same regional dynamics for its own interests in Syria and beyond. The operational takeaway is that Israel used a naval strike package framed as force degradation to execute a strategic disruption of a Russia-Iran military logistics network — and everyone involved has reasons to pretend that’s not what happened.

Inside Israel

Netanyahu Races Budget Past Deadline to Block Elections He Would Lose

Netanyahu is maneuvering to pass the NIS 850 billion state budget before the March 31 deadline — which, under Israeli law, would trigger elections within 90 days if missed — after abandoning an early election gamble that briefly tempted his camp in the war’s opening days. In the first days of Operation Roaring Lion, Netanyahu’s advisors saw an opportunity to capitalize on the assassination of Khamenei by forcing a snap vote. Science Minister Gila Gamliel publicly floated a late June date, and senior Likud aides made similar remarks to Israeli media. But nearly four weeks into a war that has not toppled the regime, polls show the coalition frozen. A Times of Israel survey on March 19 gave Likud 28 seats (down from 34), with the full coalition at 51 — nine short of a majority. The 40-40 split between coalition and opposition blocs has barely moved since October 7, 2023. The war costs the economy $1.6 billion per week. And the government approved an additional NIS 32 billion in defense spending since February 28. The ultra-Orthodox parties dropped their threat to vote against the budget after the coalition allocated approximately NIS 5 billion for ultra-Orthodox schools, despite not finalizing the draft exemption legislation they had demanded [extortion, apparently, works when couched in political language]. Opposition MK Vladimir Beliak accused the government of choosing “coalition survival over fair distribution of resources.” The budget cleared the Finance Committee [which we covered earlier this week] and heads to the plenum for a vote today.

Assessment: Netanyahu is buying coalition loyalty at NIS 5 billion per line item — and the Haredi parties are selling. They dropped the draft law demand, which was their single non-negotiable condition for months, in exchange for funding. That trade tells you what each side actually values. The polls explain the urgency. The coalition is stuck at 51 seats in every survey — below the threshold to form a government, regardless of war performance. The war rallied the public behind the operation but did not move the voters. His strategy — buy time, pass the budget, delay elections until October — depends on something changing between now and then. The war hasn’t provided it. [Whether the budget math survives the NIS 32 billion defense surge plus NIS 5 billion in coalition payoffs without a fiscal reckoning is a question nobody in the Finance Committee seems interested in asking.]

Netanyahu’s Spokesman Quits After Anti-Mizrachi Slurs Surface

Ziv Agmon, Netanyahu’s spokesman and acting chief of staff, resigned Wednesday after a Channel 12 investigative report accused him of making racist remarks about Moroccan Jews and Likud MKs. Agmon — who rose from wartime PR consultant to spokesman to acting chief of staff after Tzachi Braverman’s suspension — reportedly called MK Nissim Vaturi a “baboon,” MK Eliyahu Revivo “a retarded Moroccan,” and said of Likud’s Knesset list that “rapists and murderers are needed.” He described Shas as a party that “only knows how to take money,” expressed interest in joining Gantz’s Blue and White list as “much more suitable than the monkeys,” and — after October 7 — said Netanyahu “has to go home.” Condemnation came from across the spectrum. Justice Minister Levin: “There is no place for racism.” MK Vaturi called for immediate dismissal. Opposition leader Lapid called the racism in Netanyahu’s inner circle “a disgrace to the Prime Minister’s Office.” Agmon apologized “to anyone who was hurt by the statements attributed to me” and announced his withdrawal from public life, citing concern that “a divisive discourse has arisen around me” during “fateful days.”

Assessment: The Agmon affair is a personnel embarrassment which lands at seemingly the worst possible moment for a prime minister whose coalition depends on Mizrachi and Haredi parties whose members Agmon was caught mocking. What matters operationally: Agmon was the acting chief of staff because Braverman was suspended for potential obstruction. The PMO has burned through two gatekeepers in wartime. The vacancy leaves Netanyahu’s internal management structure thinner at the exact moment budget, war, and diplomacy are converging.

Israel and the World

Herzog Warns Europe: Iran’s Missiles Already Reach You

President Isaac Herzog said that European reluctance to confront Iran is strategic negligence, pointing to Tehran’s 4,000-kilometer missile test to Diego Garcia as proof that Iranian ballistic capability covers all of Europe. “What are you so naive about? Read their scriptures, read their ideology, and understand — you’re next,” Herzog said. He cited British Prime Minister Starmer’s acknowledgment of 10 to 20 Iranian terror-linked events in the UK in the past year alone and asked: “They’re allowed to do what they want?” Herzog called Iran “an empire of evil” that “must be crushed” and praised Trump’s decision to act as “courageous” and “historic.” He confirmed that the campaign’s primary objectives are degrading Iran’s nuclear weapon capability and long-range missile capacity.

Assessment: Herzog's message to Europe is accurate on the merits — Iran's demonstrated range and operational terror networks on European soil are facts, not projections. Where he's wrong is the diagnosis. Europe's non-response to Iran isn't naiveté. It's capitulation — the structural kind we mapped in Controlled Surrender. British ministers calibrate Iran policy by the weekend protest calendar. French officials game the policing plan before they draft the diplomatic cable. Governments that spent two decades building domestic veto points for Islamist-aligned blocs — in council chambers, in police liaison desks, in coalition arithmetic — cannot suddenly pivot to confronting the state sponsor of the ideology those blocs defend. Herzog is asking Europe to act against Tehran while London still can't enforce its own incitement statutes against mobs chanting for intifada on Whitehall. The paralysis is connected. A state that subcontracts its domestic authority to avoid being called Islamophobic will not assert its strategic authority against the Islamic Republic. Iran doesn't need to hit Europe with a missile to neutralize it. The internal permission structure already does the work. Which, clearly, tells Tehran everything it needs to know about European resolve.

Gulf States Break with Arab League — and Signal Normalization with Israel

The UAE launched a public campaign against Arab League countries for their tepid response to Iranian strikes on Gulf infrastructure, with presidential adviser Anwar Gargash asking where the “major Arab and regional countries” are while “our countries and peoples are subjected to this treacherous Iranian aggression.” When France’s former diplomat Gérard Araud warned the stance would deepen Gulf dependence on Washington, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed responded: “We will never be blackmailed by terrorists.” Gargash followed up Wednesday by distinguishing “those who offered genuine support” from “those who settled for statements without action.” The fury extends beyond the UAE. Similar messages appeared in Qatari newspaper editorials and Kuwaiti statements. Targets include Egypt — whose president took five days to comment and whose secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, called the attacks “audacious” rather than condemning them — and states like Iraq, Algeria, and Sudan. Emirati media personality Jamal Al Mulla said on his podcast that “when the shooting stops, I expect a few Gulf countries to rush to normalization with Israel. My money is on Kuwait, perhaps Saudi Arabia too.” Hussain Abdul-Hussain of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies confirmed that Gulf anger at Arab inaction is driving realignment calculations, noting that Hamas and the PA both failed to denounce Iran: “The thinking in the Gulf is that this time, it’s our turn. We’re the victims. The Palestinians can wait.” UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the war must end decisively — addressing nuclear, missile, drone, proxy, and shipping threats — and declared: “We are ready to join an international initiative to reopen the strait and keep it open.” Kuwait foiled a Hezbollah plot to assassinate state leaders — arresting six suspects who confessed to espionage, assassination training, and terrorist activities. 14 additional suspects — Kuwaiti, Lebanese, and Iranian — were identified abroad. This follows two separate Hezbollah-linked arrest waves in Kuwait in recent weeks.

Assessment: Iran’s war is accomplishing what years of Abraham Accords diplomacy could not: forcing Gulf states to articulate — publicly, on the record — that their security depends on the United States and Israel, not on Arab solidarity. Gargash’s language is diplomatic code for a strategic divorce. The Gulf states absorbed 84% of Iran’s missile and drone fire while Arab League members issued statements calibrated to offend no one, and the calculation is straightforward. If Arab institutions won’t protect you, you build alliances with those who will. Al Mulla’s normalization prediction deserves attention because the sentiment is now public rather than private. The Palestinian cause, which Gulf leaders were expected to champion indefinitely, has become what Al Mulla called it: a distraction other Arab states insert into statements to avoid taking a position.

Briefly Noted

Frontline & Security

• Ynet: Israeli security forces dismantled a ten-member Hamas cell near Nablus that carried out roadside bombings wounding three soldiers — two seriously — and dug a six-meter tunnel behind a suspect’s home to hold kidnapped Israelis.

• Israel National News: COGAT intercepted hundreds of engine oil bottles disguised as cooking oil inside a UNDP-coordinated humanitarian shipment at Kerem Shalom and suspended all UNDP aid deliveries to Gaza pending investigation. Hamas continues to exploit the aid mechanism for military buildup — and the agency coordinating the shipment bears responsibility for its contents.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• Israel National News: Lebanese authorities conducted a comprehensive survey of Iranian nationals across the country — diplomatic, cultural, religious, and intelligence-linked personnel — and confirmed that most embassy staff have departed via Iraq, Turkey, and Russia. Security sources acknowledged IRGC officers may be operating under civilian cover but claimed enforcement would follow Lebanese law [which, to be clear, has not previously applied to Hezbollah’s patron].

• JTA: Three new pro-Palestinian PACs — PAL PAC, American Priorities, and Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption — entered the 2026 midterms with at least $10 million pledged, backing candidates who support conditioning military aid to Israel and “recognizing the genocide in Palestine.” It seems to be working. A Sanders-linked staffer won in New Jersey and a pastor who praised Farrakhan won a Texas primary. Let’s hope the bulwark against that tide still holds.

• JNS: Uganda’s military chief, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, tweeted that his country would enter the war on Israel’s side if anyone tries to “destroy or defeat” it — generating 1.3 million engagements and citing bible verses. Kainerugaba also announced plans to erect a statue of Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu z”l at Entebbe Airport, where he fell in the 1976 hostage rescue.

Domestic & Law

• Israel National News: Otzma Yehudit’s death penalty bill for terrorists cleared the National Security Committee for its final Knesset vote next week, but Yisrael Beytenu conditioned support on Netanyahu personally voting in the plenum. With Haredi MKs expected to abstain, the margin is razor-thin.

• Israel National News: The government approved NIS 110 million in emergency funding for frontline communities — NIS 60 million for municipalities within nine kilometers of the northern border and NIS 50 million for areas hit by direct missile strikes. The package supplements existing property tax compensation and evacuee hotel accommodations but does not include the employee compensation framework that remains unfinished.

• Ynet: JDC Israel deployed a four-part emergency model — supplies, flexible funding, community workers, medical support — to municipalities hit by Iranian missile strikes, and launched a program relocating displaced families from hotels into permanent housing. Families are emerging from shelters barefoot with nothing. All of Israel is now a frontline.

Economy, Tech & Infrastructure

• Jerusalem Post: A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for designing platforms dangerous to minors — $4.2 million and $1.8 million in damages respectively — in a landmark verdict that could reshape how tech companies defend against child safety claims. Both plan to appeal, but at least 20 states enacted social media child-safety laws last year, and a separate federal trial is expected this summer.

Culture, Religion & Society

• Times of Israel: Sami Rahamim, an Iranian-American whose father was murdered in a 2012 Minneapolis mass shooting, landed at Ben Gurion Wednesday as one of 50 new North American immigrants — calling his aliyah a continuation of Cyrus’s biblical call. More than 130 North Americans have made aliyah since the Iran war began, with 830 additional immigration files opened.

• JTA: Argentina marks 50 years since the 1976 coup with new educational initiatives documenting the disproportionate Jewish toll: up to 1,900 Jews among the 30,000 disappeared — 5–8% of victims from less than 1% of the population. The new curriculum documents how Jewish detainees faced specifically antisemitic treatment, including Nazi symbols and dedicated interrogation sessions.

• HonestReporting: Farsi social media is flooded with pro-Israel, anti-regime sentiment — Iranians using celebrating eliminated IRGC officials and thanking Israel publicly for the strikes — but Western outlets ignore it. Iran expert Alex Greenberg of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security: the posts reflect genuine fury from a population terrorized by a regime that charges families ransom to retrieve murdered relatives’ bodies.

• HonestReporting: CNN’s Fred Pleitgen, broadcasting from Tehran with regime permission, portrayed Iranian street life as calm and normal — stocked shelves, no gas lines — while omitting the IRGC’s shoot-to-kill order, the thousands killed in January’s crackdown, and the strategic rationale behind Israeli and U.S. strikes. Access journalism in a country ranked 176th on the Press Freedom Index produces coverage that mirrors the regime’s messaging — which is the point of granting access.

• Mazelit’s Corner: Physicians Against Antisemitism flagged Atlanta-based therapist Erica Holladay Webb for telling a Jewish man “you are white, you don’t have a right to a country in the Middle East” while branding herself “anti-racist.” The case captures a recurring failure in progressive therapeutic spaces: frameworks that claim to center marginalized voices systematically exclude Jews — and then deny the exclusion counts as bigotry.

Developments to Watch

Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)

• Kharg Island ground option live — Two Marine expeditionary units deploying to the region: the first due at the end of this month, the second mid-April. Iran’s Tasnim threatened to “turn the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait into unsafe areas” if the island is seized.

• Iran cluster munitions in central Israel — Bomblets dispersed across Bnei Brak from a single ballistic warhead; nine wounded including children. Iran is compensating for reduced accuracy with area-effect warheads.

Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)

• Iranian ambassador expulsion deadline Sunday — Lebanese foreign ministry ordered Ambassador Sheibani out; Hezbollah and Berri told him to stay. Sunday is the test: does the Lebanese government enforce its own directive or does Hezbollah veto it? The answer determines whether post-Khamenei Lebanese sovereignty has any institutional weight. Making an appointment with Sheibani on Monday in Beirut is a relatively safe bet.

• Hezbollah helicopter shootdown attempt — IDF confirmed Hezbollah tried to shoot down an Israeli combat helicopter over Lebanon; the attempt failed.

Judea & Samaria

• Hamas kidnapping infrastructure near Nablus — The Beita cell dismantled this week dug a purpose-built hostage tunnel and conducted target surveillance. The October 7 model — hostage-taking as strategic leverage — is being replicated in Judea and Samaria on an ad hoc basis.

Diplomatic & Legal

• Passover global threat window — NSC assesses Iranian-directed targeting of Israeli and Jewish sites worldwide at an unprecedented level, with the holiday identified as a strategic operational window. Specific guidance issued for UAE, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, and Thailand. Ben Gurion Airport remains closed; land crossings through Sinai and Jordan operating under Level 4 warnings.

Home Front & Politics

• Budget plenum vote today — NIS 850 billion budget reaches the Knesset floor Thursday; failure to pass by March 31 triggers elections within 90 days. Coalition arithmetic depends on Haredi parties honoring the NIS 5 billion school-funding “deal” and Yisrael Beytenu not withholding votes over the death penalty bill sequencing.

The war is about it enter its fifth week with American paratroopers en route, Iranian diplomats temporarily immune from assassination, a Lebanese army caught lying about a mandate it never intended to enforce, and a budget vote that doubles as a survival mechanism for a coalition barely holding together. Tehran believes pain tolerance wins wars. Jerusalem believes speed does. Trump believes announcements do. They’re not all right.

Shabbat shalom!

— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst

P.S. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Eastern, paid subscribers receive The Gaza Reconstruction Trap — the Long Brief that tracks five reconstruction cycles, $27 billion in pledges, and the one outcome they all produced. While the world watches Iran and Lebanon, Hamas is collecting a 15% tax on 4,200 trucks a week, refurbishing tunnels, and recruiting. The window to contest that is closing. If you're not a paid subscriber, tonight is a good time to fix that.

Tip? Share it securely via signal: (@Uri.30) or proton: (uri.zehavi@proton.me).

Shalom, friends.

Two competing signals are emanating from Washington — and neither cancels the other. Trump suspended energy strikes and floated a 14-point framework that reads like a maximalist opening bid dressed as a peace offer. Simultaneously, the Pentagon ordered the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East, keeping a ground seizure of Kharg Island live. Tehran rejected all talks. Jerusalem dispatched Dermer to block a bad deal. And while the diplomatic theater played out, Iran put cluster munitions into Bnei Brak, a woman was killed by a Hezbollah rocket near Mahanayim, and Lebanon’s government is trying to expel an Iranian ambassador that Hezbollah told to stay.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Ceasefire framework vs. 82nd Airborne: Trump floats 14-point deal requiring zero enrichment and full proxy dismantlement; Pentagon simultaneously deploys 3,000 paratroopers to the region; Tehran flatly denies any negotiations; Dermer flies to Washington to try and block a “not good” deal. See The War Today.

• Cluster munitions in central Israel: Iranian ballistic missile disperses submunitions across Bnei Brak — nine wounded including six children; separate missile penetrates Tel Aviv air defenses after multiple failed interception attempts. See The War Today.

• IRGC fracturing: IDF reports Iranian absenteeism and refusal to deploy at launch sites; missile cell responsible for Arad strike eliminated. See The War Today.

• Security zone declared to the Litani: Katz formalizes IDF control of southern Lebanon; all Litani bridges destroyed; Smotrich calls the river Israel’s new border. See The War Today.

• Gulf states align for war: MBS urges Trump to continue until regime change; Saudi air bases open to U.S.; UAE freezes Iranian assets; Bahrain drafts UNSC resolution authorizing force in Hormuz; first Gulf military casualties confirmed. See Israel and the World.

• Lebanon expels Iranian ambassador — Hezbollah says no: Foreign ministry orders Sheibani out by Sunday; Berri and Hezbollah tell him to stay; France pushes direct Israel-Lebanon talks. See Israel and the World.

• Pardon fight escalates: Eliyahu submits position paper backing Netanyahu pardon; pardons department says criteria not met. See Inside Israel.

• Knesset sprints before recess: Unpaid leave law passes first reading with 70/100 private-public split; settlement tax benefits advance 37–33; NIS 850B budget vote Thursday; cyber law stalled until 2027. See Inside Israel.

• 111 drones seized near Nablus: Border Police raid store in Kafr Qallil; seizure follows November drill that proved IDF forces in Judea and Samaria cannot counter UAVs. See Inside Israel.

Below: what Hezbollah’s refusal to let the Iranian ambassador leave tells you about who actually governs Lebanon, the pardon position paper that contradicts its own ministry, and the 111 drones in a Nablus store that no one is connecting to a failed November exercise.

Read more

Shalom, friends.

The war entered a new phase overnight — not because anything on the battlefield changed direction, but because the diplomatic track lurched into public view before anyone agreed on what it contains. Trump says Iran accepted zero enrichment. Tehran says no talks occurred. Pakistan is booking conference rooms in Islamabad. Meanwhile, the IDF crossed the 70% mark on Iran’s ballistic launcher fleet, Radwan commandos surrendered south of the Litani, and the Knesset spent some of its last working hours before a month’s recess expanding rabbinical court jurisdiction while citizens cycled through shelters. Here’s where things stand.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran launcher fleet: IDF reports 330 of 470 ballistic launchers destroyed; daily fire drops from 90 to roughly 10. See The War Today.

• Tehran strikes: Over 100 munitions hit IRGC headquarters, Quds Force bases, and weapons manufacturing sites overnight. See The War Today.

• Diplomacy or theater: Trump claims Iran agreed to zero enrichment; Tehran denies any contact; Islamabad talks possible this week. See The War Today.

• Radwan surrender: Hezbollah commandos captured south of the Litani — entered from the Beqaa at the start of the war, contradicting LAF control claims. See The War Today.

• Hamas rebuilds: Armed operatives tax 4,200 weekly truck convoys in Gaza, refurbish tunnels, and recruit — while Israel’s attention stays on Iran. See The War Today.

• Budget clears committee: NIS 850 billion budget heads to Thursday plenum vote; Smotrich shed dairy reform and halved the bank tax to secure coalition support. See Inside Israel.

• Rabbinical courts expanded: Knesset passed arbitration bill 65-41 in wartime vote; legislature recesses Tuesday until May. See Inside Israel.

• Houthis mobilize: Five-front reinforcement since March 15; Saudi Arabia working to keep them out of the war. See Briefly Noted.

• European Jew-hate campaign: Dutch police foil fourth synagogue attack this month; Iran-linked Ashab Al Yamin continues cross-border operations. See Briefly Noted.

Below: the Assessment on why Hamas’s 15% truck tariff matters more than the headlines, what the Radwan surrenders reveal about LAF enforcement south of the Litani, and Iran’s naval mines in the Strait that few are tracking.

Read more

Shalom, friends.

The war’s fourth week opens with something the first three did not produce: evidence, on tape, that the regime’s security apparatus is fracturing from the inside. Mossad’s phone campaign has reached deep enough that a senior Iranian police commander told his Israeli caller to come help cut off the heads of his own leadership. Organizational collapse — which arrives at the same moment Washington publicly floated a ground seizure of Kharg Island, the IDF confirmed a civilian killed by its own artillery in Misgav Am, and Hamas reconsolidated control over the central Gaza strip the IDF chose not to enter. The next 72 hours — energy strikes, Hormuz, the budget — will determine which constraints hold and which break.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Regime fractures on tape: Mossad phone campaign produces recorded defection plea from senior Iranian police commander; IRGC internal friction confirmed between police chief and Vahidi; Mojtaba appoints Rezaei as military adviser without appearing on camera. See The War Today.

• Kharg Island seizure signaled: U.S. officials openly say that Washington may launch a ground operation; 7,500 Marines deploying; Trump warns “complete destruction of Iran.” See The War Today.

• Gaza tunnel hunt stalls: Statistical drilling halted in central Gaza despite IDF claims; Hamas retains full operational control and stages armed parades; one tunnel fits three trucks side by side. See The War Today.

• Moskowitz killed by friendly fire: Northern Command confirms five artillery shells struck Misgav Am at incorrect angle; Radwan Force commander eliminated; Hasmonean Brigade deploys to Lebanon for first time. See The War Today.

• Jordan absorbs 240 projectiles: Kingdom intercepted 222 of 240 Iranian missiles and drones; U.S. radar destroyed at Muwaffaq Salti; parliament votes to erase the word “Israel” from its minutes. See Israel and the World.

• Saudi normalization deal dead: Iran scales back Saudi strikes fearing retaliation; continues attacks on Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE “as usual.” See Israel and the World.

• Diaspora under operational attack: Iran-aligned group torches Hatzola ambulances in London; Iranian dissident shot in Netherlands; FBI seizes four MOIS cyber-warfare domains. See Israel and the World.

• Budget in 8 days: Record NIS 6 billion in coalition funds; no employee compensation framework; comptroller reveals classified air-defense warning sat on Netanyahu’s desk before the war. See Inside Israel.

Below: the recorded Mossad call that captured an Iranian commander asking Israel to decapitate his own leadership, why the IDF’s tunnel-drilling contradiction in central Gaza is more dangerous than the headline suggests, the comptroller’s pre-war air-defense report that sat on three desks while Arad’s buildings collapsed, and what Iran’s decision to stop hitting Saudi Arabia but keep hitting Kuwait tells you about who Tehran actually fears.

Read more

Shavua tov, friends.

Three weeks into this war, the strategic picture and the human picture have split apart and each demands to be seen. The IDF has destroyed Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium and manufacture ballistic missiles, eliminated the regime’s operational chain of command below a supreme leader who cannot show his face, and systematically dismantled the Quds Force franchise infrastructure that took four decades to build. That is the strategic picture.

The human picture is a 450-kilogram warhead that came through a gap in the air defense system Saturday night and collapsed four apartment buildings in Arad — a five-year-old girl pulled from rubble, a twelve-year-old boy in intensive care in Dimona, and 123 people who should let you know that a 92% interception rate means something very different when you are the 8%. In the diaspora, Belgian soldiers now patrol synagogues, two Iranian agents have been charged with surveilling Jewish sites in London, and the photographs from Temple Israel in Michigan show a preschool frozen mid-evacuation.

This war is brutal. It is also necessary — because a nuclear Iran with genocidal ambitions and a 46-year body count does not become tolerable with time. It becomes North Korea with an empire of proxies and a constitution that mandates your destruction. North Korea is endurable because it is, in practice, content to torment its own people behind closed borders. Iran has never been content with its own borders. That is the premise of the regime, and it is the reason the regime must be broken.

For those who want the full architecture of how we got here — 46 years of ideology, proxy-building, Western subsidy, and the war that was always coming — last week’s Long Brief, The Promised War, is available without a paywall here:

Guerre and Shalom

Khomeini's War on the West

We thank Uri once more for bringing the truth into full view; his illuminating take on the current conflagration in the Middle East is required reading. Or is it current? Perhaps it was promised from the birth of Khomeini’s hellish regime. Perhaps this war was always planned to be…

Read more

24 days ago · 8 likes · Uriel Zehavi · אוריאל זהבי

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Energy war escalates: Israel struck South Pars; Iran hit Haifa’s Bazan refineries and Qatar’s Ras Laffan; Trump publicly distanced Washington from the Israeli strike; oil at $113 per barrel. See The War Today.

• Worst night for home front: Iranian ballistic missiles struck Dimona and Arad after separate interception failures — 123 wounded, four buildings collapsed, children in ICU; education closed nationwide. See The War Today.

• Campaign at halfway: Netanyahu declares Iran can no longer enrich uranium or produce ballistic missiles; IDF chief sets Passover as operational target; 16,000 U.S.-Israeli strikes to date. See The War Today.

• Nuclear R&D site destroyed: IAF struck Malek Ashtar University weapons development facility in Tehran; U.S. separately hit Natanz enrichment complex. See The War Today.

• Senior commanders eliminated: IRGC spokesman, Basij intelligence chief, MOIS terror director, Hamas intelligence officer, and Hamas financial operative all killed in the past 72 hours. See The War Today.

• Lebanon ground operation deepens: Ofer Moskowitz z”l killed in Misgav Am by Hezbollah rockets; Litani bridges ordered destroyed; 570 Hezbollah operatives eliminated since ground entry. See The War Today.

• Budget deadline in 9 days: Coalition shelved Haredi draft bill; AG flagged funding demands as illegal; Ben Gvir demands death penalty for terrorists before supporting the budget. See Inside Israel.

• Qatar blames Israel for Iran’s attacks: Doha directs anger at Jerusalem, not Tehran; UAE says Iran’s strikes will push Gulf states closer to Israel; Hamas offered gradual disarmament framework it will almost certainly reject. See Israel and the World.

• Diaspora under fire: Belgium deploys army to Jewish sites; UK charges two Iranians for spying on London’s Jewish community; DOJ sues Harvard for deliberate indifference to Jew-hate. See Israel and the World.

Below: why the Dimona and Arad interception failures may trace back to an Iron Dome operator who was passing battery locations to Tehran, what Qatar’s blame-Israel reflex reveals about the ceiling of checkbook diplomacy, the Hamas disarmament proposal designed to fail productively, and the cabinet confrontation between Zamir and Ben Gvir that tells you exactly how much the unrest in Judea and Samaria is costing the IDF on a three-front war.

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Shalom, friends.

We’ve been off since Monday, and the war did not wait. Buckle up — this is a long one. In the past three days, Israel eliminated the man running Iran’s war, struck the Caspian corridor feeding Russian weapons to Tehran, hit South Pars gas infrastructure for the first time, expanded ground operations across southern Lebanon, and received an unprecedented kill-chain directive removing the political echelon from the targeting loop. The Gulf states that opposed this war two weeks ago are now privately begging Washington not to stop. NATO allies are doing the opposite. And inside Israel, the coalition is running a budget crisis and a Kotel fight as a multi-front war rages on — with twelve days until the government falls if the math doesn’t hold. Here’s where it stands.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Larijani killed: IAF eliminated Iran’s de facto leader, his son, deputy, Intelligence Minister Khatib, and Basij commander Soleimani in 48 hours. See The War Today.

• Caspian corridor struck: IDF hit Iranian Navy vessels at Bandar Anzali — first Israeli strike on the Iran-Russia supply lifeline. See The War Today.

• South Pars escalation: Israel struck Iran’s largest gas facility; Iran retaliated against Qatar’s Ras Laffan; Trump warned both sides to stop. See The War Today.

• Kill-chain unlocked: Netanyahu and Katz authorized IDF and Mossad to eliminate senior targets without awaiting political approval — a first. See The War Today.

• Lebanon ground push: Three divisions expanding south of the Litani; IDF destroyed key bridges cutting Hezbollah’s resupply routes. See The War Today.

• Defense budget surges: Demand hits NIS 177 billion; Knesset advances deficit hike 53–45; March 31 budget deadline looms. See Inside Israel.

• Western Wall bill advances: Coalition moves to criminalize non-Orthodox prayer at the Kotel — during a time in which Diaspora synagogues are under physical attack. See Inside Israel.

• Gulf states pivot: Arab capitals now urging Washington to finish degrading Iran; Israeli interception expertise confirmed in use across the Gulf. See Israel and the World.

• European Jews targeted: Coordinated synagogue bombings in Netherlands and Belgium by an IRGC-linked front group; UK prosecution data reveals Jews half as likely to see charges. See Israel and the World.

Below: why Trump’s South Pars ultimatum constrains Israel more than Iran, what the Larijani kill-chain directive actually changes about how this war is fought, the NIS 177 billion number the defense establishment gave Netanyahu behind closed doors, how Gulf states are already using Israeli missile defense and Hezbollah reaching Ashkelon for the first time.

Israel has demonstrated it can reach any target in Iran — the regime’s operational leader, its intelligence chief, its Caspian supply lines, its gas infrastructure — and then discovered that the speed of its own escalation ladder created a constraint it did not control. Trump’s Truth Social ultimatum on South Pars is the first public red line the American president has drawn around Israeli targeting since the war began. The coalition that started this campaign with total freedom of action now operates under a ceiling imposed by its closest ally — at the same moment that ally is weighing ground troops on Kharg Island.

The War Today

Israel Strikes Iran’s Caspian Lifeline, Kills Regime’s De Facto Leader, and Hits South Pars Gas Infrastructure

IAF jets — guided by Navy and Military Intelligence — struck Iranian Navy vessels at Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea, the first Israeli strikes in northern Iran since Operation Roaring Lion began. Bandar Anzali is the main base of Iran’s northern naval fleet and the hub of the Iran–Russia maritime smuggling corridor — used to transfer drones, missiles, mortar shells, and ammunition between Iranian ports (Anzali, Amirabad) and the Russian port of Astrakhan, with ships routinely switching off tracking systems. The corridor now operates in reverse: Russia is supplying Iran with the Geran-2, an upgraded version of the Shahed drone equipped with improved navigation, communications, and targeting systems refined through Russia’s war in Ukraine, along with intelligence on U.S. force positions in the region. Ukraine has previously struck targets along this route — hitting Kaspiysk port in Dagestan in November 2024 and partially sinking a Russian cargo ship carrying Iranian drone components in August 2025 — but this marks the first Israeli hit on the supply line.

On Tuesday night, IAF strikes killed Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the regime’s de facto operational leader since Mojtaba Khamenei’s injury on the war’s first day. Larijani’s son and deputy were killed in the same strike. Also eliminated: Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the paramilitary Basij forces for six years. Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib, who oversaw internal repression during the Mahsa Amini protests and directed terrorist operations against Israeli and American targets during the current war. And the third consecutive commander of Hezbollah’s Imam Hussein Division, Hassan Ali Marwan, killed in Beirut. Netanyahu and Katz have since issued an unprecedented directive granting the IDF and Mossad pre-authorization to eliminate any senior Iranian or Hezbollah figure upon identification, without awaiting political-echelon approval — a first in Israeli operational history. “From the moment the information comes in, you have to move quickly,” a senior official said. “There is no time to wait for approvals.” Israeli officials described Larijani as behaving like a hunted man — never staying in one location, maintaining extreme security awareness — before a combination of intelligence capabilities and rapid political decision-making put aircraft in the air on short notice.

The IAF struck Iran’s largest gas processing facility in Bushehr Province, targeting infrastructure tied to the South Pars offshore gas field — the first Israeli strike on Iranian economic infrastructure. The strike halted gas flow from Iran to Iraq entirely. An Israeli official described it as “the promised escalation.” The U.S. confirmed the strikes were coordinated with the Trump administration. Oil prices surged to $108 per barrel. Iran retaliated Wednesday by firing missiles at Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City — responsible for roughly 20% of global LNG supply — claiming the strike was retaliation for an alleged Israeli attack on Iran’s portion of the same field. Israel has not taken credit for that initial strike. [Israel is usually open about what it attacks; the absence of a claim should not be read past.] Qatar expelled Iran’s military and security attachés, giving them 24 hours to leave. [Why they waited to make that move is…] Trump responded on Truth Social, distancing the U.S. from the South Pars strike — “The United States knew nothing about this particular attack” — and warned both sides: Israel would make “NO MORE ATTACKS” on South Pars, while Iran was told that any further strike on Qatar’s LNG would trigger the U.S. to “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field.”

The Iron Beam — Israel’s new laser air defense system — is active and conducting live interceptions in northern Israel, a significant operational milestone. Iranian ballistic missile fire continued, with multiple salvos hitting central and southern Israel over the past two days, including cluster munitions that killed two civilians in Ramat Gan, a foreign worker in Adanim, and injured three — including two children — in Petah Tikva. Three private planes at Ben Gurion Airport were damaged; El Al canceled flights for another week ahead of Passover, affecting 25,000 tickets.

Assessment: Three strikes redraw the map of this war. Bandar Anzali puts the Iran–Russia supply corridor under direct Israeli fire for the first time — and the message is aimed as much at Moscow as at Tehran. Russia cannot resupply Iran through the Caspian without accepting Israeli targeting of the route. The Larijani elimination, combined with Khatib and Soleimani, collapses the regime’s operational chain of command below the Supreme Leader — a Supreme Leader who has not appeared on video since the war began and whose physical condition remains unknown. Against that, Israel’s political echelon has effectively removed itself as a bottleneck in the kill chain, accepting that the intelligence tempo now exceeds its typical decision cycle. The South Pars strike is the most consequential escalation yet — not because of the gas infrastructure itself, but because of the chain reaction it triggered. Iran’s retaliation against Qatar’s LNG — a non-belligerent, hosting U.S. forces — drove Trump to publicly distance himself from Israel and issue an ultimatum to both sides. That ultimatum constrains Israeli freedom of action while simultaneously binding the U.S. to “massive” retaliation if Iran touches Qatari infrastructure again.

Lebanon Ground Operation Expands as IDF Cuts Hezbollah’s Lifelines

The 91st “Galilee” Division, 36th Division, 146th Reserve Division, and 401st Armored Brigade are conducting expanded ground operations in southern Lebanon. The 91st Division pushed into the eastern sector. The 36th Division has deepened operations toward additional objectives in recent days, killing dozens of Hezbollah operatives and dismantling over 80 infrastructure sites. The 300th “Baram” Brigade demolished another 80-plus sites separately. The IDF struck and dismantled two crossings over the Litani River, along with the Zrariyeh, Khardali, and Qasmiyeh bridges — all key Hezbollah logistics arteries connecting southern Lebanon to resupply zones north of the Litani. Several of these bridges were last struck during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and subsequently rebuilt. Lebanese media aligned with Hezbollah acknowledged the strikes are isolating the operational area between the border and the Litani into a “semi-isolated zone.” The IDF also struck Hezbollah financial infrastructure — Al-Quard al-Hassan Association assets in Beirut and Hezbollah-owned Al-Amana Fuel Company gas stations in the south, which funnels millions in profit to fund Hezbollah operations.

Defense Minister Katz said displaced Lebanese south of the Litani will not return until northern Israeli residents’ safety is guaranteed, comparing the operation to the IDF’s approach in Rafah, Beit Hanoun, and Gaza’s tunnel networks. He told Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem that if he misses Nasrallah and Khamenei, “he will soon be able to meet them in the depths of hell.” Hezbollah is averaging roughly 150 rockets per day, with roughly two-thirds targeting IDF forces in southern Lebanon and one-third aimed at Israeli territory. One of those barrages hit Nahariya — six wounded including four minors — and a separate impact near Kabri wounded one. On Tuesday evening, Hezbollah fired rockets reaching as far as Ashkelon and Gaza-border communities — approximately 200 km from Lebanon, the first time Hezbollah has targeted that far south. The IDF disrupted more than half of a planned barrage, with Hezbollah firing roughly 40 rockets instead of the intended 100-plus.

Qassem issued a written statement read on Al-Mayadeen — not delivered in his own voice — telling fighters their “jihad has spread far and wide.” Hezbollah leadership also warned Lebanon’s government against negotiating directly with Israel, calling any such talks liable to have “consequences.” The Israeli security cabinet stated negotiations are “no longer an option.” The U.S. explored whether Syria might send forces into Lebanon to counter Hezbollah; Damascus declined.

Assessment: Cutting Litani crossings does what a buffer zone alone cannot — it denies Hezbollah the ability to rotate forces, resupply launchers, or reinforce southern cells from the north. Hezbollah’s rocket tempo is sustained but declining in intensity per barrage, and the organization is decentralizing its launcher network — smaller, dispersed cells replacing concentrated salvos. That complicates Israeli targeting but also reduces Hezbollah’s ability to deliver the kind of mass attack that generates pressure. Qassem’s written-only message — no audio, no video — is Hezbollah’s version of Mojtaba Khamenei’s silence. The organization’s top surviving leader cannot or will not appear on camera. Hezbollah sees diplomatic engagement as a greater threat than the ground operation, because a deal that empowers the Lebanese state is the one outcome the organization cannot survive.

Inside Israel

Defense Budget Surges to NIS 177 Billion as Knesset Advances Deficit Hike

The defense establishment has raised its budget demand to NIS 177 billion in closed discussions with Netanyahu — up from NIS 144 billion and more than double the NIS 65 billion gap between the December-approved NIS 112 billion and current requirements. The Knesset voted 53–45 early Tuesday to advance Smotrich’s bill raising the deficit ceiling to 5.1% of GDP (from 3.9%), increasing the legal expenditure cap by NIS 32 billion, and creating a NIS 7 billion contingency war reserve. The government estimates every day of fighting costs NIS 1.5 billion in military expenditure alone. The IDF is dropping about 1,000 munitions daily, some 150 aircraft accumulating heavy hours over Iran, and nearly 100,000 reservists are on active duty — up from 60,000 at the war’s outset and far above the 40,000 the December budget assumed. The Finance Ministry estimates the total war economic cost could reach NIS 50 billion. Credit card purchases dropped 19% in the first ten days (though much of Israel was closed during that time). The education system remains closed across most of the country, costing some NIS 1.2 billion per week. Shuttered economic sectors cost NIS 2.4 billion per week. Reserve mobilization costs NIS 660 million per week. The Bank of Israel considers the Finance Ministry’s revised 4.7% growth forecast over optimistic. The debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to rise from 68.5% to 70%.

Shas and UTJ initially threatened to vote against the deficit bill. Both ultimately voted in favor except for UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf and MK Ya’akov Tessler. The coalition simultaneously approved over NIS 5 billion in discretionary funds for Haredi institutions, Judea and Samaria communities, and party priorities — but those allocations have not cleared legal review, creating the leverage the Haredi parties used as pressure. The draft exemption bill has been shelved “for unity.” The 2026 budget must pass its second and third readings by March 31 or the government falls automatically.

Assessment: The NIS 177 billion demand is the number that tells you where the defense establishment thinks this war is heading — not three weeks but six or more, with a full-scale Lebanon operation running concurrently. The budget arithmetic is operating on a continuation basis that structurally cannot hold. The government is spending at wartime rates under a one-twelfth monthly cap, patching gaps with emergency supplements that require Knesset votes the coalition can barely win. The Haredi parties’ leverage — vote for the deficit hike or we kill the budget and trigger elections — is the inverse of unity. They are using the war as a window to lock in NIS 5 billion in coalition funds before the legal review catches up. The March 31 deadline is a political grenade with the pin half-pulled. If the Haredi allocation fails legal review and UTJ or Shas defects on the budget’s final reading, the government collapses — not because of the war, but because of a yeshiva funding dispute conducted under the cover of one with people who’d rather assault cops and riot than fight in Israel’s defense. Pathetic.

Court Forces Ben Gvir’s Hand on Police Promotion; Netanyahu Challenges Elections Committee Adviser

Jerusalem District Court Judge David Gidoni gave Ben Gvir five days to sign off on the promotion of Superintendent Rinat Saban — a police investigator whose promotion he has blocked for a year because of her role in Netanyahu’s corruption trial. If Ben Gvir does not comply by Monday, Saban will be promoted by judicial decision regardless, and Ben Gvir was fined NIS 2,500 for the contempt motion. Ben Gvir admitted he blocked the promotion over Saban’s involvement in what he called an illegal investigation of the prime minister. Separately, Netanyahu twice attempted to halt the Central Elections Committee’s appointment of a new legal adviser — attorney Yifat Siminovski, an Intel executive with National Cyber Directorate experience. Both attempts were rejected by committee chairman Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg who told Netanyahu’s attorney Ilan Bombach his claims were “baseless” and asked whether he had “even read Siminovski’s CV.” The committee emphasized her AI and cyber expertise amid rising concern about generative AI’s impact on the October Knesset election.

Assessment: Two institutional confrontations, one pattern. That is the judiciary encroaching on the executive branch without formal legal basis. Regardless of one’s own opinion on those two matters (and the many others at issue overall), it is the proper function of the executive branch rather than that of the legal guild. Regardless of outcome, it is everyday Israelis who will pay the price for the consequences of the feuding parts of its government.

Western Wall Bill Advances, Handing Orthodoxy Veto Power Over Pluralistic Prayer

The Knesset House Committee voted to send MK Avi Maoz’s bill expanding Orthodox control over the Western Wall Plaza to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee — chaired by Religious Zionism’s Simcha Rothman. The bill would give the two chief rabbis ultimate authority over all Jewish holy sites including the egalitarian plaza, define any activity contrary to their instructions — including non-Orthodox worship — as “desecration,” and attach a seven-year prison penalty. The bill is designed to undercut a recent High Court ruling requiring the state to upgrade the egalitarian plaza under the decade-old Western Wall Compromise agreed to by Netanyahu’s government.

The preliminary reading passed 56–47 last month. Netanyahu canceled a Ministerial Committee meeting to avoid formally backing the bill, then allowed a free coalition vote. Several Likud MKs, including Yuli Edelstein and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, skipped the vote. The Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism called it a move that “defines citizens as second-class Jews.” Women of the Wall said advancing the bill during wartime — “when millions of Israeli citizens are in safe rooms” — was beyond belief. The Democrats’ MK Gilad Kariv noted the bill advanced days after the Temple Israel synagogue attack in Michigan. Former Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai sarcastically asked who said the government doesn’t identify with Diaspora Jews.

Assessment: The coalition is advancing a bill that criminalizes non-Orthodox prayer at Judaism’s holiest accessible site — during a time in which Diaspora Jews are facing coordinated physical attacks for being Jewish. The strategic incoherence is total. Israel needs Diaspora political support, financial solidarity, and grassroots advocacy at exactly the moment this legislation tells the majority of world Jewry that their Judaism is a criminal act at the Kotel. Maoz gets his ideological prize. Rothman gets committee jurisdiction. The Haredi parties get another institutional win. And the cost is exported to every Jewish community leader trying to rally non-Orthodox congregations behind Israel while rockets fall. Netanyahu’s maneuvering — canceling the committee vote, allowing a free vote, having senior Likud figures vanish — tells you he knows the optics are toxic. He advanced it anyway. The bill may not survive committee; the damage to Diaspora relations already has.

Israel and the World

Gulf States Pivot from Opposition to Urgency — Press U.S. to Finish the Job on Iran

Gulf Arab states that initially opposed the war are now privately urging Washington not to stop short of comprehensively degrading Iran’s military capacity. “At first we defended them and opposed the war,” said Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center. “But once they began directing strikes at us, they became an enemy.” Iran has attacked airports, ports, oil facilities, and commercial hubs across all six GCC states with missiles and drones. The prevailing mood among Gulf leaders is that Trump should fully degrade Iran’s offensive capability, because the alternative is living under permanent threat. [Seems a familiar scenario if you’re an Israeli.] “If the Americans pull out before the task is complete, we’ll be left to confront Iran on our own,” Sager said.

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter confirmed that certain Gulf states are actively using Israeli expertise in drone and missile interception against Iranian fire, saying Israel “extended our help to all the Gulf countries interested in receiving it.” Gulf sources say their reluctance to claim public action stems from fear about “the day after” — the possibility that the regime survives and Gulf states must resume relations with Tehran. UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said that Iran “made a mistake when it attacked the UAE and other countries in the Persian Gulf — it brings them closer to Israel and the United States.” He added that countries with Israel relations will see them deepen, and countries without them should expect “additional channels to open.”

Simultaneously, European allies rebuffed Trump’s request for Strait of Hormuz support. Germany’s defense minister asked what “a handful of European frigates” could accomplish that the U.S. Navy could not. Spain, Italy, Greece, and Germany declined. Britain and Denmark signaled vague willingness to explore options. The EU is discussing whether to extend the mandate of its Aspides Red Sea mission to include the Strait. Trump responded that NATO “has always been a one-way street” and declared the U.S. does not need allied help. He also mused about simply abandoning Hormuz to the countries that depend on it. Estonia was the sole European state to unequivocally offer support.

Meanwhile, Iraq reached a deal to resume oil exports via the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline to Turkey, brokered by U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack — a critical workaround as Iraq’s exports collapsed from 3.2 million barrels per day to roughly 10,000 via tanker to Jordan. The Kurdistan Region agreed to open the pipeline in exchange for renewed U.S. pressure on Baghdad to lift its trade embargo on the territory.

Assessment: The Gulf pivot is the most important strategic development outside the kinetic arena. States that spent the first week distancing themselves from the war are now telling Washington the worst outcome would be stopping too soon. Iran demonstrated it can reach every Gulf capital with missiles and drones, and every Gulf leader now fears that a surviving Islamic Republic with residual offensive capability will hold the region hostage indefinitely. The Israeli interception assistance is the operational expression of normalization that diplomats spent years negotiating on paper. Gargash’s comment about “additional channels” opening is as close to a public invitation for new Abraham Accords relationships as any UAE official has made. The Iraq-Kurdistan pipeline deal is a small but telling indicator. When Hormuz closes, the geography of Middle Eastern oil reroutes through actors — Kurds, Turks — whose leverage increases with every day the Strait stays shut.

Coordinated Attacks on European Jewish Institutions Escalate; UK Prosecution Gap Widens

A bomb struck a Jewish school in Amsterdam late Friday — the second attack on a Dutch Jewish institution in two days, following an arson attack on a Rotterdam synagogue Thursday. There were no injuries in either incident. A previously unknown group calling itself Ashab Al Yamin (Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right) claimed responsibility for both attacks and a synagogue bombing in Belgium earlier in the week. The group’s videos first appeared on Shiite axis Telegram channels associated with Hezbollah and the IRGC; its logo matches the design template of Iranian proxy organizations. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema condemned the attack; Dutch PM Rob Wetten said “there must be no place for antisemitism” in the Netherlands. The Dutch House of Representatives adopted a PVV motion — proposed by Geert Wilders — to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated organizations, the first time such a motion has succeeded. It passed with 76 votes [good luck enforcing it]. The motion is politically powerful but does not automatically become law; it requires government follow-through, a legal assessment, and a court ruling under Article 2:20 of the Dutch Civil Code.

Separately, UK Home Office data obtained under freedom of information laws revealed that hate crimes targeting Jews are prosecuted at roughly half the rate of those targeting Muslims — 3.8% versus 6.7% resulting in a charge or summons. Jews are nearly ten times more likely than Muslims to be victims of religious hate crime per capita: 106 incidents per 10,000 Jews versus 12 per 10,000 Muslims. The Community Security Trust said the figures raise “serious questions about consistency in the criminal justice response.” [I’d say it raises more than concerns about consistency.] Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis said two years of allowing hate to go “largely unchecked inevitably leads to violence, just as we saw with the Manchester synagogue attack.” Tell Mama founder Fiyaz Mughal rightly warned that a new anti-Muslim hatred definition could cause authorities to “focus even more on crimes against Muslims at the expense of others.”

A UJS campus poll found one in five UK students would not want a Jew as a roommate. One in ten did not regard Holocaust denial as antisemitic. MPs from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Reform UK called for stronger oversight and, in extreme cases, revocation of degree-awarding powers for universities that fail to protect Jewish students.

Assessment: Ashab Al Yamin’s operational pattern — three countries, one week, no prior footprint, immediate IRGC-linked distribution — fits Iran’s documented playbook for deniable strikes on Jewish targets abroad. The name may be new; the template is not. European Jewish communities face a threat that is coordinated, kinetic, and directly linked to the current war. The UK prosecution data puts numbers on what Jewish communities already know. The criminal justice system treats Jew-hate as a lower enforcement priority than “Islamophobia,” despite Jews being targeted at ten times the per-capita rate. When the former head of Tell Mama — a Muslim hate-crime monitoring organization — warns that new definitions will make the disparity worse, the diagnosis is conclusive. The campus poll is the generational pipeline: one in five students wouldn’t live with a Jew, and one in ten doesn’t recognize Holocaust denial as antisemitic. Welcome to mainstream British higher education.

Read about how our campuses got to this point in last week’s long brief The Machinery of Selective Outrage. For my unpaid subscribers and the public, it can also be viewed on Guerre and Shalom without a paywall:

Guerre and Shalom

The Machinery of Selective Outrage

FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR (Daniel Clarke-Serret…

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a month ago · 25 likes · 1 comment · Uriel Zehavi · אוריאל זהבי

Briefly Noted

Frontline & Security

• JNS: Hamas confirmed that Wissam Taha, killed in an IDF strike in Sidon, was a Hamas official — despite presenting himself internationally as a fundraiser for “sustainable development” NGOs. His brother Jihad Taha is Hamas’s international spokesperson in Lebanon and, per UN Watch, “close to UNRWA” [the NGO-to-terror pipeline remains fully operational, and nobody in the donor class seems bothered].

• JNS: The IDF killed a seven-member Hamas cell planning to attack troops in Gaza, including two Nukhba Force operatives who infiltrated Israeli territory on October 7. Separately, Trump’s Board of Peace met Hamas representatives in Cairo to preserve the “ceasefire.” Hamas warned it could renege on commitments if Israel [as if they’re abiding by any of them] maintains wartime restrictions on Gaza, and Jerusalem subsequently announced plans to reopen the sole pedestrian crossing to Egypt.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• Ynet: Israeli ambassadors worldwide are living under the strictest security restrictions in the Foreign Ministry’s history — some confined to safe houses, barred from leaving without security approval, unable even to buy groceries unsupervised. The ministry divided all missions into four operating tiers: 65 open at half capacity, 12 at 30%, 10 open three days a week, and 12 operating entirely from diplomats’ homes. Iran’s activation of sleeper cells and the wave of attacks on Jewish institutions have made what was already elevated into existential for diplomatic families — children cannot go to playgrounds, and some ambassadors have been evacuated from their host countries entirely.

• Ynet: Egypt’s Suez Canal revenue collapsed 61% year-over-year — from $10.25 billion in 2023 to $3.99 billion in 2024 — as the Houthi blockade of Bab el-Mandeb exposed Cairo’s inability to secure its own economic artery. Egypt simultaneously purchased 20 emergency LNG cargoes on the spot market after the Zohr field’s depletion left its “energy hub” dependent on Israeli gas imports from Tamar and Leviathan just to avoid rolling blackouts. [The most expensive army in the Arab world cannot defend a canal, cannot power its own grid, and cannot feed itself without IMF lifelines.]

Culture, Religion & Society

• Times of Israel: Israel ranked 8th in the World Happiness Report for the second consecutive year despite the war — with Israelis under 25 ranked third happiest globally, a sharp contrast to American youth at 60th. The flip side: worry, sadness, and anger metrics worsened from 119th to 39th, and depression rates jumped from 25.5% to 33.9% between 2023 and 2024. Resilience is real. So is the cost.

• Times of Israel: Polymarket gamblers threatened Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian with death, offered bribes, fabricated email screenshots, and referenced his family’s home address — all to pressure him into changing a report about an Iranian missile impact in Beit Shemesh, because more than $14 million in bets depended on whether a missile had struck Israel on March 10. Fabian filed a police complaint. Polymarket banned the accounts but did not answer questions about whether it can prevent recurrence.

• JNS: Jewish undergraduate enrollment at Harvard dropped to approximately 7% in 2025 — its lowest since before World War II and less than a third of the late-20th-century average. [Why any would enroll there is beyond comprehension given current circumstances.] The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance tested standard explanations (geographic diversification, financial aid expansion, international growth) and found none accounts for the sharper decline at Harvard relative to peers. Rep. Elise Stefanik: “I strongly believe the antisemitism does not just impact students on campus at Harvard; it shapes admission.” She’s not wrong.

• Times of Israel: Researchers using satellite imagery and AI identified 28 large circular stone structures within 25 km of Rujm el-Hiri in the Golan — all sharing the same architectural logic as the site long considered unique. The discovery reframes “Israel’s Stonehenge” as one node in a regional network built 5,000–6,500 years ago, likely for seasonal nomadic gatherings rather than astronomical observation.

• Times of Israel: Jerusalemites are sheltering from Iranian missiles in Ottoman-era basements, Barclays Bank vaults built in 1930 — once used to store Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s gold — and a 1,500-year-old Byzantine cistern beneath the Old City. With roughly 10,000 buildings predating 1948 and no standard safe rooms, the city’s residents improvise with whatever the layers of history left them.

Developments to Watch

Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)

• Hezbollah reaches Ashkelon for the first time — Rockets from Lebanon triggered sirens in Gaza-border communities roughly 200 km south, the deepest Hezbollah has ever fired. The IDF assessed the barrage as limited — a few projectiles, intercepted or landing in open areas — but the range extension changes the calculus for southern municipalities that assumed distance was protection.

• U.S. pushed Syria to deploy forces into Lebanon — Washington explored whether Damascus would send troops to counter Hezbollah; Syria declined, citing escalation fears and sectarian risk. The al-Sharaa’s government has zero appetite for becoming Iran’s next target—especially as its jihadist ideology remains firmly baked-in.

Gaza & Southern Theater

• Hamas warns it may renege on ceasefire — Hamas told Trump’s Board of Peace in Cairo that it could abandon prior commitments if Israel maintains wartime restrictions on Gaza. Israel’s subsequent announcement reopening the pedestrian crossing to Egypt suggests the threat carried weight — which means Hamas retains operational leverage over the terms of a deal it is nominally bound by but does not respect.

Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)

• Russia expanding military support to Iran — Moscow is providing satellite intelligence, improved drone technology, and tactical advice based on Ukraine experience. Russia benefits from prolonged conflict through elevated oil prices and reduced Western focus on Ukraine — every week this war continues is a week Kyiv loses attention.

• Mohsen Rezaei appointed Khamenei military adviser — Mojtaba Khamenei named the former longtime IRGC commander as his military adviser — the first personnel appointment by a Supreme Leader who still has not appeared on video. Whether this reflects operational decision-making capacity or a regime generating the appearance of it remains the central intelligence question.

• Kataib Hezbollah spokesman killed; drone hits Baghdad Green Zone — Abu Ali al-Askari, one of the most prominent Iran-backed militia figures in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. strike. Separately, a drone struck the Royal Tulip Al Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad’s Green Zone — housing the EU Advisory Mission — expanding the war’s footprint into Iraq’s diplomatic infrastructure.

Home Front & Politics

• March 31 budget deadline: 12 days — The 2026 budget must pass second and third readings or the government falls automatically. The NIS 5 billion Haredi allocation has not cleared legal review. If it doesn’t, UTJ has already demonstrated willingness to defect. LIKELY TO ESCALATE

Iran’s regime cannot show its Supreme Leader, cannot keep a successor alive for a full week in the command chair, and is firing cluster munitions at Israeli children because it has nothing left that can reach a military target. Three civilians are dead in central Israel. A foreign worker bled out from shrapnel in Adanim. Flights are grounded before Passover. And the coalition is spending the war’s political capital on yeshiva funding and a bill that could jail a Conservative rabbi for davening at the Kotel. Twelve days until the budget deadline. At least another month of fighting. The regime in Tehran is breaking apart from the top down — and the question is whether Jerusalem can keep its own house together long enough to collect.

Shabbat shalom!

— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst

Tip? Share it securely via signal: (@Uri.30) or proton: (uri.zehavi@proton.me).

Shalom, friends.

The campaign against Iran has passed the point where any observer could call it limited — 1,700 military-industrial targets destroyed, the supreme leader’s personal aircraft in ashes at Mehrabad, and Israeli intelligence formally opening a systematic effort to dismantle the Quds Force’s franchise infrastructure across the region. The northern front, which, as we have discussed, is further heating up: three IDF divisions are operating inside southern Lebanon, and a request for 190,000 additional reservists is sitting on the cabinet’s docket. The regime in Tehran issued evacuation warnings for Dubai and Doha, threatened the Gerald Ford’s supply chain, and ordered its citizens shot on sight for protesting.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• “Quds file” opened: Israeli intelligence launches a systematic campaign to dismantle IRGC Quds Force infrastructure across the Middle East, destroying 17 of 20 cargo planes. See The War Today.

• 200+ targets in 24 hours: IAF strikes command centers, weapons production, and defense systems across Tehran, Shiraz, and Tabriz; destroys the supreme leader’s aircraft at Mehrabad. See The War Today.

• Cluster munitions on central Israel: Iran fires seven salvos, dispersing submunitions across Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan, Petah Tikva, and Holon; eight wounded, 108 hospitalized in 24 hours. See The War Today.

• 450,000 reservists requested: IDF asks the government to raise the mobilization ceiling by 190,000 for a possible large-scale Lebanon ground operation. See The War Today.

• Three divisions in Lebanon: 91st, 146th, and 36th Divisions conduct raids across southern Lebanon; Hezbollah surveillance posts destroyed; UNIFIL fired upon three times. See The War Today.

• MBS: “Keep hitting Iran hard”: Saudi crown prince advises Trump to sustain the campaign; Gulf states absorb 2,000+ missiles and drones but decline to strike Iran publicly. See Israel and the World.

• Hamas secret letter demands total war: Kan News reveals Hamas told Mojtaba Khamenei it will never relinquish its weapons and called for simultaneous activation of all fronts. See The War Today.

• NIS 2.6 billion emergency procurement: Cabinet approves classified defense transfer; budget deadline March 31 holds the coalition together — or dissolves it. See Inside Israel.

• London and Antwerp: Al-Quds Day marchers wave Khamenei posters despite a ban; 12 arrested; Haredi Jews including children attacked in Antwerp as Jew-hate spikes across Europe. See Israel and the World.

Below: what Hamas’s secret letter to Mojtaba Khamenei reveals about the axis fracturing under pressure, why the 450,000-reservist number is the most consequential figure in the brief, and the nvestigation that found 78,665 IRGC citations laundered into Wikipedia — during Tehran working hours.

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Shavua tov, friends.

The war entered its fifteenth day with the regime still firing but visibly diminished — fewer salvos, longer intervals, a supreme leader who cannot appear on camera. What has not diminished however is the radius of violence. An Iranian missile hit a Bedouin town in the Galilee. A Lebanese man drove a truck into America’s largest Reform synagogue. A Shiite front group with IRGC hallmarks bombed three European synagogues in a single week. And in Times Square, crowds chanted for Hamas and waved Hezbollah flags while the organization those flags represent fired 100 rockets a day into northern Israel. The military campaign is compressing Iran’s capacity. The ideological campaign it spawned is expanding.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Zarzir struck: Iranian ballistic missile injures 58 and damages 300 homes in the northern Bedouin town; Mojtaba Khamenei issues written-only statement vowing continued attacks. See The War Today.

• Taleghan hit — again: IDF confirms second strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons development compound near Tehran after identifying regime efforts to rebuild it. See The War Today.

• Hormuz under fire: Iran attacks two tankers near Iraq, kills one crew member; Greek shipowners run the strait at night for $500K/day; IEA confirms largest supply disruption in oil market history. See The War Today.

• Lebanon expansion ordered: Katz and Netanyahu instruct IDF to prepare broader operations; Chief of Staff deploys additional division north; IDF strikes Litani River bridge and expands evacuation zone to the Zahrani River. See The War Today.

• Hezbollah’s base turns: Shiite Lebanese openly criticize the group on camera; Amal party allows cabinet to outlaw Hezbollah’s armed activities; Israel and U.S. reject Beirut’s offer of direct talks. See The War Today.

• Sde Teiman collapses: MAG drops indictment against five reservists, citing compromised prosecution and the former MAG’s criminal leak — but the reputational damage is permanent. See Inside Israel.

• Frontline communities cut: NIS 150 million slashed from northern rehabilitation on the same day NIS 5 billion in coalition funds were approved. See Inside Israel.

• Temple Israel attacked: Lebanese immigrant rams truck into Michigan synagogue and opens fire; killed by security. New Shiite front group bombs three European synagogues in one week. See Israel and the World.

• ICJ interventions stack up: U.S. defends Israel “in the strongest terms possible”; Fiji delivers a remarkable filing on combatant status and NGO reliability; Netherlands and Iceland side with South Africa. See Israel and the World.

Below: the Assessment on why Hezbollah’s Shiite fracture matters, what Fiji just told the ICJ that no Western ally would, and the front group — Ashab Al Yamin — that bombed three European synagogues this week.

Read more

Shalom, friends.

Day twelve of Roaring Lion, and the war just added an another declared front. Hezbollah named its campaign — “The Devouring Wind” — and Iran publicly claimed joint operations with its franchise for the first time since the war began. The Strait of Hormuz is now fully a combat zone with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are firing on commercial ships —and publicly admitting it. Inside Israel, the cabinet bought coalition stability with NIS 5 billion and a shelved draft bill while the Bank of Israel warned the math doesn’t hold.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran-Hezbollah joint fire: IRGC claims its first coordinated operation with Hezbollah — ballistic missiles and 150+ rockets at Israel simultaneously. All Iranian missiles intercepted; three lightly injured in the north. See The War Today.

• CENTCOM passes 5,500 targets: Cooper confirms destruction of an entire class of Iranian warships and a ballistic missile factory hit overnight. Trump says “nothing left to target” — planning assumes at least two more weeks. See The War Today.

• Taleghan nuclear site struck: Israel hit the AMAD-linked compound in Tehran, adding to the systematic campaign against Iran’s weapons program infrastructure. See The War Today.

• Hormuz kill zone: Iran fires on a Thai cargo ship and claims it; explosive boats set two tankers ablaze in Iraqi waters, killing one crew member. IEA authorizes 400 million barrels from strategic reserves — the largest drawdown on record. See The War Today.

• Hezbollah declares “The Devouring Wind”: 150+ rockets and 20 drones fired at northern Israel; IDF strikes 10 Dahieh targets in 30 minutes and threatens Lebanese national infrastructure if Beirut doesn’t act. See The War Today.

• Budget passes, draft bill dies: Cabinet approves NIS 30 billion defense increase and NIS 5 billion in coalition funds — including NIS 1.27 billion for Torah institutions — while shelving the Haredi conscription bill “for unity.” Bank of Israel warns the fiscal trajectory is unsustainable. See Inside Israel.

• Pardons department rejects Netanyahu request: Position paper finds the pardon does not meet criteria — no conviction, no admission of guilt. Heritage Minister Eliyahu says he’ll consult further before sending his recommendation to President Herzog. See Inside Israel.

• Spain cuts ties; Lebanon wants to talk: Madrid permanently withdraws its ambassador. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s government seeks direct negotiations with Israel — and the UNSC condemns Iran’s Gulf strikes 13-0, with 135 co-sponsors. See Israel and the World.

• Kiryat Shmona, eleven days underground: Mayor Stern tells Jerusalem to finish Hezbollah, not the war — and asks who is shooting if Hezbollah isn’t south of the Litani. See Inside Israel.

Below: the Assessment on why Hezbollah’s tactical reversion to guerrilla warfare changes the ground problem, what the pardons department’s rejection actually means for the political timeline, and Iran’s shoot-on-sight order that tells you more about the regime’s stability than the airstrike count.

The common thread is that every actor — Tehran, Hezbollah, Washington, Jerusalem, the Gulf states — is operating on the assumption that the current configuration of the war has weeks left, not months. What they do with that assumption diverges sharply.

The War Today

Iran and Hezbollah Claim Coordinated Strike as CENTCOM Passes 5,500 Targets and Israel Hits Another Nuclear Site

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Wednesday night that its ballistic missile salvo against Israel was a “joint and integrated operation” with Hezbollah — the first time Tehran has publicly declared synchronized fire with its Lebanese franchise since the war began. The IRGC launched several ballistic missiles at central, northern, and southern Israel while Hezbollah fired drones and rockets at more than 50 targets across the country. All Iranian ballistic missiles were intercepted. Since midnight, Iran fired at least five separate salvos at Israel — at press time, none were reported as having produced casualties. CENTCOM confirmed it has struck more than 5,500 targets in Iran since the war started. They also confirmed the destruction of the last of four Soleimani-class warships — eliminating an entire class of Iranian naval vessels — and said heavy bombers hit a large ballistic missile manufacturing facility overnight. The IDF struck a site in Tehran used to develop advanced explosives and conduct experiments as part of the AMAD nuclear weapons program in the 2000s. The IDF noted Iran had begun rehabilitating the compound. Additional waves of Israeli airstrikes targeted IRGC command centers in the heart of Tehran. Internal Security and Basij force bases were struck simultaneously. Iranian media reported Israeli drone strikes on IRGC and Basij checkpoints across Tehran overnight, killing approximately 10 security personnel. Fars News Agency cited an unnamed official attributing the attacks to a “joint Mossad and pro-monarchist” operation. Iran’s chief of police, Ahmadreza Radan, declared that “anyone who takes to the streets at the request of the enemy will be treated as an enemy, not as a protester,” and ordered border guards to respond to any aggression with gunfire. The Intelligence Ministry announced the arrest of an armed group it said was linked to the U.S. and Israel, seizing firearms and four ready-to-explode homemade bombs. The IRGC arrested three additional individuals on charges of “disturbing public opinion” and cooperating with “enemy media.” President Trump told Axios, “There’s nothing left to target in Iran,” adding, “Any time I want it to end, it will end.” U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios that no decision has been made to stop fighting and that planning assumes at least two more weeks of strikes.

Assessment: The gap between Trump’s “nothing left to target” and his own military’s two-week planning window is the analytical crux of the Iran theater right now. Trump is building the narrative off-ramp — the rhetorical groundwork for declaring victory — while CENTCOM, the IDF, and the intelligence community are still executing the target list. The defense sources’ admission that regime change was never a military objective is operationally honest and politically necessary. It recalibrates expectations before the public asks why Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive and issuing orders. Iran’s internal crackdown — shoot-on-sight orders, mass arrests, “enemy media” charges — tells you the regime is worried about the one thing airstrikes alone cannot accomplish. Radan’s language is the language of a security apparatus that sees the streets as the real threat. Whether that fear is premature or prescient depends on what happens after the bombs stop falling. To that end, the Israeli drone strikes on IRGC and Basij checkpoints across Tehran overnight — killing approximately 10 security personnel and attributed by Fars News to a joint Mossad-monarchist operation — suggest the internal destabilization campaign is already running parallel to the air war.

Hormuz Becomes a Combat Zone as Iran Attacks Shipping and the World Opens Strategic Reserves

U.S. forces destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz and President Trump claimed a total of 58 Iranian naval vessels sunk since the start of operations, including 31 minelayers. Separately, Iranian explosive-laden boats attacked two fuel tankers in Iraqi waters — the Marshall Islands-flagged Safesea Vishnu and the Malta-flagged Zefyros — setting both ablaze and killing one crew member. The Thailand-flagged Mayuree Naree was struck by two projectiles while transiting the strait. Three crew members are missing and believed trapped in the engine room, with 20 evacuated to Oman. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for firing on the Mayuree Naree, the first direct engagement by Guards forces against a commercial vessel. The Japan-flagged container ship ONE Majesty sustained minor damage from a projectile 25 nautical miles off Ras Al Khaimah while at anchor, and the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Star Gwyneth was hit approximately 50 miles northwest of Dubai. Iranian drones struck Oman’s largest oil storage facilities at the Port of Salalah and injured four people near Dubai International Airport. Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed four drones in its eastern region; Kuwait shot down eight. Tanker traffic through the Strait dropped from roughly 50 per day before February 28 to zero after March 8. Crude oil reached $113.13 per barrel. U.S. gas prices rose more than 55 cents per gallon since March 1, reaching an average of $3.53. The International Energy Agency authorized the release of 400 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves across 32 member countries — the largest coordinated drawdown on record. A senior Iranian military official told Al Jazeera that “another strait” could face the same treatment as Hormuz.

Assessment: Iran is acknowledging it is directly attacking commercial, civilian vessels. The IEA’s 400-million-barrel release is the energy establishment’s panic button: the largest strategic drawdown in history tells you the market has already priced in weeks of disruption, and the IEA wants to buy time before prices force political decisions no one wants to make. Iran’s threat to target “all ports in the region” if its own are threatened is the regime’s version of mutually assured economic destruction — except Iran’s ports are already burning and the Gulf states’ are not. The Guards are lashing out precisely because their naval capability is being systematically eliminated. Their strategy now is to make the cost of transit high enough that the world pressures Washington to stop — which requires the world to feel the pain before the reserves run out. That is a race Iran is losing, but slowly enough to matter.

Hezbollah Declares “the Devouring Wind” as Israel Prepares a Broad Lebanon Campaign

Hezbollah announced a new phase of operations under the code name “Operation Al-Asf al-Ma’kul” — “The Devouring Wind” — and fired more than 150 rockets and approximately 20 drones toward northern Israel on Wednesday night, triggering sirens from Kiryat Shmona to Haifa. Several long-range rockets struck open areas; a home in the Lower Galilee village of Bi’ina took a direct hit. Three people sustained light injuries across the north. In central Israel, residents reported explosions during the combined Iran-Hezbollah barrage, with additional sirens sounding from renewed Lebanese and Iranian fire. The IDF responded with large-scale strikes across Lebanon — 10 terror structures in the Dahieh district of Beirut within 30 minutes, including Radwan Force headquarters, intelligence headquarters, and additional command centers. The IDF said it had struck more than 70 Dahieh targets since the start of the war with Iran. The IAF and ground forces dismantled dozens of ready-to-fire launchers and neutralized dozens of Hezbollah operatives preparing launches. The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson issued a third evacuation warning for southern Dahieh, telling residents not to return “until further notice.” In other words, closed for renovations. A senior Israeli security official told i24 News: “They have left us no choice — this campaign must expand into Lebanon. There is no one to talk to on the other side. We are considering strikes on Lebanese government infrastructure.” Chief of Staff Zamir ordered the Golani Brigade transferred from Gaza to the northern front and instructed the reinforcement of Northern Command. Troops from the 7th Armored Brigade under the 36th Division raided the Rab al-Thalathine area in southern Lebanon, eliminating Hezbollah operatives and locating weapons caches. The 810th “Mountains” Brigade located rocket launchers, holding positions, and weapons storage facilities in the Mount Dov area and destroyed them. IDF intelligence assesses that Hezbollah has decided a confrontation is in its interest — one that would force a full ceasefire and end Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon. A senior Israeli official said: “Hezbollah wants to create a new equation in which Israeli enforcement policy in Lebanon stops entirely and we no longer strike. That will not happen. Therefore, the entire situation is heading toward serious escalation.” The IDF had prepared a major surprise operation against Hezbollah leadership and rocket infrastructure in recent months, but the plan was postponed twice by the political leadership. When the Iran war began, most aircraft, drones, and strike units were allocated to Iran — the more critical theater — and Israel lost the element of surprise. Hezbollah has shifted to guerrilla tactics: small units, no electronic communications, conserving anti-tank rockets.

Assessment: Hezbollah’s calculation is transparent: escalate in Lebanon to force Israel into a two-front resource dilemma, betting that the northern front’s cost in rockets and reservist call-ups will pressure Jerusalem to trade enforcement for quiet. The IDF’s response — Dahieh at scale, three divisions in the field, Golani moving north — says the bet is not working, but the twice-postponed surprise operation is the uncomfortable truth underneath: Israel’s political leadership deferred the Lebanon operation when it could have been executed on Israel’s terms, and now it is being fought on Hezbollah’s timetable with fewer available assets. The demand that the Lebanese Army act against Hezbollah — paired with the threat to strike national infrastructure — is a final warning. Lebanon’s government banned IRGC activity and committed to Hezbollah disarmament this week; now Israel is telling them to prove it wasn’t just a press release.

Inside Israel

Cabinet Approves NIS 30 Billion Defense Boost and NIS 5 Billion Coalition Sweetener in Wartime Budget

The cabinet approved an amended 2026 state budget late Tuesday night, adding approximately NIS 30 billion to the defense budget for Operation Roaring Lion and setting aside an additional NIS 13 billion in reserves for defense and civilian needs if the war is prolonged. The deficit target rose to 5.1% of GDP. Over NIS 5 billion in coalition funds were approved — including NIS 1.269 billion in 2026 for programs supporting Torah institutions — with hundreds of millions directed to Haredi institutions. Funds will be reallocated from other government ministries. The Bank of Israel issued a sharp response, warning that the damage to economic activity “could be even more severe” than the Finance Ministry’s estimate of a 0.5% GDP hit, and that the debt-to-GDP ratio may reach 70% in 2026 — up from roughly 60% on the eve of the war. The central bank called for reductions in coalition budgets and tax incentives, singling out the decision to raise tax brackets — which has a lasting impact on the debt ratio — as “inconsistent” with fiscal discipline. It also warned that the NIS 13 billion reserve must be retained strictly for security and civilian needs and “not be diverted to other purposes.” The vote was conducted via Zoom and passed unanimously. As we previously discussed, ahead of the vote, Netanyahu and Smotrich announced that the Haredi draft bill would be shelved during the war “for unity,” and Smotrich’s dairy reform was detached entirely from the budget, delaying its advancement. The budget has passed its first Knesset reading and must clear final votes before the end of March or the Knesset automatically dissolves. Opposition leader Lapid called the NIS 5 billion-plus allocation “the most corrupt kind of political bribery for the Haredi parties,” and MK Beliak told the Finance Committee that the government was allocating “large sums to draft evaders” during wartime.

Assessment: The coalition math is visible in every line item. Netanyahu bought Haredi votes on the budget by killing the draft bill and writing a NIS 1.269 billion check to Torah institutions — during a war in which the IDF has long been publicly warning about manpower shortages and the Golani Brigade is being shuffled between theaters. The IDF needs significantly more people. The Bank of Israel’s intervention is unusually blunt: it called the tax-bracket adjustment “inconsistent” with fiscal need and flagged the coalition reserve as a potential slush fund before it’s even been spent. They aren’t wrong. The 5.1% deficit and 70% debt-to-GDP ratio are not crisis numbers by global standards, but Israel entered this war as a small, open economy that maintained fiscal discipline precisely to absorb shocks like this one. That margin is being consumed — partly by the war, partly by coalition maintenance. The March 31 budget deadline is the sword hanging over all of it: miss it, and the Knesset dissolves. That deadline gives every coalition partner leverage and the prime minister exactly zero room to say no.

Pardons Department Says Netanyahu’s Request Does Not Meet Criteria

The Justice Ministry’s pardons department completed its legal position paper and determined that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pardon request does not meet the relevant conditions — primarily because his trial is ongoing, he has not been convicted, and he did not admit guilt or express remorse. The High Court has previously ruled that pre-conviction pardons are theoretically possible only when the petitioner admits to the underlying conduct, creating a de facto conviction. Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu — delegated by Justice Minister Levin to manage the process due to Levin’s potential conflict of interest — responded by asserting the request “merits consideration” and announced a series of “in-depth consultations” before forwarding his recommendation to President Herzog. The pardons department position paper, Eliyahu’s recommendation, and a separate paper from the president’s own legal adviser will all reach Herzog, who makes the final decision. The president accepts the pardons department’s recommendation in the large majority of cases. President Trump has placed heavy pressure on Herzog to grant the pardon. Herzog has said he will decide free of external influence.

Assessment: The pardons department did its job — and arrived at the predictable legal answer. Netanyahu has not been convicted and has not admitted guilt, which under existing precedent makes a pardon nearly impossible absent a legal reinterpretation no one in the bureaucracy will volunteer for. The real question has never been about that though—this is a political question. Eliyahu’s “in-depth consultations” are a transparent attempt to write a cover memo that reframes the request in terms the president can use. Herzog will receive three documents: one saying no, one saying maybe, and one from his own adviser. The external pressure — Trump’s, most visibly — is the variable no precedent accounts for. After five-plus years of trial without a conviction, the case has become a political instrument [which is precisely why it should end]. Whether it ends through pardon, acquittal, or exhaustion is now a question of presidential nerve, not prosecutorial merit.

Kiryat Shmona: Eleven Days Underground and a Promise That Did Not Hold

Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avichai Stern told 103FM that residents who chose to stay have been living underground for 11 days — “in shared shelters, with children” — and that he does not think they can hold on much longer. Stern appealed directly to decision-makers in Jerusalem: “Finish this as quickly as possible. Not to end the war, but to end Hezbollah.” He said the Home Front Command’s guidelines instructing businesses to open as usual are “a fiction” — businesses have not recovered from the previous war, and asking owners to risk themselves and their customers makes no economic or strategic sense. Stern confronted the gap between past promises and present reality. “They promised us that Hezbollah would not make it south of the Litani River, that the threat of invasion is gone, and that the threat of anti-tank missiles has been removed. In reality, we are seeing fierce battles here across the border, and we are seeing anti-tank missile hits. Who is shooting at us if Hezbollah is not south of the Litani River?” In Moshav Liman — less than two miles from the Lebanese border — families who returned after 14 months of displacement are under fire again. The moshav lost Staff Sgt. Or Demry z”l this week. Sigal Malachi, the moshav’s cultural coordinator, said children are so frightened some will not leave their family’s safe room — one mother had to beg her son to spend 15 minutes outside. Schools remain closed across the north. The northern public are calling for the establishment of a “Yellow Line” buffer zone extending to the Litani River under exclusive IDF control, modeled on the Gaza security perimeter.

Assessment: Stern’s question — “Who is shooting at us if Hezbollah is not south of the Litani?” — erodes public trust and yet is perfectly valid. The answer is that Hezbollah rebuilt faster than anyone was willing to admit publicly. And the ceasefire enforcement that was supposed to prevent exactly this scenario did not deliver. The residents of Kiryat Shmona and Moshav Liman have now been displaced twice, lost soldiers from their own communities, and are being told to reopen businesses while sleeping in shelters. The Home Front Command’s guidelines are a fiscal calculation dressed as operational guidance — the Finance Ministry’s NIS 5 billion weekly savings number drives the reopening, not the threat assessment. The Yellow Line proposal is the northern communities’ way of saying: we no longer trust diplomatic arrangements to protect us. They watched UNIFIL fail, watched Resolution 1701 fail, and watched the ceasefire fail. They still trust in the operational capability of the IDF, though. Let’s hope Jerusalem has the decency not to let them down.

Israel and the World

Spain Cuts Ties as Lebanon and Gulf States Move Toward Israel

In a move of even more “virtue signaling,” Spain permanently withdrew its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday — terminating Ambassador Ana Maria Salomon Perez’s posting rather than merely recalling her for consultations — leaving its Tel Aviv embassy under a chargé d’affaires for the foreseeable future. The move follows Spain’s September ban on weapons-transit aircraft and ships, Foreign Minister Sa’ar’s accusation that Madrid was leading “a hostile, anti-Israel line,” and Spain’s May 2024 recognition of a Palestinian state. Israel recalled its own ambassador from Madrid in 2024. Both embassies now operate at reduced levels. Sa’ar accused Spain of “standing with tyrants” for opposing the war against Iran. President Trump told reporters: “The Spanish side is not cooperating with us at all, and Spain has been terrible. We might stop doing business with them.” In the opposite direction, Lebanon’s civilian government now wants to negotiate with Israel directly — a shift driven by Hezbollah’s diminished capacity and the regime’s severance from Iranian direction. Lebanese authorities have outlawed Hezbollah military activity, committed to full disarmament, and announced that IRGC operatives would be detained and Iranian nationals will no longer receive visa-free entry. Though, the effect of those moves seems minimal for now. Civilians evacuated from southern Lebanon are openly criticizing Hezbollah. Israel and CENTCOM are cooperating closely with Gulf states to track and counter Iranian threats, and a Bahraini observer said that normalization with Israel could accelerate — “especially as destabilizing players disappear.”

Assessment: Two realities occupying the same week. Spain — whose government has made opposing Israel the centerpiece of its foreign policy since October 2023 (or the 1490s? hm.) — formalized what was already operationally true. There is no diplomatic relationship, just a mailbox in Tel Aviv. The Trump-Sa’ar alignment against Madrid raises the cost of Spain’s posture but is unlikely to reverse it. Sanchez has made this a domestic identity issue, not a strategic one. Blaming the Jews… a real novel move there, Sanchez. The Lebanon story is the one that matters. Direct negotiations between Jerusalem and Beirut — even at the level of intent — would have been unthinkable 18 months ago. Hezbollah’s degradation created the political space; Iran’s inability to resupply or direct its franchise created the opportunity. Whether Lebanon’s government can translate declared intent into enforceable action — IRGC arrests, Hezbollah disarmament, actual sovereignty — is the test.

Gulf States Lead Historic UNSC Resolution Condemning Iran’s Attacks, 13-0

The United Nations Security Council voted 13-0 on Wednesday — with Russia and China abstaining — to condemn Iran’s strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan since the outbreak of war. The Bahrain-drafted, Gulf Cooperation Council-backed resolution won co-sponsorship from 135 UN member states, the highest number in Security Council history. The resolution condemned Iran’s attacks on “residential areas” and “civilian objects,” demanded an immediate cessation of strikes, and condemned threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz called the attacks on civilian infrastructure “disgusting” and dismissed the suggestion that the GCC resolution had been manipulated by one or two countries as “laughable.” Russia’s alternative resolution — which condemned “the violence” without naming any party — received four votes and failed. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said discussing attacks “in isolation of the root causes” — meaning the U.S.-Israel operation — was “impossible.” Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said the regime is “firing on the countries of the region out of desperation.”

Assessment: Thirteen-to-zero at the Security Council with Russia and China unable to do more than abstain is the diplomatic equivalent of Iran standing alone in the room. Moscow tried to launder the vote into a generic anti-violence resolution and couldn’t find five supporters. Beijing chose silence over solidarity. The 135-country co-sponsorship is a number designed to be cited in every future diplomatic filing — and it will be. The GCC drafted this resolution to establish a legal and political record: Iran attacked sovereign Arab states that explicitly declared neutrality, struck civilian areas, and killed and injured citizens of dozens of countries. That record is the foundation for whatever comes next — expanded sanctions, reparations claims, or the regional defense architecture that is already being built in real time.

Briefly Noted

Frontline & Security

• Israel National News: The FBI alerted California law enforcement to intelligence that Iran had considered launching drones from a vessel off the U.S. West Coast in the event of American military strikes — a bulletin distributed in late February with no specifics on timing, targets, or personnel. Iran maintains a presence in Mexico and access to drone technology.

• JNS: A cyberattack on Israeli railway station screens Wednesday night displayed fake Hebrew-language warnings of incoming Iranian missiles, telling passengers to evacuate the “subway” immediately. Israel Railways confirmed the breached advertisement screens are not connected to critical infrastructure; the trains — running at reduced wartime capacity — were unaffected.

• Times of Israel: Norwegian police arrested three brothers — Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, all in their 20s — for Sunday’s IED bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, which damaged the consular entrance but caused no injuries. Europe’s Iran-linked threat environment just gained another data point.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• JNS: Palestinian Authority TV claimed Israel’s wartime ban on gatherings over 50 people was designed to enable an extremist Jewish Passover sacrifice at Al-Aqsa — a fabrication Palestinian Media Watch called “the worst terror incitement.” The PA dressed it up as a “political and ideological process seeking to change the religious, historical and legal reality” of the Temple Mount — a recycled incitement formula engineered to trigger violence, deployed on schedule for Ramadan.

Domestic & Law

• Israel National News: COGAT ordered testing of up to 100% of Palestinian Authority agricultural produce entering Israel after inspections found 50% of cucumbers, 49% of tomatoes, and 66% of hot peppers contaminated with prohibited pesticides — including organophosphate neurotoxins. The produce had been reaching Israeli markets before lab results returned; MK Sohn Har-Melekh said the system “preferred the livelihood of our enemies over the health of Israel’s citizens.”

• Jewish Chronicle: Haredi groups in Britain are preparing a legal challenge to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would require unregistered yeshivot — an estimated 1,500-plus boys aged 13–16 in Stamford Hill receiving little secular education — to register with the Department for Education and undergo Ofsted inspections. The British Rabbinical Union called the bill “disproportionate and unlawful interference” with religious parenting rights [though the Torah itself expects a man to learn a trade alongside learning Torah — not one at the expense of the other].

Economy, Tech & Infrastructure

• Globes: Google completed its $32 billion acquisition of Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz — the largest-ever acquisition of an Israeli company — with each of the four founders receiving approximately $2.2 billion after tax. The state stands to collect roughly NIS 10 billion in capital gains by mid-April. Hundreds of Israeli employees become millionaires, several dozen exceeding $100 million.

• Jerusalem Post: The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Iran used the Binance cryptocurrency exchange to evade sanctions, following an internal Binance probe that identified more than $1 billion in flows connected to networks funding Iran-backed terror groups.

• Ynet: Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei financed the purchase of luxury London properties — a mansion and 12 houses on “Billionaires’ Row” — with a £36 million loan from a company ultimately owned by Israeli-born British businessmen Sol and Eddie Zakay of the Topland Group, originally from Ramat Gan. The supreme leader of the regime that wants Israel erased from the map, bankrolled in part by Israelis [good grief].

Culture, Religion & Society

• JNS: The Oscar-nominated “Voice of Hind Rajab” — set entirely in Ramallah, never showing Gaza, Israeli soldiers, Hamas, or the battlefield conditions in which the child died — erases every contested fact about the incident while rendering Israelis as a faceless, voiceless force of pure evil. Two of five films on the Best International Feature shortlist center on Palestinians. Independent analysis has documented multiple unresolved inconsistencies — shifting accounts, omitted communications, contested forensics — that the film and its reviewers decline to address.

• Algemeiner: The 25th Sydney Biennale — taxpayer-funded, Qatar-sponsored, and directed by Emirati princess Hoor Al-Qasimi [whose father called Zionism “a cancerous growth”] — opens Saturday with more than half of 83 artists being Arab or Muslim and zero Israelis. One participant compared Jewish philanthropists to Nazis by name. Another wants “Zionists out of our cultural spaces.” The festival’s “zero tolerance for racism” pledge does not, apparently, apply.

• HonestReporting: CNN framed two ISIS-inspired suspects who threw explosive devices at a New York rally as “teenagers” whose “normal day” was “drastically changed” — then deleted the post and issued corrections only after public backlash forced their hand. Anchor Abby Phillip also misreported that the bombs targeted Mayor Mamdani rather than his critics — the red-green alliance’s media arm doing what it does best, and a preview of the editorial machinery dissected in tomorrow’s Long Brief, The Machinery of Selective Outrage (7:30 a.m. Eastern).

• Israel National News: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani — whose wife liked posts celebrating Oct. 7 and denying the rape of Israeli women, and who hosted Hamas cheerleaders at Gracie Mansion during Ramadan — spent the week deflecting blame for the Islamist bomb attack outside his residence onto the peaceful protesters who were its intended targets. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, himself the target of a firebombing last Passover, called Mamdani to sympathize — a measure of how effectively the victimhood narrative launders itself even to those who should know better.

Developments to Watch

Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)

• Iran declares “continuous strikes” policy — The Iranian General Staff announced the end of its mutual-strikes doctrine and pledged continuous fire from this point forward. The IRGC Aerospace Forces warned of “new surprises.” Rhetoric has outpaced capability for days, however.

• Radan’s shoot-on-sight order — Iran’s chief of police declared that anyone taking to the streets “at the request of the enemy” will be treated as an enemy combatant, not a protester, and ordered border guards to fire on any aggression. The regime is activating its security apparatus against the internal threat it fears more than the bombs.

• Mojtaba Khamenei reportedly injured — The New York Times and Israeli officials confirmed the new Supreme Leader was hurt — possibly in the legs — on February 28. The extent remains unclear. A wounded leader whose father was just killed, issuing orders from an unknown location, while the Assembly of Experts has still not properly formalized his succession — fragility compounding fragility.

• Kurdish fighters say they are inside Iran — Kurdish resistance figures are claiming some fighters are already inside the Islamic Republic and “ready to go into action,” with a fighter near the border saying the regime “has never been weaker.”

• Houthi reserve — no change, still watching — No new reporting on Houthi activation, but Israeli intelligence’s assessment that the Houthis are using restraint to lull Israel remains operative. Combat divisions remain mobilized along borders.

• Iran targets Oman energy infrastructure — Iranian drones struck Oman’s largest oil storage facilities at the Port of Salalah. Oman has maintained studied neutrality throughout the conflict. Hitting Muscat’s oil infrastructure — alongside the UAE airport strike and Saudi drone intercepts — eliminates the last pretense that Iran is targeting only U.S. and Israeli interests.

Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)

• Israel threatens Lebanese national infrastructure — Israel told Beirut that if the Lebanese Army does not act against Hezbollah, strikes on national infrastructure will follow. This moves the threat from Hezbollah assets to state assets — power grids, bridges, ports. Lebanon’s government has 48 hours of good intentions and no enforcement mechanism. LIKELY TO ESCALATE

Home Front & Politics

• Budget deadline: March 31 — The amended budget passed cabinet but must clear final Knesset votes by month’s end or trigger automatic dissolution. The Haredi draft bill is shelved, the dairy reform detached, and the coalition’s NIS 5 billion sweetener is baked in — but any partner who calculates the war’s political arc differently than Netanyahu can pull the plug with a single no vote.

Iran claimed a coordinated attack with Hezbollah, fired on a cargo ship and said so publicly, threatened every port in the region, and ordered its police to shoot protesters on sight. Seems like the behavior of a healthy, coherent government. The IEA opened the largest strategic reserve drawdown in history because the market agrees. Israel now faces two declared fronts, a budget held together by coalition arithmetic, and a northern population that has been promised a different reality three times and received the same one. Whether Hezbollah’s “Devouring Wind” meets an Israeli ground campaign or another deferred decision — that question will answer itself in days.

Shabbat shalom! Oh, for the days when Shabbat shalom! will come with some actual peace.

— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst

P.S. Tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. Eastern: The Machinery of Selective Outrage — why the organizations that shut down universities over Gaza went silent while Iran massacred tens of thousands, then reactivated to defend the regime from consequences. Paid subscribers get the full story. Give a gift subscription if someone you know needs to know how the red-green alliance works.

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Shalom, friends.

Day 11 of Operation Roaring Lion and the war is pulling in several directions at once. Iran tried to weaponize Hormuz — the one lever with global reach it still controls — and Trump destroyed the mine-laying fleet before the threat could mature. Hezbollah put a precision missile through Israel’s air defense net near Beit Shemesh without triggering a siren, and the IDF’s public acknowledgment of the failure is a sign of institutional health. Inside the coalition, Netanyahu stripped the budget of the politically explosive items — dairy reform, draft law, civilian benefits — to get war funding through the Knesset. The operational tempo is holding. The domestic costs are compounding.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Hormuz mined: Iran deployed naval mines in the strait; Trump destroyed 10 mine-laying boats within hours and warned of consequences “never seen before.” See The War Today.

• French-led escort coalition: Macron announced eight frigates and two carriers for a defensive mission to reopen Hormuz; the Netherlands committed a frigate. See Israel and the World.

• Iran’s repression apparatus fracturing: Basij paramilitaries discarding phones, mid-level commanders seeking exit strategies, Ilam Province’s internal security infrastructure largely dismantled by the IAF. See The War Today.

• Mojtaba’s $3 billion shadow empire: The new supreme leader’s hidden financial network creeps across London, Frankfurt, and the Gulf — though partially frozen by British sanctions. See The War Today.

• Hezbollah missile penetrates air defense: A strike hit a satellite facility near Beit Shemesh without interception or siren; IDF acknowledged an “isolated failure” and implemented adjustments. See The War Today.

• Nasser Unit commander eliminated: IAF killed Hassan Salameh, one of Hezbollah’s three southern Lebanon unit commanders, in a strike near Jwaya. See The War Today.

• Dairy reform killed, Draft Law shelved: Netanyahu pulled both from the budget to secure wartime funding; Smotrich absorbed his second policy defeat in weeks. See Inside Israel.

• Schools reopen in yellow zones: Partial reopening begins Wednesday — parents responsible for transport, 40% of schools lack shelters, and the color-coded system revives pandemic-era frustration. See Inside Israel.

• Abraham Accords partners deepen military ties: Morocco, UAE, and Bahrain increased exchanges with Israel during the war; 130 foreign military officials received classified IDF briefings in November. See Israel and the World.

Below: why Iran’s Hormuz gambit failed before it started, what the Beit Shemesh interception failure means for the home front reopening, the dairy reform’s death (as predicted in last week’s Long Brief) — and expanded Lebanon operations that defense officials are no longer calling contingency.

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Shalom, friends.

The second week of Operation Roaring Lion opened with black rain over Tehran and cluster warheads over central Israel. The IAF continues targeting senior roles— it killed the supreme leader’s military chief within 50 minutes of receiving the intelligence. Mojtaba Khamenei was officially installed as Iran’s new supreme leader, completing the hereditary succession of a regime founded to prevent exactly that. The Gulf is still absorbing Iranian fire, the northern front is accelerating, and the IRGC has promised to double heavy missile deployments starting tonight.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Babaeian Killed: Supreme Leader’s newly appointed military chief eliminated within 50 minutes of real-time intelligence. See The War Today.

• 600 Targets in Lebanon: IDF strikes 600+ Hezbollah targets in one week; five Quds Force commanders killed in Beirut hotel strike. See The War Today.

• IRGC Doubles Down: Iran announces 100% increase in heavy missile deployment and expanded target bank including non-military US and Israeli assets. See The War Today.

• Liège Synagogue Bombed: Explosion shatters windows of Belgium’s 1899 synagogue; cause under investigation. See Israel and the World.

• Mojtaba Installed: Assembly of Experts names Khamenei’s son as successor; Trump calls appointment “unacceptable.” See The War Today.

• UAE Furious Over Leaks: Abu Dhabi denies striking Iran and rebukes Israeli officials for attributing the attack publicly. See Israel and the World.

• Sde Teiman Probe Moves: State Attorney Aisman recommended to receive full leak investigation file — AG locked out. See Inside Israel.

• Three Synagogues Shot in Toronto: Third shooting in a week; global Jew-hate up 34% since war began. See Israel and the World.

Below: the Assessment on why the IAF’s 50-minute kill chain is now faster than Iran’s succession process, what Hezbollah’s order to confront the Lebanese army reveals about its confidence, and US-Israeli ground operations that changes what “everything is on the table” actually means.

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Shavua tov, friends.

The war crossed a structural threshold over Shabbat. Oil infrastructure joined the target set. The IAF dropped a hundred bombs on Khamenei’s underground bunker. Zamir announced “the next stage.” Hezbollah’s front is now a 600-target campaign with IRGC Quds Force commanders being hunted inside Beirut hotels. On the home front, the Finance Ministry is running the math on what it costs to keep the country closed, and the answer is: more than anyone budgeted (roughly NIS 9 billion a week). The Assembly of Experts is expected to pick Iran’s next supreme leader within 24 hours — a decision Trump has already publicly rejected before it’s been made.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Phase 2 — Oil and Industry: IDF strikes 30 Iranian oil storage tanks and Khamenei’s underground bunker; Zamir announces campaign’s next stage targeting military-industrial supply chain. See The War Today.

• Russia Feeds Iran Targeting Data: Washington Post reports Moscow providing Iran with locations of US warships and aircraft — active operational support, not just diplomacy. See The War Today.

• Isfahan Uranium Access: US intelligence believes Iran can retrieve enriched uranium through a surviving tunnel passage; Trump refuses to rule out ground forces. See The War Today.

• Hezbollah Front — 600 Targets: IRGC Quds Force commanders killed in Beirut hotel strike; Hamas commander eliminated in Tripoli; Akrotiri drone carried Russian hardware. See The War Today.

• Home Front Bleeds NIS 9B Weekly: Economy partially reopens; 120,000 Israelis stranded abroad; small businesses hemorrhaging under inadequate compensation. See Inside Israel.

• CPJ Launders Terror Operatives as Journalists: Breakdown shows 60% of “journalists killed by Israel” were Hamas affiliates, Houthi propagandists, or IRGC media employees. See Israel and the World.

• 53 Democrats Vote Against Calling Iran a Terror Sponsor: Resolution passes 372–53; moderate no votes driven by primary politics and fear of providing Trump legal justification for the war. See Israel and the World.

Below: the Assessment on what Russia’s intelligence-sharing actually changes for US force protection, why the Isfahan uranium passage is the war’s most dangerous loose end, the CPJ’s evidentiary sleight of hand, three Toronto synagogues shot at in one week, and why the Assembly of Experts’ 24-hour window matters more than every diplomatic channel combined.

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Shalom, friends.

We took a break for Purim. The war did not. What follows covers multiple days of developments — and there is a lot of ground to move through. The regime that promised Israel’s destruction for 47 years has lost its supreme leader, its senior command, its air defenses, its political succession body, and — as of the latest assessments — most of its ability to launch ballistic missiles at Israel. Iran is still shooting, Hezbollah has entered the fight, the Gulf has fractured into open combat with Tehran, and a NATO ally has taken its first Iranian hit.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• 5,000+ Munitions: IAF strikes dismantle Tehran’s leadership compound, IRGC headquarters, and security command infrastructure across twelve waves. See The War Today.

• Mojtaba Khamenei Selected: Assembly of Experts reportedly picks the late supreme leader’s son as successor — during a vote the IAF struck mid-count. See The War Today.

• F-35 Air-to-Air Kill: IAF Adir shoots down Iranian YAK-130 over Tehran — first F-35 combat kill of a manned aircraft in history. See The War Today.

• Gulf States at War: Qatari F-15s down two Iranian bombers two minutes from Al Udeid; Doha arrests IRGC cells and strikes inside Iran. See The War Today.

• Hezbollah Opens Fire: Rockets and drones launched at Haifa; IDF strikes 320+ targets in Lebanon and describes Hezbollah’s entry as a “strategic ambush.” See The War Today.

• Iron Beam Debut: Footage appears to show first combat use of Israel’s laser air defense system intercepting a drone on the northern border. See The War Today.

• AG vs. Ben-Gvir — Mid-War: Attorney general demands High Court order to fire Ben-Gvir; coalition rallies, opposition MK Malinovsky breaks ranks to call timing unreasonable. See Inside Israel.

• TASE Hits Record: Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closes at all-time high; shekel near 30-year high against the dollar; 82% of Israelis back the war. See Inside Israel.

• Jew-Hate Surges Globally: Attacks on visibly Jewish people in Brooklyn, Milan, and Buenos Aires — three continents, one week, one permission structure. See Israel and the World.

Below: the Assessment on why the Assembly of Experts strike changes the category of legitimate targets, what Qatar’s air-to-air combat means for the Gulf order, and the DTW item on Hormuz that reprices the war for every economy on earth.

Nine Flash Brief lines and every one of them would have been the lead story any “normal” day. Iran’s command structure is collapsing faster than its succession process can replace it, the Gulf states that hosted Hamas are now in air combat with Iran, and the Western institutions that claim to speak for human rights are mourning the dictator whose security forces murdered well over 30,000 protesters in January. The operational picture favors Israel and the US on every measurable axis. The political picture — in Washington, on campuses, — is already being contested.

The War Today

IAF Dismantles Tehran’s Command Architecture as Mojtaba Khamenei Surfaces

The Israeli Air Force has struck Iran with over 5,000 munitions across more than 600 targets since Operation Roaring Lion opened Saturday. Since the March 1 brief, the IAF completed at least twelve additional waves of strikes across Tehran and western Iran, targeting progressively deeper layers of the regime’s command infrastructure. Israeli jets dropped munitions on the regime’s central leadership compound in the heart of Tehran — described by the IDF as “one of the most heavily secured assets in Iran” and spanning several streets — dismantling the Presidential Office, the Supreme National Security Council building, and the gathering site of the regime’s most senior security forum. Separately, the IAF struck the General Staff headquarters for Internal Security, the Tharallah defense command center, IRGC headquarters, Intelligence Directorate headquarters, Basij headquarters, Quds Force headquarters, Cyber Warfare headquarters, and the Internal Security unit responsible for suppressing protests. Col. “Aleph,” commander of Ramat David Airbase, stated that Israeli strikes had killed thousands of Iranian forces in the preceding two days. An IAF F-35 “Adir” shot down an Iranian YAK-130 warplane over Tehran yesterday — the first air-to-air kill by an F-35 in combat and Israel’s first engagement with a manned enemy aircraft since 1985, when F-15s downed two Syrian MiG-23s over Lebanon. On Tuesday, the IAF struck a building in Qom where the Assembly of Experts had gathered to elect a new supreme leader — the strike occurred during the vote count while members were holding ballots. Iranian opposition media subsequently reported that the Assembly selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the late supreme leader’s son, as successor. Mojtaba survived the Saturday strikes that killed his father, though his wife and a son were reportedly killed. The Islamic Republic — born in an anti-monarchical revolution — will have built a hereditary succession line of ayatollahs, if it sticks. Israel also eliminated IRGC special operations chief Rahman Mokadam, described as the architect of the assassination attempt on President Trump ahead of the 2024 election. Defense Minister Katz disclosed that Operation Roaring Lion was originally planned for later this year but was advanced to February due to developments inside Iran, Trump’s posture, and a major expansion in Israeli intelligence capabilities since Operation Rising Lion.

Assessment: The IAF is now performing stand-in munitions delivery over Tehran — bombs dropped directly over targets, not standoff missiles — which means Israeli jets are operating inside Iranian airspace with the confidence of a country that has already destroyed the air defenses that were supposed to prevent exactly this. The Assembly of Experts strike is a different category of target. Striking a religious-constitutional body during a succession vote is Israel telling the regime and its observers that the architecture of political continuity is a legitimate military objective. Mojtaba’s reported selection — if it holds — hands the regime a leader with IRGC security ties and no independent clerical authority. Which means the revolutionary theocracy now depends on a man whose primary credential is his surname. The operational math favors Israel and the US on every axis except time — the longer the campaign runs, the more political friction accumulates in Washington. Katz’s admission that Roaring Lion was accelerated by months confirms what the operational tempo implies: this was an intelligence-driven window, not a crisis-driven response.

Iran’s War Crosses Into Europe and the Gulf Fractures

Iran struck a European country for the first time when an Iranian drone hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus overnight Monday, hours after two Iranian missiles were fired toward the island and fell into the sea. The base houses approximately 2,000 British personnel and their families. Damage was limited and no casualties were reported. The strike followed PM Starmer’s authorization for US defensive strikes against Iranian missile sites from British bases on the island. NATO air defense systems intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched from Iran toward Turkish airspace — the first time NATO has acted operationally against an Iranian missile targeting a member state. Turkish authorities said debris fell in Hatay province. A Turkish source told AFP the missile was aimed at a base in Cyprus but deviated. Turkey summoned the Iranian ambassador. In the Gulf, Qatari F-15s shot down two Iranian Su-24 tactical bombers that were two minutes from reaching Al Udeid Air Base — home to approximately 10,000 US service members — and the Ras Laffan gas facility. The Iranian jets, carrying bombs and guided munitions, had descended to 80 feet to evade radar. It was the first time the Qatari air force engaged in air-to-air combat. Qatar also arrested 10 IRGC-linked operatives in two cells — seven conducting espionage on military and critical sites, three preparing sabotage with drone training — the first time Doha has publicly accused the IRGC of directing operations on its soil. Qatar’s PM rejected Iranian claims that attacks were aimed only at “American interests,” calling the strikes a “flagrant violation” of Qatari sovereignty that targeted Hamad International Airport, civilian areas, and industrial zones. Iran attacked Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery by drone for the second consecutive day. Qatar carried out retaliatory strikes inside Iran. Hundreds of Kurdish fighters launched ground operations inside Iran from the Iraq border, with Israeli and American officials confirming the activity. Kurdish sources described a “major opportunity” to pressure Iranian security forces across multiple fronts. The White House denied arming Kurdish forces while confirming Trump spoke with Kurdish leaders. Iran’s intelligence ministry claimed it struck “separatist” border posts and that forces suffered heavy losses. Steve Witkoff revealed that Iranian negotiators had boasted of possessing 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium — enough for 11 nuclear bombs — as their opening negotiating position, and that Tehran rejected a US offer of ten years of zero enrichment with American-funded fuel supply.

Assessment: The IRGC sent manned bombers on what was functionally a suicide run against the largest US military installation in the Middle East. Two minutes from target. Eighty feet off the deck. Carrying live munitions. That is an act of desperation from an organization that has lost its supreme leader, its senior command, and its air defenses in well under a week — and decided to spend two irreplaceable airframes and their crews to prove it can still reach the Gulf. Qatar’s response — shooting them down, arresting IRGC cells, striking inside Iran, and publicly rejecting Tehran’s denials — represents the most dramatic realignment in Gulf security posture since the Abraham Accords. Doha was Hamas’s diplomatic host. Now it is in air-to-air combat with Iran. The Kurdish ground incursion adds a land dimension the air campaign lacked. Kurdish forces cannot topple the regime alone — they lack the numbers, the internal cohesion, and the logistics — but they force the IRGC to divert ground security resources to the western border at precisely the moment its command infrastructure is in collapse. Iran striking a NATO ally’s base in Cyprus and firing a missile that crossed Turkish airspace means the IRGC is now at war with the military alliance it spent decades avoiding. NATO’s Rutte said Article 5 activation is not currently needed — which is the alliance’s way of keeping the door open while hoping it doesn’t have to walk through it. Witkoff’s disclosure that Iran boasted of what amounts to be 11 bombs and rejected zero enrichment shows that Iran chose nuclear capability over a deal, and said so to the American envoy’s face.

Hezbollah Opens the Northern Front; Iron Beam Fires for the First Time

Hezbollah, in an attempt to commit Israel-assisted suicide, launched rockets and drones from southern Lebanon, triggering sirens in Haifa and the Krayot towns in the Haifa Bay area. Rockets were intercepted; others fell in open areas. Hezbollah claimed it targeted a “military site” south of Haifa with precision missiles and drone swarms, calling the attack a response to Khamenei’s assassination and Israeli violations against Lebanon. Footage circulating appears to show the first operational use of the Iron Beam laser air defense system, intercepting a drone along the northern border — the first combat use of a high-energy laser defense system in an active conflict. The system was delivered to the IAF’s air defense array in December. A separate drone interception caused damage to two homes in the Upper Galilee and a fire ignited near the border community of Shlomi. No injuries were reported. Two IDF soldiers from the 401st Brigade were moderately wounded by anti-tank fire while operating in southern Lebanon yesterday. The IDF has assumed forward defensive positions to establish an additional defensive layer for northern residents. The IDF struck more than 320 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon since Hezbollah joined the conflict, including at least 80 in the past 24 hours alone — command centers in Beirut, weapons depots, and terrorist infrastructure. Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo warned that strikes would intensify across Lebanon including Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon, and said approximately 300,000 residents have been evacuated from southern Lebanon. The IDF described Hezbollah’s entry as walking into “a strategic ambush.” Iranian ballistic missile fire on Israel has continued but at a declining rate — all overnight projectiles were intercepted. Since the war began, 13 Iranian missile impacts have been recorded in Israeli residential areas, with large warhead impacts in Beit Shemesh, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba, alongside fragments and cluster submunitions in other locations. The Home Front Command partially eased restrictions Wednesday, permitting gatherings of up to 50 people near shelters and allowing workplaces to operate under the same conditions. A weekend assessment may permit schools to reopen next week.

Assessment: Hezbollah resolved its public-versus-private contradiction from the previous brief. It chose the public channel. The rockets at Haifa and the Krayot are not a full-scale opening — they were a calibrated entry designed to demonstrate solidarity with Iran without inviting the kind of ground operation that destroyed the organization’s infrastructure in 2025. The IDF will determine if they miscalculated. Northern Command had prepared for this scenario as part of Roaring Lion planning, and 320 targets struck in three days suggests the target bank was pre-built and waiting. The question is whether Hezbollah escalates or maintains a demonstrative tempo — and the answer depends on whether the new supreme leader (whoever it functionally is) can issue credible orders to an organization that lost its own senior leadership less than a year ago. Iron Beam’s combat debut is a strategic milestone that will not receive the attention it deserves because it happened during a week when everything else also happened. A laser interceptor that kills drones at the cost of running a dishwasher changes the economic equation of asymmetric warfare. Every drone Iran and Hezbollah send becomes a net loss with no corresponding depletion of Israeli interceptor stocks. The declining rate of Iranian ballistic missile fire and the partial easing of Home Front Command restrictions are two data points that reinforce each other — the operational pressure on Israeli civilians is diminishing as the IAF degrades Iran’s launch infrastructure.

Inside Israel

AG Demands Ben-Gvir’s Ouster in the Middle of a War

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara submitted a legal opinion to the High Court on Wednesday demanding that it order Netanyahu to dismiss National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir if there is no “meaningful change” in his alleged interference in police operations — while Israeli pilots are flying sorties over Tehran and millions of citizens are in and out of shelters. The Prime Minister’s Office called the action “inconceivable,” stated that Ben-Gvir would continue serving, and noted that no criminal investigation has been opened against him. Ben-Gvir responded on X that “a dismissed criminal official is trying to promote a coup d’état” — referencing the Knesset’s unanimous August 4 vote to remove Baharav-Miara, which the High Court elects to ignore. Justice Minister Yariv Levin called the High Court hearing “illegal” and said no AG has the authority to determine who serves as a minister. MK Yulia Malinovsky, of opposition Yisrael Beiteinu, also condemned the timing as “detached and clearly unreasonable.” Coalition members issued a joint statement calling the effort “a coup against democracy” and pledging to “stand as a wall against the baseless dismissal of a government minister.” Ben-Gvir had submitted a written response to the Court in January noting the absence of any conviction, indictment, investigation, or public report justifying the petitions—which were brought by radical left-wing organizations including Ima Era and Tag Meir. Separately, a court extended the restrictive conditions of Netanyahu’s close aide Yonatan Urich in the Bild leak affair but clarified that he is not barred from speaking with the prime minister — rejecting police efforts to read a contact prohibition into an earlier ruling. The investigation has not yet questioned Netanyahu— investigators told the court there is no foreseeable date for doing so under wartime conditions. Urich has been under restrictions since last March and defense counsel secured an acknowledgment that he made no attempt to obstruct the investigation.

Assessment: The AG filed a petition to fire an elected minister — without an indictment, without a criminal investigation, without a public finding — during the most intense military operation in Israeli history. Baharav-Miara’s defenders cite procedural deadlines. The coalition sees a judicial establishment that has never accepted the electoral legitimacy of the current government to advance a removal the ballot box did not deliver. The practical outcome is that Ben-Gvir stays, the constitutional confrontation deepens, and the AG’s credibility as a neutral arbiter (not that that facade had much depth left) erodes further with every wartime filing. Malinovsky’s break from the opposition is worth watching — when a Liberman MK calls the AG’s timing unreasonable, the political alignment against judicial overreach has grown beyond the coalition.

Markets Rally, Museums Evacuate, and Israel Marks Purim in Shelters

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange closed at an all-time high Monday, rising 890 points to 16,150, with the TA-35 and TA-125 indices both gaining over 4.5%. The shekel strengthened 1.5% against the dollar (approaching a 30-year high) as investors bet that the campaign would reduce long-term regional instability. A successful campaign could trigger a credit rating upgrade and that the Israeli market is currently more attractive than the US market. Meanwhile, supermarket chains reported purchasing volumes 300% above normal, with Carrefour branches open from 6 a.m. to midnight and online orders doubling. Schools and nonessential businesses remained closed under Home Front Command guidelines. Israel’s museums packed up treasures for the fourth time since October 7 — the Israel Museum relocated the Great Isaiah Scroll and other ancient manuscripts to secure storage, the National Library moved its permanent exhibitions underground, and the Tel Aviv Museum stored works including a Van Gogh that hasn’t been rehung since 2023. Purim was observed under a ban on public gatherings, including synagogue megillah readings. We’ve observed some of those readings happening in bomb shelters. The IDF spokesperson confirmed gatherings are prohibited “regardless of purpose or location” — but that doesn’t stop Israelis from living while forced underground. Leading rabbis, including Israel’s chief Sephardic and Ashkenazic rabbis, endorsed live virtual readings via Zoom as sufficient to fulfill the mitzvah. The Israel Democracy Institute found 82% of Israelis — 93% of Jewish Israelis and 26% of Israeli Arabs — support the war. Among Jewish Israelis, support spans the political spectrum: 76% on the left, 93% center, 97% right. Three-quarters of Jewish Israelis support continuing the war until the regime falls; only 3% chose immediate cessation. American opinion diverges sharply: a CNN poll found 41% approve of US military action, with 77% of Republicans in favor versus 18% of Democrats. A Reuters/Ipsos poll put overall US approval at just 27%.

Assessment: The TASE rally at the onset of a regional war is the market’s verdict on the strategic environment, and it reads the operation as net positive for Israel’s long-term risk profile. Investors are pricing in a reduced Iranian threat overhang — the same overhang that depressed Israeli valuations and complicated credit assessments for a decade. If the campaign ends well, the credit upgrade path is real. The 82% domestic support figure is the political bedrock the coalition needs — and the 76% support among Jewish leftists means the opposition cannot credibly argue the war is unpopular even among its own voters. The American numbers tell a different story: a partisan divide so deep that the same military operation polls at 77% among Republicans and 18% among Democrats, meaning US domestic support is hostage to a political environment that treats Iran policy as a proxy for Trump approval. The Purim-in-shelters image — megillah by Zoom, museums emptied for the fourth time, the Isaiah Scroll back underground — is the texture of a country that has learned to function under fire.

Israel and the World

The Western Left Rallies for the Regime That Just Died

UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski called for Britain to sever ties with the US and Israel, described the killing of Khamenei as an “assassination” of a foreign leader, and called the US and Israel “rogue states.” His deputy, Mothin Ali, attended a London rally where demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” and “Khamenei you make us proud,” burned an American flag, and displayed Islamic Republic flags. Ali was filmed standing among the regime banners. Former security minister MP Tom Tugendhat accused the Greens of standing “with those who murder young Iranians seeking a better life” and “murder gay and lesbian men and women by hanging them from cranes.” Ali had previously described Gaza as “the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen” on October 7, 2023. In Washington, Sen. Chris Van Hollen told J Street’s opening plenary, to applause, that AIPAC is “neither pro-American nor pro-Israel,” accused Israel of violating American and international law, and called the Iran strikes “a gross violation of your constitution.” Van Hollen cited unverified Iranian claims of over 140 schoolchildren killed, though the IDF said it was “not aware” of operations in that area and CENTCOM said it was investigating. Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters across US campuses — including at Sarah Lawrence, NYU, Bowdoin, and Bryn Mawr — issued statements proclaiming solidarity with Iran’s regime, calling for “de-platforming Zionists,” and urging tax resistance to defund the war effort. The UC Ethnic Studies Council shared content from a group that defended terrorism against Israel, declaring US military bases, not Iran, as the true intruders in the region. UCL’s Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society mourned Khamenei’s “martyrdom” and urged Shia Muslims in the West to “remain aware and ready.” California governor Gavin Newsom — widely regarded as the 2028 Democratic presidential frontrunner — said Israel’s leadership was walking the US toward reconsidering military support, described Israel as an “apartheid state,” and accused Trump of dragging the US into “an illegal, dangerous war” while acknowledging the Iranian regime “must go.” In North Carolina, a Democratic primary contest between Rep. Valerie Foushee and challenger Nida Allam devolved into a competition over who could be more critical of Israel, with Allam citing unverified Iranian claims of school bombings and Foushee — once backed by AIPAC — now emphasizing her break with the group and her record opposing arms sales.

Assessment: The Iranian regime murdered tens of thousands of protesters in January. It hangs gay men from cranes. It funded and armed the organization that carried out October 7. And the Western progressive ecosystem — from a British party leader to an American senator to tenured faculty at elite universities to the likely 2028 Democratic nominee — responded to its supreme leader’s death by mourning him, defending his sovereignty, and attacking the countries that killed him. Van Hollen spoke at J Street’s main plenary. J Street claims to support Israel. Anyone with more than two functioning neurons knows that claim is absurd. Newsom is positioning for a presidential campaign. The Faculty for Justice in Palestine network operates across dozens of campuses with institutional support from ethnic studies departments. UCL’s Islamic society told Shia Muslims to “remain ready” — on a British campus, in English, without consequence! The North Carolina primary is a diagnostic: when both candidates in a Democratic district compete to distance themselves from Israel, the party’s center of gravity on the issue is no longer in dispute. Iranians danced in the streets of Los Angeles, London, Berlin, and Tehran when Khamenei died. American “progressives” told them they were wrong to celebrate.

Jew-Hate Surges from Brooklyn to Buenos Aires to Milan

A masked attacker on a Brooklyn N train punched a 54-year-old Jewish man repeatedly while shouting antisemitic slurs, then snatched his yarmulke and fled. The victim was hospitalized (in stable condition). The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating. Anti-Jewish hate crimes accounted for more than half of all bias incidents reported to the NYPD in January and February. In Milan, two 19-year-old Argentine Jewish tourists were attacked outside a supermarket late Sunday night by a group of approximately ten North African migrants who spotted their kippahs and began shouting “f**king Jews” before beating them, leaving one with a broken nose. Italian authorities opened a criminal investigation. The European Jewish Congress called the attack a sign of rising antisemitic hostility. Milan Jewish community president Walker Meghnagi requested increased security at Jewish schools and synagogues. Italian antisemitic incidents nearly reached four digits for the first time in 2025 — 963 classified cases, up from 877 in 2024, 453 in 2023, and 241 in 2022. In Buenos Aires, a Jewish artist was expelled from the San Telmo street fair after asking a vendor to remove a Palestinian flag—fellow vendors chanted “Zionists out,” “Free Palestine,” and “Leave and never return.” The Buenos Aires city government condemned the incident as an antisemitic attack. Jewish Argentine lawmaker Waldo Wolff filed a criminal complaint under anti-discrimination laws.

Assessment: Three continents, one week, one pattern. A kippah on a Brooklyn train is enough to trigger a beating. A kippah at a Milan supermarket is enough to trigger a mob. A Jewish identity at a Buenos Aires market is enough to trigger expulsion. The acceleration curve in Italy — from 241 incidents in 2022 to 963 in 2025 — maps directly onto the post-October 7 permission structure. Every “anti-Zionist” protest, every faculty letter, every UN resolution that treats Jewish self-defense as criminal creates operational cover for the people who beat Jews in the street. Argentina under Milei has responded with prosecutions and permit revocations — a model that produces consequences. Italy is investigating. The NYPD is investigating. The question in each case is whether investigation produces deterrence or simply documents the trend line. The answer, so far, is the trend line.

Briefly Noted

Frontline & Security

• Israel National News: Israeli police, Border Police, and IDF forces raided al-Azariya overnight, seizing a Trijicon long-gun sight from a 25-year-old suspect’s home; a separate operation in Beit Ula recovered an airsoft pistol, ammunition, fireworks materials, and a face covering. Investigators are also examining whether the al-Azariya suspect has been collecting Israeli National Insurance benefits while residing in Judea and Samaria — a fraud angle that adds a welfare-exploitation layer to the weapons case.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• Forward: Iranian diaspora communities celebrated Khamenei’s death in the streets of Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Paris, Sydney, and Toronto — with verified footage of celebrations inside Iran as well, including the toppling of a Khomeini monument in the south — while the DSA, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, and Democratic lawmakers condemned the strikes as an attack on “an entire people.” When so-called progressives tell Iranians who danced on the grave of a dictator who murdered tens of thousands that they are wrong about their own oppression, they are defending the sovereignty of the ayatollahs, not the people.

• Honest Reporting: The Washington Post described Khamenei as known for his “bushy white beard and easy smile” and fondness for Victor Hugo; the New York Times summarized him as a “hardline cleric” who made Iran “a regional power”; Sky News called him Trump’s “arch foe” — across outlets, aesthetic detail and euphemism replaced the record of a man who executed dissidents, crushed protests, and funded proxy armies for dozens of years. Headlines shape historical memory, and Western obituary conventions just gave a theocratic dictator the treatment normally reserved for retired statesmen.

• Honest Reporting: Industrial-scale fabrications — Netanyahu assassination claims, recycled destruction footage passed off as Tel Aviv devastation, viral lies that Muslims are barred from Israeli shelters, and Tucker Carlson amplifying false Mossad-cells-in-Qatar narrative that Qatar itself denied — have spread faster than corrections in the first few days of the war.

Domestic & Law

• JNS: Utah state senator Nate Blouin introduced SB 329 to repeal the state’s anti-boycott law, which restricts government contracts with companies that boycott Israel — calling the statute “idiotic” and writing that “Trump is starting yet another war in the Middle East on the behest of Israel.” Thirty-eight states have anti-BDS laws; Blouin’s bill is a test case for whether the war creates legislative openings that didn’t exist a week ago.

Culture, Religion & Society

• JNS: Roughly one million Russian-speaking olim who arrived in the 1990s achieved high functional integration — economic participation, military service, professional mobility — while remaining symbolically peripheral, never securing a place in Israel’s national narrative commensurate with their contribution.

• Jewish Journal: Hundreds of US-based volunteers staff Israel’s SAHAR overnight emotional support lines during the war, leveraging the time-zone gap so that when it is 4 a.m. in Israel and the sirens have stopped but the fear hasn’t, an American volunteer is on the other end of the screen.

Developments to Watch

Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)

• IRGC Claims Ben Gurion Airport Strike — Iran says it launched Khorramshahr-4 missiles with 1-ton warheads at Ben Gurion, citing a “27th Squadron” that hasn’t existed since 2010. Fragments landed near the airport with no injuries; the targeting claim is fabricated but the reach is real.

• Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capacity Degrading Fast — IDF and US forces are hunting mobile launchers across western Iran; military assessments give roughly 24 hours before Iran’s ability to strike Israel with ballistic missiles is even more dramatically reduced. Tehran will likely shift to short-range fire against Gulf states and proxy activation as the long-range arsenal empties.

• Strait of Hormuz Becomes Active Combat Zone — The IRGC threatened to target American, European, and Israeli ships transiting Hormuz, claimed a hit on a US oil tanker, and South Korea confirmed seven tankers carrying vital supplies are stuck. The US says it is working on plans to secure the strait; a 20%-of-global-oil chokepoint under active fire reprices the war for every economy on earth. LIKELY TO ESCALATE

• Houthis Threaten Gulf Arab Infrastructure — The Houthis warned Arab countries they will attack “sensitive infrastructure” if any Gulf state strikes Iran.

• CENTCOM Requests 100-Day Intelligence Surge — CENTCOM asked the Pentagon for additional military intelligence officers to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days. The timeline tells you what the US military thinks this campaign looks like: not a week, not a month — a quarter.

Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)

• Hezbollah Rocket Tempo Holds Steady — More than 10 rockets from Lebanon targeted northern Israel Wednesday; some intercepted, others struck open areas (by protocol), no injuries. The IDF assesses Hezbollah attacks may intensify — the current tempo is demonstrative, not saturating, and the next 48 hours will show whether Hezbollah commits to escalation or holds at this calibrated level.

• Iran Threatens Israeli Embassies Over Lebanon — Iran warned it will attack Israeli embassies worldwide if Israel strikes the Iranian embassy in Lebanon. As if they weren’t already targeting them. The threat converts diplomatic premises into hostage leverage — a tool of last resort from a regime running out of conventional options.

Home Front & Politics

• Home Front Command Weekend Assessment on Schools — The HFC is scheduled to conduct another assessment over the weekend and may decide to allow educational institutions to reopen next week.

Diplomatic & Legal

• European Military Footprint Expanding — Italy plans to deploy anti-aircraft missiles to Gulf countries and a multi-domain force to the Middle East with Spain and France; Spain is sending a frigate to Cyprus; Australia announced military deployments to the region; France authorized US aircraft on French bases in the Middle East.

• Turkey Monitors Kurdish Fighters While Warning Iran — Ankara said Kurdish actions “threaten the security of Iran and the stability of the region” while simultaneously reserving the right to respond to Iranian hostile acts and coordinating with NATO. Turkey is threading a needle between Kurdish containment and Iranian deterrence — a position that becomes untenable if either front demands a choice.

In Ki Tisa, the people build a golden calf while Moses is on the mountain — because forty days felt like too long to wait without certainty. The Islamic Republic is building its own idol now. A hereditary supreme leader with no clerical authority, installed under bombardment, in a regime founded on the rejection of hereditary rule. The IAF is on the mountain. The regime is melting down its gold. Whether the idol survives depends on how many days Washington is willing to wait.

Shabbat shalom!

— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst

P.S. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 Eastern, the Long Brief — The Milk Cartel Cracks — lands in your inbox: the dairy quota system, the Finance Ministry's reform proposal, coalition arithmetic, and five scenarios (with probabilities) for what comes next.

Tip? Share it securely via signal: (@Uri.30) or proton: (uri.zehavi@proton.me).

Shavua tov, friends.

A note before we begin: this is a fast-moving news environment. I’ve made dozens of edits this morning alone. What you’re reading is accurate as of publication — treat anything Iran-related as potentially superseded by the time you finish your coffee.

Now: where things stand.

Purim is nearly upon us and the news seems an echo of the story. In the Megillah, a Persian official with genocidal ambitions issued a royal decree to annihilate every Jew in the kingdom. The decree was reversed. The architect of the destruction did not survive. Haman’s name we blot out. The book says his ten sons were hanged.

Forty-seven years after Khomeini established the Islamic Republic on a foundation of Jewish annihilation, the Supreme Leader of the modern Persian state is dead — killed by the nation he swore to destroy. The question now is what the second chapter of this Megillah looks like: whether the regime collapses, consolidates under hardliners, or fractures in ways no intelligence service fully models.

⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Khamenei Dead: Iran confirms supreme leader killed in Operation Roaring Lion; 40-day mourning declared, interim council formed. See The War Today.

• Beit Shemesh Hit: 8 killed in Beit Shemesh; 10-year-old girl critically wounded; Home Front Command search and rescue, medical teams, and evacuation helicopter operating at the scene. IDF confirms early warning system activated as planned. See The War Today.

• Nonstop Strikes Ordered: Defense Minister Katz declares air superiority achieved and announces continuous IDF strikes on Iran for operation duration. See The War Today.

• Hormuz Closes: Hapag-Lloyd suspends all Strait of Hormuz transit; Iranian forces attack tanker Sky Light near the strait. See The War Today.

• Attrition Doctrine: Iran launches missiles in sustained drips rather than volleys — a deliberate strategy to conserve roughly 2,500 remaining missiles over a longer campaign. See Developments to Watch.

• Erbil Consulate Hit: Suicide drone strikes US consulate in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan — Iran-aligned militia network activating without central command authorization. See Developments to Watch.

• Modi in Jerusalem: Indian PM addresses Knesset, calls Israel “protective wall against barbarism,” signs bilateral agreements — $20.5B in arms purchases over five years behind the rhetoric. See Israel and the World.

• Hezbollah Stays Out — For Now: IDF strikes Radwan Force compounds in Bekaa Valley; current assessment has Hezbollah watching its patron’s succession crisis before deciding. See Developments to Watch.

• Coalition Holds: Israeli opposition closes ranks; FADC convenes Monday; Haredi activists in Modiin Illit erect “hostage” iconography to protest the draft on the day IDF executes its largest operation in history. See Inside Israel.

Below: the Assessment on why Iran’s drip campaign is coherent strategy even from structural weakness, what the Beit Shemesh strikes reveal about Israel’s home front gap, and IRGC command continuity (the most consequential unanswered question in the region right now).

Read more