Israel Brief: Sunday, November 16

Gaza re-arms under a ceasefire nobody believes, Iran wedges open Judea and Samaria, and Washington still tries to build a “day after” on top of a day that never ended.

Shalom, friends.

Gaza’s west is slipping back under Hamas taxation and terror, while the east holds together through IDF rifles and clan militias improvising civic order the world won’t supply. Up north, Hezbollah rebuilds its arsenals under living rooms and swears it has “limits,” as if anyone is fooled by the plastic surgery and panic in its senior ranks. Tehran is shifting weight southward—arming Judea and Samaria as its next proxy theater while hijacking ships in the Gulf and crying victimhood at the UN.

At home, the security system is tightening even as the political one stumbles.

Here’s today’s dashboard before we go deeper.

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⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Gaza: Hamas operatives crossed the Yellow Line again under a “body search” pretext; IDF killed terrorist infiltrators and demolished more tunnel infrastructure east of Rafah. See The War Today.

• North: Israeli airstrikes hit Hezbollah weapons sites in Nabatieh and Tyre; Beirut still denies the group even operates south of the Litani. See The War Today.

• Judea & Samaria: IDF killed a terrorist near Nablus and seized dozens of weapons in overnight raids as Iran accelerates arming local cells. See Inside Israel.

• Iran/Axis: IRGC seized a UAE-linked tanker in the Gulf of Oman while pushing missiles and drones into Hezbollah–Syria routes. See Israel & the World.

• Diplomacy: U.S. Gaza plan stalls; Russia and China block the ISF vote; Arab states won’t take the Rafah tunnel gunmen. See Israel & the World.

• Homefront: Haredi draft protests turned violent against a Shas MK; the High Court pushes both sides toward a neutral overseer on Sde Teiman. See Inside Israel.

• Information War: UN rapporteur denies October 7 sexual violence despite her own organization’s findings; Christian media sign covenant backing Israel’s sovereignty and Judea/Samaria terminology. See Israel & the World.

The full brief and analysis continue below.

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The contradictions are starting to align. Gaza’s “ceasefire” behaves like a contact line where humanitarian pretext masks weapons runs. Hezbollah’s rebuild is now too visible to deny, too fragile to stop, and too dangerous to ignore. Iran is shifting the center of gravity into Judea and Samaria with a patience the West mistakes for moderation. At home, restraint and resolve are dancing a tight duet—more precision, less illusion, and a public that no longer buys the diplomatic mood boards.

Time to walk the fronts.

The War Today

Hamas Regroups as Washington Floats Retreat

Hamas is openly rebuilding its rule across the areas Israel vacated under the ceasefire—taxing shipments, fining merchants, silencing opponents, and controlling roads while winter floods swamp civilian tent camps. In the east, IDF units and vetted clan militias operate as the only functioning authority, forced to engage terrorists who test the Yellow Line demarcation. The IDF made progress with the tunnel network, demolishing a kilometer-long Beit Hanoun tunnel where three soldiers fell last year. The Trump team, unable to recruit states to disarm Hamas, is now signaling “interim solutions” that would skip demilitarization entirely—an idea Israeli officials call dead on arrival. The U.S. draft UNSC resolution folds in a “path to self-determination,” while Israel’s cabinet locks in the opposite: Gaza demilitarized “to the last tunnel,” no Palestinian state, and no foreign force that refuses to use weapons. Meanwhile, GOP senators demand UNRWA be excluded from all Gaza plans, correctly warning it is Hamas with blue lanyards. And as Hamas reloads and Washington hesitates, Netanyahu and Putin held a rare call at Moscow’s request—focused on Gaza, the hostage exchange, Iran’s nuclear track, and the battle over who gets to shape the next phase.

Assessment: The core contradiction is now out in the open: both Russia and the U.S. are trying to build Gaza’s “day after” without first breaking Hamas, while Hamas is using every minute of delay to rebuild the very structures that made October 7 possible. Israel’s stance—no reconstruction before disarmament—is the only one grounded in reality. Any plan that invites foreign troops who won’t fight, or restores UNRWA’s pipeline, is not peacekeeping but rehab for a terror army. Demilitarization must come first, under IDF terms, or Gaza and Hames remains as they were.

Media Sources: Israel National News, Ynet, Times of Israel, JNS, Jerusalem Post.

Hezbollah Kills Its Critics as Israel Preps Next Strike Cycle

Israel continues coercive strikes from Toul to Nabatieh while preparing a sharper Beqaa campaign, even as Lebanese leadership insists—absurdly—that Hezbollah “does not operate south of the Litani.” Hezbollah’s behavior shows the truth: Unit 121, the organization’s internal execution arm, murdered Lebanese Christian politician Elias Hasrouni, staged the corpse as a car crash, and is tied to a string of assassinations—of journalists, politicians, critics. These killings are designed to choke off intra-Shiite dissent as Hezbollah rebuilds manpower, reopens Syrian resupply lines, and threatens civil war if Beirut enforces the U.S. disarmament timeline.

Assessment: Hezbollah is sending two messages simultaneously: to Israel, that it is rearming for the next round; to Beirut, that disarmament means civil war. Israel can’t afford to buy the fiction that a militia with assassination squads, missile workshops under apartments, and Syrian corridors reopened is “contained.” The window is brief: either the LAF enforces disarmament inside living rooms, or Israel will enforce it from 20,000 feet. Hezbollah understands time; Israel must understand tempo.

Media Sources: Jerusalem Post, Israel National News.

Southern Samaria Heats Up as Iran Pushes the Next Theater

The IDF’s recent West Bank sweep killed two terrorists, arrested more than 40 suspects—including bomb-makers, gunmen, Hamas organizers and arms traffickers—and pulled rifles and other weapons off the street from Silwad through Hebron and the northern brigades. That sits on top of a covert police bust of over 100 starter pistols smuggled in via Rome and destined for quick conversion, and fresh Shin Bet arrests of yet another Kiryat Yam spy pair feeding sensitive imagery and base locations to Iranian intelligence, with the wife allegedly leveraging her reserve-duty access to help. Taken together, it’s one picture: Iran working methodically to light a new theater in Judea and Samaria while local Hamas infrastructure, clan networks and “ISIS-curious” cells try to turn the Bethlehem–Hebron belt into the next launchpad. All this is happening in a population where current polling still shows overwhelmingly large majorities cheering Hamas and October 7 and openly backing a “solution” that runs from the river to the sea and Jew-free—no mini-state next to Israel, only no Israel.

Assessment: I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, this is not a dispute over borders. Instead, it’s a dispute over whether Jews are allowed to live anywhere between the river and the sea while Iran bankrolls the tools to enforce “no.” Tehran is trying to expand the war into Judea and Samaria via spies, smuggling, and local franchises; the Palestinians there, by and large, aren’t dreaming about coexistence, they’re dreaming about finishing the job that started on October 7. In that environment, “pathways to statehood” are not peace plans, they’re accelerants. The only coherent posture is what the security system is already doing on the ground: treat Judea and Samaria as an Iranian-fed combat theater, keep rolling up cells, keep choking the weapons flow—and match every foreign sentence about “Palestine” with a very simple reply: no rockets, no tunnels, no Iranian hand, no fantasy state.

Media Source: Jerusalem Post.

Inside Israel