Israel Brief: Thursday, February 26
Diplomacy buys Iran another day. Force posture buys Israel another option.
Shalom, friends.
The Geneva talks are on schedule, which is the most useful thing that can be said about them. Iran brought a pretend proposal, Araghchi brought talking points, and the U.S. force posture — F-22s, a dispersed Fifth Fleet, Al Udeid emptying — continued to build around the table regardless. Trump’s stated deadline arrives before the weekend. What the past few days confirmed is that the diplomatic track and the operational track are no longer on the same calendar. One is buying hours. The other is synchronizing their watches.
⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Geneva Talks Open: Iran delivers nuclear proposal to U.S. negotiators in Geneva; Araghchi’s public framing makes the contents predictable. See The War Today.
Strike Architecture Confirmed: F-22s at Israeli bases, Fifth Fleet dispersed, Al Udeid down to four refueling aircraft. See The War Today.
India-Israel Deals: Defense package estimated at $8–10B covers all four tiers of Israeli missile defense plus offensive systems. See Israel and the World.
Hezbollah’s Contradiction: Lebanese PM cites private Hezbollah non-intervention pledge; Qassem publicly says otherwise. One account is a lie. See The War Today.
Kotel Bill Advances: Preliminary reading passes 56–0; Netanyahu avoided formal coalition ownership, got the outcome anyway. See Inside Israel.
Netanyahu Summoned: AG approves police request for Bibi’s testimony in Parking Lot case involving alleged interference with a criminal investigation. See Inside Israel.
UK Councillors Pledge Divestment: 1,000+ elected officials across Green, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP sign pledge to strip pension funds of Israeli-linked investments. See Israel and the World.
Hamas on Camera: Sahm Unit filmed destroying vendors’ tents in Khan Younis for non-payment; State Department condemned it; Hamas governance continues. See Israel and the World.
Haredi Protests: Toldot Avraham Yitzhak rebbe orders Jerusalem street protest after draft-dodger arrests; conscription bill returns to committee same week. See Inside Israel.
Below: why the Politico report on Trump advisers wanting Israel to strike first changes the strategic calculus, the Assessment on what the Kotel vote already cost before it becomes law, the India deal’s specific weapons architecture and what it reflects about Indian doctrine, and the DTW item on Sunday’s Haredi draft compliance hearing that is moving faster than the coalition wants.
Schedule Update
Beginning this week, Daily editions publish Sunday through Thursday. Friday is now reserved for Shabbat preparation, and the publication rhythm reflects that boundary intentionally. Long Briefs will now be scheduled for Friday morning release.
We do not publish on Shabbat or on designated observance dates. When a scheduled edition coincides with one of those dates, it is released on the nearest preceding permitted publication day.
Due to Purim next week, the Advocate’s Brief and the March Strategic Assessment will both publish on this coming Sunday.
The updated publication calendar is now live.
Force posture outpaced diplomacy. The India deal formalized a security architecture that would have been inconceivable five years ago. Inside Israel, the coalition ran its preferred governance mechanic — produce the outcome, avoid the ownership — on two separate issues in one session. And in the diaspora, San Francisco’s “tax the Jews” moment, the UK councillor pledge, and Abughazaleh’s Iron Dome answer all landed in the same week, which is basically the new baseline.
The War Today
Geneva Opens; Strike Architecture Closes In Around the Table
The third round of indirect U.S.-Iran nuclear talks began in Geneva on Thursday, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arriving at the Omani embassy and a convoy carried U.S. negotiators to the Omani residence. Iran brought a detailed nuclear proposal approved at senior leadership level — but Araghchi telegraphed the contents before he sat down: Trump is a “victim of fake news,” Iranian missiles are capped at 2,000 kilometers purely for self-defense, and Israel is trying to drag Washington into a war. The military posture surrounding those talks tells a different story. The USS Gerald Ford departed Crete en route to the eastern Mediterranean. Chinese firm MizarVision published satellite imagery confirming 11 U.S. F-22 stealth fighters at Israel’s Ovda Airbase alongside what appears to be a Patriot battery; six additional F-22s arrived today, bringing the declared total to 18 aircraft. Separately, Politico reported that senior Trump advisers privately prefer Israel strike Iran first so Iranian retaliation can build domestic U.S. support for a follow-on American strike — with a joint U.S.-Israel operation remaining the most likely operational scenario even so. U.S. Navy vessels normally docked at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain dispersed to sea — the same behavior preceding Iran’s June attack on Qatar. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar has reportedly dropped to four refueling aircraft remaining. Australia directed embassy families to evacuate from Israel and Lebanon, offering voluntary departure from UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. Iran loaded oil from Kharg Island at nearly three times January’s pace in the February 15–20 window — roughly 3 million barrels per day — consistent with pre-conflict stockpiling. Saudi Arabia similarly accelerated production and exports. The IAF ordered soldiers at the Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv to arrange food delivery handoffs away from base gates, citing concern that volume spikes could function as intelligence indicators of an imminent operation — Israel’s version of the Pentagon pizza index.
Assessment: Araghchi’s “we deliberately capped our missiles at 2,000 km” framing deserves to be read slowly. It is a calculation that Trump’s team will hear “voluntary restraint” rather than “our current reach already covers Israel, the Gulf, and southeastern Europe, and we’re working on the rest.” The 48-hour proposal window from yesterday’s Axios report was table-setting: make Washington wait for something designed not to resolve anything. At least eighteen F-22s in Israel, Fifth Fleet dispersed, Al Udeid emptying — these are not exercises. The Politico framing — let Israel go first, Iran retaliates against U.S. interests, and the domestic politics for a U.S. follow-on improve — is the coldest possible read of allied burden-sharing. Whether Jerusalem is comfortable being the triggering event is a question Netanyahu will be asked to answer in private. The pizza restriction at the Kirya is its own data point: Israeli operational security now rightly assumes that delivery-pattern analysis is part of hostile intelligence collection.
Hezbollah Rearming Under IRGC Command; IDF Documents South Lebanon Violations
The IDF disclosed that its 300th Brigade has been conducting systematic operations in southern Lebanon over recent months, locating and dismantling weapons caches, observation posts, and firing positions equipped with anti-tank launchers — all violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and its handlers. Al Arabiya, citing sources close to Hezbollah, reported that the organization’s military and security apparatus is now effectively directed by IRGC officers, with internal meetings accelerating as the group prepares for potential conflict. Israel warned Lebanon via intermediaries that any Hezbollah military intervention in a U.S.-Iran exchange would trigger heavy Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory. A Hezbollah official told AFP the group would not intervene in “limited” U.S. strikes on Iran but declared any attack on Khamenei a red line — an assurance that coexists with Secretary-General Naim Qassem’s public declaration that the opposite is true.
Assessment: If IRGC officers are effectively running Hezbollah’s military structure, then Hezbollah’s “we won’t intervene” messaging carries the same reliability as every other IRGC commitment — which is to say it holds until Khamenei decides it doesn’t. Israel’s warning about Beirut’s airport was calibrated for an audience: Lebanese politicians who have constructed a political identity around the idea that Hezbollah is someone else’s problem. As for the 300th Brigade findings: anti-tank launchers inside observation posts in southern Lebanon is not an anomaly.
Aqabat Jaber Cell Rolled Up; Jewish Heritage Site Defaced in Samaria
Undercover Border Police operatives and IDF soldiers arrested several terrorist suspects in the Aqabat Jaber just two miles from Jericho in the Jordan Valley, simultaneously hitting two safe houses under a Shin Bet-directed operation. The suspects were transferred for further Shin Bet questioning. The operation followed a multi-day IDF counter-terrorism push launched earlier in the week across Binyamin (Turmus Aya, Sinjil, Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya) described by the IDF as proactive and planned. Separately, the Cave of the Seventy Elders in Awarta, Samaria was desecrated Tuesday night — Hamas and “Al-Quds” graffiti sprayed on walls, ancient stones smashed — in the second attack on the same site within six months. Organizations urgently petitioned Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu to establish a permanent protection mechanism.
Assessment: Aqabat Jaber is the operating standard: intelligence-led, simultaneous, low-profile, immediate Shin Bet transfer. No improvisation. The Binyamin operation running in parallel tells you the tempo is coordinated across the theater, not reactive to individual incidents. The Awarta desecration is a different violence — cultural elimination, not tactical. Spray-painting “Hamas” and “Al-Quds” on a cave associated with the Seventy Elders of Israel is not random vandalism. Two incidents at the same site in six months without a permanent protection mechanism is a failure of institutional will. The petition has been filed. Whether that generates a mechanism or just a meeting? We'll see.
Inside Israel
Netanyahu Gets a Summons; Kotel Bill Passes First Hurdle; Coalition Runs Its Standard Mechanics
AG Gali Baharav-Miara approved a police request to summon Prime Minister Netanyahu for open testimony — not formal questioning under caution — in the “Parking Lot” case, which centers on suspicions that Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman obtained information about a covert classified-documents investigation and told suspect Eli Feldstein he could “shut it down.” Braverman denies the allegations. Separately, the Western Wall bill authored by MK Avi Maoz passed a preliminary reading with 56 MKs in favor, after Netanyahu withdrew it from the ministerial committee process to avoid a formal coalition position — then authorized a “free vote.” The bill would place all prayer areas at the Kotel under Chief Rabbinate authority and classify prayer conducted contrary to rabbinic instruction as “desecration,” punishable by up to seven years imprisonment. Reform, Conservative, and World Zionist Organization leadership condemned the legislation in terms ranging from “dark day” to “war on Jewish unity.” Yesh Atid announced a boycott of the special Knesset session for Modi but said members would enter during Modi’s speech — explicitly to protest the exclusion of the Supreme Court President.
Assessment: The Netanyahu summons is a formal legal step — open testimony in a case alleging interference with an active criminal investigation in the PM’s orbit. It is not a conviction, but it is not nothing. On the Kotel bill: Netanyahu’s ministerial-committee withdrawal followed by a “free vote” is the move he runs when he wants the outcome without the ownership. Maoz pushed it independently; the coalition voted for it anyway; the government maintains deniability. The legislation will face a Supreme Court challenge the moment it advances, which may be the actual design — create the conflict, use it as another exhibit in the campaign against judicial review. The timing is genuinely bad. The Diaspora is already paying an escalating price for visible Jewish identity. This is the moment to be signaling that Israeli Jewishness has room for the millions of American Jews who fund, defend, and lobby for the state. Instead the Knesset advanced a bill that makes their synagogue practice a jailable offense at the holiest site in Judaism.
Haredi Draft Tensions Produce Street Protests and a Threats Complaint
The Rebbe of Toldot Avraham Yitzhak ordered an extremist Haredi protest at Kikar Hashabbat in Jerusalem, following arrests of yeshiva students classified as draft-dodgers — including a reported case of a young man taken from his apartment and two others detained in Beit Shemesh during a routine police check and transferred to Military Police. Separately, Yair Lapid filed a police complaint after a yeshiva student sent him what police described as an offer to harm Prime Minister Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin. Conscription legislation returns to Knesset committee this week for discussion, arriving precisely as the same eight Likud MKs who broke on Tuesday’s VAT vote have warned they will also withhold support on the draft bill.
We’ve documented declared draft-dodger numbers jumping from 2,257 to 16,880 in seven months and the High Court compliance hearing Sunday. From Deferment to Duty maps the structural legal and coalition history that explains why those numbers keep moving and the state keeps not acting
Assessment: In Haredi media, this story will become the story of a community under siege by a state that enters homes at night to take yeshiva boys. Extreme Haredi leadership has been waiting for an incident that legitimizes a street presence, and they’re happy to weaponize these new arrests. The Lapid threat complaint is its own category: a yeshiva student sending violence offers to opposition politicians is an inversion of the usual rhetoric direction, and every party will use it simultaneously for contradictory purposes. On the conscription bill returning to committee this week — nobody in the coalition war room apparently looked at the calendar and thought: eight rebels who just broke on VAT might not be the ideal audience for a draft vote in the same week that Haredi rabbis are ordering street protests.
Israel and the World
India-Israel Defense Architecture Crosses $10 Billion; Herzog Adds Ethiopia and Somaliland
The defense deal package surrounding Modi’s Jerusalem visit has reached estimated values of $8–10 billion according to Israeli and Indian media. Agreements span all four tiers of Israel’s multi-layered missile defense — IAI’s Arrow, Rafael’s David’s Sling, Iron Dome, and Rafael/Elbit’s Iron Beam — plus offensive and drone capabilities including Elbit’s Hermes, Rafael’s guidance kits, Elbit’s air-to-ground missiles, and IAI’s supersonic missiles. India’s explicit motivation? The May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict exposed critical vulnerabilities in drone defense, precision strike, and missile interception, and its S-400 dependency on Russia has become a strategic liability. India has been Israel’s largest defense purchaser for years — 34% of total arms sales 2020–2024, totaling roughly $20.5 billion — with 2026 on track to break those records. Netanyahu at the Knesset session framed the partnership as architecture for an emerging “axis of nations” oriented explicitly against radical Shi’ite and Sunni blocs. IAI separately delivered its BlueWhale unmanned submarine to the German Navy — a 10.9-meter autonomous intelligence and mine-detection platform, marking the system’s first international sale, with Greece among potential follow-on buyers. President Herzog returned from Ethiopia Thursday after meetings with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Taye Atske Selassie, describing shared threat perceptions and innovation ties. Israel simultaneously accepted the appointment of Somaliland’s first ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Hagi, with a reciprocal Israeli appointment to follow.
Assessment: The Modi deal package is a restructuring of India’s air-defense and precision-strike architecture around Israeli systems — at the moment Russia is transferring MANPADS to Iran and bleeding credibility in Ukraine. India’s Pakistan conflict vulnerability was the opening that transformed ongoing talks into imminent agreements. Netanyahu’s “axis of nations” framing was deliberate —this is not alliance-of-sentiment, it is transactional security architecture between states with a shared threat calculus and the technical capacity to act on it. The Africa thread adds operational depth in a different register. Somaliland’s first ambassador to Israel is a node in a non-Western network that Europe cannot block. The BlueWhale in German hands is a footnote with long-term implications — Israeli autonomous naval systems are now inside a NATO navy recalibrating its defense posture at speed. Israel is generating the kinds of material relationships that outlast political cycles. This is what the UN ambassador tour earlier this week was also doing, albeit in a different way.
Diaspora: San Francisco, New York, Illinois, London — Same Week, Same Direction
At a San Francisco economic opportunity event organized by Mayor Daniel Lurie and District Five Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, attendees switched their chant from “tax the rich” to “tax the Jews.” In Chicago, far-left influencer and Illinois 9th District candidate Kat Abughazaleh stated at a televised primary debate that she does not support Iron Dome because “defensive weaponry is an oxymoron,” declined to affirm Israel’s right to exist, and characterized potential U.S. military action against Iran as Trump wanting to “bomb more brown people.” Fellow candidate Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss — who weeks earlier said he would not fund any arms to Israel, including Iron Dome — endorsed the Block the Bombs Act and conditioning all U.S. aid, in direct contradiction of a written position paper he provided to AIPAC earlier in the race. In New York, City Council Speaker Julie Menin — highest-ranking Jewish official in a city led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — is advancing a legislative package including 100-foot buffer zones around schools and houses of worship, security camera programs for private and religious schools, and $1.2 million in Holocaust education funding, prompted by “Death to the IDF” and “Globalize the intifada” chants outside synagogues in Manhattan and Queens. Mamdani has not supported any of it publicly. In Britain, more than 1,000 local councillors — 383 Green, 359 Labour, 111 Liberal Democrat, 41 SNP — signed a “Pledge for Palestine” committing to divest council pension funds from companies identified as complicit in Israel’s alleged “genocide” and “apartheid,” based on a Palestine Solidarity Campaign audit identifying £12.2 billion in such investments. Thirty councils have already backed the divestment call.
Assessment: Abughazaleh’s Iron Dome answer — “defensive weaponry is an oxymoron” — is the best possible gift to her opponents and a reliable preview of what she’d do on the House Foreign Affairs Committee she says she wants to serve on. She is running competitively in a district with a substantial Jewish population, which is the actual headline. Biss’s position evolution — from written AIPAC commitment to Block the Bombs Act in the same race — is a calculation that the activist base he needs to win the primary is worth alienating the AIPAC position he needed to enter the race. Labour’s 359 signatories, combined with the party’s exposure in local elections and Starmer’s visible discomfort, constitute a structural problem for UK-Israel relations that does not depend on who leads the party. New York is the counterweight. Menin is governing effectively: 70% of New York State voters support buffer zones around houses of worship. Mamdani is opposing protections for synagogues he would extend to abortion clinics. That double standard is easy to illustrate and impossible to defend consistently — which is why he hasn’t tried.
Gaza Reconstruction Advances Without Disarmament; PA Curriculum Documented — Again
The UAE has contracted Gaza-based Masoud & Ali Contracting Co (MACC) — partnering with two Egyptian firms under a larger Egyptian company ultimately paid by the UAE — to build what diplomats have taken to calling “Emirates City” near Rafah. A roughly 74-acre compound capable of housing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in multi-story prefabricated trailer-style units. No construction has begun nor has Israel approved the plans. Total reconstruction pledges from the Board of Peace’s inaugural conference reached $17 billion, including $10 billion from the United States — though it’s worth noting that billions were pledged after previous Gaza conflicts and never delivered. Separately, a JNS analysis of a New York Times profile of a Palestinian-American neurosurgeon building schools in Gaza exposed three explicit PA curriculum examples the Times included without apparent recognition of what they documented: a math problem using intifada “martyr” casualty counts, a reading passage celebrating the perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road massacre — described in the Times as “a woman” — and an Islamic studies text recycling the blood libel that Jews plotted to murder the Prophet Muhammad. Hamas flagged the surgeon as a target. Hamas’s Sahm Unit was also captured on video in Khan Younis destroying a vendor’s tent for failure to pay taxes and threatening violence, disappearance, and “metal rods in legs” against those who resist.
Assessment: “Emirates City” is reconstruction logic running ahead of political reality. The UAE contracting a Gaza-based Palestinian firm is smart locally and essential for buy-in — but no contract changes Netanyahu’s condition: no rebuilding before disarmament. The $17 billion headline number should be evaluated against the historical track record. On the PA curriculum: the NYT inadvertently gave Mitchell Bard — and everyone who has been documenting Palestinian incitement for thirty years — an credible (to leftists) source. Intifada martyr math problems. A terrorist celebrated as “a woman.” Blood libel in an Islamic studies text. They are the system. The PA pledged at Oslo to end incitement and did the opposite. Thirty years of Congressional opposition, European Parliament motions, and donor pressure produced nothing — because no donor made curriculum reform an enforceable precondition for funding.
Briefly Noted
Frontline & Security
JNS: The IDF lifted all restrictions in the Be’eri Forest yesterday, reopening cycling trails more than 28 months after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 atrocities.
Diplomacy & Geopolitics
HonestReporting: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Jordan trip included a visit to Questscope, a youth NGO whose verified staff social media accounts include images glorifying Hamas-affiliated militants, posts celebrating rocket attacks from Gaza, and imagery associated with U.S.- and UK-designated terrorist organizations. Their advance team described the visit as “not political” — which is a harder claim to sustain when the organization you’re lending your platform to employs staff who celebrate October 7.
Culture, Religion & Society
Times of Israel: David Shuker — believed to be the last survivor of the ancient Najran Jewish community in what is now Saudi Arabia, expelled with 260 others by camel convoy in 1948 — died this week at approximately 82. His 2022 public appeal to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to allow him to visit his birthplace and his grandparents’ graves before he died was never answered.
Jewish Chronicle: A JC analysis revisits Hamas’s 2021 internal strategy document, which laid out the logic of a mass cross-border assault — civilian massacre as territorial and psychological shock doctrine — in terms specific enough that the question is not whether it was readable but why it went unread. The harder question, as the world now debates Hamas’s governance role in Gaza, is whether anyone intends to start reading them at their word.
Jerusalem Post: Smash Mouth — fronted by Jewish vocalist Zach Goode and with guitarist Sean Hurwitz born in Israel — played two surprise shows at Tel Aviv’s Barby club this week as part of the venue’s secret concert series—posting clips publicly and making no effort to hide where they were.
Developments to Watch
Regional Axis (Iran, Houthis, Militias)
Iran’s Proposal Now on the Table — Geneva talks opened with Iran’s pre-approved nuclear proposal delivered to U.S. negotiators; Araghchi’s public framing (missiles capped by choice, Trump misled by fake news, Israel is the aggressor) is a rejection. Trump’s ultimatum deadline arrives Friday–Saturday with no more plausible diplomatic cover to delay.
Pre-Strike Architecture Confirmed by Satellite — Chinese firm MizarVision published imagery of F-22s at Ovda alongside a Patriot battery; at least 18 F-22s are now confirmed at Israeli bases; Fifth Fleet vessels dispersed from Bahrain to open sea — the same behavior recorded before Iran’s June attack on Qatar. LIKELY TO ESCALATE
Iran Stockpiling Before Impact Window — Kharg Island oil exports hit nearly 20.1 million barrels in the February 15–20 window, roughly three times January’s pace — consistent with front-loading revenues before a strike disrupts export capacity. Saudi Arabia accelerated production simultaneously.
Australia Evacuating; Polymarket at 61% by March 31 — Canberra ordered embassy families out of Israel and Lebanon, offering voluntary departure from UAE, Qatar, and Jordan; Polymarket puts a U.S. strike at 61% by March 31, with the sharpest recent movement in the March 31 line.
Northern Front (Lebanon / Syria)
Hezbollah’s Two Answers — Lebanese PM Nawaf Salam cited private Hezbollah non-intervention guarantees from Nabih Berri; Secretary-General Naim Qassem publicly declared the opposite. One of those channels is authoritative, and events — not statements — will identify which.
Gaza & Southern Theater
NGO License Expiry — March 1 — Thirty-seven NGO operating licenses expire Sunday; seventeen groups have petitioned the High Court, which will almost certainly issue a temporary stay within days.
Smuggling Indictment Imminent — The Gaza smuggling indictment — described as covering hundreds of millions of shekels and reaching into the U.S.-run reconstruction headquarters at Kiryat Gat — is expected shortly. When it lands it hits the aid apparatus, criminal networks, and American-managed infrastructure simultaneously; a journalist tracking it calls current public exposure “the tip of the iceberg.”
Home Front & Politics
Haredi Draft Compliance Hearing — Sunday — The High Court holds its Haredi draft compliance review Sunday; the AG has already told the court no economic sanctions plan exists, petitioners have requested contempt proceedings, and declared evaders have jumped from 2,257 to 16,880 in seven months.
Kotel Bill — Diaspora Rupture on a Timer — The Western Wall bill passed a preliminary reading with 56 votes; multiple Knesset stages remain before enactment, but a Supreme Court challenge is nearly certain once it advances, and the coalition’s response to that challenge will be watched by every Reform and Conservative institution in North America that has been defending Israel in a hostile environment.
Iran walked into Geneva carrying a proposal designed to survive the meeting without resolving anything. The force posture surrounding those talks is infrastructure for a decision that has already been made in principle and is now waiting on timing. Netanyahu’s summons, the Kotel vote, and the Haredi draft protests are all a reasonable preview of what governance looks like when a coalition is struggling to manage the political fires at home.
Shabbat shalom!
— Uri Zehavi · Intelligence Editor
With Modi Zehavi · Data + Research Analyst
P.S. In February, the Long Brief runs a four-part serialization of Holiday From History: The West’s Delusion of Peace and the Return of War. The final one drops tomorrow at 7:30 AM Eastern. Paid subscribers get the full text—not paid yet? get access now.
For someone who heard Araghchi say Iran “deliberately capped” its missiles at 2,000 kilometers and found that reassuring.