Israel Brief: Wednesday, November 26
Israel steps up its security apparatus, Hezbollah tries to save face, and Washington’s “day after” plans keep shrinking to fit the only truth left: nobody disarms Hamas but Israel.
Shalom, friends.
Every front is moving again, even if the diplomats are still reading from last week’s script. Rafah’s tunnels are cracking, starving Hamas fighters keep surfacing east of the Yellow Line, and the IDF has stopped indulging the fantasy that this “phase” is anything but armed supervision. In the north, Hezbollah is still pretending its dignity survived Tabataba’i’s death. Judea and Samaria is shifting from nightly raids toward something larger as PA police keep moonlighting as gunmen. Inside Israel, Likud’s internal map just re-drew itself, Katz and Zamir are fighting over who controls the October 7 reckoning, and the cyber front is reminding everyone that the axis doesn’t only fire rockets — it steals passwords, scrapes soldiers’ Instagram feeds, and rides Chinese sensors into senior officers’ driveways.
Here’s the day in one glance before we drill down.
⚡️Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
Rafah: Six more Hamas terrorists surfaced from the tunnel grid and were killed; over 20 eliminated this week as the underground network collapses. See The War Today.
Kissufim: A Hamas gunman used a jeep to attack along the humanitarian route and was dropped by Abu Nasira’s anti-Hamas militia operating under the IDF umbrella. See The War Today.
Lebanon: Hezbollah still hasn’t answered for Tabataba’i; Israeli drones flew over his funeral while Iran pressures Beirut to retaliate without triggering war. See Developments to Watch.
Northern Samaria: Three brigades, curfews, helicopters, and encirclement of the Tammun–Tubas belt as PA police join attacks and Iran pushes to build a battalion network. See The War Today.
Domestic front: Likud’s internal elections reshuffle power, Israel Katz freezes senior IDF promotions, and Zamir expands the purge of officers tied to October 7 failures. See Inside Israel.
Cyber: “Shai-Hulud” compromised 25,000+ software projects; IDF deploys Morpheus to monitor soldiers’ public social media; Chinese EVs recalled over espionage risk. See Inside Israel.
Diplomacy: Argentina commits to opening its embassy in Jerusalem; Europe drifts toward boycotts; UN marking “solidarity” with Palestinians becomes a stage for Beijing. See Israel and the World.
The full brief and analysis continue below.
Gaza is no longer a ceasefire zone; it’s a cordon Israel polices with live ammunition and American coordination. Lebanon is trying to talk its way out of a corner it walked into. Iran pushes on every flank — lasers with Russia, IRGC into Yemen, incitement in Judea and Samaria — hoping Israel hesitates before the next decisive move. And at home, the system that failed two years ago is finally being forced to admit it.
The deeper sections ahead follow the same through-line: Israel is enforcing reality while its enemies — and too many foreign capitals — cling to theater