Tuesday, March 10, 2026

03/10 Links Pt1: Fall of Iran an opportunity to uproot ‘Palestinianism’; The Iranian footballers show what real courage looks like

From Ian:

Missiles Over Levinsky
Every Iranian Israeli merchant I interviewed on Levinsky Street told of carrying pleasant associations of their or their parents’ homeland. Each expressed hope that the regime would fall. All looked forward to flying to a free Iran to visit.

Simnian told of living as a teenager with relatives in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He made friends with Iranian Jewish émigrés but spoke even more fondly of the Muslim, Christian, and Bahai Iranians he labored with.

“They’d tell me they loved the Jews and Israel,” he said. “I worked with them, sold to them. We ate together.” Asked how he sees Iranians’ revolt against the regime, which this winter has killed more than 30,000 of its citizens, Simnian said, “Set them free.”

“I think the population wants to be liberated from the dictatorial regime there,” he said. “The country has resources but gives money to its [anti-Israel] proxies, and people don’t have water. Why should such a country be in need?”

On the next street, Bijan Barchordari sat at a table outside his restaurant, Gourmet Sabzi, which he bills as serving “authentic Persian” meals.

Barchordari cited social factors—and a lack of weapons—to explain Iranians’ inability to depose the regime, despite their massive protests in January that resulted in the massacres of civilians. (Aghajani said 15,000 Jews still live in Iran, nearly all in Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan.)

“Iranians are the most normal people: very cultured, learned, with self-respect. That’s why they haven’t succeeded in overthrowing the regime. They’re not animals,” said Barchordari, a Tehran native who visited Israel as a backpacker in 1977 and stayed on when his parents reported the deteriorating situation back home.

Ninety minutes after the siren sounded, Levinsky Street seemed suddenly to have filled with pedestrians, and Barchordari would last 10 minutes in the interview before excusing himself to assist behind the counter as diners lined up. Two young Haredi men set up a folding table and asked passing males if they’d yet donned tefillin. Lovers held hands. Parents pushed baby carriages; in one woman’s carriage sat not an infant, but a puppy.

In Barchordari’s place at the table soon sat Hezi Fanian, born in Israel to parents who’d come in the 1950s from Yazd and Borujerd. He’s a singer, specializing in Persian, and some of the songs he’s written and recorded mean to bridge the divide between his ancestral lands. One such song is “Salaam” (Peace). Another is “From Tel Aviv to Tehran.”

He and two men in Iran—a composer and a singer—are collaborating on a love song they’ll be recording. They’ve spoken a lot in the past year, but Fanian said that their connection, and the recording, is in limbo, perhaps temporarily, following the regime’s cutting of internet access.

“I hope they’re both okay,” he said.

The song, he said, will be issued in the open. Fanian thinks that collaborating musically “could be a point of pride for them, because we’ve become a superpower.”

He added, “If [the regime in] Iran falls, it’ll be because of Israel and the United States.”

That’s a point each of the Iranian Israelis raised in my conversations with them. They said it not haughtily, but matter-of-factly: We are pounding the regime to eliminate its plans to destroy Israel with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and, even better, we’d simultaneously be freeing the Iranian people from tyranny.

Fanian reached back 2,500 years to state that modern-day Jews are making good on an ancient debt from when the Persian king, Cyrus II, facilitated exiled Jews’ return to the land of Israel and the building of the Second Temple following the Babylonians’ destruction of the First Temple.

“I’m proud, as an Iranian and as a Jew,” he said, “that in my generation, we’re honored to repay the Iranians’ good deed that Cyrus did for us.”
Melanie Phillips: We Must Eliminate the Islamist Threat
In Israel, the public are having to run repeatedly into the shelters day and night under barrages of missiles and drones, including banned cluster bombs, from Iran and more barrages from its proxy army in Lebanon, Hizbullah. Most missiles are being intercepted, but the fragments that hurtle down from the sky can be as big as a bus, destroying houses and killing people.

The Gulf states, whose defenses are less sophisticated than Israel's, have been attacked by even heavier barrages of missiles from Iran. Despite this, both the Israelis and the Gulf rulers want the war waged by America and Israel to continue until the Iranian regime has been destroyed. The Gulf states - including Iran's erstwhile ally, Qatar - are astounded and outraged that Iran has turned on them.

The Israelis - who for more than four decades have been attacked by Iranian proxy terrorism and rockets, and have shuddered at the regime's steady advance towards nuclear capacity and mass-production of missiles designed to wipe them off the face of the earth - are united in support of the war.

There is little understanding in the West of the Tehran regime's particular kind of fanaticism. Its dominant members are Shia "Twelvers," who believe that an apocalypse will bring to earth the Shia messiah, the "Twelfth Imam." Anyone who thinks there can ever be any compromise with such fanatics is on a different planet.

The Iranian threat can never be totally neutralized unless the regime itself is brought down. This war could be seen as utterly reckless - unless the alternative is fully understood. Then it becomes utterly imperative, and essential that it is pursued until the Iranian Islamic regime is no more.
WSJ Editorial: Iran Isn't Winning This War
The reality inside Iran is that the U.S. and Israel continue to make progress. The regime loses more of its military each day, along with the ability to hurt its neighbors. At 10 days in, the war can hardly be considered prolonged.

The regime for now thinks it can outlast the U.S. News reports say Russian intelligence is helping Iran target U.S. forces and radars. That reinforces the point that the U.S. is fighting a larger axis.

The spike in oil prices due to the traffic stoppage in the Strait of Hormuz wasn't unexpected. While it will be costly for Iran, which relies on oil exports for its financing, the U.S. has ample oil and gas supplies. Mr. Trump is right that the disruption is a "small price to pay" for major security advances.

For now, the regime still has capabilities to destroy. It would make no sense to leave so many loose ends, from missiles and production facilities to nuclear sites at Pickaxe Mountain and the Isfahan tunnels. There is also little reason to leave standing any IRGC or Basij bases. Stopping now amid some short-term economic discomfort would be a victory for the mullahs. They can't be allowed to conclude that shutting down oil flows is their passport to survival now and in the future.
How the Iran War Ends
So far, air supremacy hasn't prevented Iran from putting massive political and economic pressure on Washington by choking off the Middle East's oil flow to the world. There are no signs yet of a popular rebellion capable of toppling the regime. And waves of attacks against Iran's strongholds and assets haven't yet enabled any surviving pragmatists to steer the regime away from its radical approach.

Yet the pessimism is likely premature. The lesson so far is that Iran's threat to America is both greater than many Iran doves understood and more difficult to address than many Iran hawks hoped.

Since World War II, U.S. presidents of both parties believed that preventing any hostile country from blackmailing the rest of the world by blocking exports from the Gulf was a vital national interest. This reality, not Israeli lobbying, has been the driving force behind American Middle East policy.

If Iran pressures the U.S. to end the war before it can break the blockade and cripple Tehran's ability to impose new blockades down the road, the mullahs will hold an acknowledged veto power over the ability of their Gulf neighbors to trade with the world. The Iranian regime could then threaten a global economic crisis at will and would build up the weapons and war chests that will make its position unassailable.


Trump Is Trying Something New in Iran
The Trump logic seems to run as follows: There are two possible outcomes of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign. The first is that the Iranian people oust the current regime and create a new one. The second is that they don't. History says there aren't many cases of air campaigns producing regime change.

The president may figure that the second possibility would also be a good result. The air campaign is intended to destroy the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran's navy, air force, air defenses, missile capabilities, and nuclear weapons program. Even if new leaders arise out of the old Islamic regime, they will have far less power to harm their neighbors or the U.S.

Moreover, if the new leaders remain fanatical and hostile, oppressive and aggressive, Trump may assume he can hit them again. He appears confident that, as the U.S. is powerful and the Iranian authorities impotent, he will be able to do whatever he considers necessary.

That thinking is altogether different from the ideas that shaped U.S. foreign policy after 9/11. When U.S. troops overthrew the regimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, President George W. Bush was intent on helping those countries lay foundations for governments that would neither be repressive nor give safe harbor or support to anti-American terrorists.

Trump sees giving the Iranians a chance to take control away from the ayatollahs as a gift. He doesn't think the U.S. owes Iranians an on-the-ground effort to make their country stable, let alone democratic and prosperous. The president's goal is to deprive Iran of the power to hurt the U.S. and its interests. If dangers develop down the road, he expects to be able to deal with them far more easily than if he had left in place the Islamic regime that was pursuing nuclear weapons and developing ever-longer-range missiles.

Ironically, critics who are demanding to know the "day after" plan are implying that Trump should adopt Bush's outlook.
Experts' Iran War Assumptions Proven Wrong
According to conventional wisdom about foreign policy in Washington, it was assumed that the following would be inevitable if the U.S. and/or Israel were to take significant military action against Iran: 1) Iran's supreme leader would be untouchable. 2) The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would deploy its terrorist proxies to ignite a regional war. 3) Israel would be isolated in the Middle East and vulnerable to attack from Arab neighbors. 4) The U.S. would be isolated on the world stage and limited in what it could do to support Israel.

All four assumptions were dead wrong. The supreme leader was eliminated in one of the opening strikes, along with much of Iran's senior leadership. The predicted mass regional attack on Israel has not materialized. Because of Iran's disastrous decision to launch missiles against its neighbors, the region has unified not against Israel, but against Iran. And America is re-established as the pre-eminent military power on the planet.

This war will continue to cost American lives and treasure to successfully prosecute. But there's no denying it is very different from what the "experts" have predicted for the last 47 years. President Trump's mission is not nation-building. It is to give the American people the opportunity to go through the next half-century freed from the deadly threat of the Islamic Republic.
Netanyahu: We’re breaking the regime’s bones, and there’s more to come
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Monday night that toppling the regime in Tehran is up to the Iranian people, but in the meantime, Israel is operating to enable that.

“Through the actions taken so far, we are breaking [the regime’s] bones—and there is more to come,” the Prime Minister’s Office quoted the premier as saying during a visit to Israel’s National Health Emergency Operations Center. “If we succeed together with the Iranian people, we will bring about a permanent end [to hostilities]—insofar as such things exist in the life of nations.”

He added, “We will bring about change, and we are already bringing about a tremendous shift in Israel’s international standing.”

Addressing the staff at the Operations Center, he stated, “The strength of the citizens is also the strength of those who care for them and that is you. The public’s faith that they are being cared for is very high, and that is thanks to you.”

Health Minister Haim Katz, during the same visit to the Center, expressed his gratitude to the “employees of the healthcare system for their tremendous work and their commitment to ensuring optimal service and maximum protection.

“The transition from routine to wartime readiness was carried out within just a few hours. The ministry measures itself every day in order to understand what more we must do and how we can continue to improve and excel,” Katz was cited as saying.
Einat Wilf: Fall of Iran an opportunity to uproot ‘Palestinianism’
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Einat Wilf, a former MK, author and CEO of the newly formed Oz party.

Wilf describes the potential fall of the Iranian Islamic Republic’s regime as a shift in the magnitude of the fall of the Soviet Union.

We discuss the seismic ripple effects on Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Wilf proposes that this moment is a window of opportunity for Israel to end the ideology of “Palestinianism” — the end to the Jewish state — that could quickly shut again.

She talks through Israel’s need to create firm civil borders of its control in the West Bank and to maintain military control of the remaining areas and have what she calls, “an active occupation.”




Richard Kemp: How long will we let Israel and the US fight our battles for us?
The recent strike on the runway at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was delivered by an Iranian-made Shahed suicide drone. It has been assessed that it was fired from Lebanon by Hizbullah, a key Iranian proxy. RAF Akrotiri is not just another military base on foreign soil. It is British sovereign territory, one of two areas retained by the UK under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment that created the independent Republic of Cyprus. British territory had been deliberately attacked by the Iranian axis.

Meanwhile, Israel is doing our fighting for us by going in against Hizbullah. Israel is defending its own citizens, of course, but its expanding assaults against the terrorists in Lebanon will also be protecting us. Can we expect to see a word of thanks to a country that is putting its own soldiers' lives on the line and has consistently supported Britain with lifesaving intelligence and defense technology over many decades?

Hizbullah and Iran were directly responsible for murdering and maiming dozens of British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq during the conflicts there. And Hizbullah and Iran have been involved in at least 20 potentially lethal terrorist plots in the UK, orchestrated by Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Are the Iranian strikes really illegal? The Greens’ claims are risible
Claims that international lawyers are unanimous that joint military operations against Iran by the US and Israel are illegal are risible. Contests of legal claims are as old as the idea of law. This is just as true for claims on the illegality of the war with Iran. A unanimous legal view is heard only in a well-sealed echo chamber.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says she will leave the legality of the war to the US and Israel. But Greens leader Larissa Waters asserts the Iran war is unlawful, and we can’t “bomb our way to peace”.

Those who argue that Operation Epic Fury is unlawful point to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which permits a right of self-defence in response to an armed attack. But it’s argued that the US and Israel didn’t face Iranian armed attacks at a threshold that justified their self-defence.

However, existing international law is more than adequate to justify the action against Iran that’s taking place.

The conflict didn’t just begin on February 28, when Israel and the US engaged in coordinated joint attacks on various sites in Iran. There has been an existing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran for some time. The US and Israeli joint military action is part of a long and ongoing armed conflict in which Iran is the aggressor, instigator, funder, and coordinator.

The Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, for example, was strongly backed by Iran. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines an act of aggression to include sending armed bands, groups, irregulars, or mercenaries by or on behalf of a state to carry out acts of armed force against another state.

Article 51 of the UN Charter describes the “inherent” right of self-defence. This includes the concept of collective self-defence, which brings in the US. That is apart from the attacks that have been directly engaged in by Iran against the US.

The right of self-defence includes the ability to act to eliminate a clear pattern of aggression, even if there are pauses between acts. Iran has been conducting armed attacks against Israel and other states for many years.

This includes Australia, as Penny Wong has acknowledged. We would, therefore, be well within our rights to actively join Operation Epic Fury.

“The only requirement of the self-defence response is that it be proportionate to the threat.”

Pre-emptive self-defence is lawful under the UN Charter when it is necessary to respond to a situation, such as Iranian continuous preparations for and declarations of hostility and commission of covert acts of war.
Pierre Rehov: UN and EU Condemn the Strike, Not the Regime: Double Standards, Selective Outrage
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement... with the formulation that has become the UN's signature posture in moments of crisis: "The use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran, and the subsequent retaliation by Iran across the region, undermine international peace and security."

The UN Security Council convened an emergency session. Russia and China denounced the operation as a violation of Iranian sovereignty. Several European governments echoed concerns about precedent and pressed for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a return to talk, talk, talk.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom... quickly moved to place distance between themselves and the military operation... "We call for a resumption of negotiations and urge the Iranian leadership to seek a negotiated solution."

These reactions -- never spontaneous improvisations -- reflect a dismissive European posture that has been consistent for years: a preference for managed "containment" over the inconvenience of actually having to address a problem head-on, and for diplomatic processes over taking decisive outcomes.

The only goal, apparently, was "stability" -- no matter how morally flatulent -- but evidently preferable to actually having to do anything apart from lecturing everyone.

The UN Human Rights Council has devoted more agenda items to maligning Israeli policies than to the far worse abuses in authoritarian states. Usually, in crises from Syria's civil war to Iran's crackdowns on dissidents, UN language is diluted through negotiated compromise and voting-bloc discipline.

Abroad, terrorism has been used as a tool of coercion -- too often with the affected nations permitting success.

Domestic political considerations — including the management of migration flows and relations with Arab states — have further complicated open endorsement of decisive military action.

These moral gymnastics are not unprecedented. During the Cold War, debates at the UN reflected blocs more than principles. Authoritarian regimes benefited from solidarities rooted in ideology, transactional alliances, or sheer voting arithmetic.
Lebanese Shi'ites Criticize Hizbullah's Decision to Join the War
There is strident criticism of Hizbullah's decision to join the war even among Lebanon's Shi'ite minority.

Local Shi'ite groups emerged, demanding that Hizbullah not bring another disaster upon the Lebanese people and Shi'ite Muslims in particular, who suffered the brunt of the damage and casualties in Hizbullah's war of support for Gaza.

About 1 million Lebanese citizens have been displaced, forced to sleep in public buildings, construction sites and makeshift shelters, without even minimal living conditions.

Food prices have soared, and another harvest for the villages in the south is about to go to waste.

Today, Hizbullah cannot count on Iran for the funds that it needs to compensate the affected citizens and pay rent to the displaced.
Iranian Attacks Expected to Taper Off as Launch Capabilities Degraded
Washington and Gulf capitals assessed Monday that Iran plans to intensify attacks on Gulf oil and gas facilities.

Diplomatic sources from the Gulf said Iran is broadening its effort to pressure the U.S. by driving up global oil prices through those attacks.

"If Iran is attacking the oil facilities of its Arab neighbors, it means it feels the end is near and must use every maximum measure available to force the Americans to stop," a Gulf diplomat said.

The current expectation is that this situation will last several days or perhaps somewhat longer, with oil prices rising to some degree, more so in Europe and the East than in the U.S., but not over the long term.

The American scenario anticipates that after several days, Iranian attacks will taper off due to the daily attrition from American and Israeli strikes and from damage to the regime's leadership and infrastructure.

An Israeli official assessed that the current Tehran leadership, facing acute distress, is playing every remaining card to bring the war to a quick end.

The official said Iran's current strategy of fire directed at Israel amounts to a war of attrition - firing individual missiles during daylight hours to disrupt the Israeli economy, while carefully managing its weapons inventory to sustain weeks of harassment.

Israel and the U.S. are working to degrade launch capabilities and hit symbols of regime power and its infrastructure.
The Iranian footballers show what real courage looks like
The news could not be more welcome – particularly for Iranian fans living in the West, who have rightly been raising concerns over the girls’ safety. Calls for Australian authorities to ‘save our girls’ began two days after the assassination of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, when several members of the team neglected to sing their country’s national anthem before a fixture against South Korea. This was no small act of defiance. The members’ refusal to sing earned them the title ‘wartime traitors’ from one Iranian state-television presenter. Back home, treason is an offence punishable by death.

When the team were knocked out of the tournament on Sunday, Iranian fans surrounded their bus, draped in Iran’s unofficial, pre-Islamic Republic flag. The fans banged against the windows and chanted, ‘Let them go’. Some reports, though unconfirmed, suggested team members inside the bus made hand gestures to indicate distress. However, given that they were accompanied at all times by minders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, it would have been difficult to communicate anything more.

Even US president Donald Trump called on Australian PM Anthony Albanese to do the right thing. ‘The US will take them if you won’t’, he said simply. Burke informed the press on Tuesday that as he had signed the asylum documents for Pasandideh, Sarbali, Ramazanzadeh, Hamoudi and Ghanbari, the women had broken out into spontaneous chants of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!’.

This really should be a moment of immense pride Down Under. It is difficult to think of a more deserving asylum case. To contrast the image of these women on the pitch, hair covered by uniform hijabs and performing a military salute, against that of them smiling beside Burke, having been granted refuge, says it all. The group has already received an offer to train with Brisbane Roar, an A-League women’s football team. Their visa will allow them both to work and study in the country.

The future is less clear for those members of the team who did not opt to leave the hotel. Early this morning, their bus was seen heading for Gold Coast Airport. Several protesters did their best to physically block the vehicle from passing. Though Burke has made it clear that they are ‘welcome to stay in the country’ too, it appears the clock is ticking.

As for the five who are now free of the barbarous, woman-hating theocracy they once had to call home, we should commend their courage. They have shown the Islamic Republic and the West alike that ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ is far from a passing slogan. On the contrary, the movement for women’s liberation is only just getting started.
Chaotic stand-off at Australian hotel as protesters try to stop Iranian footballers from flying home and tearful player is 'dragged onto bus' after five others were granted asylum
A tearful Iranian footballer appeared to be dragged onto a bus in chaotic scenes as protesters in Australia tried to stop the women's team from being forced home by the Islamic Republic's cruel regime.

Protesters 'rammed' the bus and temporarily prevented the squad from leaving their hotel on the Gold Coast on Tuesday afternoon after five members were granted humanitarian visas following an intervention by Donald Trump.

Players were seen making what appeared to be an 'SOS' hand signal, a closed fist with the thumb underneath the fingers, on their team bus after their Asian Cup campaign ended on Sunday night.

A group of players then escaped from their hotel on Monday night in a desperate bid to avoid returning to their war-torn country, where they faced persecution over their refusal to sing the Iranian national anthem.

Extra police will reportedly be stationed at Gold Coast Airport ready to assist any other team members who wish to seek asylum.

As the Iranian team left their hotel one member appeared to be dragged onto the bus by a teammate before demonstrators, chanting 'save our girls', blocked the vehicle.

A police officer told the Daily Mail that one of the protesters supporting the team members had 'rammed' the bus.

The demonstrators were eventually dispersed and a Queensland Police convoy accompanied the bus to the airport.


Iran suggests men’s soccer team will skip World Cup after several in women’s team defect
The head of the Iranian Football Federation on Tuesday cast further doubt on his country’s participation in this summer’s World Cup, alleging that women playing in the Asian Cup in Australia had been coerced into defecting.

“If the World Cup is like this, who in their right mind would send their national team to a place like this?” Mehdi Taj asked on Iranian state television.

The men’s World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, but Iran is scheduled to play all three group games in the United States, two in Los Angeles and one in Seattle.

Its participation has been in doubt since the United States and Israel started their attacks last month on Iran, which launched reprisals.

On Tuesday, at the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, players from Iran’s team claimed asylum.

Five players, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, slipped away from the team hotel under the cover of darkness to claim sanctuary from Australian officials, the Australian government announced. At least two more team members applied to stay later in the day, according to local media.

Some of the players had been branded “wartime traitors” by Iranian state television after remaining silent during the national anthem before their opening loss to South Korea.

Every player saluted and sang the anthem before the next two group games. Iran lost both those matches and was eliminated after a defeat to the Philippines on Sunday.
Mojtaba Khamenei injured but still functioning as Iran’s leader, source says
A source familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post that the assessments are that although Mojtaba Khamenei was injured during the war he remains capable of carrying out his duties and managing state affairs as Iran's new supreme leader.

Iranian state television reported on Monday that Mojtaba had been wounded, though the broadcast did not provide details about the circumstances of the injury or its severity. The report also did not indicate when the injury occurred or whether it affected his day-to-day responsibilities.

Despite earlier assurances from Iranian officials and state media, no photograph or video of the newly installed supreme leader has yet been released, fueling speculation among observers and opposition groups.

Mojtaba's lack of appearances raises questions
Critics of the regime say the lack of public appearances raises questions about who is actually directing Iran’s government. Figures within the Iranian opposition claim that another senior figure within the regime may be exercising real authority, while Mojtaba serves primarily as a symbolic or representative leader.

Mojtaba is the son of Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and has long been considered one of the most influential figures behind the scenes in Iranian politics. Although he held no formal government position for years, analysts have widely believed that he wielded significant influence within Iran’s political and security establishment.


140 US troops wounded in Iran war, eight severely
About 140 US service members have been wounded since the outbreak of the war with Iran, including eight who remain severely injured, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

The injuries were sustained during retaliatory Iranian rocket and drone attacks targeting US positions in the region, marking the first broad official accounting of non-fatal casualties in the conflict.

“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty,” Parnell said in an emailed statement. He added that eight service members are currently listed as “severely injured.”

The disclosure offers the clearest snapshot to date of the human cost facing American forces since hostilities escalated. Until now, public updates had largely focused on operational developments and fatalities rather than the broader number of wounded personnel.

The injury figures follow the deaths of seven US service members in incidents tied to Iranian counterattacks in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
US says it destroyed minelayers near Hormuz after Trump warns Iran not to mine strait
The US military said it destroyed 16 Iranian minelaying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump threatened unprecedented action against Tehran should it target the key waterway, through which roughly a fifth of global oil shipments travel.

“US forces eliminated multiple Iranian naval vessels, March 10, including 16 minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz,” the US Central Command wrote on X, attaching a video showing some of the strikes. Trump had earlier put the number of minelayers destroyed Tuesday at ten, “with more to follow.”

The statements came as American media reports claimed US intelligence picked up on signs that Iran was gearing up to mine the strait.

Following the reports, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Tuesday that “if for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before.”

“If, on the other hand, they remove what may have been placed, it will be a giant step in the right direction,” Trump said.


Fifty percent of Iranian ballistic missiles have been cluster munitions, IDF reveals
Fifty percent of the ballistic missiles that Iran has fired on Israel during the current war have been cluster munitions, the IDF Home Front Command said on Tuesday.

This is a shift from the June 2025 war with Iran, when occasionally the missiles were built of cluster munitions, but most were not.

Typically, Iranian ballistic missiles have 500 to 1,000 kilograms of explosives in them and strike one target, causing significant damage there and to the immediate surroundings.

However, cluster munitions might contain dozens of smaller eight-kilogram bombs which spread out over a 10-kilometer square radius.

On one hand, each hit from a cluster munition causes less damage than a full single ballistic missile hit.

On the other hand, each hit can still be deadly, can penetrate multiple floors in a single building, and if such a missile breaks apart before it's shot down, can cause a wider number of dangerous impact areas.
After all casualties in cluster bomb attack were outside shelters, Home Front urges Israelis to follow guidelines
Speaking at the site of one of today’s Iranian cluster munition impacts in central Israel, the chief of the Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Shai Klapper, calls on Israelis to follow emergency guidelines that “save lives.”

Cluster munitions reportedly hit six sites across central Israel, killing one and seriously injuring two others.

All of the casualties were outside bomb shelters, according to first responders.

“I want to express appreciation to the citizens of the State of Israel for the steadfastness and resilience you are demonstrating,” Klapper says from a home in central Israel that was hit by one of the submunitions from the Iranian ballistic missile.

“This apartment was hit by a cluster bomb. I know the scope of the launches is somewhat lower, and it may be that the amount of sirens are a bit higher, but this apartment illustrates that a cluster bomb also causes enormous damage,” he says.

Klapper says that nobody was hurt at the apartment because the family had followed the Home Front Command’s guidelines and took shelter.

“Therefore, from here I call on the citizens of Israel to continue to stand with resilience and courage, to follow the Home Front Command’s instructions — they save lives,” he adds.
Second victim dies after Monday’s Iranian cluster missile strike in central Israel
A second man wounded in an Iranian cluster bomb missile strike in central Israel on Monday morning died of his injuries on Tuesday, medical officials said, bringing the death toll from the attack to two.

The submunitions from the cluster bomb warhead hit at least six locations across central Israel, including in the cities of Yehud, Or Yehuda, Holon, and Bat Yam.

The victims were identified on Tuesday as Rustam Gulomov and Amid Murtuzov, both in their 40s and residents of Petah Tikva.

The two men were working at a construction site in Yehud when one of the cluster bomb munitions from the ballistic missile struck the area.

They were not in a bomb shelter or other protective space, according to first responders.

Medics declared the death of one of the men at the scene and took the second to a hospital in critical condition, where he later succumbed to his injuries.


IDF: ‘Isolated failure’ allowed Hezbollah missiles to strike satellite station, Ramle
An “isolated failure” resulted in two Hezbollah missiles impacting central Israel on Monday without being intercepted and without warning sirens sounding, the Israeli military said Tuesday after conducting an investigation.

Hezbollah fired several missiles from Lebanon in the attack, claiming to have targeted the IDF Home Front Command headquarters in Ramle, known as Rehavam Base, as well as a satellite communications station in the Ela Valley near Beit Shemesh.

One of the missiles struck Ramle, damaging a daycare and lightly wounding 14 people. Another directly struck the satellite station, damaging its infrastructure and wounding two others, according to rescue services and police.

Air defenses intercepted the other missiles, the Israel Defense Forces said.

A dashcam video permitted for publication on Tuesday showed the missile impact at a satellite station.

Hezbollah claimed the satellite station belonged to the “Communications and Cyber Defense Division of the Israeli enemy army,” although the site is in fact not a military installation, but rather a civilian-commercial site operated by the European company SES.

The site was established in 1972 by the Communications Ministry to transmit television and telephone signals where land connections were lacking. In 2008, it was privatized.


Call me Back: Iran's (Buried) Uranium Treasure - with Amit Segal and Fred Kagan
Could a buried stockpile of uranium decide the outcome of the war with Iran?

Dan is joined by Israeli journalist Amit Segal and military historian Fred Kagan to unpack reports that roughly 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% may still be recoverable from a bombed Iranian nuclear site. They discuss why that level of enrichment matters, what it would take for U.S. or Israeli forces to extract the material, and why the race to secure it could shape the next phase of the war. The conversation also explores the broader campaign against the Iranian regime, the possibility of regime change, renewed Hezbollah attacks in northern Israel, and what Iran might look like if the current leadership collapses.

In this episode:
The race to secure Iran’s buried 60% enriched uranium
Why 60% enrichment puts Iran close to nuclear weapons capability
What it would take for U.S. or Israeli forces to extract the material
The broader military campaign against Iran’s regime infrastructure
Netanyahu’s “surprises” and the strategy to destabilize the regime
Hezbollah’s renewed attacks on northern Israel
The rise of Mojtaba Khamenei and what it means for the regime
Could regime change in Iran trigger a civil war?


Commentary PodCast: Whack-a-Mullah
Today we discuss conflicting statements regarding the end of the Iran war, the progress of the American and Israeli attacks, reports that the new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has already been eliminated, fluctuating oil prices surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, and the debate around "boots on the ground." Plus, CNN's awful tweet on the attempted IED attack outside Gracie Mansion in NYC, and the Mamdanis hosting Mahmoud Khalil for Ramadan.






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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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