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Tuesday, April 07, 2026

04/06 Links Pt1: Myths of the Iran War; 5 Men Now Running Iran; Iran rejects Pakistan-mediated truce deal; Russia provided Iran with list of Israeli energy targets

From Ian:

Myths of the Iran War
One myth related to the war is that if enriched uranium remains in Iran, the war has failed. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran possesses 441 kg. of uranium enriched up to 60%. Israel and the U.S. never intended to deploy thousands of troops deep inside Iran to seize nuclear facilities. Absent a comprehensive agreement to remove the uranium as part of a deal, the approach is to monitor suspected sites and, if necessary, act against them from the air.

In any case, Iran's enrichment facilities have been completely disabled, and it is doubtful they can be restored to operation anytime soon. Moreover, Iran has yet to achieve a breakthrough that would allow it to build an actual weapon system. Over the past year, many of the senior scientists involved in these efforts have been killed. Without the ability to develop a weapon, the uranium Iran possesses has no practical significance.

The claim that Trump was misled by Israel reflects a misunderstanding of U.S. decision-making culture. American presidents formulate policy based solely on their country's interests. The decisive consideration guiding the White House is what serves the American people. The notion that a U.S. president makes critical national security decisions based on assessments presented by Israeli leaders or Mossad officials runs counter to longstanding American practice.

Another myth is that it is possible to decisively defeat Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah or the Houthis once and for all. There is no way to guarantee that even a clear military defeat will end an adversary's motivation to pursue its objectives, recognizing that capabilities can be rebuilt. Phrases such as "once and for all" amount to speculation.

Even after Israel's decisive victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when its military defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, within a few years, Egypt launched the War of Attrition and in 1973, together with Syria, carried out a large-scale surprise attack against Israel. So victories may have an expiration date. As we repeated at the Passover Seder, in every generation there are those who rise up to destroy us.
Winners and Losers in the Iran War
Iran, Israel, and the U.S. have not achieved the goals they set for themselves in their current war. On the Iranian side, the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had hoped that by adopting the "Samson option," he would provoke a brief regional war with limited damage to his Islamic Republic because he would step in and offer another of his "heroic flexibility" tricks before things got out of hand. His "heroic flexibility" was designed to come after the first wave of attacks by Israeli and American bombers targeting part of Iran's military infrastructure.

However, as he wasn't there to do his part, Israel and the U.S. had to go for a second wave of bombings and then a third - this time targeting Iran's industrial infrastructure on a scale not known since World War II. Its weapons industry has been decimated, and its vast nuclear project put back by years if not decades.

Worse still, Iran's unprovoked ballistic missile and drone attacks on neighboring countries in no way involved in this war may have done lasting damage to the largely tolerant, not to say benevolent, attitude that many of them had of Iran even under the mullahs.

The outside world has been divided between those who, because they hate Trump or Netanyahu or even America and Israel as a whole, designate the mullahs as victors, and those who, translating their hatred of the Iranian regime into a wish for Iran's destruction as a nation-state, declare Trump and Netanyahu as winners.

Anti-U.S. and anti-Israel circles exaggerate the effect of Tehran's tactic of inflicting economic pain on the world by playing fast and loose with oil exports via the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting overall trade in a chunk of the region. That in turn intensifies the effects of the mullahs' mischief-making.

The U.S. and Israel may lose the Iranian people as one of the few nations known for their positive view of both countries. The theme of "you came and destroyed our industrial, economic and scientific infrastructure, but left our torturers in place" is gaining currency among Iranians both at home and abroad.

There is little doubt that although the Khomeinist regime is badly mauled, the biggest loser in this war will be the Iranian people. The war has destroyed thousands of jobs in Iran. A people facing mass unemployment and shortages of food, water and medicine would not be immediately ready for another attempt at regime change.
Telegraph Editorial: Iran Is Not a War of Choice
The U.S. and its enemies have learned from the last two decades that nuclear deterrence works. The ability of the West to intervene in the defense of Ukraine has been hampered by the existence of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

North Korea watched Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi disassemble his nuclear and chemical weapons programs in 2003, subsequently allowing NATO aircraft to topple his regime as the people he had tormented rose up against him. North Korean state media stated that "powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders' aggression."

This same logic has underlaid Israel's approach to regional proliferation for decades. The Begin doctrine laid out after Israel's 1981 airstrike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor set out precisely why Israel would strike the al-Kibar site in Syria in 2007; it also explained why it struck Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025.

By achieving the full suite of capabilities necessary for a functioning nuclear deterrent - capabilities that it seemed well on the road to attaining - the Iranian regime hoped to build a nuclear shield. A regime built on a fundamentalist belief system devoted to the destruction of the West was not pursuing these weapons as a pathway to moderation.

Instead, a nation sponsoring terrorist militias, launching drone and missile strikes at its neighbors, attempting to hold the global economy to ransom by shutting the flow of trade through the Strait of Hormuz, was seeking to become effectively untouchable militarily.

While the 2025 airstrikes set back Tehran's nuclear program, it was clear early this year that efforts to rebuild its capabilities were well underway. The history of Iran's nuclear ambitions is of diplomacy, time and again, falling short. Faced with the necessity of putting a permanent end to them, it is hard to argue that Israel or America had any other choice.


FDD: 5 Men Now Running Iran
The joint U.S.-Israeli campaign has eliminated the Islamic Republic’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and his son and successor Mojtaba has yet to appear publicly. However, the regime remains intact.

The Islamic Republic was designed to outlive any one individual, as it rests on multiple institutions designed to preserve it. In times of crisis, two pillars sustain it: the armed forces, which continue the war and impose costs on the United States and Israel, and the internal repression apparatus, which confronts the regime’s true existential threat, the Iranian people.

Regime survival now hinges on key figures across the parliament, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the judiciary, and national law enforcement.

1. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Ghalibaf’s career spans repression, corruption, IRGC service, and ties to Palestinian terror groups, yet he remains unsanctioned and is now leading talks with Washington on Tehran’s behalf.

He began his career by joining the IRGC and rose to become commander of its Air Force. During the 1999 Iranian student protests, he oversaw the violent crackdown in which security forces threw students from dormitory rooftops. He later bragged, “I was among those carrying out beatings on the street level and I am proud of that.” He was then put in charge of Iran’s national police, the regime’s first line of suppression against dissent.

During his tenure as Tehran mayor in the mid-2000s, Ghalibaf presided over multiple corruption scandals, including the channeling of municipal funds and properties to IRGC-linked companies, embezzlement schemes tied to development projects, and efforts to block investigations.

As parliament speaker, he pledged support for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad during meetings with their officials in 2024, and more recently pushed back against compromise with Washington, saying, “We are certainly not seeking a ceasefire; we believe that we must strike the aggressor in the mouth.”

2. SNSC Chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr
Zolghadr now heads the SNSC, the body that coordinates Iran’s military, intelligence, and foreign policy while shaping decisions on war, internal security, and the nuclear program. A veteran IRGC commander, he helped lay the foundation for Tehran’s extraterritorial proxy network that evolved into the Quds Force, and later served as IRGC deputy commander-in-chief from 1997 to 2005, overseeing both domestic and external operations.

He has been sanctioned across jurisdictions for both proliferation and repression. The UN Security Council designated him in 2007 under Resolution 1747 for links to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, a measure later adopted by the European Union (EU). The United Kingdom (UK) sanctioned him in 2023 for nuclear activity.

Zolghadr’s career also runs through the regime’s internal security apparatus. As deputy chief of the Armed Forces General Staff for Basij coordination, he worked directly with the regime’s primary suppression force, and later held senior roles in the judiciary, which institutionalizes repression through arrests and prosecutions. Canada sanctioned him in 2022 for gross human rights violations tied to the regime’s crackdown on protests.

3. IRGC Commander Ahmad Vahidi
As the commander of the regime’s primary military and ideological body, Vahidi is not only directing war efforts but also central to maintaining internal coercion.

As interior minister, he oversaw the suppression of nationwide protests, leading the United States to redesignate him in 2022 under Executive Order 13553 for orchestrating internet blackouts and directing the Law Enforcement Command (also known as NAJA, its Persian acronym) to kill thousands. The EU imposed parallel sanctions in 2022 for the use of live ammunition and arbitrary detention of protesters and journalists.

Washington had sanctioned him in 2010 under Executive Order 13382 for links to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, with the EU issuing similar measures. INTERPOL maintains a red notice for his role in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina that killed 85 people. A Quds Force commander from 1988 to 1998, he is also linked to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemembers, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, and a 2008 embassy attack in Yemen.
The IRGC's Seven Fatal Strategic Mistakes
This weekend, somewhere in the mountains of southwestern Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was hunting an American. They were chasing the most intoxicating image: a soldier of the “Great Satan,” bloodied and captured, paraded before the cameras on the very soil his country had come to destroy, the living fulfillment of every chant of vengeance that had echoed through Iranian streets since 1979. The IRGC held all the advantages a force could ask for: home terrain, local informant networks, and within its grasp the single most valuable propaganda asset of the entire war—a prisoner whose image alone could have rewritten the narrative of a campaign that has been catastrophic for the Islamic Republic from the first strike.

But American special operations forces got there first. And when Trump announced the rescue on Truth Social in three words, “WE GOT HIM!,” the IRGC walked away with nothing but the abandoned underwear of a man they never caught.

The episode revealed three things: complete American military superiority over the Islamic Republic on its own soil; the catastrophic failure of a surveillance architecture that Beijing had spent years and billions of dollars constructing; and the increasingly inescapable conclusion that the IRGC’s viability as a military institution is approaching its terminal phase.

And something else, too: the degree to which Iranian aggression had been functioning as the principal obstacle to the Middle East’s regional order. A senior Emirati military official has confirmed that the UAE has not ruled out joining the U.S. directly in the war against Iran. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are more committed to the campaign than at any point since it began. Qatar has broken entirely from any residual sympathy toward the IRGC.

Operation Epic Fury has made visible what Iranian pressure had long suppressed: that the Abraham Accords were not a diplomatic anomaly. Rather, they were the architectural expression of a regional consensus that Iran’s model of power projection, energy coercion, and ideological subversion had been systematically depriving the Middle East of the economic integration and security cooperation that its geography and resources would otherwise permit. The war has not created that consensus. It has confirmed it.

The IRGC entered this campaign with a strategic playbook refined across four decades of asymmetric confrontation, and it is losing on every front simultaneously. Seven strategic mistakes, each rooted in a fundamental misreading of American behavior, regional politics, and its own capabilities, have compounded into a situation with no coherent exit.
Iran rejects Pakistan-mediated truce deal
Iran has rejected Pakistan’s two-stage proposal for ending the war and opening the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported on Monday afternoon.

Iran emphasized ⁠the need for a permanent end to the conflict, its state-run IRNA news agency said.

The United States and Iran had received proposals to halt hostilities and ‌reopen the Strait. The proposed agreement called for an immediate truce followed by a comprehensive deal.

Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s chief of Defense Forces and Army Staff, has been in contact “all night long” with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, a source told Reuters.

Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters on Monday that “we have formulated our own responses.”

“Iran does not hesitate to clearly express what it considers its legitimate demands, and doing so should not be interpreted as a sign of compromise, but rather as a reflection of its confidence in defending its positions,” the spokesman said.

Baghaei added that negotiations were “incompatible with ultimatums and threats to commit war crimes.”

Axios first reported on Sunday that regional mediators, including Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, were pushing a 45-day ceasefire as part of a two-phase deal that could lead to a permanent end to the fighting.

A U.S. official told Axios the Trump administration passed several proposals to Tehran over recent days, but that so far, Iranian officials hadn’t accepted them.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if the Iranian regime doesn’t strike a deal by Tuesday, he would consider “blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”
Russia provided Iran with list of Israeli energy targets, Ukrainian intelligence finds - exclusive
Russian intelligence has provided Iran with a detailed list of 55 critical energy infrastructure targets within Israel, according to information obtained by The Jerusalem Post from a source close to Ukrainian intelligence.

The report, which highlights the deepening military and intelligence cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, suggests that the information that was shared enables Iran to launch precision missile strikes against Israel’s energy grid.

According to the findings, the targeted sites are divided into three categories based on their strategic importance:

Level 1: Critical production facilities. These are sites whose destruction would cripple the national energy system. The report specifically names the Orot Rabin power station as a primary target.

Level 2: Major urban and industrial energy hubs. These facilities are located primarily in central Israel and serve large population centers.

Level 3: Local infrastructure. These targets include regional substations that support industrial zones and smaller power plants.

The Russian assessment regarding Israel’s vulnerability is that “unlike many European nations, Israel’s power grid is characterized by a high degree of isolation”. Because Israel is an “energy island” that does not import electricity from neighboring countries, Russian intelligence reportedly told Iran that damaging even a few central components could trigger a total and prolonged energy collapse, leading to mass blackouts and technical failures that could not be easily mitigated.
Ruthie Blum: Don’t confuse Ronen Bergman’s credentials with credibility
Ronen Bergman has a résumé that likely makes fellow Israeli journalists seethe with envy. Or, at least, the left-wing ones who wish they could peddle their wares so successfully on both sides of the ocean.

A staff writer for The New York Times, a senior commentator for the Hebrew daily Yediot Achronot and author of the 2018 best-selling book, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, Bergman is routinely presented, at home and abroad, as an oracle on matters of war, intelligence and national security.

Add to that his cultivated network of purportedly top-level sources and his longstanding career covering Israel’s clandestine operations, and you have a figure whose so-called “scoops” are treated as revelations, rather than what they usually are: musings, based on anonymous leaks, with a political bent.

Take his April 3 piece in Yediot’s adjacent news site Ynet as a prime example. Though its title, “Launching Messages,” is supposed to describe the ostensibly contradictory utterings of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, it actually depicts Bergman’s own barrage of bile against both leaders.
‘For 47 Years, They’ve Been Bullshitting Other Presidents’: Trump Threatens To Take Out ‘The Entire Country’ of Iran in ‘Just One Night’ If Regime Rejects Ceasefire Deal
President Donald Trump described Iranian leaders as "bullshit artists," threatening to take out "the entire country" in "just one night" if the Islamic Republic does not accept the terms of his ceasefire proposal by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Those terms reportedly include an agreement from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a short-term ceasefire as negotiations for a long-term deal take place.

"They're very good bullshit artists. That's why, for 47 years, they've been bullshitting other presidents, and they haven't done the job," Trump said in a Monday afternoon press conference.

The president said that Tehran has until Tuesday evening to accept the terms of his proposal, adding that a refusal will set the country up for total destruction.

"The entire country could be taken out in one night," he said. "And that night might be tomorrow night."

He made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the conflict but will not hesitate to strike a range of infrastructure, including bridges and energy facilities. Trump has threatened these targets for days and stood firm on his Tuesday deadline.

"I can tell you they're negotiating, we think in good faith. We're going to find out," Trump said. "We're giving them till tomorrow, eight o'clock Eastern time, and after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages."

Trump described the Strait of Hormuz as "a very big priority" in peace talks, saying, "We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything."

Should the regime fail to accept his terms, "very little is off limits" as the military prepares to hit a range of energy sites that generate billions for Tehran. Trump said his administration has a plan in place "where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock, and it will happen over a period of four hours."


Netanyahu: ‘Operation Roaring Lion’ to continue in full force, on all fronts
The Israel Defense Forces’ “Operation Roaring Lion” against the Islamic Republic will continue “with full force, on all fronts,” until all objectives are achieved, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

The premier in his statement commented on the elimination of Brig. Gen. Majid Khademi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence chief, and Asghar Bakri, who commanded Unit 840 of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

“Another central arm of the Iranian terror regime has been severed,” Netanyahu tweeted, vowing, “We are acting with strength and determination—we will reach everyone who seeks to harm us.

“Whoever seeks to murder our citizens, whoever directs terror against the State of Israel, whoever builds the Iranian axis of evil—their blood is on their own heads,” he declared.

Khademi, one of the IRGC’s most senior leaders, was killed in an overnight airstrike in Tehran, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed earlier on Monday.

“The terrorist regime in Iran continues to launch missiles at the Israeli home front, killing and harming Israeli civilians,” Katz said during a situational assessment with senior military officials.

“The Revolutionary Guards fire at civilians, and we eliminate the terrorist leaders,” the minister said.
Israel knocks out 85% of the Islamic Republic’s petrochemical production
The IDF attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Monday. With that operation and another last week, Iran’s two major petrochemical facilities, together accounting for 85% of the country’s total petrochemical exports, are out of action.

“The IDF has now aggressively attacked Iran’s largest petrochemical facility located in Asaluyeh—a major target responsible for about 50% of the country’s petrochemical production, after last week’s second major facility was attacked,” Katz said.

The two attacks constitute “a severe economic blow to the Iranian regime, amounting to tens of billions of dollars.”

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue to attack the national infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime with all its might,” Katz added. “The Iranian terror regime will discover that the continued aggression against Israel and the cowardly and criminal fire at Israeli citizens will lead to the deepening of the economic and strategic damage it is paying and the collapse of its capabilities.”

Israel’s strike follows one on Saturday where its warplanes struck a petrochemical complex in southwestern Iran that the military said was an essential site for producing and exporting chemical materials to the regime’s armed forces, including a “critical component for ballistic missiles” used to target the Jewish state.

As part of the strikes in Mahshahr in Khuzestan Province, the Israeli Air Force targeted a site housing one of two main facilities used to produce materials for explosives, missiles and other weapons.


IDF slays senior IRGC Quds Force terrorist
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday confirmed the targeted killing of Asghar Bakri, who had commanded Unit 840 of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force since 2019.

Bakri “held a series of senior positions within the Quds Force, during which he advanced numerous efforts and was involved in attacks targeting Israeli and American individuals worldwide,” according to the military.

“In addition, Bakri planned and advanced terror attacks against the State of Israel, including operations carried out within Israel, as well as in Syria and Lebanon,” the military statement said. “Additionally, Bakri operated to advance the transfer of weapons from Iran into the State of Israel.”

Under Bakri’s command, Unit 840 advanced operations targeting IDF troops on the Syria-Israel border, using Syrian operatives who previously served under Bashar Assad’s regime.

The attacks were coordinated by Bakri personally, alongside his deputy, Mohammad Reza Ansari, and with the assistance of Qasem Salah al-Husseini, a Lebanese terrorist affiliated with the Quds Force who was targeted and killed near Beirut in July 2025, the IDF noted.

The latest targeted killing “is part of the significant damage the IDF is inflicting on the Quds Force’s Special Operations Unit and constitutes a further blow to the unit’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks against the State of Israel and its civilians,” it concluded.

The IDF’s “Operation Roaring Lion” against the Islamic Republic will continue “with full force, on all fronts,” until all objectives are achieved, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier on Monday.

The premier in his statement commented on the elimination of Bakri and Brig. Gen. Majid Khademi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence chief.

“Another central arm of the Iranian terror regime has been severed,” Netanyahu tweeted, vowing, “We are acting with strength and determination—we will reach everyone who seeks to harm us.

He noted that Bakri was responsible for “attacks against Jews and Israelis around the world.”

“Whoever seeks to murder our citizens, whoever directs terror against the State of Israel, whoever builds the Iranian axis of evil—their blood is on their own heads,” Netanyahu declared.


UAE has ‘engaged’ over 500 Iranian ballistic missiles, 2,100 UAVs
Since the start of the war against Iran on Feb. 28, United Arab Emirates air defenses “have engaged” 507 ballistic missiles, 24 cruise missiles and 2,191 UAV’s, the Gulf state’s defense ministry announced on Sunday.

It further stated that Iranian attacks have claimed the lives of 10 civilians of Pakistani, Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Palestinian, Indian and Egyptian nationalities, two Emirati soldiers and a Moroccan civilian contracted with the Armed Forces.

A total of 217 people of 31 different nationalities have been injured.

On Sunday, the UAE’s aerial defenses downed nine ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 50 drones fired from Iran, according to the ministry.

“The Ministry of Defence affirmed that it remains fully prepared and ready to deal with any threats and will firmly confront anything that aims to undermine the security of the country,” the ministry said.
Syrians Are Helping Hizbullah Rearm
A source from the Alawite community in western Syria told Israel Hayom:
"There is indeed hostility between al-Julani's men [referring to President Ahmed al-Sharaa] and Iran, and on the surface they are enemies. However, under the table, al-Julani's men are providing Hizbullah... with weapons cheaply."

"In Damascus, there are hundreds of warehouses full of Grad, Scud, and Katyusha rockets that the government has seized."

"Al-Jolani's people include a large number of mercenaries....Each one finds his own way to make money - weapons, drugs, cars, robbery."

"Hizbullah and Iran still have a foothold in Syria. They are in contact with al-Jolani's men....These jihadists have no principles. They will join hands with anyone because all that matters to them is profit and power."

The source warned of an escalating atmosphere in Damascus against Israel. In recent days, anti-Israel protests were held, including one where organizers hung an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in prisoner's clothing.

At another protest, organizers called for the slaughter of Jews. "The jihadists there threatened to destroy Israel - all of this under al-Jolani's rule."
1,000 Hezbollah terrorists killed since hostilities resumed, IDF chief says
The Israel Defense Forces has killed more than 1,000 Hezbollah operatives since the Iranian-backed terrorist group joined the war on March 2, “and that number will continue to rise,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on Sunday.

The military is striking Hezbollah “with determination, extensively and across multiple fronts,” Zamir said during a visit to Ras el-Bayada, a strategic coastal headland located near Tyre that is the northernmost point in Southern Lebanon where Israeli soldiers are currently operating on the ground.

The campaign against Hezbollah targets “its operatives, its command-and-control centers, its terrorist infrastructure, its military capabilities, its weapons, its financial capabilities and more,” he said during a situational assessment with fellow military officials in the area.

“Every terrorist target and any target that supports terrorism in Lebanese territory will be struck,” Zamir vowed, adding that the entire area south of the Litani River has been turned into an “operational zone” where the IDF will remain until it is “free of threats to Israel and our northern communities.”

“We issued advanced warnings to the residents of Southern Lebanon for their protection and to enable freedom of military operation,” he said. “We will remain on this line as long as required.”

Hezbollah began firing rockets and suicide drones at Israel on March 2, in retaliation for the Jewish state’s targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes of “Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury” against the regime on Feb. 28.

In response to the terrorist organization’s violation of the U.S.-brokered Nov. 27, 2024, truce agreement, Jerusalem launched an aerial campaign against Hezbollah and ordered IDF troops to advance and take control of additional areas in Southern Lebanon to halt cross-border attacks.


IDF Nahal Brigade slays terrorists who killed four commandos
The Israel Defense Forces’ Nahal Infantry Brigade killed, in close-quarters combat in Southern Lebanon, the Hezbollah terrorists who had killed four members of the brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion, the military said on Monday.

After their elimination, precise intelligence confirmed that the three terrorists were the same individuals responsible for the deaths of the soldiers, according to the IDF.

The Nahal Brigade continues to operation in Southern Lebanon to clear the area of hostile elements, including locating and destroying weapons and dismantling terrorist infrastructure, the army added.

Capt. Noam Madmoni, 22, Staff Sgt. Ben Cohen, 21, Staff Sgt. Maxsim Entis, 21, and Staff Sgt. Gilad Harel, 21, from Reconnaissance Battalion 934, the Nahal Brigade’s commando unit, were killed in action in the western sector of Southern Lebanon in late March.

Three other troops were wounded in the incident, one seriously, the military stated.

The brigade’s commander, Col. Eric Moyal, was cited as saying on Monday: “The Nahal Brigade has been fighting for several days in the northern arena. We encounter quite a few militants, eliminate them, destroy infrastructure, and locate a large amount of weaponry. Our mission is clear: to protect the residents of the north. Unfortunately, we have paid a heavy price in recent days with the fall of four reconnaissance soldiers. We succeeded in killing those militants and continue to destroy the infrastructure here.”

The IDF stated that it will continue to operate in order to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel, and particularly the residents of the north.


Netanyahu calls Haifa mayor after deadly missile strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Monday with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, conveying his “deep sorrow over the tragic loss of four lives” in an Iranian missile attack that targeted the city the previous night.

“The most important point that came up again in our conversation is one simple principle, an iron rule: Anyone who follows the guidelines of the [Israel Defense Forces] Home Front Command and stays in a protected space has almost no chance of being harmed,” Netanyahu said in a video statement following the call.

“I ask you, all citizens of Israel—and especially, residents of the north, who are truly going through a very difficult ordeal right now, and I know how hard it is for you—I ask you: We’ll help in every way we can. I request from you to adhere to the Home Front Command’s instructions,” he continued.

During the conversation, Yahav “requested several things,” Netanyahu said, adding that he instructed his office “to provide as much assistance as possible to the families as well as to the municipality.”

Following overnight efforts with the IDF Home Front Command, “two trapped individuals who were found under the rubble without signs of life” at the scene in Haifa, the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority said early on Monday.

On Monday afternoon, the remains of the two additional missing persons were recovered, the Magen David Adom medical response group said, identifying the slain victims as a man and a woman in their 80s; a man in his 40s; and a woman in her mid-30s.

Eleven people were wounded in the attacks targeting the Haifa area on Sunday, including an 82-year-old man with injuries from a “heavy object” and a blast injury, according to the Israel Ministry of Health and Magen David Adom.
Four members of the Gershovitz family identified as victims of Haifa missile attack
The victims of the deadly Iranian ballistic missile attack on Haifa were identified on Monday as four members of the same family: husband and wife Vladimir Gershovitz and Lena Ostrovsky Gershovitz, their son Dimitri, or Dima, Gershovitz, and Dima’s wife, Lucille-Jane Gershovitz.

Vladimir, 73, Lena, 68, Dima, 42, and Lucille-Jane, 29, were killed when a ballistic missile fired from Iran slammed into an apartment building in the northern city on Sunday afternoon.

Their bodies were pulled from the wreckage after an intense, complex overnight search, with rescuers recovering the final body some 18 hours after the missile hit.

When news of their identities was released, tributes poured in, particularly for Lena Ostrovsky Gershovitz, a beloved veteran teacher at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Jerusalem and doyenne of the theater community.

Ostrovsky “nurtured generations of actors with dedication, professionalism, and, foremost, a great love for the work and for her students,” the Israeli Actors Association said in a statement mourning her death.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar paid tribute to Lena on X, noting the impact she had on the “generations of actors who passed through her studio.”

“Every one of the murdered civilians is a world unto themselves. I send my condolences to the families of the murdered and their loved ones. May their memory be blessed,” he said.

“She was a mythological teacher. There were not many actors in the country who did not know her,” said actress and theater director Keren Tsur.


WATCH: Iranian missile wounds woman in Petach Tikvah
At least two people were wounded, including one seriously, in central Israel on Monday morning by a cluster missile attack, medical officials said.

The Magen David Adom medical emergency response group treated a 34-year-old woman who was hit by fragments in Petach Tikvah and evacuated her to a hospital in serious condition with a chest injury.

Israel Police Cmdr. Aviad Katfi, chief of the Petach Tikvah station, said forces were dispatched to five impact scenes across the city. The woman who sustained serious injuries, upon the missile warning being issued, “got out of her vehicle, followed the guidelines, laid down, and one of the fragments struck her,” the police chief told Israel’s Channel 12 News outlet.

The incident was captured by a security camera in the area, according to Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster.

More than 100 people were wounded across the country over the weekend by Iranian and Hezbollah missile and rocket barrages.

Out of the 123 people who remained hospitalized as of Sunday evening, two people were listed as being in critical condition, 14 in serious condition, 23 in satisfactory and 83 in good condition, the Health Ministry said.


Ben Shapiro: INCREDIBLE: US Military Launches Most REMARKABLE Rescue Operation Of All Time
The United States military executes the most remarkable search and rescue operation of all time; President Trump threatens Iran with destruction; and the Trump administration expels relatives of Iranian terrorist leaders who were living high on the American hog.


Eugene Kontorovich: I24 Interview on striking Iranian infrasturcture.

Triggernometry: “We Need Regime Change” - Elica Le Bon

‘Cycle of violence’: Israelis worn down but determined as Iran strikes continue
Former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy says Israelis remain resolute despite repeated Iranian attacks.

“Israelis are pretty tired by this war, I’ll tell you the truth, but has a determination to finish the job,” Mr Levy told Sky News host James Macpherson.

“The best outcome is if this ends with the Iranian regime stripped of the power to threaten its neighbours.

“They’re tired, it's not fun to wake up twice in the middle of the night and run to a bomb shelter and then have to go to work the following day.”




Son of Iran’s twisted PR chief found living life of luxury in LA — and he’s teaching superrich California kids
The son of a notorious Iranian regime leader is enjoying an affluent lifestyle in Los Angeles, the California Post can reveal.

Campaigners are calling for Eissa Hashemi, 43, to be investigated and deported for defiantly refusing to denounce his mother’s sickening past.

On Monday, he appeared unfazed by the controversy and defiantly brushed off a reporter’s questions, declining to speak after a workout at his fancy gym.

The college psychology lecturer is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, known as “Screaming Mary,” who acted as spokesperson for violent militants who stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

She was infamous worldwide for firing off twisted propaganda during the crisis, even encouraging captives to describe the punishing ordeal in glowing terms.

Ebtekar was later promoted to Vice President for Women and Family Affairs by regime leaders – becoming the country’s first female VP and one of the highest-ranking women in the Muslim world today.

In January, protestors gathered at the $20,000 a year Chicago School in in Claremont, east LA, and other teaching institutions in the area with links to Hashemi, for rallies calling for him to be deported.

Organizers of Change.org petitions want Hashemi to be kicked out of the country.


Same Story, New Front: The Recycling of Anti-Israel Media Narratives
Every few months, familiar narratives resurface in the news cycle. This is no coincidence. While reporting on current events, the media often recycles established narratives, repackaging them to fit entirely different situations.

Nowhere has this been clearer than over the past two and a half years, as Israel has found itself at war on multiple fronts.

Following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, the ensuing conflict quickly became not only a military war, but a war of narratives. News outlets rapidly accused Israel of violating international law, amplifying claims from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health that Israel was deliberately targeting children or massacring civilians.

These same narratives have now become a template – one that is being applied to Israel’s conflict with Iran and Hezbollah. The Gaza Narrative Template

HonestReporting.ai Labs has found that although the subject matter may differ in the current war against Iran and Hezbollah, the framing first used during the Gaza conflict is being reused almost wholesale.

A closer analysis suggests that this is not simply organic journalism responding to unfolding events. Rather, it reflects a structured pattern – one that allows a well-established, often emotionally charged narrative to be transferred into an entirely different conflict zone.

The implications are significant. If the framing is preloaded, then the conclusions are likely predetermined as well. Graph produced by HonestReporting.ai Labs.

HonestReporting.ai Labs tracked the migration of disinformation narratives originally deployed during the Gaza conflict, which are now being applied to the war with Iran. This has already resulted in more than 550 alerts related specifically to Iran. These can be grouped into five dominant narrative categories:
Civilian casualties and attacks on hospitals
Genocide accusations
War crimes presented as established fact
Blame for escalation placed squarely on Israel or the United States
The emergence of what is explicitly labeled the “Gaza model”

These themes will sound familiar to anyone who followed media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Their reappearance now, as Israel faces threats from Iran and Hezbollah, is hardly coincidental.




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