Friday, April 24, 2026
Melanie Phillips: The dawn of a new world order
Most people in America are against the war with Iran, as they are in Britain, too.
Very few, however, actually understand why this war is as necessary as it is unavoidably complex.
Few seem aware that Iran has been actively at war against America for the past 47 years. Few seem to grasp that Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime has killed hundreds of U.S. servicemen, perpetrated numerous attacks on U.S. bases, committed countless terrorist atrocities and taken Americans hostage.
Few grasp that U.S. and Israeli intelligence had discovered that Iran was poised to create both a nuclear bomb and a missile arsenal so enormous and so buried underground that no one would ever be able to tackle the mortal threat posed by the regime.
Instead, the American and British public have been fed a remorseless mainstream media narrative framed entirely by obsessive hatred of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This presents the war as a reckless choice into which Trump was bounced by Netanyahu, that it was always going to be a disaster, and that it’s already been lost.
Israel, however, which is desperate for the Iranian regime to be prevented from ever harming it again, fears that Washington is once again leaving it hanging out to dry. The Israeli public thinks that Trump’s ceasefire—and then its extension—shows that he hasn’t got the commitment to see this thing through. They fear that he seeks to make a deal he can call victory, but that will leave the Tehran regime in a position where it can rearm and come back even more deadly than before.
Others, though, think that Trump is displaying strategic brilliance. They point out that he’s flipped the script over the Strait of Hormuz by turning Iran’s supposed chokepoint for the world into a deadly weapon against the regime itself.
America’s blockade of the Strait is causing Tehran to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day in vital revenue, while the buildup of oil will potentially cripple the oil wells themselves and put them out of further use.
The fact is that this war is neither won nor lost. Both sides say they have the upper hand. Everything depends on Trump. His repeated outbursts on Truth Social, which often seem to contradict each other, are giving many people severe emotional whiplash.
No one knows how this is going to end. But it’s very alarming that opposition to the war in America is feeding into a growing general public animus against Israel.
Matti Friedman: Introduction to Gazology
The origins of this essay lie in a recent visit to the Middle East shelf in a Washington, D.C., bookstore during a visit from my home in the actual Middle East. I was on a short break from the story I’ve been living and covering in Israel for three decades, and from the tragedies that have become routine for Israelis and for our neighbors since the war that began on October 7, 2023.Peter Beinart’s ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ wins PEN America award
As a longtime denizen of bookstores in Western countries, I knew that almost any shop would carry a few titles about the evils of Zionism and Israel, a venerable genre on the Marxist left. But this time I saw a change: The Gaza war had inspired a proliferation of these titles so intense that they now filled much of a shelf. I noticed the same phenomenon in other bookstores in other cities, where there were suddenly more “Gaza” and “Palestine” books, it seemed, than books about the rest of the entire Arab world combined. Humanity now inhabited a new age, according to one title, The World After Gaza. According to another, The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth. There was Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, and Palestine and Feminist Liberation, and many more examples in the same vein, with more soon to be published. A new literary genre had been born.
The Gaza war has been fought a two-hour drive from my Jerusalem home by people I know, and has claimed the lives of several of them. For me, reading the back covers of these books left the impression of a genre related to the actual territory of Gaza as the Dune novels are related to the actual NASA space program. At the same time, it wasn’t fringe work. Among the practitioners were authors who have recently won a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and additional accolades.
After reading more in subsequent months, I came to think of the genre as “Gazology.” By this term I don’t mean the study of the real territory of Gaza, or of the terrible human tragedy caused by the Hamas offensive of October 7 and by the Israeli response in the war that followed—vast tracts of Gaza destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians killed along with tens of thousands of combatants, and aftershocks across the Middle East. Gazology is not reportage, and most of its practitioners are not in or even near Gaza or Israel. This is a Western literary genre with its own rules, tropes, and goals.
It’s likely that much Western culture, journalism, and politics in the coming years will be downstream of these books and the ideology behind them. Students in disciplines from anthropology to medicine will be assigned these works and invited to see the world’s problems through the lens of “Gaza.” For this reason, the genre is important. What follows is a survey of five representative samples of the volumes in question, in an attempt to sketch the contours of this expanding body of writing and to understand what it is trying to say.
Progressive Jewish author Peter Beinart has won the 2026 PEN America Literary Award for nonfiction for his latest book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.Seth Mandel: No, the Iron Dome Doesn’t Make Israel More Aggressive
Beinart, who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel, is the editor-at-large of the leftist Jewish Currents magazine and a professor at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism. His book offers a harsh critique of the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and response to the war in Gaza.
“This book is about the stories Jews tell ourselves that blind us to Palestinian suffering,” Beinart wrote in a Substack post announcing the book’s release in September 2024. “It’s about how we came to value a state, Israel, above the lives of all the people who live under its control. And it’s about why I believe that Palestinian liberation means Jewish liberation as well.”
In a statement, the judges of the PEN America award said the book “offers a model for writing a new story when inherited narratives no longer hold.”
The award offered the latest evidence of a shift for PEN America when it comes to Israel, which has polarized the literary and cultural world in recent years.
Founded in 1922, PEN America is a writers’ and free-expression advocacy group that defends the rights of authors and opposes censorship. The group has long opposed cultural boycotts of Israel, including in a December 2023 letter calling on art institutions “not to police speech nor deprive audiences of artists’ work,” earning it increasing ire from progressives.
The group’s CEO left amid tensions in 2024, and last year it published a report accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza.
The debate over the Iron Dome is a near-perfect encapsulation of the weakness of the Israel discourse in America. Opponents of the purely defensive program try to work their way back from their partisan conclusion to a coherent rationalization for it. They then demand we dignify their ignorant declarations with a response.
Here’s the latest version of this routine. Democrats looking for an excuse to vote against Iron Dome have reverse engineered the following talking point: Iron Dome, they say, isn’t actually defensive, because the fact that it protects Israelis from rockets makes Israel more likely to attack its enemies.
This seems to be the reasoning that a fair number of Democrats have settled on. As Semafor’s Dave Weigel noted, this argument allows them to claim to support only “purely defensive” weapons while still voting against Iron Dome.
Anyone who has participated in the social media discourse on Iron Dome has had this theory tossed at them. Usually it’s “Nathan Thrall says so!” Thrall’s argument is as follows: “Iron Dome facilitates greater Israeli offensive measures, because it lowers the perceived cost to Israel of escalating or extending or initiating attacks.”
Now, making this particular argument requires one to be unfamiliar with basic political-military decisions—why an army would procure certain weapons systems instead of others, what its broader strategic and tactical aims are, its perceived threats, etc. A fair amount of this is usually in public documents.
But in the case of the Iron Dome the debate is even more frustrating because we don’t need to theorize. We already have the answer. The data tell us what common sense would suggest: Iron Dome makes Israel less likely to escalate military conflicts because it can absorb a significant level of rocket attacks from Gaza with minimal casualties.
Eli Lake: Why Trump’s Iran Deal Is Not Like Obama’s Iran Deal
The reality is that any deal that may emerge from Trump’s war on Iran’s nuclear program will be fundamentally different from what the Obama administration negotiated.Israeli girl, 7, critically wounded in Iranian missile attack discharged from hospital
It’s important to understand the basic history of the Obama nuclear negotiations. Before those negotiations began in secret in 2012 and then in the open in 2013, the U.S. had pressed the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency to punish Iran for building secret enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow. Under the JCPOA, Iran was allowed to keep those facilities in exchange for time-limited promises to use Natanz only to enrich uranium suitable for energy and not a bomb and not to use Fordow for enrichment at all.
David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said in an interview that the extent of the damage Israel and America have delivered to Iran’s nuclear program is vast. “This war has hit eight sites involved in weaponization,” Albright said. That means that even if Iran managed to further enrich the uranium trapped under its facilities in Isfahan and Natanz, Iranian officials would have a much harder time figuring out how to place that material into a nuclear warhead.
Under the JCPOA terms, which were scheduled to “sunset,” Iran by now would have been allowed to manufacture its own advanced, more efficient centrifuges, something it started to do after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. The two wars in the last year have demolished Iran’s known centrifuge manufacturing facilities, not to mention the enrichment facilities the JCPOA allowed Iran to keep. “It’s the centrifuges that matter,” Albright said. “The JCPOA froze the program in place. Iran kept everyone on payroll. They were ready to spring back at the 10-year mark.”
What’s more, the wars have demolished Iran’s ability to make uranium hexafluoride, an important precursor to enrichment—and that Israel has killed several of Iran’s top scientists and engineers. “People say you cannot bomb away knowledge,” Albright said. “But Israel has taken away know-how. There is a difference. You can read a book on how to build a bridge, but unless you have experience building bridges, you are probably going to fail.”
None of this is to say that Iran’s nuclear program is completely destroyed. Albright said he estimates that Iran still has between 300 and 500 centrifuges. But Iran’s capability to rapidly build a nuclear weapon has been taken away through military force. It’s possible that Iran may start to rebuild the capability it has lost but that process will take far more time and be easier to detect.
Even if Trump fails to get Iran’s regime to accept a nuclear deal, Iran will still be much further away from obtaining the bomb than it ever was under the JCPOA. This is because the president has destroyed the nuclear program that Obama legitimized.
A 7-year-old Israeli girl from the southern city of Arad who was critically wounded in an Iranian missile attack last month has been discharged from hospital, Schneider Children’s Medical Center said on Thursday.Iran's Ballistic Missiles Remain Potent Threat
“We went through moments that cannot be described in words,” the victim’s father said in a statement shared by the hospital. “We saw our daughter fighting for her life, and the team at Schneider never gave up on her, not even for a moment. Thanks to them, she is with us today. We have no words to thank everyone involved for their professionalism, dedication and compassion.”
Following the March 21 missile strike, the girl was evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva with severe bleeding and multi-system injuries caused by the blast impact and glass shrapnel.
Scans later showed that fragments had punctured her abdomen, causing severe liver damage, including a torn blood vessel and injury to the bile duct, requiring emergency surgery.
After being stabilized at the Beersheva hospital, the victim was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, where she underwent several additional surgeries and a prolonged hospitalization. She was discharged earlier this week in good condition and will continue her recovery at home, the hospital stated.
Dr. Michael Gurevich, head of Schneider’s pediatric liver transplant department and one of the surgeons who treated the girl, described the case as a “complex, multi-system injury with immediate life-threatening risk.”
While the rate of Iranian missile launches dropped sharply as the war progressed - from 80 on the first day to 10-20 per day over the following weeks - the sustained attacks have raised questions about the extent of the damage inflicted in the most recent war.Tom Tugendhat: The Price Beijing Pays for Backing Tehran
The IDF says over the six weeks of fighting, it managed to set back Iran's missile project only partially, owing in part to its difficult-to-reach underground facilities.
Israel is concerned that the U.S. may come to an agreement that allows Iran to continue building up its missile program, Army Radio reported Monday, citing a senior Israeli source.
Recent estimates by IDF intelligence officers indicated that Iran still possesses 1,000 ballistic missiles, down from 2,500 at the outset of the war, and will soon recover the ability to start building up its stockpile again.
Of Iran's 470 ballistic missile launchers, 200 were destroyed in airstrikes, while another 80 were non-operational after the Israel Air Force struck tunnel entrances to subterranean facilities where they are stored.
The IDF said that during the war it struck all of the key sites used to develop weapons that threaten Israel.
But some facilities are believed to be buried as much as 500 meters beneath solid granite, well beyond the reach of bunker busters, which can penetrate 60 meters.
Shipping companies have been unable to buy "forward fuel" at a negotiated price for delivery next month. They have no choice but to pay today's high prices, raising cargo costs so dramatically that reliable routes for food and goods become unprofitable.China Presses Iran in Secret Talks
China, according to multiple reports, has provided Iran with satellite imagery, components and intelligence needed to attack infrastructure and shipping as well as U.S. targets in Gulf countries, helping Iran destroy refineries and docks and even kill civilians.
In 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Iran supplied 11% of China's oil. In the same year, Saudi Arabia supplied 14% of China's crude, Iraq 10%, Oman 7% and the UAE 6% - together accounting for 37% of China's oil imports. China's enabling of Iranian aggression endangers suppliers that collectively matter more than three times as much to the Chinese economy as Iran does.
Energy bound for China runs directly through the neighborhood that Chinese-assisted Iranian drones and missiles have been targeting. Beijing's support for Iran secured for China discounted oil from the regime, which it helped to evade sanctions. China has now backed one state against others, hoping those that supply more than a third of its oil will forget the transgression.
Three diplomatic sources say China is involved in efforts to persuade commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to show greater flexibility.How the War Forced Gulf States to Dismantle Iran's Terrorist Cells
China warned that if the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz continues, it will expand its search for alternative sources of oil and gas and may even suspend the cooperation agreement it signed with Iran.
President Trump's announcement of an extension of the ceasefire occurred after Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, assured him that he would persuade Revolutionary Guard commanders to accept the basic conditions the U.S. is demanding as a prerequisite for entering negotiations.
According to diplomatic sources, the main obstacle to renewing the talks is the refusal of Revolutionary Guard commander Ahmad Vahidi to compromise on the issue of enriched uranium.
Vahidi believes closing the Strait of Hormuz will eventually force the Americans to give ground on that issue.
One of the clearest dividends of the war with Iran has been the heightened vigilance of security services worldwide, which have moved decisively to dismantle Iranian-linked terror networks, most recently in the UAE.How Lebanon Can Dismantle Hizbullah without Destroying Itself
The UAE bore the brunt of Iran's attacks during the conflict, with more than 2,800 missiles and drones launched toward its territory, with over 90% of these strikes directed at civilian infrastructure and economic hubs.
On a local UAE channel, scenes unfolded of 27 members of a clandestine network, dragged out and handcuffed by security forces in a coordinated crackdown.
The camera lingered on stacks of confiscated cash and piles of books and propaganda materials, including posters emblazoned with the image of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The cover of one of the confiscated Arabic books caught on camera was The Shia Giant Has Emerged, evoking the enduring undercurrent of Persian expansionist ambition, extending its reach across the region and the six Gulf nations that are predominantly Sunni Muslims.
In recent weeks, similar arrests have unfolded in Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, where authorities have dismantled terror cells linked to Hizbullah.
How does one dismantle Hizbullah? Not by sending the Lebanese army door to door in search of hidden weapons. That is a fantasy that guarantees civil war. Instead, Lebanon must learn how to eat the elephant. As the African proverb goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Hizbullah is that elephant: too large, too entrenched, and too dangerous to confront head-on. But not immune to gradual, systematic erosion.
Hizbullah's influence within state institutions is what allows it to operate with impunity. Cleaning these institutions is the foundation of any serious strategy. Officers loyal to Hizbullah, or to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards, must be removed.
Hizbullah has benefited from political cover, most notably from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Berri's role has been to normalize Hizbullah, to present it as just another political actor rather than an armed entity operating outside the state. This must end.
Hizbullah thrives on the narrative that it represents and protects Lebanon's Shia community. The Lebanese state must reclaim its role as the sole guarantor of all citizens, including, and especially, Shias. This is about inclusion. When citizens feel protected by the state, they no longer need protection from militias.
There is no single moment where Hizbullah "falls." What there can be is a gradual stripping away of its power, its legitimacy, its cover, its reach, until its weapons become politically irrelevant and, eventually, operationally unsustainable. Eating the elephant requires patience, discipline, and political courage. But it is the only path that avoids both surrender and self-destruction.
Hillel Neuer's intervention at U.N. Urgent Debate on Iran:
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) April 23, 2026
Mr. President:
What happened at the Minab Girls School located next to an IRGC military base is a tragedy.
We welcome the U.S. decision to open an investigation by an officer independent of CENTCOM. Responsible…
2/ Bravo to @pritipatel for her powerful intervention in the British Parliament:https://t.co/VyZaGqDi8L
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 23, 2026
(This morning I refuted the Minister's misleading reply.)
Iranian Majles National Security Committee Member Ali Khezrian: Iran Has Sold Millions of Barrels of Oil in the Past Two Weeks Despite the Blockade; We Will Apply an “Eye for an Eye” Policy and Respond Militarily to “Provocations”; Any Officials Who Show Weakness Will Be “Dealt… pic.twitter.com/DqyYFAsBmQ
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 23, 2026
Former Trump Mediator with Hamas Dr. Bishara Bahbah, Chairman of Arab Americans for Peace: Gulf States Should Consider Finding Another Protector; the U.S. Failed to Deter Iranian Attacks and Prioritized Defending Israel Over Gulf Security Despite Massive Arms Purchases and… pic.twitter.com/ctg1vyEzzO
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 23, 2026
Unusual: Iran’s Foreign Minister and Speaker of Parliament—the two key members of its negotiating team—with simultaneous statements insisting that all is fine and unified in Tehran. pic.twitter.com/q8gruPizzJ
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) April 23, 2026
Former Kuwaiti Minister of Information Sami Al-Nesf: Arab Countries Cannot Demand Gulf Support While Refusing to Stand with the Gulf Against Regional Threats; Iran Is the Real Problem in the Region pic.twitter.com/iWSodH5p05
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 23, 2026
Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi splashed with red substance in Berlin after criticizing ceasefire
An unnamed demonstrator doused Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi with an unknown red substance after a press conference in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday.
Pahlavi was not hurt in the attack, and police arrested the suspect immediately afterward. Police stated the substance appeared to be tomato juice, although other reports claimed it was red paint.
During the press conference, the son of the former Shah appealed to Western countries to join the war against Iran and criticized the German government's decision not to meet him during his visit to Berlin.
Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in the revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979, accused Europe of standing by and allowing the Tehran government to continue the bloody repression of protests that killed thousands at the end of last year.
"The question is not whether change will come. Change is on the way," he told the press conference in Berlin. "The real question is how many Iranians will lose their lives while the community of Western democracies continues to merely watch."
Pahlavi also criticized the current ceasefire between Iran and the United States, claiming that he did not think that the Iranian regime would change its behavior. "I'm not saying that diplomacy shouldn't be given a chance, but I think it's already been given enough of a chance," he said.
Another angle shows Reza Pahlavi being hit with orange paint by an Islamic regime supporter outside his press conference in Berlin. https://t.co/1t3X5UNsbk pic.twitter.com/ZyOTe89iEI
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 23, 2026
Reporter: Many people around the world think you are an Israeli asset. Are you?
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 23, 2026
Reza Pahlavi: Of course not. But I am a friend to Israel and to the Jewish people. pic.twitter.com/kS25s4ATvc
U.S. Views Iran Naval Blockade as Effective as Airstrikes
The regime in Tehran created an international energy crisis by shutting the strategic Strait of Hormuz, believing that by doing this it would win the war.
But the global energy market has so far managed to cope through American and international reserves of crude oil and gas, even though the strait has been closed for nearly a month and a half.
According to a knowledgeable source, Pakistan's army chief and prime minister provided detailed and credible accounts to the Americans of deep divisions within Iran's leadership.
At the same time, the U.S. now views the naval blockade - costing Iran more than $400 million a day - as a pressure tool at least as effective as airstrikes, perhaps even more so.
Instead of deploying forces to Kharg Island or the Strait of Hormuz and risking casualties in a costly operation, U.S. forces can remain at a safe distance from Iranian missiles and drones, enforcing the blockade.
The regime fears the blockade far more than threats to bomb power stations and bridges.
From an Israeli perspective, the fact that Iran skipped the talks and Trump extended the ceasefire while maintaining the blockade is close to an optimal outcome.
It underscores Trump's determination not to concede, particularly on the nuclear issue.
Why President Trump’s Naval Blockade Is Doing What 40 Years of Sanctions Could Not
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 23, 2026
Iran’s annual government budget sits around $56 billion. The U.S. federal budget exceeds $7 trillion, making the U.S. budget roughly 125 times larger (or about 12,400% bigger).
If the U.S. naval… pic.twitter.com/IMR95RCX5x
Pentagon denies reported assessment that de-mining Hormuz will take six months
The Pentagon on Thursday denied a Washington Post report that said the department had assessed it would take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines.Trump declares 3-week truce extension after hosting 2nd round of Israel-Lebanon talks
The newspaper reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon shared the six-month estimate during a classified briefing for members of the House Armed Services Committee, citing three unidentified officials familiar with the discussion.
Iran has vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the United States blockades its ports, with the blocked waterway sharply driving up oil and gas prices and disrupting the global economy.
Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said “the media cherry-picking leaked information, much of which is false, from a classified, closed briefing, is dishonest journalism.”
“One assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible, and a six-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an impossibility and completely unacceptable to the Secretary,” Parnell told AFP on Thursday.
While strikes around the region have mostly ceased since a two-week-old truce began, there has been no letup in the stand-off over the crucial trade route, with both sides seeking economic leverage — only for Trump to announce an indefinite ceasefire Tuesday to create space for more Pakistani-mediated talks.
Lawmakers were told that Iran could have placed 20 or more mines in and around the strait, some floated remotely using GPS technology that makes them harder to detect, according to the Washington Post.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned of a “danger zone” covering 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles) where mines may be present.
A spokesman for German transportation giant Hapag-Lloyd cautioned last week that shippers needed details on viable routes because they remain fearful of mines.
Only a few ships trickled through when the Hormuz strait briefly reopened at the start of the ceasefire this month because of concerns about attacks or mines.
The US Navy said this month its ships transited the waterway to begin removing the mines, but that claim was denied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which threatened any military vessels attempting to cross the channel.
US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon shortly after presiding over the second round of ambassador-level talks between the two countries at the White House.Hezbollah fires rocket salvo at northern Israel shortly before ceasefire extended
In a Truth Social post published immediately after the meeting ended, Trump said he also planned to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House “in the near future.”
“The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” Trump wrote, adding that the White House meeting went “very well.”
Shortly after publishing the post, Trump invited reporters into the Oval Office, where participants in the talks offered brief remarks thanking the president for organizing them.
Trump then took questions from reporters, claiming that any deal the US signs with Iran must include a provision barring Tehran from continuing to fund Hezbollah. He also clarified that the ceasefire does not bar Israel from launching strikes in self-defense and called for Lebanese legislation outlawing contact with Israelis to be scrapped, though he acknowledged having never heard of the law before.
Earlier this month, Trump coaxed Israel into agreeing to an initial 10-day ceasefire against Hezbollah, which was set to expire at midnight Monday-Tuesday. Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the US-Israeli war against Iran after it began targeting the Jewish state on March 2.
After the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on April 7, Tehran insisted that it cover Lebanon as well and continued blocking ships in the Strait of Hormuz as Israel kept up strikes against Hezbollah.
Apparently concerned that the continued tensions in Lebanon would harm the truce between the US and Iran, Washington began pressuring Israel to curb its strikes on Hezbollah.
But to avoid legitimizing Iran’s influence over developments in Lebanon, the US sought to secure the truce through a separate channel — direct talks between Jerusalem and Beirut, which had not happened in decades.
Given the anti-Hezbollah stance of the current government in Beirut, the Trump administration saw a unique opportunity for a peace deal.
Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets at northern Israel late Thursday night, in the first such breach of the shaky ceasefire, shortly before US President Donald Trump announced the truce would be extended as envoys from Beirut and Jerusalem met in Washington.
The salvo came hours after the Israel Defense Forces launched strikes that it said killed several Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon, where local media reported three people were killed in another Israeli airstrike.
Hezbollah launched four rockets from Lebanon at the northern border community of Shtula around 11:30 p.m. According to the IDF, all of the rockets that crossed the border were intercepted. There were no reports of injuries.
In a statement, Hezbollah took responsibility for the attack, saying it was a response to an Israeli violation of the ceasefire when it allegedly carried out artillery shelling in the southern Lebanon town of Yater earlier in the day that reportedly injured two people, including a child.
The IDF later said it struck the launcher “within several minutes” of Hezbollah using it to target Shtula, along with another launcher “that was loaded and ready to be launched” at Israeli troops.
Hezbollah also took responsibility for several other attacks on Israeli forces stationed in southern Lebanon throughout Thursday, despite the ceasefire.
The incident marked the first Hezbollah rocket attack on Israeli territory since the ceasefire took effect last week for an initial 10-day period, which Trump said would be extended by three weeks as he hosted the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States for high-level negotiations.
IDF confirms several launches from Lebanon were intercepted by the Air Force. https://t.co/f6JutzT4Ud pic.twitter.com/0FuzisRGGk
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) April 23, 2026
🔎LOCATED: A 25-meter-deep underground Hezbollah command center inside a clothing store in Al-Khiyam.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 23, 2026
Inside it were weapons and rooms used for managing terror operations by the terrorist organization’s operatives. pic.twitter.com/J7zg6G5qzO
IDF strikes terrorist weapons transport in southern Gaza, killing one
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday struck terrorists transporting weapons “in a manner that posed a threat” in the southern Gaza Strip, eliminating one.FDD: No March on Tehran: the Military Logic of the Iran War | feat. John Spencer
“Prior to the strikes, measures were taken to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance,” the military stated.
On Wednesday night, ground troops stationed in northern Gaza encountered several armed Hamas terrorists who approached the truce-instituted Yellow Line, the IDF said in the same statement.
“Following the identification and in order to remove the threat, the terrorists were struck and eliminated from the air,” it stated.
Also on Wednesday, IDF troops eliminated two terrorists after they crossed and approached the Yellow Line in the southern and northern Strip, respectively, the military said earlier on Thursday.
Soldiers remain deployed in the enclave in accordance with the U.S.-brokered Oct. 10, 2025, ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” it added.
The current ceasefire went into effect in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 10, 2025, ending the two-year war that began when Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023.
No tanks. No invasion. No march on Tehran.
Instead: a methodical campaign to dismantle Iran’s war machine — missiles, drones, command networks, and the economy keeping it all alive.
But can you break a regime by breaking the system that sustains it?
Urban warfare expert John Spencer joins Mark Dubowitz to unpack the real logic of this war — from the “neurological” battlefield to the fight over Hormuz — and what victory actually looks like when there’s no surrender to sign.
Seven Deadly Myths About The Iran War
The trouble with most reporting and commentary about the war the United States and Israel have waged against Iran is obvious, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin.
Liberal Journalists and members of the foreign policy establishment are so deranged by their hatred of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they’d rather the Iranian Islamist terror regime win a war than see those two leaders get credit for doing the right thing.
He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Michael Doran, the senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute. Doran believes there are seven myths about the conflict that need to be debunked if Americans are to understand what’s happening in the Middle East.
The first is that it is a “war of choice.” It is not, he argues. The only other option was for the U.S. and Israel to wait for the Iranians to construct a sufficiently strong force of missiles with which they could defend their nuclear program at which point it would have been too late to do anything about it. The second is that President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal would have prevented the threat if Trump hadn’t withdrawn from it. The truth is the opposite. The accord guaranteed that Iran would get a bomb rather than preventing it.
The third is that President Joe Biden had left Trump a peaceful world. That is also false because Biden’s weakness and appeasement efforts empowered Iran and left the Middle East in flames. Another myth was that Iran was ready to compromise with Trump. As with their dealings with Obama and Biden, Tehran’s idea of compromise was the United States tolerating Iran’s terrorism, missiles and nuclear ambitions.
Doran also points out that the idea that stopping Iran is a distraction from the need to contain and confront China is wrong. Conceding victory to Iran will immeasurably strengthen its Chinese ally.
The most damaging myths are the ideas that Israel dragged the United States into war and that Trump and Netanyahu are megalomaniacal warmongers. The claims about the Jewish state deceiving Trump into war are more about the antisemitism of anti-Zionists and other Israel-bashers and completely divorced from the truth. The main purpose of the war is to defend American national interests. Nor are the claims about the two leaders true. They waited until all other avenues for ending the Iranian threat were tried before ordering the strikes on Iranian targets.
Doran also deprecates those who analogize the war to past historical incidents like the 1956 Suez crisis. The United States is, unlike Britain and France in 1956, not a declining power that can be muscled by powerful allies into abandoning their interests. While the outcome of the war and negotiations to end it are unclear, Doran points out that the notion that the U.S. and Israel are doomed to defeat simply isn’t true.
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Call me Back: How will the Iran War shape American Politics? - with Ross Douthat
Will the Iran War reshape American politics? How could it affect the future of U.S -Israel relations?
Dan is joined by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat to examine how the Iran War is influencing both parties. They unpack why support for the war tracks with support for President Trump, why protests have been surprisingly muted, and how the war is accelerating existing political trends.
In this episode:
Where American public opinion on the Iran War stands today
Why there’s been little protest compared to past wars
How the war is accelerating political trends, not transforming them
The growing divide on Israel within the Democratic coalition
The emerging fracture on the right over intervention and Israel
The generational divide among younger conservatives
Whether the far left and far right could align politically
What “just war” theory is and why it matters now
What this all means for the future of the Republican Party
Commentary Podcast: Naval Gazing
It's Thursday, and Matt Continetti is back to discuss Trump's comments on the fractured leadership structure in Iran, the maritime standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, the removal of the Secretary of the Navy, and what current races herald for the future of democratic governance. Plus, Matt recommends tonight's NFL draft.
Among the eight women whose images were shared in President Trump’s message, I was able to confirm one documented case with a death sentence, Bita Hemmati. But she was not alone they sent her husband to death as well.
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 22, 2026
We are now hearing from @realDonaldTrump that the Iranian… pic.twitter.com/MEig4Xxhqt
If so, France can say buh bye to its Israeli LNG (obtained via Egypt) while Hezbollah will continue to murder French soldiers. Pretty bizarre for @EmmanuelMacron to keep deliberately harming France and making it even more irrelevant on the world stage just bc his ego was bruised.… https://t.co/Ctj5UqqJvX
— Anne Herzberg (@AnneHerzberg14) April 23, 2026
The Times calls slain terrorist a civilian “medic”
“The Lebanon story, like Gaza”, observed Robert Satloff, “is a tale of legitimate Israeli retaliation for an unprovoked attack”, adding that “just as Hamas eventually disappeared from many reports of the Gaza fighting, which often depicted a vengeful Israel purposefully killing innocent civilians, so too is Hezbollah disappearing from the Lebanon narrative”.
An article in The Times (“Joy at ceasefire in Lebanon turns to despair as families head home”, April 18), written the Beirut-based Sally Hayden, who contributes to the Irish Times, represents another good example of this pattern within the British media.
Though the piece runs over 1,400 words, the word “Hezbollah” is used only six times, and never concerning any of their fighters, or the death of anyone in Lebanon associated with the Iranian proxy group.
In fact, Hayden seems to intentionally avoid the issue of Hezbollah operatives killed during the war, writing that “At least 2,294 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, including 274 women and 177 children, according to the country’s ministry of health.”.
While the Lebanese health ministry – which is controlled by Hezbollah – doesn’t distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in their reported death tallies, Hayden chose to ignore IDF reports listing the number of Hezbollah terrorists killed at 1,800 – thus representing the overwhelming majority of Lebanese fatalities.
Another example of the reporter’s decision to erase Hezbollah from the story appears in the following text and photo:However, our colleague in CAMERA’s Arabic department confirmed that the tombstone describes Fadel Serhan as a “martyred Jihad fighter”. (Our colleague further notes that other tombstones in the photo do not have that writing, as the language used clearly distinguishes between martyrs who engaged in “Jihad” and those who did not.)
CLAIM: “60% enriched uranium doesn’t mean anything.”
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) April 23, 2026
TRUTH: No country has ever passed 30% and not built a bomb.
CLAIM: “Iran wasn’t close to getting a weapon. It’s all a lie!”
TRUTH: According to nuclear weapons experts, Iran was very close to a weapon. Give them 5–6 months,… https://t.co/wdSNYeovAB pic.twitter.com/vrC5uZaHhS
Guardian Australia released remarkably sympathetic sook piece for Hezbollah as an ''organisation that provides social services.'' They conveniently leave out their truck bomb attacks against random Jewish community groups in Argentina - 85 murdered in the AMIA bombing. pic.twitter.com/nOrGcNCxxy
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) April 23, 2026
I exposed Abu Safiya's colonel-ness in this thread a while back:https://t.co/eQ0x04t810
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) April 23, 2026
On air, @SkyNews told viewers 300 "civilians" were killed in Lebanon. In reality, that number included many Hezbollah combatants.@SkyYaldaHakim admitted the error in a buried X reply, but Sky is refusing an on-air correction.
— CAMERA (@CAMERA4Truth) April 23, 2026
Reach of the error: 500,000+ views.
Reach of the… https://t.co/QU6bJBvaNC pic.twitter.com/fAZ3YD7DkJ
They upheld our complaint and issued an on-air correction https://t.co/jp6kRuft76
— CAMERA UK (@CAMERAorgUK) April 23, 2026
The best Israel tourism ad I’ve seen yet. 😂 https://t.co/eRwnNwkRnY
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) April 23, 2026
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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