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Friday, April 24, 2026

04/23 Links Pt1: Don’t mistake Beirut for a partner; Netanyahu reveals prostate cancer treated successfully; 11-year-old girl dies of wounds from Iranian strike on Passover eve

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Don’t mistake Beirut for a partner
Judging by the behavior of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, the answer is no. In the first place, he totally rejected reports by officials, including Trump himself, of an imminent phone call between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yes, the poor guy was incensed at the very notion of a conversation with Netanyahu, as it would hand Israel what he deemed a “moral victory.” So much for shared interests.

Nevertheless, the rebuffing of Netanyahu was excused by peace fantasists and other apologists as Aoun’s fear of assassination at the hands of Hezbollah. And though he’s certainly right to worry about that, it hasn’t really softened his stance toward the Jewish state along his border.

He made this obvious while delivering a speech to the nation on April 17. Calling the ceasefire that had gone into effect the previous day the “fruit of those who stood firm in their homes and villages, on the front lines, affirming to the world that we are here to stay, whatever happens,” he lauded everyone except for Israel.

“I express my gratitude to all those who contributed to stopping the hostilities,” he stated, “from the American president, our friend Donald Trump, to all our Arab brothers, foremost among them the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The rest of his rant about the suffering and steadfastness of the Lebanese people made it sound as though Hezbollah had nothing to do with their plight. In fact, he didn’t mention the terrorist group at all, yet asserted for its consumption that “these negotiations are neither a weakness, nor a retreat, nor a concession.” As though Hezbollah would buy it for a second.

Never mind. What he subsequently declared was directly out of Hezbollah’s playbook.

“There will never be any agreement that infringes on our national rights, diminishes the dignity of our resisting people or abandons a single piece of the land of our nation,” he said. “Our objective is clear and declared: to stop Israeli aggression against our land and our people, to obtain Israeli withdrawal, to extend state authority over all its land by its own forces, to ensure the return of prisoners and to enable our families to return to their homes and villages, in safety, freedom and dignity.”

There you have it in a nutshell. Aoun isn’t a potential partner as long as Hezbollah is setting his agenda, which means the officials convening in D.C. are wasting their breath and a lot of frequent-flyer miles.
House Republicans again aim to leverage U.S. funding to seek accountability for Oct. 7 attacks
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, in their draft 2027 funding bill for the State Department, are again aiming to leverage U.S. funding to the United Nations and other foreign programs to seek accountability for involvement by U.N. employees and others in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.

They made similar efforts during the 2026 government funding process, but the provisions were ultimately excluded from the final 2026 funding bill.

The bill introduces a new version of the provision put forward by House Republicans last year that would withhold funding for the United Nations secretariat — the U.N. management headed by the secretary-general — until the U.N. agrees to waive privileges and immunities for United Nations Relief and Works Agency employees or employees of other U.N. entities in cases involving gross violations of human rights, acts of terrorism, support for terrorism or other serious criminal conduct.

The move is an effort to respond to findings that UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and subsequently were involved in holding hostages and engaging in other terrorist activity in Gaza.

The provision also withholds any funding for any entities that fail to comply within 90 days with U.S. inspector general requests related to projects and programs in Gaza, the Oct. 7 attacks or support for terrorism.

“The bill also includes a provision to help provide justice for victims murdered in the October 7 terrorist attacks, including 50 American citizens, by requiring full accountability for the UNRWA staff involved in this vicious attack,” Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), who chairs the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill, said at a Thursday meeting. “In addition, the bill includes a new provision cutting off funds to any international organization that refuses to cooperate with inspector general investigations into whether October 7 terrorists are on its staff.”

Under the 2026 funding bill, 10% of U.S. funding to the U.N. and its agencies is conditioned on the State Department’s certification that the recipients of that funding are taking credible steps to counter anti-Israel bias, informing donors when aid has been diverted or destroyed and implementing policies to vet staff for terrorist affiliations, among a range of unrelated reforms.

In the new bill, House Republicans proposed increasing that to 15% of the funding in question.

More broadly, the bill would leverage U.S. foreign aid by tying aid levels to cooperation with various U.S. priorities, including recipients’ U.N. votes and their efforts to oppose U.S. adversaries, maintaining a provision first implemented in 2026.

It cuts funding for the U.N. by $1.8 billion, including slashing all funding for the U.N.’s regular budget, as well as cutting nearly $1 billion from humanitarian assistance programs generally.
11-year-old girl from Bnei Brak dies of wounds from Iranian strike on Passover eve
An 11-year-old girl critically wounded in a Passover eve Iranian cluster bomb attack on Bnei Brak succumbed to her wounds on Friday.

She was named as Nesya Karadi. She died at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, some three weeks after the April 1 attack.

Bnei Brak Mayor Hanoch Zeibert said the city was “bemoaning the passing of a pure girl whose entire future was ahead of her.”

“We pray that God sends comfort and healing to the parents and family,” Zeibert said in a statement. “The municipality will support the family and accompany it in any way that is needed in this time of pain and grief.”

The young girl was critically wounded when her family’s home in the Tel Aviv-area city was hit by a submunition from an Iranian missile carrying a cluster bomb warhead.

The April 1 strike took place hours before the Passover holiday and wounded 13 other people, including the girl’s father, who sustained moderate injuries.

A first responder told Hebrew media at the time that the father, a volunteer with the Magen David Adom ambulance service, applied first aid to his daughter before losing consciousness when medics arrived.

Nesya Karadi is the 21st person killed by Iran’s missile strikes in Israel since February 28. All were civilians of Israeli or foreign nationality. Four Palestinians were also killed in the West Bank during the war with Iran.


Shelly Kittleson: If I Tried to Escape, I Would Be Killed
I remember screaming, though I don’t know what words I screamed. And I remember resisting, though there was little I could do in heels against two military-trained men intent on shoving me into the back seat of their vehicle.

Video surveillance captured the moment I was taken. In it, you can see two burly men walk past, watching nonchalantly as I struggle. Inside the vehicle, the men zip-tied my wrists and ankles, and blindfolded me. I kept asking them: Why?

I had been working in Iraq as a journalist for more than a decade. I had documented Iraq’s fight against the Islamic State from the front lines as a freelancer—at my own expense and at great risk. I had covered social, political, economic, and environmental issues, and had been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqi families whose stories I tried to tell with sensitivity and fairness. Why, I asked these men in Arabic, had they taken me? Why were they hurting me? What purpose did this serve?

“No speak!” one yelled, in what was apparently the only English he knew. He continued punching me on my side and my back. Something was pulled over my head—a bag or hood—that made it hard for me to breathe and move. The beating continued, viciously, as I was shoved to the floor behind the driver’s seat. My dress had been pulled up above my waist. I began praying softly in Arabic, which led to more pounding and my first loss of consciousness.

At one point, I was pulled out of a vehicle. My knees scraped across the ground. The stockings I was wearing would later be used to blindfold me; throughout my detention, they remained crusty with blood. I don’t remember being carried into the building where I would be held. I came to when I heard a voice asking where I should be dropped: “On the mattress?”

“Yes.”

I heard sounds that made me think we were still in an urban area. My legs were spread and my body was searched. I was in excruciating pain from what I later learned were several broken ribs, but I tried not to cry out; I had been told that I would be killed if I made any noise. Then I heard a voice that, in its humanity, offered me the slightest bit of hope.

“But she’s a woman,” this man said. He felt, or I imagined he felt, a touch of shame or pity. Perhaps he could see, in my agonized self, some trace of a woman he had known and loved.

I was taken hostage on March 31. Earlier in the day, I had stopped by an outdoor tea place where older men chat and network; an Iraqi journalist I knew was sitting there, and had spotted me walking past and waved me over. I then went back to my budget hotel, and changed into heels and more formal clothes. I had a meeting with an Iraqi government official whom I had known for years but had not seen for a while; I had arrived back in Baghdad only the week before. It was when I was trying to get a taxi to go to that meeting that I was grabbed off the street.

I had been warned multiple times over my years of reporting from Iraq that I might be targeted for kidnapping or assassination. However, this is always a risk for journalists who work on the ground, and none of the previous warnings had been followed by any attempts. I have never traveled with security—not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or elsewhere. I have always walked or used local transportation, and often stay with local families.

I had, however, known Iraqis who had been kidnapped or killed in Baghdad, allegedly by militias. I also knew that the Iran-linked militia Kataib Hezbollah was widely believed to have been behind several such incidents. But I could not know for certain whether this was the group that had taken me. And in those first hours and days, I had little energy to speculate. I was in immense pain and too focused on staying alive.


Trump administration memo details legal case for Iran war, cites Israeli request
Nearly two months after the U.S. and Israel jointly launched a military campaign against Iran dubbed Operation Epic Fury, Washington acknowledged in a new State Department memo that its decision to participate in the conflict came — at least in part — at Israel’s request.

The statement, in a document authored by State Department Legal Advisor Reed Rubinstein, notes that defending Israel is just one part of a larger rationale for attacking Iran’s capabilities that Rubinstein says relies on decades of evidence. But it comes after several Trump administration officials pushed back on the narrative that Israel had forced the White House’s hand.

“​​The United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,” Rubinstein wrote in the document, dated Apr. 24.

The memo is the most detailed look yet at the Trump administration’s justification for the latest conflict with Iran, which began on Feb. 28. Lawmakers, including leading Republicans, have at times expressed frustration that the administration is not being transparent enough in providing information about the war effort.

There is currently a ceasefire in place as the two countries are engaged in negotiations, although President Donald Trump has threatened to restart military strikes if a deal is not reached.

While Rubinstein writes that Israel requested the U.S. participate in striking Iran, his broader argument is that Iran has demonstrated “malign aggression” against the U.S., Israel and other allies in the region for decades. Therefore, according to Rubinstein, this latest salvo is merely the next stage of a decades-old conflict that began anew last June.

“The operations recommenced in late February were part of an armed conflict with Iran that has been ongoing for years and, at the very least, since June 2025” when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear and military facilities, Rubinstein writes. Since the conflict did not officially end in June — a ceasefire is not the same as a formal agreement to end hostilities — he concludes that it has been ongoing, and the current fighting is just a new phase in the war.

“If a conflict has not ended, then it must be ongoing,” Rubinstein argues.


Mark Dubowitz and Ben Cohen: Why Trump’s Iran cease-fire is an increasingly risky bet
A weaker regime is not necessarily a weaker negotiator.

The Islamic Republic is more exposed than it was when the Obama administration signed the 2015 nuclear deal — but Tehran has not forgotten how to negotiate under pressure.

Talk of internal division helps the regime in two ways.

First, it buys time.

Pakistan — more Iran’s lawyer than a neutral mediator — has already succeeded in arguing that Tehran needs more time and space, with no deadline attached.

Second, Iranian negotiators can weaponize the appearance of division.

If Washington accepts the idea that IRGC leaders like Maj. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi are the hardliners while political figures like parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are moderates, pressure for dangerous concessions to strengthen those so-called moderates will grow.

The nuclear file is where that danger is greatest.

A temporary enrichment moratorium would leave the rest of the nuclear program intact — preserving its research projects, missile development and breakout capacity.

As in the fatally flawed 2015 deal negotiated by President Barack Obama, Iran would retain its patient pathways to the bomb.

And because Washington will not want to threaten force every time a dispute emerges, Tehran could again block intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

That’s not the only danger.

Even as the blockade squeezes Iran’s economy, Tehran’s threats in the Strait of Hormuz continue to hold the global energy market hostage.

Shipping remains disrupted, oil prices are seesawing, and nearly a fifth of the world’s traded energy supply remains exposed to Iranian coercion.

Without constant military, economic and diplomatic pressure, the regime will do what it has always done: preserve its core assets, wait out the West, and advance when the world looks away.

If it succeeds, Iran will emerge in a far deadlier position.

The regime will immediately prioritize rearmament over any other consideration, fast-tracking toward an arsenal containing nuclear-armed ICBMs, thousands of ballistic missiles, a Chinese- and Russian-built military, hundreds of thousands of attack drones, a fully operational terror network and hundreds of billions to harden its economy.

At that point, reopening Hormuz may no longer be possible — and Tehran would hold a permanent chokehold over the global economy.

So the United States cannot afford to abandon its current advantage.

American military might has already brought Iran’s regime to its knees through an unprecedented campaign that did not incur heavy casualties on the US side or involve a ground invasion.

The goal was to neutralize the external threat posed by Iran.

We are closer to achieving that outcome than at any time since 1979, when the regime first seized power.

The task now is to prevent Iran from twisting the cease-fire from a source of pressure into a lifeline that will present an even greater threat in the months and years to come.
No meeting planned with US, Iran will talk to Pakistan, Iran's Foreign Ministry says
"No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said in a post on X/Twitter early Saturday morning.

"Iran's observations would be conveyed to Pakistan," added Baqaei.

The White House announced on Friday that Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be engaging in direct talks with Iranian negotiators this weekend.

US President Donald Trump is sending Witkoff and Kushner to Islamabad, Pakistan, to participate in talks with Araghchi, White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt later confirmed.

"I can confirm @SEPeaceMissions and @jaredkushner will be off to Pakistan again tomorrow morning to engage in talks," announces @PressSec.

"The Iranians reached out, as the president called on them to do, and asked for this in-person conversation," she said. "We're hopeful that it will be a productive conversation that will hopefully move the ball forward to a deal."

Trump, she said, "is always willing to give diplomacy a chance... We hope progress will be made."

Leavitt later confirmed that VP JD Vance would be on standby in case the talks trended positively.
The "America Is Out of Missiles" Story Collapses Under Scrutiny
Consider a familiar puzzle. A man claims to have counted the fish in a lake. He did not drain the lake. He did not net a representative sample. He stood on the dock, watched a few ripples, and then announced a number to three decimal places. When pressed, he explains that he heard the number from a friend, who heard it from a cousin, who once worked near the lake. Would any careful reader treat the figure as authoritative? Would any editor publish it as fact? The answer, one hopes, is no. And yet this is roughly the epistemic situation of the recent wave of American media reporting on US munitions stockpiles after Operation Epic Fury.

The reporting in question is dramatic. CNN, citing "three people familiar with recent internal Defense Department stockpile assessments," tells readers that the United States has expended roughly 30% of its Tomahawk cruise missile stockpile, more than 20% of its long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, and approximately 20% of its SM-3 and SM-6 missiles. A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis has been amplified to suggest that American forces have expended at least 45% of their Precision Strike Missiles, more than half of their THAAD interceptors, and nearly 50% of their Patriot air defense missiles. These figures now circulate as settled fact, reproduced across hundreds of outlets, and marshaled into a political argument: that the Trump administration's campaign against Iran has left the United States dangerously exposed in the Pacific, with a three-to-five-year window during which Chinese planners may act.

There is a respectable conversation to be had about magazine depth, industrial base capacity, and the tradeoffs between current operations and long-term deterrence. This is not that conversation. What we have instead is a narrative that fails three separate tests at once: a sourcing test, a legal test, and an analytical test. Taken together, these failures suggest that the reporting is not journalism in the ordinary sense. It is closer to a species of political advocacy, in which anonymous sources with partial access, strong motives, and uncertain knowledge feed numbers to reporters who lack the technical background to interrogate them. The result flatters adversaries, embarrasses the administration, and misinforms the public. Whether this is the aim or merely the effect, the outcome is the same.

Begin with the sourcing question. Who actually knows the numbers? The Department of Defense's own issuances describe the architecture, and the architecture is narrow. DoD Manual 4140.01 governs stratification reporting of conventional munitions. DoD Instruction 3000.04 establishes the pre-POM Munitions Assessment presented to the Force Application Functional Capabilities Board. The officials with genuine end-to-end visibility, meaning total inventory, theater allocation, actual expenditure, current production, and surge ceilings held together in one picture, are confined to a small circle. That circle includes the Office of the Secretary of Defense, specifically the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office and the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment; the Joint Staff J4 and J8; the relevant combatant command, in this case CENTCOM; service headquarters logistics and acquisition staffs; program offices for each specific munition; and a handful of cleared members and staff on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees. It is a community that can be counted, roughly, in the low hundreds.

Here the reader might ask a natural question. If the circle is so small, why do so many anonymous sources appear in print? The answer is that most of them are not in the circle. A program office officer knows production. A CENTCOM logistics staffer knows theater allocation. A service logistician knows total inventory. Very few officials below three-star and four-star rank are cleared to hold all three categories simultaneously, and those officials are not the ones returning reporter calls. When a reporter quotes "people familiar with" Pentagon assessments, the phrase is doing a great deal of work. It can mean almost anything. It can mean a former staffer extrapolating from a 2023 budget document. It can mean a contractor with one slice of the production picture. It can mean a congressional aide paraphrasing a classified briefing they did not fully understand. None of these is an authoritative source. All of them can produce confident numbers.

Now consider the legal question, because it illuminates the sourcing question in an important way. Disclosing classified munitions data is not a gray area. The Espionage Act, specifically 18 U.S.C. § 793, makes it a felony to communicate national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it, with reason to believe the information could injure the United States or aid a foreign nation. Section 641 separately criminalizes the conversion of government records to unauthorized use. Executive Order 13526 governs classification and requires a favorable eligibility determination, a signed nondisclosure agreement, and a specific need to know. Cleared personnel sign Standard Form 312, which explicitly warns that unauthorized disclosure may violate criminal statutes. Uniformed service members face additional liability under Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.


Behind Tehran’s unity show: The secret letter to the shadow king
The real story behind Tehran’s sudden “unity” campaign did not begin with Donald Trump’s accusations of disarray within Iran’s leadership. It began with a secret letter to Mojtaba Khamenei.

In recent days, word has circulated in Iranian political circles about a highly confidential letter reportedly written by a group of senior officials to Mojtaba Khamenei.

According to those familiar with the matter, the letter warned that Iran’s economic situation is grave, that the country cannot continue on its current path, and that the leadership has no practical choice but to negotiate seriously with the United States over the nuclear file.

The historical echo is hard to miss. In the final days of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, senior Iranian officials and commanders warned Ruhollah Khomeini that the war could no longer be sustained.

Only days earlier, Khomeini had still been insisting on continuing the war. But under the weight of those warnings, he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 598 and ended the conflict, a decision he famously likened to drinking from a poisoned chalice.

That is why the current letter matters: it suggests that some senior figures now see the nuclear standoff as another moment when ideological insistence is colliding with the limits of the state.

The reported signatories included senior figures such as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Masoud Pezeshkian, Abbas Araghchi, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, and others. Some officials apparently refused to sign it. One name now circulating is Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator under Ebrahim Raisi.

The letter was supposed to remain top secret. It was addressed to Mojtaba Khamenei, not to the public, Parliament, or the ordinary political class. But according to accounts now circulating, Bagheri Kani showed the letter to other hardliners outside the high-level circle and emphasized that he had not signed it. From there, the matter leaked into political circles in Tehran.


Netanyahu reveals early-stage prostate cancer treated successfully
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Friday that he underwent treatment for a very early-stage malignant tumor in his prostate and has fully recovered.

“Today, my annual medical report was published,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “I requested to delay its publication by two months so that it would not be released at the height of the war, in order not to allow the Iranian terror regime to spread even more false propaganda against Israel.

“I ask to share with you three things,” he continued. “1. Thank God, I am healthy. 2. I am in excellent physical condition. 3. I had a minor medical issue with my prostate that was completely treated. Thank God, it’s behind me.”

Netanyahu said that a year and a half ago, he underwent successful surgery for an enlarged benign prostate and has since been under routine medical monitoring.

“In the last monitoring, a tiny spot of less than a centimeter was discovered in the prostate,” he wrote. “Upon examination, it turned out to be a very early stage of a malignant tumor, with no spread or metastases whatsoever.”

The 76-year-old said that doctors told him the condition was common among men his age and that he could either remain under monitoring or undergo treatment.

“You already know me,” he wrote. “When I’m given information in time about a potential danger, I want to address it immediately. This is true on the national level and also on the personal level.”


Sabotage-for-hire: ‘Iranian agent’ offers to pay undercover LBC reporter for criminal acts on London’s streets
Counter terrorism cops have warned against people getting drawn into recruitment attempts following a spate of arson attacks on Jewish premises, saying: “You’re going to prison if you do that”.

The Prime Minister on Thursday said he was “increasingly concerned” about countries using proxies for criminal activity in the UK as he visited a London synagogue which had been targeted.

Just hours into our investigation, our LBC reporter was set a task to complete on the streets of London, seen by experts to have been the first in a “potentially dangerous relationship” being sought.

While speaking to a user on Telegram, who claimed to be linked to Iran’s Intelligence Service, the account told us to “print out a photo of Trump and Netanyahu, set it on fire in one of London’s famous streets, and send a video of it.”

They added in a separate message: “This is the first step in building trust, and I will pay for it.”

When asked what would happen afterwards, the user said: “After you send me the video, I will make the payment and title the second job.”

LBC has reported the account to counter terrorism police and made the full exchange of messages available to investigators.

The UK’s independent reviewer of state threats legislation told LBC the tasking had all the hallmarks of a previous Russian-ordered arson attack on a warehouse in London, providing aid to Ukraine.
LBC News investigation exposes alleged Iran-linked sabotage recruitment in London



Three US aircraft carriers now operating in the Middle East
The USS George H.W. Bush arrived in the Middle East on Thursday, joining two other aircraft carriers for “Operation Epic Fury,” U.S. Central Command said.

“For the first time in decades, three aircraft carriers are operating in the Middle East at the same time,” CENTCOM stated. “Accompanied by their carrier air wings, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) include over 200 aircraft and 15,000 Sailors and Marines.”

CENTCOM stated that more than 15,000 sailors and marines are now stationed in this convoy, with more than 200 aircraft and nine guided missile destroyer ships (DDGs).

The George H.W. Bush left Naval Station Norfolk in March.

The news comes amid a continued naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz and an extended ceasefire with Iran.


US will not renew Iranian, Russian oil waivers, Treasury Secretary tells Associated Press
The United States will not renew Iranian and Russian oil waivers, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told The Associated Press on Saturday, referring to a policy allowing for the purchase of petroleum products from sanctioned countries if said assets are already at sea.

“We have the blockade [on Iran]," said Bessent, "and there’s no oil coming out. And we think in the next two, three days, they’re going to have to start shuttering production, which will be very bad for their wells.”

The Russian waiver was issued in March 2026 and extended on April 18, according to the AP, while the Iranian waiver was issued soon after the US blockade of Iran took effect.

The waivers were issued to ease the strain on global energy markets caused by the Russia-Ukraine war and the US-Iran war, the AP reported.

The report noted that Bessent is aware of the potential implications of not renewing the waivers, particularly the effect on "vulnerable and poor countries."

"Can you help?" Bessent quoted such countries as saying, as he spoke last week at meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"But I wouldn’t imagine that we’d have another extension," added Bessent. "I think the Russian oil on the water has been largely sucked up.”


Amid truce, Hezbollah attacks IDF in south Lebanon; troops kill 6 gunmen in Bint Jbeil
Hezbollah carried out several attacks on Israeli forces stationed in southern Lebanon on Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces published footage showing six of the terror group’s gunmen being struck after exchanging fire with troops in the town of Bint Jbeil.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order and carried out strikes in southern Lebanon in response to a rocket barrage that the Iran-backed terror group fired at Israel late Thursday.

The incidents came despite an ongoing ceasefire in Lebanon, which US President Donald Trump said Thursday night would be extended by three weeks, while noting that Israel could carry out strikes in Lebanon in self-defense.

The IDF has said that since the truce took effect on April 17, it has killed over 30 Hezbollah operatives who posed a threat to troops, and destroyed hundreds of the terror group’s sites. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has been carrying out multiple attacks per day on Israeli forces stationed in southern Lebanon amid the ceasefire, while claiming that it is responding to alleged Israeli violations of the truce.

Trump announced the ceasefire extension after hosting Israeli and Lebanese envoys for the second round of the two countries’ highest-level negotiations in decades. The sides in a joint statement agreed on the “urgent need” to revive a November 2024 ceasefire deal that required the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

On Friday morning, six Hezbollah gunmen were killed in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, the military said.

Bint Jbeil is located in the Israeli-held security zone in southern Lebanon. The IDF assessed that, as the ceasefire took effect last week, several Hezbollah operatives remained holed up in the town after more than 100 were killed during the fighting there in recent weeks.

The military said that soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade spotted fresh food and military equipment at the entrance to a building in Bint Jbeil’s “kasbah,” or fortified quarter.


Israeli F-15 technicians charged with spying for Iran
The IDF military prosecution indicted two soldiers serving as the Israeli Air Force as F-15 fighter jet technicians on suspicion of spying for Iran, authorities said on Thursday.

If the allegations prove true, the case would point to an uncommon achievement for Iranian intelligence, suggesting a capability of recruiting operatives with access to sensitive military information, something that other Iranian assets who had been exposed recently seemed to lack.

The two servicemen were arrested last month and one of them was charged with aiding the enemy in wartime, passing information to the enemy, assisting contact with a foreign agent and other offenses. The second soldier was charged with contact with a foreign agent, passing information to the enemy and other offenses, according to the statement.

The servicemen’s Iranian handlers gave them assignments but they declined to carry out some that involved weapons, the servicemen told interrogators, according to the police statement. The handlers, who had been in contact with the servicemen for several months, broke off communications after the refusal, they said. The servicemen tried to reestablish contact after that, for financial gain, the police also said.

The servicemen were identified and arrested as part of a joint operation by the Shin Bet security agency, Israel Police, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division and the IDF Information Security Department, the Israel Police said in the statement.

Iran has in recent months stepped up efforts to recruit Israeli agents as part of its broader intelligence campaign against the Jewish state, relying heavily on online outreach and low-cost, high-volume tactics. Israeli authorities have said that Iranian handlers typically make initial contact through social media or messaging platforms, offering money—often via cryptocurrency—in exchange for seemingly minor tasks that can escalate into photographing sensitive sites, gathering military information or even plotting attacks.
Hamas terrorists significantly recovering capabilities during ceasefire
Hamas is significantly recovering its capabilities under the cover of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, N12 News reported on Wednesday, citing an intelligence document.

The terror group is strengthening its military and civilian hold over the Strip while global attention is directed elsewhere, the outlet reported.

Hamas terrorists are accelerating the recruitment of new terrorists and taking control of goods entering the Gaza Strip, N12 said.

Developments with Israel's operations against Iran and Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon have allowed Hamas to buy time and rebuild, as well as avoid fulfilling its commitments according to the peace plan laid out by US President Donald Trump in October, the outlet wrote.

Gaza will return to 'square one' if Hamas terrorists not fully disarmed, demilitarized, security officials warn
Security officials have warned that without fully disarming and demilitarizing the terror group, the situation in the Gaza Strip will return to "square one," as it was before the October 7 massacre.

However, the intelligence document notes that Hamas has not yet succeeded in making a breakthrough and is recovering on a slow path.
Hamas Admits: These 10 Strikes on Homes & Tents Killed Combatants
A common narrative of the Gaza war is that Israel conducted indiscriminate bombing, striking civilian homes, shelters, and tents in humanitarian zones without military justification. Yet no clear, affirmative evidence has been produced showing the IDF deliberately targeted a civilian site absent a military objective.

This narrative nonetheless became central to accusations of war crimes and genocide. It gained traction in part because Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) systematically operate in civilian dress and embed within homes, mosques, hospitals, and humanitarian zones as part of a human shield strategy. Under these conditions, strikes on legitimate military targets can appear indistinguishable from attacks on civilians, especially in initial reporting. Early accounts, often from Hamas operatives posing as journalists, were frequently accepted and amplified before additional information emerged.

New evidence has emerged showing that dozens of IDF airstrikes on homes and tents in fact targeted and killed combatants. Recent disclosures by Hamas, PIJ and DFLP, through official statements, affiliated Telegram channels, and martyr notices, have identified their own operatives killed in incidents widely reported as attacks on civilians.

When these admissions are cross-referenced with specific strike reports and contemporaneous local coverage that initially presented the individuals as civilians but now identifies them as combatants, a consistent pattern emerges. Many incidents described as unlawful attacks on homes, shelters, or tents in humanitarian zones were in fact strikes targeting embedded fighters. As more cases come to light, the narrative of indiscriminate or AI-directed strikes on civilian targets is undermined by accumulating evidence.

The following ten cases, drawn from recent Hamas and other militant group martyr notices, further demonstrate this pattern using the groups’ own admissions. This is the second installment, following ten similar cases documented in an earlier article.


Iran International podcast: Tehran turns on itself as Iran’s regime fractures
As US and Iranian officials appear to be moving toward a possible new round of talks in Islamabad, veteran journalist Eli Lake says Washington should use its leverage not only on the nuclear file, but to help the people of Iran.

Lake of The Free Press and host of the Breaking History podcast joins Eye for Iran to discuss real fractures inside Iran’s regime, why Tehran’s leadership may be turning on itself and how internal power struggles could eventually bring down the Islamic Republic from within.

Lake says Iran’s rulers now need a deal more than Washington does, and argues any negotiations should begin with restoring internet access, freeing political prisoners and ending executions.

Lake also offers hope for Iran’s future, saying the Iranian people remain the country’s greatest strength: “You cannot keep these people down.”

Hudson Institute research fellow Zineb Riboua then breaks down China’s growing anxiety over the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing’s weakening leverage over Tehran, Iran-China ties and whether Operation Epic Fury is really about weakening China’s position in the Middle East.

Finally, Iran International journalist Shervin Shahrestani reveals his major investigation into Iran’s expanding influence network in Kashmir and India, including ideological outreach, funding networks and why some call the region a “Mini Iran.”


Comedy Cellar USA: Live from the Table: Military Expert Andrew Fox: Gaza Casualties, Hamas Propaganda & the Iran War
Andrew Fox joins Live From The Table to talk about personal courage, Gaza, Hamas casualty numbers, Israel’s military strategy, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz and what modern war actually looks like. Andrew Fox is a former British Army officer (three tours in Afghanistan), now a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. Fox has been to the frontlines in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine. He wrote the first papers worldwide exposing the Hamas fatality figures manipulation in Gaza and showing how Israel actually fought on the ground in Gaza from a tactical perspective.

0:00 Intro
1:00 Serving in Afghanistan
4:00 Looking back on the war
7:30 Hamas casualty numbers in Gaza
10:00 Why Andrew looked into the numbers
12:00 Hamas figures, IDF figures, and media coverage
15:30 Civilian casualties and Hamas’s strategy
18:15 Child fighters and Hamas
19:25 Why Andrew speaks up for Israel and Jews
22:00 Problems inside the IDF
28:40 Iran and the wider war
31:50 Why stopping Iran’s nuclear program matters
37:30 Strait of Hormuz
42:00 What kind of Iran deal would make sense?
47:20 Why this is different from the JCPOA
54:00 Gaza casualty ratios and urban war
57:00 Was the Gaza war worth it?
1:02:00 Why Israel went into Gaza first
1:04:30 Final thoughts






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