Tuesday, April 28, 2026

04/27 Links Pt1: Israel and US won in Iran, and the critics refuse to admit it; The calumny of the ‘settler-colonialism’ charge; The self-anointed ‘good’ Israelis

From Ian:

Israel and US won in Iran, and the critics refuse to admit it
The moment the first Israeli and American jets hit their targets in Iran, two different realities emerged: one unfolding on the battlefield, and another constructed in news studios and political circles.

Understanding the gap between these two realities is essential to understanding what has actually been achieved by the United States and Israel.

Let’s start with the objective facts, because the critics won’t.

A country of 92 million people spent decades preparing for this confrontation – to no avail. Iran couldn’t mount a real response. Israel and the US moved through Iranian airspace like they owned it. They hit what they wanted, when they wanted. The enemy talked big for years, but when the moment of truth came, they were totally vulnerable. Minimal damage for Israel

For Israel, the casualty figures also tell the real story. Every pundit who predicted a massacre looks foolish now. Israeli losses were less than a tiny fraction of the lowest estimates. Not one Israeli plane went down.

The damage on Israel’s home front was minimal, and far below the doomsday numbers the experts kept repeating. Every single dark prediction was wrong.

By any honest measure, this is the most successful military campaign Israel has ever conducted. In fact, it may be the most successful campaign of its kind in modern history. But if you listen to the noise, you would think it was a disaster.

The criticism directed at the Israeli government and against the Trump administration – both in Israel and in the United States – contains not an ounce of objectivity. It is politics, top to bottom.

These critics aren’t trying to help the war effort; they’re trying to sink the people in charge. They can’t admit it’s a win because that would mean their rivals, US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, succeeded.

It’s a cold trade. A win for the nation is a loss for their party, so they refuse to see or acknowledge it.
Seth Mandel: Iran’s Imperial Jenga Tower Is Collapsing
The real friends of the Arab states, that is, are the U.S. and Israel.

Iran is far less insulated than it thought it was. The Islamic Republic built a “ring of fire” to surround Israel, but it finds itself on the way to being surrounded at home.

Meanwhile, how’s that ring of fire doing?

Amit Segal reports that top Hamas man Khalil al-Hayya “left his five-star exile in Qatar for what was intended to be a quick diplomatic trip to Cairo. After summarily rejecting a U.S.-backed disarmament proposal that offered a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, he received a text message notifying him that he had been evicted from his luxury lodgings and was officially barred from re-entering the country. It is every vacationer’s worst nightmare.”

Hopefully he has an Airbnb account or a friend with a couch. As Segal notes, Qatar didn’t take such a massive step toward cutting ties with Hamas after October 7. It’s doing so now because the U.S.-led alliance against Iran is expanding and forcing the region’s players to choose sides. America has a base in Qatar, and its relationship with Washington is its gateway to legitimacy on the world stage—legitimacy it arguably never earned and doesn’t deserve, and therefore such legitimacy would be difficult to regain should it be lost.

Qatar is a key source of funding and diplomatic and logistical support for Hamas, which is an Iranian proxy. Cutting ties with Hamas would mean choosing sides against Iran while at the same time greatly weakening Hamas’s ability to rebuild and recruit in the wake of the pummeling it received at Israel’s hands.

Then there’s Hezbollah, once Iran’s strongest and most dangerous proxy, which the IDF has put on the backfoot in Lebanon. It was hard to ignore this quote that Fouad Makhzoumi, a Lebanese member of parliament, gave to the Washington Institute’s David Makovsky, who asked Makhzoumi what should happen to Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Rodolphe Haykal if he fails to disarm Hezbollah: “At the end of the day, we are asking them to deliver. If he doesn’t, yes, he has to be removed.”

Disarm Iran’s key proxy or step aside: an ultimatum that won’t magically achieve Hezbollah’s disarmament but represents another on-the-record testimony of Lebanon’s clear alignment with the U.S. alliance.

As the clock ticks, Iran is becoming more isolated by the day. And that isolation will persist and shape the Middle East that emerges on the other side of this conflict.
NYPost Editorial: Iran’s peace offer tries to play President Trump for a fool
Iran’s latest “peace” offer — which President Donald Trump would be nuts to consider — continues the Islamic Republic’s history of playing from a posture of strength when the regime is actually in a state of near-collapse.

Now the mullahs say they will agree to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to the hostilities.

Yet the nuclear question will remain off the table for now … future talks TBD.

What chutzpah! The whole war was started to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons, so why would the United States — which paused its hell-storm to give the Iranians a chance to get their minds right — give up a key demand, as though we were the ones on our heels?

Iran’s foreign-policy strategy seems to be “fake it ’til you make it.” Its leaders — whoever they are at the moment — think that if they pretend to be a major world power, and demand to be treated as such, eventually Washington will partake in the fantasy.

But Iran has no leverage in this game of chicken. While they threaten to harass commercial shipping through the Persian Gulf, the US has blocked all Iranian shipping.

Not only does that prevent Iran from selling its oil, it means that the Iranians have to store millions of barrels of oil that are being pumped every day.

But their storage capacity is quickly running out.

Pumping oil isn’t a matter of turning a spigot on and off. Shutting down productive wells means risking their usability forever, because the oil flow will effectively destroy the wellhead.


Edwin Black: Stop genocide against Israel
In truth, Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. Self-defense is not genocide. Military response is not genocide, even if civilian deaths occur due to the deliberate actions of Hamas in creating an entire territory of terror attack tunnels and involving non-combatants. Military preemption is not genocide; it has been a justified act since 1625, when statesman Hugo Grotius codified the notion in his fundamental work On the Rights of War and Peace. Proportionality is based not on equivalent numbers, but on the force required to achieve any just military objective.

The falsehoods and exhortations about genocide committed by Israel mimic the efforts of Goebbels and Streicher to create a myth of evil as a justification for the genocide against Jews and innocents during the time of the Third Reich. It all demonizes Israel to set the stage for a hoped-for ultimate genocidal action against the Jewish people and their Jewish state.

The second question inherently arising asks if the law extends to vocal politicians such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Yes. The international Genocide Convention, in Article IV, covers all “Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III” and asserts they “shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”

A third question arises. Yes, the law extends to the funders of incitement, such as the Soros foundations, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and groups acting under the banner of “In Our Lifetime” and “By Any Means Necessary,” as well as to those Golden Calf Jews who support such groups. For those who don’t think a Jew can be prosecuted for such crimes, think again. Buchenwald prisoner Edwin Katzenellenbogen, an American Jewish doctor who cooperated with the guards, was sentenced after the war to a long term in prison by a U.S. Army tribunal.

The Second Holocaust is underway. What has been predicted for years is now rolling out across the planet. The six stages are: Identification, Exclusion, Pauperization, Deportation, Ghettoization, and then, Extermination. We are now only in the early phases. Throughout North America and parts of Europe, such as in Barcelona, Spain, we see mapping of Jewish and Zionist addresses for destructive and repressive action. Everywhere, Jews are starting to abandon their long-cherished homes in the English-speaking world, making aliyah to Israel. Israel has already staged a recent drill practicing for the mass absorption of more than 10,000 people into Israel in a short span of days.

Genocide against Israel advocates may think that once the Jews are concentrated in Israel, adversaries can finish them off with an Iranian bomb or perhaps a Turkish one borrowed from Pakistan. In late 2025, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez publicly regretted that he did not have a “nuclear bomb” to wield against Israel. However, Israel has what it needs to defend against any threat, conventional or nuclear.

In addition, the Hind Rajab Foundation in Belgium is already using local genocide laws against Israelis. The group recently discovered an Israeli soldier in Prague and immediately filed a complaint under Section 7 of the Czech Criminal Code, which covers genocide. The foundation has demanded an investigation.

We are surrounded, just like the Jews in my parents’ day. We are surrounded by an international web of hatred and a spreading determination to destroy the 80% of world Jewry that constitutes Israel and the Jewish families worldwide who support it.

Everyone talks about doing something. Now, everyone everywhere can take action with their phones and their keyboards.
Yisrael Medad: The calumny of the ‘settler-colonialism’ charge
In the first instance, the Arab presence in what they call “Palestine” is the direct result of a foreign Islamist settler-colonialism—one done through military invasion and conquest, social and religious suppression, and political subjugation. As for Jews, they were indigenous to the territory, and despite losing sovereign independence, nevertheless maintained a presence, a cultural/religious identification and a geographical consciousness for more than 18 centuries, always seeking to return to their homeland.

Secondly, the so-called “colonization” was done through purchasing back the land, mainly in locations where the Arab owners did not live. Zionists consistently sought accommodations to resolve territorial issues, including the yielding of land through either partitions or exchanges.

Thirdly, the State of Israel (Zionism’s result) assures fulfillment of all democratic rights and civil liberties for the non-Jewish population. It upholds personal and community freedoms unlike any other country in the Muslim and Arab-dominated Middle East. There is no comparison.

Fourthly, whereas Zionists sought conflict resolution through peaceful means, from the start in April 1920 until today, the Arab practice has been terror and violence, boycott and aggression, rejection and a total lack of commitment to agreements. Their diplomacy has been fallacious in intention and misleading in methodology.

Lastly, in spite of the Arab record of murder, pillaging and destruction during the Mandate period, and now, during statehood, the Arab populace has benefited economically, educationally, health-wise and in every other facet of their civilian existence.

Zionism did not seek the elimination of the Arab settler. It did not wish to deprive them of rights, but rather, to grant them those rights that the previous imperialist rulers had prevented them from achieving.

Furthermore, Zionism was and continues to be a movement of liberation that encompasses not only Jews, but all the other minorities living in Israel. Jews were not solely “European” (actually arriving in Europe due mostly to the first and second centuries dispersals by the Romans and subsequent persecutions), but Middle Eastern, Asian and North African.

With the recent celebrations of Israel’s 78th day of independence, Jews need to remember and remind enemies and opponents of these fundamental truths, among others.

Jews are not “settlers,” but “returnees to Zion.” Jews are not engaged in colonialism, but in a process of repatriation to their historic national homeland.

The Land of Israel has always been an intrinsic element of the Jewish identity—in Europe, Asia and on four other continents. It is at the heart of religious practices, cultural customs, songs and language from birth to death, wherever Jews lived or were forced to flee from and move to.

And in the 20th century and beyond, Jews have finally come home.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Trump is Right: Laws Across the Middle East to Prevent Normalization with Israel are 'Crazy' - and Poisonous
So long as Arabs and Muslims are taught by law, religion and social pressure that contact with Israelis is forbidden, the prospects for peace and coexistence will remain out of reach.

If [Lebanese President Joseph] Aoun... were to accept Trump's invitation to meet Netanyahu at the White House, he would effectively be violating Lebanon's own anti-normalization law, which prohibits all economic, professional, cultural, or social relations between Lebanese nationals and Israeli citizens and entities.

Countries such as Syria and Iraq have long maintained sweeping prohibitions on contact with Israelis, with penalties that have included life imprisonment and even death.

In Kuwait, similar laws – backed by parliamentary legislation and Islamic religious rulings – criminalize normalization with Israel and treat it as an act of treason.

Even Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel more than four decades ago, has a law that authorizes the revocation of Egyptian citizenship if a national is "qualified as Zionist." The Egyptian government has used this law, passed in 1975, to revoke the citizenship of Egyptians who marry Israeli nationals.

Another prominent Islamic body, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), has issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) forbidding normalization with Israel. The ruling came in response to the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates more than five years ago. According to IUMS, normalization agreements are "not reconciliations or truces... rather, they are a concession of the holiest and most blessed of lands and a recognition of the legitimacy of the occupying enemy [Israel]."

The purpose of these laws and religious rulings is clear: to deter, punish, and stigmatize any form of coexistence with Israel. By criminalizing people-to-people engagement, Arab and Muslim leaders and institutions send a powerful message to their populations: peace with Israel is not merely undesirable, but a crime. This message is reinforced through media campaigns, professional blacklisting, and public accusations of "treason" against those who dare to engage with Israelis.

Where peace is illegal, peace is impossible.

Washington has diplomatic, economic, and political leverage with many of the countries that enforce these laws. The question is whether it is willing to use it.
Ruthie Blum: The self-anointed ‘good’ Israelis
While the above echelons see themselves and are referred to as the “anybody but Bibi” bloc—an axis that also slings mud on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—it’s a mistake to believe that the poison is solely targeting Netanyahu or specific members of his coalition.

On the contrary, those figures are merely the embodiment of a shift that’s been moving the sociological/ideological needle in Israel since 1977, when revisionist Menachem Begin rose to the premiership. The so-called “overhaul”—after nearly 30 years of Labor Party dominance—turned out not to be an aberration.

It was, rather, a sign of how the populace was becoming more ethnically and politically diverse, much to the dismay of the hypocrites constantly shouting about pluralism and democracy. Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen summed it up perfectly in a song he wrote and performed for the first time on Oct. 7, 2024.

He introduced the number, titled “Eretz Hafucha” (“An Upside-Down Land”), at an event held in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. The purpose of the “alternative” (i.e. far-left) happening was to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre.

The key lyric of the mournful ballad is a theme that’s reiterated repeatedly by those dubbed by Sneh as the “good Israelis”: “They won’t steal our flag—but they’ve stolen the country.”

Sneh and his ilk couldn’t agree more. The rest of us “thieves” will counter their snobbery, with its racist undertones, at the ballot box.
Trump reportedly unhappy with Iranian proposal to reopen Hormuz, shelve nuclear issue
A US official says that President Donald Trump is unhappy with an Iranian proposal because it did not address Iran’s nuclear program.

“He doesn’t love the proposal,” the US official says, referring to Trump.

Earlier in the day, Trump discussed the proposal with his top national security aides. The US-Iran conflict remains in a stalemate, with energy supplies from the region reduced.

Iranian sources earlier on Monday said the proposal would set ‌aside discussion of Iran’s nuclear program until the war has ended and disputes over shipping from the Gulf are resolved. Washington has said nuclear issues must be dealt with from the outset.

Work to bridge gaps between the US and Iran has not halted, sources from mediator Pakistan have said.

But hopes of reviving peace efforts have receded since Trump announced this weekend he had scrapped a visit ⁠by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
Rubio rejects new Iranian proposal to reopen Strait of Hormuz, with future of talks in limbo
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that a reported recent offer from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz under strict conditions is not acceptable to the United States or other countries.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Rubio said Iran has a different view of the strategic waterway than most of the rest of the world does: “What they mean by opening the straits is, yes, the straits are open, as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we’ll blow you up, and you pay us.”

“That’s not opening the straits,” the top US diplomat said. “Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize, a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use them.”

Rubio’s statement came after Axios reported that Iran had proposed an agreement on reopening the strait and ending the war, while delaying negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program for a later stage.

Later Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump had discussed a new proposal from Iran with top national security aides, while also indicating that Washington was not fully satisfied with what Tehran was offering.

“I wouldn’t say they were considering it,” Leavitt adds, regarding an Iranian suggestion to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for ending the US blockade. “I would say there’s a discussion.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a meeting between the ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Separately, Iran insisted it was still in control of the strait, a key pathway for the global oil supply.

Negotiations between the sides were meant to take place in Pakistan last week, during an ongoing ceasefire in the US-Israeli war with Iran, but the talks did not come together. According to Axios, Iran’s attempt to kickstart negotiations again by solving the issues centered on the Strait of Hormuz was conveyed to the US by Pakistani mediators.
Tehran's embassy in London calls on Iranians living in UK to sacrifice their lives for the regime, sparking national security fears
Tehran's Embassy in London has urged UK residents willing to die for the regime to sign up to an official 'martyrdom' program sparking national security concerns.

Consulate officials posted a message encouraging 'proud Iranian compatriots residing in Britain' to register for its 'Jan Fada' – or 'sacrificing life' – program.

It asked for 'all brave and noble children of Iran' with a 'desire for the people's defence of the land of Iran' to come forward in a 'display of solidarity, loyalty, and national zeal'.

Chillingly, the post in Farsi on the embassy's official Telegram channel read: 'Let us all, to a man, give our bodies to be slain; For it is better than giving our country to the enemy.'

The regime launched the Jan Fada campaign last month and a spokesman for the embassy claimed it 'does not promote any form of hostility'.

But Australian police are investigating a similar recruitment drive from the Canberra Embassy while Iranian security experts warned the Mail this is a 'significant' security threat.

Scotland Yard has been contacted for comment as members of the diaspora called for action to be taken.

Roger Macmillan, former director of security at Iran International, a UK-based dissident news channel, said: 'It is horrific the fact that this is on UK soil.

'This is an attempt at radicalisation online of people who could be persuaded by the regime to commit acts in support of the Islamic Republic in the UK.


Fatal Hezbollah attack exposes gaps in IDF preparedness for first-person view drones
On Sunday morning, a small drone piloted by Hezbollah operatives slammed into Israeli soldiers repairing their tank in the southern Lebanese town of Taybeh, inside an Israeli-declared security zone, and in the midst of a ceasefire.

The drone, rigged with explosives, detonated on impact, killing Sgt. Idan Fooks and wounding six other soldiers, four of them seriously.

An Israeli Air Force helicopter was dispatched to evacuate the casualties. But as medics worked to load the wounded, Hezbollah struck again, launching two additional explosive-laden drones at the exposed troops.

One drone was successfully intercepted. The second tore in low, crashing just meters from the soldiers and the waiting helicopter before exploding. No further injuries were caused.

Footage from the scene showed troops firing at the incoming drone moments before it hit the ground.

The attack laid bare a growing vulnerability: the Israel Defense Forces’ lack of preparedness for first-person view (FPV) drones in Lebanon, which have been an increasingly prominent weapon in Hezbollah’s arsenal during the current fighting.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has released multiple videos showing small FPV drones homing in on Israeli tanks and vehicles across southern Lebanon. Some of these drones are guided via fiber optic cables, making them effectively immune to electronic jamming.

The Israel Defense Forces has reported dozens of drone-related injuries in recent weeks, though most were minor. Sunday’s attack marked the first fatal FPV drone strike on Israeli forces.

Yet the emergence of fiber optic-guided drones should not have come as a surprise.

Hezbollah had already deployed FPV drones against Israeli targets during fighting in 2024, albeit on a more limited scale. And such drones have become a defining feature of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Ryan McBeth: Drone Vs. MEDEVAC: The IDF Has A Serious Problem
An IDF Helicopter came under attack while evacuating a casualty in southern Lebanon.

This video analyzes the footage and explores why Israel just can’t seem to learn how to fight in the drone age.


Lebanese gov't yet to take any action against Hezbollah, Israeli officials tell 'Post'
The Lebanese government has not taken a single step against Hezbollah since the ceasefire in Lebanon went into effect some two weeks ago, two Israeli officials told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

“There have been no arrests, no attempts to prevent attacks on our soldiers, and no effort to stop the rocket fire,” one of the officials told the Post.

In recent weeks, Israel and Lebanon have been locked in negotiations that, for the first time, included a face-to-face meeting between Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yehiel Leiter, and Lebanon’s ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh Mouwad.

The most recent meeting last week was partially held in the presence of US President Donald Trump. Israel and the United States are demanding that Lebanon begin taking action against the terrorist organization in parallel with the ceasefire, which was recently extended by three weeks.

Netanyahu: Israel has full freedom of action in Lebanon
Speaking to IDF generals on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Israel was given “full freedom of action to foil immediate and emerging threats,” adding that the IDF has struck Hezbollah targets beyond the Litani River.

Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said today to the UN envoy to Lebanon that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is gambling with Lebanon’s future. “There will be no reality in which a ceasefire exists in Lebanon while our forces and the communities of the Galilee continue to come under fire. If the Lebanese government continues to shelter under the shadow of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, fire will break out and burn the cedars of Lebanon.”

He added that the Lebanese government must ensure that Hezbollah is disarmed first south of the Litani River up to the Blue Line, and afterward throughout all of Lebanon.


IDF troops discover arms cache in Lebanese child’s bedroom
Israel Defense Forces soldiers discovered a weapons storage facility inside a children’s bedroom in southeastern Lebanon, the military said on Monday.

The cache was discovered during a “targeted raid” near the village of Aadshit al-Qusayr, located some 2 miles north of the border with Israel, it stated.

It contained explosives, Kalashnikov rifles, grenades, RPGs, machine guns, munitions and other “combat equipment,” the IDF said.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization cynically exploits the civilian population in Lebanon in order to execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” it noted.

IDF troops deployed south of the ceasefire line in Lebanon dismantled more than 50 terrorist infrastructures in recent days, including a Hezbollah tunnel used to carry out attacks against Israel, the military added.

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


Qassem: Hezbollah will not disarm, ready for ‘epic’ battle
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Monday reaffirmed his rejection of proposals to disarm the terror group as part of the ongoing direct talks between Israel and Lebanon.

“We will not give up our weapons and defense,” the Iranian-backed terrorist leader vowed in a written statement, according to a translation by Tehran’s Press TV outlet. “The field has shown that the resistance is ready for a Karbala-like epic,” he added, referencing a brutal 7th-century battle revered in Shi’ite tradition for its message of sacrifice and martyrdom.

Qassem thanked Tehran for its insistence on including Lebanon in the ceasefire talks with the United States, claiming that the truce “would not have been achieved if the Islamic Republic of Iran had not been involved in the Pakistan negotiations.”

Hezbollah “categorically” rejects Lebanon’s decision to engage in direct talks with Jerusalem, Qassem continued, calling the negotiations a “grave sin” that was “putting Lebanon in a spiral of instability.”

“These direct negotiations and their outcomes are as if they do not exist for us, and they do not concern us in the slightest,” the top terrorist declared.

“No matter how much the enemy threatens, we will not back down, we will not bow down, and we will not be defeated,” vowed Qassem.
IDF troops dismantle 9 miles of terror tunnels, kill 70 terrorists in northern Gaza op
Israeli forces have dismantled almost nine miles of terror tunnels and killed some 70 terrorists during operations in northern Gaza in recent months, the military said on Monday.

Soldiers of the Northern Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division, operating alongside the Yahalom combat engineering unit, have been carrying out a “targeted operation” against Hamas infrastructure in the northern Strip, focusing on the Beit Hanoun area, according to the statement.

The tunnel routes discovered in the area contained living quarters and a large weapons cache, the IDF said. “Brigade troops continue operations to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area,” it added.

Approximately 70 terrorists were killed during the ongoing operation, the IDF stated, saying they violated the U.S.-brokered Oct. 10, 2025, ceasefire deal and posed an immediate threat to Israeli troops.

Soldiers remain deployed in the Strip in accordance with the truce agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat,” it added.

The current ceasefire ended the two-year war that began when Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023.


Call me Back Podcast: Israel’s Northern Exposure - with Matt Levitt
Is Israel heading toward another war with Hezbollah, or is it already in one?

Dan is joined by counterterrorism expert Matt Levitt to unpack the fragile reality between Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah. While Hezbollah was significantly degraded, the threat never disappeared. Even as diplomatic efforts try to stabilize the situation, Israel is now actively working to prevent the group from rebuilding.

They discuss life in Israel’s north, Hezbollah’s status in Lebanon, the limits of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and the risks of escalation. The conversation also explores new U.S.-backed diplomacy, and whether there’s a real path to long-term stability, or just a managed conflict.

In this episode:
What the 2024 ceasefire was supposed to accomplish
How much of Hezbollah’s capabilities were actually degraded
Why life in northern Israel still hasn’t returned to normal
Inside the IDF’s ongoing campaign in southern Lebanon
Why the Lebanese Armed Forces haven’t fully disarmed Hezbollah
Hezbollah’s role inside Lebanese politics and society today
The threat of Hezbollah’s Unit 121 and internal intimidation
New U.S.-led diplomacy and whether it can change the equation
Whether Israel may need a long-term presence in southern Lebanon






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

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