(U.S. State Department) Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Tuesday: "I know this sounds fantastical, but it is absolutely true. This is a regime led by people who believe that it is their calling and their purpose in life to usher in the end of the world. These people want nuclear weapons." "Why do we know that? Because they are assembling all the things you need for nuclear weapons. They're assembling long-range rockets that can eventually reach the United States, can already reach Europe. We saw them demonstrate two of them last week despite denying that they had them." "They were aiming to become the next North Korea...an Iran run by radical Shia clerics with intercontinental missiles that could reach the mainland of the United States eventually. That's what they were going towards. That's what they would have ultimately achieved had President Trump not taken these steps that he's taken." "So for all these people out there talking about how this could have been avoided, they were given every opportunity in multiple talks, and all they did is either reject or delay. And that's not going to happen under President Trump. He is not going to allow Iran to become a nuclear power on his watch." "This is the weakest Iran certainly has been in 25 years, right now. Look at the damage they have been able to inflict on their neighbors at their weakest point. Imagine two years from now when they had had the opportunity to double the number of missiles they had, to double the number of drones they had....The President was not going to allow that to happen."

(Reuters) Two Indonesian peacekeepers with the UNIFIL force were killed in southern Lebanon on Monday and two other soldiers were wounded by a "roadside bomb, most likely an IED," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday.

(Times of Israel) The Israel Defense Forces said the blast that killed two UNIFIL soldiers on Monday was caused by roadside bombs likely placed by Hizbullah. The military said that "a comprehensive operational examination indicates that no explosive device was placed in the area by IDF troops, and that no IDF troops were present in the area at all. The IDF is operating against Hizbullah, and not against UNIFIL, the Lebanese Armed Forces, or Lebanese civilians."

(Ynet News) Itamar Eichner - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran "still has the ability to threaten us, but they can no longer threaten our existence," citing what he described as major military and strategic gains over the past month of fighting. Netanyahu said Israel, alongside the U.S., targeted Iran's nuclear infrastructure, missile production capabilities, regime institutions and security forces, as well as senior officials and scientists. He said Iran had invested nearly $1 trillion in its military buildup, including nuclear and missile programs, and that investment has now been "wasted."

(Israel Hayom) Lilach Shoval - Security officials believe Israel is in the final stages of achieving the military goals with which it launched the Iran operation, with the exception of the Iranian nuclear issue. According to sources in Israel's security establishment, there is full coordination between the IDF and the U.S. military. However, decisions on how to bring the fighting to a close are being made at the political level in Washington. Officials also believe the chances of reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran's current regime are low.

(Ynet News) The Israeli Navy carried out a strike in Beirut on Tuesday that killed Hizbullah's Southern Front commander, Hajj Yusuf Ismail Hashem, the IDF said Wednesday. Hashem oversaw Hizbullah rocket fire and aerial attacks toward Israel, as well as plans targeting civilians and soldiers.

(American Enterprise Institute) Amb. Yechiel Leiter interviewed by Marc A. Thiessen - Israel's Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter told an AEI podcast on Monday: Q: Are we achieving our objectives in Iran and what's left to be done? Leiter: We're clearly reaching our objectives. We've decapitated most of the leadership. We've also taken out the vast majority of their launchpads for ballistic missiles. We've shut down their ability to terrorize with drones. They're still getting missiles through because there's no multilayered missile defense system that can keep everything out, and we're seeing that in Israel and in our neighbors as well. But the important thing is that we continue to put this kinetic pressure on them so that they will be completely debilitated in terms of their ability to wreak havoc on Israel and their other neighbors in the region. Q: What is Israel's goal in this war? Leiter: The purpose is to make sure that we don't have a power, an entity in Tehran, which is developing nuclear weapons, is developing weapons of mass destruction in terms of these ballistic missiles, and is supporting proxies around the region. That's what we're focused on. Now, if that can be done without regime change, okay. Probably can't though. So at the very least, what we want is regime collapse. Some of our allies have become even greater allies over the past month, whether it's UAE, Bahrain. I think we've become closer to the Saudis, closer to the Omanis. Closer to the Kuwaitis, for crying out loud. They've asked us for assistance. So we become closer. This isn't going to end even if at some point the U.S. says, we've done our job, we've destroyed them militarily and now we're wrapping up. Israel and its allies will continue to act. The entire world is being held hostage right now at the Strait of Hormuz. Now imagine that these guys had a nuclear weapon. The level of holding the world hostage would be just exponentially so much greater. Or even if they had 7-8,000 ballistic missiles that they could threaten their neighbors with, even before they get to an intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit Chicago. The main lesson of the Holocaust is that if somebody says they're intent on killing you, believe them. We ignored exactly what Hitler wrote, what he planned, and what he began to do. And we just kept kicking the can down the road until it was too late and 65 million people lost their lives. Every day, I have at least five journalists appealing to the embassy to find the daylight between the president and the prime minister. I'd have to look hard with a microscope to find the difference of opinion on this joint operation. We are flying shoulder-to-shoulder, wing-to-wing. This operation is massive. There's never been anything like it. We were together in the planning, we're together in the implementation, and we're going to be together in the grand finale as well. At the end of the day, we are the junior partner. The President of the United States makes decisions. Nobody drags President Trump into something he doesn't want to do. We provide intel, they provide cover, we're doing things together, and I think we're changing the world together. This is Judeo-Christian civilization on steroids. This is for the world. This is not just for our two countries, and it's certainly not just for Israel.

(Israel Hayom) Yoav Limor - Brig.-Gen. S., commander of Tel Nof Airbase, landed an hour and a half before this interview after carrying out a strike in Iran. He said that once you cross the border into Iran, "You tense up, you sharpen your focus, you look at your formation, you search for missiles that could be launched at you, and above all you want to complete the mission and return home safely." Although he holds a high rank, S. joins some of the sorties himself. Only that way, he said, can he fully understand the missions, make sure they are being carried out properly, see how the battlefield is changing and what threats are emerging, and provide feedback to those planning the missions. "I'm not doing this for fun," he said. "I'm doing it to bring operational value." I asked whether he is afraid. He said yes. Fear is a wonderful thing. It keeps you alert, sharp and precise. "Anyone who says he isn't afraid is lying." He says there are pilots who have already flown more than 30 strike sorties into Iran. One a day, and even more in the early days. He said that in an average month, the two fighter squadrons at his airbase log 200 flight hours. In the past month they logged 5,200. "The real heroes are the ground crews. They make this magic happen." He praised cooperation with the Americans. "If you have to choose a partner, it's this partner. The beauty of this relationship is that each side brings its relative advantages: they bring the power, the quantity, the scale, and we bring the flexibility, the familiarity with the theater, the operational experience. Together we are achieving very impressive results. They are a wonderful partner." "We began with a surprise opening blow that included decapitating the leadership and going after the missile array and surface-to-air missiles in order to achieve air superiority, and we are continuing with the systematic destruction of all military industry in Iran. We are taking away their production capabilities and their ability to recover....We are operating in a way that will make it very hard for them to recover from this. But it takes time. It requires patience. I compare it to a boxing match: you don't win in the first round but after several rounds. That's what we're doing." He said that Oct. 7 is always there, for every one of them. "We understood that if the enemy has the ability to harm you, you have to take that ability away as quickly as possible, because the longer you wait, the more complicated it becomes."

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Rawan Osman - Hizbullah's decision to drag Lebanon into war with Israel is a war Lebanon cannot afford and Hizbullah cannot win. Yet Hizbullah is not acting as a Lebanese national actor but as part of the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. The axis is not trying to defeat Israel outright. It is attempting to shape the political, psychological, and diplomatic consequences of Israel's response. The blueprint for this strategy was laid out on Oct. 7. The attack was not only an act of mass violence; it was a calculated provocation designed to reshape the regional environment. The brutality of the attack was designed to produce maximum shock and outrage, ensuring a massive Israeli retaliation. That retaliation was the intended outcome. By drawing Israel into a prolonged and devastating war, the axis created conditions in which civilian suffering, particularly in Gaza and later in Lebanon, would become the central image of the conflict. These images, amplified globally, serve to isolate Israel diplomatically, erode its standing in Western societies, and reignite deeply rooted hostility across the Arab and Muslim worlds. The objective is to sustain a cycle in which Israel is compelled to act forcefully, only to see that force translated into political cost. In escalating the confrontation, Iran and its proxies may have overreached. By extending the conflict across multiple fronts and implicating Arab states more directly, Iran has intensified suspicion and hostility among Sunni-majority countries. In Lebanon, this shift is particularly visible. The scale of destruction, combined with Iran's inability to shield the country from its consequences or to compensate for the losses incurred, has emboldened criticism of Hizbullah in ways that were previously rare. The writer is a JCFA researcher and Syrian-born activist.

(National Review-Times of Israel) Douglas J. Feith - Did Iran pose an imminent threat to the U.S.? "Imminence" is not a precise or objective term that presidents should employ only if intelligence experts endorse it. In national security affairs, it is almost always debatable. Besides, "imminence" is not the right concept for deciding whether and how to respond to a grave threat from abroad. To grasp why it is not right, ask yourself: When did the Sep. 11 attack become imminent? When did the attack on Pearl Harbor? When did Russia's invasion of Ukraine? When did the Holocaust? When did the threat of British tyranny that justified the American Revolution? The concept of "imminence" offers no useful guidance for confronting complex threats of this kind. Is a threat imminent when the enemy becomes hostile? Only after they perfect the means to attack us, or only after the enemy puts them in motion as part of an attack? Does it matter if the enemy appears unstable or ideologically fanatical? Does it matter if the enemy's means of attack are apocalyptic - nuclear weapons on long-range missiles, for example? The relevant concept is unacceptable risk, not imminent threat. Presidents have the duty to decide whether a foreign threat poses risks that require a U.S. response. They have the responsibility to decide whether a threat is grave enough - and no means short of war can reduce the risk to an acceptable level - to make war necessary. As a rule, only an imminent threat justifies police officers' use of deadly force. But is it sensible to import that concept into national security affairs today, when a country like Iran calls over decades for "Death to America," commits numerous murderous aggressions, and devotes enormous resources to developing terrorist proxy networks, nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles? The writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005.

(Gatestone Institute) Khaled Abu Toameh - Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have again rejected demands by President Trump's "Board of Peace" to lay down their weapons, underscoring their determination to continue their fight against Israel. They do not take seriously Trump's repeated threats that they must disarm as part of the October 2025 U.S.-brokered ceasefire and reconstruction plan for Gaza. Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist inside any borders. It considers all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as an Islamic endowment that belongs to Muslims to hold in trust for Allah by divine right. When Hamas talks about "resistance," it is referring to a comprehensive framework aimed at destroying Israel through a violent jihad. According to a report in the Independent Arabia newspaper, the Board of Peace recently presented Hamas with a set of guarantees including the integration of 20,000 Hamas gunmen into a new security force in Gaza that would receive salaries with international funding. The Board of Peace also apparently offered "political and legal immunity" to Hamas terrorists, guaranteeing that they will not be prosecuted by Israel in exchange for their involvement in a local governing council. If true, this means that the Board of Peace views Hamas as a legitimate and acceptable partner in the future management of Gaza. The mere act of engaging Hamas in such negotiations is beyond problematic. It risks legitimizing an Islamist terror group and entrenching its authoritarian rule in Gaza. The idea of integrating Hamas into Gaza's new security apparatus sends a message that participation in terrorism carries no consequences and that terrorists can move directly from violence into official roles. It is hard to see how pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Turkey, or Pakistan, all part of the Board of Peace, would seriously participate in any effort to force the Palestinian terror groups to give up their weapons.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Ghaith al-Omari - The Iran war has both exposed and widened a longstanding division between Hamas officials aligned with Iran and those aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. Neither camp can be considered "moderate," given their shared endorsement of terrorism and ultimate goal of destroying Israel. Yet the current weakening of Iran will inevitably boost Qatar and Turkey, which have backed the Brotherhood. In the last several months, U.S. officials have engaged directly with Hamas. Yet given Hamas's weakness, such an approach is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Engagement with the U.S. is a long-held goal of Hamas, heralding entry into the mainstream as viewed by regional actors. Moreover, if Hamas senses it can bypass the Board of Peace's High Representative through direct engagement with the U.S., it will do so. U.S. engagement should be presented as the ultimate prize once Hamas has met its obligations and fully implements the 20-point plan. The writer is a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and a former advisor to the Palestinian Authority.

(Telegraph-UK) Batsheva Neuer - The charge that Zionism is racism did not begin with a critique of Benjamin Netanyahu or the Gaza war. It was created as a Soviet ploy during UN deliberations on racial discrimination in 1965. Over the next decade, together with Arab states and the Non-Aligned Movement, the Soviet bloc pushed to brand Zionism as a form of racism. When efforts to expel Israel from the General Assembly failed, the next best thing was to declare Jewish sovereignty itself illegitimate. In 1975, that is exactly what happened. In 1991, with the Soviet Union collapsing and the Gulf War reshaping international politics, the resolution was finally repealed, effectively acknowledging that the formula was a political disgrace. The poison, however, remained. Within a decade, it had seeped into civil society, where Israel was increasingly cast as uniquely illegitimate even during years of territorial compromise and diplomatic concession such as the Oslo Accords and Camp David. Then came the Durban Conference in 2001, where Israel was accused of genocide - decades before the current war against Hamas. The point of the groups responsible was never merely opposition to one Israeli government or another. The point was that Jewish nationhood itself was treated as a civilizational disgrace. Few other national movements have been subjected to this kind of sustained moral delegitimization and none with quite the same obsessive intensity. This has now migrated into a new accepted wisdom, where the old slogan is presented as enlightened morality. But the error in calling Zionism racist is conceptual. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people are entitled to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. For thousands of years, Jews around the world have turned toward Jerusalem in prayer. After Oct. 7, one might have expected at least some clarity about the kind of enemy Israel faces, and about why a Jewish state is all the more necessary. To call Zionism racist is to say that Jewish collective self-rule, alone among the world's national movements, is inherently suspect. It is to deny Jews their history, their present, and their future. The writer is a postdoctoral historian at INSS-Tel Aviv University.