(Reuters) Jonathan Landay - Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted U.S. intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information. U.S. officials have acknowledged that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran in its strikes on U.S. targets in the Gulf region generally. A source said Russia has helped Tehran improve the accuracy of its Shahed-136 drones by supplying a satellite navigation system that experts say is far more accurate and harder to jam than the one produced by Iran.

(CNN) Jessie Yeung - Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved part of its enriched uranium stockpile and advanced enrichment centrifuges to Pickaxe Mountain after the June 2025 attacks, an Israeli source familiar with the matter told CNN.

(Wall Street Journal) Michael R. Gordon - President Trump has formally approved a landmark agreement with Saudi Arabia that will provide it with a civilian nuclear program, according to administration officials. The 30-year deal is designed to give American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia's nuclear infrastructure. The new accord would have American companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia if a joint U.S.-Saudi study determines such a step would be warranted. The deal is expected to be submitted to Congress for review in the coming days. Trump administration officials say the U.S. playing a central role in the Saudi nuclear program would ensure enrichment remains peaceful. But critics argue that providing Saudi Arabia with a nuclear program would encourage the spread of nuclear technology in the Middle East. "Whither goes Saudi Arabia, so goes the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Egypt. The idea that this will have a happy ending is delusional," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

(New York Times) Natan Odenheimer - The announcement of a U.S. agreement with Saudi Arabia to develop a civilian nuclear program has raised concerns in Israel. Nir Barkat, Israel's minister of economy, argued that the country could live with a Saudi nuclear program for civilian purposes. "If they want it for peaceful purposes, for energy needs, we can manage it," he said Wednesday.

(Fox News) Emma Bussey - Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on Wednesday blasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a "clown" for demanding federal authorities arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Netanyahu arrives in the city for the UN General Assembly in September. Danon's remarks came after Mamdani accused Netanyahu of being a "war criminal" and the "architect of a horrific genocide" against Palestinians. "Everyone knows it's a show. It's a stunt," Danon told Fox News. "A mayor should be dealing with the homeless people, the garbage in New York, and leave foreign affairs to the people in Washington who are elected to do it. He should take care of the security of the people in New York, especially the Jewish community, which is seeing the rise of antisemitism. That is his first responsibility." Danon pushed back sharply against the mayor's accusations. "There is a lot of humanitarian aid coming into Gaza every day. Nobody speaks about those issues anymore, but he wants to resume spreading blood libels, promoting the claims of genocide, starvation and all those lies."

(Reuters) Greece's security council is expected to approve on Thursday the purchase of a multi-layer air defense system from Israel, worth up to $4 billion, and several types of drones. Greece wants to build an anti-ballistic, anti-aircraft and anti-drone system called "Achilles Shield." Israeli radars and missiles from Rafael and IAI will form the core of the system.

(Ha'aretz) Hagai Amit - The Gaza Board of Peace (BoP) currently holds $500 million contributed by Gulf states, representing the first installment of $7 billion pledged for humanitarian aid and reconstruction. However, the war with Iran and the resulting disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz have shut off the flow of funds. With Gulf oil revenues frozen, it's no longer possible to ask Gulf states for additional funding. "It's hard to call someone and say, 'Now send the billions you pledged,' while they're under Iranian attack," a source familiar with the Board of Peace's activities said.

(Ynet News) Elisha Ben Kimon - The IDF is dramatically expanding officer training. "To enlarge the army, you first have to grow commanders," one senior defense official said. A senior military official said there had been concerns that expanding officer courses might require lowering admission standards, but those fears had proved unfounded. Instead, he described the current generation of recruits as unusually motivated. "This is a generation that enlisted into war. They understand the moment they're living through." Training now incorporates lessons from the war, including the use of drones, robotics and underground warfare tactics.

(Ynet News) Elisha Ben Kimon - Huge rocks, sharp boulders, and dense green vegetation cover the mountain slopes and riverbanks of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Crossing the Litani was one of the most complex and dangerous operations of the recent campaign against Hizbullah. Several months before the IDF ultimately crossed, troops attempted to pass through the area but were hit by a deadly ambush. Two months later, troops came with the lessons of that failed attempt and a carefully developed tactical plan. "The entire area was fully controlled from the hills above, with observation posts, explosives, drones and high-trajectory fire. Going in there was a classic ambush," said Lt.-Col. R., 37, commander of the 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion. R. rejected the notion that the troops were defenseless against Hizbullah's explosive drones. "The explosive-drone threat is challenging and problematic...but we are absolutely not sitting ducks. We develop solutions. We are not the hunted. We are the ones hunting Hizbullah and its infrastructure without stopping."

(Jerusalem Post) Yonah Jeremy Bob - On March 26, the IDF said that naval intelligence had assisted with assassinating Iranian Naval Chief Alireza Tangsiri in the port city of Bandar Abbas, eliminating two key Iranian naval cruise missile production sites in Tehran, and Iranian sites related to submarines and other underwater threats. Israel also continued to provide intelligence assistance to the U.S. regarding the Strait of Hormuz. On April 16, the navy said it had provided critical intelligence for 154 attacks during the early 2026 war with Iran and Hizbullah. 95 of these attacks were against Iran; of those, 68 were undertaken by U.S. forces but were entirely based on Israeli naval intelligence. The navy also revealed it had been involved in eliminating five senior IRGC Quds Force liaison officials (who were working with Hizbullah) in an attack on the Ramada Hotel in Beirut on March 8. The five were top commanders involved with Hizbullah intelligence and terrorist financing. IDF intelligence wanted to utilize the navy's precision capacities to avoid any collateral harm to the large number of diplomats, media, and civilians in the hotel. For this operation and others, the navy is unique in its ability to operate in or near hostile territory for longer periods than other arms of the military. In another incident, the navy targeted the number two commander for Hizbullah's northern command at his mobile headquarters. On June 10, 2025, the Post reported that two Israeli naval missile boats fired two long-range precision missiles from hundreds of km. away at the Houthi port of Hodeidah.

(Jerusalem Post) The Israel Defense Ministry's Defense Research and Development Directorate (MAFAT) deployed software updates to frontline weapon systems within days of the Oct. 7 massacre, had new capabilities under purchase order within weeks, and has since scaled its startup partnerships to over 300 companies, Col. Yishai Cohen, a senior MAFAT official, told the Jerusalem Post.

(Jerusalem Post) Udi Etzion - Foreign drones and unmanned aerial vehicles breached European airspace 144 times between August 2024 and February 2026, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. The breaches resulted in the violation of air sovereignty of 12 countries, repeatedly forcing the closure of major airports, disrupting military activity, and flying over sensitive military installations. The overwhelming majority of the incidents involved Russian platforms launched from ships. Their mission was to expose response times, radar frequencies, and interception procedures used by Europe's air defense network. The psychological impact of the repeated incursions was considered significant. The operations were intended to undermine public confidence in governments' ability to provide security, reflecting a classic Russian psychological warfare strategy. Although attention has increasingly focused on shorter-range fiber-optic drones, such as those Hizbullah has launched against IDhttps://www.jpost.com/international/internationalrussia-ukraine-war/article-903260F troops in Lebanon, which are immune to satellite navigation jamming, military planners remain equally concerned by the growing number of unmanned systems that do rely on satellite navigation. Electronic interception could also provide an effective response against drone swarms that are already appearing in Ukraine and are expected to spread to other theaters.

(Jerusalem Post) Udi Etzion - Elbit Systems of America has been awarded contracts by U.S. Customs and Border Protection worth a combined total of more than $370 million. Elbit manufactures a range of sensors and border surveillance systems. Through previous contracts, Elbit is already responsible for securing sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. The company has deployed and operates dozens of electronic surveillance towers, radar systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles in Arizona that provide real-time surveillance data to the U.S. Border Patrol.

(Israel Hayom) Amb. Freddy Eytan - Since biblical times, military campaigns have been won only through total victory and the surrender of the enemy. There is no such thing as a partial victory or a near-defeat; a draw will not resolve a long-term conflict. Since the founding of the Jewish state, all the wars, including the one we are currently waging, prove this sad truth. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) holds a major strategic and economic advantage in the Strait of Hormuz. They are engaged in an existential struggle and can endure greater sacrifices because the fanatical Shiite religion is deeply ingrained in people's minds. Therefore, the Iranian regime will refuse to make concessions. It will also not back down on ballistic missiles or the nuclear program. The regime is still in power and Iran is still capable of severely retaliating against American raids and causing considerable loss of life and damage. The writer, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, is a former Foreign Ministry senior adviser who was Israel's first ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

(RealClearDefense) Stephen D. Cook - For months, the Commander-in-Chief has repeated a clear endstate: Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon. That objective is the only outcome consistent with American security, Israeli survival, and the prevention of nuclear-armed theocratic blackmail of the global energy system. Iran's nuclear program is not a technical problem that can be solved by bombing centrifuges or stockpiles. It is a political-military program driven by a regime whose founding ideology and operational doctrine treat the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a means to destroy Israel and, ultimately, confront the U.S. As long as that leadership remains, the program can be reconstituted. The June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes and the far larger February 2026 campaign severely damaged Natanz, Fordow, and related sites. Yet, the regime's scientific cadre, its archival blueprints, and its procurement networks survived. With residual scientists, data, and institutional knowledge intact, Iran can drastically shrink the timeline to a nuclear weapon in the near future despite recent setbacks. "Managing" or "monitoring" the regime over time is a strategic illusion. It places the burden of eternal vigilance on future administrations that may lack the will, the congressional majorities, or the public support to act when Iran next sprints for the bomb. We have already watched this movie with North Korea. The difference is that a nuclear North Korea can be contained; a nuclear Iran cannot. The permanent elimination of the regime's nuclear weapons ambition is achievable only by removing the regime that harbors it. Unconditional surrender of the Axis powers in 1945 is the relevant historical precedent. Germany and Japan were not "managed." Their regimes were destroyed, their ideologies discredited, and their war-making capacity permanently dismantled. Leaving the Iranian regime in power after we have already killed its Supreme Leader and degraded its military is not prudence; it is strategic incoherence. Continuing to pursue diplomatic settlements with a proven non-compliant actor simply defers the day of reckoning. The writer is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Lt.-Col. with 25 years of service.

(Telegraph-UK) David Harris - There never was a sovereign, independent Gaza in recorded history. Egypt governed Gaza for 19 years. There was no move towards Palestinian independence. The first country to offer Gaza the opportunity to chart its own destiny was Israel, which in 2005 unilaterally withdrew every last soldier and civilian. It also left behind scores of greenhouses intended to help kick-start Gaza's economy. Within days, those greenhouses were looted and destroyed. Over the strong objections of Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. pressed for Hamas to participate in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Within a year, Hamas had violently seized total control of Gaza, killing or expelling Palestinian Authority officials. No election has been held in the ensuing two decades. While some in the West romanticize Hamas as an "anti-colonial liberation" group, the truth is quite different. It is an outgrowth of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated objective is to replace existing nation-states in the Middle East with a Sharia-based caliphate. At its core, it is virulently antisemitic, misogynistic, homophobic, authoritarian, and intolerant of "infidels." In the past two decades, Gaza has been the recipient of billions of dollars earmarked to develop its economy and address humanitarian and social needs. Instead, the funds were largely syphoned off to build a vast terrorist infrastructure. Hamas's leaders opted to weaponize Gaza as a launching pad for Israel's destruction. What happened on Oct. 7, 2023, cannot simply be forgotten, dismissed, or minimized. In proportional terms, it would have been the equivalent of more than 8,000 British women, men, and children slaughtered in 24 hours, plus more than 1,750 people, including the elderly and babies, kidnapped. What would the British government's response have been? This was not an initiative from Gaza to advance a two-state solution. It was a genocidal effort to kill as many people as possible simply because they were Jews. In any war, innocent people are tragically killed and wounded. But one side, Hamas, cannot launch a war of aggression and then thunder to the world about its consequences. Exactly how many humanitarian corridors were created by Allied nations to provide aid to German or Japanese civilians during the Second World War? None. The writer is executive vice chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

(Jerusalem Post) David M. Weinberg - Today there is a broad Israeli consensus on foreign and defense policy issues. The past three years of devastating enemy attacks on Israel have taught Israelis the need to maintain a proactive defense posture, including strategic ascendancy against enemies near and far. Consequently, Israel will not return to the containment policies of recent decades that prioritized restraint and diplomacy over enemy degradation and military triumph. Israel understands today that it must continue to make fierce and overwhelming moves against enemy strongholds from Sidon to Khan Yunis and from Nablus to Isfahan. Israel will attack, not defend. It will initiate, not respond. It will hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them. Israel also has adopted a buffer-zone military strategy, with areas of long-term IDF control over borders where territory is dominated by Islamist-jihadist organizations. Israelis realize that their neighbors will seek true reconciliation only when Jerusalem is strong. Opposition figures now challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership have nothing to say differently from him in this regard. In Feb. 2024, 99 out of 120 members of Knesset - essentially representing the entire country aside from Israeli Arabs - voted to reject unilateral recognition by European and other countries of Palestinian statehood. Indeed, recent polls indicate that 80% of Israelis, again almost the entire Jewish public, oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. In July 2025, a majority of 71 Knesset members passed a non-binding resolution in favor of applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley. In March 2026, the Knesset approved a law by 93-0 enabling the prosecution of more than 400 of Hamas's Nukhba terrorists detained in Israel. Protests from the world against these trials will fall on defiant and deaf Israeli ears. World leaders should get used to a revamped Middle East strategic situation anchored by a hard-hitting, confident, and undivided Israel. The writer is a managing senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy.

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani isn't going to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in Manhattan for the annual UN General Assembly meetings in September. Like all world leaders, Netanyahu is protected by the terms by which the U.S. secured the placement of the world body in New York City after the Second World War. Moreover, the U.S. is not a party to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, whose corrupt former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, indicted the Israeli leader on false charges of having "intentionally and knowingly deprived" Gaza's population of food, water, fuel and medicine in 2024. The Trump administration has rightly sought to dismantle the court, whose activities are a travesty of justice and motivated solely by political prejudice against the West, and especially Israel. To those who support the mayor, Israel is the epitome of international evil. They truly believe that the actions the Jewish state took to defend itself against the Palestinian Arab terrorists who launched a war on Oct. 7, 2023, with the largest mass slaughter since the Holocaust, were genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. And no reasoned arguments will convince them otherwise. If you believe the existence of one Jewish state on the planet is not only illegitimate but that the key to solving all of the world's problems is bound up in its destruction, then you are ready to believe any charge against it, no matter how false or outrageous. The belief that Israel and Jews are "white" oppressors, and that Palestinians are oppressed "people of color" who are their perennial victims, is contrary to the facts about both peoples. Jews are the most oppressed people of the last two millennia, and the majority of Israelis are people of color since they trace their origins to North Africa and the Middle East. The rise of current advocates for antisemitism, the hatred of Jews and Israel, like the mayor, isn't unprecedented in history. They have been defeated before by decent people.

(Gatestone Institute) Kenneth Levin - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently released a map of ethnic enclaves in the city. The map labels neighborhoods as "Little Palestine," "Little Egypt," and "Little Pakistan" - recently arrived Muslim immigrant communities - but absent is any acknowledgment of the city's prominent and historic Italian, Irish, Jewish or Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Their history and prominence are simply erased. Palestinians claim they should be acknowledged as the exclusive claimants of what is now Israel and that the Jews are recent foreign interlopers whose presence should be nullified and erased. The reality is, of course, the opposite. Jewish history in the land goes back more than 3,000 years. Islam didn't even exist for most of that time. The Jewish presence in the land was unbroken throughout that entire history. The only coherent use of "genocide" to characterize events in the area is the genocide advocated by the Arab side, where Hamas calls in its charter for the annihilation of all the world's Jews as a religious obligation, and the Palestinian Authority advocates the murder of Jews in its media, mosques and schools.

(New York Post) Prof. Eugene Kontorovich - Last week, the Irish legislature passed a law banning the import of goods from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and much of Jerusalem, which it calls "settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories." The measure is part of a growing trend in Europe connected to the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to delegitimize Jews living in their biblical homeland by treating them as international lepers. Hamas hears the message loud and clear: Even if it loses on the ground, it can achieve big diplomatic victories. In 1977, Congress prohibited U.S. companies from participating in boycotts of countries with which the U.S. maintains friendly relations. Two different presidential administrations have said that the Irish law will mean immediate consequences under U.S. law for the many American companies that have set up shop in Ireland for tax purposes - particularly since the ban applies even to eastern Jerusalem and other areas that the U.S. recognizes as being fully under Israeli sovereignty. The U.S. embassy itself is located in an area that the Irish bill treats as an illegal "settlement." American companies doing business in countries listed as boycotters by the Treasury Department face tax and other penalties if they abide by their requirements. Until now, Treasury's list was made up solely of Arab states and it's gotten steadily shorter, as more Arab countries have made peace with Israel and started normal trading relationships. Now Treasury must add Ireland to its official list of boycotting countries: If Dublin wants to act like Damascus, it must be treated as such. Imposing trade restrictions on a U.S. ally as it fights alongside us in a hot war is deeply disrespectful. The U.S. must make it crystal clear that countries which choose to impose sanctions on an ally will face the consequences of U.S. law. The writer is a professor at George Mason University Law School.

(Times of Israel) Rabbi Benjy Morgan - Is there now a legal principle under which the leader of a democracy becomes a war criminal for fighting a war against an enemy that deliberately hides beneath civilians? If a terrorist organization massacres your civilians, kidnaps your children and then embeds itself beneath apartment blocks and hospitals, your obligation is what exactly? The modern debate has become remarkably good at describing Israel's alleged crimes and remarkably reluctant to describe Israel's alternatives. Every interview, every demonstration, every statement seems to begin from the assumption that there was an obvious course of action available to Israel which only malice prevented it from taking. Oddly, nobody ever quite tells us what it was. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain into Iraq on the basis of intelligence that proved to be profoundly mistaken. Hundreds of thousands died. Millions were displaced. Yet it scarcely occurs to anyone - even Mr. Blair's most determined critics - to describe him as a war criminal, let alone the architect of genocide. We instinctively understand that democratic leaders make decisions in war that can be catastrophic without being criminal. A tragic outcome is not the same as genocide. Law is not a collection of principles reserved for one's political opponents. It is a universal standard. If a democratic leader becomes a war criminal whenever he wages a war in which large numbers of civilians are killed, then the 20th and 21st centuries suddenly look rather different. Tony Blair belongs in the dock, as does George W. Bush and Harry Truman. Yet somehow nobody seriously argues that they do. We instinctively understand that military action that produces terrible consequences is not the same thing as criminal intent. That distinction seems mysteriously to disappear the moment the country concerned is Israel.

(Regavim) The roots of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) are deeply embedded in terrorism. It trains and prepares its officers to occupy communities while glorifying messages of "return" to Haifa, Be'er Sheva, and Jaffa. Foundational events such as the Western Wall Tunnel riots in 1996 and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 revealed that the weapons given to the PASF for policing purposes quickly became tools of organized murder, directed and supported by the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority leadership. In complete contradiction to the limitations stipulated in the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority has established a semi-regular army numbering tens of thousands of armed personnel, including elite offensive units equipped with heavy military weaponry. The events of Oct. 7 were the result of a long-standing conceptual paradigm that assumed quiet would be met with quiet. We convinced ourselves that the other side sought normalization and co-existence. Oct. 7 taught us to take a sober, broad, and serious look at the security reality around us. In Judea and Samaria we are ignoring the largest terrorist force in the area. Even if we rely on the most conservative estimates regarding the PASF's active force size, the violation of international law is significant, with weapons and ammunition far exceeding agreed-upon limits. We may find ourselves facing even more murderous incursions into Israeli cities and communities, close-range combat, massacres and atrocities in the heart of Israel. The security of the State of Israel must rest on its own sovereignty and strength, not on terrorist forces dedicated to the establishment of another Islamist state and the inevitable destruction of the State of Israel.

(Times of Israel) Ari Melnik - For the twenty years I have been a tour guide, people came to Israel to go deep. They came on pilgrimage to holy places. They came to stand on ground where ten civilizations sit one on top of another, to feel the oldest parts of their own story under their feet. My calendar used to be full. Now it holds almost nothing, and when the phone does ring, the request is for the Gaza envelope and Nova, not Jerusalem. In those years, no one ever asked me for the western Negev. It was farmland and kibbutzim. Now that farmland is the only ground anyone wants to walk. Now I guide people through history that is still bleeding. This new ground is sacred. I guide it with my voice low. To stand at Re'im among the photographs of the murdered, to walk the route people ran, is a duty, and I expect to perform it for the rest of my working life. The day after this seemingly endless war ends, we will have to show the world more than our wounds, real and undeniable as they are. We will have to show what we are proud of. How many people abroad know that when the envelope was emptied, ordinary Israelis opened their own homes to strangers, free, for as long as they were needed? That families in Tel Aviv cooked in their kitchens and sent the food south? That in my own neighborhood we went door to door collecting bicycles, so that children moved to hotels near the Dead Sea would have something to ride? The world was shown a response, but only a military one, and much of even that through false libels. It was never shown the quiet, beautiful resilience that I doubt any other society on the planet would manage. And every visitor who does finally land here says the same thing on the drive in. Look at all the cranes. Look at the roads. This is not a country that has given up on tomorrow. I recently understood that everything I want the world to see lives in the very place that once had nothing to see. The envelope holds the courage the communities showed on Oct. 7. The place with no history laid down, in a single day, a layer of it as deep as anything in Jerusalem.