Israel News
Daily Alert
Iran Is Fortifying Nuclear Sites and Rallying Its People for a Return to Fighting
on October 12, 2026
(Wall Street Journal) Benoit Faucon -
Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider, harsher response against the U.S. and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms. Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites, to make them more resilient to attacks.
The government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles, and holding rallies. Iran has little ability to defend against attacks, giving it an incentive to try to deter such attacks with threats. The belligerent tone also serves as a distraction from the deepening economic misery Iranians are experiencing.
Iran's top national security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said Sunday that Tehran could target the UAE, which has largely escaped being attacked since late spring, as well as data centers and internet cables across the region. Tehran has separately warned that it could strike Saudi oil facilities in the event of a renewed conflict. The missile attack by the Houthis on the airport in Riyadh that killed 13 people and injured hundreds more on Saturday highlighted the vulnerability of major economic targets in the region.
British Prime Minister: Iran Behind RAF Fairford Plot
on October 12, 2026
(Reuters) Michael Holden -
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told parliament on Monday, "I can confirm our assessment that [a plot targeting the RAF Fairford air base on Sept. 27] is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. U.S. officials have told Reuters that there had been a plot involving Iran to launch a drone attack on the base, which had been used by U.S. bombers to carry out strikes on Iran.
"We will not tolerate these threats on our soil," Burnham said. "We will crack down on Iran's use of criminal networks, using our full range of powers to target them and their funding streams, and we will bring further sanctions to restrict the capacity of Iran and the IRGC to do us harm."
Foreign ministries from almost 30 countries including the U.S., Canada, France and Germany issued a statement condemning "Iran's use of violent attacks, including the acts of lethal plotting, arson, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and other hybrid activities against us and our partners. The UK has also concluded this event demonstrates the IRGC's continued willingness to project hostile activity beyond its borders through covert networks and proxy actors."
Behind the Saudi-Houthi Escalation
on October 12, 2026
(The Times-UK) Samer Al-Atrush -
A Houthi missile struck Riyadh's international airport on Saturday, killing 13 and wounding hundreds. It was the Saudis who in June escalated their 12-year war with the Houthis, which had theoretically been paused by a ceasefire in 2022. The escalation originally began when the Saudis struck a Houthi-held airport in June to stop an Iranian-backed plane from landing, in what was meant to be a show of dominance.
The Saudis had recently elbowed out the UAE, its erstwhile military ally in Yemen, from the country. But with the Emiratis gone, along with their Apache helicopters and command center in Mocha, on Yemen's Red Sea coast, the Houthis seized the opportunity to carry out a lightning advance in September that left them in control not only of Mocha but the neighboring Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which controls access to the Red Sea.
Iran had been pressuring the Houthis to close Bab al-Mandeb and the Red Sea to oil shipments as its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz weakened. It got its wish. Saudi-backed government forces launched an offensive to retake the territories recently captured by the Houthis. This prompted the Houthis' Riyadh airport strikes.
One Student Killed, 23 Injured by Hizbullah Cluster Munition during School Trip
on October 12, 2026
(Ynet News) Yair Kraus -
Students on a school trip near Israel's northern border picked up an unexploded munition that detonated, killing Yair Wilensky, 14, and injuring 23 others, 3 seriously, on Monday in the Upper Galilee.
5 Hamas and Islamic Jihad Terrorists Eliminated in Gaza
on October 12, 2026
(Israel Defense Forces-X) The IDF Spokesperson announced Tuesday that five terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been eliminated this week. The Islamic Jihad terrorists eliminated were engineering operative Muhammad Abu Hajjaj, deputy squad commander Yousef Abu Razakr, and rocket array operative Abdelhamid Jadallah. Hamas Nukhba terrorists eliminated were Salah al-Din Iyad Abd al-Hamid and Izz al-Din Iyad Diab Barhoum from the Rafah Brigade.
All had recently advanced terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops and operated to restore the military capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in systematic violation of the ceasefire. They were eliminated in order to remove the threat they posed.
Israeli President: Nobel Peace Prize Choice an Affront to Peace-Loving People
on October 12, 2026
(Jerusalem Post) Tzvi Jasper -
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to South African judge Navi Pillay is an "affront to any life-affirming, peace-loving people," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Monday. "Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to one of the leading proponents of the genocide lie is a cynical decision which celebrates a shameful display of moral erosion."
Biden's Hamas Hostage Negotiator: After Oct. 7, Israel "Will Never Allow Hamas to Reconstitute....Those Are Legitimate National Security Aims"
on October 12, 2026
(Sunday Times-UK) Josh Glancy -
In August 2024, Brett McGurk, point man on the Middle East for President Biden, was working to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza when he received a call from William Burns, director of the CIA. Six Israeli hostages had been found slain in a tunnel under Rafah, all of them shot multiple times. These deaths were not a tragic accident. After the bodies were found, Hamas released propaganda videos showing some of the hostages speaking their final words.
The deal was doomed - and McGurk realized that a major shift would now be required for the war to end. The Americans should "walk away until [Yahya] Sinwar is dead," he told Biden. As long as the Oct. 7 mastermind was alive, there would be no agreement. In his new book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, McGurk brings us the first draft of this history.
He ran the Hamas hostage negotiations for Biden. "You're nearly there, then Hamas puts another crazy demand on the table." When the war's first ceasefire and hostage exchange ended on December 1, 2023, it was because Hamas refused to release the young female hostages that were due to come out next. On other occasions, Hamas refused to provide complete lists of which hostages it was willing to release.
Today, Sinwar is dead, while Hamas is heavily depleted and no longer in total control of Gaza. But it is not defeated. "So long as they are clinging to power, there is no way forward on a political horizon, or tragically for the people of Gaza," says McGurk.
"What you need to appreciate is that, after October 7, Israel will never allow threats to gather on its border again. It will never allow Hamas to reconstitute, never allow Hizbullah to mass 30,000 troops on the border. I wouldn't defend all their actions, but those are legitimate national security aims."
There is a growing line of argument for the U.S. to distance itself from Israel. McGurk disagrees. "I believe that to influence Israeli conduct, the better approach is to be working with them, because the threats are there regardless, and they are going to act on them."
"Hamas Beat Us Day after Day" - 738 Days in Captivity
on October 12, 2026
(Telegraph-UK) LA Robinson -
Bar Kupershtein, 24, was released on October 13, 2025, after 738 days in Hamas captivity. He was overseeing security at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. "I went outside, looked at the sky and saw rockets. I immediately understood Hamas was attacking Israel." As terrorists began cutting off exits to the festival, he convinced the police chief to open the emergency exit - a move that saved more than 2,000 festival-goers.
"I was a medic in the army, and I had an ATV [all-terrain vehicle]. I realized I could save these people myself. I went back and forth to the exit a couple of times with injured people, but the last time I went back to the festival site, it was on fire. The terrorists had arrived. They shot RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and killed all the police officers in their cars."
Kupershtein crawled through brush at the side of the road. "I remember the screaming, the sound of gunshots, then silence." Realizing he would be next, he hid his security gear in the brush so Hamas wouldn't shoot him on sight. When the terrorists finally found him, they threw him and another hostage into the back of a Toyota with Palestinian plates and crossed the border.
"For the first month we were in an apartment, and after the [first hostage release] deal we went down into a tunnel where we never saw daylight. The space was about 4.5 meters wide for six people. We slept on the floor on a thin mattress and dug a hole for a toilet beside it. We showered once a month. The drinking water wasn't clean....I lost 65 lb."
Bar Kupershtein's memoir is Unbreakable: Lo NishBar.
Middle East Gains Must Not Be Squandered
on October 12, 2026
(Gatestone Institute) Bassam Tawil -
Israel, increasingly encircled for decades by an Iranian "noose of fire" on seven fronts, inflicted severe damage on its enemies' military capabilities. The U.S. finally demonstrated its willingness to use military force against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and a U.S.-backed agreement brought home all the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas continues to resist disarmament, Iran remains a major threat, and Hizbullah's armed presence in Lebanon continues to undermine the authority of the Lebanese state.
Trump's 20-point plan provided a framework for a different future for Gaza. It envisioned an end to Hamas's rule, the disarmament of armed factions, a transitional Palestinian administration, an International Stabilization Force (ISF), and reconstruction. Hamas has suffered substantial military loses, but it has not disappeared as a political and armed force.
Can Gaza really have a new beginning while the organization that launched the Oct. 7 massacre retains the ability to launch more massacres? Civilian institutions cannot function effectively when an armed faction retains the power to threaten and overrule them.
The task ahead is to turn the gains already made into a strategic reality in which Palestinians in Gaza can live under civilian government rather than an armed factional rule, in which Israel's security is strengthened, and in which Iran and its Middle Eastern allies can no longer threaten its own people or the region in any way.
Hizbullah's Explosives Smuggling Signals Preparations for Renewed War with Israel
on October 12, 2026
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah -
During August and September 2026, Syrian security forces and the Lebanese Army announced the seizure of rockets, RPG rounds, and automatic rifles, magazines, and ammunition. On Oct. 7, a Lebanese army checkpoint on the Damascus-Beirut road foiled an attempt by two members of Hizbullah to introduce 800 kg. of C4 and TNT military-grade explosives to Lebanon. Routine skirmishes and smaller tactical seizures occur regularly. Is this signaling that Hizbullah is preparing for an internal confrontation in Lebanon or preparations for a renewed conflict with Israel?
Extensive Israeli air campaigns targeting underground Hizbullah infrastructure in the Bekaa Valley, Southern Lebanon, and the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut have destroyed significant stockpiles of pre-stored munitions, causing severe disruption and forcing the group to rapidly attempt replenishment via smuggling routes along the porous Syrian border.
A renewed, sustained military confrontation with Israel is the primary strategic driver behind moving high explosives at this scale. The attempt to push bulk C4 and TNT across the border reflects an urgent effort to replenish degraded defensive stockpiles, support local weapon fabrication, and prepare for a long-haul military clash with Israel.
The writer, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center, was formerly Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.
Israel's People Know Instinctively that Freedom Needs Defending
on October 12, 2026
(Telegraph-UK) Charles Moore -
Those who run modern countries such as ours should be thinking harder about what Israel today is. Zionism is ignorantly equated with racism by Britain's Green party. In fact, it closely resembles other forms of 19th-century nationalism which took root in countries such as Ireland, Italy and Greece - the key difference being that Zionism is for a people who lacked a home.
Since 1948, they have had one, sovereign under international law. The modern Zionist task is to make it secure. This is not extreme: it is simply necessary, and incredibly difficult. We need to understand this and defend it.
As one senior Israeli political figure put it to me: "People in the West love victims, but not strong ones." Perhaps if Israel had wept but not acted after Oct. 7, 2023, it might have won more sympathy. Yet if it had not hit back, it would have been overwhelmed.
Supporters of Hamas's day of atrocious murder, torture, kidnapping and rape refer to it as "the al-Aqsa flood," al-Aqsa being the Muslim term for the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, "flood" referring to the hope that all Israel would be inundated by marauders killing every Jew they could find.
The reason they failed was that Israel possessed superior force and, in its people, a much better-disciplined will. Almost regardless of their political allegiance, its people know instinctively that freedom needs defending. British people ought to admire that: it is how our nation survived in 1940.
The writer, a member of the House of Lords, is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Spectator, and Sunday Telegraph.
How Britain Stepped Back from the Brink with Israel
on October 12, 2026
(The Times-UK) Matthew Gould -
Thursday was the deadline set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar for the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem and the departure of 27 diplomats in retaliation for British Foreign Minister Ed Miliband's announcement of sanctions against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Reuters reported that Britain had threatened to expel a proportionate number of Israeli diplomats from the embassy in London.
Yet escalating would have done grievous harm to a vital bilateral national security partnership. If we did not match Israel's expulsions we would look weak. If we did match them we risked spiraling escalation. Saar had made clear that every hostile step would be met by a proportionate response.
But Thursday arrived with a surprise compromise in which both sides saved just enough face to step away from the brink. The agreement was that seven British diplomats would stay on in the consulate. But it would no longer be called a consulate, instead becoming the UK mission, Jerusalem. Israel got to remove the signs; Britain got to keep the flag flying above a building that had been in Jerusalem since 1838. Neither side had to cross their public red lines.
But the UK only had a crisis to diffuse because we created it. Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, said to me: "We should never have got into this mess in the first place. Ed Miliband's performative politics, playing to his base, have put a critical national security partnership at risk."
The writer was the British ambassador to Israel, 2010-15.
The Cult of Palestinianism Is Fundamentally Anti-British
on October 12, 2026
(Telegraph-UK) Stephen Daisley -
Why has Britain been such a focal point for anti-Israel activism since Oct. 7, 2023? Our open-borders immigration policy has played its part. As, too, has our insistent, suicidal tolerance of people and cultures inimical to our own.
But there is something else at work. Palestinianism is outwardly anti-Zionist, but inwardly it grows from a sense of grievance against the British, their empire, and London's historical sympathy for a Jewish state. They hate Israel, but they blame Britain. To the Palestinianists, Britain means the Balfour Declaration, the original sin which enabled the entire Zionism project.
Britain would rather not face up to the enmity felt for it by the Palestinianists. We have more than enough mobs who hate our guts, thank you very much. Our fatal mistake is listening to them in good faith and striving to strike a reasonable balance between their campaign and that of their Israeli enemies.
In doing so, we insist upon a false equivalence that treats these two causes as morally equal. This approach cannot survive honest scrutiny.
The cause of Zionism, the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish state in the ancient Land of Israel, has produced an advanced democracy, with a highly educated citizenry and burgeoning markets in technology, medical science, and military materiel. By whichever metric you choose, the State of Israel is an objective good and has brought many benefits to Western civilization.
Abbas Election Delay Exposes Lack of Accountability in Western Recognition of Palestine
on October 12, 2026
(Jerusalem Post) Mathilda Heller -
A year ago, countries across the world declared their unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, laying out various conditions upon which recognition hinged. Canada explicitly made recognition conditional on Palestinian Authority (PA) reforms, including general elections in 2026. France emphasized the PA's commitment to hold general elections under international supervision within one year.
Last week, however, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28, postponing them for a year. The Canadian government has made no public statement about the delay.
Canada's Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) noted, "While Israel faces punitive measures from the Canadian government, the Palestinian Authority has yet to face accountability for failing to deliver on its commitments. This is a dangerous double standard....Canadians need to know what concrete steps their government will now take to hold the PA accountable and ensure its policies produce meaningful progress toward peace."
A New Approach to "Israel Education"
on October 12, 2026
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Tirza Shorr -
A third of American Jews aged 18-34 now identify as anti- or non-Zionist, according to the "Survey of Jewish Life since October 7" conducted by the Jewish Federations of North America in 2025. For young Jews to understand their own history, heritage, and identity, they must understand the wider Middle East, including the Arab worldview, Islamic rejectionism of the Jewish state, and the terrorist organizations that enact it.
Neglecting the subject of Jewish dispossession and subjugation under Muslim rule leaves unanswered the claim that Zionism "privileges the whiteness" of Ashkenazi Jews. Without a lens on Islamism and Arab nationalism, Palestinian identity is treated as divorced from the history of exclusion that denied Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, and Amazigh recognition or sovereignty. Students also need to understand the doctrine, invoked in Hamas's founding charter, that land once under Muslim rule is an Islamic endowment that cannot be ceded, a belief that still animates Israel's enemies.
A new curriculum for Jewish youth should cover Jews as a Middle Eastern people, including Jewish continuity in the Land of Israel and across the Muslim world, along with the Mizrahi and Sephardi experience and pre-Holocaust Zionism. Other topics should include Islamic law, jihad, and the historical status of religious minorities; political Islam; Palestinian nationalism; war, peace and normalization; and the skills to assess ideological and information warfare.
The writer is a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center.
The Nazi Collaborator at the Surrender of Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter in 1948
on October 12, 2026
(Substack) Lenny Ben-David -
Mousa Abdullah al-Husseini, operating out of Berlin from 1941 to 1945, served as a vital aide, liaison, and researcher within the Arab Bureau of the Grand Mufti, an office attached to the German Foreign Ministry headed by his cousin, the notorious antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.
During the war, Mousa organized anti-British and antisemitic propaganda broadcasts designed to incite sabotage and violent rebellions across British Mandate Palestine, Iraq, and Egypt. These broadcasts included speeches by the Mufti calling for the total liquidation of the Jewish people.
At the war's end, Allied authorities tracked al-Husseini down in Central Europe and arrested him. Consequently, the British deported him to a prison camp in the Seychelles Islands in 1945. Yet by 1946, seeking to appease Arab leadership, the British government relented. At the urging of Harold Beeley - an influential anti-Zionist policy advisor to British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin - Mousa was freed and permitted to return to Jerusalem, where he immediately re-entered political life as the banished Mufti's chief agent.
In April 1948, Mousa joined the inner circle of Jordanian military commander Col. Abdullah el-Tell, serving as the official liaison for the Arab Higher Committee. He was in el-Tell's entourage during the assault on the Old City, and ultimately, at the table for the surrender of the Jewish Quarter. He was photographed single-handedly screening the Jews evacuating the Jewish Quarter, separating Jewish civilians from suspected combatants destined for the Transjordanian prison camps.
Yet, Mousa al-Husseini was never a true loyalist to the Hashemite King Abdullah I; his ultimate allegiance remained with the Mufti. This unresolved friction culminated in 1951, when Mousa masterminded the assassination of King Abdullah I on the steps of the al-Aqsa Mosque. Mousa was tried as the lead conspirator in the regicide and hanged in Jordan.
The writer, a former AIPAC official and Israeli diplomat, is a research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
The Collapse of Hamas's Concept of Victory and the Erosion of the "Armed Resistance" Ethos
on October 12, 2026
(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Prof. Kobi Michael -
Recent Palestinian public opinion polls indicate a significant weakening of the "resistance is winning" narrative and reflect a profound conceptual shift. While the Oct. 7 attack was initially perceived by large segments of the Palestinian public as a historic achievement, over time, the destruction of Gaza, the heavy human toll, and Hamas's lack of any political or military horizon have forced this public to confront reality.
One month after the outbreak of the war, 70% of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria believed that Hamas would emerge victorious. By August 2026, that figure had fallen to 20%. In Dec. 2023, 63% believed the preferred strategy for statehood was Hamas's strategy of "armed struggle." In August 2026, that figure was 27%, the lowest rate recorded in the past four years.
While Palestinians in Judea and Samaria generally maintained more hawkish positions (due to their distance from direct fighting), residents of Gaza, who experienced the destruction and humanitarian suffering firsthand, led the decline in support for Hamas and its actions. As the collapse of civilian infrastructure intensified and disillusionment with the resistance's ability to protect the population grew, Hamas's legitimacy as the vanguard of the national camp eroded severely.
This shift moves the center of gravity from supporting Hamas's strategy of resistance toward a pragmatic approach that is acutely aware of its costs.
At the same time, the ethos of armed resistance remains deeply embedded in the psychological foundations of Palestinian society, even as Palestinians confront the painful experience of its failure. There is very strong opposition to disarming Hamas; 50% believe that armed resistance has benefited the Palestinian national struggle.
As of August 2026, the Palestinian public presents a picture of despair, but also of growing disillusionment with Hamas's hubris of victory. It understands the price of the destruction and expresses a greater willingness than in the past to pursue diplomatic channels and negotiations.
The Palestinian public's recognition of the devastation brought upon it by Hamas serves as a foundation for the demand, shared by both Israel and Abbas, that Hamas must not be integrated under any circumstances into the new governance mechanisms being established in Gaza and that it must be fully disarmed, without compromise.
The writer, a senior researcher at INSS, served as deputy director general and head of the Palestinian desk at Israel's Ministry for Strategic Affairs.
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