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In-Depth Issues:
The Impact on Iran of a U.S. Naval Blockade - Miad Maleki ( X)
A U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cost Iran about $276 million/day in lost exports and disrupt $159 million/day in imports, a combined economic damage of about $435 million/day, or $13 billion/month.
Over 90% of Iran's $109.7 billion in annual trade transits the Persian Gulf.
Iran was exporting about 1.5 million barrels/day of crude oil. A blockade zeroes this out.
Iran has roughly 20 million barrels of spare onshore oil storage capacity. With the 1.5 million that it normally exports, storage will fill up in 13 days. After that, Iran must shut-in wells.
When mature oil wells shut down, bottom water rushes in, reducing the oil that can be recovered. Forced shut-ins could permanently destroy production capacity worth $9-15 billion a year.
The writer, a senior U.S. sanctions strategist and former associate director of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Global Targeting at the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Iran's Foreign Currency Reserves Have Been Depleted - Danny Zaken ( Israel Hayom)
Intelligence reaching the U.S., Israel and Gulf states shows that Iran's foreign currency reserves have been almost entirely depleted.
The situation is expected to worsen further if the Strait of Hormuz is closed to Iran.
Iran's Finance Ministry and central bank are warning daily that Iran will struggle to recover even if the war ends now, unless sweeping reforms are introduced and resources are redirected toward the economy.
The Iran-U.S. talks in Pakistan broke down because of disagreements over the nuclear issue and over Iran's refusal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as it had undertaken to do as a condition for a ceasefire.
The intelligence also points to the collapse of the sectors of Iran's economy run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which have nearly ceased operating.
The UAE Is Cracking Down on Illicit Iranian Finance - Hussain Abdul-Hussain ( National Interest)
After Iran unleashed more than 3,000 missiles and drones against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over five weeks of the Iran war, in response, the UAE doubled its efforts against illicit Iranian money networks.
By early April, Emirati authorities had detained dozens of Tehran-linked money changers, shuttered their exchange houses, and closed their offices.
They especially targeted the Sarraf networks that once funneled billions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Emirati crackdown was a strategic pivot that now offers the U.S. a decisive new advantage in its maximum-pressure campaign against Iran's shadow banking system.
Analysts estimate that a sustained crackdown could deprive Iran of tens of billions of dollars annually.
The UAE's shift signals to other Gulf states that tolerance for Iranian financial networks is a national-security liability rather than a commercial convenience.
As Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic advisor to the UAE's president, made clear, the region cannot return to the pre-war status quo of unchecked missile and drone programs financed by shadow banking.
The writer, former managing editor of Beirut's Daily Star, is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Iran Has No Cards - Kelly Sadler ( Washington Times)
An armada of 121 empty oil tankers is heading toward the U.S., compared with 24 the week before the Iran war began in February, as Asian buyers look to offset the loss of Iranian exports by turning to U.S. suppliers, according to oil research firm Kpler.
Many of these empty tankers are traveling through the Panama Canal. With Chevron now importing 250,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil a day after the ouster of dictator Nicholas Maduro, U.S. supply is abundant.
"We think we can take that up another 50%," Andy Walz, president of downstream, midstream and chemicals at Chevron's operations in Mississippi, told BBC last week.
Preventing Iran from selling its oil, which accounts for 40% of its government revenue, will bankrupt the country.
Saudi Arabia announced this weekend it has restored full capacity on its East-West oil pipeline, allowing it to divert exports out of the Red Sea. The UAE can partially bypass the Strait of Hormuz by using its Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline.
The Iranian regime thought blocking the Strait of Hormuz would trigger global economic chaos that would pressure Mr. Trump to halt U.S. operations against it. It hasn't.
As the president has said, Iran has "no cards," whereas the U.S. has maximal leverage.
Who Really Won the Iran War? - Zaid AlKami ( Al Arabiya)
In Iranian discourse, the ceasefire was presented as an achievement. Victory signs were raised, and terms like "resilience" and "breaking American will" were repeated.
This narrative was echoed by Tehran's allies, most notably Hizbullah, in an effort to construct a parallel version of events.
But there is a wide gap between rhetoric and reality, and that gap reveals what truly happened: Iran did not win, it lost, even if it seeks to delay acknowledging that fact.
A state that once portrayed itself as a regional power capable of imposing deterrence suddenly found itself facing two costly options: either open confrontation with the U.S., or accepting a de-escalation imposed on its terms.
Choosing the latter was not a victory, but an implicit admission that the cost of confrontation had become unbearable.
By contrast, Israel appears to be the primary beneficiary of this round.
It is clear that Israel has changed since October 7, 2023, and is now capable of absorbing costs that would previously have been intolerable, both material and human.
At the very least, it has achieved a key objective: weakening Iran internally, eroding its deterrence, and pushing it onto the defensive.
Israel today does not need to declare victory. It sees it unfolding on the ground in a retreating adversary.
America Has to Finish the Job in Iran - Steve Forbes ( Fox News)
After 47 years of its existence, we should know that the murdering terror regime in Iran is implacably wedded to its radical, deformed version of Islam.
It is not wavering in its goal to impose its ideology on the Arab Middle East, to eradicate Israel and, ultimately, to bend the U.S. and Europe to its will.
It all sounds utterly delusional, which leads all too many people to think that, at heart, these are people who can't really be that perverse and that they can be coaxed into practical agreements.
But these leopards are not changing their spots. They smell victory. They think they have a powerful trump card with the ability to shut off shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran's ruling theocracy is not simply another hostile regime. Its ambitions are frightening for the existence of the civilized world.
A pause that leaves Tehran with meaningful leverage is not a settlement. It is a reprieve.
The U.S. must give up the fantasy that Iran is ready to surrender on the essentials.
Israel Will Fight On - David M. Weinberg ( Israel Hayom)
The six-week war with Iran has dramatically changed the strategic picture for the better.
But nobody in Israel is under the illusion that the struggle against evil is over, and nobody should dare question the morality of Israel's need for ongoing and crushing victories over its adversaries.
Israel will not return to the containment policies of recent decades that prioritized restraint and diplomacy over enemy degradation and military triumph.
Israel's changed security paradigm involves proactively asserting dominance along its borders and strategic ascendancy against threats farther away. Israel will hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them.
Jerusalem knows that its neighbors will seek true reconciliation only when Israel is strong.
Additional Abraham Accord-style peace treaties are possible and desirable, but these will be based on muscular defense partnerships, not mushy notions of goodwill.
The writer is a senior fellow at Misgav: The Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Trump: "I Don't Care" if Iran Returns to Negotiations
President Trump said he does not care if Iran returns to negotiations with the U.S. after talks in Pakistan failed to produce a deal. "I don't care if they come back or not. If they don't come back, I'm fine," Trump said Monday.
"I think Iran is in very bad shape. I think they're very desperate. We had a meeting that lasted 21 hours. And just so you understand, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." (The Times-UK)
See also Trump: Peace Talks Failed over Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
President Trump posted Sunday: "I have been fully debriefed by Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner on the meeting that took place in Islamabad....There is only one thing that matters - Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions...allowing nuclear power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people."
"They were very unyielding as to the single most important issue and, as I have always said, right from the beginning, and many years ago, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon!" (Truth Social)
- U.S. to Blockade All Maritime Traffic To and From Iran
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on April 13. The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports. (CENTCOM)
- Vice President Vance: After Talks, Iranians Determine What's Next - Nora Moriarty
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Monday that after face-to-face negotiations with Iranian officials in Pakistan, "The ball is very much in their court....I think the Iranians are going to determine what happens next."
"We made a lot of progress. They moved in our direction...but they didn't move far enough." Vance said the talks ultimately ended because "the team that was there was unable to cut a deal. They had to go back to Tehran, either from the supreme leader or somebody else, and actually get approval to the terms that we had set."
"What they [Iranians] have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world. They've basically threatened any ship that's moving through the Straits of Hormuz. Well, as the President of the United States showed, two can play at that game."
"We've stopped bombing the country. What we expect the Iranians to give up is a full reopening of the Straits of Hormuz. If the Iranians are going to try to engage in economic terrorism, we're going to abide by a simple principle that no Iranian ships are getting out either. We know that's a big deal to them. We know it applies additional economic leverage....We have a lot of cards. We have the leverage, and we're going to see what the Iranians do with that." (Fox News)
- Israel's U.S. Ambassador: The Vice President Saw How Obstinate the Iranians Are in Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons - Margaret Brennan
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told "Face the Nation" on April 12: "The vice president sat opposite this fellow, [Iran's chief negotiator, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher] Qalibaf, who is directly responsible for the murder of his own people this past January, and just saw how obdurate and obstinate they are in pursuit of nuclear weapons."
"The President gave the issue two weeks, and we're just into the end of the first week, so there is another week left for the potential for continued talks. We know the Iranians. We know this regime. We don't think they're going anywhere, but it's important to give it a chance."
"A civilian nuclear program doesn't entail enrichment. There are 57 countries with a civilian nuclear program that don't have enrichment....Look, you don't build these production plants deep underground if you're doing [uranium enrichment] for medical purposes; you have nothing to hide. These people lie. We shouldn't be surprised when people who murder their own also lie. This has been their pursuit. They've been chanting for 47 years, 'death to America, death to Israel.' That's their goal."
Q: "There was this highly detailed New York Times report this past week...that detailed this Feb. 11 meeting where your prime minister pitched President Trump on bombing Iran. It said the Israeli plan was to...spur a popular uprising in Iran, and then conduct regime change, leaving in place a secular leader."
Leiter: "I was in the room at that meeting. The journalists who wrote that article were not, and apparently they received the information second, third hand. There's an awful lot in that article which simply isn't true....We argued the potential, that we've got to work towards that. Nothing was presented as a fact, that if we do this, this will be the outcome." (CBS News)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Israel-Lebanon Talks Begin Tuesday - Itamar Eichner
For the first time since the 1980s, negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are set to begin Tuesday. Both Jerusalem and Beirut are interested in a peace agreement, including among many Shiites in Lebanon who have grown weary of Hizbullah's dominance.
Israel is not placing high expectations on the talks and believes the Lebanese government will not be capable of disarming Hizbullah and has little desire to do so. (Ynet News)
- IDF Tightens Siege on Hizbullah in Bint Jbeil - Elisha Ben Kimon
The IDF said Sunday it is continuing a siege of Hizbullah forces in the southern Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil. IDF forces are advancing cautiously with close air support, including fighter jets and drones, killing dozens of Hizbullah operatives in the sector in recent days. (Ynet News)
- IDF to Remain in Lebanon Security Zone "until Long-Term Security for Residents of the North Is Guaranteed" - Lilach Shoval
The IDF is preparing for an extended stay in the new security zone along the Lebanese front. Senior military officials say troops will remain in the area "until long-term security for residents of the north is guaranteed." (Israel Hayom)
- Israel Pauses as Nationwide Holocaust Remembrance Day Siren Sounds
A two-minute siren sounded across Israel at 10 a.m. Tuesday, bringing traffic and daily life to a standstill as the country paused in silence to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Immediately afterward, a state wreath-laying ceremony was held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
The Knesset held its annual "Every Person Has a Name" ceremony which included ministers and Knesset Members who read the names of family members lost in the Holocaust. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana noted,
"Four million and eight hundred thousand names have been collected by Yad Vashem for the Book of Names project, yet at least another million names are still missing. Entire families, and sometimes entire communities, were wiped off the face of the earth, leaving not even a trace, not even a single survivor to testify that they ever existed." (Ynet News-Jerusalem Post)
See also below Observations: Torchlighters on Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2026 (Yad Vashem)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- What If Trump Hadn't Attacked Iran? - Nadhim Zahawi
By mid-2025 Iran was assessed to have had nearly a thousand pounds of 60%-enriched uranium. This is so close to weapons grade that American intelligence said the Iranians could have fuel for a bomb in under a week. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it could make enough for nine weapons. They were likely days, not years, from the bomb.
Now, picture what would have happened if they had actually crossed that line. A nuclear Iran doesn't just get a weapon. It gets a shield. The IRGC and the Houthis could control the Strait of Hormuz (as well as the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden) and forever dictate terms to ships with infinitely more certainty than their threats today are armed with.
In addition, Hizbullah operates with nuclear cover. The Gulf states face a simple choice: bow or build their own bombs; Saudi Arabia has already said it would. A nuclear cascade across the most volatile region on Earth would follow. Worst of all, the conflict we have just seen to defang the regime suddenly becomes impossible. This is exactly why the ayatollahs wanted nuclear weapons in the first place.
Tehran executed a brilliant strategy, with extraordinary patience, over two decades. The regime's genius was to make confrontation always seem premature. There was always another round of talks, another sunset clause, another International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection to wait for. A so-called hardliner would be replaced by a so-called moderate.
Each delay bought another year of nuclear enrichment, another generation of drones (used to such devastating effect by Russia in Ukraine), another $1 billion flowing to proxies.
So when we assess the conflict, we must consider the counterfactual of inaction. What would be the effect on our energy security, our trade and investments - and above all the safety of our people - if this intervention had not happened?
The writer is a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer.
(Telegraph-UK)
- Myths about the Iran War - Michael Doran
The media elite refuse to credit President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with a win. They portray the operation in Iran as aimless adventurism. In doing so, they advance the very arguments that serve America's enemies, undermining the credibility of a successful deterrent action.
Opponents of the Trump administration have repeatedly called this "a war of choice," a conflict the president launched without cause or coherent purpose. The administration has, in fact, made a clear and compelling case. As the president has stated repeatedly for years, "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple."
Moreover, at the outset of the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described another factor that drove America to act. "They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 ballistic missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month." Iran would soon have enough missiles and drones to overwhelm the defenses of Israel and every American base in the region. America could let Israel attack alone, in which case Iran would attack American forces and cause significant casualties; or work together with Israel to eliminate an intolerable threat to both countries.
During the Biden administration, between Jan. 2021 and Jan. 2025, Iranian-backed forces launched hundreds of attacks on American personnel and assets across the Middle East, including over 170 strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, plus dozens of attempts against U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In any previous era, a sustained campaign of this magnitude against American bases and naval vessels would have been called open war.
The American-Israeli campaign achieved its core strategic objectives: halting Iran's advance toward nuclear weapons capability and significantly degrading its ballistic missile program, which together had posed a growing existential threat to Israel and the region. Prior to the operation, Iran was rapidly advancing both programs, with much of its critical infrastructure on the verge of being buried too deeply underground for effective strikes.
The result was a decisive disruption of Iran's most dangerous capabilities, while leaving Iran economically crippled.
In the end, Israel and the U.S. entered the conflict facing a severe and imminent threat and emerged with that threat meaningfully and verifiably reduced. That is the fundamental measure of victory in war.
The window for effective action was closing. Trump acted before it slammed shut.
The writer is Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute in Washington. (Tablet)
- Trump Flips the Script in the Strait of Hormuz - Marc A. Thiessen
Last week, President Trump's critics said Iran had achieved a strategic victory in its war with the U.S., leveraging control of the Strait of Hormuz to force the president to accept a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table. Now Trump has flipped the script - by using the ceasefire to seize control of the strait.
The U.S. blockade accomplishes virtually the same thing as would a military operation to seize Kharg Island (through which almost all of Iran's oil passes) without the risks involved in deploying U.S. ground forces. Moreover, blocking Iran's energy exports to China can give Beijing incentive to pressure Iran to reopen the strait.
Before, Iran was allowing its own ships to pass through the strait, but not those of the U.S. and its allies. Now, U.S. and allied ships would be permitted to pass, but Iranian ships would not. Instead of running a highly profitable protection racket - collecting up to $2 million per ship for safe passage - Iran would lose hundreds of millions a day in forgone trade and revenue, and would be powerless to do anything about it.
Iran is suffering what Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, calls a "generational military defeat" - losing, in less than 40 days, a military it had built over 40 years. Its only card was its control of the Strait of Hormuz, and now Trump has taken that away, too.
(Washington Post)
- Trump Blockades the Blockaders in Iran - Editorial
On Saturday the U.S. team left foundering negotiations in Pakistan, and on Sunday President Trump announced a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz for ships using Iranian ports. Iran has denied passage to most oil and gas tankers, and now the regime will get the same treatment.
Why should Iran alone be exempt from the costs of its illegal actions in Hormuz, raking in revenue while it starves the rest of the world? Iran now has an incentive to restore traffic in the Strait. As does China, whose tankers had been given priority. Let Beijing pressure the Iranian regime to resume oil shipments.
(Wall Street Journal)
- Free Gulf Navigation Is Non-Negotiable - Editorial
The principle that the oceans are "the common property of all" has long underpinned international law and the system of global trade, and Washington has been at the forefront of its enforcement. America entered the First World War, in part, because Germany had violated this rule: Woodrow Wilson made the restoration of "absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war" the second of his 14 conditions for ending that war.
No country should interfere with the "innocent passage" of law-abiding civilian vessels through straits and choke points. Tehran should have no veto over which vessels can pass through the strait, and certainly should extract no revenue from their transit. (Telegraph-UK)
See also Iran Must Stop Blackmailing the World - Editorial
Tehran's extremist theocrats cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. And its funding of terrorists and militia groups has destabilized the Middle East for four decades and has to stop. If those are considered unacceptable by Tehran then the war will continue, even if it is only prosecuted by Israel which continues to attack Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Even if the U.S. reaches a deal, how can Iran be trusted to stick to any of its terms? Countries reliant upon Gulf gas and oil cannot allow the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to restrict or regulate vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, siphoning off any toll money to buy more weapons or enrich their own leaders. The UK, Europe, China, India and others need to focus more on insisting that Tehran ends its blackmail.
(Telegraph-UK)
Israel and the West
- As the West Morally Rots, We Stand with Israel - Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka
I am in Jerusalem because the Czech Republic still remembers what it means to be surrounded by those who want you erased from the map. When Israel was fighting the war for independence and the rest of the world looked away, we sent weapons. The situation remains the same today. When other countries speak of punishing Israel for defending itself against brutal terrorism, we stand to defend the attacked nation. When other countries stop military shipments to Israel, Czech arms exports to Israel grow.
In a world that is rapidly becoming more dangerous, a true ally is defined by what he delivers. This means we will treat Jerusalem with the dignity it deserves as the beating heart of Israel. We are two nations that refuse to be lectured by those who have never faced a real threat. We do not care about the opinions of those who have lost the ability to distinguish between an aggressor and its target. The Czech Republic stands with Israel because it is the only rational choice for a civilized nation. (Israel Hayom)
Hizbullah
- The Shameful Lies about Israel's Attack on Hizbullah - Brendan O'Neill
In solidarity with Hamas's Nazi-like pogrom of Oct. 7, Hizbullah started raining projectiles on Israel the very next day. It has fired 12,000 missiles, rockets and drones at its neighbor. Scores have been slain, including 12 Druze children playing a game of soccer. Tens of thousands in northern Israel were forced into internal exile. There is not one country on earth that would tolerate this.
French President Macron last week rebuked Israel for striking back against Hizbullah. He's being gushed over, naturally. Yet to those of us whose moral compasses have not been shattered on the wheel of hysterical hatred for the world's only Jewish nation, Macron's comments are mad. Immoral, even. Reprimanding a democratic state for pushing back against the racist militia that has subjected it to such savage fire? Who does he think he is?
Hizbullah is essentially an expeditionary force of the Islamic Republic. It has made Lebanon into a basket-case outpost of Tehran's Islamist lunacy. Israel is fighting a militia that has colonized vast swathes of Lebanon with a foreign-born Islamism.
Yet, peruse social media, switch on the BBC, and you could be forgiven for thinking Israel is bombing Lebanon for sport. It's that "genocidal bloodlust" again, say the Israelophobes, blind to how unhinged such libels against the Jewish state sound to the rest of us. To obsess over what Israel is currently doing to Hizbullah without mentioning what Hizbullah has already done to Israel is to engage in flagrant acts of deceit. (Spectator-UK)
- The UK Should Stand with Israel while Helping the Lebanese State End Hizbullah's Grip - Maj. (ret.) Andrew Fox
Israel did not start the war in Lebanon. Hizbullah did. It opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas's massacre, forcing the evacuation of 60,000 Israelis from border towns and villages. Calling Israel the aggressor turns cause and effect upside down.
Lebanon's sovereignty is hollow; Hizbullah has long functioned as a state within a state. Hizbullah is militarily stronger than the Lebanese Armed Forces, Hizbullah fighters are better paid and better armed. Hizbullah is operating on salary support from Iran, with money laundered through Turkey and the UAE. Lebanon lives under a zombie militia-state which decides questions of war and peace.
In early 2023, Hizbullah published footage of its Radwan fighters simulating an invasion of northern Israel. After Oct. 7, Israel's fears of a cross-border massacre from Lebanon could no longer be dismissed as alarmist.
A state that has just seen one border community overrun is not obliged to gamble that another enemy, openly rehearsing the same, does not mean what it says.
The writer, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served for 16 years in the British Army. (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
Antisemitism
- The War of Lies Against Israel - Dr. Joel Fishman
Inversion of truth and reality has become a favored method of public persuasion. One of its most frequent expressions has been the accusation that the Jewish people have become the new Nazis, aggressors and oppressors. This inversion of reality constitutes the basic principle of current anti-Israel propaganda.
This propaganda method emphatically denies Israel's legitimacy, sovereignty, and right to self-defense. It strives to dominate public spaces (which now include social media) and, through constant social and political intimidation, creates a condition of groupthink supported by the madness of zombies on the streets.
At present, we live with the direct legacy of the Nazi past of the Palestinian Arabs and their sympathizers in the form of a massive antisemitic propaganda attack, particularly the accusation of genocide against Israel which followed the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The time has come to expose such big lies.
The writer is a historian and Fellow of the Jerusalem Center.
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Observations:
Six Holocaust survivors lit torches at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Monday evening, April 13, at the Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. Here are their stories:
- Saadia Bahat was born in 1928 in Alytus, Lithuania. The Germans invaded in June 1941 and the family was expelled to the Vilna ghetto. In September 1943, the Germans demanded volunteers to work in camps in Estonia and Saadia volunteered. In Estonia, Saadia passed through six camps, chopping trees and laying railway tracks. The work was sometimes carried out in freezing temperatures without adequate clothing, and under starvation conditions that led to the deaths of many. Liberated by the Soviets, he reached Mandatory Palestine in 1946.
Saadia enlisted in the Haganah, volunteered in the Palmach, and was wounded in action. He later worked in the Rafael armament development authority for 37 years, receiving the Israel Defense Prize.
- Miriam (Daisy) Bar Lev was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv. When riots broke out in Mandatory Palestine, the family moved to Amsterdam. In 1940, Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands, and in 1942, the Germans ordered the Jews to wear the Yellow Star on their clothing. Six-year-old Daisy and her parents hid when the deportation of Jews to the extermination camps began, before they were ultimately caught and deported to Bergen-Belsen. In April 1945, Daisy and her mother, who had been traveling for weeks in a cattle car, were liberated by the Red Army in Germany. They reached Israel in 1946, where Daisy, now Miriam, served in the IDF, studied nursing, and worked in the national health service.
- Ilana Fallach was born in 1937 in Benghazi, Libya. In late 1940, the British bombed Benghazi and many family members were killed. In 1942, the Italian regime loaded the extended family onto a cattle truck and after five days reached the Giado concentration camp. At the camp, food was sparse, moldy, and worm-ridden, and many inmates succumbed to starvation and disease. The camp was liberated by the British army in 1943. In the wake of anti-Jewish riots in Benghazi, the family fled to Tripoli, and immigrated to Israel in 1949. Ilana talks about the Holocaust of Libyan Jewry to educational groups.
- Moshe Harari was born in 1934 in Paprotnia, Poland. In 1941, the family was transferred to the Mordy ghetto. In August 1942, German soldiers and Polish policemen rounded up the Jews in the market square with the intent to murder them, but his family managed to escape to the forest. After roaming from one hiding place to another for six months, they reached a Polish farmer called Lipinski in the village of Widze who hid them in return for payment.
The Red Army liberated the area in 1944. The family headed to Eretz Israel in 1947 and were intercepted by the British and sent to a detention camp in Cyprus. Eventually reaching Israel, Moshe worked in the military industry for decades.
- Avigdor Neumann was born in 1931 in Sevlus, Czechoslovakia (today Vynohradiv, Ukraine). In 1939, the town came under Hungarian rule. In March 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary and the family was sent to Birkenau, the largest camp in Auschwitz. Avigdor told Dr. Mengele that he was a mechanic and passed the selection. The next day, he was informed that his mother, sisters, and brothers had been murdered. On Jan. 18, 1945, Avigdor was forced on a death march before he was liberated by the U.S. army. He eventually reached Israel and fought in all of Israel's wars until the Yom Kippur War, when he was wounded.
- Michael Sidko was born in 1936 in Kyiv, Ukraine. In September 1941, the Jews of Kyiv were taken to the Babi Yar ravine, where Michael and his older brother Grisha witnessed the murder of their mother and siblings. The two started hiding in the cellar of the building they had lived in. Sofia Krivorot-Baklanova and her daughter Galina also lived in the building. Sofia was a teacher at the school Grisha had attended, and she knew that the boys were Jewish.
Every time policemen and German soldiers came to check the building, Sofia told them that Michael and Grisha were her sons, and Galina said they were her brothers. Sofia and Galina were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 2004. Michael immigrated to Israel with his family in 2000.
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