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Jerusalem Center for Security
and Foreign Affairs
DAILY ALERT
Sunday,
October 11, 2026
In-Depth Issues:

Israeli Combat Medicine Slashes IDF Deaths after Oct. 7 - Benjamin Weinthal (Fox News)
    An IDF medical specialist told Fox News that during "the Second Lebanon War [in 2006], it took 15-20 minutes for advanced life support to reach a casualty. Now, advanced life support can reach a casualty immediately or within four minutes."
    The placement of "medical personnel on the battlefield, including a doctor in every company, allows the IDF to make critical decisions early on during the care process."
    The IDF has implemented a sophisticated system for providing blood to injured soldiers. First-responders carry blood on their backs in coolers to control hemorrhaging, a method that "saved significant numbers" of injured soldiers.
    An advanced system of data collection "transmits the data over technical networks so that every provider can see patient data."
    According to IDF data, the mortality rate during the 2006 war against Hizbullah was 15% in contrast to 7.1% during 2023.
    The U.S. Army and the IDF have been cooperating on battlefield medicine for years. In April 2026, the U.S. military released a 78-page report, "Israeli Defense Force Medical Lessons Learned," explaining the pressing need to absorb Israel's advances since the start of the war in 2023.
    See also Israeli Defense Force Medical Lessons Learned (U.S. Army)


56 Countries Reaffirm Commitment to Enforcing UN Restrictions on Iran (U.S. State Department)
    On Oct. 2, 56 countries released a statement supporting the snapback process initiated by France, Germany, and the UK a year earlier in response to Tehran's persistent and significant non-performance of its nuclear commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
    "We further commit...to continue to take measures...to prevent the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of items, materials, equipment, goods, and technology that could contribute to proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems, as well as to uphold the restrictions on the supply, sale, or transfer of arms and related materiel to or from Iran."


10 Countries Condemn Iranian Terrorist Activity across the Americas (U.S. State Department)
    On Oct. 5, 10 countries issued a joint statement condemning "the terrorist actions and other malign influence operations in our hemisphere by Iran and its terrorist proxies."
    "These hostile efforts include a range of Iranian and proxy-sponsored lethal plotting, illicit fundraising, political interference and foreign influence activities, and operations meant to bolster terrorist networks, coerce perceived enemies, compromise legal or administrative processes, and harm regional security."
    "We stand united in our determination to protect our countries and our people against such threats. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies must halt these actions now."
    The countries signing include the U.S., Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago.


Amnesty International Should Be Focused on Iran's War Crimes - Secretary of State Marco Rubio (U.S. State Department)
    Asked in Portugal on Thursday about America's use of the Lajes air base in the military campaign against Iran and Amnesty International's statement that Portugal should not support war crimes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio replied:
    "Amnesty International is a fraud....You know what I think Amnesty International should be focused on? An Iranian regime that murdered, in cold blood, tens of thousands of people in the streets of Tehran and in other parts of the country."
    "What Amnesty International should focus on is how the Iranian regime goes into hospitals - when protesters are injured - and murders the people in their hospital bed and, by the way, sometimes murders the doctors or the nurses who treated them."
    "So they should focus on them. Those are war crimes. Those are crimes against humanity, and those are crimes they're committing against their own people."


Oct. 7 Was a Wake-Up Call Israel Cannot Afford to Forget - Ari Shavit (Ynet News)
    There is no Israeli man or woman who has gone back to being who they were on Oct. 6, 2023. There is no Jewish man or woman who was not shaken to their core.
    Because of Hamas's barbaric attack three years ago, the country came face to face with its vulnerability. We all understood that we were targets.
    We know they want to murder us. They really, truly seek to destroy us and wipe us out. We live on the front line of an existential struggle.
    In the first decades of its existence, Israel knew it faced a constant existential threat. But in the 30 years preceding Oct. 7, Israel ignored the reality of its own situation and grew complacent.
    Until suddenly, jihadist Islam walked into the western Negev kibbutzim carrying assault rifles.
    True, the IDF reversed the course of the war. The bleeding Israel of fall 2023 became a regional superpower that, in 2026, our neighbors fear and respect.
    But what we learned on Oct. 7 is that the next Oct. 7 will come.
    The Middle East will not leave us alone. We will be attacked again. They will once again try to wipe us off the face of the earth.
    As Jews in a Muslim region, as Israelis in an Arab region and as a democracy in a region of tyranny and violence, we will always live by the sword.


Israel's National Security Balance - 2026 (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)
    As it enters its fourth year since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel has demonstrated unprecedented military and technological superiority during the war.
    It inflicted significant and comprehensive damage on Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, and other central components of the pro-Iranian axis; expanded its military freedom of action; and demonstrated impressive operational capabilities in all arenas of combat.
    However, these achievements have not yet been translated into a more stable strategic reality. The war continues, Israel's political room to maneuver has been reduced, and its international standing severely damaged.


Survey: British Jews' Emotional Attachment to Israel Up Sharply since Oct. 7 - Alex Carson (Jerusalem Post)
    Half of British Jews now feel very emotionally attached to Israel, marking a sharp increase following Oct. 7, according to a new study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) released Monday.
    Overall emotional attachment to Israel rose from 72% in May 2023 to 76% in June 2024 and 78% by June 2025.
    Those identifying as very attached surged from 38% prior to the attacks to 50% in June 2024 and 51% in June 2025.
    Self-identification as a Zionist rose from 59% in November 2022 to 65% in June 2024 and 66% in June 2025.
    Those identifying as anti-Zionist remained unchanged at 9-10% across the same periods, while those identifying as non-Zionist declined from 17% to 14%.

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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
  • Houthi Attack on Riyadh Airport: 12 Killed, 309 Injured
    A Houthi missile attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport on Saturday killed 12 people and wounded over 300 others, Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said Sunday. (Al Arabiya)
        See also Saudi Arabia Closes Riyadh Airport after Houthi Missile Attack - Summer Said
    Houthi missiles landed direct hits on Terminals 3 and 4 of Saudi Arabia's international airport. The airport suffered extensive damage, with parts of the roof falling on people inside, Saudi officials said.
        The Houthis said humanitarian flights to and from Riyadh would be permitted only with their prior authorization. The attack followed one Thursday at the airport that left three dead, including a pilot for flag carrier Saudia, and destroyed a passenger jet. (Wall Street Journal)
  • U.S. Hits International Criminal Court with Sweeping Sanctions - Secretary of State Marco Rubio
    "For decades, Republicans and Democrats alike rejected the idea that the International Criminal Court had the power to prosecute American citizens, military servicemembers, or political leaders. America never joined the court. We don't need it. And we don't want it."
        "That is why, today [Friday], the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate....Our message is clear: the United States and its people are not subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC....Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC."  (U.S. State Department)
        See also The ICC Is a Threat to America, It Deserves U.S. Sanctions - Editorial
    The dream of global justice is noble, and plans for a global court in the 1990s often came with the best of intentions. But even then, Republicans and Democrats recognized that letting foreign judges usurp the role of U.S. courts wouldn't end well.
        Washington never ratified the Rome Statute authorizing the ICC, and Congress has prohibited U.S. cooperation. But lately the court's allies threaten that it will prosecute President Trump, his officials, U.S. soldiers or Border Patrol agents.
        The ICC's willingness to twist the law and facts for political ends, and exceed its legal authority in the case of Israel - which, like the U.S., never joined the court - is the best demonstration of the court's growing danger to America. This includes the ability of the U.S. to wage war against terrorists. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Palestinian Authority Postpones November Legislative Elections until Sept. 2027 - Ali Sawafta
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday postponed legislative elections due next month until September 11, 2027. The Palestinians have not held legislative or presidential elections since 2005-2006. Abbas has governed by decree since his presidential mandate expired in 2009.
        Abbas had committed in writing to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to hold presidential and legislative elections as part of France's recognition of a Palestinian state in September 2025. (Reuters)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
  • Anti-Israel Jurist Navi Pillay Awarded 2026 Nobel Peace Prize
    South African jurist Navi Pillay, who led a UN commission that accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry issued a report accusing senior Israeli leaders of inciting genocide and argued that Israeli military operations and government policies demonstrated an intent to destroy the Palestinian population.
        Israel's Foreign Ministry accused the commission of spreading a malicious narrative intended to demonize Israel, relying on selectively presented evidence, and making allegations its own material could not substantiate. It called for the commission to be abolished.
        Israeli President Isaac Herzog accused the commission of whitewashing Hamas's atrocities, as Israel sought to defend its citizens and secure the return of its hostages. (i24News)
        See also Israel: Goebbels Is Applauding Pillay's Peace Prize
    Israel's Foreign Ministry responded to Navi Pillay's award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026. "If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay would...be a frontrunner. Her role in the relentless, politically motivated demonization of Israel and promotion of the genolie speaks volumes."
        "Awarding Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize isn't a recognition of justice. It's the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice. Now that the Nobel commission has rewarded the biggest lie of the 21st century, Joseph Goebbels is certainly applauding from hell." (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs-X)
        See also A Nobel Prize for Hating Israel - Editorial
    The Nobel Committee this year has honored Navi Pillay, whose career has been marked by hatred for Israel and the Jews who support it. In 2025, a UN committee she chaired issued a report claiming Israel had committed genocide in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis. Her report offered no evidence of genocide or genocidal intent and ignored mountains of contrary evidence.
        The Norwegians decided that this is the moment to honor a bureaucrat bent on punishing an Israeli democracy that does its best to follow the rule of law. The last thing this prize will do is promote the cause of peace. (Wall Street Journal)
  • IDF Eliminates Hamas Terrorist Who Held Three Israelis Captive - Elisha Ben Kimon
    IDF forces on Monday killed Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazj, a Hamas commander involved in holding Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Matan Angrest captive in the Gaza City area, the IDF announced on Thursday. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:

    October 7 - Three Years Later

  • Israel Is Clear-Eyed, Not Traumatized by Oct. 7 - David M. Weinberg
    The third anniversary of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel was filled with agonizing and loving remembrances of the many civilians slain by Hamas in their bedrooms and the soldiers killed combating the jihadist Palestinian stormtroopers ever since. But through it all, the overwhelming sentiment I heard was patriotism, resilience, and defiance, not defeat.
        Much of the media coverage described Israel as traumatized by the massacre and exhausted by three years of war. This infuriates me because it is an erroneous, even nefarious, reading of the Israeli mood. It is a wicked and insulting take on Israel's national psyche. The reality is that Israelis are neither crushed nor dispirited. Instead, they are appropriately angry and motivated to win against all enemies.
        All Israelis across the political spectrum are proud of the brave reservists who threw themselves into battle against Hamas, and the selfless volunteers who mobilized to strengthen their families, tend to the wounded, orphaned, and dispossessed, till the fields, and manage the home front. No one in this noble cohort is drained, defeated, or paralyzed by trauma.
        On the global front, Israelis are furious at the hostility and hypocrisy of the Western world, which has largely turned its back on Israel. Classic antisemitic stereotypes have saturated Western media. The deranged demonization of Jews has once again been renamed as morality itself.
        Israelis are angry at the politically malign accounts of their just, successful wars against Iran and its Hamas and Hizbullah proxy armies; at the raw antisemitism becoming mainstream discourse; and at the corrosive ideologies such as radical Islam that seek to undermine Western societies while destroying Israel. Israelis will resist all this. Israel intends to hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them or hemmed in by fickle allies.
        The writer is managing senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy.  (Israel Hayom)


    • Gaza

  • How Israel Views Gaza, One Year after the Ceasefire - Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Herzog
    The Trump plan for Gaza, launched last year, explicitly laid out Israel's goals: releasing all the hostages (which was implemented), disarming Hamas, removing it from power, and ensuring that Gaza could no longer be used as a platform for threatening Israel.
        The plan offered a mostly political path to realizing these elusive goals, without enforcement on the ground. Yet Israel does not believe this approach will work with a violent Islamist actor like Hamas. It has therefore kept constant physical pressure on Hamas, conditioning any reconstruction on the group's disarmament.
        Israel has continuously targeted senior terrorists and military infrastructure in the area under Hamas control, with quiet American consent, disrupting Hamas efforts to reassert governance and recover some of its military capabilities.
        For Israel, disarming Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza is the most important task. Israel insists that demilitarization be inclusive, comprehensive, verifiable, and permanent. Israel insists that until a full, verifiable disarmament process is completed, the IDF will conduct no further redeployments.
        Despite the current environment of skepticism, Hamas has been significantly weakened militarily, financially, and politically. According to recent polls, Palestinian public support for the group and the "armed struggle" it represents has declined significantly.
        The writer, a fellow of the Washington Institute, is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and former chief of staff to Israel's minister of defense.  (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
  • Hamas Is Fighting to Survive in Gaza - Shachar Kleiman
    Three years after the Oct. 7 attack, Israel controls 63% of Gaza. The IDF is systematically demilitarizing territory east of the Yellow Line, which marks the boundary of Israeli military control in Gaza, in an effort to limit Hamas's ability to rebuild its strength. Hamas previously buried rocket components and weapons east of the Yellow Line, intending to retrieve them if Israel withdrew.
        The clearance of aboveground infrastructure in this area is now largely complete. Residential buildings containing terrorist infrastructure or weapons stockpiles were demolished. Underground infrastructure was discovered beneath some of the buildings, while others had been rigged with explosives, used by terrorists as hideouts or fortified positions.
        The clearing of underground infrastructure is still underway. Security forces are using specialized equipment to locate additional tunnels deep beneath the surface. Operations are also underway to destroy tunnels connecting different parts of Gaza, either through controlled explosions or by filling them with concrete.
        Hamas is believed to possess only a few hundred rockets, compared with thousands before the war. Hamas faces a shortage of weapons, including small arms, and its ability to rebuild its manufacturing capabilities is limited, despite its continuing smuggling efforts.
        Although Hamas continues recruiting terrorists, including teenagers aged 16 and 17, the training they receive is relatively rudimentary. Hamas spent a year and a half training each member of its Nukhba force. Documents seized in Gaza revealed that basic training for Hamas recruits during the war lasted just one week.
        Israeli assessments suggest that the cumulative impact of targeted killings of senior Hamas figures is undermining Hamas's ability to intimidate Gaza's population and maintain control. Evidence of this can be seen in raids conducted by Gaza-based, anti-Hamas militias into territory west of the Yellow Line.
        Hamas is appointing replacements for its eliminated commanders. However, Israeli officials believe that internal disputes and power struggles will emerge over succession. The first and second successors may be accepted without controversy, but by the time the organization reaches its seventh replacement, that individual could face a struggle to establish his authority. (Israel Hayom)
  • Iran Fueling Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Preventing Terrorists' Disarmament - Khaled Abu Toameh
    Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second-largest terrorist organization in Gaza, has made it clear that it has no intention of abandoning its armed struggle against Israel. The Iran-backed group has reaffirmed its commitment to jihad (holy war), armed resistance, and the destruction of the "Zionist project." This message should be taken seriously by anyone hoping that the Gaza war can end with the disarmament of all armed groups.
        PIJ, Hamas, and the other terrorist groups in Gaza do not recognize Israel's right to exist and they are not prepared to abandon their weapons and their ideology of armed struggle. PIJ proudly announced that more than 2,000 of its fighters had been killed in Gaza, dozens more in the West Bank, and more than 80 on the Lebanese front.
        Those who believe that the conflict will end simply by persuading Hamas and PIJ to accept a new political arrangement in Gaza should listen carefully to what the terrorist groups themselves are saying. Defeating Islamist terrorism cannot be treated as a short-term diplomatic exercise.
        The international community should stop asking only what Israel intends to do next. It should ask what Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and their Iranian patron intend to do next. They intend to continue their jihad until the elimination of Israel. (Gatestone Institute)


    • Hizbullah

  • Unprecedented Criticism of Hizbullah in Lebanon's Shiite Community - Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah
    Growing criticism of Hizbullah is being heard within Lebanon's Shiite community. Social media accounts, community activists, and ordinary displaced civilians in southern Lebanon and Dahieh have voiced frustration over the fallout of the confrontation with Israel. Questions like "Where is Iran?" or "What was all this destruction for?" reflect deep anger over the heavy toll paid by the Shiite population.
        Following the loss of key military installations such as the underground complex at Ali al-Taher and the decapitation of Hizbullah's leadership by Israel, Hizbullah has struggled to maintain its traditional framing of "victory through steadfastness." With its leadership disrupted, supply lines suppressed, and Iranian financial flows constrained, Hizbullah's capacity to compensate families for lost homes and livelihoods has been significantly compromised.
        However, political analysts and polling data caution against assuming that Hizbullah's grip on the Lebanese Shiite community is collapsing. The Shiite community's support for Hizbullah has long been tied to its fear that without a strong-armed protector, the community would be marginalized or targeted by rival Lebanese sects. Even among Shiites critical of Hizbullah's strategic choices or ties to Iran, a vast majority remains opposed to the outright disarmament of the group.
        The current environment reflects Hizbullah's loss of aura and narrative control, but whether it becomes a permanent political realignment depends on whether an organized Shiite alternative emerges and whether the Lebanese state can offer real security and economic alternatives to a displaced population.
        The writer, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center, was formerly Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.  (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)


    • Israel and the West

  • Just Because the Entire World Believes Something Does Not Make It True - Natan Sharansky
    On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navi Pillay, who led the 2025 UN commission that found Israel guilty of genocide against the Palestinians.
        It was a general consensus for hundreds of years that Jews killed Christian children to collect their blood for the Passover Seder. Of course, the accusation was a lie.
        A very intelligent Christian activist whom I met in a Soviet labor camp and who would become my best friend told me that while he knew Jews no longer used Christian blood, they must have done so a few hundred years earlier. Otherwise, how could such a widespread belief have come to be?
        A genocide, according to the legal definition, comprises acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This is exactly what the sadistic terrorists who rampaged our communities, raping, burning, torturing, and murdering everyone they could reach, intended to do on Oct. 7, 2023.
        The great cultural Zionist Ahad Ha'am wrote in 1892 that there is no lie that cannot obtain universal acceptance if the circumstances favor it. In our time, the combination of Islamism, neo-Marxist ideology, Western apathy and appeasement, and primitive antisemitism have combined to create the perfect soil in which the new blood libel could grow.
        The soldiers in Israel's people's army come home every few weeks and report how much time and energy they spend on mitigating civilian harm: messaging and emailing about impending attacks, knocking on doors, halting strikes, and transporting people from one part of Gaza to another to separate them from the terrorists in their midst. What kind of genocide is it when the population of Gaza is larger today than it was three years ago?
        Of course, the sight of Gaza in ruins is horrific. But every Israeli understands how and why we got here. We remember how the Oct. 7 terrorists returned to cheering crowds as they paraded the bodies of their victims in the streets. We recall who hid our hostages.
        Just because the entire world believes something does not make it true. Our goal should not be to convince the rest of the world that we are right. Our existence does not depend on a vote in the UN. It depends on our own belief in the righteousness of Jewish civilization.
        When our children and grandchildren ask us how the whole world can believe there is a genocide if, in fact, there is no genocide, we should stand firm in the conviction of what we know to be true. Only through such conviction will we outlive those who believe Israel is the closest evil to Satan.
        The writer is a former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, former minister in Israeli governments, and former Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel.  (Tablet)
Observations:

Zohran Mamdani's Moral Obscenity - Bret Stephens (New York Times)
  • New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday offered a social media post ostensibly intended to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. A brief paragraph condemning Hamas and commiserating with its victims was followed by a much longer denunciation of Israel's "ongoing genocide in Gaza," and a "world in which occupation and apartheid continue."
  • His statement is obscene in the same way it would have been obscene if the mayor had commemorated the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 with a perfunctory nod to the victims, followed by a much longer denunciation of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. What happened on both Sept. 11 and Oct. 7 was undiluted evil, each an unprovoked visit of deliberate and maximalist violence on people who had done nothing to invite that violence other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • It is obscene because many of the Jews murdered on Oct. 7, living in kibbutzim, had been at the forefront of the peace movement, volunteering, for example, to drive sick Palestinians for treatment at Israeli hospitals. Hamas wasn't just killing and terrorizing the innocent; it was eliminating the good.
  • Hamas didn't just kill its victims in pursuit of a strategic objective. It tormented and slaughtered them like an army of serial killers who delight in the suffering of their victims. Hamas filmed itself doing this and I forced myself to watch the film. That same month, I visited the bedrooms where the kids had been murdered, their mattresses still soaked in blood.
  • It is obscene because on the eve of Oct. 7 the border of Israel and Gaza was governed by a ceasefire. It was Hamas that chose to kick off the violence, just as the Japanese did in 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Whoever throws the first punch forfeits the right to throw the last.
  • However much the genocide allegation against Israel is mindlessly repeated by people too lazy or prejudiced to understand the difference between war and genocide, that allegation is as false as it is sinister: False, because genocide is about killing whole classes of people for who they are rather than for what they did.
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
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