| DAILY ALERT |
Sunday, October 4, 2026 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Last month, the U.S. military sent one additional Patriot battery to Saudi Arabia to protect a key oil facility. Another Patriot battery was sent to Qatar to protect a natural gas facility, U.S. officials said. The U.S. military is sending more ships, fighter jets and troops to the Middle East ahead of a possible resumption of the war. The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and its strike group left San Diego on Sunday and is expected to arrive in the Middle East in mid-November. It will join the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington. Three amphibious ships carrying thousands of Marines left for the region on Monday. (Axios) The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Thursday targeting Iran's automotive, rail, manufacturing, and steel networks. Iran's automotive and rail industries have been coopted by the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Treasury is targeting any source of the regime's illicit revenue, as well as its sanctions evasion schemes to move funds. Treasury has significantly expanded sanctions risk for those who continue to do business with Iran. Any entity facilitating money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system. (U.S. Treasury Department) Confidential data shared with the New York Times by a Western security official shows that Iran has been launching dozens of drones and missiles at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz each week, though it has often failed to strike its targets. Even as oil exports from the Middle East have rebounded in recent weeks, shipping through the waterway remains risky. Since the beginning of August, Iran has launched about 30 drone attacks and 10 anti-ship missile attacks per week against commercial ships transiting the strait. At least four commercial ships have been hit by Iran in the past 10 days. Reports by a monitoring group run by the British Navy show that since Sept. 10, at least 13 ships, most of them oil tankers, had been struck by projectiles or debris from projectiles. (New York Times) British police arrested a man with dual British-Iranian citizenship Thursday on suspicion of involvement in a plot targeting RAF Fairford air base used by U.S. bombers in the war with Iran. (Washington Post) Saleem Alzaq, a purported media representative for Hamas, has been accused of funneling $1.7 million to the terrorist organization from donors in the U.S. who believed they were giving humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. He was believed to be in Gaza. Two others, Abdel Adhami and Omar Adhami, were arrested last month in Louisiana and also charged in connection with the scheme, disseminating propaganda and soliciting donations for "the poor and orphans in Gaza" via social media, court records show. (NBC News) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Flydubai co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami, whose mother is Syrian, spent several years in Syria where he underwent religious radicalization and Islamist indoctrination. During questioning, al-Hammami admitted that he intended to crash the aircraft into a ground target in Israel. Investigators assess that carrying out such an operation would require planning and logistical support, indicating outside assistance. According to information gathered so far, investigators determined that al-Hammami held an extremist Islamist ideology and made little effort to conceal it. He posted pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas and anti-Israel material on social media, as well as content supporting suicide attacks. (Israel Hayom) The IDF on Thursday published the names of 170 Palestinians killed in Gaza during the war who were presented as journalists or media workers but who also served as members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The IDF published verified evidence, including images and documents produced by the terrorist organizations, that demonstrates their affiliations and roles. 118 of the 170 were members of Hamas's military wing, 49 belonged to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one was affiliated with Adonei HaShmama, and two with the Popular Resistance Committees. 17 participated in the Oct. 7 attack. Some of those named had worked for major media organizations, including Reuters, CNN, ABC News, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, BBC, Le Monde and Australia's ABC. The disclosures were intended to challenge accusations that Israel has deliberately and systematically targeted journalists during the Gaza war. In some cases, "the terrorist organizations themselves presented those individuals as terrorists in their ranks and even claimed them as their own." (Ynet News) A new military school aims to boost the combat training of combat support soldiers, as part of the lessons of October 7. The commander of the school said, "We understood...that the personnel in the combat administrative support companies need a more infantry-oriented and combat-oriented level of readiness to know how to deal with challenges....[Support soldiers] need to know that if they encounter an enemy, how they will kill a terrorist. They need to be confident in their ability to handle a situation." The new school provides courses in marksmanship and teaching support soldiers how to operate various weapons in different scenarios. Another course teaches army drivers how to navigate vehicles through darkened war zones using night-vision equipment. And there are courses for physical fitness and hand-to-hand combat. The courses are intended for all support roles under the Technology and Logistics Directorate, including medical, maintenance, signals, human resources, and even the rabbinate. (Times of Israel) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Flydubai Flight Israelis were buoyed on Thursday by the brave actions of several Israeli passengers who, along with crew members, averted a midair disaster aboard a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The dramatic events evoked for some Israelis the days in the 1960s and 1970s when Israel was widely considered to be a small, plucky country that had survived against the odds and took on hijackers. The Israeli commando raid in 1976 that rescued more than 100 hostages from Entebbe, Uganda, became legendary and spawned several movies. After the Flydubai episode, Israeli social media was flooded with memes offering advice to air travelers: In case of emergency, locate the nearest Israeli. (New York Times) On Thursday, Israeli social media was awash in a torrent of celebration, praise and gallows humor following Wednesday's miraculous foiling of a terrorist hijacking on Flydubai flight FZ1073. By every reasonable expectation, the country should have woken this morning to grief: to names and faces, and to the long, familiar litany of condolence. Instead, it woke to memes. It is a sad reality that for Israelis this is the best of all possible worlds: not safety, but that those who try to kill us fail. That is the grim truth engraved anew on every Israeli heart. Vigilance is Israel's only real defense in a hostile region. (It's Noon in Israel) The saving of Flydubai Flight 1073 from fiery destruction and 174 passengers, most of them Israelis, from certain death, stands as a metaphor for the past three years of war. After Oct. 7, hundreds of thousands of Israelis rallied to their nation's defense, put on uniforms, picked up guns, and risked their lives, often in hundreds of days of relentless urban combat. Others volunteered to support the soldiers, the wounded, bereaved, and the displaced, or worked the fields of abandoned farms. They performed all this while the country was under massive international pressure to cease defending itself. They persevered in the face of near-global condemnations and false accusations. Some 924 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the war and thousands physically and emotionally wounded. Yet, we keep fighting. We defend ourselves in the court of international law; we stand up for truth in the media. We will battle Hamas and Hizbullah again as the need arises. The world will continue condemning us for doing what so much of it no longer has the will to do - defending our homes and families. We will do all of this not because we have nowhere else to go, but because of who we are. We, the Jewish people, are indomitable. When their airliner plunged nearly 20,000 feet in under two minutes, ordinary Israelis rushed to the front of the plane. There, regular citizens with their bare hands disarmed and subdued the co-pilot who tried to kill everyone on board precisely because most of them were Israelis. And once the danger passed, the Jews broke into song. The Flydubai flight stands as an example of what a proud, strong, and self-respecting people can still accomplish. It reminds us of who we are, what we stand for, and what we are willing to do to remain Israelis. The sheer heroism displayed by the Israeli passengers shows why nothing can ever defeat us. The writer was Israel's ambassador to the U.S., 2009-13. (Times of Israel) Iran In Middle Eastern societies, seeking revenge is an acceptable way for men to cope with grief and wounded pride from the violent loss of loved ones. Since 1979 this approach has also been an important part of Iran's foreign policy. The export of the revolution, the assassination of antiregime expatriates, and terrorism against foreign enemies are means to get even for the injuries, real or imagined, the West has inflicted on Iran and Islam. The search for a diplomatic solution to the Iran war is unlikely to succeed because such a denouement wouldn't satisfy a vengeance-seeking Iranian elite. Mohammad Zolghadr, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and a former senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, recently warned: "Our fighters will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the criminal Trump and the bloodthirsty Netanyahu are brought down from power, and this is the first stage of the Iranian people's revenge." The two American-Israeli wars have killed many in Iran's leadership, including Mr. Khamenei's father and predecessor as supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, along with the younger Mr. Khamenei's wife and one of his children. For years, internal Iranian propaganda depicted an Islamic Republic too strong and too well-armed for its foes to attack. Even with the regime's wartime endurance, the loss of face remains. Israel's continuing threat to target Iranian VIPs may be the only credible deterrence left against reinvigorated Iranian terrorism. Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. (Wall Street Journal) Gaza Three years after Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdered 1,200 people and abducted 251, some of the voices emerging from Gaza are sending a disturbing message: Oct. 7 is regarded by Hamas and its supporters as an operation they plan to repeat. Chants can be heard during funeral processions for Hamas commanders and members killed by Israel: "Oct. 7 will return! It is coming back!" and "Gaza is all Hamas." At one funeral they chanted: "We are the men of Mohammad Deif!" (referring to the slain commander-in-chief of the Al-Qassam Brigades)....We will continue the struggle!...Either we liberate it [Palestine], or we die!" The chants matter because they reveal what speeches about peace and reconstruction conceal. President Trump's peace plan states that Gaza is to become a "deradicalized terror-free zone" that poses no threat to its neighbors. In addition to demilitarization, it also envisages a process intended to change Gazan mindsets and narratives by emphasizing tolerance and peaceful coexistence. The continued public expression of these slogans demonstrates that Hamas's ideological message remains capable of mobilizing thousands of supporters in Gaza. Reconstruction can rebuild buildings. It cannot dismantle an ideology. Economic opportunities cannot guarantee that the next generation will reject the ideology that produced Oct. 7. (Gatestone Institute) Three years into the war in Gaza, the IDF is deepening its operational pressure and control. Gaza Division commander Brig.-Gen. Liron Batito explained that Israel's defensive concept along the Gaza border has undergone a fundamental change. "We control 63% of the territory....The defense is now forward-based - the [Israeli] communities are behind us." "We carry out a great many operations to strip [Hamas] of capabilities, strike operatives, seize weapons and, perhaps most importantly, preserve operational freedom of action. In addition, we are drilling throughout the entire Strip to map and locate underground infrastructure....We continue to drill every few meters, go deep and use technological means." "When you look objectively at three years of fighting, we have eliminated all the heads of the military wing - all the brigade commanders and most of the battalion commanders. Just in the past week, we eliminated two brigade commanders - the Rafah Brigade commander and the Khan Yunis Brigade commander - and they are already the second and third generation of commanders to be eliminated." In September alone, 70 terrorists were killed, including three brigade commanders, two battalion commanders and nine company commanders. Among those killed were 17 who were involved in the Oct. 7 raid into Israel, abducting civilians, and holding hostages captive. The IDF said "the series of eliminations is the result of prolonged intelligence and operational work that matured into several opportunities within a short period of time. Some of the operatives and commanders hide in tunnels and blend into densely populated areas, and therefore prolonged surveillance is sometimes required to achieve a high degree of certainty regarding their identity and location, and to create the conditions that allow for a precise strike while minimizing harm to uninvolved civilians." (Ynet News) A Film about Collateral Damage The IDF Spokesperson on Thursday published a rebuttal to the allegations presented in the documentary film "NAZA." The film presents a "distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture" of the military's target-planning and strike process, and its narrative is based on "substantial factual errors" stemming from a distorted and manipulative portrayal of reality. Binding directives explicitly distinguish between terrorists and uninvolved civilians, and the targeting process requires steps to minimize civilian harm to the greatest extent feasible. The IDF said it "has never planned, approved or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians or anything close to that number were expected to be killed" or anything close to it. Artificial intelligence has never independently selected targets for IDF strikes. Targets are identified by qualified intelligence officers, strikes are planned by professional personnel, and the ultimate decision on whether to attack a target is made by operational commanders. Some of the people interviewed in the film, who are presented as having served in IDF Intelligence, describe only limited and preliminary stages of intelligence work and do not portray the broader process through which strikes are planned and approved. The film omits context essential to understanding the war in Gaza, including the Oct. 7 massacre, Hamas operations from within the civilian population, and the measures the IDF takes to minimize civilian harm. "The film deepens its distortion of reality through manipulative editing of interviews and allusions to historical atrocities, while falsely and baselessly attributing malicious intentions to the IDF." (Israel Hayom) See also IDF Response to the Film "NAZA" "NAZA" is the acronym of the Hebrew term "Nezek Agavi" - "collateral damage" in English. This is a professional term commonly used by every law-abiding military worldwide. While the film presents the exceptional effort and detail the IDF devotes to estimating such harm in strikes as evidence of indifference to civilian lives, in reality, assessing expected civilian harm in strikes is a requirement under international law. The anonymous interviewees addressed matters beyond their knowledge and competence, resulting in substantial errors and misrepresentations of IDF targeting policy. The tragic consequences of war do not justify distorting the facts. Serious discussion of civilian harm requires a serious account of how decisions were actually made. That is precisely what the film fails to provide. (IDF Spokesperson) Hizbullah Israel's pager operation against Hizbullah had two main achievements. The first was psychological. It restored Israel's standing as a security power capable of carrying out operations that had seemed unimaginable or impossible. After Oct. 7, it demonstrated to the region that Israel had recovered and was capable of penetrating its enemies' most sensitive systems. Hizbullah, the strongest militia in the Shi'ite axis, suddenly found itself in deep distress and embarrassment. The second achievement was operational. Thousands of Hizbullah operatives were injured by the pagers and communications devices. But Hizbullah has not disappeared. The large-scale military it built has been severely damaged: its plan to invade the Galilee has been neutralized and its ground forces in southern Lebanon have collapsed. Nevertheless, it still possesses 15,000 rockets and continues to invest in expanding its drone capabilities. Hizbullah is devoting considerable efforts to military reconstruction. It is recruiting and training new operatives, gathering intelligence, and restoring weapons systems. Weapons smuggling from Syria continues, while efforts are also underway to manufacture and repair weapons inside Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces have failed to fulfill their commitment to disarm Hizbullah. The writer, who served for 15 years in the Israel Defense Forces, specializing in military intelligence, is founder and CEO of the Alma Research and Education Center, specializing in security challenges on Israel's northern border. (Jerusalem Post) Israel and the West "We will never be silent about injustice," Ed Miliband declared when he outlined new measures against Israel at the Labour Party conference last week. But Britain's Foreign Secretary is rather partial about the injustices he chooses to be noisy about. When the victims are citizens of the Jewish state, Miliband suddenly becomes cautious. Faced with an attempted mass killing of passengers on a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, he offered this bland statement: "Deeply concerned about the incident that occurred on the Flydubai flight to Israel." After all, it was only an attempt to murder 174 people - not construction of new homes near the Dead Sea. In his speech at the conference, he clarified that Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and war crimes. He equated Hamas, the barbaric terrorist organization, with the State of Israel that was defending itself against it. There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing between the Jordan River and the sea, and it is by the Palestinians against the Jews. While Labour is doing its best to establish a terror state five minutes away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, no government formed in Israel after October's elections will allow the establishment of such a state. If someone got their news on world events exclusively from the Foreign Secretary's X account, they might think that the greatest evil empire in the world is Israel. (Telegraph-UK) The forces of darkness are aided by far too many of those considered enlightened. Osama bin Laden, Yahya Sinwar, Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei would have reason to be pleased. Their work is being carried out not only by the terrorists who continue in their footsteps. It is also being done by a growing band of those who openly declare that their goal is to defeat the Free World. This is not Israel's struggle alone. It should have been the struggle of the Free World and of the Muslim world in particular. That is because Muslims are the primary victims of jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood, from which most jihadist movements emerged, is persecuted in most Arab countries, which understand the danger, while its influence in the West continues to grow. Over the past quarter-century, 320,405 people have been murdered in Islamic terrorist attacks. Jihadist branches are spreading death in wars that have raged for years in Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. Shiite jihad is wreaking havoc in Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and among the Palestinians. Most of these centers of violence have nothing to do with the U.S. or Israel. According to Brown University's Costs of War research, 4.5 million people have been killed since 2001, most of them in Muslim countries. Even if we accept Hamas's figures, the 75,000 killed in Gaza amounts to 1.6% of the total, and most of those killed are men of fighting age. (Ynet News) Israeli Security The attempted hijacking of a Flydubai plane en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv is a reminder that Israel and the West remain at war with Islamic radicals, and that it is a war we are winning. The online world is filled with shrill declarations that Israel has lost this war. But on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel and its allies have been winning the war on the ground even as they have lost the PR war around the world. The PR war matters. But it matters less than the war itself. Better to win the ground war and lose the PR war than the other way around. Piece by piece, the Israeli government took apart the Iranian axis. First, they took apart Hamas in Gaza, despite constant attempts to make them stop, which came not just from Europe but from President Joe Biden's White House. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in July 2024. Then, while Netanyahu was in New York speaking at the UN, Israel bombed the compound where the head of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, and almost all his remaining senior colleagues were gathered. Two years into the war that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar started, the Israeli air force took out the majority of the Iranian regime's air defenses, then came back and struck thousands of regime targets, opening the route for American B-2 bombers to attack the main Iranian nuclear sites. Then the Americans and the Israelis returned. They not only targeted the Iranian nuclear program again but also killed the supreme leader. Everybody alongside and above Sinwar in the chain of command is now dead. Neither Hamas, Hizbullah, nor the Iranian regime has a noose ready to pull around Israel's neck anymore. A large share of the Israeli hostages were eventually returned alive. Three years ago, this set of victories would have seemed unthinkable. What happened in the skies above Saudi Arabia on Wednesday stands as a metaphor for three years of war. The Israelis saw an existential threat, took matters into their own hands, and decided their own course. The rest of the West will have to decide whether it will follow the Israeli model or let its own future be dictated by terror and the hijacking of its entire society. (Free Press) Observations: The Morality of the Gaza War - Michael Mandelbaum (Jerusalem Strategic Tribune)
The writer is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. See also Book Review: Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law - Prof. Eugene Kontorovich (Washington Free Beacon) |
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