| DAILY ALERT |
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
A de facto partition of Gaza between an area controlled by Israel and another ruled by Hamas is increasingly likely, multiple sources said. Six European officials with direct knowledge of the efforts to implement the next phase of President Trump's plan said it was effectively stalled and that reconstruction now appeared likely to be limited to the Israel-controlled area. The "yellow line" dividing the two zones looks set to become a de facto border dividing Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has no intention of re-occupying or governing Gaza. He has instead pledged to maintain a buffer zone within Gaza, along the border, to block any repeat of Hamas's October 2023 attack that ignited the war. Israeli military spokesman Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani said Israel would move further from the "yellow line" once Hamas met conditions including disarming and once there was an international security force in place. As soon as "Hamas holds their part of the agreement we are ready to move forward," Shoshani said. An Israeli government official said Israel adhered to the agreement and accused Hamas of stalling. (Reuters) Regional officials and analysts are warning that another outbreak of war between Israel and Iran is only a matter of time. Israeli officials believe that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, enough to make 11 nuclear weapons, is not buried under rubble, but has been spirited away to a safe place. Moreover, Iran also appears to be continuing to work on a new enrichment site known as Pickaxe Mountain and has refused to give international inspectors access to that site. Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said Iranian officials have told him that missile factories are working 24 hours a day, and if there is another war, "they hope to fire 2,000 at once to overwhelm Israeli defenses." There is no evidence that a new attack is imminent, but "Israel feels the job is unfinished and sees no reason not to resume the conflict, so Iran is doubling down preparedness for the next round, and they want it to produce a new equilibrium that will wipe out the sense of Iranian weakness," he said. (New York Times) The U.S. and Israel are moving an average of 674 humanitarian aid trucks through Gaza each day since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, according to the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center. They contradict Hamas claims that Israel has hampered aid distribution in Gaza. "Hamas continues to spread lies through false stats to paint a false picture of starvation to undermine the ceasefire and peace efforts," a U.S. official who works on Middle Eastern issues said. "Sadly, many in the media remain useful idiots by publishing these Hamas talking points." (Washington Free Beacon) A letter to Hamas from Maj.-Gen. Yusuf Hassan al-Madani, the Houthi military's chief of staff, published online, signals that they've stopped their attacks against Israel and shipping in the Red Sea after the Gaza ceasefire. The Houthi campaign upended shipping in the Red Sea, killed at least nine mariners and saw four ships sunk. While insisting its campaign targeted Israel-affiliated vessels, the ships attacked at time had limited - if any - relationship to the Israel-Hamas war. (AP-Washington Post) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
The Prime Minister's Office said Sunday: Following the completion of the identification process by the National Center of Forensic Medicine, in cooperation with the Israel Police and the IDF Rabbinate, IDF representatives informed the family of fallen hostage Lt. Hadar Goldin that their loved one has been returned to Israel and that his identification has been completed. Lt. Hadar Goldin fell in battle and was taken hostage in 2014, during Operation Protective Edge. The Government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Goldin family and all the families of the fallen hostages. (Prime Minister's Office) The Americans want to begin talks on the second phase of the Trump plan, and remove the obstacle posed by the terrorists trapped in tunnels in southern Gaza. Visiting White House adviser Jared Kushner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed that the issue would be resolved jointly, and that Israel would not take significant action without first informing Washington. Although Israel knows where the terrorists are hiding, it will refrain from striking the tunnel or killing them outright in order to avoid endangering the ceasefire. Israel is insisting that the terrorists surrender their weapons, viewing that step as symbolic of Hamas's eventual disarmament. Israel's position is that there will be no progress until the bodies of the four remaining hostages are returned, as required under the agreement. Israeli intelligence believes that Hamas could immediately return at least one body and a second within a short time, and that it knows the whereabouts of the other two but is deliberately delaying. The discussion also addressed Israel's veto on any Turkish participation in the future multinational force. Israel considers this a red line, with the Americans accepting Israel's stance. Moreover, no countries besides Turkey have agreed to send troops into Hamas-controlled territory before the terrorist organization disarms. (Israel Hayom) The U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) based in Israel is maintaining regular contact with several militia and clan leaders in Gaza to help maintain order in designated humanitarian zones and assist in distributing food and supplies. The aim is to build these militias into a local order-enforcing force. Clan-backed militias in southern Gaza led by Husam al-Astal and Yasser Abu Shabab have been engaging in daily clashes with Hamas terrorists. Reliance on these forces stems from the difficulties in assembling the planned multinational force. (Israel Hayom) The U.S. is planning to build a large military base near Gaza for international forces helping to maintain the ceasefire. Israeli security sources noted, "Since the Six-Day War, Israel has sought to minimize international involvement in the territories. The establishment of an American base on Israeli soil shows just how determined Washington is to be involved in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict." (Ynet News) Israel last week signed a memorandum of understanding with India for strengthening defense collaboration. India is the biggest customer of Israel's defense industries. Between 2020 and 2024, India accounted for 34% of Israel's defense exports. A delegation from the Indian Ministry of Defense has secretly visited Israel to reach agreements that would allow India to not only procure Israel Aerospace Industries' Air Lora ballistic missiles and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ice Breaker cruise missiles, but also to manufacture them. India wants Air Lora missiles following the great success of Israeli-made Rampage missiles during recent skirmishes with Pakistan. Air Lora, with a 400 km. range, is designed for attacking missile sites, military bases, and air defense systems without endangering planes and pilots. (Globes) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Gaza War Former Gaza hostage Matan Zangauker, 25, freed after 738 days in captivity, gave his first full account of abduction from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 in an interview with N12 on Monday. He described being seized by armed terrorists who stormed his home. As he was driven into Gaza on a motorcycle, he was greeted by "children, women, old people, lined up with sticks, with rocks, with pipes, and they started to hit me, to beat me." He was held underground for most of his captivity, often denied food, and subjected to physical and psychological abuse. There were days the captors would say there wasn't any food, and give each of the hostages half a pita, "and then prepare themselves food - the smells of eggplant, tomato, they treated themselves." His captors said that "if the IDF tried to rescue us, they would just shoot us." (Jerusalem Post-Times of Israel) Demilitarizing Gaza is one of the central components of the Trump framework. An International Stabilization Force (ISF) is to stabilize security in Gaza "including through the demilitarization of non-state armed groups and the permanent decommissioning of weapons." However, significant gaps exist between Israel's position and those of Hamas, the PA, and the moderate Arab states regarding the role of the stabilization force. Hamas opposes any international force with enforcement powers aimed at disarming the armed organizations. The Palestinian Authority demands that internal security be entrusted to its security forces. The moderate Arab states prefer a "peacekeeping" model limited to monitoring, without powers to enforce disarmament. Israel views the disarmament of Hamas and the other factions and the prevention of their rearmament as central objectives and demands that Gaza's reconstruction be closely linked to its demilitarization. However, Israel fears that the ISF's deployment could impose constraints on the IDF's freedom of action in Gaza. In any event, Israel insists on retaining overriding security responsibility in order to counter threats and prevent the reestablishment of terrorist infrastructure in Gaza if the Palestinian police and the ISF face difficulties in disarming Hamas and in preventing its rebuilding. The anticipated challenges in demilitarizing Gaza include Hamas's refusal to cooperate, as well as continued public support for Hamas and opposition to its disarmament. Accordingly, Israel must hold dialogue with American representatives in order to prepare for these scenarios in advance. Simultaneously, Israel must formulate a backup plan that includes "defensive belts" before reaching a point of breakdown and returning to confrontation with Hamas. This framework includes conditioning reconstruction on effective disarmament processes. The gap between the strategic objective - a demilitarized Gaza, responsibly governed by a moderate Palestinian actor - and the operational challenges involved in achieving this objective indicates that the success of the framework will require coercive and sustained American involvement, close coordination with Israel, and U.S. persuasion of moderate Arab states to mobilize for active intervention in the demilitarization of Gaza. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Udi Dekel, former Managing Director of INSS, was head of the Strategic Planning Division in the IDF General Staff. Noy Shalev is a research assistant at INSS. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) On Nov. 6, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram published an article by journalist Gamal Zahran, who congratulated Hamas on its "great victory" in the war against "the Zionist entity" and claimed that Israel is decisively and rapidly on its way to extinction. "There are many reasons for the downfall of the Zionist entity. The most important of them is that the Palestinian resistance [Hamas] launched the 'Al-Aqsa Flood' - the October 7, 2023 [attack]." "For two years this resistance prevented the enemy from achieving victory, from breaking its will and from stopping it. Millions were forced to flee in terror from the rockets of the resistance from every direction....[There are] growing calls in America and Europe to stop supporting the failing Zionist entity. For these reasons and others, the Zionist entity will soon meet its end." (MEMRI) Iran When Alireza Talakoubnejad, a young Iranian living in the U.S., returned home to Iran after its June war with Israel, he saw a country significantly changed. He wrote on X that mistrust of the government "has significantly exacerbated with the electricity & water shortages and then the experience of the war." He described nightly water outages, summer power cuts, and suffocating smog that blanketed major cities. Inflation has soared to unbearable heights. Basic goods have turned into luxuries. Many Iranians expressed a reluctant respect for Israel's calculated restraint. "As a pro-government friend described to me: 'Fighting Israel is not like fighting the Taliban, where they randomly shoot at different parts of the city. They had precise intelligence and weapons. Every single strike was intentional and had a purpose.'" (Maariv-Jerusalem Post) The Iranian regime and its proxies are doing their utmost to ensure that their Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel continues in full force. Although Iran's proxies have been weakened, they are trying to rise from the ashes with the help of their patrons in Tehran. More than 250 representatives of Iran-backed groups attended a conference in Beirut in November organized by the Arab National Conference, where key speakers included leaders of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, and the Houthis. ANC Secretary-General Hamdeen Sabahi emphasized the need to counter narratives of Arab defeat. "The nation has won, and the day of Palestine's liberation is near," he said. He rejected calls to disarm the Palestinian terror groups in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon. The war in Gaza may be over, but the Islamist terrorists' desire to destroy Israel remains as strong as ever. The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. (Gatestone Institute) During the June 2025 war, Iran launched over 500 ballistic missiles and 1,100 drones at Israel. The attacks killed 32 people and wounded over 3,000. There were 36 missile impacts and one drone strike in populated areas of Israel, causing damage to 2,305 homes in 240 buildings, along with two universities and a hospital, and leaving over 13,000 Israelis displaced. (Times of Israel) Hizbullah The confrontation on the northern border between Israel and Hizbullah ended one year ago. Hizbullah lost its leaders and senior commanders, headed by Hassan Nasrallah, along with much of its military capabilities. But in wars between Israel and its Arab enemies, there are never absolute victories. We defeat the enemy's armies, only to discover that they are still alive and kicking. Now Hizbullah, like Hamas, is biding its time, keeping its head down, and waiting for the right moment to strike again. Hizbullah has been rebuilding its strength, maintaining strong support among Lebanon's Shiite community, and even reestablishing weapons smuggling routes from Iran. It makes clear that it will not surrender its weapons and that "the resistance" remains its strategic choice. The real question is not whether Hizbullah will resume its operations against Israel, but when. The writer is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University. (Israel Hayom) Israel and the West With every misleading piece of BBC reporting sent out into the world, public opinion is hardened against the Jews. As has been the case for thousands of years, antisemitism is based on lies. A recent internal memo leaked to the Telegraph documents the BBC's relentless bias against Israel. BBC Arabic had very little reporting on Israeli suffering at the hands of Hamas or criticism of the terror group. BBC Arabic devoted huge swathes of articles to statements from Hamas and Hizbullah. BBC Arabic described Hamas's terror attacks as "military operations" and barely covered the deaths of Israeli hostages. BBC Arabic gave a platform to journalists who had openly glorified terrorism hundreds of times. Various BBC platforms spread fake news about starvation in Gaza. BBC News did not inform viewers that, under international law, hospitals were allowed to be targeted when they were being used as military bases. Numerous BBC channels repeatedly suggested that the International Court of Justice had ruled there was a "plausible genocide" in Gaza, despite the fact that the ICJ president herself had debunked this claim on BBC. In light of the findings, it is no exaggeration to say that the BBC has long been functioning as the propaganda arm of Hamas, funded by the British public. (Spiked-UK) Observations: Christian Zionists: Civilization's Defense Force in an Era of Existential Threat - Dr. Dan Diker (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center. |
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