| DAILY ALERT |
Sunday, October 25, 2026 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
U.S. intelligence suggests Iranian preparations to attack Americans throughout the Middle East have reached "advanced stages," prompting a sudden exodus of personnel from embassies and military bases throughout the region. Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, wrote Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio: "Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel. The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries." The U.S. in recent days ordered the departure of diplomats and staff from the embassy in Saudi Arabia and other countries. The U.S. also has evacuated personnel from military bases across the region in preparation for renewed fighting, according to U.S. officials. (Wall Street Journal) Iraq and Pakistan are cutting off some important land routes in and out of Iran, adding to the economic pressure on the regime. Iraq on Wednesday shut the Sheeb border point, which connects the two countries' biggest oil provinces. Baghdad cited the need to tighten enforcement against smuggling. Pakistan blocked trucks coming from Iran at two key border crossings at Gabd and Taftan, citing security considerations. As of Sept. 29, 17,000 trucks were waiting at Iran's borders with Turkey, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, with delays typically running to 20 days. Hundreds of truck drivers have recently been waiting in long lines at the Pakistani border crossings. On Thursday, the value of the Iranian rial fell to a new low at 2,740,000 for a dollar. (Wall Street Journal) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Staff Sgt. Ron Yonatan Roytman, 23, and Sgt. Yuval Shai Svilem, 20, were killed and three were wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack near Hebron on Friday morning. The two Hamas-affiliated terrorists were killed. A large quantity of explosives and ammunition was found in the terrorists' vehicle. Investigators believe the attackers intended to reach major roads and continue into Israel to carry out a larger attack against civilians, but encountered IDF troops. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the scene, said, "The soldiers not only stopped the terrorists but also charged at them heroically and killed them. First, we will act to demolish this place and completely transform it. But we will also do something that has not been done until now. We are going to implement the successful, aggressive model we used in the refugee camps [in Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm], which are effectively terrorist strongholds." "That is exactly what we will do here, in a neighborhood of Hebron from which the terrorists came. We will evacuate the residents, go house to house, remove the weapons, and deal with and destroy all terrorist infrastructure." (Ynet News) Following a shooting attack near Hebron in which two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers, IDF troops were operating in the Hebron neighborhood where the gunmen lived. Some 2,000 residents of the area are members of the Jaaba clan, which is affiliated with Hamas. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that as of Saturday evening, some 2,000 Palestinians had been displaced from their homes. Katz told Israel's Channel 11, "They will not be allowed to return to their neighborhood until we've finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron." It is clear that these residents will return to their homes shortly and that the evacuation was intended to protect them from potential clashes while IDF forces searched the area. The military said Friday that the operation in Hebron was expected to last several days and was "focused and limited to the area from which the terrorists operated." As part of the ongoing operation, illegally built buildings and structures near the site of Friday's shooting were razed by Israeli authorities over the weekend. The Palestinian gunmen used the buildings as cover to open fire on troops. (Times of Israel-Jerusalem Post) IDF intelligence continues to provide Saudi Arabia with exceptional capabilities to assist its military operations against the Houthis, an Israeli defense official confirmed on Thursday. Sunni countries are watching the escalation by the Houthis against neighboring Saudi Arabia, with encouragement and support from Iran, and understand that they could be next. Saudi Arabia is concentrating its efforts on attacking a range of targets in Houthi-controlled areas, seeking to degrade critical military capabilities. "It serves Israel's interests quite well because it wears down the military strength of an Israeli enemy that is preparing and planning to harm us in the future. In addition, we are monitoring and observing methods of operation and tactics, and learning a great deal from what is happening there, including about weapons that are not necessarily manufactured by the Houthis," the official said. (Jerusalem Post) Iraq believes that Israel was behind strikes last week on two sites where Iran-backed militias had stockpiled "Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense systems" sourced from Tehran, Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday. (Jerusalem Post) Istanbul's 11th Criminal Court on Friday opened the trial in absentia of 35 Israelis, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the Israeli Navy's interception of the 2025 Gaza-bound flotilla. The court also asked the Istanbul prosecutor's office to consider filing a new indictment over alleged Israeli actions against Gaza's civilian population. Turkish citizens who participated in the flotilla and were detained allege that they were subjected to violence during the interception and detention. The Turkish indictment charges the defendants with offenses including torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, causing injury, and aggravated robbery. The next hearing is scheduled for March 30, 2027. (Jerusalem Post) The Israeli Navy held a joint drill with the Hellenic Navy in the Mediterranean last week, the military said on Saturday. The drill involved Israeli missile boats and naval vessels from several Greek units. The IDF said the forces "practiced a variety of operational scenarios," including "identifying and thwarting threats in the maritime domain, sailing as a joint force, and sinking an enemy vessel using missile fire." The drill came days after the ratification of a maritime-boundaries deal between Libya and Turkey in the Mediterranean, which Israel, Greece and other nations oppose. (Times of Israel) See also Greek Navy Fires Israeli Missiles in Joint Drills - Dimitris Mitsopoulos On Oct. 21, 2026, during joint operations, firings of SPIKE guided missiles were conducted by Greek patrol vessels in the northern Cretan Sea, clearly demonstrating the effectiveness and operational value of the newly installed weapon systems. The target ship, a decommissioned Hellenic Navy frigate, was subsequently sunk by a torpedo fired from a Greek submarine. Greece has equipped eight vessels with Israeli-made SPIKE missile systems, significantly enhancing their operational capabilities. (Naval News) Field intelligence soldiers routinely conduct surveillance and penetration operations inside Syria - and more than half of their unit are women. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran Former Mossad chief David Barnea revealed Thursday that the Mossad deliberately released an official video showing its operatives conducting missions inside Iran on the opening morning of Israel's June 2025 military campaign against Iranian nuclear and military targets. We wanted "to protect the agents who were there. We wanted to make sure they arrested so many people in Iran that they wouldn't be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and would eventually release everyone. Incidentally, that is exactly what happened." "When you arrest 21,000 people, even if you've caught an agent or two, eventually you have to release them because everyone's story will be the same: I was walking down the street, I was driving a car, they arrested me. And in the end, they released everyone." Barnea also said some of those arrested or executed in Iran had never been associated with the Mossad. "Just unfortunate people whom they decided were our agents, but who never worked for the Mossad." (Ynet News) The new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, witnessed his father, wife, and other close family members die in the same airstrike that wounded him. The U.S. and Israel now must deal with surviving Iranian leaders who experienced similar trauma and loss in early strikes. Its devastating attacks altered Tehran's mindset: Iranian behavior won't return to prewar expectations. The U.S.-led attack was end-of-days fodder for true believers inside the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic, who listened to years of paranoid predictions about just such an apocalyptic attack at weekly Friday prayers. The surviving members of Iran's inner circle are now acting based on an altered set of strategic principles. U.S.-Israeli decapitation strikes shifted Iran's political center of gravity towards the military hardliners who are responsible for fighting the war and who favor more aggressive tactics. While Western observers hope that internal regime fissures will ease America's dilemma, a shared bunker mentality during the current crisis almost certainly will keep their tactical disagreements from being too meaningful for U.S. policy. Iran's actions in the past seven months reflect a sober reassessment that there is little to gain by playing it safe: Its only chance to survive is an aggressive posture that imposes enough cost that the U.S. and its regional partners can no longer easily threaten the Islamic Republic's existence - even if that brinksmanship brings the regime's own survival to the edge. The unprecedented decapitation strikes on Iran's leadership have likely persuaded its surviving members that they are "dead men walking." The regime-change rhetoric from hawks in the U.S. and Israel has convinced Tehran that its enemies will never stop trying to "finish the job." If the U.S. ends the conflict with the Islamic Republic left standing, Tehran's hardline leaders will be intent on rebuilding Iran's strength. Iran will not only rely on its ability to control regional waterways. Iran will widen, harden, and advance its missile and drone program - though it will probably take years for Iran to fully rebuild its arsenal. Iran will regrow its regional proxy forces that Israel weakened in recent years. Tehran also likely will determine that it is time to become the nuclear-armed Iran that its enemies so deeply fear. The writer, a former CIA analyst, served as director for Iran at the National Security Council in 2015 and 2016. (War on the Rocks) The ruling clerics and the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seek to create a new order, imposing tolls on ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz and severing security ties between the U.S. and the Arab Gulf states. The regime also wants to find a means to deter Washington and Jerusalem from attacking. Until Tehran can revive its nuclear weapons program, domination of the Persian Gulf is the only way to possibly checkmate the country's primary foes. Any diplomatic compact that ends this war must, from Tehran's perspective, bring about American capitulation. This is how the Iranian regime saw the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding - the interim peace agreement signed on June 17. Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. (Washington Post) Palestinian Arabs Today, West Bank violence is under the media microscope, but only if it goes one way: Israeli on Palestinian. Last Friday's attack by some Israelis was an international news story, but Monday's attack by some Palestinians didn't make it out of the pro-Israel bubble. Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Knesset candidate and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, was on a group tour of the West Bank near the Arab town of Turmus Ayya on Monday when Palestinians attacked her moving car. A rock, easily big enough to kill, shattered the car window. It's on video. From January through August, the Israel Security Agency (ISA) recorded 270 such stonings a month, part of what it classifies as "minor" terror attacks by Palestinians. Palestinian terror in the West Bank in July 2026 included 273 stonings, 35 arsons or burning-tire attacks, 15 firebombs, four stabbings, and three pipe bombs. The numbers are staggering. It used to be even worse. The 2026 Palestinian terror numbers in the West Bank are down 30% from 2024. But good luck finding any of this in the UN database. Palestinians threw 9,178 firebombs between 2017 and 2023; the UN reported 21. The ISA recorded 1,468 Palestinian explosive devices; the UN reported two. While it barely pays attention to Palestinian violence, the same UN will record anything and everything as Israeli violence against Palestinians. Its database of such violence includes Israeli road work, school trips to archaeological sites, mere Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, and even Palestinians harmed while carrying out terrorist attacks. Most of the press seems to regard "Palestinian Attacks Israeli" as ordinary behavior, not a newsworthy headline. (Wall Street Journal) On Sept. 8, 2026, Canada, Britain, and 10 other European countries announced their intention to introduce national restrictions on trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank or support European-level measures. To many Palestinians, all of Israel is one big settlement to be dismantled. As European governments increase economic pressure on Israel, Palestinians working in businesses in Israeli communities lose their jobs. Industrial zones such as Barkan, Mishor Adumim, and Ariel, where Israeli-owned factories employ Palestinians from surrounding West Bank communities, are particularly vulnerable. Avraham Novogrotcki, president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, said, "In practice, those paying the price are thousands of workers and their families who are losing a stable and dignified source of income. Instead of building economic bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, some are choosing to tear them down. Industry creates jobs, stability and hope, while the boycott creates exactly the opposite." European politicians may see these restrictions as a statement of principle. For a Palestinian father who loses his job, however, the consequences will be measured in lost wages, unpaid bills, and difficulty supporting his family. In 2017, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that average wages earned by Palestinians working in Israel and Israeli West Bank communities were more than twice those earned in the Palestinian Authority. This year, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of workers in Israeli communities reached 17,600 in the first quarter of 2026. Do the Canadian and European governments intend to offer these Palestinian workers comparable jobs? Have they established programs to help Palestinian businesses absorb thousands of displaced employees? Have they pledged funds to replace the incomes that may disappear as a result of their policies? Not a bit. (Gatestone Institute) Antisemitism Israeli-Arab social media entrepreneur Nuseir Yassin, 34, told a conference about combatting antisemitism last week he believes "anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism" and stressed his commitment to overturning "misguided hate" against Jews. Yassin, a Muslim from the Galilee town of Arraba who graduated from Harvard University in 2014, boasts 68 million followers across numerous social networks. "The success of Israel and the Jewish people is also my success as an Israeli citizen," he noted. He views Zionism as "the most vanilla thing in the world - a group of people wanting a place to live," and has concluded that Israel's detractors "just really don't like Jews." Yassin recalled that he grew up labeling himself Arab-Israeli. After the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, he started listing Israeli first. "A lot of Israeli culture is inside me. I never agree with people. I'm always disagreeable. That's Israeli. I speak up." "We should all be 'Free Palestine' - but from what? We disagree on the solution, not on the problem. We don't want suffering. Nobody wants suffering. I'm a free-Palestine-from-Hamas guy. Just 'Free Palestine' is not an answer. I'm free-Palestine-from-extremism." "The Israel-Palestine conflict is not a big deal when you compare it to everything else that's happening on planet Earth. The only thing that makes it a big deal is that we, as Palestinians, have the perfect enemy - the most hated type of enemy - which is the Jews." (JTA) Observations: How the Iranian Battlespace Has Changed - David Ignatius (Washington Post)
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