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Sunday, October 18, 2026 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
"The financial strain on Iran's military has become so significant that there are reports about Iran-aligned militia groups across the region withholding payments for their soldiers in order to funnel money back to the IRGC, which also isn't paying its troops, U.S. CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said Friday. He said the Iranian government is withholding salaries, pensions and benefits from public sector workers, including the internal security forces and the IRGC. Cooper attributed a significant increase in Iranian attacks against ships in the Strait of Hormuz to "desperation" within the IRGC. Despite those attacks, he said 400 ships and 100 million barrels of oil moved through the Strait of Hormuz over the last week. (Axios) Prime Minister Netanyahu said Friday: "I heard a regrettable statement. It talked about Israel stealing land, Israel losing the moral high ground. Let me respond to that. The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers. Our history is not a colonial enterprise. Our land is not stolen land." "This is our homeland. It's called Judea. That's where Jews come from. And we've been attached to it for thousands of years. We're not the Dutch in Indonesia. We're not the Belgians in the Congo. We're Jews in Judea." "The obstacle to peace is not Israel. It's not our fight for our very right to exist in our own state. It's the refusal of our enemies and America's enemies to recognize the Jewish people's right to a state of our own in any boundary. That's why they chant 'Death to Israel,' 'Death to America.' We are the 'little Satan.' You are the 'great Satan.' And we're defending our common civilization." "A peace built on illusions will crash against the rocks of Middle Eastern reality. Israel will not gamble with its survival to accommodate those who refuse to accept the facts of history, to accept our right to exist, or who wish to appease terror. We certainly do not. We never will." (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-X) The Palestinian Ministry of Health recently released statistics on overall mortality in Gaza for 2025. There were 24,650 deaths in 2025, with 18,085 (73.4%) being males and 6,565 (26.6%) being females. 70.1% of deaths, or 17,286 cases, were attributed to direct targeting in the war. In addition, there were 50,227 live births in 2025, showing that Gaza's population grew during the year, providing evidence against accusations of genocide. A spokesperson from the Israel Defense Forces said, "The fact that more military-age men are disproportionately among those eliminated is consistent with the fact that terrorist organizations are predominantly composed of men." (Fox News) Iran's missiles and drones have hit Gulf infrastructure sites at least 135 times, disabling critical equipment and causing cascading failures and economic damage region-wide. Iran and its allies attacked vital oil-routing systems at Fujairah in the UAE, the main port outside the Strait of Hormuz, at least 19 times, disabling operations for weeks. A foreign businessman who watched a wave of attacks said, "They were sending swarms of drones and one or two got through." They hit Qatar's Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, striking two of the "cold boxes" that house cooling equipment that liquefies gas. They targeted airports across at least four countries, this month striking one in Saudi Arabia four days in a single week. They incinerated a pumping station and damaged two others along a key Saudi pipeline, cutting off another main bypass around Iran's blockade of Hormuz. Iran has targeted infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Its ability to launch precision attacks creates an enduring threat to its Gulf Arab neighbors. Time and again, the Iranian strikes were precise and the equipment struck was vital. (Reuters) Iranian support has helped the Houthis mount potent and sophisticated attacks on Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies, including help targeting drone and missile attacks, as well as training, intelligence and tactical guidance. The assistance has contributed to a Houthi offensive that has produced rapid territorial gains in Yemen. (Wall Street Journal) Hundreds of Iranian fishermen fanned out across the Strait of Hormuz to fish for iPhones, French perfume and other cargo that had spilt overboard from the GFS Pride, which sank on Oct 14. Footage showed dozens of boats threading between half-submerged containers, with men hauling boxes from the swell. In one clip, a small boat strains to tow a full-size shipping container behind it. (Telegraph-UK) Hizbullah told Lebanese security authorities that it wants the return of more than 1,000 pounds of explosives that were seized recently after the government intercepted a weapons-laden vehicle, setting up a public contest of wills with a government that has pledged to demilitarize the Iran-backed militant group. The truck, carrying C-4 plastic explosives and TNT, was traveling from Hizbullah's Bekaa Valley stronghold to the Beirut area. (Wall Street Journal) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana told the Council of Europe in Rome on Thursday: "Israel is not committing genocide. Enough with this despicable lie. Israel is fighting genocide. On Oct. 7, there was no 'collateral damage.' Civilians - men, women, children, and even babies - were not caught in a crossfire. They were the targets." "Today, we are facing a severe crisis of a lack of international courage. Many world leaders declare the importance of lofty values, but when the moment of truth arrives, it turns out that only a few are willing to defend them. Worse still are those who knowingly choose to lie and cynically support false propaganda in order to secure fleeting electoral support and a false sense of calm in their simmering streets." "Last week, we marked three years since Oct. 7, the day thousands of bloodthirsty terrorists shattered the quiet along the border between Gaza and the neighboring Israeli communities. They embarked on a campaign of murder, rape, and mutilation of bodies, burning people alive with medieval cruelty." "This war is far from being merely a local conflict. It is a global confrontation between civilizations - a struggle between the forces of darkness, extremism, and fundamentalism, and the forces of liberty, freedom, and democracy. Some of the member states represented here have a particularly dark chapter in the pages of history. I call on you: This time, stand on the right side of history - alongside us." (Jerusalem Post) There has been a sustained decline in Hamas's standing among Palestinians, which dropped from 35% ten months ago to 24% in August and now stands at 19% overall (13% in the West Bank, 27% in Gaza), according to a new poll conducted on Oct. 7-11, 2026, in the West Bank and Gaza by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Overall, 33% support "armed struggle" as the best means of achieving Palestinian goals, down from 63% in December 2023. 16% now see Hamas emerging victorious in the war, compared to 70% in 2023. (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research-PA) Rafael Advanced Defense Systems emerged from Israel's recent wars with Iran with more Tamir Iron Dome interceptors in stock than it had when the fighting began, said CEO Yoav Tourgeman. He said the company's Iron Dome and David's Sling air defense systems have intercepted more than 11,000 threats together since becoming operational. (Jerusalem Post) Security collaboration between Israel and Ukraine is expanding, particularly in the study of Iranian weapons and Russian drones, according to former Israeli ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky. He said Israel has received several weapons from Kyiv for examination and that Israel is actively developing defenses against drones. For Israel, Ukraine's battlefield experience is particularly relevant because Iran and its allies use weapons based on similar technology. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran What happened in 1979? Part of the clergy, in alliance with a variety of leftist and third-worldist groups, seized power and transformed Iran from a normal nation-state into a vehicle for an ideological cocktail made of a localized version of Muslim Brotherhood narrative and misunderstood Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tropes. The mistake the outside world made was to ignore that transformation and continue with the assumption that they were dealing with a normal nation-state with regular interests, aspirations and ambitions. Falling for that illusion was facilitated by the fact that part of the pre-1979 Iranian nation-state had survived and there were enough characters with American and European education to play the roles of ministers, diplomats and business negotiators. The writer was executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. (Gatestone Institute) Prime Minister Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk told the Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Israel's actions were creating conditions that would allow Iranians to challenge their rulers, while "regime change in Iran is up to the Iranian people." While noting that economic pressure needed time to produce results, he argued that Iran and its regional proxies had been severely weakened by the war. (Jerusalem Post) Lebanon Two years ago, I sat in a room where the question being discussed was: Should Israel strike Hassan Nasrallah, a man I had spent much of my professional life studying? Hundreds of intelligence officers and analysts spent years building the intelligence case for targeting Nasrallah and minimizing harm to civilians. I remember Col. M., who led intelligence work on Hizbullah, when she told us: "We have it. If you decide to act, you can." What remained was the strategic decision. In the room, not one person objected. Mindful of the lessons of Oct. 7, we sought dissenting views and contacted two people considered most likely to oppose the operation. Both supported it. Nasrallah blocked any ceasefire in Lebanon and would never unlink the Lebanese front from Gaza. I watched the live images as the bombs hit the compound where he was staying. When confirmation arrived, I felt profound relief and satisfaction that a man whose organization had killed so many Israelis and Americans was gone. Nasrallah led Hizbullah from 1992 and transformed it into a force that served Iran far beyond its borders. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 allowed Hizbullah to claim that armed resistance had forced the Israeli military out. The 2006 Lebanon War, which Nasrallah cast as a divine victory despite the devastation in Lebanon, made him a star across much of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Afterward, Hizbullah amassed an arsenal and precision-strike capabilities that gave it firepower rivaling that of many states, deterring Israel for years from taking decisive action against it. Yet, decades in power dulled Nasrallah's instincts and bred an arrogance that distorted his judgment. Nasrallah came to believe that no one understood Israel and the Jews better than he did, and that Iran's Shiite revolutionary project was destined to triumph. Nasrallah's killing marked a decisive turning point in Hizbullah's decline. It still exists and remains dangerous, but it is a pale shadow of the force that once possessed the capabilities of a state military and threatened Israel, American lives, and the stability of the Middle East. The writer, former head of the Israel Defense Intelligence Hizbullah branch, is a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). (Jewish Chronicle-UK) The Oct. 20-22 Israeli-Lebanese military talks at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, are expected to address the tactical hurdles facing the June Trilateral Framework agreement, specifically its implementation of pilot zones. These talks are also an opportunity to frankly discuss the lack of political will that Lebanon has shown so far on the core issue of disarming and dismantling Hizbullah. Although the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have deployed to the pilot zones, they have made no effort to take control of the group's weapons or other military capabilities there and reports suggest that Hizbullah personnel have returned to these areas. The LAF cannot effectively dismantle Hizbullah's military infrastructure without searching private dwellings. Lebanese authorities argue that constitutional protections prohibit private property searches, but the law actually provides a mechanism for doing so when required - what is missing is the political will to use this mechanism. Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmad al-Hajj stated on July 29 that he had not authorized any home searches in the pilot zones. The writer is a Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Genocide On March 9, 1945, close to 300 American B-29s bombed Japan under cover of darkness, dropping 1,665 tons of napalm incendiaries on Tokyo. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people died in a single night. More than 60 Japanese cities followed. Yet almost nobody calls the firebombing of Japan "genocide," and for good reason. Genocide requires intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group "as such." America aimed to completely defeat a regime that murdered millions of civilians across Asia, massacred Nanjing, ran the "comfort women" system of sexual slavery on an industrial scale, and performed human experiments under Unit 731 - a regime whose cruelty rivaled that of the Nazis. The clearest proof of intent came after the surrender. America occupied Japan, gave it a democratic constitution, fed its people and poured money into rebuilding it. A country bent on destroying the Japanese people, as such, does not spend seven years rebuilding them. In Gaza, instead of fire, Israel used precision munitions. Instead of surprise, it warned civilians by leaflet, text message and phone call before strikes, and opened evacuation corridors. It moved food and medicine into the territory it was fighting in. It accepted losses no army in 1945 would have accepted to spare enemy civilians. The law is clear about who bears responsibility when one side hides its war machine among civilians. The 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions forbids using civilians to shield military targets and requires each side to keep military objectives away from populated areas as much as possible. Hamas spent 16 years doing the reverse. The presence of civilians does not make a military target immune. If it did, then every terrorist group and tyranny would win every war simply by hiding among its people. America burned dozens of Japanese cities to the ground and is remembered, correctly, as the nation that defeated a monstrous regime and helped rebuild its people into a free and prosperous ally. Israel faced a more entrenched version of the same problem, chose far greater restraint, and stands accused of "genocide." There is one more lesson from 1945: Japan became a free and peaceful nation only after its militarist regime was totally defeated, disarmed and replaced, and its schools stopped teaching children to die for the emperor. Nobody suggested leaving Japan's rulers in place to rearm. (JNS) Palestinian Arabs On Oct. 10, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), originally scheduled for Nov. 2026, will be postponed until Sept. 11, 2027. It was not the first time that the Palestinian leader had announced elections, raised expectations, and then postponed the vote. Holding elections under the current circumstances would almost certainly strengthen Hamas, which won the last PLC elections in 2006. On Oct. 13, the foreign ministers of Australia, France, Canada, and Britain issued a joint statement expressing "deep regret" over the postponement of elections. They called on the PA to reconsider its decision and hold elections without further delay. What leverage do these Western governments intend to use when Abbas ignores their demands? Or will they issue statements of regret while continuing to provide financial support? Since 2006, Israel has held nine parliamentary elections, with another this month. The Palestinians, by contrast, have held no presidential or parliamentary elections since 2006. The Palestinian Legislative Council has not functioned since 2007. Abbas, now 91, is about to enter the 22nd year of his illegitimate presidency without ever seriously having sought a renewed popular mandate at the ballot box. A recent Palestinian poll showed that 79% want him to resign. What is really needed to help the Palestinian people, now being held hostage by corrupt and self-serving leaders in all of their parties, is not just elections but reforms and serious international accountability, starting with shutting down funding for slow or nonexistent compliance. (Gatestone Institute) Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has issued a decree to postpone Palestinian elections. In exchange for recognition of Palestinian statehood last year, Abbas had promised French President Emmanuel Macron that he would hold elections in 2026 at last. Macron touted this as a major breakthrough. Australia and Canada joined the statehood parade while insisting that Hamas be excluded from the vote. France, Canada, Australia and the UK published a statement Tuesday expressing "regret" over Abbas's decision - but not their own. Diplomatic recognition, which the West had long reserved for the day Palestinians made peace in negotiations with Israel, was surrendered for nothing. It won't now be rescinded. In 2000, 2001 and 2008, the PA turned down Israeli offers of peace and Palestinian statehood. There is no sign that has changed, or that the PA is serious about reform, governance and democracy. There is no state-building going on in Ramallah. (Wall Street Journal) Other Issues Navi Pillay, this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, helmed the global enterprise that contorts law in the service of antisemitism. The terrorist organization Hamas congratulated Pillay. As chair of a permanent UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel (COI), her final report in the fall of 2025 accused Israel of genocide. Her COI reports put "terror," "terrorist" and "terrorism" in quotation marks, refuse to name any Palestinian terrorist organization, and belittle Israel for labeling Hamas and Islamic Jihad as "terrorists." COI hearings were restricted to anti-Israel advocates; submissions were used for COI reports provided they weren't "pro-Israel." Pillay's COI response to Oct. 7, issued on Oct. 10, portrayed "an explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza," rather than the invasion of a UN member state and slaughter of its people. The writer is president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. (Times of Israel) Tamer Masudin shares why he began speaking publicly after Oct. 7, why he sees Zionism as compatible with his own identity, and what growing up as a Black Bedouin in Israel actually looked like. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Israel's Hadassah Medical Center inaugurated a medical center in Limassol, Cyprus, on Thursday and announced plans for a hospital near the capital, Nicosia. The new center draws on Hadassah's clinical expertise and will maintain ongoing professional cooperation with Hadassah staff in Israel. (Jerusalem Post) Observations: U.S. and Israel Can't Force Iran to Surrender - Ron Ben-Yishai (Ynet News)
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