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In-Depth Issues:
Israel Targeted Iranian Leaders by Following the Cellphones of Their Bodyguards - Farnaz Fassihi ( New York Times)
On June 16, the fourth day of Iran's war with Israel, Iran's Supreme National Security Council gathered for an emergency meeting in a bunker 100 feet below a mountain slope in western Tehran.
None of the officials carried mobile phones, knowing that Israeli intelligence could track them.
Israeli jets dropped six bombs on top of the bunker soon after the meeting began, but remarkably, nobody in the bunker was killed.
Iranian officials then discovered a devastating security lapse: The Israelis had been led to the meeting by hacking the phones of bodyguards who had accompanied the Iranian leaders to the site.
"We know senior officials and commanders did not carry phones, but their interlocutors, security guards and drivers had phones; they did not take precautions seriously, and this is how most of them were traced," said Sasan Karimi, former deputy vice president for strategy in Iran's government.
The June 16 attack destroyed the meeting room, which soon filled with debris, smoke and dust, and the power was cut, according to accounts that emerged afterward.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian found a narrow opening through the debris, where a sliver of light and air was coming through, he said.
Three senior officials said the president dug through the debris with his bare hands, eventually making enough of a space for everyone to crawl out one by one.
Why Iran Hit Australia - Arash Azizi ( Atlantic)
On Tuesday, shutting down the Iranian embassy, the Australian government declared Amb. Ahmad Sadeghi persona non grata and ordered him and three other Iranian officials to leave within three days.
Additionally, it designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.
The decisiveness of Canberra's actions is a measure of the extremity of Iran's behavior.
According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australian security forces have "credible intelligence" linking Iran to several attacks on Australian Jews last year, including an act of arson on a kosher restaurant in Sydney last October and another on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December.
One might think the assaults were too clumsy and amateurish to have been the work of a state apparatus.
But those of us who have tracked the IRGC's overseas activities through the years recognized the playbook.
The militia works with criminal actors, including drug cartels and crime syndicates, as well as petty thieves.
Its targets have long included ordinary Jewish civilians.
The best-known incident was the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terror attack in Argentine history.
In recent years, Iran has tried (and mostly failed) to strike Jewish or Israeli targets in South Africa, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
See also Tehran's Hand in Arson Attacks in Australia Needs to Be a Warning to the World - Hugo Timms ( Spiked-UK)
Israeli Satellites Maintain Real-Time, Constant Surveillance in Iran - Yonah Jeremy Bob ( Jerusalem Post)
A critical element in Israel's national security is its satellite fleet, especially against Iran and the Houthis.
The Ofek-class and older Eros-class satellites have exceptional surveillance capabilities.
The most recent addition is the Dror 1 satellite, which provides communication capabilities. All were manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
On July 1, the Defense Ministry announced that Israeli satellites took photos of tens of millions of sq.km. in Iran, leading up to and during the June war.
Israeli satellites are now able to maintain real-time, constant tactical and operational surveillance of many spots all over the Islamic Republic.
Israel can now use satellites against Iran for air force attacks based on real-time analysis of Tehran's ballistic missile shooting patterns.
These satellites also enable new levels of immediate battle damage assessments to determine the number of additional aerial sorties required. For large targets, satellites help clarify which portions of the target need to be struck again.
Houthis Hide in Opponents' Houses to Evade Israeli Strikes - Mohammed Nasser ( Asharq Al-Awsat-UK)
Houthis in Yemen are hiding in the houses of their opponents in the capital Sanaa to evade Israeli strikes, after being forced to flee from their stronghold in the al-Jaraf neighborhood.
Informed sources in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that the most prominent Houthi leaders have hidden in the lavish houses of their rivals.
They are acting on strict orders to regularly change their places of residence.
How Israel Has Directly Improved the U.S. Military - Maj. (ret.) John Spencer ( X)
The U.S.-Israel defense partnership will remain at the forefront of military innovation, ensuring both nations stay ahead of emerging threats and shape the battlefields of the future.
Here are some of the ways Israel has directly improved the U.S. military:
Countering IEDs; active protection systems; enhancements to the F-35 to improve U.S. air superiority; targeting pods and precision rockets; the Israeli emergency bandage - a battlefield lifesaver;
armored bulldozers - a critical urban warfare tool; military working dogs; counter-tunneling technologies; Iron Beam - addressing the drone threat; and research and development in AI-powered warfare - the future of combat.
The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- U.S. Revokes Visas of Palestinian Officials Ahead of UN General Assembly
The State Department announced Friday:
"In accordance with U.S. law, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly....It is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace."
"Before the PLO and PA can be considered partners for peace, they must consistently repudiate terrorism - including the October 7 massacre - and end incitement to terrorism in education, as required by U.S. law and as promised by the PLO. The PA must also end its attempts to bypass negotiations through international lawfare campaigns, including appeals to the ICC and ICJ, and efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state." (U.S. State Department)
See also PA President Abbas and 80 PA Officials Barred from U.S. - Jennifer Hansler
A State Department official confirmed that the announcement denying and revoking visas affected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "along with approximately 80 other PA officials."
(CNN)
- UN Security Council Votes to End UNIFIL Mission in Lebanon after 2026
The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to terminate the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon at the end of 2026, in a move backed by the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. had initially demanded that the force be ended in six months. The resolution gives UNIFIL a year, starting on Dec. 31, 2026, to withdraw its 10,800 military and civilian personnel and all UN equipment.
(AP-CNN)
- Israel Seeks to Empty Gaza City of Civilians - Gerry Shih
For days, Ali Ahmed had been getting text messages from the Israeli army urging him to evacuate from Gaza City.
The sound of Israeli artillery and demolition robots clearing buildings had grown louder, he recalled, and the explosions were now less than 100 yards from his tent. Ahmed's three children have begged him to move.
While the Gaza City neighborhoods of Zeitoun, Shejaiya and Saftawi and the nearby city of Jabalya are emptying already, residents say, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry has urged residents to remain in their homes as long as possible.
On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces' Arabic-language spokesman, Lt.-Col. Avichay Adraee, released a video warning residents that "there is no alternative to evacuating Gaza City. Every family that moves south will get the most humanitarian aid possible, which the IDF is working to expand at this time."
This week, Israeli military officials said they were rushing to finish building a new pipeline that will pump fresh water from Egypt into the Mawasi humanitarian zone, supplying 600,000 people a day. A new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution site a half-mile walk from Mawasi is also taking shape.
Harel Knafo, a retired Israeli general who recently served in Gaza, said an IDF "population evacuation unit" had spent 10 years mapping out buildings on every street in Gaza and obtaining mobile phone numbers of residents and businesses on every block. The IDF has been calling residents and blaring messages from loudspeakers installed on tanks and drones to get residents to leave. The next stage has been to drop leaflets. And if that doesn't succeed, Knafo said, firing rifle rounds at building walls or tank shells at empty fields without civilians usually does.
"If people can hear it [firing], they will understand we are close and they have no time left. Every step we take is done not to harm the people, while Hamas does the opposite, by threatening people not to go and even shooting at them if they try." (Washington Post)
See also Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs - Nidal Al-Mughrabi
Residents of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City said the area had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city. The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks.
On Friday it ended temporary pauses in the fighting that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a "dangerous combat zone." Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
(Reuters)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IDF Believe Entire Houthi Cabinet Killed in Thursday Strikes - Nurit Yohanan
The IDF assesses that the entire Houthi cabinet - including the prime minister and 12 other ministers - were likely killed in Thursday's strikes in Yemen, Israel's Channel 12 reported Friday. Yemen's Al-Jumhuriya and Aden Al-Ghad reported Thursday that Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in an Israeli attack together with several of his companions.
A separate strike was said to have targeted 10 senior Houthi ministers who had gathered to hear a speech by the group's leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi. The IDF on Friday confirmed that the Houthi defense minister and chief of staff were targeted in that attack. Channel 12 said the two were en route to the location of the cabinet meeting shortly before the strike and were apparently at the site when it was hit.
Since March 18, the Houthis in Yemen have launched 72 ballistic missiles and at least 23 drones at Israel. (Times of Israel)
See also Houthi Prime Minister, Other Officials Killed in Israeli Strike - Yonah Jeremy Bob
Among those killed in the Israeli strike in Yemen on Thursday were the Houthis' director of the political bureau, the prime minister's chief of staff, the cabinet secretary, the justice minister, the economy and trade minister, the foreign minister, the agriculture minister, and the public relations minister, Israel Army Radio reported, citing security sources. (Jerusalem Post)
- Report: Israel Dismantles Turkish Spying Devices in Syria - Shachar Kleiman
The Saudi television channel Al-Hadath reported Thursday that during an IDF commando raid near Damascus, Israeli forces dismantled Turkish surveillance devices that had been planted in the al-Kiswah area.
An Israeli security official said the devices had been in place for over ten years and that "Turkey is trying to get too close to us." The official said sensitive and dangerous equipment had been discovered and that the raid was essential to Israel's security. (Israel Hayom)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Observations:
- Many elaborate propaganda posters coming from Ayatollah Khamenei's office express the regime's most bellicose aspirations and appear prominently on billboards at Tehran's busiest intersections.
- One shows the sinking of the White House and Capitol into the ocean - in the same way as the Titanic. Another honors students on American campuses who were clamoring for the destruction of Israel, seven months after Hamas invaded Israel and the massacre of 1,200 Israelis.
- A poster labeled "Reality of the West" shows an American gangster manipulating four puppets on strings, with the caption: "The reality of Western powers is a mafia. At the top of this mafia stand the prominent Zionist merchants, and the politicians that obey them. The U.S. is their showcase, and they're spread out everywhere."
Another shows five Israeli leaders as mafia bosses, titled "Gang of terrorists," with the caption: "The Zionist regime is not a government. They're a gang of murderers."
- The destruction of U.S. and Israeli fleets is depicted on a billboard in Tehran's busiest intersection, titled: "We drowned them all." A new poster depicts a Houthi dagger destroying an Israeli ship, with the caption: "What the people of Yemen and the Houthi government did in support of the people of Gaza is truly commendable."
- The June war with Israel is represented by an enormous army boot crushing an Israeli city, accompanied by heavy rocket fire, captioned: "The Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic." Another, titled: "Brought to Ruins," shows a skull with a Jewish star on its forehead, with rockets destroying an Israeli city in the background.
- Interlocutors with Iran should be forced to view this Iranian artwork before they sit down with representatives of the Ayatollah regime.
The writer, former Deputy Chief of Mission at Israel's Embassy in Washington, is a Research and Diplomacy Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
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