Browsing: Middle East

As Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains unseen for nearly a week, a wave of uncertainty is sweeping through Iran—both within the country’s ruling elite and across its restless streets. Behind closed doors, political factions are scrambling for influence in the shadow of the absent leader, while on the ground, security forces have launched an aggressive internal crackdown following the recent military confrontation with Israel. According to reporting by The New York Times, Khamenei’s silence has unsettled the political establishment, triggering a scramble among top officials to shape the country’s path forward. Multiple senior Iranian officials revealed that rival camps are…

During Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, the Syrian government under president Ahmed al-Sharaa allowed Israel to fly through its airspace without hindrance. “Every blow to Iran is pure benefit to al-Sharaa’s regime,” University of Haifa Professor Amatzia Baram explained to Hebrew-language news site Maariv. Ahmed Al-Sharaa helped topple the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria last year. Assad, who was president of Syria from 2000 to 2024, was a long-time ally of the Iranian regime. Baram said that Al-Sharaa is “quietly grateful to us for what we’ve done,” since Iran is an enemy of both Israel and the new Syrian government. “The Iranians are…

Two days after the conclusion of Operation Rising Lion and the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, the commander of the Hatzerim Air Base reviewed the airstrikes against Iran. “We see with our own eyes the nuclear facilities below us as we bomb them”, said the commander of Hatzerim Base in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet. “We see the ground-to-ground missile sites, and also the fire and smoke we left behind in every strike.” The IAF planes taking off together and gathering from all of Israel’s air force bases caused a combination of encouragement and anxiety to the pilots. “You…

Following Thursday morning’s missile barrage that struck several civilian targets, including the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, Israeli leaders sharply escalated their rhetoric, publicly stating for the first time that ending the ayatollah regime in Tehran is among Israel’s war objectives. “Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in the center of the country,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” he added. Defense Minister Israel Katz was even harsher in his statements, saying he and Netanyahu have “instructed the…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Sunday that Iran’s Islamic regime plotted to assassinate President Donald Trump, viewing him as a central impediment to its nuclear ambitions. “They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one. He’s a decisive leader. He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them basically a pathway to enrich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, padding it with billions and billions of dollars,” Netanyahu told Fox News. “He took up this fake agreement and basically tore it up. He killed…

The IDF identified on Thursday morning at 7:03 a.m. that between 20 and 30 missiles were launched from Iran toward Israeli territory. This is the largest barrage launched from Iran in the past 48 hours. There are reports of at least seven impact sites, including three in Gush Dan and one at Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva, which sustained a direct hit. At the Ramat Gan strike, at least 20 buildings were damaged by the blast. So far, 23 individuals have been reported injured across all impact sites. A spokesperson for Soroka said: “There has been damage to the hospital…

Hamas on Saturday published a new photo of hostage Matan Zangauker, claiming Israeli troops were “besieging” the area where he was being held in Gaza and threatening to execute him should troops come near. The military stressed in a statement that no attempt had been made to extract Zangauker. In the image, Zangauker is propped up on his side as a blanket covers his lower body, while an IV drip bag can be seen in the background. “We affirm that the enemy will not be able to recover him alive. We have preserved his life for 20 months; if this…

Operation lasted just 45 minutes, resulted simultaneous arrests of several suspects Israeli troops apprehended several Hamas terrorists operating in the Syrian town of Beit Jinn, in the northern Golan Heights, in an overnight operation, the Israel Defense Forces reported on Thursday. In a rare official acknowledgment of Israeli activity in Syrian territory, the IDF said the troops of the 3rd and 9th Brigades executed a “targeted nighttime operation in Syria.” The operation was based on intelligence gathered in recent weeks and resulted in the capture of “several Hamas terrorists who had been attempting to advance multiple terror plots against Israeli…

US officials believe Israel is ready to carry out an attack on Iran and could launch military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming days, reports suggested early Thursday, even as high-level talks aimed at a diplomatic deal over Tehran’s nuclear activity remained on track for Sunday. The reports, from US networks NBC and CBS, that Israel was moving toward a long-threatened military strike came hours after the US announced it would evacuate some personnel from the region amid fears they could be targeted by Iran in reprisal actions. The moves came after US President Donald Trump indicated he…

The Israel Defense Forces carried out a series of strikes on several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday evening that it said were used by Hezbollah to manufacture drones, and in a separate instance, also issued evacuation warnings for two areas in a southern Lebanon town. The strikes in Beirut hit several underground drone manufacturing facilities belonging to Hezbollah’s aerial forces, also know as Unit 127, according to the military. Ahead of the strikes, which began shortly after 10 p.m., the IDF said it had “identified that Hezbollah’s aerial unit is working to produce many thousands of UAVs, under…