Browsing: War in Israel

Iron Dome was just used outside Israel for the first time in history — deployed to the UAE as Iran fired 560+ missiles at the Gulf state. Here’s what this means for the region and the Abraham Accords. This week’s Israel and Middle East news briefing covers four major developments you need to know about. The Israeli Air Force eliminated a Hamas cell in central Gaza — including Hazem Rami Ali Aidi, a Hamas commander confirmed to have participated in the October 7, 2023, massacre. Also killed were a platoon commander and a Hamas military intelligence operative. Israel continues to…

Hezbollah is looking for new ways to fight the IDF. The Lebanon-based terror group is now launching small drones controlled by fiber-optic cables to avoid electronic detection. These particular drones are not controlled remotely, but rather have thin cables directly connected to them, making it impossible to electronically jam them. Cord-connected drones have been widely used in the war in Ukraine, are small and hard to track. Hezbollah says it began using these fiber-optic guided drones for the first time back in early March, airing videos of its use on their social media platforms and its Al-Manar TV station. Continue…

The IDF on Wednesday struck and eliminated Ibrahim Abu Tzakar, a Hamas terrorist, a military statement said. Abu Tzakar had planned to carry out an imminent terror attack against IDF troops. Throughout the war, he led and advanced numerous attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel. In parallel to his terrorist activity, Abu Tzakar operated under the cover of a paramedic in the medical array of the Hamas terrorist organization, thereby exploiting and endangering the medical system and the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. “The terrorist posed an immediate threat to IDF troops and was eliminated in…

Since October 2023, when the war broke out, the IDF have steadily expanded the territory under their control. It began in the Gaza Strip, continued in Syria and the West Bank, and now includes a large area in Lebanon. All of this requires troops — even as mandatory service is expected to be shortened in about six months. At the political level, which has pledged “at the request of the chief of staff” to pass a package of laws extending compulsory service — while also exempting tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men from enlistment — progress has stalled. Despite the…

As Israel remains at war and many of its students continue to cycle between campus and reserve duty, those guiding them see their mission extending beyond academic excellence alone to include the needs of the state itself. Speaking ahead of Israel’s 78th Independence Day, Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan says the country’s flagship engineering school has long seen itself as part of the state’s national backbone. “We consider Israel’s security, Israel’s economy and Israel’s society as part of our mission,” Sivan said in an interview with ynet Global. “It’s not that anybody imposed that on us. But that’s how we…

IDF combat teams in southern Lebanon discovered a hidden Hezbollah stronghold 25 meters underground inside a clothing store, according to a Thursday statement. According to the military, the site was used by Hezbollah operatives to manage combat activity and store weapons. Soldiers found weapons and several rooms inside the underground complex that were used for Hezbollah’s operational management. Continue reading this article on jpost.com

As Yom Ha’atzmaut marks 78 years since the founding of the State of Israel, the occasion demands more than reflection. It is a strategic inflection point – a moment to consider how a small nation, born into existential adversity, has repeatedly converted limitation into asymmetric advantage and what lessons that holds for an increasingly unstable world. Israel’s story is often told through the lens of survival. But survival, on its own, does not explain its trajectory. Over nearly eight decades, Israel has engineered something far more durable: a national ecosystem in which innovation and security are not parallel tracks but a…

On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the global Jewish population stands at 15.8 million, according to data released Sunday by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), a figure that remains below pre-World War II levels. Of the total, about 7.2 million Jews, roughly 45% of the global Jewish population, live in Israel, while approximately 6.3 million, about 40%, reside in the United States. Together, the two countries are home to about 85% of Jews worldwide. By comparison, in 1939, on the eve of World War II, the global Jewish population was estimated at 16.6 million, with only 449,000, about…

IDF soldiers of the Commando Brigade are operating under the command of the 98th Division to dismantle terror infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon. On Wednesday, during an operational activity in the Bint Jbeil area, IDF soldiers from the Egoz Unit conducted a targeted raid on a combat compound used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization. The soldiers located dozens of weapons that were used by the organization’s terrorists to advance terror activity from within a civilian area. Among the weapons located were RPGs, Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, grenades, an anti-aircraft missile, surveillance equipment, and combat equipment. Continue reading this article on israelnationalnews.com

Nearly 30,000 property-damage claims have been filed by Israelis since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion, the Israel Tax Authority reported Thursday. Sixty-five compensation-fund teams are currently operating across the country to assist civilians whose homes and property have been damaged in the war, the ITA said. A property-tax team is also active in hotels throughout Israel, assisting evacuees, it said. A total of 28,237 property-damage claims have been filed since the start of the war: 18,408 for damage to a structure, 6,617 for damage to a vehicle, 2,594 for damage to a structure’s content and equipment, and 618 for other damages, the ITA…