Israel Update 5.3.26

Covering the entirety of the current war in the Middle East is beyond the scope of this update.

So I will provide some context, plus some news items  largely unreported outside Israel, followed by links to relevant comment & opinion pieces.

 

CONTEXT FOR PRE-EMPTIVE US & ISRAELI ATTACKS ON IRAN

 

U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that negotiations with Iran collapsed after Iranian officials openly asserted their intention to enrich uranium at levels sufficient to produce nuclear weapons.
Witkoff said the Iranian negotiators openly acknowledged possessing 460 kg. of uranium enriched to 60% – an amount they admitted could be converted into as many as 11 nuclear bombs.
He added that the Iranian officials also boasted of bypassing international monitoring systems to reach that point.
“President Trump sent us to see if Iran was serious. But by the second meeting, it was clear a deal was impossible.” Report here

 

Senior US officials said Tuesday that President Trump ordered strikes on Iran after Tehran demonstrated during three rounds of nuclear talks last month that it was not serious about giving up the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. “They basically offered us a lot of political wins and some concessions, but they were unwilling to give up the building blocks of what they needed to preserve to get to a bomb,” Report here

 

Senior Israeli officials noted that even if the Islamic Republic remains intact, dealing a harsh blow to its missile and weapons infrastructure is a vital objective for Israeli security.
“There was an operational necessity to take action now because of what they built over the past six months, driven by their irrational belief that Israel must be destroyed” according to an Israeli official.
Iran’s conduct was with an “extent of armament that no responsible country can allow its enemy to build.” Report here

 

Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar said Saturday that refraining from action in Iran would have been “far more dangerous” than moving forward despite the risks. He said timing was critical, warning that delay could have allowed Iran to reach a “zone of immunity” for its nuclear programme and accelerate the mass production of long-range ballistic missiles. Report here

 

From last week’s Update 26.2.26:

A REMINDER OF THE IRANIAN THREAT

Report dated 20.2.26

Senior IDF officials have warned their U.S. counterparts that Iran continues to expand missile production and could possess at least 5,000 ballistic missiles by the end of 2027.
Iran is currently producing 100 ballistic missiles per month, with output expected to increase.
Tehran is relying on volume as even advanced air defence systems have limited capacity against sustained, large-scale barrages.

Last June, Iran launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and about 1,000 drones toward Israel. 86% of the missiles were intercepted and 99% of the drones shot down.
Missiles caused significant damage and casualties in several Israeli cities. Report here

WAR NEWS FROM ISRAEL

 

While Israel & the US target Iran’s military sites and assets, Iran targets civilians throughout the region. As at 17.00 Israel time Thursday, Iranian missiles had sent millions of Israelis to the shelters in Central Israel for the sixth time today.

 

Among the worst incidents in Israel:

 

One woman was killed and 27 others were wounded in a direct strike on a residential building during an Iranian missile barrage late Saturday targeting Tel Aviv.  The impact also devastated the historic Bauhaus building next door. Reports here& here

 

Nine people were killed and more than 40 were injured in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, on Sunday by a direct Iranian ballistic missile impact. The missile struck a residential area in the city, destroying a synagogue and causing extensive damage to a public bomb shelter beneath it and surrounding homes. Report here

 

Beit Shemesh resident Yarin said, “We were in the safe room and suddenly we heard a massive blast and saw shrapnel inside the house. All the walls shattered, glass, all the drywall, the front door came apart.”
At the site of the strike, glass crunched underfoot and large chunks of concrete and twisted scraps of metal blocked the sidewalks. The windshields of cars parked along the street were either shattered or completely missing. Houses were increasingly damaged nearer the epicentre of the blast, with many missing large chunks of their roofs.Report here

 

Nineteen Israelis were wounded after an Iranian ballistic missile made a direct hit in a residential area of Beersheba on Monday. A first aid centre provided shelter to 1,083 people who were forced to evacuate their apartments, including 577 families and households who suddenly found themselves homeless. Report here

Five people were wounded by an Iranian missile strike on a highway near Jerusalem on Sunday night. Report here

 

Many people have suffered injuries while rushing to take shelter from Iranian & Hizbollah missiles.

 

Iran’s use of cluster bombs

 

Iran has launched multiple ballistic missiles at Israel carrying cluster bomb warheads which scatter around 20 smaller bombs with around 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) of explosives in a radius of 8 km (5 miles)

These missiles pose a threat to a much wider area than Iran’s other ballistic missile warheads, but the explosion from each of the cluster bombs is far smaller.

Iran’s traditional ballistic missile warheads are packed with an estimated 500 kilograms of explosives, which can cause massive damage. Report here

 

Iranian disregard for holy sites:

 

On Saturday, the warhead of an Iranian missile hit Sultan’s Pool, an outdoor events venue a few dozen metres from the Old City of Jerusalem and less than a kilometre from the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque. Report here

 

Footnote:

More than 30 female aircrew members including pilots, combat navigators, and technicians have taken part in long range strikes on Iran. There are more than 70 female combat pilots and navigators in the Israel Air Force. Report here

 

WAR STRATEGY

 

For decades, Iran invested heavily in vast underground “missile cities” to protect its arsenal. However U.S. and Israeli forces have successfully mapped these locations and their fighter jets and armed drones are maintaining continuous surveillance over known tunnel exits. Launchers are frequently being destroyed the moment they emerge from underground to fire, with launch frequency reportedly dropping by 86% within the first four days of the conflict. Report here

 

HIZBULLAH ATTACKS ON ISRAEL

 

The pace of Hizbullah rockets and drones being launched against Israel has jumped dramatically since Monday, even as the rate of Iranian ballistic missiles dropped significantly from Saturday-Sunday to the rest of the week, the IDF Home Front Command said on Thursday. According to the IDF, northern residents spent most of last night in their safe rooms and bomb shelters because of consistent fire. Report here

 

 

Hizbullah announced it was formally joining Iran in escalating the war against Israel on Monday. The impact of escalation – especially for those fleeing Lebanon’s south and Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood – was visible. Displaced families arriving in northern areas report landlords refusing to rent to them if they are Shiite or perceived to support Hizbullah. Many Lebanese from the south are, in fact, Hizbullah supporters.
One Lebanese wrote on X, “You create the disaster and then call on the state and the government to come rescue you after you’re displaced and your homes are destroyed. All year you are aligned with Iran. When war comes, you remember you are Lebanese.” Report here (paywall)

EMERGENCY UN SECURITY COUNCIL (UNSC) BRIEFING ON IRAN ON SATURDAY

 

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told the UNSC: “The most fundamental duty of any sovereign government is the protection of its people. Operation Epic Fury is directed toward specific and strategic objectives: to dismantle missile capabilities that threaten allies, to degrade naval assets used to destabilize international waters, to disrupt the machinery that arms proxy militias, and to ensure the Iranian regime never ever can threaten the world with a nuclear weapon.”
(Iran’s) massive support for violent proxies, declared terrorist organizations – the Houthis, Hizbullah, Hamas, and others – has brought bloodshed and disorder across the Middle East for far too long….Our men and women have paid for the actions of this regime and the IRGC with their lives. No responsible nation can ignore persistent aggression and violence… Full speech here

 

 

Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the UNSC:

For 47 years, the Islamic regime in Iran has led crowds in chanting death to Israel, death to America…And while those chants echoed, uranium was enriched, centrifuges spun, missiles were built, facilities were buried deep underground. It was never just empty rhetoric. It was preparation for action.

But today, alongside our ally, the United States, we acted to confront and stop an existential threat before it became irreversible. We acted out of necessity because the Iranian regime left no reasonable alternative. Diplomacy was exhausted.

The operation was carried out in order to protect the people of Israel in line with the UN Charter and in accordance with international law. Some call this aggression. We call it necessity. We call it survival. We do not gamble with our survival. We act.

When destruction is declared and weapons are being prepared and assembled, leaders must act, now, not later…We are stopping extremism before it becomes unstoppable.Video here

REPATRIATION

 

Forty doctors, stranded abroad by the war, have returned to Israel on Zim cargo ships from Cyprus.

Israel’s Transportation Ministry is making buses available for Israelis arriving at Taba International Airport in Egypt to transport them to central Israel.

Meanwhile Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport opened to limited civilian flights on Thursday after five days of war as the first repatriation flights began to bring home the tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad landed. Also Thursday the government announced that outgoing flights would gradually start on Sunday. Report hereReport here

COMMENT & OPINION

 

Iran

 

Wall St Journal Editorial: The U.S. is at war with Iran because for 47 years Iran’s regime has been at war with us. Some contend that Israel must have dragged President Trump into a war he didn’t want. In our experience Mr. Trump does exactly what he wants.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked: “Are you saying the U.S. was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action?” “No,” Mr. Rubio replied. That had only to do with timing, not intent. “No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen.”    We’ve now seen what Iran can do with its current stockpile of some 2,500 missiles. What if it had double that and Chinese antiship missiles to sink U.S. carriers?
Far from manipulating Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made Israel the most effective force multiplier America has. It’s to Mr. Trump’s credit that he seizes the opportunities an ally creates to defeat shared adversaries. Editorial here (paywall)

 

Park MacDougald: President Trump is making a long-overdue correction to decades of a flawed U.S. Iran policy. Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been, both in ideology and in action, an enemy of the U.S… The fatal flaw in the 2015 (Iran nuclear deal) scheme was in misunderstanding Iran’s motivations. The mullahs’ terror regime wanted what it had always wanted and said it wanted over and over, which was to destroy the U.S.-led order in the region, wipe Israel off the map, and overthrow the Gulf Arab states in a global Islamic revolution to be headquartered in Tehran. The U.S.’s accommodating policy allowed Iran to build a fearsome regional empire. Article here

 

Dan Illouz: For years, gutless bureaucrats in Europe and at the UN have been begging Iran’s ayatollahs to play nice. On Saturday, the U.S. and Israel finally ended that pathetic charade…And how did the “enlightened” international community react to us taking out the world’s biggest bullies? They threw a tantrum. Within hours, European leaders were demanding we stop the fighting and go back to the negotiating table. They are perfectly happy to let Iran build a nuclear bomb, as long as it buys them a little temporary quiet.   Article here

 

Maj. (ret.) John Spencer: Iran started a war against the U.S. in 1979. It has never stopped. The Islamic Republic defined itself in opposition to the U.S. and built its foreign policy around confrontation with America and its allies…The question today is not whether Iran’s war on the U.S. exists. It is whether the U.S. ends it. History suggests that when America fails to respond decisively to sustained aggression, the aggression grows. Americans have been targeted for 47 years. Enough. Article here

 

Ben-Dror Yemini: War is evil. But there are circumstances in which failing to attack early brings enormous damage later. For decades, we have heard the regime’s leaders declare, “Death to America, death to Israel.” They mean every word. They truly believe they can destroy Israel…Without an attack, Iran and Iranian proxies would have grown far stronger. From every moral perspective and under international law, this is a war of no choice.Article here

 

Abe Greenwald: A War Too Logical To Explain.

The amnesiacs are forgetting America’s case for war on Iran not because the regime’s crimes directly caused them trauma. They’re discarding it, rather, because what’s traumatic for them is to accept that Israel, the U.S., and Trump are doing the right, moral, and necessary thing—after so many administrations allowed the threat to grow…To some, pre-emptive war is immediately suspect and specifically unacceptable absent an imminent threat. But it’s better to strike one’s enemies before they pose an imminent threat. Article here

 

Ella Rosenberg: For years, Europe chose to look the other way as the tentacles of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) entrenched themselves across the continent…Lax enforcement of sanctions has allowed advanced European technology to find its way directly into Tehran’s drone and missile industries. Electronic components, engines, and navigation systems manufactured in Germany, France, and Italy have been used to build weapons that sow destruction in Ukraine and now threaten targets within the EU itself.
Iran is still viewed in the corridors of Brussels as a problem that can be managed through dialogue and containment. When Iran exports terror into European cities, assassinates regime opponents on German and Dutch soil, and supplies the weaponry that kills Europeans in Ukraine, the EU continues to take largely symbolic measures Article here

 

Brendan O’Neill:  How do we explain a moral universe where there can be more fury over strikes against a government than there was over that government’s mass murder of its own citizens?  Article here

 

Hizbullah

 

Herb Keinon: When Hizbullah opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, Israel evacuated 60,000-80,000 people from the Galilee to reduce civilian exposure to anti-tank missiles and cross-border raids.
Today, as war with Iran intensifies and Hizbullah has joined the fray, Israel is doing the opposite. (Israeli) civilians will remain in place while the military takes the fight deep into Lebanese territory. Last time, Israel sought to move civilians away from enemy fire. This time, it aims to move enemy fire away from civilians. The doctrine now is forward defence. Article here