Israel Update 12.2.26

IRAN

PM Netanyahu brought forward his trip to Washington against the backdrop of U.S.-Iran talks in Oman and Israel’s concern that Iran’s ballistic missile programme is not being addressed.

Trump said he told Netanyahu yesterday that he “insisted that negotiations with Iran continue” over a possible deal over the country’s nuclear programme. While Trump has mostly emphasized that Iran must agree to “no nuclear weapons,” Israel is also concerned about Iran’s stockpiles of ballistic missiles which pose an existential threat to Israel, given the scale and ranges Iran is planning. Report here & here (paywall)

Israeli defence officials had recently told their U.S. counterparts that Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and production infrastructure represent an existential threat, and that Israel is prepared to act unilaterally to dismantle them if necessary.Report here

 

During the first half of January, the Iranian Foreign Minister and Iran’s President pledged that there would be no executions, and President Trump presented this as an achievement on Jan. 14 that led to postponing the decision to launch a strike…However, according to information that reached intelligence agencies in the West, including the Mossad and the British and German agencies, the executions continued but efforts were made to conceal them. Instead of hanging protesters in city squares, they were shot or strangled in custody. This resulted in thousands of executions, separate from the tens of thousands killed during the dispersal of protests. Report here

 Senior Iranian diplomats transported large amounts of cash to Beirut in recent months, using diplomatic passports to move funds to Hizbullah. Report here

GAZA

On Monday, IDF commanders in Gaza said Hamas was continuing to test Israeli forces by sending operatives across the ceasefire line to attack troops. Since the start of the ceasefire, the IDF has killed dozens of terror operatives who have crossed the Yellow Line and approached troops on a near-daily basis. Report here

Some recent examples:

Following an attack on Israeli troops last Thursday, the IDF struck a Hamas arms depot in Gaza City on Friday, after issuing an evacuation warning for a residential building. Israel also struck a Hamas weapons production site in Khan Yunis.Report here

IDF troops on Monday killed four terrorists who had emerged from a tunnel and opened fire on soldiers in Rafah in a “blatant violation of the ceasefire.” Several others were killed in IDF strikes later in the day.Report here

Hamas is also testing the IDF’s reaction to ceasefire violations by sending women and children to the Yellow Line. Report here

Four months after the Gaza ceasefire took effect, the enclave remains divided, with Israeli forces and Hamas fighters separated by the Yellow Line.
Contrary to the U.S. push for a multinational force to ensure Hamas’s disarmament, strategy expect Hillel Frisch argues that the IDF is the only actor capable of carrying out that mission. Look at “the 12,000-man UN force…in Lebanon since 2006…[that] did nothing. 46 countries [contributed to UNIFIL], and it didn’t prevent the movement of one single Hizbullah terrorist.” Report here

HAMAS DISARMAMENT PLANS

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has rejected lobbying efforts by Jonathan Powell, UK PM Starmer’s national security adviser, to allow Hamas to keep its small arms as part of the Gaza peace process, saying  that the terror group could not be trusted to retain AK-47s and other personal weapons. Report here (paywall)

Efforts to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza are progressing according to plan, according to a senior official involved in President Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, who said the focus now is on finalizing the details of Hamas’s disarmament, with the process set to begin in March.
He said disarmament would proceed in stages and that small arms would be the last category addressed. The process would begin with the dismantling of tunnels, followed by weapons manufacturing facilities, then rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and finally small arms. Report here

Four months into the Gaza ceasefire, the Israeli military is drawing up plans for a renewed offensive to disarm Hamas by force. The U.S.-brokered ceasefire plan reached in October foresees the disarmament of Hamas. However, Israeli officials increasingly believing that stripping Hamas of its weapons will be impossible without the IDF taking action. Report here

 

 

HOSTAGES UPDATE

Former Gaza hostage Nimrod Cohen is planning to return to military service. He was abducted from a burning tank by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 and released on Oct. 13, 2025. The other three crewmen were murdered. Report here

Pianist and former Hamas hostage Alon Ohel, who survived over 2 years in captivity, returned to the stage on Monday night and during his performance dedicated a song to fellow survivor Eli Sharabi,  his companion in captivity.Report here

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (PA)  &  “PAY FOR SLAY”

On Feb. 10, 2025, under intense pressure from Western countries, PA Chairman Abbas announced the cancellation of the PA rewards programme for terrorists in prison known as Pay-for-Slay.   However, the PA has another huge terror rewards programme for released terrorist prisoners, with more than 10,000 hidden Pay-for-Slay recipients receiving more than $230 million a year and PA law rewards terrorists who were imprisoned for more than five years with lifetime salaries.
In February 2026, the PA camouflaged the files of 6,000 Pay-for-Slay recipients, turning some into “pensioners,” and paying salaries to others in the civil service for fictitious jobs. The payments are obscured from international scrutiny and impossible to monitor. Report here

The Bank of Palestine has refused a request from Israel’s Finance Ministry to close 3,400 accounts used to distribute payments to released terrorists. The accounts are linked to the PA’s “pay-for-slay” programme, which provides monthly stipends to Palestinians who were imprisoned for carrying out terrorist attacks.Report here

Syrian journalist Mustafa Al-Miqdad recently described on official PA TV how Gazans risked their childrens’ lives by provoking border friction with the IDF in order to collect pay for slay stipends. Report here

QATAR

Despite its efforts to present itself as a modern state that promotes stability and peace, Qatar continues to teach its children contempt for Jews, Judaism, and Israel.
A new study of Qatari school textbooks found that they portray “Jewish people as materialistic, arrogant, deceitful…Jews are further associated with traits such as lying, scheming, spreading discord, breaching agreements, and excessive attachment to material wealth…Antisemitic tropes depict Jews as cynically manipulating global affairs.” Report here

AUSTRALIA

The arrival of Israel’s president Isaac Herzog in Australia on Monday to mourn the deaths of 15 people shot at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach set off protests and clashes in Sydney. According to the police, 27 people had been arrested. Herzog told a news conference that “in most cases” what takes place at such demonstrations amounts to efforts to undermine and delegitimize Israel’s existence.
Of Gaza, he said, “We did not seek that war.” Report here (paywall)

And see Brendan O’Neill article below

THE UK

On Feb.4, a jury controversially cleared six people of aggravated burglary at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton. Video footage showed a police officer being attacked with a sledgehammer so badly that she suffered a spinal fracture leaving her unable to work for months. The raid also caused more than £1m damage.
On Feb.7, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it was seeking a retrial on the charges on which the jury failed to reach a verdict. Chris Philp, the Tory shadow home secretary, called for a retrial of the criminal damage and grievous bodily harm charges. He said “We don’t settle things in this country through violence. This gives the green light for mob violence”. Report here (paywall)& here

FRANCE

The French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs responded Wednesday to comments by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories on Saturday in Doha which referred to Israel as a “common enemy” that enabled “genocide” in Gaza, and he called for her resignation.
He said her comments added “to a long list of scandalous positions,” accusing her of “justifying” the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel and “comparing Israel to the Third Reich. She is a political activist who stirs up hate speech that does a disservice to the cause of the Palestinian people.”  Report here

 

 

MEDICAL RESEARCH

In a breakthrough, an international research team led by scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is the first to make use of an innovative immunotherapy that treats blood cancers to instead help fight Alzheimer’s disease. CAR T-cell therapy produced promising results in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s, potentially paving the way for treating the brain disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.Report here

 

A groundbreaking study carried out in Israel and Ethiopia sheds light on how bacteria in the gut can actively boost the immune defences in people living with early stages of HIV, paving the way for new medical therapies.Report here

 

 

DEFENCE

The Israeli Air Force is entering the second month on high alert across all air defence layers.  An officer stated “The current versions of Iron Dome are not what they were during Operation Rising Lion [the June 2025 conflict with Iran]. In this arms race with Iran, we’ve changed quite a bit in recent months through the constant implementation of many lessons learned.” Report here

 

As part of “upgrading readiness for future threats” Israel’s Defence Ministry has successfully completed a series of “complex” tests with the David’s Sling medium-range air defence system. Produced by defence firm Rafael, David’s Sling is designed to intercept rockets, missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft, and UAVs at ranges of 40 to 300 kilometres. Report here

Israel Aerospace Industries has announced the delivery of its 350th fighter jet wing to Lockheed Martin for production of the F-35.
There are currently 1,300 F-35 jets being flown by 11 countries. Report here

Hundreds of Iranian cyberattacks targeting Israelis, including senior government and defence officials, academics, and journalists, have been detected and foiled in recent months. Report here

SPORT

Israel’s MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) team delivered a breakthrough performance at the European Championships in Belgrade, led by under-16 fighter Guy Pariente, who won Israel’s first-ever European gold. Alon Avital also won gold in the under-18 division while other youth team members won silver & bronze medals.Report & photo here

COMMENT & OPINION

Iran

Amb. Freddy Eytan: Diplomatic Negotiation in the Face of Oriental Bargaining.
As a rule, Western diplomats negotiate for a better future and to secure a solid agreement, while the Iranians, Qataris, or Turks behave like carpet merchants in an oriental bazaar. They seek only immediate gain without considering the long term.
How can American negotiators accept that a rogue state, on the verge of bankruptcy, presumes to dictate the agenda and condition all the issues that will be raised during the negotiations? When defence and security issues are at stake and threats against Israel are omnipresent, the security of the State of Israel is not to be bargained with, and Trump cannot grant the mullahs a lifeline. Article here

Gaza

Khaled Abu Toameh: More than four months after the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect, Hamas has still not laid down its weapons. Hamas, in fact, is working hard to rearm, regroup and reassert its control over areas of Gaza from which the IDF have withdrawn.
Hamas is seeking to incorporate its 10,000 police officers into a new U.S.-backed Palestinian administration. There can be no peace, security or stability in Gaza if the same terrorists who murdered, tortured, and mutilated thousands of Israelis and foreign nationals on Oct. 7 are given new uniforms, rearmed and allowed to serve as a paramilitary force. There also can be no peace, security, or stability in Gaza so long as Hamas is permitted to function as a shadow government.
With countries such as Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan sitting on Trump’s Board of Peace, it is hard to see how Hamas could ever be forced to lay down its weapons and give up control of Gaza. These countries – longtime sponsors and funders of Hamas – will never take part in any effort to disarm Hamas or remove it from power.Article here

 

 

Bassam Tawil: After the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians could have turned Gaza into the “Singapore of the Middle East.” Instead, most Palestinians in 2006 voted for Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel…In their eyes, if Israel pulled out of Gaza as a result of terrorism, all that is needed for the rest of Israel to leave is more terrorism.
The establishment of a Palestinian state will not lead the Palestinians to abandon their determination to eliminate Israel. Quite the opposite. A Palestinian state will make them more determined to continue their efforts to obliterate Israel. Oct. 7 did not happen because Palestinians were denied a state. It happened because they were given one. Article here

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians are not going to give up the “right of return” because of foreign investment in Gaza. Hamas is not going to recognize Israel’s right to exist or give up its Jihad against the “Zionist entity” because of new homes, luxury apartments and tourist resorts.
The only way to change the hearts and minds of Palestinians is through a deep and thorough process of re-education and actual serious pressure, for once, from the outside world. This requires brave, strong and pragmatic leadership — both from the Palestinians and the international community — an attribute that, unfortunately, does not seem to exist. Article here

Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Guterman and Tara Feldman:

In the wake of the Gaza war, military disarmament and physical rehabilitation alone will not ensure long-term security and stability. A far deeper process of “de-Hamasification” is required: dismantling Hamas’s ideological and institutional hegemony and replacing it with a more moderate civic and normative infrastructure.

Instead of Western deradicalization models such as those implemented in Germany and Japan after World War II, we propose adopting operational principles drawn from contemporary Arab models, particularly the model applied in the Gulf states, which combines a firm crackdown on extremist actors with re-education toward religious tolerance and broad-based economic rehabilitation. Article here

 

Aviram Bellaishe: Qatari textbooks teach children that “treachery and treason are among the traits of the Jews.” Turkish textbooks call Jews “infidels.” If Qatar and Turkey are involved in Gaza schools, they will deepen anti-Israel indoctrination. Article here

Australia

 

Brendan O’Neill: Even by the standards of the Israel-hating left, what happened in Sydney yesterday (9 Feb) was despicable. The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, was in town…His main focus for the day was to visit the site of the Bondi pogrom of 14 December, when Jews were massacred by two suspected Isis gunmen.

Herzog, head of the Jewish nation, wanted to pay his respects. He and his wife Michal met and hugged survivors of the slaughter and Jews whose loved ones were slain. Yet they were forced to do so to a sinister background din of blind hatred for Israel. The keffiyeh classes couldn’t take just one day off. They hollered about ‘war crimes’, seethed about ‘genocide’, dreamt of ‘intifada’. They did everything they could to drown out the mourning for the murdered Jews. I can’t remember the last time I witnessed such loathsome scenes. Article here (paywall)

 

David Horowitz: the demonstrations against Herzog’s visit are anything but surprising. But they are particularly revealing, horrifying and despicable. Op Ed here

 

Hamas & Fatah – Different Paths Same Destination

 

Sagiv Steinberg: In January 2026, thechairman of the Palestinian National Council, presented an honorary shield to the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the Palestinian Authority. On the shield appeared a map of a single “Palestine” encompassing all of the State of Israel, alongside an embroidered “key of return” – the symbol of the demand for millions of Palestinians to return to cities and towns within sovereign Israel. Above the map, a single word was written in English: Palestine.
The incident was a consistent expression of official Palestinian ideology…The emblem of Fatah displays a map of “complete Palestine,” without any trace of the State of Israel, and two crossed rifles above it.
Both the Hamas charter and the Fatah website share the same strategic goal…For both, the 1967 lines are but a temporary formula, a stage on the path to the final goal.
One of the most painful lessons from the Oct. 7 attack is the need to listen to what the enemy says in its own voice, not through interpretation with Western glasses. The term “two states for two peoples” is a Western-Israeli invention. It has never been stated by an official Palestinian leader. The Palestinian national movement, in all its shades, has one clear goal: the end of the State of Israel. It is time we look truth in the eye. Article here

 

POST SCRIPT

 

Taryn Thomas, a former pro-Palestinian activist at Stanford University, described her experience inside the campus protest movement following Oct. 7 and explained why she left.  Article here