A Hamas official reportedly told Agence France-Presse (AFP) over the weekend that any future war between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group will see Hamas launching missiles at Israeli civilians far in the country’s north, a boast bound to deepen increasingly open concerns within Israel’s military and political establishments that Hamas is stockpiling an...

• Kindle

Reuters yesterday conveyed statements from U.S. Brigadier-General John Shapland, the chief American defense attache in Israel, suggesting that Israel could expand its anti-missile umbrella to protect Jordan and Egypt. “If we were able to build a regional defense capability in, say, Jordan, that capability could easily defend Israel, Jordan and even Egypt,...

• Kindle

Israeli radio last week conveyed statements from Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas underlining his oft-reiterated position that he will refuse any condition that requires the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, even and especially in the context of U.S.-backed final-status negotiations aimed at definitively resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict....

• Kindle

The Daily Beast on Wednesday described how the Israeli military “launched a sophisticated PR campaign to tell the world why they shouldn’t trust Tehran” in the aftermath of Israeli commandos interdicting an Iranian arms ship carrying advanced missiles bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, noting that that apparent “coordinated public relations campaign” stood...

• Kindle

The Palestinian Authority (PA) issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that Palestinian leaders will refuse to make further concessions, after several months in which top Palestinian officials repeatedly rejected efforts by Secretary of State Kerry to achieve such a deal. The Palestinian Authority said in a statement Wednesday, “It is important for you to know...

• Kindle

Iran and Hamas are scrambling to minimize the damage from Israel’s Wednesday interdiction of the Klos-C – a Panamanian-flagged Iranian arms ship carrying advanced missiles bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip – even as new details emerged throughout Thursday about intelligence operations that preceded the vessel’s capture. The intercepted cargo included M-302 missiles with ranges of...

• Kindle

Hezbollah is bolstering its infrastructure inside Lebanon and has acquired advanced missiles capable of reaching across Israel, according to multiple reports published in recent days in a range of international outlets. The various stories are bound to be read against the backdrop of heightened concerns that any eventual conflagration with...

• Kindle

Analysts, journalists, and lawmakers on Tuesday continued to unpack the geopolitical consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – both in general and specifically in the context of Middle East crises the White House is scrambling to contain – with evaluations building on assessments that the impending U.S.-Russia chill will badly complicate the Obama administration’s strategy...

• Kindle

Reports began to trickle out of the Middle East early Wednesday morning that elite Israeli commandos had stopped and boarded an Iranian vessel in the Red Sea carrying a massive arms shipment to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A video quickly published by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) – and embedded...

• Kindle

Both Egypt and Israel have reemphasized to Hamas that the Palestinian terror group will be held responsible for violence emerging from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, with various outlets having reported in recent days on signals sent by Cairo and Jerusalem designed to underline that sentiment. Egyptian security officials told Hamas...

• Kindle