A negative political and public reaction in Israel to the ceasefire with Iran, despite the respite it brings. No pause for Israel’s army, however, or its victims. Hundreds have been killed in Lebanon, with more dead in Gaza. Is Israel a society effectively on a permanent war footing? Presenter: Tom McRae Guests: Ilan Pappe – a historian and professor at Exeter University Gideon Levy – a columnist at Haaretz newspaper in Tel Aviv Haim Bresheeth – professor at the…
CNN reports: US intelligence indicates that China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran within the next few weeks, according to three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments. It would be a provocative move considering Beijing said it helped broker the fragile ceasefire agreement that paused the war between Iran and the US earlier this week. President Donald Trump is also set to visit China early next month for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The intelligence also underscores how Iran may…
The Associated Press reports: In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo XIV on Saturday denounced the “delusion of omnipotence” that is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held. History’s first U.S.-born pope didn’t mention the United States or President Donald Trump in…
The New York Times reports: Iran has been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to more shipping traffic because it cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them, according to U.S. officials. The development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and…
CNBC reports: Saudi Arabia’s critical pipeline to the Red Sea suffered a recent attack from Iran, cutting throughput by 700,000 barrels per day. The attack hit a pumping station on the East-West pipeline, according to a state news agency report. This pipeline brings crude oil from processing facilities near the Persian Gulf to an export terminal on the Red Sea called Yanbu. The Saudis have relied on the pipeline, which has a capacity of 7 million bpd, as their main…
What is really going on in Lebanon? Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran, Israel launched a massive wave of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah across the country. Iran says Israel is violating the terms of the ceasefire – so could the peace talks set to be held tomorrow in Islamabad collapse before they’ve even started? And is this exactly what Israel wants? On this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy was joined from Beirut by…
Ghada Abdulfattah writes: Rubble is everywhere. In Gaza, there’s more than one kind. Towers that once held dozens of families have been reduced to hills: broken slabs stacked in layers, steel bars twisted through them like exposed nerves, concrete pancaked over furniture. Sometimes, the remains of a home lean at an angle, like the Tower of Pisa. Other buildings are hollowed out from below, the lower floors erased while the upper floors hang in a crooked pause, held up by…
Illy Pe’ery writes: In October 2023, Gili was called up for reserve duty in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and assigned to the Northern Command. In the days following Hamas’ attacks, while public attention in Israel was fixed on the devastation in the south, Hezbollah began launching rockets and anti-tank missiles toward northern Israel. “We were working 12-hour shifts in an underground operations room, while soldiers in outposts were terrified, but we couldn’t convey that the north was on fire,” she…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Pope Leo XIV appeared to take aim at religious language used by U.S. officials to justify the war in Iran, in the latest salvo between the pontiff and the Trump administration over the conflict. “God does not bless any conflict,” the American pontiff said on X on Friday. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”…
The Guardian reports: The flood of wounded came after Israel bombed more than 100 targets across Lebanon in those 10 minutes on Wednesday, killing more than 300 people and wounding 1,165, according to an initial count by Lebanon’s civil defence. The death toll, which was expected to rise as more bodies were found, was higher than Beirut’s 2020 port explosion – one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in human history. The Israeli military said it had hit Hezbollah “command and…
Peter Beaumont writes: In a war where there have been no winners, Israel’s prime minister looks set to be the biggest loser entering a fragile and vague ceasefire with Iran. After years of Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats against Iran, his stunts at the UN’s general assembly, the dodgy dossiers endlessly wafted under the noses of the world’s media, and diplomatic pressure on successive US presidents to agree to a war against Iran, Israel’s conflict has turned out to be a bust….
The New York Times reports: Their supreme leader and top commanders were killed. Military bases, factories and bridges were reduced to rubble. Their economy has taken blow after blow. Yet Iran’s authoritarian rulers believe they have emerged from this war in a stronger position than when it began. After six weeks of an intense U.S.-Israeli campaign and with a temporary cease-fire in place, Iran’s leadership isn’t conciliatory as it enters into renewed negotiations with the United States. Instead, it has…
Wired reports: The last time a government official from Lebanon sat down to think carefully about national digital infrastructure, nobody expected another war with Israel. That’s how it has always gone. “We were not ready for this,” says Kamal Shehadi, the Lebanese minister of technology and AI, and minister of the displaced. “I have to admit that we didn’t expect something of this magnitude to happen.” On March 2, 2026, Israeli evacuation warnings began appearing on phones across southern Lebanon….
The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran told mediators it would limit the number of ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz to around a dozen a day and charge tolls under the cease-fire struck by President Trump, showing Tehran plans to tighten its grip on the world’s most important energy-shipping lane. Ships that pass will have to coordinate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful paramilitary group that has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European…
The Wall Street Journal reports: The Iranian government hailed the cease-fire with the U.S. by posting images on social media of President Trump waving the white flag and collapsing on his knees in defeat. America’s allies and partners in the Middle East fear that Tehran may have a point—and that they will end up paying the price for a war in which the overwhelming military might of the U.S. and Israel failed to secure political gains. Subjected to thousands of…
The New York Times reports: The people logging into Truth Social each day tend to count themselves among the most ardent supporters of President Trump and his MAGA movement. In recent weeks, though, even some in the echo chamber have turned against his actions in Iran. Thousands of users on the social media platform, which Mr. Trump created in 2022, have responded to the president’s drumbeat of posts with a mix of frustration, disbelief and outrage. They have written that…