At least 15 Palestinians detained in Israeli overnight raids in occupied West Bank
Israeli forces have arrested at least 15 Palestinians during a series of overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
It said that seven Palestinians were detained in the province of Nablus following early morning incursions into several neighbourhoods, as Israeli army vehicles raided a residential building in Rafidia neighbourhood.
Another four people were detained after Israeli forces raided and searched homes in the town of Qaffin, located at the north of Tulkarm.
In the Bethlehem district, four more people were detained from the village of al-Asakra, east of the city.
Wafa said Israeli troops stormed the area, searched multiple homes, and detained residents.
Israeli forces also raided several homes and reportedly assaulted a number of residents during searches in the town of al-Khader to the south.
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Middle East Eye
an hour ago
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Israel and US exhausting supplies of ballistic missile interceptors, source says
Israel is using its ballistic missile interceptors at a rapid clip after four days of war with Iran, a senior US official familiar with efforts to resupply Israel told Middle East Eye. In some quarters of the US government, there are concerns that a direct US strike on Iran could lead to bigger Iranian retaliation against Israel that would drain the US's global stockpile of missile interceptors to a 'horrendous' level, the official said. Israel relies on a three-tiered air defence system, and Iran's attacks are challenging its most sophisticated defences. The Iron Dome is used to shoot down short-range rockets and drones fired by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The second level is David's Sling, which can intercept heavier rockets along with some ballistic missiles. The Arrow 2 and 3 systems are used to down ballistic missiles, with the latter able to shoot down exoatmospheric hypersonic missiles. Replenishing the Arrow systems has been a perennial problem for Israel. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters MEE reported in September 2024 that Israel was struggling to replenish Arrow interceptors after Iran's first attack on Israel in April of that year. The US and Israel jointly produce Arrow interceptors. 'The types of interceptors that are required to shoot down ballistic missiles are expensive and difficult to produce in mass quantities,' Dan Caldwell, a former senior Department of Defence official in the Trump administration, who opposed military confrontation with Iran, wrote on X. 'I will assume Israel has stockpiled a decent number of Arrows and Stunners for its David's Sling but they have to had expend many of those against the Houthis and during Iran's previous missile attacks last year. It is therefore likely that Israel and US are going to have start rationing their interceptors soon,' he added. Iran has fired at least 370 ballistic missiles at Israel since 13 June, the Israeli prime minister's press office said on Monday. Thin margins One advantage Israel enjoys that may help address the shortage of interceptors is its air superiority over Iran, which it appears to have obtained within four days of bombing. Israeli warplanes are operating over Tehran in daylight hours. According to Israel's military, they have taken out about one-third of Iran's surface-to-surface missile launch capabilities. Josh Paul, a former US State Department official who resigned in protest against US support for Israel's war on Gaza, told MEE that Israel has selectively targeted Iran's launch capabilities. Israel and US modified F-35s to enable Iran attack without refuelling, sources say Read More » 'We don't know how much more Iran can launch. I think it is a problem more of launchers than missiles,' he said. However, the two US officials MEE spoke with said that Iran is still holding back in its missile attacks, partly at least to avoid the US directly joining Israel in offensive operations. Three Arab officials, including some whose countries are mediating between the US and Iran, told MEE on Monday that they believe the US is more likely than not to directly intervene in Israel's offensive strikes. The US's carefully constructed line between intervening or not is growing thinner, though. Several current and former US officials who spoke to MEE described the US as 'co-belligerent' to the conflict because it is actively participating in Israel's defence. The US is trying to make up for a shortfall in Israel's own interceptors, the officials say. The US has shot down Israeli missiles using at least one Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence antimissile battery in Israel. The US also has several Patriot antimissile batteries across the region. Notably, a separate US defence official confirmed to MEE on Monday that the US has fired SM-3 air-defence missiles to protect Israel. The SM-3 is the ship-mounted version of the Patriot. The official said the USS Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer participated in Israel's defence from the eastern Mediterranean. Defence analysts noted that during the US's 2024 campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, the US Navy fired a year's worth of SM-3 interceptors in a single day. As the war between Israel and Iran enters its fifth day, the US is sending more military assets into the theatre of operations. The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier is en route from the South China Sea to the Middle East, according to ship tracking data. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is already in the Middle East.
Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
Netanyahu wants regime change in Iran. Is Trump on board?
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Bannon asked about the director of national intelligence, who had testified to lawmakers in March that there was no intelligence to suggest Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "It wasn't just about the nuclear programme. It's a decapitation of total leadership," he added. "So this is a total regime change, which, by the way - you may have a plan for regime change, that's fine - but you got to bring the American people on." "This is the point of this, is regime change," Carlson chimed in. "I know everyone involved. I know I'm telling the truth. I have no weird motive here at all." But is there really an appetite within the Trump administration to go down a similar path to the one assumed by George W Bush in Iraq 22 years ago? "Today, it's Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it's New York," Netanyahu warned on ABC News. "Look, I understand 'America First'. I don't understand 'America Dead'." But several "America Firsters" who wield influence among both Trump's voter base and his administration aren't buying Netanyahu's argument and have gone on the record to state their opposition to the US being dragged into another war in the Middle East. 'They have contingencies' Laws and norms established for warfare dating back to the 1600s have prohibited the targeted assassinations of heads of state. The "war on terror" that the US mounted after the 9/11 attacks muddied those definitions, given the open-ended "war" was not a traditional one against a nation-state and its army, but rather guerrilla groups, international militias, and ideologies labelled "extremism" or "Islamic fundamentalism". On Washington's books, Iran has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, five years after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. "Imagine if Russia tried to assassinate the president of the United States, and the West's reaction to it," Sina Azodi, an Iran expert at George Washington University, told Middle East Eye in reference to attempts at regime change. "There is a possibility that Israelis might try to assassinate Khamenei. But... this is not a group, it's a country. They have contingencies. Iran has a council [whose] job it is to elect the next supreme leader." That Iran is not an autocracy in the traditional sense, with one strongman and no successors, would complicate any US involvement in such an effort, likely dragging it into direct involvement, something Trump has repeatedly stated he is opposed to. Azodi likens it to the case of Iraq in the 1990s, where only once the US invaded and occupied the country a decade later was it able to enact regime change. "Or the case of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the bombing campaign of Nato did not result in a regime change there. Nothing happened. Why? Because you need people on the ground." Decades of ever-tightening US sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors have thus far failed to produce a popular organic uprising against the Ayatollah's rule, in the same vein as 1979. And Trump, at least until Friday, appeared to be eagerly anticipating a diplomatic victory with Iran and a new nuclear deal with his name on it, especially after, in a surprising move, he personally traded letters with Khamenei earlier in the year. So how did the conversation shift to assassination? "I mean, we are in a world where much of international law, including the law of war, has lost practical meaning," Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, told MEE. "The United States has been fine with over a year and a half of Israel consistently breaking international law as well as the laws of the United States in the Gaza context. I certainly don't expect the Trump administration to offer much resistance to Israel similarly engaging in gross violations of international law in the war it initiated with Iran," he said. "I think President Trump himself means what he says when he posts about de-escalating and returning to diplomacy. I just think the leeway he's given Netanyahu works directly against that." Opposite effect The US is the only global actor with the leverage to rein in Israel. But that leeway provided to Netanyahu may only harden the stance of the Iranian government and further unify Iranians against the West. "The Netanyahu government claims [to want] to destabilise the regime," Azodi said. "But in reality, I think that the Israeli government is offering the Islamic Republic an insurance policy. Why? Because it's normally, it's usually the case that under cases of national crisis, governments become more oppressive." "Now the Iranian government has always been an oppressive regime. There's no question," he added. "But now they have an excuse to be more oppressive and crack down on any sort of dissent." Still, a popular uprising against Khamenei "seems less likely by the day, as Israel attacks Iranian civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties mount", Williams told MEE, adding that instead, what they are witnessing is more Iranian people, even opponents of the regime, rallying around the flag. A Jewish Iranian-American who has family in Israel and who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely with MEE explained that there is little sympathy for the regime change campaign among young Iranians, in particular, both in the diaspora and in Iran. "I think we shouldn't jump to underestimating the resiliency and breadth and depth of Iranian nationalism [and] the ability to reconstitute," the individual said. "Iran's got 80 million people.... I've not heard anyone actually express sympathy for this regime change campaign, and I think I've heard nothing but complete ridicule of [Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah's son] in some of his statements." The lack of an organic movement that can topple the regime with external help will likely just remind the US of the mistakes it made in Iraq during the "war on terror". If Netanyahu indeed carries out an assassination of Iranian political leaders outside of the military's ranks, there is little doubt that the optics will point towards the US and its culpability in any such event. "President Trump has been clear that we are supplying Israel with the weapons to carry out this campaign, and that more weapons are coming. We're clearly providing it the diplomatic cover and encouragement on the world stage," Williams told MEE. "The peoples of the region, no doubt, see this as a US and Israeli effort, even if at this stage, it is only actively being carried out by the Israelis." Azodi thinks Trump, at this point in time, has no interest in taking a gamble with Iran's governance, not as long as Iran wants to return to the negotiating table. "I don't think the United States cares about the regime in Iran - the type of the regime in Iran - as long as it plays with or accepts the US dominance in the Middle East," he explained. "What the core problem of this is with the US, is that [Iran's] nature is anti-imperialistic. It rejects the dominance of the United States in the region. It is trying to force the United States out of the region, and that is why the US has a problem with it."
Middle East Eye
3 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Bernie Sanders accuses Netanyahu of 'deliberately sabotaging US-Iran negotiations'
US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said on Monday that "the US must not be dragged into another illegal Netanyahu war - either financially or militarily". In a Facebook post, the US senator said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had "assassinated Ali Shamkhani, Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, deliberately sabotaging US-Iran negotiations".
