Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz visits a military base and the military unit in the occupied territory of southern Lebanon on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Elad Malka (IMoD)/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
One critic described the Israeli official’s remarks as the country’s “official statement of intent to commit further war crimes in Iran.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday said his country was ready to unleash devastating new attacks on Iran should it get approval from US President Donald Trump.
As reported by Amichai Stein, diplomatic correspondent for iNews24, Katz said that Israel is “prepared to resume the war” and is “awaiting a green light from the United States.”
Katz also vowed that Israel would hit Iran even harder than in previous strikes, vowing “to complete the elimination of the Khamenei family and to push Iran back into a dark age.”
“This time, the strike will be different and far more lethal, delivering devastating blows at the most sensitive points,” Katz warned, “ones that will shake and undermine its very foundations.”
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, described Katz’s remarks as “Israel’s official statement of intent to commit further war crimes in Iran.”
Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim observed that the Israeli defense minister’s threats are reminiscent of the strategy that it has employed in Gaza in its effort to dislodge Hamas over the last three years.
“Israel believes it is always a few good assassinations away from total victory,” Grim commented. “Now pledging more.”
Trump, in partnership with Netanyahu, illegally launched a war with Iran in late February without any congressional authorization. In response to the attack, Iran shut down all shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, choking off roughly 20% of the global oil supply.
In that time, the price of oil has soared, Trump’s approval ratings have crashed to record lows, and a UN expert warned on Wednesday about the possibility of a global food crisis if the strait is not soon reopened to fertilizer shipments.
There has been a fragile ceasefire agreement in effect between the US, Israel, and Iran for the last two weeks, which Trump extended indefinitely on Tuesday.
Protesters in opposition to the war with Iran gather outside of Lafayette Park across from the White House on April 7, 2026 in Washington, DC. As the protest was held, U.S. President Donald Trump was announcing a two-week ceasefire with Iran at the behest of Pakistan, which has been serving as an intermediary during the conflict. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
Trump continues to issue maximalist demands for conditions he helped create. The American president’s lack of strategic and emotional maturity only promises more war.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz following the temporary ceasefire is the culmination of an American policy defined by strategic incoherence. At the center stands Donald Trump, whose shifting positions, confused war objectives, and conflicting actions have not only failed to ease regional tensions but have actively deepened them.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Trump’s threats to blow up the whole country, including its bridges and power plants. At the same time, he touted a military “big day,” presenting potential war crimes as diplomatic tool, aggression as diplomacy, and destruction as leverage.
Trump inflated, almost delusional, promises ahead of potential talks come across less as statesmanship and more as a calculated sales pitch to the American public. His vows “to end up with a great deal,” coupled with an almost obsessive focus on Barack Obama by insisting his agreement will be “far better” than the one negotiated over a decade ago. An approach that reflects a tendency toward messaging driven less by policy depth and more by projection, comparison, and to frame outcomes in terms of self-aggrandizement and personal glory. Instead of articulating clear strategic objectives, his policy relies on distinguishing himself and image cultivation to project authority and superiority, leaving the underlying substance vague and open to question.
By manufacturing optimism and exaggerating progress while promising an imminent “great deal,” Trump appears to be negotiating with himself—or detached from reality—seeking to construct a narrative of success regardless of the facts on the ground. The performative optimism stands in sharp contrast to his simultaneous threats and pompous rhetoric, suggesting not confidence but a measure of desperation.
This yo-yoing of positions does more than create confusion; it erodes the credibility. Diplomacy depends on a baseline of predictability and mental stability.
Trump’s rationale for extending the ceasefire because of “internal divisions” within Iran is unconvincing. If internal debate within Iran is seen as warranting a pause, what should be said of a policy where direction shifts from one moment to the next? Differing political views are the essence of a normally functioning political system, whereas impulsive, erratic, personalized decision-making is not.
All of this unfolds as Trump continues issuing maximalist demands for conditions he helped create. For instance, he demands the surrender of enriched uranium that would not exist had he not abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Likewise, the Strait of Hormuz was closed as a consequence of his and Netanyahu’s war, not as its cause.
The consequences of these Israel-driven U.S. policies are felt by ordinary Americans at the gas pump and in grocery stores. The Strait of Hormuz has become a battleground, destabilizing global energy supply chains and economies worldwide. Yet despite these cascading effects, the core strategy remains unchanged. Trump continues to operate within an echo chamber of Israel-first sycophants that assume military might alone can deliver results, even as the policy falters and the war spills across the region, threatening roughly one-fifth of the world’s energy infrastructure.
This is not merely a political flaw or a matter of mismanagement. It is rather a strategic vulnerability shaped by Israel-first loyalists pulling U.S. strategy in directions that ultimately undermine U.S. national interests. In the absence of clearly defined national objectives, as in the first Israel’s war in Iraq, each step risks drawing the U.S. deeper into the polluted water of the Gulf, while simultaneously advancing an environment of chaos that serves only Israel’s calculated aims.
In this framework, was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statement that the war with Iran is “not over” an embedded message to Trump ahead of the proposed peace talks in Pakistan?
Negotiation between countries, especially in the context of war is not selling real estate deals, where haggling and the threat of retracting an offer are routine tactics. The craft of negotiation in this case operates on an entirely different level. Culture, national dignity, historical memory, and political positioning shape both the process and the outcome. Leaders are not merely bargaining over financial assets or credit ratings, they are navigating domestic demands, legitimacy, and the perception of strength or weakness on the global stage.
In this regard, threats or the constant withdrawal and reintroduction of proposals are not leverage, they are weakness. Unlike commercial transactions where the “Art of the Deal” is largely concluded at the moment of signing, international agreements mark the beginning of an ongoing, often long-term relationship. What may pass as hard-nosed bargaining in business can, in international diplomacy, be interpreted as bad faith, an approach that tends to invite resentment and resistance instead of compromise. This is why since last Tuesday, Trump was left waiting for Iran to come to the negotiation table.
Effective diplomacy requires serious leadership, consistency, and an understanding of the symbolic as much as the substantive. Agreements endure not because one side is pressured into submission, but because all parties can present the outcome as preserving their dignity and advancing mutual interests.
The lack of strategic maturity is indicative in a proclamation in the morning signaling openness to de-escalation; by midday, the message splinters, issuing threats and ultimatums while simultaneously hinting at imminent breakthrough deals; by the middle of the night, amid his insomnia, it escalates to threats of total destruction. This constant shifting of positions is not a minor stylistic quirk. It is possible that, at least some of this, is associated with his nocturnal communications with Netanyahu, who is apparently wagging him left and right.
This yo-yoing of positions does more than create confusion; it erodes the credibility. Diplomacy depends on a baseline of predictability and mental stability. When signals shift faster than the wind, uncertainty breeds mistrust, and negotiations drift from closed rooms into fiery statements played out for public consumption, creating an opening for Israel to drive the war and breed destruction and more chaos.
A Palestinian family walks near a large yellow concrete block symbolizing the beginning of Israel’s post-ceasefire occupation zone in Gaza on November 21, 2025. (Photo by Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images)
One Palestinian American researcher warned that Israel is seeking “annexation without legal burden.”
Israel’s gradual advancement of its “yellow line” to occupy more territory in the Gaza Strip is fueling concerns that it is seeking to effectively annex and colonize the majority of the territory without any formal agreement.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Israel has been steadily pushing the truce line to take control of more Palestinian territory in the six months since a “ceasefire” was reached in October.
The yellow line drawn on the ceasefire maps had Israeli troops in control of about 53% of Gaza’s territory, cramming nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians into a territory less than half the size of the one they inhabited before.
But an analysis by Forensic Architecture shows Israel has unilaterally shifted the line westward over the past six months to the point where it controlled about 58% of the strip by December in an occupation zone that continues to grow.
(Graphic by The Guardian. Source: Planet Labs PBC, March 6, 2026.)
Palestinians living in Gaza reportedly woke up to learn that large yellow concrete blocks denoting the ceasefire line had suddenly moved and that they were now living in a free-fire area, where the Israeli military considers any Palestinian person or vehicle a legitimate target.
The Associated Press found in January that at least 77 Palestinians have been shot on sight when they’ve found themselves on the wrong side of the yellow line or even just near it, even though the line’s boundaries are ill-defined and fluid.
They are among more than 730 Palestinians who have been killed since the “ceasefire” began in October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which has accused Israel of thousands of violations.
According to The Guardian, some displaced people, such as those who lived near the Salah al-Din road, which spans the length of Gaza from north to south, suddenly found themselves targeted by Israeli forces, who also began demolishing homes and other buildings and constructing new ones.
Though the yellow line was supposed to be set up as a temporary measure under US President Donald Trump’s “peace plan” for Gaza before control of the strip is transferred back to Palestinians, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Eyal Zamir described it as a “new border” with Gaza back in December, around the time it reportedly began to move.
Eyal Weizman, an Israeli architect and the head of Forensic Architecture’s research agency, recently wrote that the IDF appears to be turning this portion of Gaza into a permanent occupation zone.
The group found that seven new military outposts have been built along the yellow line, including one on what was once a cemetery.
While these areas began as “piles of earth and rubble” organized into crude enclosures, Weizman said that in recent months the roads leading to them have been asphalted, electricity poles have been erected, and buildings and communications towers have gone up inside the bases.
“The bases no longer appear to be the provisional arrangements that Trump’s ceasefire plan claims them to be, but permanent instruments of occupation,” he wrote. “The newly paved roads connect the bases to a matrix of control that is linked to Israel’s road network and communications grid.”
He noted that Israel’s illegal settler movement, which has several powerful representatives in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been “lobbying hard for the Israeli government to start constructing settlements within the vastly expanded buffer zone.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in December that Israel would “never leave Gaza” and spoke of plans to turn IDF military outposts into civilian settlements similar to those that have gradually taken over the West Bankthrough theviolentdisplacement of Palestinian residents.
Ahmad Ibsais, Palestinian American law student and author of the newsletter State of Siege, wrote for the Al-Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network that by drawing a yellow line, Israel is seeking to consolidate its control over Palestinian land without formally annexing it—in other words, “annexation without legal burden.”
“Borders are typically established through bilateral agreements, adjudication, or mutual recognition under international law,” he wrote. “By contrast, the so-called Yellow Line in Gaza functions as a de facto military demarcation associated with ceasefire arrangements and enforced through Israeli operational control.”
“It shapes civilian movement and territorial control without constituting a formally delimited boundary,” he continued. “In effect, it constitutes territorial theft with better branding, operationalizing US President Donald Trump’s plan for the continued colonization of Gaza.”
Mapped the IDF's newly declared "Forward Defense Zone" in south Lebanon. Its maritime boundary fully absorbs Lebanon's Qana gas field, whose exploration rights were explicitly guaranteed under the 2022 US-brokered maritime border agreement.
Israel declared a similar yellow line about 5-10 kilometers into Lebanese territory, giving the IDF effective control over around 55 towns and villages. The military has reduced many homes and entire villages south of this line to rubble in what Katz has described as a “Gaza model” being applied to Lebanon.
Assistant editor Maya Rosen recently wrote for Jewish Currents that the policy of conquering and settling Lebanon has become “mainstream” in Israeli politics and enjoys broad public support.
Ahmad Baydoun, an architect and open-source intelligence researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has warned that with this land grab, Israel was seeking to take control of the valuable Qana Gas Field, which is estimated to be capable of producing between $20 billion-$40 billion worth of natural gas exports for Israel. In 2022, a maritime agreement brokered by the US established that control of the field belonged to Lebanon.
Like in Gaza, the Israeli military has forbidden the more than 600,000 Lebanese inhabitants of villages below the line or within a newly established “buffer zone” from returning indefinitely. Katz has said they’ll be allowed to return once the “safety and security of the residents of the north [of Israel] is ensured.”
Given that Israeli settler groups have already begun mapping out new settlements and advertising plots of land for sale in southern Lebanon, Weizman said Katz was making what is by design “an impossible demand” meant to entrench the land grab.
“This exemplifies the circular logic of Zionist settler-colonialism: settlements are built to mark and protect the state’s border, but that makes them vulnerable to attack, and so a buffer zone is established to protect them,” he said. “Afterward, this buffer zone is itself settled to mark and protect the newly expanded borders, at which point another buffer zone becomes necessary.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
President Donald Trump speaks beside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC on April 6, 2026. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“They treated us like animals,” said an Ecuadorian fisher who survived an attack on the Don Maca.
President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and US Southern Command have repeatedly taken to social media to brag about deadly boat bombings supposedly targeting drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean for nearly eight months. On Tuesday, survivors of some alleged US strikes on fishing boats accused American forces of torture.
The Ecuadorian fishing boat La Fiorella “went up in smoke” on January 20, and “the eight fishermen aboard have not been seen since,” Camila Lourdes Galarza reported for Drop Site News on Tuesday. “Now, 36 survivors of two Pacific attacks fitting a similar profile alleged that they were abducted and tortured by American forces and taken by boat all the way to El Salvador before being returned to Ecuador.”
The journalist spoke with attorneys, relatives, and survivors, including Hernán Flores, captain of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, which was bombed by a drone with a yellow cylinder on March 17. Flores said: “A lot of us had wounds all over our bodies from the explosion. One young man was bleeding so much he filled the floor of our lifeboat with blood… The drone had flown through our cabin window, torn my nephew’s foot so bad you could see flesh and bone, and made the boat’s roof cave in on the back of my neck. A few seconds later, an explosion shook the boat, causing a terrible ringing in our ears. Out of exasperation, the guys threw themselves into the water, some without life jackets, even the ones who don’t know how to swim.”
The survivors made their way to a blue boat with “spear” on the hull, full of armed, blond, English-speaking men in camouflage uniforms—who drew their guns, handcuffed the fishers, put hoods over their heads, and held them on the vessel’s “scorching metal deck for over 24 hours, blistering their skin,” Galarza reported. They were only given a bottle of water, and “all but one fisherman were denied medical attention, despite the severity of what they had just endured.”
They were eventually returned to Ecuador, where Trump has recently deployed US forces for a joint campaign targeting “narco-terrorists.” However, first, they were turned over to El Salvador’s Coast Guard—which, on April 3, also intercepted 20 more Ecuadorian fishers with “vision and hearing loss, bruised limbs, and perforated arms.”
According to Galarza, those fishers had been aboard the Don Maca, and “they reported a strikingly similar account of an alleged attack by US soldiers: a bombarded boat, a round of bullets, and no due process.” Sebastián Palacios, one of the survivors allegedly held hostage for eight days, said that “they treated us like animals.”
⚡️New from @dropsitenews.com: Rare Survivors of Pacific Boat Strikes Allege US Forces Kidnapped & Tortured ThemAs airstrikes & reports of torture under Ecuador’s US-backed military regime continue to mount, fishermen tell Drop Site…By Camila Lourdes Galarzawww.dropsitenews.com/p/rare-survi…
Galarza noted that US SOUTHCOM directed questions about all three incidents to Ecuador, whose Port Authority hung up after hearing that a phone call requesting comment was from journalists.
Harriet Barber got a similar response from SOUTHCOM for her Tuesday reporting on the Don Maca attack in The Guardian. The journalist spoke with survivors, including Palacios, as well as an attorney representing the crew, Fernando Bastias Robayo of the Human Rights Council.
“A US vessel intercepted them and forced them aboard. Once they were detained, their fishing boat was blown up,” said the lawyer. “They were arbitrarily hooded and later abandoned on the Salvadorian coast. Any apprehension followed by incommunicado detention constitutes an enforced disappearance.”
“It was a form of psychological torture, not knowing what’s really going to happen to your life and having your face covered,” he added.
Palacios told Barber that “I get scared in the middle of the night. I can’t sleep well. My ears still hurt… I think that’s it for me. I’m done with fishing. Going back out there is impossible. I thought they were going to kill us.”
“If there were no drugs aboard those boats, it’s a hugely embarrassing ‘false positive’ for US intelligence at a time when that intelligence is being used to kill people, no questions asked.”
Tuesday’s reporting came just two days after SOUTHCOM announced on social media that “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations… along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” killing three alleged “male narco-terrorists.”
Sunday’s strike brought the death toll from Trump’s boat-bombing campaign to at least 180, according to The New York Times. The Intercept’s tally is 181, while the Washington Office on Latin Americabelieves 182 people are dead. Critics of the campaign have accused the US administration of “war crimes, murder, or both.”
Responding to Trump’s latest confirmed attack, Amnesty International USA on Monday condemned “three more murders at sea” and declared that “Congress must act to stop these bombings.”
So far, both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress have refused to pass war powers resolutions aimed at halting Trump’s boat strikes. Similar measures targeting his aggression toward Venezuela and Iran have also failed to advance.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
People attend funeral ceremony for journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed in an Israeli military strike targeting the village of Tayri, in Nabatieh, Lebanon on April 23, 2026. [Elif Öztürk – Anadolu Agency]
At least 27 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since March 2, along with many others wounded, the Lebanese Press Syndicate Editors said Thursday.
In a statement, the syndicate condemned Israel’s targeting of a group of journalists in the southern town of Tayri on Wednesday, in which reporter Amal Khalil was killed and her colleague Zeinab Faraj was wounded.
The syndicate said Khalil had previously received death threats from the Israeli army.
“With her killing, the number of journalists and media workers killed has risen to 27, in addition to a large number of injured,” the statement said.
The syndicate called on the Federation of Arab Journalists to work with international and Arab press unions to support Lebanese journalists amid deliberate Israeli attacks.
It also urged journalists working in the field in Lebanon to exercise caution, avoid high-risk areas and coordinate with the Lebanese army and other official security forces in areas exposed to Israeli attacks, including UNIFIL, the Lebanese Red Cross and local relief teams, “to avoid any unexpected fatal risk.”
The syndicate said Israel’s actions against Lebanese civilians, particularly journalists, “have exceeded all limits,” calling on the Lebanese government to take urgent action at international bodies and file a legal case against Israel.
During Wednesday’s attack, Israeli forces prevented the Red Cross and Lebanese army forces from reaching the two journalists and targeted a road linking Tayri and Haddatha to block rescue teams, according to the state news agency NNA.
Since March 2, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 2,475 people, wounded 7,696 and displaced more than 1.6 million, according to official figures.
A 10-day ceasefire announced by the US on April 16 is set to expire Sunday and has been violated daily by Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
