🇮🇱❌🇮🇷 Israel’s leaders believe they now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East, one that goes well beyond pulverizing Hamas and Hezbollah.
Even before Israel launched what it described as a “limited” ground offensive into Lebanon Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that his ultimate target in the regional power shift is to undermine the authority of Tehran’s clerical leadership, defanging the Iranians who are the bankrollers, trainers and supposed protectors of both Hamas in Gaza and the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah.
In an address in English on Monday, Netanyahu promised the “noble Persian people” that the day when they were free of rule by “tyrants” and could have peace with Israel would come “a lot sooner than people think.”
“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” he warned ominously.
For Iran, that will not sound like idle posturing. Israel is not just fighting Tehran by smashing its allies and proxies — such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — but is showing its supremacy both in terms of technology and espionage on Iranian soil.
Ground offensive in Lebanon. On Tuesday Israel made it clear it won’t stop there.
Netanyahu’s once electorally fatal opinion poll numbers are rising since Nasrallah’s assassination, meaning there’s every political inducement for him to prolong the offensive and ignore repeated cease-fire calls from Western allies and aid groups, who fear a humanitarian crisis worsening in Lebanon.
“The elimination of Nasrallah is a very important step, but it is not the final one,” Gallant told troops serving with the army’s Golani Brigade. “We will employ all the capabilities at our disposal, and if someone on the other side did not understand what those capabilities entail, we mean all capabilities.”
U.S. officials believe the Israeli incursion will be limited, targeted and not as extensive as 2006, which triggered a short but fierce war that hurt both sides. But there remain fears in Washington of an Iranian attack against Israel, prompting some U.S. forces being moved “to defer and defend as necessary.” And there are worries of Israeli overreach.
It isn’t only domestic political logic driving Netanyahu — but military rationale, too. “The military incentives for Israel are to continue,” observed Matthew Savill of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, speaking before the incursion.
“It has destroyed Hezbollah’s senior leadership, compromised its ability to coordinate and has the initiative. In spite of the risks a ground incursion would face, the long-range threat from ballistic missiles, and the stretched nature of current IDF operations, it is possible to imagine that many would argue there will never be a better time to go into southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s military infrastructure there,” he added.
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...