News Digest — 10/12/26
Israel Estimates That Iran Has Some 2,000 Ballistic Missiles Capable Of Reaching Israel, And That Tehran Is Working To reestablish Its Foothold In Syria
Israeli intelligence officials estimate that Iran has retained as many as 2,000 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and is rapidly rebuilding its weapons production capabilities, Channel 12 reported, raising concerns that Tehran could soon restore much of the military threat it posed before the war.
The assessment disclosed Sunday (11th), comes amid mounting evidence that Iran is also attempting to reestablish its network of terrorist proxies along Israel’s borders, particularly in southern Syria, where Iranian-backed operatives have reportedly received substantial funding, weapons and other assistance.
Israeli defense officials estimate that Iran currently possesses between 1,800 and 2,000 ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel, compared with approximately 2,500 before the war began in February.
The Iranian military has also restored a significant portion of its missile launchers, although intelligence officials remain uncertain how many missiles and launch systems could be deployed immediately in the event of renewed fighting.
The estimates suggest that the joint US-Israeli military campaign, despite inflicting extensive damage on Iranian military installations and weapons factories, failed to permanently eliminate Tehran’s ability to threaten Israel with large-scale missile barrages.
“We never said that 100% of Iranian production capability had been destroyed,” an Israeli intelligence official said.
The official explained that Iran immediately began repairing damaged installations and resuming weapons manufacturing after the conclusion of major military operations, with production expected to increase as more time passes.
Western intelligence officials have similarly concluded that Iran preserved important missile and drone manufacturing facilities despite months of American and Israeli bombardment.
The surviving structure has enabled Tehran to replenish its deleted arsenal, while intelligence assessments indicate that Russia has also supplied missiles to Iran.
Nevertheless, Israeli officials believe Iran’s military-industrial capabilities remain significantly below their prewar levels, and questions persist over how quickly the country could convert its surviving weapons stockpiles into operational firepower.
Beyond Iran itself, Israeli security officials are increasingly concerned about Tehran’s efforts to rebuild its regional network of armed proxies, particularly following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria December 2024.
Unlike Assad, whose government facilitated extensive military activity in Syria, President Ahmed al-Sharaa has sought to prevent Tehran and Hezbollah from establishing a significant presence in the country.
As a result, Iranian operatives have reportedly shifted toward establishing smaller, decentralized terrorist networks that are harder to identify and disrupt.
These networks rely on local recruits, concealed weapons caches, explosive drones, and rockets rather than the large, openly deployed military formations Iran previously maintained in Syria.
Israeli intelligence officials believe Iran has already transferred substantial amounts of money and weapons to local groups, allowing them to establish clandestine infrastructure near Israel’s borders.
The threat was highlighted late last month when Syrian security forces announced the arrest of three suspected Hezbollah operatives in the Yarmouk Basin area of Daraa province, near the Israel-controlled Golan heights.
Syrian authorities said the suspects were preparing rocket launchers for attacks intended to undermine security in the region.
Hezbollah denied involvement, insisting that it “has no presence whatsoever on Syrian territory.”
On Friday (9th), the Israeli Air Force struck another suspected Iranian-backed operative, Yusuf Ali al-Hassoun, near the Syrian-Lebanese border.
According to the IDF, al-Hassoun had spent the previous year organizing attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers stationed in southern Syria under Iranian direction.
The military said several plots attributed to him had been thwarted, including plans to launch explosive drones and rockets at Israeli forces.
“The IDF will continue to act to eliminate immediate threats on all fronts,” the military said.
The renewed activity has prompted Israeli security officials to consider whether another military operation against Iran may be necessary before Tehran can fully restore its capabilities.
US Army Urges Adoption Of Israeli Battlefield Medicine As IDF Cuts Casualty Deaths By Half – Report
The US Army is recommending that American military medical teams study and adopt Israeli battlefield medicine techniques after the IDF deduced the mortality rate among combat casualties by more than half, Fox News reported, citing IDF data and an official US Army report.
Advances in combat medicine developed by the IDF in recent years have helped significantly reduce deaths among soldiers wounded in battle. The US military is now urging a closer examination of these Israeli methods ahead of future conflicts.
According to data presented to Fox News, the mortality rate among combat casualties stood at approximately 15% during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, compared with 7.1% during the Swords of Iron War.
The US report cited nearly identical figures, showing a decline from 14.8% in 2006 to 7.1% in 2024, despite a significant increase in the proportion of wounded soldiers suffering severe injuries.
One of the most important changes has been a dramatic reduction in the time required to deliver advanced medical treatment to wounded soldiers.
According to a senior IDF combat medicine expert, during the Second Lebanon War, it took between 15 and 20 minutes for advanced medical care to reach a wounded soldier. Currently, such treatment can be administered immediately or within just four minutes.
Positioning medical personnel closer to combat troops, rapidly evacuating casualties by helicopter, and making medical decisions directly on the battlefield, are considered key factors behind the improvement.
The IDF has also expanded the use of blood products on the battlefield, according to the Fox News report. Since 2013, greater emphasis has been placed on rapidly treating hemorrhages, including administering plasma at the point of injury.
Blood units are transported to forward positions in refrigerated containers carried by medical teams, allowing treatment to begin before wounded soldiers are evacuated to a hospital.
In its 78-page report, titled “Israeli Defense Force Medical Lessons Learned,” the US Army warned that Israel had been forced to make painful adjustments during active combat, but that the American military now has an opportunity to learn from that experience in advance.
“The time to prepare is now,” the report stated, emphasizing that clinical and tactical knowledge alone is insufficient.
The authors recommended studying Israel’s medical evaluation systems, medical data collection, preventive medicine practices, and ability to continue providing advanced medical treatment under high-intensity combat conditions.
Colombia To Open Embassy In Jerusalem This Week After Restoring Ties With Israel
Colombia will officially open its embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday, (14th) recognizing the city as Israel’s capital and signaling a renewed partnership between the two countries under Bogota’s new administration.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar confirmed that Colombia will formally relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem this week, calling the move “historic”as the two countries work to rebuild ties and strengthen their bilateral relationship.
“When I took office as foreign minister, there were five embassies in Jerusalem. Next week that number will reach 10,” Sa’ar said.
According to a Colombian Foreign Ministry press official, Foreign Minister Omar Bula would travel to Jerusalem Sunday (11th) to attend the embassy’s inauguration.
“This is a historic diplomatic milestone, but above all, it reflects the truth that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” Sa’ar told reporters.
The embassy move would align Colombia with the United States and several other governments: Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Fiji, Nauru, and Somaliland, all of which have moved their embassies from Tel Aviv.
Under Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office earlier this year, Bogota has moved to fully restore bilateral relations with Israel, deepen cooperation across key sectors, and reverse years of diplomatic tensions under former left-wing President Gustavo Petro, whose anti-Israel policies and rhetoric severely strained one of Latin America’s historically oldest partnerships with Israel.
Colombia’s new government has also withdrawn the country’s support to South Africa’s contentious genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) signaling a broader shift in Bogota’s approach to Israel and its standing in international forums.
Historically, Colombia has been among Israel’s closest partners in Latin America, maintaining strong security, economic and diplomatic cooperation for decades.
However, relations deteriorated sharply under Petro, who filed a declaration of intervention in South Africa’s case in April 2024 and severed diplomatic ties with Israel the following month over the war in Gaza.
Across Latin America, several governments moved to downgrade or sever diplomatic ties with Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza, as part of broader efforts to pressure and isolate the Jewish state over its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Now, a broader geopolitical shift is unfolding across Latin America, as a growing number of conservative governments seek closer ties with Israel, allowing the Jewish state to build on this emerging trend by expanding cooperation, strengthening alliances, and deepening bilateral relations throughout the region.
The growing momentum in Israel’s relations with Latin America builds on the expanding reach of the Isaac Accords, a framework signed earlier this year by Argentine President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deepen ties with governments across the region while strengthening cooperation against antisemitism and terrorism.
Modeled after the Abraham Accords–a series of historic, US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries—the new initiative aims to deepen political, economic, and cultural ties between the Jewish state and Latin American governments with expanded cooperation in technology, security, innovation, trade, and economic development as countries across the region work together to address shared security challenges.
The Isaac Accords also seek to institutionalize expanding cooperation with Latin American partners through enhanced intelligence-sharing, security coordination, and joint law enforcement efforts targeting Iranian proxy networks and transnational criminal organizations operating across the hemisphere.
Israel Is Clear-eyed, Not Traumatized By Oct. 7 – David M. Weinberg
The third anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel was filled with agonizing and loving remembrances of the many civilians slain by Hamas in their bedrooms and the soldiers killed combating the jihadist Palestinian stormtroopers ever since. But through it all, the overwhelming sentiment I heard was patriotism, resilience, and defiance, not defeat.
Much of the media coverage described Israel as traumatized by the massacre and exhausted by three years of war. This infuriates me because it is an erroneous, even nefarious, reading of the Israeli mood. It is a wicked and insulting take on Israel’s national psyche. The reality is that Israelis are neither crushed nor dispirited. Instead, they are appropriately angry and motivated to win against all enemies.
All Israelis across the political spectrum are proud of the brave reservists who threw themselves into battle against Hamas, and the selfless volunteers who mobilized to strengthen their families, tend to the wounded, orphaned and dispossessed, till the fields, and manage the home front. No one in this noble cohort is drained, defeated, or paralyzed by trauma.
On the global front, Israelis are furious at the hostility and hypocrisy of the Western world, which has largely turned its back on Israel. Classic antisemitic stereotypes have saturated Western media. The deranged demonization of Jews has once again been renamed as morality itself.
Israelis are angry at the politically malign accounts of their just, successful wars against Iran and its Hamas and Hezbollah proxy armies; at the raw antisemitism becoming mainstream discourse, and at the corrosive ideologies such as radical Islam that seek to undermine Western societies while destroying Israel. Israelis will resist all this. Israel intends to hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them or hemmed in by fickle allies.
The writer is managing senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security 7 Zionist Strategy.
Iran Fueling Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Preventing Terrorists’ Disarmament – Khaled Abu Toameh
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second-largest terrorist organization in Gaza, has made it clear that it has no intention of abandoning its armed struggle against Israel. The Iran-backed group has reaffirmed its commitment to jihad (holy war), armed resistance, and the destruction of the “Zionist project.” This message should be taken seriously by anyone hoping that the Gaza war can end with the disarmament of all armed groups.
PIJ, Hamas, and the other terrorist groups in Gaza do not recognize Israel’s right to exist and they are not prepared to abandon their weapons and their ideology of armed struggle. PIJ proudly announced that more than 2,000 of its fighters had been killed in Gaza, dozens more in the West Bank, and more than 80 on the Lebanese front.
Those who believe that the conflict will end simply by persuading Hamas and PIJ to accept a new political arrangement in Gaza should listen carefully to what the terrorist groups themselves are saying. Defeating Islamist terrorism cannot be treated as a short term diplomatic exercise.
The international community should stop asking only what Israel intends to do next. It should ask what Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and their Iranian patron intend to do next. They intend to continue their jihad until the elimination of Israel.
