News Digest — 2/19/26
IDF: Iran Likely To Target Israel If US Launches Strike
Although Iranian media portrayed the Geneva discussions in a positive light, the US has continued to deploy both offensive and defensive forces to the Middle East, signaling it is prepared to act within a short timeframe. Israeli officials have largely refrained from commenting publicly, but within the IDF the assessment is that operational conditions are maturing. At the same time, there is concern over a possible miscalculation by one or more of the parties. As a result, air defense systems are on heightened alert.
Israeli security officials assess that if Washington launches a large-scale attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is a more than reasonable chance Tehran would retaliate by firing long-range missiles at Israel.
It is also assumed that, unlike the Americans, who hesitated before joining the strikes during Operation Rising Lion, Israel would not hesitate to join a US-led offensive if Iran comes under attack.
In any case, amid growing media reports of an imminent American strike, Israeli officials are not ruling out the possibility of an Iranian miscalculation that could prompt Tehran to initiate a preemptive attack out of concern that it is about to be targeted.
The underlying assumption is that the side that manages to surprise its adversary with the first blow often secures the most significant advantage. Accordingly, all intelligence branches are operating at peak readiness, with officials warning that the coming days could prove highly complex and tense. The Home Front Command is also increasing preparedness, although, as of now no large-scale reserve mobilization has been ordered.
IDF Will Stay On Offensive Against Hezbollah, Division Cmdr. Reassures Border Mayors
The military will stay “on the attack” against Hezbollah, 91st Division Commander BG, Yuval Gaz told a group of northern border region leaders Wednesday (18th).
“Our responsibility is that we don’t only react, but we also preempt. – initiate attacks in order to better defend. Any place where the IDF needs to act – we will act,” Gaz told the regional leaders, alongside the Defense Ministry northern coordinator Nochi Mendel.
The commander said, “I am here to tell you that we are preparing for various scenarios. We have operational plans to act immediately, and our forces are distributed along the entire border and deep into the territory.”
Although Israel withdrew most of its forces from southern Lebanon within months of the November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, it has kept five outposts in southern Lebanon, along the border, with some several hundred to 1,000 or so soldiers stationed there to ensure there will be no surprise attack penetration into Israel.
Next, Gaz said that regarding “any operational challenges, we will be on the frontlines so that the enemy will encounter the military and not civilians,” noting the IDF is aware of the public discourse on the issue and will make sure to guarantee civilian safety at all times.
“This is our command, and this is the standard to which we are committed: full defense of the residents at all times and in every scenario,” he said.
During the meeting Gaz presented the regional leaders with the most up-to-date operational situation, a summary of the division’s recent activities, and goals that the unit has set for 2026, such as continuing to improve the defenses of northern border towns.
According to Gaz, tight coordination with the regional leaders and their local security coordinators is a core aspect of the security concept for the area, which multiplies the overall power brought to bear to defend the area.
There have been some raised tensions on the border given the increased possibility of a US-Iran-Israel conflict on the horizon, with some officials worried that Hezbollah might also attack the Jewish state if the Iranian regime appeared to be on its last legs.
However, the IDF has kept up a steady – and sometimes even increasing – pace of attacks on Hezbollah operatives and locations recently, both to deter such a scenario and officially remove Hezbollah’s capacity to attack Israel with rockets even if it wanted to do so.
Sa’ar Blasts UN ‘Anti-Israel Obsession’ At Security Council
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar delivered a press statement at the United Nations on Tuesday (17th) ahead of a high-level Security Council session on the Middle East, sharply criticizing what he described as an “anti-Israel obsession” within the international body.
“I came to the United Nations today, which is unfortunately infected with an anti-Israel obsession – to speak the truth, present the facts, and defend our rights,” Sa’ar said.
He emphasized that Israel is “a peace-seeking nation, standing as a fortress of Western Civilization,” and warned that efforts to eliminate the Jewish state have persisted since its establishment.
“The attempts to eliminate Israel began the day it was born,” he stated. We’ve seen over the past two and a half years that the desire to eliminate Israel still exists, and has grown even stronger. Our enemies won’t succeed. But they haven’t given up their goal of Israel’s elimination,” Sa’ar added, cautioning, “and make no mistake, the West is next.”
Addressing the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, Sa’ar declared, “Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. This is a well known and documented historical fact – that renders ridiculous the huge anti-Semitic attempts to undermine the Jewish people’s right to its land.”
He stressed that Jewish presence in the land “has not ceased even for a day, and recalled that “104 years ago, the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor – gave the British a mandate to re-establish a Jewish national home in the Land of Israel.”
Sa’ar criticized a recent vote at the UN, saying, “Yesterday, 85 countries stood here and denied the Jewish people’s right to live in the same places recognized as belonging to a Jewish national home.”
””Amazingly, so many countries say that Jewish presence in our ancient homeland violates international law,” he continued. “The opposite is true: No other nation in any other place in the world, has a stronger right than our historical and documented right to the Land of the Bible.”
Turning to diplomatic efforts, Sa’ar noted that he would represent Israel at President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace Summit.
“Tomorrow, I’ll have the honor of representing Israel at President Trump’s Board of Peace Summit,” he said. “We support President Trump’s plan.”
According to Sa’ar, the plan centers on “the disarmament of Hamas, demilitarization of Gaza and de-radicalization of Palestinian society.”
“If these are achieved – there will for the first time be a chance to move toward a new reality in Gaza and the region,” he said, adding that “The security, stability and prosperity of all – depends on it.”
Sa’ar questioned the UN’s current role and standing, asking why the upcoming summit was being treated as more significant than the Security Council session.
He also criticized the conduct of UN Rapporteur Albanese, asking “how can it be that the UN is represented by such extreme, antiSemitic and delusional characters like UN Rapporteur Albanese?”
“It’s not solely our issue,” Sa’ar concluded, “It also undermines the credibility of this institution. I call on the UN to wake up before it loses its remaining importance, influence and status.”
October 7 Terrorists To Be Tried In Special Military Tribunal, Attorney General’s Office Agrees
After some two years of deliberations, the Attorney General’s Office announced earlier this week that the state’s prosecution services have agreed that a special military tribunal proposed in a bipartisan Knesset bill will be the framework for trying Palestinian terrorists accused of committing massacres and other atrocities in the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion.
Various proposals had been considered for trying the assailants through Israel’s criminal prosecution system, but the Attorney General’s Office said that the prosecution services had agreed for the alleged perpetrators to be tried under the terms of the emerging Knesset law.
The Attorney General’s Office said on Monday night (16th) that this decision had been made in a recent meeting involving the attorney general, the state attorney and the IDF Military Advocate General.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinian terrorists, mostly from Hamas, but including other terror groups, invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, at multiple points on the Israel-Gaza border and carried out a series of massacres in which some 1,200 people were killed.
These assailants also abducted 251 people as hostages and took them captive to the Gaza Strip, while also committing a wave of other atrocities, including rape and torture while documenting the savagery on bodycams the terrorists wore during the attack.
Security forces captured approximately 300 of the invaders inside Israel following the attacks, and have held them in various detention centers since, with Israeli law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies deliberating over the last two years on how best to put them on trial.
Under legislation that has passed its first reading in the Knesset and is currently being prepared for its final two readings, a special military tribunal will be established to try the terror operatives who allegedly carried out the October 7 atrocities.
The legislation was submitted jointly by Religious Zionism MK Sincha Rothman of the coalition and Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky of the opposition, and is being deliberated in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which Rothman chairs.
Under the legislation, the tribunal will be able to charge the assailants with all relevant crimes, including genocide under the terms of Israel’s 1950 Law for the Prevention of Genocide, harming Israeli sovereignty, causing war, assisting an enemy during a time of war, and terror charges under Israel’s 2016 law for combatting terrorism.
Those convicted of genocide charges would be liable for the death penalty.
Each case would be heard by a panel of three judges, in which the chief presiding judge would be a retired district court judge sitting alongside two other judges who are qualified to serve as district court judges and have expertise in criminal law.
Appeals could be made within the tribunal system to an appeals bench which would consist of a chief presiding judge who is either a retired Supreme Court judge, a retired district court president, or the president of a military appeals court.
Alongside that judge would sit two retired district court judges.
A key aspect of the trials will be that they are public and will be broadcast on a website set up for this purpose.
The legislation also stipulates that anyone who is suspected, charged, or convicted of October 7 crimes cannot be released through prisoner release agreements.
The West’s Suicidal Empathy – Ariel Bulshtein
Professor Gad Saad, 61, born in Lebanon to a Jewish family that fled during the civil war, is the author of The Parasitic Mind – How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. In it he uses the imagery of viruses and parasites to describe how harmful cultural ideas can hijack public discourse, academic, and social institutions, damaging freedom of expression, critical thinking, and basic logic of ostensibly rational human beings.
“Those who want to control us try to control both our cognitive system and our emotional system,” Prof. Saad explained. “In my new book, Suicidal Empathy, … I focus on the way they try to manipulate our emotions. Empathy is a wonderful thing that every social creature needs. But like everything else in life, empathy must be applied in the right amount, in the right situation, and toward the right objects. When it’s applied incorrectly, it harms the person possessing it to the point of threatening their existence. In my book, I examine a long series of domestic and foreign policy issues where the West adopts approaches that endanger its existence and shows how they all stem from suicidal empathy.”
Suicidal empathy works overtime when it comes to Israel. ”If you go to study in Middle Eastern studies programs at any institution of higher learning in the West, they teach you that Israelis are white colonists, devoid of any ancestral rights to the land they conquered, that they are evil exploiters oppressing the noble and peaceful Palestinians who opened the door to white Jews from Austria and Russia, and the Jews exploited the opportunity to steal the land from the owners.”
“Islamist groups don’t hide that they intend to conquer the West through three methods – the womb, immigration, and exploiting the West’s freedom against it. Why does the West refuse to see this clearly? The West tries to be understanding, compassionate,considerate, and generous toward other cultures, assuming they’ll reciprocate in kind, while other cultures interpret the West’s behavior as a sign of weakness….Blind Westerners mistakenly think that the values embedded in their culture are also dear to other cultures’ hearts – and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Two years ago, Prof. Saad was pushed out of Concordia University, which had been his academic home for many years. His presence on campus became too dangerous, literally. The same Jew-hatred he knew in Lebanon caught up with him even in distant Canada. Now he teaches at the University of Mississippi. (Israel Hayom)
