News Digest — 2/25/26
Modi Visits Israel As Both Seek Axis Against Extremist Islam Amid Tensions With Turkey
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India landed at Ben Gurion airport Wednesday (25th) for a two-day visit to Israel, during which the two countries are expected to announce an upgrade of their strategic relations to the highest level.
The visit comes less than a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is seeking to build “an axis of our own,” made up of countries opposed to what he described as two axes of extremist Islam.
“We have a great interest in creating an axis of our own – of states that oppose the two axes of extremist Islam,” Netanyahu said Tuesday (24th) at a Shin Bet leadership conference.
Modi’s visit carries significant regional implications, including tensions between India and Turkey. Turkey has provided weapons assistance to Pakistan and Bangladesh, a development that has raised concerns in New Delhi.
One response by India has been to tighten ties with Israel and promote a bloc of moderate states linking India to Europe through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor or IMEC. The envisioned route would connect India through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel and onward to Europe.
The goal, according to Israeli officials and analysts, is to strengthen a moderate axis in the region amid concerns about a Muslim Brotherhood-aligned bloc by Turkey and fears that Saudi Arabia could draw close to it.
Modi was welcomed at the airport by Netanyahu and his wife Sara. After a meeting, Modi left for Jerusalem to meet with the Indian community. He is set to address the Knesset Wednesday afternoon (25th), followed by attendance at a technology exhibition, including 12 Israeli companies. His day will conclude with a festive dinner with Netanyahu.
On Thursday (26th),Modi will visit Yad Vashem and meet with President Isaac Herzog. He will also have an expanded meeting with Netanyahu, oversee the signing of agreements and deliver joint statements to the media. He will depart to India late Thursday (26th).
The visit comes during what analysts describe as a sensitive security period, as tensions rise ahead of a possible confrontation with Iran.
Dr. Avner Golov, vice president of Mind Israel and a former senior official at the National Security Council, said Modi’s visit also reflects mutual support during recent conflicts. “When we were at war, India was there for us. Over the past year, during their confrontation with Pakistan, Israel stood by India he said.
Golov pointed to growing concern in Israel over shifting regional alignments, including closer ties between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. He said deepening cooperation with India, along with Greece, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, could help anchor a regional framework linking India to Europe through Israel.
Twelve US Stealth F-22s Land In Israel As Iran Strike Looms
Twelve US F-22 fighter jets , among the most advanced in the world, landed in Israel on Tuesday (24th) as part of a broader American military buildup amid the possibility of a strike on Iran.
The F-22 Raptor is one of two fifth-generation fighter jets in the US arsenal, alongside the F-35, which is also operated by the Israeli Air Force. The landing of American fighter jets in Israel is unusual, the deployment of advanced Stealth F-22s is particularly so.
The F-22, which first flew in 1990, is primarily an air superiority fighter but is also capable of ground attack, electronic warfare and intelligence missions. Unlike the F-35, the F-22 has not been sold to foreign militaries due to a US legal prohibition.
The aircraft’s first operational mission was in 2014 , when it struck Islamic State targets, Its first shootdown came in 2023, when it downed a Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean. It has not shot down a manned aircraft.
Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford continues operating in the eastern Mediterranean and has passed Crete. It is expected to join the USS Abraham Lincoln which has been in the region for an extended period.
The developments came ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address late Tuesday (24th) and against the backdrop of heightened tensions over Iran.
In a series of posts on X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed that diplomacy remained possible. “A deal is within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority,” Araghchi wrote. He said Iran would return to talks with the United States in Geneva, based on understandings reached in a previous round, with determination to reach a “fair and equitable deal,” as quickly as possible.
Despite the stepped up military posture and heightened alert, Israeli officials pointed to two indications that a strike on Iran was unlikely, before the weekend.
One is a planned trip on Wednesday (25th) by President Isaac Herzog to Ethiopia. The second, seen as more significant, is the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a two-day visit.
Marco Rubio is also scheduled to visit Israel on Monday (Mar. 2nd), though officials noted that such a trip would not necessarily preclude military action and could even serve as a diversion.
Israeli officials said the prevailing assessment remains that a strike is likely unless Iran makes a last-minute concession and agrees to US demands – a scenario viewed as improbable. On Feb. 19 Trump said he was giving Tehran 10-15 days to reach a deal. Five days have since passed.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated Tuesday (24th) that “President Trump’s first option is always diplomacy, but as he has shown, he is willing to use the lethal force of the US military if necessary.”
Israel Warns Lebanon: If Hezbollah Intervenes We Will Respond Forcefully
Israel has conveyed an indirect warning to Lebanon that it would respond forcefully, including by targeting civilian infrastructure such as Beirut’s airport, should Hezbollah take part in any war between the US and Iran, two senior Lebanese officials told Reuters on Tuesday (24th).
The offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese presidency did not immediately comment on the report.
The development comes as Washington and Tehran prepare to hold a third round of nuclear negotiations on Thursday (26th) in Geneva, according to Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi. The talks follow heightened tensions and growing concern over the possibility of military confrontation between the sides.
During a war in 2024, Israel inflicted significant damage on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization eliminating its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with thousands of operatives and destroying a large portion of its weapons stockpile.
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, has indicated it is closely monitoring the current standoff. In a televised speech last month, the group’s leader, Naim Qassem, stated that Hezbollah was “not neutral” in the confrontation between Washington and Tehran and described the organization as a potential target of aggression.
“We are determined to defend ourselves. We will choose in due course how to act, whether to intervene or not,” Qassem said.
Separately, a senior US State Department official said on Monday (23rd) that the United States is withdrawing non-essential personnel and eligible family members from its embassy in Beirut.
Hamas Will Become The Biggest Beneficiary Of The Billions To Be Invested In Gaza – Khaled Abu Toameh
The Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), established in accordance with President Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war, is expected to start operating in Gaza even though Hamas continues to control nearly half of it, with more than 90% of the population still under its jurisdiction. Although Hamas has expressed its willingness to hand over its government institutions to NCAG, there are indications that Hamas seeks to control the new committee.
NCAG is already under pressure to incorporate thousands of Hamas terrorists into a newly established Palestinian police force in Gaza. In addition, Hamas is seeking to ensure that its civil servants are placed on the NCAG payroll. Sources close to NCAG revealed that Hamas “continues to insist that its security personnel remain in service within the agencies that will operate under the committee’s leadership,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported. “There is a prevailing sense within the committee and other parties that Hamas is determined, by all means, to keep its members within the new administrative framework overseeing Gaza.”
Such reports prove that Hamas is lying when it says that it is ready to hand over its governing power to NCAG. Hamas’ actions on the ground are in violation of Trump’s plan, which states: “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form.” We are currently witnessing direct and indirect efforts by Hamas to continue governing in Gaza. Anyone who believes that NCAG will be able to operate as an independent governing body is abysmally uninformed.
Britain’s Green Party To Vote To Back Hamas Terror Attacks – Tom Kelly
Britain’s Green Party is to vote on a “Zionism is Racism” proposal that would back Hamas terror attacks. If approved, it would become Green policy to support Palestinian “resistance” against Israel “by all available means under international law.” One of the motion’s champions, barrister Franck Magennis, who has previously tried to get Hamas removed from the UK’s terror group list, described this as a euphemistic way of saying that the Palestinians have a right to armed struggle, and that we should support it.”
John Mann, the government’s independent adviser on anti-Semitism, said, “It’s a support for terrorism and overt racism against Jews. There is no ambiguity. It’s from the extreme margins of politics. This is well beyond anything during Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. This makes Corbyn look like a moderate… Greens used to be about stopping fossil fuels and nuclear power and building wind farms. Now hate is bringing members surging into the Green Party.”
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel,told the Daily Mail: “The Green Party motion is one of the most hateful and racist documents I’ve ever read. It calls for the destruction of Israel and seeks to justify terrorism against Israel. Its intent is to justify the destruction of the Jewish homeland and deny the right of Jews to a national home. The double standards are extraordinary as they demand a national homeland for Palestinians, but not Jews.”
Jabotinsky Letter Revealing Plea For Funds To Save European Jews Heads To Auction
A letter written by Revisionist Zionism founder Ze’ev Jabotinsky as he raced to fund a mass evacuation of European Jews in the shadow of the coming Holocaust, will be auctioned online on Thursday (26th), American auction house Nate D. Sanders announced on Monday (23rd.).
The Yiddish-German letter – penned just weeks before Nazi Germany annexed Austria – was intended to address funding for Jabotinsky’s evacuation plan for Jews before Nazi occupation, militia operations, and diplomatic campaigns.
At the time the letter was written in early 1938, Jabotinsky was advocating for a plan to resettle 1.5 million European Jews illegally in the British Mandate for Palestine over the course of a decade. This plan was fiercely rejected by Jewish and other Zionist groups for fear that it would exacerbate anti-Semitism in European countries, already reeling from the rise of Nazism.
Simultaneously, Jabotinsky was working to fund his Irgun paramilitary organization’s escalating activities, which he directed from his base in London, as British authorities had barred him from returning to Palestine.
The letter shows Jabotinsky urging the acting director of his movement’s finance department to establish a mandatory taxation system for all national offices, warning that the organization’s “success or failure” depended on it.
He wrote that any office that doesn’t participate in the “voluntary self-taxation” should be excluded from the movement and be “without leadership.”
Jabotinsky also references the World Conference of the New Zionist Organization, which had broken from the World Zionist Organization in 1935, in Prague. The World Conference convened from January 31 toFebruary 7, 1938, during which Jabotinsky’s evacuation plan was formally adopted, although it would never come to pass.
Nazi Germany annexed Austria mere weeks after the conference closed, bringing 190,000 Jews under Nazi rule.
Revisionist Zionism, established by Jabotinsky in 1925,rejected the mainstream Zionist movement’s moderate, socialist approach to Israel’s statehood, advocating for the immediate creation of a Jewish state, defended by its own military. It’s the ideological antecedent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.
Bidding on the letter starts at $10,000.
