What’s happened: Prime Minister Netanyahu last night addressed a joint session of the US Congress for the fourth time.

• In a speech which drew regular and effusive applause from those in attendance, Netanyahu praised both Presidents Biden and Trump and positioned Israel’s fight against Iran as a fight on behalf of the US and western liberal democracy.
• “We meet today at a crossroads of history,” Netanyahu said, in opening. “Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran’s axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilisations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilisation. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”
• Stressing the close relationship and shared interests of Israel and the US, the prime minister said “for the forces of civilisation to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens. We win. They lose.”
• Recalling the horror of October 7th and the ongoing anguish of hostage families and hostages no longer in captivity, Netanyahu pointed to both Noa Argamani, freed from captivity in an IDF operation in June, and Eliyahu Bibas, grandfather of Ariel and Kfir, kidnapped on October 7th and who remain hostage.
• Netanyahu paid tribute to President Biden, “for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well. I thank President Biden for his heartful support for Israel after the savage attack on October 7th. He rightly called Hamas ‘sheer evil.’ He dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Middle East to deter a wider war. And he came to Israel to stand with us during our darkest hour, a visit that will never be forgotten.”
• “President Biden and I have known each other for over forty years. I want to thank him for half a century of friendship to Israel and for being, as he says, a proud Zionist.”
• Netanyahu also saluted the courage of four Israeli soldiers present:
  • Lieutenant Avichail Reuven, whose “family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. In the early hours of October 7th, Avichail heard the news of Hamas’ bloody rampage. He put on his uniform, grabbed his rifle, but he didn’t have a car. So he ran eight miles to the frontlines of Gaza to defend his people… came to the frontlines, killed many terrorists and saved many, many lives. Avichail, we all honour your remarkable heroism.”
  • Master Sergeant Ashraf al Bahiri, “a Bedouin soldier from the Israeli Muslim community of Rahat. On October 7th, Ashraf too killed many terrorists. First, he defended his comrades in the military base, and he then rushed to defend the neighbouring communities, including the devastated community of Kibbutz Be’eri. Like Ashraf, the Muslim soldiers of the IDF fought alongside their Jewish, Druze, Christian and other comrades in arms with tremendous bravery.”
  • Lieutenant Asa Sofer,  who fought as an officer in the tank corps, and “was wounded in battle while protecting his fellow soldiers from a grenade. He lost his right arm and the vision in his left eye. He’s recovering, and incredibly, within a short time, Asa will soon return to active duty as a commander of a tank company.”
  • Lieutenant Yonatan, Jonathan Ben Hamo, “who lost a leg in Gaza and continued to fight.”
• Netanyahu also hit out at anti-Israel protesters in the US – those who, he said, “refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians.”
• Iran, he said, was funding some of the protests. “I have a message for these protesters: When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.”
• Netanyahu then criticised the International Criminal Court, claiming that, contrary to its allegations, Israel has sought to protect the Gazan population as much as possible within the confines of urban warfare. “For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy,” he said. “For Hamas, it’s a strategy. They actually want Palestinian civilians to die, so that Israel will be smeared in the international media and be pressured to end the war before it’s won.”
• Netanyahu also pointed to what he said was an unprecedentedly low ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Rafah during Israel’s recent operations there.
• The prime minister then turned to Iran, positioning the Islamic Republic as an enemy of the US to an even greater extent than it is an enemy of Israel. “Ask yourself,” he said, “which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran’s maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It’s America, the guardian of Western civilisation and the world’s greatest power. That’s why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy.”
• Against such a threat, Netanyahu championed an alliance he saw as emerging on April 14th this year, when Israel, the US, and the UK, along with regional Arab partners, joined forces in thwarting direct Iranian attacks on Israel.
• Post-war, he said, Israel would have to retain security control of the Strip, while “Gaza should have a civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel… It’s a fundamental thing that we have a right to demand and to receive.”
• He pointed to a potential deepening of the Abraham Accords, a process for which he thanked former President Trump.
• In parallel, last night the IDF announced the recovery of the bodies of five Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7th:
  • Maya Goren, a 56-year-old mother of four from Nir Oz,  who was murdered in the kindergarten where she worked as a teacher. Her husband, Avner, was also murdered.
  • Ravid Katz, a resident of Nir Oz, who first made sure his wife and four-month-old were safe with neighbours, before joining the kibbutz security team in the fight.
  • Oren Goldin, a 33-year-old father of two, who was murdered while fighting in his capacity as a member of the security squad in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak.
  • Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas and Sgt. Kiril Brodski, who were both killed on October 7th in the battle for Kibbutz Nirim.

Context: Netanyahu’s speech was primarily aimed at rebuilding bipartisan support for the Israel-US relationship. He was careful to give equal thanks and credit to both President Biden and former President Trump.

• At a time when relations with the Biden administration have become strained over the conduct of the war in Gaza, Netanyahu sought to position Israel as being on the frontline of a wider conflict between Iran and the forces of Islamist extremism and the US and its regional allies.
• A significant number of Democrats boycotted or otherwise did not attend the speech, including Vice-President and presumptive presidential nominee Kamal Harris, who cited a previous engagement.
• Protests also accompanied Netanyahu in the streets of Washington, both from pro-Palestinian activists and from those allies of the hostages and their families who argue that Netanyahu has not done enough to prioritise the hostages safe return. Several hostage family members were removed from Congress for protesting Netanyahu.
• Many had hoped that the prime minister would use his speech to announce that a hostage deal had been secured. In contrast, the Israeli delegation to the latest negotiations was ordered to delay its departure for Qatar until Netanyahu had been able to meet with President Biden, scheduled for today.
• In Israel, reaction was predictably divided, with many noting that speeches like this present Netanyahu at his best: addressing a western audience, in English, and presenting the case for Israel’s fight with the Iranian axis – which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis – as a fight for western liberal democracy. Others, however, criticised the prime minister for failing to take responsibility for the failures which led to October 7th, and for not placing a higher priority on a hostage deal.
• Netanyahu laid out his vision for “the demilitarisation and deradicalisation of Gaza,” which “can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace. That’s my vision for Gaza.”
• This post-war vision was criticised by opposition leader Yair Lapid for not being more precise. Lapid said “he had an opportunity to present a ‘day-after’ plan that has some sort of connection to reality. He didn’t do that. He had an opportunity to gain all of Congress’s support for the residents of the north and against Hezbollah. He didn’t do that.”
• Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is captive in Gaza, also criticised Netanyahu for not having “placed the hostages as the highest priority, proving what Zionism and love for Israel is.”
• Zangauker said Netanyahu should have said, “I announce on this stage that I will work to promote a deal that will return all the hostages, even if the price is ending the war. I will work in full cooperation with the mediators, I will dismiss any minister who speaks out against the deal.”
• The retrieval of the bodies of the five hostages leaves 115 hostages remaining in captivity for 292 days. The official Israeli count is 42 of the 115 are no longer alive. According to former member of the inner war cabinet Benny Gantz, speaking yesterday, a quarter of the dead have been killed during the last two months, after the failure of the last hostage proposal.

Looking ahead: Netanyahu will remain in the US for meetings with President Biden, former President Trump, and Vice-President Harris.

• In his private meeting with Biden, Netanyahu is expected to firm up support for Israel’s negotiating positions, with the hope that US influence will in turn help persuade Qatar and Egypt to exert further pressure on Hamas.

What’s happened: The Israeli war cabinet met yesterday to discuss Israel’s response to Iran’s attack on Israel on Saturday night. (For details and initial analysis of the attack see BICOM’s briefing.)

• Kan Radio summarises Prime Minister Netanyahu as saying at the meeting that Israel must respond, but must do so judiciously.
• Visiting the IAF Nevatim base targeted by Iran, IDF Chief of Staff Halevi said “Iran wanted to damage the State of Israel’s strategic capabilities. This is something that has never happened before. When we look ahead, we are weighing our steps and this strike, with so many cruise missiles and UAVs on Israeli territory, will be met with a response.”
• IDF Spokesperson Hagari said that “the range of options that the State of Israel has at its disposal is broader and bigger” than that available to Iran.
• Israel’s western allies, including the UK, France, and Germany, continue to follow the Biden administration in urging Israel to respond cautiously. Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Prime Minister Sunak condemned an Iranian attack which “sought to plunge the Middle East into a new crisis… The scale of the attack,” he said, “and the fact that it was targeted directly at Israel are all without precedent.”
• Sunak also urged Israel to show “restraint” in its response, a point echoed by Foreign Secretary Cameron, who told LBC that the UK was “saying Israel has a right to respond but we do not support a retaliatory strike. There are times where we have to be smart as well as tough, where we have to use head as well as heart.”
• Israeli Defence Minister Gallant spoke again with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin yesterday. Austin “reiterated steadfast US support for Israel’s defence and reaffirmed the strategic goal of regional stability.” In calls to other European and Middle Eastern counterparts, Austin said that “while the United States does not seek escalation, we will continue to defend Israel and US personnel.”
• The Chinese foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart also spoke, with official Chinese media reporting that Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Wang Yi that Iran would “handle the situation well and spare the region further turmoil”.
• Israeli Foreign Minister Katz, meanwhile, has announced that he has written to 32 countries urging them to impose sanctions on Iran’s missile program and to declare the IRGC a terrorist organisation. Katz said on X (formerly Twitter) that he was “leading a political attack against Iran,” designed to “contain and weaken” it. Iran “must be stopped now — before it is too late.”

Context: Israel’s western allies, while strongly condemning Iran and pledging their continued support in combating Iranian attacks on Israel, have urged Israel to show restraint in its response to prevent further regional escalation.

• In weighing its response, therefore, Israel is forced to balance the need to maintain deterrence following an unprecedented Iranian attack consisting of over 300 missiles and UAVs, and protecting the emerging anti-Iranian Israeli-western-Arab alliance which was illustrated during the attack.
• Israeli commentators are warning that a strong Israeli response could imperil this alliance, which was demonstrated for the first time on Saturday night and included Israel, the US, UK, France, and “moderate” Arab states including Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
• Reports this morning claim that Israel has assured Arab allies, including Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf states, that its response would not implicate them. This follows Iranian threats that regional allies of Israel would pay a price for cooperation with an Israeli response.
• Iran’s official media specifically mentioned that Jordan would be the next target in the event that it aided or joined Israel in responding to the Iranian attack.
• Reports out of the US this morning also claim that Israel will likely focus its response not on Iran directly, but on its proxies – potentially Hezbollah and/or Syria-based militias. Such a response would be calculated to provoke a less severe counter-response from Iran than a direct attack on Iranian soil would.
• While Jordan took direct action in striking Iranian drones and missiles travelling over its airspace on Saturday night, Israeli reports claim that Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia were all also in “close contact” with Israel during the attack.
• Two days before the attack on Israel, Iranian officials briefed their counterparts in the Gulf countries on the structure and timing of the plan for the attack, to enable them to secure the airspace. Following US pressure, Saudi Arabia and Egypt subsequently shared intelligence about those plans.
• According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia and the UAE agreed to share information with the US and opened their airspace to fighter jets, shared radar surveillance information, and, in some cases, provided their own forces to help and intercept the attack.
• However, pushing back on reports that Saudi Arabia had aided Israel, informed sources told Al Arabiya that Saudi Arabia did not participate in the interception of Iranian drones and missiles.
• While Israel has enjoyed normalised relations with Egypt and Jordan for decades, this emerging alliance represents the bearing of fruit of the Abraham Accords process (which saw Israel normalise relations with Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE) and the progress made towards a similar agreement with Saudi Arabia.
• All these regional states recognise that the threat from Iran is shared with Israel by them all.
• Before the October attacks by Hamas, normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia was thought to be progressing. In late September 2023, Netanyahu and Biden discussed the issue when they met on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. In an extensive English language interview to Fox News, released shortly after the Netanyahu-Biden meeting, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) confirmed that “every day we get closer” to a normalisation deal.
• The 2020 Abraham Accords, as well as seeing Israel being moved from the European theatre to the US Central Command (CENTOM) in 2021, facilitated the ability of Israel and Arab states’ militaries to share intelligence and to cooperate with one another.
• Summarising the new alliance, Ariel Kahana writes in Israel Hayom today that “a new bloc has broken out of its shell, has spread its wings and built its muscles: Israel, the West and Arab countries, together against Iran.”

Looking ahead: Israel has reportedly agreed with the US that any response will be coordinated with Washington. This follows disquiet from US officials over the fact that it was not notified in advance prior to the assassination of IRGC commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus two weeks ago.

Israel and Indonesia to normalise relations? 

What’s happened: According to reports, Israel is set to normalise relations with Indonesia.

• The move is set to be part of Indonesia’s bid to join the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with negotiations having taken place over the last three months.
• According to revelations from Yediot Ahronot, OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann wrote to Indonesia two weeks ago indicating that its membership was contingent on it establishing diplomatic relations with all member states, including Israel, and that membership would need to be ratified by all member states, including Israel.
• Israeli Foreign Minister Katz has handled negotiations on the Israeli side, with the move to a successful conclusion indicating that the process has recovered from Jakarta’s public criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza and its support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Indonesia also filed its own case against Israel at the ICJ in January.

Context: Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim state, by population, and a normalisation of relations with Israel would prove a significant breakthrough in the US vision of a Middle East and wider Muslim world at peace with the Jewish State.

• It is thought that normalisation was close to fruition in the autumn of last year, before October 7^th shifted the dynamic.
• October 7^th and the war in Gaza also interrupted progress towards normalisation with Saudi Arabia – just as they were intended to do by Iran and Hamas. Securing this normalisation with the leader of the Arab world was a key plank in the Biden Administration’s foreign policy agenda.
• The Indonesian normalisation process was begun during the tenure of outgoing Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and is supported by President-Elect Prabowo Subianto, known to be a long-time advocate of normalisation.
• A Memorandum of Understanding was apparently agreed in September 2023, indicating the two nations’ wish to advance and expand the process of the Abraham Accords, which saw the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco normalise relations with Israel.
• Even prior to these breakthroughs, Israeli-Indonesian trade had long taken place quietly but regularly, mostly in the field of agri-tech and to the value of about $500 million per year.
• A signal of the thaw in relations and the move to normalisation was provided on Tuesday, when Israel cooperated with an Indonesian aid airdrop into Gaza. Israel had previously refused to allow Turkey and Qatar – other states without normalised relations – to do so.

Developments in Gaza: The IDF yesterday killed three sons of Hamas Political Bureau Director Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. Four of the men’s children, three girls and a boy, were also killed in the attack.

• The IDF said Amir, Muhammad, Hazem Haniyeh were “on their way to carry out a terror attack in the central Gaza Strip,” and were targeted in a real time operation (ie not as part of a pre-planned operation) and without the knowledge of either the prime or defence minister.
• The IDF were explicit that the three had been targeted due to an imminent threat, and not due to their family connections. Amir was known to be a squad commander in Hamas’s military wing, while the army also said that at least one of the three had been involved in holding Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7^th.
• Ismail Haniyeh responded publicly to the news. As well as “thank[ing] God for bestowing upon us the honour of their martyrdom,” he said that regardless of “the size of the sacrifice, Hamas won’t surrender,” and that anyone who thought such actions would pressure Hamas into accepting a hostage deal was “deceiving himself”.
• The killing of Haniyeh’s sons came in the midst of US-brokered hostage release negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and as Israel awaits a formal Hamas response to the latest proposal. Preliminary public responses from Hamas officials indicate that the proposal will be rejected.
• Due to the nature of real-time operations, they can be approved at the operational level, without consultation with either top military brass or the political echelon. The strike on the Haniyehs is thought to have been approved by an IDF colonel.
• The presence of the three men in one of the northern-most corners of Gaza is a clear indication that despite IDF achievements in the north, the Hamas presence remains.
• Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi expressed his “deep sorrow” to Haniyeh.

The Iranian threat: The US and Israel have intensified joint preparations for an anticipated Iranian response to the killing in Damascus last week of IRGC commander Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said yesterday that “Israel must be punished, and they will pay for their mistakes.”
• Israeli Defence Minister Gallant, on a visit to an Iron Dome unit, said “Whoever tries to attack us will be faced with strong defence and right after with strong response in his territory.”
• The US and Israel are bracing for an Iranian response, either on “soft targets” like overseas embassies, or a direct attack on Israel using ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles.
• Gallant’s comments are being interpreted as a sign that in response to any Iranian strike, Israel is likely to look to strike Iranian territory directly. The Israeli Air Force this week held an exercise in Cyprus, alongside Cypriot counterparts, simulating an attack on a long-range target.
• The fear of serious regional escalation is acute, with tensions between Israel and Iran’s Hezbollah proxy on Israel’s northern border also at a high-point. Reports indicate that the US has prevailed on its regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Iraq to convey messages to Iran urging it not to escalate.
• In remarks made at a press conference in Washington yesterday alongside Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, President Biden said the US “commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad. Let me say it again, ironclad. We’re going to do all we can to protect Israel’s security.”
• Confused reports emerged last night, as the Iranian Mehr news agency, which has ties to the regime, announced that all air traffic over Tehran was suspended due to “military drills”. The agency then quickly removed its post on X (formerly Twitter) and denied ever having posted it.

Looking ahead: Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), is set to arrive in Israel today to coordinate responses to any Iranian attack.

• Hamas’s formal response to the latest hostage proposal remains outstanding.