What’s happened: A massive coordinated barrage of rocket and missile fire on northern Israel was carried out by Hezbollah and Iran yesterday evening, marking a significant escalation in the Lebanese front of the war, which opened on March 2 with a much smaller Hezbollah attack on northern Israel.

• 200 Hezbollah rockets were fired on northern Israel, with a smaller barrage from Iran also hitting Israel’s north at the exact same time. Interceptions were carried out by Iron Dome, as the new laser-based Iron Beam interceptor is not yet operational.
• In the hours prior to the attack, rumours circulated in Israel of an impending escalation without specific details. As the hour approached, Home Front Command urged all Israelis in the country’s north to remain close to shelters. Most of the projectiles were intercepted or landed in open fields. Two Israelis were lightly injured in the attack.
• Following the coordinated attack on northern Israel, the IDF launched a massive airstrike on Lebanon, focusing on Hezbollah strongholds such as the Dahiya quarter of Beirut. The IDF reported destroying ten different Hezbollah command posts and dozens of rocket launchers.
• Lebanese authorities report that since the fighting began last week 700,000 people have been displaced. Official death tolls list 439 men, 45 women, and 86 children, without any breakdown of combatants and non-combatants.
• The destruction of Iranian air defences has opened the skies of Iran to further attacks on regime targets, while the volume of Iranian missile fire on Israel continues to decline.Israeli aircraft struck regime targets throughout the day yesterday, including the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the IRGC air force command centre, the IRGC military academy, and various sites connected to the Basij militia that is notorious for its human rights breaches and crackdown against January’s mass protests that killed tens of thousands.
• Unnamed US sources were quoted in Israeli media saying that Iran was running out of missile launchers, and that within days it would cease to be able to mount significant missile attacks on its neighbours. Air strikes on the regime-affiliated bank meant that it was unable to pay salaries to civil servants or the military, something US officials believe will hasten the regime’s collapse. The American assessment is that the IRGC and the Basij have sustained thousands of casualties, that their bases and headquarters are all largely destroyed, and that communications between unit commanders and forces in the field is partial at best.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Smotrich announced yesterday that they were putting the controversial bill which would formalise draft exemptions for the Haredi public on hold in order to retool the 2026 budget bill and pass it by the mandatory deadline of March 31. According to Israeli law, if no budget is passed by that date, parliament is automatically dissolved and a snap election is called.  The Government is now calling for an across-the-board cut of 3% in all ministries to pay for the war.

Looking ahead: Two major strategic dilemmas lurk for Israeli and American decision makers as the war continues.

• In Lebanon, Israel has to decide whether to  broaden its strikes beyond narrow Hezbollah targets. It is keen for Lebanon to feel the pressure of the ceasefire violations, and this is crucial for any future deterrence as well. On the other hand, recent pronouncements from Beirut hold open the possibility that Lebanon may finally be serious about reining Hezbollah in itself and possibly even negotiating a peace deal with Israel, something Israel would be reluctant to sabotage if indeed it is a real possibility.
• The issue of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) has not gone away, though its current whereabouts and status are shrouded in mystery since the US bombing in on the Fordow facility last June in Operation Midnight Hammer. Media reports indicate that both the US and Israel have drawn up plans for a potential ground operation using special forces at the site. Removing the HEU was a key demand of the US in the unsuccessful round of negotiations that preceded the outbreak of hostiles on February 28.

What’s happened: President Trump indicated he was ready to end the war on Iran sooner rather than later. “It’s going to be ended soon,” he told reporters in Florida, “and if it starts up again they’ll be hit even harder.”

• Trump’s comments had an immediate effect on commodity prices, notably causing a rapid fall in oil prices, which had risen dramatically the day before. But the pace of attacks on Iran, and Iranian missile fire on Israel, did not materially change.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his part, also made comments that indicated that Israel does not intend to continue fighting this war until the Iranian regime completely collapses. “Our aspiration is to bring the Iranian people to throw off the yoke of tyranny,” he said during a visit late last night to the National Health Emergency Operations Center. “Ultimately it depends on them. But there is no doubt that through the actions taken so far we are breaking their bones — and our arm is still outstretched.”
• Two more civilians were killed in Israel yesterday from Iranian missiles. Both were constructions workers on site in the central city of Yehud, not far from Ben Gurion Airport.
• The name of the second of two soldiers killed in combat in Lebanon was released yesterday. Or Demry, 20, from Liman, near the northern border, was killed along with Maher Khatar 38. Khatar is the first IDF fatality from the Golan Druze community. Unlike Druze from inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders, Golan Druze almost never served in the IDF until very recently.
• Hezbollah too launched a barrage of rockets on central Israel yesterday. One missile hit the city centre of Ramleh, injuring 16.
• Following on Israel’s threat last week that Iranian regime officials in Lebanon who did not immediately leave the country would become targets, the IDF launched a targeted strikes on one hotel room in the Ramada Hotel in Beirut’s upscale Raouché district. The strike eliminated  five senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, all of whom were involved in financing and directing terrorist operations among Iran’s Lebanese and Palestinian clients. Ten other people were injured in the strike. At least 150 Iranian nationals are known to have left Lebanon since Israel issued the unusual threat last week.
• Meanwhile, the Israel Air Force continued its offensive operations over Iran. IAF airplanes struck the IRGC’s Quds Force Command Centre in Tehran, as well as a missile production and storage site in Isfahan. Airstrikes also disabled at least six Iranian airfields and destroyed the IRGC’s headquarters for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
• Trump administration envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were due to arrive in Israel today, but their visit has been cancelled. It had been intended to discuss strategic coordination between Washington and Jerusalem over the Iran war and, in particular, to focus on reactions among US allies in the Gulf.

Context: As the IDF continues its offensive operations in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah rocket and drone fire, potentially dramatic diplomatic developments are afoot.

• Lebanese President Joseph Aoun lashed out at Hezbollah in comments yesterday to European officials, saying “Whoever launched those missiles wanted to bring about the collapse of the Lebanese state, plunging it into aggression and chaos… all for the sake of the Iranian regime’s calculation.” He proposed a four-point plan to end the war that would include “establishing a full truce” with Israel and direct negotiations.
• Reports in US media indicated that Aoun was even open to the possibility of negotiating a full peace agreement with Israel, though both US and Israeli officials were reported to be sceptical about the seriousness of the proposal.
• Israeli commentators focused on the strategic dilemma Israel finds itself in at this point in the conflict on its northern border. On the one hand, military achievements from both the 2024 war with Hezbollah and the current fighting have pushed Lebanon into making diplomatic overtures that have been an Israeli wish for decades. If there is a genuine option for concluding the state of war that has been in place for nearly eight decades with Lebanon, there is every reason to pursue it.
• On the other hand, diplomatic and military conditions are ripe for an offensive which could land a deadly and unrecoverable blow on Hezbollah, weakened by the 2024, cut off from its Syrian land bridge, and nearly abandoned by its Iranian patron now deep in survival mode in the face of a massive US-Israeli barrage. To step back from this once-in-a-generation opportunity for the IDF to destroy its most tenacious regional enemy might not be a risk worth taking.
• Avi Issacharoff writes in Yediot Ahronot, “What Israel must understand above all about Hezbollah is precisely what Israel has failed to understand about Hamas all these years, including after October 7: This is an extremist religious organisation that will not hesitate to use any means at its disposal to hurt the other side. They are not afraid of suffering a large number of casualties or damage to real estate, as Hezbollah sustained in Israeli air strikes on the Dahiya Quarter. This is an organisation that has sent hundreds of people to their deaths fighting in Syria in order to save an Alawite tyrant [then president Bashar al-Assad] because that is what Iran ordered it to do. This organisation will do everything it can to cause Lebanon to go up in flames, if only in order to rekindle the broad support [it once enjoyed] in that country. Hezbollah was the side party that invented suicide terrorism in the Middle East, and it does not appear that disarming the group and handing it to one Lebanese government or another will be a simple matter of Israeli bombings from the air.”
• Since Hezbollah joined the war on March 2, most of its rocket fire in this war has been aimed at northern Israel. For Israeli residents, the difference between attacks from Lebanon and Iran is in the lead time to seek shelter: Alerts are sounded when Iranian missile fire is detected, usually five minutes before the sirens that indicate 90 seconds to impact. This gives most people enough time to seek a hardened shelter. With rocket fire from Lebanon, there is no alert, just the siren that gives 90 seconds. For anyone not near a hardened shelter, this is just enough to find a stairwell or some windowless room to seek shelter.
• The weapon that has been a leading source of concern for the Israeli home front was the cluster munitions affixed to Iranian ballistic missiles. These work by releasing a cluster of two dozen or so submunitions from a missile warhead about 10km above the ground, which then disperse over a wide area. They are designed to be used over large military targets, such as airfields, and their use over cities in the manner that Iran has used them in both this war and the Twelve Day War last June is illegal under international law.

What’s happened: The IDF and the US armed forces have kept up relentless strikes against the Iranian regime and military targets.

• In the last 24 hours, more than 140 targets of the Iranian regime were bombed using more than 900 munitions.  IDF Spokesperson Defrin said last night that the air force headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been destroyed.  The headquarters had been used to fire missiles and drones at the Israeli home front and at the Persian Gulf states.
• On Sunday, the IDF eliminated Abu al-Qassem Baba’iyan in Tehran. Baba’iyan was only recently appointed as the Head of the Military Office of the Supreme Leader and the Chief of Staff of the emergency command of Headquarters. Baba’iyan was appointed after his predecessor, Ali Shadmani, was eliminated during Operation Rising Lion in June 2024.
• Israel also targeted Iranian fuel storage facilities in Tehran on Saturday. This was the first reported attacks on Iran’s oil infrastructure since the start of the war. The IDF said the fuel was used for their missiles programme and to support their military and was therefore a legitimate target.
• Iran meanwhile continues to fire missiles at Israel and overnight, air raid sirens were triggered in the centre of the country, the south, and the coastal region.  Some of the missiles were intercepted and the others fell in uninhabited areas. There are reports this morning of six missiles hitting Tel Aviv area with two reportedly killed. Meanwhile, communities in the north remain under frequent rocket and drone attacks from Hezbollah.
• The IDF has also continued its offensive again Hezbollah targets. This morning it carried out several waves of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s Dahiya neighbourhood. Lebanese media also reported an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
• Also over the weekend, the Israeli Navy conducted a precision strike that eliminated five senior commanders in the IRGC Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps, while they were meeting at a hotel in Beirut.
• Two IDF soldiers were killed on the Lebanese border yesterday. Sgt. Maj. Maher Khatar, 38, was laid to rest last night in Majdal Shams. The name of the second soldier has not yet been released. Prime Minister Netanyahu eulogised Maher as, “a brave fighter from the Druze community, [who] served as an example and inspiration to the youth of Majdal Shams who enlist in the ranks of the IDF, a growing trend in recent years that serves as an expression of the eternal covenant between us.”
• Over the past week, in Lebanon, the IDF revealed that it, “struck over 600 terror targets across Lebanon from the air, sea, and ground, with some 820 munitions. During the strikes, more than 190 terrorists were eliminated, including the terrorist Abu Hamza Rami, the Commander of Islamic Jihad in Lebanon with the equivalent rank of Major General, two commanders at the equivalent rank of colonel, and three battalion commanders in the terrorist organisation. In addition, 27 waves of strikes were conducted in the Beirut region, including five in the Dahiya area.”
• Iranian attacks on the Gulf states continued on Sunday, despite President Pezeshkian’s pledge on Saturday to halt them. This may suggest a rift between the political leadership and the IRGC, which is responsible for most military operations. The attacks are now targeting oil refineries and desalination plants that are vital to the economy and daily life in the Gulf states.

Context: Ten days into the campaign, the US and Israel continue their division of labour with systematic strikes on Iran’s military and industrial capabilities.

• In the context of the war’s second phase (following the first phase of decapitation and establishing air superiority across most of Iran), the Israeli and US Air Forces are expanding the scope of their operations to increase the damage on Iran’s military, industrial and technological infrastructure. This includes strikes on IRGC headquarters, IRGC Air Force command centres, Basij and internal security headquarters.
• An IDF general is quoted in Yediot Ahronot saying, “We can’t miss this opportunity. We mustn’t take our foot off the gas pedal until this regime collapses—neither we nor the United States. This is an opportunity that we won’t get again.”
• From Israel’s perspective, one of the primary objectives remains the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal. According to military estimates, Iran began the war with approximately 460 missile launchers and now has only about 150 left. Military officials describe creating ‘bottlenecks’ in the Iranian ability to launch heavy barrages, but they do retain some capabilities. Overall Iran has so far launched around 250 ballistic missiles towards Israel. Israel had anticipated around 150 a day.
• 13 people have been killed in Israel  as a result of the Iranian strikes, with several more severely injured, including the fatalities from this morning. 
• Overall, Iran has so far launched a total of around 830 ballistic missiles and over 1,300 drones across the region. On the first day, Iran launched around 350 ballistic missiles and nearly 300 drones.  Over the weekend, this had fallen to roughly 15–30 missiles a day.
• The apparent appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader is being interpreted as a sign of ongoing Iranian belligerence. Israel’s Defence Minister Katz has stated that any successor would be considered a target. A more conciliatory candidate could have posed more of a dilemma, particularly for some US officials who have expressed a desire to reach a surrender agreement with a more pragmatic leadership.

Looking ahead: At present, the IDF is preparing for a war that could last several weeks.

• Israeli military leaders recognise that the war will last as long as President Trump decides. Trump has suggested a military campaign would last about four weeks.
• Israeli officials are conscious that as successful as their military action may be, it will ultimately also require action by the Iranian public in order to topple the regime.
• In the US, there is speculation that Trump is considering sending in special forces in order to seize the stockpile of Iran’s approximate 450 kg of enriched uranium that remained following the June 2025 war.

Inside Iran: Last night IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Defrin updated the public about Israeli achievements since the beginning of the war:

• “We attacked, destroyed and decommissioned some 300 Iranian defence systems and ballistic missiles. We also struck targets from the Iranian nuclear programme. In addition, we struck targets in the industry of terrorism and strategic arms-production facilities. At the same time, we eliminated on the basis of intelligence and with precise execution many high-ranking commanders in the regime. We have struck the regime powerfully and we have no intention of stopping for a moment.”
• White House Press Secretary Leavitt described, Operation Epic Fury as “a resounding success” adding that American forces have struck “more than 2,000 targets, destroying hundreds and hundreds of ballistic missiles, launchers and drones.” According to Leavitt, the US expects to have “complete and total dominance over Iranian airspace in the coming hours.”
• The war has now passed the first 100 hours and its first stage has been completed. The first stage included:
  • The initial tactical surprise that led to the elimination of 40 senior regime officials (in under a minute) in Tehran, including the most important one of all, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
  • Following this, the non-stop bombing of aerial defence targets, surface-to-surface missiles, radar installations and detection systems.
  • Within 48 hours Israel had achieve aerial superiority in Western Iran and over the skies over Tehran, and now they (along with the US) are close to aerial supremacy over the entire country.
  • The next stage was the methodical hunting of remaining missile launchers, both hidden and mobile.
  • Over the past 48 hours, Israel and the US have targeted the Iranians regime’s command and control centres, with the goal of disrupting Iran’s ability to control the fighting.
• The IDF were particularly proud to announce yesterday the downing of an Iranian aircraft. This was the first time that an F-35 jet had downed an enemy fighter jet anywhere in the world. It was also the first time in 40 years that the Israeli Air Force had done so.
• Commentators have noted that the dispatching of antiquated aircraft was a further sign of Iranian desperation and a final attempt to defend its airspace.
• Israel can now proceed to the second stage of the war: the systematic destruction of the Iranian regime’s military capabilities. This will include thousands of targets.
• Meanwhile according to the division of labour, the US are expected to complete the destruction of the Iranian navy within the next few days.
• US media has reported thousands of Kurdish fighters from Iraq have launched a ground offensive last night on Iranian soil. The Economist reported that thousands of Kurdish fighters have been armed and trained by the CIA in recent months, and that most of the Iranian Kurds are waiting in Iranian territory for orders.

Israel’s home front: Iran fired several missiles at Israel, yesterday, last night, and again early this morning. Sirens sounded in central Israel and in the Jerusalem area. All of the missiles were intercepted. No casualties or damage was caused.

• In northern Israel there were numerous sirens, mostly as a result of Hezbollah drones from Lebanon.
• The overall assessment is the Iran’s capabilities are gradually being degraded. According to US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine there has been an 86 percent reduction in firing.
• Were it not for Hezbollah’s rocket fire, the current situation would be even more stable.Israeli intelligence has assessed that the Hezbollah leadership came under heavy pressure from Iran to join the attacks on Israel. Wednesday saw instances of simultaneous attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, suggesting they are in coordination, but these attacks were on a much smaller scale than what Israel had prepared for.  
• As a result of the reduced attacks, Ben Gurion Airport has been reopened after five days in which it was shut down. A first flight from Athens landed at the airport earlier this morning. It is estimated that about 100,000 Israelis are stranded overseas and are waiting for an opportunity to return home. Around 10,000 Israelis are expected to arrive at the airport every day moving forward.
• Also as a result of the reduction in incoming missiles the Home Front Command has revised its public guidelines. As of this morning, the public will be allowed to go to all places of work that have bomb shelters. Schools will remain closed for the time being. Gatherings of up to 50 people are now allowed under the revised guidelines, provided the people in attendance have access to adequate shelter.
• Israel remains on alert for the possibility of the Houthis to also join the war.

Lebanon: Hezbollah has been trying to challenge IDF troops along the line of contact, notably attacking troops with ant-tank missiles.

• Israel sees these attacks as a justification for moving ground troops into the border area, so that Hezbollah ground fire is directed at the soldiers and not civilian areas in northern Israel.
• As a point of principle Israel has not called for the evacuation of any Israeli northern communities (unlike October 2023).
• Whereas the IDF has called for a large temporary evacuation of Lebanese civilians to move north of the Litani river, as they will continue to target what remains of Hezbollah military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.              
• Throughout Wednesday the IDF also conducted a wave of strikes in Beirut targeting Hezbollah infrastructure. Targets included an underground weapon storage facility and additional command centres.
• Israel remains vigilant to the possibility that elite Hezbollah Radwan troops will attempt to infiltrate into northern Israel.

What’s happening: Hezbollah launched a rocket and drone attack on northern Israel last night just before 1:00 am local time, effectively ending the ceasefire in place in Lebanon since its defeat in November 2024. The Lebanese terrorist group, funded and trained by Iran, said that its rocket attack on Israel was in response to Israel’s elimination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

• Lebanese state media reported that the Lebanese Justice Minister ordered the arrest of those responsible for the rocket fire on Israel last night. In the November 2024 ceasefire, Lebanon committed itself to disarming Hezbollah, a process that had been underway, albeit not at a pace or thoroughness that was satisfactory to Israel and other parties to the ceasefire, including the United States.  
• Israel responded with a massive military operation against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including in the Dahiya Quarter of Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and southern Lebanon. “We are not only operating defensively – we are now going on the offensive as well,” Chief of General Staff Eyal Zamir announced this morning.“ We must prepare for many prolonged days of combat ahead.” Lebanese officials reported 39 deaths and 149 injuries as a result of the Israeli air strikes this morning.
• According to a Saudi media report, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammad Raad was eliminated  earlier today.
• The IDF’s Arabic-Language Spokesperson Lt. Col. Ella Waweya called on civilians to evacuate 53 Lebanese villages along the country’s southern border with Israel.
• Prime Minister Starmer announced a partial reversal of his decision not to allow US forces to use British bases to conduct attacks on Iran, following the targeting by Iran of British bases in both Cyprus and the Gulf. He emphasised in his public statement that Britain would not be participating in offensive operations. “We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran,” he said in a video released by Number 10, “and we will not join offensive action now.”
• Nine Israelis were killed in Beit Shemesh yesterday when an Iranian missile slammed into a bomb shelter inside a synagogue. It is the deadliest single incident caused by any Iranian missile in Israel in either the current war or the one last June.

Context: The expansion of the war into Lebanon comes on a backdrop of Israeli operations in the weeks preceding the new war preparing for just such an eventuality. At least eight different reported air strikes took place between February 16 and February 22. Fourteen people were killed in these strikes, including two Hamas operative and ten members of a Hezbollah rocket cell. In the latter strike, which took place on February 20, much of Hezbollah’s long-rage rocket store was reportedly destroyed as well.

• Lebanon was not the only country dragged into the Iranian regime’s struggle to survive the Israeli-American offensive. Iranian drones hit the RAF  Akrotiri in Cyprus, causing damages but no injuries. Meanwhile, Iranian rockets and drones have been launched at targets in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, and Iraq, largely, but not entirely, at US facilities including airbases and embassies.
• In Saudi Arabia, a major oil refinery in  Ras Tanura, near the border with Bahrain, was hit by debris from intercepted drones. According to the Saudi Ministry of Energy, the fire at the refinery is now under control, no one was injured, and there should be no impact on supplies.
• The air offensive in Iran took on a very different character yesterday.
  • On Saturday morning, the war opened with Israeli-led targeted strikes on senior regime figures, including most notably the Supreme Leader Khamenei. Throughout the day, US and Israeli planes targeted missile launchers and other military facilities, with particular emphasis on suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) operations.
  • With air superiority achieved, a new wave of airstrikes were launched at regime targets, particularly those associated with the brutal crackdown on protestors in January. Command and control systems, bases, and headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards and the notorious Basij militia were the principal targets yesterday, with unconfirmed reports that hundreds and possibly more were killed in these operations.
  • If  protestors once more take to the streets, it will be Basij and Revolutionary Guard men who are tasked with once more putting them down by force.
• The choice of targets would indicate that the US is keen to move on all four of the issues it had raised with Iranians in negotiations that took place before the onset of hostilities: the nuclear programme, the ballistic missile programme, regional proxies, and the violent crackdown.
• It further indicates that American planners both see regime change as a real possibility and but do not believe that American forces should or could be the ones to bring it to fruition.
• This operation appears intended not just to reduce Iran’s capability to threaten its neighbours, including close US allies, but also, when the day comes, to make it impossible for the Islamist regime to be able to protect itself from the wrath of its own public.
• The IDF released figures from its own assessments of operations in the first two days of the war in Iran. According IDF estimates, hundreds of Iranian missile were destroyed along with 200 launchers, roughly 50% of Iran’s total before the onset of the current war. Iran’s central explosive production site was destroyed, as were multiple sites connected to missile production and the production of anti-tank weapons for shipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon. 
• The reaction of UK politicians has been mixed.  Keen to avoid comparisons to Tony Blair’s Iraq war, PM Kier Starmer has been quick to distance himself from the strikes, as some claim the war on Iran is illegal.  By comparison, others claim the Prime Minister has embarrassed the UK, by leaving our key allies to fight a common enemy alone.  With the recent by-election loss, and local elections coming in May 2026, the government are clearly nervous that this conflict will be used as a tool for opponents, such as the Green party, to defeat Labour.

Looking ahead: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrives in Washington today. His position on the war in Iran has been only slightly less ambiguous than Starmer’s and Macron’s. Yesterday he told reporters that “we share the US’ interest in seeing an end to this regime’s terror and a halt to dangerous nuclear and ballistic armament” and that “we are not lecturing our partners on their military strikes against Iran.” All this was said without actually endorsing the Israeli-American operation and explicitly casting doubt on whether it could achieve its stated goals.

• IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said this morning that Israel was not planning a ground operation in Lebanon. He further said that the war in Iran “will last as long as it lasts.”

What’s happening: Israel is on high alert for a dramatic escalation in Iran as the US continue to concentrate its forces in the region. However, schools remain open and citizens continue their daily routines.

• Indirect talks in Geneva between the US and Iran continue to generate vastly contradictory assessments from named and unnamed officials from both countries.
• Yesterday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters that following talks in Geneva, there was agreement between the sides on a “set of guiding principles.” A statement from the Iranian Foreign Ministry reported that, in a call with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, Araghchi “stressed the Islamic Republic of Iran’s focus on drafting an initial and coherent framework to advance future talks.”
• Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters yesterday in the White House that “a little bit of progress” was made during the recent talks, but that the sides are “still very far apart on some issues.”
• “The Iranians are expected to come back to us with some more detail in the next couple of weeks, so the president will continue to watch how this plays out” she added. “The president has been very clear with respect to Iran and any country around the world that diplomacy is always his first option and Iran would be very wise to make a deal.”
• Reports in the US media indicate that the US could be ready to mount a massive aerial offensive in Iran by sometime this weekend.
• Yesterday, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and is anticipated to reach the eastern Mediterranean within 48 hours.
• Overnight, the IDF carried out multiple air strikes in Lebanon on Hezbollah targets, including weapons storage facilities, missile launchers and military installations being used to plan attacks against Israel.
• The US is withdrawing all 1,000 of its troops from Syria, following the new Syrian regime’s consolidation of power, especially in the Kurdish regions of northeastern Syria. During the first Trump Administration, a similar decision by the President in 2018 led to an abrupt withdrawal of all 2,000 American troops then stationed in Syria as well.

Context: US demands centre on the Iranian nuclear programme and the ballistic missile programme, as well as ending support for its regional proxies and granting a measure of freedom to anti-regime protesters.

• US officials in Geneva and Washington are quoted in various media outlets, usually anonymously, as being extremely sceptical about any agreement being reached, with many pointing out disputes even regarding which topics are on the table.
• Israel’s Channel 12 quoted a senior US official as describing the talks in Geneva as a “nothing burger.” Another official quoted said Iran has until the end of the month to agree to a package of significant concessions on its nuclear program and that President Trump is “very close” to giving orders for a major strike.
• A report in the Wall Street Journal described US military options for a weeks-long operation as including a campaign to eliminate dozens of Iranian political and military leaders in an effort to overthrow the government. Another option under consideration is a more limited air campaign targeting nuclear and ballistic-missile facilities.
• The USS Gerald Ford will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is already positioned in the Persian Gulf region, as well as dozens of fuel tankers and more than 50 F-35, F-22 and F-16 fighter jets which have moved from various US bases to the region.
• In the event of renewed fighting between Israel and Iran, Iran would likely wish to see Hezbollah use what is left of its missile capabilities against Israel, something Hezbollah refrained from doing during the Twelve Day War last June.
• Israel believes that Iran has poured upwards of $1 billion worth of military aid to Hezbollah just over the last year, with the understanding that in a future war, Hezbollah would come to Iran’s side and attack Israel from Lebanon.
• Israeli officials expect to receive some kind of short notice of an impending US operation, if one is ultimately ordered. There were reports in Israeli media that intelligence officials believe that Iran might refrain from attacking Israel if Israel is not involved in the US strike, largely out of fear of what an Israeli retaliation might look like. All sides consider it unlikely that US air strikes, however devastating, could on their own deliver regime change.

Looking ahead: Representatives of 45 nations will take part in the launch of President Trump’s Board of Peace today. The meeting will take place in the recently renamed Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. Trump is expected to announce $5 billion in pledges from donor nations for Gaza reconstruction, including $1.2 billion from each of two close US allies in the Gulf, Kuwait and the UAE.

• The Board will likely make formal announcements of states participating in the planned International Stabilisation Force, but it is unclear for now if there will ever be a formal announcement of the ISF’s mandate or a detailed plan for the disarmament of Hamas.
• A senior US official said that Secretary of State Rubio will visit Israel on February 28.