Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
ISRAEL-US WAR ON IRAN – NEWS & HEADLINES:
Why is If Americans Knew covering the war on Iran? It can not be overemphasized that Israel has been the impetus behind US policies and actions vis-a-vis Iran for years. This is especially true right now, under Donald Trump. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the US to attack Iran for decades.
The American people have made clear that they do not want to go to war with Iran, but Israel partisans and the Israel lobby use their massive political clout to bring about whatever is beneficial to Israel – including putting the US military in harm’s way. For more background on Israel’s role in American wars, watch IAK’s short film, “The Israeli Hit List.”
Iran says oil exports reach 1.5M barrels per day – 50% increase: Iran has likely earned $139 million per day by selling its flagship Iran Light crude so far in March, according to Bloomberg calculations.
IRGC issues evacuation warning for civilians close to US forces in Gulf States: The IRGC warns civilians to avoid US forces in the Gulf, as tensions rise with threats toward the UAE and Bahrain. Iran also launched drones and missiles at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Iran not engaging in talks with US despite receiving messages from mediators: Aragchi: Tehran insists it is not negotiating with Washington, reviews proposals through mediators while calling for a lasting end to conflict and questioning US regional role.
US and Israel ‘burning through’ Tomahawk and interceptor missiles in Iran: Alarm in Pentagon as stocks of key weapons running low after nearly a month of war.
US seeks urgent funds for interceptor stocks drained by Israel’s war on Iran: The Pentagon plans to redirect approximately $1.5 billion in previously approved funding to procure critically important interceptor missiles for Patriot, THAAD, and Standard Missile systems, Bloomberg reported. The decision comes amid growing concern over dwindling stockpiles after heavy use of interceptors in the ongoing war on Iran and the latter’s retaliatory campaign.
Trump extends Iran deadline to 10 days after Tehran sends oil tankers as goodwill gesture: President Donald Trump said Thursday he extended Iran’s nuclear negotiation deadline to 10 days partly because Tehran sent him 10 Pakistani-flagged oil tankers as a goodwill gesture, while warning he will strike Iranian power plants if no deal is reached.
Pentagon weighs sending 10,000 more combat troops to the Middle East: The massive surge in ground troops is being considered as President Trump says the U.S. is negotiating with Iran on a deal to end the war. Iranian officials haven’t agreed yet to hold a high-level meeting with the U.S. and they are suspicious that the U.S. diplomatic push is another trick.
Trump says Iran ‘begging’ for deal to end war as Tehran issues new demands: Trump says US, Israel wiped out navy and air force, as Iranian media reports that lawmakers plan to collect tolls for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Why these 6 Iranian islands could be crucial to Trump’s “final blow” of the war
Trump Admits Iran War Is Unconstitutional: “You’re Supposed to Get Approval”: Trump said he’s avoiding using the word “war” in reference to the Iran war, even though he’s used it many times.
EXPLAINER: From Iran to Lebanon: Four million people displaced by Israeli-US war: Three million Iranians and at least a million Lebanese have been forced from their homes because of Israeli-US attacks. UNICEF says over 370,000 children in Lebanon uprooted in 3 weeks under Israeli strikes.
Yemen’s Houthis say ready to intervene militarily if needed amid Israel-US war on Iran
The Israeli-US War on Iran Is Incentivizing Nuclear Proliferation: As nuclear-armed countries violate international law, others may turn to proliferation as a form of deterrence.
DEATH TOLL – WAR ON IRAN (tentative):
- United States: 13
- Israel: 19
- Iran: at least 1,937 (240 children)
- Other Arab states (including Palestine), at least 121
ISRAEL’S WAR ON LEBANON – NEWS & HEADLINES:
Although Israel signed a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in November 2024, Israel has attacked Lebanon almost every day since, committing over 10,000 air and ground violations – the most violated ceasefire deal in recorded history – and killing over 300. 80,000 residents remain displaced and unable to return home.
Additionally, Israel continues to occupy five Lebanese hilltops seized during the latest war, and other Lebanese areas it has held for decades. (Read about UNIFIL, the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, here.)
Israel sends more troops into southern Lebanon as ground invasion expands: Lebanon’s PM warns Israeli actions and statements threaten Lebanese sovereignty and violate international law.
Don’t Be Fooled. Zionist Leaders Have Always Wanted to Control Southern Lebanon: In a timeline from 1918 to now, historian Zachary Foster shows Zionists and Israeli leaders have wanted to occupy, annex, and dominate Lebanon since long before the existence of Hezbollah.
DEATH TOLL – WAR ON LEBANON (tentative):
- In Lebanon, at least 1,116 people have been killed (at least 118 of them children, 79 women, and 40 healthcare workers).
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM GAZA:
(For some basic info on the Palestine-Israel conflict, go here. For more critical context, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.
While a “ceasefire” is ostensibly in place, Israel has continued its assault on Gaza without interruption. If Americans Knew considers the war to be ongoing, and in its 890th day.
12 Palestinians injured in drone strike, wall collapse as heavy rains inundate tents sheltering displaced Gazans: Storm worsens living conditions as damaged infrastructure and shelter shortages leave thousands exposed.
Details revealed of Board of Peace plan for Gaza disarmament: The plan, which Board of Peace Director General Nickolay Mladenov supposedly presented to armed groups in Gaza, includes gradual disarmament, implemented over eight months. But Hamas has repeatedly refused to give up its arms as long as Israel’s occupation of Gaza continues.
* NOTE: In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance. While some earlier reports referenced a 21-point plan, the finalized proposal contains 20 points. Netanyahu reportedly demanded the removal of one item: a pledge that Israel would not annex the West Bank.
MUST-READ: Israel’s Best-Kept Secret: Palestinian Resistance Never Agreed to Disarm
DEATH TOLL – GAZA GENOCIDE (tentative):
- At least 691 since ceasefire began Oct. 11, 2025
- At least 72,267 killed (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls) since Oct. 7, 2023
- More statistics below
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM:
Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure dozens of incidents like the ones below, at the hands of Israeli soldiers and/or settlers. For background on the West Bank, read this and this. For information on the significance of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, read this and this.)
Israeli Colonizers* Kill One in Bethlehem, Injure Others in Nablus: Palestinian Mohammad Faraj Al-Malhi was killed, and others were wounded on Thursday, after illegal Israeli colonizers carried out an attack against citizens in the Harmala area, southeast of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.
Al-Malhi succumbed to a serious gunshot wound to the head, while three other members of the Al-Malhi family suffered injuries as a result of rocks hurled by the settler gang.
*NOTE: More than 700,000 settlers (often called “colonizers”) live illegally on Palestinian land in over 500 settlements and settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Some settler groups have a history of violence against Palestinians, often with the assistance of Israeli military forces. Learn more about Israeli settler violence here and here.
The Military Arm of the Campaign to Judaize the West Bank Has Been Given a Free Hand: The (Israeli) West Bank District Police are not part of the equation, the Shin Bet has become irrelevant, and the boundaries between Israeli citizens and the army have completely blurred in the West Bank. The project of cleansing the occupied territories of Arabs is gaining momentum – and no one is stopping it. ‘Even when there are reports that something is going to happen,’ says one reserve soldier, ‘we get there after the fact’.
Undercover Israeli Forces Shoot, Kidnap a Young Man in Nablus
Tulkarem: Soldiers Shoot Two Palestinians, Settlers Assault Seven
Israeli occupiers attack Bedouin community in West Bank’s south of Hebron
Thursday Dawn Israeli Invasion, Abductions, in the West Bank
Colonizers Injure Elderly Man, Install New Outposts Across West Bank
Israeli Colonizers Injure Several Palestinians Northeast of Tubas
DEATH TOLL – WEST BANK (tentative):
NEWS & HEADLINES FROM ISRAEL:
(Israel is a tiny country, about the size of New Jersey, with a population smaller than the US state of Georgia – about 10 million (of which about 20 percent are Palestinians), yet it is in the news constantly. As has been demonstrated again and again, however, mainstream media rarely covers Israel accurately. IAK gets the facts – sometimes from Israeli media sites, where we can get a glimpse inside this country that is rife with turmoil and contradictions, and that receives $63 million a day from America.)
Israel’s Netanyahu plans to extend mandatory military service amid deepening troop shortage: Army faces 15,000-soldier gap as chief of staff warns of ‘collapse’ without solution.
Israel chief of staff warns army nearing internal collapse amid multi-front war: Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said during a cabinet meeting that the military is facing deepening internal crises, particularly linked to severe manpower shortages. He reportedly warned that reserve forces “will not hold up”, criticizing the government for failing to address critical issues. “I am raising 10 red flags,” Zamir reportedly said.
Israel is being ‘dismantled’ by practicing apartheid says Tzipi Livni: Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni said on X: “A sovereign state has territory, one law for all, and a monopoly on weapons. Israel has no agreed-upon borders, there is no longer one law and justice for all but a religious system of law and justice in parallel to the state’s laws, and there are armed and violent militias that run rampant as they please. The government of Israel is dismantling the State of Israel.”
Israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people: Genocide does not require mass graves, it also includes efforts to destroy a people’s capacity to bring the next generation into being. Israel’s systematic use of torture and sexual violence against Palestinians meets that definition.
ANALYSIS: Pardon This Disgrace: Inside Trump and the Jewish Far Right’s Joint Venture to Absolve Netanyahu: Israeli far-right minister Amichai Eliyahu’s new recommendation to pardon Netanyahu reads like a Jewish supremacist’s guide to destroying democracy, fresh on the heels of yet another gross Trump intervention in the prime minister’s corruption cases
MORE NEWS & HEADLINES:
State Department diverts $1.25 billion from disaster and peacekeeping funds to Trump’s Board of Peace: The State Department transferred $1.25 billion to President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace by drawing on funds designated for international disasters and peacekeeping operations, according to a new report from Semafor. Officials pulled $1 billion from international disaster assistance, $200 million from peacekeeping operations, and $50 million from international organizations and programs to make up the total. Trump has said the United States will contribute $10 billion to the board overall, which he says will fund the rebuilding of Gaza.
A Tennessee Senate committee today approved the ‘Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act’ (HB 1446 / SB 1446), a bill that would prohibit state agencies from using the term “West Bank” in official government materials. The legislation instead requires agencies to refer to the region by its [so-called] biblical names, Judea and Samaria. If enacted, the law is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2026.
French students announce legal action over universities’ ties with Israel
Le Monde: ‘Majority’ of ICC bureau members support Karim Khan exoneration report (background on Karim Khan here; background on Israel and the International Criminal Court here).
ICYMI, A SELECTION OF YESTERDAY’S HEADLINES:
Netanyahu vows to seize new areas of Lebanon as annexation fears grow
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, settlers
Israeli Knesset advances death penalty bill for Palestinian prisoners
(Read yesterday’s daily update here.)
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 26, 2026*:
- At least 73,400 Palestinians killed, 183,676 injured – including:
- At least 72,267 killed (~22,000 children, 33,000 women and girls), 171,976 injured in Gaza
- At least 1,133 killed (~232 children), 11,700 injured in the West Bank
*NOTE: Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 8,000 more are still buried under rubble (some sources put the number of missing as high as 14,000); 3,000 more are reportedly missing. Only the dead who are brought to hospitals are included in the official fatality count. Additionally, the numbers of injured are very conservative estimates.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – March 25, 2026: ~1,661 – including ~1,139** on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 472 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, about 52 military and civilians (by one count, there have been 59 victims) in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel (these numbers do not include deaths from the conflict with Lebanon or the war with Iran).
By one count, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 282 Palestinian journalists and media workers (most recent March 9, 2026); Palestinians have killed 4 Israeli journalists (other groups have tallied between 215 and 351 Palestinian journalists killed – depending on the criteria used).
**NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- ‘No Innocent Children’: Far-right Israeli Lawmaker Defends Killing of Palestinian Family
- Mossad’s promises helped Netanyahu convince Trump that Iran could be toppled
- US Arms Control Official Refuses To Comment When Asked If Israel Has Nuclear Weapons
- Veterans warn US landing could be ‘more Gallipoli than Vietnam’
- In the West Bank, life is a constant battle – 3 articles
- Jacob Reses, one of the most powerful pro-Israel operatives in Trump’s Washington
- ‘Forever live by the sword’: Understanding Israelis’ massive support for Iran war
- UN’s special rapporteur on human rights says Israel is systematically torturing Palestinians
- Trump White House plagiarized Iran war manifesto from Israel-aligned think tank
- Gaza says 6–10 patients die daily waiting for treatment abroad as Israel blocks medical evacuations
- ‘Substantial evidence’ of double-tap strike in killing of Gaza’s Hind Rajab
- ‘Do Not Want To Die For Israel’: Doubts About Trump’s Iran Strategy Spread Among Troops
- Instead of taking Joe Kent’s claims seriously, the media is disregarding him as an antisemite
- Joe Kent’s Explosive Interviews about his Resignation over the Iran War
