"The US Senate rejects a resolution aimed at curbing President Donald Trump’s authority to continue military strikes on Iran, in a narrow congressional show of support for a conflict launched without explicit approval from lawmakers.

The bipartisan measure, introduced by Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Rand Paul, would have required the withdrawal of US forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress authorizes the campaign.

But with Republicans holding a 53–47 majority in the upper chamber of Congress and largely backing the president’s decision to attack Iran alongside Israel, the resolution falls short by exactly that margin..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-senate-defeats-resolution-to-curb-trumps-war-powers-against-iran/

"Iran will target the Israeli nuclear site of Dimona if Israel and the US seek regime change in the Islamic Republic, semi-official ISNA news agency reports, citing an Iranian military official."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iran-threatens-to-target-dimona-nuclear-site-if-israel-us-seek-to-topple-islamic-republic/

"A slight majority of Americans disapprove of US President Donald Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, including roughly one-third of moderate Republicans, a new poll indicates.

Fifty-four percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s management, compared to 41% who approve and 5% who say they aren’t sure, a poll published by NBC finds.

A similar share, 52%, say the US should not have taken military action against Iran, compared to 41% who say it should have and 7% who say they aren’t sure..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/most-in-us-disapprove-of-trumps-iran-war-handling-1-3-of-non-maga-republicans-oppose-the-us-strikes/

"Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have begun ground activity inside Iran from areas near the Iraqi border, Israeli and American officials confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, in a development that could open an additional front against Tehran as regional tensions continue to escalate.

The Kurdish forces operating along the Iran-Iraq border are considered one of the most prominent armed opposition groups confronting the regime in Tehran. The organizations involved are Iranian Kurdish groups that maintain thousands of fighters, most of whom operate from territory in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq along the frontier with Iran.

According to Kurdish sources, these forces have been preparing in recent days to participate in ground operations in western Iran with the aim of pressuring Iranian security forces and dispersing them across multiple arenas..."
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-888881

"Several reports cite sources as saying Kurdish militias in Iraq have launched a cross-border military operation in Iran. However, Iran’s Tasnim news agency, quoted by Reuters, says its reporters in three border provinces deny the reports.

Channel 12 reporter Barak Ravid, who earlier cited a US official confirming the offensive, updates that there are “conflicting reports” and says that a senior official in one of the Iranian-Kurdish factions also denies that a ground offensive has begun..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/several-reports-say-kurdish-fighters-have-launched-cross-border-attack-in-iran/

"As the rate of Iran’s ballistic missile fire on Israel slows, the IDF Home Front Command says it is easing restrictions that were imposed on the Israeli public at the start of the conflict.

Following a fresh assessment, the Home Front Command says that from tomorrow at noon, the activity scale in the country will be adjusted from “essential activity” to “limited activity.”

As part of the changes, educational activities remain prohibited, except for a number of outlined exceptions; gatherings of up to 50 people are permitted, provided a shelter can be reached in time; and workplaces can operate under the same conditions.

The guidelines remain in effect until Saturday night, when the Home Front Command will conduct another assessment..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/wartime-restrictions-to-be-eased-to-allow-limited-workplace-gathering-resumption-education-activities-still-banned/

"The Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon fired rockets and drones at Israel on Wednesday, including in several waves carried out concurrently with salvos of ballistic missiles from Iran aimed at the Jewish state.

Two people were injured in central Israel in one of the concurrent attacks, in which Hezbollah targeted the country’s center and north with around 10 rockets, and Iran fired several ballistic missiles, also at central Israel.

The new salvos came on the fifth day of the conflict, which began on Saturday with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Lebanon was dragged into the war on Monday when the Tehran-backed Hezbollah terror group launched an attack on Israel to “avenge” the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting ongoing Israeli air strikes and a push by troops into southern Lebanon..."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-iran-launch-simultaneous-strikes-on-israel-2-soldiers-wounded-in-lebanon/

"Israel is prepared for the war with Iran to continue until Passover, a senior Israeli official told public broadcaster KAN News on Monday.

The duration of the war, the official stated, may depend on the Iranian people. A signal for them to take to the streets has not yet been given, but it is expected soon, KAN noted, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Additionally, recent security cabinet meetings judged that the rate of fire coming from Iran is expected to slow down due to damage inflicted by the days of Israeli and US strikes. According to the KAN report, the Iranian regime only has around 200 missile launchers left..."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-888742

"n the coming week or two, the IDF and the US military will move to strike Iran in a broad, systematic campaign. The operation involves thousands of targets to be struck by the Americans. "The goal is to crush all regime targets," IDF sources said. Israel will focus on western Iran; the US will handle the east. "There are a huge number of targets, and it will take us time," IDF sources added. IDF sources said that immediately after Operation Rising Lion, a detailed after-action review process began. Maj. Gen. Hidai Zilberman, head of the IDF's Planning Directorate and a former IDF attaché in Washington, met with CENTCOM commander Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who took command several months ago. At that meeting, scenarios and updated intelligence were presented. IDF sources said that the shared understanding between both sides was that if either Israel or the US struck Iran, the Iranians would view that as justification to attack both Israel and the US together, and therefore, the conclusion was that it was better to prepare not only for joint defense, but for joint offensive operations as well.

fter that meeting, concrete joint planning began between the two militaries and continued for several weeks. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir's trip to the US and Washington was critical to this effort, IDF sources said – enabling the prospect of a joint war that starts together, continues together, and – the IDF hopes – ends together.

This is the first time Israel has fought a war alongside another country shoulder to shoulder – or more precisely, wing to wing. [my note: this is not correct- in 1956 Israel waged a war alongside the U.K. and France]..."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/03/04/idf-us-iran-joint-strikes-crush-regime-gulf-states/

"There is no way to know what the Middle East would look like today had the 12-day war with Iran in June 2025 lasted two more weeks, and had Israel been bold enough to eliminate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Perhaps the regional reality would look entirely different now. Perhaps the more than 30,000 casualties of the civilian uprisings inside Iran that followed that war – alongside hundreds of thousands of detainees, wounded, and those too frightened to act – would have found in that precise moment the historical opening for a change of regime. Perhaps they would have succeeded in accomplishing what may be far harder to accomplish without them today. We will never know.
A similar question – one that has never been asked with the weight it deserves – is what would have happened in the Middle East had Israel had the audacity, in 2013, to eliminate Bashar Assad before the Russian-Iranian axis had entrenched itself in Damascus. Perhaps Israel could have aligned itself then with the Druze and the Kurds, shaped a new sphere of influence in the north, and prevented Iran from consolidating its grip on our border. No less important: perhaps toppling Assad would have prevented Hezbollah from establishing itself in Lebanon as a semi-state military force resting on Syrian strategic depth. The Assad regime served as a logistical, diplomatic, and military artery for the flow of weapons, experts, and advanced capabilities from Iran to Hezbollah. Severing that Syrian artery in time might have altered the balance of power in Lebanon itself and produced a regional impact far more significant than the one that followed Assad's fall in 2024 – the fall we are so fond of celebrating.

Instead, we chose in real time a "hands-off strategy," a policy of cautious waiting that left the arena in other hands. The result was the entry of Iran and Turkey into Syria, the deepening of Iran's grip around us, and the transformation of Lebanon into a free zone for building offensive infrastructure against Israel.

This is also how the concept of the Campaign Between the Wars (Israel's doctrine of low-intensity strikes to prevent enemy arms buildup) was born. For years, we told ourselves a success story: hundreds of strikes, interdictions, and the prevention of "game-changing" weapons. At the tactical level, these were indeed impressive achievements. But in parallel, the Iranian stranglehold tightened around our neck. Iran entrenched its militias, intelligence infrastructure, missile arrays, and drone networks, and deepened its hold in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. This noose, tightening slowly, was presented as a containment achievement – while in practice it kept closing in. Only after October 7 did we dare call it by its name and understand the depth of the infiltration, the entrenchment, and its cost.

Israel is in love with tactical achievements. Time and again, we convince ourselves that the virtuoso tactics we display are, in fact, a strategic achievement. So it was with the "rounds strategy" against Hamas – a series of operations that yielded impressive military results. The public was sold the narrative of a deterred and weakened Hamas. In practice, we avoided a decisive blow and the decision to demilitarize Gaza back in 2014, when the cost was incomparably lower. We became addicted to tactics for a decade – and paid with strategy. The awakening on October 7 was painful accordingly.

So too in the 12-day war. A tactical, intelligence, and military achievement that demonstrated clear superiority. But immediately afterward, comforting strategic fictions were counted out to the public: the ballistic threat behind us, the nuclear threat behind us, Iran deterred. Nine months later, it became clear that it was not so. We understood – belatedly – that only regime change in Tehran will bring the story to an end. Everything else is just another round.

So too on the northern front. There too, tactical achievements against Hezbollah were presented as strategic gains. Until we woke up again to rockets over Haifa. Hezbollah, we got used to saying in recent months, is contained and deterred. But containment is not a strategy, and deterrence is not a substitute for changing reality.

Regional superiority is not measured by kinetic achievements alone – impressive as they may be – or by the targeted elimination of one leader or another. Regional superiority and political audacity are tested by the ability to produce diplomatic-strategic change. Such change demands staying power, a willingness to pay a price, and a clear understanding of strategic objectives – not point objectives.

Israel now stands before a historic opportunity that may not come again: changing reality in Iran through a change of government. This is not only about the necessary imperative to eliminate the Iranian military threat – the threat of a nuclear bomb, missiles, and proxies. Toppling the regime in Iran is critical to Israel's future because it will allow Israel to build an effective counter-bloc against the Turkey-Qatar-Pakistan axis – an axis that in the coming years could consolidate into a far more complex strategic challenge.

Israel's answer to the Muslim Brotherhood axis cannot settle for containment and prayer that the restrictions and restraints on Turkey and Qatar will be different from those imposed on Iran. Israel must aspire to anchor a clear counter-bloc: Israel-India-Greece. A bloc of sovereign, pragmatic states seeking stability and the fight against radical political Islam. Additional moderate states in the region will join it – and foremost among them, a post-war Iran. Iran, on the day after the ayatollahs – an Iran seeking to integrate into the world rather than set it ablaze – can and should join hands with Israel to counter the radical Islamist axis and become a core element in forging a strategic balance that will allow the region's stability over time. Israel and Iran found themselves on the same side in the 1960s and 1970s – a minority alliance against dangerous Arab radicalism. As then, so today.

And if the United States does not allow the staying power needed for such a change – if it again prefers short-term risk management over shaping reality – Israel must act in the arena where it has greater freedom of action. If the great devil – Iran – cannot be dealt with, at least the lesser devil – Hezbollah – must be dealt with. At the very least, Israeli leadership must not again miss a rare opportunity, one unlikely to repeat itself, for strategic change. The Israeli public is no longer buying a tactical achievement sold as a strategic one..."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/03/04/israel-tactical-wins-strategic-failure-iran-regime-change/

"The United States' systematic destruction of the Iranian navy continued with a strike on the corvette "Shahid Sayed Shirazi," filmed ablaze off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran..."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/03/04/us-submarine-destroys-iranian-warship-periscope-footage/