The Israeli military is saying it has launched a wave of “extensive strikes” on Tehran targeting infrastructure of the Iranian regime. The announcement came in a social media post early on Monday.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the Russian army was attempting to “intensify” attacks on the front, but that Ukraine had inflicted heavy losses. “This week, we have observed attempts by the Russians to intensify their offensive efforts, taking advantage of more favourable weather conditions,” Zelenskyy said on social media after a meeting with Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky. But “the only tangible outcome for the Russian army has been an increase in their losses,” Zelenskyy said. Earlier on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of Potapivka, a small village near the Russian border in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. Ukrainian and US delegations concluded a second day of talks in Florida on finding ways to end the four-year war with Russia. Russian representatives were not present at the talks, which opened in Florida on Saturday. They were originally expected to attend the negotiations, which were due to take place in Abu Dhabi. Zelenskyy voiced hope on Sunday that the United States would keep up efforts to end the Russian invasion despite the US focus on attacking Iran, after envoys met in Florida. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s negotiator, reported unspecified progress during the two days of discussions, which came after the United States relaxed sanctions on Russian oil. “It’s clear that the primary focus of the American side at this time is the situation around Iran and in that region, but this war that Russia is waging against Ukraine must also be brought to an end,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address. Zelenskyy has said he has a “very bad feeling” about the impact of the war in the Middle East on the efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine and on defending his country while it remains ongoing. The Ukrainian president also addressed the strain on the special relationship between the UK and US amid the Iran war, saying the history between the two nations is “stronger than the emotions of two or three people”. He highlighted that Russian president Vladimir Putin “will want a long war” in the Middle East as it helps weaken Ukraine.
Tehran has said it will “irreversibly destroy” essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if the US follows through on Donald Trump’s threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the strait of Hormuz is fully opened within two days. As Iranian missiles struck two southern Israeli cities overnight, injuring dozens of people, and Tehran deployed long-range missiles for the first time, the developments signalled a dangerous potential escalation of the war, now in its fourth week, with both sides threatening facilities relied on by millions of people. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that vital infrastructure in the region – including energy and desalination facilities – would be considered a legitimate target and would be “irreversibly destroyed” if his country’s own infrastructure was attacked. Amnesty International said this month there was a substantial risk that attacks on systems providing essential services such as electricity, heating and running water would violate international law and “in some cases could amount to war crimes” because of the potential for “vast, predictable, and devastating civilian harm”. The Iranian military’s operational command headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya, said Iran would strike “all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure” belonging to the US and Israel in the region. The statement also said that if Trump’s threat was carried out, the strait of Hormuz would be “completely closed, and will not be reopened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt”. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said “threats and terror” were “only strengthening Iranian unity”, while the “illusion of erasing Iran from the map” showed “desperation against the will of a history-making nation”. The US president said on Saturday that he was giving Iran 48 hours – until shortly before midnight GMT on Monday – to open the strait of Hormuz, a vital pathway for the world’s oil flows, or the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants “starting with the biggest one first”. The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, defended Trump’s threat on Sunday, insisting that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controlled much of the country’s infrastructure and used it to power its war effort. He said Trump would start by destroying one of Iran’s largest power plants, but did not identify it. “There are gas-fired thermal power plants and other type of plants,” and “the president is not messing around”, he said. A No 10 spokesperson said Keir Starmer spoke to Trump on Sunday evening about the need to reopen the strait of Hormuz. Iran’s representative to the International Maritime Organisation, Ali Mousavi, said on Sunday that the strait was open to all shipping except vessels linked to “Iran’s enemies”, with passage possible by coordinating security arrangements with Tehran. Iranian attacks have in effect closed the narrow strait, which carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, causing the world’s worst oil crisis since the 1970s and sending European gas prices surging by as much as 35% last week. Only a relatively small number of vessels, estimated at about 5% of the prewar volume, from countries that Tehran considers friendly – including China, India and Pakistan – have been allowed to pass. More than 2,000 people have been killed in Iran since 28 February, when the US and Israel began their attacks, and Tehran in turn has struck targets in Israel and the Gulf states. Lebanon was drawn in after Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across Israel from the early hours of Sunday morning, warning of incoming missiles from Iran after scores of people were injured overnight in two separate attacks on the southern towns of Arad and Dimona. The Israeli army said on Sunday morning that it would strike Tehran in retaliation. The country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said during a visit to Arad that senior IRGC commanders would be pursued. “We’re going after the regime. We’re going after the IRGC, this criminal gang,” he said. “We’re going after them personally, their leaders, their installations, their economic assets.” The Iranian health ministry spokesperson, Hossein Kermanpour, said patients had been evacuated from the Imam Ali hospital in the south-west city of Andimeshk on Sunday after an airstrike a day earlier. Israel’s military said it had not been able to intercept the missiles that hit Dimona and Arad, the nearest large towns to the country’s nuclear centre in the Negev desert, which houses what is widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, insisting that the site is for research. The strikes marked the first time that Iranian missiles had penetrated Israel’s air defence systems in the area. The strikes wounded about 200 people, including a 12-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, both reported to be in a serious condition. The Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reported early indications of possible deaths but there was no official confirmation. Iran said the attacks had been launched in response to a strike on its main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz on Saturday. Israel denied responsibility for the attack and the Pentagon declined to comment. In Tel Aviv, 15 more people were injured on Sunday morning in a separate incident involving a cluster bomb. The attacks are adding to mounting pressure on Israel’s air defence systems as Iranian strikes increasingly test their limits. The World Health Organization said that the war was at a “perilous stage” and called for restraint. “Attacks targeting nuclear sites create an escalating threat to public health and environmental safety,” the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said. Tehran also fired long-range missiles for the first time on Saturday, the Israeli military chief, Eyal Zamir, said. Two ballistic missiles with a range of 2,500 miles (4,000km) were fired at the US-British Indian Ocean military base at Diego Garcia, he said. The British cabinet minister Steve Reed said one missile had fallen short and the other had been intercepted. There was no assessment backing claims that Iran was planning to strike Europe, he said. The Israel Defense Forces had said Iran had missiles that could reach London, Paris or Berlin, but Reed said he was not aware of any assessment at all that Iran was even trying to target Europe, “let alone that they could if they tried”. He said in a separate interview that Trump had been “speaking for himself” when he threatened to obliterate Iran’s power plants. Asked about Israel’s claims, Nato chief Mark Rutte said: “We cannot confirm that [Israel’s claims] at the moment. We are looking into that. “What we know for sure is that they are very close to having that capability.” Analysts said Trump’s threat had placed “a 48-hour ticking timebomb of elevated uncertainty” over energy and financial markets, with a “black Monday” of plunging stock markets and surging energy prices looming unless it was rowed back. At least six overnight attacks targeted a US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad airport, Iraqi officials said, while Saudi Arabia said three missiles had been detected over Riyadh. The UAE said it had responded to Iranian missile and drone attacks. In southern Lebanon, Israel said its military had raided Hezbollah sites on Sunday and killed 10 of the group’s fighters. It said it was expanding its ground campaign in Lebanon, warning of a lengthy operation. Hezbollah said it had attacked several border areas in northern Israel. One person was killed in an Israeli kibbutz, emergency services said. At least 10 Palestinians were injured on Sunday night in attacks in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers who rampaged through nearby villages after holding a funeral for a settler killed in a car crash a night earlier. Videos obtained by the Associated Press appeared to show cars and homes set ablaze as army flares lit up the sky near the village east of Nablus and next to the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh. Three Turkish nationals, including a soldier, and three Qatari service personnel were killed when a helicopter crashed in Qatar’s territorial waters, the country’s defence ministry said on Sunday. According to an academic analysis seen by Reuters, an interceptor missile that injured dozens of civilians in Bahrain 10 days into the war was probably fired by a US-operated Patriot air defence battery. Manama and Washington have blamed an Iranian drone attack for the explosion on 9 March, which Bahrain has said injured 32 people including children, some of them seriously.
The Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire has been elected mayor of Paris, roundly beating the former rightwing minister Rachida Dati. He instantly took a victory bike ride with future councillors on Sunday night to show that the city would continue its pro-cycling and environmental policies. “There’s lots to do and we’ll start tomorrow morning,” said the Socialist MP who has a long track record at city hall, where he had worked with the former Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo. After running on a united left ticket including the Greens, Grégoire said there were several priorities for the French capital. “I’m thinking of the most fragile people, those who will sleep on the streets tonight,” he said. “I’m thinking of children who are suffering … all the most vulnerable who need the left.” He said he had “an immense responsibility” to Parisians. Grégoire was projected to have won with about 52% of the vote. This marked a clear win against Dati, who served in government under Emmanuel Macron and Nicolas Sarkozy and had sought to win the French capital for the right after 25 years of it being governed by the left. During the campaign, Grégoire, 48, had warned that Dati would turn the capital into “a Trumpist laboratory of the alliance between the right and far right”. After Sunday’s result, Grégoire said Paris would resist the right and far right in the leadup to next year’s presidential elections. Macron’s two terms as president come to an end next spring and Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) is polling high. Grégoire said: “Paris will be the heart of the resistance against this alliance of the right, which seeks to take away what we hold most precious and fragile: the simple joy of living together.” Hidalgo, the outgoing mayor, said: “Paris has chosen the future with the democratic and green left.” In France’s second city, Marseille, the mayor, Benoît Payan, won with his leftwing coalition including the Socialists and the Greens – holding back a rise of the RN. Payan said Marseille had delivered “a message of peace and unity”. He said it was a win for “humanists who refuse the voices that push for division”. Elsewhere, the former prime minister Édouard Philippe is now expected to kickstart his centre-right candidacy for the French presidency next year after being re-elected as mayor of the northern port town of Le Havre. Philippe was prime minister during Macron’s first term in office, including during the start of the Covid pandemic. He has been building up for more than a year to run for president in 2027. As the only presidential hopeful running in the municipal elections, Philippe won with more than 47% in a town he has run since 2010, and is now expected to use the win to accelerate his presidential campaign. But he faces other potential candidates on a crowded centre right, including the justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, and the former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who heads Macron’s centrist Renaissance party. Philippe said: “The people of Le Havre know that there is reason for hope when all people of good will come together in a discourse of truth and reject the extremes and its simplistic solutions.” More than 1,500 cities and towns voted in the second round of local elections on Sunday, seen as a test of the political temperature before the presidential election. Among the first towns to count their votes, the RN failed to win some of its key targets. Laure Lavalette, a close ally of Le Pen, did not win in Toulon, a historic naval city on the Mediterranean with a population of 180,000. Instead, the current traditional-right mayor held the city. In the south-eastern city of Nîmes, the RN’s Julien Sanchez failed to win. Instead, the communist Vincent Bouget, heading a union of the left, won the city, which had been run by the traditional right for 25 years. But as the count continued, the RN won the town of Carcassonne in the south-west, and several other towns. The RN leader, Jordan Bardella, said the increase in local councillors was “historic”. He said: “Never has the RN and its allies had so many elected officials across France.” He said this marked a “dynamic in favour of our ideas”. Crucially, a key ally of the far right won in Nice on the French Riviera – France’s fifth biggest city. Éric Ciotti, who quit as leader of the traditional right’s party, Les Républicains, and joined forces with Le Pen in 2024, won Nice from his bitter rival and one-time rightwing ally, Christian Estrosi. Ciotti’s new party, the Union of the Right for the Republic, could now increase its membership and will position itself to support a far-right presidential candidate next year. The first results also showed some wins for Les Républicains, including the traditionally Socialist stronghold of Clermont-Ferrand. The Green mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, was predicted to keep hold of the city, ahead of Jean-Michel Aulas, the former head of Olympique Lyonnais Football Club, who had run for the right.
Campaigners in Slovenia warned of a surge in anti-Romany rhetoric as the country headed to the polls on Sunday, leaving many bracing for the outcome of a vote that has become, in part, a referendum on how the country treats its most marginalised. In Sunday’s vote, the prime minister, Robert Golob, of the centre-left Freedom Movement party, faced off against the rightwing populist and Donald Trump ally Janez Janša. Preliminary results on Sunday evening showed liberals and opposition rightwing populists were neck and neck, heralding a period of political uncertainty in the small EU country. Both Golob’s and Janša’s parties won a little over 28% of the vote, the state election commission said after counting 97% of the ballots. In the months leading up to the elections, much of the focus has been on access to public services, including healthcare, and accusations of graft. Questions of social policy have also threaded through the campaign, with campaigners accusing both Golob and Janša of scapegoating the country’s Romany minority. Golob’s government was accused last year of treating Romany people as a security threat, while Janša, athree-time former prime minister, has claimed they benefit from a double standard when it comes to rights and equality. “We Roma are facing two evils here in the election,” said Zvonko Golobič, who heads the Association for the Development of the Roma Community in the south-eastern town of Črnomelj. “So the question is: who is less evil?” Slovenia’s population of about 2.1 million includes an estimated 12,000 Roma. Many are singularly vulnerable: in 2020, Amnesty International said that life expectancy for Roma in Slovenia was 22 years lower than the rest of the population, and infant mortality more than four times higher. Several communities in the country continue to lack access to clean drinking water, electricity and sanitation as well as basic infrastructure and essential services. The election – and the discourse about Roma that has swirled in previous months – has left many worried that the community’s rights will be further eroded, said Haris Tahirović, the president of an umbrella group representing Romany communities across the country. “At this moment Roma are really afraid of who will come to power, what the political options will be, and what will happen after the elections,” he said. In November, the government passed a law that, in the view of campaigners, turned some Romany neighbourhoods into “security zones” by giving police power to enter homes in so-called “high-risk” areas and conduct raids without a warrant. The “Šutar law” was introduced after the death of Aleš Šutar, who was killed in an altercation linked to members of the Romany community. While Golob has said the measures are not aimed at “any particular ethnic group but against crime itself”, critics including Amnesty International have said they disproportionately affect the Romany community. Esther Major, Amnesty’s deputy director for research in Europe, said in a statement last November: “While not explicitly aimed at the Roma population, the vitriolic rhetoric used by the government to justify these measures raises serious fears that they would be deployed arbitrarily and discriminatorily against the Roma population. “Coupled with the security crackdown, punitive restrictions on social benefits could further penalise the most marginalised families.” Tahirović said it was little coincidence that Golob introduced the law in the run-up to the election. “He used it to scapegoat Roma because he recognised Roma as the easiest target to attack in order to save his place as prime minister,” he said. Even so, campaigners said it was likely that Janša – an ally of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, whose previous term in power was marked by attacks on media and migrants – would leave the community worse off. “He would be even more radical,” said Golobič, who is standing as a candidate for the newly formed We, Socialists! party, which is expected to receive about 1% of the vote in the election. “The stakes are high.” Before Sunday’s election, Janša suggested he would push for harsher sentences for Roma and potentially increase the number of areas designated “high risk”, meaning more Romany settlements could be targeted by security measures. Janša has also vowed to cut funding for civil society, a move that could hinder the ability of the Romany community to organise and speak up about issues that affect them. Tahirović said: “We’re not asking for anything other than to be an equal part of this society.” The election contest has heated up in recent weeks, after leaked audio and video recordings purporting to expose government corruption were published on an anonymous website. Golob has denied the claims. This week an investigation alleged that Janša met individuals in December linked to the Israeli spy company Black Cube, sparking questions as to whether the agency, best known for working with Harvey Weinstein to allegedly quash reporting on allegations of sexual misconduct, was behind the anonymous website. Janša has denied any wrongdoing. Commentators have warned that the polarising campaign, pitting the populist Janša against Golob, the centre-left incumbent, has left the country at a crossroads. Robert Botteri, an editor at the magazine Mladina, told Reuters: “These are … perhaps the most important elections ever in Slovenia because they will decide if Slovenia remains a democratic welfare state or it aligns with illiberal democracies.”
It is approaching a month since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, arguing they were acting to remove the country’s nuclear threat, destroy its ballistic missile capability and free the Iranian people of a tyrannical theocratic regime. Yet it is Iranian civilians who are increasingly bearing the brunt of Israel and US’s campaign. Here’s what we know about the impact war is having on the Iranian public. The start of the war 28 February-7 March At least 175 people were killed, the majority of them children, by a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian school on the first day of Israeli-US bombing. US investigators reportedly believe American forces are responsible. On the same day, 20 people, including teenage girls playing volleyball, were killed after an attack that hit a sports hall in Lamerd, on Iran’s south coast, Iranian authorities said. Gandhi hospital, in Tehran, suffered extensive damage in strikes the day after, in what the World Health Organization chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described as an “extremely worrying” incident. Historic sites including the Unesco world heritage site Golestan Palace and the ancient Grand Bazaar in Tehran, along with shops and cafes across the country, were also significantly damaged in the first week of bombing ordered by the US president, Donald Trump, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Attacks on civilian sites are illegal under international law. Where they accept responsibility, Israel and the US argue that the devastation is incidental to strikes on nearby military or strategic targets. The UN’s refugee agency said 100,000 people fled the Iranian capital, Tehran, in the first 48 hours of attacks. Environmental impact 8-15 March Residents of Tehran reported black clouds and “black rain” on 8 March, describing downpours contaminated with toxic pollutants, a day after Israel said it had bombed fuel depots near the capital. The WHO warned that the environmental impacts of attacks on oil infrastructure could have severe health effects on children, older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions. Meanwhile, Iran’s ministry of culture and heritage reported that Israeli airstrikes had damaged culturally significant buildings in the city of Isfahan, which is known for its historic Islamic architecture, including Ali Qapu Palace, Chehel Sotoun and Jameh Mosque. The buildings, which the Iranian authorities said had been flying blue flags signalling their protected status, were hit hours after the third-century Shapur Khast castle, in western Iran, suffered structural damage. More than 40,000 civilian buildings, including 10,000 homes in Iran, were damaged in airstrikes in the first fortnight of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian NGO, said on 14 March, adding that they had received 70,000 calls from people seeking “mental health support, guidance … and counselling”. Hardship, uncertainty and fear 16-21 March The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, warned on 18 March that densely populated urban areas, along with major energy facilities, were coming under attack across the Middle East, meaning many people were observing Eid in “hardship, uncertainty, and fear”. The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights said civilians faced disruptions in electricity supply, and shortages of medicine, baby formula and fuel, while housing complexes, medical facilities, shops, courthouses, Unesco world heritage sites, energy installations and about 500 schools had been hit by US-Israeli missiles in Iran. The UN understands that the Iranian regime has continued its repression against citizens, with political prisoners facing harsher conditions, critics being arrested, and internet access restricted. Inflation in Iran is said to be at its highest levels since the second world war, exacerbating the cost of living crisis that triggered the protests that preceded the war, putting basic foods out of reach for many. The Iranian government raised the minimum wage by 60% on 20 March in response. On Saturday 21 March, Iran’s state broadcaster said more than 1,500 people had been killed in Iran since the war began. Trump warning 22 March Donald Trump is threatening the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure if Iran refuses to reopen the strait of Hormuz. Iran warned it was restricting passage through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s oil usually passes, within hours of the US-Israeli offensive. Since then, only about five ships a day have been passing through with the permission of the Iranian authorities, who are reeling from the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials. Oil prices have rocketed as a result. This weekend Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the chokepoint within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday, according to the time of his post. On Sunday, Iran said it would completely shut the strait if Trump proceeded with his threats, adding, in a statement: “We did not start the war and we will not start it now, but if the enemy harms our power plants, we will do everything to defend the country and the interests of our people.” On Sunday, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 80,000 civilian sites had been hit in the country since the war began, including 260 medical facilities.
Over three weeks of war, Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel, and injured many more, including about 200 in overnight strikes near a nuclear facility in the country’s south, but they have not touched public support for the war. An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls. Undaunted by the regular wail of air raid sirens, shuttered schools, cancelled flights or warnings the campaign could last weeks, more than half also wanted the US and Israel to keep bombing Iran until its government falls. Opposition politicians set aside campaigning for parliamentary elections due this autumn, backing the decision to attack Iran in an almost unanimous display of national unity. Enthusiasm for the war sparked speculation inside Israel that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might dissolve parliament early to capitalise on securing US backing for the conflict, and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This year’s vote will be the first chance for Israelis to have a direct say on their government since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. Netanyahu astonished political enemies and allies alike by hanging on to power after the bloodiest day in Israel’s history. He resisted taking personal responsibility for security failures that day, even as almost every other senior political, military and intelligence figure in office on that day apologised and stepped down. But even as he held a fractious coalition together, opinion polls showed that for most of the past two years, support stuck stubbornly below levels that would return him to power. Many Israelis believe that he saw toppling the Iranian regime, or pummelling its military capacities, as his best chance of persuading voters to reconsider his legacy – even though last year’s 12-day war on Iran had only a negligible impact on support. “As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the road to the polling stations runs through Washington and Tehran,” a minister close to Netanyahu told the Haaretz newspaper soon before the war began. “Destroying the Iranian axis of evil is the move that Netanyahu assumed, after 7 October, would rehabilitate his image.” That consensus prompted questions about Netanyahu’s intentions soon after the first bombs fell on Tehran. In Yedioth Ahronoth, the newspaper commentator Sima Kadmon asked if the war responded to “a security need or a coalition need”. Her scepticism was not shared by most Israelis, however. When Netanyahu told the country he had attacked Iran to remove an “existential threat”, most people believed him, even if they didn’t change their voting plans, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based public opinion researcher. “One of the most important data points for me is that in June 2025, close to two-thirds of Israelis believed he had taken action for genuine security reasons,” she said. “That makes a difference, given that for two years in the wake of the 7 October attacks, people thought he was taking major strategic decisions regarding the Gaza war for political reasons.” Political challenges to the war inside Israel have mostly come from Palestinian citizens of the country or outsiders such as Jonathan Shamriz, a first-time candidate. Shamriz’s brother was taken hostage on 7 October 2023, and later shot by Israeli forces in Gaza. He decided to enter politics after founding a grassroots movement for families bereaved in the Hamas-led attacks. “Bottom line, there isn’t an opposition,” he said in a social media post. “Does anyone know when the war will end? Does anyone know why we went into it in the first place? Does anyone ask questions?” Israeli triumphalism provides a stark contrast with the view of the war from outside the country, where news reports are dominated by fears of regional escalation, spiralling energy prices and the paralysis of sections of the Gulf regional economy built around tourism and safety. In a week that brought an intense focus on the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran, likely by US forces, that killed at least 175 people, the front page of the Jerusalem Post depicted a female Israeli fighter pilot hand-in-hand with an anonymous Iranian woman. “Women, Life, Freedom. The Israeli way”, the print read, co-opting the slogan of anti-regime protests that began in 2022. For many in the US, presenting airstrikes as a campaign for women’s rights carries echoes of the invasion of Afghanistan. Trump campaigned against foreign interventions, including that war, and his change of heart has not been echoed by all his voters. A majority of Americans, including Democrats and a significant number of Republicans, oppose what they see as a war of choice, polls suggest. Trump is now mixing threats of a boots-on-the ground mission with suggestions he wants to “wrap up” the conflict rapidly. Iran would argue that decision is not one Washington can make alone, and if the conflict drags on there may be a search for political scapegoats before US midterms in November. The war’s most high-profile critic yet from inside the Trump administration, the far-right former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, took direct aim at Israel when he resigned last week. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Joe Kent wrote in a letter posted to X. If that sentiment gains broader traction – at a time when bipartisan backing for Israel is already in decline – it could do severe damage to the country’s most important diplomatic relationship, said one senior former senior Israeli intelligence official. “I think the biggest risk in this war is losing the American people,” he said, highlighting prewar polls that already showed sliding support for Israel among Republicans and Democrats. “If there are many Americans killed, soaring fuel prices, and it doesn’t seem like a victory then it would just enhance those negative trends toward Israel that we are already seeing in the US.” While the US-Israeli relationship threatens to become a liability for Trump and his party, it is an electoral asset for Netanyahu, who has often campaigned on his standing as an international statesman. Trump is scheduled to visit Israel in May to collect the Israel prize, one of the country’s highest honours. If the war is over, the ceremony would be a valuable chance to showcase close personal ties with Trump before voters make their decision in an election with particularly high stakes for Netanyahu. With the country locked in a struggle over the nature of the national commission to investigate the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu’s political career, his legacy, and potentially also his personal freedom may all be on the line. The prime minister is fighting a long-running corruption case in court, after he was indicted on criminal charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. If he loses power, he will take the stand as a private citizen, or at most an opposition MP. Netanyahu has been pursuing a pre-emptive pardon with Trump’s enthusiastic backing, and raised the issue at his first news conference of the war. Israel’s justice ministry has advised against dropping the charges. Israeli politicians who support the war say they nonetheless fear Netanyahu will try to extract personal advantage from a national sacrifice. Naama Lazimi a legislator for the centre-left Democrats party, said: “Since Netanyahu became a criminal defendant, his political conduct has increasingly been driven by his personal survival. That is why there are legitimate concerns that, at times, his political considerations may outweigh Israel’s national security interests. “There is no doubt that the Iranian threat is existential and must be addressed with full gravity. However, Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be trusted not to exploit the war and the achievements of the IDF for his own political survival.” But if Netanyahu launched the war with at least one eye on his prospects at the ballot box, the bombing campaign has not translated into the hoped-for boost. Scheindlin said: “There has been no significant rally for trust in the government, just a few points which quickly declined back to prewar levels. This [war] is potentially reorganising the whole Middle East – and the Israeli public is barely raising an eyebrow.” Meanwhile, the campaign against Tehran has muted coverage of the humanitarian catastrophe and ongoing attacks in Gaza, and spiralling Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank. Yet if the polls are correct, and Israeli voters return a hung parliament, it may bring that conflict sharply back into focus. Parties that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel are likely to offer the only path for the opposition parties to form a government. The main Jewish opposition parties have vowed not to partner with them, and do not offer a substantially different agenda on foreign or domestic security from Netanyahu. Prominent challengers include the former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who headed the council for illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. All oppose a Palestinian state, despite strengthened international support and recognition. As global criticism has mounted of Israel’s war in Gaza – which scholars, rights groups and a UN commission say meets the definition of genocide – the US has proved a crucial diplomatic and military ally for an increasingly isolated nation. If the war with Iran causes lasting damage to that relationship, any military triumph could prove short-lived. “What if the day after we find ourselves alone?” Eli Leon wrote in Maariv. “If the price of bringing down the Iranian regime is breaking up the alliance with the United States … that will be a victory that ultimately costs us our ability to survive in this region in the long term.” Quique Kierszenbaum contributed reporting
Donald Trump has endorsed Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who faces his toughest electoral challenge next month since taking power 16 years ago, as Europe’s far-right leaders gather for a “grand assembly” in Budapest. In a video message, the US president told the national-conservative Cpac Hungary conference in the capital on Saturday that Orbàn, who has been trailing in the polls behind a centre-right rival for more than a year, was a “fantastic guy”. Trump, who also backed Orbán on social media last month, said he had been a strong leader who had “shown the entire world what’s possible when you defend your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty and your values”. “I hope he wins, and I hope he wins big,” he said. Orbán responded that the west had become a better place since Trump returned to power, with progressive policies being rolled back and traditional family and Christian values restored. Polling averages suggest Orbán’s challenger, Péter Magyar and his Tisza – or Respect and Freedom – party could outscore him by between nine and 11 percentage points on 12 April, in what is likely to be Europe’s most consequential parliamentary election of the year. Several leading European far-right figures, including Santiago Abascal of Spain’s Vox, André Ventura of Portugal’s Chega, Martin Helme of Estonia’s Ekre and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland’s Law and Justice party, attended the weekend event. They will be joined on Monday by Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally, Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom party for a “Patriots’ Grand Assembly”, named after their group in the European parliament. Orbán has long been at loggerheads with the EU over a range of issues. In defiance of Brussels, he has maintained cordial ties with Moscow, refuses to send weapons to Ukraine, and says Kyiv can never join the EU. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Sunday that he was not surprised by a Washington Post report last week that alleged Russia’s foreign intelligence service had proposed staging an assassination attempt against Orbán to boost his chances. The report also said Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, had called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, during EU summits to brief him. Tusk said it should not come as a surprise that Hungary leaked “every detail” of EU summits to Moscow. Szijjártó described the allegations as “mad conspiracy theories” that were part of an international smear campaign intended to influence next month’s election. Many of the far-right leaders scheduled to attend Monday’s gathering were among nearly a dozen who endorsed Orbán in a campaign video released in January. In it, Alice Weidel of Alternative für Deutschland said: “Europe needs Viktor Orbán.” Media reports had previously suggested that the US vice-president, JD Vance, would attend the Budapest gathering, but Szijjártó said last week that the visit would take place in early April instead.