On 15 June, Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed that the Yemeni group had struck Israel with “hypersonic ballistic missiles” in coordination with the Iranian military. Saree boasted that the Houthi operations against “sensitive Israeli targets” in Jaffa had “successfully achieved their objectives”. While Saree’s bombastic claims about the efficacy of …

On 12 June, Israel launched ‘Operation Rising Lion’, attacking Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz and parts of the Iranian ballistic missile program, and killing several Iranian nuclear scientists. In the aftermath of the attack, which killed over 200 Iranian civilians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an English-language address …

The recent sanctions imposed by the UK and its allies on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were heralded in some quarters as a long-overdue moral stance against rising extremism within Israel’s leadership. Yet beneath the surface of this headline-grabbing gesture lies a far more calculated and cynical strategy …