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IDF Says Iran Strikes May Wrap in ‘One or Two Weeks’ as Speculation Swirls Over US Role
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, US, June 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes and Iranian missile launches on Tuesday and estimations by Jerusalem that its campaign would end soon, debate intensified over whether the United States would enter the conflict in the 90th hour, with experts divided on how far Washington may go.
Backchannel efforts suggest the regime in Iran is seeking off-ramps, with the Wall Street Journal on Monday reporting that Iranian diplomats had “signaled” through Arab intermediaries their willingness to return to negotiations.
But US President Donald Trump has publicly dismissed the prospect of a negotiated ceasefire.
“We’re not looking for a ceasefire,” he said, but rather for a “real end” to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. After two months of stalled negotiations, he added, “I’m not in the mood to negotiate.”
Trump later posted a message on social media that read “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” without elaborating, further fueling speculation that the US may take military action against Iran or at least not stop Israel from fully completing its campaign.
Military officials said Tuesday that Israel expects its current campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear program to meet its primary objectives “within one to two weeks.” Its aim — to eliminate what Israel views as the core threat posed by both Tehran’s nuclear weapons efforts and its long-range missile capabilities — would be fulfilled by then, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brass said.
Since the start of the operation, Israeli strikes have hit multiple elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. According to the officials, the attacks have caused extensive damage at two major enrichment sites — Natanz and Isfahan — and eliminated at least nine senior nuclear scientists involved in bomb development. Additional strikes have targeted facilities supporting the program, including command nodes and administrative offices tied to Iran’s nuclear operations. Israeli strikes have also taken out 40 percent of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and destroyed 70 Iranian air defense batteries since the start of the campaign on Thursday night.
One potential target that Israel has so far not hit is Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, Trump noted on social media on Tuesday that could change.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump posted. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”
Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said Trump’s recent military posturing might be designed to strengthen US leverage rather than signal imminent intervention.
“Trump has shown an inclination to always want to play peacemaker, staying above the fray and bringing both sides together when he believes US available leverage is at a maximum,” Ruhe told The Algemeiner.
Ruhe added that Trump’s increasingly explicit threats to join the war was “one more way to try to build US leverage against Iran.”
Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former national security adviser, voiced skepticism about American involvement. “I’d be very surprised if the Americans join the war themselves,” he said on call with reporters on Tuesday. “Israel is proving that it’s pretty much capable of handling the situation so far.”
Hulata noted, however, that US calculations could shift if Iran followed through on threats to strike American personnel or energy infrastructure in Gulf states like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. “That will change the American calculus,” he said.
While Israel continued its strikes in its so-called Operation Rising Lion, reports surfaced that senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders were abandoning their posts. The IRGC, an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization, also reportedly controls a substantial portion of Iran’s oil industry and broader economy.
Ruhe cautioned that the collapse of the Islamic Republic, if it came, would not follow a linear trajectory. “Regime collapse is always gradual until it’s sudden,” he said. “One key factor determining whether regimes disintegrate or survive is not whether the people take to the streets and protest and conduct subversion — which we’re already seeing initial indications of — but whether the security services decide to fire on them and try to put them down or whether they drop their guns and melt into the crowds, disobey orders, or simply flee. That second factor is now very much in play.”
While the heavy losses suffered by the Revolutionary Guards, particularly among senior commanders, could spark defections or widespread disorder that might prevent the regime from suppressing uprisings, Ruhe cautioned that Iran’s internal security apparatus remained significantly more “robust, pervasive, and capable” than the non-state actors Israel has confronted over the past two years, like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“It’s also very possible, amid all this chaos, that the regime doesn’t so much disintegrate as fracture and we see an abrupt turnover in leadership in which the clerics, including supreme leader [Ali] Khamenei, give way to a more militarized government of IRGC diehards willing to fight on no matter the cost.”
Divisions remain within the US intelligence community over how close Iran actually was to a bomb. A CNN report published Tuesday, citing American intelligence, estimated that Tehran was “up to three years away” from building a nuclear weapon.
However, a White House assessment released Tuesday to counter the CNN report cited CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla as saying that Iran was “mere steps” from weapons-grade uranium enrichment. Iran had amassed 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade — double its stockpile from six months earlier. According to the White House, if Tehran accelerated enrichment, it could produce one bomb within a week and as many as ten within three weeks.
A recent analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security found that if Iran chooses to “break out” toward a bomb, it would have enough highly enriched uranium at two of its main facilities, Fordow and Natanz, “for 11 nuclear weapons in the first month, enough for 15 nuclear weapons by the end of the second month, 19 by the end of the third month, 21 by the end of the fourth month, and 22 by the end of the fifth month.”
Ruhe noted that even before reaching full weapons-grade enrichment, Iran had accumulated enough material to assemble a crude device that could be used for a test with its existing stockpiles of 60 percent enriched uranium.
This sense of urgency was sharpened by increasing calls from Iran’s security establishment, including advisors to the supreme leader, to “simply finish the bomb very quickly,” Ruhe said. Ruhe also pointed to the risks of misjudging Iran’s timeline. Israel had long assumed Iran would complete enrichment first and only then move to weaponization over the course of months or years. But Tehran increasingly pursued both tracks in parallel, and, as Ruhe noted, one lesson from past breakouts is that there may never be a “clear and detectable ‘go’ order from the top leadership to finish the bomb.”
“Israel’s increasing sense of urgency to strike after the horrors of Oct. 7 reflects its new security calculus where there is no margin of error to assume they could detect the last turn of the screwdriver on a bomb with enough time to act and to stop it,” he continued.
This was also a key reason behind Israel’s decision to strike Iran’s scientific brain trust in addition to its known nuclear facilities.
For his part, Hulata highlighted the asymmetric warfare Israel wages with its adversaries and the difference between Israel’s precision targeting and Iran’s indiscriminate missile barrages against civilians. “When it’s Hamas, then people say well it’s a terror organization so what do you expect, but Iran is a serious country,” he said. Even so, he continued, “the damage to Israel in this conflict so far is way below what we all would have expected.”
The post IDF Says Iran Strikes May Wrap in ‘One or Two Weeks’ as Speculation Swirls Over US Role first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Amid Rising Antisemitism, American Jews Make Aliyah to Israel Seeking Safety, Community, Impact
Olim gather at JFK Airport in New York, preparing to board Nefesh B’Nefesh’s 65th charter flight to Israel. Photo: The Algemeiner
NEW YORK/TEL AVIV — Confronted with rising antisemitism and unease in the United States, a growing number of American Jews are choosing to make aliyah, embracing the risks of war in the Middle East for the chance to build new lives and foster meaningful communities.
On Wednesday, 225 new olim arrived in Tel Aviv on the first charter aliyah flight since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Aliyah refers to the process of Jews immigrating to Israel, and olim refers to those who make this journey.
Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) — a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the US and Canada — brought its 65th charter flight from New York, which The Algemeiner joined.
Founded in 2002, NBN helps olim become fully integrated members of Israeli society, simplifying the aliyah process and providing essential resources and guidance.
In partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth, and the Jewish National Fund, NBN has helped nearly 100,000 olim build thriving new lives in Israel.
Shawn Fink is one of the 225 people who embarked on the life-changing journey earlier this week, leaving Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, Liz, and their son.
For Fink and his family, making aliyah was driven not only by their love for Israel and desire to build a new community, but also by the escalating threats and uncertainties facing Jewish communities abroad since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
“Mostly, we were frustrated with the direction the United States is taking, and the rise in antisemitism was a major concern for us,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Like many countries around the world, the US has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to the latest data issued by the FBI, hate crimes perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the federal agency’s counting them.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, who constitute just 2 percent of the US population, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Fink explained that the increasing costs of living a Jewish life in the US — from education to kosher food — weighed heavily on his family’s decision to make the move to Israel.
While they first considered making aliyah five years ago, Fink and his family had to put the plans on hold for personal reasons — returning to the idea only in the past few months when the timing finally worked in their favor.
“We started planning it seriously in November and began the entire process with Nefesh B’Nefesh,” Fink told The Algemeiner. “It’s been a nonstop whirlwind ever since.”
For them, the current war did not stop their plans, but it did influence the cities they explored for their new home.
“The war really reinforced for us the importance of supporting Israel and our community,” Fink said. “By making aliyah, we felt we could do even more to help.”
Even though it is difficult to leave behind family and close friends, they look forward to reconnecting with friends in Israel, making new connections, and building a vibrant new community.
“Making aliyah in less than six months has been a whirlwind. I’d encourage anyone considering it to give themselves at least twice as much time, double the budget, and be prepared for plenty of unexpected starts and stops along the way,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Nefesh B’Nefesh provides assistance to families throughout their entire aliyah journey, offering guidance before relocating and continued support once in Israel.
The Israeli government also complements these efforts with resources and financial incentives to help newcomers settle and ease their transition into their new lives.
“Once the ticket is finally in your hand and you’re waiting to board the plane, you realize that all the challenges and obstacles along the way were worth it,” Fink said.
Veronica Zaragovia was also one of the 225 olim who joined the flight earlier this week.
Similarly to Fink and his family, Zaragovia decided to make aliyah, driven not just by her love for Israel, but also by the increasing challenges of being Jewish abroad and the hope of making a meaningful impact by serving her community.
From Florida, she embarked on the journey alone, excited for all the new opportunities and possibilities that awaited her in her new home.
“I want to take pride in being Jewish and in Israel — that’s why I’m making aliyah,” she told The Algemeiner, reflecting on the move she has been planning for the past two years.
“It’s a huge concern for me that in some places in the US, I can’t — or maybe shouldn’t — wear my Star of David necklace,” she said. “I don’t feel that Jews can be fully safe anywhere in the country. The rise in antisemitism has been truly shocking and deeply concerning.”
Zaragovia, who worked as a journalist in the US, said her love for storytelling and uncovering the truth played a key role in her decision to make this move.
“After Oct. 7, I felt that the way my colleagues and other journalists were covering Israel was wrong and unfair,” she said.
“As someone whose career is built on facts and truth, I didn’t see that reflected in their reporting. That’s why I decided to make a difference by being there myself,” she continued.
Rather than deterring her decision to make a change, Zaragovia explained that the current war only reinforced it.
“It became clear that I needed to go, be there with my people, and make a difference through my work,” she said. “I couldn’t have done this without Nefesh B’Nefesh. They’ve been incredible, guiding me every step of the way from start to finish.”
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Mike Huckabee, Israeli Government Push Back Against Claims of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli government and the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, are pushing back against international criticism after a UN-backed authority declared a famine is taking place in Gaza.
“To the uninformed who claim Israel is starving Gaza, get the facts & read the thread below,” Huckabee said on X on Friday. “Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent, sold it on [the] black market but they didn’t give it to the hostages.”
His comments came hours after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the global body that monitors hunger crises, reported that famine thresholds had been met in Gaza City and surrounding areas, with more than half a million people already experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger. The IPC warned that the number could rise to 641,000 by the end of September if conditions do not improve.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a post on X, dismissed the IPC’s conclusions as “an outright lie,” insisting Israel “does not have a policy of starvation” but rather “a policy of preventing starvation.” Israeli officials note that thousands of aid trucks have entered Gaza and blame the ruling Hamas terror group for diverting supplies.
Huckabee’s remarks echoed that position, framing the Islamist group as the central cause of hunger. Israeli leaders and their allies accuse Hamas of stealing food, hoarding aid, and reselling goods on the black market at inflated prices instead of distributing them to civilians or releasing Israeli hostages.
The United States and Israel set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) earlier this year to coordinate aid deliveries outside of UN channels, after accusing Hamas of exploiting international assistance. The group says it delivers more than a million meals a day, but humanitarian organizations counter that the aid falls far short of what is needed.
Distribution sites have often descended into chaos, with starving crowds surging around convoys. Human rights groups have described the alleged famine as a “man-made catastrophe” and accused Israel of weaponizing hunger.
Israel recently increased the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, after imposing a temporary embargo in an effort to keep them out of the hands of Hamas. While facilitating the entry of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza, Israeli officials have condemned the UN and other international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies, noting much of the humanitarian assistance has been stalled at border crossings or stolen. According to UN data, the vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients.
Last week, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) released a report saying that Hamas has been inflating the death toll of Palestinians due to malnutrition and that most of those verified to have died had preexisting medical conditions.
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Italian Hospital Staff Discard Israeli-Made Medicine as Concerns Mount Globally of Antisemitism in Health Care
In Italy, Dr. Rita Segantini and nurse Giulia Checcacci throw products of the Israeli company Teva Pharmaceutical in the garbage in protest against Israel. Photo: Screenshot
Two medical workers in Italy filmed themselves discarding Israeli-made medicine in protest against the Jewish state at their workplace, fueling global concerns of antisemitism in health-care facilities as a doctor in the United Kingdom who praised Adolf Hitler was allowed back to work this month.
A doctor and a nurse who work at a community hospital in Pratovecchio Stia, near Arezzo in Tuscany, recently posted on social media a video of themselves dramatically throwing away products from Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli company.
Italy
Throwing Israeli drugs in the binAt the Casa della Salute in Pratovecchio Stia, two public employees – Dr. Rita Segantini and nurse Giulia Checcacci – film themselves throwing away drugs manufactured by TEVA.pic.twitter.com/nQhc3TIQT3
— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) August 20, 2025
Dr. Daniel Radzik, a senior member of the Italian Jewish Medical Association, told Ynetnews that his organization is “very concerned about the event.”
“It’s evident that this act was not accidental, but carried out with the intention of encouraging the boycott of medicines produced in Israel,” he added.
Dr. Rita Segantini and nurse Giulia Checcacci apologized for the video following backlash, saying, “We apologize to anyone offended by the video. It was a symbolic gesture for peace. We did not actually throw away any medicine.”
In Italy, Dr. Rita Segantini and nurse Giulia Checcacci throw products of the Israeli company Teva Pharmaceutical in the garbage in protest of Israel. Photo: Screenshot
However, the Italian Jewish Medical Association was skeptical of the apology.
“They tried to explain in a very naive way. Because they say that their act was only symbolic, made for peace and that the medicine was only integrator and they don’t want really to throw them to the rubbish,” Radzik said.
The doctor and nurse claimed the items were not medications purchased by the hospital, but rather items such as wet wipes that are given out for free, and that they removed them from the trash after filming. Additionally, they claimed the video was filmed after working hours.
Meanwhile, a doctor in the UK was allowed to return to work this month after praising Hitler during an antisemitic rant and making racist comments about a colleague.
“All this antisemitism … if Hitler was around today, I would support him as he got rid of horrible f—kers like him,” Dr. Mili Shah said in reference to a colleague in 2021, according to British media.
In response, Shah was reportedly suspended for four months. However, a review by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in July concluded Shah, who is no longer employed by NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, is fit to return to work.
These recent incidents come as concerns mount globally over antisemitism in health-care spaces, with Jews feeling unsafe due to medical professionals expressing antisemitism or even outright death threats against Israelis.
In the UK, for example, the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH Trust) issued an apology this past week following a patient’s complaints about the placement of anti-Israel posters at a facility. These posters — which read “Zionism is Poison,” called for a “Free Palestine,” and accused Israel of wantonly starving and killing Palestinians — led a patient to reach out to the group UK Lawyers for Israel, expressing fear of receiving subpar treatment if the hospital staff discovered she was Jewish. The chief executive of UCLH Trust released a statement apologizing for the posters.
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who resigned from her position after UKLFI highlighted her anti-Israel social media posts, has now filed a claim against Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, alleging a violation of her rights. Mohamied’s posts included her defending and celebrating the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion and massacre across southern Israel.
Other Western countries have seen health-care providers’ antipathy toward Israel manifest as violent threats.
In the Netherlands, police opened an investigation into Batisma Chayat Sa’id, a nurse who allegedly stated she would administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.
Although Sa’id denied making the comments, claiming someone was “pretending to be me,” an account under her name also posted threatening messages aimed at Jewish people last year, including “Your time will come — don’t spare anyone,” and another in which she described the burial of Israelis in Gaza as “a dream come true.”
The nurse’s alleged threat mirrors a similar incident in Australia, in which video showed two nurses — Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh — posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements. The widely circulated footage showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” Shira Nussdorf, a US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago, told The Algemeiner earlier this year when the video first emerged. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities in Australia suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They were also charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, they face up to 22 years in prison.
The issue of antisemitism in medical facilities also extends to North America.
A December 2024 study by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group, found that 40 percent of 645 Jewish American health-care professionals surveyed reported experiencing antisemitism in the workplace. A similar study of Canadian Jewish health workers conducted last year reached 80 percent.