The Israeli military said on Monday night that it killed Islamic Jihad’s commander in Lebanon, describing the operation as a major blow to the Iran-backed terrorist group’s capabilities. Israel struck multiple targets in Lebanon after Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in support of Iran.
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Long-delayed Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial to begin Monday, igniting pain, fear and hopes for closure
(JTA) — Every Thursday, Brad Orsini gets on a conference call with dozens of other security specialists who, like him, focus on preventing threats to American Jews. But in a few days, and for the coming months, the conference call won’t just address the dangers of the present and future. It will also deal with events that occurred more than four years ago.
That’s because next week marks the beginning of the trial of the gunman who is accused of killing 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018.
Orsini, who oversaw the city’s Jewish communal security on the day of the attack in the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, hopes to find a sense of closure in the alleged shooter’s prosecution. But he also knows that the trial threatens to broadcast the white supremacist ideas that lay behind the attack, and continue to pose risks for Jewish communities. And he worries that, in addition to providing a possible pathway for survivors and victims’ families to move into the future, it could also thrust them back into a painful past.
“It’s long overdue,” Orsini said. “This has been looming large over the Pittsburgh community and, quite honestly, the Jewish community in the nation. We’re all looking toward finishing this trial and prosecuting this actor for what he did.”
At the same time, he added, “This trial is going to reopen wounds that this community has suffered for almost five years now, and it’s going to have the ability to retraumatize many people in the community. And we have to be concerned about that.”
Beginning on Monday, those countervailing emotions and expectations will come to bear as the deadliest antisemitic attack in American Jewish history is litigated in court. The trial, which will begin with jury selection, is expected to last about three months. Few doubt the guilt of the accused shooter, Robert Bowers, whose name is hardly uttered by Jewish residents of Squirrel Hill. But what remains unclear is what the trial will mean for American Jews — and for the families most directly affected by the attack.
Some hope for the defendant to get the death penalty — even though that will mean prolonging the legal ordeal — while others have advocated against it. Some hope for the trial to shed light on the threat of white supremacy, even as renewed attention on the attack could inspire other violent extremists. And some hope the trial will help them move past the tragedy, even as they know it will be difficult to hear the details of the shooting laid out in court.
“The country is going to have to undergo this unprecedented trial of the country’s worst mass killer of Jews,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. “It’s going to be really hard, so I think our community is really going to have to buckle down and brace ourselves.”
The attack on Saturday morning, Oct. 27, 2018, killed 11 people from three congregations, all of which met at the same building, and injured six others, including four police officers. The defendant faces 63 criminal charges, including hate crimes and murder charges. He has pleaded not guilty. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty — a choice some relatives of victims are vocally supporting. Previously, leaders of two of the three congregations that suffered the attack had opposed the death penalty in this case.
“This massacre was not just a mass murder of innocent citizens during a service in a house of worship,” Diane Rosenthal, sister of David and Cecil Rosethal, who died in the attack, told local journalists, according to reporting by the Pittsburgh Union Progress. “The death penalty must apply to vindicate justice and to offer some measure of deterrence from horrific hate crimes happening again and again.”
For the survivors and families of victims, the trial will likely be especially painful. Some told the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle that they intend to take time off work, delay a vacation or be away from family for an extended period of time to be present at the proceedings.
“I want to see justice happen, but at the same time, I hate to think about the families having to potentially see images of what happened and things of that sort,” Steve Weiss, who survived the attack, told the weekly Jewish newspaper. “I’m sure they have mental images, but to have to actually see photos of victims and things of that sort I think can really be difficult for them.”
One thing few people question is the shooter’s guilt, despite his plea of not guilty. He offered to plead guilty in 2019 in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, but prosecutors, determined to pursue capital punishment for the crime, rejected the plea.
It was the same thing that had happened in the case of the man charged with killing nine Black worshippers in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015. But there, despite the rejected guilty plea, the trial took place a year and a half after the attack, and the shooter was sentenced to death. (In an illustration of the length of death penalty cases, his latest court proceeding happened in October, and he has not yet been executed.)
In contrast, the Pittsburgh trial is not starting until four and a half years after the shooting there. Part of the reason for the delay stems from the work of the defense team, which has pushed back the trial through various court filings. The alleged shooter’s lead attorney, Judy Clarke, has defended a series of high-profile attackers: the Unabomber, the attacker in the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics bombing and the Boston Marathon bomber, among others. According to Pittsburgh’s local CBS affiliate, her singular goal is to avoid the death penalty for her client.
But in many other ways, the parallels between the Charleston trial and this one are clear. Both concern shootings by alleged white supremacists in houses of worship, tragedies that have become gruesome symbols of a national rise in bigotry. In both, the culpability of the defendant was assumed before the trial began. Like the Pittsburgh defendant, the Charleston shooter has been lionized by white supremacists, including some who cited him as an inspiration for their own violent acts.
And in both cases, there is an understanding that a conviction does not heal the wounds opened by the shooter.
“This trial has produced no winners, only losers,” said the judge in the Charleston shooter’s trial, Richard Gergel, according to the New Yorker. “This proceeding cannot give the families what they truly want, the return of their loved ones.”
Still, some who are watching the Pittsburgh trial closely hope that it will bring new facts and connections to light. Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, a nonprofit that spearheaded a multimillion-dollar victory in a civil trial against the organizers of the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, hopes that the Pittsburgh trial illustrates the links among different white supremacist shootings — such as the attacks in El Paso, Texas; Christchurch, New Zealand; and at a synagogue in Poway, California.
Those attackers spouted similar conspiracy theories and referenced other recent violent attacks in their manifestos. Spitalnick said that the accused Pittsburgh shooter allegedly communicated with the organizers of the Charlottesville rally on the social network Gab, which is known as a haven for right-wing extremists.
“Trials like this can really be illustrative of how deep the poison of white supremacy and antisemitism goes,” she said. In the Charlottesville trial, she said, “The reams and reams of evidence… really helped pull back the curtain on what motivated the defendants, how they operated, the tools and the tactics of the movement, the conspiracy theories at its core.”
There’s also the possibility that, with the attack resurfacing the shooter’s motivations, and putting him back in the spotlight, it will act as an inspiration for other white supremacists. In the years following the synagogue shooting, Pittsburgh became a kind of pilgrimage site for the defendant’s admirers — leading to continued harassment of local Jews.
“We’re giving a platform to an individual who is a Jew hater, who wanted to kill all Jews,” Orsini said. “What does that spark in other like-minded people? We need to be very cognizant throughout this trial on what kind of chatter is going to be out there on the deep dark web, or even in open portals.”
In the face of concerns about retraumatization, Greenblatt said the ADL is preparing resources on how to discuss the trial with students and amid the Jewish community.
“To relive the horrors of, the grief of, the event — this thing being constantly in the news — it’s going to be hard to avoid, it’s going to be difficult and it could be grisly and upsetting,” Greenblatt said. “I would much prefer this trial didn’t happen — I would much prefer this crime never happened, I would much prefer that those people were all still with us today — but this is where we are.”
He added, “If there might be some ability to raise awareness among the non-Jewish population of what we’re facing, [that] would be of value.”
One potential challenge for American Jews as a whole, Spitalnick said, is that federal prosecutors don’t necessarily share the needs of Jews who will be following the proceedings. While the trial will conjure a mix of emotions for Jews locally and beyond, she said, prosecutors will be more focused on the nuts and bolts of what happened that day and the details of the accused attacker’s actions and motives.
“We’re going to probably spend a lot of time hearing from the prosecution about what motivated him, but it’s not through the lens of what we as Jews think about when we think about Jewish safety,” she said. “It’s through the lens of making the case that this guy did what he did motivated by this extremism and hate… It’s going to be very deliberate and tactical and precise, versus where we as American Jews have been thinking about this from a deeply personal, communal safety perspective.”
The deliberate and detailed work of prosecutors, however, may not be at cross purposes with the emotional needs of Jews, Orsini said. When the trial ends, he said, the establishment of Bowers’ guilt may itself prove to be transformative for how Jews relate to the tragedy, in Pittsburgh and beyond.
“The fact that this individual has not been fully brought to justice… and is not convicted yet of this mass shooting — in some way, yes, that closure and finality will be done at the end of this trial,” he said. “The community can kind of regroup and truly become resilient once this phase is over with.”
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Iran Loses Contact With Palestinian Terror Proxies Amid US-Israel Strikes: Report
Smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 3, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The Israeli-American offensive targeting Iran’s military and security apparatus has led to a loss of communications between the Iranian regime and its Palestinian terrorist proxies, according to a new report.
Palestinian factions both in and outside of Gaza, especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have lost contact with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) since the US and Israel began launching large-scale strikes against Iran this past weekend, the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.
It remains unclear whether the IRGC officials responsible for dealing with the Palestinian terrorist groups were killed in the strikes or are operating with special safety measures. However, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Iranian commanders conveyed messages in different ways during last June’s 12-day war with Israel, indicating a disruption in reliable communication channels during the current conflict.
The US and Israel have killed dozens of top Iranian officials over the past few days of military action.
“Normally, messages are transmitted in encrypted ways, either electronically or in other ways. Since the beginning of this war, no messages have been received,” the Palestinian sources said.
Iran has long supported and expanded its regional network by providing financial and military assistance to its terrorist proxy groups, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, among others.
Palestinian factions — particularly Palestinian Islamic Jihad and smaller groups — have been facing a severe financial crisis for months amid a sharp decline in Iranian support, as Tehran grapples with mounting international sanctions and domestic crises that have constrained its ability to sustain funding, arming, and training for its terrorist networks.
Even prior to the Israeli-American strikes, Palestinian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that they feared “the collapse of the Iranian regime, which would mean the end of support without return.”
The consequences are expected to be significant but less severe for Hamas, which has been ramping up efforts to rebuild its military capabilities and maintain tight control inside the Gaza Strip through a brutal crackdown on internal opposition, reflecting its broader network of support compared with Islamic Jihad and other smaller factions that remain heavily dependent on Iranian backing.
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Support for Israel, Trump Gaza Peace Plan Remains High Among US Voters, New Poll Finds
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
A new national survey suggests that American support for Israel remains resilient overall but with notable generational divides that could shape the future political landscape.
According to the February 2026 Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, strong majorities of US registered voters back policies aligned with Israel’s security posture and express approval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the conflict in Gaza. At the same time, the data shows that support for Israel fluctuates significantly depending on age.
Notably, the survey was conducted last week on Wednesday and Thursday, just before the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran over the weekend.
Among respondents, 73 percent of voters say they support Trump’s Gaza deal framework. The proposal, aimed at restructuring governance and stabilizing post-war conditions in Gaza, commands bipartisan backing in the poll’s toplines.
The plan calls for the dismantling of Hamas’s military and political control, the establishment of an interim administrative authority backed by regional Arab partners, and a major internationally funded reconstruction effort. Trump has also emphasized expanding normalization between Israel and Arab states, building on the Abraham Accords, as a cornerstone of long-term stability, while maintaining Israel’s security oversight during a transitional period.
Voters appear to prioritize stability and deterrence, responding favorably to an approach framed around preventing Hamas from reasserting control and reinforcing Israel’s long-term security.
The poll shows that a clear majority of Americans continue to side with Israel over Hamas and support Israel’s right to defend itself. However, support levels vary considerably by age group.
Older voters, particularly those over 55, show the strongest pro-Israel sentiment, with large majorities backing Israel’s military actions and expressing sympathy with Israel over the Palestinians. Voters between 35 and 54 also lean pro-Israel, though by narrower margins.
The sharpest contrast appears among younger voters. Americans under 35 remain more divided, with significantly lower levels of sympathy toward Israel and greater skepticism about its military campaign in Gaza. While even in this group Israel retains meaningful support, the margins are slimmer and opposition more vocal.
The generational gap reflects broader cultural and media consumption differences, as well as the impact of campus activism and social media narratives. Yet the topline remains clear: despite softness among younger voters, Israel continues to command majority support nationwide.
Further, strong and stable majorities support Israel over the Hamas terrorist group. According to the survey, 71 percent of Americans support Israel over Hamas. However, support for Israel heavily fractures along age lines. Per the poll, 82 percent of those over 55 years old support Israel, compared to only 62 percent between the ages 35-44. However, a striking 58 percent of those between the ages 18-24 support Hamas over Israel, indicating a groundswell of backing for a foreign terrorist organization among American youth.
In the nearly two-and-a-half years following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, support for the Jewish state has seen significant declines across political and age lines in the US. Younger Americans, particularly, have largely turned against Israel. The increasingly tense relationship between Israel and US voters has become a flashpoint in Democratic primaries, with liberal political hopefuls increasingly vowing not to accept support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the preeminent pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.
The February poll was conducted among 1,999 registered voters, with a margin of error of ±2 percentage points.
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US-Israel War Effort Bolstered by Growing Support in Middle East, Europe as Iran Left Isolated
Smoke rises after reported Iranian missile attacks, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, as seen from Doha, Qatar, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
As Iran’s missile and drone attacks widen and prompt outrage, a loose coalition is forming of Middle Eastern and Western powers to act against Tehran, leaving the regime increasingly isolated as the US and Israel continue their military campaign.
On Monday, several Israeli media outlets reported that Qatar launched strikes against Iran over the last 24 hours, following what officials described as a series of Iranian attacks targeting the country and the broader region.
However, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari denied Doha’s involvement in “the campaign targeting Iran,” describing its actions as defensive in nature rather than part of any war effort.
“We exercised our legitimate right to self-defense and to deter Iranian aggression against our territory,” al-Ansari said in a statement.
The Qatari diplomat further confirmed that officials had prevented a planned attack aimed at Hamad International Airport in Doha.
“It is misguided to suggest that pressuring Gulf nations will bring Iran back to the negotiating table,” al-Ansari said.
“We received no advance warning from Iran regarding the missile strikes,” he continued. “The target was not limited to military installations, but extended to the country’s entire territory. Such attacks will not go unanswered.”
Amid escalating regional tensions, Saudi Arabia could also be drawn into the military campaign against the Islamist regime after two Iranian drones struck near the United States Embassy in Riyadh, igniting an explosion in the city. Saudi Arabia is considering a symbolic attack on Iran in response, according to Israeli media reports.
US President Donald Trump strongly condemned the attack, issuing a stark warning to Tehran and saying that Iranian aggression would be met with a forceful US response.
“They will soon learn the price of the attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh and the killing of American service members,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Since the start of the war this past weekend, Iran has reportedly launched 450 missiles and 1,140 drones toward Gulf states, a barrage that has pushed regional governments to distance themselves from Tehran and align more openly with the Israeli and American offensive.
As the conflict widened, Iran extended its attacks beyond Israel, targeting what it described as “US interests” across the region and launching missile and drone strikes that reached several Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Iran “is now in complete isolation in the entire world, including among the Gulf states,” Darar al-Hol al-Falasi, a former member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, told the Israeli broadcaster Kan News. “The attacks were like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Media reports also indicated Iranian strikes in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, reportedly to preempt any uprising from Kurdish opposition groups, and an Iranian-made drone, likely launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah from Lebanon, striking a British base in Cyprus.
According to analysts, Iran appeared to believe that expanding the war and targeting Gulf states would push regional governments to press Washington toward de-escalation. However, the move has instead reinforced regional resistance and prompted closer alignment against Tehran.
Meanwhile, both Washington and Jerusalem have indicated that there is no fixed timetable for ending their military operation, stressing that actions will continue as long as necessary to neutralize the threat posed by Iran
“From the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that, we’ll do it,” Trump said in a statement.
“This was our last best chance to strike … and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” he continued.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also said there is no set timeline for the joint military effort with Washington against Iran, describing the strikes as a necessary step to weaken Tehran’s leadership and strategic capabilities.
Initially cautious, European Union members are now gradually increasing their involvement, moving to safeguard strategic assets in the region against Iranian drone and missile threats.
On Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced an increased French military presence in the region, confirming the deployment of fighter jets to the UAE after an Iranian drone struck a French military installation in Abu Dhabi.
“Discussions are underway with France’s allies in the Middle East regarding the provision of equipment to strengthen their defensive capabilities,” Barrot said.
France will dispatch a warship and anti-missile and anti-drone systems to help protect British facilities in Cyprus after two drones targeting the British air base at RAF Akrotiri were intercepted.
Greece also announced its support for Cyprus, deploying four F-16 fighter jets and two frigates, including one carrying the Centauros anti-drone jamming system, while pledging to defend the island “by all necessary means.”
Britain said it would deploy the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon and two Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet missiles to strengthen defenses in the Eastern Mediterranean.
European support is expanding beyond Cyprus. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said France was sending its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Mediterranean and working to build a coalition that would help secure maritime traffic.
“We have economic interests to protect, because oil prices, gas prices, and the international trade situation are being profoundly disrupted by this war,” Macron said in a televised address.
As Iran presses ahead with its regional escalation despite growing opposition, the United States, along with Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, issued a joint statement strongly condemning Tehran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” against sovereign territories across the region.
“We stand united in defense of our citizens, sovereignty, and territory, and reaffirm our right to self-defense in the face of these attacks,” the statement read.
Britain, France, and Germany — collectively known as the E3 — have also condemned what they described as “the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks” by Iran on regional countries, saying the strikes pose a broader threat to regional stability.
“Iran’s reckless attacks have targeted our close allies and are threatening our service personnel and our civilians across the region,” the statement said.
“We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” it continued. “We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.”
Meanwhile, China and Russia — despite their close ties to Iran — have so far limited their response to diplomatic statements and calls for de-escalation, echoing their restrained posture during last year’s 12-day war with Israel.
Moscow convened emergency meetings and publicly denounced the attacks but stopped short of offering material assistance to Tehran, despite the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership treaty the two countries signed last year.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that Beijing opposes unilateral military action and supports Iran’s right to defend itself.
“China supports Iran in upholding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity, while safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests,” the Chinese diplomat said in a statement.
“Major powers should not exploit their military superiority to launch arbitrary attacks on other nations, and the world must not return to a law of the jungle,” she continued.
Beijing is even urging Tehran to avoid disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a vital passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and a key route for global energy shipments — as escalating conflict threatens international oil and gas supplies.
Iran has long threatened to close the waterway in the event of war with the US.