Middle East Press On: Ceasefire, War, Iran, Israel, Gaza: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 June 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
26 June 2025
‘New Middle East’: This is Netanyahu’s Real Goal in the Region
Trump’s Shaky Ceasefire: Iran Won the Battle, But Will It Win the War?
Netanyahu’s 2018 Tehran Gamble: The Roots Of The US Bombing Of Iran
Iran’s Future Will Be Decided Before The War Ends
Khan Yunis – How The Gaza Resistance Crushed Netanyahu’s Iran ‘Victory’ Narrative
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‘New Middle East’: This Is Netanyahu’s Real Goal In The Region
By Ramzy Baroud
June 25, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persistently declares his ambition to “change the face of the Middle East”. Yet, his repeated assertions seem to clash with the unfolding reality on the ground.
Netanyahu’s opportunistic relationship with language is now proving detrimental to his country. The Israeli leader undoubtedly grasps fundamental marketing principles, particularly the power of strong branding and consistent messaging. However, for any product to succeed over time, clever branding alone is insufficient; the product itself must live up to at least a minimum degree of expectation.
Netanyahu’s “product,” however, has proven utterly defective, yet the 75-year-old Israeli Prime Minister stubbornly refuses to abandon his outdated marketing techniques.
But what exactly is Netanyahu selling?
Long before assuming Israel’s leadership, Netanyahu mastered the art of repetition – a technique often employed by politicians to inundate public discourse with specific slogans. Over time, these slogans are intended to become “common sense”.
As a member of the Knesset in 1992, Netanyahu delivered what appeared to be a bombshell: Iran was “within three to five years” from obtaining a nuclear bomb. In 1996, he urged the US Congress to act, declaring that “time is running out.”
While the US pivoted its attention toward Iraq, following the September 2001 attacks, Netanyahu evidently hoped to eliminate two regional foes in one stroke. Following the fall of the Iraqi government in 2003, Netanyahu channeled all his energy into a new discourse: Iran as an existential threat.
Between then and now, Iran has remained his primary focus, even as regional alliances began to form around a discourse of stabilization and renewed diplomatic ties.
However, the Obama administration, especially during its second term, was clearly uninterested in another regional war. As soon as Obama left office, Netanyahu reverted to his old marketing strategy.
It was during Trump’s first term that Netanyahu brought all his marketing techniques to the forefront. He utilized what is known as comparative advertising, where his enemies’ “product” is denigrated with basic terms like ‘barbarism’, ‘dark age’, and so forth, while his own is promoted as representing ‘civilization’, ‘enlightenment’, and ‘progress’.
He also invested heavily in the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) marketing technique. This entailed spreading negative or misleading information about others while promoting his own as a far superior alternative.
This brings us to “solution framing.” For instance, the so-called “existential threats” faced by Israel can supposedly be resolved through the establishment of a “New Middle East.” For this new reality to materialize, the US, he argues, would have to take action, not only to save Israel but also the “civilized world” as well.
It must be noted that Netanyahu’s “New Middle East” is not his original framing. This notion can be traced to a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2004. It followed the US war and invasion of Iraq and was part of the intellectual euphoria among US and other Western intellectuals seeking to reshape the Middle East in a way that suited US geopolitical needs.
The Carnegie article sought to expand the definition of the Middle East beyond the traditional Middle East and North Africa, reaching as far as the Caucasus and Central Asia.
American politicians adopted this new concept, tailoring it to suit US interests at the time. It was US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who largely rebranded “greater” to “new,” thus coining the “New Middle East,” which she announced in June 2006.
Though Netanyahu embraced the term, he improvised it in recent years. Instead of speaking of it as a distant objective, he declared that he was actively in the process of making it a reality. “We are changing the face of the Middle East. We are changing the face of the world,” he triumphantly declared in June 2021.
Even following the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli war and genocide that ensued, Netanyahu never ceased using the term. This time, however, his emphasis on “change” rotated between a future possibility and an active reality. “I ask that you stand steadfast because we are going to change the Middle East,” he stated on October 9 of that same year.
And again in September 2024, he proclaimed that Israel was “pursuing” a plan to “assassinate Hezbollah leaders” with the aim of “changing the strategic reality of the Middle East.” And again, in October, December, and January of this year. In every single instance, he contextualized the “change of the Middle East” with bombs and rockets, and nothing else.
In May, coinciding with a major Israeli bombing of Yemen, he declared that Israel’s “mission” exceeds that of “defeating Hamas,” extending to “changing the face of the Middle East.” And finally, on June 16, he assigned the same language to the war with Iran, this time remaining committed to the new tweak of adding the word “face” to his new, envisaged Middle East.
Of course, old branding tactics aside, Netanyahu’s Middle East, much like the US’ old “greater Middle East,” remains a pipe dream aimed at dominating the resource-rich region, with Israel serving the role of regional hegemon. That said, the events of the last two years have demonstrated that, although the Middle East is indeed changing, this transformation is not happening because of Israel. Consequently, the outcome will most likely not be to its liking.
Therefore, Netanyahu may continue repeating, like a broken record, old colonial slogans, but genuine change will only happen because of the peoples of the region and their many capable political players.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/new-middle-east-this-is-netanyahus-real-goal-in-the-region/
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Trump’s Shaky Ceasefire: Iran Won The Battle, But Will It Win The War?
By Robert Inlakesh
June 25, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s shaky social media ceasefire appears to have worked for now, creating a stalemate scenario where both Israel and Iran can claim victory.
The Iranians were still firing missiles until the last moment of the ceasefire deadline, while the Israelis failed to answer. Now the situation remains tense and unstable, as the debate rages on regarding who “won”.
One day, Donald Trump was demanding that Iran adhere to the conditions of “unconditional surrender”; the next day, he was telling Israel not to violate a ceasefire he announced out of nowhere.
Then, on Tuesday night, he posted a bizarre AI video featuring a “bomb bomb Iran” song, which contains lyrics about putting Ayatollah Khamenei “in a box” and turning Iran “into a parking lot”.
It suffices to say that the US President is unhinged and unpredictable, changing his mind multiple times per day about any given subject. This leads us to a reasonable analysis of the ceasefire, whether it holds, and where the region is heading next.
When analyzing the conflict between Tehran and Tel Aviv, we must look at a number of dimensions that are at play and separate what occurred during the battle from the question of who will emerge as the ultimate victor.
An Israeli Retreat
The initial Israeli assault on Iran was launched without any credible imminent threat; therefore, it cannot be labelled “pre-emptive” in any sensible analysis. It launched its assault in the early hours of the morning, while the Iranians were still participating in negotiations with the United States to reach a new Nuclear Deal.
In launching the assault, Israel managed to assassinate a number of Iranian generals and nuclear scientists, while temporarily knocking out the air defences and striking nuclear facilities. What they also did was strike densely populated residential areas and bring down apartment buildings, invoking widespread Iranian public outrage.
According to a number of military experts and analysts I had spoken to at the time, the kind of blow that Israel had dealt to Iran was likely going to take “2-5 days to recover from”. Israeli media even cited officials shortly after the attack, claiming that if their strikes worked, Israel had achieved against Iran in 6 minutes what it took over a week to do to Hezbollah.
To everyone’s surprise, within 15 hours, Iran had replaced its fallen generals, gotten its air defences back online, and committed a devastating missile strike that caused direct impacts in central Tel Aviv.
As the days went on, Israel’s direct attacks from its own territory decreased, and it began to rely on its vast, thousands-strong network of collaborators to carry out the majority of its operations inside Iranian territory.
Iran then launched wave after wave of ballistic missiles, repeatedly striking Israeli air fields, military bases, and targets throughout various cities in occupied Palestine.
It appeared as if the Israelis had greatly miscalculated and Iran’s retaliation was beyond what had been expected; far from quick submission or regime change, it appeared as if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was ready to fight a war of attrition. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated publicly that he refused to enter a war of attrition and would end the fighting soon.
Both Netanyahu and his Iranian asset, the son of Iran’s deposed Shah, put out calls pleading with the Iranian public to take to the streets in opposition to the government. The Shah’s son repeatedly released speeches and begged for revolution, claiming that the Iranian government was falling, none of which triggered a single demonstration inside Iran itself.
When Israel began to run out of options, Trump swept in to make threats against Iran. The American President then set a two-week attack deadline, before betraying his own words and deciding to launch a series of strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities after only 2 days.
These strikes, according to both Iran and a leaked damage assessment report that was revealed by CNN, were failures and at best only managed to set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.
Demonstrating supreme confidence, the IRGC continued its ‘Operation True Promise 3’ strikes using drones and ballistic missiles. It then decided on Sunday to hit the US’s al-Ubeid air base in Qatar, the home of CENTCOM in West Asia.
Suddenly, on Monday, after the Israelis appeared battered and out of game-changing options, the US President then issued his post on Truth Social announcing a ceasefire would take place within 6 hours.
A range of reports then emerged claiming different times for the imposition of the ceasefire, eventually France24 quoted Iranian officials who claimed it would go into effect at 4 AM, Tehran time.
About 15 minutes after the alleged deadline, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi announced on X (formerly Twitter) that no ceasefire agreement was sent through to Tehran, but that if the Israelis were to halt their attacks, then so would Iran. The latest Israeli assault on the Iranian capital was the largest since the beginning of the war, but did end at 4 AM.
It did appear from Aragchi’s post that Iran would adhere to a ceasefire agreement, he then posted a follow-up tweet:
“The military operations of our powerful Armed Forces to punish Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute, at 4 am. Together with all Iranians, I thank our brave Armed Forces who remain ready to defend our dear country until their last drop of blood, and who responded to any attack by the enemy until the very last minute.”
Then, news emerged that the 4 AM deadline had been extended and that it would take effect hours later. During the last two hours leading up to the new deadline, Iran launched 6 waves of ballistic missiles at Israel. In other words, Iran’s missiles landed last, and Israel did not respond.
Israel failed to achieve its stated goals, and so did the United States, while Iran shocked the entire world with their responses to the aggression against them.
Winning The Battle, Losing The War?
Despite Iran’s ability to successfully repel the US-Israeli war of aggression and deal harsh blows, managing to achieve their stated objective of forcing Israel to submit, the ceasefire was not a written agreement, and they gained no concessions at all.
While Iran was seemingly winning and had the Israelis on the back foot, it decided to accept the US President’s non-binding, unconditional ceasefire demand. In doing so, it destroyed all the leverage it had created during the war that it could have used to attempt to ensure concessions and security assurances.
Essentially, this ceasefire depends upon the words of the same US President who greenlit an Israeli surprise attack during negotiations and who bombed Iran after two days, despite giving the Iranians two weeks and claiming he didn’t want to attack unless necessary.
This ceasefire was imposed by the aggressor, the United States, without a guarantee of anything. Also, it failed to solve the issue of Israeli aggression and expansionism in the region.
Although Israel failed to achieve its stated goals, it did succeed at attacking Iran’s senior leadership, civilian infrastructure and nuclear program, all while proving capable of getting the US to close the conflict when it became too costly for them.
Israel is also claiming to its own population that it set back Iran’s nuclear program by years. Despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary, as Tehran was given more reason to pursue nuclear enrichment, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval ratings shot up, as did the popularity of the Likud Party.
Iran is now claiming it has achieved deterrence, yet the Israelis are still using collaborators inside Iran to stir chaos and even launch drone operations.
The Israeli prime minister can now claim to have attacked Iran and survived intact, while his ability to launch further aggression in the future is entirely dependent upon the United States. On the other hand, the genocide in Gaza now escalates as Israel turns its focus back on exterminating the Palestinian people, except now the Iran question is sidelined.
The Lebanon front is also still open, despite Hezbollah not responding since the ceasefire was imposed on November 27, 2024. The Lebanon-Israel ceasefire was actually conditional and the product of negotiations, yet the Israelis have violated it almost 4,000 times since.
By exiting the fight without securing so much as a single guarantee or concession, Iran will now continue to suffer under illegal US sanctions. In addition to this, the Gaza and Lebanon questions remain unsolved.
This is exactly the situation that pro-war think tanks in Washington—such as The Heritage Foundation, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)—have long advocated for and which has now been brought to fruition.
None of them mentioned immediate regime change, but they all sought for there to be an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, which they said would weaken Iran and lead to a gradual regime change.
In the end, the Israelis are unlikely to leave Iran alone in the long run, and there is still a possibility that the ceasefire is simply a trick, designed to get the Iranians to lower their guard so that another surprise attack will become possible.
The war did not last 12 days; this regional war has been ongoing since October 7, 2023. The entire period of the war, Israel has been assassinating IRGC officials, openly stating its goal of dismantling the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, and even bombing the consular segment of Iran’s embassy in Damascus.
Iran won the battle, but the end came with no achievements other than a display of strength that truly shook both the Israelis and the US alike. However, whatever deterrence was achieved can be undone with one Israeli military operation, and we are back to square one.
The battle is over, but the war rages on. While some have jumped to say that Iran won or lost the war, this is way too early to say, especially as the stability of the ceasefire has not yet become clear.
Assuming that the ceasefire holds for long enough, if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, this would represent a clear victory and provide it with undeniable deterrence. This move would prove that the US and Israel not only failed to destroy their nuclear program, but that their attacks only led to the bomb and didn’t eliminate the threat of it being made.
Another way that Iran could redeem itself is to threaten retaliation unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza and an exit of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. Iran could also demand that sanctions be lifted, or it will act. These are highly unlikely, however, as they would have most likely already been conditions of a ceasefire.
Failing these moves, the war will continue and lead to one of three ultimate conclusions in the long run: Regime change in Tel Aviv, regime change in Tehran, or a comprehensive ceasefire agreement. The fates of Gaza and Lebanon are inextricably linked to Iran’s fate.
It is too early to draw conclusions about where this is all going, but the war is not over; it has just cooled down on one front.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/trumps-shaky-ceasefire-iran-won-the-battle-but-will-it-win-the-war/
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Netanyahu’s 2018 Tehran Gamble: The Roots Of The Us Bombing Of Iran
By Ilan Evyatar
June 26, 2025
On a cold, dark night in January 2018, Mossad agents broke into a warehouse on the outskirts of Tehran and pulled off one of the most audacious intelligence operations in modern history.
Inside were rows of locked safes filled with Iran’s most guarded nuclear secrets – plans, blueprints, photos, even personnel rosters. The agents cut through massive steel doors with blowtorches heated to 3,600° C, loaded half a ton of documents and CDs into a truck, and slipped back across the border.
However the true significance of the Tehran archive heist wasn’t just in what it uncovered. It was in what Israel chose to do with it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t keep the intelligence under wraps, as most spy services would, discreetly sharing it with allies. He unveiled it on live television just three months later, in a dramatic presentation aimed less at Iran than at one man: US President Donald J. Trump.
Pulling back a black curtain to reveal rows of folders and discs, Netanyahu’s message was simple: “Iran lied.” The 2015 nuclear deal had been built on a falsehood. Iran had never abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions – only shelved them while waiting for international pressure to fade.
Netanyahu’s goal was not just to prove Iran’s duplicity. He aimed to convince the United States to walk away from the deal, using the archive as a strategic lever – an act of public diplomacy intended to shift American posture.
In May 2018, just three weeks after Netanyahu’s press conference, Trump announced the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
At the time, critics derided the move as reckless. They argued it would fracture the P5+1 coalition and allow Iran to accelerate its enrichment unchecked. Others warned that Netanyahu’s gamble – going public with the archive, pushing Trump to act, and daring Iran to escalate – might backfire, even end in war.
Seven years later, with American bombs falling on Iranian soil, those critics may feel validated. But so, too, might Netanyahu and those who believed that confrontation was always inevitable.
The shift in the strategic ground
In the years since the archive’s reveal, the international approach to Iran has shifted slowly but decisively. For decades, Israel warned that Iran was not merely a regional menace but a nuclear-armed threshold state in waiting. That message was often dismissed as alarmist or politically motivated.
Now, however, with the United States having carried out direct military strikes on some of Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facilities, the strategic ground has unmistakably shifted.
Israel’s shadow war against Iran has long been visible only in glimpses – mysterious explosions, assassinated scientists, cyberattacks on enrichment plants. The Tehran archive was something different: a strategic trigger that reframed the global debate. It offered not only intelligence, but narrative clarity. It enabled Israel to argue – credibly – that Iran had never come clean and never intended to.
For Trump, that was enough. He withdrew from the deal, re-imposed sanctions, and embraced a policy of maximum pressure. But even after his departure, the archive’s influence lingered. The Biden administration entered office seeking a return to diplomacy.
Iran’s escalating enrichment, its intransigence at the negotiating table, and its growing regional aggression made that impossible. Through it all, the archive remained in the background: a reminder not only of Iran’s past deception, but of the fragility of negotiated frameworks.
Israel's war on Iran
The day after the October 7, 2023, massacre – which we now know was supported and financed by Iran, even if it did not know the exact timing – Netanyahu declared that Israel would change the Middle East. Whether that statement was foresight or rhetoric is unclear. Still, it set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to Israel’s June 13 strike on Iranian territory.
Since October 2023, Israel has crippled Hamas militarily, decapitated the leadership of its most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, and weakened the group to the point that it has not retaliated against Israeli strikes on its Iranian sponsors. Syria was the next domino to fall when the Assad regime collapsed in late 2024. Israel decimated the remnants of the Syrian army, opening an aerial corridor to the Iranian border.
On June 13, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion to degrade Iran’s nuclear and ballistic capabilities. Then, on June 21, the United States entered the fray, targeting key Iranian nuclear sites, including its supposedly impenetrable underground uranium enrichment fortress at Fordow.
Israel’s operation marked a turning point in what has long been a largely undeclared war. Its doctrine – formed over two decades of clandestine struggle, not just under Netanyahu, but also under other governments led by Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Naftali Bennett – holds that deterrence does not stem from diplomatic promises with sunset clauses, but from persistent disruption, visible costs, and unmistakable resolve.
The Tehran archive helped articulate that doctrine. It gave Israel not just the intelligence advantage, but a strategic story to tell.
Yet, this doctrine has not been without critics – even within Israel’s security establishment. Many feared that publicizing the archive would politicize intelligence, damage relations with Europe, or lock Israel into confrontation. When Trump withdrew from the deal, others worried that Israel had tethered itself too tightly to a volatile American presidency.
These were not naive concerns. The post-2018 period has been volatile. Iran has expanded enrichment. Regional tensions have spiked. The risk of escalation remains dangerously high.
We cannot yet say whether Netanyahu will go down in history as an Ahab-like figure plunging the region into endless conflict as his critics would argue, or whether we will witness the realization of the vision of an Iran liberated from the grip of its Islamic regime and a Middle East reshaped by commerce, pragmatism, and new alliances.
Nonetheless, Netanyahu’s wager has now shaped the response of not one, but two US administrations. Whether this marks a long-overdue strategic alignment or merely a reactive shift under fire, it nonetheless underscores the extent to which Washington has adopted core elements of Israel’s doctrine: that Iran’s nuclear ambitions cannot be managed indefinitely through diplomacy alone.
The strategic bet Israel placed in 2018 has helped shape today’s reality, very much including American warplanes targeting the heart of Iran’s nuclear program.
With all that said – and with a ceasefire now announced on vague terms by an unpredictable Trump – Israel will need to remain vigilant and prepared to preserve its gains, through a continuation of the shadow war and overt military action when necessary, for as long as the Islamic Republic remains in power.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-858966
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Iran’s Future Will Be Decided Before The War Ends
By Shlomo Roiter Jesner
June 26, 2025
With a US-brokered ceasefire now in place between Israel and Iran, there may be a lull in the immediate fighting. But the broader conflict and, importantly, its long-term stakes, remain unresolved.
Policymakers across Europe and the West are understandably preoccupied with the enduring security, political, and economic risks stemming from this fragile truce.
Last weekend’s American airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure using bunker-busting munitions, and Washington’s direct entry into the conflict, marked a peak in hostilities and have intensified concerns over what comes next.
As the world closely watches the aftermath of this major regional escalation, and despite that active fighting has halted for now, it is imperative to look beyond the battlefield.
The question of who shapes post-war Iran, and how, is just as consequential today as military strategy and diplomatic manoeuvring.
Shaping Iran's ideological reconstruction
The history of the past half a century of conflict in the Middle East teaches a telling lesson: post-conflict vacuums do not remain empty for long. Almost as soon as fire ceases, if not before, ideologies, alliances, and investment models lie in wait, seeking to shape what comes next, and who takes the lead in shaping the future. Those who arrive at the scene first have the greatest opportunity to exercise influence.
If the West is to effectively shape Iran’s ideological reconstruction, without preparing well in advance, it risks ceding the future of the country to yet another series of authoritarian interests, only taking a different form.
Iran’s support for destabilizing actors across the world – including its backing of the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen, to name but a few of its regional proxies – underscores the breadth of its ideological ambitions and the risks posed by its influence far beyond the Middle East.
Almost 50 years since the ayatollahs took power has shown that Iran is no ordinary conflict zone. A pivotal state of more than 80 million people, and formerly the vast Persian empire, it is a country and nation with important natural resources, a young and educated population, and a deep civilizational heritage. The way in which the country moves ideologically brings with it the capacity to shape the stability of not only the region, but also global energy security, and the regional international order.
A post-war Iran that was aligned with democratic principles and reengaged with the West would be a transformative development. On the other hand, a defeated and isolated Iran – similar to a defeated and isolated post-World War I Germany – drifting toward repression, radicalism, or foreign domination would be a long-term strategic liability.
Both dimensions of reconstruction demand that Western governments begin planning in the immediate term. Indeed, physically rebuilding an already severely stressed national transportation, energy, and utilities infrastructure; and health and welfare system will not be an easy task.
International coordination to stabilize Iran's future
Assuming that US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are genuine in their suggestions at regime change, the US, Europe, and Israel, along with regional partners, would do well to coordinate effective contingency planning for a recovery fund that have clear benchmarks for transparency, local partnerships, and long-term economic diversification.
Rebuilding a state shattered by war and with a leadership vacuum, should there be one, is not about contracts or short-term aid solutions; it is most importantly about stabilizing a fragile society and ensuring that an alternative to dependency on malign actors exists.
Reconstruction, however, cannot simply be seen as a material endeavor. The far more complex challenge is ideological reconstruction. How does one create space for a more pluralistic, accountable, and inclusive society in an Iran that has been under the absolute rule of ideological extremists for almost half a century?
Supporting civil society, education, free media, legal reform, and transitional justice in a country where roughly 60% of the population was born after the Islamic Revolution and know no other reality can be a daunting task. If done properly, this must be achieved without imposing foreign models, while standing firm on universal values, to the extent that these can be defined.
Support for women’s rights, backing for grassroots civic initiatives, and cultural and academic exchange programs can all play a role in fostering a new generation of leadership.
Diplomatically, there is an opportunity for Western allies of the Iranian people to begin to craft a post-war framework, leveraging the Iranian diaspora. A phased plan for economic re-engagement tied to reform benchmarks could help incentivize moderation and provide a long-hoped-for political horizon for change. With the ceasefire offering a moment of reflection, but not resolution, the urgency of articulating such a framework has only grown.
The task at hand is not a simple one. And the West’s record in past interventions, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, must instill caution in any such effort. Any engagement with Iran’s future must respect local agency and avoid short-termism. But the lesson of those failures is not to disengage – it is to plan better, earlier, and with more humility.
The war in Iran may have paused, but the contest over its future is already underway.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-858944
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Khan Yunis – How The Gaza Resistance Crushed Netanyahu’s Iran ‘Victory’ Narrative
By Palestine Chronicle Editors
June 25, 2025
As soon as the US military dropped 14 GBU-57A/B MOP bunker buster bombs on Iran’s main nuclear facilities on June 22, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ready to announce a long and awaited ‘victory’.
Assuming that Iran was desperate to stop the war, he quickly declared that Israel was “very, very close to achieving its goals” and end the war.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with an actual victory over Iran but the perception of victory that Netanyahu, with the aid of US President Donald Trump, wanted to imprint upon Israeli, American and global consciousnesses.
Since October 7, 2023, Netanyahu has been desperate for anything that resembles a victory over his many enemies. Though he did claim victory repeatedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and even Iran itself, all evidence pointed to the contrary.
Even Gaza, purportedly the weakest of all links, has proved to be an astonishingly formidable war front, where over 625 days of war achieved nothing for Israel, aside from an unprecedented genocide for Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s calculations, however, once again, proved of no consequence, and not only because Iran did manage to deliver the final, decisive strike, but because Palestinians in Gaza had something to say.
On June 24, one to two Palestinian fighters managed to stage one of the most daring and deadly resistance operations against the Israeli army in Khan Yunis.
The nature of the event, first communicated by Arab and Middle Eastern media, seemed exaggerated, or, at best, unclear.
News reports spoke of dozens of Israeli soldiers killed and wounded in an attack that targeted one or more Israeli military personnel carriers.
Israeli media, however, soon picked up on the story and seemed to confirm what Arabic media was reporting.
The sheer extremity of the event caused any plans for a public celebration to quickly dissipate, a stark difference from the widespread victory celebrations in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran. Netanyahu, in turn, seemed nervous and tense, speaking of a “historic victory” with a demeanour that implied he was in fact announcing his nation’s surrender.
This attitude may have had something to do with the Iranian response, which continued until the last minute of the war, just before the official ceasefire.
But considering the details that emerged later, Netanyahu’s grim victory announcement was most likely linked to the event in Khan Yunis.
According to Israeli Army radio, a Puma armored personnel carrier belonging to the army’s combat engineering corps caught fire following a powerful explosion at around 5:30 pm in Khan Yunis.
Initial investigations suggested that a single Palestinian resistance fighter had approached the vehicle and attached an explosive device to it. The device detonated, igniting the armoured carrier and trapping the soldiers inside.
If that was not bad enough, a five-minute video by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, provided second-by-second details of what had occurred east of Khan Yunis.
Particularly shocking is the fact that the operation, which Al-Qassam included under the battle codenamed ‘Stones of David’, took place in an area not far away from the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel. This is a part of Gaza that Israel occupied many months ago, in its first attack on the southern Palestinian city.
The video showed Palestinian fighters in total control of the battle area, multiple cameras, fighters chatting, making political statements, infused with verses from the Quran and promises that the battle will not yield until the Israeli army withdraws.
All of this culminated in the most shocking of the events. A Palestinian fighter lowered the Shawath explosive device inside the hatch before retreating, where all the fighters from a fairly short distance watched as the soldiers inside screamed while their Puma APC was set ablaze.
Israeli news reports indicated that the charred bodies of soldiers were not removed from inside the vehicle until hours later, and that the rescue teams could not extinguish the fire until the vehicles were pulled out into the Israeli side of the fence. This implies that even with massive firepower and thousands of Israeli soldiers in that small area, the Israeli army was still unable to create a safe zone for rescue.
In Israel, the enthusiastic discussion that preceded and accompanied the so-called Gideon Charriots Operation has largely dissipated. The latter was supposedly meant to be the final blow to the resistance, which would, in theory, allow Israel to control Gaza and to ethnically cleanse its population.
The Khan Yunis operation, and another, hours earlier in Jabaliya, among others, should leave no doubt that the Gideon Chariots, like the General’s Plan, and all others, have also failed.
The question is, do Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have more up their sleeves, or would they accept that neither genocide nor famine will bring the resistance of the people of Gaza to an end?
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/khan-yunis-how-the-gaza-resistance-crushed-netanyahus-iran-victory-narrative/
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