Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
What a difference a barrage of drones and missiles makes. On Friday Israel was drifting further from even its closest allies by insisting (publicly at least) that it was still determined to root out Hamas leaders and fighters in Rafah in southern Gaza. Yesterday Britain, France and the US restated their ironclad support for Israel after helping it shoot down most of a wave of ordnance fired from Iran, Iraq and Yemen in the first direct attack on Israel by a sovereign state in more than 30 years. Netanyahu is suddenly in the unusual position of having two good options, one of his former national security advisors tells Politico: either humour his hard-right coalition allies by going for "the head of the octopus" (Tehran) or acknowledge that's not what the US wants and ask for Washington's forbearance during an Israeli assault on Rafah – which was emphatically not on offer last week.