1) WINEP presents a report by Gabriel Epstein ‘Assessing the Gaza Death Toll After Eighteen Months of War’.
“Reporting from the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health has improved significantly since May 2024, but the ministry continues to make significant revisions and methodological problems persist. Neither the total death toll nor its demographic structure should be considered fully resolved. […]
Claims by the Health Ministry and the Government Media Office (GMO), which is also run by Hamas, remain completely irreconcilable. Namely, the GMO has claimed false and unsupported figures for over a year, and no credible news outlet, government, or organization should rely on them.”
2) At the Atlantic Council, Fatima Abo Alasrar and Benham Ben Taleblu explain why ‘Iran’s shadow looms large over the Houthi ceasefire’.
“While presented as a US-Houthi agreement, the ceasefire is consistent with a well-established pattern by Iran: directing proxies to dial violence up or down as strategic circumstances demand, all while benefiting from the perception of these groups being autonomous, as long seen in the cases of Lebanese Hezbollah or Shiite militias in Iraq. This duplicitous approach, extending a diplomatic handshake while concealing the knife of proxy warfare, is precisely how Iran extends its influence beyond its actual capabilities.”
3) At the Alma Center, Tal Beeri asks ‘Is There a Historic Opportunity to Eliminate Hezbollah’s Military Power?’.
“Based on numerical tracking we conducted throughout the war and on various publications, Israel managed to eliminate more than 4,000 Hezbollah operatives and injure, to varying degrees, approximately another 10,000 operatives, some of whom lost operational capability. This refers to both regular and reserve Hezbollah operatives. In light of this, it can be estimated that approximately 15 percent of Hezbollah’s total troop strength, which numbered around 100,000 regular and reserve operatives before the war, was affected. Many of the casualties belonged to the operational core, meaning the operational units.”
4) At the JCFA, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour gives his view on ‘Why Washington Must Accept the Limits of Diplomacy with Iran’.
“What is unfolding is not a new strategy but the return of an old pattern: the United States oscillating between coercive diplomacy and tactical accommodation with a regime whose core orientation remains structurally incompatible with long-term resolution. The Islamic Republic is not merely a rational state with negotiable interests; it is a revolutionary regime, committed to ideological expansionism, proxy warfare, and the managed pursuit of nuclear latency. It has outlasted four decades of sanctions, strikes, and summits not despite its inflexibility, but because of it.”
5) MEMRI reports on responses in the Gaza Strip to statements made by a Hamas official.
“In the recent days, a video was widely circulated on social media featuring part of a March 30, 2025 interview with senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. In the interview, which aired on a Libyan television channel, Abu Zuhri referred with indifference to the number of Palestinians who have been killed in the Gaza war, calling this “the price we have to pay,” and remarked that the women of Gaza will compensate for the loss by “producing” more babies than those who have been killed.
Abu Zuhri’s remarks sparked considerable anger in the Gaza Strip. At a demonstration held in Khan Yunis on May 19, 2025 calling to end the war, protesters condemned Abu Zuhri and the Hamas movement, chanting: “Abu Zuhri, you despicable man! The children have a right to live! and “Out with Hamas!””
