2026.03.30 – Anthony Reich – Israel Report

0:00This Israel report is brought to you by the Blue Agency. Your Israel property isn't good hands. Owning properties in Israel can be a great investment but challenging to manage if you're based abroad. The Blue Agency will manage every aspect of your property finding and vetting tenants, maintaining your property and getting it rental ready, negotiating contracts and collecting rentals, reporting back to you regularly. The Blue Agency has built a reputation for trust and confidentiality over 20 years. The Blue Agency, your Israel property is in good hands. Contact us at www.theblueagency.com. The Israel report for the latest news and insights with Antony Reich. Antony Reich. Book it off, good morning. Hope you are well, Shavuetov. A lot to talk about this morning. But let's just start by saying that we are now an hour ahead of you

1:01having put our clocks forward to summertime. There is a lot of debate about where the summertime is really something that's worthwhile or not. We in the meantime feel a little jet lag from the hour that's been lost, that was actually lost on Thursday evening. But for those people who have friends and family and work associates in Israel, remember, we now have an hour time difference, I think until the end of October. So that's the period that will be in our summertime period. It does feel very dark in the mornings, but certainly much light in the evening. Today I would like to salute the workers for our municipalities and for our essential services who have just carried on doing their work in spite of the war and the threat from the war. People who collect our rubbish, people who clean the streets, people who repair machinery at home, phone repair technicians, people of that sort of nature have continued to turn up and do their jobs.

2:02In spite of the fact that many of them are on the road a lot, many of them have much away from protective spaces in the event that sirens are heard and they need to shelter. And our streets remain clean. And the equipment that we use seems to be working fine, water and electricity and all the other services. So I salute those people whose job it is to keep all of that rolling and to keep it working. I think that they've done a great job. And we can't underestimate the threat, the risk that they have to take in order to keep doing their work. Absolutely. Let's talk about what is going on with regard to operation roaring a lion day 31 after reaching peak intensity. At the end of last week, it seems as though Uranian Missile Fire has reduced slightly. Well, I thought it had until earlier this morning in the South but is this the case?

3:04I mean, in fact, as I say that, I'm seeing silence sounding in Yerucham Dimona and Stabocker areas. Yeah, so there is an impression that there's a slight reduction. It seems that the South has come under more intense fire. In the early part of this week's incident yesterday, we saw some hits in the Berceva area where a factory was hit and some quite dangerous gas was emitted from the factory. So it was a factory that had obviously chemicals that were particularly dangerous and some of that did escape from the factory so people were warned accordingly in that area to be very cautious. So there have been hits particularly in the South. The central area of Israel seems to have been spared. Much of that, we did have some hits on Saturday in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, a person was killed until a vivon Friday evening

4:05who was not in their bombshell to win. There was a direct hit in Tel Aviv. I would like to make one comment, Howard, about the Iranian reuse of cluster missiles, cluster bombs. And I've mentioned this a few times before, the cluster bombs and these bombs that explode into many different pieces at a certain altitude before they come down. And for our anti-missile system, this becomes an extremely difficult thing to be able to defend against. And even when the missile apparently has been intercepted even before it breaks open, it could still potentially break open and emit all of those smaller warheads and over a relatively wide range. Now, those cluster missiles are not used and cannot be used for trying to hit strategic targets. The missile's are specifically used for residential areas, for civilian casualties.

5:07There's no possible way that we could say that the Iranians could turn around. So we're using the cluster bomb to try to attack military headquarters or to try to attack a power station or to try to attack some sort of a strategic target. That is specifically a bomb that is used, a missile that is used to try to so as much destruction and as much damage as possible across a very, very wide range. So that is one of the reasons why cluster bombs are outlawed. They're actually illegal according to international law. And yet a very, very high proportion of the missiles that have been fired towards Israel are in this cluster bomb type of missile. And so we will reach our own conclusions about that when Iran is trying to say, well, we're aiming our missiles at strategic objectives or strategic targets. It's true that some of them have been aimed at strategic targets and indeed

6:10some of them have even had a relative success rate at these strategic targets. But cluster bombs are clearly not part of that strategic objective. So we just need to know who we're dealing with and what we're dealing with. And one of the things that has been noticeable over the past few days in the war with Iran is that there's been an increase in the number of assassination attempts. Many senior military people and security people have been targeted across Iran. Many of those targets have been successful with some quite big names having come up in the obituaries list over the past few days. And an interesting statement where the IDF has intimated that it might be reaching the end of its useful period in carrying out attacks against Iran. It obviously had compiled a massive list of targets that it wanted to attack, including ballistic missile sites, including launch sites for these missiles

7:15and launches, including anything that's connected to the nuclear program, including anything that's collected to the security organization and military. And of course, including many government officials and regime officials who have been hit and regime targets. So it seems like the IDF might be reaching some sort of a useful end. We do know that some of the senior regime leaders are still in place. And I'm guessing that any of the people in a senior position who is still alive, anybody's still alive is not alive coincidentally. I think that that's been a strategy to allow certain people to continue to try to take control of things. President Trump has said the regime change is succeeded because the people who were in power before no longer in power, even though the same regime is still there. So I just wonder whether the IDF is sending a message that they are reaching

8:19the end of what's possible, at least from the air, in terms of strikes against Iran, anything that could damage the things that we wished to damage. The bits that remain in place are really things that seem to be under the control of the U.S. strategy rather than Israel's part of this war. And by that, I mean, particularly oil assets. So we're talking about, you know, card island, which has been much in the news. And we know that an attack against card island will really sow seeds of trouble because the Iranians regard that there's a very, very strategic place. There are many reports in the press which suggest that the U.S. Marines have carried out training exercises to potentially attack card island on the ground to send ground troops in to card island, not only to attack it from the air. But card island is clearly a strategic location, which has been left intact at least for now.

9:19But we do know that there has been much discussion at the Pentagon and within the U.S. administration about whether card island should be taken out. Also, the other thing that has been discussed is the power facilities, the power grid. And last night, in particular, we saw a number of attacks which left sues of Iran in darkness as a result of a debris that apparently hit a key overhead power line. I'm not quite sure whether that was by design or whether it was a piece of debris that accidentally hit a power line, but certainly power grid was last night hit quite substantially in Iran. That's also been a subject for discussion. So that's really where we stand right now on this war with Iran. Still near our bomb shelters, seemingly a slightly lower level of intensity. We know the hooties have now decided to get themselves involved, announced with a great great flourish that they would get involved.

10:19They sent a missile towards southern Israel. They have sent one or two drones to one southern Israel that the impact of the hooties has really not been felt significantly. Southern Israel clearly has suffered a little bit more than the central part. But it feels like the things are just lowering in the intensity, just my impression maybe, because we haven't had a bombsite here since Saturday morning at 6 o'clock. We haven't been in our bomb shelters, and that's certainly a lengthy period of time. But certainly people in southern Israel are feeling some of the impact as well. Yeah, that's just so it continues. And let's talk about the ceasefire. Well, we hear from Pakistan that they are facilitating a meeting between Iranian and American officials. So President Trump has also announced that Iran is getting much, much closer to his 15-point plan. And the messages that are publicly coming out of Iran do not suggest that

11:23and do not support that at all. Indeed, on the contrary, they seem to be getting further and further away from his 15-point plan. We now know that the Saudis, for example, have come in and said they need to be guaranteed security and safety. The United Arab Emirates has come in saying they need compensation for the damage that Iran has caused to their economy and their infrastructure. Oman has been hit by Iranian fire. Qatar has been hit by Iranian fire. All of those countries will want some sort of security and security and potentially compensation. So I think that these points that are being raised randomly in the so-called 15-point plan is about as far away from the ceasefire as one could imagine. But I hope I'm wrong because I think that we need now to start thinking about what will happen when this war is over, how this war will be ended, and what the next stage will be. Interestingly, there are some people who speculate that this war has actually given rise to a much harder line

12:26in Iran. People who previously were not so convinced are now convinced that Iran does need its own nuclear weapon. People who perhaps are on the fence before but as a result of this war have hardened their positions. She knows. She knows. Let's just talk about what is happening in, we don't have a lot of time, but what is happening in Lebanon? So a few things, first of all, the north of Israel has continued to come under a fire from Lebanon and there are talks about the fact that some people have spent literally a month in their bomb shelters without even moving away from the bomb shelters, such as the intensity of the fire that's come from Lebanon and the fact that people really don't have much time when the sirens sound to get to their bomb shelters so people are very afraid to move too far away. We do now understand that the IDF has moved troops towards the Littani River, if not already, on the Littani River. And reports have said that the IDF has been destroying every sign of Hisbalah that they found that they moved forward.

13:34Unfortunately, we've lost three soldiers in the process, the latest who was killed yesterday, a soldier who had come from the United States to sign up. And he came from a Khabad background and I can't help but mention the irony of him coming from a Khabad background in the United States to volunteer to serve in the IDF when the Khabad Nikim who lived in Israel and who enjoy the protection of the IDF and who enjoy everything that the state offers, they do not serve in the IDF. And that is an error that needs to be corrected rapidly, very, very urgent. I think some do that, Anthony, just to correct. Some do, that's true. Some do to say that. However, there are suites, obviously, of our Orthodox youth who do not serve. And we can't avoid the irony of that situation, especially seeing as this was an our Orthodox youth who'd come and volunteered from outside,

14:41you know, of Israel. So, of course, our condolences to the family and our hearts are very broken by the losses that we've suffered in Lebanon. But I think that our troops have done a good job in Lebanon in managing to push Chisbalah back and have apparently killed up to 800 Chisbalah terrorists since the start of this latest campaign against Chisbalah. So, just chose to what extent Chisbalah was still very much entrenched in southern Lebanon, now pushed back at least to the tiny river and potentially further back than that. I hope that that will bring a little bit of peace, a little bit of respite to the northern border, particularly as we head into Paisach. But certainly, a lot of work still to be done. This is far from over. That's for sure. That is for sure, Anthony Ra. Thank you. As always, you can catch Anthony tomorrow morning 7.45 for the Israel report. That Israel report was brought to you by the Blue Agency. Your Israel property isn't good hands.

15:46Owning properties in Israel can be a great investment, but challenging to manage if you're based abroad. The Blue Agency will manage every aspect of your property finding and vetting tenants, maintaining your property and getting it rental ready. Negotiating contracts and collecting rentals, reporting back to you regularly, the Blue Agency has built a reputation for trust and confidentiality over 20 years. The Blue Agency, your Israel property is in good hands. Contact us at www.theblueagency.com.