Yehi zichram baruch. May their memory be a blessing.
A note before today's Brief.
Hamas crossed into Israel three years ago this morning to break it. They murdered about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages into Gaza. Hundreds of them were at a music festival near Re'im.
It didn't break. Israel buried its dead, went to war, and went back to building. Families are back on the border, rebuilding the towns Hamas burned.
Before the analysis, a prayer.
HaShem, remember the souls of the men, women and children murdered that morning. Yehi zichram baruch. Comfort every family that buried someone, and every family still carrying it. Send a refuah shlemah to the wounded, in body and in spirit. Watch over the soldiers of the IDF and bring every one of them home. And bless Am Yisrael — HaShem oz le'amo yiten, HaShem yevarech et amo vashalom.
If you can, spend an hour or so with us at 9:00 AM Eastern this morning. David Sussman, who's been guiding AIC through Israel since 2020, is taking us live across the Nova site and the communities along the Gaza border, and he'll take questions as he goes. It's free, and everyone who registers gets the recording.
Register here: atlantaisrael.org/oct7
— Uri
The army has done most of what soldiers and concrete could do about October 7, and the rest is waiting on a signature in Jerusalem.
Just about everyone with a stake in October 7 picked this week to put their own account of it on the record — the army, both camps of bereaved families, Simcha Rothman's Knesset committee, and a French MEP in Strasbourg who'd rather the day was about something else. The Israeli accounts fight over who failed, and even harder over who gets to judge it. Three weeks out from the vote, that fight is the campaign.
Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less
The envelope: The army's three-year report lists about 40 new posts and a rebuilt barrier, and reservists serve nearly double their planned days. See The War Today.
Judea and Samaria: Troops reportedly pull down dozens of terror monuments, and Katz lays out a war plan against the PA. See The War Today.
Iran: Satellite images show Tehran digging out a weapons site Israel bombed in March, and officers warn of a missile miscalculation. See The War Today.
The inquiry: Protesters block the Ayalon for a state commission, and other bereaved families demand a national one instead. See Inside Israel.
E1: Smotrich petitions the High Court himself against the attorney general's freeze on opening the 1,234-home E1 tender. See Inside Israel.
The tribunal: A Defense Ministry paper says October 7's captured invaders won't face a judge before 2028. See Inside Israel.
Visa waiver: Washington sends a team to review Israel's visa waiver after the flydubai attack, and the UAE pulls rescue-flight slots. See Israel and the World.
The Palestinian vote: Kallas offers EU observers for Abbas's 28 November legislative election, and Hamas says it's running. See Israel and the World.
The Greens: Labour all but rules out working with the Greens after their conference brands Zionism a form of racism. See Israel and the World.
Strasbourg: Rima Hassan takes Israel's flag down from the European Parliament's October 7 memorial, and Metsola weighs discipline. See Israel and the World.
New York: Mamdani doubles an anti-hate fund that paid CAIR through a grantee, as Jews take 53 percent of hate crimes. See Israel and the World.
Off Oman: A projectile wounds 12 of a tanker's 19 crew, days after American escorts get ships moving through Hormuz. See Developments to Watch.
Outside Israel, the anniversary drew the gestures it always draws, and this year a few of them come with a cost — a party Labour now says it won't work with, an MEP who has to explain herself to her own president. Tehran is paying by the day for a strait it shut itself. The cheapest thing anyone offered this week was a European stamp on a Palestinian vote, and it would help Hamas more than anybody.
The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.
Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.
Vantage: August–September 2026
Israel's lines are built for the winter now, and most of what could move them is waiting on two elections a week apart.
Israel stopped waiting for anyone else to disarm Hezbollah or Hamas, and the ground it took in August and September isn't going back this year.
Live today at 9:00 AM ET, three years to the day: David Sussman walks the Nova festival site and the Gaza border communities on Zoom. It's free. Can't make the hour? Register anyway and AIC will send you the recording. Register free for the Nova tour