Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap!

Months after proclaiming a ‘historic victory,’ Israel launched another offensive against Iran — followed by the familiar, dispiriting spectacle of Jewish opposition leaders closing ranks behind Benjamin Netanyahu. In celebrating the war, Local Call editor Orly Noy argued, Jewish Israeli society once again shows itself to be one that seems able to feel its own pulse only through war and destruction (originally published on Local Call). 

In Gaza, Palestinians are struggling to revive the spirit of Ramadan amid the third holiday season since the start of Israel’s genocide. Ahmed Dremly described how a holiday once marked by lively streets, plentiful meals, and easy moments with loved ones now takes place in bomb-scarred alleys and under the buzzing of drones.

Meanwhile, Israel’s security establishment has been warning of a Ramadan escalation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and inside Israel. But as Baker Zoubi argued, it has been doing everything to provoke one — eroding the status quo at Al-Aqsa, backing settler pogroms, ignoring violent crime — and if there is an eruption, it will have been engineered by Israel alone.

Despite the fact that Israel’s arms sales are surging, its weapons expos are smaller than ever — a paradox made apparent at the Defense Tech Expo in Tel Aviv last week. As Sahar Vardi explained, Israeli weapons firms are now bypassing public exhibits and using subsidiaries to sell to European states, even those pledging an arms embargo due to the genocide.

Just a few days before Israel and the United States attacked Iran, Ori Goldberg wrote about Israel’s lonely push for war: Internationally isolated, restrained in Gaza, and unraveling at home, Israel sees another escalation as the only way to maintain its aggressive regional agenda.

In the West Bank, a spiraling economic crisis, shrinking job prospects, and Israeli movement restrictions are putting a strain on relationships and destabilizing families. Aseel Mafarjeh spoke to Palestinians to understand why divorce rates are soaring, a longstanding trend that appears to only be growing worse.

And on the latest episode of the +972 Podcast, Ghousoon Bisharat spoke with veteran Palestinian affairs journalist Dalia Hatuqa to unpack recent Israeli government measures that will reshape the legal status of the West Bank — and why in the face of de facto annexation, the Palestinian Authority has never looked so weak.

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