A "Head for an Eye": From Iran to the West Bank, the US and Israel Share a Collective Punishment Doctrine

Here are the news stories that deserve your attention for the week July 19, 2026:

#1) War on Iran

The US-Israeli war on Iran took a dramatic turn this week — not only because of what is happening on the ground, but because of what is, and is not, happening back home.

The Trump administration has provided little transparency about the war and, in some cases, appears to be actively obscuring critical information. The Pentagon has not held a press briefing since early May. It has also created a task force to prosecute people accused of leaking information — even as reporters say information from sources has become one of the only ways to learn what is happening in a war now entering its sixth month.

Questions about strategy, troop injuries and the cost of the war have gone unanswered, raising concerns that the US may be sliding into yet another "forever war."

Here's the latest:

• Trump's Threats. The US and Iran continued to trade strikes this week. By midweek, Trump was threatening to blow up some piece of Iranian infrastructure each time Iran fired on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has slowed to a trickle.
  • By Friday, Trump had met with advisors to decide whether to escalate the war, The New York Times reports. As of now, Trump appears to be holding off (more on that below), but the US military is preparing for the possibility anyway, sending warships — including aircraft carriers — and warplanes. The administration has also deployed B-1 bombers, which "can fly faster than the speed of sound at low altitudes while carrying the largest bomb load of any type of bomber," Axios reports. And more than 150 medics have been sent to Germany's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center — where troops wounded in the Middle East are taken for treatment — according to The Wall Street Journal.
  • Zeteo reports — citing several sources in the administration — that: "Trump's desire to move on from this war has been for the moment quashed by his bloodlust and bruised ego. The president, the sources say, spent too much time consuming media reports and internal government briefings about how the Iranians weren't taking his latest apocalyptic-sounding threats seriously, and that Tehran believed it had beaten Trump and had all the leverage. The president grew livid at the idea that his bluster was being brushed off, here and abroad, as, well… bluster. So, he decided, he needed to blow shit up again. 'They pissed him off,' one senior Trump official tells us. 'So here we go again.'"
  • Speaking of blowing shit up… Trump has his sights set on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain after Israeli intelligence reportedly told him Iran is hiding nuclear material there, the Wall Street Journal reports. "As Israel's war aims have increasingly diverged from the U.S.'s, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to persuade President Trump to resume all-out attacks on Iran to further set back Tehran's weapons programs and rebuilding effort. The U.S. has stepped up attacks in the past 10 days, and Trump said the U.S. was prepared to attack Pickaxe Mountain." The mountain presents unique challenges: it's made of granite, and strikes on it could be useless and dangerous given how deep and fortified it is — that doesn't mean Trump et al. won't try.
  • Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran would adopt an "eye for an eye" approach in the war, adding: "Those who contribute to such aggression, whatever the kind of support, will also be considered as legitimate targets." In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US would take a "head for an eye" approach — one more sign the US thinks it can do what it wants, how it wants, whether it's warranted or not, and that Iran will face harsher, outsized repercussions for daring to defend itself.
• Troop Deaths. At least 18 US service members — that we know of — have been killed in the war so far. Three were killed last weekend in an Iranian attack on a US base in Jordan, according to the DOD; a fourth was killed while trying to safely detonate an Iranian drone in Iraq. The fallen are Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Texas; 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Hawaii; and Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of New York — all killed in Jordan — and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of North Carolina, killed in Iraq.
  • The New York Times reports that before the deadly strike on US forces in Jordan, Iran had struck US forces three additional times. "The flurry of attacks and the losses they have caused are a sign that Iranian forces not only still have ample missile stocks but have also become more adept at evading U.S. air defense systems, said the U.S. officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters."
  • But maybe Iran can't take all the credit. NBC News reports that the US military is allowing some missiles through its defense systems because it doesn't have enough interceptors left in its stockpiles to intercept each Iranian missile. Is it possible that one of the missiles that hit US bases — and injured or killed US service members — was not intercepted on purpose?
  • Circling back to Trump's decision not to escalate, 🎁 The New York Times says this: "The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say… The private deliberations have focused on the Pentagon's shrinking inventory of Patriot interceptors and other air defenses, the officials said, discussing operational matters on the condition of anonymity."

• Trump attended the dignified transfer of the fallen soldiers when they returned home — but the day before, he posted a tasteless graphic on his social media account comparing the military deaths in Iran to other conflicts, implying that 18 dead is NBD. He also claimed that the soldiers themselves told him Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
• And in another insulting move, the DOD is not counting the four dead service members in the war's total casualty count — after initially including them. Sources tell The New York Times it's because they were killed during a so-called "ceasefire," enraging military families.
• The administration also appears to be downplaying the number of wounded. The New York Times' Eric Schmitt reports that in those three earlier attacks on US troops in Jordan, nearly a dozen were wounded severely enough by Iranian missile and drone attacks that they were flown to Landstuhl for treatment. The Pentagon denies it's withholding any information.
• Meanwhile, Democratic senators are demanding answers — specifically, how many service members have been killed or injured so far.
• The Cost. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Congress this week asking for more money for the war. He said the war has cost $37.5 billion so far — a likely underestimate even by the Pentagon's own internal assessment — and asked for $67 billion more, citing "critical shortfalls."
• Oil Shock. Yemeni Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi, Israeli, and US-linked ships in the Bab el-Mandeb strait — another key oil route — to force Riyadh to lift its own siege on Yemen. The Houthis struck two Saudi tankers they said were running the blockade. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Iran asked the Houthis to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb if the US hit critical Iranian infrastructure, which it did.
  • Between the blockade and fears of a wider war, oil spiked to a two-month high and gas shot up to $4.09 a gallon. Trump threatened Iran, telling them they'd be held responsible for the Houthis.
• Congress. The House passed a resolution telling Trump to end the war, 214–208, with four Republicans crossing party lines — its second rebuke of a war Congress never authorized. The Senate came up short, 49–47, on a binding measure from Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would have forced an end to US involvement. Both were largely symbolic.

#2) Free Palestine: West Bank Violence

Last week, I shared an article from The Guardian reporting that, with Israeli elections scheduled for October 27, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "far-right coalition is racing to expand control of land in occupied Palestine and drive out Palestinians before its mandate expires."

What happened there this week appears to be part of that strategy.

• West Bank Pogrom. Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were fatally shot Friday after a group of Israelis — some of them armed — illegally entered the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of Nablus.
  • Tal is in Area A, the part of the occupied West Bank that is supposed to be under the Palestinian Authority's administrative and security control. Israeli civilians are not permitted to enter without authorization.
  • The Israeli military initially described the Israelis as hikers. It later acknowledged that some were armed, Reuters reports. Palestinian sources told Al Jazeera that the Israelis entered the village intending to attack residents. During the confrontation, a Palestinian man reportedly took a weapon from an Israeli soldier and shot him in self-defense. Another Israeli soldier then killed the Palestinian man. The precise sequence of events remains disputed. Drop Site News has several videos of the events.
  • Drop Site News reports that three more Palestinians were shot dead immediately afterward in what Palestinian officials described as field executions. Eight others were wounded. Palestinian officials say all four men, who were related, were killed by Israeli forces. It remains unclear who fatally shot the second Israeli soldier, according to The Guardian.
  • Later, Israeli forces moved into Tal, raided roughly 70 Palestinian homes and detained dozens for questioning. Forces also entered a hospital in nearby Nablus, where officials said soldiers "detained, bound and insulted staff and patients" while raiding departments, Politico reports. They even detained a seriously wounded Palestinian man.
  • At least eight additional Palestinians were hospitalized after Israelis attacked other villages and homes in what were described as revenge attacks for the deaths of the two soldiers, according to The Guardian. Most had been shot.
  • This did not begin on Friday. Just one week earlier, a group of Israelis entered Tal and set fire to a home while the family was still inside, human-rights activist Ubai al-Aboudi told Al Jazeera. The family survived.
  • At least 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in the West Bank this year, including at least 21 reportedly killed by settlers, Al Jazeera reports. "Years of lawlessness and impunity for attacks have turned the West Bank into a powder keg waiting to explode," Sarah Sanbar of Human Rights Watch told Al Jazeera.
• Collective punishment. Netanyahu called the shootings a terrorist attack and promised "powerful action." But that action has focused overwhelmingly on Palestinians. Instead of treating Friday's violence as a reason to rein in settlers, Netanyahu announced that Israel would accelerate the approval of additional settlements in the area and tighten its apartheid policies.
  • Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said the sequence of events shows that the expansion of Israeli control over the West Bank is not an accidental consequence of the violence. "Recent events in [Tal] aren't an exception mishandled by a government otherwise focused on ordinary administration," Albanese said in a statement to The New Arab. "They're evidence that colonization of the West Bank is, in effect, this executive's central function." She pointed to the deadly confrontation followed almost immediately by plans for new settlement outposts and accelerated legalizations. "There's no gap between event and response because the response was already prepared," she said. "It's a mechanism, not a reaction."
  • Albanese described the violence as part of a pogrom against Palestinians and renewed her call for countries to impose an arms embargo on Israel.

• Isolation. The violence comes as Israel continues taking steps that could make permanent Palestinian statehood and economic independence increasingly difficult. One of the two Israeli banks that connect the Palestinian economy to the outside financial system says it will sever those ties. The other is considering doing the same, The New York Times reports.
  • The banks say they are worried about being implicated in terrorist financing originating in the West Bank. "If the Israeli banks severed ties, officials say, it would amount to the imposition of a suffocating commercial blockade," according to the Times. But Israeli officials have used that fear as leverage: "Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened not to reissue the letters. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a staunch supporter of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, has used the letters as leverage inside the government to extract concessions, including approval for settler outposts."

RELATED:

• UNESCO approved the addition of Sebastia, an archaeological site in the occupied West Bank, to its World Heritage List and its List of World Heritage in Danger. Israel condemned the designation. But Palestinian officials hope it will help protect the site as Israel moves to expropriate large areas of surrounding land, the AP reports.
• The Netherlands announced that it will block imports produced in illegal Israeli settlements. "With the move, the Netherlands will join a small but fast-growing group of European countries acting unilaterally" while European Union members remain divided over a bloc-wide ban, Al Jazeera reports.
• A 23-year-old Palestinian man from the West Bank died after being released from an Israeli prison, where he had been held without charge for nearly 18 months and tortured, The Palestine Chronicle reports.
• Palestinian-American student and athlete Natalie Abu Dayyeh, 21, must remain in Israeli custody until at least September 23 after a hearing in an Israeli military court, Drop Site News reports. Israeli forces arrested Abu Dayyeh at gunpoint in her Birzeit University apartment in the West Bank on June 2, along with three other women — including Sama Safi, 20, a Palestinian-American from Florida. Both are being held in Israeli prisons without formal charges under Israel's administrative-detention system, which allows Palestinians to be imprisoned based on secret evidence without a conventional trial. Abu Dayyeh's church said she's been denied bail and family visits or contact.

#3) Free Palestine: Gaza Genocide

Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza continues — through forced displacement, the blocking of critical humanitarian aid, and relentless attacks on people and their homes. Here are just some of this week's developments:

• A Palestinian family of six was burned alive while sleeping after an Israeli airstrike hit their home in Gaza City, Drop Site News reports. Firas al-Masri, his wife Salsabeel and their four children — Faryal, Salma, Amira and Naim — were all killed. "The whole world is watching us," Firas's brother Mohammed told the outlet. "There is no ceasefire in effect, the war hasn't stopped, and no one cares about us."
• Israeli ground forces are pushing further into Gaza by moving the boundary markers that define what is known as the "yellow line." The line was established under the October ceasefire to mark the area remaining under Israeli military control. Israel initially controlled roughly 53% of Gaza under that arrangement. Its forces now control or claim nearly 65%, Al Jazeera reports. As the line moves west, Palestinians are forced into an increasingly small portion of the enclave.
• Israel continues to restrict the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid as Palestinians live in overcrowded tents with inadequate food, medicine, clean water and sanitation.
  • A massive chickenpox outbreak is now spreading through displacement camps. The disease is especially dangerous in conditions where families can't isolate infected children, regularly wash bedding or access medical treatment.
  • Cancer patients are also running out of options. Gaza is experiencing an acute shortage of chemotherapy medications, and doctors say they can no longer accept many new patients or continue treating some existing ones, Sada News reports.
  • Pregnant women are facing similarly devastating conditions. Gaza health officials recorded 3,958 miscarriages during the first three months of 2026. Dr. Bassam Zaqout of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society attributed the increase to repeated displacement, dangerous travel over damaged roads, inadequate shelter, poor sanitation, malnutrition and the continuing fear caused by Israeli attacks, Middle East Monitor reports.
• Hamas has named Khalil al-Hayya as the head of its political bureau, replacing Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israel in 2024. Sinwar was one of the chief architects of the October 7 attack and was wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity when he was killed.
  • In his first televised speech as Hamas's leader, al-Hayya acknowledged the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and said reconstruction and preventing their displacement would be among his priorities. "You live in tents and makeshift shelters, with the earth as your bed and the sky as your blanket," he said, according to Al Jazeera. "One of our priorities is to restore a dignified life for our people in Gaza, to thwart all plots being hatched, particularly those aimed at displacement, and to accelerate and carry out reconstruction."

• The House passed a $1.15 trillion defense bill this week that renames the Defense Department the "Department of War," The Hill reports. Buried in it is Section 219, which would tie the US and Israeli militaries closely together — setting up a permanent office to jointly build weapons, like AI and drones, and share intelligence. Here's the part that worries people most, the bill would strip the president of the power to cut off intelligence-sharing with Israel — even if Israel commits human-rights abuses. In other words, no matter what Israel does, the US would be locked in. GOP Rep. Thomas Massie called it "dangerous." The bill heads to the Senate next...
• New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill says a software error led to roughly 6,600 noncitizens being registered to vote, with about 400 casting ballots in 2023 and 2024. The contractor involved — French company IDEMIA — disputes the governor's account, saying the New Jersey DMV mistakenly sent voter-registration data to state election officials, Politico reports. Trump and Republicans will most definitely use this to make their case for challenging the use of electronic voting machines, even though noncitizen voting is still rare.
• The US signed a roughly 30-year civilian nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia this week that lets the kingdom enrich uranium and build US-designed reactors — without the UN inspections Washington has spent years demanding of Iran. "Instead, sensitive inspections would be executed by American teams under terms spelled out in the agreement, which was initially worked out when the crown prince visited Washington in November," The Washington Post reports.
  • But one day later, Trump said the deal wouldn't go through unless Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords — which would establish diplomatic ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia has said it will not do that unless and until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state.
  • That new demand, which could unravel the deal, may have been intentional. CNN reports that Trump was "angry" that Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed the deal before giving the president a heads-up. (The White House denies this.) "Trump's frustration was then exacerbated, sources told CNN, after a flurry of criticism from experts and conservative media outlets. This included skeptical coverage on his preferred channel, Fox News, and on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal that questioned why the deal was made absent a normalization agreement — something both outlets pointedly noted President Joe Biden had been seeking."
  • Trump, however, claimed that both Wright and Saudi Arabia "understood" that normalizing relations with Israel was part of the deal. Saudi Arabia has not made any public statements since Trump's comments.
• The State Department published a report on Monday titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," accusing the Cuban government of a seven-decade "campaign of subversion" that has "infiltrated the highest reaches of the U.S. government" and built a network of American front groups. In McCarthy-esque fashion, it names left-wing US organizations including the Democratic Socialists of America and Black Lives Matter, and 42 Americans including streamer Hasan Piker, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. The whole thing reads like a political pre-crime novel, branding private citizens as agents of a foreign adversary before they've done, or been charged with, anything — all to advance the administration's own political objectives.

• The Trump administration has filed the first known case in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court since Congress created it in 1996. Independent reporter and Court Watch author Seamus Hughes first reported that the DOJ asked the court to deport an unnamed person. Nearly everything about the case — including the person's identity and the government's evidence — remains sealed.
  • Unlike a traditional immigration court, the tribunal was specifically created for cases involving classified national-security information. It allows the government to rely on secret evidence that may never be disclosed publicly and gives judges broad authority to review classified material outside normal court procedures. As CNN explains, the court "gives the government enormous latitude to keep secret — including from the person it is trying to deport — its reasons for believing an immigrant is a terrorist." More background from Steve Vladeck's One First newsletter is here.
• Arizona Republicans nominated a slate of 2020 election deniers for the very offices that would oversee the 2028 presidential vote, NPR reports. Rep. Andy Biggs — the former House Freedom Caucus chair who voted not to certify the 2020 election — won the nomination for governor. State Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who was sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar for his role in evidence-free lawsuits challenging Trump's 2020 loss, won for secretary of state — the office that runs elections. And state Senate President Warren Petersen, who helped launch the Cyber Ninjas "audit" of Arizona's 2020 results (which confirmed Biden won), won for attorney general. If they win in November, Arizona's 2028 election would be certified by three people who tried to overturn the last presidential result they didn't like.
• House Republicans passed a bill adding new voter-ID rules — but they slipped it in alongside something Democrats have wanted for years: a ban on members of Congress trading stocks. Bundling the two made it hard for Democrats to say no, and 13 of them joined every Republican to pass the package, 232–198, Newsweek reports. The new rules would require voters to show a state ID, passport, or military or tribal ID to cast a ballot. The bill is expected to stall in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes.
• Trump issued an executive order directing the National Park Service to place signs on the sidewalks and walkways outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History telling visitors that some exhibits should be revised because they present what his administration considers a distorted, ideological version of American history. The signs will also direct visitors to a White House report that the administration says presents a more accurate account.
  • The order came just days after House Republicans grilled museum director Anthea Hartig over claims the museum promotes a politically biased, "woke" version of American history. Hartig defended the museum, saying its exhibits are based on scholarship and include perspectives that have historically been overlooked. The Smithsonian is governed by its own Board of Regents — not the executive branch — so Trump cannot order the museum to change its exhibits. But the National Park Service is part of the executive branch, allowing him to direct it to place signs on the federal property surrounding the museum.
• The Trump administration is withholding another $1 billion in Medicaid funding from California and Minnesota while investigating what it says is fraud, adding to roughly $2.5 billion already frozen this year. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and California Gov. Gavin Newsom say the move is politically motivated, arguing the administration is targeting Democratic-led states, Politico reports.
• The Trump administration admitted in court filings this week that it canceled roughly $7.6 billion in clean-energy grants "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state" — hundreds of projects, all in the 16 states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, CNN reports. That flatly contradicts what Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials had said in public: that the grants were cut for waste or poor performance. Federal lawyers acknowledged screening projects using keywords tied to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19, the AP reports.
  • A federal judge has since ruled the cancellations illegal — a violation of the Fifth Amendment, according to reporting on the decision. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is demanding the state's $583 million back.
• Trump announced 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian imports — including honey, dairy products, perfumes, dog leashes and dog wigs (who knew?) — using a little-known provision of a 1930 trade law that has never been used before, the AP reports. The tariffs take effect August 19 and are expected to face legal challenges.
• Trump said he'll stop flying on the Qatari-donated Air Force One while it undergoes yet another upgrade — even though roughly $400 million in taxpayer dollars has already gone into it. The plane still lacks the security modifications required for routine presidential travel, The Guardian reports. What did they spend $400 million on??
• Three international airports — Des Moines, Tampa and Charleston — will replace federal TSA officers with privately employed security screeners under a pilot program called TSA Gold+, The New York Times reports. The TSA says the program could modernize airport security. But the union representing TSA officers argues expanding privatization could weaken safety and represents a significant departure from the federal system Congress created after the September 11 attacks.
• Speaking of privatizing stuff you probably shouldn't: an employee of GEO Group, one of the country's largest private immigration detention contractors, has been charged with shooting an ICE protester in Aurora, Colorado. According to Reuters, Brandon Booth allegedly fired his personal handgun toward two women protesting outside an ICE facility, striking one in the foot before fleeing.
• Speaking of ICE, the FBI will reportedly stop investigating ICE agents' claims that they were assaulted, shifting those investigations to ICE's own Homeland Security Investigations division, The Washington Post reports. DHS and DOJ deny that a formal policy change has occurred.
• Democrat Troy Jackson will face Sen. Susan Collins in Maine's Senate race after Graham Platner withdrew following sexual-assault allegations.
• The DNC Rules Committee voted to keep South Carolina as Democrats' first 2028 presidential primary, followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia before Super Tuesday. The full DNC will vote on the nominating calendar in August.
• Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) introduced legislation creating universal health coverage for children from birth through age 26. "In recent years, childhood uninsurance rates have risen, going from 5.1% to 6% between 2022 and 2024 — the highest in a decade," The Hill reports.
• Paramount Skydance has agreed to delay its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery until either an antitrust lawsuit is resolved or June 1, 2027 — whichever comes first. If approved, the roughly $110 billion merger would combine two of Hollywood's largest studios, major streaming services and dozens of television networks into one company, per CNBC.

• The Justice Department withdrew subpoenas seeking information from three New York Times reporters on who leaked to them that the Qatari Air Force One was not secure. A federal judge said subpoenaing journalists should be "the last step, not the first." The DOJ says the leak investigation is continuing.
• New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that he doesn't have the authority to arrest wanted war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city next month for a UN General Assembly meeting. In a video posted to X, Mamdani said that after consulting with the city's lawyers they concluded they don't have the "independent legal authority" to do so, but added "the federal government however does." Mamdani added: "I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large." The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza.
• Former President Joe Biden will not appeal a court ruling allowing the Trump Justice Department to release roughly 70 hours of audio recordings made while Biden worked with his ghostwriter on his memoir Promise Me, Dad. The Heritage Foundation sued for the recordings, arguing they could shed light on Biden's mental acuity before he became president, NPR reports. Biden's new memoir, Promise Me, America, is scheduled for release November 17.

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CORRECTION: Court Watch editor Seamus Hughes first reported the Alien Terrorist Removal Court case, not Chris Geidner.