Special Israel Update: Operation Midnight Hammer and Three Hostage Bodies Recovered

Before I get to last night’s operation, I felt it was important to recognize that the bodies of three murdered hostages were recovered in an operation in the Gaza Strip. There are now 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, 20 are assumed to be alive.

• The bodies of Ofra Keidar, Jonathan Samerano, and Staff Sgt. Shay Levinson, were recovered in a joint military and Shin Bet operation from the Gaza Strip. Additional details are below in the Hostages section.

Operation Midnight Hammer

• Earlier this morning in Iran, President Trump announced that the United States of America conducted strikes targeting three nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

• One hundred and twenty-five aircraft, including B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, “fourth and fifth generation fighters,” “dozens” of aerial refuelers, and other aircraft were involved in the strike. The US Air Force sent several of the aircraft west towards Guam as a decoy while the main force of B-2s used in the strike traveled east and met up with refuelers deployed to Europe days ago. (primary sources: Bill Roggio with FDD and John Spencer)
  • These aircraft, invisible to radar and unmatched in their global strike capabilities, dropped 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz.
  • The B-2 bombers that attacked flew from Missouri. It was an 18-hour flight with multiple in-flight refuels.
• Just before the B-2 strike package entered Iran, “a US submarine in the Central Command area of responsibility launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets at Esfahan,” General Dan Caine, Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated.
  • Decoys and a protection package of fourth and fifth generation (F-35) fighter jets swept and cleared the way for the B-2 bombers.
  • The Tomahawks that were in flight the entire time hit only after the B-2s had struck Fordow and Natanz.

• The nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz, which include facilities buried deep underground, were targets of the B-2 strike package.
• Analysis by The Institute for Science and International Security: Hi-res satellite images of Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant reveal six penetration holes from U.S. GBU-57 bombs near ventilation shafts, enabling an easier pathway for the MOPS to the deeply buried halls. Debris visible on mountain slopes also suggests severe damage or destruction of enrichment halls. Tunnel entrances had been filled by Iran beforehand, anticipating an attack.

• No Iranian shots were fired at any of the package. Iran’s fighter jets did not fly and Iran’s surface-to-air systems appear to have not even seen the package. Iranian air defenses never fired. Not a single fighter jet scrambled. The radar-evading strike force effectively disappeared into and out of Iranian skies without resistance.
  • ISW writes: The Wall Street Journal reported that Fordow was producing nearly enough highly enriched uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon per month.
• Seventy-five precision-guided munitions, including 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), were used in the US operation.
• The MOPs are 30,000-pound, “bunker-busting munitions” that can only be dropped from B-2s and were needed to strike the deep underground facility of Fordow, which is built inside a mountain.
  • This marked the first time the 30,000-pound GBU-57 bomb has ever been used in combat.
• This was the largest B-2 stealth bomber operational strike in history and the second longest B-2 bomber flight ever flown, only second to those following 9/11.
• Jay Solomon in the Free Press reports: Last Thursday, as Israel expanded its military campaign, Iranian authorities at the Fordow nuclear complex in the country’s northwest dispatched 16 cargo trucks to the underground site’s primary tunnel entrance. These vehicles proceeded, over the next 24 hours, to move unidentified equipment a kilometer away, while working to fortify the mountain-covered crown jewel in the Islamic Republic’s atomic program.
  • Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response to this today: “We have interesting intel on that which you’ll excuse me if I don’t share it with you.”

Opinions/Analysis

• Amit Segal: Tonight’s historic strike isn’t just a global military milestone in deploying bunker-buster bombs; it’s Israel’s greatest diplomatic triumph since securing the UN majority that led to its founding on November 29, 1947. Benjamin Netanyahu and Ron Dermer succeeded in persuading the world’s most powerful leader to authorize an attack on Iran, a move rejected by three previous American presidents. Now, the strongest military in history has acted decisively to eliminate the most tangible existential threat the Jewish state has faced.
• Mark Dubowitz, CEO of FDD: Until the eleventh hour, the Islamist regime had the option to pursue negotiations with the U.S. Instead, Khamenei chose to reject that path. The result: President Trump’s decisive action — a defining moment in the strategic alignment between the U.S. and Israel. This marks a significant shift for the region, with the primary threat to American and Israeli security significantly degraded. But we must curb our enthusiasm: the regime retains deadly capabilities — missiles, terror cells and proxies — which can still do serious damage.
• John Spencer writes: The United States is not at war with Iran. The United States has not declared war on Iran. The United States did use military force to assist Israel in achieving a limited goal to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. A few voices have criticized President Trump for not getting congressional authorization before attacking Iran, but they are overlooking the historical record that since World War II, 99 percent of the time U.S. presidents have used military force it was without explicit prior approval from Congress. Last night was not just a military achievement. It was a strategic message written in steel, silence, and sky. The era of delay and denial is over. The world has changed. Iran’s path to the bomb has been shattered, and the consequences of rebuilding it will now come at a cost they can no longer afford.
• Nadav Eyal writes: Iran’s grand strategy in the Middle East rested on two pillars. The first was the creation and support of proxies, militias, and even regimes across the region – components of the so-called Axis of Resistance. The second pillar was the development of a nuclear program that would position Iran as a threshold state—permanently on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, able to sprint toward a bomb at short notice. Iran poured billions of dollars into these ambitions, extracted from its oppressed citizens, and now much of that investment has been squandered. These efforts were never about improving the lives of Iranians. They were always about preserving the Islamic Republic and asserting its ideological commitments. Today, both pillars— – its regional influence and its nuclear ambition—have crumbled, vanishing alongside the ruins of the Fordow nuclear facility.
• Gregg Roman with the Middle East Forum: For years, an alliance of convenience united American isolationists with Tehran’s apologists. Strange bedfellows: far-left activists and self-styled conservative voices, all singing from the same hymnal. All pushing the same line: American retreat equals wisdom…Twenty years of Iranian nuclear development ended tonight. So did twenty years of telling ourselves that accommodation produces peace. Reality has a way of clarifying things. Tonight, the Iranian regime learned what “Peace through Strength” means.
• Liel Leibovitz, Editor at Large of Tablet Magazine writes: Forget Fordow: This past week, Iran lost its real — and only — strategic asset, its ability to convince enough Americans that it’s a formidable regional power to reckon with. Now that the decades-long info op is over, we see Iran for what it is: A weak, broke country governed by incompetents, lacking all ability to protect its interests or project any real power at home or abroad. President Trump called their bluff, and reality always wins out in the end.
• The Editors of The Free Press: …Iran has been a menace to the region and to America for decades. It has the blood of so many Americans on its hands: from our GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan to our Marines in Lebanon to the attempted assassination of Trump himself—all the while relentlessly pursuing nuclear arms. There is no question that the region and the free world are safer without a nuclear Iran—and the inevitable arms race it would trigger, as other volatile countries in the region raced to get their own nuclear arms…The theocracy in Iran has brutally subjugated its own people for nearly half a century now. They have exported violence across the Middle East and looked to murder innocent people across the world. It is a terrorist regime that must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. We can only hope that we have finally stopped them at the last hour.
• Raz Zimmt, Director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program with INSS: This morning, it’s very tempting to dwell on all the worst-case scenarios and the most extreme responses Iran might adopt. However, it’s important to remember that the Iranian regime currently finds itself in an unprecedented position of weakness—not only due to the degradation of its capabilities over the past week (and the collapse of the Axis of Resistance over the past year), but primarily because any severe response might expose the regime to a threat against its very survival.

Watch

Tehran Resident Speaks Out Amid Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites: From the Free Press and The Center for Peace Communications

• “After 46 years of this regime’s hollow bluster, we’re seeing the first light of victory. I feel the same way the French felt on D-Day.”

Listen

[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: EMERGENCY EPISODE: AMERICA STRIKES IRAN – with Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal

Hostage Update (3 Bodies Recovered)

• Ofra Keidar, 71, was murdered by Hamas-led terrorists while on an early morning walk near her home in Kibbutz Be’eri during the October 7, 2023, onslaught. Her body was then abducted to Gaza. Keidar’s husband, Sami Keidar, was killed by Hamas terrorists on the sofa in his home, according to relatives. Suffering from Parkinson’s, he was unable to reach the family’s safe room in time. His caregiver was also wounded by Hamas gunfire. The couple’s 41-year-old daughter, Yael Keidar, was in her parents’ house at the time, but survived the onslaught by hiding in their safe room, emerging only after it had become quiet outside. Ofra and Sami Keidar were survived by Yael and sons Elad and Oren, as well as seven grandchildren and several siblings.
• Jonathan Samerano, 22 was attending the Nova music festival when the Hamas onslaught began. That morning, he fled the rave to Be’eri with two friends, where they were murdered and his body abducted. Footage from kibbutz security cameras captured Hamas terrorists loading him into a jeep and driving toward Gaza. His death was confirmed in December 2023.
• Shay Levinson, 19, was a tank commander stationed on the Gaza border on the morning of the onslaught. He was killed while battling the invading Hamas terrorists near the Nova rave, and his body was abducted to the Strip.

There are now currently 49 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 50 hostages remaining in total)

• Of the 50 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 28 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
  • Thus, at most, 22 living hostages could still be in Gaza. It has been reported that only 20 are actually alive.
  • Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
• 20 hostages remain in captivity and have not been declared dead.
  • 2 hostages are Americans: Meet the Two American Hostages Still Held By Hamas:
    • Itay Chen died on October 7 defending civilians living in an agricultural area near the Gaza borde
    • Omer Neutra was killed when his team drove two miles to the border, where Hamas militants ambushed his tank with rocket-propelled grenades.

• On October 7^th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
• 38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
• 202 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 47 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
  • 8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive

Casualties (no change)

1,921 Israelis have been killed including 871 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th

• Iran: 26 Israelis have been killed and 2,835 have been injured in Israel from missiles attacks from Iran
• The South: 433 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed. The toll includes three police officers (two of which were killed in a hostage rescue mission) and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
• The North: 133 Israelis (85 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
• The West Bank: 66 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 6,000 (+2 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 893 (+2 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
  • 2,738 (+16 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 527 (+1 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.

• The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 55,959 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
  • [MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, algemeimer, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, Commentary, The Free Press, The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security, and the Times of Israel