US Begins Enforcing Strait Of Hormuz Blockade From Monday Morning CENTCOM Announced
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday (12th) that it would start implementing a complete maritime blockade in the Strait of Hormuz from Monday (13th) at 10 a.m., ET (5 a.m. in Israel), in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s decision. The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman,” CENTCOM announced, adding that vessels transitioning from and to non-Iranian ports would not be stopped.
The announcement also said that a notice to mariners broadcast would be sent before the blockade effectively begins, with vessels urged to contact US forces using “bridge-to-bridge channel 16 when operating in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches.
Trump said Monday (13th) that, after the failure during the first round of negotiations between the US and Iran, the American Navy would block the Strait “effective immediately” with all ships coming and going from Iranian ports being stopped.
He also accused Iran of extorting the world by claiming to have placed mines in the Strait, saying that”nobody knows about them [the mines].”
“We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians hid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be blown up,” Trump added.
Finally, Trump said that other countries, along with the US, would be involved in the blockade, without mentioning which countries would actually participate.
Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted to the blockade by calling it “maximalism,” and accusing the US of “shifting goalposts” during the negotiations in Islamabad last week. “Zero lessons learned,” he said in his social media statement.
Trump says there is ‘great dishonor to the reputation of Iran’ after Hormuz closure.
He also added that the main reason why the negotiations failed in Islamabad was the regime’s nuclear ambitions
He concluded that, in the end, the talks didn’t matter as the regime wasn’t willing to accept a solution that included the total dismantlement of its nuclear program.
Minister Katz Announces Operation “Silver Plow” In Lebanon
Defense Minister Israel Katz visited southern Lebanon Sunday morning (12th) together with Deputy Chief of Staff NG Tamir Yadai and Commander of Division 91 BG Yuval Gaz. The visit was joined by the head of Moshav Margaliot, Etan Davidi, representing residents of the confrontation line who are demanding a fundamental change in the security reality.
During the meeting with soldiers, Minister Katz revealed the name of the operation along the front line of villages “Silver Plow.” The operation focuses on leveling terror infrastructure and houses used by Hezbollah as launch and firing positions against Israel.
“We have decided that we are not leaving the north again. It is impossible to leave civilians under the threat of anti-tank fire and raids. The goal is to disarm Hezbollah and evacuate all Lebanese residents south of the Litani–they will not return as long as the safety of our residents is not guaranteed. All the houses are being removed. We saw in Gaza how this works – until it happens, repeated raids don’t help. They lose territory and they lose homes,” said Katz.
He also referred to the final moments of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah before he was eliminated. “According to the diagnosis, in the end he was trapped in a room and suffocated. He had a few minutes to think about how wrong he was in understanding the Jews – that we have changed. He was sure he knew us, he didn’t understand that what happened caused us to act differently.
Etan Davidi expressed support for the minister and the army. “We will give the IDF all the time needed to complete the job. We don’t need to evacuate – staying in our homes is our victory image. We are here to give strength to the soldiers so they know we trust them. The Defense Minister has pulled the pin, and the IDF is doing the job.”
Appointment Approved: Roman Gofman To Be Next Head Of Mossad
The advisory committee on senior appointments, headed by retired Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, approved on Sunday evening (12th) the appointment of MG Roman Gofman as the next director of the Mossad.
Following the committee’s decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally signed Gofman’s appointment. He is set to assume the role on June 2 for a five-year term. Netanyahu had first announced his selection in early December.
Gofman has held a wide range of operational and command roles in the IDF. His career includes service as a tank crewman and commander in the Armored Corps, commander of the 75th Battalion in the 7th Brigade, operations officer in the Ga’ash Formation (36th Division), commander of the Etzion Brigade and later the 7th Brigade, head of the Bashan Division (210), commander of the National Ground Training Center, and chief of the Coordination of Government Activities, in the Territories.
Gofman will take over from David Barnea as the country’s top spy chief , following Barnea’s completion of his five-year term.
Netanyahu commended Gofman after the official announcement, stating: “He [Gofman] is an outstanding officer – bold and creative – who has demonstrated throughout the war a perspective outside the box and impressive resourcefulness.”
He also wished Gofman success in his new role as head of Mossad, expressing confidence that he would make a significant contribution to Israel’s security.
Gofman also received praise from IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, who stated,: “I definitely think he has had a glorious military service career, an excellent and worthy person in every respect.”
Worldwide Jewish Population Rises To 15.8 Million
More than 85% of the global Jewish population lives in either Israel or the United States, according to figures provided by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)
On Sunday morning (12th), the CBS released data on the global Jewish population ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins in Israel at sundown on Monday (13th).
According to the CBS, there were 15.8 million Jews around the world at the beginning of 2025, marking a continuation of the upward trend in recent years, though the figure remains below the 16.6 million estimated around the world in 1939, prior to the outbreak of World War II.
While just 3% of all Jews lived in the Land of Israel in 1939, or about 419,000 people, Israel is now home to the largest Jewish community in the world – 7.2 million – accounting for 45.6% of the global Jewish population.
Another 6.3 million or 40% of the global Jewish population live in the United States.
Less than 15% of Jews live outside of Israel and the United States, with the third largest community in France, where 436,000 Jews are estimated to live. Constituting 2.8% of the global Jewish population. A total of 407,000 Jews, or 2.6 % of the global population, live in Canada, followed by the UK with 315,000 (2.0%), Argentina with 168,000 (1.1%), Germany with 126,000 (0.8%), Russia with 120,000 (0.8%), and Australia with 117,000, or (0.7%)
Of Israel’s 7.2 million Jews, 5.8 million, or 80.6 % were born in Israel, while 19.4% are immigrants.
Of those who immigrated to Israel, 70.2% were born in Europe or the Americas, 19.2% were born in Africa, and 9,7% were born in Asia.
As of April 2026, there are some 111,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel, of whom 63% are women.
More than a third (37%) of Holocaust survivors in Israel are between the ages of 80 and 85, with 35% between the ages of 86 and 89 and the remaining 29% are over 90.
Defending Israel In An Age Of Madness – Amb. Michael Oren
In the past 50 years, in capacities both official and voluntary, I have spent most of my time defending the State of Israel. Standing up for Israel became especially daunting after Oct. 7, 2023, when the victims of a verifiable genocide were baselessly accused of perpetrating one.
Conspiracy theories once considered fringe had become mainstream, and age-old antisemitic tropes had resurfaced in a presumption of Jewish wickedness.
America’s national derangement is virtually insurmountable for the defenders of Israel. Though readily disproven, Israel’s guilt for annihilating an entire people is today accepted by more than half of the general public. Many favor Palestinian anti-American terrorists over America’s only dependable, democratic, military ally.
For many decades, advocates for Israel and Zionism wielded the weapon of truth. We produced volumes of “myths and facts” about the conflict. But how should we react when rampant unreason is infused with antisemitism? In this new, twisted American universe, Oct. 7 was a false flag operation in which Israel massacred and kidnapped its own people as a pretext for occupying Gaza, and ZAKA volunteers staged the rape scenes at the Nova Festival.
Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, the terrorist who drove his car into a Michigan synagogue, was portrayed by NPR as a gentle, otherwise law-abiding citizen with genuine grievances. The New York Times eulogized Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who butchered his own people. Amid such bedlam, try to advance a logical argument about why Israelis, threatened by a regime sworn to annihilate us and industriously producing the means of doing so, might not want to sit passively until it strikes.
The classic antisemitic canard of the cunning Jew winding the unwitting gentile around his finger has been embraced by most of the American press. Yet we must continue to battle the madness – even if we can only dent it here and there. We can reinforce those who remain moored in morality and believe in the need to defeat evil in the world.
The writer was Israel’s ambassador to the U,S,, 2009-2013. (Los Angeles Jewish Journal)
Iran’s Grim Joke At The UN – Catherine Perez-Shakdam
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been nominated to an UN committee that will help shape policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament and terrorism prevention.
Iran is a country where a young woman, Mahsa Amini, can be beaten to death for the crime of insufficient hair concealment, where schoolgirls are poisoned for daring to remove headscarves, where the “morality police” patrol the streets as if they were animal control and half the population a species to be managed. This is the state now invited to contribute to the global conversation on gender equality. It is a bit like asking Jack the Ripper to sit on the board of a women’s shelter.
On human rights: The Islamic Republic has turned the abuse of its citizens into a system of government. Torture is not an aberration but a technique. Trials are not hearings but theater. Journalists, lawyers, artists and students are jailed, flogged, and just disappear… Minorities – Kurds, Baluchis, Bahai’s, Jews – are treated as internal enemies.
On disarmament, Iran’s record is one long love letter to the proliferation of things that go bang, shipping weapons through every smuggling lane from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.
On terrorism prevention: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has spent decades recruiting, training and funding militias whose sole raison d’etre is to terrorize. The regime’s fingerprints are on bombings in Buenos Aires, plots in Europe, rockets in Riyadh, and drones on tankers.
Someone must begin the slow, necessary work of re-civilizing our institutions – of re-establishing the quaint idea that those who legislate on human rights should not be in the business of trampling them, that those who shape policy on women’s rights should not be beating women unconscious in police vans, that those who sit on terrorism committees should not be up to their elbows in explosives and martyrdom videos. In the meantime, the least we can do is refuse to applaud.
The writer is an associate scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
