Iranian Missile Hits Haifa Building Injuring 6 Israelis, 2 Found dead, 2 Still Missing
An Iranian missile strike hit a residential building in Haifa on Sunday (5th) wounding an elderly man and leaving four people missing as rescue forces continued searches amid fears of structural collapse and possible unexploded ordnance. Two persons were found dead in the rubble.
The missile struck a multi-story building after an interception attempt failed, causing extensive damage and sparking a fire at the site.
An 82-year-old man was seriously wounded after being hit by debris and was rescued conscious from the rubble.
His wife was also injured and described as in moderate condition.
Emergency teams reported additional casualties, including at least six people lightly wounded, among them a baby, as well as several individuals suffering from shock.
Authorities said four people remain unaccounted for in the damaged building: a family of three – a couple and their 40-year-old son, along with a foreign worker Two were later found dead in a search and rescue operation.
Rescue operations were ongoing, with officials warning that extraction efforts could take hours.
Firefighters, police, and Magen David Adom teams and other emergency responders were deployed at the scene, where a fire broke out and concerns were raised about the stability of the structure.
The municipality began evacuating residents from the building and was considering evacuating adjacent buildings on both sides due to the risk of collapse.
A MDA paramedic told Kan News that the seven-story building sustained a direct hit and was heavily damaged
Emergency teams, including ambulances, intensive care units, and motorcycles, arrived and began searching the scene.
During the operation, crews located the 82-year old man in serious condition who was injured by the destruction, along with others.
Separately, a fire broke out in a structure in Acre following a drone strike launched from Lebanon. Sirens had sounded across northern Israel after multiple drones entered the area. One was intercepted while another struck a building.
Report: Israeli Commando Units Participated In Rescue Of U.S. Navigator
Commando units Shalday and Sayeret Matkal participated in the American operation to rescue the navigator whose plane was downed in Iran on Friday (3rd), according to a report on Sunday (5th) by the opposition channel “Iran International.”
Earlier Fox News reported that Israel was involved in the rescue operation by sharing intelligence with the United States and by halting Iranian strikes in the area during the hours when the navigator was missing.
This was an operation by US forces that operated on the ground inside Iran to rescue the navigator. It is the first time during the war that the United States has deployed ground forces.
Regarding the report, the navigator used his “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training to avoid capture. He hid on an elevated ridge after moving on foot away from the crash site and activated a distress transmitter. He survived with only a hand gun and managed to evade potential captors.
Rescue forces from US special operations units, along with multiple elite forces, took part in the complex mission, using MQ-9 Reaper drones for aerial cover.
It was also reported that the CIA spread rumors inside Iran that the officer had already been located and that American forces were on their way out-creating confusion among local forces and aiding the operation.
US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social account this morning: “WE GOT HIM! MY fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and rescue Operations in U.S History, for one of our incredible Crew Member Officers, who also happens to be a highly respected Colonel, and who I am thrilled to let you know is now SAFE and SOUND!! This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his Commander in Chief, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow warfighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.” “At my direction, the US Military sent dozens of aircraft, armed with the most lethal weapons in the world, to retrieve him. He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine. This miraculous Search and Rescue operation comes in addition to a successful rescue of another brave pilot, yesterday, which we did not confirm , because we did not want to jeopardize our second rescue operation. This is the first time in military history that two US pilots have been rescued, separately deep in Enemy Territory. WE WILL NEVER LET AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND! The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies. This is a moment that ALL Americans, and everyone else should be proud of and be united around. We truly have the best, most professional, and lethal Military in the History of the World. GOD BLESS AMERICA. GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS, AND HAPPY EASTER TO ALL,” Truth stated.
Gulf States Eye Israeli Pipeline To Bypass The Strait of Hormuz
Gulf Arab states are mulling a plan to open an alternative route for oil exports that could rely on a strategically important Israeli port on the Mediterranean Sea, the Financial Times reported.
The long-delayed plans for an alternative to the Strait of Hormus, (which prior to the current war with Iran, was used for the export of roughly a quarter of the world’s oil supply) call for pipelines, rail links, and road corridors to reduce global reliance on the Persian Gulf checkpoint.
While a number of options are on the table for a land-based route for moving oil from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, the US has for years backed a plan to create a broad “economic corridor” from India to Western Europe, running through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel.
The planned route, dubbed the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, would utilize the Israeli port of Haifa to handle energy shipments to Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
Other iterations of the plan center on a broader approach that goes beyond a single pipeline: officials and industry figures are reportedly looking at an integrated network of pipelines, railways and roads that could give Gulf exporters a land-bridge to Western ports, and reduce Iran’s leverage over seaborne traffic out of the Gulf.
The proposed route from the Gulf to Haifa is not the only one under consideration.
Saudi Arabia also has a pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, from Jubail to Yanbu, spanning 750 miles.
The Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline already links northern Iraq to the Mediterranean via the Port of Ceyhan in Turkey.
Neither of these routes, however, could fully replace the Strait of Hormuz as an exit point for exported oil.
But any Haifa-linked corridor would likely require Saudi buy-in, sustained regional security cooperation and would force Arab governments to balance immediate commercial needs against domestic and regional sensitivities around overt infrastructure links involving Israel.
The Sham Of “Disarming” Hamas – Khaled Abu Toameh
Hmas and other Palestinian terror groups have again rejected demands by President Trump’s “Board of Peace” to lay down their weapons, underscoring their determination to continue their fight against Israel. They do not take seriously Trump’s repeated threats that they must disarm as part of the October 2025 U.S.-brolered ceasefire and reconstruction plan for Gaza.
Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist inside any borders. It considers all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as an Islamic endowment that belongs to Muslims to hold in trust for Allah by divine right. When Hamas talks about “resistance,” it is referring to a comprehensive framework aimed at destroying Israel through a violent jihad.
According to a report in the Independent Arabic newspaper, the Board of Peace recently presented Hamas with a set of guarantees, including the integration of 20,000 Hamas gunmen into a new security force in Gaza that would receive salaries with international funding. The Board of Peace also apparently offered “political and legal immunity” to Hamas terrorists, guaranteeing that they will not be prosecuted by Israel in exchange for their involvement in a local governing council. If true, this means that the Board of Peace views Hamas as a legitimate and acceptable partner in the future management of Gaza.
The mere act of engaging Hamas in such negotiations is beyond problematic. It risks legitimizing an Islamic terror group and entrenching its authoritarian rule in Gaza. The idea of integrating Hamas into Gaza’s new security apparatus sends a message that participation in terrorism carries no consequences and that terrorists can move directly from violence into official roles.
It is hard to see how pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Turkey, or Pakistan, all part of the Board of Peace, would seriously participate in any effort to force the Palestinian terror groups to give up their weapons. (Gatestone Institute)
Civilization Cannot Survive If It Negotiates With Barbarity As If It Were A Partner Who Is Misunderstood – A Conversation With Pierre Rehov By Gregoire Canlorbe (Gatestone Institute)
Pierre Rehov is a French documentary filmmaker and novelist.
Q: Hamas claims that Israel is on their land.
Rehov: Jews have lived on that land for nearly 4,000 years. Palestinians, by contrast, to myth, actually do not exist. As the late PLO senior official Zoheir Mohsen stated in an interview on March 31, 1977: ‘In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.’
If you want to understand October 7, forget the comforting story of desperation turning violent. Pogroms are not born from desperation; they are born from permission – social, religious, political permission to commit the unthinkable and feel righteous doing it. Many people in the West looked at videos of barbarity and still rushed to “contextualize,” rationalize, excuse. This reflex is precisely what keeps pogroms returning throughout history: the world’s temptation to treat Jewish blood as a negotiable detail in a political narrative.
The Palestinian project is a world where religious and political absolutism rules, where minorities submit or vanish, where women are controlled, where dissent is crushed. Israel is the laboratory target. If the West rewards Oct. 7 with political gains, it teaches a lesson to every violent movement on earth: massacre pays. So Israel is defending itself, and in doing so, it is also defending the principle that civilization cannot survive if it negotiates with barbarity as if it were a partner who is misunderstood.
Israel cannot outsource its survival, and the U.S. cannot pretend that totalitarian jihadism can be “managed” indefinitely. Either you dismantle the infrastructure of terror, or it regrows. Diplomacy is beneficial only if it restores deterrence. A settlement that rewards aggression teaches the world that borders are temporary and violence is profitable. A diplomatic outcome can be good if it protects sovereignty, if it prevents repetition, and if it signals strength rather than fatigue.
We are living through a war of reality. Propaganda kills judgment. When judgment collapses, democracies begin to hate themselves, to doubt their right to defend their citizens, and to romanticize forces that would destroy them. The West will be defeated – if it is defeated – by the refusal to oppose danger when they see it.
