🇺🇦📞🇺🇸❌ 🇷🇺 - Faced with threats of intensified Russian strikes against Kiev, President Zelensky sends a letter to the POTUS and Congress pleading for Patriot interceptor missile delivery.

Kiev is rapidly running out of interceptors for ballistic missiles. While European made air defense systems are present in Ukraine, none of them proved effective against the ballistic threat. Ukraine remains exclusively dependant on the US for the supply of ballistic-capable PAC-3 interceptors.

At the start of 2026, the US had ~2300 PAC-3s. CSIS estimated half of this stockpile were expended during the war in Iran. Current production is 650 per year and shared between the Pentagon and several US allies. On May 24 alone, Russia launched at least 36 ballistic and hypersonic missiles, which would theoretically require 11% of PAC-3 annual production to intercept.

Yet another airstrike in northern Gaza, this time targeting the AlQassam Brigades Commander of the Northern Brigade, Izz ElDin AlBek, alongside the Deputy Commander of the Gaza Brigade & Commander of the 'Zeitoun' Battalion, Imad Asleem.

Very clearly the IDF's Southern Command has leveraged the ceasefire by conducting intense intelligence efforts and tracing the most high-value targets in the strip, particularly in the northern sector, evidently, exploiting the security weaknesses as a result of extreme infrastructure damage and significant causalities.

The greenlight for these attacks was given in the opening week of May. The IDF had already prepared for an AlQassam Brigades retaliation by establishing the dirt embankments between the strip and set up sites. Moreover, the rocket and missile threat was largely neutralized.

The previous offensive campaigns allowed the IDF to plant espionage assets, easing this ongoing security collapse. The presence and arming of Palestinian syndicate groups, that launch frequent raids and abduction operations into Hamas territory and uproot stability during ceasefire had also complicated the status of security for the AlQassam Brigades, especially considering continuous IDF logistic, air and intelligence support for these groups.

The IDF is possibly aiming to destroy the group's command structure and neutralize senior experience in lights of an upcoming round of assaults that aims to sweep the northern sector in particular and destroy the Palestinian resistance in Gaza file once and for all, as hinted months ago.