Trump Backs Netanyahu and Post-Election Iran Strikes as Israel Votes Under Nuclear Panic

The world's major powers entered the final stretch of 2026 pursuing military and technological advantage while the costs fell on civilians, with record debt, a trillion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI) bet and a collapsing climate order defining the international landscape [16740][16769]. From Washington to Jerusalem to Tehran, decisions made by a handful of leaders were reshaping the lives of millions.

Iran: Strikes Planned, Diplomacy on Hold

The United States and Israel have reportedly drawn up plans for renewed military strikes on Iran after the US midterm elections, with possible targets including Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenal [16747][16727]. The White House insisted no attack would take place before the November 3 vote, even as Washington moved military reinforcements to the region and the Pentagon presented President Donald Trump with options for military action [16727][16735]. Additional US warships were dispatched to the Middle East as tensions remained high [16735].

Iran has not stood still. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the military had prepared a "new operational plan" to respond to any fresh US attacks, and Tehran warned of a "more severe" response [16747]. Iranian officials said their goal was to keep the regime in power and to threaten enough regional costs to make a prolonged campaign unattractive [16727]. The US ambassador to the United Nations said the war with Iran could continue for another year [16727].

The diplomatic track remained fragile. Trump said the United States could strike Iran "tomorrow" or reach a "big, beautiful" deal, telling reporters, "I may have to finish it off, or maybe they'll make a deal" [16760]. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian blamed the United States for the failure of an interim peace deal but said a new attempt should still be made [16768]. Trump publicly backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging Israel to "finish the job" in Iran and writing that "Bibi Netanyahu will never let you down" [16768]. The alignment drew a rare break from tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who said the United States should not have attacked Iran [16768].

Regional powers moved to contain the crisis. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan sent senior intelligence officials to Tehran in a rare joint visit as reports of planned attacks circulated [16789]. French President Emmanuel Macron made an unscheduled stop in Riyadh to show "France's solidarity" with Saudi Arabia against Houthi attacks on its territory [16789]. A new warning also landed from analysts: a US withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could sharply raise the risk that Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons to retake lands once held by the Soviet Union [16760].

Israel: An Election Under the Shadow of War

Israel held its first national election since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, with Netanyahu fighting for his political survival as polls tightened [16774][16796]. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on the country's longest-serving prime minister, though analysts cautioned against counting him out after a career of political comebacks [16774]. Tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad flew home to vote in a race expected to be decided by a small number of ballots [16796]. Arab Israeli voters, who often stay home on election day, were urged to turn out in large numbers with the goal of removing the right-wing coalition from power [16796].

The campaign was dominated by security fears and extraordinary tactics. Days before the vote, Netanyahu ordered a full, indefinite closure of the occupied West Bank and an immediate lockdown of Hebron following a shooting attack that wounded five Israelis [16787]. Israel announced it would close all land crossings with the West Bank on election day [16787]. On the Iran front, Netanyahu reportedly pressured Israel's military to take action as his coalition narrowly trailed, and he posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud destroying Tel Aviv, telling voters to choose him or risk nuclear annihilation [16787]. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu and military chief Eyal Zamir were at odds over Iran, with Zamir reportedly demanding written authorization amid concerns that electoral motives were driving the operation; Netanyahu denied any confrontation [16787]. Critics warned the escalation tactics could have catastrophic consequences [16787].

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief, called for unity and positioned himself as the centrist alternative to Netanyahu's "populist and radical policies" [16783]. He rejected the E1 settlement project that would split the West Bank in two, though he remained, like Netanyahu, opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state [16783]. In the border town of Sderot, hit hard on October 7, many residents remained firmly behind Netanyahu despite the devastation their community endured [16783]. In Gaza, Palestinians braced for an outcome that could shape their future, with the territory largely absent from the campaign and nearly a million displaced people facing dire sanitary conditions, water shortages and the constant threat of strikes [16787].

Ukraine: A Ceasefire and a Widening Rift

In a rare humanitarian breakthrough, First Lady Melania Trump brokered a temporary local ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, a frontline town in Ukraine's southern Kherson region where thousands of civilians faced severe shortages of food, water and electricity [16739]. The truce, set to begin October 29, aimed to allow aid deliveries and civilian evacuations, though it covered only Oleshky and not the wider front line [16739]. Residents had reportedly been forced to eat garden weeds to survive [16739]. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the localized truce would allow access to the city to reopen, letting authorities deliver food and medicine and allowing civilians to leave the combat zone [16739]. Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States were set to resume in November in the United Arab Emirates, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced [16739].

The broader relationship between Washington and Kyiv remained strained. Trump temporarily suspended several sanctions on Russia and waived tariffs on Russian diesel exports for 60 days while pressing Zelenskyy to accept peace terms, a move condemned by all 27 European Union member states as helping Moscow finance its war [16740]. On the battlefield, Ukraine launched its largest drone attack of the war on St. Petersburg and increasingly replaced soldiers with machines—drones and ground robots retook territory in Donetsk Oblast with far fewer casualties, while up to 28,000 Russian soldiers died in September pushing into drone-filled kill zones, according to a senior NATO official [16740].

Technology became a weapon of leverage. Elon Musk admitted that SpaceX deliberately slowed Starlink satellite internet speeds in Ukraine, disrupting military communications and drone operations for more than a week before restoring full service [16758]. Musk said SpaceX had simply enforced its contract terms, claiming Ukraine violated Starlink's terms of service by using the civilian system for deadly drone strikes; Ukraine rejected the claim, saying commercial limits—not unauthorized use—blocked strike operations [16758]. The admission prompted Republican lawmakers to demand oversight of private companies operating in military and geopolitical spaces [16758]. Separately, Germany's foreign minister warned that Russian strikes on Black Sea shipping could trigger a global famine, as attacks on civilian vessels carrying Ukrainian grain escalated and Romania accused Russia of striking grain ships [16729].

A World Economy Under Siege

The wars were financed by a global borrowing binge that reached its limits. A worldwide selloff in government bonds pushed yields to levels not seen in decades, with the 10-year US Treasury yield reaching its highest level since 2002 [16740]. The United Kingdom's 30-year government bond yield hit 6 percent, and France's public debt exceeded the size of its economy [16740]. Russia's 2026 budget deficit nearly doubled to more than $81 billion as war spending blew past plan [16740]. The burden fell hardest on developing countries, which paid nearly $1 trillion in debt interest in 2025, according to the United Nations Trade and Development body (UNCTAD); in 51 developing countries, interest costs exceeded spending on health or education [16740].

Energy markets came under siege. The United States and Russia struck a deal for Moscow to supply diesel to global markets, with the US Treasury temporarily suspending sanctions on Russian diesel, while the International Energy Agency announced its members would release about 100 million barrels of oil and the US national average price of diesel passed $6 a gallon for the first time in history [16740]. In the Middle East, attacks near the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passes—reached record highs, with 12 ships struck in a single week and at least 25 seafarers killed; Brent crude surged past $110 per barrel for the first time since May [16740]. Turkey courted Gulf oil and gas producers to route supplies through its territory just weeks before hosting COP31 climate talks, highlighting a tension between its climate leadership role and its fossil fuel strategy [16755]. South Africa faced its own energy emergency as fuel reserves sat empty and refineries shut down, leaving the country economically vulnerable as global shortages were expected to last through 2027 [16716].

The artificial intelligence boom poured unprecedented sums into chips, data centers and software but concentrated wealth in ever fewer hands. Samsung said it would invest $5 billion in Vietnam and reported a 900 percent jump in quarterly profit driven by AI chip demand, while the S&P 500 hit a record high even as most US stocks fell [16740]. Fears of a bubble grew: a wave of selling wiped over $1 trillion from AI companies, with six of the world's richest people—including Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page—losing a combined $130 billion in a single day, and Broadcom's chief executive said AI investing had turned into a "casino" mentality [16740]. Workers bore the cost as DNB announced it would cut around 400 full-time positions using more AI for coding and customer data checks, while safety concerns mounted over AI agents showing deception in controlled tests [16740]. Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as the "Godfather of AI," called for an FDA-style approval system before new models are released [16740]. The AI race hardened into a geopolitical contest, with the United States and China extending their trade truce by only two months while Beijing poured billions into domestic chip production [16740].

Hunger, Health and a Planet in Freefall

The year laid bare a global health system in crisis, one where the ability to survive illness, injury or hunger depended less on medical science than on where a person was born and how much money they had [16770]. In Gaza, a ceasefire that was supposed to flood the territory with humanitarian aid became a symbol of betrayal: more than 1,400 people were killed after the ceasefire took effect on October 9, 2025, and the Israeli army expanded its control over Gaza from about 53 percent to roughly 60 percent of the territory [16770]. The United Nations World Food Program cut food aid in Gaza, reducing rations for more than 500,000 Palestinians as funding shortages deepened the hunger crisis; the number of people receiving help fell by about a third, from 1.6 million to 1.1 million, and more than two-thirds of Gaza's population faced acute food insecurity [16724]. Aid became a weapon across three countries: in Somalia, nearly seven million people were at risk of famine as the militant group Al-Shabab blocked humanitarian groups, and in Sudan, investigators revealed a "transnational network" of outside countries providing weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, with one special inquiry finding the RSF assault on El Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide [16770]. On World Food Day, Action Against Hunger reported that 266 million people face acute hunger, with two of every three living in just 10 countries [16770].

The natural world sent distress signals scientists said were impossible to ignore. A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report found global wildlife populations plummeted by an average of 73 percent since 1970, studying nearly 36,000 animal populations and more than 5,000 species—the largest database of vertebrate wildlife ever assembled [16784]. The United Nations confirmed that the 1.5°C climate limit set by the Paris Agreement can no longer be met, with current policies putting the planet on a path to 2.6°C to 2.8°C of warming this century [16784]. Almost every shallow-water coral reef on Earth faces a high risk of ecosystem collapse before 2075 because of global heating, according to an assessment by United Nations nature advisers [16784]. As the wildlife report made headlines, millions of people across Southeast Asia struggled to breathe: Indonesia endured one of its worst wildfire seasons in a decade, with fires burning more than 1.9 million hectares and the Health Ministry recording 277,075 acute respiratory infection cases nationwide [16784]. Spain, confronting record heat, prolonged drought and sudden floods, responded with water reuse "ecofactories," forest protection and lessons from one of Europe's oldest trees—a 1,000-year-old black pine that scientists say shows how mature forests resist fire and drought [16791].

Elections, Democracy and the Cost of Power

Democracy itself came under strain as four major elections—in Brazil, Israel, Serbia and the United States—converged within ten days of each other, with the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute reporting that the democratic freedoms of the average person worldwide had fallen to levels last seen in 1978 [16769]. In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won re-election in a dramatic comeback, defeating right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro—but markets crashed and Bolsonaro refused to concede, signaling a potential challenge to the outcome [16779]. In the United States, Trump's approval rating on the economy fell to its lowest point, with eight out of 10 Americans describing the economy as fair or poor ahead of the midterms, and corruption overtook the economy as voters' top concern [16767]. The Trump administration imposed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) hours after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist and former ICC judge; the court had issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over crimes in Gaza [16769]. In Turkey, police raided the Istanbul headquarters of opposition broadcaster Halk TV, and in India authorities detained more than 2,000 protesters over a voter-roll revision that removed approximately 130 million names [16769]. In France, protests over the rising cost of living swept the country, with police detaining more than 2,000 people [16769].

Elsewhere, Jordanian airstrikes hit multiple sites in southern Syria's Daraa province, killing at least seven people and wounding three others as rescue operations continued, though the reason for the strikes remained unclear [16798]. In the Middle East, Houthi missile and drone strikes on Riyadh and Saudi oil sites exposed a costly mismatch: Saudi Arabia spends tens of billions annually on air defenses, yet a $1 million interceptor often chases a $1,000 drone [16775]. In the United States, Trump's second-term immigration crackdown sharply reduced border crossings, expanded deportations, tightened asylum access and revoked more than 300,000 visas, while a federal appeals court limited judges' power to release undocumented immigrants from detention [16786].

Taken together, the year's developments painted a picture of a global order that prioritized financial accumulation and profit over human welfare. The debt crisis forced governments to choose between servicing creditors and meeting citizens' needs; the energy crisis enriched fuel traders while leaving ordinary motorists struggling; the AI boom concentrated wealth in a few hands while workers faced displacement; and the humanitarian crises from Gaza to Sudan to Somalia showed how conflict and restricted access—not simply bad weather—decided who ate and who did not [16770]. As bond markets wobbled, oil prices surged and the AI bubble threatened to burst, the fundamental question remained: who would bear the cost of these converging crises, and who would benefit from any recovery?