American hostilities with Iranian backed militias through the Middle East stepped up a notch today. CENTCOM claimed that the United States destroyed an assortment of nine Houthi drones, a bit more than is typical. The United States has also been subjected to a notable uptick in rocket and drone attacks against American bases in both Iraq and Syria over the past couple of days, after a lull which lasted for almost half of a year. The United States is proving to be extremely reluctant to escalate at all, but did launch a retaliatory strike against an empty base used by one of the Iraqi militias responsible for a rocket attack. The United States was quick to declare that there were no casualties, and claimed that the strike was not a "counter attack" for this reason.
Mutual strikes continue between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel has once again stated that they are preparing for a major offensive against Hezbollah; all without actually stating that it will happen. Strikes continue in Gaza as well, but the ferocity of Israel's bombardment of cities such as Khan Younis seems to have decreased a bit for the time being, perhaps in preparation for a broader conflict with Hezbollah or the Houthis.
The private meeting between Netanyahu and Harris did not seem to go well. Netanyahu posited that public statements by Harris would make a ceasefire more difficult to reach, despite her basically reiterating Biden's policies. Harris' office rejected the Israeli position that her statement would complicate ceasefire negotiations. After meeting with Netanyahu himself, Trump called Harris' statements disrespectful to Israel, and accused her of disliking Jewish people (her husband is Jewish). Trump also stated that he and Netanyahu concurred that Jewish Americans vote for the Democrats out of "habit". Overall, it seems pretty clear that Netanyahu is counting on Trump to prevail in November, rather than Harris.