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Months of sustained military operations against Iran have left the United States nearly drained of its most advanced long-range precision surface-to-surface missiles, new reporting reveals, creating critical supply constraints that have undermined the Trump administration’s repeated threats of massive, unprecedented escalation against the Islamic Republic.

Citing two anonymous defense sources, Reuters reported Tuesday that the U.S. military has exhausted “virtually all” of its stockpiles of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and the newer Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), two cornerstone weapons in America’s conventional arsenal. These munitions are prized for their ability to strike enemy targets with high accuracy from hundreds of kilometers away, eliminating the need to deploy crewed warplanes that face risk from enemy air defense networks.

The depletion has forced U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command responsible for all operations across the Middle East, to reallocate missile stockpiles from other active combat theaters around the world to replenish its supplies, according to the report.

Hostilities between the U.S., Israel and Iran first erupted on February 28, when joint U.S.-Israeli strikes opened the current round of conflict. A ceasefire was negotiated in June via the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, but skirmishes and low-intensity fighting have continued to escalate through the summer months.

To support operations against Iran, the Trump administration repositioned key air defense batteries and active duty troops from East Asia at the start of the conflict. The ATACMS missiles now expended in the Middle East were also a critical capability that the U.S. had supplied to Ukraine for use against Russian invading forces, creating cross-theater resource strains.

For months, the Trump administration claimed its strikes had completely destroyed Iran’s integrated air defense network. But independent reporting from Middle East Eye and other international outlets has confirmed that Iran has received new advanced air defense systems from both China and Russia to reinforce its capabilities. In April, an American F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet was shot down over Iranian territory, triggering a large-scale rescue operation for the downed crew that nearly escalated tensions even further – had Iran captured the pilot, the captive would have represented a major diplomatic bargaining chip during subsequent ceasefire negotiations.

The current munitions shortage extends far beyond offensive long-range missiles. Even before the full-scale outbreak of conflict, the U.S. was already facing low stockpiles of missile and drone interceptors, a gap created by months of supporting Israeli air defense operations during the 2025 June conflict that culminated in U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. For weeks, senior U.S. military leaders have warned the Trump administration that stockpiles of key defensive interceptor systems, including Patriot surface-to-air missiles, are also declining rapidly, the Reuters report added.

The revelation of deep military resource depletion has validated longstanding criticism from both anti-intervention conservative and progressive analysts who argue the conflict is eroding American military power and draining critical strategic resources at the global level.

“CENTCOM used everything they had before the war and have drawn down from rest of the world to critical levels,” Saagar Enjeti, a conservative commentator and co-host of the popular Breaking Points political program who has opposed U.S. intervention in Iran, wrote on social media platform X.

Amir Handjani, board member of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank that opposes aggressive U.S. foreign intervention, offered a sarcastic rebuke to pro-war lobbying groups in a post on X. “Thank you FDD and UANI for the wonderful policies you have been advocating for. They have made America stronger!” Handjani wrote, referencing the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and United Against Nuclear Iran – two organizations that critics say led lobbying efforts to push the U.S. into war with Iran.

The Reuters report comes just days after former President Trump reversed his own public pledge to launch massive new strikes against Iran. Just over a week ago, Trump threatened to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II” against the Islamic Republic. But he walked back that threat on Monday, claiming that Gulf Arab states had requested he avoid further escalation and that negotiations for a renewed ceasefire are underway. “I want to give them every last chance before decapitation,” Trump stated Monday. Iranian officials have repeatedly denied that any direct bilateral talks with the U.S. are currently ongoing.

This coverage draws on original reporting from Middle East Eye, an independent outlet focused on unrivaled, unbiased coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs.

In a landmark legal ruling that has reignited fierce debates over academic freedom, protected belief, and the characterization of Zionism in the United Kingdom, the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) has upheld a lower court’s finding that the University of Bristol unlawfully discriminated against former political sociology professor David Miller when it terminated his employment over anti-Zionist comments he made in 2021. The tribunal also confirmed that framing Zionism as a racist, colonial, and imperialistic ideology is a coherent philosophical position eligible for legal protection under UK equality law.

The EAT’s judgment, released this week, formally rejected the University of Bristol’s appeal against a 2024 employment tribunal ruling that first found Miller’s dismissal unlawful. In its written reasoning, the tribunal laid out clear support for the legitimacy of framing Zionism in critical terms. “It is coherent to describe as ‘racist’ an ideology [Zionism] that promotes the establishment of a state [in this case, Israel] for only one race of people [Jewish] in a territory that formerly contained a large number of people of a different race [Palestinians],” the judgment read. The tribunal further added that such an ideology, which historically encouraged Jewish migration to the region backed by imperial powers with the goal of displacing the indigenous Palestinian population, can also be coherently categorized as colonial and imperialistic.

Miller, who joined the University of Bristol faculty in 2018, centered his academic research on the influence of lobbying groups, including organizations tied to the governments of Israel and South Africa. He was fired for gross misconduct in October 2021, following public comments he made earlier that year criticizing Zionism, the state of Israel, and Jewish student organizations on campus. The 2024 original employment tribunal already concluded that Miller’s termination stemmed directly from his expression of anti-Zionist beliefs, which qualify as protected philosophical beliefs under the 2010 Equality Act. The tribunal ruled that both the dismissal and the university’s rejection of Miller’s internal appeal amounted to unlawful direct discrimination, prompting the University of Bristol to launch its appeal to the EAT.

In its final decision, the EAT reaffirmed every core conclusion of the lower tribunal. It confirmed that Miller’s core belief – that political Zionism is inherently racist, colonial, and imperialist, and that it ought to be opposed – meets the legal standard for protected belief. The tribunal also backed the finding that Miller’s 2021 comments were an expression of this protected belief, and that these comments directly and materially influenced the university’s decision to fire him.

While the tribunal acknowledged that the University of Bristol acted in pursuit of what it framed as legitimate goals – including protecting student well-being and safeguarding the institution’s public reputation – it upheld the lower court’s ruling that dismissal was a disproportionate response to Miller’s comments. The judgment noted that Miller’s remarks were lawful, had not been found to be antisemitic, did not incite violence, and did not pose a threat to anyone’s personal safety. A lesser disciplinary measure would have been sufficient, the EAT concluded.

The ruling does include one partial caveat: the EAT upheld the original finding that Miller contributed to his own dismissal through his specific remarks directed at Jewish students and student societies, meaning any compensation for unfair dismissal will be reduced by 50%. However, the tribunal also ruled that the lower court did not adequately justify its conclusion that there was a 30% chance Miller would have been fairly dismissed in 2023 over separate later social media posts, so this component of the compensation ruling will require reconsideration.

For Miller, the outcome represents a total legal victory. In a post on the social platform X, he framed the decision as a “decisive” win for the global anti-Zionist movement, noting that the pressure campaign targeting him had “spectacularly backfired.” “The University of Bristol’s attempt to overturn my 2024 Employment Tribunal victory has been comprehensively dismissed. We won on every single count,” Miller wrote. “This is a public humiliation for the genocidal Zionist regime, whose assets in Britain bullied the University into sacking me and then dragged them into this futile appeal.”

A landmark new study conducted by Tel Aviv University researchers has uncovered an unprecedented surge in Israeli emigration, with nearly 270,000 citizens leaving the country between the start of 2023 and the end of 2025 — the highest three-year total recorded in the nation’s modern history.

Drawing on official datasets compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and other state agencies, the research found a consistent upward trend in long-term departures. More than 86,000 Israelis exited the country for stays of three months or longer in 2023, and that number climbed to over 90,000 in both 2024 and 2025. This puts the annual average of long-term departures at roughly 90,000, a sharp 50% increase from the pre-pandemic average of 60,000 departures per year recorded between 2010 and 2019.

Unlike previous official emigration reports that only counted citizens who left for a full year or more to count as long-term emigrants, the Tel Aviv University study expands this definition to include anyone spending a minimum of three months outside Israeli borders. Study co-author Itai Ater explained to local outlet Haaretz that this adjusted methodology captures a far more accurate picture of the actual scope of outward migration. The study’s final counts also exclude recent immigrants from Ukraine and Russia who left Israel within three years of arriving, focusing only on long-term residents who had lived in the country for at least three years before their departure.

Ater emphasized that while the current cumulative numbers do not yet pose an immediate threat to Israel’s national resilience, the steady upward trajectory demands urgent action. “In 2025, we again see deeply troubling numbers of Israelis who left the country for a significant period, adding to the emigration wave of 2023 and 2024,” he said. “But looking ahead, and unless there is a change, there is growing concern that emigration from Israel will increase to a level that endangers the country’s security and economy.”

Compounding these concerns, earlier Tel Aviv University research has already confirmed that the emigration wave is disproportionately driven by highly skilled workers: a significant and worrying share of departures are doctors, PhD-holding researchers, engineers, university academics, and high-income professionals. While some skilled labor outflow has been observed in other developed economies, the institution notes that this brain drain carries unique risks for Israel. The country has limited natural resources, and its entire economic model is built around leveraging its skilled, innovation-focused workforce.

The study’s authors warn that the current trend could soon trigger an irreversible domino effect. As more people leave, the incentive grows for friends, family members and professional networks to join them, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that becomes harder to break the longer it continues. “Once emigration numbers cross a certain threshold, reversing the trend will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible,” the university stated in its release of the study findings.

The release of the unprecedented data has sparked fierce cross-party criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling government from Israeli lawmakers. Gilad Kariv, chair of the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs and a member of the left-wing opposition Democrats party, took to social platform X to condemn the government’s inaction. “Israel is facing a tsunami of emigration, and the government is doing nothing about the issue,” Kariv wrote. He called the emigration wave a “strategic threat to Israel’s future” that is directly tied to the government’s policy agenda, specifically the controversial judicial overhaul launched in early 2023 that sparked months of mass nationwide protests.

Centrist-right opposition lawmaker Meirav Cohen of the Together party also joined the criticism, drawing a pointed connection between the government’s policies toward Gaza and the growing outflow of Israeli citizens. “They declared they would carry out voluntary emigration from Gaza,” Cohen said on X, referencing the government’s widely criticized plan to encourage the expulsion of Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip. “In the end, the October 7 government encouraged voluntary emigration from the State of Israel.”

This report was originally framed by independent regional outlet Middle East Eye, which provides specialized, unfiltered coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

A long-running pro-Israel lobbying group embedded within the UK Labour Party has ignited fierce internal and international debate after releasing a new policy report that argues against a national import ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements located in occupied Palestinian territory, a move that directly contradicts overwhelming grassroots support for such a ban within the party.

Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), an influential lobby group that counts more than 70 sitting UK members of Parliament among its affiliate members (though it has not published a public roster of supporters for some time), published the 15-page policy briefing late last week under the title *Settlements and Solutions: A Guide to the Issues*. The document was reviewed in full by Middle East Eye ahead of its circulation to Labour lawmakers and senior party figures.

Under international law, all Israeli settlements constructed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War – are classified as illegal. This position was further cemented earlier this year when the United Nations’ highest judicial body, the International Court of Justice, issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful as a whole, and required all UN member states to take active measures to end the occupation.

Against this global legal consensus, LFI’s report takes a nuanced but controversial stance, acknowledging that most of the international community rejects Israel’s claim that settlements are legal under international law while pushing for a tiered approach to the issue. The document openly criticizes unauthorised Israeli settlement outposts – small, often rogue encampments built without formal approval from the Israeli government – and calls on the UK to pressure any future Israeli government to dismantle these outposts, halt all new settlement expansion outside of existing large, established settlement blocs, increase Palestinian access to construction permits in Area C (the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military control), and expand territorially for Palestinian autonomous zones.

This framework makes clear that LFI opposes any British objection to the large, established settlement blocs that house the vast majority of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The report goes further, arguing that a full national ban on all settlement goods is unfeasible on both practical and political grounds. It claims a comprehensive boycott would not only impact Israeli businesses operating within settlement blocs, East Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s Old City, but would also inadvertently harm Israeli citizens living within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, effectively becoming a de facto boycott of the entire state of Israel.

Such a move, the report argues, would be perceived by the UK’s Jewish community as evidence that the Labour government is disproportionately targeting Israel for punitive action, deepening existing divides within the country over the government’s Middle East policy.

The LFI briefing comes at a critical juncture for UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new Labour government, which widespread Whitehall sources confirm is actively considering implementing an import ban on settlement goods once Parliament reconvenes following its current recess. Burnham has publicly stated he is reviewing “further measures to deter unacceptable violence” in the occupied West Bank, where extremist settler attacks on Palestinian communities have spiked dramatically over the past two years.

Multiple senior figures within Burnham’s cabinet have documented ties to LFI. Current Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who has previously stated he has been a supporter of LFI for more than 20 years in leaked text messages to former disgraced UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, has nevertheless broken with the lobby group’s latest position, endorsing sanctions on Israel and publicly accusing the country of committing war crimes in Gaza. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, another senior Labour figure, previously served as a vice-chair of LFI.

It is worth noting that when Labour was the official opposition, the party publicly called for a ban on settlement goods. In June 2020, then-shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy argued that implementing such a ban would require political courage that sitting Conservative ministers had so far refused to demonstrate.

The push for import restrictions on settlement goods is gaining traction across Europe. France and Sweden recently tabled a joint proposal calling on the European Union to implement strict new import controls on goods produced in Israeli settlements, while the Netherlands officially implemented a national ban on trade in these goods just last month.

Domestically, LFI’s position puts it sharply at odds with the vast majority of the Labour Party’s own grassroots membership. Polling conducted earlier this year found that 87 percent of registered Labour members support a national ban on trade with Israeli settlements, with just 6 percent opposing the measure.

In its report, LFI does condemn the current Israeli administration led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took office in January 2023 and has dramatically accelerated settlement expansion beyond the established blocs while failing to crack down on violent extremist settlers. The group also argues that there is a long-standing international consensus, previously accepted by both Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, that the major settlement blocs will remain under Israeli control as part of any final two-state peace agreement, via a land swap arrangement that would exchange Israeli territory for the occupied land held by the blocs.