Iran Update

Ashka Jhaveri, Kathryn Tyson, Annika Ganzeveld, Andie Parry, Amin Soltani, Peter Mills, Alexandra Braverman, Brian Carter, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

Click here to view ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Key Takeaways:

• Northern Gaza Strip: A spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office said that the IDF “shifted into a new phase of the fighting” and will “target pockets of resistance” in the northern Gaza Strip.

• Political Negotiations: Two Israeli sources told Axios that Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar and Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel discussed future Israeli operations in the southern Gaza Strip during a meeting in Cairo.

• West Bank: US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that enables the United States to place financial and visa sanctions on foreign nationals involved in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on February 1 that northern Israelis will only return when it is safe for them to do so during a meeting with the IDF Northern Command and 91st Division commanders.

• Iraq: US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby emphasized the role that all of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed militias—plays in attacks on US forces in Iraq.



• Syria: Reuters reported on February 1 that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) withdrew several of its senior and mid-ranking officers from Syria ahead of possible US strikes, according to unspecified regional sources “familiar with the matter. 

Click here to read the full update.

ISW and CTP has launched an interactive map of Israeli ground operations to accompany our daily campaign assessments of the Israel–Hamas war. This product complements the daily static maps that ISW-CTP produces with high-fidelity and, where possible, street-level assessments of the war in Israel.

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