A group of congressmen have recently requested the Department of State to release a document that concludes there are currently 30,000 bona-fide Palestinian refugees from the 1948-9 war with Israel—as against the 5.2 million refugees (and their descendants) claimed by the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), the special international body whose sole responsibility is to provide these refugees with humanitarian aid. Adam Kredo reports:

Congressional officials familiar with the classified report . . . say the State Department continues to keep it secret in order not to disrupt billions of dollars in allocations to UNRWA. . . . Those familiar with the report’s contents [asserted that] the State Department is intentionally trying to keep the document secret not for national-security reasons but because of the political implications of its release. . . .

The report’s findings . . . could spur real progress in the peace process by redefining the parameters of the debate on Palestinian refugees’ right of return to the Jewish state.

“If we can solve the ‘right to return,’ if we can define refugees in such a way that it becomes possible, that’s an enormous step forward in the peace process,” said Representative Chris Stewart of Utah. “As long as you have a right of return for millions of people, there’s no way in the world the Israeli government would agree to or could agree to it, but if you could redefine refugees as a number that is manageable and fair and represents the reality, that becomes, instead of a stumbling block, it becomes a building block [for] trying to reinvigorate the peace process.” . . .

Other senior congressional sources familiar with the situation said UNRWA and its supporters are frightened to see the report released as this could affirm longstanding arguments against the aid organization.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.