Located in the Upper Galilee, about ten miles east of the coastal city of Akko (known to ancient Greeks as Ptolemais and to Europeans as Acre), the fortress of Horvat Tefen dates to the 1st or 2nd century BCE. Excavations of the site began in 2019. Nathan Steinmeyer explains why archaeologists have connected it to the Hasmoneans—the dynasty that led the Maccabean revolt and included the last Jewish kings to rule the Land of Israel:

Horvat Tefen was located strategically along the border between the expanding Hasmonean kingdom and the independent Phoenician city-state of Akko-Ptolemais. During the reign of the Hasmonean king Alexander Yannai (r. 103–76 BCE), this region was a flashpoint between the two powers as Alexander Yannai sought to conquer the important coastal port. . . . Roi Sabar, director of the excavations, believes he has an answer to the mystery of who built the hilltop fortress.

While other scholars have suggested that Horvat Tefen was constructed by the people of Akko in the 2nd century BCE., Sabar . . . suggests that Horvat Tefen was a short-lived military fort constructed by Alexander Yannai after he failed to conquer Akko early in his reign. The fortress fell out of use shortly after the death of the Hasmonean king and was only reoccupied, for agricultural activity, in the Byzantine period (324–634 CE).

Although previous theories had suggested that the fortress was built in the 2nd century to defend Akko from enemies to the east, Sabar’s study presents a compelling alternative. Instead, he concludes that the fortress was constructed by the Hasmoneans as a way of keeping watch over Akko. The purpose of Horvat Tefen was likely both to threaten the city and to strengthen the Hasmonean border. The kingdom had grown rapidly during the Hasmonean period and, by the reign of Alexander Yannai, included most of the Galilee region.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].