Daniel Estrin

1/ So proud of our NPR team for winning the National Press Club breaking news award for "nuanced reporting of the 1st days of the Israel-Hamas war." Memories flooding back of a nightmare that's still ongoing. The 5 winning stories in a thread below. press.org/newsroom/new-y…

The US conveyed its proposal to Hamas: "Complete handover... and full decommissioning" of arms belonging to Hamas in exchange for large-scale reconstruction of Gaza. npr.org/2026/03/19/nx-… by @DanielEstrin The Israeli gov is counting on Hamas' refusal, to get the US green light to resume the war on Gaza, this time without the operational challenge of dozens of live Israeli hostages inside

reported with @abubakrbashir4 npr.org/2026/03/19/nx-…

1/ Hamas has been given a formal proposal to lay down its weapons, a senior US official and another person briefed on the matter told NPR. They say the proposal was handed over last week and calls for Hamas and all other groups in Gaza to decommission their weapons.

5/ "There is broad alignment that full decommissioning by all militant actors is an essential component of Gaza’s transition. There are no partial arrangements; the objective is to support the emergence of a single authority responsible for all arms in Gaza," the person said.

4/ "A comprehensive decommissioning framework has been presented to ensure the complete handover of weapons by Hamas and all other armed groups operating in Gaza. The framework has been agreed with the mediators," the person said.

Iran, Israel and Lebanon - the latest on this morning's Up First podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/2Y1dD2…

Israel's timeline and messaging on the Iran war are changing. Israeli officials now estimate at least 1 more week of war, I was told today. Netanyahu now saying Iran's regime may be weakened not toppled. More on the podcast with @NPRKelly @TBowmanNPR open.spotify.com/episode/5vQfoD…

What it feels like to be in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Dubai, Iraqi Kurdistan and on the Iranian border. Listen on NPR: npr.org/2026/03/12/nx-… @hadeelalsh @ayaelb @LeilaFadel @Rsherlock

4/ The Iran war is being fought on a hybrid digital-physical battlefield, with old-school deception tactics and cutting-edge AI technology: npr.org/2026/03/10/nx-…

3/ After Israel bombed Iran's notorious Evin prison in Tehran last year, Israel sent videos of that bombing to Iranian officials to intimidate them, the Israeli defense official said. "The message was, you aren't as strong as you think," the official said.

1/ Some new details on deception tricks in the Iran war: US warplanes were parked in southern Israel to distract Iran, which was perhaps keeping watch with Chinese satellite imagery, as Israel prepared its attack from northern Israel, a senior Israeli defense official told me.

A senior Israeli official in the military’s operations directorate tells NPR that Israel needs three more weeks to accomplish its goal of decimating Iran’s military forces — but that Israel is fighting as if every day of the war could be the last, depending on what Trump decides.

Iran's president apologized and said Iran would stop attacks on its neighboring countries. In response, an official in a Gulf country told NPR: “We will only believe if we see it.”

Sorry. Phone died. What did I miss? In the meantime, I wrote a book

Sattelite imagery reviewed by NPR suggests that the Iranian school was hit as part of a precision airstrike on a neighboring Iranian military complex and may have been struck as a result of outdated targeting information. @gbrumfiel npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-…

Some in Israel see parallels between the killing of Khamenei and the killing of Haman, the Persian villain from the Bible. "Haman, Khamenei, is the same name. And they both want to do the same thing...I'm in Heaven. I was waiting for this all my life" npr.org/2026/03/03/nx-…