Israel is between governments, and Jerusalem spent yesterday arguing over who gets to say yes to a war. The defense minister says the caretakers already can. The man holding the mandate wants a say first, and the committee that's supposed to watch both of them can't meet yet.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's security council chief, threatens American bases in Europe, and Vance weighs meeting him in Doha. See The War Today.
• Gaza: Israel strikes at Hamas's Khan Yunis commander inside Nasser Hospital, which the army says Hamas turned into a headquarters. See The War Today.
• Lebanon: Lebanese police arrest five Hezbollah men near Batroun with maps listing sites and weapons across the Christian north. See Briefly Noted.
• The caretakers: Eisenkot tells Netanyahu to leave alone what can wait, and gets his security briefing after five days of asking. See Inside Israel.
• The draft: Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch lets United Torah Judaism talk to Eisenkot, and puts yeshiva students' legal status ahead of money. See Inside Israel.
• The reform: Eisenkot's bloc agrees in principle on four Knesset committees to repeal reform laws before it has a government. See Briefly Noted.
• Paris: France turns back Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, at the airport over the communities he built. See Israel and the World.
• Antalya: Erdogan tells the UN climate summit tens of thousands of Gaza tents flooded, a count Hamas's media office started. See Israel and the World.
• Day schools: Israel's cabinet puts NIS 100 million into getting more North American Jewish children into Jewish schools. See Briefly Noted.
• The Jordan border: The Defense Ministry plans about 40 new communities and civilian sites there, to double its 20,000 residents within ten years. See Briefly Noted.
• Iraq: Baghdad turns down Washington's request to close most of its Iran crossings, and reopens one into Khuzestan. See Developments to Watch.

A caretaker period is when everybody tests what an unfinished government is allowed to do, and in Jerusalem the testing runs both ways. The law answers more of it than the shouting does. A caretaker cabinet can still take the country to war, and a new Knesset majority is allowed to undo what the last one wrote. The war, for its part, is running on the authority it already had, and Hamas's newest Khan Yunis commander lasted about two months under it, if the army got him.