By Saturday afternoon in Israel, headlines across major news outlets focused on the U.S. strike against Venezuela, which reportedly included airstrikes on multiple locations in Caracas and the seizure of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that the couple had been captured by undercover agents operating in Caracas and that Maduro was «flown out of the country together with his wife.» Trump described the operation as «brilliant.»
For Israel, the events represent a matter of significant strategic attention. Venezuela has long been considered Iran’s strongest ally in Latin America, a relationship dating back to the presidency of the late Hugo Chávez.
According to Israeli assessments, the country has also hosted Islamist groups backed by Tehran, including Hezbollah.
Against this backdrop, leading Israeli media outlets placed reports from Venezuela and Washington at the top of their digital editions, accompanied by images of Trump, Maduro and explosions reported in Caracas.
«The pro-Iranian country in South America had been under increasing U.S. pressure and threats in recent weeks,» noted the news site Mako. «The president and his wife were captured and expelled from the country,» the outlet added.
The Jerusalem Post, while covering the unfolding events, highlighted the limited international condemnation of the U.S. operation. Public criticism, the newspaper noted, came primarily from Iran and Hezbollah, as well as from Colombia, another country whose government is openly hostile toward Israel.
Iranian officials, according to the daily, claimed that «the military attack on Venezuela constituted a blatant violation of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.»
Hezbollah, for its part, condemned what it called «U.S. terrorist aggression and brutality,» expressing «full solidarity with Venezuela, its people, its presidency and its government in confronting this aggression and arrogance,» the report said.
One of Israel’s leading Hebrew-language newspapers, Maariv, led its website with an analysis asserting that «after the great drama in Venezuela, Iran understands that its immunity has expired.»
«The capture of the Venezuelan president by the United States also resonates in Tehran and is perceived as a direct threat to the ayatollahs’ regime,» wrote analyst Eli Leon.
Amid ongoing violent protests in Iran, Leon added, «the American message is clear: what happened to Maduro could also happen to them,» referring to Iran’s leadership.
To grasp the magnitude of the blow dealt to the global «radical axis,» Leon argued, it is necessary to check «the depth of the relationships built over recent decades» between Iran and Venezuela.
Under Chávez and Maduro, he wrote, the South American country «served as the most important forward base for Iran and Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere.»
Another analyst, writing for Israel Hayom, offered a complementary perspective. Dudi Kogan described the operation as «the return of the Monroe Doctrine.»
«I’ve never seen anything like this. I was able to watch it in real time, and I watched every aspect of it,» says @POTUS on the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
«It was amazing to see the professionalism — the quality of leadership… Amazing.» 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/VZvRxZRgab— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 3, 2026
«Drugs were the pretext, Iran was the target,» Kogan wrote, describing the move as part of a broader «geopolitical race to oust Russia and Iran from the Americas.»
Since August 2025, he noted, the United States has deployed «a formidable military force in the Caribbean,» including aircraft carriers, destroyers, «a nuclear submarine and amphibious ground forces.»
In recent weeks, Kogan added, B-1 and B-52 bombers were spotted conducting combat missions off Venezuela’s coast, serving as a prelude to the operation that ended with the capture of Maduro and Flores.»
According to Kogan, the mission in Caracas «marks a victory for Secretary of State Marco Rubio,» the son of Cuban refugees, who views Latin American socialist regimes as a strategic and moral threat and is seen as the architect of the campaign against Maduro.
Echoing Maariv’s analysis, the Israel Hayom columnist suggested that Trump «could initiate a war with Venezuela» only to ultimately collide with Iran, a country the United States had already confronted during the June 2025 conflict between Tehran and Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities are closely monitoring developments in Venezuela. In Jerusalem, there is hope that opposition leader María Corina Machado—who maintains strong ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—could eventually come to power.
