An 18-year-old from Bat Yam was arrested on Thursday night on suspicion of being involved in throwing a fragmentation grenade at the Japanika branch in Kiryat Ono.

On Monday, July 13, a fragmentation grenade was thrown at the Kiryat Ono branch as part of the wave of grenade attacks on Japanika chain branches in central Israel. 

In the span of a few hours, police announced two grenade explosions, a pipe bomb attack, and an attempted arson. Three of the incidents targeted branches of the Japanika restaurant chain, owned by businessman and Beitar Jerusalem owner Barak Abramov.

The suspect is expected to appear before the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Friday, where police will request his detention be extended to facilitate the ongoing investigation into the incidents.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, Israel Police said that the thrown grenades were stolen IDF equipment.

Police arrested Musli family crime boss in connection with the attacks

Israel Police arrested Musli crime family boss Yossi Musli on Tuesday night in connection with a series of attacks targeting the Japanika restaurant chain, according to Israeli media reports. 

For years, brothers Yossi and Eli Musli have managed to stay ahead of police, who suspect them of involvement in a long series of murders and attempted murders targeting their rivals.

The criminal organization they lead began in southern Tel Aviv and developed into a powerful network that some have described as a global empire. It is estimated to be worth more than half a billion shekels.

Police suspect the organization of involvement in illegal gambling, extortion, high-interest black-market loans, operating casinos abroad, and other criminal activities.

They also suspect that another brother, Shay, runs a criminal organization in South Africa

Jon Ossoff, the Jewish senator from Georgia and the focus of speculation about a 2028 run for the presidency, is prepared to be the target of an address Thursday night by President Donald Trump. 

Ossoff told reporters that if Trump, as expected, questions his and Sen. Raphael Warnock’s 2021 election wins, then the president would be “calling Georgia voters illegitimate.” 

Trump has repeatedly claimed without basis that his 2020 presidential election defeat in Georgia, and wins by Democrats Ossoff and Warnock in runoffs the following January, were rigged.

He has deployed federal law enforcement to Georgia to search for evidence of fraud, even though repeated probes have uncovered nothing. 

The speech comes as Ossoff has gained national attention for his repeated attacks on the president in his reelection bid against Trump-endorsed Rep. Mike Collins.

Ossoff could be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2028

Ossoff’s battle with Trump could fuel buzz for his vying for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. 

Ossoff has repeatedly denied interest in running for president this cycle. But Democratic pollster Adam Carlson imagined an excerpt from a “Former President Ossoff’s memoir in 2060.”

“I wasn’t planning on running for president. It was never an ambition of mine,” Carlson wrote on X/Twitter, following initial reports that Trump’s address could come as soon as Monday. “Then Trump did that super weird address on July 13, 2026 and here we are.”

Were he to run and win, Ossoff, 39, would be the first Jewish president of the United States, and his Jewish identity has crept into discussions about his potential candidacy.

He has drawn comparisons to Barack Obama, who said in 2006 that he “will not” run for president, two years before he did so successfully.

Support from left-wing figures

The buzz around Ossoff has largely focused on his sharp criticism of Trump, attracting some prominent left-wing figures. Progressives such as Gen Z commentator Jack Cocchiarella and Zohran Mamdani adviser Morris Katz have lauded Ossoff’s messaging. 

Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, a harsh Israel critic who has drawn allegations of antisemitism, said Ossoff “will be my dark horse pick, depending on how he presents himself if he has ambitions for higher office.”

One subject that Ossoff has largely steered clear of during his reelection campaign is Israel, a growing wedge issue among Democrats and a litmus test for democratic socialists like Piker.

While multiple possible presidential candidates have sworn off the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, Ossoff has not weighed in on the group.

Ossoff’s views on Israel

Ossoff has positioned himself as an Israel supporter who opposes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Just over a month after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, he referred to himself as a “pro-Israel Jewish American” in an address. He said he was praying for the Israeli hostages’ freedom and urges “mercy for the innocent civilians in Gaza.”

He has since voted to block some weapons sales to the country, along with an increasing number of Senate Democrats who have questioned military assistance to Israel as the war has devastated Gaza, while voting to allow the sale of defensive weapons.

He wrote in July 2025 that “the United States must continue to support the Israeli people, who face the persistent threat of rocket and missile attack and have been subjected to intense aerial bombardment from Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen.”

Ossoff’s first vote against weapons in November 2024 spurred a critical open letter from several Georgia Jewish organizations including synagogues, Jewish schools, the local Anti-Defamation League chapter and other groups. His vote also drew the attention of AIPAC, which released 30-second ads attacking US senators, including Ossoff, who had voted to block weapons sales.

Ossoff could unite the Democratic Party

Radio host Eric Messersmith said last month that, in an effort to win over a party that is divided on Israel, Ossoff “might be the Democrat that can thread the needle because even though he’s Jewish, he’s very critical of the Israeli government, very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“He has credibility on that issue, so it’s possible that I think he could fill that lane in between the two extremes of the Democratic party,” Messersmith said in a widely circulated conversation on CNN.

CNN’s Elex Michaelson drew criticism online when he added, “As a Jew, some people read a little more Jewish than other people, and Jon Ossoff may not read as Jewish as [Pennsylvania Gov.] Josh Shapiro does, for whatever’s that worth.” Michaelson later apologized. 

Ossoff has deep ties to the local Jewish community, and has spoken about the impact of growing up around his uncle who was a Holocaust survivor.

Living among survivors “has a profound impact on how I view the State of Israel, recognizing that the State of Israel was established 75 years ago as Jews rebuilt in the ashes of the Holocaust, and sought to establish a secure homeland for the Jewish people,” Ossoff told the American Jewish Committee in May 2023.

Ossoff’s Georgia campaign

The Georgia Democrat’s team reported that Ossoff raised $20 million in the year’s second quarter, ending it with $42 million in cash on hand. 

Jewish Insider reported that some Jewish Georgians are torn. Collins has faced accusations of antisemitism and having ties to the far right. Collins’ son-in-law is a white nationalist social media influencer who has shared antisemitic material and Nazi imagery, CNN reported on Thursday. Collins has said some of his own statements were misunderstood, and has defended himself by citing his support for Israel.

“Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Mike Collins is a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist,” Ossoff posted on social media last month.

Ahead of Trump’s address, Ossoff said he expects the president “to use whatever he puts out there on Thursday as a pretext” to interfere in the November election, or “to lay the groundwork for challenging the result.”

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has proposed replacing the expiring UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon with an EU-mandated force to prevent a security vacuum, he told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland.

“We should examine in the EU whether we can ensure that no security vacuum arises with a European mandate following the UNIFIL mission,” Wadephul said in an interview published on Friday.

The UNIFIL mission expires on December 31, 2026. Germany’s parliament extended the country’s participation in the mission for the final time just weeks ago.

Wadephul said Lebanon, with a stabilizing government, represented “one of the most hopeful developments in the region at the moment.”

Lebanon and Israel held ambassador-level talks at the US embassy in Rome on Tuesday and Wednesday — their sixth round of face-to-face negotiations since a ​new war erupted on March 2 between Israel and Lebanese armed group ​Hezbollah, triggered by the wider regional conflict.

IDF withdrawal, end to Hezbollah terror

An EU-mandated force could “create the conditions for the Israeli army to withdraw without Hezbollah returning with its terror,” the minister added.

The proposal comes as European nations seek to maintain regional stability while balancing relations with Israel and Lebanon.

Israel’s IDF is currently positioned within a “buffer zone” approximately 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon along the entire Israeli border to bolster Israel’s defense against Hezbollah.

Lebanon and Israel resumed talks on Tuesday in Rome, with Beirut hoping for progress towards securing an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon under a US-brokered deal, although expectations for swift progress were low.

US-led diplomacy has emerged since Hezbollah and Israel returned to war on March 2 amid the wider regional conflict, moving forward despite strong objections from the Iran-backed group, which believes only Iranian pressure on Washington can secure an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal.

Iran demanded an end to the war in Lebanon as part of its interim deal with Washington signed last month, but the agreement has been shaken over the last week by renewed US-Iranian hostilities in the Gulf.

The Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Malaysia will immediately deport any Israeli citizens found in the country, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Wednesday, as federal authorities investigate allegations that Israelis using dual citizenship were participating in a technology-focused community in Johor’s Forest City. 

“We will not allow it,” Anwar told reporters. “If there are Israeli nationals, since we do not recognize Israel, they will be deported immediately.” 

The investigation centers on Network School, a co-living community for startup founders and digital nomads established by former Coinbase executive Balaji Srinivasan. The project, located in the China-backed Forest City development across the Johor Strait from Singapore, came under scrutiny after an online promotional video drew widespread attention. 

In the video, residents describe living on “a man-made island near Singapore,” while Srinivasan says, “We’re building Silicon Valley outside Silicon Valley.” 

The promotion also generated criticism online. One social media user wrote: “Sounds like a cult, definitely operates like a cult, recruits like a cult.” 

Malaysia doesn’t allow Israeli citizens to enter the country

The Johor state government subsequently called for a federal investigation into both the commune’s activities and the nationalities of those taking part. 

Malaysia’s Immigration Department later announced that it had inspected 266 foreign nationals from 40 countries at the site and found that all possessed valid travel documents. Officials said, however, that broader inquiries into the identities and activities of those involved remain ongoing. 

Anwar also instructed authorities to examine the project’s business operations, including its premises licenses, accommodation arrangements and land use. He said any violations should be met with “firm action without compromise.” 

Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel and does not permit Israeli passport holders to enter the country without special government approval. Authorities acknowledged that people with dual citizenship may, in some cases, enter using a passport issued by another country. 

Anwar said the government would not compromise on either national security or its political position on Israel. The prime minister has maintained a strongly pro-Palestinian stance and open ties with Hamas following the escalation of the conflict in Gaza.

The opposition bloc is expected to gain 62 seats in the next election, while the current coalition is projected to fall to 48, according to the latest poll published on Friday by Maariv.

Against the backdrop of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legislative blitz before the Knesset’s dissolution, the latest Maariv poll revealed that the opposition coalition, led by Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar!, is expected to win a majority of seats in the October 27, 2026 elections.

The poll found that Netanyahu’s Likud is losing seats and is tied for first place with Yashar, with both at 22 mandates.

Shas stands at only seven, which is the lowest since the 2022 election when it received 11 seats. The Religious Zionist Party maintains its four seats in this week’s poll, while Otzma Yehudit loses seats, dropping to seven.

Blue and White and Balad will not cross the current electoral threshold of 3.25%, the percentage of the national vote required to gain a seat in the Knesset.

Most Israelis oppose including haredi parties in coalition

The Maariv poll also found that 83% of voters oppose the inclusion of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties in the coalition that is formed after the elections, while 8% support it.

In contrast, 70% of voters support adding an Arab party to the coalition after elections, while 10% oppose the move and 20% say it doesn’t matter or they have no opinion.

The public also lacks confidence in the current government’s ability to make the right decisions for Israel in the months leading up to the election: only 38% of voters believe it can, while 55% think it won’t.

The survey was conducted on July 8-9 by Maariv in collaboration with Panel4ALL Research, led by Menachem Lazar. It involved 500 respondents, representing a representative sample of the adult population in the State of Israel aged 18 and over, Jews and Arabs. The maximum sampling error in the survey is 4.4%.

The Israeli government distributed dozens of drones, rangers, and other equipment to farms on the eastern border of the country in a ceremony last week in the Jordan Valley.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Missions Minister Orit Strock attended the ceremony held at the Zarzir Farm. Chairman of the Settlement Division Yishai Merling and Head of the Jordan Valley Council David Elhayani were both there as well.

“We continue to thwart the vision of a Palestinian terror state by establishing farms and settlements all across the country,” Smotrich said. “Every night, drones enter here intending to bring weapons to the Arabs in Judea and Samaria and Arab Israelis to create a new October 7.”

The ceremony took place just one day after the Defense Ministry established the Eastern Border Directorate, identifying the border with Jordan as an increasingly vulnerable corridor for Iranian-backed weapons to be illegally brought into Israel. 

The Directorate aims to create a framework to “bring all of the state’s capabilities to the longest border area of the State of Israel,” according to Defense Ministry Director-General Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Baram. 

Strock: Eastern border plan is ‘reality-changing’

“Iran and its proxies’ plan to destroy Israel has indeed weakened throughout the war, but looking ahead, the raid from the east is a developing threat that must be prepared for,” he added.

“The Eastern Border plan is a strategic, reality-changing plan,” Strock elaborated at the ceremony. “The plan will fix an ongoing injustice towards the most beautiful region of the country, expanding the settled area further east and west, doubling the size of the territory and the number of residents, and increasing the number of settlements tenfold.”

This is a continuation of Strock and Smotrich’s efforts to support farms and outposts in the West Bank. They attended several ceremonies together in 2025, giving equipment to farming outposts in Sde Ephraim and Meitarim Farm in the South Hebron Hills.

David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Council, spoke directly to the farmers.

“Your location here today beyond the security fence is not just a ceremonial event …Your presence here, together with the equipment and security components you bring with you, proves that the Israeli government understands what we’re saying and performing day in and day out on the ground: The Jordan Valley is the eastern wall of protection for the State of Israel,” he said.

US President Donald Trump declassified intelligence on Thursday that he maintained showed Chinese interference in US elections, reviving his long-running attacks on election security despite a US intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing affected the 2020 vote that he lost.

The 25-minute prime-time address underscored Trump’s effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November’s midterm elections, when his fellow Republicans will be defending their slender congressional majorities.

Trump used his remarks to again press Republicans in Congress to pass legislation imposing new voter identification and citizenship requirements, despite longstanding findings that voter fraud in US elections is rare. The bill has stalled in the Senate amid fierce Democratic opposition.

Trump said the declassified documents would reveal “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.” But many appeared to show the opposite or were unrelated to US election infrastructure at all.

The speech came at a challenging political moment for Trump and Republicans, with his approval rating weighed down by the unpopular Iran war and high energy prices. Trump only briefly mentioned the war at the outset, saying the US was “winning big,” while listing a series of domestic accomplishments, including tax cuts and his immigration crackdown, before turning to election security.

The president said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files, including names, addresses, and other data used to register to vote.

He asserted that members of the US intelligence community deliberately suppressed information about the extent of China’s activities.

His allegations contradict an unclassified 2021 US intelligence community assessment that found no indications any foreign actor attempted to alter or succeeded in altering “any technical aspect” of the 2020 presidential election vote, including voter registrations, ballots, tabulations or results.

That assessment was conducted under John Ratcliffe, then Trump’s director of national intelligence and now his CIA director.

The report also found China had pursued an effort dating to at least 2008 to collect information on US voters, public opinion, political parties, candidates and top government officials, likely aiming to use the material to predict election results.

Two people familiar with the matter said that US voter data obtained by China was not confidential – voter files are routinely purchased by political consultants – and could not be manipulated.

Ahead of Trump’s speech, some White House officials expressed concern that disclosing the China information could be misleading, sources told Reuters.

Trump’s harsh language about China risked rocking a relationship that has steadied following last year’s costly trade war. Trump hopes to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September about improving trade relations.

Before Trump began speaking, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, Liu Chang, said in response to a request for comment, “China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US”

Familiar claims going back years

Trump has spent years raising doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely asserting that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged. He has also advanced other false claims, including that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable, and non-citizen voting is widespread.

Numerous courts and vote recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in the 2020 election.

Trump said the documents would reveal serious weaknesses in election security. But many either appeared to be inconsistent with that assertion or were unrelated to US election infrastructure:

* One CIA document, prepared last month, concerned Venezuela’s election, not America’s.

* “We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results,” another document said.

* A third document, produced by the CIA, detailed efforts by Chinese spies to target Biden’s campaign and noted that Beijing “does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election,” although it said China might later decide to do so.

“Trump’s shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement during the speech. “The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”

Political headwinds

While Trump cast US elections as highly vulnerable, he did not provide evidence of any actual votes in 2020 that were altered or manipulated.

Two of the three major US television networks and CNN decided not to broadcast the prime-time address on their primary platforms, eschewing a practice typically reserved for major addresses on issues of national import.

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has sought to expand federal power over the administration of elections, which legally resides with state governments under the US Constitution.

Trump used his speech to again call on congressional Republicans to advance a bill, the SAVE America Act, that would require photo ID to vote and proof of US citizenship to register and would significantly curtail mail-in voting. Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the legislation is intended to suppress legitimate votes.

The bill has passed the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives several times with a simple majority, but it does not have the 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

Some Republican leaders have urged Trump to focus on issues that matter most to Americans, including high living costs, rather than focus on the 2020 vote.

Democrats need to flip only three Republican seats to take a majority in the 435-seat US House of Representatives. They face an uphill battle to win a majority in the 100-seat Senate with critical races unfolding in Republican-leaning states.

Opinion polls show majorities of US voters opposed to the Iran war and unhappy with Trump’s stewardship of the economy.

Israeli bridge enjoyed a remarkable European Championship, with the national teams in the Under-26, Under-21 and Under-16 categories all claiming silver medals after competing for gold until the final stages of the tournament in Riga, Latvia.

Israel was represented by four teams at the championships, with three finishing second in Europe. The achievement follows the two bronze medals recently won by Israel’s Open and Mixed Pairs teams at the European Championship for senior national teams.

The Under-26 team led the standings for much of the competition and remained in contention for the title until the very end. The team consisted of Nir Hotorski and Aviv Zeitak, Daniel Mesika and Ido Mushkovitz, and Lia Patleko and Koren Reter. Danny Loonstein served as captain, with Ron Pechtman as coach.

Israel’s Under-21 team also claimed silver after a dramatic and extremely close finish.

On the final day, Israel faced Poland in a direct battle for the gold medal and ultimately finished second in Europe following a thrilling photo finish. The team included Eitan Gissin and Sophie Zeidenberg-Gat, Itamar Herbst and Yoav Shor, and Noam Tzarfati and Tommy Hiba. Tomer Loonstein was the captain, with Pechtman serving as coach.

An ‘incredible success’

The Under-16 team also completed an outstanding championship, securing silver after a dramatic final day that saw Israel climb into second place in the standings.

The team consisted of Yahli Hiba and Raam Hotorski, Hadassah and Naomi Weinvitz, and Aviv Zeidenberg-Gat and Shira Lahav. Kfir Meital was the captain, while Moshiko Meyuhas and Ofek Sabach served as coaches.

“It is an incredible success,” said Danny Loonstein, chairman of the Israel Bridge Federation, head of the delegation and captain of the Under-26 team. “We sent eight teams across nine categories in the senior and youth competitions and returned with a full haul of medals: bronze medals for the Open and Mixed Pairs senior teams, and silver medals for the Under-16, Under-21 and Under-26 teams.”

“I am proud of every member of the delegation, who gave their very best. We will see you next year at the World Championship, with the goal of taking another step forward.”

Ayelet organization congratulates teams

Arik Kaplan, president and CEO of Ayelet, the umbrella organization for Israel’s non-Olympic sports, also congratulated the teams.

“Having three Israeli youth teams on the podium at the same championship is impressive evidence of the strength of the next generation of Israeli sports,” Kaplan said. “Beyond the medals, the young players represented Israel with pride, determination and excellence throughout the competition. This is a tremendous achievement that demonstrates the strength of Israeli bridge across all age groups and promises an exciting future for the sport on the international stage.”

Shorty, the aptly named 4-foot-8-inch medical clown, stood between two young patients riding coin-operated toy cars in the lobby of Tel Aviv’s children’s hospital, alternately blowing and eating bubbles as the children giggled.

Between mouthfuls, Shorty asked the girl’s mother why her daughter, about 6ֿ, was in the hospital. A tonsil operation, the mother said, performed by Dr. Shaked.

Shaked is the Hebrew word for tonsil. Shorty stopped blowing bubbles and turned to face her. “You’re joking,” she said, slapping her palm theatrically to her forehead. “That’s it, I’m done. I have no reason to be here.”

Decked out in a baroque lace cravat, disco-themed baseball cap and a pin that reads “Life is short and so am I,” Shorty is the alter ego of Shira Friedlander, one of seven Dream Doctors medical clowns assigned to Dana-Dwek Children’s Hospital at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, also known as Ichilov.

Israel has become a global leader of medical clowning over the past two and a half decades, with two main organizations and the world’s first full bachelor’s degree program in medical clowning, at Haifa University. In the last three years, since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that has reshaped Israeli society, clowning has taken on a renewed role in supporting healing and resilience.

Simchat Halev operates a network of about 500 volunteer therapeutic clowns in hospitals, with a focus on entertainment, emotional relief and morale. Dream Doctors, founded in 2002, developed a more clinical model, placing about 100 salaried medical clowns in more than 30 hospitals, where they work as paraprofessionals with hospital teams and even take part in medical procedures. At Ichilov, that means the clowns can be brought into operating rooms, oncology wards and transplant units. The nonprofit has also pioneered medical clowning in rehabilitation, trauma care and adult wards.

Atay Citron, who founded the medical clowning degree program at Haifa University, wrote in 2014 that after observing medical clowns in Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, and interviewing clown doctors from the Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Brazil, he had not found stories resembling the Israeli Dream Doctors’ “audacity and insane courage.” He described their ethos as one of independent spirit, brash humor, bold innovation, risk-taking and creativity, alongside formal training that emphasizes careful listening, hospital rules and cooperation with medical staff.

That difference was clear to Ines Rosner, who co-founded a German medical clowning organization and has traveled to Israel about eight times to learn from Israeli practitioners.

“In Israel, it’s common that you have an idea and you just do it,” she said. “In Germany, that’s not possible.”

While medical clowns are a normal presence inside Israeli hospitals, in Germany “most hospitals think of them as visitors who come in the afternoons and have some fun,” Rosner said. The pandemic made that status clear, she said, when clowns were among the first asked to leave hospitals.

Independent studies have found that medical clowning can reduce anxiety in children undergoing hospital procedures, with a 2024 review of 15 randomized trials involving 2,252 children also finding reductions in pain and crying time. One Israeli study found that children undergoing blood draws cried about two-thirds less when accompanied by a medical clown.

“It isn’t a nice-to-have,” Friedlander said. “It’s part of recovery. We’re part of a giant system.”

What that looked like, on an ordinary Wednesday morning spent shadowing Friedlander, was relentless, disarming and downright hilarious. She answered questions about medical clowning while breaking off every few sentences to do it: stopping a child entering the elevator to ask, “Wait, do you fart in elevators?” or sizing up a tall boy on crutches, his leg in a cast, and instructing him to “chop off a little more” as punishment for having “stolen all the tallness in the world.”

Friedlander said the freedom of clowning comes from letting go of the attempt to hold everything in the room at once — the illness, the family, the fear, the joke, and the potential responses to it.

“I hold on to what I’m doing right now, and that’s enough for this moment,” she said. “It takes a deep kind of trust that everything happening is exactly right for this instant. Then I feel very free, because my only obligation is to be present in the room and whatever comes out will come out.”

When that happens, she said, “wonderful things come out because the ego is put aside and two hearts meet and the world is blown wide open.”

Medical clowns come from mixed backgrounds, with some never having finished high school and others arriving from related professions — such as circus or theater — or different fields altogether. Friedlander had been in drama classes since childhood, but acting as a career “felt empty,” she said. At Haifa University’s medical clowning program, where courses include how to step into silliness, she discovered performance as medicine.

“I remember my jaw dropping,” she said. “It was like Mr. Bean falling from the sky. It checked all the boxes.”

Maor Gillerman, whose clown name is Udi-Lama, came to medical clowning after Oct. 7. A scriptwriter who had been active in the campaign for better conditions for Israeli screenwriters, Gillerman said his activism no longer seemed like the most useful place to put his energy after the attacks.

“Coming to the hospital is my favorite time of the week,” he said. “It feels like the most meaningful thing I do, even if I don’t always know what difference I’ve made.”

Smadar Harpak, whose clown name is Shemesh, is one of Dream Doctors’ most veteran medical clowns, with 17 years in the group. When someone is hospitalized, she said, the family and the patient “can’t think of anything at all except getting better,” and the role of the clown is to break that tunnel vision.

In 2015, Harpak helped create the Clownbulance, which is “like an ambulance, but for treating the soul, not the body,” she said. The vehicle takes seriously ill children, and others carrying trauma, out for a day of fun. Rosner is developing a German Clownbulance in Baden-Württemberg based on the Israeli version, after training with Harpak.

After children who had been taken hostage in Gaza on Oct. 7 were released, the Clownbulance took some of them on a jeep excursion.

“There are kids who have really lost faith in humanity,” Harpak said. “They can’t just be trapped in a hospital. I want them to go out, remember life outside, and just be normal for a day.”

Asked what, exactly, was normal about riding around with clowns in a Clownbulance, Harpak slipped back into Shemesh, put her hands on her hips, cocked her head to one side and asked, “Do I look normal to you?”

The model had also been tested in trauma settings before Oct. 7. Citron described a Dream Doctor at Barzilai Hospital entering a room of Sderot schoolchildren after a rocket exploded near their bus, ignoring a psychiatrist’s signal to leave and helping turn the encounter into play. The hospital later changed its protocol, putting medical clowns first in line to meet shell-shocked patients after a missile strike in Ashkelon.

A much larger role following Oct. 7

But after Oct. 7, medical clowning took on a much larger role in Israel’s trauma wards. Rehabilitative clowning, a subfield developed in Israel with wounded soldiers before the war, became part of the emergency response, with clowns working around the clock with traumatized soldiers, civilians, evacuees and hostage families, and alongside psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists at an IDF rehabilitation center. One Dream Doctors clown said she had worked with more than 1,000 traumatized soldiers in the year after the attacks.

Harpak also organized an event bringing together former hostages and wounded soldiers in Ichilov’s rehabilitation ward, calling it a “full-circle moment” in which soldiers were able to say, “This is what we fought for.”

Harpak rejected the idea that certain moments are inappropriate for clowning.

“The clown can be present even in the most sensitive spaces,” she said, because the work begins with “choosing not to see any of them as a victim.”

“When I clown, I’m saying, this happened and what can I do about it?” she said. “I choose to emphasize the positive.”

Friedlander took it a step further. Medical staff, she said, have to focus on the part of the patient that is sick. The clown looks for the part that is still healthy.

“Whatever situation the patient is in, there is always a healthy side,” Friedlander said. “The clown’s job is to help a person look at things from a different place. When everything is stuck and clogged, finding and opening that part allows things to flow, to move.”

That also means accepting when a child is not in the mood. Friedlander said the clown persona gives her an “anchor” for the rejection.

“It’s not personal against Shorty,” she said. “The clown comes to say, you don’t have to play by any rules. You don’t have to please me, or play the game of, ‘OK, clown, be funny.’”

A rare form of control

Gillerman described the same idea as a rare form of control inside the hospital.

“It’s not always about making the kid laugh,” he said. “It’s also about their freedom to choose. The clown is the only one a kid can tell, ‘Not right now.’ With the doctors and nurses, the child has no choice but to do what they say.”

“A clown’s superpower is paying close attention to feelings,” Friedlander said. “Everyone is a little angry that they’re in the hospital — some more, some less. The fact that I don’t dismiss any emotion gives it so much space, and that allows for a different kind of freedom.”

The same applies to the clown, she said. If she arrives at the hospital in a bad mood, and it lingers even after she puts on Shorty’s costume, she does not try to bury it.

“If the here and now is angry, then that’s what we’ll live in that moment,” she said. “I will try and bring it out in the best way for the connection I want to create with the person in front of me.”

Back in the lobby, the girl who had undergone the tonsil operation watched Shorty eat another bubble, then opened her mouth and did the same.

Her mother stared at her, astonished. She explained that her daughter had not eaten at all in two days. For Friedlander, it was a small but meaningful win. Through bubbles and play, the girl was practicing the motions of eating again.

“That’s exactly the idea. Just be a clown,” Shorty told the mother. “Bubbles are the best food for tonsils anyway.”

Sirens sounded across Bahrain and Kuwait early Friday morning as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against US military infrastructure in the region, as the renewed conflict between the two countries enters its sixth day.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry urged citizens to head to safe locations following the activation of sirens in a post to X/Twitter.

The alarm has been sounded. We urge citizens and residents to remain calm, head to the nearest safe place, and follow the news through official channels.

— Ministry of Interior (@moi_bahrain) July 16, 2026

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that the target of the  Iranian attack on Bahrain was US helicopters and reconnaissance aircraft located at the Shakir Airbase, the country’s military airport.

“In response to the enemy’s hostile action of targeting urban infrastructure and innocent people, the Iranian Army, in the eleventh phase of the “Thunder” operation, targeted the location where helicopters and US military P8 surveillance aircraft are stationed,” said Tasnim ’s report, citing the Iranian army. 

Iran’s army added that it would respond “quickly and decisively” to any counter attacks from the US , stating that any retaliation would have a “heavy cost.” 

Kuwait intercepts Iranian drones, missiles

In Kuwait, the nation’s air defenses intercepted Iranian missiles and drones. 

In a post on X, Kuwait ‘s army clarified that any explosions heard are a result of air defense systems intercepting incoming attacks. 

Kuwaiti air defenses are currently engaging hostile missile and drone attacks following the Iranian aggression.

The General Staff of the Army notes that any explosions heard are a result of air defense systems intercepting the hostile attacks.

Everyone is urged to adhere to the safety and security instructions issued by… pic.twitter.com/sW2lYW89L6

— KUWAIT ARMY – الجيش الكويتي (@KuwaitArmyGHQ) July 16, 2026

Qatar says it thwarted missile attack, security threat over

Qatar’s Defense Ministry said on Friday its armed forces thwarted a missile attack, while the Interior Ministry said the security threat was over.

Several booms were heard in the capital Doha as a government security alert was sent to mobile phones, according to a witness. The ministries did not say who was behind the attack.

🇶🇦 HUGE EXPLOSIONS IN QATAR INCLUDING AL UDEID.

THE AIRSPACE IS CLOSED unless you’re an Iranian projectile. pic.twitter.com/h9TgPqxk5S

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) July 17, 2026

This is a developing story. Reuters contributed to this report. 

ISLAMABAD- The ninth OIC Ministerial Conference on Women wrapped up on Monday afternoon, with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) urging member states to strengthen women’s participation in politics, the economy, education and society.  

One of the resulting Islamabad Declaration’s most significant statements was its explicit reference to Afghanistan, expressing deep concern over continued restrictions on girls’ education and women’s employment, which it described as inconsistent with Islamic values. It called for the removal of educational and professional barriers to ensure the full, equal, and meaningful participation of Afghan women and girls in public life.   

The declaration reaffirmed the OIC’s broader commitment to advancing women‘s socio-economic and political empowerment across the Muslim world, noting that “the empowerment of women and girls is essential to the progress, resilience and prosperity of OIC societies,” and adding that investing in women’s education, skills, leadership, protection and economic participation is “an investment in the future of the Ummah.”   

More than 190 delegates, participants

Held under the theme “Socio-Economic and Political Empowerment of Women in the OIC Countries: Challenges and Way Forward,” the conference brought together more than 190 delegates and participants—including ministers, senior officials and representatives from the OIC’s 57 member states—to discuss women’s education, economic participation, social inclusion and empowerment within the framework of women’s rights in Islam.  

OIC Assistant Secretary-General Tarig Ali Bakheet, speaking on behalf of OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha, highlighted that elevating women is a top priority requiring dedicated resources and political effort.   

He cautioned that approving the conference resolutions is not the end of the road, emphasizing that actual progress hinges on sustained teamwork, proper financing, and unwavering political commitment.  

Pakistan’s federal minister for law, justice and human rights, Azam Nazeer Tarar, assumed the chairmanship of the 9th OIC Ministerial Conference on Women, reaffirming Pakistan’s commitment to promoting the socio-economic and political empowerment of women across the Muslim world through collective action and cooperation.  

‘An economic necessity’

Addressing the conference, Tarar described women’s empowerment as “not only a social imperative but also an economic necessity, a governance priority and a cornerstone of sustainable development.”   

Women’s Development Organization Executive Director Sarah Al-Shoura highlighted the organization’s efforts to strengthen cooperation among member states and promote policies aimed at expanding women’s participation in education, economic development, and leadership.   

A notable development at the conference was the participation of a Syrian delegation led by Syria’s minister of social affairs and labour, Hind Kabawat, which marked the country’s return to the OIC Ministerial Conference on Women after years of isolation and a prolonged absence.  She described the participation as an important step in strengthening Syria’s international engagement.  

The Syrian Arab News Agency quoted Kabawat as saying that Syria’s presence presents a key opportunity for increased cooperation and the exchange of expertise with representatives from the participating countries.  

The conference took place as women’s rights remain a major concern in several Muslim-majority countries. 

Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, women and girls in Afghanistan have faced sweeping restrictions, including bans on secondary and higher education, limitations on employment with most organizations, and travel restrictions requiring a male guardian.  

Although Afghanistan was invited to attend the conference, no official delegation from the Taliban-led government participated. However, a few Afghan women living in exile attended in their individual capacities. 

When contacted by The Media Line for comment on Afghanistan’s decision not to participate and on women’s rights in the country, Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not directly answer the questions posed to him.  

Instead, Mujahid said, “Islam has made it obligatory to ensure women’s rights, including inheritance, marriage, protection from forced marriage, and dignity and honor in society.”   

He claimed that Afghan women had long been deprived of those rights and maintained that since returning to power, the Islamic Emirate had restored them. According to Mujahid, the Islamic Emirate remained committed to safeguarding all rights prescribed for Muslim women under Islamic Sharia.  

Pakistan kept the plight of Afghan women high on the agenda, with senior officials repeatedly highlighting restrictions on their rights, education and socio-economic participation.  Pakistan’s minister of state for law and justice, Aqeel Malik, described the situation facing women and girls in Afghanistan as “an alarming” test of the Muslim world’s collective conscience.  

“You really need to see the plight of those girls in Afghanistan because they are banned from attending schools and classes. This is an alarming situation,” Malik said in an interview with Saudi-based Arab News.

He argued that the OIC should use its collective diplomatic influence to press for change.  

Tahmina Safi, a former judge of the Afghan Supreme Court, told The Media Line that Islam grants women and men equal fundamental rights, including dignity, education, property, inheritance, financial autonomy, and consent to marriage, employment, and public participation.   

According to Safi, although the ruling Afghan Taliban maintain that their policies are based on Sharia, many leading Muslim scholars believe the group’s treatment of women contradicts the teachings of Islam and established principles of Islamic jurisprudence.   

She argued that the Taliban’s record of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and systematic repression, as documented by the United Nations, cannot be reconciled with Islamic principles.   

“Unfortunately,” she said, “the Taliban have no female officials capable of representing the rights, interests, and perspectives of Afghan women who believe in the equal rights granted to them by Islam at conferences dedicated to women’s rights in Islam.”

She said that OIC member states, including Pakistan, do not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. “Inviting them to participate in such meetings indirectly signals the OIC’s support for the Taliban,” Safi added.

Safi suggested that the OIC should instead engage directly with Afghan women scholars, judges, diplomats, and civil society leaders living in exile. She said a willing OIC member state, including Pakistan, could facilitate such an office (the establishment of a legitimate Afghan representative office in exile) while supporting an Afghan-led, inclusive, and legitimate political process rather than conferring legitimacy on an unrecognized authority.  

Nazifa Jalali, a Norway-based Afghan Muslim scholar and director of Dialogue Hub for Common Ground, told The Media Line that “it is essential to distinguish between Islam and the policies of the Taliban.” She said that throughout Islamic history, women had played important roles as scholars, educators, business leaders, and contributors to public life.  

Jalali argued that, in stark contrast, women and girls under Taliban rule had been systematically denied education, employment, public participation, freedom of movement, and other fundamental rights.  

She noted that UN experts, the European Union and global human rights advocates had described the situation as gender apartheid, reflecting systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls.  

Jalali said that women peacefully demanding their rights had faced arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, intimidation, and violent repression. She added that documented cases also showed Taliban forces using lethal force against protesters and civilians.  

She emphasized that OIC member states, prominent Islamic scholars, and religious institutions had repeatedly called on the Taliban to restore girls’ education, women’s right to work, and their full participation in society, saying that this demonstrated that the Taliban’s interpretation was neither universally accepted nor representative of Islam.

From Jalali’s perspective, the international community, including the OIC, had a moral and political responsibility to continue supporting Afghan women, adding that protecting their rights was consistent with Islam’s values of justice, human dignity and knowledge.  

Dure Shawar, a leading Lahore-based female entrepreneur and participant at the OIC summit, described the conference in Islamabad as an important opportunity to strengthen cooperation on women’s empowerment across the Muslim world. 

Economic empowerment the foundation of meaningful inclusion

She argued that economic empowerment was the foundation of meaningful inclusion, saying women with greater access to education, vocational training, finance and business opportunities were better equipped to contribute to economic growth and social development.  

Shawar maintained that the adoption of the Islamabad Declaration should be viewed as the beginning of a long-term process rather than an end in itself, emphasizing that its success would ultimately depend on whether member states translated their commitments into practical reforms that removed barriers facing women entrepreneurs, professionals and future leaders.  

According to Shawar, stronger collaboration among OIC countries could open new avenues for women-led businesses through investment partnerships, regional trade and knowledge sharing.  

She added that sustained political commitment could transform the conference into a significant milestone for advancing women’s empowerment and inclusive development across the Muslim world. 

The 25th Knesset dissolves on Friday, the first since 1988 to complete a full four-year term, and the country is formally having an election on October 27.

The calendar between here and there is already dense: The Democrats primaries on July 20, Religious Zionist Party on July 26, Likud on August 4, and final party lists due September 9. At least one new party has pushed its launch to “after Tisha B’Av” out of respect, or because focus groups during a fast week are a waste of money.

And the government is using its last days to push through what it still can, including bills touching the draft and the courts, the two rawest nerves in Israeli life, on the theory that facts created in July outlive whoever wins in October.

Politicians from at least three different camps have sat in The Jerusalem Post studio in recent months and said versions of the same two things. Off camera: This election will decide whether the country can still hold together. On camera: That’s why the other side must be crushed. The same person, 10 minutes apart, apparently untroubled by the fit.

Talmudic account of destruction delivers what a sermon will not, what a news desk will

Next week, in Jerusalem and in Johannesburg, every congregation will hear the sermon: The Second Temple fell because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred, and look at us now. True, and safe. It accuses everyone, which is a polite way of accusing no one.

The Talmud’s own account of the destruction is harsher and, three months before an election, more useful, because it does what a sermon won’t and a good news desk must. It assigns responsibility to specific people, and not the obvious ones.

“Jerusalem was destroyed on account of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza,” the Gemara opens (Gittin 55b). The first scene is famous: A man invited to a banquet by mistake, humiliated, dragged out while the leadership of Jerusalem watches from their seats. Less quoted is what the humiliated man says on his way out: “Since the Sages sat there and did not protest, evidently they were content with what he did. I will go and inform against them to the king.”

Bar Kamtza wasn’t watching the host. He was watching the audience.

Rome sends a test, an animal to be offered in the Temple on the emperor’s behalf, and Bar Kamtza blemishes it on the road, subtly, in a way only Halacha would catch. The sages hold a genuinely bad hand. Most wanted to offer the sacrifice anyway for the sake of peace with the empire.

Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas stopped them and said: “People will say that blemished animals may be sacrificed on the altar.” They weighed something darker, killing the informer before he could report back. He stopped that too: “People will say that one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals is put to death” (Gittin 56a).

Notice what is missing from the record. Zechariah never proposes anything. Twice he explains why the option on the table sets a bad precedent, the meeting adjourns undecided, and Rome gets its war. When the rabbis later went looking for someone to hold responsible, they passed over the informer, the host, and the emperor.

Rabbi Yochanan said: “The humility of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land” (Gittin 56a).

The verdict lands on the careful man, the one guarding precedent while the house is filled with smoke.

Nobody has to win an argument in a starving city

The Gemara’s second scene is the grain. Besieged Jerusalem was, at the start, a supplied city; the storehouses of three wealthy men held enough, the rabbis say, “to sustain the city for 21 years.”

A city that can eat for two decades can negotiate, stall, and outwait an emperor. The zealot militias, the biryonim, wanted war now, and when the sages proposed going out to make peace, the zealots refused, “and they arose and burned those storehouses of wheat and barley, and there was a famine” (Gittin 56a).

Nobody has to win an argument in a starving city.

Here, journalism can add something the sermon can’t: a second source. The siege of Jerusalem had an eyewitness correspondent, Yosef ben Matityahu, known to the world as Josephus, and his dispatch confirms the rabbis’ report. The warring factions inside the city torched each other’s supplies, he writes, “as if they had, on purpose, done it to serve the Romans,” and the fire consumed grain, “which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years.”

Jerusalem, he concludes, fell to a famine that would have been impossible had its own defenders not prepared the way for it (The Jewish War 5:1, Whiston translation).

Two sources, one rabbinic and one embedded with the Romans, hostile to each other on almost everything, agree on the grain. In a newsroom, that is when a story runs.

And the two scenes are one story. The men with torches could act, because the men with authority wouldn’t. History remembers the zealots as villains; the Gemara saves its verdict for the respectable people who let the moment pass.

The storehouse test to be applied to all parties

So, a proposal, and a commitment. Call it the storehouse test, and from now until October 27, this newspaper will apply it to every party that submits a list. Two questions each: What shared national asset are you prepared to burn in order to win? And what decision that costs you votes are you prepared to make anyway?

The storehouses are not hard to name. An army that belongs to no party, currently pulled at from several directions in the exemption fight. The consensus around the hostages, which so far belongs to no coalition and has to stay that way. Courts whose rulings bind even the people who loathe them. And the least glamorous asset on the books, the assumption that whoever loses in October accepts it.

Someone in every camp is quietly pricing one of these as campaign fuel. Any reader who just pictured only their opponents doing so is sitting at Bar Kamtza’s banquet among the quiet guests.

Jews abroad should not read this as someone else’s election coverage. The federation table that still seats people who disagree about Israel is a storehouse. So is the campus coalition that took 20 years to assemble and could crack in a week.

In conversations with community leaders across three continents since the October 7 massacre, the cast never changes, only the accents: Every community has its biryonim, who would rather command a smaller and purer camp, and its Zechariahs, who chair the meeting, raise the procedural concern, and go home relieved that nothing moved.

Earlier this week, this column made the case that Israeli politics is driving out its mensches, and that the country will pay for it. This is where the bill comes in, Gittin’s. The good don’t leave a field empty. It is left to whoever brought the matches.

Fairness requires saying plainly: A full Knesset term, the first in nearly four decades, is a real institutional achievement in a region where governments rarely die of old age. But the Temple was magnificent on its last morning too. A building can stand for a long time after its contents have died.

Thursday, on the synagogue floor with the Kinot, somewhere between the ancient siege and the campaign calendar, the grain will come to mind: 21 years of it. Burned by Jews. Permitted by Jews. Hold this newspaper to the test.

Several Arab leaders have privately urged US President Donald Trump to reconsider his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli public broadcaster KAN News reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the leaders described Netanyahu and his government as “an obstacle to realizing his vision in the region.”

Additionally, Arab diplomats familiar with the discussions said regional governments increasingly view Netanyahu as an impediment to Trump’s diplomatic ambitions in the Middle East, left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Sources told Haaretz that several Arab leaders believe that Trump “is beginning to see Netanyahu as an obstacle to realizing his vision in the region and to advancing regional arrangements.” 

They also reportedly told the president that they lack confidence in both Netanyahu’s leadership and the current Israeli government.

The reports come as Israel prepares for elections in late October, with governments across the region closely watching how the political race develops.

Arab leaders look to sway Trump’s feelings on Israel’s leadership

KAN reported that Arab officials are seeking to shape Trump’s assessment of Israel’s leadership as he considers the future of his regional policies.

The president has continued to highlight his longstanding relationship with Netanyahu, even as he has publicly criticized the prime minister.

Trump has suggested that he has not yet decided how to approach the Israeli election and is examining the broader field of candidates.

Last month, he said that he was “very likely” to support Netanyahu. However, he followed his purported comment of support by saying that he would “need to see who is running.”

“I have a good relationship with Bibi, but he needs to be more rational,” he said. 

Syrian authorities have arrested a former military officer accused of supervising the production of sarin-filled bombs used in chemical attacks between 2013 and 2017, opening a legal process that rights advocates say could expose the wider structure behind Syria’s chemical weapons program. 

The Syrian Interior Ministry said Col. Ahmad Habib Ali, a former chemical weapons specialist, headed a department at the Scientific Studies and Research Center and oversaw sarin storage and chemical production at Unit 417. 

Preliminary investigations indicate Ali supervised the production of about 20 aerial bombs, each containing roughly 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of sarin, authorities said. The munitions were allegedly used against Syrian towns and cities from 2013 to 2017. 

The investigation remains underway before the case is referred to the judiciary. Syrian Interior Ministry sources declined to provide The Media Line with details beyond the official statement, while a Syrian Justice Ministry source said the case remained with the relevant authorities. 

Syrian lawyer Louay al-Hassani told The Media Line the arrest represented “the beginning of the judicial process, not its conclusion.” Investigators must collect evidence and question witnesses and experts before determining whether the case should proceed to trial, he said. 

Potential charges include murder, crimes against humanity 

Potential charges could include murder and participation in the use of prohibited weapons, as well as war crimes or crimes against humanity if supported by evidence. 

Fadel Abdulghany, executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, called the arrest “an important and positive step toward accountability” but warned that one prosecution alone would not constitute justice. 

He said chemical attacks involved an organized military and security structure and called for investigations across the chain of command. Abdulghany also urged cooperation with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism. 

The arrest came days after the OPCW Executive Council adopted decisions concerning Syria following increased cooperation by the country’s new authorities in identifying remnants of the former chemical weapons program. 

For Rua, who lost both parents in the August 21, 2013, sarin attack on Eastern Ghouta, the arrest offered a possible path toward answers: “The arrest won’t bring them back,” she told The Media Line. “But maybe it’s the beginning of finding the truth.” 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told officials from more than 60 countries on Thursday that the United States would seek to refocus international counterterrorism efforts on what he called “far-left terror,” arguing that left-wing violence had long been overlooked.

The conference in Washington has sparked Democratic concerns that the Trump administration is politicizing counterterrorism efforts and diverting resources from other extremist threats.

In a speech, Rubio said the Islamic militancy threat was “severely diminished” due to coordinated international efforts but that rising left-wing violence was a “blind spot.”

“We can, and we must identify and map this threat and rebuild our counterterrorism architecture to defeat it,” Rubio said, citing a transnational threat from groups who hate the West and target its politicians and infrastructure.

The conference marks the Trump administration’s most significant effort yet to internationalize a counterterrorism focus that critics say lacks data support.

US President Donald Trump has made ​countering left-wing groups a priority. Trump singled out the antifa movement on the campaign trail ‌in 2024, and vowed to take action against left-wing groups he accuses of fomenting violence after the killing of conservative activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk last year.

The Trump administration convened a law enforcement workshop in May to discuss the threat of far-left groups and would co-host a second workshop with Germany, Rubio said.

Latvia’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braze told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference that the forum also allowed countries like hers to discuss threats from Russia-backed groups and new trends in how militants of all stripes use technology.

“What is new is that it’s very much a fluid extremist environment where technology enables various actors to radicalize different groups. Sometimes it’s leftist ideology, sometimes it’s very right-wing ideology,” Braze said.

Since ⁠November, Washington has designated four European groups — Antifa Ost, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, offering rewards of up to $10 ⁠million ​for information on their financing. Rubio said there would be more designations soon.

Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy targeting members of groups “who have supported or incited” violence or economic sabotage, but did not say whether any visa bans had been issued under the policy.

The US Treasury is expanding probes into the use of charitable and nonprofit structures to hide foreign influence and allow violence, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the conference on Thursday.

‘Extremists within the organization’

Eleven Democratic lawmakers wrote to Rubio on Wednesday questioning the evidence for the new focus on left-wing groups and called the White House’s May counterterrorism strategy, which did not mention neo-Nazi or other far-right groups, a “politically partisan document.”

The letter, obtained by Reuters, referred to concerns that designating ⁠groups as far-left terror organizations risked targeting lawful protests and political opponents.

“We strongly urge the Department to return its focus to a serious mission set that is definitionally apolitical, data-driven, and rooted in reality, instead of rubberstamping the political priorities of extremists within the Administration whose views and policies put US national security – and the American people – at risk,” wrote the lawmakers.

The lawmakers included Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and William Keating, the ranking member of the subcommittee on Europe.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

At the conference, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said leftists were driven by “envy and hatred” and derided antifa demonstrators as “all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”

“Why is there not one normal-looking person among them? Every one of them, through the course of their life and their decisions, has scarred their body and their appearance in many different ways to the point in which their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred,” Miller said.

Rubio in his speech cited property damage and looting during demonstrations after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd as an example of left-wing violence that had been ignored, arguing that think tanks and journalists often agree with the goals of left-wing militants.

Rubio also said left-wing groups work with foreign states hostile to the US, citing Iranian proxy networks as “increasingly intimately tied to leftist militant groups around the world,” though he did not provide evidence of such links. He also accused Cuba’s Communist leaders of having “helped build the far left” in the United States, without offering evidence to support the claim.

In 1897, Theodor Herzl entered the Stadtcasino in Basel and turned it into the first headquarters of the modern Zionist movement. The delegates gathered there had no army, no government, no sovereign territory and no assurance that history would take them seriously. They possessed little more than an idea, a congress and the audacity to begin.

Herzl did not merely believe in a Jewish state. He convened one before it existed.

That was the original grammar of Zionism. It was not a label to wear, a demographic category or a political position to declare. The early Zionists did not simply call themselves Zionists. They practiced Zionism.

Zionism was a verb.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda did not merely admire Hebrew. He carried it out of the synagogue, brought it into his home and spoke it into the cradle until the language of prophets became, once again, the language of children. The pioneers did not publish declarations about their connection to the land of Israel. They crossed oceans, cleared fields, cultivated farms, established towns and defended settlements whose survival was never guaranteed.

Herzl organized. Ben-Yehuda spoke. The pioneers planted.

They argued fiercely, as Jews always have. Then they went outside and built.

They did not inherit a functioning Jewish state and debate how strongly they identified with it. They created the institutions, language, culture and power their descendants would one day inherit. Their Zionism was measured not by the intensity of their declarations, but by the consequences of their actions.

Somewhere along the way, however, we confused the practice for the label. Zionism became a noun: an identity to claim, a box to check, a word to defend and a controversy to explain. We began asking whether someone is a Zionist, as though Zionism were merely something one could be.

Identity asks who you are. Zionism asks what you are doing

We hold conferences about Zionism. We publish statements defending Zionism. We debate its definition and answer those who slander it, distort it or demand that Jews apologize for it. That work is often necessary. Advocacy matters when Israel is libeled and Jews are threatened.

But advocacy cannot become a substitute for construction.

A movement that spends all of its time explaining itself will eventually forget how to act. A people that exists only to answer its enemies has already allowed its enemies to set the agenda.

The Jewish world has become extraordinarily good at reacting. When Israel is attacked, we mobilize. When antisemitism surges, we organize. When Jewish students are threatened, we convene emergency meetings. When lies spread, we launch campaigns to correct them. When violence erupts, we mourn, raise money, publish letters and demand protection.

All of that matters. But emergency cannot become the organizing principle of Jewish civilization. A people cannot live forever in response mode.

War demands survival. Zionism demands creation. A nation must do both.

Zionism did not succeed because Jews became better at answering history. It succeeded because Jews began making history. Its founders did not ask only, “How do we preserve Judaism?” They asked the more ambitious question: “How do we create the next chapter of Jewish civilization?”

That was the revolutionary leap.

Herzl did not inherit institutions; he imagined and organized them. Ben-Yehuda did not merely preserve Hebrew; he restarted it. Ben-Gurion did not simply administer Jewish sovereignty; he helped create it. The early Zionists understood that the Jewish condition could not be solved by persuasion alone. They had no illusion that one more petition, one more speech or one more appeal to the conscience of the nations would rescue the Jewish people.

They built political power, agricultural settlements, schools, universities, newspapers, labor movements, immigration networks and systems of defense. But their greatest achievement was larger than the sum of those institutions. They changed the Jew’s relationship to language, land, responsibility, power and history.

They sought not merely to find a refuge for Jews, but to restore the creative power of the Jewish people.

History does not reward the people with the most eloquent explanation. It rewards the people who build.

Then came 1948.

One generation did not merely win independence. In 1948, they built the Jewish people’s headquarters: a home, a government, an army and a center of gravity for a people who had spent centuries living at the mercy of others.

But a headquarters is not the mission. It exists so the mission can continue.

Over time, the miracle of statehood became confused with the completion of the Zionist project. Building too often gave way to preserving. Pioneering gave way to administration. Creation gave way to maintenance. Action gave way to advocacy.

Generation after generation inherited the achievements of Zionism, but fewer inherited its habits.

We inherited a revolution and began treating it like an heirloom.

The Jewish state was never meant to become a museum to the courage of previous generations. It was meant to become the living center of Jewish renewal—a source of language, confidence, culture, power and purpose for the Jewish people everywhere.

They did not build it so future generations could become caretakers. They built it so we could become builders.

A state can be declared in a day. A people must be rebuilt in every generation.

That work remains unfinished. Millions of Jews live Jewish lives almost entirely disconnected from the Hebrew language. Jewish communities across the Diaspora remain physically vulnerable and psychologically dependent on institutions that repeatedly fail to protect them. Too many young Jews encounter Israel first as a controversy rather than as a civilization. Too many learn how to debate Zionism before they have ever been invited to practice it.

Jewish philanthropy devotes enormous resources to managing emergencies, but too little to constructing the future. We have become experts at preserving institutions without always asking the question that matters most: What kind of Jew are those institutions producing?

Founders ask: What does not yet exist that must?

Managers ask: How do we preserve what already exists?

A people needs managers. But a movement without founders eventually becomes an industry devoted to its own continuation. It may preserve buildings, budgets, conferences and mailing lists while slowly losing the purpose for which they were created.

The crisis of Zionism is therefore not merely a crisis of public relations. It is a crisis of creative will.

The question Zionism must now answer is not merely: Do you support Israel? Can you defend Israel in an argument? Will you condemn those who hate it?

The deeper question is: What are you building?

The genius of Zionism was never simply that it created a state. Its genius was that it transformed nearly every dimension of Jewish life at once. It revived a language, restored political responsibility, reshaped education, transformed agriculture, reimagined economics and produced literature, music, science, architecture and military doctrine.

It asked a people who had spent centuries surviving history to begin creating it again.

That is what real movements do. They do not merely change governments. They change civilizations.

And a civilization dies long before it disappears. It begins to die when it stops creating—when it can defend its past but no longer imagine its future; when its institutions become stronger than its ideas; when its memory grows larger while its ambition grows smaller.

Zionism was the Jewish people’s decision to create again.

That is why Zionism must once more become an organized program of action.

To speak Hebrew is Zionism.

To teach a Jewish child the language of his or her ancestors is Zionism.

To defend a Jewish community is Zionism.

To plant and cultivate the land of Israel is Zionism.

To support Israeli agriculture, technology, culture and industry is Zionism.

To build institutions that strengthen Jewish confidence and Jewish capacity is Zionism.

To create Jewish art, literature, music, education and ritual is Zionism.

To visit Israel is Zionism.

To invest in Israel is Zionism.

To serve Israel is Zionism.

To bring Israel into Jewish homes is Zionism.

To move the Jewish people closer to their homeland is Zionism.

And ultimately, to return to Israel is Zionism.

Zionism is not merely support for the existence of the Jewish state. It is participation in the continued creation of the Jewish future.

Speak. Hebrew cannot remain a ceremonial language confined to prayer books, classrooms and summer programs. It must return to Jewish homes, families and childhoods. Hebrew is not merely a tool of communication. It is the operating system of Jewish civilization.

Defend. The Jewish people cannot continue outsourcing their security, dignity and confidence. Jewish communities must possess the physical capacity and moral courage to protect themselves. Self-defense is not aggression. It is the restoration of responsibility.

Plant. Jews must renew their tangible relationship with the land of Israel. Zionism was never purely theoretical; it was rooted in soil, agriculture, labor, ownership and cultivation. A homeland is inherited through stewardship, not sentiment. You do not inherit the land merely by praising it. You inherit it by tending it.

Build. Jewish institutions must produce stronger Jews, not merely sustain themselves. We do not need more organizations whose greatest ambition is to survive another fiscal year. We need institutions prepared to survive history.

Create. A living civilization does not merely defend itself. It produces beauty. It creates language, technology, ideas, music, literature, architecture and ritual. A civilization that creates only arguments for its own legitimacy has already begun to shrink.

Return. Not every Zionist will make aliyah tomorrow. Every Zionist, however, should shorten the distance between the Jewish people and Zion. For some, that will mean aliyah. For others, it will begin with language, education, investment, service or repeated presence. But Zionism must always move the Jewish people closer to Israel, not merely teach them to admire it from afar.

Words can be distorted. Labels can be attacked. Definitions can be manipulated.

Action is harder to erase.

A child speaking Hebrew is an answer. A Jewish community capable of defending itself is an answer. A vineyard planted in Israel is an answer. A new institution, a new school, a new company, a new family and a new immigrant are answers.

The enemies of Zionism understand this better than many Zionists do. They are not merely threatened by what Zionism says. They are threatened by what Zionism does. It transforms Jews from petitioners into builders, memory into sovereignty, longing into return and the objects of history into its authors.

That is why Zionism remains revolutionary.

For years, the Jewish world has asked young people whether they identify as Zionists. Perhaps we should ask them something more demanding: What Zionist act did you perform this week? What did you speak? What did you teach? What did you defend? What did you plant? What did you create? What did you build?

Herzl founded a movement. Ben-Yehuda restarted a language. The pioneers rebuilt a homeland.

In 1948, one generation built the Jewish people’s headquarters.

Our generation must build what it was built for.

The first generation of Zionists built a country.

Our generation must build a civilization.

History is now asking one question of ours:

What will we build?

A noun describes reality.

A verb changes it.

Zionism is a verb.

Now build.

Iran’s judiciary said that no American prisoner had been released or exchanged from its prisons, Iranian state media reported on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump said a US citizen detained during the Biden administration in 2024 had been freed.

The judiciary said checks showed no convicted American prisoner, person accused of spying for the United States matching Trump’s description, or any other American detainee had been released from Iranian prisons or exchanged.

Trump thanked Iran for ‘gesture of goodwill’

Trump announced the alleged release in a post on Truth Social, claiming that the unnamed detainee was “safely outside of Iran and in good condition.”

He described the potential release as a “gesture of goodwill by Iran,” adding that he appreciated the action. 

When probed on the status of American citizens detained in Iran and whether or not that may impact US-Iran peace negotiations during a Thursday press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that “ensuring the return of Americans wrongfully detained or held hostage all over this world remains a priority” for Trump.

Yarden Garzon is undoubtedly one of the best Israeli basketball players to emerge in recent years.

The 22-year-old, 6-foot-1 guard, originally from Ra’anana, starred in the NCAA over the past four seasons, spending three years at Indiana before transferring to Maryland for her senior year.

According to many projections, Garzon was expected to become just the second Israeli to play in the WNBA, but she ultimately went undrafted a few months ago. She later signed a rookie contract with the Phoenix Mercury, though the team eventually decided to let her go.

Now, as she looks ahead to the next chapter of her career at Euroleague powerhouse Zaragoza in Spain, Garzon sat down with The Jerusalem Post and a myriad of topics were discussed, from her early beginnings as a basketball player all the way to present day.

“I’m doing really well,” Garzon began. “I’m working on getting ready for next season. While I’m excited to finish my college career, I expected things to go a little differently, but as the saying goes, we plan and God laughs. Now I’m about to begin my professional career.”

Garzon has spent the last four years in the United States and while her near future will be outside of Israel, there’s no place like home.

“Of course I miss home a lot and I’m someone who’s very, very close to my family. They came to visit me every year too. Yes, it’s difficult. But I can say that over time you kind of get used to it. I gradually built my own circle of people here, people I’m really close to. They truly ‘adopted’ me and made me feel like I belonged, like family here and also during my years at Indiana. Obviously, we’ve all been through a lot over the last few years, especially the last three years, so experiencing all of that from afar wasn’t easy. But that’s also part of the journey and part of learning.”

Athletic upbringings

Growing up in a home with a very athletic family helped begin to mold Garzon as to who she is today.

“My dad played basketball in Maccabi’s youth system and my mom played volleyball for many years. Growing up, we were always outside playing soccer, basketball, riding bikes, whatever we could. Then one day I joined a basketball program and that’s where it all started.”

“Basketball-wise, I don’t think I had one specific role model where I said, ‘I want to be like her when I grow up,’ unfortunately. I wasn’t really exposed to that. But every year I wanted to be better than the girls who were three, four, or five years older than me. I’d watch them and think, ‘Okay, I want to do a step-back like her. I want to shoot like her. I want to pass like her.’ So throughout my journey, I was always looking two or three steps ahead at the kind of player I wanted to become and that’s where I found my role models.”

Having an older sister in Lior who is a high-level basketball player is also helpful along the way for Garzon.

“I think it really comes from our family and it’s great that we have each other. We understand what the other is going through. She went to college before I did, so when I moved to the US, she helped me a lot with what to do and how to handle everything. It’s great to have someone who truly understands me and is going through similar experiences that we can share.”

After starring in high school and local youth leagues in Israel, Garzon was recruited by colleges in the United States and chose to attend Indiana.

“I arrived at Indiana as an 18-year-old kid who didn’t know much and I grew tremendously. Of course, I developed as a player on the court, but I also developed as a person. Those years between 18 and 21 are really significant because that’s when you learn so much and become an adult. Living away from home was mainly about growing up.”

After three years at Indiana, Garzon decided to move to Maryland for her last year of eligibility.

“I felt I needed new opportunities, maybe a different system and to test myself in a different environment. I chose Maryland mainly because I wanted to learn from head coach Brenda Frese, who’s known for developing players into impactful professionals. I think I fit in pretty quickly and I connected well with the coaching staff and the players. Unfortunately, we had a lot of ups and downs that season and it didn’t go exactly the way we wanted. There were a lot of injuries and a lot of changes, but that’s part of life.”

During her four years in college ball, Garzon was fortunate to be able to play in the NCAA Tournament, March Madness in each of her seasons.

“I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced it or been in the American college system can truly understand it. All eyes are on you. It’s the biggest event of the year. It’s broadcast to millions of people. I’m really happy I got to be part of it for four years. The level of organization, the quality of the players, the facilities, you really can’t compare it to anything else.”

After her senior year at Maryland, Garzon was not selected in the most recent WNBA Draft, which of course was disappointing as she had been highly rated during her time in college.

“There’s really no way to sugarcoat it. It was a huge disappointment because there were high expectations. I was projected in pretty much every mock draft. For a few hours, it was difficult to accept. But I think that’s the beauty of it, every player has their own path. I’ll make it to the WNBA, I’m sure of it. It’ll just happen through a different route.”

Following the draft, Garzon did sign a rookie contract with the Phoenix Mercury and was able to head to training camp, but at the end of the day it didn’t work out due to an injury and she was released.

“It was a great experience. I started training camp really well and I was getting very, very positive feedback. It looked like things were heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, I got injured during camp, so I wasn’t able to give everything I had or fully prove myself through the end of camp, which was really disappointing. But yes, I believe I’m absolutely at the level of that league. I know I can play there and contribute to teams, and I believe I’ll get there.

“On one hand, of course I was disappointed. I wanted to make the WNBA this year. On the other hand, I completely understood their decision because with my injury it was difficult to continue when the season was starting and I couldn’t be on the court. It was especially frustrating because of the injury. They really gave me as much time as they could to try to get back on the court, but injuries are part of every athlete’s career, and you have to deal with them.”

On the bright side, Garzon was recently selected as one of Forbes Israel’s 30 Under 30 which was a real boost for the hoopster.

“I think it’s very special and it’s encouraging to know that people see me and recognize what I’m doing. I’m really proud to be Israeli wherever I go. It’s a great feeling to receive that recognition. It’s a huge honor, and now I just want to keep working.”
See more Israeli sports coverage at www.sportsrabbi.com/en

The Knesset plenum passed late Thursday night the bill to extend mandatory military service to 32 months.

Forty-three MKs voted in favor, with 12 against and one abstention.

According to the approved temporary framework of the bill, rather than shortening IDF service to 30 months for those who enlisted in July 2024 and are set to be discharged in January 2027, the ruling will apply to those enlisted in June 2029 and are due to be discharged in January 2032.

The explanatory notes to the proposal state that “the extension of regular service within the framework of the temporary order is urgently required, in order to meet the IDF’s goals and to respond to security needs.”

The passage of the bill comes amid the coalition’s legislative blitz before the Knesset recesses ahead of the upcoming elections.  A series of legislation has recently been advanced by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, which critics argue encourages draft evasion, even amid the IDF’s severe manpower crisis.

In the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committe discussions of the bill on Tuesday, ahead of its passing, the IDF had urged the extension of service to 36 months, warning that 32 months was not enough to achieve the military’s current need.

“The regular [standing] army is reaching the edge of its capacity, and the reserve system may also go beyond that,” said DF Brig.-Gen. Shai Taib, head of the military’s Planning and Personnel Administration Division. “In some units it may even collapse, certainly if there is a further reduction in mandatory service that will force us to deploy even more reservists.”

Coalition is ‘hypocritical’ for approving bill, Liberman says

Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman accused the coalition of hypocrisy in a late Thursday post to X/Twitter.

“The hypocrisy of the coalition screams to the heavens,” Liberman wrote. “Those same ultra-Orthodox parties that just this week led a bill preventing the arrest of draft dodgers, voted today in favor of extending the mandatory service of IDF soldiers who have been fighting bravely since October 7 on four fronts.”

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday published allegations from a dozen released Palestinian prisoners, including several convicted of terrorism-related offenses, who claimed they were sexually and physically abused while in Israel’s custody after the October 7 attack.

The former prisoners told the WSJ they had been beaten, starved, and some claimed to have been sexually assaulted in front of other prisoners.

“Every day, three times a day, someone was being beaten,” claimed Iyad Omar, who was convicted of attempted murder in 2002.

“This kind of thing never happened before October 7. Back then, we only faced this type of abuse if there was a hunger strike or a riot.” 

One former Palestinian prisoner, Khaled Abu Hanoud, also said he’d noticed a tougher approach from October 7, 2023 until his release in early 2025.

The Israel Prison Service has repeatedly denied any allegations of abusing prisoners, telling WSJ the claims were “false, recycled, and entirely without factual basis.” 

Conditions changed after October 7, prisoners say

The former prisoners claimed that on the day of the Hamas attack, the power went out at Lavi prison in the Negev, sparking cheers from inmates who knew Hamas would take hostages, and believed their freedom could be near.

Later in the day, guards searched each cell and seized “almost all personal items,” and the prisoners began facing “more severe and frequent” beatings, the report claimed.

The former prisoners claimed the beatings were often carried out by the prison’s tactical units Keter – the unit which responds to prison riots – and Metzada – the IPS’s hostage-rescue force operating, which also works to halt riots.

Mohammad Mardawi, who was convicted in 1999 for being a member of Hamas, said that in April 2024, he was held in a single-person cell with two other prisoners, and was beaten and sodomized after watching soldiers fire guns at the feet of new detainees.

Mardawi said his injuries had healed before his release.

Auditors from the Ministry of Justice and United Nations agencies later found that detainees were starved and beaten, particularly during transfers and searches, WSJ wrote. 

Former Palestinian prisoners allege medical neglect in Israeli prisoners 

Autopsies of some Palestinians who died in custody showed signs of physical assault, medical neglect, and malnutrition, and doctors and rights groups described instances of sexual violence, according to WSJ. 

Physicians for Human Rights Israel, an Israeli medical advocacy nonprofit that monitors prisons, said that all 59 prisoners visited by the organization since February reported insufficient food and medical treatment. 

The organization stated that outbreaks of scabies, a skin disease associated with inadequate sanitary conditions that can become fatal if untreated, were found in five facilities in a letter to the prison service, viewed by WSJ. 

Six of the 12 former prisoners WSJ spoke to said they’d been denied necessary medical care, with three saying they’d contracted scabies. 

One 19-year-old prisoner held without charge developed a spine infection following repeated scabies exposures and became paralyzed in both legs and partially in one arm and lost the ability to control his bowels, according to a ruling to release him by an Israeli military court and a doctor’s report, WSJ wrote. 

The High Court ruled last year that the state failed to meet prisoners’ basic needs after a petition from civil-society groups accused the government of starving them. 

In the past month, the court also ruled that the ban on Red Cross visits to prisoners violates both international and Israeli law. 

Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) called for greater Red Cross access in 2024, claiming that prison conditions could violate the UN convention against torture, according to WSJ. 

In May, the UN added Israel to a list of countries it says have committed sexual violence in warzones, citing violations against Palestinian prisoners. 

Israel has vehemently denied these allegations and said it would end relations with the UN secretary-general’s office. 

Pew Research Center surveys have found foreign views of Israel to be deteriorating, with 62% of US adults viewing the Israeli government unfavorably, up from 43% in 2022. 

Some 9,300 Palestinians are in Israeli custody, up from about 5,200 before the war, most of them held without charge, Hamoked, an Israeli nonprofit with access to prison population data, said. 

Physicians for Human Rights Israel says it has tracked 105 Palestinian deaths in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023, the WSJ reported. 

Danya Saperstein contributed to this report. 

A comprehensive reform to address the large spike in wounded and traumatized soldiers from the last three years of war was approved by the government on Thursday.

The reform is based on the June 7 recommendations of a government committee that recommended radical changes for how the Defense and Finance ministries should handle an estimated 50,000 trauma cases of former soldiers.

The committee, which is headed by Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, started operating last November.

According to Mor-Yosef, the committee should have been established at least a year earlier to deal with the skyrocketing numbers of physically wounded and emotionally traumatized, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, from the ongoing wars since October 2023.

This past March, the Defense Ministry estimated the total number of wounded soldiers in Israel’s wars would exceed 100,000 by around 2030, as the war has continued and the number of wounded soldiers in Lebanon has jumped. The new estimate for crossing that threshold has been moved forward to 2028.

Although the Defense Ministry had already made many changes to streamline approving financial benefits and emotional treatment for soldiers since the October 7 massacre in 2023, the changes were nowhere near sufficient, the committee said.

Committee recommends establishing new authority to handle treatment for soldiers

Instead, the committee said the ministry must establish a new, almost completely independent authority to handle the issue.

According to Mor-Yosef, the ministry, with around 25 subdivisions, cannot be counted on to move fast enough in handling the issue.

But making this new authority independent, with its own budget, computer services, new resources, and authority to act without too many layers of still existing red tape, would improve the situation, he said.

While the budget allocated to this issue had already jumped from around NIS 5 billion to NIS 10b. from 2023-2026, another NIS 2b. per year is probably necessary, along with a one-time investment of more than NIS 500 million in establishing the new authority, the committee said.

Many of the changes recommended by the committee require new legal steps.

Given the upcoming election and the low likelihood that the Knesset can act fast enough on some of these thorny issues, Mor-Yosef recommended that the current government immediately pass new regulations to authorize the changes on a more rapid basis. That is how the situation eventually played out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government had approved “an unparalleled important national program for wounded soldiers and security forces – the male and female heroes who fought for the existence and the security of the State of Israel… the program will remove red tape, shorten waiting periods, widen responses and ensure that each person will be able to rapidly maximize their rights and receive all the aid allotted to them.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the country must “be there for each male and female soldier who is wounded physically or emotionally, and not only on the day in which they are harmed, but rather throughout the process of their rehabilitation.”

Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Baram said the committee would ensure proper implementation of the new government policy.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised the approval. He and his ministry had initially opposed providing new funds to finance the changes, pushing instead for previously allocated funds to be used.

Political and public pressure on the issue, especially leading into the election, appears to have decided the intergovernmental dispute.

As recently as Tuesday, Katz attacked the Finance Ministry publicly for holding up the approval.

Since 2023, emotional trauma makes up around half of claims

Unlike past wars, where emotional traumas usually made up about 15% of claims filed, since 2023, nearly 50% of newer post-war claims filed include emotional trauma, such as PTSD. About 25,000 claims have been filed relating to recent wars since 2023.

One major change the committee recommended is financing a weekly visit to help with emotional trauma instead of once every two or three weeks.

In the past, the Defense Ministry has proposed individualizing services for each harmed soldier, including for PTSD, but the new policy would invest in this more heavily with larger budgets.

In addition, the ministry would provide an IDF representative when a harmed soldier comes before the committee for approving or rejecting requests for recognition and benefits.

In the past, many soldiers have complained that the committee treats them too much like litigants instead of showing sensitivity to their sacrifices and traumatic experiences.

Furthermore, the committee said special clinics should be established within areas where medical centers receive PTSD patients so that former soldiers can be around other former soldiers with similar issues. This way, they will not be exposed as much to chronic emotionally traumatized patients who often come from different backgrounds and suffer from different issues.

The ministry also said it would fund, negotiate, and organize the streamlining of carrying out more services for dealing with physical and emotional harm by digital processes and through the various large healthcare insurance companies.

Artificial-intelligence capabilities would also be used to move recognition and treatment processes along faster, it said.

Total claims of harm are now up to 87,000, with about 31,000 trauma and PTSD claims.

About 12,500 of the claimants from the current war, or nearly 50%, are above the age of 30; 16,000 of the claimants, or around 64%, are reservists; and 2,000 of the claimants are women.

IDF makes advancements in AI used to improve mental health treatments

The IDF and the Defense Ministry had made a major advance in using artificial intelligence to improve mental-health operations at medical centers that handle soldiers with PTSD, The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively this past January.

There is a full spectrum of treatments to handle symptoms, including group-based, individual, and occupational therapies. One focus is simply helping individuals calm down in the event of a negative episode.

The new medical IDF AI unit developed procedures for medical professionals to use EEG machines working with AI to provide feedback on individualized “calming cues.”

A soldier can now meet with a mental-health evaluator, using an EEG and AI, and then have a discussion.

There is research about whether exposure to a girlfriend or a beloved song during a rough episode has a better impact and improves stability and calmness, the unit’s commander told the Post.

AI can help figure out triggers for problems or for progress, he said.

Yet another area where AI is assisting in mental health for soldiers is helping reduce professionals’ record-keeping time so that they can invest more time in meeting with patients sooner and more often.

For example, without AI, mental-health professionals could spend a full hour analyzing a given set of records, during which they are not actually meeting with soldiers.

The Trump administration is expected to broaden the scope of its military campaign against Iran, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The anticipated expansion would include both a wider range of strikes and an expanded list of targets. However, officials cautioned that it remains unclear when the next phase of the operation will begin or what level of increased military activity US President Donald Trump will ultimately authorize.

At the same time, Iran has publicly warned that it will escalate its missile attacks if Washington intensifies its military campaign.

“If President Donald Trump carries out his threat to hit Iranian infrastructure, then Iran will destroy all infrastructure throughout the region,” an Iranian military spokesperson said on Thursday.

Iran threatens regional attacks if US intensifies military campaign

An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that Tehran is likely to continue refraining from launching attacks against Israel as long as the United States does not significantly escalate its campaign.

Israeli officials believe the Iranian leadership is seeking to avoid opening another front with Israel while calibrating its response to US military action.

However, they cautioned that any expansion of the American operation could prompt Iran to reconsider its current restraint.

Israel’s Knesset completed its legislative blitz ahead of its dissolution, which will be on July 17.

Here are some of the most important – and controversial – bills that passed, and what they mean for the State of Israel:

Basic Law: Torah Study – 63 for, 52 against

This law, one of two major bills pushed by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, sought to enshrine Torah study as a fundamental value in the country’s Basic Law.

The bill states that “Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel.” Israel does not have a constitution. Instead, it has a series of Knesset-enacted basic laws on various subjects that have high legal status.

Critics argue the Basic Law: Torah Study bill encourages draft evasion and changes the status of yeshiva students who do not serve, enabling them to continue receiving state benefits even amid the IDF’s severe manpower shortage.

What this actually means: Enshrining Torah study in Israel’s basic law will make it much harder for courts to challenge the arrangements in place that let haredi yeshiva students avoid mandatory service in the IDF, as the avoidance can now be defended as students protecting one of Israel’s core values.

Halting arrest of haredi draft evaders – 58 for, 54 against

The second major haredi-backed bill called for a temporary freeze on the arrests of haredi draft dodgers, and it was passed despite severe legal warnings that the legislation is unbalanced.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir warned that such a law would decrease recruitment both from the haredi community and from the general Israeli population by delegitimizing the idea of the IDF as the “nation’s army” in which everyone is equally obligated to serve.

While this was designed as a temporary freeze, set to run until November 30, the law was frozen by the High Court of Justice within a day of passage.

What this actually means: Right now, it’s unclear. With the High Court temporarily freezing the law, its entry into force has been suspended until further notice. Without the High Court’s intervention, over 72,000 haredi men would continue to evade arrest. Moving forward, this could normalize non-enlistment, and, as Zamir warned, this would decrease recruitment across the board, furthering the burden on the IDF’s reservists and soldiers in mandatory service.

Weakening influence, oversight capabilities of attorney-general – 65 for, 51 against

The bill, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition has been pushing to pass during the government’s term, aimed to significantly weaken the attorney-general’s power to influence and oversee the government.

Its passage came amid the government’s ongoing rift with the judiciary and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.

The bill will grant the government the ability to disregard the attorney-general’s legal opinions, which are generally treated as binding on the executive branch unless a court rules otherwise.

What this actually means: The A-G’s legal opinions function less like advice and more like a binding rule on Israel’s executive branch, and are the real-time check on government action before courts get involved. This law removes that default, and if the government disagrees with the A-G, it no longer needs to convince a court in advance; it can just proceed on its own reading of the law, and the only recourse is after the fact, through a High Court petition.

Sweeping reforms to Israel’s broadcasting sector – 53 for, 48 against

This bill, pushed heavily by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud), is the first move that aims to enact sweeping reforms to Israel’s broadcasting sector.

The legislation is expected to grant the government substantial control over broadcasting media in the country.

Critics argue that the legislation could harm freedom of the press and ultimately benefit outlets such as Channel 14, while negatively impacting channels such as Channel 12, which coalition MKs and ministers have claimed is anti-government.

The bill was split into two parts, with this one focusing mainly with restructuring Israel’s broadcasting oversight system, including laying the groundwork for a new media regulator, setting financial and local production requirements for content providers, and, most notably, regulating how content from Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN, and the Knesset Channel is distributed, and outlining how the changes would be implemented and gradually phased in.

What this actually means: The bill replaces existing broadcasting oversight bodies with a new regulatory council, most of whose members are chosen by the communications minister, shifting control over who can broadcast and under what terms into the minister’s hands rather than an independent body.

Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out a terror infiltration, as seen on October 7, 2023, IDF Central Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth said on Wednesday.

“The threat of a terror infiltration like on October 7 is no longer possible,” he stated.

“More than 60% of the Strip is in our hands. There is a security zone for the Gaza border communities held by two divisions and the finest IDF soldiers,” he added.

Hamas, however, still remains a threat according to Bluth.

“But our eyes are open, and we can see and identify the challenges that still exist. Hamas still rules, and the murderous organization retains residual capabilities, while its vision of destroying Israel has not changed,” he said.

“Our work has not finished,” he told the assembled officers and soldiers.

“We stand here in the northern Gaza Strip, and we have achieved a great deal,” Bluth said.

Bluth was speaking at a change-of-command ceremony for the military’s 99th Division at Netiv Ha’asara, a Gaza border community north of the strip.

The 99th Division is a reservist division, officially under the Central Command, but aided in repelling infiltrating terrorists following the October 7 massacre, and operated in the Gaza Strip throughout the Israel-Hamas War.

Israel now controls up to 70% of Gaza, military officials brief Security Cabinet

Bluth’s comments follow two Israeli sources telling The Jerusalem Post that senior military officials briefed the Security Cabinet that the IDF controls between 67% and 70% of the Gaza Strip.

Under the hostage-release agreement, the IDF was expected to remain in roughly 53% of the Gaza Strip, along what became known as the Yellow Line.

Several weeks ago, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to expand its control to 70% of the Gaza Strip.

“My directive is to move to 70% control of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at a conference in the Jordan Valley at the end of May.

As audience members called on him to take control of 100% of the territory, Netanyahu urged patience.

“We’re at 60% right now. Let’s do this step by step, first 70%,” he said.

Amichai Stein contributed to this report.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted that Iran is “not the once very strong, powerful terrorist state that they were” before the US’s Operation Epic Fury against the Islamic Regime in Tehran, during a press briefing on Wednesday.

When asked about the status of US-Iran negotiations, she claimed that Iran’s leadership is still speaking with the US and has expressed interest in reaching another peace deal after the recent collapse of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding.

She elaborated that the reason behind the collapse and recent, renewed strikes against Iran was due to Tehran’s violations of the MoU.

“In the MoU that they signed, they were not to fire on commercial vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Unfortunately, they have made the tragic decision… to do that,” Leavitt stated.

“President Trump is not going to sit by and allow these active acts of terror to take place in the strait without ensuring Iran pays consequences for that, and that’s what we’re witnessing right now,” she added.

Iranian strikes in Hormuz validate reasoning behind Operation Epic Fury, Leavitt says

Leavitt stated that Iran’s strikes on vessels in the strait validate US President Donald Trump’s initial reasoning for launching Operation Epic Fury in February, but noted that he is “always open and willing to [engage in] diplomacy.”

She added that the US has proven to the world that it maintains the ability to strike Iran “anytime, anywhere, and any place.”

Leavitt additionally touted that American strikes “neutered” Iranian leadership’s ability to communicate, thus transforming the regime into a “fragmented system.”

US President Donald Trump’s Monday announcement that the US would charge a fee for commercial vessels to transit through the Strait of Hormuz triggered a flurry of activity among Gulf State leadership and White House aides attempting to dissuade him from implementing the plan, according to a CNN report on Tuesday.

Several sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the US’s Gulf allies and many Trump aides were shocked when Trump, in a post on Truth Social, described the 20% fee on cargo as “necessary to do the job of providing safety and security” in the waterway.

Trump advisors warned that Hormuz fees may undermine US goals

According to CNN, Trump’s advisors warned him that mandating the fees could undermine the US’s goals in the Strait of Hormuz and potentially validate, in Tehran’s eyes, Iran’s continued aggression towards commercial vessels. 

Despite objections from within the White House, Trump’s announcement prompted a scramble to outline the logistics of such a tolling system, according to CNN, with staff working to determine exactly who would pay the fees and how they would be collected.

At the same time, leaders of US allies in the Gulf reportedly began trying to contact Trump to convince him to reverse the toll decision. 

According to CNN, appeals came from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar.

One day after announcing the fee, Trump reversed his decision, stating that the proposed toll would be replaced by US-Gulf State investment deals, potentially with Gulf leadership that had advocated against the proposed fees.

Europe’s lead agency fighting drug trafficking, the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center (MAOC), released a “call to action memo” this spring, urging countries to allow the “use of force during maritime pursuits, allowing for engine-disabling tactics and shooting,” confidential documents seen by the Washington Post, German broadcaster NDF, LeMonde in France, and NRC in the Netherlands found. 

This comes as Europe is getting hit by what one DEA officer called “a tsunami of cocaine,” and follows a controversial operation in which a French Navy sniper immobilized a high-speed smuggling vessel by shooting its engines from a helicopter in October. 

This marked the first time any European military had fired on one of these go-fast boats, small speedboats which can wait weeks at sea for large transport ships from South America to reach them with tons of cocaine. 

French maritime officials endorsed the MAOC plan to lean towards more military-style operations, writing in a document that authorities have been unable to stop more than a fraction of smuggling vessels “due to a lack of naval assets,” the Washington Post wrote. 

While 100 tons (100,000 kg.) of cocaine was seized with the aid of MAOC in the last year, the agency estimated another 770 tons had gotten through into Europe. 

Cartels switch from using large cargo ships to small speedboats

Cartels have changed up the routes used to bring cocaine into the continent. While cocaine used to be transported in large container ships to major European ports, after crackdowns in cities including Antwerp, Hamburg, and Rotterdam, networks shifted to offloading the cocaine to the go-fast boats while still outside European waters, Andy Kraag, head of the European Serious and Organised Crime Centre at Europol said. 

The go-fast boats then carry the shipments from the Atlantic to various points on the European coasts. 

The transport ships travel from South America towards floating encampments of go-fast boats tethered together, which may wait weeks to collect their cargo. 

“It’s ‘Mad Max’ at sea,” Dimitri Zoulas, head of France’s national anti-narcotics agency, said. 

“This is a phenomenon never before seen [in Europe] on this scale,” he added. 

Zoulas described the boats as an “armada,” and the men on board as “soldiers linked to the South American cartels who guard the boat and the cargo.”

The boats are optimized for speed, with most having at least four enormous outboard motors and capable of traveling at least 130 kilometers per hour, consuming 50-60 liters of fuel per hour at full speed. While the boats may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are relatively disposable to the trafficking organizations whose shipments can be sold for over $100 million, the Washington Post cited experts as saying. 

Videos of these go-fast boats have emerged online, with TikTok and Instagram videos being filmed by crews on the boats containing large jerrycans of gasoline and packages which NRC wrote resembled boxes of cannabis or cocaine. 

@rife.rifenio♬ sonido original – rife rifeño

Some of the largest go-fast boats can transport up to 5,000 kilograms of cocaine, while other ships in the fleet may be specifically designated as a supply boat, used to transport fuel, food, and water to the boats waiting for the large shipment from South America. 

Kraag calls the route through the Atlantic the new “cocaine highway,” and said the smugglers use professional equipment and satellite providers such as Starlink to communicate and coordinate with each other. 

“That is how those guys on the water get their orders, locate the large ships transporting the cocaine from Latin America, and consult with buyers on shore,” Kraag said. 

Spain seizes 30 tons of cocaine in largest cocaine seizure recorded

The scale of the supply chain was demonstrated in a Spanish seizure of the Arconian, a cargo ship which was carrying 30 tons of cocaine, making the operation the largest cocaine seizure ever recorded. 

The Arconian was also carrying tens of thousands of liters of gasoline, which the authorities believe were likely for a fleet of go-fast boats. 

Contributing to the rise in cocaine in Europe is the crackdown on narcosmuggling in the US, career DEA officer and former administrator in the Trump administration Derek Maltz said. 

“The cartels have shifted their focus toward Europe in the face of more aggressive interdiction and disruption operations by the United States,” the Washington Post cited Maltz as saying. 

US President Donald Trump’s administration has been striking vessels it accuses of transporting illegal drugs, and has designated multiple drug cartels as terrorist organizations. 

More than 200 people have been killed by US strikes on such vessels since September. 

Additionally, the US demand has been shifting toward fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. This, compounded with record levels of coca plant cultivation in Colombia, has led to cartels looking to Europe for new consumers. 

European proposals avoid length of Trump administration-style strikes

No European proposals have come close to advocating all of the tactics used by the Trump administration. 

“There is a level of risk acceptance, which actually predates Trump’s arrival in office, that is much higher over there [in the US],” a European source told LeMonde. 

While France has authorized the use of firearms to stop the go-fast boats, having snipers target the engines, customs officials emphasized that “the principle of the operation is zero casualties,” LeMonde wrote. 

Britain is the only other nation to acknowledge authorizing its military to use disabling fire in counternarcotics missions has not done so anywhere near its borders, but in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Oman, officials said. 

Most cocaine deliveries to Britain are by small aircraft and other means. 

France and Britain declined to answer questions about the legal authorities they rely on when carrying out strikes, the Washington Post wrote. 

“Any drug interdiction operations are conducted in full compliance with national and international legal frameworks,” the Washington Post cited the UK Defense Ministry as stating. 

Both France and MAOC are urging other European countries to authorize the use of firearms to stop the go-fast boats and stem the flow of cocaine into the continent, as well as to cooperate and contribute more resources to the effort. 

MAOC also urged countries to adopt the law implemented in Spain and Portugal that prohibits the manufacture and possession of go-fast boats. 

Israel is facing major challenges from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dan Diker, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday after the US House of Representatives voted on an amendment to cut off aid to Israel.

The House voted 314 to 104 to defeat the measure on Wednesday, offered as an amendment to a State Department spending bill by Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. However, 103 Democrats and one Republican backed it, a sharp departure from years in which bills supporting Israel passed almost unanimously.

“It’s clear that the Democratic Party has moved consequentially to the left, and that they are much more heavily influenced by people in the progressive flank,” Diker told the Post.

“It’s a troubling direction that we see now in Washington, not only in the Democratic Party, but also in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party is split about its own self-understanding.

“You have the vice president of the United States sitting for over two hours on the Joe Rogan populist podcast show and casting these completely unfounded aspersions on Israel as if we are advancing psychological operations, information operations, against him personally. And he starts cursing out Israel, America’s best ally, maybe in the world, definitely in the Middle East, because of his own failed efforts against the Iranian regime.

Israel must be independent from the US, Dan Diker says

“The indications from this vote is that Israel should open its eyes very, very widely and understand that it has major challenges. There’s a lot of – there’s a convergence between the isolationist wing of the Republican Party and the left wing of the Democratic Party.”

Diker said Israel needs to be very focused on maintaining its relationship with the United States, because the “United States is Israel’s greatest, most dependable ally.”

But, at that same time, he stressed that Israel must be independent from the US.

“The October 7 … massacre taught Israel that it must become independent in terms of supplying its own military security and defense capabilities, and we cannot be dependent on anyone as a supplier,” he explained.

“We have to be able to fundamentally arm and supply ourselves to be able to be fully security and defense independent.”

Diker said that this is the lesson that comes out of these types of political developments (such as the Massie Amendment); “It emphasizes and re-emphasizes the importance of staged independence, especially in the face of this eight-front war that we’re facing.”

Nevertheless, he added that “Trump really appreciates a strong Israel.”

‘Not all Democrats support the Massie amendment’

“Trump looks at Israel as a winner, and that’s what Trump likes. But what happens is when you go deeper into civil society, especially on the liberal side, they become less enamored of Israel’s power and ability to defend itself well. And I think generally, certainly in the free world where they look at victims and people who perceive to be oppressed as being virtuous, there is the expression ‘strong is wrong, weak is right.’”

“And Israel is on the strong side today. That’s why the more powerful Israel behaves in terms of deterring its enemies, the more antisemitism spikes in the West.”

The most important message from Diker is that Israel is fighting on the “front lines of the war for Western civilization.”

While many Democrats supported cutting aid to Israel, he said what they do not understand is that “the people who hate America hate Israel because they think we’re an extension of America; that’s why they’re trying to destroy us.”

“The point here is that the West needs to understand the ideological structure of the – of its enemies in the Middle East and how Israel is fighting with its daughters and sons to protect America from the Middle East against another 9-11,” he added.

Of course, not all Democrats supported the Massie amendment.

Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen said, “The State of Israel is one of our most important allies and the only democracy in the Middle East.”

She called the amendment “extremely harmful” and said it would “threaten our strategic alliance, undermine our national security interests and eliminate funding for important research and diplomacy in the region.”

Rep. Brad Sherman said the Massie amendment “sends a clear signal to the enemies of America that we are willing to abandon our allies and our own security.”

He proudly announced that he “stood against this anti-Israel, pro-terror amendment.”

Lebanon and Syria will, in the coming months, begin revising decades-old trade agreements to revive their economic relationship following the ouster of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2024, Lebanon’s economy minister told Reuters on Thursday.

Amer Bisat, who said the countries could eventually aim for a larger bilateral trade deal, spoke a day after holding talks with his Syrian counterpart in Damascus.

The two countries have been undertaking a reset in ties since the end of nearly half a century of Assad family rule that saw Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon for almost 30 years.

“That economic relationship needed to be reset, and it has the potential of being the most important bilateral relationship for both countries,” Bisat said.

Lebanon used as primary export corridor for Syrian trade

Lebanon shares a 230-mile border with Syria to its north and east and has relied on Syrian land routes to truck exports to Jordan and the Gulf.

Syrian exporters have also used Lebanon as a primary export corridor, particularly during the 14-year war that ended with Assad’s ouster.

At its peak, total trade between the two countries was just under $800 million. Last year, trade volume was around $250 million, according to Bisat, who said the relationship “should be measured in the billions” instead.

As a first step, a committee set up in early July would review more than 40 pacts and memoranda of understanding agreed with Assad-era Syria that covered investment frameworks, visa and tax regimes and other dimensions of Syrian-Lebanese trade.

Bisat said the review could take several months but that a bigger trade deal could take longer.

Such a deal would need to address logistical hurdles to land transport and tackle tariffs that are “not uniform,” Bisat said. “Lebanese exporters pay an export tariff, and the Syrians don’t,” he added.

The House adopted Rep. Claudia Tenney’s amendment to a resolution calling on the US to defend Jewish religious freedom and equal access at the Temple Mount.

“It is unconscionable that Jews do not enjoy the same access rights to visit and pray at their holiest site that other religions do,” Tenney told the House ahead of the vote.

She referred to this as a basic tenet and principle of religious freedom and urged the US to do more on this issue.

“That is why my amendment would emphasize the need for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to work to ensure religious freedom and equal access for all with regards to the Temple Mount,” she said.

Today, the House adopted by amendment calling on the U.S. to defend religious freedom and equal access at the Temple Mount.

Jews are denied the freedom to pray at their holiest site while Muslims & Christians worship freely.

They deserve that same right. This should not be… pic.twitter.com/iO5KtPrtsg

— Rep. Claudia Tenney (@RepTenney) July 15, 2026

Amd’t No. 28 specifically increases and decreases funding for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom by $1M to emphasize the importance of ensuring religious freedom and equal access for all with respect to the Temple Mount.

Recognizes integral role Temple Mount to the Jewish people’s heritage and history

It was approved by voice vote.

Amendment 28 directly reinforces the legislative intent of Tenney’s own resolution, H.Res.852.

Both measures are part of a coordinated effort by the congresswoman during the 119th Congress to position the House of Representatives in favor of full Israeli sovereignty and expanded religious worship rights at the holy site.

Res.852 was introduced in October 2025 as a standalone measure. It seeks to formally place the House on record affirming that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel and that Israel holds sole sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

It also recognizes the integral role of the Temple Mount to the Jewish people’s heritage and history.

The Funding Amendment (Amdt No. 28) acts as an enforcement and awareness tool by adjusting the budget of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

During the same sitting, the House struck down the Massie Amendment, which would have barred any funding in the appropriations bill from being used for Israel, and blocked $3.3 billion in annual security assistance Washington sends Israel.

Tenney voted against the amendment.

“I genuinely believe it has Academy Award potential,” said Danny Cohen, the CEO of Access Entertainment and a producer on such high-profile films as The Zone of Interest and Conclave, when asked about how he came to join in producing Avi Nesher’s upcoming movie, Our Loves, at a panel on how Israeli films can break through to international audiences at the Jerusalem Film Festival on Monday.

Cohen, who spoke from the UK via video, went on to say, “I’ve worked on a number of Oscar campaigns. I think Avi’s work deserves that platform. And I hope the Israeli Academy selects this film as Israel’s submission for Best International Feature.”

The event was billed as a case study of how one Israeli movie, Our Loves, is making the journey to screens around the world. Nesher describes the moving film, which is generating great buzz at preview screenings, as the story of several people in southern Israel who thought they were having the worst day of their lives on October 6, 2023.

Only after we have gotten to know the characters does the film follow them through the horrors of October 7, and its impact is far stronger because we have become invested in them beforehand.

The movie was produced by SIPUR, an Israel-based, global film and television company, which brought international companies Fox Entertainment and Cohen’s Access Entertainment on board during post-production.

Nesher is an Israeli director whose career has spanned more than four decades, starting with the classic The Troupe, and including such movies as Turn Left at the End of the World and Image of Victory.

The panel about how Our Loves succeeded in attracting these international companies and how other Israeli films can follow suit was moderated by Alissa Simon, a critic for Variety and the chief programmer of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Panelists speak of Israeli film industry resilience

In addition to Cohen and Nesher, the panel featured Emilio Schenker, an Emmy Award-winning producer and the co-founder and CEO of SIPUR, and Yoav Abramovich, executive director of the Israeli Cinema Project – the Rabinovich Foundation, which supported Our Loves and which invests in about half of all Israeli movies.

The panelists spoke enthusiastically of the resilience of the Israeli movie industry in the face of boycotts, both official and informal, against Israeli creators and a worldwide resurgence of antisemitism, but they did not downplay the challenges.

Nesher said, “Israel has an extraordinary generation of filmmakers – directors, writers, and actors – many much younger than I am. In many ways, Israel reminds me of Australia before its film industry exploded, or Iran before it became internationally recognized.

“This country is full of remarkable talent… Israel has everything a major film industry needs: great film schools, a strong tradition, outstanding artists. Then came the boycott.”

Abramovich said, “Before October 7, success at festivals depended largely on making a good film. Today that’s no longer enough. Many festivals simply won’t screen Israeli films. Our strategy now is to work with those festivals, distributors, and partners who are willing to stand up to pressure.

“Public opinion changes quickly. Many people aren’t acting out of ideology – they’re simply afraid of being bullied. We have to work with the brave ones until the climate changes.”

Schenker expressed similar sentiments when he said, “First of all, producers need one thing above all else: a great movie. Without that, there’s no magic. With Our Loves, we had a great director and a great film. Then we needed courageous partners.

“Danny Cohen and Fernando [Szew, the head and president] of Fox Entertainment weren’t afraid to become co-producers despite the boycott. That’s incredibly important.”

‘The entire country was in shock’ after Oct. 7

He recalled the aftermath of October 7: “During those terrible days, the entire country was in shock. What has shocked me even more over the last three years is how Israel has gone, in the eyes of much of the international industry, from being seen as the victim to being portrayed as the villain. That shift has fueled an outrageous boycott.”

“Some people genuinely harbor anti-Israel attitudes. Others are simply afraid. They worry about protests, controversy, or damage to their careers,” Cohen noted. “I also think many younger employees within cultural organizations have become highly radicalized on this issue, and too many leaders aren’t prepared to stand up to them.

“Ultimately, it comes down to courage. Leadership means making difficult decisions. If we believe in great filmmaking and important stories, we have to support them.”

Nesher offered more than a glimmer of hope for breaking through those anti-Israel attitudes when he described a screening of Our Loves at the Writers Guild of America in Los Angeles earlier this year.

“The atmosphere before the screening was tense. People clearly weren’t comfortable. Then the movie started. People laughed. They cried. They became emotionally invested. Afterward they applauded,” he said.

However, during the Q&A following the screening, “The talk eventually shifted from cinema to politics. I reminded them that during the Vietnam War people protested the US government, but nobody boycotted American cinema. Artists are often the strongest critics of their own governments. Boycotting them makes no sense.

“By the end of the discussion, minds hadn’t necessarily changed completely. But something had shifted. Cinema creates empathy. Once you empathize with people, it’s much harder to hate them. That’s why I believe quality will ultimately prevail. And that’s why courageous partners like Danny and Fernando matter so much.”

He went on to say, “Many of us disagree strongly with the current government. We protest. We make films that criticize it. There is an election coming. That’s democracy. The important thing is not to treat every Israeli artist as though they’re responsible for every government decision. People understand that distinction elsewhere in the world. They should understand it here too.”

The ability to focus on quality cinema was illustrated by a delegation visiting the Jerusalem Film Festival, composed of movie-industry professionals from around the world, including France, Germany, India, China, Nepal, Ghana, and Rwanda, who attended the panel discussion and a screening of Our Loves.

Many, including several executives from India, were so impressed by the movie that they used the Q&A at the panel discussion to ask how to acquire the rights to distribute the film in their countries. After the discussion ended, informal meetings took place between Schenker and Nesher and these executives.

But despite the enthusiasm for Israeli movies on display at the event, Cohen cautioned against complacency.

“We shouldn’t fool ourselves,” he said. “It’s become incredibly difficult. Israeli, and to some extent Jewish, culture has found itself in a distorted position internationally. But the only way to respond is to keep fighting. We have to celebrate Israeli creativity and keep making outstanding work.”

The Knesset plenum passed into law on Thursday the contentious bill led by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, which is set to enact sweeping reforms to Israel’s broadcasting sector. 

The bill passed in its final second and third readings with 53 lawmakers in favor and 48 against. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the plenum during the vote.

The legislation is expected to grant the government substantial control over broadcasting media in the country.

Critics argue that the legislation could harm freedom of the press and ultimately benefit outlets such as Channel 14, while negatively impacting channels such as Channel 12, which coalition MKs and ministers have claimed is anti-government. 

Karhi has argued that there exists a monopoly in Israel’s private media market, especially over Israel’s highest-rated TV news outlet, Channel 12.

Coalition sprints to pass controversial legislation package

The bill is considered one of the flagship pieces of legislation that Netanyahu’s coalition has been pushing to pass in the government’s term. 

The reform has received severe legal warnings, along with concerns over the process by which the legislation was advanced in an attempt to fast-track it by the end of the government’s term.

The legislation advanced despite not having received approval from the Attorney-General’s Office.

At the heart of Karhi’s bill is the establishment of a single, unified regulatory authority that would replace the existing Second Authority for Television and Radio and the Council for Cable and Satellite Broadcasting. The new body would regulate the supply of audiovisual content uniformly across all broadcasting platforms.

A contentious aspect of the new authority is that it would consist of a nine-member committee, with representatives selected by the communications minister. This has led to criticism that the council’s appointments would be political.

While it is widely accepted that Israel’s broadcasting sector requires change that will better reflect the realities of today’s modern media environment, the reform has raised numerous concerns.

According to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), it eliminates all safeguards for the quality of journalistic content and grants overly broad enforcement powers to the regulator, which could harm journalistic professionalism.

Additionally, a consumer benefit that was promised by Karhi, which would have particularly benefited soldiers, was also removed from the bill at the last minute.

The benefit sought to create a government broadcasting application to allow free mobile viewing of major sports broadcasts.

The last-minute removal of the benefit came after the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties had said that they would not support the bill, citing concerns that the provision could lead to broadcasting on Shabbat.

לאחר דיון שנמשך יותר מ-10 שעות ולמעלה מ-3,000 הסתייגויות שהוגשו: חוק התקשורת עבר בקריאה שנייה ושלישית במליאה @AmirOhana @shlomo_karhi https://t.co/naa0SuEFk4 pic.twitter.com/b5Ktbl4ZaB

— ערוץ כנסת 99 (@KnessetT) July 16, 2026

The bill underwent repeated revisions throughout a highly controversial legislative process. A special committee was established specifically to advance the reform, chaired by Likud MK Galit Distel Atbaryan.

The committee was formed even though such legislation would typically be referred to the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee, which traditionally handles such matters and is chaired by Likud MK David Bitan.

Bitan had publicly opposed the reform, prompting critics to argue that the creation of a separate committee was intended to advance the legislation while bypassing internal opposition within the coalition.

MK Shelly Tal Meron (Yesh Atid) has been a vocal critic of the legislation, joining numerous debates in the Knesset’s special committee.

She told the plenum ahead of the vote that the process by which the legislation was advanced was unlawful.

Meron said after witnessing all that went on in the meetings, she had “lost trust in everything that the Knesset is supposed to represent.”

Meron also said that Karhi did not provide enough statistics and information that were asked for, and that he would join all the committee meetings “because he wanted to control the committee and there were many times when he did so.”

A-G Baharav-Miara claimed communications bill was a threat to Israeli journalism

Attorney-General Baharav-Miara disapproved of advancing the broader communications reform bill before it reached the plenum for a first reading.

She said in September that the bill posed a concrete threat to the free press in Israel and its ability to fulfill its duties in a democratic society, adding that the proposal itself lacks fundamental qualities.

The Union of Journalists in Israel, a key watchdog in the industry, petitioned the High Court of Justice to halt the advancement of the communications reform law.

Opposition lawmakers have sharply criticized the reform, with many warning that it is undemocratic and could be used to silence the media during an election year.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, himself a former broadcast journalist, has warned the bill was not a reform but rather “a campaign of incitement and gagging against the free press.”

Karhi has rejected these claims, arguing that the reforms will have the opposite effect by opening the market to a wider range of voices, which he has said will strengthen press freedom.

Controversy surrounding the legislation increased after the government voted to shut down the 75-year-old state-funded Army Radio in December.  

The passage of the reform also comes amid reports that Netanyahu has made a deal with the haredi parties to advance their contentious legislation for support on coalition legislation in exchange.

Netanyahu’s coalition has been on a legislative blitz to advance as much legislation as possible before the Knesset goes on recess this week ahead of the upcoming elections, scheduled for October 27.

Lapid vowed ahead of the vote on the reform that “what has been done over the past four days, we will cancel with the stroke of a pen.”

“Everything you are seeing here is an unnecessary farce, and it will be repealed within the first 100 days of the next government,” he added.

Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday that all Saudi oil and other vital facilities would be targets for the group’s missiles and drones if Riyadh escalated its involvement in the conflict.

The warning came after the Houthis fired missiles at Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control on Monday, marking a rupture in a four-year truce between the two sides.

The Iran-backed Houthis have previously targeted Saudi energy infrastructure. In 2019, they claimed responsibility for attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities that temporarily knocked out more than half of the kingdom’s crude output.

In 2022, they struck Saudi energy facilities again. At the time, the Saudi-led coalition said an Aramco petroleum products distribution station in Jeddah was hit and caught fire.

Houthi leader threatens to strike ‘airports for airports’

“The real equation is Sana’a airport for Riyadh airport, airports for airports, ports for ports, and blockade for blockade,” he said in a televised speech.

Yemen has been mired in civil war for more than a decade since the Houthis seized the capital, Sana’a, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.

The conflict has since evolved into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, leaving the country divided between a Saudi-backed government in Aden and a Houthi terrorist-controlled administration in Sana’a.

US military leadership has held off on ordering an intelligence review to help determine the events surrounding the US-attributed strike that hit a school in Iran in the initial strikes during Operation Epic Fury, CNN reported on Thursday, citing three sources familiar with the matter. 

The first two stages of a “battle damage assessment” were conducted within a week of the strike and focused on answering basic questions, including whether the strike hit and damaged the intended target. 

Initial assessments supported reports that it had been a US strike. 

However, the next standard investigation step, where analysts, generally from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) review the entirety of the available information around the event, including satellite imagery and other intelligence sources to provide a more holistic determination about what took place and how the strike impacted the broader operation, was not ordered, as of early July, CNN wrote, although the review would almost always be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a noteworthy strike. 

An independent investigation was launched in March, with interviews conducted with service members involved in the strike. 

Results of the review not released

Sources told CNN that information gained from such interviews had been “locked down” by CENTCOM, with access given to only a select few officers, despite their potential use to commanders still launching strikes against Iran. 

“There was no detailed analysis conducted, and CENTCOM locked down the investigation/blocked anyone from looking into it,” CNN cited an official as saying. 

A Defense Department official told CNN that “the investigation is ongoing,” adding that “we have nothing further to announce at this moment.”

One source told CNN that the DIA could not take place at the same time as the independent investigation, as the initial review indicated that the strike required a more thorough probe involving an independent body outside of CENTCOM. 

The investigation was given to an unnamed US general officer outside of CENTCOM for independent review, CNN wrote. 

Findings from the independent investigations were submitted to CENTCOM in April, but the delay continued due to a need to examine the causes of the targeting further, with layers of mistakes extending back years, the official told CNN. 

A previous CNN report indicated that senior US military commanders ignored warnings in critical bases about out-of-date intelligence regarding potential targets in Iran. 

The decision to ignore the warnings was made for “expediency,” and led directly to the accidental strike on the school, the officials told CNN. 

They added that the lack of a full review of the intelligence is unprecedented for such a noteworthy strike. 

DIA assessment upset Trump administration after 12-day-war

The Pentagon wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened after the 12-day-war in June 2025, when a DIA assessment led to reports that undermined US President Donald Trump’s claims that US strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, a source told CNN. 

The assessment was conducted as part of a phase three analysis of the strikes, which the DIA undertook without an express request from CENTCOM, assuming it would fulfill its role of completing the analysis as usual, according to the source. 

However, once the press picked up on the reports in the assessment and the way in which it contradicted Trump’s claims, both the White House and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grew upset with DIA leadership, the source told CNN. 

Gen. Jeffrey Kruse was then fired as DIA director. 

Sources told CNN that the use of classification power has grown to unprecedented levels, with the Pentagon and CENTCOM restricting access to even basic information and planning details that had previously been shared widely among service branches to coordinate operations. 

“I’ve never seen it used on stuff like this,” CNN cited one of the sources as saying. “One of the reasons the US military is as effective as it is, is because we work pretty well together … When you keep siloing us away from each other, we don’t amplify each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. And you only do that if you’re bizarrely paranoid that we won’t follow your orders, or you don’t trust us.”

Truth may never be known, Trump says

Trump has repeatedly stated that the full story surrounding the strike may never be known.

“I don’t think anybody is ever going to be able to say what happened there,” Trump told Fox News in an interview earlier in the week.

Trump seemed close to claiming US responsibility for the strike in early June, brushing off questions about the strike, but telling reporters that “mistakes are made. War is nasty,” and that “nobody did that on purpose.”

However, since then, Trump has cast doubts on US responsibility and satellite photos showing evidence it was a US strike, suggesting they may have been AI-generated.

Senators call for report to be released

Democratic senators led by Kirsten Gillibrand called on Monday for the Trump administration to disclose within the next week the findings from the independent report. 

The group of more than two dozen US senators, including the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, requested the US military finalize its investigation, brief Congress and present a plan to ensure such a mistake does not happen again.

“There is no justification for withholding an unclassified accounting of what happened, what went wrong, and what the Department is doing to prevent recurrence,” the letter said.

Senator Gillibrand also expressed concern over AI involvement in targeting decisions, questioning Under Secretary of Defense nominee Honorable Jules W. Hurst III, about whether AI was used in the strike on Minab at a meeting of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Hurst, having not seen the report, was unable to answer.

“Having AI-enhanced capabilities to defend is extremely important. But I’m highly concerned that before we push send on a missile that is going to target perhaps a girl’s school because the targeting was done so poorly, and the analysis wasn’t done accurately, that we have a human in the loop,” Gillibrand said. 

Gillibrand once again called for the Senate to receive the report.

The High Court of Justice will convene a nine-justice panel on July 28 to hear petitions against a law freezing arrest, investigation, and enforcement proceedings against qualifying ultra-Orthodox (haredi) yeshiva students who fail to report for military service.

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit announced the expanded panel on Thursday.

It will include Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg and Justices Dafna Barak-Erez, David Mintz, Yael Willner, Ofer Grosskopf, Alex Stein, Gila Canfy-Steinitz, Yechiel Kasher, and Ruth Ronnen.

The composition of the panel is particularly significant because it includes all five justices who issued the court’s detailed and sharply critical rulings in November 2025 and April 2026, requiring the government to enforce military-service obligations against haredi draft evaders: Sohlberg, Barak-Erez, Mintz, Willner, and Grosskopf.

The challenge will therefore place before those justices a temporary law suspending the very criminal and administrative enforcement proceedings that they previously ordered the state to strengthen.

Grosskopf issues temporary order suspending law’s enforcement

Amit’s decision came one day after Grosskopf issued a temporary order suspending the law’s entry into force until further notice and a conditional order requiring the Knesset and government to explain why it should not be struck down.

Grosskopf cited the High Court’s longstanding rulings on the enlistment of yeshiva students, the implications of freezing enforcement proceedings “with regard to only certain sections of the population,” and the “weighty arguments” raised against the law’s validity.

The dispute comes after a succession of increasingly forceful High Court judgments on inequality in military service and the government’s failure to enforce the existing draft law.

In June 2024, a nine-justice panel unanimously ruled that, following the expiration of the statutory framework allowing deferments for yeshiva students, the government had no legal authority to refrain from drafting them or to continue funding institutions for students required to serve.

The court returned to the issue in November 2025, ordering the government to formulate an effective enforcement policy without delay.

That ruling said the policy must include meaningful criminal proceedings and broader economic and civil measures and found that the state’s conduct had come close to a complete abandonment of enforcement against haredi draft evaders.

Criminal proceedings against haredis must be applied equally

The five-justice panel said the rate of criminal proceedings against haredi evaders must ultimately be no lower than the rate applied to other population groups and described the existing situation as selective enforcement that undermined both equality and the rule of law.

After the government failed to implement that ruling, the same panel issued another decision in April ordering specific ministries and public bodies to consider revoking benefits, including subsidized housing, daycare assistance, public-transportation discounts, and municipal tax reductions.

The justices said that “no real steps” had been taken to implement their previous judgment and stressed that the state could not continue avoiding enforcement while citing the prospect of future legislation.

The Knesset nevertheless passed the temporary enforcement freeze on Tuesday by 58 votes to 54. The law was intended to remain in force until November 30 and would suspend enforcement against yeshiva students meeting its conditions.

It was passed despite warnings from the Knesset’s legal advisers that it would protect one group from criminal consequences for failing to meet draft obligations while leaving those consequences in place for the rest of the population. The advisers also raised serious concerns over the legislative process through which it was advanced.

The four petitions were filed by Israel Hofsheet, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and seven other Yesh Atid lawmakers; Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, MK Oded Forer, and the party; and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.

The respondents must submit their replies to the petitions and requests for an interim injunction four days before the July 28 hearing. Grosskopf’s order freezing the law will remain in place until the court rules otherwise.

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.