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.

The AMIA bombing was an attack “against humanity as a whole,” Argentina Ambassador Shimon Axel Wahnish said at a ceremony commemorating 32 years since the attack against the Jewish community center in Argentina on Thursday.

“For 32 years, I’ve been hearing that it was an attack against the Jewish community, against Argentina as a whole. But, even if both claims are true, I like to think of it as a wider attack against humanity as a whole,” said Wahnish at the ceremony held in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

The AMIA bombing killed 85 people and injured more than 300 in 1994, in what remains the deadliest terror attack on Argentinian soil and one of the deadliest against the Jewish community outside of Israel.

“It’s important not to fall into the narrow-sightedness that it was an isolated attack. The attack that we suffered in 1994 was part of a bigger chain of events that includes international terrorism,” he added.

“And if you follow this thread, you can see that it all ends up in the same enemy, that wants to instill psychological terror by means of violence, and who wants to erode the bases of our culture, our civilization, and of all of humanity,” Wahnish explained.

Ties between nations, responsibility to honor and fight for freedom

The ambassador also delved into the similarities between the Israeli and Argentinian national anthems, and pointed out that a key word they share is “freedom.” He also said, “[It’s] our responsibility to honor the memory of those killed in the attack, but also fight for a world with freedom.”

Argentinian President Javier Milei has been keeping this fight alive by pushing for justice and by declaring both Hamas and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as terror organizations, according to Wahnish.

Eden Bar Tal, director-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, who was also present at the ceremony, pointed out during his speech how the Argentine judiciary determined that Iran was responsible for the AMIA attack and the previous 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, where 29 people were killed.

“Iran, together with its proxy Hezbollah, carried out these horrendous attacks,” he said, adding that Israel appreciated the recent push by Milei to confront Iranian terrorism and reject granting immunity to the perpetrators.

Roxana Levinson, niece of Jaime Plaksin (who was killed in the AMIA bombing) and Graciela Susevich of Levinson (who was killed in the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992) spoke at the ceremony.

Terror attacks destroy families, ‘we can’t live in peace with Iran’

“Terror attacks don’t only take the victims. The expansion wave takes whole families,” she told those gathered.  “And we must remember who was and still is responsible for the tragedy, because the Iranian regime still wants to destroy us, erase us from the map.

“We can’t live in peace with a terror organization. And Iran is a terrorist organization that has its own state, and that finances the appetite for bloodlust of its leaders with the hunger of its people,” Levinson said.

Levinson, who spoke with The Jerusalem Post during the ceremony, said that the latest legal developments in the AMIA case bring hope, but she still doubts that anything can be achieved after so many years of negligence.

“After 32 years of purposefully pushing against the investigation, with proof being destroyed and obstacles placed in the way, it’s difficult to believe that this time there will be a result,” she said of the search for justice in Argentina.

Levinson told the Post that she feels honored to conduct the ceremony. She explained that this was because it was an opportunity to tell the stories of some of the victims, to turn them into “more than just a number.”

The chairman of the World Zionist Organization was also present at the event, along with ambassadors from several countries and key diplomats from the Foreign Ministry.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Doha on Wednesday, just days after Tehran fired missiles toward Qatari territory and other Gulf states, in a visit that underscored the Islamic Republic’s attempt to produce a specific narrative for its Arab neighbors and send a message to Washington.

Araghchi, according to the Foreign Ministry, made the journey to “meet with Qatari authorities and offer his condolences” after the death of former Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad ‌bin Khalifa ‌ Al-Thani.

The visit came days after the IRGC confirmed it fired on Qatar, claiming it was targeting the Al Udeid US base where satellite imagery released by Soar Atlas confirmed some level of damage to American aircraft maintenance facilities, leading to civilian injuries. Doha said that three people, including a child, were injured by falling shrapnel in the attack.

Qatari media noted that Araghchi’s visit came at the tail end of visits by foreign officials expressing their condolences, with Al Jazeera theorizing that the decision might have been a deliberate way the foreign minister could avoid “awkwardness” with other diplomats.

International relations expert Dr. Arman Mahmoudian, research fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute, told The Jerusalem Post that he believed the visit was part of Iran’s efforts to emphasize lines in its narrative that it is not targeting the Gulf but the US, and poses no regional danger as long as its demands are met.

‘It is expected of Muslim and noble nations to expel these child killers, occupiers’

Highlighting this, Mahmoudian noted that only days ago the IRGC issued a statement addressing the Kuwaiti and Jordanian public, pushing the narrative that the attack is not on them but the American military assets based there.

“Honorable and noble people of Kuwait and the holy land of Jordan, it is expected of you Muslim and noble nations to expel these child-killers and occupiers from your soil,” the IRGC statement read.

“The pure soil of the land of Kuwait and the sacred land of Jordan, the sanctuary of the prophets, must not remain under the occupation of criminals who, in just the past two years, have martyred seventy thousand Palestinians – including twenty thousand children – in heroic Gaza and perpetrated the Minah School massacre.

“We expect you not to miss any opportunity to destroy the aggressive American institutions and to liberate the Islamic lands from the bases of the American occupiers.”

Despite its claims, Gulf nations have had to swallow damages and the human cost of Iran’s attacks. Kuwait’s military announced on Tuesday that one of its navy vessels was targeted in an Iranian attack, which led to four armed forces personnel being injured.

The statement, Mahmoudian said, may be a sign Iran is “attempting to contain the escalation and prevent it from damaging its broader relations with Arab states.”

Arghchi visit part of broader effort to limit diplomatic consequences

“The Araghchi visit could therefore be part of a broader effort to reassure regional governments and limit the diplomatic consequences of the attacks,” he commented.

In addition to pushing its narrative across the Gulf, Mahmoudian said that the visit may also be some form of indirect communication with the United States.

“It is notable that this is happening around the same time that Iran released an Iranian-American dual national who had been detained by the Iranian authorities late last year,” he commented.

Iran agreed on Wednesday to release Dena Karari, who was charged with espionage during the June war while running a charity for impoverished Iranian children.

“Historically, this has been a recurring feature of covert diplomacy between Iran and the United States: Iranian officials visit third countries that frequently serve as mediators, while the release of detained citizens can signal diplomatic movement behind the scenes,” Mahmoudian said.

“I would therefore say that the visit likely serves both purposes: reassuring regional countries and facilitating an indirect exchange of messages with Washington.”

Australian antisemitism “has passed the point of no return,” former president of the Australian Jewish Association, Dr. David Adler, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. Adler recently relocated to Israel, citing the surge in antisemitism in Australia.

While the family only arrived on July 9, Adler told the Post that aliyah has been in “preparation for a long, long period of time.”

“We’ve seen a general deterioration in Australia for a long time,” he told the Post. “Australia has essentially outsourced its manufacturing. Its defense capacity is down. National identity is being lost. Education standards are down. There is a crazy socialist activism, left-wing activism. Those things have been building gradually. But no doubt October 7 unleashed a level of antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism that I didn’t think could occur in Australia.”

“On October 8, there were some leaders of the Muslim community and some Muslim groups in Australia celebrating on the streets. On October 9, we had the riots in front of the Opera House.”

What Adler found the most shocking was that the authorities “failed to act” after these incidents.

Australia passed point of no return, ‘all downhill’

“There was not a single arrest from the riots at the Opera House, despite a number of laws being broken. And that area, I know from security experts, is covered by high-definition CCTV. However, the authorities chose not to act and instead warned the Jewish community not to go there,” he explained.

Since then, Adler said it’s “been all downhill.” He said he has lost track of the number of threats made against him, including death threats.

This led him to arrive at the viewpoint that the trends in Australia “have passed the point of no return.”

“The tipping point has been reached and passed. And even though there’s a Royal Commission running at the moment, and it’s doing a good job in exposing some of the accounts and evidence of antisemitism, I do not have confidence in efficient action being taken to deal with it.”

Adler told the Post that anti-Jewish violence is predominantly coming from Islamic extremism, but that “Australia has taken nowhere near enough action” to combat this. “It should do things like expel the hate preachers, deport the hate preachers, close down mosques that are teaching extremist and radical views, and in fact has done some things in the opposite.”

“The whole antisemitic, anti-Israel extremism is on a level that no one forecast.”

Adler mentioned how Dr. Hillel Newman, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, recently told The Australian that he has never come across such hatred as he has in his Australian diplomatic post, and he has served in two Muslim countries in the past.

“I think [Newman’s] assessment is correct, and it’s refreshing in my view that we have a diplomat, a senior diplomat, who’s prepared to call out the issues as he sees them.”

‘We will see an exit of certain parts of the Jewish community from Australia’

These issues, Adler said, form part of the “whole package of reasons” why he and his wife decided to immigrate to Israel.

“So we’re officially citizens of Israel and absolutely loving it,” he told the Post. “It’s such a different atmosphere between Australia and Israel. You only need to be here 10 or 15 minutes, and you perceive the difference.

The first main difference, Adler said, is the pride in national identity.

“You wander around Israel anywhere, and you see Israeli flags everywhere. You see them on homes, on shops, on cars. In Australia, it’s much, much less common to see Australian flags flown privately.”

The other major difference, he said, is the mood of the people.

“There is a happiness, there’s an optimism, there’s a friendliness.”

“My final comment for Australian Jews is I’d urge them to assess the trends and make their evaluation as to what is best for themselves and their families.”

“I think we will see an exit of certain parts of the Jewish community from Australia.”

The Ministerial Committee for Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Affairs approved on Thursday the granting of extended personal protection to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, and their sons, Yair and Avner.

The committee debated how long each of the family members should be granted security for, sources told Ynet.

For the prime minister, they agreed that he should be given lifelong protection.

Sara Netanyahu will be granted protection as long as her husband is alive, and Yair and Avner Netanyahu will be granted protection for at least the next five years.

Initially, it was discussed whether Sara should also receive lifelong protection, and whether Yair and Avner’s status should be reviewed on a yearly basis, before the aforementioned consensus was reached, sources told Ynet.

This will be implemented regardless of the outcome of the October 27 Knesset election, the committee noted.

The move comes after heavy pressure from both Netanyahu and his wife, and follows on from Shin Bet Chief David Zini approving the Netanyahu family’s request to propose the extended personal protection to the committee on Wednesday.

David Zini served as the Prime Minister’s military secretary prior to his appointment as Shin Bet chief.

Shin Bet, Mossad assess that Netanyahu is at ‘lifetime threat level’

Shin Bet and Mossad officials believe that Netanyahu and his family are at a “lifetime threat level” due to a desire for revenge from enemies of the State of Israel due to Israel’s recent wars, Ynet reported.

Committee sources also said that the current decision applies only to the Netanyahu family, and that other prime ministers’ relatives will be examined separately on a case-by-case basis, Ynet added.

These include the families of former prime ministers Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Ehud Olmert, and Ehud Barak, Ynet added.

British retail chain Marks & Spencer (M&S) has opened an investigation after stickers calling for a boycott of Israeli products were placed on packages of potatoes imported from Israel at one of its branches in Worthing, West Sussex.

The case came to light after a customer who bought a 1.5-kg. package of Maris Piper potatoes noticed that the package, marked as originating in Israel, had been labeled with a sticker in the colors of the Palestinian flag bearing the words, “Boycott Israeli Apartheid.” The sticker also included the website address of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the leading organizations in Britain promoting consumer boycotts of Israeli products.

The UK Lawyers for Israel organization (UKLFI), which reported the incident, wrote to the chain’s CEO, Stuart Machin, demanding that the company investigate the matter.

The group said placing stickers on products could amount to unlawful interference with trade and an offense under British law if the goal was to discourage consumers from buying the products and cause financial harm.

Lawyers warn of potential BDS attempts against kosher products

In the letter, the lawyers asked the company to warn all of its employees against similar attempts, especially against Israeli or kosher products, and to report the matter to police if those responsible are identified.

M&S said in response that it conducts routine checks on products in its stores and that employees would be asked to remain alert for any signs of interference with products. According to the company, “it appears that one of the products was tampered with without our knowledge.” It added that the branch manager had opened an inquiry into the incident and that any information gathered would be passed on to the relevant authorities.

UKLFI welcomed the chain’s decision to open an investigation. “Political activists have no right to interfere with products sold in supermarkets in order to intimidate customers or harm trade in Israeli products,” the group said.

Objectionable potatoes originally English, grown for British market

It should be noted that the Maris Piper potato variety in question, sold in the package, is not an Israeli variety but an old British variety developed in England in the 1960s. Israel grows it for export, mainly for the British market, thanks to climate conditions that allow supplies during seasons when the local crop in Britain is limited.

Potatoes of this variety have a light skin, cream-colored flesh, and a relatively high starch content. They are particularly suitable for french fries, baked potatoes, and mashed potatoes, and for years have been considered one of the most popular varieties in Britain.

M&S is one of Britain’s oldest and best-known retail chains. It is identified mainly with clothing and home goods, but also with high-quality food. The chain continues to market agricultural produce from Israel, including fruit, vegetables, and other products, although in recent years it has occasionally been the focus of campaigns by pro-Palestinian organizations calling for a boycott of products originating in Israel.

US Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) visited Israel last week for the express purpose, as he termed it, of seeing what the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the Occupied West Bank, as he called it) who live there are up against.

Who is this person who has internalized such a visceral dislike of Israel?

For starters, Khanna, who represents a district at the southern end of Silicon Valley, and Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was recently primaried out of running for another term because Trump dislikes him, teamed up in Congress recently to fight the integration of the US and Israeli militaries.

Together, they introduced an amendment to the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to strip funding and tech-sharing programs between the two countries. Thankfully, the leadership of the House of Representatives blocked the amendment from receiving a vote, which Khanna then termed “unconscionable.”

Both lawmakers argued, without substantiation, that such integration threatens American sovereignty and avoids congressional oversight while giving no detail as to why they thought this way.

Khanna’s criticism of Israel

Of course, they both have a history of opposing expanded US involvement in Middle East conflicts. Khanna has also criticized Israel’s military conduct in Gaza and opposed funding for the Iron Dome. Khanna is not a friend of ours, to be sure.

During his visit this past week, he alleged that armed Israeli settlers and military personnel surrounded and detained his vehicle in the village of Turmus Aiya for over an hour. Khanna later criticized the Israeli Defense Forces for protecting the settlers

In a taped interview during his visit aired on DRM news (which can be seen here):

He said of the IDF personnel who arrived on the scene to assist: “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. It is the arrogance of power, a power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression.”

Notice how he conflated the settlers that had blocked the road on which his van was traveling and the IDF troops who came to assist. For sure, settlers living in Judea and Samaria are clearly in violation of the law if they stopped the vehicle in which the Congressperson was traveling and, if that is the case, they should be prosecuted.

Sadly, it is common knowledge that most often there is no accountability for the illegal acts of the settler community. That must change, of course.

Yet according to the IDF’s report on the incident, the military spokesperson claimed that Khanna’s guide knowingly brought him into a closed military area near Khirbet Zanuta. When notified, IDF troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles. In the words of the IDF: “Upon their arrival, the troops disbursed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way.”

Khanna also said: “What people in America are asking is, are you so bought and sold by the establishment and political donors that you cannot see human injustice? So, if you are unwilling to speak up for Palestinian human rights, if you are unwilling to speak up against the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised and we cannot trust you to fight for Medicare for all, or to fight for workers over the billionaires, or to fight for justice and human rights, in the United States.”

What a mouthful, eh? In speaking about what he hears from the electorate in the US, he spews forth every canard spoken over the years about what is going on here with presumed linkage to the resultant inability of the voter to trust him because of what his position may be about Israel.

Sadly, that does seem to be the litmus test in American politics these days. Nevertheless, it takes a certain amount of gall to invoke a non-existent genocide in Gaza as something American citizens care about when what they probably really want their representatives to do is to reinstate their full Medicare coverage or fight for the rights of workers in the US.

Yet what is most surprising to this writer is that there seems to have been no official Israeli government escort with Khanna’s group as they toured the area. How come?

Congressman Khanna is a known quantity here who is on national television in the US often mouthing the same drivel there that he emoted here. So, hopefully, our government knew that this was someone who would make the trip just to stir up more anger at Israel, not only among his district’s constituents, but also Americans generally, given that he is now a nationally known political figure.

One would think, therefore, that a well-run Foreign Ministry would make sure that there was someone from the Ministry with Khanna all the time he was in the country. First of all, Israel could then carefully watch what he does, where he goes, and what he says.

But as importantly, if there was an incident such as the one described, whatever the disputed particulars turn out to have actually occurred, the Israeli government representative presumably would have known how to deal with it.

For those who think that it is possible that Israel offered an escort and Khanna or his people refused, that is highly unlikely in my opinion. If that had been the case, it would have surfaced in the resultant news feeds, but there has been nary a mention of such an offer by either side. 

Nevertheless, why doesn’t Israel have a policy in place that says, while we welcome such visits, we consider them important enough to have a government representative accompany the visitor while in Israel.

If the visitor refuses, he or she can be denied entry and then go back to his or her country and badmouth us. For the kind of visitor that Ro Khanna represents, that’s going to happen either way. So, there is no downside, is there?

The citizens of his district may, of course, honestly believe that Khanna is, as he says, “morally compromised.” However, their reasons for feeling that way probably have very little to do with his position on Israel.

My guess is that the good citizens of Milpitas and Sunnyvale in the southern Silicon Valley of California (i.e., the district he represents), given a choice, would prefer that he spend his valuable time and exert his considerable influence on making their lives better and less time on bashing Israel. Not doing so would do more to make him morally compromised than anything that happens here.

Ro Khanna is no friend of ours, nor does he understand Israel’s role as the canary in the coal mine against Iranian aggression. Perhaps when he returns to the US, he should spend more time with the large Israeli tech presence in his district to learn why supporting Israel is as much in the interest of the US as it is in ours.

The writer, a 42-year resident of Jerusalem, is a former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and a Board Member of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).

A disputed Spanish law granting an amnesty to those involved in Catalonia’s separatist drive does not violate European Union rules, the bloc’s top court said on Thursday, in a boost to the Spanish government and its Catalan allies.

The amnesty, approved by Spain’s parliament in 2024, was part of an agreement between the ruling Socialist Party and Catalan separatist groups that allowed Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to stay in power in 2023. The conservative opposition made several unsuccessful attempts to block the amnesty.

“(The court) does not oppose a law, which, in order to reduce institutional and political tensions and facilitate a process of reconciliation, provides for the extinction of criminal liability,” said Koen Lenaerts, president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

In its decision, the CJEU ruled that the adoption and application of the law fall within Spain‘s competence.

The amnesty is the landmark bill of Sanchez’s second term, which has been marked by the minority leftist government’s difficulty in passing laws and corruption scandals affecting his party and family.

Ruling may ease tensions between socialists, separatists

The ruling may help ease tensions between the ruling Socialists and Catalonia’s separatist party Junts, which withdrew its parliamentary support last year, citing the lack of full implementation of the amnesty law as one of the reasons.

Justice Minister Felix Bolaños welcomed the ruling.

“All Spaniards, without exception, are beneficiaries of the amnesty law,” he said, calling for its full implementation concerning senior separatist politicians.

Oriol Junqueras, head of the center-left pro-independence party ERC, which supports Sanchez’s government, welcomed the ruling but criticized judicial reluctance to fully implement the law, including in his own case. He called the victory incomplete.

The CJEU took issue with one provision of the law, ruling that Spanish courts cannot be compelled to lift financial responsibilities or halt preliminary proceedings within a fixed two-month timeframe, pending broader EU decisions.

Out of an estimated 1,600 people who could be pardoned, more than 300 have been granted amnesty for criminal and administrative offenses related to Catalonia’s separatist push since 2011 and the attempt to secede from Spain in 2017, according to Catalan civil group Omnium.

Catalan leader hails ‘resounding victory,’ may return to Spain

Still, former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was optimistic, hailing the ruling as a “resounding victory” for the independence movement that “leaves no loophole through which our victory can be disputed” and calling to press forward with the independence cause.

The ruling could benefit Junts leader Puigdemont, who lives in self-imposed exile in Belgium, allowing him to return to Spain without fear of arrest and prosecution.

The Spanish judge handling Puigdemont’s case has said in the past the amnesty does not apply to him as he is also charged with embezzlement of public money used to finance an illegal independence referendum in 2017.

Puigdemont denies the accusation and has appealed to Spain’s Constitutional Court, with a ruling expected in September or October.

A German journalist and Global Sumud Flotilla activist has accused female Israeli prison guards of raping her during a forced strip-search at Givon Prison last October, allegations that the Israel Prison Service has categorically denied. 

Anna Liedtke, 25, detailed the alleged assault in an interview published by The Guardian on Wednesday, after Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed a complaint on her behalf demanding a criminal investigation.

The allegations have not been independently verified by The Jerusalem Post. The IPS told The Guardian that allegations are “categorically denied and entirely unsubstantiated,” and that it “rejects any allegation of rape, sexual assault or systematic abuse by its personnel”. Queried separately by the Post on the nature and status of the investigation, the IPS said it had nothing to add beyond the response already given.

The complaint was submitted on June 1 to the Attorney-General’s Office, the IPS’s legal adviser, the National Unit for Investigating Prison Staff, a sub-unit of Lahav 433’s Serious and International Crime Unit, and the commander of Givon Prison.

“We have confirmation from the Prison Service that a file has been opened, but nothing substantive yet,” Adalah told the Post.

Adalah did not provide further information regarding the nature of the file or whether a formal criminal investigation had been opened.

Liedtke claims assault occured in October 2025

According to the complaint and Liedtke’s account to The Guardian, the alleged assault occurred on October 10, 2025, after she was transferred from Ketziot Prison to Givon Prison following the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla two days earlier.

Liedtke was among approximately 145 participants in vessels affiliated with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Thousand Madleens initiative. The Israeli Navy intercepted the flotilla early on October 8 and diverted the vessels to Ashdod Port, after which most of those detained were taken to Ketziot Prison in the Negev.

The flotilla groups described the voyage as an attempt to deliver humanitarian aid and challenge the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel has maintained that the blockade is a necessary security measure intended to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas and has accused flotilla organizers of staging provocations rather than genuine aid missions.

Liedtke alleged that she was subjected to physical and verbal violence during her detention and was strip-searched three times without her consent.

She claimed that the first search took place at Ashdod Port in an area that was only partly concealed, leaving her visible to male personnel passing nearby. She alleged that she was again required to strip after being taken to Ketziot Prison.

Following her transfer to Givon two days later, Liedtke told The Guardian she refused an order to undergo a third strip-search. She alleged that two, and later three, female guards forcibly removed her clothes, restrained her hands, forced her to her knees and covered her mouth as she screamed.

One of the guards then allegedly penetrated her vaginally and anally with her fingers, according to the account. Liedtke further alleged that male guards could see into the partially screened area and laughed during the incident.

The allegations are based on Liedtke’s testimony and the complaint filed on her behalf. No findings have been issued regarding the events she described.

Liedtke said she informed friends and medical professionals shortly after leaving Israeli custody and first spoke publicly about the alleged rape at a conference in December.

“There is no reason for me to be ashamed,” she told The Guardian. “Whenever we are silent, they will do it to another person.”

Her attorney, Adalah lawyer Muna Haddad, said the complaint was intended to pursue accountability and examine how Israeli law-enforcement authorities would respond to a demand that the allegations be investigated.

IDF, Prison Service reject allegations of abuse

The Prison Service rejected Liedtke’s account in its response to The Guardian, describing the allegations as entirely unsubstantiated and denying that its personnel had committed rape, sexual assault or systematic abuse.

The IDF also rejected allegations of abuse by the forces involved in intercepting the flotilla and referred questions concerning Liedtke’s detention to the Prison Service.

The claims come amid a wider series of allegations made by participants in Gaza-bound flotillas intercepted by Israel.

In May, organizers of a separate flotilla said that at least 15 participants had reported sexual assault, including rape, after being detained by Israeli authorities. The Prison Service denied those allegations and said all detainees had been held lawfully, with their basic rights protected. Reuters said it was unable to independently verify the accusations.

French prosecutors have also opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of torture, sexual violence and other mistreatment made by French citizens who participated in the May flotilla. The inquiry concerns those separate allegations and is not an investigation into Liedtke’s complaint.

Participants in the October flotilla had also alleged physical abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment immediately following their detention. Those claims were reported by Adalah at the time, before Liedtke publicly disclosed the rape allegation.

The Prison Service has continued to deny allegations of rape, sexual assault or systematic abuse by its personnel. 

On July 16, the US-backed Board of Peace said that Morocco had “formally signed its Participating Country Agreement with the International Stabilization Force.” This was a long-expected development that is key to helping the Board continue to move forward in Gaza.

In Gaza, the Hamas terrorist group continues to control an area of the enclave, estimated at around 30-40 percent of the area. Around 2 million civilians are still trapped under Hamas. Morocco’s commitment is also important, coming after the ISF announced new members from the Kosovo Security Force on July 12.

In order to help the civilians have a chance to escape Hamas rule, they will need reconstruction and also the ability to have security. To secure areas they might one day move to or live in, there will need to be an alternative Palestinian government to Hamas and also an international force.

The US plan to end the war in Gaza was able to secure a ceasefire in October 2025.

The Trump administration has worked hard to make the peace plan come to fruition. However, there are many hurdles. One hurdle is that the Trump administration also has to help manage other issues relating to Israel. For instance, the US is also working on Israel-Lebanon talks.

US creating new ties in Middle East

The US is also trying to work with Syria and restrain Israel from a belligerent policy toward Syria. US President Donald Trump has recently spotlighted the fact that Israel operates in Syria beyond the 1974 ceasefire line. The US is also continuing to fight Iran.

As such, the White House has many issues on its plate. Helping Israel get out of wars on several borders, and helping bring peace to people in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and the region is hard work.

The Board of Peace is one part of this effort. Via the Board of Peace, Gaza is supposed to be stabilized. To stabilize it requires an International Stabilization Force.

Around five countries were expected to join the force after the US plan got UN backing and after the Board of Peace was inaugurated in January.

The Moroccan contingent is one of several that are expected to join. “Moroccan forces will support humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza and help train the Palestinian Police Force.

The Board of Peace and the #ISF thank His Majesty King Mohammed VI for Morocco’s unwavering dedication to regional stability, security, and for leading with action to support the people of Gaza,” the Board said on July 16.

“The ISF welcomes the newest members of the Kosovo Security Force to the team. They will support the Gaza security effort in areas such as logistics and civil affairs.”

Morocco joins Abraham Accords after UAE, Bahrain

Morocco is important because it is a member of the Abraham Accords. It joined after the UAE and Bahrain agreed to the original accords in 2020. Kosovo also joined in 2021.

Kazakhstan joined in 2025. As members of the Accords, Kosovo and Morocco are expected to play an important role. Kazakhstan and Albania may also play a role. Albania and Kosovo already sent a team to examine their deployment.

On July 12, the ISF also said it “welcomes the newest members of the Kosovo Security Force to the team. They will support the Gaza security effort in areas such as logistics and civil affairs.”

In addition, Dubravka Suica, the EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean and for Demography as well as a former Mayor of Dubrovnik, recently met with Aryeh Lightstone from the Board of Peace.

They met in Brussels, she posted on July 14, saying, “I welcome his participation in today’s second meeting of our EU Palestine Donor Group. By working together, we can advance Gaza’s early recovery, and help turn the Gaza Peace Plan into tangible progress on the ground. This is our shared goal and our common commitment, in coordination with the Board of Peace and all our partners.”

Suica also met with Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative of the Board for Gaza. He is a former UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. After her meeting with him, Suica posted about “Gaza’s transitional structures” and the importance of delivering “tangible improvements for the Palestinian people.”

She wrote that “we demonstrated the international community’s unwavering commitment. Now the next step is clear: we need access, Hamas disarmament, security and a clear governance framework to turn that commitment into action.”

Meanwhile, Mladenov spotlighted King Mohammed VI of Morocco “for his visionary leadership, and to the Kingdom of Morocco for its meaningful contribution to the International Stabilization Force in Gaza.” He wrote that “through security support, humanitarian assistance and the deployment of a field hospital, Morocco is, once again, translating its longstanding commitment to the Palestinian people into concrete action. An important contribution to #peace, stability and hope for Gaza and the realization of UNSCR 2803 and President Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan.”

It is clear that Morocco’s move toward greater work with the Board and Gaza is a key part of what comes next. Morocco is a friend of the US and Israel.

The Chargé d’Affaires of Kosovo to the State of Israel, Ines Demiri, has also been key to supporting Kosovo’s work with the Board. In June, she met with Kosovo officers Maj. Gentrit Idrizi and Maj. Labinot Lala. “I visited their base to learn more about their important work.

Their service and dedication reflect Kosovo’s steadfast commitment to supporting international peace, security, & stabilization efforts,” she noted. She also visited the Life Support Area Endurance near the Gaza border “which will serve as a vital waypoint for ISF to refit while supporting restoration & humanitarian efforts,” the Board noted.

All of the components of the next phase are slowly coming into view. The logistical support for the ISF. The ISF teams. The countries involved. The donor countries. In addition, the IDF continues to strike Hamas terrorists.

There is also the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, set up with US Central Command in October 2025. Along with the IDF and various other countries and NGOs, it has helped with humanitarian assistance in Gaza. 

New footage released on Wednesday shows the moment Yossi Musli, the head of a crime organization, was arrested at his home on Tuesday by detectives from the Tel Aviv District’s Major Crimes Unit.

The arrest was carried out as part of the investigation into the wave of grenade attacks, arson, and shootings that has hit central and northern Israel in recent days, with a series of attacks focused on branches of the Japanika restaurant chain and other targets.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court extended Musli’s detention by five days. Police suspect he was involved in the wave of attacks being investigated as part of the feud between the Musli and Jarushi crime families. Investigators also believe the probe will widen and that more arrests are likely in the coming days.

During the hearing, Judge Sheli Kotin said there was, for now, a basis that justified keeping Musli in custody.

“Reviewing the investigation materials establishes the suspicion of involvement. In addition, there is a ground for detention of dangerousness, as well as a ground of suspicion of obstruction. I found that there is room to grant the request in part,” she wrote in her ruling. 

At the same time, the judge sent a clear message to the investigative unit regarding the case’s continuation.

“The material presented to me is, from an evidentiary standpoint, sufficient for this stage of the investigation and only for the current hearing on the first detention extension,” she wrote. Rotin added that if police do not obtain concrete evidence and do not carry out investigative steps that strengthen the suspicions against Musli, “I do not think there will be room to extend his detention again.”

Musli claims police met with him prior to grenade attacks

During the hearing, Musli chose to address the suspicions against him himself. According to him, several days before his arrest, three detectives from the Tel Aviv Major Crimes Unit came to his home and took him for a conversation at the unit’s offices. He claimed he was told that police had information that he was “organizing with grenades.”

“Several days before they came to me yesterday, officers from Tel Aviv’s Major Crimes Unit had already visited me,” Musli told the court.

“They took me to the Major Crimes Unit offices for a conversation and warned me: ‘Listen, we have information that you are organizing with grenades.’ I didn’t even understand what they wanted.

“They told me: ‘Take four days and calm the area; if not, we will act against you with aggressive measures.’ I asked what aggressive measures meant, and they said they would issue administrative orders against me. I told them, with respect, ‘Thank you. Maybe disconnect my phone.’ I have nothing to do with anything.”

Musli’s lawyer, Doron Noy, attacked the police conduct and argued that if investigators really had prior information about an intention to throw grenades, they should have taken operational steps at that stage.

“If the Major Crimes Unit had this information about grenades, why didn’t they do something operational?” he asked.

“They were at his house; they saw he was there. They saw and know he is not the one throwing the grenades; physically, that is clear. So if they don’t have sufficient evidence linking him- no recording, no visual documentation, no strong testimony or anything else- why arrest him?

“This is all due to public pressure and the attention this affair has drawn. The police want to show, apparently, that they are doing something, even though they have nothing and nothing at all.”

Later in the hearing, Noy added that even while Musli was in custody, additional incidents took place in northern Israel.

“You tell the court that the suspect does not need to carry out the actions physically, but he is allegedly behind them, and tonight, while he was under arrest, two more incidents took place in Haifa and Rosh Pina. So how do you explain a ground for obstruction or dangerousness?

“It happened even when he was under arrest. He told you he is not involved in any feud, and you are not telling him ‘there is this or that against you,’ but asking where he was every night incidents happened, and he explains that he was at home. You can disprove or confirm his claim, because you have the DVR from the cameras at his house, so what is all the noise?”

According to the suspicion, the wave of attacks is connected to an escalation in the feud between the Musli and Jarushi crime families. In recent days, about nine Japanika branches, along with other targets, were hit by grenade attacks, shootings, and arson.

Japanika owner was close to crime family

As part of the investigation, police recently took a statement from Japanika chain owner Barak Abramov. During his testimony, he told investigators that he has no feud with anyone, has no enemies, and does not understand what is behind the series of attacks on his businesses. He also clarified that in his assessment, this was not an attempt to harm him personally.

According to people familiar with the details, Abramov was once considered close to the Musli brothers, and at that time they also helped him, those sources said, on his way to control of the Bnei Yehuda soccer team. In recent years, however, the situation has changed, and he is now identified with figures in the Jarushi family. Police are examining whether that shift lies behind the attacks on the chain’s branches.

It was also learned that in recent months Abramov made a major business move, selling 20% of the Landora group to Leumi Partners for about NIS 200 million, while also working to advance an initial public offering of the Japanika chain on the stock exchange. According to sources familiar with the details, the wave of attacks has delayed that move for now.

Police are continuing their investigation and are preparing to summon additional members of the Musli family for questioning in the coming days. Investigators believe Musli’s arrest is only the first stage of a broader investigation, which is expected to continue in the coming days.

Leader of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Sephardic Shas Party, Arye Deri, accused IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir of attempting to “help the left-wing bloc,” and “causing damage to the military” after Zamir sent a recent warning against legislation advanced by Deri’s party that seeks to freeze the arrests of haredi draft evaders.

“He has lost it. What the chief of staff did during an election campaign was an attempt to help the left-wing bloc, without a doubt,” Deri said.

“He has no business involving himself in politics. This sets a very dangerous precedent. He has caused significant damage to the army,” Deri added.

The remarks came in a Thursday interview with the haredi Kikar Hashabbat news outlet, after the Knesset passed the contentious bill this week that will temporarily freeze arrests of haredi draft evaders, a measure expected to remain in effect for at least six months.  The High Court of Justice on Wednesday later froze the law and will hear petitions to strike down the legislation.

The passage of the bill in its final readings came following severe legal warnings that the legislation is unbalanced and will not increase haredi enlistment amid the IDF’s severe manpower shortage, as well as outrage from bereaved families and reservists.

Zamir warns draft evasion bill raises issues of national security

Zamir warned ahead of the bill’s passage that implementing such a law would create an array of national security problems.

He stated that he opposes the bill’s implementation “completely and unequivocally.”

Among the issues raised by Zamir was 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.

Zamir has warned in recent months that the IDF could soon collapse if no solution is found for the manpower shortage.

Party leaders condemn Deri’s statements

Deri’s remarks directed at Zamir sparked outrage from party leaders in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu in the upcoming elections.

Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot said that Deri’s remarks were “A display of breathtaking audacity and complete detachment.”

“If the haredi leadership had even a shred of self-awareness, the person who led and advanced the draft exemption legislation this week, while the best of our sons and daughters are deployed on multiple fronts, would at the very least have kept his ‘criticism’ of the chief of staff to himself,” Eisenkot added.

“Arye, after three years of war, perhaps it’s time to understand that military service is not a political issue. It is the insurance policy of the Jewish people in the State of Israel. It is a matter of national security,” Eisenkot added.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the Together Party, responded that “Deri’s attacks on the chief of staff strengthen Israel’s enemies and tear apart the IDF.”

“Only in a government of October 7 can a person like Deri, whose life’s work has been encouraging mass draft evasion, dare to accuse the chief of staff of his own failures.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman said that someone who sits in the security cabinet while “simultaneously fighting to ensure that an entire sector does not enlist” was the last person who could attack the IDF chief of staff.

“In the next government, the parties of draft evaders will sit in the opposition,” Liberman vowed.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid referred to Deri’s recent visits to military prisons, in which the Shas leader went to express support for draft evaders.

“In the afternoon, he [Deri] embraced his own draft-evading grandchildren; and at night, from the security cabinet, he sent other people’s children to die in the war,” Lapid said.

“The chief of staff simply told the truth: because of Deri and his people, we do not have enough soldiers. Deri is a danger to national security,” Lapid added.

The haredi parties have continuously encouraged the coalition to advance legislation that would not increase haredi enlistment. 

IDF warns of manpower shortage

The IDF has repeatedly warned of an urgent manpower shortage after more than two years of war.

In April, the High Court of Justice ordered that the state take concrete steps to revoke key financial benefits from draft evaders and to move toward criminal enforcement against haredi men who evade military service. 

Deri has slammed the High Court, along with Attorney Gali Baharav-Miara, for her insistence on enforcing High Court decisions to seize the funds of haredi draft dodgers.

The tensions also come amid reports that Netanyahu has made a deal with the haredi parties to advance as much of their contentious legislation as possible 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.

Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.

Israeli singer-songwriter Ehud Banai’s music has found a beautiful setting deep inside the Bell Caves at Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park, where it forms the soundtrack to a new immersive video-art exhibition exploring memory, birth, dreams, and the mysteries of human consciousness.

The Eighth Sound exhibition brings together Banai’s songs and texts with video art by Ronen Tanchum. Created specifically for the ancient caves, the approximately 40-minute work surrounds visitors with music, projected images, light, and movement, transforming the underground space into what its creators describe as a kind of “womb of the earth.”

The exhibition, launched by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, will run on selected evenings from July through the end of November. It is the seventh contemporary art exhibition to be presented in the caves since the site was converted into an unconventional gallery space.

The idea originated in Banai’s response to the caves themselves. The Bell Caves are hundreds of man-made caverns, carved out during the Byzantine and Early Arab periods. They have a bell-like shape, which historians believe was created to prevent the ceilings from caving in.

“On my first visit to the cave, I felt as though I had crossed into another dimension, like entering a giant womb,” Banai said. “The Gemara tells us that a fetus in its mother’s womb possesses the highest level of consciousness.”

An immersive journey through memory, dreams, and consciousness

Banai said he began thinking about figures such as the prophet Elijah and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, whose mystical experiences were associated with caves. From there, he developed the concept of a journey told through speech, sound, and images.

“It is about transitions: from pregnancy to birth, from reality to dream, from life to what lies beyond it, from a cycle of seven days and seven notes to the eighth day and the eighth sound,” he said.

The exhibition takes its title from the idea of something existing beyond the familiar cycles of time and music: beyond the seven days of the week and the seven notes of the musical scale. The “eighth sound” represents an elusive frequency that cannot be physically heard, symbolizing hidden consciousness, memory, and voices emerging from silence.

According to various traditions cited in the exhibition text, the fetus learns the secrets of the universe while in the womb, only to forget them at birth. Life then becomes a gradual process of recollection, with each encounter, dream, and observation offering a glimpse of that lost knowledge.

Music and AI imagery reshape Beit Guvrin’s ancient Bell Caves

The soundtrack includes several of Banai’s best-known songs, many in new arrangements recorded especially for the exhibition. It also features his first recorded performance of “Atuf Berahamim,” “Wrapped in Mercy,” which he wrote after seeing an ultrasound during his wife’s pregnancy with their eldest daughter.

Tanchum’s projected imagery follows the emergence and dissolution of memory. Abstract forms gradually become recognizable images before fading away again. Each projector offers a different viewpoint, while the natural contours of the cave become part of the constantly changing visual composition.

“For me, this work began with Ehud’s text, before I had visited the cave and before I had heard the music,” Tanchum said. “In his words, I already felt a gateway to childhood memory, to an inner sense of time, and to a spiritual dimension.”

When he entered the Bell Caves, it became clear that the video work would have to respond to the space rather than merely use it as a screen, Tanchum recalled.

“The cave did not feel like a background, but like a living place with its own rhythm, substance, and breath,” he said.

Tanchum developed an AI-based visual system designed to blend with the cave through light, imagery, and movement. Banai’s voice, he said, provides the “human heart” of the journey.

Tomer Sargosti, director of Beit Guvrin National Park and founder of the Bell Cave Gallery, said the annual exhibitions allow visitors to experience the historic site from a different perspective.

“The cave, its acoustics, the video artwork, and the atmosphere all come together and invite the public on an emotional and sensory journey in one of Israel’s most impressive heritage sites,” he said.

The exhibition will be open from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., with last admission at 9 p.m., on selected Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday nights, depending on the month. The exhibition itself lasts about 35 minutes, while a full visit to the Bell Caves takes about 75 minutes.

Visitors may also order picnic packages in advance and collect them at the park’s service center for an evening combining art, nature, food, and wine near the caves. Tickets can be reserved through the Israel Nature and Parks Authority website.

Hezbollah’s continued armed presence is harming Lebanon’s security, 51% of Lebanese participants answered in a YouGov survey published last month by the Council for a Secure America.

The latest survey, conducted in three waves to track changes in public opinion, collected responses from 260 Lebanese civilians in Arabic in May. Earlier surveys were conducted among 253 people in October and 252 individuals in January. The margin of sampling error is ±5.0%, with a confidence level of 95%.

Only 11% of the respondents said they believed Hezbollah’s armed presence improved Lebanon’s security, with many declining to answer the question.

More than half (58%) said they supported efforts by Lebanon’s President Aoun to strengthen the Lebanese Army and negotiate the disarmament of Hezbollah, so that all armed forces in Lebanon operate under the Government’s authority, though the support fell slightly from January, when 63% said the same. Only 10% said they were not supportive of Aoun’s efforts.

Predicting what will come of the relationship between Jerusalem and Beirut, 41% said it was likely there will be peace, though only 32% said they would support normalizing with Israel after a long-term resolution is made for the issue of “Palestine.” Just over a quarter (27%) predicted peace would be unlikely, while only 19% said they wouldn’t support normalizing with Israel even if the issue of “Palestine” was resolved.

Four in ten Lebanese respondents predict eventual peace with Israel

Christians (43%) were more supportive of normalization than Muslims (28%), though both demographic groups seem to have warmed to the idea since January. In the January survey, only 19% of Muslims and 37% of Christians were in support of the theoretical development.

Though peace and normalization remain a divisive issue, 40% said they thought that normalized ties with Israel would help the Lebanese economy and only 22% said they thought it would hurt it. Notably, those aged over 45 were more likely to think normalization would promote economic growth and stability (47% compared to 29% of younger respondents).

Despite a significant portion believing a peace agreement will be an eventuality, more respondents said they thought Lebanon should keep laws which criminalize dealings with Israel. 32% said the laws should be kept, 28% repealed, and 40% said they didn’t want to answer. 

Syria has busted a new smuggling operation that was attempting to move weapons to Hezbollah. This bust comes at a key time, as Hezbollah is under some pressure by Israel, the US, and Lebanon as the US hopes for progress on trilateral talks.

The goal of the talks is that Lebanon will extend its control to “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon where Hezbollah will be removed, and Israel has said it won’t withdraw or redeploy in Lebanon until there is progress.

The Trump administration has hinted that Syria might help support operations against Hezbollah. US President Donald Trump again mentioned this possibility in a recent interview with Trey Yingst of Fox News. As Trump maneuvers to bring about peace in Lebanon, Syria plays a key role in helping cut off the arms flow to Hezbollah.

On July 16, Syria’s state media SANA said that Syria’s Interior Ministry had seized an advanced weapons shipment bound for Hezbollah near the Syrian-Iraqi border, one of many successes that it has had against smuggling to Hezbollah.

The new Syrian government came to power after the fall of the Assad regime. Hezbollah had intervened in Syria to back the Assad regime, as they were allies for decades due to Iranian support for both. Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters to Syria between 2012-2024. The Syrian rebels hated Hezbollah for its role in the war. When Assad fled, it was natural that Damascus would act against the Iranian-backed smuggling networks.

Weapons reaching Hezbollah from Iran

Weapons flowing to Hezbollah usually come from Iran via Iraq. They would be smuggling through Al Qaim on the Iraqi border, via Albukamal in Syria and then up the Euphrates River Valley. They would sometimes pass through several points, including the T-4 base at Palmya. They also sometimes moved through Deir Ezzor. The US force at Tanf Garrison in southern Syria made it hard for the arms to flow near the Jordanian border.

When the Assad regime collapsed the smuggling routes may have changed – it is hard to keep track of everything in the Syrian desert. In addition, the instability in southern Syria around Suwayda has led to smuggling routes remaining in that area.

Specialized units may have included US-trained Syrian rebels

The Syrians say that the ministry used “specialized security units” to carry out the operation “after detecting a suspicious vehicle parked near the border. A search uncovered a cache of weapons that included long-range missiles, guided anti-tank missiles and drones.” Some of the Syrian rebels that were trained by the Americans at Tanf were integrated first into Syria’s 70th Division and then into Interior Ministry units. It’s possible some of them may have played a helpful role here.

The reports also say that “preliminary investigations based on evidence collected at the scene indicated that the shipment was intended to transit Syrian territory before being delivered to the Hezbollah terrorist militia in Lebanon. Authorities said investigations were continuing to identify everyone involved in the smuggling operation and dismantle the networks linked to it.”

The Syrians went on to say that “the Interior Ministry said protecting Syria’s borders and safeguarding national sovereignty remained a top priority, adding that it would not allow Syrian territory to be used as a transit route or launch point for arms smuggling or other activities that threaten the security of Syria or neighboring countries.”

Six haredi women and 10 academics petitioned the High Court of Justice on Thursday to strike down, or sharply restrict, a law expanding gender-segregated studies in Israeli higher education, arguing that the legislation dismantles the safeguards on which the court previously found the practice constitutional.

The petition was filed hours after the Knesset approved an amendment to the law sponsored by Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, which expressly allows the Council for Higher Education to approve separate programs for men and women in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral studies.

At institutions that otherwise teach men and women together, the law limits gender separation to classrooms; that restriction does not apply to institutions that are themselves designated for only men or only women. The amendment also states that operating separate institutions or study programs for men and women for religious reasons will not, in itself, be considered discrimination.

The petitioners asked the court to strike down the amendment in whole or in part. Alternatively, they asked it to rule that the law does not override the restrictions set by the High Court in its 2021 decision, which permitted gender-segregated academic programs only as a narrow exception for haredi (ultra-Orthodox) students, at the bachelor’s level and inside classrooms, while prohibiting the exclusion of women lecturers.

All five justices on the expanded panel agreed that gender segregation in higher education infringed the constitutional right to equality. A 3-2 majority nevertheless upheld the CHE’s framework, finding it proportionate only because it was restricted to haredi students, bachelor’s degrees serving as the “entry gate” to higher education, and separation inside classrooms rather than in public areas of the campus.

The court also ruled unanimously that women lecturers could not be barred from teaching men’s classes and stressed that deviation from the arrangement’s “delicate balances” could bring segregated programs into the realm of illegality.

Knesset failed to address violations on gender segregation restrictions

The current petition, led by Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law Prof. Yofi Tirosh, argues that the Knesset has now expanded the model without addressing longstanding violations of the restrictions that made it permissible in the first place.

It accuses the CHE of failing to prevent segregation from spreading into libraries, corridors, administrative services, and other public spaces; allowing institutions to offer different programs to men and women; and failing to enforce the court’s prohibition on excluding women lecturers from men’s programs.

The petition’s central constitutional argument is that the amendment expressly authorizes an infringement of equality without requiring institutions to ensure substantive equality between the men’s and women’s programs.

A provision intended to protect equality between the programs appeared in an earlier version of the legislation but was removed during the committee process, the petition said. The result, according to the petitioners, is legislation purportedly intended to enable “separate but equal” programs that instead opens the door to “separate and unequal” education.

They warned that different levels of demand could lead institutions to offer certain degrees or specializations to only one sex, while women could be directed toward lower-paid, traditionally female professions. Segregated programs could also produce separate professional networks and limit women’s access to senior academics, laboratories, research opportunities, and future employment, they argued.

Those concerns are particularly acute in advanced degrees, the petition said, because master’s and doctoral studies depend on close work between students and researchers rather than only classroom instruction.

Several of the haredi petitioners argued that presenting segregation as voluntary ignored the social pressure that could develop once separate programs became widely available.

“A partition never remains merely an option,” Dr. Estee Rieder, a haredi woman and researcher of haredi society, said in the petition.

“Once established, it becomes a norm behind which women are expected to stand. What is presented as ‘freedom of choice’ becomes, in practice, social pressure and the absence of any real ability to choose otherwise.”

Feini Suknik, a haredi educator and social activist, said cultural accommodations such as kosher food, consideration for Shabbat and Jewish holidays, and other forms of sensitivity did not require creating a parallel academic system.

“The haredi public does not need a parallel and inferior academy,” she said. “It needs real entry into academia itself.”

Gender segregation law reverses 2021 limitations, critic says

The petition also challenges the law’s application beyond the haredi community. While the 2021 judgment justified limited segregation partly because of the educational and cultural barriers facing haredi students, the new law refers more broadly to separate programs operated “for religious reasons” and does not expressly restrict participation to haredim.

The petitioners argue that the change could create two parallel academic systems: one mixed and another governed by gender-separation requirements for anyone seeking them.

Son Har-Melech defended the legislation following its passage, saying it “does not impose anything on anyone” and instead “expands freedom, enables diversity, and respects the human mosaic of Israeli society.”

Tirosh argued that the legislation did the opposite of each of the limitations established in 2021: It failed to address the exclusion of women lecturers, expanded segregation to advanced degrees, opened the possibility of separation beyond classrooms, and removed the express limitation to haredi students.

“Either the law is unconstitutional because it permits a disproportionate infringement of rights,” she said, “or it has no legal significance and the criteria limiting the permissible form of gender segregation in academic studies, which were established in the 2021 ruling, remain in force.”

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.

Nearly 80 people from across Israel attended the Mike’s Cubes 2026 Rubik’s Cube competition on July 5, joined by hundreds of onlookers at the Shoham Medical Center in Pardes Hanna-Karkur.

Twenty new competitors were welcomed into the community by veteran participants after registration for the event filled to capacity in just a few minutes. The World Cube Association and the Speed Cubing Israel Association supervised the initial registration.

This year’s event was sponsored by the Steimatzky bookstore chain and connected people from various parts of Israeli society. 

“Beyond the competition itself, seeing all the friendships being forged here and the community continuing to grow, this is what warms my heart most of all,” said Esti Stone, the co-founder of the event.

The structure of the Rubik’s Cube event was divided into three subsections, dictated by the size of the cube, its shape, and whether competitors were blindfolded when solving.

Meet the winners

Ben Baron was the top competitor, earning 1st place in four of the six categories and placing in the top five overall. Baron set two national records, solving a 3D combination puzzle, called a Skewb, in 1.33 seconds and a 4x4x4 cube blindfolded in just over two minutes.

Yoav Vishne, a computer science student at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, also did very well, making the podium in half of the categories. Vishne solved a 2x2x2 cube in just 0.91 seconds, winning the category, though he failed to beat his personal best of 0.68 seconds from 2024. 

The only category not won by either Vishne or Baron was the “pyraminx” category. Netanel Pour set a national record for the pyramid-shaped puzzle in the first round, solving it in 1.61 seconds, and going on to take 1st place in the category during the final round. 

Stone established the annual event in honor of her late husband Mike Stone, an American-born cube solver who passed his love for Rubik’s Cubes on to his children and grandchildren. “Grandpa Mike” participated in several cubing competitions as Israel’s oldest competitor before he passed away in 2022 at 72-years-old.

Due to increased demand, the community is already preparing for the 2026 Israeli Championship in Tel Aviv at the end of August, which will likely attract a record number of cubing competitors and spectators.

The government approved a proposal to name Route 443 “The Levites Way” in memory of the late foreign affairs minister David Levy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation and Road Safety Minister Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Miri Regev announced in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The proposed renaming was put forth by Netanyahu and Regev to commemorate both Levy’s service to the State of Israel and the Tribe of Levi’s historical connection to the region.

“We are proud today to commemorate his memory on a road that connects our capital, Jerusalem, with the center of the country, as a symbol of a man who dedicated his life and energy to the unity of Israel,” Netanyahu said in the joint statement.

Route 443 is a major road that connects Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Modi’in, Judea and Samaria, and the Judean foothills. The specific section of the road being renamed is between the Ben Shemen Interchange in Central Israel and the Beituniya-Givat Ze’ev Junction right outside Jerusalem.

The Ministry of Transportation and Road Safety will work with the Defense Ministry to update the road’s signage. The Government Secretariat will also issue the route’s name in Israel’s official gazette, Reshumot.

Shluhot Reservoir to be named after Levy as well

The naming of Route 443 follows Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen’s decision to name the newly inaugurated Shluhot Reservoir after Levy on Sunday. 

In 1957, Levy immigrated from North Africa to Israel’s Beit She’an region, which the new Shluhot Reservoir will connect to Israel’s National Water System.

Levy served for many years as Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Construction and Housing Minister, and Aliyah and Integration Minister. He was also a Member of the Knesset for 37 years, from 1969 to 2006.

“From his childhood in Beit She’an, he broke barriers and reached the leadership of the nation, where he championed social action and assistance for disadvantaged populations, while promoting peripheral towns,” Netanyahu said. “He was a loyal representative of the State of Israel and stood our ground proudly before the nations of the world. 

Eleven people were killed and 19 injured in a fire at an orphanage on the outskirts of the Algerian capital early on Thursday, state media reported.

The fire broke out at an orphanage in the Mohammadia district in the eastern suburbs of Algiers.

Ten of the injured suffered burns of varying severity, while emergency crews evacuated five people with disabilities from the orphanage to safety, the civil protection agency said.

It said firefighting operations were continuing and did not immediately identify the victims, disclose their ages or say what caused the fire.

The orphanage fire happened amidst a heatwave in Algeria

Algeria has been gripped by a heatwave in recent days, with civil protection units extinguishing 913 fires nationwide since July 8, state news agency APS reported on Wednesday, citing the General Directorate of Civil Protection.

An ancient circle was found underground during a geographical survey at the Isle of Arran’s Machrie Moor, according to a recent report from Historic Environment Scotland (HES). 

Located on Arran’s west coast, Machrie Moor is a peat moorland where a large collection of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological finds, dating back to between 3,500 BCE to 1,500 BCE. 

The recently discovered circle joins six others previously identified at the site, known as Circles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 11. Excavations of the site have also shown that several of the stone circles at the moor were preceded by timber circles that stood in the same positions as the stones did. 

In a late June statement, HES noted that it is likely the newly discovered circle dates to a similar period as the other six.

Using advanced technology to scan the moor for any disturbances in the ground, HES archaeologists revealed twelve circular pit-like anomalies that, when connected, form a circle with spacing for two more pits.

Due to the fact that there are no stones in the pits, archaeologists have surmised that the circles may have been “settings” for either stone or timber posts.

Stone circles of this kind are famously associated with ritualistic and ceremonial activity, such as the UK’s Stonehenge in Wiltshire and the more recently discovered “prototype” near Bulford.

The circle found at Machrie Moor, HES noted, aligns with a “prominent notch” at the top of Machrie Glen, where the midsummer sunrise would have been clearly visible to Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers taking part in the festivities. 

Stone circles were also sometimes used for burials, including for cremations and inhumation. HES noted that there is a chance the newly unearthed circle may have been used for this purpose, but more research is required.

Uncovering more of Scotland’s past

“We are tremendously excited about this new discovery,” said Dr. Nick Hannon, senior heritage recording manager at HES. “We know that there is a lot of archaeology yet to uncover at Machrie Moor, but the discovery of a new circle completely surpassed our expectations.”

“The tools we use to learn about what’s underground are constantly developing, and we can learn more and more about our buried history without disturbing the earth and potentially damaging archaeological remains.”

“Discoveries like this one remind us why we do this work – to look after Scotland’s heritage and uncover more of our past in the process,” said Hannon.

Ancient structure near Stonehenge may have inspired its solstice alignment

In mid-June, a team from Wessex Archaeology uncovered an ancient structure that may have served as an early “prototype” for the solstice alignment at Stonehenge some five kilometers away from the famed site.

Archaeologists have radiocarbon dated the site to approximately 5,000 years ago – around the time of the earliest phase of Stonehenge’s construction.

The site, believed to have likely served as a focus for religious gatherings, bears extensive evidence of feasting and large-scale gatherings.

Further, it shows that “ancient people were using this feat of astronomical engineering to celebrate the solstice here at least 500 years before the alignment of the stones at Stonehenge,” said Wessex Archaeology in its statement.

Discovered at the heart of the site are two pits, thought by researchers to have held two wooden poles standing 120 meters apart.

Analysis of the pits conducted by Wessex Archaeology showed that the alignment of the two poles would have formed a line pointing at the rising sun during the summer solstice and the setting sun during the winter solstice.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Colombia’s incoming foreign minister, Omar Bula Escobar, agreed on Wednesday in Washington to fully restore diplomatic and economic relations between Israel and Colombia, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The agreement is intended to reverse the rupture initiated by outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro in May 2024 and renew bilateral cooperation after Colombia’s new government takes office.

The two ministers also agreed to exchange ambassadors, abolish visa requirements for Israeli and Colombian citizens, and expand Israeli development assistance to Colombia through MASHAV, Israel’s international development cooperation agency, the ministry said. Bula told Sa’ar that Colombia’s incoming government intends to open an embassy in Jerusalem.

Colombia plans to move embassy to Jerusalem

The proposed embassy would represent a significant upgrade in relations and mark formal Colombian recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Colombia previously opened a trade and innovation office in Jerusalem under former president Iván Duque, who described the country as Israel’s leading ally in Latin America.

The latest agreement follows a telephone conversation in June between Sa’ar and Colombian President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella. The Foreign Ministry has since begun preparations to appoint a new Israeli ambassador to Bogotá ahead of the presidential inauguration scheduled for August 7.

De la Espriella defeated left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda in Colombia’s June presidential election. Petro subsequently accused Israel of interfering in the vote, an allegation reported by The Jerusalem Post, while the incoming president has signaled that he intends to move Colombia away from Petro’s foreign policy.

Colombia had historically been one of Israel’s closest partners in Latin America, with extensive cooperation in diplomacy, trade, security, agriculture, and technology. Relations deteriorated sharply under Petro, who announced in May 2024 that Colombia would sever diplomatic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Colombia in June 2024, while Colombia’s ambassador to Israel completed her term and left the country later that month. The diplomatic rupture raised concerns regarding the future of bilateral trade and security cooperation, although experts assessed at the time that existing agreements could remain in place despite the political dispute, the Post reported.

Petro also ordered Colombia to establish an embassy in Ramallah after cutting ties with Israel, according to a May 2024 report. His government’s policies represented a marked departure from those of Duque, who had sought to deepen Colombian cooperation with Israel.

Some say that the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center was an attack against the Jewish community. Others argue that it was an attack against Argentina as a whole. 

Both are right: the attack took place on Argentinian soil and specifically targeted the Jewish community. But I prefer to say that it was an attack against humanity itself. That is the essence of terrorism: to sow fear as a strategy to undermine the very foundations of morality and civilization.

I still remember that tragic Monday, July 18, 1994. I was at home, about 20 blocks from the AMIA building, when at 9:53 a.m. I heard the explosion and felt the walls shake. The images on television showed the unimaginable. Once again.

Barely two years after the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, it was happening all over again: the same enemies, the same terrorists, in the same city. This time with even greater cruelty – 85 lives, ordinary citizens like any one of us, torn from this world, leaving behind grieving families, loved ones, and shattered dreams.

We live in an increasingly polarized world. Evil has become ever more fanatical and extremist, and for that very reason, the forces of good must also become stronger, more united, and more vocal. Today, more than ever, silence is no longer an option; silence is an accomplice to terror.

In a world that too often chooses the comfort of silence, President Javier Milei has distinguished himself through his courageous and unwavering stand against terrorism and antisemitism. He unequivocally condemned the cowardly terrorist attacks of October 7 and firmly defended Israel’s right to self-defense. 

He designated Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organizations and expelled Iran’s chargé d’affaires from Argentina. This year, Argentina also assumed the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), becoming the first Latin American country to do so. 

Whereas previous Argentinian governments signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran – effectively obscuring responsibility for the attacks despite the Argentinian judiciary’s determination that the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah were responsible – Milei chose instead to sign the Memorandum for Freedom and Democracy with Israel to combat terrorism and antisemitism. He then expanded that vision to the entire region through the Isaac Accords.

This final point is especially significant because it is no longer merely a bilateral initiative, but a regional project. Inspired by US President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords, the Isaac Accords seek to establish a strategic framework for strengthening cooperation between Latin America and Israel among those nations committed to defending life, liberty, and democracy, while combating terrorism and antisemitism. Under Javier Milei’s leadership, Argentina has become a regional model and beacon for these values.

Ultimately, President Milei has chosen to place Argentina on the right side of history.

Choosing life in the face of terror

Although today we gather to commemorate the victims of the AMIA bombing, we cannot afford the naivety of a narrow view of history. Terrorist attacks must never be seen as isolated events; they are links in a global strategy of terror.

The bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, the AMIA bombing, the September 11 attacks, October 7, and the long and tragic list of countless other atrocities are all part of the same chain: the campaign of radical Islamist terrorism that seeks to destroy the foundations of Western civilization and undermine peace, coexistence, and genuine tolerance. 

It is no coincidence that in Iran, American and Israeli flags are publicly burned amid chants of “Death to the Great Satan” and “Death to the Little Satan.” Intolerance becomes violence, violence becomes terrorism, and tolerance toward that intolerance becomes fertile ground for terror to spread. 

As the German essayist Kurt Tucholsky wrote, a nation is defined not only by what it does, but also by what it tolerates. At its core, we are witnessing a profound clash between a culture that glorifies death and a culture that sanctifies life. They speak different moral languages. That is why dialogue with terrorists is impossible: one cannot reason with those who speak an entirely different moral language.

The Torah teaches: “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

For many years, I wondered why such a commandment was necessary. Would any person in their right mind truly choose death? Today, I believe I have found one possible answer: silence in the face of terror is choosing death. 

Tolerance toward terrorist intolerance is choosing death. Every day, each of us must choose life: by raising our voices against terror, condemning terrorism and injustice, standing together to confront them, and doing everything within our power to defend life, liberty, peace, and stability. Only then can we secure a future for our children, as the verse concludes: “so that you and your descendants may live.”

This year marks the 32nd anniversary of that brutal and cowardly attack. In Hebrew, the number 32 corresponds to the numerical value of the word lev, meaning “heart.” May this open wound move our hearts. May we feel the pain of every victim and every grieving family as our own. 

And may we do everything within our power to bring justice and truth into the world, so that we may help heal the heart of humanity and of our society.

The writer is a rabbi and the Argentinian ambassador to Israel.

The sentences of the relatives involved in the honor killing of 18-year-old Saman Abbas were officially upheld by Italy’s Court of Cassation on Wednesday, five years after the Pakistani teenager was murdered for refusing an arranged marriage, Italian officials confirmed.

The judges of the first criminal section of the court rejected appeals issued by members of the Abbas family, upholding the four life sentences issued on April 18 in 2025 by the Bologna Court of Appeal and the 22 year sentence issued against the victim’s uncle Danish Hasnian.

Hasnain was initially sentenced to only 14 years in prison after accepting a plea bargain, but was later sentenced to 22 years.

Abbas’s parents, Habbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen , and her cousins Noman Ul Haq and Ijaz Ikram were sentenced to life for murder and suppression of a corpse.

The Attorney General of the Court of Cassation, represented by Attorney General Marco Dall’Olio, emphasized that he was dealing with “not a crime of impulse but a premeditated act. That Saman could not decide for herself is clear, manifest, the reconstruction of the facts is unequivocal. Saman, even though she was an adult, could not decide for herself about her life, she could not have a life of her own. A chilling story, a concerted and premeditated act.”

Con la sentenza definitiva per l’omicidio di Saman Abbas si chiude una dolorosa vicenda giudiziaria.

Saman, giovane di origine pakistana in Italia, è stata uccisa dai suoi genitori e da alcuni familiari dopo essersi opposta a un matrimonio forzato e aver rivendicato il diritto… pic.twitter.com/nFrH3QyoId

— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) July 15, 2026

Investigators located Abbas’s body after questioning her uncle in Paris

Abbas was murdered on the night between April 30 and May 1, 2021, in Novellara di Reggio Emilia. Her body was discovered 18 months after her boyfriend reported her missing.

Investigators finally discovered the location of Abbas’s body after her uncle was detained and questioned in Paris. Both of Abbas’s parents fled to Pakistan shortly after the murder and were extradited in 2023 after being sentenced in absentia in 2021. Her cousins, however, were arrested in Spain.

Abbas moved to northern Italy from Pakistan as a teenager, where she quickly adapted to Western culture, a shift that deeply angered her family. She chose not to wear an Islamic head covering and posted photos online of herself kissing her boyfriend, whom she had told she feared for her life after refusing her parents’ demands that she marry an older cousin in Pakistan.

 Before her death, she spent several months living under the care of social services but eventually returned to her family home. Some reports indicated that her return to the family home was only intended to be brief, to collect her personal documents.

PM Meloni, ‘ A painful judicial saga comes to a close’

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that “With the final verdict for the murder of Saman Abbas, a painful judicial saga comes to a close. Saman, a young woman of Pakistani origin in Italy, was killed by her parents and some relatives after she opposed a forced marriage and asserted her right to freely choose her own future.

“No verdict can bring her life back, but it is right that those responsible for this barbaric crime have been definitively convicted. In Italy, there is no room for those who presume to deny, in the name of supposed cultural or religious justifications, a woman’s freedom, dignity, and life. These are non-negotiable principles from which we will never retreat.

“My thoughts go to Saman. May she finally rest in peace.”

Iran’s confiscation of St. Peter’s Evangelical Church in Tehran, also known as Qavam Church, and the eviction of the 27 members of the Christian community who lived within its compound must be reversed, UN experts demanded on Wednesday.

“Twenty families, most of whom are low-income, long-standing residents of the compound, were reportedly given just two weeks to leave their homes. The church’s leaders were threatened with arrest if they failed to comply. The final resident left on 12 July, prompting fears that the complex may be demolished,” the experts said. “Forced evictions are incompatible with international human rights law and risk leaving members of recognized religious and ethnic minorities homeless.”

The ten-acre compound in central Tehran held homes, offices and two schools in addition to the church itself. The Bible Society and the Council of Evangelical Churches of Iran, which owns the land, also had an office on site. Regime authorities already seized an expansive garden belonging to the church complex, threatening to arrest community members trying to access the ground under the charge of trespassing, according to earlier reports.

Sasan Tavassoli, a US-based minister with the Presbyterian Church in Iran, told international media weeks ago, when threats from the regime intensified, that the church property was now worth tens of millions of dollars, and that they had been expressly told that the seizure was being carried out because the regime no longer feared America.

Despite the council owning the land, a 1998 Revolutionary Court transferred the compound into the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, which has prevented the council from re-registering.

‘The latest incident of a regime forcing the closure of Christian sites’

“This is not an isolated incident, but the culmination of a long pattern of measures directed against Iran’s Christian community, and in particular against Persian-speaking Christian worship,” the experts said.

The UN experts noted that the seizure of this church was just the latest incident of regime authorities forcing the closure of Christian sites. A Presbyterian church was demolished in Mashhad in June 2026, after being forced to close decades earlier, and the last three Anglican churches permitted to preach in Persian have not been allowed to reopen since the COVID-19 shutdowns.

Though Iran is now effectively void of Persian Protestant places of worship, as they have either been forced to close or stop offering services in the language, there had once been around 50 churches from that denomination across Iran.

“Freedom of religion or belief includes the freedom to worship in community with others, in one’s own language, and to maintain places of worship. When a church is confiscated, a community loses not only a building but a place of worship and community life,” the experts said.

Outside the forced closure of Persian Christian spaces, the UN experts noted that Christians continue to face arrest, detention and ill-treatment in Iran. At least 79 Christians are detained or imprisoned, the vast majority of whom are converts.

The experts noted that some Christians, including convert Mohammad Nikbaht, were forced to confess to crimes under torture.  Nikbakht was beaten at his home in Golpaygan in March 2026 and held incommunicado in Dastgerd Prison, while his family have been deprived of any access to information or legal counsel.

Christian convert sentenced to prison, 74 lashes over compulsory hijab violation

Earlier this month, human rights groups reported that Ghazal Marzban Joorashari, a Gilak Christian convert imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison, was sentenced to six months in prison and the inhumane punishment of 74 lashes for “failing to observe compulsory hijab.”

Marzban, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison only a few months earlier for charges linked to her Christian faith and activities.  Investigators were said to have pressured Marzban during questioning to admit that her Bible and Christian literature were being used for evangelism, something that she denied throughout her interrogation.

Her conversion was also said to have seen her barred from sitting for her bar examination despite her degree in Islamic law. 

Mena, a Middle East-based representative of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, told The Jerusalem Post, “We strongly condemn the seizure of the St Peter’s Evangelical Church compound, and the accompanying forced removal of many low income families from affordable homes on the premises. This injustice contravenes the  Iranian constitution, which recognises the right of the Christian community ‘to perform their religious rites and ceremonies’, and also violates the nation’s obligations under the ICCPR and ICESCR with regard to freedom of religion or belief, and the right to adequate housing.

“Constructed in the late 1800s, St Peter’s Evangelical Church also constitutes a heritage site. Several other Christian properties have been seized in a similar manner.

“CSW is urging the Iranian authorities to respect sites of Christian and cultural heritage, halt all expropriations, return confiscated properties to  rightful owners and focus on the welfare of citizens, including by fulfilling the right to FoRB for every religious community.”

Iran’s space program is advancing in its infrastructure development, satellite development, and satellite data and imagery services, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on Thursday, citing the head of the Iranian Space Agency, Hassan Salarieh.

Salarieh said Iran is expected to inaugurate several new facilities in the coming months, including laboratories, satellite control centers, and the Chabahar launch site in the country’s southeast. He added that Iran is establishing a nationwide network of satellite control centers to shorten communication times with satellites, streamline in-orbit testing, and extend their operational lifespans.

Among the major space projects being led by the ayatollah regime, Salarieh listed the Nahid 2 and Nahid 3 satellites, the Shahid Soleimani satellite constellation, the Fars 2 and Fars 3 observation satellites, and the development of Iran’s first domestically produced radar satellite.

He said that combining satellite imagery with artificial intelligence is expected to increase the economic value of space data and assist civilian sectors such as agriculture, water resource management, environmental protection, land monitoring, and emergency management.

Salarieh added that communications satellites being developed by Iranian experts are expected to provide a significant portion of the country’s communications infrastructure in the future, either directly or in a supporting capacity.

Iran Space Agency emphasizes coordination with China

The head of the Iranian Space Agency emphasized that international cooperation is one of the priorities of Iran’s space program, specifically noting continued cooperation with China and Iran’s participation in the Chang’e lunar exploration project.

He said Iran places importance both on exporting space products and services to other countries and on learning from the capabilities of leading countries in the field.

Addressing updates to Iran’s space program for the coming decade, Salarieh said the plan is being adjusted in line with technological advances, after some technologies reached maturity and certain projects required revisions.

Regarding satellite launch vehicles, he said the Simurgh and Qaem 100 launchers had reached an “acceptable” level of maturity and completed several successful launches.

Salarieh said Iran is also developing more advanced generations of launch vehicles, with testing expected to begin soon, as well as an upgraded version of the Simurgh launcher intended to increase payload capacity for low Earth orbit and higher orbits.

He said testing of the upgraded Simurgh began about two years ago and would continue this year.

Israel stymies Iranian attempts at satellite launches

The US intelligence community’s 2024 worldwide threat assessment warned that Iran’s development of satellite launch vehicles “would shorten the timeline” for it to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The IDF on March 8 attacked Iran’s Aerospace Headquarters for launching satellites, technology which had potential dual use for being incorporated in future attempts to develop nuclear weapons which could be fired long range into space and hit the US.

The headquarters had been used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to promote its aerospace efforts, including the 2022 launch of the Khayyam satellite, successfully launched by Iran using a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Until attacking the site, Israeli officials were concerned that the Khayyam and the latest space cooperation between Moscow and Tehran would increase Iran’s capabilities to potentially launch ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) as well as improve its monitoring of targets in the Jewish state and throughout the region in the short-term.

An additional concern for Jerusalem was that Khayyam and future Russian-Iranian satellites could reduce Israeli spies’ ability to penetrate the Islamic Republic’s border with operations that hold back its nuclear progress.

Prior to the June war, Tehran managed numerous satellite launches in recent years, some on its own, and some in conjunction with Moscow.

During that period of time, such satellite launches were often viewed by the Jewish state and by America as a grave danger, due to their being a potential dual-use threat and a move toward producing nuclear weapons, including ICBMs which might eventually reach the US.

Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.

The country of Peru has seen an influx of babies named after the star of Norway’s World Cup team, Erling Haaland, with over 500 newborns having been named after the forward, data from Peru’s National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (Reniec) revealed.

The “Yorkshire-born, Norwegian lad” recently completed his first stint at the FIFA World Cup, scoring seven goals – just one less than veteran player Kylian Mbappé, and over double the legend Cristiano Ronaldo’s score – and capturing the hearts of fans around the world.

His popularity, however, reached new heights in Peru, where 486 children have been named “Haaland,” and 91 were given the 25-year-old footballer’s full name, “Erling Haaland,” in the weeks since the World Cup began, the national registry confirmed.

Haaland quickly became an internet sensation due to both his larger-than-life personality and size – coming in at six feet five – with many online joking that the Norwegian team had secured an actual Viking for their team.

“Erling Haaland runs like no one taught him to train his dragon,” one user wrote on social media.

Built like a Viking, but with the personality of a golden retriever

“How does someone built like a Viking manage to radiate the energy of a golden retriever?” another wrote.

Peruvians take their soccer seriously, as the registry also revealed 3,402 people in Peru named after Argentina’s Lionel Messi, 1,185 named after Cristiano Ronaldo, and a whopping 33,809 named after Brazil’s Neymar.

“Different football stars serve as inspiration for Peruvians to register their children with these names,” registry spokesperson Ivan Torres told Panamericana Television.

An IDF soldier from Bat Yam was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of supplying IDF grenades, ammunition, and other weapons to people in possible connection with a wave of recent grenade attacks in central Israel.

Police are investigating his connection to the attacks or whether his arrest could lead them to the person who supplied the grenades. 

During a search of the soldier’s home, officers from the Tel Aviv District, together with officers from the Yarkon Subdistrict’s crime-fighting unit and investigators from the Special Investigations Unit of the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division, seized dozens of IDF weapons, including grenades, according to police.

The arrest came as police received a report of an explosion heard near a residential building in the Kochav Hatzafon neighborhood of north Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, though it’s unconfirmed whether the arrested soldier supplied the weapons in the attack.

Officers from the Tel Aviv North police station and bomb disposal experts from the Tel Aviv District were dispatched to the scene. An initial examination indicated that the device was believed to be a stun grenade, and no one was injured and no damage was caused. Police are investigating the incident as a criminal matter.

IDF soldier arrested after wave of grenade attacks

The incident came hours after a similar case in Herzliya Pituah. At around 8 p.m. on Wednesday, what was believed to be an IDF stun grenade was thrown at a luxury car lot on Galgalei Haplada Street. No injuries or damages were reported in that case either.

Police are investigating whether the two incidents are part of a series of attacks being examined in connection with the dispute between the Musli and Jarushi crime families.

The investigation has been transferred to the Special Investigations Unit for further handling, while Israel Police continue to look into the series of incidents.

A 22-year-old Israeli citizen was detained on Monday at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport after, according to suspicion, 216 kilograms of the khat plant were found hidden in seven suitcases in his luggage.

In Yemen and Israel, khat is not defined as a dangerous drug, but it is in Italy and most countries around the world, and Italian authorities classify owning it as a drug possession and trafficking offense.

The seizure took place at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino International Airport in a joint operation by Italy’s Customs and Finance Police unit, the Guardia di Finanza, and the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM).

According to the authorities’ statement, the young man, who had arrived on a flight from Tel Aviv, aroused suspicion at passport control after giving vague and contradictory answers about the purpose of his visit to Italy and where he planned to stay. He was then taken for a more thorough inspection, which included scanning the suitcases with an X-ray machine and opening them.

During the inspection, large packages of fresh khat leaves and stalks were found in his seven suitcases, with a total weight of 216 kilograms. The entire shipment is now being held as evidence as part of the investigation.

The authorities said the young man was not arrested, but was released at the end of the initial questioning. However, a criminal case has been opened against him and transferred to prosecutors in Civitavecchia. He is suspected of offenses of possession and trafficking of drugs under Italian narcotics law.

Khat is illegal in Europe, but permitted in Israel

Khat is a stimulant plant native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. While its sale and use are permitted in Israel, in Italy and many European Union countries it is classified as an illegal drug, and bringing commercial quantities of it into the country is therefore a criminal offense.

According to estimates on the European black market, the value of the seized quantity could reach tens of thousands of euros. The value of khat as a drug depends mainly on how fresh it is, since it loses its effect relatively quickly.

The seizure adds to a series of cases in recent years in which Israelis have run into trouble in European countries over smuggling khat, a product that is legal in Israel but banned in destination countries.

Israeli defense tech companies Airwayz and Tenna Systems have launched a strategic partnership that embeds Tenna’s real-time spectrum‑intelligence capabilities into OVERWATCH, Airwayz’s command-and-control and airspace-governance platform. The integration, already deployed through Israel’s National Drone Initiative (INDI), is operating in the field with additional data layers under development.

“OVERWATCH brings the ability to control the airspace, to understand which aircraft flies where and where to broadcast, like a control tower,” Airwayz CEO Eyal Zor told Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post. “The chaotic environment of drones in the lower skies – from 400 feet or 7,000 feet – showed us the outcome of non-controlled airspace and the missed potential to utilize drones. The new airspace control is all about drones and autonomous systems.”

Zor described OVERWATCH as “the brain to take over control of the chaotic lower airspace,” comprising airspace planning, unified operational-picture creation, and end-to-end management. 

Airwayz’s OVERWATCH is a command-and-control and airspace-governance platform used by military, law-enforcement, and critical-infrastructure organizations worldwide, including the IDF, the Port of Rotterdam, and Israel’s National Drone Initiative. The company operates across the Middle East, the United States, and Europe.

“To smartly and safely command the airspace, you need to know if there’s any interference and current RF and GPS information,” he said. “Whether it’s over the city or on the battlefield, the spectrum is everything. Without control, you cannot command. Without information, you cannot do anything. Tenna provides the information for the spectrum.”

The companies said the integration gives defense and homeland-security operators a unified operational picture that combines airspace management with live radio-frequency (RF) awareness. According to Airwayz, the capability allows operators to identify zones at risk of RF interference before deployment and maintain command and control in GPS-contested environments.

Commercial drone operators are also expected to benefit from the platform, gaining visibility into spectrum-dense conditions and knowing the RF picture even before the platform takes off.

From the cockpit to the boardroom

The collaboration between Zor and Tenna CEO Avner Bendheim didn’t start with OVERWATCH. Zor told D&T that the collaboration of the two companies is rooted in his long personal and professional history with Bendheim as both served together in the Israel Air Force. 

“We served together; it’s personal,” he said. “I’m happy that our collaboration extends past the cockpit.” 

According to Bendheim, Israel’s busy and contested airspace makes it “a great testbed.” Still, the capability is already scaling abroad as more and more countries recognize the urgency of airspace control. 

“All countries see that controlling the airspace is an issue. The world is watching and learning, and even if they haven’t seen the battlefield yet, it can happen within a day. A few months ago, the UAE was quiet. Now it’s contested,” he said.

“These capabilities have no borders, and most of the operation of our companies is abroad,” he added. “We took high-TRL capabilities that have been proven and combined them to enable an extremely effective tool that has saved lives and autonomous systems.”

Busy skies

The partnership began under INDI, where Tenna’s intelligence layer was first incorporated into OVERWATCH. It has since expanded into a broader operational capability.

“Spectrum interference is one of the most underestimated threats to safe and effective airspace operations,” Zor said. “Integrating Tenna’s intelligence layer into OVERWATCH means our defense and homeland security customers no longer have to choose between airspace governance and electromagnetic awareness; they get both in one operational picture.”

According to Bendheim, the integration addresses a challenge shared by both commercial and defense operators.

“Spectrum interference doesn’t discriminate between commercial and defense operations,” he said. “The OVERWATCH integration puts our real-time RF intelligence directly inside the platform operators already rely on. Whether you’re managing commercial drone corridors or complex airspace environments, the ability to see the spectrum before you fly changes everything. INDI was a significant proof point.”

Tenna Systems, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York, provides software-based spectrum intelligence that fuses airborne, space, and terrestrial data to detect interference, geolocate emitters, and strengthen electronic-warfare resilience without additional hardware. Its customers include commercial, civil, and critical-infrastructure operators in Israel and the United States.

“Airspace used to be defined by altitude, and now it’s more about advanced airspace management, including for remotely autonomous systems. It’s less and less a physical boundary and more the systems themselves, manned and unmanned,” Bendheim said.

“We’re giving the intelligence layer for commercial, government, and military customers to understand the spectrum, where to target the emitters and how to give resilience to all the systems,” he said. “We’re not only an intelligence tool; we enable effective autonomy. Giving this layer of intelligence to OVERWATCH and Airwayz is a natural transition for us to support effective autonomy across all domains.”

The crisis over the American refueling aircraft parked at Ben-Gurion Airport, thought to be resolved, is now escalating from the military to the diplomatic arena.

While the Transportation Ministry announced Wednesday that a solution had been reached to relocate the United States’ assets to other sites after the Israel Airports Authority said that continued use of the airport could severely disrupt commercial operations, American military sources on Thursday stated the alternative solutions do not meet the needs of the US military. 

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to address the issue directly. 

The demand for the US to utilize the airport stems from the need for the US military to prepare for regional worst-case scenarios, including an attack on its bases in the Persian Gulf, a situation that would require available Israeli logistical support.

Despite agreements to reduce the force that may have been reached, the US military is now demanding to remain at the airport. They are even requesting to increase its presence ahead of emergency scenarios involving Tehran. That decision is being referred to the senior political leadership.

US military officials made clear alternative solutions were not suitable

A senior US military source familiar with the details of the situation said that representatives of the US military made clear to the IDF Planning Directorate that the alternatives offered to them were not suitable.

According to the source, the other sites in Israel where the aircraft were proposed to be moved are very crowded and do not meet the Pentagon’s safety and operational threshold. It would make it difficult for them to go from zero to 100 in real time. As a result, the American military representatives made clear that they must remain at Ben Gurion Airport.

The current crisis is developing after a period of tension between the Transportation Ministry and the security establishment. 

US aircraft parked at the airport are harming commercial operations

Transportation Minister Miri Regev previously demanded that the refueling aircraft be removed and that their number be limited to 20, in order to prevent harm to the civilian flight schedule at the height of the summer vacation. 

The IDF, with the backing of IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, opposed moving the aircraft to Air Force bases in the Negev. 

Now, in light of the threats from Tehran, the American position is upending the situation and turning the parking issue into a diplomatic challenge requiring intervention at the prime minister level.

A US citizen who had been detained by Iran since December 2024 has been released, US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that the woman had been released as a gesture of goodwill on Iran’s part, adding that the woman was safely outside the country and in good condition.

In August, 2025, The New York Times reported that an Iranian-American woman had been detained in December 2024 after being charged with espionage.

According to the report, the woman worked for an American technological company and ran a charity for Iranian children before her arrest.

The NYT also reported at the time that the woman was out of prison, but that her passports had been confiscated.

British couple imprisoned in Iran have sentence extended

Also on Wednesday, the family of British couple Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who are serving a 10-year prison sentence in Iran on espionage charges that they deny, said that a judge had extended Craig Foreman’s sentence by two years for speaking to the media.

The couple was arrested in 2025 while traveling through Iran by motorcycle as part of a round-the-world journey. Britain has described their original sentences as “totally unjustifiable.”

Joe Bennett, Lindsay Foreman’s son and the family’s spokesperson, said they had received reports that Craig Foreman had been taken before a judge and informed that his sentence had been extended because he had spoken to the media.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The United States imposed sanctions on a network of people supporting the procurement of weapons for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday, according to a press release from the US Treasury Department.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified seven individuals and organizations attempting to purchase and transfer weapons to Iran. The government action is underscored by an escalation of Iranian attacks towards commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and a parallel US military effort to halt Iran’s actions.

“President Trump has been clear that Iran must denuclearize,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will continue to target and disrupt the illicit procurement networks that fund Iran’s weapons programs and war machine.”

The attempted arms acquisition directly violated renewed UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit UN member states from the procurement, supply, sale, or transfer of weapons to Iran. 

“OFAC will continue to disrupt the overseas procurement and financial networks that sustain Iran’s weapons production and proliferation efforts, which threaten Americans and US partners and allies worldwide,” the press statement emphasized.

The IRGC procurement network

One of the people sanctioned is Behrouz Namazi, an Iranian national identified as the general director of the Tehran-based Nika Jet Company, which distributes aircraft and drone parts. According to the press release, he is responsible for obtaining weapons for the IRGC through Vanguard Tactical Supply Limited and a Milan-based Italian national named Dounia Ettaib, who helps procure weapons for Namazi.

Russian national Mariya Vladimirovna Selina was also involved as the head of the financial department of Avratek, an aviation transportation company based in Moscow. Selina also allegedly supported Namazi’s procurement efforts on behalf of the IRGC, according to the Treasury’s statement.

Russian national Vadim Anatolyevich Druzhbin, another employee at Avratek, was also involved in coordinating shipments with Iran.

All implicated individuals and organizations have been penalized for “having provided, or attempted to provide, financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of, the IRGC,” or to Namazi himself, under Executive Order 13382.

The sanctions require that all property owned by US individuals that is in any way related to the sanctioned individuals be immediately reported to OFAC, and that entities owned by the sanctioned individuals up to 50% be blocked. 

The Treasury’s statement said that violations of US sanctions may result in civil or criminal penalties on US and foreign persons.

Emphasis on economic pressure on Iran

Operation Economic Fury also comes into play as a financial warfare strategy. The Treasury Department’s initiative was designed to impose a chokehold and place maximum economic pressure on Iran during the war, before the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding was signed.

The strategy consists of maritime blockade efforts in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as sanctions and asset seizures targeting underground weapons procurement networks intended to circumvent existing sanctions on Iran.

The US has taken action to reprimand people sourcing weapons for Iran in the past, including a group of 13 attempting to smuggle man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) to the regime in June. 

Aaron Glick contributed to this report.

A 14-year-old in London was indicted under suspicion of planning terror attacks on two mosques after police found “documents of concern” in his home, the Metropolitan Police announced on Wednesday.

Originally, the suspect was arrested for damaging a vehicle, but during a search police allegedly located plans to attack two mosques in the Sutton area, in South London.

The minor was charged with planning acts of “extreme right-wing terrorism,” and intentionally breaking a car window, an offense the police described as having been “racially aggravated.”

“This is a very serious terrorism charge against a young boy and likely to be highly concerning to the public and the local community,” Commander Helen Flanagan, head of the London Counter Terrorism Policing unit, stated.

“We know this will be particularly concerning to the Muslim community and we are working closely with the venues affected to ensure they are kept updated and to provide advice, support and reassurance, and this will continue.”

More minors involved in extremist ideologies, CTP head notes

Flanagan also noted the increase in minors conducting criminal activities, and urged parents, teachers, and others with close connections to young children to be aware of when minors may be “vulnerable to radicalization.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Nick Blackburn noted that the incident came only a few days after several other Islamophobic cases, including 12 people being arrested for allegedly threatening an Islamic festival, and a man arrested after an alleged assault outside a mosque.

“We should not underestimate the cumulative impact of incidents of this nature on the Muslim community,” Blackburn stated. 

Two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days, UN agencies said on Thursday, as refugees from the war-torn country continue to make perilous maritime journeys in search of safety and better opportunities.

“According to preliminary information, the two vessels departed from Myanmar’s Rakhine State in late June carrying mostly Rohingya passengers, reportedly including some who had traveled from refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” the International Organization for Migration and the UN Refugee Agency said in a joint statement, saying more than 500 were feared dead.

“While the incidents and casualty figures have yet to be officially confirmed, UNHCR and IOM are gravely concerned by the potentially devastating loss of life.”

Members of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority for years have risked their lives on flimsy wooden vessels, driven by violence at home and desperate conditions in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, hoping to reach safety and opportunity in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, or Thailand.

With around 250 people onboard, the first boat lost contact shortly after departure, and a second vessel carrying around 280 people is believed to have sunk off Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady coast on July 8, the UN agencies said.

500 people feared dead after boats sink, many similar incidents this year

“These journeys took place outside the regular sailing season, when maritime conditions are typically more hazardous,” the statement said.

The agencies said that nearly 300 people are reported to be missing or dead in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal this year, including Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals.

Russian ballistic missiles struck at least two districts in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday, triggering fires and killing two people, officials said.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on Telegram, said two people had died and six others, including a 16-year-old teenager, had been injured in the attacks.

Reuters witnesses heard a series of explosions in the city.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said Russia was attacking Kyiv with ballistic missiles.

It was the sixth such attack on the Ukrainian capital in July alone, as Russia escalates its air strikes against Ukraine.

Odesa, Kyiv hit by strikes

Ukraine’s emergency services said a fire broke out in two storage buildings and nearby parked trucks in one of the districts, where the two people had died.

In the city’s Svyatoshynskyi district west of the city center, a fire broke out in a one-story warehouse.

Five people were injured in the two incidents, the emergency services said.

The Black Sea port city of Odesa also came under attack early on Thursday, the head of the city’s military administration Serhiy Lysak said, adding that an educational facility had been damaged.

Chief Rabbi and Chabad shaliach Yonatan Markovitch, with the support of volunteers, has mobilized an extensive humanitarian operation for the local community amid a recent wave of devastating Russian bombings. 

In recent days, Kyiv has been experiencing the latest wave of large-scale missile and drone attacks that have struck residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure.

Rabbi Markovitch, the JCC Beit Menachem Kyiv, and local volunteers have been working alongside emergency services to provide essential supplies, including food, water, clothing, and medication, to the community.

Volunteers are assisting whomever they can, regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, and have been offering practical support and guidance to families left without help in the wake of the devastation.

Rabbi Markovitch, ‘Our responsibility is to be here for every person in need’

“At a time when the air raid sirens scarcely stop, our responsibility is to be here for every person in need,” Rabbi Markovitch said.

“Our mission is to bring light precisely during these darkest moments for the people of Ukraine in general, and for the residents of Kyiv in particular,” he continued. 

Overnight, Russian attacks killed 14 people across Ukraine, the BBC reported Thursday. 

Russian ballistic missiles struck at least two districts in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday, triggering fires and killing two people, according to Reuters.

Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke overnight with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he confirmed in a statement on Thursday.

Hegseth briefed Katz on US military operations in Iran, and the two agreed to continue cooperation between the countries in response to any possible developments.

Katz briefed Hegseth on Israel’s operations against terrorist groups in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon.

Israel must remain in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, for self-defense, Katz says

He also emphasized Israel’s determination to remain in security zones in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon to protect Israel’s borders and nearby communities from “threats posed by jihadist forces,” citing this as a central lesson from the events of October 7.

“We have never asked the US to act in our place along our borders. We are committed to protecting the residents of Israel from every threat, and that is what we intend to do,” Katz said.

The US struck Iran’s coastal defenses and missile sites on Wednesday after reimposing a naval blockade of its ports, while Iran threatened to shut off more regional energy exports, saying it was engaged in an “existential war” with America.

The latest escalation comes days after a fragile truce collapsed, raising the specter of a return to full-scale war, though analysts generally see that as less likely.

Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz. Military operations are also keeping ships from transiting the vital artery, which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, closed at a one-month high at $84.95 a barrel on Wednesday.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the military had attacked coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Iran’s Greater Tunb Island starting around 6 a.m. EDT, and had completed the wave of strikes within around 90 minutes.

Nine hours later, CENTCOM reported a second wave of strikes.

US strikes enforce free transit in Hormuz, target Iran’s military capabilities

“The strikes are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway vital to global commerce. The US military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction,” CENTCOM said on X/Twitter.

Three US officials told Reuters that US strikes aimed at forcing open the strait are also targeting Iranian military capabilities the US would want to destroy before executing more complex operations.

Following the latest round of strikes, Iran’s Mehr news agency said four locations around the city of Ahvaz came under attack, just inland from the northern end of the Persian Gulf, as did Bandar Abbas, Iran’s principal port city on the Strait of Hormuz. In neither case were casualties reported, Mehr said. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said explosions were heard in Konarak city, at the southern end of Iran on the Gulf of Oman.

Nonetheless, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported the US attacks struck near a hospital in Ahvaz that houses a pediatric cancer center, forcing the temporary evacuation of the hospital. Families have come out to the streets around the hospital to care for their children, IRIB said.

US projectiles also hit near Sirik and Qeshm in southern Iran, according to Iran’s semi-official media.

Following the first wave, which Iran said hit a location on its Hengam Island in the strait, Tehran’s top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf issued a statement declaring that Iranian security depended on maintaining what he called “Iranian arrangements” in the strait.

“We are in an essential and existential war with America,” Qalibaf said.

The war has killed thousands of people and displaced millions, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, where conflict restarted between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Iran wants to settle, Trump says

Trump struck a triumphant note, as he has repeatedly since the US and Israel started hostilities on Feb. 28, saying, “We’ll have Iran defeated soon. They’ll be defeated very soon.”

Speaking at a roundtable event at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, Trump also claimed the Iranians want to “settle so badly.”

“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” Trump said.

On Tuesday, Trump said US negotiators had been in touch with their Iranian counterparts to tell them “you better make a deal.”

Iran threatens other shipping routes

Iran has been trying to assert permanent control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to impose fees on vessels passing through it, in what would be a major shift in the balance of power in a region where the US has long acted as guarantor of security.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday it had struck US military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

Kuwait said its armed forces intercepted four missiles and 21 drones from Iran on Wednesday, but that no injuries or material damage were reported.

Non-compliant vessel disabled in Arabian Gulf

According to an X post by CENTCOM, an unladen oil tanker that attempted to sail towards an Iranian port in the Arabian Gulf was disabled by US Hellfire missiles that were fired into the ship’s smokestack.

The Curacao-flagged crude oil tanker, named BELMA, was reportedly struck on its way to Kharg Island, after ignoring multiple warnings to stop violating the US blockade.

MoU, Ceasefire deal falters

An interim ceasefire deal signed last month was meant to lead to further negotiations, including on Iran’s nuclear program, and to a permanent truce, but a return to talks has faltered.

“We have no plans for negotiations at the moment and are focused on defense,” Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

Qalibaf, who is also speaker of Iran’s parliament, said that if Iran did not benefit from its memorandum of understanding with the US, “we have no reason to adhere to such an understanding.”

Iran never welcomed war, but it must always be ready to fight and “stand to the end” to protect national security and Iranian interests, Qalibaf said. He added Iran must also use “the tools of diplomacy and negotiation,” and choosing either negotiation or war as the sole course of action would be a strategic error.

CENTCOM has announced the conclusion of the recent round of strikes.

Danya Saperstein and Jonah Davidov contributed to this report.

Two leading Jewish civil rights groups stepped up after Jewish teachers reported antisemitic harassment last year at the National Education Association’s annual convention, only to devolve into disagreement ahead of this year’s convention.

The unusual public dispute between the Jewish Council of Public Affairs and the Anti-Defamation League brought to the fore a simmering tension over how to fight antisemitism within schools and unions. Should Jewish groups promote collaboration with the institutions on solutions — or prioritize confronting them over their failings?

Two days before the assembly, the JCPA and the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus heralded new rules and policies it had developed in collaboration with union leaders to “ensure the safety of Jewish members and educators at the [Representative Assembly] without undermining the union’s vital commitment to free speech and democracy.”

Caucus takes aim at union leaders

A day before the assembly, the ADL, which had worked with caucus members over the past year, told Jewish Insider in an unusual line of attack that it was “extremely frustrated about a so-called ‘agreement’ with JCPA that was reached without all NEA JAC leadership and delegates at the table.”

It also took aim at union leaders: “NEA’s inconsistent enforcement of its own protections has sent an unmistakable message: Jewish educators are not a priority. That must change now.”

‘When you can’t criticize substance, you find reasons to criticize process’

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, responded to the ADL’s criticism in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“When you can’t criticize substance, you find reasons to criticize process,” Spitalnick said in an interview. “In this case, we’re both very proud of the substance and the process, and the results underscore that.”

JCPA has emphasized working directly with school leaders and public officials to combat antisemitism, and opposed the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus pro-Palestinian protests.

“It is both possible and necessary to fight antisemitism — on campus, in our communities, and across the country — without abandoning the democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many other vulnerable minorities, to thrive,” the group wrote in an April 2025 joint statement with the Union for Reform Judaism and a host of other denominational groups condemning the crackdown.

That letter spurred behind-the-scenes pushback from another legacy group, the Jewish Federations of North America.

The ADL, meanwhile, has taken on a more confrontational approach to universities, assigning them “report cards” for campus antisemitism and also empowering Jewish educators to advocate for themselves.

Notably, progressive-leaning groups like the JCPA and centrist groups like the ADL and the JFNA flip strategies when it comes to addressing Trump administration policies that undercut Jewish civil rights advocacy. The centrist groups have at times retreated from confrontation with the government, while the JCPA has been more directly critical. In one instance, the JCPA was more outspoken about a Trump administration attack on the ADL than the ADL was.

“There are absolutely those on the right who think that we should just be burning it all down, and that is not an approach that’s going to make Jews safer or democracy safer,” Spitalnick said. “We believe deeply that the only path forward is one that confronts antisemitism wherever it exists, and does so in a way that recognizes our safety as Jews is tied to our democratic institutions, which includes unions and public education.”

The ADL and the JCPA found common cause last year after the NEA delegates narrowly passed a measure barring the union from using, endorsing, or publicizing any materials from the ADL, which boasts a comprehensive library of anti-bias education materials. (The measure was ultimately rejected by the NEA’s board of directors.)

The JCPA at that time signed onto a letter led by the ADL describing “deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions,” including reports that Jewish teachers were verbally accosted during the proceedings.

The harassment, including a reported case of NEA members appearing to cheer at a mention of the 2025 attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, during the convention last year, last month sparked a new antisemitism investigation into NEA by the Trump administration.

Shira Goodman, the ADL’s vice president of advocacy, said in an interview the group “immediately had to take an adversarial advocacy position to address” last year’s conference.

The ADL centered its approach on engaging with Jewish teachers who had sought their help, including the incoming president of the Jewish Affairs Caucus. Goodman said that while the ADL had “some ongoing conversations with leaders at the NEA,” the bulk of its advocacy had been to “support teachers who are doing their own advocacy.”

“Working just with leadership wasn’t going to do it, but we also wanted to be there to support grassroots folks who felt like they wanted to be and remain within their union,” Goodman said.

Goodman added that she did not feel that JCPA and the ADL were working “in tandem.”

“JCPA has said publicly that they have relationships with AFT, with NEA. Different organizations in the Jewish community have different lanes and do different things,” Goodman said. “I just want to make sure that the teachers are represented, and that if somebody is speaking for the teachers, that the teachers have been part of that.”

Spitalnick said JCPA had engaged with JAC leadership and other Jewish organizations, including the ADL, throughout the negotiations with NEA. Last and this year, JCPA also led a workshop at NEA’s annual convention about antisemitism.

“All I could speak to is our approach, which has been to — instead of hammering the union with constant critique and framing a sort of zero sum dynamic in which it’s the union versus the Jewish community — making clear that the union’s success and Jewish safety, inclusion, are one in the same, and that has led to the partnership we have with NEA,” Spitalnick said.

The ADL and other legacy groups have in the past expressed qualified support for Trump administration disciplinary actions targeting educational institutions. Spitalnick was adamant that was the wrong course, including in the most recent government investigation into the NEA.

“The question that everyone should be asking is what is motivating this, and at a time when we’re seeing – whether it be Republicans in Congress or others — use our real fears of antisemitism to fundamentally try to kill the unions by going after their charter and their fundamental existence, I would ask real questions about the motivation for this investigation,” Spitalnick said.

The ADL, meanwhile, wrote in a post on X that the federal government’s investigation “underscores what many Jewish educators have been saying for the last two years: no union member should be made to feel excluded, targeted, or unwelcome because of a core part of their identity.”

Alyson Brauning, the outgoing chair of the Jewish Affairs Caucus, who had collaborated with JCPA ahead of the convention, said the difference between this year’s conference earlier this month and last was “night and day.”

“I actually got to enjoy parts of the [Representative Assembly],” Brauning said. “Our table did not experience any harassment or intimidation in the hall at all. It was actually enjoyable and fun, and we got to do the business of the RA on the floor.”

Naomi Rodriguez, the incoming chair of the Jewish Affairs Caucus who had participated in the ADL’s “Hazak” program, said she “wasn’t aware” of all the work that JCPA had done behind the scenes ahead of the assembly.

“Maybe Alyson was, and she is the chair of the caucus,” she added. “As the incoming chair, I’ll be more on top of those things.”

Rodriquez, who is currently participating in a JCPA cohort to support teachers, said that as the incoming chair she would “accept support from anybody who wants to support us.”

‘This issue with antisemitism is a huge problem, and it’s only getting worse, and I really think we all need to work together, and collaborate and coordinate to ensure that we are as effective as possible in fighting it,” Rodriguez said.

In a statement to JTA, an NEA spokesperson said that the union had “enhanced our work to counter antisemitism and ensure all of our members are respected and supported.”

“That effort included extensive consultation with the Jewish Affairs Caucus, Jewish NEA members, and partners in the Jewish community, including the JCPA,” the spokesperson said.

Following the assembly, which took place in Denver from July 3 through 6, the ADL as well as several other prominent Jewish groups that had also lent support to the Jewish Affairs Caucus published a statement saying that the results of the assembly “provide reason for optimism.”

“We commend the important steps the NEA took to foster a more inclusive Representative Assembly this year,” the groups wrote.

They added a caveat: “Yet that experience does not yet reflect the reality facing many Jewish educators in their own communities. We continue to hear from educators across the country who report marginalization within their unions, hostile rhetoric, intimidation, and exclusion…That reality requires continued attention and action at every level.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations also joined the ADL’s statement, which did not include JCPA.

The JCPA “chose to have their own press release in the beginning,” said Stephanie Hausner, the Conference of Presidents’ chief operating officer. The JCPA, like the ADL, is a constituent member of the conference.

Hausner said she felt the differences between the organizations ahead of the conference “took away from the real issue at hand, which is how do we support Jewish teachers.”

“For the last year I’ve been working with all the organizations on this work, and I really thought we were in that place, and I hope that tomorrow we can get back to that place where everyone’s working together because I do think that it is better for the Jewish community,” Hausner said.

The ADL and JCPA “sometimes reach out to different audiences,” she said, but “in an ideal world, we all speak from the same notes and be able to move together and work together on a regular basis, and we wouldn’t have some of this going on, some of this back and forth.”

“There are no two organizations that operate in this space and do things exactly the same,” Hausner added. “Hopefully, some of their efforts can complement each other moving forward.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says that it targeted a gathering of US soldiers at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait early Thursday morning, according to Iranian state media.

Iranian state media also reported that the IRGC targeted Kuwait’s early-warning radar systems at the air base in a dual missile and drone attack.

During the night, Bahrain and Jordan also activated missile sirens, with local Jordanian media reporting that eight Iranian missiles were intercepted.

Iranian state media also reported that US military communications systems and fuel storage tanks at the Azraq military base in Jordan had been targeted.  

Fifth day of US, Iran trading blows sees fewer vessels in Hormuz

Wednesday was the first day after the US reimposed its naval blockade on Iranian ports, and shipping data showed fewer vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.

Seven vessels crossed the strait on Wednesday, mostly via the Iranian route, down from 13 the previous day, according to Kpler data. Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz. Military operations are keeping ships from traveling through the waterway, which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war.

Growing up in Argentina, I found American exceptionalism and how it held up Jews as inextricable from the national fabric to be a source of both bewilderment and envy. 

Argentinean Jews are patriots. My childhood hero was José de San Martín, the Argentine George Washington. As a teenager, I had a poster of Raúl Alfonsín (the president who brought democracy back to Argentina) on my wall, and you can see me go insane when the national soccer team plays. 

Yet the country didn’t feel like the United States felt to American Jews. There was a sense of temporality in the Jewish experience, aided by the country’s perpetual political and economic instability. It was as if we could never fully trust our country. 

That was how Jews everywhere felt throughout their long exile. Even when they didn’t experience persecution or discrimination, there was always an insecurity that they accepted as one of the facts of life. 

Not so in America, where I moved in 2012. American Jewish intellectual Will Heber claimed in his 1955 book “Protestant, Catholic, Jewish” that “The American Jew does not live in exile; he lives in a land he regards as his own, and it is within that land that he shapes a Jewish identity that is voluntary, confident, and thoroughly American.”

Even when, in past decades, Jews experienced discrimination, they could point towards an unequivocal positive trajectory of integration. Instances of antisemitism weren’t seen as disproving American uniqueness. Instead, the way Jew-hatred receded in the postwar years was seen as further evidence that America was “home” in a way that no other diaspora ever was. 

Until now. 

American Jews can’t fully trust America

American Jews have lost something invaluable in the last decade: the feeling that their country and their community are exceptional. 

Jews here are starting to feel like their brethren throughout history; they can’t fully trust America. It is as though Jewish history has finally caught up with them. 

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 proved that an unpredictable candidate who flirted with racism and xenophobia could get elected to the highest office in the land. His election and his populist style insinuated a sense among many Jews that America had lost its predictability. Many Jews consider Trump friendly to them and Israel, and the weakening of institutions that followed may not have targeted Jews directly, but Jews know intuitively that those institutions are key to their long-term safety. 

After the murderous Hamas raids in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that feeling of lost trust grew by orders of magnitude. The places that had come to symbolize the integration of Jews in American society, like universities and cultural institutions, became overtly hostile to us. The explosion of progressive antisemitism showed how alone Jews were politically and culturally. The conceptual structures that Jews had helped build — such as the human rights doctrine and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — were weaponized against them.  

Then came the realization that the left and the right will only fight antisemitism when it’s politically expedient, and that both sides will, to degrees small and large, kowtow to their extremists.  

The victory of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his anti-Israel acolytes in the New York Democratic primaries feels like the nail in the coffin of American Jewish exceptionalism. Mamdani legitimized speech (like “globalize the intifada”) that most Jews consider hateful. His election broke the taboo that being considered openly antisemitic is a political liability. 

Many voters didn’t see Mamdani’s statements as antisemitic. But that makes the problem even worse. If somebody uses the N-word, we don’t conduct a philological study of the word to determine its true meaning. We simply accept that it’s offensive to Black people because that community told us so. But it’s antisemites, not Jews, whom enlightened society gives the power to define antisemitism. 

At first, one could assume the main factor in Mamdani’s election was affordability. But the Mamdani-endorsed insurgents who won the city’s recent congressional primaries centered much of their messaging around Israel, AIPAC and Jews. Antisemitism doesn’t seem to be a bug in the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America to power inside the Democratic Party, but a feature; it’s perhaps one of its most powerful energizing mechanisms. 

Every Jew has wondered, at some dark hour, whether their neighbors would have hidden them from the Nazis. After elections like the recent New York primaries, that question returns in a more mundane but painful form: Would they even inconvenience themselves politically to protect us? 

It can be argued that the current wave of antisemitism and its mainstream legitimization have not totally dismantled the objective conditions of American Jewish exceptionalism. America had dark patches in its history and managed to grow out of them. The country’s legal and institutional scaffolding remains largely intact, and the basic narrative of America is widely held. One can argue, as President Bill Clinton did in his first inaugural address, that “there’s nothing that is wrong with America that cannot be solved by what’s right with America.”

But the opposite can be argued as well. Both the far left and the far right in the United States seek to deconstruct the basic story of America. The former wants to present America and its history as a corrupt story of oppression; the latter falsely claims that America was founded as a “Christian Nation.” 

Exceptionalism has never been a set of concrete data points

But a debate about whether American Judaism is still exceptional would miss the point. Exceptionalism has never been a set of concrete data points, nor was it a set of policies that benefited Jews – after all, France has policies that, on paper, are more friendly to Jews, including funding Jewish schools and criminalizing antisemitic speech. It’s a gestalt: a sense of stability and belonging that led American Jewry to feel radically different from any other community in history.  

The question is not the viability of Jewish Life in America. My experience in Argentina shows that Jews can thrive in both left- and right-wing populist regimes and even in an autocracy. But can they really feel at home in a country that allows those forms of government? Can they fully trust a country in which the institutions of democracy may not be strong enough to protect them? 

To a certain degree, the question that Franklin Foer asked in his seminal Atlantic essay, “The Golden Age of American Jewry is Ending,” is not the right one. There can be a golden age even when Jews feel existential insecurity. What is changing is the subjective relationship many American Jews have with America. 

I believe that antisemitism will recede, and things will “go back to normal,” because antisemitism always ebbs and flows. But we can’t unsee what we’ve been seeing in the last few years. What may be ending is not the Golden Age of American Jewry, if there was ever such a thing, but American Jewish exceptionalism. 

American Jews will now need to look at America the way that Jews have looked at every other host country in our long exile – as a place that can turn against them at any time. Will I ever look at my neighbor the same way when, after I told her that Mamdani made my family and me unsafe, she shrugged and voted for him anyway? 

Either we were never that exceptional, or our exceptionality is not as protective as we thought. In both cases, we face a painful reckoning with reality: We are more similar to other diasporas than we ever thought. 

So what are American Jews to do with this realization? 

First, recognizing the truth can be liberating. Yehuda Kurtzer, CEO of the North American Hartman Institute, has urged Jews to embrace “political homelessness.” Whether or not one agrees with all his arguments, the essential insight stands. Jews should stop searching for a permanent home in either political party and begin acting as independent political agents. 

Second, we must invest far more in Jewish education, identity and pride. If our place in American society is conditional, our own identity must be unconditional.Judaism — with its depth, history, and purpose — must fill the void before despair or self-rejection does.

Third, we must strengthen Zionism as a central pillar of Jewish identity; invest in Zionist education, and promote engagement with Israel, even if critical. We should remain engaged in American civic life, but it’s clear now that the American project is not, as we thought, an intrinsically Jewish project – at best, it’s a secular project in which Jews may be able to participate. 

The only collective Jewish project is Israel. That is not an ideological statement but a fact. That, of course, doesn’t mean blindly accepting any Israeli policy or not fighting for Palestinians’ rights. The opposite: if Israel is our only collective project, we must engage with it from the inside, defending its democracy and its liberalism and fighting against the dark forces that seek to capture it. 

Finally, we must stop apologizing for defending Jewish rights. Changing hearts and minds about antisemitism is, at best, an improbable task. Antisemitism rises and falls for reasons largely beyond our control. What we can do is protect ourselves — physically, legally, politically and culturally — and use every legitimate tool available to defend our community.

Jews should stand in solidarity with other oppressed minorities because it is the right thing to do. But we should cease having naïve illusions about others standing up for us. We need to continue “building bridges” — but we need to learn when to burn them. In the case of Mamdani, for example, we’ve seen that opening the doors of Jewish institutions to him has not moderated his views. It has led him to double down. Indeed, after a rabbinical organization honored him at its gala dinner as a way of “building bridges,” Mamdani went on to call an American Zionist group “monsters.”

This American Jewish moment is painful and unsettling, but it’s an opportunity to rethink some of our basic premises and plan according to new principles. Thinking less about our exceptionalism may be liberating. Sometimes it’s good to let go. That energy used to keep aloft something that is collapsing can then be used to enrich our own identity and rediscover our tradition. Clinging to delusions won’t help — looking reality in the face just might.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

On Tuesday afternoon, the ruling coalition delivered one final punch to the nation’s gut on its way out when the Knesset passed a bill freezing the arrests of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft evaders for at least six months.

Fifty-eight lawmakers voted in favor, while 54 voted against. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose arrival in the plenum prompted verbal clashes with the opposition and cries of “disgrace” from bereaved families and IDF reservists watching the proceedings, left shortly afterward and did not remain for the vote itself.

This legislation is, at best, an irresponsible attempt at solving one of Israel’s most divisive issues. At worst, it is a short-sighted political maneuver designed only to preserve haredi participation in the right-wing bloc for the next election cycle. Instead of finally confronting calls for equality in sharing the burden of national service, the coalition chose to shield one sector from enforcement while asking everyone else to continue carrying that burden.

And, as expected, the High Court of Justice intervened on Wednesday, issuing a provisional order suspending the law’s entry into force until further notice. Justice Ofer Grosskopf explained that the order was necessary, among other reasons, because of the implications of freezing enforcement proceedings “with regard to only certain sections of the population.”

The court was right to act swiftly to protect equal treatment under the law. Why should an 18-year-old in Bnei Brak be free to ignore a draft order while another 18-year-old, five minutes away in Ramat Gan, could face military prison for doing exactly the same? The bill was always destined for judicial review, and its temporary suspension should not surprise a single coalition lawmaker.

If the government hopes to convince Israelis that the High Court is overstepping its authority – an argument many find persuasive – introducing legislation that explicitly creates unequal enforcement is a remarkably poor way to make that case.

It is certainly not unusual for a coalition to rush legislation through the Knesset in its final days before dissolution. But this coalition would do well to remember that it was the government in office on October 7, 2023, and remains responsible for leading Israel through the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, as well as the longest and most demanding war in the nation’s history.

A changing reality and greater manpower shortage

Throughout that war, the military echelon has repeatedly sounded the alarm over the IDF’s severe manpower shortages. Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir has warned that the army risks “collapsing into itself” if those shortages are not addressed. In a last-ditch effort to stop the legislation, Zamir warned lawmakers on Monday that implementing the bill would create significant national security risks and said he opposed it “completely and unequivocally.”

This government was democratically elected in November 2022, but circumstances have changed dramatically since then. The October 7 massacre and the wars that followed have fundamentally reshaped Israel’s security reality. Poll after poll across Israeli media has shown that a majority of Israelis, many of whom have completed mandatory service and continue to serve lengthy reserve duty stints in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, oppose exempting haredim from military service.

The lawmakers within the coalition who resisted this legislation deserve credit for doing so. Likud MK Yuli Edelstein had already announced he would seek a new political home, months after being removed as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for insisting on haredi enlistment. Fellow Likud MK Dan Illouz is expected to leave the party, while Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel resigned following the vote.

Their principled stance is commendable, yet it is difficult to escape the feeling that it is too little, too late. The Knesset will disperse on Friday, and Netanyahu’s government will continue to serve in a transitional capacity until elections are held and a new coalition is formed.

The key issues that have divided Israel for years cannot be settled through short-sighted, last-minute bills pushed through the Knesset. Israelis, regardless of their political affiliation, cannot reasonably be expected to support legislation that even the prime minister could not bring himself to vote for.

The only appropriate course of action now is to leave the question of haredi enlistment to the voters in October.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced mandatory annual testosterone screening for troops 30 years old or above on Wednesday, an initiative he said was aimed at combating testosterone deficiency that can undermine health.

“It’s well-established science that as we age, testosterone levels naturally drop,” Hegseth said in his video message posted on X/Twitter.  

The screening would be incorporated into the annual health assessment required for all service members; it would be automatically included for those aged 30 and above, and younger service members could voluntarily opt in. 

The High-T Department of War. pic.twitter.com/hlAUq3j2cD

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) July 15, 2026

Should an individual’s testosterone levels fall below the benchmark, Hegseth explained, they will be offered testosterone replacement therapy. 

“It is entirely your choice,” he added. 

Hegseth also noted that this initiative “is not about artificial enhancement.” He stressed that the initiative was designed to restore and protect service members’ “natural capabilities” and longevity. 

The defense secretary also claimed that addressing testosterone deficiency would promote the psychological and mental “readiness” of service members, not just physical stamina. 

“By addressing these health markers early, we are keeping you on the leading edge of lethality and giving the same level of support that you give this nation,” Hegseth said. 

When asked for comment by NBC News, the Defense Department declined to say whether there would be estrogen screenings for female service members and if there would be repercussions for service members who declined the recommended testosterone treatment, instead referring NBC News to Hegseth’s video.

Testosterone levels are declining worldwide, new study reveals

According to a recent study, average testosterone levels in men globally have fallen by 54% in less than five decades.

Low testosterone levels may manifest as fatigue, reduced sex drive, erectile dysfunction, loss of muscle mass, increased body fat, and reduced bone density. Some men may also experience mood disorders, difficulty concentrating, and decreased sperm production.

US Health Department eases some restrictions on HRT

The move comes as the US Department of Health and Human Services has moved to ease some restrictions on testosterone replacement therapies, including announcing last month it would seek to remove limits on use ‌in men with age-related low testosterone.

Still, Hegseth’s announcement triggered backlash from opposition Democrats, who pointed to his ban on transgender service members who often depended on hormone therapy.

“So now y’all support gender-affirming care?” Democratic Congresswoman Summer Lee said.

“Sounds like gender-affirming care to me,” Senator Tammy Duckworth added.

Reuters and Itay Gal contributed to this report.