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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone with US President Donald Trump on Thursday night, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a late Thursday night statement, as part of the ongoing coordination between the two countries.

Trump updated Netanyahu on current American moves in the Gulf and the United States’s attacks against Iranian assets, the statement said, while Netanyahu warned Trump against approving the F-35 deal with Turkey.

Netanyahu also raised the matter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s severe comments against the existence of the State of Israel, as well as the need for security zones along Israel’s borders.

No other details of the phone call were shared.

Despite the phone call and unfolding situation, a White House official confirmed to Walla on Thursday that at the moment, there are no plans for the two leaders to meet.

US ‘wasted a lot of time’ with Iran negotiations, Trump says

The conversation comes against the background of the United States renewing its strikes against Iran on Tuesday night.

The Jerusalem Post on Thursday reported that Israel is not expected to join this bout of fighting between the US and Iran, though IDF officals said the military is ready for any eventuality.

According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), the strikes came in response to Iran’s attempts to “impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he felt that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran was nullified following overnight strikes between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

“To me, I think it’s over,” he said at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, in comments to the press.

Trump also stated he felt the US had “wasted a lot of time” negotiating with Iran, and he did not wish to continue talks.

Amichai Stein, Yonah Jeremy Bob, Idan Kweller, Shir Perets, and Jonah Davidov contributed to this report.

Andy Burnham, who is expected to be named as Britain’s new prime minister later this month, wants to exert more pressure on the Israeli government over its actions in Gaza, the Guardian reported on Thursday.

In an interview with the newspaper, Burnham was critical of how current Prime Minister Keir Starmer had initially reacted to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, which came after an attack on Israel by Hamas-led gunmen.

“We’ve got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government … Yes, we have taken some important steps … But let’s be honest, the UK was too slow to call for a ceasefire. And we must now do more to strengthen our approach,” he said.

Starmer initially resisted calls from within his party, including from Burnham, who was a regional mayor at the time, to demand a ceasefire, instead backing a humanitarian pause in the fighting.

Criticizes Israel’s conduct in Gaza, ‘looking at further sanctions’

He later called for a ceasefire and has since criticized the Israeli government’s conduct in Gaza. His government has imposed sanctions against far-right Israeli cabinet ministers and formally recognized a Palestinian state.

Although a ceasefire last year brought the two-year war to an end, Israel’s military has continued to carry out strikes in Gaza during the wider regional conflict involving Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, citing threats or fire from Hamas.

“We need to do more, which includes looking at further sanctions, both on those involved in the violence in Gaza but also looking at measures to ban trade in goods with illegal settlements,” Burnham said.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and former Gaza hostage Yarden Bibas together dedicated an olive tree to murdered Gaza hostages Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas at a ceremony in the northern Israeli community of Moshav HaYogev on Thursday.

“The sacrifice that your family made for the people of Israel is one that obviously is not being forgotten,” Huckabee told Yarden and Ofri during the dedication. The dedication event was done through the My Tree in Israel initiative, through which Huckabee, US President Donald Trump, and many others have trees sponsored in their names.

“With the plaque on the tree, it’s a reminder that life is still coming. The olives, every year, will produce wonderful, beautiful olive oil that you’ll be able to have and share, and know that it’s in memory of Shiri and your two sons.”

Yarden Bibas and his wife Shiri, along with their sons, four-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir, were taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. Only Yarden was returned alive.

The event also saw the dedication of a tree to Ambassador Huckabee’s daughter, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The sign on Ambassador Huckabee’s tree was also updated to reflect his position as ambassador, replacing the former “Governor Mike Huckabee” sign.

Also at the event, Avi Harush, the father of Sgt. Reef Harush, a soldier who was killed in combat in southern Gaza in April 2024, presented Huckabee and his wife, Janet Huckabee, with a tree that was planted in his memory.

Harush, who was 20 years old when he fell in battle along with three older soldiers in the Oz Brigade, had been undergoing training in the commando training school.

Speaking to Harush, Huckabee commended his son’s sacrifice, saying that Sgt. Harush’s sacrifice was also made on behalf of Americans.

Huckabee: Fallen IDF soldiers also protecting Americans

“Anything that happens to Israel is going to happen to Americans because there are so many of us who are here,” he said. “When someone falls in battle, they’re certainly fighting for Israel, but they are also defending the 700,000 US citizens who are here as well.” 

Avi Harush thanked the ambassador, saying that, with the dedication of the tree, “I think that now [Reef] is happy.”

Following the ceremony, My Tree in Israel CEO Kobi Assaf hosted the ambassador for a tour of the local olive press facility, which My Tree in Israel says is the largest in the Middle East.

My Tree in Israel lets supporters abroad adopt an Israeli olive tree, grapevine, or whisky-barrel share, supporting local farmers while receiving annual products from their plot and the chance to visit it. More information is available on the organization’s website.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking fire for overpromising. At the start of the war, he pledged “total victory,” and at least a slice of his electorate now feels let down by that promise – all the more so in light of recent events in Iran and Lebanon.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders are wrestling with an identical problem. They, too, promised their constituents total victory, which in their context means total draft evasion. 

And as some strategists would argue about Gaza, the resemblance runs deeper than rhetoric: both promises were unachievable from the outset. Since October 7 and the 500-odd days of reserve duty that followed, drafting at least some of the haredi population has been inevitable.

The polling makes this hard to avoid. The numbers vary mainly by wording – “should the exemption end / should haredim be drafted” lands around 70%, “should there be sanctions on draft dodgers” around 85%, and “should full service apply to all haredi men” lower, at 57% – but the direction is unmistakable. 

Israel is a democracy, and short of truly extraordinary political gymnastics, 80/20 issues of this importance rarely get ignored. Neither the haredim’s best friend in Likud nor the surprisingly sympathetic religious-Zionists can stand before their voters and call this issue unwinnable.

That left haredi leaders with a choice: concede and spare most of their community, or double down. The concession was there for the taking – “those who don’t study will be drafted,” a line both self-evident, given their own claim that Torah study is a form of National Service, and fairly mainstream within the community. They chose to double down anyway.

The choice has a logic to it, ideological and economic alike. Ideologically, the fear isn’t National Service but secularism: if large numbers of non-learners serve and drift away from religious life as a result, the haredi world would count it a catastrophe – and the fallout would land on the advocates themselves. The moderate leaders would be discredited and lose their flock; the hardliners would be vindicated and gain at their expense.

Behind closed doors, the leadership knows it can’t win. Recordings published by Channel 13 caught Rabbi Moshe Barzovski – head of the Slonim Yeshiva, a member of the Council of Torah Sages and a driving force behind Agudat Yisrael’s hardline anti-draft stance – voicing pragmatic support for drafting haredi youth who don’t study full-time.

“Those who study Torah need exemptions,” he says plainly. “But those who don’t study Torah – all those who don’t study Torah – they should be drafted.”

But they promised total victory, not compromise, and compromise does not drive turnout. The haredi public is bitterly disappointed with its representatives, blaming them for the sanctions and the arrests and judging that they failed to deliver. That won’t produce mass defection – there will be no breakaway haredi faction storming the Likud primaries – but it may well keep voters home on Election Day.

So the leadership is throwing everything at the wall: a Basic Law, road-blocking protests organized by the party, voting boycotts in the Knesset – anything to convince their base they can still deliver. 

The trouble is that they can’t. The draft is coming. A more responsible leadership would recognize that the protests only deepen Israeli society’s resentment toward them, would tell their community the truth, and would give voice to the hidden minority – Barzovski among them – who already believe that those who don’t learn should serve.

The truth is, non-learners may only be the beginning. But haredi society is on a collision course with the Israeli mainstream, and the face of the community will have to change to meet the moment – something a radically conservative society resists on principle.

All I can say is: Welcome to the State of Israel, where the majority rules.

The writer serves as the English director of the Ribo Center and the editor of Amit Segal’s newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel.

After Egypt’s elimination by Argentina in the World Cup on Tuesday, Egyptian commentator Mohammed Nour published a video in which he blamed Israel for the 3-2 loss.

In the video, he claimed, among other things, that Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the one who brought Lionel Messi to Inter Miami.

“We played against Argentina, but also against FIFA and Israel. Very strange things happened there,” Nour claimed. “They set boundaries for Egypt – and it was forbidden to cross them. They didn’t allow the Palestinian flag to be brought in, in front of billions of viewers.”

Later in the video, Nour claimed that “the Argentina national team is an Israeli team par excellence. The president of Argentina is one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s best friends. Messi has visited Israel several times, even worn a kippah, and prayed at the Western Wall.

“He met with Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu and is a friend of Yair Netanyahu, who took him to America to play for Inter Miami. Messi and Argentina’s relations with Israel are well known. We played like heroes, but Israel – meaning FIFA and the referees – had something to say about it, and we couldn’t overcome these circumstances,” he added.

Messi’s visit to the Western Wall, zero grounding for FIFA-Israel claims

Messi did indeed visit Israel and pray at the Western Wall back in 2013, when he came with the Barcelona delegation, where he then played. But the alleged influence of Yair Netanyahu to bring him to the United States to play in the MLS is completely unfounded.

Additionally, claims that Israel has the power to determine the outcome of a match in the World Cup are not a reflection of the country’s current relationship with FIFA, which has been strained since Hamas’ October 7 attacks.

Since 2023, even after several ceasefires were established and amid periods of relative peace in the country, both the Israeli national team and Israeli clubs are still forbidden from hosting matches at home and must travel to other countries to play international games.

Netanyahu: ‘Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta are formula for peace’

“There is a simple formula for peace: put Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta in the negotiations,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joked when he hosted Messi and the Barcelona players in Israel in the summer of 2013.

“I watch you all the time; sports carry a message and can unite people. You also have big goals – to score against the opponent, but also to defend the front, the goal. Your goal, and ours, is to fulfill the human potential inherent within us; that is the aspiration of us all. We hope that one percent of your fans in the world – 3 billion people – will visit us in Israel. It will greatly boost our economy and advance the peace process.”

The 43rd Jerusalem Film Festival opened Thursday night at the Sultan’s Pool, with 6,000 spectators and guests attending the festive ceremony under the stars.

Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers working today, was the festival’s guest of honor and received an award in recognition of his cinematic achievements.

Loznitsa, who will also serve as chairman of the jury for the Israeli competition, is one of the leading voices in contemporary European cinema and is known for both his documentary and narrative films.

Despite the complex period, the festival will host more than 30 international guests this year, including filmmakers who will serve as jurors in the various competitions and accompany screenings of their films.

The festival, which runs until July 19 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Lev Smadar theater, features more than 100 of the best movies from around the world, as well as the latest in Israeli cinema. Israeli movies that have premiered at this festival have gone on to win awards around the world and to receive Oscar nominations. 

Israeli premiere of Tell Me Everything by Moshe Rosenthal kicks off festival

This was the first year since 2023 that the festival has not taken place in the shadow of war, and while there is still the possibility of fighting on several fronts, movie lovers celebrated both local and foreign cinema at the opening. The festival reported that tickets were selling briskly.

The festival opened with the Israeli premiere of Tell Me Everything, the new film by Moshe Rosenthal, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Assi Cohen in his first film role in 15 years, along with Keren Tzur, Yair Mazor, Ido Tako, Mor Dimri, and Neta Orbach, all of whom attended the opening event.

The ceremony was held in the presence of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and his wife, Stavite; Dani Mimran, chairman of the Jerusalem Cinematheque’s executive board; former president Reuven Rivlin; Roni Mahadav-Levin, CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and director of the festival; Orr Sigoli, the festival’s artistic director; as well as film lovers, supporters, dignitaries, ambassadors, and diplomatic representatives from around the world.

Among them were North Macedonian Ambassador to Israel Shpend Sadiku, Acting German Ambassador to Israel Helena Marks, and Pavel Bobek, head of the Czech Embassy branch in Jerusalem.

Loznitsa, who was born in Belarus in 1964, has long been a fixture at the world’s leading film festivals. He has also spoken out strongly in favor of freedom of expression and against cultural boycotts, statements that have often come at a personal and professional cost.

Movies an attempt to understand ‘what happened to us throughout history’

Twelve of his films have been screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and he has won awards at the festival in the In the Spirit of Freedom competition for The Invasion and in the Chantal Akerman competition for Babi Yar. 

Loznitsa opened his speech with the words, “Shalom Yerushalyim.” He thanked the festival for the award and spoke about the difficult times in Israel and in his native Ukraine. He said that all his movies are an attempt “to understand what has happened to us throughout history and what is happening now.” 

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mahadav-Levin said, “We are opening tonight the 43rd edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival. In recent years, we have opened too many festivals with the words, ‘This is not an ordinary year.’ And this year, too, is not an ordinary year.”

He said that a film festival is not an escape from reality, but a way to look at it more closely and imagine how it might be different.

“Over the next 10 days, we will encounter hundreds of stories here,” he said. “Some will be funny, some painful, some will offer answers, but in cinema, it is more important to ask questions than to ‘find answers,’ as Godard said. If we have learned anything in recent years, it is that even when there are no good answers, it is still important to ask the questions.”

Mahadav-Levin also said he hoped the films screened at this year’s festival would “ask, challenge, and refuse to accept easy answers.”

The founder of the festival and the cinematheque, the late Lia van Leer, established the festival to bring international attention to Israeli films, and to create a world-class festival in Israel’s capital. Guests at the festival have included Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Lillian Gish, Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Douglas, Jane Fonda, Liv Ullmann, Wim Wenders, and hundreds of others. 

The Knesset’s House Committee approved on Thursday to advance the contentious bill that seeks to enshrine Torah study as a fundamental value in the country’s Basic Law, ahead of its final second and third readings required to become law.

The haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – had reached an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition shortly before the vote to amend the bill following legal warnings about a section of the legislation.

The agreement comes just before the expected end of the Knesset summer session, after the haredi parties had boycotted votes on coalition legislation when their bills were not advancing quickly enough.

The bill’s second section, which called to “create a balance” through Torah study as a fundamental value, had been the clause that threatened to stall the bill’s progress before it was removed.

The House Committee vote is subject to revision, and both coalition and opposition lawmakers have warned that even with the change to the wording, the essence of the law has not been altered.

The bill is part of a proposal that critics argue encourages draft evasion and changes the status of yeshiva students who do not serve, enabling them to continue receiving state benefits, even amid the IDF’s severe manpower shortage.

Netanyahu, Haredi parties agree to amend controversial Basic Law: Torah Study bill

Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik warned that the bill’s previous wording could grant haredim who evade military service benefits similar to those available to IDF reservists. She had called for the legislation to be changed so that it would be purely declarative.

The joint statement from the haredi parties on the coalition agreement said that, under the instruction of senior Torah leaders, it was agreed that “the law will include only the first and central clause, which states that Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people.”

Coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud), who also chairs the committee on which the bill is advanced, said that an agreement with the haredi parties was reached, under which the section on the “balance of values” would be removed from the bill.

MK Moshe Gafni, leader of the haredi Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism, had previously demanded on Wednesday that Netanyahu advance the bill unchanged.

Gafni’s demand threatened to stall the bill, which the haredi parties have been pushing for.

The move to change the wording has been seen as a way for the haredi parties to back down so that the legislation can progress amid the sharp legal criticism and backlash.

IDF veterans with PTSD confront haredi MKs, demand support

During the committee meeting to debate the bill on Thursday ahead of the vote, clashes broke out after combat veterans confronted haredi lawmakers demanding that the government address their needs and provide greater support for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder before advancing the contentious legislation.

The group of combat veterans stood up and approached the lawmakers directly. One of the veterans, Yossi Sardi, left his seat and confronted United Torah Judaism leader MK Yitzhak Goldknopf, shouting that legislation should be passed to support IDF soldiers rather than advancing the bill.

Another combat veteran told the committee that the country’s political leadership had been delaying proper support for IDF veterans and soldiers for six years.

“You’ve been making promises for six years; how much is too much?” he said. “We’ve paid with our blood.” Due to the outburst, the meeting had to be stopped and went on a break before returning to continue deliberating the legislation.

Earlier in the meeting, Einav Danino, the mother of Ori Danino, who was murdered in Hamas captivity, told the panel that soldiers must be prioritized, speaking on how the IDF had brought the remains of her son back to her from Gaza.

“My Ori was murdered after 11 months in captivity, and I live with that pain thanks to the soldiers who brought him back to me, and they carry that burden with them. I would never have gotten Ori back without them,” she said.

The Torah study bill is part of a series of haredi-backed bills being advanced, amid numerous reports of agreements between the haredi parties and Netanyahu.

The coalition has been pushing a legislative blitz ahead of the Knesset’s final week of its summer session to advance as much legislation as possible before the upcoming elections.

The haredi parties boycotted coalition voting last month – stalling coalition bills – arguing that their legislation was not being advanced quickly enough.

Among the most controversial haredi-backed legislation is the Basic Law: Torah Study bill, as well as separate legislation that would temporarily freeze the arrests of haredi draft evaders.

The bill to freeze such arrests will continue to be debated in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday after a week of marathon meetings on the matter.

The Basic Law: Torah study bill proposal calls for Torah study to be “a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel.

It had previously also proposed that the country recognize “Torah study as a fundamental value in the State of Israel in order to create a balance of justice in relation to other fundamental values in the state.”

That clause was removed after the coalition agreement was made.

Israel does not have a constitution, and instead has a series of Knesset-legislated basic laws on various subjects that hold a high legal status.

There had also previously been contentious wording in the bill’s proposal that equated those who study Torah with those who serve in the IDF. This comparison has since been removed from the legislation’s new draft.

Critics argued that the legislation could implicitly allow the comparison despite the change in wording. Lawmakers in Netanyahu’s coalition have publicly opposed the legislation and voted against it.

Netanyahu arrived at the plenum last week to vote in favor of the legislation when it passed its first reading.

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

In March, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said the IDF could soon collapse if no solution was found for the manpower shortage.

Anduril has secured its first contract with NATO to provide its Lattice software for the alliance’s Enhanced Air Command and Control (eAirC2) Data Platform initiative, the US defense technology company announced on Wednesday. The contract was one of three awarded.

According to the alliance, the program “is a key part of NATO’s broader initiative to enhance warfighting effectiveness in a rapidly evolving technological landscape and will enhance the Alliance’s ability to respond to evolving air and missile threats.”

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the 36th NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum in Ankara, Turkey, in the presence of representatives from the NATO Communications and Information Agency, the NATO Independent Program Office, and industry partners.

“Another important step towards our goal of stitching together every platform, even the ones built decades ago,” Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey wrote on X/Twitter following the announcement.

Lattice is an AI platform that uses computer vision, machine learning, and mesh networking to fuse real-time data from disparate sources into a single, autonomous operating picture. The open‑architecture suite is designed to fuse sensors, autonomous platforms, and command‑and‑control tools, enabling faster threat detection and more resilient battlefield networks.

Anduril, through its UK branch and European team, will deploy Lattice inside the NATO platforms. The trial will integrate air traffic control, surveillance, and force‑management functions to assess whether the system meets NATO’s operational requirements.

Other companies awarded the contract included Palantir and Athea SAS. NATO said that it would select a single solution for long-term implementation at the end of the assessment period.

NATO’s air operations depend on the ability to rapidly and securely share trusted information among 32 member states, each with its own systems, authorities, and security rules. The alliance’s modernization of its Air Command and Control architecture aims to allow allied air forces to operate together while maintaining national control over sensitive data.

“These contract awards represent an important milestone in delivering improved situational awareness, better coordination, and faster decision-making across the NATO Command and Force Structures,” said NCIA General Manager Dr Dylan Browne. “The project is a tangible demonstration of NATO innovation and cooperation with industry to ensure we’re deploying state-of-the-art technology that can evolve and be scaled as needed.” 

Lattice is designed to connect existing systems through an open architecture rather than replace them. According to Anduril, the platform enables operational data to move securely between organizations while allowing nations to retain sovereignty over their information.

The system is built to function in contested environments, continuing to synchronize, orchestrate, and distribute data even when communications are disrupted or degraded. The company said the platform is intended to ensure that commanders maintain a trusted operational picture during high‑pressure operations.

NATO modernization push

The eAirC2 Data Platform initiative is part of NATO’s transition to a modular, data‑centric architecture for allied air operations. The selection allows Anduril to demonstrate how Lattice can help NATO securely connect legacy and modern systems, share operational information, and improve coalition command and control.

The move also builds on Anduril’s expanding work with European governments seeking to modernize command and control through open, software‑defined architectures. Last November, the company took part in Digital Shield 1.0 in Tallinn, Estonia, to support the alliance’s Eastern Flank’s Deterrence Line amid heightened tensions with Russia. 

The company joined the US Army’s 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command and the Estonian Defense Forces to link national and allied sensors into a single network. It used its Menace-T compute and communication kits and established Lattice nodes in the cloud, creating a resilient network.

“By connecting these systems through Lattice, Anduril enabled real-time data fusion across previously separate radar, acoustic, and commercial networks,” the company said at the time. 

“Feeds that once operated independently were synchronized and shared instantly across US and Estonian command nodes, allowing operators at radar sites, the Estonian Control and Reporting Centre, and US Army Europe’s G-3 Operational Data Team to see the same tracks simultaneously, distinguishing drones from birds, validating detections, and coordinating faster responses.”

As the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to push countries around the globe to increase their defense spending, NATO has been actively modernizing its defense posture. During the summit in Ankara, Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that the alliance will be investing $40 billion in counter-drone defenses and joint procurements for critical air and maritime surveillance assets.

Last week, NATO announced that it had reached full technical operational capability of Maven Smart System (MSS). The command and control platform developed by Palantir is powered by AI and tracks Russian troop movements and provides timely warnings to commanders about possible threats and identifies possible targets.

According to The Times, Maven is already in use by the British Defense Ministry.

While it’s already in use by the British Defense Ministry, last month France’s domestic intelligence agency DGSI announced that it would replace tools from Palantir in favour of a French ‌rival, ChapsVision.

Reuters, however, quoted Palantir as saying that its ​long-term contract with the DGSI, which was renewed at the end of ⁠2025 for several more years, “remains fully in force.” Lecornu’s office clarified that Palantir’s tools ​would continue to be used until ChapsVision’s could be integrated “to avoid a capability gap”.

European governments have grown increasingly wary about dependency on US tech platforms, and particularly on Palantir Technologies. Germany’s military has ​said it will ​no longer use Palantir, ⁠while Britain is reviewing the National Health Service’s £330 million ($440 million) data contract with Palantir following political and parliamentary pressure.

Anduril in Israel

Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey in 2017 and has since been awarded numerous contracts by the Pentagon and around the world for its defense solutions. Anduril was founded as a company to develop a command-and-control system for the US-Mexico border and later expanded to all security products, including drones, interceptors, cruise missiles, UAVs, and even fighter jets. 

In March, Anduril was awarded one of the largest technology-focused contracts issued by the Army in recent years at $20 billion to integrate Lattice into a unified, mission-ready capability supporting the Army’s evolving operational needs. 

Luckey, a vocal supporter of Israel, is interested in establishing the company’s own factory in Israel, in addition to taking advantage of local R&D. 

Officials from the company, including Luckey and CEO and co-founder Brian Schimpf, have visited Israel several times, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), as well as several defense primes and startups.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Thursday with the Commander of the Israeli aid delegation to Venezuela and Chief of Staff of the Home Front Command, Brig. Gen. Elad Edri, as well as Israel’s ambassador-designate to Mexico, Yoed Magen.

“You are showing the people of Venezuela, and also the government of Venezuela, the true face of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told the two representatives, noting that Venezuela severed diplomatic ties with Israel almost 20 years earlier. 

“We didn’t ask questions about who and what,” the prime minister said. “We asked: ‘What needs to be done to help?'”

Israel sent a delegation to Venezuela after the June 24 earthquakes that have killed more than 3,800 people, injured nearly 17,000, and left nearly 18,000 people homeless. As of Thursday, approximately 300 people have been buried without being identified, according to Armando De Negri Filho of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Netanyahu also noted that Brig. Gen. Edri – and Israeli disaster relief infrastructure in general – have “a lot of experience dealing with ruins due to the rocket barrages of our enemies.”

The full delegation, according to Edri, consists of over thirty people from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Home Front Command, and various Israeli military bodies. They have been in Venezuela since the end of June, helping the government to plan their eventual reconstruction effort. 

“We are operating day and night, together with the local government and the Venezuelan Infrastructure Ministry,” Edri said. “We are very proud to represent the country here.”

Overcrowding, lack of clean water among biggest health risks from Venezuela quakes says PAHO

The biggest risks to residents’ health following devastating twin earthquakes that ripped across Venezuela’s northern coast last month include interruptions to regular medical care, overcrowding in shelters and lack of access to clean water, Jarbas Barbosa, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, said on Thursday.

The organization is working closely with Venezuela’s health ministry to trace any outbreaks of respiratory or digestive illnesses, especially in shelters set up for those who lost their homes, other PAHO officials added in a call with journalists.

However, the country must guarantee access to vaccines, Barbosa added, especially since vaccination rates in Venezuela were below target prior to the disaster and the country’s health system was already suffering from sustained problems due to its economic crisis.

Reuters contributed to this report.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says he’s had no updates on the prospects of a return to the heavy US strikes on Iran seen in the early months of the war, but it won’t “work well” for Tehran, the ambassador told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

“Decisions [to return to a larger conflict] will be made by the president and by CENTCOM,” Huckabee said. “I usually find out about the time they do it.”

He asserted that he had no information about the status of those decisions, and that to make an assessment on the matter would be “pure speculation.”

“But here’s what I would say,” Huckabee added, “I wouldn’t be overconfident if I were the Iranians that they will be able to make this work well for them.”

In other comments to Israeli media, the ambassador said that, despite having ample opportunities to broker an agreement with the US, the Iranian regime has proven itself to be “not serious people when it comes to making peace” and has “not decided to behave like civilized people.”

Regime change ultimately up to the people

Nevertheless, he said, as far as he knew, there had been no decision about pursuing regime change in Tehran, and that such a step would have to be taken by the Iranian people.

“Ultimately up to the Iranian people whether there’s going to be a regime change, not to outside forces as much,” Huckabee said.

On the topic of Lebanon, the ambassador affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and said that the IDF wouldn’t be able to withdraw from southern Lebanon until the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) reclaimed and asserted its control over the areas where Hezbollah remains active.

IDF won’t withdraw from Lebanon until LAF asserts control over Hezbollah

“Everyone understands that Israel has an absolute right to defend itself against attacks,” he said, adding that the communities in northern Israel, like Metula and Kiryat Shmona, cannot perpetually live under the threat of Hezbollah rocket fire.

“What really came out of the meetings in Washington that I thought was significant was everyone finally understood that Israel is not looking to annex Lebanon. It doesn’t want to stay there – that’s not its goal,” Huckabee said.

“They’d love to get out, but they can’t completely until the Lebanese are able to take, piece by piece, the land where Hezbollah has strongholds, and from which they attack Israel. When that happens, and the LAF is able to manage that ground, Israel will send everybody back home.”

Huckabee’s remarks came during a visit to Moshav Hayogev in northern Israel, where he took part in the dedication of an olive tree to Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, a mother and two young children who were murdered while in captivity in Gaza.

Yarden Bibas and his wife Shiri, along with their sons, four-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir, were taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. Only Yarden, who was present for the dedication with his sister Ofri, was returned alive.

The event took place as part of the My Tree in Israel initiative, in which Huckabee has been active.

“The sacrifice that your family made for the people of Israel is one that obviously is not being forgotten,” Huckabee told Yarden Bibas during the dedication. “With the plaque on the tree, it’s a reminder that life is still coming.”

An attempt to smuggle thousands of cigarettes into the Gaza Strip, hidden inside hundreds of pineapples, was thwarted at the Lachish crossing on Wednesday, according to the IDF.

Personnel from the Land Crossings Authority at the Defense Ministry detected the smuggling attempt and turned the findings over to representatives of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). 

The cigarette-filled pineapples were transported in a truck carrying a shipment purchased by an Israeli company, intended to reach the Kerem Shalom Crossing as part of humanitarian aid. The shipment had been previously approved under the mechanism for bringing in aid through the private sector. 

Company’s access to the Gaza Strip suspended by COGAT

The truck and all its contents were confiscated and transferred to customs and other relevant authorities for further handling. 

In response to the incident, the Head of COGAT, Maj. Gen Yoram Halevi ordered the immediate suspension of the company’s approval to bring aid into the Gaza Strip until further notice.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismantled Israel’s relationship with the United States and has become a “burden” to US President Donald Trump, Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview, as he laid out his vision for leading the country after the upcoming elections.

“Trump wants to distance himself from him (Netanyahu). The relationship has become a burden, and it is already hurting him in the upcoming US midterm elections,” Liberman said.

Liberman has served in key security and diplomatic positions in previous governments, including as defense minister, foreign minister, and finance minister. He has been in the political sphere for over three decades.

The Yisrael Beytenu leader has been open about his aim of becoming prime minister, and is a fierce critic of Netanyahu and his government.

His party is a core part of the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, which are set to take place no later than October 27.

‘A severe blow to Israel’s standing in American public opinion’

Regarding Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump, Liberman told the Post that the US president has “understood that he had given too much,” and was being harmed by Netanyahu “both electorally and politically.”

“This is also a severe blow to Israel’s standing in American public opinion,” Liberman added.

“There has never been such a negative attitude. The more Gaza declines, the more Israel’s image declines as well.”

“And they are doing nothing about it. They have managed to deteriorate both the security situation and the diplomatic situation,” he said.

When asked whether he would be willing to say no to Trump if he were prime minister, Liberman did not hesitate.

“I would,” he said. “I’ve been involved in the leadership of this country for about 20 years, and Israel has already weathered some of its toughest disputes with the United States.”

“With all due respect, we need to act. We are still a sovereign country. We are not a banana republic.”

Liberman noted that Netanyahu once could “stand his ground” and had done so in the past with former US presidents, such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

However, Liberman explained that this was no longer the case for Netanyahu, telling the Post that the reason for the shift was that the premier’s priorities had changed.

He explained that Netanyahu was focused on canceling the criminal trial and the ICC arrest warrant against him, as well as maintaining his coalition bloc.

Liberman stated that Netanyahu’s bloc was “an anti-Zionist coalition.”

He slammed the contentious legislation being advanced by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties with government backing, which critics argue encourages draft evasion amid the IDF’s severe manpower shortage.

Liberman said that Netanyahu “is willing to sacrifice everything. This is truly a coalition that is willing to sacrifice soldiers, the IDF, and Israeli society as a whole, only to preserve the bloc and remain in power.”

Liberman added that, if he were prime minister, the October 7 attacks would have never happened. He warned that Israel’s current security standing was worse than on the eve of the Hamas massacre in 2023.

Speaking on his own plans for his party ahead of the elections, Liberman explained that he was taking a hardline stance toward haredi conscription to the IDF, in which legislation would be passed to ensure that there would be no exemptions, and that those who do evade service would be blocked from receiving any financial aid from the state.

Liberman said he was against Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot’s approach to drafting haredim.

Eisenkot’s plan includes granting exemptions to 3% of each annual haredi cohort to study Torah, similar to exemptions given to outstanding musicians and athletes. Notably, the Yashar Party has become the largest party in the opposition bloc in recent polls.

Liberman said that he “greatly appreciates” Eisenkot.

“Obviously, his worldview and mine are different, but I respect him,” he said. “He is a man of values.”

When asked if he was in favor of having Eisenkot lead the opposition bloc, Liberman responded that his first priority was to replace the government. Secondly, Liberman said that he wanted to become prime minister himself.

“First, we must replace the government. The question of who will be prime minister and who receives which role should be left for stage two,” he added.

When asked if he was considering running in a political alliance in the elections, Liberman said that option was not on the table.

Yisrael Beytenu holds a hawkish security stance and advocates for expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It also strongly advocates for a separation of religion and state.

Growing support for alternate parties in Israel

Liberman explained that there was growing support for his party from different sectors in the country.

“There are many people in hi-tech. I also see some of the Likud movement shifting,” he said of those moving to support his party.

When asked whether the opposition bloc could form a government without relying on Arab or haredi parties, Liberman said he believed it was possible.

He noted that a majority of the TV polling was only showing a small sample of the population, and that the opposition bloc had far more support than what was being presented.

He said that, according to his party’s own in-depth surveys, the opposition bloc was currently polling at around 62-63 mandates and that Yisrael Beytenu was expected to gain over 13 seats.

Liberman sharply criticized Blue and White Party leader MK Benny Gantz, who has indicated that he would be willing to sit in a government with Netanyahu.

He said that Gantz was “seeking revenge” on the entire opposition bloc amid his recent calls to form a “broad Zionist government.”

Liberman said that Netanyahu’s separate calls to form a “broad national government” were “a manipulation.”

“He does not want to deal with the real issues. He does not want the security failures of October 7 to be discussed,” Liberman said of Netanyahu.

“He does not even define what he means by a ‘broad national government.’ There already was such a government, the one formed with Benny Gantz. We remember how that ended.”

“Clearly, this is all a show. The only thing that interests Netanyahu is how he survives and how he maintains his position.”

“The challenges from Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s revolutionary forces are not going away,” he noted.

“Right now, he [Netanyahu]  is playing politics. I am optimistic that, in the end, we will win,” Liberman said.

The Italian Parliament has introduced a bill that would allow the government to create a restitution process for art and cultural property lost under Fascist laws and during the broader Holocaust period.

Bill 2834 would enable the Italian Government to create a framework for reparations for art and other cultural items that were seized or otherwise looted due to antisemitic persecution that was codified and permitted by law under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist government in 1938.

The bill was reviewed by the Chamber of Deputies’ VII Committee on Culture, Science, and Education on June 24. During the hearing, the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), Livia Ottolenghi, affirmed her support for the proposal.

“There is no need to repeat how deeply the wounds inflicted by the racial laws are still felt today by Italian Jews and our communities,” Ottolenghi stated.

“Before they were subjected to persecution and death at the hands of the Nazi-Fascist regime, Jewish individuals were progressively stripped of their property. Many were forced to dispose of their assets under coercion, while others had their property outright confiscated. Even as the war had already been lost and Italy lay in ruins, the Fascist regime remained obsessed with confiscating Jewish property. 

Filling gaps in Italian law, justice ready to be served 

“With the bill under discussion, Italy is finally taking steps to fill a gap, through an initiative aimed at clearly establishing, in our country as well, a right to redress, certainly not for the lives lost and the suffering endured, but for the dispossession of artistic heritage – which a legal system that respects fundamental human rights must, in any case, ensure.”

Italy, unlike some other European countries, never established a procedure for restitution, despite publicly backing the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art as well as the 2009 Terezin Declaration, an international agreement aimed at correcting the massive economic and social wrongs suffered by victims of Nazi persecution during World War II.

The consequences of Italy’s lack of a clear framework were reflected in a 2024 WJRO progress report, which found that Italy made only “some progress” over 25 years on fascist-era restitution.

Italy eyes new process to return Nazi and Fascist looted art

This bill will help ensure progress in restitution by creating an independent committee with the authority to enforce restitution and by removing bureaucratic hurdles that previously made returning property stolen during the fascist era a challenge.

Gideon Taylor, President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), also welcomed the advancing legislation.

“The bill offers a historic opportunity to finally deliver justice to victims of Nazi and fascist persecution and their heirs,” Taylor said. 

“In comparison to the experience of neighboring Western democracies during the past two decades, families seeking the return of their cultural heritage in Italy have faced considerable resistance. While operational and legal details remain to be resolved as the bill moves forward, this is a vital step toward creating a framework for restitution.“

Several explosions were heard in southern parts of Iran, including Bushehr, where one of Iran’s nuclear plants is located, Konarak, and Choghadak, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on Thursday.

Iran had activated its air defense systems in three different regions shortly beforehand, according to Ma’ariv citing local reports. 

US officials told Walla that America was not responsible for the explosions. 

US reportedly strikes Bushehr nuclear power plant, over 90 sites across Iran

A Russian-built nuclear power plant was reportedly hit in US strikes on Iran’s Bushehr province early Thursday morning, according to Iranian state media.

According to the deputy governor of Bushehr Province, a US projectile hit the perimeter area of the facility, which had already been hit several times during the current conflict prior to the April 8 ceasefire. 

The most recent round of US strikes on Iran was completed early Thursday morning. The US military struck approximately 90 sites throughout southern Iran “to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civil mariners in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on X/Twitter.

Iranian officials said the US attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on Wednesday and Thursday, state media reported.

Iranian state media: A U.S. projectile struck the vicinity of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. pic.twitter.com/lPRClSNFz7

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) July 9, 2026

Civilian infrastructure targeted, rail services disrupted as bridge struck by US 

Iranian passenger train services between Tehran and Mashhad were temporarily suspended following a reported US strike on a railway bridge connecting the two cities, state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) claimed.

“Following the criminal US attack early this morning on a section of the Tehran-Mashhad railway, passenger train services have been disrupted,” IRIB posted on X/Twitter on Thursday.

Passengers stranded due to the disruption reportedly began chanting, “Iranians do not accept humiliation, even at the cost of their own lives.”

התקיפה האמריקנית של גשר אק טפה ח’אן (Aq Tappeh Khan) שעל מסילת הרכבת אינצ’ה בורון–טורקמניסטן, ממערב לעיר אקאלה (Aqqala) הייתה תקיפה משמעותית כיוון שזהו צומת תחבורתי קריטי במסדרון התחבורה הבינלאומי צפון–דרום (INSTC) – אחד ממסדרונות התחבורה היבשתיים החשובים ביותר של איראן, המחבר את… pic.twitter.com/ELhebQmD8Y

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) July 9, 2026

Repair teams are currently working to fix the damage and restore the route, and other arrangements are being made to transport passengers to Mashhad by road, according to IRIB.

The transportation disruption comes as mourners travel to farewell Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before he is scheduled to be laid to rest in the city of Mashhad.

Passengers on the Tehran-Mashhad train, stranded due to the U.S. striking the railway, are chanting: “Iranians do not accept humiliation, even at the cost of their own lives.”
pic.twitter.com/9NhlUQqidr

— IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) (@iribnews_irib) July 9, 2026

IRGC claims US attempt to overshadow Khamenei’s burial

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) allegedly claimed on Thursday that the US strike on the railway was a deliberate attempt to overshadow Khamenei’s burial, as reported by Iranian state media.

Iran’s state-organized funeral processions, which began last week, serve both as a religious commemoration and a demonstration of continuity for the Islamic Republic following the death of the leader who ruled Iran for nearly four decades.

The week-long procession, which carried Khamenei’s body, included public events in Qom, Najaf, and Karbala – important Shiite centers in Iran and Iraq – before reaching the final destination of Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrimage shrine.

US strikes target key Iranian trade route

The Aq Taqeh Khan railway bridge in northern Iran’s Golestan province was also reportedly hit by US strikes overnight, according to IRGC-run Fars news agency.

The particular rail line on which the bridge was located serves as a vital trade link connecting Tehran with its strategic partners, China and Russia. Fars reported that the route continues through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, making it an important land corridor to China in particular.

This link has gained significance, especially during this year’s blockade of Iran’s Gulf ports by the US. Additionally, this route has been utilized by Russia for cargo shipments to Iran since late 2025.

The agency said repairs to the bridge were expected to be completed quickly.

A new wave of strikes?

Following the US strikes overnight, reports of several explosions were heard in Iran’s Bushehr province, home to Iran’s nuclear power plant, on Thursday morning, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency. 

Later, Iranian state media reported that the perimeter of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was struck by a US projectile.

Additionally, explosions were also heard in Iran’s Bandar Abbas on Thursday, according to Mehr.

Reuters and Jonah Davidov contributed to this report.

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Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel arrived at our Tel Aviv studio hours after delivering what may prove to be the most consequential speech an American Democrat has given on Israeli soil in a decade.

But the first thing we talked about was Chicago. He was my city’s mayor for eight years. “I’m sure for you it felt like 80,” he offered before I could finish my compliment. 

That is the Emanuel experience in miniature: He answers the question he prefers, lands the joke first, and dares you to interrupt.

Over the next half hour, I interrupted often. With him, there is no other way.

‘Post’ editor-in-chief speaks to Democratic presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel

As US president Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, a former Chicago mayor, a congressman, and a US ambassador to Japan, by his own coy admission this year, “If I was thinking of doing it, which I am.” Emanuel is circling a 2028 US presidential run. 

His Tel Aviv University speech was billed as an honest conversation about the US-Israel relationship. 

What he delivered, however, was closer to an indictment: Israel as a “territorial pariah” that has “lost Europe,” a prime minister who “led Israel into a dead end,” a promise to sanction violent settlers along with the officials who enabled them, and the companies and banks that financed settlement building.

That, and more, an end to American military aid and a declaration that the two-state solution is “now discredited,” replaced by what he called a 23-state solution.

In our conversation, Emanuel went further than that speech on nearly every count. He described, in detail, reported nowhere else, what he told New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to his face in a private meeting. 

He said flatly that in a presidential run, he would not accept the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) backing. 

Emanuel confirmed to the Post that his sanctions logic extends to Israel’s banking system. And he closed the most conspicuous gap in his Tel Aviv text: Asked why the speech never mentions a Palestinian state, he told me, “I’m for a state.”

I asked him why a man weighing a presidential campaign would fly to Tel Aviv to deliver a speech he knew would enrage much of his audience.

“I believe in honesty,” he said. “Almost the candor to a fault.” Then came the numbers, because with Emanuel, there are always numbers.

Rahm Emanuel says he supports a Palestinian state, criticizes Netanyahu

“Israel’s at its lowest standing since 1948 in America. Among kids 30 and younger, it’s in the tank. There’s a poll out today that Mamdani is more popular than [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu among American Jews. That is an unsustainable foundation for a political alliance.”

Whose fault is that? I pressed him directly because, by my count, his speech named Netanyahu a dozen times, and one man cannot be responsible for the opinions of an entire generation of Americans.

“He is your longest-serving prime minister,” Emanuel shot back. “He is your prime minister for the 19 years in which you went from one place to the other. I could pick a taxi driver, but I don’t think that taxi driver is responsible for it.”

“You have four tools in your national security toolbox: military power, political persuasion, economic statecraft, and cultural attraction. Three of the four have been totally atrophied, and you’ve decided military power is not a tool, but the toolbox,” he went on to say.

Netanyahu, Emanuel said, “has directed this ship into a wall. You are economically, politically, and strategically more isolated than you have ever been since 1948.”

I told him the truth: it was a depressing speech. “You didn’t see the end,” he replied. “I gave you a choice.”

When I objected that a relationship has two sides, he insisted he had been “an equal opportunity” critic. 

“I blame the Palestinian leadership for being corrupt. I blame the Arab League for using the Palestinian people and paying lip service,” the politician said.

“And I blame us for not telling you the truth along the road when you were messing up,” while others, he added, “were silent” for years. “I have a bad gene when it comes to candor,” he repeated. 

That much is verifiable. His fights with Netanyahu date to 2009, when, in his capacity as Obama’s chief of staff, he challenged the prime minister over settlements in a clash that prompted Netanyahu to label Emanuel a “self-loathing Jew.” 

He has worn the insult ever since; this week, he wore it as armor.

This is where I pushed onto ground I suspect he found less comfortable. His party, I told him, was part of the problem. Israelis have watched the Democratic Left turn hostile, and Jewish Democrats increasingly describe a party in which they no longer feel at home.

Emanuel refused the premise and turned it around with a line that will sting Israeli ears, one he repeated across a local media blitz this week that included Yediot Aharonot, Ynet, and the N12 news site. 

“You don’t have a problem with the Democratic Party. You have an America problem.” 

Saying that Israel had enjoyed a 60% approval rate among Americans, the percentage has now dropped to 32%.

“And among kids 30 and younger, who are the future of America, you’re at 20%,” he added.

When I countered that Israelis have learned in recent months that the Republican Party is not reliably with us either, he did not soften. 

“You have a problem with America. You can only sustain a relationship without political support [for so long], and then at some point it breaks. I’m trying to prevent that break. You don’t like my medicine? Tell me what you want to do,” Emanuel countered.

It is a fair debating point, and an incomplete one. Emanuel would be running in a Democratic primary whose energy belongs to a wing that regards Israel with open contempt.

As for his medicine, ending military aid, sanctioning Israeli officials, pressuring Jerusalem, this is exactly what that electorate wants to hear from a candidate whose middle name is, incidentally, Israel.

When I suggested Israelis view him through a specific prism, and not a moderate one, he bristled. 

“I have fought for Israel, as I say in the speech, when it was unpopular.” That is the puzzle of Rahm Emanuel in 2026: The son of a Jerusalem-born father who fought in the War of Independence now stakes out positions his former colleagues would have called unthinkable, and insists nothing has changed but the facts.

‘I told Mamdani river to the sea means destroying the Jewish people’

The name missing from his Tel Aviv speech was the one American Jews are searching for more than any other. Mamdani, the Democratic socialist mayor of New York and the most prominent anti-Zionist elected official in America, appeared only as an unnamed chanting crowd. I asked why.

His answer produced the interview’s most striking disclosure. The two met privately when the newly elected Mamdani sought advice from former mayors. 

Emanuel opened with a joke: “I’m not sure who’s gonna hate this meeting more, AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or my rabbi.” (“Both,” he suspected.)

Then, by his account, the conversation turned serious. “I said, look, you’re your father’s son. I’m my father’s son. I’m gonna break the news to you. There will never be a river to the sea,” Emanuel said he told Mamdani.

“I have fought against the idea of a greater Israel. You haven’t. Let me be clear to you: When I hear you chant ‘river to the sea,’ I hear you calling not just for the destruction of Israel, but the destruction of the Jewish people.”

He paired this with a mirror-image warning to the Israeli Right: “I happen to think both philosophies are fantasies chanted by fanatics who want endless perpetual violence.”

Later, when I noted that I kept returning to Mamdani because our American readers cannot stop reading about him, Emanuel made the confrontation a point of pride. 

“Of course it’s an issue. And unlike other people, I actually said it to his face. Like [when] I said [what I said] to the prime minister, who I think is wrong, to his face.”

The centerpiece of Emanuel’s Tel Aviv address was his proposal to replace the two-state framework with a 23-state solution.

This would encompass the 22 current members of the Arab League, Israel, and a Palestinian entity. The Arab states, he said, would finally be forced to become “the adult in the room” with the Palestinian leadership. 

They would set up a governing authority that accepts the Jewish connection to the land, ends payments to terrorists’ families, and stops teaching children to hate Israelis. 

In turn, Israel would halt unilateral moves in the West Bank. The payoff: Full diplomatic relations with the entire Arab world.

The idea’s lineage is the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which offered normalization in exchange for a Palestinian state. 

What has changed, Emanuel argued, is the Gulf’s economic exposure. “They now have a vested interest” in stability. 

“You’ve got to stop using the Palestinian cause as lip service. You’ve got to put some sweat equity in this deal.”

I told him that parts of the framework appeal to me, particularly the demand that the Arab world stop hiding behind the Palestinian cause while doing nothing for actual Palestinians.

But Emanuel’s speech was strangely silent on the endpoint. It invoked Palestinian “sovereignty and self-determination” while never using the word “state.” I asked about the omission.

“I’m for a state,” he said without hesitation before repeating his conditions: Recognition of a Jewish connection to the land that “is not a post-’48 phenomenon,” an end to rewarding “people for killing Jews for being Jewish.” 

This would be coupled with an end to incitement in schools and in institutions “that could serve as an independent entity, make peace, and enforce it.”

Readers should note what happened here. A formulation engineered for a Tel Aviv audience collapsed under one direct question. 

The man who declared the two-state solution “discredited” on Wednesday endorsed a Palestinian state in our studio, on the record, a day later.

He was less careful with history elsewhere. Defending his claim that the Palestinians squandered three offers of sovereignty, he repeated the figure former prime minister Ehud Barak allegedly offered to the first president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.

Emanuel said that it contained “98% of what the Palestinians were seeking” at the 2000 Camp David Summit, a number most historians of the negotiations regard as inflated, before delivering the most Rahm sentence of the morning: “My wife, Amy, has never offered me 75%, and I say yes.”

On Iran, Emanuel mounted an unapologetic defense of the 2015 nuclear deal his old boss negotiated. 

“Under JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], Russia and China were enforcing an isolated Iran.”

“Today, they’re supplying them with the weapons they need to kill you. The uranium was at 3% and outside of Iran. Today, it’s in Iran, and it’s at 90%. You had international inspectors with boots on the ground. Today, they’re kicked out of the country,” Emanuel said.

His conclusion: “You are not more secure having chosen the path of this government.”

Many in Israel’s security establishment, surveying the deaths of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, would contest every step of that argument. 

Nevertheless, for Emanuel, Israel “has failed to convert its military wins into strategic advantages.”

He offered one piece of evidence that deserves examination in Jerusalem. 

“For the first time, you have a Syrian government, not [Basher al-]Assad, that says that Israel and Syria have a common enemy, Iran. I’ll pay the calling charges. Has anybody called?” 

When I noted that Damascus appears to want a security agreement rather than peace, he waved it off: “That’s halfway. You have the most promising opportunity, and nobody calls.”

The sharpest exchange of the interview concerned Emanuel’s pledge, should he have “anything to say about it,” to sanction three categories: Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians, the officials who facilitate that violence, and “every construction company or bank building or financing illegal settlements.”

I put to him what any Israeli reader would: All of Israel’s major banks have branches in the settlements. Sanctioning them means sanctioning the Israeli financial system itself.

He did not retreat a centimeter. “Well, then, America uses its tools to achieve its policy goals. We believe in a two-state solution. You want to pursue a greater Israel? You pay full price for it. Everything. That’s a choice you make.”

Emanuel was similarly unambiguous when I asked whether he supported US president Joe Biden’s decision to withhold certain weapon shipments during the Israel-Hamas War. 

“There is no doubt that during the war effort, you tie policy changes to weapons,” he said. Of Biden’s broader record, he was protective: “President Biden showed support for Israel in its hour of need. That is in America’s interest and character.” 

The failure, in Emanuel’s telling, was Jerusalem’s refusal to produce a day-after plan for Gaza, “driven by your domestic politics, not your strategic interests.”

With his staff signaling from the control room, I asked the question that has been on American Jews’ minds all year: Assuming he runs for president, would Emanuel accept backing from AIPAC?

“No,” he said. Then, in the same breath, the hedge: “Well, first of all, AIPAC’s not for my 23-state solution.” 

The lobby, whose political arm has existed only since 2021, would, he implied, refuse him before he refused it. 

In this, he joins a trend: Sen. Cory Booker has stopped accepting AIPAC-bundled contributions, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged never to take the group’s money.

On J Street, the dovish lobby whose platform his Tel Aviv speech at times resembled, Emanuel would not be pinned. “I’m not looking for their support or not support. J Street will make its decision. AIPAC will make its decision. I’m not scared of that.”

Then Emanuel turned the lens on me, on this newspaper, and on Israeli journalism generally. We are, he charged, “not fully conveying the depth of [our] isolation.”

“Jews have walked away from Israel. If you think that is sustainable for another year, you should have the courage to say: We enjoy our isolation, and this is worth it.”

I told him it is not much fun. “Okay,” he said, “well, then you have to change it.”

By the time we sat down for this interview, the reaction was telling its own story. Israeli commentators largely received Emanuel’s speech as an attack rather than counsel. 

Journalist Hagai Segal wrote that Emanuel is demanding that Israel withdraw to the 1967 lines to please Americans, and that if Israel obeys and is attacked from those lines again, as was the case on October 7, “Emanuel will once more explain why Israelis are to blame.” 

Parts of the religious press simply asked whether Emanuel still loves Israel at all. Netanyahu had pointedly not responded, perhaps because a brawl with a Democratic presidential hopeful is an October election gift he is still deciding how to unwrap.

The criticism reached Emanuel from the opposite shore as well. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute dismissed the speech as rooted in pro-Israel talking points, the soft launch of a presidential campaign. 

In a single week, the congressman had managed to be too anti-Israel for Jerusalem and too pro-Israel for the anti-Israel Left.

A word of my own, though I do not usually put my opinion into an interview. This was Emanuel’s first high-profile visit here since October 7, and I expected an American Jew arriving at this hour to pay more attention, in the speech and in our conversation, to what Israelis have lived through these past two and a half years. 

He did not. 

When Biden landed here days after the massacre and told us about sitting with Prime Minister Golda Meir as a young senator, he lifted a wounded country. Emanuel came from 180 degrees in the other direction: No comfort and no embrace, only a bill of particulars.

And yet, in one respect, he deserves credit the comforters do not always earn. With Rahm Emanuel, what you see is what you get. He is not trying to make anything look pretty, nor is he making promises he cannot keep. Israelis will argue about whether that is friendship. 

It is, at least, the truth as he sees it, delivered to our faces, which is more than most of his party now bothers to do.

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A UN agency on Thursday produced a map summarizing data for all alleged extremist violent Jewish attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank from 2023 until April of this year.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since 2023 there have been “over 5,330 settler attacks resulting in casualties, property damage or both.”

For these kinds of statistics, OCHA does not distinguish between Israeli Jews who live in the West Bank and those who live within the Green Line, referring to anyone who perpetrates a West Bank attack as a “settler.”

The report said that the Palestinian regions which have been hit hardest by extremist Jewish attacks have been the Ramallah area (1,352), the Nablus area (1,226), and the Hebron area (935), with Jenin and Tulkarm down to 115 and 111, respectively.

OCHA added that 64 West Bank Palestinians “have been killed and 5,173 injured in that context alone by Israeli forces or settlers.”

Within the UN report, there is no apparent distinction between Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and innocent Palestinian civilians.

Although at press time the IDF had not yet responded to the report, in January of this year, the IDF told The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media outlets that the number of Palestinians the IDF killed in 2025 was 240, down from 500 in 2024 and 504 in 2023.

The number was still higher than the 155 total in 2022 and the 77 total in 2021.

While the IDF has said that 96% of those killed were terrorists, it has acknowledged that the number of those Palestinians killed who were an imminent threat, such as in a gunfight, dropped in 2025 to 42% from 72% in 2024.

There was an obvious disparity between the IDF and the UN numbers, with possibly the UN only or mostly counting Palestinians killed by non-IDF violent Jewish extremists, though it mentioned Israeli forces in some parts of the report.

The IDF considers Palestinians terrorists if they were caught in a terror scene and resisted arrest, even if it turns out later, after the fog of battle clears, that they were not armed at the time.

In addition, the same would apply to known terrorists who are resisting arrest by fleeing, where the IDF soldiers believe the terrorist will escape if they do not open fire.

In contrast, many human rights groups and most of the world have said that at least some, if not many, of the Palestinians killed in the West Bank could have been avoided had they been arrested or dealt with more delicately in cases where the IDF soldiers on the scene clearly have the upper hand.

IDF officials frustrated with inability to reduce violence

In December 2024, the IDF told the Post and a group of Israeli media outlets that there had been 663 extremist Jewish incidents in 2024, that in 2023 there were 1,045, and that in 2022 there were 947, seeming to show an improvement.

But 663 was still far above prior years, with 446 in 2021, 353 in 2020, and 339 in 2019.

The IDF said that Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians had increased correspondingly to increased Palestinian terror, but does not really have an answer yet for bringing down the levels to pre-2022 levels.

IDF officials remain frustrated with their failure to bring down the violence.

In January 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz blocked any new administrative detention orders against even the worst Jewish extremists.

The unanimous defense establishment view has been that canceling such administrative detention orders has undermined the ability to contain Jewish extremist violence.

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) have also slammed the police under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as not sufficiently enforcing the law against such Jewish extremists.

Next, the OCHA report said that more than 5,900 Palestinians have been “displaced due to settler attacks and access restrictions.”

In addition, the UN agency said that “45 communities [have been] displaced fully and 72 partially,” without defining what partially displaced would mean.

IDF announced new policy to prevent terror 

SINCE JANUARY 2025, the IDF announced a new policy in which it has occupied whole or significant portions of refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur al-Shams, Nablus, and Tubas, to prevent terrorists from using those areas as command centers and for organizational purposes.

Prior to those moves, the Palestinian Authority had tried to bring down terror emanating from the Jenin refugee camp, but ultimately was weaker than the local Jenin gangs.

It was unclear exactly how much the report was counting anti-terror IDF actions, or if the report was fully focused on non-IDF actions by violent Jewish extremists.

Finally, the report said that about 77,000 trees and saplings planted by Palestinians and over 2,400 Palestinians vehicles have been damaged.

To date, the IDF has not provided numbers of damaged or destroyed Palestinian trees or cars.

However, in August 2025, the IDF Central Commander Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth ordered the clearing of a large number of trees to improve security oversight of the area around Al-Mughayir village near Ramallah.

Palestinians and the outlet Haaretz at the time claimed that Bluth did not act only out of narrow security considerations, but also out of some attempt to deter Palestinian terror through collective punishment, citing his statements about making problematic villages pay for the actions of terrorists coming from those villages.

Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken went as far as to call Bluth a “war criminal” whom the International Criminal Court should stop and arrest.

The IDF responded that the massive tree removal took place both in order to catch the terrorist from Al-Mughayir who had recently shot a Jewish Israeli civilian in the head near the Malachi Hashalom area, northeast of Ramallah, as well as to improve the ability of security forces to intercept such terrorists in advance, following multiple incidents along the Alon Corridor roads.

In May 2025, Palestinian terrorists murdered Tzeela Gez, a 30-year-old mother of three, in a drive-by shooting on Route 446 near Peduel junction in the Binyamin region of the West Bank.

That terrorist cell perpetrated a number of terror attacks in the area.

The Palestinian terrorist who murdered 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir in April 2024 came from the Al-Mughayir area.

The Post understands that this terror attack also influenced the decision to implement clearer oversight in the Alon Corridor area.

Besides those incidents that are reported and are among the most deadly terror incidents – the Post understands that there has also been – often unreported – regular rock throwing from the area, with the rock throwers often using the trees for cover to approach the road and then escape.

But violent Jewish extremists who are not part of the IDF’s security operations have also ransacked a large number of trees and cars, and it is not clear if the IDF has a handle on those numbers.

US President Donald Trump did not announce in Ankara on Tuesday that the United States would sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. He did something more important: alongside Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the opening of the NATO summit, he explained why, from his perspective, opposition to the deal was no longer self-evident.

“This is a decision we are going to make,” he said, adding that the United States would consider the move because its ties with Turkey are better than with other countries that Washington had expected would be more loyal. Erdogan quickly completed the message, saying that Turkey had already been promised five aircraft and that Trump “always keeps his commitments.”

It was there, more than in the official statement itself, that the real debate was exposed. Trump does not see Erdogan the way he is seen in Israel. To him, Turkey is a NATO power with a strong army, a country that could have chosen “a different path” on Israel and Iran and chose not to do so. He praised Ankara for not joining the fighting “on the other side,” and even hinted that it may have refrained from doing so because of him.

In Israel, the reading is completely different. Ankara hosts Hamas, is intensifying its diplomatic confrontation with Israel, has considered, according to the US president, attacking Israel alongside Iran, is clashing with Greece and Cyprus, and is trying to expand its influence in the eastern Mediterranean.

Behind the debate over the arms deal lies a much heavier question: What is Erdogan’s Turkey today in the eyes of Washington and in the eyes of Trump?

Trump wants to bring Turkey back to the West

The F-35 has become a symbol of that dispute. Trump wants to bring Turkey back to the center of the Western system. After years in which Ankara paid a price for purchasing Russia’s S-400 system, US sanctions imposed in 2020 under CAATSA and removal from the F-35 program, Trump is signaling that this chapter, in his view, can be closed.

“I don’t want to impose sanctions on friends,” he said, opening the door to easing pressure on Turkey and to a more forgiving approach toward a wayward, but still vital, ally.

His logic is not complicated. Turkey controls the passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, has influence in Syria, knows Iran well, has one of the largest armies in NATO, and, in Trump’s perspective, it could help stabilize the region, curb Russian influence and keep Ankara inside the Western camp. In his view, pushing Turkey away has not changed its behavior; bringing it back into the American framework may, perhaps, better serve the American interest.

In Israel, this reading is difficult to accept. Erdogan’s Turkey is no longer seen there as a complex Western ally whose deviations can be tolerated. In recent years it has gradually become a regional rival. Political support for Hamas, the harsh statements against Israel since October 7, involvement in Syria, the clashes with Greece and Cyprus, and Turkish ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean are not seen in Jerusalem as a random series of crises.

They point, in Israel’s view, to a pattern of behavior by a state expanding its influence at the expense of its neighbors. The Israeli question, therefore, is not limited to Turkey’s NATO membership. It concerns the possibility of continuing to see it as a “normal” Western ally.

This is also the source of Israel’s opposition to the deal, which is not limited to the Air Force. In recent years, the defense establishment has developed a view that the maritime arena will be one of the main friction points in the coming decade.

Gas discoveries, trade routes, energy facilities, and the project to connect Israel to the European power grid via an undersea cable through Cyprus and Greece have turned the eastern Mediterranean into a strategic asset.

At the same time, Turkey is advancing the “Blue Homeland” concept, which expands its claims and influence in the maritime domain and challenges some existing arrangements. The concern in Israel is that a military buildup in Turkey will not only affect the balance of power in the air, but also Ankara’s confidence as it applies pressure around those strategic assets.

Israel makes statement after Trump, Erdogan meeting

Against that backdrop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized appearance alongside the navy commander, shortly after the statements by Trump and Erdogan, does not seem accidental. It was a deliberate signal.

Israel wanted to make clear that it does not see Turkey only as a future aerial threat, but as a broader strategic challenge, one that could affect freedom of navigation, energy infrastructure, and deepening cooperation with Greece and Cyprus.

In Athens and Nicosia as well, developments are being closely followed. For them, the issue is not limited to the number of aircraft Turkey may receive, but to the renewed legitimacy Washington may grant Ankara’s regional policy.

For Erdogan as well, the F-35 is much more than an aircraft. Returning to the procurement track would be a diplomatic victory for him. He could argue that despite the S-400 affair, despite the sanctions and despite the clashes with Israel, the United States recognizes Turkey’s status as a regional power without which the new order cannot be shaped. From his perspective, opening the door is almost as important as the deal itself; it restores Ankara to the standing it was pushed from years ago.

Still, the gap between Trump’s statements and a signed deal remains wide. The S-400 is still a legal and political obstacle, and opposition in the US Congress is expected to be significant. Beyond the political issue, there is also professional opposition, the concern that a Russian system stationed in Turkey could help gather information on the stealth capabilities of the F-35, and thus harm not only Israel but all the countries operating the aircraft. Even a determined president will have difficulty turning the statements in Ankara into a deal without a complicated fight in Washington.

Even if the deal is not completed soon, the message Trump delivered in Ankara is clear. For years it seemed that preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge was the starting point of every American discussion about the sale of advanced weapons in the region. His remarks suggest a change in emphasis: Israel remains a close ally, but it is no longer the only consideration. In Trump’s view, Turkey too is a strategic asset that should be brought back to the center of the game.

That is why the debate over the F-35 goes beyond the aircraft themselves. It concerns how the United States balances its relations with its two important allies in the eastern Mediterranean. If Trump does succeed in returning Turkey to the F-35 track, the significance will not be limited to another arms deal. It would be an American declaration that the new regional order will also be built around Turkey. For Israel, this is not only a security problem, it is a possible shift in the starting point of American policy in the region.

Greece has voiced its strongest public concerns yet over the possibility that the Trump administration could pave the way for Turkey’s return to the F-35 fighter jet program, warning that advanced American weapons should not be used against fellow NATO allies.

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias, speaking Thursday at the 30th Economist Roundtable, said Greece “would not welcome” Turkey receiving either F-35 fighter jets or engines for its next-generation Turkish “Kaan” combat aircraft.

At the same time, Dendias emphasized that the decision ultimately rests with Washington.

“We are simply asking one question,” he said. “Is this truly in the interest of the United States? That is for the US government and the American people to decide.”

Dendias said any transfer of advanced military platforms within NATO should include restrictions preventing their use against another member of the alliance.

“NATO, and particularly stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, is of fundamental importance to the United States,” he said. “Providing such a platform without the condition that it cannot be used against another allied state raises the question of whether that truly serves American interests.”

He added that it should be “a basic principle” that military platforms sold between NATO members are never used against fellow allies.

F-35 should only be sold if guarantee given not to use it against allies

Earlier Thursday, a senior Greek diplomatic source said weapons sold by one ally to another “cannot be used against a fellow ally,” underscoring Athens’s concern that a future Turkish F-35 fleet could alter the military balance in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Greece is expected to receive its first F-35s in 2028.

The official stressed that while Greece cannot dictate the defense procurement decisions of other countries, it has both the right and the obligation to present its security concerns to Washington. Those concerns are sharpened by Turkey’s longstanding “casus belli” declaration over the possible extension of Greek territorial waters in the Aegean Sea.

Although Greece has no ability to impose conditions on a US arms sale, the official said Athens has raised the issue “through every available diplomatic channel.”

Erdogan dismisses Greece, Israel’s worries

Speaking Wednesday, Erdogan dismissed objections from Greece and Israel to a potential F-35 sale, saying there was “no place” for such opposition.

“Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis should not have made the mistake of opposing Turkey’s purchase of the aircraft,” Erdogan said. “We have the right to acquire aircraft and defensive equipment, and we are holding talks on this matter.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to allude to Turkey during a speech, though he did not mention it by name.

“The war has not yet ended,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Alongside the old challenges, new challenges are emerging. We are paying close attention to them and are prepared for every scenario. Preserving Israel’s air superiority is a fundamental pillar of our national security.”

Despite renewed optimism in Ankara following discussions between Trump and Erdogan, Greek officials said Turkey remains far from rejoining the F-35 program.

According to the senior Greek diplomatic source, Turkey has yet to secure any tangible breakthrough because the legal and political pathway remains highly restrictive.

The source pointed to the requirement that Ankara first prove it no longer possesses the Russian-made S-400 air defense system before any process to restore its eligibility for the F-35 could begin. Even then, officials noted, changes to US legislation, including provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, would likely be required.

Turkey was removed from the multinational F-35 program in 2019 after taking delivery of the Russian S-400 system. Washington argued at the time that operating both systems simultaneously could compromise sensitive F-35 technology.

Former Maccabi Haifa soccer star Anan Khalaili, currently playing for professional Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise, has agreed a move to the current Italian league champion, Inter Milan, in what will be the highest transfer fee ever paid for an Israeli player, Israeli media reported Thursday. 

According to eports, Khalaili will be transferred to Inter Milan for 25 million euros, with a salary of approximately 2 million euros per season, including bonuses.

Khalil’s old team, Maccabi Haifa, still holds 15% of his contract and is expected to receive approximately 3.5 million euros from this deal. 

The right wing-back had a strong 2025/26 season with the Belgian club Saint-Gilloise, where he started in 44 of 46 appearances, and finished the season with six goals and five assists in 3,800 minutes, Ynet reported. 

The Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise won the league championship, “Croky Cup”, on a 3-1 victory over RSC Anderlecht in Brussels back in mid-May, where Khalaili recorded an assist in the final to put the team up 1-0 in the 74th minute

Khalaili is expected in Milan within 48 hours

The Haifa-born, 21-year-old star is listed at 1.83 meters and plays along the right flank. Khalaili is expected in Milan in 48 hours for a medical evaluation. 

Over one in four women in Israel, some 27%, have experienced violent behavior from a partner or relative, according to data collected by The Israel Women’s Network (IWN) and presented in the “Great Women’s Survey 2026,” published on Tuesday. 

This figure represents at least 900,000 women, according to the IWN. 

The survey also found that 10% of women, about 350,000, reported experiencing an injury inflicted by a partner or a relative. Additionally, 12%, or about 400,000 women, reported the use of threats or physical force against them for sexual purposes. 

According to the survey, 10% of women experienced a partner or family member exerting control over their finances, and 17% reported obsessive jealousy, surveillance, or ongoing attempts at control. 

The female population understands that violence does not begin with murder, but develops gradually through control, threats, jealousy, surveillance, and economic harm, according to the IWN. 

“The picture that emerges from the findings of the Great Women’s Survey is very, very worrying, with hundreds of thousands of women in Israel who are threatened by their partner or a family member,” said Tomer Maron, head of research at the Women’s Lobby. 

“Femicide is the tip of the iceberg. The violence begins much earlier. We identify it in jealousy, surveillance, threats, and extortion with money, in effect, in every systematic undermining of the sense of security,” Maron added.

Most women believe domestic violence not a private matter, believe police have ability, responsibility to prevent

The survey also examined public attitudes regarding state responsibility for preventing violence against women. 

Some 81% of women reject the claim that domestic violence is a private matter that should be resolved within the family, and 61% of women oppose the claim that the police have no ability to prevent or reduce domestic murder cases, and place significant responsibility on the police for early intervention and enforcement of protective orders. 

According to the survey, one third of respondents labeled the Israel Police as the central body responsible for preventing violence against women. The Welfare Ministry ranked second with 25%, followed by the Israeli government with 18%. 

The survey was conducted among 1,003 women through the Geocartography Institute. It was designed to examine women’s sense of security in Israel and their personal experiences, beyond the extreme cases that make the headlines, and to present decision-makers with a broad picture of the scope of gender-based violence in the country. 

Every citizen who sends their loved ones into the hell of the battlefield should understand one thing: put your children in the right societal uniform – white shirt, black pants – and they will have in their hands an instant, legal, institutionalized, fast-tracked exemption from military duty and from the call to arms. It’s that easy.

In a reckless legislative blitz, Knesset committees are now holding feverish and cynical hearings on two parallel bills. Under the guise of concern for the world of Torah, two bills are on the table: the Basic Law: Torah Study on the one side, and the Law of Exemption from Arrests on the other. 

These are two heads of the same dragon, and that dragon threatens to devour the nation’s army. These two laws are designed to circumvent the conscription law, better named the evasion law, which already failed to clear the Knesset.

The Women Partnership in Service forum arose a few months after the start of this difficult war, out of the shock and the deep recognition of the urgent, existential need for a fundamental change to the current reality. Our 15 leaders – women from the very heart of Religious Zionism who represent a range of professions – are working tirelessly to enlist the haredi public.

We have come together due to a sense of civic duty and national emergency, determined to secure the country’s future. We see a screaming injustice: an entire sector, now roughly a quarter of everyone eligible for the draft, has exempted itself wholesale from the duty of defending the homeland. It does so through a cold, cynical, and supposedly sacred invocation of the Torah.

The non-conscription of these tens of thousands of young men is no longer a political question or a dispute between communities. It is a direct blow to the country’s national security that endangers our very existence here. We are determined to change this reckless reality.

We are all women from serving homes and serving families. We live with the constant reality of the crushing, inhuman burden that the war has laid on those who serve: the burden of reserve and regular duty that shows no sign of easing in the coming years and has every sign of getting worse. 

And so, while our loved ones risk their lives at the front, we sit in the Knesset committee rooms and watch despairingly as a set of legislation gets written with a single purpose: to release haredi society, permanently, from any shared fate, and from any part in defending our home.

Scales of justice

The first bill is the constitutional anchor meant to enshrine this disgrace: the Basic Law: Torah Study. The bill seeks to establish “Torah study as a foundational constitutional value and to create scales of justice alongside the nation’s other Basic Laws.” But this law debases the Torah and those who study it. Its real purpose is to install Torah students as an aristocracy, legally superior to every other citizen of the state. 

The remainder of the bill reveals the author’s intent: the return of the clause that grants haredim a blanket exemption from the draft under the definition of “Torah is his vocation” (torato umanuto). The moment this Basic Law is approved, and in the shadow of that “constitutional supremacy,” all the enormous budgets and benefits denied to the haredi public these past two years over its refusal to serve in the military, will be handed back.

Moreover, since Torah study now outweighs everything else on these new “scales of justice,” the door is open to rewarding those who evade the draft more richly than those who actually serve. To turn the Torah into a tool for dodging a civic duty is the greatest desecration of God’s name.

In parallel, a second mutation is under debate: the “Arrests Law,” or, more accurately named, the Total Exemption Law. Out of MK Boaz Bismuth’s original non-conscription framework, far-reaching safe-harbor clauses have been concocted that grant sweeping criminal immunity. Haredi politicians proclaim from every podium that their urgent mission is to stop the arrest of draft dodgers, now and forever. 

The images of blocked highways and the anguished cries over those detained serve as instruments of pressure, yet the numbers are an embarrassment: against some 90,000 deserters, the number of draft dodgers who have actually been arrested this year ranges between a mere 16 and 46. Under the pretext that arrests “only drive young men further from enlistment,” the bill now advancing through the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee grants a full pardon not only going forward, but orders existing prosecutions halted and binding verdicts frozen. 

This is the wholesale laundering of a lawbreaker, one that will begin as a temporary provision of three months, be extended to six months under cover of the elections, and harden into a permanent, entrenched arrangement that will shield even future draft-age youth who choose to flout the law. All of it comes while canceling the economic sanctions that had begun to take effect and the steps to increase the scope of enlistment. Instead, state funds will be channeled anew into the pockets of the haredim.

We have to ask: what, exactly, troubles the Religious Zionist Party about this moral disgrace? Not the grievous injury to equality. Not the collapse of the nation’s army. Not the reversal of the enlistment trend. And not the abandonment of the soldiers at the front.

Most of the party’s Knesset members have shown that they are loyal to a short-lived political pact with the haredi factions far more than to the covenant made with us at Sinai – a covenant that obligates mutual responsibility and coming to the aid of Israel against its enemies.

Most of them declare openly that they will vote for both bills, offering a feeble and threadbare excuse that they are acting “to protect the Zionist hesder yeshivas.” The claim is patently false, since separate, dedicated legislation already governs the status of the Zionist yeshivas. This is yet another instance in which the Religious Zionist Party turns its back and forsakes the serving, bleeding public as a whole, and on its own religious-national voters in particular.

Under these circumstances, retreating into silence, or casting an “abstention,” is not enough. In practice, both amount to actively supporting the passage of these discriminatory laws. To halt this moral ruin, one must courageously stand up and vote against the laws unequivocally. Anything else will constitute the final moral and ethical bankruptcy of those who take the name of Zionism and religion in vain.

The writer is a leader of Shutafot Lasherut.

The IDF killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Rashid Al-Qadhi on Wednesday in a targeted strike in the southern Gaza Strip, the military announced Thursday.

Al-Qadhi was a commander in the PIJ’s Production Array, the IDF said, adding that he played a central role in producing and supplying weapons to the organization’s military wing. 

Also on Wednesday, the IDF conducted a strike in northern Gaza, killing Hamas sniper Abdullah Baha al-Din Razak Al-Souti.

Steps were taken before the strike to mitigate harm to civilians, including using “precise munitions” and aerial surveillance, the IDF added. 

IDF strike kills October 7 terrorist, kidnapper in Gaza Strip

On Tuesday, the Israeli military conducted a targeted strike in the southern Gaza Strip using Shin Bet intelligence, killing terrorist Wahid Abu Salam, who previously served as commander of the Western Company in Khan Yunis.

On October 7, 2023, Salam raided Israeli territory and took part in the kidnapping of Israeli civilians in the Gaza Strip, and even took part in holding them captive in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the military.

The IDF added that Salam was also involved in more recent terror plots and posed an immediate threat to Israeli forces in the area. 

Also on Tuesday, Gazan sources claimed that Mohammad al-Waheidi, a senior Palestinian member of Egypt‘s main aid organization, was also killed in a strike on his taxi in Gaza City. The strike killed three others, including two children aged 10 and 8, according to Reuters, citing local medics.

Asked for comment on his death, the Israeli military told Reuters it had struck a Hamas militant and was aware of claims that uninvolved individuals were killed in the strike. It did not respond to a query on the identity of the target.

An Ebola treatment center was burned down, and a police officer was killed during clashes over the body of an Ebola victim in Bafwabango, in Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 1, the latest in a series of community resistance incidents in response to Ebola restrictions. 

The Ebola outbreak, which was first confirmed in May, has killed at least 600 people and comprises at least 1,759 confirmed cases, and has sparked a wave of misinformation that health officials linked to violent assaults on healthcare workers and attacks on healthcare centers. 

Rumors that Ebola is a hoax and fears over healthcare workers killing patients in order to harvest organs or take control over territory have led to attacks on health centers in order to retrieve patients under quarantine and bodies of victims who have died. 

Burial practices have been at the center of multiple incidents, including the fire in Bafwabango, the burning of another medical center in the Ituri province, and an attack on Red Cross workers that left four hospitalized. 

The Ebola virus can be transmitted through bodily fluids, and the bodies of Ebola victims are particularly contagious. The bodies must be completely wrapped before burial, and any contact poses a risk.

However, with misinformation spreading, the inability to see, wash, and care for the bodies as is traditional is seen by some as proof of healthcare workers’ sinister intentions. 

Decades of neglect, conflict contribute to mistrust

Suspicion of healthcare workers, especially foreign workers, is not necessarily a result of superstition, but may be of “historical neglect,” Dr. Gighinji Gitahi, group chief executive of Amref Health Africa, told the Telegraph. 

“When a health system has struggled to address daily emergencies but suddenly scales up for a single disease, communities draw their own conclusions,” Gitahi added. 

Gitahi pointed to the other medical dangers communities face, including malaria, malnutrition, and maternal complications, explaining that communities grow suspicious when they see a response to the new Ebola outbreak and not to the problems of their daily realities. 

“You have a very strong base of being very distrustful of anything coming from outside, including the central government,” Dr. Jean-Vivien Mombouli told the BBC. 

The BBC cited experts as saying that outside interference and competition over gold and coltan contributed heavily to mistrust. 

M23, Islamic State complicate Ebola response

Response and community trust are further complicated by the conflict in the DRC. 

Cases located in territory controlled by the Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 and by the Islamic State-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces are significantly harder to identify and treat. 

Ebola has become extremely politicized in the M23-controlled South Kivu province, with the New York Times reporting that medical workers refused to comment for fear of their safety. 

One healthcare worker who was willing to comment told the NYT that sharing information, including situation reports which are normally widely shared, was not allowed. 

M23 has been accused of using the outbreak as a financial opportunity, the NYT wrote, citing a healthcare worker who said that the rebels were constantly reaching out to health authorities in the area to ask about Ebola funding. 

The worker accused M23 of trying to divert money intended for the Ebola response. 

A sea turtle tangled in fishing line was found off the coast of Caesarea by marine researchers earlier this month. 

A group of marine researchers on the EcoOcean team had planned to set out for Sdot Yam to collect research data when they received a report from kayakers who had spotted a sea turtle tangled in fishing lines. The team immediately set out to help the situation. 

The kayakers had stayed with the turtle the entire time and helped the EcoOcean team locate it. Rescuing it from the water required a careful, delicate operation to bring it aboard the vessel while minimizing the risk of further injury. 

Shortly after the team rescued the turtle, it was transported to the National Sea Turtle Rescue Center to receive treatment.

Notably, Israel is currently facing a severe pollution crisis, with air and water pollution recognized as the country’s leading environmental health threat. 

Pollution in Israel on the rise

Israel also heavily relies on landfills, combined with high levels of waste generation and single-use plastic consumption, creating a growing waste management crisis. Illegal waste dumping and open burning release toxic smoke into nearby communities, while plastic and other pollutants increasingly contaminate the Mediterranean Sea, which supplies most of the country’s drinking water and is home to many different species.

The team emphasized that fishing lines are among the primary threats to sea turtles in Israel, citing multiple reports of turtles entangled in them. The turtle’s neck and limbs were tangled in the line, which could have caused severe injuries such as starvation, suffocation, or death.

Due to Israel’s rising population, waste pollution is increasing as well. The constant beach littering and oil spills along the Mediterranean coast have exposed many marine species to toxic chemicals and left them tangled in fishing lines and other plastics. 

All types of marine life are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the dangers present in their environment. It is not unusual for fish to become entangled in discarded garbage or abandoned fishing lines, both of which pose a serious threat to their lives and well-being. 

In situations where a marine animal is found in distress, EcoOcean recommends promptly calling the Nature Parks Authority hotline to report the incident and seek professional assistance. This is crucial because it ensures that an experienced expert can oversee the rescue operation, thereby guaranteeing that the animal receives proper treatment without causing any additional harm. 

Tehran is using military coercion to force Gulf states to accept the Islamic Republic’s administration over the vital Strait of Hormuz, according to a new assessment by the Institute for the Study of War.

The recent attacks on Gulf nations are an attempt to circumvent the intent of Clause 5 of the memorandum of understanding, which calls for dialogue with Oman and Persian Gulf littoral states to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz within the framework of international law.

Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission member Alaeddin Boroujerdi insisted on Wednesday that commercial vessel traffic through the strait must occur under Iranian oversight and management, specifically through the IRGC Navy.

Similarly, on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei claimed that Clause 5 confirmed Iran’s responsibility to determine arrangements for safe passage of vessels.

Baghaei, writing off an allegation that a Qatari vessel was targeted as “questionable,” asserted that Iran was taking the necessary steps to absorb the responsibility for the administration of Hormuz, and insisted that ships not following Iranian orders were responsible for disrupting “Iran’s efforts to facilitate safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz,” according to the Foreign Ministry.

MoU: the absence of any real ‘durable’ peace framework in the Gulf

Bahraini analyst Dr. Ahmed Alkhuzaie wrote to The Jerusalem Post to say that Iran’s recent escalations against Gulf nations proved that the MoU, which was “intended as a vehicle for de-escalation,” has exposed the absence of any real “durable” peace framework in the Gulf.

“The collapse of the MoU was virtually predetermined by its design flaws. From inception, it lacked a commencement date, structured sequencing, and concrete deadlines. Without a timeline, there were no objective benchmarks to measure compliance, rendering the agreement unenforceable from day one.

“This procedural weakness was compounded by the absence of enforcement mechanisms;  the text contained no penalties or escalation clauses if commitments were broken, leaving Iran with zero deterrent against violating the spirit of the deal,” he explained.

“For Gulf capitals, the MoU was already viewed with skepticism – seen less as a genuine security guarantee and more as an American attempt to temporarily manage tensions. Iran’s renewed aggression has validated these anxieties, reinforcing the perception of US unreliability and leaving Washington caught in a dangerous strategic trap; the  US must now either launch a kinetic military retaliation that risks the wider war it sought to avoid, or stand down and finalize the erosion of its regional credibility.”

Dr. Kristian Alexander, a geopolitical analyst based in Dubai, claimed Tehran has not entirely abandoned its diplomatic approach, but is now trying to combine both to pressure regional acceptance of its claim to Hormuz.

Tehran used the MoU to assert its claim to Hormuz had political acknowledgment, but reverted to maritime attacks when that MoU began to unravel to “preserve leverage,” he explained.

As Iran’s “most important strategic bargaining chip,” Hormuz has become increasingly perceived as the regime’s “golden weapon” with more immediate usefulness than its nuclear file, he continued. Beyond perceiving the vital waterway as a weapon, it also provides the opportunity for the regime to survive its mounting economic challenges, “Whether through formal transit charges or other mechanisms.”

“Iran is trying to redefine the Strait from an international waterway into a zone of Iranian-managed security. That is unacceptable to Washington, Gulf states, and global shipping markets, but it explains Tehran’s pattern: threaten disruption, negotiate relief, then reassert control when diplomacy fails,” Alexander highlighted.

Though Iran has already begun intensive attacks on Middle Eastern nations, with Bahrain and Kuwait seemingly receiving the brunt of the aerial assaults, Alexander predicted Iran would become more aggressive should the MoU formally collapse.

“Tehran may avoid a formal, total closure of Hormuz because that would invite overwhelming military and diplomatic pushback. Instead, it may rely on calibrated harassment such as ship inspections, seizures, drone overflights, mining threats, insurance-risk escalation, and pressure on vessels linked to US allies,” he predicted.

“Naval mines deserve particular attention because they provide Iran with one of its most effective asymmetric tools. Mines are relatively inexpensive to deploy, difficult to detect quickly, and can disrupt commercial shipping long before they actually strike a vessel.

“Their strategic value lies less in sinking ships than in creating uncertainty, forcing costly minesweeping operations, driving up insurance premiums, and deterring shipping companies from entering the Strait altogether.”

In short, Iran doesn’t need to attack shipping, only create the fear of a threat to raise uncertainty and leave the West and its neighbors to feel the economic consequences.

The White House is preparing for what could turn into a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, US officials told Axios on Thursday.

The duration and intensity of the new campaign depend entirely on Iran’s upcoming actions, according to US officials who spoke with Axios. They noted that the current escalation could last anywhere from one day to a month, depending on whether Iran continues its attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“We’re going to slap them a bit so they understand we’re not f***ing around,” One official said, referring to recent US strikes on Iranian targets.

US officials also told Axios that the White House believes it has more room to escalate because hundreds of oil tankers have successfully navigated through the Gulf via the strait in recent weeks.

“That has eased concerns within the administration that a renewed clash would immediately trigger a major oil price spike,” the officials said.

“Iran saw its leverage in Hormuz slipping as hundreds of ships transited through the southern route close to the Omani coast,” they added.

Another US official source claimed that the current escalation stems from frustration among more radical members of Iran’s fractured leadership, who believe the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has not delivered any real benefits for Tehran.

“They started shooting, and we decided it’s time to slap them back hard. It’s a process. We have patience. If we don’t feel we’re getting the deal we want, we are not going to do it,” the official said.

End of MoU, US strikes on Iran

The US military completed its latest round of retaliatory strikes against Iran on Thursday morning, as confirmed by US Central Command (CENTCOM).

This latest escalation follows comments from US President Donald Trump, who stated on Wednesday that he felt the MoU with Iran was nullified after overnight strikes occurred between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

“To me, I think it’s over,” he said at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, during a press conference. Trump also remarked that he felt the US had “wasted a lot of time” negotiating with Iran and that he did not wish to continue talks.

 “I don’t want to deal with them [Iran] anymore. They’re scum. They’re sick people.”

Shortly after this, Trump indicated that the US was open to de-escalation, telling reporters on Air Force One that Iranian officials had “called a little while ago” and “want to make a deal.”

“I just don’t know if they’re worthy of making a deal. I don’t know if they’ll honor the deal,” Trump added. “They’re sort of crazy, to be honest.”

Iran has not yet publicly responded to the President’s claims. However, Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, accused the United States of “bullying and breaking promises” and warned that the Strait of Hormuz would only be reopened on Iran’s terms.

Ghalibaf stated on X, “Let me put it plainly: If you strike, you’ll get hit. The Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats.”

Tzvi Jasper, Jonah Davidov, Shir Perets, Esther Davis, and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

Sirens sounded across the Middle East as Iran launched retaliatory strikes on US assets in the Gulf Region on Thursday. 

Iran’s air force scrambled fighter jets to “secure the skies over the funeral procession” of the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei in Mashhad, the regime-affiliated Fars news agency said.

The retaliatory strikes come after the US struck around 90 sites overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in Iran.

The most recent round of US strikes was completed early Thursday morning in Iran. The US military struck various sites throughout southern Iran “to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civil mariners in the Strait of Hormuz,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on X/Twitter.

Iranian officials said the US attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on Wednesday and Thursday, state media reported.

Fars said one US strike had hit a rail bridge used for trade with Russia and China, while Mehr news agency reported several explosions in the Bushehr province, which is home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant.

Sirens sound through Middle East: Strikes, interceptions in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain

Iran’s army said in a statement released by state media that it had launched attacks at US Patriot systems with drones in Kuwait, an early warning site in Qatar (satellite antenna) and a fuel storage facility of the US army in Bahrain.

Kuwait said its armed forces had engaged with a cruise missile, three ballistic missiles and 10 drones in its airspace, and that one person had been injured from falling shrapnel.

Sirens also sounded in Jordan on Thursday after missiles launched from Iran were detected in Jordanian airspace, the state news agency reported. Eight of ten missiles, which were fired at Jordan’s Azraq military base, were intercepted.

No injuries or damage were reported, the news agency said.

A government spokesperson said the Jordanian Armed Forces are on high alert and ready to deal with any threat targeting the kingdom’s security.

Sirens were sounded in Bahrain on Thursday morning, the Interior Ministry confirmed on X. Sirens were also sounded overnight as Iran launched missile and drone attacks on the Gulf State.

The ministry called on citizens and residents to seek shelter.

The siren has been sounded.. Citizens and residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place

— Ministry of Interior (@moi_bahrain) July 9, 2026

A drone attack hit a camp belonging to an Iranian Kurdish opposition group northeast of Iraq’s Erbil, security sources told Reuters on Thursday.

No casualties were immediately reported in the attack.

Qatar calls for calm, Iran demands full control of Strait

Qatar, which hosts the largest US military base in the region and has often mediated between Washington and its adversaries including Tehran, called for a return to diplomacy.

In a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani also condemned attacks against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

While Iran has not claimed responsibility for the ship attacks, analysts say Tehran uses such actions to gain leverage in negotiations.

The Strait of Hormuz handled about a fifth of global oil supplies before the war erupted on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes against Iran.

Tehran has since taken effective control of the strait, allowing it to force a stalemate in its confrontation with the world’s most powerful military.

“The US has yet to learn that bullying and breaking its commitments no longer come without a cost. Let me be clear: If you strike, you will be struck back,” Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad ​Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on X.

“The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened only under Iranian arrangements, not through US threats.”

US-Iran diplomacy falling through, Trump says MoU ‘over’

However, the US leader, who was attending a NATO summit in Turkey, also said he did not think the latest military strikes would escalate into a full-fledged conflict with Iran.

“Anything that happens is going to be over very quickly… and will only make it safer, including for oil,” he told reporters in Ankara.

Asked before the NATO summit on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding with Iran was over, Trump said: “It’s a very interesting question. To me, I think it’s ​over. I don’t want to deal with them.”

Jonah Davidov and Shoshana Baker contributed to this report. 

US President Donald Trump’s ‘Trump Accounts’ have officially launched this week, with supporters of the program ranging from the founder of Dell Technologies to rapper Nicki Minaj, who was welcomed by the president at the White House as he celebrated his new initiative.

The program will provide US citizens born between 2025 and 2028 a government-funded investment account of $1,000 that families can build on, adding a new savings vehicle to a raft of other tax-efficient college savings plans and retirement accounts.

In celebration of the first trading day for Trump accounts, the president  rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from the White House, and hosted lunch for supporters of his plan, including Minaj, who herself has pledged between $150,000 and $300,000 to “the children of her incredible fans.”

Trump, Minaj have become fans of each other during president’s second term

“She’s a big Trump supporter or Trump fan. Nicki makes a lot of money, and she’s generously stepping up,” Trump said in January.

Minaj, who was critical of Trump during his first term over his immigration policies, has since declared herself “probably the president’s number one fan.”

For his part, Trump has shared his love for the rapper, calling her “so hot” and “respected” during Monday’s event.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court blocked Walla from advancing planned layoffs and organizational changes before completing talks with the Union for Journalists in Israel, rejecting the company’s request to prevent the union from taking organizational action over the dispute.

In a decision issued on Wednesday, Senior Judge Kamel Abou Kaoud ruled that Walla had not fulfilled its duty to hold genuine consultations with the union before moving ahead with what the company described as an efficiency plan – a cost-cutting process that included restructuring parts of the company and reducing staff.

The decision explained that, in a unionized workplace, a company cannot move forward with layoffs and major structural changes before giving the workers’ representatives the information needed to understand the plan, question it, and suggest alternatives.

Should Walla still choose to pursue the plan, the court said, it must first complete the process set out in its collective agreement with the union. That includes providing relevant financial and organizational information, including the economic basis for the cuts, the savings the company seeks, the alternatives it considered, and the criteria used to decide which workers would be affected.

The dispute began after Walla informed the union in May, during discussions on another matter, that it intended to carry out an efficiency plan involving organizational changes and workforce reductions. The union asked for data that it said was necessary to understand the plan, its scope, and its justification, but the talks did not lead to agreement.

The dispute began in May when discussions discussed prospective layoffs and workplace changes

Walla argued that it had provided the information required at that stage and that other material was commercially sensitive. The union argued that the company had withheld essential information and was seeking to present workers with decisions that had already been made.

The court sided mainly with the union.

“Consultation is not tested by the number of meetings held, nor by the amount of time devoted to negotiations,” the court said. “The question is substantive: whether the workers’ organization was given a real opportunity to understand the basis on which the efficiency plan rests, examine its necessity and propose alternatives.”

The court said that question could not be answered in the affirmative.

According to the decision, Walla did not provide sufficient information about its economic condition, the size of the financial cut it sought to achieve, the expected savings from layoffs, the alternatives considered before deciding to reduce staff, or the criteria used to determine which workers would be affected.

Without those details, the court said, the union could not fulfill its role.

“One cannot propose an alternative without knowing the economic target the company seeks to achieve,” the decision said. “One cannot propose another mechanism for reducing expenses without knowing the scope of the savings sought.”

The court also rejected Walla’s attempt to separate the organizational restructuring from the layoffs, saying that the two were intertwined in practice. Even if a company can make structural changes as part of its managerial authority, the court said, those changes triggered the consultation mechanism because they were tied to workforce reductions and directly affected organized workers.

The ruling emphasized that employers generally have the authority to run their businesses, reorganize, and make cost-cutting decisions. But that authority is not unlimited in a unionized workplace. Where a collective agreement requires consultation before layoffs, the company must conduct a real process in good faith before making irreversible decisions.

The court also rejected Walla’s reliance on the collective agreement’s “industrial quiet” clause – a provision meant to prevent labor disruptions while the agreement is in force – to block union action.

Industrial quiet, the court said, is not a one-sided obligation imposed only on workers. It is part of a wider set of mutual commitments: the union is expected not to take disruptive action on matters covered by the agreement, while the company is expected to follow the agreement’s procedures, including consultation and disclosure of relevant information.

Accepting Walla’s position, the court said, would lead to a harsh result: an employer could refuse to provide information, advance a cost-cutting plan unilaterally, create irreversible facts on the ground, and at the same time prevent the union from using organizational tools to enforce the agreement.

Such an interpretation, the court said, would turn industrial quiet into a “one-way undertaking.”

A clear business justification for the efficiency plan must be presented

The court further noted that Walla had claimed a clear business justification for the efficiency plan, but had not presented the court with financial statements, forecasts, revenue-decline data, a savings target, alternatives considered, or the data used to draw up the list of affected workers.

The panel acknowledged that some of the information sought may be commercially sensitive, but said that did not erase Walla’s obligation to provide relevant information. The parties may use confidentiality mechanisms, including professional representatives, to protect sensitive material, the court said.

However, the court rejected the idea that Walla could show the data only to a financial expert on behalf of the union, who would then relay only general conclusions. The right to consultation belongs to the workers’ organization itself, the court said, not to an accountant or outside expert acting in its place.

The court therefore ordered Walla to refrain, at this stage, from making or implementing irreversible decisions regarding layoffs, organizational changes, or other parts of the efficiency plan until the consultation process is completed.

The parties were ordered to continue talks in good faith. If they failed to reach an agreement within 30 days from service of the decision, then either side may return to court.

A hearing in the main proceeding was set for August 25.

Clashes broke out during a Knesset House Committee debate on the Basic Law: Torah Study bill on Thursday after combat veterans confronted haredi (ultra-Orthodox) lawmakers demanding that the government address their needs and provide greater support for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before advancing the contentious legislation.

The group of combat veterans stood up and approached the lawmakers directly. One of the veterans, Yossi Sardi, left his seat and confronted United Torah Judaism leader MK Yitzhak Goldknopf, shouting that legislation should be passed to support IDF soldiers rather than advancing the bill.

Another combat veteran told the committee that the country’s political leadership had been delaying proper support for IDF veterans and soldiers for six years.

“You’ve been making promises for six years; how much is too much?” he said. “We’ve paid with our blood.”

Due to the outburst, the meeting had to be stopped and went on a break before returning to continue deliberating the legislation. 

🏛️סערה בוועדת הכנסת |

הלומי קרב קטעו את הדיון בחוק יסוד: לימוד תורה כשהתפרצו לכיוון חברי הכנסת בדרישה לשנות את נוסח החוק@OfirKatzMK @Meravbenari @pnina_tamano_sh @DOVRUTGoldknopf https://t.co/faMPJhF5yW pic.twitter.com/5ALlvLwFhm

— ערוץ כנסת 99 (@KnessetT) July 9, 2026

Soldiers must be prioritized, Veterans tell Knesset 

Earlier in the meeting, Einav Danino, the mother of Ori Danino, who was murdered in Hamas captivity, told the panel that soldiers must be prioritized, speaking on how the IDF had brought the remains of her son back to her from Gaza.

 “My Ori was murdered after 11 months in captivity, and I live with that pain thanks to the soldiers who brought him back to me, and they carry that burden with them. I would never have gotten Ori back without them,” she said.

The House Committee had convened to hear revisions on the contentious bill that seeks to enshrine Torah study as a fundamental value in the country’s Basic Law, ahead of its final second and third readings. 

The bill is part of a proposal that critics argue encourages draft evasion and changes the status of yeshiva students who do not serve, enabling them to continue receiving state benefits.

The revisions came after the Knesset legal adviser, Sagit Afik, warned this week that the legislation, in its current wording, could provide haredim who evade military service with benefits, such as scholarships for academic aid, that are similar to those available to IDF reservists.

Following the legal warnings, MK Moshe Gafni, leader of the haredi Degel HaTorah faction, demanded on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advance the bill unchanged.

Ganfi’s demand threatened to stall the bill, which the haredi parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – have been pushing for, causing tensions in Netanyahu’s coalition ahead of the Knesset’s expected last week to advance legislation.

Coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud), who chairs the House Committee where the legislation is being advanced, said that lawmakers were able to submit reservations about the bill. 

His remarks raised the possibility that disagreements over the bill could prevent it from advancing.

The bill is part of a series of haredi-backed bills being advanced, amid numerous reports of agreements between the haredi parties and Netanyahu.

The coalition has been pushing a legislative blitz ahead of the Knesset’s final week of its summer session to advance as much legislation as possible before the upcoming elections.

The haredi parties boycotted coalition voting last month – stalling coalition bills – arguing that their legislation was not being advanced quickly enough.

Separate legislation would temporarily freeze arrests of haredi draft evaders

Among the most controversial haredi-backed legislation is the Basic Law: Torah Study bill, as well as separate legislation that would temporarily freeze the arrests of haredi draft evaders.

The bill to freeze such arrests will continue to be debated in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday after a week of marathon meetings on the matter.

The Basic Law: Torah study bill proposal emphasizes that Torah study is “a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel.”

It proposes that the country recognize “Torah study as a fundamental value in the State of Israel in order to create a balance of justice in relation to other fundamental values in the state.”

The existing wording, enshrined in the country’s Basic Law, is expected to facilitate the granting of benefits and rights to haredi men who evade service.

There had also previously been contentious wording in the bill’s proposal that equated those who study Torah with those who serve in the IDF. This comparison has since been removed from the new draft of the legislation.

Critics argue that the legislation could implicitly allow the comparison despite the change in wording. Lawmakers in Netanyahu’s coalition have publicly opposed the legislation and voted against it.

Netanyahu arrived at the plenum last week to vote in favor of the legislation when it passed its first reading.

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

In March, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said the IDF could soon collapse if no solution was found for the manpower shortage.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon has requested the full release of all communications between Pramilla Patten, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to “expose” the Secretary-General’s influence over her decision to include Israel on the UN blacklist.

At the end of May 2026, the United Nations added Israeli entities to a blacklist of countries that commit sexual violence in conflict zones, a list which includes Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Israel alleged that heavy pressure was exerted on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to include Israel on the list following Hamas’s inclusion.

During Wednesday’s Security Council discussion, Danon strongly condemned Patten’s conduct in producing the report.

“She caved to the Secretary General. She was not a bystander in this shameful process. She gave it credibility, she defended it. And when asked whether she had seen the evidence with her own eyes, she answered, ‘No, because this is not my job.’ She also said: ‘It is not the responsibility of my office to do any verification.'”

Danon also pointed out that the report cites 13 alleged incidents attributed to Israel in 2025, while other conflicts documented in the report contain thousands of cases.

Danon demands full release of communication between Patten and Guterres

Patten defended the decision, saying the list is not intended to be political, but rather a preventive tool.

She maintained the accusations against Israel, claiming that sexual violence continues in detention facilities, at checkpoints, and during military operations, with victims being pressured not to file complaints.

Danon proceeded to demand the full release of all communication between Patten and Guterres.

“You will release the email. You will reveal the pressure. You will admit what really happened.”

He argued that the only reason for Israel’s inclusion on the list was because Guterres wanted it to be as his “final chapter” before leaving the post in a few months.

“If you have nothing to hide, show us,” Danon said. “Prove that this decision was not fast-tracked. Prove that there was no political pressure. In the interest of transparency, release your communications with the Secretary-General.”

“Any credible institution should not be scared of transparency. You tried to stain Israel. But the stain is not on Israel. It is on this report. It is on this process. Ms. Patten, the stain is on you,” he said.

He proceeded to call for Patten’s resignation: “You could have defended the independence of your mandate. You could have resigned. You failed to do so then, you should resign now.”

President Isaac Herzog met Thursday with Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head David Zini, warning that hostile actors in Israel and abroad were seeking to undermine the integrity of the country’s upcoming election.

The meeting, held at the President’s Residence and convened at Zini’s initiative, focused on preparations for the next national election and on coordination between state bodies to ensure a secure, fair and trusted vote. Herzog said the meeting was meant to give backing to the Central Elections Committee and ensure that the election would be held “according to the rules and according to the law.”

“Elections are not a civil war,” Herzog said. “Elections are a social, democratic and political process, very significant and important in the life of a nation.”

He warned that Israel faces “many hostile foreign digital influences,” as well as actors “from within, and especially from outside,” who seek to harm election integrity and “break apart our society.”

“We are here to guarantee that this will not happen,” Herzog said.

Zini said the Shin Bet’s election-related work would be carried out under Sohlberg’s authority.

“When it comes to elections, the Shin Bet is directly subordinate to the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, in order to do everything in our power to maintain the statesmanship and integrity of the elections,” Zini said.

Sohlberg, who also serves as deputy president of the Supreme Court, said election integrity was the committee’s central concern.

“We want election day to be not only a day of elections, but also a holiday of elections,” he said.

Sohlberg said the committee currently has 60 employees, will later grow to 1,300, and on election day will reach 90,000 workers. He said the committee was aware of the challenges ahead, but stressed that its employees were working professionally and intensively to prepare.

Election set for October 27

Israel’s next election is currently scheduled for October 27, 2026, unless the Knesset passes a dissolution law setting an earlier date.

The warning came two days after outgoing State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman published a special audit finding that Israel still has no national policy or designated government body leading the response to foreign influence campaigns in the digital sphere.

The report said election periods are especially vulnerable to attempts to manipulate public debate, deepen social divisions, and undermine trust in election results. It also found gaps in coordination between the bodies handling such threats, no formal mechanism for the public or civil society groups to report suspected foreign influence campaigns, and no permanent government body responsible for public awareness on the issue.

Yesh Atid MKs demand committee deal with foreign election interference

Separately on Thursday, Yesh Atid MKs Karin Elharrar and Vladimir Beliak wrote to Sohlberg demanding that the committee urgently formulate a policy for dealing with foreign influence attempts online ahead of the election for the 26th Knesset.

The MKs said the comptroller’s report presented an “extremely worrying picture” of the state’s preparedness for the campaign. They warned that the lack of one coordinating body and the absence of a clear national policy could harm election integrity and citizens’ ability to form their opinions freely.

They also cited a September 2024 text-message attack described in the comptroller’s report, in which some five million messages were sent to Israelis by actors identified with Hezbollah and Iran, including messages that mimicked emergency alerts in an effort to influence public opinion and sow panic.

Elharrar and Beliak called for the committee to implement the comptroller’s recommendations, draft procedures for monitoring and thwarting foreign influence on social media, strengthen public information efforts, and establish a dedicated interministerial team with relevant security, cyber and legal bodies.

They warned that, given the comptroller’s finding that 58% of Israelis get most of their information from social media, the absence of organized preparation could seriously harm Israeli democracy and the integrity of the election.

There is a war taking place in Israel today. It is not the war most people are watching. It is not being fought by two armies facing each other across a battlefield. It is a one-sided war, waged openly by right-wing extremists and their violent settler agents against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Palestinians are the immediate victims. Their homes, fields, cars, olive trees, livestock, villages, and daily lives are under attack. Families are being frightened off their land. Shepherds are being driven from grazing areas. Farmers are prevented from reaching their fields. Water supplies are being cut off. Entire communities are forced to live under constant threat.

But we Israelis must understand something deeper and more frightening: The Palestinians are the victims, but the target is liberal democratic Israel.

This is a war against the rule of law, against equality, against human dignity, against the authority of the courts, against the army as a state institution, and against the idea that the state must serve all of its citizens rather than one messianic cause – creating the kingdom of God.

The political right-wing extremists and their violent settler agents and soldiers do not want the Israel promised in our Declaration of Independence. They do not want a state based on freedom, justice, peace, and equality. They want a messianic, religious, halachic kingdom of God. They want sovereignty without democracy, Judaism without morality, power without restraint, and land without Palestinians.

For them, even the current reality is only a stage on the way to their largest religious project: changing the status quo on the Temple Mount by destroying the mosques and rebuilding the Temple.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and those who share his ideology are not merely expanding settlements and building new facts on the ground. They are advancing a revolutionary project. There are no secrets. The plan was written and published years ago by Smotrich himself.

Their goal is to replace democratic Israel with a religious-nationalist regime in which Jewish supremacy becomes law, Palestinian existence is treated as a problem to be removed, and liberal Israelis are dismissed as traitors, anarchists, or obstacles to be defeated.

The true extent of the danger of settler violence

This is why settler violence is not a side issue. It is not “hilltop youth” misbehavior. It is not the work of a few wild boys or a handful of rogue ranchers. It is not marginal. It is the street-level expression of an ideology that now sits inside the government of Israel, the Israeli army, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and soon deep inside our judicial system.

It is strategic, systematic, and advancing according to plan. Its representatives control key levers of state power: the Finance Ministry, the Civil Administration, large parts of the policing system in the West Bank, and growing influence inside the army and the security establishment. They do not need to overthrow the state from the outside. They are hollowing it out from within.

They are moving forward all the time, and they are succeeding. Tens of Palestinian communities have already been displaced. Hundreds of new settlements have been established. Settler control has expanded over vast areas of the West Bank through outposts, farms, roads, security zones, infrastructure, intimidation, and direct violence. More and more land is being brought violently under their control while the Israeli public barely notices.

This is how they are defeating us.

When Palestinians are attacked and the state does not protect them, Israel is being changed. When soldiers protect settlers while settlers rampage, Israel is being changed. When ministers justify, excuse, or encourage this violence, Israel is being changed.

When the state connects settlements and outposts – even those illegal under Israeli law – to water, electricity, roads, and security, Israel is being changed. When the law is applied differently to Jews and Palestinians, democracy is being hollowed out from within. 

Israel cannot remain democratic while tolerating violence carried out in the name of Judaism and Jewish land. A Jewish state cannot remain morally Jewish while allowing Jews to terrorize another people. A free society cannot survive when violent extremists are permitted to rule by fear because their violence serves a larger ideological goal.

We must be clear: Opposing violent settlers is not anti-Israel. It is an act of loyalty to Israel. Defending Palestinians from settler terror is not only a Palestinian cause. It is an Israeli democratic necessity. It is also a Jewish necessity, because Judaism that becomes a tool of domination, revenge, and supremacy is not the Judaism that can sustain a moral national home for the Jewish people.

The struggle today is not only between Israelis and Palestinians. It is also between two visions of Israel. One vision is democratic, Jewish, liberal, pluralistic, humane, and committed to the rule of law. The other is messianic, supremacist, authoritarian, and violent. One vision understands that Jewish self-determination must be joined to moral responsibility. The other believes that Jewish power cancels the rights of others.

The right-wing extremist politicians and their violent settler agents know what they are fighting for. They are organized, determined, and protected. They have an ideology, a strategy, political leadership, rabbis who give religious language to their actions, ministers who open doors for them inside the state, and an army that too often protects them rather than restrains them. They are not waiting for permission from the Israeli majority. They are moving forward.

What about us? The majority of Israelis want quiet. We want to live our lives, raise our children, recover from trauma, and avoid another internal battle. Many of us speak of a desire for unity. Many of us do not see what is happening in the hills and valleys of the West Bank. Many of us prefer not to see it. Some of us tell ourselves that it is far away, that it concerns only Palestinians, or that the army and police know what they are doing.

But silence is not neutrality. Silence is surrender.

While the majority of us look away, a determined minority is reshaping our country. While we Israelis argue about politics as usual, this war is being fought with almost no resistance from those who claim to care about Israel’s democratic future.

The question is whether we understand what we are losing.

We are losing the rule of law. We are losing the moral authority of the army. We are losing the possibility of future peace. We are losing our standing in the world. We are losing the Judaism of human dignity. We are losing the Israel that promised equality to all its citizens and sought peace with its neighbors.

If we do not stop them, the Palestinians will continue to suffer first. But Israel – democratic Israel, liberal Israel, decent Israel, the Israel that still has a chance to live in peace with its neighbors – may be the final casualty.

This is a war. It is time for democratic Israelis to understand that we are already in it.

Norwegian police have dismissed a complaint against a university professor who called the October 7 massacre “the most beautiful thing that has happened in our century,” The Jerusalem Post has learned on Thursday.

The Post previously reported on the incident in May 2026, when Bassam Hussein, a project management professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, made the comments during an April 21 lecture organized by the Socialist Forum.

At the time, Vikas Thakur, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at NTNU, told the Post that NTNU was not responsible for the event, as it was held at a venue outside the university campus.

When asked whether NTNU considers Hussein’s statements to be glorification of terror, Thakur said “We understand that the statement may be perceived that way” but that “he spoke as an individual citizen with a background from Gaza, not on behalf of the university.”

Anti-antisemitism activist group StoppNRK then lodged a complaint against Husseein with Norwegian police.

Case dismissed because conduct is not criminal offense

On Thursday, Investigator Arild Hansen and Prosecutor Sunniva Tronvoll notified StoppNRK that the case has been dismissed because “the reported conduct is not considered a criminal offense.”

In the letter, seen by the Post, the police inform StoppNRK that the dismissal may be appealed to the nearest higher prosecuting authority. The deadline for filing an appeal is three weeks.

On Elpeleg, the head of StoppNRK, said: “This effectively means that the genocidal organization Hamas, in theory and in practice, is de facto accepted in Norway.”

“We must appeal this decision. It is no longer safe for Jews — or others — in Norway.”

In a recent article published in this newspaper, Yisrael Medad inadvertently captured the central crisis facing Israeli archaeology today. In just a few short paragraphs, he demonstrated exactly how the discipline is being hijacked by messianic extremists. These actors are doing everything in their power to weaponize archaeology, transforming it from a scientific tool for understanding the region’s diverse history into a political mechanism to dispossess Palestinians and violate both Israeli and international law.

Medad is, in fact, an expert in this weaponization. A quick look at his biography reveals that in 1981 he moved to the settlement of Shiloh – established two years earlier under the guise of an “archaeological camp” to thwart the ongoing peace negotiations with Egypt.

While the settlers failed to derail that historic peace agreement, they have spent the decades since perfecting the use of archaeology to promote their messianic ideology and sabotage future diplomatic efforts. Their crowning achievement is the creation of the “archaeological settlement.”

The weaponization of archaeology 

Pioneered by the Elad Foundation, this model has for the past 30 years been evolving at the archaeological site in Silwan to become a tourist attraction that ostensibly tells the story of ancient Jerusalem. In reality, archaeology serves as a facade for displacing the local Palestinian community.

Over the past decade, this model has been replicated across the West Bank, making archaeology an integral tool for violating Palestinian rights and creeping toward de facto annexation.

For years, much of Israel’s archaeological community served as a silent accomplice to this weaponization. Many professionals believed that if they stuck to their research and avoided politics, the settlers would view them as a strategic asset and leave them alone.

But as demonstrated in the past four years, the messianic Right now demands active ideological submission: In April 2025, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu – a member of the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party – said that he will not allow the 49th Annual Archaeological Congress of the Israel Exploration Society to take place in the IAA headquarters unless a professor critical of politicized archaeology was banned from participation.

Since August 2024, the Knesset has advanced a bill utilizing archaeology as a pretext for West Bank annexation. In May, the same minister appointed Esti Schreiber to manage the Israel Antiquities Authority, despite her being glaringly underqualified for the role. Since then, the proposed appointment was canceled by the Senior Appointments Committee in Israel due to lack of compliance with the threshold conditions for the role. 

The common denominator in these maneuvers is not the protection of heritage. Rather, they expose a political faction willing to sacrifice the professional credibility and international standing of Israeli archaeology on the altar of political gain.

Pushback from the archaeological community

Fortunately, the archaeological community is finally waking up. Their recent pushback played a crucial role in thwarting some of these threats, proving that professionals can indeed defend their discipline when they choose to.

The Israel Exploration Society – with the backing of the rest of the archaeological community – decided to conduct the conference in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem rather than ban a fellow archaeologist just because he was critical of the minister’s ideology.

Members of the archaeological community openly objected to the bill to use archaeology as a first step for the annexation of the West Bank throughout the proceedings conducted in the Knesset, as well as to Schreiber’s appointment as the new director of the IAA.

As Medad inadvertently highlighted, archaeology is at a crossroads. Down one path lies complete submission to political benefactors. This route would strip the discipline of its ability to conduct critical research, deepening its isolation from the international academic community.

If the settlers complete their attempt to annex the discipline, Israeli archaeologists would be left to collaborate solely with religious institutions specializing in pseudo-archaeology – groups whose goal is not to uncover historical truth but to corroborate the New Testament and hasten Armageddon. (Tellingly, the only international participants in the “international” conference Medad recently attended were Evangelical representatives.)

It should be stressed that this isn’t even just my opinion. In a recent interview to Makor Rishon, the deputy manager of the Staff Officer for Archaeology stated that “researchers are fleeing Judea and Samaria like wildfire, we are in a free fall.” 

Down the other path lies the courageous, less-trodden route that some archaeologists have cautiously begun to navigate this past year. It will not be easy. It requires fighting not only for the integrity of the profession but against its use as an instrument of dispossession and messianic fervor. Time will tell which path the Israeli archaeological community will choose.  

The writer is an archaeologist and head of research at Emek Shaveh. 

The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has remained stable throughout the ceasefire period between Israel and Hamas, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced on Thursday.

In its report, COGAT stated that the amount of food and other humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza Strip between October 2025 and June 2026 had “significantly exceeded” the amounts that the United Nations had identified as necessary for the population.

According to COGAT, approximately 1.78 million tons of food entered the Gaza Strip during that time period, which is over three times more than the requirements set by the World Food Programme (WFP).

COGAT also reported that food prices in Gaza had declined by 72% between September 2025 and May 2026, reflecting the amount of food entering. Price levels, COGAT’s report also stated, are mainly influenced by taxes imposed by Hamas and other internal market conditions.

The report also examined the field of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in the Gaza Strip, concluding that the amount of water supplied exceeded 70,000 cubic meters per day, which COGAT stated was more than sufficient by international humanitarian standards.

In addition, over 18,000 tons of medicine and medical supplies entered Gaza since the beginning of the ceasefire, and hospital bed capacity increased by over 55%. 

Hamas attempting to distort humanitarian picture, COGAT says

COGAT Chief Major-General Yoram Halevy, stated that the report had been published due to attempts by Hamas and other actors to “distort the humanitarian picture in the Gaza Strip.”

The data are clear, Halevy stated, adding, “Anyone who ignores these facts is amplifying Hamas propaganda, which exploits the humanitarian space for its military and governing purposes.”

Likud MK Nissim Vaturi (Likud) called Democrats lawmaker MK Naama Lazimi “worse than Hamas” during a Kol Barama interview on Thursday, facing immediate backlash and calls to be investigated for incitement to violence.

Vaturi commented that Lazimi’s character would make her a successful candidate in Hamas elections in the Gaza Strip. “That’s her character; she is unable to run in Israel,” he said in an interview on Kol Barama.

When questioned on this, he responded that “Anyone who harms the State of Israel from within is even worse than this. Our enemies are inside the state, inside our soft belly, inside the Knesset.”

Lazimi calls for investigation into Likud lawmaker

In response, Lazimi called on Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to open an immediate criminal investigation into Vaturi for “serious incitement to violence.”

“Vaturi’s words are blood libel and incitement to violence. When the deputy speaker of the Knesset compares a public representative to Hamas terrorists, he marks them as a target, and God forbid, lays groundwork for the next political murder,” Lazimi said.

“The coalition of lawlessness is trying to act with terror, but their threats will not stop our public struggle. I demand that the law enforcement system wake up and stop this madness immediately before it is too late,” she added.

נתניהו ואנשיו סימנו מטרה על הגב שלי. ממשלת המשתמטים והמחדל מזמינים את הרצח הפוליטי הבא. הדם שלנו על הידיים שלהם.

הממשלה הזאת סימנה על הגב שלי מטרה, זה התחיל עם משטרה פוליטית שמכה אותי ברחובות בניגוד לחסינות, המשיך בשר משפטים שאיים עליי וחבר כנסת שקרא לירות בי ברגליים רק שבוע… pic.twitter.com/wzwSZgJF5L

— Naama Lazimi – נעמה לזימי (@naamalazimi) July 9, 2026

“Netanyahu and his people have put a target on my back. The government of draft dodgers and failures is inviting the next political assassination. Our blood is on their hands,” she wrote on X/Twitter.

“This government has put a target on my back; it started with a politicized police force that beats me in the streets in violation of immunity, continued with an attorney general who threatened me and a Knesset member who called to shoot me in the legs just a week ago, and now this. It’s not me they’re trying to intimidate, but the entire liberal camp and everyone who opposes the government,” she added.

“Likud has turned into a bankrupt mafia; they have nothing to sell, so they resort to incitement and violence against those the Israeli public wants to replace them. The Hamas coalition is an asset that transferred suitcases of money to Hamas, trying to set the country ablaze again and crush Israel’s democratic regime,” she said.

“They won’t shy away from any means to break us, and we won’t give up, we’ll bring the change. I will continue to fight in the most resolute and determined way for the State of Israel and the Israeli public. They won’t scare me, they won’t stop us, they won’t prevent the change,” her X post concluded.

‘Incendiary, shameful, crosses every red line,’ Gantz denounces Vaturi’s statement

Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz also denounced Vaturi, saying his statements were “incendiary, shameful, and crossed every red line.”

“Statements like these are violence in every sense, and in the reality we live in, they can also lead to physical violence,” Gantz wrote on X.

“How can one even compare a Knesset member in Israel to those who massacred us, murdered, raped, and kidnapped our citizens and seek to destroy us?” he queried.

האמירה של ניסים ואטורי מסיתה, מבישה וחוצה כל קו אדום. אמירות כאלה הן אלימות לכל דבר, ובמציאות שבה אנו חיים הן עלולות גם להוביל לאלימות פיזית.

איך בכלל אפשר להשוות חברת כנסת בישראל למי שטבחו בנו, רצחו, אנסו וחטפו את אזרחינו ומבקשים להשמיד אותנו?

אני קורא לכל נבחרי הציבור, מכל…

— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) July 9, 2026

“I call on all elected public officials, from every corner of the political system, to condemn these remarks and draw a clear line: This is not how discourse is conducted in the State of Israel. People like Nissim Vaturi must return to the margins from which they came, and the public discourse in Israel must change,” he added.

Haredi MK’s recent calls for Lazimi to be shot for protesting against gov’t policies

Lazimi was also threatened by MK Yitzhak Pindrus (United Torah Judaism), who on June 29 suggested that she be shot in the legs for “blocking the road” during a Knesset Education Committee discussion regarding the gender segregation law in academia.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

This week I found myself in Petah Tikva. Looking for a place to have lunch, I searched through a list of sushi restaurants in the area. Some of the country’s best sushi can be found in Tel Aviv and Herzliya. I settled on a place in nearby Ramat HaHayel. As I drove there, I was struck by the amount of new construction. It seemed that every street had new towers going up, new parks, and a long list of companies sprouting up to rent the emerging office space. The street level was eateries.

This is Israel after more than 1,000 days of a multi-front war. It’s a dynamic, rapidly growing country with a strong economy. Defense exports are at an all-time high. The defense budget is also burgeoning. If one reads the headlines, one might think everything is doom and gloom and lurching from crisis to crisis. No doubt, at the political level, and sometimes in international relations, things are lurching from crisis to crisis. However, the overall picture is positive.

This week Rahm Emanuel came to Israel. The former ambassador to Japan and former mayor of Chicago is a key figure in the US Democratic Party. He was US President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010. He spoke at Tel Aviv University this week and wrote on X/Twitter that “Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have led Israel into a dead end.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have led Israel into a dead end.

For too long, the United States has confused being a strong ally with being a silent one. A blank check has come without expectations, accountability, or consequences.

That approach has allowed Prime… pic.twitter.com/hBiNq1Wk6R

— Rahm Emanuel (@RahmEmanuel) July 8, 2026

Emanuel argued that Israel has received a kind of “blank check” of support from the US. This has “come without expectations, accountability, or consequences.”

This argument has been made before and sits at the crossroads of which policy works best in the US-Israel relationship. The discussion about the speech seems to be whether Israel needs more “tough love” or more unconditional love.

One might be forgiven for not recalling that, back in the era when Israel received essential US support from independence in 1948 through the Clinton years, the relationship was not often discussed in terms of unconditional support.

“The strongest alliances are built on honesty, shared values, and the willingness to tell each other hard truths. It’s time for a fundamentally new approach to the US-Israel relationship – one that advances Israel’s security, Palestinian’s right to self-determination, and the Arab world’s desire for regional stability,” Emanuel said.

Some of the reactions to this have argued that it’s not fair to Israel. Israel is under threat. Israel faces “genocidal Islamists.”

The fact is that this kind of reaction may exaggerate the danger. The genocidal Islamists, such as Hamas, were appeased by Israel for too long. The way they turned Gaza into a terror stronghold was tragically the result of bad policies enacted in Jerusalem. Policies enabled Hamas to grow after it illegally took over Gaza in 2007. Those who said Hamas was a threat before October 7 were dismissed. The 3D chess policy of enabling cash to go to Hamas and letting it wage numerous wars every year so that the conflict could be “managed” led to disaster.

Hamas appeasement forced Israel to evacuate its communities

The appeasement of Hamas, which was a choice in Jerusalem, was also part of a broader policy that tolerated Hezbollah growing into a major threat. After the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel had to evacuate communities around Gaza and also in northern Israel. This was unprecedented.

Israel was so concerned that it couldn’t wage a two-front war and protect its people that it had to evacuate more than 100 communities, including the cities of Sderot and Kiryat Shmona. Israel had never done this before. In the era of David Ben-Gurion, Israel never evacuated civilians. Was Israel more safe and secure in 1953 than in 2023?

The Gaza border communities subjected to massacre on October 7 and then evacuated were mostly established in the 1950s, and they were carved out under threats. Many factors led Israel to have to evacuate people in 2023. Today’s tactics in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon are a result of those failures.

None of this is a result of Israel’s enemies being stronger; it is a result of Israel being stronger but underestimating the enemy. Strong countries, like strong companies or strong sports teams, learn from failure.

The challenge for Israel is often misunderstood today. Israel is not more vulnerable than in the 1950s. It is not more isolated and threatened. Israel has thrived from the 1950s to today, under different types of threats. The correct understanding of Emanuel’s speech is not to dismiss it, or claim that he doesn’t understand the threats Israel faces. The better response is that Israel is a very strong country today. It is growing, and its largest challenge is actually managing that strength.

The failure of October 7 was not about Israel being incapable of defeating Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran. It was about Israel being very capable, and yet hubris led to disaster.

This is a recurring pattern for strong and developing countries. Their main challenge is not adversaries but rather their own internal policies and choices about what kind of country they want to be.

It’s no surprise that Israel and Turkey appear to often be at loggerheads. Both countries are very strong and have a sense of identity and national ideology. In terms of their trajectory from being nationalist, secular countries with forms of socialism to becoming more religious and with pretensions to expand further, the countries have a lot in common.

This may lead to a clash, as some predict. If so, it would be due to failure to manage their strength and growth. This is the famous “Thucydides Trap” coined by political scientist Graham Allison. Athens and Sparta chose a path to war not because they were threatened or weak, but because they were strong and misjudged the future.

Israel’s real challenge is managing its strength, not its vulnerabilities

Israel’s problem is not really what will happen in US politics. Israel’s challenge is primarily how it will manage its own strength. Perceptions among some commentators that Israel is still in the 1950s, that it is surrounded and under some existential threat, are misplaced. In the two rounds of conflict with Iran, for instance, Israel achieved air superiority over Iran.

There is a perception that if the US-Israel relationship is not one of unconditional support, that somehow the alliance is at huge risk. In essence, that means that anyone transported back to the 1980s, when the Reagan or George H.W. Bush administrations were more critical but supportive of Israel, would conclude the relationship was very bad. This kind of expectation leads to all sorts of misplaced pessimism.

The US has already reduced the warmth it shows toward other allies. The expectation that Israel will receive either complete support or that there is an existential crisis creates an impossible burden on the relationship. A healthier understanding of the relationship would pose the question more in line with Israel’s strength and the fact that healthy alliances may also have disagreements.

A confident Israel that recognizes its strengths and the limitations of that strength will be more confident in its future ties with the US and other countries.

There is a tendency to view many of Israel’s friendships abroad as a zero-sum game. Either it’s perfect, or it’s bad. This isn’t always the fault of Israel. Other countries have adopted domestic politics that lead to broad swings in policy. One party comes to power and supports Israel, another party comes to power and doesn’t.

This lurching back and forth isn’t ideal in foreign policy. It creates a lot of uncertainty. This kind of uncertainty seems built into discussions about what Emanuel’s speech says about the future of the Democratic Party and Israel ties in the US. A more reasonable discussion would note that Israel’s larger challenge is going to be managing its own strength and deciding what kind of country it wants to be. Does it want to be the dynamic economy on display in places like Ramat HaHayel, or does it want to be distracted by extremism that is ripping at the fabric of the state?