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Disputes between US President Donald Trump and other NATO leaders showed the alliance’s democratic strength and should serve as a lesson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday after a summit in Ankara.

In an interview with Reuters, Rutte also said he saw no need to change how he deals with Trump, despite accusations that he lavishes praise on the US president and fails to push back against his criticism of allies.

“They knew what they got when they hired me, and I’m who I am,” he said. “If people are doing good stuff, I will say so. If I do not agree, I will also say so, but then probably not out in the open, and try to maintain the unity of the alliance.”

Trump rattled the summit by publicly threatening to cut trade ties with Spain, reviving differences over the war in Iran and renewing claims to Greenland, before later recommitting to the alliance and saying there was “a lot of love” and unity among its 32 leaders.

Rutte speaks on NATO’s deterrence, Russia

Asked what message the infighting sent to Russia’s leader and whether it undermined NATO’s message of deterrence, Rutte said: “I would say to Putin: You should have some more discussions yourself, out in the open.”

NATO identifies Russia as the biggest threat to the security of its members, who have boosted defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“What he (Putin) has seen now is sometimes allies disagreeing a bit, having a bit of a quarrel, and then coming together and reuniting,” Rutte said.

Rutte said the ability to argue openly and then converge around a common purpose was “what distinguishes democracies” from countries such as Russia, China and Iran.

Israel’s New York Consulate will reopen on Thursday, with police approval, following safety issues at a nearby building, Walla learned on Wednesday.

Consular employees were evacuated from the 2nd Avenue building on Tuesday after being alerted that the nearby building was at risk of collapsing, with Consul-General Ofir Akunis noting that “all consulate employees were evacuated safely.”

Officials said the nearby 37-story building, currently being converted from an office building to residential apartments, was deemed a safety risk after its support beams began buckling.

New York City Fire Department officials responding to the scene found two buckled columns on the 21st and 22nd floors of the 42nd Street building, with multiple floors sagging as a result.

Besides the consulate, other nearby buildings, including a school, were evacuated, and streets were closed to pedestrian and vehicle traffic, with no injuries reported.

Mamdani: Building ‘remains unstable’

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke to reporters at the scene on Tuesday, saying that the building “remains unstable.”

The mayor noted that the concern was the building’s continuous movement hours after the incident began.

According to Mamdani, a team of emergency responders and engineers was working to access and secure the site.

“If the floor is deemed to be secure, engineers will enter and begin shoring up the building as we await the arrival of materials that will stabilize the building,” he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) will fail if implemented, as only an emirate-style system in which local clans govern independent districts within the territory can effectively rule Palestinian society there, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a Middle East scholar and expert on Islamic affairs, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“Only the clans can run Gaza. But for this, you have to get rid of Hamas first,” he said, speaking after the Pulse of Israel conference in Jerusalem.

Kedar has for decades advocated what he calls the Palestinian Emirates Plan, which would see the role of Palestinian governance taken up by clan-based local authorities. Under the plan, Gaza and parts of the West Bank would be governed by dominant local families or clans.

He further argues that vast cultural differences between Palestinians across different cities and areas make a centralized Palestinian government unfeasible.

In remarks during the conference, he said the clan system is “the only system which works well in the Arab world.”

“Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Oman. All these emirates and states in the Gulf are based on clans. And this is why they are flourishing. This is why they are stable,” Kedar said.

However, he admitted that given the destruction in Gaza and the dispersion of the Palestinians there in the wake of the Israel-Hamas War, he’s unsure of what the next steps would be for the Strip.

Kedar: Trump has many dreams far from the reality of the Middle East

Still, speaking to the Post, he described the NCAG, which was formed under the auspices of the US President Donald Trump-led Board of Peace, as a “dream” disconnected from the realities of the region. 

Further, he said, the committee is abjectly “worthless” as long as Hamas retained its weapons.

“Trump has many dreams which are as far as possible from the reality of the Middle East,” Kedar said. “He once dreamt about evacuating Gaza and having Gaza empty. He can dream about this. It will be one of his dreams which will never be realized.”

He went on to describe Trump’s plan for the successful implementation of the Board of Peace’s peace plan for Gaza as a “hallucination.”

Kedar pushes for Palestinian Emirates Plan

In his comments during the conference, though, he continued to emphatically back the Palestinian Emirates Plan as the solution for Palestinian governance in the West Bank.

Kedar said that, as a result of the war, local Palestinian leaders there, particularly in Hebron, were starting to weigh the option.

“They understand that if there is a Palestinian state, this Palestinian state will turn into ‘Hamastan,’ either by elections, as happened in January 2006 when Hamas won the elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council, or by coup d’etat as happened in Gaza in June 2007 when Hamas took Gaza over by force.”

He further asserted that the implementation of a Palestinian emirates system, which would see clan rule in the cities and the rural areas permanently annexed by Israel, is the only way to end the idea of a Palestinian state and give independence and autonomy to the vast majority of Arabs living in the West Bank.

Kedar predicted that the steps to achieve this goal might not be far off and that Hebron could soon be the first city to try it.

“If one morning you wake up to hear the news that Hebron has announced its independence from the Palestinian Authority and joined the Abraham Accords, make a face as if you are surprised, because it is in the process,” he told the conference, adding that Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat was “pushing it with all his might.”

MK Moshe Gafni, leader of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Degel HaTorah faction, demanded on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advance the contentious Basic Law: Torah Study bill unchanged, despite legal warnings that its current wording could provide haredim who evade military service with benefits similar to those available to IDF reservists.

The demand could stall the legislation, 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.

Gafni’s demand came after Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik warned against the current wording of the legislation.

The haredi faction leader’s spokesperson confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Gafni had demanded that Netanyahu make no changes to the legislation’s wording.

Legal adviser warns bill could grant benefits to draft evaders

Afik’s warning came as the legislation was being debated in the Knesset’s House Committee ahead of its final second and third readings that are required to pass it into law.

Afik said that the legislation, in its current form, could allow Torah students to receive the same academic aid benefits as reservists, among other state benefits.

She told the panel that it was necessary to fix the outline of the legislation so that the wording was revised to be “declarative in nature,” which has led to objections from the haredi parties.

Afik also told the House Committee on Wednesday that there were numerous sections of ambiguity in the legislation and there were many areas where its practical interpretation remains unclear.

Coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud), who chairs the Knesset’s House Committee where the legislation is being advanced, said that lawmakers were able to submit reservations about the legislation at the end of the discussion.

He added that the Likud Party was also considering filing reservations ahead of the expected committee vote on the bill on Thursday.

Katz’s remarks raised the possibility that disagreements over the bill could prevent it from advancing.

Coalition advances additional haredi-backed legislation

Meanwhile, the Knesset Committee on Public Projects approved advancing another haredi-backed kashrut bill ahead of its final second and third readings. The legislation seeks to cancel the 2021 kashrut reform in a move that could prevent Israel’s official kashrut certification market from opening to broader competition, granting control to the Chief Rabbinate.

The advancement of the series of haredi-backed legislation comes amid numerous reports of agreements between the haredi parties and Netanyahu, as the coalition has been pushing through a legislative blitz ahead of the Knesset’s final week of its summer session in an effort to advance as much legislation as possible before the upcoming elections.

The Knesset is expected to go into recess after next week. The haredi parties had last month boycotted coalition voting – stalling coalition bills – when they argued that their legislation was not being advanced rapidly enough.

Basic Law proposal remains highly contentious

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 the arrests of draft evaders continued to be debated in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.

The Basic Law: Torah Study 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 crisis.

The 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 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 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.

High Court, IDF warn of consequences

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.

Joint List Party Chairman MK Ayman Odeh is set to meet with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York on Thursday, according to a statement by Odeh’s office on Wednesday.

The statement noted that the purpose of the meeting will be the ongoing Arab crime wave in Israel, with Odeh expected to relay the need for international attention to the crisis. 

“The Israeli government will close all doors to us in the fight against crime,” said Odeh. “We will do everything to ensure that the issue is also on the international community’s agenda.”

Odeh emphasized that not nearly enough has been done to address the issue, despite multiple meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as protests and hunger strikes.

“Our demands are so basic: to live without criminal organizations and without illegal weapons,” he said. “Is there a more justified demand than that?”

“We will continue to fight in every arena, in Israel and abroad, until we eradicate crime and ensure personal security for every citizen,” Odeh concluded.

NIS 500 million allocated to fight Arab crime wave

Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs announced on Monday that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) would receive an allocation of NIS 500 million to use in the fight against Arab crime.

The government is set to approve the decision at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Israel Police said on Tuesday they had confiscated 30 vehicles belonging to individuals who had accumulated tax-related debts worth tens of millions of shekels, in an effort to “cut off the economic oxygen supply of those who perpetrate crime on Arab streets.”

Anna Barsky, Alon Hachmon, and Maya Zanger-Nadis contributed to this report.

Few foreign diplomats have experienced a posting quite like Frédéric Journès.

Arriving in Israel just before one of the country’s most traumatic periods, the outgoing French ambassador has spent nearly three years navigating war, hostage diplomacy, regional escalation, and one of the lowest points in modern Franco-Israeli relations.

“I came here because I loved your country,” he says in an extensive interview with The Jerusalem Post. “And I still love it to the bone.”

When Hamas launched its surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Journès was not in the country.

“I was in Greece for the birthday of one of my friends,” he recalled. “My husband started texting me from the mamad. That’s when I began to understand the magnitude of what was happening.”

Within weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron became one of the first world leaders to visit Israel, expressing solidarity while proposing an international coalition against Hamas.

According to Journès, Israel should have embraced the idea.

‘Israel wouldn’t have been alone’

“I regret deeply that we didn’t take the time to consider that proposal,” he said. “Israel wouldn’t have been alone. Probably the warfare would have been different.”

Drawing comparisons with the international coalition against ISIS, he argued that multinational operations provide both military and diplomatic advantages.

“It took time, but we were successful,” he said. “The benefit in terms of international reputation was formidable.”

The French vision, he explained, involved combining intelligence capabilities, securing international legitimacy through the UN Security Council, and defining a political exit strategy before launching a prolonged campaign.

Journès did not attempt to minimize the deterioration in relations between Paris and Jerusalem.

“The relationship is not difficult,” he said bluntly. “It’s super bad.”

Although he said he maintained working relationships with senior Israeli political and security officials, he acknowledged that structured political dialogue has largely disappeared.

The ambassador attributed much of the decline to Israel’s international standing following the war in Gaza.

“The consequences of the war, the choice of a very brutal and destructive warfare, have been a catastrophe for the reputation of this country,” he argued.

“What they hated was the destruction, and Israel couldn’t hear it.”

At the same time, he lamented the collapse of public trust between the two allies.

“Yes, we have lost the trust of many Israeli people,” he said. “But Israel has also lost the consideration of a huge part of world opinion.”

‘You have to make friends again’

His prescription was straightforward.

“You have to work back on that. You have to make friends again.”

Despite the political disputes, some of Journès’ strongest memories centered on hostage families.

Rather than focusing exclusively on diplomacy, he said he deliberately invested time in helping people directly affected by the war.

“It was the families who had lost children, the families of hostages, the French citizens who were trapped here,” he said.

He praised members of his diplomatic staff who maintained weekly contact with relatives and described arranging meetings between hostage families and French leaders, including President Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron.

“They are not numbers,” Journès said. “They are persons.”

He recalled insisting that French officials publicly name individual hostages rather than refer to them anonymously.

“Say their names,” he said. “Make them human.”

One of the sharpest disagreements between Paris and Jerusalem concerned Israel’s campaign in Lebanon.

French officials publicly urged restraint, prompting criticism from Israeli leaders who argued that France was undermining efforts to weaken Hezbollah.

Journès rejected that accusation, saying France opposed the way the campaign developed rather than Israel’s right to defend itself.

“We thought the operation was a mistake because it wasn’t as well planned as the first one,” he said.

He argued that the widespread destruction of villages in southern Lebanon damaged Israel diplomatically without producing the desired strategic results.

“Images of blowing villages on French television were a catastrophe,” he said. “You even lost the right-wing Christian vote. People were asking, ‘Why are churches and monasteries being destroyed?'”

Among the most contentious issues between the two countries was France’s refusal to allow several Israeli-chartered civilian aircraft carrying munitions to cross French airspace during Israel’s campaign against Iran this year..

Journès insisted the controversy had been misunderstood.

“The number of planes for which we said no was six,” he explained. “During the same period, hundreds of American flights were authorized because of our NATO obligations.”

The rejected flights, he emphasized, were carrying offensive weapons rather than defensive systems.

“They were bombs aimed at destroying infrastructure in Iran, into a war that we had disapproved,” he said. “That would have made us co-belligerent.”

Asked whether France viewed the Iran campaign as a mistake, he answered unequivocally.

“Yes.”

After years of participating in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, Journès argued that the military campaign ultimately strengthened rather than weakened Tehran’s leadership.

“The regime survived,” he said. “They’re not afraid anymore of the American strike.”

Journès also defended France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, and the French president’s attempt to convince more countries to recognize a Palestinian state, rejecting Israeli accusations that the move rewarded Hamas.

“I don’t think the goal of Hamas has ever been to have a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel,” he said. “They want no Israeli state.”

Recognition, he argued, was part of a broader diplomatic package that also envisioned regional normalization with Israel and the removal of Hamas from power.

“It is not a gift when the elimination of Hamas as a governing force in Gaza and the full disarmament of Hamas is part of the plan.”

Reflecting on the broader relationship, Journès argued that Israel often mistakes disagreement for hostility.

“The biggest mistake,” he said, “is to confuse someone who disagrees with someone who is against you.”

He contrasted Israel’s approach with NATO and the European Union, where allies routinely negotiate despite profound differences.

“Israel works differently,” he said. “You’re either with me or against me. It’s binary.”

After France restricted the display of certain offensive weapon systems in the Eurosatory defense exhibition outside Paris, Israeli officials accused Paris of discrimination.

Journès insisted that was never the intention.

“We didn’t discriminate against Israeli industries,” he said. “We invited all of them.”

According to the ambassador, France merely asked exhibitors not to prominently display bombs or models of munitions used in Gaza and Lebanon, arguing that doing so was politically impossible given French public opinion.

“If you remove the mock-ups of the bombs, we take down the walls,” he recalled telling Israeli exhibitors.

Instead, France encouraged companies to showcase defensive technologies.

“I said, expose Iron Dome. Expose David’s Sling. They saved Tel Aviv. They saved my life.”

Journès noted that he personally spent hundreds of hours in protected rooms during missile attacks.

“I counted,” he said with a smile. “I was in a shelter 267 times.”

But he claims Israel refused the deal. “They refuse. It’s a little bit of Israeli chutzpah, but we can be very stubborn as well.”

The deterioration in Franco-Israeli ties has also been reflected in the relationship between President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked when the two leaders last spoke, Journès said it had been several months, dating back to discussions surrounding France’s deployment of its carrier strike group to the region.

According to the ambassador, the lack of regular dialogue is symptomatic of the broader diplomatic freeze.

“My advice to the president right now is: wait and see before you restart a dialogue,” he said. “In this election moment, which is going to be heavily politicized, I don’t trust that we can have a reliable conversation.”

More broadly, he argued that one of Israel’s greatest diplomatic challenges has been allowing political disagreements to erode strategic relationships.

“France happens to be a power,” he said. “We have military capabilities, intelligence, and common interests regarding Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles. Right now we don’t speak with Israel. The problem is that we’re speaking with everybody else”. The ambassador adds that Israel cannot talk only with countries that agree with her. Asked whether relations between the two countries were getting better, he answered: “Well, it could hardly get worse.”

Although deeply critical of many Israeli decisions, Journès ended the interview on an emotional note.

“I will miss the courage of the Israeli people,” he said. “You’re impressive people.”

He smiled while listing what he would – and would not – miss.

“I’ll miss the chutzpah,” he joked. “I’m not going to miss the balagan.”

Above all, he expressed hope that the strategic partnership between France and Israel could be restored.

“It could hardly get worse,” he said with a laugh when asked whether relations could improve.

Then, turning serious, he offered one final appeal.

“I will never stop being committed to the relationship with you,” he said. “You’re way too important not to have a solid relationship and a solid dialogue.”

After nearly three years marked by unprecedented regional upheaval and diplomatic strain, Journès leaves Israel convinced that disagreements between allies need not become permanent estrangement.

“Try to make friends with us again,” he said. “You will see there are people who love you.”

When I first started playing wheelchair sports, I never envisioned winning a medal at the Maccabiah Games. In fact, I don’t think I even envisioned getting from one side of a court to the other without crashing into a wall or, most likely, someone else.

However, yesterday, I donned the bronze medal for 3×3 wheelchair basketball and promptly burst into tears.

The entire experience of competing in the Maccabiah, of walking down that stage during the opening ceremony, of experiencing sportsmanship, solidarity, and love, is something that I can’t fully put into words. But I shall try.

Finding purpose through parasports

Two years ago, I turned up at the Israel ParaSport Center for the sole purpose of interviewing staff about their work with disabled evacuees and Nova survivors. By the end, I had been recruited for para tennis.

I was at first resistant to the idea of playing sports as a disabled player. When I was diagnosed with a tumor in my femur at 16, my main focus was getting out of the wheelchair and learning to walk again.

But no matter how hard I tried over the following years, I couldn’t get my leg to do what I wanted it to do. I was never going to get back my pre-surgery capacity. That, in itself, is a grieving process, one that often takes years to come to terms with.

However, the first time I sat in a sports chair, I felt something in my soul awaken. Having tried to force myself to play sports as an able-bodied person and getting constantly frustrated, I could now run again.

I could move fast and powerfully. I could compete and train and excel. My wheels became my legs. To this day, I can diagnose a problem with my chair as if it were my own foot. We are one and the same.

Then, five months ago, while recreationally shooting some hoops with friends, I was recruited to the Israel national women’s basketball team.

I have since been training in both tennis and basketball. Tennis holds a special place in my heart that cannot be usurped. But being able to play with a team is a special thing.

Winning bronze at the Maccabiah

Yesterday, that team joined forces with the men’s teams from Israel ParaSport Center and from Beit Halochem to play 3×3 basketball in the Maccabiah games. My team – the purple shirt team – took home bronze.

I cried for many reasons when I donned that medal. One, because I have never won anything sportswise in my life. Two, because I was exhausted. And three, because I experienced there a sportsmanship that we, as Israelis, can no longer experience in the global arena.

It was bittersweet.

Sportsmanship beyond the scoreboard

At the opening ceremony, the Israeli delegation was the last to cross the stage, which meant that we had the chance to cheer every country’s delegation before us.

Not only did they cheer and blow kisses and high-five us back, but they chanted Am Yisrael Chai. To them, we weren’t just equals but an aspiration. The dream. The mothership. We swapped shirts and hugged and showed each other dignity, respect, and admiration.

And it was strikingly clear to me that this would not have been the case with non-Jewish players.

The contrast with international competition

Most of my friends from the center compete internationally on a regular basis. I have non-disabled friends who compete in sports too. Their experience of international competitions looks very different from what I saw at the Maccabiah.

It looks like a refusal to shake hands. It looks like not listening to Israel’s national anthem. It looks like boos, jeers, and Palestinian flags. It looks like the Israeli team being sequestered away under a high security presence, like pariahs.

What we have seen from international sports over the last three years goes against the very core of what it means to be a sportsman.

To be a sportsman is to approach your opponent with respect and not treat them differently based on their origin, religion, or nationality. It is to be a gracious winner and a gracious loser.

Why the Maccabiah still matters

It was an overwhelming luxury to experience true sportsmanship among global hearts at the Maccabiah. But it was also a painful reminder of what is no longer true for Jews and Israelis in normal sports.

This is why we need the Maccabiah – to reinvigorate us in a climate of iniquitous antisemitism. To remind us that throwing a ball and swimming a lap are just that – and that sports are not the space for politics or hate.

The most noticeable thing of all at the Maccabiah was Jewish pride. Every single player there was a proud Jew. And I am no different.

When I donned that medal, I donned it as a proud Jewish and Israeli woman.

And while I may not be met with the same love and celebration from my opposing teams in non-Jewish competitions in the future, I endeavor to carry myself with that same Jewish pride regardless of whether I play against friend or foe.

The state asked the High Court of Justice to dismiss a petition concerning detained Gazan doctors – including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya – arguing that their cases had been individually reviewed and that their release could harm state security.

In a Tuesday response to the High Court, the state said the detention orders were issued under the Unlawful Combatants Law after the authorized official was presented with individualized classified security intelligence regarding each detainee.

The petition, filed by Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), seeks the release of 14 Palestinian doctors from Gaza who are being held by Israel without charge. PHRI argues that the detainees are medical professionals needed in Gaza and that their continued detention is unlawful.

Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and hospital director from Gaza, has been held by Israel since December 2024. His case has drawn particular international attention, including a recent UN demand for his release.

State says case reviews find legal grounds for continued detention

The state rejected PHRI’s position, saying updated reviews had found that the legal grounds for the doctors’ continued detention remained in place and that there were no “special reasons” justifying their release.

The state said the detainees’ cases are examined periodically by authorized security officials based on their individual circumstances and updated intelligence. When those reviews find that the legal grounds for detention no longer exist, or that another reason justifies release, detention orders are canceled, the state said.

According to the state, there have been cases in which periodic reviews led to detention orders being canceled and detainees being released.

The response also addressed PHRI’s recent claim that Abu Safiya may be in life-threatening danger following allegations of violence in detention.

The state said Abu Safiya’s lawyer had submitted a signed affidavit to the detention facility claiming that Abu Safiya was in life-threatening danger. The affidavit – together with PHRI’s response to the state’s request for an extension – was transferred for review by authorized officials, the state said.

The state said that, after a review, no indications were found supporting the claims raised in PHRI’s response.

It added that Abu Safiya was received at Nitzan Detention Center on June 24, was examined by medical staff upon arrival and several times afterward as needed, and remains under regular medical follow-up.

“At no stage was there any indication of danger to life,” the state wrote.

However, the state’s response did not explicitly deny that the alleged beatings took place. It also did not say what prompted the repeated medical examinations, what those examinations found, whether the injuries described by Abu Safiya’s lawyer were documented, or whether they were recorded in his medical file.

PHRI claims central questions regarding Abu Safiya’s detention not answered

PHRI said the response failed to answer the central questions raised by the affidavit of Abu Safiya’s lawyer, attorney Nasser Odeh, who visited him last week.

According to PHRI, Odeh said Abu Safiya had visible injuries to his head and neck, struggled to breathe, had difficulty remaining seated, and appeared close to losing consciousness. PHRI said the state’s response offered only a general denial while failing to address most of the factual allegations in the affidavit.

“An independent medical examination and an independent judicial review of Dr. Abu Safiya’s condition are urgently required,” PHRI said, adding that the court should schedule an urgent hearing on the petition concerning the continued detention of the doctors.

The petition was filed on April 30. The state had received repeated extensions to respond, but when it requested another extension on Sunday, the court gave it only until Tuesday.

PHRI had opposed another postponement, citing what it described as new information from Odeh regarding Abu Safiya’s condition. The organization also asked that a High Court justice urgently visit Abu Safiya as an official prison visitor in order to assess his condition firsthand.

The petition also raises a broader legal question over whether the IDF chief of staff must personally review requests to cancel detention orders under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

PHRI argued that the chief of staff’s authority to cancel detention orders is independent from the periodic judicial review process, which provides for review by the district court every six months and an appeal before a Supreme Court justice.

The organization argued that periodic court review does not replace the chief of staff’s duty to reconsider whether the detention orders remain necessary and lawful, particularly after what it described as a change in circumstances.

The state rejected that argument.

It said that, under a temporary wartime amendment to the law, powers assigned to the chief of staff may be exercised by a brigadier-general acting under the chief of staff’s authority.

As a result, the state argued, the law does not require the chief of staff himself to conduct a separate review.

The authority to cancel detention orders remains in force and is used in appropriate cases, the state said, but it does not create a parallel mechanism meant to bypass the periodic judicial review process.

The state said the same core considerations are examined in both frameworks: whether release would harm state security and whether special reasons justify release.

Some detainees have used their right to appeal periodic review decisions to the Supreme Court, the state said. It noted that Abu Safiya’s case was recently heard by the court on June 10.

According to the state, the detainees’ cases were also reviewed after the framework agreed in October 2025, and the authorized officials again found that the grounds for detention continued to apply.

Israel faces global scrutiny for detention of Gazans

The case comes amid continuing scrutiny of Israel’s detention of Palestinians from Gaza during the war, including medical personnel. PHRI and other critics have argued that prolonged detention without charge is especially difficult to justify in the case of doctors, given Gaza’s severe shortage of medical personnel and the collapse of much of its healthcare system.

Israel has argued throughout the war that Hamas systematically embedded itself in Gaza’s hospitals and used medical facilities for military purposes. The IDF has said that some of those detained from Gaza’s medical system had security ties, while Israeli officials have maintained that some cases cannot be handled through ordinary criminal indictments without exposing classified intelligence sources and methods.

The issue has become more acute as the war has moved further from its most intense stages and as pressure has grown on Israel to charge or release Palestinians held for extended periods without trial.

PHRI rejected the state’s position, saying the response did not provide concrete information justifying the continued detention of the doctors and failed to address the impact of their detention on Gaza’s healthcare system.

The IDF arrested 20 suspects across the West Bank in an overnight operation between Tuesday and Wednesday, the military announced.

Among those arrested were individuals suspected of planning a terror attack, arms dealing, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and Hamas affiliation, the IDF said.

In Jenin, the military said it searched over 50 structures, while soldiers exchanged gunfire in Hebron before arresting five suspects.

Meanwhile, IDF soldiers operating jointly with Border Police officers in Tulkarem arrested four people suspected of Hamas affiliation, along with an additional person in Funduq suspected of terror incitement.

On Monday, the IDF and Border Police officers rescued ten Israeli civilians who had entered the West Bank town of Kalkilya, located in Area A, forbidden to Israeli citizens.

The Israelis entered the area to search for a stolen motorcycle, according to Israel Police.

Locals surrounded the Israelis upon noticing them, with the IDF and Border Police arriving soon after to separate the groups and extract the Israelis.

IDF: October 7-style raids possible from West Bank

The incidents this week come after IDF senior General Staff officials warned on Monday that October 7-style terror raids may be possible from the West Bank due to security gaps amid the wars in Lebanon and Gaza.

“I am not prepared to manage risks here,” warned IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir.

Goldie Katz, Ariella Roitman, and Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.

Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, according to state broadcaster Press TV on Wednesday, citing an unknown Iranian source.

According to the source, Iran would reopen the strait only under its own arrangements, “as per the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).”

The source added that Iran would “strike at least twice the number of targets hit” in response to any strikes by the United States.

“The developments of the past 48 hours show Iran won’t back down from managing the Hormuz,” the source noted.

“Any threat will receive a powerful response,” the source told Press TV, noting that the regime “does not distinguish between the United States and its partners in the region.”

The source also responded directly to threats made by US President Donald Trump against Iran, saying he “will gain nothing” from making such threats.

“He (Trump) will certainly lose both the Strait of Hormuz and the negotiations over a final agreement,” said the source. “The choice is now his.”

Eight members of the Iranian army were killed in US attacks on southern parts of Iran early on Wednesday, state media reported.

The victims belonged to the air force and navy and died due to strikes in Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, it added.

Trump: US will ‘probably’ strike Iran tonight

Trump said earlier on Wednesday that he would “probably hit Iran tonight” during a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, following the NATO summit.

“I’ll give a little warning,” said Trump. “We’re going to hit them hard tonight.”

Trump added that the US has “a score to settle” with Iran due to the regime “killing soldiers, killing people for 47 years.”

He noted that the US may reimpose the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, saying “everyone will be able to cross outside of them [Iran].”

“They might try to throw some mines, which will be hard because we destroyed their boats,” he added.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States will give a license to Ukraine for Patriot missiles, as he said both Russia and Ukraine want to see the war settled.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ’em enough,” Trump said at a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara.

“It’s a defensive weapon, which I like better than an offensive weapon,” Trump said.

Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded for the US-made interceptors – the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal that can shoot down ballistic projectiles, whose high velocity and steep flight path make them difficult to stop.

He was expected to raise the issue with Trump during their meeting.

Trump said pressure could be applied to companies to produce Patriot missiles. “We have great power over the companies, those companies that make the Patriot,” he said.

“We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right. I’m sure they will be thrilled,” he said.

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the interceptor missiles that go in the Patriot system.

Russia launches third assault on Kyiv in one week

Russia fired ballistic missiles at Kyiv again overnight, officials said on Wednesday, a third attack on the Ukrainian capital in less than a week exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of US-made air-defense interceptors.

While Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 139 of the 169 drones during the overnight strikes on the country, they were again unable to down any of the five ballistic missiles used by Russia, air force data showed.

Trump said both sides in the war would like to see it end, but Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky have both been “difficult.”

“We’ve settled a lot of wars, and this one is the one that I thought maybe would be the easiest, but Putin is a difficult character, and this guy’s a difficult character,” Trump said, referring to Zelensky, who was sitting next to him.

Zelensky said he wanted to discuss “some very important details” with Trump.

“I’m sure you will do everything to stop this war,” he told Trump.

Moscow has stepped up its air war on Ukraine in recent months as its ground advances have largely stalled and Ukrainian attacks on its military logistics and oil industry triggered widespread fuel shortages.

Footage showing the ruins of the compound of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was released on Wednesday by the supreme leader’s website.

The footage was shared by several pro-regime outlets, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-run Fars News Agency.

The short 50-second clip shows what appears to be rubble within the compound, warped support beams, and other elements buried under mounds of dirt in “Imam Khomeini’s Husseiniyah at the Leader’s residence,” a prayer room belonging to the supreme leader, attached to their official residence.

It concluded by showing footage of the former supreme leader.

The compound was destroyed on February 28 at the start of a joint operation between the United States and Israel against Iran, with Khamenei being killed in the strike.

🎥 انتشار تصاویر دیده‌نشده از حسینیهٔ امام خمینی در بیت رهبری پس‌از حملات ناجوانمردانه آمریکا pic.twitter.com/wAtiRzxjZ2

— خبرگزاری فارس (@FarsNews_Agency) July 8, 2026

While satellite footage of the destroyed compound was released shortly after the strike, a view from the interior was not released until now.

Ali Khamenei was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba, following the attack.

Khamenei funeral procession arrives in Iraq

The multi-day funeral procession for Khamenei arrived in Iraq earlier on Wednesday, with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and senior Iraqi officials receiving the coffin at Najaf International Airport, according to state TV.

Najaf is the burial place of Imam Ali, the Prophet Mohammad’s cousin and son-in-law, giving the area special significance for Shi’ite Muslims.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Shi’ite religious figures joined Zaidi at the airport to participate in the ceremonies.

The procession, which began in Tehran on Friday, moved through Hom before its arrival in Iraq. It is due to continue onward to Iraq’s shrine city of Karbala before returning to Iran for burial in Mashhad.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Beyond reestablishing Gush Katif, the bloc of Israeli settlements in Gaza removed by the state in 2005, Israel will settle all of Gaza, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a video interview played at the 2026 Pulse of Israel Conference on Tuesday.

“Gush Katif is small,” Smotrich told Pulse of Israel podcast host Avi Abelow. “We will return to the whole of Gaza in a big way.”

Smotrich’s statements come after he said last Monday that plans to establish three Israeli settlements in northern Gaza had been finalized and were waiting for the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the time, he called on the prime minister to give the green light so that implementation of the plans could “begin immediately.”

Smotrich’s call for Israel to return to all of Gaza comes as the IDF reportedly has operational control of around 70% of the Strip.

Further, a security source told Walla last month that it was possible “that the scope of operational control in Palestinian territory will increase in the coming months.”

Push for Israeli sovereignty over Gaza may conflict with NCAG plan

Conversely, a push to assert Israeli sovereignty over Gaza would be on course to collide with numerous diplomatic hurdles, namely the US-backed plan for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) to take administrative control of the territory.

Hamas, too, has agreed to dissolve its government and transfer Gaza’s administration to the committee, but analysts and observers remain skeptical about the terror group’s true intentions.

Still, a spokesperson for Hamas affirmed to the Qatari state-run media giant Al Jazeera this week that the group intended to transfer power to the NCAG, saying that the decision was made “to deny Israel’s excuses.”

The terror organization had also announced on Monday that the head of its Emergency Committee had submitted his resignation, stating that it was the first step in dissolving the body that effectively serves as Hamas’s government in Gaza.

Nevertheless, diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post at the time that the move was still insufficient to allow the NCAG into Gaza and that the group had been creating major obstacles in recent talks with the US-backed Board of Peace, including backtracking on earlier agreements and making new demands.

Smotrich: We are working to repair damage caused by the Oslo Accords

In the video interview, Abelow says he and Smotrich were speaking in Efrat and that the minister had visited Solomon’s Pools, a trio of ancient reservoirs located north of the community and just south of Bethlehem.

“We are working hard to repair the terrible damage caused by the Oslo Accords disaster,” Smotrich said.

The Oslo II Accord, signed by Israel and the PLO in 1995, saw the West Bank divided into three areas. The Palestinian Authority has full civil and security control over Area A.

It also has civil control over Area B, with shared security control with Israel. Area C, the largest portion of the West Bank, remains under Israeli civil and security control.

Efrat is located in Area C, while Solomon’s Pools is located in Area A.

Smotrich added that leaving such a “magnificent ancient water site” in territory that is under Palestinian auspices was “one of the terrible mistakes” of the accords.

The minister continued, saying that, to him, there was no difference between areas A, B, and C, and that “the next step” was to “erase” the Oslo Accords.

“Because this is our land,” Smotrich continued. “Also, because everyone understands today, after October 7, how this is insane security-wise and that anyone who wants to be safe in Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, Beer Sheba, Afula, and Tel Aviv needs us here, strong, in control of the entire territory.”

Keshet Neev, Amichai Stein, Amir Bohbot, and Amit Avitan contributed to this article.

Six months after Iran’s January 8–9 massacre, in which opposition-linked estimates and evidence from inside Iran place the number of dead at between 35,000 and 40,000, The Jerusalem Post is publishing profiles of some of those killed, based on testimony provided by their families.

Among them was Rasoul Ziaei, a 26-year-old from Lenjan, Isfahan, whose family said he lost his life in profound loneliness, among strangers, and completely abandoned.

Rasoul was born on September 2, 1999. He was killed on January 8 and later buried in Gavart Cemetery in Isfahan after his family said they spent an entire week desperately searching for him, clinging to the hope that he might still be alive.

A young man full of joy, ambition, dreams

His family described him to the Post as a young man full of joy, ambition, and dreams.

“Rasoul was a young man full of joy for life and great dreams,” his family said. “He was ambitious, willing to take risks, a determined bodybuilder with impeccable character, and always wore a smile on his face.”

Those who knew him, they said, remember his kindness, warmth, and compassion.

“He was deeply compassionate and always cared about the well-being of others,” the family said.

On the morning of January 8, Rasoul arranged to meet friends that evening in Fooladshahr. After lunch, he told his mother that he was going to the gym. His parents, the family said, had no idea what he was actually planning.

At 4 p.m., he went to the gym. At 6 p.m., he went to the barber, as he often did, to freshen up. Afterward, he drove to Azad Mall in Zarrinshahr. Around 7 p.m., he ate a sandwich there until he received a phone call and left for Fooladshahr.

At approximately 9:30 p.m., his family said, Rasoul was struck by a bullet and collapsed.

Several bystanders picked him up, placed him in a car, and rushed him to the Mehr-o-Mani Clinic in the Maskan-e-Mehr district in an attempt to revive him. But, according to his family, he had already died.

His body was later transferred to the Shafa Clinic. The family said intelligence services removed it from there on Friday morning.

For a week, his relatives searched for him.

The authorities, they said, never accepted responsibility for his death. Only after days of agonizing searching did the family find him at the forensic medical center in Gavart, Isfahan.

“We have neither received nor accepted any financial compensation,” the family told the Post.

Ziaei family finds no peace after Rasoul’s killing

Even after burying him, they said, there has been no peace.

“We live in constant fear that his gravestone will be destroyed,” the family said. “Because there is absolutely no sense of security, we remain in a state of continual anxiety. Justice has become meaningless in today’s Iran.”

The family also made grave allegations about the condition in which Rasoul’s body was returned to them.

“I want the world to know what they did to Rasoul and to all the others like him,” the family said. “I want the world to know the condition in which they returned Rasoul to us.”

According to the family, Rasoul’s body was returned with only one eye, had been cut open, and his organs had been removed. They said that in videos and photographs taken immediately after he was shot, both of his eyes appeared intact.

But after intelligence services seized his body from the Shafa Clinic in Fooladshahr, the family alleged, his corpse was desecrated.

“They did not even stop at desecrating his corpse,” the family said.

The Post is reporting the family’s account as testimony provided by relatives and has not independently verified the allegations regarding the treatment of Rasoul’s body.

The family said one of the most painful parts of the tragedy is that Rasoul’s parents do not know the full details of what they allege was done to him.

“The hardest and most painful part of this tragedy is that his parents – and in fact no one except his siblings – know this terrible truth,” the family said. “If my mother were ever to learn what was done to him, she would take her own life.”

But the family also wants Rasoul remembered as he lived, not only as he died.

Rasoul lived life full of laughter, warmth

They described a younger brother who filled family gatherings with laughter, mischief, and warmth.

Whenever the family gathered, Rasoul would jokingly put on his mother’s clothes, imitate her voice, and make everyone laugh. When tea was poured, he would playfully stick his finger into a cup so that no one else would want to drink it.

As a child, they said, he tried to avoid homework because all he wanted to do was play.

At night, he would simply go to bed and tell his siblings: “You have to do my homework.”

Because he was the youngest brother, and so loved, they would imitate his handwriting and complete the schoolwork for him.

For his family, those memories now exist alongside the unanswered questions of his final hours: where he was taken, what happened to his body, who gave the orders, and why his relatives were left searching for him for a week.

Their message to the international community is simple.

“Please help us,” the family said. “These are the very people who speak of divine justice and of God – yet look at what they are doing to their own young people.”

Even if Rasoul and the others killed can never return, they said, the world still has a responsibility to those who remain.

“At least save the future of the young people who remain,” the family said, “whose lives are in immediate danger.”

Shin Bet chief David Zini is nobody’s fool and undoubtedly knew that his remarks Tuesday about loyalty to the elected leadership would get out and ignite controversy.

And they did.

Opposition politicians seized on his remarks as proof that the man at the helm of one of the country’s most sensitive security apparatuses sees his role as serving the government rather than the state.

Democrats chairman Yair Golan accused him of confusing loyalty to the government with loyalty to the state and the law, warning that a security service guided by political allegiance rather than the law could become “a tool that serves a government seeking to hold onto power.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir heard something entirely different. He praised Zini for expressing what he called a basic democratic principle: unelected officials are subordinate to elected leaders.

Within hours, politicians had sorted themselves into familiar camps.

That speed itself was telling. Because the real significance of Zini’s remarks lies not only in what they say about the Shin Bet chief, but also in what they reveal about the political debate dominating Israel as it moves toward elections.

The controversy quickly centered on one sentence.

“The reason I agreed,” Zini said of accepting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to head the Shin Bet, was “for my ability to remain loyal to the elected echelon, not that it matters what their ideology is.”

Critics argue Zini loyal to Netanyahu rather than law

Taken in isolation, the remark is explosive, especially because critics of his appointment argued from the outset that he would prove more loyal to Netanyahu than to the law.

But taken in context, Zini’s comments reveal something much larger than a personal philosophy of public service. They articulate a governing philosophy that has increasingly come to define Netanyahu’s coalition.

The central question raised by Zini’s remarks is not whether the Shin Bet chief should obey the elected government. The more interesting question is how he diagnoses what has gone wrong in Israeli governance.

His answer differs markedly from one that has dominated the public debate since October 7. Many concluded that Hamas’ attack exposed failures of intelligence. Others pointed to failures of deterrence or military assumptions.

Zini pointed somewhere else.

He described a state where elected governments increasingly lack the practical ability to govern.

“I look at the war, I sit in the cabinet, I look at how ministries contribute to the war effort,” he said. “I tell you: It is a miracle.”

Why?

Because, in his words, “the elected leadership does not really have the ability to manage the frameworks over which it is responsible… because people became confused about what their role is.”

He illustrated the point with a striking example.

Ministers issue directives, he said, yet implementation can take months because the bureaucracy effectively determines what happens and when.

That diagnosis is significant because it shifts the debate away from personalities and toward institutions.

For years, Israel’s political and constitutional struggle has largely been framed as a contest between elected politicians seeking greater authority and unelected gatekeepers seeking to restrain them.

The judicial overhaul debate revolved around precisely that tension. So have repeated confrontations involving the attorney-general, legal advisers, the courts, and senior civil servants.

Zini’s remarks suggest that, in his view, the problem is not that elected officials possess too much power, but rather that they don’t possess enough.

Much was made of his statement that he was loyal to the elected leadership. Less was made of the sentences surrounding it.

“I have an internal engine,” he said.

“I have a worldview.”

“I am not a puppet blowing in the wind.”

“I have an agenda, and I want to advance it.”

Those are not the words of someone arguing that senior security officials should abandon independent judgment and bend a knee to the political class.

Quite the opposite.

Zini’s position more nuanced than critics think

Zini explicitly acknowledged that he brings his own worldview, professional judgment, and convictions to the job.

His argument is more nuanced.

Professional officials should advise candidly, argue their position, and exercise independent judgment.

But once policy has been determined by the elected leadership, the bureaucracy’s responsibility is to implement it faithfully.

That conception of governance would sound familiar in Washington, where cabinet officials and senior executive branch officials are expected to carry out the agenda of the elected president, even when they may have argued internally for a different course.

It is considerably less accepted in Israel, where, over decades, a far stronger “gatekeeper” culture has evolved, granting legal advisers, senior civil servants, and security officials considerable independence not only in how policy is implemented but, at times, in whether it can be implemented at all.

Whether one agrees with Zini’s philosophy or not, it represents a coherent alternative vision of how the Israeli state should function.

That is precisely why his remarks so quickly became political ammunition. They touched one of the central fault lines likely to define Israel’s next election: whether Israel’s unelected “gatekeepers” should constrain the elected leadership, or faithfully carry out its policies.

That helps explain the speed with which politicians rushed to define what Zini had said.

Ben-Gvir immediately portrayed the remarks as a welcome reaffirmation of a fundamental principle in a democratic society: that the professional bureaucracy is subordinate to elected leadership.

Golan depicted them as evidence that the Shin Bet risked becoming an instrument of the government rather than the guardian of the law.

Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak, himself a former deputy Mossad chief, similarly argued that a Shin Bet director is subordinate first to the law and then to the elected government.

Those reactions were about far more than David Zini.

Defining debates of Israel’s next election taking shape

They were opening arguments in what is shaping up to be one of the defining debates of the next election – not simply who should govern Israel, but how Israel should be governed.

For the coalition, Zini’s remarks reinforce its longstanding claim that unelected institutions have accumulated too much authority and power at the expense of elected officials.

For the opposition, they reinforce warnings that Netanyahu is systematically placing ideological loyalists in institutions meant to remain politically independent.

In that sense, the controversy is about much more than one Shin Bet head. It is about two competing visions of how Israel should be governed.

One places greater emphasis on independent gatekeepers capable of restraining elected officials. The other insists that democracy ultimately requires unelected institutions to implement – not shape – the policies determined by those chosen by voters.

That argument has been simmering for years. Zini articulated where he stands. Come election day, the voters will be able to make clear where they stand as well.

Shin Bet Director David Zini seems to relish walking into political traps.

His latest controversy was late Monday night, when he was recorded at a private event before his alma mater, seemingly pledging personal allegiance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and slamming the legal establishment in a way that apolitical government officials, especially those with law enforcement functions, would almost never do.

This speech seemed to make it official: Zini is either exactly what all of his critics warned he would be – a yes-man for Netanyahu – or he has shown tone-deaf political instincts in a post where politics should not dictate, but must be understood, in particular regarding the opposition, which currently leads in the polls.

Since it was leaked that Zini was appointed by Netanyahu after a short interview in the prime minister’s limousine, after getting approval from his wife Sarah, and without prior notification to Zini’s then superior, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Shin Bet chief has been categorized as the enemy of the opposition, which makes up around half or more of the political establishment.

Zini had not helped himself by making many public statements criticizing non-elected professional government officials for being overly independent, slamming the legal establishment, and talking up visions of the messianic era.

Zini became first Shin Bet head with no agency background since 2000

All of this came in the context of Zini being the first chief of the Shin Bet to come in with zero background in the agency since 2000, when Ami Ayalon was given the role after serving as head of the navy.

But Ayalon truly is an anomaly, as even decades before he took office, prior chiefs had come from the agency.

And of course he was appointed under the cloud of allegations that Netanyahu was firing the last chief, Ronen Bar, so that he could appoint someone who would cover up the Qatargate scandal.

The most extreme critics prophesied scenarios where Zini would interfere in the upcoming elections on behalf of Netanyahu, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth elevated these fears recently, seemingly asking him in a letter to act against the High Court of Justice in the context of elections.

So here comes Zini, with no Shin Bet experience or connections, saying all of the wrong things before he entered office, with a cloud over him about whether he was hired specifically to be Netanyahu’s yes-man – and all he has been doing in public lately is igniting new fires.

In one controversy, he refused to shake the hands of Shin Bet female agents at an awards ceremony. There could be religious grounds for this, especially for a rabbi, but traditionally orthodox defense officials in roles for the state drop objections to light public actions like a handshake.

Another controversy involved Zini showing insensitivity to LGBTQ Shin Bet agents, another one to October 7 victims’ families, another pressing his own Shin Bet legal advisor to change certain legal opinions under potentially political circumstances such as regarding where Netanyahu’s trial could take place, another when he protected Likud MK Tali Gotliv from indictment for months by stalling signing a standard legal form in his capacity as Shin Bet chief, and now the latest and largest drama – a speech in office seeming to confirm he is Netanyahu’s yes-man.

On closer analysis, the narrative is more complex.

The number one concrete objection to his appointment, that he would block the Qatargate probe, has not panned out. In fact, the close officials to Netanyahu in the Qatargate affair have been indicted despite Zini’s appointment.

Critics could argue that most of Qatargate on the Shin Bet’s end was wrapped up before Zini took office. But he probably could have interfered in some way once in office and has not.

In addition, his brother was indicted in a case about smuggling illegal items into Gaza, and he did not intervene despite predictions that he would try to.

None of the above scandals are smart fights for him to pick, as they all likely distract from the Shin Bet’s main mission: fighting terror.

But neither do his actions in those cases, however problematic or poor in strategy, really implicate his basic security qualifications or competence for running the agency.

In that respect, the Shin Bet machine for catching or helping assassinate Palestinian and other terrorists seems to have continued at a strong rate since October 2025.

If there is one weak point in its mission under Zini, it would be regarding combating Jewish violent extremists’ actions against innocent West Bank Palestinians.

But this issue has always primarily been a police mission, and the main failure in combating the violent Jewish extremists phenomenon rests with the police.

This brings us back to Zini’s speech on Monday night.

Full recording of Zini remarks more moderate than leaked clips

Once one hears the full recording of the speech, and not just the selected pieces leaked by I24 News, Zini’s remarks come off as somewhat more moderate.

It is true that Zini said he was very loyal to the “elected echelon.” But he did not utter the word “Netanyahu.” And in the full recording, his statement had critical context: “a reason that maybe I am better than the others. For my ability to remain loyal to the elected echelon, not that it matters what their ideology is. It could be others [other than Netanyahu] .”

Zini’s remarks do show a clear loyalty to Netanyahu and a belief that his predecessors in the Shin Bet and other government officials have put their own personal views too far above the elected echelon. But it is also clear from his remarks that he would be ready to serve under a new prime minister who is not Netanyahu, if that person should be elected in the upcoming elections.

Likewise, Zini did slam the legal establishment, but his remarks carried some nuance: “With all due respect to the lawyers and jurists,” they are meant to be a kind of ancillary tool to assist on specific issues. “I am not speaking about the Justice Ministry, I am speaking about all of the other things.” When suddenly the audience started to cheer and clap, he pushed back, saying, “No, my friends, don’t take this to that kind of a place. A country with no law and with no legal establishment would be a destroyed state. Don’t take it to that place.”

True, Zini views the current legal establishment as overly activist in addressing policies from the elected echelons, but his statement that “no legal establishment would be a destroyed state” moderates those views compared to the recent intense attacks on the legal establishment by the coalition.

And maybe if Zini had made this speech in a vacuum and quickly rushed out the full recording and a clarification of his remarks, he would get the benefit of the doubt.

Zini makes no move to clear the air

Certainly, the smallest and most standard public relations move would be to issue a clarification and to publicly send out the full recording, which The Jerusalem Post was able to privately acquire.

He has done nothing real to clear the air.

And Zini could have known that any public remarks he made on these issues would be colored by his public image to date.

His decision to lean into these issues anyway shows either a misunderstanding of how deeply vulnerable his job is if the opposition wins the upcoming election or signals that, despite the nuances in his Monday speech, he does not care much about continuing under a new government and is ready to go all in on Netanyahu.

Turkey is expected to receive six F-35 fighter jets from the US as part of an initial transaction, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing Turkish officials familiar with the matter.

The deal would depend on US President Donald Trump reversing the ban on Ankara’s purchase of the latest generation of American fighter jets, the report noted.

Turkey originally planned to buy 40-odd F-35 jets before tensions between Ankara, the US, and key allies like Israel and Greece led the Americans to block the transaction.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pushing for the deal to come through, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently warned against giving the weapon to the Turks.

Additionally, US lawmakers warned the Trump administration on June 28 that selling the fighter jets could also represent a security threat, due to Turkey also building defense ties with Russia and using their S-400 air defense system.

Meanwhile, Trump praised Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit, saying that “He’s a very strong man. People do not mess with him, but he’s really done a fantastic job.”

“You could tell from the moment we got off the plane. Look at the airports – they were beautiful. They built a terminal just for me to come,” he added.

Trump expected to approve F-35 deal after Ankara summit

Trump is expected to throw his support behind the potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey during a visit to Ankara, Reuters and The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

When Trump was asked late last month by reporters if he would have any “gifts” for Turkey, he said: “I’m going to probably do ⁠something that will make them very happy.”

Speaking alongside Trump, Vice President JD Vance said a review was underway to determine whether Turkey had complied with US laws to receive the F-35 fighter jets.

“Pete and the entire team are reviewing this right now, because there are certain things that we have to certify have happened … in order to comply with American law,” he ⁠said, referring ​to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said last week that Erdogan and Trump share a “strong political will” to remove US sanctions imposed on Turkey, though they declined to lay out a timetable.

Idan Kweller and Reuters contributed to this report.

Six months after Iran’s January 8–9 massacre, in which opposition-linked estimates and evidence from inside Iran place the number of dead at between 35,000 and 40,000, The Jerusalem Post is publishing profiles of some of those killed, based on testimony provided by their families.

Among them was Adel Matlabnejad, a 38-year-old from Ahvaz, remembered by his brother as an honorable and compassionate man who spent his life helping others.

Adel was born in Ahvaz on February 23, 1987. He was killed on January 9.

“I want the whole world to know that my brother was a noble and honorable man,” his brother told The Jerusalem Post. “He lived with dignity, and he left this world with absolute honor.”

According to his brother, Adel was the kind of man who instinctively stood beside those weaker than himself. He helped others whenever he could, without needing recognition or reward.

“He always helped those who were weaker than himself in every way he possibly could,” his brother said. “He was so kind and compassionate that everyone loved him — even his enemies would have found him willing to help them in their time of need.”

Grew without a father, working since being 12

That kindness, his family said, was matched by an intense work ethic shaped by hardship from a young age. Adel grew up without a father and began working when he was only 12 years old so that he could stand on his own two feet.

His brother described him as tireless, hardworking, and determined, a man who carried the burden of life with a smile.

“He was an incredibly hardworking and tireless person who always wore a smile,” his brother said.

Adel also loved cheerful music, his brother recalled.

On the evening of January 9, Adel left his mother’s house. He had not planned to be gone long. He did not even stay for dinner.

‘I’ll be right back’

“I’ll be right back, and then I’ll eat,” he said, according to his brother. But Adel never returned.

His brother said he had only briefly changed his clothes before leaving the house. What happened afterward ended with the family receiving his body.

For Adel’s relatives, the grief of his killing was compounded by the restrictions placed on his funeral. According to his brother, the family was forced to sign a written undertaking limiting who could attend.

“For his funeral, we were forced to sign a written undertaking stating that no one else could attend, or that the number of mourners had to be kept extremely small and strictly limited to immediate family members,” his brother told the Post.

The family was also denied the chance to see him properly one final time, he said. When Adel’s body was handed over, it was already completely wrapped in a burial shroud.

“They did not allow us to see what they had done to him,” his brother said.

For the family, that denial remains part of the wound: not only that Adel was killed, but that even in death, they were prevented from fully saying goodbye.

Adel is remembered by his family as Javidnam – an immortal hero – one of the many Iranians whose lives were cut short during the January massacre.

But to his brother, he was first and foremost a man of honor: a son, a brother, a worker, and a person whose goodness was recognized by everyone around him.

Ermia Lachiani, 24, was a hardworking young man whose kind heart was his true strength. 

Born and raised in Isfahan, he was his parents’ only child and had ambitious plans from a young age. 

When he was 16, he began working in a pharmacy while attending school full-time. 

His mother said that he learned that to get ahead, you had to stand tall, even when you’re exhausted. 

“In general, Ermia cared more about the suffering of others and his fellow human beings than about himself,” his mother told The Jerusalem Post.

“When he worked at the pharmacy and saw people who couldn’t afford specialized medication for their illnesses, it broke him. He believed in humanity and in being a ‘big’ person—that kindness is the truest sign of strength.”

Aspiring rapper dreamed of being the greatest rapper in a free and just Iran 

Lachiani was also a gifted musician and was an aspiring rapper. He loved  Eminem, Tupac, Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake.

“It didn’t matter to him how long it would take; what mattered was that one day, his name would be heard alongside the best,” his mother told the Post.

His artistic sensibilities came through not only in his lyrics, but also in his poetry.

“I am a soldier of my people; not by force, but by my own choice,” he wrote.

His mother told the Post that he was constantly upset with the injustice he saw in the world.

“What set Ermia apart wasn’t just his big dreams; it was his massive heart,” she said.

“When I told him, ‘Ermia, eat your food,’ he would look at me angrily and say: ‘Young people are bleeding and being crushed in the streets, and you’re sitting here telling me to come and eat?’”

What happened to Lachiani during and after the protests on January 9?

Six months ago, he went to protest the Islamic Regime. He had taken part in protests in 2019, and had also felt deep sorrow for the murder of protesters during the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022.

His mother noted that he had been on a hunger strike for three days before he went to protest.

He was killed on the night of January 9.

After his family recovered his body, they were allowed to hold a small funeral ceremony.

Authorities demanded that he be named as a martyr, but his family refused.

He leaves behind his family, but is remembered for his special bond with his mother.

Lachiani, she said, was her closest friend and her safe haven. 

She told the Post that he was not just her son: “he was hope, he was comfort, he was a living, breathing dream.”

Since he was her only child, he had promised he would provide for her, be her protector, and “never let a shadow of worry touch her heart.”

Since his death, his mother has been heartbroken with the loss of her son, and feels like she will not get any peace.

“All over the world, people have the right to protest, but unfortunately, in our country, silence was answered with bullets,” his mother told the Post.

“In my opinion, everyone who has lost a loved one during this time is seeking justice and accountability.

“Whenever we find a moment of peace, it is solely because we believe he walked a path that he chose himself and was a pioneer in. This thought slightly heals our psychological wounds.

She added that she was proud of her son’s courage and the way he lived his life. 

“Ermia was a boy who stood strong amidst hardships, fought with hope, and lived with love.

Someone who believed that through hard work, you can create a voice, and from that voice, a future.”

Six months after Iran’s January 8–9 massacre, in which opposition-linked estimates and evidence from inside Iran place the number of dead at between 35,000 and 40,000, The Jerusalem Post is highlighting some of those killed, based on testimony provided by their families.

Among them was Abolfazl Jahedi, an 18-year-old from Tehran who, according to his mother, wanted to study firefighting and serve his country by saving lives.

Abolfazl was born in Tehran on August 18, 2007. He was killed in Tehran on January 9, 2026, and buried four days later at Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery.

His mother remembers him as loyal, innocent, respectful, and hardworking.

“Abolfazl was such a loyal and faithful boy,” she told the Post. “He was so innocent and trusting that he never imagined he would be confronted with live ammunition.”

On the evening of January 8, his mother said, Abolfazl went outside and returned disappointed that more people had not joined the protests.

“There was nobody there; nobody had the courage to say anything,” he told his father, according to his mother. “Dad, at worst they’ll only use shotgun pellets.”

The following evening, he was killed.

According to his mother, Abolfazl was struck twice by shotgun pellets, once in the head and once in the leg. She said he had gone out believing he could stand, empty-handed, for the rights of the poor and for justice for those whose blood had already been spilled.

Abolfazl worked hard to pursue dream of being a firefighter

“My Abolfazl was a modest, understanding boy – well-mannered and polite,” she said. “He treated everyone with great respect.”

Abolfazl worked constantly to help himself and pursue his dreams. He came home with grease on his hands after work, saved money for new clothes, distributed leaflets through the night, and worked in wedding halls and reception venues until 3 a.m., earning around 500,000 toman a night.

Often, his mother said, he would come home late and go to school exhausted the next morning. Sometimes, the family could not even afford his bus fare, so he walked long distances.

Eventually, with his family’s support, Abolfazl bought an old second-hand motorcycle.

It was, his mother said, his greatest dream.

But he was only able to ride it for one or two months before he was killed. Today, the motorcycle still stands in the corner of the parking lot, gathering dust.

On the night he left and never returned, Abolfazl had planned to enroll the next day at university to study firefighting.

“My son wanted to serve this country,” his mother said. “His kind soul wanted to save people’s lives.”

None of those dreams came true, she said. He never became a firefighter. He never enjoyed the motorcycle he had worked so hard to buy. He never finished building the strong body he wanted from going to the gym. He never bought himself new clothes again.

“My son left this world with nothing,” she said.

Abolfazl refused to turn back, bravely stood in front row of protests

According to testimony later given to the family by the friend who was with him that night, Abolfazl had already been struck twice but refused to turn back.

“Our blood is no more valuable than anyone else’s,” he said, according to his mother’s account. “If you’re afraid, don’t come with us.”

When others said they had done enough and should go home, he replied: “If my sister is staying out in the crowd until late at night, my pride won’t allow me to go home.”

Near the entrance to a street by the district administration building, his mother said, a crowd had gathered. Abolfazl stepped into the front row and threw a stone at one of the officers. When people began to flee, she said, he could not run quickly enough because he was wearing heavy safety boots.

He took cover behind a garbage container, but because he was tall, his head remained visible above it.

“The coward holding the weapon showed no mercy and deliberately aimed at his forehead,” his mother said.

She said he was struck just above his right eyebrow, shattering the back of his skull.

His friend tried to get him to the hospital, but Abolfazl was already dead. His father rushed there believing his son had only been wounded in the leg. At first, fearing for his safety, he did not give nurses Abolfazl’s name.

He searched everywhere, then finally asked whether Abolfazl Jahedi had been brought in.

‘In a single instant, our wonderful boy had been taken’

“As he turned around, he saw the tall body of his son inside a black body bag,” his mother said. “In a single instant, our wonderful boy had been taken from us.”

The family said the hospital refused to release his body and told them to go to the forensic medical center in Kahrizak. There, his mother said, they found him “alone, lifeless, and abandoned among thousands of other bodies.”

Abolfazl was buried on January 13. According to his mother, because of the large number of dead, his body was only handed over late at night, forcing the family to bury him in darkness.

Afterward, she said, authorities contacted the family several times and wanted to officially register him as a state “martyr.” The family refused.

Officials also came to the family’s neighborhood and to Abolfazl’s school asking questions, she said. The family still does not know why.

“This left us living in fear for a long time,” his mother said. “To this day, we lock our front door securely every night before going to sleep.”

The loss has devastated the family. Abolfazl’s father, his mother said, can no longer sleep without heavy sedatives and sleeping pills.

“Every day we still wait for Abolfazl to come home from work at five o’clock in the afternoon,” she said. “Every time we hear the sound of a motorcycle, we startle, and our hearts ache.”

She said she had once worried about how she would cope when Abolfazl eventually left home for two years of compulsory military service. Now, he has been gone for months.

“His voice, his belongings, even his scent are gone,” she said.

For Abolfazl’s mother, justice means the complete removal of those responsible for killing Iran’s young people.

“We thought it would never happen to our family – but it did,” she said. “It will happen to your families as well. These people will leave every one of us in mourning, one family after another. Do not remain silent.”

Until now, she said, almost nothing had been published about her son.

“No one knows who he was,” she said.

Six months later, his family still struggles to leave the house. Even the most basic errands, his mother said, would force them to pass the place where Abolfazl was killed.

“Every street and alley smells of blood,” she said. “Our emotional state is utterly catastrophic.”

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Ankara on July 8 to participate in meetings on the sidelines of an important NATO Summit. This comes after a two-day visit by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to Damascus.

For Sharaa, the meetings in Ankara will have great meaning for the future of Syria. Turkey is a key supporter of Damascus and Sharaa has also received support from other NATO members, including the United States.

Video of the Syrian leader’s arrival showed him disembarking from a plane in Ankara. He flew into Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport.

“President Sharaa was welcomed by Turkish Trade Minister Ömer Bolat and several Turkish officials,” Syrian state media SANA noted. He then arrived at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Wednesday, according to Syrian state media.

Syrian state media added that “the visit coincides with the 36th NATO Summit, which is being held in Ankara on July 7-8 and hosted by Türkiye, as the alliance faces a range of regional and global security challenges.”

Syria seeks to anchor its relationship with NATO members

It also noted that “several leaders are attending the summit, including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and the leaders of Finland, Slovakia, Italy, Canada, Bulgaria, Albania and Montenegro.”

The meetings over the next day will be important for Syria as it seeks to anchor its relationship with NATO members. In Jerusalem, there are concerns about Syria one day emerging as a potential threat. In addition, Israeli and Turkish officials have recently been involved in a war of words.

Israeli leaders view Ankara as a potential emerging threat. However, Turkey is a member of NATO, and Israel will not want to get involved in a clash with a NATO member. On the other hand, Israel enjoys warm ties with Greece, which is a NATO member.

The question of Syria is important in the Middle East. It is trying to rebuild after years of civil war. Turkey played a role in that conflict.

First of all, Turkey backed the Syrian rebels. However, later Turkey worked with Russia and Iran to try to reduce conflict in Syria. This followed the Syrian regime’s advance into Aleppo near the Turkish border in 2016.

Turkey then shifted focus to fighting the Kurdish YPG in Syria, accusing them of being linked to the PKK. Turkey invaded the Kurdish region of Afrin in 2018 and then Serekaniyeh in 2019.

Kurds integrating with Syrian security forces, Turkey backs new government

The US, which was backing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, weighed withdrawing from Syria at the time. Now Turkey is seeking a different role in Syria, backing the new government. The Kurdish forces are integrating with the new Damascus security Forces.

Syria’s president issued a statement regarding Macron’s visit to Damascus on July 6-7.

“Our discussions resulted in practical steps to strengthen cooperation between our two countries, most notably an agreement to exchange ambassadors, and the signing of a number of strategic agreements and Memoranda of Understanding in the fields of energy and reconstruction, in a manner that advances the aspirations of our two peoples and supports efforts towards development and stability,” Sharaa noted.

As such, Syria’s president is emerging from one set of success stories, with the French leader’s visit, to another potential success at the NATO summit.

The challenge will be for Syria to ensure it gets the time it wants with key leaders, including the US president. US President Donald Trump is now focused on Iran tensions after clashes overnight in the Persian Gulf.

According to Turkey’s TRT, “US President Donald Trump has said he was very upset with NATO as he met with the military alliance’s chief, Mark Rutte, at the opening of a key summit in Ankara.”

As such, Trump has many issues on his plate even as the Syrian leader arrived. 

The state told the High Court of Justice on Wednesday that Tzohar Food Supervision’s newly issued license as an official kashrut-certifying body cannot currently be relied on because of flaws in the way it was granted, but also said the Chief Rabbinate remains obligated to examine Tzohar’s request without delay.

The position leaves Tzohar holding a license it says was lawfully granted and already relied upon, while other state officials argue that the process behind it was defective.

For Tzohar, the case is not only about one license. It is about whether the 2021 kashrut reform, which was intended to open Israel’s official kashrut-certification market to licensed private bodies, will be implemented before the current government succeeds in rolling it back.

Tzohar has argued that after years of delay, High Court proceedings, and a ruling requiring the Rabbinate to examine its request under the law in force, internal disputes inside the Rabbinate should not be used to undermine its ability to serve businesses and consumers.

“The people of Israel deserve kashrut that they can trust and that is accessible and professional,” Tzohar said this week. “They should not have to contend with judicial and bureaucratic stall tactics.”

State responds to Tzohar dispute ahead of Tuesday night deadline

The state position was submitted on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate and the Chief Rabbinate Council after Justice Gila Canfy-Steinitz ordered the state to respond to the dispute over the license by Tuesday night.

According to the filing, a legal review found a material flaw in the process that led Chief Rabbinate director-general Yehuda Cohen to grant Tzohar the license last week.

The state said that, at this stage, there was no practical possibility for Tzohar to act on the license. It said the licensing authority should begin the proper legal process to cancel or suspend it, or alternatively conduct the licensing process again.

At the same time, the state stressed that the dispute over the license did not erase the Rabbinate’s obligations under a previous High Court ruling. The court had ordered the Rabbinate and the Chief Rabbinate Council to decide whether Tzohar met the criteria to receive a license as a “body granting kashrut certification,” and, if so, to issue one.

“The possibility that the law will be amended in the future does not remove the obligation to fully comply with the judgment in a proper administrative process,” the state position said.

At the center of the immediate legal dispute is whether Cohen could issue the license before the matter was formally brought before the Chief Rabbinate Council.

Under the state’s reading of the law, a private kashrut body seeking to operate according to a Chief Rabbinate Council kashrut standard can receive a license only if the council does not oppose the request on kashrut grounds. But the state said that this requires the licensing authority to first refer the request to the council and give it the statutory 30-day period to respond.

That, the state said, did not happen.

The Chief Rabbinate Council said last week that the issue had not been brought before it, that it had not received Cohen’s reasoned decision or the underlying materials, and that it was therefore not approving the license at that stage.

Cohen rejected that position in a letter cited in the filing, arguing that the claims against the license were inconsistent with the law, the High Court’s ruling, and proper administration.

He said the council had known about Tzohar’s request for years through the High Court proceedings, had been a party to the case, and had not raised a substantive kashrut objection to the license. He argued that the law does not require the council’s active approval, only that it not oppose the license on kashrut grounds.

In Cohen’s view, because no such opposition was issued, the council should be deemed to have consented and the license remains valid.

The state rejected that interpretation, saying the council’s 30-day period does not begin through general awareness of the litigation, but only after a formal referral by the licensing authority.

Tzohar argues that license was validly granted

Tzohar maintains that Cohen, as the official appointed under the law to grant licenses to kashrut-certifying bodies, was empowered to issue the authorization.

Rabbi Emmanuel Guedj, who heads Tzohar’s kashrut division, told The Jerusalem Post this week that the organization’s standards follow Chief Rabbinate procedures and that each business under its supervision has an on-site supervisor, as well as an additional supervisor above him.

“The supervisor is not employed by the business,” Guedj said. “He is employed by us, so there is no conflict of interest.”

He said Tzohar also tracks supervisors’ attendance through GPS, allowing it to know when a supervisor was at a business and for how long.

The license carries practical consequences beyond the legal fight. Until now, Tzohar operated under certificates that could not use the word “kosher.” Tzohar chairman Rabbi David Stav told the Post that the license allowed the organization to issue official certificates bearing the word, including for businesses seeking to meet tender requirements.

Stav said Tzohar would continue operating under the license it received.

“The court is with us, the law is with us,” he said. “As long as the Knesset does not legislate a different law.”

The broader case comes as the government advances legislation that would undo key parts of the 2021 reform. The reform was designed to move Israel away from a system in which local rabbinates effectively held geographic monopolies over official kashrut certification, while allowing licensed private bodies to issue official certificates under state regulation.

The High Court previously rejected the state’s argument that Tzohar’s petition could be delayed because the government intended to amend or repeal the law. The court said a future legislative initiative could not serve as an answer to an order requiring the state to act under the law currently in force.

The state asked to submit an additional update within 10 days. Tzohar is expected to submit its reply by Thursday.

Iran enjoys many advantages in its attacks in the Gulf. It will be incredibly difficult to stop the Iranian threats entirely.

In the latest clashes, Iran targeted shipping and carried out attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait. This has become a cycle over the last months. Even with a ceasefire and memorandum of understanding (MoU), Iran continues its attacks. The United States continues to respond.

The question is whether there is an easy solution. The US will be pressed to do more and to come up with a way to avoid repeating a cycle every week or two in tit-for-tat strikes.

The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, can attack at a time and place of its choice. As such, Iran dictates the tempo and the battlefield to some extent. Having the ability to attack wherever one wants, when one wants, gives Iran an advantage.

It enjoys the advantage because the Gulf is Iran’s backyard: It is around 990 kilometers of waterway that end at the Strait of Hormuz, which is between 40 and 100 km. wide.

There are hundreds of small islands in the Persian Gulf, also known as the Arabian Gulf. Around 30 of the islands are both substantial and controlled by Iran. This provides Iran with a major advantage because it can use the islands and its long coastline to threaten the region.

The Gulf is also a large area, with a surface area of water covering around 250,000 sq. km. This is larger than the area of Denmark and smaller than the size of Norway.

The comparison to Norway is worth considering. It may be no surprise that during World War II the German Navy used the fjords to hide its ships. Even though the Allies increasingly had air superiority, the Germans could still hide in Norwegian waters with their much weaker navy. It took many strikes, for instance, to sink the massive German battleship Tirpitz, which now rests at the bottom of a fjord near Hakoya island, close to Tromso, Norway.

Concern is over Iranian missiles getting through, not Iran winning the battle

Iran no longer has a navy, so finding the regime’s ships is not a major issue. The challenge is finding Iranian drone launcher teams and missile launchers. Iran has expanded the range and accuracy of drones and missiles. This means that it can launch drones from up to 2,000 km. away and strike ships. This gives Iran a huge land area to strike the Strait. It means that any attempt to suppress the drone and missile threat is likely impossible. Another threat Iran can create is using small fast boats. It has done this in the past. This creates a large number of options for Iran.

Most of the Iranian threats are not that serious. There are defenses against Iranian drones and missiles. The US Navy and partner forces have shown they can defeat these threats. As such, the Iranian threat is not that it will win the battle. The threat is more that a few drones or missiles, out of hundreds launched, will get through.

This causes tankers to not want to risk the journey or the lives of their civilian crew members. Many such crews have already been trapped in the Gulf for months.

Insurance for the ships is hard to obtain to transit the Strait in wartime, and the cost is prohibitive. This has meant that the real threat is not that drones will sink ships, but that it will become too costly to risk transit. Iran knows this. It knows it doesn’t need to win the battle but only to create the appearance of limited threat. This is what it has been doing. It has been waiting for a week, attacking, then de-escalating and attacking again, gambling that the Gulf states prefer de-escalation.

Many countries are present in the Gulf, not just the US

Iran knows that it is dealing with different countries. Not only is the US present in the Gulf, but there is also Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Each country has separate views and interests.

For instance, Oman and Qatar have generally had better ties with Iran.

Kuwait has tried to be neutral.

Iran views the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as close to Israel.

The US has major bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE. This includes the naval base in Bahrain and major air bases in Qatar and the UAE. The current bases are, in some ways, a result of the Gulf War and the post-Gulf War period. This has changed over time due to conflict in Iraq in 2003 and the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Iran knows all this. It is aware the US is also weighing moving assets out of the Gulf, further away from the threat. Iran thinks it has the ability to push the US away from the region and then get some of the Gulf states to buckle under. The Gulf states are increasingly angry at the Iranian attacks. They want a solution.

It is not clear at the moment how the US or the Gulf countries will reach a solution. Military means alone may not be enough. So far, there is a cycle of escalation and de-escalation. Iran is dictating this cycle so far, after originally having setbacks in the war that began on February 28.

Make no mistake, the latest battles between Iran and the US over the Strait of Hormuz are about nuclear weapons.

Of course, the Hormuz wars are also about control of the waterway and money, but in the larger view, they are really about the future of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In two wars in June 2025 and early 2026, Israel and the US bombed Iran’s nuclear program backward from being months away from a nuclear weapon to being multiple years away.

The one significant strand of the nuclear weapons program that still needs to be squared off is Iran’s 400-plus kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium, currently covered in rubble, but still potentially very dangerous. 

While US President Donald Trump made some highly problematic concessions in his deal with Iran in June, one critical concession that he got from Iran was setting a basis for removing or neutralizing that 60% enriched uranium.

This is what Iran is really fighting about with Hormuz: how much can it use reinflaming the strait to get Trump to back off even off of the nuclear issue. This means the Islamic Republic is using economic extortion at Hormuz to try to wrangle a better deal post-war out of the fateful nuclear concessions it made mid-war.

From day one of the deal, Iran has been playing games with the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump, Iran dispute Hormuz status 

When Trump immediately called the strait open, the Islamic regime insisted alternately that the strait was not yet open, or that it would be open, but only to those who paid enormous fees – as a way to compensate Iran for war losses.

After a flare-up with the US over that issue, Iran seemed to retreat temporarily, saying the strait could be crossed without fees for 60 days, while simultaneously signaling it would begin collecting fees by the end of the 60-day negotiations to implement the deal between the countries.

Iran caused flare-ups at various points to deter Israel from taking aggressive actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon, eventually effectively ending the war there.

More recently, Iran has started to attack ships periodically that cross through the strait in an area closer to Oman without registering with Tehran.

In the prior flare-up, Iran attacked allied US ships, leading to very modest attacks by American forces on some Iranian positions near the strait.

Iran’s multiple attacks on US-allied ships this week led to a slightly more robust series of attacks by American forces on over 80 Iranian positions and small ships (the US destroyed virtually all the larger ships during the war earlier this year) around the strait.

But these attacks were still a far cry from anything which would intimidate the Iranians into giving up their larger grand plan of using intermittent fights over Hormuz to try to escape the nuclear concessions which the Trump administration says they committed to.

Iran’s quick response to US attacks

In fact, Iran wasted no time in attacking multiple American Arab allies in the region, including US bases, making sure it showed how little regard it had for the American attacks.

Why doesn’t Iran care about 80 attacks by the US?

Because the targets were unimportant tactical targets near Hormuz, and nothing that actually is of strategic value to the regime.

Trump is avoiding such attacks for now, fearing a return to full war will erase his gains in bringing gas prices down since the war ended.

And that is the essence of the dilemma.

As long as Iran knows that Trump fears going back to war and hitting them anywhere sensitive, why would they make concessions on nuclear weapons?

All they need to do is to keep periodically shaking the boat, or in this case the strait, and they reason that eventually Trump will be worn down by continued months of gas price gyrations, to beg for stabilizing Hormuz, even if it means he gives back the concessions Iran made on the nuclear issue.

This leaves Trump with two choices if he wants to outlast Iran’s pressure on the nuclear issue.

One is to hit the Islamic regime really hard again, at the level of top officials or weapons or economic assets of true strategic value, and be ready to risk a return to war if necessary.

His other option is to keep American forces in the region for a much more extended period to periodically symbolically strike Iran, but keep those strikes below a certain threshold, while also holding back the funds Iran is owed, until the regime starts to behave and he wears it down into following through on the nuclear concessions it already made.

For Trump, the US, Israel, and others threatened by Iran’s nuclear program to close the box on that threat – at least for 15 years or so – he must realize that what is at stake in these Hormuz wars is far more than gas prices.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that he believed Iranian strikes on US bases in the Gulf violated the Memorandum of Understanding with the US, and that Iran had been mistaken to carry them out, but added that he understood meetings as part of the 60-day ceasefire between Iran and the United States would continue.

Trump said earlier on Wednesday that the interim agreement to end the war with Iran was over after the attacks.

Macron, Meloni address NATO, Trump remarks

Macron also commented on Trump’s broader remarks about NATO allies during the same appearance.

Macron also said he did not hear US President Donald Trump make any complaints behind closed doors about allies, after Trump publicly called Spain a “terrible partner” in the military alliance and renewed claims on Greenland while speaking to reporters alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Ankara.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also commented on her ties with Trump.

“No, I absolutely don’t regret anything I’ve done,” Meloni said in Ankara, at the end of a NATO summit in which Trump also took part.

Meloni said she would not respond directly to Trump’s posts.

She also said Italy would respect NATO defense spending commitments, but would decide on timing and procedures, and prioritize the Italian defense sector.

Meloni says US has not notified Italy of troop withdrawal

The United States has not formally notified Italy of any plans to withdraw troops from Italian soil, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday, speaking at the end of the NATO summit in Ankara.

Authorities rescued 17 unconscious women from a beauty salon in the A-Tur neighborhood of Jerusalem on Wednesday, with some of them being in moderate condition while others were in more serious condition.

The initial assessment was a suspicion of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to a statement from the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority.

“Firefighters are currently working at the scene to identify the substance, examine the circumstances of the incident, and rule out any further risk to the public,” Israel Police said.

Seven of the women were evacuated to Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem in serious condition, while five were brought to Shaare Zedek Medical Center and another five to Hadassah-University Medical Center on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus in mild condition, the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority said.

According to Shaare Zedek, three women in moderate condition are currently being treated, with the hospital noting that all three are conscious. 

This is a developing story.

The Israeli aid delegation’s earthquake relief work in Venezuela will continue for an additional two weeks after interim president Delcy Rodriguez met with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to request the extension, the Foreign Ministry and the IDF announced on Wednesday. 

The decision was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

With a small delegation of only 30 people, Israeli presence in Venezuela has been focused on designing a national reconstruction plan, which Rodriguez hopes to begin implementing.

As part of the plan, the IDF began mapping and categorizing approximately 1,300 buildings on Monday, classifying them as either to be demolished or potentially salvageable despite damage.

Additionally, IDF Brig.-Gen. Elad Edri said that the IDF engineers have provided guidance to Venezuela on handling debris from damaged buildings. 

‘Out of the box thinking’ as earthquake death toll rises

The multi-year plan is a major accomplishment of the Israeli delegation, and Venezuela approved it within days, rather than the weeks or months it would normally take to develop.

Edri said the severity of the disaster warranted rapid, out-of-the-box thinking.

Following the June 24 earthquake, the IDF delegation flew out of Israel on June 30 and landed in Venezuela on July 1 after multiple complex stopovers, Edri said.

He explained that, given the current chaos, other delegations who wanted to assist with the disaster have needed four to five days of travel and waiting to reach disaster-stricken sites.

Even the IDF could not fly directly into Caracas; they flew into Valencia instead and then traveled domestically to Caracas.

On Sunday, the Venezuelan Information Ministry announced that the death toll had risen to 3,342.

The new tally also puts the number of injured at 16,470, while the number of homeless has risen to 17,345. Nearly 200 buildings are confirmed to have collapsed, according to state officials.

Some of the homeless are living in official shelters and others in tent encampments. An unofficial but widely used tally of the missing stands at around 41,000.

Yonah Jeremy Bob and Miriam Sela-Eitam contributed to this report.

Religious-services rights organization ITIM filed a complaint Tuesday against Sephardi Chief Rabbi David Yosef, accusing him of using his public and judicial position to urge mikveh attendants to shame women who want to immerse without an attendant present.

The complaint was filed with retired judge and Judicial Complaints Commissioner Asher Kula, in Yosef’s capacity as president of the Great Rabbinical Court.

It followed remarks Yosef made two weeks ago at a conference for mikveh attendants, according to the complaint and news reports.

Yosef reportedly acknowledged that attendants could face legal consequences if they prevented a woman from immersing alone, but then allegedly told them they could verbally rebuke such women for acting against halacha.

He said attendants could tell a woman that the chief rabbi had said she was “defying the Torah,” according to the complaint.

Yosef’s office denies the claims

“Raise your voice and shout,” he was quoted as saying. “That way, you have not broken the law, but you have shamed them” into immersion with an attendant present.

A day later, Yosef’s office said that the remarks attributed to him had been quoted only in part and did not present the full picture.

“There was never any intention to harm” women, the statement said, adding that “on the contrary, everything he said at the conference was about welcoming women warmly, with kindness.”

His office said that even when Yosef warned against what it described as a minority of women seeking to immerse without an attendant in what he described as a violation of halacha, he had said the matter should be explained “pleasantly,” though clearly and firmly. The statement added that Yosef’s sharper remarks were directed at women who, in his view, act “defiantly” by relying on High Court rulings in halachic matters.

“Certainly, every person must be treated with honor and dignity, all the more so women who come to fulfill a mitzvah,” the statement said.

ITIM argued that the clarification did not retract the substance of the remarks, but instead reinforced the message that women who ask to immerse without an attendant are acting against Torah law.

The heart of the dispute is a 2016 High Court of Justice ruling in an ITIM petition, which gave force to an agreed position that a woman who asks to immerse without a mikveh attendant or friend present may not be prevented from doing so.

A Religious Services Ministry directive issued after the ruling similarly states that if a woman asks to immerse alone, the attendant may explain, with the required sensitivity, that responsibility for the halachic validity of the immersion rests with the woman herself, but may not press her beyond that.

ITIM says Yosef’s comments were ‘halachically harmful’

ITIM argued that Yosef’s remarks violated the ethics rules for dayanim, contradicted the High Court ruling and ministry procedure, and amounted to improper use of his public position.

The organization also argued that the comments were halachically harmful. The complaint cited rabbinic sources and later halachic opinions that, according to ITIM, recognize immersion without an attendant as valid in certain circumstances, and said publicly shaming women over their manner of immersion constituted verbal wrongdoing.

“It is painful and outrageous to see a person of such high halachic and public standing, to whom many women look up – including the mikveh attendants who do sacred work – choose to use his power to harm women’s standing,” attorneys Timna Guttel and Ofra Sitssamer of ITIM’s legal department said.

“Instead of bringing women closer, the rabbi’s words distance women from the mitzvah of immersion and deepen the gap between those immersing and the mikveh attendants,” they said.

Rabbi Seth Farber, ITIM’s founder and chairman, called on the chief rabbis to serve as a model of tolerance and respect, and said women who had experienced degrading treatment in mikvaot could contact ITIM’s assistance line.

ITIM asked Kula to intervene, saying the remarks instructed public employees to act contrary to legal directives and harmed women’s right to privacy in mikvaot.

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was spotted at Khamenei’s funeral events on Monday. The appearance is important because, according to Al-Ain media in the UAE, Ahmadinejad has not appeared in public since February 28, when the US and Israel began strikes on Iran. He has now returned from the “brink of death.”

The former Iranian president was believed for a time to possibly be dead due to the bombing on the first day of the war. However, subsequent reports made it seem that the bombing was actually intended to free him from a kind of house arrest. These reports, in May, suggested that there was hope that Ahmadinejad might actually be helpful in some form of regime change.

He is one of many leaders and former leaders of Iran whose fates have been entwined with the war. Mystery surrounds Ahmadinejad.

He was president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, key years when the nuclear program was in the spotlight. He was a key figure in Iran’s nuclear program and its perception as an increasing threat to Israel and the world.

This was also the lead-up to the Iran deal that the Obama administration signed in 2015.

Since leaving office, Ahmadinejad appeared to retire to a modest life. He also became more active on social media, including commenting on American sports and getting involved in supporting various causes. This post-presidential life appeared to present him in a new light. No longer the fire-breathing Holocaust denier, he appeared to be living a kind of Hobbit-like existence wrapped in eccentricity.

No other previous Iranian presidents attend Khamenei’s funeral

Khamenei’s funeral did not involve any of the former presidents of Iran in any official capacity. They have all be pushed aside. Iran is now believed to be moving more toward a kind of military dictatorship, even if the country still officially has a civilian president. This means the IRGC and security forces are calling the shots. The new supreme leader, a son of Khamenei, was not present. He is reported to be wounded and in hiding since the end of February.

Al-Ain media noted that “since the outbreak of war on February 28, in which a large number of Iranian political and military leaders were killed, Ahmadinejad had not appeared, and no official confirmation or denial of his fate had been issued, amid conflicting reports about his death, leaving his situation among the many doubts that prevailed in the early days of the American and Israeli strikes.”

The report said that on Monday he was seen in public “for the first time since the war, moving among mourners wearing a jacket and a mask that had been pulled up to his throat. Iranian state media published a picture of Ahmadinejad, showing him among his bodyguards and with mourners in a street in Tehran.”

What comes next for Ahmadinejad?

There is interest in what may come next for Iran’s former president. The reports in Western media suggesting that there was a plan to install him in a leadership role may cast a cloud over him.

Similar reports in Western media suggesting that IRGC Quds Force head Ismail Qaani is a double agent have also cast a cloud over him.

Al-Ain media noted that “Ahmadinejad was known for his harsh statements against Israel during his presidency. His reappearance came a day after the absence of the other two living former presidents – Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani – from the ceremony, with critics saying they had not been invited.”

The funeral has continued this week as Khamenei’s body was taken to Qom and now to Najaf in Iraq. This is expected to be a week-long event galvanizing support for Iran. On Monday, Al-Ain added that “the ceremonies today take place in the city of Qom, which is home to the most prominent Shiite religious schools and a large number of shrines and holy sites, the day after the coffin was laid to rest in the capital, Tehran. The funeral procession is scheduled to travel to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala on Tuesday, before returning to Iran, where the body will be buried on the ninth of this month in his hometown of Mashhad.”

Absolutely not. That must be the immediate, unequivocal, and stern response from the State of Israel if and when any formal request to relocate American military bases or assets from other countries in the region to Israel is made by the US Central Command.

The response must also be as such if presented directly by the White House. In terms of the Americans, it is quite clear why they would want to transfer military bases and installations to Israel.

Operation Epic Fury – the American segment of the war with Iran – exposed what modern warfare analysts and many astute observers of the current multipolarity of geopolitics already understood – that the United States suffers from significant gaps in military capabilities and is vulnerable to multiple asymmetrical military threats.

These hybrid and asymmetrical capabilities possessed by weaker countries, such as Iran, as well as by great powers like China, also pose a challenge to other great powers, such as Israel and India.

In the case of the US, though, the large geographic spread and the highly exposed nature of its military installations, along with a lack of integrated, concentrated, and highly synchronized multitiered and multidimensional defenses, make the hybrid and asymmetrical capabilities of lower-tier and first-tier adversaries all the more dangerous and effective.

Iran and its proxies managed to strike multiple key American installations across the Middle East and beyond the immediate region, as with the attack at the UK’s Akrotiri military base in Cyprus. The Iranian’s were even bold enough to try to hit the incredibly strategic joint US-UK military compound on the Island of Diego Garcia.

These attacks led to numerous wounded US military personnel and the loss of sensitive US military equipment and essential heavy aerial platforms. This cost the US billions of dollars beyond the plus-minus $25 billion cost of direct offensive US military strikes against Iran.

And so, it is no surprise that Washington would very much want to rebase its assets in Israel, the country with the most advanced, battle-tested, effective, and integrated multitiered aerial defense array on planet earth.

Israel’s advanced defense, security capabilities

That array, though not guaranteeing 100% effectiveness, comes along with multiple other defense and security capabilities, creating a comprehensive, unparalleled, and constantly evolving organism-like shield around the State of Israel.

The Americans want to benefit from the protection of that shield.

For the State and nation of Israel, the considerations and perspectives concerning Washington’s reported potential inquiry have been forged in the cauldron of 4,000 years of history and the follies that once plagued it.

I write these words as I arrive in Rome. Two thousand two hundred years ago, the empire that would become the nation of Israel’s greatest enemy – which would set into motion damage both physical and immaterial to Israel that would only be rectified in the modern age – was in fact our ally. Rome and the priestly warrior rulers of Israel’s second independent kingdom – the Maccabees – were in alliance.

After a few decades of mutual interest – mainly due to Jerusalem and Rome both being adversaries of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the Levant – the ostensible alliance between the Hasmonean Kingdom established by the Maccabees and Rome fell apart violently.

How? When those very Hasmoneans, the descendants of the legendary Maccabean freedom fighters who refused to submit to foreign occupation and rule, turned to Rome – this within the pretext of aiding two Hasmonean brothers vying for the crown to settle their blood-soaked feud – the infamous Roman General Pompey brought the standards and swords of the Legions to the Land of Israel by invitation.

The lesson and warning for Israel today is clear. As the Bible declared already a millennium and a half before the Hasmoneans, the people of Israel are never to place above them a foreigner to rule and, by extension, never allow foreign influence and occupation of the Land of Israel that could facilitate that. The Hasmoneans’ invitation to foreign forces and rulers to enter the land and establish a presence indeed led to exactly that. That, of course, was a fatal error, a grave sin.

The United States might be our partner for now, but there is no, and never has been, such a thing as eternal allies. US President Donald Trump has illustrated that himself in terms of his policies and rhetoric toward Western Europe and NATO, and vice versa.

Theoretical US military facilities on Israeli soil, in many cases, could serve to hamper or even prevent Israel from acting on threats to its national security, due to divergent interests, or concern for US forces on Washington’s part. Ignoring such concerns, when their men and material are on your soil, is much more difficult than the reality of them not being present.

It would also reinforce, expand, and deepen the false narratives and tropes about US blood and treasure servicing the State of Israel, as well as the lie that the country has become some sort of vassal state of the Unites States. Israel would also be blamed, without hesitation and no matter the circumstances or context, if any US personnel were killed or wounded, or if any US equipment were to be damaged or destroyed.

Israel’s overall national security, freedom of action, national pride, and status as a military and technology superpower, which has only strengthened in recent months, would also be severely degraded.

If the US needs “safer shores” in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, it should partner with Britain at its military base in Akrotiri and expand and harden the site.

Concurrent to that, the US can and should do the same at Multinational Force and Observers bases in Sinai. Its forces have already been present at those sites for decades. This would be a more cost-effective option, which could also be implemented faster.

No foreign military can ever be hosted on Israel’s soil on a long-term basis, let alone a “permanent” one. Our history’s most painful episodes dictate as much.

The writer is an Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur and a member of the Israel Leadership Forum. He is involved with various Israel advocacy causes, including working with Christian Zionists as well as pro-Israel Noahide groups.

President Donald Trump threw a summit of NATO leaders into disarray on Wednesday as he demanded the United States cut trade ties with Spain and made renewed claims on Greenland, irking another NATO ally, Denmark.

Speaking in the Turkish capital Ankara, Trump called Madrid a “terrible partner” in NATO as he railed against allies for not supporting the war on Iran and ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt all trade with Spain.

Trump’s remarks, also declaring the fragile ceasefire with Iran to be over, overshadowed a summit that European leaders had hoped would project unity and support for Ukraine and cap a series of rows that have threatened to tear the military alliance apart.

Trump spoke alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who has assiduously tried to assuage his concerns over defense spending, Iran and Greenland, while lavishing praise on the president for bringing such issues to the fore.

They also undercut the carefully crafted pre-summit messaging that European NATO countries had stepped up to the plate on military spending, which saw at least $50 billion in defense initiatives unveiled on Tuesday.

‘Spain is a wasted cause, cut off all trade’

Washington and Madrid have been at loggerheads, with Spain explicitly rejecting Trump’s demands for European countries to sharply increase military spending and pay for their own defense. Madrid’s Socialist leadership has also refused to let the US use its airspace or bases on its territory for the Iran war.

“Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore,” Trump said. “By the way, I’d like to cut it off. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate; they don’t pay. I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, including visits.”

In response, the office of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said it was treating Trump’s statements as business as usual, adding that bilateral relations benefited both countries.

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia was more blunt.

“We are a sovereign, democratic country that defends multilateralism and peace,” she said on X. “What’s terrible is confusing diplomacy with bullying.”

Asked about Trump’s remarks, a NATO diplomat said: “The answer to every question POTUS raises is clear: build a more European NATO. That’s what we’re doing in Ankara.”

After the US unleashed new military strikes against Iran in what may be the final blow to a fragile ceasefire agreement in a war that is deeply unpopular in Europe, Rutte defended the US strikes and played down Trump’s disappointment with allies over the Iran war as “isolated cases.”

“I think what you did last night was absolutely necessary. It was a very strong response,” Rutte told Trump. “When you have a ceasefire and Iran is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally crucial that the US forcefully react.”

He also praised Trump for making European countries raise their game on defense spending.

“It’s really important when it comes to NATO, what you have achieved, and this is a huge win,” he said.

Criticism of European nations failing to permit US forces territory in conflict

Trump has accused European nations of failing to let US forces use their airspace and bases on their territories during the war.

European officials have said they largely honored their commitments to US forces, despite not having been consulted about a conflict that roiled their economies.

Trump also demanded that his country control Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, reviving an issue that has put severe strain on the alliance that has underpinned Western security since the start of the Cold War.

“Greenland is very important for the United States, but it’s not important for Denmark,” he said. “In fact, when Denmark was overrun by the Nazis in less than one day – Hitler beat them out in one day, took over – they asked us to take care of Greenland. In fact, we took Greenland, and then stupidly we gave it back.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reiterated that Greenland was not up for grabs.

“We are ready to defend every inch of NATO, including our own territory,” she said.

Taha Naderi, 18, was fatally shot by Iranian security forces outside an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters in Shahreza, near Isfahan, according to testimony his family gave to The Jerusalem Post on the six-month anniversary of the January 8-9 massacre.

His relatives said a live round severed a major artery in his left leg, leading to repeated operations and the eventual amputation of the limb. Naderi died on January 10 after doctors at several hospitals were unable to stop the bleeding, the family said.

Family recounts shooting near IRGC headquarters

According to the family’s testimony, Naderi was participating in a demonstration on Thursday, January 8, when security forces fired tear gas, smoke grenades, shotgun pellets, and live ammunition into the crowd.

Naderi and two relatives had walked about 100 meters through the demonstration when the tear gas and smoke grenades caused people to flee in different directions, the family said. Naderi and one of his companions took cover against the wall of the IRGC building.

“At that moment, security forces opened fire with shotgun pellets and live military ammunition,” a family member said. “Eyewitnesses reported that several people died right before their eyes.”

The family member said Naderi and his companion were trapped beside the wall and threw stones toward the security forces in an attempt to distract them and create an opportunity to escape. According to the testimony, Naderi’s companion was struck by shotgun pellets, while a live round hit Naderi’s left leg and severed a major artery.

The family said Naderi was taken to the nearest hospital, where doctors resuscitated him twice but were unable to stop the bleeding. He was then transferred to Amir al-Momenin Hospital for several operations and later transported to Al-Zahra Hospital in Isfahan, where doctors performed another emergency procedure.

Repeated operations and amputation

Doctors informed the family on Saturday, January 10, that Naderi’s leg would have to be amputated because blood was no longer circulating through it, according to the testimony. The family said he suffered another cardiac arrest while undergoing dialysis and was rushed back into the operating room.

“Eventually, Taha’s amputated leg was carried past my parents before their eyes,” the family member said. “My mother and father both lost consciousness, and 15 minutes later we were informed that he had not survived and had died.”

According to the family, relatives attempted on Monday, January 12, to arrange Naderi’s burial at Bagh-e Rezvan, Isfahan’s main cemetery. Officials told them that overcrowding and administrative procedures would delay the release of his body by two or three days.

“Fearing that the authorities might refuse to release his body to us, we went there every day,” the family member said.

The family said Naderi’s body was eventually released on Friday afternoon and returned to Shahreza.

Authorities altered records and restricted funeral, family says

According to the testimony, two relatives were required in Shahreza to sign a declaration stating that Naderi had not participated in the demonstrations. The family also said his medical records falsely attributed his injuries to “street fighting and a knife wound,” rather than a gunshot.

“We were also required to sign two or three more declarations stating that no more than 20 people could attend the funeral,” the relative said, adding that the family was “strictly forbidden from holding any mourning ceremonies.”

Iran’s January crackdown

Separately from the family’s account, reporting on the January unrest showed that demonstrations had spread across Iran by January 8 after protests began on December 28 amid economic hardship and broader opposition to the Islamic Republic.

Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout during the unrest, while rights organizations accused security forces of firing on demonstrators and carrying out mass arrests.

The total number of people killed on January 8 and 9 remains disputed and has not been independently established. A hospital-based estimate reported later in January indicated that as many as 30,000 people may have been killed during the two-day crackdown, while the Iranian government acknowledged a substantially lower figure of about 3,000.

Other accounts from Iran have described a broader pattern in which authorities pressured victims’ families to falsify death records, accept state-approved explanations for killings, or remain silent about the circumstances of their relatives’ deaths. Some families were reportedly threatened with the withholding or secret burial of victims’ bodies.

Events held from July 4 through July 9 marked six months since the demonstrations and killings, with participants commemorating those killed during the crackdown. In Naderi’s case, his relatives said they were denied the opportunity to mourn him publicly and were “strictly forbidden from holding any mourning ceremonies.”

Six months after Iran’s January 8–9 massacre, in which opposition-linked estimates and evidence from inside Iran place the number of dead at between 35,000 and 40,000, The Jerusalem Post is publishing profiles of some of those killed, based on testimony provided by their families.

Among them was Mani Yousefi, a 20-year-old from Tehran whose mother says he gave his life for the freedom of a country he loved, and for the future of the younger brother he hoped would one day live in it.

His mother remembers him as warm-hearted, funny, and devoted above all else to the cause of freedom in Iran.

“Mani was a very warm-hearted and humorous young man who loved the cause of freedom above all else,” she told the Post. “In the end, he even gave his life for that freedom.”

The night before he was killed, Mani had gone with friends to Khoramdasht in Karaj, hoping to help spark protests there. According to his mother, public support at that stage was still not strong enough. Shortly before going, he had stopped by her workplace to say goodbye.

When he returned home, she said, he was deeply saddened.

“Why aren’t people coming out so that we can finally put an end to this?” he asked, according to his mother.

He did not know, she said, that the following evening he would be killed.

Authorities deny responsibility for Mani’s death

On January 8, at around 9 p.m., Mani was shot dead. His mother said he was killed by two targeted gunshots: one to his heart and one to his pelvis.

To her, he became Javidnam, an immortal hero.

None of the authorities has ever accepted responsibility for his killing, his mother said. Later, she added, the government’s Martyrs Foundation, Bonyad-e Shahid, telephoned her twice to offer condolences.

She rejected them.

“Yes, they eventually returned the body of my beloved son to me,” she told the Post. “On the very first night, they had taken him to Behesht-e Sakineh Cemetery, after which we were able to hold his funeral.”

But receiving his body did not bring closure.

“I can never and will never overcome this unbearable pain,” she said. “When Mani died, a part of me died with him; a large part of my own being was buried alongside him.”

Mani’s brother gives his mother the strength to carry on

She said the only reason she continues to carry on is because of Mani’s younger brother, Makan.

On the evening he was killed, Mani had spoken of him.

“I am ready to take a bullet to the head and die, as long as Makan can then have a good and free life,” his mother recalled him saying.

For Mani’s mother, justice is inseparable from the goal for which she says her son gave his life.

“Justice will exist only when this regime has been overthrown, and our children achieve their goal – freedom,” she said. “That alone is what matters.”

Her message to the world is that the names of Iran’s dead must not disappear into statistics.

“The names of our immortal heroes must never be forgotten,” she said. “If we one day achieve freedom, we will all owe a debt to these immortal souls. They are gone so that we may live in freedom.”

Wednesday and Thursday mark six months since the two-day bloody crackdown against nationwide protests in Iran, when the Iranian security forces responded with force. The retaliation from the Iranian government resulted in over 30,000 Iranian citizens’ deaths.

The Jerusalem Post gathered testimonies from the relatives and friends of many of the victims of the massacre.

Among the victims was Mostafa Adgarsalehi, an Iranian citizen of Lur-Bakhtiari origin, who was not afraid to dream of change for his people and to fight for that future.

This is his story.

Mostafa Adgarsalehi

Mostafa Adgarsalehi, 41, lived in Yazdanshahr, Isfahan, in central Iran, when the nationwide mass demonstrations began.

On January 9, the second day of the massacres, Adgarsalehi took to the streets alongside thousands of Iranian citizens in a demonstration against a corrupt Islamic regime.

That day, he was critically wounded by two projectiles. After a two-day fight for his life in the hospital, he succumbed to his injuries, or, as his family described, a “coup de grâce” (tir-e khalas – a deliberate finishing shot) by the Islamic regime.

Security forces initially seized Adgarsalehi’s body. Only after signing off on the funeral being held under strict conditions and attended by a very small number of mourners was the body finally returned to his family ten days later.

Instead of taking responsibility for the massacre, authorities tried to shift the blame onto the United States and Israel, Adgarsalehi’s family wrote in his testimony.

“He wanted to raise his voice for justice and express his profound contempt for what he viewed as a terrorist dictatorship that had subjected the Iranian people to continuous oppression through extreme mismanagement, mass unemployment, and political, economic, and cultural collapse,” his family told The Jerusalem Post. 

In addition to his courageous character, his family described him as a “highly educated man” who was an engineer and also held a master’s degree in English Translation.

“We expect the international community to recognize this regime as completely illegitimate, hold its leaders accountable for their crimes, and help the Iranian people free themselves once and for all from the tyranny of this regime,” Adgarsalehi’s family stated to the Post.

Overnight clashes in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz have angered US President Donald Trump, who is in Ankara for a NATO Summit.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) carried out powerful strikes overnight, CENTCOM said in a statement. The goal was to “impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.” Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte supported Trump’s decision to carry out the strikes, calling them “absolutely necessary.”

CENTCOM said it had struck 80 targets and completed the strikes by Wednesday. “The US strikes are in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.”

Status of US-Iran truce now uncertain

However, it now remains unclear if the US will go back to the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran. Iran has also claimed to carry out dozens of attacks in the Gulf. The US-Iran truce is now uncertain, CNN noted. Trump is hinting that the MOU is now over. It was supposed to stretch into next month.

The US said on Tuesday that it was reinstating sanctions on Iranian oil sales after the Iranian attacks on tankers that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had carried out several attacks from July 6-7, including targeting a Qatari LNG tanker. Qatar is outraged. The US Treasury had authorized last month Iran oil sales until August 21 “as part of the fragile agreement between Tehran and Washington,” Reuters noted.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kuwait “expressed the State of Kuwait’s strong condemnation and denunciation of the heinous Iranian attacks that targeted the sisterly Kingdom of Bahrain today, which represent a flagrant violation of its sovereignty and a direct threat to its security, stability, and the safety of its citizens and residents on its territory,” Kuwait’s Al-Jarida said on July 8.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani received a phone call from Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi. Doha News noted. During the call, “the two sides discussed the latest diplomatic developments related to ongoing negotiations. The call comes at a sensitive moment in regional diplomacy, with tensions between Iran and the United States remaining high, periodic setbacks in mediation efforts and persistent concerns over maritime security.”

Qatar’s Sheik Mohammed “reaffirmed Qatar’s full support for mediation efforts aimed at resolving the crisis through peaceful means, stressing the need for all parties to engage in order to create conditions for progress in negotiations and reduce the risk of renewed escalation.”

Trump’s statement indicates that collapse of MoU may be near

Al-Ain News in the UAE says that Trump’s recent statement “is the clearest indication yet that the agreement Trump reached with Iran is almost collapsing.”

The American president now believes that the Iranians are not negotiating in good faith. They are viewed now as “dishonest” players, and Trump is worried the US has been wasting its time in the talks. This isn’t the first time Trump has slammed Iran and its leadership. It’s possible the threats are designed to get Iran to stop its provocations.

In the UAE, Anwar Gargash, diplomatic advisor to the President of the United Arab Emirates, said that the continued Iranian attacks show Tehran’s inability to commit to turning the page on the war. Gargash said that “Iranian attacks on Qatari and Saudi commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the repeated aggression against the sisterly countries of Bahrain and Kuwait, are a clear indication that Tehran is still unable to comply with the requirements of de-escalation and turning the page on war,” Al-Ain News in the UAE noted.

In a strong message, he wrote that “the Gulf Arab states cannot remain a target for Iran’s wavering between the logic of escalation and the path of rationality, stability, and peace.”

This is an important statement. The Gulf is beginning to realize Iran won’t step back from its demands to basically control the Strait of Hormuz and dictate policy in the Gulf. This means that countries in the Gulf will want a solution that doesn’t end with attacks on ships every week and a continuing cycle of escalation and talks between Iran and the US. 

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would “probably hit Iran tonight” during a press conference following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

“I’ll give a little warning: We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey before his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump later said that the Iranian regime has been “killing soldiers, killing people for 47 years,” and that because of that, the US has “a score to settle.”

“We may just do it without a deal,” he also added, and said that he is “not sure the deal will stick.”

Additionally, Trump hinted at the possibility of reinstating the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. “Everyone will be able to cross outside of them [Iran]. And they might try to throw some mines, which will be hard because we destroyed their boats,” he said.

.@POTUS on Iran: “We hit them very hard last night — very, very hard — and we’ll probably hit them hard again tonight… They’re cuckoo. There’s something wrong with these people. For 47 years, they’ve been the bully of the Middle East… It’s very simple: they can’t have a… pic.twitter.com/FtZH8l1f8L

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 8, 2026

Trump also pointed out that the US military “knocked out 28 boats last night, and will probably knock out more boats tonight.”

“Lots of people say that they are really dishonorable people, that they can’t keep the deal, but we will have to see,” Trump added.

“Maybe, tonight’s attack will knock out a lot of stuff,” Trump claimed, then told US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to brief reporters on the targets.

“There were a lot of small aircraft that they were trying to harass shipping with, a hundred ground facilities where they were storing drones and missiles, coastal defense sites, radar sites, surveillance sites, and anything they thought they could use to harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” Hegseth explained. 

Trump concluded the press conference saying that, if the US “has to do it, will take out electricity and water plants,” but that he doesn’t want to do it. “We might also take over Kharg Island,” he added.  

Trump says MoU ‘is over’

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said that he thought the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran “is over,” while also stating that he felt the US had “wasted a lot of time” negotiating with Iran, and he did not wish to continue talks.

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

On Tuesday night, US forces began “a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” according to US Central Command (CENTCOM).

In response, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) confirmed it targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to the US strikes in southern Iran that targeted air defense systems, coastal surveillance, and missile and drone launch sites.

Reuters, Jonah Davidov and Shir Perets contributed to this report.

The Brazilian Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a search of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s house, where he is serving house arrest.

Agents of the Brazilian Federal Police were ordered to search for weapons and ammunition stored at the house by Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Bolsonaro had one of his guns seized following an incident in Brazil’s Federal District back in June. After that, the Brazilian army disclosed the former president’s entire arsenal of weapons to the police, with eight of them being handed over to the authorities.

According to Reuters, the Brazilian Supreme Court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the situation.

Serving 27-year sentence after attempted coup

Bolsonaro is currently under house arrest after he was found guilty of attempting a coup after the Brazilian presidential elections of 2022, in which he lost against current Brazilian President Lula Inacio da Silva.

Moraes sentenced Bolsonaro in November of 2025, finding him guilty of conspiring against Lula after the election results were in.

He was supposed to serve in a federal police jail cell in Brasília, but was granted house arrest in March due to concerns over his health.

While the original house arrest arrangement was set at a maximum of 90 days, Moraes extended the period after deeming its continuation “reasonable, ​appropriate and proportionate.”

Viewers of Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary debate on Tuesday night could be forgiven for forgetting at times that one candidate has the heavy backing of pro-Israel donors.

“The prime minister of Israel has failed,” Rep. Haley Stevens said when asked about Iran, saying that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had failed to achieve “long-term peace.”

Later, Stevens added that she supported “aid into Gaza” and reiterated that she believed Netanyahu has been bad for American Jews.

“It is very clear that Mr. Netanyahu has not made us safer, has not brought us closer to peace, and he is a danger to Jews in America and around the world,” she said.

The lines represented sharp criticism of Israel’s leadership for a candidate who, according to federal campaign records, has received more than $10 million in support from donors affiliated with AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that her progressive opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has excoriated on the campaign trail and during Tuesday’s debate. Regarded as one of Congress’ more reliable pro-Israel Democrats, Stevens made the comments as Democratic voters have largely shed their sympathies for Israel.

El-Sayad accuses Israel, AIPAC of controlling US foreign policy

El-Sayed, meanwhile, said during the debate that the United States’ foreign policy “has been handed to us” by Israel and AIPAC and called Israel a “rogue state.”

The former Wayne County health director, whose grassroots campaign has gained momentum as it has increasingly centered anti-Israel rhetoric, did not hold back in his criticism.

Citing “the impact of AIPAC in our politics” as the reason for the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, El-Sayed asserted that the lobbyist’s goals were “to annex Lebanon or to do genocide in Gaza.” He added that Israel was committing “human rights abuses, genocide, and apartheid” and called for the United States to “stop funding the Israeli military unilateral blank checks.”

He also tied voters’ economic woes to Israel. “Ask yourself why it is that we are paying $5 gas, why it is that we can’t get out of this quagmire,” he said. “It’s because for too long, our foreign policy has been handed to us by the likes of the state of Israel and AIPAC, who has made sure that both Democrats and Republicans are doing their bidding.”

He further claimed there was no difference between his Democratic opponent and the presumptive Republican nominee, former congressman Mike Rogers, on Israel.

“If Congresswoman Stevens makes it, or if Mike Rogers wins, either way, Israel will win,” El-Sayed said. “AIPAC is perfectly fine with either of my two opponents because they know they will have a comfortable, reliable vote in the US Senate.”

Stevens, who noted that she supports a two-state solution, rejected the line of attack. “No one owns my vote, and no one owns my policies,” she said. “Anyone who’s contributing to my Senate campaign is doing so because of my proven record of fighting for Michigan.”

El-Sayed also suggested that Stevens’ sparring with Netanyahu, who is deeply unpopular with American voters, was ingenuine. Earlier in the day, Netanyahu told CNN that he believed Stevens’ previous comments accusing him of making American Jews less safe represented her “probably trying to excuse antisemitism.”

Sayed said he wasn’t convinced the remark was authentic. “I don’t think Benjamin Netanyahu is attacking her to actually attack her,” he said at the debate. “I think he’s attacking her to try and steer away the stink of how staunchly she stands for their policy.”

El-Sayed also attacked Stevens over a June 2025 vote she made in the House to “thank” Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The appreciation was embedded in a resolution condemning the firebombing of a peaceful march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado. Stevens accused Republicans of having “put in a cynical point” about thanking ICE and El-Sayed of falling into a trap laid by the GOP.

Israel has grown increasingly central ahead of the Michigan primary, set for August 4, in a crucial battleground state with large populations of both Jewish and Arab/Muslim voters. A third candidate who sought to tread a middle ground between Stevens and El-Sayed suspended her campaign earlier this week, ratcheting up anxiety among American Jews around the race.

Stevens running for Senate after ousting Jewish progressive

Stevens’ bid for the Senate comes four years after she ousted Andy Levin, a Jewish progressive congressman who expressed criticism of Israel, in a race that drew more than $4 million in AIPAC-affiliated spending. In the years since, she has remained in a dwindling minority of House Democrats who have voted against all measures that would block or condition military aid to Israel.

El-Sayed’s bid comes as other anti-Israel progressives have prevailed in congressional primaries, shifting campaign discourse about Israel to the left. In an interview with CNN also published Tuesday, El-Sayed took aim at the very idea of a Jewish state.

“Every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one,” he told CNN. Asked if support for Israel could ever be about more than money, he responded, “Not if you’re a Democrat and you believe in human rights.”

Other Michigan races are also turning into referendums on the Democratic stance on Israel. El-Sayed has cross-endorsed two left-wing congressional candidates, state Rep. Donavan McKinney and activist William Lawrence, who have both said Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Stevens, meanwhile, has endorsed pro-Israel Jewish state Sen. Jeremy Moss for her House seat.

Further down the ballot in Michigan, Democratic activist Abbas Alawieh, a key architect of the 2024 “Uncommitted” movement designed to pressure national Democrats on Gaza, on Tuesday picked up the endorsement of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in his bid for a state senate seat on the party ticket. Alawieh has also met with former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Michigan to Donald Trump in the general election after the state’s large Arab/Muslim population expressed strong dissatisfaction with her stance on Israel.

Every year, thousands of young men and women put on an IDF uniform without having parents waiting for them at home in Israel, and the Lone Soldier Center in the IDF exists to fill that gap, a representative from the center told The Jerusalem Post.

The representative, R., explained that there are around 8,000 lone soldiers in Israel, referring to soldiers who serve without family in the country to support their emotional, financial, and practical needs. Many are new immigrants, while others are orphaned or estranged from their families.

R. said that while there is a desire to support every soldier in the IDF, there is a particular commitment to those who join the military despite having no legal obligation to do so, motivated solely by their love for the state and their desire to help keep it safe.

“Olim (immigrant) soldiers who come from abroad to Israel do it purely out of a sense of Zionism and because they really want to take part in helping Israel and helping the IDF,” she said. “I’ve seen it throughout the years, but since October 7, we’ve seen a huge increase in volunteering, with soldiers who really want to do impactful things and are doing impactful things.”

That desire to help has largely materialized with the center’s support. R. explained that the center’s Mashakit Tash (army social workers) answer up to 10,000 calls a month from lone soldiers, including those who have not yet joined the service.

‘Every moment worth it’

Though a lot of time and resources are dedicated to supporting these soldiers, whether through housing, a financial allowance, or mental health support, R. made it apparent she felt every moment was worth it as the lone soldiers provided more than just their immediate service.

“I can see that they bring so much power to our people. We see it. I think that all of these soldiers who are serving with lone soldiers get so much inspiration from them, because this is truly Zionism. This is truly about helping our people. I think the IDF gets so much inspiration from them, and also the entire Israeli nation,” she highlighted.

“We’ve seen this through what we do at the Lone Soldier Center in the IDF. We hold honoring events specifically for lone soldiers, and we see the amount of love they receive. The people of Israel love lone soldiers; they want to give them the honor they deserve.”

That love has materialized in opportunities to receive IDF housing or housing allowances, additional support navigating bureaucracy, medical care, and other IDF-related needs, as well as support programs for when they are ready to leave service and adjust to civilian life in a country that, for some, is still very new.

The support does not end when they conclude their service. Before leaving the IDF, lone soldiers receive training on how to navigate job interviews, access the benefits they have earned through their service, and approach Israel’s complex housing market.

They can also receive financial housing support for a year after completing their service, or stay for three months in IDF housing without worrying about rent, food, or bills, allowing them to transition into civilian life at a slower pace.

Lone soldiers also continue to receive calls and guidance after their service ends, ensuring they never feel alone.

One lone soldier still receiving that support is E., a 29-year-old American olah who is serving despite at the time being nearly a decade older than the majority of those entering the military.

The West Coast surfer girl enlisted after finishing a master’s degree, feeling like she wanted to do more for her new home. She arrived only months before October 7 and was inspired by those willing to risk their lives for the people of Israel.

During her program, she organized barbeques and events for soldiers, but it wasn’t enough for her, so she took the jump to become a combat soldier and now serves in the West Bank.

“I really wanted the most meaningful service that I could have. I wanted to go all the way, really be Israeli, and do something that would truly defend the country. I wanted to do something where I could wake up every day and know that I was defending the country,” she explained.

‘Having someone to help you … That was a really wonderful thing’

As the first generation of her family to make Aliyah and enlist in the IDF, E.’s support network in Israel is limited to her sister. She has largely relied on the center to fill the gaps that her family would have filled had they been in the country.

“I would say the biggest help I received so far was when I injured my back really badly during training. My mem-pay (Mefaked PlugaCompany Commander)made sure I received the medical care I needed, that I could leave base every week for physical therapy, and that I was ultimately able to finish. Without her, I would not have been able to be here at all. I probably would have had to drop out,” she shared.

“Having someone to help you through that is amazing because you’re in a new country, and you don’t know how to deal with a major injury on your own. Even if I was outside the Army, navigating the healthcare system and everything else would be different. That was a really wonderful thing.”

Outside of the center, she has also found an incredibly understanding and supportive environment in the military. E. said she received an additional day of leave every month she was in training for Yom Siddurim (Day of Errands) and is now given a month off every year to go see her family.

There is also never a shortage of invitations from those in her unit, who are happy to host her for Shabbat and ensure she feels integrated within the community. “We’re lone soldiers, but we’re not lonely; everybody here wants to make sure that you’re okay and you’re helped,” she explained.

Her commanders have also been understanding of the unique position she is in.

Unused to the reality of having a child or grandchild in the military, especially one on the other side of the world, E.’s family worry for her safety. She shared that on one occasion, after her unit lost phone privileges, she was still allowed to make a call home to her grandmother in the States, who would have worried had E. not been allowed to keep her promise to call.

Speaking on the more difficult reality that many soldiers do pay the ultimate sacrifice for their country and are killed during their service, E. explained how recent deaths in the lone soldier community had impacted her and those around her.

“It is scary. You know, we enter Area A, and we deal with people who break through the border. When you’re in the moment, you don’t think about it, but sometimes you have this moment where you go, ‘This is real. This is real life, and this is not normal,’” she described.

“I never would have expected this for myself when I lived in LA, and I was the surfer girl. So it is scary, and I think it is also difficult as a lone soldier when you think about these things. I know Ben Weiss recently passed away, and he did the same army training that I did. I didn’t personally know him, but a lot of my friends did, and you see how much that really affects the lone soldier community.”

When tragedy does strike, E. explained that the community comes together to mourn collectively and preserve the memory of those who have fallen. While the center helps connect soldiers and families with psychological support, the shared process of grieving as a community can also provide a vital source of strength and comfort, helping the soldiers navigate loss together.

US chip giant Nvidia officially inaugurated its new R&D center in Beersheba on Tuesday, completing its move to new premises in the city. The R&D center in the Gav Yam (Bayside) High-Tech Park, covers about 3,000 square meters, three times the size of the previous center, and currently has hundreds of workstations. According to sources, the building is an investment of tens of millions of shekels, with the rent costing about NIS 2.5 million per year, on a 10-year lease. The new R&D center currently houses more than 150 employees, and the company plans to continue expanding its activities by hiring hundreds more employees in the coming years.

The site in Beersheba is Nvidia’s southernmost R&D center in Israel, alongside the company’s local headquarters in Yokneam, and centers in Tel Aviv, Ra’anana and Tel Hai on the northern border. The new R&D center is also Nvidia’s largest center in Israel’s periphery and is part of the continued expansion of the chip company’s activities in Israel.

The new center houses R&D teams that develop hardware and software technologies used in Nvidia’s AI infrastructure. The teams are working on solutions that allow the company to connect up thousands of chips and processors, to transfer data between them at high speed and to operate the data centers on which AI models are trained and run.

More than 6,000 employees in Israel

Nvidia is currently one of the largest private employers in Israel’s tech industry with over 6,000 employees in five R&D centers around the country. Since the acquisition of Mellanox in 2020, the number of employees in Israel has tripled, and the company currently has more than 450 open positions at sites across the country. The center’s inauguration ceremony was attended by Nvidia SVP and Israel site manager Amit Krig, Nvidia SVP networking chip design Tamir Azarzar, and Beersheba Mayor Ruvik Danilovich.

“The Beersheba R&D center was founded over a decade ago out of a deep belief in local talent and the connection between academia, innovation and industry. The new site emphasizes our commitment to the technological ecosystem in the south, to strengthen young students, to continue nurturing the next generation of engineers and to develop groundbreaking technologies that place Nvidia’s activities in Israel at the heart of the AI revolution,” Krig said.

According to Danilovich, “the inauguration of Nvidia’s new R&D center is an extraordinary expression of trust in Beersheba, the Negev and the human capital that is growing here. The decision of one of the world’s leading tech companies to expand its activities in the city threefold and create hundreds of new jobs proves that the vision we have led for years is becoming a reality and establishes Beersheba as one of Israel’s major centers of innovation and AI.”

As American and Iranian officials continue their waltz around the negotiating table, thousands of families across Iran will this week be mourning six months since their loved ones were massacred in cold blood by the very regime now seeking legitimacy abroad.

Estimates state 35-40,000 were killed by the regime’s security forces.

Protests initially erupted on December 28 last year, when Tehran’s shopkeepers shut up shop and took to the streets after months of deteriorating economic conditions. Protests quickly spread throughout the country in the first week of January.

The regime initially struggled to disperse the crowds before resorting to violent methods, reportedly on the orders of former supreme leader Ali Khamenei himself.

As demonstrations intensified, exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi called for Iranians to take to the streets, which they did in their millions. It was then that the Islamic Republic turned its guns on its own people on January 8-9.

Despite admitting to around 3,000 deaths, the true number estimated over just those 48 hours by evidence from Iran and human rights organizations places the number of those killed closer to 35-40,000, including children, the elderly, and many who were not even taking part but merely walking past the protests.

Thousands killed in mere days

For comparison, the Mahsa Amini protests saw 551 deaths according to human rights organizations. 

Regime authorities imposed an internet blackout that isolated protesters from the outside world and made it harder for families to locate missing relatives.

Human rights groups and media reports have since described the crackdown as a coordinated campaign involving live fire, snipers, mass arrests, pressure on medical staff, and the targeting of wounded protesters in hospitals.

According to reports cited by rights organizations and international media, Iranian security forces were ordered to use lethal force against protesters, while families of the dead later faced intimidation, restrictions on funerals and burials, and pressure to accept official narratives portraying their loved ones as “rioters.”

HRANA reported that more than 24,000 people had been detained by January 18, while Hengaw and other rights groups argued that the killings should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity.

Wednesday and Thursday mark six months since those days.

Many who took to the streets demanding basic freedoms and economic prosperity never came home.

In the months since, families of those killed have begun to share the stories of their family members with The Jerusalem Post. Their accounts describe ordinary Iranians: soccer supporters, animal lovers, music lovers, poets, singers, workers, students, fathers, daughters, and young people with private dreams that had nothing to do with politics until politics came for them.

One dreamed of opening his own café. Others loved football, music, animals, poetry, and singing. Some had gone into the streets because they believed the burden of freedom should not be left to another generation.

“If we do not go into the streets for Iran’s freedom today, one day our children will have to do it instead,” one victim had said, according to testimony shared with the Post. “Today it is our lives so that they may have a better future.”

For many families, the killing was only the beginning of their ordeal.

Several families said they were never given a clear account of what had happened to their loved ones. They were not given proper answers, only bodies. In some cases, families said they were told by regime officials that Israel had killed their relatives.

Others said they were forced to search through body bags to find them. Some said bullets remained lodged in the victims’ heads when they were recovered.

For the regime, the dead were not to be recognized as martyrs, but branded as “rioters.”

That word has become another wound for the families. To them, their loved ones were not rioters. They were Iranians who had gone into the streets demanding basic freedoms.

Receiving their bodies, families hid the truth of why they were killed

One family told the Post that the most painful part was receiving the body of their loved one while being forced to hide the truth of why he had been killed.

“For us, the most painful part was to receive his body,” the family said. “We had to hide the truth that he had partaken in protests.”

Another family described an eight-year-old daughter who still waits every night for her father to come home.

In another case, a son whose father had died nine months earlier had visited his father’s grave before the protests and told relatives that if anything happened to him, he wanted to be buried beside him. After he was killed, the regime did not allow it – his body now lies in a grave almost 300 km. away.

Six months on, the families say their grief has been compounded by silence, intimidation, and the refusal of the authorities to tell the truth. Many have not been able to mourn freely, while some have faced pressure over funerals, public recognition, and even the words used to describe the dead.

The families who spoke to the Post were all insistent on one point: the international community must not look away.

“We want the international community to see the oppression and genocide that has been happening for 47 years,” one family said. “They can help the people free Iran from the occupation of this non-Iranian regime, a regime whose own inscriptions on the flag are not even in the Persian language.”

For the families, justice does not begin with diplomacy. It begins with truth and accountability, they explained. 

It means knowing who gave the orders, who fired the bullets, who hid the bodies, who threatened the families, and who tried to rewrite the dead as criminals.

Over the coming days, the Post will publish further profiles of some of those killed in the January massacres, based on information, photographs, and testimony provided by their families and contacts.

Six months after January 8 and 9, Iran’s dead are still being mourned in private homes, at gravesides, and in the memories of those who loved them.