All News (Page 15)

The IDF killed a Nukhba commander in the Khan Yunis area last week who had been involved in the abduction of several Armored Corps soldiers during the October 7 massacre, the military announced on Wednesday.

According to the IDF, the terrorist, Jihad Samih Mahmoud Ismail, had taken part in the killing of Capt. Omer Neutra, St.-Sgt. Oz Daniel, and Sgt. Shaked Dahan. Neutra and Daniel’s remains were taken into Gaza, as was Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, who was alive.

The IDF also said that Ismail had been involved in multiple ambushes against Israeli soldiers over the course of the war against Hamas.

Neutra immigrated to Israel from the United States and enlisted in a combat unit as a lone soldier.

He and Daniel were buried in November 2025 after being returned during the first phase of the US-brokered Gaza deal.

“My Omer, after more than two years… finally, you are home – [in] the home that you chose, in the country that you chose to defend,” Ronen Neutra, his father, said during his burial.

Daniel, 19, was due to begin officer training shortly after October 7. He was a huge fan of music and playing his guitar.

In Daniel’s final moments, he attempted to steal a grenade from his captors, trying to fight against them, before being shot to death in the struggle.

Cohen was released by Hamas, alive, on October 13, 2025.

In February 2026, he announced his intention to complete his military service with the IDF.

By the time he was kidnapped, Cohen had done 10 months of the two years and eight months that Israeli men are required to serve. “I didn’t really do my service, the way I see it. I served for 10 months until I was kidnapped,” he said.

IDF kills Hamas Rafah Brigade commander

On Tuesday, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency) issued a joint statement, saying that they killed Hamas’s Rafah Brigade commander, Nael Abu Obeid, in a strike in the southern Gaza Strip.

Abu Obeid was a key figure among Hamas leaders, according to a statement from the IDF, and previously served as the deputy commander of the Rafah Brigade and commander of the Tel al-Sultan and Yibna Battalions.

Amir Bohbot, Tobias Holcman, and Esther Davis contributed to this report.

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Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel is telling Jews something deeply disturbing: we may need to sacrifice our own safety and even our own future for “humanity.”

That is a terrible message. It is also far outside the Jewish tradition she claims to be invoking.

Speaking to Jewish Democrats on August 30, Nessel said, “It is perhaps up to us now to follow in [Queen Esther’s] path and sacrifice the comfort, safety, and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”

But Nessel is not speaking for Jewish history when she says this. She is a radical outlier using Queen Esther to make an argument that turns Esther’s story upside down.

Esther did not sacrifice the Jewish people to save everyone else. She risked herself to save the Jews of Persia.

Nessel went even further, asking, “What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?”

Why should Jews have to choose?

Jewish safety and concern for humanity are not opposites. Protecting Jews is not selfish. Protecting Israel is not selfish. And Jewish lives are not bargaining chips that can be sacrificed for some larger cause.

Nessel also accused Republicans of supporting “selfishness” that is supposedly a “direct abdication of our responsibilities as Jews.” But there is nothing selfish about Jews wanting to stay alive.

Every human life has value

Jewish law makes this clear: if attackers demand that a group hand over one innocent person or everyone will be killed, that person cannot simply be handed over. Every human life has value. We do not decide that one innocent person can be sacrificed because someone claims it will save a larger number.

Nessel’s argument is also based on a false choice. Protecting Jews and Israel does not mean turning our backs on humanity.

The Jewish people have spent generations helping humanity. Jewish scientists Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin developed polio vaccines that reduced polio by 99%. Jewish public health scientist Dr. Israel Kligler helped lead the first successful campaign to eliminate malaria. 

Israeli Jews pioneered drip irrigation, desalination, and wastewater recycling. Jews make up less than 0.2% of the world’s population yet have received 26% of Nobel Prizes in Medicine.

When polio appeared in Gaza in 2024-2025, Israel facilitated pauses in its fight against Hamas so more than 600,000 Gazan children could receive polio vaccinations.

And when Jews were falsely blamed for the Black Death, murdering Jews did nothing to stop the plague. More than 500 years later, Jewish scientist Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine developed the first vaccine for the bubonic plague.

So who is really helping humanity?

The answer is not the people who murder Jews. And it certainly should not be Jews who are told to stand aside while their own safety is put at risk.

That brings us to Abdul Mohamed El-Sayed.

To Nessel’s credit, she has resisted the rush by too many Democratic leaders to endorse El-Sayed. She has also warned that politicians who threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish state can put Jews in the Diaspora at greater risk.

She is right about that.

But then Nessel tells Jews that they may need to sacrifice their own safety and even their future for “humanity.” That makes no sense.

El-Sayed’s record shows exactly why Jewish safety matters.

He repeatedly dodges the simple question of whether Israel has a right to exist while saying he would be happy to discuss a Palestinian right to exist. He falsely accuses Israel of genocide and apartheid. He has pledged to follow Sharia law in everything he does. 

He has campaigned alongside extremist, open Jew-hater, and America-hater Hasan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11 and that the October 7 mass rapes of Jewish women and children did not matter.

El-Sayed also called for reducing police funding.

Most disturbing, El-Sayed justified the vehicle-ramming terror attack on a Michigan synagogue preschool that endangered 140 Jewish toddlers and teachers and injured a security guard. The attacker was a Lebanese-American Muslim tied to Hezbollah.

El-Sayed responded, “hurt people hurt people” and “violence begets violence.” That is not an excuse for terrorism against Jews.

His later statement that “what I was trying to say is that there is a broader question of the responsibility” did not change what he had said. It was another attempt to justify Muslim terrorism against Jews.

Nessel should understand what is at stake.

Jewish safety is not some selfish side issue. It is not something Jews should be ashamed to defend. And Jews should never be told that protecting ourselves makes us enemies of humanity.

We do not need to prove that Jews have invented enough medicines, saved enough lives, or helped enough people to deserve safety. Jews deserve safety because Jews are human beings.

Nessel should retract her dangerous message that Jews may need to sacrifice their own safety and future for the rest of humanity. And she should stop pretending that this is what Jewish history teaches.

It is not.

Queen Esther risked her life to save her people.

Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel told Jews to sacrifice themselves and their homeland to feed the antisemites hijacking her political party.

Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America. Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq., is the ZOA’s director of research and special projects.

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More Palestinians in the West Bank believe Israel does not have a right to exist (46%) than those who believe it does (41%), according to a new poll published by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) on Tuesday.

The survey, which interviewed 400 Palestinians by telephone between June 27 and July 2, 2026, with a margin of error of 4.9%, also found that 42% believed it was possible to bring about the end of Israel’s existence, while only 32% said it was impossible.

More than a quarter (27%) favored a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while 22% supported a single binational state with full equal rights, and 26% preferred a single Palestinian state without Jewish presence. Only 17% said they would like to see a Palestinian state that permitted Jews as residents or citizens.

Despite a significant portion of Palestinians not recognizing Israel’s right to exist, more than half (52%) said they would prefer negotiations as a way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while only 12% said they preferred armed resistance.

Over half of respondents say diplomatic efforts more fruitful than violence

Additionally, 57% were of the opinion that violence had failed and that international diplomatic efforts were more fruitful.

Given that more than half (57%) of the Palestinians polled said they believed violence had failed and that international diplomatic efforts were more fruitful, it makes sense that 40% of those polled said Hamas should disarm and the majority preferred for Hamas not to govern the Gaza Strip.

The most popular choice for the administration of the Gaza Strip is the current US-backed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which was selected by 32% of respondents. An additional 21% favored the Palestinian Authority, while 21% favored a Fatah-Hamas unity government, and only 5% chose Hamas as the preferred sole authority.

Marwan Barghouti preferred replacement of Mahmoud Abbas

Asked about who they thought should replace PA President Mahmoud Abbas, imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti was preferred by 34% of those polled, followed by Abbas’s deputy, Hussein al-Sheikh, who received support from just 8% of the respondents.

Unemployment was the greatest concern among 97% of those polled, while 96% also identified settler violence as a major issue. 14% reported that they had been a direct victim of settler attacks, 22% said they heard first-hand testimony from someone they knew who had experienced harm, and 33% said they were exposed to cases of settler violence through the media and social networks.

The majority, 91%, also expressed concern regarding IDF operations in the West Bank, while 60% said they had a low or very low sense of personal security.

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Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot denied on Wednesday that he promised to bring Ra’am into a future coalition or government, saying his party did not discuss the composition of a future government during a meeting with Bedouin local authority heads.

The denial followed an N12 report in which northern Bedouin local authority heads who met Eisenkot on Tuesday claimed he had promised to bring Ra’am into a government he would lead.

Mu’id al-Heib, head of the Tuba-Zanghariya Local Council, told Radio Nas that Eisenkot had said contacts were underway with Ra’am and that he would work to include the party in his next government.

The party shared footage of Eisenkot’s meeting with the Bedouin leaders

Yashar rejected the report outright, and also released footage of Eisenkot’s meeting with northern Bedouin local authority heads, which took place on Tuesday.

Yashar also distributed a separate clip of remarks by Eisenkot from the meeting and a clip of remarks by al-Heib.

The party stressed that Eisenkot did not discuss the makeup of the next government at any point during the meeting.

“Throughout the entire meeting, as well as during the meal that took place afterward and was also documented, Eisenkot did not refer at all to the structure or composition of the next government,” Yashar said.

“Any other publication on the matter is a complete lie.”

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San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating vandalism cases targeting two homes in Imperial Beach where swastikas and antisemitic graffiti were drawn.

According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a residence in the 100 block of Elm Avenue shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Saturday – during Rosh Hashanah – where a swastika and antisemitic messaging had been marked on the exterior of the home using a black permanent marker.

Two San Diego-Area Homes Defaced With Swastikas on Rosh Hashanah

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday that two incidents of vandalism occurred in Imperial Beach in San Diego County on Sept. 12, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. In both cases, the home had been… pic.twitter.com/wQXvaSOAcZ

— Jewish Breaking News (@JBreakingNews) September 15, 2026

Second property vandalized on same day

Later that same day, authorities received reports of similar vandalism at a second property located in the 700 block of Seacoast Drive, where a swastika and additional graffiti were discovered on a window.

Detectives assigned to the Imperial Beach Sheriff’s Substation have launched an investigation into the incidents.

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Syria‘s parliament voted on Wednesday to abolish an Assad-era terrorism court and nullify the legal effects of its rulings, state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV reported, in one of the first significant legislative moves by the country’s new assembly.

The Counter-Terrorism Court was established in 2012 as then-president Bashar al-Assad sought to suppress an uprising against his rule, and it was used to prosecute thousands of Syrians for terrorism-related offenses.

The move formalizes the court’s abolition after Syria’s new authorities had already treated it as defunct. In June 2025, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree dismissing 67 judges who had served in what he described at the time as the “abolished Counter-Terrorism Court.”

Syria’s March 2025 constitutional declaration had also called for abolishing the effects of what it described as unjust rulings issued by the court, including returning confiscated property.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee said in 2024 that the 2012 law establishing the court failed to adequately provide key judicial guarantees and raised concerns over arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the court’s independence. It also noted that the court could depart from ordinary procedures during prosecution and trial.

UN: Assad government used court to prosecute tortured detainees 

The UN’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism said in a 2024 report that the Counter-Terrorism Court formed part of the judicial system through which detainees held by Assad-era security agencies could be prosecuted. The report documented widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment across the government’s detention system.

Wednesday’s vote came during the opening weeks of the first parliament formed since Assad was toppled in December 2024. The chamber convened for the first time in July.

The vote is among the assembly’s first major legislative decisions after it spent its initial sessions establishing its internal rules and committees. It held a hearing this week with Syrian Education Minister Mohammad Abdul Rahman Tarkou over the state of the country’s schools and is due to question the energy minister on Thursday over a sharp rise in fuel prices.

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The IDF informed residents of northern Israel that it would be striking sites in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.

In a message received by northern residents, the IDF warned about loud explosion noises that would be heard across the region.

Later, Lebanese reports alleged that the IDF had struck in the village of Al-Mansouri and in Nabatiya.

This is a developing story.

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The Justice Ministry’s Legal Aid Department opened 154,552 files in 2025, with family and debt matters accounting for most of its caseload, according to its annual report published on Wednesday.

Personal-status matters made up 35% of the files opened, and debts accounted for 30%, the report’s breakdown shows. Civil matters accounted for a further 10%, and National Insurance matters for seven percent. The figures describe files opened during the year, rather than the number of people represented or the outcomes of their cases.

The report also describes legal work arising from the October 7 attacks and the war. It says the department opened more than 3,500 files for bereaved families, families of hostages and returnees, and families of people murdered in the attacks between October 2023 and the second half of 2026. 

The department says it assists eligible immediate family members with benefits, inheritance, banking, housing and insurance matters, among others. Returned hostages can also seek help with legal needs connected to their captivity or the war. Assistance under this program is provided without a financial means test.

Some families are pursuing recognition as victims of hostile acts after witnessing attacks on relatives by telephone, messages or video.

Dozens of bereaved and hostage families appealing decisions

The department says it represents dozens of bereaved and hostage families appealing decisions by the approving authority.

It argues that relatives who witnessed the attacks remotely should be eligible for recognition; according to the report, the appeals remain pending before an appeals committee at the Tel Aviv District Court.

The report also points to a 2025 Supreme Court ruling in a debt case handled by legal aid. A woman whose actual earnings were below minimum wage challenged a monthly payment set during her debt proceedings.

The court held that minimum wage could not simply be treated as proof of what she earned or could earn, and sent the matter back for an assessment of her individual circumstances. The ruling did not itself set a new payment amount.

In another development, a law passed in December 2025 allows people aged 65 and over to seek legal aid in specified cases of alleged financial exploitation without a financial means test. The exemption applies to those cases, rather than to every legal matter involving an older person.

The wartime recognition appeals remain an open question. Their outcome will determine whether the families bringing those claims qualify for recognition on the basis of what they witnessed remotely.

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In an emotional moment at the world premiere on Sunday of Avi Nesher’s Our Loves at the Toronto International Film Festival, the audience gave the film a lengthy standing ovation, which happened again at the second screening on Tuesday.

A third screening is coming up on September 19, and all three screenings sold out.

The Toronto International Film Festival is the largest and most prestigious festival in North America.

Nesher describes his film as the story of  “six people who thought they were having the worst day of their lives on October 6, 2023,” and Our Loves goes on to follow them through the Hamas massacre on October 7. It features a cast of Israel’s top stars, including Shalom Michaelshwilli, Magi Azarar, and Yaniv Biton, with several newcomers, including Daniel Gimpel and Noa Cohen. Biton, Cohen, and Gimpel accompanied Nesher to the screenings and joined him on stage afterward.

Alongside the enthusiastic response in the theater, the film has also received positive reviews and reactions following its Toronto debut, a particularly significant achievement given the current anti-Israel climate, especially since it was the only Israeli movie at Toronto this year, a festival that used to show multiple Israeli films every year.

Early buzz around the film

The movie was the subject of articles in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, two important film industry publications.

“Can you believe it?” Nesher said after the second screening. “Maybe we did, in our own way, initiate the beginning of change. We had a sold-out premiere and also an amazing second screening – a full house again and another standing ovation at the end of the film.”

Our Loves will have its Israeli premiere on September 26, when it will be the opening-night movie at the Haifa International Film Festival, and will open in theaters around the country on October 15. Its release dates around the world will be announced soon.

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Chester Zoo blamed a computer error after its website advertised tickets for a “child predator tour,” an unfortunate name for a guided experience showcasing tigers, lions and other predatory animals.

The 90-minute private bus tour at the zoo in Cheshire, England, was quickly renamed after visitors spotted the wording and mocked it online.

A zoo spokeswoman said the mistake was “due to our default naming convention in our system”, but it was “quickly changed”.

The listing was intended to promote a tour featuring the zoo’s Sumatran tigers, lions, rhinos and Komodo dragons. Tickets for children were priced at £25, but appeared online as tickets for a “child predator” tour. Adult tickets, costing £30, were similarly advertised as “adult predator” tickets.

The wording quickly caught the attention of visitors online.

“I hope this has been cleared by Cheshire Police – seems a bit dangerous,” one person remarked.

Another wrote: “Staggering – how did that get approved?”

Visitors will be in no danger of child predators while on the tour

The attraction itself promises visitors an early, crowd-free look at some of the zoo’s best-known animals from an electric tour bus.

“Discover the predators of the animal kingdom, and their prey in our brand new guided tour,” the zoo’s website said.

“You’ll be the first visitors in the zoo as you board our electric tour bus and enjoy 90 minutes of the zoo all to yourself.

“Come face to face with some of the zoo’s most iconic animals, away from the crowds, including our family of Sumatran tigers.

“Your expert tour guides will be on hand to share fascinating facts about some of nature’s most effective hunters.”

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Even an attack on Islam’s holiest city has not been enough to unite the Middle East in responding to the Iranian axis, Bahraini political analyst Dr. Ahmed Alkhuzaie told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, a day after Saudi Arabia said its air defenses had shot down a Houthi drone south of Mecca.

Alkhuzaie claimed that Middle Eastern states have been too dysfunctional for years now and were left unable to respond to the threats posed by the Iranian axis.

After choosing their political “ideology over sustainability and even religion,” he claimed that only Morocco and Jordan had been able to align themselves with the Gulf states. He argued that Lebanon is preoccupied with reasserting sovereignty domestically, Egypt has been focused on its financial difficulties and other regional concerns, while countries such as Algeria have other allegiances to consider, particularly after severing diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates last week.

With the current lack of alignment in mind, Alkhuzaie predicted that there would be yet more reshuffling in the conventions and alliances that span across the region, including the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed by Riyadh, Islamabad and Ankara last month.

“I can see some Arab nations getting closer to Israel, being pragmatic enough to serve the main purpose that is sovereignty over mediocrity,” he theorized.

Growing hopes of expansion of Abraham Accords

Despite once promising that it would be the last country to normalize relations with Israel, there are growing hopes that Kuwait may join the Abraham Accords. Yossi Shelley, Israel’s ambassador to the UAE, told KAN on Tuesday that another country, possibly Kuwait, could join the accords within four to six months. The comments come despite Kuwait’s 2021 amendments to its Israel boycott law, which introduced more punitive measures against those who engage socially or economically with Israeli citizens or entities.

The Houthis attack on Mecca, though dismissed by the group’s spokesperson Yahya Saree, has demonstrated to Muslims across the region that “this is not a religious war as Iran is portraying it,” he said.

The attack on the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and the home of the Kaaba (the center of Islam’s most important mosque) clearly communicated that neither the Houthis nor Iran “care about religion as they advertise,” he said.

With this gap in narrative and action clearly visible, Alkhuzaie said it was predictable that the Houthis would deny responsibility for the attack. However, he believed that the Houthis would blame Israel for the attack as a way to cause more incitement and justification for the axis’s attacks on American assets. 

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Saudi Arabia faces a potential two-front conflict as it weighs what to do about the Houthi advance. The Houthis swept down the coast of the Red Sea and took islands near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Meanwhile, the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq attacked the key East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis then attacked Saudi Arabia as well and even threatened Mecca on September 15.

Saudi Arabia has been in talks with US Central Command (CENTCOM), other Gulf states, and partners about what to do next. Reports even suggest Israel and Saudi Arabia could have new interests in common. However, it doesn’t appear the US will challenge the Houthis.

The US is monitoring the situation, and the Houthis are spreading messaging to the White House that they are not seeking confrontation. Riyadh now appears more alone than before.

The other Gulf states were considering a meeting in Oman with Iran. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Oman, months after US President Donald Trump had threatened Oman.

What comes next?

Reuters reported that the Houthi advance represents one of Saudi Arabia’s most serious setbacks in Yemen in years. The offensive illustrated weaknesses in Saudi Arabia’s assessments and the command structure of the Saudi-backed Yemen government fighters in Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince went to Cairo this week. Egypt could back a Saudi response.

The Houthis maneuvered tens of thousands of fighters into position last week around September 8 before their offensive. Media in the region initially suggested Houthi setbacks. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces subsequently collapsed during the offensive on the Red Sea. Riyadh knows it will not get major Western backing. It is in the same position it was in 2019 after the Iranian attack on Abqaiq.

The Houthi gains also have broader strategic implications. Control of territory overlooking Bab el-Mandeb could enable the group to threaten shipping and Saudi energy exports while expanding connections toward the Horn of Africa. Currently, the Houthis have not done much, but their presence means they can strike easily. This is a Sword of Damocles hanging over the Bab al-Mandeb.

The Houthis have launched attacks on Saudi Arabia over the last month. Over the last two months, they also sought to invite Iranian regime members to Sana’a, provoking Saudi Arabia. Iran is showing that although isolated by a US blockade, it can strike elsewhere.

As such, the Iranians now put Saudi Arabia in a multi-front bind. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy country, and it has many strategic sites. It has more to lose than the Houthis or Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Recently, the Houthis said they fired dozens of drones and missiles at the kingdom, prompting the Saudi Civil Defense to issue brief alerts in the neighboring cities of Khamis Mushait and Abha, according to reports at Arab News and Al-Arabiya.

“Iran does not interfere in Yemeni affairs,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters on Monday. They claim the Houthis are “entirely independent actors who make their decisions based on their own interests.” The Houthis are upping their rhetoric.

Houthi strikes target air hangars, radars, ammunition

The Houthis’ military spokesman Yahya Saree said this week that the group’s strikes targeted “fighter jet hangars, radars, runways, ammunition depots” at King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait. The Houthis claim Saudi Arabia has carried out 300 airstrikes.

The Houthis have shown they can weather the storm and make advances in the past. Formerly known as Ansar Allah, they emerged from Yemen’s Zaydi Shi’ite community in the north of Yemen. The movement fought a series of wars against Yemen’s government between 2004 and 2010.

After the upheaval of the Arab Spring, the Houthis expanded beyond their traditional stronghold in Saada and seized Sanaa in September 2014. Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi eventually fled, setting the stage for regional intervention.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition of Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, to intervene in Yemen.

The war initially pushed the Houthis back from southern Yemen, but the group retained Sanaa and much of the northern highlands.

Years of airstrikes and ground fighting failed to dislodge them. However, there was a crisis with Qatar in 2017, and the Saudi focus on Yemen shifted.

The Houthis developed increasingly sophisticated missile and drone capabilities. Iranian technology and weapons transfers helped transform their capabilities.

UN investigators have documented Iranian-origin missile components and UAVs and concluded that the Houthis could not produce many of their more sophisticated systems without foreign support. By 2017-2021, the Houthis were often launching ballistic missiles and drones deep into Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi-UAE coalition increasingly fractured over the last two years. Abu Dhabi backed southern forces, called the Southern Transitional Council, while Riyadh continued supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

The UAE reduced its direct military presence beginning in 2019. A UN-mediated truce beginning in April 2022 largely ended Houthi cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Beginning in late 2023, the Houthis launched missiles and drones toward Israel to back Hamas. Israel carried out strikes on the Houthis as well. The US tried to protect shipping in the Red Sea. In March 2025, the Trump administration even carried out strikes on the Houthis.

However, the Houthis have shown, time and again, that they can emerge from these blows. 

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Abdul Malik al-Houthi, an elusive figure who commands a battle-hardened force, scored his biggest military victory in years when his Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group swept through Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and tightened its grip on a vital shipping waterway, rattling oil superpower Saudi Arabia.

The offensive, which has been accompanied by attacks on Saudi Arabia, has put the Houthis in a strong position to call the shots in the Bab el-Mandeb strait by potentially halting global trade in one of the world’s most important conduits for goods and commodities, including oil.

Al-Houthi has transformed his men, fierce mountain fighters often in sandals and hooked on the green leaf stimulant qat, into a force of tens of thousands who withstood years of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war and built an arsenal including drones and ballistic missiles.

A 2022 UN-brokered truce halted heavy fighting in the war but failed to lead to a lasting settlement in the impoverished country.

The following year, al-Houthi’s terrorists surfaced to disrupt Red Sea shipping in support of Palestinians in the Gaza war. Now they have grabbed the spotlight by opening another front in the Middle East conflict, giving strategic leverage to Iran after it already effectively closed off the Strait of Hormuz.

As head of the group, al-Houthi has emerged as Iran’s most prominent and resilient Arab ally after Israel killed the leaders of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group and Palestinian terror group Hamas.

Enigmatic with a reputation as a fierce commander, al-Houthi remained defiant despite US military retaliation for his group’s attacks on shipping during the Gaza fighting. He threatened military action if the US and Israel sought to displace Palestinians from Gaza and called US President Donald Trump a criminal.

“We reaffirm our steadfast position against American and Israeli-Zionist tyranny, which targets our entire nation under the banner of ‘changing the Middle East,'” he said in August in a speech to mark the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday.

Not known enough to meet foreign officials in person

In another speech during the Gaza war, al-Houthi, appearing with a traditional Yemeni dagger in his belt, described Israel’s blockade of Gaza as a crime against humanity and accused Arab and other Muslim states of inaction.

Al-Houthi has survived in a country with a history of complex, shifting alliances.

After veteran former president Ali Abdullah Saleh switched sides in the civil war, abandoning his Houthi allies in favor of a Saudi-led coalition, Houthi terrorists stopped his armored vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade in an ambush, then shot him dead, sources said at the time.

Since the start of the civil war – widely seen as a proxy conflict between Riyadh and Tehran – foreign officials who dealt with al-Houthi are not known to have met him in person, said a source familiar with the matter.

Many seeking meetings were asked to travel to the Houthi stronghold Sanaa, where a security convoy would take them to safe houses and conduct security checks before leading them to an upstairs room, where al-Houthi, fearing assassination, would appear only on a screen.

War created one of world’s worst humanitarian crises

The Houthi terror movement was formed to fight for the interests of the Zaydi Shi’ites, a minority sect that ruled a 1,000-year-old kingdom in Yemen until 1962 but felt marginalized during the 1990-2012 rule of Saleh, unified Yemen’s first president.

The Houthis deny being puppets of Tehran and say they are fighting a corrupt system in Yemen and regional aggression. Saudi Arabia and its allies accuse Tehran of arming and training them, which Tehran denies.

The civil war killed tens of thousands, devastated Yemen’s economy, and left millions hungry.

During its most intense phase, the Houthis launched attacks on Saudi Arabia. In January 2022, they also launched a missile attack on a commercial hub in the United Arab Emirates.

In a speech in 2022, al-Houthi said his goal was to be able to strike any target in Saudi Arabia or the UAE, both US allies and major oil producers that view Iran and its proxies as major security threats.

Al-Houthi, who traces his lineage to the Prophet Mohammad, has asserted that his movement is under siege because of its religion.

“We must focus on preserving the authenticity of our Islamic affiliation and identity,” he once said.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree takes the stage

With al-Houthi largely out of public view, his military spokesman, Yahya Saree, has become the public face of the movement.

Standing rigidly in his uniform, Saree reads statements in a theatrical cadence, stretching certain words and sharply raising his voice for emphasis. The distinctive delivery has made Saree instantly recognizable to audiences across the region.

In 2024, Saree earned a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations from the Yemeni Academy for Graduate Studies, according to Houthi websites and his personal account on X/Twitter.

His thesis focused on a topic close to his day job: The Threat of the Israeli Presence in the Red Sea to the National Security of the Republic of Yemen, 2010-2022.

In a statement on September 13, he declared: “We affirm to the criminal Saudi enemy that the continuation of its aggression against our people will be met with more severe and larger operations deep inside its territory, and the consequences will be dire, God willing.”

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The United States does not lack leverage against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It lacks a political endgame.

Washington has employed nearly every instrument of national power: financial and oil sanctions, diplomatic isolation, intelligence operations, regional deterrence, direct military force, pressure on Tehran’s proxy networks, action against its shadow fleet, and negotiations backed by coercive power. 

These measures have weakened important elements of the regime’s nuclear, missile, maritime, and financial capabilities. 

Yet the central problem remains intact: the political system that produces these threats – and rebuilds them after every setback – survives. Washington can punish the Islamic Republic, but punishment is not a strategy unless it leads somewhere.

That distinction should now define American policy.

Preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, degrading missile capabilities, disrupting terrorist networks, and constraining the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are necessary objectives. 

Still, they treat manifestations of the problem rather than its source.

The Islamic Republic has made terrorism, hostage-taking, proxy warfare, nuclear brinkmanship, domestic repression, and threats to maritime commerce instruments of regime survival. 

Even a successful agreement may temporarily constrain some of these activities without changing the structure that repeatedly generates them. Pressure is an instrument, not an end state. 

The strategic question is therefore no longer simply how to change the regime’s behavior, but how to create conditions in which Iranians can change the regime while preserving the Iranian state.

This does not require an American invasion, occupation, or externally imposed government. Nor should Washington decide whether Iran ultimately becomes a republic or a constitutional monarchy. 

That choice belongs exclusively to the Iranian people.

The legitimate American interest is narrower but strategically consequential: an intact, secular, democratic, nonnuclear Iran at peace with the US, Israel, and its Arab neighbors. 

Such an Iran would remove the principal state sponsor and logistical center of several regional terrorist networks, reduce threats to Israel and the Gulf states, strengthen maritime security, diminish Russian and Chinese influence, and reopen one of the Middle East’s largest societies and economies to international trade and investment. 

Preparing for such a transition is not nation-building. It is an investment in ending a crisis the United States has spent nearly half a century managing.

Credible strategy for change in Iran

The missing link is a credible Iranian strategy that can convert external pressure into internal political change. 

Reza Pahlavi’s five-pillar strategy offers one such framework: maximum pressure on the Islamic Republic, maximum support for the Iranian people, maximum encouragement of defections from the regime, maximum organization of Iranian forces, and preparation for reconstruction through the Iran Prosperity Project. 

Its significance lies less in any individual component than in the way the components connect. 

Pressure is intended to weaken the regime’s coercive capacity; support enables civil resistance and communication; defections separate the professional state from the ideological core; organization reduces the danger of a power vacuum; and post-regime planning addresses the question that has long haunted Western policymakers: What comes the day after?

The Iran Prosperity Project’s Emergency Phase attempts to answer that question through a detailed plan for the first 180 days after the Islamic Republic. 

Developed by over 70 Iranian specialists, it addresses political authority, law, security forces, foreign policy, banking, energy, essential government services, health, water, cybersecurity, education, and economic stabilization. 

No transition blueprint can eliminate uncertainty, and such a plan will inevitably require revision as events unfold. But its existence changes the strategic equation. 

The choice need not be between preserving the Islamic Republic and risking chaos. There is a third possibility: dismantling the ideological regime while maintaining the institutions necessary to keep Iran functioning.

That distinction – between regime collapse and state collapse – must become the organizing principle of transition planning. Iraq demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of confusing a dictatorship with the state beneath it. 

Iran cannot afford wholesale purges of soldiers, civil servants, engineers, technicians, police officers, judges, energy workers, or administrators merely because they served under the existing system. 

Criminal responsibility should be individual. 

Those responsible for murder, torture, corruption, terrorism, and systematic repression must face due process, while professionals who did not participate in serious crimes should have a path to continued national service. 

The IRGC, as an ideological and parallel power structure, can be dismantled without discarding every trained individual or technical asset within it. The objective must be surgical political transformation, not institutional demolition.

This is also why defections matter strategically. Washington should distinguish between the regime’s ideological and criminal leadership and the much larger body of Iranians employed by the state. 

Senior officials, commanders, and financial networks responsible for repression and terrorism should understand that continued participation carries personal legal and financial consequences. 

At the same time, military personnel, police officers, government employees, and technical managers should receive a different message: refuse orders to repress the population, protect national infrastructure, join a legitimate transition, and there can be a future for you in Iran. 

A regime whose personnel believe they will all be destroyed with it will fight to the end. A regime whose professional backbone sees a viable exit can fracture.

Pahlavi’s potential role should be understood in the same transitional context. Washington need not anoint him as Iran’s future monarch or predetermine the constitutional order. 

It should, however, recognize the difference between neutrality over Iran’s eventual form of government and indifference toward leadership during a dangerous transition. 

Pahlavi is the most internationally recognizable opposition figure advocating simultaneously for pressure, national organization, regime defections, territorial integrity, and post-Islamic Republic planning. 

His most consequential potential role is therefore not to predetermine Iran’s future, but to provide a national center of gravity during the interval between the collapse of the existing order and the establishment of elected institutions. 

His transitional mandate should end when Iranians determine their constitutional system and transfer authority to an elected government.

Washington should begin preparing for that possibility before a crisis makes preparation impossible. 

An interagency Iran transition planning group should examine scenarios involving nuclear-site security, continuity of energy and banking systems, protection of borders and critical infrastructure, humanitarian supply chains, prevention of foreign intervention, and the phased removal of sanctions. 

Structured dialogue with Pahlavi, the Iran Prosperity Project, Iranian specialists, and regional allies should begin before – not after – a political rupture. 

The Treasury Department should prepare a sanctions exit map so that a credible transitional government can rapidly restore humanitarian trade and, conditionally, regain access to frozen Iranian assets, banking networks, and energy markets. 

Those assets belong to Iran and should be preserved for stabilization and reconstruction rather than treated as spoils.

The first hours of transition would be decisive. Hospitals must operate, electricity and water must flow, banks must function, ports and fuel depots must remain secure, and the armed forces must not fragment into competing centers of power. 

America’s role should be supportive rather than administrative: deter neighboring states and armed proxies from exploiting instability, facilitate humanitarian flows, help secure nuclear materials through appropriate international mechanisms, defend Iran’s territorial integrity, and recognize a credible transitional authority once it demonstrates effective national responsibility. 

No American occupation, proxy army, ethnic militia, or externally engineered partition should be part of this strategy. The Islamic Republic must end; Iran must remain.

The choice confronting Washington, therefore, is not simply between war and diplomacy. Both are instruments. 

The deeper choice is between indefinitely managing the next manifestation of the Iranian crisis and developing a strategy to end the system that continually reproduces it. Sanctions can reduce revenue. 

Military operations can destroy facilities. Intelligence operations can disrupt networks. Diplomacy can buy time. None, by itself, answers the political question.

A coherent strategy does. Pressure must connect to a political alternative; the alternative to national organization; organization to defections; defections to continuity of the state; and transition to democratic legitimacy. 

America should not build Iran’s next government. It should help remove the obstacles that prevent Iranians from building it themselves. 

The strategic formula is ultimately simple: Washington should stop treating the survival of the Islamic Republic as the necessary price of containing its behavior. It should prepare to help Iranians change the regime while preserving their country. 

If American power can be aligned with Iranian national leadership, institutional continuity, and the legitimacy of the ballot box, the end of the Islamic Republic need not inaugurate another Middle Eastern catastrophe. 

It could instead mark the end of one of the region’s longest-running strategic crises.

The writer is the senior news editor for Iran International.

This post was originally published on here. 

The controversy surrounding NAZA has brought an old question in investigative journalism back to the center of the debate in recent days: How much weight can be given to the testimony of a source who is not revealed to the public?

One of the main criticisms directed at the film by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor is that it relies on anonymous testimonies from 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel.

The film does conceal the identities of the interviewees, and the IDF rejected its claims, arguing, among other things, that anonymous sources make it difficult to independently verify the information. This is a legitimate argument that deserves serious examination. But the mere anonymity of a source is not enough, by itself, to determine that the information they provide is unfit for publication. The more important question is what was done to examine, cross-check, and verify it.

An anonymous source to the viewer is not necessarily an anonymous source to the journalist. The journalist knows who is standing in front of them. They should know where the person served, what they did, what information they had access to, whether their account matches other facts, whether others describe similar events, and whether documents, messages, or other evidence support their testimony.

The public receives the information without the name because revealing it could cost the source their job, career, legal standing, and sometimes much more, especially with the International Criminal Court looming over the situation. People can support or oppose this approach, but investigative journalism is sometimes difficult to conduct without it.

Anonymous sources take down men accused of sexual misconduct

Take the case of Moshe Ivgy, for example. In February 2016, Walla published an investigation in which six women described alleged sexual misconduct by him. At the time of publication, none of them had yet filed a police complaint, and most of the women who spoke publicly did so anonymously. If we had applied the “no name, no story” test back then, we could have simply closed the browser and gone to lunch.

Instead, police began examining the allegations following the report, women came forward, an investigation was opened, and at the end of the process Ivgy was convicted of indecent acts and sexual harassment and sentenced to 11 months in prison. The women’s anonymity at the beginning did not make their testimonies false. It simply allowed them to begin speaking.

The case of Yehuda Meshi-Zahav may also be examined. In March 2021, Haaretz published a major investigation based on six people who described alleged sexual abuse attributed to him. All of the people interviewed appeared anonymously in the investigation. The next day, police began examining the allegations, and Lahav 433 later reopened the investigation. In this case, the allegations ultimately did not lead to a judicial ruling. But one thing is clear: The fact that the sources did not appear by name did not prevent authorities from taking the information seriously and investigating it.

Alon Kastiel provides another interesting lesson. In November 2016, Sharon Shpurer began publishing information and testimonies in The Hottest Place in Hell about his conduct. Some of the women were identified only by initials, and the original exposure was also based on people from the nightlife industry who described complaints that had accumulated against him.

One woman whose story was published decided, following the report, to go to the police. From there, an investigation developed that eventually included 12 complainants. Kastiel admitted guilt and was convicted in a plea agreement of attempted rape, forcible indecent assault, indecent assault, and sexual harassment. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

The Bar-On-Hebron affair takes us even further back. In January 1997, Ayala Hasson appeared on Israel’s Channel 1 with a dramatic report about the circumstances surrounding the appointment of Roni Bar-On as attorney general. The public was not given a detailed list of her sources. In fact, the Seventh Eye later reported that Hasson did not initially even share her sources with the editor of the Mabat program, but instead presented the findings to News Division director Rafik Halabi.

Four days after the broadcast, police transferred the matter for investigation. A State Attorney’s Office review confirmed key parts of the report and drew more complex conclusions about the criminal responsibility of those involved.

If Hasson’s sources had been required that evening to appear before Haim Yavin, provide their names, ranks, and phone numbers, the Bar-On-Hebron affair might have remained a hallway conversation.

Then came the Harpaz document, which is important here for the opposite reason. In August 2010, Amnon Abramovich and the late Roni Daniel revealed what was then called the “Galant document” on Ulpan Shishi. Abramovich defended the person who provided him with the material and described him on air as “a reliable and productive source for three decades.” The source was not revealed to viewers.

The report quickly led to a review by the attorney general and a police investigation. But investigators later discovered the document itself was forged. Boaz Harpaz was later convicted of forging and using it.

And that does not undermine the argument. It reinforces it. An anonymous source is not a certificate of authenticity, but it is also not a certificate of disqualification. A journalist who receives information from a confidential source cannot simply say, “They told me, therefore it is true.” They have to work harder precisely because the public cannot independently examine who the person is.

NAZA directors must be asked about verification of their sources

The Harpaz document shows what can happen when journalists give too much weight to material from a source considered reliable before establishing its authenticity. Ivgy and Kastiel show the other side: sometimes anonymity is exactly the condition that allows truthful information to emerge.

Therefore, the question that should be asked of Abraham and Szor regarding NAZA is not “Why don’t the soldiers show their faces?” That is the easy question.

The much harder questions are: How did you verify that they actually served in the roles they describe? Did you cross-check each claim with more than one source? What documents or data did you see? Were there testimonies that contradicted the film’s thesis and were not included? What did you present to the IDF before publication, and how did it respond? Did the 24 people come from different systems and units, or are some of them describing the same incidents? When two sources provide different versions of events, which version made it into the film, and why?

These are journalistic questions. “Show me their faces” is a far less interesting demand.

The other side must also acknowledge something that may be less comfortable for those defending the film: The fact that there are 24 anonymous sources does not automatically make NAZA true. Twenty-four testimonies can still be biased, incomplete, or taken out of context. A documentary film is an edited work. Someone decides what to include, what to leave out, where to cut, and which sentence will follow another.

That is precisely why it should be watched and examined. But rejecting a film simply because its interviewees are anonymous would mean rejecting, in hindsight, a significant part of investigative journalism.

Moreover, we tend to accept anonymous sources when they expose people we dislike, but suddenly view them as an unacceptable ethical problem when they reveal something we do not want to hear. That is less a journalistic principle and more a matter of convenience.

After watching NAZA, we may find that the filmmakers carried out every possible verification process. We may also watch it and find major holes. At this stage, both possibilities remain open. The fact that the interviewees are not identified does not decide between them. It simply raises the standard placed on the filmmakers.

That is what should be remembered amid all the noise surrounding the film: The problem was never that a source is anonymous. The problem begins when the verification process is also anonymous.

This post was originally published on here. 

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it had summoned Iran’s ambassador and asked an official at the Iranian Embassy in Stockholm to leave the country, citing activity incompatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

The ministry did not specify the nature of the activity in its statement.

The Vienna Convention defines the rules ​and privileges of diplomatic missions.

Iran reportedly recruited Swedish minors for attacks on Israeli, Jewish targets

The official’s expulsion follows a CNN report in April that Iran allegedly used criminal gangs in Sweden to target Israeli and Jewish interests.

The report cited Sweden’s Security Service (SÄPO), which said at least four known attacks or attempted attacks were directed at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in 2023 and 2024.

The attacks in question involved shootings and an attempted bombing, with several suspects under the age of 18.

Swedish police and prosecutors say these youth are being manipulated by criminal gangs acting on behalf of Iranian intelligence units.

This post was originally published on here. 

As America’s chief diplomat and National Security Adviser, Marco Rubio has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to the US-Israel alliance and to the security of the Jewish state. Throughout his years in public service, including his tenure in the US Senate, Rubio has been a vocal advocate for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and regional threats, while supporting efforts to strengthen strategic cooperation between the two nations. 

As the son of Cuban immigrants who fled communism, Rubio was raised with a deep appreciation for freedom, democracy, and the dangers of authoritarianism. His family’s experience, coupled with his Christian faith, shaped his conviction that America should stand firmly with democratic allies such as Israel and defend religious liberty around the world. His leadership has reflected a broader commitment to confronting anti-Semitism, promoting religious freedom, and affirming the enduring partnership between the American and Israeli people.

This post was originally published on here. 

Award-winning actress Patricia Heaton has used her public platform to become one of Hollywood’s most outspoken Christian advocates for Israel and the Jewish people. 

Raised in a devout Catholic family, Heaton has long viewed her Christian faith as central to her public life. Her concern over rising anti-Semitism, especially following the October 7 attacks, strengthened her commitment to standing with Israel and inspired her to found the October 7 Coalition (O7C) to mobilize Christian support for the Jewish people. Through O7C, Heaton has worked to mobilize Christians against anti-Semitism while promoting understanding, compassion, and solidarity. 

Heaton has consistently spoken out in defense of Israel, highlighting the dangers of rising anti-Semitism, and encouraging Christians to stand publicly with their Jewish neighbors. Her willingness to champion these issues within the entertainment industry has made her an influential and courageous voice for Jewish-Christian friendship.

This post was originally published on here. 

Twin brothers Martin and Andrew Sedra are the co-founding pastors of Echo Church in Sydney, Australia. They have become respected voices within Australia’s Christian community for their steadfast friendship with Israel and the Jewish people. Their support is rooted in a conviction that the Jewish people occupy a unique place in biblical history and that Christians have a responsibility to stand against anti-Semitism and foster genuine relationships with the Jewish community.

Through their preaching, leadership, and public engagement, the Sedra brothers have consistently encouraged Christians to develop a deeper understanding of Judaism, the historical significance of Israel, and the shared spiritual heritage of the Jewish and Christian faiths. They have used their platforms to advocate for Israel during times of conflict, promoted prayer and practical support for the nation, and worked to strengthen ties between Christian and Jewish communities. Their ministry reflects a commitment to replacing misunderstanding with friendship and to demonstrating solidarity with the Jewish people through words and action.

This post was originally published on here. 

Throughout his career in the United States Senate, Lindsey Graham established himself as one of Israel’s most consistent and influential allies in Washington. His support has been shaped by a long-held belief that Israel is both America’s closest democratic partner in the Middle East and an indispensable strategic ally in the face of terrorism and regional instability.

Over his more than two decades in public service, Graham championed robust US military assistance to Israel, advocated for enhanced security cooperation, and was among Congress’s strongest voices in confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional aggression. He made numerous visits to Israel, maintained close relationships with Israeli leaders across the political spectrum, and frequently defended Israel’s right to protect its citizens from terrorist threats. 

Graham’s willingness to speak forcefully in support of Israel during periods of international criticism earned him widespread recognition as one of the Jewish state’s most reliable friends in American public life.

This post was originally published on here. 

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez has emerged as one of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders and one of the strongest pro-Israel voices within the Hispanic Christian community. 

Raised in a Puerto Rican Pentecostal family, Rodriguez developed an early commitment to biblical authority, justice, and evangelism. Those convictions led him to champion Israel as both a vital democratic ally and an integral part of the biblical story, making him one of the leading pro-Israel voices in the Hispanic Christian community. 

As president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, he has consistently affirmed Israel’s right to exist in peace and security while encouraging greater cooperation between Christians and the Jewish community. Rodriguez has spoken out against anti-Semitism, participated in pro-Israel initiatives, and emphasized the shared biblical heritage that unites Christians and Jews. His leadership has helped expand Christian support for Israel across one of America’s fastest-growing faith communities.

This post was originally published on here. 

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Wednesday that the group had attacked an airbase in Khamis Mushait as well as Aramco facilities in Yanbu.

Saudi Arabia did not confirm either of the attacks.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

The US lost around 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the conflict with Iran. This is according to a new Lead Inspector General Report to the United States Congress, Operation Epic Fury, which covers the fighting from April to June 2026. Since June, more Reaper drones have been lost in the conflict.

These drones, the Reaper and the Predator, are legacy American platforms. However, they have been lost in larger numbers as they have been pressed into service in places like Yemen and now Iran.

The losses may suggest that these larger drones are becoming obsolete. The drones are vulnerable to air defenses. The vulnerability stems from their history. They are a legacy of the US global hegemony after the Cold War. The drones symbolize American power. Now they could also be seen as a symbol of the changing world order.

The MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper helped transform US unmanned aircraft from reconnaissance platforms into strike systems. That means the Predator was first rolled out for slow intelligence and reconnaissance missions, monitoring areas.

This was considered a dull and dangerous job. Losing reconnaissance planes and pilots has historically been a problem. For instance, Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

Hellfire missiles: An early breakthrough in drone warfare

The Predator was an answer to this problem. No need to send pilots. Send drones. America’s General Atomics developed the Predator during the 1990s. The prototype first flew in 1994, and the RQ-1 entered operational use as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, including deployments over the Balkans.

Then it became clear that the drone could and should be armed. A breakthrough came when the US began experimenting with arming it with the AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

The first airborne Hellfire launch from a Predator occurred in 2001. By October 7, 2001, armed Predators were flying combat missions over Afghanistan. This was too late to take out Bin Laden. However, the drone became a symbol of the war on terror.

The terrorist groups being hunted by US drones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Pakistan did not have air defenses. However, much has changed since then. The MQ-9 Reaper first flew in February 2001. Reaper entered operational service in 2007.

Compared with the Predator, it offered substantially greater speed, payload, and weapons capacity, including Hellfires and bombs. The Reaper was a natural evolution of the Predator.

The challenge in Iran, Yemen, and other places is that the Reapers are being lost at a higher rate than they will be replaced. It’s not clear if they will actually be replaced as the US transitions to other drones. The war in Ukraine and also in Iran has shown the need for large numbers of other drones.

The US knows it needs not only a Reaper replacement, but also tens of thousands of other smaller drones. In May, Aviation Week noted that the Air Force approved requirements for an MQ-9 Reaper replacement. It was supposed to be attritable, meaning it can be lost in larger numbers.

The requirement called for mass production and an open architecture, with a 1,500 km range and 20-hour endurance. Tyler Rogoway at TWZ noted that the requirement was for a drone “cheap enough to risk losing. “The Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper successor will trade survivability for lower cost, broader missions, and mass production.”

New drones in development for replacement, supplementation

Armed Forces Press recently noted Swarm Aero had unveiled Gamera, a potential replacement. “After the loss of dozens of its MQ-9 Reaper drones to fighting in Iran, newcomer drone-maker Swarm Aero announced Monday that it had developed a drone in the same medium altitude, long-endurance (MALE) class, capable of executing swarm missions and cheap enough to afford losing, even in large numbers.”

It is said to have “a wingspan of about 72 feet, a payload capacity of 2,800 pounds, a ‘Pacific-spanning’ unrefueled range of 9,000 miles and a combat radius of 2,300 miles with ‘hours’ of on-station time once at its patrol area. Kitted-out Reapers, which reportedly cost $30-50 million apiece, have a payload capacity of up to 3,800 pounds.”

In addition, another report at Aviation International News noted that General Atomics “has unveiled its Wildfire uncrewed air system” as a potential replacement.

The point is that the replacements are coming. In addition, many other drones are being used. The US is worried about munition shortfalls due to the war with Iran.

However, the lesson will be that the US needs new and cheaper munitions and drones. Rather than trying to replace what was lost, the war will lead to major changes, much as the Second World War and other conflicts have.

The US military is already investing in lower-cost drones and missiles that can be produced and employed in large numbers, reflecting lessons from Ukraine and the 2026 conflict with Iran. One example is the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a one-way attack drone similar to Iran’s Shahed 136.

Cheaper missiles are also a good move to get around the losses of the Reapers. Anduril’s Barracuda-500M is designed as an affordable, mass-producible cruise missile. Another entrant is Covenant’s Anthem, a long-range cruise missile carrying a payload exceeding 200 kilograms.

The future is clear. More cheap and mass-produced drones and missiles. The era of the Reaper and Predator as a symbol of American warfare may be ending. Many other countries that use large drones, including Israel, will be learning from this. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Labour’s Britain: Patron of anti-Israel Islamists

The decision by Britain’s Labour government to impose new sanctions on Israel, just as the Islamic Republic’s regional Axis of Evil has been heavily degraded, its top leadership eliminated, and its proxy networks shattered, is not a routine diplomatic shift. It is the continuation of a long-standing, calculated historical pattern.

This latest action comes in the shadow of the October 7 anniversary, following a critical military turning point: the IDF completing its takeover of the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge and dismantling Hezbollah’s key tunnel infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

London is no longer operating behind the curtain, signaling to Islamists that they still have a major power patron, while stepping openly into the role of a major opponent of Israel just as Iran’s proxy network faces unprecedented destruction.

While the UK sanctions Israel over the construction of 1,200 residential units east of Jerusalem, it took zero practical action against the Islamic Republic’s massacre of over 50,000 Iranians on January 8-9, 2026. To make matters worse, British Foreign Office officials even attended a celebratory event at the regime’s embassy.

Britain: Iran’s enemy from 1941 occupation to 1979 revolution and today

Iran and the Jewish people share a unique biblical and historical bond in the region, yet Britain has a long record of positioning itself against both Iranian sovereignty and Jewish sovereignty.

The UK was the mastermind behind the occupation of Iran in August 1941. They exiled Reza Shah Pahlavi out of a personal vendetta against him for reclaiming Khuzestan, a province of Iran that the UK intended to turn into an independent state, similar to the Persian Gulf nations.

The UK and its propaganda enterprise, the BBC, were among the main puppet masters of the 1979 catastrophe and the rise of the Islamists to power in Iran. This is the very same BBC that has now become the “anti-Israel-in-chief” media, effectively serving as Hamas’s media outlet during the war following the October 7 atrocities.

Double standard: Judea and Samaria vs Falklands

In his 1896 manifesto The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), Theodor Herzl foresaw that European antisemitism would culminate in catastrophe and argued that Jewish security ultimately required an independent, sovereign homeland.

Today’s British policies reflect the very hostility Herzl anticipated.

The United Kingdom officially labels Israeli sovereignty over its historic heartland, Judea and Samaria, an “occupation,” popularizing the artificial term “West Bank.”

Yet, the British Government defends British sovereignty over the Falklands based on historical ties, thousands of kilometers away, while denying Israel that very same right in its own historic heartland. This institutional hypocrisy reveals a foundational truth: an institutional problem with the idea of independent Jewish sovereignty.

The British Mandate for Palestine

The historical roots of this bias took shape during the British Mandate for Palestine. Britain suspended the Mandate’s provisions establishing a “Jewish National Home” east of the Jordan River, using its administrative powers to reserve this vast territory for Arab settlement and prohibit Jewish immigration and land purchases.

The creation of the Kingdom of Jordan across roughly 77% of the original Palestine Mandate was an intentional strategic move. It ensured that when the land was partitioned between Jews and Arabs, the Jewish people received the smallest fraction possible.

This 1922 carving meant that by the 1947 UN Partition Plan, only the remaining 23% of the western territory, comprising modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, was left as the baseline for division.

British role in Amin al-Husseini evading trial

This institutional shielding of extremist antisemitic forces became glaringly evident in the aftermath of World War II. 

Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who actively collaborated with Adolf Hitler and helped build the Muslim Nazi SS “Handschar” division to perpetrate atrocities against Jews and Serbs, was formally indicted as a war criminal by Yugoslavia. 

Yet, British authorities consciously intervened, effectively allowing the mufti to evade trial and escape safely to Egypt, prioritizing imperial leverage over justice for Jewish victims.

1948: Labour government’s effort to kill newborn Israel

This cynical shielding paved the way for the next phase of containment: the explicit attempt to suffocate the State of Israel in its infancy during the 1948 War of Independence, an operation designed and executed entirely by a Labour government.

Under former Labour prime minister Clement Attlee and foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, London actively sought to crush the nascent Jewish state.

In the war’s opening days, the invading Arab armies held a distinct tactical advantage, particularly Jordan’s Arab Legion, directly trained, financed, and commanded by British officers such as John Bagot Glubb, known as Glubb Pasha.

To lock in these early Arab gains and deny Israeli forces time to mobilize or buy weapons, Britain drafted and aggressively pushed UN Security Council Resolution 50.

The resolution imposed an arms embargo and ceasefire, giving London a diplomatic tool to manage the conflict through the UN to the Arab coalition’s advantage.

Britain’s rigid enforcement of this weapons embargo placed immense pressure on Israel at the very moment of its birth. The British Royal Navy effectively blockaded Israel’s coastlines, intercepting shipments of weaponry and Jewish volunteer fighters trying to reach the front lines. 

Had it not been for the life-saving clandestine arms shipments supplied by Czechoslovakia during that exact window, the British-led embargo could have achieved the collapse of the newborn Israel.

2002: Labour government’s lifeline for the Islamic Republic

This deep-rooted history directly explains modern British foreign policy alignments. Decades later, when the Islamic Republic’s secret nuclear facilities at Natanz were exposed in August 2002, Tony Blair’s government shifted the global spotlight. 

In September 2002, Blair published the infamous “Iraq dossier” detailing Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. 

The March 2003 invasion deployed British troops into Shia-dominated southern Iraq, shattering the regional balance of power in favor of Tehran, creating a vacuum that allowed Iran to expand its regional dominance and build its proxy network threatening Israel.

Today, with that very same proxy architecture severely weakened, the British Labour government under Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Edward Miliband has stepped forward once again.

By implementing trade bans on Judea and Samaria settlement goods and freezing export licenses for weapons that “materially contribute to the occupation,” they are running the exact same play: an enduring strategy to contain and undermine the sovereign Jewish state.

Labour’s hollow gesture: Israel’s invincible military, intelligence, and technological power

Yet, this performative gesture exposes Labour’s geopolitical impotence. Israel’s domestic defense sector is vastly more advanced than Britain’s, making any embargo obsolete. 

Israel does not rely on the UK for weaponry; conversely, European powers increasingly depend on Israeli technology, evidenced by Germany’s purchase of the multi-billion-dollar Arrow 3 and Greece’s historic €3 billion deal for an all-Israeli multi-layered air defense architecture, including David’s Sling and Barak MX, to build its “Achilles Shield” network.

Furthermore, because the F-35 is an American-led program, Britain cannot disrupt parts destined for Israel without risking disruption to its own global aviation supply lines.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Labour’s actions are entirely performative. 

From Attlee in 1948 to Blair in 2002 and Burnham in 2026, the British Labour Party remains the primary Western vehicle for the containment and undermining of the sovereign Jewish state, increasingly dependent on the votes of Britain’s more hardline Muslim constituencies, resorting to hollow diplomatic posturing while Israel maintains absolute technological and battlefield dominance.

The writer is the communications director to Prince Reza Pahlavi and an Iranian journalist who previously served as editor-in-chief of news at Manoto TV, a UK-based Persian-language television network.

This post was originally published on here. 

Jewish security leaders praised London Fire Brigade for its response to the spate of antisemitic arson attacks across the city this year, while warning that the attacks exposed a broader security crisis facing British Jews.

On Tuesday, the London Assembly Fire Committee met to discuss LFB’s response to the antisemitic arson attacks that occurred between March and May 2026, including the burning of Hatzolah ambulances.

Present were Community Security Trust CEO Mark Gardner, Hatzolah NW’s Yanky David, London Fire Commissioner Jonathan Smith, and two LFB commissioners.

Gardner spoke of how the “randomness” of the attacks had originally confused the police, who sought advice from CST on what connected the different synagogues and Jewish sites.

“The only thing that connects them is that they’re Jewish or, as was said by the group, the so-called group responsible for the attacks, that they’re Zionist. That’s the only thing,” he said.

In part because of the breadth of targets – from Jewish businesses to ambulances to reform synagogues – “it felt to the entire Jewish community that everybody was at risk of attack,” Gardner told the Assembly.

Concern about attacks becoming normalized

He added that he was concerned about attacks becoming normalized and the community being on edge.

He also expressed concern that, after the attacks became less frequent and then paused entirely, “the awareness of police, of fire brigade, of the assembly members, of government, etc., that they basically relax about the situation.”

Nevertheless, praised the LFB for its “terrific” response to the attacks, and described the efforts as “vitally important.”

Just last weekend, LFB carried out an emergency response demonstration at Finchley Fire Station to show the Committee and Jewish leaders how it would respond to a future terrorist attack.

LFB borough commander Rob Davis said this run-through was important given the changing face of attacks, and stressed that firefighters should be able to enter potential incidents “knowing from start to finish what the protocols and steps look like.”

Visitors were shown the LFB’s marauding terrorist attack response capability, which was introduced following the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, and were also shown measures that could be put in place at Jewish community buildings to help them prepare.

David cited this in Tuesday’s assembly, saying “the amount of resources that the London Fire Brigade had brought forward to that event to make it as realistic as possible and to prepare us, God forbid, for an eventuality that may happen was phenomenal. And we felt the support, and we felt as an organization that we had partners.”

David recalled being one of the first people to attend the burning ambulances when it was initially a small fire.

“The fire brigade who attended, they literally dove straight in and started tackling it, and they were phenomenal. We had to evacuate elderly residents from the neighboring apartment blocks, and we just worked alongside each other on that night phenomenally.”

Nevertheless, David acknowledged that the incidents were “traumatic” for the community and it lost four of its frontline ambulances.

“For an ambulance to be attacked, it’s almost as if someone is ripping out the defibrillators from every public building in London,” David said.

Gardner said that the existing Jewish security measures would be regarded as quite extreme to anyone outside the community, but within the Jewish community, “there’s a horrible normality around them.”

“We can’t keep building bigger walls. It just can’t continue like that,” he said, adding that it will continue to get worse until Jews either leave or the underlying reasons for the hatred are addressed.”

‘I’ve never quite seen operational pressure like it’

Jonathan Smith, London Fire Commissioner, said listening to the praise from Gardner and David for the London Fire Brigade “is something I’m incredibly proud of.”

“When what can at times appear to be the rest of the world is against a particular community, I think our role as the London Fire Brigade as the emergency service to step into that space and provide that level of reassurance is incredibly important,” he said.

Smith, however, spoke of the operational pressure the organization has been under this year.

“And in 27 years as a firefighter and officer, I’ve never quite seen operational pressure like it.”

Smith said the London Fire Brigade will need direct funding from central government to support its national security role.

That aside, Smith said in terms of the actual response to the attacks that we saw at the start of the year, “I couldn’t be prouder of what the London Fire Brigade has done.”

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Former Yisrael Beytenu MK Esterina Tartman died on Wednesday at age 68.

She was an MK from 2006 to 2009 during the 16th and 17th Knessets.

After retiring from political life, Tartman turned to private business and public activity outside of government.

This is a developing story.

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Visiting Israel transformed the course of Raihaana Adira’s life. Six weeks later, after Hamas’ October 7 attack, she returned to McGill University and watched classmates glorify Hamas. As a Canadian Muslim, she refused to stay silent. Instead, she built a platform dedicated to replacing misinformation with education (@raihaana.adira).

Her work revolves around honest conversations about Zionism, Islam, and current events, offering a perspective rarely heard: That a Muslim can proudly support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination while advocating for dialogue and coexistence.

Adira’s advocacy has expanded beyond social media to national media, including a published article in the National Post documenting the realities of defending Israel on campus. As someone who is not Israeli or Jewish, she hopes to demonstrate that standing against antisemitism and standing with Israel are not matters of identity, but of principle. Her mission is to ensure that the truth and the victims of October 7 are never forgotten.

This post was originally published on here. 

Steven Phillips founded JewishERGs to ensure that Jewish professionals can show up at work as loud, proud, and visible Jews and Zionists. Across companies and countries, the organization supports the leaders who build and support Jewish employee resource groups that create community, strengthen identity, and make space for open connection to Israel.

The work focuses on turning isolation into community and confidence. Through training on antisemitism, Jewish identity, and Zionism, Phillips equips people with the tools to speak clearly and stand firmly in environments that are often challenging. He has seen first-hand how this transforms individuals into leaders. His vision is not just Zionism through advocacy, but by embedding proud Zionist identity into everyday professional life. The result is a growing global network of Zionists who are visible, supported, and shaping the cultures around them to understand the true and real meaning of what it means to be a Zionist.

This post was originally published on here. 

Taryn Thomas was once a pro-Palestinian activist at Stanford University, participating from inside the campus encampments. Then, after confronting the arguments and assumptions underpinning her activism, she publicly changed her position – on the record and at the cost of many friendships. Thomas does not seek to win arguments; she explains how they are lost, beginning with her own journey. Her purpose is not simply to be right, but to get it right.

Today, as a Geller Fellow, Thomas works internationally as a speaker and media contributor and serves as an ambassador for the Nova Music Festival Exhibition. She has spoken at universities, public forums, and Israel’s 2026 International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, while reaching millions through digital storytelling featured by outlets including The Free Press and The Jerusalem Post. As an African-American Gen Z student, Thomas is working to make Black-Jewish solidarity relevant to a new generation – not as nostalgia for what once was, but as a vision for what can be again.

This post was originally published on here. 

Before she is anything else, Tanya Tsikanovsky is a Jew. Everything she does starts there. She’s an openly lesbian Zionist in a sea of Queers for Palestine because she knows when we say the Shema, we say it to Israel. Tsikanovsky uses her platform to increase Jewish pride, to make “Zionist” a word we are proud to say out loud, and to remind Americans that patriotism isn’t something to apologize for.

She’s a speaker, director of development at Think Again, senior advisor to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, and a candidate for West Hollywood City Council. Her parents came to the US as Jewish refugees because America gave them a chance and the Jewish community gave them a future. She owes both a debt she intends to repay with her life’s work.

This post was originally published on here. 

Emily Austin has built a career at the intersection of media, sports, entrepreneurship, and advocacy. As a television host and sports broadcaster, she has interviewed presidents, world leaders, championship athletes, and influential voices – reaching millions across television and digital platforms. She is also the CEO of People’s Beauty, a clean beauty company, and the author of an upcoming HarperCollins book exploring Gen Z, technology, and ideological extremism.

Beyond her professional work, Austin has used her platform to be a leading pro-Israel voice, promote civic engagement, support military families, and advocate for animal welfare. Whether she is covering the world’s biggest sporting events, building businesses, or tackling difficult conversations, her goal is to inform, inspire, and encourage people to think critically, lead with conviction, and make a meaningful impact.

This post was originally published on here. 

A special evening of music, inspiration and reflection will take place in Jerusalem on Wednesday, September 16, as IsraelProperty.com and Israel Canada host a Selichot concert on the rooftop of the historic former Shaare Zedek Hospital at 161 Jaffa Street.

The evening will also be streamed live on Jpost.com allowing audiences in Israel and around the world to experience the atmosphere of Jerusalem during one of the most meaningful periods of the Jewish calendar.

Taking place during the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the event will bring together live music, thoughtful conversation and panoramic views across Jerusalem. Guests attending the rooftop gathering will also enjoy wine and cheese as the city enters the reflective days leading towards Yom Kippur.

The program will feature a live Selichot concert by the Solomon Brothers with IDF combat veteran Yoni Friedman.

Einav Gefen of Israel Canada will offer guests an introduction to Midtown Jerusalem and the vision for the development surrounding the historic site.

The setting is itself an important part of the evening.

The former Shaare Zedek Hospital opened on Jaffa Street in 1902 and became one of Jerusalem’s best-known landmarks. Today, the preserved building forms the historic heart of the Midtown Jerusalem development — creating a striking meeting point between more than a century of Jerusalem history and the continuing evolution of the city.

“Jerusalem has a unique atmosphere during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,” said Maxim Cohen, Co-Founder of IsraelProperty.com.

“We want this evening to create a genuine moment of connection through music, meaningful words and the city itself. Standing on this rooftop, Jerusalem’s history is beneath us and its future is visible around us.”

IsraelProperty.com was founded by Maxim Cohen and Yonatan Hamburger with the aim of bringing a clearer, more connected and more transparent approach to the Israeli property journey, particularly for Anglos, Olim and international buyers.

Rather than focusing solely on property listings, IsraelProperty.com is being developed as a PropTech ecosystem connecting property search with professionals, mortgage and finance support, legal coordination, progress tracking and the practical stages involved in buying, renting, investing or relocating to Israel.

For Cohen and Hamburger, the Selichot evening reflects that wider idea of connection — connecting people not only with property, but with Jerusalem, its communities and the story behind the places in which they may ultimately choose to live.

The live stream on Jpost.com will feature the rooftop setting, speakers, musical performance and the story of the historic building and Midtown Jerusalem.

Attendance at the physical event is limited and advance registration is essential. Those unable to attend in Jerusalem will be able to watch the evening live on Jpost.com Register for the live stream at israelproperty.com/selichot-live.

More information about IsraelProperty.com and its approach to buying, renting and investing in Israel can be found at IsraelProperty.com.

This article was written in collaboration with IsraelProperty.com.

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Opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to convene the Knesset committee overseeing the defense budget and immediately approve NIS 11 billion for urgent IDF procurement, arguing that the move could be carried out without breaching the state budget or raising taxes.

Lapid’s proposal would allow funds to be transferred to the IDF without reopening the state budget. The opposition leader had previously conditioned his support for the transfer on canceling coalition funds allocated to haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft evasion, and he argued that Netanyahu’s earlier proposal would increase taxes.

“I am once again calling on Prime Minister Netanyahu: We have a legal way to resolve the issue of the IDF’s immediate stockpiles without breaking the budget framework and raising taxes,” Lapid said.

“Let’s convene the joint committee on the defense budget and immediately transfer NIS 11 billion that has been waiting for many months for urgent defense procurement,” he continued.

Lapid’s statements came after he and Netanyahu held a security briefing on Monday, during which Lapid said the prime minister requested that the state budget be reopened to allocate additional funds to the defense establishment.

The opposition leader said he would not support the proposal if it meant raising taxes and, instead, conditioned his support for the prime minister’s proposal on canceling coalition funds being transferred “to finance haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft evasion.”

Lapid had noted that, in general, he supported transferring the funds to increase the defense establishment’s budget “because the IDF needs to be strengthened.”

Adjustments can be made to the state budget if they receive the required Knesset approval.

The Knesset is currently on summer recess ahead of the October elections, but the plenum can still convene under certain circumstances. As a result, opposition support would be significant for advancing Netanyahu’s proposal.

Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party stated after the Monday meeting that Lapid was “misleading the public about the defense budget.”

Increasing defense budget without raising taxes

The party argued that it could increase the defense budget without raising taxes.

Defense Minister Israel Katz later said Lapid should support additional funding for the IDF, arguing that the “economic situation is good” and that the necessary funds were available but required formal legislation in the Knesset. He stated the request was not connected to any tax increases or other budgetary items.

The 2026 state budget that was approved in March included an expenditure cap of about NIS 699 billion.

The Defense Ministry’s budget was set at nearly NIS 142b. Because of the war, the sum was said to have increased by about NIS 32b.

The 2026 state budget also included nearly NIS 6b in coalition funds, with hundreds of millions of shekels directed to haredi institutions as part of the proposal.

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Front-runner Gadi Eisenkot is drawing support precisely because he is “everything Netanyahu isn’t,” Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein said in an election discussion with host Jacob Laznik. 

Klein described Eisenkot’s disciplined, low-noise operation as a “Swiss watch” that rolls out respected recruits at a steady pace and grants few interviews, contrasting it with what he called the “reaction politics” of Naftali Bennett.

The pair opened on the foreign sanctions targeting Israeli figures, which Laznik dismissed as “stupid” and poorly thought through, even as he noted the governments behind them track Israeli coalition politics closely.

From there, they turned to a right-wing camp Laznik called “in shambles,” citing the failure of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to run together despite Netanyahu’s push and the mergers that never came together. Klein said Likud’s candidate list was assembled “last second” and became “a mess,” with the fight over reserved slots landing in the party’s internal court and nearly splitting its base. Both flagged puzzling placements: a former hostage and a Channel 14 television host in high, coveted slots while a serious defense figure was buried at number 35.

Where they diverged most was on what the election is actually about. Laznik rejected the idea of an “exciting list,” insisting the vote should turn on a bare-minimum agenda the country needs “yesterday,” a state commission of inquiry into October 7, a haredi draft law, and honest budgets: items he called “non-negotiable.” Klein pushed instead for a cross-partisan government, and the two weighed whether any coalition could rely on the Arab parties, the case for term limits, and how any incoming leader would inherit simultaneous pressure from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. 

Klein closed with three priorities regardless of who wins: resolving the draft through financial pressure rather than force, governing as “everyone’s prime minister,” and overhauling Israel’s diplomacy at “Ariel Sharon magnitude.” 

Full discussion, including a tease of upcoming interviews with “big names,” in the video.

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Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci was found guilty of war crimes, including murder, torture, and illegal detention, by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday.

Thaci, 58, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes committed as top commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the territory’s violent break from Serbia in the 1990s.

The tribunal said he was guilty of the murder of 96 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces by Kosovo Liberation Army forces during the conflict.

He was also convicted for the arbitrary illegal detention of 385 people, torture of 303 people and cruel treatment of around 50.

The court said Thaci had “actively participated in and encouraged crimes.”

“The scale and nature of the crimes committed were very serious,” presiding judge Charles Smith said.

“The so-called intelligence on which many of these victims were arrested, detained and killed was little more than unverified rumors. Based on that information, victims were called and described as spies and collaborators and violently treated.”

Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the conviction and the sentence, had denied all charges.

He can appeal the verdict.

Supporters gather in Pristina, The Hague

The ruling was closely watched in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the 1998-99 conflict and Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence remain a source of tension between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.

Thaci remains a revered figure for many Kosovo Albanians, while the tribunal itself is deeply unpopular in Kosovo.

In Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, thousands of people watching the verdict on a big screen booed the verdict and chanted “Thaci, Thaci” as some burst into tears.

One billboard showed the faces of the defendants and read: “In the name of the people, you are declared innocent”

“This verdict is shameful. From today, there will be no peace in Kosovo,” said Raif Pllana, a former KLA fighter who came out in support of Thaci in central Pristina.

Police said preparations had been made with foreign peacekeeping forces in case protests turned violent. The United States advised citizens to avoid crowds.

Albania’s Prime Minister criticized the verdict with a picture posted on social media of a circle of barbed wire across a map of Europe and one word: “Unbelievable”

Prosecutors demanded 45-year sentence for Bosnian war criminal

Prosecutors had sought a 45-year sentence against Thaci and three other former top commanders of the KLA.

But the three-judge panel dismissed six charges of crimes against humanity. They said prosecutors had failed to show these happened as part of widespread or systematic attacks against the civilian population as a whole.

However, they ruled that Thaci and his co-accused were part of a joint criminal enterprise, with a common plan to take control of Kosovo politics following its independence by targeting political opponents.

Lawyers for Thaci had argued that the accusations were unfounded and amounted to an attempt to rewrite history. They said there was no evidence to directly link Thaci to any of the alleged crimes or to conclude that he controlled other KLA commanders.

The Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers was established in 2015 under international pressure to try former KLA fighters for alleged wartime and post-war crimes.

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The High Court of Justice dismissed a Shas petition on Wednesday seeking to revive a state-funded conference in memory of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, after the Religious Services Ministry said it could no longer hold the event as planned.

The ruling leaves the central dispute unresolved: whether the government could have paid for the conference weeks before the October 27 election without giving Shas, the party Yosef founded, an electoral advantage. The judges did not decide whether Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara was right to require its postponement.

The three-day event had been planned for October 6-8 at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. On Monday, ministry director-general Yehuda Avidan informed the Jerusalem Municipality that it was canceled. He cited the attorney-general’s position, the time needed to produce the event, and the continuing court proceedings.

During the Wednesday hearing, the judges told the parties that a petition over whether the planned conference could proceed had become theoretical once the ministry said it could no longer take place. Avidan asked the court to direct the ministry to hold it despite the attorney-general’s position, but the judges declined.

Annual commemoration falls less than two weeks before 2026 election

A 2025 law requires the Religious Services Ministry to hold a conference examining Yosef’s life and work on the annual day commemorating him or near it. That day falls on October 14 this year, less than two weeks before the election. Shas argued that moving the conference until after the vote would break the link to the date specified by law.

The ministry had proposed holding the conference earlier in October, with no party symbols or political speeches. Its legal adviser concluded that those restrictions would allow it to go ahead during the election campaign.

The proposed program extended beyond lectures. Documents accompanying Shas’s petition describe an interactive exhibition, a quiz on Yosef’s religious rulings, a reconstructed gathering featuring recordings of him, a virtual-reality film and musical performances. The ministry presented these as ways to teach visitors about his religious legacy.

Scale and timing of the government-funded event still posed a risk, AG said

The attorney-general’s office argued that the scale and timing of the government-funded event still posed a risk of election campaigning, particularly because Yosef’s image and legacy feature in Shas’s campaign. It said the conference should be held after the election. Its position did not prevent memorial services and other official ceremonies from taking place on schedule, or privately funded events from being held before the vote.

Shas disputed the suggestion that Yosef’s connection to the party made an event commemorating him into election propaganda. It argued that the restrictions proposed by the ministry would address any risk of political use without postponing an event required by law.

A community association that joined the proceedings took the opposite view. It argued that the planned program resembled a large public celebration more than the conference required by the law, and that government resources should not be used for an event so closely associated with a party during an election campaign. 

The ministry’s legal duty to hold a conference remains. It has said it could discuss an alternative event with the municipality, but it has not yet announced a replacement date.

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Belarus has agreed to free 25 prisoners in return for a further easing of US sanctions, an envoy for US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

The deal was part of lengthy negotiations in which Washington is urging Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to free hundreds of people, including human rights campaigners, political activists, journalists and lawyers, in exchange for sanctions relief and an easing of his international isolation.

Trump’s envoy, John Coale, told reporters in the Belarusian capital Minsk: “We agreed to an interim deal, and as a show of goodwill Belarus will release 25 people and in exchange the United States will lift sanctions on two companies.”

The figure of 25 was much lower than the 250 that Coale persuaded Lukashenko to release when he last visited Minsk in March.

The American said both sides would work to resolve outstanding issues to pave the way for another prisoner release and the removal of further sanctions.

“We will continue to improve US-Belarus relations and are working to secure the release of more people in the very near future. We are not finished!” he posted later on X/Twitter.

Belarusian human rights group Viasna said a new round of prisoner pardons had started, and relatives of some detainees had been told they could collect their loved ones from penal colonies on Wednesday morning.

Belarus’s Lukashenko denies replacing some prisoners with others

Viasna, which is banned in Belarus, says the former Soviet state still holds more than 900 political prisoners, even after Coale negotiated the release of hundreds since the middle of last year.

Among the most frequent charges against them are “extremist” activity, conspiring to seize power, incitement to hatred, or insulting the president.

At Tuesday’s talks with Coale, Lukashenko denied the people in question were political prisoners and rejected assertions by rights groups and the exiled opposition that he is steadily arresting more people to replace those he releases.

The two companies to be removed from US sanctions are Lakokraska, a manufacturer of paints and industrial coatings, and Bellesbumprom, a state-owned industrial concern that oversees the forestry, pulp and paper sectors. Sanctions against them had been in place since 2008 and 2023, respectively.

Coale also promised Lukashenko on Tuesday to get US banks to hand back tens of millions of dollars in frozen Belarusian assets.

Coale’s efforts since last year have led to the release, among many others, of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figures. His diplomacy has earned gratitude from many Belarusians, while also raising concerns.

“We should use every opportunity to save lives. But we should not confuse releases with political change. Repression continues, and Lukashenko continues supporting Russia’s war (in Ukraine),” exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said in comments to Reuters on Tuesday.

“The purpose should be to empty the prisons, not to rehabilitate the dictatorship.”

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Four years after Mahsa Amini was murdered by the Islamic Republic, sparking Iran’s ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests, survivors of the 2022 uprising spoke to The Jerusalem Post about the young Kurdish woman’s enduring memory, what they witnessed during the crackdown and how the events changed their lives.

Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman from Sanandaj in western Iran, was arrested by Tehran’s morality police on September 13, 2022, for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. She collapsed at the Vozara Detention Center shortly afterward and fell into a coma. She died three days later, on September 16.

Iran’s Police Information Center claimed that Amini suffered a cardiac seizure while in custody. However, a UN human rights expert later said evidence indicated that Amini died “as a result of beatings,” while the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it had “established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police,” which it said had demonstrated clear “patterns of violence.”

Outraged by Amini’s death, protesters took to the streets in at least 134 cities and towns and 132 universities across 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces. The Islamic Republic brutally suppressed the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests, firing live ammunition into crowds and forcibly disappearing thousands of people. At least 49 women and 68 children were killed in the streets, according to UN figures.

Iranian regime’s security forces confirmed to have killed 551 people during protests after Amini’s death

Yasser Fattahi’s father, Jowhar Fattahi, was among the 551 Iranians confirmed to have been killed by the regime’s security forces.

Fattahi told the Post that on November 21, 2022, his 60-year-old father, Jowhar, decided to join a march in their hometown of Javanrud, in the Kermanshah Province, after two members of their extended family from the town, Bahaeddin Vaisi and Erfan Kakayi, were killed by security forces.

Jowhar was among several people from the town who stayed up through the night, guarding the bodies so that the regime could not “hold them hostage.”  He joined an estimated 30,000 people from the community in laying the men to rest before marching in their memory.

Though Jowhar lacked formal higher education, Fattahi said his father was a principled, compassionate man.

“He always used to say at home, ‘Neither oppress anyone nor allow anyone to oppress you.’ He emphasized the first part more, not being an oppressor ourselves,” Fattahi recounted. “He was not a violent or extremist person at all. He also always spoke about the injustices that the Iranian government had inflicted on everyone, and especially on the Kurdish people. He wished for a change of government, so that ordinary people would no longer have to bear the cost of living under a cruel and authoritarian regime.”

Fattahi, a nurse, was seeing to the injured protesters in Sanandaj when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps opened fire on the crowds in his hometown. A family friend marching alongside Fattahi’s father would later inform him that Jowhar stopped to help a young woman who had been shot and wasn’t moving. Refusing to be directed away from the woman by the IRGC, the security forces shot him in the femoral region of his left leg.

“In those days, people preferred to die rather than go to the hospital, because they knew that, either way, they would be taken from the hospital by the IRGC and held hostage, and ultimately they would be killed,” Fattahi said, explaining how he was stuck treating protesters in secret as his father lay at home begging those around him not to transport him to hospital.

Jowhar Fattari died of his wounds after losing consciousness due to  IRGC violence

After he lost consciousness, Jowhar was taken to hospital, where he died of his wounds. Having witnessed the security forces abducting the bodies of those killed, the friends who took Jowhar for medical attention snuck his body out of the institute and buried him far from the city’s main cemetery.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the years that followed Jowhar’s death as the Islamic Republic continues to suppress dissent. Still, Fattahi said, Amini’s name has come to represent a call for freedom and the sacrifices made in hopes of achieving it.

“‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ is not merely a slogan. It is far more complex, and at the same time, it is the simplest demand one could possibly make,” he said, speaking on the oppression faced by women, “especially in Iran, is beyond words.”

Describing the situation of women as “tragic,” he said, “women are the ones who nurture and raise us, and without their freedom, we cannot expect free human beings to exist. So why should they be subjected to violence or killed because of these policies?”

The Woman, Life, Freedom movement gave women “living under repression and suffocation” an “opportunity to say ‘no’ to a fascist system that treated” them as “slaves” and “inferior to men,” he continued. “One reason the name of Jina Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution has endured is that this revolution should not be reduced to the issue of the hijab. Women’s problems are not limited to the hijab.”

“Freedom does not simply mean having the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a hijab,” he concluded. “This is the most basic of women’s rights.”

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Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has introduced a new tactical vehicle for Germany’s special forces, marking the first public appearance of the TAHR, a platform built on IAI’s ELTA ZD chassis and produced by Flensburg Technology Systems (FTS). 

The first pre-series vehicle was unveiled ahead of schedule at the annual conference of the German Special Forces Command, the Kommando Spezialkräfte  (KSK), in Altensteig‑Wart on Tuesday.

The TAHR is based on the Israeli ZD platform developed by IAI ELTA, which has been battle-proven by Israeli special forces. FFTS, a joint venture between IAI’s ELTA division and German defense contractor FFG, developed and manufactures the vehicle in Germany. 

Designed as a light, air‑transportable platform, the TAHR incorporates operational modifications requested by the KSK, including an open architecture for integrating weapons and sensors and a layout intended to improve situational awareness. Its compact dimensions also enable two TAHRs to be transported inside CH‑47 Chinook helicopters, with crews able to achieve combat readiness shortly after landing, a core requirement for airborne special operations. 

The TAHR will be delivered to the KSK in two variants, a combat configuration and a support model. Both are based on an existing all‑terrain platform already in service. FTS adapted the design to meet the KSK’s mission-specific requirements, which rely heavily on rapid deployment and mobility in demanding environments.

“The KSK’s mission is to conduct special forces operations worldwide and under all conditions successfully. To do this, the KSK requires not only high mobility but also a variety of suitable modes of transport depending on the situation, mission, and terrain,” said KSK commander, Brig.-Gen. Andreas Kühne.

“With the TAHR, we are getting an operational and combat vehicle that is air-droppable and ready for deployment in any terrain. Together, we have succeeded in advancing this important armament project for the KSK in such a way that the first pre-series vehicle can be presented within just one year,” he added.

FTS signed a framework agreement in October 2025 with the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support, the German Army’s procurement authority, to supply up to 200 vehicles.

IAI’s leadership described the rollout as a milestone in the company’s cooperation with Germany. 

“IAI views Germany as a strategic partner in developing joint defense capabilities over the long term. Our cooperation spans multiple domains, from air and maritime to land, and is grounded in the combination of technology, expertise, and industrial capabilities on both sides. We are committed to further deepening this cooperation and jointly developing solutions to address the evolving security challenges of the years ahead,” IAI CEO Guy Barlev said.

ELTA CEO Dror Bar noted that delivering the first vehicle ahead of schedule showed the effectiveness of the industrial collaboration and the ability to tailor proven Israeli platforms to German operational needs.

“We are proud to present the first TAHR vehicle ahead of schedule. This achievement reflects the strength of our industrial cooperation with our German partners and our ability to deliver advanced, proven platforms tailored precisely to the customer’s operational needs,” he said.

Europe has increasingly turned to Israeli defense technology over the past decade, especially after Russia invaded Ukraine and the growing demand for rapid, combat‑proven systems. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Several US senators, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), introduced a resolution on Monday requiring the State Department to report to Congress on the “pattern of violence” in the West Bank, including the killings of nine US citizens since 2022. 

The resolution, if passed, would require the State Department to issue non-classified statements addressing investigations of the killing of United States citizens by the IDF, Border Police, or Israeli civilians in the West Bank, as well as an assessment of the human rights status of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Senators also specifically requested that the State Department assess the conditions surrounding the detention of Palestinian children.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has ten days to consider the resolution and determine whether or not it passes. Should it pass the committee, the Trump Administration will be required to submit the requested report within 30 days or else the majority of military aid to Israel will be halted. 

‘The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence’

“Every day, Palestinians in the West Bank experience horrific violence at the hands of Israeli settlers and security forces,” Sanders said in a statement regarding the resolution. “For years, the Israeli government has offered impunity instead of accountability. Enough is enough. The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence and looking the other way — it’s time to end our complicity, once and for all.”

“This Administration has said ensuring the safety and security of American citizens abroad is one of its highest priorities. And yet, as we’ve seen violence rise in the West Bank, American citizens have been killed time and again, and they have received no justice and no accountability,” noted Van Hollen. 

“The violence committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is reaching an unprecedented level,” added Kaine. “As a result,, and as a result more and more Americans and Palestinians are being killed and injured. These actions – and the Israeli government’s lack of response to this violence – are unacceptable and threaten the long-term safety and security of the entire region.”

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An Iranian state-run media outlet claimed that one of its journalists, Naqqa Hamed, was arrested by Israeli forces near Bethlehem in the West Bank on Tuesday.

An IDF source confirmed the arrest of a Press TV journalist to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

According to Iran’s state-run English-language news site, Press TV, Palestinian-American correspondent Hamed and a camera crew were stopped at a checkpoint in the area by Israeli forces, who allegedly searched them before arresting Hamed.

Hamed’s cameraman was allegedly released, while she remained in custody.

Hamed was transferred to Israel Police, and not to Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), despite Iranian allegations that Shin Bet has her in detention; the IDF source confirmed to the Post.

Press TV claims Hamed targeted in online ‘smear campaign’

Press TV claimed that Hamed’s arrest came after she had been subjected to an online “smear campaign,” during which she was repeatedly probed on how she could continue working for the Iranian outlet while in Area B of the West Bank without being arrested.

They accused those who questioned Hamed online of attempting to “exert psychological and media pressure” in order to obstruct Press TV’s reporting.

Press TV also claimed that Hamed had previously clashed with Israeli forces while reporting in Kalandiya.

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The UN Security Council held an emergency session on Tuesday to discuss possible solutions to the growing escalation caused by Houthi advances in Yemen, including intensified cross-border attacks into Saudi Arabia.

The representative of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, Abdullah Ali Fadhel al-Saadi, warned that the escalation is no longer an internal matter, but a growing threat to regional security, freedom of navigation in the Middle East, global energy supplies, and other global supply chains and trade networks.

The anti-Houthi government is “responding to Houthi advances” along the country’s west coast, including towards the Bab al-Mandab Strait on the Red Sea, Saadi said.

Saadi also urged UNSC members to enforce the arms embargo on Houthi terrorists and disrupt all weapons, financing, and smuggling networks.

Abdulaziz M. Alwasil, Saudi Arabia’s representative, warned that the Houthis are pursuing a policy of “choking the straits,” thereby holding the global economy hostage.

Bahrain’s Jamal Fares Alrowaei condemned the escalation, which has led to a worsening of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, forcing civilians to flee their homes.

“It’s high time for the Security Council to take a more decisive stance,” Alrowaei said.

UN Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari, originally from Tunisia but representing the global organization rather than the North African state, noted that approximately 2,300 people have already arrived in Djibouti after fleeing the fighting.

Khiari also condemned attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure, and warned that further escalations around both the Bab al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz could have “grave consequences for international security.”

US representative Jennifer Locetta stated that “freedom of navigation underpins the global economy, and the US is working with our partners to protect it.”

US rep. calls on UNSC members to remain ‘clear-eyed’ on Tehran’s role in Houthi escalation

Locetta also called on Iran to cease its backing of the terror group, and urged the UNSC to remain “clear-eyed” about Tehran’s role in arming, funding, and giving instructions to the Sana’a-based terror group.

China’s Sun Lei expressed concern over the rapid escalation, and reaffirmed the People’s Republic’s respect for Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s respective sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Houthi terrorists ‘bear full responsibility’ for escalation, UK says

Protecting Red Sea shipping is a common international responsibility, and the rights of merchant vessels must be respected, he added.

The UK also condemned the escalation, saying that Houthi terrorists “bear full responsibility.”

“Iran’s longstanding support to the Houthis continues to enable attacks that threaten civilians, neighboring states, maritime security, and prospects for peace,” UK representative Kate Foster said.

“There can be no progress towards peace while the Houthis continue their military offensive, their attacks against Saudi Arabia, their threats to international shipping, and their obstruction of humanitarian action,” Foster added.

“Today the Council should deliver a simple and united message: The Houthis must cease their attacks, release detained personnel, de-escalate immediately, and return towards the pathway to peace,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the Houthis’ “heinous attacks against the city of Mecca and the Madinah region, as well as its ongoing aggression against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

“These attacks instill fear in innocent civilians, violate the sanctity of holy sites and mosques, and provoke the sentiments of Muslims around the world,” the OIC added.

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The renewed confrontation between Washington and Tehran is increasingly being fought not only through military pressure but through the energy market, where disruptions to Gulf exports are pushing oil prices higher, testing the resilience of regional economies and creating a growing domestic challenge for the United States ahead of November’s midterm elections.

That pressure intensified Tuesday as Saudi Arabia’s principal route for exporting oil without passing through the Strait of Hormuz suffered another setback.

Oil loadings at the Red Sea port of Yanbu were suspended, shipping industry sources told Reuters, while Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline remained offline following attacks on the kingdom’s energy infrastructure. Separately, Libya halted operations at three oil fields after protests led to the closure of a crude pipeline.

Brent crude futures were up $3.49, or 3.3%, at $109.20 a barrel by early Tuesday afternoon in New York, while US West Texas Intermediate crude rose $5.08, or 5%, to $106.46. Both benchmarks were on course for their highest closes in nearly four months.

The latest price increase reflects more than fear of a hypothetical closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Traffic through the waterway has already fallen dramatically. Preliminary data from Kpler cited by Reuters showed that just four commodity vessels transited Hormuz on Monday, down from 10 on Sunday. Before the war, roughly 125 large commercial vessels passed through the strait each day. Some vessels may not be reflected in the figures because ships have increasingly switched off their tracking systems during so-called “dark crossings” to reduce exposure.

Markets are now pricing both barrels physically removed from supply and the risk of what could happen next.

Charl Le Roux of MENA Strategic Watch in Dubai said both components are now embedded in the price.

“Brent crude is trading at $103.78 per barrel, up from approximately $70–73 before the conflict and near a weekly peak of $108. Of the roughly $30 increase, an estimated $12–15 reflects confirmed supply losses, consistent with Goldman Sachs’ risk-premium framework. The remainder is an uncertainty premium linked to the conflict’s duration and expansion into the Red Sea, making a rapid decline unlikely,” he told The Media Line.

Prices have risen further since Le Roux made that assessment, but the underlying forces he identified have become more pronounced. Oil markets no longer price in only the possibility that Iran could interrupt exports through Hormuz. Production, shipping, insurance and alternative export routes have already been affected.

Tanker traffic falling sharply from prewar levels

Le Roux’s assessment points to tanker traffic falling sharply from prewar levels, production curtailments across parts of the Gulf and increasingly expensive maritime insurance. His report describes the crisis as having evolved from a single-chokepoint problem centered on Hormuz into a broader question of Gulf supply security.

The Strait of Hormuz has historically carried roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of global oil shipments, together with a comparable share of global liquefied natural gas (LNG). Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have substantial operational pipeline capacity to move exports outside the strait.

“Only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have operational pipelines that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, and together they cover less than half of pre-war transit volumes. Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain have virtually no bypass capacity. Qatar’s LNG exports are particularly vulnerable because liquefied gas must be shipped. Existing pipelines also provide only partial protection because they are fixed targets and cannot match Hormuz’s normal capacity,” Le Roux said.

Events in Saudi Arabia have now demonstrated the vulnerability of those alternatives.

The kingdom’s 1,200-kilometer East-West Pipeline, also known as Petroline, carries crude from eastern Saudi Arabia to Yanbu on the Red Sea, allowing exports to bypass Hormuz. The pipeline had become increasingly important during the war, moving roughly 4 million to 5 million barrels per day through the western route during parts of the conflict.

A drone attack forced the pipeline offline last week. On Tuesday, shipping sources said oil loadings at Yanbu had also been suspended. Saudi Arabia has informed some European customers that late-September crude cargoes will be canceled, while estimates for restoring the pipeline have ranged from days to several weeks. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that he expected oil to begin flowing through the pipeline again within days.

The disruption threatens a route that has recently handled the equivalent of roughly 4% of global oil supply. Saudi output had already fallen sharply before the latest attack, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) putting August production at about 6 million barrels per day, its lowest level in more than three decades.

Higher prices have increasingly divided the Gulf between economies that can partially benefit from more expensive oil and those for which the costs of disruption outweigh those gains.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the crisis with a substantial advantage. Both have pipelines that let some crude exports bypass Hormuz, while their financial reserves give them more room to absorb disruption.

Yet even for the better-protected producers, higher prices do not translate automatically into an economic windfall.

“Saudi Arabia and the UAE currently benefit financially from higher prices, supported by pipeline access; Aramco reported a 26% profit increase in Q1. Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and especially Bahrain are already net negative. Bahrain’s fiscal breakeven is approximately $137 per barrel,” Le Roux said.

Le Roux added: “Meanwhile, regional costs are rising, including an estimated $58 billion in energy-infrastructure damage, Dubai hotel occupancy falling from 80% to 10%, and war-risk insurance increasing by 12–40 times. Overall, disruption costs now appear to outweigh the region’s price gains.”

His report estimates that approximately 80 regional energy facilities have been damaged, while aviation, tourism, shipping and logistics have all been affected. War-risk marine insurance, it says, has increased from around 0.25% of a vessel’s value before the war to between 3% and 10% in some cases.

Regional financial markets are also showing the strain. Saudi Arabia’s benchmark stock index fell 0.9% Tuesday, while Dubai lost 0.8% and Qatar fell 0.5% as investors reacted to the latest attacks and deteriorating shipping conditions.

The differences between Gulf states are increasingly determined by infrastructure, diversification and fiscal buffers rather than simply by whether oil trades at $80, $100 or $110.

Among the Gulf states, the UAE is one of the best positioned because of its diversified non-oil economy, substantial sovereign wealth, and pipeline access to Fujairah outside Hormuz. Saudi Arabia retains greater scale and considerable financial resources but remains more heavily dependent on oil and is simultaneously financing an ambitious domestic economic transformation.

Qatar presents almost the opposite case. It possesses significant financial reserves and a relatively low fiscal breakeven price, but its economic model remains highly dependent on LNG exports, for which there is no meaningful land-based alternative to Hormuz.

Kuwait similarly has significant financial buffers but no operational export bypass, while Bahrain faces a much weaker fiscal position. Iraq combines heavy dependence on oil with limited ability to reroute the bulk of its southern production.

“The UAE is best positioned for a prolonged confrontation because of its diversification and pipeline expansion, followed by Saudi Arabia, given its scale and reserves. Bahrain is the most exposed fiscally, physically, and economically. Qatar and Kuwait have substantial financial reserves but remain structurally vulnerable because neither has a viable Hormuz bypass,” Le Roux said.

Widening insecurity in the Red Sea adds another variable and is beginning to undermine the assumptions on which Gulf contingency planning was built.

For Saudi Arabia, the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu had been one of the principal mechanisms for moving crude away from Hormuz. The attacks that forced the pipeline offline demonstrated that infrastructure designed to diversify maritime risk can itself become exposed when a conflict spreads geographically.

The Houthi advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast has added to the problem. Shipping through Bab al-Mandab has also declined, with Kpler data showing vessel traffic falling from 28 transits on Sunday to 21 on Monday. On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed the need to protect freedom and security of navigation through Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea.

‘The Red Sea is the most important new risk’

For oil markets, the development is important less because of the Saudi-Houthi confrontation itself than because it weakens the assumption that disruption in one shipping corridor can simply be compensated for through another.

Le Roux described the consequence in broader terms: “The Red Sea is the most important new risk. A Houthi missile struck a Saudi tanker 63 nautical miles from Yanbu, the terminus of Saudi Arabia’s main Hormuz-bypass pipeline, while Houthi forces captured Yemen’s Mokha port. Because the bypass strategy depended on the Red Sea’s security, Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab should now be treated as correlated risks. This supports a higher and more persistent risk premium,” he noted.

The implications are different for the United States.

As a major oil producer, the US is considerably less dependent on imported Middle Eastern crude than many European and Asian economies. American consumers remain exposed to internationally traded energy prices, particularly through gasoline, diesel, transportation and other costs that feed into inflation.

Refined fuels have emerged as a particular vulnerability. Middle Eastern exports of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel have remained nearly 60% below prewar levels, according to IEA estimates cited by Reuters, while attacks on energy infrastructure elsewhere have added to the pressure. US diesel futures reached a more-than-four-year intraday high Tuesday.

The political timing is particularly sensitive.

President Donald Trump said last week that he expected the Iran war to end “immediately after” the November midterm elections, arguing that Tehran was attempting to influence the vote. Separately, Reuters reported that some administration officials have sought to contain the intensity of the conflict ahead of the elections while leaving open the possibility of heavier military action afterward.

The US president has also said he does not regret the war despite its possible effect on Republicans in November.

Economic pressure is becoming more tangible. The White House has considered whether to use the Defense Production Act to expand US refining capacity, an unusual step reflecting concern about the vulnerability of domestic fuel markets to international supply disruption.

The financial effects are also spreading beyond filling stations. Rising energy prices have intensified inflation concerns as the Federal Reserve meets this week. US 10-year Treasury yields climbed to around 5% Tuesday, their highest level since 2007, while markets were pricing in at least a quarter-percentage-point interest-rate increase by the Fed.

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment released Tuesday put the direct cost of the six-month US war with Iran at about $38 billion and projected that continued fighting could add roughly $3 billion a month. The CBO also estimated that war-related energy disruptions could add about half a percentage point to US inflation in early 2027. The assessment did not include the cost of some recent attacks or additional federal borrowing associated with the conflict.

Francesco Sassi, a nonresident research fellow at RIE, Ricerche Industriali Energetiche, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, said a prolonged confrontation risks progressively removing Middle Eastern hydrocarbons from international markets.

“A long-term conflict between the US and Iran will deprive global markets of increasingly larger volumes of hydrocarbons from the Middle East, disrupting international access to regional production and squandering the political and economic scenarios for regional players as much as energy stakeholders,” he told The Media Line.

Sassi argued that uncertainty over the political endpoint of the conflict also complicates expectations for energy markets.

“Statements from the White House reveal that the US has no clear strategic goal or aim to cease this war, as long as the second Trump presidency continues to control both sides of Congress,” he noted.

His characterization of Washington’s objectives represents his assessment. The Trump administration has rejected comparisons with previous prolonged US wars and argues that pressure is weakening Iran, while outside analysts have questioned how the confrontation can be terminated without either a negotiated settlement or further escalation.

The latest market disruptions reinforce another problem for Washington: Greater pressure on Tehran can simultaneously increase incentives for Iran and its regional allies to use energy infrastructure and shipping routes as leverage.

“Many variables, including financial reserves, missile and drone stocks, domestic stability, oil revenues, or the durability of its regional networks, influence the Iranian capacity to withstand the conflict,” Sassi said.

“Nevertheless, I consider a real possibility that the Iranian capacity to further intensify the conflict through hybrid warfare and energy could create even greater problems for Washington, European, and regional allies,” he added.

Iran itself is under substantial economic pressure from sanctions and the costs of the confrontation. But economic vulnerability does not necessarily eliminate its ability to raise the costs for its adversaries.

Mohammad Ali Ghanamizadeh Fallahi, a researcher at the Iranian Institute for BRI Studies, said Tehran still has several forms of asymmetric leverage.

“Iran is using leverage points such as the Strait of Hormuz, its missile capabilities, and its regional network to increase the potential costs of any large-scale military action against it,” he told The Media Line.

For Fallahi, maritime disruption has already changed the nature of the confrontation.

“The reduction of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, mutual military confrontations, and threats against critical infrastructure have transformed the crisis from a bilateral confrontation into a global energy security issue,” he noted.

The latest shipping figures lend weight to that assessment. Monday’s four recorded commodity-vessel transits through Hormuz represented a fraction of the roughly 125 daily commercial transits recorded before the war, while disruption has simultaneously spread to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export network.

Saudi Arabia has begun canceling some crude deliveries to Europe, forcing refiners to seek replacement supplies. Poland’s Orlen, which obtains about 40% of its crude from Saudi Aramco, has sought alternatives from the North Sea, the US, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Guyana, according to industry sources cited by Reuters.

Those developments illustrate how a conflict centered on Washington and Tehran is transmitting costs well beyond the combatants. Gulf producers face damaged infrastructure and constrained export routes; European and Asian buyers face higher prices and uncertain supplies; and US consumers face inflationary pressure even though the country itself is a major oil producer.

Fallahi nevertheless cautioned against interpreting Iran’s economic deterioration as evidence that Tehran is close to capitulation.

“From a political and economic perspective, Iran is facing increased vulnerability due to sanctions pressure, domestic economic challenges, and the growing costs of military confrontation. However, this does not necessarily indicate rapid collapse or a significant reduction in its ability to resist,” he said.

He said the greater danger lies in the possibility of escalation taking on a momentum of its own.

“From a military perspective, the main danger at the current stage is not necessarily a deliberate decision to start a full-scale war, but rather an uncontrolled cycle of escalation,” he concluded.

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A Russian court has convicted a Russian-Canadian national of treason and sentenced him to seven years in a penal colony for work he did for separatist movements based outside Russia, the RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday.

RIA reported that the man, whom it named as Nikolai Zyuzev, had been convicted of high treason for working to train leaders of “national liberation movements” among Russian ethnic minority groups abroad.

It cited Russia’s Federal Security Service as saying that his work had been aimed against the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. RIA did not say how Zyuzev had pleaded to the treason charge.

Zyuzev had been involved in distributing “extremist” materials and had been commissioned by “European Union government bodies and think tanks,” RIA cited the FSB as saying.

Russia is home to dozens of indigenous ethnic minorities, from Muslim Tatars to Buddhist Buryats. RIA reported that Zyuzev had been arrested in Komi, an ethnic minority region in Russia’s Arctic north.

This is a developing story.

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Shayetet 13 Navy SEALs carried out an operation near Hebron in the West Bank overnight on Tuesday night, Israeli media reported on Wednesday. 

The details of the operation were not made public, but the IDF noted that there had been increased terror activity stemming from the area of operation.

One such incident included the snatching of an IDF soldier’s weapon during a confrontation between Israeli civilians and Palestinians near Susiya.

Vehicle-based attacks have also been recorded in the area, Maariv noted.

This is a developing story.

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Neta Heiman Mina, whose elderly mother, Ditza Heiman, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and held prisoner in Gaza for nearly two months, spoke on Tuesday at the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, during a panel on human rights education, confronting the UN over its continued funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) despite its ties to Hamas.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 and operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, providing humanitarian aid and education for Palestinians.

Tuesday’s panel, held to mark the anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, included UN ambassadors and representatives from various member states as well as representatives from human rights and UN-affiliated organizations.

For 48 days of her 53-day-long captivity, her mother – aged 84 at the time of capture – was held hostage by an UNRWA teacher, Mina said in her 90-second statement on behalf of both the Geneva-based UN Watch and international NGO Ingénieurs du Monde.

‘My mother wasn’t the only one’

“An UNRWA teacher, Abed, kept [Heiman] trapped in his attic in terrible conditions with very little food,” Mina said. “I ask the United Nations: how could you place the education of Gaza’s next generation with someone involved in holding an elderly woman hostage?”

“My mother wasn’t the only one,” Mina continued. “We know of other UNRWA employees connected to the massacre and kidnappings of October 7th. Why did UNRWA allow Suhail al-Hindi to be in charge of 8,000 teachers in Gaza while he was a member of Hamas?”

In a written press statement, UN Watch noted that the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training explicitly states that human rights education should “contribute to the prevention of human rights violations and abuses and to the combating and eradication of all forms of discrimination, racism, stereotyping and incitement to hatred, and the harmful attitudes and prejudices that underlie them.”

UNRWA overstated progress on institutional changes, preserved terrorism issues

Mina’s statement came on the heels of a scathing report published by UN Watch on Monday, which claimed that UNRWA has substantially overstated its progress on institutional changes, substituting administrative paperwork for actual reform while underlying issues involving terrorism and incitement remain unaddressed.

The investigation, titled the “Report Card on UNRWA Reform,” analyzed the agency’s implementation of 50 recommendations issued by an independent review group led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
 
The Colonna review was originally commissioned by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in early 2024 to restore donor confidence after devastating revelations surfaced that UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 massacre, which led 17 donor states to temporarily suspend $450 million in funding.

While UNRWA now says it has successfully completed 41 of the 50 recommended reforms, the UN Watch analysis concludes that this figure is misleading, noting that, at most, only 13 recommendations have been fulfilled as prescribed.
 
“UNRWA has graded its own homework and awarded itself high marks,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said. “But issuing a policy is not the same as enforcing it. Drafting a plan is not the same as implementing it, and closing a recommendation does not mean that the underlying problem has been solved.”

Alex Carson contributed to this report.

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Yemen’s Houthis claimed to have downed an F-15 fighter jet belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force over Yemen’s Marib Governorate, the terror group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed on Wednesday.

“The fighter jet was downed using a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile (SAM),” Saree claimed.

Saree did not specify when the alleged incident occured, but opened his statement claiming that RSAF jets had conducted “over 450 airstrikes” so far this week.

The spokesperson also claimed that the Iran-backed group was able to repel two formations of RSAF F-15s and Typhoon fighter jets searching for the alleged wreckage using the same locally manufactured SAMs.

Saree also denied that the terror group targeted Mecca in a drone strike.

Houthis deny posing threat to Mecca, Medina

“The fabrications and lies…cannot deceive anyone,” he said, adding that “there is no threat whatsoever from Yemen to the holy sites [Mecca and Medina].”

“Our operations target their oil facilities and military bases, and are far removed from the holy places,” he claimed.

Saree’s statements on Mecca refer to an incident where the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia’s air defenses intercepted and destroyed a drone launched by the Houthis on Tuesday, before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city of Mecca.

Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki said in a statement that it was the second Houthi attempt to target Mecca, Islam’s holiest city and the focal point of the annual hajj pilgrimage, following what the coalition said was a ballistic missile launch in July 2017.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

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A car crashed into a private residence on Wednesday in Hadera, central Israel, police announced.

The incident occurred when an 80-year-old driver lost control of her vehicle and crashed into the residence; it was not part of an attempted car ramming attack, Walla learned.

The vehicle’s driver was lightly injured, and no other injuries have been reported at the time of writing.

This is a developing story.

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