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The Palestinian Authority’s Embassy in London welcomed Tuesday’s announcement by British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband stating that the UK will ban all trade with West Bank settlements.

The embassy stated that the announcement “affirmed the illegality of Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, in line with international law and the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, and consequently adopting a set of measures, including a full ban on trade with Israeli settlements in Palestine that are illegal according to international law.”

Israel disputes the legality of the status quo in the West Bank, and counts east Jerusalem as full sovereign territory of the State of Israel as part of its capital city.

Today marks a turning point in UK–Palestine relations — from recognition to action, from condemnation to consequence. This is my message following the historic announcement by the Rt Hon Ed Miliband in the British Parliament earlier today. pic.twitter.com/OJRQZqkZim

— Husam Zomlot (@hzomlot) September 8, 2026

“This important action and policy demonstrate[s] that international law must be upheld and implemented without fear or favor, and that violations must have consequences,” the PA Embassy wrote.

“This decision gives practical effect to the international legal consensus, including the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the ICJ, which affirmed the obligation of all states not to recognize as lawful, or assist in maintaining, the illegal situation arising from Israel’s occupation,” the embassy claimed.

The UK’s decision also “contributes to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitute a violation of international law,” the embassy added.

PA’s UK Ambassador Zomlot praises Britain’s ‘leadership’

The PA’s Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, also issued a personal statement reacting to Miliband’s statement, praising the UK’s “leadership in translating recognition and international legal obligations into effective action to uphold the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and viability of the state of Palestine.”

“We welcome this decision as a turning point in the UK–Palestine relationship and commend Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband for their leadership in translating recognition and international legal obligations into effective action to uphold the… https://t.co/0Q2uSmTc0j

— Husam Zomlot (@hzomlot) September 8, 2026

The decision is a “turning point in the UK-Palestine relationship,” and comes as a “natural” follow-up to the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state one year ago at the UN General Assembly in September 2025.

“It represents continuity of purpose, not an end in itself,” Zomlot said, referring to the UK’s 2025 decision.

“Recognition cannot be meaningful if the territory of the recognized state is simultaneously being taken from its people in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” he claimed.

“Protecting the Palestinian people from illegal occupation, annexation and apartheid, ending the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and holding to account those who have committed war crimes – these are essential for making that recognition real, meaningful, and enduring,” Zomlot claimed.

The accusations of Israel pursuing apartheid policies, or having committed genocide or war crimes during the Israel-Hamas War or other periods in the conflict, are heavily disputed by Jerusalem.

“The UK has a unique historic responsibility towards Palestine,” Zomlot said, hinting at the role the UK played during the British Mandate period between World War I and the establishment of an independent State of Israel in 1948.

“With today’s announcement, the UK has an opportunity to assume a leading role by bringing together partners across Europe, the Commonwealth, and the wider international community to end complicity in violations of international law. No state, company, or institution should contribute to, facilitate, or profit from illegal settlements or the annexation of occupied Palestinian land,” Zomlot stated

“We call on the UK Government to adopt a comprehensive set of measures to ensure that all sectors of the British state and economy are free from complicity in the illegal occupation and settlement enterprise,” he said.

PA ‘ready to work’ with UK gov’t on Israeli arms embargo, sanctions on settlement sponsorship, end to ‘illegal dealings’

“We stand ready to work with the UK Government and British authorities to ensure remaining legal obligations are met, including a full arms embargo, sanctions on agencies and institutions of the Israeli State that sponsor illegal settlements, and an end to illegal dealings in the OPT by the business and financial services sectors,” Zomlot added.

“These courageous steps by the leadership of the United Kingdom, grounded in international law, will contribute to advancing peace, security, and stability, preserving the two-state solution, and bring justice through accountability and the ending of Israel’s unlawful occupation,” he claimed.

“They will help pave the way for the independence of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and for the realization of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” he concluded. 

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Plans for Jordan to begin supplying Lebanon with imported natural gas, which will be transported through Syria, were approved by Jordan’s cabinet on Sunday, Jordanian Prime Minister Jafar Hassan announced.

Under the newly approved arrangement, Jordan will import liquefied natural gas and regasify it using existing infrastructure at the Aqaba Port, before transporting the product to Lebanon through Syria.

Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon signed an agreement in May to cooperate on natural gas supplies following a trilateral meeting in Amman, though Jordan has been supplying Syria with energy through the same mechanism since the beginning of the year through the Arab Gas Pipeline.

Syrian Energy Minister Mohammad Bashir said Syria expects its natural gas production to reach 15 million cubic meters per day by the end of 2026, up from around 7 million cubic meters.

The approved plan is part of efforts to support Lebanon with electricity generation. While Lebanon has seven power plants, only the Deir Ammar and Zahrani plants, which can run on both fuel oil and gas, are currently operational, L’Orient Today reported last month. Their combined capacity stands at around 900 MW, but the increasing cost of fuel has meant that they are producing around 500 MW.

Lebanon suffers frequent power outages, requiring rationing

Lebanon has suffered frequent power outages, at some points pausing essential work at water pump stations and in state institutions. In 2024, a nationwide power outage, leading to water rationing, came after Beirut failed to make an overdue payment to Iraq for fossil fuels. Some regional countries have stepped up, supporting Lebanon with intermittent supplies, though energy remains a serious issue for Beirut.

Lebanese Energy and Water Minister Joseph Saddi described the cooperation as “highly important” and said it was key to making Lebanon’s energy infrastructure more sustainable.

Last week, Saddi also met with Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar and discussed potential energy collaborations between Lebanon and Turkey, the Turkish minister confirmed in a statement on social media.

“We are ready to share Turkey’s experience, expertise, and capabilities in the energy sector with Lebanon and to further strengthen energy cooperation between our countries through projects we will develop on the basis of mutual benefit,” he said.

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A UN commission investigating Syria said on Tuesday it was deeply alarmed over Israel’s military activity inside Syrian territory, warning that some actions, including the detention of civilians, could amount to war crimes.

Presenting an update to the UN Human Rights Council, Commissioner Fionnuala Ní Aoláin said Israeli military operations in southern Syria had become “increasingly sustained and entrenched,” with recurring ground incursions, patrols, raids and searches affecting civilians.

The Israeli mission in Geneva accused the Commission of conducting an “Israel-bashing session” and said Israel had no territorial aspirations in Syria.

“It [Israel] maintains a temporary buffer zone amounting to 0.1% of Syria to protect its citizens from proven security threats,” it said in a statement.

Syria is seeking to rebuild nearly two years after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli troops remain in Syria buffer zone amid continued strikes

Israeli troops entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone after the collapse of Assad’s government in December 2024, a move Israel described as temporary and necessary to secure its border during the political transition.

Israel has since carried out hundreds of strikes on Syrian military infrastructure and seized new positions deeper into Syria. The Syrian government and the United Nations have said the deployment violates Syrian sovereignty and a 1974 disengagement agreement that followed the 1973 Middle East war.

Israel says its actions are necessary to protect its security.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said it had documented the establishment of temporary checkpoints and fixed military infrastructure by Israel on Syrian territory, particularly in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Daraa.

“The Commission is deeply alarmed about continued Israeli violations,” Ní Aoláin told the council, saying local residents reported “bewilderment” at Israeli actions while the country undergoes reconstruction.

As of June, the commission had identified 49 Syrians, including two children, detained by the Israeli military on Syrian territory and believed to have been transferred across the border, she said.

“Such acts may amount to war crimes,” Ní Aoláin said.

UN investigators raise alarm over detention conditions

In a statement released alongside the session, the commission said some detainees were being held incommunicado, raising concerns about potential torture or ill-treatment. It said Israeli military activity had caused displacement among residents and described Israel’s presence in the area as a “belligerent occupation.”

The commission said it agreed with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity were unacceptable and must cease.

Syria’s representative welcomed the commission’s findings and reiterated Damascus’ commitment to cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms while pursuing accountability for abuses committed under the former government.

The Syrian delegate also condemned Israeli military operations, accusing Israel of violating international law and the 1974 disengagement agreement.

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The establishment of a state-led commission of inquiry into the failures during the October 7 massacre will be among the first policies pushed by a government led by the opposition camp, Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Liberman, and Yair Golan said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

“As soon as a government under our leadership is established, we will establish a state-led commission of inquiry that will investigate the failures that led to the October 7 massacre, arrive at the truth, and ensure that this disaster will not happen again,” said the letter signed by the opposition leaders.

According to the joint statement, the Tuesday report from Haaretz about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receiving a message from the United Arab Emirates’ leadership warning about the October 7 attack is seen by the opposition as a “shocking revelation” that requires the opening of an internal investigation.

“While Netanyahu and his people are spreading false conspiracy theories and trying to place responsibility on the security establishment, it is once again becoming clear that serious warnings came directly to him and he ignored them,” the letter also pointed out.

The opposition leaders then ask Netanyahu: “What did you know, when did he know, why didn’t he update the security establishment, and why didn’t he act to protect the citizens of Israel?”

They ended their statement by saying that Netanyahu’s government is “unfit to continue in office,” adding that they “will work with the coordination and responsibility required to prevent them from leading to another disaster.”

הודעה משותפת לראשי מחנה השינוי בתגובה לחשיפה הבוקר:

לציבור בישראל מגיע לדעת מה קרה לפני, במהלך ולאחר טבח השבעה באוקטובר. ועדת חקירה ממלכתית תקום מיידית בממשלה הבאה.
זוהי חובת ההנהגה לאזרחיה. נתניהו, די לשקרים; הציבור הישראלי זכאי לדעת: מה ידעת, ומתי ידעת?

החשיפה המטלטלת הבוקר…

— Gadi Eisenkot – גדי איזנקוט (@gadi_eisenkot) September 8, 2026

UAE reportedly warned Netanyahu about Oct. 7

According to the Haaretz report, the UAE’s president Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) warned Netanyahu that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel days before the October 7 massacre.

Netanyahu reportedly dismissed the warning despite MBZ urging him to take the threat seriously, the report said, citing three senior foreign sources familiar with the contents of the conversation.

During a 45-minute conversation held some 10 days before the massacre, MBZ reportedly warned Netanyahu that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation against Israel. The UAE president expressed concern that an attack could lead to significant bloodshed, destabilize the region, and undermine the Abraham Accords, according to the report.

Netanyahu said Israel was ready for any scenario

The prime minister reportedly responded that he believed Hamas intended to operate in the West Bank and reassured the UAE president that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

Netanyahu failed to mention the warning in subsequent security briefings leading up to October 7, with both former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi telling Haaretz that they had not been informed of the warning delivered by the UAE president.

Shir Pererts contributed to this report.

This post was originally published on here. 

Ukraine is contracting the supply of around 1,000 missiles for US-designed Patriot air-defense systems with the help of allies and through a European Union loan, Kyiv’s defense minister said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Yevhenii Khmara also said that the majority of the missiles would only be shipped in the coming years, and called for more urgent aid.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also said Germany will deliver Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine from its national stocks.

“I decided to deliver urgently needed PAC-2 interceptor missiles from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine,” Pistorius said at a videoconference of defense ministers from countries supporting Ukraine.

Pistorius said Germany would also step up the provision of air-to-air missiles and would continue to deliver drones and long-range ammunition to Ukraine.

Britain to commit £100 million to Ukraine to help boost its air defense package

Britain also announced it was committing £100 million ($135 million) to Ukraine to help boost its air defense package for the winter, providing Patriot missiles, large-caliber artillery rounds and drones to help fend off attacks from Russia.

UK defense minister Wes Streeting, alongside his German counterpart Boris Pistorius, will later co-chair a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which focuses on the country’s battlefield requirements.

This post was originally published on here. 

On August 9, the Syrian foreign ministry announced that, following approximately 18 months of negotiations, Syria and Russia had concluded a memorandum of understanding: the Russian presence at the Tartous naval facility and at the Hmeimim air base adjacent to Latakia International Airport would be “reorganized.” 

The bases would pass into Syrian civilian administration, and their military facilities would be redefined as joint Syrian-Russian training and qualification centers.

As a result, the Russian naval base at Tartous on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, operational for 55 years, is now virtually defunct. A NATO official is reported to have said: “There has been nothing there since June. That’s the first time in more than 10 years. This is pretty significant.”

Russian vessels previously stationed in the Mediterranean have been diverted to protect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armada of sanctioned oil tankers that operate principally on Baltic-to-ocean routes, passing through the Danish straits, the North Sea, and, in some cases, the English Channel.

Immediately after the announcement, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani traveled to the coast with an official delegation. He inspected both Tartous Port and the Hmeimim air base, established in 2015 by agreement between Putin and Syria’s then-president, Bashar al-Assad.

SANA (the Syrian Arab News Agency) described the visit as “a tour of the facilities covered by the newly concluded memorandum.”

The official Syrian accounts of the tour make no mention of any Russian representative being present. 

But two days later, on August 11, Reuters reported the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spin on the agreement: “We regard the signing on August 9 of the memorandum between the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic on the operation of our bases in Hmeimim and Tartous as an important step aimed at further improving bilateral cooperation in the military sphere.”

So the focus of the Russian narrative is not abandonment of its Mediterranean presence, but continued military cooperation – and a Syrian source subsequently told Reuters that some Russian forces would indeed remain at the newly designated joint training centers. 

But by August 12, Russian personnel were observed vacating buildings around the previously Russian-controlled commercial berth at Tartous, while Syria had already begun using it for civilian shipping.

So the former Russian naval base at Tartous is being dismantled as a military facility and is being converted into a joint Russian-Syrian training facility, and the same is true of Russia’s former air base at Hmeimim. 

Arguably, Hmeimim is the more consequential loss for Russia. It was the hub for Russia’s air operations in Syria, supported its wider military activities, and enhanced its regional standing.

The effective end of Russia’s military presence at Tartous and Hmeimim is a strategic gain for Israel. When Russia established its air base at Hmeimim in 2015 to support the Assad regime, there was a risk that Israeli and Russian air operations over Syria could come into conflict. 

Jerusalem and Moscow consequently developed a deconfliction mechanism under which each side was given advance notice of planned air operations. With Russia no longer maintaining a significant aerial presence in Syria, Israeli air operations will face fewer constraints.

Turkey is replacing Russia

Israel’s current concerns in Syria are disrupting attacks against its troops in the south, preventing hostile forces from consolidating near the Golan Heights, and frustrating any attempt by Turkey to gain a military foothold that could threaten Israel.

Turkey is increasingly filling the vacuum caused by Russia’s withdrawal. The post-Assad Syrian government has developed a close military relationship with Turkey, which has been helping rebuild Syrian military capabilities. Israel has warned Turkey officially against embarking on what Defense Minister Israel Katz called “dangerous adventures in Syria.”

Israeli media reports have described Israel’s negotiating “red lines” as: no Turkish military activity in Syria; demilitarization of the Syrian side of the Golan; security for Syria’s Druze community; and limits on certain Syrian strategic weapons systems. 

These would include ground-based air-defense systems, missiles, armed drones, and military aviation infrastructure such as radar networks.

On August 18, shortly after a Turkish delegation visited Syria’s Abu al-Duhur air base, Israel carried out airstrikes on the facility. Israel said the action was intended to prevent an impending Turkish military deployment there.

Damascus condemned the attack as a violation of Syrian sovereignty, arguing that Syria was entitled to rebuild its armed forces and ally with whatever foreign partner it chooses. Meanwhile, the US, in the person of Tom Barrack, has been trying to establish a deconfliction process among Israel, Syria, and Turkey.

Barrack, whose official title is lengthy and perhaps a trifle excessive (he is currently US ambassador to Turkey and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq), described the Abu al-Duhur strike as an “unnecessary escalation” that did not advance regional stability. 

His increasingly critical stance towards Israeli policy in Syria has itself attracted criticism, particularly following recent remarks on Israel’s military stance in Syria and equivocal statements, later clarified, about the Golan Heights.

Russia’s loss of exclusive military control at Tartous and Hmeimim changes the geopolitical landscape. For roughly 55 years, a Soviet/Russian military presence on the Syrian coast has been part of Israel’s strategic environment. 

The Soviet Union was one of Israel’s principal military adversaries during the Cold War; Putin’s Russia subsequently became a partner of sorts in managing the Syrian battlefield. That presence is now being reduced to a joint training role under Syrian sovereignty.

For Israel, therefore, this is much more than the closure of two Russian bases. It is evidence of the collapse of the geopolitical system that existed along Israel’s northern frontier for half a century.

While Russia’s effective withdrawal from Syria, and therefore from the Middle East as a whole, appears a net positive for Israel diplomatically and militarily, strategically it seems to be fostering the emergence of a Turkish-influenced Syria.

Turkish military penetration of Syria is a substantially more serious problem than the Russian presence that it is replacing.

For Turkey, close alignment with Damascus offers the prospect of curbing Kurdish autonomy on its border, facilitating refugee returns, winning a large share of Syria’s reconstruction and trade, reopening overland routes to Arab markets, and consolidating Ankara’s regional influence at the expense of rival powers.

Israel will need to be vigilant.

The writer, a former senior civil servant, is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com

This post was originally published on here. 

While organizations continue to worry about employees accidentally entering trade secrets into ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, or Gemini, the real threat has moved to an entirely different arena: the AI supply chain. A new study from early 2026 reveals a troubling reality: 36% of the AI add-ons that organizations install today contain vulnerabilities or hidden malicious prompts.

Imagine a scenario in which your organization’s AI agent reads an innocent meeting invitation or scans a routine document and, without you even having to click a link, executes malicious code that extracts sensitive information. The Zero-Click era has reached the world of AI, and most organizations are trying to fight it with yesterday’s weapons.

Today’s AI agents are equipped with permissions and execution capabilities that did not exist in the previous generation of tools, known as stateless LLMs. Once such an agent gains access to email, documents, calendars, and even code repositories, it operates almost like a regular employee and may become, without your knowledge, a tool in the attacker’s hands. 

While the security approach of many organizations has been left behind, complex threats are being addressed through strategies designed to prevent prompts containing sensitive information from being entered or unwanted output from being generated by chatbots. These strategies were not designed to deal with the remote exploitation or manipulation of AI.

Cyberwarfare in the age of agents is a multi-front war

The transition to autonomous agents has opened five new attack vectors in the supply chain through which attackers attempt to penetrate organizational systems.

These are connectors (permissions that provide direct access to employees’ email accounts, Google Drive, Jira, or GitHub); skill files (expanding an agent’s capabilities, such as data analysis, and program it to perform automated actions, which attackers exploit); plugins (add-ons that expand the agent’s permissions and can embed malicious persistent commands that run every time the agent is activated); MCP servers (connecting the agent to additional systems within the organization to which it previously had no access); and add-on marketplaces (platforms from which extensions can be installed at the click of a button, without a secure code-signing mechanism).

Each of these vectors enhances the AI agent’s capabilities but at the same time expands the attack surface. Instead of trying to breach the network directly, attackers exploit the supply chain. They embed hidden white text in seemingly innocent Word documents or inject malicious code into calendar meeting descriptions. The risk materializes during legitimate, everyday use of the agent and stems from the drive for greater efficiency that characterizes the AI revolution. 

Employees ask an AI agent to summarize a Word document or review their weekly meetings without suspecting that the content passed to it could serve as an attack vector. In practice, however, the innocent agent reads the hidden commands, interprets them as part of its instructions, and acts without the user ever opening the invitation or seeing the Word document.

How exposed is the organization to such an attack scenario?

The numbers speak for themselves. According to Snyk’s ToxicSkills study, of the 3,984 AI agent skills examined, 36% were found to contain vulnerabilities that enable malicious prompt injection. The researchers identified 1,467 different malicious payloads and more than 8,000 MCP servers that were exposed to the general public.

These findings illustrate the danger of the “Lethal Trifecta,” a situation in which the same agent simultaneously has access to sensitive organizational information, such as payroll files; exposure to content from an untrusted source, such as an external document; and the ability to send information outside the organization.

When this combination exists within the same agent, a successful attack is only a matter of time.

The defense architecture required for the age of agentic AI

To address this reality, uniform security solutions or passive blocking are not enough. According to the methodology we developed at Commit, a combination of phased implementation and comprehensive defense architecture is required.

In the first stage, a tiered approval process should be defined for every agent based on its level of risk. These are low-risk, Level A, (read-only tools with no ability to write, that can be approved through self-service); write permissions/sensitive information, Level B, (tools such as workplace agents that require approval by a human); and autonomy or production environment, Level C, (agents that run plugins or operate without human involvement, requiring approval from the chief information security officer and advance attack-scenario exercises).

Along with classification, the work environment must be protected by six layers of defense under a defense architecture, namely: governance (allowing lists for add-ons and strict management of extension marketplaces); identity and access management (separation of API keys and management of narrowly defined access scopes); capability isolation (strict separation to prevent the “Lethal Trifecta”: an agent that reads external content must not be granted access to sensitive information during the same session); real-time monitoring (deployment of a proxy to monitor all MCP calls and prevent data leakage through Data Loss Prevention); egress control (blocking outbound network traffic by default and allowing only specific domains); and sandbox (running agents inside an isolated container with no direct access to the host operating system).

The real change now required from management teams is a shift in mindset, and the window of opportunity to make that shift has almost closed. 

Once an AI agent is understood to be an entity that operates within the organization with permissions and execution capabilities, the defense model must move away from naive attempts to block incorrect outputs and toward proactive, multilayered management of the supply chain.

The writer is vice president of cybersecurity at Commit.

This post was originally published on here. 

A lawmaker from Northern Ireland named Jim Shannon stood up in the British House of Commons to tell his colleagues about a Hezbollah operative arrested in Cyprus with eight tons of fertilizer meant for bombs and a forged British passport.

He was speaking in favor of a government order to outlaw Hezbollah in its entirety. Until then, Britain had banned only what it called the group’s military wing. It was the evening of February 26, 2019, and nobody in the chamber mentioned they were actually operating in London.

Nobody could. Three and a half years earlier, on September 30, 2015, MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, and the London police had searched five properties in the northwest of the city and removed more than 20,000 first-aid kits.

The cold packs inside held ammonium nitrate, about three and a half tons of it, the same compound that leveled the port of Beirut in 2020. Police arrested a man in his forties and later released him without charge. The prime minister, David Cameron, and his home secretary, Theresa May, were told. Parliament was not.

Sajid Javid, the interior minister by 2019, closed the debate by giving his reasons for the ban. “First, there is secret intelligence,” he said. “I cannot go into the details of current intelligence.” He added that his defense secretary, Ben Wallace, had briefed the opposition’s counterpart that afternoon on the understanding that nothing would be repeated. The official record does not say what the parties shared.

Ten weeks later, The Daily Telegraph, a British national newspaper, published the story. It attributed the tip that started MI5’s investigation to “a foreign government.”

UK sanctions on Israel may carry costs London has not publicly counted

The next day, a senior Israeli official told Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN, that the government was Israel and the service was the Mossad. London police confirmed the raids and the single arrest, and added: “No other arrests were made in connection with the investigation, which is now closed.”

Wallace’s public response ran to one sentence: “Necessarily, their efforts and success will often go unseen.”

Members of Parliament can submit formal written questions that ministers are obliged to answer. Tulip Siddiq, who represents a district in northwest London, submitted two on June 10, 2019. The first asked whether the stockpile had been considered when the government decided to ban Hezbollah in full.

The second asked when ministers and officials had been informed, and what had been done to protect the people living near the properties. Wallace answered both on June 14. To the first: “We do not comment on intelligence matters.” To the second: “It is the policy of successive governments not to comment on Police operational or intelligence matters.”

That is where the public record stopped for six years.

In July 2025, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary body that oversees Britain’s spy agencies, published a report on Iran. On page 59 there is a box headed “Operation CARAWAY: disruption of Lebanese Hizbollah attack planning.” It gives the figures above and records MI5’s assessment that the material was stockpiled as contingency for an attack that Iran or Hezbollah might one day authorize.

The box ends in a black bar of redacted text. The committee does not say who told MI5 where to look. A foreign partner is the sort of thing it redacts.

In July 2025, the Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary body that oversees Britain’s spy agencies, published a report on Iran. On page 59 there is a box headed “Operation CARAWAY: disruption of Lebanese Hizbollah attack planning.”

Britain puts a price on disagreement 

Britain is now putting a price on its disagreement with Israel. On Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced Britain’s move to ban trade in goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank as part of his promised reset of relations with Israel. The measures also extend to some services connected to settlements, including financing and advertising. The announcement follows Israel’s approval last month of construction in E1, between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim.

The argument may soon move beyond trade. On Monday, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, called on Britain to progressively suspend intelligence cooperation with Israel as well.

That would take the dispute into a part of the relationship that British governments rarely describe in public. Britain, however, wants to leave that part intact. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said on Tuesday that Israel remains “an important security ally” and that the links between the two countries “are important and valuable and will continue to be so.”

The London trove shows why. In 2015 somebody told MI5 where to look. British officers found three and a half tons of ammonium nitrate that the security service later assessed had been stored by Hezbollah as a contingency for a future attack. Cameron knew. May knew. Parliament did not.

Four years later, when Britain finally banned Hezbollah in full, Javid told MPs that one of the government’s reasons was “secret intelligence.” Six years after that, the Intelligence and Security Committee disclosed Operation CARAWAY. It still did not disclose the source of the intelligence.

Britain is entitled to its disagreement with Israel over the West Bank, and Israel’s decision last month to open construction in E1, the corridor between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, gave it a reason to act. Whether the sanctions are justified is a separate argument. This one is about a country reclassifying a relationship whose contents it has never described to its own public.

The London cache is the best documented case. It is not the only one. In 2017, Israeli operators penetrated an ISIS cell in Syria and found it building explosives disguised as laptop batteries; the United States banned laptops from aircraft cabins on certain routes, and Britain followed within days.

Israeli-made Hermes 450 drones flew reconnaissance for the British Army in Afghanistan from 2007, logging 70,000 hours by 2013, much of it searching for roadside bombs ahead of British patrols. British and Israeli services are working together this year against Iranian operations aimed at Jews and dissidents on British soil.

Each of those served Israel’s interests as well. No one mentioned them when Parliament debated Hezbollah.

This time, the intelligence relationship is part of the argument. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on Tuesday that “British citizens are alive today thanks to Israeli intelligence.” Shadow home secretary Chris Philp warned that Britain relies on Israel for vital intelligence about terrorist threats. 

Some of what Britain has from Israel is not owed but granted. Britain holds one of the largest foreign delegations at the American-led center in Kiryat Gat, in southern Israel, that coordinates the Gaza ceasefire and aid, and a British officer serves as deputy to the American general in command.

Britain expects a role in Gaza’s reconstruction. Its diplomats move across territory Israel controls. All of that can be reviewed. Israel has already removed Spanish and Dutch personnel from Kiryat Gat after their governments took measures of their own.

Jerusalem’s response intensified on Tuesday. President Isaac Herzog called the British move a “grave miscalculation” and “gross interference” in Israel’s election. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the British ambassador to be expelled. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, repeated his warning: “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.”

The same threat was made when Jeremy Corbyn, then leader of Britain’s Labor Party, was close to power, and again last year when Britain recognized a Palestinian state. It was not carried out either time because Britain belongs to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance alongside the United States, and the traffic runs both ways. A threat that is never executed teaches London that Israeli warnings can be ignored, which is a worse outcome than saying nothing. 

If Britain chooses to redefine the relationship in these terms, Israel should reconsider the intelligence cooperation that comes with it. London has repeatedly chosen to accommodate, engage, and at times empower governments and movements hostile not only to Israel, but to Britain and the West itself, while taking an increasingly punitive approach toward the region’s Western democracy.

A strategic relationship has consequences in both directions. Britain cannot expect Israeli intelligence as an entitlement while treating Israel as an adversary. Let London decide whose intelligence it would rather rely on.

This post was originally published on here. 

The prosecution on Tuesday appealed the 17-year prison sentence imposed on Uri Alfi, who posed as a woman online and persuaded fathers to sexually abuse their young children, sometimes watching and directing the acts through live video calls.

Alfi spent about a year approaching dozens of men through fictitious accounts and false identities, using technological tools to make the woman he portrayed appear and sound real. He gained their trust through sexual conversations and induced them to perform and record sexual acts.

In several cases, Alfi contacted fathers of young children and instructed them to abuse their children while sending him live or recorded footage. In others, he attempted to persuade fathers to commit further offenses. He also threatened one father with exposure to force him to continue.

Alfi was convicted under 11 counts containing numerous offenses, including causing and attempting to cause rape and indecent acts against minors within their families, extortion by threats, possession of child sexual abuse material, and using minors to produce such material.

The Central District Court in Lod sentenced him on July 12 to 17 years in prison, suspended sentences, and NIS 200,000 in compensation, to be divided among 10 identified victims.

The prosecution is now asking the Supreme Court to increase that sentence substantially, arguing that even the lengthy prison term does not reflect the extreme severity of the conduct, the number of offenses and victims, or the danger Alfi continues to pose.

The appeal concerns only his punishment. It does not challenge his conviction, which followed his admission to the allegations in an amended indictment under a plea agreement.

The District Court found that the online nature of the offenses did not reduce their severity. It said Alfi was the driving force behind the abuse, although the fathers physically committed the acts and bore their own responsibility.

The prosecution’s appeal focuses partly on how the court combined the punishment for the different counts. The District Court set a separate sentencing range for each, reflecting the appropriate punishment for each criminal episode, but then established an overall range of 17 to 22 years and imposed the lowest sentence within it.

Prosecutors argue that this created excessive overlap between the punishments. The minimum terms set for the individual counts would total 27 years if added together.

The state is not arguing that all the terms must be served consecutively. It says, however, that the final sentence failed to give sufficient weight to the fact that the offenses occurred separately and involved different victims.

The appeal also challenges the weight given to Alfi’s personal circumstances and rehabilitation prospects.

At sentencing, the defense emphasized his young age, lack of a previous criminal record, guilty plea, military service, difficult personal history, and participation in treatment while in custody. A private expert retained by the defense said Alfi had rehabilitation potential and recommended treatment.

The defense also argued that Alfi did not physically touch the children himself and that a distinction should be drawn between physical and online offenses.

The District Court accepted that Alfi’s personal history had affected his conduct and found that he had some rehabilitation potential. It nevertheless said the private opinion should receive limited weight and that the circumstances described did not significantly reduce his responsibility.

Prosecutors argue that the court ultimately relied too heavily on that opinion when it placed Alfi at the bottom of the sentencing range. Alfi declined to undergo an assessment by the state probation service, and the defense accepted for sentencing purposes that he posed a high level of sexual danger.

The state further argues that the combination of online deception and sexual abuse within families made the case exceptionally serious and difficult to detect. Alfi’s use of technology, the systematic nature of the offenses, the material he retained, and his attempts to escalate the abuse required a stronger punishment to protect the public and deter similar crimes, prosecutors said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Saudi Arabia’s Delta Energy Group on Monday signed landmark agreements with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum covering oil and gas exploration across approximately 9,000 square miles in western Afghanistan. 

The agreements also include a natural gas utilization study in Herat and plans for a proposed 435-mile gas pipeline, in a deal that could pave the way for billions of dollars in future investment. 

The agreements were signed in Kabul on Monday in the presence of former US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, whose participation added a notable geopolitical dimension to the investment deal with Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities. 

Delta Energy is a Saudi-based independent energy group involved in oil and gas exploration, natural gas, pipelines, and energy infrastructure. 

Delta Energy to explore area of 9,000 square miles

According to Afghan media reports, under the main agreement, Delta Energy will explore the Kushk-Tirpul contract area in western Herat province, covering approximately 9,000 square miles. 

The company plans to carry out geological and geophysical studies, seismic surveys, exploratory drilling, and reservoir evaluations to determine the scale and commercial viability of hydrocarbon resources in the area. 

The company will also finance a study examining the use of natural gas in Herat, including supplies for the Herat Industrial Park, Herat city, and other approved areas. The study will assess possible applications in industry, electricity generation, and other energy requirements. 

A separate agreement establishes a framework for studying a proposed 435-mile gas pipeline, which Delta describes as the “CentGas–Corridor of Prosperity.” 

The proposed route would connect a gas receipt point near Guzara district in Herat with a delivery point near Spin Boldak in Kandahar, potentially creating a new domestic and regional energy corridor. 

Delta estimates that the proposed pipeline alone could require about $10 billion in investment over a decade. 

An important step to developing Afghanistan’s hydrocarbon resources

Afghanistan’s acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum Hedayatullah Badri described the agreement as an important step toward developing the country’s hydrocarbon resources, saying cooperation with Delta could help improve energy security and support economic activity. 

Khalilzad, who served as the US special envoy for Afghanistan and later as the US special representative for Afghan peace negotiations, welcomed the agreement during the signing ceremony. 

He said Afghanistan had significant natural resources and a strategic geographic position that could help connect Central and South Asia, describing the agreement as a significant development for the country. 

His presence at the ceremony is particularly notable because Khalilzad has remained engaged with Afghanistan’s political and economic affairs since leaving official US government service. 

His appearance alongside senior Taliban officials and executives of the Saudi energy group highlights the increasingly business-oriented engagement taking place around Afghanistan’s natural resources, even as the Taliban government remains diplomatically isolated from much of the international community. 

Multiple outlets reported that Khalilzad, now a private citizen with no official US government role, attended high-level meetings with Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar and Delta executives, as well as the signing ceremony. 

His presence has raised questions about his role, including whether he helped arrange or influence the agreements and why a former senior US envoy attended deals covering about 9,000 square miles of Afghanistan.  

This post was originally published on here. 

The newly established Mecca defense pact has put a strategic question before India: Will the collective-defense pact linking Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey remain mainly political, or develop into an operational military arrangement?

The three countries signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on Aug. 7 and met in Istanbul on Aug. 31 to establish a secretariat in Saudi Arabia, to be led by a Pakistani secretary-general for three years. Reuters reported that the agreement treats an armed attack on one signatory as an attack on all three, but the governments have not released a detailed public text setting out the commitments that would follow.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said after the Istanbul meeting that the alliance was designed to expand and that officials had begun work on an accession roadmap. The talks addressed counterterrorism, defense production and interoperability, including possible joint land, sea and air exercises, air defense, drones, autonomous systems, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence.

The alliance is taking shape as Gulf states confront renewed Iranian attacks. On Sept. 3, Kuwait said its air defenses intercepted Iranian missiles and drones targeting the country. Reuters reported that Tehran had struck a US base there after a major escalation in the US-Iran conflict.

Kuwait invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter, which recognizes a state’s inherent right of self-defense, and said it reserved the right to take necessary measures to protect its territory. Kuwait is not a Mecca alliance member, and its defense cooperation with Pakistan remains centered on training, intelligence, logistics, capacity building, and border management – not a collective-defense guarantee.

India can measure the Mecca pact against Kuwait’s limited arrangement with Pakistan. The newer alliance uses broader mutual-defense language, but its practical military obligations have yet to be publicly defined.

American and Indian troops are training together this month in the Rajasthan desert, where India faces Pakistan, and in the Himalayas, where Auli is about 60 miles from the disputed frontier with China.

The US Embassy in New Delhi announced the exercise Tuesday, a day after the Istanbul meeting. Since 2004, the embassy said, Yudh Abhyas has strengthened the US-India Major Defense Partnership in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

‘Training for war’

Yudh Abhyas, Hindi for “training for war,” is in its 22nd edition. The three-week exercise involves 350 soldiers from each army, starting at the Mahajan Field Firing Range near Bikaner and moving to Auli. Mahajan focuses on live fire and mechanized maneuver, while Auli tests high-altitude logistics.

Dr. Arzan Tarapore, a research scholar at Stanford University, said the public record provides scant evidence that the pact is a binding mutual-defense treaty in the operational sense. He told The Media Line that he does not expect the three to conduct military operations together, whether against Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia or in coordination against India.

He expects flows of money, arms and technologies, including drones, among the members and across the region. Pakistan already used Turkish drones against India in May last year, Tarapore said, and that is the kind of defense-industrial cooperation he expects to deepen.

Brig. Anil Raman, a retired Indian officer at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore, reached a similar conclusion. India has asked Washington for nothing so far, he told The Media Line. It should seek tighter controls on American-origin weapons that could reach Pakistan through Turkey and urge Saudi Arabia and Turkey to limit the cooperation, he said.

“Any expectation that Saudi fighter jets, Pakistani F-16s and Turkish F-16s are going to be running joint raids somewhere in the Middle East is Hollywood fiction,” Kabir Taneja, who directs the Observer Research Foundation’s Middle East office in Dubai, told The Media Line. “It is never going to happen.”

Taneja also cautioned against comparisons with NATO. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty has been invoked only once in the alliance’s history, he said.

The alliance does not eliminate or replace Turkey’s obligations under NATO or its other agreements, Fidan said in Istanbul. It complements them.

Asked at the same news conference about Israeli statements calling Turkey a strategic threat, Fidan said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be stopped and called him “an enemy of humanity.” He said hostility toward Turkey from Netanyahu’s government had grown since Israel’s election campaign began.

The three countries do not agree on the adversary either, Taneja said. Each has its own view of what the arrangement is for and a different neighbor in mind.

“Ankara and Riyadh were not on good terms until 2022 or 2023,” he added. “That can happen again.”

Islamabad has reportedly sent 8,000 troops, a squadron of JF-17 fighters and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia under the bilateral agreement the two countries signed in September 2025. Neither government has publicly provided a full account of the deployment. Pakistan has sent soldiers to the kingdom for decades. More than 20,000 served under the 1982 Joint Defense Protocol, and a Pakistani general commanded the Saudi-led Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition beginning in 2015.

Pakistan raised $3 billion on the international bond market on Sept. 3, its largest single issuance, with orders near $6 billion. The proceeds will repay a $3 billion Saudi loan made in April, which Islamabad had used to repay the United Arab Emirates and which Riyadh had already extended once.

Saudi Arabia committed another $3 billion in support in April and extended an existing $5 billion deposit as Islamabad faced repayment obligations to the United Arab Emirates. The assistance ties Riyadh to Pakistan’s financial stability as well as its defense planning.

Pakistan spent decades treating the Gulf as its own ground, Taneja said. It lobbied hard to keep India out of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation when the bloc of Muslim-majority states was founded in the 1960s.

India’s economic rise shifting the playing field

India’s economic rise changed the picture. Dubai was built by Indian hands in the 1990s, Taneja said, and Indians now come as engineers, managers and chief executives rather than as construction workers, while it has become more difficult for Pakistani laborers to obtain Emirati visas.

“What we are seeing now with the Mecca agreement, with the mediation with Iran, with the—dare I say—good relationship with President Trump, is Pakistan finding a very good wedge to re-enter,” Taneja said. “And to be fair to them, they seem to be doing a decent job of it.”

“If you are going to build an architecture that will require mobilization at some level, you cannot mobilize if you are not trained, and you cannot mobilize if you are not experienced,” he said. “Pakistan brings all those things together.”

India’s national security adviser has visited Saudi Arabia four times in the past six months, Taneja said, and Riyadh kept New Delhi informed before signing its bilateral agreement with Islamabad so India would not read the arrangement as a coalition against it.

Asked at a New Delhi forum on Aug. 22 whether the pact worried him, S. Jaishankar said: “There are live military situations which each of the signatories face, what has the Mecca pact done in response to that?”

He said India would not ignore it either. “In my calculus, everything counts, everything will have a weight,” he said, “and sometimes things need to play out.” India factors in developments involving countries whose policies are not favorable toward it, he added.

India’s quarrel with Turkey predates the pact. Days after the May 2025 fighting, New Delhi revoked the security clearance of Celebi Aviation, a Turkish ground-handling company operating at nine Indian airports. Indian officials said drones Pakistan launched at Indian towns came from Turkey.

The deeper irritant is Kashmir, Taneja said. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raises it at the UN General Assembly almost every year, which India treats as a red line and an endorsement of Pakistan’s position. New Delhi has told Ankara so repeatedly.

For India, he added, the larger concern is Saudi Arabia’s membership. The relationship with Turkey was already contentious.

Indian commentators have also asked whether the pact responds to India’s closer ties with Israel. India and Israel upgraded their relationship in February to what the two governments call a special strategic partnership for peace, innovation and prosperity. Their bilateral investment agreement took effect in July; the three countries signed in Mecca on Aug. 7.

The Hindi-language outlet Webdunia asked whether the alliance was a direct response to India-Israel ties and to mechanisms such as I2U2 and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Netanyahu telephoned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Aug. 6, the day before the signing, and Modi posted about the call in English and Hebrew.

India’s Foreign Ministry has rejected reports that New Delhi approached Israel seeking a new defense treaty in response to the pact.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry welcomed the pact as a positive step but declined to discuss joining it. Doha is already present in more than one platform, the ministry said.

Qatar has a US security assurance that Washington did not extend to Saudi Arabia. After the Israeli strike on Doha in September 2025, President Trump issued an executive pledge that the United States would treat an attack on Qatar as a direct threat to itself. The US-Saudi defense agreement two months later provided Riyadh with F-35s, tanks, civil nuclear cooperation and major non-NATO ally status, but did not include the same formula.

Turkey has maintained about 3,000 troops in Qatar for almost a decade under several defense agreements. Their presence did not prevent Iranian strikes on Qatar in 2025 and 2026 or the Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha.

Saudi Arabia building a regional security architecture in the Middle East

The United Arab Emirates has kept its distance. Abu Dhabi has the Abraham Accords, ties to Israel, expanding relationships with India and China, and a defense industry of its own. It has less urgency than Riyadh to accept automatically triggered obligations.

Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai wrote for the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy on Aug. 18 that “Israel cannot assume that the Mecca pact will also remain an empty declaration.” He proposed not a rival military alliance but an economic-security organization built around the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, with India, Israel, Greece, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates at its core, Jordan providing land continuity and Saudi Arabia welcomed even while Riyadh remains in the Mecca pact.

Saudi Arabia has invited Bangladesh, a Bangladeshi official told Reuters, and Dhaka says it is interested. Turkish officials said after Istanbul that they had begun building a mechanism for other countries to join. Taneja is untroubled by the prospect. Bringing in countries from outside the region would dilute the agreement, he said, and he does not know what Bangladesh would add to it.

The idea is to build a regional security architecture in the Middle East, he said. Expand geographically before it has any depth, and other organizations offer the warning: the core mandate becomes diluted, and symmetry replaces purpose.

“There is very little unity in the Gulf right now,” Taneja said. “They have a lot of their own stuff to figure out first. It is going to be chaotic. It may be violent.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Hungary expelled 10 Russian diplomats on Tuesday, saying they had acted in ways incompatible with their status, in a clear signal that the pro-Russian era of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban is over.

Russia said it would retaliate against what it called an “extremely unfriendly step.”

“(Those expelled) were engaged in activities in Hungary that are unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban, who is not related to the former prime minister, said in an emailed statement.

“This decision… does not imply breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia. Hungary intends to continue the necessary dialog,” the statement added.

However, Russia’s ambassador to Budapest, Evgeny Stanislavov, rejected this suggestion.

“Their statements about keeping channels of dialogue with Russia open and continuing pragmatic cooperation are worth absolutely nothing,” he said in a statement.

“This extremely unfriendly step is an unprecedented and unjustified escalation on the Hungarian side, and it will receive an appropriate response,” Stanislavov added.

Viktor Orban kept close ties with Putin

Viktor Orban, who lost power in Hungary in April after 16 years in office, had kept close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Under him, Hungary continued buying Russian oil and gas, defied European Union sanctions on Russia, and blocked a €90 billion ($97 billion) EU loan to Ukraine.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, many European countries expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, while Hungary expelled none. Until Tuesday, it had not sent any home publicly since 2018.

New Prime Minister Peter Magyar and his center-right government have repeatedly said that Hungary’s main alliances are the European Union and NATO and that the government aims to rebuild trust eroded under Orban’s rule.

In a parliamentary hearing in May, Anita Orban said Russia would “remain a partner” but the relationship could not be based on “one-sided dependency,” adding that Moscow’s policies pose a security challenge to Hungary and Europe.

This post was originally published on here. 

New leaks from testimony in the World Central Kitchen (WCK) probe have raised further questions about why IDF Col. Nochi Mendel was fired from his post but not prosecuted.

In the WCK saga, on April 1, 2024, the IDF accidentally and mistakenly killed seven international food aid workers.

According to what was framed as a final report issued on a heavy delay just weeks ago, on August 19, by IDF Chief Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov, Mendel and his staff made a series of errors that led to the mistaken targeting of the WCK convoy, but the errors did not reach the threshold for criminality.

Part of the explanation of Levertov and the IDF legal division at the time was that Mendel believed he was ordering the targeting of Hamas terrorists, such that his error, however tragic, could not possibly lead to an indictment, when no criminal intent would be provable.

However, the newly leaked transcript of Mendel’s testimony regarding the case may leave him more open to prosecution and the IDF legal division’s decision to close the case open to appeal to Israeli courts.

According to the leak, published in the Guardian on September 5 and the veracity of which the IDF has not denied, Mendel deemed the various officials “running the convoy to have ‘mixed together’ with alleged Hamas militants, where mixing together was defined as being ‘near them, talking, playing, hanging out and so on’. Asked whether the presence of armed men made the entire convoy a target, Mendel replied: ‘Certainly.'”

Leaked testimony raises new questions over Mendel’s conduct

In contrast, the IDF said in its August 19 statement, and in an additional response sent to the Jerusalem Post on Monday, that its targeting policy did not allow commanders to attack humanitarian convoys simply because they saw that a member of the convoy was armed.

In that sense, it would seem that Mendel clearly violated the open fire regulations, leading to the deaths of a number of humanitarian aid personnel, and could conceivably deserve a criminal punishment, not just a disciplinary measure like being fired.

In his defense, the IDF added to the Jerusalem Post in its updated statement on Monday that Mendel had not violated international law, only IDF policy, which is stricter than the minimal requirements of the law.

According to the Monday IDF statement to the Jerusalem Post, a humanitarian convoy that includes an armed member of enemy forces can be legally targeted solely on that basis; it is just that the IDF believes in observing a higher standard as a matter of policy.

Moreover, the IDF statement on Monday emphasized that it was not that Mendel thought that some of the convoy members were Hamas and some were WCK officials, but rather that he thought at the point of attacking that they were now all Hamas terrorists.

In other words, there would also be no proportionality legal analysis: about whether killing one armed Hamas member was a large enough military advantage to justify the collateral harm to the other WCK convoy members – because Mendel believed everyone in the convoy had become Hamas.

Proportionality is only a factor if the attacker believes civilians are intertwined with the enemy forces.

The new problem with this claim from the Mendel transcript is other statements he makes which show a cavalier attitude toward humanitarian officials.

In the transcript, Mendel noted with pride that his unit had been commended by the army hierarchy for its involvement in several strikes on what were deemed to be Hamas’s attempted commandeering of aid. “They applauded us and were pleased with our action,” he said. The difference in the WCK incident was that foreign nationals were killed, he said. “That’s the whole difference. Not a substantive difference.”

Mendel’s summarizing of foreign nationals being killed as not constituting a substantive difference, even if he meant multiple things in that statement, appears to show a “reckless indifference” to their lives, something which can be prosecuted at a lower standard of criminal intent.

In another statement in his testimony, he said, “I remind you that part of our mission was to crush Hamas’s ability to govern,” Mendel said. “Part of the mission was to hit that [Hamas-controlled aid deliveries], and we hit it.”

This would seem to get Mendel off the hook as just following IDF policy, but when added together with the Guardian’s report that in January 2024 Mendel had signed a letter opposing providing aid to Gazans, these statements may suggest he was prepared to “go rogue” against foreign aid workers at a low threshold.

The IDF appears to have tried to improve his narrative, noting that the WCK having armed guards had not been coordinated with the IDF and that IDF officials had tried to call WCK for 30 minutes to clarify the situation, without success.

Yet, an earlier IDF report in 2024 noted that Mendel had wanted to “jump the gun” and attack the convoy at an even earlier point, but his request to attack had been rejected by IDF Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen.

It appears that at a later point, when Mendel thought the whole convoy was Hamas – a second mistake- he ordered the attack without checking in with Cohen again.

When this initial IDF report came out in a vacuum, it seemed Mendel had simply adapted his decision-making to the circumstances. Yet, in light of the new leaked statements he made, one could argue that he intentionally or recklessly avoided checking in with Cohen again because he personally, on a rogue basis, wanted to order the attack, even if there was some risk that the convoy contained humanitarian officials.   

The problem with making this case is Mendel’s statements that he had received accolades for other attacks on Hamas trying to take over humanitarian convoys.

An important part of the record if any trial were ever to go forward would be Mendel getting to present all the times that his superiors, including possibly in the IDF high command, complimented him for attacks on convoys believed to have been taken over by Hamas.  

The publication of such a list could be deeply embarrassing to the IDF high command and Israel as a whole, even though the IDF does have significant evidence proving Hamas did try to take over aid convoys.

Interestingly enough, the Guardian report also cites other senior IDF officers commenting that most military officials would have acted similarly to Mendel if they had seen the same drone surveillance footage of unidentified armed persons joining the convoy.

This too would seem to exculpate Mendel from any guilt, but could raise more serious questions about whether even the IDF high command had sufficient checks in place to avoid deadly mistakes against aid workers.

Ultimately, the WCK incident was far from the last tragic targeting of aid workers, something which again raises questions about checks in place to protect aid workers, though the IDF will say the incidents happened because the war was unprecedentedly complex and long.

What remains unclear is what international law says about fighting a war with an enemy who so systematically turns the law upside down with abuse.

In this war, after working to evacuate Palestinian civilians en masse from certain neighborhoods, the IDF lowered its threshold of checks and balances in order to more effectively pursue Hamas when it used civilian guises as human shields to try to protect its forces.

In any event, the IDF so far has decided to uphold the prior decision of former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Herzi Halevi that while tragic, the errors should lead to disciplinary measures but were not a crime.

Regarding the WCK incident, a fascinating twist was that IDF Military Advocate General Naj. Gen. Itay Offir himself did not make the decision, which the Post first reported on exclusively on June 18.

In prior roles as the Defense Ministry legal adviser, Offir apparently worked closely with IDF  Mendel, one of the key commander-suspects, on several projects.

Although this does not necessarily violate the “conflict of interest” definition that technically could disqualify him from rendering a decision, as it would if the two were family members, Offir did not feel he could objectively judge Mendel, or at least wanted to remove any perception of favoritism.

For that reason, Levertov issued the decision regarding WCK.

Levertov became IDF chief prosecutor in August 2025, only around two months before Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation as the IDF MAG, prior to Offir.

This post was originally published on here. 

Congressman Randy Fine warned the British government that Florida may boycott British businesses if the UK boycotts Israel.

This comes ahead of the UK’s expected announcement on Tuesday of a trade ban with Israeli settlements.

Fine referenced Florida’s “Prohibition against contracting with scrutinized companies” law, which rules that a company or other entity that is engaged in a boycott of Israel is generally ineligible to bid for or enter into certain contracts with Florida state or local government.

The law also requires companies seeking government contracts to certify that they are not participating in a boycott of Israel.

It would also end any British business participating in that boycott from doing any business in Florida if it needed any official interaction with state or local government to operate, such as in relation to permits or tax collection.

“Florida is one of Britain’s largest trading partners,” he said. “They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars.”

As an example for anyone who “doubts the power of this policy,” Fine cited the example of Airbnb’s plan to remove roughly 200 listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank in 2018.

Florida subsequently placed Airbnb on its “Scrutinized Companies” list because of the policy.

Airbnb ultimately reversed the delisting policy in April 2019, following lawsuits.

“Florida has made it clear.  Any company – or nation – that boycotts Israel is boycotted by Florida,” Fine said.

Nearly 40 US states have enacted anti-BDS laws

According to a 2026 academic survey by Indiana University law professor Joseph Tomain, 38 US states have enacted anti-BDS laws.

These laws generally condition access to state contracts, investments, or other government benefits on not participating in boycotts of Israel.

One of those states is Texas, which could enact similar boycotts to Florida according to its own legislative provisions.

Combined, Florida and Texas were worth roughly 15% more than the entire UK economy in 2025.

Texas has a GDP of around $2.9 trillion and Florida of roughly $1.7 trillion in nominal GDP.

The UK’s GDP was about $4.00 trillion in 2025.

Texas and Israel have a well-established investment relationship.

Israeli companies have invested $3.2 billion and created more than 4,200 jobs across Texas over the last decade. During that same time period, Texas companies reported seven investment projects into Israel, $178.6m. in capital investment, and more than 545 new jobs.

This post was originally published on here. 

In his August 29, 2026 article for The Wall Street Journal, “The ICC Tried to Take On the World’s Big Powers. Now It’s Fighting for Survival,” Matthew Dalton framed Israel as a global power alongside Russia and the United States.

Conversely, an alternative media narrative swings to the opposite extreme. NPR and the Associated Press have framed Israel as “diplomatically isolated,” implying severe weakness in its ability to build international coalitions.

These framings, which malign the Jewish state through two different extremes, mirror the anti-Jewish tropes that societies have popularized through the ages, portraying Jews as either all-powerful manipulators or weak, stateless wanderers. Neither is accurate.

Dalton’s central thesis stated, “When the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, human rights groups applauded the decision to go after the leaders of major powers…”

Dalton argued that the ICC’s decision to target Netanyahu opened the door for Washington to dismantle the court.

While it is reasonable to argue that the charges against Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant accelerated US opposition to the tribunal, describing Israel as one of the world’s “great powers” misrepresents reality.

Quantifying power and influence is inherently difficult (and academics hotly debate methodology), as the metrics of national strength evolve alongside shifting global values. Nevertheless, tangible indicators like economic output and military projection can provide some vital clarity.

In measurable terms, Israel ranks far below the US and Russia. Media outlets could classify Israel as a dominant regional power (even that claim is debatable), but grouping it with the US and Russia is factually inaccurate.

Economically, Israel’s 2025 nominal GDP reached $611 billion, whereas the US and Russian nominal GDPs reach into the trillions ($32 trillion and $2.6 trillion, respectively). Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), Israel’s economy hovers just above half a trillion dollars, while the US and Russian PPP economies comfortably reach tens of trillions.

Military force projection reveals an even wider divide. The US maintains global force projection capability, while Russia can project military power across Europe and Asia. Israel’s conventional military reach, by contrast, is primarily regional, with neither the naval nor air-force capacity to sustain large-scale deployments far beyond the Middle East. 

The Global Firepower Index, which evaluates conventional military capabilities, ranked Israel 15th in the world in 2026, whereas the US and Russia ranked first and second. Furthermore, differences in population size and strategic partnerships compound these disparities.

The US and Russia draw from populations of roughly 342 million and nearly 144 million, respectively, compared with Israel’s roughly 10 million. The US maintains more than 1.3 million active-duty service members, while Russia has sought to expand its armed forces to roughly 1.5 million personnel. Even the US active-duty force alone amounts to more than one-eighth of Israel’s entire population.

Beyond manpower, the US anchors its security posture in collective-defense arrangements such as the 32-member NATO, alongside a network of bilateral agreements that allow it to maintain military bases and station forces around the world. 

Russia similarly maintains military forces and bases outside its borders, including in several countries that belong to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Israel, by contrast, has no comparable alliance or overseas-basing network and therefore must project military power primarily from its own territory.

Crucially, alliances do not imply equal footing. In the US-Israel security relationship, Washington has substantial diplomatic and economic leverage through its military assistance and broader security relationship with Israel, which can shape and, at times, constrain Israeli military actions.

Notably, perception-based surveys, such as the annual US News & World Report Power Rankings (developed with the Wharton School), frequently place Israel among the top 10 most powerful nations globally, often ranking it as high as eighth or 10th based on surveyed global public opinion. But perception is not synonymous with reality.

These surveys measure visibility, news presence, and perceived military leverage, so the media’s outsized reporting on Israel has an outsized influence on their results.

While Israel cannot be claimed as a world power, news outlets cannot accurately describe it as impotent either.

Media whiplash

Regarding the AP’s mischaracterization of Israel as diplomatically isolated on February 5, 2026, CAMERA’s Tamar Sternthal pointed out that Israel maintains active diplomatic relations with over 166 countries.

At the time of the article, Israel had recently signed major agreements with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Germany worth $35 billion, $2.3 b., and $3.5 b., respectively. More recently, as of August 31, Israel and Greece signed a defense export deal worth nearly $3.5 b.

Sternthal argued that the AP’s framing echoed the strategic objective articulated by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal at a February Al Jazeera forum: “We must pursue Israel and entrench the idea that it is an outcast entity that has lost its international legitimacy.”

This media whiplash – framing Israel as an omnipotent global orchestrator on one hand or an isolated, powerless pariah on the other – channels two long-standing historical fabrications.

The medieval legend of the “Wandering Jew,” originating in 13th-century Europe, depicted Jews as cursed, stateless, and permanently isolated wanderers.

Conversely, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 19th-century fabrication, alleged a secret Jewish conspiracy controlling global banks, media, governments, and international conflicts.

Modern reporting that alternates between calling Israel an outcast or a superpower echoes these exact archetypes.

Rather than reducing the Jewish state to extreme platitudes, journalists must report on Israel as it exists: neither a global superpower on par with the US and Russia, nor a helpless, isolated pariah.

Distorting these facts undermines fair reporting on a complex region where actual military capacity and the perception of strength carry profound, real-world consequences.

The writer is a US media researcher at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) in Israel. She was previously a Breaking News desk manager at The Jerusalem Post.

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Britain on Tuesday published legislation to introduce tougher sanctions on Iran, expanding trade restrictions and powers to target ships as part of what it described as a wider effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear program and other hostile activities.

The government said the measures would restrict Iran’s access to the British financial system, broaden trade bans to include more goods, technology and services, and prohibit Iranian aircraft from landing in Britain unless exemptions apply.

The measures form part of plans the government announced last year following the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran under a so-called snapback mechanism.

The British legislation, once approved by parliament, would restore a range of sectoral restrictions lifted under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and further limit Iran’s ability to raise funds and procure goods and technology linked to its nuclear program.

Stephen Doughty, a Foreign Office minister, said in a written statement that the legislation “doubles down on our action to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions” and would help ensure Iran was never able to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

E3 triggers snapback sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program

Britain, France and Germany triggered the snapback process in August last year after saying Tehran had failed to address concerns about its nuclear program, leading to the reimposition of UN sanctions and further British measures against individuals and entities linked to the program.

The United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran in February partly due to concerns over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes. But Doughty said Iran had accumulated more than 400 kg (882 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity and was the only country without nuclear weapons to have enriched uranium to that level.

Doughty also said the measures would not affect Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field, which helps supply European energy markets. The legislation includes licenses allowing the BP BP.L-operated project to keep running despite an Iranian stake in the consortium. Britain said the carve-out would match similar exemptions used by the U.S. and EU.

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At 3:30 p.m. on September 17, 2024, pagers began to beep and buzz in Beirut and all over Lebanon, alerting Hezbollah operatives to a message from their commanders. But the message was not from Hassan Nasrallah or anyone else in the terrorist organization. Within less than ten seconds, the pagers would explode, sending Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, and even the White House into a panic.

Before anyone knew what was happening, the blasts had Hezbollah terrorists flying off their motorcycles or collapsing onto the floors of supermarkets, writhing in pain as a bizarre smoke belched upward from their pockets, belts, or fingers. From the sounds of the blasts and the fright that followed, it became clear that a massive sabotage operation was under way.

The beeper bombing killed or wounded some three thousand five hundred Hezbollah operatives. Between two and four children were killed, and there were some other civilians hurt, but what stood out to most observers was the attack’s accuracy.

“This was the most impressive supply-chain operation in modern intelligence history, and maybe forever,” General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, told us. For an operation of its size, harming so many Hezbollah operatives and so few others, the targeting was unprecedented. “Usually,” Prime Minister Netanyahu noted to us, “the guys who get beepers were important—command-and-control positions. That’s why they need the beepers.”

As Hezbollah tried to find its bearings and switch its method of communication the next day, a similar wave of exploding walkie-talkies, cell phones, and other devices wounded another five hundred or so terrorist operatives. What was going on? This was an astonishing reversal for Hezbollah, which only a day before had viewed itself as enjoying a substantial measure of impunity by virtue of the size of its rocket arsenal. It thought it had deterred Israel.

Back at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, ten minutes before the pagers were due to go off, everyone was on edge. In the spy agency’s state-of-the-art situation room, plasma screens waited for satellite video feeds to stream real-time updates from on the ground. If the pager operation failed, it could cause a collapse in confidence in the Mossad. So much money, so many years, and such great expectations had been poured into the project. If something went wrong, would Israel’s vaunted intelligence service plunge the country into its most costly war since the fight for independence?

Even a few minutes after the beepers started to explode, the Mossad didn’t yet know how successful the operation was going to be. There was no remote-tracking method to follow what was happening. Mossad Director David Barnea, a famously cool operator, was feeling the heat.

It was only as media reports started to arrive of beeper attacks not only in Beirut, but deep into Lebanon, in the Hezbollah stronghold of the Bekaa Valley, that the Mossad operatives allowed themselves to exhale. The project seemed to be succeeding; Hezbollah had been dealt a thunderous blow. “We had a surprise prepared,” Netanyahu told us with a grin. “They didn’t know what hit them.”

Israel informed White House of the operation, but barely

The Biden administration was about as shocked as Hezbollah. “It was morning in Washington, and we received a request for an urgent phone call” on September 17, recalled Dan Shapiro, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, and a former US ambassador to Israel under President Obama. “Minister Gallant informed Secretary Austin that Israel had a ‘special capability,’ which he was about to exercise in Lebanon. He was vague about what it did or how it would work, but he wanted Austin to have advance knowledge,” Shapiro said.

As a senior Israeli official close to Netanyahu told us on September 17, the day of the beeper bombing, “The US objective from the start was to de-escalate. Our objective is to win the war.” Even up until the last minute, Shapiro added, Gallant felt compelled to withhold all the details.

“When the call concluded, we were still pretty confused about what he was describing,” Shapiro told us. “But within less than thirty minutes, we started to see reports on CNN and other television networks about explosions happening in Lebanon,” Shapiro explained. They would learn what Israel’s “special capability” was, like everyone else, by watching the news.

“It was unusual. And in some ways, you could say it was impressive,” Shapiro reflected. The Biden team had reacted with genuine alarm at the escalatory potential of Israel’s action, but it was colored by admiration. “They were impressed by the creativity, the ingenuity, the secrecy, and the careful targeting of Hezbollah members, ensuring that civilians weren’t affected,” Shapiro said. How could you not be?

It was on August 25, 2024, three weeks before the pager operations, that Hezbollah escalated the fight and changed the way Netanyahu viewed the northern front. Hezbollah had planned to launch several hundred, and maybe up to one thousand, rockets that day, including on Israeli intelligence headquarters north of Tel Aviv. Yet the IDF did not only stymie Hezbollah; it cleaned house. With clear intelligence dominance, it blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones Hezbollah intended to use as well as others—thousands of them—before they could even be launched.

Suddenly, Netanyahu was euphoric and ready to press Israel’s advantage. The prime minister asked: What if instead of losing five thousand to ten thousand Israelis from tens of thousands of rockets over several weeks in an all-out war, he could pre-emptively destroy enough Hezbollah rockets and launchers to shrink Israel’s casualties by orders of magnitude? What if he could ensure that the terrorists would not be able to mount an effective strike in retaliation? This was the thought that changed the northern front.

The real story of the beepers and walkie-talkies began almost two decades earlier. The earliest foundations were laid by Yossi Cohen for then–Mossad chief Meir Dagan from 2002 to 2006. Dagan led the Mossad for an unusually long nine years from 2002 to 2011. Already a legend in Israel, he would receive credit for a years-long campaign of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, Israel’s 2007 attack on Syria’s nuclear reactor, and the 2009–2010 STUXNET cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear program, among other exploits. Cohen himself would go on to lead the Mossad from 2016 to 2021.

By 2014, the Mossad and IDF intelligence wanted to expand into new areas of surveillance and sabotage, targeting Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies. Tamir Pardo was the Mossad chief at the time, and Herzi Halevi was head of IDF intelligence. They worked on a plan that would allow Israeli intelligence to use the walkie-talkies as a surveillance tool as well as a “judgment day” weapon to be pulled out if the sides ever fell into a general war.

“The walkie-talkie was a weapon, just like a bullet or a missile or a mortar,” Michael, a fictitious name for a former Mossad agent, said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes. Inside the walkie-talkie was a battery, made in Israel at a Mossad facility, which included an explosive device, he revealed. These walkie-talkies were designed to be placed in the chest pocket of a Hezbollah fighter’s tactical vest. We were told that Hezbollah bought more than fifteen thousand of them. “They got a good price,” Michael said, with no small dose of irony. But, he added, the price could not be too low because that could cause Hezbollah to get suspicious.

One limitation of the walkie-talkies, which Israel would detonate the day after the pagers, was that Hezbollah fighters were expected to carry them only during war or military exercises. This meant that on most days, they were sitting idle in military barracks. For the Mossad, this was not good enough. It wanted to plant devices on Hezbollah operatives that they would have in their possession at all times.

Cell phones? No. Nasrallah had been telling his operatives that Israel was using cell phone networks to track them, and that they needed to go low-tech to avoid detection. “You ask me where the agent is,” Nasrallah told the Hezbollah faithful. “I tell you that the phone in your hands is the agent,” he said. “Bury it. Put it in an iron box and lock it.”

Nasrallah preferred pagers because they could receive messages without giving away a user’s location. They were safe, Nasrallah thought. This created just the lethal opening the Mossad had been looking for.

IN THE WAR ROOM: THE INSIDE STORY OF ISRAEL’S FIGHT AGAINST HAMAS AND THE IRANIAN AXIS

By Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot Kaufman
A Wicked Son Book/
Post Hill Press
352 pages; $32.50

Mr. Bob is a senior military analyst for The Jerusalem Post. Mr. Kaufman is a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. This article is adapted from their book, “In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis,” forthcoming Sept. 8.

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The opposition bloc, with Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot at the helm, could reach a 61-seat Knesset majority if Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha’s joint slate joins it, after Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party fell below the electoral threshold, according to a Maariv poll published on Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menahem Lazar, in cooperation with Panel4ALL, showed another apparent dramatic shift in the balance between the political blocs as the electoral picture continues to fluctuate.

As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition drops by four seats to just 47, while the Zionist opposition remains at 57 seats. The four seats won by the joint Reservists-Economic Party slate could give the opposition a 61-seat majority, even without the Arab parties.

However, the poll was conducted before the candidate-list submission process was completed, meaning further fluctuations remain possible.

The poll also showed that Yashar gained two seats following the presentation of its candidate list, while B’Yachad, led by Naftali Bennett, fell by the same number. The strengthening of the joint Arab list also appears to have stalled, with the slate remaining at seven seats. Overall, the Arab parties receive 12 seats.

Still, the picture requires caution. The Hendel-Zelekha slate and Amcha Israel are both hovering around the electoral threshold, and even a small shift could again change the balance between the blocs. Whether either party, or both, crosses or fails to cross the threshold could significantly alter the overall result.

Eisenkot strengthens at Bennett’s expense

Asked which party they would vote for if Knesset elections were held now, Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, continued to lead with 25 seats, up from 23 in the previous poll. Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, remained at 20 seats, while B’Yachad, led by Naftali Bennett, fell to 13 seats from 15 in the previous poll.

The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, received 10 seats; Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman, received nine; and Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, received eight. United Torah Judaism, led by Ya’acov Asher, and Shas, led by Arye Deri, each received seven seats.

A united Arab list comprising Hadash-Ta’al and Balad, led by Yosef Jabareen, received seven seats, while Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, received five. Religious Zionism Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, together with Zehut, led by Moshe Feiglin, also received five seats.

The Reservists Party, led by Yoaz Hendel, along with Yaron Zelekha, crosses the electoral threshold and receives four seats after failing to do so in the previous poll.

In contrast, People of Israel, led by Ofer Winter, falls to 2.8% and does not cross the electoral threshold, after receiving four seats in the previous poll. Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz, with 1.3%; Noam LeYisrael, with 0.6%; and Motti Leitner’s party, with 0.4%, also remain outside the Knesset.

The proportion of undecided respondents in the current poll stands at 10.4%.

The poll was conducted on September 7-8. A total of 4,052 people were invited to participate, of whom 600 responded, a response rate of 15%. The respondents constituted a representative sample of Israel’s adult population aged 18 and over, including Jews and Arabs. The poll’s maximum sampling error is 4%.

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Members of Germany’s Jewish community are bracing for a possible far-right party to govern the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt after it placed first in Sunday’s election.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which got 43.8%, said it began talks with other parties on Sunday evening to see whether a coalition government could be formed.

Elected members of other parties could also decide to cross over to the AfD to give it enough seats to govern. The party’s current size means it cannot form a government on its own in Saxony-Anhalt, which is home to about 1,300 members of the Jewish community.

Remko Leemhuis, the director of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), told The Media Line that Sunday’s election could set a precedent for other elections and increase the chances of mainstream parties cooperating with the AfD.

“I think it would prove that they could win,” he said. “We have seen a bigger willingness over the past years, at least in theory, to be open to work with the AfD.”

Christian Democratic Union committed to block AfD from coalitions

The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which leads Germany’s federal government and received 17.2% of the vote, has committed to a “firewall” against the AfD. In 2018, it stated it would not enter coalitions “and similar forms of cooperation” with the party.

Leemhuis said that if the AfD can govern, it will increase the pressure on other parties to cooperate with it: “Once there is an example, then I think the whole concept of a firewall has ended,” he said.

After the 2025 federal election, the AfD became the largest opposition party in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, with nearly 21 percent of the vote.

Leemhuis said one of his concerns if the AfD were able to form government was that security funding provided to the Jewish community, such as guards at synagogues, is determined at the state level. The AfD could also lead the local branch of the domestic intelligence agency, which monitors extremism.

The party has proposed establishing “voluntary citizen patrols,” with a population that has dropped by nearly a third since the reunification of Germany in 1990 to 2.1 million. The AfD has also criticized Germany’s remembrance culture and its continued acknowledgment and reckoning with the crimes of the Nazis.

A party lawmaker in the state, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, told Politico that the AfD would “shift the emphasis” on school lessons on the Nazis. At one point, he suggested having “less Hitler” in history classes.

In 2019, a far-right gunman in the city of Halle, located in Saxony-Anhalt, tried but failed to enter a synagogue, which had over 50 people for Yom Kippur, and then killed a passerby and a person at a kebab shop.

AfD popularity raises concerns regardless of election results

Max Privorozki, the chairperson of the Jewish Community of Halle, told The Media Line that there is cause for concern regardless of Sunday’s election results.

“This party has been around for years, quite apart from the upcoming elections. One cannot ignore past election results: this party constitutes the largest opposition group in both the Bundestag and our state parliament,” he stated.

“I think the far more important question is how it came about that the AfD has become so popular.”

The party was founded in 2013 on a eurosceptic platform but has since shifted to the far right.

Some of its regional branches, including in Saxony-Anhalt, have been classified as right-wing extremist organizations by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

One of its most high-profile politicians, Bjoern Hocke, was convicted twice for using a Nazi slogan. In 2017, the party’s co-leader, Alexander Gauland, said the Nazis were “just” bird droppings among Germany’s more than 1,000 years of history.

In a report released last month, the AJC stated that high-level AfD officials have used coded language to make antisemitic allusions, such as claiming that parts of the German government and the EU are controlled by the “perverse spirit of George Soros.”

While the AfD forming a coalition with other parties will be difficult because most parties refuse to cooperate, recent events have called that commitment into question.

Weeks before the 2025 federal election, Chancellor Frederich Merz and his party were in opposition and proceeded with a vote on a proposed non-binding motion on immigration, which passed with support from the AfD.

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel, a fellow member of the Christian Democratic Union, issued a rare statement criticizing her party for allowing a majority to be formed with the far-right party.

However, the most likely way for the AfD to enter government would be through some kind of agreement with the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) or with elected individuals from it.

On Sunday, Greenpeace organized a rally against the far-right movement in the central square of Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, writing a sign on the ground that read “We remain colorful.” That same square saw a demonstration the day before the election, with thousands gathering in a “march for democracy.”

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Thieves stole four paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, the local mayor said, but dropped two of them in the gardens as police, alerted by alarms, gave chase early on Tuesday.

The most valuable works of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir have fetched dozens of millions of dollars at auctions.

Mayor Bryan Masson did not identify the items stolen by the raiders who broke into the museum a little before 6 a.m. through a hole made in a garden fence to snatch four paintings, in the latest of a series of brazen art thefts in the country.

Robo en el museo de Renoir en la Riviera francesa. Se llevaron cuatro obras, por un velor estimado de casi diez millones de euros
-retrato de Madame Pichon (1895)
-retrato de Madame Colonna Romano (1910)
-Coco Lisant (1905)
– Jeune fille au puits (1886) pic.twitter.com/jK7V6DURox

— Sandro Pozzi (@sandro_pozzi) September 8, 2026

“Attacking the Renoir museum is attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes-sur-Mer,” Masson said in a message.

Police arrived within five minutes to give chase, leading the thieves to drop two canvases, but they made off with the other two, added Masson, who initially said just one had been dropped.

The museum, set up in 1960 in Renoir’s mansion on a hill near Nice where he died in 1919, had on display a collection of 13 paintings by the master and some 40 sculptures, items of furniture and photographs.

Art thieves in Europe are committing more violent robberies and specialist gangs have been replaced by ad hoc ​opportunists recruited through social media, pan-European police body Europol said last month.

Theft of Antonello da Messina’s Renaissance paintings

This theft comes nearly a month after four paintings by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from from the Museo Regionale di Messina in the painter’s hometown.

The thieves entered the museum on the night of August 15, a national holiday in Italy and the peak of the summer season, media said.

They took three of the remaining five panels that made up an altarpiece known as Polittico di San Gregorio. 

Originally comprising six panels and destined for a local monastery known as Monastero San Gregorio, which was destroyed by Messina’s 1908 earthquake, the altarpiece was the only work by the Sicilian painter to have never left his hometown.

The thieves took a fourth artwork from a secure display case: a small two-sided painting depicting the Virgin with Child and a Franciscan monk on one side and the Christ on the other.

The work was part of the Wilhelm Soldan collection and was sold by Christie’s to the Sicilian Region in 2003, the year it was attributed to Antonello da Messina.

Authorities have since theorized that the theft may have involved organized crime, raising troubling questions about security at a museum in the Sicilian artist’s hometown.

Enzo Caruso, Messina’s councilor for culture, said the stolen Antonello works were so famous that selling them even on the black market would be virtually impossible, raising the possibility that they could be used as bargaining chips or collateral in criminal dealings.

“The Mafia? It’s possible they might try to blackmail the state itself in order to return them. These are the kinds of dynamics that ordinary people never get to see,” he said.

He said another possibility was that the paintings could be used as guarantees or currency within the criminal underworld.

The burglary only came to light some two hours later when tourists found two Antonello paintings, apparently discarded by the thieves, leaning against the museum railings.

Renato Schifani, the president of Sicily, issued a statement to say the museum’s video surveillance system and alarm had been working normally, adding that an internal investigation was underway to see if any museum staff had been involved.

Caruso questioned how well prepared the thieves had been, pointing to the fact that two paintings had been left in the street. He also said a professional art thief would normally take greater care handling works worth tens of millions of euros, saying no attempt had been made to protect the paintings.

“I have the feeling the thieves may be keeping the [Antonellos] hidden while things calm down,” Caruso said. “Or perhaps they immediately took the sea route,” he added, noting that the museum lies close to the Strait of Messina.

“The hope is that sooner or later they reappear.”

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The High Court of Justice on Tuesday canceled the appointments of three senior members of the Second Authority Council, ruling that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu violated his conflict-of-interest agreement and that the appointments committee had not received the information needed to properly examine two of the candidates.

All three justices agreed to void the appointment of Dr. Yifat Ben Hay-Segev as council chairwoman and those of attorney Kinneret Barashi and Dr. Haim Shine as members.

President Isaac Amit and Justice Ruth Ronnen went further, ordering that the entire council slate return to the appointments committee for renewed examination if Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi wishes to advance the candidates again. Justice Alex Stein opposed extending the remedy to the remaining council members.

The decision sends the government back to the beginning of the appointment process for the body that regulates Israel’s commercial television and regional radio broadcasters, including channels 12 and 13 and their news companies.

The government approved 15 council members on March 24. Five petitions were subsequently filed challenging the process and, in particular, the appointments of Ben Hay-Segev, Barashi, and Shine.

Netanyahu acted in breach of the conflict-of-interest 

The court found that Netanyahu acted in breach of the conflict-of-interest arrangement governing his conduct as a criminal defendant when he became involved in Ben Hay-Segev’s appointment.

Ben Hay-Segev was a prosecution witness in Netanyahu’s Case 4000 trial. Netanyahu personally approved placing her appointment on the cabinet agenda and participated in the initial discussion and vote.

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Israeli students recorded their worst-ever results in all three subjects measured by the international Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), with Education Ministry officials describing the findings as a “catastrophic event on a historic scale,” according to results published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday.

No improvement was made in any of the three skills tested. Compared with the previous PISA tests in 2022, Israeli students fell eight places in science, seven in reading, and six in mathematics.

In science, Israeli students ranked 44th. While science performance was measured in no fewer than 90 countries, 20 countries ranked ahead of Israel while still scoring below the developed-country average, including the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Uruguay, and Chile.

Students from China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Estonia, South Korea, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia led the science rankings, far ahead of Israel.

In reading and mathematics, students from the 44 OECD member countries were assessed, and with developing countries excluded from the comparison, Israeli students found themselves alarmingly close to the bottom of the table.

Israel ranked 37th in reading, with 12 countries below the developed-world average still ranking ahead of it. And that was the good news.

In a comparison of mathematics skills among students from the 44 developed countries, Israel “won” 43rd place, with only Albania ranking below it.

For comparison, East Asian countries led the mathematics rankings, while the UK, for example, placed 10th, well above the average. Even the US, which scored below the average, ranked 27th.

Israel hits lowest recorded PISA scores in 2025

Across all three subjects, Israel’s 2025 PISA results were the lowest ever recorded for the country and were significantly lower than those recorded in 2018, 2015 and 2012.

Compared with 2015, the proportion of Israeli students classified as low performers, with scores below proficiency Level 2, rose by 14 percentage points in mathematics, 14 percentage points in reading and nine percentage points in science.

Social disparities in Israel do not explain the strikingly poor results, the report says. Between 2022 and 2025, the gap in Israel between the highest-scoring students, the top 10%, and the weakest students, the bottom 10%, did not change significantly in mathematics or science, while it narrowed in reading.

Every three years, the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education and the Education Ministry publish a detailed national analysis simultaneously with, or close to, the OECD’s official publication.

But long after the organization had granted media representatives full access to the data, and despite the publication being known about and scheduled years in advance, representatives of Education Minister Yoav Kisch and officials from the measurement authority still had not managed to “complete the necessary coordination regarding the format of publication.”

In other words, while Kisch could not prevent the publication of the embarrassing report, which casts his tenure in the stark colors of failure, he tried to delay it until the last moment and chose to hold a media “briefing” at the exact time the report was released.

This came after the publication of the nationwide Meitzav assessment results was postponed, by agreement between the sides, until the end of the month despite the bad blood between Kisch and the authority, in an effort to soften the blow that the PISA report was expected to deal the Education Ministry.

PISA tests skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students

PISA tests are conducted once every three years and measure the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in education systems around the world, not only in OECD member states. For Israel’s education system, however, the main benchmark is the average performance among developed countries.

The assessment focuses on three main areas: reading, mathematics, and science. In practice, it measures how prepared teenagers are to cope with the challenges of modern society and integrate into the future labor market.

The tests examine students’ ability to solve complex problems, think critically, and communicate effectively. Israel first participated in PISA in 2002.

“In Israel, all data met the quality standards established by PISA and were considered suitable for reporting,” the OECD stressed.

The organization added that a smaller share of students in Israel than the OECD average were top performers, reaching Level 5 or 6, in at least one subject. At the same time, fewer Israeli students than the OECD average reached the minimum proficiency level, Level 2 or higher, in all three subjects.

Israeli students’ average score in computational problem-solving was also below the OECD average.

Only about 5% of students in Israel were top performers in mathematics, meaning they reached Level 5 or 6 on the PISA mathematics assessment, compared with an OECD average of 8%.

At these levels, students can interpret complex situations mathematically and can select, compare and evaluate appropriate problem-solving strategies for dealing with them.

Only 54% of Israeli students reached at least Level 2 in mathematics, compared with 65% on average across the OECD.

At a minimum, students at this level can interpret and identify, without direct instructions, how a simple situation can be represented mathematically, such as comparing the total distance across two alternative routes or converting prices into another currency.

Only 4% of students tested in Israel were top performers in science, compared with an OECD average of 7%, meaning they demonstrated proficiency at Level 5 or 6.

Students at these levels can apply their scientific knowledge creatively and independently in a wide range of situations, including unfamiliar ones.

About 60% of students in Israel reached Level 2 or higher in science, compared with 74% on average across the OECD.

At a minimum, these students can identify the correct explanation for familiar scientific phenomena and can use that knowledge to determine, in simple cases, whether a conclusion is valid based on the data provided.

More than 85% of students in the highest-performing countries, China, Singapore, Estonia, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, reached this level or higher.

Five percent of students scored at Level 5 or above in reading, compared with an OECD average of 6%.

Students at this level can understand lengthy texts, deal with abstract or counterintuitive concepts and distinguish between fact and opinion based on implicit clues relating to the content or the source of the information.

About 59% of students in Israel reached Level 2 or higher in reading, compared with 69% on average across the OECD.

At a minimum, these students can identify the main idea in a moderate-length text, locate information based on explicit (though sometimes complex) criteria, and reflect on the purpose and form of texts when explicitly instructed to do so.

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A Syrian civilian managed to reach the vicinity of an IDF post in the southern Golan Heights on the Syrian side of the border on Monday without being detected, N12 reported on Tuesday.

The IDF is investigating the incident.

Military officials told N12 that the Syrian civilian was transferred for questioning by security forces. According to the officials, an initial investigation indicated that the incident was not an attempted terrorist attack.

In a separate incident overnight, IDF troops detained two Syrian civilians in the Mount Hermon sector who are suspected of involvement in attempted smuggling operations along the border.

The two suspects were also transferred for questioning by security officials.

This is a developing story.

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Less than a week before the October 7 attack, then Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 1, 2023, and recommended carrying out a targeted assassination of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, along with a series of additional assassinations targeting senior figures in the organization.

According to a security source, Bar told Netanyahu that the Shin Bet had identified that Hamas was “preparing something extreme,” and also used the term “earthquake” during the conversation. The source confirmed that the information was presented to the prime minister and that the recommendation to act against Sinwar and other senior Hamas officials was put before him, but Netanyahu did not accept it. “The reports that have emerged recently on this matter are accurate,” the security source said.

The account takes on additional significance in light of Haaretz’s recent report alleging that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed also warned Netanyahu, about a week and a half before the attack, that Sinwar was planning a significant move against Israel.

According to the investigation, MBZ called Netanyahu from the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi, and the two spoke for about 45 minutes. During the conversation, the UAE president warned that Sinwar was preparing for a major move that could lead to bloodshed, destabilize the region, and even harm the Abraham Accords.

President Isaac Herzog, who maintains close relations with MBZ, told Haaretz that the UAE president had already been concerned about the situation before the war. “He spoke to me about it a lot in the months before the war,” he said.

‘Something is about to explode,’ said MBZ

According to the investigation, MBZ’s source was a close adviser, a Palestinian who had emigrated from Gaza to Abu Dhabi years earlier and maintained contacts in the Strip. The adviser said that bin Zayed warned Netanyahu that Israel needed to prepare. “The emir explained that, in his assessment, Sinwar was preparing for a significant event. He told Netanyahu that Israel would be better off being prepared.”

At the same time, MBZ recommended pursuing an economic solution in Gaza and reducing tensions in the West Bank in an effort to prevent further deterioration. According to the report, Netanyahu received the warning relatively calmly and said that, in his assessment, Hamas intended to act specifically in the West Bank. He also reassured MBZ that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

MBZ later shared his concern that “something is about to explode” with then CIA director William Burns. However, according to the same report, the warning delivered by the UAE president to Netanyahu was not brought to the attention of the heads of Israel’s security establishment. The heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad, as well as the IDF chief of staff, were unaware of the warning the prime minister had received.

A different outcome?

Meanwhile, the security establishment rejects the claim that the outcome could necessarily have been changed if the prime minister or defense minister had received an update during the night between October 6 and 7.

According to security officials, the intelligence picture available to the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence that night was partial and did not provide sufficient clarity about Hamas’s offensive intentions. Some of the information, they said, was even consistent with signs of continued routine inside Gaza and did not clearly indicate that a large-scale attack was about to be launched within hours.

The security establishment maintains that even if Netanyahu or the defense minister had become involved at that stage, convening an assessment at the political level, building an intelligence picture and making decisions would have taken enough time that the discussion itself would have come close to the time the attack began.

A security source familiar with the events of that night rejected Netanyahu’s version, according to which he would have acted in a way that changed the situation on the ground had he received an update during the night.

According to the officials, the intelligence available at the time did not provide a clear picture that Hamas intended to launch a comprehensive attack. They also said the remaining timeframe was too short for the IDF to move significant forces into position or launch a disruption operation that could have prevented the attack.

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Former prime minister and B’Yachad party head Naftali Bennett confirmed a Tuesday Haaretz report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned that Hamas was planning an attack against Israel days before the October 7 massacre.

“The report this morning stating that Netanyahu was warned ten days before the October 7 massacre about Sinwar’s intentions – true,” Bennett affirmed in a statement released on X/Twitter.

Bennett decried Netanyahu’s reaction to the warning, claiming that Netanyahu “did not warn the heads of the security establishment, did not prepare Israel for the attack, and did not convene the cabinet.”

He added that he believes Netanyahu “bears personal and direct responsibility for the failure that led to the deaths of thousands of Israelis on his watch.” 

הפרסום הבוקר לפיו נתניהו הוזהר עשרה ימים לפני טבח השבעה באוקטובר על כוונותיו של סינוואר – אמת.

נתניהו נושא באחריות אישית וישירה למחדל שהביא למותם של אלפי ישראלים במשמרת שלו.
ההתעלמות שלו מהאזהרות היא רשלנות פושעת ולכן הוא עושה הכול כדי למנוע הקמת ועדת חקירה ממלכתית שתחשוף את…

— Naftali Bennett נפתלי בנט (@naftalibennett) September 8, 2026

Lapid claims he tried to warn Netanyahu of Hamas threat

Yair Lapid similarly scrutinized Netanyahu’s failure to heed the warning and claimed that he and others had also attempted to warn the prime minister of Hamas’s threat.

“Three weeks before the massacre, I warned the Prime Minister at a press conference that this was what was going to happen,” Lapid said, adding that “the Egyptians say they warned him. The Chief of Staff, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of Military Intelligence – all of them warned him.”

Lapid claimed that if Netanyahu had acted after allegedly receiving multiple warnings, “the massacre would have been prevented.”

Netanyahu ‘terrified’ of taking responsibility for October 7, Eisenkot says

Former IDF chief of staff and Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot stated that the latest report added to what he described as mounting evidence of Netanyahu’s responsibility for the failures preceding the attack.

“More and more signs indicate: Netanyahu led Israel blindly into the October 7 failure,” Eisenkot said.

“According to the report this morning, he received an explicit warning, days before the massacre, from the president of the United Arab Emirates regarding Sinwar’s intentions, but did not update the heads of the defense establishment. Who didn’t wake whom up?”

עוד ועוד סימנים מעידים: נתניהו הוביל את ישראל בעיוורון למחדל השבעה באוקטובר.

לפי הפרסום הבוקר, הוא קיבל התרעה מפורשת, ימים לפני הטבח, מנשיא איחוד האמירויות לגבי כוונות סינוואר, אבל לא עדכן את ראשי מערכת הביטחון. מי לא העיר את מי?

סביבתו מהדהדת את תיאוריית הקונספירציה והבגידה… pic.twitter.com/H9UtJFWmzq

— Gadi Eisenkot – גדי איזנקוט (@gadi_eisenkot) September 8, 2026

Eisenkot accused Netanyahu’s circle of promoting conspiracy theories and seeking to shift responsibility for events in the hours before the massacre.

“Those around him are echoing the pathetic conspiracy and betrayal theory, inventing the most ridiculous sentence a leader could cling to, ‘They didn’t wake me up,’ because of two facts: He knows the truth. He is terrified of it and is trying to escape responsibility.

Yashar MK Chili Tropper focused on the claim that the alleged warning was not passed to the security establishment.

“For a week now, Netanyahu has been campaigning on the claim that they didn’t wake him up,” Tropper said.

“It is difficult to know how events would have developed if Netanyahu had acted and the security establishment had received the information,” he stated.

“What is clear is that thousands of bereaved families woke up this morning with the gut-wrenching feeling that perhaps the lives of their loved ones could have been saved, alongside the clear knowledge that those responsible for their security failed completely.”

Shir Perets contributed to this report.

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The last 48 hours in Yemen have seen movement and clashes on numerous frontlines as the Yemen government seeks to push the Houthis back and weaken the Iranian-backed group. Meanwhile, the Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has backed the Yemen government for more than a decade in its struggle against the Houthis. After years of fighting, there has been a kind of ceasefire since 2022. However, tensions have recently flared up again.

According to the Major General Turki Al-Maliki, the official spokesman for the “Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen” forces, the Houthis have escalated their attacks. They made a number of attempts to “target Saudi Arabia, its national assets, its citizens, and residents on its territory is a dangerous escalation,” reports said.

The Saudi Press Agency noted that Maliki had said that “the reckless terrorist attacks by the Houthi militias, the latest of which targeted civilian and economic sites in the cities of (Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan, Najran), resulted in the injury of (73) civilians, including women and children.”

It is clear that Riyadh will respond. This “constitutes a blatant violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and a direct threat to the security and safety of its citizens and residents on its territory,” Maliki said.

Yemeni forces advance backed by Saudi Arabia

Over the last day, there have been numerous reports about advances in Yemen by government forces. Backed by Saudi Arabia, they want to try to liberate areas from the Houthis. The Houthis are dug in throughout the hill country of Yemen, essentially dominating the middle of the country’s western region.

The coalition general noted that “these heinous and unjustified attacks committed by the terrorist Houthi militias deliberately harm Saudi Arabia’s national assets, facilities, and civilian objects, and confirm their extremist criminal behavior that rejects achieving peace and stability in Yemen and its Arab and Islamic neighbors.”

He affirmed that “the Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will take all necessary operational measures to deter these terrorist militias and confront their hostile approach with all firmness, in defense of the Kingdom’s sovereignty, preservation of its national capabilities, and protection of the safety of its citizens and residents on its territory.”

The Houthi attacks were widely reported in Arabic media in the Gulf. Media in Saudi Arabia also reported on the casualties from the attacks. “Houthi attacks have left more than 70 people injured, including women and children, in various towns and cities across Saudi Arabia, a military spokesman said on Tuesday, adding that the Kingdom would take measures to counter the group,” Arab News noted.

The next moves will be up to Saudi Arabia and the Yemen government. Riyadh has been the major leader of the coalition against the Houthis since it intervened in Yemen in 2015. Over the years, some other members of the coalition have sought to shift their policies. The UAE, for instance, had some tensions with Riyadh last year over the UAE’s backing of the Aden-based Southern Transitional Council.

The challenge in Yemen is that the various forces fighting the Houthis are divided geographically. Some forces are near Saudi Arabia in Jawf. There are others fighting near Taiz. Because the Houthis control a huge central, mountainous area, the coalition members are divided along various frontlines. With internal lines, the Houthis can easily shift forces from one sector to another. This creates a complex military challenge. It remains to be seen if Riyadh can accomplish today what it has been unable to do since 2015. 

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Police arrested three people on Monday on suspicion of involvement in a fragmentation-grenade attack on a Japanika restaurant in Rosh Pina nearly two months ago, Israel Police said Tuesday.

The arrests mark the first publicly reported progress in the investigation into the July 15 attack at this location, which formed part of a wider wave of violence against branches of the restaurant chain.

Two of the suspects are residents of northern Israel, while the third lives in central Israel. They were taken for questioning, as police were expected to ask the Kiryat Shmona Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to extend their detention.

A remand hearing will determine only whether the suspects may remain in custody while the investigation continues. 

According to police, officers were called to the restaurant early on July 15 after receiving a report that a fragmentation grenade had been thrown at the branch. Investigators collected evidence at the scene and opened an investigation.

Reports said the grenade exploded, shattering at least one window. No injuries were reported.

Wave of attacks against Japanika branches

The attack came during a series of grenade, gunfire, and arson attacks against Japanika branches around the country. Restaurants in Ramat Gan, Kiryat Ono, Afula, and Netanya were targeted with grenades, shots were fired at the chain’s Herzliya branch, and an attempt was made to set fire to a branch in Givatayim.

Police said at the time that they were investigating whether the attacks were connected to an escalating dispute involving the Mosli and Jarushi crime organizations. 

Separate investigations into the wider wave have led to indictments over attacks on Japanika branches in Kiryat Ono and Givatayim. 

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UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed reportedly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Hamas’s plans ahead of the October 7 massacre, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, bin Zayed specifically warned Netanyahu that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning an operation.

The Haaretz report alleged that bin Zayed warned Netanyahu about a week and a half before the massacre that Sinwar was planning a major operation against Israel. During a 45-minute phone conversation, the UAE president reportedly expressed concern that such an attack could lead to significant bloodshed, destabilize the region, and undermine the Abraham Accords.

Bin Zayed urged Netanyahu to take the threat seriously, the report stated. Netanyahu, however, reportedly responded that, in his assessment, Hamas intended to operate in the West Bank and reassured the UAE president that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

Three senior foreign sources were cited as being familiar with the contents of the conversation. The report also relied on a close adviser to bin Zayed, who said the warning originated in contacts involving a Palestinian intermediary with ties to both Hamas and Israeli security officials.

The investigation said that in September 2023, Sinwar had warned through the intermediary that he was preparing a “zilzal,” or earthquake, and later described what he was planning as “the mother of all surprises” and “a terrifying operation.”

The message was ultimately relayed to the UAE leadership and, on September 15, to the Shin Bet. Then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar briefed Netanyahu on Sinwar’s warning, after which senior defense officials held a security meeting two days later.

At that meeting, Bar reportedly warned that Israel was “on a collision course” and recommended either a powerful offensive step or stronger defensive measures in Gaza and the West Bank ahead of the Jewish holidays, but no decisions were made at the end of the discussion.

After the UAE leadership concluded that Israel had not adequately responded to the information, bin Zayed decided to contact Netanyahu directly, according to the report.

The investigation also said Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel contacted Netanyahu around the same period and warned of “something unusual, a terrifying operation” being planned by Hamas. Netanyahu reportedly responded that Israel was in control of the situation in Gaza and was concentrating its attention and troop deployments on the West Bank.

Netanyahu did not mention either of the warning calls during a subsequent October 1 discussion on Gaza and Hamas, the report said. A senior Shin Bet official quoted in the investigation said knowledge of the warnings could potentially have changed how security officials interpreted Sinwar’s earlier statements and withdrawal from negotiations.

Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi told Haaretz that they had not been informed of the warning allegedly delivered by the UAE president.

Haaretz said bin Zayed did not respond to a request for comment.

“An absolute lie! Prime Minister Netanyahu did not speak with the president of the United Arab Emirates during the period in question and did not receive any warning from him,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Bennett: I know for a fact this is true

Following the report, former prime minister and head of B’Yachad Naftali Bennett told 103FM he “knew for a fact the report is true.”

“Mohammed bin Zayed of the Emirates warned Netanyahu that Sinwar was planning an operation. Abbas Kamel, the head of Egyptian General Intelligence, also warned Netanyahu days before the massacre that a major operation was being planned,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about my relationship with anyone. I’m telling you that I know this fact is true.”

“Netanyahu led us blindly straight into this terrible disaster. He was so deeply immersed in his conception that Hamas was an asset, and despite receiving explicit warnings, he did nothing,” the former prime minister claimed.

“Netanyahu bears direct responsibility for this disaster, not only ministerial responsibility by virtue of being prime minister, but direct responsibility because he built up Hamas for 15 years and did nothing.”

Bennett, Eisenkot decry Netanyahu’s conduct regarding October 7 massacre

Asked how he would have acted had he been in Netanyahu’s position in the fall of 2023, Bennett said, “In a similar situation, if I had received a quarter of a warning when I was prime minister, I would have raced to the South. That’s what I always do: meet the commanders and the observation soldiers, convene the IDF chief of staff and the Shin Bet chief, increase alertness and defenses, and prepare for offensive action if necessary. I would have done everything to protect the lives of the residents.”

Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar! with Eisenkot party, also responded to the report, arguing that it only added to evidence that the prime minister had failed to act on warnings before the massacre.

“More and more signs indicate that Netanyahu led Israel blindly into the October 7 failure,” Eisenkot said.

“According to the report this morning, he received an explicit warning, days before the massacre, from the president of the United Arab Emirates regarding Sinwar’s intentions, but did not update the heads of the defense establishment. Who failed to wake whom up?”

“Those around him are echoing the pathetic conspiracy and betrayal theory, inventing the most ridiculous sentence a leader could cling to, ‘They didn’t wake me up,’ because of two facts: He knows the truth; He is terrified of it and is trying to escape responsibility. Netanyahu received dozens of warnings ahead of October 7 and ignored them all. He is unfit.”

Eisenkot said his party would seek to establish a state commission of inquiry after the formation of the next government.

“Immediately upon the formation of the next government, we will establish a state commission of inquiry that will investigate the previous decade, clarify what Netanyahu knew and did not know, get to the truth, and prevent the next disaster.”

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Newly revealed documents from a secret November 1993 meeting between then-foreign minister Shimon Peres and Jordan‘s King Hussein show how the two leaders helped lay some of the early groundwork for the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation revealed on Tuesday, marking the 10th anniversary of Peres’s death.

The documents were released on the day of the state memorial ceremony for Peres and the naming of the Jerusalem International Convention Center in his honor. They include excerpts from the minutes of the meeting, which was held at the king’s palace in Amman under strict secrecy.

According to the records, Peres’s appearance was even altered to prevent identification.

The Peres Center now describes the exchange as a kind of “testament for peace” by two leaders who sought to change the region. During the meeting, Hussein spoke candidly about the urgency he felt and his desire to use the time he believed he had left to advance an agreement.

“Perhaps I have only a year or two left; I will put everything on the line,” the king said.

According to the documents, the Jordanian royal palace received a message on October 26, 1993, saying that King Hussein wished to meet with then-foreign minister Shimon Peres. According to the record, Hussein viewed Peres as a creative thinker and was willing to hold a secret meeting as part of the preliminary contacts that ultimately led to the peace agreement signed in 1994.

The meeting did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed years of secret contacts and ties between Israel and King Hussein, including Peres’s attempt to advance an agreement with Jordan under the 1987 London Agreement.

Hussein, Peres shared commitment to security, peace

About a week after the message was received, the secret meeting took place. The documents state that “he was assured that the visit would be conducted in secrecy and that the necessary measures would be taken to prevent the foreign minister from being identified.”

“My assurance that the partnership between us remains intact in no way expresses complacency; on the contrary, it is a dynamic partnership, open to creative proposals, which, from my experience, I know characterize your approach,” Hussein told Peres during the meeting.

Peres, for his part, presented his vision of regional economic cooperation that could serve as the basis for a future agreement, including shared infrastructure, ports, aviation, roads, and regional projects.

“We have many dreams and hopes for the future… I share the commitment that there will be change and that the younger generations will have the opportunity to live with a sense of security, which is peace,” King Hussein said during the conversation.

The minutes show that Peres proposed preparing an unofficial document, an “informal non-paper,” summarizing the subjects discussed and the understandings reached, so that he could discuss them with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The document states that Peres stressed that he was “working hand in hand with the prime minister,” that the two “see eye to eye,” and that both felt their time was short and that they were “trying to pull the wagon of peace together.”

“Our generation must make difficult decisions before we disappear, and all of this for our children. We must ensure the children’s future, so we must not lose momentum. There is a contradiction between the little time available to us and the size of the opportunity before us,” Hussein said, emphasizing the sense of urgency.

“History is like a galloping horse. Either you get on it, or you get off, and the horse will continue galloping without you. We do not have much time, and our ‘life expectancy’ for making peace is limited.”

“Your Majesty, there is now tremendous public support for the peace agreement. Young people are fed up with wars, poverty and the absence of freedom,” Peres responded.

One of the most personal moments in the meeting came when Hussein referred to the 1951 assassination of his grandfather, King Abdullah I.

“I want to make my position clear. In 1951 there was a tragic event, the murder of my father. I want to bequeath to the future, to my brother Hassan and to the entire government, the best possible legacy. Perhaps I have only a year or two left; I will put everything on the line.”

He later said: “When the gaps narrow, the fears will fade, hopes will grow for all the children of Abraham, and the time has come for that to happen.”

From secret meeting to peace treaty

According to the Peres Center, King Hussein and foreign minister Peres initialed a memorandum of understanding that night. Less than a year later, in October 1994, Israel and Jordan signed their peace treaty in the Arava.

Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with Peres as his foreign minister, led the diplomatic process on Israel’s behalf. The Peres Center stressed that the treaty became one of the foundations of Israel’s regional relations for more than three decades, including during periods of crisis and tension.

“It is hard not to be moved when reading the documents from that historic meeting between Peres and the king of Jordan.

The secret meeting reflected Peres’s worldview, a man of vision who believed in our ability to change reality,” Chemi Peres, chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, said following the release of the documents.

The Peres Center also noted that throughout his life, Peres sought to strengthen Israel’s security and international standing, and that alongside his work to advance peace agreements, he helped establish Israel’s defense industries and develop the country’s strategic capabilities.

“It is a great privilege and a moral obligation to listen to the testament for peace of two great leaders, Shimon Peres and King Hussein. In the meeting, King Hussein says that his days are numbered and that peace is the most important thing they can leave to future generations,” Efrat Duvdevani, director-general of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, said.

“The words spoken and written during the secret meeting were part of a process toward the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, led by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy.”

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Eyal Golan’s “Mada Bidyoni” (“Science Fiction”) was the most-played song on Israeli radio during the Hebrew year 5786, according to ACUM, the Israeli organization that protects composers’, lyricists’, and publishers’ rights.

The organization, which is marking its 90th anniversary this year, released its annual survey of the songs, songwriters, composers, arrangers, and performers heard most frequently on Israeli radio on Monday.

ACUM’s annual rankings are based on its AcumOnAir monitoring system, which tracks broadcasts on 34 licensed national and regional radio stations in Israel.

Sexual harassment allegations won’t deter Golan’s fan base

“Mada Bidyoni,” performed by Golan, was written by Avi Ohayon, who composed it with Idan Shneor and Matan Dror. Dror also arranged the track. Its popularity showed that the new allegations of sexual harassment against Golan have not influenced his fan base.

In second place was Peer Tasi’s “Of Muzar” (“Strange Bird”), while “Michelle,” performed by Noam Bettan, who finished second at Eurovision 2026 with this song, was third. Last year’s most-played song, Tasi’s “Ma Yihye Machar” (“What Will Be Tomorrow”), dropped to fourth place.

Rounding out the top 10 were Osher Cohen’s “Kulam Ganavim” (“Everyone’s a Thief”) in fifth place; Odeya Azoulay’s “Rocky” in sixth; Omer Adam’s “Malkat Hador” (“Queen of the Generation”) in seventh; Hanan Ben Ari and Tasi’s “Halevai” (“If Only”) in eighth; Tasi’s “Hee Lo Yoda’at Lama” (“She Doesn’t Know Why”) in ninth; and Ben Zur’s “Kol Akeva Letova” (“Every Delay is for the Best”) in 10th.

The full top 20 also includes a new version of Naomi Shemer’s “Od Lo Ahavti Dai” (“I Haven’t Loved Enough”) performed by Yehoram Gaon and Subliminal, Hatikva 6’s “Israeli Complet” (“Total Israeli”) and “Vayehi Or” (“Let There Be Light”), Noa Kirel’s “Bridezilla,” and Idan Amedi’s “Lo Nishbar” (“Not Broken”).

Eight years of Ohayon 

Avi Ohayon tops songwriters for eighth consecutive year

Ohayon was once again the most-played songwriter and composer on Israeli radio, taking the top spot for the eighth consecutive year.

Tslil Klifi was the year’s most-played female songwriter. She was among the writers of “Michelle,” together with Nadav Aharoni and Yuval Raphael, Israel’s 2025 Eurovision contestant, who, like Bettan, came in second.

Among female performers, Sarit Hadad held onto first place, followed by Eden Ben Zaken, Odeya Azoulay, Agam Buhbut, Yehudit Ravitz, and Noa Kirel.

Golan topped the overall list of male performers. Omer Adam was second, followed by the late Arik Einstein, who came in third, although he died nearly 13 years ago. Veteran singer Shlomo Artzi and Peer Tasi were next in the top five.

The rankings underline the continuing dominance of contemporary Mediterranean and mainstream Israeli pop on radio, but the lists also feature veteran performers and songwriters. Besides Einstein and Artzi, these included Hadad, Ravitz, Gali Atari, Rita, Chava Alberstein, and Ilanit. The late Ofra Haza was the ninth-most-played female performer.

ACUM CEO Assaf Nahum said the past Hebrew year had again been a productive one for Israeli music and said the organization would continue supporting the country’s songwriters and composers.

“I wish our creators a new and fruitful year of creativity, activity, and good music that will continue to bring joy and emotion to all the people of Israel,” he said.

ACUM chairman Yoav Ginai noted that the organization has spent nine decades protecting creators’ rights and strengthening the Israeli music industry.

He wished Israel’s songwriters, composers, publishers, and poets a good year, adding, “May it be a year of peace at home and abroad.”

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Female employees at the Eiffel Tower were asked to step out of sight during a visit by a Hindu religious delegation at the weekend, according to union representatives, prompting a staff protest and an investigation by Paris city authorities.

The monument was closed late on Monday as employees held a meeting over the incident, which has angered staff and drawn criticism from French politicians.

On Saturday, a delegation of about 100 people linked to the Hindu group Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, made a private visit to the Eiffel Tower.

“As the delegation passed through, women were asked to leave their workstations so that men could take their places,” Diane Davoine, a union representative, told Reuters.

“Tensions mounted over the weekend, so this morning, the employees decided to meet: first, to open a dialogue with management, and second, to ensure that women are never treated this way at the company again,” she said.

Signs at the base of the tower on Monday read: “The opening of the Eiffel Tower is delayed for operational reasons.”

Davoine said management apologized to staff over the incident.

Paris launches investigation 

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said that an investigation would be launched “as soon as possible.” In a post on social media platform X, he said he was aware of the employees’ anger and agreed their dissatisfaction was legitimate.

“It is urgent that all light be shed on the facts that led to this protest,” Gregoire wrote.

BAPS, whose representatives were in France for festivities related to the inauguration of a Hindu temple in the Paris suburbs, said in a statement that the visit to the Eiffel Tower was arranged at the start of opening hours to avoid disrupting others, due to the size of its delegation.

“To the best of our knowledge, at no point was anyone prevented access to the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, we sincerely apologize for any pain or inconvenience caused,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for SETE, the company operating the monument, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yael Braun-Pivet, the president of the National Assembly, wrote in a post on X: “Welcoming others never means giving up our values. In France, women are fully present in public life. No one tells them to become invisible.”

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A 46-year-old Jenin resident was arrested on suspicion of stealing the car of Tel Aviv District Court Judge Alaa Masarwa from northern Tel Aviv on Sunday morning.

Shortly after the vehicle was stolen, it was located traveling north on the Ayalon Highway. Police pursued the vehicle and arrested Tarek Jarrar, a Jenin resident who was staying in Israel without a permit, on suspicion of stealing it.

Officers from the Tel Aviv North police station who located the vehicle began following it, while officers from the Glilot station were called to prepare to block its path on Highway 5.

When the driver reached the police checkpoint, officers ordered him to stop. According to police suspicions, he did not comply, struck another vehicle, and continued driving.

Police continued pursuing him until they managed to stop the vehicle.

Body camera footage showed officers approaching the car. When the driver did not respond to their instructions, police smashed the driver’s window and removed him from the vehicle. The driver was then identified as Jarrar.

Suspect claims he did not know car was stolen

During questioning, Jarrar claimed that he did not know the judge’s vehicle had been stolen. According to his account, another person sold him the car, and he believed there was nothing suspicious about the vehicle.

Police suspect Jarrar of vehicle theft, intentionally damaging a vehicle, driving without a license, and driving without insurance.

During a hearing to extend his detention at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, Jarrar’s defense attorney argued that he had entered Israel to look for work due to financial difficulties faced by his family in Jenin.

According to his attorney, another person gave Jarrar the vehicle, and he did not know it had been stolen. During the hearing, the defense attorney asked the court to send him for a psychiatric examination.

Judge’s vehicle returned as investigation continues

The vehicle was returned to Masarwa, while police continued investigating the circumstances surrounding the theft and subsequent chase.

Judge Ravit Peleg Bar Dayan extended Jarrar’s detention until September 8, 2026.

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A senior police official criticized the IDF over the large scale surprise drill that began on Sunday, calling the exclusion of the police “a disgrace.”

“The army is holding a surprise drill, it is a disgrace that the police were not included in the exercise. We learned nothing from October 7,” the official said.

According to the official, the decision to leave the police out of the drill showed that the lessons had not been internalized.

“The army says nothing to the police. A surprise drill that shows the lessons have not been internalized. The army has not learned the lessons. If the police are not part of the security doctrine, the country will pay a heavy price. They have to wake up.”

IDF does not understand strength of police, official says

The official added, “They do not understand the strength of the police. We are not replacing the army, the police officers do not need the soldiers, but we have to be part of it.”

Following the military surprise drill, which began on Sunday without police participation, the police and IDF held a joint exercise in Eilat on Monday, during which forces practiced a scenario involving terrorists infiltrating the city.

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At Ben-Gurion Airport, Israelis are doing what exhausted people do: leaving for a few days.

No one should begrudge them that. Nearly three years after the October 7 massacre, Israel has inflicted serious damage on its enemies but has failed to bring its conflicts to durable conclusions. Hamas remains a threat in Gaza, Hezbollah remains a threat from Lebanon, and Iran and its proxies continue to seek revenge, even as the situation in the West Bank grows more volatile.

At home, the country is entering an election campaign without an authoritative accounting of the failures that brought it here.

People want to breathe. They want a beach, a city break, a family holiday, or simply a week in which every notification does not carry the possibility of another attack.

But boarding a plane is not an escape from being Israeli.

Terrorist organizations and lone-wolf attackers continue to seek opportunities to target Israelis and Jews abroad, particularly as the High Holy Days and the third anniversary of October 7 approach, the National Security Council warned on Sunday.

The notice did not impose new travel warnings, but it described a threat environment that has expanded alongside Israel’s continuing war fronts. Iran and its proxies remain the principal global terrorist threat to Israelis and Jews, the council said, while Hamas is investing resources in building terrorist infrastructure in Europe for possible attacks.

Antisemitic incidents up 136% since 2022

Antisemitism, meanwhile, remains far above its pre-October 7 levels and has become increasingly violent. The 2026 J7 Annual Report on Antisemitism, covering seven of the world’s largest Jewish communities, found that recorded antisemitic incidents were 136% higher in 2025 than in 2022, while violent incidents had risen by 97%.

The Foreign Ministry separately received 45 reports in one year from Israelis who experienced physical assault, verbal abuse, denial of service, or other antisemitic incidents abroad. The figure is not a comprehensive count of every incident, but it reflects a reality that travelers cannot simply dismiss.

Israelis therefore need to understand where they are going, the local threat level, and the protections available to them. They should know how to reach local authorities and the nearest Israeli diplomatic mission. Discrimination should be documented and reported, and credible threats should not be shrugged off. Nobody should be expected to tolerate abuse because of an Israeli passport or a Hebrew accent.

None of this means Israelis must accept collective punishment for their government’s policies. Antisemitism is not caused by an Israeli tourist behaving badly, and violence is never justified by boorishness.

Israelis and Jews abroad should travel responsibly 

That does not eliminate personal responsibility. Travelers should follow official warnings, protect sensitive personal information, avoid demonstrations, and exercise judgment in unfamiliar situations.

They should also respect local laws and treat those around them accordingly. Being alert does not require being confrontational, and knowing one’s rights does not mean turning every dispute into a test of national pride.

Israelis abroad are private citizens, not government spokespeople. Yet regardless of whether they welcome it, they are often readily identified with their country. Their conduct can affect not only how they themselves are treated, but also Jewish communities that will remain after they return home.

This is particularly important at a time when a minor confrontation can be recorded, stripped of context, and circulated as evidence of something much larger. Israelis should not have to perform for the approval of hostile audiences. Basic consideration is not capitulation, however, and needless bravado is not patriotism.

Travelers can reduce their exposure, but they cannot remove the underlying threats. The government cannot treat travel warnings as a substitute for reducing the dangers that increasingly follow Israelis beyond the country’s borders. Individual caution is necessary, but it cannot compensate for the absence of a national strategy capable of bringing Israel’s open fronts toward resolution.

Israelis are entitled to rest, travel, and enjoy the world without apologizing for their existence. After years of war, reserve duty, displacement, bereavement, and uncertainty, the need for respite is neither frivolous nor disloyal.

Crossing the border, however, does not erase their identity or the circumstances surrounding it. Israelis should go abroad with confidence, but also with awareness: knowing their rights, taking genuine dangers seriously, and extending to others the same consideration they rightly expect for themselves.

There may be no vacation from being Israeli. There can still be a responsible way to take one.

This post was originally published on here.