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Likud ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government backed the premier’s eight reserved slots in the party’s list that he would fill at the Likud primaries on Monday, while also characterizing the event as a celebration of the party’s democratic nature.

“We need to build a good team beside and behind Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Agriculture and Food Security Minister Avi Dichter told The Jerusalem Post at the International Convention Center polling station in Jerusalem.

The reserved spots have created tensions in recent weeks as they represent a significant proportion of the 22 seats the Likud is projected to win in the October election.

Should that projection hold, it would mean that only 14 seats on the Likud’s list in the Knesset would be filled by members elected by registered Likud voters.

Even that, though, would be unique in Israeli politics, as the Likud is one of only a handful of parties to hold primaries, and the only party to allow all its registered members to cast a vote.

Ministers defend Netanyahu’s reserved slots

Dichter and other ministers in the party spoke to the Post at the ICC as they headed to cast their ballots. Approximately 140,000 registered Likud members around Israel were eligible to cast votes for candidates at polling stations around the country.

Dichter stated that this year’s primaries had generated a different level of enthusiasm, with turnout among members appearing “higher and stronger,” and voters arriving with “a wide smile on their face.”

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi also defended Netanyahu’s reserved slots, stating they “are nothing new. They existed last time as well.”

 “There are a few more now,” he said, “but they allow the prime minister, who has to coordinate the entire system, including alliances between parties and preserving the bloc, to continue leading Likud to victory.”

Additionally, Karhi argued that the primaries were still democratic, noting that “beyond the reserved slots, which are something the prime minister needs to be given the ability to use, everyone else competes in the primaries.”

 “It’s a celebration of democracy,” he added.

Likud ministers call primaries a celebration of democracy 

Transportation Minister Miri Regev also defended the democratic nature of the primaries, echoing Karhi’s characterization of the event.

While also calling it a “celebration of democracy,” she indicated that Netanyahu’s reserved slots were less democratic.

 “There’s no doubt that with the reserved slots, half of the list is democratic, and half of the list consists of reserved slots.”
Culture Minister Miki Zohar told the Post that he supported Netanyahu “all the way” and was not bothered by the reserved slots that were up to the prime minister’s discretion to fill.

He also said, regarding lower recent polling that shows the Likud receiving approximately 22 seats rather than the 32 seats that the party currently has, that he  believed “by the elections, the results will be different.”

 “We’ll grow stronger. The polls never flatter us, but when the real results come in, we always deliver a strong result, and that’s what will happen this time as well.”

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The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and Israeli security forces evacuated an illegal settler outpost near Susya, in the southern Hebron hills, on Monday, according to Army Radio.

The outpost, known as Givat Or Yehuda, was reportedly the site of a violent incident three months earlier, which Army Radio cited as the reason for Monday’s evacuation.

In May, when Israeli security forces arrived at the outpost to confiscate stolen and illegally held vehicles, extremist settler residents threw stones at police officers and blocked roads to prevent them from moving.

The evacuation comes on the heels of a string of violent settler attacks on the Palestinian village of Kusra near Nablus, over 100km north of Susya, which resulted in the IDF declaring the area a closed military zone.

However, some 15 extremist settlers entered Kusra again on Saturday, though the IDF had declared the area a closed military zone, Army Radio reported.

IDF troops arrived at the area where the Jewish extremists were gathered and read the closed military area order to the settlers, who then left the area, Army Radio reported later.

Military to conduct probe into Kusra incident, settler leaders condemn violent acts in the village 

A military spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post earlier in August that the IDF would be conducting a probe into the incident.

The probe will cover why it took the IDF 48 hours to evacuate the illegal outpost set up by Jewish extremists, as well as why the military did not remove the outpost for a second time after the settlers returned.

Palestinian residents who remain in the area told Israel’s public broadcaster KAN News that they still feel threatened by Jewish extremists.

The recent events in Kusra drew international attention and prompted condemnations of settler violence from figures who otherwise strongly support Israeli settlement in the West Bank, including several settlement officials and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Ben-Gvir told KAN News that while he admires the extremist settlers building outposts, “there are some among them who really need to be stopped.”

Corinne Baum, Shir Perets, Jerusalem Post Staff, and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.

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A genetic test conducted privately at a laboratory abroad has raised concerns that the sperm donor whose donation was used to conceive a woman’s children may not be a genetic match, the Health Ministry announced on Monday.

The ministry began reviewing the case after receiving a report from Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv regarding the test.

The review includes an examination of the test itself and the laboratory where it was conducted. Professionals are also reviewing the case in coordination with Assuta Medical Center.

Assuta pledges to conduct thorough investigation into incident in coordination with Health Ministry

Assuta said it had recently received an inquiry from the patient raising questions about the origin of the sperm donation.

“A short time ago, we received an inquiry from a patient who raised doubts regarding the source of the sperm donation she had selected and from which her child was born,” Assuta said in a statement.

“Upon receiving the inquiry, Assuta immediately reported the matter to the Health Ministry, as is standard practice, and opened an in-depth investigation into the case.”

Further testing will be required before any conclusions can be reached, the statement added.

“At this early stage, it is not yet possible to reach conclusions, and additional tests are required. Assuta is in direct contact with the patient and will conduct the review process transparently and in full coordination with the Health Ministry,” Assuta added.

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A Hamas explosive device detonated in northern Gaza near the Yellow Line in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the IDF.

Gazans also fired at the same area at the time of the explosion. There were no casualties, the military confirmed.

Following the explosion, Israeli forces attacked in the area of the Yellow Line.

This event, the IDF claimed, constituted a ceasefire violation on the part of Hamas, something that the military warned soldiers they should be prepared for, according to a Sunday Channel 12 report.

Channel 12 also reported that IDF soldiers were instructed to attack a group of six Hamas operatives who crossed the Yellow Line on Friday in order to steal Israeli military equipment. They were evidently not hit and retreated.

On Saturday, IDF soldiers attacked two more Gazans who were attempting to cross the Yellow Line, per the Channel 12 report, which added that the Gazans were attempting to steal pipes.

IDF strikes Hamas terror cell, resuming preemptive strikes despite Trump’s Gaza deal

The air force on Thursday attacked a Gazan terror cell in Khan Yunis, the second such attack in two days. These attacks had ceased since the US-Hamas deal in late July.

IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post that the cell, while not very senior, was nonetheless in the process of planning and preparing an operation against the military.
 
According to the sources, the IDF has halted its attacks on Hamas leadership and on the terror group’s members involved in the October 7 invasion ever since the US-Hamas deal. However, they said that the IDF is still carrying out strikes against operatives whom it knows are preparing attacks.

Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.

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A group of 10 Jewish, Hindu, and Zoroastrian parents filed a lawsuit against Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto High Principal Brent Kline for reportedly pushing students to wear Islamic religious attire during a field trip to a local mosque.

The lawsuit (5:2026cv08249) was brought by the group Community Members for Religious Neutrality in Public Schools, San Francisco Bay Area. Among the plaintiffs are Jewish parents Jafi Lipson, Josh Lehrer, former Jewish student Sasha Ava Lehrer, Hindu parent Pawan Deshpande, Zoroastrian parent Dinsha Mistree, Jewish resident Linor Levav, and four anonymous Jewish plaintiffs.

According to the suit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on August 7, the Palo Alto High School students were encouraged to wear Muslim religious attire, including hijabs for the girls, during the visit to the Muslim Community Association’s mosque in Santa Clara in fall 2025. They were also given Qurans as gifts to take home.

“The district failed to maintain religious neutrality, failed to ensure equal treatment among faiths, failed to protect student privacy and failed to vet, supervise, and monitor religiously divisive outside speakers during the school-sponsored event,” reads the lawsuit.

Students also engaged with Noor Hifz Academy, the mosque’s religious youth program in which Islamic students memorize the Quran, and heard from Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Council of American-Islamic Relations.

Billoo was ‘allowed unfettered access to students’

The lawsuit alleged that Billoo was “allowed unfettered access to students to advocate personal religious and political views without balancing perspective or adequate supervision.” The plaintiffs note that Billoo has previously made “hostile and discriminatory statements regarding Jews.”

The parents added that school officials “knew or should have known of the recurring nature of the challenged field trips, the foreseeable risk that students would be exposed to religious activity and ideological messaging during those events, and the risk that student images would be captured and publicly disseminated in a religious context.”

“Despite such knowledge, PAUSD failed to adopt and enforce adequate safeguards, thereby causing the constitutional injuries alleged in this Complaint,” the suit states.

The lawsuit also claims that photos were taken of students on the trip without parental consent.

No informed parental authorization

The parents say the school “facilitated photography and public dissemination of student images in a religious context without specific, informed parental authorization and by placing students in circumstances that publicly associated them with a particular faith.”

Billoo told the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday that “Public schools and the government have an obligation to remain neutral toward religion, but what neutrality does not mean is shielding students entirely.”

“One of the most important ways we combat hate is to learn about each other,” Billoo said. “I am concerned that this group of parents not only wants to counteract that for their own children … but is attempting to intimidate schools and school districts from doing necessary work of educating the next generation.”

PAUSD Superintendent Jason Glass told the SF Chronicle that district policy requires that teachings about religion be academic, and not devotional, and that no faith may be promoted or denigrated. He said PAUSD is reviewing its practices and would not comment further on pending litigation.

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Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his “resolute stance” on Gaza disarmament following the Board of Peace meeting in Jerusalem on Monday, but added that the stated goal of destroying Hamas was “incompatible with conducting negotiations with Hamas leaders, who should not be alive at all.”

Smotrich further asserted that Netanyahu’s stated goals for Gaza were only “halfway there,” with the missing half being full Israeli control of Gaza, including Israeli settlement there. 

Netanyahu: Advancing Trump’s Gaza plan is ‘problematic’

Jared Kushner, Board of Peace Director-General Nikolay Mladenov, and Tony Blair met with Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Monday, continuing to apply pressure on Israel to move forward with the next stage of the US plan for Gaza and advance US President Donald Trump‘s 20-point plan, including the 15-point document on disarming Hamas.

Netanyahu told attendees of the Board of Peace meeting on Monday that making progress on the US plan for Gaza was “problematic” because of the approaching Knesset elections in October, CNN reported.

After CNN reported Netanyahu’s reticence to move forward with the plans, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement saying the prime minister and the BoP had “deep and constructive discussions” and agreed to establish two working groups.

One group would be focused on Gaza disarmament and demilitarization, and another would focus on sanitation, clean water, and other public health issues for the people of Gaza.

Amichai Stein and Idan Kweller contributed to this report.

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If you want to know how to judge the character of a nation, do it by the nature of their taxi drivers.

They should be talkative, funny, and controversial – and invariably are. In the UK it is the quality of the jokes they tell, the football teams they support, and – just as importantly – the ones that they hate.

In Liverpool they hate Everton or Liverpool, and in London they hate either Tottenham or Arsenal. Depends on their taste.

In Ireland, in our last week of “pilgrimage” before returning home to Zichron, the taxi driver to and from Dublin airport spoke volumes. Literally. 

In fact, neither of them stopped talking and had faces best described as lived-in, the accommodation having been shared with countless pints of Guinness.

My view of the Irish was that I always adored them, and so it was hardly a surprise that I married one. What were the roots of this affection?

It is the heroes from every walk of Irish life that besieged me from all directions.

They are highlighted by Oscar Wilde, who was to be found in The Café Royal, a fashionable restaurant, with his green carnation, drinking champagne and leaning over his young partner Bosie, with whom he conducted an affair.

It was, in his time, wholly unlawful and disgusted Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry. The affair led to Wilde’s undoing. He died in poverty, but his plays and novels live on.

Then there were the brothers Yeats, Jack and WB, who towered over the art and literary worlds respectively. Jack’s thickly painted scenes at the races or the circus and WB’s poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” excite the deepest emotions within the onlooker.

Perhaps the last category to mention is the military heroes of the Revolution in the early 20th century. 

Foremost among them was Michael Collins, the “big fella,” chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and of the same stature as Lawrence of Arabia, Orde Wingate, and probably closest akin to Menachem Begin. 

And during this period, the British Government and British Army were Ireland’s natural enemy.

The Black and Tans, a force recruited by the British-run Royal Irish Constabulary, was recruited to suppress the IRA during the 1920s, which they did with real brutality. And therein lies the deep-rooted hatred of the English by the Irish.

We had an Irish housekeeper from Cork who hated the British, but only agreed to work for us in London as she thought of us as Jewish, not English.

Envy and stupidity

So let me understand this: Britain was the enemy from whom the Irish were seeking liberation. The Irish struggled to found a republic – which they did. There were founding heroes of the state. Is this starting to ring a bell?

The British Army was the enemy of Israel during the mandate. Surely Ireland could not fail to become the natural ally of Israel?

Wasn’t Chaim Herzog raised in Dublin, serving in the Hagana and the British Army during World War II, making a close link when he became president of Israel? Has not the new president been able to forge the connection?

The answer is no.

Their relations have gone from bad to worse, and in the years since October 7, the Irish have launched a tirade of invective against the State of Israel and its leaders.

Examples: the previous president of Ireland, Michael Higgins, has slandered Israel’s actions in Gaza on every occasion. He had, of course, sprinkled terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” around like confetti. 

Higgins is not a very tall man – he’s only 160 centimeters tall – but each and every centimeter is carefully honed with spite and hate for the only Jewish state.

The new taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheal Martin, has changed the views he had when foreign minister to the usual – “genocide” and “collective punishment” – urging the European Union to take ever stronger steps against Israel.

But whilst taoiseachs, presidents, press, and TV all seem united in their prejudice, they are followed sheep-like by the public, a majority of whom support trade restrictions and full BDS.

On The Late Late Show, discussing Iran, Alan Shatter, a former justice minister, mentioned tunnels and rapes to an audience of 500. He was met with laughter and derision.

Why? In Ireland’s case, pure envy is a likely candidate. Ever since it became a member of the EU in 1973, it has had a reputation of “take, take.” 

By 2010, Ireland faced financial collapse due to housing and banking bubbles. In total, they received a €67.5 billion external bailout package from the EU, including loans from other nations, like Sweden – coincidentally, another Israel-hating friend.

By contrast, it sees Israel as strong and standing on its own two feet. Ireland has seen incoming hi-tech giants from America, from whom it takes taxes. Israel leads on its own.

My in-laws are part of the dwindling Jewish community who do not know from which direction the next abuse will come, as Ireland has succeeded France as the most antisemitic country in the world. A shame, as Ireland richly deserves its romantic label.

The expression “green with envy” happens to coincide with Ireland’s national color. It is also the butt of jokes, which claim the folk from the countryside are stupid.

Both envy and stupidity recently combined when the government purchased a jet for its “high-flying” greedy representatives. So driven by envy and hatred, they removed the plane’s landing assistance for the fog because it was manufactured in Israel. 

A combination of envy and stupidity motivated their actions. Mind you, even without fog, Ireland clearly has lost its way.

Nigel Lithman is a retired criminal judge and author. Having made aliyah from London, he lives in Zichron Ya’acov.

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A seven-year-old Israeli child was killed, and his four-year-old cousin was moderately injured in a suspected stabbing at a home in Beit Shemesh on Monday.

The seven-year-old was later named as Hillel Mordechai Dadon.

Paramedics found the children suffering from stab wounds in the family’s pool after emergency services received a report of the incident.

Israeli media reports indicated the children were allegedly attacked by a mentally unstable individual who reportedly entered the home and assaulted them after the mother of one of the children left the home.

According to Magen David Adom (MDA), two children were rushed to Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem for further treatment. 

The four-year-old reportedly arrived at the hospital in moderate condition, fully conscious, and is currently undergoing surgery. The seven-year-old, however, was pronounced dead upon arrival at Hadassah’s trauma center.

Israeli Police later released a statement that they had opened an official investigation into the attack, and added that a suspect had been arrested following the assault.

Paramedics describe horrifying scene

MDA paramedic, Yosef Haim Bernfeld, described the scene as horrifying, saying, “We were led to two children who had suffered serious injuries to their bodies, including seven-year-old boy who was unconscious, with no pulse and not breathing, and a four-year-old boy who was conscious.”

At the time of the incident, a 15-year-old relative was reportedly responsible for supervising the children.

The 15-year-old is now receiving assistance at the scene from a social worker.

Child killed in Beit Shemesh traffic accident

In a separate incident in Beit Shemesh on Monday, a 4-year-old boy was pronounced dead after being struck by a vehicle. 

MDA paramedics who arrived at the scene stated they found the boy unconscious and suffering from multiple serious injuries. They immediately initiated resuscitation efforts, but were ultimately unable to revive him and pronounced him dead at the scene.

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The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) arrested and charged a 30-year-old man for attacking an Israeli journalism crew with a glass, the police spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

As previously reported by the Post, a crew from i24NEWS’ Hebrew channel was attacked earlier in the month in the Northern Irish capital while filming for a documentary series on Europe’s rising antisemitism.

The incident happened while i24NEWS reporter Yonatan Raveh and cameraman Nadav Abbas were conducting street interviews near a well-known bar complex.

Journalists say attacker targeted them after hearing they were Israeli

Raveh told the Post on Sunday that he believed the attacker, a man, had overheard them telling two Irish interviewees that they were from Israel.

“He came over to us and started asking questions. We put the camera on him, and then he gave us the middle finger and shouted: “f*** Israel.”

The man attempted to grab Raveh and Abbas’ camera equipment, and made inappropriate gestures toward the camera. Raveh and Abbas called for police or security from any of the nearby establishments to intervene while the man followed them threateningly.

Raveh told the Post that bar security came over, saw what was happening, but “didn’t do anything.”

The man then threw a large glass beer mug at Abbas, hitting him in the head and cutting him. Security then intervened and put the journalists in the bar.

Police file multiple charges after Belfast incident

Local police told the Post that a 30-year-old man has been charged with a number of offenses including assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault, assault on police and two counts of possession of an offensive weapon in a public place.

He appeared before Belfast Magistrates Court on Thursday 13th August. As is normal procedure, all charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service.

Political leaders condemn attack

Democratic Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson said the assault is “deeply concerning.”

“There can be absolutely no justification for violence or intimidation directed towards journalists because they are Israeli or Jewish.”

He said the PSNI must fully investigate the circumstances of the incident, including its motivation.

“People are entitled to hold strong views about the Middle East, but that can never become a license for hatred or violence against Israeli or Jewish people,” Robinson added.

He also said that Northern Ireland “knows only too well” where hatred based on identity can lead.

“If this attack was motivated by antisemitism, it must be recognized and condemned unequivocally. There must be no place for antisemitism or any form of intimidation on our streets,” he concluded.

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Israeli flags planted on a main coastal highway in southern Lebanon are a violation of a UN Security Council resolution, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Monday, urging all sides to avoid “provocative actions.”

Israel’s military invaded a swathe of southern Lebanon during a war with Hezbollah earlier this year, establishing a self-declared security zone it says aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by the Iran-backed group.

A video posted on Sunday by Israel’s Channel 12 news journalist Amit Segal showed Israeli flags flying along the Naqoura-Tyre coastal road, a primary artery for southern Lebanon and a route used by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Like in Judea and Samaria: Israeli flags are flying along Lebanon’s coastal road, between Naqoura and Tyre. pic.twitter.com/rym6rwNKXD

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) August 16, 2026

The footage appeared to have been taken from a military vehicle.

Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video, but could not verify when the footage was filmed. Segal told Reuters he was sent the video by Israeli soldiers.

Israel is ‘not acting against the Lebanese state or its citizens,’ military says

Peacekeepers have observed several Israeli flags in Lebanese territory, including recently on the coastal road and in Naqoura village, UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said.

Ardiel said the Israeli flags were a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

“As always, we call on the IDF and all actors to cease violations of the resolution and avoid any provocative action that could increase tensions or trigger further violations,” Ardiel added.

Israel’s military, in response to a request for comment, said that its forces were “operating in southern Lebanon with the aim of removing threats posed by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to Israeli civilians and IDF troops, in accordance with international law.”

“Israel is not acting against the Lebanese state or its citizens,” the military said.

There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese army.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that Israel won’t withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.

A US-brokered deal between the governments of Lebanon and Israel foresees a progressive Israeli withdrawal linked to Hezbollah’s verified disarmament.

Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, strongly opposes Beirut’s talks with Israel and has ruled out any discussion of its weapons before an Israeli withdrawal.

Netanyahu cites Lebanon buffer zone as major achievement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an October election, listed the buffer zone as a major achievement during a visit with troops on June 30.

The zone is mostly empty of Lebanese civilians who fled villages that are now all but destroyed.

At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, some of the deadliest in weeks. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure in response to actions against its soldiers there.

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About 15 years ago, I first heard an outspoken complaint about the “exaggerated” number of Arab doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and cleaners in Israel’s hospitals. 

The person who complained was a young religious woman, of American origin, who was doing her national service at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and the presence of Arab staff members irritated her. 

“After all,” she said, “we are a Jewish state, and the Arabs are our enemies”.

Had I been able to reply, I would have pointed out to her that Israel is indeed a Jewish state, but it is also a democratic one.

I would have also pointed out that around 20% of its citizens and inhabitants are Muslim and Christian Arabs who have the right to vote in the Israeli Knesset elections – and expect to be treated as equals. 

The situation isn’t straightforward, since unfortunately Israel is still in a state of war with most of the Arab states, which creates a rather unique security reality. 

However, that does not change the fact that the Israeli Arabs are not guilty of constituting a danger to the state, unless proven otherwise.

Thus, what the young woman had said was categorized in my mind as pure, anti-Arab racism. As I remember from my childhood in Haifa, such racism has always been prevalent in Israel to a certain extent, especially in certain right-wing circles.

Not surprisingly, since October 7, 2023, such sentiments have spread and become much stronger due to the horrors committed by Hamas on that day, and because of the hesitation in certain Palestinian circles to condemn them. 

The fact that on Oct. 7 quite a few Israeli Arabs were murdered by Hamas in the Gaza environs, while others were taken hostage, did not leave much of an impression on most Israeli Jews.

Following the events in Lebanon a week and a half ago, four badly wounded Israeli soldiers were brought to the intensive care ward at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. 

According to the brother of one of the wounded soldiers, on the night between Friday (August 8) and Saturday (August 9), when his brother woke up from being sedated and ventilated, he was maltreated by an “Arabic-speaking medical team” who didn’t even let his relatives enter the ward.

The story was brought to light in a post by the uncle of the two brothers, Yehoshua Shani, who serves as the chairperson of the Forum of Heroism, a right-wing forum of the families of soldiers killed in the war in Gaza. 

The forum favors the continued fighting in the Gaza Strip until a total victory.

It also objected to the deals that were negotiated for the release of the hostages because it felt that the prolonged ceasefire included in them would undermine Israel’s security, impart achievements to Hamas, which it does not deserve, and endanger the lives of the rest of Israel’s citizens and military forces in the long run.

Shani complained that hospitalized Arab terrorists in Israeli hospitals are taken better care of than wounded Israeli soldiers.

“Who watches over our fighters?” he asked.

Rambam examined the allegations and found them to be baseless. The conclusion was supported by the director-general of the Health Ministry, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, as well as various Israeli medical organizations.

However, Shani’s and his nephew’s accusations were rapidly echoed by various right-wing politicians and reporters, who inter alia called for reducing the percentage of Arab professional staff in the Israeli medical system in general and its hospitals in particular.

Arab MKs and left-wing spokespersons referred to the event as another manifestation of poisonous anti-Arab racism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained silent on the issue. 

Defense Minister Israel Katz took the side of those who believed that the Arab medical staff at Rambam had behaved atrociously, but then went silent when the accusations against them were rejected out of hand.

And what about Health Minister Haim Katz? Well, he’s currently a temporary replacement, after the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties resigned from the government in July 2025. 

He serves not only as health minister, but also as construction and housing minister, welfare and social security minister, and his original ministerial post: tourism minister. No one really expected him to say anything on health issues.

Looking at the numbers

According to a study by Bruce Rosen and Sami Miaari, published in 2025 in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, in 2010, 8% of the doctors in Israel were Arabs. Thirteen years later, the percentage was up to 25%. 

In 2023, Arab dentists comprised 27%, Arab male and female nurses comprised 27%, and Arab pharmacists were 49%. The percentage of Arabs in the Israeli population is 21%.

MK Moshe Saada (Likud) has explained the percentage increase of Arab doctors in the Israeli health system by claiming that there is a system of affirmative action in Israel that works to the advantage of the Arab doctors.

He has also suggested changing affirmative action in the field to benefit those who have done military or national service.

Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) has blamed it on the fact that Arab doctors trained in Palestinian universities, such as Nablus and Jenin, are accepted as interns in Israeli hospitals.

The sad fact is that even with all the Arab doctors, the major problem in Israel’s health system today is the serious shortage of doctors in the country.

This is because Israeli universities are not training a sufficient number of doctors; many of the Israelis who study medicine abroad do not return after completing their studies; and among the large number of highly trained Israelis who have left Israel in recent years due to the political and military situation in the country (around 90,000 in 2025), many are doctors. 

Thus, one might say that the large numbers of Arab doctors in the Israeli health system are a blessing. Paradoxically, it is said in Arab circles that there are at least 4,000 trained Arab doctors in Israel today who have not managed to find suitable positions.

In conclusion, I would say that one of the problems we must confront is not that there are too many Arabs in our medical system, but that there are not enough Jews in it.

Furthermore, while there are always security issues that must be dealt with, both amongst Israel’s Jewish population and its Arab population, sheer anti-Arab racism in the Jewish population, just like anti-Jewish racism amongst the Arab population, must be dealt with – first and foremost in the education system.

The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.

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For years, the world has been told a very simple story about Arabs and Israel. Arabs on one side. Israelis on the other. It is always pinned as conflict, division, or suspicion. But recently, I stood in a space that told a very different story.

I was attending the anniversary of IDF Unit 585, the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion, a unit made up predominantly of Bedouin soldiers, alongside other Arab and minority service members. The battalion was established in the late 1980s and has long operated in Israel’s south, particularly around the Gaza border. For many of its Arab soldiers, service is voluntary rather than mandatory. 

This unit is made up largely of Arab soldiers, including but not limited to members of Israel’s Bedouin and Druze communities. And as I looked around the event, I realized how few people outside of Israel even know this unit exists, because I myself didn’t know it existed. 

That matters. Because when the world talks about Israel, it often speaks in absolutes. Israelis and Arabs are presented as two groups who could never share a uniform, a mission, or a sense of responsibility for the same country. Then you meet the soldiers of Unit 585.

At the anniversary, I spoke with veterans who had served in the unit decades ago. Their names cannot be published, but their pride was impossible to miss.

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“We are soldiers from Unit 585,” one group of veterans told me. “We enlisted in 1979, and today we came to honor and celebrate 40 years.”

There was something striking about hearing that sentence while standing beside Arab soldiers serving in the battalion today. Different generations. The same unit. Men who had enlisted decades earlier had returned to stand alongside young Arab soldiers currently serving in Israel’s military, including soldiers who have operated in the Gaza border region and across southern Israel.

One current soldier described the moment simply: “Today we are marking 40 years since the battalion was established. Some of our veterans, together with the soldiers serving today, are here with us.” It was a place full of people whose lives complicate the version of Israel most of the world has been taught.

Why the story of Unit 585 matters

And that is exactly why I believe their story matters. Most people outside of Israel will never meet an Arab Israeli soldier. Many do not even realize that Arab citizens serve in the Israeli military at all. The idea does not fit neatly into the categories they have been given. But reality rarely fits neatly into categories.

Israel is home to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouins, and people from countless backgrounds. Their experiences are not identical. Their politics are not identical. Their relationship with the country is not identical. That complexity is not a weakness. It is the story.

Unit 585 represents one part of that story that deserves far more attention. Service in this unit is a choice. These soldiers made the decision to put on an Israeli uniform, train as combat soldiers, and serve alongside people from communities different from their own.

For some, military service can also mean learning Hebrew fluently, gaining skills, building relationships, and creating opportunities for the future. But beyond any individual benefit, something bigger is happening.

People whom the outside world is constantly told should see one another only as enemies are serving beside one another. They train together. They depend on one another. They protect the same communities. They become friends.

That does not erase every disagreement in Israeli society. It does not mean discrimination does not exist, or that every Arab citizen feels the same way about the state. It should not. Real societies are complicated. But acknowledging complexity is very different from pretending these stories do not exist. 

I have spent years speaking about Israel, and one of the hardest things about advocacy is watching an entire country reduced to a headline. Israel is discussed constantly, but Israelis themselves are often absent from the conversation.

Arab Israelis are discussed constantly, too. Yet how often are Arab Israelis actually allowed to speak for themselves? How often does the world meet the Bedouin soldier who volunteered to serve? How often does it hear from the veteran who enlisted decades ago and still returns to celebrate the unit he helped build? How often do people encounter a story that does not fit the narrative they were expecting?

That is why being at the anniversary stayed with me. The most powerful part was not a speech or a ceremony. It was the people. 

Veterans greeting current soldiers. Young soldiers saluting the generation that came before them. Men from different parts of the country gathered around the same history. You could feel that this unit meant something to them. And I kept thinking about how invisible that reality is outside of Israel.

If your only understanding of this country comes from social media, you may never know that a place like Unit 585 exists. If your understanding of Israelis and Arabs comes exclusively through the language of conflict, you may never imagine them standing beside one another in uniform. 

That is the danger of telling simple stories about complicated places. Eventually, the story becomes more powerful than the people living inside it. I do not think Unit 585 proves that Israel is perfect. That is not the point.

I think it proves that reality is more interesting, more difficult, and more human than the version we are often offered. It is possible for tension to exist alongside partnership. It is possible for different identities to exist inside the same country. It is possible for people with different religions, languages, and family histories to choose to stand together. And it is possible for someone to be Arab and Israeli without those identities canceling each other out.

The world needs to know about Unit 585 because the world needs more stories that challenge certainty. Stories that force us to look at people before categories. Stories that remind us that a country cannot be understood through its worst headline. Stories that make us uncomfortable with easy answers. Standing at that anniversary, surrounded by soldiers who had served generations apart, I was reminded of something I have learned again and again through advocacy: 

You cannot understand a place if you refuse to meet the people who complicate your assumptions about it.

Unit 585 complicates assumptions.

That is exactly why its story should be told.

The writer is the current Miss Israel.

This post was originally published on here. 

In the run-up to the September 2019 election – the second election that year – Israelis driving along the country’s roads were greeted by massive billboards showing a smiling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with a beaming US President Donald Trump. The caption read: “Netanyahu. Another league.”

Similar posters from that campaign showed Netanyahu alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Tuesday, in the run-up to October’s election, Israelis driving through Tel Aviv encountered a very different billboard. This one featured a stern Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, alongside New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem. The caption read: “They want Netanyahu to lose. Don’t let them win.”

In 2019, Netanyahu ran on the prestige of those standing with him – chiefly Trump. In 2026, with Trump so far staying out of the election, Netanyahu is running on the fear inspired by those standing against him: Khamenei, Mamdani, Erdogan and Qassem.

What a difference seven years makes.

The contrast between the two billboards reflects more than a change in campaign tactics. It captures a fundamental change in Netanyahu’s appeal.

In 2019, the message was that Netanyahu’s relationships with powerful world leaders enhanced Israel’s standing. He was the man who could pick up the phone and reach Trump, Putin, and Modi. Their willingness to stand beside him showed that Israel – under his leadership – was diplomatically in another league.

In 2026, the message is different: Israel is surrounded by enemies and needs the man those enemies most want defeated. The equation is simple: If Israel’s enemies want Netanyahu out, Israelis should want him in.

Then, Netanyahu was running on the strength of the relationships he had built. Now he is running on the hostility of his enemies.

Trump says he should stay out of Israeli elections

Asked Monday about the upcoming Israeli election in a FOX News interview, Trump said: “I think it’s most appropriate for me to stay out of Israeli elections, but I may endorse somebody.”

Trump’s failure so far to endorse Netanyahu – as he has done in the past – may help explain the Likud’s pivot. Instead of putting the US president on its billboards as someone who wants Netanyahu to win, it is putting Israel’s enemies on them as people who want him to lose.

And Mamdani’s inclusion in this lineup is particularly telling.

Mamdani is obviously different from the other three. He does not command an army or battalions of terrorists and is not waging war against Israel. His importance to the Likud is symbolic. He represents the spread of hard-line anti-Israel politics infecting the Western mainstream.

The billboard does not necessarily suggest that Mamdani poses the same kind of threat as Khamenei, Erdogan, or Qassem. It does suggest that the Likud considers the political current he represents dangerous enough to place alongside the threats posed by Iran, Hezbollah, and Turkey.

And his inclusion is as ironic as it is telling.

Just as Mamdani used his bogus promise to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York to rally his far Left base, Netanyahu is using Mamdani’s hostility toward Israel to fire up his hard-right base.

Each man benefits politically from the other. Mamdani uses Netanyahu as a symbol of everything his progressive supporters oppose; Netanyahu uses Mamdani as the face of a progressive movement implacably hostile to Israel.

And then there is the Trump factor.

Judging by his comment to FOX – that he may still endorse somebody – Trump apparently believes his endorsement could make a difference.

History does not bear out Trump’s endorsements making a difference

But history does not necessarily bear that out.

Trump repeatedly took highly visible steps in the past that benefited Netanyahu shortly before Israeli elections.

Nineteen days before the April 2019 election, he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Three days before the September 2019 election, he tweeted that he had spoken with Netanyahu about advancing a US-Israel mutual defense treaty and looked forward to continuing those discussions after the vote. And a month and four days before the March 2020 election, he rolled out the Deal of the Century.

The Abraham Accords, unveiled in September 2020, came six months before the March 2021 Israeli election. But their timing had more to do with giving Trump a boost before his own election than with helping Netanyahu six months later.

All these moves were significant diplomatic achievements for Netanyahu. None, however, gave him a clear and decisive electoral victory. Even after the March 2020 election, when he managed to form a government, it was an unstable unity coalition that lasted less than a year.

Paradoxically, the election in that cycle of five elections over three and a half years that enabled Netanyahu to form a durable right-wing coalition came in November 2022, when Trump was no longer president, and the administration of then-president Joe Biden made no secret of its preference for a more centrist Israeli government.

A Trump endorsement, therefore, may not be all it is cracked up to be – especially since his standing among the Israeli public is not what it once was. Much of the country is concerned about how he is handling Iran and how he is restricting Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon and Gaza.

The Israel Democracy Institute, which has carefully tracked Israelis’ attitudes toward Trump, found in March that 60% of Israelis believed that the country’s security was a central consideration for Trump. By July, that number had fallen to 28%.

And the part of this poll most interesting to Likud strategists is that the decline among right-wing voters – those Netanyahu needs to keep in his camp – was comparatively steep, falling from 70% to 35%.

In other words, the reason the Likud has Mamdani on the poster rather than Trump may not simply be that the US president has not yet endorsed Netanyahu. It may also be that, at this point, Mamdani’s opposition is more useful to Netanyahu’s campaign than Trump’s support.

Trump may yet endorse Netanyahu. And history shows that when he has acted to help him, he has often done so close to election day.

But the contrast between the billboards suggests that the Likud is no longer certain that Trump’s support carries the political weight it once did.

In 2019, Netanyahu asked Israelis to look at Trump standing beside him. In 2026, he is asking them to look at Mamdani, Khamenei, Erdogan, and Qassem standing against him.

Then, the message was: “See where I have taken Israel.” Now it is: “See who wants me gone.”

This post was originally published on here. 

A newly established Chabad House in the coastal resort town of Hiriketiya, Sri Lanka, faced a protest violent protests calling for its closure last Friday night. 

The facility, which opened two weeks ago to serve Israeli and Jewish travelers visiting the region with kosher food, Shabbat meals, and community services, has encountered opposition from some local residents and Buddhist monks.

According to Rabbi Yossi Gabai, the center has been targeted by individuals protesting its presence. 

‘They claim that Jews here are destroying tourism’

In a statement provided to The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Gabai stated: “What actually happened, to return to the story from the beginning, is that there are a few antisemitic people, most of the local residents actually love us and welcome us. But there are a few local antisemites who are really bothered by the fact that there is a Chabad House here, with the presence of Jews and Israelis who are here. They claim that Jews here are ‘destroying the tourism,’ which is of course the opposite.”

David Sarosi, an Israeli traveler who was staying near the center at the time, recounted in a statement to the Post that he arrived at the Chabad House on Friday morning after hearing shouting.

He described seeing a demonstration of about one hundred people carrying signs, noting that “even a few Europeans” were present. Sarosi stated that a group of men approached him, warning him not to take pictures, and said they “came with the intention of starting to beat me.” He added that police intervened and pulled him inside the facility before the gate was closed. 

Gabai described the protests surrounding the center, noting that demonstrators gathered outside during Friday evening services: “They simply decided to go out in a protest that we need to leave from here. They are generating a lot of pressure, and… caused a lot of noise on Friday, during the Friday dinner. They blocked people from coming close to the Chabad House, blocked the workers, threatened people here, threw drones and firecrackers, and made a lot of noise to disturb the Friday dinner here at Chabad.”

Sarosi similarly detailed that the demonstration grew “more violent and aggressive” during the Friday night meal, describing how protesters set up sound boxes playing music and Arabic songs, launched fireworks that created “crazy booms,” and hurled a large rock that shattered a window. Sarosi noted that many of the attendees inside were military reservists who had recently served in the army and war, remarking that “all these booms really bothered us.” 

Footage circulating on social media from the demonstration captures groups gathered outside the facility amidst heightened tensions, showing protesters and monks demonstrating near the premises while police and local authorities monitor the disturbance. 

JABAD BAJO ASEDIO: Fieles atrapados durante ataques de turbas en Sri Lanka

En medio de una avalancha de noticias sobre ataques contra israelíes y judíos en lugares exóticos de todo el mundo, surge la historia de una protesta contra una Casa Jabad recién inaugurada en la ciudad… pic.twitter.com/SEe4ErCfBu

— Radio Jai (@fmjai) August 16, 2026

According to Sarosi, the unrest escalated further on Saturday night, with participants throwing stones and fireworks at the building. Sarosi recounted that as he and a friend attempted to head toward his hotel, someone from the demonstration came and started beating him and his wife immediately grabbed him. He managed to retreat back inside the Chabad House as the gate was locked. According to Sarosi, the crowd outside “started throwing stones and fireworks at us” and shooting fireworks toward the building. He noted that it took police approximately ten minutes to arrive and secure the area, allowing those inside to leave safely.

Sarosi also stated that the following morning, the Chabad rabbi shared a screenshot from local social media containing allegations against him, which Sarosi asserted were false, claiming he had threatened women with a stick. He added that a false police complaint was filed against him over the incident.

According to Rabbi Gabai, disturbances continued following Shabbat, prompting increased security measures. “We are in contact with the Foreign Ministry, and we had a meeting with the consul,” Gabai added, noting that additional coordination is ongoing with local authorities to ensure security at the facility. 

This post was originally published on here. 

US Justice Department filings show that a communications arrangement undertaken on behalf of the Israeli government included $1 million in disclosed work orders for digital content, research, production and communications aimed at audiences in the United States.

The filings concern New York-based media company Piro Inc., which is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA, to work for Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency, LaPam.

This was first reported by Politico and then independently researched by The Jerusalem Post.

Piro’s registration on FARA identifies Israel as the country represented and LaPam as the government agency represented under the arrangement.

Specifically, it says “Piro, Inc. will provide strategic communications and media relations services in connection with LaPam’s engagement on behalf of the State of Israel.”

It also says “activities may include communications activities intended to influence the US public.” The filing names Eran Shayovitch and Guy Getz as the officials with whom Piro works.

FARA filings outline $1 million communications campaign

The original agreement, dated April 30, 2026, included a $900,000 project titled the “Digital Storytelling Pilot.” According to the Work Order, Piro was hired to provide digital content strategy, creative development, video production oversight, and campaign advisory services.

The project included audience research, content architecture, scriptwriting, asset production, distribution planning, and performance analysis.

The filing states that all content produced under the pilot was intended for distribution through digital and social media platforms in the United States.

The budget included $190,000 for strategy and content development, $80,000 for production oversight and creative direction, and $400,000 in video production costs.

The production budget covered expenses including directors and crews, on camera talent, locations, camera and lighting equipment, editing, sound design and music licensing.

A further $95,000 was allocated for distribution advice and program evaluation, $35,000 for strategy and media consultation, and $100,000 for measurement and analytics, bringing the total value of the pilot to $900,000.

Piro’s June registration also revealed how the material was expected to reach the public.

The company told the US Justice Department that its activities would include the preparation or dissemination of informational materials. The filing listed websites and short form video platforms among the planned means of distribution, although the specific websites and platforms were listed as still to be determined.

The intended audience was listed as the “General Public,” and the material was to be produced in English.

Piro also checked that its work would include “political activities” as that term is defined under FARA, describing the activity as potentially including communications intended to influence the US public.

This does not by itself indicate electoral activity.

According to the FARA documents, the arrangement was expanded in July.

A July 29 amendment filed by Piro informed the Justice Department of an “Additional work order” connected to its agreement with Havas Media Germany on behalf of LaPam.

That work order, dated July 20 and titled “Fact Based Content Initiative,” was worth an additional $100,000.

According to the document, Piro was engaged to provide strategy, research, editorial development, creative work, production, distribution planning, and related services for a public information initiative undertaken on behalf of the Israel Foreign Ministry.

The initiative was to develop and disseminate what the contract described as “accurate, substantiated, and accessible content” concerning Israel and other subjects identified by the client and the ministry. The $100,000 was divided into two monthly installments of $50,000.

Combined, the two disclosed work orders total $1 million. It is important to note that while the filings establish the value of the contracts, they do not by themselves establish that the full amount was ultimately paid or spent.

Hanover Institute discloses government-funded arrangement

One of the public facing projects associated with Piro’s FARA registration is the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which publishes reports focused on antisemitism in the United States.

Hanover describes its work as content analysis, computational social science and other data driven research. It says its reports include the underlying data, methodology, and breakdowns behind their findings, and says it does not take policy positions.

Some titles of recent reports include “Is Anti-Zionism a Fig Leaf for Antisemitism? Reading the Coded Corpora, the Incident Records and the Survey Measurements” and “Who Is the Aggressor in the Israel-Palestine Conflict? Reading the Definition, the Deciding Forum and Each Party’s Own Count.”

It is also worth noting that Hanover publishes significant numbers of data reports on a daily basis. For example, it released over 30 data reports on August 13 and over 30 on August 12.

The institute also openly discloses its relationship with the Israeli government communications arrangement.

According to Hanover’s website, its materials are distributed by Piro on behalf of Havas Media Germany, acting for LaPam. It identifies Piro’s FARA registration number, 7732, and says every report published by the institute is filed with the Justice Department.

Hanover explicitly describes itself as government funded.

The institute says that because of the registration and funding arrangement, it does not describe itself as “independent, nonpartisan or neutral.”

Instead, it argues that its work should be assessed according to its sourcing and methodology, saying that figures are attributed to their original sources and that competing findings are presented where evidence is contested. All sources are provided at the end.

The institute publishes reports under the Hanover name rather than individual bylines. It says the researchers are not identified because the reports are produced according to a common institutional standard and because the subject matter attracts harassment.

Documents identify personnel and AI-related reach

Piro’s filings with the Justice Department also identify several people involved in the broader communications arrangement.

The company’s registration states that Piro is equally owned by co-founders Daniel Rosenberg and Timothy Piper, who each hold 50% of the company. Both were listed as providing strategic communications and media relations services related to the Havas and LaPam account. Carlos Cruz was also listed as providing such services.

Another individual, Hai Tran, registered under FARA on July 22, two days after the additional $100,000 work order was dated.

Tran identified himself as a Piro subcontractor and listed his role as “Digital Strategist.” He said he would provide services in support of Piro’s work for Havas Media Germany on behalf of LaPam.

Tran reported that his work would be performed on a special basis for a flat fee of $50,000. He also checked that his services would include political activity as defined by FARA, writing that his activities “may include communications activities intended to influence the US public.”

The available filings do not establish that Tran worked specifically on Hanover, nor do they establish that either the full $900,000 pilot or the separate $100,000 initiative was devoted exclusively to the institute.

The filings also do not identify Hanover’s researchers or its original founder, and they do not show which other websites, videos or digital properties may have resulted from the broader $900,000 storytelling pilot.

That being said, what the public records do establish is that Piro registered to conduct US-facing communications work under an arrangement involving Havas Media Germany and LaPam, initially disclosed a $900,000 digital communications pilot, later added a $100,000 public information initiative, and subsequently filed Hanover reports with the Justice Department as informational materials under the same FARA registration.

Hanover content appears in AI chatbot responses

Politico reported that Hanover’s data reports, each of which features questions like “Is the IDF the World’s Most Moral Army?” and “Is There a Policy of Starvation in Gaza?”, are a telltale sign that the articles are designed to feed data to LLMs.

It noted that ChatGPT cited the Hanover Institute’s material in response to neutral tests run, referring to the site’s content on Gaza, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

The Post ran similar tests on Perplexity. The AI aggregator relied heavily on Hanover as a source when asked, “Is the IDF the most moral army?”

Claude did not independently cite Hanover, nor did Gemini. Grok did not use any sources for the response.

The Jerusalem Post reached out to LaPam, Piro, Havas, and Hanover for comment.

This post was originally published on here. 

A group of seven French Jewish tourists was surrounded, spat on, and subjected to 40 minutes of antisemitic abuse by a crowd in Barcelona last month, an ordeal that left the victims fearing for their lives.

Jimmy Zaghroun, a 41-year-old French Jew from Paris, recalled the harrowing encounter in an interview with the French news channel CNEWS on Sunday. Zaghroun described how he and six friends were targeted after leaving a synagogue in the city’s port area on the night of July 3.

He said that the incident began when a woman, noticeably dressed in pro-Palestinian attire, including a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag, started shouting “Free Palestine” at the group. Her actions, which Zaghroun described as rhythmic clapping and gesturing like a fan in a stadium, quickly mobilized a surrounding crowd.

Within minutes, the group of seven Jews was encircled by hundreds of people. The initial protests escalated into overt and aggressive antisemitic rhetoric. Zaghroun described the atmosphere as terrifying: “For 40 minutes, hundreds of people humiliated us and spat on us. There was a huge crowd around us. We feared we would be murdered. It was very scary.”

The harassment continued with the crowd shouting various antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans, he said, including “Baby killers,” “Jews are not wanted here,” “Zionists are not wanted here,” “Death to Israel,” and threats directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Zaghroun said that some individuals within the crowd explicitly threatened, “We are going to kill Jews.”

Assailants didn’t care that group wasn’t from Israel

He added that despite his attempts to de-escalate the situation by explaining in French that he and his companions were from France and not Israel, the assailants continued their abuse, appearing indifferent to the group’s nationality.

Zaghroun pointed out that one member of the group, a member of the Chabad movement, wearing traditional Jewish clothing, including a long coat and a black kippah, served as a particularly visible target during the encounter.

Recognizing that they were in grave danger, Zaghroun said the group eventually split up, in an attempt to escape the crowd’s encirclement. They ultimately managed to flee to their hotel, with the mob pursuing them as far as the building’s entrance, he said in his testimony.

Zaghroun, a Parisian of Spanish-Tunisian descent, emphasized that the attack was motivated solely by their Jewish identity.

The incident has been noted by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain. The federation noted that if the accounts were confirmed, “this would be one of the most serious episodes of antisemitic harassment recorded in Barcelona in recent years.”  

Zaghroun has filed a formal complaint in France, and Spanish authorities have confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

This post was originally published on here. 

Two drones targeted the office of Kurdistan Region (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, according to reports from Rudaw in the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq.

Barzani is one of the leading officials in the autonomous region, along with Nechirvan Barzani, who is the president of the KRG. The attack came as reports also said Nechirvan had been tapped by the US as a possible back channel contact to Iran in May.

The attack also comes as Baghdad is supposed to rein in Iranian-backed militias who have been attacking the Kurdistan Region.

Rudaw wrote that “two attack drones launched from Iran targeted the office of Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and the residence of the head of the Region’s security agency in Erbil province’s Pirmam district early Monday, Kurdish counterterrorism forces said. No casualties were reported.”

What is known about this Iranian escalation is that the attack took place just after midnight. The attacks targeted an office and a residence of the Director of the Kurdistan Intelligence Agency, Kurdistan24 noted. The drones came from Iran. The drones were of the Hadid-110 type, Kurdistan24 added.

Iranian drones target senior KRG officials

Rudaw added that the Directorate General of Counter Terrorism, which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Region Security Council, said in a statement that “two explosive drones of the Hadid-110 type were launched from the Iranian side of the border toward the headquarters of the Kurdistan Region Prime Minister’s private office and the residence of the director of the Security Council in Erbil province’s Pirmam district. Fortunately, the attack caused no casualties.”

This is a clear escalation by Iran. Why is Iran doing this now? Is it trying to threaten the KRG to expel Kurdish Iranian opposition groups? Or is this a message directed at Barzani due to other reasons?

Iran’s attack on the Kurdistan Region has continued despite the efforts of Nechirvan Barzani to do outreach to Tehran. The two relatives, Nechirvan and Masrour, are the key leaders who matter in the Kurdistan Region.

Along with Bafel Talabani, who runs the PUK party, these figures play an essential role in Iraq and the region. Iran has long had better ties to the Kurdish PUK party than to the KDP, which dominates Erbil, the capital of the KRG.

The Kurdistan Region has condemned the new attacks, calling them “completely unacceptable.” It also warned that “those responsible for carrying them out bear full responsibility for the consequences,” Rudaw noted.

Barzani condemns attack as dangerous escalation

KRG Prime Minister Barzani wrote on X/Twitter, “Based on information and investigations conducted by the Counter-Terrorism Directorate in the Kurdistan Region, it has been confirmed that my personal office and the residence of the President of the Parastin Agency were subjected today to Iranian attacks using drones. As I strongly condemn these reckless and unacceptable aggressions in the strongest terms, I affirm that they constitute a dangerous escalation and a direct threat to the security and stability of the region, and such attacks will not deter us from continuing to carry out our duties and protecting our citizens.”

Barzani also said that “according to the investigations and verified information of the Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service, today my private office and the residence of the Director General of the Protection Agency were targeted in a drone attack by Iran.” He also said he “strongly and unequivocally condemns this illegitimate and unacceptable attack. This is a dangerous step and a direct threat to the security and stability of the Kurdistan Region.”

Iran previously targeted the residence of Nechirvan Barzani in May. At the time, “the United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the attack targeting the residence of His Excellency Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in Duhok Governorate, expressing its concern over this heinous act.” It is not clear what message Iran is sending with the recent attack and the previous one.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is uniquely placed at the intersection of several powerful states and regional trends, enabling it to play an important role beyond the size of the autonomous region.

Rarely do states or autonomous regions play such an important role in international relations and regional stability.

According to Iran International, “Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani played a role in relaying messages between the United States and Iran and in efforts to ease tensions, a spokesperson confirmed to Iran International on Sunday.”

This is an important development. It confirms reporting by Axios that said in “mid-May, US negotiators trying to reach a deal with Iran to end the war ran into a problem: They couldn’t tell if the people across the table actually spoke for the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

That report noted that the Trump administration “went around Iran’s negotiators and reached out directly to IRGC leadership. The person they tapped for the back channel was Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, who had something very few others do: the trust of both US and IRGC leaders.”

Barzani’s regional diplomatic role

Barzani is a highly competent leader who has been president of the Kurdistan Region (KRG) for most of the last decade. He has long been seen as a figure who prefers diplomacy and quiet work behind the scenes.

Barzani has often sought to advance the region’s interests through economic development. He came to power when the region was under pressure from Iran and Baghdad. This was in the wake of an independence referendum that saw the KRG isolated.

Today the KRG has good relations with Turkey, Baghdad, the US, the Gulf, Europe and many countries. It also has relatively decent ties with Iran.

These ties are tested by the fact that Iran has backed more than 1,000 attacks on the Kurdistan Region. Barzani has sought to prevent the attacks while not escalating tensions. What we now know is that Nechirvan Barzani was also playing a role behind the scenes to try to reduce tensions in the region.

As Iran International noted, “the confirmation follows an earlier Axios report that the Trump administration turned to Barzani in May to establish a direct channel with the leadership of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.”

“One of the consistent principles of Barzani’s policy is that problems and disagreements should be resolved through dialogue and negotiations,” a KRG spokesperson named Dilshad Shahab said.

“The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, before the war, during the war and afterward, has consistently emphasized that dialogue and negotiations are the only way to resolve existing disputes and tensions,” he said, according to Iran International.

“A Kurdistan Regional Government official separately told Iran International that Barzani had been asked to play the role because of his good relations with both the United States and Iran.”

Barzani had to flee with his family when he was younger, leaving Iraq to move to Iran because of suppression of Kurds. He studied in Iran and is very knowledgeable about the country. Kurds are a large minority group who reside in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. As such, the Kurdistan Region in Iraq sits as a kind of hinge between Turkey, Iran, and Iraq.

Kurdistan’s role in Syria and Turkey

Barzani has played a role not only in working with the US and Iran but also in trying to ease issues in Syria. In Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are supposed to integrate into the new Syrian government’s security forces. However, this process has been fraught with challenges.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has stepped in to help smooth things over in Syria. One issue is that the SDF’s political arm had often suppressed Kurdish groups linked to the KRG. The KRG’s leading party is the KDP, which the Barzani family leads. The SDF and its political arm were far-left-leaning in their outlook and were accused of being linked to the PKK.

The PKK and KDP are rivals, with the KDP expressing a more nationalist and centrist form of Kurdish politics, in contrast to the PKK’s far-left communist background. The KRG and KDP enjoy amicable relations with Turkey, while Ankara views the PKK as a terrorist group.

This all matters because Barzani has played a role in trying to smooth these tensions in Syria and also in northern Iraq, where the Turkish army operates against the PKK. The PKK is supposed to disarm and dissolve itself.

As such, the Kurdistan Region today has a role to play not only in easing friction with Turkey, but also in Syria and Iran. It also has a role to play in backing Baghdad’s attempt to disarm Iranian-backed militias. Therefore, Barzani, and to a larger extent the region he leads, can be a key to peace in the region.

This post was originally published on here. 

Portugal’s attorney general has been asked to open a criminal investigation into alleged antisemitism, incitement, and threats at the University of Coimbra, following complaints by an Israeli-American-Portuguese doctoral student who claims he was targeted by hostile posters, Hezbollah flags, death threats, and physical assault.

The case, which centers on the experiences of Bar Harel, a computer engineering doctoral student, has escalated to the highest levels of the Portuguese government. Following an official letter from the Portuguese prime minister’s office to the Higher Education Ministry in May, the ministry referred the case to Attorney General Amadeu Guerra, as well as to the central criminal investigation department and prosecutors in Coimbra.

The ministry has requested a formal investigation into potential offenses including discrimination, incitement to hatred and violence, threats, bodily harm, and the public glorification of terrorist organizations.

Harel, who has since abandoned his doctoral studies at the institution, documented a campaign of harassment that he noted began immediately following the events of October 7, 2023. In a statement to The Jerusalem Post, Harel explained, “The situation started after October 7, less than a week after the war began; we were already accused of genocide in city protests and in protests against us that happened inside university facilities. Around May, 2024, the protests increased, and stickers containing hateful statements appeared throughout the city.”

In his complaints, Harel detailed a campus environment where antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas, defaced various university faculties, including Law, Medicine, and Engineering. He reported that flags belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah were flown on campus, and that posters displayed slogans such as “Zionists should carry a certificate to prove they’re human,” “Death to the IDF,” and “Yahya Sinwar is a hero.”

Harel details threats and alleged assault

According to Harel’s testimony, he was subjected to direct threats, including the statement, “Your family deserves a second Holocaust,” and was allegedly physically assaulted while carrying an Israeli flag on his bag. Harel also detailed being doxxed online, where he was labeled a “war criminal” and targeted with flyers claiming he should not be allowed to buy food in local establishments. Regarding the escalation of the backlash, Harel stated to the Post: “After I complained and received inadequate responses, I started documenting everything and published research; that’s when everything went south.”

The attorney general’s involvement follows a March 2026 ruling by Portugal’s ombudsman, which criticized the University of Coimbra for “substantial passivity.” The ombudsman found that the institution failed to take appropriate steps to prevent, reduce, or resolve the hostile environment Harel faced.

Furthermore, the report noted that the university had threatened Harel with legal action should he bring the matter to the public eye, a move the ombudsman described as an infringement of his fundamental rights.

The University of Coimbra has rejected these allegations, asserting in a public statement that the posters mentioned in the student’s complaints were “not found on campus” and that the allegations lacked concrete details or identification of those involved.

However, pushing back against the university’s claim that there was no evidence of the hateful materials, Harel provided documentation to the Post, including a collection of dozens of hostile stickers that he personally removed from university outer walls featuring slogans such as “Sinwar the King,” “Zionists give me the creeps,” “One watermelon a day keeps Zionists away,” “Stop torturing Palestinians in Sde Teiman,” and “Israel is a fake state from hell.”

Portuguese authorities asked to investigate

According to Harel, “Some of these signs were produced from a workshop facilitated at Ulisbon (University of Lisbon) with the designs made by a UC professor.” Harel provided the Post with photos allegedly taken during the workshop.

The Israeli Embassy in Portugal expressed support for the authorities’ intervention. In a statement posted to its official Facebook page, the embassy welcomed the decision to open a criminal investigation, stating, “We call on all authorities to continue the fight against antisemitism and also to investigate other cases that we, as an embassy, have already brought to their attention.”

As the investigation proceeds, Harel told the Post, “I thank the Portuguese authorities for starting the criminal investigation. The evidence speaks for itself. I’m grateful for the support I received along the way from IJL, the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, and from the Portuguese people who signed a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office and demanded justice.”

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Israel and the United States have reached an understanding that, during the initial stage of Hamas’s disarmament, weapons handed over by the terrorist organization will be transferred to the proposed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the Palestinian technocratic government, and the International Stabilization Force (ISF), according to a source who spoke with The Jerusalem Post.

US Maj.-Gen. Jasper Jeffers, who heads the ISF, will oversee the transfer of the weapons, according to the source.

The understanding was reached during a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials from the Board of Peace, which was also attended by senior Israeli security officials, the source said.

The meeting included Shin Bet Director David Zini and Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder, along with Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs, Caroline Glick, foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk, and National Security Council Director Shmuel Ben-Ezra.

The Board of Peace delegation included senior Trump advisers Jared Kushner, former British prime minister Tony Blair, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and Board of Peace Director-General Nikolay Mladenov, as well as US military officers.

According to officials familiar with the discussions, the sides reached a series of understandings regarding the proposed Gaza framework and the steps expected to begin being implemented.

One of the key understandings concerns the mechanism for Hamas’s disarmament.

Hamas disarmament mechanism

The arrangement is intended to establish a mechanism for the transfer and oversight of Hamas’s weapons as part of the disarmament process.

Under the understanding, weapons handed over by Hamas will be transferred to both the NCAG and the International Stabilization Force. Jeffers will oversee the process of transferring the weapons, according to the source.

The Israeli side also made clear that reconstruction in Gaza will not begin until Hamas has been fully disarmed throughout the Strip, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

Netanyahu also made clear during the meeting that Israel’s targeted operations against Hamas will continue, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

The officials said Israel had not agreed to halt targeted killings and that no decision had been made to withdraw from the current “Yellow Line”.

They also rejected reports that Israel had agreed to reduce its military presence in Gaza, saying there would be no reduction in Israeli troop levels as part of the current understandings.

Israel ties reconstruction to full disarmament

The Israeli position was presented despite Hamas’s demands for an end to Israeli military activity and amid comments by US President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox earlier Monday.

Israeli officials stressed that Israel would continue to respond to immediate threats and retain the ability to conduct operations against Hamas targets.

The talks also produced an understanding that Hamas must immediately begin demonstrating its commitment to the disarmament process.

According to the officials, if Hamas wants to demonstrate that the proposed process is viable, it must begin handing over weapons now rather than wait for all other elements of the framework to be completed. Hamas has previously rejected a Board of Peace disarmament proposal and sought changes to the plan.

The discussions are part of ongoing US-Israeli efforts to translate the Gaza framework into concrete steps, with Hamas’s disarmament remaining the central test of whether the process can move forward.

Israeli officials stressed that while Israel is prepared to advance the process, any significant movement toward reconstruction or changes to its military posture will remain contingent on tangible progress toward the complete dismantling of Hamas’s military capabilities.

Later on Monday, President Isaac Herzog also met with Kushner and Mladenov, along with other senior officials from the BoP, and said that “the next steps in Gaza must ensure the security of the State of Israel and its citizens, and bring stability and a better future for all the peoples in the region.”

“This is a challenging issue. I was impressed that Israel’s security interest is an important and central component of the plan, and I insisted on that. I congratulated the teams on their work and encouraged them to continue working towards a better future for our children,” he added.

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A 62-year-old man from Petah Tikva died in Peru after three and a half years in prison there, according to a Monday statement from ZAKA. 

Shortly after receiving the news, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, along with ZAKA, began working with Peru’s Foreign Ministry to make all necessary arrangements for the body to be returned to Israel for burial.

Israeli man in his 30s found dead in Thailand hotel room

On Saturday, a 35-year-old Israeli man was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand, on Saturday, according to a report received at the ZAKA International Division hotline. 

The man was on vacation in Thailand when the died.
 
The ZAKA team worked with Thailand-based Chabad rabbi, Rabbi Nehemia Wilhelm, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry in an effort to bring the body quickly back to Israel for burial. 

Young Israeli killed in traffic accident in western Thailand

Also on Saturday, reports emerged that a young Israeli man was killed in a traffic accident on Thursday in Kanchanaburi, a province in western Thailand. The man was riding a motorcycle when he collided with a pickup truck.

He was pronounced dead at the scene and taken to a local hospital for an autopsy. Local police opened an investigation into the incident. 

Meital Sharabi contributed to this report.

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Iran has decided to shift its policy from defensive to “fully offensive” due to the deadlock in efforts to agree on a permanent end to its war with the United States, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday. 

Progress towards peace talks and a resumption of oil tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt, with no sign that the warring parties are moving towards ending the conflict that the US and Israel launched on February 28.

“Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region, as Iran will be ready to make decisions and take action on difficult decisions,” the Iranian official said, adding that Tehran would conduct a “timely and precise” military attack to break the US naval blockade if diplomacy failed.

Monday marked the day by which Iran and the United States were expected to reach a final deal under a memorandum of understanding agreed in June and aimed at ending the war.

Signed on June 17, the MoU set a 60-day timeframe, extendable by mutual consent, for Washington and Tehran to reach an agreement covering broader issues such as the fate of Iran’s nuclear program.

The MoU, which declared the immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, quickly unraveled, however, due to a dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

 Iran to set deadline

Tehran said point 5 of the MoU gives it the right to manage the waterway, while Washington rejected that interpretation. Hostilities resumed as Tehran began firing on vessels it said were trying to sail through the waterway on an unapproved route.

US President Donald Trump said on July 7 that the pact was “over.” Tehran has repeatedly accused Washington of consistently violating its commitments.

“Within the short period of a few weeks set by Iran, all the agreement’s provisions must be implemented by the US. This is a precondition for further negotiations with the US,” the Iranian official told Reuters, adding that mediators would share Tehran’s deadline with Washington and regional states.

Both Iran and the United States have stepped up rhetoric over the past week. 

Trump steps up rhetoric

Trump warned Americans in a speech at a rally on Friday to prepare for continued high fuel prices as a result of the war, while also saying that “after we finish defeating Iran … pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”

Earlier on Monday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon,” repeating one of his stated rationales for the war.

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A man in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of vandalizing and damaging St. Anthony’s Church, Jaffa, Israel Police said on Monday.

According to the police, officers were called on Sunday morning and informed of the incident. Police arrived at the scene to investigate and found that the church had been vandalized.

A number of statues had been smashed on the floor, and several crosses on the chairs and floor had been broken, police said.

The suspect, a man in his 20s, was located during the ensuing investigation, arrested, and brought in for interrogation.

Six arrested for throwing rocks, spitting at Armenian Cathedral of St. James

Earlier this month, Israel Police announced that six suspects were arrested after allegedly throwing rocks and spitting at the Armenian Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem’s Old City.

According to the police, five of the suspects were minors, and one was an adult.

Kegham Balian, a Jerusalemite-Armenian reporter, wrote that the suspects had also thrown rocks at the window of an Armenian woman filming the event, while shouting “Get back inside, you daughter of a w****!”

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Border Police arrested a 36-year-old Palestinian resident of Kalandiya on Sunday night after discovering him and several other people digging a tunnel near the border fence between Israel and the West Bank.

Observers from the Border Police patrol unit initially noticed the group digging a tunnel near the fence and alerted officers in the field, who then went to the scene.

As security forces approached, the suspects fled the scene, triggering a foot chase during which shots were fired into the air. The only suspect detained was the 36-year-old Kalandiya resident, who was within Israel’s borders without a valid permit.

Digging equipment found at the mouth of the tunnel, investigation ongoing

The suspect led Border Police officers to the site of the tunnel, and when questioned, explained that the goal was to bypass standard border crossings and gain entry to the State of Israel. The officers also found various pieces of equipment used to dig the tunnel at the scene. 

Police said the matter is expected to undergo further investigation. 

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Two herds of cattle wandered onto a firing range during an IDF training exercise on Monday, disrupting and ultimately stopping the drill, Israel Police confirmed.

Soldiers from the IDF’s Golani Brigade were actively training at the time, likely using live fire.

Authorities seized and quarantined the approximately 80 cows in the Moshav Dor area along Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast, north of Caesarea.

The whole operation required a period of intelligence gathering and the cooperation of the Border Police, the Israel Air Force, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. 

Owners thought to be residents of nearby Arab villages, expected to pay fine before cattle are returned

Police suspect that the cattle belong to residents of Muawiya and Ein Ibrahim, two villages adjacent to Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel near the Golani Brigade training base where the cattle were found. 

The cattle are expected to remain quarantined until their owners, who are under investigation by Border Police, pay the fines for allowing errant livestock into an IDF firing range. 

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Independent voters now hold greater influence over the Israeli elections, strategic adviser and political commentator Barak Seri argued in an interview with 103FM on Monday, ahead of the  Likud party primaries.

“Independent voters have more power. In the past, the deals were stronger, they controlled 60%, and today it has reversed,” Seri claimed.

“Today, independent voters account for 60% to 70%, and deals account for 30%. That is why Haim Katz, the king of Likud deals, asked for a reserved spot. If the deals were so strong, he could have been elected through the deals. This will be Netanyahu’s big test.”

Seri also claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had worked in recent days to weaken the standing of Nir Barkat, David Bitan, and Tally Gotliv.

“If he succeeds in pushing them down the list, then we will learn that his power among independent voters is also significant,” he said. “If not, they will come and say, ‘We received high spots despite Netanyahu working against us.’”

Yinon Magal, Tally Gotliv clash over Gotliv’s removal from list

Seri also addressed the dispute that erupted Sunday between Yinon Magal and Gotliv, arguing that it was a byproduct of Netanyahu’s briefings against her.

“You cannot deny his work against them in such a blatant way,” Seri said. “The moment he briefs Yinon Magal, and his people brief Amit Segal, and these things appear the way they did, then it is clear that he wants to see them lower down the list. He claims that he was shown polls saying that if Tally Gotliv and May Golan are placed high on the list, Likud will lose two to three seats.”

Seri also detailed the briefings Netanyahu held Sunday, saying that Magal had claimed to receive one from the people closest to the prime minister.

“The whole story happened because of an interview I conducted yesterday on Radio 103FM with Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he told us that four ministers and four MKs had approached him. That caused panic in Netanyahu’s office. So they claim that Tally Gotliv and May Golan need to be removed from the lists. Yinon Magal and people close to Netanyahu take them off the lists.

“Tally Gotliv blows up at Yinon Magal 15 minutes later, makes personal accusations against him, says it is a lie and makes her promise, and May Golan, of course, follows her, and Yinon Magal responds to her, to Tally, and tells her, ‘I got this from the people closest to Netanyahu.’ I do not think Netanyahu is telling the truth about the polls regarding Tally Gotliv. Netanyahu wants, in the next elections, a group that is even more obedient than in this term, even more yes men, even more people who depend on him 100%, and perhaps he is concerned because Tally Gotliv is not exactly the biggest yes woman in the world.”

Channel 14 inadvertently questions neighbor of former military advocate general

Seri also addressed the controversy involving Channel 14 and the former IDF military advocate-general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

On Sunday night, Channel 14’s evening news broadcast aired a report in which a reporter attempted to approach Tomer-Yerushalmi on the street and ask her questions. The clip went viral after it became clear that the woman was actually someone else, a neighbor who was effectively harassed by the Channel 14 reporter on the street.

“That is the work of a researcher, but it is very easy to dump it all on the researcher,” Seri said. “The footage and this blunder, the way they presented it too, how they presented it, with such excitement, a first interview, and the way he runs after her, asks her questions, confronts her with questions and she does not answer. It passes through editors, through the assignment desk, until it finds itself at the opening of Channel 14’s evening news.”

Seri added, “We have not seen such an embarrassment in a long time, not even on Channel 14.”

Seri also addressed the response issued by Channel 14 after the broadcast.

“I want to draw attention to the response, which is even more ridiculous than the report. Her name is Yifat, she lives near the former military advocate-general, something involving her husband. Whoever wrote the response is more ridiculous than whoever published the report,” he said.

Seri stressed that he did not understand why Channel 14 had not simply apologized.

“What could be simpler than saying there was a mistake, we are sorry for it, the matter is being examined so that such incidents do not happen again in the future. That is the obvious response to such a massive blunder. The response is more ridiculous and pathetic than the blunder itself.”

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National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the IDF’s planned transfer of West Bank civilian enforcement to Israel Police a “significant step toward Israeli sovereignty” on Monday.

Earlier, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the military will present a plan for the transfer within the next two weeks, after initially announcing intention for the transfer of authority on Friday. “We will not allow violence or unauthorized parties to take the law into their own hands,” Katz said.

In his response, Ben-Gvir hailed Katz’s decision, noting it to be a “significant step toward [implementing] Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

Ben-Gvir said he had requested that all responsibility for the area be transferred from the IDF to Israel Police, including handing over responsibility for Border Police’s Judea and Samaria Division over from the military to police, “in accordance with the coalition agreement that has so far been violated.”

אני נענה לקריאתו של שר הביטחון ישראל כץ להעברת סמכויות האכיפה ביו״ש מצה״ל למשטרת ישראל.

מדובר בצעד משמעותי בדרך לריבונות ישראלית ביו״ש!

על מנת לקדם את מימוש ההצעה, אני דורש להעביר את האחריות על מג״ב איו״ש מצה״ל למשטרת ישראל, בהתאם להסכם הקואליציוני שעד כה הופר.

בנוסף, יש…

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) August 17, 2026

“In addition, the authority for administrative detentions and restrictions should be transferred from the defense minister and the IDF to the national security minister,” Ben-Gvir demanded. “To date, these powers have not been used against the anarchists and against elements from anti-Zionist movements against the State of Israel; it is time to activate these tools against the enemies of the state,” he warned.

Katz aiming to redefine IDF role in West Bank

On Friday, Katz had announced that he had instructed the IDF to prepare a plan to transfer all civilian enforcement authority for Israeli communities and residents in the West Bank to the Israel Police, as part of a broader effort to redefine the military’s role in the territory.

The move came amid criticism levied at the military of its failure to control settler extremists, who in recent days have targeted Palestinian homes in the village of Kusra, dismantling fences, blocking roads, and besieging the area.

According to Katz, the proposed plan would shift responsibility for civilian law enforcement and public order involving the Israeli population in the West Bank from the IDF to police.

“The IDF’s role is to fight Palestinian terrorism and focus on defending the borders and the communities against threats,” Katz said in a statement. “All responsibility for enforcing civilian matters and maintaining law and order will be transferred to the police,” he added.

The IDF has traditionally handled law and order in the West Bank because the territory is under military administration, while the Israel Police is responsible for civilian law enforcement inside Israel.

Shir Perets contributed to this report.

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Sunday’s meeting in Cairo between US envoy Jared Kushner and senior Hamas leaders has left Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah perplexed, deepening their concerns over Washington’s approach to the Palestinian issue and the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

Several Palestinian officials in Ramallah described the meeting, which marked the latest in a series of direct contacts between the American administration and Hamas, as “troubling.”

They said this ongoing open channel with Hamas was contributing to sidelining the PA, and they accused Israel and the United States of following the same old “divide and rule” policy to enhance splits between Gaza and the West Bank and among the Palestinian factions.

“This looks like a continuation of the same old approach that Israel has taken for years – bolstering Hamas while weakening the PA,” one senior Palestinian official argued in comments to The Jerusalem Post.

“Since President Trump was elected, we haven’t seen intense, direct, and serious talks with President Mahmoud Abbas,” he charged. “We haven’t heard the Americans speak clearly about establishing a Palestinian state,” he added.

He noted that it was jarring to see US President Donald Trump’s envoy holding discussions with Hamas in Cairo and with the Israelis in Jerusalem but not meeting PA’s Abbas in Ramallah.

Core issue is not engaging primarily with PA

The Cairo talks reportedly touched on disarming Hamas and pushing the terror organization to hand over its weapons, which is a long-standing PA demand.

The Palestinian officials explained, though, that the core issue at the talks was the principle of the US not engaging primarily with the PA, since it paves the way for “double representation” for the Palestinian people.

“This is not the first meeting between the current American administration and Hamas. It looks like a practical move, part of which was meant to discuss the option of enabling Hamas to integrate into the political system,” another Palestinian official said. But, at the same time, it raises questions about where the PA stands in the priorities, he said.

“It harms the PA’s representational status and gives Hamas new cards to play,” he warned.

One of the officials noted that while there is no anger over the meeting itself, there is discontent about pushing the PA aside.

“We don’t understand what the Israelis and the Americans are trying to achieve. Do they want to give Hamas more than they have given the Palestinian Authority?” he asked.

“If you want to achieve political stability and open a horizon for peace, you must first talk to the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas, unless Hamas is simply the easier option,” he said.

“This approach, if it continues, will bring more disaster for our people and the region.”

Criticizing Hamas, the source said, “There is no Palestinian address more respectful of international law than the Palestinian Authority.”

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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has continued to support the Islamic Republic in identifying drug traffickers, despite concerns that those convicted in reportedly unfair trials are subjected to torture and, in many cases, executed.

The UNODC last week announced that it had “helped” Iran procure advanced detection scanners to combat methamphetamine trafficking at the country’s borders.

At least part of the technology was funded by Japan, according to a 2018 UN announcement, while the international body provided training to Iran’s Anti-Narcotics Police (ANP) and Customs Administration on how to use the technology and handled the international procurement and handover of the equipment.

Iranian seizures of meth increased from 30,393 kilograms in 2022 to 40,453 kg in 2025 with the help of the technology, according to the United Nations.

UN anti-drug assistance draws human rights scrutiny

Though presented by the UN as a major achievement in the thwarting of international drug trafficking, the agency’s official policy advocates for the universal abolition of the death penalty, viewing it as incompatible with fundamental human rights.

Nearly 1,000 out of the 1,212 executions for drug-related offenses in 2025 were carried out by the Islamic regime, according to the 15th report of Harm Reduction International published in March. At the time of the report, over 1,000 people were awaiting execution for drug-related offenses, some of whom had never come into direct contact with the illegal substance.

According to both the report and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, the large majority of those killed came from a background of poverty. Many were alleged to have worked in only minor roles in the drug trade, and they were denied proper due process during their trial.

Critics warn UN support may strengthen Iran and its proxies

Additionally, while the UNODC said last week that thwarting smuggling attempts helped stem the flow of money to organized crime groups, Anne Herzberg, legal adviser at NGO Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post that many of Iran’s proxies also rely on funds generated through illicit drug trafficking.

According to the IDF, Hezbollah has been funded through cocaine sales in Europe and is heavily involved in trafficking cannabis and Captagon along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

“It beggars belief that Iran is not aware of, does not profit off of, nor [is] heavily enmeshed in Hezbollah drug trafficking,” Herzberg said.

“Moreover, it appears Iran uses drug-related charges as a pretext to jail and execute dissidents,” he added.

UN Watch calls for safeguards on assistance

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, added that the UN “should not be helping Iran’s brutal regime catch people whom it may then torture into confessing and execute after sham trials.”

He noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s “fundamentalist government routinely denies defendants due process, and has dramatically increased executions for drug offenses, including in cases raising grave questions of innocence and coerced confessions.”

Neuer argued that the UN’s actions raise serious ethical and legal concerns if UN-provided technology is helping Tehran identify suspects “who may ultimately be sent to the gallows.”

Methamphetamine is the second most commonly found drug in people who fatally overdose in the US, according to research from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Acknowledging the need to fight drug trafficking was essential, Neuer said, nevertheless, that the UN cannot give “sophisticated tools to a regime notorious for torture, arbitrary detention and executions.”

“The UN needs to explain what safeguards it imposed, whether it tracks what happens to people arrested using its equipment, and whether it can guarantee that its assistance is not facilitating death sentences. If it cannot provide those guarantees, the assistance should stop,” he concluded.

The UNODC did not respond to The Jerusalem Post’s request for comment.

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US President Donald Trump “may endorse somebody” in the upcoming Israeli election, he told FOX News on Monday morning, but conceded it would be “most appropriate for me to stay out of it.

Speaking to FOX’s Trey Yingst in a phone call, Trump noted that “I think it’s most appropriate for me to stay out of the Israeli elections,” adding that “I may endorse somebody.”

President Trump told Fox News that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender.”

“I have no time schedule,” Trump added. “I’m not in a hurry…the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking.”

The President confirmed there is a direct backchannel with IRGC officials.… pic.twitter.com/OAHFVWSQFs

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) August 17, 2026

In the call, Trump also reiterated his call for Israel to show restraint and avoid carrying out targeted strikes in Gaza – strikes that would prevent his 20-point plan for Gaza from advancing. 

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on Monday led a delegation of American and Board of Peace officials, including head Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair, who met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem as the US sought to ramp up pressure on Israel to advance the Gaza plan.

Israeli opposition reportedly asked Trump to remain neutral in elections

Trump’s comments follow reports across Israeli media noting that figures close to Netanyahu’s main political rivals, including Gadi Eisenkot and Naftali Bennett, have in recent months conveyed messages to Trump’s associates through acquaintances, donors, and political allies, asking him to remain neutral in the election.

The comments also follow an Axios report published earlier this week, noting that Trump questioned the prime minister on the Likud’s position in the polls during the latter’s late July visit to Washington.

According to the report, Netanyahu initially paused before one of his advisors told Trump: “Mr. President, he is winning.”

Ahead of the meeting, Netanyahu hoped to secure Trump’s support for his reelection campaign ahead of the October 27 election, sources familiar with the matter said.

Israel’s general elections to the Knesset are slated for October 27.

Anna Barsky contributed to this report.

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Syrian army soldiers chanted threats against Jews outside the historic Damascus Citadel on Saturday, according to Arab media reports and footage published on Sunday.

“I am coming for you, Jew…I will make your blood flow in rivers,” soldiers from the Syrian Arab Army chanted while standing in formation, according to footage aired by Al Araby TV. The soldiers also shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is the greatest”) and pledged to sacrifice themselves in protest over the situation in Gaza.

The demonstration came after Israel rejected the Board of Peace’s 15-point proposal for Gaza, reiterating that Hamas must first be disarmed.

Anti-Israel rhetoric continues under Syria’s new leadership

Public threats against Israel by Syrian security personnel have surfaced repeatedly since Ahmed al-Sharaa seized power in 2024. In December, footage also emerged showing members of Syria’s 60th Division issuing threats toward Israel.

Prof. Eyal Zisser, a Middle East expert at Tel Aviv University, told The Jerusalem Post that such rhetoric is unsurprising because Syria’s new security apparatus absorbed members of radical Islamist organizations.

According to Zisser, Sharaa faces a difficult balancing act between maintaining support from Washington and retaining the backing of the Islamist factions that helped bring him to power.

He argued that the Syrian president is unlikely to crack down on extremist elements within the military or security forces, even after sectarian violence last year left thousands dead and minority communities, including Alawites, Druze and Christians, continue to face attacks.

Moderate image clashes with extremist rhetoric

While Sharaa has sought to portray Syria as a more moderate state to Western governments, including by distancing himself from his former leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), reports have highlighted efforts to improve the country’s international image.

Damascus has previously announced it foiled a planned attack on a rabbi in the capital, while media reports have described hotels offering kosher menus and efforts to return confiscated property to Syrian Jews.

Zisser, however, questioned the significance of those efforts, noting that virtually no Jewish community remains in Syria.

“I’m not surprised [by this incident]. Some Christians are being attacked, women are being attacked, minorities and other groups are being attacked. This is the new Syria,” he said.

“On the one hand, the regime wants to send a message to the outside world that everything is okay. On the other hand, it needs the support of these people, so it can’t confront them.”

Expert warns against complacency despite Syria’s current weakness

Asked whether the rhetoric represents an immediate military threat to Israel, Zisser said Syria currently lacks the capability to launch a major attack.

However, he pointed to reports that Damascus is expanding its military. The National reported in June that Syria plans to double the size of its armed forces to around 200,000 personnel, incorporating foreign fighters and members of HTS and other Islamist factions, with some reportedly offered Syrian citizenship in exchange for military service.

Referring to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and approximately 250 were taken hostage after thousands of terrorists crossed the border, Zisser cautioned against dismissing future threats.

“Hamas succeeded because we were stupid. I hope we will not be stupid this time,” he said when asked whether a strengthened Syrian military could one day pose a comparable danger.

Expert raises concerns over Syria’s new military leadership

Dr. Zoe Levornik, a security researcher at the Alma Research and Education Center, described the video as “concerning,” likening it to other videos where chants of “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews,” alongside Salafi-jihadist messages were documented.

“The concern is not only about statements made by individual soldiers, but about the people now receiving senior positions in the military and security services,” she said, noting that the Alma Center has previously reported that much of the new SAA came from HTS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other jihadist organizations.

“All five commanders designated to lead the new regional corps have backgrounds in such organizations, including the commander responsible for southern Syria and the border with Israel,” she warned. 

Levornik said that the footage also raised questions as to the future of the SAA. “If figures from HTS’s old guard fill the positions being vacated, we may not be witnessing the transformation of militias into a state army, but rather HTS’s gradual takeover of the military,” she continued.

From Israel’s perspective, Levornik said there was concern that actors with jihadist and antisemitic views will gain a state framework, weapons, resources, and command over forces deployed near the border with Israel. 

“The al-Sharaa government should therefore be judged not only by its moderate public statements, but also by the identities of its commanders, the ideology taking root within its forces, and their conduct on the ground,” she concluded.

This post was originally published on here. 

Watch this episode without interruptions. 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is drafting a national plan to bring one million Jewish immigrants from North America and Europe to Israel within a decade, and is seeking legislation that would allow entire diaspora communities to receive land and housing without going through Israel’s standard tender process, he told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Wednesday.

Smotrich said he presented the outline to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about six weeks ago, arguing that aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel) has been neglected while the government pursued what he called revolutions in security and settlement.

“We now need to take aliyah and deal with it at the same scale, the same investment, the same intensity with which we dealt with security and settlement,” he said.

The plan’s central element is a return to large-scale public construction on the model of Ariel Sharon’s programs in the 1990s, which built tens of thousands of housing units for immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Smotrich said the Finance Ministry’s own professional staff oppose it.

“They oppose it in the Finance Ministry,” he said. “But there is nothing to be done. If you want to bring people here, you can talk about people who have very significant means, but not everyone has them. Sell an estate in South Africa and you will not buy a one-room apartment here. Sell a villa in the suburbs of Paris and you will buy a two-room apartment in Ra’anana.”

Plans to allocate entire neighborhoods to incoming communities

The legislative component would exempt community absorption projects from tender and planning requirements, allowing the state to allocate a block of buildings or an entire neighborhood to an incoming community, planned in advance with the community and the developer, including a school, synagogue, and other communal institutions.

Israeli land is currently allocated by tender under rules built on equal access, which Smotrich said makes such an allocation impossible today. “This needs a legislative fix, one that allows it both in tender terms and in planning terms,” he said.

He cited French Jewry, whose communal institutions he described as unusually strong, as the model case, and said the pitch to such communities would be to arrive intact. “Come with your rabbi, come with your school, come with your community.”

Smotrich said the intention is neighborhoods inside existing Israeli cities rather than separate enclaves, adding: “On the other hand, you do not want them speaking French here in a hundred years.”

He framed the program in economic as well as ideological terms. “As finance minister, this is not an expense, it is an investment,” he said, noting that much of Israel’s growth in recent decades followed the arrival of a million immigrants in the 1990s, and that labor shortages are now among the main constraints on growth.

Smotrich pointed to three measures already advanced during his term. A five-year tax exemption for new immigrants, worth up to NIS 1 million per spouse, applies to income earned in Israel. A reform of the taxation of venture capital and hedge funds, developed over more than a year in consultation with the industry including major US fund managers, is intended to make Israeli rates competitive with New York and Florida; it remains stuck awaiting its second and third Knesset readings, which Smotrich attributed to the election and to the conduct of the committee chairman, a Likud MK.

Advance recognition of professional diplomas

The third is advance recognition of professional diplomas, now completed abroad before immigration rather than after arrival. Smotrich said 1,600 doctors are arriving from North America this summer under the new process, and that the government intends to extend the model to additional professions. He said the wave of physicians who arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s is reaching retirement, leaving a gap the health system needs to fill.

Asked whether the government had done enough on immigration during its term, Smotrich said it had not. “Not enough,” he said. “Because if I compare it to the other two legs, where we made revolutions.”

He praised former immigration and absorption minister Ofir Sofer, who left Religious Zionism over the haredi enlistment legislation, saying he had tried to persuade him to stay and that the two remain friends.

Smotrich opened the interview by citing Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s reading of a verse in Isaiah describing Jews arriving both as clouds driven by an external wind and as doves returning home, which he applied to the present moment. “There is a huge amount of antisemitism in the world,” he said. “But there is also an enormous awakening of Jewish and Zionist feeling.”

He added that he believes there is no long-term future for Jewish communities outside Israel, citing assimilation, antisemitism, and a growing sense of insecurity among Jews in an increasing number of countries.

Describing his visits to French Jewish communities, Smotrich noted in passing: “when they still agree to let me into France.” Several Western governments have barred him entry over his record on the West Bank.

This post was originally published on here. 

Fire and rescue crews from the Zvulun station, along with a hazardous materials unit from the Haifa station, were dispatched recently to the “Tari Ve’Helek 2” factory at 1 HaMeyasdim Street in Shlomi.

The crews were dispatched after the Fire and Rescue Service’s 102 emergency hotline received a report of an incident in which a worker was exposed to a hazardous substance while unloading it.

The worker reported experiencing a choking sensation and burning in his eyes.

The first crews to arrive at the scene isolated the affected area inside the factory and moved employees away from the danger zone.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they had attacked what they described as a Saudi military ship and four escort vessels in the Red Sea with missiles, according to a statement by the group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree on Telegram.

“The attack was carried out using several ballistic missiles, and the strikes were accurate and direct,” the statement read.

“The operation resulted in the Saudi warship catching fire completely; several of the boats escorting it sank, while the others caught fire. The armed forces continue to establish the equation of blockade for blockade and to attack all Saudi military concentrations.” 

There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities on the attack.

Houthi attacks on ‘Saudi-backed forces’ in Mocha

Yemen’s Mocha port, near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea has suspended commercial and maritime operations after being hit by more than 25 missiles in Houthi attacks over recent days, the port’s director said on Saturday.

The attacks killed seven people and caused an estimated $16 million in losses, the director told a news conference.

Forces aligned with Yemen‘s internationally recognized government control the port. It has a smaller cargo capacity than Yemen’s main ports of Aden and Hodeidah.

Yemen’s government said on Friday the Houthis fired six ballistic missiles at Mocha that day, killing at least four civilians and targeting civilian, economic, and maritime facilities.

Following the attacks, the Houthis said they targeted a military build-up of weapons and warships belonging to Saudi-backed forces in Mocha.

This post was originally published on here. 

Content warning: This article contains content that some may find disturbing, including descriptions of child deaths and suicide attempts.

The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a woman who killed her three children, is set to resume on Monday for its fourth week of testimony, with the prosecution continuing its presentation and the defense preparing for its opportunity to call witnesses and experts. 

Clancy has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of her children – five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan – in January 2023. 

While Clancy admitted to killing her children, the defense has argued that due to postpartum psychosis and overmedication, she should not be held criminally responsible. The prosecution said Clancy planned the killings, carried them out “deliberately and meticulously,” and then faked a suicide attempt. 

Clancy’s ex-husband Patrick Clancy described the day of the killings in his testimony, saying he had gone out to pick up medicine for their oldest child and a takeout order Lindsay Clancy had placed at a local restaurant. He came home and found their second-floor bathroom covered in blood and the window open. Lindsay Clancy was lying on the ground outside with deep cuts on her wrists and another cut across her neck. She told him she had tried to kill herself, and when asked where the children were, she said they were in the basement. 

Patrick Clancy found the three children unresponsive with exercise bands wrapped around their necks. Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that night, and Callan died three days later, never having regained consciousness. Lindsay Clancy was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. 

Prosecution claims Clancy falsified suicide attempt, defense blames psychotic break and hallucination 

The prosecution used first responder testimony calling Clancy’s injuries “superficial” and described them as “not actively bleeding” at the time of their arrival to point towards the suicide attempt being staged in an attempt to cover up her state of mind at the time of the killings. However, the defense disputed the claims and suggested the unusually cold temperatures may have contributed to the lack of bleeding at the time. 

According to the defense, Clancy was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time and that she heard a voice telling her that “this is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself.”

While Clancy appeared outwardly functional, the defense claimed that the psychosis caused her to believe there was only one course of action: to kill her children and then herself. 

Clancy took over 10 medications, went to multiple providers leading up to killings

Multiple psychiatric providers testified to Clancy’s state of mind leading up to January 24. In the months prior, one psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Tufts, said that Clancy had tried at least 10 medications to find the right combination and complained of insomnia, depression, and anxiety resulting from the medication. 

“Anxiety was really bad even before medication. Now hard to differentiate. Overnight, racing thoughts. Paranoid of getting suicidal thoughts, something bad happening, doesn’t want to be alone,” Tufts said while reading from her notes. 

However, Tufts said she had not thought Clancy was ever psychotic, and in an appointment the day before the murders, she never mentioned any plans to kill her children. She told the court she was surprised to hear that Clancy had called a suicide hotline twice over the course of her treatment. 

Psychiatric nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta also testified that while treating Clancy, she was concerned Clancy was experiencing a mixed manic or hypomanic state and recommended a higher level of care, but did not believe Clancy had postpartum psychosis when she treated her. 

Clancy visited multiple treatment centers, including staying multiple days in a locked ward facility in early January. 

Notes found detail Clancy’s fears around medication, mental health

Notes on Clancy’s phone written in the months leading up to the killings included fears over taking new medication and details of her anxiety and depression.

One note, last edited in November 2022, detailed her feeling “sad and depressed” about not being able to parent her youngest child the same way she raised her first, writing that she “sort of resent[s] my other children because they prevent me from treating Cal like my first baby. And I know that’s not fair to them.”

Another note from November contained her concerns over sleep training her child, saying she felt ‘slightly traumatized by the sleep training,” but only when she was “severely sleep deprived and paranoid.”

She also wrote a list of affirmations including “I will get through this. I will overcome postpartum anxiety and depression. I am a great mom. I love my kids.”

Records of Clancy’s cellphone search history from January included several searches about prescription medications, mental disorders including schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucinations, and bipolar disorder, whether or not a sociopath could be treated, as well as methods of suicide. 

If Clancy is found guilty of murder, she could face life in prison. In the event that she is found not criminally responsible, she will likely be committed to a psychiatric hospital.  

This post was originally published on here. 

Indian security agencies arrested more than 200 “terror operatives” linked to Pakistan, thwarting potential “subversive attacks” around the country’s Independence Day last week, Home Minister Amit Shah said on Monday, in one of the largest such crackdowns in years.

A multi-state operation against what Shah said was a terror group backed by Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was carried out across 14 Indian states on August 12, three days before India celebrated its 80th year of freedom from British colonial rule.

A spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Pakistan has in the past denied allegations that it backs militant groups blamed for attacks in India.

“[The] Modi government destroyed the ISI-backed terror group Shahzad Bhatti Network ahead of Independence Day and thwarted its plans for subversive attacks by arresting more than 200 operatives,” Shah said in a post on X/Twitter.

Pistols, ammunition, grenades, bombs bearing Pakistani markings found

Shah said agencies had recovered pistols, live cartridges, grenades bearing Pakistan Ordnance Factory markings and crude bombs.

India and Pakistan both claim that the other fosters and abets terrorism in their country.

The nuclear-armed neighbors were involved in a four-day military conflict last year after India blamed Pakistani attackers for the killing of 26 men at a tourist destination in Indian Kashmir.

This post was originally published on here. 

Residents of villages in eastern Indonesia hit by a deadly earthquake that killed at least 68 people were awaiting aid on Monday as rescuers combed through collapsed buildings in search of people trapped beneath the rubble.

Late on Monday, the death toll was raised to 68 from 54 previously, said Berton SP Panjaitan, an official at Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency, adding that more than 200 have been injured.

Thousands have been evacuated following the country’s deadliest disaster since a 2022 quake killed hundreds in West Java, with many sheltering in tents outdoors and afraid to return to their homes due to fears of aftershocks.

The tremor has cast a grim shadow over Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations, and residents of East Nusa Tenggara have been jolted by nearly 1,600 aftershocks in the province as of Monday, Panjaitan said. The country’s geophysics agency reported a 5.6 quake in the region on Monday morning.

The quake also caused landslides and blocked roads across Indonesia’s southernmost province, including the regions of Sikka and Manggarai.

Damaged health center littered with tents, hospital beds to accommodate villagers

In the parking lot of a damaged health center littered with tents and hospital beds in a village close to the quake-affected Ende region, Firmus Woge, a 64-year-old farmer, was being treated for his asthma, aggravated by the quake-induced panic.

He had difficulty breathing overnight, “but it’s getting worse again after this morning’s quake,” he said, gasping for breath.

In nearby tents, Emilianus Oro, a 56-year-old farmer from Ranukolo village, said about 70 mostly female residents lacked clean water, leading children to contract diarrhea. He said one older person had a stroke and residents have not received aid.

Elsewhere, Veronika Nggambi, 22, was tending to her baby with her mother, swaddled in a brown blanket, in the back of a pickup truck as her house was no longer inhabitable.

“I can only eat rice with nothing else,” she said. “We need aid as soon as possible. We are just salt farmers.”

Search to continue

The search was still continuing on Monday, Panjaitan said, with rescuers receiving no missing person reports.

Fathur Rahman, chief at the rescue office in Maumere, Sikka’s capital, told Reuters on Monday the search would focus on aerial monitoring for anyone missing using a helicopter and an extrication device.

Authorities readied planes to deliver aid such as food and tents, Panjaitan said. The quake damaged around 500 homes, the agency said previously.

Indonesia will also build an emergency field hospital in several areas, said Benjamin Paulus Octavianus, the country’s deputy health minister.

Neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons are needed to treat head trauma and broken bones, Benjamin said.

 ‘I don’t think about that anymore’

In Jakarta, about 1,500 km (930 miles) west of the disaster zone, President Prabowo Subianto presided over Monday celebrations marking Indonesia’s independence from Japanese rule in 1945.

Meanwhile, residents fleeing from an Ende village in fear of tsunamis brought their clothes and mattresses to higher ground.

Asked about how he felt about the Independence Day celebrations, one resident, Gervas, 42, said: “I don’t think about that anymore… I just think about the safety of my wife and 4-year-old twins.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Israel risks making the same mistake twice.

Earlier this year, some Israeli assessments suggested that military setbacks might embolden popular unrest and fracture the Islamic Republic from within.

Now attention has shifted to a blockade, with reports suggesting that strangling Iran’s economy could accomplish what protests did not.

Both ideas rest on the same assumption: that enough pressure will finally cause the regime to collapse. History suggests otherwise.

Israel should welcome a blockade. Every barrel of oil Iran cannot export is revenue the regime cannot spend on ballistic missiles, drones, terrorist proxies, or its nuclear program. A blockade would impose real costs on Tehran and make Israel safer.

But weakening Iran is not the same as toppling the regime. That distinction is more than academic. It is the difference between buying time and solving the problem.

The current debate risks confusing economic weakness with political vulnerability. But the Islamic Republic has endured sanctions, currency collapses, inflation, isolation, and repeated waves of domestic unrest. 

Millions of educated Iranians have left the country. Living standards have steadily deteriorated. Yet the regime remains firmly in control.

Authoritarian regimes rarely collapse simply because their economies do. Saddam Hussein survived years of crushing sanctions. Bashar al-Assad endured sanctions, isolation, and economic collapse for more than a decade before his regime finally fell. 

Cuba survived decades of embargo. Zimbabwe and Venezuela endured economic catastrophes that impoverished millions while their rulers remained firmly in power.

In each case, ordinary citizens became poorer. The ruling elite stayed in office and even tightened its grip over society.

Iran fits this pattern. The country is no longer best understood as a revolutionary theocracy led by clerics. It is increasingly a security state dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The IRGC controls the instruments of coercion, vast segments of the economy, intelligence services, and many of the country’s most important political institutions. It has repeatedly demonstrated that it is prepared to use overwhelming force against its own population to preserve its rule.

The regime has spent years adapting to sanctions. Rather than seeking prosperity, it has learned to survive without it.

As the Wall Street Journal recently described, Iran has become a “survival economy” – one structured to absorb prolonged external pressure through sanctions evasion, smuggling networks, informal trade, and tighter state control.

The objective is not growth. It is endurance.

A blockade makes that endurance more difficult, but does not end it. And at some point, the blockade will have a political expiration date.

Maintaining one requires an enormous and sustained American military commitment. Carrier strike groups, destroyers, intelligence assets, logistics, and regional force protection cannot remain concentrated around the Persian Gulf indefinitely.

The United States has global responsibilities and domestic political constraints. Over time, pressure will mount in Washington to reduce its military presence.

America’s allies will add to that pressure. The Strait of Hormuz is not simply Iran’s problem; it is the economic lifeline of America’s Gulf partners and a critical artery for the global economy. 

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other Gulf states cannot indefinitely tolerate a stalemate that leaves their exports, infrastructure, and security under constant threat, while America’s allies in Europe and Asia absorb higher energy prices and disrupted trade. 

What comes next?

Over time, the political pressure to end an open-ended blockade will become difficult for Washington to resist.

If the regime survives the blockade, Iran is likely to emerge with a dangerous new source of leverage. The IRGC has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. 

If American naval forces are no longer present in overwhelming numbers, Tehran could repeatedly use that capability to intimidate its neighbors, disrupt global trade, and extract political or economic concessions. 

In effect, the regime would have demonstrated that it can outlast American resolve and use Hormuz as a recurring source of regional and global leverage.

Israel should therefore see the blockade not as the endgame but as an opportunity – valuable, but temporary – to build a strategy capable of ending the threat at its source. 

Economic pressure can buy Israel time. But time is valuable only if it is used to build the strategy the blockade itself cannot provide.

What comes next must be a comprehensive strategy aimed not simply at weakening Iran’s economy but at eroding the political foundations of the Islamic Republic. Success depends on attacking the regime’s sources of strength simultaneously rather than sequentially. 

Israel should pursue four mutually reinforcing lines of effort, ideally in partnership with the US: expanding support for democratic opposition inside and outside Iran; widening fractures within the regime and particularly the IRGC’s ruling coalition; waging a sustained information campaign that exposes corruption, repression, and incompetence while undermining the regime’s legitimacy; and applying economic pressure with far greater precision against the IRGC’s commercial empire and the networks that sustain it. 

Wherever possible, these efforts should remain indirect and discreet, since initiatives perceived as Israeli-backed are far less likely to gain credibility inside Iran. 

None will succeed in isolation. Together they form a single integrated campaign, each reinforcing the others.

Israel has shown remarkable creativity in degrading Iran’s nuclear program and regional proxy network. It now needs to apply that same strategic imagination to the harder challenge of weakening the regime itself.

The Islamic Republic has spent nearly half a century proving it can survive hardship. Israel’s challenge is no longer simply to weaken Iran’s economy or slow its nuclear program. 

It is to fracture the system that has survived every previous challenge to its power. Only that strategy offers a path to lasting security.

The writer teaches political risk at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and writes about and works on fragile states and political transitions.

This post was originally published on here. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent comment about the “Islamic Republic of Britain” is better fodder for political psychologists than political scientists. While political science tries to explain what happens in global politics, political psychology tries to explain why.

Why would Netanyahu, a seasoned statesman who is generally careful about how he speaks publicly about other countries and is not known for slips of the tongue, make an insulting comment about Britain?

And Britain was insulted. How do we know? A government spokesman labeled the remarks “completely unacceptable” and said the matter had been raised with the Israeli government.

British broadcaster Piers Morgan, who has turned Zionists and anti-Zionists screaming at each other into a spectator sport that boosts his ratings, retweeted a clip of Netanyahu’s comment with his own one-word comment: “Idiot.”

To understand Netanyahu’s comment and its significance, it is necessary to put it into context.

The comment came around the 100-minute mark of a 112-minute Army Radio podcast with Avi Harush, whose 20-year-old son Reef was killed fighting in southern Gaza in April 2024. Harush had his son’s sperm retrieved and frozen after his death and is fighting to be able to use it so his son can posthumously father a child.

The podcast was not about geopolitics. It was a deeply personal conversation about grief, memory, legacy, and the desire to keep the fallen alive. Much of it dealt with the grief Netanyahu has carried since his brother Yonatan was killed at Entebbe in 1976.

Harush asked whether, had the possibility existed at the time, Netanyahu would have sought to have a child born from his brother’s sperm. Netanyahu said he would have.

From there, the conversation shifted to naming children after the fallen. Netanyahu recalled how he and his wife, Sara, had once discussed the possibility of naming one of their sons Yoni Netanyahu. Sara, he said, wisely ruled it out, arguing that it would place too great a psychological burden on the child.

Netanyahu recalls meeting with Churchill’s grandson, calls him ‘very nice man’

That led Netanyahu to recall meeting the grandson of one of his heroes, Winston Churchill. The grandson was also named Winston Churchill.

The younger Winston Churchill and his father, Randolph, co-authored a favorable account of Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. Netanyahu recalled the grandson as a “very nice man” who strongly supported Israel.

“Incidentally, he and his father, Randolph – Churchill’s son – came here and covered the Six Day War in a way that was very favorable toward us,” Netanyahu said. “Try finding that in Britain today – in what is called the Islamic Republic of Britain.”

When Harush interjected that all of Europe was like that, Netanyahu continued: “Yes, but someone said, you know, that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons would be the Islamic Republic of Britain. So we are making sure that there will not be another one here, you know, in Iran.”

That “someone” was none other than US Vice President JD Vance, who made a similar comment in July 2024, shortly before Donald Trump selected him as his running mate.

Vance’s original comment, however, included an important caveat that disappeared from Netanyahu’s retelling. Vance joked that Britain under Labour might become “the first truly Islamist country” with nuclear weapons, but immediately added that “Pakistan already kind of counts.”

That Netanyahu remembered Vance’s comment is revealing of the degree of due diligence done on the vice president and indicates how closely the prime minister follows key American political figures, and how he is able to file away comments they have made in the past to support his worldview.

Why is all this context important?

First, because it shows that Netanyahu did not go into the podcast studio planning from the outset to call Britain an Islamic republic as part of some carefully crafted election campaign designed to appeal to his base, which seems to like to see him stand up to the Europeans.

If that were the intention, Netanyahu would not have buried the line in the 100th minute of a lengthy podcast about fallen relatives, grief, and legacy. This was a casual conversation, and Netanyahu appeared to be speaking as though the audience were entirely Israeli – people who would understand what he considered an inside joke and perhaps concur with what he saw as an obvious truth.

This was a deeply personal interview in which Netanyahu spoke about the pain of his brother’s death to a father fighting to have a grandchild born from his fallen son’s sperm. In that setting, Netanyahu let his guard down and his diplomatic filter slip.

This was for the home crowd, not the world.

That context matters because it makes the remark even more revealing. A planned statement tells you what a politician wants you to hear. An unplanned aside can tell you what he actually thinks.

Netanyahu’s ability to pivot so naturally from Churchill to the “Islamic Republic of Britain” suggests this wasn’t a prepared talking point, but something embedded in his thinking. The comment indicates that he sees Britain – and, by extension, much of Western Europe – as a lost cause, where changing demographics are fueling increasingly anti-Israel sentiment. It also reflects his growing bitterness toward Britain’s political leadership.

Some British – like Morgan – were appalled that the Israeli prime minister would talk about them in this way. But how about the way British government officials talk about Netanyahu or Israel?

Under former prime minister Keir Starmer, Britain suspended some arms export licenses to Israel, halted negotiations on a new free-trade agreement, sanctioned Israeli ministers, and recognized a Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has just replaced Starmer, has taken an even more adversarial tone.

Shortly before becoming prime minister, he said Starmer had not put enough pressure on Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza, apologized for Labour’s initial response to the war, and raised the possibility of banning imported goods from beyond the Green Line.

For Jerusalem, the new British leader scolding his predecessor for not being tough enough on Israel rubs in all the wrong ways.

British politicians have shifted from using diplomatic euphemisms to couch their differences with Israel to using highly charged language that, in Jerusalem’s view, goes far beyond run-of-the-mill criticism. Former foreign secretary David Lammy described Israeli policies as “morally unjustifiable,” “repellent” and “monstrous,” and suspended trade negotiations.

For Jerusalem, criticism from London no longer feels like the routine disagreements between allies. Rather, it feels increasingly like something more fundamental – like a country Israel once considered instinctively sympathetic having now turned against it.

Netanyahu’s off-the-cuff podcast comment gave voice to that sentiment and provided a demographic explanation: “the Islamic republic of Britain?”

Was this comment diplomatic? Obviously not. Was it a sweeping exaggeration? Certainly. Does it reflect Netanyahu’s view of Britain and much of Europe? Probably far more accurately than the usual diplomatic niceties do. And that is why the remark matters – not because it was carefully planned, but precisely because it most likely was not.

This post was originally published on here. 

Iran viewed the development of a memorandum of understanding with the United States as an attempt by Israel and the US to buy time for a larger attack, and used the opportunity to prepare for a larger fight themselves, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing Iranian and Arab officials.

According to the WSJ, Arab intelligence officials picked up evidence of Iranian leaders planning potential attacks on enemy territory, broadening the scope of the war and raising the cost for the US.

“There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun,” Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, a Tehran-based defense analyst close to the Iranian government, told the WSJ. “What we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of ‘salami-slicing’ tactics – limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation.”

Part of the preparations Iran made included sending advisors to Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon to discuss plans for Iran’s proxy militias.

Officials familiar with Arab intelligence findings said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent commanders to assist Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group, supervising the deployment of missiles and other weapons targeting the Red Sea, as well as giving the group lists of targets and general advice and guidance.

The IRGC also threatened Gulf states that it would target their energy facilities if the US targeted Iran’s, including sending lists of specific targets.

Other options the IRGC has planned include options such as sabotaging internet cables, raising political unrest in countries with high Shia populations, and ground operations in Kuwait.

Iran’s baseline is war, former US nuclear negotiator says

Alan Eyre, a former senior US diplomat and nuclear negotiator with Iran, said that Iran’s baseline is war, adding that “Iran will remain on a wartime footing, preparing for a subsequent attack.”

One example the WSJ cites is the recent appointment of Ahmad Vahidi as the new Revolutionary Guard Commander in Chief.

According to Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Vahidi’s appointment “is consistent with a leadership preparing the security establishment for a period of sustained confrontation rather than a return to normal peacetime politics.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that the political leadership approve every targeted strike and operation beyond the Yellow Line, as Israel works to keep the intensity of the fighting at a level that will not drag the region into a broader conflict and prompt the US to act against Israel diplomatically, or even take further measures such as imposing an arms embargo.

The exception set by the prime minister is an immediate threat to IDF soldiers or Gaza border communities, in which case IDF troops are authorized to act to remove the threat.

The US is seeking to keep Gaza and Lebanon relatively quiet as it focuses on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, while pressing Israel to avoid a broader escalation and sending Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to advance diplomatic efforts in both arenas.

At present, the US views Iran as a central theater of the war, while the Strait of Hormuz, which US President Donald Trump has already discussed naming a US territory, has become a thorn in the side of the Trump administration.

At the same time, the administration is facing growing pressure and frustration from Gulf states over Washington’s inability to defeat Iran in the war overall, and in the Strait of Hormuz in particular.

Trump administration pushing for restraint in Gaza, Lebanon

The Trump administration now needs quiet in Gaza and Lebanon. It is therefore taking several steps simultaneously. First, it is pressing Israel to exercise restraint in both arenas. Second, it has sent Kushner and Witkoff to the region to advance diplomatic efforts in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Lebanon, the situation is more complicated, as the IDF is close to defeating Hezbollah’s forces along the Ali Taher ridge, Hezbollah’s main and most significant defensive line in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah understands well what it would mean for the IDF to hold this territory. The route toward the Beqaa Valley, Beirut, and westward to the Mediterranean coast would be almost entirely open to the IDF should it decide in the future to deepen its ground maneuver.

Hezbollah and Hamas understand their military position vis-à-vis the IDF. They are trying to challenge the military and draw it into more intense fighting.

On Friday night, an explosive drone struck troops from the Combat Engineering Corps’ Yahalom unit, seriously wounding an officer and two soldiers. On Saturday, a powerful explosive device, apparently an underbelly charge, was detonated against an IDF tank in the southern Gaza Strip.

In both arenas, soldiers report a large number of incidents every day. Hamas and Hezbollah’s objective is to drag the IDF into high-intensity fighting, in other words, to push the IDF into “breaking the rules of the game.”

The complex reality requires the IDF to fight at an intensity that protects its troops and preserves Israel’s achievements, while at the same time avoiding an escalation that could derail the diplomatic track.

Israel continues shaping battlefield through approved strikes

Israel is now in a period of waiting while continuing to shape the battlefield, during what is an especially complex period for the military establishment.

In recent days, the political leadership has approved four preemptive targeted killings of terrorists. On Sunday, within the space of one hour, the IDF struck two additional terrorists in two separate areas of Gaza.

The first strike targeted a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in the Khan Yunis area. The second targeted a Hamas terrorist in the Nuseirat area of the Gaza Strip. According to the IDF, both terrorists were advancing plans for terrorist attacks and were struck from the air to remove the threat.

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency) say that calibration is currently the key to preventing the situation in Gaza from deteriorating. Israel does not truly believe that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad will disarm, but it does not want to be seen as the party that broke the rules of the game in the negotiations.

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US President Donald Trump confirmed to FOX News on Monday that there is a backchannel with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials, as the 60-day period in the MoU expired.

Trump added that Iran should raise “the white flag of surrender,” and that he has “no time schedule” and is in “no hurry” to make a deal.

The Iranian’s are “good poker players, but they’re dying,” said Trump.

He warned that “if Oman gets in the way [of US control in the Strait of Hormuz], we’ll bomb the s*** out of them.”

Regarding US munitions used against Iran, Trump said that what has been used so far against Iran “is peanuts.”

Trump added that while the US has many mid-level weapons, many of the more advanced weapons, including air-defense systems, were “given away” to Ukraine by former US President Joe Biden.

This is a developing story. 

This post was originally published on here. 

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The 60-day window established in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the United States and Iran in June expired on Monday. During that period, the two sides were supposed to try to reach a broader and final agreement.

On Monday afternoon, Saudi news channel Al Arabiya reported that the US and Iran have agreed to extend a 60-day ceasefire.

The deadline passed without a breakthrough, and Washington and Tehran remain divided over the main issues, particularly the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program.

US President Donald Trump announced in a post on Truth Social after the MoU’s expiration that the “number one Goal” was to prevent Iran from having “in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.”

According to a senior Iranian official who spoke with reporters, there are no talks about extending the 60-day period.

His comments came in response to a report by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, which cited sources in the Pakistani government claiming that Tehran and Washington had agreed to extend the period.

“There are no talks about an extension,” the Iranian official said, claiming that the United States violated the interim agreement just 48 hours after it was reached and later withdrew from it.

According to the official, one of the issues being conveyed through mediators is Iran’s demand that the United States return to the interim agreement and set a timetable for fulfilling its commitments. “There has been no progress whatsoever on this issue,” he said.

The MoU signed in June declared an “immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts,” but the arrangement quickly began to unravel. On July 7, Trump said the agreement was “over,” while Tehran repeatedly accused Washington of violating its commitments.

Ceasefire was meant to remain in effect

The 60-day period was not intended to mark a point at which the ceasefire would automatically end. Rather, it was an extendable period during which the United States and Iran were expected to reach a final agreement covering much broader issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

The ceasefire was also supposed to remain in effect throughout that period.

However, major differences between the sides remained. Among the conditions considered essential for moving to the next stage of negotiations were a ceasefire in Lebanon, freedom of navigation in the Gulf, and measures that would allow Iran to sell oil.

Talks also reached a deadlock over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran insists that the vital shipping route will remain closed as long as the United States does not change its conduct and accept Iran’s conditions for ending the war, including the release of Iranian funds frozen abroad.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has also sharpened his rhetoric toward Trump in recent days.

“The Strait of Hormuz belonged to Iran in the past, it belongs to Iran today, and it will remain Iranian territory in the future,” he wrote. “It cannot be taken over through tweets, aircraft carriers, orders, or election speeches.”

According to him, “This strait will open and close only on Iran’s orders. As long as the United States refuses to accept the reality of defeat and continues to live in illusions, Iran will continue its blockade.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also made clear that the exchange of messages does not indicate that talks have resumed. According to him, Iran and the United States are not currently negotiating, and Tehran will not return to the table as long as Washington continues, in Iran’s view, to violate the interim agreement. Qatar and Pakistan, however, continue to convey messages between the two sides.

Trump seeking to ‘strangle’ Iran economically 

Meanwhile, Trump is seeking to strangle Iran economically and allow the situation to die slowly without any significant exchange of fire. The Iranians, at least according to their propaganda apparatus, say they are prepared for a war of attrition and have, in their words, endless patience.

From Trump’s perspective, he has closed the strait, leaving no traffic to enter or leave Iran. The Iranians, meanwhile, claim that they control the strait.

The expiration of the 60-day window comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains at the center of the confrontation. Since the war began on February 28, Iran has effectively closed the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas previously passed.

As August 17 began, no diplomatic breakthrough had been achieved, and no final agreement had been reached. The clock set in June reached zero, while nearly all of the disputes that led to the 60-day framework remained unresolved.

This post was originally published on here. 

Iran said on Monday that two French embassy employees involved in a diplomatic dispute last month would not be allowed to return to Iran.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the two had violated the Vienna Convention – which defines the rules and privileges of diplomatic missions – by engaging in activities supporting Iranian civil society.

“Insisting that these individuals were engaged in activities related to supporting civil society is itself an admission that the Vienna Convention was violated,” Baghaei told a weekly press conference, without elaborating.

Tehran has long been highly sensitive to what it sees as Western meddling in its internal affairs, especially since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February in a conflict that continues to rage.

France summons Iranian charge d’affaires 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, in an interview with France Inter last month, said the mission of the two embassy employees concerned was to “develop programs supporting Iranian civil society, students, and artists (…) France is one of the countries in the world that does the most for Iranian civil society, and we have paid the price for it.”

France summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires on July 21 after accusing Iranian security forces of detaining and physically intimidating its embassy staff in Tehran.

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Israel’s governing-party primary has turned into a competition for grotesquerie. Israel Katz, the defense minister charged with protecting a country facing existential threats, opens with explosions: “Boom, boom, boom,” goes his AI-generated campaign song.

Yoav Kisch, a respected former IDF pilot and now an education minister apparently converted to trolling, joins the AI-song craze. Idit Silman – minister of something, presumably – floods social media with her customary graciousness.

Before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked her from running, Hadar Muchtar, who has spent years trying to turn TikTok virality into a Knesset seat, made her pitch plainly: Young Israelis live on TikTok and Instagram, and she could deliver their votes to Netanyahu.

The bad taste has a function. Likud candidates are fighting for recognition in a crowded primary. A serious argument about education or defense cannot travel through WhatsApp groups the way a cringe clip, generated in seconds at almost no cost, will.

A viral clip keeps a minister in the public conversation without forcing him to explain what the government has actually delivered.

What the spectacle hides

The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust occurred on this government’s watch. Israel has since inflicted severe damage on Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran and demonstrated extraordinary military capabilities. Yet after almost three years of war, the “total victory” repeatedly promised by Netanyahu is difficult to identify on any front.

Hamas’s disarmament remains remote. Hezbollah has been badly weakened, but the northern threat remains. Iran’s nuclear program was set back an estimated three to five years, yet enriched uranium remains in the country, the ballistic threat survives, and the regime that built both is still in power and openly committed to Israel’s destruction.

In June, only 15% of respondents in an INSS survey thought Israel had won the latest war against Iran.

Meanwhile, 968 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7. The war’s human and psychological costs are only beginning to surface.

In July, the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department reported 26,200 wounded from the current war in its care; 65% were seeking treatment for psychological distress or PTSD. It expects to be treating around 50,000 people with psychological injuries by 2028. Reservists make up 62% of the current-war wounded in the system.

The domestic record offers even less cinematic material.

Police figures recorded 309 murders in 2025. The haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft question has festered through years of war while the same reservists are repeatedly called back to duty. Political and social polarization has returned at an even higher level than before October 7: A May 2026 study measured it at 8.3 out of 10, above the level recorded during the 2023 judicial-overhaul crisis.

On the cost of living: Israel entered this government’s term already among the OECD’s most expensive countries. Food prices were 37% above the OECD average and 51% above the European Union in purchasing-power terms.

Since then, major household expenses have climbed another 15% to 30%. Netanyahu ran in 2022 on bringing prices down. His government’s committee on the cost of living met once.

Then there is the brain drain. A study published this month estimates that 268,509 Israelis left the country for at least three consecutive months between 2023 and 2025 – close to 90,000 a year, compared with roughly 60,000 annually in the previous decade.

Researchers found particularly worrying increases among doctors, engineers, PhDs, academics, and high earners. In 2024 alone, 530 doctors left Israel, roughly twice the previous annual norm.

For a small country whose economy, health system, military edge, and tax base depend heavily on skilled human capital, this is a strategic warning, and potentially a quasi-existential threat to its long-term viability as a modern society and economy.

There are some positive signs in the current chaos, but an impressively solid and resilient economy and exceptional IDF tactical achievements do not automatically add up to a safer, more cohesive, or better-governed country. In that context, “boom, boom, boom” starts to look like strategy rather than accident.

Netanyahu’s troll problem

Netanyahu cannot cast himself as the adult rescuing Likud from this degeneracy. He helped build the incentives that reward it. Long before generative AI, he understood the value of bypassing traditional mediation, personalizing politics, and speaking directly to the base.

The Likud trolls did not fall from the sky. They developed in an ecosystem where provocation became political capital. Tally Gotliv may be its purest product. Her politics runs on permanent confrontation, accusation, yelling, and spectacular language, and internal Likud polling has repeatedly placed her near the top.

TheMarker reported explicitly that Netanyahu feared the trollization of Likud’s top 10 and what that culture may look like on a national ballot. That helps explain the unusually large number of reserved slots he has accumulated to shape the upper part of the ticket.

Recent reporting linked the maneuver to his concern about Gotliv reaching the top 10 and his desire for a more mamlakhti slate capable of recovering moderate right-wing voters.

Even mamlakhtiyut changes meaning here. Traditionally, it referred to an ethic of state responsibility: restraint, institutional seriousness, an understanding that office imposes obligations on its holder.

In this primary, it functions more like casting: more respectable faces positioned high enough on the list to reassure voters about what the party’s internal market has produced underneath.

The Likud primary offers a compact portrait of Israeli politics in 2026. A government with a weak domestic record and an unresolved strategic one campaigns through synthetic images of strength.

The AI clips are ridiculous, but they are not incidental.

They belong to a governing culture particularly skilled at projecting power and far less convincing when asked what, concretely, it has delivered to Israelis.

The writer is a senior analyst in radical ideologies, cognitive security, and narrative warfare, a former Jerusalem Post journalist, and is completing a PhD in Digital Humanities at the Sorbonne.

This post was originally published on here. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Britain of abandoning its past support for Israel, branding the country the “Islamic Republic of Britain” during an interview on the Army Radio podcast King of Creating Life published last week.

On the podcast, the prime minister argued that the support Randolph Churchill and his son, Winston, showed for Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War can’t be found today in the “Islamic Republic of Britain.

“Incidentally, he [younger Winston Churchill] and his father, Randolph, Churchill’s son, came here and covered the Six-Day War in a way that was very favorable toward us,” Netanyahu said. “Try finding that in Britain today, in what is called the Islamic Republic of Britain.”

Netanyahu also recalled a phrase someone had said that “the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.”

Netanyahu on Britain:

You might call Britain the “Islamic Republic of Britain.”

Someone said that the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.

We’re making sure there won’t be another one—you know, in Iran. pic.twitter.com/EmLpSvYtxu

— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 13, 2026

“We’re making sure there won’t be another one, you know, in Iran,” he stated. Notably, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has had an active nuclear program since 1972.

Khamenei posters, Iran regime flags displayed at London march

Tensions between Israel and the Britain have grown strained over the past few months, and even more so since British Prime Minister Andy Burnham took over from Keir Starmer. 

Last week, open displays of support for the Islamic Regime in Iran were seen throughout Sunday’s Arbaeen Procession in London.

The Arbaeen Procession is an annual public march held to commemorate Imam Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, who was martyred in Karbala, Iraq, in 680 CE.

The Jerusalem Post reviewed hundreds of videos and photos from the event, finding at least dozens of posters and flags of former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as hundreds of Islamic regime flags.

One in particular stood out: a poster by the Islamic Human Rights Commission with the words “Choose the right side of history” superimposed on a photo of Khamenei.

The IHRC has been investigated by the UK’s Charity Commission since 2017 for its alleged ties to the Iranian regime.

Also visible in the footage from Sunday was a man wearing a keffiyeh featuring the three supreme leaders of the Islamic regime: erstwhile supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei, and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

The brazen displays of pro-regime propaganda during Sunday’s Arbaeen march were particularly striking given the UK’s recent introduction of the National Security (State Threats) Act 2026.

Mathilda Heller contributed to this report.

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A former street gang leader accused of masterminding the 1996 drive-by shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas faces opening statements on Monday in a murder trial tied to a long-unsolved crime that became a seminal moment in rap history.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, is charged in Clark County, Nevada, with a single count of murder using a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. Davis is accused of leading a group of men to kill Shakur, 25, one of rap’s most commercially successful and influential artists, in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip.

The killing heightened the image of violence permeating hip-hop culture and its lyrics during “gangsta” rap’s golden age, stoking the East Coast-West Coast rap feud of that era.

Police said after Davis’ 2023 arrest that he was a longtime suspect in the killing but that investigators lacked sufficient admissible evidence to charge him until he began implicating himself in a series of public statements.

The trial before Judge Carli Kierny is expected to run for up to six weeks in a downtown Las Vegas courthouse. It may feature testimony from Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight, a former rap mogul who was with Shakur the night he was slain and is now serving a 28-year prison sentence on an unrelated voluntary manslaughter conviction. A jury was selected last week.

The ‘shot caller’

Authorities have described Davis as the “shot caller” of a hurried plot to avenge the beating of his nephew by Shakur and members of his entourage inside the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas the night of September 7, 1996.

The violence at the casino allegedly stemmed from hostility between two Los Angeles-area street gangs -the South Side Compton Crips, of which Davis was the self-described leader, and Mob Piru, which police say was associated with Knight and Death Row Records. They were in Las Vegas to see a world heavyweight title boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon.

Davis allegedly obtained the murder weapon and handed it off to two other men in the rear seat of a white Cadillac as they rode around looking for Knight and Shakur’s car following the brawl.

Shots were fired when Davis and the others caught up with Knight and Shakur’s vehicle. Shakur was struck four times and died in a hospital six days later. Knight, who had been driving, suffered a minor injury from a bullet fragment that grazed his head.

Cold case heats up

The murder investigation grew cold for years, but police said statements Davis made in 2018 to various media outlets about his involvement in the shooting reinvigorated the case.

Davis said in interviews and in his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that he was riding in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and had handed the gun to one of the two men sitting behind him, according to police.

But neither Davis’ account nor authorities have said who fired the gun at Shakur. The three other men in the Cadillac with Davis have all since died.

Under Nevada law, Davis can be charged with murder if he took part in the crime without pulling the trigger.

In his book, Davis wrote that he was long considered a suspect in the murders of Shakur and a rival rapper, Christopher Wallace, who performed as The Notorious B.I.G. under the New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment label and was shot dead in Los Angeles in March 1997.

Although the Wallace killing remains unsolved, investigators have long speculated that he was gunned down in retaliation for Shakur’s killing months earlier.

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Around 30 electrocuted white storks were found near the Tovlan waste site in the Jordan Valley by a birdwatcher from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) on Sunday.

Yotam Bashan, a senior birdwatcher with SPNI, noticed the dead storks lying beneath the power poles while driving along Route 90.

“While driving, I noticed white storks lying dead beneath the utility poles,” Bashan said. “I left the road and drove along the dirt road running parallel to it, and within a relatively short stretch, I counted about 30 dead storks, or remains of storks.”

Bashan noted that the situation is not a one-time phenomenon, explaining that “every year, dozens of stork carcasses are found in the area after being electrocuted to death.”

The Tovlan waste site attracts migrating storks during their yearly flight, providing a place to rest temporarily before continuing their journey or hunker down for the winter.

Exposed utility poles are danger to storks

“The nearby utility poles serve as places for them to perch and rest,” Bashan said. “The danger is primarily created by poles with exposed electrical components.”

“Because of their size and broad wingspan, when the storks land on a pole or spread their wings on it, they may simultaneously touch two points with different electrical voltages, or a conductive component and a grounded part of the pole. This closes an electrical circuit and electrocutes the bird, which usually ends in death.”

SNPI’s Birding Center Director Dr. Yoav Perlman called the Tovlan waste site and adjacent compost site “death trap[s] for white storks and black kites.”

“Over the past 10 years, every year, this line has killed many white storks during the migration seasons and many black kites during the winter,” according to Perlman, who added that several of the power lines in the area belong to the Israel Electric Corporation.

Authorities must act immediately before sites become further ‘death traps’

At the Israel Nature and Parks Authority’s (INPA) request, several of the utility poles in the area have been protected against electrocution while others have been buried underground.

“However,” noted Perlman, “many poles remain unprotected, and the evidence shows these are the ones electrocuting the birds. The problem is particularly serious with transformer poles, where protective solutions are more expensive.”

He called on the IEC and the Jordan Valley Regional Council to “act immediately” and either protect or bury all the power lines around the Tovlan waste site to ensure that they do not stay as “death traps” to migrating storks.

“About half a million white storks pass through Israel during every migration season, about half of the global population,” Perlman added. “Along their migration routes, white storks are exposed to many dangers, including hunting in the countries surrounding us and harm from energy infrastructure.”

“The State of Israel is a signatory to several international conventions for the protection of migratory birds. It would be good if the state fulfilled its commitment to the issue and solved this recurring problem once and for all.”

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Highway 1 toward Ma’aleh Adumim from Jerusalem was closed to traffic after a bus caught fire near the Az-Za’ayyem Crossing, Israel Police announced on Monday morning. 

Firefighters are currently working to extinguish the flames.

Police have asked drivers to operate with caution and follow the instructions of the police officers on scene.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

El Al canceled a planned flight route between Tel Aviv and Hanoi, Vietnam‘s capital, after it couldn’t obtain security approval from the Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency), the airline announced on Thursday.

According to the airline, it sought permission from Israel’s security establishment to operate the flights but was told that it was not possible to grant the airline the permits necessary to fly the route using Israeli crew and planes.

El Al apologized to customers, offering to reimburse canceled flights with replacement flights to other locations, connecting flights to Hanoi with alternate airlines, or full refunds in the form of cash or vouchers.

The route was scheduled to launch in October.

El Al announces new routes to Asian, European countries

El Al had announced the route in February, alongside new routes to Manila, Seoul, Sardinia, Sicily, Switzerland, and Croatia.

According to El Al’s announcement at the time, the new routes would “provide an optimal solution for business travelers and will strengthen economic ties between Israel and Asia.”

Esther Davis contributed to this report.

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Somalia’s federal troops and armed opposition groups clashed in heavy fighting in Baidoa city center on Monday, a local resident and an army officer told Reuters.

The administrative capital of South West state, Baidoa, is home to ​international peacekeepers and humanitarian agencies. It is one of Somalia’s largest cities with a population of over a million people.

Fresh fighting in the city could compound a dire humanitarian crisis in the area. Baidoa hosts hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and one in four children at displacement sites there are severely malnourished, according to a July survey by Médecins Sans Frontières.

“Militias loyal to the former Baidoa president entered Baidoa from two sides, challenging two battalions of federal military. Fighting has intensified now,” Farah Nur, a shopkeeper in the city, told Reuters.

Federal troops have been in charge of the city since March, when they seized control, which prompted South West state leader Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed ​Laftagareen to resign.

Heavy weapons deployed, civilians killed by stray bullets

Nur told Reuters federal forces were using heavy weapons and that he had seen at least two civilians killed in their houses by stray bullets and that several others who were injured were being taken to hospital.

Hassan Mohamed, ​Laftagareen’s spokesperson, said in a post on Facebook that their troops had captured Baidoa and asked federal forces to surrender. His claim could not be independently verified.

“The armed militias attacked Baidoa this morning; we are pushing them back…. There are casualties as stray bullets enter houses,” Captain Osman Abdullahi, a Somalia federal military officer, told Reuters.

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As I am watching and hearing the loud noise from an IDF helicopter flying above my house, two names that are deeply embedded in my heart come to mind – Alex and William. I will explain why in a moment.
 
I continued to watch the helicopter as it traveled over the beautiful Sea of Galilee, where jet skis and speed boats race around on the lake as people enjoy vacation time in Israel, instead of being hunkered down in bomb shelters. 
 
For a brief while, it looked like that would be our reality again, as we were out shopping and mentally preparing ourselves for another war with the evil regime in Iran. However, once again at the last minute, the American president called off a major strike, which reportedly would have included Israel. 
 
So once again it was a very surreal reality for almost all of us living in Israel, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. 
 
As my time of staying here in the Galilee is coming to an end, I am thankful for this time that has allowed me to continue healing and recovering from so much trauma and death.

Two souls tormented by war 

And yet, my heart once again is torn and hurting from receiving more devastating news.  The names I mentioned above – William and Alex- were two young Jewish Americans who, out of love for their people and Israel, traveled alone to Israel to enlist in the IDF.
 
Both of them fought bravely for the Jewish Homeland against her enemies, it brought scars and traumas so deep, that out of the desperation and trouble in their souls, they both ended their lives after leaving Israel and returning to America. This news is absolutely devastating!  
 
Alex Miller was a 23-year-old man was moderately wounded in one of the many the heinous terror attacks we had in Israel! It happened in a 2022 car-ramming attack near the Nebi Mousa training facility while he waited with his fellow soldiers. 

Alex later returned to military service alongside his comrades in the Kfir Battalion after undergoing a painful and difficult rehabilitation process. 
 
His family and friends explained how Alex fought deep trauma for a long time that remained with him since that horrible terror attack that wounded him. In addition to this, there was the emotional pain and trauma that followed from the loss of his close friend, Noam Shemesh, who was killed in battle in the Gaza Strip.

Alex later returned to America, where he tragically ended his life. May he rest in peace and may his memory forever be a blessing!

William Shakin immigrated to Israel following the October 7 massacre and bravely enlisted in the IDF through the Mahal program for overseas volunteers. He served as a combat soldier in the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion in Gaza, where he lost dear friends fighting alongside him, which left him deeply traumatized. 

During his service, Shakin lived at HaBayit Shel Benji, which provides housing for lone soldiers. After he completed his service, he returned to America, where he tragically ended his life. May he rest in peace and may his memory forever be a blessing!
 
My heart aches for the families of Alex and William, because there are just no words I can find to comfort them. 

Suicides and suicide attempts among IDF soldiers and veterans have surged since the October 7, 2023, onslaught and massacre against Israel and the subsequent wars in Gaza and Lebanon.  
At least 60 active and reserve soldiers died by suicide between October 2023 and April of this year, including 10 lives lost in this year alone.

279 active-duty soldiers attempted suicide in a short period

A report published by the Knesset Research and Information Center last October found that between January 2024 and July 2025, 279 active-duty soldiers attempted to take their own lives. I must admit that all of this tragic information is making me weep deeply. 
 
According to the report, combat soldiers made up 78 percent of all suicide cases in Israel during 2024, a sharp rise from previous years. The rate hovered between 42% and 45% from 2017 to 2022, and stood at just 17% in early 2023.
 
We can’t even begin to imagine what our precious soldiers have endured in facing these savages from Hamas and Hezbollah – year after year -fighting this demonic evil that has attacked us.
 
The toll from Israel just defending her nation and people, with so many soldiers killed in battle, thousands of soldiers losing their limbs, or thousands of soldiers permanently injured in varying degrees, including soldiers with PTSD, is staggering.
 
As we now see some of them being so deeply traumatized, they see no other way than to end their lives; just how much is a nation supposed to take? And on top of all of this, Israeli soldiers are being hunted around the world when they go on some much needed vacation, its despicable!
 
On top of that, we continue to get heartbreaking news from the battlefields: Two reservist soldiers were just killed, and four were seriously wounded after being hit by an explosive device in the southern Lebanon town of Majdal Zoun. 
 
The slain troops were named as: Maj. (res.) Harel Birenstock, 34, a company commander from Nokdim; and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Tamir Vaknin, 33, from Eilat. Both served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade’s 2855th Battalion.

May their memory be a blessing

May they rest in peace and may their memory be a blessing.

It’s just devastating; our hearts are breaking for their families.
 
The Jewish Nation continues to bury its sons, either killed in battle or killed by their own hands after experiences of unimaginable horror and trauma; it shatters our hearts!
 
However, here is some good news and some justice in the midst of so much heartbreak: the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet have acknowledged that a special operation has been established with a dedicated unit named “Nili” to hunt down and kill every single despicable terrorist involved in the October 7, 2023, massacre on Israel.

Speaking to Channel 12 news, some of the Nili officers openly described their mission for the first time, detailing who has been targeted and the means used to locate and kill them.

According to the report, 2,800 people on Nili’s list have been killed, including the 1,200 terrorists killed by Israeli security forces in southern Israel during the horrific October 7th onslaught.

Among those eliminated have been the terrorists who kidnapped 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, 12-year-old Yagil Yaakov, Yarden Bibas, and Avinatan Or.

The hate is not limited to our precious soldiers only; we see over and over how Israelis are attacked while being on vacation around the world, just like what just happened to an Israeli mother and daughter vacationing on Thailand’s Koh Phangan Island.

They went to visit a waterfall where they encountered a man who asked where they were from.
 
After the daughter replied that they were from Israel, the man began confronting them over the war in Gaza, telling them, “I don’t like what Israel is doing there,” and “I’m against violence,” and then he launched a brutal physical assault on both women. 

This evil attacker beat the mother, repeatedly kicking her and striking her in the head until she reportedly lost consciousness. When the daughter ran to help her mother, she was brutally assaulted also.

The mother underwent emergency treatment for internal bleeding in her head and surgery on her ear. She is expected to have another operation, while her daughter underwent surgery to repair injuries to her nose. 

This is just one of the horrific attacks we see on Israelis travelling around the world, its horrifying.

What has the world come to? But we know that a lot of this goes back to the lies and nasty propaganda that Hamas sends out from the Gaza Strip, and then it is broadcast by mainstream media without any filter to the world.
 
This includes the never-ending lies about starvation and genocide in Gaza (which never happened), but the media ate these lies, and they ran with it, as if it was the truth.
 
On the “consumer side” of mainstream media, it makes ignorant people around the world believe these outrageous lies by Hamas and serves to build up an unprecedented hatred towards the Jewish people and Israel.

It is for that reason, when hateful people now encounter Israelis citizens or Jews around the world, the hunt is on and they are being attacked in the most brutal ways.
 
At the same time, we continue to bury our sons and daughters in Israel, and others find themselves being discriminated against, boycotted, and marginalized, while the world looks away in shameful silence. 

These enemies can only spread lies, hate, and propaganda against the one nation they can’t defeat militarily or politically, because Israel is divinely protected by the One Who created the Holy Land.

As for me, this is why I am here; this is why I endure the pain, the trauma, and the tears, because I will not stay silent! 

I will continue to cry for each and every one of them, and share their names and stories with the world and stand united and mourn with all of their families!

Today we honor Alex, William, Tarel, and Tamir! 

How precious you were, you all died so young not getting to live a long and good life, my heart is just breaking.

We will never forget you! 

Rest in peace, brave warriors!

This post was originally published on here.