All News (Page 88)

US President Donald Trump’s decision over how to handle Iran became far more complicated by Thursday, after recent polls showed that the average American doesn’t want a return to full-scale war and is primarily concerned with paying less at the pump.

Several polls published in the US in recent days painted a troubling picture for the White House. According to an Economist/YouGov poll, Trump’s approval rating fell to just 34%, its lowest level since he returned to the White House.

At the same time, 62% of Americans disapproved of his performance, while 63% believed the country was headed in the wrong direction. Additional polls conducted by the Pew Research Center, The Washington Post, Fox News, and Reuters also placed Trump’s approval rating below 40%.

The stalemate with Iran also looms in the background, irrespective of the overnight strikes. Trump continues to promise repeatedly that the crisis will end quickly and that energy prices will fall sharply, but the reality has so far proved more complicated. Contacts with Tehran are not leading to an agreement and, according to senior administration officials, are not taking place at all. Iran, meanwhile, is showing no signs of capitulation.

Was Trump frustrated with Netanyahu during their White House meeting?

The unusual briefing held this week by a senior diplomatic official following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington indicated that Jerusalem is also well aware of Trump’s political constraints.

Recent reporting by NBC News appears to reinforce that assessment. According to people familiar with White House discussions, Trump has grown increasingly frustrated because his senior advisers have yet to agree on what the actual objective of the campaign against Iran should be, whether preventing a nuclear breakout, securing the Strait of Hormuz, or dismantling Tehran’s missile and drone capabilities.

According to the official, Trump examined three alternatives with Netanyahu: signing a new agreement with Iran, continuing the economic pressure, or intensifying military action. The official stressed that Trump was considering each option pragmatically, taking into account not only security considerations but also the potential consequences for the US economy and financial markets.

The report also described growing internal frustration within the administration, suggesting the president did not anticipate how difficult it would be to force Iran either to negotiate or to concede. In many respects, that echoes the message conveyed by a senior Israeli diplomatic official after Netanyahu’s visit: Trump is weighing several competing options while trying to balance military objectives against domestic political and economic realities.

Domestic politics shape Trump’s Iran calculations

For Trump, these are not separate considerations. Gas prices, the energy market, and inflation are among the issues that concern American voters far more than uranium enrichment at Fordow or centrifuges concealed inside Pickaxe Mountain.

This is also why Trump has been careful in recent weeks to present himself as someone working to prevent a broader war, even as he continues to threaten Iran with a broader war- yes, that is not a typo; it is all happening at once- and stresses that all options remain on the table.

From Trump’s perspective, success would mean reaching an agreement that could be presented as an American achievement, rather than entering a prolonged conflict that could drive up energy prices and damage the economy.

On the other hand, backing down would also be seen as problematic. As long as Iran continues to stand by its positions, Trump must explain to the public why the crisis is continuing despite his promises that it could be resolved quickly.

In this sense, Trump’s greatest challenge may not be the negotiations with Iran, but his negotiations with the American public. As his approval ratings erode, his room for maneuver in making dramatic decisions on the international stage also shrinks.

For the president, every move regarding Tehran has long been not only a security decision, but also a domestic political one, and it probably does not matter how often he says that the midterm elections are not.

This post was originally published on here. 

The far-right Noam Party on Wednesday launched its campaign ahead of the upcoming elections, rebranding itself as “Noam for Israel,” and calling for new alliances aimed at strengthening the right-wing bloc.

MK Avi Maoz has been the leader of the ultra-conservative Noam party since its establishment in 2019. The party opposes homosexuality, the LGBTQ community in general, and pushes for expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Maoz ran jointly with the Religious Zionist Party in the 2022 elections and then split off from the technical bloc. Maoz left the coalition in 2025 and is the sole representative of the Noam Party in the Knesset.

The party stated that the reason for changing the name from Noam to Noam for Israel was made following in-depth surveys and political alliance efforts, and “stems from an approach aimed at expanding its activities to the broader Israeli public.”

According to the party, the move is intended to place political connections and alliances at the center and offer a political home to broader groups.

The target groups listed by the party included traditional, religious, haredi and other right-wing voters “who are disappointed with existing parties and are seeking a national and values-based framework that preserves the Jewish identity of the state.”

Judicial reform as the top priority

The party stated that one of its main goals was to ensure the passage of a contentious judicial reform in the country.

Participants at the campaign launch included Maoz and the party’s Knesset candidates: former Kiryat Arba Council head Eliyahu Libman, and Beersheba Deputy Mayor Shimon Tubul.

Tubul was reportedly indicted on Tuesday on charges of assaulting two gas station employees for playing  Arabic music.

Maoz said at the launch of the campaign that “according to all commentators and polls, in order for the right-wing bloc to win, another right-wing party needs to be established.”

‘Majority for the right among the people’

“It is no secret that there is a majority for the right among the people, but not among voters. “

“Unfortunately, there are many who are disappointed with the existing parties, and we will provide them with a safe political home that remains loyal to the values of Israel’s religious and right-wing camp,” Maoz added.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post in May, Maoz said that he was seeking to be education minister in the next government. He also said that he would not rule out alliances and was considering his options at the time.

General elections are set to take place on October 27.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Canadian-based Israel Now movement has officially announced the formation of a new initiative, the “New Jewish Defense Force,” aimed at addressing and pushing back against rising antisemitism and threats directed at the Jewish community in Canada.

Israel Now, led by director Meir Weinstein, is an advocacy and grassroots organization dedicated to defending Israel and the Jewish community, frequently mobilizing public demonstrations and campaigns against rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.

The launch comes amid a wave of violent antisemitic attacks across Toronto over the past week, including gunfire that targeted two locations of the Jewish-owned Kiva’s Bagel Bar chain, a separate shooting incident at the US Consulate, and gunfire that struck the North York headquarters of INKAS Armored Vehicle Manufacturing. These events follow months of mounting tensions and prior attacks on Jewish community infrastructure.

The announcement of the new defense initiative was made via social media by Weinstein alongside an accompanying video address.

In the video, Weinstein detailed the urgent necessity behind the newly formed organization, stating that it is being established to address “Jewish businesses being targeted, shot up, Jews being attacked, violence against the Jewish community.”

Weinstein asserted that established Jewish organizations have fallen short, that “the government of Canada is not really receptive to Jewish leadership in our community,” and that “there needs to be action” rather than mere statements and passive reactions.

Declaring that “enough with the nonsense of reactions, we have work to do and we have to confront these pieces of garbage who are attacking our community,” Weinstein called for a decisive shift toward active community protection.

Group intends to publish personal information of Hamas supporters

According to Weinstein, the group’s immediate focus will involve documenting where hostile groups and individuals operate, conducting necessary research, and gathering intelligence to confront ongoing security threats. Emphasizing the need for a mobilized counter-effort similar to historical defense models, Weinstein urged supporters to push past institutional inertia. “Now is the time to join the new Jewish Defense Force and fight back against those who threaten the Jewish Community. Enough being a victim!” he stated.

Weinstein urged supporters and interested individuals to connect with the movement through the official Israel Now website, noting that a new website will be created for the New Jewish Defense Force.

Following the online launch, Weinstein told The Jerusalem Post that the organization intends to pursue aggressive tactics, such as identifying the names and home addresses of Hamas and other terror supporters to stage demonstrations outside their residences, emphasizing that their response to antisemitism will diverge sharply from traditional community approaches.

Weinstein pointed to specific local establishments, some of which he has highlighted on social media, describing them as restaurants that glorify terrorists and function as gathering places for Hamas supporters living as neighbors within the Jewish community.

Detailing the initiative’s operational scope, Weinstein stated that the purpose of the new organization is to prevent these establishments from operating unchallenged by gathering intelligence on the individuals, organizations, and businesses dedicated to targeting the Jewish community, with a dedicated website expected to launch within a week.

This post was originally published on here. 

UEFA’s member associations have unanimously voted to boycott the World Cup and other FIFA competitions in protest at FIFA’s plan to sell stakes to external investors in a subsidiary that will run the global governing body’s tournaments, European soccer’s governing body said following a virtual meeting on Thursday.

World soccer’s ruling body said on Tuesday it plans to create a $20 billion subsidiary to run the World Cup and its other events and will offer stakes of up to 20% in it to external investors.

“No UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership,” UEFA said in a statement.

“The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters across every continent,” UEFA added.

“No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.”

Global soccer bodies unite against FIFA investor plan

A spokesperson for the English FA backed the decision, saying the organization “stands shoulder to shoulder with our European colleagues.”

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and CONCACAF also strongly criticized FIFA earlier, saying they were not consulted in the process.

The Women’s World Cup is set to be held in Brazil next year. FIFA is set to stage its inaugural Under-15 World Cup in Azerbaijan in October.

This post was originally published on here. 

Migrants broke through the fences into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Thursday after overwhelming police at the city’s breakwater, Spain’s Guardia Civil said.

Video footage showed hundreds of migrants swimming over from the Moroccan side using inflatable inner tubes and other flotation devices, and others breaking through a gate in the fence and running into the city.

The scene was reminiscent of the crossing that occurred in May 2021, when some 10,000 people from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, many of them minors, entered the enclave of 85,000 people in days.

Lo advertí.
⁰Desde principios de año vengo advirtiendo de lo que iba a ocurrir en Ceuta; todo se estaba gestando y ha culminado exactamente como predije. El Gobierno también lo sabía —tengo plena constancia de ello—. Valoraron la amenaza internamente y no hicieron absolutamente… pic.twitter.com/k8KO1orHTg

— Rubén Pulido (@rubnpulido) July 30, 2026

A Guardia Civil spokesperson said the migrants were “massively entering from the sea” through the Tarajal breakwater, but could not provide any estimates for the numbers.

State television TVE reported that 2,000 to 3,000 people had crossed. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm that report.

Many local shops were shuttered. Enrique Serrano, who runs a women’s clothing store in central Ceuta, told Reuters business owners were organizing themselves to protect their property and families in case of possible disturbances as they believed police resources would be insufficient.

“I’m not opening this afternoon because the situation is extremely tense … The first thing I have to do is protect my business and my family,” he said, adding that when the fence was breached after midnight, hundreds of migrants rushed through in a matter of minutes.

Ceuta, together with Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city located in North Africa, represents the European Union’s only land border with Africa. Both cities periodically experience surges in attempted crossings by migrants seeking to reach Europe.

Images showed some of the migrants shouting “Long live Spain” as they entered the territory.

Local government seeks state of emergency 

Spain’s Socialist government stands out in Europe for its pro-migrant stance, and has recently launched a program to provide legal status for some 500,000 undocumented migrants, creating an influx of applications double that number.

Right-wing parties criticized the drive, arguing it would attract more migrants to Spain, and were quick to blame Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for allowing the situation in Ceuta to reach crisis proportions.

Conservative opposition People’s Party leader Alberto Nuñez Feijoo said in a post on X: “The situation in Ceuta is desperate. The government cannot look the other way… because we are facing a national security crisis.”

In a post on X, Sanchez said he had told the leader of Ceuta, Juan Jesus Vivas, that his government was “fully focused” on delivering an immediate response and preparing measures to restore normality as soon as possible, without providing further details.

Earlier on Thursday, Vivas had urged the national government to declare an emergency over the mass arrivals. The regional government wants Madrid to deploy the army to guarantee safety and close the border with Morocco.

The Defense Ministry said there were no immediate plans to deploy the army.

North African Muslim criminals have just broken into Spain from Morocco via Ceuta. Europe is under attack. pic.twitter.com/kehj5LHvec

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) July 30, 2026

Supreme Court ruling bars summary returns from Ceuta and Melilla

Earlier this month, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned under the enclaves’ special border-rejection regime.

“It has been a slow trickle since the Supreme Court’s ruling, but today has been an explosion,” the Guardia Civil spokesperson told Reuters.

The Interior Ministry said it was working closely with Morocco to address the surge in irregular arrivals, having prevented thousands of migrants from illegally entering Ceuta in recent days.

It vowed to immediately deport those entering illegally, blaming people-smuggling networks for exploiting the Supreme Court’s ruling to encourage undocumented migration.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Migrant rights activist Zakaria Zarroqui said people were still flocking to the Moroccan city of Fnideq in an attempt to cross into Ceuta and the situation was still out of control.

Mauricio Valiente, director of the Spanish Commission for Refugees, which has lawyers working in Ceuta, said the migrants crossing into the enclave were of Moroccan and sub-Saharan origin, including families with people of different ages.

While acknowledging that the situation was chaotic, he said it “can be perfectly addressed by the Spanish state,” which has sufficient capacity to receive those who may be seeking asylum.

This post was originally published on here. 

Israel is demanding the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and the full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, as a precondition for any withdrawal process, a diplomatic source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The 15-point document under discussion does not adequately address these demands, and Israel conveyed its reservations on the matter to envoy Tony Blair.

There will be no Israeli withdrawal from the Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip before Hamas is disarmed and the Gaza Strip is demilitarized, the source emphasized. 

Notably, the issue of Gaza did not come up at all during the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, the source added. 

What are mediators discussing in Cairo?

Discussions with mediators in Cairo are continuing and making progress, according to a separate diplomatic source who spoke to the Post on Thursday, as negotiators work to finalize a comprehensive roadmap for Gaza’s future governance and security arrangements.

According to the source, the roadmap is designed as a balanced and pragmatic framework centered on the complete decommissioning of all weapons and a phased transition of responsibilities to a technocratic government.

“There will be no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people,” the source said. “One authority, one law, one weapon.”

The source said the proposed framework establishes a process for eliminating all tunnels, weapons depots, and weapons production facilities throughout the Gaza Strip, describing it as a comprehensive effort rather than a limited security arrangement.

At the conclusion of the implementation process, the source said, there would be no remaining terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. Hamas would have no governing or military role, either publicly or behind the scenes, in a model similar to that being applied to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Under the proposal, all weapons, both heavy and light, would come under the full control of the NCAG, in coordination with and supported by the ISF, which the source said is led by a two-star US Special Forces general.

The agreement also stipulates that there will be no Israeli withdrawal from the original “Yellow Line” unless full disarmament is implemented.

As part of the arrangement, Hamas would commit to halting all military activity, including the recruitment of new operatives into its ranks. In return, Israel would suspend its targeted killings campaign.

However, the framework makes clear that if new threats emerge, Israel would retain the right to take military action.

The process of storing and surrendering weapons is expected to begin in the coming weeks, once Hamas agrees to this framework, with the weapons being transferred to the International Stabilization Force (ISF) and permanently removed from operational use.

Gaza rebuilding process built on reciprocity, source says

The diplomatic source emphasized that the roadmap is based on reciprocal implementation rather than trust between the parties.

“This entire process is built on reciprocity, not trust,” the source said. “Each side’s fulfillment of a commitment sequences the next commitment of the other side. A verification mechanism ensures compliance.”

The source described the initiative as a turning point for Gaza, saying it was developed after lengthy negotiations guided by US President Donald Trump‘s Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan.

“This is a new beginning for Gaza,” the source said. “It has taken a long time to reach this stage, but our guiding light has been President Trump’s Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan and its objectives of providing a better future for the people of Gaza and security for the people of Israel.”

According to the source, the roadmap is intended to translate that broader vision into a practical sequence of steps for both Israelis and Palestinians.

“The Roadmap is a first-of-its-kind agreement that operationalizes the Trump peace plan into steps that both Palestinians and Israelis will have to take to open this new chapter of peace, prosperity, and security for Gaza,” the source said.

Current Cairo talks aimed at reaching deal, source says

“The current talks in Cairo between Hamas and the mediators are aimed at reaching a deal – not just holding another round of negotiations,” a source familiar with the Cairo negotiations told the Post. 

“At this stage, it remains unclear whether an agreement will be reached. What is clear, however, is that from the perspective of the mediators and the Board of Peace, there will be no scenario in which only some of the tunnels are dismantled, or only some of the weapons are surrendered. It has to be all of it,” the source said. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Pro-Palestinian activists staged a demonstration in Washington DC, breaching the hotel where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dining. The confrontation unfolded as several protesters managed to enter the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown on Monday, attempting to reach the restaurant where the Israeli leader was having dinner.

Security personnel and law enforcement quickly intervened, forcibly removing demonstrators from the building as they chanted, “Bibi, Bibi, you can’t hide! You’re committing genocide!”

The incident at the hotel occurred amid heightened security during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, which included attending the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham and holding meetings with US President Donald Trump and senior American officials. 

The hotel breach coincided with broader street demonstrations across Washington DC, where hundreds of protesters marched toward the White House and government complexes. Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, banged on drums and buckets, and carried banners rejecting Netanyahu’s visit.

Protesters used megaphones to voice their opposition, demanding that the US government enforce International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against the visiting leader.

Protesters demanded US enforces ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu

Demonstrators on the streets articulated strong opposition to US backing for Israel’s military campaign.

One protester asserted, “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, the only place he belongs is locked up with the ICC and there’s a criminal warrant out for it, and then I don’t want my tax dollars going to defend someone like that.”

Another demonstrator stated “We demand that the United States government follow the ICC warrant and arrest Netanyahu, turn him over to international court to be held accountable for his actions in orchestrating the genocide of the Palestinian people.” 

Activists also displayed banners reading “Stop US/Israel War Machine” and “Expose Israel’s Control of Washington” as law enforcement and secret service personnel maintained a heavy presence to secure the area.

This post was originally published on here. 

A proposed information law in Lebanon, already approved by joint parliamentary committees in July, has raised concerns among journalists and press freedom advocates over provisions that would punish the “dissemination of false or harmful information” with up to three years in prison and the possibility of forced labor, according to Lebanese media reports.

Critics of the law told L’Orient-Le Jour that a broad interpretation of Article 104 would open the possibility for Lebanon’s press freedom to be undermined.

“We need a modern law, but this text is confusing,” a source close to the journalists’ union told the site, describing the article as “a step backward” given that the country has already amended an existing media law in 1994 that ensures journalists cannot receive prison sentences, only fines, for their work.

In a statement, the Lebanese journalists’ union said it “rejects the bill, as it lacks a national vision for media and does not protect media professionals.”

Maharat, an NGO that advocates for freedom of expression, said in a statement that “the amendment to Article 104 is very concerning because it adds a clause to the provisions on incitement to hatred related to the dissemination of false or misleading news.

“This wording reopens the door to criminal prosecution, contradicting the spirit of reform based on limiting liability to the civil sphere, except in cases of serious and direct incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the core of the law – which abolishes criminal penalties – and the new amendment to Article 104, which should be deleted or reworded.”

Law limits positions Palestinians in Lebanon can have

Dr. Omar Nashabe, a Lebanese criminal justice scholar, human rights researcher, and analyst, wrote in the Al Akhbar newspaper that the issue of the law would be defining what “harmful” news constitutes.

“What is the dividing line between journalistic error, incomplete information, disputed accounts, and deliberate criminal fabrication? And who determines the degree of harm required for a crime to be established?” he wrote.

“The lack of precise definitions for these terms opens a wide field for interpretation. The phrase ‘fake news’ could be used against a journalist who relied on an official source that later proved inaccurate, or who published leaked documents whose authenticity was challenged by the authorities, or who presented a narrative that contradicted the government’s version.

“Therefore, the danger of this article lies not only in the penalty itself, but also in its potential for selective application against investigative and opposition journalism.”

Notably, Nashabe warned that Article 63 of the law could also be used to discriminate against Palestinian refugees living in the country by stipulating that the manager responsible for a professional media site must be Lebanese and residing in Lebanon.

He argued such a clause prevents Palestinians without citizenship from assuming the role of managing editor of a website, even if it doesn’t restrict them from journalism entirely.

“The result is that Palestinians working in the media are confined to a specific professional framework: they can write, work, and produce content, but they cannot reach the position of managing editor, no matter their experience or competence,” he claimed.

This post was originally published on here. 

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’s (IJAN) UK chapter and allied activist groups gathered for a picket outside the Charity Commission building in London on Wednesday to demand that the regulatory body investigate, sanction, or strip the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) UK and other Jewish organizations that they accuse of funding initiatives, land acquisition, and development projects in the West Bank.

During speeches delivered outside the government complex and in social media posts promoting the picket, organizers and participants criticized the Charity Commission for what they termed “systemic inaction,” accusing the regulatory body of having “repeatedly refused to investigate or sanction charities supporting illegal displacement and foreign military initiatives.”

Speakers pointed directly to the JNF’s historic role and modern activities, highlighting what banners described as “land ownership metrics and financial remittance directed toward unauthorized development in the West Bank.” 

The picket also drew connections to recent local community events that the picket organizers claimed in promotional social media materials and speeches have “facilitated transactions involving disputed territories.”

Specifically, activists targeted a “Great Israeli Real Estate” event previously hosted at Edgware United Synagogue in June. The event is an annual exhibition of real estate properties being sold in Israel, including in the West Bank. 

Organizers argued in online statements and demonstration speeches during the picket that venues hosting such property showcases act as “platforms for selling land across historic areas and illegal settlements.”

Throughout the demonstration, speakers accused UK authorities of “enabling displacement and regional conflict” through passive regulatory oversight.

Police secure London protest as activists condemn JNF UK

Police and security maintained a perimeter outside the building as activists chanted slogans including “Stop arming apartheid” and displayed banners condemning what they termed “state-sponsored violence and institutional complicity.” 

A spokesperson for JNF UK told the Jerusalem Post in a statement, “JNF UK will not be distracted or deterred by those who seek to stop us from carrying out our important charitable work. Through JNF UK, British Jews will proudly continue, as we have for generations, to support and strengthen communities across Israel, particularly in the North and South, helping them to recover, rebuild and create a more secure future. At this critical time, our work is more important than ever.”

This post was originally published on here. 

After the fumbled rollout of a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, US President Donald Trump should understand what president Ronald Reagan was thinking when he famously joked, “Sometimes our right hand doesn’t know what our far-right hand is doing.”

In a series of snafus, Trump was embarrassed, the Saudis blindsided, the region trembled, Israel worried, and everyone was confused.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright appears to have caught his boss off guard by not telling him he was about to sign a 30-year nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia potentially worth tens of billions to American industry. That’s the kind of really big deal Trump likes to take credit for by announcing personally. It would be a welcome diversion from all the bad news about his Iran war fiasco.

Trump seemed to contradict himself the next day when he said, “nobody got out ahead” of him in the announcement, although when reporters asked if he had authorized Wright to sign the deal, he said they had not discussed it, CNN reported.

Wright also embarrassed Trump by leaving out key provisions that two presidents had insisted upon. In 2023, former US president Joe Biden linked a Saudi nuclear agreement to the kingdom normalizing relations with Israel, and Trump insisted the deal “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” his crowning achievement.

Without both provisions, a White House spokesman said, “the deal is off.” Neither element was in the documents that Wright signed with his Saudi counterpart, nor is it clear they can, or will, be added formally to the agreement before it is sent to Congress for approval.

The Saudis have rejected both conditions, insisting nothing can happen until the Palestinians are on “a credible and irreversible path” toward statehood.

Another troubling provision that could create problems in Congress and throughout the Middle East is that the agreement appears to give the Saudis unprecedented authority to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel in their own country.

“A previous US nuclear deal, with the United Arab Emirates, imposed tightened inspections and did not allow the Emiratis to enrich their own uranium, severely limiting their path to a bomb. The deal with Riyadh appears to be different,” the New York Times reported.

The Trump-Saudi deal is likely to provoke demands by the UAE and others for similar treatment. More importantly, with the Saudi kingdom enriching its own uranium, it raises fears that Riyadh could produce weapons-grade uranium if it wished.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader known as MBS, said in 2018 that “without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible.”

Read that alongside reports that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may not share his father’s qualms about building nuclear weapons. That is likely motivated by a feeling that if Iran had already had the bomb, the US and Israel would not have attacked in February and killed his father, sister, and other family members.

Asking the questions

An Israeli diplomat I knew liked to tell the story of how he got an urgent cable from his home office, telling him, “Start worrying. Details to follow,” a message just as relevant to the current diplomatic embarrassment.

Last week’s deal signing struck a chord of paranoia in Israel. The New York Times said it “appears to sidestep Israel entirely.”

Since normalization was not part of the announced deal, Israelis are wondering: Did Washington just sell us out? Is this another element of what seems to be a US pivot against Israel?

Jerusalem would prefer no Saudi nuclear program. It fears it would be too easy to divert enriched uranium to build a weapon, a concern shared throughout the region and one likely to ignite an arms race.

Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stewardship, Israel has seen its support plummet here in the West Bank of the Atlantic Ocean. And not just among Progressives, Democrats, and many Jews. It is also endangered on the other side of the spectrum, where the America First isolationists and some of the MAGA followers are blaming Israel for pushing Trump into a very unpopular and seemingly unending war with Iran.

Early on, Trump cut Israel out of talks with Iran, belittling his erstwhile partner, saying that Netanyahu “will do whatever I tell him to do.”

Israel and its loyal AIPAC foot soldiers have become pariahs in many parts of campaign 2026. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is fomenting anti-Israel demonstrations in the city with the world’s largest Jewish population to greet the leader of the Jewish state if he comes for the United Nations General Assembly this fall. It won’t be pretty.

Another reason to be nervous is Lebanon. Trump, for all his claims of victory, is anxious to cut a deal to end the disastrous Iran war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and claim victory when gas prices drop. He called Netanyahu “crazy” for waging that war.

Iran is insisting that any deal must include a ceasefire in Lebanon to protect its Hezbollah client. Netanyahu worries whether Trump will demand the IDF withdraw (it has already begun at his insistence) before Israel has defeated the terrorist group and the Lebanese army can take control.

Netanyahu is in no hurry to leave; he has an election coming up, and so does Trump, which helps explain why they hold their opposing views. Netanyahu may have forgotten that after the First Lebanon War in 1982 to drive the PLO out of Israel’s northern neighbor, Israel stayed too long and Hezbollah took root.

With its enormous oil and natural gas reserves, does Saudi Arabia really need a nuclear power program? Is the American interest here strategic or transactional? Does this deal serve the interest of regional and national security? Or is it driven by the administration to funnel billions of dollars of business into American companies to build, train, maintain, and supply the Saudi civilian nuclear program?

As Congress and the American people examine this deal, they should be asking: Who benefits? 

Start with what role the highly conflicted Trump family may have played in making this deal, particularly his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The family is doing billions of dollars’ worth of private business in the kingdom. Forbes reported the president and his family made an estimated $50 million from their dealings with Saudi Arabia in 2024. Reuters noted that two Trump-branded luxury projects valued at $10 billion, are being planned in Riyadh and Jeddah.

Kushner’s role in the deal is unclear. He became friends with MBS during Trump’s first term, when he handled several White House diplomatic chores, particularly in the Middle East. After Trump left office, MBS invested $2 billion from his country’s sovereign wealth fund in Kushner’s private investment company.

Once the nuclear deal is formally presented to Congress, lawmakers will have 90 days to examine it.

These are just some of the questions they should be asking: What does it say and what does it mean? What’s in the secret side letters? Who benefits?

The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

This post was originally published on here. 

Large police, IDF, and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) forces were dispatched on Thursday afternoon to the area of Tzur Yitzhak in the West Bank following concerns over a security incident.

The alert concerned an Arab Israeli flagged by the Shin Bet for involvement in terrorist activity.

Terrorist apprehended in West Bank by Shin Bet

The South Sharon Regional Council informed residents that it had received an update from the military and police in recent minutes regarding a suspected security incident, prompting forces to be deployed to the area.

“There are currently no special instructions. We will continue to provide updates,” the council said.

The incident is suspected to be a “Tequila incident,” meaning that a special team of elite counterterrorism and hostage rescue operational unit within the Shin Bet was called to the scene.

Shin Bet and Yamam forces arrested the terrorist at his home in Israel’s central Sharon region. 

This post was originally published on here. 

A new report by UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem accuses Israel of “femicide, reproductive violence, and using attacks on mothers as a tool of genocide,” but presents contested allegations as established fact while entirely omitting the experiences of Israeli women and mothers during and after the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The 22-page report ‘Violence Against Mothers’ was issued this week in all official UN languages. Its stated intention is to examine the main forms and manifestations of violence experienced by women and girls because of their status as mothers. For the purpose of the report, women and girls are considered mothers if they have given birth, are pregnant, or if they adopt children.

In the section ‘Conflicts and Crises,’ Alsalem writes that “mothers are attacked and killed with the intent of destroying a group in whole or in part, including through femicide in contexts such as the Gaza Strip or Afghanistan.”

Alsalem, alongside other UN independent experts, has accused Israel of ‘femicide’ before.

‘Femicide’ – the intentional killing of women or girls because of their gender – is not a standalone international crime under the Rome Statute of the ICC in the way that genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are.

Additionally to that, no single international court, including the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, has issued a judgment finding Israel guilty of the crime of femicide.

Nevertheless, this is presented as a fact by Alsalem.

Report presents genocide allegation despite no international court ruling

In the same section, she writes that “reproductive violence is also increasingly reported in conflict, disproportionately affecting mothers, including as a tool of genocide in Myanmar and the Sudan, as well as the State of Palestine.” While the accusation of genocide has been increasingly levelled against Israel, Israel has not been found guilty of genocide by any international court.

Alsalem then says that “in the first one hundred days of the Israeli invasion of Gaza after 7 October 2023, on average, two mothers were killed every hour” and “Palestinian mothers and their children were specifically targeted by Israel with genocidal language.”

The two mothers an hour statistic circulated in January 2024, and is based on casualty data reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.

Alsalem then writes that “Another emblematic example [of reproductive violence] was the destruction of an in vitro fertilization clinic in Gaza in 2023, where thousands of embryos and other reproductive specimens were destroyed.”

She refers here to the Al-Basma IVF Centre, Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, which was indeed destroyed during the war in December 2023, resulting in the loss of thousands of embryos and reproductive samples. While a UN Commission of Inquiry later concluded that Israeli forces intentionally targeted the clinic and found no evidence it was a military objective, Israel disputes allegations that it deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and rejects the Commission’s conclusions.

Likewise, when Alsalem speaks of “Deliberate and large-scale attacks on healthcare systems and personnel, including maternal and neonatal services,” such as in “Tigray in Ethiopia, Gaza and the Sudan,” she makes no mention of the fact that healthcare facilities were targeted in Gaza due to their use by Hamas terrorists as headquarters or human shields.

She repeats her accusation about “deliberate attacks on healthcare services,” later in the report in the context of Israel’s strikes on Lebanon in 2026, with no mention of the reason for the strikes in the first place.

In the same section, Alsalem writes “In the Islamic Republic of Iran, due to the aggression of the United States and Israel in 2026, achievements in reducing maternal mortality and the gains in girls’ education are likely to be reversed.”

She makes no mention anywhere in the report of violence against women and girls in Iran by the Islamic Regime, despite this been well-documented.

In the section on psychological violence, “Violence against mothers is often inflicted through violence against their children,” adding that “Mothers suffer severe trauma upon learning that their children have been killed.”

She cites the statistic that “between October 2023 and February 2026, mothers in Gaza lost at least 21,289 children.” This figure is taken from the 5 February 2026 Unicef report, which does not itself cite its sources. However, given that the other statistics in the Unicef report are the same as those cited by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, it is likely that 21,289 figure is too. It is therefore worth noting that the Ministry does not differentiate between child civilian deaths and child combatant deaths. The killing of a Hamas terrorist who is under the age of 18 would therefore be included in this total.

Israeli mothers and October 7 victims omitted from UN report

Zooming out, there is a striking absence in Alsalem’s report of any mention of the impact of war or terrorism on Israeli mothers and girls.

The Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, resulted in the murder of approximately 1,200 people, including at least 300 women. Around 251 people were taken hostage, including 65 women and over 30 children. Some of these women were mothers, and all of them were daughters of mothers, who were of course impacted by the killing or hostage-taking.

Hamas and other Palestinian actors used sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, against women on October 7 and against female and male hostages in Gaza captivity.

Israeli women and girls taken hostage experienced prolonged captivity, separation from families, sexual violence and abuse, and prolonged psychological distress.

Aside from this, the war displaced hundreds of thousands of Israelis, including many women and girls, from communities near Gaza and later from northern Israel. This disrupted education, employment and family life, and caused trauma for many.

Women have also been acutely affected by having partners who are either serving in the military or have been killed in the military. Many women now face the burden of raising children on their own.

Israeli figures state that 350 women have been widowed and over 885 children orphaned since October 7.

But in Alsalem’s report, these women and children are absent.

This post was originally published on here. 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that it killed several US soldiers and destroyed three F-35 aircraft in an attack on Jordan’s Al-Azraq Air Base in a Thursday message on Telegram.

In the same message, the statement claimed that three other aircraft were damaged.

The US military denied Iranian claims that any aircraft were damaged in Thursday’s attacks. 

“No US aircraft were destroyed or damaged in recent attempted Iranian attacks. All missiles and drones were intercepted or failed to reach targeted areas,” a US CENTCOM statement read. 

Over the past few hours, Iranian state media have continued to report false claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – three in particular.

🚫 FIRST CLAIM: The IRGC (again) claims free and open routes through the Strait of Hormuz are dangerous for commercial… pic.twitter.com/J34ILmDvyk

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 30, 2026

The US military did not confirm if any US service members were slain. 

The IRGC said that the attack was in retaliation for strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Wednesday evening.

Earlier, Iranian state news agency Tasnim reported that three IRGC soldiers were killed in a US missile attack in the Zanjan province branch. 

Iran claims three IRGC soldiers were killed in US strikes 

The IRGC soldiers were identified as Mahmoud Mollajabari, Mohammadreza Cheraghi and Jamal Amiri.

The US and Iran have been trading strikes within the past week after days of relative calm in the Middle East. 

US President Donald Trump warned that the US will strike Iran “very hard” in retaliation for Iranian strikes on US military assets in the region during a White House press conference on Wednesday.

“We’re going to hit them very hard, because now it’s our turn to hit them. They know it’s coming,” he asserted. “They’re asking us not to do it, but you know – they tried to fire last night.”

Earlier, he said that the US will “beat the f***ing s***” out of Iran in retaliation for Tehran’s overnight launch of ballistic missiles towards US military bases in the region.

This post was originally published on here. 

With Israel’s elections scheduled for October 27, the government that emerges from them will inherit an unresolved strategic question: Who will govern the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas? Although phase two of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan was formally launched in January, its central provisions – including demilitarization, reconstruction, and a new governing system – remain largely unimplemented.

Israel’s approval of a framework permitting an International Stabilization Force to enter Gaza represents progress, but the force has not deployed, Hamas has not disarmed, and the proposed Palestinian technocratic administration remains outside the territory.

Even if the technocratic government enters and administers Gaza, it would not ensure long-term stability. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) has been established as a transitional technocratic body tasked with restoring public services, rebuilding civil institutions, and stabilizing daily life.

It should therefore be viewed as a bridge rather than a permanent government. Long-term stability will require an enduring Palestinian institution capable of maintaining order and delivering basic services.

Gaza’s political future

The next Israeli government can no longer postpone the question of Gaza’s political future. It will need to identify a governing authority capable of replacing Hamas over the long term, and the most viable option is a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA).

Every alternative carries weaknesses. Renewed Hamas rule would recreate the conditions that enabled October 7. Indefinite Israeli military rule would impose enormous personnel, financial, and political costs on the Israel Defense Forces by requiring it to govern more than two million Palestinians. Reestablishing Israeli settlements would deepen that burden and make any eventual separation from Gaza more difficult.

An international or NCAG-led administration may serve a transitional role, but neither is likely to possess Palestinian legitimacy to govern indefinitely. Rule divided among local clans would risk fragmenting Gaza among competing power centers unable to provide services, enforce the law, or prevent armed groups from reemerging.

A reformed PA is therefore not a perfect solution, but it is the most viable option for replacing Hamas as Gaza’s governing authority. The Ramallah-based PA is deeply flawed. It suffers from corruption, authoritarian governance, institutional weakness, and policies that have eroded Israeli trust.

Yet it also possesses what the alternatives lack: the foundations of a functioning Palestinian government, including ministries, civil servants, diplomatic relationships, international financial support, and security forces that cooperate with the IDF.

Of course, those institutions would require substantial reform and expansion before governing Gaza.

Necessary reforms for the PA

In its March 2025 report, “No Time to Lose: A Blueprint for Reforming the Palestinian Authority,” Israel Policy Forum outlines a comprehensive reform agenda covering governance and service delivery, institutional and political renewal, security-sector reform, and economic and fiscal reform.

For instance, the PA would need to decentralize responsibilities, increase financial transparency, strengthen public institutions, and implement democratic reforms to strengthen its legitimacy and modernize its security forces to prevent Hamas and other armed groups from reestablishing themselves.

These reforms would not begin from scratch. The PA already administers public institutions in parts of the West Bank, while the Palestinian Authority Security Forces have demonstrated some capacity to coordinate with the IDF and constrain armed activity. However, both its civil and security institutions would require substantial restructuring before they could rebuild services and establish authority across war-torn Gaza.

The transition should therefore be gradual. The NCAG could initially administer services and reconstruction with international assistance while vetted Palestinian police officers are trained and PA institutions undergo verifiable reforms.

As governance and security benchmarks are met, NCAG responsibilities could be incorporated into reformed PA ministries and security structures. This would avoid handing Gaza to an unprepared PA while preventing a transitional administration from becoming an indefinite international trusteeship.

Partnership between Israel and the PA

Reform is also necessary to rebuild Israeli trust. The PA must fully reform its controversial prisoner-payment system, often described by critics as “pay for slay.” Before 2025, benefits to Palestinian prisoners and their families increased according to sentence length, which critics argued rewarded more serious violence.

On February 10, 2025, PA President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree replacing that framework with a needs-based welfare program. Yet some payments under the previous system reportedly continued during portions of 2025, raising questions about whether the reform was fully implemented.

Rather than accepting the PA’s claims at face value or dismissing the reform outright, the United States should establish an independent mechanism to verify the welfare program and monitor broader reform benchmarks. Verification should be accompanied by conditional incentives. Israel should encourage reform by offering a credible political horizon toward Palestinian self-determination and statehood, consistent with Trump’s plan.

The PA’s legitimacy crisis stems not only from corruption and authoritarianism but also from the perception that it functions as an arm of the Israeli occupation without advancing Palestinian national aspirations.

Israel should therefore support integrating the PA into regional diplomatic and economic initiatives that could lay the groundwork for a negotiated two-state outcome. Tying political progress to verified reforms would incentivize stronger Palestinian institutions while demonstrating that diplomacy and security cooperation can produce tangible results. A more legitimate PA would be better positioned to compete with Hamas and establish a sustainable governing arrangement in Gaza.

The question facing the next Israeli government is therefore not only whether the PA is ready to govern Gaza but whether Israel is willing to support the reforms necessary for it to eventually do so.

Israelis are rightfully skeptical, given the PA’s history of institutional failure and policies that have undermined trust. Yet no other existing Palestinian leadership has comparable potential to govern Gaza, replace Hamas, and provide Israel with a Palestinian security partner.

The alternative is not a perfect Palestinian government but renewed Hamas rule, indefinite Israeli control, or continued instability. The PA is not ideal; it is necessary.

The writer is a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and former chair of Israel Policy Forum’s IPF Atid Steering Committee in Boston. He holds an MSW with a global practice concentration from Boston College.

This post was originally published on here. 

The End Jew Hatred movement has formally launched a petition calling on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to initiate removal proceedings against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani under Section 9 of the New York Public Officers Law. The campaign follows a series of incidents and mounting political backlash over the administration’s public safety record and rhetoric.

The push for his removal stems directly from violent attacks in Manhattan, including an incident on Thursday, July 23, when two men were stabbed four minutes and two blocks apart on the Upper West Side.

The victims included Chok Sung, 57, and Moshe Grunhaus, 50, who was “stabbed in the torso as he walked home from his synagogue on West 86th, two hundred feet from the doors.”

Activists and community organizers argue that the administration has failed to protect vulnerable minorities, noting that neither man was protected from a man yelling “Allahu Akbar.”

Central to the petition’s grievances are accusations regarding equal protection and hate crimes, noting that the mayor revoked the city’s antisemitism framework on his first day in office and replaced it with nothing.

Three months later, his own Police Commissioner reported hate crimes up nearly 12% citywide, with 55% targeting Jews, who represent about a tenth of the city’s population.

Mamdani’s use of social media

Furthermore, the petition’s authors took issue with the administration’s use of official platforms, highlighting that city channels were used to declare a foreign head of government, Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal and unwelcome in a video seen over ninety million times, while the mayor later conceded he had no power to do anything about it.

Beyond these core allegations, the petition cites further executive failures, including the mayor’s veto of school safety legislation Intro 175-B, questions over relaxed child welfare screenings, and whistleblower retaliation within the Department of Probation. 

The campaign launch featured a demonstration outside state offices where journalist and commentator Zack Sage Fox stated, “We are standing outside of Kathy Hochul’s office to demand proceedings to remove Mayor Mamdani” and emphasized that “we are doing this with a legal argument with the law on our side.” 

Activist Anila Ali rejected the mayor’s rhetoric, stating that he represents “a very toxic ideology which is the DSA, the Islamists, that’s not acceptable to the majority of Muslims living in America.” Fellow activist Ghazal Mizrahi and singer spoke of her family’s background fleeing the Islamic regime in Iran, stating “I stand here today as a proud Iranian Jew, but as a proud American above all of that.” 

Addressing the crowd she said “The day he got elected, his face, his cover was unmasked. He is representing a very toxic ideology, which is the DSA, the Islamists, that’s not acceptable to the majority of Muslims living in America who love our Jewish neighbors, our Christian neighbors.” 

Radical Islamist ideology purported by Mamdani mimics attitudes behind 9/11

Ali further warned that this ideology mirrors the radical movements behind September 11, stating that “our religion has been hijacked by these kinds of Islamists” and declaring that mothers and women stood at risk of their own lives to oppose “a lot of toxic, hateful ideology that is anti-American, that is anti-Islam, that is antisemitic.” 

Fellow activist and singer Ghazal Mizrahi expanded on these themes by sharing her family’s personal history, stating, “My family lived under Sharia law under the Islamic regime in Iran and they left everything, their whole life, their whole dreams behind so that my sister and I wouldn’t have to live under the same extremism and terror. So I stand here today as a proud Iranian Jew, but as a proud American above all of that.” 

Concurrently, New York State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov announced a formal complaint to the United States Department of Justice, releasing a video on social media declaring “I made a promise to our community that I would hold Zohran Mamdani accountable for fueling antisemitism in New York, and today I’m keeping that promise.”

Jayne Zirkle, Director of Communications at The Lawfare Project, and End Jew Hatred organizer told the Jerusalem Post in a statement “As one of the leading providers of legal services for victims of terror, the Lawfare Project proudly stands with 9/11 victims in their demand that Mayor Mamdani not attend the 9/11 ceremony.

Mayor Mamdani has stood with pro-Hamas voices over Americans and even visited a mosque where the imam had ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The voices of 9/11 families deserve to be heard, and their wishes deserve to be respected.”

The legal framework cited by petitioners rests on the New York Constitution and Public Officers Law, which give the Governor the means to remove a public officer for misconduct in office upon charges, notice, and a hearing. Organizers intend to deliver all signed petitions directly to the Executive Chamber in Albany.

This post was originally published on here. 

Two Israeli civilians who crossed the border into Syrian territory from the Mount Hermon area were located and returned by IDF troops on Thursday, the military said, in the latest of a series of repeated crossings by right-wing activists.

The two were detained and transferred to Israel Police for further handling.

The IDF strongly condemned the incident, describing it as “another case of serious disruption to operational activity” that endangered troops operating in the area.

“Law-enforcement authorities are required to bring those involved to justice, in order to prevent the same civilians from repeatedly engaging in this phenomenon, which constitutes a criminal offense,” the military said.

More than 150 suspects have been caught crossing the Israel-Syria border in 16 attempts by Israeli civilians over the past several months, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The right-wing Bashan Pioneers movement said Thursday’s incident marked the second evacuation within 24 hours of a site it calls “Tal Hermon,” beyond what it described as the former border with Syria.

Israeli activists continue to organize groups to cross the border

According to the movement, activists returned to the location immediately after it was evacuated on Wednesday and were detained again on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, they too were arrested a short time ago,” the movement said. “The next group is already on its way.”

Bashan Pioneers advocates establishing Israeli civilian communities in southern Syria and has organized repeated attempts to cross the border and maintain a presence beyond it.

An organizer involved in the campaign told the Post that more than 1,000 activists had participated in the movement’s various activities, including hundreds who took part in actions carrying a risk of detention.

Five activists remained in custody as of Thursday, the organizer said. Others had been released after questioning, in some cases following several days in detention, and subjected to conditions including house arrest, exclusion from the Golan Heights and additional restrictions.

He also alleged that police had confiscated activists’ phones and other personal property and had refused to return some of the items.

The organizer accused law-enforcement authorities of discriminating against right-wing activists, comparing their treatment with that of anti-government demonstrators who blocked roads and Druze Israelis who crossed into Syria during sectarian violence last year.

The IDF characterized the crossings as a recurring criminal phenomenon that disrupted operational activity and endangered soldiers.

This post was originally published on here. 

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia this week from Iraqi territory in coordination with Iraqi armed groups, according to assessments by Saudi Arabia and regional partners, reflecting growing coordination among Iran-aligned militias, two officials in the region said.

The assessments, which differ from official accounts, indicate that members of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance have deepened their ties and ability to inflict damage to US allies in the region despite years of US and Israeli strikes on them from Lebanon to Iran after Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel.

The attacks included strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, the kingdom’s main crude hub.

Saudi Arabia carried out joint airstrikes with the United States on Iraqi sites on Wednesday that it said were linked to the attacks, officially blaming Iraqi armed groups aligned with Iran. Yemen’s Houthis have said they carried out the attacks. Iraq has said it is investigating.

The officials in the region who said some of the attacks were carried out from Iraqi territory jointly by the Iraqi groups and the Houthis, added that it was under the supervision of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

After the Saudi-US strikes on Wednesday, Iran-aligned media mourned members of the IRGC, Iraqi fighters and at least one Houthi.

“There is now direct training and coordination between members of the Axis of Resistance themselves, not just between them and Iran,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank’s Middle East and North Africa program.

Iraq emerges as key hub in Iran’s regional axis 

The attacks also show the increasingly important role Iraq is playing as a node in that axis after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the severe weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, analysts said.

The Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi governments did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the Houthis, who have said their attacks on Saudi Arabia are in response to Saudi attacks in Yemen and aim to break a “siege” imposed by the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has denied imposing a siege, noting the arrival of dozens of ships to Houthi-controlled ports this year.

Cooperation between the Houthis and Iraqi armed groups loyal to Iran has been longstanding, particularly with Kataib Hezbollah, the most heavily-armed and well-organized of the Iraqi factions.

In 2024, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced the existence of a joint operations room between the Houthis and Iraqi factions, and later that year the two groups announced their first joint operation targeting Israel.

The Houthis also have had a fixed presence in Iraq, including offices and a formal representative, Ahmed al-Sharafi, who has held publicized meetings with Iran-aligned Iraqi Shi’ite parties and armed factions in the country.

Red and green posters bearing the Houthi “Sarkha” – its slogan “God is greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam,” have hung in parts of Baghdad for years.

Analysts say Iraq is useful for the Houthis and other Iran-aligned groups in the region due to its large geography and vast open spaces that make it easy to hide in and to launch covert attacks from.

Iraq’s long Saudi border offers launch pad for attacks across Gulf states

Iraq’s more than 800-km (500-mile) border with Saudi Arabia is difficult to police, making it an ideal launch pad for attacks across Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Hundreds of attacks on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been blamed by officials from those states on groups operating in Iraq. They include an attack by two drones in March on the US embassy in Riyadh and a strike in May at the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant.

Iraq has repeatedly said it would investigate claims of attacks from its territory on Arab neighbors but critics say it has shown little ability to address them, harming its relations and credibility with Gulf neighbors.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi canceled a visit planned for Thursday to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Saudi strikes on Iraq following the attacks on the kingdom.

Zaidi has set out an ambitious plan to bring all arms under state control by the end of September despite opposition from some armed factions.

This post was originally published on here. 

An object that came down in eastern Poland overnight appears to be a Russian missile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, after authorities found a crater and scattered debris in a field following reports of an explosion.

It was the latest in a series of airspace incursions in countries on NATO’s eastern flank, including Romania and the Baltic states, that have fueled fears of the war in Ukraine spilling over the alliance’s borders.

Poland scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace after Russian airstrikes killed at least eight people in neighboring Ukraine, in attacks that extended as far as the western city of Lviv.

“All the indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% certain about the type of missile and who launched it,” Tusk told an emergency meeting.

“There was no direct threat because the missile landed in an uninhabited area; we were ready to shoot it down had it continued its flight,” he added.

Tusk later visited the site where the object fell, near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia, just over 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

“There is no reason to think the target was Poland,” he said, adding that Ukrainian fighter pilots had attempted to shoot down missiles approaching the Polish border.

Tusk vowed to maintain support for Ukraine, saying his government would consider providing further aid, including additional Patriot systems. Bilateral relations have recently been strained by disputes over history.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said earlier in a post on X that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland.

The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

NATO, Poland coordinate to prevent war from spreading westward

A NATO spokesperson said Supreme Allied Commander General Alexus G. Grynkewich spoke with Poland’s Chief of Defense General Wieslaw Kukulan on Thursday to discuss the response to the incident.

Grynkewich “underlined that NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to defend NATO territory,” the spokesperson said.

Missile lands in open farmland, posing no immediate danger

The object left a crater about 10 m (33 ft) wide, the interior ministry added on X. According to local authorities, it was located in farmland about 2 km from residential buildings.

Local resident Roman Bartoszek, who lives around four kilometers from where the object fell, said he had heard aircraft overhead and his windows had shaken.

The operational command of Poland’s armed forces said an object had been detected in Polish airspace at 3:40 a.m. local time and disappeared from radars soon afterward.

An Mi-24 helicopter later went to the crash site. Police had received reports of a large bang and went to the site, where they found the crater.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the incident an “unacceptable violation” of the EU’s airspace.

“To put an end to this, we are helping Ukraine win this war in every way we can. And we are building a robust European security architecture on land, at sea and in the air,” she wrote on X.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the “strike in Poland also testifies to Russian recklessness and willingness to escalate. We stand unswervingly at the side of our partners.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Dozens of soldiers left the Sde Teiman base following an argument with the senior command staff, Walla learned on Thursday.

The soldiers are members of the Sabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade.

According to sources in the Givati Brigade, the command staff decided to remove and destroy symbols that had been displayed in the battalion’s companies. The battalion commander reportedly insisted on carrying out the decision despite opposition from the soldiers. When the two sides failed to reach an agreement, the soldiers left the unit and fled the base.

“One of the commanders used a five-kilogram sledgehammer to destroy one of the symbols,” one soldier serving in the unit told Walla.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

As Israel prepares for its elections this October, in the campaigning one hears – especially from the political Right – calls for a government whose majority is constituted by a “Zionist coalition.” 

But what exactly does that mean? Would I be correct in supposing it is an alliance of political parties and voters who recognize and share the state’s foundational character as the homeland of the Jewish people and the goals of Zionism, namely, to sustain such a state? Is that what the Zionist Founders considered essential? 

A look at Israel’s Declaration of Independence helps to define what they intended the state to be. It promises a “country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” to “be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel,” that would also “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and would “guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” as well as safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.” Many Zionists like me were rightly inspired by this document. 

Of course, throughout history Zionism has included a diverse array of ideological factions, ranging from Center-Left and secular parties to right-wing nationalist and religious Zionist groups. They often disagreed about a lot, including precisely what Zionism demands, what the boundaries of the state should be, who would be included as citizens, and even recently whether the statements in the independence declaration are legally binding, especially in the absence of a “constitution” which the declaration promised would be “adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the October 1, 1948.”

Seventy-eight years later, that constitution has yet to be written, much less adopted. Nothing in there about a “Zionist coalition.”

 ‘country for the benefit of all its inhabitants’

Among those on the Right calling for a Zionist coalition is the implication that “Zionist coalition” includes only Jews. This demand of course contradicts the promise of “complete equality” and a “country for the benefit of all its inhabitants” in the independence declaration, which is why the right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu coalition in the just dissolved Knesset legislated in May 2022 a controversial new “Basic Law” called “Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People,” (that will be part of any future constitution). It includes the provision (1c) “the realization of the right to national self-determination is exclusive to the Jewish People.” 

For those supporting this law, this effectively means a government that excludes non-Jews and non-Zionists, even though there are many such citizens of Israel who have the right to vote. 

These are Muslims (the majority of Israeli Arabs), Christians, Druze, and other smaller religious groups. Of course, many of them are not Zionists or at least not Jews, though they are loyal to the state, including many Bedouin and Druze who serve in the IDF.

There are also many Jews who are non-Zionists, most prominently the Ashkenazi haredim (ultra-Orthodox) who make no secret of their refusal to share in the Zionist cause. Not only do they refuse to serve in the IDF or in mandatory national service, but they also continue to characterize Zionism and the State as a heresy and rebellion against God.

Indeed, their particularly vocal opposition to religious and nationalist Zionists, who see Zionism, the IDF, and the creation of the state as a religious cause and a fulfilment of a messianic hope, is often even more hostile than to the secular Zionists because it challenges the haredi conviction that the state was conceived in and founded in sin by Jewish unbelievers.

Yet these haredi opponents of Zionism have been part of most of the 37 governments in Israel’s history, including the outgoing one. A “Zionist coalition” is very rare.

Only seven governments were formed without these Zionist opponents: three between 1952-1955, Golda Meir’s 1974 government, which collapsed after a few months, Rabin’s in 1974-1977, and Olmert’s from 2006-2009. In the 2013 elections, a political alliance between Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) forced Netanyahu to shut haredi parties out of his coalition. 

Only one government coalition has depended on an Arab partner. The 36th Bennett-Lapid Government was the first and only government in Israeli history to formally include an independent Arab political party in its ruling coalition, the United Arab List. Certainly not a purely Zionist coalition, yet the Arab party proved to be a responsible partner. That coalition collapsed not because of Arabs in it but because of Jewish defectors from Bennett’s own right-wing Yamina party and the manipulations of the Netanyahu opposition. 

Those parties in the current campaign who have promised a “Zionist coalition” include Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, who has repeated his 2009 campaign slogan “No Loyalty, No Citizenship” (Ein Ne’emanut, Ein Ezrahut), a policy that would exclude both Arabs and the haredim, both of whom refuse to serve in the army and both of whom reject the legitimacy of Zionism in spite of their being full citizens. Disconcertingly, the rising star Gadi Eisenkot, leader of Yashar, has also promised a Zionist coalition, as has the Together party of Bennett and Lapid.

As the polls demonstrate, as in the past, no coalition can be formed without the support of either the haredi parties who openly scorn both Zionism and army service, whose policies have been destructive for many in the Israeli public, or the Arab parties who, in their one chance in a coalition, proved to be dependable and responsible.

These calls for a Zionist coalition are empty gestures that deny the promise the founders signed in the inspirational and aspirational Declaration of Independence.

It’s time for voters and candidates to follow the example of the Democratim, led by Yair Golan. Here is a party that, after a free and open primary contest, has found room for men and women, secular and religious, Arab and Jew, and the promise of democracy and equality. For me, that leads to a more hopeful future than either a Zionist Coalition or an all-Jewish list.

This post was originally published on here. 

Reports of antisemitism in UK soccer rose by 43% in the 2025-26 season, a new report by the charity Kick It Out revealed.

Kick It Out received a total of 1,744 reports of discrimination over the 2025/26 season, continuing the upward trend seen over the last five years. More incidents have been reported at all levels of the game than in any other season.

There were a total of 93 reports of antisemitism in the 2025/26 season, up from 65 the previous year. While antisemitism is not the discrimination category with the highest number of reports, it had the third highest increase of all categories at 43% from the previous season. Most of the antisemitic reports related to social media (35), followed by reports about a professional game (31) and grassroots youth soccer (23).

The category with the highest increase from the 24/25 season was Islamophobia, which increased by 88% to a total of 60 reports.

The highest number of actual reports were categorized under ‘racism,’ ‘sexism’ and ‘homophobia,’ in that order.

It’s not only Kick It Out that has seen an increase in reports of discrimination; the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) has also recorded rises in the number of discriminatory incidents last season.

2025/26 is also the first season with over 1,000 separate incidents reported.  

Links between outside events and reports of discrimination

Kick It Out also explored whether there is a link between outside events and reports of discriminatory events in soccer.

It plotted on a graph the key domestic stories throughout the season against the number of incidents.

The graph showed spikes in incident reports following the Manchester synagogue attack, the ban on Tel Aviv fans attending an Aston Villa game, and the beginning of the grooming gangs inquiry.

Kick It Out noted that many incidents reported over the last few seasons can be linked to domestic and world events and responses to them.

Examples include the Supreme Court ruling on gender leading to The Football Association’s ban on transgender women in the women’s game, leading to a spike in transphobic abuse. The 7th October attacks in 2023 also led to a sharp rise in Antisemitic and Islamophobic reports.

However, Kick It Out was careful to note that correlation does not imply causation, and that it’s almost impossible to directly link the reasons behind an incident back to a specific event or headline.

Nonetheless, the similarities between timings of these headlines, and the numbers of incidents reported add weight to the belief that “what happens in the world, gets played out on the pitch,” the charity said.

Kick It Out’s chief executive officer Samuel Okafor said the figures show that discrimination remains “deeply embedded” across the game at a time when there is also a rise in hate crime and divisive political rhetoric in Britain.

“But they also show that people are more willing to stand up to abuse when they see it, and it’s encouraging to see professional players set that example last season,” he said.

“While we recognize that there is a lot of good work ongoing in football to tackle discrimination, we will continue to work with soccer authorities, clubs, leagues, regulators and government to ensure we match the courage shown to report abuse with clear and consistent action so that soccer is welcoming to everyone.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The intra-party debate over Israel that has dominated Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary is reverberating further down the ballot throughout the state.

Progressive former county health official Abdul El-Sayed’s bid to lead a swing state as an avowedly pro-Palestinian senator is being mirrored on a micro scale in Michigan’s 7th District, one of the nation’s most hotly contested congressional seats. In addition to endorsing a candidate there, El-Sayed and his movement have also taken aim at a Detroit-area incumbent who has belatedly embraced a pro-Israel platform, while a key architect of the 2024 “Uncommitted” movement is also running for local office. 

In contrast, a young Jewish candidate hopes to pick up the mantle of El-Sayed’s rival in the Senate race, centrist US Rep. Haley Stevens, and buck a growing national trend of Democrats turning away from supporting Israel. Jewish Democrats in the state, many of whom are drifting away from the party as a result of the discourse around the primary, are watching closely.

Here’s what you need to know about how Israel and Jewish issues are affecting other races in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday.

A swing district Dems hope to flip is dragged into the Israel debate

Far-left and centerist Democrats compete for Michigan seats shaping the future of the party

In Michigan’s 7th District, William Lawrence, a former climate activist who has called for an end to all military aid to Israel, is challenging two centrist Democrats for the party’s nomination. 

The district, which stretches from the state capitol in Lansing into the Detroit exurbs and encompasses Michigan State University, is currently represented by a Republican. But Democrats are eyeing it as a promising pickup; the seat was previously held by Jewish Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who won her Senate election in 2024 even as Donald Trump won the state.

Lawrence’s campaign, though, is far from Slotkin’s staunchly moderate playbook. Lawrence recently rallied with El-Sayed, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Lansing, where he called to “stop arming Israel and bring our money home to invest in housing and social security.”

Both of his major primary opponents, former US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and former Navy SEAL and Obama military aide Matt Maasdam, declined to refer to Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide at a candidate forum, while Lawrence did. Recent polling from two Brink-sponsored firms shows Brink in the lead, while an April poll from the Lawrence-aligned Data For Progress puts him ahead by 6 points. Lawrence’s hopes for the nomination likely rest on Brink and Maasdam splitting the establishment vote.

As with many progressives running this cycle, opposition to Israel makes up a key part of Lawrence’s pitch, which his campaign feels confident about, despite the purple political makeup of the district. 

“There is broad support for ending military support to human rights abusers and bringing that money home to fund good jobs, housing, and healthcare here at home,” his campaign told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an emailed statement responding to a list of questions about his positions on Israel.

Lawrence was a co-founder of the influential climate activist group Sunrise Movement, which has experienced infighting over pro-Palestinian advocacy. His rhetoric on Israel also played a role in the biggest scandal of his campaign to date. Comments he made on a 2024 podcast disparaging Black Democratic leaders as “a pillar, frankly, for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power” that “defangs the white left” resurfaced shortly before his big-ticket rally earlier this month. 

The Congressional Black Caucus condemned his remarks and called on his supporters to “withdraw their support.” In a subsequent statement, Lawrence said he had been referencing “my horror at the genocide in Gaza” and talking about working “to organize Black Americans against the genocide.” (Though she appeared at the Lansing rally with him, Ocasio-Cortez has declined to endorse Lawrence.)

Fewer than 10,000 Jews live in the greater Lansing area, out of a total population of 479,000, according to a 2021 population report from Brandeis University. Local Jewish institutions have expressed alarm about El-Sayed’s movement: When the candidate brought left-wing streamer Hasan Piker to MSU’s campus for a rally earlier this year, the university’s Hillel issued a statement saying it was “deeply troubled” by the appearance of what it called a “known antisemite.”

Asked by JTA about the safety of his Jewish would-be constituents, Lawrence’s campaign responded, “Will takes Jewish safety extremely seriously and stands firmly against anti-semetisim [sic] which is unfortunately on the rise across the political spectrum.” The Brink and Maasdam campaigns did not respond to JTA requests for comment.

After moving from DSA to pro-Israel, this Detroit congressman is fighting to keep his seat

Michigan races represent a new kind of politics

Why is a Detroit-area race between two non-Jews, in a district with few Jews, also pivoting on Israel? The answer reveals the state of intra-left politics today.

In Michigan’s 13th District, encompassing much of Detroit and its western suburbs, state Rep. Donavan McKinney is challenging incumbent US Rep. Shri Thanedar for the Democratic nomination. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has been endorsed by, and campaigned with, El-Sayed and national pro-Palestinian figures, McKinney’s campaign literature champions a focus on “kitchen-table issues,” including public health in Detroit. 

Yet his website’s major policies also include a large section labeled “Palestine,” in which he pledges to end military aid to Israel and calls on Israel to “release all Palestinians who have been detained.” 

A Black politician running against an Indian-American incumbent in a majority-Black district, McKinney has also made racial representation a central factor to his campaign, twinning Black identity with the pro-Palestinian cause as a growing number of other local activists have also done.

McKinney’s embrace of the issue could play particularly well in his race against Thanedar, who has, unusually, ventured from the left to the center on Israel. A businessman and failed gubernatorial candidate (he and El-Sayed both lost the Democratic primary to Gretchen Whitmer in 2018), Thanedar was initially a DSA member himself. As a state legislator in 2021, he co-sponsored legislation calling for an end to US military support of Israel.

He abruptly changed course during his 2022 congressional run, in a redrawn district formerly held by Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Thanedar then expressed more pro-Israel views on the campaign trail even as pro-Israel lobbyists AIPAC endorsed an opponent. (He largely self-financed his successful congressional run.) 

Once in Congress, Thanedar took an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel and shifted his views to become a staunch pro-Israel advocate. After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, he renounced his DSA membership, citing a New York rally hosted by the group praising the attacks that he called “hate-filled and antisemitic.” 

“I see this as the biggest murdering of Jews since the Holocaust,” Thanedar told the Michigan Advance, of the attacks, also publicly criticizing Tlaib for her own response. AIPAC, once his enemy, spent more than $2 million on his 2024 reelection campaign, according to federal disclosures. The lobbyists are fundraising for Thanedar again this cycle, though the latest reported federal elections data indicate that AIPAC-aligned spending for him has been a tiny fraction of the millions it has spent in other races.

The battle looks to be bruising. Polling is scant, but a progressive-aligned poll earlier this month had Thanedar a narrow 4 points up. On Monday a handful of Congressional Black Caucus members, breaking with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, endorsed McKinney, a rare measure to take against an incumbent. The caucus’s McKinney backers include Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, both hardline Israel critics.

Neither McKinney’s nor Thanedar’s campaigns responded to JTA requests for comment for this article.

A young Jewish LGBTQ legislator may pick up Stevens’ pro-Israel torch

As Jewish Democrats in Oakland County, the affluent, heavily Jewish Detroit suburbs, have bemoaned the state-level Democratic tilt toward anti-Israel rhetoric, many are clinging to a silver lining: state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is bidding for Stevens’ congressional seat in the 11th District.

Moss, a Jewish and pro-Israel candidate, has a campaign platform of standard liberal issues including gun safety, cost of living and LGBTQ rights (Moss is gay). He has been endorsed by many of the state’s leading Democrats. And while his campaign website platform doesn’t mention Israel or antisemitism, he has angrily denounced antisemitism in both parties.

“The overwhelming majority of Jews believe in a place of refuge in a Jewish homeland. But if you even mention how woven the Jewish religion is with Jewish sovereignty in Israel, today you get called a ‘colonizer,’ a ‘racist,’” Moss said in a 2024 speech from the state Senate floor. “‘Zionist’ is now being weaponized as a slur, and it is infuriating that the same people who will say that also post ‘Happy Passover’ to all who are observing without acknowledging what we’re actually observing.”

Moss called out antisemitism on the left again after the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield earlier this year. Following the state Democratic convention in Detroit, at which a lawyer for pro-Palestinian encampments who had a social media history of praising Hezbollah received the party’s nomination for the University of Michigan board of regents, Moss called the nomination “unacceptable” and said he would refuse to vote for the nominee. Moss’s campaign did not return a JTA request for comment for this story.

Many Jews in the district who back Stevens also have high praise for Moss, though AIPAC, which has broken campaign records in spending for Stevens’ Senate race, has spent minimally for Moss, according to the latest federal elections data. Democratic Majority for Israel made a small donation to his campaign, as have former AIPAC leaders.

Moss probably doesn’t need their support: He has a strong likelihood of prevailing in the primary. Though polling in the district is scant, he dwarfs his competitors in fundraising and name recognition. Some pro-Palestinian progressives, including California US Rep. Ro Khanna, have backed Aisha Farooqi, an attorney who has called to halt military aid to Israel. Her campaign, though, hasn’t caught on with El-Sayed’s supporters on the level of Lawrence’s or McKinney’s. Another fringe candidate, Don Ufford, launched a website called “AIPAC Jeremy Moss” in a bid to target the presumptive frontrunner.

Should Moss prevail in the primary and in the general election, he would return the heavily Jewish district to Jewish representation for the first time since former US Rep. Andy Levin lost his 2022 reelection bid to Stevens, in a redistricted primary that saw AIPAC backing Stevens. Levin, a progressive, is backing El-Sayed in the Senate race.

An ‘Uncommitted’ founder returns … with big-ticket Democratic support

Anti-Israel candidates make bid for local seats

Further down the ballot, a key architect of Michigan’s 2024 “Uncommitted” movement designed to pressure Democrats on Israel is running for state Senate, as a Democrat.

Abbas Alawieh, a Lebanese-American former legislative staffer for both Levin and Tlaib, is making a bid for local office after becoming a national name for his role in pushing Democrats to vote “Uncommitted” over former President Joe Biden in the 2024 state primary ballot. The movement, which began as Listen to Michigan, was based largely on dissatisfaction with Biden’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. 

It attracted a groundswell of support, including from some Jews, and spread to other states, crystallizing a lack of enthusiasm for Biden that built to him stepping off the presidential ticket. Alawieh emerged again as a thorn in the party’s side during that year’s Democratic National Convention, when he and other “Uncommitted” delegates unsuccessfully lobbied to place a Palestinian speaker on the agenda. 

As he now emerges as a party hopeful, Alawieh is mending some surprising fences in the establishment. This month he secured the endorsement of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and recently sat down for a meeting with former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Michigan in her 2024 presidential run, which many analysts chalked up at least in part to “Uncommitted.” (Alawieh himself has said he voted for Harris, though not all of his movement’s co-founders did.) 

The former VP “initiated” the meeting after months of phone calls, Alawieh said in a statement, adding that he had urged her to oppose “the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza” and “ethnic cleansing” in Lebanon.

Alawieh says he doesn’t expect Israel to be a major part of his focus in the state Senate. Still, he recently told the Michigan Advance, “The party was undoubtedly wrong about Gaza in 2024.” His campaign did not respond to a JTA request for comment. 

He is running in a district that includes Dearborn, which has a large Arab and Muslim population. Alawieh isn’t the only “Uncommitted”-adjacent figure running for office this primary cycle: In Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, who helped lead the parallel “Uninstructed” movement, has a plausible path to victory in her gubernatorial primary.

This post was originally published on here. 

The US Department of Defense has signed one of the largest procurement contracts in its history with Lockheed Martin, agreeing to purchase Patriot interceptors in a deal worth $58.6 billion.

The contract is expected to dramatically increase the United States’ interceptor inventory, which has been depleted by the wars involving Iran and Ukraine, as well as preparations for a possible future conflict with China. 

The US has already delayed interceptor deliveries to Ukraine and postponed deliveries to Switzerland until 2032 in order to prioritize the protection of US forces in the Gulf and Gulf states that have purchased Patriot systems.

The multiyear contract governs an accelerated production schedule for the 2026-2032 period. Lockheed Martin currently manufactures about 600 interceptors annually, and the agreement is intended to raise production to 2,000 per year. 

Achieving that target will require Lockheed Martin, along with suppliers of rocket motors, guidance systems, and warheads, to expand their production lines. The company has already announced plans to invest up to $9 billion in its manufacturing facilities in Alabama and Arkansas by 2030 and hire more than 1,000 additional employees.

Although the Pentagon did not disclose specific quantities in its announcement, the contract includes more than 10,000 interceptors and is also expected to reduce their high unit cost slightly, to at least $4 million each. By comparison, the comparable David’s Sling interceptor produced by Israel’s Rafael costs about $1 million per unit.

The pace of US defense production has declined significantly since the end of the Cold War, and the Pentagon has been pressing American defense companies to invest more heavily in expanding production capacity. The effort comes at the expense of share buyback programs designed to boost stock prices and generate stronger returns for investors, as well as executives whose compensation includes stock options.

Ukraine struggles to defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks

Ukraine is already struggling to defend itself against Russian ballistic missile attacks after the United States halted deliveries of Patriot interceptors because of the need to support the war with Iran. In another effort to ease the shortage, the Pentagon recently ordered older PAC-2 Patriot interceptors from Raytheon, the first such purchase in 30 years.

The $441 million deal will supply interceptors that were not designed to counter missiles but can intercept aircraft and drones. These interceptors are less expensive and faster to produce, and returning them to US inventories will help preserve the more advanced PAC-3 interceptors for defending against ballistic missiles.

This post was originally published on here. 

Christians and other minority groups have been arbitrarily detained by the Syrian Transitional Government for reasons that “sometimes appear to be motivated in part by the detainees’ ethnic or religious identity,” according to a newly published report by Christian Solidarity International that was presented to the UN, which alleged that detainees are often forced to adopt Islamic practices and denied access to items connected to their own faith.

Acknowledging that Damascus has faced an “enormous challenge” ensuring there is accountability for the crimes committed under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, CSI reported that the “settlement” system proposed to deal with the crisis had been used as a template.

Under the system, members of the Assad regime’s security forces were allowed to present themselves to the authorities, hand over their weapons, and receive new ID cards after the government had verified that they were not suspected of grave crimes against Syrians.

Though the system was a way to calm the transition, international reports and investigations noted that thousands of people said to be affiliated with the previous regime, exercising their political rights, or accused of extortion exchanges, continue to be detained without trial.

Suleiman Khalil, who served as mayor of Sadad from 2012 until 2016, is an example of one such detainee. He was detained on February 8, 2025, and remains in detention without charge, without access to a lawyer, without the right to receive visits or communications from his family, and without information about the evidence against him, CSI noted.    

Christian town came under attack by group founded by Syrian President Sharaa

Khalil’s family has stressed that he is a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and he did not take part in combat operations, though his Christian-majority town came under attack both by the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist group founded by current Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. The attack by Nusra saw the town occupied for a week and 41 civilians murdered.

“This history raises the question of whether Mr. Khalil is being punished for protecting his town from attack by forces which now control the Syrian government,” the report said.

Held in Homs Central Prison, where he has reportedly been denied medical treatment for his herniated disc and problems with his ears, Khalil was said to have been denied his right to practice his faith as a Syriac Orthodox Christian, and there are reports that he has been subjected to torture.

On the rare occasions that his family has been allowed to visit, Khalil’s female relatives reported that they were forced to wear the hijab and abaya and were not allowed to bring him a cross or a Bible. Additionally, it was said he was forced to fast during Ramadan

Damascus has so far confirmed that it is detaining 3,500 members of the former regime’s military forces.

CSI noted that there were widespread reports of Christians in Saydnaya, Jaramana, and the region of Wadi al-Nasara being imprisoned by local officials seeking to extort their families. In addition, there is an ongoing crisis surrounding the abduction of women and girls from minority communities.

Kurdish journalist Hassan Zaza, for example, was arrested by security forces on June 27, 2025, and held incommunicado for nearly a week before his release on July 3, and Alawite journalist Noor Suleiman was detained without charge by the political security branch in Mezze, Damascus, on July 26, 2025, after she criticized sectarian attacks on Druze and Alawites. After a public outcry, she was released three days later, reportedly on bail.

Additionally, CSI reported on the case of Milad al-Farkh, a Christian merchant from the village of Kfara in Homs governorate, who was arrested on August 24, 2025, and died in custody. His family alleged that they were pressured to pay $10,000 for his release and that his body showed marks of violence. A relative who asked for an autopsy was also later arrested.

Alawites arrested, threatened for protesting abduction, forced conversion

Members of the Alawite community have also been arrested or threatened with arrest for protesting the ongoing abduction of Batoul Suleiman Alloush, a young medical student who was taken from her university.

Authorities have maintained that she left voluntarily and converted to Sunni Islam of her own accord. However, a source close to the family previously told The Jerusalem Post that Alloush was abducted and drugged, and that she would never have voluntarily left to join the same group that killed her best friend and her cousin’s family in a sectarian attack.

The Institute for the Documentation of Human Rights Violations Against Religious Minorities in the Levant (IDHRV-ARMIL) has documented 131 cases of missing women since January 2025; 112 of them are Alawite girls and women between the ages of 12 and 45.

Despite at least 50 of these cases being confirmed as abductions, the transitional government has largely denied the crisis, and in at least 12 of the cases, there is verified evidence of direct involvement or tacit complicity by the General Security Service (GSS), the report noted.

These detentions violate Syria’s own constitution, CSI stressed, referencing Article 18, which asserts that “with the exception of the case of a crime committed in plain sight, no person may be arrested, detained, or have his freedom restricted, except by judicial order.”

Such detentions also violate Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which protects individuals from arbitrary arrest or detention, as well as Articles 10 and 11, which protect the individual’s right to a fair and public trial and the right to counsel.

This post was originally published on here. 

One of the strangest stories in Iranian politics recently moved into international headlines.

According to an investigation first published by The New York Times, Israeli intelligence allegedly spent years cultivating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president once known for Holocaust denial and threats against Israel. The report claimed that Ahmadinejad met Israeli representatives abroad and was even considered for a possible role in Iran following regime change. His office denied the story, dismissing it as fabricated and “Hollywood-style” psychological warfare.

Whether every allegation is true remains impossible to establish publicly. Yet the story is revealing for another reason: it sounded possible.

Ahmadinejad himself previously claimed that the official leading Iran’s unit responsible for fighting Mossad infiltration was secretly working for Mossad, alongside approximately 20 other members of the intelligence team.

Perhaps the most important part of these stories is not whether every detail is accurate. It is that, inside today’s Islamic Republic, such accusations no longer sound unbelievable. Rumors of betrayal do not necessarily prove betrayal, but their plausibility reflects something real: a regime that can no longer be certain whom it controls, whom it merely pays, and whom it should fear.

That crisis of trust does not exist only at the highest levels of government.

A man who served within Iran’s security apparatus told me that during the January uprising, he abandoned his duty. He says the authorities subsequently began searching for him, that he received threats and that he remains under IRGC scrutiny.

For his protection, I cannot disclose his name, rank, unit, location, or any other information that could help the authorities identify him.

His explanation for why others remained at their posts was painfully simple.

“Most of them stay because they receive money,” he told me. “If it were not for the money, they would have turned their weapons toward the IRGC a long time ago.”

His testimony changes the question we should be asking. It may no longer be simply how loyal Iran’s security forces are. It may be how much that loyalty costs, and what happens when the regime can no longer afford it.

The January uprising demonstrated that the Islamic Republic still possesses an enormous capacity for violence. Human-rights organizations documented the widespread use of firearms, mass arrests and the killing of protesters and bystanders after demonstrations escalated on January 8.

Because that violence was so extensive, it is tempting to imagine every armed person on the street as an ideologically committed defender of the regime. But Iran’s machinery of repression is not one unified body. It includes the IRGC, the Basij, regular police, special units, the Artesh, and young conscripts performing mandatory service.

During the uprising, reports also indicated that the regime brought in Iran-backed Iraqi militias to reinforce its domestic forces. The groups reportedly included Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and the Badr Organization.

The scale of their deployment remains difficult to establish because of the communications blackout. An initial report estimated that approximately 800 Iraqi militiamen had entered Iran. Iraqi and European security sources later placed the number closer to 5,000. Independent monitors treated the deployment as reported but not fully verifiable.

Their reported presence changes the calculation.

An Iranian policeman or conscript may hesitate before shooting someone from his own neighborhood. A foreign militiaman has no such social connection. He does not share the protesters’ families, economic suffering or future inside Iran. Importing these forces may therefore serve two purposes: providing additional manpower and placing some of the bloodiest work in the hands of people less likely to disobey.

It may also reveal that the regime does not fully trust its own personnel to carry out every order.

The Iranian regime’s lack of trust in its personnel

Iran’s different military and security institutions have very different relationships with the Islamic Republic. The IRGC’s senior leadership is deeply connected to the regime’s political and economic survival. A young conscript or poorly paid police officer may have a different calculation. He may come from the same neighborhood as the protesters. His parents face the same inflation. His family experiences the same shortages. The person standing across from him may be his classmate, cousin, or childhood friend.

There were signs of that conflict during the uprising.

On January 8, independent conflict monitors reported that several members of the security forces had allegedly been arrested after refusing orders to fire on protesters. The monitors stressed that this was the only incident of its kind they had observed at that point, meaning it should not be misrepresented as a nationwide mutiny.

A human-rights organization later reported that a young soldier named Javid Khales had been arrested and sentenced to death after refusing to shoot demonstrators. The US State Department publicly condemned the reported sentence. However, no transparent information about his trial, official charges or present condition has been released, making independent verification difficult.

Other accounts have alleged that personnel who argued with commanders, abandoned their posts or refused to participate in the crackdown were executed. Due to the blackout, secrecy surrounding the military justice system and pressure placed on relatives, those claims remain extremely difficult to verify. They should be treated as allegations unless further documentation becomes available.

The regime’s own language may be even more revealing. On January 9, the IRGC Intelligence Organization reportedly published, and then removed, a warning that “defiance, desertion or disobedience” among military personnel would result in trial and “decisive action.”

A warning does not tell us how many personnel actually disobeyed. It does tell us that the possibility was serious enough for the IRGC to threaten its own ranks publicly.

These incidents must be kept in proportion. The security forces remained broadly loyal during the January uprising, and the reported refusals did not prevent the regime from carrying out a massacre. A British House of Commons research briefing concluded at the end of January that the security apparatus had retained control.

But “broadly loyal” does not necessarily mean ideologically loyal. It can also mean frightened, financially dependent or unable to see a safe path out.

THE ECONOMIC evidence adds another dimension.

Shortly before the uprising, rare videos circulated of Iranian police officers describing severe financial hardship and inadequate salaries. One officer reportedly said he could no longer provide for his three children and was considering selling a kidney. Another described personnel driving for ride-hailing services to survive. Some of the officers later retracted their statements, prompting suspicions that they had been pressured.

Months later, reports indicated that members of the Special Units Command had experienced repeated salary delays. According to the sources, some personnel subsequently refused to attend pro-government events, disrupting planned deployments in several cities. That account also remains difficult to verify independently, but it closely resembles what my source described.

The regime apparently recognizes the danger. During the January unrest, Iranian lawmakers discussed increasing the salaries of armed-forces personnel. A government does not attempt to buy greater loyalty at the height of an uprising if it believes morale is irrelevant.

This is where sanctions become part of the discussion, although the distinction between different forms of economic pressure is essential.

Broad economic isolation can devastate ordinary families, including the same families from which conscripts and police officers come. It can destroy civilian life while allowing the Islamic Republic to blame foreign enemies for suffering created partly by its own corruption, repression and economic priorities.

Targeted financial pressure serves a different purpose. Sanctions aimed at the IRGC’s revenue, oil-smuggling operations, procurement networks, currency exchanges and sanctions-evasion mechanisms can restrict the money sustaining the regime’s military and repressive institutions.

The objective should not be the destruction of Iran’s civilian economy. It should be separating the regime from the money it uses to monitor, reward and mobilize those who protect it.

However, the presence of foreign militias complicates that strategy.

Some Iraqi militias operate within the Popular Mobilization Forces and receive salaries through the Iraqi state while remaining closely aligned with Tehran. A former Iraqi official, Entifadh Qanbar, argued that Baghdad’s role in paying these forces made the Iraqi government responsible for their reported participation in Iran’s crackdown.

Cutting the Islamic Republic’s resources may therefore weaken Iranian units without necessarily stopping foreign militias financed through other channels. Any serious pressure campaign would also have to follow the financial networks sustaining the foreign groups used to reinforce Iran’s machinery of repression.

The regime’s answer to uncertain Iranian loyalty may be to import men whose loyalty has already been purchased elsewhere.

My source also drew a sharp distinction between pressure on the regime and damage to the country.

He argued that attacks on power stations, factories and other civilian infrastructure weaken the Iranian people rather than the IRGC. They leave families without electricity, workers without employment and any future Iranian government with a country it will struggle to rebuild.

In his view, military pressure, if used, should concentrate on the institutions and facilities responsible for repression rather than the infrastructure ordinary Iranians need to survive. He also believes that personnel prepared to abandon the regime would require protection, access to weapons and trusted support on the ground near Iran’s borders.

His proposal is not evidence of a consensus among Iranian soldiers or police officers. Nor should it be presented as a detailed operational recommendation. It is significant because it reveals the calculation occurring inside at least part of the security apparatus.

The question for potential defectors is not necessarily whether they oppose the regime. It is whether they can survive opposing it.

The Islamic Republic has spent decades making the answer terrifyingly clear. Disobedience can mean imprisonment, torture, execution or retaliation against relatives. A salary is only one part of the system. Fear is the other.

We must also distinguish between refusing an order, deserting a post and cooperating with a foreign intelligence service. They are not interchangeable.

A soldier who refuses to shoot civilians is making a moral choice. A policeman who leaves his unit is defecting from the state. An official who secretly supplies information to Mossad is engaged in espionage. Treating all three as identical would reproduce the regime’s propaganda, which labels every form of disobedience as foreign treason.

Yet from the regime’s perspective, they create the same institutional problem: uncertainty.

The Islamic Republic does not require every soldier or policeman to believe in it. It only requires enough of them to obey at the decisive moment. In January, enough of them did. The reported refusals did not prevent a massacre, and isolated defections should not be romanticized as evidence that the security apparatus has already collapsed.

But the cracks matter.

At the top of the system, a former president is accused of secret contact with Israeli intelligence. Within the intelligence establishment, officials have faced allegations of working for the very agency they were supposed to combat. At street level, soldiers and policemen are reportedly refusing orders, abandoning their duties or quietly asking what support would exist if they turned against the regime.

The decisive question in Iran’s next uprising will not only be how many people return to the streets.

It will be what happens when the person ordered to shoot them looks at his salary, looks at his commanders, looks at the people standing in front of him and decides which side offers him a future.

The Islamic Republic has survived the hatred of millions. It may not survive the moment its own forces conclude that obedience is more dangerous than defection.

The author is an Iran analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

This post was originally published on here. 

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center will become the first medical center worldwide to recruit patients for a clinical trial of an experimental treatment targeting KRAS mutations in pancreatic cancer, the hospital and Israeli biotechnology company Silexion Therapeutics announced.

The trial will evaluate SIL204, a treatment developed by Silexion that uses small interfering RNA molecules, known as siRNA, to suppress the expression of mutated KRAS genes inside tumor cells.

KRAS mutations are found in approximately 90% of pancreatic cancer patients and are considered one of the main mechanisms driving tumor growth and the spread of the disease. Developing therapies capable of targeting KRAS has historically proved difficult.

Pancreatic cancer remains among the most lethal forms of cancer, in part because it is frequently diagnosed only after reaching an advanced stage.

Under the trial protocol, SIL204 will be administered directly into the tumor and combined with standard systemic treatment. Researchers will examine whether silencing mutated KRAS can inhibit tumor growth in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer that cannot be surgically removed.

Initial trials enroll 18 patients, test safety before expanding to Europe

The initial phase will enroll approximately 18 patients and focus primarily on the treatment’s safety. The study is later expected to expand to additional medical centers in Israel, Germany, and other countries, with total enrollment potentially reaching approximately 166 patients.

Prof. Ravit Geva, director of the Oncology Institute and Gastrointestinal Oncology Center at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, will serve as the study’s lead investigator at the hospital.

“Pancreatic cancer treatment is undergoing a significant transformation,” Geva said. “We are proud to be the first center worldwide to lead this Israeli-developed approach, which combines direct intratumoral administration of the investigational treatment with systemic therapy in patients with locally advanced, unresectable disease.”

Geva said the study required cooperation among experts in oncology, gastroenterology, surgery, and imaging, as well as the hospital’s clinical research teams.

Silexion opens trial after years of development, clinical preparations

Silexion, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker SLXN, described the opening of the trial as an important milestone following years of development and clinical preparations.

“The initiation of the study at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center marks SIL204’s transition from years of development and clinical preparation into an active clinical program,” Silexion chairman and CEO Ilan Hadar said.

The trial would help determine whether broad and targeted silencing of KRAS could eventually offer another treatment option for pancreatic cancer patients, Hadar said.

The treatment remains investigational, and its safety and effectiveness have yet to be established through the clinical trial.

This post was originally published on here. 

For generations, Israelis and Palestinians have been trapped by the same fatal illusion: that enough force will eventually compel the other people to surrender its identity, rights, or national aspirations. It will not.

Military power can destroy buildings, kill commanders, seize territory, impose closures, and frighten entire populations. Armed struggle can kill civilians, destabilize societies, and force political questions onto the international agenda. But neither side can make the other disappear.

There are no military solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are only military operations, tactical victories, devastating defeats, and temporary changes in the balance of power. None resolves the central reality: Two peoples live in the same land, and neither will abandon its national future.

The Israeli belief in a military solution assumes that sufficient pressure will persuade Palestinians to give up their demand for freedom. Palestinian history demonstrates the opposite. The harder Palestinians are struck, the stronger that demand becomes. Military force can weaken an organization, kill leaders, destroy weapons, or delay a political process. It cannot eliminate the reason Palestinians resist Israeli domination.

A Palestinian child growing up under bombardment, military rule, displacement, checkpoints, settlement expansion, land confiscation, or the destruction of family life does not conclude that freedom is unnecessary. That child learns that freedom is more urgent.

Israel may defeat Palestinian armed groups in particular battles. It cannot bomb a national aspiration out of existence.

Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens. No state can accept attacks on its communities, the murder of civilians, hostage-taking, or rockets aimed at its population. But self-defense is not a political strategy. Military force may stop an immediate attack. It cannot answer the question that returns when the shooting ends: What future will Palestinians have?

Israel has repeatedly demonstrated overwhelming military superiority, yet it remains deeply insecure. The problem is not that Israel has used too little force. It is that force has been asked to produce permanent security without Palestinian freedom. It cannot.

Israel will never have genuine security while millions of Palestinians live without sovereignty, political rights, control over their future, or hope of independence. Permanent domination produces recurring rebellion and recurring repression, not peace.

Destructive beliefs in military liberation

The Palestinian belief in military liberation has been no less destructive.

Armed movements that promised to liberate Palestine through violence have not brought Palestinians closer to freedom. They have brought catastrophic death and destruction. They promised dignity but delivered devastated cities, shattered families, mass displacement, hunger, poverty, and lost generations. They claimed sacrifice would produce liberation, but ordinary Palestinians paid almost the entire price.

The so-called resistance did not protect Gaza. It turned Gaza into a battlefield on which Palestinians suffered unimaginable losses. It did not end the occupation. It strengthened the Israeli Right, weakened the Israeli peace camp, intensified Israeli fear, and empowered those who seek annexation and permanent control.

The deliberate killing of Israeli civilians is not liberation. Taking civilians hostage is not liberation. Launching an attack without the ability to protect one’s own population from the foreseeable consequences is not responsible leadership.

Palestinians have the right to struggle for freedom. But not every form of struggle is moral, wise, or effective. A strategy must be judged by what it produces.

Has armed resistance created a Palestinian state? Ended settlement expansion? Secured Jerusalem? Built democratic institutions, functioning hospitals, good schools, employment, or freedom of movement? The answer is no.

Hamas’s old-new leader Khalil al-Hayya’s recent speech following his selection as head of the Hamas Political Bureau should therefore alarm every Palestinian who cares about the national future. Hayya made clear that Hamas intends to continue along the same path of jihad, armed struggle, and “resistance.” He presented the October 7 attack not as a catastrophic error requiring honest examination but as a glorious stage in a historic struggle.

He expressed no meaningful regret for the destruction of Gaza and accepted no responsibility for the consequences of Hamas’s decisions. Instead, he repeated a maximalist vision of liberating all of Palestine, referring to Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Safed, Nazareth, the Galilee, The Triangle, and the Negev as Palestinian land that would ultimately be liberated.

This is not a strategy for freedom. It is a formula for permanent war.

It tells Israelis that Hamas’s objective is not ending the occupation created in 1967 or establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel but eventually eliminating their country. Such declarations strengthen those Israelis who argue that no withdrawal is safe and no Palestinian state can be tolerated.

Hayya also demanded full political partnership for Hamas while refusing to give up independent armed power. That is not democracy. No political movement can legitimately participate in national decision-making while retaining an army able to override an elected government and drag the population into war.

The principle must be clear: one legitimate authority, one law, and one security force accountable to an elected government.

Palestinians should reject Hayya’s message – not because Israel or the United States demands it but because it has been disastrous for Palestinians.

Israel committed grave violations and war crimes in Gaza and bears responsibility for the enormous scale of civilian death, destruction, displacement, hunger, and devastation. But holding Israel responsible does not require absolving Hamas. Both truths must be stated.

Israel is responsible for how it conducted the war. Hamas is responsible for launching the October 7 attack, killing and abducting civilians, governing Gaza without democratic legitimacy, and pursuing a strategy whose disastrous consequences were foreseeable.

Many Palestinians understand this. They blame Israel for the destruction but also hold Hamas responsible for bringing catastrophe upon Gaza and failing to protect the people it claimed to lead.

Acknowledging Hamas’s responsibility is not treason. It is national responsibility.

To call October 7 a glorious victory while Gaza lies in ruins is to insult the dead, the wounded, the displaced, the hungry, and those who lost everything.

Victory cannot be measured by how many enemies are killed while one’s own society is destroyed. Leadership cannot be measured by the willingness to sacrifice other people’s children. “Resistance” cannot become a sacred word shielding leaders from accountability.

The extremists on both sides reinforce one another. When Hamas attacks civilians and speaks of liberating Haifa and Jaffa, it confirms the Israeli Right’s claim that Palestinians seek Israel’s destruction.

When Israel expands settlements, protects violent settlers, demolishes homes, promotes annexation, and denies Palestinians a credible political future, it confirms Hamas’s claim that Israel understands only force.

Each side uses the extremism of the other to justify its own. Each declares there is no partner, then acts to prevent one from emerging.

The alternative to armed struggle is not surrender. It is a disciplined national strategy based on democratic legitimacy, international law, regional diplomacy, popular mobilization, institution-building, and nonviolent resistance.

Palestinians need elections, accountable leadership, one national authority, and a strategy that makes freedom and statehood – not the destruction of Israel – the center of their international campaign.

Israel must also offer a real political alternative. It cannot demand that Palestinians reject violence while allowing diplomacy, moderation, and recognition of Israel to produce only deeper occupation and more settlements.

Neither people can defeat the other permanently. Neither is leaving.

The conflict will end only when Palestinians achieve freedom, sovereignty, dignity, and statehood, and Israelis achieve security, recognition, and regional acceptance.

Israel has used overwhelming force and remains insecure. Palestinians have pursued armed resistance and remain unfree.

More of the same will produce more graves, more destroyed homes, and another generation taught that war is inevitable.

It is not inevitable. It is a political choice.

Israel will never have genuine security until Palestinians have freedom. Palestinians will never achieve freedom until Israelis have security.

Rejecting Hayya’s path is not surrendering the Palestinian struggle. It is rescuing it from a strategy that has failed catastrophically.

The writer is the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization and the co-head of the Alliance for Two States.

This post was originally published on here. 

Three years after dozens of Israelis were killed on the streets of Sderot during the Hamas-led massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the city’s population has seen a boom, and now, Sderot’s residents are courting summer visitors to showcase the city’s resiliency.

In 2023, according to population statistics, Sderot was home to 35,477 people. Sderot Deputy Mayor Elad Kalimi told The Jerusalem Post last week that number was now at around 42,000, marking a nearly 20% rise in under three years.

“It’s magic. It’s a miracle,” Kalimi said, speaking to the Post at Sderot’s newly opened Cafe Chico, adding that the community was a symbol of “strength” and “overcoming.”

“We want visitors who come here to the city to see and meet the heroism and the strength of our community,” he said.

Rapid growth is not new to Sderot. Population data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that from 2021 through 2023, the city’s population rose by about 5,000. And now, Kalimi says, Sderot is building another five new neighborhoods that he projects will grow the city’s population to 70,000.

“When we live here in Sderot, it’s not just having an apartment. We’re doing a Zionist act,” he said. 

Sderot has a spirit of “unbreakability,” Kalimi said

Kalimi reflected that the city had a lot of pain, but that even with the troubles from before October 7, 2023, and then the disaster of the massacres themselves, the city embodied a “spirit of unbreakability.”

“We are not breaking. Never, never breaking,” he said. “It’s something that’s unique to Sderot, and it’s caused people to come here. People from all over the country. All kinds of people; religious and non-religious, younger and older, come here to Sderot because they feel this unique spirit.”

Another prominent Sderot resident, Aryeh Cohen, also spoke to the Post at Cafe Chico. The cafe was named in honor of his son, IDF Captain Shiloh Cohen, nicknamed “Chico.” 

Capt. Cohen, a commander in the Shaldag unit, was 24-years-old when he was killed fighting terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023.

Aryeh Cohen recounted his son’s actions on the day he watered a nearby clementine tree that was relocated from Be’eri to Sderot. Next to the tree, a charred piece of a building also relocated from Sderot bears a plaque honoring Capt. Shiloh Cohen.

“Shiloh understood on that day that there was no time to wait for instructions from commanders,” Aryeh Cohen said. “He left the house, and he didn’t have his gun with him, so he took his brother’s gun and hitchhiked.”

After that, Cohen said his son joined some soldiers from the elite special reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Matkal.

“Shiloh woke up at around 7:00 am, left the house at 9:30, and at around 11:30 he was already fighting in Mefalsim.” 

After fighting there, Capt. Cohen eventually made it to Be’eri.

“In the end, Shiloh was killed at around 5:30 pm.” Cohen recounted, adding that, despite that, he believed if it were all to happen again, his son would make all the same choices.

Children in Sderot grow up under threat of terrorism

Karen Kalfa, a Sderot schoolteacher who immigrated to Israel from Montreal 25 years ago, recounted how her children had all grown up under threat of terrorism from Gaza.

“I have six kids. My oldest son is 18 and a half, and while he was growing up, he was exposed to many Qassam (rocket) attacks or many times that there was war in Israel,” she told the Post.

On October 7, she said, she began calling up her students to make sure they were ok. Some never answered.

“I lost many, many of my own students, and my colleagues, and friends, and neighbors,” she said. And so, for me, October 7 was not only a loss because of my town, but also because of the community I work at.”

Still, she said that the pain Sderot endured was something that worked to make the community stronger.

“Living in Sderot was always a special thing because the rockets and all the trauma that the community went through is something that brought us together,” she said. “No one can understand what I go through unless he’s from Sderot.”

The residents of Sderot spoke to the Post ahead of an August 11 event that is part of an initiative to bring more visitors to the city this summer.

The event will occur in English and will feature a tour of Sderot, led by local residents who will share their stories of the city. Among other things, it will also include a visit to Cafe Chico.

Space is limited. Advance registration is required by email at hilam@reut-sderot.org.il or via WhatsApp at 058-492-2986.

This post was originally published on here. 

IDF troops patrolling villages and towns in southern Lebanon under the military’s operational control have uncovered weapons, terrorist infrastructure, and publications produced by Mahdi, the publishing house of Hezbollah‘s Imam al-Mahdi Scouts youth movement.

During one patrol, troops found a postcard produced by the publishing house bearing the message: “What stays with a person throughout life is reading books at a young age; reading should become part of people’s lives just like food, sleep, and other daily routines.”

The reverse side of the high-quality postcard featured a photograph of Iran’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening strike of Operation Roaring Lion.

The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts are Hezbollah’s official youth movement, established as the organization’s educational and social arm to shape future generations of its members. The movement primarily recruits children and teenagers from Shi’ite strongholds in southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley, Beirut’s Dahieh district, and the capital itself, with membership estimated in the tens of thousands.

Indoctrination from an early age

According to experts, the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts combine ideological indoctrination with militarism, cultivating hostility toward Israel and the US from an early age.

The Mahdi publishing house serves as one of the movement’s primary propaganda platforms, producing newspapers, magazines, including Mahdi magazine, and pamphlets portraying Hezbollah operatives as heroes and Israel as an enemy to be fought through terrorism, including self-sacrifice unto death, or “shahada.”

The publications also promote Iran’s leadership, particularly Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, fostering admiration for him among young readers. According to experts, Hezbollah has spent years cultivating respect for senior figures in the Iranian regime, including Khamenei, among younger generations.

According to experts, Hezbollah’s scout movement serves as a mechanism for ideological indoctrination and the early recruitment of future operatives. Members considered particularly committed may later join the organization’s operational units, while others maintain an affinity for violent resistance before eventually joining Hezbollah.

This post was originally published on here. 

New episodes every Sunday-Thursday. 

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

For more news, analysis, and the latest updates, head to jpost.com.

Headlines edited by Shir Perets and Lara Sukster Mosheyof.

Hosted and produced by Shifra Jacobs.

This post was originally published on here. 

From cycling to football to the World Cup, rival nations have learned that a country’s image is a strategic asset. Israel cannot afford to sit out that race.

Tadej Pogacar rode into Paris this week to win his record-tying fifth Tour de France. A few weeks earlier, the Tour rolled through Barcelona for its Grand Depart, and something was missing. 

A year earlier, the team then known as Israel-Premier Tech needed police escorts and blocked roads, and watched the Vuelta a España’s final stage in Madrid canceled after protesters overran the route. This year, the same riders raced under a scrubbed new identity, NSN Cycling Team, every trace of Israel removed, and the crowds left them alone.

UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain Victorious rode the same roads without incident, jerseys carrying national names and government backing intact. Nobody demanded they change, and every time Pogacar raised his arms, the UAE logo was impossible to miss.

The topic at hand is not cycling. It is how countries have learned, over decades, to treat their name as a strategic asset to be managed, protected, and projected.

Qatar offers the clearest case study. A nation of under three million people hosted the 2022 World Cup and bought itself global familiarity that decades of diplomacy could not have purchased.

Qatar Airways sponsors top European clubs, and Qatar Sports Investments owns Paris Saint-Germain outright. Every match becomes a small act of national branding, repeated millions of times a season.

The Emirates has run the same playbook with even more polish. The Emirates airline’s logo has sat on the shirts of Real Madrid, Arsenal, and AC Milan. Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways put its name on Manchester City’s stadium, turning one of the world’s most dominant clubs into a permanent advertisement for the emirate.

Bahrain has gone further: its sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, took majority control of McLaren’s parent group in 2024 and added to that stake in 2025, meaning Bahrain does not merely sponsor a Formula One team, but it substantially owns one, while the Bahrain Grand Prix opens the F1 season worldwide each year.

None of this is incidental spending. It is a strategy. Countries that spent decades absorbing criticism over human rights and governance have used sport, deliberately and systematically, to soften how the world sees them. Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup and its acquisition of Newcastle United are the same strategy scaled up.

Buy visibility. Build partnerships. Make the criticism harder to hear over the noise of the crowd.

This is not only a Gulf strategy. Turkey has run a quieter version for 15 years, with Turkish Airlines as title sponsor of the Euroleague and a former shirt sponsor of Barcelona and Manchester United.

Rwanda offers the more instructive case. Over eight years, Kigali built sleeve sponsorships with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and Atletico Madrid into one of the most studied rebranding campaigns in sport, transforming how the world saw a small African country a generation removed from genocide.

That campaign is now unwinding: Bayern pulled back in 2025, and Arsenal is ending its deal in June 2026, both under pressure over Rwanda’s alleged role in fueling the conflict in neighboring Congo. The lesson cuts both ways.

Sports branding can build goodwill faster than any embassy, and it can be stripped away just as fast once the underlying policy story becomes indefensible.

Investing in image, not just security

Israel, by contrast, treats its brand almost entirely as a defensive problem, managed only after a crisis breaks rather than built in calm periods so it can absorb the next one.

The country invests enormously in its security and its technology sector, but far too little in the softer architecture of global perception: the sponsorships, cultural partnerships, and long-term commercial visibility that let the Gulf states walk into a stadium and be applauded rather than protested.

This is not a call for propaganda. It is a call for strategy. Israel once used innovation-driven diplomacy to strengthen ties in Asia and Africa, and still has genuine assets to build on: a high-tech economy, a diaspora with real commercial reach, and a growing network of Abraham Accords partners with every incentive to stand alongside it.

None of that translates into goodwill by itself. It has to be built, funded, and sustained over years, through partnerships that have everything to do with normalization by proximity.

A cycling team was forced to change its identity and ownership. That is not a footnote to a sports season. It is a preview of the peace Israel is now trying to build. As the smoke clears from nearly three years of war, Israel’s leaders are focused, correctly, on restocking munitions, rebuilding deterrence, and consolidating the alliances the fighting forged.

But the aftermath of a war is not won by hardware alone. It is won by whether the world extends a country the same benefit of the doubt, the same willingness to let its flag be worn in public, that it extends to nations with far less claim to it.

Public credit and affection are a strategic reserve of their own, and like any reserve, must be built before the next crisis arrives, not assembled after it.

This post was originally published on here. 

Former hostage Evyatar David spoke out for the first time since returning home, discussing his complicated rehabilitation process in a social media post on Thursday. 

David was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, together with his childhood best friend, Guy Gilboa-Dalal. He was held hostage by Hamas until October 13, 2025. 

During that time, Hamas released propaganda videos of David, one of which showed him and Gilboa-Dalal forced to witness a staged release ceremony for other captives in February 2025, only to be left behind. The second, released in August 2025, showed David gaunt and pale, emaciated and digging his own grave, shocking the nation. 

David says thoughts of family, friends got him through captivity

In his social media post, David wrote about how he survived in Hamas captivity one day at a time after his abduction. 

“I was kidnapped, taken into a dark tunnel, and all I could think about was surviving one more day. And then another day. Until I returned home,” he wrote. 

“In the moments when I almost broke, what kept me going were thoughts of my parents, my family, my friends, and the hope that no one would give up on me.”

David also expressed appreciation for the love he received upon returning to the public, saying that “the people of Israel reminded me that there is also good in the world.”

However, David wrote that his road to recovery has not been simple or straightforward. 

“I am coping with PTSD and flashbacks. There are moments when I am in a safe place, surrounded by people I love, but my mind still goes back there,” he said. 

“I understood that surviving captivity is one thing. Truly recovering is another battle entirely,” he added.

David said he isn’t looking for pity, nor is he giving up on his dream of recovery. He still wishes to get married, start a family and “truly return to life.”

In order to aid his efforts in doing so, his friends and family have launched a crowdfunding campaign on David’s behalf. 

“If you are able to help by donating or sharing, I would be deeply grateful. And again, thank you for fighting for me,” David said. 

Evyatar David’s crowdfunding campaign can be found here: https://yad.reachhands.com/evyatardrth

This post was originally published on here. 

As Israel aims to reduce its dependence on American aid, the Jewish state plans to produce its own stealth fighter aircraft as well as unmanned combat aircraft in the next 10 years, a senior Israeli official said.

“I can envision Israel producing its own stealth fighter aircraft,” he said. “If the assessment is that one day others may stop supplying these systems, then we should begin producing them ourselves. The goal is ten years from now.”

The senior official, speaking to reporters in Washington, added that, along with stealth fighter aircraft, Israel also plans to develop unmanned combat aircraft. 

Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) are designed to operate in close coordination with manned fighter jets. Unlike conventional drones, these aircraft are equipped with advanced artificial intelligence, enabling them to fly autonomously or semi-autonomously, execute complex missions, and respond dynamically to evolving battlefield conditions. 

Their roles range from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to electronic warfare and direct combat. Crucially, UCAVs are intended to serve as force multipliers, extending the reach, survivability, and lethality of manned aircraft without requiring additional pilots.

The senior official’s statement echoed similar comments made by former senior Israel Air Force and defense industry sources who have spoken to Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post over the past year.

In a recent podcast with D&T, Col. Yishai Cohen, the head of the Integration Department at the Directorate of Defense, Research, & Development (MAFAT) at the Defense Ministry, declined to answer if Israel was examining such aircraft, saying, “I think it takes us back to the question about surprises for the next war” against Iran.

CCA is key component

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program emphasizes human-machine teaming, allowing pilots to command multiple autonomous aircraft that can scout ahead, engage targets, or absorb enemy fire. 

The CCA is a key component of the US Air Force’s future force design, intended to distribute combat power, reduce risk to human pilots, and expand the reach of crewed aircraft that are intended to serve as force multipliers and expand the lethality of manned aircraft, such as the F-35 and Boeing’s F-47 fighter jets for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform that will replace the F-22 Raptors.

The CCA program emphasizes human-machine teaming, allowing pilots to command multiple autonomous aircraft that can scout ahead, engage targets, and absorb enemy fire. CCA aircraft offer a cost-effective means of expanding airpower, allowing militaries to deploy large numbers of capable aircraft without the logistical and human constraints of traditional fleets. 

Their AI-driven autonomy enables rapid decision-making and mission adaptability, particularly in scenarios where communication may be degraded or denied. Further, by assigning unmanned systems to high-risk roles, commanders can reduce human pilots’ exposure to hostile fire, thereby enhancing survivability and operational resilience.

In May, the US Air Force informed Congress that it intends to procure more than 150 CCA by fiscal year 2031, making it a top modernization priority.

Israeli self-sufficiency

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled a long-term plan to substantially reduce the country’s dependence on the US, favoring the expansion of the local military-industrial base. The plan so far focuses primarily on artillery, missiles, electronic and cyber warfare systems, rather than platforms like fighter jets.

Israel has had the technological know-how to manufacture its own fighter jets, and in the 1980s, Israel Aircraft Industries (now known as Israel Aerospace Industries-IAI) developed the Lavi. The project led to a fully functioning aircraft, and foreign air forces later acquired some of the later versions. Some aircraft are still flying today. Nevertheless, the project was canceled in 1987 due to budgetary and political reasons (one being pressure from the US to buy American platforms). IAI also manufactured the Kfir fight jet for the Israel Air Force until the aircraft was retired in the mid-1990s. The company continues to maintain Kfir squadrons, and recently announced that it is upgrading the Kfir aircraft flow by the Sri Lankan airforce.

Since then, Israel has relied on the Americans to provide manned fighter aircraft to maintain its air superiority throughout the Middle East. and shifted to producing a significant number of unmanned aircraft for the IDF and other countries.

Nevertheless, while Israel has the knowledge and expertise to produce and manufacture advanced jets, such a program can place great strain on the Israeli economy, which remains under the strain of close to three years of war.

According to Cohen, such a blue-and-white program “needs a budget allocated” to capabilities such as CCA platforms. 

Cohen explained that one of the MoD’s main focuses is to move toward independent manufacturing and production at the scale of platforms, so that it has the critical technologies “no matter what happens abroad.”

“There is a huge race in all countries to achieve those capabilities. So for us, to be able to develop and produce in Israel, because we want to be independent and at scale, that’s something that was not necessarily deep in the DNA of MAFAT. Now, for my colleagues and me, that is a main lesson learned – we need to not only be in charge of development, but then scale and produce it independently in Israel for the needs of the IDF,” he said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Watch this episode without interruptions.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now met Donald Trump eight times, more than any other foreign leader since Trump returned to office. This one looked nothing like the others.

No welcome at the South Portico, no embrace for the photographers, no press in the room, no one-on-one. An hour and change, then it was over. Both governments put out the same two words: productive and positive.

On this week’s episode of theDeep Dive podcast, host Jacob Laznik asks Yaakov Katz, Senior Fellow at the JPPI, author and former editor-in-chief of the Post, what that identical language is covering for, and Katz’s answer is blunt.

The fact that the positivity had to be stressed tells you what Israeli officials were braced for. Netanyahu avoided the Zelensky treatment. He also got nothing he came for.

That leads somewhere less comfortable. Lebanon’s president got the South Portico welcome. Iraq’s prime minister got the Oval Office with cameras inside, and there is a coalition forming against Iran that Israel has not been invited to join, and Katz argues the exclusion is deliberate.

Laznik offers the counterargument you hear in Jerusalem right now: America is hitting our enemy, Iran is firing at the Gulf instead of at us, so why complain? Katz calls that short-term thinking, and explains what Israel gave up to get here.

The hardest stretch is about honesty at home. Katz walks through the leaked footage of Senator Lindsey Graham, including Graham’s claim that Witkoff and Kushner are the wrong people to be negotiating the Middle East, and the New Yorker piece in which former Biden officials say they were played.

Katz asks the question Israelis have three months to answer without a commission of inquiry: Netanyahu called the 12 Day War a victory for generations, so what changed eight months later that required doing it again? Generations, as he notes, is usually longer than that.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Islamic Republic is making headway in its ambition to “sow discord within Jordan and create governmental chaos in order to expand Iranian influence” in the country, Prof. Ronen Yitzhak told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, following the publication of an open letter signed by hundreds of Jordanian political and legal figures demanding the withdrawal of US forces.

The letter, a rare public challenge to the Jordanian government, was signed by both Palestinian and original Jordanian tribes, which is what makes it particularly “disturbing,” Yitzhak said.

“This is exactly what Iran intended when it launched missiles at Jordan, as well as at other Gulf states. Its goal was to put pressure on the Jordanian population to demand the removal of the American presence,” he said. “But it is more than that. There is an Iranian intention to deepen the gap between the Jordanian government, which supports the United States, and the Jordanian people, which opposes American policy, as part of the Iranian ambition to sow discord within Jordan and cause governmental chaos in order to increase Iranian influence in Jordan – this has been Iran’s ambition for over 20 years.”

The letter claimed that US military presence “exposes Jordan to security, political, and economic risks that serve no national interest and increases the likelihood of our country being dragged into a regional conflict to which it is not a party.”

Jordan currently hosts around 4,000 American troops, according to the US Congress. The country also receives substantial US military assistance, with annual aid tripling over the past 15 years.

Jordanian-US relationship beneficial, but regional escalation inflicts pain

Total bilateral US assistance to Jordan, administered through the State and Defense Departments, amounted to approximately $33.8 billion from 1951 through to the fiscal year 2025, and the US has provided an additional $2.5 billion in security assistance to Jordan through multiple defense appropriations accounts.

Though Amman’s relationship with the US has been undoubtedly beneficial, the regional escalation has also had a deep impact on Jordan’s economy. The Central Bank of Jordan reported that in the first half of 2026, tourism revenue went down from expatriate Jordanians by 12%, US nationals by 25%, and European nationals by 28%. According to the New York Times, the tourism industry alone makes up 18% of Jordan’s revenues.

The demand to see US forces withdraw is “a fascistic call,” Yitzhak said, adding that it was unlikely to impact King Abdullah’s rule.

“Abdullah’s strategic political approach, as we knew, was the commander of Jordan’s special forces until his appointment as king in 1999, and he cooperated with the West and recognizes the importance of strategic relations between countries, including the State of Israel,” he explained.

Issues relating to the state of Israel have been another sore point between the Jordanian people and the government, a point that has only become more noticeable with Iran’s escalation in recent years.

Sufyan al-Tell, a political activist who signed the letter, told the New York Times that Jordan’s capabilities were being “exploited…one way or another to defend Israel,” reflecting a growing number of Jordanians who have vocalized the belief that the country is making sacrifices for the benefit of a foreign power.

Yitzhak, though, said that “the King of Jordan has the sovereignty to make independent decisions according to the constitution, so it does not seem likely that he will change Jordanian policy towards the countries or the West in general.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Israeli security forces on Thursday submitted an indictment against 34-year-old Israeli citizen Amir Hisham Muhammad Titi, who is accused of carrying out operations on behalf of Iran. He was arrested several weeks before the indictment, police noted.

Titi was an ambulance driver and allegedly provided his Iranian handlers with various types of intelligence, including the emergency protocols of various Israeli hospitals. He was also alleged to have distributed media documentation showing a high-profile Israeli figure during a visit to one of the hospitals in northern Israel. 

In addition to his hospital-related spy work, Titi is suspected of taking on missions to collect media documentation of various locations in Israel, including Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

He also reportedly took photographs of the Horev Mall in Haifa and a town in the Sharon region where a senior member of the Israeli security establishment lives.

Iran funnels funds to Israeli-Arab spy via family members’ bank accounts, crypto

Titi received tens of thousands of shekels for this work, police said in their Thursday announcement, funneled through his family members’ bank accounts and through a digital cryptocurrency wallet. 

The indictment was filed on Thursday morning in the Haifa District Court. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Shots were reportedly fired outside an event hall in Ashdod overnight on Wednesday, according to police. No injuries or deaths were reported. 

Police did not provide additional details, adding only that forensic scientists collected evidence at the scene for the investigation into the incident and that the shooting was criminal in nature rather than a terror attack. 

The event took place outside Ashdod’s Troya Garden event hall, according to Israeli media. One burst of seven shots was fired at the scene, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. The bullets shattered the upper windows at the hall’s entrance, according to Ynet.  

The suspects escaped arrest, and police are working to identify them, Ynet reported. 

Cocaine, bath salts, and ecstasy confiscated in Holon drug raid

A few hours later, early on Thursday morning, police arrested a 45-year-old resident of Holon on suspicion of drug trafficking following a police raid on a warehouse in the city. 

During the raid, police seized roughly 6.7 kg of cocaine, 2.5 kg of a synthetic cathinone drug called “Doctor,” which is similar to bath salts, 673 grams of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (some in the form of MDMA and some in the form of ecstasy tablets), 55 grams of hashish, and over 8 kg of an unidentified liquid which is suspected to be another drug.  

Security forces continue initiative to combat Arab sector crime

On Wednesday, Border Police made two arrests and seized several illegal weapons during raids in the Arab towns of Kafr Kanna and Rana as part of the ongoing police initiative to reduce Arab sector violent crime. 

The two suspects arrested were a 24-year-old from Kafr Kanna and a 19-year-old resident of Rana, and police noted that among the weapons seized were FN and Glock handguns.  

This post was originally published on here. 

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently met Khalil al-Hayya, the new leader of Hamas, according to Turkish state-run media reports.

Anadolu Agency media in Turkey reported on July 30 that “Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met Wednesday with Khalil al-Hayya, the newly elected head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, and a Hamas delegation, according to Turkish Foreign Ministry sources.”

This appears to be the first high-level meeting that Hayya has had since being elected to his new role on July 20. Hamas said Khalil al-Hayya had been elected head of its political bureau.

He is apparently based in Qatar along with other Hamas leaders. Many Hamas officials have been based in Qatar since 2012.

Anadolu, which is state-run, noted that “sources said Fidan congratulated al-Hayya on his appointment during the meeting.”

Claims Hamas approaching peace negotiations, West Bank tensions inflamed

The report said that “Al-Hayya briefed Fidan on the situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, saying the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has intensified what he described as illegal settlement activities and attacks on holy sites in Jerusalem.”

He claimed Hamas is making approaches toward peace negotiations. Hamas in Gaza is supposed to give up its governing authority there to the US-backed Board of Peace. Hayya said Hamas is also working on reconciliation with other Palestinian groups, apparently a reference to Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority.

Anadolu added that “Fidan reiterated Turkey’s strong support for what he called the ‘just cause’ of the Palestinians in every field and on every international platform.”

In addition, Turkey’s top diplomat said “that Ankara would continue making every effort to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Fidan also said Turkey will continue supporting the Gaza peace process and expressed appreciation for the role Hamas has played in those efforts.”

Ankara’s pro-government Yeni Safak also reported on the meeting. It showed a photo of Fidan and Hayya and said the meeting happened in Ankara on July 29.

Turkey reiterates support for Hamas, humanitarian assistance to Gaza

“Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held talks with newly elected Hamas Political Bureau chief Khalil al-Hayya, discussing developments in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. During the meeting, Fidan reiterated Turkey’s continued support for the Palestinian cause, humanitarian assistance for Gaza and efforts aimed at advancing a lasting peace process,” Yeni Safak added.

This report noted that the men discussed the situation in Gaza and the West Bank and discussed “settlement expansion.”

“Al-Hayya also briefed the Turkish side on the group’s position regarding ongoing peace negotiations and shared updates on efforts aimed at achieving Palestinian national reconciliation,” Yeni Safak reported. “Fidan reaffirmed Turkey’s commitment to supporting the Palestinian cause across diplomatic, political and humanitarian platforms.”

Turkey has met with and hosted Hamas officials in the past. Turkey’s ruling AKP has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas also has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, indicating that the parties share some ideological connections and background. Fidan and Hayya also held a phone call in March 2025. 

This post was originally published on here. 

MK Sharren Haskel was summoned by Lahav 433 to testify regarding the election of the State Comptroller, which the High Court of Justice ruled invalid, Haskel’s spokesperson confirmed to the Jerusalem Post.

New Hope MKs ordered to film comptroller vote for Netanyahu, Sharren Haskel claims

One week earlier, Haskel alleged in a sworn affidavit that members of the New Hope-United Right faction were required to film themselves voting for Michael Rabello as state comptroller and show the footage to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as proof of how they voted. 

The claim conflicts with the position presented by the Likud during the legal proceedings over Rabello’s election. It was not, however, submitted in that case.

Haskel signed the affidavit on Sunday, more than two weeks after the High Court of Justice invalidated Rabello’s election and ordered the Knesset to hold a new vote because the filming of ballots had fundamentally violated the secrecy of the election.

Instead, the affidavit was filed in Haskel’s separate petition seeking permission to break away from Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope-United Right faction and be recognized as a one-member faction.

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.

This post was originally published on here. 

A drone attack and ambush by Islamist terrorists at a police post in northwest Pakistan killed at least 10 officers, police said, the second such assault within a week.

The attack took place late on Wednesday in ⁠the Hangu district near the Afghan border, an ​area that has long served as home to terrorist groups.

Terrorism in Pakistan’s border areas has risen sharply in recent months, targeting mainly the military and police after an armed conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan killed hundreds.

Islamabad says the terrorists use safe ​havens ⁠in Afghanistan to train and plan attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has denied the charge and said terrorism is Pakistan‘s ⁠domestic problem.

Terrorist ambush police checkpoint 

The terrorists ambushed the police check post after hitting it with improvised explosive devices attached to quadcopters, police said in a statement.

Ten officers and 15 of the attackers were killed in several hours of fighting, said Zulfikar Hameed, the provincial police chief.

The Islamist terrorists have in recent months started using the quadcopters to target security forces in the border areas.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack, which came days after a suicide bombing killed 15, including 12 Pakistani army soldiers, in the nearby district of Tank. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.

The group has been waging an insurgency against the Pakistani ​state since 2007 ​in an ⁠attempt to overthrow the government and replace it with their own brand of strict ​Islamic governance.

Terror attacks have surged along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and have the potential to reignite fighting between the neighbors. The allies-turned-foes engaged in their worst fighting in years in February, with Pakistan carrying out airstrikes ​inside Afghanistan.

This post was originally published on here.