All News (Page 89)

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. 

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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.

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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.

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Rhetoric against Turkey and Syria continues to be a constant theme in Israeli politics. It is being noticed in Turkey.

Turkish media is increasingly reporting on Israeli comments. It is important to examine how this rhetoric is now framing Ankara’s role in Syria and also how Turkey may interpret the comments.

Turkish media reported on July 30 that Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with the newly elected Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya.

This will be seen in Jerusalem in a negative light, in line with a sense that Ankara is a rising threat.

First, a little history.

Historic ties between Israel, Turkey

Turkey and Israel have historic ties that date back to the era before the state of Israel was created. Zionist leaders David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi studied law in Istanbul in 1913.

After the founding of Israel, Turkey became the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel. Israel and Turkey had good relations until the rise of the AKP party in the early 2000s.

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan became increasingly critical of Israel, especially after the 2009 war in Gaza. This rhetoric was met with some attempts at reconciliation, most recently in 2021.

However, the Hamas attack and Gaza war have soured relations to a new low.

From Jerusalem’s point of view, Turkey is increasingly not just pushing hostile narratives; it is potentially a strategic or regional threat. This dovetails with increasing critique of Qatar by Israeli politicians.

Several years ago, Doha was seen as helpful with Hamas in Gaza. Cash from Doha was flowing via Israel to Gaza. After October 7, the perception of Turkey and Qatar has shifted in Jerusalem.

This results now in almost weekly statements against Turkey and also Qatar.

In addition, there are also weekly statements against Syria. Syria’s leadership is often called “jihadist,” and there are threats of war with Syria.

Israel is already involved in conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza, and fighting terrorism in the West Bank. It’s interesting to see voices in Jerusalem also pushing for war in Syria. Israel’s early leadership preferred war as a last resort.

Today, after more than 1,000 days of war, the rhetoric generally argues for more war on more fronts, with a sense that Israel is now the strongest military in the region and, with US support, can fight more enemies.

The White House, however, has appeared to push back against Israel’s role in Syria, particularly friction with local villagers near the Golan.

The Trump administration also wants to see peace in Gaza and Lebanon, not more war. The Trump administration also has warm ties with Turkey and Qatar, potentially creating a challenge for policymakers in Jerusalem who predict hostility with these countries.

The rhetoric is beginning to be noticed more in the region. ANHA news, also known as Hawar News Agency, is a Kurdish outlet.

Israel to establish Syrian bases if Turkey does

It reported on July 28 that “Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said Israel would be compelled to establish military bases inside Syria if Turkey proceeds with plans to set up its own military bases on Syrian territory.”

It added that “Cohen stressed that Tel Aviv [Jerusalem] would not stand idly by in the face of any Turkish military deployment in neighboring Syria, asserting that Israel would respond in kind to safeguard its national security and protect its strategic interests in the region.”

On July 23, Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish outlet, noted that “Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said on Wednesday that Israel should prepare for the possibility of a future confrontation with Türkiye, arguing that direct military contact between the two countries was ‘not an impossible scenario.’”

It went on to report that “speaking at a conference in west Jerusalem, Chikli said a direct encounter between the Israeli and Turkish militaries could occur at sea, adding that such a scenario could happen ‘even tomorrow morning.’”

Middle East Eye reported in June that “Israel ‘will be at war with Syria sooner or later’, says Likud minister.” The pro-government Turkish outlet Yeni Safak noted in March that “Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett sparked controversy Wednesday with provocative statements targeting Turkey during a live Bloomberg interview.

Bennett described Turkey as a ‘new strategic threat’ to Israel and hinted at possible action against Ankara, saying ‘the choice is up to Turkey and warning, ‘after Iran, we won’t stay idle.’”

On July 29, Daily Sabah also reported that “Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday renewed his hostile rhetoric against Turkey, issuing a series of pointed remarks on regional security, Syria and Iran.”

It went on to note that “during an interview with Israel’s Channel 14, Katz said Israel does not seek a military confrontation with Türkiye but argued that his country would defend itself against any threat.

Referring to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, he said: ‘We are not the collapsing Christian empire. Jerusalem is not Constantinople, and we know how to defend ourselves.’”

Then the report says that “the Israeli minister also argued that Ankara is seeking greater influence in Syria and said Israel would not allow Syria to become a platform that could threaten its security.” A separate comment from Bennett at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in February also was reported at Media Line. He spoke about how “Turkey is the new Iran,” the report said.

Iran considered a threat to Israel, entire region

Currently, Iran is still considered a threat to Israel and the region. It continues to have ballistic missiles, and despite five months of conflict since February, Iran continues its attacks. It is now clear how Israel expects to take on Turkey, a member of NATO, if Iran has not been vanquished.

If Turkey is viewed as the “new Iran,” the fact is that Turkey has a powerful army, air force and navy.

Most of the examples of recent Israeli statements about Turkey can be found on the social media news site Clash Report, which describes itself as a “global platform that focuses on conflict zones around the world, delivering detailed analyses and up-to-date news.”

Clash Report has been critiqued for being pro-Ankara. On July 29, it highlighted on X comments by Bennett “on US selling F-35 jets to Turkey.” The report claimed Bennett said, “we cannot allow our enemies to be armed, because then we won’t be able to defend ourselves against this very advanced weaponry.”

Ragip Soylu, the Turkey Bureau Chief of Middle East Eye, noted the Bennett comments in an X post, noting the Bennett called Turkey an “enemy.”

Clash Report also highlighted Eli Cohen’s comments in a July 28 post. “Israeli Minister of Energy Eli Cohen: We will not accept Türkiye’s entrenchment in Syria.” It added that Cohen noted, “if Turkey establishes bases in Syria, we will also act to establish bases within Syria itself.”

Israel’s discussions with Trump about Turkey are also becoming more pronounced. According to reports in Israeli media on July 29, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed US President Donald Trump a map to compare Israel’s presence in Syria.

Trump has often highlighted his positive relationship with Erdogan and also noted that Erdogan doesn’t get along with Israel’s prime minister. Trump appears to want to highlight that he can balance these two friends in the region. Trump has also been supportive of Syria’s leader.

Recent tensions with Syria have involved Israeli civilians trying to sneak into Syria. In addition, there have been clashes with local villagers who oppose the IDF presence.

Israel’s demands that Syria not have forces near the border have turned the border area with the Golan, beyond the 1974 ceasefire lines, into a kind of no-man’s land of low-level chaos and power vacuum. By demanding no Syrian military presence, it is hard for Syria to create stability.

This creates a possible self-fulfilling prophecy for Israel. Israeli officials see Syria as a threat. This leads to a power vacuum near the border, and a threat could emerge as civilians don’t want to live under IDF raids and IDF rule.

This is a major shift from the era of the Assad regime when Israel provided support for Syrian civilians near the border. Now the civilians only see hostility from the IDF rather than the support of the previous era.

Turkey’s leadership has taken note of Israeli comments. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan sought to tone down some rhetoric on Israel in mid-July. Ankara is worried about a clash in Syria, it seems.

On July 30, Turkey’s pro-government Anadolu noted 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 won’t help ties with Jerusalem. 

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The IDF has begun drafting an official “foundational principles document” intended to redefine and clarify the military’s values while clearly establishing what is permitted and what is prohibited, N12 reported on Wednesday. 

The document is also expected to address the IDF’s nonpartisan nature ahead of approaching elections by clearly setting out its policies, according to the report. 

The chief of staff has emphasized in recent weeks that he will not allow politics to enter the IDF. 

The document is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks and distributed to commanders throughout the IDF, N12 wrote. 

This comes after discussions held by the General Staff in recent months, in which data on a dramatic decline in discipline was presented to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and the military’s senior commanders. 

Viral images, videos highlight IDF misconduct

This decline has been reflected in disregard for military orders and ethical failures, some of which have received media attention in recent months, N12 reported.

Two months previously, an IDF soldier was sentenced to 30 days in military prison after Zamir caught him wearing a “Messiah” patch on his uniform.

In addition, the platoon commander was given a suspended sentence of 14 days’ detention, the company commander was reprimanded, and the battalion commander was given a formal mark on his record.

In May, the IDF sentenced a soldier to 21 days in military prison for desecrating a religious Christian symbol in southern Lebanon, and an additional soldier was sentenced to 14 days in military prison for filming the incident. 

In April, another soldier was filmed smashing a statue of Jesus. Both the soldier who smashed the statue and the soldier who filmed him were removed from combat roles and sentenced to 30 days in military prison. 

Six other soldiers who were present at the scene and “did not act to stop the incident or report it” were strongly criticized, according to the IDF, which said that the soldiers’ conduct “completely deviated from IDF orders and values.”

Tzvi Jasper contributed to this report.

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Greek firefighters were battling deadly wildfires on the island of Crete for a second day on Thursday, as wildfires continue to spread across Europe following days of devastating blazes in Spain and France.

On Wednesday, three Greek firefighters died battling blazes during high winds on Crete and on the mainland, and two more were lightly injured.

Two firefighters died after becoming trapped in the Crete fire near the village of Krya Vrysi in the center of the island while they were driving between fire fronts. Another died in a separate fire in the Peloponnese region.

Hundreds of residents and tourists were evacuated on Wednesday from Krya Vrysi and other nearby villages by sea and by land in the center of the island as high winds pushed the fire out of control near popular holiday spots.

On Thursday, more than 200 firefighters with dozens of fire engines and water-carrying aircraft battled two wildfires on the island of Crete, where agricultural crops and olive groves were destroyed, and warehouses and a few houses were damaged.

“Unfortunately there is no improvement, and the latest information indicates that winds will increase later in the day,” said Giorgos Tsapakos, deputy regional governor for civil protection on Crete, on SKAI TV.

“Aircraft were unable to operate this morning due to the strong winds,” he said.

On Wednesday, the head of the EU’s emergency response center said Greece and Italy were set to face a heightened wildfire risk in the coming weeks.

Record-breaking heatwaves spread across Europe

Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, has endured record-breaking heatwaves this year as human-driven climate change intensifies the heat and drought that enable wildfires to spread faster.

Blazes have forced large-scale evacuations of people in Spain and France over the last few days, scorching through forests and killing wildlife.

On Wednesday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska warned of “three tough days” ahead, with strong winds and high temperatures, even as the major fire in the Avila and Madrid region stabilized, allowing authorities to lift some of the evacuation and shelter-in-place orders.

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The latest strikes in Iraq and Egypt threatened to draw more Middle Eastern countries into the conflict, after the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen last week declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.

On Wednesday, a drone hit a US-owned gas storage tanker at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said in an initial assessment, while US and Saudi forces launched strikes against Iran-aligned groups in eastern Iraq and Iran fired missiles at US troops in Jordan.

The drone was reportedly launched from Iran, the New York Times reported on Thursday. 

In first, Saudi Arabia publicly joins strikes alongside US

The joint US-Saudi attacks marked the first time Riyadh has publicly joined strikes alongside Washington.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in US-Saudi strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.

Iraqi men shouted “Death to America!” as they carried the bodies of slain fighters in body bags.

Washington and Riyadh said they struck Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.

After the joint attacks, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister met with Vice President JD Vance in Washington on Wednesday to urge the Trump administration not to escalate the conflict further by attacking Yemen’s Houthis and carrying out additional strikes against the Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, two sources told Reuters.

One of the sources added that such escalation would open the door to “major unknown risks.” The White House and Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Major combat operations against Iran would carry risk, officials warn 

US officials have privately cautioned that resuming major combat operations against Iran would carry risk given the negative impact on stocks of munitions.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, estimated this week that the US military has fewer than 1,000 Patriot interceptor missiles and fewer than 250 THAAD interceptors – two key air defense systems.

Though Iran denies its forces have directed strikes from Iraqi territory, Iranian newspaper Hamshahri reported that four Iranian Revolutionary Guards advisers had been killed in the strikes on Iraq.

Who are Iraq’s Iranian-backed armed groups?

The strikes on Iraq expose a dangerous rift in that volatile country. The Shi’ite-led government is one of the few in the world to balance close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, but those divided loyalties are a constant source of tension and frequent domestic unrest.

The office of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who took power just two months ago, urged the parties involved to avoid escalation and said he wanted to keep the country out of regional conflicts.

The Iraqi presidency denounced the strikes on the paramilitaries as “an unacceptable attack and a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” while also calling for a halt to attacks by armed groups against Iraq’s neighbors.

The deep ties between Iran and Iraq, the two biggest Shi’ite-majority countries, are on display this week as hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims head to shrines in Iraq for an annual observance of mourning for martyrs.

US strikes Iran as widening war engulfs more countries

Hours before launching the attacks on Iraq, the US military said its air defenses had averted a surprise Iranian attack on US troops in the region.

“US forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8:00 p.m. ET today (0000 GMT),” US Central Command said in a statement.

“The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East.”

Jordan’s military said it had shot down five Iranian missiles. US bases in Jordan have lately become primary Iranian targets, where three US service members were killed this month in the worst US losses since March.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had fired several ballistic missiles at US military installations in Jordan, and had struck three tankers that were attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorized route.

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For two years, the Jewish world rallied around one simple truth: no Jewish life is expendable.

We have marched for hostages, prayed for hostages, lobbied governments for hostages, and celebrated every family reunited. We reminded the world that pidyon shvuyim – the redemption of captives – is among Judaism’s greatest commandments. The Talmud calls it a mitzvah rabbah. Maimonides teaches that there is no greater mitzvah because a captive suffers hunger, fear, and danger all at once. The Shulchan Aruch goes even further, warning that every unnecessary delay in freeing a captive is akin to shedding blood.

That moral clarity should not stop at Israel’s borders.

Today, I am publicly asking Dr. Miriam Adelson to bring that same sense of urgency to a different kind of captivity: a justice system where, supporters argue, access to clemency has become prohibitively expensive and deeply unequal.

No one has done more in recent years to advocate for Jewish captives than Dr. Adelson. Her efforts on behalf of the October 7 hostages have saved lives and inspired Jews around the world. She understands that when Jewish lives are at stake, influence carries responsibility.

I hope she’ll use that influence once again.

The case is Ari Teman.

The case of Ari Teman

Whether you’ve followed his legal battle isn’t really the point. What matters is that a remarkable coalition of legal scholars and attorneys from across the political spectrum – including Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, Alan Dershowitz, Ron Coleman, Mike Yoder, and Molly McCann Saunders – have publicly argued that his prosecution was deeply flawed and that he deserves presidential clemency. Years before becoming US pardon attorney, Ed Martin publicly agreed with calls for a pardon.

Yet Ari Teman has completed his sentence and still has not been pardoned.

Supporters of his case also point to publicly reported correspondence describing six-figure fees being sought to pursue presidential clemency. Whether those arrangements are appropriate or not, they raise a troubling question:

Should access to justice depend on who can afford it?

That question extends far beyond one man.

For generations, Jews have understood that unequal justice rarely begins with dramatic announcements. It begins quietly – with inconsistent standards, disproportionate punishment, and systems that become increasingly inaccessible to ordinary people.

Many advocates have argued that, in several high-profile federal cases, Jewish defendants received disproportionately harsh sentences compared with similarly situated non-Jewish defendants. Those claims deserve careful, independent examination – not dismissal because they are uncomfortable.

If disparities exist, every Jew should care.

Because when freedom depends on access, connections, or enormous sums of money, justice ceases to be equal.

Ari’s story also matters because of who he is outside the courtroom.

Long before his legal troubles, he founded JCorps, helping build one of North America’s largest Jewish volunteer networks. He was recognized by Jewish Federations as a North American Jewish Community Hero, honored by civic leaders, and dedicated years of his life to strengthening Jewish communities through volunteerism.

Today, he is working to build Sunflower Centers, a treatment and research campus for trauma and addiction designed to serve Israeli veterans and survivors of October 7. The project has brought together advisers from across Israel’s healthcare system with the goal of expanding desperately needed mental health care in Israel.

It is difficult to ignore the broader question: if respected legal experts believe a conviction warrants clemency, should justice depend on one’s ability to navigate an expensive insider process?

Jewish tradition teaches that redeeming captives is not optional.

Neither is pursuing justice.

That is why I am asking Dr. Miriam Adelson to urge President Trump to grant Ari Teman a full pardon, direct the Attorney General to review the allegations surrounding his prosecution, and ensure that serious claims regarding his treatment receive appropriate scrutiny.

I also hope she will encourage an independent study examining whether Jewish defendants have received disproportionately severe federal sentences compared with similarly situated non-Jewish defendants. If disparities are found, they should be addressed through the same commitment to justice that has guided so much of the Jewish community’s advocacy.

Dr. Adelson has already demonstrated what determined leadership can accomplish when Jews are held captive.

Now I hope she will help ensure that justice itself is never reserved only for those who can afford the price of admission.

Because no Jew’s freedom should ever come with a price tag.

The writer is an activist and content creator. Raised in Jerusalem and living in Tel Aviv, she has become a leading voice on and offline for liberal Zionism. A third-generation IDF veteran with over a decade in Israel advocacy, Hallel has created and executed content for dozens of major organizations. She is an associate at the Tel Aviv Institute.

This op-ed was adapted from an open letter, cosigned by the author as well as Israellycool founder David Lange, author Benji Lovitt, Israel in the UAE founder Charles Ashkenazi, Darkenu director Rabbi Avi Ganz, comedians Yohay Sponder and Avi Liberman, Jewish Justice Reform Project director David Biren, Stardust Ventures managing partner Gil Eyal, and Coalition for Jewish Values regional vice president and senior rabbinic fellow Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, among others.

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A heat wave is expected to reach Israel beginning on Friday, peaking on Saturday and Sunday. It will be accompanied by dry conditions and strong winds in northern Israel, raising the risk of wildfires.

The hottest area is expected to be around the Sea of Galilee and the northern valleys, where temperatures could climb to as high as 47C on Sunday. Israel Meteorological Service Director Dr. Amir Givati stated that if this occurs, it would break the regional temperature record set about 30 years ago, when 46.8C was recorded at Beit Tsaida on August 9, 1998.

On Thursday, temperatures will rise slightly, and conditions will be hotter than usual, with heat wave conditions in the hills and inland areas, while the Coastal Plain will remain hot and humid. Heavy to extreme heat is expected across most of the country.

Extreme heat is forecast for the southern Golan Heights and its slopes, the northern valleys, the Lower Galilee, the Kinneret Valley, the Dead Sea coast, the Jordan Valley, the Arava, the Judean Desert, and the eastern Negev. 

Heavy heat is expected in the northern Golan Heights, the western Galilee, the Carmel region, Ramat Menashe, the Coastal Plain, the Shephelah, the central hills, the northern Negev, and the Negev Highlands.

Extreme heat, hotter than usual with clear skies

On Friday, skies will remain mostly clear. It will continue to be hotter than usual, with heat wave conditions in the hills and inland areas and hot, humid weather along the Coastal Plain. Heavy to extreme heat will persist across most of the country.

On Saturday, temperatures will remain hotter than usual, with heat wave conditions in the hills and inland areas, while humid conditions continue along the Coastal Plain. The heat will intensify further, with heavy to extreme conditions expected nationwide.

On Sunday, the weather will remain hotter than usual, with heat wave conditions in the hills and inland areas, and continued humidity along the Coastal Plain. Heavy to extreme heat will continue throughout the country.

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The explosion of a US tanker at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta on Wednesday was the result of an Iranian drone attack, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing two Iranians who requested anonymity. 

The NYT‘s sources did not specify which group launched the drone, saying only that it was launched from Iran. Egypt’s Cabinet issued a statement a few hours later confirming that the incident was caused by a drone and stating that no party had claimed responsibility for it. 

A drone has hit a US-owned gas storage tanker at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, says maritime security firm Ambrey.

Two gas tankers caught fire at Damietta, said port services firm Inchcap pic.twitter.com/SwiYvutmGQ

— Iran’s Today (@Iran) July 29, 2026

On Wednesday, maritime security firm Ambrey said that a drone hit a US-owned gas storage tanker at the port of Damietta.

The drone hit floating storage tanker Energos Winter, causing a fire that spread to another vessel, Gaslog Salem, three trading sources familiar with the incident said. 

Explosion follows Iranian missile attack against US forces, US retaliation 

The incident occurred shortly after Iran carried out a missile attack against US forces in Jordan, and Washington and Saudi Arabia struck Iran-backed paramilitary groups in Iraq.

Through a video posted on social media, Reuters verified the location by the port infrastructure, the storage tanks, and ship-tracking data that matched the archive and satellite imagery. 

A statement from Egypt’s petroleum ministry confirmed a fire at the port but made no mention of a drone attack and did not provide a cause for the incident, noting that there were no injuries or deaths. 

Egyptian Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi went to the site to oversee response efforts, it said. The fire caused no injuries or fatalities, and emergency and technical teams were continuing to work on the response and assess the impact of the incident, the statement added.

US President Donald Trump was briefed on the incident on Wednesday, according to the NYT. He told reporters in the Oval Office that the explosion was “more of the same,” and that the US would be “hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them.” NYT also noted that Trump did not go into great detail about the event. 

Reuters and Amit Avitan contributed to this report.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington yesterday stood out primarily for what it lacked: a joint press statement and a photo op alongside US President Donald Trump. These images are particularly crucial for Netanyahu ahead of the elections in Israel, but their absence also reflects the growing sensitivity in the White House toward Israeli attempts to influence its policy on Iran.

The meeting took place against the backdrop of the de facto ceasefire between Iran and the United States. The relative calm of the last days does not necessarily mean that the confrontation is nearing its end. Rather, it reflects a stalemate. Neither Washington nor Tehran is prepared to accept a low-intensity conflict born of their conflicting interpretations of the memorandum of understanding, yet neither is willing to pay the price of an all-out war.

In both capitals, two approaches are competing for influence. In Tehran, one faction believes the regime needs an agreement to ease economic pressure and ensure its survival. Opposing them are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other actors trapped in a narrative of victory, who believe Iran can secure military gains against the US and the Gulf states that would dramatically improve its strategic standing.

A similar debate is taking place in Washington. Proponents of negotiations seek to end the war and cut losses, fearing that further escalation will exact a heavy political, economic, and historical toll on Trump. Hawks, by contrast, argue that only additional military pressure will yield a better agreement. They do not necessarily desire total war but rather limited military achievements that strengthen American leverage at the negotiating table.

Yet the mechanisms are asymmetrical. While Iran has multiple centers of power, the IRGC holds significant sway over the limits of compromise and ultimately presses the launch buttons for missiles and drones.

In Washington, by contrast, the final decision rests largely with one man: Trump. Consequently, the current halt could be a chance to let diplomacy work, or it could simply be a tactical intermission before another one-man decision – especially if the Iranians come to the table insisting on their own interpretation of the MOU.

Throughout the crisis, a deeper problem has sharpened: The United States struggles to understand Iranian decision-making, while Iran thoroughly comprehends US vulnerabilities – an aversion to prolonged wars, fear of rising energy prices, domestic political pressures, and sensitivity to casualties.

Tehran does not need to defeat the United States; it suffices to gradually raise the cost of the campaign until Washington seeks an exit. From Tehran’s perspective, regime survival is itself a victory.

Following the collapse of the initial understandings, it seemed that pro-agreement voices in Washington had weakened and that Trump would opt for escalation. Yet Trump, despite his threats, wishes to avoid an endless war. Critics often describe this behavioral pattern with the acronym TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out: He threatens, raises the stakes, and then seeks a deal allowing him to claim victory.

While simplistic and often mocking, the label identifies a core element of Trump’s decision-making: the desire to wield power without getting sucked into the ongoing costs of war. American public opinion also denies him a blank check; recent polls point to a widespread desire to end the campaign, growing doubts over the utility of continued fighting, and mounting congressional criticism regarding the lack of clear objectives.

It is possible that the campaign over the Strait of Hormuz has indeed persuaded the Iranians to show some flexibility. Military pressure, the naval blockade, and the fear of further infrastructure damage have incentivized Tehran to return – via Oman and other intermediaries – to talks on opening the strait and broader regional arrangements. Yet here lies the catch: The memorandum of understanding signed in June is less an MOU and more an MOM – a memorandum of misunderstanding.

The document comprises 14 clauses and a preliminary 60-day window for talks on freedom of navigation, the nuclear file, missiles, and sanctions, but its ambiguous phrasing allows each side to read a different agreement into the text. For Washington, freedom of navigation means safe, unconditional passage through an international waterway. For Tehran, it may signify movement under Iranian-approved conditions.

The US views the memo as a stepping stone toward a nuclear deal; Iran can view it as a framework for a ceasefire, economic relief, and ongoing talks without surrendering its core assets. This very ambiguity, which enabled the parties to sign it in the first place, is what complicates its implementation and threatens to trigger escalation.

From Tehran and Washington to Jerusalem

The primary danger for Israel is that the confrontation will cement in the global consciousness as the “War of Hormuz.” Once freedom of navigation is restored – even partially – intense pressure will mount on Trump to declare mission accomplished and move on.

Yet Israel’s core strategic threat is the nuclear program, not control of the strait. While the outcome of the Hormuz struggle will impact America’s standing against China and Russia and its leverage over Tehran, the maritime issue must never substitute for the nuclear file.

Israel’s challenge is to ensure that success in Hormuz does not become a substitute for confronting the nuclear threat. But to speak plainly, Israel is not a central player in the current campaign. Even if Netanyahu has political or security reasons to favor renewed strikes, it is unclear what additional strategic objective could now be achieved. Previous attacks neither toppled the regime nor eliminated Iran’s ability to recover.

More importantly, Trump is unlikely to allow Israel to drag him into an unwanted campaign. Recent reports already indicate Israel remains on the sidelines of diplomatic contacts, while Oman, Qatar, and other Arab capitals play pivotal roles.

Netanyahu’s leverage in Washington is lower today than in the past: The regime-change gambit missed its mark, the war is unpopular in the US, the White House dreads a global energy crisis, and Trump’s regional channels run increasingly through Riyadh, Doha, Ankara, and Muscat rather than Jerusalem.

Direct Israeli involvement would be justified in only two scenarios: if Iran attacks Israel directly, or if the United States requests specific, defined assistance. In such cases, contributing intelligence, defensive, and operational capabilities to weaken Iran’s grip on the strait and bolster the US-led coalition is appropriate.

However, Israel has nothing to gain from proactively initiating a war over Hormuz – especially when further strikes on nuclear sites hold no clear strategic payoff. Such a move might even compel Israel to support a weak settlement later simply for having military skin in the game.

Israel’s proper role is diplomatic and quiet: repeatedly steering Trump back to the real issue – the nuclear program. Israel should support a broad coalition to protect energy arteries so the US does not shoulder the burden alone, while ensuring that a Hormuz settlement does not sideline the nuclear threat.

Jerusalem must warn against a hollow deal engineered merely to supply Trump with a victory photo op and Iran with a breather, devoid of effective oversight, long-term limits, and a fix for Iran’s breakout capability.

If a good agreement is out of reach, Israel is better served by a state of “no agreement and no war”: steering clear of all-out conflict while maintaining economic, diplomatic, and technological pressure on Tehran. Far from ideal, this option beats a global economic crisis, empowered extremists on both sides, and murky understandings. It also outranks a bad deal that buys the regime time, money, and legitimacy without sealing off the path to the bomb.

Israel is not necessarily losing this struggle; it is simply sitting off the pitch where decisions are made. This signals a deep fracture in the strategic alliance with the US, but a fresh military strike will not fix it. Repairing trust, demonstrating clear contributions to American interests, and rebuilding political, technological, and regional bonds are essential.

Still, Israel retains one non-negotiable red line requiring absolute freedom of action: an Iranian dash toward a nuclear weapon. If Tehran transitions from pressure tactics and threshold status to a verified, accelerated push for a bomb, Israel must stand ready to act alone.

Until then, Israel must not confuse presence with influence, nor action with strategy. In the war for Hormuz, Israel plays no independent part; in preventing a nuclear Iran, its responsibility is irreplaceable.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Solomon Madmon to life in prison on Thursday for the aggravated murder of Yosef Yosefia, the father of Madmon’s daughter-in-law. Madmon was also convicted of additional offenses, and the court ordered him to pay compensation to Yosefia’s children.

Attorney Lihi Meltzman of the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office, who prosecuted the case, said the sentence reflected the severity of the crime.

“The sentence reflects the extreme severity of Madmon’s actions, in which he armed himself, arrived at the home of the late Yosefia and took his life by shooting him near the entrance to his apartment, following prior planning, leaving behind two families that continue to bear the consequences of the tragedy.”

Meltzman said she hoped the ruling would offer some comfort to Yosefia’s family.

“We hope that the sentence will provide Yosef Yosefia’s family with some measure of comfort after they were forced to cope with an unbearable loss and accompany the legal proceedings throughout. Even though the punishment cannot restore what was lost, ensuring justice in murder cases reflects the law enforcement system’s commitment to protecting the sanctity of life and sends a clear message: Anyone who chooses to take another person’s life will bear full responsibility for their actions and spend many years in prison.”

A conviction for aggravated murder carries a mandatory life sentence.

Madmon threatened Yosefia days before the murder

The murder took place on the morning of June 18, 2022. According to the indictment filed by Meltzman, Yosefia’s daughter had decided shortly before the murder to separate from Madmon’s son. She left the couple’s shared home and moved with their children into her parents’ home.

“Well done for praying while at the same time destroying families. I swear on my parents’ grave, you will pay.”

The indictment cited another message in which Madmon threatened Yosefia.

“Well done, you pray and at the same time destroy families. I swear on my parents’ graves, you will pay.”

Two days later, Madmon sent another message to Yosefia.

“In God’s name, how do you live with this?”

In a separate message, Madmon referred to his previous efforts to preserve the relationship between their children.

“I always ignored the warnings. For the sake of keeping our children’s family together, I always gave in.”

Yosefia did not respond to any of the messages.

On the day of the murder, Madmon called Herzl Shamami, whom he had known for many years, and asked him for a handgun to carry out the killing. According to the indictment, Shamami gave him a STAR semi-automatic pistol.

Madmon drove to Ramat Gan around noon and parked near the building where Yosefia lived. After waiting several minutes, he removed a bag containing the handgun from the trunk of his vehicle and walked toward the building’s entrance.

Madmon shot Yosefia outside his Ramat Gan apartment

At about the same time, Yosefia and a neighbor returned from synagogue and waited for the elevator in the building’s lobby.

According to the indictment, Madmon knocked on the glass entrance door, and the neighbor let him inside. Madmon stood beside Yosefia and the neighbor near the elevators and demanded to see his grandchildren.

After Yosefia responded, the three entered the elevator together. An argument broke out between Madmon and Yosefia. When the elevator reached the sixth floor, they stepped into the hallway.

Madmon removed the handgun from the bag, inserted the magazine, and shot Yosefia six times in the face and upper body. Yosefia died at the scene.

Yosefia’s wife, daughter and grandchildren were inside the apartment at the time. After hearing the gunfire, family members opened the front door and saw Madmon holding the handgun.

According to the indictment, Madmon aimed the weapon at his daughter-in-law. Her mother, who was standing behind her, pulled her back into the apartment and quickly closed the door.

Madmon later called Magen David Adom to report the killing.

“I killed a person.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Turkish police detained an opposition mayor of Ankara’s Etimesgut district on Thursday, among others, during a corruption investigation, broadcaster NTV and other media said. 

Mayor Erdal Besikcioglu was detained after police raided the Etimesgut municipality in the early morning, the report said. It was the latest step in an unprecedented legal crackdown on municipalities run by the main opposition to President Tayyip Erdogan.

Prosecutors opened an embezzlement investigation into the municipality in March after irregularities were found in its accounts, NTV said.

Claims of political motivation as wave of accusations hit Turkish opposition

On Wednesday, police detained the opposition mayor of Istanbul district Uskudar, along with five others, over alleged irregularities in building and occupancy permits.

The opposition has rejected a wave of accusations since 2024 and says the investigations are politically motivated. The government says the judiciary is independent.

This post was originally published on here. 

Three Technion-Israel Institute of Technology faculty members have been awarded research grants from the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), a fund dedicated to turning cancer into a manageable chronic disease by supporting Israeli cancer researchers until it can be eradicated. 

Professor Irit Ben Aharon received a Research Professorship grant to support her research into the effects of chemotherapy administered to pregnant women on their children. 

Ben Aharon is a faculty member at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, director of the Fishman Oncology Center at Rambam Health Care Campus, and head of the gastrointestinal malignancies field at Rambam.

“Cancer during pregnancy is relatively rare, but its prevalence is increasing due to rising cancer rates among young people and the postponement of childbearing. The effects of cancer and chemotherapy treatments during pregnancy have so far been examined in limited clinical studies that followed children only through childhood, while our research maps the short-term and long-term effects using a preclinical model,” Ben Aharon said. 

“Our findings so far indicate that the apparent effect in some of the offspring follows a latent, or delayed, pattern and emerges in adulthood rather than during childhood or adolescence, something that has not previously appeared in the existing clinical literature. We are studying this late-onset morbidity and whether there is a way to identify offspring who may be at risk of developing it.”

Research into tumor secondary survival strategies

Dr. Ido Livneh received a Project grant to support his research into the “backup systems” that sustain cancer cells. 

“Despite advances in cancer treatment, many malignancies still cannot be cured,” Livneh said.

“Many patients respond well to initial treatment, but their disease later returns. Our current research is based on the hypothesis that malignant cells activate secondary survival strategies, a type of backup system that allows them to survive for months or even years, even before they develop resistance to treatment,” Livneh added.  

Livneh, a faculty member at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, a graduate of the faculty’s MD/PhD program, and a diagnostic pathology resident at Rambam Health Care Campus, is combining interventional laboratory experiments with analyses of samples from patients with various types of cancer to uncover common survival strategies between the different cancers.

Research conducted on shared heart disease and cancer

Dr. Shira Landau received a Career Development Award to support her research into the mechanisms shared by heart disease and cancer, and the ways in which the two affect each other. 

Landau, a faculty member at the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and a graduate of the faculty, is working to develop a human heart and cancer Organ-on-a-Chip model that will allow the research team to study the effect of the tumor on the heart and the heart on the tumor in a controlled environment. 

“Heart disease and cancer are the world’s two leading causes of death, but in recent years it has become clear that there is reciprocal biological communication between them that affects the progression of both diseases,” Landau said. 

The research will focus on the role of macrophages, key cells in the immune system, and examine how they affect the interaction between the heart and cancer, with the aim of uncovering new mechanisms that will lead to safer and more precise treatments for cancer patients,” Landau added.  

This post was originally published on here. 

Thousands of illegally acquired antiquities dating to as far back as the Persian period were seized during a raid in the Jordan Valley area, the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Unit revealed on Monday. 

Included in the cache were approximately 400 ancient coins, pottery fragments, several arrowheads, an antique dagger, and multiple seals and rings, all dating to the Persian, Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Byzantine eras.

Metal detectors and excavation equipment were also seized in the raid. 

The raid, a joint operation between the Archaeology Unit, officers from the Judea and Samaria Border Police, soldiers from the IDF’s Jordan Valley Regional Brigade, and inspectors from the Nature and Parks Authority, came as part of a broader push to end antiquities smuggling and illegal excavations in the region.

It targeted the home of an individual suspected of stealing antiquities and conducting illegal excavations in the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank.

The suspect had been arrested prior to the raid while carrying metal detectors, excavation tools, and several other artifacts.

Trading in antiquities without a permit, bringing antiquities from the West Bank into Israel without a permit, and searching for antiquities without a license using a metal detector are all criminal offenses under Israeli law.

The suspect has since been transferred to the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Unit for further questioning.

Palestinian doctor arrested for smuggling Second Temple-period coins

Several attempts to smuggle antiquities have been halted over the past few months, including an arrest of a Palestinian doctor back in March for attempting to smuggle dozens of rare coins dating to about 2,000-years-ago through the Hizma checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Border Police officers discovered a box containing the coins during inspections of the doctor’s vehicle, and archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) were called to the scene to verify that they were indeed ancient.

Several of the coins, bearing ancient Hebrew inscriptions, are believed to date to the Second Temple period and the revolts against Rome.

The coins, believed to have been looted from a Jewish archaeological site from that period, include silver shekels from the second and third years of the Great Jewish Revolt and bear the ancient Hebrew inscriptions “Shekel of Israel” and “Jerusalem, the Holy.”

In addition, bronze coins from the fourth year of the revolt were found, bearing an image of the Four Species used during the holiday of Sukkot.

Coins from the Bar Kochba rebellion were also found among the seized coins, bearing the name of the revolt’s leader, “Shimon (Bar Kochba),” on one side, and the phrase “Year two of the freedom of Israel” on the other.

Who oversees antiquities in the West Bank?

The West Bank is home to over 2,600 archaeological and heritage sites, the most famous of which include the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the Qumran Caves in the Judean Desert, and Sebastia (the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel) – as well as several Christian and Muslim archaeological sites, including the Church of the Nativity.

Currently, oversight of the West Bank’s antiquities and heritage sites belongs to the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Unit – a branch of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – and its staff officer, Benyamin Har Even.

It is responsible for the preservation, management, and development of antiquities and archaeological sites in the West Bank, as well as preventing looting, antiquities smuggling, and illegal excavations in the region.

This post was originally published on here. 

Anthony Fauci, the former top US infectious disease expert, declined to answer questions at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination and accusing Republican Senator Rand Paul of an “unhinged” campaign to see him imprisoned.

Fauci, who is 85 and retired in 2022, was subpoenaed by Paul of Kentucky, the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a longtime adversary. Fauci accused Paul of an “unhinged” campaign to see him imprisoned, and refused to answer more than 100 questions.

Paul said Fauci was not allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment right to refrain from answering senators’ questions, that a pardon from former President Joe Biden would not protect him, and that there would be consequences for refusing to answer. He said the committee had scheduled a vote for next week to hold Fauci in contempt.

Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, serving under multiple Republican and Democratic presidents, and became the face of the US pandemic response, has long been criticized by US President Donald Trump and many American conservatives. Trump, before the hearing, wrote of Fauci on social media: “His ideas were CRAZY!”

More than 1.1 million people died of COVID-19 in the United States, and the pandemic touched off a long-running effort by conservatives to assign blame for the toll of actions taken to stem the global health crisis. Fauci became the primary target of that anger, criticized for lockdown directives, guidance on mask-wearing and social distancing, and his promotion of vaccines, which became heavily politicized during the pandemic, despite being shown to be safe and effective.

He and many public health officials globally recommended such measures based on scientific evidence available at the time as best practices to slow the spread of a novel and deadly virus for which there was no immunity, until a vaccine became available.

Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci on January 19, 2025, to guard against “unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions” for allegations related to COVID or his role in the response. The pardon does not cover subsequent conduct.

Republicans criticize Fauci’s refusal to answer 

Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to Congress, potentially exposing Fauci to prison if prosecutors decided he lied after being pardoned.

Republicans criticized Fauci for refusing to answer and claimed federal law and a 19th-century US Supreme Court decision required him to testify.

The 1896 decision lets Congress compel testimony from witnesses by immunizing them from criminal prosecution for what they say, without violating the witnesses’ Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Fauci even invoked the Fifth when Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, asked him what day it was and what color his tie and the carpet were. Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno repeatedly asked if Fauci would apologize to various groups Moreno claimed were harmed by pandemic-era policies for which he blamed Fauci.

Paul had David Schertler, one of Fauci’s lawyers, removed from the hearing after refusing to recognize his attempts to speak.

In a statement, Schertler called Paul’s pursuit “an obsessive vendetta” and said the accusations “are false and disgraceful, and we will examine all options to hold him accountable.”

Paul has for years called for Fauci’s indictment and accused him of lying to Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health funded virus research in Wuhan, China, and of helping cover up COVID’s origins.

 Fauci condemns Paul’s ‘slanderous comments’

Fauci denies both claims and says he has testified truthfully multiple times before Congress on these issues, with Paul often his chief antagonist.

Fauci said Paul’s “obsession” with prosecuting him, his “slanderous comments” and his release of Fauci’s unredacted personal diary showed the hearing’s sole reason was to make him “say something that could vindicate” Paul’s public pledges to see him behind bars.

Michigan US Senator Gary Peters, the committee’s top Democrat, called the hearing biased and one-sided, describing it as an effort “to legitimize a predetermined conclusion that was reached years ago.”

Claims of so-called gain-of-function research in China have been behind many COVID origin conspiracy theory accusations. It broadly means modifying a pathogen in ways that could make it more transmissible or dangerous.

Paul had long suggested that the US National Institutes of Health funded such work in Wuhan and that Fauci lied when he denied it, while Fauci says the research did not meet the government’s formal regulatory definition.

COVID’s origins unsolved

COVID’s origins remain unresolved. The FBI said in 2023 that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory likely caused the pandemic, a claim China said had “no credibility whatsoever.” The CIA said in January 2025 a lab leak was likely, but with “low confidence,” while four other US intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council believe the virus most likely emerged via natural transmission from some animal.

Paul this week published a 1,141-page tranche of Fauci’s pandemic-era diary entries, from December 2019 through December 2022, saying they “completely undermine the official narrative that Fauci and other public health officials espoused.”

A review provided by a representative of Fauci said the entries matched what he said publicly at the time. Fauci has maintained since 2021 that he kept an “open mind” that COVID could have leaked from a lab, and spoke publicly in early 2020 about asymptomatic transmission and China’s lack of transparency, the very matters Paul says the diary reveals.

The entries largely chronicle Fauci’s media appearances and rising fame.

The Trump administration issued a policy on Tuesday barring federal funding for “dangerous gain-of-function” research.

This post was originally published on here. 

Protests during regional elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir have turned deadly, with leaders of a banned Kashmiri group saying on Wednesday more than 30 people had been killed around one town in clashes with security forces ahead of the second round.

Pakistan’s primary governing party, the PML-N, won nine out of the 13 seats that were up for election in the districts of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber on Monday.

The election was originally scheduled to be held in one round on July 27, but was split into three separate votes by districts, with officials citing security concerns. The second and third rounds are scheduled for August 2 and August 10.

The party that won the elections in 2021, the Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has boycotted the vote over electoral fraud concerns.

The region’s primary protest movement, the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), was banned by the regional government in June, prompting deadly protests last month.

Banking, roads and internet services have largely been disrupted since then, hindering the flow of information, meaning Reuters could not independently verify the figure of over 30 dead given by the JAAC about the clashes around Rawalakot.

Authorities say security personnel killed and injured

Authorities said a member of the security personnel was killed and five more were injured in clashes on Monday.

Meanwhile, an official, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity, said he was aware of at least three fatalities among protesters in Mirpur this week.

Pakistani officials have justified the crackdown by alleging that armed and India-backed militants joined the Kashmiri protesters. India has rejected similar accusations in the past.

“The entire election was a fraud,” said Fazal Mahmood Baig, a resident in Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, on Wednesday.

“We want this issue to be resolved peacefully,” Sardar Mazhar said at a protest in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Tensions go back decades

Tensions in the self-governing and Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir have roots that are decades old, but have recently gained new momentum.

Supporters of greater regional autonomy have accused the national government in Islamabad of interference in their political affairs and of economic neglect.

Discontent has often erupted into protests over economic issues. In 2022, demonstrators rallied against high electricity prices in the region, which supplies other parts of Pakistan with cheap hydroelectric power.

The JAAC channeled that anger after it was founded in 2023, and focused on calls for electoral reform. Twelve of the 45 directly elected seats in the local legislative assembly are reserved for constituencies representing what the regional constitution defines as refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir.

But these seats have often been filled by people living outside the region, and the JAAC has accused Islamabad of using them to manipulate local politics – accusations Pakistani government officials have rejected.

No clear path forward

To form a regional government, the PML-N would likely need the support of some of the 12 representatives, said Hasan Askari, a political analyst.

“But when their government is dependent on those 12 controversial seats, how would it be able to find a solution for this issue?” Askari said.

Even among the candidates that did not boycott the vote on Monday, the results were contested. Parties accused each other of ballot box stealing and vote rigging.

Government officials confirmed that one person died and several were injured in clashes between supporters of Pakistan’s two main governing parties, the PML-N and PPP, in incidents that were separate from the JAAC’s protests.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Islamic Republic’s far-right political party has long suspected that Iran’s top officials have “surrendered” to the United States by signing the Memorandum of Understanding.

The Paydari Front, sometimes referred to as the “Super Revolutionaries,” believes itself to be the “guardians of the values of the 1979 revolution,” and holds key positions behind the national broadcaster, IRIB.

The hardliners have further accused Iran’s leadership – namely President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian top diplomat Abbas Araghchi, and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – of using Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence to launch a “soft coup” against parliament and its ideals.

هشدار به ملت ایران؛

آیا کودتایی در راه است؟؟…. https://t.co/qszoFeX7bz

— سیدمحمود نبویان (@nabaviantwt) June 29, 2026

In the days before former supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral, Paydari Front party member Mahmoud Nabavian called on regime loyalists to “raise the banner of vengeance for his blood and stand firm against the coup” in a statement on social media.

According to Nabavian and the Endurance Front, Pezeshkian and the public-facing leaders of Iran have been using the new supreme leader’s absence – as Mojtaba himself has not been seen in public since the war broke out on February 28 – to disobey orders and take power for themselves.

🔻حمله مخالفان توافق به عراقچی با شعار:
«مرگ بر وطن‌فروش خائن» «بی‌شرف، بی‌شرف»
🔻شعار «مرگ بر سازشگر» در حضور پزشکیان در مراسم تشییع جنازه خامنه‌ای.
​🔻 Opponents of the agreement attack Araqchi with the slogans: “Death to the traitorous sellout!” and “Dishonorable!… pic.twitter.com/ThBhZLP1tf

— Siamak Tadayon Tahmasbi (@SiamakTadayonT) July 6, 2026

“Mojtaba’s continued absence means that they don’t have access to him and also that Ghalibaf and allies are effectively in charge of the country… the ultra-hardliners have thus accused Ghalibaf and Pezeshkian of plotting a ‘coup’ against Mojtaba,” Arash Azizi, a US-based Iran expert, told CNN.

“They are trying to elevate the role of the Supreme Council for National Security while diminishing the role of the supreme leader and parliament,” Paydari Front member Kamran Ghazanfari accused in a statement earlier this month. At a public gathering in Tehran, Ghazanfari further stated that Ghalibaf intentionally ignored “three specific instructions not to enter negotiations over nuclear matters.”

Iranian lawmaker Kamran Ghazanfari said on Friday that Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf ignored three specific instructions from Iran’s Supreme Leader to keep nuclear issues out of negotiations, speaking at a public gathering in a Tehran square.

“Supreme Leader…

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) July 4, 2026

“Those instructions were given on April 4, April 18 and in early May. Yet Ghalibaf claims that he follows and obeys the Supreme Leader, but his actions were inconsistent with that,” he said, according to Iran International.

Iran’s radical regime did not die with Ali Khamenei

Ghalibaf in particular has been trying to “sideline” the hardliners, Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told CNN.

“They are too costly for the system, and they’re bringing their rivalries out in the open especially as the situation in Iran becomes unstable.”

Despite US President Donald Trump’s belief that the new leaders of Iran are “far less radicalized” than the previous, the continued infighting between Tehran’s parliament and those leading the country paints a different picture.

The supporters of the Islamic Regime’s 1979 ideals are very much present and will not be silent regarding the regime’s actions with the United States, and despite their small numbers, the hardliners reflect a significant portion of the Iranian people that aren’t on board with their leadership’s diplomatic approach.

This post was originally published on here. 

Israelis head to the polls on October 27 for the first election since the October 7 massacre in 2023. Voters will pass judgment on the failures that led to that day, the conduct of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the ongoing confrontation with Iran.

That choice must rest on facts rather than slogans, selective briefings, or retrospective memoirs published abroad. Israelis deserve a clear record of what their government decided, what it promised allies, what it told the public, and where those accounts diverged.

Iran still remains an immediate threat, and no responsible demand for accountability requires exposing operational plans or intelligence sources. But wartime secrecy cannot serve as political immunity. Past decisions, diplomatic commitments, and public statements can be scrutinized without compromising current operations.

Recent reporting highlights why this transparency is necessary. Unreleased documentary footage reported by The Wall Street Journal showed late senator Lindsey Graham voicing concern over President Donald Trump’s Iran negotiators, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. They were “too conflicted,” Graham told former national security advisor Jake Sullivan, and he recommended that Secretary of State Marco Rubio handle the portfolio.

Graham’s opinion isn’t definitive, but it underscores a basic reality: Even top allies in Washington recognized that key figures shaping Middle East diplomacy carried competing interests.

Washington’s competing priorities

Instead of acknowledging that Israel’s security was treated as a competing priority in Washington, the Israeli government knowingly built its strategy on its influence on American goodwill while misleading the public about the true alignment between the two nations.

That distinction was on display in a Signal chat mistakenly shared with a journalist last year. While planning strikes against the Houthis, senior Trump administration officials debated European “free-loading” and questioned what economic benefits Washington should gain from reopening trade routes.

The exchange showed that even pressing security decisions are filtered through domestic American priorities, commercial trade calculations, and broader foreign-policy goals that do not always center on Israel’s immediate needs.

A New Yorker investigation raised direct questions about Israeli messaging to Washington during the Israel-Hamas War. Former Biden administration officials claimed Israeli leadership had repeatedly offered unrealistic timelines.

Former deputy national security advisor Jon Finer said it became clear Israel had not been truthful about its operational plans. Others noted a growing gap between Israeli assurances and the undefined promise of “total victory.”

These accounts come from former officials who carry their own political motivations and shouldn’t be accepted uncritically. Yet they cannot be dismissed out of hand.

At the time, Israelis were told Jerusalem and Washington were aligned. If the government presented one timeline to Washington, a different message to the public, and an unclear end-game to both, voters have a right to know.

The accountability voters deserve

The unwillingness to offer transparency on Israel’s Washington ties adds to an already glaring void: Three years after the October 7 massacre, Israelis have still been denied a state commission of inquiry into how the disaster happened in the first place. Having obscured the facts behind the country’s greatest security failure, the government cannot now demand that voters accept its wartime narrative without proof.

Before the October 27 election, the government should provide a documented accounting of its Gaza strategy, its position on hostage negotiations, its commitments to Washington, and its decision-making regarding Iran. It should clarify which claims in recent reports are accurate and present the evidence supporting its position.

The same standard applies to the opposition. Former officials and war cabinet members cannot campaign as detached observers. They must disclose what they supported, what they opposed, and what they failed to change. Anyone seeking to lead the country through its next chapter must be held to the same level of intellectual and strategic honesty.

Israelis are not assessing an ordinary government after a routine term. They are deciding who should lead after the gravest security failure in the country’s history. A democratic choice made from an incomplete record is not fully informed, and voters deserve the full picture before casting their ballots.

This post was originally published on here. 

Bret Stephens, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist known as one of the paper’s most consistent defenders of Israel, used his Tuesday column to take direct aim at the country’s handling of settler violence in the West Bank, warning that unchecked attacks now pose a threat to Israel’s security and to Zionism itself.

Stephens, who has spent years pushing back on what he sees as double standards applied to Israel, wrote that he decided to speak out against what he called “Jewish terrorists” despite his reluctance to feed the volume of global condemnation facing Israel. 

“That’s not only because the terrorism is a menace to Palestinian lives and property, or an affront to Jewish ethics, or a stain on Israel’s reputation – though it’s all those things,” he wrote. “It’s also a direct threat to Israel’s security and statehood, and thus to Zionism itself.”

Stephens’s column drew heavily on a public letter sent Sunday to US President Donald Trump by Matan Vilnai, a retired IDF deputy chief of staff, on behalf of Commanders for Israel’s Security, an organization representing hundreds of retired senior Israeli officers. The letter cautioned that Israeli security services have been effective against Palestinian terror groups but hamstrung when it comes to curbing Jewish extremists. The letter warned about the consequences of Israeli inaction in curbing attacks on Palestinians.

“Unless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and US regional interests,” wrote Vilnai.

Stephens pointed to last week’s rampage by extremist settlers through several Palestinian villages – attacks that reportedly included arson at a home and two mosques and an assault on a stonecutting factory – as evidence the problem has become routine rather than exceptional. He cited Israeli military figures showing nationalistic and settler-related crimes climbed to 867 incidents in 2025, up from 682 the year before.

Stephens also cited Eran Shamir-Borer of the Israel Democracy Institute, a former IDF legal official, who told him the government has specifically declined to place suspected Jewish settlers under administrative detention. The practice, imprisoning individuals without formal charges, is regularly deployed against suspected Palestinian terrorists. 

The columnist dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public framing of the violence as the work of roughly 150 “juvenile delinquents,” as he did in an interview with NBC earlier this month. Stephens argued that a government capable of eliminating a Hamas commander deep inside Iran cannot plausibly claim it’s unable to rein in a few hundred vigilantes. 

Stephens pushing back on settler violence is important, T’ruah CEO says

Stephens is known, and widely admired within the pro-Israel community, for his robust defense of Israel, from refuting the charge of “genocide” directed at Israel to condemning what he has called the “hyperbolic and often conspiratorial hatred of the country.” Editor of the conservative Jewish thought journal Sapir, Stephens was also chosen to give the annual “State of World Jewry” address at the 92nd Street Y earlier this year.

“I think it is really important that people like Bret Stephens are speaking up about settler violence, and I think that it also shows how terrible that it’s become,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in an interview with JTA. “Even people who are pretty, let’s say, hesitant or who almost never criticize Israeli policy are speaking up.”

But she also suggested that the issue goes beyond a failure to enforce the law or hold settlers accountable, and instead reflects the priorities of Netanyahu’s right-wing government. 

“This is actually government policy because this is violence that is designed to take more and more of the West Bank,” said Jacobs. “There’s already been not just violence, but expulsions, shoving Palestinians to smaller and smaller areas and, ultimately, annexing the West Bank or at least as much of it as possible.”  

Liberal Jewish groups like T’ruah, including Torat Zedek and Bnei Avraham in Israel and the US-based groups Smol Emuni, J Street and New Israel Fund, regularly condemn the settler violence and call on Israeli security forces to hold the perpetrators accountable. They also take part in “protective presence” visits to the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinians threatened by Jewish settlers.

The largest Jewish organizations have been less vocal on the topic, although the American Jewish Committee and the Union for Reform Judaism have issued statements condemning settler violence. 

Right-wing groups largely downplaying settler violence

Right-leaning groups have either downplayed the extent of the violence or say Jews living in the West Bank have been provoked by neighboring Palestinians. On the same day that Stephens’s column appeared, the media watchdog group HonestReporting ran an article saying that the major news outlets disproportionately focus on settler violence, and run many fewer articles about Palestinian attacks on Jewish civilians. It also cited official Israeli data suggesting that violence by Jewish civilians in the West Bank had declined significantly since March.

Nevertheless, Stephens appeared to be echoing a growing sentiment even on the right that the settler violence is both wrong and a black eye for Israel at a time when its reputation is suffering around the world. 

“I don’t think there are many supporters of Israel in the US who are happy with how Israel has handled, or really mishandled, settler violence,” said David E. Bernstein, a professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School and a frequent commentator on Jewish affairs, in an email exchange with JTA. “To me, it’s anti-Zionist to allow settlers to flout the law and public policy, whether by violence or by setting up illegal outposts, because Zionism means accepting the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and radical settlers who don’t are no different than extremist Haredim [utra-Orthodox] in not doing so.”

Last week, Israel’s Channel 13 reported that the government had approved a plan in March to tackle violence by extremist settlers but kept the plan secret due “to political considerations.” The report didn’t say whether the plan has been implemented.

This post was originally published on here. 

 Australia’s internet regulator said on Thursday it had begun legal action against messaging platform Telegram over alleged failings to tackle pro-terror posts.

The office of the eSafety Commissioner said it had begun action after Telegram failed to remove videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings.

“This case concerns content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history, including material associated with the Christchurch and Buffalo terror attacks,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.

“We allege that this content remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice.”

A spokesperson for Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Telegram is one of the world’s most downloaded apps, with over a billion monthly active users, according to the company.

This post was originally published on here. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the Iran war with the leaders of the Evangelical community, who he met on Wednesday during his trip to Washington.

The community leaders welcomed Netanyahu to the US and thanked him for Israeli involvement in the Iran war, supporting him in “his struggle against the Iranian axis of evil,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said.

The Prime Minister told the leaders that both Jews and Evangelical Christians are “descendants from the original Hebrews of the Holy Land, and we are the first part of that Judeo-Christian heritage, which we cherish and which has given the world, the civilization, freedom, and faith.”

The world is “under attack from the rising tide of antisemitism and anti-Evangelicalism,” he added. “It’s not accidental that the two are coming under a joint attack, because we are one.” 

Netanyahu called on the Evangelical leaders to ‘fight, fight, fight’

The Prime Minister continued his speech with a call for the leaders to actively fight against antisemitism and anti-Evangelicalism, telling them, “Stand up. Stand up and don’t cower.”

He went on to pose a question to them, asking “When you’re faced with an attack, what do you do? Attack back.”

Both the Evangelical leaders and Netanyahu emphasized the importance of unity and support between the two communities.

The Prime Minister ended his address by thanking the community leaders, “I’m very grateful to you for your consistent support, for the constancy of you friendship.”

“Now it’s time to fight, fight, fight, that’s it,” he concluded.

This post was originally published on here. 

A 57-year-old man from Yavne was indicted for running a cannabis-growing operation containing approximately 423 kilograms of the drug out of a rented villa in Migdal.

During a raid, Israel Police also seized documents, thousands of shekels in cash, and extensive equipment allegedly used to cultivate the cannabis, including fans, blowers, timers, water pumps, irrigation systems, and temperature gauges.

The suspect, David Khondiashvili, remains in custody, and at an additional hearing held on Tuesday, Judge Hana Sabag ordered that a detention assessment report be prepared in his case.

According to the indictment, Khondiashvili illegally connected the villa to the electricity grid by bypassing the electricity meter with a temporary cable, allegedly stealing about NIS 159,000 in electricity. The Northern District Attorney’s Office has requested that he remain in custody until the conclusion of the legal proceedings.

His attorney, Yaron Porer, told Walla that his client “has taken full responsibility for his actions.” According to Porer, Khondiashvili has no criminal record and suffers from a complex medical condition, and he intends to seek his client’s release as soon as possible.

Cannabis-laboratory established after vacation cabin complex failed

During the court hearing, Porer added that Khondiashvili had established a vacation cabin complex at the site, but the business failed because of the war and the resulting economic difficulties. “Unfortunately, he decided to set up a laboratory,” the attorney said.

“Israel Police will continue to use all means at its disposal in the fight against the scourge of drugs, with an emphasis on locating dealers and distributors,” Northern District Police said in a statement.

“This criminal activity causes severe harm to many young people, who become trapped in a cycle of drug use, addiction, and deterioration into criminal activity.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The man who stabbed and partially blinded author Salman Rushdie on stage at a New York arts institute in 2022 was found guilty on Wednesday of federal terrorism charges stemming from the attack.

Hadi Matar, 28, was convicted of attempting to provide material support to Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization, as well as engaging in transnational terrorism and providing material support to terrorists.

A US District Court jury in Buffalo, New York, returned its guilty verdict on all charges after deliberations of just two hours, capping a trial that began last Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for federal prosecutors.

Rushdie, 79, had faced threats on his life since the 1988 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced the book as blasphemous, leading to a call for Rushdie’s death, an edict known as a fatwa.

The attack on Rushdie was planned for over a year

According to evidence presented at his trial, Matar spent more than a year researching the fatwa before deciding to try fulfilling the edict with an attack on Rushdie while the author was speaking at the Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, New York.

Rushdie was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand, blinding his right eye and damaging internal organs, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.

Matar, a US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was found guilty of attempted murder in New York state court in 2025, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

His conviction on federal terrorism charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Sentencing was scheduled for November 3.

This post was originally published on here. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked US Republican Sen. Tom Cotton for his unwavering support for Israel during a meeting in Washington on Wednesday.

“You’ve been a great, great friend of Israel, none better,” Netanyahu told Cotton. “And I know you’re a champion of the Israel-American alliance, which enhances the security of both our countries.”

In response, the Arkansas senator called Israel “the best ally we’ve had since Great Britain in World War II.”

“That was the last time we had a nation that fought shoulder to shoulder with us, side by side against our common enemy in Iran and against the radical terrorism we face,” Cotton stated.

“I will always stand up for and support the United States-Israel alliance because it makes both of our nations safer,” he added.

Netanyahu praises Fetterman for commitment to truth about Israel

Netanyahu also met with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday, praising him for his fearless commitment to speaking truth.

“I want to thank you on behalf of free people everywhere, because I’ve been receiving, from around the world, kudos for your courage and your clarity,” Netanyahu told the Pennsylvania senator.

Fetterman responded by describing his disappointment in the Democratic Party over its increasing criticism of Israel. 

“As far as I know, I was the only Democrat that was proud to push that trash back, and now here we are,” he told Netanyahu. “It’s been disappointing, as a Democratic politician, how our party continues to behave – and we had the culmination of that, where that worthless mayor in New York, you know, saying these kinds of ridiculous claims.”

Fetterman also described himself as the “conscience of the Democratic Party in Congress.”

“It’s always been a just war for me,” he explained. “People forgot why this was even necessary, and look at the ways these organizations and the way Iran… I don’t understand how we’ve arrived where we are politically, you know, at least in my party, but I have no regrets.”

Netanyahu also met Republican Senator Tim Sheehy, thanking him for his support for Israel.

“Well, it’s easy to have friends when it’s sunny and everyone’s happy,” Sheehy said, “but when you’re under siege, that’s when your true friends come out.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Israel’s education system is short 3,000 educators and 200 kindergarten teachers, including 100 in special education, as of the end of July, according to a report from KAN News.   

The shortage is primarily concentrated in scientific topics and is most prevalent in the Tel Aviv and Central districts. 

In July 2025, the lack of educators stood at 5,000, which would theoretically indicate an improvement on the part of the Education Ministry. However, the reduction in numbers can be partly attributed to teachers taking on subjects outside of their wheelhouse. 

For example, the past year saw sports teachers taking on English classes, for which they’re not appropriately trained, and physical education teachers leading lessons in computing. As such, concern is mounting that this school year will see one teacher leading two classes at a time. 

Though pitfalls in education systems are a global issue, Israel’s shortage is notably extreme. In the percentage of principals who report a decline in the quality of teaching due to a shortage of teachers, Israel ranks third-to-last after the Netherlands and Latvia.

Teachers threatened strikes over lack of staff, resources

This report comes after Israeli teachers threatened to go on strike in June due to staffing shortages.

At the time, the Teachers’ Union had given an ultimatum to limit the integration of children with disabilities into classrooms over concerns that schools did not have sufficient resources to support each student’s needs. 

Though parent associations rejected the ultimatum as discriminatory, Anat Dadon, chairwoman of the union’s Early Childhood Department, said that implementation of increased capacity for special education students wouldn’t work. 

“When a classroom includes five to seven students entitled to individualized support packages, without enough assistance hours and professional staff, educational teams find themselves facing an impossible task,” she said.

She went on to call it “policy that was not backed by resources,” and spoke out against the institutions that idealized the situation.

Additionally, the Finance Ministry, the Education Ministry, and the Secondary School Teachers’ Union decided last Wednesday to shorten the school week to five days, now excluding Fridays. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! party forced Yonatan Urich, a close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Wednesday to delete an AI generated video showing US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu joking in Hebrew at Eisenkot’s expense.

Urich posted the video on X/Twitter earlier in the day and shortly afterward received a warning letter from Eisenkot’s attorneys ahead of possible legal action. Urich has since deleted the post.

Sources close to Eisenkot noted that, while Urich was the one who posted, the voice behind it was Netanyahu’s and that of the Likud party.

“Throughout Israel’s history, its prime ministers have traveled overseas as representatives of the people of Israel and the State of Israel,” read the letter sent to Urich by the party’s attorney, Uri Haberman.

“In that spirit, we all expected and hoped that the US president would give the prime minister a warm and welcoming reception, and we wished for the visit’s success. We regret that instead of focusing on securing important diplomatic achievements, you chose, once again, to exploit the occasion to spread poison and venom.”

Video posted by Netanyahu’s official account sparked outrage

Last week, Netanyahu posted an AI generated video on his official X account that sparked widespread outrage among the Israeli public.

In the video, a young man wearing a white shirt bearing the words “Unity of Israel” is seen running toward Eisenkot. Eisenkot walks past him and embraces Mansour Abbas.

To many, the young figure resembled Eisenkot’s son, Gal, who was killed in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the Swords of Iron War.

Walla asked readers whether they believed the Likud video targeting Eisenkot had crossed the line.

Seventy five percent responded, “This time they really went too far,” while only 21% responded, “People are just looking for reasons to criticize them.” Another 4% responded, “I have no opinion on the matter.”

This post was originally published on here. 

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has highlighted the extensive military assets being used to enforce the American blockade of Iranian ports, illustrating the scale of Washington’s effort to isolate Iran while maintaining freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

On July 29, CENTCOM said, “CENTCOM forces continue to strictly enforce the US blockade against Iran. As of July 29 CENTCOM has redirected 20 commercial vessels, disabled 2, and boarded 2.”

A new CENTCOM graphic describes the operation as the “US Blockade of Iranian Ports” and emphasizes an important part of the operation. Ships are not permitted to enter or leave Iranian ports, and the blockade is being applied to vessels regardless of nationality. However, other commercial vessels have freedom of navigation to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Freedom of navigation of the oceans has been a US key foreign policy goal for more than a century.

CENTCOM forces continue to strictly enforce the U.S. blockade against Iran. As of July 29 CENTCOM has redirected 20 commercial vessels, disabled 2, and boarded 2. pic.twitter.com/OKe8XSZGka

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 29, 2026

The blockade of Iranian ports involves a wide variety of American military capabilities. CENTCOM’s graphic highlights aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drones. Fixed-wing aircraft, such as F-35s and F-15s, operating from land and sea are also involved, along with military helicopters and embarked US Marines trained for maritime interdiction operations.

TWZ noted that “both carriers deployed to the CENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR), USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush, remain on station ‘to support maritime security and stability in the Middle East.’”

US maintains broad military capabilities in Iran blockade

This means the US has assembled the types of capabilities necessary not only to track vessels, but also potentially to intercept them. Aircraft carriers provide maritime airpower, while destroyers can provide air and missile defense as well as aid with surveillance. Large drones can maintain awareness over large areas, helping identify and track vessels approaching Iran. Some drones also carry munitions, such as Reapers, while the Global Hawk is a large drone that only does very high level surveillance.

The US Marines provide another important element. Their presence gives commanders personnel trained to conduct maritime operations if vessels need to be stopped or boarded. They can also be used on shore for raids or for so-called Littoral operations.

The blockade is part of the wider US military campaign against Iran. CENTCOM launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28. By early April, the US said the operation had employed an extensive number of US systems and platforms, including aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, F-15s, F-18s, F-22s, F-35s, electronic warfare aircraft, reconnaissance platforms, and MQ-9 Reaper drones. A-10s had also been used.

US resumes blockade after Iran violates Memorandum of Understanding

Washington initially imposed a blockade of Iranian ports in April. CENTCOM said at the time that more than 10,000 personnel and over a dozen warships were involved and emphasized that vessels not traveling to or from Iranian ports could continue through the Strait of Hormuz. The blockade was temporarily lifted in June as part of a US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding. Iran then carried out attacks and the US imposed the blockade again.

This is important because the Strait of Hormuz remains at the center of the conflict. Current diplomatic efforts involving Oman and other countries are focused on restoring freedom of navigation. Iran has sought a larger role in controlling traffic through the strategic strait using tolls or other methods.

The American goal is that Iran should not be able to disrupt international shipping while continuing to benefit from its own maritime trade. Also the US says the main goal is to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. The combination of naval, air, surveillance and Marine assets gives CENTCOM the capabilities to enforce that policy across Iran’s long coastline. However, new tensions in Iraq and the report of an attack on the coast of Egypt lead to concerns that the conflict is expanding. Iran has spread threats over thousands of miles in the region.

This post was originally published on here. 

The tensions between the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq entered a new phase this week after joint US-Saudi airstrikes targeted Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) facilities across Iraq.

The strikes followed a series of drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. The United States has made clear that it believes Iran-directed militias are responsible for the escalation.

The US Embassy in Baghdad issued a security alert on July 28 warning Americans of “drone and missile activity in Iraq,” stating that “Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups launched attacks from Iraqi territory targeting locations inside Iraq and in the region, posing serious risks to public safety.”

The embassy also reiterated that Iraq remains under a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory, warning “Do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and limited ability of the US government to provide emergency services to US citizens in Iraq. Do not travel to Iraq for any reason.”

The strikes have intensified pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who has pledged to place all weapons under state control. During his recent visit to Washington, Zaidi discussed militia disarmament with US officials.

However, the militias have shown little willingness to accept such initiatives. Abu Fadhak al-Muhammadawi, chief of staff of the PMF, appeared to mock government efforts to monopolize the use of force, declaring, in a video circulating online, “whoever takes the weapon, man, let him take it.”

Islamic Resistance in Iraq issues Baghdad ultimatum after US-Saudi strikes

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella organization for several Iranian-backed militias, has also escalated its rhetoric. According to Rudaw Media Network, the IRI issued Baghdad a multi-day ultimatum to take action following the US-Saudi strikes while promising retaliation against American and Saudi interests.

The Iranian-backed Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement similarly warned that “Washington’s and Riyadh’s interests and security would face consequences.” Nujaba is sanctioned as a terrorist group by the US.

The reaction inside Iraq has reflected the country’s continuing divisions. Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization, condemned what he described as an assault on Iraqi sovereignty. In a statement quoted by Rudaw, Amiri said, “We condemn in the strongest terms the sinful and unjustified aggression that targeted the sovereignty of Iraq and its armed forces,” while demanding that the Iraqi government adopt “a firm and decisive stance.”

Baghdad also criticized the strikes, saying they occurred while Iraqi officials were communicating with regional partners to investigate Saudi claims that attacks against oil facilities had originated from Iraqi territory. At the same time, the Iraqi government announced what it described as an “integrated security plan” intended to prevent Iraqi territory from being used to attack neighboring countries.

UN spokesperson warns of escalation in Iraq

The developments have also drawn international concern. Speaking to Rudaw on Wednesday, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq warned against further escalation. “The one thing we don’t want to see is again any expansion of the conflict,” Haq said. “Having the fighting spread to a larger number of countries, all of these are adverse developments and could get us into a much worse situation even than before.”

The latest crisis illustrates Iraq’s increasingly difficult position. Baghdad seeks to strengthen relations with Washington while maintaining ties with Tehran. Yet as Iranian-backed militias continue to operate with significant autonomy, Iraq risks becoming the central arena in a broader regional confrontation. Whether Prime Minister Zaidi can translate promises of state authority into concrete action against the militias may prove to be one of the defining tests of his government.

This post was originally published on here. 

Support for both the Yashar! party and Likud increased this week, while backing for Naftali Bennett continued to decline, a Channel 13 News poll published on Wednesday showed.

According to the poll, if elections were held today, Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot would each lead with 23 seats, an increase of two seats for each party compared with a previous poll.

Bennett continued to lose ground in recent days, receiving just 13 seats, his lowest result to date in the channel’s polls. Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman, followed with 10 seats. The Democrats fell by two seats to nine, tying with United Torah Judaism.

Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, has eight seats, Shas won seven, and Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, received five.

The Bayit Tzioni party, led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper, also gained support, reaching five seats. Hadash-Ta’al received four seats, as did Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party, though it fell by one seat. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White and Balad remained below the electoral threshold.

By political bloc, the opposition parties received 60 seats, compared with 51 for the coalition. The Arab parties won a combined nine seats.

Nearly half of voters certain they’ll vote for opposition bloc

The poll also examined how certain respondents were about which bloc they would support. Forty-nine percent said they were certain they would vote for the opposition bloc, 35% for the coalition bloc, 10% remained undecided, and 6% described themselves as voters who move “between the blocs.”

On the question of suitability to serve as prime minister, Eisenkot held a significant lead over Netanyahu, 47% to 36%. In a matchup between Netanyahu and Bennett, the former prime minister also held an advantage, with 45% supporting Bennett and 40% for Netanyahu.

This post was originally published on here. 

 In 2002, Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, described a series of mostly anti-Israel actions on and beyond campus as “antisemitic in their effect if not their intent.”

Summers’ reputation has suffered since then for reasons unrelated to Israel, but his framing remains potent. Jewish leaders frequently use the phrase to suggest that even criticism of Israel made in good faith can inspire acts of hate.   

That paradigm resurfaced this month in the reaction of prominent rabbis and other Jewish leaders after Zohran Mamdani posted a two-and-a-half-minute video explaining that he had no authority to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu under an International Criminal Court warrant accusing the Israeli prime minister of crimes against humanity. In the same video he called Netanyahu “a war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide.” 

“Rhetoric that may not be antisemitic in intent can still be antisemitic in effect, as yours has been,” wrote Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-El in an open letter to the mayor.

Mamdani’s video and the Jewish reaction seemed to represent a new lowpoint in the increasingly tense relationship between the mayor and the pro-Israel Jewish community. Mamdani has been frequently and often harshly critical of Netanyahu since his campaign for mayor in 2025 — leading many Jewish leaders, for example, to boycott an event marking Jewish American Heritage Month in May. Last month, even some of his Jewish supporters were critical when he used the word “monsters” to describe the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. 

What’s different in the latest eruption was the timing — just days after the video dropped, a Jewish man was stabbed near a synagogue on the Upper West Side — and the platform: The video was on its way to garnering more than 200 million views before anyone in the Jewish establishment could get a statement out the door.

It’s not at all clear that anything Mamdani said inspired the attacker, who eyewitnesses say yelled the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar” while attacking the Jewish man and an Asian man. (He is being charged with hate crimes relating to both victims.) Some Jewish leaders were more careful than others in pointing this out. 

Defenders of the mayor insist that legitimate criticism of Israel, however harsh, is not a priori antisemitic or inciting. Critics of Mamdani are themselves divided, between those, such as the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt, who said the mayor’s rhetoric stems from an “antisemitic worldview,” and those who say his “worldview” isn’t the point: It’s his anti-Israel rhetoric that makes Jews feel unsafe or potentially raises the threat level. 

Critics and defenders arguing about same question

The critics and defenders are really arguing about the same question, just from opposite directions: One side asks how much criticism of Israel a public figure can voice before it becomes antisemitic, in intent or effect; the other side charges that “antisemitism” becomes a word used to police criticism of Israel, and to stoke the public’s fears about a perceived political opponent.

Davidson and another prominent local rabbi invoked safety in their responses to the video. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, in her own open letter, accused Mamdani of using “dehumanizing language reserved for no other nation” and said his rhetoric “helps create the climate in which threats and violence flourish.” Davidson was careful to say he wouldn’t call the stabbing “a direct result” of the video — and then spent the rest of the letter implying exactly that, writing that Mamdani’s “constant stoking of the fires of resentment toward Israel” had “jeopardized” Jewish security. 

Defenders of Mamdani say such accusations of cause and effect are baseless, often suggesting that opposition to Mamdani is less about Jewish safety than shielding Israel from criticism.

“The community says over and over again, ‘It’s fine to criticize Israel, it’s fine to criticize Bibi,’” said Mik Moore, a board member of the progressive Jewish advocacy group New Jewish Narrative, in an interview. “And then there’s a very long list of exceptions: not too much, or not in this way, or not if they’re not also going to say it about other people, or not if your job is New York City mayor.”

He added, referring to a traditional rabbinic concept that creates extra rules to prevent people from breaking a biblical commandment, “I think the community is just creating fences around fences around fences, so that the idea that you can criticize Israel has become meaningless.”

The mainstream critics of Mamdani counter that they aren’t saying that a politician can’t criticize Netanyahu. Rather, the mayor’s intense focus on this issue, his harsh language and his avowed anti-Zionism make no distinctions between a supporter of Israel and a supporter of the Israeli government. It’s that very support, like Zionism itself, that becomes suspect, and puts a target on every Jew’s back.

That was Buchdahl’s point in her open letter to the mayor: “You continue to divide Jews into those whose politics you deem acceptable and Zionists whom you cast beyond the pale — knowing, as you do, how many Jews in this city are deeply attached to Israel, you cannot claim to protect Jews while using the power of your office to make Jewish identity morally tainted and imperilled.” 

Others found different ways to suggest that Mamdani is, to update an old joke, more anti-Israel than he needs to be. In his statement, Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said Mamdani’s focus on Israel “distracts from urgent local responsibilities … including responding to a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak.” (The bacteria recently killed five people and sickened more than 80 across Manhattan’s Upper East Side.)

“Leadership means solving the crises you have the power to fix, not inventing ones you cannot,” Treyger wrote. In other words, stay in your lane. 

In fact, mayors of New York, with its huge ethnic voting blocs, have often dabbled in international affairs in the name of constituent services. Ed Koch traveled to Ireland on a goodwill tour, but ended up infuriating Irish voters by suggesting the British troops in Northern Ireland were not “occupying forces” — remarks he later retracted.    

In 1995, Mayor Rudy Giuliani ejected Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from a United Nations celebration concert at Lincoln Center, saying it would be “enormously offensive” to host a leader like Arafat “because of the murder they’ve engaged in over a period of time.”

Before Mamdani, all 11 New York City mayors elected since the founding of Israel in 1948 visited the country. Eric Adams, Mamdani’s immediate predecessor, visited the country twice as mayor and once referred to New York as the “Tel Aviv of America.”

“The Jewish community, for my entire lifetime, has been very happy for mayors to speak out about Israel when it was in support of Israel,” said Moore. 

For Jewish New Yorkers accustomed to such gestures, especially those old enough to remember when Israel was a less polarizing subject, Mamdani’s rejection of Zionism is a political and personal affront. 

The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for one, urged the mayor to lean into his concern for the Palestinians — only not in the way he has so far. Calling the recent video a “political stunt,” he urged Mamdani to shelve his unrealistic calls for a one-state solution to the conflict and instead convene a meeting of all sides of the issue around a path to two states for two peoples.

“Rather than being a constructive bridge builder between [the city’s Muslims and Jews], Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, has chosen to be a bridge destroyer — using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as his ax,” wrote Friedman. 

The conflation of Zionism and Jewishness

Beyond the argument over criticizing Israel, Mamdani’s video also rekindled a debate over the conflation of Zionism and Jewishness, which both Mamdani critics and supporters say is being weaponized in the debate over his activism. 

In a July 23 Jerusalem Post open letter timed to Tisha B’Av, Dov Bleich — identified as an Orthodox Jewish businessman from Brooklyn — writes that the mayor’s video hurt him not because it criticized Netanyahu, but because it omitted any mention of the ways Jews connect to Israel, the land and its people. Bleich suggested Jews are being offered a false choice: “Either defend every action of an Israeli government or renounce our attachment to Israel to prove our innocence. I will do neither.” 

He stops short of blaming Mamdani for antisemitism in the city, calling that “collective guilt,” but argues the mayor bears responsibility for the rhetorical climate he creates, and closes by asking Mamdani to extend to Israelis and Jews the same humanity he has asked New Yorkers to extend to Palestinians.

Journalist Peter Beinart, perhaps the most visible of Israel’s Jewish critics, took the opposite side in the debate over identity, accusing the Jewish establishment of being inconsistent in how it talks about Israel and Jewishness. On the one hand, he said in his own video, Jewish leaders insist that American Jews should not be held responsible for the actions of an Israeli government. On the other, American Jewish leaders regularly insist, he said, “that there is something inherent in being Jewish that makes you a supporter of the state of Israel and the way it treats Palestinians.”

And yet it is not just Jewish leaders who insist on the connection between Israel and Jewishness, and Jews are hardly of one mind about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Like many other surveys, Pew has found that the overwhelming majority of Jews say “caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them.” As for being supporters of the way Israel “treats Palestinians,” a recent AP-NORC poll found that American Jews are increasingly divided over Israeli policies. Among “religiously affiliated” Jews — basically, synagogue members — only about half say Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza are justified, and one-quarter believe Israel has committed genocide.

Whether they support the Israeli government or not, the conflation of Jews and Israel is “one of the most serious challenges that we face,” said Jonathan Jacoby, the national director of the Nexus Project, an antisemitism watchdog group positioned to the left of the ADL. 

“I don’t believe that protests against Israel should take place in front of Jewish institutions, all things being equal,” he said in an interview. “But I understand why, in the context of people declaring that Zionism is an integral part of Jewish identity, those protests are inevitably going to take place. And I do think that we have a responsibility to pay attention to the ways in which we conflate [Jewishness and Zionism], and not just point the finger at the other conflators.”

In its statement on the Mamdani video, the Nexus Project rejected the accusations that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel was antisemitic, calling them “unfounded, inflammatory, and divisive.”

At the same time, Jacoby acknowledges that Mamdani “needs to talk with greater care about Israel and Palestine,” citing his “monsters” remark and his hesitation to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” which many Jews see as a call to violence.

“He needs to respect the complexity of the issues. He needs to understand how things land,” said Jacoby. Conversely, “We need to understand that as long as Israel’s actions are generating outrage, there’s going to be more and more criticism of Israel, and that as long as Jewish institutions support those actions, they’re inviting hostility.”

If nothing else, the discourse demonstrated what an optimist would call the diversity of the Jewish community, and a pessimist might call its fractures. In another poll of “connected” US Jews, released this week by the Israel-based Jewish People Policy Institute, 50% rate Netanyahu’s leadership as poor. 

As for Mamdani, who won over 33% of all Jewish voters in the 2025 election, the “connected” Jews were largely in agreement: 69% of respondents said he is both anti-Israel and antisemitic.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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