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“Even though I was physically far away from Yemen, I continued to live with the psychological consequences of what had happened to me,” Ezzadin Al Awadhi, a Yemeni aid worker formerly held hostage by the Houthis, told The Jerusalem Post.

Awadhi, who now lives in Germany, worked for the Anhar Al-Firdaws Foundation in Houthi-controlled Sanaa. The organization was seized by the Houthis during the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm, after being subjected to multiple raids. Less than two weeks after the operation began in 2015, the Houthis took over the complex and detained all of the charity’s staff except Awadhi, derailing its efforts to build an orphanage, a hospital and a community kitchen.

“The Houthis seized the entire foundation and looted all of its property and belongings,” he said, accusing Houthi official Ibrahim Al-Sharafi of taking over the premises and turning them into his personal residence and a residence for his sister. He also accused Houthi supervisor Ahmed Mutahar Al-Shami of taking control of the land to lease it to Houthi businessman Saddam Al-Yateem for a mall, under the supervision of Houthi official Fahd Al-Ayyani.

“They took control of it, looted its belongings, occupied its buildings, and transformed parts of it into commercial facilities and spaces for their own activities,” he said. “The victims were not only the foundation’s employees, but also the vulnerable families, orphans, and marginalized people who were deprived of the humanitarian services this project was intended to provide.”

After escaping the initial raid, Awadhi knew the Houthis would continue looking for him. He eventually turned himself in, hoping to avoid the potentially deadly consequences of a manhunt. In custody, he said, the Houthis made numerous accusations against him and forced him to sign documents acknowledging them before releasing him on the condition that he help with their media operations.

Houthis demand his cooperation, forced to live in ‘open-air prison’

Awadhi’s professional background in journalism made him a valuable asset to the group. He said the Houthis demanded that he cooperate with their cultural-awareness and mobilization programs, seeking to use his expertise to recruit fighters.

“I signed the guarantees out of fear, not because I supported their military agenda. I have always opposed war, violence, and the recruitment of people to fight,” he said. “After my release, I repeatedly tried to avoid their demands. Whenever they contacted me to participate in military mobilization or recruitment activities, I would evade them or go into hiding.”

Although he sometimes participated in cultural or public-awareness activities, he avoided recruitment campaigns and events promoting war. His cooperation did little to restore his freedom. For the next few years, the Houthis repeatedly summoned him for questioning and demanded details about his personal interactions.

“It felt like living in an open-air prison. I was not even free to meet my friends, former classmates, or colleagues from work,” he said. “Even ordinary social interactions became a source of fear. I felt that my movements, relationships, and daily activities were being constantly monitored. I was technically outside prison, but I did not feel free.”

بعد 12 سنة انتقم الله لي وللمظلومين من هذا المشرف الحوثي الذي حبسني في مغسلة الموتى وحرمني من رؤية والدتي 10 سنين 😢 الحمد الله #عزالدين_العواضي #اليمن #تعز https://t.co/jWdlKbBCjG

— عزالدين العواضي Ezzaddin Al Awadhi (@Ezzaddin2017) October 30, 2026

He identified Ibrahim Al-Mahtouri, a Houthi supervisor appointed director of Al-Wahda Police Station in the Sawaan area, and Al-Sharafi as responsible for the campaign against him. Al-Sharafi was killed in a Saudi strike around October 28, 2026, according to the Houthis.

The pressure intensified in early 2017, when the Houthis demanded that Awadhi not only cooperate with their media operations but also attend and present public events intended to mobilize support for the war.

At one such gathering in Al-Sabeen Square, organized to recruit fighters against Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US, Awadhi had a major disagreement with a Houthi organizer.

“I specifically requested that my role be limited to presenting the segments about patriotism, love for one’s country, national solidarity, and the general importance of defending the homeland… I asked them to assign another presenter to the remaining segments, particularly those related to mobilizing people for the battlefronts,” he said.

Instead, he was threatened and accused of “siding with the aggression.”

“Unfortunately, under that pressure, I felt I had no choice but to present every segment of the public event, including those I had desperately tried to avoid,” he said. “It was deeply distressing to have been forced to use my professional skills in a public event that… went against my personal convictions and my opposition to war.”

Soon after, the Houthis launched another raid, this time specifically to arrest Awadhi. When he saw three military trucks and armed men arriving at the organization where he worked, he feared for his life and hid in a facility used to wash and prepare bodies for burial. The Houthis searched the surrounding area but did not find him.

“I ask you to imagine what it means to spend nearly three months hiding in a place where deceased bodies are washed and prepared for burial, constantly fearing that armed men could discover you at any moment. The fear, terror, and psychological exhaustion were overwhelming… I could not live normally, move freely, or feel safe,” he said.

Eventually, the fear and uncertainty became unbearable. Awadhi decided to surrender, contacting Al-Sharafi before going to meet him and Al-Mahtouri. They sent him to a detention facility, where he was questioned throughout the night.

Accused of conducting espionage for Saudi strikes

The Houthis accused him of providing coordinates to Saudi aircraft to facilitate airstrikes, working as an agent for Israel, and secretly mobilizing young people to fight against the group through his youth-development and personal-strategy training programs, he said.

Awadhi denied the allegations but said he was forced to acknowledge the charges, sign documents, and guarantee that he would continue cooperating with the Houthis. Otherwise, he faced transfer to the notorious Habrah detention center, which has been condemned by numerous international organizations for torture and inhumane treatment of detainees.

“I feared that being transferred there could mean prolonged detention, severe torture, permanent disability, or even death,” he said, describing how one of his friends had been left paralyzed by abuse.

“The Houthis use a deliberate method against journalists, influential individuals, and prominent members of society: they repeatedly detain or interrogate them, fabricate accusations, and force them to sign statements acknowledging those accusations in exchange for temporary release,” he said. “Later, they arrest them again and use those previously signed documents as supposed evidence or confessions against them, despite knowing that the statements were obtained under threats and coercion.”

A respected community figure was brought in to act as Awadhi’s guarantor, but his freedom lasted only three days. He said an influential figure called to warn him that the Houthis intended to arrest him again and transfer him to Habrah.

Awadhi went into hiding once more. He changed his haircut, acquired a fake ID to pass through checkpoints unnoticed, and reached Seiyun, in Hadhramaut. From there, he traveled to Malaysia, where Yemeni citizens could relatively easily obtain visas.

“Leaving Yemen was not a choice made freely. It was the only way I could see to protect my life and my freedom,” he said.

For years after arriving in Malaysia, Awadhi continued to suffer from nightmares and recurring suicidal thoughts. On one occasion, he went to the 30th floor of a building intending to jump, he told the Post.

Fear of deportation amid changes to Malaysia’s immigration laws motivated him to travel to Europe. With no legal route to Germany, he crossed the forests of Belarus on a dangerous journey that nearly cost him his life.

“The conditions were so desperate that I was forced to eat leaves from trees and drink liquids from horse manure and urine to survive,” he said. “The smell was so foul that I would vomit almost immediately after drinking. Yet I was so desperately thirsty that I felt compelled to keep trying, simply to moisten my mouth and stay alive.”

In Germany, where he received psychological support, Awadhi began rebuilding his life among people he had been taught were his enemies.

“I want to express my gratitude for the compassion, protection, and support that countries such as Germany have provided to people like me who were forced to flee their homes… When I was in a severe mental-health crisis, its emergency services and healthcare system intervened to protect my life and help me recover,” he said.

Although he now feels more confident in the freedoms guaranteed by Western society, Awadhi said he remained afraid to speak publicly about his experiences in Yemen. The death of one of his tormentors emboldened him to break his silence.

Speaking out, however, came at a personal cost. Awadhi said many members of his family disowned him after he fled Yemen.

“I want a Yemen where people can live freely, where humanitarian work is protected, and where no one is forced into war,” he said. “I escaped Yemen to save my life, but speaking out has come at the cost of losing part of my family.” 

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Debris from intercepted Houthi missiles damaged a Saudi Aramco building in Riyadh on Sunday, November 8, as Saudi Arabia sought additional military support in its renewed confrontation with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. Among the possibilities under discussion is a deployment of Syrian soldiers, although conflicting reports and denials from Damascus have left the size and purpose of any mission uncertain.

Saudi authorities reported limited damage to the Aramco Tower in the capital’s financial district, with no casualties. The attack highlighted the kingdom’s continued vulnerability to Houthi missiles and drones as fighting intensified in Yemen.

In separate interviews with The Media Line, Giuseppe Dentice, an analyst at the Mediterranean Observatory (OSMED) of Italy’s Istituto di Studi Politici San Pio V, and Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, offered differing assessments of what Syrian involvement could achieve.

While Dentice identified potential strategic advantages for Damascus and Riyadh, Al-Iryani argued that foreign troops would do little to address the command and leadership problems undermining Saudi-backed Yemeni forces.

On November 8, The Associated Press reported that Syria was preparing to send approximately 600 special forces personnel to Saudi Arabia, citing three officials familiar with the plans. Syrian military advisers were already in the kingdom, but no Syrian fighters had been sent to Yemen, the officials said.

Thousands of Syrian troops may deploy to Saudi Arabia, Yemen

A day earlier, Yemeni military officials told AFP that approximately 3,000 Syrian troops could be deployed to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Some claimed that hundreds had already arrived, while others suggested that the eventual contingent could reach 10,000 personnel.

Reuters separately reported on November 6 that a limited number of Syrian military advisers and trainers had traveled to Saudi Arabia. Its sources did not confirm a combat deployment.

Damascus rejected reports that Syrian forces were being sent to Yemen. A Syrian diplomatic source quoted by the state news agency SANA said cooperation with Riyadh focused on military training, capacity-building, and the exchange of expertise.

The conflicting accounts followed a defense cooperation agreement signed on November 4 during Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Riyadh, where he met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The agreement’s detailed provisions have not been publicly disclosed.

For Dentice, the distinction between training and direct participation in combat is crucial.

He questioned what a mission involving thousands of Syrian personnel would entail, particularly if it included experienced fighters rather than conventional military instructors.

In October, Axios reported that Syria’s 84th and 90th Divisions were among the formations being considered for deployment to Yemen. The 84th Division reportedly includes foreign fighters who participated in the campaign against former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Dentice suggested that the backgrounds of some of these personnel could indicate a mission extending beyond military instruction, although no such role has been confirmed.

He also identified possible domestic advantages for al-Sharaa, whose government faces the difficult task of integrating fighters from previously separate armed groups into a centralized military command.

Deploying some of those fighters abroad could ease tensions within Syria’s security establishment while strengthening Damascus’ relationship with Saudi Arabia, he argued.

Closer military cooperation could also open the door to Syria’s participation in the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed in August by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said on October 31 that Damascus was evaluating whether to join the pact, which treats an armed attack against one member as an attack against all three.

Al-Iryani, meanwhile, questioned the value of sending Syrian combat forces to Yemen.

“To come as fighters is ridiculous,” he told The Media Line.

Yemen already has large numbers of experienced fighters, he said, and introducing several thousand Syrians would be unlikely to change the course of the conflict.

The underlying problem, according to Al-Iryani, is not a shortage of personnel but the structure of command and control among Saudi-backed Yemeni forces.

“The problem is a question of command and control and leadership,” he said.

Al-Iryani criticized Riyadh for what he described as excessive interference in its Yemeni allies’ military decisions.

Saudi micromanagement demoralizes allies

“The Saudis micromanage their allies, and that, of course, demoralizes them,” he said.

Such interference, he argued, discourages initiative and makes coordination among Yemeni units more difficult.

He contrasted this approach with Iran’s relationship with the Houthis, arguing that Tehran has allowed its allies greater operational independence. In his assessment, that freedom has helped make the Houthis a more effective fighting force.

Changing the composition of Saudi-backed forces without addressing these leadership problems would accomplish little, he maintained.

“No Syrians, no Jordanians, no Americans, no one can solve this. Only the Saudis, by changing the way they manage their allies,” he said.

The debate over Syria’s possible involvement comes as other regional governments consider supporting Saudi Arabia.

On October 26, Egypt’s parliament authorized President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to provide military assistance to defend Saudi territory against Houthi attacks if Riyadh requested help.

Cairo has emphasized that its involvement would be defensive and has not announced plans to conduct ground operations in Yemen.

Dentice described Egypt’s decision as politically significant, particularly given the country’s experience during the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s, when Egyptian forces became embroiled in a costly military intervention.

He emphasized that parliamentary authorization did not necessarily mean Egyptian troops would be deployed to fight in Yemen.

Syria, meanwhile, could face retaliation if its personnel became directly involved in combat.

Dentice warned that participation in operations against the Houthis could expose Damascus to additional security threats, particularly given Syria’s internal challenges and the continued presence of Iranian-aligned networks.

“It would potentially turn the country into a target,” he said.

Al-Iryani distinguished between foreign assistance intended to defend Saudi territory and the deployment of additional ground troops in Yemen.

Air-defense systems and other specialized capabilities could help Saudi Arabia counter Houthi missiles and drones, he argued. Syrian ground forces, by contrast, would offer limited advantages against an entrenched adversary.

The Houthis have demonstrated their ability to sustain operations despite prolonged bombing campaigns and battlefield pressure. Since fighting resumed in July, the movement has repeatedly attacked Saudi infrastructure while contesting territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

The struggle for control of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, has heightened international concern over commercial shipping and energy transportation.

Houthi advances in September expanded the movement’s influence over the strategic waterway, although Saudi-backed Yemeni forces subsequently reported recapturing several positions nearby.

Fighting has continued around Taiz, where Houthi gains and restrictions on access have threatened government-held territory and disrupted humanitarian supplies.

Al-Iryani argued that the Houthis’ current military pressure is closely connected to their political objectives.

“I don’t think the Houthis want to escalate,” he said.

He believes the movement is seeking to compel Saudi Arabia to return to negotiations and formalize understandings reached during peace discussions in 2023.

Those discussions produced commitments toward a United Nations-backed roadmap that included a nationwide ceasefire, public-sector salary payments, the resumption of oil exports, and an inclusive political process.

Al-Iryani characterized the proposed arrangement as one that could effectively hand Yemen to the Houthis by strengthening their financial resources and political position.

The UN framework did not, however, recognize the Houthis as Yemen’s sole legitimate government. It envisaged a broader political process involving the country’s competing parties.

According to Al-Iryani, Saudi Arabia now regards further concessions that could strengthen the Houthis as a serious threat to its national security.

The renewed fighting has also deepened Yemen’s humanitarian emergency.

On November 7, the Houthi-run Health Ministry reported that airstrikes attributed to Saudi Arabia had killed at least 33 people and wounded 39 in Bani Hushaysh, east of Sanaa. The ministry said women and children were among the victims.

Reuters could not independently verify the allegations, and Saudi authorities said they were investigating.

The International Organization for Migration reported that approximately 310,000 people had been displaced by the renewed fighting as of November 3, with large numbers seeking refuge in Taiz, Lahj, and Aden.

The conflict is unfolding alongside the broader confrontation involving Iran, the United States, and Israel, raising concerns that further escalation could draw additional countries into the fighting.

Dentice considers renewed American and Israeli air operations against Iran more plausible than a large-scale ground invasion. He also raised the possibility of a broader Saudi-led operation against the Houthis, potentially involving foreign personnel.

Al-Iryani anticipates a different trajectory, suggesting that Washington could move toward de-escalation with Tehran following the Democratic Party’s victory in the November 3 US congressional elections.

“I think the de-escalation between Iran and the US is going to start soon,” he said.

He also doubted that additional airstrikes against Houthi positions would produce decisive results.

“The Houthis are dug in, and they can withstand lots of bombing,” he said.

A major escalation involving Iran could nevertheless change the Houthis’ calculations, Al-Iryani warned, increasing the risks to neighboring Gulf states and regional maritime routes.

Dentice placed those concerns within a wider security picture extending from the Persian Gulf through the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa.

He argued that instability involving Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea could interact with the Yemen conflict, threatening maritime commerce and complicating the economic diversification plans of Gulf governments.

For Saudi Arabia, the challenge involves protecting cities and energy infrastructure from missile attacks, preserving access to vital shipping routes, supporting Yemeni allies, and preventing the conflict from drawing additional regional powers into direct confrontation.

Whether Syrian personnel would improve Riyadh’s military position remains uncertain. The size and purpose of any deployment are still disputed, and Damascus continues to deny plans to send troops into Yemen.

Dentice sees potential Syrian involvement as part of a wider realignment of regional security relationships, offering Damascus an opportunity to strengthen ties with Riyadh while managing its own military transition.

Al-Iryani argues that the fundamental problem lies elsewhere. Even a substantially larger foreign contingent, he maintains, would be unable to compensate for weaknesses in the way Saudi Arabia directs its Yemeni partners.

“People say that Houthis defeated Saudi Arabia, but the Houthis did not defeat Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“The ones who defeated Saudi Arabia are the Saudi officials and generals who made it impossible by micromanaging their allies, made it impossible for them to be effective.”

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Turkey does not want to see a new wave of attacks against Iran, President Tayyip Erdogan said, adding that he conveyed his concerns to US President Donald Trump in a recent phone call.

“We emphasize at every opportunity that it is possible to resolve these issues through dialogue and diplomacy. Unfortunately, we see a negative shift once again. We are doing our utmost to prevent this,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Azerbaijan, according to a transcript shared by his office on Monday.

This is a developing story.

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Some 200,000 people gathered in Amsterdam on Sunday to protest the Dutch government’s policy toward Israel, local media reported, in the latest of a series of “red line” demonstrations in which participants dress in red to form a line against alleged war crimes against Palestinians.

Dutch public broadcaster NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) reported that some people on the sidelines of the demonstration held a sign reading “We Support Hamas.” That sentiment was not shared by the organizers or the wider crowd, and NOS reporters heard participants shout that they would never support Hamas, the outlet noted.

Ik leg dit even hier neer. https://t.co/KXiKsWVzB8

— Bert Brussen (@bertbrussen) November 8, 2026

Rolien Sasse, director of Pax, one of the organizations behind the demonstration, told Amsterdam local broadcaster AT5 ahead of Sunday’s protest that organizers were aware pro-Hamas activists might join them. AT5 noted that a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Amsterdam on October 7, 2023, also featured pro-Hamas banners and slogans.

“I don’t know, and we never have that completely under control,” Sasse said, distancing the red line movement from the pro-Hamas demonstrators, “but we absolutely do not want that. But I think there are many, many more people who are in favor of human rights in a very respectful way, and that is what this demonstration is about.”

Amsterdam sees its fourth red line protest in under two years

The red line protests began in May 2025, organized by the Dutch NGO Oxfam Novib, and the first drew around 100,000 participants. Since then, the movement has grown. Thirteen organizations backed Sunday’s gathering, including Oxfam Novib, Amnesty International, and Save the Children, according to the Dutch English-language news outlet NL Times.

Sunday’s protest was the fourth red line demonstration, according to NL Times, which reported that an estimated 250,000 people took part in the previous one, in October 2025.

Participants are demanding that the Dutch government take stronger action against Israel.

“I still believe that the Netherlands is not doing enough. This is already the third time I have taken part in this march,” one woman told NOS on Sunday. “It probably makes very little difference, but it is the only thing you can do.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Journalist Abd Abu Shahada accused authorities of abusing unchecked power and attempting to intimidate Arab citizens and journalists following his release after five days in Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) custody on suspicion of contact with a foreign agent, speaking to 103FM on Monday.

“Last Tuesday, at around 10:30 or 11 p.m., there was a knock on my door,” Abu Shahada told 103FM. 

“You probably know the feeling as a journalist. Everyone asks themselves, ‘When will it happen to me?’ With all the madness going on here, I think that given what’s been happening in this country in recent years, the insanity and the abuse of unchecked power, a lot of people are asking themselves that question, and they’re right to be afraid.”

He explained that he opened the door to find Shin Bet officers who presented him with an arrest warrant and a search warrant, and he let them in without resisting.

“Of course, I didn’t resist. I said, ‘Please, come in, take whatever you want. I’m not resisting.’ And a few hours later, you find yourself at the Shin Bet facility in Petah Tikva, being interrogated. Since there is still an ongoing investigation, I’m not allowed to discuss what happened during the interrogation,” he said.

Abu Shahada then described his work as a journalist.

“I’ve been working as a journalist for about seven or eight years,” he explained. “I’ve published hundreds of articles in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. I have a podcast every Thursday, with more than 260 episodes, and I invite people on. I agree with some of them and disagree with others. But everything is within the law. And I focus on Arab citizens. That’s my ‘thing’: trying to explain how our politics works in Arabic.”

“I don’t do anything in secret. Everything I do is public,” Abu Shahada stressed. “And the interview was published on October 26, almost two weeks ago. Nothing was secret. Everything was out in the open. Besides, this is journalistic work. You operate within the law. And everything I did was after consulting senior lawyers.”

According to Abu Shahada, he had received an invitation to provide commentary on the elections for Al Jazeera English.

“I received an invitation to come and comment on the elections on Al Jazeera English,” he said. “Most of my journalistic work, or a significant part of it, is in English. I received the invitation and checked whether it was legally permitted. I was told, ‘As long as you have a visa and everything is legal, there’s nothing illegal about it.'”

Shin Bet wanted to ‘frighten us’, Shahada says

According to published reports, following his release, Abu Shahada said that his arrest was the result of a Shin Bet witch hunt and that the investigation was politically motivated.

“That specific statement, I don’t know where people who were speaking on my behalf got it from,” he clarified. 

“As far as I’m concerned, what happened had two objectives, and I want to say this to both Arab and Jewish listeners. They are afraid, and they want to frighten us. Both as journalists and as Arab citizens, they want us to be afraid,” Abu Shahada continued.

“The people who have held power since 2009 and don’t want to give it up saw the results of the last elections. They saw that Arab citizens exercised their citizenship, took action, and went out to vote. And their votes changed the political map in Israel… The outgoing government has a slight advantage in terms of the distribution of Knesset seats. The turnout among the Arab public changes the distribution of seats. When Arabs took their citizenship seriously, it made a difference. And now they’re afraid, and now they’re trying to exploit their power.”

Abu Shahada was then asked whether he saw a connection between his arrest and the unprecedented allegations by the Shin Bet chief concerning election interference, as well as condemnations from the change bloc, which argued that the allegations represented an attempt to delegitimize the election results.

“I’m not familiar with the details of the last few days,” he replied. “I didn’t know when it was morning, when it was night or what the weather was like outside, and I still haven’t caught up on the news.”

Powers used against him ‘could be used against other journalists’

He noted that based on his “political instincts,” he felt there was a connection and an attempt at delegitimization, even as Justice Noam Solberg approved the elections and said nothing unlawful had taken place internally on Election Day.

Abu Shahada concluded by warning that the powers used against him could also be directed at other journalists.

“I’m not part of the mainstream media. But there’s no reason for this to stop with me. These are very powerful mechanisms. They have unreasonable power, and it could easily spill over to other journalists. I think a lot of people should be worried.”

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Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot received the mandate to form a government on Sunday, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an effort to prevent the formation of a government led by the opposition bloc, amid growing Likud concerns that the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties could join the emerging coalition.

In recent days, Netanyahu has held consultations with senior Likud officials and assigned tasks to ministers and political partners. The effort has focused on the haredi leadership, attempts to persuade MKs from the anti-Netanyahu bloc not to support the government, and exploring ways to bring Avigdor Liberman back into the right-wing camp.

However, within Likud, including among veteran ministers and MKs, some doubt Netanyahu’s ability to prevent United Torah Judaism from joining an Eisenkot government if the rabbis receive an offer that meets their demands.

As part of the outreach to the ultra-Orthodox parties, ministers have been asked to approach associates of Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been tasked with reaching out to figures in the Yashar party who oppose relying on the Arab parties.

Netanyahu has also continued calling for a national unity government, but disagreements remain over who would serve as prime minister, the composition of the coalition, and its basic policy guidelines.

In private conversations, Likud officials acknowledge that Netanyahu currently lacks meaningful political tools to ensure the haredi parties remain in the right-wing bloc. Some have even said that “in the current situation, all that remains is to put our trust in God and hope for a miracle.”

According to Likud officials, if Eisenkot offers United Torah Judaism an acceptable arrangement on military enlistment, it is difficult to see how Netanyahu could prevent a deal.

At the center of the concern is Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of Degel Hatorah.

“Rabbi Lando has never considered himself committed to the right-wing camp,” Likud officials said. “Already in the 1980s and 1990s, he publicly disagreed with Rabbi Shach’s position against cooperation with the Left. His position has not changed, but now he heads the spiritual leadership, and Degel Hatorah representatives follow his rulings.”

‘High Court of Justice will not strike down Eisenkot’s enlistment law’

In conversations with senior ultra-Orthodox figures, Netanyahu has also encountered the argument that a military enlistment arrangement negotiated with Eisenkot could prove more legally durable.

When Netanyahu warned that Eisenkot would not deliver an enlistment law for the ultra-Orthodox community, senior haredi officials replied: “Unlike your enlistment law, the High Court of Justice will not strike down Eisenkot’s.”

Likud officials also fear that the ultra-Orthodox parties may not demand that Eisenkot pass an enlistment law before the government is formed. Instead, they could rely on a coalition agreement with him, if one is signed, which could make it easier for the anti-Netanyahu bloc to negotiate with United Torah Judaism.

The mandate to form a government is now in Eisenkot’s hands, and some ultra-Orthodox figures believe an agreement with the anti-Netanyahu bloc could produce a military enlistment arrangement that would be harder to overturn in court.

Netanyahu can promise a future arrangement, but it is far from clear whether he could form a government capable of advancing it.

Reservations about partnering with parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc

Within United Torah Judaism, there is still no agreement on joining an Eisenkot government. Alongside a willingness to consider an arrangement on military enlistment, there are reservations about partnering with parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, particularly the Democrats.

Senior party officials have made clear that any agreement would also need to include commitments on Shabbat, kashrut, conversion, and preserving the religious status quo.

Reservations about the move have also been voiced by representatives of Agudat Yisrael.

Likud is pinning its hopes on these disagreements. Even if an agreement is reached on military enlistment, there is no guarantee that all components of United Torah Judaism would support joining the government.

The possibility of Shas joining the coalition is also causing concern among Netanyahu’s associates.

Updated assessments in both the anti-Netanyahu bloc and the Right suggest that Arye Deri would be prepared to join an Eisenkot government if United Torah Judaism did so first, paving the way for him.

In that scenario, the 48 MKs of the Zionist parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, United Torah Judaism’s seven MKs, and Shas’s six MKs could form a 61-seat coalition.

Likud officials fear that Rabbi Lando’s decision would also influence Shas’s position.

Ultra-Orthodox sources believe that “Deri will find it difficult to stand against a decision by the Ashkenazi leadership to join a government that will regulate the status of yeshiva students.”

Right-wing figures are therefore warning of the electoral price Deri could pay.

A source in the right-wing camp said: “They want to see Deri enter Eisenkot’s left-wing government? In the next election, Shas won’t pass the electoral threshold!”

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman has dropped his opposition in principle to serving in a government with the ultra-Orthodox parties, but has made clear that he will not agree to a government that relies on Arab parties and will demand an arrangement on military enlistment.

From his perspective, bringing United Torah Judaism and Shas into the coalition is the path toward forming a government without Netanyahu.

Liberman has proposed examining a framework based on the military enlistment bill he advanced in 2018, adapting it to the IDF’s manpower needs following October 7. However, he has yet to present a version agreed upon with the ultra-Orthodox parties.

There are also unresolved disagreements within the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

Eisenkot will have to bridge the gap between the ultra-Orthodox parties’ demands and the positions of Liberman, Naftali Bennett, and Yair Golan on military enlistment and religion-state matters.

At the same time, the bloc’s leaders disagree over who should serve as the next Knesset speaker. Liberman supports appointing Yair Lapid, while Eisenkot has not agreed to his candidacy yet.

The dispute is not decisive in determining whether a government can be formed, but it illustrates how difficult it is to reach agreements even on issues not directly related to the ultra-Orthodox parties.

Liberman tells Maariv: ‘It will be possible to bring in at least 3-4 Likud MKs’

Another arena of political struggle is the possibility of recruiting Likud defectors.

“Once a government of 61 is formed, there is a high probability that it will be possible to bring in at least 3-4 MKs from Likud,” Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman told Maariv.

Likud, however, rejects that assessment.

Party officials argue that even if Eisenkot or Liberman attempt to recruit defectors, the effort will fail.

“There are people who are in contact with Liberman and talk to him, for example, David Bitan,” a Likud source said. “But even he won’t leave Likud, because Bitan is a Likudnik through and through.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Likud figures have made attempts to renew political cooperation with Liberman.

Some believed he could be persuaded to “come home, to the Right and to Likud.”

According to party officials, those efforts have been unsuccessful.

“Liberman doesn’t want to. There have been many attempts to speak with him, but he is not prepared to sit with Bibi under any circumstances,” they said.

Efforts to bring the Yisrael Beytenu chairman back into Netanyahu’s camp have so far failed to change his position.

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This year is on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño and perpetuating a warming streak of more than a decade, a UN report showed on Monday.

Countries are preparing to meet in Turkey ​from November 9 to 20 for the next round of climate talks and the World Meteorological Organization “State of the Climate” report provides the latest available data to inform their discussions.

Between January and September this year, the global average temperature was 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and could rise further due to a major El Niño, the report showed.

The WMO report, which encompasses nine data sets, showed that each of the past 12 years, including 2026, was ranked among the 12 warmest ever recorded since records began in around 1850.

“Every indicator here is telling the same story. We’re seeing the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is showing up in the ocean, in the atmosphere, in the melting of ice and the rising of sea levels,” WMO Head of Climate Information John Kennedy told reporters in Geneva ahead of the conference.

Planet increasingly accumulating heat

The EU’s Copernicus climate service already said 2026 was all but certain to become the ​second calendar year after 2024 to exceed the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius ‌above pre-industrial levels set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The planet is increasingly accumulating heat, the UN report said, with ocean temperatures continuing to rise this year from 2025 all-time highs.

Global mean sea levels have also reached a record this year as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it heats, the report said.

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Israel and other countries will lose large aspects of their sovereignty to foreign companies within five to seven years if they do not have plans in place to control the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into their infrastructure, the nation’s AI Directorate chief Erez Askal said on Monday.

Speaking at the AI conference at Tel Aviv University, he warned that in the near future electricity, water, healthcare, and other sectors would be run by AI.

If the Israeli state outsources that AI to foreign multinational companies, and many of the dominators of AI globally are in the US, China, and elsewhere overseas, it could lose control of basic services critical to keeping the country running in the midst of a complex geopolitical crisis, since it will be dependent on overseas companies.

Instead, he said Israel must dash forward to develop its own AI capabilities and data centers to support those capabilities, so that it retains its independence.

Askal said that Israel would need to strike a balance of partnering with dominant AI producers overseas, while preserving control of the AI it would need to integrate into its critical infrastructure to keep up with the rest of the world and customer expectations.

Striking the right balance between progress, integration main challenge of AI

Striking the right balance between rapid progress and thoughtful integration, he said, would be the main challenge of AI going forward.

In June, The Jerusalem Post reported that while Israel is considered a dominant player in the cybersecurity field, and part of that means using artificial intelligence (AI) in smart ways in that arena, in the broader AI context, Jerusalem is behind and now trying to play catch-up.

Also in June, the government approved a new wide-ranging series of AI policies which could start the rally and change the lives of all Israelis in the workplace, in education, and eventually in every area of life as the world jumps forward in this area of rapid advancement.

This decision is the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointing ex-9900 intelligence chief, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Erez Askal on October 12, 2025, to be the country’s first AI Chief, to work alongside Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) Chief Yossi Karadi.

Since then, Askal has worked hard to identify the many fronts on which Israel must jump forward in its use and understanding of AI, as well as to understand how to best utilize Israel’s strengths over the course of a multi-year campaign on the issue.

The Post understands that the new AI bureau’s efforts have revealed that Israel’s greatest strengths regarding AI are 1) Integrating and combining cybersecurity and artificial intelligence to “rub off” well on each other; and 2) Edge solutions – coming up with practical new ideas for solving problems in the field, and in war, on the front lines. These may include dealing with drones, emergency room surgery, and the classroom.

It is also considered a plus that Askal and Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) Chief Yossi Karadi have known each other for years from their days in Israeli intelligence, such that they can work together with no ego and without missing a beat.

AI budget may assist in solutions to Israeli needs

From the start, Askal was given a budget of NIS 120 million, mostly for 2026, as well as 20 positions for the establishment of the directorate. Starting in 2027, NIS 13 million was due to be allocated annually for salary and operating expenses for the directorate, though Askal may decide to use the budget differently in real time than the original plans, based on the need on the ground.

The AI bureau expects that it will help: 1) Israel implement home-developed solutions and programs as opposed to requiring foreign solutions; 2) Israeli companies have products to physically manufacture from which they can make profits; 3) Pursue regulations to create order in this new area, while avoiding overregulation which stifles innovation; and 4) Mix big data and machine learning capabilities with addressing real-world problems in powerful new ways.

Following the government decision, Netanyahu said, “The purpose is clear: to establish Israel as a world leader in the area of AI because AI is not just another technology – it is a revolution. It will impact the economy, security, science, industry, health, education, and the State of Israel’s international status.”

Askal stated, “This decision ensures the power and achievements of Israel for the upcoming decades. In the coming years, it will become clear which countries succeed in establishing their place at the forefront of the world during the age of AI, and which will be forced to rely on the technology, infrastructure, and capabilities which others will develop.”  

At a conference on June 2, Askal made a major public performance, declaring, “While the great powers in the world are preoccupied with a crazy-paced arms race regarding the major layers of AI: research and development, energy, and modeling, the entire world is stuck in the embarrassing situation asking: what do we do with this tomorrow morning?”

“This is exactly where Israel’s comparative advantage exists: when the giant blue Ocean of AI meets [people’s] real lives. The ability to inject AI into the physical world and onto [solving] life’s problems, to take an aircraft or drip irrigation and to make them ‘smarter’ – is a critical growth engine for us.”

Some things which Askal cannot say in public due to the sensitivity of his position are that Israel had initially fallen behind in AI for a number of obvious reasons.

These include that Israel has less space to build data centers, it has fewer natural resources to cover the immense energy needs of such data centers, and its success in cybersecurity was driven in many ways by the private sector, with the government only following, whereas big AI projects need heavy government investment and interventions, which Israel’s government is slower at for new projects, the Post understands.

All of this means that the AI bureau will be trying to take on a new coordinator role to facilitate the private sector working together toward clearer and more specific national AI goals, as opposed to only their own individual narrow business interests.

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Iran defended a proposal on Monday to restart peace talks in as few as two days as the most reasonable offer on the table, after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called some of Iran’s conditions “outrageous and ridiculous.“

“Is it unreasonable that Iran demands that US illegal sanctions and its naval blockade must be lifted before negotiations start and that the war should end on all fronts?” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told a weekly press conference in response to Rubio’s remarks.

Iran has made the offer to shorten the time to restart talks from an earlier seven-day proposal, which calls for Washington to first meet conditions including halting hostilities, lifting a blockade and waiving sanctions.

Baghaei also said US pressure on Iraq to close most of its borders with Iran should not affect bilateral ties with Baghdad, after Iraq’s foreign minister said Washington was pushing for such a move.

Baghaei dismissed a US military task force aimed at restricting Iran’s land trade as a diversion following President Donald Trump’s Republicans’ losses in midterm elections.

Trump administration favors diplomatic solution, Iran strikes on the table

Speaking to reporters ahead of his departure for France to attend a meeting of G7 foreign ministers, Rubio said, “I have no progress to report. There are several countries that continue to engage with Iran and put forward various ideas, but I would not say that we are on the verge of a breakthrough.”

Rubio said US President Donald Trump continues to favor a diplomatic solution, but acknowledged that Iranian demands remain a major obstacle to reaching an agreement.

Rubio also addressed the possibility of additional US strikes on Iran, saying Washington would act if American forces or shipping in the region came under threat.

Idan Kweller contributed to this report.

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My daughter-in-law’s father, Avraham, is a deeply observant man, and as Zionist as anyone I have met in this country.

As a young man in the early 1980s, Avraham set out from Ethiopia for Sudan with his family. Men, women, and babies walked into the unknown, through desert, past bandits, hunger, and disease.

Guides they paid often robbed them and abandoned them in the desert with nothing. They kept walking. He lost his stepfather and two brothers on the way.

Then he waited three years in a Sudanese refugee camp, where he had to hide his Jewish identity, for the opportunity to realize his Zionist dream.

While he waited, the Mossad was running one of the strangest operations in its history. Through a front company, its agents leased an abandoned Sudanese diving resort called Arous and ran it as a real hotel, with paying tourists.

At night, staff slipped away to collect Beta Israel Jews and drive them to the beach, where Israeli naval commandos took them out to a waiting ship. It ran from 1981 to 1985 and depended on Beta Israel activists like Ferede Aklum, who coordinated escapes from the camps.

Avraham was one of the Jews those commandos carried to the ship.

His stepfather and brothers are among the roughly 4,000 Beta Israel who died on the road to Sudan or in its refugee camps. Only about 1,500 of them have been named.

On November 9, Avraham will do what he does every year: he and his family will ride with much of their community to Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv promenade, which looks out over the Temple Mount.

The Kessim, the community’s priests, will lead the prayers and read from the Orit, its scripture. When the fast ends, the dancing starts.

Sigd falls 50 days after Yom Kippur, on the 29th of Heshvan. Tradition ties it to the covenant renewed in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. In Ethiopia, the community climbed a mountain to fast, pray toward Jerusalem, and ask to be returned there.

In 2008, the Knesset made Sigd a state holiday in a law sponsored by Uri Ariel and backed by Shas and Meretz. If any date on the Jewish calendar has earned the title “most Zionist,” except for possibly Hanukkah, it is this one.

It is also a problem for anyone who calls Zionism a “European colonial project.”

In 1862, 34 years before Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State, a Beta Israel named Abba Mahari set out for Jerusalem with thousands of followers. They believed the waters would part for them as they had for Moses.

At the Tekeze River, it did not. Many drowned or starved. The Beta Israel had no congress in Basel and no Balfour Declaration.

For centuries, they observed Shabbat and the purity laws in the villages of Gondar and Tigray, under heavy pressure to convert, and they kept trying to go home.

That their Jewishness ever needed a rabbinic ruling is a stain on our religious establishment. In 1973, Sephardi chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled that they were Jews, descendants of the tribe of Dan.

Even so, the Chief Rabbinate demanded that new arrivals undergo symbolic conversion, including ritual immersion.

It took years of protest, including a month-long sit-in outside the Chief Rabbinate in 1985, to make the rabbis back down. Many of the protesters had just survived Sudan.

Israel’s own doing

Operation Moses flew about 8,000 out of Sudan between November 1984 and January 1985. Operation Solomon brought more than 14,000 from Addis Ababa in 36 hours in 1991.

The Beta Israel story is typical of how modern Israel was built: by Jews fleeing Russian pogroms, Holocaust survivors with no homes to return to, and most of the roughly 850,000 Jews driven out of the Arab and Muslim world.

Operation Magic Carpet flew about 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel in 1949 and 1950. Operation Ezra and Nehemiah brought more than 120,000 Iraqi Jews in 1951 and 1952.

Colonialists have a mother country to return to. These Jews had none, and in the lands they fled, they had always been outsiders.

The “white settler” caricature only works if you erase Jewish history, not only in Kyiv and Warsaw, but in Sana’a, Baghdad, and Gondar. The Western campus activists chanting “decolonize” have no answer for my daughter-in-law’s father, so they ignore him or lie about him.

The unfinished part of this story is Israel’s own doing.

At a discussion in the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee on February 10, the figure cited was 19,000 people waiting to immigrate from Ethiopia. Many have waited about 20 years.

Many have parents, siblings, or children here who live as Jews in every sense of the word, and they still have not been reunited. Since their ancestors were forced or pressured into Christianity, they do not qualify under the Law of Return.

They come only when the cabinet approves a quota of a few hundred or a couple of thousand at a time.

In 2002, Rabbi Yosef ruled that these converts had acted out of fear and persecution and should be considered Jews. The waiting community studies Hebrew and holds what is billed as the world’s largest Seder in Gondar. Israel still requires them to undergo a full Orthodox conversion on arrival, and they do.

Ukraine shows what the state can do when it wants to. When Russia invaded in 2022, Israel rightly opened its doors. Of the roughly 14,000 people who immigrated from Ukraine the following year, about 8,500 were not Jewish under the Chief Rabbinate’s criteria.

They qualified automatically under the Law of Return’s grandchild clause, which requires one Jewish grandparent and no observance, no Hebrew, and no waiting list.

When fighting engulfed Gondar in 2023, Israel evacuated just over 200 people. The waiting lists stayed behind.

A grandchild in Kharkiv who may never have entered a synagogue gets a rescue flight.

A woman in Gondar who has fasted on Sigd every year of her life, whose children already live here as Jews, gets a number in a queue. No honest reading of Jewish law or Zionist history justifies that.

The 26th Knesset is sworn in on November 10, the day after Sigd.

Whoever forms the next government should write one commitment into its coalition guidelines: complete the aliyah of the remaining Jews in Ethiopia by a funded deadline, and reunite every family split between Gondar and Israel, with no more quotas doled out a few hundred at a time.

Israel was built by Jews who never stopped waiting for Jerusalem. On Sigd, thousands of them will stand on that ridge and look at it. The state should stop making their families wait.

The writer is a contributing opinion writer for The Jerusalem Post and other Jewish publications, as well as an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former New York Police Department officer.

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“They tried to remove his cross tattoo. They tortured him. They had him crucified the whole time that he was there,” the fiancée of Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek, an Egyptian convert to Christianity who faces the possibility of execution, told The Jerusalem Post, describing the abuse he has endured after being charged as punishment for leaving Islam.

Abdelrazek was arrested in July 2025 and has been detained by Egyptian authorities since then. His lawyer, Said Fayez, confirmed on Tuesday that Egyptian prosecutors are pursuing the “maximum penalty,” either execution or 25 years in prison. According to the NGO Coptic Solidarity, Abdelrazek faces charges of contempt for Islam, inciting public disorder, disseminating false information, and joining a banned terrorist organization that allegedly does not exist.

Fayez’s office has asserted that the terrorist organization authorities have accused him of belonging to is entirely fictitious and that the charges actually stem from his refusal to “renounce Jesus.” Sophia has also confirmed that Egyptian authorities have yet to identify the alleged terrorist organization and further alleged that at least 180 other Christians are being held by the authorities on similarly dubious charges.

Australian-Egyptian citizen Sophia met Abdelrazek on social media, where they both regularly posted about Christianity and amassed sizable followings. The two quickly fell in love, meeting in person for the first time in 2021.

Born into a Muslim family, Abdelrazek first encountered Christianity after noticing an open Bible at a neighbor’s shop. The passage he came across was the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. He initially reacted angrily to what he read, but continued thinking about the passage and returned to the shop a few days later to speak with a part-time reverend.

Baptized after studying Bible with Protestant church

He subsequently began studying the Bible with a Protestant Baptist church and, over time, became convinced of the faith and requested baptism, Sophia explained. Although his initial request was denied, he was eventually baptized around 2017.

Sophia said that, having grown up in a religiously observant Muslim family, Abdelrazek had never previously felt safe asking questions about his faith. Christianity offered him the freedom to question, explore, and seek answers in a way he had not experienced before.

Life became difficult when his journey of faith became public. Sophia explained that it was Abdelrazek’s own mother who initially reported him to the security services after he announced his conversion to Christianity. She said authorities spent hours attempting to pressure him into returning to his parents’ faith. His mother also took away his then-wife and son, fearing that he would lead them toward Christianity.

He was first arrested in 2023 for allegedly posting videos depicting the desecration of the Quran, for which he served a year-long prison sentence. Following his release, he fled to Russia but was deported despite the Russian High Court having ruled that he could remain in the country and the UNHCR having recognized his asylum case.

Asked why he chose Russia, given that it is not known for respecting international law, Sophia explained that he was unable to reach Australia with his weak passport. His options were therefore Turkey or Russia, and he did not want to live in another Muslim country after everything he had experienced.

After being returned to Egypt in 2024, he was briefly detained by authorities.

“He was tortured. They attempted to remove his cross tattoo and brought him Islamic religious figures. They had him crucified the whole time he was there, not with nails, but by attaching him to a wall. They also played good cop, bad cop with him,” Sophia said.

“They have this really strange idea that there are big organizations out there trying to baptize all the Muslims in Egypt, that there is big money involved, and that he knows all these people. They wanted him to become an informant on other priests and converts. He was also pressured to return to Islam and use his social media accounts to criticize Christianity.”

Authorities released him into the custody of his family on the condition that he return to Islam. When he refused, they instead required him to attend classes on Islam.

While living at his family home, Abdelrazek was subjected to escalating levels of emotional and religious abuse, Sophia said. He was repeatedly pressured to perform Islamic prayers five times a day and was eventually “pushed over the edge” when his brother-in-law began dumping pots of water over his face to wake him for early morning prayers at around 5 a.m.

“That was it for him,” she said, recounting how he began borrowing money from friends to rent his own apartment.

Sophia had been scheduled to travel to Egypt in early April 2025, where the couple planned to marry at the Australian Embassy. However, she fell ill, and the trip was postponed. Egyptian authorities subsequently rearrested Abdelrazek after he posted on social media that he intended to try to have his legal religious status changed, preventing the two from finalizing their marriage.

Fiancée launches relentless campaign to secure release

Since his arrest, Sophia has campaigned relentlessly to secure his release, fearing that he could receive the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in 10th of Ramadan Prison. She has faced frequent online abuse and death threats from Egyptian Islamists targeting her. Meanwhile, she pays around 11,000 Egyptian pounds a month to have food and clothing smuggled into the prison so that her fiancé does not go without basic necessities.

“Our lawyer has been able to visit him only once, in January, and we are banned from visiting him ourselves. We are also prohibited from sending him food, clothing, or other basic necessities,” Sophia said.

“I have to go through so many people to get him anything. I rely on other prisoners and their families, and we have to pay exorbitant amounts. It is not cheap. The items have to be smuggled into the prison and kept by other prisoners for a while so that nobody knows they are intended for him before they are eventually handed over.

“The prison where he is being held does not even allow prisoners to socialize with one another. It is not officially a maximum-security prison. The authorities refer to it as a rehabilitation facility, but it is one of the worst in the world.”

Now, Sophia told The Post that she has been forced to pin her hopes on the international community, particularly the US and the Netherlands.

The United States provides Egypt with approximately $1.5 billion in total foreign aid each year, and Sophia hopes that Washington would be willing to condition that aid on Abdelrazek’s release and improvements in the treatment of religious minorities, despite neither she nor her fiancé being American.

She also noted that Egypt has been desperately trying to secure the release of Ahmed Nasser, who was arrested by the Netherlands for having allegedly participated in campaigns of intimidation and threats at various meetings and demonstrations in 2025 and 2026, acting on behalf of a foreign power. She hopes the Netherlands would consider a prisoner exchange, particularly as she and her soon-to-be husband have no intention of residing in the Netherlands or taking resources from the state.

She described such a deal as a “humanitarian favor.”

In the meantime, Sophia and Abdelrazek are waiting for their lawyers to present their defense on December 8, 2026.

Underscoring the importance of the case, Coptic Solidarity said in a statement to The Post that the trial would be a “defining test for the future of religious freedom in Egypt.”

“His case is not isolated. Other Coptic prisoners of conscience, including Christian scholar Dr. Augustinos Samaan, Romany Gharib Adly Azer, Sherif Wagih Fahmi, and six young Christians detained over a comedy video, face imprisonment or prosecution under blasphemy and national-security provisions. Together, these cases reveal an alarming trajectory in which Egypt increasingly weaponizes its legal system to punish religious conversion, peaceful expression, and criticism of Islam,” CS continued.

“This escalating crackdown stands in stark contrast to the Egyptian government’s extensive lobbying and religious influence campaigns in Washington, which promote a carefully cultivated image of religious tolerance while obscuring the realities faced by Christians.

“The outcome of Said’s trial will have consequences far beyond one individual. A severe sentence could establish a dangerous precedent for the prosecution of religious converts and embolden authorities to pursue similarly harsh penalties against other Coptic prisoners of conscience. It will also signal whether Egyptians have any meaningful right to leave Islam and practice another religion without risking imprisonment under terrorism laws.” 

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A French foreign ministry assessment found that social media accounts linked to Israel and the US MAGA movement pushed “hostile narratives” about last month’s riots in France, linking the unrest to radical Islamism and migration, according to an internal report seen by Reuters.

The assessment found that the 10 most-viewed X posts from Israeli officials, government accounts, media outlets and influencers received more than 35 million views between October 16 and 18.

The 10 most-viewed X posts on France’s unrest by MAGA-linked officials, media outlets and influencers received more than 49 million views during the same period, according to the French ministry report.

The figures far exceeded those recorded for accounts described as belonging to “pro-Russian spheres,” whose 10 most-viewed X posts on the unrest received 2.8 million views from October 16 to 18.

A separate internal EU assessment seen by Reuters found that a covert Russian network sought to exploit the riots by using social media to blame the unrest on uncontrolled immigration and portray the French government as having lost control.

Taken together, the assessments offer an insight into how external actors have been trying to use France’s domestic turmoil for their own political ends, according to analysis by European disinformation specialists.

The European Union analysis found that a covert Russian network known as “Operation Overload” spread videos impersonating Western media outlets to target French audiences, some falsely claiming migrants had raped protesters or terrorist attacks were imminent.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. In August, ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova rejected allegations by a French state watchdog agency of spreading disinformation about France’s 2027 elections and said they would “not be the last concoction which the authorities will use to manipulate public opinion.”

Rioting erupted in cities across France last month as demonstrations against rising living costs and declining public services spiraled out of control in some of the worst violence the country has witnessed for decades.

The EU analysis, which covers the period from October 7 to 21, found that Russia sought to “depict the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian.”

“Such events offer opportunities to undermine national governments, fuel fear and division, and shape public perceptions ahead of elections,” said the restricted-circulation EU document, prepared by disinformation experts in the bloc’s diplomatic service.

It found no evidence that Moscow or other actors had instigated or escalated the protests, describing the activity as “the opportunistic exploitation of unrest.”

Campaigns are part of ‘narrative competition,’ expert says

Elina Treyger, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation think tank, said such campaigns wage a slow-burning “narrative competition” that over time can shape how Western democracies are seen in Europe and beyond.

Treyger said they feed an anti-immigrant backlash that is pushing European voters toward political extremes.

Reuters was not able to independently verify assertions made in either the French or the EU report.

Asked for comment, French officials referred Reuters to remarks by President Emmanuel Macron, who said on October 21 there had been no visible foreign interference behind the protests, but there had been “foreign manipulation of information.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

EU cites ‘Operation Overload’ as Russian-aligned effort to discredit West

The EU report said “Operation Overload,” active since September 2023, has targeted Western “public figures, institutions, and media outlets” to “discredit these entities and their support for Ukraine while promoting content aligned with Russian interests.”

Its activity “also intended to undermine European support to Ukraine by claiming that European governments prioritize Ukraine over domestic issues,” the report said.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a Britain-based think tank, said in a report last year that Operation Overload was “a persistent and high-volume Russian information operation. It impersonates trusted sources to sow discord, confusion and distrust.”

“The operation creates and posts videos that appear to be news reports, uses AI to clone experts’ voices, forges newspaper headlines, and manipulates images,” the institute said, adding that it “pivots from country to country to exploit crises and debates.”

France’s disinformation watchdog Viginum published a detailed report on Overload and similar Russian operations in 2024, and French officials have said they resurface during protests, elections or other opportunities to discredit France.

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Leaders of the COP31 climate summit urged the world to accelerate the fight against global warming as rising temperatures and an increasing number of climate-driven disasters threaten lives and the global economy, as the annual meeting began in Turkey on Monday.

The comments at the start of the two-week UN conference were an appeal to governments to focus on climate, even as other international crises from war to soaring inflation and the uncertainty of AI compete for their attention.

“The urgency of this moment must drive us forward,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in prepared remarks for the opening of the event on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, adding that progress so far was “nowhere near fast enough.”

A report by the United Nations Environment Program published in October said the world was already set to overshoot 1.5C of warming above pre-industrial times, the threshold set at the 2015 Paris climate summit to avoid the worst consequences of warming.

This year is on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño, a UN report showed on Monday. 2026 has also stood out with a series of extreme heatwaves across Western Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal that triggered a catastrophic flood killing more than 1,450 people, with thousands still ​missing.

Aims to power third of global economy by 2035

Turkey’s COP31 presidency has focused this year’s summit on a goal to electrify more than a third of the global economy by 2035, up from around a fifth today. It is asking nations to sign on to a pledge supporting that target.

Theoretically, such a goal could help reduce planet-warming emissions by speeding the global shift away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, furnaces, boilers, cooking stoves, and other greenhouse gas-emitting equipment.

“We want people to feel the results of climate talks in daily life: in buildings that use less energy, in clean public transport, in energy they can afford and in new jobs,” Turkey’s COP31 President Murat Kurum said in prepared remarks.

But climate advocates have criticized the pledge because it does not require the additional electricity to come from low-carbon sources, setting up an early fight over whether electrification alone should count as climate progress.

War and technology

The Iran war has underscored the world’s attachment to fossil fuels, as has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions on Moscow’s energy exports, though some say the wars have also shown the benefits of moving to renewables.

The Iran war, now in its ninth month, severely disrupted Middle East oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting fuel prices around the globe and prompting a scramble for new supplies.

US President Donald Trump’s administration, which is shunning climate talks for the second year running, has encouraged policies maximizing oil, gas, and coal production to address the Middle East disruptions.

South Korea, India, Thailand and other Asian nations, meanwhile, have also increased their reliance on coal or taken steps to boost coal-fired power generation.

“A lot of people who previously might have been embarrassed to argue for continuing very high use of fossil fuel are now feeling empowered to make that case,” said John Holdren of Harvard University, who was a science adviser to Barack Obama when he was US president.

At the same time, the deployment of renewable energy has also risen, driven by surging exports of cheap clean tech from China, cheering advocates for ambitious climate action.

Stiell told the summit renewables were the clear answer to improving energy security.

“This year’s fossil fuel cost chaos has delivered a global shockwave, hitting households hard and spreading inflation like a cancer,” he said.

“But the solutions are clear,” he added, saying renewable energy installations had saved the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars.

The rapid rollout of AI is also complicating talks, driving a surge in global power demand and contributing to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Turkey will call on governments, businesses and other institutions at COP31 to sign a pledge outlining principles to ensure AI is developed and deployed sustainably.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s president of COP31 negotiations, said he hoped the conference would show the world that multilateralism works.

“Paris is working,” he said, referring to the landmark 2015 deal to limit global warming. “But we must move faster.”

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Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. Danny Levi on Monday asked Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to allow a broad round of police appointments to proceed, even though National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has not yet signed off on them, as procedure requires.

The request escalates the crisis between Ben-Gvir and Levi. The appointments were decided several weeks ago.

As national security minister, Ben-Gvir oversees the Israel Police, holds final authority over senior police appointments, and must sign them for them to take effect. In September, he told Levi there would be no further senior officer appointments until after the October 27 election, except in exceptional cases.

Maariv learned that Levi made the request because of an urgent need to fill a series of senior command posts left without permanent commanders, including district, subdistrict (regional), and police station commanders. Levi believes the delay is hurting the police’s functioning and continuity of command, and that key posts can no longer be left empty.

The timing of the request is especially notable, coming a day after Ben-Gvir harshly criticized Levi, whom he himself appointed to lead the police.

In an interview on Sunday, Ben-Gvir claimed that Levi is “captive” to the attorney-general and alleged that the commissioner had committed building violations. According to the minister, the attorney-general has not taken action against Levi over the matter. The claims are unproven, but the fact that the minister aired them publicly shows how deep the rift between the two has become.

Levi appointed in 2024 at Ben-Gvir’s recommendation

Levi was appointed police commissioner in August 2024, at Ben-Gvir’s recommendation. Now, the commissioner Ben-Gvir handpicked is in open conflict with him, to the point of turning to the attorney-general to push through appointments the minister has not approved.

Among the appointments awaiting approval is a commander for a district that has been without a permanent head since Asst.-Ch. Amir Cohen retired from the police. The district is currently being run by its deputy commander, but Levi believes a permanent commander must be appointed immediately.

Also pending are appointments of subdistrict and station commanders across the country, including in the Ayalon subdistrict in the Tel Aviv area, whose commander is expected to retire in the coming days. Other posts opened up after officers retired, commanders’ terms ended, and others were removed from the police command staff.

Levi has said in various conversations and forums that he intends to keep moving forward with the appointments despite the difficulty in getting them approved. As he sees it, this is an organizational and operational need that cannot wait, especially since some of the posts involve commanding key units and subdistricts.

Levi: Ben-Gvir is deliberately delaying the appointments because of strained relationship

Levi believes Ben-Gvir is deliberately delaying the appointments because of the strained relationship. The request to the attorney-general is meant to explore a legal way to advance the appointments without the minister’s signature.

This has created an unusual situation, in which a commissioner appointed by the national security minister is seeking legal help from the same attorney-general whom the minister attacked just a day earlier for allegedly holding the commissioner “captive.”

Ben-Gvir had not responded to the commissioner’s request as of publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Google.org awarded Clalit Health Services a $2 million grant to develop an artificial intelligence-powered system to help patients access healthcare services, the organizations said Tuesday.

The two-year funding will support development of a conversational AI platform that Clalit, Israel’s largest healthcare provider, says will serve its roughly five million members by helping patients schedule appointments, complete pre-visit intake processes, and receive follow-up guidance in multiple languages.

According to Clalit, the system will use voice-based AI and large language models to communicate with patients in regional dialects and spoken languages that are not always well served by conventional digital health platforms.

The project is aimed in part at addressing barriers faced by patients with limited internet access or who use devices that cannot easily support web-based healthcare services. Clalit said the platform will be accessible through standard mobile phones and landlines as well as internet-connected devices.

The healthcare provider said the system would also conduct automated symptom intake and triage before appointments to reduce administrative workloads and save time for medical staff.

Healthcare organizations worldwide have increasingly adopted AI tools to automate routine patient interactions and administrative tasks, although questions remain across the industry about accuracy, oversight, privacy protection, and the handling of sensitive medical information.

Clalit said the platform will operate on Google Cloud infrastructure and that patient interactions will be encrypted, anonymized, and protected through a zero-trust security framework.

The organization plans to begin with a pilot program before expanding the service nationally. Clalit also said it intends to release portions of the system’s architecture and cultural-adaptation frameworks as open-source tools that could be used by public health organizations elsewhere.

Clalit has approximately 60,000 employees and serves more than half of Israel’s population through 14 hospitals, two mental health centers, and more than 1,600 community clinics.

“Our commitment to every person, from every community and every background, is the beating heart of our work. With support from Google.org and Google Cloud, Clalit can harness the most advanced technology in the world to ensure that every patient receives the best care, in their language and in a way that is tailored to them,” said Prof. Eitan Wirtheim, CEO of Clalit.

“The model we are developing here in Israel is intended to eventually become an open-source architecture, which will be available to healthcare organizations worldwide to allow everyone to replicate the model and ensure accessible medicine for all,” he added.

Boaz Maoz, managing director of Google Cloud Israel, said the project could provide a model for using conversational AI to expand access to healthcare services.

“AI has the potential to solve some of healthcare’s most persistent access barriers,” he said. “By deploying secure, conversational AI tailored to local dialects and unique communication channels, Clalit is ensuring that the benefits of digital health reach every community. 

“We are proud to support this initiative on Google Cloud, establishing a scalable model for inclusive, equitable care worldwide.”

This post was originally published on here. 

As companies increasingly integrate artificial intelligence into their operations, Israeli start-up Zeroport believes that the next major cybersecurity challenge will be keeping autonomous AI systems under control.

Founded in 2024 by CEO Joseph Gertz and CTO Lavi Friedman, Zeroport has developed a hardware-based security platform designed to sit between AI systems and enterprise networks, creating a physical layer that can block unauthorized activity before it reaches critical infrastructure.

The company believes that traditional cybersecurity solutions were designed primarily to protect against human users and external attackers. The growing use of AI agents capable of independently accessing systems, processing information, and executing tasks is creating a different security challenge.

“The security industry has spent decades building software to defend against software,” Gertz told The Jerusalem Post. “But AI changes the equation. If these systems become capable enough, then software-based controls are no longer enough.”

Gertz recounted that, like many other start-ups over the past three years, the idea emerged during reserve military service in May 2024, when he and Friedman began discussing the implications of rapidly advancing AI capabilities after they identified a potential gap in existing security systems.

Their approach was to move security enforcement from software into physical infrastructure.

“We saw that we needed to build a solution that brings together something physical, whereas other companies are trying to do that with software,” Gertz said. With their technology, “whatever AI tries to do, it will meet a physical wall and not just software that it can get around.”

He explained that at the center of Zeroport’s technology is a proprietary hardware component built around custom-designed chips and circuit boards developed by a team of electrical engineers and hardware specialists. The devices are installed at the boundary between cloud environments, data centers, and enterprise networks. Acting as an independent security checkpoint, they monitor activity crossing that boundary and can physically interrupt connections when an AI system attempts to perform an unauthorized action.

Rather than relying exclusively on software instructions to stop an agent, Zeroport’s system is designed to enforce restrictions at the hardware level. Zeroport’s hardware is positioned between the AI environment and the organization’s internal systems. 

Gertz compares the technology to a drawbridge protecting a castle, telling the Post that “if an anomaly is detected, a drawbridge goes up. The connection is physically interrupted.”

It’s “like a physical kill switch any time an agent does something you don’t want it to do,” he said.

The technology is intended to address concerns surrounding agentic AI, where systems are capable of independently making decisions and carrying out tasks with limited human supervision. And with companies increasingly relying on software-based technology to restrict AI activity, Zeroport believes that those protections may become insufficient as AI systems grow more capable.

Gertz explained that one emerging concern is what is known as “agentic drift,” in which an AI agent receives a legitimate instruction but gradually expands its activities beyond the original task. For example, an agent initially authorized to analyze a company’s network could attempt to access additional systems, information, or workflows that were not part of its original task.

The company believes enterprises will increasingly face a choice between allowing external AI agents to operate within their networks and building their own AI infrastructure, including dedicated computing capacity.

Preparing for the quantum age

Building a hardware-based cybersecurity company presents different challenges from developing a software product, particularly in terms of engineering, manufacturing, and investment. But Gertz believes that as enterprises deploy increasingly powerful AI models, security mechanisms must be capable of operating independently of the systems they are designed to control.

“Building the layer of hardware enables you to make sure you are the one that makes sure the agent does what you want it to,” he said, adding that “software is the brain.”

The emergence of sufficiently powerful quantum computers could undermine many of the encryption protocols currently used to secure digital communications, creating additional challenges for companies managing sensitive data and infrastructure.

Gertz said Zeroport has developed a symmetric encryption protocol that does not rely on transmission over the Internet and is incorporating encryption designed to withstand future quantum threats. That would allow the company to make sure that its products remain relevant as quantum computing capabilities advance over the coming decade.

The start-up says it has already secured over a dozen customers around the world, including data centers, Fortune 1000 companies, and organizations building AI computing infrastructure. Zeroport has also raised backing from investors including Lool Ventures, Fusion Fund, and Clarim Ventures.

This post was originally published on here. 

Dozens of mayors and municipal leaders from around the world gathered in Jerusalem on Sunday evening to commemorate the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, as US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged them to challenge misinformation about Israel by sharing their firsthand experiences of the country.

The candle-lighting ceremony took place during the opening of the 35th International Mayors Conference, organized by the American Jewish Congress (AJC), bringing together local leaders to strengthen international ties and explore cooperation in technology, innovation, and economic development.

The commemoration marked 88 years since the Nazi pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, which marked a major escalation in the persecution of European Jews in the years preceding the Holocaust.

Mayors from several countries participated in the ceremony, lighting memorial candles to remember the victims. 

Huckabee calls on mayors to see Israel firsthand

Addressing the international delegation, Huckabee emphasized the importance of visiting Israel and forming independent impressions rather than relying on narratives circulating abroad.

“There are so many crazy things being said about Israel around the world that simply aren’t true. Israel needs more people to come here, see the reality with their own eyes, and then go home and simply tell people what they saw.”

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, pointed to the influence municipal leaders can have on public attitudes and policy, drawing on his experience in local and state government.

“Mayors and governors have one thing in common: we actually get things done. You can wake up in the morning with an idea and have it implemented by the end of the day.”

The ambassador said the ability of local officials to translate ideas into action also carries significant leadership responsibilities, particularly in confronting prejudice and promoting cooperation between communities.

Huckabee has repeatedly emphasized the importance of US-Israel cooperation, describing the countries as partners whose relationship extends beyond diplomatic and security interests.

Turning to Israel’s economy, Huckabee praised the country’s technological achievements and resilience despite years of war and international campaigns advocating boycotts and sanctions.

“Instead of the world simply saying thank you to Israel for the technologies and innovations it provides, there are countries seeking to boycott and sanction it. That’s crazy. What we should have here is a genuine partnership.”

His remarks reflected the conference’s broader focus on developing practical partnerships between Israeli innovators and municipal governments abroad.

Conference to promote innovation and municipal partnerships

AJC president Daniel Rosen said the gathering was intended to foster lasting relationships between international municipal leaders and Israel, with an emphasis on translating those connections into practical cooperation.

“Over the coming days, mayors from around the world will experience innovation born out of necessity. This visit is an opportunity to build trust and personal relationships that will endure long after it ends,” he said.

“Our goal is for these mayors to return home with a deeper connection to Israel and a genuine interest in pursuing joint initiatives, from adopting technologies that improve residents’ lives to developing economic and educational partnerships.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The Israel Prison Service (IPS) is implementing sweeping changes to inmate rehabilitation, prison security and the responsibilities of correctional officers, including behavioral rehabilitation programs designed to prepare prisoners for reintegration into society, senior officials told Maariv during a visit to Dekel Prison.

Inmate R. is expected to be released from the prison where he is serving his sentence in approximately four months, provided everything goes according to plan and in accordance with a decision by the parole board. One of the main conditions for his release is meeting the requirements of the Behavioral Pattern Modification Department in Wing 5 of Dekel Prison.

The department, known by its Hebrew acronym SHADEH, focuses on changing behavior patterns.

Prisoners housed in the department who have agreed to participate in its educational rehabilitation program “receive things here that they have not received anywhere else,” Dekel Prison commander Chief Superintendent Shahar Raymond explained to Maariv.

“There is an educational center here and an attention center for prisoners with attention deficit disorders. We do not treat them with Ritalin here. It is all about the personal work of each and every inmate,” she added.

Discipline a part of rehabilitation

Slightly more than 20 inmates are sitting in the department’s recreation room on the second floor, holding a farewell gathering for one of their fellow prisoners.

As in other places, the farewell gathering at the rehabilitation department includes light refreshments, such as wafers, cookies, and Bamba peanut snacks.

When Raymond enters, they all rise together.

“This is part of the discipline they adopt for themselves as part of their rehabilitation process,” she explained.

The towering R. is eagerly awaiting his conditional release, and the prospect occupies much of his thoughts.

“We hardly talked about the elections here,” he told Maariv. “Only on voting day. We are interested in other things, things related to life in prison,” he said.

“Now I listen more, including to my children and my family. I learned that in the department.”

R. is incarcerated for domestic violence offenses.

Such violence can manifest itself in abusive treatment of a woman, children, or other family members.

Prisoners in the rehabilitation department must meet several requirements that may appear relatively simple to an outside observer.

These include obeying the law and conducting themselves according to accepted social and cultural norms.

“They have difficulty adapting to this,” Raymond said. “Not long ago, there was a case of a prisoner who was certain that the parole board would recommend shortening his sentence. That did not happen. He did not meet the minimum requirements of the behavioral modification program.”

The road to release begins with changing habits

What exactly do these requirements involve?

They include obeying rules and consistently following them, maintaining appropriate behavior throughout every day, participating in a supplementary educational program that includes open group discussions, working and taking part in maintenance duties in their living quarters.

Essentially, these are basic standards that most people adopt in their everyday lives.

“They did not live according to these standards outside prison. Here, they are given an opportunity to meet them and live by them so that society will accept them as people with equal rights,” Raymond added.

Another inmate, A., was called away from a group of prisoners working at a branch of a factory from southern Israel operating inside the prison.

For him, too, events taking place beyond the prison walls are of little interest.

“We talk about life here, in prison. The subject of the elections did not come up at all. We focus on what needs to be done during the period before release.”

Dekel Prison houses 700 inmates.

These are not the most dangerous prisoners, but rather individuals sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years.

About 40% participate in educational activities, primarily religious studies, or work in factory branches established within the prison walls.

These facilities manufacture simple products, including soap, wipes, military clothing, and reflective safety vests. During the war, many of the working prisoners were involved in repairing and restoring sleeping bags.

The remaining prisoners prefer to get up for the morning roll call and then return to sleep or remain absorbed in their own thoughts.

“Some of the people who arrive here are serving sentences for traffic offenses that caused fatal accidents. Their trials lasted a long time, during which they had already undergone rehabilitation and returned to their normal lives. Suddenly, they find themselves behind bars, forced to deal with prison conditions,” Raymond explained.

These inmates also include people convicted of negligence that caused fatal accidents or other deadly incidents, who begin serving their sentences years after the events occurred.

Wing 5 of Dekel Prison clearly reflects the changes that have taken place throughout Israel’s prison and detention system.

Although inmates are required to maintain discipline, the conditions in their living quarters and surrounding environment make their isolation from society somewhat easier.

One example of this discipline is the requirement to walk between designated lines when moving in groups to work, educational, or social activities.

These gatherings take place in shared spaces, such as recreation rooms or dining halls.

No longer prison guards: The changing role of correctional officers

The prison dining hall is air-conditioned, orderly, and relatively pleasant. It also includes a kitchen and food storage facilities, such as refrigerators.

Some inmates are permitted to keep appliances, including televisions and radios, in their cells.

Those responsible for the prison departments and wings are now called correctional officers, rather than prison guards.

“There is a difference between what the Israel Prison Service looked like three years ago and what it looks like now,” explained IPS Southern District commander Commissioner Yuval Erlich, 46, who has held the position for nine months.

Erlich is deeply committed to the organization’s transformation.

“I joined the organization in 2007. I served as a team commander in the Nahshon Unit, was commander of Tzalmon Prison, head of the Training Division and a district operations officer before I came to command the district.”

IPS personnel now wear their uniforms with undisguised pride, and their ranks include many female correctional officers.

Raymond reinforced his remarks.

“There has recently been a significant increase in the number of women joining this role,” she said.

Erlich went on to describe changes to the equipment and protective gear used by correctional officers, as well as the risks of the work.

“The officers have received advanced operational and protective equipment, such as Taser stun guns, which every officer is equipped with. They are better trained to engage directly when necessary and to enforce authority and discipline.

“It is important to remember and understand that, unlike a combat soldier or police officer who disengages after participating in operations, a correctional officer lives alongside the prisoners and remains close to them.

“He looks the most brutal terrorists directly in the eyes. He is in constant contact with dangerous criminals, including those who would not hesitate to harm him and, if they knew who he was, even his family.”

In recent years, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and IPS Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, the Israel Prison Service has undergone major organizational changes.

Advanced operational divisions have been established to facilitate the management of prisoners while maintaining inmate security and providing support to outside agencies responsible for public safety.

Advanced technological systems have also been introduced, enabling continuous monitoring of activities inside prison wings and facilities, as well as their effects beyond prison walls.

These efforts include more effective and closely monitored measures to prevent prisoners from directing terrorist and criminal activities from behind bars.

“Simply putting a criminal behind bars is not enough. If he directs crime or terrorism while incarcerated, that must be stopped, and discipline must be enforced,” Erlich said.

“If we do not ensure that leaders of criminal organizations or prisoners incarcerated for domestic violence receive treatment and are subject to disciplinary enforcement, and the prisoner continues threatening his partner or children, we have accomplished nothing.

“To a large extent, these activities reflect the broader responsibilities of the service as a partner in ensuring public safety.”

Senior IPS officials described cases in which they monitored intelligence gathered inside prisons and passed it to the relevant authorities, saving numerous lives.

Concrete walls, a new women’s prison and the fight against organized crime

The adjoining prison complex, which includes Eshel Prison, Dekel Prison and the Oz detention facilities, is expected to undergo two additional major changes.

Under instructions from the IPS commissioner, a reinforced concrete perimeter wall approximately four kilometers long and three meters high will be built around the complex.

Electronic identification and sensor systems will be installed along the wall to detect attempts to enter or leave the compound.

To prepare for the project, Bedouin residents living in tent encampments and makeshift tin structures immediately adjacent to the prison complex have been removed from the surrounding area.

In addition, under instructions from IPS Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, a new women’s prison, Neve Tirza, will be established within the complex.

To prevent criminal organizations from establishing themselves inside prison wings, IPS commanders continually transfer criminals between facilities within the district and elsewhere.

These transfers primarily involve the heads of criminal organizations, including figures associated with the Zaguri and Latif organizations, who have been imprisoned for several years.

The aim is to prevent them from creating areas of control within the prison system.

Erlich, who is married with three children and lives with his family in northern Israel, is also responsible for improving and expanding the district’s prison facilities.

“Kfir Saharonim Prison will be rebuilt and brought back into service after Neve Tirza is constructed,” he said.

He added: “This is intended to improve the living conditions of prisoners, who will have more spacious living quarters, and also those of service personnel, for whom prison buildings serve as a living environment for extended periods.”

The IPS has also changed inmates’ living conditions.

Prisoners classified as security inmates now live under significantly stricter and more restrictive conditions.

They remain in their cells for 23 hours a day and are permitted to leave for just one hour of exercise daily.

They receive food in accordance with legal requirements, while services and privileges such as family visits, the ability to organize under an established leadership structure, the appointment of a spokesperson, and the use of communal dining halls have been eliminated.

Meals are eaten inside their cells.

Criminal prisoners and inmates in other categories, meanwhile, may purchase products from the prison commissary, receive visitors, and participate in the educational system described earlier.

They are also offered opportunities to further their education or acquire professional skills.

Additional measures have focused on activities originating inside prisons that affect the outside world, as well as extensive improvements to the working conditions of correctional officers.

For example, mechanisms have been examined and introduced to prevent various forms of celebration upon release.

Procedures for bringing equipment into prisons have been reorganized, and the systems used to communicate with family members and others have been improved.

“Correctional officers have advanced, modern tactical equipment and accessories,” Erlich explained.

“Additional weapons have been introduced, and officers have been authorized to cover their faces during various operations inside cells and to remove their name tags.

“All of this is intended to improve our ability to maintain control and enforce discipline in the cells and prison wings.”

And what about inmates R. and A.?

They will continue waiting for their release, one for a relatively short period and the other for a

longer one.

In the meantime, they are learning to adapt to the new, effective, and beneficial behavioral modification requirements.

This post was originally published on here. 

The gunman who killed six people in central Krakow on Saturday in Poland’s unprecedented mass shooting has died in hospital, police said early on Monday.

Six people were killed, and 16 were wounded in the attack on Saturday in the city’s historic main square.

One of the people who died was identified as a British citizen and another as Austrian, while five foreign nationals from Austria, Germany, Portugal, Russia and Britain were among the wounded.

In the suspect’s hometown, Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, about 200 km (124 miles) north of Krakow, police later found the bodies of his parents and sister at his home.

Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Daniel Prokopowicz said it was “highly likely” that the killings in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski and Krakow were carried out by the same person, but that investigations were ongoing.

The three bodies found there had gunshot wounds, and seven firearms and a “significant” quantity of ammunition were recovered from the property, Prokopowicz added.

Far-right label questioned by opposition

Some nationalist politicians questioned a statement by Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski on Saturday that the attack was likely inspired by far-right ideology.

“If Kierwinski has misinformed the public, he should face political consequences. We demand immediate explanations and access to information what he had based his statements on,” Przemyslaw Czarnek, deputy head of the conservative opposition PiS party, wrote on X/Twitter.

The suspect belonged to a shooting club, but little more information about him has come to light so far.

This post was originally published on here. 

America’s midterm defeat has revived an extraordinary proposition: that the world’s most powerful country is somehow at the mercy of one of its most dependent allies.

The Republican defeat in the midterms has produced a fascinating spectacle: the political establishment of a global superpower increasingly portraying itself as the victim of a small, dependent Middle Eastern ally.

US Vice President JD Vance attributes the defeat to the Iran war and calls for reconsidering America’s relationship with Israel. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, announced on election day that nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel would end, partly because supporting Israel had become a political liability.

The familiar narrative is gathering momentum: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dragged America into a war, Israel exercises disproportionate influence over Washington, and Americans are paying the price.

This argument is profoundly contradictory. The United States possesses the world’s most formidable military and intelligence apparatus, coupled with immense economic leverage and an unrivalled capacity to project power.

Yet we are supposed to believe that a country of roughly 10 million people, heavily dependent on American military and diplomatic support, can somehow dictate Washington’s strategic decisions.

Netanyahu can indeed pitch his case to Trump, much like a start-up founder pitches a venture capitalist. He can present intelligence, articulate the opportunity, emphasize the risks of inaction, and try to convince his audience. 

But a responsible investor conducts his own due diligence and ultimately decides whether to invest. If the investment subsequently collapses, imagine the absurdity of the venture capitalist explaining to his limited partners that the founder “dragged” him into investing.

The founder may have been persuasive, perhaps even misleading. But persuasion does not transfer responsibility. Israel can provide intelligence and strategic assessments. Netanyahu can recommend a course of action, but he cannot order American forces into battle. 

Washington must independently evaluate and assess the situation through its own national security apparatuses before making such consequential decisions. 

The distinction becomes clearer when examining the actual balance of power. Washington can suspend weapons deliveries, withdraw diplomatic protection, restrict cooperation, and impose enormous economic and strategic costs on Israel. 

What comparable instruments does Jerusalem possess against Washington? Very few, if any.

Consider Qatar, which has substantial natural gas resources, has pledged over a trillion dollars in US domestic investments, and hosts a major American military installation. These provide tangible bargaining assets, yet nobody seriously suggests Qatar dictates American foreign policy.

Israel, meanwhile, depends heavily on American military technology, diplomatic protection, and strategic cooperation. Its relationship with Washington is fundamentally asymmetric. The extraordinary claim is not that Israel influences America. It is that the dependent party somehow controls the relationship.

American support for Israel is not necessarily evidence of Israeli influence. It may simply reflect American preferences and convergence of interests. When two countries pursue overlapping goals, their cooperation does not establish that one has manipulated the other.

To infer control from agreement is to confuse correlation with causation. Indeed, the argument becomes almost unfalsifiable. When Washington supports Israel, it supposedly demonstrates Israeli control. When Washington opposes Israel, it merely demonstrates the limits of that control.

What evidence, then, could disprove the theory? History offers useful counterexamples. Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel to withdraw from Sinai in 1956. Barack Obama negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement despite Netanyahu’s vehement opposition. 

The point is not that Israeli advocacy has no effect. It sometimes can. The point is that the US-Israel relationship operates within a balance of power that overwhelmingly favours Washington, and too many in the US seem to have conveniently forgotten it. 

Republicans lost amid dissatisfaction over living costs, the Iran war, political leadership, and domestic governance. Reducing that complicated outcome to Israel offers an explanation that is both politically convenient and intellectually lazy. 

And once Israel becomes a scapegoat for American failures, the narrative risks becoming self-reinforcing. Every unpopular policy associated with Israel becomes further evidence of its supposed influence, regardless of whether Washington independently supported it.

The irony is remarkable: the same political culture that celebrates American sovereignty, strength, and independence increasingly entertains the notion that Washington is helpless before Jerusalem.

America is perfectly entitled to reconsider its relationship with Israel. It can reduce military assistance, impose conditions, pursue different regional strategies, or conclude that particular commitments no longer serve its interests. Those would be sovereign decisions. 

But a superpower cannot simultaneously claim unparalleled power and plead helplessness whenever the consequences of exercising that power become unpopular.

Israel can advise, persuade, and advocate for its interests. But ultimately Washington decides. And if it made the wrong decision, the responsibility ultimately belongs to Washington.

The ability to exercise power without accepting responsibility for it is not sovereignty. It’s an alibi.

This post was originally published on here. 

A series of shootings, grenade attacks, and alleged extortion attempts in Rishon Lezion’s Narkisim neighborhood has raised fears among residents that disputes involving organized crime groups could endanger innocent bystanders, including children and the elderly.

The string of criminal incidents in recent months has left residents fearing that conflicts between criminal elements and attempts to intimidate businesspeople could ultimately result in innocent people being harmed. Grenades thrown at residential buildings, shootings targeting apartment blocks, and threats against businesspeople have become a source of concern for residents who find themselves, through no choice of their own, living near the scenes of criminal disputes.

Alongside the growing concerns, police have been conducting extensive investigative and intelligence operations to identify those involved and bring them into custody. In one case, investigators gathered enough evidence to file indictments against two defendants in a case linked to a dispute between the Musli and Jarushi crime organizations.

The two defendants, residents of Modi’in and Holon, allegedly operated as hired criminals who received payment to carry out offenses. During the investigation, they were also linked to incidents outside Rishon Lezion, including the torching of vehicles in Netanya and the throwing of a stun grenade at a restaurant in Ramat Gan, which caused panic among those present.

Police operations led to their arrest at a gas station on Route 4, followed by the filing of indictments in connection with the incidents.

Despite these investigative successes, several other incidents remain under investigation, particularly amid suspicions of ongoing conflicts between individuals associated with organized crime groups.

Disputes between the Jarushi and Musli crime organizations

Approximately two months ago, a grenade was thrown at the door of an apartment belonging to the wife of convicted criminal Shlomi Niamchik, who is serving a prison sentence. The incident caused panic among residents of the building and nearby neighbors, who were exposed to a violent attack in the heart of their residential surroundings.

Another incident occurred in the same building overnight between Saturday and Sunday, this time involving gunfire directed at the lobby.

Once again, the shooting caused alarm among neighbors, who fear that the building has become a recurring target for criminal activity and that one of the residents could eventually be harmed.

One line of investigation is that the latest shooting was another attempt to send a message to Niamchik, against the backdrop of his alleged connections to individuals associated with the Jarushi crime organization.

However, police have not established a connection between the incidents and the dispute between the Musli and Jarushi organizations, and investigators are continuing to examine the possibility that the attacks stemmed from a different motive.

The uncertainty is particularly significant given assessments that the two organizations recently reached an understanding that brought about a degree of calm in their relations.

Investigators must now determine whether that relative calm has been maintained or whether individuals behind the recent incidents are seeking to reignite the conflict.

Cryptocurrency debts and alleged extortion of businessman

In another case under investigation in Rishon Lezion, a wealthy contractor of French origin became the target of alleged extortion attempts and threats over financial debts his son reportedly accumulated through cryptocurrency-related activities.

According to suspicions, criminal elements seeking to collect the son’s debts decided to pressure his father instead, assuming that his financial circumstances would allow them to extract substantial sums of money.

The father, however, refused to give in to the alleged extortion attempts.

The case involved threats and gunfire directed at his home. Police are working to identify those involved and gather enough evidence to pursue charges.

A separate investigation is underway into another shooting targeting an apartment door in the city, which police suspect was also connected to a criminal dispute.

Investigators are also inquiring into that case to identify those responsible.

‘We are working hard’

A source familiar with the investigations told Maariv that police are investing considerable resources to solve the cases and locate those responsible.

“We are dealing with something of a cluster of incidents there,” the source said, explaining that many of the cases involve financial disputes and unpaid debts.

“When you look at each incident individually, you see that ultimately it comes down to some financial debt that wasn’t paid to one party or another.”

According to the source, some of the incidents involve gunfire and property damage intended to deliver threatening messages.

“Suddenly, some idiot shows up on a scooter, fires shots, smashes a storefront window, sends a message, and disappears,” the source said.

The source emphasized that despite the succession of incidents, police are working determinedly to solve the cases and bring those involved to justice.

“We are putting in the work there. We are working hard there,” the source said.

Police have sought to reassure Rishon Lezion residents that significant efforts are being invested in combating the phenomenon.

According to sources familiar with the details, most of the incidents stem from disputes between criminals or extortion attempts. Police are using intelligence and investigative measures to identify those involved, bring them to justice, and restore calm to the city, long known as Israel’s City of Wine.

This post was originally published on here. 

A jet operated by the Russian Defense Ministry landed in Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday evening, flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed.

The Tupolev Tu-154M, which departed from a military base near Moscow, has been on the US sanctions list since 2023.

The Chkalovsky Air Base from which the flight originated is the primary operational hub for the Russian Defense Ministry, which manages VIP transport and government missions for high-ranking military officials and official delegations.

Aircraft sanctioned by US for assisting Wagner mercenary group

The aircraft belongs to the 223rd Flight Unit of the Russian Defense Ministry, itself a sanctioned entity, as the US State Department accused the unit of transporting personnel and equipment belonging to the Wagner mercenary group to countries where Wagner operated.

As part of the May 19, 2023, action, the US identified 37 aircraft associated with the unit as blocked property, including RA-85042.

The Jerusalem Post has reached out to the IDF, the Russian Embassy, and several US government bodies for comment.

The aircraft was listed under Executive Order 14024, which authorizes sanctions targeting Russia’s harmful foreign activities, including those connected to its war against Ukraine.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here.