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A memorial ceremony was held in Majdal Shams on Monday evening to commemorate the 12 victims of the rocket fired at the village from Lebanon. 

During the ceremony, a memorial was dedicated to those killed on that day two years ago.

In addition to the 12 boys and girls, ages 10 to 16, who had been pronounced dead, thirty-four others were wounded as a result of the strike. 

A nearby stone wall that collapsed under the force of the blast likely saved the lives of others who had been sheltering behind it.

Thousands attended the funeral procession, and the impact site became a place of pilgrimage for visitors wishing to express solidarity with the bereaved families and the Druze community.

Impact site dedicated to remembrance and life

The head of the local council initiated the creation of a memorial park in honor of those killed. Surrounding the impact site, the park was designed to combine remembrance with life. It includes a soccer field and an amphitheater where commemorative events can be held. The remaining challenge was to design the memorial at the exact point where the rocket struck.

The memorial was designed by architect Zvika Pasternak, who recently created the “Ktav VaShem” installation at Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the “Bibas Footprints” installation at Tze’elim, both in communities near the Gaza border. He develops his memorial projects in close consultation with the local communities and the bereaved families, and for their benefit. The same approach guided his work in Majdal Shams.

Working together with the bereaved families and the Majdal Shams community, Pasternak created a memorial that is restrained yet deeply moving, suggestive and thought-provoking.

“When I accepted the task of designing the environmental installation, I knew that the impact crater where the rocket struck would occupy only a small area, while a much larger memorial park planned by others would surround it,” Pasternak told Walla.

 “As I began working, I established the principles that would guide me: to preserve the crater and, through it, convey in a restrained, clear and empathetic way the moment of impact and its force. Ultimately, all that remained after the malicious rocket, which cut short the lives of children at the very beginning of their lives, was a small hole in the ground.”

The crater was designed to be the focal point of the park, with all the park’s paths converging at the impact site, meaning “anyone walking along them has no choice but to acknowledge the crater’s existence, even though it does not rise above ground level.”

“That is the installation’s central concept. If all roads lead to the crater, and every element of the park faces it, then visitors who wish to look into it and see what it contains will be compelled to lower their heads slightly,” he said.

Even in Pasternak’s earliest sketches, the impact crater was emphasized through a large metal depression, created to match the dimensions of the original crater. Around it would appear the names and ages of those who were killed.

“When I visited the site with the construction team, and we discussed the shape of the depression, I didn’t realize that standing beside me was Jibara Ibrahim’s bereaved father. Our original plan had been to remove the remains of the wall, which seemed unrelated to the memorial. Then I heard him cry out in pain: ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do, but you’re not moving this wall. It’s the only thing left from the strike,’” he said.

“It was a difficult moment to witness, but an instructive one. After the tour, we met with the families’ committee at the council offices. All of us together, the council officials, the bereaved families, the construction team and myself, understood that preserving the remains of the wall and incorporating them into the memorial was essential.”

According to Pasternak, new design alternatives were then prepared that incorporated both the crater and the surviving wall. In the version ultimately selected, the surviving wall forms one side of a rectangle surrounding the crater, while the other three sides are built from concrete slabs engraved with the names of the children.

Crater filled, names engraved in Hebrew, Arabic, English

At the center of the rectangle stands the metal depression replicating the crater left by the rocket.

“The remains of the wall, which we had originally intended to remove, became the architectural element around which the entire installation was designed, just as it is written: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.'”

He explained that from his first drafts, he knew the installation would not rise above ground, and that visitors wouldn’t realize they were at the point of the impact until it was right in front of them.

“To reinforce the moment of impact and the disaster it caused, and unlike the remains of the wall, I chose to create the depression from rusted steel, a reminder of the material from which the rocket itself was made. The head of the council chose to build the depression from small pieces of metal welded together, giving it a surface composed of many different geometric forms,” he explained.

Once the shape of the crater and the families’ preferred spelling of the victims’ names had been approved, work began. At a metal workshop in Aniam, an artists’ village in the Golan Heights, dozens of triangular steel plates were cut and welded together to create the three-dimensional form of the depression.

After the head of the council visited the workshop, examined the work, and approved the final design, the completed structure was loaded onto a trailer and transported to the impact site in Majdal Shams.

Around the new “crater,” measuring 1.65 meters in diameter, a concrete platform was poured. Surrounding it are 12 concrete slabs, each engraved in Hebrew, Arabic, and English with the first name and age of one of the murdered children.

Even before the memorial park and installation were officially inaugurated, many visitors had already come to the site. Pasternak said it was moving to see how, as with any work of art, each person brought their own interpretation.

“The head of the council saw the pieces of metal as a symbol of fracture, but in their welding together he saw healing and repair. Jibara’s father saw in the metal fragments the shards of the rocket scattered by the explosion. Milar’s mother saw in the crater the hole that had opened in her heart. And tour guide Eran Shavit said the rusted depression reminded him of the Druze proverb about the copper tray (‘Sidr Nahas’): every touch upon the tray resonates throughout its entire length and breadth, an image of how this tragedy became a shared mourning for both the Druze community and the people of Israel.”

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An Israel Prison Service officer was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of helping obstruct the investigation into the murder of 19-year-old Benayahu Razi in Jerusalem earlier this month, police and the IPS announced.

The 34-year-old officer from Hod Hasharon is suspected of maintaining a personal relationship with an inmate held at the central Israel prison where she serves.

The inmate is a relative of 17-year-old Avior Sasson, the central suspect in the murder investigation, who remains at large more than two weeks after Razi was killed.

Police suspect that the two worked together to obstruct the investigation and assist Sasson while authorities searched for him. Reports identified the inmate as Sasson’s brother.

Per reports, investigators suspect that the inmate used the officer’s cellphone to help Sasson hide and evade police. The extent of the alleged assistance, and whether the phone was used to pass instructions, information, or other help to Sasson, remains under investigation.

The covert investigation was opened after IPS intelligence officials received information raising suspicions about the officer’s conduct and passed it to police, according to the joint announcement.

The officer was arrested on suspicion of obstruction of justice and breach of trust. She was taken for questioning, after which investigators will decide whether to bring her before a court to request an extension of her detention.

“The manhunt for the murder suspect continues around the clock, and investigators are working day and night to obtain every scrap of information that could reveal his location and lead to his arrest,” said Supt. Rotem Hila Zaken.

Several suspects arrested for arranging Razi murder

Razi was stabbed to death on July 11 in a short-term rental apartment in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood. A friend who was with him was lightly wounded and escaped from the apartment. Several suspects have since been arrested over alleged roles in arranging the meeting, carrying out the attack and helping those involved flee.

Police took the unusual step last week of publicly releasing Sasson’s name and photograph despite his being a minor, asking for the public’s help in locating him.

Sasson, a Jerusalem resident, was reportedly seen fleeing the murder scene wearing a white shirt and black trousers. Police warned that anyone assisting him could be investigated for aiding an offender after the fact, an offense carrying a potential prison sentence of up to three years.

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The three drones that were intercepted over Jordan on Monday and Tuesday were likely launched by Iran-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq, a source told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

The IDF intercepted two drones at approximately 11 a.m. on Monday, and a third shortly before 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

“The aircraft did not cross into Israeli territory, and the source of the launch is under investigation,” the IDF said on Tuesday.

At the time of writing, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the largest alliance of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, had not claimed either drone launch on its official social media or website.

The PMF, which includes well-armed and large militias such as Badr and Kataib Hezbollah, has launched attacks on infrastructure belonging to institutions and countries that the Islamic Regime has viewed as an enemy.

PMF has been linked to targeting Iraqi Kurds, US bases, Saudi oil infrastructure

This includes reports of targeting the Kurdistan Regional Government’s buildings in Erbil, as well as US bases in Jordan and Syria, and oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. The PMF is also linked with a drone attack targeting Riyadh in January 2021.

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Rabies cases have more than tripled in the past four years, spreading throughout the country, according to a Health Ministry statement released on Tuesday. 

The Health Ministry is “very concerned” over rabies, which has shown an “alarming increase” in wild animals, some of whom are encroaching on urban areas, including jackals in Tel Aviv and wild boars in Haifa.

Rabies is a fatal disease endemic to Israel’s wild animal population. Once an animal or person is infected, without preventative treatment, the mortality rate is almost 100%. While preventative treatment has made human deaths from rabies in Israel rare, with only four after the state’s first decade, tens of thousands of people worldwide die from the disease each year. 

The disease attacks the central nervous system of mammals and is transmitted through bites or through contact between saliva and broken skin or mucous membranes. A bite, lick, or any other contact with the saliva of an infected animal can transmit the virus during a later stage of the disease, in most animals, within 10 days before their death. 

In recent years, rabies cases in Israel’s wild animal population have risen sharply, with a 252% increase between 2022 and 2025. In 2026, 69 animals have already been diagnosed, and the Health Ministry expects the number to reach around 150 by the end of the year. By comparison, this is up from 29 cases in 2022. 

Human activity leads to geographic spread of infected animals

The increase is partially due to the geographic spread of infected animals. Rabies can spread to a region through both animal movement and feeding practices. Intentionally leaving out food for stray cats may also feed other wild animals, as can leaving garbage in the street and poor sanitation. The Health Ministry warned that urban density, construction, and the displacement of wildlife from their natural habitats all contribute to the problem. 

Additionally, infected animals may be transported by people. In 2026, there were three such cases: a reservist who brought a dog from northern Israel to Hadera and Ra’anana, where it came into contact with his extended family over Passover, a dog who was brought from Ramallah to Holon, and an adopted dog that had never been vaccinated or examined by a veterinarian who traveled by train from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, where it was brought to the beach. That incident ultimately required the Health Ministry to manage 52 exposure cases. 

The Health Ministry emphasized that in the event of an animal injury, one should first wash the affected area thoroughly with soap and water for about 10 minutes. They should then urgently contact their local health office to assess the level of risk and determine whether vaccination or other preventative treatment is necessary. No appointment is required for such a visit. 

When local health offices are closed, people should go to a hospital emergency department for initial treatment. 

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XTEND has completed the integration of Latvia‑based robotics company Atlas, strengthening the Israeli American defense-tech company’s presence in Europe and adding over 4,200 robotic platforms to its portfolio.

The move follows XTEND’s acquisition of Atlas earlier this year, which added four operational Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms powered by XOS, thousands of robotic systems that have already been deployed, and a suite of tactical communication technologies.

The flexible architecture of the robotic platforms, where each component can operate independently or as part of an integrated network, aligns with XTEND’s strategy to replace legacy commercial drones with NDAA‑compliant autonomous systems.

The integration also brings AtlasRADIO into XTEND’s communications portfolio. The software‑defined tactical communications platform supports secure mesh networking and embedded integration across robotic systems, and is designed for OEM deployment and network‑centric architectures.

AtlasRADIO marks XTEND’s first step into intelligent software‑defined robotic components that will be offered through its Marketplace ecosystem.

The combined portfolio strengthens XTEND’s ability to support NATO members, EU defense organizations, and allied nations with regionally manufactured, mission‑ready autonomous systems. The integration also expands XTEND’s commercial reach to roughly 40 European countries, significantly increasing market access. 

Strategic manufacturing hub

As XTEND’s designated European manufacturing and engineering center, XFAB Latvia will drive scaled production and innovation for the company’s global customer base. It will help the company support regional supply chains and meet the requirements of local customers.

“Atlas’ exceptional engineering talent, operational technologies, more than 4,200 deployed systems, and access to approximately 40 European markets significantly accelerate our vision of building the Operating System for Physical AI on a global scale,” said Aviv Shapira, Co‑Founder and CEO of XTEND.

Shapira added that the integration strengthens XTEND’s regional execution strategy and creates a foundation for continued expansion across Europe and North America.

Gal Gabison, General Manager of XTEND XFAB Latvia, said the merger preserves Atlas’ legacy of delivering reliable, mission‑focused technologies while enabling faster innovation and broader global reach.

“Together, we are building something significantly larger than either company could have achieved independently,” Gabison said.

Global ambitions

Xtend was founded in 2018 by Shapira, his brother Matteo, Rubi Liani, and Adir Tubi. The company specializes in human-guided autonomous machine systems for defense applications.

With their products, Xtend allows pilots to control and interact with their drones and autonomous ground vehicles for various mission types, including underground or other complex environments, using VR/AR interfaces and AI.

The company’s AI-enabled systems are being used by the US Department of Defense, Singapore, Europe, the UK, and the Israel Defense Forces. 

XTEND delivers next-generation autonomous systems for defense, public safety, and private security applications built on its battle-proven XOS operating system. Its products utilize remote operational capabilities, enabling multiple air, ground, and maritime drones to execute complex, dynamic missions with immediate operational readiness. 

With Atlas fully integrated, XTEND now offers a broader portfolio spanning aerial intelligence, automated deployment, ground robotics, tactical communications, ISR payloads, surveillance systems, and intelligent hardware.

The completed integration positions XTEND for long‑term growth across defense and security markets while reinforcing Latvia’s role as a key European center for advanced robotics manufacturing.

During Operation Roaring Lion in March, Xtend said that it had expanded its XFAB operator network to support allied defense requirements and deployed operators from the United States and Latvia to the United Kingdom. Doing that, the company said, “XTEND is demonstrating what it means to function as a truly global defense platform.”

“We stand united with our allies in defending the values we share,” Shapira said at the time. “Our global platform exists for moments exactly like this, to move fast, support our partners, and protect those who protect us.”

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Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed Iraq on Monday in the wake of a new round of Iranian-backed militia attacks on the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has seen tensions rise with the Houthis in recent weeks. Now, it appears that Iran has encouraged its militias in Iraq to also target the Kingdom.

This would present Saudi Arabia with a multi-front conflict, similar to what Iran has conducted in other areas of the region.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it expressed the “strongest condemnation of the reprehensible drone attacks carried out by Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq.”

The Kingdom went on to say that it “reaffirms its unwavering determination to safeguard its security and sovereignty, deter aggressors and exercise its right to respond to the sources of the attacks.” Riyadh added that it also “stresses the need for the Iraqi government to take all necessary measures to prevent its territories from being used as grounds from which acts of aggression are launched.”

Iran-backed militias, Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia as regional strategy

Iran-backed militias have threatened Saudi Arabia for years as part of Tehran’s broader strategy. The most persistent threat to Saudi Arabia has come from the Houthis in Yemen.

After Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen in 2015, the Houthis launched hundreds of missiles and drones toward Saudi territory, targeting airports, cities and critical energy infrastructure. Iran supplied the Houthis with increasingly sophisticated missile and drone technology, greatly expanding their ability to strike deep inside the kingdom.

In September 2019, Iran attacked Saudi Aramco facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. The Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks, although the United States and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the attacks.

Iran-backed groups in Iraq have also emerged as a potential threat to Riyadh in recent years. Tehran has supplied some Iraqi militias with missiles and drone technology. An apparent Iraqi militia drone attack targeted Riyadh in January 2021.

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In May, a company that did not exist two years ago became a unicorn. Kela, founded in the summer of 2024, raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation, led by Stripes and D1, with Bill Ackman and Eric Schmidt in the round, on top of the $100m. it had already taken from Sequoia, Lux Capital, and In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm. About $20m. in revenue. About 150 employees. An operating system for the battlefield.

That same month, the running tally of tech workers laid off worldwide in 2026 crossed 185,000, and more than half of the layoff announcements named AI as the reason.

Two labor markets, one economy. One is telling its engineers that machines can now do their jobs. The other cannot find enough engineers to build the machines.

The defense-tech story is usually told as a stock ticker. Kela hits a billion. Anduril doubles its valuation to $61b. in under a year. Palantir grows revenue 85% and wires itself into the US Army’s next command system. The telling is true, and it misses the structure underneath.

Defense tech is not a company, and it is not even a sector. It is a stack: layer upon layer of distinct technologies, from frontier AI down to bent metal, each layer its own industry with its own economics and its own open doors. The consolidation everyone talks about is happening on exactly one floor. Every other floor is fragmenting, multiplying, and hiring.

The view from the penthouse

The top floor is the one everyone photographs. Palantir posted $1.63b. in first-quarter revenue and secured a foundational role in the data layer of the US Army’s next-generation command system, on a team led by its penthouse neighbor. Anduril raised $5b. in May at $61b., and by mid-June secondary trades implied closer to $100b. Kela deployed from a single outpost to a double-digit number of positions along Israel’s borders inside a year.

This is the platform layer, and here consolidation is real. Someone is about to become the Android of the battlefield, and the contenders are few. Stop looking anywhere but the penthouse and you reach a reasonable conclusion: The game is over, the giants won, nothing sane is left to fund or join.

The conclusion is wrong. Take the elevator down because every floor is its own gold rush.

One floor below the platforms sits compute. The defense semiconductor market was worth $13.4b. in 2025 and is projected to nearly triple within a decade. In December, the Pentagon stood up a contracting vehicle with a $25b. ceiling to speed American-made military chips into weapons.

Below compute sits navigation and sensing, the floor where quantum quietly stopped being science fiction. SandboxAQ’s AQNav navigates by reading the Earth’s magnetic field, no satellites required, and has logged more than 450 flight hours across four aircraft types on its way into a Pentagon quantum-sensing program. GPS chaos in the eastern Mediterranean pushed 1,650 ships off their charted positions within a week. Quantum navigation is the layer of the stack that exists because GPS now lies.

Below sensing sits firmware and edge autonomy, where the most consequential military module of 2026 costs less than a pair of running shoes. The TFL-1, a vision module built by the Ukrainian start-up The Fourth Law for under $100, flies a strike drone through its final half kilometer on machine vision alone, no signal, no cable. It is certified by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and fielded with roughly 20 brigades. It does not outperform the million-dollar jammers arrayed against it. It makes them irrelevant for the last 500 meters.

And at street level, bent metal. LUCAS, the American loitering munition that made its combat debut over Iran in January, costs $35,000 and was designed by SpektreWorks, a 14-person company in Arizona now targeting 10,000 units a year. The Pentagon’s first drone “gauntlet” this year bought 30,000 drones at roughly $5,000 apiece, from 12 different vendors. Not two primes. Twelve vendors.

There is one more floor, and nobody photographs it: the basement, where things get built. Software iterates in seconds. Production lines move at the speed of poured concrete.

Anduril is pouring a billion dollars into Arsenal-1, a hyper-automated factory in Ohio, because it understands where this market will actually be decided: not by whoever writes the most elegant code but by whoever can turn out 10,000 airframes a year without a single sub-tier supplier of motors or thermal batteries choking the line. The scarcest hire in defense tech right now is not a machine learning researcher. It is a manufacturing engineer.

Software at the top, chips and sensors in the middle, firmware and hardware below, and the factory floor under it all. The penthouse is consolidating. Everything below it is multiplying.

Ask the bubble question out loud

I know the objection, so let us say it plainly: This smells like a bubble. A two-year-old company at $1.2b. on $20m. of revenue, another at $61b. on a fraction of the legacy primes’ sales, venture capitalists who discovered patriotism the same quarter their software portfolios stalled. If this were a consumer market, those would be the classic tells.

But bubbles pop when the buyer changes his mind, and this buyer is not a consumer. It is the state, and states are rearming on a schedule set by their fears. At the Ankara summit on July 7, NATO approved more than $40b. over five years for counter-drone defense alone, because the current arithmetic is a losing trade: interceptors that cost millions fired at drones that cost less than a family car.

The Israeli numbers make the same point in miniature, and they are the sharpest version of it. Defense exports reached $19.2b. in 2025, up from $14.8b., a fifth consecutive record. Israeli start-ups working with the Defense Ministry’s R&D directorate raised more than $1b. in 2025, against about $150m. the year before. That is not a sector growing. That is a sector being called up.

Are some valuations ahead of themselves? Almost certainly, on the top floor. That is where the froth lives, because that is where the tourists look. And when the shakeout comes, it will not come from demand. It will come from the procurement machine’s own clock. A request for 300,000 drones is a question, not a contract.

The Pentagon’s flagship fast-track unit still averages about 19 months from solicitation to first delivered article, and the graveyard of defense start-ups is full of companies that died in exactly that gap, between a successful demo and a funded budget line. The casualties will cluster where the pricing does: at the top. That is not where the stack lives.

The open floors are at the bottom

Here is what the penthouse-gazing misses. The barriers to entry at the deep layers of this stack are the lowest in the industry’s history. A $100 module sidesteps million-dollar jamming systems. Fourteen people built the drone that flew over Iran.

Since October 2023, more than 130 Israeli start-ups have been folded into the war effort, about half in autonomy and AI, a quarter in sensors. Almost none of them needed a fab, a prime contract, or a nine-figure round to enter. They needed a layer, a use case, and speed.

That is the actual opportunity, and it is a double one. For investors, the top floor is priced for perfection while the floors below are priced like the specialist niches they still are. For the engineer holding a layoff notice that blames AI, the asymmetry is sharper still.

In 2018, some 4,000 Google employees signed a petition against a Pentagon AI project, and the company walked away from the contract. That was the moral consensus of an entire industry: Serious engineers do not do weapons. Seven years later, that industry is cutting people by the hundred thousand, and the fastest-growing employer of technical talent in the West is the one that was taboo.

Human life has become the most expensive asset on the war’s stock exchange. The labor market is now running that experiment at scale. Talent, like capital, flows to where it is valued.

The layoff email and the funding round are the same document, read from opposite ends. One economy has decided its people are a cost to be optimized away. The other knows they are the arsenal. The stack is tall, the demand is sovereign, and every floor is hiring.

The question is not whether the door is open. It is how long it stays that way.

Tal Pinkasovich is a defense technology analyst and a major (res.) in the Israeli navy, with more than a decade in the Israeli start-up ecosystem. His work on drone warfare and defense economics has appeared in The Jerusalem Post.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that he will focus his upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump on acquiring anti-ballistic defense systems and ammunition.

“Our number-one priority is anti-ballistic defense and strategic cooperation with America. Peace needs to be brought closer,” he stated on X/Twitter.

“Our schedule includes meetings with President Trump, his team, and those who can support our defense,” he also said on the post, which was shared shortly after he arrived in the US early Tuesday morning.

Zelensky’s trip will also include attending Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral, which will be held at the White House.

I have already arrived in the United States. Our schedule includes meetings with President Trump, his team, and those who can support our defense. Our number-one priority is anti-ballistic defense and strategic cooperation with America. Peace needs to be brought closer.

Of… pic.twitter.com/jcsLCFetwk

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 28, 2026

Ukraine seeking prototype of European anti-ballistic missile defense

Zelensky’s push for a ballistic missile comes after a Monday report indicated that Ukraine was seeking to acquire a prototype of a European anti-ballistic system, codenamed Freyja, to be ready within the first half of next year.

Davyd Aloian, deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, who oversees the Freyja project, said that an international steering committee tasked with estimating the research and development costs was due to convene for the first time soon.

Leaders from 10 European countries, including Zelensky, as well as around a dozen defense manufacturers, gathered at a summit in Paris two weeks ago to officially launch the anti-ballistic coalition.

“Since we’re working within such a tight timeframe, we have an ambitious goal: to have an MVP (minimum viable product) ready by the first half of next year,” Aloian said.

“That is a prototype that can already demonstrate its first practical results.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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The Islamic regime publicly hanged two protesters arrested during the January demonstrations in Alikhani Square in Isfahan on Tuesday morning, sparking renewed public outrage, according to the country’s judicial media and footage of the event circulating online among dissident circles.

The two protesters were named by Mizan news agency as Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi, who were alleged to have attacked police officers “with machetes and knives, tying them to road signs, pulling them on the ground, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them on fire” on January 8, the same day that four members of Iran’s security forces were allegedly killed by protesters in the square.

Human rights groups estimate that more than 30,000 people were killed by the Islamic regime during the December and January protests. Tehran, however, has claimed that foreign-backed rioters were responsible for the deaths of 3,117 people, including 427 members of the security forces.

Videos from Alikhani Square in Isfahan, Iran, show crowds gathering amid reports authorities are preparing the site for the execution of detained protesters, as a banner at the scene reads: “No crime escapes the eyes of the law. Justice will soon be carried out.”…

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 28, 2026

There are numerous reports that the Islamic Republic frequently conditioned the return of victims’ bodies for burial on bereaved families accepting the state’s narrative.

Families were allegedly forced to sign statements claiming that rioters had caused the deaths or that the deceased had been members of the Basij paramilitary.

Charged with waging war against God

A total of 12 men were convicted for the alleged killings in the square, two of whom were executed on July 19 for their alleged role, despite the UN warning of serious misconduct during the judicial proceedings that led to their guilty verdict.

Safari and Sepathi were convicted under the charge of “moharebeh [waging war against God] by drawing weapons and creating fear and terror” and “corruption on earth for committing acts that severely disrupted public order and security in the country,” charges that have been used against numerous protesters.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting released footage of the alleged attack, accusing the men of being “monarchist rioters.”

There were reports that Iran had planned the public execution when iron scaffolding appeared in the square overnight, and the area reportedly came under heavy police surveillance.

Beni Sabti, an Iranian expert on the Islamic Republic at INSS, told The Jerusalem Post that protests had already broken out in response to the executions, but it was clear that the regime’s boldness was intended as a message to the global community that it was no longer concerned with managing international perceptions by hiding its human rights violations.
 
During the protests, the regime shut down the internet to prevent the world from seeing the violent suppression of protests, and many executions were carried out without prior notice to the families in violation of Iranian law. Now, the regime is carrying out these acts in the street, he highlighted.

“It goes back to the self-confidence they’ve had since the end of the war. They believe they defeated Israel and the United States, and they also believe they ultimately crushed the protesters,” he said. “That has left them feeling extremely confident and powerful, to the point where they think they can do this. From the perspective of the Iranian regime’s logic and behavior, it’s actually a very logical step.”

شعار «بی‌شرف بی‌شرف» مردم اصفهان به اقدام جمهوری اسلامی در اعدام دو معترض هنگام «اذان صبح» و در حضور نیروهای امنیتی. گزارش‌‌هایی از درگیری مردم با یگان ویژه نیز منتشر شده است. ۶ مرداد ۱۴۰۵ pic.twitter.com/X3yUPNQ62o

— VOA Farsi صدای آمریکا (@VOAfarsi) July 28, 2026

A source close to Safari’s family told the diaspora site Iran International that relatives had been summoned to Isfahan Central Prison for a final visit.

The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr. Mai Sato, said that the 12 protesters were subjected to a group trial in a closed-door proceeding that contravened the standards of fair trial procedures.

Since the beginning of 2026, at least 24 people have been executed in connection with the January protests, the experts noted, adding that the death penalty is being used as a means to “instill fear in society and suppress dissent.”

The UN experts warned that current laws in the Islamic Republic make it impossible to criticize the government without the risk of retaliation, harassment, and prosecution.

There are now immediate concerns for the well-being of Shervin Bagherian Jebeli, who turned 18 just days before his arrest.

Within a week, and before any trial, State television aired a video of him confessing to violence against security officers during interrogation, where he appeared unaware of the meaning of the capital charge of moharebeh, which the UN experts warned raised concerns as to whether he had access to any legal counsel of his own choosing.

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The High Court of Justice began hearing Tuesday morning arguments on a law whose legality is almost certainly decided.

The law freezing draft enforcement measures for ultra-Orthodox (haredi) eligible men passed on July 14 but was frozen the following day by Justice Ofer Grosskopf following the filing of five different petitions against the law, including by opposition faction heads Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Avigdor Liberman (Israel Beytenu).

Grosskopf, in his short decision, focused on two aspects surrounding the law: the court’s longstanding rulings on enlistment for yeshiva students; and the unequal weight the law grants to “only certain sections of the population.”

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara on Friday asked the court to strike down the law, arguing that it retains the duty to enlist while removing the consequences for refusal.

She called it a “group immunity mechanism” that protects only one sector from arrest, investigation and prosecution – while leaving other draft evaders exposed to the full force of the law.

Knesset position focuses on defects in implementation

The Knesset’s position, filed on Sunday by its legal advisers, focused more on defects in how the law was enacted rather than the broader and more fundamental constitutional argument hinted at by Grosskopf and affirmed by Baharav-Miara. 

Representing the Knesset in court on Tuesday, attorney Yitzhak Bart clarified to the court more what the legal advisory’s position is. He explained that committees debating a bill have broad authority to make changes to it – as long as its actions don’t result in a “new subject.”

This boundary, he said, exists for two reasons: first, to avoid needing to start the process from the beginning; second, to give the committee the authority and breadth of power to make the changes it might need to improve the legislation. 

Fundamental subject of bill cannot be changed

However, the fundamental subject of the bill cannot be changed. Bar said, “There is no escaping the conclusion that the new law introduced a new subject.”

The subject difference, he explained, is between integration of yeshiva students and the freezing of enforcement measures. 

That difference, he noted, is minor but crucial: If the committee had continued to discuss the bill in its original format, but had added a clause on enforcement measures, “that might have been okay” – but that is not the case here. He described it as creating a new branch that is unconnected to the root of a tree. 

The scenario where the Knesset legal advisory reaches the conclusion that legislative defects lead to the conclusion that a law must be canceled is “extremely rare,” said Bart.

On Monday, the government filed its own, two-page position to the court, explaining that it declined to hire a private attorney to defend the law because the outcome of the case was “known in advance.”

Rather than provide a legal response to the petitions, the government’s two-page position focused largely on accusing the court of violating the separation of powers and the Attorney-General’s Office of obstructing efforts to increase haredi enlistment.

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Rabbi Yaakov Aharon Farber, founder and CEO of Ma’alot Tzur, a program that helped integrate Haredi men into the IDF, passed away early Monday morning at the age of 32 during a medical procedure.

Farber established Ma’alot Tzur almost two years ago and successfully enlisted approximately 500 yeshiva students, the highest number of haredi recruits in years, according to the program’s spokesperson.

Farber faced heavy criticism from segments of the Haredi community for promoting enlistment, with demonstrators protesting outside his home and publicly criticizing him. 

According to Yediot Aharonot, prior to the war, Farber worked to integrate haredim into the labor market, shifting into army recruitment post-October 7. 

הרב יעקב פרבר ז”ל שנפטר הלילה ממחלה בגיל 32, בטקס סיום הקורס הקראשון שנעשה בצה”ל להכשרת משקי ת”ש חרדים, יחד עם רח”ט תומכ”א. pic.twitter.com/oXoRHmu0Cn

— שילה פריד🇮🇱 (@shilofreid) July 27, 2026

A prominent community member and advocate in haredi society

“What was important to me when I set out was to organize a rights document that enshrines the rights of the guys who enlist – they enter as ultra-Orthodox and leave as ultra-Orthodox. We established a program that includes short military training, a specialized course, and then a job,” Faber told Ynet in an interview.

In the announcement of his death, it was noted that he was a prominent community member and activist of the Belz Hasidic dynasty.

Farber’s funeral was held at Har HaMenuchot in Givat Shaul, with processions starting at the Belz Great Synagogue.

Rabbi Farber leaves behind a wife and six children, including the youngest, who is just four months old.

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Autonomous Guard, an Israeli defense tech company that develops of counter‑drone and homeland‑security technologies, has secured a substantial follow‑up order from a security customer in Asia.

While the company would not disclose the customer, Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post understands that the deal is for a regional police force in Asia.

The new order, valued at approximately $400,000, comes only two months after the same customer purchased an initial batch of systems worth about $200,000, signaling a rapid strengthening of the commercial relationship.

The deal includes detection, jamming, and interception systems called Skybeam, produced by Skylock Systems, Autonomous Guard’s wholly owned subsidiary. Delivery is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026. 

Skybeam is a compact, lightweight, and combat-portable system designed to disrupt and neutralize drone threats in real time. It enables an effective and immediate response for tactical forces in the field.

Autonomous Guard operates through two primary subsidiaries: Skylock and BeeSense Sensor Systems. Skylock specializes in drone detection and neutralization, while BeeSense Sensor Systems handles border threat detection across land, air, and sea. Both companies serve military and homeland security customers globally.

The timing of the order is a result of heightened concern over drone activity in Asia and around the world. Drones – from palm-sized quadcopters built for kamikaze strikes to unmanned fighter jets – have moved from the margins to center stage as military commanders, politicians, intelligence officers, and defense industry executives converged this week to assess which technologies might give them the edge in a future conflict in the Pacific.

As geopolitical tensions intensify in areas such as the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, and the Taiwan Strait, the need for reliable detection and interception systems has become a central priority for defense ministries and internal security agencies. Many global companies, including large defense OEMs, are opening offices in Asia and trying to persuade regional militaries that their solutions can counter those types of threats.

In several East Asian countries, militant groups are using small and commercial-sized drones for intelligence gathering and improvised explosive attacks, prompting homeland security agencies and security forces to accelerate investment in counter‑UAS capabilities.

In February, several Israeli companies showcased their solutions at the Singapore Airshow, showing how many defense companies are beginning to pivot away from Europe.

Though the shift is not absolute, with Europe still Israel’s main market, there are more Asian customers, more joint research and development (R&D), and more long‑term industrial partnerships, especially as traditional Western markets become more politically constrained after the Israel-Hamas War.

In 2024, Israel’s defense exports surged to an unprecedented $14.8 billion, marking the fourth consecutive year of growth. 

During that year, European nations accounted for 54% of deals, up from 35% the previous year, with missiles, rockets, and air defense systems making up the largest tiers of defense exports. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for 23% of exports, with India remaining the largest customer alongside significant deals with Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam. Like Europe, air defense systems, missiles, and drones were the most significant platforms exported. 

Roi Riftin, CEO of Autonomous Guard, said that East Asia is a key target market for the company and aims to continue to grow there.

“We recently signed a memorandum of understanding to supply complex protection and surveillance systems, in a deal that also includes the sale of dedicated vehicles, to a large security customer for an expected consideration of $8 million, which could increase to $20 million,” he said.

In February, Autonomous Guard signed a memorandum of understanding valued at approximately $1.9 million with an undisclosed Indian security client. The agreement, signed with an undisclosed Indian security client, covers the gradual supply of the Bee 3 advanced surveillance and threat‑detection systems developed by BeeSense Sensor Systems, Autonomous Guard’s wholly owned subsidiary, specializing in sensor‑based observation technologies.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to brief US President Donald Trump about Iran’s actions in Pickaxe Mountain and the efforts by the regime to re-establish its nuclear program in the area, the New York Post reported on Monday, citing an Israeli source.

According to the report, Netanyahu is expected to show Trump that the Iranian regime is lying about its interest in pursuing a diplomatic solution to the conflict, with the key proof being the recent movement of its nuclear infrastructure to the Pickaxe Mountain.

The movements at this site were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said that Israel uncovered proof that Iran moved centrifuges to the mountain complex shortly after the US and the regime agreed on their Memorandum of Understanding.

The complex, which the regime began secretly constructing in 2020, is located 1.5 kilometers south of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which was struck several times during the last Iran war.

Trump’s change of heart with Pickaxe Mountain

While Trump previously stated that Pickaxe Mountain was left untouched during the war due to insufficient proof that the regime was using it to develop its nuclear program, in a meeting last week with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, he stated that the US would be hitting the site “pretty soon.”

He also said that Tehran was “desperate” to hold talks, warning that it had “not seen anything yet.”

Earlier, on July 13, Trump also hinted at the possibility of attacking the complex. “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready,” the president said during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

But later on, he also claimed that the US has no intelligence indicating any activity in the complex or that the centrifuges were transported there.

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A masked individual shattered the glass entrance doors of Channel 12 News’ headquarters in Tel Aviv overnight on Tuesday in the second such incident this month.

A letter was found at the scene that appeared to have been left by the vandal, calling on the news outlet to “apologize over the Sde Teiman affair,” warning that if an apology isn’t issued, “the next brick will be aimed at one of your heads.”

“Even an apology that isn’t heartfelt is fine. Take this letter with the utmost seriousness. Otherwise, someone will end up dead,” the letter stated.

Police officers called to the site opened an investigation on suspicion of property damage. No suspect has been arrested at this stage, and the individual’s identity remains unknown, according to police sources.

Security camera footage showed the suspect approaching the building with their face covered, carrying two bricks and throwing them one after the other at the entrance doors. The impact shattered the glass doors, and the suspect fled before police arrived.

Vandalism of glass door follows multiple incidents of graffiti

In addition to being the second time in a month the doors were shattered, this event follows several acts of graffiti targeting the news company in recent months.

In one such incident, graffiti was sprayed reading: “To the criminal police and the channels of injustice and foolishness against those who study the holy Torah, I will settle the score with you. Consider yourselves warned, sons of death.”

Police also opened an investigation in that case on suspicion of vandalism, but the suspect has not yet been identified.

Similar incidents targeting media organizations have occurred in the past. In November 2025, graffiti was sprayed on the offices of Channel 13 in Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hahayal neighborhood reading, “The blood of the traitors will yet be cleared for publication.” Police opened an investigation in that case as well.

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A 58-year-old resident of Kiryat Yearim was arrested by investigators from the Jerusalem District Police on Monday on suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material, Israel Police confirmed on Tuesday.

According to Israeli media, the suspect is also the editor of a well-known Haredi newspaper, though this has not been confirmed by police.

The arrest was carried out after police said they received information that raised suspicions the man was in possession of prohibited material.

Investigators searched the suspect’s home under a court-issued warrant, where they arrested him and seized electronic devices, including a laptop computer and a mobile phone.

No indictment filed as forensic investigation continues

According to police, the devices have been transferred for forensic examination and the extraction of digital evidence as part of the ongoing investigation.

The suspect was questioned on suspicion of possessing prohibited material. 

The police did not provide additional details regarding the investigation or specify the quantity or nature of the material allegedly found. The investigation remains ongoing, and no indictment has been filed at this stage.

This post was originally published on here. 

Prosecutors have presented sufficient evidence for the indie pop vocalist known as D4vd to stand trial on charges that he fatally stabbed and dismembered a 14-year-old girl who threatened to expose their clandestine relationship, a Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday.

Judge Charlaine Olmedo found there was probable cause for a jury to decide the fate of David Anthony Burke, 21, whose breakout major-label music success as a recording artist named D4vd (pronounced “David”) was cut short by his arrest last year.

He spent five days in a packed downtown courtroom shackled in his seat as prosecutors presented graphic witness testimony and crime-scene photos to convince Olmedo that their case met the minimum legal standard to put Burke on trial.

The victim’s parents were present for most of the testimony.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters during the first day of the proceedings that his office would decide later whether to seek the death penalty.

From TikTok to Interscope

Burke began his career as a viral TikTok sensation with songs produced for Fortnite gaming videos in 2022, and his first hit single, “Romantic Homicide,” paved the way for a multimillion-dollar deal with Interscope Records.

His debut studio album was released in April 2025, in the week that prosecutors say his underage girlfriend, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, went missing and was stabbed to death.

Her decomposing remains were found five months later crammed into the trunk of a Tesla sedan that authorities say was registered to Burke. The car had been towed to an impoundment lot where workers noticed the stench of decay emanating from the vehicle and called police.

The singer-songwriter was arrested in April of this year and charged with first-degree murder, mutilation of human remains and child sexual abuse.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges during an April 20 arraignment in which his attorney, Blair Berk, vehemently professed her client’s innocence.

“We believe the actual evidence will show David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, nor was he the cause of her death,” Berk said then.

Chain saws and swimming pools

In a court brief filed the following week, prosecutors first detailed the gruesome manner in which they said Burke killed the victim and disposed of her body, as well as his alleged motives.

The DA’s office said Burke acted in fear she would ruin his burgeoning showbiz career after she threatened, out of jealousy, to go public with damaging information about their sexual relationship, which prosecutors say began when she was 13.

Financial manager Benjamin Greger testified during this week’s preliminary hearing that Burke, his sole entertainment client, had grossed earnings of $10 million to $11 million from 2023 to 2025, following his Interscope deal.

The accusation of murder for financial gain is among the special circumstances included in the charges, making Burke potentially liable for the death sentence. Another alleges he did so because the victim was a witness to a crime.

On April 23, 2025, one day after Burke and the girl had quarreled over her threats to expose him, according to prosecutors, he hailed her an Uber ride to his Hollywood Hills home, then stabbed the victim to death after she arrived.

During their evidentiary hearing, the prosecution displayed photos of three chain saws, a shovel, and other items they said Burke had purchased online under a fictitious name and had delivered to his home after the killing on April 23, 2025.

Among these was a plastic blue inflatable swimming pool that prosecutors said the victim’s body was placed in to prevent blood from spilling onto his garage floor.

The victim’s torso and head were found inside a black vinyl cadaver bag stuffed into the front trunk of the abandoned Tesla, on top of a plastic garbage bag containing the victim’s limbs, police homicide detective Joshua Byers testified last Tuesday.

Shreds of blue plastic from the swimming pool were found embedded in the flesh of the severed limbs, Byers said.

Two fingers on the girl’s left hand had been amputated but were not recovered, while the girl’s right index finger bore a cryptic tattoo reading, “SHHH…,” which matched a marking Burke was later found to have tattooed on his own right index finger, according to Byers.

The remains had to be positively identified through dental records, the detective said.

Several biological samples collected from Burke’s garage tested positive for blood, and DNA analysis of various specimens matched the victim’s unique genetic profile, according to prosecutors’ court brief.

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A video with plans and suggestions on how to kill US first lady   Melania Trump was shared on Tuesday by IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency, with the video calling on “freedom fighters” to target the shops the first lady frequents.

The video, which claimed to share “information from several anonymous security networks,” shows schemes of how Melania’s security operates and the places that she usually goes in New York.

It also claims that the first lady ‘s weakness is “her love for fashion,” saying that she frequents top New York fashion stores that could be attacked by “freedom fighters.”

Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, published a video identifying locations frequented by US first lady Melania Trump and encouraging “freedom fighters” and supporters of the Islamic Republic to kill her. The video highlighted places she visits,… pic.twitter.com/ExzvGOw3gs

— Wladimir van Wilgenburg (@vvanwilgenburg) July 27, 2026

The video also claimed that Melania’s security operates separately from US President Donald Trump’s security, with different teams, codenames, and even plans in some cases.

Tasnim calls to kill Melania Trump

The video, which was shared by Tasnim‘s official Telegram account as a guide on how to kill the first lady , also asked for people working in the area where Melania goes shopping to look for cues about an upcoming visit.

It pointed out that working at important hospitals in the area or the fashion stores mentioned could be a key factor when planning an attack against Melania.

Tasnim also said that both trash cans and manholes are removed or sealed during a visit by the first lady, pointing out that the only way for an attack to be effective is to use neurotoxin agents.

It then goes into the specifics of which agents are more effective to poison someone without leaving traces, while it also says that another option is to offer cash rewards to the designers or managers of the stores Melania frequents.

The video ends saying: “This is just the beginning! Barron Trump, wait for us!”

This post was originally published on here. 

All 100 members of the US Senate have been invited to a meeting on Tuesday evening with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he is in Washington for the funeral of late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, two Senate aides said.

One of the aides said the Senate also was expected to begin voting as soon as during Zelensky’s visit on a bill to impose sanctions on Russia that was championed by Graham.

The legislation had been pending for about a year before Graham’s sudden death this month. It is meant to cut revenues from the sale of Russia’s energy for its war on Ukraine.

Bill sparks concerns about presidential war powers

Lawmakers eased the tariff level in the legislation to 100% from a blanket 500% included in a previous version of the bill in order to win support. However, the bill has sparked concerns in Congress about potential new powers for Trump.

Zelensky has arrived in the US as of Tuesday morning.

He said that anti-ballistic defense and strategic cooperation with the US were the “number one priority” for meetings with Trump and his team. 

This post was originally published on here. 

The US Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that seats on hundreds of Boeing 737 MAX jets registered in the US may require inspections in case they were incorrectly installed and needed to be fixed.

If not corrected, the seats could injure passengers and crew members during an emergency landing or block the aisle and slow an evacuation, the agency said.

The FAA’s proposed airworthiness directive issued on Monday would apply to 453 jets registered in the US. The agency only has jurisdiction over US airlines, but foreign regulators typically follow FAA directives if applicable.

Nearly 2,300 737 MAX jets are in service around the world, including 823 in the US, according to aviation advisory and intelligence firm IBA.

The proposed directive comes as Boeing works to improve its production quality and boost output under CEO Kelly Ortberg.

Production quality problems revealed in 2024

Production quality problems were revealed in early 2024 when a door-plug panel blew out of a nearly new Alaska Air 737 MAX in flight.

The FAA said in the airworthiness directive proposal that it received a report that some passenger seat assemblies were not correctly installed in the seat tracks.

That meant the assemblies could disengage from the seat tracks if there was an increased load, turbulence, or an emergency landing, the FAA said.

There could be up to 69 track-mounted passenger seat assemblies on each 737 MAX plane, and the issue would take an estimated one work hour to inspect and then an hour to fix each assembly and required no parts, the FAA said. Airlines might be able to have multiple employees inspecting seats simultaneously, greatly reducing the total time for each aircraft.

It did not say how quickly airlines would need to correct the issue.

A Boeing spokesperson said the planemaker issued guidance to operators about the issue in December 2025.

“We support the FAA making that guidance mandatory,” the spokesperson said in an email.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, as the American leader weighs whether to expand his bombing campaign against Iran or pursue a diplomatic resolution concerning the Strait of Hormuz and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

Israel fears that Trump will negotiate a premature end to the war without eliminating Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons in the future. Trump has repeatedly insisted that Iran cannot possess nuclear weapons, but the war and the economic upheaval it has caused have contributed to his approval rating reaching record lows in his second term. The poor marks are ringing alarm bells for Republicans ahead of midterm elections that could return Democrats to power in at least one chamber of Congress.

Netanyahu and Trump are also at odds over other issues, including the recent US-Saudi nuclear deal, the pending sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, and the extent of Israel’s troop presence in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Netanyahu traveled to the United States to attend the funeral of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who remained one of Israel’s most unwavering advocates even as its popularity declined. Graham was also one of Trump’s most important associates in pressing for the Iran war. Opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid will also attend the service at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday.

While in Washington, Netanyahu will seek to narrow the widening gaps between himself and Trump over Middle East strategy.

Iran tops the agenda

In a video statement released before his departure on Monday, Netanyahu said, “I am embarking on this mission with one clear goal – to ensure the security, strength and future of our dear State of Israel.”

“We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost, Iran,” he said. “Naturally, our goal is to safeguard our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us.”

During the trip, Netanyahu said he would also pay his final respects to Graham, “one of the greatest friends the State of Israel has ever known.”

Israelis are acutely aware of the emerging differences between the allies. “It will not be an easy visit,” former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel Radio on Monday morning. “There is no doubt that Netanyahu wants the United States to return to war.”

Trump spoke on Monday about the discord between himself and Netanyahu, even as he praised the prime minister. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said Netanyahu had been “great” and that “we did very well together.”

Trump was asked aboard the plane about US plans to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, which Netanyahu has publicly opposed. “Turkey has been a great ally for me,” Trump told reporters, stressing, “No one tells me what we should be selling or not.” He acknowledged that Turkey “is not a big fan” of Israel and Netanyahu.

Israel has been more circumspect regarding the Saudi civilian nuclear power agreement recently completed by the Trump administration. However, it has deep concerns about an agreement that would allow plants capable of enriching uranium. US assistance in building those facilities had been one of the key incentives former president Joe Biden used in an effort to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Muslim-majority countries.

Trump has since said that US support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program would be contingent on normalization with Israel and that the facilities would not be permitted to enrich uranium. On Monday, however, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had not spoken with Saudi Arabia about the Abraham Accords. Tuesday’s meeting will be the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and Netanyahu since the agreement was announced.

The closer Netanyahu appears to Trump and the center of US decision-making, the better it is for him domestically ahead of Israel’s October 27 election. Trump has met with Netanyahu more than any other foreign leader during his second term. This will be their eighth such meeting and the fifth time Trump has hosted the Israeli leader at the White House.

Tight ties with Netanyahu also play well with Trump’s evangelical base ahead of the US midterms in November, but they risk further alienating the broader American public, which opposes the conflict.

Netanyahu’s influence in the United States has diminished, partly because of the war’s growing unpopularity and the role he played in encouraging it.

“This is not the same Netanyahu of 2025 or even of February 2026. He is greeted with suspicion,” Yadlin said of the reception he expected the prime minister to receive in the United States.

Last visit was followed by large-scale attacks

Netanyahu last visited Washington in February, when he successfully advocated for the joint Israeli-US bombing campaign against Iran that began on February 28.

Tehran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil supply is shipped. The move caused crude oil prices to climb during the first quarter of 2026, from $61 per barrel to $118 per barrel, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Iran allowed the strait to reopen on a limited basis after an April ceasefire, which was followed by a memorandum of understanding with the US in June. The agreement collapsed in early July, and the parties resumed their attacks without Israeli military involvement. The United States bombed Iran for 13 consecutive nights, ending on Thursday, even as talks with the Islamic Republic continued.

The United States and Israel were initially aligned in February around their shared goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, while Netanyahu also focused on bringing about the collapse of the Islamic Republic.

Over the weekend, Trump stressed that the war remained focused on eliminating Iran’s nuclear program. Last week, he spoke specifically about striking the nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain.

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the United States was “keeping all options on the table,” but was allowing time for talks.

He dismissed media reports that shortages of military supplies were among Trump’s motivations for pausing the bombing campaign, saying the United States had everything it needed militarily.

Waltz warned Iran not to disregard American military threats. Early Monday morning, Trump published a short AI-generated video in which his likeness planted an American flag on an Iranian oil tanker, accompanied by the slogan “it’s our oil tanker now.”

Later on Monday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was holding “good talks” with the Iranians, “so we will see what happens. I think there is a good chance something could happen. If it does, good. If it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”

Yadlin told Israel Radio that, at the end of the day, “What interests President Trump is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.”

The war might have begun in February with a focus on the Iranian regime and its nuclear program, but it will end, Yadlin predicted, with the reopening of the strait and some form of diplomatic achievement concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Israel has watched the renewed US-Iran engagement warily from the sidelines.

Sima Shine, an Iran expert at the Tel Aviv-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, said that neither Washington nor Tehran had so far wanted Israel to become involved in the renewed fighting, fearing that such a move would “widen the scope of the war.”

Maintaining the conflict as a bilateral confrontation makes it easier to return to negotiations, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The United States can better control the battlefield without Israel, which would have its own military agenda and objectives, Shine said. Israel could enter the war only if it were attacked by Iran or invited to participate by the United States, she added.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu warned of a forceful response should Iran attack Israel.

Iran must end its nuclear program, he stressed, saying that the military strikes had set the program back but had not eliminated it.

A nuclear-armed Iran poses a danger to Israel, the region, the United States and the world, he said, adding, “President Trump and I are both committed to prevent this danger.”

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed on Friday that the company is currently working with artificial intelligence models at “the singularity point,” which represents the moment when AI becomes better at generating results than humans can.

And Altman’s claims might not be unfounded, as Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Professor Yaniv Romano told The Jerusalem Post that he believes the singularity might have been reached, citing recent studies showing that AI models can solve mathematical problems humans can’t.

“We are now in the singularity; this is the moment,” Altman claimed during an interview with the Relentless podcast, adding that the idea of reaching this point was unthinkable ten years ago, being a “far-off dream at best, while now it’s actually the moment that we used to talk about in a very not serious way.”

“What Altman says when talking about the singularity is that AI has become better than us at solving problems,” Prof. Romano, who is the associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Technion, said. “There is good evidence that it’s already possible with current models.”

“There was a case when ChatGPT [OpenAI’s main commercial AI model] was able to solve a math problem which was impossible to do by a human who is not highly trained to work on those problems,” he added. “That’s the most interesting part, that these results were reached while using publicly available software.”

AI is at the singularity point, but how can we verify it

Prof. Romano also told the Post that one point to consider when checking whether an AI has reached the singularity is to verify that the results are correct and not merely hallucinations.

“When we are checking for code or simple tasks, it is easy to understand where the AI made a mistake. But when talking about tasks that humans can’t do under normal circumstances, then we start to have problems verification problems,” he said.

“The models are capable of generating thousands of results that even the best mathematicians in the world would take years to get. And it takes an even longer time to verify that these results are actually correct, and not just mistakes made by the system,” he pointed out. “It’s the burden of verification, and it’s much higher than the burden it represents to create models capable of generating content.

“And this also brings a big problem and challenge for humanity, because when models become more intelligent than most of us, then we start to rely more on them for answers and lose the capacity to think of a solution in our own way,” he added.

Humanity’s next challenge with AI

According to Prof. Romano, a problem that might appear for future generations is the fact that most people will rely on AI in the same way that “a child relies on a parent when searching for answers.”

“This means both that people think less, that we take for granted that the AI model is always correct, and, in the long run, that we stop having people capable of verifying the AI results,” he said.

At this point, Prof. Romano said, the AI models are capable of working math problems the same way that they did with code. And mathematicians might begin to use them that way, sacrificing in the process their own thought capacity.

“Nowadays, OpenAI and other top AI companies are employing the best mathematicians in the world to verify their models’ results. But who will they take in one or two decades when all of the scholars learn by using AI models to think for them?” he asked.

“Academia needs to address this situation, because it’s a very slippery road if we start to over-rely on AI models to think for us. And we must adhere to the highest possible standards, the same ones that previous professionals in maths, physics, or computer science adhered to, in order not to fall into this situation,” he concluded.

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If Knesset elections were held today, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! party would be the largest party in Israel, closely followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Likud, according to an N12 poll on Monday.

The poll found that Yashar! would win 23 seats, one less than last week, and that Likud would also hold one less seat than last week’s poll suggested, at 22 mandates.

Together, led by Naftali Bennett, also lost one seat compared to the previous poll, sitting at 14 mandates. In addition, Yair Golan’s Democrats lost one mandate, bringing the party’s total to 10 seats.

Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, maintained nine seats, N12 reported. The Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Otzma Yehudit parties all maintained eight seats, the same as in last week’s poll.

The Arab parties, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am, received five seats each, while Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party received four.

Tropper, Hendel’s party passes electoral threshold

Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz, and Balad, led by Sami Abu Shehadeh, both failed to reach the electoral threshold, polling at 1.6% and 1.3% respectively.

In contrast, the new poll found that if elections were held today, Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel’s Bayit Tzioni – HaMiluimnikim (roughly translated to the Reservists’ Zionist Home) would pass the electoral threshold and gain four seats.

The electoral threshold is 3.25%, meaning parties must earn at least 3.25% of the vote to win seats in the Knesset.

N12 reported that due to Bayit Tzioni – HaMiluimnikim passing the threshold, the opposition parties reached 70 seats, compared to the current coalition parties, who received 50 of the 120 Knesset seats. 

This week’s poll also marks the first time that the non-Arab opposition parties reached 60 seats.

N12 also found that if the Arab parties Hadash-Ta’al and Balad united, Likud would lose an additional seat, bringing them down to 21.

Best Candidate for Prime Minister

Although Eisenkot had previously polled ahead of Netanyahu as the best candidate for Prime Minister, the latest poll found the two were tied at 38% support.

Netanyahu continues to poll ahead of Bennett in suitability for leadership, with 40% choosing to vote for him over the former Prime Minister, compared to 34% who would support Bennett.

Netanyahu is also considered more suitable than Lieberman at 39% compared to 25%.

Issues affecting voters

A significant majority of the public was confident about their vote, with only 10% saying they were ‘still hesitant,’ the poll found.

Within the undecided voters, 1.3% support the Netanyahu bloc, 4% support the change bloc, and 1.3% are unsure.

Almost 30% of respondents who said they planned to vote for a different party than in the previous election said that October 7 had affected their position.

Additionally, 32% of people said that the most influential issue for their vote was security and the management of the war, placing it as the biggest issue affecting voters.

Approximately one-fifth of respondents said that the division between the blocs and social polarization had the biggest influence on their vote, 12% said that it was personal security and crime prevention, and 12% said that it was who is at the head of the bloc.

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Menachem Begin must be turning in his grave.

The Likud party, which traces its roots to Begin’s Herut movement, was built on a conviction that democracy depends upon the freedom to disagree. As Begin himself declared, “We are convinced – as we have witnessed throughout the world – that without an opposition, there can be no democracy; without it, the essence of human liberty is in danger.”

The first right-wing prime minister in Israel’s history was referring to the Knesset opposition, yet the principle applies just as readily within political parties. Democracy begins long before election day. It begins with the willingness of a movement to tolerate debate, criticism, and competing ideas without demanding unquestioning loyalty from those within its ranks.

Veteran Likud MK David Bitan on Sunday leveled extraordinary accusations against his own leadership in an interview with KAN TV where he said that the Prime Minister’s Office had contacted ministers and MKs asking them to record videos in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposals ahead of an internal party vote.

“The prime minister really wanted appointments rather than [internal] elections,” Bitan stated. “But following the petitions we filed and the public pressure we created, he has essentially agreed to primaries.

“We’re a democratic party. Our foundation is democratic… The Prime Minister’s Office is asking for videos – videos supporting his proposals. The prime minister appoints them as ministers; the prime minister can dismiss them from those positions. The prime minister has influence over many party members in the primaries, so people are under pressure. They’re afraid in this situation.”

Likud party has lost the value of strong internal debate

If senior elected officials believe they are expected to demonstrate loyalty to the party leader before an internal democratic vote, something has changed inside a movement once renowned for robust internal debate.

Earlier this month, Likud MK Dan Illouz warned against any attempt to weaken the party’s primary system. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post’s Keshet Neev, he acknowledged reports that Netanyahu sought greater influence over the composition of the party list, but cautioned against abandoning the process altogether.

“I think that would be very bad for the Likud,” Illouz said. “We’re very proud to be the only democratic party right now in the Knesset. We’re very proud about this title, and I don’t think that we’d want to let it go.”

Those comments now read rather differently.

Likud’s own internal court was eventually put in a position to order that primaries proceed according to the party’s democratic framework, after attempts to alter the process. It was not the High Court of Justice doing this, or the opposition or outside campaigners defending Likud’s internal democracy. It was Likud itself.

Bitan’s allegations also recall claims made last week by MK Sharren Haskel in a sworn affidavit during last month’s state comptroller vote. Haskel alleged that members of the New Hope-United Right faction were instructed to film themselves voting for Michael Rabello and show the footage to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as proof that they had voted as required. All of this implies a political culture in which loyalty is increasingly expected to be proven rather than simply given.

Netanyahu remains Likud’s dominant political figure

None of this is to deny Netanyahu’s standing within Likud. He remains, by a considerable margin, the party’s dominant political figure. Nor is there anything improper about a party leader campaigning for his preferred proposals. The concern arises when disagreement is met not with debate but with pressure, and when loyalty is measured by visible displays of obedience rather than confidence in the strength of one’s argument.

Begin named his movement Herut, ”Freedom.” The freedom to speak, freedom to disagree, and freedom to challenge authority without being branded disloyal. It is an uncomfortable irony that, nearly half a century after Begin entered the Prime Minister’s Office, some within the movement he founded now appear to have so little freedom to dissent from its leader.

If the Likud continues to mistake conformity for unity, it may soon find that voters deliver the lesson its own founder understood all along. Come October, the movement descended from the freedom movement could find itself with fewer MKs in the Knesset – and perhaps, in a final irony, sitting in the very opposition that Begin so passionately defended as indispensable to democracy.

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The next round of talks between Israel and Lebanon will take place in Rome from August 4-6, a senior US State Department official said on Tuesday. 

The talks will focus on implementing the trilateral framework, resolving border issues, and expanding the pilot areas in southern Lebanon, in which Lebanese troops will verify that areas have been cleared of Hezbollah terrorists and weapons. 

The first pilot zone represents a genuine opportunity to achieve progress on the ground by restoring the authority of the Lebanese state through the verified disarmament of terrorist organizations and building the trust needed for the next steps.

The experience gained from the initial pilot zones will help improve the model’s implementation, enabling its gradual expansion in stages.

Negotiators also plan to work towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement, according to the official. 

This comes following last week’s meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and US President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration is committed to the discussions, the official noted, adding that all sides are entering talks with “significant momentum” following the presidents’ talks and the gradual implementation of the pilot zones. 

He also stressed that the trilateral framework is the only path to achieving lasting peace and that its full implementation is clearly in the interests of both countries. 

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More than 10,000 Jewish singles spanning six continents are set to participate on Wednesday in the “largest Jewish speed-dating event ever held” following Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of love. 

The event is organized by Partners in Torah, Aish, and CoronaCrush and joined by more than 100 organizations. 

This year’s participation is set to be much larger than last year’s, which connected 6,750 singles for 15,463 dates in a single hour. The connections led to dozens of relationships and three marriages, according to a statement from Aish. 

“Every year the response grows, and every year we hear new stories that remind us why this matters,” said Tehilla Friedland, COO of Partners in Torah and one of the event’s lead organizers. “We are not just running an event. We are building a community, one date at a time.”

This year, the technology behind the matching process has been refined based on feedback from past participants, according to Michaela Tobias, Community Manager of CoronaCrush. 

“Singles told us what worked and what didn’t, and we listened,” she said. “This year’s questionnaire and matching are smarter, and we are ready to help even more people find each other.”

Gila and Neriya are one of the couples who met at last year’s event, according to Aish’s statement. What began as a seven-minute video call ended in marriage this past February. 

Gila had just made aliyah from London when she decided to sign up for the event. “I was sitting in the call with my friend, and we saw it [the event listing],” Gila recalled. “I was like, why not? To think that I met my husband is really crazy.”

Neriya had moved to Israel from the US to study in a yeshiva. Although he had been searching for a way to meet someone who had already made aliyah, he was initially hesitant to speed-date. When the event came across his feed, however, he decided to give it a chance. 

 “There are only benefits to this,” he said. “Either you spend an hour of your evening and nothing happens, or you spend an hour of your evening and find, in seven minutes, the person you’re going to marry.”

According to Aish, the two spoke on the phone for two hours following the event, and stayed in touch daily for weeks before meeting in person. They were engaged three months later and were married less than a year after they met.

“It’s really crazy,” Gila said. “Almost a year later, I’m celebrating a year of meeting my husband. I never thought it would happen this way, but I’m so grateful it did.”

“You really just never know where your husband is going to pop up from,” Gila said. 

Eighth time’s the charm

Goldie had already participated in seven speed dating events before attending last year’s. “I believe in putting myself out there as much as I can,” she said. “If Hashem wants me to find someone, then I have to allow for the opportunity. I don’t really fit into a typical community box, so I needed to try different venues to meet someone.”

Goldie was matched with seven people, one of whom was Barak. The two dated for six months, got married in June, and are planning to make Aliyah. 

“You never know. You could meet your spouse as I did. Or, at the very least, you’re just meeting another Jewish neshama searching; that’s something that someone once told me, and I really connected with it,” Goldie said. 

This year’s large roster of partnering organizations reflects growing recognition that Jewish communities worldwide are looking for accessible ways for singles to meet, including in smaller and more isolated locations, organizers said. 

Participants have come from South Africa, the UK, the US, Brazil, France, Sweden, Israel, and more. 

Couples are matched according to preferences and location where relevant, according to Aish. 

Tu B’Av: a day of matchmaking

CEO of Aish Rabbi Steven Burg said, “The Jewish response to building the future has always been through relationships and family. Every year, this event brings together singles who might never have crossed paths otherwise, and every year we hear that it changed someone’s life. Tu B’Av has always been a day associated with matchmaking in Jewish tradition, and it feels fitting that this event now carries that spirit forward for a new generation.”

Registration for the July 29 event is now open on participating organizations’ websites and social media channels.

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The US Senate on Monday advanced the nomination of Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to be the top US spy, and he is expected to be approved within days despite a tense confirmation hearing.

If approved to be the director of national intelligence, Clayton would fill a role vacated in June when Tulsi Gabbard stepped down after a tenure marked by clashes with congressional Democrats, who accused her of advancing Trump’s political agenda and promoting debunked election claims.

The vote was 51-43 in favor of advancing Clayton’s nomination for the job overseeing the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. The vote was along party lines, with Trump’s Republicans backing his nominee and members of the Democratic caucus voting no.

The position of DNI was created after the September 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus. Many senators have been eager for Clayton to take up the post because they are unhappy with the interim director of national intelligence, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist without national security experience who has been cutting staff at the agency.

Now that Clayton won a majority in the 100-member Senate on the procedural vote, a final confirmation vote is expected later in the week. Trump’s Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority in the chamber and rarely break from the White House, had been expected to provide Clayton with enough votes for confirmation even if Democrats balked.

Controversy around the recommendation

The Senate Intelligence Committee recommended Clayton to the full Senate in a narrow 9-8 vote last week.

He received yes votes only from the panel’s Republicans after repeatedly refusing to directly acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election despite repeated questioning during his confirmation hearing.

Clayton also faced questioning from Democrats about his decision to issue subpoenas ordering New York Times journalists to testify before a federal grand jury after reporting on security concerns involving Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One plane.

A prosecutor said at a court hearing last week that the Trump administration would withdraw the subpoenas after a judge’s close questioning about the investigation.

“From start to finish, Mr. Clayton has proven himself incapable of telling the truth or demonstrating an iota of independence from Donald Trump. For those reasons, I voted ‘no’ on his nomination,” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called Clayton a proven leader in remarks urging support for the nomination. “Amid a heightened threat environment, having a proven leader as the director of national intelligence is especially important, and Jay Clayton fits the mold,” Thune said.

Clayton’s confirmation process was dogged by controversy even before his July 15 hearing. In mid-June, Trump abruptly threw doubt on his nomination by ordering the postponement of the hearing in an effort to force Congress to pass an overhaul of US voting rules.

Senators, including Cotton, said at the time they expected the hearing to go ahead as scheduled, but then said Clayton would not appear after Trump ordered him to stay away.

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Hours before a big debate showdown with her primary rival, US Rep. Haley Stevens began a routine campaign stop Monday seemingly comfortably in her element.

The Michigan candidate for US Senate walked into The Roost, a cafe and wine shop in the Woodbridge neighborhood, chatting up her record on small businesses with the owner, Jeff Tatum. She gamely made herself a cappuccino, exclaiming with glee that the store used Dial soap like her father’s business had.

She also made a play for party unity. Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Jewish Democratic donors who have indicated they would fundraise for Republican candidate Mike Rogers if Stevens lost the primary, she responded, “I’m on the Democratic team. I’m on the Beat Mike Rogers team.”

But things went off-script for Stevens when she sat down with Jai Singletary, director of a local neighborhood improvement association, who revealed, midway through their conversation, that he had already cast his early voting primary ballot for her opponent, former county health director Abdul El-Sayed. 

What’s more, Singletary made it clear to Stevens that the candidates’ respective stances on aid to Israel were the deciding factor for him. 

“Genocide isn’t a Palestinian issue. We’ve all got to care about this,” Singletary told Stevens, a pro-Israel centrist who has received nearly $30 million in outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to date in her primary, the organization’s largest-ever investment in a single race, according to CBS News. He believes, he said, that “our country is directly responsible for peace not being achieved.”

The director of Woodbridge Neighborhood Development and local soccer coach added, “We’ve got to have the money stay here. I don’t think we should be giving any more aid to the State of Israel while they’re committing the atrocities they’re committing in widespread collective punishment.”

The interaction spotlighted two of the biggest questions hanging over Michigan’s closely watched and hard-fought Democratic Senate primary: To what degree are the state’s voters factoring Israel into their decisions, and does the pro-Palestinian sentiment driving El-Sayed’s campaign cross racial lines, including in the Black communities where Stevens has long maintained strong relationships?  

Many of the Jews in Michigan who form a major base of support for Stevens have made clear their distrust of El-Sayed, who has questioned whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, the state has a large Arab and Muslim voting bloc, and voters here helped propel a 2024 Democratic revolt over Israel’s war in Gaza that helped lead to the party’s current civil war. But the situation is less clear with voters from other groups.

Israel central to El-Sayed’s race

El-Sayed and the insurgent progressive movement he represents have sought to make Israel central to the race and have tried to turn Stevens’ AIPAC support into her biggest liability. But the Stevens campaign has made the calculation that most of the state’s voters, including Detroit’s majority-Black population, with whom she has enjoyed good relations in the past — would rather talk about other things.

Not so, according to Singletary, who is Black. In his own Detroit community, he told JTA, Israel was an important issue.

“It’s connected,” he said, comparing the Israeli-Palestinian state of affairs to Apartheid-era South Africa, adding, “$3.3 billion to the state of Israel, and that’s money that could be helping out here. I think people are now seeing the links.” He told reporters that, though he does not have Palestinian family himself, his own vote was “100% exclusive” based on Israel.

After the campaign left, Singletary told JTA that he had no affiliation with the El-Sayed campaign and had stopped by at the store’s owner’s invitation. He said he would not vote for Rogers in the general election even if Stevens wins and came because he hoped to develop a connection with her in the event she became the nominee. 

The question of whether backers of either candidate across the yawning policy divide would continue to vote for a Democrat in the general election if their preferred choice loses is an emerging one. Last week, Democratic US Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, a Stevens backer, refused to commit to voting for El-Sayed if he wins the primary. Scholten cited the candidate’s campaigning with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly said he would “vote” for Hamas over Israel. Her objection, she said, was to his comment that “America deserved 9/11.”

A ‘direction we don’t want to go’

“Abdul El-Sayed is taking us in a direction we don’t want to go as a party,” Scholten told CNN host Jake Tapper.

Stevens’ campaign is also touting her backing from a growing number of establishment Democrats, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday. She and El-Sayed face off Monday evening in their final televised debate before the Aug. 4 primary.

Speaking to Singletary, Stevens smiled and nodded. She name-dropped a Palestinian supporter of hers, and mentioned legislation targeting China that she’s worked on with “my colleague Ro Khanna,” the staunchly pro-Palestinian Democratic congressman from California, who has endorsed El-Sayed. She added that she believes in a two-state solution and has been attacked “by name” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She also turned to her staff and excitedly indicated to Singletary: “He voted for Abdul in the primary, and he came here to talk to me.”

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Just one in three Americans support the war on Iran, the lowest reading in a Reuters/Ipsos poll since the five-month-old conflict’s early days, with most respondents saying that President Donald Trump has failed to explain his goals.

The poll, conducted Friday through Sunday, also showed the Republican president’s approval rating ticking higher to 37%, up three points from last month when his rating tied the lowest of his presidency.

Trump has offered shifting objectives for the conflict such as aiding Iranians to topple their leaders, taking out Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The poll found that 69% of Americans, including four in 10 Republicans, think Trump has not “clearly explained the goals of US military involvement in Iran.”

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Trump will not make decisions based on “fluid opinion polls” and reiterated the president’s resolve to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“What matters most to the American people is having a commander in chief who takes bold action to keep them safe,” Wales said.

Approval of the conflict has been below 40% since the US and Israel launched strikes on February 28, a stark contrast to the opening months of other recent conflicts.

While each had different context, the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011 had the support of about 70% of Americans in its early months. During the early days of the Afghanistan War, which lasted from 2001 to 2021, about 90% of the country backed the war, according to polling by Gallup.

‘No idea’ why US at war

Public disapproval of the war is weighing on Trump and his Republican Party ahead of the November midterm elections when the president’s allies will defend slim majorities in the US Congress.

“It’s not clear why we started a war with them. I have no idea,” said Alex Womack, a retired turbine repair specialist from Stockbridge, Georgia, who became a Republican in part because he liked how Republican President George H.W. Bush handled the Gulf War in 1991.

Womack, who served in the US Marine Corps during that conflict, said his support for Trump has ebbed because of the war. “I don’t think he’s doing very well, personally,” he said.

To date, 18 American soldiers have died in the conflict while thousands have died in Iran and in Lebanon, where Iran-allied fighters have battled Israeli forces.

The war has pushed gasoline prices sharply higher, a blow to the finances of many Americans. Gasoline prices are averaging just over $4 a gallon nationwide, up from about $3 a gallon just before the war started on February 28.

“This puts pressure on the party in a myriad of ways, all of them bad,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political strategist and a White House spokesman during the presidency of George W. Bush. “The White House officials have been saying since January that they need to win economic arguments. It’s hard to win the economic arguments when you’re clearly focused on foreign policy.”

Independent registered voters in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were favoring the Democratic congressional candidate over the Republican by 36% to 20%. Independent voters also favored Democrats over Republicans on economic policy, the poll found.

Trump vowed to stay out of wars

In campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, Trump said he would keep the US out of enduring conflicts. He initially estimated the Iran war would last four to five weeks. He has bristled over comparisons to other wars, including the Vietnam War, which lasted two decades and claimed the lives of more than 58,000 US soldiers.

Rhyan Anderson, an independent from Fairburn, Georgia, who voted for Trump in 2024, said he thinks Trump should focus on domestic problems rather than on helping Israel or other allies.

“My biggest thing is just focus on the people who are actually in the country,” said Anderson, who works two jobs in security and data collection and said he voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. “I know we have allies and things like that, but there’s a lot of people here that really need help.”

Since mid-March, the Reuters/Ipsos survey has asked respondents whether they support or oppose military strikes on Iran. At that time, 37% said they supported the war.

That compared to 27% approval on the day the war began, when the Reuters/Ipsos survey also gave respondents the option to choose unsure, which 29% did.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, which was conducted online and nationwide, gathered responses from 1,246 US adults and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction.

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US Senator Mitch McConnell was released from the hospital on Monday following a fall but had not been cleared to return to work in the Senate, according to a statement published on his website. 

The statement from the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) said that McConnell is “not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility and return to the office.”

The OAP explained that “since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls.”

The update, which is McConnell’s second statement since his fall, comes shortly before his home state’s annual Fancy Farm picnic.

Fancy Farm typically features speeches from politicians throughout the state. “There’s no place I’d rather be on the first Saturday in August than with the good people of western Kentucky, feasting on pork and mutton,” McConnell said.

Senator hospitalized after a fall

McConnell was admitted to the hospital in June following a fall. He had polio as a child, which the OAP said is something that “continues to be a significant factor in his mobility.”

In his initial statement on July 13th, McConnell said he would not rejoin the Senate when it returned to work because he was recovering from a fall that had left him briefly unconscious and pneumonia.

While hospitalized, he developed pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics, according to a separate statement that McConnell’s office attributed to the attending physician, whose identity was undisclosed. 

Kentucky a sea of Republican red

The senator explained the significance of the Fancy Farm picnic, saying that over the last 42 years that he has attended the picnic, there has been a significant demographic shift.

“When I first attended forty-two years ago, Fancy Farm was a pretty lonely place to be a Republican. But, my, how times have changed.”

He said western Kentucky has become a sea of Republican red, adding that “I hate that I’ll miss the fun this year, but I’m sending my best wishes to the St. Jerome community for a successful picnic.”

“As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon,” McConnell concluded.

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The Houthis have continued to promote propaganda claiming they have provided support to Hezbollah despite the anger it provokes among Yemenis, who continue to endure a humanitarian crisis, because of the group’s perception of itself as the “vanguard of Muslim causes and Muslim people,” Bridget Toomey, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday night.

Toomey spoke to The Post after Yemen’s Interior Minister shared footage aired by Yemeni television exposing a warehouse with resources allegedly set to be shipped to Lebanon.

The Houthis have been known to have sent resources, whether funds or material supplies, to Hezbollah since at least 2019, she noted. Similar fundraising efforts have been made for Gaza, or specifically Hamas in Gaza, which has caused significant outrage across Yemen, where 80% of citizens live under the poverty line, according to data published by the Borgen Project.

● Video footage documenting the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist militia sending money, aid, and food supplies to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia reveals yet another facet of the falsehood in the narrative that the militia continues to peddle about the “blockade” to justify its… https://t.co/BsLLC7rrmE pic.twitter.com/q1H2cBBUyx

— معمر الإرياني (@ERYANIM) July 26, 2026

“The people in Yemen are in serious need of assistance themselves. Some of the people featured in these videos appear to be Yemeni, while others seem to be Hezbollah affiliates saying, ‘Look at the generosity of the Houthis.’ For many Yemenis, that’s a slap in the face. At the same time, there have been reports of these warehouses, and the Houthis have been running these social media and television campaigns for several years now,” Toomey said.

The issue of humanitarian assistance is political, she explained. The Houthis, like many groups in control of a territory, have used resources as a means to control the population, inserting themselves as intermediaries of the United Nations and other groups to use the flow of supplies as a means to coerce the population.

“When aid is distributed, it’s often done in a way that serves their interests, and at times they even profit from it. For terrorist and other armed groups that control or influence a population, there is a clear benefit to controlling the distribution of essential assistance. It allows them to ensure people remain dependent on them and, ultimately, keeps them in line,” Toomey highlighted.

Asked why the Houthis would risk angering their own resource-deprived people for the sake of a foreign power, Toomey said that the supply of resources was being used as a way to demonstrate support for Iran’s other axis and to perpetuate the narrative that they are supporting “oppressed” Muslims suffering thanks to the actions of the United States and Israel.

The Houthis are focused on demonstrating the “important image” of their “moral leadership,” she continued.

Asked then about how the supply of aid to Hezbollah fit within the wider Houthi claim of a blockade causing deprivation to the people of Yemen, Toomey acknowledged that there was an inconsistency in the narrative.

This issue was raised by the interior minister, who wrote, “What blockade is the militia talking about when it has the capability to transfer billions of riyals out of Yemen and send convoys of food supplies and aid to Beirut’s southern suburbs? And how can someone who claims to live under a ‘suffocating siege’ fund wars and Iran’s regional projects while leaving millions of Yemenis to face hunger, poverty, and the collapse of basic services?”

Toomey was quick to dismiss the Houthis’ claims that there was any such blockade, noting that supplies had been allowed to enter the territory but with the necessary vetting to restrict the terror group’s access to arms.

‘Looking for an excuse’

“They’re claiming this blockade has been in place for more than a decade, yet over that time the Houthis have still been able to send shipments out. Right now, the Houthis are really looking for an excuse. Their claim is that the Saudi blockade is responsible for the hardships facing the Yemeni people and for the country’s dire economic situation,” she said.

Last week, the Houthis announced their intentions to enforce a blockade against Saudi Arabia, in retaliation for a strike Yemen’s Saudi-backed government claimed responsibility for on Sanaa airport. The move marked a significant escalation, especially given the Houthis’ ally Tehran has threatened maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz.

The outrage over the “blockade” now is “because they want to expand their direct access, particularly unsupervised access to Iran, which would make it much easier to receive weapons shipments. It would also make it more straightforward for the IRGC and other bad actors to enter Yemen. While there isn’t a blockade, the vetting measures put in place by Saudi Arabia and the international community have at least somewhat hindered those efforts,” she explained.

Other experts have also long noted that the Houthis have attempted to expand their role within the Iranian axis. Navvar Şaban, a conflict analyst and researcher at the Omran Strategic Studies Center, told Lebanese media in 2024 that there were reports of a growing number of Yemeni fighters in Syria, and an anonymous source told L’Orient Today that Houthi-aligned Yemenis were in the country and ready to join Hezbollah. 

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Every generation tells itself the same story: We have learned the lessons of history. We are wiser than those who came before us. That could never happen here.

History tells a different story.

Violence rarely begins with violence. It begins with words. Before people are attacked, they are vilified. Before they are excluded, they are portrayed as dangerous or uniquely evil. Long before the first blow is struck, language prepares the ground.

That is why New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video last week accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of genocide demands a clear response.

Genocide is not a synonym for a brutal war, civilian suffering, or even grave errors in the conduct of war. It requires the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The accusation therefore turns not simply on the tragic consequences of war, but on an intent to destroy a people.

Critics cite inflammatory remarks by individual Israeli officials, some stripped of context, as proof of genocidal intent. They are not proof of the policy or intent of the State of Israel.

The broader evidence does not establish such an intent. Israel entered the war after Hamas massacred civilians, took hostages, and promised further attacks. It has consistently identified the defeat of Hamas and the return of the hostages as its objectives, while stating that its war is not against the Palestinian people. It has issued evacuation warnings and agreed to humanitarian pauses that enabled mass polio-vaccination campaigns for children in Gaza.

Taken together, these facts directly contradict the claim of genocidal intent. Presenting genocide as established truth is not serious analysis; it is a defamatory libel, false and dangerous. By stripping away Hamas, the hostages, Israel’s military objectives and the extraordinary difficulties of fighting terrorists embedded among civilians, Mayor Mamdani transforms a complex war into a morality play in which Israel represents absolute evil.

Nor was this an isolated episode.

Last month, Mayor Mamdani referred to AIPAC as “monsters” and spoke of “dark money” being used to preserve political power. Whatever his intent, describing those with whom he disagrees on Israel as monsters while invoking familiar themes of hidden financial influence echoed some of history’s oldest anti-Jewish tropes.

The common thread is moral demonization. Those with whom the mayor disagrees are not merely mistaken. They are portrayed as monstrous, sinister or complicit in history’s gravest crime.

That should concern every New Yorker and every American.

New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel. Yet its mayor has made denunciation of the world’s only Jewish state and its democratically elected leader a recurring feature of his public leadership. New Yorkers elected him to govern their city, keep its streets safe and represent its many communities. They did not elect him to turn City Hall into a platform for prosecuting the leader of one of America’s closest democratic allies.

The consequences are not abstract. Less than 48 hours after Mayor Mamdani released his video, an assailant stabbed a visibly Jewish man on the Upper West Side and, in a separate attack, stabbed an Asian man. According to witnesses and police, the assailant shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The NYPD is investigating the attacks as potential hate crimes.

Timing cannot be ignored

The timing cannot simply be ignored. Jewish New Yorkers are living amid persistent antisemitic threats and violence. In such an atmosphere, repeatedly portraying Israel and its supporters as beyond the bounds of moral legitimacy contributes to a climate in which hostility toward Jews is normalized and those already inclined toward hatred feel emboldened.

We Jews know where that process can lead because we have lived it.

For centuries, antisemites portrayed Jews as malevolent, conspiratorial and dangerous. Medieval blood libels accused Jews of murdering Christian children. Modern antisemites claimed that Jews controlled governments, finance and the media. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as a disease to be eradicated.

The details changed, but the purpose did not: to push Jews beyond the boundaries of empathy and moral concern, making exclusion, persecution and violence easier to justify.

Today, that pattern is often directed at the Jewish state. Israel is stripped of context, subjected to standards applied to no other country and cast as uniquely illegitimate. The Jewish people are again told that their collective existence stands outside the ordinary protections afforded to others. In effect, Israel is treated the way Jews have so often been treated: singled out, demonized and denied the benefit of the doubt.

Mayor’s words carry weight

A mayor’s words carry particular weight. They help define what a city will tolerate and how its residents should regard one another. Accusing Israel’s prime minister of genocide and describing political opponents as monsters deepens the fear and isolation already felt by many Jewish New Yorkers.

That is why silence from other leaders is unacceptable.

Federal and state officials, members of the City Council, religious and civic leaders and New Yorkers of every background should say plainly that the genocide libel is false and dangerous. Those who oppose antisemitism must confront it not only when it comes from political adversaries, but also when speaking out requires challenging their friends and allies. That is where principle is tested.

Mayor Mamdani condemned the Upper West Side stabbing as hateful and despicable. That condemnation was necessary, but leadership requires more than denouncing violence after it occurs. It also requires avoiding rhetoric that helps create an atmosphere in which hatred takes root.

Words are not violence. But violence is often preceded by words that make hatred easier to excuse, accept, or ignore.

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

This post was originally published on here. 

Afrah al-Zouba, the Foreign Minister Designate of Yemen’s internationally recognized Saudi-backed government said the Houthis were seeking to replicate Iran’s model of trying to impose control on international shipping around the Strait of Hormuz in the Bab al-Mandab.

The group had been emboldened by what she called an insufficiently serious international response to attacks on commercial shipping over the past years, al-Zouba told a small group of journalists including Reuters on Monday.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

On a ridge in the Judean Hills, twenty-odd kilometers from Jerusalem, there is a moshav called Ness Harim. A few hundred families. Peach and apple orchards, mostly gone now. It was founded in 1950 and filled with immigrants from Kurdistan, and for fifty years nothing happened there that anyone outside it needed to know about.

Two men who live on that hill may decide who becomes Israel’s next prime minister.

The first, Chili Tropper, gave one of his kidneys to a man he had never met. He got the idea from a pamphlet somebody left at his synagogue.

The second, Yoaz Hendel, was told by the navy on the morning of October 7 to stop calling and stay home with his 48 years. His wife told him the same thing. He got in the car and drove south.

On Monday night, Channel 12 News reported that the party (Bayit Tzioni – HaMiluimnikim, roughly the Reservists’ Zionist Home) these two neighbors have built together crossed Israel’s electoral threshold for the first time. Four seats. 

Why four seats is a lot

Israel’s parliament has 120 seats, and you need 61 to govern. Seats go out proportionally, but only to parties that clear 3.25% of the vote. Miss it, and you get nothing at all. Not one seat, not a consolation prize. Every ballot cast for you is swept off the table, and the seats are divided among the parties that survived. Israeli elections are decided in that gap more often than they are decided by landslides, and Tropper and Hendel had been sitting just under it all month, at 2.7%, at 2.9%, alive and worthless.

Monday they were over. Which changes the following.

The parties trying to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now total 70 seats in this poll. That sounds decisive. It is not, because ten of those seats belong to the Arab parties, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am, and most of the Jewish opposition has spent the better part of a decade insisting it will never build a government that depends on them. This is a position, not a law of physics. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid did exactly that in 2021, with Mansour Abbas inside the coalition, and the ceiling has been lower ever since because the parties that did it took such punishment for it. Netanyahu, for his part, campaigns on little else.

Take the Arab parties out, and the opposition has 60.

Sixty. One short. And it was 56 until Tropper and Hendel crossed the line.

Elsewhere on Channel 12’s map: Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar leads with 23, Likud is right behind at 22, Naftali Bennett’s Beyahad has 14, Yair Golan’s Democrats 10, Avigdor Liberman 9. Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Otzma Yehudit hold 8 each. Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism has slid to 4 and is now sweating out the same threshold. Netanyahu’s coalition adds up to 50, the worst it has polled.

The neighbors

Tropper did not just move to Ness Harim. He built the half of it he lives in.

He and a few other young couples wanted something that barely exists in Israel: a place where religious and secular families would raise their kids on the same street, in the same kindergarten, arguing about the same things. The moshav happened to be planning an expansion. They took the whole thing. A hundred plots sold in six weeks, entirely by word of mouth, no screening, no committee. Residents say you will not find anyone from the strict end of the religious world living there, which was rather the idea.

Hendel is up the road.

So when people ask how this party came together, the honest answer is that it did not come together in a hotel suite in Tel Aviv in June. These two have been having the same argument, about how religious and secular Israelis manage to share a country, on the same hillside, for twenty years.

Tropper, 48

Jerusalem-born, yeshiva high schools, religious Zionist through and through.

Before politics, he ran the education and welfare department in Yeruham, a hard-luck town in the Negev that Israelis use as shorthand for the periphery. He was second-in-command at Acharai, a youth movement that works with kids nobody else wants. Then he took over the Branco Weiss school in Ramle, which exists for teenagers the school system has already written off. Ilana Dayan made a documentary about it. He has written four books and they are all, one way or another, about education. He was culture and sports minister, then science minister, under Bennett and Lapid.

That is the resume. It is not what Israelis know him for.

They know him for the kidney he gave in February 2020 to a stranger through a religious charity called Matnat Chaim, on the theory, as he put it at the time, that if there is a chance to save someone’s life, why not. They know him for the girl: 15 years old, haredi, dropped out of everything, and Tropper already had four children of his own when he brought her home to Ness Harim. Eight years later he walked her to her wedding canopy. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, he took in a refugee family, a woman named Lena, her nine-year-old son Mark, and their dog Gosha, and wrote about it on Facebook without any of it sounding like a press release.

Israeli political journalists are not a soft crowd. Ask enough of them who the most decent member of the outgoing Knesset was and Tropper’s name comes up more than anyone’s. People float him for president, the ceremonial office Israel hands to figures the country has run out of reasons to fight with. 

Hendel, 51

Harder man. Harder story.

He grew up in a settlement, in a religious-Zionist house, wearing a kipa. He took it off as a teenager and never put it back on, but his people are still the liberal religious right, the ones who want a Jewish state governed by a parliament rather than by rabbis. He has a doctorate in history. He spent years inside the security establishment. He was Netanyahu’s spokesman, and then he was one of the men Netanyahu could least afford. He was communications minister under Bennett and Lapid. He is a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and came up through Shayetet 13, the naval commandos.

Then October 7.

Shayetet told him to stay out of it. Too old. His wife, a physician, told him he had done his share. “Those were exactly the words I needed to hear to do the opposite,” he said later. He drove south. For the first 140 days he commanded roughly 200 reservists in an improvised outfit that people started calling Koach Yoaz, Yoaz Force, because nobody had given it a real name. Requests kept coming in from men who had aged out of combat and wanted back. He went to the army and offered to raise a scouting unit. The army told him to raise a battalion.

They called it Magen Be’eri, for the kibbutz. It is manned by veterans of the special units, Shayetet, Maglan, Egoz, Shaldag, men in their forties and fifties who were legally finished with the army and volunteered back into Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank. Hendel has served more than 500 days since the massacre. He took off the uniform and launched a political party more or less the same week.

In 2012, he published a children’s book. It is called “Daddy Goes to Reserve Duty.”

The knock on him is real, and everyone makes it, including the interviewers who like him. He has been in something like six parties in a decade. Blue and White, Telem, Derech Eretz, New Hope, the Reservists, now this. He does not have a satisfying answer for it. What he has is that he was not in the last Knesset at all, and in Israel this year, that is not a hole in a resume. It is the resume.

What they are actually selling

Neither of them is a new face. The claim is what is new: that two years of war produced an enormous constituency with no address. Hundreds of thousands of reservists, their spouses, the widows, the wounded, people who ran the country’s war while its politicians ran their coalition. Several organizations have gestured at turning that into a party. Hendel is the first one who actually did it.

Whether the arithmetic rewards him is a separate question, and here it gets complicated in a way the poll numbers do not show.

Hendel has said publicly that he will sit only with Zionist parties, which rules out the haredim and the Arab parties both, and he has said flatly that Netanyahu’s government is responsible for October 7. If those lines survived the merger with Tropper, then these four seats are not floating free between the two camps. They belong to one of them, and their power is the power to decide whether that camp can govern without the parties it refuses to govern with. That is narrower than kingmaking. It is also, at 60 seats, the only question that matters.

And the poll is a poll. Midgam surveyed 509 people, sampling error 4.4%, which means a party sitting on 3.25% is statistically indistinguishable from a party sitting on nothing at all. Benny Gantz came in at 1.6% in this survey. Three years ago he was the alternative prime minister, and before that he was the man who nearly ended Netanyahu twice.

But 9.8% of Israelis told Channel 12 they still have not decided, and most of them are wandering around inside the anti-Netanyahu bloc looking for somewhere to land.

A party that did not exist in the spring, led by two men who have never run anything together, now sits between a bloc that cannot reach 61 and a bloc that will not. Both will spend the coming months trying to work out what Tropper and Hendel want.

So, probably, will Tropper and Hendel.

This post was originally published on here. 

A proposal granting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the authority to determine eight slots within the first 30 spots on the party list passed Monday night following a vote by the Likud Central Committee. 

The vote came ahead of internal primaries before the upcoming elections. 

The approved proposal marks a significant shift in the Likud primaries, granting Netanyahu expanded control over the list. Over 4,000 of the Central Committee members were eligible to vote on the changes that were set forward by the premier.

Committee members voted on three proposals by Netanayhu, all of which were approved as the voter turnout reached 72% when polls closed at 8 p.m.

The party has for years prided itself on conducting primaries in which over 100,000 of its registered members are eligible to vote for the Knesset list. Netanyahu has pushed to change the system in recent weeks ahead of the primaries, which were set for August 17.

The changes to the party’s primaries have led to fierce internal tensions, with some party members in favor and others strongly against.

Senior Likud MK David Bitan released a video on Monday in which he urged party members to vote against the proposals put forward by Netanyahu and Likud Constitution Committee chairman Haim Katz.

Bitan had also said that the Prime Minister’s Office had contacted ministers and Likud MKs to request that they film themselves expressing support for Netanyahu’s proposal to change the slots, speaking in a Sunday KAN interview.

In the lead-up to Monday’s vote, numerous ministers and Likud MKs released videos expressing support for the changes to the party’s primary system.

Katz, Regev, Karhi, Zohar, Cohen produce support videos

Among the ministers from the party who created support videos were Defense Minister Israel Katz, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, and Energy Minister Eli Cohen.

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and coalition whip Ofir Katz also filmed themselves making a video in support of Netanyahu’s changes.

“We will stand by the prime minister. We will strengthen the prime minister.” Regev said in her filmed clip. 

The vote also comes after Likud’s top internal court rejected a Netanyahu-backed provision that would have allowed the party to cancel its Knesset primaries in the event of a security escalation, ruling that internal elections are a constitutional obligation that cannot be replaced in advance by an appointed committee.

“The Likud is not a party of one man, and it will lose its vitality if it becomes one,” the three-member panel wrote in a ruling issued Saturday night ahead of Monday’s party convention.

The primaries determine the Likud’s Knesset slate, with the party chairman placed first. Registered members then vote for candidates on the national list, while members from geographic districts vote for candidates from their respective districts.

Candidates chosen on the national list are combined with district representatives and places that guarantee representation for groups including women, immigrants, young members, and minorities. The regulations also reserve certain positions for candidates chosen by the party chairman.

In the 2022 primaries, for example, the first group of positions after the party chairman was largely filled by nationally elected candidates, while district positions and guaranteed-representation slots were inserted farther down the slate. Netanyahu was also given several reserved positions.

The precise locations of those different categories are determined before each election through the party’s temporary election regulations. That is why the current fight has centered not only on whether primaries will take place, but on how much of the resulting slate the members will actually control.

Netanyahu reportedly meets Katz ahead of vote

Netanyahu reportedly has held several meetings with senior Likud figure Katz ahead of the vote, seeking to bridge disagreements over the primary system.

The first vote on the primaries had been postponed multiple times, prompting reports that Netanyahu was working to secure internal support for changing the system.

There have also been reports that Netanyahu has threatened to leave Likud if the proposed changes are not advanced.

Some of the reserved slots could reportedly go to figures such as Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and former finance minister Moshe Kahlon.

Those within the party who oppose changing the primaries have argued that it will cause those who would otherwise score highly in the primaries to fall further down the list.

A fierce critic of changing the system has been MK Tally Gotliv, who is viewed as a candidate who would receive broad support from registered party members.

Gotliv had recently released a video claiming that Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Israel Katz were working behind the scenes to cancel the primaries to receive a high slot from Netanyahu.

Most Israeli political parties do not hold primaries.

Parties are not required to hold primaries in Israel, and only a few do so.

The Likud primaries are expected to be highly competitive. Likud currently has around 40 ministers and MKs serving in the government and Knesset, but recent polls project the party winning only about 25 seats, leaving many at risk of losing their places on the party’s Knesset list.

The debate on how to hold the Likud primaries comes ahead of the general elections, which are set to take place on October 27. The party’s primaries on August 17 were postponed multiple times amid the debate.

Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.

This post was originally published on here. 

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will press for their release from a US jail as they fight the British government’s efforts to extradite them to face charges of rape, assault and facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, the brothers’ lawyers told reporters on Monday.

Andrew Tate, 39, and Tristan Tate, 38, were arrested in Miami on July 18. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said on July 19 it had brought new charges against the brothers relating to alleged offenses involving four alleged victims between July 2010 and August 2017.

The Tate brothers, both former kickboxers who have dual US and British citizenship, have denied any wrongdoing. They are being held in a federal jail in Miami as a US judge weighs Britain’s extradition request.

The arrests marked a new chapter in the widening legal troubles for the brothers, who have built a large online following promoting their views on masculinity and wealth. Andrew Tate has previously described himself as a misogynist.

Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate had previously faced rape and human trafficking charges in Britain related to three alleged victims, the Crown Prosecution Service said. A British judge issued a warrant for their arrests in January 2024. They have not appeared in British court to enter a plea to those charges.

Britain is seeking to extradite the brothers to face both sets of charges.

Detention hearing on August 13

Prosecutors with the Miami US Attorney’s Office said in court papers that US Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis should keep the brothers detained because there was a risk they could flee and because they posed dangers to the community.

Joseph McBride, a lawyer for the Tate brothers, denied that the brothers were a flight risk, noting that they had attended their required court hearings in Romania, where they have been under criminal investigation since 2022 on human trafficking allegations.

“Innocent men don’t flee from justice. Innocent men lean in to justice because justice vindicates them at the end of the day,” McBride told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Miami after a status conference before Louis.

The brothers will file a legal motion seeking their release on bail by August 5, and a hearing over their bid for release will take place on August 13, defense lawyer Jacqueline Perczek said.

Rubio to decide on extradition

The legal process for determining whether the Tate brothers may be extradited could take months. Britain has until September 16 to submit its full extradition request to the State Department, US court records show.

Louis or any other judge who takes up the Tate brothers’ case would be responsible for determining whether Britain has supplied enough evidence to provide probable cause that the brothers have committed the crimes of which they are accused, prosecutors said in court papers.

It would then be up to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to decide whether they should be extradited, the prosecutors said.

Rubio told reporters in Manila on July 22 that he did not expect to intervene in the case for now.

“There’s no role for us to play at this moment or maybe ever,” Rubio said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Palestinian workers are now permitted to work in Israeli West Bank communities, the IDF told military reporters on Monday, following a ban imposed by Central Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth on Saturday.

“The return of Palestinian workers to communities in Judea and Samaria will be allowed, in accordance with the procedure for securing workers in industrial zones and communities,” the IDF said.

The lifting of the ban follows a weekend of violence in the West Bank, including a terror attack at Gilad Farm on Friday in which two Israelis, 32-year-old Master-Sergeant (res.) Benayahu Melet and 27-year-old IDF Maj. Yuval Ezra, were killed.

Prior to the attack, a group of Israeli civilians had illegally crossed into Palestinian Authority-controlled territory during a hike, leading to a confrontation with local Palestinians, with one eventually opening fire on the Israelis, the military said.

The IDF arrested over 70 suspects on Saturday following the Gilad Farm attack after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a sweeping crackdown, including increased troop deployments, new checkpoints, and expanded counterterrorism operations.

On Monday, the Israel Police said the terrorist’s father had been arrested and taken in for questioning, noting that there was no evidence suggesting the father was involved in the attack.

The father was arrested as part of Border Police operations in Tal near Nablus, Ramallah, Shuweika near Tulkarm, and Bani Naim near Hebron.

IDF increases presence in West Bank

The IDF recently decided to increase its presence in the West Bank, with senior military officials describing the situation as “highly volatile and extremely dangerous.”

A security official warned on Sunday that the situation was “a snowball rolling downhill,” cautioning that “it will be difficult to stop.”

A large-scale operation against terror infrastructure and incitement is expected to be postponed until after Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, according to a senior security official. 

Sarah Ben-Nun and Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Board of Peace, established in the wake of the US-backed ceasefire in Gaza in October, said there are important developments in Gaza this week. This is linked to Israel agreeing that the International Stabilization Force, a key part of the ceasefire and peace proposal, will enter Gaza.

Israel has approved the principles of the 20-point plan that the Trump administration secured in October 2025.

What this means is that the IDF will continue to control the Yellow Line in Gaza, which is around half of Gaza. Recent reports say that Israel actually controls up to seventy percent of Israel. Hamas controls the rest and continues to control the lives of 2 million people.

This keeps the people imprisoned under Hamas rule. They are unable to leave the small area controlled by Hamas. The entry of ISF could be part of the larger process that the White House wants to see happen, meaning reconstruction and enabling people in Gaza to live under a technocratic committee.

The Board of Peace was inaugurated in January. However, its work appeared to be mostly on hold as the war in Iran kicked off. Nevertheless, it has continued to work with countries that are contributing to the ISF. Kosovo and Albania sent personnel to examine what will happen next.

ISF coordinates with IDF, enter with approval of Israeli officials

Morocco has agreed to contribute. Kazakhstan is also expected to contribute.

Israel wants to see Hamas disarmed in Gaza. The Cabinet approved immunity for the ISF for the week under the “Immunities for International Organizations” law.

The ISF will coordinate with the IDF, and its entry will come with the approval of Israel’s prime minister, minister of defense, and foreign minister. Israel only wants countries that have peace or have normalized ties with Israel to operate in Gaza. It also doesn’t want countries that are hostile, even if those countries may have peace with Israel.

The BoP noted the “very important development in the process to deliver peace, prosperity, and development in Gaza. The ISF serves a critical role in the scaling of humanitarian services and reconstruction for the people of Gaza. These efforts will move forward with concrete actions over the coming months to introduce a new model of governance, security, and economic opportunity.”

The pilot program in Gaza appears to look like a lot of other borders of Israel. For instance, there is a pilot program in Lebanon with the Lebanese army. In Syria, Israel has appeared to reject any Syrian attempt to coordinate on security.

The US has been involved in bringing about ceasefires in Gaza, Lebanon and also reducing Israel’s strikes in Syria. The White House has made it clear it wants to see peace.

Nickolay E. Mladenov, who is working as the high representative of the Board of Peace and is supposed to be closely involved in Gaza, wrote that he welcomes “steps by Israel that enable the deployment of the ISF in Gaza, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2803. It is a critical part of the agreed framework for stabilizing Gaza, supporting demilitarization, and enabling the transition to effective Palestinian transitional administration under the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.”

The NCAG is the Palestinian technical committee that is supposed to run Gaza.

Hamas is supposed to be disarmed and give up its governance of Gaza. Hamas has claimed it would give up governance, but it also elected a new leader recently and does not seem serious about handing over power in Gaza.

Regional countries such as Egypt want to see progress in Gaza. Saudi Arabia also wants to see progress. The US wants Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. However, Riyadh wants to see positive developments on the Palestinian issue.

The success of the ISF in Gaza could be key to these next phases of peace in the region. Israel has appeared skeptical of the plans for Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the US on Monday. The Trump administration will likely want to discuss Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and other issues.

Hurdles in Gaza, logistics, education, healthcare

There are hurdles in Gaza. Equipment and material will need to enter Gaza as part of logistics operations to enable success. This will also need to dovetail with aid and also potential reconstruction in a pilot zone.

The concept might be to allow a few people to leave the Hamas area and move to a secure, Hamas-free area. That way, people can begin to have education and health care free from Hamas. People in Gaza have been held under Hamas rule since an illegal coup by Hamas in 2007.

There are other steps as well. Palestinian police will need to be trained and enabled to enter Gaza. Previous reports said Egypt and the EU might be involved with the police. The EU already trains Palestinian police in the West Bank.

Israel is wary of any connections of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Any connections would enable the PA to unite the Palestinian areas and work towards a state. Israel’s officials currently oppose a Palestinian state.

Israel is cooperating with the BoP. Things take time. Israel also has elections in several months. There are many challenges ahead.

There are also issues related to the international community and securing additional commitments for the ISF from various countries. A few dozen or even 200 personnel in the ISF is only the beginning if one wants to actually secure areas in Gaza.

There is a relatively new logistics area on the border of Gaza, called LSA Endurance, that was established in the last few months. In mid-June, Kosovo’s Charge d’Affaires to Israel, Ines Demiri, visited the new logistics hub.

The BoP noted that Demiri “inspected the construction progress at Life Support Area Endurance, which will serve as a vital waypoint for ISF to refit while supporting restoration & humanitarian efforts.”

This is another piece of the puzzle in supporting the next step in Gaza. Each month brings new progress.

This post was originally published on here. 

Likud MK Amit Halevi identified Iran and Turkey as the primary orchestrators of a strategic effort to sow internal division and achieve “regime change” in Jerusalem in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Halevi, a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, issued a stark warning regarding what he describes as sophisticated foreign intervention in Israel’s domestic process.

While Israel’s use of paper ballots makes direct mechanical tampering with elections nearly impossible, Halevi emphasized that foreign actors can still influence the outcome.

“You can influence,” Halevi said. “And as long as it is an Israeli citizen, that is excellent and desirable. But when it involves a foreign country with foreign interests and a hostile state is behind the influence, it becomes fundamentally invalid.”

Halevi detailed what he described as the methods used by hostile actors, arguing that they exploit the digital sphere and financial leverage to manipulate the Israeli electorate. According to him, these states deploy budgets and capabilities far beyond the reach of any individual in order to identify and exploit “weak links” and “influential links” within Israeli society.

Social networks, influence through digital means

“Intervention can be, of course, in the digital age, through various digital means on social networks,” he explained. “This is funding that leads to various actions by different people in different sectors and different regions… to eventually reach a result desired by the hostile state.”

He further alleged that such influence operations often operate behind legitimate-looking organizations.

“The system of the ‘bad guys’ exploits everything – any international humanitarian or civil camouflage network-to bring about harm to the State of Israel,” Halevi claimed. He specifically pointed to funding and activities by “foreign countries and the European Union” channeled through Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as an ongoing concern, even outside election periods.

“I think it is right to mention mainly two countries whose open, undisguised aspirations to set the agenda in the Middle East and beyond are known to all,” Halevi said. “I mean Iran and Turkey. The two have a part in this context of attempts to influence the elections in Israel. Both are bitter enemies, and both have detailed plans for the destruction of the State of Israel.”

According to Halevi, the strategic objective of Tehran and Ankara is to project themselves as the region’s “kingmakers”-states capable of shaping the internal politics of neighboring countries.

For these hostile actors, Halevi argued, removing Israel’s current leadership is a tactical necessity.

Israel’s adversaries exploit domestic left-right political divide

“Everyone in the region understands that the rule of the Right and the rule of Netanyahu is a fortified wall against deterioration,” he said. He argued that Israel’s adversaries understand the domestic political divide between the Left and the Right and are “invested” in dismantling the current governing coalition.

Halevi also drew a parallel to recent events in the United States, arguing that foreign interference in democratic systems is an increasingly global phenomenon.

“I remind you that before the elections in the United States, there were those who tried to assassinate President Trump… and the involvement of foreign countries in that context is known today.”

Halevi said he raised these concerns directly with Shin Bet Director David Zini.

“These things need to be on the table and, above all, need to be handled properly,” Halevi said. “I want to hope that this is indeed being done with all the means available to our security systems.”

While Halevi is a vocal critic of what he calls “unelected bodies,” such as the judiciary and legal advisers, overriding the public will, he argued that foreign intervention in Israeli elections represents a “red line” that should concern all Israelis, regardless of their political views.

“It is unacceptable that someone here would cooperate with this,” he said. “It is important that everyone knows that we know, and that everyone knows that no one here is naive.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Today, Iran does not see US President Donald Trump as merely a political rival. It views him as a personal enemy of the head of state and the Guardianship of the Jurist – the Islamic Republic’s doctrine that a senior Islamic jurist should rule the state.

Since supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, official and semi-official discourse in Tehran has merged the idea of the “martyred supreme leader” with a duty to avenge those deemed responsible for his targeting, with Trump at the top of the list.

At mourning gatherings and in sermons, phrases have circulated declaring that “the supreme leader’s blood is a sacred trust” and that those who waged war against Iran “will never know safety as long as breath remains in our bodies.” This framing elevates the threat from mere propaganda to an existential duty in the minds of the regime and its affiliated networks.

For his part, Trump ties his personal safety directly to the fate of the Iranian regime. In multiple statements, he has said he has been “on their list for a long time,” that any successful attempt would be met with strikes against the Islamic Republic “at levels that they’ve never seen before,” and that Iran “will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.”

Trump is working to cement a clear equation: any attack on the US commander in chief equals an attack on the very core of the Iranian regime. The prospect of assassination is not a criminal matter in this framing. It is a potential gateway to a war of an entirely different kind.

Caught between a vengeful narrative rooted in Khamenei’s blood and an American deterrence posture that treats assassination as an existential redline, a complex threat environment has taken shape.

The question is no longer whether the threat is real. It is how the threat might evolve if left unaddressed through preventive action, and how it could shift from angry rhetoric to deliberate planning and the search for means to carry out an attack.

Yet no call for vengeance, no matter how fierce, has real impact unless it finds a structure capable of turning words into action. This is where the network Tehran has built over decades comes into play.

Iran does not rely solely on a conventional intelligence apparatus or local militias. It draws on a far broader web that stretches from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies to ties with organized crime rings, drug trafficking networks, and money laundering operations.

IRGC involvement in Latin America

In Latin America, the IRGC and Hezbollah have been linked to drug cartels and smuggling routes. Europe has seen repeated cases of individuals with ties to Iran accused of plotting or supporting assassination attempts and attacks on dissidents. These records reflect a readiness to exploit any legal or security vulnerability that presents itself.

Against this backdrop, finding someone to carry out an assassination does not require building a new network from scratch. It only requires redirecting an existing structure toward a specific target. 

Tehran could turn to hired killers through cartels and criminal networks, purchasing ready combat expertise and using established smuggling routes to move an operative to the point of attack. The operation could be framed as a contract killing, making it hard to trace immediately back to a political decision.

The regime could also exploit foreign migrant communities in Europe and the United States. Some members of these groups live on the margins of society or harbor deep anger toward the US.

They could be pushed to carry out an attack as vengeance for a cause they see as just, or as an act of solidarity with the “martyred supreme leader.” It could also open channels to ideological extremists from fringe movements who view striking at the head of the US government as a revolutionary act against imperialism.

What multiplies the danger of these tools is the mass mobilization that accompanied Khamenei’s funeral. The event was far more than an official state ceremony. It was a sea of people chanting for vengeance, carrying portraits of the supreme leader, and blaming the West and Trump for his death.

When chants of “retribution for the leader” fill the air, the IRGC gains something more valuable than the crowds themselves. It gains popular legitimacy for any plan to exact revenge.

At the height of the mourning processions, the crowd did more than carry Khamenei’s image and banners of vengeance. Regime supporters held up large posters of Trump and a list of US politicians and media figures close to Israel. Red crosshairs were printed over their faces, above an English slogan that read: “Sooner or later your heads will roll.” 

This is no fleeting outburst from an unruly street crowd. It is coordinated incitement at an official state funeral. It effectively declares the killing of these individuals an open, binding duty of vengeance. It sends a signal to every network and lone actor that the path to these targets has been cleared politically and symbolically from the heart of Tehran.

In such an environment, Iran does not need to leave its fingerprints on every bullet. It is enough to supply the narrative and the symbols. Execution can be left to organized crime networks, cross-border gangs, and ideological fringe groups that crave a moment of bloody glory.

In the eyes of Iran’s security agencies, these crowds effectively become a vast recruitment pool. Anyone who attended, anyone who showed heightened fervor, anyone with ties to groups or networks, anyone living in another country falls under their watch. 

With the loyalty network tied to the Guardianship of the Jurist stretching across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Africa, and Europe, the Revolutionary Guard can turn a portion of this mobilization into an active vengeance structure.

That network can provide safe havens, logistical support, help moving personnel across borders, or volunteers willing to take part in an operation abroad as an act of loyalty to Khamenei’s memory.

That is why tightening the president’s personal security is not enough. The rules of engagement with Iran’s entire vengeance apparatus must be re-engineered. 

The process starts by treating any credible threat to assassinate US or Israeli leadership as a hostile act in the making. On that basis, early strikes would target the Revolutionary Guard’s planning and operational units. 

The approach would continue by expanding the set of preventive targets to include the financial and smuggling networks that feed the apparatus and give it the ability to move across borders. It would be completed by building a clear alliance framework to share intelligence on these networks, maintain ready target lists, and establish public rules of engagement.

Those rules would state that simply entering the serious planning phase for an assassination carries an immediate cost, even before the first bullet is fired.

Under this logic, preventive action is not a reaction or a reckless rush forward. It is a restructuring of the rules of deterrence. 

The message to Tehran, and to anyone considering performing a “service” as part of a project to avenge Khamenei’s blood, is that the threat itself has become costly. 

Mere involvement in preparations from within the apparatus of the Guardianship of the Jurist or its affiliated networks is enough to trigger a painful response against that apparatus itself, not against the low-level operative who can easily be discarded. 

The ultimate question is not whether Iran can physically get to Trump. It is whether the West is ready to turn this threat into an unbearable burden on Iran’s vengeance structure before it becomes a defining event that shakes the entire international order.

The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.

This post was originally published on here. 

The IDF has increased its deployment across the West Bank to 26 battalions, adding two battalions amid a sharp escalation marked by Palestinian terrorist attacks and attacks from settlers, The Jerusalem Post learned on Monday.

The figure represents the number of battalions operating across the West Bank rather than a disclosed number of soldiers. The deployment is not static, with forces routinely moved between areas according to operational assessments and changing security needs.

It is unclear whether the additional deployment will remain in place throughout the summer and ahead of the High Holy Days, as the military continues to reassess a rapidly shifting situation.

The Post was not provided with a separate breakdown of forces assigned to prevent attacks by extremist Israelis against Palestinians. Their distribution is determined by broader situational assessments.

The reinforcement comes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered increased troop deployments, additional checkpoints, and expanded counterterrorism operations following Friday’s deadly shooting near Gilad Farm. Security forces arrested more than 70 terror suspects across the West Bank the following day.

Confrontations, shootings, Israelis and Palestinians dead

According to the IDF, Friday’s incident began when a group of Israeli civilians entered Palestinian Authority-controlled territory near the village of Tal without coordinating with the military.

A confrontation developed with local Palestinians, during which a Palestinian seized a weapon and opened fire. IDF Chief Sgt. First Class Benayahu Mellet, 32, a member of Gilad Farm’s local emergency response squad, and Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an Artillery Corps battery commander, were killed.

The Palestinian shooter was also killed. Palestinian officials said four Palestinians were killed during the broader confrontation, but the precise sequence of events, including how the other Palestinians died, remains unclear and is under investigation.

Ahmed Ramadan, 71, the father of one of the Palestinians killed on Friday, said settlers have continually harassed their home on the edge of Tal.

Israel Police said on Monday that security forces arrested nine suspects in overnight raids, including the father of one of the Palestinians killed Friday. Police did not say what he was suspected of and did not allege that he was involved in the attack.

Three other wanted suspects were arrested in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus in an undercover Border Police operation directed by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). Police said they were suspected of terrorist activity but gave no further details.

Six additional suspects were arrested in separate operations in Tal near Nablus, Ramallah, Shuweika near Tulkarm, and Bani Naim near Hebron.

The shooting followed a stabbing near Elon Moreh on Thursday, in which 51-year-old Itamar Cohen was seriously wounded after attempting to extinguish a fire allegedly set by residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Furik. The two Palestinian attackers were killed.

Continuing incidents: soldiers attacked, fire set to mosque

On Saturday, an off-duty soldier and another Israeli were injured near the Sussiya Junction. The IDF said a Palestinian threw stones at the men and took a weapon from one of them. The weapon was recovered, and four suspects were arrested.

In the early hours of Sunday, Israelis set fire to a mosque in the village of Kusra and sprayed “Revenge for Benayahu” and a Star of David on its entrance.

The weekend attacks followed incidents in Jalud and Turmus Aiya, where the IDF confirmed that Israeli civilians attempted to set fire to Palestinian property and became involved in violent confrontations. Suspects fled before security forces arrived and no arrests were immediately reported.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir has instructed commanders to prevent further friction between Israelis and Palestinians, while senior Central Command officials have warned that terrorism and violence originating from unauthorized outposts are making it increasingly difficult to maintain security and public order.
In Gaza, the IDF said on Monday that it killed Wael Musa Khaled Ladawi, who it said headed Hamas’s internal security in the center of the enclave.

The IDF described the apparatus as a central clandestine body that collected intelligence for senior Hamas officials, supported decision-making, and facilitated the planning and execution of attacks against Israel.

In northern Gaza, east of the Yellow Line, troops dismantled an underground tunnel route, the military said.
The IDF also said it killed Amro Abu Alrish, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad Nukhba terrorist involved in one of the releases of an Israeli hostage earlier in the war, and Abd Al-Nasser Al-Aziz Maqadmeh, a Hamas police commander and deputy platoon commander.

In southern Lebanon, the IDF said troops found two drawings of Adolf Hitler inside a private home in the village of Taybeh.

Arabic-language IDF spokesperson Ella Waweya, known as “Captain Ella,” said the drawings were signed with the name Hassan Haidar and were believed to belong to a larger portfolio.

The military said it suspected the portfolio had been prepared for a school operating under Hezbollah’s auspices.
The IDF did not provide further evidence identifying the artist or establishing the portfolio’s connection to Hezbollah.

The discovery comes as a US-brokered ceasefire continues to hold and Israel tests a phased withdrawal from parts of southern Lebanon. Under a US-backed pilot program, the Lebanese Army has begun entering Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar al-Gharbiya, with Israel so far withdrawing from Zawtar.

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that air defenses intercepted drones launched from Iraq that attempted to target oil facilities in the Eastern Province and Riyadh.

The ministry blamed Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq. Saudi Arabia condemned the attack and called on Baghdad to prevent Iraqi territory from being used as a launchpad.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis separately said they targeted crude oil infrastructure linking eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea city of Yanbu, in response to what they called Saudi drone incursions into Yemeni airspace.

Near Israel, the IDF said it shot down two drones in the area of the Israel-Jordan border. The drones did not cross into Israeli territory, and the military said it was reviewing their origin.

Jordan’s armed forces also said they downed two drones on Monday morning, with no casualties or material damage.

The statement did not identify who launched them.

Also on Monday, Iran said it remained in control of the Strait of Hormuz and was not seeking to resume peace talks with the United States after US President Donald Trump halted a two-week bombing campaign.

Following 13 successive nights of bombing that prompted Tehran to fire on US bases, Trump halted the campaign over the weekend. Iran said it would suspend its attacks for as long as the US pause endures.
The end of the campaign sent oil prices tumbling, with Brent crude falling more than 8% on Monday to just under $89 a barrel.

Jordan reported shooting down two drones, while Iraqi security sources said drones struck a base of Iranian Kurdish opposition fighters in northern Iraq. There were no reports of casualties.

Iranian state media cited an “informed source” as saying Iran had turned around six ships that attempted to cross the strait without permission. Iran says ships may pass only through a channel closer to its coast, which it controls and where it intends to impose transit fees.

This post was originally published on here. 

Israel Police asked the public to help locate a 20-year-old Jerusalem woman and her two young children, whom she is suspected of abducting and bringing to Israel from Canada, police said on Monday.

Investigators at the Jerusalem District’s Lev Habira police station opened an investigation after receiving a complaint against the mother, identified as Aliya Joy Hirschberg.

Hirschberg is suspected of abducting her two children, a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

According to the investigation’s findings, the mother and children entered Israel in August 2025. Their whereabouts have been unknown since then.

Police investigators believe Hirschberg and the children may be in the Jerusalem area. Police called on anyone with information about their whereabouts to contact the Israel Police emergency hotline at 100 or the investigating unit at 02-5391550.

Police issue exit ban as search continues

The couple had been living alternately in Canada and the United States, according to the report. Hirschberg holds Israeli citizenship, an Israeli passport, and an Israeli identity card, while her husband does not.

Following an argument between the couple in Canada, Hirschberg allegedly took the children and traveled with them to Israel, where she disappeared with them.

The husband subsequently hired a private investigator to trace his wife and children. When those efforts were unsuccessful, he contacted welfare authorities and local government officials, who then involved the police.

Police are currently searching for Hirschberg. An order preventing her from leaving Israel has also been issued as the investigation continues.

This post was originally published on here. 

Jewish educators are the builders of Jewish identity. From Buenos Aires to Budapest, from Melbourne to Montreal, from Seattle to San Antonio, teachers pass on far more than Jewish knowledge – they cultivate belonging, values, memory, and purpose.

Whether teaching youngsters to read Hebrew, introducing teens to the history of Israel, exploring the intricacies of the Talmud, or explaining the finer points of Jewish law, they make a profound impact on their students, helping shape the Jewish identity of young people around the world.

>> Nominations Are Now Open for the Global Jewish Teachers Award!

To recognize the value and importance of Jewish educators worldwide, The Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, and its partner organization UnitEd – the educational initiative that empowers Jewish day schools worldwide – have created the Jewish Teachers Award, recognizing extraordinary Jewish educators and celebrating the transformative role they play in shaping our collective future.

On October 12, 2026, these organizations will honor up to ten exceptional Jewish teachers from around the world at the Global Jewish Educators Conference in Jerusalem. At this four-day summit, educators from Jewish schools and educational leaders from around the world will shape the future of Jewish education. Recipients of the award will be fully hosted at the conference as guests of the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

“Behind every confident Jewish child and every engaged Jewish community,” says Jerusalem Post Group CEO Inbar Ashkenazi, “stands a teacher who made a lasting difference. Through the Jewish Teachers Award, we are proud to recognize the educators whose passion, leadership, and commitment are strengthening Jewish identity and ensuring that our shared heritage continues to flourish for generations to come.”

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, explains the origins of the Jewish Teachers Award. “This award grew out of a simple belief: Educators are the mainstay of the Jewish people’s continuity, heritage, and unique identity, second in importance only to parents. They transmit to the next generation not only knowledge, but also identity, a sense of belonging, and responsibility. In recent years and even more so since October 7, we have come to understand the extent to which Jewish education is a strategic component of the Jewish people’s resilience.

“Those whose identity is strong will fight for it; those whose identity hangs by a thread will abandon it in times of crisis. Our message is that the State of Israel regards Jewish educators around the world as full partners in this national mission. We value their work, understand the challenges they face, and want to tell them clearly: You are on the front lines of the struggle for the future of the Jewish people.”

What are the characteristics of an exceptional Jewish educator? Explains Chikli, “An outstanding Jewish educator is, first and foremost, someone who understands that their profession draws its strength from 3,500 years of tradition and speaks to the soul, with the aim of elevating the student to ever-greater heights. Jewish educators must spark curiosity, inspire pride, and give their students the tools to confront a complex reality in which Jewish identity is frequently challenged.”

Chikli adds that he hopes the award will become a symbol of recognition for educational excellence while strengthening the sense of partnership between Jewish educators worldwide and the State of Israel. He notes that enhancing the status of Jewish educators is one of his ministry’s most important missions.

Beyond honoring individual teachers, Chikli says, the award aims to highlight their work, encourage innovation, share success stories, and strengthen educators’ standing within their communities. Empowering a single educator, he notes, can positively affect hundreds of students and help secure the future of an entire community.

The professional educational partner for the Jewish Teachers Award is UnitEd, a global nonprofit organization partnering with the State of Israel, through the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism, to strengthen Jewish day schools worldwide, empowering the next generation of Jewish leaders and ensuring vibrant Jewish communities for generations to come.

Rachel Fink, Director of Education at UnitEd, says that the award is an opportunity to acknowledge the vital service provided by Jewish educators, who are often overlooked. “UnitEd works today with over 850 Jewish schools, spanning more than 50 countries around the world, alongside thousands of Jewish educators. Every day, I see the depth and dedication behind the work of teaching, and I have the privilege of meeting devoted teachers for whom educating the next generation is their life’s mission. As a people, we have built ourselves through learning and education, and yet, teachers don’t always receive the respect and recognition they deserve. This competition is an opportunity for us, as a global community, to pause for a moment and say to Jewish educators: we see you, we see the wonderful work you do, and you deserve our thanks.”

>> How will the world’s outstanding Jewish educators be nominated, and who will select them? Nominations for the Jewish Teachers Award can be submitted at jewishteachersaward.com.

Eligible candidates for the award are educators who currently teach Jewish Studies, Hebrew, or Israel Studies at a Jewish day school outside of Israel, have at least three years of teaching experience, are actively teaching at the time of application, and are not serving as Israeli Shlichim/Shlichot (emissaries).

All nominations will undergo an initial review by the award team of The Jerusalem Post Group to verify eligibility and compliance with submission requirements. A professional panel of education experts from Herzog Global, the international outreach department of Herzog Academic College, will evaluate eligible nominations according to the established selection criteria. Rabbi Professor Avishalom Westreich, President, Herzog Academic College, says that honoring Jewish educators for their accomplishments is essential. “For decades, Herzog Academic College has viewed strengthening Jewish education around the world as part of its core mission. Especially in these challenging times, celebrating exceptional Jewish educators sends a powerful message: education is our strongest response to uncertainty, and our greatest investment in the future.  Through our longstanding work with educators and Jewish schools across the globe, we are privileged to help ensure that this award reflects excellence, diversity, and a shared commitment to the future of the Jewish people.”

The finalists will be evaluated by an international judging panel comprising distinguished Jewish educators and thought leaders from around the world, who will select the award recipients.

The panel of judges will be chaired by Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, and includes Rabbi Dr. Howard Deitcher, Professor Emeritus, Seymour Fox School of Education, Hebrew University; Chair, Advisory Committee, UnitEd, Dr. Erica Brown, Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and Founding Director of the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership; and Manette Mayberg, President of the Mayberg Foundation.

>> To nominate a teacher for the Jewish Teachers Award, visit jewishteachersaward.com.

 This article was written in cooperation with the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

This post was originally published on here. 

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an Al Jazeera interview on Sunday that he is working to reach a security arrangement with Israel that could eventually lead to a comprehensive peace agreement.

That’s the good news.

The less good news is that such a peace, he said, would come about “without compromising Syria’s right to the occupied Golan.”

Considering that no Israeli government in the foreseeable future is likely to consider ceding the Golan – especially in view of the endemic chaos and instability in Syria – a peace agreement conditioned on an Israeli withdrawal from the Heights would seem out of reach.

A lot has happened in Syria and the region since Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flirted in the 1990s and the early 2000s with the idea of letting the Syrians dangle their toes in the Kinneret.

But that does not make Sharaa’s statement insignificant – even if it is one he has made before.

Its significance lies less in the prospect of an imminent Israeli-Syrian peace agreement than in what Sharaa seems willing to contemplate short of one: a security arrangement with Israel that could stabilize the border, reduce the possibility of war, and perhaps create conditions for something more ambitious down the road.

Sharaa’s comments echo words of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun

And in this respect, Sharaa’s comments bear a striking resemblance to those made in Washington last week by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

Aoun praised a recent framework agreement signed with Israel that he said had as its ultimate objective ending the state of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel forever. He, too, spoke in terms of long-term security arrangements with Israel rather than an immediate, full-fledged peace agreement.

Taken together, the comments point to what could be an emerging regional approach: rather than trying to leap in one fell swoop from decades of hostility to formal peace, move incrementally toward a more stable Middle East by first putting security arrangements in place.

The symbolic significance of this should not be discounted. The leaders of both Lebanon and Syria are no longer talking about war with Israel as some kind of ideological imperative.  Rather, they are looking at relations with Israel in practical terms.

For Sharaa to say this on Al Jazeera – Qatar’s mouthpiece long hospitable to Muslim Brotherhood views – is no small thing.

For the Muslim Brotherhood, perpetual conflict with the Jewish state is an ideological principle. Sharaa, by contrast, was talking about security arrangements and, eventually, peace.

Both Sharaa and Aoun have compelling domestic reasons for doing so.

Syria, Lebanon cannot meet their regional goals without Israel

Aoun needs to restore Lebanese sovereignty by weakening Hezbollah. Sharaa needs to consolidate his rule and assert the authority of the central government throughout Syria. Neither can easily accomplish those goals while remaining locked in perpetual confrontation with Israel.

In other words, arrangements with Israel could serve not only to prevent war but also to strengthen the state against armed groups and competing centers of power within it. This does not mean either leader is ready to abandon long-standing territorial claims.

Quite the opposite.

Sharaa stressed that Syria would not compromise its claim to the Golan. It is also clear that the security agreement he has in mind is predicated on a full Israeli withdrawal from the buffer zone the IDF carved out following the fall of Bashar Assad in 2024. Aoun, likewise, has said that Lebanon will not yield “an inch” of Lebanese territory.

Israel, however, is unlikely to withdraw completely from either buffer zone in Syria or Lebanon until it is confident that Sharaa and Aoun have extended their control throughout their countries and can be counted on to prevent either country from backsliding into a situation where its territory can once again be used as a launching pad for attacks on the Jewish state.

And that type of confidence will take years to build.

That gap – between what Syria and Lebanon are demanding now and what Israel is prepared to concede now – is precisely what makes the emerging approach interesting. It suggests that the objective is not to resolve all the outstanding issues at once but to find security arrangements that can reduce the danger of war while giving each side time to build the confidence needed for more far-reaching agreements.

What is being discussed is not full peace but rather a search for arrangements that reduce the possibility of armed conflict without requiring Syria or Lebanon to first surrender territorial claims that remain politically important at home, or for Israel to immediately relinquish security positions that it deems necessary.

Sharaa’s comments about the Golan, therefore, may be directed as much toward his domestic audience as toward Israeli leaders: He can explore an arrangement with Israel while reassuring Syrians that doing so does not mean relinquishing Syria’s claims.

Aoun is attempting a similar balancing act.

And Israel, for its part, has its own immediate security interests. In both Lebanon and Syria, it has carved out buffer zones intended to keep hostile forces away from its border communities. Any agreement that could provide Israel with sufficient security guarantees to alter those arrangements would therefore have to address the threats that led Israel to establish them in the first place.

The coincidence of Sharaa’s remarks and Aoun’s recent language suggests that something broader may be taking shape: a regional diplomatic effort in which Syria and Lebanon are encouraged toward security arrangements with Israel as a way to stabilize borders, strengthen central governments, and marginalize non-state armed actors.

This is a far more modest objective than the sweeping peace agreements. But it may also be a more realistic one.
 
 

This post was originally published on here. 

The Trump administration supports a phased IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon under the framework of the Hezbollah disarmament deal, senior US officials told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

“The Framework establishes a clear, conditions-based bargain between Israel and Lebanon,” the officials told the Post. “Israel will redeploy its forces from Lebanese territory in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the restoration of Lebanese state sovereignty over all its territory.”

The officials noted that the implementation of the framework will accomplish three primary goals, namely the return of Lebanese sovereignty, the dismantling of Hezbollah‘s terror infrastructure, and a secure northern border for Israel.

“On July 20, pilot zone operations began in accordance with the Trilateral Framework, including the redeployment by Israeli forces from Zawtar al-Gharbiya,” the sources said, describing the milestone as a “direct outcome of last week’s discussions between Israel and Lebanon in Rome.”

“The United States will continue working closely with both parties to implement the Framework to a successful conclusion,” the officials added.

‘Post’ asks officials if Trump intends to address Syria in Netanyahu meeting

The Post asked the officials if US President Donald Trump also intends to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on IDF activity in Syria during their upcoming meeting in Washington, but the officials did not address the issue.

Netanyahu departed from Israel earlier on Monday for the talks, where the two world leaders are expected to discuss the situation with Iran, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed.

Miriam Sela-Eitam contributed to this report.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Israeli government’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide had begun to remove an unnecessary burden from the relationship between two ancient peoples whose histories have long echoed one another. The hope was that the Knesset would give that decision permanent legislative form, but the dissolution of the Knesset – combined, perhaps, with pressure from outside parties – has postponed that final parliamentary step.

For Armenians and their Israeli friends like myself, this is naturally disappointing – but we of all people know that history rarely advances in a straight line, especially in democracies. What matters is not that recognition has been delayed but that it has already crossed a threshold from which there should be no return.

The unanimous decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government last month represented the culmination of decades during which Israeli presidents, ministers, members of Knesset, scholars, writers, Holocaust survivors, and civil society leaders argued that recognizing the Armenian Genocide was consistent with Israel’s deepest moral traditions.

Governments changed, regional alliances shifted, and strategic calculations evolved, yet the conviction that historical truth deserved official recognition – from the Jewish state most of all – steadily gained strength. That threshold was crossed, and the remaining task is to anchor that historic decision permanently in parliamentary law.

An opportunity for the government

There is, in fact, an opportunity hidden within this delay. If recognition is completed after Israelis elect a new Knesset, whatever its political composition, it will be harder than ever to portray it as the initiative of one government or the product of one diplomatic moment. It will instead become what it should always have been: the considered judgment of the State of Israel, representing the people who suffered the most horrendous genocide of all.

Whoever forms Israel’s next government should therefore regard completion of this process as unfinished national business. If the current government remains in office, it should complete the work it began, demonstrating that its decision was never intended as a passing political gesture but as a lasting affirmation of historical truth.

If Israeli voters entrust another coalition with governing, recognition would offer an early opportunity to demonstrate that fidelity to historical truth transcends changes in political leadership.

Indeed, an opposition coalition based on moderation and openness to the world should be determined to complete the task. Different governments may arrive there for different reasons, but they should arrive at the same destination.

The significance for Israel

That would matter not only for Armenia but for Israel itself.

Israel has long asked the international community to understand that confronting historical truth is not an act of political convenience but a moral responsibility. The struggle against Holocaust denial has always rested upon the conviction that memory cannot be subordinated to temporary interests or diplomatic expediency. That principle, when applied to the Armenian experience, is strengthened by consistency.

Israel faces profound threats, yet democracies reveal their deepest character in the way they preserve enduring principles amid crises.

Armenia did not make recognition a precondition for friendship with Israel, even during the many years when successive Israeli governments concluded that strategic considerations pointed elsewhere. Armenians continued to believe that the relationship between our peoples rested upon something more enduring than the calculations of any particular moment. That belief remains justified today.

Jews and Armenians understand one another in ways that few nations can. Both preserved ancient civilizations through centuries without sovereignty. Both endured persecution while refusing to surrender their identities. Both know that memory is not simply about the past but about safeguarding human dignity in the future.

When the next Knesset convenes, regardless of which parties occupy the government benches or the opposition, it should complete the journey – not for the sake of one government or another, nor even primarily for Armenia, but because historical truth deserves the imprimatur of the State of Israel.

The writer is J Street-Israel’s executive director. He has served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and Boston and as a political adviser to the president of Israel.

This post was originally published on here. 

Israeli defense exports to Europe are breaking records, but the latest deal with Greece, worth euro 3.5 billion, also has a strategic dimension.

While the “Arrow 3” deal with Germany was seen primarily as a response to the war in Ukraine, the latest procurement by Greece reflects the development of a regional alliance against Turkey.

Greece will procure a multi-layered air defense system from Israel for around euro 3.5 billion, which will be integrated into its Achilles Shield defense system. The procurement will include Rafael’s David’s Sling in the upper layer, Israel Aerospace Industries’ Barak MX in the middle layer, and Rafael’s Spyder system in the lower layer.

Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatens Greece no less than it does Israel, creating a triangular alliance that is also tightening with Cyprus.

Greece’s challenge and the need for deterrence

Turkey and Greece might be NATO allies, but they have chronic tensions over the boundaries of their economic waters in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.

Since 1995, the Turkish maritime law has been casting a cloud over relations, according to which if Greece expands its economic waters in the Aegean Sea beyond six nautical miles, Ankara will see the move as a pretext for war. This year, the trend intensified with Turkey’s promotion of the “Blue Homeland” law, under which Ankara aims to extend its territorial waters by more nautical miles at the expense of Greece’s economic waters.

According to spokespeople for the Erdogan regime, the law was supposed to have already been enacted but has stalled for now. A senior Greek official told Globes that the assessment in Athens is that the Turkish government has not abandoned the idea but has postponed it until after the US midterm elections. “This is a worrying step,” the official admitted.

Turkish policy also indirectly harms Israel. About a year ago, the Greeks decided to ignore Ankara’s threats and declared a closed maritime zone off the islands of Kasos and Karpathos to begin laying a cable to connect the Israeli electricity grid to Europe. An Italian ship has already arrived at the deployment site but has not begun working, because the Turks have threatened to cut the cables and Greece has chosen to avoid a unilateral move for fear of a direct military confrontation.

Now, the Turks have declared a closed maritime zone for seismic research being conducted north of Cyprus between July 20 and August 30. The goal: to lay a natural gas pipeline between Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), a puppet entity whose independence only Ankara recognizes. The move illustrates how close Turkish buildup and displays of power are getting to Israel.

“Turkey is eight times bigger than us,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with local media after Greece’s National Security Council approved the deal. “We are ready to discuss a realistic solution to issues such as the exclusive economic zone, but I will never be ready to conduct diplomacy from a position of weakness. I want Greece to always maintain a strong warning capability.”

The path to that deterrence lies in a multi-layered air defense system to be provided by Israel, and, according to the plan, will be fully deployed in just 35 months. The project is being accelerated because of Greece’s threat perception, which fears a Turkish opening strike with multiple missiles and rockets in an attempt to conquer islands in the Aegean Sea. The Greek ambition is that the Israeli multi-layered system will allow for the minimization of vulnerabilities and provide breathing space for the deployment of forces from Greece to the islands.

David’s Sling will be part of a national system and is therefore expected to be located on mainland Greece. Barak MX will also be deployed throughout mainland Greece and possibly even on the main islands, and Spyder’s versatility will be utilized to deploy batteries on the Aegean islands as far as Crete.

David’s Sling system has a range of up to 300 kilometers and is capable of intercepting cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones. The Barak MX system supports various radars and launchers for coverage against fighter jets, helicopters, drones, cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and surface-to-surface missiles. The Spyder system, which was recently sold to Romania in a euro 2 billion deal, provides air defense solutions at different ranges and against a variety of threats, including UAVs, aircraft, helicopters, and short-range ballistic missiles.

Israel will transfer knowledge and capabilities, including source code

Greek magazine HellasJournal reported that a crucial detail in the creation of the Achilles Shield is the command-and-control system, including the provision of source code for Greek independence. According to the same report, the unified air defense network will be managed from this system, in which, alongside the Israeli systems, US-made systems already in Greece will be integrated, such as the Patriot and Hawk. The magazine also reported that Greek production of interceptors for the Israeli systems is possible.

From here, Israel and Greece will soon work out details for the operational side of the agreement, which includes at least 25% local production. The issue of local production has become a major issue worldwide in recent years, due to the realization that many years of neglect of defense budgets has also led to a substantial gap in technological knowledge and industrial capabilities.

Greece, for example, is consistently increasing its defense budget. After standing at about $7.4 billion in 2023 (about 2.9% of GDP), it is estimated at about $8.6 billion this year (about 3.5% of GDP). The Achilles Shield program is just one pillar of a $28 billion defense investment plan to upgrade Greek military capabilities by 2036.

To meet Greek requirements for the transfer of capabilities and knowledge, optimal coordination will be required between the Ministry of Defense, IAI, and Rafael. The success of the transfer of knowledge to Greece is strategic for the Defense Ministry in two aspects: business and securing supply chains.

While Defense Ministry director general Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram is managing negotiations to extend the US aid agreement beyond 2028 and transform it into a long-term cooperation framework, he is also working to diversify sources of production and supply, especially of critical components.

Thus, knowledge and production transfers guarantee steady income for the defense industries, and when the need arises, Israel will be able to regulate supplies from factories in other countries, without them being threatened. For example, the ministry’s activities with India – the main customer of the defense industries – which also has a close relationship with Iran, making it unlikely to be attacked.

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Boy George has just released what may well be the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish song ever by a mainstream recording artist, “We Will Dance Again,” which he posted on his social media accounts, with the hashtag, “Shalom.”

The phrase, “We Will Dance Again,” has become a motto that symbolizes renewal and recovery following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that left 1200 dead, about 364 of them concertgoers at the Supernova Music Festival, where the dancing was interrupted by rockets and then murder. Around 40 were kidnapped that day from the festival, some of whom were killed in captivity, while others were held in Gaza for over two years.

The Instagram account by the 80s pop icon, best known as the frontman of the group Culture Club, has the Hebrew words for“We Will Dance Again” written alongside the English.

The song features a reggae beat similar to the style of some of Culture Club’s songs, and launches right into the song’s message, addressing the inflammatory language that has been used to attack Jews and Israelis for nearly three years: “You say genocide, I say war/When you’re attacked, it’s what the army is for/Does it get ugly?/You bet it does/When you want to kill every last one of us.”

‘If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews’

The chorus of the song makes crystal clear sentiments that Boy George has expressed before in interviews and on social media: “But trust me, we will dance again, and there will be no war….But if you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews/I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human.”

Early on in the song, he revisits the horrors of the massacre, saying, “You never mention October 7/Young girls raped against trees/Murdered brutally for the crime of dancing.” He also attacks those in the music world who condemn Israel but never Hamas, saying, “You condemn the Jews with selective memory/Musicians holding flags mouthing like sheep/Propaganda fueled by the internet/Feels so weak.”

He finishes by singing the opening lines in Hebrew.

Boy George standing with the Jewish people

It’s not the first time that Boy George demonstrated his affinity for Israel and the Jewish people. In the video for the Culture Club song “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”, he wore a shirt that read “Tarbut Aguda” in Hebrew letters, which translates roughly to “culture association.” Many Israelis loved seeing Hebrew in a popular music video and embraced the song, the singer, and the band.

Boy George, whose real name is George Alan O’Dowd, has performed in Israel several times, both as a solo artist and with Culture Club. In 2024, he was among over 400 artists and celebrities who signed an open letter in support of Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

In 2020, he collaborated with Israeli musician Asaf Goren on the song “Rainbow in the Dark,” which has English and Hebrew lyrics.

While many online expressed their hate for him – a typical comment on X read “F*** off genocide apologist,” others had words of praise. “You are a ray of light in great darkness,” wrote @tlvboy82 on Instagram. Many posted pictures from the Supernova Festival and the memorial there, and expressed hope that Boy George would perform again in Israel.

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Former Likud minister and Reservists Party Chairman Yoaz Hendel told 103FM on Monday that Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party leadership is abandoning Zionist values and enabling mass draft evasion, one day after the party held its primaries.

In an interview with Amichai Atali and Ilil Shahar, Hendel sharply criticized the party’s leaders for prioritizing their partnership with the haredi parties. He also outlined his vision for a broad Zionist government that would not depend on either haredi or Arab parties.

“This is a list whose leaders have never experienced the army in their lives,” Hendel said. “They never stood eight hours on, eight hours off in a pillbox, at a post or in a defensive position, and that is the truth. The most painful truth is that, at the moment of truth, during wartime, they chose to support the haredi parties and political operatives.”

According to Hendel, that support was reflected in the distribution of government positions and the transfer of budgets that encourage avoidance of military service. He also criticized legislation advanced by the coalition, which he described as “a draft-evasion law and a law that disgraces the Torah.”

“In politics, apparently, everything is permitted, but in the moral, ethical and Jewish world, it cannot be that someone who calls himself ‘Religious Zionism’ encourages mass draft evasion,” he said. “The Religious Zionist Party, the party, not the admirable community, is causing a catastrophe and a disgrace during wartime. They support anti-Zionist legislation and are preventing us from winning the war.”

A Zionist government without haredi or Arab parties

Hendel, who said he had completed more than 560 days of reserve duty, argued that Zionist values were not limited to settlement in the West Bank.

Zionism, he said, also meant “settlement in Kiryat Shmona, in the North, in the Gaza border communities and in the Jordan Valley,” alongside a commitment to prevent reservists from across the country from being “ground down for hundreds of days.”

He warned that continued political dependence on the haredi parties could eventually damage the fabric of life in Israel.

“We will reach a situation in which there is a non-Zionist majority, and we will break apart into autonomous regions,” he said.

Hendel later presented his party’s platform, emphasizing that it combines right-wing positions on settlement and the judicial system with a demand for shared national service.

“We support settlement, reforms to the judicial system and, at the same time, enlistment in the army,” he said. “The most basic thing is that every Israeli citizen, Jewish, Arab, haredi (ultra-Orthodox), secular, left-wing or right-wing, should do something for his country.”

Hendel also criticized the involvement of elected officials who do not serve in the military in decisions concerning wartime operations.

“It does not seem reasonable to me that Goldknopf sits there and makes decisions about whether I will risk my life, when he does not know what it means to fear a phone call in the middle of the night,” he said.

Asked about the political deadlock reflected in opinion polls and the difficulty of forming a coalition without the Likud under Netanyahu or without Arab parties, Hendel rejected renewed reliance on Ra’am, despite having previously served in a government in which the party was a coalition partner.

“In the government I saw up close with Mansour Abbas, the moment a military operation began, Ra’am suspended its participation in the coalition for several days,” he said. “I do not think a coalition can be formed with non-Zionist parties, Arab or haredi. It did not work, it does not work during wartime, and it will not work.”

Hendel was equally unequivocal regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Netanyahu needs to go home,” he said.

According to Hendel, the way out of Israel’s political impasse is to create a new Zionist political force capable of holding the balance of power.

“We are the solution to the reality in which we are stuck, and we will recommend a candidate for prime minister who can bring together as many Zionist mandates as possible,” he concluded. “Without us, we will reach another stalemate, because that is what happened in the last five elections.”

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The Australian Jewish Association (AJA) has told Australia’s Royal Commission into Antisemitism that government rhetoric, Islamist extremism, and coordinated “lawfare” campaigns have fundamentally altered Jewish life in Australia.

In a 32-page submission shared with The Jerusalem Post, the group says that many Australian Jews are now considering making aliyah because they no longer feel confident in the country’s future. The submission comes just weeks after former AJA president Dr. David Adler announced he had moved to Israel, citing rising antisemitism and security fears as reasons.

The central focus of the submission is that Jewish life in Australia has fundamentally changed, and not for the better.

One noticeable change is the unprecedented increase in visible security at Jewish events. AJA notes that this has become so commonplace at Jewish events that many members of the community now feel uncomfortable attending events that do not have visible security arrangements in place.

AJA has never received any government funding for security expenses and, therefore, incurs significant costs to keep its members safe.

Political concerns and fears of public backlash result in venue cancellations

AJA also noted that, for security reasons, the locations of AJA events are not publicly advertised, and addresses are provided only to registered attendees after they have been vetted and, in many cases, only shortly before the event.

While these arrangements are necessary, AJA said they create significant logistical difficulties and are unlike the arrangements required for any other community in Australia. On several occasions, details of AJA events have been leaked, resulting in pressure being placed on venues not to proceed with bookings, the submission adds.

Because of political concerns and the fears of public backlash, many venues are unwilling to host Jewish events, AJA said. Recently, the Queensland Cricketers’ Club declined a booking request from AJA to host an event discussing antisemitism featuring British author Melanie Phillips. The venue cited concerns that hosting the event could be perceived as controversial and could attract negative publicity.

AJA said these experiences demonstrate that antisemitism affects not only individual Jewish Australians but also the ability of Jewish organizations to conduct normal community activities. “Security concerns, venue reluctance, secrecy requirements, and event disruptions have become a routine part of Jewish communal life in Australia,” it said.

Effects of ‘lawfare’

Another aspect of Jewish life that has changed is the increasing use of lawfare.

This relatively new phenomenon has become commonplace since October 7, 2023. “Lawfare” refers to the strategic use of legal, regulatory, and administrative processes to intimidate opponents, disrupt organizations, impose costs, consume resources, or achieve political objectives.

AJA said it has observed a significant increase in complaints, investigations, and regulatory actions initiated in connection with Jewish advocacy and pro-Israel activity. Complaints connected to AJA’s communal and advocacy work have been lodged with bodies as diverse as a local council, medical regulator, anti-discrimination agency, and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).

It said these complaints are designed to burden Jewish organizations and their representatives with time-consuming and resource-intensive processes.

A notable example involves Australian Jewish Association Tzedakah (AJAT), a charity focused on combating antisemitism.

Anti-Israel activists launched a coordinated campaign seeking to have AJAT’s Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status revoked. The campaign involved repeated complaints to the ACNC and other authorities and sought to portray AJAT and AJA as a single organization despite them being separate entities with distinct legal structures and purposes.

It is important to note that, regardless of the outcome of such complaints, the process itself imposes significant costs on Jewish organizations.

AJA itself has been targeted by such techniques. Since October 7, it has received approximately a dozen legal threats, including several Concerns Notices issued by the same law firm.

There were dozens of complaints lodged with the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) in 2024 and 2025 against Adler. None related to clinical care but rather to his work on behalf of AJA and the Jewish community.

AJA CEO Robert Gregory was similarly unsuccessfully targeted following his appointment by Waverley Council to its Multicultural Advisory Committee.

While the complaints rarely succeed, “their cumulative effect should not be underestimated,” said the AJA.

“They consume significant time and resources, impose personal stress on those targeted, and risk discouraging Jewish Australians from participating in public life, community leadership, and democratic debate.

“AJA submits that the strategic use of complaints processes against Jewish organizations and community representatives is an emerging issue that warrants careful consideration by the Royal Commission.”

Threats of violence

Of course, there is also significant discussion of threats within the submission.

One such threat against Gregory and Adler resulted in the first arrest by the Australian Federal Police’s Special Operation Avalite task force, which was established to combat antisemitism.

The threat – a message with a picture of a noose and the words “if you dare show up at the Senate committee, you will all die” – was made on the eve of their appearance before a Senate hearing examining proposed misinformation laws. The offender was subsequently convicted and sentenced.

Underneath a post announcing that Gregory had become a father to a baby girl, someone wrote, “Until we Aussies inevitably put all your genocidal kind in next-gen gas chambers.”

On occasions, authorities have failed to investigate threats against AJA.

Gregory told the Post that AFP recently decided to not take action after AJA reported an emailed threat to firebomb its office, which referred to “filthy f***ing Jews.”The email read: “Hey, what’s up? Hope you guys have a wonderful day, and I hope mine is as wonderful when your f***ing offices get firebombed, you filthy f***ing Jews.”

Gregory alerted the AFP the same day. The AFP responded to the AJA two days later, saying the email did not qualify as a direct threat and was not offensive enough to reach the threshold for an offense. An AFP Counter Terrorism Command detective sergeant emailed: “I understand you consider the email as offensive and menacing towards you and your office. However, unfortunately, the comment is unlikely to reach the offense (threshold).”

The AFP has now reversed its decision and has since opened an investigation.

Governmental failures

On the subject of law enforcement, the submission also sheds light on governmental failures that have led to the proliferation of antisemitism in Australia. “A series of decisions and public statements by the Albanese government contributed to an environment in which antisemitism flourished, and Australian Jews felt increasingly isolated and unsupported,” the submission reads.

AJA noted that the election of the Albanese government ushered in a period in which Australia-Israel relations deteriorated significantly and antisemitism in Australia reached unprecedented levels.

Prior to the 2022 election, AJA publicly warned that the election of Labor would have consequences for the Jewish community.

In October 2022, as Australian Jews gathered to celebrate Simchat Torah, the Albanese government announced the reversal of Australia’s recognition of parts of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The decision reportedly came without warning to Jewish communal leaders and triggered a difficult period for the Australian Jewish community.

Over the following months and years, the government altered longstanding bipartisan voting patterns at the United Nations and increased funding to UNRWA. Following the October 7 massacre, many world leaders traveled to Israel to express solidarity with the victims and their families. Leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany all made visits. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not.

AJA also noted concerning statements by government ministers and double standards in the form of sanctioning Israeli ministers while not sanctioning Islamist extremist figures. These actions have led to condemnation even from Australia’s own former prime minister Scott Morrison.

“It is no coincidence that the first Australian government since the creation of the State of Israel to abandon bipartisan policies toward the Jewish state also oversaw the largest surge in anti-Jewish hatred in Australian history,” testified the AJA.

As a result of all of the above, the AJA said it is aware of a growing number of Australian Jews who are actively considering leaving Australia because of rising antisemitism. “These decisions are not being driven by economic hardship or a lack of opportunity. Rather, they reflect growing concerns about the long-term future of Jewish life in Australia and the safety of future generations,” AJA said.

It noted that many of those considering aliyah are highly educated, professionally successful, and active contributors to Australian society, whose departure would represent a loss not only to the Jewish community but to Australia more broadly.

“It is a sad indictment on Australia that many feel safer moving to a country currently fighting a multi-front war,” AJA concluded.

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Hundreds of demonstrators and community leaders converged on New York City’s Upper West Side on Sunday for a “United Against Hate” rally organized by the #EndJewHatred movement. The protest targeted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, holding city leadership accountable for rising crime and accusing the administration of fostering a dangerous climate for minority communities.

The demonstration was organized in the wake of two violent stabbing attacks that occurred days earlier on Thursday afternoon on the Upper West Side. The suspect, identified by police as 51-year-old Raul Morales, allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” while targeting two separate victims blocks apart: 50-year-old Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, a Jewish man stabbed outside his synagogue near Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street, and Chok Sung, a 57-year-old Asian man stabbed near West 84th Street and Central Park West.

Later that day, Morales was arrested and charged with attempted murder and assault as hate crimes after being found barricaded inside a nearby NYC Housing Authority building.

The demonstration organizers and speakers argued that the violence was the direct result of mainstreamed rhetoric targeting Israel and Jewish residents.

This friction was compounded by recent controversy surrounding Mamdani’s announcement that his administration had reviewed avenues to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on behalf of the International Criminal Court should he visit New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September, a move that ultimately concluded he could not legally arrest the prime minister, though he urged activists to protest him.

Speakers and attendees at the rally denounced the mayor and local policies, claiming that public safety has eroded under soft-on-crime legislation and inflammatory political discourse. Protesters carried signs and chanted slogans, demanding accountability and structural changes.

‘Remove Mamdani, Arrest Mamdani’

Demonstrators chanted, “Remove Mamdani,” “Arrest Mamdani,” and “Zohran, Zohran, you can hide. We charge you with hate and crime.” Posters featuring an image of the mayor with blood on his hands were displayed at the event.

#EndJewHatred also noted that over 300 family members of 9/11 victims and more than 12,000 signatories have signed a petition urging Mamdani not to attend the 25th anniversary memorial at Ground Zero due to his rhetoric regarding Islamist extremism.

#EndJewHatred Director Michelle Ahdoot addressed the crowd, stating, “We’re here because Mayor Mamdani has blood on his hands,” and adding that his obsessive focus against Western ideology and Israel is inciting violence.

Assembly Member Michael Novakhov announced at the rally that he is formally calling on the US Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into New York City, New York State, and Mamdani, declaring that Jewish New Yorkers should not have to hide their identities.

Moshe Spern, a history teacher with the United Jewish Teachers advocacy group, remarked that hatred never stops with its first target, arguing that rhetoric framing Israeli leaders as “war criminals” helped create the climate that led to the Upper West Side stabbings.

‘Mamdani is throwing gasoline on the fire’ said Rabbi Weiss

Rabbi Avi Weiss told the crowd, “A mayor of the city of New York is supposed to bring our communities together. You, Mamdani, are throwing gasoline on the fire, pitting one community against the other after that vile video. You’ve placed a target on the back of each and every one of us, including that attack on the west side.”

Another protester, when asked why she was there, told Newsmax, “I feel like we have to stand up for the United States of America, and I don’t want it to get so far gone that we’re like, ‘Why was I silent?’ We can’t be silent. This man is a danger. He is a charismatic man, we got to give him that, and he’s appealing to people that are not naturally born Americans, people that don’t really have a connection to this country. I think Jewish people are part of the fabric of our country. I’m Catholic, and I believe that our country is first and foremost in everything we do.”

Across the street from the main demonstration, a smaller contingent of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish members, associated with groups like Neturei Karta, held a counter-protest, defending the mayor. Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, of Jews United Against Zionism, told CBS News New York in a live interview at the rally that “They’re against Jews because of what the Zionists are doing, and they think that the Jews are responsible. He is doing a job to clarify that it’s not Judaism. He is doing the Jews a favor.”

Tensions boiled as protesters and counter-protesters clashed verbally and competed for space while police officers attempted to manage the crowds and keep the sidewalks clear. Amidst the shouting matches, police officers stood physically between the opposing factions to maintain order.

After being asked to respond by CBS reporter Ali Bowman to the backlash on Sunday during the Dominican Parade in the Bronx, Mamdani stated, “There’s no tolerance for antisemitism in this city. We have to root out antisemitism from across the five boroughs, and that’s because this is a city that has no room for hate or bigotry of any kind. And when we make criticisms of a nation-state or policies, we have to remember that those are criticisms of exactly that, never of a people, never of a faith.”

This post was originally published on here.