[X] Did anyone ask Israel if they’d be allowed in? Because Bibi Netanyahu already said no PA ever again in Gaza. Not the the PA would be able to hold it — Hamas owns Gaza because they drove the PA out, not long after Ariel Sharon pulled the Israelis out.
WSJ: Egypt is training 10,000 Palestinian forces at its military academies to secure postwar Gaza, drawing exclusively from West Bank PLA/Fatah ranks, Hamas’ main rivals. pic.twitter.com/wdSIhTeMAa
[IsraelTimes] As suspect in Melbourne synagogue attack appears in court, documents show arson at Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Bondi was organized by a refugee paid by Tehran
After Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday that Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... was found to be behind a pair of antisemitic arson attacks in 2024, court documents published in a report Wednesday showed how one of those attacks was bungled by small-time Mister Bigs and a gangster styling himself as "James Bond."
Australia’s national security service said it identified Iranian government involvement in Molotov cocktailing attacks on the kosher Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Bondi, next to Sydney, in October and the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December.
It is likely the Iranian regime was also involved in additional attacks, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation said.
In response to the revelations that Iran was behind the attacks, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his country was expelling Tehran’s ambassador, calling the Iranian actions "dangerous acts of aggression" designed to undermine his country’s social cohesion.
Albanese announced that Canberra had also pulled its diplomats from the Islamic Theocratic Republic and will list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization. It marks the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Bondi attack was preceded by two failed attempt ...Curses! Foiled again!... s on the wrong venue. The alleged criminal mastermind, Nomads bikie chapter president Sayed Moosawi, directed the operation using the messaging app Signal using the alias "James Bond." Moosawi migrated to Australia as a refugee in 2005 and has a long record of violent mostly peaceful crime, the report said.
He came from Afghanistan in 2005 as a refugee. Possibly granting him asylum was Australia’s first mistake in this thing.
He allegedly said he was paid $12,000 to arrange a fire in Bondi, in an operation believed to have originated in Iran, according to the report.
According to Morning Herald, Moosawi allegedly recruited Wayne Ogden and Juon Amuoi to torch a target in September 2024, but the pair fled after being spotted near the Curly Lewis Brewery, a beachfront bar with no Jewish connections.
Moosawi was furious, allegedly telling Ogden in an expletive-filled message that a "f—ing 16 years kid could of got it done."
Weeks later, two other men, Guy Finnegan and Craig Bantoft, were recruited to attack Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, reportedly offering them $4,000. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... they mistakenly returned to the same brewery on October 17 and set a small fire that was quickly doused by sprinklers.
Furious at the repeated bungles, Moosawi allegedly berated his crew over Signal: "Use [sic] f—ed the whole thing ... It’s not even 2% burned f— me dead."
Police arrested Finnegan within 24 hours, but Ogden allegedly returned days later to finish the job.
At 2:30 a.m. on October 20, he allegedly broke into Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, poured fuel across the premises, and ignited a blaze that caused more than $1 million in damage and forced nearby residents to evacuate.
Bantoft and Finnegan have since pleaded guilty over the brewery fire and are serving prison sentences. Ogden and Amuoi are awaiting trial on October 21, as is Moosawi, who was granted bail this month after posting $2 million surety.
LAYERS OF CONCEALMENT
Australia’s intelligence agency also said it traced to Iran the funding of criminals who allegedly set fire to the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December, even as those charged with the crime were likely unaware Tehran was their puppet master.
Two of the three suspects in that attack have been arrested in the past two months.
The investigation into the crimes required intelligence forces to work backwards through payments made onshore and offshore to "petty and sometimes not so petty criminals," Albanese said in parliament.
More than 220 law enforcement officers have devoted more than 50,000 hours to the investigation, authorities said in July.
Australia’s spy chief Mike Burgess said a series of "cut outs," an intelligence term for intermediaries, were used to conceal Iran’s involvement in the attacks, and warned that the country may have orchestrated others.
The turning point in the Adass investigation came in May, when Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation seized cellphones and digital devices from suspects arrested in Victoria state over the synagogue attack and highlighted a stolen blue Volkswagen Golf sedan used in unrelated attacks.
CCTV footage of the attack on December 6 released by police showed three hooded figures unloading red jerrycans of fuel from the boot of the car, one of whom was wielding an axe, at the entrance of the synagogue and setting it alight before speeding away.
Victoria’s Joint Counter Terrorism Team alleged that 20-year-old Younes Ali Younes stole the car to carry out the attack and recklessly endangered lives by setting fire to the $20 million synagogue when people were inside, a charge sheet showed. No one was maimed in the attack.
Younes appeared in Melbourne’s Magistrates Court Wednesday, charged with the arson attack on the synagogue and theft of a car. He did not enter a plea and did not seek bail. His lawyer declined to comment to Rooters.
Another suspect, 21-year-old Giovanni Laulu, appeared in court last month on the same charges.
Police have referred to the sedan as a "communal crime car" linked to other attacks that were not politically motivated.
Security forces have been criticized within the Australian Jewish community for their months-long failure to identify the suspects in the Adass Israel case, which many saw as a turning point in the battle against antisemitism.
Australian Jews have been frustrated by what they say has been the government’s failure to rein in attacks and violent mostly peaceful rhetoric.
Anti-Jewish activity in Australia skyrocketed in the year after Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... holy warriors launched the war against Israel on October 7, 2023. Some 2,062 incidents were recorded between October 2023 and September 2024, compared to 495 incidents a year earlier, according to data from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
In recent months, Jews there have seen synagogues, schools, and homes Molotov cocktailed, two nurses threatening to kill Jewish patients in their hospital, and the discovery of a trailer filled with explosives said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.
The country’s recent decision to recognize a Paleostinian state at the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... General Assembly in September has aggravated a growing sense of alienation among the country’s 120,000-strong Jewish community and sparked a sharp war of words between Albanese’s government and Israeli officials.
After Canberra decided last week to bar far-right Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman from visiting the country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasted Albanese, calling him a "weak politician who betrayed Israel."
In response, Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Netanyahu was "lashing out," and that true strength was more than "how many people you can blow up."
Despite the dramatic exchanges, Netanyahu praised Canberra’s decision to expel the Iranian ambassador as a "first step," saying he was "pleased" by the move in a post on X.
Australia is the latest Western government to accuse Iran of carrying out hostile covert activities on its soil.
Security services in Britannia and Sweden warned last year that Tehran was using criminal proxies to carry out its violent mostly peaceful attacks in those countries, with London saying it had disrupted 20 Iran-linked plots since 2022. A dozen other countries have condemned what they called a surge in liquidation, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services.
[IsraelTimes] Small band of protesters mark prelude to larger demonstrations planned for festival, which will feature documentary about 6-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed with family in Gaza
Protesters outside the Venice Film Festival’s main building on Wednesday held banners reading "Free Paleostine" and "Stop the Genocide," hours before stars were to walk its red carpet.
Around 20 people from a regional left-wing Italian political collective held up the hand-drawn banner and Paleostinian flags ahead of the opening ceremony later Wednesday.
"We need to use the attention here during the film festival to shift the focus onto Paleostine," Giulia Cacopardo, 28, from the North-East Social Centres, told AFP.
"We hope that other people are going to join us to stop the genocide now," she said, employing a characterization strongly rejected by Jerusalem of Israel’s campaign against the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... terror group in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip. Israel says it doesn’t targets civilians, and fights in accordance with international law.
The Wednesday protest was a prelude to a much larger demonstration planned at the weekend in Venice by hundreds of local groups, with many Italian film insiders also pushing for the festival to take a stronger stance on the war, which began when thousands of Hamas-led turbans invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Israel has firmly denied the allegation of genocide in its war against Hamas, which was launched in response to the terror group’s massacre, saying its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas, toppling its Gaza regime and freeing the hostages.
The war also drew attention at the Cannes festival in May, when hundreds of movie figures signed a petition saying they were "ashamed" of their industry’s "passivity" about the war.
An open letter published on Saturday in Italia was signed by hundreds of Italian cinema professionals under the banner of the Venice4Paleostine (V4P) group, which asserted the war is a genocide and called on the Venice festival to take "a clear and unambiguous position" against it.
Festival director Alberto Barbera told AFP on Wednesday that the festival "does not take direct political positions, it does not make political statements, as it is a cultural space for dialogue, discussion, and openness."
He also ruled out censoring or boycotting artists.
The festival has selected a film about the war in Gaza in its main competition, which will vie for the prestigious Golden Lion prize.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab," by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, reconstructs the death of six-year-old Paleostinian girl Hind Rajab in early 2024.
Relatives found her body some 12 days after her death, along with the bodies of five of her family members and two ambulance workers who had gone to save her.
The Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy shared audio clips from a call to dispatchers that was initially made by Hind’s teenage cousin Layan Hamadeh, saying an Israeli tank was approaching, before shots rang out and she screamed. Believed to be the only survivor, Rajab stayed on the line for three hours with dispatchers, who tried to soothe her as they prepared to send an ambulance.
The Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy Society has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance it sent to rescue Rajab.
The Israel Defense Forces said, some weeks after Rajab’s death, that an initial investigation suggested no troops were in the area when she was killed.
A Washington Post report published after the IDF’s statement found that Israeli armored vehicles were, in fact, operating in the area at the time, and that the gunfire heard in the Red Islamic Thingy recordings was consistent with IDF weapons.
[IsraelTimes] Two Microsoft employees are fired after taking part in a sit-in at the office of the company’s president to protest the firm’s alleged ties to Israel.
A Microsoft spokesperson says the workers were terminated following “serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct” stemming from “the break-in at the executive offices.”
Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli received voicemails informing them that they were fired, the protest group No Azure for Apartheid says in a statement.
Azure is Microsoft’s primary cloud computing platform, and Microsoft has said it is reviewing a report in the British newspaper The Guardian this month that the IDF used it to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The workers were among seven protesters who were arrested on Tuesday after occupying the office of company President Brad Smith. The other five were former Microsoft workers and people outside the company.
“We are here because Microsoft continues to provide Israel with the tools it needs to commit genocide while gaslighting and misdirecting its own workers about this reality,” Hattle says in a statement.
No Azure for Apartheid has demanded that the company cut its ties to Israel and pay reparations to Palestinians. Smith said on Tuesday: “We respect the freedom of expression that everyone in this country enjoys as long as they do it lawfully.”
Other Microsoft workers have also protested the company’s ties to Israel. Eighteen people were arrested in a similar protest in a plaza at the headquarters last week. Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella, and in April it fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] Trump has publicly called for George Soros to be prosecuted for funding protests in the US.
Alexander Soros can be dealt with after Papa George sets the precedent.
"George Soros and his wonderful radical left son should be charged under RICO for their support of violent protests and many other actions across the United States of America. We will not allow these lunatics to continue tearing America apart without giving it a chance to breathe and be free. Soros and his group of psychopaths have done great damage to our country! This includes his crazy friends from the West Coast" (c)
— Trump
Soros's participation in supporting anti-Trump protests has long been known. Here Soros interacted quite organically with the Clinton gang. Another question is that the conversation should not only and not so much about Soros himself, but his structures and his son, who also took part in this.
Trump has previously sketched out possible criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, Schiff and others. But it has not reached a real criminal case. It is very likely that here too everything will be limited to simple threats, since so far not a single prominent Democrat/globalist has been brought to criminal responsibility for "Russiagate", inspired protests or election fraud.
Steel is better than iron, we can hear him thinking. The problem, Your Immensity, is that a defense system is only as good as its operators, while those attacking it will at some point be the IDF. You will one day discover that you wasted your money, sirrah. So sorry.
[IsraelTimes] Turkish president says new $460 million system, commissioned due to ‘recent conflicts,’ will ‘inspire confidence in friends and fear in enemies’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday hailed a milestone for the country as its “Steel Dome” air defense system was delivered to the military, saying regional conflicts had pushed Ankara to boost its defense capacities.
“Today we are providing our army with the [Steel] Dome system, consisting of 47 vehicles worth $460 million, which will inspire confidence in friends and fear in enemies,” Erdogan said at a ceremony a year after the project was launched.
“This system will make the world of difference for Turkey’s air defense. This is a turning point for Turkey,” he said at a ceremony at the headquarters of Turkish defense giant Aselsan to mark the delivery of the project, which has been led by state-owned defense companies.
Last August, Turkey, a member of NATO, unveiled plans to build a multi-layered air defense system to protect its airspace, modeled on Israel’s renowned Iron Dome. It named it “Steel Dome.”
Turkey has been unsettled by the recent wave of unrest gripping the region, notably Israel’s increasing intervention in Syria after the overthrow of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and the 12-day air war between Iran and Israel in June.
“Recent conflicts around us have revealed the importance” of radar systems detecting incoming threats from the air, Erdogan said.
“Unless a country can develop its own radar and air defense system, it cannot look to its future with confidence in the face of current security challenges, especially in our region,” he added. “We are aware of the importance of not leaving anything to chance… With the Steel Dome, we will now be in a different class in terms of air defense.”
Also present at the ceremony, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said the system would “further increase the deterrence and effectiveness of our armed forces… and ensure our security at the highest level.”
Erdogan also inaugurated work on a giant technology base worth $1.5 billion, hailing it as “the largest defense industry investment ever made in a single instance in the history of the republic.”
“This is also going to be the largest integrated air defense facility in the whole of Europe,” he said, adding that by mid-2026, the first facility on this new campus would be operational. “This investment is going to… make Turkey not just a regional player but a global player when it comes to defense systems.”
[IsraelTimes] Colombian-American influencer Valentina Gomez, who came in 6th last time she ran for office, uses flamethrower against Islamic holy book, winning praise from Trump confidante
A far-right US congressional candidate in Texas set fire to a copy of the Koran, in an advertisement posted to X on Tuesday in which she vowed to "stop Islam once and for all."
"Your daughters will be raped, and your sons beheaded, unless we stop Islam once and for all," says the pro-Trump influencer, Valentina Gomez, in the ad. She is dressed in camo pants and a campaign T-shirt bearing the silhouette of a rifle.
Then, she uses a flamethrower to burn a copy of Islam’s holy book.
"We’re done turning the other cheek," Gomez says, inverting one of Jesus’s parables. "Remember, David didn’t pray for Goliath — he killed them (sic). America is a Christian nation."
"Those terrorist Moslems can fuck off to any of the 57 Moslem nations. There is only one true god, and that is the God of Israel," she declares, as a song by Kanye West — self-proclaimed "Nazi" rapper — plays in the background.
The campaign spot ends with a campaign logo in which the ’i" in "Valentina" is shown as a bullet, above the slogan: "Powered by Jesus Christ."
Gomez, 26, hails from Colombia and immigrated to the US as a child with her family. In a tweet earlier this week, she described herself as armed, unvaccinated, "without pronouns," and "100% America first."
An avid supporter of US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... , Gomez is challenging fellow Republican Rep. John Carter to represent Texas’s 31st Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.
Her Koran-burning ad was denounced on Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League.
"This campaign ad from GOP candidate Valentina Gomez is fueled by hate and anti-Moslem bigotry. Burning a sacred religious text like the Koran can incite violence and put people in danger. This needs to be condemned by all good people of conscience," the antisemitism watchdog said in a statement.
Close Trump confidante Laura Loomer praised the ad, calling it "the type of energy I want to see all GOP members of Congress have."
The US Constitution’s First Amendment protects inflammatory speech, including burning religious texts or other items of symbolic meaning.
On Monday, US President Trump ordered the US attorney general to prosecute, "to the fullest extent possible," any acts of "American Flag desecration," though his executive order noted that flag-burning itself is protected.
Several far-right figures in Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... have made a practice of burning copies of the Koran, which — like drawing cartoons of the prophet Muhammed — frequently draws threats and acts of violence in response. In 2015, a failed terrorist attack by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... -inspired button men targeted a "Draw Muhammad" contest, also in Texas.
FAR-RIGHT INFLUENCER PREVIOUSLY BURNED LGBT BOOKS
The Koran-burning stunt is not Gomez’s first incendiary advertisement.
In 2024, she sought the Republican nomination to be Missouri’s secretary of state, finishing in sixth place.
In that campaign, she released an ad in which she used a flamethrower to destroy books aimed at LGBTQ teens, declaring: "These books come from a Missouri public library; when I’m in office they will burn." She has also called transgender people "faggots."
Last December, Gomez posted a video pretending to execute an undocumented Democrat, calling for "public executions for any illegal that rapes or kills an American," and adding: "They don’t deserve deportation; they deserve to be ended."
She has pledged to "never take a dollar from AIPAC," but said in a recent interview that she supports Israel because it is fighting Moslems.
In the same interview, Gomez praised the anti-Islam policies of China, which has detained more than a million of its Uighur minority citizens in "re-education" camps and subjected them to forced labor and sterilization, according to a report by Trump’s first administration, which accused Beijing of genocide.
Gomez also said, in a tweet directed at Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar ...Somali-American Dem representative from Minnesota. She was apparently married to her brother and may be her own grandmaw on her mother's side. She is a member of The Squad, and would like to make the country look a lot more like Mogadishu... , that Moslems should be "abolished."
[IsraelTimes] Former US national security adviser Jake Sullivan says he would back withholding weapons from Israel after opposing such calls during the Biden administration.
“The thing that we were grappling with throughout all of 2024, which is not the case today, is that Israel was under attack from multiple fronts. It was under attack from Hezbollah, from the Houthis, from Syria, from Iraq, obviously from Hamas and from Iran itself. So the idea of saying Israel we’re not going to give you a whole set of military tools in that context was challenging,” Sullivan says during an interview on the Bulwark podcast.
”Even though we really, really wanted to,” he added.
“The case for withholding weapons from Israel today is much stronger than it was one year ago. One, they don’t face the same regional threats. Two, there was a ceasefire hostage deal in place and the ability to have negotiations, and it was Israel who just walked away from it without negotiating seriously. Three, there is a full-blown famine in Gaza. And four, there are no more serious military objectives to achieve. It’s just bombing the rubble into rubble,” he says.
Sullivan then reveals that he has counseled Democratic lawmakers who were weighing how to vote on resolutions last month on withholding weapons to Israel that doing so was a “totally credible position that I would support.”
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior adviser on the Middle East in his first term, is participating in the president’s meeting on the future of Gaza today, according to Axios, which cites “two sources with knowledge.”
Kushner and former British prime minister Tony Blair, who has been involved in Middle East initiatives since he left office in 2007, are presenting Trump with post-war proposals, according to the report.
Blair has been discussing plans for Gaza’s future with Kushner and US special envoy Steve Witkoff for months, reports Axios.
The two are expected to discuss approaches to governing Gaza without Hamas, and how to increase the amount of aid going into the Strip in the meantime.
According to a US official quoted by the outlet, Trump has told staffers regarding Gaza that “I can’t watch it anymore. It’s a terrible thing.”
Trump does not oppose the emerging Israeli military operation in Gaza City, a US official tells Axios, but wants it done quickly.
“At some level, the president thinks that Bibi’s going to do what Bibi’s going to do,” says the official, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So would you just hurry up and then we can get in there and take care of people?”
[IsraelTimes] The Security Council scheduled a vote Thursday on a resolution that would end the more than four-decade operation of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon on December 31, 2026.
Two council diplomats say that the United States, which has been demanding that the force known as UNIFIL be terminated in a year, doesn’t object to a French draft resolution with that end date in 16 months.
That signals the resolution will be approved, but it’s not clear whether the United States will vote in favor or abstain, the diplomats say, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations have been private.
UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. Its mission was expanded following the monthlong 2006 war between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The resolution would terminate UNIFIL’s mandate and halt its operations at the end of 2026. The process of withdrawing its 10,800 military and civilian personnel and equipment would start immediately in consultation with the Lebanese government, to be completed within a year.
The draft says the aim is to make the Lebanese government “the sole provider of security” in southern Lebanon north of the UN-drawn border with Israel known as the Blue Line. It calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from north of the Blue Line.
[IsraelTimes] A joint statement from all United Nations Security Council members except the United States says the famine in Gaza is a “manmade crisis” and calls for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, a substantive surge of aid throughout Gaza, and for Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on aid delivery.
“Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately,” the statement reads. “Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course.”
It warns that the use of starvation as a weapon of war is banned under international humanitarian law. Israel denies deliberately starving Gazans.
At a Security Council meeting earlier, acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea questioned the credibility and integrity of a report finding that Gaza is suffering a famine, saying it “doesn’t pass the test on either.”
“We all recognize that hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met. Addressing those needs is a priority for the United States,” she told the 15-member council.gp
[IsraelTimes] Former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky tells the UN Security Council of begging her captors not to rape her, describing starvation, beatings and other horrifying conditions she was kept in for 55 days.
“On the way to Gaza, when they started to touch me and sexually abuse me, I passed out physically and mentally. I couldn’t handle it anymore,” she says in testimony to the world body, according to a transcript published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. “I had to beg not to be raped, telling them I was on my period… I didn’t know exactly what had been done to my body in those lost minutes when I wasn’t conscious. But my soul already knew: nothing would ever be the same. I was suffering from a fractured jaw, a broken pelvis, ear damage from the explosions, and a burned leg.”
Gritzewsky, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz alongside her partner Matan Zangauker, who is one of 50 hostages that remain in Gaza, says she lost 12 kilograms (26.5 lbs.) while in Gaza before being released during a shortu ceasefire in November 2023.
“When it was time to eat, they took a lot of food to their room. They had meat, rice, vegetables. At the same time, they left us with our meal, which contained sometimes as little as 10 chick peas or a piece of dry flat bread, which wasn’t always well-cooked.”
She says her captors, who would subject her and other captives to cruel interrogations, were dressed not as Hamas fighters but as civilians, including one who claimed to be a teacher and another who said they were a lawyer.
She says during her captivity, she and other hostages were held for a time in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
“They took us through the back entrance and walked us past all the civilians. In the hospital, there was an area which was closed off and used only by Hamas, with an armed guard. They locked us in a room, where we met a third hostage,” she recounts.
An Israeli strike on the hospital on Monday, which reportedly killed 20 people, including five journalists, elicited widespread anger worldwide. Israel has indicated the attack was a mistake, but has also noted its use by the Hamas terror group.
Gritzewsky, who has recounted many of these details in the past, tells council members to use whatever leverage they have to push for a deal ending the war and freeing the hostages.
“Do not turn away. Do not look for excuses. Do not allow political divisions to silence the voices of victims. Use your influence, your power, your responsibility, to demand the unconditional release of every hostage. Not tomorrow. Not in some distant future. But now. We need to make a deal. Israeli citizens want this war to end,” she says.
[IsraelTimes] After touring Gaza on Wednesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir also met with UN World Food Program executive director Cindy McCain to review ongoing humanitarian aid efforts in the Gaza Strip.
The meeting, attended by Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT, the Israeli body that coordinates with assistance providers in Gaza, outlined key measures to stabilize the Strip’s humanitarian situation and emphasized ensuring aid reaches civilians directly, not Hamas, the IDF said.
The meeting came days after the WFP-linked Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared famine in northern Gaza for the first time — a claim Israel swiftly rejected, accusing the report of relying on “biased and self-interested sources originating from Hamas.”
McCain, who has been an outspoken critic of Israeli aid restrictions, claimed in May 2024 that the Strip was already in “full-blown famine.” She said last week hunger in the Strip was at “catastrophic” levels.
The IDF said Wednesday that two new aid distribution centers run by the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will be completed in the coming days in southern Gaza, while a facility in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood will close. Once completed, the total number of GHF centers in the Strip will rise from four to five.
According to GHF, which hands out boxes of dried, uncooked food, its centers have distributed more than 140 million meals in Gaza since operations began, including over 1.5 million meals delivered on Wednesday alone.
As the IDF moves ahead with its plans to conquer Gaza City, it has called on the area’s residents to evacuate and head south, saying that it is working to improve the infrastructure in those areas of Gaza to accept more displaced Palestinians.
[IsraelTimes] The Foreign Ministry will send a letter to the United Nations today demanding it retract the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system’s “fabricated report” declaring famine in Gaza, Foreign Ministry Director General Eden Bar Tal announces at an English-language press conference.
The letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warns the UN that if it does not walk back the report, Israel will launch a campaign encouraging IPC donor countries to halt funding by presenting evidence appearing to disprove its findings and highlighting the hunger monitor’s alleged unreliability.
At the press conference, Bar Tal accuses the IPC of deliberately ignoring its own evidence standards to reach a “prefabricated conclusion of famine” in support of “Hamas fake starvation propaganda,” backing up the ministry’s earlier denunciations of the report after its publication on Friday.
He presents evidence gathered by Israel claiming that the IPC manipulated data through cherry-picking and misrepresentation, relied on speculative rather than evidence-based mortality assumptions, and ignored or downplayed available signs of improvement.
Among the evidence Bar Tal brings are findings showing that the IPC based its conclusions on only half of its July data — 7,519 children averaging 16 percent acute malnutrition, just above the 15% famine threshold — instead of the full July dataset of 15,749 children, which showed acute malnutrition rates of 12–13.5%. He also says the IPC improperly relied on clinical samples rather than healthy population samples, in violation of its own guidelines.
In the letter, Bar Tal demands that the IPC “conduct an urgent and transparent review” of the findings against the report that “will address methodological breaches and avoid misleading the international community, the public and policymakers.”
The IPC report estimated that 514,000 people in Gaza — nearly a quarter of the population — are already experiencing famine, with numbers expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
The report said thresholds for starvation and acute malnutrition had been reached and argued it was “reasonable to conclude” mortality levels had likely also been met.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says hundreds in the Strip have died of malnutrition since war broke out with the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
[IsraelTimes] Ankara, which has repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany, calls the statement ‘an attempt to exploit past tragedies for political motives’.
As opposed to a giant F.U? Could be. Some relationships are unsalvageble.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says two new aid distribution centers run by the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will be completed in the coming days in southern Gaza, while a facility in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood will close. Once completed, the total number of GHF centers in the Strip will rise from four to five.
According to GHF, which hands out boxes of dried, uncooked food, its centers have distributed more than 140 million meals in Gaza since operations began, including over 1.5 million meals delivered today alone.
The announcement comes days after global hunger monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared for the first time that famine has struck the densely populated northern Gaza Strip, nearly 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.
Israel swiftly rejected the finding, with the Defense Ministry body overseeing aid accusing the IPC system of relying on “biased and self-interested sources originating from Hamas.”
Israel has repeatedly denied reports of mass starvation in the Strip as false narratives, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office calling the IPC famine declaration an “outright lie” and “modern blood libel.”
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said earlier this month that plans were in place for GHF to expand operations to 16 sites, with overcrowding a constant issue at existing centers.
Israel plans to conquer Gaza City and force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there to move south, but aid groups warn such a move will worsen the Strip’s humanitarian crisis, with insufficient infrastructure to support the millions displaced by the war.
“The evacuation of Gaza City is inevitable,” spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in Arabic on X earlier. He said Israeli forces have surveyed vast empty areas south of the city “to assist the evacuating residents as much as possible.” He said the displaced would receive space for tents, and infrastructure would be set up to distribute aid and water.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Ol'ga Kuznetsova
[REGNUm] Some stories grace the front pages, while others – though worthy of tens of times more glory – are shamefully hidden under the chronicle of events in the Middle East or a military spectacle in the Caribbean. This is exactly what happened with the arrest in the US of Israeli cybersecurity officer Artem Tom.
Elsewhere his name is given as Tom Alexandrovich and his employer as National Cyber Directorate.
ALTHOUGH WHY “EMPLOYEE”?
Tom was then the head of a department at Israel's National Cyber Authority and was in Las Vegas to attend an international conference for information security professionals.
His professional knowledge, however, did not help him avoid arrest, which was carried out as part of a secret operation by the Las Vegas police and the FBI. The Israeli cybersecurity specialist was caught – like many before him – in, to put it mildly, frivolous communication with a fifteen-year-old girl on the Internet.
MIRACULOUS LIBERATION
During a break from the conference, the Israeli agreed to a pleasant meeting, to which he agreed to take a condom. The girl, judging by the information in open sources, insisted on this in the correspondence. Later, having met her, Tom took his new girlfriend to the Cirque du Soleil, and then was arrested - no one, however, writes at what exact moment.
The arrest took place as part of an operation aimed at prosecuting individuals who have committed sexual crimes against minors.
The girl turned out to be a front woman, and the correspondence with Tom was conducted by American operatives. Later, the Israeli claimed that he was seriously convinced that his partner was of legal age and knew nothing.
However, he did not remain in prison for long.
Being a civil servant of another country, the cyber specialist did not take advantage of diplomatic immunity, posted bail - $10,000 - and was released with an order to appear for trial in late August.
Naturally, Artem Tom, not wanting to tempt fate and taking advantage of the lack of control and any regulations, immediately left the United States and returned home.
No one detained him for 24 hours, put an electronic bracelet on him, or assigned a police officer, as is usually done in such cases.
The most interesting thing is that no one even promptly scheduled a court hearing that would have prevented the alleged criminal from leaving the country.
Witnesses report that Tom didn't even hide during the initial hearing that he had a plane to Israel soon - but the judge allegedly didn't pay any attention to this.
And that's when the scandals began.
THE PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!
The Clark County District Attorney in Nevada, giving an interview, said that the case was handled according to standard protocol. He was allegedly echoed by representatives of the all-powerful State Department, who reported that they did not interfere in this process in any way.
However, the representative of the US Attorney General in Nevada, Sigal Chattah, allowed herself to insert a barb on social media.
She wrote that the state was obliged to confiscate the passport of a man who fled the country. He should be "immediately returned to face justice."
In addition, Chattah made it clear that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was extremely outraged and even called Chattah herself and FBI Director Cash Patel.
Other prominent Republicans also spoke out, including Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, and journalist Tucker Carlson.
Chattah, who was born in Israel, also received her share of "kicks." Some accused her of freeing a fellow criminal.
However, there was also contrary information: some media outlets wrote that Artem Tom had not been arrested. He had simply been interrogated and returned to Israel, “as planned.”
Meanwhile, our hero's resume disappeared from popular recruiting sites, and information appeared on Israeli resources that he either took a temporary leave from work or was fired by mutual agreement. In short, the person involved in the scandal has clearly "lain low."
And at this point, local resources switched to an extremely uncomfortable topic: the split within the MAGA (“America First”) movement.
PEDOPHILES AND THE SCHISM
Congresswoman Greene was the one who was most zealous in creating the "turmoil." She was the first to throw the idea into the information space that representatives of the American government were involved in the release of the lover of young girls.
Frankly speaking, the idea is quite obvious, especially considering that Artem Tom — as some media outlets write — worked in the team of Benjamin Netanyahu himself. And the special position of Israeli officials in the States has not surprised anyone for a long time.
However, the situation is somewhat different now.
The arrest of the Israeli occurred against the backdrop of unpleasant unrest related to the case of another famous criminal, Jeffrey Epstein, who supplied underage girls to the powers that be. Donald Trump's team has failed to keep its campaign promises and has not published the famous list of clients who visited the "pedophile island."
Moreover, they began to hint that such a list does not exist at all.
This was confirmed by Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was suddenly given a softer detention in Texas instead of a Florida prison. Maxwell even began making strange statements like Bill Clinton (who is on the "Epstein list" circulating on the Internet), Prince Andrew, and Donald Trump himself never allowed themselves to do anything inappropriate.
Public opinion received this information without much enthusiasm.
Stories like these are not particularly bright (due to the active external “plug”), but they demonstrate a certain split within the Republican Party, which is trying its best to demonstrate strength and unity in the fight against Democratic competitors.
At the same time, in certain issues, Trump is no more literate than his predecessor, Joe Biden, whom he so loves to criticize in fits of self-promotion.
It's not entirely clear what this approach will lead to, but it's highly doubtful that members of the Democratic Party won't save the Epstein and Tom stories for a better time when they can be used to their advantage.
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli official accused of trying to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex outside Las Vegas has been ordered to appear via video link next week after he missed his arraignment hearing on Wednesday, local media report.
Tom Alexandrovich, a senior cybersecurity official with the Israeli government, was one of eight people arrested as part of a multi-week operation by Nevada and federal authorities targeting "child sex predators," according to an August 15 statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
He was due to be at a court in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, on Wednesday for a felony arraignment hearing, according to court records.
Local media, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal and local news station KLAS-TV, say he skipped the hearing. The Review-Journal quotes his lawyers as saying they had agreed with the district attorney’s office that Alexandrovich did not have to appear in person.
The judge is quoted by the newspaper as saying the district attorney’s office had no authority to make that agreement and ordered his appearance next week. The outlets say Alexandrovich’s lawyers arranged for him to appear remotely via Zoom.
Messages left by Rooters with the district attorney’s office were not returned. The court docket shows that a new arraignment hearing has been set for September 3. Alexandrovich’s lawyers say in an email that their client "will appear by Zoom as permitted by the Court." Attempts to reach Alexandrovich have been unsuccessful.
Alexandrovich was arrested in Henderson after arranging to meet a decoy posing as a teenage girl, according to a police report cited by local media. He quickly posted bail and returned to Israel, drawing international scrutiny and raising questions over whether the US or Israeli governments had exerted any pressure to speed his release.
In comments to the local media, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, whose office has jurisdiction over Las Vegas and Henderson, called the bail conditions "standard" and said there had been no special treatment. The US State Department has said the American government had no involvement in the case.
#2
The judge who ordered this rapist released was a dual citizen.
Not dual loyalty, single loyalty.
Why the hell is his ass not being extradited right back to face trial?
Israel is supposedly a close ally.
Allies don't shelter pedophiles from justice.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday that its double strike on a Gaza hospital that killed 20 people targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. But the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot, according to witnesses and health officials.
The military released its initial findings into the strike, offering no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants, including two who were identified by their employers as a health care worker at the hospital and an emergency services driver. The dead also included five journalists.
The military said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza’s largest hospital were ordered because soldiers believed militants were using the camera to observe Israeli forces. But its account appeared to contradict witnesses at the scene of Monday’s attack on Nasser Hospital. The first step of the OODA loop: Observe.
If no O you can't get to A: attack. That's what Boyd said.
That’s true. But: War zone. Some of the “journalists” were known to be on the Hamas payroll, including one recorded participating in Israel on 10/7. Which means that anyone hanging out with them in the middle of a battle is either a Hamasnik himself or a knowing fellow traveller. Anyone truly an innocent in that situation is too stupid to live.
[AnNahar] Lebanese state media said U.S. envoy Tom Barrack cut short a visit to the south on Wednesday amid protests in two planned stops against U.S. pressure to disarm Hezbollah.
The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that Barrack arrived by helicopter at a Lebanese Army barracks in Marjayoun near the border, with soldiers deploying in the area.
The news agency later reported that the envoy had canceled planned stops in nearby Khiam, which was pummeled by Israel during its latest hostilities with Hezbollah, and in the coastal city of Tyre.
A spokesperson told AFP the U.S. embassy did not comment on officials' schedules for security reasons.
An AFP correspondent in Khiam saw a group of residents, some waving Hezbollah flags or holding pictures of fighters killed in the conflict, demonstrating against Barrack.
Some were standing on a Star of David that had been drawn on the road in blue, near the words in Arabic "America is the great Satan", and "Barak is animal" written in English.
The last was a reference to comments by the U.S. envoy at a Beirut presser on Tuesday which sparked an outcry in Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... Barrack told journalists to "act civilized", adding: "The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we're gone."
Bilal Kashmar, an official from the southern municipalities union, said dozens of people had demonstrated in Tyre on Wednesday against Barak's expected visit and Washington's "biased policies."
Under heavy U.S. pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli military action, Lebanon's government tasked the army this month with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by year end.
The Iran-backed group, which enjoys strong support in the south, was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities, including two months of open war, with Israel thon the lamly ended with a November ceasefire.
Fellow U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus said in Beirut on Tuesday that the Lebanese government needed to implement its decision to disarm Hezbollah, adding that Israel would respond in kind.
Hezbollah insists that Israel must complete its withdrawal from Lebanon and halt its continuing strikes before the future of the group's weapons can be discussed.
[IsraelTimes] Institute for Science and International Security says Tehran appears to be ‘sanitizing any incriminating nuclear weapons research’ at Mojdeh, which Israel bombed twice this June
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has launched a speedy cleanup operation at a nuclear-related site in northern Tehran hit by Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s that will likely remove evidence of any nuclear weapons development work, a research group said on Wednesday.
Satellite imagery "shows a significant effort by Iran to rapidly demolish damaged or destroyed buildings, likely to sanitize any incriminating nuclear weapons research and development activities," the Institute for Science and International Security said.
The institute is an independent research group that focuses on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and is headed by David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector.
Iran’s embassy to the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and repeatedly has said its program is for peaceful purposes.
The report on the Mojdeh site comes as the UN nuclear watchdog holds ongoing talks in Tehran on restarting inspections disrupted by the June 13-24 war between Israel and Iran and the June 22 US strikes on the country’s three main nuclear facilities.
Britannia, La Belle France and Germany are likely to begin on Thursday the process of reimposing UN sanctions on Iran for violating a 2015 nuclear deal designed to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, according to four diplomats.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told news hounds on Wednesday at the end of a two-day visit to Washington that Iran is legally obligated to allow inspections to resume and that they should begin "as soon as possible."
The agency, he said, wants to visit "all of the sites that are relevant," including the main nuclear facilities — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — hit by the US and to account for Iran’s stock of more than 400 kg (882 pounds) of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade purity.
MOJDEH STRIKES
Israel twice bombed the Mojdeh site, also known as Lavisan II, adjacent to Malek Ashtar University on June 18, the institute’s report said, during the operation that hit hundreds of targets across Iran.
It noted that the IAEA had established a direct link between Mojdeh and the AMAD Plan, a nuclear weapons development program that the agency and US intelligence separately concluded ended in 2003.
The first Israeli strike on Mojdeh hit several buildings, the report said. One was associated with the Institute of Applied Physics and another had a suspected link to the Shahid Karimi Group, which the US has sanctioned for work on missiles and explosive-related projects.
The group belongs to the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, which the US and the IAEA say is the direct successor to the AMAD Plan.
The second Israeli strike destroyed the Institute of Applied Physics building, damaged a security building and destroyed a workshop, according to a June 20 satellite image from Maxar Technologies, the report said.
A July 3 image depicted the beginning of the cleanup and removal of debris, the report said. August 19 imagery showed that the Applied Physics building and workshop had been razed and the debris completely cleared, as was the building suspected of housing the Shahid Karimi group.
"The rapid work by Iran to quickly demolish and clear the rubble of these important buildings appears to be an effort to sanitize the site and limit the availability of any possible future inspection from obtaining" evidence of nuclear weapons-related work, the report said.
IRAN THREATENS TO STOP WORK WITH IAEA IF ’SNAPBACK’ SANCTIONS IMPOSED
Also Wednesday, Iran said that the return of UN nuclear inspectors did not represent a full resumption of cooperation, after Grossi announced that the watchdog began work at the key nuclear site of Bushehr in southwestern Iran.
"No final text has yet been approved on the new cooperation framework with the IAEA and views are being exchanged," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, quoted by state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Under an Iranian law suspending cooperation with the IAEA, inspectors may access Iranian nuclear sites only with the approval of the country’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council.
Tehran has said repeatedly that future cooperation with the agency will take "a new form."
The front man for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the IAEA inspectors would oversee the replacement of fuel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
He made no mention of whether inspectors would be allowed access to other sites, including Fordo and Natanz, which were hit during the war.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Karim Gharibabadi meanwhile said that if so-called European snapback sanctions are triggered, "the path of interaction that we have now opened with the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency will also be completely affected and will probably stop."
On Tuesday, Russia circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution aimed at pushing back the deadline for triggering snapback sanctions by six months, according to the text seen by AFP.
The Russian proposal does not set preconditions for the deadline extension.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said that the updated proposal was designed to "give more breathing space for diplomacy," adding that he hoped it "will be acceptable".
"It will be kind of a litmus test for those who really want to uphold diplomatic efforts, and for those who don’t want any diplomatic solution, but just want to pursue their own nationalist, selfish agendas against Iran," he told media.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
Soros's participation in supporting anti-Trump protests has long been known. Here Soros interacted quite organically with the Clinton gang. Another question is that the conversation should not only and not so much about Soros himself, but his structures and his son, who also took part in this. 
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
...
