Tag: israel

France to help Palestinians draft constitution for future state, says Macron

France will help the Palestinian Authority draft a constitution for a future state, President Emmanuel Macron said on Nov 11 after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris.

A number of major Western nations including France 

formally recognised a Palestinian state in September, a move driven by frustration with Israel over its devastating war in Gaza and a wish to promote a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

A US-brokered, Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in October, but Israel again rejected any prospect of Palestinian statehood.

Mr Macron said France and the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, would set up a joint committee to work on drawing up a new Palestinian constitution.

“This committee will be responsible for working on all legal aspects: constitutional, institutional and organisational,” he told reporters.

“It will contribute to the work of developing a new constitution, a draft of which President Abbas has presented to me, and will aim to finalise all the conditions for such a State of Palestine,” Mr Macron said.

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Officials Fear Permanent Israeli Occupation of More Than Half of Gaza

Reuters reported on Tuesday that European officials and other sources are concerned that, without more progress on the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal, the so-called “yellow line” dividing Israeli-occupied Gaza from the rest of the Strip will become a de facto border, meaning there will be an indefinite Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The report comes as the Trump administration is pushing for a plan to allow reconstruction only in the Israeli-occupied side of Gaza, which accounts for about 58% of the territory. The Atlantic has reported that the US is considering building housing on the Israeli side of the yellow line that could be used by Palestinians who have been “screened” for “anti-Hamas” sentiment.

Arab countries have been warning against the plan as they fear it will lead to a permanent Israeli occupation and expressed skepticism about the idea of Palestinians being willing to live on the Israeli side.

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Israeli Spy Stayed for Weeks at a Time With Jeffrey Epstein in Manhattan

With the looming end of the U.S. government shutdown amid a deal in the Senate, the House will soon be swearing in Adelita Grijalva to her rightful seat from Arizona, after a historic delay at the hands of Speaker Mike Johnson, taking direction from President Donald Trump, all aimed at blocking her from becoming the final signature needed to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

In mid-October, the House Oversight Committee released an interview with former U.S. prosecutor Alex Acosta, who told the panel that—contrary to widespread public reporting—he had never told Steve Bannon that Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” Acosta denied ever discussing Epstein with Bannon, and claimed to have “no knowledge as to whether he was or was not a member of the intelligence community.”

Yet, along with Acosta’s interview, the House panel also released a new cache of documents from Epstein’s estate containing direct evidence of Epstein’s links to Israeli intelligence: Epstein’s personal calendars reveal that a senior Israeli intelligence officer, with personal ties to former CIA Director Leon Panetta, lived at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment for multiple stretches between 2013 and 2016. When cross-referenced with emails leaked from the inbox of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a portrait emerges of Epstein at the nexus of high-ranking intelligence officials in both the U.S. and Israel.

This is the fourth piece in Drop Site’s ongoing series on Jeffrey Epstein’s role in brokering intelligence deals for Israel.

In the first, we exposed Epstein’s role in brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia. In the second, we identified Epstein’s effort to set up a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syria civil war. In the third, we showed Epstein’s role as a key facilitator of a security agreement between Israel and the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire.

Meanwhile, we’re left wondering why the rest of the media, which has demonstrated no lack of excitement when it comes to the saga of Jeffrey Epstein, has all of a sudden lost its reporting capacity, in the face of reams of publicly available newsworthy documents. A question for editors reading this newsletter: What are you doing?

From a place of competition, we’re glad the media are sitting on their collective hands and we’re proud to have broken this series of stories, which give us a glimpse of a world that is often hidden from public view. But it’s also a topic that would benefit from the collective attention of our national media. Here’s hoping some will join in.

Either way, we’ll continue the work, and are grateful for the support of readers who make it possible. If you haven’t yet upgraded your subscription, please consider doing so.

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US To Build Base On Gaza Border – Thousands Troops To Support Ceasefire

This story is developing…

The Hebrew news outlet YNET is reporting the United States will spend $500 million to establish a base on the Gaza border in order to ensure implementation of the Gaza peace deal negotiated by The White House. The location is reported to host ‘thousands’ of American troops.

In related news, YNET is reporting Hamas is regaining control over the Gaza population as residents move to camps in Gaza due to the inability of residents to live amongst the rubble.

The next stage of the Trump plan envisions a further IDF withdrawal beyond the yellow line, creation of a transitional governing authority, deployment of a multinational force to replace Israeli troops, Hamas’s disarmament, and the start of reconstruction. But no timelines or enforcement mechanisms have been agreed upon. Hamas refuses to disarm, Israel opposes any Palestinian Authority involvement, and uncertainty persists over the multinational force.

“We’re still working out ideas,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said this month at a security conference in Manama. “Everybody wants this conflict over, all of us want the same endgame here. Question is, how do we make it work?”

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Hollywood Producer Buys Israeli NSO Spyware Maker, Hires David Friedman to Sell Hacking Tools to U.S.

Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has purchased the Israeli spyware maker NSO Group to bring it under “American” control and hired Trump’s former Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to lobby the president to remove sanctions on the firm so they can sell their hacking tools to US law enforcement.

Though the company was sold to a consortium of alleged “Americans” led by Simonds, the NSO Group “said Sunday that it would continue to operate from Israel under the full regulatory authority of the Defense Ministry, as it expands its global footprint and seeks to resume operations in the US,” the Times of Israel reports.

From The Wall Street Journal, “Israeli Spyware Maker NSO Gets New Owners, Leadership and Seeks to Mend Reputation”:

TEL AVIV—NSO Group, the Israeli company behind Pegasus spyware, says a group of investors led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has acquired a controlling stake in the firm, which has named a former Trump official to lead an effort to restore its battered reputation.

The company, which has faced lawsuits and U.S. government sanctions since revelations that its technology was used to spy on political dissidents, human-rights advocates, journalists and American officials, declined to disclose the purchase price.

NSO’s new executive chairman, David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and onetime bankruptcy lawyer for President Trump, said he wants to use his ties to the Trump administration to help rebuild the company’s spyware business in the U.S.

“If the administration, as I expect they’ll be, is receptive to considering any opportunity that might keep Americans safer, it will consider us,” said Friedman, who splits his time between Florida and Israel.

This is naked influence peddling.

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Super PAC Targeting Massie Funded By Three Israel-Backing Billionaires

Though it sports a Kentucky- and MAGA-branded name, the new Super PAC launched solely to support a primary challenge against popular Republican Congressman Thomas Massie is funded entirely by three Israel-backing billionaires from Nevada, New York and Florida, according to disclosure filings posted on Thursday. 

The super PAC was launched in June, just days after President Trump threw a social media tantrum over Massie’s condemnation of Trump’s commitment of US forces to Israel’s war on Iran. Massie has long been a thorn in Trump’s side on domestic issues too, from opposing the $2 trillion, Trump-backed Covid-19 “relief package” in 2020 to voting against this year’s Big Beautiful Bill. However, Massie’s opposition to US involvement in Israel’s war seemed to have been the last straw. Trump assigned his top political operatives Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita to start and run the super PAC. LaCivita told Axios the entity will spend “whatever it takes” to oust Massie.

The PAC’s only three donors have two things in common: they’re billionaires, and they’re ardent supporters of Israel. According to the PAC’s first funding disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, it has received:

  • $1 million from New Yorker hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who has also funded a Israel-favoring US think tank and other pro-Israel organizations, and urged Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal 
  • $250,000 from Floridian hedge fund manager John Paulson
  • $750,000 from the Preserve America Super PAC, which has also been led by La Civita and primarily funded by Nevadan Miriam Adelson and earlier, her late husband Sheldon Adelson

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Dutch court upholds arms exports to Israel despite acknowledging ‘grave risk’ of genocide

A Dutch appeals court on 6 November confirmed the dismissal of a case filed by pro-Palestinian organizations demanding that the Netherlands end arms exports to Israel and cease trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In its written judgment, the court said it was not within the judiciary’s authority to dictate such measures, stating that the decision lies with the government.

The plaintiffs argued that as a signatory to the 1948 Genocide Convention, the Dutch state is obliged to take all available steps to prevent genocide, citing Israel’s ongoing mass killing of civilians in Gaza. 

The court agreed that the Netherlands holds that legal obligation and acknowledged “a grave risk” that Israel is committing genocide.

However, the judges maintained that the government already evaluates the risk of human rights abuses before approving military exports and noted that some applications have been denied.

The court also upheld an earlier ruling from December last year that sided with the Dutch state, which claimed it had taken sufficient precautions and halted certain shipments.

The pro-Palestine groups had alleged that Dutch companies supplied Israel with radar systems, F-16 components, warship equipment, police dogs, surveillance cameras, and software. 

The government countered that it has stopped most arms exports to Israel and now only authorizes deliveries of parts used in defensive systems such as the Iron Dome.

Israel has rejected all accusations of genocide, despite a UN inquiry officially announcing it in mid-September, insisting its Gaza campaign targets Hamas.

The appeals court concluded that the pro-Palestine organizations failed to demonstrate that the state systematically neglects its obligations when assessing export risks and therefore could not justify a blanket ban on arms or dual-use items.

Despite their public condemnations of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, European nations remain the largest buyers of Israeli-made weapons, purchasing over $8 billion worth last year, according to Bloomberg. 

Demand is projected to grow further as NATO members prepare to raise defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035.

The move is heavily dependent on Israel’s deeply integrated defense industries, including Elbit Systems, Rafael, and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

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10,000+ Palestinians Buried Beneath Gaza Rubble in ‘World’s Largest Mass Grave’

A civil society group in Gaza on Thursday appealed for international assistance to help recover the bodies of more than 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces who remain buried beneath the rubble of the flattened strip.

Referring to Gaza as “the world’s largest mass grave,” Aladdin Al-Aklouk, a spokesperson for the National Committee for Missing Persons in the Genocide Against Gaza, said that “these martyrs were buried under the rubble of their homes, which have turned into mass graves, without their final dignity being preserved or their bodies being retrieved.”

“We express our shock and strong condemnation of the absence of an effective role by international organizations and humanitarian bodies, especially those concerned with the issue of missing persons, in light of the ongoing escalating humanitarian disaster,” Al-Aklouk continued.

“The remnants are ticking time bombs and pose a danger to the population in the Gaza Strip. We need specialists alongside the teams working in the sector,” he added. “We call on the world to send international teams to recover the bodies of the missing. We call on the world to provide the necessary equipment to recover the bodies.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry – whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies – at least 68,875 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023. Although a US-brokered ceasefire technically remains in effect, Gaza officials have documented over 200 Israeli violations in which more than 240 Palestinians have been killed and over 600 others injured.

More than 170,600 other Gazans have been wounded in a war which is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case and for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.

Palestinians are struggling to dig through more than 60 million tons of debris after over 80% of all structures in Gaza were destroyed or damaged by two years of Israeli bombardment. That’s more than 200,000 buildings and other structures.

United Nations experts estimate it will take seven years for 100 trucks to remove all debris across Gaza, where more than three-quarters of roads are damaged and unexploded ordnance and Israeli booby traps beneath the debris continue to pose deadly threats to recovery workers and survivors in general.

Israel’s destruction and denial of the heavy equipment needed for such a monumental recovery operation has left Palestinians reliant upon rudimentary tools such as shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, and even their bare hands. They dig amid the stench of death and decomposition that lingers in the air.

The Abu Naser family lost more than 130 members in an October 29, 2024 strike on their five-story home in Beit Lahia, where over 200 people were sheltering when it was bombed. Mohammed Nabil Abu Naser, who survived the bombing, immediately started digging through the rubble, first in search of survivors and later, for bodies.

“It was all bodies and body parts,” he explained. More than a year later, many of the victims have yet to be recovered.

“About 50 of them are still under the rubble to this day, a full year later,” Abu Naser told The Guardian on Monday.

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Israel was part of the conspiracy to kill JFK

With America’s leaders eager to supply billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for the genocidal war in Gaza and its world-destabilizing goal of a “Greater Israel,” it’s hard to imagine that an American president ever dared to oppose Israel’s colonialist and military ambitions.

John F. Kennedy was arguably the last US president to seek active restraints on Israel’s dominance of both the Middle East and US foreign policy.

In the early 1960s, Kennedy attempted: to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons into the tinder box of the Middle East by blocking Israel’s development of a bomb; to establish a more balanced US relationship with Arab countries in the region; to return at least some Palestinian refugees to their rightful homes; and to demand that pro-Israel lobbyists in the US register as foreign agents.

Israel’s leaders perceived JFK’s presidency as an existential threat to their fledgling nation. And there is mounting historical evidence that Israel’s intelligence services likely played a key role in financing and covering up JFK’s assassination.

A document released in 2023 from the JFK archive reveals that Reuben Efron, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, was reading purported triggerman Lee Harvey Oswald’s private mail years prior to the JFK assassination as part of a closely-held CIA surveillance program.

The program was led by James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s counterterrorism chief and its liaison to the Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency. Efron, a Zionist whose mother died in the Holocaust, later emigrated from the US to live in Jerusalem.

JFK assassination documents released in 2025 show that Angleton used Mossad operatives to spy on Cuba following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

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What The Democratic Socialists Are Demanding From Mamdani Is Truly Terrifying

According to leaked documents, the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America views Zohran Mamdani’s victory as a springboard for a sweeping anti-Israel crusade. The group’s “Anti-War Working Group” drafted a list of a dozen “demands” urging the incoming mayor to punish Israel financially and diplomatically. The proposals call for New York City to end all contracts with firms that do business with Israel and to withdraw city funds from any banks financing the Jewish state. The internal planning document paints a clear picture of how far-left activists intend to push City Hall under Mamdani’s leadership.

The five-page screed was distributed at the group’s Nov. 2 public meeting, and reveals the DSA’s NYC chapter has been plotting since at least late September on how to best to ensure the pro-Palestine, Israel-hating Mamdani fully supports its anti-Israel agenda once he’s sworn in as mayor in January — and doesn’t buckle to political pressure.

The leaked document doesn’t stop at cutting contracts or pulling city funds. It goes even further, outlining a wish list that reads like an antisemitic manifesto. Among the demands: the city would divest its pension funds from Israeli bonds and securities, and ban Israeli products from the network of city-run grocery stores Mamdani has proposed creating. It also calls for investigations into real estate agents accused of “hosting illegal sales of stolen lands in the West Bank,” and for revoking the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that raise money for the Israel Defense Forces.

The group’s ambitions go beyond economics. It wants the NYPD to end all training programs with what it calls the “Israeli Occupation Forces,” and even insists that New York City authorities arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and active IDF soldiers for “war crimes” should they set foot in the city. The final demand urges the dismantling of the NYC-Israel Economic Council, which was established under outgoing Mayor Eric Adams to strengthen economic ties between New York and Israel.

“Well at least the DSA mask is off,” said state Assemblyman Kalman Yeger, a conservative Brooklyn Democrat and Orthodox Jew. “This was never about affordability, free buses or anything else. This was always about Jew hatred.

“With every municipal issue facing New York City’s government, the DSA doesn’t care about the state of our schools, streets, parks, subways, city budget or anything else. They care about Israel — Israel and only Israel.

“At least now they can stop trying to deny their antisemitism; most New Yorkers aren’t stupid,” said Yeger.

Zohran Mamdani, a longtime supporter of the anti-Israel BDS movement, whose father Mahmood Mamdani sits on an advisory group that regularly accuses Israel of “genocide,” spent the campaign trail publicly condemning antisemitism and cozying up to select Jewish leaders to secure political cover — a blatantly obvious scheme to cover up his true intentions.

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