Tag: israel

Israel Says It Will Not Let Trump Sign A Bad Peace Deal

Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich gave comments to reporters today on the wars.

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

“We need to cut the electricity in Lebanon.

“If the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, then the territory south of the Litani — and even south of the Zahrani — must become a ‘security zone’ for the State of Israel. 

“We need to cut the electricity, destroy the infrastructure, and make clear to them: if there is terrorism, you will suffer.

“In light of the reactions around the world, you can understand one thing: Israel has stopped being the punching bag of the Middle East — and I’m proud of that.

“The policy I lead is not a policy of giving them sandwiches and flowers. That doesn’t help. It doesn’t help. They come again and again and again. They mock us. They call us suckers when we behave the way they expect us to.

“You saw that even the Europeans apparently learned something — surprisingly, it works. The message gets through.

“The Israeli government will not let Trump sign a “bad deal” with Iran.

“I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu: call Trump, go to him, bang on the table in front of him, and make clear that the State of Israel is not willing — not willing to accept this, not willing to tolerate this.”


Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

“The most effective way to stop Hezbollah is simply to announce that for every drone, 10 buildings in Beirut will be destroyed.

“If there were seven drones, then 70 buildings. If there were 15, then 150.

“And if the buildings in Beirut run out, then we move on to Tyre, Sidon, and the Beqaa Valley.

“We are changing the Middle East. Iran is far weaker today, even if it has not yet collapsed — and that too is a goal we will achieve, with God’s help.

“Look at what Gaza looks like. Look at what Lebanon looks like.

“We are completely changing the equations.

“We are striking our enemies hard — not with one blow, but with 100 blows.

“Have we finished? Not yet.

“The war must end with there being no Hamas in Gaza. Period.

“We are in 60% of the Gaza Strip, and there will be no reconstruction without demilitarization and without completing the mission — the destruction of Hamas.

“I’m convinced Netanyahu — and I take my hat off to him and give him full credit for this — knew how to bring Trump and the United States to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against the Iranian threat.

“We have the most supportive administration that has ever been in the White House.  There has never been anything like it.”

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Netanyahu gifted Trump a golden pager at White House meeting, PM’s office confirms

The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday confirmed reports that Benjamin Netanyahu gave a golden pager as a gift to US President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House on Tuesday, a reference to the clandestine operation that decimated the Hezbollah terror group.

The gift “symbolizes the Prime Minister’s decision that led to a turning point in the war and the starting point for breaking the will of the terrorist organization Hezbollah,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The operation “expresses the power, technological superiority and cunning of Israel against its enemies,” according to the PMO.

The golden pager displayed text that read: “Press with both hands,” and was given to Trump on a trophy-style display with a placard saying: “To President Donald J. Trump, our greatest friend and greatest ally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“That was a great operation,” Trump responded, according to Channel 12 news.

In return, Trump reportedly gave Netanyahu a photo of the two of them from the visit, with the dedication “To Bibi, a great leader.”

On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah across Lebanon suddenly exploded, killing dozens of operatives and maiming thousands, marking the beginning of Israel’s escalation against the terror group, after almost a year of persistent Hezbollah rocket fire that displaced some 60,000 residents of the north.

The pagers, laced with explosives, were detonated via an encrypted message that required users to hold the devices with both hands, maximizing the likelihood of the subsequent blast causing debilitating injuries.

A day later, hundreds of walkie-talkies also blew up, killing and injuring scores more.

The attacks came as Israel began to step up a counter-offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which began striking Israel almost immediately after the allied Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. The pager operation was immediately linked to Israel, which claimed responsibility in November 2024.

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14,000 sex workers in Israel, 3,000 of them minors

Some 14,000 people in Israel are currently engaged in prostitution, 95% of them women, including 3,000 minors. These figures were presented at the annual conference on the status of women held last week by the Gender and Feminism Studies M.A. track at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.According to data presented, the age of entering the cycle of prostitution is as low as 13. According to the testimonies of women involved in prostitution and those who have left the vocation, most of them are women who experienced severe sexual abuse in childhood. Only 20% of these women ultimately manage to break out of the cycle of prostitution.The conference was held Thursday for the 13th time with the support of Prof. Alice Shalvi, former rector and acting president of Schechter.Some of the speakers were women who were involved in the successful effort to pass the 2018 law which incriminates consumers of prostitution, passed shortly before the present Knesset election was declared. The new law will come into force within 16 months, together with a rehabilitation program for women involved in prostitution, and will impose fines on consumers. Israel is the eighth country in the world to pass such a law.“In the past, there was trade of women in Israel,” said Nitzan Kahana, social activist and associate director of the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution. “Then in the 1990s, the state introduced comprehensive legislation against this phenomenon, which was indeed eradicated, but the demand remained and the traders in women and pimps pushed Israeli women into prostitution. We wanted to introduce the Nordic law that bans consumption of prostitution. We say that this act is immoral and inappropriate, and we acted to introduce the model of incriminating clients.”On the question of whether the law is liable to encourage other criminal manifestations such as rape, Kahana replied that “the law alone cannot eradicate the consumption of prostitution, but public opinion polls in Sweden, where the law was passed at the end of the previous decade, one can see that the approach to consuming prostitution has changed. Today we see 80 to 90% support from men for the law that prohibits consuming prostitution.”Na’ama Goldberg, founder and director of the Don’t Stand Aside (Lo Omdot Mineged) association, which helps women involved in prostitution with their immediate needs such as clothing, food, medicines and emotional assistance, described the women who end up in prostitution.

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Wired for war: The Israeli spy-tech machine strikes again

French authorities are investigating an alleged election meddling plot by an Israeli “information warfare” company targeting candidates critical of the Jewish state. The scheme – involving fake profiles and AI nudes – follows a familiar pattern.

Multiple intelligence agencies in France are investigating the work of BlackCore, an Israeli firm that allegedly carried out an interference campaign against three left-wing mayoral candidates in Marseille, Toulouse, and Roubaix in March, Reuters reported last on May 13.

All three candidates are members of France Unbowed (LFI), the party of left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. In Marseille, Sebastien Delogu was accused of rape by a pseudonymous blogger named ‘Sophie’, while bogus Facebook profiles and QR code stickers plastered around the city boosted the story. AI-generated ‘nudes’ of Delogu were also circulated online, along with captions mocking his support for Palestine.

Bot-boosted profiles posted disparaging stories about Francois Piquemal in Toulouse and David Guiraud in Roubaix. One page accused Piquemal of pedophilia, while another site portrayed LFI as the party of “Sharia law” and “a more Muslim France.” Presented as a “voting guide” for Muslims compiled by an Islamist group, the site was aimed at turning non-Muslim voters against the party, Le Monde reported.

An investigation by France’s Liberation newspaper and Israel’s Haaretz revealed on May 18 that BlackCore was behind the influence operation. According to Reuters, French authorities are now trying to establish who hired the company to intervene in the elections.

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Residents flee southern Beirut after Netanyahu orders escalation against Hezbollah

Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for escalation in strikes against Hezbollah, an AFP correspondent reports residents fleeing the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Lebanese security sources also tell Reuters that residents are evacuating.

Except for a strike targeting a Hezbollah commander in the area earlier this month, there have been no strikes on Beirut or its surroundings since the April 16 truce.

Netanyahu did not say in his video message whether Israel planned to resume broader attacks in Beirut.

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Israel’s organ theft scandal exposes a culture of desecration

On 25 January, Israeli President Isaac Herzog stood before a crowd celebrating what Tel Aviv claimed was a world record in kidney donations. The event, promoted after a lobbying push to Guinness World Records, was meant to project generosity, discipline, and moral purpose.

But Guinness listed only the gathering itself as a record, not the kidney donations that Tel Aviv had turned into a public relations show.

The bodies behind the numbers

In Gaza, where Israel has been returning Palestinian bodies in bags, sometimes decomposed, mutilated, or showing signs of surgical interference, the celebration landed differently. For Palestinian health officials, the question was not how Israel had produced so many donors, but whether all of those bodies had consented.

Dimming Israel’s “propaganda facade” was none other than Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. He said Israel’s “record numbers” raised serious questions about the sources of the kidneys and other organs now being celebrated. He pointed to the stark contradiction of an occupation state that has held Palestinian bodies for years in the “cemeteries of numbers” and refrigerators while presenting itself to the world as a humanitarian model in organ donation.

Bursh cited documented cases of bodies returned to families missing organs, especially kidneys, without medical reports, autopsy files, or any legal path to accountability. He demanded an independent international investigation into whether Israel’s claimed achievement had been built on the theft of Palestinian organs.

Just over a week later, Israel returned the scattered remains of some 54 Palestinians to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Forensic teams quickly got to work in an attempt to identify the bodies and give closure to their families, but noted that many of the corpses had clear signs of torture and the surgical organ removal.

This was not the first such warning since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Ten days into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, allegations of organ theft had already surfaced. By late November 2023, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called for an investigation into the theft of Palestinian organs, after “medical professionals found evidence of organ theft, including missing cochleas and corneas as well as other vital organs like livers, kidneys, and hearts.”

Israel and its defenders moved to blunt the spread of these allegations by invoking “blood libel” and antisemitism. Because the evidence came from Palestinians, calls for international scrutiny have largely fallen on deaf ears.

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US to build AI park and nuclear energy facility in southern Israel with 99-year lease in motion

Israel and the United States have allegedly reached an agreement to establish a large-scale technology park in southern Israel, with the deal expected to be signed in Jerusalem later this month. The facility is set to function primarily as a strategic chip manufacturing and artificial intelligence centre.

A document obtained by Globes showed that the project, designated “Fort Foundry One,” will occupy approximately 16,000 dunams in either the Negev or Gaza Envelope region.

The memorandum of understanding, signed by the chief of the National Artificial Intelligence Headquarters, Brigadier General (res.) Erez Askal and US Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg granted the United States a 99-year lease on the land.

While the territory will remain under Israeli sovereignty, ongoing management and primary investment will come from the United States, with American technology companies operating alongside Israeli firms.

This agreement appears to be occurring as Middle Eastern economies look to become part of the US’ Pax Silica, as Israel’s tech sector experiences renewed momentum following the Gaza war.

The recently signed Pax Silicaa deal is a US-led international initiative launched in late 2025 to build secure, resilient supply chains for advanced technologies, especially AI and semiconductors, under the Trump administration 

Current members of Pax Silica include the United States (as Lead), Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Qatar (Joined January 12) and the United Arab Emirates (Joined January 14).

The high electricity demands of data centres and AI computing systems have raised the possibility of constructing a new nuclear reactor on-site, which could prove complex given Israel’s non-signatory status to international civilian nuclear reactor treaties.

In an earlier report by the Times of Israel, construction work at Israel’s only nuclear site in Dimona appeared to increase at the end of 2025, indicating an increase of development of the sector ahead of the announcement of the new AI centres.

The Associated Press first reported on excavations at the facility, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of Jerusalem, in 2021. 

The United States’ treaty membership could enable a unique regulatory model where the reactor operates under American supervision despite its location on Israeli territory, though official documentation refers more broadly to “high-density energy infrastructure.”

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Daily Mail lies: Oct 7 victim saved from rape by non-existent Muslim prohibition on violating scarred women

The latest Oct. 7 rape hoax propaganda piece from The Daily insists that the only reason a woman at the Nova music festival wasn’t raped by Hamas members is that she had a scar – and falsely claims that “scars have a spiritual significance in the eyes of the terrorists.”

In one of its most brazen disinformation efforts in years, the British tabloid The Daily Mail has published a fake news story claiming that an Israeli woman who was permitted to leave by Hamas militants only avoided being sexually assaulted by showing her captors her scar.

According to the woman in question, May Hayat, she had been taken prisoner by “terrorists” at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, when she began to detect “an energy and look in their eyes that every woman knows what’s going to happen next.”

However, she insists the men declined to rape her because Muslims subscribe to a belief system under which “a scar like [hers] means a strong woman,” and “if something happened to her because of them, the 72 virgins they are promised will not come looking for them in heaven.”

This claim contradicts all known Islamic jurisprudence, including the mainstream Sunni doctrine espoused by Hamas – which forbids fighters (and men more generally) from carrying out sexual violence against women, and which does not in any way single out women with scars for special treatment.

But The Daily Mail article, entitled “October 7 survivor reveals how a childhood scar saved her from Hamas terrorists,” fully endorses Hayat’s extraordinarily suspicious claim. Hayat, the outlet states credulously, was later “told that such scars have a spiritual significance in the eyes of the terrorists.”

Hayat’s story, in which she now claims she narrowly avoided being raped, has changed significantly over the years. One month after the attack, Hayat alleged that she escaped her supposed Hamas captors, telling Reuters: “I could see how they were fighting over whether to kill me or not, and I ran away.”

Now, however, The Daily Mail writes that Hayat was actually freed when “the leader” of a Hamas cell acknowledged her scar, and “shook his head at his fellow terrorist before telling May she was free to go.”

It’s not The Daily Mail’s first attempt to launder Israeli rape hoax propaganda. In June 2024, The Grayzone revealed that what the tabloid billed as an “exclusive” story confirming Palestinians raped Israeli women on October 7 actually consisted of coerced confessions which were so full of contradictions about nonexistent victims that they are all but guaranteed to be false.

The author of that debunked report, Natalie Lisbona, has been photographed smiling with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in war crimes in Gaza.

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Trump says Netanyahu ‘will do whatever I want’ after long phone call with Israeli leader

Donald Trump has said Benjamin Netanyahu will do “whatever I want him to do” after the two leaders held a lengthy phone call over the war in Iran.

In a “dramatic” conversation on Wednesday, the pair are said to have clashed over whether to resume strikes in Iran or give negotiators more time to reach a deal.

The US president had been expected to relaunch military attacks imminently, but called off plans on Wednesday in order to give Tehran a chance to “give the right answers”.

Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 following the call, Trump said he was in “no hurry” but that the US was prepared to strike if a deal was not agreed.

“Believe me, if we don’t get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We’re all ready to go,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. Asked how long he would wait, Trump said: “It could ⁠be a few days, but it could go very quickly.”

Speaking about Netanyahu’s stance on resuming military action, the US president said: “He’s a very good man. He’ll do whatever I want him to do. And he’s a great guy. Don’t forget he was a wartime prime minister.”

When asked if he is on the same page as the Israeli president, Trump replied: “Yeah”.

Both the US and Israel have said they draw a red line at Iran having a nuclear programme. Trump’s other demands include a surrender of the country’s uranium, which he has referred to as “nuclear dust”.

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It’s the genocide, stupid

On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) finally released its long-awaited autopsy of Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign.

The rollout was highly on-brand for the Democratic establishment. The 192-page document seems slapped together, is full of typos, and was released only because CNN obtained a copy. In an accompanying note, DNC Chair Ken Martin said the report didn’t meet his standards, but that it was being released “because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”

In fact, the report has further eroded that trust by omitting some big, obvious reasons why Harris lost. Concerns about Biden’s age and his inexplicable decision to run for reelection are barely mentioned, and there’s virtually no analysis of the Democratic policies that might have helped propel Trump to another victory.

If one were compiling such a list, support for the Gaza genocide would presumably be near the top, but the issue is not mentioned once in the massive report.

You’ll recall that Harris never distanced herself from Biden on this question. In her first interview after becoming the nominee, she maintained the party line on Israel, reciting the usual claptrap about the country’s right to “defend itself.” Asked point-blank whether her foreign policy would differ from Biden’s at all, she said it would remain the same. That is to say, the United States would continue to send weapons to Israel while the country carried out a genocide.

A couple of months later, she reiterated her position on The View, telling the hosts that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently. Although later in the interview she said that, unlike Biden, she would put Republicans in her cabinet.

Throughout the Harris campaign, Palestine advocates called on the former Senator to shift her position and take a firm stance against Israel’s actions.

“By taking a strong stand against Netanyahu’s authoritarian policies, the Biden-Harris administration can unify the Democratic Party and regain the trust of key voter bases, including young people, Arabs, and Muslims,” read an open letter to Harris from the Not Another Bomb coalition to Harris at the time. “This decisive action will reinforce the administration’s commitment to democracy and human rights, contrasting sharply with the far-right extremism embodied by Trump and his supporters. It sends a clear message that the Democratic Party stands for peace, justice, and the protection of all people, thereby strengthening the coalition needed to secure victory in the 2024 elections and beyond.”

She wouldn’t budge.

At the Democratic National Convention that August, the Uncommitted Movement pushed for a Palestinian speaker to be included. “The difficulty in approving even a single Palestinian American speaker among the dozens of speakers on the convention stage sends a troubling message to our anti-war voters, suggesting they aren’t truly included in this party,” explained a statement from the organization’s founders.

The request was denied.

It’s inaccurate to say the campaign simply ignored these issues. On the contrary, they leaned in from the opposite direction, embracing hawkish former House member Liz Cheney and sending Rep. Ritchie Torres to Michigan, the state with the highest percentage of Arab Americans, to tell voters that Harris would stand with Israel.

There’s a certain kind of centrist pundit who likes to wax sarcastic about the 2024 election and point out that Trump is also an ardent supporter of Israel. The inference is that people concerned about Gaza accomplished nothing by voting against Harris.

However, this brand of snark often presupposes that people fed up with the genocide actually voted. Yes, some people backed Trump because they irrationally believed that the guy currently bombing Iran was antiwar, but the actual number of people that foolish is presumably negligible. Much hay is also made over the Green Party, but Jill Stein got fewer than 900,000 votes and thus had no discernible impact on the ultimate result.

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