Tag: israel

Divers & police dogs join Hazmat cops’ probe after ‘drones carrying radioactive material target Israeli Embassy’

POLICE dogs and divers have been deployed to central London as cops probe footage of drones “carrying radioactive substances targeting the Israeli Embassy”.

Cops in hazmat suits, divers and fire brigade dogs have been called in to join the search as officers investigate “discarded items” in the popular Kensington Gardens.


Counter terror cops are investigating claims an Iran-linked group targeted the nearby Embassy of Israel with drones “carrying dangerous substances”.

Metropolitan Police divers and London Fire Brigade’s investigation dogs have since arrived in the park and are assisting a search of the area.

Scotland Yard’s chemical biological radiological nuclear van (CBRN) is also on the scene.

As the investigation continued police divers arrived in a large white lorry with a police search and recovery team also assisting the probe.

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Belgium seizes arms shipment sent from Britain to Israel

Two shipments from Britain of military components bound for Israel have been seized in Belgium, which has banned aircaft carrying military equipment for Israel from stopping in the country or using its airspace. 

Last month, the British news website Declassified, Belgian NGO Vredesactie, Irish news website The Ditch, and the Palestinian Youth Movement alerted authorities in Brussells of a shipment travelling from Britain to Israel through Liege airport. 

The consignments left Britain on 23 March and were siezed at Liege airport in Belgium on 24 March.

They were searched by a specialised engineer who found “fire control systems and spare parts for military aircraft”, which had not been properly declared.

Belgian authorities reportedly opened a criminal investigation into the affair but have declined to name the firms involved in the complaint.

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The Winner at the DNC’s Latest Meeting? Israel, Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

In the aftermath of last week’s big meeting of the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans, supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance have been quite content. “We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” the president of Democratic Majority for Israel said. The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, expressed gratitude to the DNC’s leadership.

Why did pro-Israel groups voice so much pleasure and praise – not only for the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also for the process that sidelined them? The answer has to do with the DNC’s mechanism that thwarted changes in positions on Israel. A panel named the Middle East Working Group gummed up all efforts to align the DNC with the views of most Democratic voters, even while supposedly hard at work.

Last Friday, the transparent thinness of the pretense caused Politico to headline an article this way: “Inside the DNC’s Middle East (Not) Working Group.” But the not-working group had been functioning quite well – as a charade for delay and obfuscation.

The day before the derisive headline appeared, the DNC Resolutions Committee dispensed with a resolution about events in Gaza and the West Bank. Its provisions included a declaration that the DNC “supports pausing or conditioning U.S. weapons transfers to any military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law or obstruction of humanitarian assistance.”

That resolution critical of Israel went nowhere, which is to say it went to the so-called working group, also known as a “task force.”

Assisting the diversion as chair of the Resolutions Committee was political strategist Ron Harris, described in his home state of Minnesota as a “longtime Democratic Party insider.” He made false claims during the meeting: “I know that the task force has met once a month since it was created…. I have the confidence that work is happening…. These are people working really really hard over a very thorny issue…. They are doing their work…. They’re hearing from experts and all sorts of things.”

The falsehood that the task force had met “once a month,” when actually it had scarcely met, was enough reason for me to contact Harris and ask where he’d gotten that (mis)information. He replied that it was “according to the DNC staffer coordinating the process.”

The basic problem with the working group is not only that it hasn’t done much of anything in the nearly eight months since DNC Chair Ken Martin announced it with great fanfare. The underlying hoax is that it was set up not to reflect the views of registered Democrats nationwide.

Polling is clear. Three-quarters of Democrats agree that “Israel is committing genocide,” and a large majority are more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis by a 4-to-1 margin. But only a minority of the Middle East Working Group’s eight members has a record of supporting Palestinian rights, while several are firm supporters of Israel. The oil-and-water mix seems destined for stalemate or mere platitudes. But stalemate and platitudes appear to be just fine from here to the horizon for DNC leadership.

Such stalling mechanisms and scant real representation are as old as the political hills. In this case, an unfortunate boost has come from James Zogby, who for decades bravely worked inside the Democratic Party and elsewhere to advocate for the human rights of Palestinians, in sharp contrast to U.S. foreign policy.

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The Collapse is Real – Lebanon Ceasefire Marks a Historic Strategic Defeat

A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed – largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure.

Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies – including some within Lebanon itself – will continue to deny this reality. Acknowledging Iran’s role would mean admitting that a historic precedent has been set: for the first time, forces opposing the United States and Israel have succeeded in imposing conditions on both.

This is not a minor development. It is a strategic rupture. But it is not the only fundamental shift now underway: Israel’s very approach to war and diplomacy is itself changing.

After failing to secure victory through overwhelming violence, Israel is increasingly relying on coercive diplomacy to impose political outcomes.

Over the past two to three decades, this Israeli strategy has become unmistakably clear: achieving through diplomacy what it has failed to impose on the battlefield.

‘Diplomacy’ as War

Israeli ‘diplomacy’ does not conform to the conventional meaning of the term. It is not negotiation between equals, nor a genuine pursuit of peace. Rather, it is diplomacy fused with violence: assassinations, sieges, blockades, political coercion, and the systematic manipulation of internal divisions within opposing societies. It is diplomacy as an extension of war by other means.

Likewise, Israel’s conception of the ‘battlefield’ is fundamentally different. The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is not incidental, nor merely ‘collateral damage’; it is central to the strategy itself.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Gaza. Following the ongoing genocide, vast swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble, with estimates indicating that around 90 percent of the whole of Gaza has been destroyed. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, women and children consistently account for roughly 70 percent of all of Gaza’s casualties.

This is not collateral damage. It is the deliberate destruction of a civilian population, an act of genocide that is designed to force mass displacement and remake the political and demographic reality in Israel’s favor.

The same logic extends beyond Gaza. It shapes Israel’s wars in Lebanon against Hezbollah and its broader confrontation with Iran.

The United States, Israel’s principal ally, has historically operated within a similar paradigm. From Vietnam to Iraq, civilian populations, infrastructure, and even the environment itself have borne the brunt of American warfare.

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Israeli army says soldiers accused of abusing Palestinian to return to duty

Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir has authorised five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian inmate in the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp to return to reserve service after charges against them were dropped, according to Israeli media reports.

The soldiers, all from the Force 100 unit assigned to guard military prisons, are being reinstated despite an ongoing, internal military inquiry into their conduct.

Israeli Army Radio reported that some of the reservists have already returned to active duty, including deployment to combat roles.

An Israeli army statement, cited by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, said: “The investigation does not prevent them from continuing to serve … the command-level investigation will be completed as soon as possible.”

The reinstatement comes after Israel’s top military lawyer dropped all charges against the soldiers last month, closing a case that had been among the most divisive in Israel’s recent history.

The soldiers had been charged with aggravated assault and causing severe injury, after footage broadcast by Israeli television showed them abusing a Palestinian man in Sde Teiman. The military’s own indictment described soldiers stabbing the detainee with a sharp object near his rectum, causing cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an internal tear.

A doctor at the facility, Yoel Donchin, told Haaretz he was so shocked by the Palestinian inmate’s condition that he initially assumed it was the work of a rival armed group.

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Trump’s religion is ‘Israelism’ – Tucker Carlson

US President Donald Trump’s true religion is “Israelism” rather than Christianity, conservative journalist and podcaster Tucker Carlson has claimed, criticizing the president’s Middle East policies.

Carlson made the remarks in response to controversial statements Trump made over the past week, including his attacks on Pope Leo XIV and posts depicting himself as a Christ-like figure.

On Monday, Trump described the US-born pontiff as “weak” and “terrible for foreign policy” after the pope called Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization “truly unacceptable” and said that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

On his show, Carlson argued that the US had launched the war against Iran “on behalf of Israel” and “at the instigation of Israel.”

“What’s the religion, honestly, of Donald Trump? It’s not Christianity, clearly. It’s Israelism. It’s the defense of Israel,” Carlson said, adding that support for the Jewish state has become a “civic religion” of the American government.

He described Trump’s social media posts as “iconography” and “attempts to send a statement about faith,” which “doesn’t actually add up to a theology.”

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Israel May Be Preparing to Permanently Reoccupy Southern Lebanon

On April 16, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon, set to begin later that day. Although Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed this announcement, it is unlikely to put a stop to Israel’s expanding occupation of south Lebanon. In the hours before the announcement, Israel continued to bomb Lebanon’s south, bombing a school as well as the last main bridge connecting the south of the country to the rest of Lebanon.

The announcement came after a meeting on April 14, in which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted Lebanon and Israel’s ambassadors for the first diplomatic talks between the two countries since the early 1990s, a move that is likely to cause further turmoil in Lebanon. In a statement after the meeting, the U.S. explained that direct negotiations would be launched at a later date, and that objectives included the disarming of Hezbollah. Additionally, it asserted that mediation would be limited to the U.S., and that Lebanon’s reconstruction would be linked to negotiations with Israel.

A day after the envoys met in Washington, D.C., Israel launched another round of strikes on southern Lebanon, pushing forward with its invasion of the south even as it purportedly moves toward “peace.” Israel’s strikes reportedly killed 20; at the same time, Israel issued yet another forced displacement order for residents of the south. Days earlier, protesters in Beirut mobilized against the Lebanese government’s planned negotiations with Israel.

The push for direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon came after Israel’s massive attacks on Lebanon on April 8. Hours after a fragile ceasefire took effect in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran on April 7, Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon, unleashing the most violent assault of its six-week war on the country. Iran and Pakistan — which mediated the U.S. ceasefire with Iran — insisted that a halt to attacks on Lebanon was part of the agreement, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump claimed otherwise. Israel’s military declared that “the battle in Lebanon is ongoing,” while renewing expanded evacuation orders for southern Lebanon.

Israel’s wave of attacks on April 8 clearly aimed to pressure the Lebanese government to further capitulate to Israel’s wishes. Throughout that morning, Israel bombed areas of southern Lebanon, attacking residential buildings as well as medical vehicles and a medical center. In the early afternoon, Israel escalated, unleashing more than 100 airstrikes in less than 10 minutes, bombing residential and commercial areas across Beirut as well as in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley. These airstrikes killed at least 357 people and wounded more than 1,200, marking the deadliest day of Israel’s current assault on the country. Airstrikes struck residential complexes, bridges, grocery stores, a funeral procession in a cemetery, and a university hospital.

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Comical AI: Israel suggests Iranian military spokesman who mocks Trump is actually a computer-generated FAKE

Israel has suggested that the Iranian military spokesperson known for mocking Donald Trump may be artificial intelligence. 

In a post on the IDF’s Farsi-language account, Israeli officials said that Ebrahim Zolfaghari seems more like an AI-generated product than a real human. 

‘If you have seen him in an interview or in the field, tell us. If not, help us prove that he is an artificial intelligence product,’ the post reads.

‘Are [they] forced to create fictional characters to talk to people? And what does this say about the credibility of their messages?’

Having gained global attention for mocking Trump, Zolfaghari has been likened to ‘Comical Ali’ – the infamously inaccurate Iraqi Minister of Information, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. 

Zolfaghari gained notoriety for his attempts to conduct psychological warfare against Israel and the US, famously warning that US troops would become ‘food for the sharks of the Persian Gulf’ and threatened to return Israel to the ‘Stone Age. 

In one video almost three weeks into the war, Zolfaghari mocked Donald Trump for his use of social media, telling the president: ‘The outcome of war cannot be determined by tweets, the result of war is determined on the field.’

He continued: ‘The very place where you and your forces do not dare approach and you can only talk about it in your tweets.’

Wearing military clothing, Zolfaghari ended his message with a mocking smile, telling Trump: ‘It is better to name this war as Epic Fear, instead of Epic Fury.’

In another video after Trump floated joint control of the Strait of Hormuz and suggested he didn’t know who was currently leading Iran, Zolfaghari ridiculed the US President saying: 

‘Hey, Trump, you are fired… You are familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

In a separate video, Zolfaghari intensified his criticism and questioned Washington’s claims of diplomacy.

‘Have your internal conflicts reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?’ he added.

Similar to the current Iranian spokesperson, Iraq’s 2003 Information Minister, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf known as ‘Comical Ali’, became infamous for his delusional daily briefings during the US invasion. 

At the war’s start, Al-Sahhaf boasted that American troops would ‘all die.’ 

He once claimed previous foreign invaders had always met a disastrous end, citing a obscure history book for journalists to read at his home. 

And he frequently mocked Western leaders as ‘blood-sucking bastards,’ losers, and fools.

In one particularly outrageous moment, Comical Ali declared to western journalists that the ‘infidels’ were facing ‘slaughter’ even as US tanks rolled into Baghdad.

From his vantage point on the roof of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, and ignoring the sight of Iraqi troops retreating across the Tigris, Al-Sahhaf proclaimed that the city was ‘safe.’

‘Baghdad is safe. The battle is still going on. Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Don’t believe those liars,’ he declared.

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DNC votes down ‘dark money’ resolution singling out AIPAC, defers resolution on military aid to Israel

Members of the Democratic National Committee voted down a symbolic resolution aimed at curbing the “growing influence” of “dark money” corporate groups in Democratic primaries that specifically called out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Earlier in Thursday’s meeting in New Orleans, committee members approved a broader measure condemning the influence of dark money in the midterms without naming specific groups. They then rejected a separate resolution that singled out AIPAC.

Allison Minnerly, who sponsored the resolution, responded to the criticism that her resolution was singling out AIPAC, the pro-Israel political lobbying group.

“Members like to say that we don’t want to single out AIPAC, but AIPAC will entirely single out them and all of our different progressive leaders when it comes to primary elections,” said Minnerly.

AIPAC’s influence has become a flashpoint inside the Democratic Party, as leaders struggle to respond to rapidly shifting views about Israel among progressives, especially in the wake of the war in Gaza and amid the current U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. 

DNC Chair Ken Martin posted on X, stating, “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation.”

The panel’s rejection of the AIPAC resolution means it will not go before the full body for a final vote on Friday.

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Israel Expels Spain from Gaza Coordination Center Following Criticism of Lebanon Operations

Israel ordered Spain to cease participation in a joint civil-military coordination center in Kiryat Gat, a facility overseeing the Gaza ceasefire and humanitarian aid delivery, on Friday, April 10, 2026. The expulsion was immediate, according to officials.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the decision, citing Spain’s “anti-Israel obsession” and policies during the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran [1]. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in a video announcement that the action followed Spain defaming “our heroes, the soldiers of the IDF” [2].

The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) is a multi-national hub established to manage the ceasefire and aid distribution in Gaza following the conflict triggered by the Hamas-led invasion. Spain’s removal removes a significant European partner from this sensitive operational forum.

Statement and Decision Details

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement directly linking the expulsion to Spain’s criticism of Israeli military actions in Lebanon. The ministry cited Spain’s “hostile stance” as the reason for the expulsion [3].

A spokesperson for the ministry said the decision was made to “ensure the center’s operational integrity” [2]. The statement explicitly noted that Spain’s policies during the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran were a contributing factor [1].

The expulsion marks an escalation in a diplomatic rift that has been worsening since Spain began opposing Israeli policies more forcefully, including its stance on the war involving Iran [4]. This action follows Spain’s permanent withdrawal of its ambassador from Israel in March 2026 [5].

Background on the Coordination Center

The joint Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat was described as a forum for allied nations to share intelligence and logistical planning related to the Gaza ceasefire and humanitarian operations [1]. It was established to coordinate civilian aid and military de-escalation efforts.

According to prior reports, Spain’s role within the center involved providing logistical support and monitoring aid distribution [2]. The center’s function includes overseeing the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, a process that has been fraught with challenges due to the ongoing regional conflicts [6].

The center operates under a U.S.-led framework and is part of broader efforts to manage the aftermath of the Gaza war and subsequent regional conflicts involving Iran and Lebanon [3]. Its composition includes multiple allied nations, though the full list of participants was not detailed in the available sources.

Spanish Government’s Criticism

Spanish officials had publicly condemned Israeli military actions in southern Lebanon in the days preceding the expulsion. A statement from Spain’s foreign ministry described recent Israeli operations as “massacres” targeting civilians [7].

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu of aiming to replicate the scale of devastation seen in Gaza in Lebanon. Sanchez stated Netanyahu “seeks to inflict the same level of damage and destruction” on Lebanon as carried out in Gaza [8].

The criticism was reported by multiple media outlets and aligns with Spain’s broader foreign policy stance, which has included condemning the EU’s “double standards” in imposing sanctions on Russia while failing to hold Israel accountable for its military actions [9]. Spain had also previously declined to join President Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza, citing a breach of international law [10].

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