Tag: israel

Israel kills three journalists in south Lebanon after strike on press vehicle

The Israeli army killed veteran Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, Al-Mayadeen journalist Fatima Ftouni, and her brother, photojournalist Mohammad Ftouni, during a double-tap drone strike on a press vehicle in southern Lebanon on 28 March.

The Israeli attack wiped out the entire media team traveling together to deliver coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon’s south. Media officials confirmed the team was inside a clearly marked “PRESS” vehicle when it was bombed.

Images show the car was moving along a forested road in the town of Jezzine with very little traffic due to the forced displacement of residents, confirming a deliberate targeted strike.

The area was then targeted again with a second strike after people attempted to provide aid. The Israeli military broadcast video of the attack, claiming that Shoeib was a “terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force.”

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CNN Crew Apprehended by IDF in the West Bank – Says They Were Assaulted and Equipment was Damaged – IDF Releases Statement

A CNN crew reporting on Israeli settlements in the West Bank in Palestine was detained by IDF soldiers on Friday. 

The reporters say they were put in a chokehold after they and several Palestinian residents were approached by armed troops.

According to the Jerusalem Post,

The CNN team was interviewing Palestinian residents of the West Bank town of Tayasir after settlers established an outpost in the town and violently attacked residents.

While conducting interviews on camera, IDF soldiers ordered the team and the Palestinians to stop speaking and aimed their weapons at the group, according to the CNN reporters present.

Video from the incident shows the reporters being approached and detained.

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Houthis join Iran war, Israel accuses Yemen of entering conflict

The Houthis, the Iranian-backed militant group, took to X to announce they have joined the Iran war, saying they have launched a salvo of ballistic rockets at military targets in southern Israel.

It came after Israel’s military said it had detected a missile launched from Yemen toward its territory and that its aerial defence systems were engaged to intercept the incoming threat.

Earlier, explosions were heard in the Syrian capital Damascus as well as the Lebanese capital of Beirut, despite the United States saying it was “hopeful” that peace meetings with Iran would take place this week.

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s Father Sold Bugged Israeli Software to Two Nuclear Weapons Labs in New Mexico. Then His Daughter Led Jeffrey Epstein to Purchase a Ranch Located Halfway Between Them.

In 1985, a British media mogul walked into Sandia National Laboratories — one of the most sensitive nuclear weapons facilities in the United States — and signed a contract to install surveillance software that federal investigators would later allege was engineered to spy on its own users.

In 1993, a convicted sex offender purchased a ranch at the precise geographic midpoint between that facility and Los Alamos National Laboratory, the other crown jewel of American nuclear weapons research. He equipped that ranch with an industrial-sized spy-grade private microwave communications link running directly to a relay tower at Sandia Crest.

In 2023, a Texas family with documented ties to Russian officials and the Trump White House purchased that ranch, terminated most of its federal communications licenses — but kept the microwave link to Sandia Crest running, in the dead man’s company name.

The British media mogul was Robert Maxwell. His daughter is Ghislaine Maxwell. The sex offender was Jeffrey Epstein. The Texas family is Donald and Mary Catherine Huffines.

These documented facts are all drawn from federal court records, FCC license filings, FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, the Epstein files, congressional testimony, published investigative reporting, and this reporter’s own review of primary sources.

What follows is a chronological account of what the records show — and of what New Mexico journalism and law enforcement has failed, for forty years, to ask.

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Chief of Staff Zamir warns IDF will collapse due to lack of manpower, raises ‘ten red flags’

The IDF could soon collapse if there is no solution to the shortage of manpower, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir warned in remarks during a security cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.

“I am raising 10 red flags before the IDF collapses into itself,” Zamir said during the cabinet meeting, The Jerusalem Post confirmed.

IDF sources also told the Post that there is tremendous concern due to the severe manpower shortage, especially amid the ongoing war.

Even in peacetime, Israel would still need more soldiers – not fewer – on the border in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, the sources said.

If the government does not add more soldiers, then there will be places with big gaps, they added.

There has also been no law set in place to significantly increase haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription into the army, contributing to the lack of manpower.

Before Operation Roaring Lion, the government was rapidly advancing controversial legislation that was said to enforce haredi conscription.

Critics argued the proposed bill was a political measure intended to appease the haredi parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and would not effectively enforce conscription.

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New Israeli policy targeting Christian schools in Jerusalem could threaten their future existence

The Israeli government instituted a policy prohibiting Christian Palestinian teachers who live in the West Bank from working in any of the 15 Christian schools in Jerusalem in a move that threatens to weaken the two-millennia presence of Christians in the Holy City.

School principals in Jerusalem recently received letters from the Israeli Ministry of Education stipulating that beginning in September they are required to only hire teachers who reside in the city and hold Israeli-issued qualifications.

The March 10 directive comes in the wake of a bill approved last July by the Education Committee of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) aimed at prohibiting Palestinian teachers who earned their degrees at institutions in the West Bank from teaching in Israel or the occupied East Jerusalem.

Therefore, work permits for Christian Palestinian teachers living in the West Bank will no longer be granted despite their possessing a green card that allows individual Palestinians to work and travel within Israeli-controlled areas.

According to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), this restriction will affect almost 230 Christian teachers at 15 schools in Jerusalem, relegating them to the financial hardship of unemployment.

A representative of the General Secretariat of Christian Schools (GSCS) in the Holy Land told ACN that the new policy threatens the future of Christian education in the Holy City.

Additionally, he said, “If this decision is truly implemented, our Christian schools will find themselves in a very difficult position, which will jeopardize their sustainability and cause them to lose their Christian mission.”

The GSCS representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained, “There are not enough Christian teachers in Jerusalem to take over. In the long term, these restrictions risk permanently affecting the Christian character of our institutions and weakening the Christian faith and presence in the city.”

With most of these Christian schools having been founded in the late 19th century, they have educated hundreds of thousands of students, both Christian and Muslim, throughout the decades.

According to ACN, they were established “to promote Christian education and to preserve the Faith and the Christian presence in Jerusalem,” and “have played an essential role at national and interreligious levels.”

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US Arms Control Official Refuses To Comment When Asked If Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

A senior US arms control official on Wednesday refused to comment when asked during a congressional hearing if Israel has nuclear weapons, maintaining the US government’s ambiguity over Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal.

“I can’t comment on that specific question. I’d have to refer you to the Israelis on that,” Thomas DiNanno, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) when asked about Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

Castro asked why DiNanno wouldn’t answer whether or not Israel has nuclear weapons, but DiNanno continued to say he wouldn’t comment. “I don’t understand why this issue is so taboo when it’s a basic question, and we’re in a war alongside Israel against Iran. We’re dealing with the potential for nuclear fallout, and you won’t answer this basic question,” Castro said.

Every US presidential administration since President Nixon has maintained an understanding with Israel under which the US and Israel do not acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and the US doesn’t pressure Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The ambiguity has allowed the US presidents to provide military assistance without worrying about the 1976 Symington Amendment, a foreign assistance law that prohibits aid to countries that traffic in or receive nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards.

Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to be somewhere between 70 and 400 nuclear warheads, is almost always missing from the conversation in US media coverage and political discussions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, which has never been used to develop weapons. Unlike Israel, Iran is a signatory of the NPT, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader killed by an Israeli strike on February 28, had maintained a Fatwa banning the development of nuclear weapons.

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Was Epstein working for Israeli intelligence? Mail show explores his close relationship with ex-PM, Israeli security in his Manhattan home…and emails about obtaining Mossad agents

Jeffrey Epstein‘s deep links to Israel‘s political, financial and security networks are revealed in a new episode of the Daily Mail’s Covert Connections podcast. 

They include an unusually close friendship with an Israeli ex-prime minister, Israeli security inside an Epstein-controlled Manhattan apartment, and emails about former Mossad agents – as well as investment in the country’s defence tech.

None of the connections provide a smoking gun for rumours that Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence, but together they show how the convicted sex offender maintained access to the most powerful elements of the Israeli state. 

The paedophile financier struck up an ‘unusually close friendship’ with the country’s former premier Ehud Barak, who served as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001 and Minster of Defence from 2007 to 2013.

Barak is one of the most prominent figures appearing in Epstein’s correspondence and even visited Epstein’s infamous island. 

Epstein invited Barak and his wife to his private Caribbean island, Little St James, with travel emails showing discussions about visiting in 2014.

Later that year, Barak’s wife sent a travel itinerary confirming a trip to St Thomas, near the island.

Days later, Barak emailed Epstein thanking him for his hospitality and complimented him on his ‘Great, impressive island’, although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any wrongdoing.

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Silicon battlefields: Why Big Tech is a target in the US-Israeli war on Iran

In traditional wars, armies directed their firepower toward visible strategic assets – military bases, weapons factories, airfields – where supply lines could be mapped and battle plans drawn with relative certainty. Combat effectiveness depended on numbers, firepower, and tactical maneuver. 

Today, however, the logic of war has shifted beyond the physical battlefield. Over the past two decades, the digital revolution has built a second layer of strategic infrastructure behind the front lines, quietly transforming how power is projected and how wars are fought.

Digital infrastructure has moved from the periphery of war to its operational core. Intelligence gathering, drone coordination, and battlefield decision-making increasingly depend on cloud systems and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. The architecture of contemporary conflict is therefore built as much on corporate-run networks as on conventional military hardware.

This evolving reality shapes Iran’s strategic outlook as the war with Washington and Tel Aviv deepens. In Tehran’s assessment, the technological backbone sustaining western-aligned military operations in West Asia cannot be viewed as politically neutral. It constitutes an extension of the battlespace itself – a domain where economic assets, corporate platforms, and national security objectives intersect.

Corporate networks as instruments of war

In recent years, advanced militaries have woven digital platforms into every stage of warfare. Satellite surveillance systems feed data into cloud networks. Armed drones transmit high-definition video streams requiring immediate analysis. 

Signals interception capabilities generate vast intelligence flows that must be converted into rapid operational decisions. Military power, increasingly, is measured not simply by missile stockpiles or air superiority, but by the capacity to process information faster than an adversary.

Major technology firms now sit at the center of this process. Companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google provide the infrastructure enabling governments and militaries to store, analyze, and deploy critical data. Their cloud platforms underpin intelligence assessments, battlefield logistics, and command-and-control coordination across multiple theaters.

This convergence of corporate technology and state power has reshaped how conflict is understood. Digital networks have become as vital as aircraft carriers or missile defense systems. In the context of the US-Israeli war on Iran, Tehran increasingly interprets this reality as evidence that global technology companies form an integral part of hostile operational environments.

That perception gained public visibility when Iranian media circulated a list of nearly 30 sites across West Asia, and especially the UAE, linked to major tech firms. 

They included regional headquarters, engineering offices, and large-scale data centers operated by firms such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, NVIDIA, IBM, and Palantir Technologies. In Tehran’s reading of the conflict, these facilities represent strategic nodes embedded within the operational ecosystem that sustains adversaries’ military capabilities.

Stretching from Tel Aviv to Persian Gulf cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Manama, these facilities host cloud services used by state institutions, intelligence agencies, and defense contractors. Some contribute directly to artificial intelligence development for surveillance and battlefield analysis. Others support regional digital economies whose stability indirectly underwrites military spending and technological innovation.

In an era where data flows shape combat outcomes, the infrastructures managing those flows may be viewed as legitimate strategic targets.

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Jewish settler gangs rampage through West Bank villages for three consecutive days

Illegal Israeli settlers continued their violent attacks across the occupied West Bank on 23 March, after several destructive pogroms targeted Palestinian villages over the weekend.

Palestinian farmers and shepherds in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, came under attack by settlers on Monday. 

“Muhammad Yahya Abu Aram, 35, and Elias Saeed al-Amour suffered from suffocation and fainting after colonists sprayed them with pepper spray following an attack on shepherds and farmers in the western part of Al-Rakeez village in Masafer Yatta,” anti-settlement activist Osama Makhameh told WAFA news agency. 

Groups of settlers also uprooted scores of olive trees in Beita, south of Nablus, on Monday, while also raiding a school in Huwara – spray painting graffiti on the walls and replacing the Palestinian flag with an Israeli one.

Overnight, a health clinic in Burqa, east of Ramallah, was torched by settlers. 

As the war on Iran rages and Tehran continues its large-scale retaliatory campaign against Israel, extremist settler violence against Palestinians – which was already at an all-time high – is now surging. 

Israeli settlers rampaged through multiple Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank overnight on 21 March, smashing cars, burning homes, and attacking and injuring Palestinians who were defending their homes.

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