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Wednesday, September 17, 2025

09/17 Links Pt1: UN Watch Exposes Hamas Takeover of UNRWA; U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking; PA is still paying bounties to murder Jews

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: The Battle of Gaza City: it’s time to take sides
What the Israelophobes of the West falsely call ‘genocide’ is war. The thinness of their ‘genocide’ accusation, the sheer defamatory cynicism of it, was summed up in that report published this week by a UN commission of inquiry. Israel is committing genocide, it said. Its proof? That ‘Israeli security forces were aware that their military operations since 7 October 2023 would cause the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza’. They ‘knew of the high numbers of casualties’, but they did not ‘intervene to change the means and methods of warfare employed’. Am I going mad or is that just war? By this infantile definition – basically, your military action caused casualties – every war in history has been a genocide. Remember this historical illiteracy and moral treachery with which the genocide lie is weaponised against the Jewish State when you hear that the Battle of Gaza City is ‘genocidal’ too, which you will.

To be clear, the Battle of Gaza City does represent a new and dangerous turn in the Israel-Hamas War. As Haaretz says, so far in 2025 the IDF has ‘operated in areas with few civilians’, focussing on ‘destroying Hamas’s tunnels and other terror infrastructure’. Its targets had mostly been ‘mapped before the troops entered’. Gaza City is a more daunting prospect. Hamas militants have decamped there in their thousands. They’ve rebuilt their tunnels. Not all civilians have evacuated. And of course there are the Israeli hostages. Chillingly, it is reported that Hamas is starting to move some hostages above ground, in an effort to ‘hinder [the] IDF offensive’. Using Jews as human shields against the Jewish army – a new low in savagery for this army of anti-Semites.

And yet the battle is happening. It’s underway. And sides must be taken. Here’s the thing: some people have taken a side without realising it. For if you tell only one side in an existential war to cease fire, then you’re objectively aligning with the other side. Imagine two men are having a duel and you tell just one of them to put away his gun. That isn’t peacenik behaviour – it’s an implicit statement that one man’s life is worth less than the other’s. That’s what I hear when the opinion-forming classes squawk ‘Stop Israel’ – that they’ve decided, however witlessly, that the security of the Jewish nation is of less moral worth than the deranged ambitions of those Hamas cells in Gaza City. That’s what was so unforgivable about Yvette Cooper’s slamming of Israel’s ‘reckless and appalling’ incursion into Gaza City – she will have inadvertently boosted Hamas and confirmed it in its sick belief that the IDF is a marauding gang deserving of punishment.

The Battle of Gaza City will be bloody and awful. Palestinians will suffer and young Israeli soldiers will die. Yet that should not detract from the moral truth that this is a battle between the army of a democratic nation and a terrorist militia that loathes the infidel West as much as it does the Jews. Sitting this clash out might be a luxury the lost souls of our cushioned, faux-virtuous elites can afford. But it’s too risky for the rest of us. So what do you want: the victory of the Jewish nation or the victory of radical Islamists who slit the throats of Jews? A win for our ally in Enlightenment or a win for the regressive forces of violent medieval intolerance? Quit your performative angst and pick a side.
John Spencer: The U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking
The United Nations Human Rights Council’s latest report on Gaza, which concludes Israel is committing a genocide, is a case study in how international bodies can dress propaganda in the language of law.

Presented as a "legal analysis" from a trio led by Navi Pillay, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, anyone who reads the text with even a modest degree of critical thinking will see that it is not an impartial investigation. It is an advocacy document that begins with a verdict and works backward, collecting fragments of information that support its claim while excluding anything that would complicate or contradict it.

The most surprising aspect of the report is not what it claims, but what it omits.

First, the report never treats Hamas as a combatant force or acknowledges that Gaza contains legitimate military targets. It begins its summary of its findings with, "On 7 October 2023, Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza, which included airstrikes and ground operations" but never mentions Hamas as the opposing force in the war. Instead, it vaguely references the "attacks in southern Israel on 7 October," which it says "did not pose an existential threat to the state of Israel." There is no recognition that Israel is engaged in a war against a heavily armed adversary, nor any attempt to identify Hamas’s rocket launchers, command posts, or tunnel entrances. Hamas is described almost exclusively as a political entity or as part of Gaza’s "civilian population," never as a fighting force. By implication, every Israeli strike is portrayed as criminal, even though Gaza is filled with clear military targets.

Second, there is no discussion of Hamas’s military disposition, composition, or strength. The report makes no mention of Hamas’s tens of thousands of fighters, its organized brigades and battalions, or its command and control systems. Readers are left with the impression that there is no military presence in Gaza at all, which of course makes any Israeli strike appear inherently illegitimate.

Third, the commission erases Hamas’s four-hundred-mile tunnel network from the battlefield. In fact, the word "tunnel" appears only once in the report—to cast doubt on whether Mohammed Sinwar was killed inside one beneath the European Hospital complex (Israeli aerial footage "purportedly showed a tunnel underneath," but "the Commission’s geolocation analysis of the aerial surveillance footage" suggests the Israelis were wrong, the report states). It’s impossible to write about the war without writing about the tunnels that are central to Hamas’s military strategy, enabling it to move fighters, store weapons, hide hostages, and launch attacks from beneath hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods.

Fourth, there is no acknowledgment of the harm and destruction caused by Hamas itself inside Gaza. Thousands of Hamas rockets have misfired or fallen short inside Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians. Hamas has turned homes and apartment buildings into booby traps, collapsed tunnels under neighborhoods, and carried out direct killings and torture of its own people. None of this appears in the report.

Fifth, the report ignores Hamas’s well-documented practice of human shielding. The terrorist organization has embedded its command centers, weapons caches, and fighters in schools, mosques, hospitals, and private homes, a practice that human rights groups, NATO, and even the U.S. Department of War have acknowledged. The commission makes no reference to it, because to do so would force an acknowledgment that many Israeli strikes on civilian sites are legally justified under the law of armed conflict.

Sixth, the report treats the issue of hostages as almost irrelevant. Hamas’s kidnapping of more than 250 civilians on October 7, many of whom remain captive, is one of the clearest and most egregious war crimes of the conflict. Yet "hostages" are mentioned only four times in the 72-page document, and not as a central issue. Worse, the report goes so far as to question whether securing their release is a legitimate strategic objective for Israel. In doing so, the commission not only diminishes the gravity of hostage-taking but undermines one of the most basic rights of any state: the duty to protect its citizens and to recover them when they are held illegally by a terrorist organization. To cast doubt on Israel’s right to pursue this objective is to excuse a war crime and to suggest that the victims of October 7 are somehow outside the scope of international concern.

Finally, the report excludes any recognition of the unprecedented humanitarian measures Israel has taken while fighting Hamas. Israel has facilitated the delivery of over two million tons of aid into Gaza since October, provided more than two million vaccinations, supplied 14 million liters of water a day, kept electricity flowing to desalination plants, supported hospitals, and transferred patients for medical treatment. No other military in history has waged war while simultaneously providing this level of aid to the enemy’s civilian population. The commission erases these facts because they undermine the claim of genocidal intent.
PMW: The PA is still paying salaries to terrorists and “Martyrs”
The PNEEI announcement above, stating that payments were made "through authorized payment centers," was possibly its attempt to hide that the payments were made through the post offices, which are exclusively used for paying terrorists. PMW has confirmed that families of prisoners and "Martyrs"" have received payments through post offices as in the past.

Yesterday an online news site reported that it had received information from the Palestinian Authority indicating that the PA had stopped rewarding imprisoned terrorists and terrorist Martyrs' families as in the past, but had moved them to a new welfare-based system [Times of Israel]. The article also claimed that the "Welfare payments, which are now distributed by the extra-governmental PNEEI, have not yet been issued." These payments, according to the article, would have been the payments to imprisoned terrorists and "Martyrs'" families.

However, that claim that PNEEI payments were not made this month openly contradicts PNEEI's own announcement on its website that payments were made on Thursday. As stated, PMW has confirmed terror payments were made on Thursday at the post offices.

There were additional inaccuracies as well in the article, including a prominent mistake, defining PNEEI as "extra-governmental." Below are pictures and bios of all the PNEEI board members as they appear on its website. As can be seen, 10 of the 11 board members are employed in senior PA government positions, including one minister and 6 undersecretaries. Only one is an academic. Moreover, PNEEI answers to Mahmoud Abbas.​

PNEEI board members photosPNEEI board members descriptions

With senior government officers as board members, the article's defining PNEEI as "extra-governmental" is another clear example of publishing PA claims without doing the minimal investigation to verify them.

Especially on a politically sensitive topic, such as the PA's terror rewards, one would expect more careful journalism before publishing the PA's claim to have reformed.


One Year After Israel's Pager Attack: Hezbollah's Dramatic Fall From "Grace"
Today and tomorrow mark the first anniversary of Israel's audacious Operation Grim Beeper, a covert intelligence coup that detonated thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and Syria. Hailed by military analysts as an "extraordinary feat of espionage" and "the most precise anti-terrorist attack ever conducted," the September 17-18, 2024, explosions killed at least 42 Hezbollah members and injured over 3,400, crippling the group's communications and exposing deep vulnerabilities. Once regarded as the Middle East's most formidable non-state actor, a "state within a state" with an arsenal rivaling some national militaries, Hezbollah now grapples with devastating losses, leadership decapitation, and political isolation, rendering it a far cry from its pre-attack prowess.

The Brilliance of the Pager Attack: A Masterstroke of Infiltration
The operation, attributed to Israel's Mossad, exploited Hezbollah's shift to low-tech pagers in 2023 to evade Israeli surveillance amid escalating cross-border clashes sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Using shell companies, Israel infiltrated the supply chain of Taiwan's Gold Apollo and Hungary's BAC Consulting, embedding PETN explosives, equivalent to 3-5 grams per device, in 5,000 pagers and thousands of walkie-talkies purchased by Hezbollah as early as 2015. On September 17, 2024, at around 3:30 p.m. local time, the pagers detonated simultaneously upon receiving a coded message, followed by walkie-talkies the next day.

The blasts killed 12-42 people and reportedly wounded 2,750-4,000, with 25% suffering severe facial and hand injuries, including blindness and amputations that sidelined 1,500 fighters. Hezbollah described it as its "biggest security breach" since October 2023, paralyzing command structures and sowing chaos in strongholds like Beirut's Dahiyeh and southern Lebanon. Then Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant later called it a "masterpiece," crediting it with shifting regional dynamics. In a symbolic gesture, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gifted a golden pager to U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2025.

The attack's ingenuity lay in its multi-year planning: Mossad agents posed as suppliers, rigging devices with detonators triggered by a simple alert, bypassing Hezbollah's paranoia-driven security. Turkish intelligence thwarted a follow-up shipment of 1,300 more pagers at Istanbul Airport, underscoring the operation's scope. While UN reports criticized it as potentially indiscriminate under international law, experts praised its precision in targeting a group that had fired over 8,000 rockets at Israel by September 2024.


Lasers in the field: Iron Beam clears last test before operational use
Israel has completed a series of key tests on its Iron Beam laser air defense system, a “final milestone” before full deployment later this year, the Ministry of Defense and contractor Rafael announced today.

The Iron Beam system, which will be integrated with the existing Iron Dome short range kinetic interceptor, has proven to be effective against rockets, mortars, aircraft and UAVs, according to the MoD, which called today’s news a “global technological and engineering breakthrough.”

The tests, which set the stage for “the first systems set to be integrated into the IDF air defense arrays by year-end,” were carried out with the Research and Development unit within the ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, in partnership also with the Israeli Air Force. Israel began production of the system, which also has Elbit as a subcontractor, more than two years ago, according to a defense official, and has been using it in limited live-fire tests.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz praised the laser’s tests, saying it “places the State of Israel at the forefront of global military technology and makes Israel the first nation to possess this capability.”

The potential for laser-based interception of drones, missiles and rockets is one long-desired by militaries, given the cost discrepancy between an expensive kinetic interceptor and incoming small drones or rockets. An Israeli defense official, speaking to reporters ahead of the announcement, noted that the marginal cost of a laser interception, estimated at less than several dollars, will lower the burden of cost on Israel’s air defenses.

The Iron Beam can burn or fry objects at a range of around ten kilometers. The interception takes “seconds,” the defense official said.

Israel’s current multi-layered air defenses consists of Arrow 2 and 3 which is used for ballistic missile and exoatmospheric threats, along with David’s Sling, which is a medium range interceptor similar to the Patriot system, as well as the iconic Iron Dome. The latter has been improved over the years to confront UAVs, cruise missiles and other emerging threats.


UN Watch: Report: UN Watch Exposes Hamas Takeover of UNRWA Schools in Gaza and Lebanon
Executive Summary Website: THE CASE AGAINST UNRWA “Most people who are engaged in underground organizations try not to have their involvement known publicly,” said Stรฉphane Dujarric, spokesperson of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, when asked why the UN employed for decades a Hamas terror chief who oversaw 2,000 teachers at UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Yet this report reveals that the opposite is true: Hamas terror chiefs held top positions within UNRWA’s educational system despite publicly and repeatedly flaunting their support for and ties to Hamas and terrorism. UNRWA knew — and did nothing. The UN agency that raises more than $1 billion annually from Western states with the promise to educate Palestinian children with values such as peace, tolerance, and universal human rights, instead has handed them over to the very operatives who recruit child soldiers, glorify suicide bombers, and preach the annihilation of a UN member state.

By knowingly employing Hamas terrorist leaders as school principals and teachers, and by allowing terror chiefs to head the unions that oversee thousands of their teachers, UNRWA didn’t just tolerate extremism — the Western-funded UN agency institutionalized it, turning classrooms into incubators of hate.

Over its 75 years of existence, UNRWA has churned out thousands of jihadi terrorists. Some of the most infamous include the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Massacre, or Mohammed Deif, the now-deceased commander of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, one of the masterminds of the October 7th atrocities in Israel. This in itself should raise alarm bells for any donor that supports UNRWA out of genuine humanitarian concerns.

How is it that a so-called UN humanitarian agency has a track record for producing so many terrorists? This report tells the story of how Hamas took over the UNRWA staff unions that oversee thousands of teachers and school principals, and hijacked the agency’s entire education system.

As we established in our previous report, The Unholy Alliance: UNRWA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, UNRWA’s operations on the ground are actually controlled by its local leaders, and not by the tiny handful of international staff such as Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who serves only as the public face, fundraiser, and advocate for UNRWA. Many of these local leaders, especially in Gaza and Lebanon, are Hamas members or leaders, while thousands of UNRWA’s local employees are also active Hamas members. To put this in perspective, more than 99% of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees are area staff — local Palestinian Arabs —while only 120 employees at the agency are international staff, funded by the United Nations in New York. The Palestinian Arab local staff are the people who run all of UNRWA’s services, including its education system.

This is exemplified by the contrast in how UNRWA in Gaza dealt with the cases of Matthias Schmale, a senior member of UNRWA’s international staff who headed the agency’s Gaza operation, and Suhail Al-Hindi, a senior Hamas official and former UNRWA union leader.


Khaled Abu Toameh: How Israel Helped the Gaza Strip Before October 7, 2023
Which European country would tolerate 50,000 rockets, mortars and missiles fired at it -- or even one rocket or missile?

Before the October 7, 2023 attack.... Egypt, Qatar, the United Nations and other international parties kept assuring Israel that the best way to achieve calm and stability in the Gaza Strip was by improving its economy and issuing more permits for Palestinian laborers to enter Israel.

When Israel imposed restrictions on the Gaza Strip to protect its own citizens and prevent terrorism, it was condemned for imposing suffering and pain on the Palestinians living there. When Israel started easing restrictions and handing out thousands of permits to Gazan workers to enter Israel (while Egypt and other Arab countries refused to accept Palestinians), it faced criticism for allegedly strengthening Hamas.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, there was a lot of talk in Israel about turning the enclave into the "Singapore of the Middle East." Israel's goal, or dream, was to transform the Gaza Strip into a prosperous, thriving area, similar to how Singapore developed from a small, poor country into a wealthy, technologically advanced hub. Israel clearly wanted to open a new chapter in its relations with the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and work together on economic and technology projects for the benefit of both people.

Israel had been led to believe that jobs, money and humanitarian aid would bring stability and calm, and had hoped that the humanitarian and economic aid would prevent, or at least reduce, terror attacks from the Gaza Strip. However, Hamas and many Palestinians viewed these conciliatory measures as signs of weakness on the part of Israel.

What the international community fails to understand is that since the establishment of Hamas more than 35 years ago, its stated goal has been the elimination of Israel. For Hamas, the conflict with Israel has never been about the economy or settlements or improving the living conditions of the Palestinians. Hamas regards Israel as one big illegitimate "settlement" that needs to be uprooted and replaced with an Islamist state.

Israel is damned both for helping the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and damned for not helping them enough. When Israel allows funding and economic aid sent into Gaza, as it did, Israel is blamed for helping fund Hamas's war against Israel. If Israel had refused to allow funding and economic aid to be sent into Gaza, Israel would be accused of starving and brutalizing the Palestinians. Everyone, it seems, wants to have it both ways so that whatever Israel does is "wrong."
EU proposes to end parts of free trade agreement with Israel, sanction 'extremist' Israelis
The European Union has proposed to suspend parts of its free trade agreement with Israel, affecting about 5.8 billion euros of Israeli exports, the commission announced on Wednesday.

The EU also announced that it would be placing sanctions on "extremist Israeli ministers," West Bank settlers, and Hamas.

The EU is Israel's largest trading partner, and accounts for 32% of Israel's total international trade, an EU press release said.

If the free-trade arrangement is suspended, Israel would face duties at the same level as other countries without a trade accord with the bloc.

In Israel's case, that would affect exports worth approximately 5.8 billion euros, resulting in an estimated 227 million euros a year in duties, a senior Commission official told reporters.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU believed Israel is in breach of compliance with Article Two of the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement. The Agreement "establishes respect for human rights and democratic principles as an essential element."

“The horrific events taking place in Gaza on a daily basis must stop. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire, unrestrained access for all humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages held by Hamas," Von Der Leyen said.

"The European Union remains the biggest donor of humanitarian aid and an unwavering champion of the two-state solution. Reflecting these principled commitments, and taking into account serious recent developments in the West Bank, we propose to suspend trade concessions with Israel, sanction extremist ministers and violent settlers, and put bilateral support to Israel on hold, without affecting our work with Israeli civil society or Yad Vashem.”

EU suspends funds to Israel
Additionally, the EU announced that it would be stopping bilateral support to the Israeli government.

EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka ล uica stated that €14 million of previously allocated funds were designated for the period from 2020 to 2024. Out of this amount, €4.3 million was contracted, while €9.4 million remains uncontracted.

"Until further notice, we will not proceed with the joint identification of new actions or the signature of contracts," ล uica said.
UK to reportedly recognize a Palestinian state as early as this weekend
Britain will reportedly recognize a Palestinian state as early as this weekend, British news site The Times reported Wednesday.

It is estimated that this will occur after US President Donald Trump completes his visit to the UK. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reportedly waited to announce the recognition out of concern that it would overshadow a joint press conference between the two leaders.

Starmer's announcement would come before several European nations are set to recognize a Palestinian State at the UN General Assembly next week.


Targeted Hamas senior official appears in first interview since Doha attack
Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad, who was targeted in Israel's attack on Doha, Qatar, last Tuesday, appeared in an interview for the first time since the attack on Al Jazeera.

“We are not the only target; the entire nation is,” Hamed said. “Israel has no red lines. Netanyahu talks about changing the face of the Middle East, and that requires an Arab response.”

Hamed described the events surrounding the reported assassination attempt, which he said took place shortly after a meeting to discuss a US proposal aimed at ending the war.

“We were sitting to discuss the American proposal to end the war,” he said. “Less than an hour later, we heard explosions and immediately understood it was an assassination attempt. As residents of Gaza, we recognize those sounds. We tried to flee as quickly as possible, and we succeeded.”

He criticized the role of American mediators during recent negotiations.

“Our experience with the American mediator was bitter, and there was no credibility on the American side because they withdrew from their proposals,” he said.

On the issue of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Hamed emphasized that Hamas's actions were guided by internal values.

“We treat the prisoners according to our values despite the massacres against our people,” he said. “Those putting them at risk are the occupiers themselves.”
Qatar says it is pursuing legal action against Israel at ICC
Qatar plans to pursue legal action against Israel in the International Criminal Court after the IDF struck senior Hamas officials in Doha, officials from the Gulf State said on Wednesday.

Qatari State Minister Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi and other Qatari representatives met with ICC deputy prosecutor Nazhat Khan on Wednesday and held two meetings on avenues to prosecute Israel.

Al-Khulaifi is leading the Qatari legal team to legally challenge Israel for its "aggression against the State of Qatar."

"During the two meetings, I reaffirmed Qatar’s commitment to supporting the path of international justice and ensuring that those who committed crimes are held accountable and do not escape punishment under the framework of international criminal law," he wrote.

IDF strikes Hamas leaders in Doha
This comes after the IDF struck several Hamas leaders in Doha earlier this month. Hamas says that five of its members died in the strike.

After two years of Qatar hosting negotiations between Israel and Hamas over hostage exchanges and ceasefires, the government reached the decision that killing the remaining Hamas leaders was more important than leaving that diplomatic channel open.

An IDF statement said that the leaders targeted were responsible for the October 7, 2023, massacre of around 1,200 Israelis in the country’s South, as well as managing the terror group’s operations for years before that. Khalil al-Hayya, the leader of Hamas, was one of the key targets of the operation, an Israeli official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.

Other Israeli sources told the Post that senior Hamas officials were killed in the strike in Doha, estimating that there were between four and eight senior officials in Hayya’s secret apartment at the moment it was bombed.


Aid Diversion in Yemen Is a Game of Musical Chairs
Only three days before he was killed in an Israeli strike on Sanaa, the Houthi Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Samir Bajala was photographed distributing aid provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This was not an isolated incident but part of a persistent pattern of aid theft and diversion by the Houthi regime. While kidnappings and detentions of aid workers by armed militia members remain common, the regime’s extortion of resources usually does not take place at gunpoint. Instead, assistance is siphoned off through layers of bureaucratic arrangements that enable the regime and its allies to skim or redirect aid on a massive scale. Centralizing this diversion at the top has proved far more efficient than attempting to extort individual beneficiaries after aid trickles down. Once the international community began to catch on, both the Houthis and the UN/INGO (international non-governmental organizations) system appeared to shift into a game of “musical chairs,” shuffling positions and responsibilities in order to preserve a dangerous and mutually beneficial relationship.

Despite repeated pledges of reform from the UN/INGOs, aid agencies seem to have made little progress in reducing the risk of aid diversion in Houthi-controlled Yemen. This failure raises significant questions about whether effective aid distribution in Gaza is feasible while another Iran-backed terrorist group, Hamas, remains in control of the territory.

Before explaining how the humanitarian assistance landscape in Yemen has shifted, it is important to outline how the system functioned in Houthi-controlled areas over the past decade. In practice, all aid operations in these areas were placed under the authority of the Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (SCMCHA) or its predecessor organizations. SCMCHA ensured that humanitarian activities in northern Yemen served the regime’s interests: It directed resources to loyalists or even regime ministries, sold aid on the black market for profit, and monitored local contractors involved in aid delivery to prevent exposure. Most recently, the council was run by longtime, hardline Houthi loyalists Ahmed Hamed and Abdelmohsen Tawoos, with the backing of the coercive power of the regime’s Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) to ensure compliance.

Between 2014 and 2024, tens of billions of dollars were funneled into humanitarian aid projects in Yemen. Most of this aid was delivered to areas under Houthi control, as they are home to the majority of the country’s population. Aid organizations presented ever-growing demands for funding as the only way to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. Yet buried deep in some of their own audits was an uncomfortable truth: most, if not all, of the major players delivering aid to northern Yemen had no idea who was actually receiving the aid. Many documented, in ways that obscured the fact from public view, that their own evaluation and monitoring systems were broken.

To compensate for this fact, the organizations adopted a crude metric to present their activities to the public. If they had shipped enough aid to support 10 million people, they claimed to have helped 10 million people. Meanwhile, they presented information as if it were accurate down to the last detail, with the WFP claiming it had assisted 2,293,356 people with disabilities in 2023, an estimate the organization may not even be able to verify within several orders of magnitude. The difference is not a technicality; it is fundamental. Massive quantities of aid are diverted to reinforce the brutal Houthi regime which does not help Yemenis but ensures their continued repression under a kleptocratic and totalitarian government.


Why we keep going back to fight: IDF reservists on going back to war
If we stop fighting now, Hamas will declare victory. Arab states considering expanding the Abraham Accords will spurn what they perceive to be a weak Israel. Even worse, we will be forced to fight again soon. We take Hamas’s vow to replicate October 7 very seriously.

Two of us are lawyers and one, a law student. We understand the laws of war and the impossible choices that urban warfare entails. We’ve fought this four-dimensional war – underground, above-ground, in the air, and online. “Proportionality” in war doesn’t mean balancing one side’s suffering with the other. It asks whether targets are legitimate military aims.

The threat of terrorism
We’ve seen terrorists pop out from closets, not just from hidden tunnel shafts. We’ve had necessary military operations aborted abruptly to avoid killing civilians. That’s why we reject “war crime” accusations and the “genocide” libel.

The terror tunnels of Hamas – and Hezbollah – prove that Israel hasn’t bombed Gaza wantonly. Our commanders keep choosing between destroying the enemy’s infrastructure and risking our lives. We buried a 23-year-old newlywed whom a Hamas sniper killed because the army didn’t collapse a six-storey building. So, while critics judge us by standards no democratic army meets, as we salute Israel’s moral compass, we wonder how many friends we’ve lost by constantly warning terrorists before attacking.

Since the war began, the international chorus keeps shrieking “ceasefire,” sure that continuing the war is futile. However, morale among many fellow soldiers remains high because we keep seeing, month to month, since October 7, a safer Israel – and world.

Y., the 28-year-old captain commanding 30 tank corps reservists, adds: “I grew up with thunder clouds over my head, knowing that any day Iran’s mullahs would keep to their promise and destroy us. I grew up hearing Nasrallah’s threats that Haifa would be destroyed. I grew up knowing Hamas’s end game is to destroy the Jewish state, which they never hid.” Today, residents, even international hi-tech companies, are returning to a safer North. Together, we’ve reduced those threats dramatically, without yet eliminating them.

Yes, we’re tired, aching to return to normal. Yet we know that a just war like World War II didn’t end until the evil instigators surrendered unconditionally.

We take pride in our comrades, our commanders, our army, and our people. Our generation has proven itself. We will continue fighting when necessary, while enjoying and building a better world always.

So we serve as Zionists, appreciating that it’s our responsibility and privilege. Our persecuted ancestors would marvel at our uniforms and our little democratic Jewish state’s achievements.

We serve because we recognize the lethal threats to our nation. We serve because if we don’t do it, no one else will. We serve for our comrades in arms because we need each other.

And we serve for our children – and our shared future.
Armed Gaza clans turn on Hamas as IDF advances deeper into Gaza City
As the IDF intensifies its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, armed clans across the territory have begun asserting local control and, in some cases, directly challenging Hamas rule, sources in the Southern Command said Wednesday.

Military officials said several clans have deployed hundreds of armed operatives at key entry points to prevent Hamas security forces from regaining control.

Among the forces active on the ground is Hamas’s “Arrow Unit,” a violent internal enforcement squad responsible for arrests, attacks, and executions of suspected collaborators with Israel.

According to security assessments, these local groups have come to understand that Israel is determined to dismantle the Gaza City Brigade, led by Izz al-Din al-Haddad, and have identified the mass movement of civilians southward as a strategic vulnerability for Hamas.

Sources reported that direct confrontations have occurred between clan operatives and Hamas fighters in multiple locations.

Some of the clans, including the Abu Shabab group, are said to have reached an informal arrangement with the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). Under the reported understanding, clan members have remained in place in Gaza City without evacuating south, while benefiting from a safe zone established in coordination with Israeli forces and utilizing a protected corridor for humanitarian assistance.

“In some places, there has been actual fighting between the armed groups and Hamas operatives,” a security official said. Intelligence officials believe that clan leaders see an opportunity to solidify their power amid growing perceptions that Hamas may ultimately be defeated.

Officials added that coordination between the Southern Command chief, Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor and the Shin Bet have facilitated what they described as a “positive process” of cooperation with local forces.


Mark Levin Calls Out The Media & Qatar for Enabling Hamas
Mark Levin exposes Qatar’s role protecting Hamas leaders, questions U.S. tip-offs, and condemns global media and diplomatic double standards. A hard-hitting breakdown of the October 7 attacks, the hostage crisis, and why Netanyahu’s resolve matters


Military Expert Goes Into Gaza To Assess Potential War Crimes - What He Found Is STUNNING!
Israel’s war in Gaza is reaching a turning point, but is the world being told the truth? Emily Schrader sits down with Major Andrew Fox, former British Army officer and leading defense analyst, to unravel the accusations of war crimes, famine and genocide leveled against Israel.

From inside Gaza’s battlefield to the corridors of international law, Fox explains what “proportionality” really means in warfare, why casualty figures are so distorted and how Hamas manipulates civilians as human shields. The conversation dives into the IDF’s transformation under unprecedented multi-front pressure, the moral dilemmas of siege warfare and whether Israel has crossed any legal red lines or if it is being held to impossible double standards.

Schrader and Fox also expose Egypt’s role in trapping Gazans, the UN’s complicity in spreading Hamas’s propaganda and the dangerous new wave of lawfare at the ICC and ICJ. They also examine the West’s hypocrisy: why massive civilian casualties in Mosul or Raqqa were excused as “tragic but inevitable,” while every Israeli action is framed as criminal.

As Israel fights not only on the battlefield but also in the court of world opinion, one question looms large: can democracies still defend themselves when the rules are rigged against them?


Call me Back Podcast: The Battle for Gaza City Begins - with Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal
On Monday night, the IDF began its highly anticipated incursion into Gaza City, which has been largely untouched by Israel until recent days. The IDF announced that 40% of Gaza City’s roughly one million people have already evacuated. Meanwhile, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum declared a “state of emergency” amid fears that Israel’s invasion of Gaza City jeopardizes the remaining 48 hostages.

On today’s episode, we are joined by Ark Media Contributors Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal to discuss this major development. What does the IDF’s incursion into Gaza City mean for the future of the war, the fate of the hostages, and Israel’s global standing?




Erin Molan: Dr. Gad Saad EXPOSES Candace Owens’ “Blame the Jews” For EVERYTHING Lies!
In this explosive new episode 18 of The Erin Molan Show, Erin sits down with Dr. Gad Saad — author, professor, and close friend of Charlie Kirk — for a raw, unfiltered conversation.

๐Ÿ”ด They cover:
The despicable lies Candace Owens and others spread blaming Jews
Why the “both sides” argument on political violence is completely misleading
Dr. Saad’s professor scorecard on Donald Trump’s presidency
Who would be the best to replace Trump in 2028: JD Vance or Marco Rubio?
PLUS his blunt message to the culture of cowardice

๐Ÿ‘‰ In the Headlines: Erin and guest host Tali Shine break down:
The FBI testimony on texts from Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson
Melania Trump firing back at Hunter Biden and others
Kash Patel’s best Senate hearing moments humiliating Dems’ fundraising clip attempts
And more!


Israel Advocacy Movement: Muslim Tries To Justify Jizya… Ends Up Revealing Its True Purpose

Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil deported to Algeria or Syria
A Louisiana immigration judge ordered Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Algeria or Syria on Friday, according to documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union, leading his legal team to appeal on Wednesday to the New Jersey federal court overseeing his civil rights case.

The Columbia University Apartheid Divest leader, who was detained on March 8 and had his green card revoked over his role in belligerent activism on campus, was on September 12 denied a twelve day time extension, a change of venue to New York, and a waiver for removability.

Judge Jamee Comans did not believe Khalil was eligible for a discretionary waiver due to family ties and good legal character because he had failed to disclose his affiliations with CUAD and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency when adjusting his status in the US.

The judge contended that the waiver only applied to admissions misrepresentation, not adjustments. The judge also weighed against Khalil his short time in the country, his lack of employment and financial ties, his conditional status, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that the student activist’s presence in the country had adverse foreign policy consequences.

Khalil’s legal team was given 30 days from Friday to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, but was not confident in a reversal given high-ranking US officials targeting Khalil for “retaliation.”


Ben & Jerry's co-founder resigns after feud with parent Unilever over Gaza war
Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield, whose name helped shape the popular ice cream brand, has quit the company, as its rift with parent Unilever ULVR.L deepened over its stance on the Gaza conflict.

In an open letter addressing the Ben & Jerry's community that was shared by his partner Ben Cohen on social media platform X on Wednesday, Greenfield said that the Vermont-based company has lost its independence since Unilever curtailed its social activism.

Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s have clashed since 2021, when the Chubby Hubby maker said it would stop sales in the West Bank.

The brand has since sued its parent over alleged efforts to silence it and described the Gaza conflict as "genocide," a rare stance for a major U.S. company.

Greenfield says he can no longer work for 'silenced' company
Greenfield said he could no longer "in good conscience" continue working for a company that had been "silenced" by Unilever, despite a merger agreement meant to safeguard the brand's social mission.

"That independence existed in no small part because of the unique merger agreement Ben and I negotiated with Unilever," he wrote in the letter.

A spokesperson for Magnum Ice Cream Company, Unilever's ice cream unit, said that it "disagrees with Greenfield's perspective and has sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry's powerful values-based position in the world."

Magnum said Greenfield stepped down as a brand ambassador and that he is not a party to the lawsuit.


Not Radical Enough? JVP Chapters Break Off To Launch More Aggressive Anti-Israel Group That Swears Allegiance to PLO Terrorist Creed.
Jewish Voice for Peace chapters at three Washington, D.C., universities ditched the anti-Israel group this month to form an even more radical organization: the National Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front. The new group swears allegiance to the pro-terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization militant creed—which demands a "right to resistance"—and vows to escalate confrontations in college classrooms and on campuses.

The former JVP chapters at Georgetown, George Washington (GW), and American University announced the move on Sept. 7 and switched their Instagram account names and profile pictures to identify as affiliates of the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front. The new group promises to "build a new front of Jewish students" and follow "Gaza as our compass, unconditionally."

"We work to dismantle Zionism in its entirety by confronting Zionist institutions on campus, to struggle for divestment, and to pursue the criminalization of Zionism as a white supremacist weapon of war," the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front wrote on Instagram. "Rejecting Zionism and upholding Palestinians’ right to return, remain, and resist are central to opposing fascist escalation and the consolidation of power in the US and across the world."

The news could spell trouble for Georgetown, GW, and American, given that the schools' JVP chapters have already sown chaos on campus and helped put their institutions on the Trump administration's radar. All three expressed support for Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack and participated in the illegal encampments at GW in spring 2024. The Trump administration is investigating anti-Semitism at American University and just last month found GW was "deliberately indifferent" to campus anti-Semitism, creating a hostile environment for Jewish, American-Israeli, and Israeli students and faculty in violation of civil rights law.

The Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front was nonetheless founded on the belief that JVP's anti-Israel efforts have not gone far enough.

"On campuses across the world, the student intifada is at the forefront of escalating demands for divestment," the group wrote in its Instagram post. "Our classrooms have become a theater for the battle against imperialism and state repression, because there is nothing university profiteers and state actors fear more than a politicized, organized student mass."

"While these tactics certainly have a place in the movement at large, now is the time to reassess the effectiveness of our solidarity in the student intifada," the post continued. "We must question, as anti-Zionist Jews living safely in the heart of Western empire that has sustained 77 years of occupation, has it been enough?"

The Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front says it adheres to al-Thawabit, a foundational creed the Palestine Liberation Organization created in 1977 "to which all Palestinian factions must pledge fealty." The principles include the "right to resistance," the "right to self-determination," the designation of "Jerusalem as the capital" of a Palestinian state, and the "right to return." The newly formed group also notes that its logo includes Arabic that translates to "Where there is oppression, may there thrive resistance" and the Hebrew phrase "L’chaim Intifada."


Anti-Israel soccer boycott campaign launches Times Square billboard
A coalition of anti-Israeli organizations and activists is calling on international soccer federations to boycott the Jewish state, lighting up a Times Square digital billboard on Tuesday to kick off the campaign.

The effort to sideline the Blue and Whites from competing comes ahead of next year’s FIFA World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., across the Hudson River from Manhattan, where the billboard is on display, will host eight matches, including the final.

According to the campaign’s website, the demands for the head of soccer federations include boycotting Israel’s national team and Israeli clubs and banning Israeli players. The site calls to “flood the federations,” listing the phone numbers for the heads of the UEFA national soccer federations in Belgium, England, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland and Spain.

The main organizers include the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, CodePink, Tech for Palestine, Gaza Tribunal, The Hind Rajab Foundation and Health Workers 4 Palestine.

Among the anti-Israel activists joining the campaign are Bobby Vylan, Craig Mokhiber and Liam Cunningham.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

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