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Saturday, May 16, 2026

05/15 Links Pt1: After the Ayatollah; Justice Dept seeks death penalty in murder of Israeli Embassy staffers; The anti-Jewish fever dream of NYTs

From Ian:

Jason Greenblatt: After the Ayatollah
What exists now in Tehran is a set of overlapping factions: Mojtaba at the apex on paper, the IRGC running operations, the Supreme National Security Council coordinating, the Foreign Ministry providing the diplomatic interface. The wartime succession has made the fragmentation deeper and not legible from the outside, or from within Iran itself. There is also a possibility worth naming directly: Mojtaba was elevated precisely because he could preserve continuity while remaining beholden to, possibly controlled by, possibly entirely subservient to, the security establishment that installed him. There is a harder possibility still that cannot be ruled out: Whether he is alive and functioning at all remains genuinely uncertain.

When Iran’s foreign minister signs an agreement, the question is not only whether he intends or has the power to honor it. It is also whether that signature binds the IRGC commander who controls the nuclear facilities. Whether it binds the Quds Force officer managing proxy networks. Whether it binds the engineers at the enrichment sites who may answer to a chain of command that runs through the Guards, not through the Foreign Ministry. The JCPOA, negotiated when Iran had a functioning and consolidated supreme leader, was still contested inside the IRGC from day one. The hard-liners who opposed it moved to dismantle its constraints the moment political cover appeared. That was the counterparty problem with a strong leader in place. The counterparty problem now is structurally more severe.

Trump did not inherit this negotiating position. He built it through sustained military and economic pressure that degraded Iranian capabilities to a degree no previous administration achieved. Israel’s military operations were indispensable to that result. He arrives at the table with more leverage than any American president has held on this issue since the revolution.

The problem is that leverage is only as durable as the pressure sustaining it, and a deal is only as durable as the authority of the party committing to it. Whether Iran currently has a supreme leader who can make the system honor a commitment, or whether what exists is a set of competing factions that could fracture the moment pressure lifts or internal power dynamics shift, is genuinely unclear.

That is not a reason to walk away from negotiations. It is a reason to build any agreement on the assumption that the counterparty may not hold. Verification cannot depend on good faith. Enforcement cannot require a trip to the U.N. Security Council, where some have historically shielded Tehran from consequences. Europe cannot be a decision-maker here. Its track record on Iran enforcement is a history of deference dressed as diplomacy, and it has spent two decades prioritizing engagement over accountability. Consequences for breach need to be automatic, pre-agreed, and executable by the United States. If Iran breaks a deal, the response cannot hinge on whether those with a Security Council vote are having a cooperative month.

The best hand in a generation is worth playing. But you need a table and cards and players across from you who can cover their bets. Right now, at least one of those conditions remains genuinely in doubt.
US arrests Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah commander wanted for plots against Jews, US interests
The US has arrested Iraqi national and senior member of the Kataib Hezbollah terrorist organization, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, on Friday. He was charged with providing material support for Iranian-backed terrorist organizations and accused of directing attacks targeting US citizens and interests

On May 15, the US Justice Department announced “the arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and senior member of Kataib Hezbollah,” the department said. “In recent months, Al-Saadi has also allegedly directed and urged others to attack US and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews, to further the terrorist goals of Kataib Hezbollah and the IRGC.”

The case is the latest in US attempts to go after Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. The Justice Department posted a photo of Saadi with the late IRGC Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. The US killed Soleimani in a 2020 drone strike in Iraq, also killing Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the same strike.

In recent months, the US has put out at least four rewards of $10 million each for information on various Iraqi militia leaders.

The Saadi charges appear important and illustrate that the US long arm of justice can reach out and find these perpetrators.

“Al-Saadi was charged by complaint with six counts of terrorism-related offenses for his activities as an operative of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including his involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States,” the US stated. Saadi is 32 years old, the report says.

He was transferred to the US from overseas, although the US did not specify where he was arrested.

“Al-Saadi was presented earlier today before US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court and ordered detained pending trial,” according to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Blanche added that “thanks to the dedication and vigilance of law enforcement, this alleged terrorist commander is now in US custody… As alleged in the complaint, Al-Saadi directed and urged others to attack US and Israeli interests and to kill Americans and Jews in the US and abroad, and in doing so advance the terrorist goals of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
IDF soldier KIA by Hezbollah mortar fire in Southern Lebanon
Staff Sgt. Negev Dagan, 20, from Moshav Dekel in the northwestern Negev, was killed by Hezbollah mortar fire in Southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday.

Dagan, a soldier in the Golani Infantry Brigade’s 12th Battalion, was operating near the Litani River on Thursday night when Hezbollah terrorists fired mortar shells at Israeli forces in the area, the military said.

One of the shells exploded near Dagan, mortally wounding him. Combat medics attempted to treat him at the scene but were forced to pronounce him dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Friday, ahead of the soldier’s funeral, that he and his wife shared in the “heavy loss” and conveyed their deepest condolences to his family.

“We all embrace his family and dear ones at this hour of grief, and salute the heroism and courage with which Negev, of blessed memory, has fought to defend our country,” Netanyahu said. “May his memory be blessed and cherished forever.”

Residents of Dekel remembered Dagan as “the salt of the earth” with “an amazing soul” who was deeply committed to serving in the military.

“We lost a diamond,” a family friend from the moshav told Army Radio on Friday. “He gave all of himself and it was important to him to serve in the army.”


Justice Dept seeks death penalty against alleged gunman in killing of Israeli Embassy staffers
The U.S. Department of Justice will seek the death penalty against Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

In a filing on Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, federal prosecutors said the government intends to pursue capital punishment on charges including the murder of a foreign official and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death.

Prosecutors allege Rodriguez intentionally killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim and carried out “substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person and commit an act of terrorism.”

The filing further states that Rodriguez’s actions were motivated by “political, ideological, national and religious bias, contempt and hatred,” and that he targeted individuals he believed had attended a young professionals’ event organized by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum “to amplify the effect of his crimes.”

The notice was signed by interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.


Nicole Lampert: Why do feminists refuse to believe that Hamas raped Jewish women?
The sexual violence was never really hidden by Hamas: the way Shani Louk’s half-naked corpse was paraded and spat on in Gazan streets, the blood-soaked pyjama crotch of the female hostage as she was forced into a car.

The images were put on social media by Palestinian terrorists and beamed around the world on October 7, 2023. Feminist chat groups immediately lit up. Not, as you might expect, with horror at this violent attack, which was being livestreamed. Instead, there was debate. Quite a lot of it was hinged around those bloodied trousers.

To some of them – experts in sexual violence – it looked like clear evidence of rape. But others were determined to diminish what their own eyes were telling them. Perhaps the blood had come from her handcuffed wrists, they asked, desperately.

Within days, one group of “prominent feminist scholars” in America insisted that they could not stand in solidarity with Israeli women because that would give in to “colonial feminism”. UK charity Sisters Uncut suggested that claims of sexual violence by Hamas were “Islamophobic and racist weaponisation”. The mantra of “believe women” was buried because Jews were not allowed to be victims. Ever.

Where so-called feminists led this assault on female victims, the world took its lead. While rape has been used both within war and as a weapon of war for as long as man has existed, this is the first time in which it was both documented by the aggressor and yet denied.

As time has gone on, as hostages – both female and male – have returned from Gaza with their stories of sexual assault and rape, some of those feminists have continued to double down on their incredible denialism.

The UN’s own Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, has continuously refused to even admit rapes had happened, saying that “no independent investigation found that rape took place on October 7”. Yet, just a few months earlier, her UN colleague Pramila Patten, who spent two weeks investigating reports of rape, found “reasonable grounds” to believe sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred.

Such is the fierce argument and desperate need to deny these rapes that, after making her report, Patten was subject to death threats. “Believe her” – especially when she’s a neutral expert – was thrown in the rubbish bin. Politics trounces actual feminism.

It is because of this that “The Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children” was created. After more than two years’ work, involving reviewing more than 10,000 photographs and 1,800 hours of video, and 430 interviews, its report “Silenced No More” was released on Tuesday.
Melanie Phillips: The anti-Jewish fever dream of ‘The New York Times’
The New York Times has been accused of running the Kristof article the day before in order to diminish the Israeli report. Whether or not this was so, Kristof himself suggested that his aim was to diminish what happened on Oct. 7.

His article, he said, showed that “the horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day.”

No other country is treated like this. Only Israelis are to be denied the unique reality of their suffering. Abuse happens in all prisons, and Israel is surely no different. But only Israel is subjected to psychotic lies about it.

That’s because Israel is the world’s only Jewish country, and the way Israel is being abused is the way Jews have always been abused.

The claim that dogs are trained to rape Palestinian Arab men is merely a modern version of ancient blood libels that the Jews were poisoning the wells or murdering Christian children to bake their blood into Passover matzah.

Today’s starvation libel, the genocide libel, the baby-killers libel, the harvested organs libel—and now, the “rape dogs” libel—all transmit the same message as the murderous blood libels of old: that the Jews are evil, demonic, inhuman. They are therefore to be excluded from the field of human empathy. They are to be branded as monsters and their suffering is to be denied.

The combined effect of Kristof, The New York Times and all the other media outlets and red-carpet celebrities and university professors and social media influencers who present the Jews as devils incarnate is that they set the mob on them.

“You rape men, you rape children,” screamed the mob outside Park East synagogue. “You f**king sociopath, I see it in your eyes.”

Jews are being hunted down on the streets of Western cities just as they were once hunted down in medieval Christian towns. Rampaging mobs were driven by bloodlust, inflamed by the Catholic Church, which told them that the Jews were the devil.

Astoundingly, Jews are now facing the same kind of religious mania—this time driven by Islam and left-wing ideology.

What we’re looking at is a throwback to a primitive set of murderous beliefs from before the Enlightenment, before modernity and before the age of reason.

We are realizing to our horror that the skin of civilization is extremely thin, and that it’s now been torn off altogether. We’re living through a spiritual plague. Barbarism is in the ascendant, and its super-spreader is The New York Times.
Jake Wallis Simons: The New York Times’s hatred of Israel has blinded it to reality
Yet as with antisemites of yore, the Israelophobes of the world desperately need Israel to be demonic to justify their hatred of it. A measure of detainee abuse is not enough: it must assume supernatural proportions. There follows, therefore, a campaign of exaggeration, hysteria and, taken to an extreme, downright fabrication that ends with Jews eating babies while preening their horns and tails.

Speaking of Pulitzer prizes, this month one was awarded to the Gazan photographer Saher Alghorra. He achieved fame – some might say notoriety – for his portrait of young Mohammed al-Mutawaq, who was emaciated due to cerebral palsy and hypoxemia. The picture was printed on the front page of the New York Times as ‘evidence’ of starvation in Gaza.

Other examples abound. On one occasion, the paper printed a montage of 64 Palestinian minors said to have been killed by Israel in the centre of its front page. “They Were Just Children,” ran the emotive headline, with the story itself informing us that “they had wanted to be doctors, artists and leaders”. It subsequently emerged that one of the pictures was a fake lifted from X, another was a terrorist representing the Al-Mujahedeen Brigades, and a third was the 15-year-old son of a Hamas commander who had been pictured in military fatigues brandishing a rifle. Moreover, there were suggestions that at least ten of the children may have been killed by misfiring Hamas rockets.

I’m not holding up these examples to make some political point. Rather, this article is intended as a lament to the degradation of truth in contemporary society, and a warning about where this is heading.

When I interviewed her on my podcast, The Brink, the American journalist Bari Weiss made the point with exceptional power. “We are not facing a crisis of trust in the mainstream media. We are facing a crisis of trustworthiness,” she said. “You should not trust something that’s unworthy of your trust.”

The complacency with which mainstream media outlets, from the New York Times to the BBC, are squandering their credibility in the pursuit of an information war on Israel is breathtaking. Of course, we all know that these people operate under the assumption that the leftwing worldview is equivalent to objective reality. But this?

The effect is to drive disillusioned audiences into the Wild West of the internet, where hucksters pose as experts, shock jocks launder outrage for clicks and conspiracy theory is big business for the likes of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and others. The liberal media, in other words, is providing the oxygen for the very people it most affects to loathe.

With the BBC’s ratings in freefall and the New York Times surviving on the strength of Wordle, sport and features, these journalists are so enraptured with their own ideological reflection that they don’t see the harm they are doing to truth. And when that is lost, what then?
Nicole Lampert: The grotesque lie regarding Israel and canines
In 1945 George Orwell wrote an essay about antisemitism which is as relevant today as it was 81 years ago.

Quoting people from varied walks of life, who all had issues with the Jews while insisting they weren’t antisemitic, he concluded: ‘Antisemitism is an irrational thing. The Jews are accused of specific offences which the person speaking feels strongly about, but it is obvious that these accusations rationalise some deep-rooted prejudice. To attempt to counter them with facts and statistics is useless, and may sometimes be worse than useless. People can remain antisemitic while being fully aware that their outlook is indefensible.’

He was inspired partly by a tragedy in 1942 when more than 100 people were crushed at Bethnal Green tube station amid a rush to hide from bombs. He recalls: ‘The same day it was repeated all over London that ‘the Jews were responsible.’’

He posits the idea that while Brits were fighting Hitler, it was socially unacceptable to be antisemitic. So people had to find ways more palatable reasons to hate them.

Orwell asserts: ‘One of the marks of antisemitism is an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true.’

Thus, it is not bad enough that Palestinian prisoners are likely to be treated brutally in Israeli prisons, as is likely under Ben Gvir. But this brutality has to have a demonic monstrousness to it. It can’t just be bad. It has to be the worst imaginable.

To quote Owen Jones, this behaviour shows: ‘A level of depravity which is beyond the imagination of any decent person – you will wonder to yourself, what level of evil could come up with such crimes.’

Both Jews and now the Jew among the nations – Israel – can’t just be bad. But have to be beyond evil. Genuine devils.

If I could take myself out of my body, out of my here and now, I would say that on a psychological level this is fascinating.
An In-Depth Critique_ Kristof’s “Sexual Violence” Story is the Nadir of Journalism
Kristof’s Column Debases the Seriousness of Sexual Violence
The use of sexual violence in conflict is among the gravest of crimes committed by man. It should be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Wielding the allegation for partisan ends is to disrespect those who have been victimized.

Every decision suggests his column has nothing to do with rigorous journalism and everything to do with partisanship.

While Kristof presents himself as a compassionate voice for victims, the dearth and weakness of his evidence betrays either incompetence or the absence of compassion.

Instead of relying on credible organizations who employ credible investigators, Kristof chose to platform hardcore activists known for making outrageous and false accusations against the accused. Instead of employing a rigorous verification process, Kristof simply repeated their unsupported claims. Every decision suggests his column has nothing to do with rigorous journalism and everything to do with partisanship.

Kristof’s editors are equally culpable. In response to the immediate criticism, The New York Times’s communications department argued that his reporting is “backed by independent studies,” suggesting none of his editors nor anyone in the paper’s communications department actually read his sources to verify his claims, either.

Kristof and his editors should have understood why these choices were wrong. They published the column anyway.

On the same day as Kristof’s column, Israel’s Civil Commission published a 298-page report detailing Hamas’s use of sexual violence against Israelis. The report painstakingly details its methodology. It identifies the “principles, guidelines, standards, protocols, and best practices acceptable in the field” that it employed during its investigation. It discusses its fact-finding field visits and how it conducted over 430 interviews and filmed testimonies from victims, witnesses, emergency responders, morgue staff, and medical professionals. The authors explain how they corroborated and verified information. In short, they give extensive information which readers can use to judge for themselves the credibility of the allegations contained therein.

But Kristof and The New York Times skipped over this story, mentioning the Civil Commission’s report only after the paper faced ferocious criticism. This is despite the Civil Commission reportedly having approached the paper months in advance with the report.

That is, the Times knew an extensive, well-researched report on Hamas’s use of sexual violence against Israelis was coming out on May 11 and instead published Kristof’s poorly-sourced, speculative opinion column accusing Israelis of being the criminals. Readers can make of that what they want.

The paper brags it contains “all the news that’s fit to print.” It would seem the paper believes that sexual violence involving Jews is newsworthy only if they are the alleged perpetrators.

This isn’t a justifiable mistake. At every step along the way, Kristof and the Times made a choice to attack Israel, facts and credibility be damned. They made a choice to lob language to appeal to our emotions – “brutalized,” “dehumanization,” “subhuman” – instead of exercising ethical journalism. That’s functionally indistinguishable from propaganda.

The New York Times has published a lot of biased journalism over the years. We at CAMERA know this plenty well. But the egregiousness of Kristof’s column shocks even us. Retracting it is necessary, but far from sufficient. Kristof has demonstrated he has no business being employed in the world of journalism. His editors have similarly demonstrated their complete lack of fitness for their roles.

By publishing Kristof’s column, The New York Times has demonstrated that the storied paper now belongs in the dustbin of history.
Israel Knows a Defamation Case Won’t Fly. That’s Not the Play
Once an Israeli proceeding is in reasonable contemplation, an interested person can apply in the Southern District of New York (where the New York Times is headquartered) to compel evidence production from a U.S. entity for use in foreign litigation. A properly framed § 1782 application does not ask the court to adjudicate the case; it simply asks the court to order the Times to produce the factual basis for one published allegation.

The subpoena categories write themselves: documents identifying the source and evidentiary basis for the dog allegation; fact-checking notes and editorial review records; communications with cited human rights organizations about this specific claim; internal discussions of reliability or corroboration. The Times will obviously raise reporter’s privilege. That is expected. But the answer here is a measured response: Nobody is asking for every source on every story. The request is for the factual foundation for one allegation the Times has publicly called corroborated and extensively fact-checked and “deeply reported.” Either show the corroboration or explain why you cannot. Both answers are informative.

None of this is a technical defamation case, but the critics declaring the claim dead on arrival are focusing on the colloquial use of the word “defamation” expressed in a spokesperson’s tweet and missing the tree for the forest. The real question is whether there exists a narrow, disciplined legal theory that forces the Times to produce the evidentiary basis for one of the most inflammatory factual allegations it has ever published. And there is.

The Times printed that Israeli soldiers summoned a dog, encouraged it in Hebrew, and used it to rape a bound prisoner while their colleagues took pictures. They called it corroborated. They called it fact-checked. So show us the facts. Produce the date, the location, the unit, the handler, the photographs, the medical records, the witnesses. All of it. Because if it exists, producing it ends this. And if it does not exist, then the New York Times published one of the vilest accusations ever leveled at a soldier, with nothing behind it, and called that reporting.


“SUE Them & Investigate Kristoff!” Alan Dershowitz UNLEASHED On NYT IDF Dog Libel!

Comedy Cellar USA: Live from the Table: Kristof Israel Allegations & the Danger of Circling the Wagons | Peter Savodnik
Peter Savodnik joins us to talk about Nicholas Kristof’s column alleging abuse of Palestinian prisoners, including the most extreme dog-rape allegation, and how pro-Israel people should respond when the reporting is weak but the underlying issue may still deserve investigation.

We talk about the difference between bad journalism and false accusations, the danger of reflexively circling the wagons, Ben-Gvir and the Israeli prison system, antisemitism, double standards against Israel, whether Jews are being pushed back into history, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Gavin Newsom, Jonathan Haidt, Twitter addiction, and the general collapse of everyone’s sanity online.

Peter Savodnik reported for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, GQ, Wired and other venues from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Asia and across the United States. His book, The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union, was published in 2013 by Basic Books. He is now a senior editor at The Free Press and based in Los Angeles.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro and Peter Savodnik joins
01:16 Nick Kristof’s Israel prison-abuse column
06:15 Olmert, Benny Morris, Haviv Rettig Gur, and what may actually be true
10:00 Double standards, bad reporting, and how Israel should respond
15:56 The dog-rape allegation and the danger of reflexive denial
22:22 Why Israel may need its own serious investigation
24:23 Circling the wagons vs. demanding proof
28:17 What real reporting would require
34:03 Retractions, antisemitism, and “emptying our pockets” for every accusation
38:27 Are Jews and Israel entering a more dangerous historical moment?
49:11 JD Vance, Rubio, Trump, and the future of the Republican Party
57:18 Gavin Newsom, 2028, and the Democrats
59:26 Jonathan Haidt, NYU, wokeness, and phone addiction
01:04:13 Twitter fights, the new Comedy Cellar room and final thoughts




Israeli report exposes Hamas ties to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism released a report this week alleging that the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor maintains ties to Hamas and plays a central role in promoting anti-Israel legal and media campaigns worldwide.

One of the NGO’s primary figures, founder and chairman Ramy Abdu, was the subject of an Israeli administrative detention order issued in 2020 under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law due to his alleged activities with “IPalestine,” an organization designated by Israel as affiliated with Hamas, according to the report published on May 13.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, while registered in Switzerland as a regional human rights organization, focuses overwhelmingly on anti-Israel advocacy, including documentation efforts, legal submissions to international bodies and media campaigns accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide, the report states.

The ministry said the organization provided “evidentiary infrastructure” to South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, including allegations related to mass graves and damage to Gaza’s healthcare system.

The report also highlighted public statements made by Abdu following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

In a Jan. 31, 2026, post cited by the ministry, Abdu wrote: “Israel will continue to kill and displace Palestinians under any circumstances, even if they are defenseless. Regardless of promises, our people and their resistance must never lay down their arms. Never.”

Abdu also wrote in May 2025 that if Oct. 7 was viewed as justification for Israeli actions in Gaza, then “a million October 7ths” could likewise be justified by decades of Israeli policies.

The ministry further alleged that Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor promotes accusations of “systematic sexual violence” by Israeli forces and campaigns for Israel’s inclusion on United Nations blacklists.

The report linked the Gaza-based terrorist organization to a recent opinion piece by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof accusing Israeli security personnel of sexual offenses against Palestinians, saying one of Kristof’s primary sources was connected to Euro-Med and its leadership.


First Palestinian ICC filing against Hamas alleges war crimes, seeks arrests - exclusive
The lawyers of a Palestinian Gazan man have made a formal submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor demanding that 14 Hamas leaders be investigated for crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

To date, the ICC has not charged even one Hamas leader with any crimes committed against their own civilians. This is despite the fact that the ICC has charged leaders of Hamas and Israel with crimes committed against each other’s populations during the Gaza war.

This submission, therefore, marks the first such filing by a Palestinian against Hamas.

One of the two American attorneys, Elliot Malin, revealed this exclusively to The Jerusalem Post on Friday. Malin was joined by Eli Rosenbaum, a former senior US Justice Department war crimes prosecutor, and French attorney Sarah Scialom.

The 40-page article demands that 14 named Hamas leaders be investigated for crimes committed against the Palestinian people, with an eye toward the issuance of warrants for their arrest.

The client is a Palestinian civilian from Gaza who lost his wife, children, and other family members in the war in Gaza.

The submission demonstrates that if Hamas had not committed these war crimes and other crimes against the Palestinian people, the client’s family and countless other Palestinians would be alive today.

The crimes detailed in the submission include: the war crime of utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons as human shields; the war crime of attacking civilians; the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects; the war crime of willfully causing great suffering; the war crime of destruction and appropriation of property; the war crime of excessive incidental death, injury, or damage; the war crime of attack protected objects; the war crime of committing outrages upon personal dignity; the war crime of using, conscripting or enlisting children; the war crime of sentencing or execution without due process.
UAE tried to coordinate with Saudi Arabia, Qatar to strike Iran during recent war
The United Arab Emirates attempted to persuade neighboring Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to coordinate a military response to Iran's missile, rocket, and drone attacks during the recent war, with Abu Dhabi's leadership feeling frustrated when neighbors refused, people familiar with the matter said to Bloomberg on Friday.

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) held several phone calls with other leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, shortly after Israel and the US began striking Iran on February 28, the sources said.

MBZ was convinced of the need to coordinate a retaliatory response to deter Iran, according to the sources.

While he began working with the Trump administration and Jerusalem, MBZ's neighbors told him that it was not their war to join. This worsened the already-strained relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, a source told the outlet.

Further, the Trump administration was aware of the UAE's proposal and attempted to push Saudi Arabia and Qatar to join, a person familiar with the matter said.

MBZ attempted to convince Gulf Cooperation Council members by stating that the GCC was founded in 1981 due to threats posed by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

These details offer a possible explanation for why the UAE appears to be angry at its neighbors, culminating in a withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ in late April, as well as growing ties with Israel, the report noted.

Despite lacking support from the Gulf states, the UAE has carried out limited attacks against Iran, including in both March and April, people familiar with the matter were cited as saying.


Hamas commander Izz al Din al Haddad targeted in Israeli airstrike
Israeli military aircraft attacked an apartment building in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood on Friday, targeting Hamas’s military chief, Izz al Din al Haddad. The strike, if successful, would be the third Hamas leader in Gaza to have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the Islamist group and its allies initiated the war with Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Under the instructions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, the IDF has just carried out a strike in Gaza targeting arch-terrorist Izz al-Din al-Haddad — the leader of the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre,” a joint statement by Netanyahu and Katz said.

An IDF official did not confirm if the strike killed Haddad, saying in a statement sent to FDD’s Long War Journal that “a battle damage assessment confirmation is still pending.” However, Ynet reported that Israeli officials expressed some optimism, noting that there were “initial indications” that the attack on the site killed him.

Gaza paramedics stated that three people had been killed in the strike and more than a dozen wounded, according to a report by The Times of Israel.

A statement by an Israeli military official sent to FDD’s Long War Journal noted that Haddad was “appointed to his position following the elimination of Mohammed Sinwar [Hamas’s former leader in Gaza],” and that he had violated the ceasefire by “working to restore the capabilities of the terrorist organization’s military wing.” The official stated that Haddad is the “last remaining senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip who was among the leaders of the October 7th massacre.”





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