Pages

▼

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

06/29 Links Pt1: The UN’s toxic obsession with Israel lets the world’s worst regimes off scot-free; Danon: UN helps spread false claims about terrorists labeled as journalists

From Ian:

The UN’s toxic obsession with Israel lets the world’s worst regimes off scot-free
The Human Rights Council maintains a permanent agenda item devoted exclusively to Israel – a distinction enjoyed by no other country on earth, including North Korea, Iran and Russia. Even former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the UN had produced a “disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticising Israel”.

I encountered this phenomenon during my own time at the United Nations. It was impossible for any Israeli to secure a senior appointment in the organisation, no matter how well qualified. Israel is the only country of its political and economic weight never to have held a position at Assistant Secretary-General level (roughly a two-star general equivalent) or above. I also encountered cases of UN staff and contractors self-censoring on issues related to Israel for fear of being accused of anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bias, as damaging an accusation as one of racism.

But by far the worst example of this bias is embodied by UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, some of whose staff have been accused of being directly involved in the Oct 7 attack on Israel.

As recently as 2024, the UK maintained a longstanding position of condemning the UN’s hostility towards the world’s only Jewish state. Successive British governments rejected the Commission of Inquiry’s open-ended mandate and criticised its obsessive focus on Israel. But that consensus has been overturned by a Labour government more ideologically and politically sympathetic to this excessive level of scrutiny, or more in hock to special interest groups as obsessively hostile to Israel as the UN is.

The tragedy is that, while the UN has rightly attracted condemnation from informed critics, it has somehow retained an almost sacrosanct halo among much of the wider public. To many, the UN remains the ultimate authority in international affairs. That reverence allows weak evidence, activist assumptions and ideological predispositions to be laundered into accepted wisdom.

The UN’s disproportionate focus on Israel has long ceased to be a curiosity of UN procedure. It has become a pathology that distorts priorities, consumes diplomatic bandwidth and allows some of the world’s worst regimes to escape meaningful scrutiny by sheltering in the comforting consensus of anti-Israel indignation. It has also become a cottage industry, with networks inside the UN acting in concert with well-organised bad actors like Qatar and Turkey to sustain a relentless momentum of anti-Israeli attacks.

Many casual observers may believe the Commission when it claims to be defending vulnerable children. In reality, by substituting ideology for evidence and prejudice for impartiality, it undermines the credibility of international law itself. And, in the process, demonises Israel, Israelis, and Jews at large as bloodthirsty child killers.

The UN should pay attention. This is the kind of abuse that has drawn the ire of the US, which is withholding its UN dues and has sent the organisation spiralling towards budgetary collapse. Unless the UN gets its house in order and brings these rogue agencies and commissions to heel, António Guterres may not have much left to hand over to his successor at the end of this year.
Israel is America's 'only true Western ally,' Florida's GOP House hopeful tells 'Post'
US AFFAIRS: Florida Republican David Burck discusses Israel, Iran, campus antisemitism, and why he believes Washington must deepen its alliance with Jerusalem.

The US and Israel are the only two pillars of Western civilization still standing, according to Burck.

“Throughout the course of human history, we’ve objectively never had it so good,” he said. “We’re at an existential kind of point in the West as a whole as we go away from the ideas that have made us great, and we see it in Europe, and we’ve seen it here bubbling domestically in the United States,” he went on to say.

“I just feel like if I didn’t do my part to try to stem that tide in any way, shape or form, I’d be failing my son, the future generations out of the West, and America specifically,” Burck maintained.

“I think it’s high time for us to definitely codify our relationship even more with Israel; we need it. Europe is a rump of itself, it’s a husk, and it’s not going to get any better. And really, the only true Western ally that we have left is Israel,” he said.

While he had not yet had the privilege of visiting Israel, Burck said, he was looking forward to the situation calming down enough that he could cross it off his bucket list and visit along with his wife and 14-month-old son.

“I need to go look as a believer in Christ. I want to get out there, and I’ve heard so many great things,” he said.

“We need to keep this relationship thriving. I think that we’re going to work through this. I can understand why the people of Israel feel betrayed right now, but you know, Donald Trump’s done so many fantastic things for Israel, and I don’t think that he would do anything that would put Israel at a disadvantage,” the statesman said.

“Personally, I don’t believe so. I think this is just a part of the process of negotiating with the terrorist regime and the largest state sponsor of terrorism. I feel like Israel and the United States are just kind of like the two last vestiges of the best of the West.”
The CPJ Is Finally Acknowledging That It Called Gazan Terrorists ‘Journalists’
The CPJ announced on Thursday that it is undertaking a review of its own list of casualties of Gazan journalists.

The timing is not coincidental. In the past several weeks, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been publishing obituaries identifying their dead fighters, many of whom have been living double lives. The most prominent of these double lives are terrorists posing as journalists.

However, none of this information is new. Since the CPJ started recording journalists killed in Gaza, HonestReporting has similarly been tracking the many cases in which these journalists were directly affiliated with terrorist organizations.

As of June 23, 2026, more than half of the journalists listed by the CPJ as being killed in Gaza were either members or affiliates of an anti-Israel terrorist group.

Most recently, Ahmad Washah, a Hamas sniper who also worked for Al Jazeera, was killed in a targeted air strike in Gaza. CPJ quickly came to his defense, expressing “alarm” at his death.

This has been a pattern at the CPJ, particularly with terrorists affiliated with Al Jazeera. The Qatar-backed outlet has consistently aligned itself with Hamas, frequently publishing the terrorist organizaiton’s talking points. Still, on four other occasions, the CPJ has expressed concern or condemned the deaths of Al Jazeera journalists, even when there is overwhelming evidence of their affiliation with Hamas.

The CPJ has exerted great effort to suggest that the IDF has been purposefully targeting journalists throughout the war. This effort has led the organization to include in its casualty list the names of any media workers killed in a war zone.

The CPJ’s own criteria state that it excludes journalists who were “directly participating as combatants in armed conflict at the time of their deaths.” Yet the organization has on countless occasions done exactly that, and thus redefined international law to paint an inflammatory and false accusation against Israel.

For the past two years, the CPJ has found that Israel has been responsible for the majority of the killed media workers.

In both 2024 and 2025, when the data was broken down, an entirely different story emerged, revealing that Israel was not targeting journalists, but rather terrorists who posed a threat to national security and hid under the guise of a press vest.

Israel has been releasing evidence of terrorists posing as journalists for the past two and a half years. Why did it take terrorist organizations publishing their own obituaries for the CPJ to recognize what has been public information all along?

CPJ expects the full review of journalists to be done in July. HonestReporting will be ready to remind them, once again, that shielding terrorists from scrutiny for more than two years is not an oversight – it is a moral failure.


Danon: UN helps spread false claims about terrorists labeled as journalists
As the Committee to Protect Journalists conducts a full review of its database after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad identified some people listed as slain journalists as members of their terror groups, Israel’s U.N. ambassador Danny Danon said the misidentification of terrorists reflects a broader pattern of the United Nations accepting allegations against Israel without sufficient scrutiny.

“A claim is made against Israel. The U.N. repeats it, the world condemns it, then the truth comes out,” Danon told the U.N. Security Council on Monday during its monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian file. “No apology, no correction, no retraction. They move on. Israel will not.”

Holding up a photograph of Mohammed Naser Abu Huwaidi, who was killed in Gaza in late 2023, Danon noted that Audrey Azoulay, director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, publicly condemned his death, identifying him as a journalist. Earlier this year, Palestinian Islamic Jihad listed Abu Huwaidi among its members killed during the war.

“UNESCO’s condemnation was public. Its correction? Still missing,” Danon said.

Danon also criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for saying in a speech last week that Israel had killed Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Wishah. Citing previously released footage, Danon said Wishah was “armed in the streets of Gaza” and described him as “a sniper in Hamas’ military wing.” Israel has released video and photographs that it says show Wishah operating as a Hamas terrorist.

“This is the pattern,” the Israeli envoy said. “Hamas makes a claim, the NGO ecosystem repeats it, a U.N. report rubber-stamps it, the world’s media broadcasts it and Israel is condemned before the facts are even checked.”


Committee To Protect Journalists Ousts Anti-Israel Heiress From Its Board As Group Launches Full Review of Its Controversial ‘Journalists Slain in Gaza’ List
Biotech heiress Nika Soon-Shiong announced on Monday that she was booted from the Committee to Protect Journalists' board of directors and blamed a Washington Free Beacon report on her anti-Israel activism for prompting the embattled organization to cut ties.

Soon-Shiong—the publisher of Drop Site News and daughter of the South African biotech billionaire and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong—wrote she was informed Sunday evening that the CPJ nixed her board position as the New York-based advocacy group faces mounting pressure over its widely cited list of journalists killed in Gaza, which has included dozens of confirmed military operatives for Hamas and other jihadist groups.

The CPJ now says it’s conducting a "full review of its database" after Hamas and other terrorist groups publicly claimed many of the slain "journalists" as their own.

The ongoing scandal deepened last month after the Free Beacon reported that the CPJ had been quietly removing some militants’ names from its list of deceased "journalists" without publicly acknowledging the changes, and that the CPJ’s board of directors is brimming with anti-Israel sentiment with virtually no dissenting voices. The Free Beacon extensively documented Soon-Shiong’s outlandish accusations that Israel is an "apartheid" state committing "genocide in Gaza," and that "a Palestinian child is being murdered every ten minutes," among other similar claims. The Free Beacon report also noted how board member Maria Ressa has compared Israel’s actions to those of Hitler, and how during her 2024 commencement address at Harvard, she used antisemitic tropes about "money and power" to cast shade on her critics.

The Free Beacon further reported that the CPJ’s vice chair, New York Times opinion writer Lydia Polgreen, claimed last year in the Times that Israel assassinated a "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist." Even though Israel has released voluminous documentation that the dead man was a Hamas fighter—including producing a picture of him with late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar—Polgreen insisted there was "no credible evidence" that the man fought for the terror group.

The Free Beacon’s report led to arguments among CPJ board members, Soon-Shiong wrote on X, and her objections to reviewing the list of slain "journalists" resulted in her being terminated from the board.


Israel should rethink its approach to the United Nations
The UN Human Rights Council will soon adopt another set of resolutions targeting Israel and accusing the Jewish State of some of the most severe crimes known to the international community, and will join the nearly 75 resolutions and condemnations already adopted by UN bodies against Israel since Hamas began the October 7 massacre.

It may be tempting to dismiss these votes as mere rhetoric. In fact, however, such resolutions and the reports and investigations that undergird them do not remain confined to the halls of the UN.

They are increasingly used to fuel the use of legal systems against Israel and the IDF, promote corporate blacklists and arms embargoes, and advance efforts to convince future policymakers that Israel is uniquely evil.

The UN has become perhaps the central engine of the global campaign to delegitimize and demonize Israel. A recent Misgav Institute for National Security report that we co-authored mapped more than 30 UN bodies, entities, commissions, and mechanisms that contribute to this campaign.

Some of these UN bodies and mechanisms were created explicitly to advance the Palestinian narrative. Others operate under broad mandates involving women’s rights, children, housing, or climate, yet repeatedly use their platforms and resources to condemn Israel and portray it as antithetical to universal values.

This is not a collection of disconnected bureaucratic failures. It is an integrated machine. One UN body converts a baseless allegation into a purported finding.

A second cites that finding in a resolution. A third uses it to justify a blacklist, boycott campaign, or legal measure. A fourth disseminates the accusation, now carrying the imprimatur of the United Nations, to governments, media outlets, and universities around the world.

That is how libels become policy.

It is important to note that the UN does not merely target Israel. It also undermines the vital interests of the United States and the entire free world.


UNRWA torched as 101 staff are alleged to have links to Hamas
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-CEO Peter Wertheim says the latest allegations involving more than 100 Hamas-linked UNRWA employees prove the agency has failed to address longstanding concerns.

“This is not the first time that UNRWA’s been embroiled in a scandal about its links with Hamas,” Mr Wertheim told Sky News host Jaimee Rogers.

“Two years ago, we had revelations that 12 UNRWA employees had been engaged in the terrorist attacks in Israel.

“UNRWA sacked those people while its funding had been suspended from Australia and many other countries, and then the funding was restored, and it was back to business as usual.

“Now we see what business as usual looks like. We’ve had 101 Hamas-linked UNRWA employees.”




The world may have stopped worrying about a nuclear-armed Iran – but Israel never will
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”: the chilling quote from the sacred Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita was what passed through the mind of J Robert Oppenheimer as he witnessed the successful first test of the nuclear weapon he had engineered in 1945.

The great Jewish-American scientist was thinking not of a threat – understandable though it would have been in the war against the evil of the Axis powers – but of a warning of the apocalyptic harm humanity could now inflict in a flash.

Flash forward to some time in the not too distant future.

Iran completes its first successful test of an atomic bomb to announce itself to the world as a nuclear power.

What, then, would be the thoughts of the leaders of the Islamic Republic as they witnessed the same mushroom cloud Oppenheimer first saw?

Would they vow to make good on their long-standing pledge to destroy the State of Israel?

Or, at first, simply use the implied threat of their nuclear capability to inflict conventional terror at an unprecedented level across the region through their proxies, believing now they could act with utter of impunity because of the fear of escalation?

It is to prevent exactly these scenarios ever becoming a reality that Israel has for decades waged its ceaseless campaign against the Islamic Republic, from the long-standing operations of attrition, subterfuge and targeted assassinations, to the “hot" conflict of missile exchanges in open warfare last year and this.

Somehow, it seems the paramount importance of preventing Iran ever acquiring a nuclear capability has become lost in the intense diplomatic activity and wider media coverage of recent weeks.

Take the talks in Switzerland, where American and Iranian negotiators have gathered in search of a deal.

It seems the greatest concerns have been threats from President Trump, calculated displays for the cameras, and the Iranian delegation’s refusal to participate in a photo opportunity.

The spectacle served as a reminder of how wide the gulf remains between Washington and Tehran, despite years of intermittent diplomacy.

If President Trump’s rhetoric was intended to project strength, he risked underestimating Tehran’s capacity for patience and leverage. Iran has long understood the power of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow artery through which a significant share of global energy supplies flows. Any disruption there would carry consequences far beyond the Gulf.

Tehran continues to play a longer and more calculated game. The regime has repeatedly shown an ability to absorb pressure. Mr Trump threatens loudly, Iranian strategists calculate and undermine.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, denounced the “desperation” of the US after Trump threatened to “take over” the Strait of Hormuz there was no deal.

There can be no underestimating the importance of the continued flow of oil to the global economy.

But for Israel nothing can be more paramount that what is ultimately an existential threat from Iran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it at the centre of the conflict when he spoke to the nation on Sunday, saying without this year’s Operation Rising Lion and the 2026 campaign Operation Roaring Lion “Iran would have had atomic bombs, and let me tell you something. They would have used them.

“That’s what we prevented.”
Kassy Akiva: Meet The Iranians Leading Negotiations With JD Vance
As Vice President JD Vance leads negotiations aimed at ending the war against Iran and delivering on the administration’s promise that Iran would never have a nuclear weapon, one major question looms over the whole process. Can we trust Iran?

The U.S. negotiating team has signaled that Iran’s team has shown itself to be much more pragmatic than Iranian negotiators in the past. Little attention, however, has been paid to who exactly these more pragmatic Iranians are.

Iran’s delegation is not composed solely of career diplomats. The team includes former Revolutionary Guard commanders, officials tied to violent crackdowns on protesters, figures accused of human rights violations, and regime insiders linked to corruption scandals and political repression.

Their records offer a revealing look at the team helping shape the Iranian regime’s approach to the West and its response to dissent at home.

Here are the three top men representing Tehran in negotiations with the United States.
Defense Minister Katz: IDF is prepared for independent action against Iran
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday during a briefing with military correspondents that the IDF is preparing to act independently in Iran and that the military is just waiting for the order. Katz added that any rocket fire directed at an Israeli community will be answered with a devastating strike in the Dahieh.

"People should not hold their breath waiting to see where Israel will withdraw from next in Lebanon, because that will not happen until Hezbollah disarms," Katz said. He added, "We have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but until Hezbollah disarms, we will not retreat an inch."

Minister Katz further noted that he met on Friday at the Kirya (Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv) with the commander of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper. Katz said, "I agreed with him that the IDF will not withdraw from the three security zones – in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. The soldiers of the Lebanese Armed Forces will not suddenly turn into lions and charge at Hezbollah. The IDF's presence in Lebanon will be long-term."

Minister Katz explained that the IDF evacuated approximately 700,000 Shiites from the Dahieh, alongside another 600,000 residents from southern Lebanon. "The 200,000 residents who lived in southern Lebanon have not returned and will not return to the Yellow Line. This area must remain free of population. A civilian population means terrorism, explosive devices, and casualties. The IDF is now operating in an area with no residents. True, there are drones, there are clashes, but there are no residents, so this is nothing like the old security zone era."

"It was clear during Operation Silver Plow that the Shiite villages along the contact line had to disappear," Katz added. He noted, "We are currently in a situation where there is nearly 100% destruction in the contact-line villages of the western and central sectors. In the eastern sector, we are at 73% of villages destroyed. Seizing territory and dismantling all infrastructure within it is the heaviest blow possible for jihadist organizations."
Katz: Israel has ‘no territorial ambitions’ in Lebanon, will stay until Hezbollah disarmed
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that Israel has “no territorial ambitions in Lebanon,” but the IDF will not withdraw “a millimeter” until the Hezbollah terror group is disarmed.

Katz’s comments came on the same day that the US Central Command chief met with both Lebanon’s president and its military chief in Lebanon, days after Jerusalem and Beirut signed a framework agreement aimed at ending their conflict, a move that has been repeatedly criticized by Hezbollah and its allies.

The deal commits Lebanon to restoring sovereignty over its territory through the “verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure,” enabling a progressive Israeli withdrawal, according to the text released by the State Department.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that his country’s army plans to deploy up to the border with Israel in its efforts to displace Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, Israel again struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon overnight, in what it said was a response to the terror group’s attacks on its forces in the area. Separately, an IDF soldier was seriously wounded in an explosion in the area on Monday, the military said.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Katz said the military is unlikely to withdraw from additional areas of southern Lebanon beyond the two agreed-upon locations from which it will pull out as part of a pilot program that will see the Lebanese army take over.

“People should not hold their breath wondering where the next place will be from which Israel will withdraw in Lebanon, because it will not happen until Hezbollah is disarmed. We have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but until Hezbollah is disarmed, we will not withdraw a millimeter,” Katz said.

He said that this principle was accepted by the US and anchored in the military annex to the framework agreement signed between Israel and Lebanon. Katz also noted that when he met US Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper last week, they agreed that “the IDF will not withdraw from the three security zones — in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.”

Katz said he also does not believe the Lebanese army will “suddenly become lions charging at Hezbollah,” and therefore the IDF’s presence in Lebanon will be “long term.”

The defense minister confirmed that Israel had recently tried to get the Lebanese army to enter the Ali Taher Ridge area, under which Hezbollah has a major tunnel system, and clear it of terror operatives. However, “the Lebanese army refused to do it,” Katz said. Currently, the IDF remains stationed in the area, but it has not entered the underground passages where some 30 Hezbollah operatives are believed to be holed up.

Briefing reporters, Katz claimed that had it not been for American pressure on Israel, the IDF would have caused Hezbollah’s collapse in Lebanon. He said the IDF had planned a “massive” aerial campaign that, he claimed, “would have dismantled Hezbollah,” and that the terror group was “begging the Iranians to save it.”

The defense minister blamed US President Donald Trump’s linking of the US-Iran talks with Lebanon for preventing Israel from doing so. According to Katz, when Trump “linked Iran and Lebanon,” Israel had to stop “bringing down buildings in Beirut,” but could carry out “surgical strikes” on Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital.

“I’m sorry about that linkage, but it was an American interest. They very much wanted to advance the possibility of negotiations with Iran,” he said, adding that “when you enter into a partnership, it has advantages, but it also comes with certain constraints.”
‘Eventual IDF redeployment from Lebanon’: Full text of Israel-Lebanon deal security annex

Trump: Iran seeks meeting; talks set for Doha Tuesday
President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran has requested a meeting with the United States, with talks set to take place on Tuesday.

“IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA! President DJT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said earlier on Monday that Qatar is bound to release $6 billion of Tehran’s frozen assets as the U.S. and the Islamic Republic look to de-escalate the recent flare-up in the Gulf.

The fragile interim agreement between Tehran and Washington signed on June 17 was tested over the weekend when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reportedly struck a cargo vessel and a commercial tanker with one-way attack drones in separate incidents on Thursday and Saturday, prompting U.S. forces to launch retaliatory strikes on Iranian military sites. Iran then fired missiles and drones at U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday.
Iran says Doha to unfreeze $6 billion of its assets
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday that Qatar is bound to release $6 billion of Tehran’s frozen assets as the United States and the Islamic Republic look to de-escalate the recent flare-up in the Gulf region, with a resumption of talks in Doha expected in the coming days.

“Based on the plans made, six billion dollars out of the total 12 billion dollars of Iranian resources in Qatar will be released and returned to the country, and necessary follow-ups are being carried out,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted Pezeshkian as saying, per the Associated Press.

He further stated that the Memorandum of Understanding with Washington, signed on June 17, had lifted sanctions on Iran’s oil and petrochemical sectors, describing it as “a great victory for the Iranian people,” according to Reuters.

U.S. officials have not confirmed an unfreezing of Iranian assets, the news agencies reported.

“Technical talks are slated to continue on all areas of the MoU. Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” Reuters cited a U.S. official on conditions of anonymity as saying on Sunday.


IDF eliminates Hezbollah terrorist who killed IDF Capt. David Hazutt
The Israel Defense Forces overnight Sunday eliminated the Hezbollah terrorist who killed IDF Capt. David Hazutt in Southern Lebanon’s Deir Siryan area earlier in the day, the military said on Monday.

Hazutt was killed when the terrorist opened fire after he and other soldiers entered a “suspicious structure” just south of the Litani River and northeast of Metula.

An additional soldier was wounded in the attack, and was evacuated to hospital in light condition.

IDF troops deployed in the area launched extensive searches and located the Hezbollah operative in one of the structures near the point of the encounter, where he was eliminated, according to the army.

“The IDF will continue to operate to remove any threat posed to IDF soldiers and will not allow the Hezbollah terrorist organization to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” the military added.

Hazutt, 21, from the southern city of Ashkelon, served as a platoon commander in the 12th Battalion of the Golani Infantry Brigade.

The total death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the War of Redemption—which was triggered by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre—now stands at 964, according to official IDF data.
IDF kills Islamic Jihad operative who abducted, held Israeli hostages
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday eliminated a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who abducted civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and held them captive, the military said on Monday.

Zaher Brahim Khalil Abu Salem “took part in the abduction of Israeli civilians from their homes and in holding them hostage,” according to the statement.

In addition, he attempted to advance “numerous” attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians during the war sparked by the Hamas-led massacre, the IDF said.

“Abu Salem posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip and was eliminated in an aerial strike,” it added. “Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.”

Soldiers remain deployed in the enclave in accordance with the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement “and will continue to operate to remove any threat,” the statement concluded.

In a separate statement, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said on Monday that Ismail Masri, Hamas’s head of military defense in the Rafah Brigade, was eliminated in a strike last week.

Described as a “senior figure,” the statement said that Masri throughout the war coordinated Hamas’s military security and counterintelligence fields in the Rafah Brigade and was involved in rehabilitating and rebuilding the terrorist group’s military capabilities, with the objective of carrying out attacks against Israeli forces.

The statement did not specify in which part of Gaza he was killed.


IDF seals 16-kilometer Hamas tunnel where murdered soldier Hadar Goldin's remains were held
IDF soldiers completed a three-month-long operation to seal the underground tunnel in which the remains of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin were held captive by Hamas, the military announced on Monday.

The tunnel, stretching 16 kilometers, was sealed with more than 30,000 cubic meters of concrete after IDF troops located its entrance in southern Rafah, near the Philadelphi Corridor, three months ago.

The operation was led by engineering troops from the IDF's Gaza Division, Southern Command, along with Yahalom Combat Engineers, who together worked to seal the tunnel.

The entirety of the tunnel complex included approximately 80 living quarters and served as a Hamas terrorist organization’s command-and-control center.

It was also used by the commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade in its military wing to plan and advance terrorist operations.

The tunnel ran beneath a residential neighborhood, mosques, kindergartens, clinics, a school, and a UNRWA clinic.


Call me Back Podcast: The Iran-War: An Autopsy - with Jonah Goldberg and John Podhoretz
Many supporters of the Iran War, both in the U.S. and in Israel, consider it a failure. Dan doesn't necessarily share that observation, at least not until the fate of the U.S.- Iran deal is clear.

Jonah Goldberg and John Podhoretz, two thinkers that have been following every twist and turn of the Iran war and landed in that camp. So we wanted to conduct an autopsy of the Iran War, at least as where the war stands now.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of the Remnant podcast. He’s also a senior fellow at AEI and author of a number of books, including Suicide of the West. and John Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine, host of the Commentary podcast and author of Hell of a Ride.

In this episode:
What were the expectations vs reality?
Israel and Iran's position today Vs on February 27th.
The war's impact on US foreign policy
What would have been a better strategy in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program?
Did Trump and Netanyahu miscalculate?
Where does the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump go from here?


Why Is Jonathan Conricus Chiding Netanyahu, Blaming Egypt, and Hailing Lebanon Deal?

The Jerusalem Post: Former NSA director: Iran deal won't hold, the real threats are still coming
Former NSA Director and US Cyber Command chief Admiral Mike Rogers warns that the Iran ceasefire has resolved none of the underlying threats, missiles, proxies, or the nuclear program, and that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is now more powerful and more aggressive than before the conflict began.

Admiral Rogers, who led both the NSA and US Cyber Command as a four-star Navy admiral before moving to the private sector with Team8 and Aurelius Capital, delivers a sobering assessment: the ceasefire bought time but solved nothing. On Iran's posture, he argues that the war produced the opposite of what the US and Israel hoped; rather than deterring Tehran, it has convinced the Revolutionary Guard to double down. "The takeaway is to be more aggressive," he explains of the IRGC's internal argument. He also flags a new and underappreciated threat: Iran now understands it holds an economic weapon in its ability to disrupt Gulf commercial shipping, and will make that a foundational element of strategy going forward.

On cybersecurity, Rogers breaks from the dominant narrative: while the world obsesses over AI-powered attacks, almost no one is deploying AI defensively. He argues that a determined attacker will eventually get in, and that resilience, not just defense, must become the new standard. He explains why he believes Israel and Silicon Valley are the only two places in the world with the culture, talent, and capital to solve this problem at scale.

00:00 - Iran's economic weapon: disrupting Gulf commercial flow
00:30 - Guest intro: Admiral Mike Rogers, former NSA & Cyber Command chief
01:47 - Does the Iran ceasefire actually solve anything?
03:00 - What a real nuclear verification regime needs to look like
04:18 - How the US is recalibrating its regional role
05:08 - Gulf states reassessing security: bypassing the Strait of Hormuz
06:30 - Pakistan's surprising role as mediator between Iran and the West
09:17 - When the guns go quiet: conflict shifts to the cyber domain
09:54 - Why cyber deterrence has failed even for major powers
12:07 - The cyber dimension of the Iran-Israel war that wasn't publicized
17:00 - AI and offensive cyber: real-time morphing attacks defenders aren't ready for
24:00 - The defensive AI gap: why we're not using AI to protect networks
27:00 - Why Israel + Silicon Valley are the world's best innovation ecosystems
32:26 - What makes Israel's cyber culture uniquely powerful
38:16 - Rethinking the US-Israel defense technology partnership
45:55 - Israeli resilience and American unity: comparative strengths and strains
48:52 - US-Israel alliance under stress: political friction vs. strategic depth
51:31 - Rapid fire: Iran scenarios that worry Rogers most
56:34 - Which nation is rewriting the rules of cyber engagement?




Comedy Cellar USA: Live from the Table: The Truth About Iran That Nobody in the West Wants to Hear with Kian Tajbakhsh
Was the MOU a good idea? Noam says yes, the Professor says no.

Noam Dworman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Kian Tajbakhsh. They discuss his years as a political prisoner in Iran, the psychology of the Iranian regime, why he believes Iran's leaders genuinely seek Israel's destruction and what the West continues to misunderstand about the Middle East.

He also weighs in on Trump, the latest U.S.-Iran developments and the future of the region.

Kian Tajbakhsh is Visiting Professor of International Relations at NYU and Fellow at Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought. An Iranian-American scholar of Middle East geopolitics and Iranian politics, he previously worked as a democracy and human rights advocate inside Iran. He spent nearly 13 months in Tehran’s Evin Prison, including 8 months in solitary confinement in a high-security IRGC wing, followed by 6 years under house arrest as a political prisoner, before being released as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He is the author of Creating Local Democracy in Iran (Cambridge University Press 2022). His essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Project Syndicate, and his analysis has been featured on NBC, CNN, BBC, CBC, and NPR. He writes and comments frequently on Iranian politics, regional geopolitics, and democratic reform; author of The Iran Crisis Notebook on Substack.

CHAPTERS
02:20 Arrested by Iran & Life in Solitary Confinement
16:20 House Arrest and Release
20:30 October 7 and America's Blind Spot
23:00 Why Iran Wants to Destroy Israel
35:50 Trump, Iran, and the New Middle East Strategy
49:20 Was Trump's Deal a Mistake?







Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026)

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    

 

 

at