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Wednesday, July 22, 2026

07/21 Links Pt1: What the U.S. and Iran Are Fighting Over; Foreign Threats Breed Self-Sufficiency; The inconvenient truth about Gaza’s ability to govern; The UN Has Run Out of Alibis

From Ian:

Is an Abraham Security Alliance Possible in the Middle East?
Is a greater Middle East security alliance, encompassing Israel, Lebanon, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and beyond, a realistic prospect? Or will Hamas- and PLO-supporting Turkey replace Israel as the U.S. administration's preferred regional partner?

In his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in July 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu floated an "Abraham Security Alliance," a NATO-style framework open to states that "have made peace with Israel and those that will."

In February 2026, Netanyahu unveiled what strategists call the "Hexagon Alliance": Israel's technological and security core, linked to India's manufacturing weight, Greek and Cypriot Mediterranean corridors, Emirati economic channels, and Somaliland's Red Sea oversight. Lebanon has since agreed to direct negotiations with Israel. Syria's al-Sharaa government has held direct dialogue with Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, there appears to be a strategic shift inside the U.S. administration: beyond personal rapport between Trump and Erdogan, there is a growing view that Turkey can assume roles Israel has traditionally played, engaging Arab states wary of Iran. Ankara is exploiting this opening, positioning itself as the Islamic world's next leader, replacing the Iranian regime's role as regional hegemon and becoming Israel's principal long-term strategic competitor.

Despite Turkey's upgraded military presence in the Middle East and East Africa, Erdogan has not operationalized his threats on Israel. He has avoided military confrontation thus far, and has refrained from disrupting Israeli operations in Syria, despite housing and training Hamas on Turkish soil. Notwithstanding Turkey's malign regional behavior, the U.S. administration still is considering Turkey as a politically "lower-cost" regional security manager.

If the Abraham Security Alliance is to mean anything beyond aspirational rhetoric, the U.S. must expand the Abraham Accord alliances. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Somaliland, Greece, Cyprus, and others are realistic candidates. However, the expanded security alliance will depend on a strong U.S., Israel, and Gulf Arab foundation that would be shaken by Turkey's neo-Ottoman imperial ambitions and destabilizing influence.
Foreign Threats Breed Self-Sufficiency
There are people who imagine that cutting American aid would irreparably damage the Jewish state. Yet Israel defeated the Arabs in June 1967, again, as it did in 1948, without any U.S.-supplied weapons.

Precisely because of Israel's long history of denials and embargoes by the British and U.S. governments, its nine million people are enough to support disproportionately large and diverse military industries.

This state of nine million is one that can research, develop and manufacture the world's heaviest battle tank, a full range of tactical and strategic missiles, and the interceptors that inaugurated humanity's first instance of space warfare two years ago.

Israelis reacted to the start of U.S. military aid after the Six-Day War with deep, genuine gratitude, eagerly pursuing any opportunity to reciprocate.

Israel's Mossad was inside the Soviet Union, which the CIA could only watch from afar, and offered up all it uncovered.

After its October 1973 tank-warfare victories, Israel supplied the U.S. Army's tacticians with every bit of data for their, and NATO's, revolutionary "fight outnumbered and win" manuals, explicitly based on the desperate Golan Heights fight in which 200 Israeli tanks destroyed four times as many Soviet-built Syrian tanks.

In my many encounters in Israel over the years, I have heard a great eagerness to contribute Israel's research and development talents, whose fruits are now built into some of the most capable U.S. weapons, most conspicuously in the F-35 fighter jet, whose innovative helmet-mounted piloting system was entirely developed in Israel.

Israel's pilots sat in their cockpits for hours to reach and bomb Iran's distant missile launchers, which were attacking U.S. bases and U.S. allies, as well as Israel itself.

Israel would never refuse any military help it could provide, as countless U.S. officers have known for decades.
Michael Doran: What the U.S. and Iran Are Fighting Over
Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is a die-hard jihadi. For him, the officials negotiating with Washington serve as infidel handlers: officials who translate the demands of the IRGC into language acceptable to Western diplomats.

The IRGC struck ships that transited the Strait of Hormuz without coordinating with it to enforce Vahidi's interpretation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in mid-June. Vahidi never accepted the U.S. view that Iran would reopen the strait and treat it as an international waterway rather than a sovereign asset.

Trump has opted for a campaign of calibrated escalation designed to force Vahidi to accept the American definition of the MoU, seeking to impose enough pain to make the status quo untenable without igniting a wider regional war. But this theory expects Vahidi to place the welfare of Iranian society above the institutional interests of the IRGC.

Trump's ongoing campaign is unlikely to eliminate the drone threat. Intermittent drone attacks on commercial shipping are enough to drive insurers from the market and achieve severe disruption. Vahidi recently struck a desalination plant in Kuwait with ballistic missiles that are also hard to eradicate.

This reveals how profoundly warfare has changed. The era in which U.S. airpower could rapidly neutralize a regional adversary at acceptable cost is ending. It is being replaced by a more contested, attritional environment in which weaker states can buy time and impose significant costs.

These battlefield realities are already reshaping American strategy. Washington will increasingly prize allies that possess battle-tested militaries, functioning defense industries, advanced intelligence, and practical experience defeating missiles, drones, and hardened targets. It will prize, above all, allies that help the U.S. understand and counter the emerging Sino-Russian-Iranian military system. Israel meets those criteria. Very few others do.


The inconvenient truth about Gaza’s ability to govern
In the daily news cycle and at the heart of mass movements across the West, Gaza has become the subject of a tug-of-war between facts and appeals to emotion and personal belief. Alas, the latter seem to be prevailing. But that must not overshadow stark realities, however much they may challenge the ideological armour of those who have constructed a hermetically sealed narrative about Gaza.

First, there never was a sovereign, independent Gaza in recorded history. Ottoman Turkey, for instance, ruled Gaza for four centuries. No effort was made to establish a state. Later, Egypt governed Gaza for 19 years. Again, there was no move towards Palestinian independence. To the contrary, Cairo imposed harsh military rule.

Ironically, the first country to offer Gaza the opportunity to chart its own destiny was Israel. Yes, Israel. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew every last soldier and settler. It also left behind scores of greenhouses intended to help kick-start Gaza’s economy. Within days, however, those greenhouses were looted and destroyed.

Second, over the strong objections of Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, the United States pressed for Hamas to participate in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. That legitimised a terrorist group which, predictably, took full advantage of the opportunity. Within a year, Hamas had violently seized total control of Gaza, killing or expelling Palestinian Authority officials. No election has been held in the ensuing two decades.

Third, while some in the West romanticise, if not fetishise, Hamas as an “anti-colonial liberation” group, the truth is quite different. It is an outgrowth of the extremist, transnational Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated objective is to replace existing nation-states in the Middle East with a Sharia-based caliphate, while extending the reach of political Islam to the four corners of the world. At its core, it is virulently anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic, authoritarian, and intolerant of “infidels”. The murderous Iranian regime has been its principal supplier of weapons and funding.

Fourth, when Israel gained control of Gaza in the 1967 war of self-defence, by all accounts, the strip’s population was under 400,000. When Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005, the population had more than tripled to 1.3 million. Thirty-eight years of Israeli control clearly did not prevent rapid population growth.

Fifth, in the past two decades, Gaza has been the recipient of billions of dollars from governments and nongovernmental organisations earmarked to develop its economy and address humanitarian and social needs. Instead, the funds were largely syphoned off to build a vast terrorist infrastructure, including a tunnel system reported to exceed the length of London’s Underground. In other words, instead of seeking to emulate Dubai or Singapore, Hamas’s leaders opted to weaponise Gaza as a launching pad for Israel’s destruction. Meanwhile, some of those same leaders managed to become billionaires in the process, with homes in hospitable Qatar.


Pierre Rehov: The United Nations Has Run Out of Alibis
For the United Nations, voting patterns, internal investigations and its own decisions this year no longer support the fiction of neutrality. An UNRWA school in Gaza sat above a Hamas tunnel shaft and three anti-tank positions, and its own principal was on the payroll of both institutions at once -- a fact that American investigators, not the UN, brought to light.

The pattern is old: during the oil-for-food scandal, a mid-level program director faced US prosecution while the officials who managed the program from above kept their positions. When UN failures surface, line staff absorb the exposure. The people who set the policy rarely do.

The arithmetic alone dismantles the pretense of balance. In 2025 the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted 15 resolutions targeting Israel, and only 11 addressing the rest of the planet combined -- a tally covering North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, Russia and the United States together. From 2015 through 2024, the total reached 173 resolutions against Israel, compared to 80 for all other member states combined.

On November 20, 2025, the UNGA's Fourth Committee passed six resolutions condemning Israel while producing not a single resolution on Sudan, where fighting has killed more than 150,000 people and driven 12 million from their homes. The bloc that commands the UNGA's automatic majority sets these priorities; the scale of actual human suffering has nothing to do with it.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) supplies the starkest illustration. After October 7, the agency's own internal review found that nine employees may have taken part in the massacre -- a figure American investigators have since made look negligible.

"The USAID Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG), a statutorily independent law enforcement and oversight entity, has referred for suspension/debarment consideration the names of 101 current or former staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for participation in the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and/or affiliation with the military wing (al-Qassam Brigades) of Hamas. Among the individuals referred were UNRWA school principals, teachers, security personnel, attendants, psychosocial counselors, and medical professionals..." — USAID, June 5, 2026.

Groups tracking UNRWA's personnel put the true scale of Hamas penetration considerably higher, closer to 1,500 employees still drawing a UN salary.

[T]he "Board of Peace," the body now overseeing Gaza's postwar administration, announced that UNRWA "has no place in the new Gaza" and described continued dependence on the agency as an obstacle to recovery rather than a form of relief.
UKLFI urges Government to back removal of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan KC
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to the UK Foreign Secretary and the UK Foreign Office’s Legal Adviser urging the UK Government to support the removal of International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan KC at the forthcoming special session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the ICC on 24 July 2026.

The letter has now been sent to the incoming Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband MP, and was sent earlier to his predecessor, Yvette Cooper MP.

In its letter, UKLFI calls on the UK not only to vote in favour of Mr Khan’s removal, but also to announce its position publicly in advance and encourage other ICC States Parties to do the same. UKLFI argues that, as Mr Khan’s home country and one of the States that supported his election, the UK has a particular responsibility to help restore confidence in the ICC and the international rule of law.

The letter notes that the ASP will decide whether Mr Khan should be removed under Article 46 of the Rome Statute of the ICC, following reported findings of the ASP Bureau that he committed serious sexual misconduct towards a junior member of staff.

UKLFI argues additionally that Mr Khan committed further serious breaches of his obligations to investigate incriminating and exonerating circumstances equally in accordance with Article 54 of the Rome Statute and to engage with national criminal jurisdictions in accordance with the principle of complementarity in its Preamble and Article 1.

The letter notes that Mr Khan suddenly cancelled a planned visit to Israel in May 2024 and instead applied for arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant.

By abandoning the planned visit, Mr Khan avoided considering and presenting to the Court in his application for these arrest warrants important additional information that would have been provided by Israeli authorities.

That information would have showed that the central charge made by Mr Khan – use of starvation as a method of warfare – was based on fundamentally flawed reports.

UKLFI adds that every phrase of every sentence of Mr Khan’s public summary of his grounds for seeking the warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and Gallant was false. UKLFI considers that “if Mr Khan had properly engaged with the Israeli authorities he could not have proceeded on such an embarrassingly and comprehensively false basis.”


Israel blasts UNESCO for ‘cynical politicization of cultural heritage’
Israel slammed the “cynical politicization of cultural heritage” at UNESCO on Monday, calling its silence over Hezbollah’s systematic desecration of a historic Lebanese castle while referring to Israel’s defensive operation at the site as “a moral abdication.”

The harsh condemnation comes as the United Nations cultural body is expected to designate the strategic Beaufort Castle and several other Southern Lebanese sites as world heritage locations in danger, in order to protect them from further conflict.

The 900-year-old Crusader-built site, which was captured by Israeli forces in May, was used by Hezbollah as a strategic military stronghold and included an extensive underground tunnel network just a few miles from the Israeli border.

“For years, Hezbollah has systematically weaponized and desecrated this historic Crusader fortress, converting it into a military stronghold,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on X. “UNESCO’s silence on Hezbollah’s systematic desecration at Beaufort, while targeting Israel’s defensive operations, is a moral abdication.”

Israel formally withdrew from UNESCO in 2018, citing systemic anti-Israel bias capped by a resolution downplaying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, but still maintains working relations on specific heritage conventions and remains a signatory to several protocols.

The U.S. administration has announced its latest withdrawal from UNESCO, which is set to take effect at the end of the year, labeling the organization as “woke” for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and harboring anti-Israel and pro-China biases.


Iran Ceasefire Seen Unlikely in Coming Days
Mediation efforts between Iran and the U.S. have intensified in an attempt to secure a ceasefire and resume talks.

The proposal under consideration calls for a ceasefire lasting one to two weeks, aimed at restoring the understandings set out in the memorandum of understanding.

However, the U.S. said that only the complete and unrestricted reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, along with compliance with all the terms of the memorandum, would lead to renewed negotiations, the lifting of the naval blockade and an end to U.S. strikes.

The U.S. calls for guarantees that commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will publicly endorse any agreement.

Therefore, diplomatic sources assess that a ceasefire is unlikely in the coming days, and that a formal resumption of negotiations is even less likely.
The Cost of War Is Starting to Be More Palpable in Iran
After more than a week of strikes by the U.S., discontent over the human and economic cost of war is starting to be more palpable in Iran. On Saturday, 268 prominent Iranians, including academics, politicians, athletes, clerics and trade unionists, signed a "No to war" petition - a risky move at a time the government, backed by a fiercely pro-war hard-line base, has continued to crack down fiercely on dissent.

"The government will have a very difficult time convincing people that they should continue fighting this war at the cost of Iran's destruction," said Omid Memarian, an Iran analyst at DAWN, a Washington-based Middle East research institute. "So time is ticking for them too."

That sense of time slipping away is likely what encouraged Iran to launch the attacks on ships that began the latest spiral, said Farzan Sabet, an Iran analyst at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, to take advantage of strategic gains while they have them. "They saw their leverage in terms of being able to control the strait quickly decline," he said.
Iran avoiding attack on Israel over fears of IDF strikes on regime leaders, expert says
Iran is avoiding a broad, direct attack on Israel because it fears Israeli strikes on senior regime figures and institutions vital to its survival, Iran researcher Beni Sabti told 103FM on Sunday.

Sabti, an Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, spoke with Ron Kofman and Prof. Aryeh Eldad following an Al Hadath report citing an Israeli security source who said that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was not in the Islamic Republic.

“The strength of the public lies in Tehran, as we saw during the protests, and that is what Iran fears,” Sabti said, explaining Iran’s concern over a possible Israeli attack.

“The Iranian regime fears our involvement because they know that we are going straight to the center. We are targeting the most important part and focusing on senior officials.

“They crossed a threshold on Sunday. There may be elements within the Revolutionary Guards that are beginning to pick at us and provoke us, testing how far they can go in angering Israel, and woe to them. There are always rogue elements within rogue elements. It has become like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Let me be clear: Iran has shifted into terror organization mode.”

Iran refraining from broad attack on Israel
Asked why Iran was refraining from launching a broad, direct attack on Israel, Sabti said: “They know that, first and foremost, we focus on individuals, and from our familiarity with them, we truly know how to reach them, as we saw on previous occasions.

“If there are no American restrictions, we know how to do the job. We focus on facilities and institutions that are important to the regime’s survival, such as the Revolutionary Guards’ internal security headquarters.”

“There are people who do not respect the rule of law and who are truly anarchists, and the Revolutionary Guards are like that,” Sabti said. “There are people who do not respect the law and even enjoy doing so.

“A group of far-left activists, without informing Khomeini at the time, climbed the fences in 1979, seized the US Embassy in Tehran and presented the leadership with a fait accompli. They later became the nucleus of the Revolutionary Guards. That is who we are dealing with. They act, and afterward they come and say, ‘This is what happened.’

“Mojtaba, given his physical limitations and while inside the tunnel, what can he really do?”
Iran moved thousands of uranium centrifuges into fortified Pickaxe Mountain - WSJ
Iran transferred thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges to underground facilities deep inside Natanz's Pickaxe Mountain last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing Israeli and US officials.

The centrifuges were transferred to the mountain following the 12-day war in June 2025.

During the war, American and Israeli strikes pummeled three of Iran’s main nuclear sites, in an operation the US called "Midnight Hammer."

US and Israeli officials noted that the transfer of sensitive equipment inside the mountain increases concerns that Tehran is working to ensure continued uranium enrichment, even in the event of a large-scale military attack on its soil.

Pickaxe Mountain is located south of the Natanz nuclear complex, the site of two of Iran’s uranium enrichment plants bombed in June 2025.

The tunnel facility under construction at Pickaxe Mountain wasn't targeted in either of the wars, according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a US-based think-tank focused on nuclear non-proliferation.

Satellite imagery shows that the complex was carved to a depth of more than 100 meters below bedrock, making it deeper and more fortified than the Fordow enrichment facility, a highly fortified, underground uranium enrichment facility.
US completes new strikes on Iranian regime targets
U.S. forces have completed a new round of strikes against the Iranian regime, targeting military command centers, missile-and-drone launch sites, maritime assets and air-defense systems, U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday.

The strikes, carried out at 9 p.m. ET on Monday (4 a.m. Tuesday in Israel), were aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, according to CENTCOM.

The command added that commercial traffic through the strategic waterway continues, noting that since early May U.S. forces have helped facilitate the transit of about 900 vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil.

“American forces remain postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression toward civilian mariners seeking to freely and openly transit the strait,” the statement concluded.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a new round of strikes against Iran earlier Monday, marking the 10th consecutive night of U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic, according to CENTCOM.

“At 4 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began a new round of strikes against Iran at the commander in chief’s direction,” CENTCOM stated. “The strikes are designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The latest operations came after a deadly weekend for U.S. forces, including the deaths of two American service members in an Iranian attack. Trump vowed earlier on Monday that Iran would face significant retaliation for any American military deaths.

“Every time Iran kills an American soldier, they will pay for that killing many times over,” Trump stated.

The U.S. government early on Tuesday issued a “worldwide caution” alert, warning that the security situation remains “complex” and that Iran and its terror proxies may target American interests overseas.
Kuwait says Iran hit power and water plants, as Tehran steps up attacks across region
Iran on Tuesday stepped up its attacks on regional Arab countries, as Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait all reported heavy bombardment. Kuwait said that Iranian missiles struck power plants and water facilities, forcing the government to call for the rationing of electricity at the height of summer in one of the hottest countries in the world.

Iran and the United States have traded intense fire over the past 10 days, with the US military carrying out nightly strikes on military and industrial sites across the country.

Despite the heavy damage caused, a new American intelligence has reportedly suggested that the ongoing US strikes are unlikely to change Iran’s negotiating position, amid a deadlock in talks over the Straight of Hormuz and Tehran’s nuclear program, which mediators have pushed to restart in recent days.

In the Gulf, the Kuwaiti government said Iran had struck desalination and power plants for a fourth straight day on Monday night. Authorities said the attacks sparked fires and caused damage.

Some 90 percent of Kuwait’s drinking water comes from desalination, making the attacks a matter of life and death for the tiny nation. Additionally, most desalination plants in the Gulf are integrated power and water production facilities because the process requires intensive energy input.

The small Gulf country’s authorities have called on the public to consume less energy so that they can maintain round-the-clock electricity as the grid comes under Iranian attack. Despite being one of the largest crude producers in the OPEC oil cartel, Kuwait regularly has trouble meeting local electric demand, especially during the summertime, when temperatures top 50ΒΊ C (120ΒΊ F).

Kuwait is home to several major US military bases.


Lebanese president to meet Trump at White House
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun was set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday.

The former Lebanese Armed Forces commander’s visit marks the first by a Lebanese head of state to the White House in nearly two decades and his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

His Washington trip comes amid U.S.-brokered talks between Jerusalem and Beirut to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and stabilize the border area, with pilot zones testing the replacement of Israeli forces in Lebanon with Lebanese forces.


Nazareth man arrested over plot to attack Israeli minister
A 29-year-old Israeli citizen from Nazareth was arrested on suspicion of attempting to join Hamas and planning terrorist activity, including an alleged plot to attack a serving government minister, Hebrew media reported on Tuesday.

According to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Muhammad Awad contacted Hamas seeking to enlist and receive resources for carrying out attacks.

The Northern District Attorney’s Office submitted a prosecutor’s statement to the Nof HaGalil-Nazareth court ahead of a planned indictment.

According to Hebrew media reports, the suspect allegedly planned to attack National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who wrote on Telegram that this was the ninth time terrorist organizations had tried to harm him.

Ben-Gvir thanked the Shin Bet, police and other security forces and vowed that “you will not scare me, and I will not be deterred,” adding that he would continue working “for the people of Israel.”
IDF kills Hamas commander who held Emily Damari captive in Gaza
A senior Hamas commander accused of holding British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari during her captivity in Gaza has been killed by Israeli forces, with Damari describing him as “a monster” following his death.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Adham Ibrahim Sha’aban Nasman, head of operations for Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, was killed in a strike in Gaza City on Saturday.

According to the military, Nasman directed terrorists during the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel and later helped guard several hostages in Gaza, including Damari, Romi Gonen, brothers Ziv and Gali Berman, Eitan Mor, Matan Angrest and Omri Miran.

Responding on social media, Damari said Nasman had been “a monster” and “a serious figure” within Hamas.

“So many of the brutal terrorists we encountered aspired to be like him. They were all evil, some at high levels and some at lower levels. Now they’re not talking about us on the phone. They’re burning together in the fires of hell… God willing, more will join them.”

The IDF said Nasman had previously served as commander of Hamas’s Al-Shati Battalion and as intelligence officer for the Gaza City Brigade, where he helped plan attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.

It added that in recent months he had been working to rebuild Hamas’s military capabilities by training fighters and overseeing the production and distribution of weapons for the brigade’s battalions.


Israel builds new barrier along Gaza’s ‘yellow line’
Israel’s military confirmed on Tuesday that it is constructing a physical barrier along the so-called “yellow line” in Gaza.

The confirmation came after the Associated Press presented the Israel Defense Forces with satellite imagery analyzed by the news agency. The military said that the project is part of a broader security zone aimed at preventing infiltration and protecting troops and nearby Israeli communities, outfitted with advanced intelligence and technological infrastructure.

Satellite imagery shows the barrier stretching more than 23 kilometers (14 miles) across Gaza, with a rapid expansion in recent months.

The military declined to detail the barrier’s full route or planned extent but said it is working to clearly mark the line, which was designated as a temporary boundary under a U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization which led the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

Imagery indicates continued expansion in both southern and central Gaza, including near Rafah and Khan Yunis, with additional segments in the north.


Embarrassment as Second Major Journalism Group Secretly Removes Terrorist Names From List of Slain ‘Journalists’ in Gaza: Group’s Woes Mirror Those of CPJ
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world's largest advocacy group for reporters, quietly removed, with no public acknowledgment, eight confirmed terrorists from its widely cited list of journalists killed in Gaza. The expurgations, revealed for the first time by the Washington Free Beacon, are raising fresh questions about the influential organization's credibility and repeated claims that "the Israeli army has deliberately targeted journalists."

Like the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists—a high-profile organization packed with anti-Israel personalities that's been consumed by infighting over its inclusion of active Palestinian militants on its own list of slain "journalists"—the IFJ's Gaza journalists list has been repeatedly used by major news organizations to discredit Israel's war operations.

The Brussels-based IFJ—the self-styled "global voice of journalists" claiming to represent "600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries"—administers a running tally of "journalists" killed in Gaza since Hamas's Oct. 7 terror spree. The organization claims to have "evidence" that Israel intentionally murders journalists. But at least eight names on its much-touted list disappeared between June 21 and July 9, according to new research from the media watchdog group HonestReporting, which noted that IFJ "has not issued a statement regarding this removal of names." CPJ engaged in a similar, secretive removal process, the Free Beacon first reported in May, prompting the embattled organization to announce shortly after that it is conducting a wholesale review of its list.

The latest findings are certain to raise questions about the lesser-known IFJ as its more prominent peer, CPJ, faces a torrent of criticism over its own list, which in some cases relied on IFJ's disputed findings. Both organizations have been widely cited in American and international media outlets, though virtually all of those publishers have been tight-lipped when faced with Free Beacon inquiries about their reliance on both groups. The IFJ's findings, for instance, have been featured in the Guardian, CNN, NBC News, the BBC, the Associated Press, Newsweek, Voice of America, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), AFP, and France24, among others. Only one of these outlets, CBC, responded to a request for comment on the credibility of IFJ's list or the recent removals, with the Canadian broadcaster saying that "we regularly assess the credibility of sources we cite."

HonestReporting, in a statement to the Free Beacon, said "it is likely no accident that IFJ removed names from its list in the same period as CPJ's acknowledgement."


Commentary Podcast: Breaking the Wave
Our friend Chris Stirewalt joins us to discuss the evidence that a democratic wave in November is not a done deal, the ever-increasing uncertainty surrounding Iran amid reports that centrifuges were moved into the fortified Pickaxe Mountain facility, and the scapegoating of Israel in an attempt to take heat off of Trump. Plus, new revelations about Abdul El-Sayed's half sister in the Free Beacon, and the creeping danger of left wing violence.







Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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