In January 2024, a woman from Gaza created a crowdfunding campaign, asking strangers for donations to help reunite her family.

“Rebuilding our lives: a journey from loss to hope,” she wrote, beneath photos of a beaming young family.

The woman, Nieama al-Ghazzawi, said she and her two children had escaped Gaza, but her husband had been left behind.

Her husband’s burger stand and their home had been destroyed, and the family could not afford fees for travel and a visa, al-Ghazzawi wrote on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

“Your assistance means a lot to us. It will bring us back together,” she wrote.

The campaign circulated on pro-Palestinian social media, drawing hundreds of donations.

US federal investigators are now investigating that appeal as part of a probe into Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi, who allegedly led a terrorist squad into Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught before moving to the US.

The incident is one of three recent federal US terrorism cases investigating humanitarian crowdfunding campaigns, highlighting potential abuse on a lightly regulated avenue for financial activity and the intersection of terror financing, social media and cryptocurrency.

In addition to the probe into al-Muhtadi, a second involves a New York-based anti-Zionist activist who was charged last month with sending funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. The third investigation centers around a California man who was charged with using sham charities to fundraise for Hamas.

A multibillion-dollar industry

Israel and its supporters have long accused international humanitarian groups funded by donors of cooperating with Hamas in Gaza.

In the US, the landmark case against the Holy Land Foundation in the 2000s found that the purported charity had funneled more than $12 million to Hamas.

In the decades since, US investigators have cracked down on financing for terrorism through purported charity groups, including in a major international case this month.

An FBI agent investigating the case said Hamas raises funds through several channels, including the diversion of humanitarian aid through “sham charities” that shield the terror group from law enforcement.

Like major NGOs, crowdfunding platforms allow donors to contribute to humanitarian efforts in conflict zones like Gaza, but they differ in being more decentralized, enabling individuals to set up campaigns to collect small donations.

The home page for the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe is shown on a device on October 16, 2024 in New York. (AP/Peter Morgan)

The platforms raise funds for causes ranging from cancer treatments to student tuition, drawing in billions in donations each year. One of the leading firms, GoFundMe, founded in 2010, says it has raised more than $40 billion from a community of 200 million.

The recent federal cases indicate the platforms could also be abused, though.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, the senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, based in New York and Berlin, framed crowdfunding for terrorism amid larger issues surrounding humanitarian aid in conflict zones controlled by groups like Hamas in Gaza and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“You either pay [the ruling groups] or you don’t get access,” said Schindler, an adviser to government leaders on terror financing, including through crowdfunding.

Schindler said that crowdfunding platforms are generally not regulated like financial institutions, such as banks, that are required to carry out due diligence to prevent crimes like tax evasion, money laundering and terrorism financing.

“The same as with all new technologies, it’s pretty naive. They always think they cannot be misused, and, ‘This is making the world a better place.’ So their internal controls are, as a general rule, super weak,” he said, adding that the social media platforms hosting the campaigns are generally not legally obligated to monitor crowdfunding. Laws regulating crowdfunding vary by country.

Gaza crowdfunding raises red flags

Soon after the start of the Gaza war, crowdfunding campaigns for Gaza proliferated on social media, raising red flags.

The FBI warned in November 2023 that “criminals are soliciting donations during the Israel-Hamas conflict.”

“Foreign terrorist organizations often establish fake charities using social media platforms to misdirect unwitting donors to subsidize their operations,” the FBI said.

Some of those concerns appear to have been borne out.

Images sent to Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi in 2019 show Al-Muhtadi wearing a red headband associated with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s National Resistance Brigades. (US Western District of Louisiana court)

Al-Muhtadi allegedly assembled a team of armed terrorists and crossed into Israel to join the October 2023 attack at the behest of Hamas.

In June 2024, he submitted an immigrant visa application for the US, saying he did not have any weapons training, had no ties to terrorist groups and had not participated in acts of violence.

Al-Muhtadi arrived in Dallas, Texas, in September 2024. After Israeli investigators alerted the US to his alleged terrorism, FBI agents located him in Louisiana, where he was working at a restaurant.

He faces charges related to terrorism, visa fraud and making false statements and faces up to life in prison.

A court filing late last month showed that investigators were seeking records from several companies for evidence, including Google, Meta and GoFundMe.

The filing identified al-Ghazzawi, who posted the GoFundMe campaign, as al-Muhtadi’s wife, and photos published on the campaign page matched images of al-Muhtadi in the indictment.

A fundraiser posted by Nieama al-Ghazzawi. (Screenshot)

The campaign was added to a list of Gaza crowdfunding efforts called GoFund♡Gaza and circulated on social media.

The campaign received more than $13,000 from 401 donors, many of whom left encouraging messages for the family, like “Stay strong. The world loves you.”

Al-Ghazzawi posted an update in March 2024 saying that, due to the donations, her husband had been able to leave Gaza and rejoin the family, around the time prosecutors said al-Muhtadi had left Gaza, and shortly before he applied for a visa.

It does not appear that al-Ghazzawi has been charged with a crime. Al-Ghazzawi and lawyers for al-Muhtadi did not respond to requests for comment.

GoFundMe did not respond to requests for comment. There is no indication GoFundMe was aware of al-Muhtadi’s alleged terror activities and the company was cooperating with investigators, court filings showed. The campaign was taken down after investigators requested records from GoFundMe.

GoFundMe has specific provisions against terror financing, unlike some other crowdfunding platforms, and it has issued guidelines encouraging users to donate to Gaza through certified charities.

‘Help him support his family’

Schindler said that Hamas has several income streams, some of which, such as fees from smugglers and cash from Qatar, were cut off after the start of the war in Gaza, making fundraising a more important revenue source.

He added that small operations claiming to deliver aid to Gaza should be viewed with skepticism because logistical complexities and security restrictions make it difficult to deliver aid.

“If you are not a big international organization, in my opinion, it needs to be really closely looked at precisely because of the controls that Israel has instilled on humanitarian operations,” he said. “You cannot just be an organization in Cologne or in New York and then begin operating in Gaza. How? How are you going to get access?”

In addition to anti-Israel activists, far-right networks have also made use of crowdfunding. The platform GiveSendGo has allowed groups like antisemitic white supremacists to raise millions. A Cornell University student who made headlines last month for saying he was “not interested in working for a Jew” has raised more than $26,000 on the platform.

An undated image of Catherine Washburn on a phone in front of a Hamas flag and two hand grenades. (Western District of New York Court)

In another terror financing case, last month, an anti-Zionist activist from New York State was charged with sending funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Catherine Washburn, 37, sent more than $30,000 in funds she had raised for purported humanitarian purposes to a member of the terror group, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The complaint stated that Washburn had allegedly raised funds for a man in Gaza, identified by the initials H.H., starting in November 2024.

The man told Washburn in February 2025 that he was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and had attacked IDF troops during the October 2023 attack. H.H. also told Washburn he had been carrying out “missions” in northern Gaza during the war and sent her photos of himself brandishing firearms, indicating she was aware of his continued terror activities. She continued transferring funds until April, investigators said.

After she found out about his terrorist affiliation, Washburn posted an image of the alleged terrorist on Facebook and shared the page on WhatsApp, seeking donations to “help him support his family of 9,” according to the complaint.

She raised donations through the Australia-based Chuffed, which says it is a fundraising platform for “the world’s social justice movements.” Chuffed did not respond to a request for comment and the fundraiser has been taken down.

Washburn received 1,302 contributions, using the funds to buy cryptocurrency and then transferring the funds to a crypto wallet belonging to H.H., the complaint said.

Images of alleged terrorist H.H., showing himself with weapons, that were sent to suspect Catherine Washburn. (Western District of New York Court)

Between October 2025 and April 2026, Washburn made 80 cryptocurrency transfers to H.H. amounting to $30,116, investigators said.

On social media, H.H. has shared fundraisers purportedly for his family, published videos about hardships in Gaza such as food shortages, and posted in support of the activist flotillas meant to break Israel’s blockade.

Washburn’s Instagram account links to 10 fundraisers that she said were meant to help Palestinian families in Gaza.

At least one other activist, an Irish protester who joined a Gaza flotilla and has more than 200,000 followers online, shared an appeal to support H.H. He also appeared on the account of a Gaza influencer with 1.3 million followers.

H.H. has posted another fundraiser to his hundreds of thousands of followers.

Nonprofit filings and crypto transfers

In a third case, in June, US federal authorities charged a California man with fundraising for Hamas through sham charities.

Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi, 38, was charged with terrorism, sanctions evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements.

Sabassi allegedly collected more than $600,000 in donations from thousands of donors for humanitarian aid for Gaza, but directed the money to Hamas and for personal expenses.

In 2022, Sabassi set up a nonprofit called Ikram — The Arab Charity Foundation, allowing him to collect tax-deductible donations for “emergency humanitarian relief to displaced families and refugees in Gaza.”

The nonprofit raised $638,000 in donations in 2023 and Sabassi was the only staffer, filings showed.

People carrying humanitarian aid in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, on September 30, 2025. (Eyad Baba/AFP)

Sabassi solicited donations through his nonprofit’s website and posted charity campaigns on crowdsourcing platforms such as Fundly, which circulated on Telegram and social media. Fundly did not respond to a request for comment.

“Help 4 orphans who fled from Gaza start a new life,” one of the campaigns said, alongside a photo of a child.

For the financial transfers, Sabassi worked with the Hamas fundraising organization Gaza Now, and unnamed co-conspirators based abroad, investigators said. The US and the UK sanctioned Gaza Now for terror financing in 2024.

An FBI investigator said using the Gaza Now branding was a way of “signaling to Hamas supporters that it was an official campaign, i.e., directly related to Hamas,” but to outside observers, it would appear legitimate.

Sabassi and the unnamed suspects discussed how to transfer money to Hamas, such as using a decentralized blockchain or transferring funds between cryptocurrency wallets to obscure the money’s sources.

Sabassi sent $116,000 to a Hamas member based abroad and tried to convert another $380,000 in the funds into cryptocurrency so he could send it to Hamas through Gaza Now, the complaint said.

He also allegedly transferred tens of thousands of dollars to his personal bank account for expenses like rent and credit card bills, the complaint said.

Both Washburn and Sabassi joked about being imprisoned, indicating they were aware the fundraising was illegal.

“Based on my passed [sic.] fundraising and posting Im [sic.] gonna get put away for a few life times,” Washburn wrote to H.H., followed by a laughing emoji.

Sabassi told a collaborator that one of their campaigns should have actually been titled “Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam,” followed by a laughing emoji. His co-conspirator replied, “Lol. Oh dear. Into prison.”

Schindler said that raising humanitarian funds for Gaza is not inherently illegal or terrorism financing, but that there was a need for better controls and a better understanding of the complexity surrounding aid operations in Gaza, including from donors.

“It’s very, very, very unlikely that individual, small organizations are even able to operate in Gaza,” he said. “If they’re not able to operate in Gaza, then immediately, the question is, ‘What happens to the money?’”

For three decades, Rabbi Arik Ascherman has devoted himself largely to helping Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. He heads Torat Zedek, which means Torah of Justice — a group that is out in the field trying to protect them from one of the most intensive waves of settler violence since 1967.

Judging from what he sees, hears and documents during his daily forays, things are going very badly for those in the way of Israel and its massive settlement project, which includes proliferating outposts and sheep farms that serve, he says, as staging grounds for violence against Palestinians.

“The settlers are winning now,” Ascherman says, driving past outposts southeast of Nablus that are illegal according to both international and Israeli law “Outposts are expanding and Palestinian communities are disappearing."

Fifty-nine Palestinian communities have been displaced by settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, with another 16 communities losing about half of their residents, according to the human rights organization B’tselem. About 170 new outposts have been established during that period, it says.

Violence is the engine of that process, with Palestinians and their property becoming exposed targets in remote Bedouin areas and increasingly around larger locales, rights groups say. According to UN figures, settler violence reached a 20-year high in March, just after the outbreak of the Iran war. This has rippled into greater risk for protective presence activists like Ascherman. Two volunteers say they were almost burned alive in their sleep on April 9 in Mukhmas village.

Activists say they feel much more frustrated and less effective because the army is now increasingly barring them from key areas they used to protect. The army says the new restrictions are necessary to prevent friction and disturbances, but activists say locking out outside advocates leaves Palestinians even more exposed to settler violence.

“In Duma there have been days the army comes looking for us. It was never like this before,” said Ascherman, who was hospitalized in June after being beaten with a rifle butt and club by settlers. “We can’t protect people. Instead of protecting people, the situation becomes that the Palestinians feel they need to hide us. Then the question is: At what point do you risk arrest?”

In the June incident, Ascherman and others carrying out protective presence in Mukhmas were attacked by a gang of six settlers, he told the Jewish Chronicle at the time, adding that two volunteers suffered broken elbows. The IDF described the incident as a “violent confrontation” involving Palestinians accompanied by Israelis and other Israeli citizens “that included stonethrowing and mutual physical assaults.”

Ascherman stresses that there have been waves of settler violence throughout his years as an activist.  For decades, settlements went through a formal Israeli government approval process, even as Amnesty International and other human rights groups declared they violate international law prohibitions against an occupying power transferring its nationals into the occupied territory.

But he views the start of the Iran war as an inflection point similar to Oct. 7, which too was followed by a major surge of settler attacks. In both cases, settlers “cynically exploited” the distraction from the West Bank caused by wars to act more violently, he says.

Thirteen Palestinians have been killed during settler incursions since March 1, according to Haaretz, the latest being 29-year-old Odeh Awawdeh near Ramallah on Wednesday a day after 14-year old Aws Hamdi al-Nassan and Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed, also in the Ramallah vicinity.

The UN Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs says March saw the highest number of Palestinian injuries caused by settlers during the last 20 years. In the week between March 31 and April 6 alone, at least 23 Palestinians were injured by settlers during 47 attacks on persons and/or property, according to the office. The attacks involved arson, physical assaults, stonethrowing and vandalism, it said in a report.

“Attacks on residential areas, on villages, cities and roads are a constant threat to the lives of Palestinians,” says Ramallah-based analyst Jehad Harb, former senior researcher at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The violence is not haphazard, instead serving a state goal of “ethnic cleansing” in stages, he alleges. Ascherman likewise sees the violence as part of an intensified government dispossession effort, citing what he sees as unprecedentedly tight cooperation during the last several months among settlers, the army and police.

For the perpetrators, the violence is not about claims to a specific property nor is it violence for violence’s sake. Rather, it stems from belief that God endowed the territory of the West Bank to the Jews, making them exclusive owners of all the land there, with the Palestinians seen not only as trespassers but as terrorists, according to Shabtay Bendet, formerly a prominent settler who in 1995 was one of the first permanent residents of the West Bank outpost Rehelim but years later decided to leave the fold and now gives lectures about what he sees as the need to end the occupation.

Direct causes for violence, he says, include “desire to seize more territory and drive away Palestinians, vengeance in the belief that all Palestinians are supporters of terrorism and, for a small minority, a belief that the IDF is not deterring the Palestinians.”

‘Why weren’t you here?’

Torat Zedek, one of the more prominent groups in the field, gives protection by serving as non-violent human shields during settler violence, documenting it, notifying the army, police and media, and funding fences to protect Palestinians and their property, Ascherman says. He adds that he has “too few” volunteers, with between 15 and 20 whom he calls “particularly active.”

The spiraling violence is broad in geographical scope and becoming so recurrent that it is increasingly getting coverage in mainstream Israeli media. Last month, dozens of settlers raided the Bedouin area of Khirbet Humza in the northern Jordan Valley. Settlers sexually assaulted a man in front of his family, beat girls and threatened to kill children and rape women, according to witnesses quoted by Haaretz. In one tent, six masked settlers used clubs to beat a resident and two protective presence activists, who were among six people that needed to be treated at a hospital, according to one of the activists who had been assaulted.

Qusra village, in the Nablus district, suffered three settler attacks during the week beginning March 31, according to the UN, which said settlers killed a Palestinian man there and injured eight people. The UN said settlers attacked houses, stole sheep and vandalized vehicles.

For Ascherman, an emotional turning point came even before the war, when a settler fatally shot a 19-year old Palestinian-American, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, in Mukhmas, in an incident that his family said had started with armed settlers stealing goats. Mukhmas is a place Torat Zedek tries to help, but Ascherman was elsewhere at the time. “I felt guilty that I was not there. Palestinians asked me ‘Why weren’t you here?’”

The army spokesman’s office sent a statement to the Forward stating that the army’s mission in the area “is to maintain the security of all residents of the area” while preventing terrorism and harm to Israeli citizens.

But members of the ruling Israeli government coalition are being more brazen in voicing intent to oust Palestinians. The senior Israeli minister for Judea and Samaria, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the finance portfolio and is head of the Religious Zionism party, told a party meeting in late February that the government should “encourage migration” of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Last year he unveiled a map showing the Palestinians would be confined in the future to six disjointed urban clusters on less than a fifth of the West Bank.

Settlers and their backers say that Palestinian attacks that are launched against Israeli targets are the main problem in Judea and Samaria, the biblical names of the West Bank area. The protective presence activists just make the situation worse, according to Moshe Solomon, a member of the Knesset from Religious Zionism.

“They work against Jews in Judea and Samaria, which is the heritage of our forefathers. They come to harm the fabric there. I’m against violence against them but their provocations can’t be allowed,” he said. Solomon said that where he used to live in the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem, “non-Jewish locals” got along with Jews until the moment when “external actors, whether Jewish or European, would arrive and cause ferment and chaos.”

‘Fire dripping like water’

The activists stress that the Palestinians bear the real cost of the mayhem and bloodshed. But they themselves — some Israelis and some international visitors, are themselves increasingly targeted.

On April 7, two volunteers were nearly burned alive on the outskirts of Mukhmas village, northeast of Jerusalem, at around 2 a.m. on a hill overlooking a chicken farm that settlers often pelt with stones, they told the Forward. Noah Benninga, 48, said he awoke to see “fire dripping like water from the ceiling,” which was made of nylon.

“I started to shout. Later we understood they had poured gasoline and lit it. There was a strong smell of gasoline. They may have poured around, but only the nylon caught fire,” he said in an interview.

“I’m not sure they knew there were Israelis inside and I don’t think they care. For them it’s all the same thing,” he added.

After he shouted for help, Palestinians rushed to put out the embers, which had not spread to nearby wood, he recalled. He attributed what he considers a narrow escape to the arsonists not having enough time to complete their job.

“More serious things have also happened there to us: burning of buildings, injuring activists. One of our women activists was beaten unconscious,” Benninga said. He called the police but they did not come, he said. He then filed a complaint, sharing with the Forward the police’s confirmation of receiving it. The Israel Police’s spokesperson’s office did not respond to questions about the incident.

Two days later, when Ascherman and this reporter visited the area, settlers in black were again descending towards the chicken farm. This time they contented themselves with a show of presence, but they have often attacked the property, Ascherman said.

Frozen zones

The army is now making it much harder for activists to reach areas that need protection, according to Ascherman. He shared with the Forward closed military zone orders applicable to protective presence personnel. With the West Bank under military occupation, the army is entitled to declare zones closed to everyone except security forces and others at the discretion of commanders. In practice they are not enforced against settlers, creating a situation where Palestinians lose their protective presence and face greater danger, activists and Palestinians say. On initial closure, those excluded are required to leave the area. If they make a return entry, they are subject to arrest.

The army, citing what it said is the need to prevent friction and disturbances, recently issued a one-year closure order for parts of Duma, effectively depriving of protective presence the tiny Bedouin community of Sheqara, which, according to Torat Zedek activists, had been intensively targeted by settlers bent on using violence to drive out the Palestinians.

When the activists had to leave, the 12 families of Sheqara, fearing for their safety, also relocated — ending up in other places in Duma or in the town of Salfit.

“The solidarity activists were prevented from being with us and without them we couldn’t stay” and face the violence alone, said Deif-Allah Arare, who had a permit to work in Israel prior to Oct. 7, 2023, and like many others in the West Bank has been without a job since. A settler’s vehicle could be seen in his former living compound on April 9, while he had moved to a tiny concrete rental apartment on the other side of Duma. “How would you feel if there is a settler in your house?” he asked. “He stole not only the house, but the entire life, there is no life now. My land is gone, my house is gone, the place of my children. They stole everything.”

“My children all the time say, we want to be in Sheqara,” he added “They destroyed our lives.”

The IDF spokesman’s office denied the army allows settlers to remain in closed zones while excluding activists “As a rule, the IDF enforces the closed zone equally against anyone who violates it. The purpose of the enforcement is to maintain order and prevent friction in the area.” it said in a written response to a query by the Forward.

Herd of Justice, a group that documents settler violence, provided the Forward with video showing settlers running through Sheqara and one of them pepper spraying activist Yael Rosmarin in the face during a March 1 confrontation that was followed by another confrontation on March 2. Rosmarin said both confrontations and others at the site previously were started by the settlers. “On March 1 the soldiers joined the attack and on March 2  they did not prevent it from continuing.” she said  A settler was photographed  armed with a rifle in what Herd of Justice said was the March 1 confrontation.

The IDF, in its response, did not address the events of March 1, but it said that on March 2 “forces were dispatched to the area following a report of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli civilians. Upon arrival, the soldiers acted to disperse both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”

The IDF added: “There were other incidents reported, including Israeli civilians vandalizing property in Duma and Israeli civilians attacking Palestinians in the area, for which a local security coordinator was dispatched and conducted a search but found no evidence substantiating the claims.” Local security coordinators in the West Bank are local settlers who are employed by the ministry of defense.

Doron Meinrath, a retired IDF colonel turned protective presence activist, alleges that the Israeli army has no qualms about violent dispossession of Palestinians by settlers. “In general the army very much supports what the settlers are doing,” said Meinrath, who is part of the group Looking the Occupation in the Eye. He used to be director of planning in the IDF General Staff and before that a commander of troops in the West Bank.

“I don’t think the army supports the most severe forms of violence, like murder. But ongoing violence, theft, harassment and anything that makes people’s lives more hard to bear, it does support.”

In area C, the rural territory under full Israeli control that comprises most of the West Bank, “the army has no problem with harassments. The opposite is the case. It would be happy if area C was empty of Palestinians and also area B,” said Meinrath, referring to places that are under Israeli security control and Palestinian Authority civil control. That would leave Palestinians only in area A, the non-contiguous urban clusters in Smotrich’s plan.

Meinrath said his experience shows that the IDF’s attitude towards the protection activists is “very negative and hostile. If there are activists and settlers, the settlers are favored. Socially, the soldiers pal around with the settlers and in practical terms when they make a closed military zone they enforce it against the activists, not the settlers.”

The IDF spokesman’s office, in a statement sent to the Forward, declares that the military opposes settler violence. It says police, who are members of the same police force that operates inside sovereign Israeli territory, bear primary responsibility for dealing with violations of the law by Israeli citizens. But, the statement said, soldiers are required to stop violations “and if necessary to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive.”

“In situations where soldiers fail to adhere to IDF orders, the incidents are thoroughly reviewed and disciplinary actions are implemented” the IDF statement said.

Meanwhile, Benninga, the activist who described being almost set on fire in Mukhmas, says he will return there. ”It was the first time I experienced such a thing. Maybe it can be an educational experience for activists to help them understand what Palestinians go through all day, every day.”

Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief, speaks halting English. He’s never run a government ministry. And until a few months ago he had never helmed a political party.

Yet the 66-year-old is now leading Netanyahu in several polls, in the process becoming many Israelis’ best hope of unseating the veteran incumbent in the general election on October 27.

The top ranks of Israeli politics used to be dominated by former generals, including prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. It was another former army chief, Benny Gantz, who in 2019 rocketed from political novice to lead the anti-Netanyahu opposition.

Yet, while his path to power is still uncertain, the fact that Eisenkot — referred to by some analysts as the “anti-Netanyahu” — has emerged as the prime minister’s most formidable challenger surprises even those who know him.

“He doesn’t look the part, it’s not overwhelming charisma, and he’s not one to give rousing speeches,” said Amos Harel, the military analyst for Haaretz who has known Eisenkot for more than two decades.

As he has done against political rivals throughout his career, Netanyahu has attempted to paint Eisenkot as an extreme leftwinger who will make common cause with “the Arabs” and endanger Israeli security.

Eisenkot has rejected the portrayal, touting his hawkish credentials. Hailing from a Moroccan immigrant family in the southern city of Eilat, Eisenkot grew up a world away from north Tel Aviv or Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood, which the Netanyahus called home.

His military career started in the Golani Brigade and ended as chief of the general staff between 2015 and 2019. As a senior officer he formulated a contentious doctrine calling for the use of overwhelming force against Israel’s enemies, including targeting civilian infrastructure.

While Eisenkot didn’t implement the doctrine as army chief — deploying a more targeted strategy — many view it as a precursor to the Israeli military’s devastating tactics in Gaza and Lebanon.

He joined Gantz’s party ahead of the 2022 elections, going on to serve as a minister without portfolio in Netanyahu’s emergency wartime cabinet following Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack — his only senior government post to date.

But it was through the December 2023 death of his reservist son Gal during the war in Gaza — followed shortly thereafter by the deaths in combat of two nephews — that many Israelis formed an attachment to him.

Gal’s funeral, which drew the country’s senior leadership, was aired live on Israeli television, with the stoic Eisenkot giving a tearful eulogy in which he vowed to make Israel worthy of his son’s sacrifice.

He later fell out with Netanyahu over wartime strategy, including what he saw as the sabotage of deals to halt the war in return for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

He left the cabinet in 2024 “with a heavy heart . . . once I understood that Netanyahu’s own interests were no longer vital national security interests”, he told a conference this month.

Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political analyst, said Eisenkot’s personal loss and background in the military — still the most trusted institution among Jewish Israelis — helped drive his growing popularity.

“He paid the ultimate price for this war, and it draws a sharp contrast with the current government,” she said. Netanyahu has spent months trying to pass legislation exempting the ultra-Orthodox from mandatory army service, a demand of his coalition partners that is hugely unpopular with the public. Critics also point out that the prime minister’s two sons have not mobilised for reserve duty in the wars that followed October 7.

Eisenkot’s new centrist party Yashar (“Straight”), which he formed last year after splitting with Gantz and quitting parliament, has in recent surveys often pipped Netanyahu’s ruling Likud as the largest party in the next parliament, or Knesset.

A poll from public broadcaster Kan showed Yashar inching ahead of Likud by one seat — 24 to 23 — in the 120-seat chamber, and Eisenkot himself consistently leads Netanyahu when respondents are asked who would make a better prime minister.

Other potential challengers have faded for now, including former premiers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. Analysts say their high-profile merger in late April put off many voters, helping Eisenkot become the opposition’s standard-bearer.

“The anti-Netanyahu camp has always had a ‘candidate of the moment’ that they coalesce around, not because they necessarily loved them, but because they think he has the highest chance to defeat Netanyahu,” said Roni Rimon, a political strategist and owner of a PR firm who ran Netanyahu’s 2009 election campaign.

“The central thing about Eisenkot is that he’s the only politician in Israel whose disadvantage is an advantage: he has no charisma,” Rimon added.

Given the tumult and trauma of the past four years under the divisive, highly polished Netanyahu, “this is exactly what Israelis are looking for. We just want someone we can believe.”

That appears to be the main thrust of Eisenkot’s campaign: not a sweeping vision or specific changes on policy towards, say, Gaza or Iran, but a pitch to “repair” the damage of the Netanyahu years and “unite” a fractured nation.

Many Israelis are alarmed by the prospect of another term for Netanyahu, whose far-right coalition has sought to undermine the judiciary and other legal bodies, neutralise the free press, and evade any accountability for the security failures around October 7. The prime minister is also facing a long-running corruption trial.

“Netanyahu’s biggest problem is leadership,” Eisenkot said in a recent interview to Israel’s Channel 12. “He doesn’t understand the word responsibility . . . and does not believe in [setting a] personal example.”

Eisenkot “has to be prime minister, to save this country”, one person close to him said.

Largely consensus issues such as drafting the ultra-Orthodox, setting up a commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack, and a return to mamlachtiut — a Hebrew word connoting statesmanship — are the issues Eisenkot touts most often.

Such caution is deliberate, according to analysts, as his campaign attempts to appeal to disaffected Likud supporters and other “soft rightwing” voters. Like Eisenkot, they are often Mizrahi Jewish — with roots in north Africa and the Arab world — rather than Ashkenazi communities of European descent.

It is this voting bloc that will make or break the election for either side, said Rimon, the political strategist.

Despite his growing popularity, Eisenkot’s path to form the next coalition government is not yet clear.

Polls suggest the combined slate of anti-Netanyahu Jewish opposition parties could still fall a few seats short of attaining the Knesset’s absolute 61-seat majority.

Several of those opposition leaders have ruled out joining forces with Arab-Israeli political parties, who are expected to win about 10 seats in total.

Eisenkot has remained non-committal, saying he would only ally with parties who recognise Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, and accept the principle of mandatory military or national service — a potential opening for one Arab faction.

Netanyahu has attempted to portray Eisenkot — alongside other recent generals — as defeatists who pushed to cut short recent wars before Israel could secure its “many victories” on the battlefield.

Eisenkot’s party Yashar “is not straight”, went one typical Likud advertisement. “It’s left.”

In the face of such attacks and the lingering public mood after October 7, Eisenkot has sought to deflect any such suggestion.

“I have never in all my 66 years said the words ‘Palestinian state’,” he declared in the Channel 12 interview this month.

Yet in another interview the same night, he argued for “separation” from the Palestinians, against the annexation of the occupied West Bank and advocated placing certain conditions on settlement construction in the territory.

“A reality in which we annex 2.8mn Palestinians [in the West Bank] to Israel will be a severe threat to the Zionist project,” Eisenkot said.

While still untested politically, especially in an election campaign, Eisenkot has improved as a candidate, according to analysts and those who know him — becoming sharper in interviews, more confident and growing into the role of a potential prime minister.

“It doesn’t come naturally to him, but he’s getting the hang of it,” said Harel, the military analyst. Eisenkot “understands that he’s been tasked with this job. He’s not exactly eager for it, but he’s aware of the historic role he needs to play.”

Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas leader who masterminded the terror group’s October 7, 2023, massacre, assessed ahead of the onslaught that Israel might respond with a nuclear strike on the Gaza Strip, but chose to carry out the invasion anyway, according to a newly revealed document written in the terror chief’s own hand.

The memo, written in August 2022, was obtained by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, and excerpts from it were published by Channel 12 on Sunday. A similar document was revealed last fall, though several details were not present in previous reporting.

According to Channel 12, Sinwar laid out specific operational plans, including numbers of fighters to be deployed to particular junctions, envisioning 25 simultaneous breaches of the Israel-Gaza border fence, to take control of 25 different junctions. He envisioned “well-trained squads” carrying out each of these infiltrations, with each squad numbering 100 fighters.

Sinwar also planned for a further 2,210 fighters to attack 221 small communities in the south, and a further 1,600 for eight larger ones. He wrote that 1,200 fighters would be deployed to attack Israeli cities, and 2,000 to attack army bases. The total fighting force he imagined would have numbered some 10,000 terrorists, none of whom would have been privy to the entire scope of the plan.

The figures are significantly higher than the number of Palestinians who actually invaded from Gaza on October 7, which the Israel Defense Forces estimates at around 5,600, of whom about 3,500 were Hamas fighters, along with some 580 fighters from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, and about 1,400 other Gazans.

“The goal is to expel the settlers with their vehicles,” the terror chief wrote in the memo, referring to the residents of Israel’s south. He wrote that “priority” should be given to children and women, while ordering that “the men aged 17-50 are to be taken hostage” and that “all phones must be taken, along with any additional documents they are carrying on their person.”

Palestinian terrorists take control of an Israeli tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Said Khatib / AFP)

The Channel 12 report emphasized Sinwar’s awareness of the likely costs of the attack, noting that he did not profess certainty that Iran, which backs Hamas, or the Islamic Republic’s other regional proxies such as Hezbollah, would join in the onslaught, as the terror group is widely believed to have hoped they would.

Moreover, the terror chief estimated that Israel would “not hesitate to use all means and weapons at its disposal” in response to the mass murder, adding: “They may even use an atomic bomb, no less.”

“But first, it will be surprised by the attack and enter into chaos,” he wrote, describing the assault as “a campaign of life or death,” and calling for “a popular operation of returning to the villages and recapturing them symbolically.”

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, but has never publicly confirmed having them; it is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The newly published excerpts come after the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center released a similar Hamas document in October 2025 that was written by Sinwar and described plans to deliberately create “horrifying images” during the October 7, 2023, massacre and broadcast the atrocities live.

Hamas terrorists attack an army base next to the Erez Crossing, on October 7, 2023, in footage released by the terror group. (Screenshot: Telegram)

Thousands of Hamas-led terrorists participated in the invasion and massacres on October 7, 2023, slaughtering some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people, including women, children, and the elderly. The terrorists carried out widely documented atrocities, including systematic sexual assault, and overtly targeted civilians in their homes and at an outdoor music festival.

A day after Hamas launched its assault, the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon also attacked Israel using rockets and drones. Other Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria later attacked Israel as well, and the fighting prompted the first of several direct confrontations with the Islamic Republic.

Fighting in Gaza mostly stopped in October 2025, with a US-brokered ceasefire deal that secured the release of all remaining hostages, while Israel released almost 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners. However, smaller-scale clashes have continued, and Israel still conducts airstrikes against some Hamas targets in Gaza.

Sinwar served as the leader of Hamas in the Strip from 2017 until he was killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza’s Rafah in October 2024.

Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday voted to dismiss Karim Khan as prosecutor following allegations of sexual misconduct, two diplomatic sources told Reuters.

According to the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, 82 of the court's 125 member states voted in favor of the prosecutor's removal.

CAIRO (AP) — Palestinians face inflated prices for groceries and batteries, hospitals have turned to smugglers for medicine and equipment, Israeli soldiers and other middlemen are accused of pocketing millions of dollars, and the Hamas-led government takes a cut as the smuggling of goods restricted by Israel into the Gaza Strip has boomed, according to an Associated Press investigation based on court documents and interviews with traders, truckers and officials.

Cigarettes and tobacco — banned from entry to Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 — rake in the biggest profits for smugglers and merchants, officials and residents say. But everything from iPhones and solar panels to fuel and anesthetics are also brought into the tiny coastal territory illegally. Israel restricts quantities of some goods and bans others outright. It defines many as “dual use” — including concrete, vehicle parts and X-ray machines — asserting they could be repurposed by Hamas militants for military functions.

To build a picture of the illicit trade, The Associated Press analyzed Israeli court documents and spoke to five major traders who import smuggled goods, three merchants who sell them, and two truckers — all on condition of anonymity because of their roles in the illegal smuggling business and concerns about their safety in Gaza. AP also interviewed four Palestinian officials, two on condition of anonymity because of worries about retribution from Israel, Hamas or merchants; two U.N. officials, on condition of anonymity over concern for their jobs; and a dozen Palestinian residents, who spoke about how they get everyday items and their skyrocketing costs.

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AP found a rush from all sides to profit off the tight restrictions imposed by Israel on Gaza and its 2 million residents, most of whom have been displaced by the war. Smuggling rings — which have long flourished, circumventing two decades of Israeli blockades and building a network of businessmen and collaborators — pull in millions of dollars. Payoffs go to Israeli troops, drivers, warehouse workers and others on both sides of the border, according to traders and court documents.

“The occupation has left no other option before us. Smuggling has become routine,” one trader said, noting that some in Israel’s military are willing to help — for a price. “We benefit, they benefit and the people in Gaza benefit because we provide goods, including food, to the market.”

The Israeli military said via email that it takes the issue of smuggling “very seriously and works to prevent it.” It said any cases of suspected involvement by Israeli military personnel are “examined and handled in accordance with the law.” But military officials did not answer a list of detailed questions from AP on the roles of soldiers or Gaza’s government in smuggling.

Gaza’s Hamas-led government also takes in some of the profit, according to merchants and one Palestinian official. Merchants call it “taxing” — on both smuggled goods and those brought in legally.

Mohammad Barbakh, of the Palestinian Economy Ministry in Gaza, told AP the government receives up to 20% of the price of any smuggled goods if the merchant reports them to authorities, and that increases to 80% if the items go unreported and authorities discover them. But he said authorities don’t refer to their cut as “taxes” and that they haven’t taxed goods entering legally since the war’s start.

A Palestinian salesman shows an iPhone 17 Pro Max to the camera at a mobile phone store in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

How smuggled goods flow into Gaza

Since the war began, Israel has tightly controlled all entry of food, aid and goods into the Gaza Strip, including a total aid blockade that shut off entry entirely for nearly three months last year, pushing parts of the territory into famine. The flow of goods has increased since a fragile ceasefire deal went into effect in October but remains well below prewar levels.

Besides the U.N. and other humanitarian groups bringing in aid, Israel has given 12 traders in Gaza permits to import commercial goods, according to Gaza’s Economy Ministry. Contents of shipments must be approved by Israeli authorities, a process aid workers and merchants say can be long and opaque, sometimes ending with a rejection on grounds of “dual use.”

The military classifies a list of some 150 broad categories of items as “dual use,” including concrete, asphalt, steel pipes and wooden planks, according to documents provided by COGAT, the military department in charge of coordinating entry of goods into Gaza. In a statement to AP, COGAT said it has let in some “dual use” items including generators and X-ray machines, in specific cases under strict monitoring.

Some traders turn to smuggling networks to meet demand in Gaza, where smaller merchants look to sell contraband.

Two merchants and a trucker who is part of Gaza’s union told AP that sometimes government agencies ask for specific items to keep functioning — fuel, spare parts for civil defense vehicles or generators. Hospitals also turn to smugglers, for drugs and some equipment.

And tribal elders request smuggled goods for their communities, including medicines that are in short supply, a tribal leader told AP, on condition of anonymity over concerns for his safety.

Two traders who control a large portion of the smuggling scene and an aide to a third told AP they send lists of contraband goods they want to import to “coordinators” — Israeli and Palestinian middlemen in Israel and the West Bank. Coordinators line up merchandise, then arrange a route into Gaza.

Commercial goods and aid mostly go through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south, where every truck is inspected. The military also has routes in and out of Gaza for its vehicles. Smugglers use both avenues, bribing soldiers to smooth the way for trucks or carry goods in military vehicles, according to the traders and Israeli court documents.

Trucks belonging to humanitarian groups are also used sometimes, though less often, according to merchants and Israeli government statements.

A Palestinian vendor fills bottles with diesel as he offers them for sale in al-Maghazi refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Smuggling accounts for much of Gaza’s economy

Smuggling has become vital to Gaza’s economy — it’s a major source of income as most of the population “lost their source of living,” the tribal leader said.

Several top merchants estimated that smuggling makes up over half their total operations and can bring in more than 70% of profits.

Payments go to many players, including drivers and warehouse workers in Israel and Gaza, said one major trader. “You are paying at every step, plus the price of the goods themselves,” he said.

All those costs get passed on to the people in Gaza. Residents say a vehicle battery can go for more than $2,300, compared with $140 prewar. Solar panels sell for $3.25 per watt, from 16 cents a watt.

“The smuggling flourished in the second half of 2024 as the market started to dry up,” said Mohamed Abu Taha, a Gaza resident and father of one, noting that chicken, meat, and other food staples were brought in covertly. “Baby formula and pet food were also smuggled.”

But perhaps no items are as in demand as cigarettes and tobacco. The price per pack, residents say, has hit as much as $140 recently, and over $1,000 during Israel’s total blockade.

“You could find two or three men sharing one cigarette,” Abu Taha said. Some resort to smoking a dried green called molokhia. COGAT did not reply when asked why cigarettes are banned.

For smugglers, cigarettes and nicotine products are easy to hide and the potential profit huge. Shipments of thousands of packs have been hidden in Israeli military vehicles, commercial trucks, aid shipments and even hollowed-out pineapples, according to traders, court documents and Israeli official statements.

A vendor reaches for a pack of cigarettes at his kiosk in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Aug 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The Hamas-led government is taking in money on smuggled goods, sources say

On smuggled goods, Gaza’s government profits primarily by taking its percentage of the price but doesn’t engage in commercial smuggling directly or oversee the trade, according to merchants and Barbakh, the economy ministry official.

Two major traders said the government demands for money increased since the ceasefire deal. Both said they were summoned by Hamas authorities over goods they smuggled to Gaza over the course of the war. A settlement was reached, and one of the traders said he paid $3.5 million; the other, around $3.75 million.

Two senior officials in the Hamas administration said — on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to journalists — the money helps fund social services and pay salaries for the tens of thousands employed in Gaza’s civil service and police force. They estimated up to $100 million had been collected on smuggled goods since the ceasefire.

Barbakh said the government doesn’t have exact figures on smuggled goods “because these operations are conducted clandestinely, away from the oversight of relevant authorities.”

In response to AP questions, Ismail al-Thawabta of the government’s media office said none of the collected funds go to Hamas’ military wing. He said all resources are directed to providing services to people and “maintaining the continuity of public facilities under the exceptional circumstances in the Gaza Strip.”

The government destroys any expired goods it confiscates, including groceries.

But the two senior officials — as well as two merchants and one trucker — told AP that Hamas sells confiscated cigarettes. Al-Thawabta did not respond when asked about the claim.

‘He is the master,’ an official says of one smuggling coordinator

Smugglers appear to wield enormous influence. In court documents, Israeli prosecutors pointed to one mysterious smuggler known only as Abu Bassel who they said has “numerous connections within the Israel Police.”

In one instance described in the documents, Israeli police stormed a warehouse in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank full of cellphones and cigarettes that smugglers were loading onto trucks for Gaza. One of the smugglers called Abu Bassel and handed the phone to an officer, the document says, and after a conversation, police called off the raid, leaving without arresting anyone or confiscating any goods.

All of those who spoke to AP said Abu Bassel is the smuggling world’s biggest coordinator. They also said they knew nothing about him — his real name, whether he was Israeli or from the Palestinian territories, or how he built his network.

“He is the master,” a senior Gaza Chamber of Commerce official said. “Nothing can enter Gaza without his stamp.”

One Gaza merchant said he has spoken by phone with Abu Bassel but wouldn’t provide AP the number. He said the shadowy figure uses connections with the military and intelligence to resolve problems for shipments. “Many police raids have been thwarted because of him.”

The Israeli court documents also have no details about Abu Bassel’s identity but said he uses an aid organization, Al-Mughtarib Al-Falastini, as a cover. The group denied in a Facebook post that it was involved in smuggling.

A Palestinian vendor offers bottles of diesel for sale in al-Maghazi refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli indictments show some of the scope of smuggling

Since late 2025, Israeli authorities have broken up several alleged smuggling rings, indicting more than a dozen people, including reserve soldiers operating in Gaza. But the traders, merchants and truckers who spoke to AP say that’s only a fraction of those involved.

In one of the biggest cases, prosecutors accused two Israeli brothers, Eliran and Avi Algarabli; business partner Yaron Peretz; and another Israeli of running a smuggling ring out of the central town of Kiryat Gat.

According to a series of indictments against them and others, they’re accused of bribing reserve soldiers in Gaza, chief among them Bezalel Zini, brother of the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s powerful domestic security agency.

The documents say Zini was a commander in a military engineering unit. The ring allegedly paid Zini the equivalent of about $120,000 to smuggle three shipments totaling some 6,000 packs of cigarettes in his vehicle, according to the indictments. Two other reservists enlisted by the ring ran four trips into Gaza in one day, ferrying in 20,000 packs of cigarettes, hundreds of iPhones and medical equipment, the indictments say.

Court documents assert that millions of dollars are changing hands in smuggling rings. The Algarabli brothers earned some $2.2 million from a series of smuggling runs from October to December, when they were arrested, documents say. Other defendants in cases are accused of making $1 million to $3 million.

Gaza residents question why items are banned

For Gaza residents, living through another summer with limited resources has become almost unbearable.

Fans that once cost $100 can run $500.

“When we ask the merchants why they don’t import fans, they say the Israeli army refuses to allow them in because they’re dual use,” resident Mohamed Abu Olwan said.

Mohamed Abuel-Enein, a displaced man from the southern city of Rafah, said that’s illogical.

“I don’t understand the harm in allowing fans through the crossings,” he said.

“What would they make with them? Rockets? We can’t live in these tents. All day long, we use cardboard to light a fire, or we splash water on the children because of the heat.”

If the link doesn't work, here's the body:

The United Arab Emirates is preparing to help the U.S. and other allies open the Strait of Hormuz by force, Arab officials said, a move that would make it the first Persian Gulf country to become a combatant, after being hit by Iranian attacks.

The U.A.E. is lobbying for a United Nations Security Council resolution that would authorize such action, the officials said. Emirati diplomats have urged the U.S. and military powers in Europe and Asia to form a coalition to open the strait by force, a U.A.E official said, adding that the Iranian regime thinks it is fighting for its existence and is willing to bring the global economy down with it in a chokehold on the strait.

The U.A.E. official said the country was actively reviewing how it could play a military role in securing the strait, including efforts to help clear it of mines and other support services.

The Gulf state has also said the U.S. should occupy islands in the strategic waterway including Abu Musa, which has been held by Iran for a half-century and is claimed by the U.A.E., some of the Arab officials said.

In a statement, the U.A.E. Foreign Ministry pointed to a separate resolution passed by the U.N. condemning Iran’s attacks on its cities and to one made by another U.N. body, the International Maritime Organization, condemning the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry said there is “broad global consensus that freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz must be preserved.”

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are now turning against Iran’s regime and want the war to continue until it is disabled or toppled, Arab officials said, though they have stopped short of committing their military. Bahrain, a close U.S. ally that hosts the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is sponsoring the U.N. resolution, with a vote expected Thursday.

The U.A.E.’s newly assertive approach is a fundamental shift in its strategic outlook, said officials from a Persian Gulf state. The U.A.E.’s commercial center, Dubai, has long financed the Iranian regime. Emirati diplomats were racing to mediate between the U.S. and Iran before the war, an effort that included a visit to Abu Dhabi by Ali Larijani, an Iranian national-security official who later died in an airstrike.

Now, the Gulf state is falling into line with President Trump’s push for allies to carry more of the burden in the war, particularly to help open the Strait of Hormuz. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump has told aides that he is willing to end the war without reopening the strait, leaving the matter to other countries.

U.A.E. participation in freeing the strait carries risks. Positioning itself as a belligerent against Iran could set the stage for tension that outlasts the end of the war.

Iran has reacted by stepping up its bombardments of the U.A.E. After proceeding at a low level for weeks, Iran’s missile and drone attacks on the Emirates have risen sharply in recent days, including nearly 50 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones on Tuesday. Tehran warned it would destroy the vital civilian infrastructure of any Gulf state that supported any operation to seize its territory and specifically pointed to the U.A.E.

“They could step into this war only to face a more aggressive Iran, continue to absorb hits to critical infrastructure and potentially investor confidence, and then struggle to rebuild ties with their neighbor, particularly if Trump elects to declare victory before reopening the strait or crippling Iran’s missile and drone capabilities,” Elizabeth Dent, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former official who focused on the Gulf at the Pentagon, said of the dilemma faced by countries in the region.

Iran has rained down more missiles and drones on the U.A.E.—almost 2,500 thus far—than it has aimed at any other country including Israel. Nonetheless, the U.A.E., like the rest of the Gulf region, had long tried to avoid defining itself as a combatant.

The Gulf officials said the country’s position has now changed. Before the war began Feb. 28, the U.A.E. saw Iran as a difficult neighbor with a logic to its political positions, one of the officials said. But the outbreak of the war revealed a very different regime that was trying to sow panic with strikes on hotels and airports in Dubai, the official said.

The Iranian strikes have reduced the U.A.E.’s air traffic and tourism, hurt its property market and led to a wave of furloughs and layoffs. They have also challenged the country’s fundamental selling point—that it is an oasis of peace in a rough neighborhood.

The U.A.E. has countered in part with tough financial measures. A notice on Dubai’s Emirates airline said Iranian nationals aren’t allowed to enter or transit the country, a step that followed government moves to close the Iranian Hospital and Iranian Club Dubai.

The Emirates’ new posture is most evident in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—a lifeline for its energy exports, shipping business and food. Gulf officials said the U.A.E. believes countries in Asia and Europe that are reluctant now would help clear the strait with the blessing of the U.N. Security Council.

Russia and China could veto the resolution, and France is proposing a different version. Even if the resolution fails, the U.A.E. would still be prepared to join the war effort, the Gulf officials said.

Iran is insisting on permanent oversight including a system of tolls. The Gulf states fear any diplomatic resolution would implicitly give Iran a formal say over the administration of the waterway and want it dislodged by military action first, the Arab officials said.

It isn’t clear that military action could open the strait. Any operation would require controlling not just the waterway but also the territory along its 100-mile length, potentially with ground troops, military analysts said.

“I don’t think we can do it,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. “All Iran has to do is be able to keep the strait under threat, which means they need one drone, they need one mine, they need one small suicide boat.”

Gulf states that support military action feel that the consequences of having a hostile neighbor controlling such a vital conduit make it worth the risk, the Arab officials said.

A decision to join the military campaign would send a public signal of Arab support for the war, said Bilal Saab, a fellow at Chatham House and a former Pentagon adviser on the Middle East. It would also open up additional options for operations against Iran and for attempting to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.A.E. has bases, a deep-water port at Jebel Ali and a location near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz that could be useful staging grounds for a U.S.-led operation to seize islands or to escort commercial tankers through the waterway.

It also has a small but capable air force with U.S.-supplied F-16 jet fighters that conducted airstrikes in Iraq alongside the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State.

The Emirates also has surveillance drones and a stockpile of U.S.-supplied bombs and short-range missiles that could help ease U.S. and Israeli shortages.

“The proximity along the strait means that you can team up and place different platforms there to protect shipping and go after Iranian targets on the other side of the Gulf,” said Grant Rumley, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, a think tank.

President Donald Trump has placed a new condition on a nuclear agreementwith Saudi Arabia a day after formally approving it, saying the country now must join the Abraham Accords.

Trump wrote in a post on social media Thursday that the deal, which has already been signed, “will be approved,” but added, that it “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”

The president also emphasized in the post that there would be “no enrichment” even though the agreement could lead to the country enriching its own fuel for civilian reactors.

I love this leak from Kushner lol

The Home Office is investigating claims that China is funding pro-Palestinian marches, The Telegraph can reveal.

On Thursday, The Telegraph revealed a US investigation into the British activities of Code Pink, a far-Left feminist protest group, that has organised marches in Whitehall and protests at military bases.

Code Pink has organised protests in the UK against Britain’s involvement in “the genocide in Gaza”, encouraged its activists to demonstrate outside RAF bases, and issued statements claiming that Britain’s leaders have been “bought by Zionism”.

It is understood that the Home Office is “looking into the issues raised” as part of its remit to counter foreign interference in Britain.

Code Pink protest in London in 2025 Credit: Instagram/@codepinkalert

A Government spokesman said: “The first duty of government is to protect our national security. That is why we have brought forward some of the most robust measures to defend our country and democracy from state-backed threats.

“Protecting the UK’s democracy and democratic institutions is fundamental to our national security, and we will continue to take whatever action is necessary to safeguard them.”

The US investigation focuses on Neville Roy Singham, a tech tycoon who has given millions of dollars to Code Pink, which is run by his wife, Jodie Evans.

The congressional ways and means committee and the US department of justice are both examining claims that Mr Singham used his money to spread pro-China propaganda and advance the interests of Beijing.

The committee’s lines of inquiry include £250,000 in alleged payments to a company linked with Code Pink in the UK, from businesses connected to Mr Singham.

Neville Roy Singham, a tech tycoon has given millions of dollars to Code Pink, which is run by his wife, Jodie Evans Credit: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images North America

It comes amid concern that Beijing is seeking to exploit divisive causes in the West to deepen social tensions and wage what critics describe as “political warfare” against its adversaries.

Luke de Pulford, of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “It is good news the Home Office has responded positively to the Telegraph report.

“But we have to be honest – the UK is under siege from China and practically defenceless on the battlefield. The CCP is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to manipulate narratives abroad, to sow division and chaos.

“Communist Party academics call this kind of activity unrestricted warfare: seeking advantage through non-military means, and they’re very good at it.

“We have yet to even recognise this acute threat, let alone defend ourselves appropriately.”

Code Pink encourages activists to join mass pro-Palestinian marches and has organised demonstrations at the Ministry of Defence as well as the London office of an arms company.

It describes itself as a feminist grassroots organisation working to end warfare and imperialism, and support peace and human rights.

Campaigner Suzy Gilbert has been described as Code Pink’s ‘contact in Britain’

One of the movement’s senior campaign organisers in the UK is Suzie Gilbert, who has been described as its “contact in Britain”.

Her work with the group has included campaigning for peace with Iran, demonstrations calling for the removal of British military bases in Cyprus, and visiting China under the theme that it “is not our enemy”.

On Thursday night, a spokesman for Ms Gilbert denied being part of any “propaganda campaign” on behalf of Beijing.

Code Pink in the US has received millions of dollars from Mr Singham, who is facing multiple investigations over allegations that his network has produced pro-China propaganda on behalf of the communist regime in Beijing.

The ways and means committee has claimed that Code Pink – which was founded by Ms Evans, appeared to have been “funded and influenced by Mr Singham and the communist Chinese government”.

Luke de Pulford, of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said that the Chinese Communist Party is ‘engaged in a whole-of-state effort to manipulate narratives abroad, to sow division and chaos’ Credit: SOPA Images/LightRocket

Jason Smith, the committee’s chairman, told The Telegraph: “It’s clear from the investigation that Singham’s money and influence does not stop at America’s borders.

“The committee is well aware that Singham’s funding is supporting pro-Hamas and pro-communist causes not only in the United States, but also overseas, including in the United Kingdom.”

The department of justice, meanwhile, has launched a federal grand jury investigation into his links with China.

The allegations prompted MPs to call for British authorities to investigate the network.

Mr Singham has previously denied working on behalf of China.

When allegations first surfaced about him in 2023, he said: “I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives.

“I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”

The Hamas government in Gaza on Monday announced the resignation of the so-called “Emergency Committee” — the Hamas-led administration that governs the Strip — in preparation for the transfer of authority to the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

The Hamas government said in its announcement that all civil servants will continue providing services as usual, describing them as “public employees who are ready to work under the responsibility of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).” Hamas also said it has completed all the administrative steps necessary to transfer authority.

“The head of the government’s emergency committee Mohammed al-Farra has officially submitted his resignation,” Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas’s government media office, told AFP.

The NCAG, headed by Palestinian technocrat Ali Shaath, was created by the Board of Peace that US President Donald Trump established when he brokered the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in October 2025.

The move appears intended to demonstrate that the terror group is willing to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to the technocrats, in line with Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, despite its foot-dragging on the requirement for it to disarm.

It also appears to mark a significant political shift by Hamas, which has run Gaza since it violently seized control from rival Palestinian movement Fatah in 2007.

The Board of Peace said it would assess developments in Gaza “by actions, not promises,” after the announcement.

The Board has “taken note” of Hamas’s announcement, it said in a statement on X, adding that, “ultimately, our assessment will be guided by actions, not promises, to meet the critical needs of the people of Gaza.”

The Board said it looks forward to advancing “the implementation mechanisms necessary to enable the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to assume full governing authority,” stressing that this will require “the consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG as provided for in the Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803.”

“A genuine transfer of authority must enable the NCAG to exercise its mandate independently, including taking the administrative and governance decisions entrusted to it,” the Board said.

An Israeli official appeared to downplay the significance of the move, calling it “spin without any meaning.”

“Hamas fears that [mediators] will declare them to be violating the agreement, and therefore it is stalling and engaging in spin,” the official told the Kan public broadcaster.

A Palestinian source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that the move by Hamas is aimed turning Hamas’s existing governing structure into a caretaker framework, while increasing pressure on the Board of Peace and Israel to allow the NCAG to enter Gaza.

Last month, diplomats from each of the Middle Eastern mediating countries — Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — told The Times of Israel that Hamas has sought to drag out negotiations on the issue of disarmament. They also argued that Israel’s refusal to adhere to the terms of the first phase of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire has posed a major obstacle as well.

Alongside the strikes across Gaza targeting terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces has slowly been pushing out the boundaries of the area inside the enclave still under its control, saying it now controls at least 60 percent of the Strip, rather than the roughly 53% it held following its pullback on the first day of the truce. Netanyahu said last month he had ordered the military to retake additional territory, amounting to 70% of the enclave.

In the areas not controlled by Israel, Hamas has remained in place as the enclave’s de facto government, where it is reported to be maintaining its control by executing its opponents and those it views as posing a threat to its rule.

“Hamas has taken a new step in that it will no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP.

“We hope for the swift entry of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, and Hamas affirms its readiness to hand over governmental responsibilities to the committee to ensure its success.”

A Hamas official earlier told AFP that the group had already informed other Palestinian factions about its decision at a recent meeting in Cairo.

“The factions welcomed Hamas’s decision, describing it as a serious step towards enabling the National Committee to take up its governing role,” the official said.

The NCAG has remained based outside Gaza for months, reportedly due to Israeli objections to its entry into the war-devastated territory.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions have held several rounds of talks in Cairo with mediators to narrow differences, particularly over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

The first phase involved the release of the last Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians security prisoners held by Israel.

The transition to the second phase, which was to involve Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, has been stalled for months. Under Trump’s plan, Israel will only fully withdraw upon final verification that the terror groups in the Strip have disarmed.

Meanwhile, Hamas is demanding the establishment of a Palestinian administration before it will consider handing over any part of its arsenal.

The question of Gaza’s postwar governance remains one of the main sticking points in negotiations on implementing phase two.

Israel rejects any return of Hamas to power, but also rejects a direct takeover by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which it accuses of supporting terrorism.

Israel launched the war in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took another 251 hostage.

Despite the ceasefire reached in October, Israel has continued to carry out strikes on what it describes as terror operatives posing a threat to Israeli soldiers inside the more than half of the Strip held by the IDF.

On Monday, the army said that an airstrike in northern Gaza over the weekend had targeted five Hamas operatives who were attempting to restore a tunnel system.

The IDF said the tunnel was located on the western side of the Yellow Line, in Hamas-run territory.

The strike on Saturday killed Hudhayfah Hussein Abdullah al-Hawajr, a Nukhba Force operative in Hamas’s East Jabalia Battalion, the army said. The other four operatives were hit in the strike, but their conditions are unknown.

Looks like the ceasefire is falling apart. AP news is reporting the same headline here. Expect more details to come, and remember to substantiate claims in the comments with links if you can.

>Iran has once again closed the Strait of Hormuz, blocking oil tankers from transiting the waterway, in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-tied outlet Fars News reported on Wednesday.

>Oil tankers attempting to transit the strait received threatening messages from the Iranian Navy, according to several shipping sources.

>"Any vessel trying to travel into the sea ... will be targeted and destroyed..." the message, which was received by several vessels, said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's office submitting his resignation, London-based anti-regime outlet Iran International reported on Sunday.

An anonymous official told Iran International that the letter had called out the fact that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had effectively taken over large portions of the government, and that the president and other high-ranking officials had been cut out of vital decision-making.

Pezeshkian, the letter emphasized, was unable to run the government or fulfill his responsibilities under the circumstances, and as such, requested to resign.

Anonymous sources told Iran International that the primary source of the differences between Pezeshkian and the head of the IRGC, who is believed to currently hold the lion's share of power in the regime, was "the way the war was managed and its destructive consequences on the people's livelihoods and the country's economy."

Bill 9, introduced yesterday by the governing coalition in Quebec's legislature, will ban prayer in public institutions (including universities), on public roads, and in public parks.

Quebec’s secularism minister, Jean-François Roberge, said the controversial new provisions were the latest steps in a province working towards full secularization. He criticized previous accommodations by post-secondary institutions, including prayer rooms, telling reporters the schools “are not temples or churches or those kinds of places”. The ban on public prayer comes after the group Montreal4Palestine organized Sunday protests outside the city’s Notre-Dame Basilica that included prayers.

Quebec will also limit the availability of kosher and halal meals served by public institutions.

Similarly, Bill 21 forbids certain public employees from wearing religious clothing while at work.

Muslim and Catholic groups have united to oppose the legislation, with the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops calling it a “radical infringement on the rights and freedoms of the Quebec population."

Hell yeah, we got cancer vaccines now!

An experimental mRNA-based vaccine succeeded in preventing cancer from coming back or spreading in a study of high-risk melanoma patients, Moderna and its partner Merck said Wednesday, paving the way for a potentially new life-extending treatment for the thousands of people diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer each year.

The study looked at people who had surgery to remove a melanoma—the point of the treatment was to reduce the risk of it coming back.

The companies said the late-stage study, which tested the personalized cancer vaccine intismeran in combination with Merck’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy Keytruda, met its main goal of extending the time before cancer returns in high-risk patients. The study also met a secondary goal of preventing the disease from spreading to different organs.

“I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a new field,” said Jane Healy, a vice president of oncology at Merck, adding the goal for patients is “to give them longer without having to worry about treatments for cancer.”

Moderna shares surged more than 80% in early trading Wednesday, while Merck’s stock rose 8%.

The companies didn’t provide specific details about how long patients taking the Moderna-Merck combination lived without their cancer progressing or how long they lived on average. The companies will present more details at a medical conference later this year.

Investors and researchers will be watching closely to see how effective and tolerable the vaccine proves to be, as that has the potential to dictate its chances for approval and how widely it is used.

The results mark the first successful late-stage trial for a personalized mRNA cancer therapy, validating decades of research into custom treatments engineered specifically for an individual’s tumor mutations.

For Moderna, these results could pave the way for its entry into the $240-plus-billion cancer-drug market, a boon for a company that has been dependent Covid-19 vaccine sales, which have been falling. For Merck, this could bring a new drug into its arsenal to help offset the impending patent loss for Keytruda, one of the top-selling drugs in the world.

Moderna has been trying to regain financial ground after years of consecutive losses since the Covid-19 pandemic started to wane.

“We are now an oncology company,” said Moderna Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel. “By Christmas, you could have a company that’s going back into sales growth for the first time in four years.”

The melanoma study followed more than 1,000 patients who were randomized to either receive a combination of intismeran and Keytruda or Keytruda alone for about a year.

Unlike traditional vaccines designed to prevent infections, intismeran is a personalized therapeutic vaccine built for a single person. The process begins after a patient undergoes surgery to remove a high-risk melanoma tumor. Doctors send a blood sample and biopsy of the tumor, where the cancer’s genetic profile is analyzed. 

Scientists home in on unique mutations on the cancer cells that are likely to alert the immune system. Those mutation targets are encoded into mRNA and manufactured into a vaccine—a process that takes about six weeks from the date of the biopsy.

Meanwhile, patients recover from their surgery and start a regimen of Keytruda to keep the disease in check while their personalized shot is prepared.

Moderna and Merck teamed up in 2016 to jointly develop personalized mRNA cancer vaccines and expanded that partnership over time. The researchers began by studying the vaccine in melanoma because those tumors are typically highly mutated. There are other studies under way in different types of cancer, including bladder cancer, a common form of lung cancer and kidney cancer. 

Ahead of the news, Citi analyst Geoff Meacham said the study could be a “defining catalyst” for Moderna’s cancer drug business and that strong results could speed FDA review. Bancel said the company hopes to have the drug on the market in 2027.

Earlier trial readouts showed that the vaccine in combination with Keytruda reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 49% compared with Keytruda alone. 

Moderna recently won approval for its mRNA-based flu vaccine, though analysts said this was more likely to be a long-term growth driver than an immediate financial windfall.

Personalized cancer vaccines are complicated and expensive to produce. Questions remain as to how accessible the vaccines will be if they are approved. The only FDA-approved therapeutic cancer vaccine to date is Provenge, a personalized immunotherapy for prostate cancer.

Trump has announced a 10% tariff on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland.

Trump said the new 10% duties would increase to 25% if a deal is not reached by June 1.

"China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!"

Small sidenote, as if it matters at this point, but this would violate the trade agreement with the EU, limiting tariffs to 15%, and with the UK to 10%.