Paywalled
[MilitantWire] Counter-terrorism efforts have disrupted the pro-Islamic State (IS) digital landscape, including an IS-controlled website running Rocket.Chat that users considered to be one of the most secure. These pressures have prompted some supporters to seek other digital communal spaces. One emergent alternative is the Besira website, which recently began evolving into a quasi-social media platform. While the Rocket.Chat workspace may lose more prominence, it is unlikely to truly be abandoned due to its reliability and greater security.
Over the past two years, international law enforcement activity has significantly disrupted the pro-IS digital landscape. First, the servers of the I’lam Foundation, the multilingual outlet that was a major resource for supporters for years, were seized during a June 2024 operation spanning five countries.
Two months later, Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France, leading to stronger counter-terrorism compliance by the platform. These events occurred alongside generally increased counterterrorism pressures following the three attacks by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) at the start of 2024 and significantly disturbed the pro-IS digital landscape.
The downing of I’lam created a need for broad access to pro-IS publications, while Telegram’s stricter enforcement pushed users toward more lenient, less moderated social media applications.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] The first tanker carrying Russian oil has already been loaded from the port of Dikson. This was announced by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
"At the time of sale, a contract is usually signed—whoever needs it and has the best terms will be the one to sell the oil. <…> I know that the first tanker has already been loaded from the port in Dikson," Novak said on the Soloviev Live television channel.
According to him, Russia is not experiencing problems with oil sales, and many countries are showing interest in purchasing it.
On October 9, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the agreement on Russian oil and petroleum product supplies, US President Donald Trump issued a temporary license for Russian diesel fuel supplies to the global market. Trump stated that Russia is ready to supply up to 3 million tons of diesel fuel per month.
Novak later reported that Russian refineries' diesel production capacity is twice as high as domestic market demand, sufficient even after taking into account repairs to individual units. He also noted that while some facilities are being repaired, overall production has declined, but this has no impact on domestic market supply or exports.
On October 14, Novak noted that Russia intends to directly supply diesel fuel to the United States, and the parties are already negotiating relevant contracts. He stated that exports will allow Russia to increase its oil and petroleum product refining capacity.
[Jpost] The investigation draws on intelligence reports, judicial records, and historical documents describing networks extending from Lebanon and Syria to Sicily and Rome.
Previously classified Italian intelligence documents reveal suspected connections between Paleostinian terrorist organizations and the Sicilian Mafia during the 1980s, including possible cooperation in weapons trafficking, narcotics smuggling, and explosives expertise, according to an investigation published Thursday by the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
The investigation, by journalist Giulia Sorrentino, draws on intelligence reports, judicial records, and historical documents describing networks extending from Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... and Syria to Sicily and Rome. The material also includes an intelligence warning about a possible terrorist attack against the US Embassy in Rome.
DRUG TRAFFICKING AND PALESTINIAN TERRORISM
One of the central documents, dated November 9, 1983, contains information gathered by Italia’s Carabinieri, the country's military police force, concerning international drug trafficking and Paleostinian terrorist operations.
According to the intelligence report, members of Sicilian Mafia networks associated with the Greco and Gambino families were operating in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, then under strong Syrian influence. The area reportedly contained narcotics-processing facilities near Baalbek.
The source alleged that six AK-47 assault rifles had reached Mafia associates and been used in attacks in Sicily. It also described a shipment of approximately 900 kilograms of morphine base reportedly sent from Lebanon toward the Sicilian city of Catania in October 1983.
The same intelligence material warned that Paleostinian terrorist organizations might attack Western targets if the multinational military force stationed in Lebanon intervened against Paleostinian positions. The source specifically reported knowledge of a planned attack against the American Embassy in Rome.
Sorrentino's investigation also revisits the July 29, 1983, liquidation of Rocco Chinnici, an Italian magistrate who played a leading role in the campaign against organized crime.
Chinnici and three other people were killed when a boom-mobile containing approximately 75 kilograms of explosives detonated in Palermo. The attack's use of a remotely detonated bomb resembled techniques employed by terrorist organizations during Lebanon's civil war.
Judicial records describe how Bou Chebel Ghassan, a Lebanese police informant, had provided information about contacts with Mafia figures and efforts to obtain weapons and morphine. Days before Chinnici's liquidation, Ghassan reportedly described methods of killing Sherlocks remotely, comparing them to those used by Paleostinian forces of Evil in Lebanon.
NO RECORD THAT PALESTINIAN OPERATIVES PARTICIPATED IN ASSASSINATING CHINNICI
Although the testimony raised questions about possible foreign connections, Italian judicial proceedings established Cosa Nostra's responsibility for Chinnici's murder. The records do not demonstrate that Paleostinian operatives planned or participated in the liquidation.
The investigation also revisits allegations published by Corriere della Sera on June 22, 1993. In a report from Beirut, correspondent Antonio Ferrari quoted Zeid Wehbe, a Paleostine Liberation Organization representative, alleging that operatives associated with Abu Nidal had infiltrated Mafia networks.
According to those allegations, Abu Nidal's organization supplied expertise in explosives and sophisticated killing devices in exchange for assistance with criminal operations.
Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, led a Paleostinian terrorist faction that broke with Yasser Arafat's PLO. His organization was responsible for attacks against Israeli, Jewish, Western, and Paleostinian targets.
An Italian military intelligence report dated January 13, 1986, also described connections between Abu Nidal and circles associated with the family of Syrian President Hafez Assad. The document, identified through research by Italian historian Giordana Terracina, referred to the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
The assessment followed the December 27, 1985, coordinated attacks against airports in Rome and Vienna by Abu Nidal's Paleostinian terrorist organization. The assaults killed 16 civilians and injured approximately 120 others.
Sorrentino also cites an October 1990 memorandum attributed to Italian General Demetrio Cogliandro. The document raised allegations concerning Arab banks operating in Italia, financial transactions involving Middle Eastern governments, and funds allegedly reaching Italian organized crime groups for narcotics purchases.
The intelligence records became accessible through a broader Italian government initiative launched in 2014 to declassify historical documentation relating to terrorism and political violence.
The newly published investigation does not establish that Abu Nidal's organization maintained a formal operational alliance with Cosa Nostra or participated in Mafia liquidations. The allegations in the intelligence reports have not all been independently corroborated.
However,
women are made to be loved, not understood... the documents demonstrate that Italian intelligence agencies were examining possible connections between Paleostinian terrorism, organized crime, and Middle Eastern trafficking networks years before allegations of an Abu Nidal—Mafia partnership became public in 1993.
[ZERO] A new documentary from investigative outlet Muckraker traces the migrant route from West Africa through Spain and France to Britain, examining what the outlet describes as a network sustained by taxpayer-funded aid programs, NGOs, and even Western governments.
The 47-minute film, "Replacing Europe," draws on months of reporting and undercover footage to investigate the logistics and top NGO players behind the nation-killing mass migration into Europe.
"The entire migration is a game," says Sheikh M. Kromah, identified by Muckraker as a worker for the UN's International Organization for Migration. He alleges that Spain has a financial incentive to maintain arrivals because reducing them could jeopardize EU funding.
Muckraker claims that publicly funded institutions help sustain the migration flows that European governments publicly promise to control. Its interviews raise questions about oversight, spending incentives and the boundary between humanitarian assistance and facilitating illegal alien border crossings into Europe.
The broader concern is whether mass migration, malassimilation, and soaring public costs of the European welfare state that cater to migrants could compound fiscal pressure and political instability.
According to the Columbia Spectator, early last week several former Israeli Defense Forces members aligned with the group Frontline Advocates set up a table outside the university’s gates with a placard stating “We are IDF. We’ve been in Gaza. Ask us anything.”
Frontline Advocates “collaborates” with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on “specific projects,” according to the report.
Its members claimed they dressed as pro-Palestinian activists in order to get people to talk to them; when they have pro-Israel paraphernalia, people ignore them, they say.
UW proposes tougher conduct rules year after pro-Palestinian occupation
[CampusReform] The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle is proposing new student conduct rules that would allow it to discipline students who refuse orders to leave university property and hold students responsible for assisting or planning prohibited conduct.
The proposed revisions come more than a year after the May 2025 pro-Palestinian occupation of UW’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, although the university does not state that the incident prompted the changes.
For more than nine months, UC Berkeley has failed to honor a legal settlement with an Israeli dance scholar who was denied a teaching position due to her nationality.
In response to a J. inquiry, a university spokesperson said the delay was caused by “internal miscommunication.” The US university now promises that the scholar, Yael Nativ, will receive the job offer she was guaranteed in the December 2025 settlement “no later than the week of September 28.”
“We deeply regret this unfortunate delay and look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to our campus,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement.
Nativ said she received an apology for the delay and the promise of an imminent job offer in a September 21 email from a university administrator.
“It’s always a surprise when I get emails from them because the correspondence was so little to none,” Nativ said. “I’m so tired of this case.”
Nativ, a sociologist specializing in Israeli dance, taught in UC Berkeley’s dance department during spring 2022 as a visiting professor through the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Her course focused on contemporary dance in Israel through social, political and cultural perspectives.
The institute invited Nativ to reapply for another year of teaching. But after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, SanSan Kwan, chair of the dance department, informed Nativ that she would not be rehired. In November 2023, Kwan told Nativ in a WhatsApp message: “My dept cannot host you for a class next fall. Things are very hot right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
The university’s civil rights office investigated the matter and concluded that Nativ was discriminated against based on her Israeli identity.
Nativ sued the university, with representation from the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, in August 2025. When the two sides settled the lawsuit in December 2025, the university acknowledged its wrongdoing and committed to apologizing to Nativ and inviting her back to campus.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons apologized to Nativ over Zoom on February 3, but no job offer arrived.
The lapse was publicized by Malcolm Feeley, a retired UC Berkeley Law professor, who wrote about Nativ’s case in a September 16 article in the Jewish Review of Books.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. This is justice delayed in the extreme,” Feeley said in an interview. “It takes a concerted effort of badgering to get [the university] to move an inch.”
In a statement to J. following the publication of Feeley’s article, Mogulof said the university hadn’t sent Nativ a job offer due to a misunderstanding among administrators about who was responsible for doing so.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Ben Hermalin will personally ensure the offer will come within the next two weeks, according to Mogulof.
Nativ went on to work as a research fellow at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba after she left Berkeley. She said her main goal since the lawsuit has been to hold UC Berkeley accountable, not to land a job.
“It wasn’t urgent for me to go [back to campus]. It’s more about making a point, getting my justice,” she said. “But if they invite, I will consider.”
The lawsuit alleged national origin discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, failure to prevent discrimination under the act, and national origin discrimination under the California Education Code. It was one of dozens filed around the US related to antisemitism and anti-Zionist activism on college campuses.
Universities across the country have faced allegations of discrimination from Israel’s supporters and its opponents with allegations of discrimination over how the campuses responded to protests. American Jews have filed most of the lawsuits, alleging antisemitism. Israelis have also filed some cases due to alleged discrimination based on their national origin.
Piker, a far-left political commentator who once said “America deserved 9/11,” is scheduled to speak at the Ivy League institution on Thursday at the behest of Students Not Bombs, a coalition of the groups Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Young Democratic Socialists of America.
LA Review of Books spikes feature on pro-Israel professor
[CollegeFix] The Los Angeles Review of Books has canceled a commissioned article that centered on an outspoken pro-Israel professor at Columbia University who helped highlight antisemitism on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
Shai Davidai, who left Columbia University in 2025 after making a name for himself strongly defending Israeli and Jewish students and staff at the Ivy League school amid aggressive pro-Palestinian protests, is making the rounds to promote his new book.
But LA Review senior editor Rob Latham “pulled the rug out from under freelancer Melissa Uchiyama after hiring her to interview Davidai ahead of his new book, ‘American Intellectual Antisemitism: The Anti-Jewish Movement Tearing Through Our Universities,'” according to the California Post, which obtained emails regarding the situation.
SJP demands UVA dean resign because she’s an ex-IDF soldier
[CollegeFix] Students with the University of Virginia’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter recently called for the resignation of Yael Grushka-Cockayne, dean of the Darden School of Business, prompting concerned alumni to question why administrators have yet to publicly defend her. The SJP chapter wants Dean Grushka-Cockayne to resign because she served in the Israeli Defense Forces from 1993 until 1996.
Grushka-Cockayne was raised in both the U.S. and Israel and holds dual-citizenship. She has been lauded for her global perspectives and is the first woman to permanently lead the business school in its 70-year history.
Campus leadership has not responded to the petition in defense of Dean Grushka-Cockayne, prompting the Jefferson Council, a center-right UVA alumni group, to publish a series of posts demanding administration take a stand.
“Let’s be perfectly clear about this: our new dean is being threatened with removal from her new position solely because she is an Israeli, where universal military service is mandated with few exceptions,” the council wrote.
The group added that a person’s national origin is a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as UVA’s “Preventing and Addressing Discrimination and Harassment” handbook.
In a Sept. 11 news release, Chancellor Frenk said the school rejects “antisemitism and terrorism in all their forms, and we believe our campus must be a place where the dignity of every member of our community is respected.”
“Nothing about this event at the UCLA School of Law, which we do not endorse, changes or qualifies those commitments,” he said.
He added that “Academic freedom does not require us to be neutral about antisemitism or terrorism.”
Frenk also honored UCLA computer science Professor Judea Pearl, whose son was killed in Pakistan in 2002 by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the same terrorist one of the symposium speakers defended in court.
“The brutal murder of Daniel Pearl was an act of unspeakable evil, and I support Judea and his family,” the chancellor wrote.
Pearl also condemned the event in a post on X, saying he is “ashamed of [his] university and, especially, the five centers within the UCLA School of Law sponsoring this disturbing symposium.”
Vandals destroyed about 30 of the 2,177 memorial flags set up on Stanislaus State’s “free speech lawn” to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11, said Young Americans for Freedom chapter President Madeline Iwasyk.
Accused terror-praising Columbia student drops out of 9/11 event on campus
[CollegeFix] Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who has been under fire for allegedly supporting terrorist organizations, dropped out of an event marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on campus this week.
Mahdawi was slated to be interviewed at the event titled “The Forever War’s Long Shadow.” It is hosted by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, which aims to expand discourse on free expression and press rights.
The symposium, scheduled for Sept. 9 and 10, will examine how the post-9/11 “War on Terror” continues to affect democratic rights, specifically freedom of speech and the press, according to the event description.
Some good news from the one Ivy League school whose Jewish student population has grown since 10/7/3023:
[DM] The 'mastermind and chief organizer' of a terrorist plot to bomb three government buildings in Toronto
…including the government building and beheading the prime minister in wht was to have been Canada’s 9/11…
is now roaming the streets after a parole board cited his 'respectful, polite and quiet' demeanor.
Zakaria Amara,
…the Jordanian-born Canadian citizen was the mastermind of the Toronto 18, who were inspired by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. His presumably lovely wife, Nada Farooq, discussed putting a clause in her prenup giving her divorce if he did not go in for jihad…
now 41, pleaded guilty in 2009 in the Canadian Superior Court of Justice, three years after he planned the extremist attack. A massive police investigation thwarted the plot.
Amara was sentenced to nine years in prison for organizing a training camp for terrorist recruits and to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years for plotting to construct a bomb. He was arrested on the day bomb-making materials were delivered to a warehouse.
He appealed his sentence in 2010, but the court denied it. However, the parole board granted Amara day parole in 2022, a form of conditional release in a supervised residential facility.
The Parole Board of Canada in Ontario granted Amara full parole on Friday. The written decision, obtained by the Canadian Press, said he no longer showed 'any signs of holding onto extremist beliefs or radical ideologies.'
The board praised Amara for reintegrating into society during day parole, noting that he rehabilitated and demonstrated a 'positive change, both in attitude and in behavior.'
He harbored extremist values behind bars but officials documented an ideological shift in 2014 and he was transferred to a minimum-security prison, according to the written decision.
'During the latter part of your federal custody and for the past four years in the community, you have undertaken a process to distance yourself from extremist ideologies and others who share the same views,' the board wrote.
#1
If this POS pulls another terrorist operation in Canada. Or sneaks into the US and does something similar. The Canada Gov officials and Justice System judges that allowed his release, despite his efforts to pull off Mass Murders, should be held criminally responsible and accountable.
[DailySignal] Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was urged by several members of Congress on Tuesday to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... and several other Islamic organizations over their alleged abuse of taxpayer-funded grants and terrorism ties.
Led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the members penned a letter to the secretary urging the Department of Health and Human Services to examine whether these groups "meet the standards for suspension and debarment under federal regulations" after reports noted that they received around $80 million in federal grants under President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... ’s administration to carry out operations such as Afghan resettlement.
"Asking domestic bully boy groups like CAIR to assist in the resettlement of Afghan parolees, many who hail from volatile regions and are highly vulnerable to radicalization, represents a security threat that policymakers and law enforcement are only beginning to understand," the letter states. "CAIR was founded following a secretive meeting of Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... operatives in 1993 and was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial that ended in convictions for five Hamas financiers. It was the single greatest terror-linked recipient of HHS funding, with nearly $42 million in Afghan resettlement grants."
Other nonprofit and Islamic networks, which also allegedly received millions in federally funded grants during the Biden administration, were also named in the letter as entities that should be investigated and examined by the department.
Those include the Northern Virginia Dar al-Hijrah mosque, which they claim housed al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, and two 9/11 hijackers.
"Many Biden-era grants do lasting harm to the communities they were assigned to help. Dar al-Hijrah received $340,000 in HHS sub-grants to promote coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... vaccine awareness, despite previously hosting a webinar series that taught how the pandemic was divine judgment aimed at the United States and Israel," the letter added.
The letter also lists the Sacramento-based Moslem American Society, a designated terrorist group in the United Arab Emirates, which the members claim "is part of a nationwide organization that federal prosecutors called ’the overt arm of the Moslem Brüderbund in America.’"
The domestic charitable wing of the Islamic Circle of North America, which, as stated in the letter, "belongs to South Asia’s Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , a violent mostly peaceful Islamist movement responsible for the genocide of secular intellectuals in Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence," and works with the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen ...Party of Holy Warriors, founded by Muhammad Ahsan Dar in September 1989. One of the Pak sock puppets waging jihad in Indian Kashmir. It was originally organized as the armed wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. In 1990, Dar declared Hizbul as the sword arm of Jamaat. Hizbul murdered many of the pro-independence intelligentsia in Kashmir. After the organization was taken over by Syed Salahuddin Dar and several other ex-Hizb leaders were assassinated between 2001 and 2003... in Pakistain and Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... , was also listed in the letter.
Additionally, the letter added that Kennedy and his agency should investigate the Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities organization, claiming that it is a "prominent Lebanese Shi’a community organization based in Dearborn, Michigan, whose leaders and associates sympathize with Hezbollah."
The members accused Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities of meeting with Lebanese military and intelligence officials tied to the Iran-backed terrorist group and its allied Amal Movement.
"The broader lesson is that the federal government often had access to information that should have triggered additional scrutiny before these awards were made," the letter continued. "HHS can no longer limit awardee screening to financial capacity and past performance. Grant managers should rigorously screen for harmful ideological practices and affiliations, steps that will prevent another reckless government spending spree that advances bully boy groups and causes."
The members concluded in their letter by formally requesting that Kennedy direct his agency to increase terrorist screening for all HHS grant recipients, suspend any ongoing awards to the groups mentioned in the original report, conduct department-wide debarment reviews, and apply those same restrictions to sub-recipients of the original grants, as they claim that "seventy percent of the identified funding passed through intermediary organizations."
CAIR, Islamic Circle of North America, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, Moslem American Society, and Dar al-Hijrah Mosque did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.
[FoxNews] Expert says latest data is further evidence against accusations of genocide. With the number of live births in 2025 far greater than the number of deaths
The allegations of genocide against Israel took more hits this week following the reported admission by a senior member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Israel that claims had not been independently verified. This comes as the Paleostinian Ministry of Health data shows Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... ’s population grew in 2025.
Critics say the accusations fueled antisemitism around the world and that those pushing the genocide claims — including major international media outlets — need to be made accountable for their words.
In September 2025, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Paleostinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel (COI) released a report stating that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza since October 2023. In the report, the COI cited an article from the Guardian stating that 83% of Gazooks killed in the conflict were civilians.
Following the release of data from the COI commissioner, Chris Sidoti, in an interview last week reported by JNS and posted on X was asked whether the COI had independently established that the remainder of Paleostinians said to be killed in the fighting were civilians, Sidoti said, "No, we didn’t because we don’t have that information ... We literally do not know, nor does anybody else know, including the IDF, how many hard boyz were there."
The former chair of the committee, Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week.
The Paleostinian MOH Health Information Unit recently released statistics on overall mortality in Gaza for 2025. This is the first update to include non-violent mostly peaceful deaths since 2022, prior to the outbreak of conflict following the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
The MOH reported that 24,650 deaths were registered in 2025, with 18,085 (73.4%) being males and 6,565 (26.6%) being females. 70.1% of deaths, or 17,286 cases, were attributed to direct targeting in the war.
The MOH also reported 50,227 live births in 2025. Fox News Digital reached out to officials at the ministry but did not get a response by press time.
Elliot Malin, president at Stratos Council, told Fox News Digital that the MOH data is further evidence against accusations of genocide. With the number of live births in 2025 far greater than the number of deaths, Malin says it is "very hard for us to infer the intent of Israel was to destroy Paleostinians in Gaza to a substantial portion."
"We’re not seeing a population under threat. We are seeing that it is actually able to sustain itself," Malin said. He took issue with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declaration last year that famine had reached Gaza in the summer of 2025. Malin said that "if the population is sustaining and growing through this, what they call a famine, it indicates that there is enough caloric intake to sustain the population."
Gabriel Epstein, senior policy associate at Israel Policy Forum, also told Fox News Digital that widespread allegations of genocide are not supported by the MOH report. First, the report "absolutely" demonstrates population growth in 2025, according to Epstein, who added it would "be surprising" if the population of Gaza, "one of the youngest...in the world," was not growing.
While he says that it is impossible to discern the actual rate of population growth given factors like emigration and immigration, Epstein said that "the argument that we would need to make to say that there was negative population growth in 2025 would be to more than double the number of both violent mostly peaceful and non-violent mostly peaceful deaths."
Andrew Fox, senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that "the data now shows that there was no famine in Gaza." He said that the allegations play into "the ages-old blood libel of Jews killing children and undoubtedly stoked the global fires of antisemitism. Agencies and the media who shared these false allegations have blood on their hands."
Epstein said that the latest MOH data is strong proof against the statements from external organizations who used estimates and ratios of non-violent mostly peaceful deaths from other conflict zones to suppose that the MOH’s ongoing count of the corpse count in Gaza was inaccurate, and that deaths had likely reached multiple hundreds of thousands. These estimated figures were largely used to drive the narrative that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. He said that current MOH figures "really eliminate the possibility that there is a much higher corpse count driven by non-violent mostly peaceful or non-trauma deaths."
He noted that comparing the latest report with ongoing MOH data on overall casualties throughout the war shows that the MOH was not "missing the vast, vast majority of [malnutrition-related] deaths you would have needed to be missing to justify the IPC’s assessment" that famine had reached parts of Gaza in summer 2025.
The IPC did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about how new information impacts its prior declaration of famine.
In the MOH’s favor, Epstein said that the current tranche of figures supports a real attempt at honest accounting from the health organization, which was accused of inflating civilian casualties — particularly those of women and kiddies — during the early days of the war.
In its latest report, however, the MOH does not distinguish how many gunnies were among those killed in the conflict. In fact, it states that "The number of deaths among males was approximately 4.9 times the number of deaths among females within this group — attributed principally to the direct targeting of working-age men during military operations."
A spokesperson from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Fox News Digital that, "The IDF targets gunnies and military objectives, not civilians based on their age or gender. The fact that more military-age men are disproportionately among those eliminated is consistent with the fact that terrorist organizations are predominantly composed of men in this age group. It does not demonstrate that the IDF targets individuals because they are men or of a certain age."
The spokesperson added that, "Targets are selected based on their military nature or an individual’s involvement in terrorist organizations or participation in hostilities, in accordance with international law and IDF directives. Unlike Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... , which deliberately targets Israeli civilians, the IDF takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to civilians and operates under a structured targeting framework designed to ensure the identification of lawful military objectives."
Epstein also pushed back against the MOH claim that working-aged men are being purposefully targeted. Epstein said that "military-aged men aren't appearing disproportionately because the IDF was targeting military-aged men as such, but because the vast majority of hard boyz come from that range." He said that "Gaza is unique in how heavily militarized its male population is."
Epstein added that available 2025 data does not support the claim that the IDF acted with the intent to cause harm to the population. Not only do the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and hybridization of civilian and military structures in Gaza provide a rationale for military targeting, Epstein emphasized that the IDF has taken numerous mitigation measures to avoid civilian casualties.
[NewRegion] Powerful Iran-backed groups operating under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have agreed to a deal to bring their weapons under state control, contingent on Baghdad and Washington fulfilling their obligations under the deal, Ali al-Assadi, political council chief of the prominent faction Harakat al-Nujaba, told The New Region.
In an exclusive video interview with The New Region earlier this week, Assadi detailed the four armed factions involved in the talks, their conditions for the agreement, and the commitments they had accepted.
The deal’s broad outlines include the handover of the factions’ entire weapons stockpile, including ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones, and determining the future of their fighters.
Negotiations are ongoing, and the deal’s implementation hinges on the parties involved honoring their mutual commitments, according to Assadi.
“None [of the factions] have been left out, including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba,” Assadi said. “The agreement involves all four factions.”
Harakat al-Nujaba is a crucial component of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella of Iran-backed Shiite factions that are linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s broader “Axis of Resistance.”
Alongside Nujaba, the other main factions are Kataib Hezbollah, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Ansar Allah al-Awfiya, in addition to other smaller groups.
The Iraqi government has launched a renewed drive to bring weapons under state control, an initiative that has met fierce defiance from the IRI’s factions, namely Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba. Tensions brought the factions and Baghdad to the brink of armed confrontation in August, before a mutually acceptable agreement was struck.
The agreement was mediated by the Coordination Framework, Iraq’s ruling Shiite political alliance that also includes many Iran-backed political forces. Asadi said that the Framework acted as an intermediary between Baghdad and the armed factions through representatives of both sides.
Assadi’s account sheds new light on the factions’ positions on the agreement and contradicts earlier statements by Iraqi and US officials which had suggested that Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba had remained outside the negotiations.
Head of private truckers union disputes Israeli account but admits Hamas seeking NIS 10,000 per truck entering Strip, which terror group insists is a ‘voluntary community initiative’ and not taxation
No commercial goods have entered the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip for two days, Israeli authorities said Thursday, blaming the suspension on Gazook merchants angered by taxes imposed by Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... — a claim that Paleostinian importers and the terrorist group denied.
The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of food and other critical supplies as fears grow about procuring supplies needed to get through winter in the territory.
The move stands to immediately reduce Gaza’s supplies, because the closed-off territory is completely reliant on whatever goods Israel allows in through border crossings.
Aid groups generally bring in staples such as flour, while merchants import more perishable foods like fruits and meat, according to data released earlier this year by COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza.
The suspension is raising fears about affordability, with humanitarian workers saying a combination of aid and a robust commercial market is needed to keep prices under control.
"The humanitarian sector on its own cannot meet the needs of all the people," said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group. "The markets need to be functioning."
On Wednesday, COGAT announced the suspension of commercial shipments. Its deputy spokesperson, Lt. Daniel Kantorovich, said the agency was acting on a decision made by Paleostinian merchants a day earlier and could reverse it at their behest.
"We were prepared to coordinate the entry of their trucks as usual, but the vendors informed us that they were cancelling the coordination due to Hamas’s taxation mechanism and threats against them," Kantorovich said. "The merchants don’t want to bring goods into Gaza."
The world’s leading authority on food insecurity reported earlier this year that conditions in Gaza had improved since famine was declared in the territory in August 2025 — a determination rejected by Israel — but were still at crisis levels. Most families in the war-battered enclave weren’t getting nearly enough to eat, said the report, adding that "even small disruptions to humanitarian access could rapidly reverse recent gains."
Merchants in Gaza coordinate directly with vendors outside the territory, whose shipments are examined by Israel’s military before entering Gaza.
In announcing the measure, COGAT claimed to be communicating a decision made by local merchants in Gaza who had grown tired of Hamas taxing their trucks and threatening them. Israel has long accused the terrorist group of levying fees on imports to fund its operations.
The agency cited reports that Hamas security personnel had arrested the son of a merchant who refused to comply with the demands, prompting traders to suspend operations out of fear for their safety.
COGAT said the private sector accounted for roughly half of all trucks entering Gaza each week and that no private-sector vendors had attempted to import goods since the merchants alerted Israel on Tuesday.
It also warned the suspension could undermine the ceasefire agreement.
In a letter to international representatives involved in implementing the ceasefire, COGAT said merchants reported that Hamas demanded about 10,000 shekels ($3,200) for every truck into Gaza and that traders sell around 30 percent of goods in cash instead of bank transfers.
But the head of Gaza’s private truckers union, Nahed Sheheiber, disputed Israel’s account, saying that Israel had made the decision.
"The merchants are not the ones who stopped the shipments," he said. "The Israeli coordinator is claiming that Gaza’s merchants are responsible, but the truth is that the Israelis are the ones who imposed the restrictions."
Following COGAT’s announcement, Sheheiber’s union met with Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Economy to express concern and say Israel was citing fees levied by the ministry as a pretext to cut off commercial goods.
The Hamas-run ministry had been asking merchants to pay 10,000 shekels (about $3,226) per truck entering Gaza, Sheheiber confirmed. At the meeting, ministry undersecretary Khaled al-Raqab told the union that the amount was not a tax, but rather a donation sought by the ministry to help pay civil servants in the Strip.
It was not clear from the COGAT announcement whether aid agencies would be allowed to increase shipments into Gaza to compensate for the loss in commercial goods.
The agency claimed that Gaza’s population — of roughly 2 million people — required approximately 250 truckloads of goods each day. That’s far below the minimum of 600 trucks a day stipulated by a ceasefire brokered by the US a year ago.
Hamas rejected COGAT’s allegations in a letter addressed to mediators including Egypt, pQatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... , saying it "categorically" denied imposing taxes or government fees on commercial trucks.
It said it had not collected taxes or fees on commercial activity in the past three years of war because of the humanitarian and economic conditions in Gaza.
Hamas said the 10,000-shekel figure referred to a "voluntary community initiative" by Gaza’s businesspeople to put money into a "national fund" for relief projects, while the transaction requirement was to inject "cash liquidity" into the territory.
[DM] This is the moment Iranians went fishing for iPhones and French perfume after a container ship was blown up by a mine and sank in the Strait of Hormuz.
Footage shows hundreds of men scrambling for loot after thousands of containers were left floating in the vital waterway.
According to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ship had sailed through an 'unauthorised and dangerous' part of the strait when it hit a mine.
The cargo vessel had sunk after a blaze erupted on board and all 21 crew members were evacuated uninjured.
More than 2,500 containers were being transported by the Singapore-flagged ship GFS Pride on October 13.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said the vessel was struck by unknown projectiles while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
GFS Pride's sister ship GFS Giselle was also hit the following day. It sustained hull damage and reached a safe anchorage under its own propulsion.
The containers on board GFS Pride had reportedly been carrying 'iPhones and perfume' and Iranian fishermen promptly scrambled to recover the floating cargo.
[Rudaw] The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish opposition group with a significant armed presence in western Iran (Rojhelat), warned the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday that it would exercise its “right to self-defense” if attacks on its positions continued.
The warning follows an IRGC operation on Tuesday in the Shaho mountains of western Iran, where Iranian forces reportedly deployed heavy weapons and kamikaze drones to target PJAK fighters. No casualties have been reported.
The escalation comes amid Iran's ongoing war with the US and repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks on Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.
The Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), PJAK's armed wing, warned in a statement on Saturday that it would respond to further attacks by the IRGC.
“We will exercise our legitimate right to self-defense and deliver the necessary response” if attacks continue, it warned.
The warning comes as Iran faces armed insurgencies on two fronts, involving Kurdish fighters in the west and Baloch armed groups in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported on Friday that the IRGC had continued shelling and drone attacks in the Shaho mountains in the Hawraman area of Sarvabad County.
Witnesses told the rights group that several explosions caused by suicide drones were heard in the Daleh Marz and Bareza Lang areas, while IRGC reconnaissance drones flew over the mountains.
Mount Shaho is part of the Zagros mountain range, which stretches approximately 1,600 kilometers across western Iran and into the Kurdistan Region.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and 
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
