[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Mexico's drug cartels are using homeless people as human guinea pigs to test experimental cocktails of fentanyl — with deadly consequences.
Gang members visit camps in northwest Mexico and offer broke addicts sums of around $30 to try an injection of their latest fentanyl concoction — and then watch to see what happens next.
The gangsters, who visit such camps on a daily basis, use their cell phones to document the reactions to their powerful synthetic opioids, an investigation by The New York Times shows.
Homeless camp resident Pedro López Camacho is among those who took the money, and the needle, several times. He survived but says he watched others take their last breaths after getting a shot.
'When it's really strong, it knocks you out or kills you,' he said. 'The people here died.'
The testing on human guinea pigs marks the latest phase in an opioid abuse crisis that began in the US in the late 1990s and saw overdose deaths spiral, climbing at times by more than 30 percent a year.
Fatalities peaked in the US at more than 110,000 in 2022, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths fell back to 97,000 in the 12-month period ending in June 2024.
The shift is attributed to greater public awareness of the dangers of fentanyl, more addiction treatment, the availability of opioid reversal drugs — and because so many addiction-prone people have already perished.
Even so, the fatality rate remains shockingly high, and president-elect Donald Trump has said he'd 'like to end the drug epidemic' by battling the multi-billion dollar cartels bringing drugs into the US.
He's vowed to crack down on fentanyl smugglers, secure the US-Mexico border, execute drug dealers and pressure China into halting the export of the pre-cursor chemicals in fentanyl. His incoming administration's border czar, Tom Homan, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief, has threatened military action against Mexican cartels and the 'full might of the United States special operations to take them out.'
The gang members who test new variations of fentanyl on the impoverished show how the groups are adapting to a fast-changing environment and how far they will go to dominate the US market.
Global efforts to crack down on synthetic opioids have in recent months made it harder for them to source the chemical compounds needed to produce fentanyl. The original source, China, has restricted exports of raw ingredients, pushing gang bosses to devise new and risky ways to maintain fentanyl production and potency.
They've started mixing the drug with a wider range of additives — including animal sedatives and other potent anesthetics. To test their results, the criminals who make the fentanyl for the cartels, known as cooks, say they inject their experimental cocktails into humans as well as chickens and rabbits. If the rabbits survive beyond 90 seconds, the drug is seen as too weak to be sold in the US.
After raiding cartel labs, officials have described finding dead animals used for testing among the drug-making gear.
'They experiment in the style of Dr. Death,' Renato Sales, a former national security commissioner in Mexico, told The Times.
'It's to see the potency of the substance.'
Cooks described trying out unusual drugs — including oral anesthetics and canine sedatives — in the quest for a viable fentanyl mixer. The labs are haphazard. Cooks mix up vats of chemicals using rudimentary gear, exposing themselves to toxic substances that have left some hallucinating, retching, passed out and even dead.
The cartel cooks of Sinaloa State are credited with introducing xylazine, an animal tranquilizer known on the street as 'Tranq,' to the US drug market. It's often mixed with fentanyl into a deadly cocktail.
'You inject this into a hen, and if it takes between a minute and a minute and a half to die, that means it came out really good,' a cook told the paper.
'If it doesn't die or takes too long to die, we'll add xylazine.'
Experts say that more potent combinations net more money for the cartels. Caleb Banta-Green, a research professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, called it a 'wild west of experimentation.'
The cartels are recruiting university chemistry students as their cooks. One student hired by the cartel revealed that to test new cocktails, the group brought in drug users living on the street and injected them with synthetic opioids. No one has died, said the student, but some were left convulsing and foaming at the mouth.
US health chiefs have recently started warning about a drug 100 times more potent than fentanyl that's claimed lives across 37 states in recent years.
The drug, called carfentanil, is a derivative of fentanyl that was designed to tranquilize elephants.
It's the most potent commercial opioid on the market.
There were 513 overdoses from carfentanil between January 2021 and June 2024, hitting states like Florida and West Virginia the hardest, says a CDC report from December.
It comes in powder, paper, tablet, patch and spray form, and can be inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin.
In it's powdered form, the drug mimics cocaine or heroin, and is often mixed into other illegal drugs like xylazine or counterfeit pills.
The groundwork for the US fentanyl epidemic was laid more than 20 years ago, with aggressive over-prescribing of the synthetic opioid oxycodone.
Sydney. Again. Another suburb with a large Jewish community and multiple Jewish communal facilities. No one just vandalises a car with a racist slogan. It is the product of endless incitement, demonisation and a belief that such attitudes are freely permitted, even celebrated. pic.twitter.com/KPxRTpf1bK
[IsraelTimes] After a weeks-long investigation, police and Shin Bet confirm that last month’s stabbing of an elderly Jerusalem resident was a terror attack.
After the court lifted a gag order this morning on the investigation’s details, police say that the attacker had already been acquainted with the victim, a 74-year-old woman, while working as a cleaner in her building.
Police arrested the suspect, a 60-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood, for questioning a few hours after the attack, which took place in the city’s downtown.
He appeared in court earlier today as prosecutors request to extend his detention and plan to file an indictment against him in the coming days.
According to police, the attacker visited the victim’s home the evening prior as part of a repair service, and left the same evening after telling her that he needed screws in order to fix the problem.
The next morning, the attacker returned to the apartment and attempted to strangle the elderly woman to death. Upon realizing he forgot his walking stick at the scene, the attacker returned to find that his victim was still alive. He then took a knife from a nearby drawer and began to stab her multiple times.
After she called her daughter, police and emergency responders arrived at the scene and transported the elderly victim, conscious but at death's door, to the hospital.
Police say that the suspect stole the victim’s jewelry and sold it to a shop in East Jerusalem, before fleeing to the West Bank.
According to Ynet, the suspect told police in his interrogation that he decided to kill the woman "because of what is happening in 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... "The Israel Police and the Shin Bet will continue to work with all security forces to thwart terrorism and arrest holy warriors wherever they may be, in order to protect the citizens of the State of Israel," say police.
[IsraelTimes] Police have blocked a planned rally in the north demanding an end to the war, for reasons that include expected speeches featuring “incitement” and “weakening the security forces.”
According to Haaretz, the far-left Communist Party of Israel (Maki) filed a request to hold a three-kilometer march in the Arab city of Sakhnin, urging an end to the war and a stronger fight against violent crime in the Arab community.
However, police refused to authorize the demonstration since Israel is in a state of war, since the road where it was set to take place is used by emergency army vehicles and is close to “sensitive security sites,” since intelligence indicated more than the requested 1,000 people were set to attend, and since no municipal approval was presented.
In addition, the police letter stated that “police have material indicating expected speeches of an inciting nature that weakens the security forces.”
It warned the organizers that they would be criminally liable if the protest ended up going ahead.
[IsraelTimes] Following last week’s IDF operation at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, in which forces said they arrested 240 terror suspects, a report claims that 60 of the detainees received treatment in Israeli hospitals following their arrest.
Channel 12 news reports that 60 members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups required medical attention that couldn’t be given at the Sde Teiman detention facility, since its field hospital was closed in October citing a low number of patients.
Citing unnamed sources in the healthcare system, the network says that the terror suspects were taken to hospitals including Ichilov in Tel Aviv, Barzilai in Ashkelon, Assuta in Ashdod, Wolfson in Holon, and Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem.
It quotes an unnamed health official as reiterating past warnings that the closure of the field hospital would cause terrorists to get treatment at hospitals around the country — presumably posing security risks and potentially leading to public criticism — adding that this “could have been avoided” and calling for a designated facility.
[IsraelTimes] Channel 12 cites ‘Maj. Nun’ as writing that while IDF was preparing for worst-case scenario of 4 simultaneous incursions from Gaza, Hamas was planning a far more significant attack
An assessment from a senior Israeli intelligence officer in August 2023 warning that Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... was readying for a large-scale attack was suppressed and not passed on to senior military brass in the months prior to the Paleostinian terror group’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre, according to a Saturday evening report.
According to Channel 12, a senior Israel Defense Forces official named only by his first initial as "Maj. Nun" wrote the assessment that there had been a change in the feasibility of war with Hamas, based on dire warnings from two counterintelligence officers from the military’s 8200 signals intelligence unit, as he was leaving his role in August last year.
The report said that in the presentation, Nun had warned that while intelligence indicated that Hamas was preparing for a very broad operation, the IDF was readying only for a scenario of up to four simultaneous incursions from 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.
He wrote that the intelligence indicated that "several basic assumptions" should be challenged, according to the report, and suggested resuming monitoring Hamas’s elite Nukhba force. It was the Nukhba force that led thousands of Paleostinian bandidosbully boyz across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid many acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Unit 8200, one of the IDF units pointed to as playing a role in the failure to prevent October 7, reportedly stopped listening in to the handheld radios of Hamas operatives in Gaza around a year before the onslaught because it was seen as a "waste of effort."
Nun was reportedly the officer responsible for presenting a document obtained by Unit 8200 in April 2022 setting out Hamas’s plans for what proved to be the October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel.
The existence of the document, which Israeli military intelligence codenamed "Jericho Walls," was first reported by the Kan broadcaster and detailed by The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... in November 2023.
As reported by Hebrew media last year, it was not seen by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi before the October 7 attack. It was also not seen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, or the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
According to the timeline laid out by Channel 12 on Saturday, the IDF chief was briefed on Hamas’s military training drills in September 2023, but Nun’s warnings were left out of the presentation.
Instead, the warnings were assessed by the bigwig’s commanding officer, named in the report as "Lt. Gen. Alef," as warning of a "pompous and unrealistic scenario." He ordered Nun’s successor to create a new document on Hamas training preparations to present to Halevi that did not mention the "Jericho Walls" plan.
According to the reports, the 40-page "Jericho Walls" plan laid out almost exactly how Hamas eventually wound up carrying out the attack.
The Times wrote: "The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and button men to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on cycle of violences and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7."
Israeli intelligence officers who did see the plan reportedly determined that the terror group was incapable of carrying out an assault of such a large scope — or possibly unwilling — and dismissed concerns about it.
Saturday night’s report was the latest in a long series of revelations that began emerging soon after October 7 about intelligence material in Israel’s hands pointing to the looming Hamas invasion that was ignored, dismissed, or misinterpreted. The TV channel said its report was compiled under military censorship limitations.
Last month, the IDF chief instructed the military to "accelerate the timetables" for the conclusion of its investigations into the October 7 onslaught, to meet a January 31 deadline set by Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The government has refused to appoint a state commission of inquiry and has opposed any probes that could include looking at political failures surrounding the devastating surprise attack, its lead-up, and its aftermath.
The attack sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, which has also seen fighting on several other fronts as well against Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... — which backs Hamas — and its various other proxy groups in the region.
[IsraelTimes] None of the cases have yielded arrests; after latest incident in Brazil, Israel said to set up joint desk to assess, respond to legal threats to traveling ex-troops
The Foreign Ministry knows of at least twelve cases in which complaints have been filed abroad against Israel Defense Forces soldiers accusing them of war crimes in 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... , Channel 12 news reported Sunday, amid reports of Israelis being urged to leave various countries to avoid potential prosecution, including in Brazil on Sunday.
Such complaints have been filed in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland and Cyprus, the report said, citing figures presented in a ministerial meeting. According to the Haaretz daily, the list also includes South Africa and La Belle France.
Channel 12 noted that in most cases, the complaints did not result in an investigation, and in none of them was anyone arrested, though is said the Brazil incident had come close to becoming a diplomatic crisis.
The network reported that during the same ministerial meeting Sunday, data was presented showing that in the second half of 2024, physical antisemitic attacks rose by 104 percent, while online antisemitic cases rose by 63%. The meeting’s objective was reportedly to devise procedures for dealing with cases similar to Sunday’s Brazil case.
Meanwhile,
...back at the comedy club, Boogie ducked another tomato... Haaretz reported Sunday that a joint desk has been set up by the Military Advocate General, the Foreign Ministry, the National Security Council, and the Shin Bet to assess legal threats to soldiers abroad.
The reports come amid a campaign by the Hind Rajab Foundation, a nonprofit based in Belgium, to identify Israeli soldiers who have published videos to social media in which they commit, claim to have committed, or appear to endorse committing potential war crimes, and to file complaints against the soldiers on that basis.
The organization, which proclaims that it is "devoted to ending Israeli impunity and achieving justice for Hind Rajab and all the victims of the Gaza Genocide," is named after six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza in February. Her death was blamed on the IDF, but an initial probe conducted by the army said that there were no troops in the area at the time.
An Israel Defense Forces soldier who survived Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, hurriedly ended his vacation in Brazil on Sunday morning after the country’s Federal Court ordered police to open a war crimes investigation on him, according to Brazilian media.
He was being investigated under suspicion that he was involved "in the destruction of a residential building in the Gaza Strip while using explosives outside of combat" in November, the Brazilian Metrópoles news outlet reported.
The Foreign Ministry said that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar had ordered the ministry’s Consular Section and the embassy in Brazil to contact the man and his family, who "accompanied him throughout the event until his swift and safe departure from Brazil."
"The Foreign Ministry draws the attention of Israelis to posts on social media about their military service, and to the fact that anti-Israeli elements may exploit these posts to initiate futile legal proceedings against them," the Foreign Ministry added.
"The State of Israel is dealing today with an organized campaign by pro-Paleostinian organizations that are trying to gather materials that soldiers have posted over the course of the war, and to use them to try to have those soldiers arrested," explained Israeli Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Zonshine to Channel 12 on Sunday.
Yuval Kaplinski, former head of the International Division of the State Attorney’s Office, told the network: "If a soldier posts a video in which you see destroyed houses, or posts [a video of] a demolition of houses, and he says: ’We’re going to blow up all the houses in Gaza, and kill civilians, and settle there, and destroy all of Gaza and all the Gazooks,’ he is, essentially, declaring that he is carrying out a war crime."
More about the IDF soldier who narrowly escaped from Brazil can be read here.
[IsraelTimes] Official from terror group demands weeklong truce to get info, but Israel unlikely to agree; Smotrich reportedly tells hostages’ families he won’t agree to ‘pay a price for bodies’
Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... was said Sunday evening to have agreed with Israel on a list of 34 hostages to be released in the first phase of a potential ceasefire deal, but the Paleostinian terror group was refusing to detail who of them was alive, according to multiple reports citing Hamas and Israeli officials.
After a Hamas official was cited by the Rooters news agency as claiming the terror group had supplied such a list, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office quickly denied it and said that "as of now, Hamas has not given a list of hostages."
Rooters later said the Hamas official had provided the outlet a copy of the list showing the names of 34 hostages it agreed to set free in any possible ceasefire deal with Israel. However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... the agency didn’t say whose names were on it.
Several subsequent reports appeared to clear up the contradiction between the versions given by Hamas and Israel, saying that rather than supplying a list of names, Hamas had indicated that a list of 34 names sent by Jerusalem several months ago was acceptable to it, but that Israel viewed the information as incomplete and not allowing further progress.
The Walla news site reported, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, that Hamas had approved the list in exchange for an "appropriate price" — meaning the number of Paleostinian security prisoners to be freed as part of the deal — but refused to say who was alive and who wasn’t, making it impossible to determine which price would be appropriate.
The AFP news agency reported similar details, quoting an unnamed Hamas official who demanded a weeklong truce in order for the terror group to determine who on the list was alive.
"Hamas has agreed to release 34 Israeli prisoners from a list presented by Israel as part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal," the official said, adding however that Hamas needed time to determine their condition.
"Hamas has agreed to release the 34 prisoners, whether alive or dead," the official said. "However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... the group needs a week of calm to communicate with the captors and identify those who are alive and those who are dead."
Israel is highly unlikely to agree to halt the fighting for a week without a finalized deal.
Negotiators are looking to achieve a halt to the 15-month-old war, together with the release of 100 hostages still held captive by Gazook terror groups.
The first phase of a three-stage potential deal would reportedly see 23 female and older captives go free in the first stage, in addition to 11 men under the age of 50 who are believed to be in poor health, including civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham a-Sayed who have been held in the Strip for around a decade.
As of last week, Hamas had been reported to be refusing to release 12 of those 34 hostages, deeming any man between the ages of 18 and 50 a "soldier."
The Hamas official who spoke to Rooters on Sunday insisted that any deal was contingent upon the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from 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... and a permanent ceasefire, claiming that there had been no progress from the Israeli side in this regard.
Netanyahu has insisted throughout multiple rounds of failed negotiations that Israel will not commit to a complete end to the war and has said that the fight against Hamas will resume at the conclusion of any deal that is reached.
Multiple reports said Sunday that White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk was already in Doha, Qatar ...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... for the negotiations, adding that Mosssd ...... chief David Barnea was expected to head there as well. Channel 12 news said Barnea would arrive on Monday or Tuesday.
Netanyahu has held a series of security discussions in recent days on the hostage talks, with Channel 12 reporting that Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer were all in attendance.
The network added that Israel is aiming for US President-elect Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s inauguration on January 20 as the target deadline for an agreement.
The Walla and Axios news sites reported Sunday that Dermer is expected to travel to the US this week to meet bigwigs from the White House and Trump’s incoming administration.
The Saudi al-Hadath news outlet reported, citing sources from the Israeli delegation to Qatar, that Jerusalem could agree to grant Hamas leaders immunity and refrain from targeting them abroad if the group agrees to relinquish its governance of the Gaza Strip and move abroad.
The report added that in place of the terror group, Gaza would be controlled by "an independent Paleostinian body," the report stated, in coordination with the international community. An international peacekeeping force, similar to UNIFIL in Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... , would be established in this scenario and the US would be responsible for overseeing the implementation of such an agreement.
’THERE WAS NO NEGLECT’
At a meeting attended by some hostages’ relatives last week, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the families that he disagrees with the assertion that the government neglected its duty to Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led onslaught that killed over 1,200 and resulted in the kidnapping of 251 hostages, sparking the war.
"There was no neglect. The State of Israel did not neglect," said Smotrich, according to Channel 12, which added that the hostages’ relatives were stunned by his statement.
A hostage’s family member rejected the minister’s assertion, saying: "What do you mean? My daughter was abandoned by the State of Israel. She was kidnapped from within the state’s territory."
However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... Smotrich pushed back, insisting that "there was no abandonment here. The State of Israel did not abandon."
Smotrich was also said to have asserted that he would not agree to any deal to return the bodies of slain hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, with the outlet quoting the far-right minister as saying: "I don’t intend to pay a price for bodies. No terrorist will be returned for a body. They will be brought back in operations."
Ninety-six of the 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the October 7 assault remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
[IsraelTimes] Saudi daily al-Sharq publishes what it says is the list of the 34 hostages to be freed in the first phase of a potential hostage-ceasefire deal.
Hamas has refused to say who on the list is alive.
According to the report, an official from the terror group says it will take around a week to determine the condition of each of the hostages.
The list includes two children, 10 women, 11 older men and 11 men aged under 50.
The outlet says the following individuals would be released if a deal were to be reached.
Romi Gonen
Emily Damari
Arbel Yehud
Doron Steinbrecher
Ariel Bibas
Kfir Bibas
Shiri Silberman Bibas
Liri Albag
Karina Ariev
Agam Berger
Danielle Gilboa
Naama Levy
Ohad Ben-Ami
Gad Moshe Moses
Keith Siegel
Ofer Calderon
Eli Sharabi
Itzhak Elgaret
Shlomo Mansur
Ohad Yahalomi
Yousef Yousef Alziadna
Oded Lifshitz
Idan Tsachi
Hisham Eli Said
Yarden Bibas
Sagui Dekel-Chen
Iair Horn
Omer Wenkert
Alexander Troufanov
Eliya Cohen
Or Levy
Avera Mengistu
Tal Shoham
Omer Shem-Tov
#1
HAMAS leadership, what is still left of it, no longer has direct hostage control. It is more likely various splinter groups and PA/GAZA civilians are holding the hostages.
So basically we could see a PR stunt of 20 coffins at the exchange. Then days to determine if the bodies really
are or were the 10-7 hostages.
Tit for tat with IDF punishment — it’s unfortunately the only way to ram the lesson home, since nothing kinder has worked.
[IsraelTimes] The High Court of Justice rules unanimously that the state is not obligated to release for burial the bodies of slain terrorists who are Israeli citizens, in light of the state’s position that it may want to exchange those bodies in the framework of an agreement for the return of Israeli hostages and dead being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Six petitions were filed last year to the court against the state by relatives of the slain gunnies arguing that the cabinet’s decision to not release the bodies of their relatives was unlawful, was taken without legal authority, and did "severe and blatant harm" to the dignity of the dead and of their families.
The state argued that negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages and the dead being held by Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... are "dynamic" and are at a sensitive stage, and that at present "it is not possible to rule out that holding the bodies of these gunnies will be needed for the purpose of [bringing back] the captives and missing."
Hardline conservative justice David Mintz, who penned the opinion for the three-justice panel, wrote that the court has "the most limited scope" for intervening in government decisions relating to security decisions, and that such intervention is reserved for extreme situations.
Mintz also writes that the military commander has the authority under a 1945 regulation to withhold the release of the bodies of terrorists, and that the court previously ruled in September last year that this applied to Israeli citizens as well.
The judge concluded that the decision not to release the bodies by the government "is a temporary and time-limited decision which is reviewed from time to time by the Cabinet," and that in light of the "current security reality, the ongoing negotiations and their dynamic nature... we did not find that there was any room for our intervention."
Small numbers, but infinitely more than zero. And despite Haredi rabbis insisting that none of their boys should join up because it seduces them away from the faith.
[IsraelTimes] Military hails ‘significant milestone,’ says another 100 older Haredi men join Hasmonean Brigade’s first reservist company.
#2
Easy enough to tie the long locks back in a low ponytail. God doesn’t require them to wear the hair down — that’s just fashionable in their social circle.
[LI] Thanks for admitting reality, asshole. Nice archive pic
Noted Columnist Caroline Glick: "Blinken himself has devoted most of his energies to pressuring and castigating Israel."
U.S. Secretary of State Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Saturday made a stunning admission explaining how U.S. pressure on Israel emboldened the terrorist group Hamas and made it toughen its stance on the issue of hostage release.
Whenever there was open disagreement between the U.S. and Israel, Hamas backtracked on hostage release, the outgoing secretary of state acknowledged.
"Whenever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel and the perception that pressure was growing on Israel," he said an interview with The New York Times. "[W]e’ve seen it: Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a ceasefire and the release of hostages."
In NYT interview, SecState Blinken acknowledges that Hamas pulled back from agreements in ceasefire-hostage deal talks whenever there was there was “public daylight” and a perception that “pressure was growing on Israel” by the U.S. pic.twitter.com/QMaWLvCy16
Blinken’s shocking admission was met with sharp criticism in the Israeli press. The newspaper Israel Hayom commented: "Now, as the hostage release deal nears completion, the cat is out of the bag," In an interview with The New York Times, acknowledged the damage that American pressure on Israel caused to the hostage release efforts."
Noting Blinken’s own role in weakening Israel’s negotiating position, prominent Israeli author and commentator Caroline Glick wrote that "Blinken himself has devoted most of his energies to pressuring and castigating Israel."
Glick commented in her Sunday’s column for the Jewish New Syndicate (JNS):
The hostages have been held in Gaza for 457 days. And the question of why they are still there, why has Israel been unable to bring them home, gets asked with increased frustration and alarm every day from all quarters.
On Saturday, we received an answer to that question. Shortly after news broke of the release of the video of Liri Albag, The New York Times published an interview with outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Blinken said that Hamas has refused to agree to release the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire for two reasons.
Posted by: Frank G ||
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[IsraelTimes] Organization is currently dealing with at least 43,000 missing people in ‘massive task’ that may fail in some cases, urges de facto leaders to preserve evidence
Determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war will be a massive task likely to take years, the president of the International Committee for the Red Thingy said on Saturday.
"Identifying the missing and informing the families about their fate is going to be a huge challenge," ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric told AFP in an interview.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict that started in 2011 when then-president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... ’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.
Many are believed to have been buried in mass graves after being tortured in Syria’s jails during a war that has killed more than half a million people.
Thousands have been released since Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of relatives and friends who went missing.
Spoljaric said the ICRC was working with the caretaker authorities, non-governmental organizations and the Syrian Red Islamic Thingy to collect data to give families answers as soon as possible.
But "the task is enormous," she said in the interview late Saturday.
"It will take years to get clarity and to be able to inform everybody concerned. And there will be cases we will never (be able) to identify," she added.
"Until recently, we’ve been following up on 35,000 cases, and since we established a new hotline in December, we are adding another 8,000 requests," Spoljaric said.
"But that is just potentially a portion of the numbers."
Spoljaric said the ICRC was offering the new authorities to "work with us to build the necessary institution and institutional capacities to manage the available data and to protect and gather what... needs to be collected."
Human Rights Watch last month urged the new Syrian authorities to "secure, collect and safeguard evidence, including from mass grave sites and government records... that will be vital in future criminal trials."
The rights group also called for cooperation with the ICRC, which could "provide critical expertise" to help safeguard the records and clarify the fate of missing people.
Spoljaric said: "We cannot exclude that data is going to be lost. But we need to work quickly to preserve what exists and to store it centrally to be able to follow up on the individual cases."
More than half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family came to a sudden end in early December after a rapid rebel offensive swept across Syria and took the capital Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
[IsraelTimes] Requests for naturalization hit an all-time high as communities warm to the idea. While future trends are unpredictable, developments in Syria will have a huge impact
Against the backdrop of the wars in 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... and Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel... , the fall of the Assad regime, and the tragic death of 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams in a Hezbollah rocket attack, the number of Druze residents applying for Israeli citizenship in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights might be a reflection of local sentiment — and perhaps also of attitudes on the nearby Syrian side of the volatile border.
Data obtained by Shomrim reveals that the number of citizenship applications in the Israeli Golan Heights remains at a historic high. Over 20 percent of Golan Druze hold Israeli citizenship, more than double than at the turn of the millennium.
The statistics were obtained from the Population and Immigration Authority thanks to a request filed through the Movement for Freedom of Information, an Israeli NGO that works to promote governmental transparency.
Israel captured much of the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War; the post-war borders zig-zagged between Druze villages, cutting families and communities off from one another. When Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, it offered all residents Israeli citizenship, though only a small minority took it up. Recently, though, that number has grown.
THE STATS
Druze naturalizations peaked in 2022, when 438 citizenship requests were submitted, of which 419 were approved. In 2023, applications dipped slightly to 406, of which 389 were granted, and in the first 11 months of 2024, there were 352 requests, of which 318 were approved. Assuming the trend continued through the end of the year, 2024 likely ended with a similar number of requests as 2023.
Looking at the broader picture, over the past three years (2022-2024), Israel approved 1,126 citizenship requests from Druze in the Israeli Golan Heights, compared to just 539 in the five-year period between 2017 and 2021.
Based on data from the Population and Immigration Authority, approximately 6,000 of the over 29,000 Druze residents in the Golan Heights — about 20.45% — currently hold Israeli citizenship. Compared to 2022, this is an increase of around 3.6% of the total Druze community in the area. Part of this increase is the result of more applications being submitted and part is the result of couples with Israeli citizenship having children.
COMPLEX HISTORY
While applying for Israeli citizenship has not been a rarity in the Druze community for many years, it is still something of a controversial issue. While there are no longer boycotts organized against those who apply for Israeli citizenship, as was the case for many years, it is still hard to find anyone willing to talk openly about their decision — and even within families, there is much secrecy surrounding the issue.
For the vast majority of the time since Israel occupied the Golan Heights, the Druze residents were fiercely loyal to the Syrian regime, for many and varied reasons, chief among which was the possibility that the territory could be returned to Syrian control as part of a peace treaty with Israel. The Assad regime — first under Hafez Assad and then his son, Bashar — ensured that Damascus’s relations with the Druze community in the Golan remained strong, in part by offering them generous financial incentives, such as importing massive quantities of apples from the Golan, subsidizing university studies in Syria for young Druze men and women and allowing family visits between the Israeli and Syrian Golan.
Despite the efforts of the Syrian regime, however, the attractiveness of these incentives wore off over the years. This led to a decline in agriculture in the Golan, while other economic sectors such as tourism and construction grew, strengthening the community’s ties with Israel. Moreover, the Syrian civil war made studying in Damascus a less attractive option and interfered with family visits.
This process, accompanied by a consistent increase in the number of requests for Israeli citizenship, unfolded to a large extent behind the scenes — at least until the issue was brought to the fore by the October 7, 2023, Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... onslaught on southern Israel and a number of subsequent events.
For example, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas invasion, Druze local authorities in the Golan set up armed rapid-response teams to defend their communities. In so doing, they openly cooperated with the IDF and the State of Israel, notwithstanding the heavy symbolism of working with the Israeli military and government. Another critical moment was the Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children on a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, which provoked massive anger toward the Assad regime — Hezbollah’s ally — as well as an expectation that Israel would take decisive action against those responsible for the tragedy.
THE SYRIAN EFFECT
Dr. Salim Brik, a researcher on Arab society and a political science lecturer at Haifa University and the Open University, believes that the main reason for the upward trend in citizenship requests is the assessment within the Druze community that Syria will not assume control of the Golan Heights any time soon. Another reason, he argues, is the demise of the once-fierce opposition within the community to taking Israeli citizenship and the absence of social sanctions for doing so. Now, he says, the issue of applying for Israeli citizenship is seen as a personal choice.
Dr. Yusri Hazran, a research fellow and senior lecturer at Shalem College, sees things differently. He says that there are four main reasons why Druze residents of the Golan Heights apply for Israeli citizenship: the ongoing decline in the political protest against Israel; the absence of an alternative to Israeli rule, coupled with the fresh understanding that Assad’s successors in Syria are bad news for the Druze community; integration into the Israeli economy; and a desire to study in Israeli academic institutions.
"The Druze see their mother country disintegrating with the fall of the Assad regime and they are looking for an anchor," he says, pointing to the rapid-response teams as a significant example of the change. "I believe that the upward trend in citizenship requests will continue. I can’t think of anything that would change the graph in the coming years. On the contrary, I estimate that a further increase is expected."
All of the researchers with whom Shomrim spoke were of the opinion that the fall of the Assad regime was a moment of historic significance for the Druze and will have a long-term effect on their naturalization. Whether or not the new regime is less oppressive and whether this will change the trend remains to be seen.
Dr. Tayer Abu Salah is an international relations researcher and the head of the Golan Association for the Development of Arab Villages who lives in Majdal Shams. He says that the number of naturalizations surprised him — but only because he expected them to be higher. Based on his familiarity with the community, he explains that in recent weeks the Druze have been analyzing events in Syria and hoping for positive developments. What unfolds on the Syrian front will have a massive impact on their future in general and on the naturalization issue in particular.
Asked what the Druze community’s considerations are when analyzing the Syrian situation, Abu Salah mentions regional alliances which will become reality under pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... , moderate comments from Syria’s new leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, and Israel’s record of withdrawing from territory it captured during the Six Day War.
"If what happens in Syria is positive, it will have a positive impact on the Golan — and vice versa," says Abu Salah. "In any case, it must be pointed out that, even after 57 years of Israeli occupation, most of the Druze community in the Golan is still loyal to their country of birth, which is Syria."
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.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
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..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
[LI] 
Despoiler of Deraa...
