Israeli war chief offers ‘apology’ to Sde Teiman rapists, orders their reinstatement into army

The Cradle

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently met with the soldiers responsible for raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman torture facility, ordering their reinstatement to the army and apologizing to them for the “injustice” they faced. 

The meeting came days after the charges against them were officially dropped. 

According to Hebrew media reports, including Channel 14, the soldiers from Force 100 attended the meeting with Katz wearing masks, in order to conceal their identities.

During the meeting, Katz told the soldiers, “I apologize for the injustice the system has done to you,” referring to the investigations opened against them and the “psychological harm” he said was caused by the military legal process.

Military sources told the Jerusalem Post they were “surprised” by Katz’s order to reinstate the soldiers, as the war chief “has the power to approve or hold up certain senior appointments, but not the power to order the army to return soldiers to service who have been caught up in legal proceedings.”

The sources added that they were “skeptical that any reinstatement would actually occur.”

The meeting came after the Israeli army’s top lawyer ordered the cancellation of the indictment against the five soldiers. 

Among the reasons for the cancellation was “complexity regarding the existing evidence.”

It also cited the five soldiers’ claim of “abuse of process.” A video of the sexual assault had been leaked by Israel’s former military advocate general, resulting in two arrests and a major scandal late last year.

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The Strait of Hormuz crisis: Why the US may be heading toward a strategic disaster

RT

US forces could capture a key Iranian island, but this would lead to a whole host of new problems.

When the US and Israel choose the logic of coercive pressure on Iran, they inevitably step into more than just another Middle Eastern crisis. They enter one of the most dangerous knots in world politics.

Here, military geography is directly bound up with global energy flows, the internal resilience of states, and the limits of American power projection. The war that began in late February 2026 has already crossed the line beyond which it can no longer be described as a localized air campaign and has started to affect global markets, US alliances, and the very architecture of security in the Persian Gulf.

Under normal conditions, around a fifth of global liquid hydrocarbon consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, along with a fifth of global LNG trade. At the same time, Iran's island-based oil export infrastructure remains one of the key arteries of the country's economy. Judging by media reporting and official US notices, the dynamics of the first weeks of the conflict already show that actual developments have diverged significantly from what the initiators of the escalation likely expected. If the plan had been working in full, the US would not have had to scramble to assemble an international coalition to restore shipping, admit that military escorts remain too risky for now, or face refusals from allies to join an operation in the Strait of Hormuz. The mere fact that even after large-scale strikes, the question of safe passage for commercial vessels remains unresolved, and that allies are in no hurry to share the military burden, points to a fairly well-grounded conclusion: The situation has clearly not unfolded according to the desired script.

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In 2002, the U.S. Military Conducted an Iran War Simulation. Iran Won

David Axe | The National Interest 

As tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf region, it’s worth recalling a 2002 Pentagon war game in which a U.S. Marine Corps played the part of an enemy commander waging a bloody defensive campaign against a much more powerful U.S. force.

Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper’s own hodgepodge of troops, ships and planes was similar in organization and capability to Iran’s actual forces. Van Riper’s success in blunting a simulated American assault could reveal how Tehran might fight in the real world.

“The exercise was called Millennium Challenge 2002,” Blake Stilwell wrote for We Are the Mighty.

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The price of war on Iran: Washington’s mounting military and financial drain

Abbas al-Zein | The Cradle

The US-Israeli war on Iran has triggered one of the most dangerous escalations witnessed in West Asia in recent years. US military bases spread across the Persian Gulf region have increasingly come under direct missile and drone attack, marking a significant shift in the nature of regional warfare. 

While initial coverage concentrated on battlefield developments and the pace of aerial bombardment, the broader and more consequential cost of confrontation – both military and economic – has gradually begun to take shape.

Alongside reciprocal strikes, there are growing indications of rapid depletion in high‑value missile defense systems, extensive use of expensive strategic munitions, and rising operational strain across US forces. 

At the same time, global markets and energy supply chains have begun to respond to the expanding confrontation. These overlapping dynamics raise fundamental questions about the distribution of losses during the early phase of the war and about the long‑term trajectory of escalation.

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Messianic Theology is now Israeli State Policy

Phil Harper | The Digger

For decades, the Western gaze has mapped onto Israel the familiar contours of a modern liberal democracy — a tech-savvy, secular state navigating the rough neighborhood of the Middle East with a pragmatic eye on security and strategic depth. But to listen to the rhetoric echoing out of Jerusalem this spring is to realize that this secular model is obsolete. On March 12, 2026, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the nation and spoke not of buffer zones or GDP, but of a metaphysical "place of rest and heritage" and the arrival of the "Days of the Messiah."

The message was clear: the Israeli state is no longer merely a refuge for a people; it has become, in the eyes of its leaders, an instrument of divine prophecy. For the secular economies of the West, which rely on materialist explanations like oil, land, and power to understand the world, this theological pivot is almost impossible to parse. Yet, without integrating these messianic undercurrents into our model of the nation, we are effectively flying blind.

The roots of this shift go back further than many realize. Footage from 1990 captures a younger Netanyahu meeting Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who urged the politician to "do something to hasten" the arrival of the Messiah. Netanyahu's response? That he was already working on it. Thirty five years later, Netanyahu's recent actions in Iran may be judged against this very promise.

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See also: The Z Factor VIII: Chabad Lubavitch (1)

Israel's biggest US donor now owns CBS

Alan Macleod | MintPress News

After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison — the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison — has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising "unbiased" news coverage and "varied ideological perspectives," which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network's new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her "pro-Israel stance."

MintPress News examines Ellison's close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss's extensive career as Israel's most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.

Israel's Man In Silicon Valley

Although Skydance, Ellison's media empire, is officially headed by David, it is well understood that father Larry holds both the purse strings and the reins of power. With a net worth of $301 billion, placing him second on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Rankings, Larry made his fortune by founding tech giant Oracle.

Oracle started as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, it is named after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation on which Ellison worked. For some time, the CIA was Oracle's only customer, until it began to win contracts with other agencies of the U.S. national security state. Today, although Oracle's customer base is much wider, it maintains its role as the privatized face of the CIA.

Yet if Oracle is close to Washington and Langley, it is perhaps even more intimately tied to the State of Israel. An avowed Zionist, Ellison has worked tirelessly to advance Israel's political project. Among his closest personal friends is Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he vacationed on his private island in Hawaii. Ellison was so impressed and confident in the Israeli prime minister that he offered him a seat on his company's board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

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Conscientious Objector Group: Phone 'Ringing Off Hook' As Huge Mobilization Underway

ZeroHedge

An 80-year-old nonprofit that advises conscientious objectors says its phone is "ringing off the hook" as American service members who object to the US-and-Israel-initiated war on Iran are seeking guidance on how to avoid being a part of it. Ominously, the group's executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the run-up to the ground invasion of Iraq.

"Phone has been ringing off the hook," wrote Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner on X. "A LOT more units have just been activated for deployment than the public knows about." Founded in 1940, the Center on Conscience and War provides guidance to military service members pursuing a conscientious objector (CO) status or a discharge. The group also opposes military conscription.

In a post on the group's account, the Center said it received a call from someone who is on deployment orders and who:

"reports widespread opposition to Iran War within their unit...In particular, they conveyed disgust at the US massacre of the girls' school as well as the attack on the Iranian frigate in international waters."

The US military is reportedly responsible for killing some 150 schoolgirls in Minab, Iran during the opening of the war. In another incident, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian ship that was departing a largely ceremonial naval event in India that involved 18 countries. Compounding the controversy over sinking a lightly-armed vessel 2,000 miles from the war theater, the Americans apparently left surviving sailors to drown in a violation of the Geneva Convention -- that is, a war crime. At least 87 died.

Under US military policy, CO status is defined as "a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief." That would seemingly exclude service members who stand ready to defend America, but who view the war on Iran as an amoral enterprise being carried out solely to advance Israel's agenda in the region.

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Ex-Prince Andrew Accused of Watching Young Girl Being Tortured

Dominique Thompson | Yahoo! News

Trigger Warning: This article contains descriptions of alleged child abuse and violence.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's fallout escalated again February 19 when authorities arrested him on suspicion of misconduct in public office. They released him the same day, but investigators are still reviewing material tied to the case.

Now, a disturbing allegation drawing attention claims Andrew was present while a young girl was subjected to electric shocks during an encounter involving Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

A tip cited in a July 2020 FBI report describes an alleged mid-1990s incident. The claim says Ghislaine strapped a girl to a table and "tortured [her] with electrical shocks." She was believed to be around six to eight years old. Andrew and several other men allegedly watched at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.

According to RadarOnline, sources say detectives plan to question Andrew about every allegation. One insider said "all accusations referenced in the Epstein files and reports about their contents could form part of the police interviews of Andrew." They added, "Detectives will be under pressure to examine every specific claim, however disturbing, and establish whether there is any evidential basis to them."

Legal experts say investigators must still review claims, even without clear proof. A legal source said, "When material of this nature enters the public domain, investigators have to consider it. That does not mean the allegations are proven, but they cannot simply be ignored."

A constitutional expert added, "The challenge for investigators is separating allegation from admissible evidence. The fact that something appears in a document does not make it fact, but equally it may be raised in a police interview."

Another source said, "Nothing will be off the table in terms of questioning. If it is in the documents, or there have been reports such allegations are in the documents, it is likely to be put to him."

Andrew has denied wrongdoing related to Epstein and Ghislaine.

The US-Israeli murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

Eva Bartlett | RT

Graves being prepared for the victims, mostly children, of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on February 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, March 2, 2026. ©  Iranian Foreign Media Department via AP

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed 'Operation Epic Fury', attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters' murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children's desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child's shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media - only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting:

"These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how "rescue" promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood."

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

International reaction: Silence

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children's lives don't merit Western media outrage. Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC's report, which describes the massacre as a "reported" strike on a school, which "Iran has blamed the US and Israel" for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel's crimes. The US is "looking into reports." Israel is "not aware." Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing:

"Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: "the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control." The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist "moderates" east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no "Israel says."

CNN ran the headline "A girls' elementary school was hit in Iran. Here's what we know." Its video report not only doesn't mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel's claiming Gaza's Shifa hospital was a "Hamas base", and staging weapons as "proof"), CNN claims the children's school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN's report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as "proof" of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn't a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military's Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was "looking into reports of the incident," and the Israeli army as saying it was "not aware of any IDF operations in the area." Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized - if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

Since the February 28 Minab school massacre, US-Israeli strikes have attacked still more civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring more Iranian civilians.

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran's Enghelab Square he'd seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT's Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

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Tucker Carlson Responds to Israel’s War on Iran

Tucker Carlson

The Tucker Carlson Show 

Israel Officials Get Blunt On Iran Aims: 'If We Can Have A Civil War, Great'

Zero Hedge

US mainstream media is issuing one headline after another that read like they are ripped straight off the plot of Homeland or some other subpar CIA counter-terrorism series. For example, Wednesday: Israel Is Blowing Up Iran’s Police State to Clear the Way for a Revolt.

In a bit of incredibly naive and wishful thinking and fantasy, WSJ writes: "Israel’s military is targeting the Iranian police state that brutally suppressed protests and killed thousands of people, with the hope of clearing the way for a popular revolt to overthrow the Islamic government."

Sure thing... it all sounds so nice and easy, and even 'good' on paper.

In this rosy US media narrative, Israeli and US forces are cast as the noble good guy warriors riding in to valiantly to crush the 'baddies' of the IRGC and Basij forces.

"Israeli officials have made it clear they are looking to do enough damage to Iran’s police state from the air that the people can take over on the ground. While Israel has long been content to weaken Tehran with military action or covert operations, Israeli officials have concluded they now must push for regime change," the same report continues.

The Israelis, however, are busy presenting their war in aims with much less romanticism, idealism, and dressed-up propaganda. 

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The War for Greater Israel

Craig Murray | craigmurray.co.uk

"Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel. But it is also a wider effort to re-establish the failing economic dominance of the United States by military control of key resources.

There is no part of the world which will be safe from the fallout".

There has scarcely been an attempt to pretend any justification in international law for the attack on Iran and murder of its leader. The response of the UK government, focusing almost entirely on condemning Iran for exercising its legitimate right of self-defence, takes the Starmer dishonesty meter further off the scale.

The RAF has been actively involved in genocide in Gaza for two years with its surveillance and logistic support for the IDF. It is now fighting for Israel again; intercepting Iranian missiles is not defensive; it is joining in the attack on an already vastly overmatched opponent.

I am afraid that the truth is the Iranian attempt to defend itself militarily will be less impactful than many anti-imperialists hope. The astonishing amounts of money spent by the US government on military and surveillance technology simply do have real-world effect.

Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the US on 3 January, I have concluded that no act of betrayal was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.

Iran is much more militarily sophisticated, but facing exponentially more force. Khamenei was killed in his own home, not hiding away. He is going to prove a lot more powerful as a martyr than as a ruler with his internal critics.

We are facing not only a period of unapologetic imperialism to which virtually all Western countries are prepared to defer, but a return of medievalism, both in the sheer barbarity and scale of physical abuse, as witnessed in Gaza and in general Israeli brutality, and in use of kidnap and murder as methods of high policy. Legitimising the killing and kidnap of leaders of opposing states is of course a double-edged sword.

Having sanctioned genocide, mass killings and deliberate destruction of medical facilities and staff, the mass murder of children, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Heads of State, it is hard now to imagine almost any atrocity which the Western powers are in any moral position to condemn.

While Iran's military ability to strike back is limited, the ramifications of this attack will not be. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have reverted to the norm of being not only reliable US and Israeli satraps, but promoters of atavistic hatred of Shia Muslims.

The West is deliberately exploiting the Shia/Sunni divide, as it has for centuries; but this will now destabilise the region for decades. Iraq in particular is going to be convulsed, and so will Pakistan. In Bahrain, the Shia population has been held in check by its Sunni rulers using systematic Western-sponsored murder and torture. Using it as a base to murder the Ayatollah is going to blow back.

It would appear that we are going to witness an aerial campaign to destroy Iran's civilian infrastructure, as in Iraq where 65% of clean drinking water, 50% of hospitals and clinics and 80% of electrical generation was destroyed by "liberation" by the NATO powers.

The object is the destruction of Iran as a viable state. 

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Gaza does not need new overlords

Jehad Abusalim | Mondoweiss

The U.S. plan for Gaza is the final stage of Israel’s genocide. Bombs and bulldozers obliterated Gaza’s landscape, and now skyscrapers and data centers aim to dismantle its social fabric and capacity to resist.

Every few decades, a new group of powerful men gathers around a table to decide what to do with Gaza or with Palestinians in general. The language changes. The underlying logic does not.

The latest proposals to “govern” postwar Gaza, from Jared Kushner’s beachfront development fantasies to the so-called “Board of Peace” and various international trusteeship schemes, are presented as bold, forward-looking visions.  In reality, they are just recycling the same colonial framework that has governed Palestinian life for over a century: external actors decide what Palestinians need, what they may have, and what they must become in order to deserve it.

Gaza’s crisis was never a problem of governance or waiting for the right foreign administrator. It was, and remains, the product of a specific political structure: prolonged military occupation, a seventeen-year siege that strangled every dimension of life, and a settler-colonial project that treats Palestinian existence as an obstacle to be managed or removed. These are the roots. Everything else — the poverty, the misery, the desperation — is a symptom.

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Families to receive $1.5 million after Supreme Court victory over LGBT storytelling in school

Zero Hedge

A Maryland school district that lost a recent U.S. Supreme Court case will pay $1.5 million to parents who weren't allowed to opt their children out of LGBT story time, the families' attorneys said.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs in the landmark Mahmoud v. Taylor case, announced the settlement on Feb. 20. The defendant, the Montgomery County Board of Education — which oversees Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest school district in the state — was also ordered to comply with court orders mandating advance notice and opt-out provisions.

"Public schools nationwide are on notice: running roughshod over parents' rights and religious freedom isn't just illegal — it's costly," Eric Baxter, Becket senior counsel and the lead attorney in the case, said in a Feb. 20 statement.

"This settlement enforces the Supreme Court's ruling and ensures parents, not government bureaucrats, have the final say in how their children are raised."

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Iran confirms Supreme Leader Khamenei killed in US-Israeli strike

RT

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been "martyred," state news agencies have announced.

Iranian state media have confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the ongoing joint US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic.

Multiple news agencies, including the Tasnim, Mehr and Press TV simultaneously announced early Sunday that the 85-year-old leader had been "martyred" in the attack.

"The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint attack by the criminal America and the Zionist regime," the official statement said.

"At the moment of the martyrdom, he was carrying out his assigned duties and was present at his workplace, when this cowardly attack occurred," it added, refuting the "Zionist regime's psychological warfare" claiming that the Supreme Leader was hiding in a secure and hidden location.

"This great crime will never go unanswered and will mark a new chapter in the history of the Islamic and Shiite world," President Masoud Pezeshkian's office said in a statement, announcing 40 days of public mourning. "With full force and strength... we will make the perpetrators and commanders of this great crime regret their actions."

The confirmation came hours after conflicting reports about Khamenei's fate. Earlier on Saturday, US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that "Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead," following a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that "there are many signs" the supreme leader "is no more."

Netanyahu claimed that Khamenei's compound was struck in a "powerful surprise attack," vowing that "thousands of targets" in the Iranian leadership would be killed in the coming days and calling on Iranians to take to the streets and overthrow the government.

The strikes, which Washington and West Jerusalem described as a "preemptive" operation, targeted the Iranian leadership, as well as military and nuclear-related facilities. Trump said the attack was aimed at destroying Iran's missile industry and navy, as well as forcing regime change in Tehran. Iran has since retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israeli territory and US military bases across the Middle East.

Moscow condemned the operation, with the Russian Foreign Ministry describing it as a "premeditated and unprovoked act of aggression" aimed at toppling a government "they deem undesirable because it has refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure."

Horrific new data reveals thousands of children mutilated under Biden regime

Steve Watson | ZeroHedge

New revelations from the Stop The Harm Database expose a grim reality: between 2019 and 2023, thousands of American children were subjected to life-altering surgeries, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers in the name of transgender ideology.

According to the data compiled by medical watchdog group Do No Harm, 5,747 minors underwent surgical procedures often described as mutilation, including mastectomies and other invasive operations.

Another 8,579 children received hormones and puberty blockers, chemicals that disrupt natural development and carry severe long-term risks like infertility and bone density loss.

In total, 13,994 minors endured some form of sex change treatment, while a shocking 62,682 prescriptions for these interventions were written for kids.

These numbers highlight the peak of the transgender push under the Biden administration, where progressive policies enabled hospitals and clinics to profit handsomely — raking in nearly $120 million from these procedures on vulnerable youth.

The database, drawing from insurance claims across the U.S., shows the majority of these cases occurred in liberal strongholds like California, Oregon, and Washington, where resistance to safeguards was fiercest.

This comes amid growing backlash against the transgender agenda targeting children.

As we previously detailed, a psychologist and surgeon faced a successful lawsuit for approving and performing a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl who later detransitioned. The case underscores how rushed approvals without proper safeguards have left countless lives in ruins.

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Tony Blair claims crisis in Gaza due to 'extremism' and 'corruption'

Imran Mulla | Middle East Eye

"Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), said ... Blair "has been a serial failure in Palestine ... He has scant understanding of the issues, a colonial mindset, [and] is addicted to cosying up to power and money, in this case Trump."

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Tony Blair blamed the crisis in Gaza on "extremism" and "corruption" in his speech on Thursday at the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" in Washington DC.

"For decades," the former British prime minister claimed, "Gaza's governance has been characterised by extremism, corruption, ineffective institutions and the complete absence of a route to prosperity for the Gazan people."

The Palestinian enclave has been under Israeli occupation for decades. 

Blair said Gaza has "vast potential" due to its "25 miles of Mediterranean coastline, proximity to great regional and global markets, and a young, dynamic population with a median age of 19".

He hailed the Board of Peace and said it would "rebuild Gaza for Gazans".

"Whether you're a Muslim, Jew, Christian, of any faith or none, you can rise by your own efforts and feel your government by your side, not on your back," Blair said.

"That is the vision behind President Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza, and it remains the best, indeed the only hope for Gaza, the region and the wider world."

Despite Blair's presence, Britain has not joined Trump's board, which has been boycotted by several European countries for inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to join it.

Significantly, Keir Starmer's Labour government has distanced itself from the former prime minister.

In November, when it was rumoured that Blair would be on the board, Jonathan Powell, Starmer's national security advisor and Blair's former chief of staff in Downing Street, said privately that Blair did not represent the British state.

Powell lobbied actively against Blair's nomination, according to two separate informed sources who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

'A colonial mindset'

Blair's comments at the meeting have drawn criticism, since he did not refer to Israel's role in his account of the situation in Gaza. 

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Israel's high-tech investment boom is fuelled by genocide

Comment: It's nothing new. Israel has always been obsessed with technology that kills, be it germ, chemical, atomic or psychological warfare. 

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Farah Choucair | Middle East Eye

Brutal technology field-tested on Palestinians has helped to propel the state's economy to the top of global performance charts

Late last year, the Economist published an article titled “Which economy did best in 2025?” The annual ranking of 36 mostly rich countries, conducted for the fifth year in a row, aimed to pinpoint the “economy of the year”. 

The Economist compiled data on five indicators: inflation, GDP, jobs, stock market performance, and “inflation breadth”, measuring the share of product categories with an annual price increase of more than two percent.

Countries were ranked on each measure, creating an “overall score of economic success” in 2025. To my surprise, Israel ranked third, after Portugal and Ireland. 

Two main indicators have driven this “economic success”. Israel’s economy recorded a GDP growth rate of 3.5 percent, surpassing the global average of around 3.2 percent. More surprisingly, its stock market soared, with share prices growing by 53 percent over the previous year - outperforming the world’s major stock markets.

Although Israel has been waging war on Gaza for more than two years now, such figures typically reflect a strong economy, with companies reporting solid earnings and growth, and domestic and foreign investors expressing their confidence in the country.

According to a Times of Israel report, foreign investors “flocked to Israeli markets to buy shares starting in mid-2024 after a sell-off at the outbreak of the war in 2023”. 

Citing data from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the report noted that as of last September, “the value of holdings by foreign financial institutions in Tel Aviv stocks, excluding dual-listed stocks, reached a historic record of $19.2 billion, more than double the figure before the outbreak of war”.  

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MMR and MMRV Vaccines Linked to 2,657% More U.S. Deaths Than Measles Infection Since 1995

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | Focal Points

For decades, Americans have been told that measles represents a grave and ongoing threat — and that MMR vaccination is one of the safest and most effective interventions in modern medicine. Pharma-captured mass media and public health agencies have centered almost exclusively on the minimal dangers of measles infection and ignored grieving parents whose children were injured or even killed by the shots. No proper attention has been paid to signals emerging within the federal government's own vaccine safety database.

Now, our new McCullough Foundation study titled "Deaths Following MMR and MMRV Vaccination in the United States," authored by Kirstin Cosgrove, Breanne Craven, Claire Rogers, John A. Catanzaro, Albert Benevides, M. Nathaniel Mead, Mila Radetich, Peter A. McCullough, and Nicolas Hulscher (myself), takes a comprehensive look at reported fatal outcomes following MMR and MMRV vaccination in the United States, doing the work that our public health agencies should have done many years ago.

After analyzing VAERS data through August 29, 2025, we identified a serious mortality safety signal following MMR/MMRV vaccination in the United States. What we observed was not a diffuse or randomly scattered pattern across age groups and time intervals. Instead, we found an alarming number of deaths among infants and toddlers within days of receiving MMR/MMRV vaccines, sharply clustered in the routine first-dose window.

Most fatalities appeared to involve acute deterioration following vaccination, with manifestations including fever, seizures, and cardiac arrest at home, frequently culminating in classification as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). A small proportion survived hospitalization but were unable to be resuscitated.

Perhaps most striking is the broader context. Since 1995, there have been 193 U.S. MMR/MMRV vaccine-associated death reports with identifiable dates, compared to 7 measles infection-associated deaths recorded in the United States during the same period. That represents a 2,657% higher count of reported vaccine-associated deaths than measles deaths in the modern era.

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The Israeli Government Installed and Maintained Security System at Epstein Apartment

Comment: Sure Barak...Whatever you say...

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Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain | Drop Site

The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street — the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed for stretches at a time.

The security operation at "Ehud's apartment" was in place for at least two years, emails from the DOJ disclosure show, with officials from the Israeli permanent mission to the United Nations corresponding regularly with Epstein's staff regarding security. The apartment was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, but was effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Units in the building were frequently loaned out to Epstein's contacts and used to house underage models.

Rafi Shlomo, then-director of protective service at the Israeli mission to the United Nations in New York and head of Barak's security, corresponded with Epstein employees to arrange meetings to discuss security and coordinate installation of specialized surveillance equipment at the 66th Street residence. Shlomo personally controlled access to the apartment for guests and even conducted background checks on cleaners and Epstein's employees.

Under Israeli law, former prime ministers and other high ranking officials typically receive security services after they leave office. According to the emails, Epstein personally approved the installation of the equipment and authorized meetings between his staff and Israeli security officials.

Ehud Barak and the Israeli mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.

At the time of Epstein's death in 2019, Barak downplayed his connection to the disgraced financier, stating that while he had met with Epstein several times, he "didn't support me or pay me."

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