The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
US officials said 40 vessels carrying millions of barrels of oil crossed the Strait on September 1, while 17 million barrels transited the waterway on August 31, the highest since the war began.
Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 31, 2026.(photo credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)
The Islamic Republic’s ability to surveil the Strait of Hormuz and lay mines in the vital waterway has likely been significantly degraded by American attacks, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed, noting that increased oil flows through the strait on September 1 suggest Iran is having difficulty preventing some commercial vessels from using the southern route.
United States officials told Axios on Wednesday that approximately 40 vessels carrying millions of barrels of oil transited the strait on September 1.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright also confirmed that oil tankers transported over 17 million barrels of oil through the strait on August 31, the highest volume of oil exports through the waterway since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran.
The figure of 17 million barrels is close to pre-war levels, which averaged 21.6 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025.
These developments, according to ISW, suggest that Iran is having difficulty preventing some commercial vessels from using the southern route.
Additionally, ISW reported growing indications that Iranian forces are facing operational constraints preventing them from efficiently identifying vessels and laying mines in the strait.
Missiles are displayed during a military parade held by the Houthis, who are armed primarily by the IRGC. (credit: KHALED ABDULLAH/REUTERS)
IRGC turns to alternative methods as Hormuz surveillance is degraded
According to ISW, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recently attempted to use shore-based rocket launchers instead of fast-attack craft to deploy mines.
It has also reportedly used fast-attack craft to physically identify vessels because Iran has only a few functioning radars capable of covering the southern route.
ISW assessed that these less-optimal methods suggest that US strikes have degraded some of Iran’s maritime surveillance and mine-laying capabilities.
Though the IRGC has repeatedly claimed that vessels are striking naval mines in the strait, ISW’s assessment of the claims likely forms part of an effort to preserve the perception that the southern route remains dangerous. US Central Command previously reported that US forces had cleared naval mines from the strait.
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said last week that US forces had cleared an effective pathway for ships to leave the Persian Gulf, adding that the mines had been “highly degraded.”
During last night's operation, more naval mines were laid along the illicit routes south of the Strait of Hormuz;
The only thing CENTCOM could do in response was rename the Strait using Photoshop.
Problem solved! You can just use Photoshop to get the oil tankers through, too!
However, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military officer and spokesman, claimed on Wednesday that new mines had been laid.
“During last night’s operation, more naval mines were laid along the illicit routes south of the Strait of Hormuz. The only thing CENTCOM could do in response was rename the strait using Photoshop,” he wrote on X/Twitter. “Problem solved! You can just use Photoshop to get the oil tankers through, too!”
Iran appears to be investing in rebuilding its radar systems, ISW noted, citing a claim by US President Donald Trump that Iran had nearly rebuilt some of its radar systems before the US struck them again on September 1.
CENTCOM strikes targets on September 1
CENTCOM confirmed that its September 1 strikes targeted Iranian air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites.
ISW noted that Iran is likely to continue attempting to reconstitute these capabilities because control of the Strait of Hormuz remains one of Tehran’s core objectives.
With Iran’s radars degraded, ISW suggested that the regime would seek alternative ways to attempt control over the strait.
An unnamed American source told Saudi-based Al Arabiya on Wednesday that CENTCOM’s Tuesday night strikes were a preemptive response to the Islamic Republic considering disabling undersea cables.
Hamas cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand an end to Israel's military presence in Gaza while simultaneously insisting on retaining the weapons that it has used — and clearly plans to use again — to attack Israel. The victims of Hamas's weapons have a say in the matter too.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan recently said, "No one said that we will hand over our weapons." According to Hamdan, the word "hand over" was never part of the agreement his terrorist group reached with the mediators. Instead, Hamdan said, the agreed framework calls for the "containment and storage" of Hamas's heavy weapons. He added that this would be carried out by the Palestinian Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the Palestinian "resistance factions."
Hamas... is talking about keeping its weapons.
When [senior Hamas official Ghazi] Hamad's interviewer asked him, "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?," Hamad responded, "Yes, of course."
Hamas cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand an end to Israel's military presence in Gaza while simultaneously insisting on retaining the weapons that it has used — and clearly plans to use again — to attack Israel. The victims of Hamas's weapons have a say in the matter too.
The question is not who gets to decide what happens to Hamas's weapons. The question is why Hamas should be allowed to keep them at all.
Hamas is essentially saying: First give us political power and remove Israelis forces from the Gaza Strip. Afterward, we may discuss what happens to our weapons.
Hamas's laying down its weapons and relinquishing its political and military control over the Gaza Strip must be unconditional. Hamas is a terrorist organization that launched the October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre. It is not a sovereign state entitled to negotiate the terms of its own disarmament.
Trump's 20-Point Gaza Peace Plan calls for the "demilitarization" of the Gaza Strip and the "decommissioning" of weapons. Point 13 states:
"Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors."
Yet somehow, nearly three years after October 7, the discussion has apparently moved from demilitarization and decommissioning to "containment" and "storage."
Who will guarantee that Hamas terrorists will not simply take them out of storage when they decide that the time has come to resume their jihad (holy war) against Israel?
Would the new Palestinian Committee for the Administration of Gaza really be capable of preventing Hamas and other terrorist groups from accessing these weapons? Would foreign troops... be expected to stand guard over weapons belonging to terrorist organizations and prevent them from storming the warehouses?
Was al-Qaeda ever asked to "contain" its weapons? Was ISIS ever asked to "store" its weapons? Terrorist organizations are supposed to be disarmed. Their weapons are supposed to be confiscated and destroyed. There is no legitimate reason for Hamas or any other Palestinian terrorist faction to possess weapons either in the Gaza Strip or in any other territory.
Palestinians do not need rockets, explosive drones and anti-tank missiles to build a better future. They need economic development and accountable institutions.
Why are the United States and other mediators talking to Hamas about elections when the organization has not even agreed to genuine disarmament?
Time is on Hamas's side, or so its leaders might calculate. US presidents come and go. Administrations change. International attention shifts. Why surrender weapons today if Hamas can simply wait and see who occupies the White House tomorrow?
Allowing Hamas-affiliated candidates to participate in Palestinian elections while it retains its weapons would create the absurd situation of a terrorist organization being permitted to transform its military power into political power — a perfect recipe for legitimizing Hamas.
So why is Washington still negotiating the terms? Striking deals with Islamist terrorist organizations is not a substitute for enforcing their disarmament. Agreements that allow terrorists to keep their weapons are not worth the paper on which they are written.
Hamas must be eliminated as a political and military entity. Its weapons must be confiscated or destroyed, not "stored", "contained," or hidden. Until that happens, Hamas remains armed, Iran remains influential, and the threat of another October 7 massacre — or more — remains in the works.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said, "No one said that we will hand over our weapons." According to Hamdan, the word "hand over" was never part of the agreement his terrorist group reached with the mediators. Instead, Hamdan said, the agreed framework calls for the "containment and storage" of Hamas's heavy weapons. Hamas's laying down its weapons and relinquishing its political and military control over the Gaza Strip must be unconditional. Hamas is a terrorist organization that launched the October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre. It is not a sovereign state entitled to negotiate the terms of its own disarmament. Pictured: Hamdan on a podcast on November 10, 2025. (Image source: MEMRI)
Hamas, like its long-time benefactor Iran, has once again made its position unmistakably clear: It has no intention of surrendering its weapons, abandoning its armed "resistance" against Israel, or relinquishing control over the Gaza Strip.
If anyone in Washington or elsewhere still believes that Hamas has agreed to disarm under the Gaza peace plan presented by US President Donald J. Trump and his Board of Peace, they should listen carefully to what Hamas officials themselves are saying.
Two recent interviews with senior Hamas officials leave little room for doubt.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said, "No one said that we will hand over our weapons." According to Hamdan, the word "hand over" was never part of the agreement his terrorist group reached with the mediators. Instead, Hamdan said, the agreed framework calls for the "containment and storage" of Hamas's heavy weapons. He added that this would be carried out by the Palestinian Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the Palestinian "resistance factions."
Most revealingly, Hamdan declared: "Not a single bullet will leave the Gaza Strip according to this agreement [with the Board of Peace representatives]." He also insisted that no weapons would be handed over to a non-Palestinian party and that "the weapons will remain in the hands of the Palestinians."
Hamas is not talking about disarmament. It is talking about keeping its weapons. This discussion is not actually about semantics. It goes to the heart of whether Hamas is prepared to abandon terrorism and, in particular, its decades-old goal of destroying Israel.
Hamas's position was reinforced by Khaled Qaddoumi, the terrorist organization's representative in Iran. In an interview published by Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency, Qaddoumi made clear that Hamas regards weapons as essential to its struggle against Israel. He rejected the idea that the question of weapons should even be discussed before Israel's military presence in the Gaza Strip ends. "The question of weapons, whether heavy or light, has nothing to do with Israel," Qaddoumi said. "Only the Palestinians will decide on it."
Qaddoumi's claim that the weapons "have nothing to do with Israel" is particularly revealing. Hamas's weapons are not being stockpiled to fight Canada, Australia, or some other distant country. They are weapons that Hamas has used, and openly intends to use, against Israel. As senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad vowed soon after the group's October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel:
"The Al-Aqsa Flood [Palestinian name for the October 7 attack] is just the first time And there will be a second, third and fourth. We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again..."
When Hamad's interviewer asked him, "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?," Hamad responded, "Yes, of course."
Rockets, anti-tank missiles, explosives, and firearms are not abstract "Palestinian internal matters." They are the very weapons with which Hamas has attacked Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Qaddoumi's formulation is also a reminder of the fundamental problem with the current approach to Hamas. The terrorist group wants the international community to recognize its political claims while treating its military arsenal as an internal Palestinian issue.
Hamas cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand an end to Israel's military presence in Gaza while simultaneously insisting on retaining the weapons that it has used — and clearly plans to use again — to attack Israel. The victims of Hamas's weapons have a say in the matter too.
The question is not who gets to decide what happens to Hamas's weapons. The question is why Hamas should be allowed to keep them at all.
Qaddoumi argued that a Palestinian political framework and a new Palestinian government must first be established. Only afterward, he said, could Palestinians decide whether their weapons should be collected.
This is exactly the opposite of disarmament. Hamas is essentially saying: First give us political power and remove Israelis forces from the Gaza Strip. Afterward, we may discuss what happens to our weapons.
Why should the surrender of weapons be conditional on anything?
Hamas's laying down its weapons and relinquishing its political and military control over the Gaza Strip must be unconditional. Hamas is a terrorist organization that launched the October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre. It is not a sovereign state entitled to negotiate the terms of its own disarmament.
Trump's 20-Point Gaza Peace Plan calls for the "demilitarization" of the Gaza Strip and the "decommissioning" of weapons. Point 13 states:
"Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors."
Yet somehow, nearly three years after October 7, the discussion has apparently moved from demilitarization and decommissioning to "containment" and "storage."
Can someone on the Board of Peace explain what "containment" means? Does it mean Hamas will hide its weapons in closets or under terrorists' beds? Does it mean the weapons can be displayed in public only after dark?
Also, what exactly does "storage" mean? "Storage" for what purpose? Are Hamas's weapons being stored so they can be used at some future date to murder more Israelis and launch more October 7-style massacres?
Where should these weapons be stored? In warehouses? In tunnels? In facilities controlled by the new Palestinian administration? Who will guarantee that Hamas terrorists will not simply take them out of storage when they decide that the time has come to resume their jihad (holy war) against Israel?
Would the new Palestinian Committee for the Administration of Gaza really be capable of preventing Hamas and other terrorist groups from accessing these weapons? Would foreign troops, whether from Uganda, Morocco, or elsewhere, be expected to stand guard over weapons belonging to terrorist organizations and prevent them from storming the warehouses?
The entire concept is difficult to take seriously. Was al-Qaeda ever asked to "contain" its weapons? Was ISIS ever asked to "store" its weapons? Terrorist organizations are supposed to be disarmed. Their weapons are supposed to be confiscated and destroyed. There is no legitimate reason for Hamas or any other Palestinian terrorist faction to possess weapons either in the Gaza Strip or in any other territory.
Palestinians do not need rockets, explosive drones and anti-tank missiles to build a better future. They need economic development and accountable institutions.
Weapons have brought catastrophe after catastrophe to Palestinians and the Arab world. They helped turn Jordan and Lebanon into battlefields and rubble. Heavily armed Palestinian factions confronted the Jordanian army, culminating in the 1970-71 "Black September" conflict, prompting King Hussein's forces to reassert their authority over the Jordanian state. In Lebanon, Palestinian organizations ignited the country's descent into civil war in 1975, while subsequently becoming deeply intertwined with Lebanon's government, its internal conflicts and its confrontation with Israel. The Gaza Strip should not be given another opportunity to repeat this history.
Hamas's statements also expose another important problem: the group's strategic relationship with the Iranian regime.
Qaddoumi openly portrayed Iran and Hamas as sharing a common enemy and a common destiny. "Today, we in Palestine and Iran have much in common, and we have come to understand that we have the same enemy," he said. He went on to praise Iran's regime for providing "strong strategic support" to Palestinian "resistance movements."
Hamas has long been part of Iran's regional network of armed groups. Qaddoumi's comments are a reminder that the issue of Hamas's weapons cannot be separated from Iran's strategy of using armed proxies to wage war against Israel and the United States.
The Iranian regime has perfected the strategy of buying time, delaying, negotiating, and exploiting diplomatic processes while preserving its military capabilities and those of its proxies. Hamas appears to be following the same playbook.
Hamas, like its benefactors in Iran, may well believe that its best strategy is to drag out negotiations for as long as possible, at least until Trump is no longer president and someone more accommodating might take his place. Time is on Hamas's side, or so its leaders might calculate. US presidents come and go. Administrations change. International attention shifts. Why surrender weapons today if Hamas can simply wait and see who occupies the White House tomorrow?
This strategy may also explain why Hamas is so interested in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, scheduled for November 28, 2026. Why are the United States and other mediators talking to Hamas about elections when the organization has not even agreed to genuine disarmament?
Allowing Hamas-affiliated candidates to participate in Palestinian elections while it retains its weapons would create the absurd situation of a terrorist organization being permitted to transform its military power into political power — a perfect recipe for legitimizing Hamas.
The United States and its allies should not allow themselves to be trapped by Hamas's terminology.
Hamdan's declaration that "not a single bullet" will leave the Gaza Strip should be enough to settle the matter. Hamas is telling the world exactly what it intends to do: keep its weapons. Qaddoumi is saying essentially the same thing while openly celebrating Hamas's strategic alliance with Iran.
So why is Washington still negotiating the terms? Striking deals with Islamist terrorist organizations is not a substitute for enforcing their disarmament. Agreements that allow terrorists to keep their weapons are not worth the paper on which they are written.
There is only one viable solution for the Gaza Strip: Hamas must be eliminated as a political and military entity. Its weapons must be confiscated or destroyed, not "stored", "contained," or hidden. Until that happens, Hamas remains armed, Iran remains influential, and the threat of another October 7 massacre — or more — remains in the works.
America is surging ahead while Canada stagnates, and that growing asymmetry—not trade alone—is driving the acrimony between two longtime allies.
At first glance, the current American-Canadian trade “war” is absurd. We are neighbors with a long history of close friendship, speak the same language (for the most part), and spring from the same British civilization.
Nearly one million Canadians reside in the United States.
Given the two countries’ natural affinities, Canadians are nearly indistinguishable from Americans.
Both sides have reasonable grievances over trade policy.
Americans don’t like Canada’s perennial trade surpluses of more than $50 billion in a supposedly free-trade zone.
They resent the fact that non-free-market China exports subsidized cheap steel and aluminum through Canada, giving Canadian auto and truck exports a price advantage.
The United States also objects to Canada imposing a surcharge on American digital media companies to subsidize Canadian Indigenous and French-language content.
Americans further resent Prime Minister Mark Carney’s backing out of an apparent deal at the eleventh hour. He apparently hoped to gin up Canadian nationalism on the eve of two key elections in Alberta and Quebec by attacking Trump, who is unpopular in Canada.
Ascendant separatist movements in both provinces threaten to unravel the Canadian nation.
Moreover, Carney expects the dispute to damage Trump on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections, which might reduce his leverage over Canada.
Canada, in turn, resents American demands concerning its importation of Chinese goods as an infringement upon its sovereignty.
It increasingly believes that the sheer size of the United States next door—13 times larger in nominal GDP and nine times larger in population—threatens to overwhelm Canada’s unique culture.
Canada maintains that its trade surplus results largely from U.S. imports of Canadian oil sands petroleum—a mutually beneficial arrangement. It is also tired of Trump’s trolling and mockery.
But even these differences could easily be resolved, given our centuries of friendship.
So what is the unspoken source of the acrimony?
The United States is leaping ahead of other Western countries in ways few anticipated several decades ago, while Canada is stagnating.
America is the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.
Its technology, software, biotechnology, digital media, satellite, and numerous other companies dominate global rankings.
American GDP is roughly $10 trillion larger than either China’s or the European Union’s. Yet China has four times the population of the United States, while the European Union has 100 million more people.
The U.S. military is the world’s most lethal and is now being rebuilt with even greater defense spending.
Moreover, the United States has not been shy about warning its Western friends that their socialist paradigms and leftist policies threaten their very existence.
The EU suffers from unsustainably low fertility.
Massive and often illegal immigration threatens the very culture and values of Europe.
Green hysteria has nearly wrecked the German and British economies.
Until Russia invaded Ukraine and Trump began his harangues, European NATO members were de facto disarming.
Yet Canada—especially under the globalist prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney—has adopted much of this ossified European model.
The result is a sluggish economy. Also left unspoken is Canada’s growing reliance on the U.S. market, American continental defenses, and the general goodwill of the United States.
Until last year, Canada had refused to honor its NATO commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense.
It has thrown open its border even as the United States is closing its own.
Some 45 percent of Canadian residents are either foreign-born or the children of immigrants.
The majority come from impoverished, non-Western countries and immediately depend upon a vast social welfare system that the present anemic economy cannot sustain.
Utopian think tanks speak grandly of a Canadian “Century Initiative” that would bring in enough immigrants to increase the population to 100 million. But sheer numbers will hardly remedy the country’s underlying demographic and economic stagnation.
How mostly non-Western immigrants are to be integrated, assimilated, and acculturated in a country that has forsaken anything remotely resembling the idea of a melting pot is never explained.
The tragic irony is that Canada once punched well above its demographic weight, with a formidable military and a dynamic economy.
Not anymore. Its per capita GDP is now among the lowest in the industrialized West.
Yet Canada has the fifth-largest oil and natural-gas reserves in the world, even as green restrictions and provincial infighting nullify those natural advantages.
In timber, metals, and mineral resources, Canada ranks among the world’s top five nations.
Apparently, Canada believes that opening its economy, insisting upon legal, meritocratic, diverse, and measured immigration, and fully developing its natural wealth would be a bitter medicine worse than even its present maladies.
For all America’s unsolicited advice and tough-love attitude, the United States would prefer a strong Canadian partner to a dependent one.
That growing asymmetry explains much of this otherwise inexplicable melodrama.
Photo: Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney Meets With Trump At The White House
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 07: U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to the White House on October 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. North American leaders have yet to find common ground on tariffs for several key Canadian exports, including automobiles, steel, aluminum, and softwood lumber. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O'Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.
He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
Katz said signs indicate that economic pressures are taking a toll on Iran, and Tehran fears an uprising that could topple it.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iran Thursday that, should Tehran attack the country, Israel will respond with retaliatory strikes targeting energy and other infrastructure.
An attack on Israel, Katz said, would free the country from "all constraints," and the response would send Iran "deep into the Stone Age and darkness," The Times of Israel reported.
The remarks were made at a Jewish New Year toast with Defense Ministry employees.
Katz said signs indicate that economic pressures are taking a toll on Iran, and Tehran fears an uprising that could topple it. He said that the Israeli Defense Forces are "well-prepared, defensively and offensively" for all possibilities.
An exclusive 'Post' review looks at senior military analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob and WSJ's Elliot Kaufman's account of the decisions, clashes, and secret deliberations that shaped Israel's war.
PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Minister without Portfolio Benny Gantz hold a news conference in Tel Aviv, in November.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
As the senior military analyst and correspondent for the paper over the last half-decade (and before that, its legal correspondent), his stories have encapsulated and explained the dizzying pace of events the country has endured in recent years and have helped readers understand the implications and intricacies of the wars, campaigns, negotiations, and dilemmas that are a constant part of Israel’s landscape.
If we abide by the 1943 adage by American journalist Alan Barth that “news is only the first rough draft of history,” then the new book by Bob, together with Wall Street Journal editorial writer Elliot Kaufman, In The War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis, is a final sculpted treatise that is a must-read for anyone who cares about the pivotal developments that led up to the cataclysmic events of October 7, 2023, and resulted in the ongoing battle against Iran and its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon.
It reads like a gripping, yet almost improbable espionage novel at times, and the proof in the pudding of Bob and Kaufman’s ability to weave an intriguing tale is that although we know what transpired in each successive development in the unbelievable timeline of events – whether the beeper and pager campaign against Hezbollah or the cataclysmic attack by Israel and the US on Iran’s nuclear facilities – readers feel compelled to turn the page such that it is as if they’re discovering the details all anew.
In the War Room provides an inside account of how Israel came back from its darkest hour after Oct. 7 to decimate Hamas and Hezbollah and command the skies over Tehran.
Satellite imagery from Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility June 22, 2025. (credit: MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/VIA REUTERS )
Inside the war room
The recurring focus of the book that provides the insider coverage most spectacularly is the ongoing meetings taking place between the masterminds of the Israeli campaign to change the post-Oct. 7 regional landscape and fight a multi-pronged war – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, and then-war minister Benny Gantz.
Bob and Kaufman place the reader as a fly on the wall as the contentious trio makes fateful decisions, constantly switching allegiances, opinions, and strategies – with one eye on the war and the other eye on each other.
The prose shows the war leaders expressing both doubt and conviction about how Israel should proceed and maneuver amid Hamas intransigence, growing US opposition to Israel’s policies, internal pressure due to the ongoing hostage situation, and damning world opinion.
Doves became hawks and hawks became doves depending on the situation and the decisions to be made. One can almost feel the perspiration under their military-chic black buttoned-down shirts as they deliberated in tense sessions in the “Kirya,” where day and night don’t exist.
“Gantz, the supposed dove, along with Gallant and [then-IDF chief of staff Herzi] Halevi, once again pressed Netanyahu to green-light an invasion. They told the prime minister that there was no way to get additional Israeli hostages back from [Yahya] Sinwar without cornering the Hamas leader to a point where he would fear being caught. They also noted that so long as Khan Yunis was in the hands of Hamas, the terrorist group would retain the strength to operate as a national military organization.”
THE AUTHORS state that later in the war, after Netanyahu fired Gallant and Gantz quit, the war room transformed into the prime minister’s personal domain.
“For all the war room’s dysfunction and small-minded rivalries, for large portions of the war, Netanyahu, Gallant, and Gantz balanced each other’s views. This may have helped Israel avoid major errors and kept its relations with US Democrats and Western Europe from collapsing.”
Once Gantz quit and Netanyahu fired Gallant, the prime minister had no war room of substance to push back on his ideas – or those of his coalition partners. He did not think he would miss Gantz or Gallant, but on this, he did.”
Bob and Kaufman had unprecedented access to the actors, and the writing is based on two years of private interviews and briefings with the Israeli triumvirate, meetings with the top Israeli military and intelligence officials, and trips to combat zones on four fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
In addition, they interviewed top Biden and Trump administration figures, including former US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan and Trump administration envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
But instead of just a “then they said” account, the writers utilize their vast backgrounds and expertise to put you inside the heads of the main players and help the reader understand their motives amid the global chess game taking place, like this passage on Gallant:
“In the days after October 7, however, Gallant mainly was trying to decide – and then convince a notoriously hard-to-pin-down prime minister and cabinet – what Israel’s policy should be against Hezbollah.
“Armed by Iran with an extraordinary missile arsenal, the US-designated terrorist group had long cowed the Lebanese Armed Forces and shared Hamas’s goal of destroying the Jewish state. In support of Hamas’s invasion, Hezbollah started shooting rockets at northern Israel the very next day, on October 8.
“Gallant still believed, as he did before the war, that Hezbollah, not Hamas, posed the larger, perhaps existential threat to Israel.
“During his sleepless night, he came to two conclusions. First, Israel needed to execute a devastating strike against Hezbollah right away.
“A combination of intelligence, sabotage, artillery, and air power could cripple the terrorist group before it could use its well-trained troops and tens of thousands of sophisticated missiles to follow up Hamas’s attack with a far more powerful assault of its own. This would allow Israel to regain the initiative, shock the Iranian terror axis, and isolate Hamas in Gaza.
“Second, Gallant concluded that Netanyahu, his Likud party leader and boss in Israel’s coalition government, though renowned for his hawkishness, would be dead set against his proposal.”
The authors deliberately shy away from the non-military aspects of the war and how they dominated the Israeli discourse for over two years while the agonizing hostage saga played out.
There’s none of the anguish of the families, the protests against the government (except in how public pressure affected or didn’t affect decision-making), the tragic personal stories of the war or the drama and trauma the country went through watching on TV as hostages were released in gruesome Hamas-led ceremonies and then were reunited with their families. That’s the topic of another book.
The hostages are mentioned perfunctorily, as in this passage:
“From November 23 to November 30, 2023, the fighting paused. Hamas would return around 100 hostages in exchange for the release of more than three times as many Palestinian security prisoners from Israel. This deal – or ransom – was hammered out by Mossad Director David Barnea and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, two men who influenced the course of the war from the shadows.”
Writing from an Israeli perspective
What’s also lacking in the book, to its great benefit, is a sense of even-handedness. Bob and Kaufman start from a belief that Oct. 7 was an atrocity that had to be answered. It’s written from a Zionist perspective and surely won’t be used as required reading in a US liberal arts Middle Eastern studies course.
Writing about October 17, 2023, the authors state:
“That day, Hamas said an Israeli air strike on Gaza City’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital had killed at least 500 Palestinians. That would be the headline in The New York Times and across the world. By the next day, however, it would turn out that the attack wasn’t Israeli, it wasn’t an air strike, it didn’t hit the hospital, nowhere close to 500 people were killed, and Hamas knew it.
“Israeli intelligence indicated that the culprit was a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad from a cemetery. It had fallen short, as the terrorists’ rockets often did, and landed in the hospital’s parking lot. President [Joe] Biden affirmed that finding less than 24 hours after the incident, a key early moment of support for Israel.”
But in the half-day period of uncertainty, the media leaped to echo the Hamas report. The BBC explained that the Israelis “said they are investigating, but it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike, or several air strikes.”
The world received the story essentially as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan Democrat, put it on social media: “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients).” The damage was done. The Oct. 7 attack was only 10 days old, but a new narrative was already forming.
WITHIN THE context of presenting the events from an Israeli perspective, and with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran portrayed for what they are – bloodthirsty elements aimed at Israel’s destruction – they manage to provide a subjective account of what transpired, without bringing in their own political biases or opinions.
Discussing the prickly subject of whether Israel could have ended the war and brought the hostages home earlier, the authors just present the facts, ma’am.
“Israel had opportunities to conclude the fighting at earlier junctures. In the summer of 2024, after the invasion of Rafah. In March 2025, extending the second hostage deal. In each case, the prime minister refused, deciding to fight on for better terms.
“Gallant, Gantz, and Halevi had reservations, but were willing to accept the terms of the deals on the table. Halevi believed that Netanyahu had not sufficiently invested in negotiations about the second phase of the January 2025 hostage deal, involving the shaping of postwar Gaza.”
And:
“Critics will say the prime minister fought on only to keep power. Netanyahu would say that after October 7, Israel needed total victory to restore security and deterrence. The debate would then go on in endless circles about whether total victory was even possible, and whether the interest being pursued was national or personal.
“For a time, pushing forward worked to Israel’s advantage. Even against great pressure, Netanyahu prevailed to maintain the war to keep open the possibility of invading Rafah, defeating Hezbollah, and destroying the Iranian nuclear program and proxy axis should the right opportunities arise for him.
“But continuing beyond that? The quest to end the fight in Gaza on a similarly convincing victory would drain Israel – and cost it severely on the world stage.”
Israel-haters who will bristle at the stingy use of the word “genocide” in the prose may eschew the book as just some more Israeli propaganda. But for historians, diplomats, and anyone who’s passionate about Israel and the continuation of the Zionist endeavor, In the War Room will indeed be required reading.
Bob and Kaufman have written one of the definitive, in-depth, and easily readable accounts of one of the most amazing periods of Israeli history that will continue to reverberate around the region for decades to come.
Their ability to synthesize and analyze the big events and put them into perspective will be a valuable resource for scholars and researchers in years to come. And they never lose sight of the main reason that the book exists.
“Despite all the successes and theatrics Israel would pull off in Iran and Lebanon, October 7 remains the day of this war which has seared deepest into the Israeli mind. Hamas invaded from Gaza and packed an entire intifada’s worth of slaughter into a single day, setting everything else into motion.” ■
The reviewer is the former managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.
They are making it all too clear they love China more than America.
Earlier this month, we learned that 11 activists with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) had pledged their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to reporting from the Times of London, the DSA apparatchiks signed an online petition pledging to “support the People’s Republic of China and to promote understanding of Chinese socialism.”
The petition goes on to declare that “The continued survival of Chinese socialism is a crucial matter not only for the Chinese people but for all humanity.” The humanity in Hong Kong and Taiwan might have something to say about that, to say nothing of the Muslim Uighurs suffering in concentration camps in western China.
Those who signed the statement are the same socialists who helped elect Zohran Mamdani in New York. They’re the same DSA activists who are now taking over the Democrat Party.
And they’re making it all too clear they love China more than America.
Much has been made about the DSA’s affinity for Hamas. But in a world increasingly defined by competition between the U.S. and Beijing, its appreciation of China could prove far more dangerous.
The most visible democratic socialist at large today is Hasan Piker, the dimwitted, very online political commentator. Piker is known for his hatred of Israel, but his positions on China are just as controversial.
According to a deep-dive article by Jeremiah Johnson, Piker has “downplayed the genocide in Xinjiang, recasting the concentration camps there as ‘reeducation’ centers” and falsely claimed they’re all shut down. He’s also “described Chinese colonialism in Tibet as a good thing.”
These aren’t arguments for a particular foreign policy stance toward China; they’re talking points for the Chinese Communist Party. Hasan has pointed to China as the beau ideal for his conception of socialism, which should show just how “democratic” the democratic socialists really are.
The DSA candidates running for public office won’t go quite this far (though most of them are endorsed by Piker and refuse to condemn him). But every once in a while, the mask slips.
Take, for example, Francesca Hong, who recently lost—by less than half a percent—her bid to be the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin. Fresh off demanding that Thanksgiving be canceled because Squanto was a victim of colonialism, she sent a since-deleted tweet denouncing “fear and anger against an inflated anti-china [sic] threat.”
Before he dropped out of the Maine Senate race over an alleged sexual assault, far-left Democrat Graham Platner declared, “I think our position towards China should be one of cooperation instead of one of opposition.” Why? The need to “fight challenges like climate change.”
At best, the elected socialists don’t seem to know what they should say about China. At the Munich Security Conference (which must have felt like a fifth-grader finding herself in a college calculus course), Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was asked whether the U.S. should protect Taiwan if China invaded. She gave such a rambling, incoherent answer that some speculated it would end any hope she had of a 2028 presidential bid.
In any sane world, that would be true. Sadly, it is not in today’s Democrat Party. Ocasio-Cortez’s weakness and incoherence toward China is not a bug but a feature.
China, more than any other issue, shows just how unequipped these DSA delusionists are to govern. As members of Congress, even as governors, they’ll need to make decisions about China’s growing influence around the world.
Will they support President Trump’s tariffs that are checking China’s economic expansion?
Will they back policies to counter its tech sector, which engages in rampant intellectual property theft and espionage? Like the recently approved merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, whose new, globally scaled company can compete with the Chinese giant Huawei?
Will they support America’s semiconductor and car and solar industries over China’s, even if that means siding with—shudder—capitalism?
Will they condemn—a blazingly simple moral judgment—China’s genocide of the Uighurs or squashing of the sovereign government in Hong Kong or menacing of Taiwan?
China exposes just how unserious the socialists are. They denounce ICE “concentration camps” while making excuses for actual concentration camps in China. They upbraid American “colonialism” while explicitly praising Chinese colonization.
They claim socialism can coexist with democracy and then take as their Polaris the most authoritarian state in existence today.
Another of the “democratic” socialists is Eric Hovagim, who once produced videos for Mamdani and Piker. Today, he lives in China where he regularly praises the CCP and denounces the U.S.
At some point, this ceases to be a coincidence—or the seemingly casual passing of a few strangers in the “big tent” of the Democrat Party. For those of us who don’t want to live in a Chinese world, stopping the socialists closer to home should be our first priority.
Photo: New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (C) holds hands with US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (L) and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) at the end of a campaign rally at Forest Hills Stadium in the Queens borough of New York City on October 26, 2025. New Yorkers will cast their votes for mayor on November 4, 2025. Mamdani, the Democratic candidate, is the current frontrunner ahead of former New York Governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) Chris Stewart is the former Republican member of Congress from Utah's Second Congressional District.
After an alleged Hamas child soldier became a celebrity among Arabic news journalists, Hamas came out with a martyr poster for another minor.
Key Takeaways:
Hamas confirmed on Tuesday that it used child soldiers in the October 7 War, becoming the third faction to do so after the DFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
This followed the identification of another child soldier in a Hamas video, who was made a celebrity among Arab media journalists and covered by Al Jazeera.
Since July, HonestReporting has identified 22 child soldiers largely affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with almost a dozen more suspected but lacking full cross-reference confirmation.
Hamas on Tuesday became the third faction to confirm that it used child soldiers during the October 7 War, following Arabic media embracing previous evidence of Hamas deploying minors in combat.
A martyr poster and video for Hazem Shadi Al-Arini were published on Telegram channels associated with Hamas on Tuesday. Video showed the armed operative conducting a variety of marksmanship and close-quarters combat drills. Al-Arini was described as a member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a fighter in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Fawzi Abu al-Qara’ Battalion.
The birth date listed on the video was 2007, meaning that Al-Arini was about 16 when he was killed on November 19, 2023. The death date matches other Palestinian sources for a war casualty of the same name and age.
Hazem Shadi Al-Arini
Suhaib Labad as Child Hero on Social Media
Israel Policy Forum senior policy associate Gabriel Epstein had previously identified another 16-year-old combatant who had briefly appeared in the martyr video of another Hamas operative. The August 12 video for operative Anas Kamel Munir al-Darimi labeled a rocket launcher-wielding combatant as “al-Qassam martyr” Suhaib Labad. Epstein noted that there was only one name similar to the Al-Qassam operative in Hamas Health Ministry data, and who had a matching age and name to the terrorist.
Abu Labad appears briefly in an official Hamas obituary published today for Anas Kamel Munir al-Darimi (top R and bottom L, ID#: 407848555, age 23), a squad leader in the group's al-Zeitoun Battalion in the Gaza Brigade. The specific footage (2:45-3:03) is of an RPG attack on an… pic.twitter.com/4W7SjAcg6v
Labad was widely celebrated in Arabic social media and news outlets. In an August 14 article, Al Jazeera presented Labad’s actions within the context of the loss of his family during the war, and the praise heaped on the child soldier by activists — but did not detail moral reservations about sending minors into combat. Ultra Sawt journalist Mohammed Elsakany said on Facebook that Labad was a “man of great deeds for the entire nation,” and Yemeni photographer Ubad Ahmad Al-Fallahi described on the same platform how Labad was an example of being true to one’s word and taking action against injustice. Shehab Agency journalist Mohammed Haniya said on X that Labad was taking revenge, and that the “thousands upon thousands” seeking vengeance like Labad was not terrorism, but the result of Israel’s actions.
Over the past day, Palestinian "journalists" in Gaza have been vociferously praising deceased 16-year-old terrorist Suhaib Abu Labad, after footage of him in combat began circulating online.
The use of child soldiers is a longstanding practice of Hamas and Islamic Jihad pic.twitter.com/K6FdiVuLyb
Growing Evidence of Child Soldiers in October 7 War
Until Hamas’ confirmation of using child soldiers on Tuesday, only the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had admitted to the practice. Besides the two teenage Hamas operatives, since July, 22 child soldiers have been identified by HonestReporting, and almost a dozen more are suspected but lack some key cross-reference details. The vast majority so far are affiliated with PIJ.
Seventeen-year-old Wadhah Ashour Al-Batsh was announced on August 14 to be an operative of PIJ’s Al-Quds Brigades, a fighter in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Wadhah Al-Batsh Battalion. The battalion and the teenager may have been named for the same man, Wadhah Ibrahim Ashour Al-Batsh, who had been killed in 2002 while conducting an operation on behalf of PIJ. The younger Al-Batsh’s mother shared the image of the Second Intifada terrorist on her Facebook page in 2017.
Wadhah Ashour Al-Batsh
Child Soldiers Initiated by Family
Al-Batsh is far from the only Palestinian child soldier for whom terrorism was a family affair — many of those reviewed by HonestReporting had family within terrorist organizations.
Also on August 14, PIJ issued a martyr notice for 16-year-old Anas Muhammad Al-Sawarka. Eulogies by families and affiliated organizations confirmed the date of death and face when cross-referenced with the martyr poster and Gazan casualty databases. They also detailed that Al-Sawarka was killed in the same strike as his uncle and father. According to PIJ, his uncle Yusuf Ahmad Al-Sawarka was in the Northern Brigade’s Artillery Corps, and his father Muhammad Ahmad Al-Sawarka held some sort of coordination position in the same brigade. The 16-year-old was supposedly in the brigade’s Central Mobilization Unit.
Anas Muhammad Al-Sawarka
Even with the popularity of Labad on social media, there has been little news coverage of the child soldier phenomenon since a trend of minor combatant obituaries emerged in July. Two minor Italian and Spanish outlets covered Labad’s story, but among the deluge of Gazan human-interest stories about Palestinian beekeepers, kites, and swimming pools, the problem has still not been touched.
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While the administration has not publicly altered its target figures for deportation, it has focused primarily on the "Worst of the Worst" criminal illegal aliens.
The foreign-born population in the United States has decreased by nearly 3 million people since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Washington Times reported Thursday, citing a "preliminary analysis of government numbers to be released Thursday."
That figure includes the roughly 2.3 million illegal aliens who either left voluntarily or were deported, and a drop in legal immigrants by 600,000. Those figures mark the single largest drop in foreign-born individuals in the U.S. in recent decades.
The numbers come as the Trump administration continues to pursue mass deportations in line with the president's campaign promises. The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that roughly 22 million illegal aliens were in the country when Trump returned to office.
While the administration has not publicly altered its target figures for deportation, it has focused primarily on the "worst of the worst" criminal illegal aliens.
Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.
On Wednesday, Chairman Jim Jordan demanded the FBI turn over all evidence related to a counterintelligence operation that classified President Donald Trump’s own administration officials and political allies as “conduits” of Russian disinformation.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday said that the decade-long era of weaponization at the FBI and Justice Department undermined the spirit of the Constitution by impeding Congress’ duty and power to conduct oversight of the federal government.
Earlier in the day, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding evidence related to the bureau’s counterintelligence operation codenamed “Round River,” which classified President Donald Trump’s own administration officials and political allies, including congressional Republicans, as “conduits” of Russian disinformation – in an apparent effort to tamp down a Ukrainian corruption scandal engulfing the Biden family during the 2020 election.
As part of that operation, the FBI gave defensive briefings to members of Congress, arguing the lawmakers were spreading Russian disinformation by investigating corruption allegations against President Joe Biden, during his time as vice president, and son Hunter Biden in Ukraine.
“So almost half the confidential human sources say that was a concern, and yet they said, ‘No, no, no, no, we're going to push that to the side,’ and the Justice Department said we're going to go instead say this is a Russian information operation, and they're using members of Congress as conduits to convey that Russian misinformation that they're trying to get out. That is ridiculous,” Jordan told the Just the News, No Noise TV show.
“So that is how ridiculous this whole thing became, and I think it really underscores when you talk about the weaponization of government and what they were up to in trying to protect Biden and harm President Trump. They were willing to go to that length, to that extreme, saying Republican members of Congress were conduits of Russian information misinformation,” he also said.
Jordan believes the era of weaponization, and infringement on Congress’s oversight powers, began even earlier, during the 2016 election when the FBI relied on the now-discredited Steele Dossier as predicate to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. It extends through the tenure of Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, whom Jordan argues interfered in the 2024 election to damage Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“It's always been an effort by the government to help the Democrat candidate and harm the Republican candidate," the Ohio Republican lawmaker said. "In this case, each of the three times it was President Trump. That is not how our system is supposed to work. Not how our government's supposed to work.
“It started with the Clinton campaign telling a lie, and they built off of that, and then it was all the other stuff culminating in Jack Smith doing this to a separate and equal branch of government. That's how serious it is. So this has got to end. This is America, the greatest country ever. We don't operate this way, but unfortunately, it happened over the last decade."
The declassified documents released last month show the FBI and U.S. spy agencies received the derogatory evidence about the Bidens from the informants but that a group of FBI analysts launched Round River to reduce the impact of the Ukrainian corruption scandal engulfing his family during the 2020 election by formally designating Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, key members of Congress and journalists as the “conduits.”
One element of Round River was centered in theFBI'sPittsburgh Field Office and initially targeted Trump lawyer and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his efforts to investigate Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine, but it then expanded to look at numerous public figures who spoke out about Biden family corruption concerns – including elected members of Congress.
One of the documents, a spreadsheet that was recovered from U.S. intelligence agency files, shows that spy agencies and the FBI created a list of more than six dozen prominent organizations, Americans and foreigners who became figures in the Biden family Ukraine scandal and the 2019 impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
The spreadsheet neatly divided figures along political lines, with Democrat politicians such as the Bidens, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama and liberal megadonor George Soros listed as victimized “targets” of Russian disinformation and conservatives such as Fox News, One America News, filmmaker Michael Caputo and Giuliani as “conduit," Just the News previously reported.
The FBI also labeled two of Trump’s first-term Cabinet secretaries as well as Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, Ron Johnson and Lindsey Graham and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes as “conduits.” Jordan himself was also labeled a conduit while they all investigated whether the allegations of corruption against the Biden family were true.
Jordan said the latest revelations are part of a larger pattern extending back to the 2016 election.
“I always say it started in ‘16 with [Peter] Strzok and [Lisa] Page, and you know what they did, the Clinton campaign, the whole thing we talked about. That's where it started, and … it culminated with Jack Smith,” Jordan said.
The FBI’s Strzok and Page were intimately involved with the bureau’s Trump-Russia collusion probe.
“Jack Smith, his job was to … indict President Trump, go to trial and keep him from being president,” Jordan said.
Congress found that Smith, during his investigation into the then-former president, accessed the contents of the private communications of more than 40 lawmakers and may have lied to lawmakers about it, raising Constitutional separation of powers concerns.
The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 6) serves as a check on executive power and is designed to prevent members of Congress from being “questioned in any other place,” ensuring they cannot be subjected to the scrutiny of the Justice Department or the judicial branch for their legislative acts.
The scope of Smith’s probe, which centered on Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election results and the events of January 6, 2021, was expansive. Grassley, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, previously released records showing that Smith's office issued nearly 200 subpoenas in his sweeping Arctic Frost-linked case, secretly seeking records onmore than 400 Republican personalities and groups—many closely connected to Trump, Just the News previously reported.
Smith, who was appointed special counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, also conducted a sweeping investigation into then-former President Trump over alleged mishandling of classified materials. Trump was later indicted in both cases, which were dropped after he won the 2024 presidential election and Smith resigned.
That investigation, which was codenamed “Arctic Frost,” was one of the four codenamed probes or operations targeting Trump and his allies. The Round River operation was one of those.
