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."
Iran will use the militias to do whatever is necessary to preserve its role in Iraq, while also aiming to weaken its Kurdish rivals in the country.
Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims walk along a road to enter Iraq
through the Shalamcheh border crossing between Iran and Iraq to make
their way to the holy city of Karbala to attend the Arbaeen pilgrimage,
following US strikes on the Iranian side of the border crossing, in
Basra, Iraq, July 23, 2026.(photo credit: ESSAM AL-SUDANI/ REUTERS)
Iraq
is seeking to disarm Iranian-backed militias. Under Iraq’s new prime
minister, Ali al-Zaidi, Baghdad says it wants the arms of the militias
to be under state control. The militias know Baghdad has US backing to
pressure the groups.
However, the groups will do everything possible to avoid being disarmed. Now the groups are setting their sights on the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq to try to weaken the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
How will the militias seek to prevent disarmament?
One
method is claiming their weapons are “already” under state control. The
militias are part of the state-backed Popular Mobilization Forces.
Therefore, the groups claim that, as the PMF, they are already an
official paramilitary. They claim they are essentially a national guard
and therefore they don’t need to hand over weapons because the weapons
are already controlled.
Another
ploy the groups are using is to try to make it so the effort to disarm
militias will also apply to the Kurdish Peshmerga. The autonomous
Kurdistan Region has its own military, called the Peshmerga. The KRG’s
role in Iraq is spelled out in the constitution of Iraq that was passed
after the US 2003 invasion.
As
such, the Peshmerga are an official force. Over the years, there have
been attempts to reform the Peshmerga so that they are no longer
affiliated with the two Kurdish political parties, the KDP and PUK. In
the past, the Peshmerga 70th Division and 80th Division were essentially
arms of the PUK and KDP, respectively.
Iraqi
security forces sit on vehicles at a street after an attack by a drone
strike on an Iran-backed militia headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq January
4, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/AHMED SAAD)
The
powerful Iranian-backed militia Kata'ib Hezbollah has now demanded that
the Peshmerga also be disarmed. This is meant to throw a wrench into
efforts to disarm them and other groups. The militia is also warning the
prime minister against “provocative and irresponsible” actions,
according to a report at Rudaw, a Kurdish media outlet.
“Our
patience is beginning to run out regarding the provocative and
irresponsible actions of the prime minister,” Kata'ib Hezbollah’s Abu
Mujahid al-Assaf said. This may constitute a threat to the prime
minister’s life. Rudaw noted that “Assaf also accused Zaidi of
failing to understand the ‘complex circumstances’ facing Iraq and the
wider region amid warnings to ‘avoid being dragged into what pleases the
enemies.’”
The
report added that “the statement followed the arrest of Abbas Hussein
al-Yaqubi, a senior PMF commander affiliated with Harakat al-Nujaba, by
an Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service unit in Dhi Qar province on Monday.
The PMF later confirmed that Yaqubi had been handed over to its security
directorate for legal proceedings.”
Iran's wider agenda
The
use of anti-Kurdish rhetoric is aimed at dividing Iraqis so that some
Iraqi Shi’ites, who back the militias, will argue that they deserve the
same rights as Kurds. They will argue that their militias are similar to
the Peshmerga.
The real goal here is that Iran will use the militias to do whatever is necessary to preserve its role in Iraq. Iran has sought to weaken the Kurdistan Regional Government in the past.
Recently,
it attacked the office of KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. Using
Kata'ib Hezbollah to demand that the Peshmerga be weakened is part of
the larger Iranian agenda.
"Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies - It all needs to stop NOW," Trump wrote. "You know who you are."
US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, August 7, 2026(photo credit: REUTERS/ELIZABETH FRANTZ)
"Oil
smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship
registries, front companies - It all needs to stop NOW," Trump wrote.
"You know who you are."
Trump also described Iran as "maniacs" who were "on the ropes."
US
President Donald Trump delivers remarks with cryptocurrency executives
in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington DC, US, August
19, 2026. (credit: Reuters/Kylie Cooper)
"These
HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror
worldwide," he stated, adding, "IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON."
Kushner says US-Iran negotiations have yet to reach understanding
On Monday, Trump's envoy Jared Kushner
told Fox News that conversations between the US and different areas of
the Iranian government were probably more robust than ever, but the two
sides had not yet reached an understanding.
"Trump doesn't want to rush into a deal, he'll make the right deal when it's ready," Kushner said.
Kushner also said that Trump
was placing an emphasis on economic pressure over military actions,
focusing on the blockade of Iran which had left the Iranian economy "way
worse off now."
Esther Davis, Leo Feierberg Better, and Reuters contributed to this report.
US President Donald Trump
declared that the United States would be targeting Iran with "the most
crushing economic operation ever taken against any country" in a Truth
Social post on Wednesday.
"This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY," Trump announced, adding that the US needed all its allies to aid in isolating Iran.
Trump also announced that any country which provided aid to Iran would face "TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences."
Vindman had been expected to decisively defeat state Sen. Angie Nixon, D-Fla., for the nomination, but unexpectedly lost by double-digits on Tuesday evening.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the prosecution of
Alex Vindman after he lost the Florida Democratic Primary for Senate on
Tuesday evening.
Vindman had been expected to decisively defeat state Sen. Angie
Nixon, D-Fla., for the nomination, but unexpectedly lost by
double-digits on Tuesday evening. Trump, for his part, gloated over the
loss of his adversary and suggested he ought to face consequences for
his role in the first impeachment.
"The most gratifying loss last night was that of a real treasonous
creep, Alexander Vindman, to a Radical Left Lunatic, who can’t speak or
think properly, and who will go down to certain defeat at the hands of
Ashley Moody, a truly Fantastic Senator, from the Great State Florida," he posted on Truth Social.
"Vindman, if you remember, was the one who lied about my 'Perfect Call'
with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, only to find out that the
conversation was routinely recorded and proved that I was 100% in the
right (Completely Innocent!)."
"It was, indeed, a Perfect Call, and the Dumocrats Fake Impeachment
effort massively failed. Vindman should be prosecuted for what he did!"
he added.
Vindman was the original whistleblower in the first impeachment
attempt on Trump. He raised concerns over Trump's phone call with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he said Trump appeared
to suggest that he would withhold aid from the country unless Zelensky
investigated the Biden family.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.
Liaisons dangereuses: Swalwell admitted to an intimate relationship with a suspected Chinese spy, while he still sat on the House Intelligence Committee. The FBI had warned Democratic leadership about the risks years before he was removed from the seat.
When allegations of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s relationship with a
woman suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence first surfaced in 2020,
then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the FBI’s findings. The
public now knows the bureau had evidence at the time that the woman,
Fang Fang, had potentially compromised Swalwell with sex, foreign
interns and illicit donations, but Pelosi and Democrats still refused to
remove the lawmaker from the powerful House Intelligence Committee.
The FBI briefings received by Pelosi and her Republican
counterpart were so concerning to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
that he called for Swalwell to be booted from the sensitive committee
where members have access to classified information.
Interns, influence, and illegal donations
The full extent of the FBI’s probe
into Swalwell and Fang’s relationship was revealed on Monday when the
White House Government Transparency Task Force released the
investigation files that had been previously declassified by President
Donald Trump. They show that Swalwell admitted to having sex with Fang,
to his staff placing Fang’s interns in Congress, and to not having a
strong enough campaign finance system to detect the straw donations she
allegedly passed through U.S.-citizen conduits, Just the News
reported. The memos indicate all of this information was possessed by
the FBI at the time that it briefed then-Speaker Pelosi in December
2020.
At the same time that Fang was fundraising for Swalwell and
sleeping with him, by his own admission, the files show that the FBI
knew Fang was tied to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS),
Beijing’s notorious intelligence service. In fact, the investigators
specifically identified her parents as MSS agents.
Fang Fang’s efforts to influence U.S. politicians were first reported by Axios
in 2020. According to the outlet’s comprehensive investigation, U.S.
officials believed Fang sought to ingratiate herself with local
politicians in the San Francisco Bay Area using campaign fundraising,
networking, her charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships. Swalwell
was identified as among the most significant targets of Fang.
Swalwell has consistently maintained that he did nothing
wrong, fully cooperated with the FBI investigation, and ceased
communicating with Fang after the FBI provided him with a defensive
briefing about her activities.
"A vehicle for political retaliation": Swalwell's lawyer says
“There is nothing new here. The government’s own memorandum
confirms what Congressman Swalwell has said for more than a decade: he
did nothing wrong, and there was no basis to charge him with any
offense,” said Sara Azari, legal counsel for Swalwell, on Monday after
the files were released. “What is new and deeply concerning is the
apparent use of federal law enforcement information to punish or
embarrass an outspoken critic of the current administration. An
investigation that produced no charges and no finding of wrongdoing
should not be resurrected years later as a vehicle for political
retaliation.”
After that report, then-House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy, a Republican from Swalwell’s home state of California, said
the allegations “disqualified” the congressman from serving on the
Intelligence Committee and called for him to be removed from the panel. “Swalwell is a national security liability,” the Republican leader said in a post to social media.
McCarthy then requested a briefing from the FBI about the
full extent of Swalwell’s involvement with Fang. After that briefing,
which was also attended by Speaker Pelosi, McCarthy doubled down on his
calls for Swalwell to be removed from the powerful committee. “One thing
I know for sure — I had questions about whether he should. That’s the
one question that was answered, he should not be on Intel,” McCarthy
told reporters after the briefing.
After the Axios story, Pelosi confirmed
that Democratic leadership was first briefed on Swalwell’s relationship
with Fang in the Spring of 2015, shortly after the party nominated him
to the Intelligence Committee. She said that after Congress was made
aware, Democratic politicians cut off communication with Fang. “When
that was made known to the members of Congress, it was over. That was
the end of any communication with those people,” Pelosi said. The
Speaker also said that Republicans were briefed about the relationship
at the same time. “We knew when they knew,” explained Pelosi.
Summing up her views on the matter, Speaker Pelosi told reporters that she did not “have any concerns about Mr. Swalwell.”
McCarthy filed a resolution in early 2021 that would remove
Swalwell from the sensitive committee after Speaker Pelosi reappointed
him to the panel in the new Congress. The House voted mostly along party lines to reject the measure with 200 votes for and 218 against.
Pelosi’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff also backed Swalwell
in the face of the resolution that would have removed him from the
committee. Schiff, in a letter at the time of the vote, said that
Swalwell was a “trusted member of our committee” and he had “acted fully
in accordance with his responsibilities” after the 2015
counterintelligence briefing about Fang.
When Republicans regained control of the House in 2023,
now-Speaker McCarthy blocked Swalwell from serving on the House
Intelligence Committee, citing the lawmaker’s alleged relationship with
Fang. “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have
Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said
after blocking the appointment. “One thing I know for sure – I had
questions about whether he should. That’s the one question that was
answered, he should not be on Intel.”
The Republican Speaker told reporters that the Democratic
leadership “jeopardized” Congress by allowing Swalwell to remain on the
committee, which provides access to sensitive intelligence, for many
years. “The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they
went to nominate him to the Intel Committee. And then the FBI came and
told the leadership then, he’s got a problem,” McCarthy explained. “And
they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us.”
New details emerge
Now, for the first time this week, the public can see what
the FBI knew when it briefed Pelosi and McCarthy on its investigation
into Fang. The files provide significant new details about the long-rumored relationship between Fang and Swalwell, including that:
The FBI initially wanted to investigate the congressman
for a bribery scheme in which he exchanged donations from Fang for her
planting interns in his office, but eventually decided to narrow the
case to seek criminal charges only against Fang for making illegal
donations to the California Democrat through conduits;
Swalwell admitted to having sex with Fang, his staff
placing Fang’s interns in Congress and not having a strong enough
campaign finance system to detect the straw donations she allegedly
passed through U.S.-citizen conduits;
The Justice Department declined to prosecute Fang despite
strong evidence of the illicit donations after she fled the U.S. as the
FBI began interviewing her associates and raided her home. The early
steps in the investigation were overseen in part by controversial
prosecutor Jack Smith, who would later pursue Donald Trump on criminal
charges;
The FBI was recruiting Fang to be a confidential informant
through an undercover agent, assigned her the code name Rusty Thumbs,
planned to hire her through a cutout company and was still evaluating
her suitability as a confidential human source when they discovered her
alleged criminal behavior; and
The FBI knew early on during the recruitment that Fang was
tied to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s notorious
intelligence service. The bureau also identified her parents as MSS
agents, knew she was raising money for California Democrats and was
willing to use sex as a means of getting ahead in the world of U.S.
politics.
You can read the FBI’s files released by the White House below:
The FBI probe targeting Swalwell and Fang was opened on
March 17, 2014, and codenamed “Freshman Fifteen,” according to a
now-declassified “Interim Authority” memorandum, which was reviewed by
FBI headquarters and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Just the News reported on Monday.
The FBI assessment, which later became a full-fledged
investigation, centered on allegations that Swalwell awarded internships
at his offices in exchange for campaign contributions. The FBI
identified Fang “Christine” Fang, a Chinese national, as the alleged
facilitator of this exchange and alleged she employed conduits to route
illegal donations.
Swalwell also admitted that he had “physical relations with
Fang” on multiple occasions, according to the FBI summary of his 2015
interview with agents. In a subsequent interview in 2016, Swalwell
detailed one incident where Fang showed up at his door, after which
Swalwell said they “hooked up,” according to the second interview
summary released by the White House.
The FBI also knew early on that Fang likely had several
ties to Chinese intelligence. One memo identified Fang’s parents as
“known MSS intelligence officers.” The agents also suspected Fang
herself had MSS ties. Before opening the wider probe that included
Swalwell, FBI agents were working to recruit Fang as a potential source
of information on Chinese influence operations in the United States
under the codename “Rusty Thumbs,” Just the News reported.
A slim majority of Democrats, 53%, say they shouldn't be allowed, and 72% of Republicans say they shouldn't. Only 20% say biological males should be allowed to play in women's sports.
A new Napolitan News Service survey finds that 70% of voters don't think biological males should be allowed to compete in women's sports.
A slim majority of Democrats, 53%, say they shouldn't be allowed, and
72% of Republicans say they shouldn't. Only 20% say biological males
should be allowed to play in women's sports.
The survey follows former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce
White, announcing their intention to join the WNBA, as a protest and a
challenge regarding the WNBA's policies and guidelines on gender
identity and eligibility.
The Neapolitan survey found that only 14% of voters say former NBA
players should be allowed to play, and 57% say they should be banned.
Another 10% say former NBA players should be banned, but not other
biological males.
The survey also found that 62% of voters nationwide believe that
allowing biological males to compete in women's sports would deny
biological women athletic opportunities, and 66% say allowing it would
increase the risk of significant injuries to biological female players.
Should the WNBA allow biological males the right to play on women's
teams, 44% of those surveyed say the NBA should no longer subsidize the
league.
This data is from a Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 Registered
Voters conducted online by Scott Rasmussen, August 17, 2026. RMG
Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin
of error of +/- 3.1.
Aisha Wahab states on her campaign site that Melissa Hernandez is funded by AIPAC, while the latter’s campaign site doesn’t mention the word “Israel” or “Jewish.”
Melissa Hernandez, a former mayor of Dublin, Calif. Credit: Melissa Hernandez for Congress campaign.
With about 62% of votes counted in the special runoff election to
complete the term of former congressman Eric Swalwell, Aisha Wahab, an
anti-Israel state senator, led Melissa Hernandez by about 1,350 votes.
Wahab, who has accused Israel of “genocide,” had 33,399 votes (51%) to 32,043 (49%) for Hernandez, a former mayor of Dublin, Calif., whom AIPAC has supported.
The
Democrats are vying to round out the congressional term, which is in
its final months. The election in November will determine who will serve
a full term in California’s 14th Congressional District, in the East
San Francisco Bay Area.
United Democracy Project, a super PAC
aligned with AIPAC, and Bold America, which it has backed, have spent
more than $4.4 million supporting Hernandez and opposing Wahab, per
Federal Election Commission data.
Candidates
were asked in an April candidate forum to respond, “yes” or “no,”
whether “what is happening to the Palestinian people is a genocide.”
Wahab said “yes.”
Hernandez
said that after Oct. 7, “Israel had the right to defend itself” and
secure the release of the hostages but that “the destruction in Gaza has
gone too far.”
Wahab’s campaign website states that Hernandez has
“denied the genocide in Gaza” and that she “is relying on misleading
attacks and AIPAC-linked dark-money PACs to tear Aisha Wahab down.”
Hernandez’s campaign website doesn’t mention Israel or any support from Jewish or pro-Israel groups.
According to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, the next updates to the vote count will occur on Friday, followed by Aug. 26 and Aug. 28.
Aaron Bandler is an award-winning national reporter at JNS based in Los Angeles.
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he worked for nearly eight
years at the Jewish Journal, and before that, at the Daily Wire.
Trump administration approves new ICD-10 codes, without which detransitioners struggle to get correct treatment and insurance reimbursement to restore bodies harmed by medicalized gender transitions.
The Stonewall uprising of 1969 birthed the modern gay
rights movement, with New Yorkers coming out of the shadows of their gay
bars to protest repeated police raids and arrests based on their sexual
orientation and practice.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new diagnosis codes taking effect Oct. 1 to document detransitioners who seek to reverse and mitigate regretted hormonal and surgical procedures
to resemble the opposite sex, making them visible in medicine and
easing the path for them to get restorative treatment and insurance
coverage.
The additions to the International Classification of
Disease, Tenth Revision, closely follow a Department of Health and Human
Services report that found rampant alleged billing fraud
in so-called gender-affirming care for minors, especially
misclassification as unspecified endocrine disorders and precocious
puberty to secure insurance reimbursement.
HHS touted positive responses
to the report Tuesday from members of Congress, medical professionals,
conservative activists, detransitioners and influencers in new and old
media, notably British comedian Russell Brand with 10 million followers on X.
Medical watchdog Do No Harm's medical director, Kurt Miceli, proposed several new ICD-10 codes
to recognize detransitioners nearly a year ago, shortly after the
assassination of detransitioner ally Charlie Kirk, when the CDC's ICD-10
Coordination and Maintenance Committee was considering recommended
additions for HHS.
He presented more codes at a March meeting, several of which were approved.
ICD is an abbreviation for the World Health Organization's
International Classification of Diseases. Doctors and hospitals use them
to record diagnoses, symptoms, injuries and causes of death.
They also use them – as do patients and other billers – to
get payments or reimbursement from health insurance companies. The ICDs
also help track public health data and secure payment. The codes take
effect October 1.
Do No Harm touted the additions, chief among them code
F64.A, "Gender identity disorder, in remission," which indicates people
once diagnosed as transgender no longer show a "marked incongruence"
between their sex and "experienced/expressed gender."
Our medical system has a code for "sucked into jet engine," but none for detransitioners. 🤨
Not any longer.
Detransitioners are now no longer medically invisible. Within ICD-10-CM, the CDC has updated codes to reflect several kinds of desistance and helpful markers for…
It's the first acknowledgment in the ICD that gender confusion can end, despite observed desistance rates up to 80% when confusion is not medicalized, affirmed or reinforced by authorities such as parents and schools..
Even starting gender-affirming care isn't a guaranteed lifelong path, according to a groundbreaking study of children and spouses
of soldiers who received treatment through the U.S. Military Healthcare
System. Nearly a third stopped treatment within four years.
Several new codes recognize "personal history" of various
forms of gender confusion, including "social gender transition"
(presenting as the opposite sex without related medical treatment) and
"gender detransition" (returning to presenting as one's own sex).
Other new codes for personal history of "medical gender
transition" and "surgical gender transition" allow doctors to further
specify what treatment a patient received.
Except for gender detransition, the "personal history"
codes are subsets of a preexisting code, Z87.890, for personal history
of "sex reassignment." That unscientific term has also fallen out of
favor within gender ideology, whose adherents erase sex and speak of
affirming or "confirming" gender by social or medical means.
ICD recognizes orca attacks and 'sucked into jet engine' but not detransition
"Our country will become the first in the world to finally
give [detransitioners] the attention they need," long denied by a
medical establishment "infected" by the activist "dogma that sex-changes
are all gain, no pain," Do No Harm senior fellow Aida Cerundolo, an
emergency medicine physician, wrote in The Hill.
" ... if these patients ever tried to go back – and restore the body
they were born with – they were effectively invisible to medicine."
Gender transition has been meticulously documented in
ICD-10 codes since 2015, yet "if these patients ever tried to go back –
and restore the body they were born with – they were effectively
invisible to medicine" because of the activist "dogma that sex-changes
are all gain, no pain," she said.
Cerundolo has written about a 20-something detransitioner
who had her ovaries removed and experienced menopause 20 years early.
Because of missing detransition codes, the woman received the wrong
treatment – dangerously high estrogen intended for males presenting as
women – and it couldn't be reimbursed by insurance anyway, Cerundolo
said.
At least some of the estimated 14,000 minors who received gender-affirming treatment, as tracked in Do No Harm's database,
will need "hormone replacement for surgically removed sex organs" or
"serious mental health treatment, given the pain and confusion they will
have endured," which the new codes will facilitate, she wrote.
The approved codes will enable physicians to "more
accurately document an individual’s clinical state to support the
appropriate delivery of care" and benefit public health, as the
resulting clinical data inform "future practice and guidelines" and give
researchers visibility into previously hidden "real-world health
information," Do No Harm wrote.
Its X post sharing the new codes spread far and wide courtesy of reposts
by gender-critical Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, women's tennis
great Martina Navratilova and anti-gender transition activist
"Billboard" Chris Elston, arrested by Madrid police for engaging passers-by and targeted for global digital censorship by Australia.
"Many detransitioners have complained that insurance
readily paid for their gender transition interventions, but seeking
coverage for detransitioning was nearly impossible," gender medicine
journalist Ben Ryan wrote of the approved codes.
Detransitioner Claire Abernathy, an "ambassador" for the Independent Women's Forum, marveled that ICD-10 has three codes for "bitten by orca"
going back to 2015 despite "fewer recorded cases of orca whales biting
humans in all of written history than there were detransitioners who
attended Detrans Awareness Day 2026."
Do No Harm emphasized another rare-occurrence ICD-10 code, "sucked into jet engine," which happened this summer when an aircraft obliterated a man who walked straight into its landing path on a Denver runway.
Our Duty founder Keith Jordan, whose international group supports parents of gender-confused children, said he used to work on "a computer system
that processed aircraft damage claims including things being sucked
into jet engines." Some of them "were as unbelievable as the current
trans medical scandal."
The IDF examined five major cases, including the Islamic Red Crescent and the death of Hind Rajab, resulting in two criminal probes, two disciplinary probes, and the closure of one file.
The IDF ordered a deeper prove into the killing of six-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab, pictured here. (photo credit: SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)
The IDF’s Military Advocate-General’s Corps issued its first landmark war crimes report since October 7
on Wednesday, covering more than 150 probes into the World Central
Kitchen (WCK) saga, the Islamic Red Crescent saga, and three other major
cases.
The
investigations of IDF Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Itay Offir
and his staff into five major cases resulted in the opening of two
criminal probes, two disciplinary probes, and the closure of one of the
cases.
The Jerusalem Post
understands that, over time, additional update reports will be issued,
but this is the first step after heavy global criticism of Israel and
the IDF for not issuing final reports until now, despite grave cases
against them in international judicial bodies.
Further,
the update that 150 cases are under criminal investigation is a
significant jump from the approximate 100 initially shared with the Post on June 18.
Investigating the World Central Kitchen incident
In the WCK saga, on April 1, 2024, the IDF accidentally and mistakenly killed seven international food aid workers.
According to the report, WCK hired armed security guards without coordinating that specific issue with the IDF.
Humanitarian
aid with the logo of World Central Kitchen (WCK) at the Kerem Shalom
border crossing. May 1, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL)
The
IDF probe admitted that its surveillance officials misidentified these
WCK security officials as Hamas, as well as other WCK officials
afterward, who were unarmed and entered the WCK vehicles at a midpoint
in their travel, as armed.
This detail has massive importance, as previously several of the most senior IDF officials told the Post
and other reporters that one of the main justifications for the attack
was that there was at least one Hamas terrorist involved, along with
other officials who were mistaken for Hamas officials.
Next, the report criticizes the WCK for being unreachable for 30 minutes when the IDF tried to call to clarify the situation.
Ultimately,
the IDF decided to uphold the prior decision of former IDF chief of
staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Herzi Halevi that while tragic, the errors should
lead to disciplinary measures but were not a crime.
In response to the IDF's decision, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that Australia was "outraged."
One of the WCK officials, Zomi Frankcom, was an Australian citizen.
Wong also stated that she would summon Israel's Ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, following the IDF's decision.
Regarding the WCK incident, a fascinating twist is that Offir himself did not make the decision, which the Post first reported exclusively on June 18.
In
prior roles as the Defense Ministry legal adviser, Offir apparently
worked closely with IDF Col. Nochi Mendel, one of the key
commander-suspects, on several projects.
Although
this does not necessarily violate the “conflict of interest” definition
that technically could disqualify him from rendering a decision, as it
would if the two were family members, Offir did not feel he could
objectively judge Mendel, or at least wanted to remove any perception of
favoritism.
For that reason, IDF Chief Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov issued the decision regarding WCK.
Levertov
became IDF chief prosecutor in August 2025, only around two months
before Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation as the IDF MAG prior to
Offir.
The killing of Hind Rajab
Regarding the second file, the killing of nine members of the Hamada family, including the famous Palestinian child Hind Rajab
in Gaza City on January 29, 2024, Offir decided that the IDF officials
involved in coordinating the arrival of an ambulance to save Rajab after
the initial attack were, at a minimum, grossly negligent.
On that basis, he ordered the probe to continue as a full criminal investigation.
Rajab
became famous worldwide because she called outside officials for help,
and recordings show her surviving an initial strike on her family.
However,
the later strikes either killed her or killed the rescuers who were
sent to save her, until she died of her initial wounds.
The Post
has learned that while the entire incident will be probed, the most
serious part of the investigation will be the second strike on the
rescuers sent to save Rajab.
This
means the IDF officials most in trouble would not be those who fired on
the rescuers, but the Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories (COGAT) officials who sent the rescuers a Google Maps
document telling them that if they took the designated path, they would
be safe.
The
IDF MAG Corps alleges that COGAT did not send this information to the
IDF officials on the ground, which likely led to the mistaken killing.
Such negligence could rise to a level so high and deadly as to be potentially criminal, even if unintentional.
At the same time, the Post
understands that none of the COGAT officials involved have been
criminally investigated to date, so their defense lawyers may claim they
do not remember the details to avoid prosecution or conviction.
Although Offir has been in office since November 2025, Tomer-Yerushalmi dragged out the probe for an extensive period.
The Post has not succeeded to date in getting responses on such issues from Tomer-Yerushalmi since her resignation.
Investigating an incident surrounding the Islamic Red Crescent
On
March 23, 2025, the IDF mistakenly killed 15 Palestinians connected to
the fire department, ambulances, and the UN (the paramedics case) in Tel
Sultan in Rafah who were on their way to rescue various Palestinians.
According
to Offir, there were three separate incidents in which the IDF
successively fired on different cars of rescuers as part of an ambush
that they thought they were springing on Hamas, an hour after a Hamas
car had passed through their ambush area.
Although
the IDF has connected six out of the 15 rescuers to Hamas after the
fact, the MAG ordered a criminal probe to continue, in addition to
censuring the commander of the IDF’s 14th Brigade (a Colonel rank) and
firing the deputy commander of the IDF Golani Brigade’s Reconnaissance
Battalion (a Major rank).
The Post
has learned that the most serious part of this incident was the third
attack, during which time had passed, and various indicators could have
helped the attacking forces avoid an additional ambush in the area.
However,
those involved in the attack will not be fired or suspended per se
because they are being criminally investigated at this stage, though
some may already have been released from service.
Further,
in April 2025, the IDF admitted that in the paramedics incident in
southern Gaza, it mistakenly killed 15 International Red Crescent medics
and wounded another when it misidentified them as Hamas terrorists,
even though they were unarmed and driving in ambulances, leading to the
firing of the deputy Golani Brigade commander (a Major rank), and the
censuring of a brigade commander (a Colonel rank).
In
April 2025, the IDF issued interim findings on a variety of incidents
at the time, collected by the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and
Assessment Mechanism, headed by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yoav Har-Even, and
presented them the IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and to
representatives of the UN.
The
IDF said at the time that it “regrets this serious incident and
continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational
lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the
future.”
“We
express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the
family. As part of the IDF’s commitment to transparency and dialogue
with international entities, the IDF has shared the findings gathered
thus far with the UN.
The
IDF places great importance on continued engagement with international
organizations, as part of efforts to enhance coordination, apply lessons
learned, and prevent similar incidents from recurring in the future,”
said the military.
Two incidents involving Doctors Without Borders
There were also two decisions regarding two separate incidents in which the IDF mistakenly killed two different pairs of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) officials.
The
first was an incident in Khan Yunis on February 20, 2024, in which the
clarity of the identity of the two MSF officials was hazy, with the
military believing them to be Hamas officials.
Accordingly, Offir ordered disciplinary measures against the IDF officials involved in the attack, but not a criminal probe. The second incident was on November 18, 2023, when the IDF mistakenly killed two other MSF officials in Gaza City.
The
IDF decided that since the tragic deaths were not from direct fire, but
from indirect fire, the case would be closed completely without
criminal or disciplinary consequences.
IDF
legal sources acknowledged that the decisions took too long, but that
this was a time to at least issue as many decisions as possible after
the longest and most complex war in Israel’s history, which in many ways
still has not ended.
Furthermore,
they said that a hard decision against IDF soldiers is critical to
defend Israel against the International Court of Justice and the
International Criminal Court, as well as to preserve receiving military
weapons overseas from the US and other allies.
Corrections will come, capital will be reallocated, and some business models will fail; that is the ordinary price of progress. What will not reverse is the deeper shift already under way: the permanent embedding of advanced computation into the productive core of life.
Large infrastructure booms
have often developed in this uneven way. Railways, electricity and
telecommunications networks all passed through phases of enthusiasm,
overbuilding, financial stress and consolidation. The failures were
real, but the underlying networks continued to expand.
China has been investing heavily for years in nuclear fusion
technology -- a resource the United States would do well urgently to
adopt as a 21st-century "Manhattan Project" if it wants to
make sure that China does not ultimately win the AI race for global
preeminence. Nuclear fusion energy produces a massive supply of clean,
inexpensive energy, and the United States is blessed with three large
bodies of water around it for an unlimited supply. Without significant
government investment in developing nuclear fusion, by relying only on
private firms to supply their own electricity and nuclear fission
reactors, the West seriously risks being left behind. The sooner the US
government prioritizes developing nuclear fusion, the sooner it will be
commercially available -- preferably before China dominates the market
first.
These other solutions are slow and costly. A committed rush is needed toward developing the energy of the future: fusion.
Now take a break and ask yourself how many times you've used AI
today, and the tools that themselves use AI. The question no longer
makes sense: AI is everywhere, permanent; it has already expanded the
possibilities of our world. Corrections will come, capital will be
reallocated, and some business models will fail; that is the ordinary
price of progress. What will not reverse is the deeper shift already
under way: the permanent embedding of advanced computation into the
productive core of life.
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Warnings about an artificial-intelligence crash have become increasingly common.
Financing is becoming harder to obtain, the argument runs, and
companies are questioning whether AI projects produce enough value,
whether electricity supplies are sufficient, and if cheaper Chinese
systems could undermine the revenues of American technology leaders. Put
together, these pressures are said to threaten the vast investments now
rolling out in data center construction, AI chip and memory
manufacturing, and power generation.
Some of these concerns are real. There seem to be four separate main
questions: Can the projects still be financed? Do businesses still want
the technology? Can enough electricity be supplied? And will low-cost
competitors destroy the economics of the market?
1. Financing: tighter credit is not the same as no credit
Private credit means lending provided by investment funds and other
non-bank institutions rather than by traditional banks or public bond
markets, which have helped finance some data centers and other large
projects. When investors in those funds become more cautious, lending slows and borrowing costs rise.
That slowdown matters, but it does not follow that AI investment
stops. The largest buyers of computing infrastructure include Amazon,
Microsoft, Google and Meta. These companies are often called
"hyperscalers" because they operate enormous cloud-computing networks
and data centers. They generate substantial cash, issue corporate bonds and borrow from major banks. Private credit is one source of money for the sector, but not its only source.
For example, in 2025, Amazon generated
$139.5 billion in operating cash flow and spent $128.3 billion in cash
capital expenditure, mainly on technology infrastructure. It finished
the year with approximately $123 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and
marketable securities. Amazon also received $25 billion from short- and
long-term debt issuance during the year.
Private credit is significant, but it is not the whole corporate financing market. The US Federal Reserve estimated
that private-credit loans stood at approximately $1.4 trillion in the
second half of 2025. That represented about 10% of total debt owed by US
nonfinancial corporations.
A period of tighter financing therefore changes who can build, how
quickly projects proceed, and what return investors demand. Weaker
developers are forced to delay or cancel plans. Stronger companies pay
more, use their own cash and spread construction over a longer period.
That is a repricing of risk: investors seeing greater uncertainty demand better terms.
Large infrastructure booms have often developed in this uneven way. Railways, electricity and telecommunications networks
all passed through phases of enthusiasm, overbuilding, financial stress
and consolidation. The failures were real, but the underlying networks
continued to expand.
2. Business demand: experimentation is becoming more selective
Companies have spent heavily on AI pilots: small-scale tests designed
to discover whether a system can improve a real business task. Many of
these tests have been disappointments.
Costs were higher than expected, employees did not always adopt the
tools, and some firms lacked the clean, well-organized data needed to
make the systems useful.
These growing pains do not mean that businesses have rejected AI.
They mean that they are becoming more selective. In the first stage of a
new technology, companies often buy quickly because they fear being
left behind. In the second stage, they compare results, cancel weak
projects and concentrate money on the applications that work. This
process can look like a retreat even when long-term adoption is
continuing.
In a January 2025 Deloitte survey,
more than two-thirds of respondents expected 30% or fewer of their
generative AI experiments to be fully scaled during the following three
to six months. At the same time, 74% said their most advanced initiative
was meeting or exceeding return on investment (ROI) expectations.
A separate 2025 Deloitte survey
of 1,854 executives in Europe and the Middle East found that a typical
AI use case generally took two to four years to produce satisfactory
ROI. Only 6% reported achieving payback in under one year, compared with
an expected payback period of approximately seven to twelve months for
conventional technology investments.
When electric power was being developed, for instance, early
factories often replaced a single steam engine with a single electric
motor but kept the old factory layout. Productivity improved only
modestly. Larger gains came later, when factories were redesigned around
smaller motors placed throughout the building. The technology created
its full value only after organizations changed the way they worked (see
Paul A. David, The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox, American Economic Review, May 1990, Vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 355–361.)
AI shall probably follow a similar path. A chatbot added to an
unchanged process may save little time. A redesigned process in which AI
sorts documents, prepares a first draft, checks records and passes
unusual cases to a human may produce much larger gains. The important
question is therefore not whether every early experiment succeeds, but
whether companies continue to find tasks worth redesigning around the
technology.
3. Electricity: a serious constraint, but not a fixed wall
AI systems run in data centers filled with specialized computer
chips. These facilities require large amounts of electricity, cooling
equipment and, in many cases, water. In regions where the power grid is
already congested, a new data center may wait years for a connection.
This is one of the strongest arguments against unlimited short-term growth.
The International Energy Agency estimates
that data centers consumed approximately 485 terawatt-hours of
electricity in 2025, after demand increased by 17% in a single year.
Electricity use by AI-focused data centers grew even faster—by
approximately 50%. The IEA expects total data center consumption to
reach about 950 TWh by 2030, roughly double the 2025 level and
equivalent to approximately 3% of global electricity demand.
The pressure is much greater in the United States. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's June 2026 update estimates
that data centers could account for 11.8% of total US electricity
consumption by 2030 in its central estimate. Its scenario range is 9.5%
to 15.3%.
Based on a location-specific analysis of announced projects, the IEA estimates
that grid constraints could delay approximately 20% of the global
data-center capacity planned for construction by 2030. Several
jurisdictions have already restricted or paused new connections while
system operators process connection backlogs
Yet an electricity shortage is not an absolute ban. It is a
constraint that changes prices and behavior. Technology companies are
signing long-term contracts
with power producers, building facilities near available generation,
improving cooling systems and designing chips that perform more
calculations for each unit of electricity.
China has been investing heavily for years in nuclear fusion
technology -- a resource the United States would do well urgently to
adopt as a 21st-century "Manhattan Project" if it wants to
make sure that China does not ultimately win the AI race for global
preeminence. Nuclear fusion energy produces a massive supply of clean,
inexpensive energy, and the United States is blessed with three large
bodies of water around it for an unlimited supply. Without significant
government investment in developing nuclear fusion, by relying only on
private firms to supply their own electricity and nuclear fission
reactors, the West seriously risks being left behind. The sooner the US
government prioritizes developing nuclear fusion, the sooner it will be
commercially available -- preferably before China dominates the market
first.
Some companies are also rolling out small modular fission reactors.
These are nuclear reactors designed to be factory-manufactured in
small, identical units, unlike traditional nuclear power plants
custom-constructed on-site. Many designs still face regulatory and
commercial obstacles.
The practical response in the short term, unfortunately, looks as if
it will be less dramatic: more power plants, stronger transmission
lines, better storage, improved efficiency and a shift of some computing
work to places and times where electricity is available. These other
solutions are slow and costly. A committed rush is needed toward
developing the energy of the future: fusion.
4. Low-cost and open models: competition changes the market
The final concern is competition
from cheaper AI systems, such as those developed in China, which
acquires most of its technological knowledge through theft. The West,
especially the United States, urgently needs to discontinue making its
innovations and capital available to China if it wants to remain the
world's preeminent superpower. Some of these systems are open models --
AI systems whose technical components, such as their software code or
weighting parameters, are made available for others to inspect, modify
or run themselves. The exact degree of openness varies from one model to
another.
These systems clearly reduce the price of common AI tasks and put
pressure on companies that charge high prices for general-purpose
services. They also reduce the revenue earned from basic applications
such as summarizing text, drafting routine messages or answering
standard questions.
Cheaper and open models are already changing the economics of the AI market. Stanford's AI Index estimates
that the cost of querying a model performing at approximately GPT-3.5
level fell from $20 per million tokens in November 2022 to $0.07 by
October 2024 — a decline of more than 280 times (In AI, a token is a
small unit of text that a model reads or generates.) Price competition
has continued. In July 2026, China's DeepSeek charged
$0.14 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens for
its V4 Flash model. OpenAI's frontier GPT-5.6 Sol model was listed at $5
and $30 respectively. The models are not directly equivalent, but the
difference illustrates the pressure that inexpensive competitors place
on premium prices for routine AI services.
The capability gap has also narrowed. According to Stanford's 2026 AI Index,
Chinese and American models traded positions near the top of
performance rankings during 2025. DeepSeek-R1 briefly matched the
leading American model in February 2025, and by March 2026 the best
American model led the best Chinese model by only 2.7 percent.
Competition is consequently shifting away from nationality and toward
cost, reliability and performance on particular tasks.
Cheaper models, however, do not remove all value from more advanced systems. A frontier model
, at or near the highest current level of capability, still retains
advantages in difficult reasoning, reliability, security, specialized
business support and integration with large organizations. Companies in
healthcare, finance, defense, or other regulated industries pay more for
audit trails, data protection and contractual guarantees.
A real-life example is Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Rather than
using the cheapest available chatbot, the financial services company worked
with OpenAI to develop an internal GPT-4 assistant for its financial
advisers. The system searches Morgan Stanley's approved knowledge base
and provides answers with links to the original source documents. Morgan
Stanley also introduced daily testing to detect unreliable or
non-compliant answers, kept its proprietary information subject to
zero-data-retention arrangements, and required advisers to review
AI-generated material before using it with clients. The technology was
also integrated into existing business systems: its meeting assistant
can produce client notes and draft follow-up messages that are
transferred into the company's customer-relationship-management system.
For Morgan Stanley, the value of the advanced system therefore lies
not simply in its ability to generate text. A cheaper model might also
summarize an investment report, but an inaccurate, insecure or
untraceable answer could expose the company to regulatory penalties,
financial losses and damage to client trust. The company is consequently
willing to pay more for reliability, source traceability, data
protection, human oversight and integration with its internal systems.
This illustrates why organizations in finance, healthcare, defense, and
other regulated industries may continue purchasing premium AI services
even when much cheaper models are available.
Computing has repeatedly gone through this pattern.
A technical layer becomes cheaper and more widely available, while
value moves to another layer: specialized software, trusted services,
proprietary data, distribution or integration. Competition can reduce
profit margins without reducing total demand for computing.
What the critics get right
None of this means that every AI company is safe or that every data
center will earn an acceptable return. AI chips quickly become obsolete.
A data center built around today's equipment may face a much more
efficient rival within a few years. Depreciation — the accounting
process by which the cost of an asset is spread over its useful life —
may therefore underestimate how quickly some equipment loses economic
value.
Demand can also grow while profits remain disappointing. Airlines,
telecommunications firms and car manufacturers have all served large
markets without consistently earning exceptional returns. AI could
become essential to the economy while many investors still lose money.
A correction, as in other sectors, is therefore likely in parts of
the industry. It will eliminate weak projects and force stronger
companies to improve. What is less convincing is the claim that such a
correction would reverse the broader adoption of AI.
A better conclusion
The debate is often framed too simply: cornucopia or bust. Companies
with strong finances will continue investing when weaker borrowers
cannot. Higher electricity prices encourage efficiency and new power
supply. Cheaper models expand access and create new uses, as they reduce
prices. More demanding customers push suppliers to prove that their
products create measurable value.
The next phase of AI will be less euphoric and more selective.
Capital will move away from fashionable projects and towards systems
that save time, reduce errors, increase output or create products that
customers will pay for. Some business models will fail. Some investors
will suffer heavy losses. All of this is not only consistent with the
history of the adoption of new technologies by a capitalist system, but
it is also, quite frankly, healthy.
The emergence of cheap AI from China is obviously questionable, when one recognizes that the theft
of intellectual property remains the Chinese economic model, and that
any Chinese "enterprise" is never more than one of the thousand sides of
the Chinese Communist Party.
Now take a break and ask yourself how many times you've used AI
today, and the tools that themselves use AI. The question no longer
makes sense: AI is everywhere, permanent; it has already expanded the
possibilities of our world. Corrections will come, capital will be
reallocated, and some business models will fail; that is the ordinary
price of progress. What will not reverse is the deeper shift already
under way: the permanent embedding of advanced computation into the
productive core of life. To mistake the inevitable turbulence of a
build-out phase for the end of the cycle is to stare at the finger while
Elon Musk is pointing at Mars.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis,
University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University
of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an
entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of
PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).
