JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
JAPAN WON'T RECOGNIZE AN ARAB STATE AT THE USELESS U.N.
WORLD TERRORISM
GENESIS 6:11-13
11
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with
violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
GENESIS 16:11-12
11
And the angel of the LORD said unto her,(HAGAR) Behold, thou art with
child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(FATHER OF
THE ARAB/MUSLIMS) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And
he (ISHMAEL-FATHER OF THE ARAB-MUSLIMS) will be a wild (DONKEY-JACKASS)
man;(ISLAM IS A FAKE AND DANGEROUS SEX FOR MURDER CULT) his hand will be
against every man,(ISLAM HATES EVERYONE) and every man's hand against
him;(PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM BEING BEHEADED) and he (ISHMAEL
ARAB/MUSLIM) shall dwell in the presence of all his
brethren.(LITERAL-THE ARABS LIVE WITH THEIR BRETHERN JEWS)
ISAIAH 14:12-14
12
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,(SATAN) son of the
morning!(HEBREW-CRECENT MOON-ISLAM) how art thou cut down to the ground,
which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the
sides of the north:
14 I (SATAN HAS EYE TROUBLES) will ascend above
the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.(AND 1/3RD OF
THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN FELL WITH SATAN AND BECAME DEMONS)
JOHN 16:2
2
They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that
whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM
MURDERS IN THE NAME OF MOON GOD ALLAH OF ISLAM)
And here are the
bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or
peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels
land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the
future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq
west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe
23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN
THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE
FUTURE.
Joel 3:2-King James Version (YOU DIVIDE JERUSALEM IN
HALF - YOUR POKING GOD IN THE EYE - GOD SAYS AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A
TOOTH FOR A TOOTH- YOU WANNA DIVIDE JERUSALEM IN HALF - HALF OF EARTHS
POPULATION 4 BILLION DIE ON EARTH.
2 I will also gather all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead
with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have
scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
Japan won’t
recognize Palestinian state at upcoming UN General Assembly —
report-Asked about move, which is likely aimed at maintaining relations
with US, Tokyo says it is considering ‘appropriate timing and
modalities’ of Palestinian statehood recognition-By Reuters Today, 6:52
am-SEP 17,25
TOKYO — Japan will not recognize a Palestinian state
for now, a decision likely taken to maintain relations with the United
States and to avoid a hardening of Israel’s attitude, the Asahi
newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified government
sources.Several governments, including those in Britain, France, Canada
and Australia, have said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the
UN General Assembly this month, adding international pressure on Israel
over its actions in the territory.The US had prompted Japan to forgo the
recognition of a Palestinian state through several diplomatic channels,
while French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had strongly urged his
Japanese counterpart to recognize it, Kyodo news agency reported last
week.Japan has been conducting a “comprehensive assessment, including
appropriate timing and modalities, of the issue of recognizing
Palestinian statehood,” Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya told a news
briefing on Tuesday.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, the
government’s top spokesperson, repeated the statement at a news
conference on Wednesday when asked about the Asahi report.But Hayashi
expressed a “grave sense of crisis” over the Israeli ground assault
against Hamas in Gaza City, saying “the very foundations of a two-state
solution could be collapsing.”He urged Israel to “take substantive steps
to end the severe humanitarian crisis, including famine, as soon as
possible.”At a UN meeting on Friday, Japan was among 142 nations that
voted in favor of a declaration outlining “tangible, timebound, and
irreversible steps” toward a two-state solution between Israel and the
Palestinians.But Asahi said Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is
set to skip a September 22 meeting on the subject during the UN
gathering in New York.Within the Group of Seven nations, German and
Italian officials have called an immediate recognition of the state of
Palestine “counterproductive.”Times of Israel staff contributed to this
report.
Starmer said planning to recognize Palestinian state
after Trump’s UK visit-The Times reports that British PM is under
massive pressure from Labour to grant Palestinian statehood recognition
before UN General Assembly, when France and others plan to do so By ToI
Staff Today, 12:51 am-SEP 17,25
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
plans to formally recognize a Palestinian state after US President
Donald Trump completes his state visit to the United Kingdom, British
media reported Wednesday.The unsourced report by The Times said that
Starmer plans to recognize Palestine even before several countries, led
by France, will do so at the United Nations General Assembly summit in
New York next week, amid concern over the ongoing war in Gaza.The Times
reported that Starmer is under massive pressure from within his Labour
party to make the move, but will hold off on doing so until Trump leaves
so that the issue doesn’t dominate a joint press conference planned for
Thursday.Britain’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.The US is deeply opposed to the move, saying it
would be a reward for the Hamas terror group in the wake of the October
7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and
saw another 251 taken hostage.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has
warned countries considering recognizing Palestinian statehood during
the General Assembly that Israel could take “reciprocal” action in the
form of annexing the West Bank.Starmer announced in July that the UK
would recognize a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli
government took substantive steps to end the war and humanitarian crisis
in the Gaza Strip, and committed to a viable peace process.The decision
was swiftly condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who
declared the move “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism.” Meeting Starmer
in London last week, President Isaac Herzog said Britain’s “stated
intention to recognize a Palestinian state at this time would in no way
help bring the hostages home, help the Palestinians, or help bring an
end to the conflict” but only “embolden extremists across the Middle
East and beyond.”In June, the UK sanctioned far-right ministers Itamar
Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and froze trade talks with Israel. And
last month, the British government announced a ban on Israeli defense
firms attending a major London arms fair.Earlier this week, the Royal
College of Defence Studies, one of Britain’s most eminent military
academies, banned Israelis from enrolling from next year, due to the
ongoing war.Israel has found itself increasingly isolated on the world
stage, as the 23-month-old war sparked by the Hamas-led October 2023
attack grinds on in Gaza. Terror groups in the Strip still hold 48
hostages, of whom only about 20 are believed to be alive.Reuters
contributed to this report.
Smotrich: Gaza a real estate
‘bonanza,’ Israel talking with US about dividing it up-Finance minister
says ‘demolition’ is done, ‘now we just need to build’; also slams
Netanyahu’s comparison of Israel to Sparta-By Sam Sokol-Today, 8:44
pm-SEP 17,25
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on
Wednesday said that the Gaza Strip was a potential real estate “bonanza”
and that he was in talks with the United States on how to divide up the
coastal enclave after the war, once again making clear his desire to
transform the enclave into Israeli territory.Speaking at a real estate
conference in Tel Aviv, the minister said the opportunity “pays for
itself,” and he has “already started negotiations with the
Americans.”Palestinians and much of the international community
strenuously insist that the enclave must be governed by a Palestinian
body after the war and reject the idea of Israeli or US occupation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he does not intend
to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Strip, while his far-right
allies have talked up their vision of pushing Palestinians out and
building Israeli communities on the land.“We have paid a lot of money
for this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in
percentages,” Smotrich said, adding that “the demolition, the first
stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we need to
build.”He added, “There is a business plan, put together by the most
professional people here, that is on President Trump’s desk.”Officials
in the White House and US State Department did not immediately respond
to a request for comment.In an interview with his Religious Zionism
party’s Ofek weekend newsletter last month, Smotrich said he was working
to reestablish the former Israeli settlements of Ganim and Kadim in the
northern West Bank, both of which were evacuated and dismantled during
Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, when it withdrew all of its
settlers and soldiers.In July, he spoke at a Knesset conference called
“The Gaza Riviera – from vision to reality,” at which participants
presented plans for reestablishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
There, he said that Gaza would become an “inseparable part of the State
of Israel.”In May, he said the population of the territory would be
confined to just a narrow swath of land, with the remainder of the
enclave “totally destroyed.”Smotrich claimed in July that his vision has
US President Donald Trump’s backing. Trump in February said the US
would take over Gaza, relocate its residents, and turn it into the
“Riviera of the Middle East.”Trump’s plans have been rejected by the
Palestinians, the Arab world and most of the international community, in
addition to officials from both parties in the US. Trump himself has
also placed less focus on such plans after his initial comments.But last
month, The Washington Post reported that the proposal was apparently
not quite dead. The report said the Trump administration was weighing a
proposal for the postwar reconstruction of Gaza that would put the Strip
under US control for a decade and pay roughly a quarter of its
population to relocate, many of them permanently.In addition, Smotrich
on Wednesday rejected Netanyahu’s statement earlier this week that
Israel was facing increasing isolation and may be required to become a
self-reliant economy with “autarkic characteristics” and a kind of
“super-Sparta.”“I do not agree with the prime minister’s words, and I
really did not like the comparison to Sparta,” the finance minister
said.Netanyahu’s comments sparked fierce criticism from opposition heads
and business leaders and were followed by a dip in the value of shares
on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.In response, the prime minister said on
Tuesday that he had “full confidence” in the Israeli economy and sought
to clarify that his comments were focused on the defense industries
rather than the broader economy.
'Death is cheaper and more
merciful'-Dozens said killed in strikes as thousands flee Gaza City, but
some vow to stay put-On IDF ground offensive’s second day, many Gazans
say nowhere is safe; aid groups call for more pressure to stop
operation; strikes said to cut internet, phone service-By Emanuel
Fabian,Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 4:49 pm
Dozens of
Palestinians were said to have been killed in Israel Defense Force
strikes across Gaza on Wednesday, as the military said Palestinians
continued to flee Gaza City amid a major offensive in the Strip’s
largest urban area.At least 30 people were killed across the Strip in
Israeli strikes, including 19 in Gaza City, local Hamas-run health
authorities said. Israeli forces continued to bombard the city and other
parts of the Strip overnight and into Wednesday, the second day of the
IDF’s ground offensive in the area.The casualty figures could not be
independently verified and did not differentiate between fighters and
civilians. Gazan health officials said they included several women and
children.The IDF said the air force struck some 50 targets in the Strip
overnight, most of them in Gaza City, with some 140 targets hit over a
24-hour period. The military said the targets included tunnels,
buildings used by terror groups, cells of operatives, and other
infrastructure, but provided few additional details about the
intensified operation.According to reports, Israeli troops blew up
remote-controlled explosive-laden unmanned vehicles in the northwest Tel
al-Hawa neighborhood and in Gaza City’s south. During the war, the IDF
has repurposed decommissioned APCs by packing them with explosives and
attaching remote-control capabilities, in order to drive them into areas
with Hamas infrastructure without risking the lives of
troops.Airstrikes and artillery fire were reported in several areas
around the edges of the city.On Wednesday, the military estimated that
some 400,000 Palestinians had so far evacuated Gaza City. But it remains
heavily populated despite a general evacuation order from the IDF,
which has instructed civilians to move south to a humanitarian
zone.Around 1 million Palestinians were estimated to be residing in the
city before the IDF began preparations for its offensive there against
Hamas. In recent days, the pace of evacuations has accelerated to tens
of thousands of people a day, according to the army.That increasing rate
has led to overcrowding as people make their way out of the city. Until
now, Gazans have only been able to leave via the Rashid coastal road,
which has been inundated with foot and vehicle traffic as thousands move
south to avoid the onslaught.But on Wednesday, the military announced
that it would facilitate a second evacuation route on Salah a-Din, the
main north-south highway in Gaza, which will remain open until noon on
Friday. Salah a-Din, a main inland artery running to central Gaza, was
used as a principal evacuation route during an offensive in Gaza City in
the first months of the war.Displaced Palestinians headed southward a
day after Israel unleashed a long-threatened ground assault on Gaza
City, declaring ‘Gaza is burning’ as Palestinians there described the
most intense bombardment they had faced in two years of war
https://t.co/MQrEsYzN14 pic.twitter.com/GtiSlYkYTb— Reuters (@Reuters)
September 17, 2025-Still, many Gazans say nowhere is safe and instead
have vowed to stay in their homes despite the IDF’s order to evacuate.“I
won’t leave Gaza. There’s shelling here and there,” said Umm Ahmed
Yunes, who is living in her partially destroyed home.She additionally
lamented the high cost of moving.“Where would I find $1,000 or $2,000
for transport costs? Where would I buy a tent? There are no tents and
prices are insane,” said the 44-year-old. “Death is cheaper and more
merciful.”Fatima Lubbad, a mother of four, said she had left Gaza City
along with 10 relatives but felt the ordeal was unbearable.“I wish we
would all die together,” said the 36-year-old.“Last night we slept in
the street by the sea in Deir el-Balah — there was nowhere to put a
tent… I cried all night as I looked at my children sleeping on the
ground,” she said.The military has estimated that, in addition to the
approximately 600,000 civilians who have not yet evacuated, there are
thousands of Hamas fighters in Gaza City. Additionally, a number of
Israeli hostages are believed to be held in the city.Terror groups in
Gaza are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by
Hamas-led terrorists during the October 7, 2023, attack that launched
the war. Twenty hostages are believed to still be alive, while there are
grave concerns for two others. The remainder are thought to be dead.
Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in 2014.As the
ground and air operations in the city intensified, the Palestinian
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, based in the West Bank, said
Israeli strikes on the main network lines in northern Gaza had collapsed
internet and telephone services, cutting Gazans off from the outside
world.Meanwhile, a coalition of leading aid groups on Wednesday urged
the international community to take stronger measures to stop Israel’s
offensive in the city.“What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an
unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of
Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide,” read the statement signed by
leaders of over 20 aid organizations operating in Gaza, including the
Norwegian Refugee Council, Anera, and Save the Children.“States must use
every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal
to intervene,” the statement said. “Rhetoric and half measures are not
enough. This moment demands decisive action.”The statement referred to a
report released Tuesday by a commission of UN experts, which accused
Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The panel’s findings were roundly
rejected by Israel.Israel has also strenuously contested accusations
that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying that it makes
efforts to deliver aid to Gaza’s civilians. It has accused the United
Nations of delays in distributing aid and charged Hamas with stealing
the supplies.Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories, known as COGAT, said that nearly 230 trucks carrying
humanitarian aid entered the Strip on Tuesday through the Kerem Shalom
and Zikim crossings.According to COGAT, some 250 trucks’ worth of aid
were collected by the United Nations and other international
organizations from the Gaza side of the crossings Tuesday to be
distributed. Similar amounts of aid deliveries have been reported daily
in the past few weeks.“The contents of hundreds of trucks are still
awaiting collection on the Gaza side of the crossings,” COGAT said.The
UN has said 600 trucks of aid need to be distributed each day in order
to properly feed the Strip’s roughly two million people amid the
war.COGAT also said that “tankers of UN fuel entered for the operation
of essential humanitarian systems” yesterday, and that it coordinated
the entry and exit of humanitarian aid workers rotating in and out of
Gaza.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 64,000 people in
the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far,
though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between
civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants
in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel
during the October 7 onslaught, in which Hamas-led invaders killed some
1,200 people.Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities
and stresses that Hamas fights from civilian areas, including homes,
hospitals, schools, and mosques.Israel’s toll in the ground offensive
against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with
the Strip stands at 465.
Flower-bedecked Netanyahu and
counterpart from Fiji open new embassy in Jerusalem-FM Sa’ar vows to
continue to work to relocate embassies to capital after island nation
becomes 7th country to do so; Fijian PM acknowledges ‘special bond’ with
Israel-By Nava Freiberg-Today, 8:05 pm-SEP 17,25
Fiji opened its
embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday, becoming the seventh country to do
so, with leaders of Israel and the island nation sporting traditional
Fijian garlands at the inauguration ceremony.Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar celebrated alongside Fiji’s
Prime Minister and and Foreign Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, Sa’ar’s office
said in a statement.“A new embassy in Jerusalem, our eternal capital!”
Sa’ar cheered in the statement.The event was a rare diplomatic bright
spot for Israel at a time when allies are issuing increasingly harsh
criticism of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war and threatening sanctions.
Fiji was one of a dozen countries to abstain from a recent United
Nations vote that overwhelmingly endorsed the creation of a Palestinian
state, and on Wednesday, Rabuka paid tribute to his country’s
relationship with Israel.“I’d like to acknowledge the special bond and
the enduring friendship and relationship that has existed between Fiji
and the State of Israel,” Rabuka said following the inauguration at a
ceremony held at the Foreign Ministry offices in the presence of
Sa’ar.Fiji is the seventh country to open an embassy in Jerusalem,
joining the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea and
Paraguay. Argentina has also announced plans to move its embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem next year.Rabuka, Sa’ar and Netanyahu posed for a
photo, with Netanyahu and Rabuka sporting salusalu — traditional Fijian
garlands.Ahead of the ceremony, Netanyahu hosted Rabuka at his office,
the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. Rabuka, who is also the
foreign minister, in turn invited Netanyahu to visit the South Pacific
archipelago, the statement added.Netanyahu thanked his Fijian
counterpart “for his support and steadfast standing alongside Israel,
and spoke with him about regional political and security issues,” the
PMO said.Most countries have their diplomatic seats in Tel Aviv due to
the disputed status of Jerusalem. Israel claims the city as its eternal
and undivided capital, while the Palestinian Authority seeks East
Jerusalem as the capital of its future state. Most countries do not
recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.Rabuka came to power in
late 2022 as the head of a three-party government that included the
right-wing Christian Sodelpa party, one of whose leaders’ demands was
that Fiji open an embassy in Jerusalem.Fiji’s embassy move follows a
decades-long campaign by the Jerusalem-based International Christian
Embassy of Jerusalem, which preaches support for Israel at churches
across the Southern Pacific.Israel had an embassy in Fiji, but it was
closed in the 1990s due to budget cuts at the time.AFP contributed to
this report.
Laser-based ‘Iron Beam’ interception system declared
operational-System set to be delivered to IDF by end of year after
successful final tests; defense minister says Israel ‘first country to
possess this capability’By Emanuel Fabian-Today, 8:03 pm-SEP 17,25
Israel’s
high-powered laser interception system, dubbed “Iron Beam,” has been
declared operational after completing development and final tests, and
is set to be delivered to the military by the end of the year, the
Defense Ministry and manufacturer Rafael said on Wednesday.The Iron Beam
has been in development for over a decade; it was first unveiled in
2014. During the current war, a lower-powered version of the system was
used by the Israel Defense Forces to shoot down Hezbollah drones
launched from Lebanon.The ministry said its Directorate of Defense
Research & Development (DDR&D), the Israeli Air Force, and the
Rafael defense firm “successfully completed an advanced series of
operational tests, which lasted several weeks, to demonstrate the
capabilities of the high-power laser system.”It said the test involved
the interception of rockets, mortars, and drones by the Iron Beam.“The
series of tests, conducted at a testing ground in southern Israel,
concludes the development process and constitutes the final stage before
delivering the system for operational use in the IDF,” the ministry
said.In a symbolic move, the ministry renamed the system in Hebrew from
Magen Or(light shield) to Or Eitan(Eitan’s light), after Cpt. Eitan
Oster, 22, a commander in the Egoz Commando Unit, who was killed
fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in October 2024. Oster’s father,
who works for the DDR&D, was among the “initiators and developers”
of the Iron Beam project, the ministry said.The Iron Beam is not meant
to replace the Iron Dome or Israel’s other air defense systems, but to
supplement and complement them, shooting down smaller projectiles and
leaving larger ones for the more robust missile-based batteries such as
the David’s Sling and Arrow systems.As long as there is a constant
source of energy for the laser, there is no risk of it ever running out
of ammunition. Officials have hailed it as a potential “game-changer” in
the battle against projectile attacks.The main downside of a laser
system is that it does not function well in low visibility, including
heavy cloud cover or other inclement weather.A lower-powered and
shorter-range version of the laser interceptor system used by the IDF’s
newly revived 946th Air Defense Battalion, which operates anti-drone
systems, shot down some 35 Hezbollah drones over northern Israel last
year.With the Iron Beam being declared operational, “a significant leap
in the operational capabilities of the Air Defense Array is expected,
through the long-range laser weapon system,” the ministry added.In June,
Rafael showcased at the Paris Air Show its family of “high-energy laser
weapon systems,” including the Iron Beam 450, an upgraded version of
the Iron Beam; the Iron Beam M, a compact and mobile version of the
laser interceptor, designed to be mounted on a truck and used by ground
forces or to protect strategic sites; and the Lite Beam, a lightweight,
compact, and lower-powered laser interceptor designed to be mounted on
armored personnel carriers or other armored vehicles during ground
operations.Rafael also said it was developing a maritime version of the
laser interceptor, which could be deployed on Navy boats to protect
assets at sea.Wednesday’s announcement was hailed by officials, with
Defense Minister Israel Katz saying the Iron Beam “places the State of
Israel at the forefront of global military technology and makes the
State of Israel the first country to possess this capability.”“This is
not only a moment of national pride, but a historic milestone for our
defense envelope: a fast, precise interception at marginal cost that
joins the existing defensive tools and changes the threat equation,” he
said.
US House passes bill to identify Jewish American soldiers
buried under crosses-Bipartisan legislation will allow families to
request gravestone change to Star of David so that veterans will ‘have
their heritage properly recognized and honored’By Luke Tress-Today,
11:33 pm-SEP 17,25
The US House on Monday passed a bill that aims
to identify fallen Jewish-American soldiers who are buried under
Christian markers in overseas military cemeteries, paving the way for
those markers to be replaced with Stars of David.US Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, a Jewish Democrat from Florida who co-sponsored the
bill, said in a statement that the graves of as many as 900 Jewish
American soldiers are marked by crosses.The Jews were buried under
crosses, mostly by mistake, due to the massive scale of casualties
during World War I and World War II, the bill said.“American-Jewish
servicemembers played a vital role in the Allied victories,” the bill
said. “American-Jewish servicemembers who fought and died for the United
States must have their heritage properly recognized and honored.”The
bill will, if passed into law, have the American Battle Monuments
Commission, a government agency that administers military cemeteries,
establish a program to identify the improperly marked graves.The
commission will task a nonprofit with identifying the graves and award
the nonprofit $500,000 for the five-year effort.The bill, called the
Fallen Servicemembers Religious Heritage Restoration Act, does not
stipulate that the markers be changed to Stars of David, but would allow
the families of the fallen to request the change.To replace a grave
marker at the cemeteries, the fallen soldier’s next of kin must present
the commission with evidence of the soldier’s religion and request the
change, Wasserman Schultz said.“This bill is an important step to allow
for the research necessary to correct these errors and ensure there are
resources for that work,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “This
will make it possible for these brave Jewish servicemembers’ descendants
to know that their loved one’s military service, life and religious
heritage are properly honored.”More than 2 million visitors went to the
overseas cemeteries in 2022, according to the bill.The bill passed with
bipartisan support by a voice vote in the House. The measure was led by
Wasserman Schultz and Max Miller, a Jewish Republican from Ohio. The
legislation must now pass the Senate before it heads to US President
Donald Trump for final approval.The bill was supported by the Jewish
Federations of North America, the Jewish War Veterans group, and several
non-Jewish military organizations.The American Battle Monuments
Commission oversees 26 military cemeteries with 124,000 fallen soldiers
in 17 countries.More than 30,000 of the soldiers were killed in World
War I, nearly 93,000 in World War II and 750 in the Mexican-American
War, according to the commission’s website.The cemeteries are located in
countries including France, the UK, the Philippines, Panama, Belgium,
Italy, the Solomon Islands, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands and
Tunisia.
Germany’s Merz warns criticism of Israel used as guise
for ‘poison of antisemitism’At 75th anniversary of Jewish group’s
founding, German leader still says critique of Jewish state ‘must be
possible’; tears up at rededication of synagogue destroyed in Holocaust
By Agencies and Zev Stub-Today, 11:31 pm-SEP 17,25
German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that criticism of Israel was
increasingly being used in Germany as a pretext for stoking hatred
against Jews.Speaking at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the
founding of the Central Council of Jews, Merz said that antisemitism had
“become louder, more open, more brazen, more violent almost every day”
since the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza
war.“‘Criticism of Israel’ and the crudest perpetrator-victim reversal
is increasingly a pretext under which the poison of antisemitism is
spread,” he said, warning that “antisemitic rhetoric is becoming
normalized.”Germany is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and is
its second-biggest weapons supplier after the US. Its close ties to
Israel are rooted in its sense of historical responsibility for the Nazi
Holocaust — a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”Last month, however,
Germany suspended exports of weaponry that could be used in the Gaza
Strip because of Israel’s plan to expand its operations there — the
first time united Germany had acknowledged denying military support to
its longtime ally.The decision followed mounting pressure from the
public and Merz’s junior coalition partner over the humanitarian crisis
in Gaza.In his speech in Berlin on Wednesday, Merz mentioned the
about-face, saying that criticism of the Israeli government “must be
possible,” but added: “Our country suffers damage to its own soul when
this criticism becomes a pretext for hatred of Jews, or if it even leads
to the demand that Germany should turn its back on Israel.”Merz also
criticized the Flanders Festival Ghent’s decision last week to cancel
the Munich Philharmonic’s concert, as it was going to be led by the
orchestra’s future Israeli chief conductor, Lahav Shani.“Jewish and
Israeli artists are being subjected to ideological tests and
marginalized solely because of their origins, solely because of their
faith,” Merz said.The 36-year-old conductor also spoke out about the
controversy Tuesday, calling the cancellation of his appearance at the
Ghent festival “regrettable.”The festival’s management had yielded to
“political pressures,” said Shani, who officially takes over as
conductor of the Munich orchestra for the 2026-2027 season and is
currently music director of the Israel Philharmonic.They had demanded
“that I make a political declaration despite my long-standing and
publicly expressed commitment to peace and reconciliation,” he
said.There has been an outpouring of support for Shani since the
cancellation.On Monday, he performed with the Munich orchestra at a
festival in the German capital after being invited by the Berlin
Philharmonic on short notice in a show of solidarity.Merz speaks at
ceremony rededicating synagogue destroyed in the Holocaust-Wednesday’s
address was Merz’s second emotional speech about antisemitism this week.
He appeared to fight back tears as he spoke at a ceremony rededicating a
synagogue destroyed in the Holocaust on Monday.Speaking at the opening
of the Reichenbachstrasse Synagogue in Munich, which was devastated
during the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, that is widely seen as
the starting point of the Holocaust, Merz got emotional as he recalled
Nazi atrocities.“Jewish life in Germany will one day get by without
police protection again,” Merz declared. “We must not get used to the
fact that this has been necessary for decades. I declare war on all
forms of old and new antisemitism in Germany on behalf of the entire
federal government of the Federal Republic of Germany.”The
Reichenbachstrasse Synagogue was built by architect Gustav Meyerstein in
1931, designed in the Bauhaus and New Objectivity style. It originally
featured amber-colored marble around the Torah shrine, turquoise blue on
the walls and a Pompeian red design in the foyer.After Kristallnacht,
the Nazis turned the synagogue into a workshop and warehouse. After the
war ended, Jewish survivors made minor repairs and consecrated it in
1947 as the main synagogue of Munich, a role it served until the Ohel
Jakob Synagogue was opened in 2007.Led by German entrepreneur and
journalist Rachel Salamander, the synagogue has now been faithfully
restored in a minimalist style, with simple wooden benches, colored
walls, and stained glass windows. It will serve as a cultural space as
well as a functioning synagogue.Times of Israel staff contributed to
this report.
They adapted really well'Ancient Levant farmers used
irrigation to thrive amid millennia of drought, study
shows-International scholars find that Bronze and Iron Age farmers
proved resilient in the face of climate change, cultivating grapes and
olives in increasingly complex societies By Rossella Tercatin-Today,
10:06 pm-SEP 17,25
Over the course of millennia, inhabitants of
the Levant used irrigation to mitigate the effects of climate change and
maximize the production of olives and grapes, demonstrating resilience
and ingenuity, according to a new study by international researchers
published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday.The findings
shed new light on the interplay between climate, agriculture, trade and
human society in a region often described as the cradle of civilization,
where great empires and nations rose and fell — from the Assyrians and
Babylonians to the biblical Israelites.Scholars from the University of
Tübingen in Germany and Durham University in the United Kingdom studied
over 1,500 samples of olive and grape seeds from some 25 archaeological
sites across modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon,
Jordan, Syria, Turkey and northern Iraq. The samples spanned roughly
3,000 years — from the Early Bronze Age, around 3600 BCE, to the end of
the Iron Age in 600 BCE.By analyzing carbon isotopes, the researchers
were able to reconstruct the water conditions in which these crops were
grown.“We were interested in how people in the Bronze and the Iron Age
in the Levant and northern Mesopotamia treated their crops, and
particularly grapes and olives,” one of the paper’s authors, Dan
Lawrence of Durham University, told The Times of Israel over the
phone.“There are different reasons why crops might or might not have had
enough water,” he said. “If rainfall decreased as a result of climate
change, generating a drought, this could cause more stress for the
crops, but also prompt more irrigation.”Lawrence noted that while
previous studies had focused on staples such as barley and wheat, oil
and viticulture had received far less attention.He and his colleagues
adopted an innovative approach, examining not only seeds but also
charcoal wood samples from the same sites. This allowed them to measure
water stress levels more comprehensively.Their analysis centered on
stable carbon isotopes, which plants absorb during photosynthesis.
Because plants take up different isotopes depending on weather
conditions, archaeobotanical remains preserve a record of the climate in
which they grew.“We assume that [farmers] would irrigate crops
primarily to make them grow large and healthy, rather than throughout
the year,” Lawrence explained. “So, if the isotope values in seeds and
wood [which grows year-round] are similar, it suggests they weren’t
irrigating. But if the values differ significantly, it indicates that
irrigation was being used at that particular site.”Irrigation levels
reflected increasing resilience to a steadily drying climate.“It’s worth
understanding that what happened across this period is that the climate
got progressively more arid,” Lawrence said. “In addition, we had a
couple of what are called ‘rapid climate change events,’ or RCC events,
one around 4,200 years ago, and one around 3,200 years ago, with severe
droughts.”The scholar noted that both of these moments are traditionally
associated with the collapse of civilizations in the area.“I’m not so
sure that the collapses described [by scholars] were as dramatic as once
believed,” Lawrence added, “but we wanted to examine the broader trends
— both the long-term drying of the climate and the impact of those two
events.”What the researchers found in the PLOS ONE paper is that
irrigation was increasingly employed across the region over the
millennia.The findings also suggested that regions already accustomed to
arid conditions sometimes fared better during periods of intensified
drought compared to areas less accustomed to the challenge.“In places
with lower rainfall, you’d expect the drought to hit harder,” Lawrence
explained. “But instead, because those regions were already quite dry,
they actually seemed to cope a little better — which might sound
counterintuitive. Our thinking is that since it was already dry, people
were likely relying on irrigation, so when the drought struck, a system
was already in place. That’s an interesting example of the resilience
people developed.”The researchers also identified areas where farmers
went to great lengths to cultivate grapes.“One site on the Euphrates in
Syria, called Emar, lies below the minimum rainfall needed to grow
grapes at all,” Lawrence said. “So they must have been using substantial
irrigation just to make it possible.”According to Lawrence, grapes and
olives were especially significant because they were closely linked to
increasingly complex, urbanized economies — a cornerstone of these
societies’ development.“We see periods where there’s a clear focus on
cultivating grapes and olives, even at the expense of other crops, which
suggests there was strong demand,” he said. “That shows they were able
to grow them, and it had wide implications for how society functioned.
Grapes and olives essentially acted as commodities — they could be
exchanged for goods, or even for money at a certain point. That tells us
there was a fairly organized state with markets, trade networks, and
economic integration.”The researcher acknowledged that the region and
period under study were far from uniform, both in their conditions and
in the peoples who lived there.Still, he pointed to one important
unifying factor.Farmers “were working in very different environments, so
there was a lot of variability — and even local preferences, for
instance, regarding certain foods,” he said. “But more broadly, what
stands out is how well farmers adapted. They experimented, responded to
the conditions they faced, and developed skills in managing them. We see
an overarching pattern of adaptation rather than specific cultural
choices.”Looking ahead, Lawrence hopes researchers can expand the study
to include other crops and livestock and integrate the findings with
pottery and additional material remains. Such an approach, he said,
could offer a more precise picture of life, agriculture, and trade in
the Bronze and Iron Ages.“It would be super cool to unpick all this
stuff,” he said.
Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, 71% of Israelis view
national mood as poor, survey says-Israeli Jews more pessimistic than
Israeli Arabs; at the same time, 33% of Israelis think coming year will
be better, up from 23% last year-By Michael Horovitz-Today, 10:06 pm-SEP
17,25
Ahead of the new Jewish year, a majority of Israelis view
the country’s national mood as poor, according to a new survey published
Wednesday. At the same time, there is greater optimism regarding the
coming year than there was a year ago.According to the August 2025
Israeli Voice Index by the Israel Democracy Institute, 71 percent of the
public believes the national mood is fairly poor or very poor, with
more Jewish Israelis (73%) holding this view than Arab citizens
(58%).Among Jewish respondents, a majority of all communities, except
for national religious Jews, view the national mood poorly, including
Haredim (59%), traditional religious Jews (55%), traditional
non-religious Jews (81%) and secular Jews (86%). Among national
religious Jews, 49% say the national mood is low.Additionally, the
survey found that most Jewish citizens in all three political camps
viewed the national mood poorly, with vast majorities on the left (93%)
and center (89%) feeling pessimistic. The right, at 61%, was slightly
less so.The survey was released as Israel neared two years of war with
Hamas in Gaza, a fight that began after the terror group’s October 7,
2023, massacre.In addition to the war in Gaza, over the past year,
Israelis experienced a 12-day war with Iran, a war with Hezbollah in
Lebanon, mass anti-government protests and rallies for hostages who
remain in the Strip, conflict over Haredi enlistment and political
uncertainty. The country also faces growing international isolation over
the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in the Strip.Rosh Hashanah will
be celebrated from the evening of September 22 through September 24.The
IDI survey found that people were a bit more optimistic when it came to
their personal mood: While 48% see things poorly, 49.5% view matters as
fairly good or very good, “which may suggest that the public tends to
evaluate the national mood as worse than it really is,” IDI said in a
statement.Among Jewish respondents, Haredim (73.5%) and national
religious communities (73%) have the most positive evaluations of their
personal mood, followed by traditional religious (59.5%), while only a
minority of traditional non-religious people (44%) and secular Jews
(41%) view their personal mood positively.Divided into political camps,
only 35% of right-wing people define their mood as poor, compared to 69%
of respondents on the left and 61% in the center.Only 39% of Arab
respondents (39%) view their personal mood as good, compared to 52% of
Jewish respondents.IDI said that according to a cross-tabulation of
responses, 62% of those who evaluate the national mood as poor make the
same judgment regarding their personal mood, while 89% who view the
national mood as good will also define their personal mood as such.IDI
determined that Israelis are more optimistic than they were last year
ahead of the Jewish New Year, with only 24.5% of respondents expecting
the coming year to be worse than the current one — down from 42% who
said the same last year.Furthermore, 33% of respondents believe next
year will be better than the last — up from 23% last year — while 30%
think things will stay the same. Some 12.5% didn’t know how to
respond.Broken down by political camp, right-wingers were the most
optimistic about next year, with 46% saying the coming year would be
better and only 14% thinking it would be worse. Another 31% said things
would stay the same, and 9% did not know what to answer.Among centrists,
30% believed the next year would be better than the last, and 32%
believed it would be the same. Meanwhile, 28% said it would be worse
than the last, and 10% didn’t know.The left wing was the only group in
which a plurality of respondents, 43%, said the next year would be worse
than the current one, with only 19% optimistic about next year. Twenty
percent said it would be the same as the last, and 18% replied that they
didn’t know.IDI surveyed 600 people interviewed in Hebrew and 150 in
Arabic. The research was conducted by internet and telephone between
August 24-28, and has a margin of error of 3.58%.
FM Sa'ar:
'Steps against Israel will be answered in kind'EU’s top body presents
proposal to suspend free trade agreement with Israel-Israel’s top
trading partner accuses Jerusalem of violating human rights in Gaza and
West Bank, calls for measures to pressure government into ‘changing
course’ in Gaza By Lazar Berman-Today, 7:17 pm-SEP 17,25
The
European Commission has formally presented its proposal for sanctions on
far-right Israeli ministers and a partial suspension of the European
Union’s association agreement with Israel, the EU’s executive body
announced on Wednesday.The sanctions, if approved, would strip Israeli
imports of their preferential access to the EU. Israeli goods would have
duties slapped on them at the same level as imports coming from
countries with which the EU does not have a free trade agreement.The
Commission also called to suspend “bilateral support” to Israel, with
the exceptions of civil society and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance
Center.The move marks a dramatic escalation of the EU’s response to
Israel’s war in Gaza, as IDF forces drive into the heart of Gaza
City.“Actions taken by the Israeli government represent a breach of
essential elements relating to respect for human rights and democratic
principles,” a Commission review found. “This entitles the EU to suspend
the Agreement unilaterally.”“Specifically, this breach refers to the
rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza following the
military intervention of Israel, the blockade of humanitarian aid, the
intensifying of military operations and the decision of the Israeli
authorities to advance the settlement plan in the so-called E1 area of
the West Bank, which further undermines the two-state solution.”“The
horrific events taking place in Gaza on a daily basis must stop. There
needs to be an immediate ceasefire, unrestrained access for all
humanitarian aid and the release of all hostages held by Hamas,” said
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.Trade between Israel and the
EU, the Jewish state’s largest trading partner, reached €42.6 billion
(NIS 166 billion) in 2024, including €15.9 billion (NIS 62 billion) in
Israeli imports. The EU accounted for nearly a third of Israel’s total
international trade in goods last year.If adopted, the EU would also
suspend its annual €6 million (NIS 23.5 million) in financial support
to Israel and €14 million (NIS 55 million) in annual support for
projects supporting Israel in the context of the Abraham Accords, the
normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab
countries.Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Wednesday called the proposed
EU measures against Israel “morally and politically distorted.”“Actions
against Israel will harm the interests of Europe itself,” he said on
X.Sa’ar promised that “Israel will continue to fight, with the help of
its friends in Europe, against attempts to harm it while it is engaged
in an existential war. Steps against Israel will be answered in kind,
and we hope they will not be necessary.”Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu set off alarm bells in Israel on Monday when he suggested that
Israel is “economically isolated” and might be required to become a
self-reliant economy, which he termed a “super Sparta.” A day later, he
held a press conference aimed at damage control, saying that he was
speaking specifically about the defense industry, and that the problem
was largely with“Western European governments.”The European Council,
which includes the leaders of the EU member states, now has to approve
the trade proposal with a qualified majority in favor in order for it to
take effect.A qualified majority is reached with the support of 15 out
of 27 members representing 65% of the EU population, a difficult
threshold to reach at a time when European capitals continue to have
diverging views on how to approach Israel and Gaza.The sanctions would
take effect 30 days after the decision is adopted and the EU-Israel
Association Council is notified.The measures against Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, violent
settlers and 10 Hamas political leaders need unanimous support to be
enacted.Both far-right Israeli ministers have already been sanctioned by
Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Norway. Slovenia and Spain,
both EU members, have also said recently that they will ban the two.EU
foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned in June that Israel might be in
violation of Article 2 of the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement, which
governs Israel’s trade arrangements with the EU.Kallas said the measures
are meant to “leverage the tools at our disposal to pressure the
Israeli government into changing course.”Germany’s government has not
yet decided on its stance toward the EU proposals to impose sanctions on
Israel over its war in Gaza, a government spokesperson said on
Wednesday. Berlin is one of Israel’s closest allies in the bloc.“We are
aware of the plans for sanctions. The [European] Commission has been
discussing them for several days. They will be presented today and the
German government has not yet formed a final opinion on them,”
government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said when asked about the plans
at a press conference.The head of Israel’s manufacturers association
warned that the European Commission’s proposal is a “serious and
disproportionate step” toward Israeli industry, which is attempting to
keep operating at strength even while suffering the effects of war.“This
is a political decision disguised as a moral one, which undermines the
foundations of economic cooperation between Israel and Europe,” said
Israel Manufacturers Association president Ron Tomer. “Cooperation that
has been built over decades based on values of innovation, freedom of
trade and dialogue.”Von der Leyen announced the impending measures last
week in her State of the Union speech to the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, France.“What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience
of the world,” she said.“People killed while begging for food. Mothers
holding lifeless babies,” she said. “Man-made famine can never be a
weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity.
This must stop.”Israel has rejected claims of widespread starvation in
Gaza, and has emphasized its efforts throughout most of the war to
facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip.Israel also
denies targeting civilians, including those seeking food aid. It has
acknowledged, however, that its forces, who often secure distribution
sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, have fired warning shots
amid chaotic scenes. The UN says more than 1,000 people have been killed
at aid sites, mostly from Israeli fire. Israel says the figures are
exaggerated, but has not provided alternative numbers.
Iran’s FM
to speak with European powers to avert sanctions on nuclear program-Call
with British, French, German foreign ministers aimed at reaffirming
conditions Tehran must meet to avoid re-imposition of punitive measures
By Reuters and ToI Staff Today, 2:02 pm-SEP 17,25
Iranian Foreign
Minister Abbas Araghchi was set to hold a call with the British,
French, and German foreign ministers on Wednesday as Tehran seeks to
avert the re-imposition of international sanctions over its nuclear
program.A French diplomatic source said the call was aimed at discussing
the impending re-imposition of UN sanctions by the European powers and
to reaffirm conditions they have set for Tehran to enable that decision
to be delayed.Tehran called on Wednesday for a “positive approach and
goodwill” by the European powers, known as the E3, which have initiated a
one-month process to re-impose sanctions on Iran that were lifted under
a 2015 nuclear deal that unraveled after President Donald Trump pulled
the United States out in 2018.The call, which will also include European
Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, follows an agreement reached by
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency last week on resuming
cooperation between Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog, including, in
principle, the inspection of nuclear sites.During the 12-day war between
Israel and Iran in June, Israel and the United States struck Iranian
nuclear facilities, saying the Islamic Republic was getting too close to
being able to produce a nuclear weapon, and IAEA inspections were
interrupted over security concerns and complaints by Tehran.Resumed
cooperation between Iran and the IAEA is one of the three conditions set
by European powers to hold off completing the UN snapback mechanism —
the automatic re-imposition of UN Security Council sanctions — which
they invoked in August.“It is a natural expectation that Iran’s positive
approach and goodwill should be reciprocated by the European side… If
some European parties start nagging, this is not enough. That would mean
they do not accept the IAEA,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Esmaeil Baghaei said.“We hope that with contacts, like today and future
ones, all parties will come to the conclusion that escalating tensions
and perpetuating the current situation is not in anyone’s interest.”Iran
has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it
has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has
obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear
facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Israel said
Tehran had recently taken steps toward weaponization.
Two
British lawmakers reportedly denied entry to West Bank for ‘public
order’ issues-MPs Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher said they were barred
at Jordan border crossing; UK Foreign Office: ‘No way’ to treat MPs;
Opher says they didn’t aim to ‘undermine the Israelis’By Stuart
Winer-and ToI Staff Today, 5:21 pm-SEP 17,25
Two British
lawmakers from the ruling Labour Party were reportedly denied entry to
the West Bank by Israeli authorities as they participated in a
parliamentary delegation to review medical services in the territory.MPs
Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher arrived at a border crossing from Jordan
on Monday but were told they could go no further and were sent back,
they said.Britain’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday complained that the
ban was “no way to treat British parliamentarians.” The country’s health
secretary, meanwhile, said their treatment was “shameful” but not
surprising.A joint statement on Tuesday put out by the two MPs said, “It
is deeply regrettable that the Israeli authorities prevented them from
seeing first-hand the grave challenges facing medical facilities in the
region and from hearing the British government’s assessment of the
situation on the ground.”After arriving at the border, the pair were
held in a passport office and then handed a “legal form insisting that
we leave the country immediately” Opher told the BBC. They were then put
on a bus back to Jordan.There was no immediate comment from the Israeli
Embassy in London or the Foreign Ministry.Two Labour MPs, Simon Opher
and Peter Prinsley, have been denied entry by Israel for 3-day visit to
the West Bank with CAABU and UK MAP. https://t.co/O7Lap0JJ8M — Hugh
Lovatt (@h_lovatt) September 17, 2025-Opher said that they were denied
entry on grounds of “public order” issues. Efforts by the UK’s Foreign
Office to secure their entry were turned down, he said.“It’s very
disappointing. We are both doctors and we were really just going to look
at healthcare facilities in the West Bank to see if there was anything
we could do to support them,” Opher told the BBC.“We weren’t in any way
trying to undermine the Israelis, just trying to see what we could do in
the West Bank,” where the lawmakers had been told access to health care
was becoming more difficult, he said.Health Secretary Wes Streeting
posted on X on Wednesday: “Having been on a number of delegations to
Israel and Palestine… I find the treatment of two highly respected
clinicians and Members of Parliament by the Israeli government shameful,
but no longer surprising.”Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
the Middle East Hamish Falconer posted, “Unacceptable that two more
British MPs have been denied entry to the Occupied Palestinian
Territories by Israel.”“I have been clear with the Israeli authorities
that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians,” he
added.Prinsley and Opher were participating in a three-day parliamentary
delegation to see medical and humanitarian work in the West Bank,
organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding.In addition to
touring medical facilities in the West Bank, they were scheduled to meet
British diplomats in Jerusalem and Israeli and Palestinian human rights
organizations.“Denying entry to British MPs shows how far Israel will
go to cover up what is happening in the West Bank,” the organizing group
said in a statement.Earlier this year, Israel denied two other British
lawmakers entry to the country as they were attempting to visit the West
Bank on a fact-finding trip.The two, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang from
the Labour Party, were traveling as part of a parliamentary delegation,
but were stopped at Ben Gurion Airport on the grounds that they
intended to provoke anti-Israel activities, according to the Israeli
embassy in London.Israel has a history of refusing entry to members of
the European Parliament and US Congress.In February, an EU Parliament
delegation scrapped its trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah after two
lawmakers were barred from the country upon arriving at the airport.Rima
Hassan, one of the barred lawmakers, had previously called Israel a
“terrorist” state and accused its military of having “coldly executed
Palestinian children,” while advocating for it to “leave
Palestine.”Then-foreign minister Israel Katz said last October that he
would bar UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the
country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned a missile attack by
Iran on Israel.
'We are experienced in the sounds of
missiles'Senior Hamas official makes first appearance since surviving
Israeli strike in Qatar-Interview is latest sign attack failed to kill
terror group’s leaders; Ghazi Hamad says they were discussing truce
proposal when strike hit By Nurit Yohanan-17 September 2025, 11:59 pm
Senior
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad appeared in a TV interview on Wednesday, his
first public appearance since the Israeli strike targeting the terror
group’s leaders in Qatar last week.Hamad, who fled Gaza shortly before
the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre sparked the ongoing war,
confirmed in an interview with the Al-Jazeera network that he was at the
site when it was attacked. His appearance was the latest sign that the
attack had failed to kill the terrorist organization’s leadership.`“We
were discussing a ceasefire proposal, less than an hour after the
meeting began, we heard an explosion,” he said, referring to Hamas’s
leadership.“We are experienced in the sounds of missiles and understood
it was an Israeli strike. We left the place quickly, and thank God we
survived,” he said. “God destined us to survive this treacherous
aggression against us and sister Qatar.”Six people, including a Qatari
officer, were killed in the strike, but all of the terror group’s senior
leaders are thought to have survived.Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political
leadership since 2012.Israel’s attempt to kill Hamas’s political
leaders with the September 9 strike prompted international condemnation,
but a defiant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Qatar to either
expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice, because if you don’t,
we will.”Hamad additionally told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Washington
lacks credibility as a mediator for a ceasefire deal, citing what he
called the group’s “bitter” experience with the truce efforts.In
response to Trump’s warning that there would be “hell to pay” if Hamas
used hostages as human shields, Hamad said the US president “doesn’t
scare us,” and claimed that captives are held according to “beliefs and
Islamic principles.”“We deal with the prisoners according to our values,
and despite the massacres against our people, the one putting them in
danger is the [Israeli] occupation itself,” Hamad added.A number of
hostages have been murdered by terrorists in captivity. Hostages who
have been rescued and released have described being tortured, including
enduring beatings, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and starvation,
while their captors had no shortage of food. A recent video of a hostage
showed him emaciated and forced to dig his own grave.The ongoing war
began when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel’s
communities on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly
civilians, and taking 251 hostages.Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are
holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by terrorists in
the October 7 attack, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive. There
are grave concerns for two others. The remainder are thought to be
dead.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 65,000 people in
the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far,
though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between
civilians and fighters. Israel says it had killed over 22,000 combatants
in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel
during the October 7 onslaught.Israel says it seeks to minimize civilian
fatalities and stresses that Hamas fights from civilian areas,
including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.Israel’s toll in the
ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along
the border with the Strip stands at 465.AFP and Times of Israel staff
contributed to this report.
Radio-Canada journalist says Jews
control ‘a big machine,’ US cities, Hollywood-Broadcaster swiftly
suspends reporter, issues apology to offended viewers and Jewish
community; Quebec Jewish group calls comments ‘vile’By ToI Staff Today,
3:16 pm-SEP 17,25
Radio-Canada has suspended a reporter for using
antisemitic tropes after she asserted that Jews control a “big
machine,” major US cities, and Hollywood, provoking condemnation from
the government’s pointman on Jewish community relations, from the
community itself, and from other officials.The broadcaster said it had
suspended correspondent Élisa Serret following the incident and issued
an apology to the Jewish community as well as viewers who were
offended.Serret made the remarks on Monday when she was in Washington
speaking live with the studio about US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s
visit to Israel.Christian Latreille, the host of the news program “Sur
le terrain,” asked Serret about US backing for Israel amid the ongoing
war in the Gaza Strip, and specifically why that support was not being
withdrawn as Israel expands its military operations to conquer Gaza
City.Serret responded that “the Israelis, in fact the Jews, finance a
lot of American politics” and control a “big machine,” according to a
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation English translation of her remarks
reported Tuesday.Serret also said that “big cities” in the US, as well
as Hollywood, are “run by Jews.”Radio Canada on Tuesday issued a
“sincere apology” to any offended viewers and the Jewish community.A
statement on its website stated that Serret’s analysis of American
policy in the Middle East “led to stereotypical, anti-Semitic, erroneous
and prejudicial allegations against Jewish communities.”“These
unacceptable comments” violate the station’s journalist standards and
practices and “in no way reflect the opinion of the public
broadcaster.”It said that the news department “has decided to relieve
the journalist of her duties until further notice.”Latreille also put
out a statement saying he should have “intervened” over Serret’s remarks
and apologizing for the incident, CBC reported.Canadian Identity and
Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault, who is responsible for
CBC/Radio-Canada, denounced Serret’s remarks as “pernicious antisemitic
tropes” and declared “antisemitism has no place in Canada.”“When
antisemitic language is used by journalists, or anyone in a position of
trust, it risks normalizing hatred in deeply dangerous ways,” Guilbeault
wrote in a post to X.“These are textbook tropes and are antisemitic
under the IHRA definition adopted by the Government of Canada,” tweeted
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who is the government’s special adviser
on Jewish community relations and antisemitism.The Quebec chapter of the
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a Jewish advocacy group, issued a
statement about the “vile antisemitic comments.”Vice President for CIJA
Quebec Eta Yudin, in a post to X, said “this incident cannot be allowed
to pass without serious internal reflection on the damage such hateful
rhetoric inflicts on our democratic values.”“We expect Canada’s national
public broadcaster… to take concrete steps to ensure that neither such
comments — nor the systemic issues that enabled them to be aired — are
ever allowed again on Canadian airwaves.”
Leviathan partners ink
$610m deal for new pipeline to boost gas exports to Egypt-Operator
Chevron says 65-kilometer export route will transport gas from the
offshore field to Egypt; deal will bump up state revenue from gas
royalties By Sharon Wrobel-Today, 2:15 pm-SEP 17,25
US energy
giant Chevron and its partners in the Leviathan reservoir off Israel’s
Mediterranean coast have inked a $610 million deal with state-owned
pipeline operator Israel Natural Gas Lines for the construction of a new
pipeline to bolster natural gas exports to Egypt.Chevron, which holds a
39.66 percent stake in Leviathan, said the engineering, procurement,
and construction (EPC) contract is for a 65-kilometer (40-kilometer)
pipeline to transport gas from the field running from Ramat Hovav in
southern Israel to the Nitzana crossing on the Israeli-Egyptian border.
The contract is for a period of 15 years.The Niztana export route will
transport at least 600 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, once
construction of the pipeline is completed in 2028. The pipeline route
has the potential to increase Israel’s total export capacity to Egypt to
more than 2.2 billion cubic feet per day, Chevron said.“This milestone
reflects Chevron’s commitment to advancing energy security in Israel and
regionally,” said Jack Baker, managing director of Chevron’s Eastern
Mediterranean Business Unit. “The Nitzana export route will deliver
substantial domestic economic benefits and also support energy security
across the Eastern Mediterranean region.”The deal comes after partners
in the Leviathan reservoir announced in August a $35 billion agreement
to supply natural gas to Egypt, marking the largest export deal in
Israel’s history. The deal is expected to funnel hundreds of millions of
shekels in revenues from gas royalties and taxes to Israel’s state
coffers.Leviathan, one of the world’s largest deep-water gas
discoveries, contains an estimated 600 bcm of gas located about 120
kilometers west of the port city of Haifa at a water depth of 1.7
kilometers. Other partners in the gas field include Israel’s NewMed
Energy, formerly Delek Drilling (part of Yitzhak Tshuva’s Delek Group),
which owns a 45.3% stake; and Ratio Oil Corp., with a 15%
stake.“Leviathan is a national project and its expansion is the anchor
of Israel’s energy security for the coming decades,” said NewMed CEO
Yossi Abu. “The Nitzana pipeline project is a direct continuation of the
huge deal we signed with our Egyptian partners, and both of them
together move us forward toward making a final investment decision worth
billions of dollars in the expansion project.”Amid the ongoing war with
the Hamas terror group in Gaza, Israel’s natural gas exports to Egypt
and Jordan increased by more than 13% in 2024 year-on-year, accounting
for about half of Israeli gas production. State revenue collected from
gas royalties soared almost 11% to a record NIS 2.37 billion ($713
million) in 2024.Natural gas from Leviathan started to flow to the
Israeli domestic market in December 2019. The partners in the Leviathan
reservoir began exporting natural gas to Egypt in January 2020 after
signing a deal for 60 bcm, which is expected to be supplied by the early
2030s. To date, Leviathan has supplied 23.5 bcm of gas to the Egyptian
market.Both Israel and Egypt have emerged as gas exporters in recent
years following major offshore discoveries. Israeli gas accounts for
about 15% to 20% of Egypt’s consumption, according to data from the
Joint Organisations Data Initiative.In June 2022, Israel, Egypt, and the
European Union signed a memorandum of understanding that will see
Israel export its natural gas to the bloc for the first time. According
to the agreement, Israeli gas will be supplied via Egypt’s liquefied
natural gas (LNG) plants to the European Union.
Religious Zionism
MK: Israel 'must act like the enemy does'Red Cross visits to
Palestinian inmates a ‘security threat,’ prison officials claim-Otzma
Yehudit MK calls aid group an ‘antisemitic organization,’ alleges double
standard in treatment for security prisoners versus hostages held in
Gaza-By Charlie Summers-Today, 1:47 pm-SEP 17,25
Prison service
officials doubled down Tuesday on their blanket ban on Red Cross visits
to Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails, insisting to lawmakers in the
Knesset that allowing the humanitarian organization into prisons poses a
national security threat.Israel halted visits to Palestinian prisoners
by Red Cross officials and stopped passing information on inmates to the
organization in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.“The
entry of the Red Cross into prisons is liable to damage prison security
and therefore, national security,” Netanel Shimson, the head of the
Israel Prison Service’s counterterrorism department, told the Knesset
National Security Committee.Representing the agency, Shimson cautioned
against allowing “foreign actors” into prisons, which he claimed “raises
the potential for the transmission of negative messages.” He also
implied such visits could endanger guards and wardens by upping tension
inside prisons and leading to possible riots, without going into more
detail.The prison service’s blanket ban has sparked pushback from
Israeli human rights organizations, which petitioned the High Court of
Justice demanding the state declare the policy illegal based on the
Geneva Conventions.The case is currently being deliberated in court,
though the state has not yet submitted its position regarding the
petition and repeatedly requested to delay providing a response.Hamas
has refused to grant the Red Cross access to the Israeli hostages it is
holding in Gaza. Its failure to reach the captives has led many Israeli
and Jewish organizations to accuse the organization of not trying hard
enough and employing a double standard rooted in alleged anti-Israel
bias.While prison officials discussed potential risks, most lawmakers
sitting on the committee focused on the alleged double standard between
the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages.“The Red
Cross organization is an antisemitic organization,” claimed Otzma
Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, adding that it “operated with a lack of
balance toward our hostages.”Committee chairman Zvika Fogel, also of
Otzma Yehudit, vowed to do everything in his power to ensure that the
Red Cross visits the hostages held by terror groups in Gaza.“Until that
happens, I will stand at the gates of the prisons and prevent them from
visiting there,” he declared. “We need to act like a state with a
backbone. The cabinet must make a decision: No Red Cross visits until we
receive information about our hostages.”The organization, which says it
must maintain neutrality to operate in war zones, facilitated the
release of Israeli and other foreign hostages from Gaza in November 2023
and again in January-February 2025.Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot said
Israel “must act like the enemy does” and flout international law so
long as Hamas is doing so. “We need to be more ruthless than those who
come to murder us. Only then will peace come,” he asserted.Yizhar
Lifshitz, the son of slain hostage Oded Lifshitz, cautioned against
treating prisoners harshly for fear of harm to the hostages. He pushed
back against Sukkot, insisting that Israel stood to lose its values
should it conduct itself like the terror group.“The hostages are a
reflection of the prisoners. When you say you’re treating prisoners
harshly, it only means more torture for the hostages,” he warned.The
sole lawmaker who advocated to restore the Red Cross officials’
visitation rights was Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Suleiman.“Lately, this
government is very crudely trampling the laws and treaties it has
committed to. Many things happen inside the prisons, and it wasn’t
without reason that the High Court gave a ruling regarding prisoners’
conditions,” she said, referencing a recent decision that determined the
state was not sufficiently feeding Palestinian inmates.She said it was
“far-fetched and absurd” to place blame on the Red Cross for failing to
persuade Hamas to allow its representatives to visit the hostages.
A
misunderstanding supposedly shook the stock market'Under fire,
Netanyahu scrambles to defuse his own claim Israel may become ‘super
Sparta’Facing torrent of criticism for suggesting radical self-reliance
was the way forward, PM claims Israeli economy has ‘amazed the entire
world,’ is stronger than ever-By Nava Freiberg,Lazar Berman-and ToI
Staff 16 September 2025, 11:03 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu pushed back against fierce criticism from opposition heads and
business leaders on Tuesday, a day after he admitted that Israel was
facing increasing isolation and warned that it might be required to
become a self-reliant economy with “autarkic characteristics” and a kind
of “super-Sparta.”In the wake of his Monday comments, as well as the
beginning of the IDF’s Gaza City offensive, shares on the Tel Aviv Stock
Exchange dipped. The Israel Business Forum, representing workers from
200 of Israel’s largest companies, declared that “We are not Sparta” but
that Netanyahu’s policies were marching the country “toward a
political, economic, and social abyss that will endanger our existence
in Israel.” And the head of the Histadrut trade union federation, Arnon
Bar-David, protested: “I don’t want to be Sparta… We deserve peace.
Israeli society is exhausted, and our status in the world is very
bad.”Netanyahu insisted to the press that he had “full confidence” in
the Israeli economy and that there had been a “misunderstanding that
supposedly shook the stock market.”“It didn’t shake us,” he declared at
his Tuesday evening press conference. “And the reason it didn’t shake us
is one thing: because essentially, the stock market — the markets —
understand what I said [about] the strength of Israel’s economy, and the
profitability of investing in Israel. And this is very important for
ensuring our future.”Netanyahu said that the shekel was stronger than
before the war, the stock market was performing at record levels,
unemployment was at a historic low, and there had been a large influx of
foreign investment into Israel recently.He sought to clarify that his
comments on Monday were focused on the defense industries rather than
the broader economy. “There is one area I referred to where indeed there
could be restrictions – not economic ones, but political at their core –
and that’s what’s happening in the defense industries.”“Our defense
industries are soaring. They have reached tremendous achievements in
exports, both in quantity and quality, but there we have indeed
encountered — and could again encounter — political restrictions during
the war,” he went on.“And if there is one lesson we have drawn from this
war, it’s that we want to be in a situation where we are not restricted
— that Israel defends itself with its own forces and with its own
weapons. And that is why we want to achieve security independence.”“My
remarks were on the attempt to restrict the import of parts, components,
weapons, or raw materials — and that indeed is something that does not
operate according to market economics, but according to political
economics — governments, leaders, politics,” he asserted.Netanyahu had
said Monday, at a conference of the Finance Ministry’s accountant
general in Jerusalem, that “Israel is in a sort of isolation.”“We will
increasingly need to adapt to an economy with autarkic characteristics,”
he had continued, describing that the term for economic
self-sufficiency, closed off from global trade, as “the word I most
hate.”“I am a believer in the free market, but we may find ourselves in a
situation where our arms industries are blocked. We will need to
develop arms industries here — not only research and development, but
also the ability to produce what we need,” he had told the
conference.Faced with a scenario of “Athens and Sparta,” Israel would be
“Athens and super-Sparta,” Netanyahu had said, citing the ancient Greek
city-state, whose superiority over Greece was effectively ended in the
4th century BCE. “There’s no choice; in the coming years, at least, we
will have to deal with these attempts to isolate us.”Attracting
widespread blame-Those initial comments, delivered as European countries
have gradually increased arms embargoes and sanctions against Israel
over the ongoing war in Gaza, caused the immediate dip in stock market
shares and led political opponents and high-tech industry groups to
blame him for Israel’s troubled status on the world stage.Responding to
Netanyahu’s remarks on Monday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded to
know what the premier had meant by saying that Israel was “becoming”
isolated.“Did some higher power cause this?” Lapid asked in a speech at
the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. “You caused
this.”“You are the main cause of the diplomatic isolation,” he charged,
citing Netanyahu’s silence when Israel faced negative international
press after far-right ministers made comments suggesting an atomic bomb
should be dropped on Gaza and that it may be justified to starve the
Strip’s residents.The Democrats chairman Yair Golan fumed on X that
Netanyahu was offering “neither security nor economy, but an autarkic
economy cut off from the world, under a stifling international boycott.
The meaning is simple: a 40% drop in the wages of everyone in the
economy.”“An economy without imports and exports, without high-tech,
without advanced industry. A backward country that can barely provide
eggs, milk, and water to its citizens,” he wrote.Yisrael Beytenu chair
Avigdor Liberman, a former finance minister, accused Netanyahu of
turning Israel into a “third world country.”“The prime minister of
October 7 wants Israel to get used to isolation, to a closed market,
without competition and without oxygen for the economy. This is not a
work plan; this is surrender. This is an admission of failure,” he
wrote.‘Slip of the tongue’Sources close to Netanyahu had told the Kan
public broadcaster on Tuesday morning that the remark about an isolated
Israeli “super-Sparta” was a “slip of the tongue,” and that he had
intended to refer to the need for Israel to be reliant on its own
defense industry.At his Tuesday press conference, Netanyahu claimed, as
he had done the previous day, that “Islamic minorities” were to blame
for the political efforts to harm Israel’s defense industries, citing
the pressure they place on “Western European governments,” resulting in
souring ties with Israel.Decades of organized anti-Israel propaganda, he
said, have compounded the pressure, which “expresses itself as
restrictions on parts of weapon systems or the systems
themselves.”Israel must “develop these ourselves, arm ourselves, and
ensure we have the ability to defend ourselves,” he said, even if that
requires moving temporarily to “a centralized, closed economy, something
I generally dislike — I prefer open markets.”“But here, I want to take
all the necessary steps to build a strong, independent defense industry.
If there is one lesson from this war, this is it,” he said.Netanyahu
claimed that just the day before, he had spoken with “people from the
Finance Ministry, with farmers, and with others,” and had appealed for
them not to “restrict” Israel’s economy with bureaucracy.“We are leaping
forward, both in new technology and in production on a much more
industrial scale. And to do this, I need to cut the bureaucracy that
restricts us from doing these things…and that’s what I was referring
to,” he said.Financial fallout-The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange slipped
Tuesday, with the TA-125 index falling 1.8 percent. The TA-35 index of
blue-chip companies fell 1.6%, while the TA-90 index, which tracked the
shares with the highest capitalization not included in the TA-35 index,
declined 2.3%. The TA-Insurance index dived 2.9%.“The start of the Gaza
City offensive is a disappointment to investors after expectations for a
potential ceasefire fueled Tel Aviv stock indexes to record highs in
August,” Leader Capital Markets chief economist Jonathan Katz told The
Times of Israel. “The offensive means that war costs will continue,
spending will need to be increased, and the budget deficit will be
higher, which is negative for Israel’s credit rating.”“The negative
sentiment is also impacted by Netanyahu’s comments about Israel facing
the threat of isolation and the need to be self-reliant, which in turn,
has potential implications for higher fiscal spending into the defense
industry,” Katz added.The Israel Business Forum warned Netanyahu earlier
in the day that his policies were leading the country into a “dangerous
and unprecedented economic and political downturn… This vision as
presented will make it difficult for us to survive in an evolving global
world.”“The Israeli economy shows exceptional resilience, despite the
security and political challenges — but not forever,” the forum added.It
urged Netanyahu to “stop this” policy and called on the government to
immediately change course.“The government must urgently put an end to
the longest war in Israel’s history, promote the release of all
hostages, announce a state investigation committee [into the Hamas-led
October 7, 2023, attack], and set a date for elections in the immediate
future,” the forum demanded.Times of Israel staff contributed to this
report
Britain rolls out royal red carpet for Trump’s state
visit-US president’s unprecedented second official trip to UK will see
lavish pomp and ceremony as London aims to win over visitor amid key
diplomatic talks-By Danny Kemp Today, 11:43 am-SEP 17,25
LONDON,
United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain will roll out a supersized royal welcome
for Donald Trump’s unprecedented second state visit on Wednesday, with
the king to greet the US president who has compared himself to a
monarch.From a carriage ride with King Charles III to a flypast and a
lavish state dinner in the nearly 1,000-year-old Windsor Castle, Britain
is going to unprecedented levels to dazzle and flatter the mercurial
Trump.A huge security operation will keep the 79-year-old Republican far
away from protests and the British public — among whom polls show Trump
remains unpopular — with the extraordinary show of pomp and pageantry
unfolding entirely behind closed doors.Knowing that Trump is obsessed
with Britain’s royals and loves showy displays of pomp, Britain has
turned up the pageantry to the max as he becomes the first US president
to visit Britain twice.The trip will involve what UK officials call the
biggest military ceremonial welcome for any state visit in living memory
— even bigger than when Queen Elizabeth II hosted Trump in 2019.Trump
will also get the first joint flypast by US and UK fighter jets at an
event of its kind, and the largest guard of honour at a state visit,
featuring 120 horses and 1,300 troops.It’s all designed to appeal to a
US leader who this year crowed “LONG LIVE THE KING!” about himself on
social media before the White House posted a fake magazine cover of him
wearing a crown.‘Warm my heart’The question for Britain is whether the
red carpet welcome will win over Trump, whose unpredictability on
everything, from tariffs to Ukraine and Gaza, has caused global
turmoil.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be hoping that Trump
leaves on Thursday feeling the warm glow of some royal soft power, but
there are no guarantees.Trump appeared to be feeling the love as he
arrived by helicopter at the US ambassador’s official residence in
London on Tuesday with First Lady Melania Trump.“A lot of things here
warm my heart,” said the president, whose mother hailed from Scotland
and who has two golf courses in Britain.He described Charles, 76, who is
undergoing treatment for cancer, as “my friend.”The Republican may also
relish a chance to escape a turbulent period at home in the United
States, where the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has caused
deep turmoil.Trump’s day will begin with heir to the throne Prince
William and his wife Catherine welcoming him and Melania to Windsor
Castle, the home of the British royals for nearly a millennium.King
Charles and Queen Camilla are then due to join them for a carriage
procession through the grounds of Windsor estate towards the castle —
again behind closed doors.The Trumps will lay a wreath on the tomb of
Queen Elizabeth II, who died in 2022.Shadow of Epstein-Trump will also
witness a military band ceremony, ending with a flypast by US and
British F-35 military jets and the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows display
team.The president and Charles will wrap up the day with a white-tie
state banquet, where they are due to hold speeches.The lavish welcome,
however, stands in contrast to public opinion in Britain, where polls
show Trump remains unpopular.Demonstrators projected images of Trump and
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein onto Windsor Castle late
Tuesday, while protests are planned in London on Wednesday.Starmer will
host Trump on the second day of the visit on Thursday at his country
residence Chequers for talks that could turn awkward on several
fronts.The British premier in particular faces political troubles at
home, after sacking his UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson,
over a scandal involving the diplomat’s connection to the late
Epstein.Trump has also been dragged into the scandal, while insisting it
is a “hoax.”
It’s time to replace the human rights NGOs-When
those who claim to be representatives of humanity and impartiality
declare 'F*ck Israel,' they are anything but-Sep 17, 2025, 2:39 PM
For
nearly two years — since October 7, 2023 — grim accounts have seeped
from the world’s major human rights and humanitarian organizations.
Jewish and non-Jewish staff describe a surge of unchecked antisemitism
and a shocking indifference to Hamas’ massacres, hostage-taking, and
sexual violence. Internal forums brim with anti-Zionist, anti-Israel
rhetoric—sometimes personally targeted, and in clear violation of
organizational policies. Firsthand testimony exposes practices distorted
by ideology. Among the examples:Staff leaving false claims uncorrected
online — such as that Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital—because
correcting them could “appear pro-Israel” and anger Hamas.Managers
denying knowledge that staff worked alongside militants in Gaza, even as
it was openly discussed in meetings.Palestinian suffering elevated in
fundraising because it “plays well with donors,” while some 30 million
people in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo face famine,
displacement, and hunger.Staff permitted to march for a Gaza ceasefire
under the organizational banner but barred from marching for Israeli
hostages because it might appear “pro-Netanyahu.”Emails and internal
correspondence back these accounts. I know this because, since I wrote
in Sapir Magazine about ideological capture during 14 years as senior
editor at Human Rights Watch, I have connected with more than 60 current
and former staff from global organizations, including Amnesty, Doctors
Without Borders (MSF), the International Committee of the Red Cross,
Save the Children, UNICEF, and USAID. A few have spoken publicly. But
mostly their experiences remained buried. Until now.From Anecdote to
Data-A new survey by OLAM, the global Jewish humanitarian network, turns
anecdotes into data and confirms what the sector has long ignored or
denied. Based on 168 Jewish professionals in secular humanitarian and
human rights groups, it finds:55% have experienced or witnessed
anti-Jewish bias or hate, including stereotypes, jokes, or exclusion;
one in five said it began after October 7. 57% reported anti-Israel
incidents, such as colleagues questioning Israel’s legitimacy or
dismissing Jewish expertise as “biased.”73% said their organizations’
responses were ineffective; more than half said no action was taken.Most
felt pressured to suppress their identity, fearing assumptions about
their stance on Israel.The survey is modest in size and self-reported.
But its findings mirror internal documents, resignations, and
testimonies. Dismissing it reveals bias, not rigor.Behind the numbers
lie chilling accounts: colleagues declaring “World War III will be the
fault of Israel,” dismissing Jewish lives as expendable “collateral,” or
suggesting Jews are inherently dishonest. Some were warned to hide
their Jewishness in the field. Others resigned after complaints or
expertise were ignored.Selective Outrage-OLAM’s findings should trigger
reform: antisemitism training, independent reporting channels, and
audits of Israel work against that which is done elsewhere.For example,
why did Amnesty mount a global campaign for the Chibok girls and release
a report within a year of Boko Haram’s kidnappings, but nearly two
years after Hamas’ attacks has issued no report on October 7 and not
campaigned for Hamas’ captives? What resources have flowed into
Israel-Gaza work in relation to crises elsewhere, and why?But history,
and recent trends, show reform is unlikely. Scandals — sexual,
financial, racial, and methodological — have long shown that money and
reputation, not principles, drives the sector. In a marketplace where
antisemitism and anti-Israelism are ascendant, there is little incentive
to defend Jews or scrutinize Israel work.Since October 7, things have
worsened. Largely unregulated and unaccountable, groups that claim to be
the acme of humanity and impartiality have become open enablers — and
perpetrators — of just the opposite, with leaders including MSF’s UK
Executive Director Natalie Roberts — flaunting solidarity with those
waving Hezbollah flags and declaring “Fuck Israel.” Accountability
Avoided-Their reaction to The Atlantic’s March 2025 exposé on NGO double
standards proved the point. Instead of reflection or engagement,
implicated groups like MSF, HRW, and Amnesty chose denial, silence, or
deflection. Amnesty USA’s director Paul O’Brien even urged staff not to
share the article — “to reduce amplification.”Gulf funding deepens the
rot. In April, Mercy Corps’ CEO announced a donor tour to Qatar and the
UAE — “a region with significant potential for new partnerships and
funding.” It was another reminder that groups condemning Gulf regimes’
abuses still court their checkbooks.Meanwhile, many Jewish professionals
are barely hanging on. Over a third of OLAM survey respondents who
faced hate or bias said they would consider leaving their jobs — or the
sector entirely. That is not just a personal tragedy; it is a
devastating loss for a sector Jews helped build and sustain far beyond
their numbers.Human Rights 2.0-Faith in human rights remains vital. But
it is reckless to trust organizations that turned silence on October 7
into strategy. This is not a few wayward organizations, it is an
industry-wide collapse, years in the making, abetted by involvement and
silence at the top. As one senior ex-colleague involved with
Israel-Palestine work told me: “I’m torn, between saying…the future is
clear and I’m not part of it….and actually taking a stand. It depends on
how much energy I have on any given day.”The solution is not reform but
reinvention: Human Rights 2.0.That means new organizations and
partnerships grounded in universalism, neutrality, equality, and
humanism. It means rejecting selective outrage and politics disguised as
principle. It requires transparency in funding and proven rigor in
methodology — including applying the same standards and moral clarity to
every abuse, whether in Sudan, China, or Gaza.Reinvention will take
time, but it has already begun. Post–October 7 disillusionment is giving
way to new voices, fresh initiatives, and emerging partnerships in
Israel and abroad — spaces where Jews are for their professionalism
rather than judged for presumed politics. Compromised NGOs may one day
reckon with their failures. But there is no point trying to revive
organizations that have already flatlined. There’s too much work to do.
Startups
dive in to keep birds off fishponds, help swimmers improve their
game-National Center for Blue Economy showcases sustainable water and
marine tech at third Blue Tech Summit in Haifa, northern Israel-By Sue
Surkes-Today, 11:21 am-SEP 17,25
Nobify’s technique for scaring
birds off fishponds sounded simple enough — erect rows of pipes like
those used for drip irrigation, and shoot air at any bird that
approaches.But behind this lies deep knowledge about bird behavior, a
system that locates birds in real time using high-resolution detection
cameras and advanced data analytics, and special hardware that shoots
compressed air down thin black hoses, suspended from pipes. The hoses
whip around exactly where the birds are, and scare them away without
touching them.The project aims to stop birds from eating fish and
transmitting diseases to fish ponds, and from defecating on solar panels
and reducing their energy efficiency.Six years in the making and
already operating in fishponds in northeast Israel and reservoirs run by
the Mekorot water company, it was one of a slew of startup products
pitching for attention at this year’s third annual Blue Tech Summit in
Haifa, northern Israel, on Tuesday.CEO Ofir Tessler said his knowledge
about bird-related risks came from his military service in the Israel
Air Force.He explained that Nobify’s system was more resilient,
efficient, and sustainable than nets, which were clumsy to spread and
often trapped birds within them.Nobify, based in southern Israel, is
conducting its first seed round and hoping to raise $2 million.Thin
black hoses hang down from pipes strung along a fishpond in northern
Israel. (Nobify)A virtual swimming trainerAlso water-focused, SenpAI is
developing a virtual swimming trainer that utilizes sensors, algorithms,
and an application to help professional and hobby swimmers improve
their technique and minimize injury.Already patented in Israel, the US,
Italy, and the UK, and awaiting approval elsewhere, the AI-powered
technology provides way more information than existing wrist and body
trackers, according to CEO Limor Finish. Finish, like her CTO Effi
Pinhasov, spent 20 years working in Israel’s defense industries.The
product, whose sensors are roughly the size of hearing aid batteries,
learns the swimmer’s style and provides feedback and recommendations on
everything from body angle, speed, and acceleration to injury prediction
and prevention. It offers an animated version of the user swimming,
along with improvement tips.Still at an early stage of development, a
wired version of the sensors has been successfully tested on a real
swimmer, Keren Ayzbruch. The ultimate product will be
wireless.Self-funding the project to date, Finish and Pinhasov are
hoping to find first-round seed money for SenpAI, which means teacher in
Japanese.Burying CO₂ Rewind is exploring ways to bury biomass (organic
material such as wood) to prevent the carbon dioxide that plants use to
grow from escaping back into the atmosphere when they die and
decompose.The company is well known in environmental circles for its
attempts to halt the escape of carbon dioxide by burying plant biomass
deep in the Black Sea, where organic matter has been preserved for
thousands of years thanks to a lack of oxygen.But with slow and cautious
progress there, the company has pivoted to terrestrial options for
biomass burial.Since May, it has been working with a coal mine in
Georgia to bury sawdust and other wood waste from timber mills in
subterranean chambers (stopes) left hollow after the coal has been
removed. The mine needs to backfill these cavities anyway to prevent
collapse, and so already has the permits to insert the biomass.Mixed
with mud and water to make it viscous, the sawdust is injected into the
cavities, “rewinding” the process during which dead plant matter became
coal over millions of years.The company is now moving from the pilot to
the commercial phase, and is looking for mine partners worldwide,
explained CEO Ram Amar, a longtime climate activist and a member of the
board of the Israeli Climate Action Fund, which brings Israeli
philanthropists together to fund carbon-slashing projects.“Today, we can
bury around 1,000 tons a month, but we will grow to meet the scale of
100,000 tons per year by 2027,” Amar added.The money for loading and
transporting the sawdust, creating the slurry, injecting it into the
ground, and yielding a profit will come from carbon credits.Today, in an
effort to reach net-zero emissions, many companies invest in
environmental projects, such as afforestation, to offset or mitigate
carbon emissions elsewhere in their operations.
Official says
Syria withdrawing heavy weapons from south-Israel presented Syria with
detailed proposal for new security agreement – report-Top Israeli,
Syrian and US officials said to meet in London to discuss plan that
would see no Syrian troops near Israeli border, air corridor that would
enable Israel to strike Iran-By Lazar Berman,ToI Staff and Agencies
Today, 10:17 am-SEP 17,25
Israel has reportedly presented Syria
with a detailed proposal for a new security agreement regarding
southwest Syria, with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer set to meet
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in London on Wednesday to
discuss it.Syria said Tuesday that it was working with the United States
to reach mutual “security understandings” with Israel.According to a
Tuesday evening Axios report, which cited two officials familiar with
the details, Dermer and al-Shaibani will be joined by US envoy Tom
Barrack to discuss the draft that Israel submitted several weeks ago.
The report said that Damascus has not responded to the proposal, but was
formulating a counter-offer.The meeting would be the third trilateral
summit, but while sources familiar with the discussions said there were
signs of progress, it was thought that a breakthrough was not imminent,
and the report described the Israeli demands as “maximalist.”According
to Axios, Israel wants a no-fly zone and demilitarized zone over its
border in Syria, with no limits on Israeli deployment on its own
territory.The officials were cited as saying that the Israeli proposal
is based on its 1979 agreement with Egypt, which divided the Sinai into
three zones, each with its own limits on forces. The limits are
strictest in the areas closest to Israel’s border.The report said the
proposal would see the buffer zone in Syria extended by a further two
kilometers (1.2 miles).According to the proposal, the area next to the
border would have no Syrian military forces, but police and domestic
security forces would be allowed.Syrian aircraft would be banned from
flying over the territory between Damascus and the Israeli border.A
source told Axios that Israel wants to maintain an air corridor,
apparently so that it could more easily strike Iran if needed in the
future.In return, Israel would withdraw in stages from the buffer zone
it established after Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad fell last December,
but would remain on the peak of Mount Hermon.An Israeli official said
that Jerusalem would insist on remaining at the strategically key
location. Last month Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel’s need to
maintain a presence in Syria is a “central lesson from the events of
October 7.”As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel
deployed troops to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights,
which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that
followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War.The IDF described its presence in
southern Syria’s buffer zone as a temporary and defensive measure, but
the United Nations considers Israel’s takeover of the buffer zone a
violation of the 1974 disengagement accord. Israel says the accord had
fallen apart since one of the sides was no longer in a position to
implement it.While aligned against Hezbollah and other Iran-backed
groups that threatened Israel’s north under Assad, Jerusalem has
expressed distrust regarding Syria’s new government, which is led by
former jihadists. Nonetheless, it has engaged in US-brokered talks aimed
at reaching understandings with Damascus.An Israeli official told Axios
that additionally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is angling for a
meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the UN General Assembly
next week, though an Israeli official was cited as saying it was
believed unlikely to happen.Heavy weapon withdrawal-Meanwhile, Syria has
begun withdrawing heavy weapons from the country’s south as it works to
reach an understanding with Israel, unnamed officials told AFP on
Tuesday.The Syrian foreign ministry said that Washington, “in
consultation with the Syrian government, will work to reach security
understandings with Israel concerning southern Syria that address the
legitimate security concerns of both Syria and Israel.”The announcement
was part of a US- and Jordan-backed roadmap for restoring stability in
the south following intra-Syrian sectarian violence that drew Israeli
intervention.“Syrian forces have withdrawn their heavy weapons from
southern Syria,” a military official told AFP on condition of anonymity,
adding that the process began around two months ago, after the
violence.A diplomatic source in Damascus told AFP, also on condition of
anonymity, that the withdrawal covered the country’s south up to about
10 kilometers (six miles) outside the capital.The week of bloodshed in
Druze-majority Sweida province erupted on July 13 with clashes between
Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin but rapidly escalated, drawing in
government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.Israel,
which has its own Druze community, carried out airstrikes on government
targets, saying it was acting to defend the minority group as well as to
enforce its demands for south Syria’s demilitarization.Syrian
authorities have said their forces intervened after the violence broke
out to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights watchdog have accused them of siding with
the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze.The Observatory said
the violence killed more than 2,000 people, including 789 Druze
civilians “summarily executed by defense and interior ministry
personnel.”Earlier on Tuesday, Syrian authorities announced the creation
of a new internal security chief position for Sweida city, naming a
member of the Druze community to the post.The new chief, Suleiman Abdel
Baqi, leads a local armed group that is seen favorably by the new
authorities.Reuters reported on Tuesday that Israel is working to unite
splintered Druze factions in the Sweida area, providing them with arms
and paying salaries of militia members in the wake of the massacres of
the Druze there.
Thousands of archaeological relics rescued in
Gaza ahead of IDF strike-Army says Hamas was using warehouse that
contained artifacts from over 25 years of excavations, including some of
the oldest known evidence of Christianity in Gaza-By Melanie Lidman
Today, 8:20 am-SEP 17,25
AP — Nine hours of frantic negotiation
with the Israeli military. A last-minute scramble to find trucks in a
devastated Gaza Strip, where fuel is in short supply. Six hours of
frantic packing, carefully stacking cardboard boxes on open flatbed
trucks.With an Israeli airstrike looming, aid workers carried out a
last-minute rescue mission to salvage thousands of priceless artifacts
from a Gaza warehouse before the building was flattened.The warehouse
contained artifacts from over 25 years of excavations, including items
from a 4th-century Byzantine monastery designated as a World Heritage
Site by the UN cultural organization UNESCO, and some of the oldest
known evidence of Christianity in Gaza. The Israeli military said the
building housed Hamas intelligence installations and planned to demolish
it as part of their expanded military operation in Gaza City.“It’s not
just about Palestinian heritage or Christian heritage, it’s something
important to the world heritage here, protected by UNESCO,” explained
Kevin Charbel, the emergency field coordinator for Première Urgence
Internationale, a humanitarian organization that has worked in Gaza
since 2009. PUI is a health organization that also works toward the
protection of Gaza’s cultural heritage.Negotiating against the
clock-COGAT, Israel’s defense body in charge of humanitarian aid,
notified PUI of the demolition plan last Wednesday morning. The warning
was triggered by a notification system managed by the international NGOS
to let the Israeli military know that a specific area is a sensitive
site, such as a school, hospital, or warehouses holding humanitarian
aid.Charbel, who is based in Gaza City on a temporary humanitarian
rotation, spent nine hours furiously negotiating with the military for a
delay to allow workers to move the artifacts to a safer location. But
the challenge was larger than just holding off the strike. As Israel
expanded its operation in Gaza City, other organizations were in
disarray, and no one could locate trucks to transport the artifacts at
such short notice.“Five minutes before I had to accept this was going to
be evaporated in front of us, another actor offered us transport,” said
Charbel. PUI worked with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to move
the artifacts to a safer location in Gaza City that is not being
disclosed for security reasons.The French Biblical and Archaeological
School of Jerusalem, a venerated archaeological institution in the
region that oversaw the Dead Sea Scrolls excavation in Israel, was
responsible for the storage of about 80 square meters (860 sq ft) of
archaeological artifacts in the Al-Kawthar high-rise building in Gaza
City. PUI was providing security for the site.Dozens of ancient
archaeological sites have been found in Gaza, including temples,
monasteries, palaces, churches, mosques and mosaics. Many of them have
been lost to urban sprawl and looting. UNESCO is struggling to preserve
some of those that remain. Some of the sites date back 6,000 years, when
Gaza was a central stop on trade routes between Egypt and the Levant,
and the emergence of urban societies began to transform farming
villages.The artifacts rescued this week include ceramic jugs, mosaics,
coins, painted plasterwork, human and animal remains, and items
excavated from the Saint Hilarion Monastery, one of the oldest known
examples of Christian monastic communities in the Middle East, according
to UNESCO.No time for normal preparation-Starting just after sunrise on
Thursday, workers rushed to pack five flatbed trucks with as many
delicate artifacts as they possibly could in the space of six hours.
Artifacts, which had been carefully stored and documented in the
warehouse, were hurriedly packed in cardboard boxes, with nearly
2,000-year-old pottery resting on the sandy ground.Charbel noted that
transporting such old artifacts usually requires intense preparation and
special provisions to protect delicate objects, something that wasn’t
possible in this instance. The Israeli military does not allow the use
of closed container trucks, exposing the artifacts to additional
dangers. Several items were broken en route and others had to be left
behind. Israel destroyed the building on Sunday, claiming Hamas had
positioned observation posts and intelligence-gathering infrastructure
within it.Over the past week, Israel has demolished multiple high-rise
buildings in Gaza City, part of its dramatic warnings to civilians to
evacuate ahead of the ground offensive, which began on Tuesday
morning.As Israel’s ground operation expands, the artifacts are being
held in a different location in Gaza City. However, they are outside,
exposed to the elements, and remain in grave danger as strikes
intensify.UNESCO said Israel has damaged at least 110 cultural sites
across the Gaza Strip, including 13 religious sites, 77 buildings of
historical or artistic interest, one museum, and seven archaeological
sites, since the beginning of the war in October 2023.Israel has said it
seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses
Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas
including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.During the
archaeological rescue, Charbel said, he and other aid workers also
wrestled with deeper questions. Did it make sense to direct so many
resources, including desperately needed fuel and trucks, risking the
lives of multiple people who worked under constant threat of
bombardment, for inanimate historical objects, when the humanitarian
situation is so dire? Charbel said he was worried about spending so much
time arguing over the archaeological artifacts when they also needed to
negotiate with COGAT about life-saving water, food, and medicine.“But
we accepted to do this, because it’s so valuable, this stuff, it’s of
such importance to world history and also Palestinian history,” said
Charbel. “Destroying early examples of Christian history in Palestine
would erase it forever.”Times of Israel staff contributed to this
report.
'The end will come much faster than they think'-Netanyahu
says Trump to host him on Sept. 29, issues dire warning to Hamas over
hostages-PM attacks Qatar as supporter of Hamas, says intel on results
of Doha strike ‘not fully conclusive’ and claims negative response from
markets to his ‘Sparta’ remark a ‘misunderstanding’By Lazar Berman and
Nava Freiberg-Today, 2:44 am-SEP 17,25
US President Donald Trump
invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet at the White House
later this month, the Israeli leader said at a Tuesday press conference
in Jerusalem, while warning Hamas against harming hostages as the
military operates in Gaza City.According to Netanyahu, the visit will
take place on September 29, three days after the premier’s scheduled
address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.Netanyahu
announced the meeting during a press conference focusing on the state of
Israel’s economy, after he faced intense criticism for saying a day
earlier that the country would need to become increasingly
self-reliant.Netanyahu said the invitation came during a phone call on
Monday, adding that he has held several conversations with Trump since
Israel’s September 9 strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, and all of them
were “good.”This would be the fourth meeting between the leaders in the
White House since Trump’s second term began in January.It would come
amid US backing for Israel’s major offensive in Gaza City, which kicked
off early Tuesday as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio took off from
Israel for Qatar.During his visit, Rubio showed firm support for Israel,
saying that the “ideal outcome” is for Hamas to simply surrender, but
“it may require ultimately a concise military operation to eliminate
them.”Rubio chose not to add to international criticism of Israel for
its strike on Hamas leaders in Doha last week, saying on Monday, “We are
focused on what happens next.”The strike — which killed five
non-leading members of Hamas and a Qatari security officer, but
apparently none of its five key intended Hamas leadership targets —
elicited fury from Arab governments, which convened for an emergency
gathering Monday over the attack.Trump claims that he had not had
knowledge of the attack in time to stop it. However, an Axios report
indicated that Netanyahu told Trump 50 minutes before the strike.Asked
on Tuesday if he had notified Trump ahead of the strike, Netanyahu
repeated his statement that the White House version of events was
“correct,” and that Israel was solely responsible for the strike.Asked
by The Times of Israel about whether he still sees Qatar as a mediator
in indirect talks with Hamas, Netanyahu said that “if Qatar wanted, it
could easily apply much harder pressure, which would help us free all of
our hostages in the first months of the war.”“It is tied to Hamas,” he
charged of Qatar. “It strengthens Hamas. It hosts Hamas. It funds Hamas.
It has much stronger levers, and it chose not to do that.”As such, he
insisted, the strike against Hamas leaders in Qatar “was entirely
justified.”“There was an attempt to use them in a partial manner” during
the war, Netanyahu continued, without mentioning he had worked with
Qatar to send millions of dollars into Gaza every month in the years
before the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught that started the
war.He declined to give an update on whether any of the targeted Hamas
leaders were killed: “We’re still checking it out. It’s not yet fully
conclusive. We’re waiting to see it.”Netanyahu also refused to answer
shouted questions about his own advisers who are under investigation for
allegedly receiving money from Qatar to push a public relations
campaign casting the emirate in a positive light after the Hamas
massacre in Israel.Markets spooked by ‘misunderstanding’Netanyahu called
the press conference as a damage-control measure after admitting Monday
that Israel was facing increasing isolation and warning that it might
be required to become a “super-Sparta.”The premier said that the
markets’ negative reaction to his remarks was a
“misunderstanding.”“There was a misunderstanding that supposedly shook
the stock market,” he said. “It didn’t shake us. And the reason it
didn’t shake us is one thing: because essentially, the stock market —
the markets — understand what I said, the strength of Israel’s economy,
and the profitability of investing in Israel. And this is very important
for ensuring our future.”“My remarks were on the attempt to restrict
the import of parts, components, weapons, or raw materials – and that
indeed is something that does not operate according to market economics,
but according to political economics, governments, leaders, politics,”
he added, insisting the Israeli economy was sound.Netanyahu — who
frequently switched between English and Hebrew during the press
conference, depending on who his message was targeted at — noted that
while “Western European governments are generally friendly toward
Israel,” they are “pressured by Islamic minorities that have formed
within them, some of whom are very extreme.”Decades of organized
anti-Israel propaganda, he added, have compounded the pressure, which
“expresses itself as restrictions on parts of weapon systems or the
systems themselves.”Several EU countries have announced in recent days
that they would move towards arms embargoes on Israel and stop buying
Israeli weapons amid the Gaza war.The prime minister said Israel must
“develop these ourselves, arm ourselves, and ensure we have the ability
to defend ourselves,” even if that requires moving temporarily to “a
centralized, closed economy, something I generally dislike — I prefer
open markets.”“But here, I want to take all the necessary steps to build
a strong, independent defense industry. If there is one lesson from
this war, this is it,” he said.While Netanyahu had announced he would
hold an economic press conference, Channel 12 reported that Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich refused to take part, despite being
invited.During a meeting with Netanyahu on Monday, Smotrich reportedly
told Netanyahu: ‘You caused the damage, you fix it.”A warning to
HamasWith the Israel Defense Forces carrying out massive strikes in Gaza
City, and desperate Israeli families of hostages saying they were
“terrified” for their loved ones, questions at Netanyahu’s press
conference also focused on the push into Gaza’s biggest city.Netanyahu
said he discussed the issue of the hostages with Trump in their latest
phone call.Netanyahu said the two “discussed a possibility that came up,
which is very, very important in my eyes — dealing with the issue of
the hostages’ security.”“As Hamas’s spokesperson said, they used our
hostages as human shields — that is, placed them in locations that would
endanger them. This is horrifying. It also horrified the president. He
addressed it,” Netanyahu said, referring to remarks by Trump on Monday
warning Hamas against using the hostages as human shields.Netanyahu
added his own warning to Hamas, saying: “If they harm a hair on the head
of even one hostage, we will hunt them down with greater force until
the end of their lives — and that end will come much faster than they
think.”“And this is what I say to Hamas’s leaders,” Netanyahu continued,
“You will have no shelter anyway. But our effort to reach you will be
redoubled sevenfold, and we will reach you much faster than you
think.”Hostage families have expressed severe concern for their loved
ones over reports that Hamas is keeping hostages in Gaza City to deter
Israeli forces from attacking.Addressing reports of fierce disagreement
between him and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over how to
conduct the war in Gaza, Netanyahu said that “false” leaks and “biased”
briefings were hurting the war effort.“I think it is absolutely
unacceptable that leaks that are often false, and briefings that are
almost always biased and agenda-driven, are being released,” he
said.“These things make it harder to manage the war, they clearly delay
the release of our hostages, and they endanger our soldiers — and they
also lower their morale,” he continued. “These are things that must not
be done. That is why I do not comment on specific matters of this
kind.”At the press conference — which saw journalists rushed to the
basement of the Prime Minister’s Office shortly beforehand as sirens
sounded in the wake of a Houthi missile being launched from Yemen —
Netanyahu called for accelerated efforts to evacuate Palestinians from
Gaza City, saying it would help ensure the war’s swift end.“Right now,
[Gazans] are leaving Gaza City, and so far almost 400,000 have already
left,” Netanyahu said, adding that in a discussion at the IDF command
bunker in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, “I instructed them to find ways
to make it easier for them to leave.”“They want to leave, they want to
get out of the city, because they want to — they are responding to us,
not to Hamas, which, by the way, occasionally even shoots at them to
stop them from doing so,” he said.Netanyahu said the effort to evacuate
Gazans from the city ahead of the major offensive “is succeeding, but we
need to intensify it — to help, to accelerate it — because we have an
interest in ending the war quickly, and not ending it in defeat.”“To
those who say, ‘Come on, finish, just end it’ – ending it in defeat
would be an enormous victory for the forces of evil, for Iran’s axis of
evil, which would quickly recover from this, because everyone is
watching who wins. If [Hamas] survives there, if they remain there, they
will call that a victory – and of course, we want to achieve the
opposite effect,” he continued.Last week, the IDF ordered Palestinians
in all areas of Gaza City to evacuate immediately ahead of the
offensive. However, moving can be costly, and space is at a premium in
the overcrowded south of the Strip. Many had said they would not leave,
exhausted from repeated displacement over the course of the 23-month
war.IDF estimates from Tuesday morning indicated that more than 370,000
Palestinians had evacuated Gaza City. That contradicted a UN estimate
issued earlier in the day that said around 220,000 Palestinians had fled
northern Gaza over the past month.Regarding Palestinians’ voluntary
departure from Gaza — a goal Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners
are eager to see achieved — the prime minister said, “This possibility
certainly exists; it has not been taken off the table. But it is not an
active campaign we are running. It’s not something we are
pushing.”Still, he condemned international opposition to the idea.
“Unlike in other war zones in the world, they say it is immoral to allow
them to leave. I think what is immoral is not to allow them to leave,”
he said.
Kirk killing suspect charged with aggravated murder;
prosecutor seeks death penalty-Utah County attorney says Tyler
Robinson’s DNA found on trigger of rifle, reveals texts in which accused
tells roommate he killed activist because he ‘had enough of his
hatred’By Agencies 16 September 2025, 11:03 pm
Tyler Robinson,
the 22-year-old Utah man accused of assassinating conservative activist
Charlie Kirk, was charged on Tuesday with aggravated murder, a
prosecutor announced, saying Robinson left behind his DNA on the trigger
of the rifle that fired the fatal shot.The charge means Robinson could
face the death penalty if convicted of killing Kirk last week at Utah
Valley University in Orem, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Salt
Lake City.“The murder of Charlie Kirk is an American tragedy,” Utah
County Attorney Jeff Gray said in announcing the charges.Gray said he
had made the decision to seek the death penalty “independently, based
solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the
crime.”Kirk was gunned down on September 10 as he spoke with students
and died soon after. Prosecutors allege Robinson shot Kirk in the neck
with a bolt-action rifle from the roof of a nearby campus building.A
Utah Valley University police officer was watching the university campus
crowd from an “elevated position” and identified the roof of the Losee
Center as a potential position for a shooter, Gray said. The officer
found evidence on the roof immediately, he said, and spurred officers to
direct their attention to surveillance video leading to the roof.Gray
said Robinson’s DNA was found on the trigger of the rifle. He said
Robinson discarded the rifle and clothing and asked his roommate to
conceal evidence.Robinson left a note under a keyboard saying he planned
to kill Kirk and confessed after the shooting, documents show.Robinson
was also charged with felony discharge of a firearm, punishable by up to
life in prison, and obstructing justice, punishable by up to 15 years
in prison. He was scheduled to appear on camera for a virtual court
hearing on Tuesday afternoon.It was unclear whether Robinson had an
attorney who could speak on his behalf, and his family has declined to
comment to The Associated Press.Robinson appears to have stayed in the
area after shooting Kirk and ditching his rifle, authorities said.In a
text exchange with his roommate, released by authorities, Robinson
wrote, “I had planned to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after,
but most of that side of town got locked down. Its quiet, almost enough
to get out, but theres one vehicle lingering.”Then he wrote: “Going to
attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t
seen anything about them finding it.” And after that, he sent: “I can
get close to it but there is a squad car parked right by it. I think
they already swept that spot, but I don’t wanna chance it.”“‘Why did I
do it?'” Gray quoted a message. “‘I had enough of his hatred. Some hate
can’t be negotiated out.'”The texts shared in court documents do not
have timestamps, and it’s unclear how long after the shooting Robinson
was texting.Robinson was arrested late Thursday near St. George, the
southern Utah community where he grew up.Investigators have spoken to
Robinson’s relatives and carried out a search warrant at his family’s
home in Washington, Utah, about 240 miles (390 kilometers) southwest of
where the shooting happened.Kirk, a dominant figure in conservative
politics, became a confidant of US President Donald Trump after founding
Arizona-based Turning Point USA, one of the nation’s largest political
organizations. He brought young, conservative evangelical Christians
into politics. His shooting raised fears about increasing political
violence in a deeply polarized United States.While authorities say
Robinson hasn’t been cooperating with investigators, they say his family
and friends have been talking. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said over the
weekend that those who know Robinson say his politics shifted left in
recent years and he spent a lot of time in the “dark corners of the
internet.”FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday on the Fox News Channel
show “Fox & Friends” that DNA evidence has linked Robinson to a
towel wrapped around a rifle found near the Utah Valley campus and a
screwdriver recovered from the rooftop where the fatal shot was
fired.The FBI is also looking at “anyone and everyone” who was involved
in a gaming chatroom on the social media platform Discord with Robinson,
Patel said Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in
Washington. The chatroom involved “a lot more” than 20 people, he
said.“We are investigating Charlie’s assassination fully and completely
and running out every lead related to any allegation of broader
violence,” Patel said in response to a question about whether the Kirk
shooting was being treated as part of a broader trend of violence
against religious groups.Investigators are working on finding a motive
for the attack, Utah’s governor said Sunday, adding that more
information may come out once Robinson appears for his initial court
hearing.Cox said Robinson’s romantic partner was transgender, which some
politicians have pointed to as a sign the suspect was targeting Kirk
for his anti-transgender views. But authorities have not said whether
that played a role. Kirk was shot while taking a question that touched
on mass shootings, gun violence, and transgender people.Gray declined to
answer a question about whether transgender issues played a role in the
motive behind Kirk’s shooting. He pointed to the charging documents,
saying they summed up those points.The charges filed Tuesday carry two
enhancements, including committing several of the crimes in front of or
close to children and carrying out violence based on the subject’s
political beliefs.Gray declined to say whether Robinson’s roommate could
face charges or whether anyone else might face charges. He also
declined to say whether Robinson was cooperating or whether his parents
or roommate had continued to cooperate.In the days since Kirk’s
assassination, Americans have found themselves facing questions about
rising political violence, the deep divisions that brought the nation
here, and whether anything can change.Despite calls for greater
civility, some who opposed Kirk’s provocative statements about gender,
race, and politics criticized him after his death. Many Republicans have
led the push to punish anyone they believe dishonored him, causing both
public and private workers to lose their jobs or face other
consequences at work.
NIST relaunches 1-to-N fingerprint
biometrics matching evaluations-Initial submissions from Tech5,
Innovatrics show gains after 13 years off-Sep 17, 2025, 6:12 pm EDT |
Chris Burt
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and
Technology has relaunched its evaluation of performance capabilities of
one-to-many fingerprint biometric identification algorithms after a 13
year hiatus.NIST has renamed the Fingerprint Vendor Technology
Evaluation (FpVTE) as the Friction Ridge Image and Features (FRIF)
Technology Evaluation Exemplar One-to-Many (E1N).The only submissions to
the relaunched evaluation so far are from Tech5 and Innovatrics.NIST
uses the submitted algorithms to match biometrics from three datasets
for the evaluation. Class A is made up of index fingers only, Class B
consists of 4-4-2 or “identification flat” captures, and Class C
includes all ten fingers.Tech5 was found to have a false
non-identification rate (FNIR) of 0.001 at a false positive
identification rate (FPIR) of 0.001 or lower in matches against the 1.6
million images in Class A, and a Rank-1 FNIR of 0.0004. The best results
so far for all pairings in Class C are Tech5’s. The company currently
sits first for both operational thresholds and Rank-1 FNIR in
plain-plain (0.0018 and 0.0042), plain-rolled (0.0006 and 0.0037) and
rolled-rolled (0.0003 and 0.0034). The company’s algorithm also
performed well in template creation speed and footprint.At FPIR 0.001 or
lower, Innovatrics scored FNIRs of 0.0160, 0.0120, 0.0022 and 0.0011
respectively for left slaps, right slaps, left and right slaps together
and identification flats. At Rank-1 FNIR was 0.0092, 0.0027, 0.0010 and
0.0005.The FpVTE, back in 2012, included submissions from “afis team,”
NEC, id3, 3M Cogent, Sonda, Morpho, Neurotechnology, Tiger IT, Decatur
Industries, Papillon, Innovatrics, BIO-key, Dermalog, SPEX, Aware,
HiSign, ID Solutions and AA Technology.“This evaluation was highly
needed, because the previous similar 1:N fingerprint NIST testing was
conducted 13 years ago under FpVTE,” says Tech5 CRO Ameya Bhagwat. “The
end customers are looking at these tests as a reference when selecting
large-scale ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System) platforms
for their projects in civil identity, foundational identity, elections,
passport systems and the like. We at TECH5 are very proud that this
fingerprint algorithm, that is used in the T5-OmniMatch ABIS platform,
shows the best results.”NIST notes that the evaluation is of template
creation and search algorithms used with an automated biometric
identification system (ABIS), and does not evaluate ABISs themselves.
Leveraging
digital footprints to outpace evolving fraud tactics-Sep 17, 2025, 6:05
pm EDT | Maanas Godugunur By Maanas Godugunur, senior director,
fraud and identity, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
From login to
checkout, fraud lurks in the shadows – highly sophisticated, global in
scale and deeply entangled in the retail journey.Digitalization has
introduced new challenges that demand comprehensive fraud management
strategies. Advances in AI and automated bot attacks have turned fraud
into a moving target – constantly shifting, adapting and becoming harder
to pin down.Businesses obviously use digital channels to engage with
customers and meet growth targets. Since consumers demand fast access to
products and services, retailers are shifting their digital strategies
to focus on collecting only the necessary data and prioritizing speed to
reduce friction.Fraudsters understand this and exploit vulnerabilities
in these new touchpoints to their advantage. Human-led phishing schemes
and cross-border fraud rings continue to expand, increasing cost
pressures.This leads to a new challenge. How can businesses reduce
fraud, protect customers, lower false positives and enhance customer
experience, all while improving profitability and efficiency? To stay
ahead of fraud, businesses must treat adaptability not as an option, but
as a core strategy. Success hinges on relentless evolution: Meeting
today’s threats head-on while anticipating those of tomorrow.The role of
digital footprints in fraud prevention-A customer’s digital footprint –
including connected devices, transactional behaviors, geolocation data,
email address and other associated attributes – serves as a fundamental
tool in combating fraud. The data forms a unique identifier that
separates trustworthy customers from potential fraudsters.Take the
ability to detect anomalies, for example. A customer’s usual behavior
might involve frequent logins from their smartphone in a specific
region. If a login suddenly comes from another location hundreds or
thousands of miles away or from a new, unfamiliar device, businesses can
act on these potential red flags to tighten security while preserving
customer convenience.This example highlights the use of a single
attribute. Parks Associates reported that in 2023, the average US
household with internet access had 17 connected devices. Each household
uses devices tied to specific individuals, with associated email
addresses, social aliases and phone numbers. The variables multiply when
considering different permutations and combinations.Part of the
solution includes a global digital identifier that has established an
individual’s unique digital footprint. Pinpointing legitimacy in real
time sharpens the focus on who’s real and who’s risky so that businesses
can welcome trusted customers effortlessly while shutting the door on
fraud.This approach can even add valuable insight when identifying new
customers. A digital identity might be new to your business – a guest
checkout, opening a new bank account or completing a payment for the
first time. However, a consumer’s supplied information and device data
available through a consortium of retailers can help paint a more
complete picture of each identity coming through the business
environment.Think of it as intelligent access: Smooth for the trusted,
cautious for the questionable. It enhances experience without
sacrificing safety. Fraudsters’ tactics are evolving-Fraudsters
constantly up their game. They now move beyond automation, using
human-initiated attacks that mimic real customer behavior. Phishing,
social engineering and scam calls are now rife, complicating precise
fraud detection. Fraudsters skillfully weaponize stolen credentials by
posing as real users or fabricating entire identities that are nearly
indistinguishable from the real thing.Generative AI technology has
further advanced their ability to create automated scripts that execute
attacks like credential stuffing in a more human manner, making it
increasingly difficult to differentiate between bot-driven and human-led
attacks on a global scale.Cross-border fraud also remains a major
challenge. Digital interactions blur geographical boundaries, yet
technology can uncover specific fraud patterns linking attacks and
compromised credentials across regions.A fraudulent credential never
stays local. They’re global weapons, capable of reaching any customer,
anywhere, almost instantly, even across industries. A financial scam
targeting ecommerce today may strike a financial institution
tomorrow.Global intelligence as a shield against fraud-A fraud
intelligence consortium analyzing billions of transactions each year
reveals the interconnected nature of the global ecosystem. Analysis
shows businesses can no longer combat fraud in isolation. To succeed,
they must use global identity intelligence, identify shared fraud
patterns and apply advanced AI technologies to counter attacks
effectively.Increasingly complex fraud makes it impossible for a single
solution to ensure complete security. A multi-layered security strategy
that combines data points, techniques and various fraud detection tools,
such as device intelligence, behavioral intelligence, geolocation
tracking and real-time fraud insights, is another essential part of the
solution.Behavioral intelligence helps to identify individuals by
analyzing the genuine user’s typical typing patterns and touch screen
usage, then comparing it with each new interaction. Do the actions of
the entity logging in align with what is expected from that user or are
there anomalies that could indicate an intruder? By weaving in
geolocation, device and email intelligence, this adaptable framework
pinpoints threats with precision without compromising the ease customers
expect.Workflows must stay adaptable. Fraud tactics that challenge
businesses today can evolve quickly, making previous protection
strategies ineffective. Organizations require agile fraud prevention
systems that scale easily and integrate new signals as they
develop.Balancing customer experience with fraud mitigation
strategies-Overly strict security measures frustrate legitimate
customers and damage trust. Many believe strong fraud controls cause
customer churn, but this perception is rooted in a point solution
approach. Thoughtful fraud strategies enhance customer experiences,
delight loyal customers and reduce exposure to fraudsters. By leveraging
accurate digital identity data, businesses can reduce false positives
and create a secure environment that offers trustworthy customers a
seamless interaction while blocking fraudulent attempts.Businesses can
address fraud by recognizing the value of digital footprints and
leveraging global shared intelligence. Orchestrating multi-layered risk
signals protects loyal customers and ensures their business models
remain robust.Fraud isn’t going away but with strategic digital
defenses, trust can thrive. Gaining a deep understanding of customer
digital footprints then sharing the resulting risk insights between
businesses across regions and industries empowers businesses to grow
boldly, even on a global stage.
Jumio to support eIDs from 16 EU countries-Sep 17, 2025, 5:11 pm EDT | Masha Borak
Jumio
will provide support for eIDAS-compliant electronic IDs in 16 European
countries on its web and mobile SDKs.The U.S.-based identity
verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance firm says that
integrating support for the eIDs enables them to complete the
accreditation processes on behalf of its customers. Most identity
providers only support eIDs from a limited number of countries, which
forces customers to go through lengthy accreditation processes.“By
enabling customers to accept eIDs and digital wallets without needing to
complete the accreditation process themselves, we’re providing them
with fast, compliant onboarding based on official government identity
data,” says Philipp Pointner, Jumio’s chief of digital identity. “This,
in turn, reduces fraud risk, improves conversion rates, and positions
these businesses as adopters of trusted national eID programs.”The move
comes as the EU prepares for the introduction of the European Digital
Identity (EUDI) Wallet. By 2027, many regulated businesses will be
required to accept digital wallets.Aside from verifying IDs, Jumio also
confirms that the person matches the credential through biometrics,
historical verifications and fraud intelligence, the company says in a
release.Earlier this year, the company introduced a new feature that
analyzes the fraud risk of transactions with the help of data such as
identity attributes and behavior. In June, Jumio also released its most
advanced liveness detection solution to date, called Jumio Liveness
Premium.
Trident raises $2.6M to support DR Congo’s digital ID
rollout-DRC Pass to enhance financial inclusion and improve public
service delivery-Sep 17, 2025, 4:43 pm EDT | Ayang Macdonald
The
Singaporean company Trident which is implementing a national digital ID
program in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as DRC Pass, has
announced a funding boost for the project to the tune of about $2.6
million.The firm said it raised the funds thanks to a Private Investment
in Public Equity (PIPE) financing and the proceeds will be “primarily
used to support the expansion and commercialization” of the digital ID
platform.According to an announcement, broker-dealer Chaince Securities
LLC, a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc, was
the exclusive placement agent for the transaction.Soon Huat Lim,
founder, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Trident, commented
after the transaction, stating that “this financing not only validates
our strategic direction but also provides the resources to strengthen
our global presence in digital identity and eKYC.”DRC Pass was launched
in June after the singing of the final agreement between the Congolese
government and Trident.The digital ID is part of a digital government
project which the firm is also working to implement in one of Africa’s
largest countries by both population and landmass.DR Congo citizens are
expected to download a “Tridentity” mobile application on their
smartphone to be able to sign up to the DRCPass and have access to
authorized government applications and websites, the company says.Last
month, the DRCPass was cited as an example of successful collaboration
between Singapore and Africa in the domain of technology.At the Africa
Singapore Business Forum 2025, the country’s minister for Sustainability
and the Environment, Grace Fu, said the digital ID “will enhance
financial inclusion and improve public service delivery for over 110
million DRC citizens.”She stated that the project is “a good example of
how Singapore companies work with African partners to bridge the digital
divide and promote financial inclusion.”
Catching synthetic
identities by sifting through clues in public data-No family, no
property, no vehicle? Transunion says you could be dealing with a
fake-Sep 17, 2025, 4:42 pm EDT | Masha Borak
Synthetic
identities have become an increasing threat over the past years:
Constructed by combining authentic and fabricated information, such as
stolen Social Security numbers and false names and contact information,
synthetic identities are made to look credible enough to fool many
identity verification systems.Companies such as TransUnion are now
trying to catch synthetic identities by playing detective and searching
for clues in public data. Its new research shows that certain traits and
behavioral characteristics can help identify them: A person may have no
known relatives or no vehicle registrations. It may be missing voter or
property records. Nearly every synthetic identity, for instance, had no
bankruptcies.Its main tool of investigation is the TransUnion’s
Synthetic Fraud Model. According to its figures, 85.6 percent of the
fraud predictions offered by the model prove to be true.“While the
presence of living characteristics such as vehicle ownership, voter
registration, or familial connections is not a definitive solution to
detecting synthetic identities, it represents an important piece of the
broader identity puzzle,” Steve Yin, the company’s senior vice president
and global head of fraud, said in a release this week.The other 14.4
percent of suspected synthetic identities who turn out to be real people
go through additional authentication. The process balances automated
decisioning with things like manual reviews from fraud specialists, Brad
Daughdrill, TransUnion’s vice president of Data Science and head of
Global Fraud Analytics, explains to Biometric Update over
email.TransUnion first launched its Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
Synthetic Fraud Model in 2021. The model analyzes Personally
Identifiable Information (PII) for inconsistencies and patterns that
point to a fabricated identity.Since then, the model has evolved through
newer data and techniques such as AI, machine learning and graph-based
constructs. It has also received new infrastructure, including
centralization, more automation and faster update cadence, says
Daughdrill.Despite this, fraudsters operating synthetic identities are
smart: There is no single model for creating a fake persona, making them
harder to trace.Fraudsters also establish their legitimacy by building a
credit history, taking out loans for low-value products and services
and paying their dues regularly to avoid raising any behavioral red
flags. Once they secure access to higher value, they suddenly max out
their credit and disappear.Many organizations do not understand their
exposure to synthetic identity risk. According to TransUnion’s analysis
of credit accounts, 0.19 percent of bank card, retail card, auto and
personal loans had a high risk of synthetic identity, amounting to
US$3.3 billion in fraud loss risk exposure.Risks are also growing in
part because of large-scale data leaks: 640 million consumer records
were breached last year, most of them including Social Security numbers
(SSNs), says TransUnion. Breach severity is a leading indicator of
future fraud, according to Yin.Around 80 percent of financial services
customers who had charged off on loans and credit card accounts, meaning
that the lender has written the account off as a loss, returned a high
synthetic identity risk score — despite passing a standard identity
check, TransUnion points out.One of the company’s recommendations for
preventing synthetic fraud is making identity validation a lifecycle
activity, instead of a one-time event. A synthetic identity would be
assessed during the account creation process, but also throughout
account review.“Processes like credential change, new product opening,
money movement, etc., all of these could be continually assessed for new
fraud risks, including synthetics,” says Daughdrill.The additional
checks will have to balance out the customer friction. That is always a
challenge and will differ across organizations for their risk
tolerances, he notes.Aside from improving fraud detection models and
adding more transparency and accountability to vendor and partner
ecosystems, another recommendation from TransUnion is breaking down data
silos and establishing centralized fraud intelligence hubs.“TransUnion
has consortia within some of our solutions and competitors do as well,”
says Daughdrill.
Indian tech firms shortlisted for Sri Lanka
digital ID meeting with ICTA and DRP-Sep 17, 2025, 12:57 pm EDT |
Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
About a dozen Indian tech
companies shortlisted for the Master Systems Integrator (MSI) role in
Sri Lanka’s Unique Digital ID project will visit the country this week
to meet in-person with representatives of the Information and
Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and Department for Registration
of Persons (DRP), government officials say.The integrators were at the
pre-qualification virtual meeting last month, conducted by the National
Institute for Smart Government (NISG) on behalf of Sri Lanka’s Ministry
of Digital Economy.The NISG is seeking bids from Indian companies to
appoint an MSI for this initiative, to collect citizens’ demographic and
biometric data, similar to India’s Aadhaar system. At least 40 Indian
firms have applied for this.The change from the traditional National
Identity Card (NIC) to a digital identity is driven by the need for
secure and scalable solutions, with the Modular Open-Source Identity
Platform (MOSIP) chosen for its cost-effectiveness, security, and
flexibility. “MOSIP was chosen over local and proprietary options due to
its open-source nature, permitting customization and independent
auditing, which certifies long-term sustainability and control over
citizen data,” the official said.Officials noted that at this pre-bid
meeting, these companies clarified the components proposed for the Sri
Lanka Unique Digital ID (SL-UDI) project and answered certain questions
regarding the proposals.These bidders had agreed to the components
proposed for the project, meeting certain criteria, including being in
the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, Leaders Wave of
Forrester Wave, or Leader in IDC Marketspace.Professionals trained for
ongoing management will be available before the system goes live,
officials said. Key controls include data capture by the DRP and a
comprehensive security audit before activation.Concerns about the role
of the Indian system integrator in the project were raised by a DRP
official in conversation with Biometric Update earlier this month. The
program is also facing two court petitions alleging fundamental rights
violations.These legal and procedural complaints are predictable,
according to digital identity and DPI consultant Ott Sarv says in a
LinkedIn post. Sarv warns that “when digital identity is pushed without
legal sequencing,” countries are bound to face “legal petitions,
sovereignty disputes, altered processes, duplicated roles, technology
that does not fit today’s governance model, and citizens left uncertain
about who really controls their data.”
New York’s proposed age
assurance rules ‘clearest and smartest’ to emerge-Minimum performance
levels provide piece missing from UK legislation-Sep 17, 2025, 1:31 pm
EDT | Joel R. McConvey
A new proposal in New York State that
aims to lay out age assurance rules for social media is getting rave
reviews from top voices in the biometrics and digital identity
industry.The Office of the New York State Attorney General (OAG) says it
has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the Stop
Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act. Signed into law in
June 2024, SAFE targets algorithms that personalize feeds for teen users
and are designed to be addictive.“These feeds can track tens or
hundreds of thousands of data points about users to create a stream of
media that can keep minors scrolling for dangerously long periods of
time,” the OAG says. “Consistent with robust research from child mental
health experts, the Legislature found that these hours spent on social
media have caused harm to New York minors including depression, anxiety,
suicidal ideation and self-harm.”The Act prohibits addictive feeds for
young users and bans platforms from sending notifications between the
hours of 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. OAG has been charged with “promulgating
regulations” that “identify ‘commercially reasonable and technically
feasible methods’ to determine that a user is not a minor before
providing them with an addictive feed or nighttime notification,” and
“identify methods of obtaining verifiable parental consent for an
addictive feed or nighttime notification.”Show us the numbers: minimums
set for accuracy, circumvention-What has won the particular praise of
age assurance providers, however, are the Act’s “standards for
effective, secure, and privacy-protective age assurance.” Unlike some
other online safety legislation – like the UK’s much-discussed Online
Safety Act (OSA) – SAFE gets specific on numbers for minimum accuracy
levels and minimum percentage rate for detecting method circumvention.Up
front, it defines “Accuracy Minimum” as: “(1) a rate of false positives
for an age assurance method that is equal to or less than the
following: 0.1 percent of minors ages 0 to 7; 1 percent of minors ages 8
to 13; 2 percent of minors ages 14 to 15; 8 percent of minors age 16;
15 percent of minors age 17, excluding failures or refusals by a user to
provide requested data and inconclusive age assurance outcomes; and (2)
a rate of detecting method circumvention for an age assurance method
that meets or exceeds 98 percent.”These are the kind of very clear
guidelines for performance that providers have been asking for since the
age assurance conversation began. In a post on LinkedIn summarizing the
proposal, Yoti CEO Robin Tombs calls it “by far the clearest and
smartest set of age checking regulations that deliver privacy
preserving, highly effective age assurance.”It’s not just the
statistical specificity that appeals, either; Tombs has a long list of
things that OAG has clarified. These include crucial practices like
“operators must implement data minimisation and deletion,” statements on
certification like “every age assurance method must be certified
annually by an accredited independent third party under international
standards (ISP/IEC 27566, IEEE 2089.1 or other),” and recognition that
zero knowledge proofs (ZKP) and double blind age verification methods
show significant promise.‘Rules are inclusive, robust, and privacy
preserving’: VerifymyVerifymy has also taken note of New York’s
proposal.“While the law is driven by evidence that
algorithmically-curated feeds fuel depression, anxiety and other harms,
the heart of the new guidelines is about practical, privacy-preserving
age assurance to make those protections real,” says a blog from the
company, which calls SAFE’s approach to age checks “encouraging.”“The
rules are inclusive, robust, and privacy-preserving, without being
overly restrictive. Rather than relying only on traditional identity
documents for age checks, they embrace innovative age estimation and
inference (for example, checks based on a user’s email address), while
recognising that accuracy is highest for younger children and naturally
more nuanced for 17-year-olds close to adulthood”.Privately, efficient,
effective age assurance can be done in NY-Perhaps most significantly in a
global context, the OAG provides, by way of its own extensive research
and consultation, a statement that backs up the findings of Australia’s
Age Assurance Technology Trial (AATT), which has faced questions about
its methodology.“OAG can confirm that today, the age assurance market
includes a robust variety of products that perform at a high accuracy
rate, easily integrate with online platforms, handle large user volumes,
and prioritize the preservation of user privacy and protection of user
data,” says the NPRM.“Age assurance products can be selected and
customized to meet different business models, user populations, and
compliance obligations. Age assurance providers are already servicing
clients in the U.S. and globally, including many of the largest social
media platforms, and are supported by a trade association, standards
bodies, and providers of certification and testing.”It also reiterates
the often-stated point that the age assurance industry is aware its
technology isn’t perfect, but continues to refine and improve it.To
Robin Tombs, the OAG’s rules are “smart, clear details relating to
commercially reasonable and technically feasible methods of age
assurance.”“I suspect they will get copied by many AV regulators around
the world over the next 1-3 years.”
