WAR WITH IRAN - DAY 146 JULY 23,26 - OPENAI MODELS GO ROGUE DURING TESTING, TRIGGERING UNPRECEDENTED CYBER BREACH.

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)

WAR WITH IRAN - DAY 146 JULY 23,26 - OPENAI MODELS GO ROGUE DURING TESTING, TRIGGERING UNPRECEDENTED CYBER BREACH.

THE NEXT US-ISRAEL HIT ON IRAN SHOULD BE VERSE 37. ALL OFFENSIVE NUKE SITES MISSLES,DRONES,AND OF COURSE KHEMENI AND THE IRGC GUARDS.THEN AFTER IRANS REGIME CHANGE. MUSLIMS COME TO JESUS BY THE MILLIONS.

JEREMEIAH 49:32-39 (IN IRAN AT THE BUSHEHR OR ARAK NUKE SITES AND ALL OFENSIVE WEAPONS DESTROYED IN IRAN)
Jeremiah 49:32-39    
32 Their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their cattle a spoil: and I will scatter to all winds those who have the corners [of their hair] cut off; and I will bring their calamity from every side of them, says Yahweh.
33 Hazor shall be a dwelling-place of jackals, a desolation forever: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.(Location & Size: It was strategically located along the Via Maris (Way of the Sea), a major trade route connecting Egypt with Syria and Mesopotamia.)
34 The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam,(IRAN) in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying,
35 Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: Behold, I will break the bow of Elam,(IRANS OFFENSIVE WEAPONS) the chief of their might.(MISSLES AND NUKE SITES)
36 On Elam (IRAN) will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of the sky, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation where the outcasts of Elam shall not come.(SINCE 1979 IRANIANS HAVE GOTTIN OUT OF IRAN BECAUSE OF KHEMENI AND HIS APOCOPOLIPTIC DEATH CULT BELIEF-BLACK HATER 12ERS)
37 I will cause Elam (IRAN) to be dismayed before their enemies, and before those who seek their life;(ISRAEL THE LITTLE SATAN AND THE U.S THE BIG SATAN) and I will bring evil on them, (MISSLES) even my fierce anger,(FIRE) says Yahweh; and I will send the sword after them,(IRANS OFFENSIVE WEAPONS) until I have consumed them; (DESTROYED THEM ALL NUKE SITES,MISSLES ETC)
38 and I will set my throne in Elam,(IRAN WILL BECOME A CHRISTIAN NATION) and will destroy from there king (KHEMENI, ISLAM) and princes, says Yahweh.(IRANIAN ARMY GUARDS)
39 But it shall happen in the latter days, that I will bring back the captivity of Elam,(IRAN) says Yahweh.(WERE IN THE LATTER DAYS NOW)

WHEN ARE THE 500 MILLION MIGRATING BIRDS IN ISRAEL IN THE SPRING TIME.(GET READY ISLAM TO BE BIRD SEED FOR THESE BIRDS)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m0bXU5Xqc5M
The 500 million migratory birds in Israel during the spring arrive from Africa and head toward Europe and Asia, with the peak migration occurring in March and April. While migration starts in late February, the most intense movements, particularly of birds of prey, storks, and pelicans, occur during the third week of March and continue into April. 
Key Details on the Spring Migration
Peak Period: Mid-March through April.
Main Migration Route: The birds use the Great Rift Valley, which includes the Hula Valley and Eilat, acting as a "bottleneck" where millions of birds fly through the narrow land bridge.
Best Spots: The Hula Lake Park (Northern Israel) and the Eilat Birding Center (Southern Israel) are primary locations for observing the migration.
Key Species: Hundreds of thousands of white storks, along with black kites, raptors, and pelicans, pass through over these months.
uration: The spring migration runs from late February and continues into June, though the heaviest traffic is in March/April. 

The 500 million migratory birds fly over Israel in the fall between late August and mid-December. The peak migration period for the autumn, when the highest volume of bird traffic occurs, is typically October and November. 
Key Fall Migration Details
Location: The Hula Valley (Agamon Hula Park) in northern Israel is the premier spot to witness this phenomenon.
Timing: Migration starts as early as late June with some waders, but intensifies from mid-August through November.
Peak Festival: The "Annual Hula Valley Bird Festival" is usually held in November to align with the peak migration traffic.
Key Species: Many birds of prey (raptors), including honey buzzards and steppe eagles, cross during this time, along with massive flocks of storks and cranes.
While roughly 500 million birds pass through in the autumn on their way to Africa, the same number crosses again in the spring (mid-February to May) on their way back to Europe and Asia. 

JEREMEIAH 49:23-27
23  Concerning Damascus.(SYRIA) Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea;(WAR SHIPS WITH NUKES COMING ON SYRIA) it cannot be quiet.
24  Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.
25  How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!
26  Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.
27  And I will kindle a fire (NUKES OR BOMBS) in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad.(ASSADS PALACES POSSIBLY IN DAMASCUS)

OpenAI models go rogue during testing, triggering ‘unprecedented’ cyber breach-New York-based AI startup Hugging Face says it used an open-sourced Chinese model to contain the hack, which compromised its infrastructure-By Raphael Satter 22 July 2026, 6:08 pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — OpenAI said on Tuesday that an autonomous agent powered by its advanced artificial intelligence models went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face last week.The ChatGPT creator was testing capabilities of some of its most advanced models in a controlled environment, but the agent escaped containment, reached the internet and broke into Hugging Face to satisfy its testing goal.The incident signals that AI’s expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and even top developers can be caught off-guard by flaws their models can exploit.The breakout was “an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities,” and OpenAI is reinforcing its safeguards, the company said in a blog post.It also drew attention as New York-based Hugging Face said it had used an open-source Chinese model to contain the attack because leading US models, unable to tell a defender from an attacker, refused to process the data needed for analysis.The company said in a blog post last week that it used Zhipu AI’s GLM-5.2 for the analysis, which also allowed it to keep attacker data and any credentials within its systems.GLM-5.2 and Beijing-based Moonshot’s Kimi K3 have stirred Silicon Valley recently with capabilities nearing those of top US models at lower costs and without the guardrails that block their American rivals from use in tasks such as cybersecurity.“When a frontier model is attacking you and moving laterally inside your infrastructure, defenders need wide access to near-frontier tools within hours or even minutes, rather than being pointed towards a closed-door, vetted application programme for model access,” Hugging Face Co-founder Thomas Wolf said on X.Sign of things to come-The hack at Hugging Face, which hosts open-source large language models and datasets, rattled the cybersecurity community after the company said last week the breach “was different from anything we had handled before” and “was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system.”OpenAI’s disclosure that its advanced models were responsible for the breach, despite having placed them in what it described as “a highly isolated environment,” will likely intensify disquiet over the power and risk of frontier models.Representative Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, said the incident was alarming.“AI is developing extremely fast with no real regulations to keep us safe,” he said in a statement, calling for mandatory independent safety testing, mandatory disclosure of security incidents, and international cooperation “to keep people safe from absolute disaster.”The Office of the National Cyber Director, the US cyber defense agency CISA, and the US National Security Agency did not immediately return messages seeking comment.Katie Moussouris, chief executive of Luta Security, said that the incident was a harbinger of breaches to come, saying that today’s models were “like the world’s cleverest octopus escape artists, with unlimited prehensile arms and the ability to squeeze through anywhere.”She said that “labs and government evaluators need to work on the ability to contain, monitor, and disclose to affected parties when an AI pulls another Houdini, ideally before it harms a third party. None exists today.”Matt Suiche, an engineer at agentic AI cybersecurity company Tolmo, said the incident showed that the frontier models were “closing the gap with state-of-the-art attackers.” But he said that the sorts of breaches outlined in OpenAI’s blog post were possible to carry out with technology that was available well beyond the walls of frontier research labs.“This is what we’ve already seen internally, with our agents we already have results like this,” Suiche said. “We don’t even have to use the latest models.”

Yemen’s Houthis hit tankers in Red Sea as US strikes Iran for 12th consecutive night-Crew safe after Iran-backed rebels say they hit two Saudi ships that violated their blockade; Iran says it targeted US military assets in Kuwait and Jordan in response to strikes By Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 11:03 am-JUL 23,26

The Iran-backed Houthis struck two Saudi oil tankers on Thursday that they accused of violating a naval blockade imposed by the group, signaling a potential new front in the US-Iran conflict, as the US military struck Iran for the 12th successive night.The attack came after the Houthis said on Monday that they were imposing a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, a move that could significantly widen the war and strain the US military.Yemen’s Houthis said they targeted two Saudi oil tankers, identified as Encelia and Laylia, saying the vessels violated their naval blockade.The Encelia was targeted while sailing in the Red Sea, causing a fire at the front of the ship, Saudi state news agency SPA reported, citing an official source at the General Transport Authority.The source said all crew members were safe and that authorities had taken necessary measures to secure the vessel and crew and protect the marine environment.Disputes over management of the Strait of Hormuz led to the collapse of a preliminary deal reached in April between Washington and Tehran, reigniting the simmering five-month conflict. A Houthi maritime blockade may create a second chokepoint on global oil supplies alongside Iran’s near-closure of the Hormuz.Before the Red Sea flare-up, Trump threatened Wednesday to bomb one Iranian bridge or power plant in return for each attack on shipping in Hormuz, reiterating his longstanding threat to go after Iranian infrastructure. Trump said on Tuesday he would “take care of” the Houthis if they followed through on their own blockade threat against Saudi ports.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Thursday they’d stopped three oil tankers from transiting Hormuz after the Houthi attack on tankers.Two Chinese very large crude carriers carrying a combined 4 million barrels of Saudi Arabian oil were heading on Thursday toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the entry point to the Red Sea, shipping data showed.Millions of barrels per day of Saudi oil have been heading to the kingdom’s Red Sea port of Yanbu to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. If shipments cannot exit toward the Arabian Sea through the Red Sea’s southern strait, they have only the northern route through the Suez Canal, adding weeks and costs to the journey.Meanwhile, the US said it completed its latest round of strikes on Iran at the president’s direction late Wednesday night.“The mission will continue to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters,” the US Central Command said in a statement.According to a CENTCOM statement, the strikes hit Iranian “maritime capabilities, missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance sites, and air defense assets.”Earlier tonight, U.S. military released this statement: Advertisement "At 10:30 p.m. ET on July 22, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed another round of strikes against Iran for the 12th consecutive night. U.S. forces struck Iranian military targets including maritime… pic.twitter.com/riUYgFaSSW — Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 23, 2026“This month, American forces have targeted dozens of Iranian military sites on land while resuming a blockade against Iran at sea,” the statement added. “As of today, CENTCOM has redirected nine commercial vessels and disabled one to prevent ships from entering or departing Iranian ports.”Iranian state media reported that two US missiles hit Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant and a frequent target of Washington, in overnight airstrikes.It also claimed the US attacked Shalamcheh on the Islamic Republic’s border with Iraq, killing two people.In response to the attacks, Iran said it carried out drone attacks on bases in Kuwait hosting US military assets.The IRGC claimed attacks on Ali Al Salem base, Camp Udairi and a telecommunications tower, while the army said it targeted Camp Doha, Ali Al Salem base and Camp Arifjan, according to separate statements by the forces carried by state TV.The IRGC also said that it had attacked and destroyed several American military assets in Jordan, including a radar for the US THAAD missile defense system, a Patriot system, a C-RAM radar and a helicopter hangar, according to a statement aired by state TV.Kuwait’s army said it intercepted hostile drones following several days of Iranian strikes on the country.“Kuwaiti air defenses are currently responding to hostile drone threats,” the army says in an overnight message on X. “Any explosions that may be heard are the result of air defense systems intercepting hostile targets.”Jordan said it had shot down four missiles and four drones, while air alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, where an AFP correspondent in Manama heard an explosion.Despite claims from Washington that it has destroyed Iran militarily, Tehran has demonstrated it retains missile and drone capabilities.Iran pounded vital water desalination and energy plants in Kuwait this week and struck US military assets there, in Bahrain and in Jordan.Each side has also reported an escalating human toll.An Iranian health ministry official said 53 people had been killed and 592 wounded since late last month. It did not differentiate between civilians and military personnel. Since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced.The war has also led to the deaths of 18 US service members and injured more than 450 troops. Trump attended a ceremony on Wednesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for four US service members killed in Iranian attacks on military bases over the last few days — three in Jordan and one in Iraq.“For me it’s one of the hardest things to do as a president. But it has to be done,” Trump said before leaving for the ceremony.Later, at a speech in Georgia, Trump struck a different tone, saying of the war, “I call it a skirmish.”The US and Israel together launched a campaign against Iran on February 28 to degrade the regime’s military capabilities, distance threats posed by the country — including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — and “create the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the regime, the military and other Israeli leaders have said.Israel respected the US-Iran ceasefire that began April 8, and the government, while not included in the process of negotiating the US-Iran memorandum of understanding signed last month, did not object to it even though it purported to bind both the US “and its allies.”It has, so far, not joined the renewed fighting since the truce broke down.

Iranian strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role-Sources say the effectiveness and precision of attacks point to possible Moscow data sharing; analysts believe a strike in Riyadh was carried out using Russian-enhanced drones By Jonathan Landay, Gram Slattery and Timour Azhari Today, 12:12 am-JUL 23,26

Reuters — Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted US intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology, said four people familiar with US intelligence.These people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said US intelligence officials have not yet reached firm conclusions about the possible Russian involvement in the attacks on CIA facilities. But they cited the strikes’ effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia’s broader technical support for Iran, as possible evidence.Reuters and other media have reported — and US officials have acknowledged — that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran in its strikes on US targets in the Gulf region generally, but the intelligence community’s investigation of possible Russian involvement in supporting the CIA facility attacks has not been previously disclosed.At least two CIA sites were struck in March, Reuters and other outlets have reported. One of the facilities was the CIA station in Saudi Arabia, which is located in the US embassy in Riyadh, and a separate site was located in eastern Iraq. Some of the sources said additional CIA sites had been hit, but they did not disclose details.Russia helped target facilities — intelligence memo-One internal memo from a Western intelligence agency, described by an official in the region with access to the document, concluded Russia has likely played a role in targeting regional CIA facilities. The official discussed the memo on condition that its precise authorship not be disclosed.Two Western officials in the Gulf who were briefed on intelligence reports said analysts thought the attack in Saudi Arabia involved a pair of Russian-enhanced versions of Iran’s Shahed drones. One of the aircraft blew a hole through a vulnerable part of the embassy’s exterior and the second flew through the opening and detonated, they said. No deaths or injuries were reported.While Russian assistance for Iran is longstanding, given the countries’ close ties, specific targeting of sensitive CIA sites would indicate Moscow is willing to go further in disrupting US operations as Washington struggles to bring the Iran war to an end.Concerns that Russia could be providing targeting data to Iran intensified this weekend after strikes on a US air base in Jordan, where Iran struck army barracks with ballistic missiles, killing two soldiers.The White House referred a request for comment to the CIA, which declined to provide one.Iran’s mission to the UN, the Russian Defense Ministry and the Saudi government did not respond to requests for comment.Secretive sites-The two Western officials in the region said Russia has helped Iran improve its Shahed drones’ ability to reach targets and said analysts suspected that Iran used these versions in its strike in Riyadh.Russia, said a separate source, has helped Tehran improve the accuracy of its Shahed-136s by supplying a satellite navigation system — the Kometa-M— that experts say is far more accurate and harder to jam than the one produced by Iran.The Wall Street Journal first reported in March that Russia has provided the Kometa-M to Iran. The Kremlin denied the report, calling it “fake news.”CIA facilities overseas include the agency’s main offices in individual countries that traditionally are housed in embassies and are called stations. Additionally, the CIA maintains offices, safe houses, logistics hubs and sites involved in surveillance or other operations.The locations of those sites are closely guarded secrets.The sources declined to disclose the exact number or locations of CIA facilities hit by Iranian drones. One source put the number at “more than one and fewer than a dozen.” A second source said several facilities were hit.Russian targeting data-US intelligence analysts have been looking into whether Iran relied on Russian targeting data for the embassy attack, said the sources.Doubts remain, however. Some of the sources warned that Iran could have been aiming for the US embassy generally and by chance struck the CIA station.Some analysts have concluded that few nations beyond Russia would have the means to acquire and the interest in weaponizing such sensitive targeting intelligence against the US, according to the sources.Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief and undercover operations officer, said it would not be surprising for Moscow to help Tehran target CIA facilities given their close strategic partnership.“They share an interest in trying to reduce or eliminate US influence altogether in their self-designated spheres of influence,” he said.

Iran vows 'eye for eye,' warns it'll hit Gulf infrastructure-Trump escalates threats to Iran’s infrastructure, as US said readying to use heavy bombers-Israeli report says US told Jerusalem it will step up strikes in coming days, will likely hit Pickaxe nuclear site; Trump pledges to target bridge or power plant for every ship attacked in Hormuz-By Agencies, Stav Levaton,ToI Staff and Jacob Magid-22 July 2026, 11:38 pm

US President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to bomb one Iranian bridge or power plant in return for each attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, reiterating his longstanding threat to go after Iranian infrastructure as fighting has escalated in recent weeks and could reportedly further intensify in the coming days.Disputes over management of the strait led to the collapse of a preliminary deal between the United States and Iran, and both sides have exchanged daily fire across the Middle East and threatened to escalate the conflict even further.According to a Wednesday report in Hebrew media, the US informed Israel that it will soon deploy heavy bombers for strikes on Iran, presumably targeting fortified nuclear sites, in what would be a major escalation.“Any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT,” Trump wrote on social media.In response to Trump’s threat to Iran’s infrastructure, an Iranian military source cited by Tasnim news agency said Tehran would retaliate against infrastructure in the region.Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf expanded on the threats, saying no one will be able to sell oil in a region where Iran is not able to do so, and adding that if Tehran’s security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe.“The equation of this war is clear: either all or none,” Ghalibaf said in a post on X.“Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye. Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.In addition, Iran’s state broadcaster quoted the military as saying that US threats “will have no result other than the expansion of the war.”Iran on Wednesday fired missiles and drones at several Arab regional countries, including at Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba, the interceptions of which could be heard in Israel’s southern city of Eilat.Missile alerts also sounded in Kuwait and Bahrain. The Iranian military said it targeted US assets in both small Gulf countries, including air defense systems, radar installations and administrative buildings.Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia warned residents of the Gulf city of Dammam to seek shelter. Saudi authorities later said the danger had passed, without elaborating.On Wednesday afternoon, a US missile hit Larak island in the strait, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported, saying the extent of the damage was being investigated.The US military said earlier Wednesday that it had completed an 11th night of strikes on Iran, with targets including aircraft hangars and drone storage sites.Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported explosions across several provinces. Iran’s Health Ministry says US strikes over the past 11 days have killed 53 people, including six women and three children, and wounded nearly 600 people.Trump had said earlier that the next US target could be an underground complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, or Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La in Persian, a site in the Natanz area where Western intelligence agencies suspect Iran is building an undeclared nuclear enrichment facility. Reports this week have quoted Israeli sources saying Iran moved thousands of centrifuges and part of its stockpile of 60-percent enriched uranium to the Pickaxe Mountain facility after the June 2025 war.Iran threatened reprisals, with the Khatam Al-Anbiya military command saying it would “consider it as an expansion of war” if such an attack were carried out, threatening strikes on “all the interests of America, the allies and supporters,” the state broadcaster reported. However, it again denied the existence of any secret nuclear complex at the site, calling it a “fabricated pretext for aggression.”Report: US told Israel it plans to escalate with heavy bombers-Meanwhile, the Kan public broadcaster reported Wednesday that the US has informed Israel that it plans to escalate its strikes on Iran in the coming days, including the use of heavy bombers for the first time since this year’s joint US-Israeli campaign.According to the report, the bombers are expected to target Pickaxe Mountain, based on repeated threats by Trump over the past week that the area would be hit “pretty soon.”The close security coordination between Jerusalem and Washington is reportedly intended to allow Israel to prepare for the possibility that Iran could respond to the intensified US strikes by escalating its own attacks, including launching missiles at Israel.Israel is at its peak level of readiness tonight following the US update, Kan reported.Additionally, the Axios news site reported that the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency traveled to Washington two weeks ago to discuss the Iran war, in his first visit to the US capital since taking office. The report cited two unidentified sources with knowledge of the situation.Roman Gofman met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House officials, the report said.Channel 14 news — an Israeli right-wing TV station which has repeatedly been accused of violating IDF censor rules — reported that a “very important Israeli delegation” visited the US two weeks ago in an attempt to convince Trump to bomb Pickaxe Mountain.The report did not cite any specific sources.

More ships avoiding Red Sea gateway after fresh Houthi threats, data shows-Ship broker says Yemeni rebels’ announced blockade on Saudi ports ‘has begun to have an overall effect on tanker activity,’ further straining regional shipping amid Hormuz conflict-By Jonathan Saul 22 July 2026, 6:49 pm

LONDON (Reuters) — Four tankers changed course in the Red Sea on Wednesday, with two signaling the Suez Canal as their new destination after Yemen’s Houthi rebels warned ships to avoid sailing to Saudi Arabian ports, ship-tracking data showed.The Iran-aligned Houthis on Monday declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, opening a potential new front against the United States in its war with Iran and raising the threat to global energy supplies and trade beyond the Gulf.“The threat of Houthi hostile actions against Saudi Arabia … has begun to have an overall effect on tanker activity,” ship broker Clarksons said in a note.“There are reports of several tankers, having loaded in Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port in the Red Sea, that have shifted course towards the Suez Canal rather than sail south towards the Bab el-Mandeb strait, while others are holding their positions waiting for further instruction.”Ships with links to Israel, the United States or Saudi Arabia are at a higher risk of being attacked by the Houthis and are advised to avoid voyages through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden until the threat level decreases, the European Union’s Aspides naval force said on Wednesday in an advisory seen by Reuters.Any vessel that recently called at, loaded cargo or discharged cargo at Saudi ports should “reduce its electronic footprint by minimizing AIS (ship-tracking) transmissions and limiting any publicly accessible digital information that could facilitate targeting,” the advisory said.5 tankers carrying Saudi-origin crude and refined products reversed course ahead of Bab al-Mandab as Houthi blockade activity intensifies in the Red Sea. Combined cargo volume approximately 3.84 million barrels of crude, gasoil, and naphtha. Four vessels u-turned within the Red… pic.twitter.com/QkgtQ1LLFo — Windward (@WindwardAI) July 21, 2026-The four tankers all changed direction, two of which signaled their destination as open waters in the Red Sea, according to LSEG and MarineTraffic ship-tracking data and analysis from British maritime risk-management group Vanguard.A fifth ship — a vehicle carrier called Liu Jiang Kou — appeared to have turned away in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday after signaling the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah as its next destination, shipping data showed. The vessel’s manager, China’s COSCO Shipping group, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Three oil tankers loaded with Saudi crude for China and India made U-turns in the Red Sea on Tuesday, heading towards the Suez Canal rather than braving the Yemeni coast. One of these tankers included the Xin Long Yang, managed by COSCO.Critical Hormuz alternative-A closure of the Red Sea’s southern gateway would remove a critical alternative to the Strait of Hormuz for Saudi Arabia and heighten fears of shortages.“This [Houthi] embargo raises serious questions about the viability of eastbound routes from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port – the outlet for its east-west pipeline,” ship broker Braemar said in a separate note.A number of tankers were still visible close to Yanbu’s anchorage on Wednesday, ship-tracking data showed.Red Sea traffic has not fully recovered since Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the Iran-backed group said was solidarity with Palestinians amid the Israeli war with fellow Tehran proxy Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by the group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.The Houthi attacks on merchant ships only ended with the Gaza ceasefire in October.The Houthis told shipping companies not to load or discharge cargo at Saudi Arabian ports, or they may be targeted. Maritime security sources, meanwhile, said they had received recordings of separate Houthi warnings to ships in the Red Sea since Monday.“They warn all vessels intending to proceed to Saudi ports that they will be open targets,” said one shipping source who receives updates from a ship in the Red Sea.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Iranian missiles target Jordan, interception explosions boom over Eilat-Jordanians say 4 missiles, 4 drones downed; US carries out another night of Iran strikes; Rubio warns that Iran’s designs for Strait of Hormuz set ‘dangerous precedent’By Emanuel Fabian and Agencies 22 July 2026, 4:01 pm

Iran fired missiles and drones at Jordan on Wednesday, including at the Red Sea port of Aqaba, with Amman saying that they were intercepted. Explosions from some of the shoot-downs were heard in the southern Israeli city of Eilat.It came as the United States and Iran exchanged fire across the Middle East, while officials in both nations called into question diplomatic efforts to stop the war as it threatened to again spin out of control.The US launched an 11th night of airstrikes on the Islamic Republic overnight, hitting targets across the nation as air defense systems opened fire over the capital, Tehran. Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed retaliatory attacks would continue.Iran responded with missile and drone fire targeting Jordan’s port city of Aqaba, once again attacking just on the doorstep of Israel. The US has been using Israel’s main Ben-Gurion International Airport and other military bases to host its refueler aircraft and has put fighter jets at bases in the country, but Iran has been hesitant to strike for fear of bringing the Israeli military back into the conflict.Missile alert sirens sounded in Aqaba, and Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles in the Iranian attack, while two others fell in uninhabited areas. Plumes of smoke could be seen overhead in Aqaba in videos filmed by people in the nearby Israeli port city of Eilat, where explosions were heard from the intercepts. Jordan said it also intercepted four Iranian drones.There were no initial reports of injuries or damage in the attacks.Smoke plumes rising from Aqaba, Jordan, were visible from Eilat in southern Israel after ballistic missiles were launched toward the city’s airport, which hosts several U.S. military aircraft. pic.twitter.com/zJQzhSHltw — Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) July 22, 2026-Iran has targeted Jordan several times in recent days amid an escalation in the conflict with the US. On Sunday, Israel launched interceptors when fragments from Iranian missiles fired at Aqaba potentially threatened Eilat.The US military said earlier that it had completed an 11th night of strikes on Iran. The state-run IRNA news agency reported that explosions rocked Bushehr, East Azerbaijan, Hamadan, Hormozgan, Ilam, Khuzestan and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. The US said its targets included aircraft hangars and drone storage sites.A very dangerous precedent-US Central Command said it launched strikes with the aim of further degrading the Islamic Republic’s “ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”“Over the past three months, Iran has attacked more than 30 commercial vessels transiting the international waterway vital for regional and global trade,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation.”CENTCOM insisted that the Strait of Hormuz remains open to commercial shipping despite these attacks, touting the number of vessels and barrels of oil that have transited the key waterway since early May.The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passed in peacetime. Iran’s attacks on shipping in that waterway sparked the recent series of attacks, and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen are now threatening Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea as well.The US, in response to Iran’s attacks, restarted a blockade of Iranian ports, turning around vessels engaged in trading Iranian oil.Speaking at a regional summit in the Philippines, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced Iran’s actions in the strait.“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,” he said.Rubio said the United States is open-minded on the Middle East conflict and willing to engage, negotiate and settle differences with Iran, but Tehran is not serious about talks.“If they’re serious, we’re serious. If they’re not, then we will do what’s necessary to protect our interests, and also the interests of our allies,” Rubio told his Southeast Asian counterparts in Manila, who have expressed serious concern about the renewed hostilities.Meanwhile, Iran’s top joint military command said it will target the interests of the US and its allies if the US targets Iranian nuclear sites, Iran’s state media reported.The statement by Iran’s Khatem al-Anbiya Central Headquarters came after US President Donald Trump said the US will be hitting the Pickaxe Mountain area “pretty soon.”Pickaxe Mountain is an underground Iranian nuclear site that has seen activity in recent months, but has not been hit in strikes.Soldier identified-The US also named the third soldier killed in an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan last week.The soldier was identified as Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York.U.S. Central Command has identified the soldier it had previously reported as missing as Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, who is now believed to have been killed in action on July 17, 2026, during an Iranian attack at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan. Sgt.… pic.twitter.com/akpE3QlJXN — OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 22, 2026-The confirmation brought the death toll to 18 US service members killed since the war began.On Monday, the Pentagon identified Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, as the two other soldiers who were killed in Friday’s attack on a base in Jordan.The soldiers were killed by Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks in the first troop deaths from direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war. They were deployed to support a US mission against the Islamic State group, a US Central Command statement said.US President Donald Trump will attend the dignified transfer of US military personnel killed in Iranian attacks in the Middle East on Wednesday, according to his public schedule released by the White House.The ceremony will take place at Dover Air Base in Delaware at 11 a.m. local time, the White House said.The number of wounded US personnel in the Iran war has grown to well over 500 troops, a US official told the Associated Press. The total is higher than the Pentagon’s official tally on the Defense Casualty Analysis System, which currently shows 482 wounded.The US official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter with the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the system has a significant lag in reporting injuries. The official said that is a function of its design and not intentional.

PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH) (DO NOT EVER LISTEN TO ANYBODY THAT SAYS THE WORLD IS ENDING.ITS NEVER GONNA HAPPEN-4 BILLION WILL BE LEFT ON EARTH TO GO INTO JESUS" 1000 YEAR RULE)(THAT DOES NOT SOUND LIKE THE END OF THE WORLD TO ANY ONE, DOES IT-NOT ME.THE EARTH IS JUST RENOVATED.NEVER ENDED.

REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)

HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)

LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.

MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

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.(CAN YOU SAY TORNADOES,HURRICANES,VOLCANOES,EARTH QUAKES,LANDSLIDES,FLASH FLOODING,EXPLOSIONS,SNOW STORMS,THEN FINALLY NUKESAND ANY OTHER JUDGEMENTS THE EARTH CAN VOMIT THE SINNERS OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH WITH.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places,(DIFFERNT PLACES AT THE SAME TIME) and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

2 Peter 3:6-7 Amplified Bible (AMP) (HOT SUN, NUKES ETC)
6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 
7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON THE MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS-PROPHECY SIGNS) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)

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.

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.

LUKE 19:40
40 And He answered and said unto them, “I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”

Over 1,000 Jews visit Temple Mount, pray openly to mark fast day-Today, 11:12 am-JUL 23,26

Over 1,000 Jewish worshipers visited the Temple Mount this morning, according to reports, openly holding mass prayers under police protection, including on parts of the site where such activities were previously prohibited.The visits coincide with the fast of Tisha B’Av, when Jews commemorate the destruction of both holy Temples that once stood on the site, which is now home to the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, making it a major flashpoint of religious tensions.Videos show large numbers of Jewish men and women walking around the esplanade, many of them singing from Jewish liturgy, as police look on.In another video, men hold Israeli flags in front of the Dome of the Rock’s steps while singing Israel’s national anthem along with Knesset Member Amit Levy.National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has sought to expand open Jewish prayer on the sensitive site, is also among those visiting.“Look what’s happening here, Jews are praying, they feel like they are the owners. That’s never happened here,” he says.A status quo agreement governing the administration of the site for decades forbade Jewish prayer on the site in deference to Muslim sensitivities. That arrangement has been chipped away steadily in the past two years, though before today, prayer was generally limited to only certain areas of the compound, according to Haaretz.

Smotrich takes steps to make his major settlement policy shift harder to reverse-Minister strengthens powerful Settlements Administration inside Defense Ministry, claims step will entrench expansion he oversaw, though new government would still be able to overturn it By Jeremy Sharon-22 July 2026, 6:49 pmUpdated at 7:30 pm

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has taken steps to entrench the powerful Settlements Administration agency he established in 2023 within the Defense Ministry to make it more difficult for any potential new government to dismantle.According to a statement put out by Smotrich’s office, he, together with the Defense Ministry and the Civil Service Commission, has turned the Settlements Administration, which has broad powers over civilian life in the West Bank, into a formal agency of the Defense Ministry.In addition, the term of the civilian head of the Civil Administration — which also has significant control over civilian matters in the West Bank — who answers to Smotrich, was extended from four to six years.Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry, claimed that these changes will help to perpetuate his success in massively expanding the settlement enterprise over the last four years and make it more difficult for a new government to undo those gains.“The decision to anchor the Settlements Administration and the position of deputy head of the Civil Administration will de facto implement the continuation of the settlement revolution and the emphasis and priority on the civilian aspect of life in Judea and Samaria, and not just as a ‘second fiddle’ to the security component, even after the elections, when the mechanism built by Minister Smotrich over the years will continue to function even after his tenure,” his office stated, using the biblical term for the West Bank.During his tenure in office and as a result of the new powers Smotrich took control of through the Settlements Administration, 185 new illegal outposts were established in the West Bank and were not demolished, over 40,000 housing units were approved for construction in settlements, and 103 new settlements were either approved or retroactively legalized, all of which represent all-time records compared to previous governments.At the same time, demolitions of illegally constructed Palestinian homes in the West Bank by the Civil Administration have more than doubled since Smotrich asserted control over that agency, and in 2025 represented nearly 100 percent of demolition orders issued for Palestinian homes, according to the Bimkom human rights organization. Just 20% of demolition orders against illegal settler construction were carried out, by comparison. Out of more than 1,000 planning applications by Palestinians for Area C of the West Bank, zero were approved.Smotrich’s massive settlement expansion program, together with increasing Israeli civilian control over the West Bank, has led campaign groups against the settlements and some opposition parties to accuse the government of carrying out de facto annexation of the territory.Smotrich’s office said the steps to bureaucratically entrench the Settlements Administration in the Defense Ministry were being taken due to concerns that a new government would reverse his “settlement revolution,” demolish settlements and establish a Palestinian state.Despite these claims, it would still be possible for a new government or defense minister to reverse these decisions and dismantle the administration if they so wish. Such steps would, however, be more complex due to the measures taken by Smotrich to entrench the agency in the ministry and require stronger political will to carry out.In 2023, the Settlements Administration was established within the Defense Ministry in accordance with demands made by Smotrich of the coalition, and crucial powers over civilian life in the West Bank were transferred from the Civil Administration headed by an IDF officer to the new agency, which is subordinate to Smotrich.The Settlements Administration was given authority over illegal construction demolitions as well as key powers over the construction process in the West Bank.These powers gave Smotrich the ability to massively ramp up settlement construction, as he has done, and also gave him the power to stop the demolition of illegal settlement outposts, dozens of which have been established during the current government’s tenure.In addition, the position of a “civilian deputy” within the Civil Administration was created and filled by a close ally of Smotrich, Hillel Roth, giving the minister even greater authority over West Bank civilian affairs.Then in May 2024, the then-head of the IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen Yehuda Fox, signed an order allowing the head of the Civil Administration to delegate his areas of authority to the new civilian deputy.The powers delegated to Roth under Fox’s order included authority over real estate transactions, government property, land and water arrangements, forestry laws, tourism, public bathing, planning of cities, villages and construction, some land registration processes, and management and administration of regional councils.Critics have argued that these changes amounted to a de facto annexation of the West Bank by the Israeli government, since key powers previously held by military officials were transferred to civilian officials in government ministries, and constitute increasing oppression of Palestinians in the territory.“In recent years, the West Bank, under its ‘governor,’ Bezalel Smotrich, has become fertile ground for pogroms and disturbances on a criminal scale unprecedented in the past, driven and encouraged by the most extremist ministers in the government,” said Alon Cohen-Lifshitz of Bimkom.“The silencing of moderate voices within the system, together with the enlistment of professional bodies in the service of an ideological agenda, has led to an unrestrained orgy of takeover, destruction, death, looting and devastation.”Smotrich himself has boasted of having created a system of civilian rule over the settlements, replacing military governance, which he has said was a “mega-dramatic” achievement. He has openly said his moves are aimed at advancing Israeli sovereignty in the territory, which Israel has ruled militarily since seizing it during the 1967 Six Day War.

Report: Construction already underway on Ben Gvir’s prison crocodile moat-Far-right minister’s office confirms to Ynet that digging has begun at Ketziot Prison, despite objections from nature authority and environment ministry’s legal council By Charlie Summers and ToI Staff Today, 11:03 am-JUL 23,26

A moat meant to hold crocodiles is already being dug at Ketziot Prison as part of a campaign spearheaded by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to introduce the deadly reptile into holding facilities for Palestinian prisoners, according to a Wednesday report.The Ynet news site, citing Ben Gvir’s ministry and local officials, said the physical preparations began Wednesday inside the southern facility, which holds detained Hamas terrorists and other Palestinian security prisoners.“Digging [for] the crocodile moat is underway inside the prison, around one of their special wings,” a source in the Ramat Hanegev Regional Council, which has jurisdiction over the prison, told the outlet.“It’s a moat about 170 meters [560 feet] long, and you can’t see it from outside the prison. No one knows if there will indeed be crocodiles there, but preparations are being made,” the source continued.Ben Gvir’s office confirmed to the outlet that digging for the moat had started within the jail.“Whoever thought this was a gimmick was mistaken,” it said.“The Prison Service is all set. The plan exists in the finest detail, from the maintenance and care of the crocodiles to the crocodiles’ resting cells,” the far-right minister’s office added.According to the statement, the National Security Ministry has budgeted NIS 21 million ($7 million) for the construction of the trenches.The digging began after Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman issued a ministerial decision last week to reclassify the Nile crocodile as a “tended wild animal,” allowing its presence in security facilities, despite opposition from her own ministry’s legal counsel.Silman’s move also encountered stringent opposition from career environmental officials in the Nature and Parks Authority, who stressed that the move has “no professional or scientific basis” and poses a physical danger to guards and prisoners alike.“The Nature and Parks Authority found no professional or scientific basis anywhere in the world for bringing crocodiles into a detention facility for use as a security measure,” the agency said in a statement to The Times of Israel.Introducing “a large, longevous, non-native predator into the ecosystem could create numerous and varied risks to both Israel’s natural environment and the public,” it continued.Silman defended her decision Wednesday in an interview with the 103FM radio station, saying: “We are speaking a language our enemies know.”She claimed the penitentiary system’s acute overcrowding crisis — which worsened considerably after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion — necessitates crocodiles as a deterrent for security inmates.“At the end of the day, we must remember that as a result of October 7, the number of security prisoners increased considerably, and there is a real need to reckon with means of deterrence,” the minister told the station.Ben Gvir and prison officials “told me that there is major deterrence in the fact that crocodiles will surround the prisons,” she added.Ben Gvir, who has authority over the Israel Prison Service and its policies, has repeatedly boasted of the harsh conditions he has imposed on Palestinian detainees and prisoners.

US House passes defense bill including $750 million for security ties with Israel-Progressive Democrats fail to block budget framework, which now goes to Senate for approval; bill includes funding for operations in Iran-By Agencies and Jacob Magid-Today, 12:31 pm-JUL 23,26

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday narrowly passed its version of a massive defense policy bill, despite Democrats’ concerns about its huge price tag, the Iran war, and a provision that would boost Pentagon ties to Israel.The fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which authorizes an unprecedented $1.15 trillion in spending for the military, passed the House 216 to 212.The vote was largely along party lines, with all but seven Republicans voting in favor of the measure and all but six Democrats voting against.The NDAA includes several provisions that allocate $750 million to US-Israel joint military projects.The funds include “$500 million for missile defense, $100 million for counter‑ unmanned systems, $100 million for subterranean operations, and $50 million for emerging technologies. The bill also extends the War Reserves Stockpile Authority–Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement.“We applaud the inclusion of a new provision that will help keep America safe and bolster our strategic capabilities — the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. This authorizes the Pentagon to work even closer together with Israel in the strategic arenas that will define 21st‑century warfare, ensuring American troops have a greater edge over our adversaries,” it added.Progressive Democrats sought to rally against the provision that boosted Israeli-US security cooperation, falsely claiming that it would integrate the countries’ intelligence services. However, the effort ultimately failed.Last week, nearly half of House Democrats voted for a measure to cut off all military aid to Israel, reflecting the growing rupture between the party and Israel. Democrats on the party’s left flank have been strongly pushing to end US military aid to Israel entirely amid the midterm election primary campaigns, while its establishment wing wants to limit the assistance to solely defensive weaponry.The plan passed on Wednesday also provides $73 billion for the armed forces and intelligence agencies, notably to fund operations linked to the war against Iran, as well as $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by US President Donald Trump’s trade war.An additional $10 billion would go toward election-related programs as part of Trump’s push to enact new nationwide voting restrictions while his broader “SAVE America Act” lacks enough support to proceed.Democrats also objected to the large amount of money being authorized for the Pentagon, at a time when US President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are slashing spending on social programs.They also object to the ongoing and deeply unpopular war with Iran, which the Pentagon said has cost the US $37.5 billion so far.The budget package represents the GOP’s last major legislative push before November’s midterm elections, the outcome of which will determine whether the party retains its majority in Congress and thus continues to shape the remainder of Trump’s second term.If approved by the Senate, the resolution, which for now is only a budget framework, would allow House Republicans to draft detailed legislation later in the summer.The aim would then be to try to pass it in the Senate by a simple majority using an expedited budget procedure, thereby bypassing the usual 60-vote threshold and Democratic opposition.House Speaker Mike Johnson said the measure approved Wednesday “puts Congressional Republicans on a path to enacting two fundamentally simple and crucial goals: securing American elections and strengthening our homeland.”House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican, said during the House debate that the money would be used for “supporting our troops in their time of need: Just baseline battlefield readiness, bullets and bombs to finish the job and to come home safely and victoriously.”Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro, meanwhile, denounced a measure that would allow Trump to finance the continuation of his war against Iran.“The American people do not want more open-ended, aimless, expensive, and deadly wars in the Middle East. They want the price of basic necessities like food, housing, healthcare, childcare, and gasoline to go down,” she said.Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, senior Democrat on the budget panel, urged defeat of the bill, saying it would add nearly $100 billion in new government deficits at a time when the national debt is racing toward $40 trillion.“Nothing to lower gas prices. Nothing to lower food prices… just more spending on the most unpopular war in American history,” Boyle said.The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Budget cautioned that the $95 billion price tag outlined in the Republican budget plan would actually swell to $130 billion when interest payments on the borrowed money are included.It also noted that with this third special funding bill, using a procedure called reconciliation, lawmakers have been asked to “tolerate shortcomings” with promises that future legislation will reduce the deficit. So far, that has not materialized.

UNESCO adds war-hit Lebanese city of Tyre to list of world heritage sites in danger-The ancient coastal city has been caught up in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and one of two protected sites suffered a direct hit from an Israeli strike in June-By AFP and Lazar Berman-22 July 2026, 10:34 pm

PARIS, France — Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in southern Lebanon hit by Israeli strikes in recent months, was added on Wednesday to the UNESCO list of world heritage sites in danger.“The site has been directly hit and has sustained damage. Furthermore, its state of conservation is a cause for growing concern, particularly given the possibility of further impacts,” the organization said.“Optimal conditions are no longer in place to ensure the conservation and protection of the property’s outstanding universal value,” said the UN body, adding that it was the Lebanese government that requested its inclusion on the list.Tyre, 83 kilometers (50 miles) south of Beirut but barely 20 kilometers from the Israeli border, was placed on the UNESCO heritage list in 1984 and contains mainly Roman-era archaeological remains.The coastal city was caught up in recent months in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, and most of its inhabitants fled after the IDF issued evacuation orders covering districts, including some archaeological areas.Hezbollah drew Lebanon into a fresh conflict with Israel in early March when it fired rockets across the border to avenge the US-Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.Israel responded with heavy strikes and a ground invasion, killing more than 4,300 people, according to Lebanon’s health authorities, which do not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The IDF has said that it has killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, since early March.The ancient city, founded some 4,700 years ago, is home to two protected sites listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites — a Roman triumphal arch and a hippodrome dating from the second century.One of the sites suffered a direct hit from an Israeli strike in June.The city, one of the oldest in the Mediterranean, was variously Phoenician, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman.Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salame earlier this year accused Israel of failing to comply with the Hague Convention, which since 1954 has required warring parties to protect cultural sites during armed conflict.Salame also accused Israel of disregarding “blue shields,” an internationally recognized symbolic emblem which a UNESCO-linked committee established to protect cultural sites during armed conflict.UNESCO’s decision to inscribe Tyre on its danger list comes as the organization holds the 48th session of its World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea.As the committee convened on Tuesday, Israel called on it to “reject the cynical weaponization of cultural heritage,” citing Hezbollah’s use of the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as a military base.“For years, Hezbollah has systematically weaponized and desecrated this historic Crusader fortress, converting it into a military stronghold,” Israel said of the castle, which is currently held by IDF forces.Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets from the Beaufort Ridge toward northern Israel during the current round of fighting, mainly at the border community of Metula, the military said.“UNESCO’s silence on Hezbollah’s systematic desecration of Beaufort, while targeting Israel’s defensive operations, is a moral abdication,” Israel added.Israel has accused the organization of being biased against the Jewish state and of diminishing its connection to the Holy Land. Israel also objected to UNESCO’s acceptance of Palestine as a member state. In 2019, during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Israel and the US both quit UNESCO. The US, which subsequently rejoined the agency under former president Joe Biden, is slated to again withdraw at the end of the year.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Netanyahu promises to unite country in campaign video ahead of Tisha B’Av fast-After attacking rival Eisenkot with AI-generated content, PM urges the public to see beyond political disagreements; Religious Zionism, Yashar, Noam reveal new candidates-By Lazar Berman and Ariela Karmel-Today, 1:02 am-JUL 23,26

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Wednesday to deepen national unity in Israel, in a pre-recorded statement published shortly before the start of the Tisha B’av fast — the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the Jerusalem temples and other calamities.“On the eve of Tisha B’Av, we remember the destruction of the Temple,” he said in a video statement. “We remember the terrible price of hatred and division among ourselves.”“Over the past three years, through our combined efforts, we prevented the destruction of the Third Temple,” he said, referring to the Jewish state.“Instead of a civil war, we became brothers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder to repel those who seek our destruction,” the prime minister continued. “We joined forces, fought like lions, and together saved Israel.”Netanyahu, whose government has spent the last four years passing numerous pieces of deeply divisive legislation, has made several appeals to public unity as his reelection campaign has ramped up in recent weeks, and promised last month to build a “broad national government” after the election in October.In the same breath, however, he acknowledged that any such coalition would exclude Arab and Arab-majority parties, and disparaged any government that considers including them as “left-wing.”The premier’s remarks about “brothers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder” also failed to reflect the current reality in Israel in which ultra-Orthodox men, by and large, do not serve in the military despite dire manpower shortages. Netanyahu’s government last week passed two contentious laws designed to maintain that broad exclusion, one of which — banning the arrests and prosecution of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers — was frozen by the High Court of Justice.He repeated his recent promises in Wednesday’s video, saying that he would “work to establish a broad national government.”“As prime minister of Israel, I intend to deepen the unity among us,” he said.“I know that during an election campaign there will be disagreements that make it difficult for us to see this, but I also know that we are far more united than it may seem,” added Netanyahu.The statement came in the wake of a video published by President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday, in which the president warned of “violence rearing its head” and pleaded with Israelis not to “cross red lines” during the election campaign season.Herzog issued the plea hours after Netanyahu shared an AI-generated campaign ad that depicted rival Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot rejecting an embrace from a young man with a T-shirt proclaiming “Israeli unity,” in favor of Mansour Abbas of the Arab party Ra’am.Critics have said the young man was heavily implied to be a stand-in for Eisenkot’s son, Gal, who was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023.Parties move to fill out electoral slates-With election season in full swing, Netanyahu was not the only party leader in campaign mode on Wednesday.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party announced the candidates who will compete for a spot on the party’s Knesset slate, pitting veteran lawmakers against a handful of new faces.Voting in the primary is limited to those in the party’s central committee rather than being open to its full member rolls, and will not include a race for party leader, allowing Smotrich to remain in the post unchallenged.The finance minister also controls the placement of two hand-picked candidates for the party’s top 10 spots.Incumbent candidates include Settlements Minister Orit Strock and MKs Michal Woldiger, Ohad Tal, Simcha Rothman and Zvi Sukkot.Also seeking slots are Omer Rahamim, who heads the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing West Bank settlements; Rosh Haayin Deputy Mayor Eitan Tam; Petah Tikva Deputy Mayor Tzvika Weizengrad; Rabbi Shmuel Sasson; and Natan Zaubman, who heads a program for the absorption of French immigrants.Smotrich is expected to use one of his reserved slots for Tzvika Mor, the father of former hostage Eitan Mor, who joined the party in May.After his son was kidnapped, Mor co-founded the Tikva Forum, a small group of hostages’ families who, unlike members of the larger Hostages and Missing Families Forum, consistently opposed partial hostage release agreements with Hamas that involved the release of Palestinian security prisoners and temporary ceasefires in Gaza.Two of the party’s incumbent lawmakers, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer and MK Moshe Solomon, announced last week that they would not seek reelection over the faction’s decision to support the series of laws enshrining exemptions to mandatory military service for Haredi yeshiva students.Smotrich previously removed Solomon from all Knesset committees for breaking coalition discipline and voting against a quasi-constitutional government bill equating Torah study with military service.Polls have consistently projected the party to win just four or five seats, or fail to cross the threshold altogether, unless it mounts a joint campaign with fellow far-right party Otzma Yehudit, which it did in the 2022 election.The 2022 election slate also included the far-right anti-LGBTQ and misogynistic Noam party.Otzma Yehudit chair Itamar Ben Gvir ruled out a joint run with Smotrich last month, saying their two parties must appeal to two different demographics to ensure the formation of a right-wing government.Avi Maoz, the sole MK Noam party lawmaker, announced on Wednesday that bereaved father Eliyahu Libman would be joining his party’s slate ahead of the election.Libman, the former head of the religious West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and ex-civilian security chief for Hebron’s Jewish community, lost his son, Elyakim Libman, 23, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists while working as a security guard at the Supernova music festival during the October 7, 2023, attack.Libman co-founded the Tikva Forum along with Mor.“All the people of Israel saw and were inspired by the strength of spirit of Eliyahu Libman and his family,” Maoz wrote on X to announce his candidacy.“Beyond being a man of action, over the past two years he has also emerged as a leader with remarkable spirit, and I congratulate him on joining as a pioneer in Noam’s new team,” he added.Maoz is an outspoken homophobe who has made misogynistic statements about women’s role in society. He has promised to cancel the Jerusalem Pride Parade and shut down the IDF unit in charge of promoting equal opportunities for women in the military, suggesting its existence was antithetical to the country’s “Jewish identity.” He has also denigrated non-Orthodox streams of Judaism.Across the aisle, Eisenkot’s Yashar announced on Wednesday that former  COGAT chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Kamil Abu Rukun is joining its slate.A resident of the Druze town of Isfiya, Abu Rukun served for four decades in senior security roles, including as head of COGAT — Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians — from 2018 until his retirement in 2021.In a statement, Eisenkot — a former IDF chief of staff — who has known Abu Rukun for more than 30 years, called him “an experienced security professional with an iron moral backbone” who was “an asset in every security role he held.”“The Israeli covenant — Zionist and rooted in service — requires action,” Eisenkot said, adding that Israel’s 150,000 Druze citizens and others who serve the state “deserve broad recognition and meaningful rewards for their contribution.”Abu Rukun said he was joining Yashar because of his confidence in Eisenkot’s ability “to restore solidarity and unity to the State of Israel.”“I am committed to working alongside Gadi to address the challenges the Druze community has faced for decades, offer hope and secure a better future for the younger generation while strengthening the historic alliance between the Druze community and the State of Israel,” he said.Eisenkot has pledged to place a Druze candidate in a realistic spot on the party’s slate, though it remained unclear where Abu Rukun will be ranked.There are currently three Druze members of the Knesset: Likud’s Afif Abed, Yisrael Beytenu’s Hamad Amar, and Akram Hasson of Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope faction, which merged into Likud last year.Abu Rukun joins a slate that includes former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen, former Finance Ministry budget chief Shaul Meridor, former communications minister Matan Kahana, and former Mossad and Shin Bet official Dvora Sharfian Bachar.

Portland’s Reed College agrees to sweeping reforms as part of antisemitism settlement-School to include language in its discrimination policy that bars the targeting of Jews ‘on the basis of their Zionist identity,’ will have outside party monitor its adherence to civil rights law By Andrew Lapin Today, 6:52 am-JUL 23,26

JTA — Reed College has agreed to a host of far-reaching institutional changes, including asserting that targeting Jewish Zionists will be considered discriminatory, in order to settle multiple US federal antisemitism investigations, parties to the complaint announced Wednesday.The settlement was announced by the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which jointly filed the complaint, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination at any institution receiving federal funds. It comes as campuses across the country, facing threats of losing federal funding under the Trump administration, have demonstrated willingness to negotiate new antisemitism protections.As part of the agreement, the private Portland, Oregon, liberal arts school says it will insert language into its discrimination policy asserting that “for many Jewish people, Zionism is integral to their religious, ancestral and/or ethnic Jewish identity,” and that “targeting Jews on the basis of their Zionist identity” will be considered discriminatory.The school will also contract a third-party consultant to monitor and report on its effectiveness in adhering to antisemitism protections, role that is unusual in similar Title VI agreements. The agreement says Reed will “consider” the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s working definition of antisemitism, which includes some criticisms of Israel, and implement antisemitism training for faculty and staff.“We take concerns about antisemitism, and all forms of unlawful discrimination, seriously, and we will continue to support the well-being, safety, and success of every member of our community,” a Reed College spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement acknowledging the agreement. Reed declined to comment further.ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and Brandeis Center officials praised the agreement in a release as a potential model for other colleges.“We believe it should serve as a model for other schools,” Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Brandeis Center, told JTA about the agreement. The required language in Reed’s discrimination guidelines, she said, is “very clear about what constitutes anti-Zionist conduct in violation of civil rights and in violation of the policy.”“This outcome demonstrates how the Title VI process can work to effectively protect Jewish students,” Greenblatt said in his own statement.Around 100 students at Reed College are Jewish, or about 7% of the total student body, according to estimates from Hillel International. A request for comment to the director of PDX Hillel, which serves Jewish students at Reed and others in the region, was not immediately returned.The resolution stems from two anonymous Title VI antisemitism complaints from Jewish former Reed students, both filed in 2024 under the Biden administration. One of those cases related to a student whose dorm-room mezuzah was vandalized, and who herself was later pelted with rocks, during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in spring 2024. The student later left the school out of concern for her safety.Both of the described acts would have already been considered violations of school policy for reasons unrelated to the student’s Jewish or Zionist identity. Brandeis’s Katz-Prober argued both should have also been considered in the context of her targeting by anti-Zionist activists.“It might be difficult for someone to, at first glance, understand whether it was simply an assault or an assault motivated by bias,” she said. The case, she said, demonstrated how in some cases, “‘Zionist’ is merely a codeword for Jew.”Katz-Prober also touted the agreement’s mandate that the school bring on a third-party compliance consultant, separate from its Title VI coordinator. While she insisted that such a role would be “independent” and free of bias, she noted that both the ADL and the Brandeis Center would have a role in their selection.“Both sides get a say,” she said.

Deal apparently not conditioned on Saudi-Israel normalization-US confirms signing a nuclear cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia, to Israel’s alarm-Trump administration releases few details about agreement, which paves way for construction of uranium enrichment facility that could eventually be converted to develop nuclear bombs-By Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 5:20 am-JUL 23,26

The United States and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday forged a new agreement that could potentially provide the kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear program.US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Minister of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman formally signed the nuclear cooperation agreement, known as a “123 agreement,” alongside what the Trump administration described as a “bilateral safeguards agreement.”The US administration released scant details of the deal, but the framework paves the way for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia after a joint US-Saudi study, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.“These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening US-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Wright said in a statement. “Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world’s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.”Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to head off emerging criticism of the decision under questioning by reporters about the risk that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium could lead to new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition in a volatile region.“The US is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation,” said Rubio, who was traveling in the Philippines on Wednesday.The agreement does not include the International Atomic Energy Agency ‘s Additional Protocol, which would allow for more monitoring, inspections and verification, according to a second person familiar with the decision.The deal is expected to last 30 years and involve US firms in developing the program. The Energy Department in a statement said it will be submitted for review to Congress. US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have voiced deep concern over such a project due to fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons, though it doesn’t appear likely the Republican-controlled legislature will block its implementation.The oil-rich kingdom’s Energy Ministry said the agreement bolsters “efforts to diversify energy sources, advance cutting-edge technologies, and expand opportunities for cooperation and investment in ways that serve the mutual interests of the two friendly countries.”The announcement comes during the war against Iran launched by the US and Israel, in part, to wipe out Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted its nuclear enrichment program is peaceful.Ahead of the announcement, Alexander Bollfrass, a nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, called the deal “a revolutionary new approach” to nuclear nonproliferation policy.“The revolutionary aspect of this agreement is that the United States is not asking Saudi Arabia to abide by the highest possible safeguards, internationally monitored safeguards that are standard and are available today, but instead is willing to at least theoretically transfer highly sensitive technology without the same level of oversight that one would expect,” Bollfrass said.‘Abandoned a very important point of leverage’President Donald Trump, during his first term, and former president Joe Biden tried to reach a nuclear deal with the kingdom to share American technology, with the latter’s administration condition such a move on normalization with Israel. Trump’s administration however apparently made no such demand.At the White House on Tuesday, Trump spoke broadly about other countries joining the Abraham Accords, the regional normalization agreements he brokered at the end of his first term in 2020, but did not mention Saudi Arabia.The accords created a regional rubric under which Israel normalized ties with some Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. Both Trump and Biden had sought to bring Saudi Arabia into the pact.Tensions throughout the region following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and subsequent Gaza war, however, pushed Saudi-Israel normalization further out of reach. The Saudi demands for normalization sharpened in the subsequent years and include Palestinian statehood or, at the very least, progress toward that goal. The Netanyahu government has adamantly rejected such a condition in the wake of the attack, and the Israeli public has increasingly opposed the concept as well.Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who died last week, was an ardent advocate for an Israeli-Saudi deal. He had pushed Trump not to make nuclear concessions to Saudi Arabia without the kingdom moving closer to Israel.Graham had continued to work on normalization in the months leading up to his death. He told CBS News in June, “We’re going to try to get Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords to end the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2026.”Dan Shapiro, who worked during the Biden administration as a senior adviser on Middle East regional integration for the State Department, said Wednesday that a US-Saudi nuclear deal would make such normalization more difficult.The plan originally was for a civil nuclear energy agreement with sufficient safeguards against proliferation to be part of a package that would include normalization with Israel, he said.“It appears that the Trump administration has given it away without normalization,” Shapiro told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Trump’s deal “seems to have abandoned a very important point of leverage to advance another important regional goal of the United States,” he said.“This was supposed to be a major carrot for Saudi Arabia if they were to normalize with Israel, and now that carrot has been provided without it.”As a result, he said, “the whole incentive structure would have to be redone.”Enrichment could open the door to weaponization-Nonproliferation experts warn any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia could open the door to a possible weapons program for the kingdom, something its assertive de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested he could pursue if Tehran obtains an atomic bomb.Wright traveled to Saudi Arabia last year shortly before Trump visited and discussed building out the kingdom’s commercial nuclear power industry with his Saudi counterpart. The US Department of Energy has not responded to multiple requests for comment.Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan’s defense minister then said his nation’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, which according to foreign reports maintains its own nuclear arsenal.Some lawmakers are hesitant about giving Saudis enrichment capability-Enrichment isn’t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon — a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the West’s concerns over Iran’s program.The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed a 123 agreement with the US to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power.Rubio, as a Republican senator representing Florida, backed a bipartisan 2018 proposal that called for requiring Congress to approve any 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia. The bill was reintroduced by a group of Democratic lawmakers in March but has not passed into law.Typically, 123 agreements — which authorize US companies to sell nuclear technology abroad — go into effect unless veto-proof majorities of Congress pass joint resolutions of disapproval.Rosemary Kelanic, the Middle East director at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank, said that uranium enrichment capability could give Saudi Arabia “a potent source of leverage to extract future concessions from Washington, including new security guarantees, by threatening to weaponize its program unless the United States promises enhanced military protection.”US firms could be winners in expected deal-Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, predicted the deal would benefit US nuclear giant Westinghouse, which builds the large light-water reactors Saudi Arabia is seeking.The Trump administration said last month it is providing $17.5 billion in loans to speed development of 10 new large nuclear reactors designed by Westinghouse to meet skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. The new reactors could use the same design, Westinghouse’s AP1000, in the planned Saudi deal.Sherman said the US military is “bombing Iran because they insist upon enriching and reprocessing” nuclear material.Now it appears that US officials “are entering into an agreement with Saudi Arabia, giving them the green light to reprocess and to enrich, and the only difference I see here is that Westinghouse stands to make an awful lot of money on this deal, whereas the Iranians were not enriching American companies,” Sherman said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas still holds two million hostages-The head of Realign for Palestine speaks about the newly anointed head of Hamas, Khalil al-Hayya, and its restrengthened ties with Iran and Hezbollah-Amanda Borschel-Dan-Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib-Today, 4:09 am-JUL 23,26

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.Alkhatib gives us an overview of the conditions on the ground right now in the Gaza Strip. We learn about an uptick in diseases such as chickenpox due to extreme unsanitary conditions and a lack of vaccinations. There are new efforts to allow residents to open bank accounts — but where is the money to be found when paper bills are so worn they are disintegrating? Khalil al-Hayya has been elected the new leader of Hamas, the terror group announced Monday after months of speculation following a vote in the General Shura Council. We learn how, following the subjugation of protests in the Gaza Strip in late June, al-Hayya’s anointing is another signal that the terror group is entrenching its ties with Iran and continuing consultations with Hezbollah.In the second half of the program, we discuss the intensity of support for Hamas in three population centers: the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan. Alkhatib’s comment on the Palestinians living in the Hashemite Kingdom may surprise.Finally, Alkhatib describes his new short book, “Hamas and its Two Million Hostages.” Part memoir, part explainer, the work is an attempt to offer an approachable take on the past almost three years of war and how Hamas’s stranglehold on the people in the Gaza Strip is only tightening.

Inside story-Israel acts to ease Palestinian banking crisis it helped create, but is it moving too late? Smotrich signs waiver allowing transactions with Palestinian banks until end of 2026, though Israeli financial institutions are wary about continuing to provide services crucial to keeping West Bank economy afloat-By Jacob Magid-Today, 3:25 am-JUL 23,26

The Palestine Monetary Authority will be holding a press conference in Ramallah on Thursday titled, “The breaking point: sounding the alarm before collapse.”Joined by senior officials from the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the PMA leadership will warn about a recent decision by two top Israeli financial institutions to cease correspondence with Palestinian banks later this year, in a move that could end the continued import and export of goods to and from the West Bank, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel.The decisions by Israeli banks Discount and Hapoalim could collapse the Palestinian economy, though they are motivated by frustration with the Israeli government for putting the financial institutions in this position to begin with.Discount and Hapoalim have been caught in the middle of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s efforts to push the Palestinian Authority toward the brink, as he seeks to expand Israel’s control over the West Bank and “encourage the emigration” of the territory’s Palestinians.One of the many steps Smotrich has taken to weaken the PA has been  to hold off on signing indemnity waivers allowing Israeli banks to handle transactions from Palestinian banks, which are used to tether the West Bank to the global economy.Since the Oslo Accord peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, the Israeli government has tasked Discount and Hapoalim with providing correspondent banking services to Palestinian banks, which do not have access to the Israeli payment system and accordingly cannot clear transactions in shekels — the dominant currency in the West Bank.The correspondent banking services provided by Discount and Hapoalim have allowed Palestinian banks to process cross-border payments for commercial activity.But the two Israeli banks have long expressed concern that providing such services could expose them to lawsuits over alleged Palestinian money laundering and terror finance.To mitigate the risk, the Israeli government for years has been signing indemnity waivers, while also assuring the banks that a new entity would be set up to take over for them in providing correspondent banking services.That body — the Company for Correspondence Services — was established in 2019 by a previous government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, Knesset legislation is needed for it to start operating. While a bill has been crafted, successive governments have dragged their feet in advancing it due to the perception that it would benefit the Palestinians and it became an afterthought amid other domestic debates and regional tensions.‘Increasing risks’Since Smotrich’s appointment as finance minister at the end of 2022, the frustration at Discount and Hapoalim has reached new levels, as he gradually shrunk the timeline for each waiver from one-year to just two-week increments, injecting major levels of uncertainty that banks are averse to dealing with.While US president Joe Biden’s administration engaged more aggressively on the issue, the Trump administration has been slower to criticize Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.However, a reformed Palestinian Authority is still a key element of US President Donald Trump’s plan for stabilizing Gaza, and the US has accordingly been quietly warning Israel against the PA’s collapse, an official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, adding that the US has recently raised the correspondent banking issue in particular with Jerusalem.Against that backdrop, an Israeli official confirmed that Smotrich agreed earlier this month to sign a waiver granting indemnity to Israeli banks all the way until the end of 2026 — past the October 27 elections, after which a government slightly more sympathetic to the Palestinians could take charge.Smotrich has leveraged each waiver to secure major government backing for settlement expansion in the West Bank. The Israeli official tied the latest indemnity waiver to last week’s announcement by Smotrich that the government will allocate NIS 1.3 billion ($431 million) to fund the establishment of 34 new West Bank settlements.Due to Smotrich’s refusal to sign the waiver extension until this week, Discount and Hapoalim lost their patience and notified their Palestinian counterparts that they would stop providing correspondent banking services on September 1 and October 1, respectively.Explaining the decision in a statement to The Times of Israel, Discount Bank said it has “complied for years with the requests of the Israeli authorities to continue providing these services on a temporary basis, pending the implementation of a permanent solution by the state, which has not been provided to date.”“We recognize the importance of economic stability and believe it is essential to put in place a stable and permanent solution. At the same time, in light of the increasing risks associated with providing these services, and given our responsibility to our depositors and shareholders, we brought our concerns to the attention of the relevant authorities. We remain willing to assist with the operational solution, provided that the relevant responsibility and risk are assumed by the State,” Discount Bank added.Bank Hapoalim declined to comment on the record beyond saying that “the matter is currently under review.”For its part, the Finance Ministry insisted it wants to maintain ties between Israeli and PA-linked banks, in a statement that appeared uncharacteristically conciliatory.“The Finance Ministry attaches great importance to the continued existence of correspondent banking relationships between the Israeli banking system and the banks in the Palestinian Authority. The discontinuation of these services could have negative implications for economic stability in the region and could also lead to increased risks of money laundering and terrorist financing due to a shift to unregulated, cash-based alternative financial channels,” the statement said, while recognizing the liability concerns of Discount and Hapoalim.Indicating that the Israeli banks’ decisions to cease offering correspondent banking services could still be reversed, the Finance Ministry said it is “engaged in direct and intensive discussions with the management of both institutions.“The purpose of these discussions is to examine additional relevant governmental and regulatory measures that would enable the continuation of correspondent banking activities in a safe and responsible manner, while safeguarding the security and economic interests of the State of Israel,” the Finance Ministry added.A source familiar with the matter said the Israeli banks were asking for assurances from the government that it will pass legislation allowing the Company for Correspondence Services to begin operating. But given that the Knesset has dissolved ahead of the October elections, it appears unlikely that such a law could be passed in the coming months.The Finance Ministry statement appeared to be crafted by bureaucrats, even if Smotrich may have needed to approve it.One of his political aides issued a separate statement with a more accusatory tone toward the PA, alleging it was engaged in money laundering and terror financing.“The demand that Israel mitigate this risk instead of demanding that the Palestinian Authority cease engaging in terrorism and meet accepted international standards reflects the hypocrisy and racism of low expectations,” the Smotrich aide argued.The PA has, however, taken steps to address those concerns, and they were hailed by the Biden administration in 2024.Moreover, the PA’s ability to carry out far-reaching reforms is significantly hampered if it doesn’t have the funds to do so.For over a year, Smotrich has been withholding the transfer of over $5 billion in clearance revenues, which make up the bulk of the PA’s budget.Smotrich has taken other steps to severely hobble the Palestinian banking sector, which, as a result, has been unable to make use of billions of additional shekels that are languishing in vaults in the West Bank.Israel’s revocation of work permits for over 100,000 Palestinians due to security concerns after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught has led unemployment to skyrocket to 35% in the West Bank.A Palestinian official acknowledged the PA has long warned about potential collapse, while insisting that the combination of punitive measures taken by Israel has created “unprecedented levels of desperation.”The official said that the PA is trying to move around money and request emergency assistance from the international community to make it through Israel’s October elections.“But if there isn’t a new government, I don’t know how we will be able to make it,” the Palestinian official lamented.

IDF specifies terror affiliations of 12 Gazan soccer players killed in Israeli strikes-Military criticizes ‘false campaign’ that portrayed Israel as deliberately targeting soccer players, despite many of them having ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic JihadBy Emanuel Fabian-22 July 2026, 10:27 pm

The Israeli military provided details Wednesday on 12 soccer players killed in the Gaza Strip during the war between Israel and Hamas who it said have been identified as terror operatives, slamming their international portrayal as innocent athletes.“Following an intelligence investigation, it is now possible to reveal the terrorists’ organizational affiliation and their roles, despite the fact that in many cases they were presented to the world solely as soccer players, without any mention of their affiliation with terror organizations,” the military said.Some of the information was based on open sources, but all of those listed were identified by the IDF as members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.They were named by the military as:Mohammed Barakat-Barakat, nicknamed “the Legend of Khan Younis” for his soccer prowess, was a terrorist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the IDF said.Barakat played on the Palestinian national team and was the captain of Shabab Khanyounis. His death attracted considerable media attention, and a community soccer tournament was held in London in his memory.Mahmoud Kamal Mohammed Ali Al-Rifi-Al-Rifi was the captain of the Al-Jalaa soccer club in Gaza and a company commander in Hamas’s aerial array.Mohammed Mansour-Mansour played for a soccer club in Nuseirat and coached the club’s youth division. He was a deputy commander in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion, who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Abu al-Atta-Al-Atta was a soccer player and a platoon commander in Islamic Jihad. Atta, who played for Al-Ahli Gaza, was recently identified by the terror group as the deputy commander of the Gaza City Brigade’s rocket unit.Abdullah Riyad Abdullah Khattab-Khattab was a player for Gaza’s al-Ribat soccer team and Ittihad Shabab Deir al-Balah, and a member of Islamic Jihad’s anti-tank missile array.Mohammed Sami Mohammed Khattab-Khattab, a FIFA international referee, was a member of Islamic Jihad in central Gaza. The IDF said Khattab refereed matches in the West Asian Championships and other international games.Ali Mahmoud Ahmed al-Kurd-Al-Kurd was a soccer player and coach for two teams in Rafah, as well as a platoon commander in Islamic Jihad in the Strip’s southernmost city.Mohammed Imad Atta Hassoun-Hassoun was the captain of the Al-Shabab al-Zawaida soccer team and a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.Tarek Ziad Hussein al-Hour-Al-Hour was a midfield soccer player who played for several teams in the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF, and was a member of Hamas’s military wing.Mohammed Ziad Hussein al-Hour-Al-Hour was a beach soccer player and platoon commander in Hamas’s military wing in Nuseirat. The IDF said al-Hour competed on the Palestinian national team in the 2013 West Asian Beach Soccer Championship.Mahmoud Osama al-Jazzar-Al-Jazzar was a goalkeeper for two soccer teams in Rafah, and an Islamic Jihad operative.Mohammed Nidal Mohammed al-Hawajri-The IDF said al-Hawajri was a soccer player but did not say what teams he played for, and was a commander in Hamas’s military wing in Nuseirat.Meet some of Hamas & Islamic Jihad’s “soccer players”: pic.twitter.com/nRdvM08AvG — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 22, 2026-Israel has been widely condemned on the international stage for the killing of soccer players and other athletes throughout the two-year war in Gaza, sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel.The military said there has been a “false campaign portraying the IDF as deliberately targeting members of the soccer community, which was created as part of a broader effort promoted by various actors against the State of Israel, accompanies other false narratives advanced throughout the war.”“In those campaigns, Palestinian terrorists struck and eliminated by the IDF were presented as journalists, humanitarian aid workers and other civilian professionals, while their involvement in terrorist activity was deliberately concealed to promote false claims that they had been targeted because of their civilian professions,” the army added.Critics of the Jewish state have mounted efforts to exclude it from international sporting events just like Russia has been since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though that invasion wasn’t provoked by any Ukrainian attack.Unlike Russia, however, Israel has not been shut out of global sports institutions like the International Olympic Committee or the world soccer body FIFA. Besides the small international Muay Thai federation, there’s been little will in international sports to prevent Israeli athletes from competing under their national flag.

'When we destroy the false narrative, we change the student'Anti-Zionism still ravages UCLA. Some non-Jewish students seek answers in Israel-With tensions over the Jewish state still simmering at one of America’s most polarized campuses, a student trip challenges assumptions and asks leaders to form alliances with ‘ostracized’ Jews-By Zev Stub Today, 2:53 am-JUL 23,26

A group of college students shuffled into a hotel conference room in Jerusalem on a recent Monday evening, settling in to hear a lecture about modern Israeli history after a long day visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and the Mount Herzl military cemetery.Three days into what was for most students their first visit to Israel, they had already taken in a lot.“A lot of us were surprised to learn how deeply ingrained IDF service is within Israeli society,” said Noah Schranz, a Jewish student leader on the tour. “After all the accusations we’ve heard that Israeli soldiers are ‘baby killers,’ our group spoke with normal 20-year-old kids who look just like us, and many of them have friends who were killed by Hamas.”There would be many more eye-opening lessons for the 15 non-Jewish student leaders from the University of California, Los Angeles, who came on the 10-day visit sponsored by the Maccabee Task Force. The trip was designed to help the school’s estimated 3,000 Jews build allies on a campus that has been one of America’s most high-profile flashpoints for protests following the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023.“I didn’t know much about the conflict before I came,” said Daniel Diercks, a UCLA senior majoring in psychology, who said he now plans to organize outreach events with Jewish students next year at the campus ministry he works with. “Now, I feel really invested in the issues.”In addition to the anti-Israel rallies, encampments, and the recent student council condemnation of a talk by former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, many of UCLA’s 31,000 undergraduates feel a constant and overwhelming pressure to pick a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to Dan Gold, executive director of UCLA’s Hillel.“The biggest thing that changed on campus after October 7, beyond how ugly, intimidating and violent things got, was the fact that, almost overnight, Jewish students didn’t know who had their backs anymore,” said Gold, who estimated that about 10% of the student body is Jewish.“The anti‑Zionist movement is basically telling people, ‘You’re either with us or against us.’ That’s a hard thing for 18- and 19‑year‑olds to deal with,” he said.MTF is a nonprofit founded in 2015 by the late billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, to build alliances with non-Jewish students on campuses steeped in anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment. Alongside partnerships with campus partners such as Hillel and Chabad, the organization is best known for bringing non‑Jewish student leaders on trips of 8-10 days to learn about the complexity of the conflict from both sides.“We know that trips to Israel are a powerful tool to connect young Jews and even young evangelicals to Israel,” said MTF founding executive director David Brog. “[We’ve] found that most anti-Israel student leaders are not antisemites. They’re typically good people who believe the ugly false narrative about Israel that dominates their spaces. When we destroy that narrative, we change the student.”UCLA, one of the country’s highest-profile centers of anti-Israel activism, was among the first to host an MTF trip, Gold said, adding that the results have proven themselves.“The most basic types of wins are when participants come back to campus and decide to run programs to promote dialogue between Jewish students and other groups,” Gold said. “It could be a program about a holiday, or food, or politics — just the willingness to organize such programs is a big step.”Some have taken bigger steps. One participant, Aaden Poyuzina, created a campus organization called Common Ground Collective to create community events for dialogue between students of different faiths.“He is the only student leader that I know of who has gotten a Jewish student and an Arab student to be in the same room talking about their backgrounds,” Gold said.Losing friends over a free trip to Israel-But even getting students to come on a free trip wasn’t easy, Gold said. In addition to the uncertainties surrounding the US-Israel war with Iran in March, many started to face intense scrutiny from their peers when they said they were going.“There was a lot of pressure on them, but in some ways, the act of coming on this trip was a rejection of that dynamic,” Gold said. “A few of them have told us that they’ve lost friends over this, or been asked why they are supporting baby killers, things like that. But by coming, they are saying that they don’t accept that they have to choose a side in order to learn and ask questions.”Anti-Israel activism has been a feature of UCLA for years, with movements calling on the university to divest from Israel dating back to at least 2014.But tensions spiked shortly after the Hamas atrocities of the October 7, 2023, came to light, as pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel groups, led primarily by Students for Justice in Palestine, organized marches demanding that the university divest from companies supplying weapons to Israel.The following spring, a heavily fortified anti-Israel encampment in the school’s quad attracted nationwide attention for blocking Jewish and Israeli students from accessing classrooms and campus libraries. Tensions culminated in overnight violence on April 30, when counter-protesters attacked the site. It was hours before police intervened and subsequently dismantled the encampment, arresting over 200 demonstrators.Over the following months, the university faced legal action, as the federal government accused UCLA of “deliberate indifference” to discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The suit charged that the university enabled a hostile environment where Jewish and Israeli students were systematically excluded from campus facilities.Several student organizations, including SJP, were suspended for violating campus rules, while strict new guidelines governing public demonstrations were put into place. Pro-Palestinian vigils and demonstrations continue to occur, but they are now met with greater security and enforcement, the university says.When former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov spoke at a campus event on Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, the event proceeded peacefully, and when UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Associated Council (USAC) wrote a letter condemning the talk for “selective platforming,” university leaders and Jewish student groups responded immediately with “disgust.”But Jewish students are still afraid to identify with anything relating to Israel, Schranz said.“I haven’t experienced real antisemitism myself, but whenever I tell people I’m going to Israel, I see that the mood changes,” he said. “A lot of my friends are scared to say anything, or they’ll lie about their visits here. It’s not a fear of violence, it’s about being excluded and isolated from everything.”Optimism for the future-Despite the hostile climate, Jewish life at UCLA has been expanding, Gold said. The Hillel house he runs provides a coffee shop, daily lunch and dinner programs, study spaces, workshops, classes, and over 25 student‑run clubs ranging from cultural and political groups to religious societies, he said. On a typical weekday, he added, 400–500 students pass through the building, an all-time high.Other organizations, such as Chabad, Olami, and the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, add additional layers of Jewish education and culture, Gold said.Meanwhile, participants on the trip said their experiences in Israel had opened their eyes to the reality on the ground, and that they looked forward to using their newfound knowledge to educate others.Jack Elginer, a political science major, said he appreciated experiencing the empathy and compassion exhibited by the people he sees vilified in the media, and said he would seek to promote dialogue in the groups he works with.“This tour did a great job of showing both sides of the conflict with fairness and nuance,” he said. “People need to understand that everyone here is a regular person who just wants to protect their families.”For Gold, that’s exactly the kind of thing he was hoping to hear — even if he understands how difficult the road ahead will be.“When these kids say they want to organize programs next year, I don’t think they understand the opposition they are going to face from their peers,” he said. “It may seem obvious to them now, but opening people’s minds on campus will require real bravery.”

Vienna says it is facing up to its 'terrible heritage'-Hitler’s birthplace in Austria reopens as police station to deter Nazi pilgrimages-Inscription outside Nazi leader’s family home in Braunau am Inn reads: ‘Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us’By Philipp Jenne 22 July 2026, 4:36 pm

BRAUNAU AM INN, Austria (AP) — Adolf Hitler’s birthplace in Austria was officially inaugurated as a police station on Wednesday in an effort to destroy the building’s appeal as a site of pilgrimage for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.A memorial stone is to remain in place outside the house in Braunau am Inn near the German border with the inscription, “For freedom, democracy and liberty. Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us.”Hitler was born in the building on April 20, 1889. His family moved to another residence in Braunau am Inn after only a few months, before settling temporarily in Passau in southern Germany.Fueled by racial fanaticism, Hitler’s Nazi regime killed approximately 6 million Jews and other minorities and groups during the Holocaust. The dictator unleashed World War II, in which at least 60 million people died. He committed suicide in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war.“The Republic of Austria, the state, the county is facing up to this heritage, the terrible heritage of this time, and commits itself to deal with it,” Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said during the opening ceremony of the police station on Wednesday. “This entails this house and this address.”The renovation of the building took several years and cost around 20 million euros ($22.8 million), Austrian news agency APA reported. It was preceded by a yearslong back-and-forth over the ownership of the house.The ownership question was resolved in 2017 when Austria’s highest court ruled the government was within its rights to expropriate the building after its owner refused to sell. A suggestion it might be demolished was dropped.The building had been rented by Austria’s Interior Ministry since 1972 to prevent its misuse and was sublet to various charitable organizations. The structure stood empty after a care center for adults with disabilities moved out in 2011.The Austrian government has said the best use for the building would be the presence of the police as guardians of civil liberties. But critics said the building in its current presentation lacks historical context.A commission of experts came out against turning the building into a museum, advocating instead for a redesign that would not be easily recognizable.The building’s ochre-yellow was turned white, the arched windows were replaced by simple rectangular shapes and the facade has been extended upward toward the roof. Debris from the construction was disposed of at a secret location to ensure it would not become a new source for Nazi memorabilia, APA reported.In the past, far-right extremists repeatedly paid homage to the “Führer,” photographing the building, taking stones as souvenirs and laying flowers and wreaths. In 2024, four Germans were caught laying white roses in the building’s window recesses and posing for photos, including a woman giving the stiff-armed Hitler salute.

What happened when engineers terraced a 640,000 square kilometre plateau whose yellow silt had been choking the world's muddiest river for millennia, and the sediment load fell by nearly 90 percent within two decades? On China's Loess Plateau, two decades of terracing, tree planting, and check dams cut the Yellow River's sediment load by close to 85 percent — reshaping the world's muddiest river, its delta, and the water balance of a region the size of France.By Space War Editorial Team · Editorial process-Published July 22, 2026

On the Loess Plateau in north-central China — a roughly 640,000-square-kilometre expanse of powdery yellow silt approximately the size of France — the Yellow River once carried so much sediment that a single cubic metre of its water could hold nearly 40 kilograms of soil. By the early 2000s, after two decades of terracing, tree planting, and check dams, the annual sediment load had fallen from around 1.6 billion tonnes a year in the 1970s to roughly 250 million tonnes. That is close to an 85 percent drop, and it happened faster than almost anyone modelling the plateau’s erosion had predicted.The mechanism was not glamorous. Chinese engineers, backed by World Bank funding in the mid-1990s and then by the domestic Grain-for-Green programme launched in 1999, cut horizontal steps into millions of hectares of sloping farmland, paid farmers to abandon the steepest fields, and built tens of thousands of small earthen dams across the gullies that had been bleeding topsoil into the river since the Han dynasty. The plateau stopped shedding itself. The river downstream ran clearer than it had in recorded memory.The Yellow River — the Huang He — earned its name honestly. Its water is stained ochre by loess, a wind-blown silt deposited over millions of years in layers up to 300 metres thick. Rain falling on bare loess behaves almost like water on flour. It carves. A single summer storm on an unterraced hillside can strip several centimetres of soil in a matter of hours.For most of the twentieth century, the river carried about 1.6 billion tonnes of that silt to the sea each year, many times the sediment load of the Mississippi. The delta grew by tens of square kilometres annually. Downstream, the riverbed rose above the surrounding farmland, held in place by ever-higher levees. Breaches killed millions across the centuries. The nickname “China’s Sorrow” was not rhetorical. Earlier analysis of Yellow River sediment has also shown how the same loess deposits preserve long climate records.What terracing and Grain-for-Green actually did-A terrace is a very old idea executed at a very new scale. Cut a hillside into flat steps, and rainfall no longer runs downhill as a sheet. It pools, soaks in, and moves through the soil rather than across it. Watersheds in central China have shown that riverine sediment and nutrient dynamics respond to landscape-scale interventions in complex, seasonal ways, with vegetation cover and slope geometry doing much of the heavy lifting.On the Loess Plateau, the terracing came in three overlapping forms. Level bench terraces on gentler slopes gave farmers stable cropland. Contour ridges on steeper ground slowed runoff without full flattening. And in the gullies — the deep, branching wounds that had been the plateau’s main sediment conveyor belts — engineers built check dams: low earthen barriers designed to trap silt behind them, gradually filling the gully with new, flat, farmable land.By the mid-2010s, more than 58,000 check dams had been built across the plateau. Each one is small. Together they hold back an estimated 10–20 billion tonnes of sediment that would otherwise have reached the Yellow River.Terracing alone would not have worked without a policy shift. In 1999, Beijing launched the Sloping Land Conversion Programme — usually translated as Grain-for-Green — which paid farmers grain subsidies and cash to retire the steepest cultivated land and plant it with trees or grass. By the mid-2010s, roughly 28 million hectares had been converted nationwide, with the Loess Plateau receiving the largest share. Independent reporting on the programme confirms the scale of the conversion.The vegetation cover on the plateau rose from around 32 percent in 1999 to over 60 percent by 2018. Roots held the soil. Canopies broke the impact of raindrops. The bare, tawny hills that had defined the region in photographs from the 1980s turned green in a single generation.The numbers downstream moved faster than the models expected. Sediment discharge at monitoring stations, which sit just before the river enters its historically dangerous lower reach, averaged about 1.6 billion tonnes annually in the 1950s–1970s. By the 2000s it was around 300 million tonnes. In the 2010s it dropped further, to roughly 250 million tonnes a year. Some individual years came in under 200 million.The scale of that reduction — close to 85 percent — is comparable in relative terms to what dam construction and bank revetments achieved on the Mississippi, though by different means. As Houma Today reported on the Mississippi system, revetments alone cut bank caving by about 90 percent, with dams across the watershed substantially reducing sediment contributions since 1950. Two vast river systems, both starved of silt within a human lifetime, for opposite reasons: one to protect shipping and farmland, the other to stop a plateau from washing away.The delta stopped growing and where the sediment goes now-There is a cost to a river that stops carrying silt. The Yellow River delta, which had been advancing into the Bohai Sea at rates approaching 2 kilometres a year in the mid-twentieth century, began retreating in the early 2000s. Wave action now removes more sediment from the coastline than the river deposits. Wetlands that depended on annual silt renewal are shrinking. Fisheries in the Bohai have declined.The pattern is familiar to anyone who has followed the Louisiana coast, where the leveed Mississippi funnels its remaining sediment off the continental shelf while barrier islands vanish. The Eos journal’s overview of human legacies on river corridors makes the point clearly: alterations to sediment flux ripple through every downstream ecosystem, often in ways that only become visible decades after the intervention.Some of the silt that used to reach the sea now sits behind check dams, slowly turning into flat, cultivable terraces of new loess-derived soil. Some is trapped in the Xiaolangdi Reservoir, completed in the early 2000s, which the authorities periodically flush in engineered sediment-laden pulses timed to scour the lower riverbed. Some simply stays on the hillsides, held by roots.The plateau’s rivers themselves have changed character. Flow regimes are lower — vegetation transpires water that once ran off — and the seasonal pulses that shaped the lower Yellow River for millennia have flattened. Research published in Nature Communications has shown that the Loess Plateau itself has long stored large volumes of sediment derived from the northeastern Tibetan Plateau via the upper Yellow River, illustrating the complex storage dynamics that continue to shape the system.Clearer water has a downstream economic effect that was not the point of the programme but has turned out to matter. Sediment abrades turbine blades and fills reservoirs. The sediment reduction has extended the effective lifespan of major reservoirs and increased usable generation capacity, a rare instance of upstream ecological policy paying a direct energy dividend.The Xiaolangdi reservoir alone was designed with decades of sediment-storage capacity. Reduced input from the plateau has stretched that timeline considerably.Reforestation on a semi-arid plateau has a water cost. Trees consume more moisture than the sparse grassland and cropland they replaced. Groundwater levels in parts of the Loess Plateau have dropped. Some streams that flowed year-round in the 1980s are now seasonal or dry. The regional water balance has tightened at exactly the moment when climate projections suggest the North China Plain will need every litre it can hold.There is also the question of what happens when the check dams fill up, as many already have. A full check dam is essentially a terrace at the bottom of a gully — flat, fertile, and vulnerable. If a heavy storm overtops or breaches the dam, the trapped sediment can release in a single catastrophic pulse. Dam failures during extreme rainfall events have been documented, and the frequency of such events is projected to rise.What the plateau looks like now-From the air, the Loess Plateau today is a striated landscape of green contour lines, thousands of small check-dam ponds, and the pale terraces cut into what used to be nearly vertical loess cliffs. Villages that were built on the flat tops of ridges — the only stable ground in a country that was steadily eroding from beneath its inhabitants — now overlook stepped fields of millet, apples, and walnut orchards.The Yellow River, at the point where it turns east across the North China Plain, still carries some silt. It is still yellow. But it is measurably less yellow than at any point since gauging began in 1919. In some years, downstream stretches of the river have run visibly clear for weeks — a sight recorded in local newspapers with the kind of astonishment usually reserved for eclipses.Whether the reduction will hold is a separate question. Vegetation cover is only as durable as the policies that maintain it. Grain-for-Green subsidies are not permanent. The plateau’s soil, ancient and deep, remembers what it was doing before.

Titan has rivers, rainfall, lakes and a slow hydrological cycle exactly like Earth's, except that every drop of it is liquid methane and the rock the rivers run over is water ice-A distant moon where rain falls, rivers flow, and seas shimmer—but nothing here is water, and the ground itself is frozen stone.By Brendan Brown · Editorial process-Published July 23, 2026

Somewhere out at Saturn, right now, it is drizzling on a shoreline.The rain is falling out of orange clouds, slowly — drifting down more like snowflakes than raindrops. It’s collecting into streams, and the streams are cutting channels through solid bedrock, and the channels are draining into a sea bigger than the Caspian. There are rounded pebbles on the ground, tumbled smooth by running liquid, exactly like the ones in any creek you’ve ever waded.This is Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and it is the only world we know of besides Earth where liquid falls from the sky, flows across the surface, and pools into standing seas. The catch — the thing that makes Titan the strangest familiar place in the solar system — is that the entire system is built from the wrong materials. The rain is methane. The seas are methane and ethane. And the rock those rivers carve through is water, frozen at minus 179 degrees Celsius into something harder than most stone on Earth.It’s our landscape, run on a different chemistry set. And the closer you look, the more uncanny the copy gets.The rain that falls like snow-Start with the weather, because Titan genuinely has weather — clouds that build, storms that break, rainfall that darkens the ground and then dries.The working fluid is methane, the same molecule burning in a gas stove, which at Titan’s temperatures behaves the way water behaves here: evaporating from the seas, condensing into clouds, and falling back out as rain. The European Space Agency describes it plainly: Titan’s lakes and atmosphere form an active hydrological cycle — the first ever found running on a liquid other than water.But the rain itself would look wrong to Earth eyes. Titan’s gravity is about one-seventh of ours and its atmosphere is half again denser at the surface, so methane raindrops grow large and then fall in slow motion — descending at roughly the pace of falling snow. A Titan rainstorm is a heavy, unhurried thing: fat drops sinking through orange haze onto a frozen plain, gentle as a blizzard and flammable only in a world with oxygen, which Titan mercifully is not.Rivers with familiar manners-Follow the rain downhill and Titan keeps doing Earth impressions.Cassini’s radar mapped branching river networks that would pass for aerial photos of Appalachia — tributaries gathering into trunks, valleys incised into highlands, channels meandering toward coastlines. One mapped river, Vid Flumina, runs into the sea Ligeia Mare like a hydrocarbon Mississippi reaching its gulf. When the Huygens probe descended in 2005, it photographed drainage channels on the way down and then landed on a floodplain scattered with rounded cobbles — pebbles of water ice, tumbled smooth by episodic methane floods, obeying the same fluvial physics that rounds granite in a trout stream.That’s the quietly astonishing part: the physics doesn’t care about the chemistry. Give any world a liquid, a slope, and time, and it will draw the same shapes — dendritic channels, deltas, shorelines, floodplains. Titan is the proof: a second, independent run of the experiment called “landscape,” and it converged on answers a hiker would recognize.Seas the size of ours, with lakes that shouldn’t exist-At the end of the rivers wait the seas — clustered, for reasons still debated, around Titan’s north pole.Kraken Mare, the largest, covers more area than the Caspian Sea, with parts plausibly hundreds of meters deep. Ligeia Mare, next door and connected to it, was sounded by Cassini’s radar at about 160 meters along one track — the radar signal passing clean through the methane and bouncing off the seafloor, something it could never do through an equivalent depth of seawater.And on Cassini’s final Titan flyby, the mission saved one last surprise: the small lakes of the north turn out to be perched on hills and mesas, more than 100 meters deep, their basins apparently formed when the surrounding bedrock chemically dissolved and collapsed — the same karst process that makes sinkhole lakes in Florida and Croatia, except the “limestone” dissolving on Titan is ice and solid organics. The same flyby found transient lakes: shallow ponds that filled and vanished between observations, seepage and evaporation trading liquid back and forth with the ground.Rain, rivers, karst country, seasonal ponds. Somewhere in the outer solar system, nine hundred million miles from the nearest umbrella, hydrology is just… happening.The bedrock is the punchline-Here’s the detail that reorganizes the whole picture once it lands: on Titan, water never gets to be water.At 94 kelvin, H2O isn’t rain and isn’t sea — it’s geology. Titan’s crust is water ice frozen so profoundly cold that it’s a load-bearing solid with the strength of rock: mountains of ice, boulders of ice, cliffs and canyons of ice. When the methane rivers erode their valleys, ice is the granite they’re cutting. When waves work a shoreline, ice is the headland they’re wearing down.Which means Titan contains a perfect inversion of home. Earth’s cycle: water moves, rock stands still. Titan’s cycle: the rock is the water, standing still, while a gas from your kitchen stove does all the moving. Every role in the play is filled — rain, river, sea, stone — but the actors have swapped costumes. And the play still works. It has run, as far as anyone can tell, for a very long time: Titan’s seasons each last about seven Earth years, so a single hydrological year there stretches across three decades, a cycle turning with the patience of a world that has nowhere to be.The dragonfly that will land in the rain countryThe reason to remember all this now: we’re going back, and this time we’re bringing something that flies.NASA’s Dragonfly mission — a car-sized nuclear-powered rotorcraft — is slated to launch in 2028 and arrive in the mid-2030s, exploiting the same thick-atmosphere, low-gravity combination that slows Titan’s rain to make powered flight almost easy. It will hop from site to site across the equatorial dunes (which are themselves made of organic sand, because of course they are), sampling the ice bedrock and the fallout of the methane cycle, hunting for the complex carbon chemistry that a world of hydrocarbons and water ice can’t help but brew.Because that’s the deepest reason Titan’s familiar landscape matters. Everywhere on Earth that water meets rock and weather, chemistry happens — and eventually, at least once, that chemistry woke up. Titan is the only other place we know where a working weather cycle has been grinding liquid against land for eons, running the same slow experiment with a different ingredient list.The rivers look like ours. The question Dragonfly carries is whether anything else does.Until then, the drizzle continues on that distant shoreline — patient, orange-lit, minus 179 degrees — on the only other world in the solar system where you could stand and watch it rain.

When the Soviet Union sent the dog Laika into orbit in 1957, the public was told she had survived for days — but decades later it emerged that she had actually died within hours, after Sputnik 2's cabin overheated-For forty-five years, the world was told the wrong story about the death of a small dog in space.By Space War Editorial Team · Editorial process-Published July 14, 2026

For forty-five years, the world was told the wrong story about the death of a small dog in space.The story that circulated in newspapers, textbooks, encyclopaedia entries, and children’s books between 1957 and 2002 was a specific one. It said that the Soviet mongrel Laika, launched aboard Sputnik 2 in November 1957 as the first living creature to reach Earth orbit, had survived in space for several days. The precise number varied by telling. Sometimes it was four days. Sometimes six. In the more sentimental versions, she was said to have been peacefully euthanised by a mechanism inside the capsule that released poisoned food, so that her end was quiet and painless. In the more heroic versions, she was said to have simply run out of oxygen after a full week of orbit, dying in her sleep, a canine astronaut who had performed her duty and then rested.None of it was true.In October 2002, at the World Space Congress in Houston, a Russian scientist named Dimitri Malashenkov — who had worked directly on the Sputnik 2 mission as a member of the Institute for Biological Problems in Moscow — presented a paper that quietly corrected the record.Laika, he said, had died approximately five to seven hours after launch, during the fourth orbit of Earth. The cause was overheating. The temperature inside her capsule had climbed well past 40 degrees Celsius. She had been dead for essentially the entire time that the Soviet Union had been telling the world she was alive.What actually happened aboard Sputnik 2-The technical failure was mundane. The rocket’s core stage had not separated cleanly from the capsule after launch. This disrupted the thermal control system, which relied on assumptions about the vehicle’s shape and orientation that were now wrong. The capsule began to heat up almost immediately.Laika’s biomedical telemetry told the story. Her heart rate spiked to roughly three times its resting level during launch acceleration, which was expected. What was not expected was how long it took to come back down — nearly three hours, far longer than in the ground centrifuge tests that had modelled the same acceleration. Her body was in prolonged stress. The temperature inside her capsule kept climbing.Dogs cool themselves almost entirely by panting, evaporating water across their tongue and the lining of the mouth. Their skin produces very little sweat. In a sealed capsule with a failing thermal system and rising humidity, panting stops working quickly. There is no way to dump heat except into the air, and if the air itself is getting hotter, the dog has nowhere to send it.By the fourth orbit, the biomedical signals from the capsule had gone flat. The telemetry, of course, kept transmitting for days after that. So did the satellite. The world, watching the beeping signal from orbit and being told each morning that the Soviet dog was alive and well, was watching the electronic ghost of a mission whose central subject had already died.Why she was there at all-The reason Laika was inside Sputnik 2, and not scheduled to come back, is worth being honest about.Sputnik 1 had launched on October 4, 1957. Its success shocked the world and delighted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who now wanted a spectacular follow-up in time for a specific political anniversary — November 7, the fortieth year since the Bolshevik Revolution. A more capable satellite was already in the works, but it would not be finished until December.The engineering team, led by Sergei Korolev, was told to launch something else, something faster. The result was Sputnik 2. It was built in under a month.There was no time to design a re-entry system. There was no time to design a capsule that could bring a passenger back. The decision was made, at senior levels, that the second Sputnik would carry a living animal but would not attempt to return it. Laika’s death was engineered into the mission before it launched. It was only ever a question of when.The engineers who trained her seem to have understood this fully. Vladimir Yazdovsky, the mission’s chief scientist, took Laika home for an evening before the launch to play with his children. He wrote later that he wanted to do something nice for her because she had so little time left. It was a quiet act of care in a mission whose entire logic was built around not caring.What the cover story served-For forty-five years afterwards, the Soviet government maintained the story that Laika had lived for several days. The reasons were straightforward. A dog who survived multiple days in orbit was a scientific triumph. A dog who died in five hours because of a preventable engineering failure was a scientific embarrassment.The Soviet Union was engaged in a global propaganda contest with the United States, and every result from every mission was interpreted through the lens of that contest. Sputnik 2 was, by design, meant to demonstrate that the Soviet Union could not only launch satellites but sustain life in orbit — that Soviet technology could keep a mammal alive in the extreme environment of space. Admitting that the mammal in question had died within hours of launch would have undermined the mission’s core propaganda point.So the story became that Laika had orbited for days. It was maintained through the height of the Cold War. It was maintained after the Cold War ended. It was maintained through the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. The mission’s raw telemetry data, which showed clearly what had actually happened, sat in Soviet archives for decades. Malashenkov and other members of the original team, who had known the truth from November 1957 onward, kept it quiet through political changes that would seem to have made the disclosure safer at every step.It took, in the end, forty-five years and a specific scientific conference in Houston before somebody with the standing to correct the record chose to do so.What we owe her now-The corrected story of Laika is genuinely worse than the story people were told. Not just because she died sooner. Because she died in a way that was preventable, in a mission that was rushed for political reasons, in a capsule that had not been properly engineered, on a schedule set by an anniversary rather than by readiness.She was three years old. She weighed about six kilograms. She had been a stray on the streets of Moscow before she was picked up by the Soviet space program, and she had been chosen partly on the reasoning that a dog who had survived a Moscow winter would tolerate deprivation better than a purpose-bred laboratory animal.She sits in the historical record now, corrected, as the first living creature to reach orbit and one of the first to die there. There is a small monument to her at the Institute of Space Biology in Moscow. There is another at Star City. There are copies of Sputnik 2, with a Laika mannequin inside, in museums around the world.Whether any of this is enough is a question that does not have a clean answer.Sputnik 2 itself, with Laika’s remains still inside, disintegrated over the North Atlantic on April 14, 1958. She had been dead for one hundred and sixty-one of the one hundred and sixty-two days her body had been in orbit. The world would not learn the true ratio of those numbers for another forty-four years.