Humanitarian Aid
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) continues to provide vital food aid for the Palestinian people in Gaza:
63 million meals have been distributed to date
From the GHF:
Highly decorated American veterans were injured in a terrorist attack. Iranian-made grenades, packed with ball bearings meant to maim, were thrown at them.
Hamas has openly threatened GHF workers, put bounties on their heads, and murdered 12 of our Palestinian staff.
Now they’ve made good on their threat to target Americans. We’ve documented all of this. We shared it publicly.
And still, the AP wrote that we “claimed” Hamas was responsible without providing proof. In the same article, they call Hamas’s Health Ministry their “most reliable source.” That tells you everything you need to know about the AP’s Middle East bureau.
FDD writes: Despite being lambasted by multiple NGOs and charities, the GHF continues to deliver meals directly to Gazan civilians from what it calls Safe Distribution Sites in Gaza, stating on July 4 that it had distributed 60 million meals since the beginning of its operations in the Palestinian enclave. Previously, Hamas and armed gangs have looted free humanitarian aid to sell at a profit. “We have a job to do. It’s very simple, to provide free food every day to the people of Gaza,” said GHF head Johnnie Moore. “Attempts to disrupt this life-saving work will only deepen the crisis,” he added.
According to Reuters: The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza on Thursday warned residents of the coastal enclave not to assist the U.S.-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying deadly incidents near its food distribution sites endangered hungry Gazans.
"It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents," an interior ministry statement said.
Watch
StopAntisemetism posts: Melanie Yazzie, a professor at the University of Minnesota, calls for the destruction of the United States while adorning a keffiyeh, now associated with violence against Jews post 10/7.
“I hope you seek to dismantle the United States”
The University of Minnesota received $628 million in 2024 from the Department of Education.
Shout out to Joe Lonsdale who is using his platform to call out dangerous voices such as Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan. We need more of this! Good work my friend.
Israel/Middle East Related Articles
Denial Runs From Egypt in 1967 to Iran Today: Israel’s adversaries have a long history of suffering humiliation and defeat and loudly declaring victory. by Dr. Tevi Troy in the WSJ
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been issuing victory tweets: “The Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic”…It’s reminiscent of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” in which the Black Knight taunts King Arthur even as the king cuts his limbs off one by one.
It’s also familiar behavior from Israel’s enemies. Perhaps the most notorious instance was in the 1967 Six Day War…State-controlled Radio Cairo continually claimed that Egypt was defeating Israel even after Israel had destroyed the Egyptian air force while the planes were parked and was in the process of taking over the Sinai Peninsula…The claims were lies, but as a result of them, according to one Egyptian intelligence officer, “the whole world thought our forces were on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.”
The false statements had real world effects. Israel had warned Jordan’s King Hussein to stay out of the war. Hearing the false reports, he joined the hostilities and lost Jerusalem and the West Bank in the process. Egyptian crowds were bused into Cairo to celebrate the supposed victory that was already—unknown to them—a humiliating defeat.
In 1973’s Yom Kippur War, the Egyptians and Syrians did better at the outset. Israeli overconfidence in the early days led one Israeli soldier to lament, “We taught the Arabs how to fight and they taught us how to lie.” Yet the final results were the same—as was the response from Israel’s enemies. The false claims continued, even as Israeli forces approached the outskirts of Damascus, having already won the Arabs’ capitulation after surrounding and cutting off Egypt’s third army.
These false statements by Middle Eastern autocracies show the weaknesses of systems that can’t acknowledge reality. An inability to turn a critical eye on oneself and admit a mistake represents a fundamental flaw in authoritarian regimes.
This stands in sharp contrast with Israel, which is relentlessly self-critical. When Israel performed poorly in the 2006 Lebanon War against Hezbollah, it engaged in a tough self-assessment for how its forces could do better in the future.
Months before the Iran War began, Israel locked 100 experts in a room to come up with a plan to attack Iran’s nuclear program. These experts were willing to question authority and self-correct when they recognized they were heading down the wrong path. It’s hard to imagine the ayatollah having his officers engage in the same kind of rigorous exercise.
As long as autocratic nations like Iran continue to act like Monty Python’s Black Knight, they’ll never develop the capacity to fight effectively against nations that can critique themselves.
But that isn’t all that truth telling can bring. If Iran ever does develop the capacity for honesty, then its leaders would realize—like the Egyptians did—that peace with Israel is a much more effective strategy than fighting with it.
Bigger Than Just Iran by Douglas J. Feith and Dore Feith in the Free Beacon
The danger of nuclear war in the world just diminished drastically. Americans are safer now than they were…This was the first time the United States used a military attack to stop a country from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
President Trump has now made clear that America has that power and will use it to serve its nonproliferation purposes. Many U.S. presidents threatened military force to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, but until now those threats were of doubtful credibility.
…the spread of nuclear weapons is one of the greatest threats in the world to the security, prosperity, and well-being of Americans. Even by the strictest standards of MAGA restraint in world affairs, the United States has to prevent such proliferation.
If Iran became a nuclear power, the danger would extend beyond aggression, sponsorship of terrorism, and other bad actions by Iran. Iran’s achievement would spur Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and other states in the Middle East and beyond to become nuclear powers too.
The number of nuclear powers in the world, now fewer than 10, could in short order grow to 20 or 30. This would create greater risks of catastrophic accidents and "dirty" bomb terrorist attacks.
Even a limited nuclear exchange could produce enormous harm, and not just to the parties involved in the exchange. It could gravely damage Americans by devastating global markets and supply chains, poisoning Earth’s atmosphere, and contaminating agriculture.
The U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is more than a tactical military success. It is a strategic reaffirmation of American global leadership.
They represent one of the most significant achievements of the United States (and key partners) in international security. That fewer than 10 nations possess nuclear weapons today reflects the effectiveness of combined diplomatic, economic, and military pressures.
Link: Bigger Than Just Iran
If a ceasefire leaves Hamas in power, they’ll kill Gazans like me: An Opinion Piece by Moumen al-Natour in The Jewish Chronicle
The prospects of a permanent ceasefire drift through the shattered windows of my home in Gaza City. But for tens of thousands of Gazans like me – who have long protested against Hamas and called for their removal from power – the chance of a fragile peace comes with a sense of looming danger.
I was 11 when Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007. At 23, I co-organised my first protest under the slogan “We Want to Live”. For that “crime”, I was imprisoned and tortured multiple times. Today, at 29, after speaking out once again during Hamas’s war with Israel, I know there will be no leniency if the ceasefire takes effect.
Hamas’s crackdown on dissent is intensifying. Over a dozen people have been killed in recent weeks – one of them a dear friend. Others have had their limbs broken in brutal acts of intimidation. As soon as the ceasefire is announced, Hamas militants will rise from their tunnels, hungry for revenge. Hit lists are already circulating on Telegram.
This is not a cry for pity – it is a warning. If Hamas is allowed to keep paying its fighters and civil servants in Gaza from the comfort of Doha, then the countdown to another October 7 has already begun. The only way to truly defeat Hamas is to build a civil alternative – a government for and by the people of Gaza, firmly opposed to Hamas’s rule. In the shadow of Yahya Sinwar’s suicidal war, a growing number of us believe this tragic cycle can finally be broken.
Link: If a ceasefire leaves Hamas in power, they’ll kill Gazans like me - The Jewish Chronicle
[REPORT] Not Over: Ensuring Iran Does Not Rebuild: By Michael Makovsky, John Hannah, and Jonathan Ruhe from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)
Iran’s military and nuclear programs and ambitions are down, but not out.
Whether new talks commence or not, it will be necessary to return immediately to a campaign of maximum military, economic, and political pressure on Iran. Most importantly, the United States and Israel must be agreed and coordinated in resuming military operations in response to credible indications that Iran is seeking to rebuild its nuclear and missile programs and strategic air defenses.
The war confirmed Iran’s profound counter-intelligence weaknesses.
Second, Iran could not rely on any so-called allies to come to its aid—not its friends Russia or China and not its longstanding but severely weakened proxy Hezbollah. Nor were Iran-backed militia as in Iraq or Houthi rebels in Lebanon a factor. When the chips were down, the Iranians were on their own. Countries in the region detest the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Third, the United States and Israel collaborated in this military campaign. Iran evidently did not think Israel would attack, and certainly did not take U.S. threats seriously either.
Fourth, there is no evidence that Iran’s strategic intentions have changed…Iran built its nuclear program to survive military action, and there remains enough ambiguity to safely assume it retains some material, infrastructure, and know-how to resume progress, if it chooses.
…it might seek to manipulate a return to negotiations in order to stymie a attempts to further dismantle, or prevent it from restarting, its nuclear program—buying time for U.S.-Israel daylight to re-emerge and resuming the steady process of undermining American deterrence and resolve.
…the guiding principle for Washington and Jerusalem-and their joint message to the Iranian regime—must be that they are prepared to resume, and as necessary escalate, military operations…
Justified “triggers” for renewed strikes should include credible indications that Iran is:
rebuilding its strategic air defenses;
diverting any part of its stockpile of enriched uranium or any other key nuclear equipment;
maintaining secret sites related to parts of the nuclear fuel cycle or weaponization;
reestablishing or augmenting lines for the production of long-range missiles or missile launchers;
importing dangerous military or technological capabilities from abroad;
U.S. Demands in New Negotiations:
Declared and undeclared infrastructure and stockpiles relating to Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle must be fully accounted for and destroyed
Iran must agree to and abide by a comprehensive, and highly intrusive, IAEA monitoring and verification on regime
Iran must provide the IAEA with a complete declaration of its nuclear program past and present, including all related personnel, suspected undeclared sites, and relevant documenta on
Iran must verifiably give up or otherwise destroy its nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missile arsenals
Iran must be prohibited from transferring strategic capabilities to its proxies or other forces abroad
…it is vitally important to signal to Tehran that follow-on— indeed, intensified—military operations, economic pressure, and diplomatic isolation remain squarely on the table, and that American-Israeli coordination is tighter than ever.
Conclusion: What Israel and the United States did and accomplished in last month’s 12-day war was momentous and historic. It saved the Mideast from the potential catastrophe of a nuclear Iran. It is critical now for the two countries to consolidate their success and ensure the job is finished. Doing so is not only vital to their national interests, but the sine qua non for truly transforming the Middle East and building the more peaceful, secure, and prosperous region to which they both aspire.
Link to Full Report: Not Over: Ensuring Iran Does Not Rebuild
Antisemitism
[HIGHLY RECCOMMEND] We've seen this before by Andrew Fox
The rise in antisemitism since October 2023 is not a collection of isolated incidents. It is a direct reflection of a darker era.
The Holocaust didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with graffiti, slurs, and whispers. It began with people asking Jews to account for themselves. Are you loyal? Are you one of us?
In 2025, that looks like: are you a Zionist?
…support for the Jewish state now carries a moral price tag. It is a litmus test for belonging, for acceptability.
We are witnessing a global rise in antisemitism at a scale not seen for generations. Some of it is overt.
In Amsterdam last year, what was initially dismissed as football hooliganism was later revealed, through text messages and court transcripts, to be a lynching of Jews driven by pure racial hatred.
At Glastonbury, the "singer" of British act Bob Vylan, repeating popular blood libels against the Jewish state, stood before tens of thousands and chanted for the death of every soldier in the Israel Defence Forces.
That’s not resistance. That’s incitement. When crowds cheer that on, we are no longer in the realm of protest. We are in something else entirely.
This hatred does not exist in a vacuum. It is fed, every day, by an information campaign unlike anything we’ve seen since the Cold War.
Civilian casualties in Gaza are not the consequence of genocidal intent, but the normal, tragic by-product of every war in history, compounded by the deliberate strategy of a terror regime that uses its own people as human shields. Hamas has stored weapons in schools, fired rockets from refugee camps, and built command tunnels beneath hospitals. Then they cry victim when those military targets are struck.
The greatest trick Hamas and their allies ever pulled was to conflate Judaism with Zionism. They have made the world believe they are one and the same, then claim that they are “only” against the latter.
I do not believe that most people cheering these slogans or waving these flags are consciously antisemitic…Many, though, are what Lenin once called useful idiots: fellow travellers swept up in the fervour of a cause they do not fully understand. Others are overwhelmed by propaganda; duped into believing they are standing for justice, when in fact they are being used as foot soldiers in a much darker campaign.
We are not yet where Germany was in 1938. However, we are close to where we were in 1933. The slogans, the silences and the scapegoating of Jews are back. Words matter, so let us call it what it is: antisemitism.
Link: We've seen this before
How Anti-Zionism Became a Western Rite by Jacob Howland in Tablet Magazine
It’s official: Jew hatred is trending among millennials and older Gen Z. On June 28, the rapper Bobby Vylan’s chants of “Death, death to the IDF” were broadcast by the BBC and enthusiastically echoed by tens of thousands of people in the live audience of 200,000 at the Glastonbury Festival, many of whom were waving Palestinian flags.
But what problem is this globalized intifada intended to solve? Evidently, it’s not just Israel, but also the West, whose foundational values and successes the Jewish state epitomizes. The “solution,” therefore, is not simply to cleanse the land of Jews “from the river to the sea” but also to eradicate Western civilization.
Open hatred of Jews flourishes in periods of societal instability and license, when the decency and decorum that protects them from assault by their fellow citizens is suspended.
Today, the “blood libel” is back in a new form: the allegation that Israel is targeting Gazans, particularly children, for genocide. Propagated by people who inwardly despise Christianity’s moral and spiritual teachings, including far-right antisemites, this malicious falsehood has fueled widespread indignation and outrage in the West.
The blood libel expresses ugly emotions of envy and hatred buried in the deep recesses of the psyche. How could a people slated for extermination since the time of Moses still walk the earth? The Book of Exodus answers that the people of Israel are favored by the divine might of a loving God. In his letter to the Romans, Paul, too, affirms God’s love for the Jews. Jew haters, however, invert this relationship, comparing Jews to blood-sucking insects or vampires—subhuman and inhuman parasites, so far from divine favor as to be utterly demonic.
The scapegoating of Jews in the West is part and parcel of a rebarbarized culture, one that endorses political violence. A recent Rutgers University poll found that “55 percent of all self-identifying ‘liberals’ believe killing is a justifiable means of pursuing their political goals”—and endows it with theological significance.
Islamists have learned to speak the language of social justice activists, while far-left radicals have learned to frame ideological struggle as a holy war. Human life holds little value for either of them. The journey from self-immolation for Palestine to so-called self-martyrdom bombings is a short stop or two on a train that long ago left the station of peaceful politics.
Israel epitomizes not only the abundant fruits of Western civilization but also the conditions for their existence: strong borders, national pride, and free markets; thick social bonds and vigorous common purpose.
While there’s no changing the minds of hard-core antisemites, Westerners who subject Israel and its people to withering criticism because they are inclined to support one or more of these causes would do well to ponder this biblical instruction: “Life and death I set before you, the blessing and the curse, and you shall choose life so that you may live, you and your seed” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Antisemitic Attack in Melbourne
According to the Times of Israel: A man suspected of setting fire to an Australian synagogue as worshipers ate dinner inside has been arrested and charged, police said Sunday, as they investigated if the attack was terror related.
Angelo Loras, 34, of Sydney, who describes himself as Iranian, suspected of starting blaze at entrance to East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation building while 20 people were inside
Hostage Update (no change)
There are now currently 49 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 50 hostages remaining in total)
Of the 50 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
28 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
Thus, at most, 22 living hostages could still be in Gaza. It has been reported that only 20 are actually alive.
Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
20 hostages remain in captivity and have not been declared dead.
2 hostages are Americans: Meet the Two American Hostages Still Held By Hamas:
Itay Chen died on October 7 defending civilians living in an agricultural area near the Gaza borde
Omer Neutra was killed when his team drove two miles to the border, where Hamas militants ambushed his tank with rocket-propelled grenades.
On October 7th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
202 hostages in total have been released or rescued
The bodies of 47 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive
Casualties (+2)
Sgt. Asaf Zamir, 19, was killed during combat in the southern Gaza Strip.
Sgt. Yair Eliyahou, 19, was killed overnight during a combat-related operational accident in the northern Gaza Strip.
1,934 Israelis have been killed including 883 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th
Iran: 28 Israelis have been killed in Israel from missiles attacks from Iran
The South: 444 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed. The toll includes three police officers (two of which were killed in a hostage rescue mission) and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
The North: 133 Israelis (85 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
The West Bank: 66 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
6,057 (+25 since Thursday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 902 (+2 since Thursday) who have been severely injured.
2,770 (+25 since Thursday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 534 (+6 since Thursday) who have been severely injured.
The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 57,418 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
[MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, algemeimer, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, Commentary, The Free Press, The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security, and the Times of Israel