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As Mamdani Cites ICC Warrant, Trump Says 'Netanyahu Will Not Be Arrested' in NYC
New York City's mayor reiterated Monday that his administration will "follow all applicable local laws" as he considers legal options to take against the fugitive Israeli prime minister.
Jul 20, 2026
US President Donald Trump declared Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—will be safe from arrest in the United States after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was exploring whether he could apprehend the fugitive during his planned visit to the United Nations in September.
"Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America," Trump said on his Truth Social network.
"He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others," the president continued, citing a protest death claim made by opponents of the Iranian government, which said that 3,117 people were killed.
"The only ones that should be arrested," Trump added, "are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!"
The US and Israel are currently waging an illegal war of choice against Iran.
Trump's post followed weekend remarks by Mamdani, who told The New York Times that Netanyahu "belongs in The Hague," the Dutch city that's home to both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice, where a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa in 2023 is pending.
“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” the mayor said. “I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city.”
"Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end," he added.
Mamdani was asked about his remarks during a Monday press conference.
"We're speaking about someone who's the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant," he said of Netanyahu. "And he's the subject of this arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, for war crimes, and he's the architect of the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister. These are not facts of my personal assessment; they are facts of public record."
"And I believe that when someone is charged with an International Criminal Court warrant, it's something that should be taken seriously, whether it's Benjamin Netanyahu or it's [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, or whomever else," Mamdani added. "What I've also made clear is that my administration will follow all applicable local laws. That is our commitment."
🚨Mamdani on why he ordered review re: Netanyahu arrest:
“He's the architect of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister...
“If someone is charged with a warrant for by the International Criminal Court for these kinds of crimes, that's something I… https://t.co/6OfJPRJQ4u pic.twitter.com/Wee0mbID9S
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) July 20, 2026
Although neither the US nor Israel is an ICC member, Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty governing the tribunal, Articles 12 and 13 of the document say that individuals from nonsignatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
Article 27 of the Rome Statute also says that serving as a head of state or government, or as any elected official, "shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility" before the court.
However, Article 98 of the treaty may limit governments' obligation to execute an ICC arrest warrant in certain circumstances involving officials of nonparty states.
Netanyanu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are accused of murder and forced starvation in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the deadliest in that country's history.
Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, over 21,500 of them children, in Gaza since October 2023, while wounding over 173,500 others, according to Palestinian officials. More than 2 million other Gazans have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—starved, or sickened by the US-backed war, which UN and other experts say is a genocide.
While numerous Global South nations—particularly members of the Hague Group—and US allies including Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Spain have publicly said they would enforce the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, other nations including France and Hungary have said they would not try to arrest the Israelis if they entered their territory.
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The Bipartisan US Consensus on Support for Israel Is Over
While public opinion, especially among Democrats, has long been critical of Israeli policies, only a handful of elected officials would speak out. That has changed.
Jul 20, 2026
Evidence keeps piling up that the long-claimed bipartisan consensus on US support for Israel is dead. Almost daily there are signs that Israeli behavior and the heavy-handed tactics used by the pro-Israel lobby to browbeat elected officials into unquestioning support for Israel are being rejected not only by Democratic voters but increasingly by elected Democrats as well. Events this past week make this clear.
When the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine was forced to withdraw because of allegations of sexual assault, pro-Israel groups were initially relieved because he had been a harsh critic of Israeli policies and had called for eliminating their military aid. The relief was short-lived, however, since all of the leading candidates vying to assume the Democratic slot on the ballot have now adopted the same views—charging Israel with genocide, calling for an end to military aid to Israel, and rejecting support from the pro-Israel lobby. These aren’t positions most of these candidates had taken before, but they know that if they want to win the Democratic nomination and the November election these are positions they must now embrace.
Even Democrats vying for the presidency are demonstrating their willingness to establish independence from what had been the pro-Israel consensus. Gone are the days when a candidate would make the obligatory pilgrimage to Israel to meet the prime minister, hug victims of Arab violence, and visit the Wailing Wall. Now they compete to show just how critical they can be.
Rahm Emanuel, a long-time fixture in US politics and supporter of Israel, traveled to Tel Aviv to deliver a highly publicized speech sharply critical of Israeli policy. His speech was overshadowed by Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who visited the West Bank, where he was detained and harassed by menacing armed Israeli settlers. Khanna received more press coverage than Emanuel’s speech. This will, no doubt, continue as Khanna makes the media circuit, relating his eyewitness account of the repressive circumstances that define Palestinian daily life under occupation.
Change came slowly, but not before too many careers were destroyed and too many innocents lost their lives.
Because Emanuel and Khanna are potential presidential contenders, the fact that they chose to make these visits and criticism of Israeli policies a key part of their opening volleys spoke volumes about where Democrats are on this issue.
Just a few days later, back in Washington, two votes in Congress added further weight to the case that there is change. In the Senate, Democrats presented a united front to block a Republican effort, supported by Israel, that would have merged US and Israeli military and intelligence cooperation. It would have replaced aid to Israel with guaranteed cooperation and co-production of military equipment, thereby eliminating the ability of future US administrations to limit unacceptable use of US military supplies.
At the same time, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have cut the annual $3.3 billion US aid package to Israel. This measure was supported by a slight majority of Democratic members of Congress. It wasn’t just the vote that was important. More revealing was how Democrats got to this vote and how they addressed it.
The amendment to eliminate the annual aid to Israel had been initially introduced by a Republican member who recently lost his primary contest owing to a $12 million outlay from pro-Israel sources. That the Republican Speaker of the House allowed the amendment to come to a vote made some Democrats wary that it was a trap, intended to hurt Democrats with pro-Israel donors and Jewish voters in November. In such situations, when controversial votes are to be taken, the party’s congressional leadership takes charge to mobilize their members to vote a certain way. Because the Democratic leader in the House had just received a rather substantial contribution from pro-Israel sources to support electing Democrats in November, it was assumed he would urge his members to vote against the amendment. Instead, recognizing the deep divide that existed in the party, he announced that while he would vote against the aid cut, other Democratic lawmakers were free to vote their conscience. Equally telling was the fact that the Democrats’ No. 2 in the House and the former Democratic leader both voted for the amendment to cut aid.
In their speeches explaining their votes against aid to Israel, most expressed their outrage at Israel’s behaviors, saying that the US should not be complicit in funding what Israel was doing in Gaza. Others cited their disgust with the Israeli prime minister. And a large group of the members who voted for the amendment noted that the money going to Israel to kill Palestinians could better be spent at home to support schools, healthcare, and other domestic priorities.
None of these arguments could have been made even a few years ago. While public opinion, especially among Democrats, has long been critical of Israeli policies, only a handful of elected officials would speak out. They may have been upset with what Israel was doing, but they did not dare voice their concerns in public or vote contrary to the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby. A few factors account for this change.
First, the mass killings of Palestinians and the devastation of Gaza have been viewed by voters in real time. Social media platforms brought this reality directly to the public, unfiltered by establishment media pundits or political propagandists. Equally important is the fact that voters are in a rebellious frame of mind. Both Republicans and Democrats are rejecting their establishments. That’s why Trump was able to win over a majority of Republicans. And it explains why Democrats are turning their backs on party elites and the big money interests who have dominated their politics for decades. Rejecting American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “dark money,” and the taboo against criticizing Israel are part of this shift.
In the face of these developments I can’t help but think back four decades ago when I was warned that if I said the “P word” (meaning the Palestinians) at the 1988 Democratic convention, I would be responsible for destroying the party. When I did say it in my speech to the convention, I was asked to withdraw from the party for fear of the backlash that would follow. Change came slowly, but not before too many careers were destroyed and too many innocents lost their lives. We’re in a different place today, and it’s important we recognize it.
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Trump’s Board Has Made Gaza the Most Dangerous Place on Earth to Be a Child
In Gaza, where “the essence of childhood has been destroyed,” even the smallest acts of humanity have become acts punishable by death.
Jul 19, 2026
Mohamed al-Wahidi, 57 years old, a husband, father and grandfather, spent his days doing what aid workers do in a place with almost nothing left: clearing rubble, reopening roads, repairing a leaking pipe, filling a community water tank, or building tents for families with nowhere else to go. In his spare time, he carried out a “perilous project” setting up screens and generators across Gaza so people could watch the World Cup. On the eve of Egypt's match against Argentina, Israel killed him along with the 33-year-old taxi driver as well as two young brothers, ages 8 and 10, walking nearby. Israel's military said it was investigating “the incident.”
As it almost always does, Israel commits murder first, then trumps up a pretext after the kill.
Al-Wahidi is one name in Gaza's daily killing rituals under the supposed ceasefire. Israel has murdered more than 1,100 Palestinians in the Strip since October 2025—265 of them children. Not a single Israeli civilian has been killed on the other side. This is the "peace" Trump's board is managing.
Nearly 1 million people remain trapped in tents through a Gaza summer where temperatures reach 35°C. Season after season, they are left exposed to the elements: first a freezing winter, then the merciless heat of summer. Families survive in tent cities or beneath dangling concrete slabs in destroyed buildings. Meanwhile, Israel continues to block shade nets and plastic sheeting at the border, just as it blocked warm blankets during the winter.
This is what the Board of Peace normalizes: an occupying power expanding while a one-sided truce remains in force, a starvation policy rebranded as a stabilization success.
Children bake in tents, while Israel keeps pushing the civilian population into smaller corridors. When the so-called Board of Peace was formed, Israel occupied 53% of Gaza. A month later, 60%. By late May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to seize 70%, squeezing 2.3 million human beings into an ever-shrinking cage away from all the farming areas. Energy Minister Eli Cohen has said the quiet part out loud, telling Israeli radio that Israeli control will keep growing “until we reach 100%.” The next phase envisions corralling Palestinians into fenced “humanitarian shelters” near the ruins of Rafah as part of the ultimate ethnic cleansing program, cynically marketed as a “plan for free movement.”
Concentration camps built on the same mechanisms Nazi Germany used to cage Jews in World War II. A United Nations independent commission of inquiry released this summer found that Israel's killing of children in Gaza is not collateral damage of war but part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity of Palestinian society. Acts that meet the legal definition for war crimes and the crime against humanity.
Israel has murdered or injured more than 10% of Gaza’s population since October 2023. At least 20,179 children, more than 5,000 under 5 years old, and another 44,143 injured. The number of murdered children is one-third of the total number of dead Palestinians in Gaza. The commission documented children shot by snipers and quadcopter-mounted rifles with a precision that ruled out accidents and cited Israeli soldiers' own testimonies where soldiers celebrate and congratulate each other after murdering civilians. The commission called Gaza the most dangerous place on Earth to be a child.
In June, a father named Bahaa Abu Al-Ajeen watched an Israeli soldier kneel and shoot his 3-year-old son in the head as the boy cried in his arms near Deir al-Balah. In April, 9-year-old Ritaj Rihan was shot through the mouth while standing in a classroom tent waiting for her teacher. These are not outliers under a ceasefire. They are the continuation of an Israeli genocide under the shadow of the ceasefire.
When Israel and the US launched their war against Iran at the end of February, Israel closed every crossing into Gaza outright. Not because there is any connection, but because of Israel’s malevolent nature and because it can get away with it under the fog of war. Weekly truck deliveries collapsed from an average of roughly 4,200 down to just 590. Kerem Shalom and Zikim remain the only crossings still functioning, and even now, roughly half the trucks arriving from Egypt are turned away rather than unloaded.
As of now, aid volumes have never recovered to where they stood before the Iran war, let alone reached the minimum the UN says Gaza needs. Four UN agencies have already warned that the famine the ceasefire was supposed to end could return without sustained access. Sixty-eight percent of Gaza's population is now burning garbage to cook because there isn't enough gas. Not one of Gaza's 37 hospitals is fully operational; only 19 are even partially running. Nearly half of essential medicines are out of stock, and Israel is delaying the surgical equipment needed to treat the more than 43,000 people left with life-changing injuries. More than 40,000 people who will likely become permanently disabled for lack of treatment are another phase of Israel's silent genocide.
The Board of Peace's own six-month progress report claims aid distribution rose 70% and that basic food needs have been “stabilized” for the first time since 2023. In the art of euphemism, 70% of zero is zero, and basic food has “stabilized,” meaning shipments are entering regularly, but not that it is adequate. Conspicuously absent from the report is any mention that aid truck deliveries have never returned to their pre-Iran war levels and remain well below the minimum the UN itself considers necessary.
The board's own biannual report to the Security Council spends its pages blaming the Palestinian resistance, with no mention of an occupying army that has pushed past the ceasefire's demarcated line, nor Israel’s order to aid groups like Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Oxfam to choose between handing over staff names to a government that targets humanitarian workers, or ceasing operations in Gaza entirely.
Even how to count the murdered journalists is contested. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was pressured to redefine who qualifies as a “Palestinian” journalist. The move was intended to give Israel a license to kill Palestinian reporters with impunity. A CPJ board member who objected to considering Israel's request was removed within days of protesting publicly. The board ultimately kept its definition intact, but only after stripping 20 murdered Palestinian journalists from the count.
This is what the Board of Peace normalizes: an occupying power expanding while a one-sided truce remains in force, a starvation policy rebranded as a stabilization success, concentration camps as a housing plan, ethnic cleansing as free movement, and a licensed death toll that keeps climbing with impunity.
A grandfather who wanted nothing more than to give displaced families an hour of joy watching a soccer match instead became another name on the ever-growing list of genocide victims. In Gaza, where “the essence of childhood has been destroyed,” even the smallest acts of humanity have become acts punishable by death.
Peace was never the board’s plan. Genocide management was.
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Mamdani Says He Is Examining Whether His Government Can Arrest Netanyahu During NYC Visit
The mayor said he is in "an active conversation with our legal department" on the matter.
Jul 18, 2026
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times Saturday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made clear that he plans to take any action available to him to ensure the city complies with the International Criminal Court's warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the opportunity arises.
Netanyahu, said Mamdani, "belongs in The Hague," and he is currently examining whether his government has the authority to arrest the prime minister if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
"He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court," said the mayor. "I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city."
He then clarified that "whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end."
WATCH: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he is in "an active conversation" with the city's Law Department about whether he has the authority to order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
"I believe that Prime… pic.twitter.com/GZJAfbvWGU
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 18, 2026
The mayor told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of the newspaper's "The Interview," that he is having "an active conversation with our legal department" to determine the scope of Mamdani's authority on the matter.
In November 2024, the ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, who was killed by Israeli forces. Netanyahu was accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, where Israel began a relentless assault in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Israel and its top military funder, the US government, have insisted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been targeting Hamas in attacks that are still continuing in Gaza despite a ceasefire that was reached last October.
But evidence has steadily mounted that children, aid workers, refugee camps, schools, and hospitals have been attacked, and experts found last year that Israel was intentionally starving Palestinians in Gaza as a method of warfare.
More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and more than 173,000 people have been wounded. Israeli attacks have made Gaza home to the largest number of child amputees in the world, and have decimated over 90% of housing units in the exclave.
Garcia-Navarro questioned Mamdani on the "political weight" he gives to the issue of Israel and Palestine, which has seen a marked shift in US public opinion since Israel began its latest US-backed assault on Gaza. More than half of Democratic voters and nearly a third of all voters told The Associated Press last month that they viewed the war in Gaza as a genocide against Palestinians.
Three-quarters of respondents to a New York Times poll in May said they opposed continuing to send military aid to Israel, compared to 45% three years ago.
"It’s hard to explain to a New Yorker why their needs are not even being discussed, and yet we have billions of dollars to kill civilians halfway across the world," said Mamdani, who has been laser-focused during his term and his campaign last year on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers and passing universal public programs.
"I think what we have seen from New Yorkers, what we’ve seen from Americans, when we talk about this hunger for a new kind of politics, it’s a hunger to move beyond the bankruptcy that characterizes a lot of politics today," said Mamdani. "And it is hard to find a more bankrupt policy approach than what our country has done to Gaza and to Palestine and how it hasn’t been specific to any one party. It’s been, again and again, an insistence to tell New Yorkers, and to tell Americans, that what they are seeing is not something they should in fact either be concerned by or believe in. It is hard to then turn to another issue and say, Believe me here."
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday that Netanyahu will be at the UN meeting in New York City in September, despite Mamdani's threats—which date back to his mayoral campaign—while the prime minister said on a radio show this week that the mayor "hates America" and champions Hamas.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan said it was "pretty amazing to hear" Mamdani repeat his earlier conviction that Netanyahu should be arrested under the ICC warrant, given that he first publicly remarked on the issue "when he was polling at 1% in the Democratic primary polls and no one expected him to actually be mayor."
Netanyahu has thus far evaded arrest when traveling to countries that recognize the ICC's authority under the Rome Statute. The court opened an inquiry into Hungary last year when it failed to detain the prime minister when he visited. France also said it would not execute the warrant for Netanyahu because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute.
UN Ambassador Michael Waltz responded to Mamdani's interview on Saturday, saying the US is also not party to the Rome Statute.
Journalist Zaid Jilani said that although the mayor of New York likely lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu, "he can certainly troll him."
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Genocide in Gaza Means Empty Seats at the 2026 World Cup
Will there be any tributes for the 567 Palestinian footballers reportedly killed in Gaza since October 2023?
Jul 18, 2026
The world has united for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Stadiums have been filled with songs, flags, and the shared joy that football uniquely creates. Millions celebrate the beauty of a sport that claims to unite humanity across borders, languages, and politics.
But with the final game approaching, a question hangs heavily over the tournament: Will there be any tributes for the 567 Palestinian footballers reportedly killed in Gaza since October 2023?
The latest name on that list is Saleem Al-Ashqar, a Palestinian goalkeeper from Al-Qarara, near Khan Younis. He was 32 years old. According to reports, he was not on a battlefield. He was riding a motorcycle, searching for cooking gas. He had married only months earlier, in January 2026, and was waiting for the birth of his first child. Israeli forces shot and killed him.
In February 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, FIFA acted with remarkable speed. Within days, Russia was suspended from international competition and excluded from World Cup qualification. The decision came from widespread recognition that sport could not be separated from a major violation of international law and human suffering. FIFA described it as necessary to protect the integrity of football and to stand against violence.
When the final whistle blows at the 2026 World Cup, millions of people will celebrate the beauty of the game. They should also remember those who were denied the chance to keep playing it.
But if that principle applied to Russia, why does it not apply consistently elsewhere?
For nearly three years, international organizations, human rights groups, United Nations experts, and legal bodies have documented immense civilian suffering in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Homes, schools, hospitals, universities, and cultural institutions have been destroyed. The sporting sector has not been spared. Football fields have become rubble, sports facilities have been damaged and destroyed. Coaches, referees, administrators, and players have lost their lives. Despite all of this, the Israel Football Association remains a full FIFA member.
The consequences of this selectivity are devastating for Palestinian footballers. Their deaths rarely make international headlines. Their names are seldom known beyond their communities. The destruction of Gaza's sporting infrastructure receives little attention compared with transfer rumors, sponsorship deals, and tournament news.
Imagine a World Cup qualifying group in which half the players were dead. Imagine a national league where stadiums no longer exist. Imagine trying to explain to a child why their favorite goalkeeper will never play again because he was killed while searching for fuel to cook a meal.
Football is built on memory. Every World Cup honors the past as we remember legends who lifted trophies decades ago. Stadiums regularly hold moments of silence for victims of disasters, terrorism, and war. We place black armbands on captains’ sleeves because the sport understands that you cannot simply ignore loss.
Now that 567 footballers are gone, will we have a moment of silence? Will giant screens display their names? Will commentators mention that an entire generation of Palestinian players was cut down before it had the chance to compete? Or will the tournament proceed as though those lives never existed?
Tributes matter because they acknowledge humanity. They tell grieving families that the world saw their loved ones and that their deaths are not being erased.
If FIFA is unwilling to suspend the Israel Football Association, it should at the very least publicly recognize the Palestinian footballers who have been killed and commit to rebuilding the sporting infrastructure that has been destroyed. Their silence is a choice, and it speaks volumes.
When the final whistle blows at the 2026 World Cup, millions of people will celebrate the beauty of the game. They should also remember those who were denied the chance to keep playing it. The empty seats belong to them.
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Inspired by Trump, Israel Advances Plan for Crocodile-Ringed Prison for Palestinians
"This is some Bond villain-level lunacy," said one Reddit user.
Jul 17, 2026
The Israeli government this week stripped Nile crocodiles of their protected status in order to advance a proposal that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said was inspired by the Trump administration's now-shuttered Alligator Alcatraz to build a prison for Palestinians surrounded by a moat full of the ravenous reptiles.
"You read that right," the liberal US Jewish group J Street said in response to the news. "When cruelty becomes a governing principle instead of an aberration within the Israeli government, something has gone deeply wrong."
Israeli Environmental Minister Idit Silman signed a directive Wednesday reclassifying Nile crocodiles as "specially managed wild animals," a novel legal category enabling the government to keep them for security purposes.
Ben-Gvir, who heads the Israel Prison Service (IPS), said he was inspired by the Trump administration's recently closed Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention center in Florida. He is seeking to first introduce crocodiles into a moat around Ketziot Prison in southern Israel.
While it is not certain that the plan will come to fruition, Ben-Gvir celebrated Silman's decree in a social media post showing him petting a crocodile, with the caption: "Cursed terrorist, thinking of trying to escape? Think again."
Palestinians have occasionally escaped from Israeli lockups, such as in September 2021, when six men used improvised tools, including spoons, to tunnel out of the high-security Gilboa Prison. All six escapees were caught within weeks.
(Photo by Itamar Ben-Gvir/Facebook)
The move by Silman—who gained international notoriety by calling for the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip—came despite objections from her own ministry's legal adviser and the Nature and Parks Authority.
IPS, which sent a fact-finding mission to the Hamat Gader crocodile farm in January, argued that its employees could handle the animals, citing the agency's experience working with the attack dogs that Palestinian prisoners and human rights groups have claimed were used to maul and even sexually abuse detainees.
Silman's approval is contingent upon IPS meeting animal welfare requirements and appropriate holding conditions.
Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir has openly boasted about the dramatic deterioration in conditions endured by Palestinian prisoners since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and Israel's retaliatory obliteration of Gaza, which United Nations and other experts describe as a genocide.
“We go into the prisons, and they wet themselves," Ben-Gvir said of Palestinian prisoners during a speech on Friday. "I'm not joking. They're afraid. Fear rules them, and that's how it should be.”
Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials have worn noose lapel pins to celebrate a recently passed bill legalizing the execution by hanging of so-called "terrorists."
Former Palestinian detainees and Israeli personnel have described beatings, rape and sexual torture by male and female soldiers, routine amputations due to constant shackling, burnings, electrocutions, attacks by dogs, ice-water dousings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and other abuse.
The Israeli military is investigating the deaths of dozens of detainees at the Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
Ben-Gvir has defended Israeli reservists accused of torturing Palestinian prisoners, and called the reservists who allegedly gang-raped a man at Sde Teiman prison "heroes."
The minister is banned from entering a number of Western countries for his incitement to violence against Palestinians.
Several Israeli environmental groups issued a joint statement opposing the use of crocodiles in prisons.
"Crocodiles are sentient beings, with complex needs for space, water, temperature, and natural behavior," the groups said. "It is also highly doubtful that the crocodiles intended for this purpose have aggressive temperaments, and in any event, during the winter they slow their metabolism dramatically, become very sluggish, and stop eating.”
"Security should be achieved through real security measures, not through animals," they added. "We are considering filing a petition with the High Court of Justice over the matter.”
Last year, the Israeli military massacred 262 crocodiles that were being kept on a farm in the occupied West Bank near the illegal Israeli settler colony of Petzael, claiming the reptiles posed a risk to the public.
“They just slaughtered them," farm owner Danny Bitan told reporters at the time, describing the scene as "some kind of killing valley."
Ben-Gvir's plan comes amid ongoing slaughter in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, over 21,500 of them children, since October 2023—and accelerating colonization and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
News of Silman's approval sparked disbelief around the world and on social media, where Reddit users called the plan "cartoonish idiocy" and "Bond villain-level lunacy."
"The fact that Israel is trying to surround a prison with [crocodiles] tells you all you need to know about these camps, which are designed to torture, rape, and murder Palestinians, often held as hostages without charges," Israeli researcher and political commentator Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said Thursday on X.
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Critics Warn Bipartisan Bill to Abolish UNRWA Will Be 'Death Sentence For Thousands of Palestinians'
"UNRWA is vital to keeping hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Palestinians alive."
Jul 17, 2026
Human rights advocates are raising alarm about a bipartisan bill in the US House of Representatives aimed at abolishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which they say will help Israel in its efforts to starve Palestinians in the occupied territories of food and medical aid.
Across Gaza, the West Bank, and other surrounding areas, UNRWA provides emergency food or cash assistance to roughly 2.6 million people and records about 10.5 million primary-care visits annually, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
But since the genocide in Gaza began, Israel has waged a multifront campaign to dismantle the agency, legally banning it from operating in Israeli territory, blocking it from bringing desperately needed aid and staff into Gaza, and pressuring nations around the world to cut off funding based on unfounded allegations that the organization is controlled by Hamas, which dissolved Gaza's governing body earlier this month as part of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The bill introduced in the US House on Wednesday by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) would require the State Department to "dismantle" and transition its services to other nongovernmental organizations.
"UNRWA has been corrupted by Hamas for years, with documented ties to terrorism," claimed Lawler, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. "That’s why [Rep. Gottheimer] and I have introduced the bipartisan Replace UNRWA with Real Humanitarian Assistance Act to abolish UNRWA and replace it with trusted partners that will deliver aid to those who need it, without empowering terrorist organizations."
Gottheimer added that UNRWA "employs Hamas terrorists involved in the October 7 [2023] attack," echoing a claim that has been presented by Israel in its assault on the agency.
In 2024, Israel accused 19 of UNRWA's more than 13,000 employees in Gaza of having taken part in the attack, which resulted in the death of about 1,200 Israelis.
A UN investigation found that nine of the 19 employees may have been involved in the attack. Investigators found insufficient evidence to support involvement in nine cases and obtained no evidence in one case. UNRWA said the employment of the nine implicated staff members would be terminated.
Israeli officials have continued to portray UNRWA as a "civilian arm" of Hamas, alleging that hundreds of militants lurk among its ranks, but independent reviews have uncovered no evidence of this.
Nevertheless, many nations have taken Israel's claims at face value, initially cutting off funds and creating an existential funding crisis for the agency. While many have since resumed funding, its largest contributor, the US—which provided around a third of the agency's budget—has not, and the agency has been forced to scale back services for vulnerable refugees.
"This bill would be a death sentence for thousands of Palestinians who depend on UNRWA services," said Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy (CIP) and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "What's really going on here: using the false claim that 'UNRWA equals Hamas' to advance the Israeli right's goal of removing the Palestinian refugee issue from the agenda."
Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University, raised concerns about what sort of NGO might replace UNRWA if it were fully dismantled.
"This is how we ended up with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and daily mass shootings of starving civilians," he said, referring to the US-Israeli nonprofit that supplanted UNRWA as the primary distributor of aid before shutting down after the October 2025 "ceasefire."
The organization consolidated aid distribution to a small number of sites under Israeli military control, where soldiers routinely fired into massive crowds of starving people. At least 859 people were killed near GHF sites in less than two months in 2025, and thousands more were wounded, according to a UN report.
Lawler and Gottheimer's bill has 23 co-sponsors, all of whom are Republicans. However, a majority of Democrats in both the House and Senate voted for a spending package in March 2024 that defunded the agency. Some Democrats have since sponsored legislation aimed at restoring the funds.
"UNRWA is vital to keeping hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Palestinians alive," said Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at CIP, in response to a post by Lawler promoting the legislation. "Your attempt to kill it unconscionably compounds Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
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Iran Says Real ‘Foreign Influence’ Campaign in US Is Being Directed by Israelis Working With Trump Ally
"Americans are being warned of foreign influence. How about the extensive Israeli campaign to bamboozle the US administration into an unwinnable war of choice?"
Jul 17, 2026
President Donald Trump on Thursday accused the Chinese government of trying to meddle in US elections in a lengthy speech rattling off baseless conspiracy theories about his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Friday said that the president was overlooking a foreign influence campaign being carried out by one of his longtime allies.
In a social media post, the Iranian diplomat pointed to a report in Time about Brad Parscale, Trump's former campaign manager, who is now a registered foreign agent of Israel conducting influence operations on behalf of its government.
"Americans are being warned of foreign influence," wrote Araghchi. "How about the extensive Israeli campaign to bamboozle the US administration into an unwinnable war of choice? Even worse: Israel is using US taxpayer dollars to silence any US critics. It will all soon unravel."
According to Time, Parscale's Clock Tower X firm last year signed an agreement to produce content across multiple platforms aimed at shoring up support for Israel among young US conservatives.
An anonymous Israeli Foreign Ministry official told Time that Parscale "presented himself as uniquely positioned to improve Israel’s reputation among young conservatives," while stressing "his experience at the helm of Trump’s political operation, with a grasp of both the architecture of the modern internet and the political movement Trump had built" during his three runs for the presidency.
"Three people familiar with the campaign describe a messaging operation run through a network of interconnected firms overseen by Parscale or other firms he owns or created," reported Time. "Through private group chats, they say, conservative influencers receive suggested language for posts on social media sites such as X, Instagram and TikTok. They were then compensated based on the impressions and engagement their content generated."
One Trump official told Time they suspected that Parscale was also behind an operation aimed at undermining the president's efforts to broker a deal to end his illegal war with Iran.
Parscale, however, denied pushing messages that attacked the deal shortly after its announcement.
"I have never funded, organized, or participated in any effort to undermine President Trump—ever—including his [memorandum of understanding] or ceasefire proposal," the former Trump 2020 campaign manager told the magazine. "The claim that I am coordinating an effort to prolong the war is completely false."
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The Not-So-Secret Israeli Plan for Gaza: Never Leaving
Until Israel is compelled to relinquish its military control over Gaza, everything else you see or are told will be nothing but political theater.
Jul 17, 2026
Here is the bottom line: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of leaving Gaza, either before Israel’s general elections—likely to be held in October—or after. Conceding an inch from the roughly 70 percent of the territory his army currently occupies in Gaza will be considered a weakness by the majority of Israeli voters and would result in an open revolt within his extremist coalition.
He has made his intentions clear time and again. Recent statements by Israel's political leadership have only reinforced that reality, with officials insisting that Israel must maintain indefinite military dominance over the Strip and explicitly rejecting any framework that requires a full withdrawal of troops. To Netanyahu, the military footprint in Gaza is a permanent fixture, not a temporary bargaining chip.
Some may argue that Netanyahu’s statements are merely political fodder aimed at prolonging his career and avoiding the disastrous outcomes awaiting him—in terms of state investigations and court trials—should he be ejected from power. However, his extremist policies throughout his entire career at the helm of Israeli politics say otherwise. There has never been a period in Netanyahu’s history in which he showed a genuine willingness to compromise or engage in an authentic political process with the Palestinians.
The political track aimed at reconstructing Gaza and ending the Israeli military presence has little bearing on the grim realities unfolding on the ground.
This reduces the point of the Washington-led Board of Peace and its subsequent administrative bodies to near irrelevance. These entities—including the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and a multinational International Stabilization Force (ISF)—were supposedly assembled with the sole aim of managing a transitional phase, delivering humanitarian aid, and deploying a peacekeeping buffer to facilitate a gradual Israeli military withdrawal.
It seems that two separate, irreconcilable tracks are taking shape. One is the Israeli track of continued war, entrenched military occupation, and prolonged genocide. The other is an international track, controlled firmly by Washington, aimed largely at finding alternative ways to manage Gaza on behalf of Israel.
Yet even with its obvious limitations, the Gaza plan’s first phase theoretically promises a phased Israeli military repositioning, a sustainable ceasefire, a massive influx of reconstruction aid, and the gradual handover of civil administration to a non-factional Palestinian authority.
Little of that has actually been delivered. While the United States and international envoys claim the ceasefire hinges on disarmament, Israel has used the diplomatic deadlock to advance its troops further into the Strip rather than withdrawing them. Aid remains choked at the borders, and the promised reconstruction has not even begun.
Indirect talks are ongoing in Cairo, though it seems that only Palestinians are being held accountable or expected to carry out heavy concessions. Moreover, after 19 years of Hamas governing Gaza, the movement announced on July 6 that it has officially dissolved the Emergency Committee that has been administering the Strip. The movement declared its full readiness to transfer governance to the National Committee, intended to administer Gaza under the framework of the US-brokered plan.
On paper, this suggests that a political transition is finally underway. In reality, no such transition is taking place.
Israel is actively preventing this technocratic government from assuming any real duties. Rather than facilitating a civil handover, the Israeli political security cabinet has completely dismissed the transition. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar openly labeled the move a "trick," arguing that a technocratic administration would merely be responsible for municipal tasks like garbage collection while allowing resistance networks to persist.
Instead, Israel’s military strategy continues to fuel conditions that undermine any possibility of stabilizing the devastated Strip. Its objective is not merely to reject an alternative Palestinian administration, but to ensure that no functioning Palestinian governing authority can emerge at all. By doing so, Tel Aviv wants to create a permanent governance vacuum, sowing further chaos and fragmentation.
If no alternative Palestinian political body is permitted to stabilize Gaza, the default collapse will inevitably force local factions to reassert control over daily survival, thus giving Israel yet more pretenses to exact more punishment on a helpless population.
Following the Hamas political move, Israel simply responded with its standard currency: immediate violence. This was starkly illustrated on July 9, when Israeli forces carried out a targeted airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City in a failed attempt to assassinate Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem. Though the assassination attempt failed, the strike sent a clear message that Israel has no intention of respecting political transformations or ceasefires.
While no houses are being built, no schools are being constructed, and no hospitals are being revived, the only numbers that keep growing are those of the dead and wounded. The human cost has reached unfathomable proportions: the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 73,000, with the number of wounded exceeding 173,200. Tragically, these numbers continue to climb daily: over 1,098 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called ceasefire framework was initially agreed upon, proving that the truce exists only in media rhetoric, not on the ground.
This leaves us with a single, inescapable conclusion: the political track aimed at reconstructing Gaza and ending the Israeli military presence has little bearing on the grim realities unfolding on the ground.
The only way out is a stronger, independent international will that wrestles the future of Gaza from the grip of Netanyahu, translating political agreements into immediate humanitarian outcomes and a definitive end to the Israeli occupation.
Until Israel is compelled to relinquish its military control over Gaza, every new committee, reconstruction mechanism, or diplomatic initiative risks becoming little more than political theater.
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'What Region of Pennsylvania Is Israel Located In?': Fetterman Jeered for Threat to Quit Dems
"If he’s willing to throw the entire control of the Senate to the other party over Israel, then he’s dismissing the interests of his own state and constituents," said one critic.
Jul 16, 2026
Sen. John Fetterman was mocked on Thursday following his threat to leave the Democratic Party as more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off US military aid to Israel over its crimes against Palestine.
On Wednesday, 103 of the 212 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for an amendment introduced by outgoing Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky that would have eliminated the $3.3 billion in annual foreign military financing provided to Israel’s military.
While the amendment ultimately did not garner enough votes to pass, the record number of Democrats willing to put an end to more than half a century of practically unconditional US support for Israel was viewed by Palestine defenders as a sign of hope—and by Israel backers as a cause for alarm. Fetterman has clearly positioned himself among the latter.
“My long-term concern has been with the Democratic Party, as I am a member of that, is that our party is going to back away and turn their back to Israel,” he said during an interview at the Hill Nation Summit in Washington, DC, which he headlined along with Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator.
“If our party ever becomes—and just makes it official—the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me,” the senator vowed.
Responding to Fetterman's threat, journalist Zaid Jilani quipped on social media, "What region of Pennsylvania is Israel located in?"
"If he’s willing to throw the entire control of the Senate to the other party over Israel, then he’s dismissing the interests of his own state and constituents," Jilani added.
Fetterman said Wednesday that he “can’t understand why the Democratic Party” was becoming increasingly critical of Israel.
In addition to Israel facing an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague over its conduct in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Fetterman joined Republicans in slamming the ICC move, saying, "Fuck that" to the warrants. He also warmly embraced Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog—who is the subject of criminal complaints in Switzerland for allegedly inciting genocide and crimes against humanity—and reportedly urged in Herzog in private to pardon Netanyahu, who is on trial in his country for alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
United Nations experts, dozens of nations—either individually or as members of regional blocs—as well as Israeli and international scholars and human rights groups have accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, as have more than 20 of Fetterman's congressional colleagues. Israel's illegal occupation, settler colonization, and apartheid have been condemned by the ICJ and others. Israel also faces accusations of ethnic cleansing and de facto annexation in the illegally occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Yet for Fetterman, the problem for Democrats is "the kinds of individuals that are winning our recent primaries."
“It’s becoming more anti-Israel and hostile" to Israel supporters, he argued on Wednesday, singling out Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan progressive seeking the Democratic nomination for US Senate who called Israel a "rogue state" that is committing "genocide and apartheid," while urging an end to "unilateral blank checks" for the key ally.
“If El-Sayed wins, then that puts Michigan much more in play for us and would require us to spend more money," Fetterman said. "What’s defined El-Sayed is the more anti-Israel and hostile-to-Israel thing."
In addition to his staunch support of Israel, Fetterman has been criticized for his backing of President Donald Trump's xenophobic immigration policies, his willingness to vote with Republicans on funding bills, his support for Trump nominees, and frequent criticism of progressive Democrats.
On Wednesday, The Intercept reported that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow "gave the maximum allowed contribution" to Fetterman's campaign during the current election cycle.
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