At least 28 drones have successfully entered the Gaza Strip in recent months despite dozens of Israeli interception efforts, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-901044#google_vignette">raising concerns</a> among Israeli security officials that many of them could be used by Hamas terrorists.
Army Radio reported Wednesday that the drones crossed into Gaza through multiple routes, including from Egypt and from within Israel. According to the report, Israeli defense officials believe most of the drones that successfully entered the strip ultimately reached Hamas, though it remains unknown what cargo many of them were carrying.
Israeli officials say the drones themselves could become valuable operational assets even if they were not transporting weapons or other supplies. According to Army Radio, Hamas has increasingly used drones to observe Israeli troop movements and carry out attacks by attaching explosives to the aircraft.
The report said Israeli authorities have thwarted 89 drone smuggling attempts since January. Combined with the 28 drones believed to have entered Gaza, that represents at least 117 known drone smuggling operations during the first half of the year. Israeli officials also cautioned that the figures only include known cases, meaning the real number of attempted or successful smuggling operations could be higher.
&#8220;The IDF claims that all smuggling attempts intercepted so far contained drugs only,&#8221; Army Radio reported. &#8220;However, as noted, dozens were not intercepted, and these figures represent only the cases known to the military.&#8221;
The report added that Israeli officials acknowledge some drones may have entered Gaza without ever being detected. <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/429465">Security officials also said</a> it is impossible to determine what the drones that reached Gaza were carrying, according to Israel National News.
Israeli authorities have recently stepped up efforts to disrupt the smuggling networks. In June, Israel Police and the Defense Ministry confiscated property linked to drone smuggling into Gaza, while Defense Minister Israel Katz imposed economic sanctions on individuals accused of participating in the operations.
&#8220;Anyone who smuggles weapons, equipment, or funds to terrorist organizations in Gaza is part of the terrorist network itself and will pay a heavy price,&#8221; Katz said in a statement.
<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-897758">The concerns come as Israeli military leaders</a> continue to warn about the growing role of drones in modern warfare. Hamas is reportedly studying Hezbollah&#8217;s use of explosive drones in Lebanon, where such attacks have killed 16 Israeli soldiers and wounded many more in recent months, according to the Jerusalem Post.
In May, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir described Hezbollah&#8217;s first-person-view drone capabilities as &#8220;a challenge&#8221; but said the military already has &#8220;operational and technological solutions&#8221; in development to counter the threat.
&#8220;The drone threat is a challenge, but we will overcome it,&#8221; Zamir said. &#8220;The battlefield is unpredictable and always will be, but we are dedicating the IDF&#8217;s best resources, minds, and capabilities to this issue.&#8221;
Israeli officials have increasingly pointed to drones as one of the evolving threats facing the military, both from Hezbollah in Lebanon and from Hamas in Gaza, as armed groups continue adapting commercially available technology for military purposes.

Hamas fighters carry a drone as they attend the military

Hamas Gets Hands On Dozens Of Drones That Israel Worries Could Be Used In Future Attacks

Drones

Gaza

Hamas

Israel

The United Nations has accused the Jewish state of deliberately hunting Palestinian children, and after 94 pages of this “U.N. report,” it cannot prove a single case.
Technically, the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session62/a-hrc-62-crp-2.pdf">accusation</a> comes not from the United Nations as a whole but from the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a body created by the Council rather than by the Security Council or General Assembly. In practice, however, the distinction disappears. The report is published on U.N. websites under the U.N. emblem, promoted through official U.N. channels, and reported around the world simply as a “U.N. report.” That branding launders the Commission’s allegations through the institutional credibility of the United Nations itself, giving them an authority the evidence does not earn. Most readers will never know the difference, and most headlines never mention it.
The report came this month, and its charges are the gravest of international law: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Yet the only proof it offers is a body count and a theory. Nowhere does it identify a single Israeli soldier who looked at a child, knew the child was a civilian, faced no threat, and fired anyway because the child was the object of the attack. Not one.
The Commission convicts itself in its own caveats, and it does so repeatedly. Incident after incident, it “could not find any indication of a threat” (paragraph 58), “could not verify any claims of exchange of fire” (paragraph 89), does not know who fired or whether combat was underway nearby, and then somehow, every time, reaches a “clear conclusion” of intentional murder anyway.
Here is what the report says: Israeli forces deliberately targeted children across Gaza.
Here is what it leaves out: Hamas.
No tunnels, no human shields, no command posts under hospitals, no acknowledgment that Hamas spent 17 years building a military state beneath the civilian one, hiding rockets under children’s beds and a sniper’s rifle inside a child’s teddy bear. At paragraph 11, the Commission notes “reports of the use of children by the parties to the conflict,” then admits these “have not yet been investigated.” A report on children in armed conflict announces, on page four, that it never looked at the fact that the armed terrorist group in question uses children.
Take the signature horror: an armed quadcopter that, the Commission says, saw inside a tent in daylight and put a single round through a nursing ten-day-old’s head, and another through a four-year-old’s as she was eating. It calls the weapon, in paragraph 60, “a sniper rifle mounted on a quadcopter.” One glaring problem is that one of us served twenty-five years as a U.S. Army infantry soldier, has spent more than a decade studying modern warfare, and has made multiple trips into Gaza with the IDF. No such weapon exists. A .338 sniper rifle does not ride on a small quadcopter and deliver a precision head shot through a tent flap. The Commission appears to recognize this difficulty because four paragraphs later, the same platform is described as firing “an assault rifle,” and 10 paragraphs after that, it becomes “shotguns.” A drone is not a sniper. The report cannot consistently identify its own alleged murder weapon, yet it builds one of its most serious factual findings on this internally inconsistent account.
The forensics are worse because there are none. A child is shot; surgeons remove what the Commission is told was a three-centimeter bullet; and from that one secondhand line it “assesses” a .338 Lapua cartridge, a rifle, and an Israeli division (paragraph 68). No chain of custody, no laboratory, no proof the round was even Israeli. Its experts on ballistics and battlefield intent are doctors, who may be able to describe a wound but cannot know who fired the gun, from where, or why. The Commission cites them anyway, but only when their guesses point one way.
To be clear, children have died in Gaza in heartbreaking numbers, and every one is a tragedy. The laws of armed conflict recognize that civilian deaths, however tragic, can occur even during lawful attacks on military objectives. The legal question is not whether civilians died but why and under what circumstances. What is disputed is whether a child’s death, standing alone, proves a war crime. The Commission says it does. The law says it does not.
At paragraph 268, the report states its theory outright: because Israel “knew that children were present in the areas it attacked” and struck anyway, the attacks “were intentional” and the children “intentionally targeted collectively.” The Commission converts knowledge that civilians might be nearby into intent to kill them. That is simply not the law. Under the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I, knowing civilians are near a military objective triggers the duties of proportionality and precaution; it does not make the strike murder. The Rome Statute crime of attacking civilians requires that civilians be the object of the attack, not its regrettable cost. Genocide demands dolus specialis, the specific intent to destroy a group as such; the U.N.’s own International Court of Justice held in Bosnia v. Serbia that such intent must be the only reasonable inference from the conduct. The Commission infers a plan to destroy “the future of the Palestinians” from the bare fact that children died.
Its working rule is even simpler: any target Hamas hides among civilians becomes untouchable, and any civilian who dies beside it becomes proof of murder. The deeper Hamas burrows into homes and schools and hospitals, the safer it gets and the guiltier Israel looks, which inverts the very law that forbids using civilians as shields. The West Bank makes the inversion even plainer: the Commission counts 213 dead minors, tells readers that 206 were boys, and from that ratio divines a “policy of targeting boys” as “future terrorists.” A war on children does not kill boys at 97%. That statistic instead raises the obvious question: many of those “boys” were actively participating in hostilities.
Of course, the Commission never asks the question. Under U.N. definitions, every person under 18 is counted as a child, whether a 10-year-old in a classroom or a 17-year-old carrying an assault rifle. Hamas, meanwhile, has long recruited, trained, and used minors, including teenagers and younger children, a practice the Commission acknowledges has been reported but expressly declines to investigate. By collapsing all persons under 18 into a single category while omitting the role of child soldiers, the report invites readers to equate every “child” casualty with a civilian who was not participating in hostilities. That omission is central to its narrative.
This is how a libel becomes a fact. The body counts originate with the Hamas-run health ministry and are relayed to the world under a U.N. logo. Human rights groups, several funded by the anti-Israel governments that demanded the inquiry, refer to it as settled. Reporters cite the groups without reading the report; policymakers cite the resulting “consensus”; and within 48 hours, the media print “deliberately targeted” as if it is an established fact. It is the same machine that once blamed Israel for the Al-Ahli hospital blast that American, British, and Canadian intelligence traced to a misfired Palestinian rocket. Anti-Israel bias does not need evidence, only an audience that has already convicted Israel.
The messenger does matter, and here it is the Human Rights Council’s only open-ended commission of inquiry, aimed permanently at a single country, on a council where roughly half of all country-specific condemnations name Israel. The world still calls it the Pillay Commission, after the previous chair who famously pronounced Israel guilty of war crimes before she was appointed to judge it. When Washington, D.C., sanctioned the council’s Palestinian rapporteur last year, the commissioners themselves resigned and promised to “reconstitute.” They did not, however, reform it, so the remedy is simple.
A bipartisan group in Congress already drafted the Commission of Inquiry Elimination Act, which would cut U.S. dollars from a permanent mandate that runs on $4 million a year and has dropped even the pretense of fairness or due process. The United States already refuses to fund discriminatory U.N. conduct, and this qualifies by any measure. The Commission titled its report “The essence of childhood has been destroyed,” but it chose the wrong noun. What this report destroys is the essence of evidence, the rule that an accusation of murder must be proven and not merely felt. After 94 pages, it still identifies no soldier, no order, no forensic proof, no battlefield investigation establishing intent, and no evidence capable of sustaining the accusation it makes.
The proper response is not to treat this report as a serious finding. You cannot defend against insanity. But we can and should stop funding it.
***
Mark Goldfeder is CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and a law professor at Touro Law School.
John Spencer is the Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute.

U.N. logo

Without Evidence The U.N. Accuses Israel Of Genocide – Another Day That Ends In ‘Y’

DW Opinion

genocide

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Palestine

United Nations Human Rights Council

The hall of the United Nations Human Rights Council fell into an uneasy silence earlier this week as a small woman walked to the microphone and prepared to do something the world&#8217;s most powerful human rights body had failed to do: bear witness.
Ilana Gritzewsky, a survivor of Hamas&#8217; October 7 massacre, stood before Reem Alsalem — the U.N.&#8217;s own special rapporteur on violence against women, who is Jordanian — and refused to be erased.
What followed was one of the most searing moments in recent U.N. history, not because of what the diplomat said in response.
Because of what she didn&#8217;t say.
Gritzewsky recounted the morning terrorists stormed her kibbutz — the murders, the burning, the kidnapping. She described being touched, beaten, and sexually abused until she lost consciousness, waking half-naked with seven Hamas fighters standing over her. She described the broken hip, the broken jaw, the scarred soul she carried home from captivity. She spoke of how the wail of an air raid siren or the thunder of an Iranian rocket still hurls her back into that darkness.
&#8220;In captivity, Jewish women were raped, abused, and humiliated. And you, special rapporteur, you choose silence and denial. You say there was no evidence of sexual violence on October 7th,&#8221; she told Alsalem directly. &#8220;I&#8217;m standing here today, not as a report, not as a statistic. I am a woman who survived. I am the living proof of sexual violence by Hamas.&#8221;
Then she asked the question that hung over the chamber like smoke: &#8220;When I, another Israeli woman, begged not to be raped — why were you silent? Please look at me. Do you believe us now? Will you apologize?&#8221;
Alsalem sat silent after Gritzewsky&#8217;s testimony. She did not apologize.
She smirked.
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This is the UN. Look at the face of the UN special rapporteur who is meant to stand up for women but has refused, again and again, to speak up for Israeli women. Look at her face when a former hostage challenges her. <a href="https://t.co/whThRNG92u">pic.twitter.com/whThRNG92u</a>
&mdash; Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) <a href="https://x.com/nicolelampert/status/2069691978707513797?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The confrontation laid bare a record that is nothing short of a scandal. As U.N. Watch <a href="https://unwatch.org/analysis-of-reem-alsalems-violence-against-mothers-report-omissions-distortions-and-double-standards/">noted</a>, Alsalem publicly declared last November that &#8220;no independent investigation found that rape took place on October 7&#8221; — a claim directly contradicted by a U.N. report issued months earlier that found reasonable grounds to believe Hamas committed sexual violence during the attack, with an even higher evidentiary threshold met for assaults on hostages held in captivity. As recently as April 2026, she was still dismissing survivor testimony as &#8220;misinformation&#8221; deployed to &#8220;justify genocide against Palestinians.&#8221;
Her June 2026 report to the Human Rights Council, titled &#8220;Violence against Mothers,&#8221; completed the picture. It accused Israel of reproductive violence and genocide, cited a single article from an openly anti-Israel outlet, and lamented that U.S. and Israeli action against Iran might undermine Tehran&#8217;s record on women&#8217;s rights — a position that drew immediate ridicule from prominent Iranian women&#8217;s rights activist Masih Alinejad, who had publicly celebrated those same strikes. The report made no mention of Hamas. It said nothing of Israeli mothers murdered in front of their children, nothing of hostage families psychologically tortured for over two years, nothing of the deliberate phenomenon so systematic it has been given its own name: kinocide.
Ilana Gritzewsky offered Reem Alsalem a simple human choice on June 23: look at her, and reckon with what she represents.
The special rapporteur looked away.

Ilana Gritzewsky, former hostage by Hamas speaks during

Watch U.N. Official’s Sickening Reaction To Oct. 7 Survivor

October 7

United Nations

An Al Jazeera cameraman mourned as a journalist killed by Israel was also a Hamas sniper operative, <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2068442916977275317">according to the Israel Defense Forces</a>.
Ahmed Washah was killed Saturday in central Gaza after an Israeli drone targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp. Al Jazeera and multiple media outlets described him as a cameraman for Al Jazeera Mubasher, Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language live channel. Al Jazeera said two other people were also killed and others were wounded.
But the IDF says Washah was not simply a journalist and was targeted in the strike because he was “a terrorist in Hamas’ military wing who served as a sniper operative.” The IDF also said Washah had recently advanced sniper attack plans and worked alongside his brother, Mohammed Washah, whom the military described as a key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters. Ahmed was <a href="https://honestreporting.com/ahmad-washah-hamas-terrorist-who-masqueraded-as-an-al-jazeera-journalist/">reportedly</a> killed alongside Siba’i Abu Hasna, a member of Hamas’ <a href="https://honestreporting.com/ahmad-washah-hamas-terrorist-who-masqueraded-as-an-al-jazeera-journalist/">Shadow Unit</a>, which is responsible for guarding hostages kidnapped into Gaza.
Ahmed was widely presented as an Al Jazeera cameraman killed by Israel. While leaving out his ties to Hamas, NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/world/gaza/israeli-airstrike-kills-al-jazeera-cameraman-rcna350990">reported</a> that Ahmed was an Al Jazeera cameraman killed by Israel and noted that his brother Mohammed, an Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent, was killed in a separate Israeli strike in April. Al Jazeera, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/21/kind-principled-palestinian-journalists-remember-slain-gaza-journalist">said</a> Ahmed became the 12th network employee killed by Israel and said he had covered numerous stories for the outlet, including what Al Jazeera described as “several massacres” committed by Israel in Gaza.
The IDF <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2068442916977275317">posted</a> publicly that Ahmed “served as an Al Jazeera photojournalist” while simultaneously operating as a Hamas sniper. The IDF also described Mohammed as “a key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters” and said he also operated “under the guise of an Al Jazeera journalist” before he was killed in April.
After the IDF’s claims about Ahmed were challenged online, it <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2069422062117003612">posted</a> a photo of his apparent military ID and a video showing him firing a rifle into the air. 
That context has received less attention from the legacy media than the initial description of Ahmed as a journalist killed by Israel. A Google AI Overview shown for a simple search of “Al Jazeera journalist” described Ahmed as “an Al Jazeera cameraman who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza” and listed him among “recent notable and slain journalists from the region.” The summary does not mention the IDF’s claim that he was a Hamas sniper operative.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1122099 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_8248-907x576.jpeg" alt="" width="907" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_8248-907x576.jpeg 907w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_8248-300x190.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_8248-768x488.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/IMG_8248.jpeg 1093w" sizes=" (max-width: 907px) 100vw, 907px" /></div>
The same pattern appeared in headlines from major outlets. NBC headlined its article, “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/world/gaza/israeli-airstrike-kills-al-jazeera-cameraman-rcna350990">Al Jazeera cameraman killed in Gaza months after his journalist brother died in a separate strike</a>.” The Guardian’s headline read, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/20/al-jazeera-cameraman-ahmed-wishah-killed-in-israeli-strike-on-gaza">Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah killed in Israeli strike on Gaza</a>.”
An Associated Press report carried by <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israeli-army-confirms-journalist-killed-in-gaza-calls-him-hamas-terrorist-11665140/amp/1">NDTV</a> also identified Ahmed as an Al Jazeera cameraman killed in an Israeli strike. The report said the Israeli military asserted that Ahmed had been part of Hamas’ military wing and had posed a threat to troops in the area.
Al Jazeera has denied Israel’s claims about Ahmed, according to NBC News, and condemned his killing, calling it an attempt by Israel to silence and intimidate journalists. NBC also reported that a source close to Hamas told the Committee to Protect Journalists that Ahmed had no affiliation with the organization.
 Prominent anti-Israel figures, including New York City <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/06/23/us-news/al-jazeera-journalist-that-mamdani-mourned-was-allegedly-hamas-sniper-idf-claims/">Mayor Zohran Mamdani</a>, portrayed Ahmed as a journalist killed by Israel while criticizing the IDF. 
“More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the so-called ceasefire,” Mamdani said Monday. “Even an Al Jazeera journalist, Ahmed Washah, was killed this past Saturday by an Israeli strike.” Mamdani did not mention the IDF’s claim that Washah was a Hamas operative.
The IDF’s claim does not erase reports that Ahmed worked for Al Jazeera. But those reports also do not erase the IDF’s claim that he served in Hamas’ military wing and had recently advanced sniper attack plans against Israeli troops.
Since the first reports described Ahmed as a journalist without including Israel&#8217;s claim that he was also a Hamas sniper, many readers were left with a narrow version of the story. Israel&#8217;s account presents a very different version of the strike than the one circulating online.

Al Jazeera ‘Cameraman’ Killed In Gaza Was Hamas Sniper Operating Under Press Cover, IDF Says

Al Jazeera

Media Bias

Zohran Mamdani

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee offered a blunt solution Wednesday to one of the Middle East&#8217;s most intractable problems: deport every member of Hezbollah and Hamas to Iran.
&#8220;Iran demands Israel cease defense of border against Hezbollah. Gaza peace plan depends on Hamas disarming,&#8221; Huckabee posted on X. &#8220;Idea: EVERY member of Hezbollah &amp; Hamas DEPORT to &#8216;Mothership&#8217; in Iran. Result? Lebanon &amp; Israel free from Iran terror proxies. Give PEACE a chance!&#8221;
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Iran demands <a href="https://x.com/Israel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Israel</a> cease defense of border against Hezbollah. Gaza peace plan depends on Hamas disarming. Idea: EVERY member of Hezbollah &amp; Hamas DEPORT to &quot;Mothership&quot; in Iran. Result? Lebanon &amp; Israel free from Iran terror proxies. Give PEACE a chance!
&mdash; Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) <a href="https://x.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/2067154997607845901?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The proposal, characteristically direct, cuts to the heart of a dynamic that has destabilized the Levant for decades — both Hamas and Hezbollah are, in the most meaningful sense, Iranian instruments. The Congressional Research Service has documented that Iran&#8217;s support for regional armed groups has been &#8220;a pillar of the Iranian government&#8217;s foreign policy since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic,&#8221; coordinated through the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The State Department estimates Iran provides up to $100 million annually to Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas, while Hezbollah — Iran&#8217;s most powerful proxy — receives the bulk of its &#8220;funding, training, weapons, and explosives&#8221; directly from Tehran.
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&nbsp;
Huckabee&#8217;s quip lands against a backdrop of renewed diplomatic activity. Reports of a possible Israeli-Lebanese rapprochement have emerged in recent weeks, raising cautious hopes that Lebanon might finally escape the orbit of Iranian influence. But history counsels skepticism. Lebanon&#8217;s sovereignty has been hollowed out twice over — first by the PLO following the 1969 Cairo Accord, which turned southern Lebanon into a launchpad for attacks on Israeli civilians and helped ignite the catastrophic civil war that killed roughly 150,000 people, and then by Hezbollah, which filled the vacuum left after Israel&#8217;s 1982 war forced the PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat into Tunisian exile.
By 2023, Hezbollah&#8217;s arsenal had grown to over 150,000 rockets, dwarfing the Lebanese army it nominally coexists with. Its financial corruption has metastasized through Lebanon&#8217;s banking sector, contributing to what the World Bank describes as one of the most severe economic depressions globally since the mid-19th century. The Lebanese pound, pegged at 1,507 to the dollar for two decades, had lost over 98% of its value.
The human cost of Iran&#8217;s proxy strategy was underscored when 92 retired U.S. generals and admirals published an <a href="https://jinsa.org/open-letter-from-retired-u-s-military-leaders-in-support-of-israel-on-october-7-anniversary/">open letter</a> on the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre of over 1,200 Israelis, warning that &#8220;Iran&#8217;s reign of terror transcends boundaries&#8221; and that &#8220;October 7 is not an isolated incident, but one front in a much larger global civilizational struggle.&#8221;
Huckabee&#8217;s &#8220;Mothership&#8221; proposal won&#8217;t appear in any formal peace framework. But its underlying logic — that sustainable peace in Lebanon and Gaza requires severing, not managing, Iran&#8217;s grip on its proxies — reflects a growing consensus among U.S. and Israeli strategists that half-measures have consistently failed.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Nomination Hearing For Mike Huckabee To Be Ambassador To Israel

Huckabee’s Bold Proposal: Send Iran’s Proxies Back To The ‘Mothership’

Hezbollah

Iran

Mike Huckabee

A foreign reporter with a history of praising Palestinian terrorism is roaming the United States for the World Cup, prompting one legal group to push the Trump administration to revoke his visa and deport him.
Ibrahim Khadra, a British national and beIN Sports broadcaster, has posted on social media in recent days indicating that he&#8217;s in the United States. In one post from June 7, Khadra wrote that he was awaiting the arrival of the Algerian soccer team at the airport in Kansas City, indicating that he&#8217;s in the country to cover the World Cup.
In a June 8 letter, the Lawfare Project asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke Khadra&#8217;s visa for his &#8220;glorifying the terrorist activities of Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.&#8221;
&#8220;Your Department has exercised exactly this authority in comparable cases. The same authority should be applied here to a foreign national who has celebrated the slaughter of civilians and presents, based upon his prior documented conduct, a concrete risk of converting a World Cup credential into a platform for terrorist glorification on American soil,&#8221; the letter read.
&#8220;We urge the Department to act before that platform is furnished,&#8221; it added.
Khadra&#8217;s past statements of terrorist support include an X <a href="https://archive.md/pcrhI#selection-427.0-480.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> he made the day of Hamas&#8217; attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, saying &#8220;scored goals that pierced the enemy&#8217;s net, crossed its borders and soldiers, and caught it by surprise from where it least expected.&#8221;
&#8220;O God, protect our people in proud Gaza and throughout #Palestine. God is Greatest, and praise be to God,&#8221; he wrote.
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On the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre, Khadra wrote that &#8220;the hypocritical leaders in Europe and the United States repeated the same lies, expressing sympathy for the victims of a single day of resistance, while conveniently ignoring 365 days of far greater brutality and terror, during which countless more lives were lost and affected,&#8221; adding &#8220;They lack the true values of humanity we hold #shame #FreePalestine.&#8221;
Khadra <a href="https://archive.md/PRn6a#selection-619.0-637.2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> a picture of late Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in May 2021 with the caption &#8220;Good news foretold by the Sheikh of the Mujahideen, Ahmed Yassin, may God have mercy on him, more than 20 years ago.&#8221;
&#8220;I ask God to hasten the end of oppression and occupation from the land of pride and dignity, Palestine,&#8221; he wrote.
He also <a href="https://archive.md/0cXKl#selection-659.0-665.83" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared</a> his &#8220;condolences&#8221; after the assassination of senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh in a July 2024 X post.
The organization also wrote to Homeland Security officials asking them to initiate removal proceedings against Khadra, making him amenable to deportation from the United States.
&#8220;This referral follows a recognized and recently exercised enforcement sequence: the Department of State revokes a nonimmigrant visa on terrorism-related grounds, the visa holder&#8217;s lawful basis for presence is extinguished, and ICE may detain and place the individual in removal proceedings,&#8221; the Lawfare Project wrote.
&#8220;Mr. Khadra&#8217;s documented pattern of glorifying Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, while exploiting U.S.-hosted international sporting events, poses a direct risk to public safety and to U.S. counterterrorism policy,&#8221; the group added.
Gerard Filitti, Senior Counsel with The Lawfare Project who signed the referrals, told The Daily Wire that the case exposes &#8220;a systemic flaw with our immigration screening process that the Trump administration has very appropriately put additional emphasis on screening visa applicants from a lot of countries, but when it comes to traditionally allied nations or friendly nations like the UK or the European Union, perhaps that&#8217;s a back door that&#8217;s being exploited.&#8221;
A State Department spokesperson said they couldn&#8217;t comment on &#8220;specific cases due to visa record confidentiality,&#8221; but said the country &#8220;is well prepared to welcome legitimate travelers from around the globe for the largest and greatest FIFA World Cup in history.&#8221;
&#8220;At the same time, the Administration will not waver in upholding U.S. law and the highest standards of national security and public safety in the conduct of our visa process,&#8221; the spokesperson said.
In one recent action, federal authorities blocked the entrance of a Somali World Cup referee because he associated with “suspected members of terror organizations.&#8221;
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) denied Omar Artan&#8217;s entry after he landed at Miami International Airport from Istanbul on Saturday after discovering “derogatory information,” including his “association with suspected members of terror organizations,&#8221; a senior administration official recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-somali-referee-denied-entry-into-usa-for-associating-with-terror-organizations?author=Mary+Margaret+Olohan&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=EXCLUSIVE%3A+Somali+World+Cup+Ref+Denied+Entry+Into+USA+For+Terror+Ties">told</a> The Daily Wire.
The spokesperson added that the department adjudicates &#8220;each visa application on a case-by-case basis after rigorous review and thorough vetting to determine whether the individual is eligible under U.S. law.&#8221;
&#8220;Vetting is a continuous process, and applicants are vetted before, during, and after consular adjudication. After issuance of a visa, if the Department becomes aware of new, potentially adverse information, a consular officer reviews that information to determine whether the applicant remains eligible for a visa,&#8221; the spokesperson said.
Khadra didn&#8217;t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Untitled design – 2026-06-11T105259.224

Trump Admin Urged To Deport World Cup Reporter Who Glorified Terrorists

terorrism

Visas

World Cup

Hamas relies on two strategies to wage its war of annihilation against Israel: heinous brutality and PR from sympathetic Westerners. It tries to make Israelis’ lives hell in hopes that the Jews will simply give up on living in their ancestral homeland, and then maximizes Palestinians’ suffering — real and imagined — so the West will force Israel to stop fighting the terrorists bent on its destruction. Re-arm and repeat.
On those criteria, the State-designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) had a good week last week. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof preempted a painstakingly researched report on the unfathomably cruel barbarism Hamas inflicted on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, by publishing an essay on Israel’s “systematic sexual violence…widely practiced as part of an organized state policy” against Palestinians. If Israel does indeed train dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, then perhaps it’s fair to conclude, as Kristof did, that “The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day.”
Such a conclusion does exceptional PR for Hamas. Drawing an explicit moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel, it is designed to cause Americans to abandon their support for the Jewish state, a crucial stratagem for the terrorist group in its long war of attrition.
Perhaps that’s not a coincidence. At least two of Kristof’s sources for the essay appear to be Hamas-affiliated. If so, Kristof has likely committed a serious federal crime.
American anti-terrorism laws are designed to be extremely broad. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to prohibit the provision of “material support” to designated FTOs. Material support includes many things, including money, personnel, and in-kind benefits known as “services.”
Our material-support laws can even criminalize some behavior you might expect to be protected by the First Amendment. In the famous 2010 case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court ruled that even providing legal advice to a designated FTO could be prosecuted — even if the advice only helped the terrorist group engage in legitimate, non-criminal activity. A 6-3 Court reiterated Congress’s finding that terrorist groups “are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that conduct.”
The Court took pains to emphasize that “independent advocacy” for a cause is protected freedom of speech, but not all speech necessarily counts as independent: “a person of ordinary intelligence would understand the term ‘service’ to cover advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.” Such advocacy could be criminally prosecuted.
That appears to describe exactly what Kristof did. His advocacy clearly provides an important service to Hamas — a crucial part of its criminal enterprise, even if the service itself would not be a crime if done independently. That much is clear from Kristof’s reliance on a group called Euro-Med, which provided the quote about Israel’s “state policy” of authorizing “sexual violence” and other grotesque details Kristof retells as fact.
Kristof calls Euro-Med “critical of Israel.” That understates it a bit. Euro-Med has been the source of a host of conspiracy theories about Israel, including the accusation that Israel has been <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/investigation-must-be-opened-israels-potential-use-banned-thermal-weapons-which-cause-victims-bodies-melt-or-evaporate-enar">vaporizing</a> Palestinians and digging up graves to <a href="https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5982/Int%25E2%2580%2599l-committee-must-investigate-Israel%25E2%2580%2599s-holding-of-dead-bodies-in-Gaza%25E2%2580%258B">harvest</a> Palestinian organs. If that seems like the kind of Big Lie straight out of Hamas’s playbook — and the kind that could start a rumor about Israel training dogs to rape prisoners — that’s no coincidence.
Euro-Med’s current and former chairmen have been <a href="https://nbctf.mod.gov.il/he/Announcements/Documents/%25D7%2599%25D7%259C%25D7%25A7%25D7%2595%25D7%2598%2520%25D7%2594%25D7%25A4%25D7%25A8%25D7%25A1%25D7%2595%25D7%259E%25D7%2599%25D7%259D%25206719%2520-%2520%25D7%25A2%25D7%259E%25D7%2595%25D7%2593%25202234.pdf">listed</a> as Hamas operatives for over a decade. Its founder, Ramy Abdu, has been a regular panelist at Hamas events, often appearing alongside senior Hamas leaders, including Osama Hamdan. Abdu’s brother-in-law was a known Hamas operative; his brother was recently arrested in Italy for funneling money to Hamas.
The repeated uncritical quotations of Euro-Med are suspicious enough. But the kicker is the first-named source in Kristof’s piece. Sami al-Sai claims he was sexually assaulted by Israeli prison guards after he was detained in 2024. What Kristof does not mention is that al-Sai was detained <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/sami-al-sai/">for being a member of Hamas</a>. Al-Sai has <a href="https://x.com/HonestReporting/status/2054300908637557231?s=20">admitted</a> that he has done projects on Hamas’s behalf. Even other Palestinian groups have accused him of serving as a recruiter for the terrorist group. Not giving readers a sense of al-Sai’s background, which is quite relevant to his reliability, reflects poorly on Kristof’s journalism. But more so, meeting with a member of Hamas before advocating on his, and by extension, his organization’s behalf could be prosecuted as a criminal offense.
To be clear, Kristof does not admit to working together with Euro-Med in any way, so it would be difficult to prove material support for terrorism through Euro-Med on the basis of the existing public record. Further investigation could turn up evidence of closer collaboration. But Kristof’s meetings with al-Sai and subsequent advocacy that explicitly and repeatedly draw moral equivalencies between Hamas and Israel in a way that advances Hamas’s interests may be enough to warrant a material support prosecution. Whether Kristof’s essay constitutes a crime may come down to whether al-Sai is a member or representative of Hamas. The public record suggests there may be enough evidence to convince a jury.
To many Americans, this suggestion will seem like a massive First Amendment violation. How can an essay constitute a crime? The answer is that the First Amendment does not do what so many Americans think it does. It does not protect all expressive conduct, or even all journalism. Significant national security concerns, such as starving terrorist groups of all support, can outweigh protections for speech. Indeed, a hypothetical prosecution of Kristof is not far off from what Holder contemplates. And as the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/us/don-lemon-plea-minnesota-church-protest-case.html">made clear</a>, no one gets a free pass to commit illegal activities by claiming journalist immunity.
Aiding the world’s most heinous organizations is illegal, no matter what prestigious institution you work for, or whether your aid came in the form of words. You can engage in independent advocacy, but as soon as you start meeting with apparent members of terrorist groups, you have invited legal trouble. Whether that trouble comes in the form of a criminal indictment remains to be seen — but if it does, no one should be terribly surprised.   
***
Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The New York Times

Is The New York Times Employing A Terrorist Sympathizer?

Journalism

MI x DW

Nick Kristof

Terrorism

A <a href="https://cc4e0711-9401-400e-ae14-65ae0400675b.filesusr.com/ugd/aab121_882e9391df384e169d29f16c0faefeac.pdf">landmark report</a> by the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes, released in May 2026, has concluded that Hamas and its collaborators used sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as a “calculated,” “systematic,” and “integral” strategy during the terror attacks on southern Israel and against hostages in Gaza.
Based on over 1,800 hours of analysis and more than 10,000 photographs and videos, the report identifies &#8220;clear and convincing evidence&#8221; of patterned sexual torture intended to maximize pain and humiliate the Israeli nation.
A central finding of the report is the strategic and &#8220;weaponized&#8221; use of filming. Hamas terrorists did not merely commit atrocities; they documented them in real-time to &#8220;glorify and amplify&#8221; the suffering. The report identifies the &#8220;filming and digital dissemination of SGBV&#8221; as one of thirteen recurring patterns of abuse.
Perpetrators used GoPros, body-worn cameras, and the victims&#8217; own personal devices to livestream or record rapes, mutilations, and abductions. This content was often sent directly to the families of the victims or posted on community social media channels to maximize psychological terror. The report notes that these visuals turned &#8220;visibility itself into a weapon,&#8221; ensuring that the trauma extended far beyond the immediate physical act.
Even months after the initial attack, the report concludes that Hamas continued &#8220;digital abuse&#8221; by releasing staged footage of hostages in captivity. These videos, showing captives being taunted or tormented, were used to exert ongoing harm on the survivors&#8217; families and the Israeli public. By presenting women’s bodies as “trophies of war,” the perpetrators used digital media to cement a collective trauma that the report says is intended to be remembered for generations.
The report, led by human rights expert Cochav Elkayam-Levy, draws from firsthand testimonies of more than 10 survivors and hundreds of interviews with first responders, forensic experts, and medical staff. It outlines a gruesome catalog of 13 specific patterns of SGBV, including:
<ul data-path-to-node="7">
<li>
Sexual Torture: This includes the intentional burning of genital areas and the forced insertion of objects into genitalia.
</li>
<li>
Kinocidal Acts: The report coined this term to describe &#8220;kinocidal sexual acts&#8221; — crimes intended to destroy the family unit. This includes forcing family members to perform sexual acts on one another or raping victims in front of their loved ones.
</li>
<li>
Mutilation and Postmortem Abuse: Forensic evidence and photographs showed dozens of victims shot or burned specifically in their intimate areas, often after they were already dead, as a final act of desecration.
</li>
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Targeted Commands: Evidence recovered from the bodies of militants included Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks with commands such as &#8220;take off your pants&#8221; and &#8220;spread your legs,&#8221; indicating that sexual assault was a planned component of the mission.
</li>
</ul>
One of the most harrowing sections of the report details three separate incidents of gang rape at the Nova Music Festival. Witnesses described victims being &#8220;passed around&#8221; and screaming in ways described as &#8220;unheard of.&#8221; In many instances, the sexual violence was followed by immediate execution; witnesses recounted seeing women raped by multiple men before being shot in the head or mutilated.
The abuse continued in Gaza. The report includes previously unknown allegations involving two minors who were forced by their captors to perform sexual acts on each other while in captivity. Former hostages, such as Amit Soussana and Romi Gonen, have provided testimonies that corroborate the report’s findings of ongoing sexualized, cruel, and inhuman treatment in the tunnels of Gaza.
The report acknowledges the difficulties in gathering evidence, noting that the immediate aftermath was a chaotic active combat zone where standard forensic protocols were not always followed. This lack of initial forensic data was later &#8220;weaponized&#8221; by critics and deniers to discredit the survivors. Elkayam-Levy emphasized that the Civil Commission’s goal is to ensure this evidence — now carefully cross-referenced and geolocated — cannot be &#8220;denied, erased, or forgotten.&#8221;
The findings have been <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/12/middleeast/report-sexual-violence-hamas-oct-7-attacks-intl">endorsed</a> by various international figures and align with previous conclusions by UN Special Representative Pramila Patten, who found “reasonable grounds” to believe sexual violence occurred.
The Civil Commission concludes that these acts constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal acts. By documenting these atrocities in a digital archive, the researchers aim to provide a rigorous evidentiary record for future legal proceedings at the International Criminal Court and other bodies, ensuring that the victims are finally heard.

Memorial composed of photos of young Israelis killed during the terrorist attack on the NOVA Festival which took place on October 7, 2023 a few kilometers from Gaza

Weaponized Atrocities: The Landmark Report On Hamas’s Systematic Sexual Violence And Digital Terror

Atrocity

Rape

The revelations of improper conduct involving the International Criminal Court (ICC) continue to grow, with the Wall Street Journal recently breaking a story suggesting that Qatar promised to assist chief prosecutor Karim Khan if he brought charges against Israeli officials. Khan made a sudden rush to issue the indictments just as sexual assault accusations against him were coming to light. Qatar’s role makes the affair about more than one man’s alleged crimes – it is about the dangerousness and lack of accountability of the ICC as an institution.
Qatar is not an ICC member state. But it does host and sponsor Hamas, making its involvement with a prosecutor investigating the Gaza war deeply problematic. This may explain a strange aspect of the ICC’s arrest warrants. In addition to Israeli leaders, the ICC indicted Yahya Sinwar and two other top Hamas leaders in Gaza. It was gross moral equivalence equating Israeli leaders defending their people after the October 7 massacre with the masterminds of that crime.
The Court presented these parallel indictments as proof of its evenhandedness. Yet from the beginning, there was an obvious asymmetry: the Court indicted Israel’s top civilian leader, but ignored Khaled Mashaal and the rest of Hamas’s political leadership. When Israel mooted the warrants on Sinwar and Mohammed Deif by killing them during the Gaza war, Khan did not seek to restore balance by bringing new indictments against Hamas’s top leaders, who happen to be based in Qatar.
As the accusations against Khan began to mount, he argued it was a plot to weaken the Court, hinting at <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/icc-netanyahu-prosecutor-sexual-assault-israel-gaza-d9bedee3">Mossad involvement</a>. That appears to be, like so many charges against Israel, an exercise in projection. Qatar hired investigators in a failed attempt to discredit the employee who made the sexual assault allegations. Khan appears to have been right that there was a foreign intelligence operation surrounding these allegations, just not against him.
Khan specifically tied his warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the charges against him, urging his alleged victim to remain silent because it would undermine pending “Palestinian arrest warrants.” This, along with the emerging role of Qatar, makes it impossible to separate the scandal around Khan from the Court’s Gaza war indictments. Yet the Court has been silent about the Qatar revelations, a marked contrast to its public condemnation of a Trump administration executive order imposing sanctions on ICC officials as interference with its “independent and impartial work.”
The only action that the ICC has taken so far is disciplinary proceedings against Khan himself. The most that can happen is that he loses his job. His accuser never turned to the Dutch police because she said his official immunity would protect him. However, under the ICC’s rules, the judges could waive that immunity if they wished. The Court’s refusal to allow a criminal investigation of Khan, even as the scope of the scandal expands, demonstrates the institution&#8217;s political nature.
At the same time, the Court seems fully intent on proceeding with the Netanyahu prosecution. Such serious prosecutorial misconduct could, at least in the United States, lead to the dismissal of even factually substantiated criminal charges. Here, the evidence does not even show that the alleged crime (purposeful starvation of civilians) even occurred, let alone was committed by the accused. As the dust settles in Gaza, the lack of mass starvation becomes ever more evident.
An American prosecutor would be loath to try a case with such manifest prosecutorial misconduct (notably, senior court officials knew about the allegations against Khan at the time the indictments were made but kept it quiet for six months, when it leaked to the press). But Netanyahu is not facing a jury of his peers, but rather a panel of international judges who likely share the Court’s institutional culture.
Qatar’s involvement shows the ICC to be even more dangerous than its critics thought. The rap against the tribunal has long been that it acts like a global independent counsel – an unaccountable prosecutor with no democratic restraints. But even worse, it now appears that hostile states can coopt it as a political weapon in an ongoing conflict.
This illustrates the need for the Trump administration to take decisive action against the organization. The sanctions the Treasury Department has imposed on individual court officers have inconvenienced them but appear to have done little to fundamentally weaken the organization or change its trajectory. A body politically motivated enough to maintain the Israel warrants in the wake of the growing Khan fiasco will certainly retaliate against Trump and his top officials once they are out of office.
The administration should impose institution-wide sanctions on the tribunal and vigorously enforce them. The ICC recently got some good news as Peter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister-elect, vowed to rejoin after it had become the first EU country to quit. Magyar prioritized the issue because he is seeking EU funding, and Brussels ties its financial support to adhering to its foreign policy. America must adopt the same tough approach, insisting that countries receiving benefits quit the Court. For Europe, pushing countries to join the ICC is a matter of ideology. For America, pushing back should be seen as a question of national security.
Eugene Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason University Scalia Law School and a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom.

NETHERLANDS-JUSTICE-ICC

The International Criminal Court Is In Bed With Our Enemies And It’s Time We Clean House

International Criminal Court

Qatar

Chilling testimonies emerging from the Gaza Strip have uncovered a systemic campaign of sexual violence and coercion orchestrated by Hamas-affiliated clerics and officials. According to investigative reports and filmed testimonies, the terror group is allegedly using the rape of young boys and the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women as a tool of political control and recruitment.
The investigation by <a href="https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15758543/Gaza-families-say-children-raped-Hamas-affiliated-clerics-parents-intimidated-silence.html?ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ns_campaign=1490&amp;ito=social-twitter_mailonline">The Daily Mail</a>, bolstered by footage obtained from Jusoor News, reveals a horrifying pattern of abuse within Hamas-run mosques. Young boys, some as young as nine and ten, describe being lured by religious figures under the guise of Koranic study, only to be sexually assaulted in mosque restrooms and upper floors.
One nine-year-old victim recounted being led away by a Sheikh who promised him &#8220;something nice&#8221; before undressing and raping him. A ten-year-old victim described similar &#8220;filthy things&#8221; being done to him by a cleric, an ordeal that only ended when a mosque attendant interrupted them.
Beyond the physical trauma, the abuse is reportedly used as a mechanism for blackmail. Hamza Abu Howidy, a writer who fled the enclave, explained that the phenomenon is so well-known locally that such predators are derisively called &#8220;Mosque Tennis players.&#8221; The victims are often coerced into joining the Hamas movement to prevent their abuse from being made public in a society where such topics are strictly taboo.
Parents who attempt to seek justice face immediate and violent retribution. One father from Khan Younis, whose son was left bleeding and bruised by a head Imam, was met with death threats when he confronted the perpetrator. &#8220;I’ll send Al-Qassam Brigades to you&#8230; We’ll just say you were an Israeli collaborator,&#8221; the Imam allegedly warned. The following night, armed militants arrived at the father&#8217;s home, threatening to &#8220;wipe his family off the face of the earth&#8221; if he spoke another word.
As these accounts of child abuse surface, a <a href="https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15732903/Women-living-Hamas-rule-Gaza-Mail-sexually-abused-terror-groups-fighters-forced-sex-return-food-aid.html?ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ns_campaign=1490&amp;ito=social-twitter_mailonline">parallel story</a> of the systematic exploitation of women has also come to light. Human rights organizations estimate that up to 60,000 women in Gaza are currently vulnerable to sexual blackmail, particularly widows and those displaced by the ongoing conflict.
Testimonies describe &#8220;aid-for-sex&#8221; schemes where Hamas members and officials from affiliated charities demand sexual favors in exchange for food parcels, medicine, or small sums of money. One displaced mother, Noor, described seeking help from an Islamic charity only to be harassed by an elderly cleric. When she threatened to expose him, he reportedly replied: &#8220;You cannot expose me; I am the government here.&#8221;
Other witnesses described a &#8220;disgraceful&#8221; scene in Deir al-Balah where a group of Al-Qassam members were found taking advantage of a displaced widow inside a tent. Even members within the military wing expressed disgust, yet were ordered by leadership to remain silent to protect the group’s image.
&#8220;Hamas has lied about everything,&#8221; said Abdullah, a journalist currently in hiding. &#8220;They stole the aid, created the famine narrative, and take advantage of the most vulnerable while the West remains gullible.&#8221;
Despite the &#8220;shame culture&#8221; and the &#8220;iron fist&#8221; of Hamas rule, Gazans are increasingly breaking their silence. Investigators warn that as formal registration systems collapse, the exploitation of women and children is only worsening, leaving a generation of victims with no recourse for justice under a regime that uses sexual violence as a pillar of its authority.

International Red Cross

Hamas Accused Of Unspeakable Crime Against Young Boys As Method Of Coercion

Crime

Sexual Abuse

World

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) took aim this week at Twitch streamer and leftist darling Hasan Piker, labeling him a &#8220;raging antisemite&#8221; and demanding that the Democratic Party distance itself from the controversial influencer.
Fetterman’s comments come as Piker doubled down on a series of inflammatory statements regarding 9/11 and the terrorist organization Hamas. Speaking on the divide within his own party, Fetterman expressed disbelief that mainstream Democrats continue to platform a man who once <a href="https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/streamer-hasan-says-america-deserved-9-11?utm_source=chatgpt.com">claimed</a> &#8220;America deserved 9/11, dude. F*** it, I’m saying it. &#8230; Like we totally brought it upon ourselves dude, holy s***. We did, we f***ing did.”
“I mean it&#8217;s &#8230; it&#8217;s crazy! I mean, my God,” Fetterman said, pointing to the glowing media profiles Piker has received from outlets like The New York Times. “He’s become such a raging antisemite that even the guy that has a Nazi tattoo bailed on doing an event with him. Democrats have to decide: whose side are you on? Are you proud to stand with that kind of individual or stand with Israel?”
The Senator’s remarks follow a viral appearance by Piker on the Pod Save America podcast, where host Jon Favreau confronted the streamer over his previous assertion that &#8220;Hamas is a thousand percent better than Israel.&#8221; Rather than walking back the comment, Piker doubled down, confirming he meant it &#8220;a thousand percent.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Obama&#39;s former speechwriter, Jon Favreau, asks Democrat spokesperson Hasan Piker if he actually supports Hamas terrorists.
FAVREAU: &quot;When you say Hamas is a thousand times better, do you actually mean that?&quot;
PIKER: &quot;I do mean it.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/xtodMQaXDu">pic.twitter.com/xtodMQaXDu</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/2043735622234345519?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2026</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;I’m a lesser-evil voter, and therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,&#8221; Piker told Favreau. He went on to <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2026/04/hasan-piker-hamas-support-orphan-children/#:~:text=“This%20%5Bquote%5D%20is%20from,state%2C'”%20Favreau%20quoted">dismiss</a> Hamas’ history of massacres, rapes, and kidnappings as &#8220;secondary&#8221; to the conversation, instead framing the terrorist group as a collection of &#8220;orphan children&#8221; fighting an &#8220;apartheid state.&#8221; Piker further escalated his rhetoric by comparing Zionism — the movement for Jewish self-determination — to Nazism, calling it an &#8220;exterminationist&#8221; ideology.
Fetterman, who has emerged as one of the most vocal pro-Israel voices in the Democratic Party since the October 7 massacre, slammed Piker for his callousness toward the victims of terrorism. “He doesn&#8217;t care about the rapes and calls Jews inbred,” Fetterman stated, highlighting the streamer&#8217;s history of &#8220;outlandish&#8221; and bigoted remarks.
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Senator Fetterman just SHAMED members of his own party for supporting radical left-wing Islamist apologist Hasan Piker.
“This is the individual that just said recently that America deserved 9/11.”
He exposed how far some Democrats have gone in embracing anti-American voices.… <a href="https://t.co/jNMW28aasH">pic.twitter.com/jNMW28aasH</a>
&mdash; Overton (@overton_news) <a href="https://twitter.com/overton_news/status/2040596601043923428?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The Pennsylvania senator’s ultimatum serves as a direct challenge to the DNC and the &#8220;Squad&#8221; wing of the party, which has frequently aligned itself with the online activist class that Piker represents. As the radical left continues to excuse terrorist violence under the guise of &#8220;decolonization,&#8221; Fetterman’s message is clear: the Democratic Party cannot have it both ways. It must choose between the civilized world and the &#8220;raging&#8221; antisemitism of the far-left.

John Fetterman

Fetterman Issues Ultimatum To Dems: Israel, Or ‘Raging Anti-Semites’ Like Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker

A top aide to Zohran Mamdani — and the creative force behind his viral campaign videos — is facing scrutiny after resurfaced social media posts showed praise for a senior Hamas figure tied to the October 7 terrorist attacks.
According to reporting from <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2026/04/zohran-mamdanis-video-chief-lauded-hamas-chief-yahya-sinwar/">Jewish Insider</a>, Donald Borenstein, who was paid more than $90,000 by Mamdani’s campaign and now serves in City Hall as a creative director, posted messages in 2024 appearing to glorify Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.
In one post, Borenstein described Sinwar as someone who “gave his entire life until the end fighting for his people’s liberation,” while mocking Israeli forces and praising imagery of Sinwar’s final moments. In another, he suggested footage released by Israel Defense Forces had inadvertently created a “heroic” image of the Hamas leader. He also reportedly used the phrase “from the river to the sea,” widely interpreted as a call for the elimination of the state of Israel.
The posts have since been deleted, but archived versions remain accessible.
Borenstein’s role in Mamdani’s rise has been significant. As director of video, he served as the primary cinematographer behind the polished social media content that helped propel the democratic socialist candidate into Gracie Mansion. His presence in the mayor’s inner circle raises familiar questions about the ideological influences shaping the administration.
The controversy adds to a growing pattern of scrutiny surrounding figures in Mamdani’s orbit. Previous reporting has highlighted social media activity from campaign allies and associates who appeared sympathetic to Hamas or dismissive of the October 7 attacks. Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, was also <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/nyc-first-lady-liked-post-oct-7-rape-hoax">reported to have liked posts</a> downplaying the attack, while independent <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/09/we-support-hamas-chants-put-mamdanis-israel-stance-at-center-stage-00720393">activist groups</a> aligned with his campaign have faced similar criticism.
Mamdani himself has publicly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-city-in-heightened-state-of-alert-after-saturdays-attack">condemned terrorism</a>, but repeated incidents involving those close to him suggest, at minimum, a tolerance for rhetoric that crosses into extremism.
The issue has taken on added weight in recent months as New York City has seen heightened tensions tied to the Iran conflict. In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-opens-terror-probe-after-homemade-bombs-in-nyc-linked-to-isis">a March incident</a>, a protest in the city featured two men found to be ISIS-inspired Islamists throwing an explosive, raising alarms about the presence of more radical elements within certain activist spaces.
Against that backdrop, Borenstein’s posts only intensify concerns about how deeply such sentiments may run within political and activist networks connected to City Hall. More broadly, the episode underscores the increasingly blurred lines between digital activism and governance and reminds Americans that online voices and content strategies that help propel candidates to power need to be viewed with a critical eye, especially as fringe ideologies take center stage in American politics.
For Mamdani, the challenge is no longer just about campaign optics, but about the people entrusted with shaping the image and direction of the nation’s largest city.

Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference outside the Federal Plaza in NYC

Top Mamdani Propagandist Hailed Hamas Mastermind As ‘Heroic’

Pro-Hamas

Yahya Sinwar

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