Calls to quit NPT grow in Iran as critics warn of strategic trap
Maryam Sinaiee, Iran International, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202609165573
alls for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are gaining ground among hardliners after the IAEA referred the country to the UN Security Council and its nuclear chief was barred from attending the agency’s annual conference in Vienna.
The growing debate has exposed a divide within Iran’s political establishment between those who see NPT membership as offering little protection and others who warn that withdrawal would surrender one of Tehran’s remaining diplomatic and legal advantages.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, appeared to threaten withdrawal from the treaty on Sunday, saying that “political and destructive actions” by the International Atomic Energy Agency would “push countries toward leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
But President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated the same day, during a visit to India, that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons. “If we were seeking nuclear weapons, we would not have become a member of the NPT,” he said.
The debate intensified after Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, was prevented from attending the IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
Austria had sought an exemption from a UN travel ban to allow Eslami to attend, but the sanctions committee did not approve it after a US objection.
Calls for immediate withdrawal
Supporters of immediate withdrawal say NPT membership has failed to protect Iran from international pressure or attacks on its nuclear facilities.
Continued membership, they argue, only makes sense if members’ nuclear rights are given equal weight alongside their obligations.
Sepehr Khalaji, who headed the Government Information Council under former President Ebrahim Raisi, questioned why Iran remained in the treaty.
“They bombed the nuclear facilities, martyred the scientists, sanctioned nuclear technology and say they will strike the remaining nuclear facilities. They referred Iran’s case to the Security Council, and they do not allow the head of the Atomic Energy Organization to enter the IAEA. So why are we still in the IAEA? Why don’t we withdraw from the NPT?” he wrote on X.
Parliamentary push
The debate has also reached parliament, where lawmakers are preparing a proposal for Iran to withdraw from the NPT.
Hassan-Ali Akhlaghi, a member of parliament, told the Fars news agency on Wednesday that lawmakers had prepared a triple-urgency bill that would be put to a vote if approved by the parliamentary leadership.
Given what he called the IAEA’s “entirely hostile and illogical” resolution, Akhlaghi said Iran should leave the treaty as soon as possible.
The proposal, however, has not yet formally reached parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and is not currently on the parliamentary agenda.
Warnings of a trap
The conservative Khorasan newspaper on Wednesday warned that leaving the treaty could increase political and diplomatic pressure on Iran without producing significant security gains.
“On the surface, these positions may appear to be a revolutionary and deterrent response to the enemy; but when the pieces of the situation are put together, another worrying picture emerges,” it wrote.
Khorasan argued that the United States and Israel were deliberately trying to push Iran’s political debate toward more radical positions, including testing a nuclear weapon, changing its nuclear doctrine and immediately withdrawing from the NPT.
The newspaper said leaving the treaty before Iran had achieved deterrence could reveal Tehran’s intentions rather than demonstrate strength, potentially giving its opponents an opportunity to act.
“Iran has obtained an important part of the practical outcome without making an official and costly withdrawal: the IAEA no longer has its previous access, while Tehran continues to benefit from the legal protection of NPT membership and the political support of Russia and China,” Khorasan wrote.
“Official withdrawal would destroy this useful grey zone without creating a new strategic advantage.”
Reformist politician Rasoul Montajab-Nia made a similar argument.
“If the agency has not acted impartially toward Iran, we should not resort to disrupting the framework, because this would mean fuelling disputes and war with other countries.”
Montajab-Nia said withdrawal would not benefit Iran and would be “in line with Israel’s objectives.”
The nuclear threshold
At the outer edge of the debate, some advocates of developing nuclear weapons have argued that Iran should remain in the NPT unless it decides to change its nuclear doctrine — and then coordinate withdrawal with a nuclear test.
Foad Izadi, a hardline political commentator, told the Moj news agency that Iran had no need to leave the NPT while its current nuclear doctrine remained in place.
But if Tehran decided to change that doctrine, he said, Iran could withdraw from the treaty after a nuclear test or simultaneously with one.
The Peril of Trump’s Final Act: Would He Use a Tactical Nuclear Weapon in Iran?
The real straits of Trump are dire: He is trapped in a war that has already been lost, a reality that he will never allow himself to admit. Under Republican control, the House has voted repeatedly to end the war. With Democrats likely to take the majority in the midterms, Trump faces the prospect minimally of investigative hearings that will bare the true extent of the losses, costs, and internal military opposition to his folly. He has to find a way to declare victory and get out, and soon.
Trump is trapped in a war that has already been lost, a reality that he will never allow himself to admit.
Robert L. Borosage, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-iran-war-tactical-nuclear-weapon/
Donald Trump is trapped: His war of choice against Iran is lost, an abject strategic catastrophe. Now Trump has to choose: sustain another forever war until Iran breaks, a strategy his own generals oppose, or produce a grand finale to get out without admitting defeat. And there is the rub.
Reality has shattered Trump’s conceits. Instead of a few days, the war has lasted six months and counting. Instead of regime change and popular uprising, the Iranian regime stands with new hardened leadership. Instead of another display of US military prowess, the US military has been driven out of major bases across the region, stockpiles of vital offensive and defensive missiles have been depleted, and the US Navy has been overstretched and exhausted.
And Iran keeps ratcheting up the pressure. It controls the Strait of Hormuz, and its Houthi allies have just seized control of the alternative route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and blown up Saudi Arabia’s key east-west pipeline. Crude oil is now over $110 per barrel and rising; the price of diesel—the fuel of commerce—is at record levels. The cost of fertilizer, fuel, and virtually anything that requires transport is going up, with the global economy at risk.
In response, Trump grows ever more delusional. “The failing Nation of Iran,” he claims, “wants to make a deal, quickly and badly.” He suggests that Iran is waiting until after our midterm elections to sue for peace, at which point the price of gasoline will “drop like a rock.” Then he muses that we might just stay in Iran: “We’ll ultimately get out, unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela.” He turned to Oman as a mediator on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and then threatened that if it “gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
He dismisses the war as “small potatoes,” claims full control of the Strait, suggests that the “Countries of the World…should and will reimburse the United States of America when this SCAM Confligration [sic] is over,” and jokes that he might rename the Strait “Trump Strait,” saying, “I should get something out of it.”
The real straits of Trump are dire: He is trapped in a war that has already been lost, a reality that he will never allow himself to admit. Under Republican control, the House has voted repeatedly to end the war. With Democrats likely to take the majority in the midterms, Trump faces the prospect minimally of investigative hearings that will bare the true extent of the losses, costs, and internal military opposition to his folly. He has to find a way to declare victory and get out, and soon.
Many experts report that the United States and Israel are gearing up to launch another full-scale operation, probably just after the US midterms. The Trump administration has just approved a $2.8 billion Israeli arms package that includes 40,000 bombs, half of which are 2,000-pound bombs. Even so, skeptics question how much a new bombing wave could achieve, given the depletion of US weapons stocks, naval power, and base support, without the use of nuclear weapons.
And that caveat makes the situation truly alarming.
Recently released satellite photos are said to show renewed construction activity under Iran’s remote Pickaxe Mountain. Heavily fortified underground facilities are thought to be located there beneath hundreds of meters of solid granite rock, a ceiling deemed impenetrable by conventional weapons. This makes it a natural spot for Iran to rebuild its nuclear program. Trump recently warned that the US would be bombing the mountain “very soon.”
At the same time, Hegseth’s Pentagon has been moving to integrate tactical nuclear weapons into conventional war strategy. The aim, as Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby put it in the chilling language of the megadeath intellectuals, is to provide “credible, rational nuclear options that a President of the United States adopting the simple principle of being a normal human being with common sense would actually implement.”
The United States, the only country ever to drop a nuclear weapon, has repeatedly refused to adopt a “no first use” policy. The president has sole authority to order the use of a tactical nuclear weapon. Neither Congress nor the public would be given prior notice. Would Trump use a tactical nuclear weapon on relatively isolated Pickaxe Mountain in Iran as his exit line?
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, using a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear nation is a violation of international customary law. But Trump, as his noxious deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, infamously asserted, dismisses international law and treaties as “international niceties,” arguing that “the real world…is governed by strength, by force…by power.” Trump boasts that the only limit on his international power is “one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Long-standing US policy, reaffirmed in the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, states that the United States “will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.” This promise extends to over 190 countries, including Iran —at least until last week, when the Trump administration pushed through an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution declaring Iran in violation of its obligations under the treaty. Iranian analysts warned, probably correctly, that the move presaged an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Dropping a nuclear weapon on Iran would not only be criminal; it would be incredibly dumb. Iran would respond by unleashing an assault on oil and desalination and energy platforms across the Emirates and an unprecedented assault on Israel.
It would also set off a race for nuclear weapons, as countries across the globe would understand that the reason Iran was targeted and not North Korea is that the latter has nuclear weapons and the former does not. Trump made that clear when he bizarrely told the zealots gathered at the Republican Midterm Convention that if Iran had nuclear weapons, “I’d be calling the supreme leader, and I’d be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?’ as opposed to bombing the crap out of him.” As one commentator noted, the video of that could serve as a nuclear proliferation promo ad.
Use of a tactical nuclear weapon would set a precedent for Russia or China to invoke if they chose to use or threaten the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine or Taiwan or other adversaries. It would put the nuclear arms race, already gaining dangerous momentum, into hyperdrive. And it would indelibly brand the US as a dangerous, pariah nation, feared but despised across the globe.
For these and other reasons, it is hard to imagine any president making that decision. But Trump, trapped, desperate, angry, delusional, intent on punishing his enemies and displaying his prowess, could well be tempted. And the anticipated Democratic election victories this fall will corner him—and that will make him even more dangerous, as we saw with the sacking of the Capitol after his 2020 loss in the presidential race.
These harrowing prospects should intensify efforts to bring the war to an end, and to warn clearly against escalation. The war is already opposed by a growing majority of Americans. Congress will be out of session until the midterms, but citizens can make certain that candidates are pressed on this issue as they campaign. Editorialists should weigh in against escalation. China’s President Xi, slated to meet with Trump in September, could put ending the war high on the agenda. US Arab allies in the region have an existential stake in avoiding a final cataclysm in this misbegotten war and should both demand restraint from the US and intensify negotiations with Iran and its Houthi allies. Recently, progress toward a settlement on Iranian “administration” of the Strait of Hormuz was interrupted by the Houthi offensive in Yemen and attacks on Saudi Arabia. European leaders could play a role, publicly warning Israel’s Netanyahu not to sabotage negotiations.
The last weeks of reduced military activity and apparent stalemate have been misleading. The economic costs of the war—now with oil transport through both Hormuz and the Red Sea constricted—are escalating. The pressure on Trump to escalate, to unleash another round of bombing in order to declare victory and get out, is rising. Without a concerted movement toward a settlement, the unimaginable is becoming more conceivable.
Israeli officials fume over award-winning death-by-AI documentary
Mon, 14 Sep 2026 , https://www.sott.net/article/508401-Israeli-officials-fume-over-award-winning-death-by-AI-documentary
Israeli Culture Minister Miki ZoharCulture Minister Miki Zohar has called for NAZA’s directors to be stripped of citizenship while accusing them of “betrayal against the state”
Several senior Israeli politicians have lashed out at the filmmakers behind a documentary accusing the IDF of using AI-assisted systems in the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Zohar went so far as to accuse the two Oscar-winning directors of treachery and threatened to have them stripped of Israeli citizenship.
The controversy erupted after the 80-minute-long film NAZA – the name alludes to an Israeli military shorthand for expected “collateral casualties” – received a 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last week and won the Special Jury Prize.
The film, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is based on the accounts of anonymous Israeli military and intelligence insiders alleging that the IDF heavily relied on AI systems to identify people and homes for attack on a massive scale, often disregarding collateral civilian casualties. Some insiders described the process as “insanely fun” and akin to a “videogame.”
The IDF has categorically rejected the film’s portrayal, saying the selection and approval of strikes are carried out “by human personnel only.”
Comment: Israel’s AI systems tech did exactly that…movement…noise...bombed.
The film also caused a stir among senior Israeli officials. Zohar called the accolade “shocking,” accusing the directors of seeking to “harm their homeland just to get applause from anti-Semites around the world.”
He wrote on X on Sunday:
“[This] is inconceivable and constitutes a betrayal of the state… As Minister of Culture, I will act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of these despicable creators.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had attacked the documentary even before the award, calling it a “horrific blood libel” and saying it was particularly infuriating that the accusations had come from Israeli filmmakers. He also acknowledged civilian casualties in Gaza, but argued that “there is no magic button that can destroy Hamas, or any terrorist organization hiding behind” ordinary people.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – widely regarded as one of the most hardline figures of Israel’s right-wing camp – called the directors a “disgrace,” suggesting Hamas would welcome them, while former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman branded the pair “enemies of Israel.”
Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his office commented on the matter.
Despite Zohar’s threat, there is no precedent of Israeli filmmakers being stripped of citizenship for producing a critical documentary, while the minister himself does not have a mandate to take such a measure.
Israeli law allows a court to strip citizenship for a “breach of loyalty,” including terrorism, treason, and serious espionage, but in the past the power was treated extremely cautiously. In 2022, as Israel’s Supreme Court considered two cases involving citizens convicted of serious terrorist attacks, it ruled against the revocation, citing flaws in the proceedings and stressing that the measure could only be applied in exceptional circumstances.
However, Israeli filmmakers have faced other legal consequences in the past over similar work. In 2022, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on screenings of the documentary Jenin, Jenin – a film by Palestinian-Israeli director Mohammad Bakri which portrayed alleged IDF abuses. The court ordered Bakri to pay around $57,000 in damages after he was sued for defamation.
In 2012, Haaretz journalist Uri Blau was sentenced to four months of community service for unauthorized possession of classified IDF documents used in reporting on targeted killings, even though his articles had passed military censorship. Meanwhile, his military source was sentenced to several years in prison.
Trump Plans New Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel, Which Keeps Using Them to Massacre Gazans
SCHEERPOST, September 16, 2026, Brett Wilkins Common Dreams
The Trump administration is preparing to send Israel tens of thousands of 2,000-pound bombs, The Washington Post reported Tuesday—a move that would rank as the largest single sale of the highly destructive munitions, which the Israel Defense Forces have used in some of the deadliest US-backed airstrikes on Gaza and Lebanon.
According to the Post, the proposed $2.8 billion package includes 20,000 MK-84 bombs and 20,000 BLU-117 bombs, as well as 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads. The munitions would be purchased with US taxpayer funds through the Foreign Military Financing program. The proposal has been informally presented to congressional committees that review major arms transfers.
The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.
“If Hezbollah or whoever is in a building, an MK-84 will bring down the whole building,” Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, told the Post.
Following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) loosened rules of engagement to effectively allow the killing of an unlimited number of civilians when targeting even a single low-ranking Hamas member in an airstrike.
Combined with the utilization of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to select targets at a far faster rate than humans alone could, IDF use of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs has contributed heavily to the staggering casualty toll in Gaza, where officials say that more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded since October 2023.
That month, Israeli forces struck Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp with such munitions, killing at least 126 Palestinians in a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander.
Michael Lynk, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2016 to 2022, said early in the war that “the scale of Palestinian civilian deaths in such a short period of time appears to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/16/trump-plans-new-sale-of-2000-pound-bombs-to-israel-which-keeps-using-them-to-massacre-gazans/
Hubris in Action: Netanyahu and the Warnings of October 7
As with previous disasters in history, he may well have been found out.
15 September 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/hubris-in-action-netanyahu-and-the-warnings-of-october-7/
Whatever awaits him this coming November, few politicians could claim to have the endurance, bloody mindedness and sense of granite staying power than Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. With some prowess, he has wooed, deceived, and lied his way to power, and, for the most part, stayed the course for the best part of a generation. He bloomed in arid soil when sceptics thought him dead. He offers lessons of Machiavellian proportions almost unsurpassed.
What, then, of being found out for falling short ahead of the October 27 elections? Errors in the making, the sundering blunder to soil the image of strength? History offers the guidance of tragic and foolish mistakes. The British failure to anticipate their routing in Singapore by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942 is always a topic of interest (they wagered on a sea attack, not a jungle incursion); even, dare one say, the failure of the United States to anticipate an attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 despite doing much to aggravate a power that had done so much to put the Western powers on edge. Did, in other words, the individual in a position of power and influence know and, for whatever said reasons, not take the threat seriously? Self-confidence, or, as the ancient Greeks might put it, hubris, bulks complacency and places it on a pedestal. This is the case being made about Netanyahu. And more besides.
The latest bruising claim by Haaretz, based on research for a book Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, involving “dozens of sources in Israel and worldwide, including very senior officials, as well as sound recordings, internal documents and recordings”, is chastening.
Netanyahu was, according to the authors, told, in unequivocal terms, that an attack by Hamas was being planned. According to the report, a 45-minute conversation took place between UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Netanyahu, in which the Emirati leader warned of the intentions of the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar that could lead to an exaction of bloodiness from Israel and a destabilising of the Abraham Accords. This came after the stymieing of negotiations between Hamas and Netanyahu’s office that had begun in 2023 in pursuit of a temporary truce, known as a hudna, that would pave the way for a more durable arrangement regarding the Gaza Strip. Ghazi Hamad took the lead for Hamas, as he did in 2014 when talks are also said to have taken place between Netanyahu and Hamas, unbeknown to security officials.
The paper notes the views of Israeli President Isaac Herzog on MBZ on the escalation taking place in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2023. Bin Zayed is said to have, according to Herzog, spoken to him “about this often in the months leading to the war.” He “constantly conveyed messages that the situation needed to be defused. “
He even sent a special envoy to Israel who met with the prime minister. The emir seemed to sense that the area was on the verge of explosion.”
To dilute the scorching acid in the mix, a senior Fatah official, cast in the role of “Coal Eyes” to both Hamas and the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet, was brought in. Talks proceeded. It seemed that some semblance of an agreement was made. “The atmosphere was so optimistic that Fatah’s Coal Eyes repeatedly reported that an agreement with Israel was closer than ever and that both sides viewed the proposals as ‘feasible options’.”
Netanyahu, however, baulked. “Perhaps,” speculate the logically minded scribblers, “he did so out of fear of reaching an agreement with Hamas, or perhaps out of fear from the reaction of his extremist partners in his new government.” His right-wing coalition partners, cut and dried fanatics as they are, were not likely to have approved. Sinwar remained sly, fielding his options: he was still conducting negotiations with Hezbollah and Iran in the context of an attack on Israel. “He simply vanished from our radar, evaporated,” Haaretz records a senior Shin Bet official as saying. The journalists float the suggestion that Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, bound in that axis of growling resistance, thought Israel vulnerable at that particular point n time. “In September 2023, Coal Eyes has a meeting with Sinwar: ‘Tell the Israelis that if they don’t make progress, I’m preparing a huge surprise for them.’ They could expect a ‘zilzal’ (earthquake).”
Events transpire with dull inevitability, but Coal Eyes eventually readies himself to tell Shin Bet about the ominous developments. Its head, Ronen Bet, seeks Netanyahu for discussions. Briefings take place on the “earthquake” threat. The defence establishment remained largely phlegmatic, almost cocky. The threat by Sinwar was, according to an Israeli intelligence official, something of a prodding tease, a scouting exercise: “due to being tired about Israel’s delays, placing pressure on seeking an arrangement and not so eager to start a war. Or, as we prefer to think, it was part of his ‘Great Deception’ plan, and he wanted to test the IDF’s readiness.”
To cloud matters further for Netanyahu, the Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Abbas Kamel is also said to have warned the PM’s office that Hamas was readying to launch “something unusual, a terrifying operation.” The CIA-director William Burns is also said to have been told by bin Zayed about “something there […] about to explode.” The jam spread of imminent attack, in other words, becomes harder to avoid. Following the October 7, 2023 attack, Netanyahu, according to a report by Smadar Perry writing for Ynet, is said to have told Kamel that, “In Gaza, we are in the picture, we are in control. Our problem is with the West Bank, and that’s where we are diverting our forces.”
The PM’s office poured corrosive scorn on the Haaretz report, describing it as “a complete lie. Prime Minister Netanyahu did not speak with the president of the United Arab Emirates during the period in question and did not receive a warning from him.” The opposition leaders thought far more of the revelations, eager to pluck the fruits of electoral opportunity. “Netanyahu bears personal and direct responsibility for the failure that led to the deaths of thousands of Israelis on his watch,” former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated. “His ignoring of the warnings is criminal negligence, and therefore he is doing everything to prevent the establishment of a state commission of inquiry that will expose the truth.”
In a joint statement, opposition leaders Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Lieberman demanded that, “The Israeli public is entitled to know: What did Netanyahu know, and when did he know, why he didn’t update the security establishment, and why he didn’t act to protect Israeli civilians?” Reasons await from the wily Netanyahu, a man so confident he thought he could outwit oppressive precedent and damn Clio. As with previous disasters in history, he may well have been found out.
Saudi Arabia Discovers 110 Million Tonnes of Uranium-Bearing Ore
Saudi Arabia has discovered 110 million tonnes of uranium-bearing raw
material in the Medina region, a potentially significant find as the
Kingdom accelerates plans to develop a domestic nuclear energy industry.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced the discovery
on Monday at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in
Vienna, according to Saudi state television……………………………………………..
Saudi Arabia and the United States signed a landmark civil nuclear cooperation agreement in July, establishing the legal framework for American companies to supply nuclear technology and equipment to the Kingdom. The U.S. Department of Energy described the agreement as laying the foundation for a decades-long, multibillion-dollar nuclear partnership………………………….
Oil Price 14th Sept 2026,
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Arabia-Discovers-110-Million-Tonnes-of-Uranium-Bearing-Ore.html
United States blocks nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami from UN meeting in Vienna
Iran has condemned the exclusion of the head of its atomic energy organisation from an annual gathering of the United Nations nuclear agency in Austria.
The Nightly, Staff Writers. Reuters, 15 Sept 26
The United States has blocked Iran’s nuclear chief from attending a United Nations atomic watchdog meeting in Vienna by opposing an exemption from so-called “snapback” UN sanctions, prompting protests from Iran.
Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami had been due to attend and address this week’s International Atomic Energy Agency general conference, an annual meeting of IAEA member states that began on Monday.
At the opening, however, Iran said Austria had revoked Eslami’s visa after originally granting him one.
“The cancellation and so-called legal justification advanced for it are a stark indication of a political act and advanced formal politicisation of this organisation,” Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA told the conference.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the United States had pressured Austria into the move while Iran and Russia said it formed part of a broader effort to prevent Iranian officials from obtaining visas for international travel……………………….. https://thenightly.com.au/politics/iran-protests-as-united-states-blocks-nuclear-chief-mohammad-eslami-from-un-meeting-in-vienna-c-22869942
Ten days before October 7, MBZ had informed Netanyahu of a major Hamas offensive.
Voltaire Network|September 11, 2026, https://www.voltairenet.org/article224921.html
According to חטופים – 843 ימים של הפקרה (Abducted: 843 Days of Abandonment), a
new book by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval (Kinneret Zmora Publishing), the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days before the October 7 attack.
He informed him that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas military chief, was preparing a major offensive against Israel. The call lasted 45 minutes. The Prime Minister replied that Israel was already prepared and that the attack would come from the West Bank, not Gaza.
According to the authors, MBZ’s call came after Netanyahu broke off negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The call reflected a direct threat from Yahya Sinwar, who was furious about the breakdown of talks. Sinwar spoke of ” Zinzal ” (earthquake), a word Arabs use to refer to wars and revolutions. Deeply concerned by Netanyahu’s dismissive attitude, MBZ reported the situation to William J. Burns, the CIA director . Burns then sent a confirming report to the Prime Minister.
Furthermore, the same book claims that Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar, telephoned David Barnea, Director of Mossad, on October 7, the day of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. He told Barnea that he had forced Hamas to release all its hostages in exchange for Israel’s commitment not to launch any further incursions into Gaza. However, Barnea replied: “If they want to release the civilians, let them release them. We are not ready to talk with Hamas.”
Furthermore, Yahya Sinwar had his right-hand man, in his presence, phone an associate of Mohammed Dahlan on October 8th. Dahlan pledged to release all civilian hostages, whether minors or over 50 years old, without any conditions. The offer was relayed to the Shin Bet, which responded: “Netanyahu doesn’t want to talk about anything anymore. He only wants war and the elimination of Hamas.”
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett commented on X: “This morning’s [Haaretz] article stating that Netanyahu was warned ten days before the October 7 massacre about Sinwar’s intentions is true.”
Netanyahu bears direct and personal responsibility for the failure that led to the deaths of thousands of Israelis under his watch.
His disregard for the warnings constitutes criminal negligence, and therefore he is doing everything he can to prevent the creation of a state commission of inquiry that will reveal the truth […]
If we do not replace this government, we will never know the truth, which will only be revealed by a state commission of inquiry, because it is preventing its establishment for fear that we will discover the terrible truth.
• General Yair Golan, former deputy chief of staff and chairman of the Democrats, had provided aid to victims on the day of the attack. He commented on X: “The ‘They didn’t wake me up’ excuse is over; he knew it. He was warned […]
The investigation reveals that Netanyahu received an explicit warning from the Emir of the [United Arab] Emirates and deliberately concealed it from the army chiefs and the Shin Bet. This shatters all the lies he told us.
Now it’s clear: Netanyahu is unfit and illegitimate. He belongs in prison for his crimes against the State of Israel.
We need to replace it now!
Pack your suitcases’: Israel’s far right unveils its blueprint for emptying Gaza
Ben-Gvir’s party is demanding a new ministry dedicated to “voluntary migration.” Those living amid the rubble say they will not leave.
8 Sep, 2026 , By Elizabeth Blade, RT Middle East correspondent, https://www.rt.com/news/645274-pack-your-suitcases-israels-gaza/
Israel’s far-right national security minister has put a seven-year timetable on emptying Gaza of most of its people, and dressed it up as choice. Gazans RT spoke to call it what international law already names it: forced displacement.
Last week, Jewish Power chairman and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled ‘Disengagement 710’, a policy blueprint for what he calls the voluntary migration of Gaza residents to countries willing to take them. Destinations floated by his party include Türkiye, unspecified Arab states, Ethiopia, and Congo.
The numbers are not modest. The plan foresees the departure of about 250,000 people in the first year, 1.11 million within three years, and some 1.86 million within seven, encompassing the bulk of the Strip’s population.
To run it, Jewish Power wants the next government to create a dedicated ministry for “voluntary migration,” complete with a minister, a director-general, its own budget, an international negotiating team, and an implementation apparatus.
Ben-Gvir vows to make the ministry a coalition demand after Israel’s October 27 election. “Instead of illusions of peace now, we need actions of emigration now,” he said. “Instead of them digging tunnels, it’s time to pack suitcases.”
This idea is not new for the Jewish state.
A Zionist through-line
In 1937, David Ben-Gurion, then a leading Zionist figure, promoted the transfer of Palestinians and argued they should be moved to Transjordan. In the 1980s, the same ‘voluntary’ formula was championed by far-right politicians Rehavam Ze’evi – nicknamed ‘Gandhi’– and Meir Kahane. Their schemes never left the drawing board.
Ben-Gvir now presents his version as newly realistic, citing earlier public backing from US President Donald Trump. Trump floated mass relocation from Gaza in early 2025, then walked the idea back under Arab and international pressure.
His later 20-point framework stated that no one would be forced to leave and that residents should be encouraged to stay. Ben-Gvir treats the first Trump remark as political cover and the second as an inconvenience.
Gazans RT interviewed rejected the initiative as illegal under international law and a crime against humanity.
”People in Gaza and across Palestine know Ben-Gvir’s plans go far beyond our existence in the Strip,” said Abdallah Ali, a resident of central Gaza.
Ali said that is why Gazans, himself included, intend to stay put.
Rami Al Meghari, from Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza, reached the same conclusion for a different reason: memory of exile.
“Many Palestinians found life in other countries, especially Arab states, awkward and humiliating,” he said. “They will not leave Gaza for a destination that cannot guarantee dignity, whether an Arab capital or some African country Israel has long suggested, like Somalia.”
Polls, rubble, and the meaning of ‘voluntary’
A PCPSR poll last year found 56% of Gazans interviewed unwilling to emigrate. A substantial minority, some 43%, said they would.
Ali and Al Meghari were not surprised. Despair is real, and the findings of various UN reports show it clearly.
As of June 16, 2026, satellite analysis by the UN Satellite Centre found 201,290 structures damaged, an estimated 82% of all buildings in Gaza. Of those, 134,422 were assessed as destroyed, 13,848 severely damaged, 28,096 moderately damaged and 24,924 possibly damaged.
Most of Gaza’s 2.1 million people remain displaced. The Shelter Cluster, surveying in June 2026, said 1.98 million people, 94% of the population, need shelter and household items.
Food and water continue to be an issue. Between mid-April and June 30, 2026, more than 1.2 million people (59%) were still in dire need of assistance.
Assessments in 2026 found 43% of households below the 15-liter humanitarian minimum per person per day, and 62% below the 6-liter drinking-water floor.
But Ali and Al Meghari insist the pull of the land is much stronger.
“Whatever the suffering, even with around 97 percent of cropland destroyed and most of the built environment gone, people are putting up tents and staying in displacement camps. They are not packing to leave,” Ali said.
Al Meghari still hopes the political weather will change. “Life can move forward in Gaza if there is serious international and Arab pressure to implement the second phase of the ceasefire. The United States has a particular responsibility to make that happen. Russia also needs to play a pivotal role to bring the suffering of the Palestinians to an end.”
Reconstruction as leverage
There is little movement on reconstruction. Israel is blocking construction materials, demanding that Hamas disarm and demilitarize first. The Board of Peace has pushed for weapons to be collected and placed under international supervision, a formula Israel rejects.
Ali sees the stalled effort as a policy, not an accident. “This is taking a very long time. I do not think Israel will accept Gaza’s reconstruction anytime soon. It will keep complicating reality until leaving becomes the only realistic option.”
Ahmed Al-Masri, a lawyer in Gaza, argues Israel has played this hand before and lost. “We lived this in 2014 [Operation Protective Edge – ed.]. Israel said Gaza should not be rebuilt. Then, under international pressure and with UN supervision, it was forced to comply.”
And he also pins some hope on Israel’s October 27 parliamentary vote. “If the far-right government is removed, there might be a beginning, a glimmer on the horizon, and a better political reality for people here, if Palestinians also insist on rebuilding political, social and economic life.”
That is the wager Gaza is making: that endurance outlasts a plan that needs other countries to open their doors, Washington to revive an idea it already shelved, and two million people to accept that ‘voluntary’ means leaving home because the alternative has been made unlivable.
Ben-Gvir is betting the opposite – that the wreckage, a ministry, and a slogan about suitcases can finish what earlier transfer schemes could not. Gazans say they have heard that speech before.
CIA ‘Proxy’: Unravelling Saudi Arabia’s True 9/11 Role
Kit Klarenberg Substack September 12, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/12/cia-proxy-unravelling-saudi-arabias-true-9-11-role/
In the leadup to 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Compelling evidence Saudi Arabian intelligence not only managed several hijackers as agents, but did so as a “proxy” for the CIA, has lain unexamined in plain sight for years. Yet, the Agency’s sinister shadowplay remains eerily absent from media consideration, despite mounting recognition of Riyadh’s role.
Bayoumi has long-been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival to the US in January 2000. A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, ruled there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi – and the House of Saud by extension – had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.
However, the media remained steadfastly silent a year later when a bombshell filing from the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – was released. The document summarises classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents shed unprecedented light on how the CIA recruited at least Hazmi and Mihdhar if not others who participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID).
The same document elucidates how the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavoured “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington DC embassy. No wonder – probing those connections would’ve amply revealed how the GID was acting as a “cutout” for the CIA, in all its clandestine dealings with the 9/11 hijackers.
High-ranking FBI officials quoted in the filing discuss how the GID was a longstanding CIA “proxy”, exploited by the Agency whenever it was “unwise or not practical…to undertake an operation directly.” This need was particularly pronounced in the context of cloak-and-dagger CIA connivances conducted “on US soil.” After 25 years, it appears Riyadh could finally take the fall for a dastardly CIA operation that one way or another resulted in 9/11. As planned, there is little chance of the Agency itself landing in the dock.
‘CIA Team’
Among the court filing’smost dynamite excerpts is the insider testimony of an FBI special agent, who was posted to Alec Station – the CIA’s Al Qaeda tracking unit, ultimately responsible for recruiting Hazmi and Mihdhar as assets. When in January 2000 the special agent learned the pair – known Al Qaeda operatives under intensive CIA and NSA surveillance – had multi-entry visas to the US, they produced a report warning Bureau headquarters. Its dispatch was blocked by an unnamed CIA analyst.
The same analyst not only directed the GID to make contact with Hazmi and Mihdhar upon their arrival, but falsely claimed to subsequent US government inquiries into 9/11 they had personally informed the FBI about the pair’s presence in the US. The FBI special agent personally witnessed CIA director George Tenet and Agency operations director James Pavitt bragging about how they “conspired to obstruct the 9/11 Commission,” by concealing the analyst’s activities and identity from investigators.
In the process, an extraordinary, hitherto unreported component of Riyadh’s relationship with the hijackers remained determinedly unexplored. The FBI special agent alleged Hazmi and Mihdhar were explicitly provided US visas by the American consulate in Jeddah, “to facilitate the operation run by the Saudis’ GID and the CIA team.” This disclosure is all the more tantalising given 14 of the 19 hijackers all received their visas from the same consulate. In many cases, the paperwork shouldn’t have been granted at all.
Adding to the mystery, 12 of the 14 visas were approved by a single consular official, named Shayna Steinger. Almost immediately after being appointed to the Jeddah consulate in July 2000 with zero diplomatic background, she began rubberstamping applications of future 9/11 hijackers. At the time, the consulate’s approach to issuing visas was strict, specifically due to local “terrorism” concerns. Internal guidelines stated applicants – particularly young male Saudis – should always be interviewed in person, and have clear grounds for travel.
However, Steinger personally took it upon herself to reverse this policy. Moreover, she issued visas to future 9/11 hijackers despite their applications frequently being incomplete or error-strewn, based on forged documents, and their contents giving ample grounds for suspicion. Steinger nonetheless interviewed Hani Hanjour, who purportedly piloted Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Afterwards, she rejected his application for a three-year US visa, due to apparent doubts over his stated purposes in the country. Nonetheless, Steinger approved Hanjour’s renewed application two weeks later.
In ensuing official investigations, she offered wildly contradictory accounts of why the hijackers’ visas were granted. In Hanjour’s case, Steinger initially claimed he provided requested supporting documentation. She subsequently admitted he actually hadn’t, but Hanjour’s “middle class” background purportedly led her to conclude he was trustworthy. Thanks to the court filing, we know in reality future 9/11 hijackers were granted entry to the US so they could be recruited by the CIA upon arrival, suggesting Steinger was acting on Agency orders.
‘Local Dissidents’
Once Hazmi and Mihdhar touched down in Los Angeles in January 2000, almost immediately they crossed paths with Omar Bayoumi at an airport restaurant. FBI reports cited in the court filing indicate a witness who observed their meeting saw Bayoumi “dropping a piece of paper” near the pair’s table, “then striking up a conversation with them” in a manner that appeared “unnatural.” The witness relayed this account to the Bureau in 2002, but it was never publicised.
In interviews with Operation Encore investigators years later, Bayoumi maintained his meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar was pure happenstance. The extraordinary assistance he gave them immediately thereafter – including finding them an apartment, cosigning their lease, setting them up bank accounts, and gifting them substantial sums towards their rent – was simply charity for fellow Muslims who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with Western culture, Bayoumi asserted. But the filing offers numerous striking insights into the dark reality of his contact with the future hijackers.
For example, it appears Bayoumi was secretly instructed to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, by extremist cleric and Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs official Fahad Thumairy. The filing cites evidence indicating Bayoumi was himself in California “to spy on local dissidents” of Saudi extraction. He was seen with the two 9/11 hijackers “on numerous occasions,” at one stage organising “a social gathering for the hijackers.” We can only guess who may also have been in attendance.
Another stunning exposure in the filing concerns Hazmi and Mihdhar lodging with longtime FBI informant and asset Abdussattar Shaikh from September 2000 onwards. That Shaikh failed to provide their surnames to his handler despite being asked has been known for many years. The joint congressional and senate intelligence committee probe into 9/11 ruled the pair’s stay with Shaikh was “the [US] intelligence community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.” Insulating Hazmi and Midhar from Bureau scrutiny may have been his explicit objective.
The filing indicates he himself “was receiving funds” from Riyadh, while simultaneously serving as an FBI informant. “Prominent” Saudis “would stay at Shaikh’s boarding house while visiting California,” it states. His mission was “to monitor the activities of [Saudi] citizens while they were abroad.” Hani Hanjour also stayed with Shaikh alongside Hazmi, after Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2000. It appears at every stage Stateside, the hijackers were in intimate proximity with figures connected to Saudi intelligence.
Given the GID was acting directly on the CIA’s behalf, this contact raises the obvious prospect the Agency – via its Riyadh “proxy” – was directly monitoring the movements of Hazmi, Midhar, and Hanjour if not other Saudi-born hijackers from the moment they entered the US at the Agency’s direction, until 9/11 itself. The extent to which the CIA could’ve influenced their actions, behaviour and movements throughout is unknown, but the scope was self-evidently massive.
Saudi Involvement’
All along, Alec Station deliberately concealed the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar in the US from the FBI, until it was too late. The filing records how in June 2001 Station representatives showed senior Bureau officials photographs of three Al Qaeda operatives, including Hazmi and Mihdhar. However, the CIA refused to answer questions about the individuals in the photos, or provide identifying information. Had they done so, the FBI could’ve readily found Hazmi and Mihdhar’s names and addresses listed in San Diego’s local phone directory.
This was a flagrant dangle, obviously intended to gauge the Bureau’s cognisance of the identities of the individuals pictured, and their presence in the US. The filing also indicates the FBI conducted a dedicated counterintelligence investigation into Omar Bayoumi prior to 9/11, due to suspicions “he was operating as an intelligence officer.” Yet, when the Bureau contacted the CIA for information on Bayoumi, they were told the Agency “held no files” on him at all – a “falsehood”.
In reality, the CIA maintained plentiful “operational” records on Bayoumi, which were “never passed to the FBI.” Such brazen stonewalling persisted long after 9/11. Upon learning tens of thousands of dollars had been sent from Haifa bin Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, to Bayoumi’s wife, the Bureau attempted to subpoena their financial records from Washington DC’s Riggs Bank. Per the filing, “officials at Riggs thwarted the FBI’s efforts to obtain the records for a year.”
Riggs Bank – which counted US Presidents and CIA-installed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as clients – collapsed amid major money laundering scandals, in 2005. Post-9/11 investigations identified financial improprieties in accounts held by several wealthy Saudis – including a lack of required background checks, and consistent failure to alert regulators over large transactions violating federal banking laws. Riggs’ downfall precisely mirrors the unceremonious end of many confirmed CIA front banks past, such as Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which assisted criminal cloak-and-dagger connivances including Iran/Contra.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the filing records how “diplomatic pressure” was exerted on the FBI not to investigate Riyad’s myriad connections to 9/11. Bureau agents testifying to the joint inquiry into the attacks were moreover “instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.” Senior officials at FBI headquarters knew “of both Bayoumi’s affiliation with Saudi intelligence and…the existence of the CIA’s operation to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar,” but “suppressed investigations” into these burning matters.
The filing concludes by noting Bayoumi was subsequently arrested in Britain on immigration charges immediately after 9/11, with authorities finding “extremist literature in his apartment.” The significance of this disclosure has gone entirely unnoticed, since 2022. Only now, as a result of the New York court case, has the media acknowledged how within days of the attacks, “game-changing” evidence directly implicating Bayoumi in 9/11 was seized from his British home by counter-terror police, then shared with the FBI, which actively buried the information.
Quite unbelievably, the incriminating haul supposedly included a phonebook listing over two dozen Saudi government officials in the US and Saudi Arabia; flight simulator software; tickets and travel documents; and a notepad featuring a sketch of an aircraft. An accompanying note from a British counter-terror officer stated of the latter: “contains handwritten notes mathematical calculations re height of planes.” A member of the 9/11 families’ legal team behind the court action boldly informed the BBC, “it’s the mathematical calculation of the [Pentagon] crash.”
By September 22nd 2001, this seemingly incontrovertible windfall was in the Bureau’s possession. So too highly illuminating home video tapes of Bayoumi roaming around Washington DC in 1999, highlighting security measures in place at the Capitol building, openly discussing nearby Reagan National Airport, and referencing an unspecified “plan” on camera. Other tapes feature Bayoumi in close quarters with senior Al Qaeda figures such as Anwar Awlaki, assassinated in a September 2011 US drone strike.
While British detectives apparently believed they possessed “more than sufficient evidence” to extradite Bayoumi to stand trial, Washington ordered him freed, and he returned to Saudi Arabia. US authorities’ resistance is understandable, given the overwhelming abundance of evidence pointing ineluctably to the CIA at the very least actively facilitating the 9/11 attacks, if not carrying them out, using the Saudis as scapegoats. Media determination to avoid mentioning how Bayoumi et al provably acted as “proxies” for the CIA shows the coverup continues today.
The Dancing Israelis: Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
Signs of the Times, Whitney Webb, Mint Press News, Sun, 19 May 2019
Four of the Israeli nationals arrested for “puzzling behavior” during the September 11 attacks are seen casually posing together in front of the Manhattan skyline while the September 11 attacks were in progress
New information released by the FBI has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7thhas brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men – later revealed to be Israeli nationals – had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story receivedcoverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.
The men – Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari – were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”
For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.
According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.
The FOIA release of the photos is notable because responses to prior FOIA requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible to see the Israelis’ facial expressions. However, previously declassified yet heavily redacted FBI reports state that the Israelis are “visibly happy” in nearly every photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by authorities from the camera in the Israelis’ possession, only 14 were released.
FOIA Release of 9/11 Dancin… by on Scribd
However, three of these photos – despite the heavy redaction and poor quality – are damning. Since 2001, even though the photos were never released until now, it had been known that one of the Israelis arrested – Sivan Kurzberg – was seen in a photo “holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering wreckage [of the twin towers] in the background,” according to Steven Noah Gordon, then-lawyer for the five Israelis, as cited in a New York Times report from November 2001…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.sott.net/article/413373-The-Dancing-Israelis-Newly-Released-FBI-Docs-Shed-Light-on-Apparent-Mossad-Foreknowledge-of-9-11-Attacks
Gazans Feel Despair as Israeli Officials Cement Plans for Permanent Occupation
September 12, 2026, By Shahad Ali, https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/12/gazans-feel-despair-as-israeli-officials-cement-plans-for-permanent-occupation/
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has described a plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries.
Nearly a year after Donald Trump announced the creation of the “Board of Peace,” which was ostensibly charged with ending Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and overseeing reconstruction, one of the figures most centrally involved in the body has warned that a complete collapse of the so-called ceasefire in Gaza could lead to a “point of no return.”
Nickolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian diplomat who serves as Gaza’s High Representative on the Board of Peace, made the comments during a UN Security Council session on Wednesday, August 26. Casualty numbers in Gaza have dropped, he noted, but have not ceased, offering a pointed critique of Israel’s continued bombardment despite the supposed cessation of hostilities.
“If this ceasefire collapses and the strip spirals into another full escalation, there will be no road map to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild,” he said.
In his remarks, Mladenov also noted that Hamas and armed factions in the Gaza Strip had agreed to disarm and transfer civilian and security responsibilities to a transitional authority recognized by the United Nations. This was the first time Hamas and the armed factions within Gaza had agreed to such a step, Mladenov announced, which is part of a plan for a new phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. The road map also includes the dismantling of all weapons in the Strip and its demilitarization, subject to verification and monitoring; the complete transfer of civilian and security governance in Gaza; the reconstruction of destroyed areas so people can return to normal life; and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza tied to progress in disarmament.
The full implementation of this 15-point comprehensive plan, which Mladenov had outlined to the council earlier this year, would provide an opportunity to “dramatically improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza in a sustainable way, provide durable security for Israelis, and move from a conflict that has destabilized the region toward an environment that provides peace, prosperity and economic opportunities for the entire Middle East.”
These comments spread rapidly across Gaza. In displacement camps, Gazans gathered to discuss the details of the road map and the extent to which it might improve the horrific conditions they endure in overcrowded and flimsy tents, deprived of even the basic necessities of life. More than 2 million Palestinians concentrated in only around 30 percent of the Gaza Strip have been left so desperate that we scan news headlines for any indication of a possible end to our suffering. For many, the renewed interest in the Board of Peace plan became a lifeline they could cling to — hoping for a chance to live in peace, rebuild their destroyed lives, and return to areas now controlled by Israel beyond the so-called “Yellow Line.”
However, Mladenov’s announcement has been met with statements from Israeli officials that contradict the Board of Peace’s vision for Gaza’s future and reflect their unwillingness to withdraw from areas under Israeli control.
Before Mladenov’s address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already said he would reject the plan, despite the road map’s connection to U.S. President Donald Trump. During a September 2 visit to Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu also said he had no plans to withdraw from territory under Israeli control. “We are not withdrawing. We are staying along this line, and we control more than 60 percent of the Strip, and there is more still to come,” he said, stressing that military operations against those he described as threatening Israel’s security would continue.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also confirmed in a statement on September 1 that Israeli troops would remain inside the Gaza Strip even after Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is demilitarized. Moreover, at a September 2 conference hosted by the Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth, Katz described a plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries — which some Israeli officials falsely describe as voluntary migration rather than ethnic cleansing.
“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration. Hamas isn’t allowing them to leave, and there are no countries in the world taking them in,” he said. He also added that Israel was prepared to carry out the plan “by sea, by air, and by any means,” and suggested that Trump had only “frozen” the plan for ethnic cleansing due to the lack of countries willing to receive Palestinians from Gaza.
These statements have crushed the little glimmer of hope Gazans had clung to and deepened our collective fear that we will be forced to continue living amid rubble, tents, and an ever-expanding Israeli military occupation for years, with no end in sight — all while also facing the even greater threat of being displaced entirely from the Gaza Strip.
Diana Al Ajoz, 41, was displaced from her neighborhood in Al-Zaytoun, which is now under Israeli military control, and is being forced to live in a tent near Gaza City beach. She told me she felt optimistic when she first heard about the Board of Peace’s plan for Gaza, hoping that she would be able to return to a normal life in her beloved neighborhood where she was born and raised. However, when she heard about Israel’s intention not to withdraw from the so-called “Yellow Line,” which encompasses Al-Zaytoun, she felt even more desperate.
“The statements I heard about Hamas disarmament, Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction, and the return of life to Gaza gave me hope that we might finally live in lasting peace, away from war and suffering. But then, when I hear statements from Israeli officials saying the opposite — that they intend to keep their forces in Gaza, seize more land, and continue our displacement — it deeply devastated me.”
“After hearing the Israeli statements, I doubt that our living conditions will improve quickly. My biggest fear is that we will continue living in tents for the coming years while dreaming of living in a home that protects us from the cold of winter and the heat of summer,” Al Ajoz added.
“At the same time, I fear that we might continue to suffer the same hardships we face every day just to access the basic necessities of life, whether it is standing in a long line to use the bathroom or to get our share of food or water. I also fear continuing to live away from my beautiful neighborhood, Al-Zaytoun, and keep thinking about the day when I might be able to return to it.”
Alaa Zuatair, 39, lives in a tent in Khan Younis after Israeli forces destroyed her home in Jabalia and took control of her entire neighborhood within the so-called “Yellow Line.” She also told me that she had lost all hope in the plan proposed by the Board of Peace.
“Each time negotiations and talks about improving living conditions in Gaza and bringing an end to our suffering begin, Israel meets them with delays and rejections,” she said.
“I could talk to you endlessly about the harsh reality we are living through here. We have written, appealed, and pleaded with the world to put an end to our suffering, but nothing changes. We are living a life deprived of any stability or even a sense of safety. We have literally reached a point where we think about death every minute and go to sleep without knowing what might happen tomorrow.”
Zuatair also added that her current location offers her no real safety. The area in which she and her family have been displaced to is near the Yellow Line, and they hear gunfire from Israeli forces almost every day and remain at risk of further displacement at any moment.
“We always hear a new statement and a new plan about ending our suffering, while ultimately, we continue to live through the same harsh reality,” she said. “So, honestly, when you talk to me about a ‘Board of Peace,’ I ask: What peace are you talking about? How can there be peace while, at the same time, Israeli officials are talking about displacing Palestinians and seizing more land? How are we supposed to make sense of this equation?”
“I do not have any answers about what our future will look like,” Zuatair concluded. “The only thing we ask for is to live in peace. We want to wake up knowing that the day ahead will pass without fear, without bombardment, and without new displacement.”
Trump Is Planning Round Three of the US-Israeli War Against Iran — But Will Tehran Strike First?
In conversation with Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute
Ian Proud, Sep 11, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/trump-is-planning-round-three-of?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=215182894&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
This conversation with Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, was recorded before President Trump promised Americans $5,000 if he wins the midterms. That pledge does not change the argument. It sharpens it. With round three of the US-Israeli war against Iran looming, the big question is who will strike first?
Trita argues that the slow military escalation and economic warfare now under way are not the third round of the war against Iran. They are the preparation for it.
In his view, the United States and Israel are planning a much larger campaign after November. Trump believes he has already tried diplomacy, sanctions and what might generously be called limited war. What he has not tried is the menu of threats he issued and then abandoned: taking an island, striking desalination plants, hitting critical infrastructure.
After the midterms, Trita fears, that is the direction he will go. Israel is likely to be part of it. Washington kept the Israelis out of round two because it did not trust them to stay inside the box. If the United States no longer wants a box, Trump and Netanyahu may have another crack, despite prior efforts having proved a catastrophic failure.
That, Trita argues, is why Iran is hitting American bases in Jordan. Those sites matter because they help shoot down missiles bound for Israel. Tehran is clearing the path so that, when round three comes, more of its missiles get through.
The obvious objection is that Trump may emerge from the midterms a bruised lame duck. Trita does not think that restrains him. American institutions, he says, are weaker now than ever before. Congress has shown no appetite to defund the war. A Democratic House, and perhaps a Democratic Senate, would mean impeachment of Trump and a president playing defence at home.
However, that is when Trump has been most reckless before. After he lost to Biden in 2020, Mark Milley later said his fear was that Trump would look for an Iran war to block a peaceful transfer of power. He did not get that war. He got 6 January instead. Humiliation makes Trump dangerous, rather than cautious.
But the problem is that Tehran understands this and can see how critical the midterms will be to Trump’s power in the second half of his term. Trita therefore thinks there is a high likelihood that Iran starts the third round of the war a week or two before the midterms, to inflict the maximum political cost on Trump.
That may well damage Trump at the polls. But it may also leave him with fewer constraints and a taste for risk.
The escalation trap is now familiar. Washington reads every tactical gain — more oil leaving the Gulf, a weaker Iranian economy — as proof that time is on its side.
Trita’s warning is the opposite. If the squeeze actually works, Iran will not crumble. It will escalate. It has the options which it is demonstrating daily. Even if Iran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would not lift the blockade. The key demand on the American side has ratcheted up to state collapse, which appears no more likely to happen now than in February.
The Pentagon talks of bombing Iran periodically to degrade its ability to close the Strait. That is not a strategy, but rather “mowing the lawn”.
Yet, no one will be able to sell this war as a victory if in practice it means an on-off air campaign and no diplomacy as the world economy sinks further into depression. Which brings us back to the midterms and the fact that Trump may find that, despite the inducement of a $5000 bribe, many Americans will realise that what they need is a new lawnmower.
You can watch the full conversation here:
You can find Trita’s analysis on his Substack: tritaparsi.substack.com.
Wherever you are in the world, whatever your nationality and religion, I wish you much peace.
Three Major Revelations About The Gaza Holocaust In The Israeli Press
Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 10, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/three-major-revelations-about-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=214991965&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Israeli press has published three significant revelations about the Gaza holocaust, reporting (1) that Benjamin Netanyahu concealed advanced knowledge of the Hamas attack on October 7, (2) that Israel rejected a Hamas offer to release all civilian hostages immediately after October 7, and (3) that according to an IDF drone operator, the Israeli military was intentionally firing on civilians throughout Gaza during its operations in the Palestinian territory.
The first two come from a Haaretz article titled “Revealed: Netanyahu Received an Explicit Warning Days Before Oct. 7. He Didn’t Brief Israel’s Security Chiefs”, which was released ahead of an upcoming Haaretz book about the hostage standoff in Gaza.
Haaretz describes a call between Netanyahu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, citing three foreign senior sources:
“A week and a half before October 7, 2023 the Emirati ruler called Netanyahu from the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi and spoke with him for 45 minutes. In that conversation, bin Zayed warned that Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation against Israel. Bin Zayed expressed concern that the event in question would not only lead to bloodshed but also destabilize the entire region and undermine the Abraham Accords.”
Haaretz reports that rather than pass these warnings on to Israeli national security officials, Netanyahu chose to sit on information which an unnamed Shin Bet official said could have “changed our entire assessment picture.”
Haaretz also notes that Israel had received similar warnings about a coming Hamas attack from Egyptian intelligence, which had been reported earlier. These are just two items in the mountains upon mountains upon mountains of evidence indicating that powerful people in Israel knowingly allowed Hamas to inflict as much damage as possible on October 7 2023 in order to advance the murderous ethnic cleansing objectives we’ve seen rolled out in the years since.
Nothing will turn you into a conspiracy theorist faster than learning basic facts about what happened on October 7. But even without knowing those facts it already strains credulity to believe Israel had no advance knowledge of a complex attack which would require extensive open-air training in one of the most heavily surveilled strips of land on our planet. Especially when you look at all the pre-existing military agendas Israel was able to push forward in the aftermath.
Later in that same article, Haaretz quotes a Palestinian politician named Samir Mashharawi describing what Hamas leadership told him during his mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas after October 7:
“He told me that in the first stage, they had no problem releasing all civilians without anything in return,” Mashharawi recounts. “I swear, those were his exact words: all civilians, without anything in return. They had only one condition: They wanted us to bring in an agreed-upon mediator as quickly as possible, so that negotiations could immediately begin over everything else.”
Mashharawi said Israel rejected the offer. A senior Israeli defense official corroborated this, telling Haaretz:
“The release of the hostages did not even enter the list of war objectives formulated by the government on the night of October 7. Could the proposal have been properly discussed and a decision reached? In substantive terms, the answer is yes. But the prevailing mood was like after Pearl Harbor: We had just suffered a brutal blow, we were in the midst of war, who had the bandwidth to talk about stopping the fighting and starting negotiations now, even if it was to save the lives of dozens of people, whose final number was still unknown?”
So all that hasbara about the hostages and the Bibas kids and how Hamas needed to be destroyed because they were refusing to release innocent civilian captives was complete bunk from the very beginning. Hamas offered to release them with no conditions but the opening of communication lines. Israel refused, because what they wanted was to steal more Palestinian land. It was never about the hostages, and anyone who said it was is a liar.
Lastly, a separate report in Hebrew from Haaretz quotes an Israeli air force reserve major describing how IDF policies and culture ensured the deaths of large numbers of civilians. Here are a few quotes, translated by Israeli-American political analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim:
1) He was involved in the March 23, 2025 paramedic killings in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah and said, “You could clearly tell these were rescue vehicles even as fire was opened on them from the ground. For no apparent reason, the force on the ground charged the convoy. They shot the first vehicle, the medical personnel got out, hid behind the ambulances and begged for their lives, and the soldiers shot them one after another.”
“On how the yellow line was used as an excuse to kill innocent people: “The Palestinians didn’t know it existed, and the Air Force wasn’t always updated either. From the perspective of a farmer walking onto his own land — he has no idea he’s stepping into an area the IDF suddenly decided is a fire zone. And then all kinds of retroactive justifications started coming up. ‘He came for an arms deal.’ ‘He touched the ground, maybe he’s planting an explosive.’ To me it looked like they were trying to incriminate people with no intelligence and no proof.”
On how all morals were lost in Gaza: “”The feeling was that something tore, everyone had already become cynical about death, you can’t understand it from the outside. It’s not just fatigue, it’s an erosion of morality, of responsibility, of the sense that someone is still managing the event. Very quickly this whole business of ‘collateral damage’ disappeared from the considerations. They fire on anyone they see. The atmosphere started to be like the stands at a soccer match. The way you shout at a player, ‘Yalla, score,’ that’s how they shout at a soldier, ‘Kill him, strike him.’”
Like the other revelations, this report further discredits the lies the public was sold about Israel’s reasons for its atrocities in Gaza. All those lies about how Israel is taking extraordinary measures to protect civilian life in Gaza and only kills civilians because Hamas “hides behind human shields” has been thoroughly discredited by copious amounts of evidence that Israel was going out of its way to kill noncombatants throughout the course of the onslaught.
The world was lied to about the Gaza holocaust, just like it was lied to about every other act of mass military slaughter that the US involves itself in. Please carry these lessons into the future.
Satellite images reveal surge in building activity at Iranian nuclear site after Trump’s bomb threat
Trump said the US would have to hit Iran ‘very hard’ if they found they’d been working on Pickaxe Mountain
Bryony Gooch, Thursday 10 September 2026 , https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/satellite-image-iran-pickaxe-mountain-trump-bomb-b3048042.html
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has said that nuclear activity is taking place at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a day after new satellite imagery showed a surge in construction activity at the site.
Analysis of satellite images at the heavily fortified site, which is believed to host two deeply buried tunnel complexes, and the nearby damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, suggests there has been active excavation.
The development threatens to bring further escalation between the US and Iran after Donald Trump recently warned the US would bomb the nuclear site.
Researchers from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies used six years of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) change detection with Sentinel-2 optical change detection and very-high-resolution (VHR) Airbus imagery from July 9, 2026, as well as a Satellogic image from August 9, 2026.
The images revealed that there was more road activity at Pickaxe Mountain in 2026 than at any point in the site’s history, suggesting the raising and hardening of the portal accesses, paving of the internal road network, reinforcement around access areas, they said.
It comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, told Bloomsberg on Thursday there was activity at Pickaxe Mountain.
Trump said at the midterm Republican convention on Wednesday that they would hit Iran “very hard” if the US found they’d been working on the nuclear site.
“We notice there’s a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard,” Trump said in a speech at the midterm Republican convention. He has been threatening strikes on Pickaxe Mountain since at least mid-July.
Fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen has also escalated in the past few days, a second theatre of war that threatens global energy supplies from the Middle East.
Houthi militants have taken control of the Yemeni Red Sea city of Mocha and are launching attacks on the strategic Red Sea islands of Hanish, the Yemeni sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Government forces and their allies are relocating south to Dhubab, which sits directly on the strait, across from the island of Perim. Control of Dhubab and the island is key to gaining hold of the strait, they said.
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