Israel and Iran Usher In New Era of Psychological Warfare
Moments after the bombs struck, a video appeared on X and Telegram, purporting to show a blast at an entrance to the prison, which is notorious for holding political prisoners. One post on X included a hashtag, in Persian: '#freeevin.'
The attack on the prison was real, but the posts and video were not what they seemed. They were part of an Israeli ruse, according to researchers who tracked the effort.
It was not the only trickery during the conflict. Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. The posts, researchers said, represented a greater intensity of information warfare, by beginning before the strikes, employing artificial intelligence and spreading widely so quickly.
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Fox News
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BBC report finds Gaza documentary narrated by Hamas terrorist's son breached editorial standards
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Yahoo
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Yahoo
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United Torah Judaism announces decision to quit gov't, coalition
The Sephardi haredi party Shas remained mum on Monday about whether or not it would join UTJ. The United Torah Judaism (UTJ) announced on Tuesday its decision to quit the government and the coalition, according to a statement released by the party's two factions, the Lithuanian Degel Hatorah and Hassidic Agudat Yisrael. Degel Hatorah's sole representative in the government, Deputy Transportation Minister Uri Makleb, submitted his resignation on Tuesday, along with MK Moshe Gafni, who resigned as head of the Knesset Finance Committee, making the decision official. MK Yakov Asher resigned as head of Knesset Interior and Environment Protection Committee. In a dramatic political development earlier on Monday, the Lithuanian-haredi Degel Hatorah MKs announced their resignation after the party's two spiritual leaders, Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, ordered the party to leave the government over its failure to pass a bill to exempt yeshiva students from IDF service. 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Lando wrote, 'Since the governing authorities are showing intentions to increasingly restrict the lives of Torah learners in various ways, through attempts to demean and crush them – and repeatedly fail to uphold their commitments to legally regulate the status of yeshiva students and dear Torah scholars, the crown of creation and the secret of its existence – it is therefore my opinion that participation in the government and coalition should be immediately terminated, including resigning without delay from all related roles. May God deliver us swiftly.' Hirsch added his signature on Monday morning. United Torah Judaism (UTJ) said earlier on Monday that it expected to leave the coalition within the next 24 hours if a draft proposal of a law regarding haredi enlistment was not presented. "In coordination with the great rabbis of Israel, it was decided to wait a few more hours tonight before publishing the statement, in order to provide one last opportunity for a resolution. 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In order for it to fall, either Netanyahu must call an election himself, or the Knesset must pass a bill to disperse itself, a process that is unlikely to happen while the Knesset is on summer recess. Still, if the two parties' combined 18 votes officially leave the government, the prime minister's ability to implement policy will be severely hindered. Opposition party members on Monday morning sought to gather Shas's support for such a bill, but Shas refused, according to a Channel 12 report. KAN reported that for now, the parties will not support dissolving the Knesset before the summer recess The announcement by Degel Hatorah served as a new peak in a pressure campaign against Netanyahu. The party nearly supported an opposition preliminary vote on a bill proposal to disperse the Knesset on the eve of June 12, a day before the Israeli attack against Iran, but backed down after reaching agreements with Edelstein. It later became apparent that Edelstein and other negotiators were aware of the impending attack, and backed down in part because of it. The June 12 agreements stipulated that an increasing quota of haredi draftees would enlist annually, with the ultimate goal of enlistment of 50% of each graduating class within five years. The bill included a series of sanctions that would apply to draft dodgers gradually, with some relatively light sanctions applying immediately and heavier sanctions added at six-month increments. Financial sanctions would also be applied to yeshivot that do not reach draft quotas. In the meantime, current sanctions against draft dodgers – which include blocking funds to yeshivot and the cessation of state-subsidized daycare – would be lifted. The head of the Finance Ministry's Budget Department, Yoav Gardos, wrote in a letter to Frenkel-Shor on July 2 that the agreement would actually serve as an incentive not to enlist or work, and in effect perpetuate the issues that it had set out to solve. Gardos pointed out that the idea of quotas may already be a nonstarter, since there was no a specific requirement for individual haredim to enlist. In addition, Gardos explained that the immediate sanctions would not significantly affect many young haredi yeshiva students. In the meantime, the law's passage will free up funds to yeshivot and to parents, which are currently frozen because of students' draft evasion. The previous exemption for haredi men officially ended with a High Court ruling in June 2024, and since no new bill has passed, the current legal status requires the enlistment of all of the approximately 80,000 eligible haredi men. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara has held monthly meetings since then to ensure that the High Court ruling is being implemented. In a letter to Netanyahu on Monday, Baharav-Miara wrote that the government was legally required to use more tools in its power to enforce the law against draft-dodgers. She wrote that the fact that the government was increasing the burden on some parts of the population while not doing all in its power to recruit other parts was a 'severe' violation of the constitutional principle of equality.
