Israel PM attacks Qatar probe as 'witch hunt' after aides arrested
An adviser and a former spokesman were arrested on Monday over alleged payments from the Gulf Arab state as part of the probe, which has been dubbed "Qatar-gate". They have denied any wrongdoing.
Netanyahu, who has not been named as a suspect, accused the police of holding the two men as "hostages", adding: "There is no case."
A Qatari official also dismissed the probe as a "smear campaign" against Qatar, which has played a key role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas during the war in Gaza.
It comes as Netanyahu faces escalating protests in Israel over his policies, including the resumption of Israel's offensive against Hamas before securing the release of all the remaining hostages, the dismissal of the director of the Shin Bet internal security agency, and the advancement of a controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary.
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On Monday, Israel's police force announced that two suspects had been detained as part of an investigation into ties between the prime minister's office and Qatar. It provided no further details, citing a court-imposed gag order on the case.
Israeli media reports subsequently identified them as Yonatan Urich, a very close adviser to Netanyahu, and Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman in the prime minister's office, and said they were suspected of contact with a foreign agent, money laundering, bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
Netanyahu later cut short an appearance at his separate trial on corruption charges, which he denies, to provide recorded testimony to police investigating the case at his office in Jerusalem.
After being questioned, Netanyahu posted a video online in which he condemned both the arrests and the wider investigation.
"I understood that it was a political investigation but I didn't realise how political it was," he said. "They are holding Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein as hostages, making their lives miserable over nothing."
"There is no case, there is absolutely nothing, just a political witch hunt, nothing else."
The prime minister's Likud party also issued a statement accusing the attorney general's office and the Shin Bet chief of "fabricating" the case and attempting to "terrorise Yonatan Urich in order to extract from him false testimony against the prime minister through blackmail".
On Tuesday, a judge at Rishon LeZion Magistrates' Court extended Urich and Feldstein's detention by three days, saying there were "reasonable suspicions" that required a thorough investigation. The police had requested a nine-day extension.
Judge Menahem Mizrahi said in a decision that investigators suspected that the two men had acted to "promote Qatar in a positive light" and "spread negative messages about Egypt" and its role as another mediator in the Gaza ceasefire talks.
For this purpose, the judge said, a "business and economic connection" was created between a US lobbying firm working for Qatar "through the mediation of [Urich] in return for monetary payments which were passed to [Feldstein]" through an Israeli businessman.
Last week, Israeli media published a recording in which the businessman was heard saying that he had transferred funds to Feldstein on behalf of a US lobbyist working for Qatar.
At the time, Feldstein's lawyers said the payments were "for strategic and communications services Feldstein provided to the prime minister's office, not for Qatar". They also said Feldstein was not aware of any connection between the businessman and other parties, including Qatar. Ulrich's lawyers said he denied involvement.
A police representative told Judge Mizrahi on Tuesday that Urich was also suspected of passing journalists messages from a source linked to Qatar, which were presented as if they came from senior Israeli political or security officials.
Ulrich's legal team, which includes Netanyahu's defence lawyer Amit Hadad, said they would submit a request to lift the gag order on the case to expose "the injustice done to him". The judge went on to approve the request, saying the gag order had been repeatedly violated.
A Qatari official told the Financial Times: "This is not the first time we have been the subject of a smear campaign by those who do not want to see an end to this conflict [the Gaza war] or the remaining hostages returned to their families."
Qatar has long championed the Palestinian cause and host political leaders of Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK, the US and other countries.
Between 2018 and the start of the current war, which was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the Gulf state provided hundreds of millions of dollars of aid for Gaza.
Israeli governments allowed the money to be transferred to pay the wages of civil servants in Gaza's Hamas-run government, support the poorest families, and fund fuel deliveries for the territory's sole power plant. However, critics asserted that it was helping Hamas to stay in power and fund its military activities.
Since the war, Qatar has helped, along with the US and Egypt, to broker two ceasefire and hostage release deals between Israel and Hamas.
The most recent lasted between 19 January and 18 March, when Israel renewed its air and ground campaign, blaming Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal for an extension and the release of its 59 remaining hostages. Hamas accused Israel of violating the original deal.
Netanyahu claimed that the "sole purpose" of the Qatar-gate investigation was to prevent the dismissal of the director of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, which has been participating in the probe, and to "topple a right-wing prime minister".
The government fired Ronen Bar on 21 March, saying it had lost trust in him over the failure to prevent Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
However, the supreme court suspended the dismissal pending a hearing on 8 April in response to petitions from opposition political parties and a non-governmental organisation, which said the move was made for inappropriate reasons and constituted a severe conflict of interest.
Bar will remain in post until the supreme court rules on the petitions, although the court permitted the prime minister to interview potential replacements in the meantime.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu's office announced that he had reversed a decision made the previous day to appoint former navy commander Vice Adm Eli Sharvit as the next Shin Bet chief.
"The prime minister thanked Vice Adm Sharvit for his willingness to be called to duty but informed him that, after further consideration, he intends to examine other candidates," a statement said.
That decision came after Likud officials criticised Sharvit's participation in the 2023 mass protests against the judicial overhaul.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also described Sharvit's appointment as "problematic" in response to a recent article criticising President Donald Trump's policies on climate change.
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Atlantic
25 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Razor-Thin Line Between Conspiracy Theory and Actual Conspiracy
Elvis is dead. American astronauts really did leave footprints on the moon. And the end of the world has come and gone, over and over again, without the world ever actually ending. When you're a true-blue conspiracy theorist, none of that matters. What's real is only what you want to believe, not what the evidence shows. But when it comes to one of the most popular conspiracy theories in American history—the explosive case of Jeffrey Epstein—the rules of conspiracism only partly apply. The Epstein story seems practically lab manufactured to appeal to conspiracy theorists (incidentally, things manufactured in labs are also something conspiracy theorists love to talk about). The Epstein saga hits on practically every theme of every major conspiracy theory, going back for centuries: It entails allegations of horrific child abuse. There are multiple mysterious deaths involved. Missing tapes. Hidden documents. Claims about a shadowy cabal. Backtracking politicians. Celebrities. Plus, Epstein was Jewish—so the whole affair is inevitably laced with anti-Semitism, a key feature of conspiracism since the Crusades. The thing is, only some parts of the Epstein story are conspiracy theories, and it's surprisingly difficult to suss out which ones. Epstein really did commit awful crimes. People in positions of tremendous power really did let him off easy back in the Bush administration. So where is the line between conspiracy theory and actual conspiracy? In an attempt to make sense of all of this, I talked with Julie K. Brown, an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald and the reporter who knows more about Epstein than almost any other person on the planet. The following is a transcript of the episode: [ Music ] News host 1: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen? Attorney General Pam Bondi: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. News host 2: Would you declassify the Epstein files? President Donald Trump: Yeah. Yeah, I would. All right. I guess I would. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino: I'm not ever gonna let this story go, because of what I heard from a source about Bill Clinton on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not letting it go. FBI Director Kash Patel: Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederast, the largest scale pederast in human history? Alina Habba: We have flight logs. We have information, names that will come out. Piers Morgan: Is it gonna be shocking? Habba: I don't see how it's not shocking. Adrienne LaFrance: This is Radio Atlantic. I am Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of the Atlantic, filling in for Hanna Rosin, who is away this week. For years, President Trump and his allies have promised to make bombshell news on the Jeffrey Epstein case. Many conspiracy-theory-obsessed Americans are preoccupied by Epstein, and MAGA world has long promised that Trump would be the one to release secret files about him. The saga is catnip for conspiracy theorists. The thing is, there are legitimate questions about Epstein, so it's hard to tell what's real and what's made up. Until recently, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, repeatedly said that she had specific new information about Epstein. But over the past two weeks, things got a lot more interesting and a lot more complicated. [ Music ] News host 3: The Department of Justice and FBI released a memo today, saying there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list, contradicting previous promises to provide it. LaFrance: Last week, the FBI released a memo, saying it had reviewed all of its evidence on Epstein, some 300 gigabytes of material, and it announced that it does not plan to release any more information. The Department of Justice now says there is no Epstein client list, and they say there's no evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent people. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what Trump world has been claiming all along. Now, Americans are accustomed to Trump and his allies making outrageous claims without evidence. But this particular about-face has MAGA tearing each other apart, with some major influencers turning on previous allies and many Trump supporters criticizing Trump himself for what seems to them like a cover-up. News host 4: President Trump facing unprecedented criticism from some of his biggest supporters. Trump: He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. LaFrance: This is a wild story politically, so wild that it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that there are real crimes underlying the larger scandal. Like many people, I feel like I'm losing the thread on all of this. It's extremely hard to understand which aspects of this are known to be true, known to be false, or somewhere in the muddy middle. So on this episode, we're going to try to make as much sense of this as we possibly can. Julie Brown: This is gonna be like the [John F. Kennedy] assassination. Long after you and I are gone, there's gonna be people that are gonna be writing and looking at this, and writing books about it. I just know it. LaFrance: That's Julie K. Brown. She's an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald, and she probably knows more than anyone in the world about this case. In 2018, Julie published a series of deeply reported stories about Epstein that led to the effective reopening of the case. The next year, Epstein was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges. Then a month after his arrest, he was found dead in his jail cell. Julie, hi. Brown: Hello. LaFrance: Let me start by asking you about last week. Are you surprised by all of this drama? Or have you been basically waiting for this moment, where Trump world says, Oh, just kidding. Nothing to see here? Brown: I've been waiting for this moment. I could see this like it was a train wreck that you can't take your eyes from, because you know what's going to happen, and this does not surprise me. What would've surprised me is if they had really released files, because I really didn't think they were going to. LaFrance: And is that because there aren't files to release, or because of what might be in them? Brown: Both. I mean, there are files to release, but I knew that they probably contain a lot of sensitive information and that there would be a lot of hand-wringing over what they could release, if they could release them. The other thing is: There is an ongoing criminal appeal of a criminal conviction attached to some of these files, which are the files that contain the Ghislaine Maxwell case. And so I would think that, legitimately, there might be some things there that they probably couldn't release, because the case is still on appeal. But nevertheless, there's still a lot of files that date back to probably 2005 even that they could have released if they elected to do so. LaFrance: And the Maxwell case is the affiliate of his who is in prison now. Is that right? Brown: That's correct. LaFrance: Well, let's establish some of the basics. I find myself watching all of this unfold, and beginning to sort of lose sight of what actually is true, what is speculation. Talk about what Epstein was accused of, what he was indicted for. What do we know for sure? Brown: Well, let's start with something that almost no one really starts with in this whole scandal that's been happening over the past week, and that is the victims. Jeffrey Epstein abused probably at least 200 young girls, some of them reportedly as young as 12 years old, over a span of decades. He also sexually abused young women who are in the area of 18 to 25 years old. But this is a case about a man who used these women as pawns to further his own ambition and finances, in that he used them not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others that he had hoped to do business with. And this was all part of the sex-trafficking operation. He had several different offices, so to speak, with this operation. He had a whole staff that helped him with this. He had legal people that helped him with this. So this was just not Epstein having sex in his mansion with a couple of underage girls. This was a whole operation. And I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that he was able to continue doing that because our federal government and our criminal-justice system failed these victims, and never really pursued this case with the seriousness and intensity that they should have from the very beginning. And that's why he got away with it. It's why he was released way back in 2009, and he was able to continue doing the same things all over again after his release from this plea deal that he initially negotiated two decades ago with the federal government. LaFrance: Talk about that time period. When you think about the lag in taking this operation seriously, does that cross different presidential administrations in terms of the DOJ? Or is there one period in which it was particularly egregiously ignored? How should we think about that? Brown: Sexual assault doesn't discriminate based on political party. There were bad people on both sides of the political aisle in this story. And focusing on the political part of it misses the point. And the point is that our justice system is terribly broken. Our system is weighted unfairly in favor of people who have a lot of power and a lot of money and a lot of influence. LaFrance: It's such an important point. And when you hear all of these conspiracy theories, how do you sort between, you know, the theories that are just totally outrageous and you think are not worth dwelling on, versus, you know, perhaps an example of what might be called a conspiracy theory but you, as an investigative reporter, think is actually a legitimate line of questioning? Brown: That is this scandal, in a nutshell, in that we have some competing forces here. We have the forces of truth and facts, versus the forces of conspiracy that want to fan theories in order to further some kind of agenda, whether that's a political agenda or—there's a million agendas. Some of these influencers, their agenda is to get more viewers or more listeners. So there's these competing forces here with journalism today, and it's not just with the Epstein story, but with almost everything. And it's a real struggle, to be honest with you. That's why I always try to bring these questions back to what I know based on my reporting, based on court records, based on, you know, police records, based on interviews that I've done. And so when I'm asked about some of these conspiracy theories, I sort of direct it toward 'Here's what I do know.' LaFrance: Let's talk about the client list, or what's sometimes called the 'Epstein client list.' Is it real? Where did this idea that it exists come from? What do we know? Brown: That whole thing about the so-called list is really a red herring. I think it morphed out of sort of a phone directory that Ghislaine Maxwell actually is responsible for compiling on a computer way back in 2005, 2006. And it's public. The phone numbers are redacted out of it, but if you Google it, you could find—they used to call it the 'black book.' That was sort of the nickname that it was given. And it was these copies that were printed out from a computer, and every time Epstein or Maxwell met somebody important, they would get their contact information, and they would put it in this file. There were people like Donald Trump on that list and celebrities. But there were also his gardeners who were on that list, his hairdresser, his barbers, his electrician. I mean, it was a comprehensive list. So it was pretty clear that this was not a black book in the sense that these were all his clients. It was just a phone directory. But the reason why they called it a black book is because when the FBI first got its hands on it, there was someone who was trying to sell it to one of the lawyers who represented the victims. He sort of circled some names on that list, of people that he was trying to say were somehow connected to Epstein in a more nefarious way, whether it was business or whether it was sex trafficking. People just started then on social media, started to refer to something called a client list. It took a life of its own, into that, Oh, Epstein had a client list. He actually had a list of clients that he sent girls to, or that he sent women to. I never believed that there was ever a list like that, because, quite frankly, Epstein didn't need to do a list like that. The bad actors here, the people that he sent some of these victims to, they know who they are. And he really only used this whole sex-trafficking operation as a way to pressure them to help him in some way, to either invest in, or give them his money to invest, or just to make money. So as long as they were cooperating with him and doing that, there was no reason to say, I have you on a list. That wasn't the way he operated. But that said, there are still names in those files, of people who were involved with Epstein's operation. He could never have done this all by himself. He had people. We know he had assistants. We know he had lawyers. We know he had people helping him get visas for women that he was recruiting from overseas countries. So there was a network here of people that were working for him and helping him. [ Music ] [ Break ] LaFrance: Let's talk for a moment about the Donald Trump of it all. You know, there are some conflicting data or information to reconcile here, and I'm really interested to hear how you think about this, because we're talking about a man, in Trump, who has bragged about grabbing women without their consent, who is credibly accused of rape and sexual assault. And so, on one hand, you have, you know, this—you point out that the Epstein list is a red herring, that, you know, Elon Musk claimed without evidence that Trump is on this list, which you're saying probably doesn't even exist. On the other hand, there's good reason, empirically grounded reason to question Trump's record of sexual or alleged sexual abuse. And so I'm curious how you think about, you know, in this moment, when you have the Trump administration waving this away, saying, There is no list, you know, Trump saying, This whole line of questioning is boring. What do you make of this? How should we think about how he fits in (or doesn't) to this larger scandal? Brown: Well, it's hard to know. You don't really know how he fits completely into this scandal. I was finally forced to say something during the election, when there were so many of those conspiracy theorists out there on the left who were trying to directly link him with Epstein's crimes. And there's absolutely no evidence that he was involved in Epstein's crimes. There isn't. And I've pretty much read almost everything that's out there. But that doesn't mean that it's not possible. And I would say that with everything that's happened in the past week, it certainly raises suspicions that maybe there is more to his, you know, friendship with Epstein than maybe we know. LaFrance: Right. And to your point about them having had a relationship, you know, Trump himself has said that they were friends. In 2002, there was an interview that Trump did with New York magazine. I'm going to read this quote from Donald Trump at the time. It says—he says, quote, 'I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' So given that, and given everything, you know, more importantly, do you think it's possible that Donald Trump didn't know what Epstein was up to? Brown: No. He had to know. Yeah, I think he absolutely knew. The reason why he knew is, one of the impetuses for their alleged falling out was: Epstein went to Mar-a-Lago at one point, and he hit on one of the young daughters of one of the other club members. And we were told by multiple sources that that's why Trump and him broke it off, because Trump banned him from Mar-a-Lago because of that. I honestly think, back in the culture that existed back then and to some degree, of course, still today, that some of these powerful men really believed they were helping these girls and women. They really felt that by paying them, this was a good thing: We're helping this woman, you know. We're helping this girl to get an education. They still sometimes look at these cases and say, What's the problem here? The women got paid. They had to know what they were doing. There is still this cultural problem that we have in this country that powerful men who take advantage of vulnerable women or younger women don't do anything wrong. LaFrance: You're someone who has spent years trying to understand the truth about all of this. If you had a magic wand and could wave it and, you know, get the question you most want answered answered, or see the document, or whatever it is, what is the thing that you most wish you could know, once and for all, about all of this? Brown: I think the one nagging question for me—because, you know, I know so much about the case, to be honest—goes all the way back to 2008, and I wanna know the person in the Department of Justice who said, Don't charge Epstein. If you're gonna charge him, charge him with just something minor, and let's get this done. LaFrance: And that 2008 case—remind us how that came about. Brown: Well, there was intense political pressure because, you know, initially, the case was a local police case. It was the Palm Beach police who found a litany of girls that were going in and out and having sex with Epstein at all hours of the day and night. And they wanted to, of course, charge him with sexual battery or rape or, you know, something like that, on a local charge. And initially, the state attorney in Palm Beach County, where this happened, was completely on board with the police case and their investigation, said, Go after him. We're gonna nail him. We're gonna arrest him. And then somebody got to him. Epstein lawyered up with some pretty powerful lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, and they started getting dirt on the girls, trying to show that they didn't live, you know, the best lives. It was intense. Epstein mounted an unbelievable pressure campaign. And I think he thought that it would end with the local police once the state attorney—which the state attorney finally did sort of say, I am not going to charge him. But the police, to their credit, never gave up on it. They did everything they possibly could have done to try to move the needle and get him put away. And, you know, of course, at that point, once the feds took over, then Epstein had a bigger problem, and then he needed to hire more lawyers who were politically connected in Washington. Then at that point, it rose and rose to the White House, really, where the case just kept rolling. And that was part of my—really, the biggest part of my investigation was looking at how Epstein and his lawyers manipulated our Justice Department in a big way. They basically got almost everything they wanted, except they wanted the case to completely disappear. They wanted him to walk away without anything. And what they ultimately got was this sweetheart deal that they kept secret for a year. You know, the victims never even knew exactly what happened until a year later, when finally, a judge unsealed the agreement. LaFrance: So for you, it's not the Epstein list or the jail-cell video or the circumstances around his death, but really: Who was that person in the first place who decided that he should walk, basically? Brown: Yeah. LaFrance: That's really interesting. Brown: Yeah, who were the people behind that in the beginning? Because if they had done their jobs, of all these people in 2006, 2007, and 2008—if all those people working for us, the American public, had done their jobs, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. A lot of those victims would've never been victimized. LaFrance: So it sounds like under the Bush administration, primarily, or does this go into Obama's DOJ as well? Brown: No, it was primarily initially Bush's administration. LaFrance: What should happen now, if there's any possibility of justice or truth or any sense of closure in this scandal? What is it going to take, and what do you think should happen next? Brown: I go back to when I took up this case initially. It had been written about. A lot of people knew. There had been tons of stories about the 'Lolita Express,' 'Epstein Island.' You know, this conspiracy-theory cycle started way back before I even took up the investigation, but I was looking at it from a different vantage point, as a journalist, about exactly what happened. I looked at it sort of like a cold-case detective, just pretend that I know nothing about the case and start all over. And I think at this point, that's probably the same thing that the Justice Department, in an ideal world, should do. Because this is never going to end. This is going to be like the JFK assassination. Long after you and I are gone, there's gonna be people that are gonna be writing and looking at this, and writing books about it. I just know it. And so I think in an ideal world, we should just step back and look at everything from the start and examine what happened. I just don't think there's the courage or the political will to do something like that, because a hearing where you're bringing a couple people before Congress isn't going to do that, isn't gonna get you those answers. What will get your answers if you get a really good prosecutor to really examine this. LaFrance: I want to end where we started, which is with the victims, and we're talking here about some 200 people whose lives are forever changed by these crimes. Have you talked to any of those victims in the past week or so? I'm curious what they're saying now, how they're responding to this latest drama. What have you heard? Brown: I try not to bother them, you know, every time you call them—even one of the lawyers I spoke with who represented nine victims, I spoke with this morning, I said, Have you spoken with your clients? And he said no. He said, I do not call them unless it's something really big, because you just open that wound every time they get that phone call. And so I've been very respectful of their privacy. I rarely ever call them. I figure if they need me, they'll call me. I did think about them after Trump made the comments that this was boring—and I can't remember the other word he used—but I just cringed because I thought, Oh, gosh. You know, I felt their pain when he said those words. This is just a nightmare for them. You know? This is just a horrible nightmare for them because all they want is for the government to do its job. I might get emotional here because I feel bad for them because I know them so well, some of them. And the interviews I did with them were very painful to do. And I just feel that our government is just failing them over and over again. And, you know, even though I'm a journalist, I am a human being too. And I just think that what they went through and they're still continuing to go through is painful. Painful. LaFrance: Well, Julie, thank you so much for all of your extraordinary reporting and, especially, for your time today. Brown: Thank you. [ Music ] LaFrance: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes and Kevin Townsend. It was edited by Claudine Ebeid. Rob Smierciak engineered this episode and provided original music. Sam Fentress fact-checked this episode. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at
Fox News
25 minutes ago
- Fox News
Hamas losing iron grip on Gaza as US-backed group gets aid to Palestinians in need
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has been a central focus of international debate since Hamas' war with Israel began in 2023. Longstanding aid organizations and new ones have rushed to provide Palestinians with critical support. But one group in particular has received backlash for trying to deliver food to the Strip, the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). "The big difference between GHF and other aid organizations such as the U.N., for example, is that effectively GHF undercutting Hamas or keeping Hamas out of the loop here when it comes to aid," Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst and editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital. Despite the criticism and accusations of violence against Palestinians seeking aid at its distribution sites, GHF has delivered over 76 million meals since its operation began in late May. Truzman said that Hamas has taken notice — and is reacting — to the GHF's success, as the terror organization has been unable to control the aid coming from them. Truzman believes Hamas' reaction to the GHF is telling and could signal that the group is losing access to a key tool in its arsenal for maintaining control in Gaza. He told Fox News Digital that Hamas uses "a social welfare program" to keep its grip on the population. "So, for instance, charities that are controlled by Hamas, mosques that are controlled by Hamas, schools that are controlled Hamas and aid that is controlled by Hamas. Now they use it to either feed the community — Palestinians — and by doing that they gain this leverage over Palestinians," Truzman said. "Palestinian civilians need this aid to obviously survive and they count on Hamas to do it. So, this is how Hamas could control the population." Hamas' diversion of aid was something that concerned the U.S. when it began backing GHF as a way to provide Palestinians with what they need without letting terrorists get ahold of it. In June, when the U.S. announced $30 million in funding for the GHF, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott touted the organization's work distributing aid "while preventing Hamas looting." "If GHF wasn't around right now, I think we'd be back to the same old distribution where Hamas would control it, all right, or other Palestinian terrorist groups. I think that's a problem that nobody's really been able to figure out just yet," Truzman told Fox News Digital. The United Nations has been particularly critical of the GHF, something that Truzman attributes more to the U.N.'s "very anti-Israel stance" and institutional bias than officials' desire to stick with methods used in the past. "I think the UN is very unhappy in the situation that they are not in control anymore, at least, of distributing aid in the Gaza Strip," Truzman said. On Tuesday, GHF Executive Director Rev. Johnnie Moore said that his organization "helped get the U.N. reauthorized when Israel reopened access to Gaza." Fox News Digital reached out to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) about Moore's claim, but did not get a clear confirmation or denial. "We welcome when anyone with influence who has witnessed the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for more than 21 months calls on the Israeli authorities to swiftly unlock access and enable the safe, sustained delivery of humanitarian aid," OCHA Spokesperson Eri Kaneko told Fox News Digital. "The lives of the people of Gaza are at stake. Ending their suffering must be the shared priority and ultimate goal for us all to work towards with urgency and determination."
Engadget
an hour ago
- Engadget
Samsung chairman cleared of fraud by South Korea's top court
South Korea's top court has upheld an appeals court ruling to dismiss all charges in a long-running fraud case against Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee. The accounting fraud and stock manipulation charges stemmed from a merger of two Samsung subsidiaries in 2015. Prosecutors had accused Lee of manipulating share prices to help clear the way for the merger in an attempt to consolidate his power. In 2024, a court ruled that the prosecutors failed to prove their claims. The case has worked through the appeals process since then. In a statement to Reuters , Samsung's lawyers said the latest ruling confirmed that the merger had been completed legally and added they were "sincerely grateful" to the Supreme Court. Back in 2017, Lee was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of bribing public officials with regards to the merger. However, the Supreme Court overturned the decision and ordered a re-trial. As a result of that, Lee was handed a 30-month prison sentence and served 18 months before being paroled. Then-South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol (who was removed from office this year and recently rearrested over a failed martial law attempt in 2024) later pardoned Lee. While the Supreme Court's ruling had been widely expected, it clears "a layer of legal uncertainty" related to Samsung, one analyst said. It will allow Lee to focus more of his attention on Samsung, which earlier this month projected a 56 percent drop in operating profit for the April-June quarter compared with the same period in 2024. That is due, in large part, to sluggish sales of its AI chips.
