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Minister makes suggestion during a security cabinet meeting, where several officials backed escalating the war on Lebanon.

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has called for the seizure of Lebanese "women and youth" to exert pressure on Hezbollah.

The far-right minister proposed the idea during a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where officials supported expanding the assault in Lebanon.

"Let's start thinking outside the box about Hezbollah," Ben Gvir said.

"Conquering territory and killing many terrorists, but also detaining their women and youth and taking them to terrorist prisons," he added.

"That's what hurts them the most."...

Despite a US ceasefire announcement in Lebanon, Israeli bombing has not ceased.

Israeli officials have called for escalating the attacks further and increasing the defence budget during the latest security cabinet meeting....

Lebanon's Defence Minister Michel Menassa said earlier this week that Israel carried out approximately 3,500 attacks and hundreds of controlled explosions since the 17 April so-called ceasefire announced by the US.

Around 1.2 million people have been displaced nationwide as a result.

Israeli forces have also killed at least 3,637 people since the latest assault began in March, including over 800 since the 17 April so-called ceasefire, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

At least 34 Israelis have died from Hezbollah attacks since March, mostly soldiers, including 18 killed since 17 April.

An Iranian military source denied reports of an attack in the Strait of Hormuz, stressing that Tehran will respond decisively to any new aggression amid rising regional tensions.

An informed Iranian military source has denied claims that any air operation was carried out in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours, according to Iranian television reports. The source emphasized that no offensive activity took place in the area and rejected related allegations circulating in international media.

The military source warned that any renewed acts of aggression under such pretexts would be met with a "decisive response," underscoring Tehran's stated position on developments in the strategic waterway.

Earlier on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced that Iran shot down an American Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz, adding that both pilots are safe and uninjured, but that the United States "must, of necessity, respond to this attack."...

There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials regarding Trump's allegation. Tehran has consistently maintained that its actions in the Strait of Hormuz are lawful defensive measures under international law, taken in response to unprovoked US-Israeli aggression that began on February 28.

Vice President JD Vance said that US and Israeli interests diverge, suggesting that Tel Aviv was acting in Lebanon without Washington's approval.

The US and Israel "have a lot of shared interests, but we also have some situations where our interests diverge," Vance said on Fox News on Monday. He added that Tel Aviv was "freelancing in Lebanon."

The Vice President's remarks followed Israel's bombing of Lebanon's capital city, provoking Iran to attack Israel. After the Iranian attack, President Donald Trump demanded that Israel not respond. Just hours later, Israel bombed Iran, prompting Tehran to respond again.

The attacks nearly caused the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran to collapse. Trump is attempting to negotiate an end to the war with Iran. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is escalating the war against Lebanon, which is undermining the negotiations....

The Vice President said that Trump plans to force Israel to accept whatever deal the US makes with Iran.

Jalil Richardson, a Charlotte resident, spent months incarcerated in Florida and North Carolina after being misidentified by artificial intelligence facial recognition technology for a vehicle theft he did not commit.

Charges against Richardson were dropped last week, following an ordeal that cost him his job, his home, and custody of two of his children.

The wrongful arrest stemmed from an investigation by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office into a stolen car purchased on April 2, 2025.

A deputy used AI to match a suspect from surveillance video and a fake Georgia identification to Richardson with 85 percent accuracy, leading to an arrest warrant for Richardson....

Richardson was later arrested at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. He stated he was held in the Mecklenburg County Jail for one month.

He was then extradited to Florida, where he was held for almost two months....

Richardson described his experience as traumatizing. "It's very traumatizing and unbelievable. I lost everything," Richardson said.

He believes a proper investigation was not done....

Richardson's attorney showed time sheets proving he was at work 400 miles away from Florida when the stolen car was sold. Richardson said he has never been to Florida, and his attorney tried to present this evidence for months.

Prosecutors dropped the case last week, a full year after the initial investigation into the stolen car started....

While he was incarcerated, Richardson lost his job and his home. He also said he lost custody of two of his children.

The IDF has killed at least 970 Palestinians in Gaza since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed.

An eight-year-old boy was among seven Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza on Monday as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal.

The boy, identified as Jad Salman, was killed when an Israeli airstrike struck a group of Palestinians in the northern Jabalia refugee camp. According to the Quds News Network, the attack killed two other Palestinians, including 70-year-old Ismail Mousa Abu Dan.

Photos from the al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza show Palestinians mourning Salman, including his father, who is seen clutching the eight-year-old's school bag. Salman is among more than 20 children who have been killed by the IDF in Gaza since May 1.

Other Israeli attacks on Monday included strikes on the al-Mawasi tent camp in southern Gaza, which killed at least two Palestinians, a strike in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, that killed one, and an attack targeting an apartment building in Gaza City that wounded eight people.

Monday's attacks came after Israel shut all crossings into Gaza, depriving civilians of much-needed aid deliveries, a move Israeli authorities claimed was a "security" measure following Iranian missile attacks on northern Israel, which were a response to Israeli strikes targeting Beirut's southern suburbs.

Quick Reaction Force specializes in 'forced entry'.

When the Pentagon announced that the 82nd Airborne was deploying to the Middle East in March, it concealed a key detail: some of the paratroopers were headed to Israel, as revealed in an Army deployment order I obtained.

A military source involved in war planning tells me the deployment is tied to new U.S.-Israeli joint contingency plans, completed since February, for seizing Kharg Island and carving out coastal territory inside Iran.

The 82nd Airborne Division is the Army's premier quick reaction force, trained to parachute into hostile territory.

By keeping the deployment quiet, the Pentagon headed off public debate over a joint U.S.-Israeli operation inside Iran -- a prospect many considered plausible at the time, amid a fever pitch of mainstream reporting on a potential ground invasion....

The Pentagon has never acknowledged it; in public it has said only that the 82nd was bound for "CENTCOM," the military's term for U.S. Central Command, the combatant command responsible for the entire Middle East. The press echoed the vague terminology, suggesting the unit was headed to existing U.S. bases in Kuwait or Qatar.

Asked about the number of troops deployed to Israel and their mission, the Pentagon referred my request to CENTCOM, which at the time of publication had not yet responded....

So why the sensitivity about naming Israel, when the U.S. has acknowledged stationing American air defenses and F-22 fighters there? First, the breadth and depth of U.S.-Israeli military cooperation goes far beyond arms sales and "deconfliction." Second, the two countries are deepening intelligence sharing aimed at making Israel a sixth "eye" in the so-called Five Eyes alliance... Third, naming Israel would expose how much of the U.S. assault on Iran is in fact a joint U.S.-Israeli attack -- not a Trump-Netanyahu brotherhood, but cooperation at the military-to-military working level, where combined war plans are now reality.

This article contains explicit descriptions of sexual violence.

UN investigators have verified multiple rapes of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, but have still not verified a single claim of sexual violence against Israelis on or after 7 October 2023.

In his latest annual report to the Security Council on sexual violence in armed conflict, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warns that the verified crimes against Palestinians should be seen as "indicative of incidents and patterns" more broadly.

For the first time, Guterres added Israel's military and security forces to the UN list of entities credibly suspected of responsibility for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence.

The full extent of those crimes is difficult to document because Israel continues to deny UN investigators access to detention sites and to Gaza, while reporting is further obstructed by "explicit threats" from Israeli forces "coercing detainees not to report abuse," according to the report.

The UN verified sexual violence, including rape and sexual violence used as torture, by Israeli forces against 31 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank: 14 men, seven women, nine boys and one girl.

Thirteen of these cases occurred in 2025, and 18 in 2023 and 2024. The violations included rape, rape with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, forced nudity, threats of rape, unwanted touching of breasts and genitals, genital violence, targeted shooting of the genitals, and strip and cavity searches "without apparent security justification."

Rape and gang rape, sometimes repeated, were verified against nine victims, most of them from Gaza.

The UN identified the perpetrators as Israeli military and security forces, including the Israeli army, the Israel Prison Service, its Keter special forces, and Yamam, the police "counterterrorism" unit.

The abuses took place mainly during detention and interrogation, including in prisons and detention camps at Sde Teiman, Etzion, Majnunah, Megiddo, Ofer, Ramla, Hasharon, Shatta, Nafha, Damon and Gush Etzion police station. Others occurred at checkpoints and during Israeli military operations.

The victims included journalists and human rights defenders. Some violations were filmed or photographed, including one of the rapes....

Meanwhile, the new UN report contains no new evidence backing up Israel's claims of mass rapes and systematic sexual violence by Palestinians on 7 October 2023. In fact, it appears to further undermine those claims.

Families say the arrests came without explanation amid a sharp rise in the detention of Palestinian women and girls.

The pounding on the door came before dawn.

When Ahmed Safi awoke to the sound of Israeli soldiers storming his apartment building in Birzeit town, he assumed they were there for someone else.

The Palestinian father never imagined the raid would end with the arrest of his 20-year-old daughter, Sama, a psychology student at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank....

According to the family, soldiers entered the building in the early hours of Tuesday morning, shouting orders as they moved through the premises.

They demanded the identity cards of Ahmed, his wife and their daughter before informing Sama that they had an arrest warrant for her....

The soldiers then ransacked Sama's room, confiscating her phone, laptop and personal belongings. They also seized photographs of her cousin, Ayser Safi, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024.

Sama was then taken downstairs, handcuffed, blindfolded and placed in a military vehicle.

For her family, the arrest has been compounded by concerns over her health.

Sama suffers from Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), a chronic inflammatory disease that requires ongoing medication to prevent severe complications....

The family has since learned that Sama is being held at the Al-Maskubiya interrogation centre in Jerusalem. Her first court hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday. The charges are as yet unknown.

Sama was one of five women detained by Israeli forces this week, three of them current students at Birzeit University and one graduate of the institution.

Among those arrested were two members of the Palestinian women's national football team: Natalie Abu Diya, 20, and Rand Halawani, 20.

The other two were Julan Abu Awad and graduate Laila Nael Khalil....

Israeli forces carry out daily arrest raids across the occupied West Bank, detaining scores of Palestinians each week.

According to Palestinian prisoner rights groups, around 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, half of them without charge or trial.

Abdullah Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, said there had been a marked increase in the detention of girls and women, particularly university students....

He said many arrests were being carried out under allegations of "incitement", often linked to social media activity expressing opposition to the occupation or solidarity with Palestinians....

"These arrests are part of ongoing acts of revenge against the Palestinian people by the occupation."

President Trump and his partner in crime Netanyahoo have tried to draw Iran into a ceasefire trap.

It was hoped for that a bit by bit escalation, like Israeli bombing in Lebanon, would be left without a response by Iran.

Iran however did not fall for that scheme. It had been agreed that the ceasefire in the war on Iran includes Lebanon and other fronts between the imperialist and resistance parties. It is either a ceasefire for all or a ceasefire for none.

A week ago, when Netanyahoo threatened to bomb the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut Iran stopped all further peace negotiations and threatened to response in kind.

Trump then allegedly shouted and cursed Netanyahoo for his Beirut bombing plans. But such alleged divergences of views between Washington and Tel Aviv have long be proven to be scams.

Yesterday, on Sunday afternoon local time, Israel dropped at least 10 bombs on Dahiyeh.

Iran's response followed shortly thereafter. Five waves of missiles were launched against air bases and other targets in northern Israel.

Trump, in an interview (archived) with the Financial Times and FOXnews, asked Israel to stay down. He claimed to "call the shots" on the issue...

A bit later Israel aircraft bombed targets in Iran with stand of missiles. Among the targets were oil installations at the Karun petrochemical complex. Other targets were radar stations.

Iran responded by launching missiles against two additional air bases in central Israel while missiles from Lebanon hit at Israeli oil installations in Haifa.

Ansarullah in Yemen joined in. It announced that all Israel related shipping will be blocked from the Red Sea and fired some of its own missiles against Israel proper.

Both sides of the conflict then concluded the fight. The skirmish is, for now, over.

Trump has several times claimed to restrict Netanyahoo, to hold him back or to order him to stand down. Israel has bombed anyway and, at least in its attacks on Iran, continued to rely on U.S. controlled air defenses and U.S. flight refueling tankers.

Trump's claims about ordering Israel to do this or that are obviously fake....

With the recent exchange of bombs and missiles Iran has demonstrated that it can not be lulled into a ceasefire trap.

It will keep the U.S. and Israel engaged until they agree to Iran's peace conditions.

Iran is threatening a full return to conflict over US and Israeli ceasefire violations.

Update 6/7/2026 6:15 PM: President Donald Trump said he will tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to respond to the Iranian attack. "I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate. Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike, and Iran had its strike. We don't need another one," the President told Axios.

Iran fired missiles at Israel in response to the IDF bombing Beirut.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly stated that it will not tolerate violations of the ceasefire and aggression against Lebanon. Tonight, the aggressors received their response," Mohsen Rezaee, the military adviser to Iran's supreme leader, wrote on X. "This response is a warning to stop their evil; any new action will be met with a more crushing response and heavier costs."

In remarks shortly after the missiles hit Israel, President Donald Trump told Fox News, "What I would suggest to Iran: You've shot your missiles, that's enough. Get back to the table and make a deal."

The head of Iran's negotiating team said that "direct confrontation" with the US and Israel could happen if ceasefire violations continue. Iran's Parliament Speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday that Iran "will not only halt the path of negotiations, but we will also be in direct confrontation with the enemy."

In a post on X, he pointed to US and Israeli violations of the truce as the reason for escalating the conflict....

The statement followed Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital city. On Sunday, Israeli attacks on Beirut killed at least two people and injured 11. Iran previously threatened to respond to attacks on Beirut by attacking northern Israel.

Over the weekend, the US attacked Iran and seized one of its tankers in the Indian Ocean. Tehran responded by attacking Kuwait and Bahrain. Additionally, Iranian forces fired warning shots at American warships in the region.

Iran's Foreign Ministry has declared that the Islamic Republic's defensive strikes against military targets in the northern occupied territories were carried out within the framework of inherent self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, following repeated ceasefire violations by the Zionist regime.

In a statement released on Monday, the ministry said the strikes came in response to Israel's persistent breaches of the April 8 ceasefire, including its collaboration with the US military in attacks on Iranian ships and targets in southern Iran over the past two weeks, as well as US‑backed maritime piracy against the Iranian nation.

Iran emphasized that the ceasefire in Lebanon is an inseparable part of the April 8 truce agreement, and that the United States bears direct responsibility for Israeli violations and any resulting escalation in the region.

The ministry warned that any malicious adventure by the Zionist regime against Lebanon or Iran will be met with a crushing and comprehensive response from Iran's brave armed forces....

The April 8 ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan after 40 days of intense US‑Israeli war on Iran.

Despite the truce, Israel has continued its aggression against Lebanon and Gaza, while the US has maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports....

The latest Iranian strikes came after the Israeli regime committed a gross violation of the ceasefire by launching deadly attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday.

Iran had warned last week that it will target the occupied territories in case of an attack on Beirut and its surroundings.

IDF presents killing of Lebanese general as action against Hezbollah.

This week's "new ceasefire" between Israel and Lebanon continues to be highlighted by increasingly aggressive Israeli military attacks across Lebanon's south, with at least 10 more Lebanese killed today, including three members of the Lebanese military.

Given yesterday's Israeli claim that they have "no hostile intent" toward the Lebanese government, that particular attack is particularly difficult to explain, as the IDF attacked a Lebanese military vehicle and killed high-ranking officials, including a brigadier general and a captain. The general was identified as Brig. Gen. Wassem Sabra.

Though this is not the first time Israeli troops have attacked and killed members of the Lebanese military in the course of this war, Brig. Gen. Sabra is the highest ranked member to have been slain....

Notably, the IDF said the vehicle had been identified before they decided to attack it. The vehicle was along the road between Nabatieh and Kfar Tebnit. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun termed the killings a "flagrant violation of sovereignty and of international laws and norms."

An overnight strike on the village of Saksakiyeh killed at least six people and left four others wounded...

Rep. Khanna took the 'America First' approach against Section 224, but he was out-numbered by those who played down its dangers and implications.

A House committee summarily struck down an amendment to strip a measure from the massive annual defense policy bill that would provide Israel "a higher level of military-industrial integration" with the U.S. than Washington has "with any other country in the world."

Pro-Israel voices on the House Armed Services Committee argued that reports about Section 224 -- that Congress was trying to integrate U.S. and Israeli military systems as a way to entrench aid without proper oversight -- were disingenuous and wrong....

Not quite true, said the Quincy Institute's Ben Freeman, who broke the initial story of Section 224 for RS last week. "Members of Congress supporting the proposal laid out caricatures of critiques against Section 224. And when they did actually talk about the provision itself they spread half-truths and outright inaccuracies about how far this provision will go to integrate the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors."...

Critically, it would shift the annual $3.8 billion the U.S. now gives Israel (a 10-year memorandum of understanding soon up for renewal) to these programs and partnerships, i.e. "co-production" and other "fusion" deep inside Pentagon procurement and acquisitions process, where sunlight is rare and often fleeting. A perfect solution -- which is, by the way, endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- given the dwindling American support for Israel's wars and U.S. military assistance for them.

In his remarks on Section 224, Khanna spoke vociferously against what he saw as a blank check at a time when a majority of Americans say they do not want to send more military aid to Israel....

Next steps: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) says he will work with Khanna to strip the language from the final House NDAA. If the parade of voices that insist Israel must have this relationship with the U.S. military is any indication, it will be a hard road ahead.

The counterintelligence threat level was raised by the Defense Intelligence Agency in recent weeks after growing concerns that Israeli espionage had become more aggressive than usual, sources say.

The Pentagon is increasingly concerned about Israel ramping up its spying on the U.S., recently raising the counterintelligence threat level from America's top ally in the Middle East to the highest level, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency in recent weeks issued the new counterintelligence threat assessment amid rising tensions between Israel and the U.S. over the way forward in the war with Iran, the officials said. They said the DIA posted an internal message, viewed by one of the current officials, that raised the level for Israel to "critical."

The designation stems from concerns within the Pentagon that Israel is making a particular effort to surveil top U.S. officials to get information on the Trump administration's internal deliberations and decision-making on the conflicts in the Middle East, the officials said.

The DIA assessment includes a seven-page document and features a chart, according to one of the current U.S. officials. The document says the assessment of Israel is that its ability to conduct human espionage and technical collection is at a "critical level," according to the official.

It also identifies a series of specific incidents that heightened U.S. concerns, the official said....

The Pentagon declined to comment....

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all the U.S. intelligence agencies including the DIA, did not respond to a request for comment.

While it is commonplace for allies and adversaries across the globe to spy on each other, the current and former U.S. officials said Israel's recent efforts have gone well beyond what is typical and expected espionage....

According to current and former diplomats and former national security officials, Israel for years has had a reputation for aggressive espionage even against the U.S., its closest ally. It's a practice that has long raised concerns among national security and diplomatic officials, and U.S. intelligence officials closely monitor the issue, according to experts and the current and former U.S. officials....

In the 1980s, spying by Israel caused a rift with Washington, with U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard spending 30 years in prison after he was found to have sold suitcases of top-secret documents to Israel.

Israel's genocide in Gaza, now into its third year, would not have been possible without the support of the mainstream media. Western broadcasters, newspapers, and magazines have mangled the English language in support of a live-streamed campaign of erasure -- diluting and repackaging war crimes as retaliation and self-defence, while staying silent as Israel slaughtered their industry peers.

It matters, now and for the historical record, how Israel's war crimes have been reported. It's crucial to understand how the media sold the engineered famine in Gaza and its still unfolding devastation. That there was an avalanche of genocidal intent expressed even before genocide was carried out with uncompromising precision is necessary context. Legacy media systematically suppressed this information, giving cover to complicit politicians and preventing much of the public from connecting the dots about this incomprehensible reality until it was far too late.

A new data-driven book by US-based journalist Adam H. Johnson argues that the media's role in the genocide in Gaza must never be forgotten and that we must pursue accountability for its complicity.

In How to Sell A Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, published by Pluto Press, Johnson analyses over 12,000 articles and 5,000 TV clips across nine major US outlets, makes the underlying data publicly available, interviews journalists and sources from those newsrooms, and compares coverage of other contemporary conflicts to crystallise the media's central role in legitimising the destruction of Gaza.

Constitutionally protected speech critical of Israel may be considered incitement of violence.

Gabrielle Cuccia, a MAGA influencer and former chief Pentagon correspondent for One America News (OAN), was hired earlier this year to write a script for Vine & Fig Tree Institute (VFT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization "that combats antisemitism and hate."...

The individual who contacted me is publicly very Christian and widely perceived as America First. I was told the script would be used to create an AI-generated video on behalf of the White House, specifically for NSC and Sebastian Gorka.

Gorka, as I pointed out in an earlier post, is deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism. He said speech critical of the White House and Israel may be considered "incitement of violence under government standards" and linked to Iran and Russia.

Cuccia was told VFT worked covertly with the Trump administration and was provided with a link to a Dropbox account. "Inside the Dropbox were 7 folders," she writes. "Through those documents, I learned more about what this organization actually does. Their reports monitor major conservative and 'dissident-right' accounts and frequently frame those accounts as vulnerable to, or participating in, foreign influence operations."

The reports contain information on Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Ian Carroll, Jackson Hinkle, Dan Bilzerian, Mario Nawfal, Joe Kent, and others. "In another report, they argue that distrust surrounding Charlie Kirk's assassination was mostly due to Americans falling for Russian, Iranian, and Pakistani propaganda networks" Cuccia writes....

The Institute receives funding from the Open Society Foundations of George Soros and the conservative Charles Koch Foundation. In 2021, the NCRI was paid $335,000 by the anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Israel on Campus Coalition (funded in part by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life), which conducts self-described "psychological warfare" on pro-BDS students using Blend AI, a service that manages online ad campaigns....

Speaking at the Hudson Institute in 2025, Trump's deputy assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, characterized all criticism of Israel as antisemitism. Earlier this month, he said anti-Israel speech should be defined as incitement to violence. He added that anti-Israel activists and protestors are "fellow travelers" to Iran and Russia....

Earlier in the month, Gorka produced an online counter terrorism strategy paper, explains Jason Zaharis:

Sebastian Gorka, the unregistered British foreign agent and vicious Islamophobe, along with several unregistered foreign agents of Israel, were involved in the creation of a 16-page online "counterterrorism" strategy document for the Trump Administration. The report named several known dissidents such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. However, what was most terrifying was their attempt to frame independent journalists as agents of Russia and Iran without any evidence to prove such ties. [...] The US regime is declaring war on the First Amendment to silence anti-war dissidents and critics of Israel by labeling them foreign agents, just like they did with Russiagate and the McCarthy era. If the facts you report as a journalist don't happen to serve the Greater Israel agenda or the military-industrial complex's profit schemes, then you're a terrorist who is working as an agent of the Kremlin and the IRGC.

Former influential MAGA supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and recently Megyn Kelly, have all renounced Trump over the Iran War, the Epstein files, the Charlie Kirk assassination, sex scandals, and the election promises he made and have thus far gone unfulfilled. The Iran War in particular has alienated younger voters, and Trump's economic policies have soured MAGA voters across the board.

Donald Trump, a vindictive megalomaniac, is using the authority of his office and the state to go after and harm critics, while allowing Zionists to undermine the constitutional rights of American citizens. Sebastian Gorka, an unregistered British foreign agent, with the assistance of VFT and other Zionist groups and individuals, is determined to criminalize all speech that points out the obvious: Israel is an outlaw criminal state guilty of crimes against humanity, genocide, rape, theft, and political manipulation of the United States, including the wholesale purchase of elected representatives.

A typical U.S. tactic against a strategic target is to 'boil the frog' by slowly increasing the temperature of the water it is sitting it. The conflict in Ukraine is an good example for this. Hits against Russia, directed by the CIA, are escalated bit by bit while Russia is reluctant to more severe deterrence measures.

The current war on Iran is another example. The U.S. is insisting on a ceasefire while trying to erode Iran's leverage with economic strangulation.

Iran's major weapon, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, will need another month or two to fully unfold its intended effect on the U.S. and global economy. Meanwhile the U.S. is trying to tire Iran with fake diplomacy, economic measures (its blockade) and pinpoint strikes.

But Iran is well aware of this tactic. It has decided to avoid this ceasefire trap by continuous escalation...

Iran has decided to respond to this 'boiling-the-frog' tactic by increasing the cost for even the slightest U.S. attack. It is no longer responding in kind. Each U.S. strike is answered by hitting back stronger and against more targets....

Iran wants an agreement with the U.S. but is also expecting and prepared for a new round of war. For political reason President Trump is, for now, trying to avoid both, an agreement with Iran and renewed fighting. He continues to ignore Iran's escalation....

Trump is following the advice of Israeli lobbyists who are urging him (archived) to wait for now and to hit Iran later...

Iran is well aware of Trump's current dilemma. It is in its interest to keep the conflict hot and going rather than to let it cool down now only to flare up later....

So far Iran had only hit at U.S. ground assets in the Gulf region. Those attacks have caused severe damage but only few casualties. Until now Iran had avoided strikes on warships as such attacks tend to cause dead and wounded in higher numbers.

But to keep Trump engaged will require more serious measures....

The 'warning missiles' against U.S. warships are an escalation. But they are not sufficient to move Trump.

In a day or a two one one of the 'warning' missiles will likely (have to) reach its target.