In an Oct. 13 video message, Israeli Prime Minister directly called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the contingent of 10,500 UNIFIL soldiers from 50 countries for their own safety.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Following a report that Hezbollah bribed UNIFIL peacekeepers to use their positions in southern Lebanon and took control of their security cameras along the border, an analyst said the monitors “cannot be part of the solution.”

According to a Monday report in the Israel Hayom daily, captured Hezbollah terrorists taken to Israel for questioning told interrogators that the Iran-backed terror group paid peacekeepers to use UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon.

The report added that the terrorists also admitted that Hezbollah took control of the force’s security cameras.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which is tasked with monitoring the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, did not respond to The Press Service of Israel’s requests for comment.

“It’s crucial that UNIFIL does a very serious internal review of what’s really going on there,” Sarit Zahavi, president and founder of the Alma Research Center, told TPS-IL.

“UNIFIL itself cannot be part of the solution now. This time, there must be an effective enforcement mechanism that won’t allow Hezbollah to recover from the damage the IDF inflicted on them,” she added, explaining that “we don’t find ourselves back in the same situation within a year.”

Said Zahavi, “For years, we’ve been raising the need to significantly reduce UNIFIL’s force. You don’t need ten thousand soldiers to provide humanitarian assistance. And you don’t need ten thousand soldiers getting in our way to do the job they didn’t do.”

Israeli officials have called on UNIFIL to evacuate southern Lebanon. In an Oct. 13 video message, Israeli Prime Minister directly called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the contingent of 10,500 soldiers from 50 countries for their own safety, saying the monitors are “providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”

Guterres and Western diplomats rejected Netanyahu’s call. The UN Security Council unanimously renewed UNIFIL’s mandate in August.

UNIFIL was established in 1978 to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. The “Blue Line” demarcating the 120 km-long Israel-Lebanone border was created in 2000 by UN cartographers to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, which the UN Security Council later certified as complete.

The border runs from Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean coast to Mount Dov, where it converges with Syria.

According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the terror group is forbidden from operating in southern Lebanon south of the Litani River.

After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began firing rockets and launching drones at northern Israel communities daily.

More than 68,000 residents of northern Israel are displaced from their homes. Hezbollah leaders repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.

Israeli officials have been critical of the peacekeepers for failing to stop Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israel since October 7.

“By and large, every third house in the Shi’ite villages of south Lebanon is used in some way by Hezbollah for military purposes, be it weapons storage, the entrance of a tunnel, or a launchpad for shooting rockets at Israel,” Zahavi told TPS-IL in August.

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The jury found Senator Bob Menendez guilty on 16 charges, with a combined maximum sentence of 222 years in prison.

By Andrew Bernard, JNS

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was convicted on Tuesday on all counts in a federal corruption trial determining that he had accepted bribes on behalf of the Egyptian and Qatari governments.

Prosecutors proved that Menendez, one of the most prominent supporters of Israel on Capitol Hill and a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accepted a Mercedes-Benz convertible, gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and other bribes as part of a scheme to benefit the two Middle Eastern dictatorships.

“This case has always been about shocking levels of corruption,” stated Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “This wasn’t politics as usual. This was politics for profit.”

“Because Senator Menendez has now been found guilty, his years of selling his office to the highest bidder have finally come to an end,” Williams added.

The jury found Menendez guilty on 16 charges, with a combined maximum sentence of 222 years in prison for the 70-year-old senator.

Menendez was previously indicted for corruption in 2015, but those charges were dropped following a mistrial.

In 2023, he was indicted again on charges that he accepted bribes as part of a scheme between a New Jersey-based halal meat inspection company and the Egyptian government.

Prosecutors then further alleged that Menendez received wrist watches and Formula 1 racing tickets on behalf of the government of Qatar.

One key piece of evidence was recorded by the FBI in 2019 at Morton’s The Steakhouse, where Menendez’s wife Nadine asked an Egyptian intelligence officer and one of the senator’s co-defendants, Wael Hana, “What else can the love of my life do for you?” (Hana was also found guilty Tuesday.)

Per federal election records, Menendez spent nearly $300,000 in the past 20 years at Morton’s, a Washington, D.C., restaurant and cigar bar where he ate and smoked some 250 times a year, according to investigators.

Nadine Menendez, who was charged alongside her husband in the case, had her trial separated in April after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The judge presiding over the cases announced on Tuesday after Sen. Menendez’s conviction that Nadine’s trial will be delayed.

Menendez pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, and his lawyers argued that the cash and gold bars that the FBI discovered at the senator’s house reflected his family’s experience fleeing communism under Fidel Castro.

“It’s a Cuban thing,” testified Caridad Gonzalez, Menendez’s sister. “They were afraid of losing what they worked so hard for.”

Menendez stepped down from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee following his indictment last year but did not resign his Senate seat.

Leading Democrats called for Menendez to resign immediately after the verdict on Tuesday.

“In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate and our country, and resign,” wrote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

New Jersey Gov. Philip Murphy, a Democrat, said that if Menendez refuses to resign, the Senate should expel him.

Menendez did not run in the Democratic primary for the New Jersey Senate seat but filed in June to run as an independent in November.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who won the June primary, said on Tuesday at a press conference that he would be willing to be appointed to the Senate seat ahead of the November election.

“If asked, I would accept, but that is a decision for the governor,” Kim said.

Menendez is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29.

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The report claimed that decisions on transportation projects were often based on the number of votes the area’s municipal leaders had garnered for Regev.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Israeli Police investigators probing corruption raided the Ministry of Transportation’s Jerusalem offices and seizing documents on Monday amid allegations that Transportation Minister Miri Regev and other officials gave preferential treatment to local authorities that supported her in the Likud party primaries.

According to the police, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman ordered the investigation “on suspicion of crimes in the field of ethical [misconduct] and interfering in legal proceedings that were allegedly done in the Transportation Ministry.”

The allegations were first raised in May in an investigative report aired on Israel’s Channel 13.

The report claimed, among other things, that decisions on transportation projects were often based on the number of votes the area’s municipal leaders had garnered for Regev in the Likud party primaries.

Localities that showed more support for Regev received preferential treatment. Regev denies the allegations.

“The truth is simple: it is a fabricated investigation. There was no preferential treatment based on politics. The Transportation Ministry allocates its budget according to policy and the decisions of professional entities. Any other claim is false,” she said.

Likud last held primaries in 2019. Regev placed ninth on the party list.

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UN official has a documented history of making antisemitic comments and justifying terrorism against Israel.

By Mike Wagenheim, JNS

The U.N. Watch NGO on Thursday accused the Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories of “gross violations of U.N. rules and professional ethics.”

In a complaint filed to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, U.N. Watch alleges that Francesca Albanese accepted honorariums and payments from activist and advocacy groups, in violation of the U.N. code of conduct.

Albanese has a documented history of making antisemitic comments and justifying terrorism against Israel.

Her denial that Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre was based on the terrorist group’s hatred of Jews was rebuked by the French government, which called the remarks “scandalous” and “a disgrace.” The German government called her comments “appalling.”

The U.N. Watch complaint demands a U.N. investigation into “serious and substantiated” allegations that Albanese and her staff have been requesting payments for her U.N.-related work, contrary to the Code of Conduct.

Albanese’s role of special rapporteur is a volunteer position technically independent of the United Nations, with expenses to be paid for out of a designated budget.

Acceptance of payment, including for travel, and honorariums from “any governmental or non-governmental source” for “activities carried out in pursuit” of the special rapporteur’s mandate is prohibited.

The prohibition extends to staff in the office of the special rapporteur.

The complaint includes communications between one of Albanese’s volunteer assistants and the purported organizer of an anti-Israel protest at Columbia University in which the assistant, said to be speaking on behalf of Albanese, requests that an offered honorarium be directed to an unnamed research institute that supports the work of Albanese’s office.

Another individual later attempted to claim the request had come from her rather than Albanese, contrary to what was stated in the communication from the volunteer assistant.

Australia and New Zealand

Additionally, the U.N. Watch complaint alleges that a Palestinian lobby group sponsored Albanese’s November 2023 trip to Australia, estimated to have cost more than $20,000.

Travel for special rapporteurs is supposed to be paid for by the United Nations, and accepting sponsorship from lobby groups is prohibited.

The Australian Friends of Palestine Association claimed publicly that it had “sponsored” Albanese’s visit, while Free Palestine Melbourne, the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network and Palestinian Christians in Australia, all claimed publicly that they had “supported” the trip.

All of the organizations conduct lobbying.

During the visit, Albanese participated in media and fundraising events, along with meetings with pro-Palestinian politicians and civil society members.

A connected trip to New Zealand included what U.N. Watch calls a meeting “to lobby a major New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-related companies.”

The U.N. Watch complaint demands an investigation into the alleged violations, including responses and documentation from the United Nations regarding the sources of funding for Albanese’s travel as part of her mandate and a copy of any notes detailing any meetings Albanese and her office had during the visit to Australia and New Zealand.

The complaint notes that the trip does not appear in mandated U.N. disclosure forms, indicating that the United Nations did not pay for the travel costs.

“The disgraceful support for terrorism and promotion of antisemitism” by Albanese “casts a shadow upon the reputation of the United Nations as whole,” the complaint states. “This is now compounded by serious financial improprieties.”

The NGO urged the United Nations to “demonstrate its commitment to openness and transparency by responding forthwith to our requests concerning the grave matters outlined above.”

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All that matters to Egypt and Hamas is making more money off anyone desperate to leave the Gaza Strip.

By Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute

On May 6, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, drawing condemnations from the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and Egypt.

The IDF said it had “intelligence that terrorists were using the border crossing for terror purposes.”

A day earlier, Hamas terrorists fired rockets from near the Rafah terminal toward the Kerem Shalom area (near the Israel-Gaza border), killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding several others.

In response to the Israeli military operation, Hamas and Egypt were quick to issue statements denouncing the capture of the Rafah border crossing, claiming that the move would “threaten” the lives of the Palestinians and hinder the entry of humanitarian and relief aid into the Gaza Strip.

“Egypt condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli military operations in the Palestinian city of Rafah, and the resulting Israeli control over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing,” read a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“This dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip, and the safe outlet for the wounded and sick to exit to receive treatment, and for the entry of humanitarian and relief aid to our Palestinian brothers in Gaza.”

Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip also expressed outrage over the Israeli move and said they would not accept the presence of any non-Palestinian party on the Palestinian side of their terminal.

“We will not accept from any party the imposition of any form of guardianship over the Rafah crossing,” the terrorist groups cautioned. They urged the Arab and Islamic states “to reject any plans and attempts that affect Palestinian-Egyptian sovereignty over the Rafah crossing.”

The Egyptians and Hamas have good reason to be angry with the presence of the IDF at the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing.

For several years, Palestinians who wanted to exit the Gaza Strip via the terminal have alleged that they had to bribe Hamas and officials.

Hamas and Egypt are now afraid of losing the Palestinian milk-cow.

In 2015, Egyptian journalist Ahmed Moussa revealed that Hamas received bribes worth $6,000 from Palestinians for passing through the Rafah border crossing.

A year later, Palestinian journalist Noha Abu Amr wrote on her Facebook page about the plight of her 50-year-old mother, who was unable to travel through the Rafah crossing, but she did not pay a bribe to Hamas officials.

She said that her mother sat on the floor and kissed the hands and legs of the crossing officials in full view of the people and begged them to allow her to travel. “They treated her like animals,” Abu Amr recounted.

“It is our right to travel without bribes and without corruption. We are living under a [Hamas] dictatorship.” Abu Amr was later arrested by Hamas security officers, who confiscated her mobile phone and ordered her to delete the Facebook post.

Arab and Western media outlets have reported that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, Palestinians who want to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah terminal are being compelled to bribe Egyptian officials with thousands of dollars.

The war erupted after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and massacred, decapitated, raped and dismembered 1,200 Israelis on October 7.

Additionally, more than 240 Israelis were abducted by the terrorists and taken to the Gaza Strip; 132 hostages, many of whom are believed to have been killed, are still being held there by the terrorist group.

“To leave Gaza, people are paying a $5,000 bribe to Egypt,” the Gaza-based Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary wrote on X on November 23, 2023.

Palestinians who try to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing have to pay bribes to brokers of up to $10,000, the British newspaper The Guardian reported on January 8, 2024.

“Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large ‘coordination fees’ by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services.”

It quoted a Palestinian man in the US as saying he paid $9,000 to get his wife and children on the list.

On the day of travel, he was told his children’s names were not listed and he would have to pay an extra $3,000.

He said the brokers were “trying to trade in the blood of Gazans”.

“It’s very frustrating and saddening,” he said. “They are trying to exploit people who are suffering, who are trying to get out of the hell in Gaza.”

According to The Guardian:

“A network of brokers, based in Cairo, helping Palestinians leave Gaza has operated around the Rafah border for years. But prices have surged since the start of the war, from $500 for each person.”

The Guardian interviewed a number of Palestinians who have been told they would have to pay between $5,000 and $10,000 each to leave the Gaza Strip, with some launching crowdfunding campaigns to raise the money.

A Palestinian living in the UK was quoted as saying:

“People are making money off the misery of others. They’re desperate to get out to save their lives and instead of helping they’re trying to make money. If there’s a way to get people out, then why not just help?”

A company owned by an influential Egyptian businessman and ally of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is making around $2 million a day from Palestinians fleeing the Gaza Strip, according to the Middle East Eye (MEE), a UK-based news website, on May 1, 2024

“Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, a firm owned by Sinai tribal leader and business tycoon Ibrahim al-Organi, has been charging Palestinians crossing from Gaza’s Rafah to Egypt at least $5,000 per adult and $2,500 for children under 16.

“It has a monopoly on providing transfer services at the Rafah crossing, the only Gaza exit not bordered with Israel and the single route out of the coastal enclave for Palestinians.”

In the past three months alone, the company is estimated to have made a minimum of $118 million from desperate Palestinians trying to leave the Gaza Strip, according to MEE.

“By the end of this year, if the April average continues, the company may earn well over half a billion dollars from the so-called VIP list of people Hala is transferring across the Gaza-Egypt border…

“Palestinian and Egyptian sources told MEE that several intermediaries were involved in coordinating the exit of Palestinians in a haphazard, decentralised way.

“Before February, Palestinians were charged up to $11,000 per adult to leave Gaza, until Hala monopolised the business and standardised fees.

“Prior to the war, Hala charged everyone exiting Gaza via the Rafah crossing $350 per person, but the price has increased 14-fold for Palestinians.”

According to the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo, Diab Allouh, an estimated 80,000-100,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza via Egypt since the war began.

Earlier this year, MEE reported that an international charity with extensive experience in providing emergency aid in wars, famines and earthquakes throughout the Middle East and in Afghanistan is also being forced to pay $5,000 per truck to a company linked to Egypt’s General Intelligence Service to get aid into the Gaza Strip.

“The charity, which does not want to be named to avoid obstruction to its relief efforts in Gaza, spoke to Middle East Eye in outrage at having to pay what it openly describes as a bribe to a state-linked agent.”

MEE quoted a spokesman for the charity as saying:

“We have worked around the world in times of war, earthquakes and other disasters, but we have never been treated like this by a state that is profiteering from the dispatch of humanitarian goods. It’s draining a lot of our resources and the bribe being paid is per truck.”

According to MEE:

“The charity’s statement to MEE is the first concrete evidence of Egypt or Egyptian government-linked parties demanding a cut from the humanitarian aid going into Gaza…”

MEE said it spoke to five Palestinian families who all confirmed that they had paid fees in the thousands, mostly in US dollars or euros, to mediators who then facilitated their exit from Gaza.

Nadia Atawy, an Egyptian woman trapped in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, said in a video that she is unable to pay a $650 bribe to return to her family in Egypt though the Rafah border crossing.

“I don’t have the money to pay,” Atawy complained. “I have children with me and I can’t afford to pay [the bribe]. I don’t know what to do.”

The Palestinians actually owe Israel a huge debt of gratitude for finally driving Hamas out of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing.

Since the terrorist organization took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the crossing has been under its control.

Hamas used the crossing to collect money for its corrupt officials and their families.

In a similar vein, Palestinians are now being forced to pay thousands of dollars to Egyptians to escape the Gaza Strip.

One can understand why Egypt and Hamas strongly oppose having the IDF stationed at the border crossing: the millions of dollars they have been receiving may disappear.

Egypt and Hamas are, it seems, indifferent to the pain endured by the Palestinians they are effectively imprisoning.

All that matters to them is making more money off anyone desperate to leave the Gaza Strip.

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Hala Consulting and Tourism Services charges Gazans $5,000 for adults and 2,5000 for children, collecting nearly $118 million in three months.

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The indictment alleges that Menendez helped broker a Qatari investment and passed a Qatari-favorable resolution.

By Andrew Bernard, JNS

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) allegedly received wristwatches and racing tickets as bribes from Qatar, according to an indictment released on Tuesday.

Menendez, one of Israel’s strongest supporters in Congress, was first charged with bribery and extortion counts in September when federal prosecutors alleged that he received cash, gold bars, and a Mercedes convertible in exchange for assisting the Egyptian government and a group of businessmen involved in a New Jersey-based halal meat-inspection company.

Tuesday’s indictment, which replaces the prior one, is the first indication that the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman may have also received payoffs from Qatar.

Qatar and Egypt have been regional rivals for the past decade, but their relations have warmed following the restoration of ties between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in 2021.

Fred Daibes is a New Jersey-based real estate developer and one of five co-defendants in the case, all of whom have pleaded not guilty.

“Robert Menendez and Fred Daibes, the defendants, attended a private event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government,” according to the indictment.

“Several days later, on or about Sept. 27, 2021, Daibes sent Menendez, via an encrypted messaging application, photographs of a computer monitor depicting luxury wristwatches with prices ranging from $9,990 to $23,990, and asked Menendez, ‘How about one of these,’” it added.

The indictment alleges that Menendez helped broker Qatar’s multimillion-dollar investment in Daibes’s real estate investments and that in his role as committee chairman, he helped pass a 2021 Senate resolution supporting the Gulf state.

In exchange, a “close relative” of Mendenez’s wife, Nadine, who has also been charged in the scheme, allegedly received several tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix in Miami.

“On or about Jan. 4, 2022, in advance of a planned trip by Fred Daibes, the defendant, to meet with the Qatari investor in London, Robert Menendez, the defendant, used an encrypted messaging application to text the Qatari Investor and Daibes, ‘Greetings. I understand my friend is going to visit with you on the 15th of the month. I hope that this will result in the favorable and mutually beneficial agreement that you have been both engaged in discussing,’” per the indictment.

Also per the indictment, “On or about March 31, 2022, i.e., the day of the sale by Nadine Menendez, a/k/a Nadine Arslanian, the defendant, of gold bars described in paragraph 53.”

“Robert Menendez and Fred Daibes, the defendants, met for dinner,” it added. “That evening, Nadine Menendez texted Menendez, ‘Is it just you, Fred, and the Qataris in the private room this entire time?’ and Menendez replied in the affirmative.”

Qatar, which is a U.S.-designated “major non-NATO ally,” and its relationship with the United States have been under increased scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel about the Gulf state hosting the terror organization’s political leadership in Doha.

Menendez’s lawyer, Adam Fee, denied the allegations in a statement Tuesday.

“The government’s new allegations stink of desperation,” Fee said. “Despite what they’ve touted in press releases, the government does not have the proof to back up any of the old or new allegations against Senator Menendez. What they have instead is a string of baseless assumptions and bizarre conjectures based on routine, lawful contacts between a senator and his constituents or foreign officials.”

“At all times, Senator Menendez acted entirely appropriately with respect to Qatar, Egypt and the many other countries he routinely interacts with,” he added.

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Netanya’s mayor, Miriam Feirberg, was questioned on Wednesday by the national anti-fraud unit on suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for advancing building projects, part of a rapidly broadening and unraveling corruption scandal.

Miriam Feirberg, the mayor of the coastal city of Netanya, was arrested after being questioned by Israel’s national anti-fraud unit.

Feirberg’s relative and another three suspects were arrested earlier in the day in connection with the scandal. They include a senior Netanya municipal official and two contractors.

Feirberg’s son Tzafrir and three other suspects were arrested earlier on in the week. They were remanded for another three days.

Police and tax authority officials on Wednesday searched the homes of several of the suspects. Bank accounts and property connected to the suspects were frozen.

Earlier this week, police raided the offices of the Netanya town hall and confiscated documents and other related materials.

The core of the case revolves around possible real estate deals in the city, worth millions, which the mayor and her son helped promote together with developers from the Tshuva family. The bribes taken are estimated to be in the millions of Shekels.

The police stated that the investigation was complex and that the allegations were severe.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

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