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A Brooklyn public-school teacher who allegedly declared “Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar” in a private group chat returned to his Park Slope school on Monday with his face covered, even as outraged parents demanded that the city remove him from the classroom and education officials launched an investigation into his conduct. Pasted markdown

Damien Neva, 48, began working this school year at PS 77 in Park Slope, where he teaches special education. Before entering education, Neva worked in the fashion industry as a photographer, videographer and social-media director, including positions with major modeling agencies.

The controversy erupted after a recently filed lawsuit involving the Park Slope Food Coop revealed messages Neva allegedly posted in a Signal chat used by members advocating a boycott of Israeli products.

According to the lawsuit, Neva posted his tribute to Yahya al-Sinwar in November 2024, several weeks after the Hamas leader was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar,” Neva wrote, according to the lawsuit.

Sinwar was the Hamas leader who played a central role in planning the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

Neva was back at PS 77 on Monday as the controversy surrounding the comments intensified. Photographs showed him covering his face while leaving his Brooklyn home and again while walking to the school.

Parents interviewed outside PS 77 expressed anger that Neva remained in the classroom while the allegations were being investigated.

“It’s disgusting,” one fifth-grade father said.

“If he’s still teaching here, it’s disgusting, both on him and on the school that’s holding on to him. No one who praises terrorists deserves to be a teacher,” the furious father raged.

“If you praise a guy like [Sinwar], that means that some part of you believes that murdering innocent people is morally justifiable.”

Another relative of children attending the school, a grandmother, said she distinguishes between support for Palestinian statehood and glorification of the Hamas leader responsible for the October 7 attack.

“I believe the Palestinian people deserve statehood, but Sinwar was a terrorist,” she said.

“He killed for the sake of killing, and to speak of him like he did something good – that’s not okay, and [Neva] is not someone I want near my grandchildren.

“They should fire him. I’m surprised they haven’t fired him already.”

The controversy surrounding Neva reaches beyond the single message praising Sinwar. The lawsuit that brought the comment to public attention stems from the bitter, years-long fight over Israel inside the Park Slope Food Coop, the prominent member-owned grocery cooperative on Union Street in Brooklyn.

The coop, which has more than 16,000 members, voted in May to boycott Israeli products following years of internal battles between pro-Israel members and activists seeking to remove Israeli goods from its shelves.

Neva is described in the lawsuit as one of the organizers of the boycott effort. The complaint was filed on September 28 in Kings County Supreme Court by five Jewish members challenging both the boycott and the process by which it was adopted.

The plaintiffs allege that the campaign was accompanied by hostility and discrimination against Jewish and pro-Israel members and that coop leaders failed to adequately address the conduct. The coop itself is not accused of endorsing Neva’s statement praising Sinwar.

According to the lawsuit, shortly before writing his message about Sinwar, Neva was discussing the political strength of opponents of the Israel boycott.

“That lot does not have the votes to block our campaign,” Neva allegedly wrote, referring to pro-Israel and Jewish members of the coop.

He then posted, “Long live Yahya Al-Sinwar,” with at least one other participant reportedly reacting approvingly to the message.

The lawsuit also alleges other episodes of hostility toward Jewish members during the boycott battle. In one incident cited in the complaint, a coop member wearing a “Peace, Love, Israel” shirt was allegedly confronted and called “disgusting,” “a racist and a genocide supporter,” and told to leave the coop.

The controversy over Neva has intensified because he subsequently became responsible for teaching children in New York City’s public-school system.

Before beginning his teaching career, Neva worked for years in fashion photography and social media. His previous professional experience included work with Next Management, Ford Models and Calvin Klein. He described his move into education in a since-deleted social-media post as an “enforced career change.”

Other material attributed to Neva on social media has also drawn scrutiny. His accounts reportedly included an image depicting an Israel sticker being shredded, another showing a Star of David painted over the Statue of Liberty, and a comparison between Warsaw in 1944 and “Palestine” in 2024.

The New York City public-school system has confirmed that the allegations concerning Neva have been referred for investigation.

“Antisemitism and support for terrorist organizations have absolutely no place in our school system,” a Department of Education spokesperson said in response to the allegations.

“This allegation has been reported and referred for investigation, in accordance with Chancellor’s Regulations.”

The controversy has also drawn condemnation from elected officials.

State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat and longtime member of the Assembly, described the allegations as “appalling.”

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has killed countless people, including Americans,” Dinowitz said.

“I don’t think someone like that should be teaching our kids.”

Dov Hikind, the former New York state assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, has also called for Neva to be removed from his teaching position.

The pressure is also coming from within New York’s education community.

Karen Feldman, a New York City teacher and founder of The NYC Public School Alliance, said the episode raises broader questions about the standards the school system applies to educators entrusted with children.

“This is not about one offensive post or one teacher’s political views. It is about who NYCPS [New York City Public Schools] is allowing to stand in front of our children. This teacher publicly praised Yahya al-Sinwar, the Hamas leader and murder mastermind responsible for the October 7 massacre,” Feldman said.

“And he is not an isolated case,” she continued.

“This is not about policing political beliefs. It is about professional judgment, student safety and the basic responsibility of a school system to know who it is putting in front of children. Our classrooms should be safe places for all children.”

The revelations come amid continued controversy over antisemitism and anti-Israel activism within New York City schools since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza. Jewish parents and educators have repeatedly raised concerns about political activism entering classrooms and about whether existing disciplinary procedures adequately address antisemitic conduct by school employees.

Neva has not publicly responded in detail to the allegations. When a reporter attempted to approach him at his Brooklyn home on Sunday, he reportedly contacted police rather than answer questions.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump offered a stark assessment Monday of the suspected pneumonic plague incident unfolding in Siberia, calling the situation a “big problem for Russia” and saying the United States is prepared to help Moscow as nearly 200 people remain under medical observation following the unexplained death of a 28-year-old employee at a Russian anti-plague research institute.

Trump’s comments came as the United States, European officials and international health experts closely monitored developments surrounding the death of Daria Shipilova, a laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Russian authorities have not confirmed that Shipilova contracted plague and insist that tests have so far found no microorganisms associated with her work.

Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon as he left the White House for a campaign rally in Nebraska, Trump described plague as a dangerous disease that he suggested has become more difficult to combat.

“It’s a rough disease. You know, that’s a disease we used to be able to control, but somehow those microbes have got stronger and smarter, they’re like an army,” Trump told reporters.

“The germs have really become relatively stronger than they were, and things that used to work on pneumonia don’t work as well anymore. So we’ll help.”

Trump said he had not yet spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation but indicated that Washington would be willing to provide assistance if needed.

The president’s remarks followed growing international attention to Shipilova’s death and conflicting accounts emerging from Russia about exactly what happened inside the Siberian research facility.

According to independent Russian media reports, Shipilova accidentally broke a test tube containing the bacterium responsible for pneumonic plague on September 25 while working at the institute. She became seriously ill several days later, was hospitalized on September 29 with severe pneumonia and died during the night of October 1-2.

Russian authorities have not confirmed the account involving the broken test tube. Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s federal public-health agency, said Shipilova suffered from “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that additional testing prompted by the nature of her work did not detect microorganisms connected to her professional activities.

The agency has also said that no accident involving pathogenic microorganisms was officially recorded at the institute.

Despite those assurances, authorities have undertaken extensive precautionary measures. Nearly 200 people who had direct or indirect contact with Shipilova have reportedly been placed under medical observation or isolation, with more than 100 monitored in hospitals.

More than 60 employees of the anti-plague institute were reportedly confined inside the facility beginning October 2 while awaiting test results. Relatives told independent Russian media that some employees were sleeping on floors and chairs because the facility was not equipped to house them overnight.

Several medical facilities in the Irkutsk region have also imposed quarantine restrictions, while an aluminum plant in nearby Shelekhov introduced mask requirements. Public events have reportedly been restricted in some areas, and authorities have taken additional precautions involving travelers.

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev has sought to reassure residents, saying that the sanitary and epidemiological situation remains stable and that those identified as close contacts have shown no signs of the suspected disease and tested negative.

There is currently no publicly confirmed evidence that pneumonic plague is spreading among residents of Irkutsk or that Shipilova transmitted the disease to another person.

The Trump administration nevertheless began publicly pressing Moscow for greater transparency as reports of the possible laboratory exposure circulated internationally.

Earlier Monday, the State Department urged Russian authorities to “share accurate information quickly and openly” about what occurred.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is working with federal health officials to follow the situation and cautioned that an infectious disease outbreak cannot be viewed as purely a domestic Russian matter.

“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously. But like anything else, something like that gets out, it could certainly spread,” Rubio told reporters as he departed Washington for Europe.

“So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it.”

The White House had already confirmed Sunday that the administration “is aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options.”

European officials are also watching developments. The European Commission said Monday that it was following the suspected incident “very closely” and was prepared to coordinate with member states if circumstances required a broader public-health response.

Pneumonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for other forms of plague. Unlike bubonic plague, which is most commonly transmitted through infected fleas or contact with infected animals, pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread directly between people through respiratory droplets during close contact.

The disease can progress rapidly and can be fatal without prompt treatment. Modern antibiotics, however, are generally effective when administered early, which is one reason public-health experts have cautioned against assuming that the suspected Russian incident represents the beginning of a major international outbreak.

Some infectious-disease specialists have said that even if Shipilova’s death is ultimately confirmed as pneumonic plague, the combination of antibiotics, contact tracing, isolation and modern infection-control procedures makes a large outbreak far less likely than during earlier periods of history.

Questions have nevertheless been raised about the precise circumstances of Shipilova’s reported exposure. Russian epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov publicly questioned the broken-test-tube explanation, noting that workers handling plague pathogens would ordinarily be wearing specialized protective equipment.

“It’s laughable,” Favorov said. “Someone working at the Anti-Plague Institute in Irkutsk wears a protective anti-plague suit.

“If you break a test tube, the likelihood of infection is actually very low. In short, it doesn’t matter to the general public – they’ll believe the ‘broken test tube’ story. It’s absolutely hair-raising. We will not be told what really happened.”

The Irkutsk institute operates as a high-containment research facility dealing with dangerous infectious diseases. Public reporting has described it as a Biosafety Level 3 facility, a classification used for laboratories working with pathogens capable of causing serious or potentially lethal disease through respiratory transmission.

The incident has also renewed attention on the Soviet Union’s extensive biological-weapons program during the Cold War. Soviet scientists conducted research involving Yersinia pestis and reportedly developed antibiotic-resistant strains of plague bacteria as part of an offensive biological-weapons effort.

There is no public evidence, however, that Shipilova was working on a biological weapon, that the Irkutsk institute is currently conducting offensive plague-weapons research or that the suspected incident involved an engineered strain of Yersinia pestis.

The U.S. government has separately maintained that Russia continues activities inconsistent with its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention. Moscow denies maintaining an offensive biological-weapons program and says its work involving dangerous pathogens is defensive and public-health related.

The questions surrounding the Siberian incident have inevitably revived memories of the bitter international debate over the origins of COVID-19 and whether the virus emerged naturally or through a laboratory-related incident in China. The origin of COVID-19 remains unresolved, in part because of continuing disputes over access to information and data from China.

Trump’s comments about microbes becoming “stronger and smarter” also come amid the broader global problem of antimicrobial resistance, in which bacteria can evolve resistance to drugs used to treat infections. There is currently no confirmed evidence that the suspected Irkutsk case involved an antibiotic-resistant strain of plague.

Historically, pneumonic plague has produced devastating outbreaks. An epidemic in Manchuria beginning in 1910 killed roughly 60,000 people before being brought under control. Los Angeles experienced an outbreak in 1924 that killed approximately 30 people, the last major urban plague epidemic in the United States.

Bubonic plague was responsible for the Black Death that devastated Europe in the 14th century, killing tens of millions of people and, by some estimates, eliminating a massive share of the continent’s population.

Plague has not disappeared. Human cases continue to occur each year, particularly in parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas, although cases are now rare in developed countries and are generally treatable with antibiotics when recognized promptly.

For now, the central question in Siberia remains unanswered: Russian officials have acknowledged Shipilova’s death from severe pneumonia and implemented significant containment measures, but they have not confirmed that she was infected with plague at all.

Rubio said that uncertainty is precisely why Washington wants Moscow to provide reliable information rather than allow speculation to fill the vacuum.

“So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it.”

{Matzav.com}

Newly declassified documents are revealing an even broader picture of the surveillance carried out during the federal investigation of President Donald Trump, showing that FBI agents tracked the travel of Melania Trump and Barron Trump while preparing to search Mar-a-Lago and later monitored the phone activity of Susie Wiles, including her contacts with Trump, his attorneys, campaign advisers and journalists.

The records, released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, shed new light on the investigation internally known as “Plasmic Echo,” the classified-documents probe that ultimately came under the direction of special counsel Jack Smith.

The newly disclosed material follows earlier revelations about surveillance techniques used in investigations involving Trump and his associates. But the latest documents provide new details about the extent to which investigators were monitoring people in Trump’s immediate family and political orbit while building the Mar-a-Lago case.

As FBI officials prepared in 2022 to obtain and execute a search warrant at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, internal communications show that investigators were specifically determining the movements of Melania and Barron Trump, apparently as part of their effort to decide when the search could be conducted.

One FBI planning document listed among the bureau’s tasks: “Finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel (type of aircraft and specific timeline),”

The same list included final preparations for obtaining the search warrant and coordinating the operation among the FBI, Justice Department and Secret Service in West Palm Beach.

Another document made the intended timing explicit: “Any search warrants would be served after the former President departs Mar a Lago,”

The documents indicate that the sensitive investigation was approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized the investigation following recommendations from senior Justice Department and FBI officials. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in a May 2022 memorandum that the investigation could reach senior figures connected to Trump and could have significant political consequences if it became public before an election.

According to the memo, the investigation “could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed prior to an election.”

Wray nevertheless recommended that Garland authorize the investigation, adding a handwritten message at the bottom of the document: “Merrick, I recomend you approve. CW.”

The newly released records also show that before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, at least one agent questioned whether investigators possessed sufficient legal authority to search Trump’s personal office and bedroom and suggested that further discussions with Trump’s attorneys might provide a less intrusive path forward.

The bureau nevertheless proceeded with the search on August 8, 2022. Agents searched numerous areas of the Palm Beach estate, including Trump’s office as well as the bedrooms used by Trump and Melania.

The investigation did not end with the Mar-a-Lago search. The newly released documents reveal extensive monitoring in 2023 of Susie Wiles, who was then helping direct Trump’s political operation as he sought to return to the White House.

Investigators used a pen register and trap-and-trace process connected to Wiles’ cellphone. Such surveillance records metadata — including numbers involved in calls, when calls occurred and their duration — rather than the actual contents of the conversations.

That distinction is significant: the newly released material does not establish that investigators were listening to Wiles’ conversations. Instead, it shows that agents were systematically documenting whom she communicated with and when.

The monitoring reportedly captured Wiles’ contacts with at least 21 attorneys associated with Trump, along with campaign officials, political advisers and at least five journalists. The records also identified communications involving Kash Patel, who was outside government at the time and is now FBI director.

The surveillance ran at least from February through May 2023, according to the documents, with FBI memoranda recording individual calls in striking detail.

Investigators also tracked Wiles’ communications with Trump himself. Bureau records referred to one of Trump’s telephone numbers as the “FPOTUS Vanity Number,” apparently because it was a vanity number spelling a memorable word.

One May 19, 2023, entry recorded: “2:05 pm The FPOTUS Vanity Number called WILES for 16 minutes and 11 seconds.”

The records show that Wiles’ phone was extraordinarily active, with calls sometimes arriving or being placed only minutes apart. On March 9, 2023, investigators recorded 39 calls involving Wiles over the course of the day.

Among the entries from that day were contacts identified only by categories because the names remain redacted.

“6:00pm – Campaign 9 called Wiles, and they spoke for 39 seconds.”

“6:10pm – Lawyer 10 called Wiles for 49 seconds.”

“6:22pm – Wiles attempted to call Campaign 4”

“6:22pm – Wiles called Campaign 8 and they spoke for 56 seconds.”

“6:27pm – Campaign 4 called Wiles.”

“6:39pm – Lawyer 12 alled Wiles for 6 minutes and 50 seconds.”

“8:10pm – The FPOTUS Vanity Number called Wiles for 4 minutes and 1 second.”

Other FBI communications reveal agents following specific interactions between Wiles and Trump’s lawyers.

The bureau’s Washington Field Office noted “that [Lawyer 7] called Wiles at 2:04pm this afternoon for 41 seconds,” according to one March 24, 2023, email.

Another agent documented previous contacts involving the same attorney: “[Lawyer 7] first called Wiles at 2:10pm EST on March 21, and Wiles returned his call for 1 minute and 34 seconds later that day at 2:59pm,” the agent wrote. “These are the only contacts we have observed between the two of them since the PR/TT’s inception.”

Journalists communicating with Wiles also appeared in the surveillance records. The newly disclosed documents indicate that reporters associated with outlets including ABC News, The Washington Post, Politico and Just the News were among those whose contacts with Wiles were recorded.

One February communication from an FBI intelligence analyst specifically noted that “an ABC News reporter called her at 8:48 AM for 2 minutes and 36 seconds.”

The documents suggest that investigators were particularly interested in whom Wiles contacted immediately before and after interactions with the FBI itself.

Wiles sat for an FBI interview in Jacksonville, Florida, in April 2023. Investigators subsequently examined her telephone activity surrounding that interview to determine whom she had contacted.

“On 10 April 2023, WFO [redacted] reviewed WILES’s telephonic activity to determine contacts of interest on the date of her FBI interview,” another memo noted.

On that date, records showed Wiles communicating with Trump and several of his attorneys. She also received calls from journalists with The Washington Post and Politico.

The tactic has drawn attention because law-enforcement officials can use communications metadata to map relationships among individuals even without obtaining the contents of their conversations. A pen register can reveal who is communicating, how frequently and at what times, potentially allowing investigators to reconstruct patterns of contact among attorneys, political advisers and others.

The White House has portrayed the documents as evidence that federal law enforcement crossed the line from legitimate investigation into improper surveillance of Trump’s political operation. Critics of the investigation have also raised concerns about the collection of information involving defense lawyers and journalists.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah reacted to the latest disclosures by calling the surveillance “objectively a bigger scandal than Watergate.”

Smith, however, has consistently denied that his investigations of Trump were motivated by politics. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, he defended his conduct and rejected accusations that he had acted as a partisan prosecutor.

“I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalty,” Smith said. “My career has been dedicated to serving our country by upholding the rule of law and the core principles upon which our country was founded.”

At the time investigators were monitoring Wiles, the classified-documents inquiry was examining whether Trump had unlawfully retained national-security material after leaving the White House and whether there had been obstruction of government efforts to recover documents from Mar-a-Lago.

The case ultimately resulted in federal charges against Trump, but it never went to trial.

In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified-documents prosecution after concluding that Smith had been unlawfully appointed as special counsel by Garland because his appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

The newly released Plasmic Echo records have now placed the investigative methods used to build that case under renewed scrutiny, particularly because they involved Trump’s family, his lawyers, his campaign operation and journalists during a period when Trump was preparing his campaign to return to the presidency.

The White House sharply condemned the surveillance following Monday’s document release.

“Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable.”

{Matzav.com}

Urban warfare expert John Spencer delivered a scathing assessment of the controversial documentary NAZA after watching the film in full, accusing it of spreading falsehoods and distortions about Israel’s conduct in Gaza and singling out its assertion that Israel killed more than 73,000 Palestinians as particularly egregious.

Spencer, who serves as Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and has extensively studied Israel’s military operations in Gaza, said the documentary crosses a line even beyond the claims made by Hamas itself.

“Worse than Hamas propaganda,” Spencer wrote in a post on X after watching the documentary in its entirety. “Over three years, I’ve tried not to be surprised by ignorance, disinformation, and distortions relating to war, but this is at the top for many reasons.”

NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, has become the focus of an escalating international controversy since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month. The approximately 80-minute film features testimony from 24 anonymous Israeli military and intelligence personnel and purports to expose the systems used by Israel to select and strike targets in Gaza.

The documentary was produced by The Guardian together with producer James Wilson, while Jonathan Glazer, the director of The Zone of Interest, served as an executive producer. Abraham and Szor previously worked on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

The film takes its name from what its creators describe as an Israeli military acronym referring to the anticipated number of civilians who could be killed in a strike. Its subjects were filmed largely at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, with their identities concealed and their appearances and voices digitally altered.

NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival after receiving a lengthy standing ovation and has since begun screening internationally, including at the New York Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival. A wider theatrical rollout is underway, with the film expected eventually to be made available online.

The film has simultaneously drawn fierce condemnation in Israel. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has described it as being based on “blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality and grave, false accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders”. The IDF has disputed major allegations presented in the documentary and questioned the reliability and level of knowledge of some of its anonymous sources.

The filmmakers have rejected those criticisms, saying their work was based on interviews with more than 100 sources in addition to the 24 people who appear in the film. They have said their reporting included senior officers and personnel involved at different levels of the targeting process and was corroborated through documents and additional reporting.

Spencer said he intends to issue a much more extensive examination of the documentary and its claims. For now, however, he focused on a declaration displayed prominently during the film: “Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza.”

“Not even Hamas says this,” Spencer wrote.

His objection centers on the difference between a reported total number of deaths in Gaza and the claim that every one of those deaths was caused by Israel. Spencer argued that the documentary effectively takes the overall reported death toll and assigns responsibility for all of it to Israeli military action.

Spencer noted that Hamas itself has killed Palestinians in Gaza, including in efforts to suppress opponents and maintain its grip over the territory. Armed confrontations have also erupted between Hamas terrorists and anti-Hamas clans and other Palestinian groups, producing additional Palestinian casualties unrelated to Israeli strikes.

He also pointed to the thousands of rockets launched toward Israel by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that failed to reach their intended targets and instead landed inside Gaza. Spencer said that as many as 20% of the roughly 12,000 rockets fired toward Israel by the terrorist groups fell short inside the Gaza Strip.

Such failed launches have repeatedly endangered Gaza residents, he argued, making it impossible to simply attribute every Palestinian death during the war to Israeli military action.

Spencer additionally challenged the way casualty figures originating with Hamas-controlled authorities have been presented. He said more recent Hamas reporting has included natural deaths among the overall lists of people who died during the war period, another factor that he said undermines any blanket claim that the entire reported toll consists of Palestinians killed by Israel.

“To say every person that died in Gaza was killed by Israel is a vulgar lie,” he charged.

The casualty figure is particularly significant because the film presents itself as an investigative documentary and has received extensive international media attention and major film-industry recognition. Spencer argued that presenting a disputed aggregate death figure as a count of people specifically killed by Israel fundamentally changes its meaning.

The controversy over NAZA extends well beyond its casualty statistics. The documentary alleges that Israeli intelligence and military personnel relied heavily on artificial-intelligence-assisted targeting systems during the war and that permissible civilian-casualty thresholds were loosened dramatically following the October 7 massacre.

Among the film’s most explosive allegations is testimony claiming that a strike against a Hamas target was approved despite an expectation that as many as 500 civilians could be killed. The IDF has strongly rejected that characterization of its targeting procedures and has maintained that its operations are subject to legal review and rules intended to minimize civilian casualties while confronting terrorists embedded within heavily populated areas.

The IDF has also challenged the documentary’s reliance on anonymous witnesses, saying some of those presented as insiders lacked the comprehensive knowledge necessary to make authoritative claims about the military’s targeting policies and approval procedures.

The filmmakers, meanwhile, have defended the anonymity as necessary to protect their sources and insist that the testimony was subjected to extensive verification. They have said the film builds on several years of investigative reporting about Israeli operations in Gaza.

The political reaction in Israel has been equally intense. Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar accused Abraham and Szor of harming Israel and called for authorities to examine whether their Israeli citizenship could be revoked. Other Israeli political figures have denounced the film as a defamatory portrayal of IDF soldiers and commanders.

The film has also encountered protests at American screenings. Demonstrators carrying Israeli flags gathered outside its New York premiere at Lincoln Center, while a vehicle displaying messages accusing NAZA of being propaganda circulated outside the venue. Additional protests surrounded a screening at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Spencer made clear that his criticism goes substantially beyond the disputed 73,000 figure and said he identified numerous other problems while watching the film.

“There are a lot of other lies, lies by omission, and lies of ignorance in NAZA, but this claim is unique,” he wrote, saying that it represents the use of “lies, damned lies, and statistics” to advance accusations that contradict both “the actual number put out by Hamas” and the reality on the ground.

Spencer said he plans to publish a comprehensive analysis detailing his objections to NAZA and its portrayal of the Gaza war.

{Matzav.com}

Israeli authorities had been given the names and nationalities of the passengers and crew aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 before it departed Dubai, including information identifying the Omani co-pilot who allegedly tried to seize control of the aircraft and crash it, according to officials familiar with the investigation.

The disclosure has intensified questions over the security failures surrounding the attempted terror attack, particularly because the accused co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, was an Omani citizen and had reportedly previously been barred from flying by Oman Air amid concerns over extremist views.

Regional officials said authorities in the United Arab Emirates transmitted the passenger and crew information to Israel before the plane took off for Tel Aviv. The information included the names and nationalities of those aboard, and Israeli authorities did not raise a red flag concerning any passenger or crew member.

The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the continuing investigation.

The information supplied before departure included the identities of the pilots, meaning that Israeli authorities had access to information showing that an Omani national was serving as a co-pilot on a flight bound for Ben Gurion Airport. Oman does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The revelation has prompted an increasingly public dispute within Israel over which government body was responsible for examining the information and determining whether anyone aboard the flight presented a security concern.

The Shin Bet has said responsibility for vetting passenger lists on foreign flights belongs to the Transportation Ministry. Transportation Minister Miri Regev has rejected attempts to place responsibility on her ministry, maintaining that aviation security is the responsibility of Israel’s security agencies and saying her ministry received neither a passenger list nor a security warning concerning the flight.

Further reporting has indicated that the flight information was transmitted into Israel’s National Passenger Profiling Center, a government system that receives identifying information about passengers and crew members aboard international flights. The Transportation Ministry is among the government bodies permitted to make use of information held by the system.

The controversy has deepened with reports that the Transportation Ministry had never activated its ability to query the database, despite being authorized to do so. Political commentator Amit Segal subsequently charged that the ministry had failed to authorize employees to access the system, had never submitted a query and had not paid its share of the database’s costs.

The Israel Tax Authority has also confirmed that identifying information concerning the Flydubai passengers and crew was received before the flight departed. The information provided by airlines can include names, nationalities and travel-document details.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has longstanding arrangements with foreign airlines under which pilots who are citizens of countries without diplomatic relations with Israel are not supposed to operate flights into the country.

That has raised another fundamental question: how Flydubai assigned al-Hammami, an Omani national, to an Israel-bound flight in the first place — and why his nationality did not trigger intervention either in the UAE or Israel before departure.

The security questions have become still more serious following reports that al-Hammami had previously been removed from flying duties by Oman Air because of concerns about his extremist views. Investigators are examining how that information was handled and whether it was ever communicated outside Oman.

Aviation-security specialists have cautioned that international pilot vetting is complicated by significant differences among countries in the information they collect and the intelligence or personnel records they are legally permitted to share. A pilot can therefore possess the necessary licenses while potentially troubling information remains confined to another country’s internal systems.

The attempted attack occurred aboard Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, when al-Hammami allegedly attacked Captain Smit Machchhar with an emergency crash ax stored in the cockpit and attempted to take control of the Boeing 737.

The aircraft plunged thousands of feet before the wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door, enabling passengers and crew members to enter and overpower the co-pilot. Reserve Flydubai pilots who were aboard the aircraft then helped bring the jet safely down in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

The UAE has characterized what happened aboard the flight as a terrorist attack. Investigators are examining al-Hammami’s background, communications and travel history as they try to establish whether he acted independently or had assistance or direction from another person or organization.

New information emerging from the investigation indicates that al-Hammami may have been contemplating such an attack even before joining Flydubai. Israeli officials say he intended to crash the aircraft into Ben Gurion Airport and had previously considered carrying out an attack on another Israel-bound flight before abandoning that plan.

The investigation has so far not established that Iran, a terrorist organization or another foreign government directed the alleged plot, although investigators continue examining whether al-Hammami had contacts with outside actors.

The episode has exposed problems extending beyond the background of one pilot. Israeli officials are now examining the entire process by which foreign-airline passenger and crew information is received, distributed and checked, including which agency bears ultimate responsibility for acting on information contained in the lists.

Questions are also being raised over timing. Crew information can sometimes arrive shortly before an aircraft closes its doors, or even after departure, potentially leaving Israeli authorities little time to identify a problem and intervene before an Israel-bound flight is already airborne.

Netanyahu has ordered a comprehensive examination of security arrangements for foreign civilian aviation entering Israel. National Security Council head Shmuel Ben-Ezra has been instructed to appoint an examiner to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.”

The inquiry is expected to examine the responsibilities of the Transportation Ministry and Israel’s security agencies, the operation of the National Passenger Profiling Center, information-sharing with foreign governments and airlines, and how a pilot from a country without diplomatic relations with Israel could have been cleared for an Israel-bound flight despite Israeli authorities already possessing his name and nationality before takeoff.

{Matzav.com}