NETANYAHU TO ARRIVE IN WASHINGTON AGAIN TO GIVE ORDERS TO TRUMP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive in Washington this week to give orders to his subordinate, Donald Trump, regarding the war against Iran. He will also ensure that the United States keeps the West under control, now that the Israeli government is carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and is likely preparing new incursions into Lebanon, having achieved the complete subservience of the Lebanese puppet government to Israel's wishes.

Following his master Netanyahu's orders, Trump has been bombing Iran for 14 consecutive days (after discarding the Memorandum of Understanding agreed with Tehran), hoping to achieve the surrender of the Iranian theocratic regime, but without success.

Therefore, faced with growing American aversion to continuing a war initiated and provoked by Israel, Trump tried to convince his cabinet to increase the intensity and frequency of attacks on Iran. However, Vice President Vance and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Cain pointed out that the United States' stockpiles of munitions, missiles, and interceptors were rapidly depleting without achieving the objective of Iran's surrender.

This is why Netanyahu, the true head and commander of the United States armed forces, is going to the White House for the seventh time during Trump's second presidential term to "impose order" on those who refuse to continue the destruction of Iran, regardless of the enormous military, economic, political, and social costs this is incurring for the United States.

Netanyahu, the Zionist oligarchs who have bought off the Trump administration and the pathetic US political class, and international Zionism in general, couldn't care less about the price the United States and the world must pay for international Zionism to achieve its goals of complete domination of the Middle East, total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and the abject subordination of the West and most of the Global South to Israel and the Zionist oligarchs who manipulate the world at will.

The Israeli government has decided that this is the best time to defeat those it considers its enemies, and to this end, it is prepared to force its Western lackeys to spend whatever it takes, to jeopardize their economies, and to have their citizens risk their lives for the interests of Israel and international Zionism. And all indications are that the lackeys of the US government and its European stooges will carry out their orders.

Israeli crackdown in occupied West Bank intensifies, settlers cause mayhem

The surge in violence comes after four Palestinians and two soldiers were killed in a gunfight on Friday.

By Al Jazeera Staff and Reuters

Published On 26 Jul 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/26/israeli-crackdown-in-occupied-west-bank-intensifies-settlers-cause-mayhem

The Israeli military has launched an aggressive crackdown in the occupied West Bank, storming several towns and villages and detaining hundreds of Palestinians, amid escalating attacks by Jewish settlers, in a furious reaction to a shootout in a village near Nablus in which four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.

The “wide-scale military operation” across the West Bank ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the deaths of the soldiers intensified on Sunday, and settlers became bolder and more violent, marauding through villages, scrawling graffiti on buildings and attacking Palestinians.

Settlers tried to set two mosques ablaze. At one of those, the newly built Al-Rahma Mosque in the town of Qusra southeast of Nablus, settlers spray-painted slogans like “Jewish revenge” on the walls, said Abdel Azim Wadi, ⁠head of the village council in Qusra. Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed fire consuming the mosque.

The other mosque targeted in the arson attack was in the village of Kour, south of Tulkarem. Farid Jiyousi, a member of the village council, said three settlers tried to set the mosque ablaze at dawn, but worshippers put out the fire before it could reach the main area of the premises.

Reporting from Ramallah, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said Israeli forces raided Rafidia near Nablus.

“They were also spotted in Huwara, in the Nablus area, assaulting a paramedic and a man. There is video circulating from witnesses about that. The Palestine Red Crescent Society also reported an assault on one of its paramedics in Masafer Yatta, to the south of Hebron,” she said.

“So, all across the occupied West Bank there were overnight raids.”

Separately, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that 30 people were arrested in the village of Tal, where the confrontation that led to the crackdown took place, as well as 14 in Ramallah, five in Jenin, eight in Hebron, three in Bethlehem and six in Tulkarem.

Wafa also reported that Israeli forces launched a large-scale raid across the city of Jenin and several towns and villages in the governorate of Jenin, including Zababdeh, Faqqua, Yabad, Burqin, Jalbun, Qabatiya, Jalqamus, Silat al-Harithiya, al-Yamoun, Kafr Dan, Deir Abu Daif and Zububa.

The national broadcaster Kan reported that Israeli forces imposed strict traffic restrictions and numerous security checkpoints on main roads and at the entrances to villages across the occupied West Bank.

The firefight that triggered the punitive and oppressive military response took place on Friday in Tal, southwest of Nablus. Each side disputes the other’s account of the events that led to the confrontation. However, video footage confirms the testimony of villagers who say a group of about 20 Israeli settlers, many of them wielding rifles, approached Tal with the intent of causing violence.

Villagers came out of their homes to confront the settlers, and as tensions rose, Israeli soldiers arrived. One of the villagers grabbed a gun from a settler, and a shootout erupted.

Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya, a spokesperson for the Israeli army, said on Sunday that Israeli forces were raiding houses in Tal belonging to villagers suspected of involvement in Friday’s violence. She said the homes “were raided in preparation for their temporary sealing, as a preliminary step preceding their demolition”.

Israel has a policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out lethal attacks, a practice rights groups condemn as collective punishment that violates international law.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, said Israeli settlers are not being held accountable for their crimes. “We’re seeing an increase in direct war crimes,” she told Al Jazeera.

Bennis said Israel’s distinction between settlers and soldiers is false.

“Some of the settlers are themselves part of the Israeli military. They serve in the reserves. They are armed by the military. Many are trained by the military. They’re all using US-provided arms. So, this distinction is not a very important one. They are all supported by the Israeli state,” she said.

“And what we’re seeing here is a decision that they make to deliberately commit war crimes. So, we’re seeing collective punishment. We’re seeing attacks on hospitals.”

Israeli forces and settlers intensified their attacks in the occupied West Bank after October 7, 2023, when the genocidal war on Gaza began. Since then, they have killed at least 1,185 Palestinians, including more than 250 children. At least 12,652 Palestinians have been wounded and more than 24,000 have been detained.

As of July 1, 2026, 9,299 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails, of whom 3,244 are held without charge.

The United Nations and rights groups have criticised Israel for a lack of accountability, saying settlers are rarely prosecuted and Israeli soldiers are seldom convicted.

The latest violence also comes just three months before general elections in Israel.

Opinion polls suggest Netanyahu could lose power. Landgrabs and accelerating the establishment of new illegal settlements sit well with his right-wing support base.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel plans to build 763 new units in the illegal Eli settlement, south of Nablus.

Meanwhile, hundreds gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest the surge in settler violence and the military crackdown in the West Bank.

Israeli police arrested nine protesters, saying the demonstrations had gone ahead without authorisation and had begun to “disrupt public order and block the roadway”.

Why Israel now sees Turkiye as a strategic threat

Ankara’s rising value to Washington is strengthening its regional hand, while exposing the limits of its confrontation with Tel Aviv. 

Turker Erturk

JUL 24, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/why-israel-now-sees-turkiye-as-a-strategic-threat

In practical terms, neither Turkiye nor Israel currently poses an existential threat to the other. Their relationship is also far older and more deeply rooted than the hostile rhetoric of recent years suggests. Turkiye recognized Israel on 28 March 1949, less than a year after its establishment, becoming the first Muslim-majority state to do so.

An old partnership behind the hostility

Relations during the Erdogan era have repeatedly deteriorated at the diplomatic and rhetorical levels, yet their strategic and commercial foundations proved remarkably durable. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported the US-led “Greater Middle East” initiative and publicly described Turkiye as one of its co-chairs. Ankara also played an important role in the wars and regime-change operations that reshaped Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

On the night of 6 September 2007, Israeli aircraft struck the suspected Al-Kibar nuclear facility in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province during Operation Orchard. External fuel tanks were later found in the Turkish provinces of Hatay and Gaziantep, indicating that the aircraft had crossed Turkish airspace on their return. Ankara protested the violation, while then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert later apologized in the event that Israeli aircraft had entered Turkish territory.

Economic ties also survived successive political crises. Even during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Ankara initially maintained trade despite mounting domestic criticism. Turkiye formally halted direct imports and exports with Israel in May 2024, but Azerbaijani crude continued to reach Israel through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan Pipeline and the Turkish Ceyhan Port. The distinction allowed Ankara to defend its embargo while oil transit continued beyond the scope of direct bilateral trade.

Israel’s growing hostility toward Turkiye therefore stems from a wider geopolitical concern, rather than any immediate military threat. Washington’s need for Ankara has increased across the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant. Israeli leaders fear that the resulting expansion of Turkish influence will eventually undermine their own strategic position.

NATO member Turkiye occupies the junction between several theaters central to US policy. It is essential to western efforts to contain Russia in the Black Sea and Caucasus, limit China’s reach into Central Asia, and pressure Iran across West Asia. 

Its geography, defense industry, control of energy corridors, and large, combat-experienced armed forces have made it increasingly difficult for Washington and NATO to bypass.

Tel Aviv wants to curb Turkish power at the same time that Turkiye is becoming more valuable to Israel’s principal patron. As Ankara’s position within the US-led order strengthens, Israeli efforts to contain it risk disrupting Washington’s wider regional plans.

Washington’s indispensable frontline

The US understands this tension and has tried to keep both states within a shared strategic framework. US Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack has taken an unusually expansive regional role, acting at times less like a conventional envoy than Washington’s troubleshooter across Turkiye, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. A major part of that role has involved preventing Turkish–Israeli tensions from escaping US control.

Ankara’s own political vulnerabilities limit its room for maneuver. Erdogan’s government faces a deep domestic legitimacy crisis, intensified by pressure on opposition parties, the imprisonment of political rivals, and the steady erosion of rights and freedoms. 

The support it receives from US President Donald Trump therefore carries added value. That dependence constrains how far Ankara can move against Israel, regardless of the severity of its public rhetoric.

The present dispute nevertheless extends across several fronts: Gaza and Palestine, the security order taking shape in Syria, energy routes and maritime claims in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the broader contest for influence across West Asia. Together, these disagreements have begun to affect the balance between two states that Washington still needs to keep on the same side.

At the same time, the US is turning its own global strategy into NATO strategy, placing the alliance’s members behind objectives drawn largely in Washington. The strains produced by that effort were visible at the NATO summit held in Ankara on 7–8 July 2026.

Washington wants NATO to intensify pressure on Russia, align more closely against China, assume a larger role in the Ukraine war and confrontation with Iran, and shift more attention toward the Asia-Pacific. It also wants alliance members to increase military spending and expand their capabilities, with much of that expenditure flowing back into the US arms industry.

Trump’s longstanding hostility toward European dependence on US protection shaped the summit. His demand that European states assume more responsibility and raise defense spending dominated the proceedings. The summit did not resolve the disputes that have deepened between Washington and its European allies over the past two years. It contained them long enough to produce new commitments.

NATO 3.0 takes shape

Washington presents rearmament as the solution to these divisions. Its immediate objectives are to push NATO members toward spending five percent of gross domestic product on defense and to construct a self-reinforcing cycle of weapons purchases, with US manufacturers among the principal beneficiaries. The Ankara Declaration pledged €70 billion (around $79.7 billion) in military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine in 2026, while summit announcements included tens of billions of dollars in new procurement.

Turkiye’s role in this emerging “NATO 3.0” is steadily expanding. It is being positioned as a frontline state entrusted with important tasks by Washington. This helps explain why the US has little interest in political change in Ankara and remains willing to overlook the government’s authoritarian practices when larger strategic interests are at stake.

For Washington, Turkiye’s value lies above all in its geography and military capacity. It sits at the intersection of the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, and West Asia, making it a central pillar of NATO’s southern front. 

Its access to the Black Sea, borders with Syria, Iraq, and Iran, gateway to the Caucasus and Central Asia, growing defense sector, and extensive combat experience give it a role few other alliance members can reproduce.

Turkiye is consequently moving beyond its traditional position as a state on NATO’s flank. In the alliance’s evolving posture, it is increasingly treated as both a central hub and a forward base. The establishment of a new headquarters at the 6^th Corps in Adana and NATO’s Maritime Component Command on the Bosphorus are clear indications of this.

Trump used the Ankara summit to signal a possible reset in US–Turkish defense relations. He pledged to lift the CAATSA sanctions imposed over Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system and indicated that Turkiye could return to the F-35 program. Discussions also continued over US approval for engines and other components required by Turkiye’s KAAN fighter project. 

These steps remain subject to legal, congressional, and technical obstacles, and negotiations are continuing. Yet the political direction is significant. Israel has openly opposed any restoration of Turkiye’s access to the F-35, fearing that it would alter the regional balance and erode the qualitative military advantage on which Israeli strategy depends.

The limits of confrontation

Could the increasingly hostile rhetoric between Turkiye and Israel lead to war, and how would the US and NATO respond? 

A direct, large-scale war remains theoretically possible but highly unlikely in the near term. Indirect confrontation, proxy escalation, or an unintended clash in Syria presents a more immediate danger. 

Several factors restrain both sides. They share no land border, while each possesses powerful armed forces capable of imposing high costs on the other. Washington and other major NATO states would work to prevent a direct conflict that could destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia. 

The global consequences for energy routes, commerce, and financial markets would give outside powers an additional reason to intervene before escalation reached that point.

The more plausible routes to conflict lie elsewhere. Turkish and Israeli aircraft could confront one another in Syrian airspace, while faulty intelligence or miscalculation could produce a limited military incident. Drone or missile strikes, special-forces operations, and escalation through regional armed groups offer both sides means of applying pressure without formally declaring war. 

Political, diplomatic, and intelligence competition will therefore continue to intensify even if open war is avoided. Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean remain the most likely arenas for a limited clash. 

If fighting expanded, NATO’s response would depend heavily on where and how it began. A direct Israeli attack on Turkish territory could bring Article 5 into play, although the clause leaves each ally to determine the assistance it considers necessary and does not guarantee military intervention. 

A clash involving Turkish forces in Syria, or a war Ankara was judged to have initiated, would be far less likely to trigger collective defense. Washington would probably move first to contain the conflict while maintaining its bilateral military and intelligence support for Israel, leaving Turkiye with little assurance of meaningful NATO backing. 

Ankara has few options for offsetting that imbalance. Its growing defense ties with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to develop into a separate collective-security pact resembling NATO’s Article 5, as Turkiye’s membership of the alliance limits its ability to enter a competing military bloc. 

Ankara’s value to Washington is growing, its defense industry is expanding, and its reach across neighboring theaters is becoming harder for Israel to ignore. Yet its place within the US-led alliance structure continues to limit how far it can challenge Israel when the interests of the two states collide. 

Iranian missiles show deadly precision amid US-Iran war escalation

The killing of three US soldiers at a Jordan base shows Iran maintains the ability to exact a deadly toll in grinding conflict.

By Joseph Stepansky

Published On 22 Jul 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/22/iranian-missiles-show-deadly-precision-amid-us-iran-war-escalation

An Iranian attack on a United States military site in Jordan that killed three US soldiers has shown the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) ability to inflict a deadly toll five months into the US-Israel war on Iran.

The strikes on Friday were the first time US soldiers have been killed by Iranian attacks on US military installations since March 1, just hours after the US and Israel launched the war.

While the Pentagon has not released full details of the attack, analysts say the deadly incident underscores an uncomfortable reality for Washington: Despite barrage after barrage of US air strikes, Iran maintains the military capability it needs to continue a prolonged asymmetric war.

“Iran’s military capabilities remain formidable. It has reconstituted faster than expected,” Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank, told Al Jazeera.

“Its attacks are becoming more precise over time, likely with the help of Russian and Chinese intelligence,” she added.

“Iran’s military is certainly not ‘combat ineffective’ as the Pentagon has suggested. It has sustained significant damage but is learning and adapting over time.”

Why is Iran still able to kill US soldiers?

Iran’s ability to continue to kill US personnel in the region is due to a combination of many factors, undergirded by the location and design of the US military sites spread across the Middle East and the Gulf, according to Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London.

Some 50,000 US forces are operating from “exposed, fixed bases within range of Iran’s increasingly sophisticated missile and drone arsenal”, he said.

Many personnel are “often housed in semi-permanent facilities, designed primarily to protect against rockets, mortars and improvised explosive devices, rather than precision ballistic missiles carrying large warheads”.

Such strikes, therefore, can “cause substantial damage”, he said. Near misses can lead to traumatic brain injuries from “blast overpressure”, while interceptions can cause injury from falling debris.

All told, the official US military death toll in the war stands at 18, including the seven soldiers killed in the March 1 Iranian strikes on a tactical operations centre in Kuwait and the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia.

Aside from the three killed in Jordan, the military has said other deaths were not the direct result of Iranian strikes. They include six airmen killed in an accidental refuelling crash in March and, most recently, an Army sergeant killed during the controlled detonation of a downed armed drone in Iraq.

About 500 US soldiers have been wounded since the war began, with about 220 structures and pieces of major US military equipment or buildings reported damaged or destroyed following the breakdown of the ceasefire on July 8.

Overwhelming air defence

Iran has relied on its “increasingly sophisticated” missile and drone arsenal to overwhelm US air defence systems, including the surface-to-air Patriot systems and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile intercepting system, according to Krieg.

It has developed ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as armed drones, that can approach targets “along different trajectories and different speeds”. When coupled with decoys and dispersed sites, they can render the US defence systems less effective.

“Even when most incoming weapons are destroyed, a small number penetrating the defensive shield can inflict considerable casualties,” Krieg said.

Mona Yacoubian, the director of the Middle East programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that Iran appeared to show “greater intent” in attacking US military assets in the recent round of attacks, compared with the early weeks of the war.

“I think what’s important to underscore is that this does appear to be a new pattern in terms of, I would argue, the intensity of Iranian strikes that are seeking to hit US military targets,” she said.

“That seems to be much more the case now than even in other periods of the war.”

Yacoubian added that the toll of the latest strikes may be a result of increased accuracy, the degradation of US defence and radar systems, or more “lucky hits” from the sheer scale of attacks. It may be a combination of the factors, she said.

As of Wednesday, the US and Iran have traded strikes for 11 consecutive days.

Iran’s army said it most recently targeted F-15 warplanes, drone preparation sites and a helicopter storage facility at the Prince Hassan and King Faisal bases in Jordan. Bahrain’s military also said it had intercepted several aerial attacks from Iran.

The US, meanwhile, repeatedly struck sites along the Strait of Hormuz in the most recent escalation, with Central Command (CENTCOM) saying on Tuesday that US forces had targeted “Iranian military operations centres, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure”.

‘A number of tools’

On Tuesday, US Senators grilled Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on his claims that Iran’s military had been “functionally destroyed” in the war.

“Mr Secretary, you stated that on day 14 of this conflict, on the second week of the conflict, you stated that Iran’s military had been ‘destroyed,’ and ‘made combat ineffective.’ Was that an accurate statement, yes or no?” Senator Jon Ossoff asked.

Hegseth maintained the war had been a “historic military victory”, with Iran’s navy, air force and “defence industrial base” rendered ineffective.

However, he conceded, “We never expected they would stop having capabilities to shoot. The question is at scale against opponents like the United States of America.”

But Jason Campbell, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and former Pentagon official, said the US attacks appear to indicate that not only does Iran maintain its missile and drone capabilities, but that it may be tapping advanced weapons not previously used.

“We’re aware that Iran had a number of tools that it had refrained from using early on in the war that it could bring to bear later on if it chose to,” Campbell said.

“And one of those is using some of its larger, more capable ballistic missiles that can be, as they’ve just demonstrated, fired with great precision and have greater capability to evade air and missile defences”.

Campbell said that “US senior leadership, at many stages along this way, has vastly either overstated the degree to which Iran and Iran’s capabilities have been degraded, or focused on aspects of Iran’s capabilities that really are not very prominent in their ability to carry out their own strategic objectives”.

Patrick Bury, a senior associate professor at the University of Bath and former NATO research analyst, agreed that Iran will likely be able to continue to exact a deadly toll on US assets and personnel for the foreseeable future, despite Washington’s vast military superiority.

“The real issue American military power faces is that there is an asymmetry of cost imposition,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It’s well documented that the Iranian stockpiles, particularly of drones and missiles, are much cheaper to produce and fire than the kit needed to intercept them at the moment.”

“That’s why Iran is able to inflict damage in the strategic sense”, he added, “and why this problem isn’t going away at all”.

Or, as security lecturer Krieg explained: “Iran does not need to defeat the United States militarily; it needs only to penetrate its defences often enough to impose human, operational and political costs on America’s regional presence.”

Iran War Escalation Threatens Global Fuel Supply Recovery

By Charles Kennedy - Jul 22, 2026

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iran-War-Escalation-Threatens-Global-Fuel-Supply-Recovery.html

Asian refiners that had bet on a flood of crude supply from the Middle East in August are now faced with potential delays in deliveries amid the re-escalation of hostilities, which could thwart their plans to ramp up crude processing rates in the coming weeks, analysts have told Reuters.

At the end of June and early July, Asian refiners were optimistic that the tentative reopening of the Strait of Hormuz following the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding would bring steadily rising crude volumes from the Middle East.

With the collapse of the ceasefire, the expected ramp-up of fuel output in the third quarter could be delayed and may not materialize at all as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz stalled again to the lowest level since May, when only a handful of tankers moved through the chokepoint every day.

Adding to this, the threats from the Iran-aligned Houthis to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that would cut off Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea oil exports is also a major concern for refiners in Asia that were relying on Red Sea crude volumes in the past few months.

Refiners in the U.S. and Europe are operating at near capacity, but those in Asia may not see the expected increase in throughput now that the July and August loadings and delivery schedules have been upended by the re-escalation of the Middle East conflict.

Delays in the loadings this month and next could delay the ramp-up of fuel production in China, one Chinese refinery executive told Reuters.

Chinese refiners further slashed crude processing in June, with volumes crumbling to the pandemic lows of 2020 amid Strait of Hormuz supply disruptions and weakening domestic fuel demand.

But the rebound in crude throughput is not a given in view of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East.

Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Kills Family of Six as They Sleep

At least 12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza on Tuesday

by Dave DeCamp | July 21, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/07/21/israeli-airstrike-in-gaza-kills-family-of-six-as-they-sleep/

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Tuesday killed a man, his wife, and their four children, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal.

Health officials told Al Jazeera that the strike hit the al-Masri family home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City as they slept, killing Firas and Salsabeel al-Masri and their three daughters and son.

“We were unable to save our grandchildren and children from the flames and the devastation. Around five or ​six (people) were martyred, most of them children and women, without mercy and without any prior warning,” the grandfather of the children told Reuters.

The IDF confirmed it was responsible for the strike, claiming without evidence that it targeted a Hamas member. Throughout its genocidal war, Israel has regularly targeted alleged Hamas members as they were at home with their families, using an AI tracking system known as “Where’s Daddy?” according to a report from 972 Magazine.

The al-Masri family was among 12 Palestinians massacred by the IDF in Gaza on Tuesday. Medics told Reuters that there were other attacks in Gaza City and two in central Gaza that killed six more people.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said in its daily update on Tuesday that it recorded the Israeli killing of nine Palestinians and the injury of 42 over the previous 24-hour period. Since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed in October 2025, Israel has killed at least 1,168 Palestinians and wounded 3,798.

World Cup 2026: Israel loves Argentina but do Argentinians actually love them back?

President Javier Milei has tied his country closely to Israel, but polling shows most people in the country reject the relationship

Elis Gjevori

Published date: 20 July 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-one-president-made-argentina-look-far-more-pro-israel-it

Hours before Argentina faced Spain in the World Cup final, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a message to President Javier Milei.

"Javier [Milei], you are a real friend, a great friend. We support you, we support Argentina, in so many ways."

Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 soon afterwards, but the match had already taken on a political meaning far beyond its footballing context.

Across social media, many framed Argentina as Israel’s team and Spain as Palestine’s. The symbolism was not difficult to understand.

Milei has made support for Israel a defining feature of Argentina’s foreign policy. He has backed Netanyahu throughout the Gaza genocide, spoken publicly about converting to Judaism and pledged to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem.

Spain has moved in the opposite direction. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza, called for those responsible to face arrest and recognised the State of Palestine in 2024.

Even the teams’ biggest stars became part of the contrast. Lionel Messi has drawn scrutiny over his previous links with Israel, while Spain’s Lamine Yamal displayed a Palestinian flag after Barcelona won the league title.

‘Every patriotic Israeli supports Argentina’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, was not the only Israeli politician to support Argentina.

Israeli ministers throughout his cabinet have also eagerly sought to push that comparison.

Argentina’s ambassador to Israel, Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, visited far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich before the final and presented him with an Argentina shirt and an official World Cup ball.

The ICC prosecutor has also reportedly requested an arrest warrant for Smotrich over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

"Every patriotic Israeli supports Argentina. Go Argentina!" Smotrich said.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir joined in: "We will love those who love Israel. Let's go, Argentina.”

Transport Minister Miri Regev wrote: "Congratulations to the Argentine people and my friend President Milei. Fingers crossed for you in the final!"

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, had also publicly celebrated Argentina’s victories.

But does Argentina love Israel?

Israel’s embrace of Argentina arguably says more about Milei than it does about Argentina.

After the semi-final victory over England, one supporter rejected the idea that the national team represented Israel’s political camp.

“No Argentinian that is a real Argentinian supports Israel,” she said in a widely circulated video. “Don’t believe our fucking president that has been put with money there.”

A Pew Research Centre survey conducted between 8 February and 13 May 2026 found that 55 percent of Argentinians held a very or somewhat unfavourable view of Israel. Only 21 percent viewed it favourably.

Netanyahu himself made clear that Israel’s support rested on Milei rather than the country as a whole.

"They have a president who's a superstar... Milei is a huge friend of Israel," he said on Ben Ben Baruch's podcast.

Speaking to Argentina’s ambassador, Netanyahu added: "I don't hide the fact that I'm an Argentina fan. Most Israelis are Argentina fans, because President Milei has revolutionised Argentina's relations with us. We have no greater or better friend."

That transformation has been dramatic.

Argentina recognised Palestinian statehood in 2010 under former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Meanwhile, Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who took office in December 2023, has since pulled the country into Netanyahu’s orbit and made support for Israel central to his international identity.

The contrast also revives memories of Diego Maradona.

Unlike Messi, the late Argentine football icon spoke openly about Palestine and met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during the 2018 World Cup.

“In my heart, I am Palestinian,” Maradona said.