news

Israelis go to the polls on October 27 to elect the 26th Knesset, in the first general vote since the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the wars on Lebanon and Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, with 19 years in office, is seeking another term while standing trial on corruption charges. His Likud party and the far-right coalition it leads are locked in a close race with a Jewish-led opposition bloc, with neither side appearing on track to win an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

About 7.3 million people aged 18 and above are eligible to vote, according to Israel’s Central Elections Committee. Most polling stations open from 7am to 10pm, and anyone still queuing when they close is entitled to vote. Election day is a national holiday.

Any party clearing an electoral threshold of 3.25 percent enters parliament, which sits for a four-year term. There are no term limits for a prime minister.

How voting works

Israelis vote for a party, not a candidate.

A majority requires 61 of the 120 seats and no party has ever won that outright. Finishing first does not guarantee power. Parties then have 28 days, with a possible extension of up to 14 days, to assemble a coalition reaching 61. If nobody manages it, the country votes again.

Seats are shared out in proportion to each party’s share of the national vote, so a party winning 30 percent of votes takes roughly 30 percent of seats. The votes for parties failing to secure 3.25 percent are discarded, which explains why small parties routinely merge before every election.

Who can and cannot vote?

About 7.3 million Israeli citizens are eligible to vote in this election, but they are not the only adults living under the government they choose.

Roughly three million adult Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem have no vote in the government that controls their borders, movement and legal status.

Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel, who number about 1.2 million, can vote. So can adult settlers among the more than 750,000 Israelis living in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, who help elect the parliament that legislates over the land they live on.

Most Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem hold Israeli residency, not citizenship. They can vote for Jerusalem’s city council but not for the Knesset.

The result is a sharp anomaly in the occupied West Bank, where a settler votes and a Palestinian family living nearby, under the same military authority, does not.

Most Israeli citizens living abroad also cannot vote, because Israel has no general absentee ballot and requires voters to be physically in the country on election day. Diplomats and state emissaries are the exception, casting their ballots at Israeli missions on October 20.

What are the main issues?

Israelis are dealing with a series of domestic and international issues this election cycle, including:

• October 7 security failures – Three years on, the government is yet to form a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, 2023, when a Hamas-headed attack led to the killing of some 1,200 people, with about 250 taken captive. Israel launched the genocidal war against Palestinians in the wake of the attack, killing at least 74,000 people and leaving most of the besieged territory in ruins.
• Ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions – Supporters of the exemptions say they protect full-time Torah study, but critics argue they place an unfair military burden on everyone else.
• Judicial reform – Netanyahu’s push to curb the Supreme Court’s powers, which sparked mass protests before the war on Gaza, remains a deep fault line. Critics see it as a threat to democracy, while supporters argue that the court has overstepped its authority.
• War and security – The public wants stability but remains wary of concessions in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon. Netanyahu promised “total victory”, but Hamas and Hezbollah remain operational.
• Cost of living – High prices and modest wages are being further squeezed by soaring defence spending. Since 2023, Israel’s defence budget has doubled, increasing pressure on public finances.

Israel’s outgoing government

Netanyahu’s coalition held 60 of the Knesset’s 120 seats when parliament dissolved in July. It comprised Likud with 32 seats, Shas with 11, Religious Zionism with seven, Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit with six, and New Hope with four. Shas left the government in July 2025 but remained in the coalition and New Hope will merge into Likud for this election.

The opposition held 59 seats: Yesh Atid with 24, Blue and White with eight, United Torah Judaism with seven, Yisrael Beiteinu with six, Hadash-Taal and Raam with five each and Labor with four. Noam’s single seat was unaffiliated.

Who are the main contenders?

Netanyahu is seeking re-election while facing a trial on corruption charges, which he denies.

His far-right coalition is up against a bloc comprising of four major Jewish-led opposition parties, whose leaders have signed a declaration promising not to attack each other ahead of the vote and to join forces in forming a government after the polls.

Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot is viewed as the opposition’s most likely candidate for prime minister, with his new Yashar party evenly matched with Likud in the opinion polls.

The opposition alliance includes the Together list, led by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid; Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu and Yair Golan’s Democrats.

Other key players include far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the ultra-Orthodox parties, and the Arab-majority lists Ra’am and the Joint List.

Last month, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to bar Ra’am and the Joint List from the election, but the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the bans on October 2, ruling that the evidence did not meet the legal threshold for exclusion.

Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who leads Balad, one of the parties in the Joint List, withdrew from the race after the court signalled that a majority of its judges would uphold his disqualification.

The Arab-led parties could hold the balance of power after the vote, but most leaders of the Jewish-led opposition bloc have ruled out joining forces with them.

Sixth election in seven years

October 27 will be Israel’s sixth national vote since 2019, but the first in 38 years to arrive at the natural end of a full Knesset term.

The instability began in April 2019, when Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party tied on 35 seats each. A second vote that September produced another deadlock, with Blue and White on 33 and Likud on 32, and neither round yielded a coalition able to reach a majority.

A third election in March 2020 gave Likud 36 seats to Blue and White’s 33, and produced a Netanyahu-Gantz unity government that collapsed within a year. In March 2021, Likud won 30 seats to Yesh Atid’s 17, but an eight-party coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid that also included Ra’am, an Arab party, ended Netanyahu’s 12-year run. It lasted a year.

Netanyahu returned in November 2022, with Likud on 32 and Yesh Atid on 24, at the head of what has been described as Israel’s most right-wing government. Polls now show neither bloc clearly reaching 61.

Israel’s prime ministers

The state of Israel has had 14 prime ministers since its foundation in 1948. Netanyahu is by far the longest-serving, with 19 years in three separate stints: 1996 to 1999, 2009 to 2021 and from 2022 to now

Only David Ben-Gurion, who led the country from 1948 to 1954 and again from 1955 to 1963, comes close.

Whatever happens on October 27, Netanyahu stays on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is sworn in.

A group of parents claims local admission policy boosts Black and Latino students while constraining Asian applicants.

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about the role of race in admissions to selective Maryland middle schools after a group of parents claimed policies discriminated against Asian students in favour of Black and Latino students.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the parents’ plea on four academically rigorous “magnet” schools in Montgomery County, a suburb on the outskirts of Washington, DC, in the neighbouring state of Maryland.

The high court said it would weigh whether the parent group has enough evidence of discrimination for the case to move forward.

Lower courts previously dismissed the case because Asian-American students were not underrepresented at the specialised-curriculum schools compared with the pool of students that applied.

If the Supreme Court rules for the parent group, the Association for Education Fairness, it could revive the lawsuit.

The court is expected to hear arguments in the coming months and rule by June.

‘The Pandemic Plan’

The Montgomery County school district’s selection process was introduced in the 2021-2022 school year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It screens all students for academic potential, and then implements a lottery to randomly assign students from that pool to receive enriched instruction at either a magnet school or a local school.

The suit alleged that the screening process makes it harder for Asian-American students, who the challengers said are clustered in “high-performing, low-poverty elementary schools”, to enter the lottery pool.

Part of the process ranks a student’s performance by comparing the student’s test scores against those of other students whose family incomes are at a similar level.

“Under the applicant pool benchmark, the government can set specific racial targets, hit them, and avoid even an inquiry into discriminatory intent,” so long as it has not explicitly called out race in its process, they wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Previously thrown out

The case was thrown out in 2022 by US District Judge Paula Xinis. She noted that the percentage of admitted Asian-American students exceeded the percentage of Asian Americans among all applicants to the magnet schools.

Xinis also found no evidence that the lottery policy was implemented with discriminatory intent.

The school system has consistently argued the new admissions policy, called the “Pandemic Plan” due to the timing of its release, is race-neutral.

“The Pandemic Plan is a colorblind lottery,” lawyers wrote in a brief asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case. “Nothing about the Pandemic Plan, its history, or its purpose is offensive to the Constitution.”

Supreme Court justices will now consider whether a group claiming to be targeted by a race-neutral policy must show it was disproportionately harmed to prove intentional discrimination.

A 43-year-old man accused of deliberately hitting Helen Haines outside her office remains in police custody.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have said the alleged targeting of independent lawmaker Helen Haines appeared to be an “isolated incident” and there were no known further threats associated with the attack.

Haines was struck by a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV outside her office in Wangaratta, about 200km (124 miles) northwest of the state of Victoria’s capital, Melbourne, on Monday, in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a “deliberate” act.

The 65-year-old underwent surgery overnight, with Australian media outlets reporting on Tuesday that she has lost a leg and remains in critical condition in a Melbourne hospital.

The suspect is in police custody, an AFP statement released on Tuesday said. Local media identified the driver as a 43-year-old man from Tarrawingee, Victoria.

Federal and state police were working “to identify potential charges”, including “the offence of causing harm to a Commonwealth public official which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment”, the statement said.

The prime minister said on Tuesday that the vehicle had performed a U-turn before hitting the MP.

“It’s clear that there was a deliberate act here. This wasn’t an accident, someone just skidding off the road,” Albanese ⁠told the ABC national broadcaster.

The prime minister said the alleged attacker’s motive remained unknown.

Bystander intervened

A former nurse, Haines is an independent federal MP for the Victorian seat of Indi and is known for her socially conscious policy positions on the environment and transparency.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told ABC Radio that witnesses said Haines was struck twice by the vehicle before a bystander intervened.

Ricky Jefferies ran from his barber shop, restrained the attacker and removed a knife from him after initially believing the incident was a car accident, Australian media reported.

“I heard a loud bang with no brakes. It was crazy; I just ran out to the ⁠front to see what’s happening,” Jefferies told reporters outside his shop.

“I didn’t realise the seriousness of ⁠the situation initially, and once it became relevant, I just did what I could and what others were already trying to do.”

Threats and abuse

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was shocked by the “deeply disturbing attack” and wished Haines a full recovery in a post on X.

The attack comes after the federal police documented a steady rise in threats and abuse directed towards the nation’s politicians in recent years. Politicians have historically been highly accessible to the public and usually go about their business without security.

Albanese said on Monday that “the temperature has increased in recent times”.

Haines entered parliament in 2019 after working as a nurse and midwife, becoming known for stances such as supporting stronger climate action.

She has been praised for her efforts to increase transparency in politics and crack down on corruption.

Caracas, October 19, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has lifted “precautionary asset freezes” against Marleny Contreras, wife of Venezuelan Interior, Justice, and Peace Minister Diosdado Cabello, and United Socialist Party (PSUV) lawmaker Jorge Arreaza.

The country’s authorities stated that their inclusion on a list of sanctioned Venezuelan officials was “a mistake” after determining that neither holds assets in Swiss territory nor faces corruption accusations.

The asset freeze was imposed on January 5, two days after US forces bombed Caracas and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Bern claimed the measure was intended to prevent potentially illicit assets from leaving Switzerland amid eventual legal investigations.

The legal measure remains in force until 2030 and includes a formal commitment to return to the Venezuelan people any resources proven to have been illicitly acquired. Over 40 current and former Venezuelan officials, as well as direct relatives and alleged associates, remain on the list.

Alongside the removal of Contreras and Arreaza, the Swiss government added six individuals to the register. New additions include former Venezuelan government envoy and Industry Minister Álex Saab and his business associate Álvaro Pulido. 

Pulido appeared before a Miami court on October 13 after being handed over by Venezuelan authorities to face money laundering charges. Saab was likewise surrendered to US agencies and pleaded guilty to money laundering accusations, pledging to “cooperate” with other US legal investigations.

Saab and Pulido were joined in the Swiss blacklist by José Vicente Amparan Croquer, a lawyer whom US authorities have accused of laundering money from an alleged US $1.2 billion embezzlement scheme at Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), and Mario Enrique Bonilla Vallera, a businessman identified as an alleged front man for Nicolás Maduro’s stepsons.

The list also includes the wife and former wife of two former deputy electricity ministers who were already on the blacklisteed: Milagros Coromoto Torres Morán, wife and business partner of Nervis Villalobos, and María Consuelo Pardi Celis, former wife of Javier Alvarado Ochoa.

The Swiss decision came two days after the US Treasury Department removed Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, chief negotiator in a US-backed dialogue process with an opposition faction, and brother of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, from its own sanctions list. Delcy Rodríguez herself was removed from the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list last April.

Jorge Rodríguez was first targeted on September 25, 2018, during Trump’s first term in office. Individual sanctions block any assets the person may have on US soil and bar US individuals and companies from engaging in any transactions. The measures lead to issues of overcompliance.

Spanish daily ABC’s White House correspondent David Alandete argued that the parliamentary leader’s removal from the SDN list was a reward for his “cooperation” in a “new phase of relations between Caracas and the White House.”

The move was announced on the same day that Delcy Rodríguez’s acting government and the opposition delegation led by former lawmaker Dinorah Figuera began a third round of US-endorsed talks in Caracas. The discussions are intended to address the continuation of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) renewal process, as well as political rights and guarantees.

Nevertheless, 254 individuals and entities remain on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list. The Trump administration also maintains wide-reaching coercive measures against key Venezuelan economic sectors, including oil, mining, and banking.

Since January, Washington has issued sanctions waivers to allow select Western corporations to secure access to Venezuelan oil and mineral resources under favorable conditions. The White House has also greenlit select US companies to export and import products to and from the Caribbean nation. However, revenues from Venezuelan exports are deposited in a US Treasury account, with US officials deciding when and how much to disburse to Caracas.

Last week, the Trump administration issued General License 60A. The license authorizes humanitarian assistance transactions focused on addressing damage caused by Venezuela’s June 24 double earthquake until April 21, 2027.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Hegseth has travelled to Israel to meet Netanyahu ahead of a closely contested election, Axios reported, citing sources.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an undisclosed visit to Israel, according to Axios.

The meeting between the hawkish ally of US President Donald Trump and the veteran Israeli premier facing a knife-edge election occurred on Monday, Axios reported, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.

The Reuters news agency could not immediately confirm the visit. The Pentagon and Israel’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and there was no immediate indication of what they discussed.

Trump endorsement

President Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday to endorse Netanyahu in next week’s parliamentary election, the first vote since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in 2023 and Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza began.

Trump praised the prime minister for being an ally of the US in its war on Iran. He added that Netanyahu had his “Complete and Total Endorsement”.

“BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump wrote.

Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition is projected to lose its governing majority, although the opposition may also struggle to form a government, opinion polls suggest.

US Vice President JD Vance, however, declined to endorse Netanyahu in an interview earlier on Monday, saying he was not getting involved in Israeli elections.

“I endorse American candidates, and that’s where I’m focused on is the midterms,” Vance, who travelled to Budapest and endorsed Viktor Orban in Hungarian elections earlier this year, said in an interview with digital media outlet 2WAY.

“I’m not anti-endorsing him, but I’m not pro-endorsing him; I’m not getting involved in Israeli elections,” Vance said.

Riyadh postpones flagship investment conference until 2027, orders government staff to work from home.

Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference has been postponed until next year, according to a statement on the official website, as deadly strikes by the Iran-backed Houthis against the kingdom continue.

The annual event was due to start next week on October 26 and run through October 29, with a date next year to be announced “very soon”, the statement released on Tuesday said.

FII Institute chief executive officer Dr Maha Bint Mishari Al Saud said the decision “comes from a deep commitment to our partners, members, speakers and delegates”.

“Because this is our landmark tenth edition, we want to ensure it delivers the full scale, extraordinary quality, and unforgettable impact that our community has come to expect and truly deserves,” she said.

Informally dubbed “Davos in the Desert”, a nod to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland, the state-backed conference showcases the kingdom’s ambitious investment plans in a bid to attract billions of dollars needed to fund its economic transformation away from hydrocarbons towards tourism, sport and technology.

Expected speakers included: Alphabet & Google’s president and chief information officer, Ruth Porat; Goldman Sachs Group chairman and CEO David Solomon; and BlackRock chairman and CEO Laurence Fink, according to the FII website.

Fighting between a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Iran-aligned Houthis has escalated in recent weeks.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have hit military, energy and civilian infrastructure across Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport, killing at least 18 people and injuring hundreds more.

Government staff to work from home

Government agencies in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have told employees to work from home, one worker and two consultants told the AFP news agency, as the city comes under repeated attack from the Houthis.

The Kingdom Centre, a 99‑storey tower in downtown Riyadh that houses the International Monetary Fund’s regional office, also requested workers stay away until further notice.

On Sunday, an employee of a government agency in the capital received a message saying, “It has been decided to implement remote work from Monday to Thursday this week”. The message added: “We ask everyone to continue their activities as normal.”

Companies based in the King Abdullah Financial District, which hosts offices of major United States firms, have also asked employees to work from home, according to other sources.

Germany appears to have dropped plans to directly procure the larger, Block 3 version of Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), leaving doubts over Berlin’s ambitions to field uncrewed combat aircraft alongside its crewed fighters before the end of the decade.

Boeing confirmed to Breaking Defense that Germany’s Ministry of Defense had informed the company it would not proceed with a direct acquisition of the drone, which had previously been lined up. The decision, first reported by Politico, represents a setback for Boeing’s effort to position the Ghost Bat as a candidate for Berlin’s planned CCA capability, something that had seen it announce a partnership with Rheinmetall, the largest arms manufacturer in Germany, earlier this year.

“With Boeing Defense Australia as a partner, we are laying the groundwork to optimally tailor the MQ-28 to the Bundeswehr’s requirements,” said Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, in March of this year. “As a system integrator, we ensure that integration, operation, and further development come from a single source while simultaneously strengthening industrial value creation in the form of an industrial hub in Germany and Europe. We see revenue potential for Rheinmetall in the range of three-digit millions of euros.”

The move does not necessarily mean the MQ-28 is out of contention for Germany’s wider program. Instead, Berlin appears set to move toward a different acquisition approach, with competing designs potentially having an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities before a selection is made.

A Boeing spokesperson told Breaking Defense the company “stands ready to support” its German customer on the next steps, while referring questions about the decision to the German Ministry of Defense.

The ministry declined to discuss the specific procurement with the same outlet, citing regulations governing public contracting and the need for such matters to be addressed by parliament.

“[As a] matter of principle — and regardless of the specific case in question — we cannot provide information regarding potential procurement projects,” a ministry spokesperson told Breaking Defense.

Germany has set an ambitious goal of fielding CCAs by 2029. These uncrewed aircraft are intended to operate alongside crewed fighters such as the Eurofighter, extending their reach, adding sensors and weapons, and giving air forces additional options for conducting high-risk missions.

However, the reported change in Berlin’s acquisition plans raises questions about whether that deadline remains achievable.

According to Politico, Germany is now looking toward the early 2030s for the capability to arrive, with flight testing expected to begin in 2027. That would suggest the original target was based around the introduction of the MQ-28, which has already undergone extensive testing, rather than a newer design. The reshuffle could now give prospective suppliers additional time to demonstrate their designs.

The reported new timeline suggests that Germany’s CCA effort could be entering a more competitive and potentially longer development phase.

There is also a question about the degree of operational capability that will initially be fielded by the given date. Getting a CCA into meaningful frontline service is a very significant task, calling for integration with crewed fighters, communications systems, mission-planning networks, weapons, and sensors. Then there is also testing, certification, training, and the establishment of supporting infrastructure. For Germany in particular, getting a military drone, let alone an armed one, cleared to operate routinely in commercial airspace has long been an issue.

If Germany acquired the Ghost Bat directly, it would have offered a route to a CCA capability without having to begin an entirely new aircraft development effort.

However, the MQ-28 was always one of a larger field of candidate aircraft.

A week ago, Airbus and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions announced the first flight of their U740 Valkyrie uncrewed combat aircraft, a Europeanized version of the XQ-58A Valkyrie. Airbus is simultaneously working on its larger U760 Ravenstorm, intended for service in the early 2030s, and the company has previously pitched a stealthy CCA-like concept known as Wingman.

The ride of the Valkyrie ⚔️
With the successful first flight of the Airbus U740 Valkyrie in Europe, we are one step closer to introducing an operational uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) to the German and other European Armed Forces.
The flight achieved all… pic.twitter.com/S2sFrtdmGA

— Airbus Defence (@AirbusDefence) October 12, 2026

Other entrants include Anduril, General Atomics partnered with Germany’s INTEC, as well as Lockheed Martin. Meanwhile, Helsing and Hensoldt are pursuing the homegrown CA-1 Europa, very much an MQ-28 lookalike.

Germany may not be looking for a single drone to do everything, a point we have discussed in the past:

“One option might be a split high-low approach that could pair more capable, longer-range systems for deep-strike missions with cheaper, attritable collaborative combat aircraft that can fly alongside crewed fighters. At this point, it should also be noted that CCAs could also give older fourth-generation fighters a new lease on life, boosting their lethality and survivability by extending their sensor reach, adding weapons capacity, and allowing uncrewed aircraft to take on more dangerous tasks.”

At the same time, Germany continues to define its requirements for a capability described in media reports as a Jagdbomberdrohne, or fighter-bomber drone. Berlin has yet to publicly clarify its intended concept of CCA operations, including whether the Luftwaffe envisions an uncrewed wingman operating alongside crewed fighters, a platform capable of carrying out long-range strike missions independently, or a system designed to perform both roles.

There are signs that the strike mission is being prioritized, at least initially, with a reduced emphasis on air-to-air missions. This is essentially the reverse of the U.S. Air Force’s CCA effort.

Since Germany is set to receive the F-35 stealth fighter, there is also an argument that Berlin could place more orders for the crewed jet. This could have the dual role of filling the gap left by the collapse of the pan-European Future Combat Air System (FCAS), specifically its sixth-generation crewed fighter, and the delayed introduction of the first operational CCAs. Germany is also looking forward to receiving more Eurofighters.

Germany’s evolving CCA plans form part of a broader effort by Western air forces to develop uncrewed aircraft capable of working alongside advanced fighters. These systems are intended to expand the number of available platforms, distribute sensors and weapons across a larger force, and potentially take on missions that would otherwise expose pilots and expensive crewed aircraft to greater risk.

Boeing’s Ghost Bat could still have an opportunity to compete, depending on the structure of the eventual acquisition process and the requirements Berlin establishes.

However, with testing reportedly planned from 2027 and operational fielding potentially slipping into the early 2030s, the original 2029 ambition for an operational German CCA appears increasingly uncertain.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Tehran summons envoy in tit-for-tat move after Berlin summoned ambassador to Iran.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Germany’s ambassador after a court in Hamburg found two men guilty of plotting to kill two leaders of Jewish organisations at Tehran’s behest, accusing Berlin of leveling “baseless political allegations”.

The decision to summon envoy Axel Dittmann came after Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, on Monday over allegations that Tehran was behind the plot to assassinate the two pro-Israel public figures.

“Levelling security-related accusations against Iran has long been a tactic employed by the Zionist regime and certain Western nations,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement broadcast by official news agency IRNA.

“Attempting to provide a judicial face to baseless political claims not only fails to lend any credibility to such allegations but also undermines the standing of the German judiciary itself,” the statement added.

Hamburg conviction

Berlin’s allegations stem from a court case involving two men, a Danish national and an Afghan national, who were convicted in a Hamburg court on Thursday for planning to target the president of Germany’s main group representing the Jewish community and the head of the German-Israeli society.

The German Foreign Ministry said on X that the Iranian ambassador had been summoned, adding Tehran would not be allowed to “threaten our free society”.

“The malicious assassination attempts against Josef Schuster and Volker Beck will have legal consequences,” it added.

“We do not tolerate attacks on Jewish life and on those who defend it anywhere, and certainly not in Germany.”

The Dane, partially identified as Ali Hassan S, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years. The Afghan, who was recruited as his accomplice, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years.

Iran’s intelligence service steered the two men, the court said. The pair were arrested in Denmark last year and extradited.

In sentencing the men, the judge said they were guilty of “terrorist activities orchestrated by Iran”.

At the time they were charged, the Iranian embassy in Berlin released a statement rejecting what it called “unfounded allegations made at the behest of Iran’s enemies”.

A Russian satellite, Kosmos 2612, may have passed within approximately 85 feet (26 meters) of a U.S.-registered satellite belonging to commercial imagery provider ICEYE. This would be an extraordinarily close and potentially dangerous pass-by for two objects in space traveling at thousands of miles per hour. For weeks beforehand, ICEYE-X36, which would be of special interest to Russia, had already found itself in increasingly close orbital alignment with its pursuer. The two satellites now look to be drifting further and further apart, but the episode has been a clear sign of what is to come as the potential for conflict in space only continues to grow.

Publicly available space tracking data from the satellitemap.space and orbitalradar.com websites show that Kosmos 2612 (also written sometimes Cosmos 2612 and abbreviated K2612) and ICEYE X36 had their especially close encounter at approximately 16:07 UTC today. Private space services company LeoLabs also told TWZ today that it could not “confirm or contradict what other data sources have stated publicly,” but that it has “high-confidence that the objects came within approximately [emphasis in the original] 500 meters [1,640 feet] of each other.” Kosmos 2612 had been making progressively closer passes by ICEYE X36 in recent days.

“COSMOS 2612 closed from hundreds of kilometers away to extreme proximity to ICEYE-X36. It then maneuvered around ICEYE-X36,  remained nearby for an extended period, and then began moving away,” LeoLabs also stated in a report assessing the situation, which was updated today and provided to TWZ. “The latest observations show the spacecraft strongly diverging and confirm that the close-proximity activity had ended.” 

LeoLabs’ broader assessment here is supported by data from other publicly available sources, as seen below.

Additional context

None of the distances stated earlier may seem especially close, let alone worrisome, by terrestrial standards. However, this is absolutely abnormal for operations in space that are not being directly coordinated by the parties involved. As a point of reference, in 2020, another Russian satellite, Kosmos 2542, came within 150 to 300 kilometers (93 to 186 miles) of USA 245, a KH-11 spy satellite, and became a major international news story.

“We are aware of the situation and tracking it closely,” a spokesperson for ICEYE’s U.S.-based division told TWZ this morning. “Our constellation architecture is designed for continuity and resilience.”

ICEYE was founded in Finland, but now has offices globally. The company specializes in providing imagery via synthetic aperture radar (SAR) from satellites like ICEYE X36, which was launched in 2024.

SAR has the benefit of being able to capture images day or night, and regardless of bad weather or other obscurants like heavy smoke. There are trade-offs in terms of the kinds of details typically visible via SAR compared to what is seen in visual spectrum imagery. Ukrainian authorities have been utilizing ICEYE imagery for years now, including for targeting purposes, as part of the ongoing conflict with Russia. There have been reports in the past that ICEYE X36 has been operating more directly under the control of the Ukrainian government, but this has not been confirmed.

Kosmos 2612 is one of six satellites (Cosmos 2609 through Cosmos 2614) the Russian military launched via a single Soyuz-2.1b rocket on April 17. The exact purpose and configuration of these satellites are unconfirmed. However, they appear to be so-called inspector types capable of rendezvousing and maneuvering close to other objects in space. We will come back to this later on.

What is clear is that Kosmos 2612 has spent the past three weeks deliberately maneuvering to extremely closely shadow ICEYE X36.

“Over two weeks beginning on September 30, 2026, Cosmos 2612 executed a series of new maneuvers that brought it back into coplanar alignment and placed it at nearly the same altitude as the commercial satellite,” Clayton Swope, Deputy Director of the Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, D.C., along with Research Assistant Chantal Li, wrote in an analysis of the situation just last Thursday.

“According to current orbital elements, the Russian #KOSMOS 2612 satellite is now within 1-2 km [0.6 miles to 1.2 miles] of #ICEYE-X36,” Dr. Marco Langbroek, currently a lecturer on Space Situational Awareness at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, wrote in a thread on X on Saturday. “Based on current elements, it might come within meters of the latter within a few hours from now. This is an #RPO [rendezvous and proximity operation] without consent.”

“New TLEs [two-line elements] show that K2612 made a manuever [sic] on Oct 16 and is now stationkeeping within 5 km [3.1 miles] or less of ICEYE X36,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and astronomer, who previously worked for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and has long been tracking objects of interest in orbit, also wrote in a series of posts on X on Saturday. “To my knowledge this is the first LEO [low Earth orbit] rendezvous of two active satellites where the owner of one of the sats did not give approval.”

McDowell later clarified that “close passes” of objects in orbit had certainly occurred previously, “but not I think rendezvous [sic] (matching velocity vector).”

“This is the most advanced and potentially dangerous uncooperative RPO we’ve observed,” Adam Marsh, LeoLabs vice president for technical solutions, separately told Breaking Defense.

Unprecedented orbital maneuvering

As underscored by the previous interaction of Kosmos 2542 and USA 245, close shadowing of satellites in orbit is certainly nothing new. The U.S. government, as well as Russia and others, have been observed engaging in this kind of activity in the past. At the same time, just how close Kosmos 2612 got to ICEYE X36, and how long they spent in close alignment, are, at the very least, highly unusual.

“It’s important to note that ‘red’ on ‘blue’ engagements,  such as this, are relatively uncommon in Low Earth Orbit (LEO),” LeoLabs’ report points out. At the same time, “this was not a routine conjunction or ‘fly by.’ The sequence included a controlled approach, changes in relative position, close-proximity loitering, additional small maneuvers, and a controlled departure. The behavior is consistent with sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO).”

On top of this, there are other signs that what just happened between Kosmos 2612 and ICEYE X36 may follow a Russian playbook of sorts that could also be used in a prelude to an on-orbit anti-satellite attack.

Within weeks of their launch in April, Kosmos 2610, 2611, 2612, 2613, and 2614 had all moved orbital planes shared by multiple ICEYE satellites. Three of them subsequently made close passes by ICEYE X36, specifically, but none of them initially kept station with it. ICEYE CEO Rafal Modrzewski did say “the company later moved its ​satellite, prompting further Russian manoeuvres [sic],” according to a story Reuters published last week.

To take a step even further back, before Kosmos 2542 was caught shadowing USA 245 in 2020, there were reports that the U.S. spy satellite had shifted its orbit. This was possibly prompted by the movements of another Russian ‘inspector,’ Kosmos 2543. This does not appear to have ever been confirmed.

While in space, Kosmos 2542 had deployed Kosmos 2543 in November 2019. Then, on July 23, 2020, the U.S. military said that it had detected Kosmos 2543 itself launching a smaller object in what it described as a test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon. In a subsequent interview with Time, then-Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, U.S. Space Force’s top uniformed officer, disclosed that American forces had first observed Russian “nesting doll” satellites – a reference to traditional Russian matryoshka dolls – similarly demonstrating the “characteristics of a weapon system” in 2017.

U.S. officials have been warning for years that Russia’s growing array of inspector-type satellites, ostensibly designed to examine other assets the country has in orbit if they break down or otherwise malfunction, are inherently dual-purpose in nature. Beyond launching projectiles, a host of other modes of attack, kinetic and non-kinetic, are enabled by the underlying ability of a spacecraft to maneuver very close to other objects in orbit and hold that position. This includes the use of grappling arms to cause damage or just tow a satellite out of orbit, spraying aerosols to harm or impair optics and solar panels, and electronic warfare jamming. A satellite could turn out to be the weapon itself, becoming a kinetic interceptor that smashes into its target on command.

One satellite shadowing another closely in orbit allows various kinds of intelligence gathering, as well. Collection of imagery and signal emissions can offer valuable details about a target’s capabilities and vulnerabilities, as s well as how it is being used in a particular context.

“As observed by LeoLabs Global Radar Network and analyzed by our team, COSMOS 2612 demonstrated a sequence of capabilities that could be used to inspect, characterize, shadow, or potentially interfere with another spacecraft,” according to LeoLabs’ report. “These actions require planning, maneuverability, precise navigation, and significant fuel. They may also indicate the use of onboard sensors capable of measuring the relative position of another spacecraft.”

What has just transpired between Kosmos 2612 and ICEYE X36 highlights how just a viable threat of attack can be disruptive in its own right. Simply forcing an imagery-gathering satellite out of position could prevent it from collecting over an intended area, or at least doing so in the most effective manner.

Furthermore, satellites only have a limited amount of fuel with which to maneuver in any way after reaching orbit. Harassment in space that forces them to burn off that finite resource at a higher-than-expected rate could reduce their total operational life expectancy, as well as further limit their effectiveness and make them more vulnerable to attacks or accidents. Debris in space is a steadily growing hazard that satellites increasingly need to dodge.

How Much Junk Is There In Space? | Earth Science

The United States, among others, has been actively pursuing on-orbit refueling capabilities to help address these issues. Last month, American officials also made the bombshell admission that there are unspecified U.S. weapon systems in orbit now, ostensibly for defensive purposes amid growing threats from Russia, as well as China. Both of those countries, among others, have been actively developing and fielding various anti-satellite capabilities inside and out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“We can only speculate about the operation’s goal, but it could have been anything from simply intimidation to outright destruction or sabotage of a U.S.-registered satellite,” CSIS’ Clayton Swope told TWZ directly today in light of the new developments regarding Kosmos 2612 and ICEYE X36. “Perhaps the operation is on hold. There are, however, several other satellites that shadowed ICEYE X36 back in May that could be brought in[to] action too.”

Attribution and broader ramifications

It is important to point out that space, as a domain, inherently creates complications when it comes to attributing any form of attack, should one occur. Satellites do suffer mishaps, sometimes with catastrophic results, the causes of which are not always clear.

Just in January, a Russian inspector satellite launched in 2014 appeared to break up unexpectedly. Sometime around the end of July, the Chinese reconnaissance satellite Yaogan 50-02, which had only been launched some four months earlier, also broke up in orbit. On Sept. 13, a similar fate befell the U.S. Cold War-era Farrah III spy satellite, also known as USA 32. At the time of writing, no firm evidence has emerged to indicate any of these incidents were the result of hostile action rather than accidents of some kind.

“While the intention behind COSMOS 2612’s behavior remains uncertain, the deliberate nature of the activity, the fuel required to conduct this activity, and the proximity to a Western commercial imaging satellite make the event strategically important,” LeoLab’s report notes. “This event, and the capabilities demonstrated, do not establish hostile intent. It does, however, demonstrate capabilities that could support intelligence collection, on-orbit inspection, coercive signaling, interference, or preparation for future counterspace operations.”

It is very possible, if not highly probable, that Kosmos 2612’s recent activities will be indicative of a trend going forward. Aggressive and potentially dangerous maneuvering by armed forces in close proximity to each other is not uncommon within the atmosphere, especially in the air and at sea. Extending a variation on those tactics into the space domain would make sense, especially given the central role that capabilities in orbit increasingly play in modern military operations globally. Those roles extend to early warning, general intelligence gathering, weapons guidance, near-real-time communications, and beyond.

American officials have already said in the past that American assets in space are routinely the target of “reversible attacks,” meaning ones that do not cause permanent damage. That also speaks to the difficulty of attribution if there is no lasting effect or impact to draw attention to.

The U.S. government’s long-time monopoly on the space domain has also been steadily eroding in recent years, especially in light of China’s massive expansion of its intelligence-gathering and other satellite constellations. The scale and scope of what commercial satellite imagery and other space services providers, like ICEYE, offer today have led to a further democratization of space-based capabilities to countries like Ukraine that do not possess significant, if any, constellations of their own.

All of this, in turn, has increasingly driven the U.S. military, specifically, to plan for more proactive operations and potential direct conflict in orbit to ensure it retains its edge going forward. The aforementioned disclosure of U.S. on-orbit weapons is indicative of those developments and an accompanying shift in U.S. policy to be more open about counter-space capabilities.

More details may yet emerge about Kosmos 2612 and its recent rendezvous in orbit with ICEYE X36, but it already points to how space has become an increasingly likely potential zone for direct conflict going forward.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Lawmakers adjourn second session as one party tells members to abstain over unclear commitment.

Egypt’s parliament has delayed a vote on authorising its armed forces to support Saudi Arabia, which has come under increasing attack from the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.

The vote has been adjourned to October 26, the House of Representatives said on Monday. The move prolongs the debate over Egypt’s role in the Yemeni conflict.

The opposition Egyptian Social Democratic Party said it had told its lawmakers to abstain.

The party said parliament had not been given enough information about the mission’s objectives, duration, cost, or the risks to Egyptian troops.

However, the party, which holds nearly a dozen seats, said most of its lawmakers support the measure, according to two members of parliament who spoke to the AFP news agency.

The parliament has been tasked with authorising President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to approve any request from Saudi Arabia for defence assistance amid attacks on the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthis.

The call for support came after the Iran-backed rebel group attacked Riyadh’s international airport and the state oil company Saudi Aramco last week. Saudi authorities say 13 people were killed in the October 10 attack on the airport.

El-Sisi said on Saturday that Egypt would take “any measure” needed to protect its Gulf allies.

“I’m not talking about confronting or attacking anyone,” el-Sisi said. “We’re talking only about defence.”

After approval from the National Defence Council, chaired by el-Sisi, Egypt’s constitution requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority to send troops on a combat mission abroad. The council gave its approval on Sunday.

Egypt’s rocky economy

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar urged Arab and Muslim leaders on Sunday to mediate Egypt’s parliamentary decision and avert further bloodshed.

Saudi Arabia holds an important role in financing Egypt’s rocky economy. It is due to deposit $5.3bn into Egypt’s central bank this month, plus $267.39m in interest.

Egypt’s EGX30 stock index fell early on Monday amid concerns about possible military involvement but recovered to close 0.4 percent higher.

Nematallah Choucri, head of research at HC Securities, told the Reuters news agency that geopolitical developments are the main driver of recent market losses.

Egypt is also affected by the shortage of oil and gas exports from the Middle East due to the United States war on Iran and fighting in Yemen.

Egypt’s economy is heavily dependent on remittances from Egyptians working in the hydrocarbons industry in Saudi Arabia.

Suez Canal threat

Political analyst and Gulf studies expert Thomas Bonnie James told Al Jazeera that the Houthi security threat to Saudi Arabia also threatens the Suez Canal, which Egypt’s foreign minister says has lost about $11bn since the Houthis launched attacks in the Bab al-Mandeb strait in solidarity with Gaza in 2023.

James also said Egypt does not want to be seen as the regional ally that “stood aside while others defended the kingdom”.

Turkiye and Pakistan have made their own pledges after activating the Mecca defence pact with Riyadh, signed in August, amid the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East.

First Lady Melania Trump has championed the executive action as a ‘transformative moment’ for US women’s health.

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will establish a dedicated women’s health division within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as a White House task force focused on the subject.

During a signing ceremony in Washington on Monday, First Lady Melania Trump praised the initiative as setting “a new standard for women’s health in America”.

“This is a transformative moment for women in America. Beginning today, we will change the reality of women’s health,” she said.

“Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”

The newly minted project, spearheaded by the first lady, requires the new health division to be established within 90 days.

It aims to accelerate scientific discoveries, expand clinical access for women’s health and modernise care throughout every stage of a woman’s life.

The new division at the NIH will not replace the agency’s Office of Research on Women’s Health but will have a broader mandate beyond research, according to the White House.

Melania Trump gestured to “super intelligence, advanced biotechnology and groundbreaking therapies” as tools that offer a “unique chance to reinvent women’s healthcare”.

The first lady’s office has identified “five pillars” for innovation in the field. One involves funding targeted research to develop cures for diseases that affect women, such as endometriosis.

Another calls for a quicker timeline for “promising therapeutics” to reach female patients.

“In 2026, medical advances can do more than just prolong life,” said Melania Trump. “It should give women the freedom to live life to its fullest, to pursue our dreams, experience love, discover, create, travel and lead.”

The White House task force will be co-chaired by the newly cancer-free White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as well as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

While Monday’s executive order mandates that the HHS must fund the administrative costs of the task force, the order itself does not include any specific funding targets or dollar amounts.

Experts have noted that Melania Trump has kept a relatively low profile during Trump’s second term.

Her public appearances have been fewer than during Trump’s first term, though she has stepped into the public spotlight to promote improvements to foster care and the role of technology, such as artificial intelligence in education.

During Trump’s first term, the first lady launched the “Be Best” campaign focused on child well-being, safe social media and countering opioid abuse.

But critics have questioned how effective Monday’s executive order might be, given the cuts Trump has made to the federal workforce since his second inauguration.

Thousands of employees have been laid off at the NIH alone, with Kaiser Health News reporting that its workforce is at its lowest level in decades.

The NIH was also given a deadline to slash spending by 35 percent across all of its divisions, amounting to a massive $2.6bn budget reduction.

In April 2025, the HHS drew widespread condemnation and a multi-state lawsuit after abruptly moving to terminate regional contracts for the Women’s Health Initiative, the nation’s largest longitudinal study on older women’s health at the time.

Critics warned that the move would jeopardise life-saving research on cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporotic fractures for senior women.

Ukrainians have died because Kyiv is still not receiving reliable US warnings of incoming Russian attacks, according to a key adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov told the BBC that lives had been lost because there had not been time to warn citizens about ballistic missile strikes, saying: “It’s dangerous… I think it’s really very bad… People [have] already died.”

The adviser also said restrictions to Ukraine’s use of the Starlink internet network were ongoing.

The White House said there had been no changes to intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Ukraine first reported an interruption to US intelligence sharing last week, as a row with the Trump administrations over its controversial deal to import Russian oil sent relations to new lows.

Despite the denials from Washington, many in Kyiv suspect the issues are not a coincidence.

On Monday morning, Zelensky wrote on social media: “Overnight two ballistic missile attacks were reported on the capital, one without warning, the second with only minimal time to take shelter.”

Hours earlier, an interview the president did with NBC was published, in which he said intelligence sharing had been restored after a three-day pause.

“We are very thankful for this,” he said. “Only [the] United States has this unique intelligence to tell our side when Russia uses ballistic missiles.”

But Beskrestnov told the BBC that American intelligence continued to be incomplete and inconsistent, and that the US had failed to provide a clear explanation for the issue.

“This looks very strange,” he said. “Sometimes we receive this information before the attack, another time we [do] not.”

He continued: “And for example, last night we received it, but… one minute before the attack.”

However, he said other collaboration with US continues, adding: “Intelligence data keeps flowing, and the issue is solely with the air raid alert component.”

Beskrestnov also said the US had given no clarity about who was responsible for the ongoing restrictions to the Starlink internet network and its military service Starshield, which Kyiv uses to provide connectivity for drones, helicopters and military communications.

Last week, Starshield restricted the speed at which mobile units could move while staying connected to the network to 100mph (160km/h).

This has limited Ukraine’s ability to shoot down incoming drones or to launch mid-range drone attacks into Russian-occupied areas.

Starlink owner Elon Musk said last week that the US government ultimately controls access to Starshield, which was designed for the Pentagon, suggesting it may therefore be behind the restrictions. Trump has denied involvement.

Beskrestnov said he thought both issues occurring at the same time was “probably” a deliberate move to put pressure on Ukraine.

He told BBC News: “It’s probably the United States trying to say [to] us, ‘let’s have the conversation, negotiation with Russia, you should find the compromise’.”

Beskrestnov also said Ukraine had its own radar data to provide some limited warning of incoming attacks, but was urgently looking into using alternative communication systems.

He added: “Now we understand that something begins to happen with Starlink, and we’re not sure what will be the next step.

“We understand that we should be prepared for some problems in future. And now we’re thinking about an alternative for Starlink, not only for air defence, for communication between our forces, between our staff, for civilians also, because we don’t know what we should expect in future regarding Starlink.”

On Monday, when asked about intelligence sharing, Trump said: “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. They’ve given us nothing.”

Earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said there had not been a “pause” to intelligence sharing.

“I don’t know where [Zelensky is] getting these things or why he’s saying these things to the press,” he told reporters on Monday.

Rubio said he could not comment on the incident, adding: “I know a few nights ago there was a software problem involving their early warning system.”

The BBC has contacted Starlink for a response.

A White House official said there were no changes to intelligence sharing operations between the US and Ukraine.

The official spoke on background to discuss intelligence matters. Trump is focused on ending the war, the official said, and added that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than any other country.

Russian attacks continued late on Monday, with Ukrainian officials saying at least six people were killed – including a toddler in her pram and an 11-year-old girl – in a drone strike near a park café in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.

Zelensky described the attack in which another 14 people were injured as “absolute atrocity”.

The extension of the custody of the CJP activists comes amid a crackdown on near daily protests against the government.

An Indian ‌‌court has extended the detention of two leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).

The extension for Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das on Monday comes amid a crackdown on near-daily protests against the government.

The two activists from the youth-led movement were arrested as they demonstrated at a historic protest venue despite a ban. Their jailing provoked a new protest in New Delhi on Friday.

The CJP is a major force behind the protests, which have demanded the resignation of India’s election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya ⁠⁠Janata Party (BJP).

Ranka and Das were ⁠⁠among 14 protesters who climbed over barricades last week to enter the Jantar Mantar observatory, the day after it was removed from a list of approved demonstration sites. A court later sent the activists to prison for five days.

Indian media reported on Monday evening that they had been detained for two more days after police requested extra time to question them. Delhi ‌‌Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This is an absolute mockery of the judicial system,” the CJP’s legal head, Ratna Singh, told reporters outside the court, adding that the party would challenge the order in a higher court.

The CJP, alongside opposition parties and left-wing student organisations, has led near-daily protests this month demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, after 130 million names were removed from voter lists.

The Election Commission has said that the lists included 28 million people who have died, 63 million who have relocated, and 30 million who could not be traced. It denied favouring any party and said ⁠⁠wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol.

The BJP has accused rivals of trying to undermine democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, student leaders and several of their supporters were also detained on Friday as ⁠⁠hundreds poured into central Delhi for a protest in support of Das and Ranka.

However, the youth-led movement insists it will not back off. A sit-in by the CJP and its supporters earlier this year forced the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over exam paper leaks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled an updated national security doctrine and displayed a map of rival regional alignments, signalling a security approach that prioritises preemptive military action, the expansion of buffer zones, and the pursuit of new regional partnerships.

The document was developed with the assistance of Israel’s National Security Council and published by the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday, just nine days before Israel’s parliamentary elections that could spell the end of Netanyahu’s time in office. It outlines a formal policy of preventing perceived threats through military action rather than containment – a policy that has already been seen in action over the past few years, as Israel pursues multiple wars and attacks on its neighbours.

Electoral survival strategy

The timing of the map’s release carries particular political significance, with Netanyahu fighting to retain power amid criticism of his conduct in power, the ongoing corruption trial he faces and his handling of the October 7, 2023, attacks, as well as the wars that followed.

As the October 27 election day draws closer, Netanyahu is attempting to bolster his credentials as Israel’s ‘Mr Security’, hoping to get the votes of Israelis who may not like some of his other policies or behaviour, but still view him as the most likely leader to defend the country.

Netanyahu, who did get the endorsement of US President Donald Trump on Sunday, said during the briefing that Israel could face the possibility of a far less supportive administration in Washington in two years, after the end of the Trump presidency.

“In two years, a president… who is extremely hostile to Israel could come to power [in the United States],” Netanyahu warned.

He therefore argued that Israel must “expand our network of alliances and develop capabilities that make us a valuable asset” to other countries as a way of protecting itself if US policy towards it changed.

The comments, according to analysts, suggest that Netanyahu is seeking to portray his leadership as essential to navigating both Israel’s regional military challenges and its diplomatic isolation, all while keeping a fearful electorate reassured.

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, explained that the strategic presentation centred on competing regional blocs and buffer zones.

That framework “incubates and nurtures existential fears, which would lead Israeli voters to feel the need for a decisive leader”, Hage Ali noted.

In his assessment, Netanyahu stands to benefit from the Israeli public’s fear of regional threats by presenting himself as a familiar leader capable of managing them, making him “the devil you know”, as the analyst put it, to voters reluctant to embrace political change at a sensitive time.

Netanyahu’s political opponents have been quick to push back against that narrative.

Gadi Eisenkot, one of the prime minister’s main challengers in the upcoming election, said that the published doctrine was “two hollow pages, full of slogans that have nothing to do with a security concept”.

Another, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, described the document as “superficial”.

Expanding security zones

The map displayed during Netanyahu’s briefing was originally published in May by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German political foundation. It divides the Middle East and parts of Africa into competing blocs, highlighting the region’s complex network of alliances and rivalries.

Those networks include states, unrecognised entities and non-state actors.

The map identifies an Israel-United Arab Emirates alignment, described as the “Hexagon Alliance”, alongside a separate grouping of Egypt, Turkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – the latter three of which signed the Mecca mutual defence pact in August – labelled the “Sunni Diamond Alliance”. It also depicts Iran and its regional allies as a separate axis.

The map serves to illustrate the issues outlined in the published security doctrine, presenting a region where Israel faces multiple threats, the alliance that Israel is seeking to cultivate across the wider region, and the perceived need for “buffer zones” – the occupation of territory in other countries.

Israel’s existing illegal occupation of territory in Gaza and southern Lebanon illustrates the potential consequences of expanding the buffer zone approach.

Hage Ali warned that continuing to pursue an approach built around expanding military control could lead to “more conflict and more ethnic cleansing” under the guise of security buffers.

Embracing regional factions

A striking element of the map displayed by Netanyahu is its explicit designation of non-state actors as friendly entities.

The map highlights territories controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan and Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army within an alignment deemed cooperative to Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel views these actors as pragmatic partners or at least cooperative entities in a broader strategic grid, Hage Ali explained. However, the public association of these groups with Israel threatens to damage their domestic standing across the Arab world.

That reflects Netanyahu’s immediate priorities, where “what Israelis think matters more than the reputation of your allies and the viability of these alliances”, Hage Ali added.

The portrayal of the Middle East as a region divided into competing alliances also carries risks for Netanyahu’s broader diplomatic ambitions.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu proposed a “hexagon of alliances”, envisaging cooperation between Israel, India, Greece, Cyprus and unnamed Arab, African and Asian partners, against what he described as “radical” regional alliances.

The proposed grouping has not been established as a formal alliance, and commentators in Israel and the international press have described the project as a branding exercise rather than a binding military pact, noting that countries like India prioritise non-alignment and pragmatic trade over ideologically rigid blocs.

For Tehran and its regional partners, the map also offers potent political leverage.

Hage Ali emphasised that the visual layout “will certainly help their propaganda machine”, providing Hezbollah and other Iranian allies with evidence to reinforce the narrative that Israel seeks to expand and dominate the region.

US federal prosecutors allege the defendant was in frequent contact with unnamed member of royal family.

An ex-OpenAI engineer accused of planting a recording device in an executive conference room at the AI company appears to have received considerable support from the Saudi government, United States prosecutors have said in a court filing.

Federal prosecutors allege that the defendant, Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, was in frequent communication with an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family and that a Saudi military official paid for a one-way plane ticket for Alfozan’s wife and young son to return to Saudi Arabia after his arrest, according to the court document, made public late on Sunday.

Prosecutors made those allegations as they asked a federal judge to keep Alfozan in US custody to await trial, arguing he is a flight risk. Alfozan, a Saudi national and lawful permanent resident in the US, is scheduled to appear in federal court in San Francisco later on Monday.

The case has highlighted security challenges around sensitive AI research as companies and governments compete fiercely for an edge in the transformational technology.

“The defendant went to significant lengths to create customized, encrypted recording devices to secretly record highly sensitive meetings involving senior OpenAI personnel and executives, high-level business counterparts, and government officials, all while communicating with individuals of significance in Saudi Arabia and pursuing opportunities in — and making plans to travel to — Saudi Arabia,” prosecutors wrote in a detention memo.

The Saudi government media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Alfozan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawyer, William Pernik, previously asked for Alfozan to be released from custody, subject to conditions including location monitoring and surrendering his passport, and said Alfozan had spent the last 15 years in the US and had applied to become a citizen.

The lawyer said a planned trip by Alfozan to Saudi Arabia this month was booked before he was under investigation and was for “family and immigration reasons”, according to a court filing.

Investigation remains active

US prosecutors charged Alfozan last week with using an electronic device to intercept oral communications. Alfozan plugged a recording device into the back of a television in an executive conference room at one of OpenAI’s San Francisco buildings, according to a criminal complaint.

Meetings involving government officials took place in the conference room around the time the device was installed, according to the prosecutors’ detention memo.

Prosecutors said the investigation remains active and additional charges could be brought against Alfozan.

A member of the Saudi royal family sought to recruit Alfozan for an AI-focused role in Saudi Arabia, writing in one message, “Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!” Alfozan replied, “100,” according to messages cited by prosecutors.

Before his arrest, Alfozan was scheduled to fly to Riyadh during a planned two-month parental leave. His wife told investigators that she and their son planned to move permanently to Saudi Arabia and that Alfozan eventually intended to join them, according to prosecutors.

In an Arabic-language interview on the Identity Capital podcast last month, Alfozan said that he visits Saudi Arabia three or four times a year, follows developments there and advises or mentors Saudi startups.

He said meeting Prince Mohammed bin Salman, then deputy crown prince, during a 2016 gathering with young Saudi tech workers in Silicon Valley persuaded him to learn at a top tech company before bringing those skills back home.

While Alfozan was working at Facebook, he and other Saudis in Silicon Valley formed a consulting initiative that linked Saudi public- and private-sector organisations with expertise in big data, the internet of things and machine learning.

OpenAI previously said it discovered the device on September 30 and referred the matter to the FBI.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the Saudi embassy for comment.

Chuck Schumer urges FCC to reject petition allowing AI robocalls ahead of key November midterm elections.

United States Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to approve a petition by the conservative group Club for Growth to allow AI-generated robocalls ahead of the November midterm elections.

“Under this change, campaigns could use their opponents’ voice to send out a message that is, at best, disingenuous and, at worst, a blatant lie,” Schumer said on Monday.

The petition was originally filed on August 31, and the public comment period began on September 4 and expires on Monday.

Earlier this month, Anna Gomez, the Democratic member of the FCC, urged her colleagues not to allow consideration of the petition brought by the national conservative fiscal policy organisation.

Her concerns echoed Schumer’s. “[If] the FCC allows a dark money group to flood Americans’ phones with AI-generated robocalls they never agreed to receive, it would bring chaos so close to Election Day,” commissioner Gomez told the Reuters news agency at the time.

There is precedent for the concerns being raised. In the 2024 presidential election, ahead of the New Hampshire primary, voters received an AI-generated version in the voice of President Joe Biden, the then Democratic incumbent, telling them not to vote. The FCC said that a political consultant working with longshot primary challenger Dean Phillips was responsible.

At the state level, Louisiana, Tennessee and Vermont passed laws this year requiring disclosures for AI-generated campaign phone calls. While robocalls have been used in political campaigns for years, FCC rules prohibit such calls to cellphones without prior consent, but the restrictions do not apply to landlines.

Club for Growth’s president, David McIntosh, in a statement earlier this month, said that the group is asking for “the FCC to treat First Amendment-protected political speech the same way it already treats wireless calls about package deliveries, bank accounts, and doctor’s appointments”.

“There is no one at the FCC that has expressed any interest in moving to an order on this or any of the petitions, and there are zero plans to do so. The FCC seeks comment on petitions that come in as a matter of normal procedure,” a spokesperson for the FCC told Al Jazeera.