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War & Peace
'A Serious and Alarming Threat': US Bombing, Blockade Deepen Iran Medical Crisis
"The most serious risk is premature death," said one physician.
Sep 09, 2026
A senior Iranian health official on Tuesday accused the United States of deliberately targeting Iran's medical infrastructure amid a worsening shortage of critical medicines as President Donald Trump's illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran drags on.
Iran's pharmaceutical system is straining under US bombing, blockade, and sanctions that have severely disrupted trade and transportation in the Middle East nation of around 90 million people. Iranian officials say shortages of roughly 800 medicines—including dozens of essential drugs—are affecting the treatment of cancer and other serious illnesses.
“The enemy has identified medicine as one of the sensitive areas of the country, and is trying to denigrate and portray Iran’s conditions as unfavorable by releasing content in the press and social media," Deputy Health Minister Mahdi Pirsalehi, who also heads Iran's Food and Drug Administration, told Al Jazeera.
Pirsalehi has said that more than 50 factories and pharmacies have been damaged or destroyed by US and Israeli bombing during the six-month war. The attacks have exacerbated existing shortages.
One gastroenterologist and university professor in Tehran, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, sounded the alarm on what she called a "staggering" rise in drug prices—including for domestically produced generic medications—caused in significant part by the US naval blockade.
“Reports that rotavirus vaccine imports have been halted because of the maritime blockade—and that influenza vaccines may soon face the same problem—represent a serious and alarming threat to nationwide efforts to prevent vaccine-preventable communicable diseases,” she said.
“Runaway inflation, poverty, and inadequate access to essential food groups among vulnerable populations, including infants, children, and pregnant women, signal the onset and spread of malnutrition,” she added, warning of the risk “of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases, creating a vicious cycle in which malnutrition develops and progressively worsens."
For ordinary Iranians, empty pharmacy shelves, delayed treatments, and prohibitively expensive prescription drugs have become the new normal.
One Iranian pharmaceutical company recently announced price increases for scores of drugs, including a 543% rise in the price of the Alzheimer's medication donepezil, a 308% higher cost for the antibiotic clarithromycin, and a 135% spike in acetaminophen and diphenhydramine syrups, according to reporting by Tasnim News Agency.
Dr. Hassan Nayeb Hashem told Deutsche Welle last month that "for many specific diseases, there is effectively no substitute" for prescribed drugs.
"If the medicine becomes inaccessible, patients can develop complications much sooner," he said. "The most serious risk is premature death."
One patient requiring testing for an abdominal and pelvic mass recently told Iran International that CT and MRI scans now cost over $100, even with Social Security insurance—the equivalent of a month's pay for many Iranians.
“How are we supposed to pay these costs with such meager incomes?” they asked.
A 33-year-old man said the exorbitant cost of dental treatment has left him without half of his teeth.
“I feel like I’m 60,” he said. “The bitter part is that this humiliating way of life has become normal for me.”
Another Iranian said they feared what would happen if anyone in their family got sick this winter.
“We’re stressed about where we would get the money for treatment," they said, "if God forbid we or our children even catch a cold."
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As Netanyahu Threatens Libel Suit, Haaretz ‘Stands By Its Reporting’ on 10/7 Attack
"As always when a story really hits home, Netanyahu threatens to sue," said one researcher.
Sep 09, 2026
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz did not appear alarmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's threat on Wednesday to sue the outlet over its new reporting that Netanyahu was explicitly warned about the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and led to the Israel Defense Forces' destruction of Gaza.
After Netanyahu sent a "warning letter" saying he would file a libel lawsuit against Haaretz and journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval over their Tuesday report, the newspaper said simply in a post on social media, "Haaretz stands by its reporting."
The newspaper based its reporting on accounts from three senior foreign sources, reporting that in September 2023, now-deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had told an intermediary trusted by both Hamas and Israeli intelligence agencies that an "earthquake" would be coming to Israel.
The warning reportedly came after Sinwar had grown frustrated with deadlocked talks over an exchange of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners.
Sinwar told the intermediary to convey a message to the United Arab Emirates, with whom Netanyahu had developed close ties, "that I am preparing the mother of all surprises. A terrifying operation. Something extraordinary."
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed then gave a warning to Netanyahu in a 45-minute phone call weeks before the attack, according to Haaretz.
Netanyahu lashed out at the newspaper in a social media post, saying the reporters "fabricated a false story against the prime minister that never happened and was never created."
"The Prime Minister's Office, the National Security Council, and the military secretary meticulously reviewed the prime minister's call log for those days—and found no trace of it whatsoever," said Netanyahu, who is behind his top opponent, former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, in polls ahead of legislative elections set for October 27.
Netanyahu's official social media account also confirmed he had instructed his lawyers to file the libel lawsuit. He blamed security officials for failing to alert him to the October 7 attack early enough after it had begun, repeating a recent claim that they feared he would launch an aggressive response to the attack and set off a war.
"If, instead of fearing a miscalculation, they had instructed the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the standby units to preempt the blow, and if they had updated Prime Minister Netanyahu in time, the terrible massacre could have been prevented," said Netanyahu's official account.
Netanyahu has been attempting to account for his actions on October 7 recently, releasing his full schedule from the day of the attacks last week. The log showed he did not speak to IDF officials until several hours after the attack began.
Researcher Shaiel Ben-Ephraim compared Netanyahu's threat to sue Haaretz to his angry response earlier this year to a report by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, which included testimony from 14 Palestinians who said they had been sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons or during attacks by the IDF or Israeli settlers.
Netanyahu claimed the Times' reporting was "blood libel" as he threatened to take legal action in May. Thus far, he has not followed through on the threat.
"This will likely end up just like the time he threatened to sue The New York Times," said Ben-Ephraim, "and didn't because every word was true."
On Tuesday, four Israeli opposition leaders called for an independent commission to investigate the October 7 attacks, citing a "series" of revelations about Netanyahu's actions and reported inaction ahead of the assault.
“Netanyahu and his partners in the October 7 government are unfit to continue in office,” they wrote. “We will work in coordination and with the required responsibility to prevent them from leading to another disaster.”
The prime minister has long resisted calls for an independent investigation, agreeing earlier this year only to a proposal in which half of the commission's members would be selected by Netanyahu's own government, in violation of Israeli law—a suggestion that one opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called a "shameful farce" that was meant to "help the prime minister duck responsibility."
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Amnesty Says US-Israeli Attacks With Indiscriminate Weapons in Tehran May Have Been War Crimes
"The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians has foreseeably indiscriminate effects and as such is prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Sep 08, 2026
The recent resumption of US airstrikes in Iran, including on a wedding party where at least 25 civilians were killed last week, made Amnesty International's Tuesday report on previous suspected US-Israeli attacks in Tehran in the early days of the war all the more urgent, said the organization as it pointed to new evidence of potential war crimes by the American and Israeli militaries in the densely populated Iranian capital.
Amnesty analyzed US-Israeli airstrikes on three residential neighborhoods—Resalat, Niloufar, and Javadieh—between March 1-13, in which the coalition used "explosive weapons with wide-area effects," killing at least 41 civilians and damaging multiple homes, a school, businesses, and other civilian infrastructure.
“Amid the resumption of US strikes in Iran and renewed threats by US President Donald Trump to target civilian infrastructure, it is imperative that the US and Israel end all unlawful attacks and strictly comply with international humanitarian law, including by taking all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects during the planning and execution of military operations," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.
The group noted that military infrastructure and police stations—which could be considered legitimate military targets in Iran, as the police forces are part of the broader armed forces there—were struck in the attacks in question. Israel and the US have not publicly claimed responsibility for the three specific attacks, but they announced strikes against Iranian "regime" targets in Tehran at the time of the airstrikes.
Amnesty emphasized that even if military and police buildings were the primary targets, "a large presence of civilians was clearly foreseeable" when the US and Israel evidently carried out the attacks in the three neighborhoods, which "resulted in devastating and yet entirely predictable consequences for civilians."
International law demands that warring parties do not carry out "indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks" that could harm civilians across the surrounding area, said the group.
Military leaders, said Amnesty, are also obligated to "choose weapon types and attack methods that reduce the risk of harming civilians and destroying civilian objects."
"The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians has foreseeably indiscriminate effects and as such is prohibited under international humanitarian law," the group stated. "Additionally, an attacking party remains at all times bound by the principle of proportionality, weighing the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from an attack against the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects, including the reverberating humanitarian consequences resulting from the attack."
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians and disproportionate attacks are war crimes," said Amnesty.
The group analyzed satellite imagery and verified 60 videos of the three attacks, as well as reviewing public statements from officials in the US, Israel, and Iran to reach the determination that US and Israeli forces had potentially committed war crimes in the Tehran neighborhoods—a possibility the group said must be independently investigation.
In Niloufar, where at least 20 civilians were killed on March 1, eyewitness accounts described two explosions at around 9:00 pm local time, when restaurants and other businesses were open in the bustling neighborhood.
The attack directly struck a police station, but residential buildings and businesses were also struck.
A shop owner told Etemad Online that "before the attack… dozens of people were sitting in front of the cafés in the square. All the shops were open... When the police station was struck, those who were sitting on the pavement in front of the cafés were killed."
"The whole street was full of blood," they added. "I saw one person whose chest had been pierced by broken glass. Many children, women, and young people were killed here that night."
Callamard said that "the civilian death toll, the scale of destruction, the timing of the attacks, the impact on nearby civilian structures, and the lack of effective advance warnings point to alarming failures by the US-Israeli coalition to abide by the obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm and spare civilian objects."
At least 16 people were killed in Resalat on March 9, in an attack that heavily damaged a building belonging to the Basij battalion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as three buildings adjacent to the facility. Amnesty International confirmed that at least one of the buildings, known as Number 12, was a residence.
Satellite imagery from March 6, 2026 (left) shows the Basij facility and nearby buildings in the Resalat neighborhood. On March 21, 2026 (right), imagery shows four distinct buildings with heavy damage and destruction. (Photo by ©Planet Labs PBC)
Twelve members of the same family were killed when Number 12 was struck, and an informed source identified as Payam told Amnesty that "there were no military people, no special individuals, no one connected to the government, no important person" in the building.
"Everyone living [in Number 12] was ordinary civilians," he said. "The whole building was families.”
The husband of a 26-year-old woman who was killed in the attack told Etemad Online that the scene of the bombing was "so horrific that they will never leave my mind. Body parts were found separately... A hand had been thrown to the entrance of the road or onto the roof of a house."
The attack in Javadieh, a densely populated low-income neighborhood in Tehran, took place on March 13 and killed at least five civilians, with a police station on Ghorbani Street a possible target.
"The destruction and damage extended well beyond the police station, and affected homes, businesses, and other civilian structures across the surrounding neighborhood," said Amnesty. "State media reported that several nearby residential buildings were also destroyed and many others severely damaged."
Videos verified by Amnesty show the impact of the blast extending up to more than 50 meters (164 feet) away from the police station. A restaurant, bakery, and motorcycle shop were all damaged, as well as a number of residential buildings.
Amnesty called on the US, Israel, and Iran to coordinate inquiries by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission regarding allegations of "serious violations of international humanitarian law by all parties."
Tens of thousands of US and Israeli attacks on Iran have killed at least 1,469 civilians, including hundreds of children. Israel has also killed at least 4,333 people in Lebanon since early March, in retaliation for Hezbollah's strikes in response to the assault on Iran. In retaliatory strikes across the region, Iran has killed at least 50 people civilians, according to Amnesty.
“The US/Israeli strikes in Tehran investigated by Amnesty International may constitute indiscriminate attacks and amount to war crimes," said Callamard. "They must be the object of independent, impartial, effective, and transparent investigations."
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'Bombshell' Report Says UAE Explicitly Warned Netanyahu of October 7 Attack
Haaretz also reported that Hamas immediately offered to release all the Israeli hostages it had taken in the attack, demanding nothing in return, but Israel refused the deal.
Sep 08, 2026
Policy experts in the US and Middle East on Tuesday were among those responding to an "astonishing" new investigation from Haaretz, which detailed how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was alerted weeks before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that a "major event" was being planned by the Palestinian group—an assault that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and which Israel has responded to by slaughtering more than 73,000 Palestinians so far in Gaza.
Highlighting revelations contained in an upcoming book called Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, the Israeli newspaper reported that Netanayahu dismissed a warning about the attack from United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed, which came in a phone call in September 2023.
An adviser to bin Zayed said that according to the president, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar "was preparing for a major event" and "Israel should be ready."
The UAE leader advised Netanyahu to "find an economic solution" for Gaza and to calm tensions in the West Bank to "prevent escalation."
At the time, Hamas had been holding talks for months with intermediaries in hopes of pushing Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza, which it had imposed at varying levels of intensity for nearly two decades, since Hamas won legislative elections in 2006. Before the 2023 attack and Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza—which has been called a genocide by human rights groups and Holocaust experts—Israel's blockade had left 80% of Palestinians in Gaza dependent on aid and had raised the poverty rate from 40% in 2005 to 61.6% in 2023.
Hamas' talks had also focused on exchanging four Israeli prisoners who had been held in Gaza for several years for Palestinian prisoners, more than 5,200 of whom were being held in Israel at the time.
Haaretz reported that an intermediary known as "coal eyes," a member of the Fatah political party in Palestine who was trusted by both Hamas and the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, was told by Sinwar: "Convey a message to them that I am preparing the mother of all surprises. A terrifying operation. Something extraordinary."
The intermediary then conveyed the message to bin Zayed, who spoke directly to Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister, who is facing several opponents as he aims to hold onto power in Israel's upcoming elections, scheduled for October 27, reportedly told the UAE president that Israel was prepared for any attack and that the government believed Hamas was planning to operate in the West Bank.
He did not inform security or intelligence leaders about the information he received from the bin Zayed, Haaretz reported.
Netanyahu called the Haaretz report an "absolute lie" on Tuesday, while his top rival in the elections, former military commander Gadi Eisenkot, said on social media that the prime minister "received dozens of warnings for October 7 and ignored them all."
"His is unfit," said Eisenkot.
As Middle East Eye noted Tuesday, it has previously been reported by media outlets in Israel and elsewhere that Netanyahu had received a warning from Egyptian intelligence in the days before the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz also reported that Hamas offered to release all the civilians it had taken captive during the October 7 attack, in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The group did not demand anything in return, but Israeli officials reportedly rejected the offer.
The Israel Defense Forces have bombed schools, hospitals, and refugee camps and have killed thousands of children as well as journalists and aid workers in Gaza—all while claiming to be targeting Hamas. Attacks have continued, killing hundreds of Palestinians, even after a ceasefire deal was reached last October.
Settler attacks have also ramped up in the West Bank as Israeli officials have pushed to further annex the territory and make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.
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'Absolutely Bonkers' and 'Unacceptable': Trump Posts Map Showing US Takeovers of Other Nations
"As always, he is telling us what the plan is," said one critic. "We must take it seriously."
Sep 07, 2026
US President Donald Trump has spent his second term threatening takeovers of various other countries, from Canada and Cuba to Greenland, and on Monday he shared on social media a map that fueled fresh fears of his imperialist "Donroe Doctrine."
The map on Trump's Truth Social platform shows the US flag over not only the United States but also Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, and multiple countries in Central America and the Caribbean.
The post was swiftly condemned across platforms, with Congressman Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) declaring that "this is unacceptable."
Journalist Stephen Robinson wrote on X that "another world leader posting something like this would have to apologize before their immediate removal."
Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot and former Democratic US Senate candidate from Kentucky, wondered, "What would we do and say if the Chinese president posted a map of China taking over the Western Pacific?"
Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, similarly said: "What would happen if Xi Jinping posted a map where [China] has taken over all of East Asia, and [President Vladimir] Putin one of [Russia] having absorbed all of Western Europe? It would have been seen as either insane or dangerous—or both."
While some critics called Trump "absolutely bonkers" and "f*cking insane," Dr. Brian Goldman, a Canadian emergency physician who's also an author and broadcaster, asserted: "That's not insanity. That's intention."
Democratic strategist Michelle Kinney agreed, saying: "As always, he is telling us what the plan is. We must take it seriously."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, suggested that "the reason why Republicans attack education is so that people don't recognize the history that repeats itself."
Without directly mentioning Trump or his map, Mexican President Sheinbaum said in Spanish on Monday, "We reaffirm that Mexico is neither nor will be a colony or protectorate of any foreign country. Proudly we are a free, independent, and sovereign nation."
While Trump is a prolific poster, the map followed a series of posts from Sunday—including other maps and images produced with artificial intelligence—that led progressive influencer Harry Sisson to conclude that the president was "having a mental health episode online" and call for his removal from office.
"This man is unwell. 25th Amendment NOW," Sisson said, cataloging posts on a range of topics, from Trump's recent renaming of Lake Ontario amid tough trade talks with Canada, to the suggestion that New Mexico should be dubbed "New America."
The latter was ripped by several Democratic officials, including New Mexico's governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, who responded that her state's name "isn't up for debate—it's been ours since before the United States existed."
"What is up for debate? Who's showing up for working families," she continued. "While the president tries to distract Americans from his disastrous war in Iran, gas prices keep soaring. Americans are also spending more at the grocery store, losing access to healthcare and wondering if they'll ever be able to afford a home. Under Democratic leadership here in New Mexico, we're providing families with free childcare and college, protecting access to healthcare, and investing in housing. While the White House wastes time coloring on maps, Nuevo México is busy doing the work."
In addition to waging an illegal war on Iran, Trump this term has invaded Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro and take control of the country's oil reserves, become the US commander-in-chief to bomb the most countries, and killed over 225 people by blowing up boats allegedly smuggling drugs through international waters. He's also threatened to seize the Panama Canal and possibly attack nations including Colombia and Mexico.
As Iran has responded to Trump's war by restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the president has teased declaring the key waterway a US territory and naming it after himself. He's also dubbed the Gulf of Mexico "the Gulf of America" and fought to put his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
With the US midterm elections less than two months away, some Democrats in Congress have stepped up their critiques of Trump's foreign policy—including a delegation of progressive congressional lawmakers and candidates who headed to Uruguay last month for the third Pan-American Congress.
Shortly after that gathering, delegation member Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) stressed that "progressives reject the violent, imperialistic Donroe Doctrine, and believe in a foreign policy rooted in cooperation, diplomacy, and sovereign equality."
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'There Is No Ceasefire': Israel Kills 12 More in Lebanon, Including Children
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "apologists have to explain why killing kids happens so regularly and effortlessly," said one congressman who noted growing support for blocking US weapons to Israel.
Sep 07, 2026
A series of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon since Friday night have killed and wounded dozens of people, including women, children, and paramedics, despite a US-brokered ceasefire.
On Monday, Israeli strikes in Kfar Rumman killed 12 people: a paramedic and 11 people in a targeted residential building, including at least four women and two children, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health.
Al Jazeera reported that the attack on the targeted home killed three generations of one family, including a 2-month-old baby.
Another 11 people were killed in Lebanon on Sunday, and four others before that, bringing the death toll to 27, with at least 69 civilians wounded, according to the ministry. Women, children, medics, and journalists were among those harmed.
Those casualties followed Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claiming Friday that the IDF had taken control of Lebanon's Ali al-Taher ridge, about six miles from the border, and vowing that his country's military "will not withdraw from the security zone in Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed."
Since Hamas led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, resulting in the Israel Defense Forces' genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah has sided with Palestinians in the besieged exclave, and the IDF has been attacking southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has also backed Iran since the US and Israel began bombing the country in February, leading to renewed Israeli violence in Lebanon. In addition to slaughtering at least 73,658 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, the IDF has killed more than 8,900 Lebanese and injured over 30,6000, according to the ministry.
That bloodshed over the past few years has fueled calls for cutting off the billions of dollars in military aid that the United States gives Israel annually. US Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) issued one such call after the attacks on Monday, stressing on social media that "Israel strikes Lebanon and kills kids. They continue to strike Gaza and kill kids."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "apologists have to explain why killing kids happens so regularly and effortlessly," Pocan continued. "More and more members of Congress are saying it's time to #BlocktheBombs."
Although a June ceasefire brought some relief to the people of Lebanon, hundreds of thousands remain displaced by Israeli occupation and attacks. Agence France-Presse reported Monday that after the June ceasefire deal was reached, villagers returned home to Kfar Rumman.
Following the attack after midnight Monday, "an AFP photographer saw the building that was hit in Kfar Rumman had been destroyed, with school books and remnants of furniture strewn across the rubble," the agency detailed. It continued:
"Since we returned here, we've lived in fear," Fouad Chakaron told AFP.
He insisted the targeted building was inhabited by "peaceful people with no connection to anyone."
Neighbors fled after the strike, which also damaged nearby buildings, AFP's photographer said.
Multiple outlets noted that the IDF didn't issue an evacuation warning before the strikes on Kfar Rumman. Reuters pointed out that the IDF claimed steps had been taken to mitigate harm "to uninvolved individuals, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance," and it is now reviewing the reported casualties.
The IDF said on social media Monday that it hit "several Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites across southern Lebanon, including a weapons storage facility. Additionally, the IDF struck terrorists who were identified transferring weapons in the area of Kfar Rumman, in order to remove the threat they posed. The strikes were in response to Hezbollah’s launch of two explosive drones toward IDF troops in the security zone."
The deadly strikes on Monday came after Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health announced Sunday that "the Israeli raids launched by the occupation forces this morning led to the complete destruction of the Ghandour Hospital in Nabatieh, which constitutes an additional serious violation of international humanitarian law that provides for the protection of health facilities."
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the destruction of the hospital, which was reportedly emptied of patients and staff, and highlighted that attacks in the area also "resulted in the fall of innocent victims and caused severe damage to the building of the Ministry of Finance there."
Israel's assault on the Nabatieh region is "a dangerous escalation," the president said, and "reveals a persistent pattern of attacks that goes beyond the alleged military targets to purely civilian administrations and health centers, reflecting a clear intent to strike the continuity of Lebanese institutions' operations and disrupt people's daily interests."
While Aoun said he holds "the Israeli side fully responsible for this ongoing escalation," he is also "calling on the United States of America and the international community to take urgent action to stop these violations and hold their perpetrators accountable, affirming that Lebanon, despite all these attacks, is committed to upholding its sovereignty, the stability of its south, and the safety of its citizens."
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Pentagon Launched 'Unprecedented' Polygraph Spree After Leaks Revealed Disastrous Truth About Iran War: NYT
Dozens of officers were grilled on whether they leaked classified information about the Iran War leaving the US with critical shortages in key munitions, The New York Times reported.
Sep 05, 2026
The US Department of Defense last month forced roughly 50 members of the military's Joint Staff to undergo polygraph exams as part of an effort to discover who leaked damaging information about President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, The New York Times reported on Friday.
According to the Times' sources, dozens of officers were strapped into polygraph machines and grilled on whether they leaked classified information about the war leaving the US with critical shortages in key munitions, including long-range missiles and Patriot interceptors.
The polygraph campaign "appeared aimed at not just ferreting out anyone who may have shared information, but intimidating others who might do so in the future," the Times reported.
The Times reported that the hunt for leakers has "intensified an atmosphere of deep distrust and paranoia inside the Pentagon" under the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has purged multiple top military officials during his tenure leading the department.
Ret. Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter told the Times that he has "never seen polygraphs employed this broadly or at this seniority level," adding that "in my experience, it’s unprecedented."
In a separate report published Friday, the Times revealed that a recent US intelligence assessment has determined that Iran is digging in for a long conflict with the American military, as it feels confident it can "exacerbate President Trump’s political problems ahead of the US midterm elections."
In fact, the intelligence indicates that Iran could be planning to escalate its campaign against the US in the coming weeks by attacking American bases in the Middle East and targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump unlawfully attacked Iran more than six months ago without any authorization from the US Congress. The war sent energy prices surging after Iran shut down shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply travels.
High gas prices have become a major political headache for Trump, and a recent analysis estimated that Americans have paid $71.5 billion more to fill up their cars thanks to the president’s war.
The cost of diesel fuel has also spiked since the start of the war, and data published by the American Automobile Association on Saturday showed the average price for diesel in the US now stands at a record $5.88 per gallon.
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50+ Rights Groups 'Strongly Urge' Congress to Reject US-Israeli Military Integration in NDAA
"The American people do not want American military integration with a country responsible for war crimes, international law violations, and mass killings amounting to genocide."
Sep 04, 2026
A coalition of over 50 rights groups on Thursday wrote to leaders in Congress to "strongly urge" them to reject not only specific proposals in each chamber's version of the next Pentagon budget, but also "any legislation seeking to intertwine US and Israeli defense or intelligence capabilities."
The provision in the House-approved National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 (HR 8800) is Section 219—previously titled Section 224—and the related but slightly different proposal in the pending Senate bill (S. 4784) is Section 1217. Congressional leadership is expected to negotiate a version of the full NDAA that can pass both GOP-controlled chambers.
"The provisions would establish a new US Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative aimed at accelerating joint research, development, and integration of Israeli-origin and jointly developed defense technologies into US military systems and programs of record," says the new letter to the chairs and ranking members of both Armed Services committees: Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-RI) and Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
"This would expand US-Israeli military integration across some of the most sensitive domains of emerging technology, including quantum computing, AI and autonomous systems, cyber and electronic warfare, directed energy, and defense industrial base co-production, while expediting pathways from R&D into procurement," notes the letter, first reported by Reuters.
Congressional consideration of the provision comes nearly three years into US-armed Israeli forces' campaign in the Gaza Strip—decried as genocide by many activists, experts, and governments around the world—in response to the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel. The violence has claimed over 73,000 Palestinian lives and continues, despite a nearly year-old ceasefire.
"Israel's grievous violations of US and international law and its other human rights violations include the use of US-supplied weapons in killing Palestinian civilians, extrajudicial killings by Israeli soldiers, the systemic use of torture and sexual abuse by Israeli security forces, and policies such as the withholding of humanitarian assistance, other forms of collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide," the coalition highlighted in its letter to lawmakers.
"These facts alone should prevent even the discussion of deepening military ties, especially given the complete inability of the United States to apply existing laws, such as the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act, that would require the suspension of US military aid and arms transfers to Israel," the groups argued. "The American people do not want American military integration with a country responsible for war crimes, international law violations, and mass killings amounting to genocide."
Pointing to polling that has shown growing opposition to US military aid to Israel "across the political spectrum," the coalition wrote that "Section 219/1217 works to hide continuing US military support to Israel from public scrutiny and congressional oversight and involvement. Far from working to shift the US-Israel relationship in line with American public opinion, this section encourages the direct use of Israeli-manufactured technology into the US' systems, which may render the United States dependent on Israel’s provision of such technologies, and make disentangling the relationship in the future ever more difficult."
"At a time in which American interests are increasingly diverging from those of Israel, and American public opinion is turning increasingly against unconditional support to Israel, creating new points of influence for Israel in the U.S. defense-technology ecosystem is exceptionally dangerous," stresses the letter.
It also sounds the alarm about Section 622 of the 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act, which was introduced in May by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and "would limit the president's ability to restrict America's intelligence-sharing and military collaboration with Israel by requiring the president to identify and document a specific national security concern that necessitates any changes, and expand intelligence sharing and cooperation with countries that have normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords."
"Governments have an obligation to ensure the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms when advancing their national security interests, including countering threats to their populations' right to privacy or other freedoms," the letter declares. "Intertwining US and Israeli information-gathering and defense raises significant concerns given the recent evidence of Israeli espionage against people in the US, including government officials."
Signatories include A New Policy, Amnesty International USA, Demand Progress, IfNotNow Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, Just Foreign Policy, National Lawyers Guild, National Nurses United, Peace Action, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, RootsAction, Win Without War, and dozens of other organizations.
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Amnesty Warns Israel Is 'Brazenly Expanding Its Annexation Agenda' in Occupied West Bank
"Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians."
Sep 03, 2026
Amnesty International said Thursday that the far-right Israeli government's recent flurry of land confiscation orders in the illegally occupied West Bank "deepens Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and further undermines the rights of Palestinians," who are facing an increasingly destructive and deadly wave of settler violence.
The new Amnesty report noted that in July alone, the Israeli military signed "at least 15 land confiscation orders covering approximately 200 dunams (20 hectares) of land in Areas A and C in the Jenin governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank, with the apparent goal of connecting two planned Israeli settlements in the area: Emek Dotan and Noa." Those two settlements are among the more than 30 approved this year by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"These latest confiscation orders from Area A show how Israel is now brazenly expanding its annexation agenda to areas that have been under the control of the Palestinian authorities since the Oslo Accords," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's region director for the Middle East and North Africa. "States with close trade and political relationships with the Israeli government must urgently take action to pressure Israel to rescind these land confiscation orders. Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians."
"Alongside Israel’s forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Area C," Morayef added, "these measures illustrate in action the Israeli authorities’ determination to intensify its formal annexation of Palestinian land across the occupied West Bank.”
Amnesty's analysis came amid another wave of settler violence in the West Bank over the past 24 hours. The BBC reported early Thursday that "funerals have taken place for two Palestinian teenagers who local officials say were killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in an attack on their village in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday."
"The village council in al-Mughayyir told the BBC that Omar al-Nassan, 19, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, were killed as they tried to stop Israeli settlers stealing sheep and that confrontations broke out," the outlet noted. "The Israeli military stated that its forces had entered the village to provide security for an Israeli civilian and police trying to retrieve livestock. It said they fired on and struck what it called 'key instigators' of a 'violent disturbance,' in which Palestinians threw stones at its troops."
The United Nations has tallied an average of nearly seven settler attacks per day in the West Bank this year, the highest number on record.
Amid the settler rampages as well as the ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has advanced "its controversial E1 settlement plan in violation of international law with an announcement that it has opened tenders for the construction of 1,234 Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank," Amnesty noted on Thursday.
"If implemented, the plan would isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory and will effectively divide the West Bank in two, making Palestinian movement across these areas of the occupied Palestinian territory more difficult and further fragmenting Palestinian communities," the group said.
Last last month, the European Union's diplomatic service called on the Israeli government to "withdraw the tender, halt its E1 plans as well as all other settlement expansion projects, and ensure accountability for settler violence."
But Morayef said Thursday that the international community must do much more than issue statements condemning the Israeli government's actions.
"States with close trade and political relationships with the Israeli government must urgently take action to pressure Israel to rescind these land confiscation orders," said Morayef. "Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians."
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Trump Condemned for 200+ Extrajudicial Killings After Yearlong Murder Spree at Sea
"This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings," said one legal expert.
Sep 02, 2026
Wednesday marked one year since President Donald Trump began bombing boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean—a grim anniversary that sparked a fresh wave of condemnation from rights advocates across the United States and beyond.
"For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications," said Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU's National Security Project, in a statement late Tuesday.
The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights are suing over the administration's refusal to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for a legal opinion authored by the US Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attempting to justify the strikes.
"These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration's own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States," Stein said. "We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed."
Despite mounting outrage over the bombings, which have killed at least 227 people and, as Amnesty International USA's national director for government relations, Amanda Klasing, highlighted Monday, "are illegal under both international and US law," the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to pass any war powers resolutions intended to stop the campaign.
"The Trump administration has summarily killed more than 200 people over the course of the past year, bragging about these killings online and facing no accountability," Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday. "The victims and their loved ones deserve a full accounting of these operations, and justice for the grave harm they have suffered."
After a two-month pause in the bombings, the administration revived them last week, launching a pair of attacks that killed at least six people, according to social media posts and aerial footage from US Southern Command. The strikes followed SOUTHCOM's early August announcement of an expanded operation across Latin America called Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.
As MS NOW noted Wednesday:
In September and October 2025, when the strikes began, US Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, linked three of the strikes to the Tren de Aragua and Ejército de Liberación Nacional criminal organizations. Most later strikes were described as targeting "a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations."
But the military's most recent two announcements of strikes simply stated that "confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking."
Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser who now advises the US Program at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet that "they are engaging in conduct that is widely regarded to be flagrantly illegal, criminal even, and have not offered anything approaching plausible legal rationale."
The OLC memo may be the administration's "permission slip," Finucane said, but it hasn't actually substantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with cartels that traffic drugs.
"This war framing on the part of the administration is really bogus," he added. "This is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings."
I don’t think there’s really even a colorable argument that this isn’t mass murder.theintercept.com/2026/09/02/m...
[image or embed]
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) September 2, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Several Democrats in Congress, from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) to Senate Minority Whip and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (Ill.), renewed their criticism of the boat bombings on Wednesday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said that "the most recent strike was four days ago. A year of killing, and this administration has never once come to Congress to justify any of it. This cannot become the way our country goes to war."
"The American people are already paying for one war they didn't want in the first place," he continued, nodding to the illegal six-month assault on Iran. "I fought in Iraq. I know what these wars cost, and I know who pays them. I will use every tool I have as a United States senator to stop this and to defend the Constitution."
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) noted that "it remains unclear whether these operations have made any real difference in stopping illegal drugs from reaching the United States."
"This is especially true for fentanyl," he noted, which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "have repeatedly claimed is the reason for these extrajudicial killings even though we know that it is cocaine—not fentanyl—that is typically shipped via small boats from South America."
Smith also called out the Department of Defense for failing "to publicly provide the costs of these operations, both in terms of dollars and readiness," and declared that "never before in my over 20 years on this committee have I seen such a staggering lack of transparency on behalf of an administration and DOD to meaningfully inform Congress of the use of lethal military force."
However, with Republicans holding narrow majorities in Congress and mostly still refusing to truly challenge the administration on the boat strikes—and various other violent actions around the world—some campaigners are also stepping up pressure on other governments.
"The Trump administration has had complete impunity for this campaign of unlawful killings for a year, and has stated openly that it has no intention of stopping," said Sawyer. "Other countries should refrain from any cooperation on these strikes, and Congress should urgently work to rein in the deadly actions of an administration bent on violating international law."
Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU's Human Rights Program, said that "the international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law."
"No other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful US government killings," Dakwar added, calling for an "independent international investigation into this lawless campaign."
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'We Are in a Constitutional Crisis': Congress Urged to Sue Trump to End Iran War
"Sitting and doing nothing is not an option and is eroding our democracy and system of checks and balances."
Sep 02, 2026
With no end in sight to President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, Congress is being urged to take legal action to bring the conflict to an end.
Jamal Abdi, executive director at National Iranian American Council (NIAC) Action, said on Wednesday that Congress must go to court to enforce the war powers resolution that passed in the House and the Senate earlier this year.
"We are in a constitutional crisis and our lawmakers cannot simply roll over or bide their time as Trump traps the country in an illegal forever war," said Abdi. "For the first time in US history, Congress has passed legislation mandating the president withdraw from the war, and now they must take him to court to enforce it."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution in July that would compel House Speaker Mike Johnson (D-La.) to sue Trump and enforce the will of Congress to end the war.
However, Abdi argued that US lawmakers are not moving with the proper urgency to stop Trump from continuing his illegal attacks on Iran, which have been carried out for more than six months despite receiving no congressional authorization.
"Congress must assert its authority as a co-equal branch of government and sue to end the administration’s illegal war," Abdi emphasized. “We need urgent action, not more deliberation. Sitting and doing nothing is not an option and is eroding our democracy and system of checks and balances."
According to Politico congressional reporter Riley Rogerson, Meeks on Tuesday said that there are currently no plans to bring up a new war powers resolution, although he didn't rule out taking action.
"Democrats are unsure how long the House will be in before the midterms," wrote Rogerson, "which makes planning a challenge."
Johnson on Tuesday showed no appetite for getting Congress more involved in the conflict during a testy exchange with CNN reporter Manu Raju, who asked the Louisiana Republican if the American public should judge him for the negative impact the war has had on their personal finances.
Speaker Johnson defensive about his past projections about the Iran war, including repeatedly saying it’s just a skirmish that would be over in short order and cause just a “temporary blip” in gas prices.
More than six months in, asked him if the public should judge him on his… pic.twitter.com/0BpVaGy6xC
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 1, 2026
"That is one of the stupidest questions you've ever asked," Johnson replied.
"What, why is that stupid?" Raju asked.
"I have nothing to do with the prosecution of the war across the globe," Johnson said.
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution states that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war.
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