Israeli soldier reveals ‘strange order’ to cancel Gaza border patrols on 7 Oct

The Cradle | July 31, 2025
An Israeli soldier stated that he and his fellow soldiers stationed at a military outpost near Gaza received orders not to carry out their usual early morning patrol on the border fence on 7 October 2023, Israeli media reported on 17 July.
During the time the border patrol would have normally been carried out, members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, crossed the fence to attack Israeli army bases and settlements (kibbutzim).
Shalom Sheetrit, a soldier in the Golani Brigade, revealed the directive while giving testimony at a meeting of the lobby for reserve personnel in the Israeli Knesset.
He stated that on the night before the 7 October attack, he and two other soldiers, Yotam Sror and Itamar Ben Yehuda, sat by the battalion radio at the Pega military outpost near Kibbutz Be’eri.
“We were playing on the phone [at 5:20 am] and suddenly a strange message comes from my battalion commander,” the soldier explained, “and what he says on the call is something like this: ‘I don’t know why, but an order was issued that there are no patrols at the fence until nine in the morning.’”
Sheetrit said soldiers from the outpost carried out patrols on the border fence every morning “because you are in an operational battalion and that is part of the matter.”
Hamas fighters attacked the Pega outpost and killed 14 Israeli soldiers there during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
When asked if this was why many soldiers at the outpost were still sleeping when the Hamas attack began, Sheetrit stated, “I don’t know how to answer it that way. In our mortar department, there was an alert at dawn, and we woke up. It’s possible that in the patrol departments, they were told not to wake up. I don’t know. I don’t want to just say that.”
Sheetrit stated that the military units based in the Pega outpost were responsible for protecting Kibbutz Be’eri, which was also attacked by Hamas.
“Unfortunately, we were not up to the task. There were dozens against hundreds of terrorists, 25 against 150, and so we couldn’t arrive, unfortunately. I’m far from being a military man who can give answers to questions, the situation hurts me just as it hurts everyone,” the soldier explained.
A major battle took place at Be’eri in which over 100 Israelis were killed.
After the attack began, the Israeli air force deployed Apache Helicopters, tanks, and drones to bomb the kibbutz and the Gaza border nearby to prevent Hamas from taking captives with them back to Gaza.
As a result, Israeli forces burned to death hundreds of Israeli civilians and Hamas fighters in airstrikes in Be’eri and other kibbutzim near the border, as well as at the Nova Music Festival, per a secretive policy known as the Hannibal Directive. The deaths were all quickly blamed on Hamas.
“I tried to ask military personnel why and what happened there. The blood of my friends and the blood of many people in the country was spilled in a huge tragedy, and I tried to understand why it happened and how,” Sheetrit added.
The strange order to cancel routine patrols along the Gaza border adds to evidence that Israeli political and military leaders knew in advance about Hamas’s plan to attack on 7 October – and allowed it to happen to justify the conquest and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the building of Jewish settlements on top of the ruins of the strip’s soon-to-be-destroyed cities.
Israeli military and intelligence officials ignored many signals on the night before the attack, and in the previous weeks and months, indicating that Hamas was planning a large attack to take captives to exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Female Israeli soldiers tasked to observe activity on the Gaza border issued multiple warnings to their superiors that an attack was imminent, but they were ignored.
“In hindsight, we could have done a lot of things, we could have listened to the observers, we could have brought up the air force, and these things didn’t happen,” Sheetrit concluded.
“That’s the failure. It’s not a failure of the fighters on the ground, but of the higher levels in the army, of people who went down to Eilat even though we informed them a week in advance that there was intelligence information.”
Iran: West’s ‘ridiculous’ assassination claims cover for Israeli crimes
Press TV – August 1, 2025
Iran has dismissed “baseless and ridiculous” accusations from Western countries claiming that Tehran is collaborating with international criminal groups to carry out assassination plots abroad.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei condemned on Friday the anti-Iran claims made by the United States, Canada and a dozen European states in their joint statement released the previous day.
He said the “blatant blame game” is an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, which is the Israeli genocide in the occupied Palestine.
“The United States, France, and other signatories to the anti-Iran statement must themselves be held accountable for actions that violate international law, as they support and host terrorist and violent elements and groups,” he added.
Baghaei touched on the unprovoked US-Israeli aggression against Iran in June and Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip against the backdrop of active support or approving silence of the 14 Western countries that signed the statement against the Islamic Republic.
He further denounced the accusations as “blatant lies and an escape forward, designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation.”
The 14 states must be held accountable for their “disgraceful and irresponsible” behavior that violates the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, the spokesman noted.
Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US alleged in their statement that Iranian intelligence agencies are engaged in attempts to “kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America.”
Venezuela under information attack: municipal elections and the war against truth
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 31, 2025
The municipal elections held in Venezuela on July 27, 2025, were accompanied by yet another coordinated international disinformation offensive. Under the pretext of “defending democracy,” corporate media outlets and Western NGOs heavily invested in attempts to delegitimize an electoral process that was broadly monitored, technically robust, and peacefully conducted.
This strategy is not new. It follows a well-tested guideline used against countries that resist the directives of U.S. foreign policy and its allies. The script is simple: preemptively accuse fraud, fabricate signs of repression, and distort post-election realities — all of it amplified through a digital and traditional media ecosystem fully aligned with geopolitical interests.
This year, however, a central piece of that machinery was dismantled by a rising international actor: the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN), a network created to monitor and combat disinformation campaigns. The organization — composed of journalists, legal experts, and international observers — was present in Venezuela during the vote and published an extensive report refuting the main allegations circulated by Western agencies.
Among the most widely spread falsehoods was the claim that opposition parties had been prevented from participating. However, official data from the National Electoral Council (CNE) show the opposite: opposition candidates not only participated but won in 50 out of 335 municipalities — something that would be impossible under any form of institutional obstruction. The truth is that certain radical opposition sectors, for political calculation, chose to boycott the elections and later use their own absence as supposed evidence of exclusion.
Another narrative dismantled was that of the “absence of international observers.” Despite repeated claims of Venezuela’s isolation, more than 1,400 observers from 45 countries were present — including representatives from the GFCN, Latin American organizations, and electoral rights institutes. They reported a calm environment, a notable voter turnout, and full freedom to conduct work. Observers even accompanied the parallel vote counting process between electronic and paper ballots — one of the most advanced audit mechanisms in Latin America.
Videos and images of allegedly empty polling stations also gained traction, suggesting massive abstention. However, the reality — confirmed both by CNE statistics and verified footage — showed a turnout rate of 44%. For a municipal election held amid an economic crisis fueled by international sanctions, this is a significant figure. Many regions saw lines, a festive atmosphere, and broad local journalistic coverage.
The old accusation concerning the so-called “red points” — government-organized social assistance tents on election days — was also recycled. Critics attempt to link these spaces to mechanisms of electoral coercion. But these services — food, medical aid, legal assistance — have existed for over two decades and continuously serve the population. There is no proven link between these activities and vote manipulation, nor has any formal complaint been filed with the CNE on this matter.
These attempts to distort reality have a clear goal: to justify the continuation of illegal sanctions and feed the narrative that Venezuela is under authoritarian rule. The paradox is striking — those who attack the legitimacy of Venezuela’s ballot boxes openly support parliamentary coups, self-proclaimed presidents, and interim governments backed by Washington.
Western coverage of Venezuela does not fail out of incompetence, but by design. It plays a well-defined geopolitical role: to destabilize independent governments, weaken national institutions, and portray Caracas as a hostile player in the Latin American chessboard. By dismantling these narratives with data, direct observation, and objective analysis, networks like the GFCN play an essential role in defending the truth — something that, today, is as strategic as the most valuable resources.
Canada continues arms transfers to Israel despite official denials: Report
Press TV – July 30, 2025
Canada has continued to supply weapons to the Israeli regime during its genocide in Gaza, contradicting official claims that such exports had stopped, a new investigation reveals.
Published by Arms Embargo Now Campaign (AEN) on Tuesday, newly uncovered shipping records and Israeli regime data show 47 documented shipments of military components from Canadian manufacturers to Israeli weapons firms between October 2023 and July 2025.
This includes over 421,000 bullets, with one shipment of 175,000 in April 2025.
Three cartridge shipments from a Quebec-based General Dynamics facility were also sent just nine days after Canada pledged to block munitions exports. These exports primarily supplied Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer.
This comes as former Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as current Prime Minister Mark Carney, have repeatedly insisted that Canada has restricted arms exports to Israel, this report uncovers.
In March 2024, Canada’s parliament passed a non-binding motion urging the government to suspend further arms sales to Israel.
As pressure continued to mount, in September of last year, Joly announced that the government had not approved any new export permits for Israel since January 8, 2024.
This report, however, unveils the hidden reality behind Canada’s public statements on arms exports to Israel, revealing a systematic deception that has enabled the flow of Canadian-made weapons directly into one of the deadliest military aggressions in modern history.
Canada is currently breaching its own domestic legislation and international legal obligations by continuing to supply arms to Israel amid the ongoing ethnic cleansing and widespread starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Several Western countries have continued to supply lethal weapons to the Israeli regime despite the enormous human toll caused by its genocide in the Palestinian territory.
At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 148,870 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Is Europe pushing for Palestinian statehood or Palestinian surrender?
By Malek al-Khoury | The Cradle | July 28, 2025
Since its inception in 1948, Israel has never operated within fixed borders. Expansion has always been its doctrine – not constrained by law, but propelled by force and endorsed by unwavering western support. Israel has refused to define its boundaries for almost eight decades because its very identity is rooted in a colonial ambition that has never truly ended.
From the Nakba (Catastrophe) to the Naksa (Setback), from territorial invasions to the annexation of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank, the occupation state has continued to redraw its borders according to power, not legitimacy.
This expansionist project has only grown stronger with the rise of the messianic-nationalist current inside Israel, which sees full control over “Greater Israel” as a historical right that cannot be compromised.
Today, 77 years since the Nakba, Israel has advanced to full-throttle expansion mode – dispossessing Palestinians, destroying entire towns and villages, entrenching illegal Jewish settlements, and enforcing apartheid. Yet paradoxically, European states like France and the UK are preparing to recognize a “Palestinian state” precisely when Palestinian political geography is at its most fragmented, and when the Zionist project is at its most aggressive.
So what does this recognition actually mean? Is it a strategic achievement for Palestinians, or a diplomatic ruse that rebrands surrender as success?
A state without borders, a project without restraint
The 1917 Balfour Declaration marked the formal launch of a settler-colonial project in Palestine. What followed was not immigration but calculated dispossession – from British-facilitated land seizures and massacres, to the mass expulsions of the 1948 Nakba, which ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians.
This was not mere colonialism. It was ethnic replacement: Land was seized under imperial protection, then militarily conquered. This campaign never ended. It continued with the occupation of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and escalated after 1967. Israel’s goal has never been coexistence. It has always been Jewish supremacy.
The 1947 UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181) granted over 55 percent of historic Palestine to the Zionist movement, despite Jews owning just six percent of the land. The Zionist movement accepted this on paper to gain international legitimacy, then immediately violated its terms, occupying 78 percent of the territory by force.
To this day, the occupation state has not adopted a formal constitution, and the reason is that basing itself on the Partition Plan would have constrained its expansionist ambitions. The Zionist doctrine never recognized final borders, instead establishing a state with no official frontiers – because its ambitions stretch beyond Palestinian geography to include parts of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.
The internal debate in Israel over declaring a “Jewish state” is not merely a legal argument, but an attempt to solidify an exclusionary and replacement-based identity – one that legally enshrines racial discrimination and denies Palestinians their status as an indigenous people.
Resistance realignment: 7 October and the Two-State shift
The earthquake triggered by Operation Al-Aqsa Flood shook not only Israel but also the political discourse of the Palestinian movement. Strikingly, Palestinian factions – including Hamas – have begun explicitly voicing support for the “Two-State Solution” after years of insisting on liberating historic Palestine in its entirety.
In an unprecedented statement, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said in May 2024:
“We are ready to engage positively with any serious initiative for a two-state solution, provided it entails a real Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and without settlements.”
This tactical adaptation signals a significant shift. Key Palestinian actors are now openly considering a truncated state. Is this a reflection of changing power dynamics? Or an imposed realignment under regional and international duress?
Recognition as Leverage: France, Saudi Arabia, and normalization
Last week, in a post on X, French President Emmanuel Macron said:
“Consistent with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine. I will make this solemn announcement before the United Nations General Assembly this coming September … We need an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and massive humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. We must also ensure the demilitarization of Hamas, secure and rebuild Gaza. And finally, we must build the State of Palestine, guarantee its viability, and ensure that by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, it contributes to the security of all in the region. There is no alternative.”
France’s anticipated recognition of a Palestinian state in September is not driven by principle, but is a hard, cold geopolitical maneuver. It would appear that Paris is seeking closer ties with Riyadh, which has tethered normalization with Tel Aviv to progress on the Palestinian file. French recognition is thus a calculated signal to Saudi Arabia – not a gesture of solidarity with Palestinians.
In this equation, Palestine becomes currency. Its statehood is not affirmed as a right, but dangled as a precondition in normalization deals between Arab monarchies and the occupation state.
Strategic alignments: The Ankara–London Axis
With a third of MPs calling on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognize Palestine, pressure is also piling on London.
In a statement, Starmer said:
“Alongside our closest allies, I am working on a pathway to peace in the region, focused on the practical solutions that will make a real difference to the lives of those that are suffering in this war. That pathway will set out the concrete steps needed to turn the ceasefire so desperately needed, into a lasting peace. Recognition of a Palestinian state has to be one of those steps. I am unequivocal about that.”
Britain, too, is not moving toward recognition out of moral clarity, but to reinforce its post-Brexit strategic axis with Turkiye. Ankara, a key trading partner of Israel and political backer of Hamas, views the recognition of Palestine as a tool to elevate its regional stature and energy leverage. For London, deepening ties with Turkiye promises economic and geopolitical dividends. The result is a converging Paris–Riyadh and Ankara–London recognition track.
Thus, two informal axes are forming: Paris–Riyadh and Ankara–London, both converging on the recognition of a Palestinian state. Yet neither axis approaches it from a principled belief in Palestinian rights, but rather through the lens of power, influence, and realpolitik.
The Palestinian state: Recognition without sovereignty
Even if every European country were to recognize Palestine, it would amount to little more than symbolism without enforcement. There would be no defined borders for the state, no control over its own territory, and no halt to the settlement expansion or annexation policies pursued by the occupation state.
Tel Aviv rejects the premise entirely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that any future Palestinian state would be “a platform to destroy Israel,” and that sovereign security control must remain with Israel. He has repeatedly ruled out a return to the conditions that existed prior to 7 October.
The reality is that 68 percent of the West Bank, classified as Area C, remains under full Israeli control. More than 750,000 settlers are embedded across that territory, under the full protection of the occupation army. How can a state exist on occupied, fragmented land, under constant siege, and without sovereignty?
“I’ve just returned from a lecture tour around the world, and I can confidently say Israel’s global image and position are at their lowest point in history,” writes Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini.
Yet despite this, Netanyahu’s far-right government is doubling down – pushing for full annexation of the occupied West Bank, eyeing new territorial footholds in Sinai, southern Syria, even Jordan, while maintaining military positions in south Lebanon.
Israel’s global brand may be eroding, but its strategic project is advancing.
If Israel is expanding and entrenching, while the Palestinian movement scales back demands and regional states normalize ties, what exactly has been achieved?
Resistance factions that once rejected Tel Aviv’s existence now propose statehood on its terms. European recognition comes with no teeth. Settlements grow. Displacement continues. This is not liberation. It is the burial of the dream under the guise of diplomacy.
The interim solution will become the final arrangement. The Palestinian “state” becomes a diplomatic euphemism – an empty structure praised in speeches, but denied on the ground.
FLAWED STUDY CLAIMS ALUMINUM IN VACCINES IS SAFE
The HighWire | July 24, 2025
As industry voices scramble to defend aluminum in childhood vaccines, a new Danish study is held up as “proof” of safety, until you look closer. Exclusions, flawed comparisons, and the lack of U.S. relevance raise serious questions. Is the science settled, or just carefully curated?
Calls for journal to retract Danish study after corrected data show link between aluminum in vaccines and autism
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 24, 2025
The authors of a recent Danish study widely reported on by mainstream media claimed they found no link between the aluminum in vaccines and autism.
However, corrected data added after the study’s original July 15 publication date show the authors got it wrong — in fact, the data in the study of 1.2 million children clearly indicate a link between aluminum in vaccines and autism, according to scientists with Children’s Health Defense (CHD) who reviewed the study and the corrected data.
On July 17, the Annals of Internal Medicine, which published the Danish study, added a disclaimer stating that it “included an incorrect version of the Supplementary Material at the time of initial publication.”
The updated materials are available with the link to the study at “Correction: Aluminum-Adsorbed Vaccines and Chronic Diseases in Childhood.”
CHD Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski broke the news of the buried autism link on Monday’s episode of “Good Morning, CHD.” Today, Jablonowski told The Defender :
“According to the corrected data, nearly 10 (9.7) of every 10,000 children who were vaccinated with a higher dose of aluminum (compared to a moderate dose) developed a neurodevelopmental disorder — mostly autism — between ages 2 and 5.”
On Monday, The Defender reached out to lead author Anders Hviid, a professor and department head of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut, for comment on the allegation that the corrected data show a link between increased aluminum exposure and autism. In response, we received an automated email from Hviid stating that he was “out-of-office for the summer,” until Aug. 11.
The study’s corresponding author, Niklas Worm Andersson, M.D, Ph.D., an epidemiology researcher at the Statens Serum Institut, did not respond to a request for comment.
On July 14 — a day before the study was published and three days before the journal issued a correction — Hviid told numerous media outlets that the study showed aluminum in vaccines does not cause autism.
As of press time today, the authors of the study had not revised their findings to concur with the corrected materials that contradict the findings they shared with media outlets.
NBC News, which reported on the uncorrected version of the study on July 14, criticized U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for saying during a 2024 “Joe Rogan Experience” interview that the aluminum in vaccines is “extremely neurotoxic.”
Last month, Kennedy appointed new members to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee. Last month, during the first meeting of the new members, they voted to remove thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury, from vaccines. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it formalized the recommendation.
Reuters reported that Kennedy also considered asking the committee to examine vaccines that contain aluminum, but to date, the CDC has not announced any new recommendations related to aluminum.
Danish researchers ‘completely obfuscated what they really found’
According to the authors of the Danish study:
“This nationwide cohort study did not find evidence supporting an increased risk for autoimmune, atopic or allergic, or neurodevelopmental disorders associated with early childhood exposure to aluminum-adsorbed vaccines.”
However, after reviewing the corrected data, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s chief scientific officer, told The Defender the authors “completely obfuscated what they really found — a statistically significant relationship between aluminum exposure and autism.”
The buried link appears on Figure 11 (page 19) of the corrected supplemental materials.
The original version showed that children who received a large dose of aluminum were not at greater risk of getting a neurodevelopmental diagnosis, including autism, than kids who received a small or moderate dose.
Yet the corrected version showed that kids who received a large dose had a statistically significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with autism or other “pervasive” developmental disorders compared to those who received a moderate dose of aluminum.
Jablonowski said he and Hooker determined that the results were statistically significant — meaning they couldn’t be attributed to chance — by looking at the confidence intervals for each statistic.
A confidence interval “shows the range of values you expect the true estimate to fall between if you redo the study many times.”
The corrected figure also showed that children who received a large dose of aluminum had a statistically significantly higher risk of Asperger’s syndrome compared to kids who received a small dose of aluminum. However, kids in the large-dose group weren’t at a higher risk of any other neurodevelopmental issues compared to kids who received a small dose.
The low-dose group included roughly only 42,000 children. That could make it difficult to detect a statistical signal, Jablonowski explained.
“It’s not surprising that we see a strong signal among the groups that had more participants but not among the group that had fewer participants,” he said.
The moderate-dose group consisted of about 700,000 children, while there were about 460,000 children in the large-dose group.
How did authors make autism link disappear from original figure?
The original version of the study reported 2,961 fewer diagnoses of neurodevelopmental outcomes than the corrected version.
It appears the study authors “deleted the sicker kids,” Jablonowski said. “Or at least, just their diagnoses.”
The study also included allergy and autoimmune diagnoses, but none of those statistics were missing. Only the number of neurodevelopmental diagnoses differed between the original results and the corrected ones.
That suggests the authors didn’t make a random mistake, but intentionally fudged the number, Jablonowski said.
In hope of shedding light on what happened to the missing data, Jablonowski emailed the journal’s editors on July 18, asking them to publicize the comments between themselves and the anonymous scientists who peer-reviewed the study.
The inconsistencies in the study are specifically in “the figures in the main manuscript and the figures in the supplemental material,” Jablonowski wrote to the journal. “I believe the nature of those inconsistencies may be understood by examining the reviewer comments and subsequent exchanges.”
The journal editors have not responded.
‘Glaring signs’ Danish authors ‘didn’t practice good science’
The authors have not released the study’s raw data, citing Danish privacy law.
This frustrates independent scientists like Jablonowski, who said having access only to the data that the authors statistically adjusted makes it difficult to accurately critique the study, and impossible to replicate it.
Andersson did not respond when The Defender asked if the authors could share a de-identified version of the data that wouldn’t violate privacy law.
Jablonowski said:
“So if the raw data can’t be shared and Andersson is not going to reveal their unadjusted data, the appraisal of this paper is solely based on trust that the authors are practicing good science in good faith and they do not need to be scrutinized.”
But there are “glaring signs that the authors didn’t practice good science,” he said.
There were other inconsistencies between the original and corrected supplemental material. For instance, the corrected version shows different results in multiple places when tracking the prevalence of Asperger’s syndrome among kids.
The authors may have been more inclined to produce results that favored vaccination, given that they work at the Statens Serum Institut, a government agency responsible for procuring and supplying vaccines for the national vaccination.
Hviid reported funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, which is directly linked to the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.
“The researchers are integrally involved in pushing vaccines and sweeping vaccine safety under the rug.”
Original study also riddled with flaws, critics say
Even before the corrected materials were added to the study, Hooker and Jablonowski noted a host of flaws.
For instance, the authors failed to mention there were increased risks of certain diseases for kids vaccinated with aluminum-containing vaccines, compared with kids who received no aluminum-containing vaccines.
Before Hviid went on summer break, he told The Defender in an email that his team didn’t include a control group of unvaccinated children who had no aluminum exposure because differences between unvaccinated and vaccinated children likely would have biased the results.
Instead, the team opted to compare groups of vaccinated children who were exposed to different amounts of aluminum, Hviid said.
Yet the study reported results for 15,237 children who were either unvaccinated or vaccinated only with a shot that contains no aluminum, such as the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. The MMR vaccine used in Denmark has no aluminum, according to the authors.
That creates a cohort of children unvaccinated with an aluminum-containing shot, Jablonowski said.
Hooker and Jablonowski compared the outcomes of children who didn’t receive an aluminum-containing vaccine with the outcomes of children who received aluminum-containing vaccines.
“Kids who received an aluminum-containing vaccine were 26% more likely to have atopic dermatitis” than kids who were unvaccinated or only got the MMR shot, Jablonowski said. Those kids were “50% more likely to have allergic rhinoconjunctivitis — and these are really strong, statistically significant signals.”
Jablonowski said the study authors might criticize the analysis he and Hooker conducted for failing to consider possible confounding factors.
“I’d be happy to redo the analysis and account for possible confounding factors, but I’d need the authors to release sufficiently detailed data,” Jablonowski said.
Calls grow for journal to retract study
The findings in the corrected study still maintain the authors’ claim that aluminum-containing vaccinations are not associated with all 50 of the negative health outcomes they analyzed. In fact, their analysis claims protection against 12 categories of disease, including autism.
“These findings are not just counterintuitive — they are biologically absurd,” James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., wrote on Substack. “No plausible mechanism exists by which aluminum salts could prevent neurodevelopmental delay.”
Lyons-Weiler is the founder of IPAK-EDU, an adult online institution of higher learning run by the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge.
Lyons-Weiler and other critics are calling for the study’s retraction. He told The Defender the study’s “fatal methodological flaws … violate the principles of valid causal inference.”
Guillemette Crépeaux, Ph.D., associate professor at École Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort, told The Defender that the Annals of Internal Medicine should never have accepted the study — especially with its incorrect supplementary data. “Retraction should be the bare minimum,” she said.
Guillemette said she and her colleagues are writing a rebuttal to the study. They plan to submit it for publication later this summer.
Chris Exley, Ph.D., one of the world’s leading experts on the health effects of aluminum exposure, told The Defender, “There is no question in my mind that the authors of this study used the data available to them to come to an afore determined conclusion.”
In 2020, Crépeaux and Exley co-authored an article in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology that called for “independent, rigorous and honest science” on aluminum in vaccines.
Exley said the authors of the Danish study should make the data they used available for independent scrutiny. He said:
“I understand that they have already refused such requests and the compliant journal publishing the study is not prepared to press them on this issue. Surprise, surprise.
“Hviid and his band of conspirators are only interested in pedaling nonsense and nonscience to what they and others … believe is a gullible public. I think we have news for them. The times are changing, at long last.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Study Claiming No Link Between Aluminum in Vaccines and Autism Riddled with Flaws, Critics Say
- 4 Things the New York Times Got Wrong About Aluminum in Vaccines
- 5 Scientific Findings Explain Link Between Vaccines and Autism — Why Do Health Agencies Ignore Them?
- 36% Higher Risk of Asthma in Some Kids Who Had Vaccine-Related Aluminum Exposure, CDC Study Shows
- Study Showing 13% of Kids Have 2 or More Allergy-Related Conditions Overlooks Role of Aluminum and Vaccines
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
The AMIA case: The untold story
By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 27, 2025
On the morning of July 18, 1994, a bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in downtown Buenos Aires, leveling the building and killing 85 people, with over 300 injured.
The attack occurred two years after the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina, which left 22 dead and 242 wounded. Both attacks took place during the presidency of Carlos Menem, a government that was pivotal for Argentina as it marked a transition to neoliberalism, featuring mass privatizations and a partial dollarization of the economy.
But on the geopolitical front, the Menem administration is more remembered for the apparent “secret war” that unfolded within the country, involving intelligence agencies and subversive groups from various nations.
The most widely accepted version of the AMIA case goes as follows: To retaliate against the cancellation of a nuclear technology transfer agreement between Argentina and Iran, the Iranian government (then under President Akbar Rafsanjani) orchestrated an act of revenge, with operatives from the Lebanese Hezbollah carrying it out.
This narrative, elevated to “official truth,” was supported by intelligence reports from the U.S. and Israel. It led to Argentina designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and the rupture of previously friendly relations between Argentina and Iran.
But what if this popular version is wrong?
Recently, a former aide to Judge Juan José Galeano—who oversaw the investigation and trial from 1994 to 2005—revealed details that cast doubt on the established narrative. According to Claudio Lifschitz, Galeano’s former assistant and a former Argentine security official, no concrete evidence linking the Iranian government to the attack was ever found. On the contrary, Lifschitz claims that the evidence increasingly pointed toward elements within Argentina’s intelligence service, SIDE.
Lifschitz first entered the public eye in this case when he released a video recording of a meeting between Galeano and Carlos Telleldín, in which the judge allegedly offered money to the supposed supplier of the van used in the attack—in exchange for confessing that he had sold it to Mohsen Rabbani, the cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires. According to Lifschitz, one of the key pieces of evidence that could exonerate Iran is the fact that SIDE had illegally wiretapped—without a court order—the Iranian Embassy and the Iranian Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, amassing thousands of hours of recordings without a single indication that any Iranians frequenting these places had prior knowledge of the attack.
The real mastermind, Lifschitz alleges, was Jaime Stiuso, deputy chief of SIDE’s counterintelligence division (Section 85) and the officer in charge of intelligence investigations for the AMIA case. According to Lifschitz, Telleldín had actually sold the van used in the attack to a SIDE agent. Furthermore, Stiuso—who had close ties to Mossad and the CIA—was allegedly responsible for constructing the accusation made by prosecutor Alberto Nisman that then-President Cristina Kirchner had sought to cover up Iranian involvement in the case.
The former Argentine intelligence agent claims he heard directly from Stiuso that Mossad was the real force behind the attacks—though it remains difficult to verify whether this conversation actually took place.
The case remains relevant today because it is being leveraged by Javier Milei’s government to justify closer ties with Israel, to the point where the Argentine president has labeled Iran as an “enemy state of Argentina.”
UK Reveals New Details of Upcoming Pandemic Exercise Similar to Event 201 That Preceded COVID
The Defender | July 25, 2025
The U.K. this month released new details for a sweeping pandemic response exercise — the largest in its history — to take place over multiple days between September and November 2025.
Exercise Pegasus, the first of its kind in nearly a decade, aims to span all regions and government departments in the U.K., and will involve opening a “resilience academy” to train over 4,000 people from public and private sectors annually in emergency roles, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations Pat McFadden told Parliament on July 8.
The response plan also includes developing a national “vulnerability map” to highlight populations most at risk in a crisis. The tool, which uses data on age, disability, ethnicity and whether the person is receiving care, can share that data instantly across government departments.
Comedian and political commentator Russell Brand, quoting Jon Fleetwood on Substack, pointed out that news on the U.K. government tracking tool comes as, in the U.S., the Department of Defense “prepares AI-driven simulations for pandemics caused by ‘natural or man-made infectious agents,’” while funding researchers who want to “infect humans with aerosolized influenza under the guise of improving disease models.”
Britain’s Exercise Pegasus was developed in response to the July 2024 recommendations made by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, an ongoing public investigation into the handling of the pandemic.
The U.K. is also testing its ability to instantaneously reach its citizens by sending an alert to 87 million cellphones at once. McFadden said it will be the second time the test has been used on a nationwide basis since its launch in 2023.
“These changes will improve our resilience and preparedness and help to safeguard our citizens,” McFadden said in a January 2025 press release announcing the U.K.’s rough proposals.
However, others say the plans are less about safeguarding citizens and more about controlling them.
“The timing has sparked concerns that governments and international agencies may be coordinating future lockdown scenarios under the guise of preparedness, raising the specter of another orchestrated pandemic event,” Fleetwood wrote on Substack.
In May, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed an international pandemic treaty, designed to help the World Health Organization (WHO) “co-ordinate the international response to any future pandemics,” according to The Telegraph.
The U.K. is also legally obligated to “develop, strengthen and maintain the core capacities” tied to the WHO because it “failed to reject the 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations,” said independent journalist James Roguski.
These core capacities include “surveillance,” “rapidly determining the control measures required to prevent domestic and international spread,” and “addressing misinformation and disinformation.”
“Sounds to me like control,” Brand said. “Control of observation and the control to implement the use of medicines. Do you remember last time? How they shamed, how they blamed, how they shot down protests, how they condemned people that were opposed to vaccines?”
The newly enacted amendments allow the WHO “to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit to respond to nebulous ‘potential public health risks,’” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a July 18 press release announcing its rejection of the regulations.
In a video released July 18, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said:
“The new regulations employ extremely broad language that gives the WHO unprecedented power. They require countries to establish systems of risk communications so that the WHO can implement unified public messaging globally. That opens the door to the kind of narrative management and propaganda and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic.”
In early 2021, before Kennedy led the HHS, he was deplatformed on numerous social media sites for criticizing regulatory corruption and authoritarian public health policies.
Kennedy described the efforts of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who in 2019 helped organize an exercise of four simulations of a worldwide coronavirus pandemic. At Gates’ direction, Kennedy said, participants primarily focused on planning industry-centric, fearmongering, police-state strategies for managing an imaginary global coronavirus contagion culminating in mass censorship of social media.
The exercise, referred to as Event 201, included representatives from the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, various media powerhouses, the Chinese government, a former CIA/National Security Agency director, vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson, the finance and biosecurity industries and Edelman, the world’s leading corporate PR firm.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Gates claimed the simulation didn’t occur. Despite videos of the event, he told BBC on April 12, 2020, “Now here we are. We didn’t simulate this, we didn’t practice, so both the health policies and economic policies, we find ourselves in uncharted territory.”
One segment of Gates’ Event 201 script focused on the manipulation and control of public opinion. The presumption among participants was that such a crisis would provide an opportunity to promote new vaccines and tighten controls by a surveillance and censorship state.
“There is nothing intrinsically wrong with preparedness, or rehearsals,” said Dr. David Bell, a public health physician and biotech consultant. The problem is that, in order to achieve this, governments “have to undermine the basic tenets of democracy such as free speech and movement.”
Related articles in The Defender
- ‘Defining Moment in Human History’: U.S. Rejects WHO’s International Health Regulation Amendments
- Before COVID, Gates Planned Social Media Censorship of Vaccine Safety Advocates With Pharma, CDC, Media, China and CIA
- Trump Orders U.S. to Withdraw From World Health Organization
- ‘We Will Not Comply’ with Pandemic Treaty, 26 Republican Governors Tell WHO
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Officer exits Australian army after showing more loyalty to ‘Israel’
Al Mayadeen | July 26, 2025
An Australian army officer has left the Australian Defence Force (ADF) after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) stripped him of his security clearance, citing concerns over his loyalty to “Israel”. The case, first reported by The Guardian, has raised broader questions about foreign influence, undisclosed training, and security integrity within Australia’s military ranks.
The officer, anonymized as “HWMW” in tribunal documents, was removed from active service after the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) upheld ASIO’s findings earlier this year. Initially placed in the inactive reserve, The Guardian reports that he has now formally exited the ADF.
ASIO flagged serious loyalty concerns during interviews, where the officer declared he did not consider “Israel” a foreign government. He also admitted he would share classified Australian military information with the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) if asked.
These revelations led ASIO to conclude that he lacked the “appropriate character and trustworthiness” necessary to hold any security clearance.
Further investigations revealed the officer had failed to disclose participation in training programs conducted in “Israel” in 2016 and 2019. Despite serving 19 years in the ADF, he concealed courses involving self-defense, firearms training, and security techniques.
These sessions were linked to his volunteer role in a Sydney-based Community Security Group (CSG), which provides intelligence and protection services to the Jewish community. He was affiliated with the CSG between 2014 and 2023. When questioned, he claimed the omission was not a lie but “not a complete disclosure.” He further admitted that such CSG programs could serve as “natural recruiting pools” for Mossad, “Israel’s” intelligence service.
Political reactions
Greens Senator David Shoebridge, the party’s defence spokesperson, sharply criticized the government’s response. In Senate estimates, Shoebridge questioned whether the defence department had conducted a broader review of ADF personnel with ties to similar CSG training.
He expressed frustration over the lack of answers, stating: “This should have been a simple exercise. Having discovered an ADF member undertook secret training associated with a foreign government, then the exit should have been rapid.” Shoebridge also criticized what he described as Australia’s inconsistent stance on foreign affiliations, pointing to a double standard in the acceptance of loyalty to the US and its allies.
ASIO Director General Mike Burgess emphasized that while community security groups serve a legitimate and important purpose, transparency is key.
“There is nothing wrong with the community security groups,” Burgess said, but noted that foreign training, even for community protection, must be declared. “Training done overseas in Israel might present an opportunity,” he added.
The defense department has reiterated that all holders of security clearances undergo regular evaluations, including reviews of foreign connections and external loyalties. Individuals are required to report any affiliations that might compromise their suitability.
UK could ‘easily’ stab US in the back – Putin aide
RT | July 25, 2025
The United Kingdom would not hesitate to sabotage a potential thaw in US-Russia relations, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Friday.
Nikolay Patrushev, a longtime national security official and senior Kremlin adviser, accused London of being prepared to carry out a false flag in order to derail efforts by US President Donald Trump to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and normalize ties with Moscow.
“If necessary, London would easily stab Washington in the back. I believe officials in the White House realize what kind of ‘ally’ they are dealing with,” Patrushev told RIA Novosti.
His comments followed a statement last month by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which alleged that British intelligence was directly involved in orchestrating covert Ukrainian operations. The SVR claimed the UK had acquired torpedoes of Soviet and Russian design for potential use in a false flag incident – specifically, a staged attack on an American naval vessel in the Baltic Sea.
Since Trump’s return to office in January and the departure of Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, Russian officials have frequently pointed to London as the primary force behind the continued conflict in Ukraine. They argue that the British government’s firm support is an obstacle to peace and a strategic effort to block reconciliation between Washington and Moscow.
Moscow has portrayed the Ukraine conflict as a NATO-driven proxy war meant to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainian lives.
Past reporting by The New York Times and The Times of London has confirmed that both US and British officials have played more active roles in directing Ukrainian military strategy than publicly acknowledged by their governments.
