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A cookie-wielding mother, a gun-toting grandfather, a fearless young woman: Meet Israel’s newest heroes

(JTA) — When Hamas terrorists broke into her home early Saturday morning, Rachel Adari didn’t have any guns.
But she had another kind of weapon: cookies, which she offered to the men who held her and her husband captive for the next 15 hours, as her city of Ofakim and dozens of other towns in southern Israel faced a brutal invasion by Hamas from Gaza.
“I could see they were angry,” Adari told Israel’s Channel 12. “I asked them if they were hungry. I prepared them coffee and cookies.”
“She drove them crazy,” her husband David said. “She kept asking them if they want something.”
The snacks helped buy the couple enough time for their sons, both police officers, to join an operation that resulted in their liberation, a rare moment of rescue on a day marked primarily by loss.
Her insistence on snacks — archetypal Jewish mother behavior deployed at a dissonant moment — has also turned Rachel Adari into something of a national hero, one of several to emerge in the wake of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
As the country mobilizes a military response and reckons with the unanswered questions about how such a breach could have happened in the first place, stories of individual people’s bravery and pluck in the face of unimaginable danger have provided a welcome counterpoint.
Major General (Ret.) Noam Tibon speaks to thousands of Israeli left-wing activists during a rally in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, calling for talks with Palestinians and in support of the two-state solution, May 27, 2017. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
In addition to Adari, there is Noam Tibon, a retired general who was already well known for his military leadership, which included commanding the Israel Defense Forces in the north, and his participation in this year’s pro-democracy protests.
On Saturday, Tibon learned that his son, the journalist Amir Tibon, was trapped with his family in their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a short distance from the Gaza border. He grabbed his single pistol and, with his wife, drove from Tel Aviv toward Nahal Oz.
Their journey — the stuff of action movies — has been thoroughly documented in Israeli media, including in an account by Amir Tibon. First, Tibon encountered survivors of Hamas’ attack on a rave and drove them north, away from his son. Then, he ran into soldiers with no apparent mission and convinced one of them to join him. Before getting to his son’s kibbutz, they met injured soldiers and, once again, drove the opposite direction to take them to safety. Finally, Tibon arrived at Nahal Oz and, with a handful of soldiers, killed the Hamas attackers outside his son’s home.
Then he knocked on the window. Inside, Amir Tibon’s 3-year-old daughter responded using the Hebrew word for grandfather: “Saba is here.”
Noam Tibon is not the only retired general to burst into action without receiving orders. Yair Golan, who was previously also a left-wing lawmaker, has drawn attention for making multiple heroic rescues. First, Golan retrieved a journalist trapped in his home after his father posted on social media that the army and police were not acting to save him, according to a report on the Israeli news site Walla.
Yair Golan, a candidate with the Meretz party, arrives to casts his vote during the party primaries at a polling station in Tel Aviv, Aug. 23, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Later, Golan learned about three young men who were in hiding after running from Hamas attackers at the nature party at Kibbutz Re’im where 260 Israelis died and others were taken hostage. There, too, the army had not attempted a rescue, according to an account from Rani Gaon, the father of one of the young men, that the family posted on Facebook.
“Suddenly, out of nowhere, the angel arrives at the location of my son and his friends, calls my son, calls him by name, tells him ‘Hello, Major Yair Golan is speaking, come to me,’” Gaon wrote.
He said his son told him, “‘Golan came to collect us. He will bring us all the way to you’ and so it was. This person, this hero, this angel, came and rescued them from the area, simply unbelievable. I have no words to thank and salute you, Yair Golan.”
On Monday, a new name entered the pantheon of last weekend’s heroes: Inbal Rabin-Lieberman, a 25-year-old woman who is being credited for the survival of everyone on her kibbutz even as many of the neighboring kibbutzes suffered heavy losses.
According to viral social posts, Rabin-Lieberman noticed early on that someone was trying to infiltrate Kibbutz Nir-Am and ran from house to house to raise the alarm, becoming sort of an Israeli Paul Revere who mustered a strong enough defense that dozens of Hamas attackers were killed before they could do any damage.
“When it’s all over, this woman will receive the Israel Prize,” one post by a user named Ziv Rubinstein said. “The story of her heroism is a story that will enter the Israeli myth for generations.”
In Ofakim, the Adari home has become something of a pilgrimage site for Israelis who want to connect with a story of survival. Several people stopped by with their own deliveries of sweets, although the Adaris are staying with their son because their home is too damaged to be habitable, according to a report in the Times of Israel.
Her neighbors say they are unsurprised by her heroism. “If there’s one person in Ofakim who could charm even Hamas terrorists, then it’s Rachel,” one told the Israeli news site. “She told me she’d fed them because she knows a hungry man is more dangerous than a recently fed one. She also knew these young men believed they would die and were probably missing their mothers. It was not a bad idea to become that person.”
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The post A cookie-wielding mother, a gun-toting grandfather, a fearless young woman: Meet Israel’s newest heroes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group

People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.