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Doc Featuring Netanyahu Interrogation Tapes Premieres at Film Festival Despite Court Motion to Block Screening
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
A documentary that features never-before-seen interrogation footage with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu related to his corruption investigation made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday night and will screen again on Tuesday night after facing failed attempts by Netanyahu’s government to prevent the screenings.
“The Bibi Files” also includes interrogation footage with Netanyahu’s wife and son, as well as new interviews with key figures who have knowledge of the corruption investigation, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Netanyahu’s former spokesman Nir Hefetz, and former Shin Bet leader Ami Ayalon. The anti-Netanyahu documentary details the prime minister’s corruption indictment and the charges of fraud, breach of trus,t and bribery that he faced in 2019. It also details how he has stayed in power despite the three corruption cases brought against him and the postponement of his corruption trial.
“The Bibi Files” is directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney, who is also a winner of a Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. The film, which was being edited until days before TIFF began, is featured in the film festival as a work-in-progress and is in search of distribution.
A source reportedly approached Gibney last year with the leaked interrogation tapes of Netanyahu. A privacy law in Israel blocks the footage from being shown publicly in the country; however, Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Hadad requested the judge in his corruption trial block the TIFF screening of “The Bibi Files,” arguing that the film is still bound internationally by the statute of the Israeli privacy law, The Jerusalem Post reported. On Monday, Judge Oded Shaham rejected the request to block the film’s two screenings at TIFF.
After the screening of “The Bibi Files” at TIFF on Monday night, roughly a dozen audience members held signs calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal to end the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that has raged for almost a year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. On the street outside the theater before the screening, protesters chanted in Hebrew for new parliamentary elections in Israel, as well as a ceasefire and hostage deal.
“People are dying every day, and we wanted to make a statement with this film,” Gibny told the audience after Monday night’s screening, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “For a lot of Americans, the war goes on and on and on. And a lot of people are wondering ‘why does it continue?’ And I think one of the reasons for taking this film on is to explain a lot of the events that we now see through the corruption, the moral corruption, of this one individual.”
Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing and characterized the corruption probe as a politicized witch hunt.
The post Doc Featuring Netanyahu Interrogation Tapes Premieres at Film Festival Despite Court Motion to Block Screening first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel
People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
The post Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival
Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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