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Israel Must Confront the Jihadist Desire for Immortality
Effective counter-terrorism is never just about strategy, tactics, or doctrine. Whatever an insurgency’s operational specifics, this area of national security planning should always remain starkly analytic and logic-centered. For Israel in the Islamic Middle East, this means a heightened conceptual awareness of death and “last things” as embraced by its jihadist foes.
It means, inter alia, that Israel’s counter-terrorism planners should continuously bear in mind the primacy of one consistently overlooked and underestimated form of power: the desire for immortality, or “power over death.”
Any promise of immortality is of course densely problematic. By definition, it lies beyond the boundaries of science and logic. How, then, should the desire of Israel’s terrorist adversaries for immortality be assessed by Israeli planners during the Gaza War?
Any such inquiry should begin with certain core questions. The principal query is this: How can one human being meaningfully offer eternal life to another? Reciprocally, it must also be asked: How can any terrorism-opposing state construct components of its national security program upon a determined enemy’s “hunger for immortality?” This phrase is taken from Spanish (Basque) philosopher Miguel de Unamuno’s classic treatise The Tragic Sense of Life (Del Sentimiento Tragico De La Vida; 1921). Unamuno would never, however, have been sympathetic to the twisted idea of a murderous faith-based “martyrdom.”
Though these questions are difficult, they have answers. Even in our age of incessant quantification and verification, there is something in our unreflective species that yearns not for reason-based clarity but for mystery and faith. In facing jihadist terrorist ideologies that promise the faithful eternal life, Israel must remain wary of projecting ordinary human rationality upon Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others like them.
Projections of decision-making rationality usually make sense in world politics, but there are enough major exceptions to temper hopeful generalities. If Israel’s national decision-makers were to survey the current configuration of global jihadist terrorist organizations (both Sunni and Shiite) from an analytic standpoint, the nexus between “martyrdom operations” and “life everlasting” would be conspicuous. At that point, Israel’s security planners would be in a much better position to deter murderous hostage-takers and suicide-bombers, both in microcosm (individual human terrorists) and in macrocosm (enemy states that support terrorists).
In such time-urgent matters, there are corresponding and converging elements of law. Jihadist insurgents who seek to justify gratuitously violent attacks on civilians in the name of “martyrdom” are acting contrary to international law. All insurgents, even those who claim “just cause,” must still satisfy longstanding jurisprudential limits on permissible targets and on law-based levels of violence.
As a matter of binding law, such humane limits can never be tempered by claims of religious faith. Faith is never legally exculpatory.
According to authoritative jurisprudence, the relevant legal matters are not inherently complicated or bewildering. Under longstanding rules, even the allegedly “sacred” rights of insurgency must always exclude any deliberate targeting of civilians or any use of force to intentionally inflict unnecessary suffering.
Law and strategy are interrelated; but at the same time, they are analytically distinct. Regarding the Gaza War and effective counter-terrorism, the legal bottom line is clear: Violence becomes terrorism whenever politically animated insurgents murder (intentionally kill) or maim noncombatants, whether with guns, knives, bombs, automobiles, or anything else.
It is irrelevant whether the expressed cause of terror-violence is presumptively just or unjust. In the Law of Nations, unjust means used to achieve allegedly just ends are always violations of the law.
Sometimes, martyrdom-seeking terrorist foes such as Hamas advance a supposedly legal argument known as tu quoque. This historically discredited argument stipulates that because “the other side” is guilty of similar, equivalent, or greater criminality, “our” side is necessarily innocent of any wrongdoing. Jurisprudentially, any such disingenuous argument is always wrong and invalid, especially after the landmark postwar judgments of the Nuremberg (Germany) and Far East (Japan) tribunals.
For conventional armies and insurgent forces, the right to use military force can never supplant the rules of humanitarian international law. Such primary or jus cogens rules (rules that permit “no derogation”) are referenced as the law of armed conflict, humanitarian international law, or the law of war. Significantly, these terms apply to both state and sub-state participants in any armed conflict.
Repeatedly, however, and without a scintilla of law-based evidence, supporters of Hamas terror-violence against Israeli noncombatants insist that “the ends justify the means.” Leaving aside the ethical standards by which any such argument should be dismissed on its face, ends can never justify means in the law of armed conflict. There can be no defensible ambiguity regarding such a conclusion.
The witless banalities of politics ought never be taken to accurately represent the expectations of binding law. In such universal law, whether codified or customary, one person’s terrorist can never be another’s “freedom-fighter.” Though it is correct that certain insurgencies can sometimes be judged lawful or even law-enforcing, allowable resorts to force must always conform to humanitarian international law.
Whenever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions constitute terrorism. Even if adversarial claims of a hostile controlling power were plausible or acceptable (e.g., relentless Palestinian claims concerning an Israeli “occupation”), corollary claims of entitlement to “any means necessary” would still remain false. Recalling Hague Convention No. IV: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
What about Israeli attacks on Gaza? Though Israel’s ongoing bombardments of Gaza are producing many Palestinian casualties, the legal responsibility for these harms lies entirely with Hamas “perfidy,” or what is more colloquially called Hamas’s use of “human shields.”
It is also noteworthy that while Palestinian casualties are unwanted, inadvertent, and unintentional, Israeli civilian deaths and injuries are always the result of Palestinian terrorist criminal intent or “mens rea.” In law, there is a great difference between deliberately murdering innocent celebrants at an Israeli music festival and the lethal consequences of indispensable Israeli counter-terrorist operations in Gaza.
International law is not an intuitive or subjective set of standards. Such law always has determinable form and content. It cannot be casually invented and reinvented by terror groups to justify their interests. This is especially true when their inhumane terror-violence intentionally targets a designated victim state’s most fragile and vulnerable civilians.
National liberation movements that fail to meet the test of just means can never be protected as lawful or legitimate. Even if the law were to accept the questionable argument that relevant terror groups had fulfilled all valid criteria of “national liberation” (e.g., Iran-supported Hamas or Hezbollah), these groups would still not satisfy the equally significant legal standards of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.
These enduring critical standards were specifically applied to insurgent or sub-state organizations by Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and by the two 1977 Protocols to these Conventions.
Standards of humanity remain binding upon all combatants by virtue of the broader norms of customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. This rule, commonly called the “Martens Clause,” makes “all persons” responsible for the “laws of humanity” and for associated “dictates of public conscience.” There can be no exceptions to this universal responsibility based upon a presumptively “just cause.”
Under international law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in both apprehension and punishment. As punishers of grave breaches under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute or extradite terrorists. Under no circumstances are states permitted to regard terrorists as law-abiding “freedom fighters.” This ought to be kept in mind by states that routinely place their own presumed religious and geopolitical obligations above the common interests of binding law.
The United States incorporates international law as the supreme law of the land in Article 6 of the Constitution, and Israel is guided by the immutable principles of a Higher Law. Fundamental legal authority for the American republic was derived largely from William Blackstone’s Commentaries, which in turn owe much of their clarifying content to jus cogens principles of Torah.
Ex injuria jus non oritur. “Rights can never stem from wrongs.” The labeling by jihadist adversaries of Israel of their most violent insurgents as “martyrs” should have no exculpatory or mitigating effect on their terrorist crimes. As a practical problem, of course, these faith-driven foes are animated by the most compelling form of power imaginable. This is the power of immortality or “power over death.”
For Israel, a primary orientation of law-based engagement in counter-terrorism should always take close account of enemy attraction to “last things.” Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s observation that “an immortal person is a contradiction in terms” lies beyond intellectual challenge, but jihadist promises of “power over death” still remain supremely attractive to terrorists. It follows that Israeli counter-terrorist planners ought to focus more directly on the eschatology of its Gaza War terrorist adversaries.
For the foreseeable future, Hamas “martyrs” will present an incrementally existential threat to Israel. If these barbarous criminals should ever get their hands on fissile materials, however, this threat could become more immediately existential. Hamas would not require a chain-reaction nuclear explosive but only the much more accessible ingredients for a radiation dispersal device.
In a worst-case scenario, the use of a primitive nuclear device by Hamas or Hezbollah could spur Iran to enter into direct military conflict with Israel. At that point, Israeli policy considerations of “last things” could become all-important and determinative. For Israel, the primary battlefield will always be intellectual, not territorial. A jihadist enemy that links terror-violence against the innocent to delusionary promises of immortality poses a potentially irremediable threat.
Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue and the author of many books and articles on terrorism and international law. His latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
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