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Synagogue bomb threats continue despite arrest of a suspect
(JTA) – A Jewish center in Durham, North Carolina, evacuated its occupants after receiving a fake bomb threat on Tuesday, one week after the arrest of a suspect accused of directing a series of such threats at synagogues across the country.
Since the summer, dozens of Jewish institutions across America have been targeted with fake bomb threats, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL said it had identified three new threats at Jewish locations across North Carolina this week, including Tuesday’s.
The suspect who was arrested last week, Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos, was a Peruvian national who made more than 150 threats, mostly by email, against synagogues and other buildings both Jewish and non-Jewish across five different states in September, the FBI said. The period when he sent the threats included Rosh Hashanah, which took place in mid-September. The bomb threats began, the FBI said, after Santos tried and failed to solicit child pornography; phone numbers that were sent along with the threats belonged to teenage girls who had rejected or cut off contact with him.
But Nunez Santos’ activity did not account for all of the hoax threats Jewish institutions have received since July, according to ADL reports. And the incident at the Jewish Community Campus in Durham, which led to the evacuation of a Reform synagogue, a Jewish day school and a JCC all located on the campus, demonstrated that such threats have continued even with that suspect in custody.
According to the Secure Community Network, a security firm monitoring Jewish institutions that partners with the ADL, there has been a noticeable downturn in such threats since the High Holidays and Nunez Santos’ arrest. But SCN also expects more threats to be made. Jewish institutions dealt with previous waves of fake threats in 2017 and 2020.
“While a certain number of incidents have been attributed to that arrested individual, the uptick in swatting incidents and bomb threats is not just a trend from recent months, but recent years – and they are continuing,” SCN director and CEO Michael Masters told JTA in a statement. “One arrest will not – nor has not – stopped what has emerged as a tactic for fear and disruption.”
Masters said SCN was “communicating with federal law enforcement and intelligence partners on next steps” to address the epidemic of false threats to Jewish institutions, which attract a response by law enforcement.
“Since at least as early as 2017, the Jewish community has been targeted with waves of bomb threats, often facilitated by advanced communications technology,” Todd Gutnick, an ADL spokesperson, told JTA. “Unfortunately, this trend is likely to continue.”
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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