Saudi Delegation Makes Unexpected Appearance In Tehran For Start Of Ayatollah's Funeral

Friday and Saturday kick off what will be up to a week of solemn funeral observances for slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - a major historic event which is expected to draw some 15 to 20 million mourners in Tehran and across Iranian cities.

Iran on Thursday issued a warning to the United States and Israel, Reuters reported:

"We warn the enemies of Iran, especially the U.S. and the Zionist regime (Israel), to avoid any miscalculation and to think about the harsh retaliation our armed forces would make to any threat and aggression against our country," Ali Abdollahi, commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a statement carried by state media.

The funeral procession events are expected to extend all the way to July 9, upon which the late Ayatollah will be buried in his hometown of Mashhad. Qom, as well as Shia centers in Iraq will also observe large-scale funeral events.

Delegations representing various governments in the region have begun arriving in Tehran on Friday to pay their respects, though the Iranian government has made clear that no European governments were invited.

There has already been some surprises, with Reuters reporting that Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed El Khereiji and his delegation have showed up in Tehran to pay their respects - though they weren't officially expected, per Iranian state publications…

Below is a round-up of some of the latest headlines and developments via MEE:

Ali Khamenei’s body arrived at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla mosque, where mourners have begun gathering ahead of Saturday’s funeral.

Iranian authorities expect more than 20 million people to participate in funeral ceremonies, which will conclude with Khamenei’s burial in Mashhad on July 9.

A red flag from the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad was placed over Khamenei’s coffin during ceremonies in Tehran.

Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, the new commander of the IRGC, made a rare public appearance during a memorial event in the Iranian capital.

Pakistan’s interior minister arrived in Iran ahead of the funeral as foreign delegations continue to gather for the ceremonies.

President Donald Trump said Iran has “almost agreed” to US demands and confirmed negotiations with Tehran will continue.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said lasting peace in the region must be comprehensive and free from external interference.

Iran’s UN representative warned that any US violation of the memorandum of understanding would trigger an Iranian response.

Iran’s military command instructed vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to follow designated routes or face a “forceful response”.

In Lebanon, President Joseph Aoun called for international pressure on Israel to implement the framework agreement, while Israel announced the Givati Brigade had completed its mission in southern Lebanon.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/saudi-delegation-makes-unexpected-appearance-tehran-start-ayatollahs-funeral

#SCOTUS snubs former Fox reporter Catherine Herridge, lower court order imposing $800 a day contempt sanctions for refusing to disclose source will take effect. Justice Kavanaugh notes his dissent.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28405561-25a1448-order/

ISIS is back thanks to the US and Israel

Cafe Bombing Kills 9, Wounds 22, In Busy Court Area Of Central Damascus

On Thursday a bomb ripped through crowded cafe in central Damascus, killing at least nine people and wounding 22 others, in an attack very near the main entrance of the Palace of Justice - in an area frequented by lawyers, courthouse employees and visitors.

Al Jazeera correspondent Obaida Hitto, who reported from the scene in the aftermath, stated that "The casualties are higher because it is such a busy area." The death toll could rise given that many bystanders are being treated for severe injuries at a Damascus hospital - some in critical condition.

The target was a well-known gathering place for attorneys. "According to lawyers' groups on social media, the names of six lawyers who were killed have been identified, while eight others were injured in the blast," Mohammed al-Tawil, head of the Syrian Bar Association, told Germany's dpa.

And per the NY Times, "Syria’s interior ministry said the blast, near the main courthouse complex in Damascus, had been caused by an explosive device but did not say who was responsible."

The reported noted, "State media published images of bloodied floors and overturned chairs as emergency workers rushed through crowded streets to the scene."

Various jihadi groups, including ISIS, continue to threaten civilians all across the country, a reality which has only expanded in post-Assad Syria, and after the rise of US-backed, self-appointed President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda and Islamic State commander.

Government forces under Sharaa have been seen as tolerating and even cooperating at times with ISIS-style terrorist groups. But at the same time the Sharaa regime has sought to present itself to the outside world as 'moderate'.

Sectarian crimes and targeted killings, particularly against Syria's Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities have continued. Euronews reports:

"I ran to the place and saw people lying on the floor with blood pooled around them everywhere," he added, saying the scenes recalled the blasts that Damascus experienced during the nearly 14-year civil war.

Damascus has been the site of multiple attacks and incidents since the new authorities took over following the toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

The deadliest came in June 2025, when an attack on a Damascus church killed 25 people. The suicide attack was later claimed by a Sunni Islamist group, while the authorities blamed it on the Islamic State group.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cafe-bombing-kills-9-wounds-22-busy-court-area-central-damascus

Two Million Battlefield Casualties in Ukraine War Says Study

Two million soldiers from both sides have been killed, maimed, or registered missing in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a study of the state of the war claims.

The scale of Russia’s losses in Ukraine are accelerating as it loses the initiative in its invasion, a report published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) claims. The security think tank states the number of casualties in the war has now hit the symbolically significant milestone of two million casualties, and claims the vast majority of combat deaths have been experienced by the less tactically sophisticated forces of the Russian Federation.

While two million casualties is huge and makes the Ukraine War the largest conflict experienced by any major power since the Second World War, the grim milestone appears to have been reached slower than the CSIS previously claimed. A similar report by the same body estimated the two million mark would pass as soon as this Spring, now months past.

Per the CSIS report, of the two million estimated military casualties now inflicted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 1.4 million are Russians. Of those, between 400-450,000 are Russian war dead, while the remaining million are Russian wounded and missing in action.

It further claimed there were between 150-150,000 Ukrainian killed in action among 600,000 total Ukrainian casualties, including killed, missing, and wounded.

The Ukraine war has generally been recorded with incomplete or questionable statistics on casualties — neither side has an incentive to truthfully report these figures — but Western estimates have persistently claimed that Russian deaths well exceeded Ukrainian ones. But the CSIS report goes further, claiming the ratio of three Russian casualties to every Ukrainian for the first years of the conflict has now hit as high as eight Russian casualties to every Ukrainian this year.

If true, this means Russian casualties are now greater than Russia’s ability to recruit fresh troops, and “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all U.S. fatalities in all wars combined since World War II, and more than nine times greater than all Soviet and Russian fatalities in all wars combined since World War II”.

These figures exclude civilian casualties.

The CSIS attributed Russia’s extremely high death toll to factors including “Russia’s attrition strategy, its failure to effectively conduct combined arms and joint warfare, its poor tactics and training, corruption, and low morale” as well as effective Ukrainian defence. It further claimed: “According to some estimates, over 90 percent of Russian casualties are from drone attacks rather than a result of human-to-human engagements. Casualty rates are extremely high for soldiers that enter the kill zone.”

The very high death toll in Ukraine on both sides has been one of the most frequently cited reasons by U.S. President Donald Trump for wanting to see the war ended. Calling the war a “horrible massacre” in which “tremendous” numbers of “young, beautiful people” are being killed, President Trump has recently said the Ukraine War is his firm foreign policy focus and called on Russia to “make a deal”.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/07/02/two-million-battlefield-casualties-in-ukraine-war-says-study/

Wow!

Let this sink in: After the first round of US-Iran talks in Islamabad, US intelligence picked up that Israel was planning to assassinate the Iranian negotiators as they were returning to Tehran.

The US told regional states to alert Iran.

Israel is a state that, on paper, is a US partner but in reality is so extreme in its obsession to undermine US diplomacy that it even tries to assassinate those the US engages with in crucial negotiations.

I can't recall a government as terrified of peace as the one running Israel.

https://x.com/tparsi/status/2072837852757725602

ISRAEL TO CONFINE PALESTINIANS IN FENCED "HUMANITARIAN" ZONES WITHIN WEEKS

Pro-Netanyahu Paper Details Plan to Push Survivors Into Surveilled Camps With No Path to Rebuild

Israel is preparing to channel the surviving Palestinian population of Gaza into fenced, checkpoint-controlled "humanitarian shelters" — and deployment is expected within weeks.

Drop Site News broke the report, citing the pro-Netanyahu Israeli paper Israel Hayom, which described the plan approvingly. Under the scheme, unarmed civilians would be directed to a first zone in Tel al-Sultan, near Rafah — an area Drop Site has documented Israel systematically razing. A "multinational force" operating under the Trump administration's "Board of Peace" would police the zones from a base that, according to the paper, "has already been built."

The paper described the operation as a "pincer movement": the Israeli military deepening its hold beyond the Yellow Line while the population is siphoned into the controlled zones, leaving Hamas "without a population, territory or resources."

Officials confirmed the areas would receive caravans and aid — but not the concrete needed to actually rebuild Gaza.

The plan matches leaked documents Drop Site previously exposed: a surveilled, checkpoint-controlled community in Rafah designed to force Palestinians into what amounts to an Israeli panopticon, tracked and screened as a condition of receiving food.

An Israeli political source told the paper the military would maintain "the pace of targeted killings while remaining below the threshold of international criticism."

The buildup is already visible. The "Board of Peace" itself posted images of tactical vehicles arriving at Logistics Support Area: Endurance on June 30.

This is not aid. This is a cage.

https://www.nationalfile.com/article/srael-to-confine-palestinians-in-fenced-humanitarian-zones-within-weeks

https://www.antiwar.com/

>>24785261

IDF shells Hezbollah sites after soldier hurt in clash with gunman in south Lebanon

A week after Beirut-Jerusalem framework signed, Israel says it hit 10 infrastructure sites used by terror group; report says 640,000 displaced people have returned home so far

An IDF soldier was severely wounded in a clash with a Hezbollah gunman in southern Lebanon on Thursday, and Israel responded by striking a number of the terror group’s targets, a week after Beirut and Jerusalem signed a new framework agreement aimed at ending the conflict.

And as tensions recede, more than half a million Lebanese residents have returned home to areas they evacuated amid escalated fighting earlier this year, according to a new report.

The IDF announced Friday morning that the reservist soldier was severely wounded in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil on Thursday afternoon. He was taken to a hospital, and his family was notified, the Israel Defense Forces added.

According to an IDF probe of the incident, at around 6 p.m. during operations of the 679th “Yiftah” Armored Brigade in Bint Jbeil, troops encountered a Hezbollah gunman who opened fire on them, seriously injuring the soldier.

Immediately after, troops fired tank shells and struck the building from which the gunman had shot, and the Israeli Air Force struck other targets in the area.

The military said the Israeli Air Force struck some 10 additional Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in response to the attack, along with “another violation” of the ceasefire, and separately hit a cell of operatives identified near Israel’s buffer zone.

The Hezbollah infrastructure sites in Bint Jbeil, Beit Yahoun, Kounine and Baraashit had been used by the terror group to advance attacks on troops in southern Lebanon, the military said.

In a separate incident overnight, troops identified a cell of Hezbollah operatives transporting weapons using a truck near the IDF’s security zone, according to the military. A short while later, the Air Force struck the truck “to remove the threat.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-shells-hezbollah-sites-after-soldier-hurt-in-clash-with-gunman-in-south-lebanon/

Israel Is an Apartheid State – and Its Weird Marriage Laws Show Us How

Israel is the only country in the world that does not recognise its own nationality. Why? Because a common national identity would sabotage Israel’s carefully veiled system of segregation

Israel’s supporters have gone apoplectic over a short post on X from the journalist Mehdi Hasan, highlighting Israel’s peculiar marriage laws.

Hasan asks: “Did you know that you can’t have a civil or secular marriage in Israel?”

He’s not wrong. Israel has banned civil marriage. You can wed only in a ceremony strictly controlled by religious authorities. If you want a civil marriage, you have to travel to another country.

Why, you might reasonably wonder. Isn’t Israel a modern, secular, western-style liberal democracy? After all, that’s what our politicians and media keep telling us.

The most popular rejoinder to Hasan from Israel’s apologists – that the situation is no better in Saudi Arabia – is not quite the flex they seem to imagine. So Israel offers the same human rights protections as Saudi Arabia? Impressive.

Others have pointed out that Israel inherited the so-called “millet” system from the Ottoman empire, which gave the leaders of each confessional group across the Middle East autonomous control over their community’s religious affairs.

Doubtless, 150 years ago the system worked relatively well in reducing communal tensions in religiously diverse parts of a large empire. It prevented officials in Constantinople – modern-day Istanbul – from getting dragged deeply into the day-to-day affairs of its often distant subjects.

But 150 years ago, Britain sent children up chimneys to sweep them. The law was changed around that time to stop this abusive and dangerous practice.

Israel was established nearly eight decades ago, supposedly as a secular, western-style liberal democracy. It has had 78 years to change those archaic Ottoman marriage laws.

Why hasn’t it done so?

All the bluster decrying Hasan’s post is a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that Israel’s antiquated marriage laws survive because they are useful to Israel.

In fact, they are more than that. They are a core component of Israel’s version of apartheid – a racist system of segregation Israel has successfully shielded from the view of western publics with the help of western politicians and media.

‘Demographic threat’

https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2026/07/02/israel-is-an-apartheid-state-and-its-weird-marriage-laws-show-us-how/

Trump EPA approves two new cancer-linked PFAS pesticides never before used in US.

Diflufenican and epyrifenacil approved for corn, soybeans and other crops.

Both classified as PFAS forever chemicals or break down into them.

EPA also approved expanded use of another PFAS pesticide bifenthrin.

Approvals come despite concerns over persistence and health risks.

Environmental groups call it a rollback of protections.

Approving persistent chemicals on food crops prioritizes industry over long-term health and environment.

This clashes with “Make America Healthy Again” messaging while adding more forever chemicals to the food chain.

Expect lawsuits and more debate as these new pesticides hit fields.

Center for Biological Diversity on approvals: https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/trump-epa-approves-two-more-forever-chemical-pesticides-for-use-on-most-widely-grown-us-crops-2026-06-30/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/maha-trump-pesticide-dispute

Israel Exposed War Crimes Archive

A searchable archive of Israel's war crimes

https://archivegenocide.com/

So here we have Zelensky visiting Russia before the war:

"I'm in Red Square, and I can confirm that there is no anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Russia. Everything is fine here, and honestly, my dislike for you Banderites is growing."

https://twitter.com/i/status/2072941520311722061

>>24785279

Endless mental gymnastics to supports the man destroying your life!

Dumbfuck!

The Century of Evidence Vaccines Cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Unmasking one of the greatest tragedies in medicine

Story at a Glance:

•Since at least 1933, the medical community has known that vaccines cause infant deaths. To conceal this, those deaths were renamed “crib death” and then “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” (SIDS), eventually being attributed to infants not sleeping on their backs.

•This revisionism is not supported by the existing evidence nor the historical changes in the frequency of SIDS. Most recently, SIDS rates have had an unprecedented decrease in tandem with the COVID-19 lockdowns reducing vaccination rates.

•The vaccine most strongly associated with SIDS, DPT, was protected for decades by the government despite knowing a large body of evidence around the world showed it killed infants—particularly when an inevitable hot lot was released. Eventually, so many injury lawsuits were filed that in 1986, the government had to give blanket immunity to the vaccine manufacturers.

•This article will concisely review the vast body of evidence showing vaccines cause SIDS and reveal the mechanism modern research has now repeatedly proven causes vaccines to trigger infant death.

Full

https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-century-of-evidence-vaccines

October 7 trials: How Israel is preparing for the largest terror prosecution in its history

LEGAL AFFAIRS: Israel now needs to build an entire temporary justice system around a crime that cannot be reduced to a single file, defendant, scene, or legal theory.

This weekend marks 1,000 days since the Hamas-led October 7 massacre in which 1,164 people were killed, and 251 were taken hostage.

There has not yet been a full accounting for the events of that day in a criminal courtroom, but a special law has been enacted, over NIS 1 billion approved, and work has begun at Atarot in northern Jerusalem, where a dedicated military tribunal is slated to be built.

Construction is only one part of a project in which the harder work is this: Prosecuting hundreds of defendants for crimes across dozens of locations.

This will need to be done while using a vast and developing record of evidence, a potentially enormous witness pool, classified materials, security arrangements, and a legal framework with few domestic parallels.

The question is, how can the state put the October 7 perpetrators on trial without overwhelming the courts, abandoning victims and families, or collapsing under the obligations of a criminal proceeding?

The first trials are not expected to open soon. The Jerusalem Post understands that the current working assumption is that they will not begin before 2028.

In other words, the task is to build an entire temporary justice system around a crime that cannot be reduced to a single file, defendant, scene, or legal theory.

A framework – not yet a trial

The Knesset approved the October 7 prosecution law in May, creating a special military court in Jerusalem to hear the cases.

This law covers alleged acts committed between October 7, 2023, and October 10, 2023, as well as offenses allegedly committed against hostages held in Gaza after that period.

It was written to allow prosecution under existing criminal statutes and special offenses – including crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder, rape, abduction, and looting.

It also gives the tribunal, in relevant cases, the authority to impose the death penalty under the legal framework available to it.

The court will sit in panels of three judges. At least one judge on each panel must be a president of a military court or a senior district court judge brought into the military framework.

Further, while any first-instance judgment may be appealed, a death sentence would trigger automatic appellate review before a panel headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, even if the defendant does not file an appeal.

The law is designed in such a way that it takes into consideration that these are not ordinary terrorism cases.

Custom-made court

In other words, the court must be secure enough for hundreds of high-risk defendants, large enough for parallel proceedings, equipped for vast digital material, and structured for victims and bereaved families who will have to revisit October 7.

The Post understands that the planned complex in Atarot is meant to include nine courtrooms and be able to support up to 15 judicial panels.

A separate unit is expected to be created within the military court system, with dedicated judicial, prosecutorial, administrative, security, technological, and victim-support functions.

On June 18, Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman said bulldozers had begun preparing the Atarot site. The announcement marked the first public sign that the law had crossed into the implementation stage.

Atarot is close to the Kalandiya crossing and the West Bank. Rothman has said the location was selected partly to address defense counsel and prison-transport logistics.

It is the Post’s understanding that the three major tracks now moving in parallel are the physical construction of the complex, the creation of a victim-and-witness system, and the completion and transfer of case files from the State Attorney’s Office to the military prosecution.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-901283

California advances three bills curbing hate speech, protecting Jewish students and employees

The first bill, AB 1853, was written after a candidate statement with antisemitic conspiracy theories and white nationalist rhetoric was mailed out to 23 million voters.

Three bills sponsored by Jewish California (formerly the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California) passed through their final policy committees on Tuesday and are set to be heard by the state senate in August.

AB 1853 - Hate Speech in Official Voter Guides

The first bill, AB 1853, was written after a candidate statement with antisemitic conspiracy theories and white nationalist rhetoric was mailed out to 23 million voters as part of California's Official Voter Information Guide for the June 2026 Primary, according to Jewish California.

AB 1853 limits candidate statements in official state and county voter guides to their own qualifications and record. It also bars attacks on individuals or groups as well as links to external content. Finally, it gives election officials authority to reject candidate statements that do not comply with these standards.

AB 395 - Advancing Equal Access to Schools and Government

The second bill requires state agencies, local governments, universities, and K-12 schools to make "good faith reasonable efforts" not to schedule important events, such as public meetings or graduations, during religious, cultural, or ancestral holidays. This, Jewish California noted in its statement, is so that "no Californian is excluded from civic life by observance."

The bill applies to holidays from a broad spectrum of religions and cultures and, for the first time ever, acknowledges several Jewish and non-Jewish holidays, such as Eid al-Adha and Diwali, in California state law.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-901326

The International, 'You control the debt you control everything…slaves to debt'

https://youtu.be/t_JWeOIuySc

In the UK, Police officers would have special "cop nights" run by the Pakistani rape gangs where they were allowed to gang rape grooming gang victims as a "Thankyou" for turning the other way.

Bring back capital punishment 😡

https://twitter.com/i/status/2071733026623778898

The grooming gang scandals are real. Official reports (Jay Report on Rotherham, others) confirmed thousands of mostly white British girls were groomed, raped and trafficked for years by groups mostly of Pakistani Muslim heritage. Police, councils and social services repeatedly failed to act, often citing fears of racism accusations.

Specific claims of “cop nights” — where police allegedly joined in abuse, used marked cars to traffic victims, and participated in sessions referred to that way — come from survivor testimonies presented in MP Rupert Lowe’s independent Rape Gang Inquiry and similar accounts. Some former South Yorkshire Police officers have been arrested over related historic abuse allegations, with further reviews ongoing.

These are serious victim accounts of direct police involvement alongside the gangs. They are horrific and warrant full investigation. The video in the original post references these testimonies.

https://citizenwatchreport.com/capital-punishment-or-full-purge-of-guilty-officials-and-gangs-is-the-only-real-justice-for-this-scale-of-evil/

TREASON

Huckabee: Israel 'the 436th congressional district' of US

The ambassador also says Washington will build a permanent embassy in Jerusalem

At a speech in Jerusalem today, Mike Huckabee described Israel as “the 436th congressional district of the U.S.’”

Speaking at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel announced Washington will build a permanent embassy in Jerusalem — where it will serve the 700,000 Americans he says live in the Middle Eastern country.

“700,000 Americans represent an entire congressional district in the U.S. That's how many people live in a congressional district,” Huckabee explained.

"When members of Congress come I always say, welcome to Israel, the 426th Congressional District of the U.S.," he added.

The Washington Post reported about 600,000 Americans were living in Israel before October 7.

Huckabee’s remarks come amid continued American frustrations with Israel, over its military actions in the Middle East and continued assaults against civilian populations there. A poll last month found 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% in 2025 and 42% in 2022.

The ambassador is known for making controversial comments about the Israel-Palestine conflict, including previously saying “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

The first Trump administration established a temporary embassy in Jerusalem in 2017, as part of its controversial bid to recognize the city as the capital of Israel. Only a handful of other countries have followed in its footsteps.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/mike-huckabee-israel-jerusalem/

Hunt: Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?

El-Sayed: Now the question about a right to exist is interesting because nobody's ever asked me whether or not I believe Palestine has a right to exist. Israel exists. The question is whether or not we want a politics where our money is sent over to Israel to do genocide and apartheid, instead of investing in our own kids.

Hunt: Does it have a right to exist?

https://x.com/Acyn/status/2072776400634036357