Report links Hezbollah to global ransomware group
(JNS) — A new joint report by DOS-OP and the Alma Research and Education Center describes the BQT.Lock (BaqiyatLock) ransomware group as an offensive cyber arm of the Hezbollah terrorist group, not a purely criminal outfit.
The authors say the group shows a direct and systematic affiliation with Hezbollah and the Iranian cyber apparatus.
According to the Nov. 23 report, BQT.Lock is operated by Karim Fayad, whom the report’s authors identify as a Lebanese computer engineering student who leads the group while maintaining a “double life.” They say he is active in civilian academic and professional roles while simultaneously running cyber operations for the Iranian terror proxy.
The report characterizes BQT.Lock as a ransomware-as-a-service operation that has attacked multiple targets worldwide and stolen sensitive data. Its main targets include Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.
Alma links the operation ideologically to Hezbollah, noting that the name “Baqiyat/BaqiyatLock” is derived from a Shi’ite religious concept associated with Hezbollah and Iranian narratives.
Netanyahu submits ‘balanced, responsible’ 2026 state budget
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday presented for government approval what he hailed as a “responsible and balanced” 2026 state budget.
The proposed budget “above all meets all of Israel’s security needs,” the premier stated as he opened the government meeting. “We are bringing forward a good budget for the State of Israel; I am confident it will pass.”
Jerusalem “intends to lower taxes, including income tax,” Netanyahu stated. “We plan to reduce regulation and streamline our government systems. We will continue developing the northern and southern communities that were harmed; they will thrive more than ever.”
The most important thing in the budget, he said, was “assistance and grants for Israel Defense Forces soldiers in regular service and reserves, as well as for their families, because they deserve it.”
The budget “will provide them with all the support and framework they need, a framework we have already built and will expand even further,” Netanyahu vowed.
Over 300 rabbis and Jewish leaders call for removal of UN official who denied Oct. 7 rapes
(JTA) — Over 300 Jewish leaders, including women’s rights advocates and rabbis, urged the United Nations on Tuesday to remove Reem Alsalem, the U.N. rapporteur on violence against women and girls, for denying that rape occurred during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The letter, which was addressed to U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, came two weeks after Alsalem claimed in a post on social media that “No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.”
In the letter, its signatories express their “horror and outrage” at Alsalem’s rhetoric, and cite two U.N. reports from March 2024 and July 2025 that concluded that there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence had taken place during the attacks “in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape.”
The petition was organized by Amy Elman, a professor at Kalamazoo College who has authored books on antisemitism and state responses to sexual violence, and Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. It was shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency soon after being sent to Guterres.
Israeli delegation to visit White House for upcoming summit on AI
(JNS) — Israel will be among a select group of countries participating in the Pax Silica artificial intelligence summit at the White House on Dec. 12.
Pax Silica is a “strategic economic security coalition-building effort for the AI era that unites countries whose interests converge around securing the entire silicon to compute supply chain,” Jacob Helberg, under secretary of state for economic affairs, told reporters.
“It establishes a new strategic reality that economic security is national security, and ultimately, it is going to bring together nations that share a common vision for technological leadership, safe and secure supply chain, predictable access to energy, silicon and compute,” he added.
The United States and Israel will be joined at the summit by Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, which Helberg described as “a high-performance grouping of countries covering critical modes of the AI economy.”
Israel, Helberg told reporters, “is a leader in frontier AI cyber security and specialized chip design.”
Hostage’s remains returned to Israel, as Trump says Gaza ceasefire’s next phase is ‘going to happen pretty soon’
(JTA) — Israel has identified the remains handed over Wednesday by Hamas as belonging to Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker murdered on Oct. 7, 2023.
Rinthalak had been working in Israel for years, sending money home to his family in Thailand, but had only been at Kibbutz Beeri for a few months on Oct. 7, when it became one of the hardest-hit communities during the Hamas massacre, with about 100 residents killed.
The release means there is just one Israeli hostage remaining in Gaza of the roughly 250 taken on Oct. 7: Ran Gvili, a police officer killed while defending Kibbutz Alumim.
Gvili’s family and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has announced that the mass Saturday night demonstrations on behalf of the hostages, which began soon after Oct. 7, would shift to smaller gatherings on Friday afternoons.
The changes come as pressure mounts for Israel and Hamas to move into the second phase of the ceasefire plan that U.S. President Donald Trump brokered in October. Under the terms of the ceasefire, all living and dead hostages would be released before a second phase focused on Gaza’s postwar governance would be negotiated.
