Jon Cole

Investigative Journalist @The_NewArab | MENA Political Economy and Offshore Researcher | MSc @UniofOxford | ScotMA @EdinburghUni | 🇱🇧 Watcher

[Jon Cole @jonathancole281]

@ERFlatest recently published the working paper I worked on with @JadChaaban looking at connections between Lebanese commercial banks and the ruling elite. Conclusion: crony capital still controls a major portion of the banking sector.

Read more:

https://t.co/2cfAjc3RiM

[Dana Taib Menmy دانا طيب منمي @danataibmenmy]

I uncovered the initial lead of this story, we did it with @jonathancole281 & @suadadalsalhy.
Perceived connections to Israel led to concerns over the agreement between CBI & K2 Integrity as per Iraq's anti-normalisation law with Israel 👇
https://t.co/VFDWzpxPiy

[Mahmoud Elsobky @ElsobkyMahmoud_]

This recognition reminds me why I chose investigative journalism in the first place: to pursue the truth beyond borders, hold power accountable, and tell stories that can create impact
#InvestigativeJournalism #EnvironmentalJournalism #SEJ #WildlifeCrime #Journalism #Biodiversity

[Dr Iain Overton @iainoverton]

I report here for @bylinetime that Reform UK’s treasurer and three other major donors who gave £1.55m to Nigel Farage’s party are all linked to a single address: One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge: the ultra-luxury apartment block long associated with offshore wealth, oligarch capital and secrecy.

https://t.co/M8I5lh643k

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

The former head of the Mossad is comparing the actions of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank to Nazis in the Holocaust.

If someone said that in the West they'd be accused of antisemitism under the IHRA definition.

[Gabriel Elizondo @elizondogabriel]

New UN/World Bank/EU report on Gaza

Human development across Gaza has been set back by 77 years, with $71.4 billion needed over the next decade for recovery and reconstruction.

The assessment says $26.3 billion will be needed in the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery.

More here ⤵️
https://t.co/VMk9TZqVka

"We have a pretty good picture of what it will cost," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, said on Monday from New York. "Obviously, one will need funding, but more importantly, one needs the conditions on the ground, both humanitarian and security conditions for this reconstruction to happen. And I don't think we're there yet."

[Andrew Feinstein @andrewfeinstein]

Israel is a depraved society far surpassing the racist brutality of the South African apartheid state. It is a criminal entity the likes of which I have never seen before … & I grew up in apartheid South Africa

[Jeremy Loffredo @loffredojeremy]

The Israeli military was caught fabricating evidence of a weapons cache to justify its systematic demolition of Bint Jbeil, a town in southern Lebanon.

The video below is a 13-minute documentary report I filmed for @DropSiteNews in and around Bint Jbeil last summer, during which Israeli drones surveilled and targeted residents attempting to rebuild their homes after the 2024 war. In retrospect, this no-rebuilding policy, enforced by air-to-ground missiles, appears to have been aimed at making the town's total destruction easier to carry out.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🗞️ Israel Reinstates Soldiers Charged With Raping Palestinian Detainee at Sde Teiman

Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has approved the return of five soldiers to active military service after charges against them were dropped, despite no completed command-level investigation, Haaretz reported.

The soldiers beat, dragged, tasered, and sexually assaulted a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman prison, who was hospitalized with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe internal injuries. Israel’s chief military prosecutor withdrew the indictment last month. The defense minister apologized to the soldiers and called their prosecution an “injustice.”

The reinstatement comes as rights group Euro-Med Monitor finds in a new report that sexual violence inside Israeli detention facilities is an organized state policy.

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

IDF Setting Up More Outposts in Southern Lebanon:
"We're behaving just like we did in Gaza," one army source said. "There's a list of homes to be demolished, and we measure success based on the number of buildings destroyed in a day.”

https://t.co/AVKD6jzmXK

[courtneybonneauimages @cbonneauimages]

This afternoon the young man seen running from the vehicle received a call from the Israeli army telling him he could die alone or die with his family in the car.

He ran from the vehicle into a field and was struck and killed by an Israeli drone.

This is not the first time that the Israeli army has used this tactic. It is pure barbarism. Abject terrorism.

[Declassified UK @declassifiedUK]

Two months after we found a US War Dept document revealing US military sites in Britain, the Guardian writes an article based on the same document, without mentioning us.

Who would have thought?

Our article is here
👉https://t.co/mLTPkyyfKT

[Sarah Wilkinson @swilkinsonbc]

Disturbing israeli footage of 60 Palestinians being inhumanly crammed & transported into israeli custody using a waste-disposal rubbish truck

[Jody McIntyre @jodymcintyre_]

41 minutes after my investigation into Labour peer and former IDF operative Jonathan Kestenbaum was published, his Wikipedia page was updated. However, questions remain:

Companies House lists Kestenbaum's nationality as “British”, but the 1989 journal I uncovered describes him as a “young Israeli soldier”. The 1988 Jerusalem Post article says that Kestenbaum “settled in Israel” three years previously.

Was Kestenbaum’s participation in the Qabatiya curfew disclosed before his appointment to the House of Lords?

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

Some states say they can’t act on Israel's genocide because "the ICJ hasn’t ruled''. But it has. In July 2024 the ICJ found the occupation illegal, ordered it dismantled, and banned aid or assistance. Keeping trading with and arming Apartheid Israel means one thing: complicity.

[Richard Sanders @PulaRJS]

- @AlexCrawfordSky is doing something fascinating and it is drawing a lot of heat.

She is reporting on Arabs as if they were white people.

[asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل @asadabukhalil]

The US ambassador in Beirut today stated that the US government asked the Israelis to “spare Christian villages” in South Lebanon.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

This is brilliant. Elbit's Israeli weapons factory in the Czech Republic set ablaze by Earthquake Faction.
Earthquake Faction is not a proscribed organisation so I unequivocally support this.
I support all direct action against Israeli weapons supply chains, unless by a proscribed organisation in which case it is very naughty and not at all legal to support.

[John McEvoy @jmcevoy_2]

My latest in @declassifiedUK is a shocking story of incompetence, malfeasance, and unlawful behaviour:

Britain's Ministry of Defence paid £1.5 billion for drones which kept crashing and couldn't fly in bad weather.

The contract was awarded to Israel's largest arms firm Elbit Systems and Thales from France.

Those companies squeezed the MoD for years, with the drones costing £88,400 per flying hour and executives charging £18,000 a month for hotels.

Meanwhile, Elbit and Thales produced an export variant of the same drone and signed a £400 million contract to sell them to Romania.

Despite everything, they were assisted by the UK government, which subsidised the production of those drones and promised to support export licenses.

Shipping documents expose how dozens of drone components have been sent from Britain to Israel since the contract with Romania was signed - but they haven't been onward exported to Romania.

And open-source evidence now strongly suggests Elbit has been testing the drones in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, likely breaching UK export law.

Full story👇
https://t.co/SM26AjGzEN

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

It’s Iranian propaganda that a primary school was hit in Iran, killing 160+ people, most of them children aged between 7 and 12.

Ok, those kids did die. But it wasn’t from a US missile. It was an Iranian missile that hit the school.

Ok, the evidence shows it was a US Tomahawk. But it could have been one sold to the UK or the Netherlands.

Ok, neither of those countries was involved at the start of the war. But it must have been an unfortunate accident.

Ok, the US targeted the school twice. But c’mon, who locates a primary school near a military base?

Ok, the Israelis and Americans do that too. But …

Hey, why should I even care about brown kids getting killed.

[Semitic Jew @semitic_jew]

Dear Americans,

Here is the American tomahawk missile, made in Tucson, Arizona and paid for by me and you, right before it obliterated the bodies of nearly 200 children at an elementary school in Iran.

The best experts in the world have confirmed it.

They also confirmed that neither Israel or Iran have Tomahawk missiles.

They also confirmed the exact coordinates of the missile and the school.

They also confirmed the EXACT SAME blast radius from missiles the United States admits they dropped the same morning in the same town.

Now what?