Mullin Warns Mamdani’s Anti-ICE Rhetoric ‘Dangerous,’ As Mayor Continues Campaign To Make Immigration Enforcement Someone Else’s Problem

Comrade Zohran Mamdani

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Department of Homeland Security has responded to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest denunciation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, warning that his rhetoric risks inciting hostility toward the very agency tasked with removing criminal offenders from American streets.

DHS Press Secretary Markwayne Mullin pushed back Friday after Mamdani used an ICE shooting in New York City as an opportunity to renew his call to abolish the agency. The mayor declared Thursday that ICE has "killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save," apparently concluding that the best way to address immigration enforcement controversies is to eliminate immigration enforcement altogether. Either he's a dolt or has a secret plan he's keeping close to the vest.

Mullin was not persuaded by the proposal.

"His words are dangerous and incite hostility," Mullin said during a Friday press conference. "Well mayor, if you abolish ICE, who's going to take criminals off the streets of your own town?"

Perhaps that's Mamdani's feature, not the problem.

Oscar Belgal 

It was an inconvenient question for a mayor whose preferred solution to the agency’s existence appears to be making the agency cease to exist, leaving the practical details of enforcing immigration law for another administration to sort out.

The controversy followed an incident Thursday involving Oscar Belgal, who was shot by ICE officers after allegedly refusing to leave his vehicle and driving into two government vehicles, according to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles.

The incident, Charles explained, involved considerably more than an immigration officer knocking on a car window and asking an occupant to update his address.

"He refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle," Charles said. "He then accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two of our government ICE vehicles and then weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate going towards other officers," he said.

Mullin also addressed reports that a child was inside the vehicle during the confrontation. Authorities, he explained, were unaware of the child's presence at the time. Belgal, however, knew the child was there.

"Oscar knew he had a child in his car."

That detail added another troubling dimension to an incident that had already become a political flashpoint, with Mamdani condemning ICE and renewing his demand to abolish it while federal officials defended the officers' actions.

For Mullin, the broader concern was the mayor's rhetoric toward federal law enforcement. While politicians can debate immigration policy, he argued, portraying ICE as a threat to the public while calling for its abolition risks encouraging hostility toward officers carrying out their duties.

Markwayne Mullin

New York City now finds itself confronting a familiar political question: If ICE is abolished, who will be responsible for removing criminal offenders who are subject to deportation?

Mamdani has made his position on the agency clear. The question of what replaces it, however, remains considerably less clear.

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Abdul El-Sayed Calls Pregnant Women “Simply a Carrying Vehicle” for Babies

KALAMAZOO, MI — Michigan Democratic Senate nominee and anti-Semite extraordinaire, Abdul El-Sayed informed a pro-life student that a pregnant mother is “simply a carrying vehicle for a fetus that has not ever breathed air,” after she asked why she should vote for him. 

The exchange occurred at a “Students vs. Billionaires” event on the Western Michigan University campus. El-Sayed did not use the word “woman.” Instead, like a good leftist, he referred to the pregnant mother as “an adult, or sometimes even a juvenile human.” 

“I respect your position insofar as it’s founded in the idea that you want to protect and empower life,” El-Sayed told the student. “The question we have to ask ourselves is, what’s the best way to do that? And whose life gets destroyed in that process?” That is, if you help one life, you are somehow destroying another life--it's the same playbook leftists use to say that billionaires are taking money away from others in order to be rich.

He continued: “Because too often when government says that you cannot have reproductive care, you are creating a circumstance in which an adult, or sometimes even a juvenile human, is being reduced into simply a carrying vehicle for a fetus that has not ever breathed air.” 

He later clarified that restricting abortion turns “the currently existing life of the mother” into “simply a carrying vehicle for a fetus.” Campaign aides confirmed the nominee remains open to other vehicle metaphors, provided the fetus has not completed the required air-intake paperwork.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said the answer treats a pre-born child as if the baby does not count until a first breath outside the womb.

“I’ve carried four babies. I was their mother long before any of them breathed air,” she said. “The Pro-Life Generation knows a pre-born baby is still a baby.”

Hawkins noted that El-Sayed has pledged to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal taxpayer funding of most abortions, to defend government funding for Planned Parenthood, and to keep tax dollars from pregnancy resource centers, which he has called “fake clinics.” Sources say the clinics’ principal offense is offering diapers instead of the correct philosophical category for the occupant.

When Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed him in August, she said, he praised “the tenacity and compassion of the folks at Planned Parenthood” and said he looked forward to partnering with them in the Senate. 

El-Sayed and pro-life Republican Mike Rogers are set to debate Thursday in Grand Rapids. Hawkins said Students for Life Action students plan to be outside, and that the group is targeting the Michigan Senate race ahead of the Nov. 3 election. She also pointed to a leaked Democratic playbook that, she said, puts abortions up to birth and repeal of the Hyde Amendment at the top of the list if Democrats take Congress, with a promise to act within the first 100 hours.

At press time, El-Sayed’s campaign was still refining whether the carrying vehicle retains voting rights once the fetus has been successfully delivered to the curb.

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ICE Arrested Salah Sarsour President of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee!

Photo by: Yaseen Najeeb

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim community leader and president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the state's largest mosque, was arrested by ICE on March 30, 2026. Sarsour has lived in the US since 1993 and became a permanent resident in 1998.

Sarsour has been detained for more than 80 days and is the subject of a major 2026 immigration case.

DHS alleged that he failed to disclose Israeli military-court convictions on his U.S. immigration application and has raised national-security and foreign-policy concerns, but his lawyers dispute these allegations and claim he was coerced and tortured into confessions as a teenager and that the efforts to deport him is his connection to his advocacy for Palestinian rights.

A federal judge ordered his release in June, finding that he raised a substantial claim that his detention was retaliatory for protected speech, [in spite of his blatant anti-Semitism].

However, on September 30th, a judge ruled that he could be deported on national-security/foreign-policy grounds. His attorneys said they would appeal.

Sarsour also served on the board of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

Not surprisingly, there are older allegations about alleged connections to Hamas and fundraising, with claims contained in congressional documents and court filings. Those allegations are contested and should be distinguished from the findings in the current immigration proceedings.

Regarding a timeline there are two competing narratives throughout the case: the government says Sarsour’s decades-old Israeli military convictions and alleged immigration violations justify removal; Sarsour’s attorneys say the convictions resulted from coercion and that the government revived them because of his Palestinian advocacy.

1988-1989: Arrest and Israeli military proceedings

Sarsour was born and raised in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

He was imprisoned by Israeli authorities in the late 1980s.

Court records and government filings say he was convicted by an Israeli military court of offenses involving attacks on Israeli military personnel, including throwing stones. DHS has characterized the case as involving a Molotov cocktail, while Sarsour's defense disputes that characterization.

His attorneys maintain that he was tortured and coerced into confessing. His former Israeli lawyer, Jawad Boulos, later testified to that claim during the 2026 immigration proceedings.

1993: Comes to the United States and became a conditional lawful permanent resident. He has said the U.S. has been his home for more than three decades.

1995: Second Israeli military conviction:

Israeli military authorities convicted Sarsour of attempting to possess weapons.
Sarsour denies committing the offense, while his attorneys say he was coerced into confessing.

1998: Becomes a full permanent resident

2002: Naturalization application approved

2000s-2020s: Milwaukee community leader Sarsour became president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, described as Wisconsin's largest mosque.
He also became involved in Palestinian advocacy and eventually served on the board of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

His supporters portray him as a longtime community leader with no criminal record in America. The government later argued that his Palestinian activism and other associations raised national-security and foreign-policy concerns.

June 2025: Rubio memorandum Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memorandum invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law concerning foreign-policy consequences.

 
The government subsequently relied on that provision in seeking to remove Sarsour.

 
The provision had also been used against other prominent pro-Palestinian activists, including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

February 2026: Trump administration intensifies scrutiny of Palestinian advocacy The Justice Department's assistant attorney general for civil rights announced plans to investigate, prosecute and dismantle organizations including American Muslims for Palestine.

March 26, 2026: Canary Mission profile updated

 
According to the federal judge's account of the chronology, Sarsour's profile on the Canary Mission website was updated four days before his arrest.
His lawyers subsequently pointed to the timing as evidence that the government action was connected to his political advocacy.

March 30, 2026: ICE arrests Sarsour

 
Armed federal agents in civilian clothing arrested Sarsour in Milwaukee as he was going to work.
He was taken to the Clay County Jail in Indiana, where he remained in ICE custody for more than 80 days.

 
DHS alleged that his old Israeli convictions made him removable and accused him of concealing information on his immigration paperwork.

April-June 2026: Detention dispute escalates

 
Sarsour's attorneys argued that his detention was retaliation for his protected speech concerning Palestinian rights.

 
They also raised serious medical concerns. He reportedly lost more than 30 pounds while detained and, according to his attorneys, did not receive adequate monitoring of his diabetes.

June 18, 2026: Federal judge orders his release

 
U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered Sarsour released.

 
Hanlon found that Sarsour had presented a "substantial" First Amendment retaliation claim.
The judge also noted that the government had not adequately explained why Sarsour suddenly represented a threat after decades as a lawful permanent resident.

 
Sarsour was released on his own recognizance.

Importantly, Hanlon's ruling did not terminate the deportation proceedings. It concerned Sarsour's detention, while his underlying immigration case continued.

July 2026: Deportation hearings begin

 
Immigration proceedings began in Chicago before Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi.
DHS argued that Sarsour had lied on immigration documents and that his Israeli convictions demonstrated that he was removable.

 
Sarsour's attorneys argued that the Israeli convictions were obtained through torture and coercion and that the government had known about his history for decades.

August-September 2026: Evidence and testimony 

Sarsour's former attorney Jawad Boulos testified that Sarsour had been tortured by Shin Bet and coerced into confessing. 

Experts also testified concerning forced confessions and Israeli military courts. 

DHS challenged the credibility and evidentiary basis of the torture allegations. 

The immigration proceedings continued through September.

September 14, 2026: Final removal hearing
The fourth and final removal hearing was held in Chicago.
Sarsour's lawyers continued to argue that his detention and removal proceedings were politically motivated and connected to his advocacy for Palestinians.

September 30, 2026: Immigration judge rules Sarsour deportable

Judge Salinardi ruled that Sarsour could be deported on foreign-policy/national-security grounds.
However, the judge rejected the government's allegation that Sarsour had lied to immigration authorities about his history. 

The ruling therefore did not establish that he fraudulently obtained his green card as DHS had alleged.

The decisive issue was Rubio's determination that Sarsour's presence could have adverse consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The judge gave substantial deference to that determination.

September 30, 2026: Sarsour announces appeal

Sarsour called the decision "deeply disappointing" and said:

"I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades."

His attorneys said they would appeal. They also indicated they expect to seek protection under the Convention Against Torture, arguing that Sarsour could face torture if returned to the region.
Where the case stands now

As of October 8, 2026, the September 30 ruling does not mean Sarsour has been deported. His attorneys have said they will appeal, and he may seek protection from removal based on the alleged risk of torture. The government cannot simply remove him while those available legal proceedings are pending.

One particularly important distinction for an article is this:

The immigration judge found Sarsour deportable on foreign-policy grounds, but rejected the government's claim that he lied on his immigration paperwork. That distinction is easy to lose in headlines describing the case as a deportation based on his "criminal history."

If you're researching this for a news article, the 1988-1995 Israeli convictions, the 1993 U.S. immigration entry, the 2002 naturalization approval, the 2025 Rubio memorandum, and the 2026 ICE arrest are the key pieces to examine closely because they form the government's entire chronology for why a man who had lived legally in America for more than three decades suddenly became the subject of removal proceedings.

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Schumer, Jeffries Dodge Mamdani Controversy as Fellow New York Democrat Unloads

Chuck "Kapo" Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries

The two most powerful Democrats in Congress have apparently discovered that the best response to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's disgusting lies on Israel and Gaza is to respond to something else.

Mamdani doubled down Thursday on his October 7 statement accusing Israel of carrying out a "genocide" in Gaza, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck "Kapo" Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have so far declined to weigh in on the controversy.

Mamdani’s post on Wednesday briefly acknowledged Hamas’ October 7 blitz against Israel, which left more than 1,100 Israelis dead and more than 250 others captured and held hostage by the terrorist organization. He then devoted most of his statement to condemning Israel for its conduct in Gaza over the past three years.

"The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children," Mamdani said on X, leaving out the October 7th massacre of Israelis, for some reason. "Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed."

"That suffering has intensified with every [retaliatory] Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing," he said. "Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them — all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes." 

Of course, this human piece of digestive waste had nothing to say of the unarmed Israelis who were slaughtered by the jihadists. He had no problem discussing the city's grief and the make-believe war crimes in Gaza, however. Never once did this disgusting excuse for a man mention the city's one million Jewish residents.

That omission became even more conspicuous when Rep. Dan Goldman, a fellow New York Democrat, decided that someone in his party should actually object. Finally, Goldman got his Hebrew on. 

"This is a reprehensible statement on the anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack by a Palestinian terrorist organization against innocent Israelis," Goldman said on X. "In the guise of ‘grieving’ with those mourning that day, Mayor Mamdani asserts as fact hotly disputed allegations that he knows full well will offend and further upset those same people he pretends to grieve with."

Goldman's response stands in sharp contrast to the apparent strategy adopted by Schumer and Jeffries: say something about October 7, just not anything that requires confronting Mamdani directly.

Neither Schumer nor Jeffries responded to requests for comment on Mamdani's remarks. Both flaming cowards issued their own statements commemorating the October 7 attack on Wednesday.

Schumer, who is sort of Jewish, described the attack as the "single deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust." His support for Israel has increasingly become a problem for some Senate Democrats, who have moved further toward opposing American arms shipments to Israel after three years of war in Gaza. Perhaps he was trying to appease the Party by not challenging Mamdani's bile.

"Today, we reaffirm our commitment to the security of the Israeli people, to the aid and wellbeing of the Palestinian people and the recovery of the devastation in Gaza that the ensuing conflict brought, and to doubling down on efforts for a lasting peace resulting in two states where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in equal measures of peace, security, dignity, and mutual recognition," Schumer said, mostly through his nostrils.

Jeffries struck a position closer to the Democratic Party's left flank while acknowledging that "we are reminded of the painful reality that the Jewish people are in a constant struggle for survival, as has been the case for thousands of years." [But we really don't care.] 

"Throughout the past three years, considerable suffering has plagued the Middle East. The horrific death of Palestinian civilians, destruction of civil society and devastation in Gaza is reprehensible and can never be allowed to happen again," Jeffries said, leaving off the Jewish murders that happen on a regular basis in Israel.

"In order to end the vicious cycle of bloodshed, for the good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, American policy in the region must change dramatically," he continued. "We must commit to the creation of an independent Palestinian state to provide dignity, respect and self-determination for the Palestinian people."

For Democrats watching from the sidelines, the situation presents a remarkably convenient arrangement. Mamdani can denounce Israel, Goldman can denounce Mamdani, and Schumer and Jeffries can issue carefully calibrated statements about peace without having to answer the increasingly awkward question of whether they agree with the Democratic mayor of America's largest city. 

What a bunch of scumcrumpets.

In New York politics, apparently, silence is not merely golden. It is also remarkably well-positioned for reelection.

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IDF Virginizes Hamas Commander Who Held Israeli Hostages in Gaza City

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has killed a pair of Hamasshole commanders, Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazji, and Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal. Both Muhammad Mohammads are now with their new heavenly wives, 144 brown-eyed goats in all, as they have received what they had given the world: terror and death to, you know, those Joooooze!

The IDF killed Mo Muhsen Nimr Yazji, a commander of Hamas's Shati [the 'a' is pronounced as an 'i'] Battalion who held several former hostages during strikes in Gaza City on Monday, the military announced on Thursday evening.

The former hostages Yazji held captive include Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, and Matan Angrest.

In separate strikes on Tuesday, the IDF also killed Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal, a terrorist who served in Hamas's Daraj Tuffah Battalion.

This is a developing story so stay tuned.

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Nebraska Senate Hopeful Dan Osborn Releases New Audio Confirming He Is Exactly Who His Opponents Said He Was

"Independent" [actually a leftist] Senate candidate Dan Osborn has spent months assuring Nebraska voters that the various recordings, lawsuits, and internet histories attached to his name were the work of other people, shared accounts, and mysterious third parties who somehow knew his birthday and home address. 

But low and behold, new audio has now arrived to complicate that message.

In the recording, Osborn can be heard saying, "Fat chicks and big, black c**k." He then added, "Big black c**k."

He also said, "The brown people are coming up here to kill us and rape us."

Campaign aides described the comments as taken out of context, though they declined to identify a context in which those sentences would land better. A spokesman said the voice on the tape sounded "a lot like Dan" but stressed that several people have access to Dan.

The audio joins a growing stack of materials Nebraska voters were not supposed to notice. 

In 2021, Kellogg's, you know them as the cereal company, obtained a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit that named the union, its Omaha local, and Osborn personally during a strike he led. The company alleged that members under his leadership threatened workers' lives, threatened that a worker's wife and young children would be assaulted "including sexually," followed workers home, and used racial slurs. A judge granted the order. It was later dropped after the union ratified a contract and the strike ended.

Osborn, married since 2002, also turned up in the 2015 Ashley Madison breach. An email linked to his birthdate and home address appeared in the dump from the site built for married people seeking affairs. The campaign said he never used the site and that the email belonged to a "shared corporate account" used by "multiple people." It did not explain why a shared account required Osborn's birthdate and home address. The public learned of the match in 2024.

That same year, reporters found an X account labeled "Dan Osborn President BCTGM 50G" that had liked hardcore gay pornography and images of naked women between 2020 and 2021. One liked post was an explicit video of Black men performing sex acts. The campaign again said the account was used by "multiple people." The National Republican Senatorial Committee later cut the likes into a digital ad titled "Dirty Dan."

Osborn has also said on other leaked recordings that he is aligned with the Democratic Party, a detail his independent branding had not emphasized.

Asked about the latest tape, the campaign repeated its standing explanation: somebody else. Critics noted that the somebody else now appears to have Osborn's voice, Osborn's union title, Osborn's address, and Osborn's habit of liking the same category of posts the campaign says he did not like. Osborn's team said it is looking into whether the somebody else can be persuaded to stop.

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Former Hamas Hostage Counters Hasan Piker’s UT Austin Appearance With the Reality of Oct. 7

Maya Regev recovers in hospital

There is a peculiar luxury enjoyed by people who discuss atrocities from a comfortable distance. They can reduce human beings to political abstractions, transform suffering into talking points, and dismiss inconvenient facts when those facts interfere with a preferred ideological narrative.

Former Hamas hostage Maya Regev does not have that luxury.

Regev survived the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre at the Nova Music Festival, was shot in both legs, abducted by Hamas and held captive in Gaza for two months. When controversial Twitch streamer and human excrement Hasan Piker appeared at the University of Texas at Austin, Regev offered students something considerably less fashionable than internet commentary: firsthand experience.

Piker, a vocal critic of Israel and proud anti-Semite, made headlines with his visit to UT Austin, even before he arrived in the Lone Star State.

Piker: post-digestive waste

While he was speaking at an event hosted by University Democrats, Regev was telling students what it was actually like to experience the horrors of Oct. 7 and Hamas captivity.

The contrast was difficult to miss.

In a recent conversation with Fox News Digital, Regev addressed one of Piker's most infamous remarks concerning the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7: "It doesn’t matter if rapes f---ing happened on Oct. 7, like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me." What a dickweed.

Regev pointed out the obvious problem with allowing such a worldview to dominate the conversation, particularly among students who may be hearing competing claims about the atrocities committed that day.

Asked about his remarks concerning reported rapes committed by Hamas, Piker later told The New Republic that there was "definitely testimony of sexual violence that had taken place amongst the hostages. But that doesn’t change the dynamic of Israel committing a genocide against the Palestinians, and my opposing that genocide."

Regev's response was not to demand that Piker be silenced. It was to make sure students heard from someone who had actually been there.

Chabad, a Jewish organization with representatives across the globe, contacted Regev about speaking at UT Austin after Piker's appearance was announced.

"I'm not here to silence anyone," Regev told Fox News Digital. "I came there to let people hear what I've been through, like the other side of the story, with facts, with pictures, with records."

That distinction matters.

Piker has millions of low-information followers and an enormous platform. Regev has something different: the scars of what she is describing, much like the Hamasshole who video taped the atrocities and bragged about it. Much like the other now eliminated Hamasshole who called his parents on his dead victim's phone and bragged about all the Jews he murdered.

The Anti-Defamation League has criticized Piker for what it calls his "anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and tropes." Among the comments highlighted by the organization is Piker's claim that Hamas hostage and American-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander had volunteered for the "Nazi army."

Anyone who actually believes this garbage needs a brain transplant.

Regev acknowledged that Piker has freedom of speech and "can say whatever he wants." Her point was that students should not mistake popularity for evidence or social-media reach for firsthand knowledge.

"For me, Oct. 7, it's not a debate, it's not something I read online. It's something that I've lived through, something that will forever be inside me, something that I will have to live with for the rest of my life," she told Fox News Digital. "I just think that it's important for them to understand that behind every story there are real human beings."

There is a fundamental psychological difference between reading about an atrocity and being one of its victims, aka fiction v. truth.

"I was a hostage. I was a Hamas hostage," Regev told Fox News Digital. "I was being held by Hamas, by those monsters, and I think that students might, you know, forget that they are actually real human beings, real families that lost their lives, real women that got raped, men, lives were destroyed on Oct. 7."

That is precisely the danger of turning mass violence into ideological theater. Once victims become symbols rather than people, almost anything can be rationalized, especially by a scumcrumpet like Piker who makes a ton of money off his Jew-hating balderdash.

Regev also challenged the growing influence of online personalities who form opinions for audiences that have never personally encountered the realities being discussed.

"When they hear an influencer post something, when they read something, it's important for them to check the facts before they are repeating a slogan or celebrating death of innocent people," Regev said.

She later added, "I sat with those people. I lived with them for two months, with Hamas people... I think that people should listen to a person who was really there and not to a person who just sees stuff online and has millions of followers."

It is difficult to identify a more elementary principle for evaluating competing claims: someone who experienced an event possesses information that someone watching videos about the event does not--especially by someone looking to weave a story to align with his anti-Zionist/anti-Semitism about the event.

Regev also addressed what she believes influencers such as Piker fail to understand about Gaza, particularly Hamas' use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

I suspect Piker understands what Hamassholes did on Oct. 7, 2023, but lies about it to make his evil point.

"Hamas is using children and women and elderly women as a human shield," Regev said. "I think, again, people should know the facts before they're talking, and especially when you're very influencing."

Her own story began at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023.

Regev attended the festival with her brother, Itay Regev, and her friend Omer Shem Tov. When the rocket alerts began at 6:29 a.m., she initially was not especially alarmed. Having grown up in Israel, she had experienced rocket alerts before. Even young children know the score.

"We thought it was just a matter of time before everything will calm down, and we can keep on partying, but after some time we understood that it [was] a lot more serious than what we thought," she said.

The group headed toward their cars, only to be told by police officers to abandon them because terrorists had invaded Israel.

Regev, her brother and Shem Tov then ran for what she estimated was between 60 and 90 minutes.

Eventually, they received a call from Ori Danino, a friend of a friend who had also been at the festival. Danino had escaped the immediate danger but turned around to try to rescue them.

It was an act of extraordinary courage.

It also ended with all of them being abducted.

The group had been driving for approximately five minutes when "a big pickup truck" carrying terrorists opened fire. Regev was shot in both legs. Her brother was also wounded.

The terrorists dragged Regev, her brother and Shem Tov from the vehicle, forced them into the pickup truck and drove them into Gaza.

Danino initially escaped, but another group of terrorists eventually captured him and took him into the Strip.

The Regev siblings were released from Hamas captivity in late November 2023, only days apart.

Freedom, however, did not mean that Regev could simply return to the life she had known.

Her release was accompanied by the knowledge that friends remained underground in Gaza.

"It was a total shock. I thought that Omer will return home, like, a few days after me, but then the ceasefire was stopped. So, it was very hard for me. I couldn't believe that I escaped this hell, and they are still there being held, Ori, Omer, all the other hostages," Regev told the outlet.

Danino, the man who had risked his life attempting to rescue Regev, her brother and Shem Tov, would spend 11 months in captivity before Hamas executed him along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi and Alexander Lobanov.

Shem Tov endured 505 days in Hamas captivity before being released on Feb. 22, 2025.

For Regev, surviving created its own psychological burden.

"I felt very guilty that I was saved, that I'm back home with my family. I can get the medical treatment that I needed to receive and there are people there suffering, still hostages suffering, not eating, being abused physically and mentally. But I understood that I have a voice now, and I have to use it, and I'll do anything in my [power] to bring them back home," she added, obviously experiencing survivor's guilt.

Eventually, with her brother and Shem Tov home, Regev could begin contemplating a future rather than simply surviving the present.

Her ambitions are remarkably ordinary.

She wants to walk outside. Look at the sky. Travel. Study. Spend time with friends and family. Enjoy being alive.

"I just want to do everything that makes me happy," Regev told Fox News Digital. "When I was there in captivity, I promised myself that I will live life. I told myself that if I'll ever be home again, I'll live life, and I'll study, and I'll go travel the world, and I'd be with friends and my family. And it's what I'm doing now, you know, I'm just doing whatever makes me happy."

"I think that the only thing I wish for myself is to be happy forever and grateful for everything that I have."

Perhaps that is the most important counterargument Regev brought to UT Austin.

It was not merely a competing political position. It was a reminder that beneath the slogans, statistics and ideological narratives are human beings who bleed, suffer, remember and mourn.

Piker can discuss Oct. 7 from a livestream. Regev carries Oct. 7 with her.

One is hateful commentary.

The other is real memory.

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Opposing Israel's defense establishment, Katz threatens all-out war on Palestinian Authority

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has issued a blunt warning to the Palestinian Authority: If its security forces decide to "turn their guns" on Israelis and IDF troops, Israel will respond by going to war with the PA.

There is, however, an awkward detail standing between that warning and a full-scale West Bank war: Israeli military and Shin Bet officials say they have no concrete intelligence indicating that such an attack is actually being planned.

Katz's warning came Tuesday during a security briefing on IDF preparations in Judea and Samaria. He described a scenario in which PA security forces and Fatah-affiliated Tanzim elements could suddenly decide that their uniforms and weapons are better suited for attacking Israelis than maintaining order.

Given the history of the region, it is not exactly an imaginative exercise.

"The reference scenario defined for the IDF regarding Judea and Samaria determines that preparations must be made for the possibility of an attack by jihadist elements against the settlers and IDF soldiers, as a lesson from the events of October 7 in Gaza," Katz said.

And there is the October 7 lesson.

Israel was told for years that Hamas was deterred. The threat was manageable. The border could be secured. The worst-case scenarios could remain worst-case scenarios.

Then thousands of terrorists crossed into Israel and carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

So when Israeli officials now say they are preparing for an extreme scenario, it is difficult to blame them for refusing to place their faith in comforting assumptions.

Katz reportedly based his warning on an IDF presentation to the cabinet Monday concerning the military's preparations for extreme scenarios. When IDF sources pushed back by noting that there was no concrete intelligence indicating a PA rebellion was being planned, Katz essentially made the obvious point: October 7 was also an extreme scenario, right up until it happened.

That does not mean a PA uprising is imminent. It does mean Israel has considerably less reason than it once did to dismiss unpleasant possibilities merely because they are unpleasant.

Still, the IDF and Shin Bet apparently aren't seeing the specific threat Katz described.

Additional IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post that the military has no concrete intelligence pointing to a planned rebellion by PA security forces or Fatah-affiliated Tanzim elements. Shin Bet sources similarly said they were unaware of any concrete threat from the Palestinian Authority.

In other words, Israel's defense minister is warning about a potential Palestinian Authority insurrection while the security establishment is essentially saying, "We don't see it."

That disagreement matters.

Katz did not coordinate his remarks with the IDF, and military sources did not indicate that they supported his decision to publicly outline the scenario.

But Katz went considerably further than merely saying the military should prepare. He said that if PA forces attack Israelis or IDF troops, Israel will declare war on the Palestinian Authority.

"In such a case, war will be declared against the Palestinian Authority, and the IDF will launch a comprehensive offensive in accordance with an organized plan that was formulated and approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by me, according to the principles outlined for the IDF," Katz said.

That is not a diplomatic warning written by committee. That is a declaration that Israel has already contemplated exactly what it would do if the PA security apparatus decides to become another enemy army. And the proposed response would be anything but symbolic.

Katz said an Israeli campaign would be "short and powerful."

"The campaign will be short and powerful and will include the use of ground and air forces and the use of special means, the targeting and expulsion of senior officials, the destruction of weapons and military equipment, and the extensive evacuation of residents and destruction of terrorist infrastructure inside the cities and in all refugee camps in Judea and Samaria, in accordance with the Gaza and Lebanon model, alongside reinforcing forces and defending the Israeli communities," he said.

That would mean bringing the Gaza and Lebanon playbook into the West Bank.

Ground forces. Airstrikes. Targeted senior officials. Weapons destroyed. Terrorist infrastructure demolished. Large-scale evacuations.

The sort of military campaign that tends to make the international community suddenly discover an urgent interest in Israel's restraint.

Katz also said the IDF was conducting "powerful activity against terrorist centers on the ground, including the evacuation of refugee camps in northern Samaria," while claiming that terrorism had fallen to its lowest level in decades. Yet he warned that the situation could deteriorate dramatically if PA forces themselves became combatants.

That possibility is precisely why the IDF has changed its thinking since October 7.

Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir has said the military will increasingly prepare according to enemy capabilities rather than relying primarily on assessments of enemy intentions. That may be one of the most important lessons Israel learned from October 7.

Intentions are difficult to read. Capabilities are not.

A government can convince itself that an enemy has no intention of attacking. It can issue reassuring intelligence assessments, hold meetings and point to the absence of obvious warning signs.

Then the enemy attacks anyway, like history has show us.

Israel has therefore conducted surprise readiness exercises designed to test whether the military can respond to a large-scale assault without the luxury of advance warning.

The stakes in Judea and Samaria are particularly high now. Tensions have increased around the third anniversary of October 7, the upcoming elections at the end of the month, continuing clashes surrounding settler violence and the broader regional confrontation involving Iran.

An IDF source told the Jerusalem Post that the military would not publicly describe an all-out war with the West Bank in the same terms Katz did because such a conflict remains an extreme scenario.

Fair enough, but Israel has already learned the price of treating extreme scenarios as somebody else's problem.

The real question is not whether a PA rebellion is currently underway. It isn't. The question is what happens if the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which possess weapons, training and organizational structures, ever decide that Israel is the enemy rather than the security partner they are supposed to be.

Katz has made his answer clear.

Israel will not wait for another October 7 to discover that the "unlikely" scenario was sitting in plain sight.

Do you blame him?

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