Mathieu Deflem
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This is a pre-print manuscript of a publication forthcoming in Belügyi Szemle: Academic Journal of Internal Affairs, August 2025, forthcoming.
To be available online from the publisher as PDF. (TBA)
Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2025. “October 7 and International Police Cooperation: The Silence of Interpol.” Belügyi Szemle: Academic Journal of Internal Affairs, forthcoming.
Abstract
The terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas against the people of Israel on October 7, 2023 have instigated many responses of a political, legal, and military nature and have also moved intense sentiments concerning the conflict on a global scale. With an eye on the international police implications of October 7, this paper examines the relevant actions by the International Criminal Police Organization Interpol, the global police network which has devoted attention to the policing of international terrorism from the 1970s onwards. Despite its longstanding involvement in international police cooperation in matters of terrorism, however, Interpol has not taken any actions in response to the Hamas atrocities of October 7. The organization’s leadership has on no occasion even mentioned the matter, and its meetings and other activities have likewise remained silent on this tragic act of brutal terror. The conditions of this peculiar silence are examined in the context of Interpol’s evolving counterterrorism actions and its recent development. It is suggested that the organization has relinquished some of its professional autonomy because of existing pressures, especially from some of its more powerful member agencies, to abuse the international organization for political purposes.
Keywords: Interpol, October 7, Terrorism, Hamas
Introduction
This contribution discusses the international police implications of the events of October 7, in particular the impact thereof at the International Criminal Police Organization Interpol. It will be shown, and is remarkable to observe, that Interpol has completely ignored the terrorist threat and actions from Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas and, in particular, the atrocities Hamas committed against the nation of Israel on October 7, 2023. This non-response by the world’s largest organization of police stands in stark contrast to its earlier response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and is not in line with its mission in matters of counterterrorism. Interpol has been devoting attention to (international) terrorism since the 1970s. During the 1990s and, especially, after the events of September 11, 2001, the international organization stepped up its commitment to counterterrorism greatly in the form of various initiatives and strategies. Over the past decade, however, Interpol gradually withdrew from terrorism as one of its central objectives. Yet, even in the light of this relative neglect to matters of terrorism in recent years, the organization’s nonresponse following the Hamas attacks of October 7 remains striking.
In this paper, I will explain the various relevant aspects of the near-total refusal of Interpol to address October 7 and some of the public reactions and criticisms it has invoked. To offer an explanation, I will try to make sense of this remarkable silence in terms of the international police organization’s basic mission and recent development.
Interpol and Terrorism Before and After 9/11
Since its founding in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, Interpol has fostered cooperation among police in matters of criminal law enforcement (Deflem, 2002). Because the organization focuses on ordinary criminal offenses and does not wish to involve itself with matters of a political or ideological nature, Interpol was historically at first reluctant to deal with matters of terrorism, which can be divisive in such respects. Over the course of the 1970s, however, Interpol moved towards the development of terrorism functions by dealing with crimes that are typically associated with terrorist activity (e.g., hijackings, bombings), though not terrorism as such (Deflem & Maybin, 2005). This situation changed in view of mounting concerns over international terrorism during the 1980s and 1990s. Following several high profile terrorist attacks, such as the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Interpol formally declared its commitment to international counterterrorism by means of a ‘Declaration Against Terrorism’, which was agreed upon at the General Assembly in Cairo in 1998. To avoid politically tainted difficulties, Interpol thereby treated terrorism as a crime and in view of the criminal activities associated with terrorism. Such a de-politicized understanding of terrorism as a crime is indeed the conception of terrorism that allows for a role by police in counterterrorism operation, an approach that has been applied widely by police agencies across jurisdictions (Deflem, 2010).
Following the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda against the United States, Interpol’s counterterrorism efforts significantly expanded (Deflem & Maybin, 2005). The Interpol General Assembly drafted a resolution condemning the 9/11 attacks as a terrorist act against the citizens of the world and prioritized tracking down the terrorists involved. Specialized programs were also developed to facilitate Interpol’s counterterrorism efforts. An Incident Response Team was established to provide investigative and analytical support to member agencies. In 2002, a Fusion Task Force was created for assisting in the identification of members of terrorist groups. Other changes made at Interpol in the wake of 9/11 included the establishment of the permanent General Secretariat Command and Coordination Center and an internet-based encrypted communications system, called I-24/7, to facilitate rapid information exchange.
The political and legal differences among the member agencies of Interpol should ideally not hinder international cooperation in matters of counterterrorism policing. A de-politicized understanding of terrorism as a crime can serve as a basis for police cooperation (Deflem, 2010). To achieve this conception, terrorism is among police institutions broadly and vaguely defined, allowing for specific applications across national jurisdictions. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on the criminal elements of terrorist activity, such as killings and kidnappings, which are subject to law enforcement operations. Despite such cooperation-enabling efforts, police from more powerful nations nonetheless prefer to engage in unilateral and bilateral forms of international work, especially on relatively sensitive matters such as terrorism.
In more recent years, it is notable to observe, Interpol has gradually de-emphasized its once primary focus on international terrorism (Deflem, 2024). This change is especially noticeable from the 2010s onwards, after the change in Interpol leadership in 2014 when Ronald Noble ended his position as Secretary General in favor of Jürgen Stock. The German law enforcement officer recently ended serving his second five-year term in November 2024, when Valdecy Urquiza of Brazil (Interpol’s former Vice President for the Americas) was appointed by the General Assembly as his replacement. Rather than concentrating on international counterterrorism, Interpol has over the past decade under Stock’s leadership devoted most energy to attract member agencies from more and more nations, with the organization’s membership presently representing 196 countries. As a result of its wide global scope, the organization may now actually be too large and diverse in political and other respects to effectively establish cooperation in counterterrorism. In any case, while the reasons for this reluctance to take up counterterrorism as its central mission (as Interpol did in the immediate years after 9/11) may be political, institutional, and/or practical, the undisputed fact remains that (international) terrorism has been relatively neglected by Interpol in recent years except in the form of largely symbolic gestures that terrorism presents a threat to global peace (Deflem, 2024).
Interpol and October 7
An examination of the impact and relevance of October 7 on Interpol can be made in the most certain of terms. Despite the event’s wide and intense resonance on a global scale, there has not been a single mention of the terrorist events of October 7 at the headquarters of the organization, among the leadership, and at the various annual and regional meetings. No action of any kind has been taken by Interpol to even mention, let alone condemn, the Hamas attacks against the Israeli people, nor assist in the investigations, despite the fact that the organization, by its own policies and principles, would have a role to play. The silence of Interpol about October 7 is deafening.
On the Interpol website, there is not a single mention of October 7 or Hamas. Even more pronounced today than over the past decade, in fact, there is only minimal mention of any of the many problems of international terrorism (Interpol website, keyword search ‘terrorism’). In its presentation, instead, Interpol places most of its mission emphasis today on organized crime, drug trafficking, child abuse, and sex trafficking.
Interpol’s 91st General Assembly was held from November 28 to December 1, 2023 in Vienna, a century since the founding of the organization in that Austrian city. Despite the fact that the meeting was held very shortly after October 7, the assembly made no mention of Hamas nor of terrorism, instead devoting attention to transnational organized crime and the general need for police cooperation. As before (and at least since September 11), all documents on the Interpol site are posted in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, the latter language of which is of obvious significance since the rise of jihadist terrorism.
Secretary General Jürgen Stock has made no reference of any kind to October 7 or Hamas. (Stock’s successor Urquiza has yet to comment on any substantive international police matter, which is not surpsirisng since his appointment is of such recent date.) More broadly, Interpol has simply said and done nothing about the Hamas massacre of October 7. Shortly following the horrible event, on October 26, 2023, Stock posted on X an announcement about a cooperation event organized by the police of the United Arab Emirates (Stock, 2023a). On November 27, he posted to affirm Interpol’s commitment to “neutral international law enforcement cooperation” (Stock, 2023b), but neither terrorism in general nor Hamas specifically were mentioned.
The only statement on October 7 from within Interpol circles came a week after the massacre, when Interpol Washington (the U.S. national central bureau for the organization) on October 14, 2023 posted a short statement on its X account that reposted and quoted an excerpt from a statement by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Department of Justice (Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, 2023). Acknowledging that “Hamas’ horrific terrorist attacks on Israel mark the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” the quoted excerpt from Garland proclaimed, “My heart is with the families whose loved ones have been killed and those whose loved ones are still missing” (Interpol Washington, 2023).
While terrorism as an international law enforcement concern is not completely dead at Interpol, there are but few signs of life. The majority of recent Interpol efforts on terrorism are nominal or symbolic (Interpol website, Terrorism, Partnerships against terrorism). For example, terrorism is still mentioned on the website as among Interpol’s interest areas, but ongoing relevant activities appear to be very sparse. Likewise, public pronouncements on terrorism by the leadership of Interpol have become very few and far between. Whereas Secretary General Stock still publicly discussed terrorism on some occasions until 2018, albeit it even then mostly in very generic terms to emphasize the need for cooperation (e.g., United Nations, 2018), over the past years there have been only very few mentions of terrorism (Deflem, 2024).
More distinctly in connection with Hamas and the threat from jihadist terrorism, Stock met with representatives of the United Nations to discuss security measures on matters of international terrorism. It is to be noted that the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled “Calling for Immediate, Sustained Humanitarian Truce Leading to Cessation of Hostilities between Israel, Hamas”, but the global political organization failed to adopt an Amendment condemning the October 7 terrorist attacks (United Nations, 2023). Following a briefing at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in February 2024, Stock specifically spoke before the press regarding threats caused by international terrorism, particularly in connection with the threat of the Islamist terror group ISIL. At the short press conference, the Secretary General mostly spoke in general terms to emphasize international information exchange and the connection between organized crime and international terrorism (Stock, 2024; UN Security Council, 2024). When a reporter asked a specific question about Israel’s ongoing efforts to wipe out Hamas, Stock responded with reference to “DAESH” (aka ISIL or ISIS) and the global jihadist ideology’s impact on lone-wolf terrorists, without mentioning Hamas. When the same reporter asked a follow-up question about how this could help specifically in the fight against Hamas, Stock quickly ended the press conference, simply stating “Thank you very much” (Ibid.).
Similarly refusing to address Israeli experiences with terrorism while nonetheless addressing such issues in other countries, Interpol’s X account on October 1, 2024 posted a response to a post by The Global Coalition (2024) regarding the latter’s activities against the Islamic State Daesh (Interpol, 2024). The post included a quote from Greg Hinds, Interpol’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, which argued that “Over the past decade, we have been fighting the terror cycle in Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan through successful stabilization efforts. #INTERPOL stands ready to be the network of networks against these threats” (Ibid.).
The little that is said and done about terrorism by the Interpol leadership avoids any mention of ongoing security concerns in and against Israeli society, while embracing, however minimally, related efforts in other countries. In January 2024, Jürgen Stock made public statements following the Kerman terrorist attack of January 3, whereby ISIS operatives killed 95 people, to offer his support to Iran (Tehran Times, 2024). Officials from the Islamic Republic, incidentally, had initially suggested Israel was behind the attacks and have continued to suggest that “Israeli intelligence could have been working together with elements of ISIS to carry out the bomb attack in Iran” (Fathollah-Nejad, 2024). In July 2024, Stock similarly met with police in South Africa concerning matters of organized crime and terrorism, mentioning the usual emphasis on cooperation in view of the globalization of crime (SABC News, 2024).
On an investigative level, it is difficult to make strong claims about Interpol activities because communications and information exchange (especially on a bilateral level) may be happening on the ground among police of different countries, regardless of what is said, or left unsaid, at the top of the organization. The Red Notices database presently mentions 26 people from Israel, wanted for various crimes, and 2 from Palestine, wanted for arson (Interpol website, View Red Notices).
The current number of suspects wanted through Interpol by police from Israel is zero. In 2024, some 13 Israelis were arrested abroad on the basis of Interpol notices (Eichner, 2024). While there have been no Interpol notices posted for the leaders of Hamas, there was recently an intent expressed by Turkish authorities to search for Israelis alleged to be responsible for the killing of a US-Turkish activist in the West Bank in September 2024 (Akin, 2024). In a similar vein, it has been suggested that Interpol be involved in the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in view of the decision by the International Criminal Court that they would have engaged in war crimes. Specifically, the advocacy group Arab Center Washington DC proposed that countries “initiate a request to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to issue a notice to all member states to arrest and extradite Netanyahu and Gallant wherever they are found” (Akram & Quigley, 2024). While it was recognized that a Red Notice is unlikely to be issued against a sitting head of state, the effort “remains a viable prospect for arresting Gallant” and would be feasible for Netanyahu when he “is no longer prime minister” (Ibid.).
Public Reactions
Among the general public, Interpol remains a relative obscure and misunderstood organization. Scholars of criminal justice and related social sciences have likewise not always contributed much to analyze the development of Interpol’s role in terrorism and other enforcement areas. Nonetheless, there have been at least a few public calls expressed from voices in the community and civil society to pressure Interpol to step in and take up its counterterrorism responsibility, especially in connection with terrorism from Hamas and other jihadist groups.
A few days after the Hamas attacks, on October 12, 2023, the American Center for Law & Justice sent a letter to Michael Hughes, Director of the National Central Bureau at Interpol Washington, with a request to issue Interpol notices for members of Hamas (American Center for Law & Justice, 2023). The request was justified in view of the fact that the fatalities of October 7 included U.S. citizens. Specifically requested were Green Notices (to provide warning about a criminal suspect considered to pose a threat to public safety) against five named members of Hamas known to have been involved in the atrocities. Among them was Mohammed Deif, the head of the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades, who was killed by IDF forces in 2024 during a targeted operation as part of the Sword of Iron war against Hamas.
Further, on January 3, 2024, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre directed a letter to Interpol Secretary General Stock calling for Red Notices (for the location and arrest of a suspect) to be issued against Hamas leaders. The letter named six individuals, including Yahya Sinwar, Mahmoud al-Zahar, and Mohamed Deif (Simon Wiesenthal Centre, 2024; Samuels, 2024; Israel National News, 2024). The letter mentions that this action would not violate Interpol’s provision not to intervene in matters of a “political, military, religious or racial character” as the October 7 attacks were “diabolically criminal” in nature. “By putting these criminals on a ‘Wanted’ list, Interpol could make history,” the letter concludes (Simon Wiesenthal Centre, 2024). Of the three suspects, Sinwar and Deif were killed by IDF forces during the Hamas war, while al-Zahar has not been seen publicly since October 7.
As part of a broader call to treat terrorism as a criminal act, representatives of B’nai B’rith International in February 2024 proposed for Interpol to step in and use its notices system to track down members of Hamas and other terrorist groups (Mariaschin & Michaels, 2024). The astute but tragically ironic argument was thereby made that a heightened role for Interpol in counterterrorism as a matter of international law enforcement could prevent wars and military interventions to target terrorist activities.
Finally, besides these organizational initiatives, an additional call was made for Interpol to take up action in response to the events of October 7 by Oliver North, the former U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel known for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair. Now occasionally appearing in the media as a political commentator, North proposed a broad counter-offensive against the terrorists involved in October 7, involving military intervention, political pressure, and law enforcement actions (Creitz, 2023). Besides suggesting formal charges be brought against Hamas by the Justice Department, North proposed that “An Interpol posting of those guys’ faces in airports around the world might keep these thugs from traveling freely around to the whorehouses that they’re known to visit” (Ibid.).
Discussion
The evidence of this inquiry unambiguously indicates that Interpol has not only decreased its counterterrorism focus in recent years but that the organization has, more clearly still, remained totally silent and inactive about the Hamas atrocities of October 7. In view of Interpol’s evolving role in counterterrorism, this indisputable fact begs for an explanation. In this discussion section, I will sketch some of the conditions that may have contributed to create this situation.
The involvement of Israel in Interpol has historically often been difficult. Police from Israel has been a member of Interpol since October 15, 1949, shortly after the creation of the state, but effective participation has over the years been minimal. In 2017, police representing Palestine became a member of Interpol following a period of various successful efforts by Israel to block this membership (Ahren, 2016). The move understandably angered Israel (Allen, 2017; Charlton, 2017; Keinon, 2017a, 2017b; Pileggi, 2017). The entity Palestine, incidentally, is mentioned on the Interpol website as part of the region Asia/South pacific (along with other Middle-Eastern members) (Interpol website, Palestine), while Israel is categorized as part of Europe (Interpol website, Israel).
Israel maintains membership in Interpol through its National Central Bureau that connects Israeli law enforcement with the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. At the time of the October 7 attacks, the representative of Interpol for Israel was Dror Assaraf, the head of the police intelligence division. A few weeks before the Hamas attacks, in September 2023, he had just accompanied Israeli police commissioner Yaakov Shabtai on a visit to police from the United Arab Emirates (UAE)in Dubai to discuss their countries’ “mutual fight against organised crime and terror” (Husseini, 2024). Reportedly, there had been tensions between Shabtai and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who, since his appointment in 2022, oversees the Israeli national police and the MAGAV border police (ibid.). Following the Abraham Accords of 2020, the UAE and Israel normalized relations, and an Israeli police official was stationed in the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi. (In July 2024, Shabtai was replaced by Avshalom Peled.) Police commissioner Assaraf resigned in September 2024 “amidst a recent wave of resignations in the Israeli military and security establishment” and was replaced by Police Commissioner Daniel Levi (The Cradle, 2024). This was at the time reported to be the third resignation in the Israeli police leadership since Levi had been appointed following his nomination by (far-right) Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir in July that year (Haberler, 2024).
Apart from Israel’s internal political turmoil affecting positions in police leadership and international police work, Israel has generally also received little cooperation from Interpol. Requests for arrest of Hamas leaders and support in counterterrorism by Israeli police have typically been ignored. In 2017, the day after Palestine had been accepted into Interpol (September 27), Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center sent a letter to Interpol to take “all necessary steps to arrest Hamas leader and terrorist Saleh al-Arouri for his role in two infamous crimes against Israelis” (Bob, 2017). Al-Arouri was a Hamas operative (since killed by the IDF on January 2, 2024) who was accused of plotting the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014 and the murder of a rabbi and his wife in 2015.
Interpol’s neglect to focus on the terrorist threat and actions from Hamas and related radicals has unsurprisingly been heavily critiqued by Israeli officials. Alan Baker of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, for instance, noted that on the same day as the Palestinian entry into Interpol was formalized, on September 26, 2017, a Palestinian national shot and killed three people in the village of Har Adar. Baker condemned “the total insensitivity of the international community” and argued that allowing Palestinian membership in Interpol was “giving the Palestinians a green light and license to incite and to reward terror” (Baker, 2017).
Not only has Israel experienced difficulties to solicit help from Interpol in its counter-terrorism efforts, there have also been attempts to use Interpol against Israeli officials. In January 2010, when Hamas leader Mahmud al-Mabhuh was found dead in a hotel room in Dubai, the police chief of Dubai sought the arrest of Mossad chief Meir Dagan should the organization be responsible for the death (Rushworth, 2010). The UAE police chief later also filed charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the head of the Mossad (Wikipedia, Assassination). Red notices were posted by Interpol, at Dubai’s request, for several persons wanted for the alleged murder (Reuters, 2010). In the light of such difficulties, it is not surprising to note that a negative opinion of Interpol is even held by Anat Granit, the retired chief superintendent in the Israeli Police and former head of Interpol in Israel, who called the international police organization a “monster” (Shani, 2018).
Concluding Thoughts
The results of this inquiry into the Interpol response to the terrorist attacks of October 7 are as straightforward as they are puzzling. Indeed, Interpol has remained completely silent about October 7 and Hamas. This silence stands in stark contrast to the impact of 9/11 now more than twenty years ago and the many initiatives Interpol then took to address growing concerns over international terrorism. Even considering the gradual decline of a focus on terrorism at Interpol over the past decade, the current lack of attention to (most forms of) international terrorism more broadly is remarkable. In fact, it can be observed that the Interpol leadership spoke more about terrorism before the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023 than it has since.
Various critics and observers have suggested how Interpol can, and should, have a role in addressing the international police aspects of the events of October 7. Yet, as this paper has shown, conditions of difficulties in cooperation between Israel and Interpol as well as internal difficulties within Israel in matters of politics, law, and police make such a response unlikely in the case of the threat and acts of terrorism against the nation state of Israel. In conclusion, further, this analysis should also be situated in the broader context of some the problematic recent developments that have plagued Interpol as a professional organization. Indeed, as a growing number of scholars and observers have suggested, Interpol has in recent years at times become politicized, with its law enforcement instruments, particularly the Red Notices system, alleged to being abused by autocratic political regimes (see, e.g., Boyajian, 2024; Bromund, Grossman, & Greenberg, 2024; Bromund & Reich, 2021; Lemon, 2019; Keith, 2025; San, 2022).
In terms of Interpol’s abuse by autocratic governments, it is not unreasonable to speculate that there may be pressures exerted on the leadership of the police organization to acquiesce to political demands. The organization’s current President, it is to be noted, is Major General Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, of the United Arab Emirates, who was elected at the Interpol General Assembly in Istanbul, Turkey in 2021 for a 4-year term (BBC, 2021). The election came despite grave concerns that were expressed over Al-Raisi’s involvement in torture by the security forces he oversaw in the UAE. On suspicion of these charges, Al-Raisi has even been investigated by French authorities (Associated Press, 2022). Further, the UAE has also contributed financially to Interpol more than any other country. In 2017, Interpol received a €50 Million UAE donation, permitted through the police organization’s voluntary funding mechanism, to establish a (since abolished) project that included terrorism among its target areas (Calvert-Smith, 2021; Estlund, 2021).
In the light of Al-Raisi’s Presidency and the UAE’s influence through the country’s excessive funding of Interpol, the curious involvement of UAE officials in Interpol discussed above takes on special significance. Hence, it is also not unreasonable to suggest that an unusual influence exists from the UAE on Interpol’s organization and activities in matters of international terrorism. This would explain why Secretary General Jürgen Stock has focused quite some attention to terrorism by ISIS (Daesh), such as when he condemned the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on August 26, 2021 (Interpol, 2021). In stark contrast, the Interpol leadership has remained completely quiet about the otherwise similar, and widely resonating, jihadist actions from the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas.
In conclusion, therefore, I end with a question. Do the wishes of the Interpol President, though largely a symbolic office, and other powerful Interpol participants representing their own national political interests dictate to the Secretariat General how Interpol, as a professional police organization, is to operate in the case of Hamas and Israel? Absent further analysis, this question cannot be answered unambiguously at the present time. But the question can, on reasonable grounds, surely be asked and should, at least as reasonably, also be presented to the Interpol leadership. Even without resorting to political, normative, or otherwise external factors, the important international law enforcement mission of Interpol itself demands as much. As it stands, in any case, the telling conclusion is that Interpol argues to practice neutrality, at least on some selected occasions, but abuses this principle and thereby betrays its own mission.
Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this article was prepared for presentation on the Sir David Garrard Session on International Counter Counter-Terrorism Policing at The Shabtai Shavit World Summit on Counter-Terrorism, organized by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Reichman University, Herzlyia, Israel, October 2024. Although the session was canceled because of the Iranian missiles attack against Israel on October 1, I greatly benefited from having attended the shortened conference during my research visit in Israel, October 4 to 14, 2024.
Conflict of interest
The author has declared no conflict of interest.
Funding
This research was partly funded by a Director’s Award from the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies at the University of South Carolina, project on “Policing Terrorism in Israel since October 7,” October 2024.
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