Mossad’s internal communications described Gandhi as a “bitter dynast” allegedly involved in “coordinated efforts” to damage Adani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In an explosive revelation with far-reaching geopolitical implications, sources have told Sputnik India that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally ordered the country’s spy agency, Mossad, to counter an alleged international campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.

This unprecedented operation, codenamed Operation Zeppelin, reportedly included hacking into the personal servers of Indian political strategist and Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) head Sam Pitroda.

According to highly placed sources, Mossad’s intervention was triggered days after the now-infamous Hindenburg Research report released on January 24, 2023, which accused Adani of orchestrating “the largest con in corporate history.” The bombshell wiped off approximately $150 billion from Adani Group’s valuation and led to one of India’s most severe stock market crashes.

Haifa Deal and Israel’s Strategic Concerns

The timing of the Hindenburg report raised alarms in Tel Aviv, occurring just days before Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) closed a landmark $1.2 billion deal to acquire Haifa Port—Israel’s largest and most strategic shipping hub. Sources told Sputnik India that Netanyahu, present during the finalization of the Haifa deal, raised the issue directly with Adani in a high-level closed-door meeting.

“This report… it is a serious threat to your business, isn’t it?” Netanyahu reportedly asked Adani, who was alone representing his group at the time. Present alongside Netanyahu were key aides, including Eshel Armoni, former Mossad operative and then-chairman of Haifa Port.

Adani’s calm rebuttal—“Not at all. It’s all lies.”—did little to ease Israeli concerns.

Netanyahu, citing the strategic nature of the India-Israel relationship, is believed to have told Adani, “Even if you see no threat, we have to be concerned. If it weakens you, it could sabotage not just this port deal but everything we have worked to build with India.”

According to sources, he described the Hindenburg charges as an “indirect attack” on Israel and assured Adani: “Israel believes in protecting its friends.”

Mossad Launches Operation Zeppelin

Within days, Mossad launched Operation Zeppelin, activating its elite Tzomet (Human Intelligence) and Keshet (Cyber Operations) units. The operation aimed to uncover what Israeli intelligence perceived as a coordinated global effort to derail the Haifa deal and undermine India’s standing.

Targets reportedly included Hindenburg Research’s New York headquarters and its founder Nathan Anderson, who were put under direct surveillance. The operation expanded to monitor hedge funds, activist lawyers, journalists, and political figures allegedly linked to the U.S. Deep State and billionaire George Soros.

One of the most startling aspects of the operation was the cyber intrusion into the Illinois-based residence of Sam Pitroda. Sources claimed that Mossad successfully accessed encrypted chatrooms and backchannel communications allegedly linking senior Indian opposition figures, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, to Anderson’s team.

Citing these findings, sources said Mossad’s internal communications described Gandhi as a “bitter dynast” allegedly involved in “coordinated efforts” to damage Adani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Global Surveillance and Western Media

Mossad’s operations reportedly spanned multiple geographies—ranging from the U.S. and Canada to Europe and Australia. One decrypted email from Anderson, dated September 2023, allegedly confirmed a broader plan: “Nate’s report was just the beginning. More’s coming.”

By January 2024, Adani was privately briefed on the Zeppelin findings by Israeli intelligence operatives in Switzerland. The resulting dossier—spanning 353 pages—accused Western media outlets, USAID, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) of amplifying anti-Adani narratives.

According to sources, USAID played a “central role” in disseminating disinformation through media channels.

In November 2024, intermediaries linked to Mossad reportedly leaked segments of the dossier to Reuters, Bloomberg, and The Guardian. Only French investigative outlet Mediapart published a report. “Most buried the story,” the sources noted.

Legal Blowback and Political Fallout

The dossier’s release coincided with legal actions against Adani by U.S. agencies, reportedly influenced by Biden administration officials. However, these cases collapsed under scrutiny, and sources say they led to the resignation of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace.

In December 2024, Adani’s legal team—led by powerhouse firm Quinn Emanuel—sent a seven-page legal threat to Hindenburg Research. A month later, Nathan Anderson allegedly agreed to dissolve Hindenburg in exchange for immunity, which was revoked after Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025.

Congress Responds

India’s main opposition party, Congress, has categorically denied any links to Hindenburg or foreign entities. In a statement, it called the allegations a diversionary tactic to shift attention away from the serious issues raised by the Hindenburg report.

“This is nothing but a smokescreen to protect the ruling party’s corporate allies,” a Congress spokesperson told local media.

If confirmed, the revelations about Operation Zeppelin mark an extraordinary case of transnational intelligence operations being deployed in the defense of private economic interests. It underscores the evolving nexus between geopolitics, corporate interests, and cyber-espionage.

As of now, neither the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office nor Mossad has commented on the allegations. Gautam Adani’s office has also declined to respond to queries from Sputnik India.

This story is developing.

The $24 million deal for Colt Carbine 5.56mm fully automatic rifles was officially notified to Congress by the State Department on March 6. The stated end user is the Israeli National Police.

A Controversial Deal

While the sale is relatively small compared to the billions of dollars in U.S. arms supplied to Israel, it has drawn significant attention due to previous concerns that the rifles could be used by extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The Biden administration had initially delayed the deal, citing fears that some of the weapons might end up in the hands of settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians.

Under Biden, the U.S. had imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to settler violence in the West Bank. However, on his first day in office on January 20, Trump rescinded those sanctions through an executive order, reversing U.S. policy. Since then, his administration has approved multiple arms sales to Israel worth billions of dollars.

The March 6 notification to Congress stated that the U.S. had considered “political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control” factors in approving the sale. However, the State Department did not confirm whether any assurances had been sought from Israel regarding how the rifles would be used.

Deepening U.S.-Israel Ties

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war, and the settlements it has built there are widely considered illegal under international law—though Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical connections to the land.

Violence by settlers against Palestinians had already been rising before the Gaza war erupted, and it has intensified since the conflict began over a year ago.

Trump has maintained close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, promising unwavering support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. His administration has proceeded with multiple arms sales to Israel, even as some Democratic lawmakers have urged for pauses to review their potential impact.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel due to human rights concerns. Senators voted 82-15 and 83-15 against two resolutions, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, which aimed to halt the sale of massive bombs and other offensive weapons.

Context of the Conflict

The rifle sale was initially put on hold after Democratic lawmakers demanded clarity on how Israel intended to use them. While congressional committees eventually cleared the deal, the Biden administration had kept it frozen.

The current phase of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli sources. In response, Israel has carried out a military campaign that, according to Gaza health authorities, has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.

Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir—a far-right member of Netanyahu’s government—oversees the country’s police force. In November 2023, The Times of Israel reported that his ministry had placed “a heavy emphasis on arming civilian security squads” in the wake of the October 7 attacks.

This latest arms deal reflects the Trump administration’s continued push to support Israel militarily, despite concerns from human rights advocates and opposition from some U.S. lawmakers.

During his speech, Al-Faisal claimed that Israel had been providing support to Hamas, a militant group operating in the Gaza Strip. He further alleged that neighboring Qatar had been sending financial aid to Gaza, with the funds flowing through an Israeli bank without adequate oversight or accountability.

Prince Al-Faisal said, “Israel has been supporting Hamas, and our neighboring Qatar has been sending money to Gaza. And it was Israeli bank that allowing that money to get to Hamas, without anybody accounting for that, where that money is going and who’s going to receive it”.

According to Al-Faisal, this lack of transparency raises concerns about the destination and recipients of the money.

The former Saudi intelligence chief’s allegations of Israeli support for Hamas, if proven true, would have significant implications for the regional dynamics and the prospects of peace in the Middle East.

Prince Al-Faisal also directed criticism towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holding him responsible for the deteriorating situation in Gaza. He accused Netanyahu of arrogance and a failure to acknowledge the realities on the ground, suggesting that the Israeli leader’s actions had backfired.

“If you all are looking for someone to blame for what is happening in Gaza. We can equally say, Israel is to blame for that, and particularly Mr. Netanyahu, his arrogance and his blindness to reality. He thought he was outsmarting everybody. Alas he has been proven wrong”, he said.

Expressing his hopes for the Israeli public, Prince Al-Faisal urged them not to reelect Netanyahu or choose a leader who might be even more detrimental to the peace process.

Prince said, “I hope Israeli public will not put him back in office or choose someone even more awful than he, if there is election in Israel”.

The Israeli public will now face the decision to either reelect Benjamin Netanyahu or choose an alternative leader who can navigate the challenges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and address the concerns raised by figures like Prince Al-Faisal.

The IISS Manama Dialogue, an annual security conference held in Bahrain, serves as a platform for policymakers, experts, and officials to discuss regional security challenges and explore potential solutions.

Hamas is clearly willing to play ball, but it wants Egypt and Israel to help it with the international community…

Efforts to rebuild Gaza after the brutal 11-day air, land and sea punishment by the Israeli army in May are hitting a snag. The biggest problem appears to be the issue of who controls the massive amount of money earmarked for rebuilding.

The problem appears to be focused on the attitude of Hamas in Gaza. The attacks, which erupted following Israel’s refusal to ease up on Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah, have produced a funding problem for Hamas. Now most of the talk about money — such as whether to pay public servants in Gaza or push on with reconstruction — appears to be directed at the UN and its various agencies operating in Gaza. Naturally, the Ramallah-based government would also like to be the conduit of the money, but that does not appear to be possible. At best, the Ramallah leadership might be allowed to have a seat at the table.

When it comes to Hamas, the purse strings might be eased if it agrees to a prisoner swap and ensures that no further security escalations take place. On the first issue, the long negotiations don’t appear to be making serious progress because of the chasm between what Hamas wants in terms of the number of prisoners it expects in exchange for the Israeli prisoners and bodies in its possession. The new Israeli government under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid government is not in any rush to make compromises, while opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is breathing down their backs and accusing them of being a left-wing, appeasing government.

Meanwhile, what is hampering the efforts of the UN negotiators, headed by Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland, is the sense of victory Hamas is feeling following the 11-day battle with Israel, in which the Gaza-based movement succeeded in paralyzing Israel’s airports and businesses and sent half its population into shelters. While Israel suffered few fatalities compared to the Gazans, there is no doubt that the equation has changed because Hamas was not crushed and can therefore return again and again to disrupt Israeli lives.

External players are also trying to help the process. The Egyptians, who oversaw the current ceasefire, feel they can produce some change within the Hamas leadership, but not without the Israelis also budging. Hamas is clearly willing to play ball, but it wants Egypt and Israel to help it with the international community. Hamas wants to be legitimized and no longer treated as a terrorist organization. In particular, it would like to be allowed to be a serious part of any new government established in Ramallah.

However, the Middle East Quartet, as it stands, does not appear to be in any mood to soften its three conditions for Hamas’ participation as a legitimate partner. The three conditions — recognizing Israel, denouncing terror, and accepting existing agreements signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization — seem difficult for Hamas to swallow, especially due to its strong feeling of victory following the recent cycle of violence.

The quartet, which is made up of the US, UN, EU and Russia, has been pushed to widen its membership to include a number of new players, including Egypt, Jordan and possibly the UK (which is no longer part of the EU), but it has so far resisted. Discussions in New York about a meeting of the quartet at the Foreign Ministry level have been discussed, but no decision has been made or date set. It is expected that, once a general framework for a deal to cement the ceasefire and agree on the mechanism of the rebuilding of Gaza is reached, then the quartet can meet to help approve and give such a draft agreement the needed push forward.

For the time being, the ball appears to be in Hamas’ court, although others like Israel have a major role to play in helping move the process forward. That will include not only reinforcing the ceasefire and beginning the rebuilding process, but also concrete steps toward the restart of direct Palestinian-Israeli talks. That seems far-fetched at the present time, but it is obviously needed if the efforts of all parties concerned are to produce the expected positive results.

Article first published on Arab News.

Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem. He is the former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. Twitter: @daoudkuttab.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The Israeli media reports earlier stated that, Israeli Prime Minister and the head of Israel’s secret service Mossad, Yosef Meir Cohen, secretly flew to NEOM city from Tel Aviv to meet Saudi Crown Prince.

Prince Faisal tweeted, “I have seen press reports about a purported meeting between HRH the Crown Prince and Israeli officials during the recent visit by @SecPompeo. No such meeting occurred. The only officials present were American and Saudi”.

According to Al Arabiya news agency, Prince Faisal said, “I received and bid farewell to Secretary of State Pompeo in the airport in NEOM and attended his meeting with the Crown Prince. There were no Israelis present”.

In a statement in which he thanked US President Donald Trump for brokering the deal, Netanyahu also said that Israeli and Sudanese delegations would meet soon to discuss commercial and agricultural cooperation.

“What an amazing turnabout,” Netanyahu said.

“Today Khartoum says yes to peace with Israel, yes to recognition of Israel and yes to normalization with Israel,” he said in a Hebrew-language statement sent to AFP.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which will usher in the Jewish year of 5781, begins on the evening of Friday, Sept. 18, and commemorates the anniversary of the creation of the universe. As is appropriate for a holiday commemorating what Jews consider to be the penultimate divine act, its canvas is the entire world, all of humanity.

For Jews, Rosh Hashanah is a time of introspection and self-examination, during which we reflect on the good and the bad that each of us have done over the past 12 months and resolve to do better in the coming year. Specifically, we resolve to be just and compassionate to people of all faiths and nationalities, according to the aphorism of Rabbi Hillel, a first-century sage: “What is hateful to thee, do not do unto your fellow man. This is the whole law; the rest is mere commentary.”

For the growing Jewish communities of the Gulf, this is a joyous time to reflect on the blossoming of Jewish life with the support of enlightened governments in this region. As the “Rabbi to the Gulf” who worked hard for more than a decade to bring about this blessed result, I share in the euphoria. However, this Rosh Hashanah, I respectfully urge the Jews of the Gulf to look beyond the Jewish community to the challenge of coexisting positively with the overwhelmingly Muslim populations among whom they are living.

We must appreciate the positive steps forward that we are seeing in the Gulf when it comes to their embracing our religion. For example, I appreciate how Arab News is breaking taboos by publishing articles from Jewish leaders. Personally, I was honored to be asked to write an op-ed that was published on the front page of the paper the day after the UAE-Israel announcement and then again last week after Bahrain and Israel announced their deal. They also published a special “Deep Dive” report on the Jews of Lebanon last week on Sept. 12.

Indeed, the Jews of the Gulf have a unique role: To be ambassadors from our people to the larger Muslim world. They must endeavor to reach out to their Muslim brothers and sisters and build lasting ties of communication and cooperation. Together, the Muslims and Jews of the Gulf can set an inspiring example to our brethren around the world, showing them that interfaith communities can truly live together in friendship and trust. Let us accomplish this together in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah, which celebrates our common humanity, and of the recently observed Muharram, the Islamic New Year.

During this season of reflection and repentance, the rabbis eulogize human beings’ ability to cast off obsolete ways of thinking and fundamentally change their actions for the better. In that context, let us reflect on the many positive changes we have witnessed in the Gulf over the past 12 months. Just think about the amazing things Muslims and Jews can accomplish together in the years ahead, such as overcoming the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and other serious illnesses in the Middle East and beyond, or applying advanced irrigation techniques to green the desert and increase food production for the benefit of all of humanity. The possibilities are limitless.

Rabbi Marc Schneier is President of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Article first published on Arab News.

In what seemed like a re-enactment of ceremonies that have come before, nearly 1,000 people gathered on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday to watch Arab and Israeli leaders sign landmark normalization accords. In addition to the promise of a new page in Jewish-Arab relations, the event generated photo-ops that President Donald Trump will find useful as he heads down the final stretch of the 2020 presidential campaign.

Despite the inevitable feeling of deja vu, the signing of the Abraham Accords declaration is different in important respects from the treaties that were signed by Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, Jordan’s King Hussein and Palestine’s Yasser Arafat. For one, the immediate objective is not the cessation of military hostilities or the creation of a Palestinian state, but rather “normalization” of relations between Israel and two Gulf states that have been on the sidelines of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The White House ceremony was also different in that it took place against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has claimed the lives of almost 200,000 people in the US and hundreds more in the three signatory countries: Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. The mask-wearing attendees visible in photos and videos of the gathering are likely to become markers of a most unusual period in modern world history.

That said, a peace accord with an Arab country has always been critical to Israel’s foreign-policy vision. Sealing deals with two Arab countries at the same time can only be described as a dream come true for an Israeli leader, in this case Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As for President Trump, who brokered the agreements, he has come in for praise even from liberal American media outlets, who have described the Abraham Accords declaration as a major political achievement.

Most US reports in the run-up to Tuesday’s event listed in detail the Israeli attendees, noting that the agreements would be signed by Netanyahu and witnessed by Trump. By contrast, the representatives of the UAE and Bahrain, who countersigned the documents for their countries, were described as the “foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain,” not respectively as Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani.

Trump emphasized that his team “wanted this to happen so badly … they doubted it would happen.” That team included several administration officials who have strong personal ties to Israel through their politics and their faiths, including Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser; Avi Berkowitz, special representative for international negotiations; and David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel.

All in all, the agreement was a diplomatic master stroke for Israel and a coup for Trump’s re-election campaign, which has the support of many significant voting blocs, notably Jewish Americans and Evangelical Christians. What cast a shadow, however, was the flat-out rejection of the accords by the Palestinians as well as the continued ill feeling between the Israeli and Palestinian governments.

These aspects of the Abraham Accords are in sharp contrast to the handshakes that took place on Sept. 13, 1993, at the White House South Lawn between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with President Bill Clinton looking on. Tuesday’s ceremony came exactly 27 years to the week from that historic moment, which was also packed with the promise of a new page in Israeli-Arab relations. Rabin was assassinated, two years later, by an Israeli extremist in November 1995.

Will this time be different? While thanking Trump and officials of the UAE and Bahrain, Netanyahu did not explicitly mention Palestinians when he said the accords would bring peace to “all.” But in an interview with Arab News, Ronald Lauder, a billionaire businessman and chairman of the influential World Jewish Congress, welcomed the Abraham Accords and emphasized that the Palestinian issue was still a priority.

“I think that this is a historic agreement between Israel and the UAE and between Israel and Bahrain. It opens up the entire region; it is a question of starting to believe in each other,” he said.

“This is going to have a ripple effect throughout the Middle East. I believe there will be other countries joining very shortly in this phase. And I believe very, very much that the Palestinians, seeing what is happening, will finally say it is time to come to the peace table and will sit down with Israel and the United States and say let’s talk peace.”

Earlier, Jamal Al-Musharakh, Director of Policy Planning at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the agreement signed by his country will create a “new environment” that will foster and nurture peace not only between Israel and other Arab states but also with Palestinians themselves.

“We have not abandoned the Palestinians,” he told Arab News. “It is a strategic shift. The deal provides a more optimistic view of the future and will result in benefits for all in the region, including for the Palestinians. But the Palestinians need to engage with the peace process themselves.”

The domestic political implications of the normalization agreements will be analyzed deeply by American pundits in the weeks to come. The UAE-Israel agreement was sealed on Aug.13 while the Bahrain-Israel deal materialized just last week.

White House officials, including Berkowitz, told reporters in a recent background briefing that the UAE agreement is much more detailed than the Bahrain deal, which is still being discussed.

Skeptics argue that the objective of the exercise in peace-making is essentially Trump’s re-election. The White House added grist to the mill by issuing a formal press release on Sept. 9 announcing that Trump had again been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

As far as Israeli politics is concerned, the recognition by two Arab states has helped bolster the political standing of Netanyahu, who endured three tightly fought elections before he could reach a power-sharing deal with his rival, Benny Gantz.

Many questions remain to be answered. Will more Arab countries sign agreements with Israel and which ones are they? Lauder said he hoped Saudi Arabia and Morocco would be next.

Will the agreements lead to a new wave of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians? In the fullness of time, how will the hardliners in Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Gaza’s Hamas rulers and the Qataris react to the Abraham Accords?

Such questions may not have been uppermost in the minds of the attendees of the Sept. 15 White House gathering, but then Washington, D.C. is a world away from the furies of the Middle East. According to media reports, Hamas militants in Gaza fired two rockets into southern Israel, wounding two people, in an attack that was apparently timed to coincide with the signing ceremony.

Article first published on Arab News.

Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. Twitter: @RayHanania

“During a call with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories. The UAE and Israel also agreed to cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed said on Twitter.

A joint statement issued by Israel, the UAE and the United States issued in Washington hailed the accord as a “historic diplomatic breakthrough” that would advance peace in the Middle East.

It said the three nations had “agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”

Delegations from Israel and the United Arab Emirates would meet in coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements on investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications and other issues, the statement said.

In Washington, senior White house officials said that under the deal, Israel had agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to areas of the West Bank that it had been discussing annexing.