Iran Cleric Brands Protesters “Trump’s Soldiers,” Calls for Mass Executions

A hardline cleric leading Friday prayers in Iran’s capital publicly demanded the execution of protesters swept up in the regime’s nationwide crackdown, as Tehran weighs its next steps amid mounting domestic unrest and international pressure.

Speaking at Tehran’s main weekly prayers, Ahmad Khatam called for the death penalty for detainees accused of involvement in the protests and urged authorities to arrest “anyone who supported the rioters in any way.”

His sermon, broadcast live on Iranian state radio, drew chants from worshippers including, “Armed hypocrites should be put to death!”

The remarks come as executions — along with the killing of peaceful protesters — have been identified by Donald Trump as red lines that could trigger U.S. military action, sharply raising the stakes for Iran’s leadership as it seeks to reassert control.

Khatami, who was appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and sits on both Iran’s Assembly of Experts and its powerful Guardian Council, framed the unrest as a foreign-backed plot. He described protesters as “butlers” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “soldiers of Trump,” accusing them of seeking to “disintegrate the country.”

“They should wait for hard revenge from the system,” Khatami said, referring to Netanyahu and Trump. “Americans and Zionists should not expect peace.”

Beyond fiery denunciations, the cleric also delivered what appeared to be an official accounting of damage attributed to the protests. According to Khatami, 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other holy sites were damaged, along with 80 homes belonging to Friday prayer leaders, a key pillar of Iran’s theocratic structure.

He further claimed that unrest had damaged 400 hospitals, 106 ambulances, 71 fire department vehicles and another 50 emergency response vehicles — figures that could not be independently verified.

As a senior public cleric with close ties to Iran’s ruling institutions, Khatami would likely have access to internal government data. His decision to disclose the figures during Friday prayers suggests the regime is using the pulpit as a proxy for official messaging, amplifying its justification for an uncompromising crackdown while avoiding a direct address from senior political leaders.

 

Frieda Vizel Takes on Antisemite influencer Tyler Oliveira who "distorted the realities" of Kiryas Yoel

 

Inside the New York Town Invaded by Welfare-Addicted Jews... pic.twitter.com/Khy3BQ803u

— Tyler Oliveira (@tyleraloevera) January 16, 2026

 The Chassidic guy below tells Satmar Chassidim, if you cannot express yourself in English then "Shut the hell up" 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cheskal Breuer (@pcb1735)

 

A YouTuber who grew up in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel is pushing back against a viral online video that she says distorts the realities of Hasidic life and relies on provocation to gain attention.

Freide Vizel, a popular content creator and former member of the Satmar Hasidic community, released a response video after YouTuber Tyler Oliveira published a video titled “Inside the New York Town Invaded by Welfare-Addicted Jews,” which has drawn widespread online viewership.

Vizel said the video reinforces harmful stereotypes and presents a misleading picture of the community.

“Absolutely disgusting,” Vizel said, calling the video a shock piece that is “decontextualized” and designed to mislead viewers. She said it exploits residents’ reluctance to share private financial information with outsiders in order to portray Hasidic men as unemployed.

“It uses people’s unwillingness to discuss personal economic details to create a portrait of a bunch of people who don’t work,” Vizel said.

Vizel acknowledged that Kiryas Joel, like many insular communities, has real challenges and legitimate areas for criticism, including scrutiny over its relationship with government welfare programs. But she said portraying the community as broadly dependent on public assistance ignores economic realities on the ground.

According to Vizel, the vast majority of Hasidic men in the community are gainfully employed and work long hours across a wide range of industries. She said she has previously documented the scope of Hasidic-owned businesses by reviewing phone directories and business listings.

Vizel accused Oliveira of leaning into inflammatory language to drive engagement, arguing that shock value has replaced nuance in much viral content about religious and minority communities.

She described her response as a raw, first-reaction video recorded while watching Oliveira’s content in real time, acknowledging its emotional tone. Vizel said her goal was not to portray the community as flawless, but to highlight its complexity.

“This is a complicated and imperfect community,” she said. “It deserves honest criticism, but not caricature.”

Oliveira has not publicly responded to Vizel’s criticism. Vizel said she hopes the debate encourages viewers to approach viral portrayals of insular communities with greater skepticism and care.

Zera Shimshon Parshat Vaera

 

The disturbing reason Iran appears to have stopped slaughtering protesters

The ruthless slaughter of anti-government protesters in Iran appears to have stopped — but only because residents are being held hostage in their homes by machine gun-wielding security forces that have flooded the streets, sources told The Post Thursday.

After weeks of anti-regime protests across Iran left thousands dead, the mass mobilization of security forces has suppressed the demonstrations, with many too afraid to step foot outside now.

“There were tanks out — there’s tanks everywhere,” the source told The Post after speaking to family in Tehran about the current situation.

“There’s trucks that are covered, with 10 people inside with machine guns just aiming them at everyone on the street.”

Another person in Tehran said fear has gripped the capital as police and security forces patrol the roads and conduct stops.

Israeli Banks going digital-only Chardeim Furious!

 The Charedi representation in the Knesset is launching a struggle against the Banking Supervision Department’s intention to make bank correspondence digital-only by default.

Under the initiative, account statements, updates, and notices would be sent exclusively through online means-unless the customer explicitly requests to receive them in printed form.

Members of Knesset argue that the move could severely harm the haredi public, as well as the elderly and new immigrants.

According to them, at least a quarter of a million haredim are not connected to the internet or lack regular access to email and therefore rely solely on physical mail to receive information about their bank accounts.

MK Uri Maklev, who initiated an urgent discussion in the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee, said: “It is unacceptable that under the public radar, and under the guise of technological efficiency, a dramatic initiative is taking shape that threatens to disconnect hundreds of thousands of households from the most basic financial information. This is a scandalous decision that would erase critical information for hundreds of thousands of families."

Maklev added that the move could lead to an economic trap: “For many families, the letter that arrives in the mailbox is the only channel through which they receive information about overdrafts, liens, and interest rate changes. Making the digital channel the default will cause important notices to be sent to email inboxes that are not checked, leading to the accumulation of fines and late-payment interest."

MK Yonatan Mashriki joined the criticism, saying: “Placing the responsibility on consumers who, due to their worldview, are not exposed to technology, or on elderly people and immigrants without digital orientation, to chase after the bank in order to receive a physical letter, is an arrogant step that ignores the lifestyle of an entire sector and its basic right to transparency and accessibility."

At the discussion to be held in the Economic Affairs Committee, with the participation of Banking Supervisor Daniel Hahiashvili, representatives of the haredi public are expected to demand that physical mail remain the default option for all customers, and that any transition to digital correspondence be carried out only after the customer’s explicit and active consent.

Mashriki concluded: “It is unacceptable for banks to seek to save a few shekels on printing and mailing when the price could be economic harm to hundreds of thousands of families. Physical correspondence must remain the default for anyone who wishes it."

Iran attack postponed: The dramatic phone call between Netanyahu and Trump

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that US President Donald Trump postpone any military action against Iran, according to a report by The New York Times.

The phone call between the two leaders took place at midnight last night, amid widespread protests across Iran and ongoing American discussions regarding the possibility of an attack.

Netanyahu expressed concerns that Israel is not prepared for an Iranian response in the event of a US strike, and thus asked Trump to delay the attack on Iran.

Trump himself stated that he received information from reliable sources in Iran indicating that the regime had stopped executing and harming protesters, which could signal an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

However, US officials clarified that the military option remains on the table, and the final decision will be made based on developments on the ground.

According to a diplomatic source in the Gulf quoted in the report, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Egypt also sent messages to the US administration requesting that they refrain from attacking Iran, out of concern for regional escalation. These countries also reached out to Tehran, urging it not to respond militarily in the event of an attack.

Iran closed its airspace to civilian flights last night but later reopened it.

According to reports, the Pentagon lowered the level of alert at the US Air Force base in Qatar and began to return troops that had been relocated out of concern for an imminent strike.

Iran demands large payments from families of murdered protesters

 After killing thousands of people during protests against the regime, the authorities in Iran are demanding hefty amounts of money from the parents of the victims if they want to retrieve the bodies of their sons or daughters who were killed.

Parents of protesters shot dead during demonstrations against the regime in Tehran told BBC Persian that they received a message from the authorities stating that, if they wanted to get the bodies of their murdered children back, they would have to pay large sums.

One family, from the city of Rasht in northern Iran, reported that the authorities demanded 700 million tomans (approximately $5,500) to return the body of their son, who was killed during the protests. “The body was held at the local hospital, along with at least 70 other bodies," the parents shared.

In Tehran, the family of a Kurdish construction worker who was murdered during the protests said that when they arrived at the hospital to collect his body, they were shocked when the authorities demanded a sum of 1 billion tomans (about $8,000) to release their son's body.

The parents stated, "We couldn’t afford to pay that amount, so we left the hospital without our son’s body."

Some parents mentioned that hospitals are filled with security forces ensuring that the bodies of the murdered individuals will not be released without payment. 

Some of them also reported receiving phone calls from hospital administrators urging them to come quickly to collect the bodies of their children "before the security forces arrive and demand payment for their release."

Trump Commutes Sentence of Yaacov Deutsch in $50 Million Mortgage Fraud Case

 President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of Jacob Deutsch of Williamsburg, leading to his release after nearly 22 months behind bars for his role in a wide-ranging mortgage fraud scheme involving apartment buildings in Hartford.

The decision followed sustained advocacy by the Tzedek Association, which argued that Deutsch’s punishment far exceeded what the facts of the case warranted. Supporters said the case involved no violence, no financial loss to lenders and no restitution owed, yet Deutsch received a sentence that was nearly three times longer than what prosecutors had sought.

“This was a profound miscarriage of justice,” advocates said in a statement thanking the White House and Justice Department officials for what they called a rare act of corrective mercy.

Deutsch had been sentenced in 2024 to more than five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud affecting financial institutions. Trump’s commutation removes the remainder of his sentence but leaves the conviction intact.

Deutsch and a co-defendant, Aron Deutsch of Monsey, admitted to participating in a scheme that prosecutors said relied on false rent rolls, leases and financial records to secure nearly $50 million in loans tied to multifamily properties in Hartford.

Federal authorities said the defendants worked at B H Property Management, which oversaw numerous buildings, and inflated property values by staging vacant apartments and fabricating tenants to make units appear fully occupied and profitable. The false information, prosecutors said, led lenders — as well as Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — to back or insure loans they otherwise would not have approved.

Aron Deutsch was sentenced to five years of probation and fined $1 million. Jacob Deutsch received a 62-month prison term, a fine and supervised release, though he ultimately served about 22 months before the commutation.

In a statement, the Tzedek Association said Trump’s action “restored fairness, reunited a family and reaffirmed mercy as a cornerstone of American justice.”

Francesca Albanese is back at her favorite pastime: dehumanizing Israelis, now using soldiers’ suicides to push her own agenda.

 

After implying that Israelis eat human flesh, UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese is back at her favorite pastime: dehumanizing Israelis, now using soldiers’ suicides to push her own agenda.

Francesca didn’t give the names of the young men who took their lives. She didn’t tell… pic.twitter.com/fJ6CQ2zWBq

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 15, 2026

This is why you have to send your child to Yeshiva

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lation Yiddish (@latino_in_yiddish)