Iran’s Terror Network Is Targeting American Jews — Two Cases Converge

Federal prosecutors unsealed charges Friday against Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander of Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah — an IRGC proxy — for plotting nearly 20 attacks on Jewish targets in Europe, Canada, and the US, including a Manhattan synagogue. On the same day, the DOJ announced it will seek the death penalty against Elias Rodriguez, the man who murdered Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, outside DC’s Capital Jewish Museum last May. Both cases, both driven by anti-Israel ideology, both reached culmination on the same Friday.

• Al-Saadi, extradited from Iraq to New York, is charged with six terrorism counts connected to 18+ attacks across Europe and North America — several of which were carried out.
• NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed the department disrupted a specific Manhattan synagogue attack plot, coordinated with the synagogue’s leadership when the threat was elevated.
• DOJ will seek death for Rodriguez on charges of murder of a foreign official, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, and causing death through use of a firearm — one of the first capital cases tied to antisemitic terrorism.
• Both cases reflect Iran’s deliberate use of proxy networks to conduct lethal operations against Jews and Israeli officials on American soil.

The convergence of these two cases exposes a structural shift: Iran's terror apparatus, battered by US-Israeli strikes, is redirecting toward soft targets inside the United States — synagogues, Jewish institutions, Israeli diplomatic staff. The death penalty filing for Rodriguez sets a federal legal precedent that anti-Israel motivated killings of foreign officials will be treated as capital offenses, a deterrence signal that extends beyond the individual case.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani will appoint Rabbi Miriam Grossman — a veteran of Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel organizations — to a taxpayer-funded role as “faith liaison” in his new Office of Mass Engagement, Jewish Insider reports exclusively. Grossman is among the few Jewish religious leaders who backed Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and has a documented record of far-left anti-Israel activism.

• Grossman is a JVP veteran and graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College — one of the few Jewish clergy voices to endorse Mamdani’s campaign.
• The appointment comes as Mamdani has already vetoed a synagogue buffer zone bill, refused to attend Israel Day events, and faced calls from Jewish groups over his ‘globalize the intifada’ history.
• A paid city government role for a JVP activist gives the anti-normalization movement official institutional standing inside New York City’s executive branch.

This appointment is Mamdani operationalizing his political coalition inside city government — JVP's representation in the mayor's Office of Mass Engagement is a direct reward to the anti-Israel left for its electoral support. It signals how Mamdani's mayoralty will treat the Jewish community: liberal Jewish organizations aligned with the left get access; organizations that defend Israel do not.

The IDF and Shin Bet confirmed Saturday that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the last remaining senior Hamas military commander in Gaza and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre, was killed in a precision airstrike in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood. Haddad had commanded Hamas’s military wing, oversaw hostage operations, and ordered fighters on Oct. 6, 2023 to ‘capture as many soldiers as possible and document it.’ His family confirmed his death to the AP.

• Al-Haddad was Hamas’s military wing chief in Gaza — the highest-ranking Oct. 7 planner still in the Strip, having survived multiple previous Israeli targeting campaigns.
• The IDF used a deception operation to execute the strike; former hostages Liri Albag and Emily Damari publicly cheered his death.
• Hamas is now preparing to choose a new political leader on Sunday, with leadership succession in flux as key figures are eliminated.

The elimination of al-Haddad closes the operational leadership circle of Oct. 7's planning inside Gaza. The question now is whether Hamas can reconstitute military command coherence — or whether the combination of leadership decapitation and Israeli pressure accelerates a negotiated hostage deal with a weakened counterpart.

US Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas Democrat, publicly refused to campaign with congressional candidate Maureen Galindo — who has called for ‘a prison for American Zionists,’ ranted about ‘Zionist billionaires and pedophiles,’ and backed by a DSA-aligned coalition — if she wins her upcoming runoff. When informed of Talarico’s rebuff, Galindo said it meant he was ‘Zionist affiliated’ and she would ‘move around him accordingly.’

• Galindo is running in a Texas House runoff; she has explicitly called for ‘a prison for American Zionists’ and used antisemitic ‘Zionist billionaire’ conspiracy language.
• Talarico’s public distancing is a rare electoral enforcement moment — a Democrat using his own campaign as leverage to deny platform to explicit anti-Zionist candidates.
• Galindo’s response — that Talarico is ‘Zionist affiliated’ — illustrates how the far left has reframed Zionism as a disqualifying political affiliation, not a protected belief.

Galindo's platform represents the leading edge of where the anti-Israel left goes when it moves from policy critique to open antisemitism — 'Zionist' as a criminal category. The 2026 Democratic primary season is stress-testing whether the party has any institutional mechanism to exclude candidates whose positions cross into antisemitism; Talarico's break suggests some Democrats will police the line individually even when the party does not.