News and Views 10th July 2026

World News

• UK may be Russia's next target, warfare expert warns. Elizabeth Bullock is a Russian warfare expert who spent 3 years working full-time in frontline areas of Ukraine, providing valuable insight and briefings to military units and institutions around the country. She has stated her belief that the Kremlin is ready to use the same tactics against the West as it has been using to try and break the people of Ukraine – power, water, communications, supply chains, etc. She strongly believes the UK is a key target – being framed as the greatest external threat to Russia. Russian trawlers have long been mapping our undersea cables, she points out. “They've also been mapping our drinking water systems.” She warns that Britain is in danger if we do not take this threat seriously enough. "If we have a sufficient deterrent, they will not attack. If we do not, they will."

Israel

• Gaza death toll ‘inflated by biased study’. Earlier this year, a team including researchers from the University of London, published a paper in The Lancet Global Health estimating there had been 75,200 violent deaths between Oct 7, 2023, and Jan 5, 2025 – more than 50% higher than even Gaza’s Ministry of Health’s estimate. But these figures have been found wanting by demographers, who say some survey teams came back with unrealistically high figures from some households. They also claim that the study used overlapping survey areas and non-representative sampling. The team also warned that some deaths may have been recorded multiple times. With many of the suspicious figures removed, the number of violent deaths falls closer to the Gaza ministry of health estimate of 49,090. (We must remember, of course that every figure represents an individual life and that every innocent death is deeply regrettable.)
• Hamas ruthlessly suppress Gaza protests. As anti-Hamas protesters took to the streets in Gaza in late June, for what organisers described as a “Day of Rage”, so Hamas was quick to exercise its control, beating, interrogating, and threatening suspected organizers, using the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital as an interrogation site. Despite Hamas' violent crackdown on its own civilians being part of a documented pattern, the international media by and large did not cover the protests, instead reporting on other non-pressing issues in Gaza. Honest Reporting says such media bias is in part responsible for audiences being left with a distorted picture of who is responsible for the suffering in Gaza.

Persecution of Christians

• World persecution of Christians. It is estimated that a staggering nearly 400,000,000 Christians worldwide face persecution or violence. A list of murders and abuses inflicted by Muslims on Christians in one single month of 2026  alone (March) makes deeply sobering reading (in Nigeria, DR Congo, Pakistan, Egypt, Central African Republic, Indonesia, Uganda, America). Read also. But while Islam is the world’s main source of Christian persecution, it is far from the only one. Some years ago, the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority received international attention, as they came under attack from Myanmar’s military regime. But stories of the persecution of Christians in Myanmar are seldom heard internationally. Indeed, Christians, including Christian Rohingya converts, face persecution not only from the regime, but also from Buddhist armed groups such as the Arakan Army, and also from Islamist forces known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
• 4 million Myanmar Christians believed to be in danger. Chin State, where Christians account for 85% of the population, has seen 70 churches firebombed since the military seized power in 2021. In the town of Thantlang, 21 of 22 churches have been destroyed. Houses were shelled and burned until almost the entire population fled. Pastor Cung Biak Hum was shot while trying to organise residents to extinguish fires started by soldiers. Even before the military coup, believers were “subjected to forced labour, torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing”. The military has also tried to forcibly assimilate Christians into the Buddhist majority, with soldiers reportedly being encouraged to marry Chin Christian women and induce or compel them to convert to Buddhism. Many Christians from Myanmar have now fled their home nation, entering India, Thailand, and Malaysia as refugees.

Israel and the Church

• Israel appoints first Christian faith envoy. Israel has appointed an Arab Christian from Jaffa as the country’s first Special Envoy to the Christian World. George Deek previously served as Israel’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan. The move follows several recent, isolated, but seemingly anti-Christian, incidents perpetrated by individual IDF soldiers, including the smashing of a statue of Christ in Lebanon and an Israeli settler pushing an elderly French nun to the ground in Jerusalem. An IDF spokesperson emphasised that it viewed such incidents “with great severity” and that it “respects freedom of religion and worship, as well as holy sites and religious symbols of all religions and communities”.
• Millions of Christians to join global prayer event for Israel. Jerusalem is set to host what organisers say will be the world's largest annual Christian gathering in support of Israel, with more than 70 million people across 175 countries expected to participate in the 24th Annual Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem on October 4th. The event, organised by Eagles’ Wings, will bring together more than 500 senior Christian leaders from 50 countries, including the First Ladies of Nigeria and Kenya, the King and Queen of Togo, and a major Latin American delegation of 175 Christian leaders. "This is far more than a prayer event”, said Eagles’ Wings President Bishop Robert Stearns. “It is a global declaration that Israel is not alone."

Climate Trends

• The fall and rise of the River Euphrates. Towards the close of 2025, water levels in the Euphrates River had fallen to historically low levels, as temperatures in Northern Syria continue to rise, and as average rainfall continued to decline year by year. The Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources had predicted that this river could be dry by 2040 – of particular concern given that 85% of Iraq’s agricultural demand for water has been met by the Euphrates. This river features over 20 times in the Bible, across millennia - from Genesis to Revelation (see Gen 2:10-14; Jer 29:10, Josh 1:4, Rev 9:14, etc). One end-time element of prophecy actually declares that as part of divine justice the Euphrates River will be dried up (Rev 18:12). But, remarkably though catastrophically, in recent months, conditions have sharply reversed. By the spring and summer of 2026, exceptionally heavy rainfall led to the Euphrates River experiencing its worst flooding in decades, expanding to three times its normal width and severely impacting eastern Syria and portions of Iraq.

Political Incorrectness

• The striking of UK censors. The Conservative Woman has been a free-to-read, independent voice for British politically incorrect conservatism for the past twelve years, regularly challenging the official narrative of, e.g., Covid lockdowns and vaccines, and man-made climate change, among much else. However, due to censorship, social media bans and the consequential lack of funding, the site will be closing down on July 18th and it will archive its more than 26,000 articles behind a paywall. Totally reliant on donations, the anti-establishment nature of TCW’s formidable daily output – with a host of articulate, well-qualified contributors, ensured their pertinent articles were getting thousands, if not tens of thousands of hits on a daily basis - many saying it was their 'go to' site for news and analysis each day. Read also.
• The morphing of The Conservative Woman voice. Instead, TCW editor Kathy Gyngell, like so many other ‘cancelled’ and disgruntled social commentators before her, is moving to Substack, which offers “a much lower cost and less demanding way to publish news, analysis and commentary.” Other prominent UK commentators who have shifted to platforms like Substack and YouTube to share alternative, independent, or anti-establishment perspectives over recent years include Neil Oliver, Dan Wooton, Mark Dolan, Matt Goodwin and Calvin Robinson.

Antisemitism

Incidents of antisemitism or overt anti-Israel sentiment continue to appear across the world – rarely receiving media attention. Some recent instances include:

• Shocking footage has revealed Jewish revellers being harassed and heckled at London’s Pride march while police officers watch on and make no arrests.
• The Charity Commission is probing the Oxford Union ball’s partnership with a group associated with an alleged Hamas operative.
• Wimbledon has ruled that a watermelon symbol widely associated with Palestine does not breach its rules on political messaging, despite tournament rules prohibiting political messaging from players on court.
• Jews in New York City were the most targeted minority group in 2026, a report by NYPD says.
• Two visibly Jewish tourists in Spain were chased through Barcelona by an antisemitic mob for 90 minutes after attending Friday night synagogue services.

Media

• BBC announces major new Jesus documentary. A 4-part series on the life of Jesus Christ, with new historical research, archaeological discoveries, and expert testimony, has been commissioned by the BBC. It will show the land He inhabited and the political, social, religious and cultural forces that shaped His life. Scholars and leading thinkers from Christianity, Judaism and Islam will contribute to the series, which promises to deliver “visceral, intimate detail” through cinematic storytelling while exploring the political and cultural forces that shaped Jesus’ ministry and influence. The announcement comes amid a broader resurgence of biblical storytelling across television and film – not least the success of the crowd-funded drama, ‘The Chosen’. Prime Video's ‘House of David’ also became a breakout success, as did Fox’s release of ‘The Faithful: Women of the Bible’, which retells Genesis through the stories of five Old Testament women.