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The Strait has been closed since the beginning of the war and will remain so until the enemy respects the rights of the Iranian nation. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will remain restricted until "the rights of the Iranian people are respected," said the head of the Iranian army, Major General Amir Hatami. #StrâmtoareaOrmuz #Iran #petrol (translated)

The president of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has presented a modified version of the Taylor equation that considers the impact of security at the choke points of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb on the determination of interest rates in the United States. #Iran #TassiDiInteresse #Stretti (translated)

𝗜𝗿𝗮𝗻’𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘀 – 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹’𝘀 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲 Ahead of Israel’s 27 October election, hundreds of social-media accounts have been presenting themselves as ordinary Israelis while injecting political messages into genuine domestic conversations. They appear as women, reservists, secular voters, religious activists and frustrated citizens. Some attack Benjamin Netanyahu, others have previously promoted narratives associated with the Israeli right, while many focus less on parties than on a broader message: Israel is divided, its institutions cannot be trusted and its political system is approaching crisis. A detailed investigation by the OSINT company Golden Owl has mapped this activity as a substantial Iran-linked influence network. Its October analysis identified at least 694 accounts, with 445 attributed at high or medium-high confidence to the operation. Between 11 August and 11 October, the network generated at least 4.7 million views and more than 160,000 interactions. The researchers found no evidence that these accounts were simply a group of independent Iranian commentators expressing political opinions. Their assessment rests instead on coordinated behaviour, false identities, account histories, copied content, language patterns and platform metadata linking significant parts of the infrastructure to Iran. 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝟯𝟱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀 The investigation developed in two stages. Golden Owl’s first report, published in September, identified an operational core of 35 accounts: 32 personas presenting themselves as Israelis and three Hebrew-language media-style channels. During the 30-day period measured in that study, active accounts generated 947,322 impressions and more than 9,000 interactions. The October investigation expanded the dataset dramatically. Researchers analysed more than 560,000 data points, including tens of thousands of accounts, relationships between them and more than a quarter of a million posts. The wider network showed repeated patterns of identical texts, synchronised activity and accounts created in batches. The numbers therefore describe not a sudden explosion from 35 to hundreds of accounts, but the gradual exposure of a much larger infrastructure surrounding the original core. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘀 Some of the strongest evidence comes from the histories of individual personas. One account had spent years posting exclusively in Persian under the handle “mardeankabooti” before reappearing in August 2026 as an apparently Israeli user called “Alon Strauss”, complete with an Israeli flag and Hebrew political messaging. Other personas presented themselves as Israeli professionals, activists or ordinary citizens while X transparency information showed connections through the Iranian version of the Android application or locations inconsistent with their claimed identities. The account “Yaara Shalev” presented itself as an Israeli woman concerned with democracy and peace. Investigators found that photographs used to construct the identity were inconsistent, including borrowed and apparently AI-generated imagery. A small Hebrew-language channel called KigVoice, previously identified in Israeli government reporting as part of an Iranian influence environment, repeatedly published material that later appeared on the much more visible Yaara account. In one sample, 14 of 40 KigVoice posts subsequently resurfaced as captions or opening lines in Yaara’s content. Another persona, “Miriam Kozak”, had built an audience of more than 18,000 followers and had already been exposed as fictitious by Israeli researchers in 2024. Its political messaging changed substantially over time, moving between narratives associated with different sides of Israeli politics. That inconsistency is important: the apparent purpose was not necessarily to build a stable ideological following, but to enter whichever political argument offered the greatest opportunity to intensify division. 𝗔𝗜, 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 The Iran attribution is based on more than political content. Researchers identified accounts using the Iranian version of the X Android application, repeated connections to previously identified Iranian influence assets, copied posts appearing across supposedly independent personas within minutes, and Hebrew containing unusual grammatical errors or Persian and Arabic keyboard artefacts. Generative AI also appears to have become part of the production process. Some accounts inadvertently published fragments resembling chatbot instructions, while other posts displayed patterns consistent with machine-generated Hebrew. AI-generated videos and synthetic profile imagery further reduced the cost of maintaining large numbers of apparently distinct personalities. However, none of these indicators was treated as proof on its own. Golden Owl explicitly excluded accounts where the evidence was insufficient and notes that VPNs, travel and platform location labels can create misleading signals. The attribution rests on multiple independent indicators converging across the network. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 The network repeatedly exploited issues that genuinely divide Israeli society: responsibility for the 7 October attacks, the war, the hostages, ultra-Orthodox military exemptions, economic pressure, emigration and confidence in state institutions. It also circulated misleading information about the election itself, including false voting dates, claims that voting had been postponed and posts suggesting online voting mechanisms that do not exist in Israel’s parliamentary election system. The pattern suggests a strategy broader than conventional electoral campaigning. Rather than consistently promoting one political faction, the network appears designed to weaken confidence in the government, military, democratic institutions and the electoral process itself. An influence operation does not need to persuade Israelis to support a particular candidate if it can convince different groups that defeat would prove fraud, betrayal or systemic failure. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝘀𝗿𝗮𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝘄𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀 One of the network’s most effective characteristics is that it does not depend solely on its own followers. Fake personas enter comment sections and political discussions involving real Israeli journalists, politicians and ordinary users. Authentic Israelis then repost or interact with the material, sometimes carrying it far beyond the original account. Golden Owl does not classify those genuine users as participants in the operation. In most cases they appear to be unwitting amplifiers. But once a message passes from a fabricated Iranian-operated persona to an authentic Israeli account, its foreign origin becomes much harder for the next person to recognise. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟰𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬-𝗯𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱 A much larger figure has also appeared in recent reporting. In the first two days after the October 2023 Hamas attack, social-media intelligence company Cyabra identified more than 40,000 fake profiles participating in online discussions across major platforms. Their content generated hundreds of thousands of interactions and had a potential reach estimated at 531 million profiles. Those numbers are important historical context, but they should not be merged with the current Golden Owl investigation. There is no public evidence demonstrating that all of those 2023 accounts and the 2026 Iran-linked election network belonged to one continuous command structure. The 531 million figure is also an estimate of potential exposure, not proof that 531 million people saw or believed the content. 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? No confirmed individual operators have been publicly identified. Names such as Yaara Shalev, Miriam Kozak and Alon Strauss are personas, not verified identities of the people controlling the accounts. Golden Owl says its evidence supports an association with the Islamic Republic of Iran and with previously documented Iranian influence infrastructure, but it does not establish which Iranian institution, intelligence service, military organisation or contractor directs the network. That distinction is essential. Public OSINT supports attribution at the Iran-linked operational level. It does not currently justify naming individual Iranian officials as the people commanding this specific campaign. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 The Israeli case illustrates a broader change in influence operations. The synthetic asset does not have to be a spectacular deepfake of a politician. It can be an apparently ordinary citizen who comments on politics, argues with neighbours, describes personal experiences and gradually becomes part of an authentic community. That can be more difficult to recognise because the propaganda does not arrive looking foreign. It arrives looking local. And when hundreds of fabricated citizens enter the same national conversation, they can manufacture the impression that political anger, despair or distrust is more spontaneous and more widely shared than it really is. 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 Golden Owl — Exposing the Iranian Regime’s Influence Machinery Against Israeli Society https://web-dev-production-7a35.up.railway.app/resources/research/Exposing-the-Iranian-Regime-Influence-Machinery-Against-Israeli-Society Golden Owl Golden Owl — The Other Face of War: Iranian Regime–Linked Manipulation of Israel’s 2026 Election Debate https://web-dev-production-7a35.up.railway.app/resources/research/Iranian-Regime-Linked-Manipulation-of-Israel-2026-Election-Debate Golden Owl The Jerusalem Post — Iran-linked social-media accounts posing as Israelis to target election https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-909863 The Jerusalem Post Ynet — Fake Israelis, real influence: Iran-linked network infiltrates Israel’s election debate https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/syp119nqqzg ynetglobal Calcalist — Iranian influence network exposed ahead of Israel’s election https://www.calcalist.co.il/calcalistech/article/s1q0ifijzl calcalist Vesty / Ynet — Iranian fake-account network and October update https://www.vesty.co.il/main/article/rkwokjssgg vesty Israel Ministry for Diaspora Affairs — Iran’s active Hebrew-language influence campaign https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/israel-and-us-strikes-in-iran-daily-status_2_3_26/en/mashlat_Roaring_Lion_israel-and-us-strikes-in-iran-daily-status_2_3_26.pdf Government of Israel Israel Central Elections Committee — official 2026 election timetable https://www.gov.il/en/pages/time--table-26 Government of Israel Channel NewsAsia — historical Cyabra analysis of more than 40,000 fake profiles after 7 October 2023 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/how-fake-news-israel-hamas-stokes-outrage-hatred-and-potential-violence-southeast-asian-tiktok-5603221 𝗞𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 #DISINFORMED #Episode20 #Iran #Israel #IsraelElection2026 #IranianInfluence #IranianDisinformation #ElectionInterference #ForeignInterference #FIMI #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #FakeAccounts #FakePersonas #SyntheticIdentity #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIPropaganda #SocialMediaManipulation #Astroturfing #NarrativeManipulation #PoliticalDisinformation #ElectionDisinformation #X #Twitter #Bots #BotNetwork #KigVoice #YaaraShalev #MiriamKozak #DigitalInfluence #InformationManipulation #ElectionIntegrity #GoldenOwl #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that the country is facing the most intense pressures and difficulties since its establishment in 1979, due to the war with the United States, but emphasized that, despite the challenges, Iran remains strong. #Iran #MasoudPezeshkian #SUA (translated)

The author claimed that the Russian shadow-fleet tanker MYRA was sailing in the Baltic under a false flag and was linked to the son of an Iranian IRGC Navy commander and a UAE front company that moved Iranian and Russian oil to China. They called for the ship to be stopped and seized immediately. https://t.co/D4lhjPQnwF #OilTankers #MaritimeSecurity #InternationalRelations #RU #IR #AE #CN

Mariano Giustino wrote that the Islamic Republic had hanged the Iranian climber Ali-Sina Mostafavi at dawn, while "Allahu Akbar" was shouted. He stated that Mostafavi had been tortured to force him to confess to crimes he had not committed and deprived of his defense lawyer. Giustino accused the international community and mainstream media of remaining silent and said that the hangings of young people in Iran continued. #Iran #Giustizia #DirittiUmani (translated)

Marco Setaccioli criticized Marco Travaglio for claiming that resuming purchases of Russian gas would be more advantageous for Europe than for Moscow. According to Setaccioli, sales data contradicted this thesis: since the beginning of the war, European consumption of Russian gas would have fallen from 150 billion cubic meters per year in 2021 to 18 in 2025. Of the 132 billion lost, he wrote, China would only have bought 28 more; moreover, Xi would not have wanted to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. Setaccioli added that Gazprom had laid off hundreds of people and recorded losses for the first time in many years. On the topic of prices, Setaccioli stated that, before Donald Trump's move related to Iran, gas cost 32 euros per MWh, despite Russian supplies being at a minimum. He compared that price to the peak of 180 euros per MWh reached in December 2021, before the start of the war in Ukraine, when the pipelines were still intact and Russian supplies continued. According to Setaccioli, Moscow had reduced reserves and supplies to raise cash ahead of the invasion and to pressure Europe, dissuading it from supporting Kyiv. He attributed European diversification to the choice of not following the positions of Travaglio and Alessandro Di Battista, who, he wrote, had sought to stop the TAP, the pipeline that brings gas from Azerbaijan, evoking environmental damage that Puglia, according to him, was still awaiting. Finally, Setaccioli reported that the day before, the parliamentary group of the vannacciani had presented a resolution to resume purchases of Russian gas. He speculated that the proposal had come following new indications from Moscow. #gasrusso #Gazprom #energia (translated)

In Rome, Iranian students and activists from Cambiare Rotta are protesting against evictions in public housing, denouncing the slow allocation of rooms and the impact of cuts to the right to study, while calling for more funding for scholarships and student services. #Sfratti #DirittiStudenti #Roma (translated)

The author called on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase oil supply for at least two years, saying this could lower prices, reduce Russia’s war revenues and limit the Iranian regime’s ability to finance aggression. The author also urged support for Ukraine. https://t.co/HUlpQJm9ML #OilPrices #SaudiArabia #UkraineSupport #SA #EU #UA #RU #IR

Today in the Military World it was reported that a container ship was attacked by the Iranian regime while trying to cross the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman, and sank completely. The profile said that this was the sixth ship attacked by Iran since the weekend and added that yesterday, Trump reiterated that the strait was completely free and under US control. #EstreitoDeOrmuz #Irã #Geopolítica (translated)

The author shared a link to Vatican News regarding the Pope's statement and wrote that he criticized Trump's threats. According to the link's title, the Pope deemed the threat against the entire Iranian people unacceptable. https://t.co/uVJhHcMv4P #Paavi #Trump #Iran #IR #US #VA (translated)

During the call between the two leaders, which took place before Trump promised not to attack Iran before the midterms, Netanyahu expressed concern over warnings from Israeli intelligence about the rapid reconstruction of the Iranian nuclear program, especially the use of Mount Pickaxe as a uranium enrichment center. #MédioOriente #Irão #Trump (translated)