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THE THIRD DEATH ICE DIDN’T REPORT
A third detainee has died after being held at Delaney Hall, New Jersey’s privately run ICE facility, and the agency never disclosed it. Democratic Representative Rob Menendez said ICE officials told him about the death during an oversight visit Monday. It happened in July.
The death was never made public because ICE changed how it reports detainee fatalities. Until June 4, the agency was required to investigate and report any death occurring within 30 days of a detainee’s release from custody. That policy was created specifically to stop facilities from discharging critically ill detainees just before death so those deaths would not count as in-custody fatalities. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons’s office eliminated that requirement, according to reporting confirmed by the Washington Post. Menendez said the person who died had suffered a medical emergency during intake and was released from ICE custody roughly two weeks before dying. Under the old policy, that death would have triggered a mandatory report. Under the new one, it did not have to be disclosed at all.
Delaney Hall has now recorded three deaths in the eight months since the facility reopened under a new contract with private prison operator GEO Group. Jean Wilson Brutus, 41, died in December from what ICE called suspected natural causes, a day after his arrest. Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo, also 41, died August 1 after a medical emergency. His family says he was denied his prescribed medication for six weeks in custody, a claim ICE disputes. Neither ICE nor Menendez’s office has publicly confirmed the person’s name. Menendez said his own staff first heard about the death on July 24 but could not confirm further details until the Monday visit, and as of this writing his office still cannot identify who died. ROTWR will follow up with a name and exact date once that information becomes available.
Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman called Delaney Hall “a stain on our country” and said it should be shut down immediately. More than 50 people have died in ICE custody nationwide since President Trump returned to office, according to CNN. CNN reports 2025 was already the deadliest year for ICE detention deaths in at least two decades, and 2026 is on pace to exceed it.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: ICE has now changed the rule that would have required it to disclose a death, and then declined to disclose that same kind of death once the rule was gone. The public only knows about the third Delaney Hall death because a member of Congress happened to ask.
Sources: Jersey Vindicator (US — policy change confirmation, third death disclosure); The City Reporter (US — Menendez oversight visit account, ICE custody death totals, confirmation that the name remains unidentified); CNN (US — Lopez Cornejo case background, national ICE death toll context); Gothamist (US — Brutus and Lopez Cornejo case details); UPI (international wire — Watson Coleman quote)
THE GREEN BERETS CROSS THE BORDER
Iran’s army has sent its largest special operations unit into northern Iraq at least 14 times over the past two months, targeting Kurdish opposition groups it says have been feeding intelligence to the CIA and Mossad.
Mojtaba Jafari, an adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s army, said Monday that Iran’s 23rd Airborne Special Forces Brigade carried out the operations in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah and Erbil provinces. The unit is known as the Takavar, or Green Berets. He said the raids killed several fighters and captured others. He said a separate IRGC operation inside Sulaymaniyah on August 2 resulted in the arrest of two men Iran accused of espionage. Jafari said several armed groups were caught carrying advanced surveillance equipment before being brought into Iranian territory.
These raids follow a real plan, not just a suspected one. CNN reported in March that the CIA had provided military support for months to Kurdish armed groups along the Iran-Iraq border ahead of the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February. Reuters separately reported Israeli intelligence had been in contact with the same militias for a year before the war began. President Trump gave mixed signals about the plan early in the conflict. At one point he called a prospective Kurdish incursion into Iran “a great thing,” before reversing course days later and saying the US would not be bringing the Kurds into the fight. The operation never materialized.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Sunday that Turkey played the decisive role in stopping it. He said he warned Iraqi and Turkish officials early in the war that Iran would “certainly respond” to any threat originating from Iraqi Kurdistan. He said Turkey’s government subsequently pressed Washington and took a firm position against arming the Kurdish groups. The pro-government Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah gave a more specific account, reporting that roughly 500 Kurdish fighters had already set out from Iraq toward Iran before Ankara intervened directly to stop them. Turkey has not independently confirmed Araghchi’s version of events. Turkish officials feared the plan would strengthen the Kurdistan Free Life Party, seen as the Iranian branch of the PKK, undermining decades of Turkish counterinsurgency efforts against Kurdish separatism at home.
The Kurdish groups themselves deny any of this ever amounted to an active plan. Keywan Faramarzi is an international relations officer for the Komala party. He told Middle East Eye that recent Iranian strikes killed 10 of his party’s fighters and called them “part of the Islamic Republic’s ongoing policy” of targeting Kurdish opposition groups based outside Iran. He and other Kurdish officials described reports of an imminent invasion as media speculation with no basis in fact.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Regional and international outlets are carrying a story American coverage has largely missed: this is not Iran striking preemptively in a vacuum, but Iran acting against a documented US-Israeli plan its own foreign minister has now publicly confirmed existed. Al-Monitor, Middle East Eye, and The National have each independently reported the CIA and Israeli intelligence’s roles, Turkey’s diplomatic intervention, and the internal Kurdish debate over whether to accept foreign backing for an uprising that never came. That fuller picture is available almost nowhere in US wire coverage of this week’s raids. It includes an admitted regime-change plan, a US ally quietly vetoing it, and Kurdish forces left exposed to Iranian retaliation regardless of what they actually did.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Iran’s raids into Iraqi Kurdistan are not simply aggression against a neutral neighbor. They are the aftermath of a real American and Israeli plan to arm Kurdish opposition groups as a proxy force against Tehran, a plan Turkey blocked and Iran’s own government has now confirmed. The Kurdish fighters caught in the middle deny any operational role, and are being killed by Iranian strikes regardless.
Sources: Middle East Monitor (UK-based, pro-Palestinian editorial lean — Jafari statement, operation details, Sulaymaniyah arrest); Al-Monitor (Middle East-focused, independent — Araghchi quotes, Turkey’s diplomatic intervention); Ynet (Israel — Daily Sabah’s account of 500 fighters, Turkish intervention detail); Middle East Eye (UK-based, independent — Faramarzi quote, Kurdish denials); CNN via Middle East Eye (US/UK — CIA support reporting, Reuters Israeli intelligence contact reporting, Trump’s mixed signals)
THE INTERCEPTOR PROBLEM
The US military has used up nearly 80 percent of its interceptors for the THAAD missile defense system since the war with Iran began, according to CNN, which cited two sources familiar with a previously unreported inventory assessment. Roughly half of Patriot interceptor stocks are also gone.
Senior American commanders privately describe the stockpile situation as dangerously low. The Army has used nearly all of its Precision Strike Missiles and Army Tactical Missile Systems, the long-range weapons most heavily relied on during the war’s early phase. Close to half of the Tomahawk missile stockpile has also been expended. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the US held roughly 2,200 of its most modern Patriot interceptors and 452 THAAD missiles before the war started. CSIS separately estimates it will take three or more years to rebuild THAAD inventories to pre-war levels. Replenishment is slow by design: current fiscal year delivery schedules call for roughly 15 new Tomahawks and 20 new Patriot missiles per month.
The shortage factored directly into President Trump’s decision last weekend to cancel a planned new round of strikes on Iran, according to CNN’s sourcing. The White House disputes that framing. Press Secretary Anna Kelly said the US has “more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles” to meet Trump’s objectives. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell separately said the military has everything it needs to carry out the president’s plans on his own timeline.
The interceptor shortage compounds a separate, ongoing dispute over how the Pentagon counts its own casualties. The Defense Department’s official tracking system now lists 18 US troops killed and 687 wounded since the war began in February, according to the Defense Casualty Analysis System as of Tuesday. That figure has been revised more than once. The Pentagon briefly cut the death toll from 18 to 14 in July. It argued that four soldiers did not count because they died after an April ceasefire declaration: three killed July 17 in an Iranian strike on Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, and one killed July 18 in Iraq. Fighting had demonstrably resumed by then; Trump himself had notified Congress on July 10 that it had. One of the four was Army Pfc. Isabella Gonzales, 19. After lawmakers and reporters raised questions, the Pentagon restored all four to the total, which is why today’s figure of 18 killed includes them. It then split its tracking into two separate categories. The Intercept reported that a US official described the new accounting system as designed to obscure the total count.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The US military’s ability to keep intercepting Iranian missiles is running low enough that it shaped a presidential decision to hold off on further strikes, according to CNN’s own sourcing, even as the White House denies any shortage exists. At the same time, the Pentagon’s own count of how many Americans this war has actually cost has been revised downward, restored, and reorganized in ways an official told a reporter were meant to make the total harder to see.
Sources: CNN (US — interceptor depletion figures, White House and Pentagon statements, strike cancellation link); Xinhua via Big News Network (China, state news agency — independent confirmation, casualty figure); NBC News (US — four contested deaths, Overseas Operations category, July 17-18 attack details); ABC News (US — Pfc. Isabella Gonzales identification); UPI (international wire — casualty accounting revision history, Massie and Senate Democrats’ response)
JORDAN DRAWS A LINE AT AL-AQSA
Arab and Islamic foreign ministers meeting in Amman on Wednesday condemned Israeli actions at Al-Aqsa Mosque and affirmed Jordan as the site’s sole legitimate custodian. The meeting followed Jordan’s warning that an Israeli takeover of the compound was becoming imminent.
The emergency meeting was called by Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. It followed a July 23 incident in which more than 4,200 Israelis entered the compound, according to Palestinian officials in Jerusalem, including Israeli settlers and far-right groups marking the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av. Haaretz reported a lower figure of more than 1,000 Jewish worshippers specifically. Among them was National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who called the visit “tremendous progress.” Jordanian officials called the incursion the worst violation of the site’s status quo in modern history. That status quo, overseen by Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy for more than a century, reserves prayer at the compound for Muslims. Jordan has also cited revoked permits for mosque staff and the arrest of an imam during Friday prayers as further evidence the arrangement is breaking down.
Foreign ministers from Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan joined Arab League representatives at the meeting. Their joint communique said Israel is seeking to impose a “temporal and spatial division” of the mosque compound. That language directly references what happened at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, where a similar arrangement eventually split the site’s control. Safadi separately said Israel had restricted Jordan’s water supply following Amman’s criticism of Israeli operations in Gaza, adding economic pressure to the diplomatic standoff.
The picture is more complicated than a simple denial. Netanyahu’s government has not formally ended Jordan’s custodianship or transferred control of the site, but it has already taken and defended a real step in that direction. In January, Netanyahu publicly backed Ben-Gvir’s policy of allowing expanded Jewish prayer at the compound, with his office stating the change did not violate the status quo. Israel is not unified on the question either. Two ultra-Orthodox Israeli newspapers condemned Ben-Gvir’s approach on religious grounds, citing rabbinic rulings that Jews should not ascend the Mount at all. Israeli reporting has indicated the domestic security agency Shin Bet opposed restricting Arab Israeli access to the site, while police favored it.
Analysts say the immediate risk is not a sudden takeover but a gradual one: Israeli police increasingly determining who prays where and when, while Jordan’s Waqf retains authority in name only. Jordan expects renewed pressure around major Jewish holidays in September, ahead of Israel’s October 27 election, when it fears far-right politicians may stage further incursions to mobilize religious and nationalist voters.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: A diplomatic meeting most Americans never heard about just produced a joint statement from more than a dozen Muslim-majority countries warning that the status quo at one of Islam’s holiest sites is collapsing. Jordan’s foreign minister has called Jerusalem “a tinderbox.” The country that has custodial responsibility for the site says it is losing control of it.
Sources: The National (UAE — communique text, Ibrahimi Mosque comparison); Arab News (Saudi Arabia, note Gulf editorial environment — meeting attendees, Safadi statement); The Levant Files (independent Middle East outlet — water supply dispute, September holiday context, gradual-control analysis); The Guardian via AOL (UK, centre-left — July 23 incident detail, “tinderbox” quote); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — Palestinian officials’ incursion count); Haaretz (Israel, centre-left — Ben-Gvir “tremendous progress” quote, worshipper count); Haaretz (Israel, centre-left — Netanyahu’s January endorsement); Haaretz (Israel, centre-left — ultra-Orthodox press condemnation); Times of Israel (Israel, right-centre — Shin Bet and police divergence)
I will never put the news behind a paywall. If you want to support keeping it free for everyone else, there’s a paid option. That’s all it is.
ALSO DEVELOPING — an update: Michigan Senate primary: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, defeating Haley Stevens despite more than $30 million in AIPAC spending against him, in what Democracy Now! and other outlets described as a major defeat for AIPAC and the party establishment. El-Sayed now faces Republican Mike Rogers in November. Sources: Democracy Now! —.
WAR DAY 160 | NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,485+ killed (tracker base of 3,468 as of June 10 per Al Jazeera live tracker, plus at least 17 confirmed killed in US strikes July 9-10 per Iran Health Ministry — floor estimate; strikes since July 11 not yet independently confirmed)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 4,321 killed (Al Jazeera live blog, updated July 8)
🇮🇱 Israel: 35+ killed (tracker frozen June 10)
🌍 Gulf states / Iraq: 131 killed (tracker frozen June 10; does not reflect Iranian strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, UAE, and Oman since)
🇺🇸 US military: 18 killed, 687 wounded (Defense Casualty Analysis System, as of August 4 — figure has been revised multiple times and reorganized into disputed accounting categories; see today’s interceptor story for context)
🇵🇸 Gaza: 73,381+ killed cumulative since October 7, 2023 (Gaza Health Ministry, via Al Jazeera), 174,231 wounded; 1,254+ killed and 4,121 wounded since the October 11 “ceasefire” — unchanged since last update, separate conflict tracked independently of the war numbers above
🛢️ Brent crude: $79.54/barrel (OilPrice.com)
⛽ US national gas average: $4.06/gallon (AAA) Sourcing note:
The US military figure updates significantly from prior editions, reflecting the Pentagon’s official DCAS figures as of August 4 rather than the earlier, now-outdated count. That figure of 18 killed includes four soldiers the Pentagon briefly excluded in July on the grounds that their deaths came after an April ceasefire declaration; all four were restored to the total after press and congressional scrutiny, and this tally reflects that restored figure. See today’s interceptor story for the full account. Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and Gulf states figures are otherwise unchanged from Day 159. Gaza figures carry forward unchanged.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
