Israel's stock market outperforms Middle East counterparts despite multi-front wars
Israel has been waging multi-front wars, sustaining the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops that would ordinarily be part of the workforce, it's currently facing charges of war crimes in international courts, all while grappling with a large protest movement and political turmoil at home. Despite this, its economic landscape remains buoyant – lifted by significant foreign investment and more recently by renewed investor confidence following its 12-day conflict with Iran.
Initially dropping as much as 23% in the month following the October Hamas attack and Israel's declaration of war, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange had rebounded to and exceeded pre-war levels by the first quarter of 2024. As of July 17, the TASE is up over 200% from its Oct. 2023 low.
The country's GDP for the last quarter of 2023 shrank nearly 20%, following a deep contraction in private consumption and investment triggered by the war. The full year nonetheless finished with modest growth of 2%, and a further 1% GDP growth in 2024, driven mainly by government spending. In June of this year, the OECD forecast 4.9% growth in economic activity for Israel in 2026.
"In 2024, about 161,000 new trading accounts were opened in the Israeli capital market," a July report published on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange website stated. That figure represents a threefold jump in the number of accounts opened compared to 2023.
The report added that the first half of 2025 saw a further 87,000 new trading accounts opened, some 33,000 of which were in investment houses.
"The year 2023 was characterized by considerable uncertainty… However, already in 2024, a reversal of the trend could be identified: the public expanded its involvement in the capital market, opened trading accounts, and took advantage of the low price levels in TASE's indices to enter the local capital market, which also supported the high trading volumes," Hadar Romano, head of data at TASE, wrote in the report.
Avi Hasson, CEO of Israel's Startup Nation Central, credited a number of factors for boosting investor confidence in Israel.
"As a result of what has been happening in the past 22 months, global investors look at the Middle East now, and specifically at Israel, and say… 'The risks confronting Israel's security and economy are actually going down'," Hasson told CNBC's Access Middle East.
In the last year, Israel has managed to significantly degrade the capabilities of its adversaries, particularly Lebanon's Hezbollah, and its June conflict with Iran – with the help of the U.S. – was widely seen as having dealt a significant blow to Tehran's abilities to harm the Jewish state.
When investors "try to look at the fundamentals of the Israeli economy, and more specifically, the tech market, its dynamism, its capabilities, the baby boom, new company creation," Hasson said, "global investors and global companies are taking notice, when they try to imagine the Middle East. Not necessarily how it is today, but rather in the months and years to come."
Israel's tech sector is to thank for much of the country's economic success. High-tech products and services make up 20% of Israel's GDP and 56% of its international exports, Hasson said, thanks in part to the government investing heavily into research and development.
Since the start of the war, its defense sector has gained further attention from foreign countries, even in the Arab world – one visible example being the robust presence of Israeli defense firms at Abu Dhabi's IDEX defense exhibition in February of this year.
Foreign investment has also played a major part in the boost to Israel's stock market and real estate sector.
In May of this year alone, foreign investors bought approximately 2.5 billion shekels ($743 million) in TASE shares, according to Israeli news outlet Ynet. Since the start of 2025, it reported, total foreign acquisitions have reached roughly 9.1 billion shekels, or $2.7 billion.
And according to Israel's central bank, outstanding liabilities to foreign investors "increased by approximately $27.5 billion (about 5.2 percent) in the fourth quarter, to about $554 billion at the end of the quarter." That increase, the bank said, "was primarily due to a combination of an increase in the prices of Israeli securities held by nonresidents and the continued flow of net investments in Israel by nonresidents."
The Israeli shekel, meanwhile, has gained nearly 7% against the U.S. dollar following the Israel-Iran conflict in June, while S&P Global Market Intelligence expects price inflation in the country to fall within the central bank's target rate by the third quarter 2025, likely paving the way for further monetary easing.
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Newsweek
27 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Iran Says US Plotted to Overthrow Government
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Iran's top spy agency on Monday accused the United States and Israel of plotting to install a puppet government in Tehran led by the exiled son of the last Iranian monarch. The alleged operation in June, which coincided with Israeli and U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear enrichment sites, was part of "a premeditated and multifaceted war," Iran's Intelligence Ministry said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. State Department and Israel's Foreign Ministry for comment. Why It Matters Tehran is intensifying efforts to root out alleged espionage following its two-week missile war with Israel. It said the conflict was publicly centered on Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities, with a parallel objective of regime destabilization in line with longstanding U.S. and Israeli interests. Tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated sharply despite the ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump. Iran claimed political and symbolic success by surviving the Israeli attack, while the Israeli and U.S. militaries said their bombing campaign dealt significant damage Iran's strategic infrastructure, setting back its nuclear ambitions for years. Iranian worshippers chant slogans as they hold up posters of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli protest after their Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, July 25, 2025. Iranian worshippers chant slogans as they hold up posters of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli protest after their Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, July 25, 2025. Vahid Salemi/AP Photo What To Know The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said the United States and Israel attempted to deploy armed security forces to Tehran as part of the "regime-change scheme" to put in power Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Iran's last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A CIA-backed coup in 1953 had restored the pro-Western shah, only for the 1979 Islamic Revolution to topple the monarchy and usher in the current theocracy. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi fled the country that year, while U.S.-based Reza Pahlavi has long pushed for non-violent regime change, but has limited support inside Iran. "The U.S. and the Zionist regime plotted to install a puppet exile government headed by the disgraced Pahlavi heir, coordinating closely with known Zionist operatives," Iran's spy agency said. The ministry said it seized arms including rocket launchers, explosives and U.S.-made weaponry in its border areas, and alleged that Israel had coordinated with separatist groups, including ISIS elements, to spark internal unrest. Tehran said it arrested dozens of people accused of participating in the plot, "disguised as civil or religious groups," seeming confirming the wider security crackdown on alleged Mossad agents following the 12-day conflict, in which Israel attacked nuclear and military sites across the country and killed top Iranian commanders and scientists. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei avoided assassination by relocating to a fortified underground bunker during the Israeli strikes. Israeli defense chief Israel Katz publicly acknowledged that Israel had intended to kill Khamenei. Israeli media said this week that Iranian authorities arrested at least 35 Jews suspected of spying, including two Americans. What People Are Saying Iran's Intelligence Ministry said via the Tasnim news agency: "The war preparation included deceptive negotiations, misuse of international organizations, illegal resolutions from the IAEA Board of Governors, media propaganda, and intelligence operations by [U.S. Central Command], the Pentagon, and Zionist-linked corporations utilizing advanced satellite and cyber technologies. "However, Western intelligence agencies, relying on delusional analysis and misinformation from anti-Iran groups, underestimated Iran's resilience. The enemy's strategy, modeled on failed U.S. regime change operations, was crushed by Iran's unified defense." Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in June: "If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out. Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders…so in the end it wasn't realistic." U.S. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social in June: "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" What Happens Next The United States has supported European demands for Iran to demonstrate compliances with nuclear regulations or face new sanctions at the United Nations.
Business Insider
29 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Was Jeffrey Epstein, superconnector of the rich and powerful, a spy?
When the FBI raided Jeffrey Epstein's homes in Manhattan and the US Virgin Islands, they seized more than 70 computers, iPads, and hard drives. They took boxes of shredded paper and financial documents. In a cabinet underneath a bookshelf in Epstein's Manhattan mansion, they found a large plastic bin full of hard drives. They sawed open a metal safe and found inside it a binder full of CDs and even more hard drives. This material, taken in 2019, forms the bulk of the Epstein files. The vast corpus of evidence has assumed an almost mythic status in recent weeks as questions swirl about Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and his rich and powerful associates. The full release of the files could answer legitimate questions about how Epstein escaped accountability for trafficking and abusing young girls, the sources of his wealth, failures surrounding his death, and the nature of his relationships to powerful people with intelligence ties, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and CIA Director William Burns. The unanswered questions have left room for wild speculation. At its most lurid, the unsubstantiated theory goes that Epstein pimped out teenage girls as part of a blackmail operation at the behest of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, and was murdered in his jail cell to ensure he took his secrets to his grave. If Epstein had anything to do with intelligence agencies, one might expect some hint of it to show up in all these files. Four people who had access to the records seized by the FBI say they found nothing to indicate that Epstein had any role with US or foreign intelligence. There's no sign that evidence was removed because it contained classified or sensitive information, they said. There was no mention of intelligence ties in court records or during the five-week trial of Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex. "Nothing supports the contention that there was either a honeypot blackmail scheme or any association with intelligence," one of the people with access to the seized records told Business Insider. Of course, had Epstein been working as an intelligence asset in some fashion, it's possible that there would be no trace of that in the seized records. "If you are working for the government — providing information to the government — that relationship is something that neither party necessarily wants to casually be discovered," says Adam Hickey, a former top official in the Department of Justice's national security division. Hickey, who oversaw counterintelligence, espionage, and foreign computer hacking cases, had no involvement with the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutions. But he and other national security law experts told Business Insider it's notable that neither Epstein nor Maxwell raised intelligence connections in their defense. "You would expect him to want to prove that what he was doing was because the government sent him out to do it," Hickey says. "That would be fodder for a defense." The Trump administration's recent backpedaling on a promise to release more documents from the Justice Department's Epstein files has reignited long-standing suspicions that the government is hiding details of Epstein's crimes and protecting his many powerful and influential associates. FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, pushed for the release of the "Epstein files" before joining the administration, claiming the government was participating in a cover-up. The idea that Epstein had some kind of intelligence role has been promoted by Steve Bannon, who recorded hours of interviews with Epstein in the months before his death. Do you have any information about the Justice Department's Epstein files? Contact Business Insider Legal Correspondent Jacob Shamsian at jshamsian@ or on the secure messaging app Signal at JacobShamsian.07. . In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi published several hundred pages of documents from the Justice Department's trove, which she described as "Phase One" of the release. All but three pages had been made public years earlier. In some documents, the Justice Department bizarrely added new redactions to already-public records. (The Justice Department has denied Business Insider's FOIA requests for many of the files; the denials are being appealed. Justice Department representatives didn't respond to requests for comment.) This month, the Justice Department released a two-page memo announcing that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted." Elon Musk, who left his government role in June in an ugly split with Trump, has led calls for the full release of the Epstein files, saying on X that doing so would be a priority for his new political party. MAGA-friendly pundits, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have pushed the theory — based on connect-the-dots leaps of logic — that Epstein was working for the Mossad. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi informed President Donald Trump in the spring that his name appeared in the Epstein files, though it's not clear in what context. Trump and Epstein were friendly in the 1990s, before Epstein registered as a sex offender. On Thursday and Friday, Justice Department officials met with Maxwell near the Florida prison where she's serving a 20-year sentence. Theories about Epstein are rooted in mistrust: Epstein's life and death represent failures of the institutions that were supposed to bring him to justice. The conspiracy theories around intelligence make hay of his connections without offering much evidence beyond them. They note, for instance, that Ghislaine Maxwell's father, the late British business tycoon Robert Maxwell, is widely believed to have worked for Israeli intelligence. Barak visited Epstein's Manhattan townhouse on multiple occasions after Barak left office — something the former prime minister later said he regretted — and Epstein was an investor in one of Barak's companies. Burns also met multiple times with Epstein while he was deputy Secretary of State, but before he led the CIA. A CIA spokesperson said the meetings were arranged so that Epstein could offer Burns career advice. If he had had any connection to any governmental agency whatsoever, I would be the first person to know about it. Alan Dershowitz, former Epstein defense attorney Two specific claims that are often cited to make the case that Epstein was an intelligence asset have been contradicted. The first comes from a 2019 opinion column in the Daily Beast written by journalist Vicky Ward. According to Ward, Alex Acosta, the Florida prosecutor who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal in the mid-2000s that allowed him to serve a light jail sentence despite law enforcement's belief that he had abused dozens of girls, was asked about the case during his vetting to be named labor secretary during the first Trump administration. "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," Acosta said, according to Ward's anonymous source. Acosta said the opposite when he spoke to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility for a report published in 2020. Asked whether he had knowledge of Epstein being "an intelligence asset," Acosta told them, "the answer is no." Acosta's response was buried in a footnote on page 169 of the 348-page report and was not widely seen. Acosta declined to comment for this story. "I was told what I was told and the person who's told it to me has never backtracked from it," Ward told Business Insider. Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein in the Florida case, told Business Insider that Epstein told him he didn't have ties to intelligence agencies. "He said 'absolutely no.' He said he wished he did, that it would've been very helpful" to get an even better deal, Dershowitz says. "If he had had any connection to any governmental agency whatsoever, I would be the first person to know about it." One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, accused Dershowitz of abuse, but later withdrew the allegation and said she "may have made a mistake." Dershowitz has called for the public release of the Epstein files. "They would distinguish between true accusations and false accusations," he said. The second claim involves the existence of videos — filmed for the benefit of Epstein's intelligence handlers, the theory goes — showing Epstein's friends having sex with underage girls. Epstein's victims have said he told them he had cameras throughout his homes. The specific claim that Epstein was recording sexual acts involving his associates comes from statements that Sarah Ransome, one of Epstein's accusers, made in 2016. Ransome later admitted that she made it up. "I was absolutely terrified that, once I went public with my story, Jeffrey and Ghislaine would find and kill me," Ransome wrote in her 2021 memoir. If the seized Epstein documents contained any whiff of intelligence ties, there are several ways that could have shown up. Typically, when Justice Department prosecutors suspect a US intelligence agency, such as the CIA or NSA, might have information pertinent to a criminal case they're investigating, they will make a request for a prudential review, also called a prudential search, experts in national security law said. "Epstein had one condition: he wanted assurances that the SDNY did not see him as a rapist. That was the end of that. He was a rapist, and we were not about to give him some other, more polite-sounding label." Geoffrey Berman, former US attorney "The prudential review is where you kick the tires and make sure there's nothing that the intelligence community has that is going to make it impossible or unethical for you to bring your case because you can't comply with your discovery obligations because the information is classified," says Hickey, who's now a defense attorney with the firm Mayer Brown. There's no indication that a prudential review ever took place, according to the four people who had access to the records seized by the FBI. In Epstein's case, the reason for this might have come down to timing, two of his lawyers told BI: His death, mere weeks after his arrest, meant there wasn't much time to process the evidence against him. "Because Epstein died very early on, the government had produced little discovery and our primary initial focus was bail," one of those lawyers in the 2019 case, Marc Fernich, told Business Insider. In his memoir, Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney who oversaw the case against Epstein, wrote that his team never met with Epstein's defense team to discuss the possibility of a plea deal. "Epstein had one condition: he wanted assurances that the SDNY did not see him as a rapist," Berman wrote. "That was the end of that. He was a rapist, and we were not about to give him some other, more polite-sounding label." There's also no indication that a prudential review was requested in the case against Maxwell, which involved much of the same evidence collected for Epstein's prosecution, the four people said. A representative for the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York and an attorney for Maxwell declined to comment. In addition, there's no record of evidence being removed for national security reasons. For prosecutors to remove certain pieces of evidence, to avoid exposing sensitive intelligence to defense attorneys, they would need to file motions under the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA. The motions would be noted on the public court docket, experts said. "The way things normally happen is that there would be some tell in the docket that you're dealing with these issues, and the court knows about it through CIPA," says Hickey. CIPA was enacted in 1980 to make it easier to prosecute people with intelligence ties. Until then, legal experts say, defendants with such ties could use the threat of exposing government secrets — "graymail," as it was called — to avoid prosecution. "Before CIPA, basically nobody would ever prosecute CIA officers because they would always pull this shit," says Kel McClanahan, a national security attorney and law professor at George Washington University. BI's search of the docket for the federal cases against Epstein or Maxwell found no mention of CIPA litigation. No member of Maxwell's high-powered defense team — which included lawyers who have worked on cases involving terrorists and international drug traffickers — asked the judge to order prosecutors to conduct a prudential search of intelligence agency material. If it's true that there was never a search for government secrets or arguments for pulling evidence, and if no links to intelligence ever emerged from extensive reviews of the Epstein files, it does not "definitively remove the question" of an intelligence role, McClanahan says. But it's a "pretty damn convincing" sign, he says. Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Legal Affairs desk. Business Insider's Discourse stories provide perspectives on the day's most pressing issues, informed by analysis, reporting, and expertise.
NBC News
29 minutes ago
- NBC News
'Worst-case scenario of famine' unfolding in Gaza under Israel's offensive, IPC says
The "worst-case scenario of famine" is unfolding in the Gaza Strip under Israel's deadly offensive, the world's leading body on hunger said Tuesday. "Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths," the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said in an alert. The alert comes as deaths from starvation in the enclave continue to rise amid a spiraling hunger crisis spurred by Israel's military offensive and crippling aid restrictions. President Donald Trump on Monday echoed mounting global alarm at the situation, which he said amounted to 'real starvation' — a break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 'Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow for unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response,' the IPC said. 'This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.' The IPC emphasized that its warning constituted an alert and was not a "famine classification." While the IPC considers itself the 'primary mechanism' used by the international community to conclude whether a famine is happening or projected, it typically doesn't make such a designation itself. But it said on Tuesday that with new information made available, a new IPC analysis had to be conducted 'without delay.' The report marked the most dire warning yet from the IPC on the hunger crisis unfolding in Gaza. Its findings come after weeks of warnings from humanitarian groups and health workers on the ground of starvation spreading in the enclave, with NBC News' crew witnessing parents grieving over the bodies of their malnourished babies, and frail children clinging to life as they receive hospital care. Global outrage has reached a crescendo over the spiraling humanitarian situation, with Israel accused of causing a manmade crisis after allowing only a basic amount of aid into the enclave for weeks since lifting a crippling blockade in May that barred the entry of food and other vital supplies into the territory. The World Food Programme warned Monday that a third of the population in the enclave was 'not eating for days,' with some 470,000 people enduring 'famine-like conditions' and around 90,000 women and children in need of 'urgent nutrition treatment.' Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people have been killed in recent weeks by Israeli forces during desperate attempts to reach what limited aid is being distributed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry in the enclave, largely under a widely condemned new distribution system led by the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In the face of mounting condemnation, the Israeli military began limited pauses in fighting over the weekend in three populated areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day to allow the entry and distribution of aid in the enclave by humanitarian groups — but aid organizations have warned the trickle of aid allowed in so far was not enough to stave off famine in the enclave. The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that nearly 150 people in Gaza had died from malnutrition since the war began, including at least 88 children. The total number of people been killed in Gaza since the war began has almost reached 60,000, including thousands of children, according to the health ministry. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict. Since then, Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide over its assault on Gaza, including in an ongoing case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice. On Monday, two prominent Israeli rights groups, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, echoed the allegation, concluding that their country was committing genocide.
