Alleged Iranian plot to kill Israel’s ambassador to Mexico was thwarted, US and Israel say

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexican authorities with assistance from the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies thwarted an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Mexico, Israeli and U.S. officials said Friday. Mexican authorities denied any knowledge of such a plot.

The plot to kill Ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger is alleged to have been hatched at the end of last year and remained active through the middle of this year, when it was disrupted, the U.S. officials said.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence, said the plot was “contained” and does not pose a current threat.

They did not offer details on how the plot was discovered or broken up. Iran’s mission to the U.N. said it had no comment.

“We thank the security and law enforcement services in Mexico for thwarting a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador in Mexico,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Israeli security and intelligence community will continue to work tirelessly, in full cooperation with security and intelligence agencies around the world, to thwart terrorist threats from Iran and its proxies against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide.”


Mexico’s foreign relations and security ministries issued a brief joint statement late Friday saying that “they have no report with respect to a supposed attempt against the ambassador of Israel in Mexico.”

(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/10/israeli-soldiers-breaking-ranks-gaza-civilians-human-shields)

Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary.

[...]

The soldiers who agreed to talk confirmed the IDF's routine use of human shields, contradicting official denials, and gave details of Israeli troops opening fire unprovoked on civilians racing to reach food handouts at the militarised distribution points set up by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

[...]

In those circumstances, the designation of who is an enemy or terrorist becomes arbitrary, Eli says in the documentary. “If they're walking too fast, they're suspicious. If they're walking too slow, they're suspicious. They're plotting something. If three men are walking and one of them lags behind, it's a two-to-one infantry formation - it's a military formation,” he says.

Eli describes an incident in which a senior officer ordered a tank to demolish a building in an area designated as safe for civilians. “A man was standing on the roof, hanging laundry, and the officer decided that he was a spotter. He's not a spotter. He's hanging his laundry. You can see that he's hanging laundry,” he says.

“Now, it's not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600-700 metres away. So unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded.”

[...]

The soldiers giving their accounts in Breaking Ranks also confirm consistent reports throughout the two-year conflict of the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice informally known as the “mosquito protocol”.

“You send the human shield underground. As he walks down the tunnel, he maps it all for you. He has an iPhone in his vest and as he walks it sends back GPS information,” says Daniel, the tank commander, says in the documentary. “The commanders saw how it works. And the practice spread like wildfire. After about a week, every company was operating its own mosquito.”

[...]

Breaking Ranks shows the mental strain on at least some of the soldiers in Gaza.

“I feel like they've destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli - in being an IDF officer,” Daniel says in the programme. “All that's left is shame.”

(https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/14/israeli-forces-in-gaza-use-civilians-as-human-shields-against-possible-booby-traps)

Israeli soldiers are using Palestinian civilians as human shields in Gaza to enter and clear tunnels and buildings they suspect may have been booby-trapped, a leading Israeli NGO and newspaper have reported.

The practice was so widespread across different units fighting in Gaza that it could in effect be considered a “protocol”, said Nadav Weiman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group founded by Israeli combat veterans to document military abuses.

[...]

Breaking the Silence said it had heard reports of civilians being used as human shields from the early stages of the war in Gaza. Initially it said it thought it had been one commander acting illegally, but testimony started coming in from soldiers stationed across the territory.

“We heard it from different units, fighting in different times and different places inside Gaza,” Weiman said. “Then we understood it's something a lot more widespread - or even, I could say, a protocol - in the IDF.”

One soldier had been told Palestinian civilians were being used to replace the dog units that search for explosives “because too many dogs had died”, he added.
[...]