The anatomy of the Epstein network | The Listening Post

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Listening Post

Episode: "The Anatomy of the Epstein Network"

Date: February 7, 2026
Host: Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post team
Guest/Experts: Meenakshi Ravi (Al Jazeera), Murtaza Hussain (Dropsite News), various analysts, journalists

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Main Theme

This episode investigates the newly released “Epstein Files”: over three million documents that expose the depth and breadth of Jeffrey Epstein’s networks among the global elite. The conversation unpacks the nature of Epstein’s connections—especially to powerful figures in politics, finance, and technology—and examines significant angles that have been downplayed in mainstream media. These include his deep ties with Israeli elites and the selective silence around this in media coverage. The episode also draws parallels to media coverage (and neglect) of the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Epstein Files: Revelations and Networks (00:28 — 07:12)

• Sheer Scale and Impact:
  The latest DOJ document release, 3+ million files, “rocked Washington, had repercussions in London, and may yet implicate Moscow and Tel Aviv.” (02:13)
• Epstein as a Fixer:
  Epstein functioned as a critical connector among the world’s power brokers across tech, politics, academia, and finance—“rubbing shoulders” with names such as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Ehud Barak, Noam Chomsky, and Deepak Chopra.

  “The picture that emerges is of Epstein as an elite fixer. He was a power broker who moved seamlessly between the worlds of big tech, politics, finance, and academia.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [02:13]

• Continued Acceptance Despite Conviction:
  Many relationships continued even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.
• Enduring Elite Support:
  Notably, public figures like Noam Chomsky are quoted as showing support for Epstein post-conviction.
• Epstein’s Embedding Among Global Elites:

  “It’s very clear that there’s a relatively small number of people who are globally connected, who are in community with one another and they wield tremendous power. And Epstein was a member of that sort of club.”
  — Murtaza Hussain [03:33]

2. Underreported Connections: The Israel Link (04:17 — 08:40)

• Lack of Coverage:
  Despite direct, documented links between Epstein and Israeli political/intelligence figures, this angle is conspicuously absent in much mainstream media.
• Details of Israeli Ties:
  • Epstein’s close friendship and advisory role to former Israeli PM Ehud Barak.
  • Facilitating Barak’s introductions to tech firms like Palantir (founded by Peter Thiel; deeply involved in data analytics and surveillance).

  “Epstein served as an advisor to Barak and he was facilitating introductions to tech investors and financial firms. One of them was Palantir.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [04:32]

• Deployment of Israeli Tech and Intelligence Assets:
  Epstein’s embedding went beyond personal links, as he was involved in financial and technological strategies for Israel’s benefit.

  “Epstein was really somebody who... offered the services he could to Israeli elites and Israeli society as a whole... to funnel money into Israeli key strategic technology sectors and pursue the interests of the State of Israel geopolitically.”
  — Murtaza Hussain [05:42]

3. Russian Conspiracies vs. Israeli Realities (07:12 — 08:40)

• Media Focus on Russia:
  Mainstream outlets frequently speculate on alleged Russian intelligence ties—despite scant evidence.
• Neglect of Israeli Angle:
  Epstein’s Russia connections are largely unproven (“Putin’s name is mentioned a thousand times ... but it looks like it never happened”), yet receive disproportionate coverage.

  “The links [to Israel] are so glaring that you have to make an active effort to ignore them.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [07:12]

• Speculative Framing:
  Quotes highlight the preference for speculative Russia theories over the more substantiated Israel angle.

4. Why is the Media Silent? (08:40 — 10:07)

• Structural Bias:
  Mainstream (especially U.S.) media are reluctant to cover stories that implicate close institutional circles (Democratic Party, Labor Party in Israel, Clinton network, etc.).
• Case Example – David Brooks:

  “A columnist named David Brooks wrote an article ... expressing his view that the Epstein story should not be covered anymore ... Shortly after that story came out, a photo emerged of him basically at a meeting with Epstein. And he had not disclosed that in his column.”
  — Murtaza Hussain [09:34]

• Media Self-Protection:
  Journalists “are being asked to cover their own corruption ... they were part of [Epstein’s] world. So how can they cover it?”
  — Murtaza Hussain [09:40]

5. The Continuing Story: DOJ Delays and File Access (10:07 — 10:25)

• File Release Slowdown:
  “The Department of Justice under Trump has been slowing down this process.” (10:07)
• Expectations of More Damning Info:
  “It will surprise no one if the DOJ has saved the worst, the most damaging material for the last.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [10:17]

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[Transition to Media and Gaza Coverage]

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6. Gaza: Ceasefire in Name Only, Media Complicity (10:25 — 17:03)

• Not a Real Ceasefire:
  Despite an alleged ceasefire, Israeli attacks on Gaza continue and Palestinian deaths mount.

  “Ceasefire is when Palestinians cease and Israel continues to fire. There is no ceasefire in Gaza. There is only restraint, limited restraint imposed on Israel, how many people they can kill and get away with it.”
  — Palestinian Journalist [12:50]

• Media as Accomplice:
  International outlets have moved on or are illogically framing Israel’s violations as conflict “sporadicities,” aiding Israeli PR efforts.

  “The media is culpable here. The media has to say there is no ceasefire anymore. A ceasefire was signed and it’s being violated systematically. Anything else is helping Israel cover up...”
  — Israeli Media Expert [13:10]

• Domestic vs. Foreign Media Narratives:
  Israeli sources are more open about ongoing violence, foreign media repeat government talking points; e.g.,

  “What they’re saying to Israeli media is the truth and what they’re saying to foreign media is false.”
  — Israeli Media Expert [15:28]

7. Manipulating Death Toll and Blocking Reporting (16:16 — 20:46)

• Downplaying Casualties:
  Israel and its allies undermine Gaza Health Ministry stats (“Hamas-run” framing), but experts agree these are undercounts.

  “The 71,000 [death toll] figure is actually a very conservative figure... the number is much higher.”
  — Murtaza Hussain [17:24] “Studies published in The Lancet and The Economist suggest the number is going to be significantly in excess of 100,000.”
  — Analyst [17:47]

• Blocking Foreign Journalists:
  Israel continues to ban international media access to Gaza, with court cases dragging on and prospects for open coverage looking grim.

  “The same legal system is kicking the can down the road, keeping the padlocks on the gates into Gaza, blocking foreign journalists from going in to keep the ugly truth from coming out.”
  — Host [18:40]

• Marginalizing Palestinian Journalists:

  “Instead of international colleagues believing their Palestinian colleagues... they seem to discount Palestinian journalists. So the lack of international access coupled with the dehumanization of Palestinian journalists is what has led to Gaza’s not being covered.”
  — Murtaza Hussain [19:31]

• Describing Devastation:

  “Entire cities vaporized, turned to dust and ash. The IDF cannot explain this away, which is why they just demonize every local journalist as Hamas.”
  — Palestinian Journalist [20:04]

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8. Making the Epstein Files Searchable (20:46 — end)

• JMail Project:
  “JMail” is an online, Gmail-like interface built to search the Epstein documents, created by Luke Igel and Riley Waltz in partnership with Dropsite News.
  It’s designed to make the trove of evidence navigable—something the DOJ and Trump administration have not made easy.

  “They have done what the Trump administration and the DOJ have chosen not to do, making the Epstein files more accessible. User warning: JMail does leave some people with the unsettling, creepy feeling of being inside Jeffrey Epstein’s inbox.”
  — Host [20:46]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Endurance of Epstien’s Network:

  “Many of Epstein’s connections offer personal comfort and support for a convicted pedophile ... it’s all so jarring.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [02:13]

• On Media Omissions:

  “The stories are sitting right there, but a lot of the mainstream media has not even bothered to touch it.”
  — Meenakshi Ravi [07:12]

• On Contrasts in Media Coverage – Gaza:

  “Ceasefire is when Palestinians cease and Israel continues to fire... As long as they keep the number in this double digits and not above 100, then the world is okay with it.”
  — Palestinian Journalist [12:50]

• On Journalistic Responsibility:

  “The media has to say there is no ceasefire anymore. A ceasefire was signed and it’s being violated systematically. Anything else is helping Israel cover up...”
  — Israeli Media Expert [13:10]

• On Journalistic Complicity:

  “The media elites who are supposed to cover this world unflinchingly, they were part of it, so how can they cover it?”
  — Murtaza Hussain [09:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Epstein’s Elite Network: 02:13 – 04:17
• Israeli Connections Exposed: 04:32 – 06:58
• Media’s Russian Obsession versus Israeli Silence: 07:12 – 08:40
• Why Media Won’t Cover It: 08:40 – 10:07
• Gaza: False Ceasefire and Media Complicity: 10:25 – 15:19
• Manipulation of Death Toll: 16:16 – 18:40
• Exclusion of Journalists from Gaza: 18:40 – 20:46
• JMail Tool Announcement: 20:46 – end

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Tone and Style

• Direct, analytical, and urgent: The hosts and guests maintain a critical stance towards both the power structures Epstein was embedded in and the failures of media to scrutinize their own involvement or biases.
• Unflinching, sometimes confrontational: Particularly when discussing media complicity in both the Epstein case and Gaza.
• Grave, fact-forward: The subject matter is treated with seriousness and a focus on documentation and accountability.

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Final Takeaways

This episode of The Listening Post exposes the ways in which both media and political institutions have failed to fully investigate or openly discuss the depth of Epstein’s connections, especially with Israeli elites—a silence attributed to self-protection within elite circles. In parallel, the episode draws a sharp critique of international journalism’s failures in accurately reporting on Gaza, arguing that selective reporting and restricted access serve powerful interests and obfuscate the true reality on the ground.

The new searchable JMail database offers a tool for journalists and the public to sift through the vast Epstein archive, providing a path towards the scrutiny and transparency that so much of the mainstream media has resisted.

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Transcript

[Host 1]

This week on the take, we're marking one year since a pair of devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria with a new digital interactive listen and watch stories of survival, recovery and coping with the grief@al jazeera.com earthquakes again, that's al jazeera.com earthquakes.

[Host 2]

Two major stories for the Listening Post to examine this week. The Epstein Files. The latest release of documents has rocked Washington, had repercussions in London and may yet implicate Moscow and Tel Aviv. And we look at Gaza, where Israel keeps killing Palestinians. And the word ceasefire now comes with quotation marks. There has been an avalanche of Epstein Files coverage this past week following a major document dump by the U.S. department of Justice. More than 3 million files exposing the interconnected networks that had the late financier and convicted pedophile at their center and overlapped well into the world of geopolitics. Newsrooms, podcasters and content creators around the world have all been delving into what these documents reveal the names of spanning politics, royalty, finance, big tech. The material reveals the ease with which elites operated outside of the law, seemingly confident that if their dealings were ever revealed, there would be no holding them to account. For all of the coverage, however, the sheer volume of it. There is one angle to this story that's not attracting nearly enough attention. It is there, in plain sight, yet curiously absent from much of the mainstream reporting. Joining me now in studio is Meenakshi Ravi. She's been digging into the documents and tracking the coverage. Let's start with what we have learned about the rarified world that Jeffrey Epstein operated in. What kind of people, powerful people, was he rubbing shoulders with? And what can you tell us about these networks?

[Meenakshi Ravi]

The picture that emerges is of Epstein as an elite fixer. He was a power broker who moved seamlessly between the worlds of big tech, politics, finance and academia. When you go through the reams of emails, you read these names almost entirely of men. Donald Trump, Peter Mandelson, Bill Clinton, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Ehud Barak. The list goes on. The emails repeatedly show Epstein facilitating introductions and creating back channels. But Richard, it's not just about the people Epstein knew. It's the fact that these very friendly relations continued long after 2008, when Epstein was convicted for soliciting a child for prostitution. That's why when you read emails from the likes of celebrated academics like Noam Chomsky or New Age gurus like Deepak Chopra, it's all so jarring. In the correspondence, many of Epstein's connections offer personal comfort and support for a convicted pedophile. For example, if you look at what Noam Chomsky, the man who co authored the book on how the media manufactures consent, here's what he wrote. He was expressing sympathy for the horrible way you are being treated by the press and the public. I spoke with Murtaza Hussain, he's a correspondent with Dropsite and he's been following Epstein's connections, investigating his networks for many years now. I asked him, how was this man able to embed himself so deeply into the establishment and remain protected for so long?

[Host 1]

When you look at Epstein's communications and his networks, it's very clear that there's a relatively small number of people who are globally connected, who are in community with one another and they wield tremendous power. And Epstein was a member of that sort of club. If you look at his communications, you see him acting as a connective node between powerful officials in many different countries, including between Israeli elites, Russian elites, Americans, Europeans, some Gulf Arab countries as well. And he was somebody that they looked up to to help accomplish both their personal and political goals. And in doing so, you really do notice the tremendous leverage that he had over them. When you also consider the fact in some cases he was facilitating their illicit activities.

[Host 2]

Now, a lot of powerful people are implicated in either illegal or morally repugnant behavior. There are so many leads for journalists to dig into here, including the links that existed between Epstein and Israeli politicians and intelligence figures.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

Yes, and this is an element of the story that really hasn't received the kind of media time and attention it deserves. I'll come back in a minute to why that's the case. But first it's worth explaining what the documents show. There's evidence of a close friendship between Epstein and Ehud Barak. Ehud Barak was the former Prime Minister of Israel, but he also had a decades long career in military and the intelligence services. So Epstein served as an advisor to Barack and he was facilitating introductions to tech investors and financial firms. One of them was Palantir. That's the US based data analytics firm founded by Peter Thiel. And they are deeply involved in government and surveillance. Here is a clip from a call between Epstein and Barack.

[Host 2]

Palantir is Peter Thiel's company, Alan Till.

[Host 1]

P A L A N T I E R. Yes. So he thought that Peter would put you on the board of Palantir.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

So that call was back in 2013. You can hear Epstein is encouraging Barak to look into Palantir. Two years after this call, Palantir opens an office in Tel Aviv and These documents, Richard, the Epstein files, they contain a lot more about the shady connections Epstein had with various Israeli figures. This is what Murtaza Hussein had to say about it.

[Host 1]

It's well known that Epstein had close ties with the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, but really his ties to the Israeli political system also the intelligence world go far beyond that. And Epstein was really somebody who was not in any way a servant of the State of Israel in the sense of a public servant, but he was someone who saw himself clearly incumbent upon him to do what he offered the services he could to Israeli elites and Israeli society as a whole. And in through his interactions with Barak, we don't just see the interactions of two powerful men, but we see private sector Israeli firms linked to the Israeli intelligence establishment, unit 8200, unit 81, the tech sector, being deployed by them to win financial gain for Barack, but also to grow the sector and to win financial benefits for people who are working in it as well too, in Israel. So Epstein is deeply embedded with Israeli elites. And regardless of his own political views and Barak's own political standing inside Israel, they had a broader ideological commitment to do what was right for Israel as they sides and to funnel money into Israeli key Israeli strategic technology sectors and pursue the interests of the State of Israel geopolitically.

[Host 2]

Given the depth of Epstein's connections to Israel, the details that we now have on that, the silence of the media on this story really, really stands out. What have you seen in the coverage, or lack of it, when it comes.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

To Epstein's connections with Israel, the links are so glaring that you have to make an active effort to ignore them. The stories are sitting right there, but a lot of the mainstream media has not even bothered to touch it. What has been remarkable instead is how so many outlets have pushed speculative notions about Epstein's connections to Russia.

[Murtaza Hussain]

Possible connections between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence services.

[Analyst/Commentator]

Growing suspicions of a Russian connection fueling.

[Host 1]

Speculation that Epstein could have been working for Russia.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

It's worth noting Vladimir Putin's name is mentioned a thousand times, about a thousand times in these emails. It appears that Epstein really worked his contacts to set up a meeting with Put, but it looks like it never happened. And there's certainly nothing in the files, at least the ones that have been reviewed so far, that indicate that Jeffrey Epstein was somehow an asset of Russian intelligence.

[Host 2]

But that hasn't stopped news organizations from speculating on that, and they've been doing it for years. Suggesting that the Russians had some compromising material on Trump may have been blackmailing him. We're now seeing more and more on Epstein's ties to Israeli intelligence. We're even seeing images of those surveillance systems that Jeffrey Epstein had built into some of his properties, as though he's trying to gather more material that he can possibly use against people. But much like other angles relating to this, including Israel, we're not seeing that much coverage of it.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

Yeah. And one of the few media outlets that has been doing coverage on the Israeli angles has of course been dropside news. So I asked Murtaza Hussain what he makes of mainstream media silence on the Israeli story.

[Host 1]

It's very well known that the corporate Media in the U.S. has difficulties covering the state of Israel. But I think that actually in this case, the problem goes even deeper because Epstein was specifically embedded in this network which seemed to encompass the Labor Party in Israel and the Democratic Party in the United States, the Clintons and so forth. And even his ties to Donald Trump were kind of based on the fact that Donald Trump was a Democrat for most of his life. So a lot of these institutions, media institutions, which are sort of more center left leaning, they're really being asked to cover their own corruption in some way because he was very much part of that world. I'll give you an example. There was a. At the New York Times, a columnist named David Brooks, he wrote an article late last year basically expressing his view that the Epstein story should not be covered anymore. And he dislikes the coverage of it and he just likes to focus on it. Shortly after that story came out, a photo emerged of him basically at a meeting with Epstein. And he had not disposed that in his column, which seemed like a great ethical lapse. But that's just a microcosm of the main issue here. That's a pretty small world that he was in. And the media elites who are supposed to cover this world unflinchingly, they were part of it, so how can they cover it? Exactly. And the reason Dropshad's covering it is because Dropside is not embedded in that world. So we're able to cover it and we're not, you know, it's not impugning us, so not really a problem.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

Richard, the Epstein story is going to be with us for a while. There are 3 million documents yet to be made public. The Department of Justice under Trump has been slowing down this process.

[Analyst/Commentator]

It.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

If the rest of the files are released, and that is a big if, it will surprise no one if the DOJ has saved the worst, the most damaging material for the last.

[Host 2]

Thanks, Mina. Last Saturday, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 30 people in Gaza. On Wednesday, another 23 were killed. That brings the number of Palestinian lives taken by Israel since the ceasefire deal was signed in October to more than 500. So we have to ask, should journalists still be calling this a ceasefire? The larger question is the Israeli government even committed to the peace plan? The answer, according to many in the Israeli news media, is no. Over and over, Israeli journalists have openly reported that the Netanyahu government is preparing to resume large scale attacks on Gaza, that Israel is not just failing to uphold its side of the agreement, it is actively undermining it, preparing to restart its full scale assault on the strip. And with much of the international news media now looking away from this story, the end goal for so many Israelis, ethnically cleansing Gaza is still on the table.

[Murtaza Hussain]

When people turn their eyes away from Gaza, it means that Israel can continue to do what it's been doing without anybody watching. And that's precisely what it wants.

[Analyst/Commentator]

Because if you get it off the screens, then you get it off people's minds and then the governments are not under pressure to act. So they are creating that ecosystem of ignore this and when we move on.

[Israeli Media Expert]

To other conflicts and other stories, we're leaving the people of Gaza to die on their own.

[Host 2]

And most news outlets, American ones for example, have moved on. A U S based Media Watch ngo, Fairness and accuracy in Reporting has tracked the number of online news articles there on Gaza over the past two years. It reflects the spike in coverage in May of 2024 when Israeli forces invaded Rafah. The surge that August when the Palestinian Death toll exceeded 40,000. The first brief ceasefire in January 2025. August of last year when a famine was declared, peaking in October when the ceasefire was announced. Since then the coverage has nosedived, as though the ceasefire has actually held when it has not.

[Palestinian Journalist]

Ceasefire is when Palestinians cease and Israel continues to fire. There is no ceasefire in Gaza. There is only restraint, limited restraint imposed on Israel, how many people they can kill and get away with it. So as long as they keep the number in this double digits and not above 100, then the world is okay with it.

[Israeli Media Expert]

The media is culpable here. The media has to say there is no ceasefire anymore. A ceasefire was signed and it's being violated systematically. Anything else is helping Israel cover up the continued systematic slaughter of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

[Murtaza Hussain]

Ceasefire implies that there are two sides that are involved.

[Host 2]

It is day 11 of the ceasefire. The Israel Hamas war.

[Murtaza Hussain]

Us using the term ceasefire makes it seem as though somehow there was a War, rather than it being genocide, it's.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

The latest incident of violence testing President Trump's ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

[Murtaza Hussain]

It was and is a one way genocide. Israel has been perpetrating genocide against Palestinians and that's the way that it needs to be framed. The continuation of genocide, which many voices.

[Host 2]

In the Israeli media are apparently okay with. And they are putting that out there. The newspaper Ma' Ariv reported the Israeli military foresees the collapse of the Trump peace plan and is preparing to resume its assault on Gaza without restrictions and a full scale occupation. The News Network channel 14 revealed that the Army's chief of staff has already approved plans for a large scale attack on the strip. News consumers, observant ones, are detecting an occasional disconnect between what is being reported in the Israeli media and what makes it into international coverage, a pattern. Foreign outlets, including journalists the Netanyahu government has in its corner, get told one thing about the so called ceasefire, while Israeli journalists are told another.

[Palestinian Journalist]

You see Israeli media consistently saying there is no ceasefire in Gaza, that it's only a matter of weeks before Israel resumes the full reoccupation of Gaza. And it is being said to reassure the Israeli mainstream as well as the very far right government that's in power, that don't worry, the ceasefire is merely symbolic. It's a spectacle.

[Israeli Media Expert]

If the IDF talks to the New York Times, the IDF talks to the Wall Street Journal, they will self censor when they Talk to channel 14 or Ma'.

[Host 2]

Riv.

[Israeli Media Expert]

They will be much more honest and open with what they're saying. So what they're saying to Israeli media is the truth and what they're saying to foreign media is false. But foreign media needs to take these quotes from Israeli media and use them instead of relying on what the IDF is telling them, where they're much more likely to lie.

[Host 1]

That Israel will.

[Analyst/Commentator]

Resist implementation of what it has apparently signed up to is a given. Netanyahu wants to put Iran on the front burner, Gaza on the back burner. And there is an awful lot of willingness to continue to go along with impunity. Accountability is hard. Impunity is easy. The Israeli side is not having to work hard to resist.

[Host 2]

One of the disinformation methods the Israeli authorities have consistently used to avoid accountability for their war crimes has been to downplay the numbers. Ever since October 7th, they have dismissed the casualty figures coming out of the Gaza Health Ministry, the Palestinian death toll, calling the ministry a Hamas run organization, casting doubt on the public health professionals who actually run the service. It is a misleading characterization adopted by far too many news organizations.

[Murtaza Hussain]

The Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll has risen. The Hamas run Health Ministry says at.

[Meenakshi Ravi]

Least 250 people, at least 31 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's Hamas run Health Ministry.

[Host 2]

Now, the Israeli government acknowledges that the ministry's casual currently at 71,000 is in fact accurate. Something the UN and various NGOs have been saying all along. Although many other analysts insist that the Palestinian death toll is much, much higher than that.

[Murtaza Hussain]

The 71,000 figure is actually a very conservative figure because it really only refers to those reported deaths. It doesn't refer to people who are lost or people who are under the rubble. Entire families that have been wiped off the map, where they have no survivor, who's there to declare that they have been killed. Believe me when I say that the number is much higher.

[Analyst/Commentator]

Studies published in the Lancet and the Economist suggest the number is going to be significantly in excess of 100,000. Rubble clearing equipment hasn't been allowed in to look for Palestinians, only for those Israelis who were remaining. It might be tactically smart to claim this number when you know the number is going to be significantly higher.

[Palestinian Journalist]

So all experts understood that this was an extreme undercount, but nonetheless you had this schizophrenic process. The idf, the Israeli government, the us, European governments would all use the number of casualties that is coming out of the Gaza Ministry of failed in internal discussions, while at the same time denying it to the public. So it was all about keeping the public as uninformed and as misled as possible in order to allow for this genocide to proceed.

[Host 2]

More than two years into the genocide and four months into this supposed ceasefire, the Israeli authorities still will not let international journalists into Gaza. The Foreign Press association has brought a case to the Israeli Supreme Court demanding that access. But the court is slow playing the legal process. Last week it gave the Netanyahu government two more months to prepare its arguments to keep the ban. Remember when all those Israelis took to the streets to protect their legal system, demanding the government drop its plans for judicial reform? Now that same legal system is kicking the can down the road, keeping the padlocks on the gates into Gaza, blocking foreign journalists from going in to keep the ugly truth from coming out.

[Murtaza Hussain]

But there's a bigger issue, which is that there are Palestinian journalists on the ground. And instead of international colleagues believing their Palestinian colleagues about what they're not only seeing but also living and going through instead, international journals somehow seem to discount Palestinian journalists. So the lack of international access coupled with the dehumanization of Palestinian journalists is what has led to Gaza's not being covered.

[Palestinian Journalist]

I had a friend who went to Gaza in February 2025 and he said there was a thick, thick stench of gunpowder and decomposing bodies all throughout the Gaza Strip. Entire cities vaporized, turned to dust and ash. The IDF cannot explain this away, which is why they just demonize every local journalist as Hamas prevent international media from working with those journalists, cast dirt on them. The final result is a blackout and the IDF is hoping to keep pushing this to until reconstruction in Gaza begins. And by then when people go in they would film the progress. They will not dwell on the ruins and the rubble of the past.

[Host 2]

And finally back to the Epstein files. The sheer number of them, millions and millions of documents released in such a chaotic way by the U.S. department of justice has made sifting through them a challenge for journalists, whether they are looking for news angles on Israel, Russia or Donald Trump. JMail, and that's not a mispronunciation, is here to help. JMail is a search tool, an Internet archive of Jeffrey Epstein's correspondence presented in an easy to navigate Gmail like interface. It is the co brainchild of a software engineer, Luke Igel, and an Internet artist, Riley Waltz, who teamed up to make the source material more easily searchable. They have also partnered, although Donald Trump might prefer the term co conspired with Dropsite News on this. Together they have done what the Trump administration and the DOJ have chosen not to do, making the Epstein files more accessible. User warning J Mail does leave some people with the unsettling, creepy feeling of being inside Jeffrey Epstein's inbound.