The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced on Monday that it is formally ending its emergency aid mission to the coastal enclave.

John Acree, the foundation’s executive director, said that creating the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center under the Trump administration’s 20-point Israel-Hamas ceasefire plan reduced the need for the foundation to continue operating.

“GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need, prove that a new approach could succeed where others had failed and ultimately hand off that success to the broader international community,” Acree stated. “GHF believes that moment has now arrived.”

The foundation was created in February 2025 and claims that it has distributed 187 million meals to Gazans at a time when nearly 90 per cent of aid from more established organizations, like the United Nations, was diverted by Hamas or looted. According to the foundation, “not a single GHF aid truck was looted” during its four-and-a-half months of aid delivery operations.

Throughout its existence, GHF faced criticism and questions about its independence and efficacy, including the extent to which it enjoyed the support of the U.S. and Israeli governments, Hamas’s killing of GHF’s local staff and reports of mass shootings at or near GHF sites.

Israel has denied claims that it was responsible for firing on Gazans seeking aid at GHF distribution centers.

The U.S. State Department thanked GHF for its efforts on Monday.

“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” wrote Tommy Pigott, the department’s deputy spokesman.

Acree said on Monday that the foundation’s model of aid distribution should be emulated in other parts of the world and in future Gaza aid plans.

“I am hopeful the Civil-Military Coordination Center and the international community writ large will learn from our success, understand the process we implemented and replicate it throughout Gaza in order that the safe delivery of food and other humanitarian aid will continue,” he said.

The group said that it will “maintain readiness to reconstitute if new humanitarian needs are identified and will not dissolve as a registered NGO.”

• The inside story of how Gaza aid is diverted from the people who need it most
• Vivian Bercovici: Inside Israel’s plan to feed Gazans as it lays siege to Gaza City

OTTAWA — Brookfield chief operating officer Justin Beber appeared at the House of Commons ethics committee on Monday, but unlike the Canadian singer with a nearly identical name, his presence did not create waves of excitement.

For two hours, Beber was repeatedly grilled by opposition MPs about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s potential for conflicts of interest with Brookfield, Carney’s returns of the global investment funds he helped set up at Brookfield, but also Brookfield’s tax practices.

“Mr. Beber, you’ve been, I think, a very patient participant in this late-season fishing expedition,” said Liberal MP Leslie Church about the opposition’s attempts to steer the executive away from his carefully crafted statements to the ethics committee.

Beber started off his remarks by explaining that Carney cut ties with Brookfield on Jan. 16, 2025, the same day on which he announced his candidacy to become Liberal leader.

“Since then, at no point has anyone at Brookfield spoken with the prime minister about Brookfield business,” he said.

However, when asked by Conservative MP Michael Barrett when he had communicated with Carney, Beber admitted he had met him “only once” to discuss the rise of antisemitism in early October. The meeting took place in Carney’s office, he said.

Beber said he worked with Carney over five years at Brookfield and said he was an “exceptionally talented executive and person of great integrity.”

Most of the Conservatives’ line of questioning was about the funds that Carney is entitled to, as former head of transition investing for Brookfield Asset Management.

In this role, Carney co-led efforts to raise capital for two major clean energy funds, Global Transition Fund (“BGTF I”) and the Second Global Transition Fund (“BGTF II”).

He was also in the process of raising money for a new fund, the Catalytic Transition Fund (“CTF”), when he left Brookfield.

As previously reported by the National Post

, Carney acquired Brookfield share options and deferred shared units, but also potentially tens of millions in undisclosed “carried interest” — essentially, bonus payments based on a fund’s performance when it reaches maturity.

Beber said Carney is entitled to carried interest payments for BGTF I — which, Beber explained, is set to reach maturity in either 2032 or 2034 — but not for the two other transition funds Carney helped create at Brookfield Asset Management.

“The reason for that is we were in the process of setting up those funds when Mr. Carney decided to leave Brookfield to pursue the Liberal leadership,” Beber said.

Pressed by Conservative MP Michael Cooper if he was disputing that Carney stands to make millions, if not tens of millions of dollars from those investments, Beber said it was “certainly not a fact.”

Carney put all of his assets, except some money and his personal real estate, into a blind trust when he became Liberal leader. He has also disclosed all his potential conflicts to the ethics commissioner, who crafted an extensive ethics screen for over 100 entities.

But, in the context of the review of the Conflict of Interest Act which the ethics committee is undertaking, the Conservatives are pushing for the law to go even further and require lawmakers such as Carney to sell their assets to prevent any potential conflicts.

Current and former senior bureaucrats have advised against going that far to not discourage competent leaders from the private sector from entering politics.

But Conservatives say that Carney’s situation is unique, as former executive of a company which has financial interests in a wide range of sectors — such as modular housing, clean energy and artificial intelligence — that the government is taking an active interest in.

They pressed Beber to know whether Carney’s latest budget would help Brookfield increase its revenues, with the executive responding that his firm has 2,000 businesses under its wing and will assess and react to government policy in their best interest.

“What we have isn’t a Brookfield problem. The reason that you’re here is because the prime minister has a financial interest in the performance of this company,” said Barrett.

Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault attempted to grill Beber on

allegations of tax avoidance involving Brookfield

, but Beber insisted that his company complies with all tax laws. He even declined to say if tax avoidance exists, saying he can only speak to Brookfield.

The transition funds Carney co-managed

were both registered in Bermuda

, one of the largest tax havens in the world.

Thériault appeared visibly frustrated by Beber’s lack of answers.

“After tax avoidance, we have question avoidance,” he said in French.

Beber also declined to comment on any changes that should be made to the Conflict of Interest Act. “It’s very, very hard for me to opine on matters that involve legislation and government apparatus that I’m not very familiar with,” he said.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said that Baber confirmed on Monday what Canadians already knew, which is that Carney owns Brookfield stock options and carried interest payments that will not come to maturity for many years still.

Conacher said Carney’s situation is “an ongoing, direct and significant financial conflict of interest” because he would eventually profit from any decision he makes or participates in that could help any of Brookfield’s many businesses make more money.

“The only way to ensure integrity in the federal government’s policy-making processes is for him to sell these investments.”

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

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An analysis of dozens of studies involving almost 100,000 participants found that exposure to short-form videos (SFVs) like those on TikTok and Instagram is contributing to a host of mental health conditions.

The work, published by the American Psychological Association, said the effects included poorer cognition (attention, inhibitory control, language, memory, etc.) and a decline in many mental health indices.

“These findings were consistent across youth and adult samples and across different SFV platforms,” the researchers wrote

in their study

, titled: “Feeds, feelings, and focus: A systematic review and meta-analysis examining the cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use.”

The researchers noted that while initially geared toward entertainment, SFVs are increasingly being used in education, political campaigns, advertising and consumerism. “Yet their design, characterized by endless scrolling interfaces, has raised concerns about addiction and negative health implications.”

On the topic of cognition skills, the researchers found that “repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast-paced content may contribute to habituation, in which users become desensitized to slower, more effortful cognitive tasks such as reading, problem solving, or deep learning.”

They added: “This process may gradually reduce cognitive endurance and weaken the brain’s ability to sustain attention on a single task.”

In the area of mental health, they noted that SFV use has been associated with increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness.

“The highly engaging, algorithm-driven nature of SFV platforms is thought to encourage excessive use by stimulating the brain’s dopaminergic reward system, which may reinforce habitual engagement through instant gratification and unpredictable content rewards,” they wrote.

“This habitual engagement may be associated with heightened stress and anxiety, as some users report difficulties disengaging and regulating their emotions in offline settings,” they continued.

“Additionally, the immersive and infinite-scrolling nature of SFVs has been linked to increased social isolation by replacing real-world interactions with passive digital engagement, exacerbating feelings of loneliness.” This, in turn, has been correlated with lower life satisfaction.

Sleep quality was also seen to be affected, perhaps due to the blue light emitted by electronic devices. This was further linked to changes in mood.

The researchers were surprised by one finding, however. “Unexpectedly, our meta-analysis found no association between SFV engagement and body esteem or self-esteem, which contrasts with prior reviews,” they wrote.

They suggested that some previous studies linking social media use and self-esteem were too simple in their questions, and that while others found a negative impact, they were balanced by separate studies that noted a positive effect on users.

“The inconsistency across studies suggests that the association between SFV use and body/self-esteem may be highly dependent on individual differences and exposure to different types of SFV content,” they wrote, suggesting further research was needed to “disentangle these factors.”

Overall, they wrote, “these findings highlight the importance of understanding the broader health implications of SFV use, given its pervasive role in daily life and potential to impact health, behavior, and well-being.”

They added: “As SFV platforms continue to evolve and expand across educational, commercial, and social contexts, understanding the health correlates of SFV engagement remains an important focus for digital health research, particularly for guiding balanced approaches to media use and informing future public health recommendations.”

• More questions than answers after Trump announces TikTok deal with China
• TikTok collected sensitive data on Canadian children, broke privacy laws: report

Mosab Hassan Yousef is a rare voice to emerge from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a man whose journey took him from the dark pit of Hamas, to an outspoken critic and bestselling author.

Born in Ramallah in 1978, Yousef is the eldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founding leaders of Hamas, the terror group that rose to dominate Gaza. Growing up steeped in Jihadist ideology, he was expected to inherit his father’s legacy — until a crisis of conscience set him on a radically different course.

His transformation began in the late 1990s, after witnessing the brutality inflicted by his own peers on suspected “collaborators.” Disillusioned, he accepted an unlikely recruitment by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, agreeing to act as an informant under the code name “The Green Prince.” Over the next decade, he worked undercover to sabotage terror plots and, by his own accounts, helped save hundreds of lives — including fellow Palestinians, as much as Israelis. All this transpired while his father remained a leading Hamas figure — that ultimately forced Yousef into exile and estrangement.

His story exploded onto the world stage with the publication of his bestselling memoir, Son of Hamas, in 2010. More recently, he expanded his story, in From Hamas to America, chronicling his years as an American citizen, reflecting on the cost and complexity of his choices, which include a conversion to Christianity.

Tafsik, a pro-Israel organization, brought Yousef to speak in Toronto on Nov. 19.

He spoke of recent Palestinian flag raisings in Toronto, Calgary and Winnipeg, excoriating Canadian politicians as “hypocrites looking for votes” who are “supporting chaos and terrorism.” Local demonstrators against Israel are “spitting venom, taking advantage of Gaza’s tragedy” while “using your freedoms to destroy your freedoms.”

He spoke of being raised in a “death culture” where “women are treated like cattle, as property” and “they feed children from an early age how to hate, in the name of resistance and occupation.” ​

He called Islamists “savages” that cannot be negotiated with. He said they perpetuated an “inverted narrative” that used projection to accuse Israel of genocide and colonization, but they were guilty of those very crimes.

Yousef spoke with Dave Gordon for National Post:

Q: On a governmental level, what needs to be done to prevent more antisemitic incidents?

A:

The problem with the government of Canada, is they have been platforming Palestine. This is the biggest antisemitism out there – rewarding Palestinians for their violence, then expecting from such a government to actually be fair to the Jews.

They are appeasing Muslim voters, and there is going to be consequences. (The government is) legitimizing jihad against all Western values.

If they continue to choose to close their eyes and see it differently, then they are part of the problem. They are not part of the solution.

I don’t count on them being fair to the Jewish people, and their fight against antisemitism. How can this be possible, when they are raising Palestinian flags, in their capitals?

Q: Would you say that the Gazans were unique, in that, as a group, they were for decades subjected to daily jihadist messages by Hamas?

A:

Actually, some of the most dangerous terrorists that the West ever experienced came from very wealthy Arab oil countries like Saudi Arabia. The only difference (with Gaza) is poverty, and that they are very close to the Jews. Like, for example, if Pakistan was close by, jihad would not be limited to the Palestinians.

Terrorists, jihadists, are worldwide. What we saw, for example, in Syria, remember ISIS? Remember what happened just recently against the Druze in Syria? See what the Houthis are doing. See the barbarism of the Iraqis, for example, during the Shia-Sunni clashes. But of course, there were no headlines. Take Algeria also. I can go on and on. Look at Sudan recently.

What I’m trying to tell you is that the entire region is ruled by tribalism. This is not only unique for the Palestinians. It’s a death culture. They just find in Israel a common enemy, because they are Jews. But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other.

Q: From time to time, Gazans will say things against Hamas on camera. Is this genuine, and how prevalent is that sentiment?

A:

Hamas ruled over the Gazans for 17 years, and they made many enemies, they killed many people, and they oppressed their political rivals.

They imprisoned them, they killed them, and these people basically are still there, and they have a blood feud with Hamas. So now Hamas has enemies. There are tribes who actually oppose Hamas, and they are armed, and they are defending themselves. There are so many divisions and subdivisions within the Gaza Strip.

But as of now, I think the vast majority of Gazans, they don’t see Israel as a possible peace partner, and they don’t recognize Israel. They still want a Palestinian state on the rubble of Israel.

Q: There is a sense among many that a large-scale terror attack is imminent in the West. Do you agree?

A:

First of all, the jihadis, the extreme Muslims, they are thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a political win. The political win is better than the military win.’ I’m not saying it’s better. What I’m saying is, to them, right now, they are winning.

They always will come to a point where they choose violence. For now, I call it, diplomatic,  political and financial jihad. This is something you must understand about how the Muslim Brotherhood works, which is basically the main mover and shaker behind all this chaos in the West.

Social jihad, which is what you experience on social media, is also significant in this game. As long as the jihadis are looking like freedom fighters, and the Jews are looking like terrorists, they are not going to go and do something that is going to actually change the narrative, or change the price.

But you need to take into consideration the lone wolves. Those are the ones that are basically not under control, and they take hateful indoctrination literally, and they may act on it.

We have more mayors being elected by social media. They also can now use these accounts to manipulate Americans and manipulate Westerners to get to power.

This is, in my opinion, a lot more dangerous than just a terrorist attack that would unify Westerners. If this continues, then eventually they are going to take over politics, controlling Congress or Parliament, to gain more power in decision-making circles.

Q: A three-piece-suit jihad?

A:

Yes, and especially when they are funded right now by Qatari money. I actually am not seeing an immediate threat of the magnitude of 9/11. I don’t see it in the interest of the Muslim Brotherhood, or any of its branches. 9/11 unified the West against terrorism, and October 7 divided the West, and this was the entire Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood strategy, basically, to demoralize the West, and they succeeded.

Q: What do you think allies of Israel and the Jewish people need to do?

A:

Defend freedom; defend the West, counter the Islamist threat, that has an aspiration to conquer the world. Once people start to understand that this is a real and existential threat, and they understand their strategy, financial, social, and diplomatic jihad, then it becomes a different story.

If the West is not united, say Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, all types of people, then everybody is a target.

The Jihadists are going to be violent, and anyone who would oppose them or offends their religion or criticizes their religion, they are going to kill and kidnap and commit terrorism.

This is paving the way for a new generation. Right now it’s like a cancer; it’s a big problem that nobody actually knows how to deal with.

What we need is to bring the truth to the people. For example, all the allegations of occupation, of genocide, of colonization, of stealing the land from the Palestinians, these are baseless accusations. And they are very serious accusations. We need to shed light on how the Gaza tragedy was the outcome of Hamas weaponizing civilians.

This interview was edited for brevity.

• Israel Defense Forces strike Hamas terror training compound in south Lebanon
• Inside Gaza: A ceasefire in name only

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Canada no longer considers its approach to global engagement a “feminist foreign policy,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday, marking a clear departure from the doctrine championed by Justin Trudeau and his former Liberal government.

During a press conference at the G-20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Carney was asked whether Canada still applies a feminist lens while forging economic ties with countries that restrict the rights of women and LGBTQ people.

“We have that aspect to our foreign policy, but I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy. Those are different points, but related,” he said while also affirming that gender equality remains a priority for Canada in its efforts to diversify internationally.

Carney highlighted how South Africa has elevated gender-based violence as a priority and admitted that Canada also needs to do more work in that regard, but said it’s not an economic issue.

“It is an issue of justice. It affects Canada. It affects everyone around that table. Different countries put a different priority on it,” the prime minister said. “But by discussing strategies and approaches, my experience is that I think that’s part of our policy as well.”

Carney’s remarks contrast with the tenets of Trudeau and his cabinet ministers, who made feminism a central organizing principle in Canada and in their international dealings.

Starting in the 2015 campaign that saw the Liberals elected, Trudeau promised gender equality steps that included appointing Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet and launching the National Inquiry into missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Two years into their first mandate, the Liberals introduced the

Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP)

, a new approach to foreign aid that aligns with the United Nations to address gender equality, change gender norms and prioritize women.

No formal document outlining the specific “feminist foreign policy” was ever published during Trudeau’s tenure, but cabinet ministers continued to tout it.

“Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy and (FIAP) are centred on building a more gender-equal world by promoting rights-based and inclusive initiatives and supporting efforts to end sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation,” Mélanie Joly stated in a 2023 news release while she was still the minister of foreign affairs.

“Canada is proud to have a feminist foreign policy, not because it looks good, but because it produces tangible and measurable results,” François-Philippe Champagne said in a speech in February 2020 when he was leading foreign affairs,

The Globe and Mail reported.

Carney’s comments also come less than a month after Randeep Sarai, his secretary of state for international development, testified before the foreign affairs committee that Canada still applies a feminist lens to its foreign aid because it makes economic sense.

“It’s not just the right thing to do. It’s a smart thing to do,” he said on Oct. 28, as reported by

The Canadian Press.

• Robyn Fryer Bodzin: Mélanie Joly’s feminist foreign policy has no room for Jewish rape victims
• Canada’s feminist foreign aid policy isn’t making much progress on a gender equal world

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation is calling on the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs to reconsider Canada’s stance recognizing a Palestinian state.

In a Nov. 17 letter to Carney and Anita Anand, shared with National Post by CAEF executive director Andrea Spindel, she argues “there is no leadership among the Palestinian Authority that seeks co-existence with Israel.”

Instead, Spindel asserts, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a murderous regime that “incentivizes and rewards” terrorist activity, “paying salaries to the barbarians who committed mass murder on October 7th.”

Spindel’s letter refers to

Palestinian Media Watch

as repeatedly documenting that Palestinian movements “compete for popular support by arguing over who has committed more terror.”

And she cites 

Jibril Rajoub

, secretary general of the Fatah Central Committee (the Fatah party’s most senior institution responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives, with members holding top portfolios in Palestinian politics). Spindel says he has publicly urged that the PA unite with Hamas under the

Palestinian Liberation Organization

framework.

It’s a pattern, she says, that reveals several dangerous messages from the PA such as hypocrisy toward the international community. “On the one hand, the PA seeks international legitimacy and aid, claiming it fights terror. In reality, the PA’s senior officials publicly reaffirm and even boast of its terror history and a desire to ally with Hamas — the very organization the PA pretends to distance itself from in diplomatic settings.”

Further she says that Western audiences and donors may “imagine a Fatah-Hamas rivalry that favours moderation, Rajoub’s welcoming of Hamas shows that the PA does not really want to have Hamas destroyed.”

In mid-October, Spindel says, Palestinian Media Watch released the

latest list of “Palestinian terrorist millionaires

thanks to the pay-for-slay program. Many of those who received financial rewards were among the terrorists released by Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages.”

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, says Spindel, “is playing a game of duplicity which you and other Western nation leaders have swallowed, despite decades of evidence that duplicity is how the PA operates … You are demonstrating incredible naivety or willful blindness and neither serves the interests of Canadians.

“PA schools celebrate October 7! This is part of the

hate curriculum that has infected Arab children

for decades and continues to promote murder and martyrdom.”

Finally, Spindel challenges the prime minister and foreign affairs minister: “If you proceed with the reckless idea of recognizing another terror state in the Middle East, sanctioning the Palestinian Arabs to continue to train killers, reward terrorists, celebrate violence, preach and teach Jew hatred, then please tell us how this is different from supporting Nazism?”

• Opinion: Now that ‘Palestine’ has been recognized, it must be branded a state sponsor of terror
• Avi Benlolo: The West keeps subsidizing the Palestinian Authority’s death culture

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