Middle East Monitor / February 8, 2026
Documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice have revealed that billionaire Jeffrey Epstein made donations to the Israeli army and helped fund Jewish settlement activities, Anadolu reports.
More information continues to emerge about Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of running a sex-trafficking network involving minors.
A review of tax documents he filed in 2005 shows that Epstein provided financial support to the Israeli army and to settlers who seized Palestinian land.
The documents show that on March 3, 2005, Epstein donated $25,000 to the “Friends of the Israeli Defence Forces.”
He also gave $15,000 to the “Jewish National Fund,” which finances settlers in the West Bank, in addition to $5,000 to the National Council of Jewish Women.
Email correspondence sent by Epstein on May 20, 2012, to an unnamed person reveals that he claimed “Palestine has never historically existed.”
In that message, Epstein wrote:
“Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine.”
The new documents also reveal details about Epstein’s funeral, based on testimony from an unnamed individual in an FBI document dated August 12, 2012.
The person said journalists were directed during the funeral to follow a vehicle containing empty boxes, while Epstein’s body was later transported in a different vehicle after the first car departed.
On January 31, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the release of more than three million new files to the public as part of the investigations related to Epstein.
Jeffrey Epstein, an American businessman, was accused of operating a large network of sexual exploitation of minors, some as young as 14. He was found dead in a New York jail in 2019 while in custody.
Case files included the names of many prominent international figures, such as Britain’s Prince Andrew, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, current U.S. President Donald Trump, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, singer Michael Jackson, and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
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FBI informant believed Jeffrey Epstein had links to Israeli intelligence, newly released documents show
Middle East Monitor / February 8, 2026
An undercover FBI informant “became convinced” that Epstein was an Israeli spy, according to a document that is among millions of pages released last week by the Justice Department, Anadolu reports.
The government record recounts the informant, known in government-speak as a confidential human source (CHS), recalling that Epstein’s attorney, Alan Dershowitz, told then-US Attorney of the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, “that Epstein belonged to both U.S. and allied intelligence services.”
“CHS shared phone calls between Dershowitz and Epstein during which he/she took notes. After these calls, Mossad would then call Dershowitz to debrief. Epstein was close to the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, and trained as a spy under him,” the document says.
Noting that Barak “believed Netanyahu was a criminal,” it said the informant “became convinced that Epstein was a co-opted Mossad Agent” amid regional rivalries involving Israel.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday stated that Epstein “did not work for Israel.”
In his first public comment on the Epstein documents, Netanyahu wrote on US social media company X that Epstein’s “unusual close relationship with Ehud Barak doesn’t suggest Epstein worked for Israel. It proves the opposite.”
The latest batch of Epstein-related documents released by the Justice Department last week mentions several high-profile figures, including Dershowitz, as well as members of the political and financial elite.
Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. In 2008, he pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution, but critics call the relatively minor conviction—approved by Acosta—a “sweetheart deal.”
His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite.
