🇳🇱Week of October 19

A book excerpt states that the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD monitored the phone of Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and saw that he received millions of dollars from Gulf states. Dutch spies were able to look at the iPhone thanks to a Russian, according to the account.123

The MIVD saw on the hacked iPhone how Trump's son-in-law received many millions, the account states. Tech-insider.org notes that the claim about the MIVD and Kushner's iPhone X dates from 2018 and remains unconfirmed.34

Democrats are demanding clarity about secret accounts holding billions in money linked to Kushner, who is under pressure over the revelations.56

Security experts warn of a diplomatic row if the hack of Kushner's phone is confirmed, with one saying the fat would be in the fire. The question of why the MIVD would tap the phone of Trump's son-in-law is answered in part by the observation that even allies spy on each other.78

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a complete closure of the West Bank after a deadly shooting attack on Israeli soldiers, his office and Israeli media reported. The order covers the occupied territory in full, and Israeli outlets described it as a "complete sealing off" of the West Bank.123

Netanyahu also announced a military operation under which Palestinians would be removed from their homes, an action an Israeli outlet said had not been seen since the Six-Day War. A helmet camera recorded Israeli soldiers at the scene of the fatal shooting.45

The closure order came a day before parliamentary elections, according to NU. De Volkskrant reported wounded people at the shooting on the occupied West Bank and said the Israeli army killed Palestinian gunmen.67

The Israeli government announced a "lockdown" of the West Bank following the attack on Israeli military personnel, de Volkskrant reported, while NOS said Israel would fully close the territory after an attack in a Palestinian area.83

Serbian students who have spent two years marching hundreds of kilometres across the country in protest against corruption are now trying to defeat the government at the ballot box. They are convinced they can beat the administration, and a pro-European student party is heading toward victory in the Serbian elections.123

The vote is cast as a contest between the students and President Aleksandar Vučić, whose grip on power is described as wavering. One account frames the race as a fight between "250 political amateurs" and the "250 professional political hooligans" of Vučić.34

Serbs living abroad must fly to a polling station to vote. The protests have continued, with demonstrators asking how it is that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen does not listen to them but strikes deals with "the criminal Vučić".56

Tennis legend Novak Djokovic has backed the protesting Serbian students. The unrest is traced back to a collapsed canopy and grew into mass protest led by students, with the question raised whether Serbia faces a turning point.78

France will deploy 70,000 police officers on Friday ahead of announced new protests, after riots that have already led to more than two hundred rioters being jailed. President Emmanuel Macron has banned all protests not organised by trade unions and lashed out at what he called "extreme-left groups".123

Shopkeepers have armed friends with baseball bats, as businesses prepare for further unrest over the weekend. A court in Paris nonetheless allowed a student protest march to go ahead despite the national ban.45

The crackdown has drawn criticism that it puts the right to demonstrate under pressure, even as Macron takes a hard line in response to the riots. Marine Le Pen has cast herself as the successor to Charles de Gaulle.67

Websites including those of RIVM and ANWB have gone offline because of a vulnerability in PHP, and the number of affected sites kept rising through the week. Hosters of Yourhosting still had many websites offline because of the PHP bug.12

The Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum has received signals of misuse of the PHP leak. An AI tool ran into problems, and the vulnerabilities it found are serious.34

A small non-profit was behind what de Volkskrant described as a worldwide internet meltdown, set off by an update the paper said should have been an ordinary one. A vague message on a forum for tech specialists preceded the PHP unrest.56

Coverage of the outage continued into Thursday, with the live account of sites going offline still being updated.7