Netanyahu acknowledges pause in fighting in TV speech but vows forceful response to future attacks
Fears of a return to a full-scale regional war in the Middle East eased on Monday as Israel and Iran said they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from Donald Trump to “immediately stop shooting”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, acknowledged the halt in fighting with Iran in a televised speech, but vowed to respond “with force” to future attacks.
Continue reading...Recent exchange of missiles between Iran and Israel highlights diverging views between US president and Israeli PM
The latest eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel appears to have been contained for now after Donald Trump insisted he called “all the shots” in the Middle East, but in a dangerously fragile region Benjamin Netanyahu has again shown he is ready to take shots of his own.
The exchange of missiles on Sunday and Monday was ample demonstration of the inherent instability of the current limbo between war and peace, but it also shone a bright light on the complex and conflicted relationship between the US president and the Israeli prime minister, frenemies who could determine the fate of the current ceasefire.
Continue reading...Thousands flee including from village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, one day after Hezbollah rejects ceasefire
Thousands fled their homes after Israel issued forced evacuation orders for nine villages in southern Lebanon before strikes that killed six people on Friday, a day after the Hezbollah militant group rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.
Hundreds of families left Anqoun, a village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, after the Israeli military said it would soon operate against what it said were Hezbollah targets there, ordering residents to leave. The roads leading to Sidon, the closest large city, were choked with cars as families sought shelter.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Global powers are focused on oil markets and elections but those living through conflict in the Middle East feel abandoned
Good morning. It’s been another week of brinkmanship via Truth Social and ceasefires broken before they’ve been announced.
While US president Donald Trump claims an agreement with Iran could happen soon, for those living in the Middle East it does not feel like peace is anywhere near. People have seen more bombs dropped in Lebanon this week; and the death toll continues to rise, national economies falter, and displacement abounds.
UK politics | Andy Burnham has signalled he would begin transforming the broken social care system this year if he became prime minister, he has said in an interview with the Guardian, accusing Westminster of “flinching away” from tackling difficult policy problems.
Environment | Humanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival.
Ukraine | The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
England news | The poorest and most nature-deprived communities in England will be further left behind in their access to green spaces if proposed changes to planning laws go ahead, a report finds.
UK news | Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received private income from subletting three cottages on his Windsor Royal Lodge estate while paying a “peppercorn rent” to the crown estate, a report into royal property arrangements has revealed.
Continue reading...Prime minister under pressure to show his campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have brought results as he faces elections with his political survival at risk
If there is to be a peace deal between the United States and Iran, it will have to go through a familiar obstacle: Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have become a sticking point in the talks for a potential opening of the strait of Hormuz – once again testing the volatile alliance between Donald Trump and Netanyahu.
This time, the Israeli prime minister is under exceptional pressure to show that his campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have brought results as he faces elections with his political survival at risk.
Continue reading...Warplanes carry out dozens of airstrikes and Israeli army issues evacuation warning for city of Nabatiyeh
Israeli warplanes have launched dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon despite a new agreement supposedly brokered by Donald Trump aiming to bolster the tattered ceasefire in Lebanon.
The US president said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and that he had spoken to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives of Hezbollah and both agreed that “all shooting will stop”.
Continue reading...New York mayor refused to attend as other Democrats drew rebukes for marching with Israel’s far-right finance minister
As they have done for decades, prominent members of the Democratic party establishment marched on Sunday in New York City’s annual Israel Day parade. Perhaps more noteworthy, however, was who was missing.
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, refused to attend, citing his opposition to the Israeli government, which he has accused of committing genocide in Gaza.
Continue reading...Human rights groups and lawyers say policy amounts to ethnic cleansing
Israel’s defence minister has said he is committed to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through large-scale migration of Palestinians as part of Israel’s long-term plans for the territory.
Israel Katz said the government would implement a plan for large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza “at the right time and in the right manner”, in a statement on Wednesday marking the targeted killing of Mohammed Odeh, Hamas’s most recent military commander.
Continue reading...One of heaviest days of bombing in weeks complicates peace talks as Israel targets sites linked to Hezbollah
Israel launched more than 120 airstrikes against Lebanon on Tuesday in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his military was escalating its offensive against Hezbollah.
A ceasefire brokered by the US last month between Israel and the militant Islamist movement now appears close to total collapse, complicating negotiations to bring a definitive end to the war with Iran.
Continue reading...Hezbollah and Israel launch attacks amid increasingly imperilled ceasefire and stalling talks between US and Iran
The Israeli army has intensified strikes in southern Lebanon, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to escalate its offensive in an effort to “crush” Hezbollah in a further erosion of an already fragmented ceasefire.
In turn, Hezbollah said it staged several attacks on Monday on three barracks and a military post in northern Israel “in response to the violation of the ceasefire” by Israel.
Continue reading...Targeting of foreign activists drew global outrage from governments that have not acted on violence against Palestinian detainees
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made abuse of detained Palestinians something of a macabre calling card, celebrating cruelty publicly and often on video.
During his time in office, violence including rape, extreme hunger and humiliation have been normalised in Israeli jails. Rights groups say detention centres have become “torture camps” for Palestinians.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As the polls tighten around Benjamin Netanyahu, the coming months may redefine Israel’s political order without resolving its most entrenched conflicts
Good morning. On Wednesday, Israeli legislators took the first steps towards dissolving parliament and calling fresh nationwide elections. Leading leftwing Knesset member Yair Golan hailed it “the beginning of the end of the worst government in Israel’s history.” Benjamin Netanyahu has spent 20 of the last 30 years as Israel’s prime minister, the last four of which have seen him helm a far-right coalition.
Under the incumbent government, settlement building in the illegally occupied West Bank has accelerated, while many international humanitarian NGOs have been banned from the Palestinian territories. Following Hamas’s killing of 1,200 Israelis on 7 October 2023, Netanyahu has orchestrated a campaign of violence in Gaza, killing or injuring more than 10% of the population, and flattening the strip in what a UN commission has declared a genocide. Netanyahu remains on trial for three counts of corruption.
UK news | The parents of a girl critically injured in the Southport attack were allowed no more than 12 counselling sessions after the atrocity, while others described a “woeful” lack of support.
UK politics | Sadiq Khan has blocked a £50m Metropolitan police deal with the controversial US tech company Palantir, sparking a bitter row between the London mayor and Scotland Yard.
Israel | Israel has said it has deported all the foreign activists it seized from a Gaza-bound flotilla, after a global outcry over their treatment in custody.
UK news | Single-sex toilets and changing rooms in England, Wales and Scotland must exclude transgender men and women, according to a new code of practice from the equalities watchdog.
Ukraine | Ukrainian drones hit the Syzran oil refinery more than 800km inside Russia, setting it on fire, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Airstrike at the start of the war was aimed at freeing populist ex-president from house arrest, US newspaper claims
Fresh questions have been raised over the US and Israeli effort to depose the Iranian regime after it was claimed that Israel wanted to put the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power.
Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency, from 2005 to 2013, was marked by incendiary attacks on Israel but he recast himself as a critic of the regime and champion of the poor after falling out with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Continue reading...Prime minister under pressure over failure to grant military service exemptions as multi-party government looks at risk of collapse
Israel’s ruling coalition has submitted a proposal to dissolve parliament to pave the way for early elections as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came under mounting pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties.
The move, initiated by Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, came as Netanyahu appeared to be facing a possible collapse of his fractious coalition.
Continue reading...Emirates’ foreign ministry rejects claims that Netanyahu visited country, describing them as ‘baseless’
Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed he made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates at the height of the Iran war to meet the president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
“This visit has led to a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Israeli PM says he has ‘full coordination’ with US president amid reports that Washington no longer consults him
Benjamin Netanyahu interrupted an uncharacteristically long silence over the Iran conflict this week with a video commentary insisting he had “full coordination” with Donald Trump, with whom he spoke “almost daily”.
The insistence that all was rosy in the US-Israeli relationship followed weeks of reports in the domestic press that Israel was no longer being consulted over the Iran conflict, and even less over Pakistani-brokered peace talks. Such is the scepticism over Netanyahu’s trustworthiness among the general public and independent press that the immediate reaction among observers to his video statement was speculation that the reality could be even worse than they had imagined.
Continue reading...Letter from House Democrats to secretary of state calls for end to ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear weapons programs
House Democrats have asked the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to publicly announce that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, arguing that Washington must end decades of ambiguity over the issue amid the conflict with Iran.
In a letter sent on Monday, 30 Democrats wrote that it was unsustainable for Donald Trump to collaborate with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a military campaign against Iran – with the stated goal of preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon – without publicly acknowledging the US ally’s possession of the bomb.
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister says early-stage malignant tumour was discovered during a routine check-up
Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed that he received successful treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, without specifying when the treatment took place.
In a statement on social media, as his annual medical report was released, the Israeli prime minister said an early-stage malignant tumour had been discovered during a routine checkup. The 76-year-old said targeted treatment had removed “the problem” and left no trace of it.
Continue reading...Israel Defense Forces say the ‘soldiers’ conduct completely deviated from IDF orders and value’
Two Israeli soldiers have been removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days in jail after one used a sledgehammer to smash a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon while the other filmed him, the Israel Defense Forces have said.
An image circulating on social media on Monday showed an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen from its cross in a Christian village in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, prompting outrage among Christian communities worldwide.
Continue reading...Israeli PM says he will continue to attack Hezbollah ‘with full force’ after attacks that killed more than 300 people
Benjamin Netanyahu has said there is “no ceasefire in Lebanon” and Israel would continue “to strike Hezbollah with full force” as the country’s military launched fresh strikes.
The Israeli prime minister’s remarks and latest attacks on what the IDF called “Hezbollah launch sites” came shortly after Donald Trump said he had asked Netanyahu to be more “low-key” in Lebanon.
Later on Friday, a US state department official said Israel and Lebanon will hold talks in Washington next week. The announcement came as Netanyahu ordered his ministers to seek direct talks with Lebanon focused on disarming Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
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