#israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — An extremist Israeli lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition publicly advocated for killing “30 to 40” people in Gaza each night, comments that surfaced Sunday and were quickly shared by Palestinian media.

Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir made the statement while speaking to a former Gaza-held hostage, Rom Braslavski, on Braslavski’s podcast. The two were discussing Israel’s recovery from the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, when Ben-Gvir criticized Israel’s recent drawdown of strikes in Gaza.

“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime minister,” he said. “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — An extremist Israeli lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition publicly advocated for killing “30 to 40” people in Gaza each night, comments that surfaced Sunday and were quickly shared by Palestinian media.

Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir made the statement while speaking to a former Gaza-held hostage, Rom Braslavski, on Braslavski’s podcast. The two were discussing Israel’s recovery from the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, when Ben-Gvir criticized Israel’s recent drawdown of strikes in Gaza.

“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime minister,” he said. “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

The Washington Post first reported on Monday that the US thought there was a credible enough threat against Trump that he secretly swapped planes when he departed Turkey.

Missing from the Post report was where the intelligence about a plot against Trump came from. According to Middle East Eye and also a report from The Wall Street Journal, it came from Israel, which aligns with reports from the time.

Sources told MEE that the Israeli intelligence report warned that Iranian covert forces could target Air Force One at the airport in Ankara using shoulder-fired rockets, known as MANPADS, from just one kilometer away. Due to the alleged threat, the Secret Service moved the departure point from Ankara Airport to Esenboga Airport and wanted to switch from the new Air Force One to the old one.

“Of course, we took the report very seriously and tried to assist our American counterparts as much as possible,” a source, described as a person familiar with the matter, told MEE. “Yet it was very clear to us that there was no way this report was true.”

The report said Turkish officials believe that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu devised the plot to make it appear that Israel was protecting Trump, further derail diplomacy between the US and Iran, and also strain relations between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom the US president repeatedly praised during the summit. Israel has strongly opposed the idea of the US selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, something Trump has said he’s strongly considering.

The United States-backed initiative includes provisions for a phased Israeli withdrawal, the gradual disarmament of Hamas, a Palestinian-led civilian administration and steps towards humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

But on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “rejected” the plan, saying its forces will not withdraw until Hamas is “genuinely disarmed”.

Since the October “ceasefire”, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,258 people, bringing the overall number since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023 to at least 73,386.

In a statement late on Sunday, Hamas said it remained committed to fully implementing the plan. It also urged mediating and guarantor countries to “assume their responsibilities” and prevent any “violations or breaches” that could obstruct the process.

The Gaza Government Media Office also blamed Netanyahu for what it described as a reversal of the negotiations and called for international pressure to prevent further escalation.

In a statement issued on Monday, the office said Netanyahu’s rejection of the 15-point document, along with demands including opposition to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, represented “a clear and unequivocal reversal of the negotiation track”.

For the second time in less than a month, Israeli forces and municipal officials today forcibly entered the Kalandia Training Centre (KTC), a United Nations facility located in occupied East Jerusalem, disrupting ongoing educational activities and raising renewed concern over the protection of UN premises under international law.

The KTC has been under threat of unlawful seizure by the Israeli authorities for several months. UNRWA has cautioned that this would not only constitute a violation of international law but would also result in an irreplaceable loss of critical vocational education opportunities that the Agency provides under its mandate from the United Nations General Assembly — opportunities on which Palestine Refugee youth rely to build skills, secure employment, and shape their futures.

In October 2025, the International Court of Justice affirmed Israel's obligations to facilitate UNRWA's operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. The Agency takes this opportunity to remind the Government of Israel of the Court's determination:

A majority of Democrats opposed the legislation, citing opposition to the Iran war and concerns about a provision in the bill that would establish the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. The section also directs the Secretary of Defense to appoint an “executive agent” at the Pentagon to oversee the newly formed initiative.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), who led an unsuccessful effort to remove Section 219 from this bill earlier this week, said this provision “tragically merges our military and supply chains with Israel’s.”

Mamdani has said New York City’s legal department is discussing the possibility of arresting Netanyahu when the prime minister is in the city to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani told The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years,” the mayor said.

Trump, in a Truth Social post on Monday, said, “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Nov. 21, 2024, alleging he is “responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population” in Gaza, as well as “crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on Saturday he was detained for over an hour in the West Bank earlier this week by Israeli settlers and that the detention continued with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers arrived on the scene. “Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine,” Khanna wrote in a social media post.  “When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention,” he continued. “They made a huge mistake.” The Democratic lawmaker and potential 2028 presidential contender told The New York Times that he was visiting a small Palestinian village in the southern West Bank on Wednesday when armed men blocked the road and began swearing at him and his team and kicking the minibus they were traveling in.

UN human rights group demands immediate release of Gaza doctor

A UN human ⁠rights ⁠body has called Israel’s detention of Gaza Dr ⁠Hussam Abu Safiya arbitrary and seeks his immediate release ⁠as rights groups and his lawyer warn his life is in imminent danger.

In its finding, ‌the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Israel’s actions contravened multiple articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well ⁠as the International Covenant ⁠on Civil and Political Rights.

Over 90,000 houses damaged by Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon

Continued Israeli attacks have prevented more than 600,000 people from returning to southern Lebanon.

Israel is posting videos of its military blowing up neighbourhoods.

The soldiers have been doing this for months – wiping villages off the map – actions that rights groups say violate international law, reports Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr.

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said Washington "recognises Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people".

"I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along."

The agreement follows President Donald Trump's decision during his first term to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017 and relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv.

The US went ahead with the plan even though Palestinians continue to seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Because of these competing claims, most countries have kept their embassies in Tel Aviv, maintaining that Jerusalem's final status should be settled through peace negotiations in line with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.

This is not a normal statement from a normal cabinet member of a major nation. 

This statement from Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir is the statement of a war criminal. 

The racist, extremist Israeli government does not deserve one nickel of U.S. support.

Today, it must be said that the State of Israel is conducting an organized, systematic, state-funded campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Not in the Gaza Strip, not in southern Lebanon, not in Syria, but in areas of the West Bank that are under the exclusive security control of the state and its security and law enforcement apparatus.

At the forefront of this campaign are the prime minister, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the rest of the cabinet, of course. The drive behind these acts is reflected in the statements and actions of senior ministers who seek the full annexation of the West Bank without their Palestinian inhabitants remaining there. I am referring specifically to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and the other ministers who support, through word and deed, policies that amount to the expulsion of Palestinian residents.

Nothing can justify turning a blind eye to what is happening daily in Palestinian villages across the West Bank: pogroms, children and adults injured in and outside their homes, fields and property set ablaze, and large-scale theft – especially of cattle and sheep, the primary source of livelihood for many residents. Faced with all this, it is impossible to remain calm, forgiving or unwilling to confront the perpetrators, their supporters and their leaders.

The thousands of settlers involved in these crimes could not act without the assistance, protection, backing and funding provided by government agencies at both the local and national levels. Crimes of this scale – including serious sexual abuse, even if not exactly as described by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times – would not be possible without support at every stage. The Israel Police are, in practice, partners in what is taking place in the West Bank. They do not attempt to prevent these acts, despite their duty to do so. In many cases, security forces actively assist Jewish terrorists – and, remarkably, it is almost always the Palestinian victims who are arrested, rather than the perpetrators.

On 14 June, the US and Iran announced the Islamabad Memorandum to end the war and the dual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.[124] On 15 June, the US military clarified its blockade will continue until the agreement is signed on 19 June.[125] On 17 June, Trump signed the memorandum at the Palace of Versailles following the G7 summit, and Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian signed it in Tehran.[1][126] On 18 June, the US military announced the removal of the naval blockade of Iranian ports.[127] Shipping was stalled in the Strait of Hormuz following Iran's claimed closure of the strait.

The BBC has been given rare access to the part of southern Lebanon that is under Israeli occupation, as part of a humanitarian convoy of the Order of Malta distributing aid to Christian villages that have been isolated because of the war.

Israel says it has no intention of withdrawing its troops from Lebanon, and that its plan is to create a security zone along the border, Hezbollah-free, to protect its northern communities from the group's rockets and drones.

In the occupied areas, mainly Shia villages have been completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes or demolitions. Human rights groups say that some of what has happened there amounts to the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, a possible war crime.

Vance criticized Israel’s leadership for speaking out against the memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump on Wednesday.

“If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance said.

“What the president has grown frustrated, sometimes, is that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden there’s a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That’s not acceptable,” Vance said during his Thursday briefing.

But ongoing Israeli ⁠air raids and drone attacks in southern Lebanon, which continued even after a renewed ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah began on Friday, have complicated the planned talks. Iran views a ceasefire in Lebanon as essential to the diplomatic process and that it could “make or break” the US-Iran talks.

Israeli strikes killed 16 people and wounded 12 in Nabatieh district in the country’s south on Saturday, Lebanon’s civil defence agency said.

A Lebanese soldier was killed in an Israeli attack on the village of Kfar Reman, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said.

NNA reported Israeli attacks in Tyre District, with an Israeli strike on the village of Barish killing four members of the same family – a father, a mother and their two children. Another Israeli raid hit a house in Sohmor in the western Bekaa while a family was inside, killing four people and injuring one, NNA said.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said that 83 people were killed and 141 wounded in Israeli attacks on Friday, just after the renewed ceasefire was announced. Most of the casualties were in southern Lebanon, with others in the country’s east.

A UN report published in March 2025 found evidence of the “systematic” use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence by Israel since October 7, 2023. In May, Israel was added to the UN “blacklist of sexual violence in conflict zones”. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Israeli rights group B’Tselem and the PCHR have described the pervasive culture of sexual violence within Israeli forces, especially among those charged with overseeing Palestinian prisoners. Many were arrested and held without charge under Israel’s system of administrative detention.

No soldiers or guards have been convicted of sexual abuse of Palestinians. Israel detained 10 security officers after a video of the rape of a prisoner was leaked from the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in July 2024. But gangs of right-wing protesters, including legislators, attempted to storm the facility where the guards were being held in a bid to free them.

Last July, Israel dropped all charges against the guards. The female officer who allegedly leaked the video of the attack, Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was subsequently arrested. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed her “crime” – sharing footage of the rape by Israeli soldiers – as the “most severe public relations attack” on the country since its founding.

Asked in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in July 2024 whether it was ever legitimate to rape a prisoner, Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, shouted: “Yes.”

“If he is a Nukhba [Hamas fighter], everything is legitimate to do, everything.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog had no issue with “unequivocally” blaming all Palestinians for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, telling reporters: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true [that] this rhetoric about civilians not [being] aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”

former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting what he called “human animals” and ordered a “complete siege” on the men, women and children there. Others, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have been consistent offenders, routinely referring to Palestinians as terrorists or framing large segments of Palestinian society in broadly criminal or extremist terms, particularly in relation to Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Buried deep inside a 192-page intelligence authorization bill is Section 622, titled “United States-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement.” It would require the president, acting through the director of national intelligence and as necessary the secretary of defense, to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel” on a list of subjects that encompasses almost every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East.

The bill, put forward by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would prohibit any suspension, reduction, or limitation of such sharing “except on the basis of a specific and identifiable national security concern determined by the President.” Any such exception would require a report to Congress within fifteen days detailing not only the reason for the change but also the categories of information involved. The same report would require an assessment of the anticipated impact on regional security and various other matters.

This proposal is one of several recent moves by those in Washington who carry the Israeli government’s water to keep the United States tied to Israel despite plummeting support for the country among the American public. The most salient form of U.S. support to Israel has been more than $300 billion in economic and especially military assistance.

The mandating of intelligence sharing carries this strategy further by moving it into the shadowy world of relations between intelligence agencies. That world is even farther removed from public visibility and accountability than the defense integration, and even less likely to stimulate thoughts about American taxpayers’ money going to a foreign country. So far, Section 622 of the intelligence bill has received less attention than Section 224 of the defense bill.

In intelligence, Israel is more of an adversary than an ally. Being an adversary in intelligence means indulging in the hostile act of espionage. Israel has a long record of conducting that type of hostile act against the United States. The best-known case involves the spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole such an overwhelming volume of U.S. secrets that then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger stated to the court that sentenced Pollard that it was difficult “ to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant in view of the breadth, the critical importance to the U.S., and the high sensitivity of the information he sold to Israel.”

When Pollard completed his prison sentence and parole in 2020, he was given a hero's welcome, led by Netanyahu himself, on his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

The Israeli espionage threat to the United States has only intensified. Last week, NBC News reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency raised the threat level for such espionage, evidently a reflection mostly of U.S.-Israeli differences over the Iran war. The New York Times quotes an official saying that Israeli intelligence operations aimed at senior U.S. officials during the second Trump administration have become so aggressive as to be “unhinged.”

Any sensitive information, including intelligence secrets, shared with Israel entails a high risk of Israel passing it to other countries, including U.S. adversaries. Israel has a long record of that, too

Israel’s sharing of U.S.-origin military technology with China has been an issue.

Israel has started more wars and attacked more nations than any other country in the Middle East. In recent years it has inflicted more death and destruction on civilians through military operations than any other Middle Eastern state. It uses violence to seek regional hegemony and destroy Palestinian nationhood in ways that are inconsistent with U.S. interests.

After being the principal influence on President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the war, Netanyahu’s government has been sabotaging efforts to end it. It currently is doing so mainly with relentless attacks in Lebanon that have killed thousands and displaced over a million people. The divergence of objectives was reflected in an expletive-laden phone call last week between Trump and Netanyahu that was mainly about those attacks.