The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Lawmakers vote 65-47 to advance a pair of controversial bills that would curtail the power of the attorney general and make it harder to indict high-ranking government officials.
After passing their first plenum readings, the bills will return to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for further deliberations ahead of the additional readings they must pass to become law.
The legislation to weaken the role of the attorney general is the latest front in the government’s long-running battle with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, with whom it has clashed since its first weeks in office, in large part over its efforts to assert control over the judiciary and limit other checks on executive power.
The first of the bills would split the attorney general’s role into three separate positions, effectively draining it of all authority and independence, in a move critics say is intended to weaken the office and remove a major check on government power, including during upcoming elections.
It would also effectively remove all power from the slimmed-down attorney general position in the role of chief legal adviser to the government, including by making the officeholder’s rulings non-binding.
The second bill would make it significantly more difficult to indict senior elected officials, including the prime minister, requiring the attorney general to obtain permission from a district court before opening a criminal investigation into politicians or senior public servants.
Supporters have insisted that these reforms are necessary to allow elected governments to fulfill their mandate and carry out the will of the electorate.
The legislation is strongly opposed by professional representatives of the Justice Ministry and the State Attorney’s Office, opposition lawmakers and good governance organizations, who argue that it would remove one of the only brakes on executive power from Israel’s system of government and politicize the criminal prosecution service as well.
A rocket launched by Hezbollah struck near Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon a short while ago, the military says.
The IDF says no injuries were caused in the attack, which triggered sirens in the border community of Metula.
Meanwhile, sirens warning of a suspected Hezbollah drone attack sound in the Western Galilee, which the IDF says is the result of a false alarm.
Lebanese media has also reported several Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon since Trump’s announcement, though there has been no comment from the military yet.
An alleged member of an Iran-backed militia has pleaded not guilty to US criminal charges he was involved in multiple attacks against American interests in Europe, proclaiming in a courtroom outburst, “I am not a criminal.”
Iraqi national Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi spoke in Manhattan federal court after his lawyer, Andrew Dalack, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to eight counts including conspiracy to provide material support to Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia the US considers a terrorist organization.
“I am not guilty, and we are in a war situation,” Al-Saadi said through an Arabic interpreter.
“Children are being killed by your rockets,” Al-Saadi adds, gesturing in front of him toward where US District Judge Colleen McMahon and prosecutors with the Manhattan US Attorney’s office were seated.
Al-Saadi did not say if he was referring to a specific incident.
A February 28 strike at a girls’ school in Iran killed more than 175 children and teachers, Iranian officials say.
Reuters has reported that an initial, internal US military investigation showed US forces were likely responsible, citing two US officials.
The Pentagon has not acknowledged any preliminary findings. A Pentagon spokesperson said on Monday that the investigation was still ongoing.
As he spoke, McMahon raised her voice and ordered that he be seated. Two US marshals who had been sitting behind Al-Saadi approached the defense table, and he sat down as they arrived.
Al-Saadi was taken into US custody in Turkey last month, amid heightened US scrutiny of Iran-backed militias accused of targeting American personnel and allies across multiple regions since the US and Israel went to war against Iran.
US prosecutors say Kata’ib Hezbollah is directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
They said Al-Saadi helped plan approximately 18 attacks in Europe in recent months, not all of which occurred, and in March and April plotted attacks in the United States, including against a New York synagogue.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reject the ceasefire in Lebanon brokered by Washington.
“Mr. Prime Minister, you said that a strong prime minister tells the president of the United States ‘yes’ when possible, and ‘no’ when necessary,” Ben Gvir writes on X. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump, ‘no’.”
“Now is the time to do what is required and necessary to strike Hezbollah, to unleash the hands of our fighters and to restore security to the north,” the far-right minister adds.
Sirens sound in the border community of Metula amid an apparent Hezbollah rocket attack from Lebanon.
Lebanese media have also reported several IDF strikes in southern Lebanon since US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah roughly three hours ago.
There has been no comment from the IDF yet on the reported strikes.
Trump did not specify when the ceasefire would enter into effect.
The Knesset plenum votes 59-23 to revoke Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s order raising the tax exemption threshold on personal imports from $75 to $130, effectively restoring the previous $75 limit.
The vote marks the latest setback for Smotrich’s efforts to lower the tax on personal imports and a rare instance of the Knesset overturning a ministerial order.
In February, Smotrich signed an order in defiance of the Knesset to increase the exemption to $130 just hours after the body voted 59-25 to revoke his earlier order raising the threshold to $150.
The measure drew opposition from lawmakers across the political spectrum as well as small-business owners, who argued that it would undermine local retailers by encouraging purchases from overseas online platforms.
Knesset Finance Committee chair Hanoch Milwidsky, Economy Minister Nir Barkat and MK Eli Dalal, all members of the ruling Likud party, were among the initiative’s most vocal critics, accusing it of subsidizing foreign companies at the expense of local industry.
“The cost of this absurd order is more than NIS 1 billion ($354 million) to the Israeli economy,” says Milwidsky, adding that the order “encourages nothing but excessive and unnecessary consumption” and was designed to distract from “the finance minister’s failure to address anything related to the cost of living.”
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Esmaeil Qaani says that Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza will lead the Tehran-led “Axis of Resistance” to establish a similar “traffic situation” both in Bab El Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz.
“The evil of the Zionists (Israel) in Lebanon and Gaza, in the shadow of the shameless support of America, will mark the determination of the resistance axis to expand support from both fronts, take steps to activate other fronts, and equate the traffic situation of the Bab El Mandeb Strait with the Strait of Hormuz,” Qaani says in a relatively rare written statement carried by Iran state media.
The Lebanese government says it has “received confirmation” of Hezbollah’s agreement to a new ceasefire with Israel.
“Under the proposed arrangement, Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs will cease in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from carrying out attacks against Israel, with the ceasefire framework to be expanded to encompass all Lebanese territories,” reads a statement from Beirut’s embassy in Washington.
The statement notably differentiates between Beirut’s southern suburbs — where Hezbollah has a major presence —and the rest of Lebanon, with only the former specified as an area where Israel has agreed not to strike.
As for the rest of Lebanon, the embassy statement merely says the ceasefire is “to be expanded” there, leaving the door open to the possibility that Israeli strikes in other parts of the country will continue.
This could replicate the dynamic of the previous ceasefires in Lebanon brokered by Washington, where the IDF has continued daily strikes on what it deems as Hezbollah threats in southern Lebanon, while largely refraining from targeting Beirut at the request of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an earlier statement that “the IDF will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.”
This could, however, refer to the IDF buffer zone that Hezbollah officials have acknowledged will remain in place, at least for the time being, as part of the agreement.
For their part, Hezbollah officials have insisted that the ceasefire covers all of Lebanon and that they refused proposals that only required Israel to stop attacking Beirut.
The Lebanese embassy statement adds that Trump held a phone call earlier Monday with Beirut’s ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh, in order to inform her that Netanyahu had accepted the ceasefire framework described in the statement.
Hamadeh then informed Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who in turn updated Hezbollah, the embassy says.
The diplomatic mission adds that Monday’s deal came together with the help of a call that took place last week between Aoun and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The embassy says another round of negotiations with Israel is set to take place tomorrow and Wednesday at the State Department in order to build off of the progress made today.
This will be the fifth round of talks between the sides, which began in April. During the third round last month, the sides agreed to separate the talks into political and security tracks, with the latter meeting for the first time last week. Tomorrow and Wednesday’s talks will be only for the political track.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will carry out its earlier plans to strike Beirut if Hezbollah does not halt its attacks on northern Israel, after US President Donald Trump said earlier this evening that the IDF would not enter the Lebanese capital and that Israel and Hezbollah would refrain from attacking each other.
“I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop attacking our cities and civilians, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position remains unchanged,” Netanyahu says in a Hebrew-language statement.
“At the same time, the IDF will continue operating in southern Lebanon as planned,” Netanyahu says.
The terms of the apparent ceasefire announced by Trump remain unclear amid conflicting indications from Washington, Jerusalem, Hezbollah and Beirut.
Netanyahu’s statement comes roughly two hours after Trump announced the ceasefire, further bolstering claims that the deal was forced upon Jerusalem by Washington.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah claims the ceasefire that his terror group and Israel accepted earlier today covers all of Lebanon, not just Beirut.
US President Donald Trump was the first to announce the ceasefire, saying the IDF would not enter Beirut, while Israel and Hezbollah would not attack each other.
While the US brokered a ceasefire in Lebanon in April that has several times been extended, Israel and Hezbollah have still exchanged daily fire, while the IDF has largely refrained from targeting Beirut at Washington’s request.
Speaking to the Hezbollah-linked Al-Manar channel, Fadlallah suggests that the dynamic will be different moving forward.
He says diplomatic efforts took place yesterday to restore calm in Lebanon after several days of each side significantly intensifying its strikes on the other.
Fadlallah claims the US proposed a ceasefire during which Hezbollah would have to halt all attacks on Israel, while Israel would only have to refrain from striking Beirut.
Fadlallah says such a proposal was unacceptable to Hezbollah.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is linked to Hezbollah and has served as an intermediary, responded that the terror group was demanding a ceasefire that covered all of Lebanon, not just Beirut, Fadlallah recalls.
The Hezbollah MP says today’s truce agreement demonstrates that his group’s position has been heard and that it was shared by Berri as well.
Fadlallah also claims that the truce is a prelude to Israel withdrawing from Lebanon, appearing to confirm reports that the deal doesn’t force Israel to withdraw from the large and growing buffer zone it established in the country’s south and center.
Israel has not officially commented on the truce, but has shown no indication that it plans to withdraw its troops. It currently maintains buffer zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, in addition to its expanding grip on the West Bank.
A full Israeli withdrawal “must be part of the solution. A full ceasefire, no return to what was before March 2. There is no such thing as freedom of movement,” Fadlallah says, referencing the dynamic before Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Iran war.
For over a year prior, Israel carried out near-daily strikes against what it said was a regrouping Hezbollah, while the latter largely refrained from responding, leading many in Jerusalem to assume that the Iran-backed group had been deterred.
An IDF medical officer was killed and seven other troops were wounded in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack in southern Lebanon earlier today, the military announces.
The slain officer is named as Cpt. Dr. Ori Yosef Silvester, 30, the medical officer for the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Tel Aviv.
In addition, two officers and a soldier were seriously wounded, one soldier was moderately hurt, and two officers and a soldier were lightly injured in the attack.
During the attack shortly after noon local time on Monday, two explosive-laden first-person view (FPV) drones launched by Hezbollah struck an armored vehicle in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, according to an IDF probe.
The explosion from the drones killed Silvester and wounded the seven other soldiers.
Among those lightly hurt is the commander of the Shaked Battalion, a lieutenant colonel. The IDF says the battalion commander is due to return to command the unit in the coming days.
The International Labor Organization, the UN’s labor agency, has scrapped the appointment of Trump administration official Sheng Li as its deputy director-general over Washington’s failure to pay its dues.
The agency’s director-general Gilbert Houngbo “has decided to rescind the appointment of the deputy director-general, considering continued delays in the payment of arrears,” the ILO says in a statement.
“Mr. Sheng Li (United States of America) will therefore not assume the position of deputy director-general in July as previously foreseen.”
Li is a high-level official at the US Department of Labor. His appointment to the Geneva-based ILO was announced in April.
As of June 1, the United States had accumulated arrears of more than 173 million Swiss francs ($220 million) in ILO membership contributions for the past two years, according to data on the agency’s website.
Washington must also pay its 2026 dues, amounting to nearly 84 million Swiss francs.
The United States is not the only country behind on its payments to the ILO.
The decision to drop Li “is without prejudice to the possibility of the United States settling its arrears and thereby regaining its position as the largest contributor in assessed contributions.”
“The ILO remains in constructive dialogue with the US government on this matter,” the statement said.
The ILO had been without a deputy chief since last September, when Celeste Drake — also a US national — left.
The ILO’s deputy-director post is usually held by an American, but the agency’s staff union raised questions about following that tradition at a time when Washington — traditionally the agency’s biggest donor — had failed to pay its dues.
Like other United Nations agencies, the ILO is currently facing significant financial pressure and is undergoing major reforms as it strives to tighten its budget.
Reform plans that still need to be validated call for the slashing of around 120 positions by 2029 — a number that could be expanded by several hundred more if further savings are required, ILO documents show.
The ILO has 3,454 staff members, including 1,175 at its headquarters in Geneva and 2,279 in its offices worldwide, according to figures from December.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declines to comment at this time on US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The US announcement has sparked alarm in Hebrew media and among some Israeli lawmakers who knocked Netanyahu for appearing to shelve plans to target Beirut at Washington’s behest.
This followed earlier reports that the US had shown increasing openness to an Israeli escalation in Lebanon, though those reports relied on anonymous Israeli sources.
Lebanon says an Israeli strike hit near a hospital in the southern city of Tyre on Monday as the health ministry shared footage showing heavy damage to the facility.
The state-run National News Agency says a strike targeting an intersection near the Jabal Amel hospital “hit a building and the parking lot, resulting in a number of wounded.”
The health ministry shares two videos showing damage inside a hospital ward, with rubble and debris on the ground, blown-out ceilings, blood on the floor and shattered glass, while smoke could be seen billowing from a fire at what appeared to be a heavily damaged adjacent car park.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF on the incident.
At least 6 killed till the moment and more than 20 injuries amid an Israeli strike on the parking of Jabal Amel hospital in Tyre. Video from the hospital’s ICU. pic.twitter.com/WgmpQ1Hdat
— Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@Alihashem) June 1, 2026
The United Nations expresses its alarm and calls for all sides to respect the ceasefire as Israel expanded its offensive into Lebanon, while negotiations to end the US-Iran war appeared in peril.
“We are deeply alarmed by the escalation in military activities across southern Lebanon and beyond,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, says. “We urge all actors to respect the cessation of hostilities and avoid further escalation.”
US President Donald Trump claims “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
He makes the announcement on Truth Social shortly after announcing a new ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah — one that came hours after Tehran reportedly threatened to bolt talks with the US if the IDF’s strikes in Lebanon did not cease.
The sequence of events would appear to undercut US efforts to try to separate the war in Lebanon from its conflict with Iran. Tehran has insisted on tying the two, as it seeks to protect its Hezbollah proxy and continue influencing events in Lebanon.
Following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new ceasefire in Lebanon, an Israeli source tells the Ynet news site that Israel has postponed the planned strikes on Beirut at the request of the United States, adding that Washington is advancing a ceasefire initiative and asked Israel to wait.
An Israeli official told Ynet earlier today that Israel had coordinated the planned attack with the Americans. The outlet notes the possibility that the purpose of instructing the attack was to pressure Hezbollah into agreeing to a ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump indicates that Washington has brokered a new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump writes on Truth Social. A military official says no Israeli troops were en route to Beirut.
“Likewise — through highly placed representatives — I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop — that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel,” Trump adds.
The United States bears responsibility for violations of the ceasefire with Iran and ceasefire violations committed by Israel in Lebanon, Iran’s foreign ministry says in a statement.
It says a ceasefire violation on one front is equivalent to a violation on all fronts.
Iran and Pakistani mediators have said that the US-Iran ceasefire inked in April is supposed to cover Lebanon. Israel and the US deny that is the case.
The US has sought to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, albeit one detached from the Iran conflict.
It brokered such a deal less than two weeks after the Iran ceasefire was announced, but it hasn’t really held, given that the IDF and Hezbollah have had daily exchanges of fire since.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are currently speaking on the phone amid escalating regional tensions after Netanyahu ordered the IDF to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut, according to multiple Hebrew media outlets.
The call comes as concern grows among security officials and other Israeli sources that Jerusalem is moving toward backing down from its threat to strike Beirut, according to a Channel 12 report.
The prevailing assessment in Israel is that Iran’s threat of “consequences” earlier today in retaliation for an Israeli escalation in Lebanon has sparked fear in Washington that Tehran could reignite the war against Israel and the US at a politically inconvenient time for Trump, the report says.
Channel 12 adds that Netanyahu’s decision to carry out strikes on Beirut was made following private consultations with the military and Defense Minister Israel Katz, during which Netanyahu described growing American openness to an Israeli escalation, given that Israel had abided by Washington’s request to refrain from doing so until now.
But Israel’s expansion of strikes and military operations in southern Lebanon has not proven successful in deterring Hezbollah to date.
In any case, the IDF is compiling new Hezbollah targets in Beirut, including command centers, weapons stockpiles and military infrastructure, as officials wait to see what Trump’s message to Netanyahu will be, the report adds.
US President Donald Trump claims he doesn’t care if talks with Iran collapse after state media in Tehran reported that the Islamic Republic may pull out of negotiations if Israeli attacks in Lebanon continue.
“I don’t care if they’re over, honestly… I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less,” Trump tells CNBC in a snap interview with a reporter phoning his personal cell phone.
In a separate call moments earlier with NBC, Trump claimed Iran hadn’t even informed the US of its readiness to abandon talks and that even if such a message does get passed along, it wouldn’t mean that Washington would start bombing Iran.
Trump also tells CNBC that he was planning to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “What’s going on with Lebanon,” where Israel has intensified strikes and military operations against Hezbollah. The terror group has continued its own attacks on Israeli civilian and military positions, partially in response to the growing buffer zone that the IDF has established in southern Lebanon.
Hebrew media reports that the Trump-Netanyahu call has since taken place.
Trump again claims that oil prices will drop when the war ends, telling CNBC, “I think the oil will be dropping like a rock in the very near distance.”
US President Donald Trump says he is aware of reports that Iran has threatened to pull out of talks with Washington over expanding Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
However, he says Tehran has not passed along this message to negotiators.
“It’s an appropriate thing to say, because they’re better negotiators than they are fighters, but they haven’t informed us of that,” Trump says when asked about Iran state media’s claim of the purported threat from Tehran.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to go and start dropping bombs all over there,” Trump says during his latest interview with a phoning reporter. “We’ll keep the blockade.”
Israeli generals have been invited to a handover ceremony for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary, though the identity of the new officer is unknown.
Outgoing military secretary to the prime minister, Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman is set to enter the role of Mossad chief tomorrow.
In an invitation letter shared by Ynet news, members of the IDF’s General Staff Forum are invited to a ceremony for the handover of the military secretary and the promotion of the incoming officer to major general tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
However, Netanyahu has not yet announced who will be replacing Gofman as military secretary.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly informed the US that Hezbollah is ready to sign a full ceasefire with Israel, with the senior official in Beirut pledging to guarantee the truce’s implementation.
“I called the US ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, on Sunday and told him on behalf of Speaker Berri that Hezbollah will be ready to totally commit to a comprehensive ceasefire and we are ready to guarantee it,” Berri’s aide Ali Hamdan tells the Axios news site.
Axios says the ceasefire that Hezbollah is willing to accept would still allow Israel to keep its large buffer zone in south Lebanon.
Berri has close ties to Hezbollah, but it is far from clear that the senior lawmaker can ensure the terror group’s compliance with a ceasefire.
Hamdan confirms that the US proposed a partial ceasefire over the weekend that would require Hezbollah to stop striking northern Israel in return for the IDF committing to not striking Beirut.
A US official told Axios that Berri’s response to Washington’s proposal was “evasive and disappointing” — a charge rejected by Hamdan.
“The proposal we received was no Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel and that in return Israel will not bomb Beirut and then gradually the ceasefire will expand to other areas. Speaker Berri’s reply was, ‘Why a partial ceasefire? Let’s have a full ceasefire,” Hamdan says.
Berri instead proposed a full ceasefire on the ground, air and sea that would also include a cessation of Israeli home demolitions in southern Lebanon.
Hamdan tells Axios Berri has been able to exchange messages with Hezbollah’s secretary-general Naim Qassem, who is believed to be in hiding.
“We are sure Hezbollah will commit to a total ceasefire. We think it will be more productive. We know time is running out,” Hamdan says.
The same US official quoted earlier by Axios tells the news site that he stands by his earlier characterization of Berri’s response.
While the US has, for months, urged Israel not to strike Beirut, officials have refrained from doing so publicly, or even anonymously in the press.
“The US does not expect Israel to absorb ongoing attacks on its civilians by a terrorist organization,” the US official tells Axios, suggesting that Washington’s opposition to strikes in Beirut could soften.
A Hezbollah drone was shot down over an area of southern Lebanon where troops are operating, the military says.
The drone had triggered sirens in the border community of Rosh Hanikra.
A Hezbollah missile commander was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon yesterday, the IDF announces.
The strike carried out by the Israeli Air Force in the Nabatieh area killed Mohammed Mousa Mteirek, a unit commander in Hezbollah’s missile array, according to the IDF.
The military says Mteirek was responsible for the launches of hundreds of rockets and drones targeting Israeli civilians and IDF troops, including soldiers of the Golani Brigade operating at the Beaufort Castle.
The Golani soldiers had directed the IAF strike, the military says.
Left-wing Jewish groups in New York City condemn far-right Israeli lawmakers marching in the city’s annual Israel parade yesterday.
The Israeli delegation to the parade included Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
Smotrich and Eliyahu have a long history of inflammatory statements, with the former declaring in 2021 that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, should have “finished the job” and kicked all Arabs out of the country when it was founded. Eliyahu suggested that one of Israel’s options in the recent war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip.
New York Jewish Agenda, a political, progressive Zionist group, says in a statement that, “It is shocking to see New York officials march alongside Kahanists like Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit members.”
“Smotrich and his ilk represent a dangerous politics of division rooted in bigotry, and there should be no place for them in New York,” the statement says.
The far-left activist group Jews for Economic and Racial Justice (JFREJ), an organization allied with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, says it is “outraged” that local and state officials “marched alongside war criminals and claimed it was an expression of support for Jews.”
Israel Day Parade in NYC: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli lawmakers and American politicians march on Fifth Avenue
NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani decided to skip the event | @Etanetan23
Video:… pic.twitter.com/8lARnXk4yy
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 31, 2026
No Israelis have been convicted of war crimes.
JFREJ does not march in the parade and backed Mamdani’s decision to boycott the march, calling the event “overtly nationalistic.”
“Shame on every elected official who marched yesterday,” JFREJ says.
The parade organizer, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said ahead of the parade that it was unaware who would be marching from the Israeli government, and that the decision was up to the Israeli consulate in New York.
Smotrich and Eliyahu had not been anticipated at the event. The consulate’s list of participants ahead of the parade did not include either lawmaker.
The Israeli delegation marched as its own group in the parade, and it did not appear that New York elected officials marched with the far-right lawmakers or were aware of their presence during the event, which drew more than 50,000 participants.
Iran is pushing for a limited interim agreement with the United States in a bid to ease mounting economic pressure and stabilize the situation at home, while avoiding major concessions on its nuclear program, according to sources and analysts.
The approach reflects a familiar playbook for the Islamic Republic: absorb pressure, avoid irreversible compromises and keep negotiations alive without shifting core positions, three Iranian sources close to decision-makers say.
But the latest push is also driven by more immediate concerns. Officials see a narrow deal as a way to buy time, unlock financial relief and contain rising domestic risks over a deteriorating economy without addressing the most contentious issues.
Iran’s leadership faces domestic pressures. Years of sanctions, economic mismanagement and conflict have fuelled inflation, currency depreciation and a sharp decline in living standards.
Short-term financial inflows are therefore crucial to Tehran’s interest in a preliminary deal, the sources say, as they could keep the economy running, ease immediate pressures and stave off a resurgence of unrest.
The Strait of Hormuz remains central to Iran’s leverage. Within the clerical establishment, it is increasingly seen less as a bargaining chip than as a durable strategic asset.
Any arrangement that restores shipping while preserving that leverage would leave Tehran’s influence over the chokepoint intact, the sources say, allowing flows to resume while stability remains tied to political negotiation.
One source says a limited deal would effectively restore prewar conditions without forcing Iran to yield to Washington’s demands, adding: “With the start of the war, Trump gave Iran the gift of control over the Strait.”
A cargo vessel transiting the Gulf about 40 nautical miles southeast of Umm Qasr, Iraq, has been hit by an unknown projectile on its starboard side, causing a large explosion, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) says.
UKMTO said it was unaware of any immediate environmental impact.
Iran’s state TV says that the probability of the ceasefire between Iran and the United States ending is high if Israeli attacks on Lebanon do not stop.
Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah operatives over the terror group’s repeated rocket and drone fire against Israel.
Hezbollah says the fire is in response to the broadening buffer zone and Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon.
Iran state TV does not give further details.
Two people have been killed after their car went up in flames on Route 40 near Beersheba, in what police reportedly suspect was a double homicide.
The car veered off the southern highway, police say, and appears to have been completely destroyed in the fire.
The two passengers were pronounced dead at the scene by medics.
Hebrew media reports that police believe the burnt car belongs to a figure known to law enforcement.
Police say in a statement that they are investigating the circumstances of the incident.
France has barred Israel from participating in this month’s Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris, the Defense Ministry says, preventing Jerusalem from establishing a national pavilion or sending government representatives to the event.
According to the ministry, French authorities will only permit Israeli defense companies to display air defense systems, while prohibiting the exhibition of offensive weapon systems.
The ministry condemns the move as a “disgraceful decision” driven by “political and commercial calculation,” accusing France of applying discriminatory restrictions to Israel that are not imposed on other participating countries “in direct violation of the established norms governing international defense exhibitions.”
In a sharply worded statement, the Defense Ministry says France is “acting in direct contradiction to the principles it claims to uphold,” arguing that Israeli offensive systems have demonstrated their effectiveness against “terrorist organizations and regimes threatening not only Israel, but regional and global stability at large.”
The move comes amid growing tensions between Jerusalem and Paris. In April, the Defense Ministry halted all defense procurement from France in response to French measures that “harmed Israel’s security,” including prohibiting Israeli aircraft from using French airspace to assist with fighting Iran.
French authorities initially banned Israeli defense firms from exhibiting at the 2024 Eurosatory, before later reversing the decision. Organizers erected black partition walls around Israeli company exhibits displaying offensive weapons systems at the 2025 Paris Air Show.
An explosive-laden first-person view (FPV) drone launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon struck an Israeli military position near the border community of Rosh Hanikra a short while ago, according to the IDF.
The military says no injuries were caused in the attack.
Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators gather in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and elsewhere in Israel for what police dub an “illegal” protest of the recent detention of yeshiva students who evaded the IDF draft.
According to the extremist Jerusalem Faction, which organized the demonstrations, protesters have blocked the Ganot Interchange in central Israel as well as the entrances to Jerusalem and Safed. They have also gathered
outside the home of the senior police officer who is thought to have signed off on the arrests of the draft dodgers.
Traffic heading out of the capital is currently being redirected away from the entrance to the city, causing major delays. Public transit has also been impacted.
Police say demonstrators have blocked the entrance to Jerusalem, near the Chords Bridge, along with the Hamazleg Interchange near Netivot. Police say officers are currently attempting to clear the roads and restore order.
The protests were originally slated to be held yesterday afternoon, but were postponed after the extremist Haredi group claimed that negotiations with the IDF on releasing detained draft dodgers were beginning to bear fruit.
Police attempt to remove anti-conscription protesters blocking central Israel's Ganot Interchange. (Credit: David Kesher via the Jerusalem Faction) pic.twitter.com/Hjj24bLWY8
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) June 1, 2026
The IDF denied the Jerusalem Faction’s statement on Sunday, telling The Times of Israel that no talks were being held on releasing draft dodgers from prison.
The extremist ultra-Orthodox group, numbering some 60,000 members, regularly holds rowdy demonstrations against the military enlistment of yeshiva students and operates a “national alert system” to mobilize wildcat street action when someone spots a draft dodger being arrested.
Members of the group recently rioted outside the home of a noncommissioned officer serving as chief of security of the Beit Lid military prison and broke into the home of the head of the IDF’s Military Police in Ashkelon.
Today’s protests come less than a day after a large group of Haredi protesters broke into a police station compound in Beit Shemesh, rioting and clashing with police officers following the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox draft evader in the city.
Haredi anti-conscription demonstrators outside the Jerusalem home of the head of the Israel Police Traffic Department Chaim Shmueli (The Jerusalem Faction) pic.twitter.com/wuwmlgX6oU
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) June 1, 2026
A rocket launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Kiryat Shmona area was intercepted a short while ago, the military says.
Two more rockets struck near Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, causing no injuries, the IDF adds.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian promises Japan that Tehran will enable the passage of Tokyo’s ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been mostly closed since the start of the Middle East war in February.
“We will try to provide a smooth and easy passage for Japanese ships,” Pezeshkian told Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a phone conversation, according to the former’s office.
Wall Street stocks have opened lower today, as optimism over a possible peace deal in the Middle East dissipated, with the United States and Iran trading strikes and oil prices surging.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4 percent to 50,805.68 points shortly after trading started, while the broad-based S&P 500 Index was down 0.1% at 7,569.80.
The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index edged lower by 0.1% to 26,960.19.
Oil surged today, in line with a recent trend seen when prospects for peace in the Iran war have appeared clouded.
Art Hogan, from B. Riley Wealth Management, tells AFP the recent boom in equities — despite a clouded economic outlook due to the war — stems from several factors, including heavy investment in AI technology.
“Even though the AI revolution is moving and it’s only four years old, we still underestimate the revenue and earnings growth that it’s driving,” he says.
Markets have also backed away from recently rising US bond yields, stabilizing some investors’ outlook, he said.
Oil prices have surged again today after Iran said it suspended all exchanges with Washington following days of inconclusive talks to end the war, and the two nations again traded strikes.
At around 13:30 GMT, the price of Brent North Sea Crude for August delivery was up 4.9 percent at $95.60 a barrel, after briefly rising above 5%. Its US counterpart, West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery, was up 5.9% at $92.55.
El Al Israel Airlines says it will resume nonstop flights between Tel Aviv and San Francisco from October 25, citing demand for a route between the two tech hubs.
It chooses LY49 as the flight number for the three weekly, 15-hour flights in homage to the San Francisco 49ers football team.
“San Francisco is one of the most important technology, innovation and business hubs in the world, with a large and central Israeli community,” says Shlomi Zafrani, El Al’s vice president of commerce and sales.
“The opening of the new route is intended to respond to significant demand from the business and Israeli community in the region, and to enable a more direct… and convenient connection between Israel and Silicon Valley.”
El Al flew between the two cities from late 2018 until early 2020 when the route was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resuming flights to San Francisco is part of its expansion.
The Israeli flag carrier said in April it would buy up to 12 more long-haul 787 Dreamliner aircraft from Boeing.
The new route will expand the number of nonstop flights from Israel to US cities, which now includes New York, Miami, Boston and Los Angeles.
The IDF warns residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, to evacuate ahead of airstrikes.
“The IDF warns residents of the Dahiyeh area in Beirut and calls on them to evacuate for their safety,” says army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.
“If the Hezbollah terror organization continues firing rockets toward Israeli cities and towns, the IDF will respond by targeting [Hezbollah sites] in the southern suburbs,” he says.
Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they had instructed the IDF to strike Hezbollah in Beirut over the terror group’s repeated attacks amid the porous ceasefire.
In a highly unusual move, far-right Heritage Minister Amichay Elyahu sent a WhatsApp message yesterday to High Court Justice Yechiel Meir Kasher asking him not to halt the appointment of a new director-general for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), Kasher reveals in a court document.
“Halting the appointment process at this time would impair our ability to make even modest improvements to government statutory organizations as the law mandates us to do,” reads the text from Eliyahu. “Therefore, given that the system itself has established a committee to review our process, I respectfully ask your honor to help safeguard our right — and our duty — to implement the policy for which we were elected.”
“Contacting the court in this manner is not the proper way to submit a position, and therefore I intend to ignore it,” Kasher writes.
Last week, close to 60 Israeli archaeologists presented an urgent petition to the court urging it to block Eliyahu’s appointment of Esti Shreiber as the new IAA head. The petitioners stated both that the procedure was inconsistent with the legal requirements and that Schreiber inflated her resume to meet the criteria.
According to the petition, Eliyahu had demanded that the IAA Council, which must approve the appointment, review it at a meeting scheduled for today. An archaeologist familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel the meeting has been canceled.
In his update to the court about Eliyahu’s text, Kasher also writes that at this stage he does not see a reason to issue a temporary order blocking Shreiber’s appointment and that the respondents — who include Eliyahu, the IAA and Shreiber — have until July 16 to reply to the petition against the government pick.
US forces intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait late on Sunday, the US military says, adding that no American personnel were harmed.
Britain says it has signed new contracts worth £36 million ($48.46 million) with defense company Thales to supply hundreds of Lightweight Multirole missiles for the country’s armed forces.
This type of missile has been used by UK forces to shoot down drones in the Middle East since the start of the Iran war.
Defense Minister John Healey says in a statement that the missiles will “continue to keep the UK and our partners more secure in the Middle East and beyond.”
The UK Defense Ministry says deliveries would begin in the coming months.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency says that Iran’s negotiating team is stopping the exchange of messages with the United States through mediators because of the IDF’s intensified attacks against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
The agency says that Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” have set an agenda to completely block the Strait of Hormuz and activate other fronts, including the Bab El Mandeb Strait, in order to “punish” Israel and its supporters.
If the Houthis, Iran’s allies in Yemen, open a new front in the conflict, one obvious target would be the Bab El Mandeb Strait off the coast of Yemen, a key shipping chokepoint and narrow passageway that controls sea traffic towards the Suez Canal.
“Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The U.S. and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said earlier today, referring to Israeli operations in Lebanon.
“The immediate cessation of the Zionist regime’s aggressive and brutal army operations in Gaza and Lebanon and the necessity of the regime’s complete withdrawal from the occupied areas in Lebanon have been emphasized by Iranian officials and negotiators, and there will be no talks until Iran and the resistance’s views on this matter are met,” Tasnim adds.
Iran Halts Indirect Talks With U.S. Over Lebanon and Gaza Ceasefire Violations – Tasnim News
Iranian negotiation team to stop dialogue and text exchanges through intermediaries
Move follows alleged violations of ceasefire conditions, including in Lebanon
Iranian officials… https://t.co/cCCe2JmVLM
— FinancialJuice (@financialjuice) June 1, 2026
An apparent Hezbollah drone struck the border community of Metula a short while ago, the military says.
Additionally, three rockets launched by the terror group from Lebanon at the Karmiel area in northern Israel were intercepted, according to the IDF.
No injuries are reported in the attacks.
The High Court of Justice rejects, by a vote of two to one, petitions calling for government’s appointment of Roman Gofman as the new head of the Mossad to be annulled.
The court determines that although there were failures with how Gofman handled a controversial incident in 2022 when he was commander of the IDF’s 210th Division, his conduct did not cast doubt on his ethical conduct to the extent that it would invalidate him from serving as Mossad chief.
The court also states that although the manner in which the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee — which recommended Gofman be appointed — was not optimal, its review of Gofman’s candidacy was not fundamentally flawed enough to justify invalidating Gofman’s appointment.
Justice Daphne Barak Erez was of the minority opinion, maintaining that the committee should further review the problematic manner in which Gofman handled the incident in question.
With the petitions against his appointment nixed, Gofman is set to take up the position of Mossad chief on Tuesday.
The Energy Ministry announces a partnership with the national lottery, Mifal HaPayis, to create a new NIS 380 million ($135 million) fund to offer subsidized loans to local authorities to launch renewable energy projects.
Mifal HaPayis routinely allocates its profits to help local authorities fund health, educational, welfare, cultural and arts projects. Under the new scheme, each authority will be able to borrow 50 percent of the value of its allocation at an interest rate of prime minus 1.25 percent for up to ten years.
The funds, which will be in addition to the Mifal HaPayis grants, will be used to install solar panels or renewable energy storage or to make energy use more efficient.
The Energy Ministry estimates that there are 1,600 public buildings earmarked as assembly points in emergencies.
Adding solar panels and storage could produce enough energy to keep the power going in these facilities during a crisis, a ministry statement says. It also sees potential for using solar panels to create shade at some 3,500 sports fields, most of them in kindergartens and schools.
The ministry will help the local authorities calculate the financial worth of moving to renewable energy. Unused solar energy would be purchased by the Israel Electricity Company, yielding income to the provider.
Renewable energy — mainly solar in Israel — made up 16% of all electricity last year. The state’s goal is to reach 30% by 2030.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara warns that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has launched a race to “eliminate democratic institutions” ahead of the upcoming elections.
Speaking at the Israel Bar Association conference, Baharav-Miara points to two bills currently being advanced by the coalition as especially problematic: one that would gut the position of attorney general of its powers to act as a check on the government and the other that would give the justice minister control over the Department for Internal Police Investigations, which investigates and prosecutes wrongdoing by the police.
“If in the past we talked about democracies falling in small steps, [today] a race to eliminate democratic institutions has begun due to the approaching end of the current Knesset’s term,” says the attorney general.
She says that the approval of the two bills in question would change the character of the law enforcement system in Israel.
“In a situation where the government calls for disobeying court rulings, the day will not be far off when a court ruling will be perceived by the public as non-binding,” adds Baharav-Miara in reference to numerous calls by multiple cabinet ministers not to abide by High Court rulings.
The military says it has withdrawn the 146th Division from southern Lebanon after three months of operations against Hezbollah.
At the height of the military’s offensive against Hezbollah, five IDF divisions were operating in southern Lebanon. Currently only two remain, the 91st and 36th.
Hezbollah launched several rockets from Lebanon at the Kiryat Shmona area a short while ago.
The IDF says some of the rockets were intercepted, and the others hit open areas.
There are no reports of injuries.
Shortly before lawmakers are set to vote on the first of three readings of a bill to dissolve the Knesset, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid castigates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as the worst in Israeli history.
“The Knesset will vote today in its first reading on dissolving the Knesset and heading to elections. We are taking another step toward ending the tenure of this government… Even coalition supporters will have to admit that there has never been a government with so many disasters to its name,” Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“The greatest massacre in the history of the country. The highest number of terror casualties in the history of the country. The longest war in the history of the country that ended without any ‘absolute victory,'” he says, using Netanyahu’s oft-used expression as he promised military supremacy in the early days of the conflicy. “Not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, and not in Iran. An increase in cases of Jewish terrorism to numbers unprecedented in the history of the country.
“The greatest deterioration in the history of the country in the educational achievements of our children. The first two credit rating downgrades in the history of the country. The greatest number of ministers and members of the Knesset suspected of crimes in the history of the country. The greatest transfer of corrupt political funds in the history of the country,” Lapid continues, slamming Netanyahu for overseeing unprecedented increases in violent crime and the “decline of Israel’s international status to a low point that has never been seen before in the country’s history.”
Palestinian media outlets affiliated with Hamas in Gaza report that the IDF struck a motorcycle in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. According to the reports, one person was killed and another was wounded.
The IDF has not yet commented.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid reiterates his call to unite the anti-Netanyahu “change bloc,” again calling on Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot to join his and former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s Together slate ahead of the upcoming 2026 election.
“When I entered politics, I had black hair. Today I have white hair. I established governments and parties, I held every possible position, I put all my experience and knowledge into the fact that in order to win, you must first unite the camp. We took the first step in establishing ‘Together,’ but for victory one more step must be taken,” Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“I want to say two words to him: Gadi, come! You are a man of values, you are a man of love for the country, I believe in your good intentions, I appreciate your abilities, come, join us,” he urges.
According to Channel 12, Eisenkot recently proposed to his fellow change bloc leaders that they all agree to recommend the leader of the largest opposition party as prime minister following the upcoming election, a move that has generated pushback from within the bloc.
Addressing party activists on Sunday evening, The Democrats chairman Yair Golan insisted that he does “not promise that we will endorse the leader of the largest party, but rather whoever agrees to our values.”
Speaking with reporters ahead of his own Yisrael Beytenu party’s faction meeting this afternoon, Avigdor Liberman declines to back Bennett as prime minister, stating that he does not believe the argument that the opposition will lose unless it is united under Bennett.
Addressing Eisenkot’s proposal, Liberman, who has presented himself as the best candidate for prime minister, states that any decision will be postponed until after the elections.
Asked about Golan and Liberman’s statements, Lapid tells reporters that “we need to unite the camp to win the elections, not waste long months now on everyone tearing each other apart.”
Uniting will allow for a significant win without the repeated election cycles which preceded the previous Bennett-Lapid government, he argues. “Hope is a powerful political thing, and it will allow people to imagine a truly good government: Eisenkot as defense minister, me as foreign minister, Liberman as finance minister.”
“I want all the rest to be women because there are too many men in this picture. That’s how you win elections. You let people imagine what the government looks like,” he continues, adding that as the leader of the “largest party in the camp,” Bennett is “the most suitable candidate to lead the country.”
“He is the right man to lead, and we need to unite the entire camp behind him and behind Together to win the elections. Anything else will simply lose the elections for the camp, and we can and must win.”
According to a Channel 12 poll aired on Friday evening, 45 percent of voters of parties currently in the Knesset opposition prefer Eisenkot, compared to 36% who want Bennett as bloc leader.
The Knesset Finance Committee approved legislation granting expanded tax benefits to dozens of West Bank settlements for its second and third readings, paving the way for final votes in the plenum later today and possible passage into law.
The bill, sponsored by Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot and backed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, would grant tax benefits to 59 West Bank settlements located east of the security barrier under a new “eastern conflict zone” designation. The Israel Tax Authority estimates the measure will cost NIS 130 million ($46 million) annually.
The government has been highly criticized by northern leaders, opposition lawmakers, and even coalition lawmakers for advancing the legislation while delaying efforts to assist communities in the north of Israel devastated by more than two years of Hezbollah attacks.
A government decision to approve a long-promised NIS 5 billion ($1.78 billion) rehabilitation package for the north, expected to be approved yesterday, was postponed, reportedly due to Smotrich’s insistence that his party’s legislation advance first.
An earlier version of the legislation was amended to include a handful of northern communities located within two kilometers of the Lebanese border, prompting accusations from opposition lawmakers and northern local authority heads that the government was exploiting the plight of northern residents to secure support for a measure primarily benefiting West Bank settlements.
Committee chairman and Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky had sought to extend the tax benefits to communities within nine kilometers of the Lebanese border, but Smotrich vetoed the proposal. The provision was removed after northern leaders demanded that either all communities within nine kilometers of the border be included or none at all.
“To the residents of the North who are leaving deeply disappointed, I have no clever words to offer. You are right,” says Milwidsky, emphasizing that Smotrich’s decision to block changes to the bill reflects “neither my position nor the position of most [committee] members.”
He adds the government is expected to meet tomorrow to discuss advancing the NIS 5 billion aid package for northern communities, and that he will submit separate legislation on Wednesday to expand tax benefits for residents of frontline communities in the north.
About a third of employees in Israel are battling lower monthly income and a worsening financial situation as they struggle to recover from the economic fallout of more than two years of war sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI).
“The survey presents a troubling picture of a worsening economic impact across almost all population groups, reflected in rising shares of respondents reporting harm to their income and scope of employment,” says IDI’s Daphna Aviram-Nitzan. “We hope that the findings of this survey… will assist decision-makers in shaping and directing economic assistance.”
The IDI poll conducted between April 23 and May 10 finds that 31 percent of employees (salaried and self-employed) in Israel contend with lower salaries or personal income from their business compared with the pre-Hamas war period.
The survey by the non-partisan IDI think tank was conducted among a representative sample of 1,202 salaried and self-employed workers.
Following Israel’s orders for the IDF to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warns that Iran considers attacks in Lebanon as a violation of the delicate US–Iran truce.
For immediate attention:
The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.
The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation.
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 1, 2026
“The ceasefire between Iran and the US is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts,” Araghchi writes on X.
“The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” he says.
Israel had largely refrained from attacking Beirut amid escalating tensions with Iran-backed Hezbollah at the behest of the US Trump administration as it tried to reach a deal with Iran, but has now vowed to do so amid a surge in Hezbollah attacks on soldiers and northern communities.
Britain has blocked Cenk Uygur, a left-wing Turkish-American media personality, and his nephew, Hasan Piker, a US left-wing commentator and influencer, from entering the country to speak at events, both say.
Uygur, who co-hosts the popular YouTube channel “The Young Turks,” and Piker assert they have been barred because of their views on Israel.
Britain’s interior ministry says travel authorization for “these individuals” was cancelled as “their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good” in a statement that does not mention Israel.
They had been listed to speak at the SXSW London festival later this week, and at the University of Oxford this weekend.
“I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore?” Uygur posts, after he says he tried to board a flight.
Piker says: “The UK has revoked my visa as well. All at the behest of Israel.”
Piker had been due to speak at SXSW about “How the American Left Learned to Speak the Internet.” Uygur’s session was titled: “Techno-Feudalism is Here. Who Are the Lords?”
There was no mention of Israel in their sections on the website of SXSW London, which describes itself as a festival of “business, technology and creativity.”
A Hamas commander who advanced attacks on troops was killed in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the IDF announces.
The IDF says that on Saturday it struck and killed Jamal Abu Aoun, “a platoon commander in the military wing of the Hamas terror organization, who also worked as a doctor at Yafa Hospital in Deir al-Balah.”
Abu Aoun “commanded Hamas terrorists and advanced and planned terror attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” the military says, adding that recently, he was “involved in advancing force-building, rehabilitation, and rearmament efforts of the Hamas terror organization, in violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
The Jerusalem Faction, an extremist ultra-Orthodox group that regularly holds rowdy protests against the military enlistment of yeshiva students, announces that it will hold “a series of stormy demonstrations across the country,” including in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and Netivot, this afternoon.
“Due to the continued, criminal detention” of yeshiva students “for the ‘crime’ of Torah study,” demonstrations will be held at 5 p.m. in order to “protest against the severe harm done to the Torah world and to the right of yeshiva students and kollel scholars to continue diligently pursuing their studies without fear,” the group says in a statement.
The Jerusalem demonstration will be held at the entrance to the city.
The protests were originally slated to be held on Sunday afternoon but were postponed after the group claimed that negotiations with the IDF “regarding the release of a large number of yeshiva students … from military prison” were beginning to bear fruit. The IDF denied the Jerusalem Faction’s statement on Sunday, telling The Times of Israel that “contrary to what is being claimed, there are no negotiations taking place regarding the release of deserters and draft evaders from military prison.”
Singer-songwriter Yonatan Razel, 53, has been hospitalized at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center after suffering a stroke.
The hospital says that Razel is conscious and receiving treatment.
The hospital statement includes a comment from Razel’s family, who say that he is stable and they are grateful for the many prayers for his recovery, offering his Hebrew name, Yonatan Adi ben Chaya Rachel, for healing prayers.
Razel has a prominent voice and sound in spiritual music in Israel, bringing his considerable skills as a pianist and composer to create inspiring songs such as “Katonti” and “Vehi Sheamda.” One of Razel’s well-known songs, “Ashira,” is about the miraculous recovery of his daughter, Rivki, who fell from a second-floor roof in 2010 when she was four, sustaining a severe traumatic brain injury, and who was in a coma on a ventilator before a long recovery.
The Reservists Party, led by former communications minister Yoaz Hendel, announces that it will hold elections for party leader on June 8 and its Knesset slate on June 16.
The leader will be elected by a 40-member body “composed of bereaved family members, wounded veterans, reservists, and social activists” previously elected by registered members, according to a party statement.
Voting for the party’s Knesset slate will be open to all members who register by Friday, the deadline both for voting and for running in the primaries.
Hendel, a critic of the government and a battalion commander in the reserves, founded the fledgling party last year with the goal of passing a universal draft law. He has said that party membership would be restricted only to those who have performed military or national service.
However, the party has consistently failed to win any seats in weekly polls, prompting speculation that it may ultimately merge with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, which has also hovered around the 3.25% threshold.
After instructing the IDF to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz state that the terror group’s headquarters in Dahiyeh are not “off-limits” amid escalating fighting between the sides, after Israel held back from striking the Lebanese capital at the behest of the Trump administration.
“There will be no situation in which Hezbollah attacks our cities and citizens while the terror headquarters in Dahiyeh remain off-limits,” Netanyahu says in a video statement. “We are continuing to deepen our operations on the ground in southern Lebanon, eliminating Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah is on the run. We are determined to restore security to the residents of the north, just as we did for the residents of the south,” he says.
Speaking at a military ceremony, Katz adds in a separate statement: “If there is no quiet in the north, there will be no quiet in Beirut… We will not allow a situation in which our communities and citizens are harmed while calm is maintained in Beirut.”
Katz says the IDF is continuing to carry out both air and ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying the military is achieving “significant gains” against the terror group to remove threats to Israeli civilians and troops.
He says the goal is to “turn the Litani area into a zone under IDF security control, free of weapons and terrorists.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the judges of the Jerusalem District Court earlier to cancel the first hours of his testimony in his criminal trial tomorrow in order to attend the swearing-in ceremony of incoming Mossad chief Roman Gofman.
The judges chastised Netanyahu, saying they have repeatedly accepted the need to delay and cancel hearings for urgent security and diplomacy issues, but say they should not be doing so for ceremonies.
“When there are security issues, there’s nothing to be done. Ceremonies? With all due respect, either [the ceremony organizers] adjust themselves or we will continue as usual,” said Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, the head of the three-judge panel presiding over Netanyahu’s trial.
The judges have not yet made a final decision on the matter, however.
Netanyahu also asked for permission to attend the swearing-in ceremony for the new head of the Directorate of Security of the Defense Establishment during today’s lunch break at the court, which the judges agreed to.
Three Hezbollah operatives who were planning to launch drones at troops in southern Lebanon were killed in drone strikes yesterday, the military says.
The IDF says troops of the Givati Brigade identified the operatives in an area north of the Litani River, and a short while later, the Israeli Air Force “eliminated the terrorists with precise attacks while they tried to escape from the area.”
The Givati soldiers also located a weapons depot, containing rockets and explosive-laden FPV drones, the army says. The arms cache was then destroyed in a strike, the IDF adds.
בפעילות של כוחות גבעתי צפונית לנהר הליטאני: חוסלו שלושה מחבלים שפעלו לשיגור רחפנים לעבר כוחותינו ואותרו רקטות מוכנות לשיגור
כוחות חטיבת גבעתי פועלים בפיקוד אוגדה 36 לחיסול מחבלים והשמדת תשתיות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה צפונית לנהר הליטאני.
הכוחות זיהו אתמול, שלושה מחבלים מארגון… pic.twitter.com/S6UtxYWQf8
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) June 1, 2026
The IDF issues evacuation warnings for seven villages and towns in southern Lebanon ahead of airstrikes targeting the Hezbollah terror group.
Residents of Houmine al-Faouqa, Bnaafoul, Arab Salim, Roumine, Aazze, Arkey, and Jbaa are instructed to evacuate at least a kilometer away.
“In light of the Hezbollah terror organization’s violations of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is forced to act against it with force and does not intend to harm you,” warns army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.
A Barcelona bathhouse has apologized after two Jewish American women were denied entry to an LGBTQ sauna in Barcelona on Friday because they were wearing Star of David necklaces.
The spa, Sauna Thermas, posted on X yesterday that it “deeply regret[s] and unequivocally condemn[s] the events that took place at our venue.”
“We wish to state with absolute clarity that we reject any form of antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, discrimination, or conduct that undermines the dignity of any individual,” the owners write.
We deeply regret and unequivocally condemn the events that took place at our venue.
We wish to state with absolute clarity that we reject any form of antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, discrimination, or conduct that undermines the dignity of any individual. pic.twitter.com/T4VcHJbAOX— Sauna Thermas (@SaunaThermas) May 31, 2026
The apology followed the release of a video showing staff questioning two visitors about Zionism before ejecting them from the establishment.
One of the women, who said she was wearing a Star of David pendant, was asked whether she was a “Zionist person.” During the confrontation, staff members were heard saying, “We don’t condone genocide” and “Free Palestine, please leave.”
An American Jewish woman living in Barcelona reached out to me, saying that she and her wife were denied entry last night to a thermal bath, reportedly because they are Jewish.
She documented the exchange on video and filed a report with the Mossos d’Esquadra afterwards.… pic.twitter.com/oSyHNAa2M5
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 30, 2026
Following the incident, ACOM, a Spanish-Jewish advocacy organization, said it was initiating legal action against the spa.
Two rockets launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Safed area were intercepted, the military says.
There are no reports of injuries in the attack, which triggered sirens in numerous towns.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin claims the public does not have trust in Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, in response to a speech Amit gave lamenting the spreading of false information in Israeli society, which the chief justice said had enabled claims that he had “appointed himself,” and other false narratives, take root in parts of the public.
“Judge Amit has deep contempt for vast communities,” says Levin, refusing to use Amit’s title, as he has done since the judge was appointed Supreme Court president in January 2025.
“He tramples on the people’s decision and the standing of the government and the Knesset, with arrogance. But, he too knows that there is one thing that cannot be forced on the public through any order — trust. And the public does not believe him and does not recognize him,” says the justice minister.
Supreme Court President Isaac Amit deplores the erosion of truth in Israeli society, and says elements in the country are using fake news to deliberately undermine the Supreme Court and its rulings, in a speech to the Israel Bar Association.
Amit, who has been boycotted by the government since he was appointed in January 2025, speaks out specifically against false allegations that the court, in its capacity as High Court of Justice, interfered with IDF rules of engagement, with right-wing politicians and organizations wrongly claiming this enabled the October 7 attacks, as well as against claims that he “appointed himself president.”
Amit notes that in the High Court’s 2018 decision on petitions against the IDF’s open-fire regulations, the court upheld the army’s position and did not instruct the IDF “to change even a comma of the open-fire instructions.”
The Supreme Court president also says that allegations by right-wing politicians that he “appointed himself” as president are “fake,” noting that Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who has led the government’s boycott of Amit, convened the Judicial Selection Committee himself, albeit after the High Court ordered him to do so, and that the committee duly elected him in a legal vote.
“The spread of fake [information] is a direct danger to democracy and social cohesion,” says Amit.
“When the public sphere is flooded with false information, it is very difficult to distinguish between truth and fiction,” he continues, adding that many of those who spread false information do so in order to “erode the value of truth” deliberately.
“From here it is a short path to rejecting binding rulings, ignoring obligations under the law, and even to ‘resolving’ disputes by force and violence, God forbid,” he says. “This is how spreading fake [information] becomes a complementary strategy for radicalizing the discourse against the justice system. The ‘fakeness’ prepares the ground; divisiveness sows the seeds; and violence grows wild.”
Amit notes that several years ago, Justice Uzi Fogelman, then chairman of the Central Elections Committee, warned that fake content “may undermine the public’s belief that there is truth in elections at all: if anything can be forged, why believe anything?”
Adds Amit: “The concern highlighted by Justice Vogelman, years before artificial intelligence became available at the click of a button, is no longer science fiction.”
Kuwait’s foreign ministry says it is “holding Iran fully responsible for these heinous attacks” after air defenses earlier intercepted missile and drone attacks.
The country says the attacks undermine efforts to reduce tensions in the region and stresses it has the right to take all necessary measures to defend its territory.
A delay in the diplomatic process to end the US-Iran war can be explained by a lack of trust, Washington’s contradictory positions and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says.
“Negotiations have started amid severe suspicion and mistrust, and the exchange of messages is taking place in this atmosphere,” Baghaei says.
“The other party is constantly changing its views and putting forward new or contradictory demands… it is natural that this situation will prolong negotiations,” he says, adding that Tehran views Israeli actions in the region, including in Lebanon, as inseparable from the US.
Arab media outlets have published footage showing Lebanese civilians leaving the Dahiyeh — Beirut’s southern suburb and a Hezbollah stronghold — following Israeli threats to carry out strikes in the area.
The footage shows heavy traffic jams on roads leading out of the neighborhood.
حركة نزوح من الضاحية الجنوبية لبيروت بعد أوامر نتنياهو باستهدافها pic.twitter.com/vBDs9ca19z
— العربية (@AlArabiya) June 1, 2026
Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that they had instructed the IDF to strike in Dahiyeh immediately in response to Hezbollah ceasefire violations.
Iran’s foreign ministry says that the United States has continued to violate the ceasefire, after US strikes on a southern port triggered a brief military flare-up.
“The United States is also violating the ceasefire including this morning,” says foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, vowing that Iran will “take whatever measures we deem necessary to defend Iran’s national security.”
Baghaei says there are currently no talks with US over the nuclear issue.
Iran’s foreign ministry says that a ceasefire in Lebanon remains a key condition for a deal with the United States.
“We insist that a ceasefire in Lebanon is an essential condition for any deal aimed at ending the war,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says in a weekly press briefing, as Israel expands its offensive in Lebanon.
The IDF says it raided the home of the Palestinian terrorist who carried out last night’s car-ramming attack at the Gush Etzion Junction, wounding two teens.
“As part of the operation, the forces raided the terrorist’s home [in Hebron] and interrogated suspects close to him,” the army says.
The terrorist, identified as Amjad al-Natsha, 31, was shot dead by a soldier at the scene.
The Democrats chairman Yair Golan blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for last night’s violent incident in Beit Shemesh in which an ultra-Orthodox mob broke into the city’s police station and set a fire following the arrest of a Haredi draft evader.
“The violence directed last night against the police station in Beit Shemesh is the consequence of the draft evasion law. When Netanyahu and Ben Gvir turn refusal to serve into a pillar of their coalition, the message to the streets is clear — draft dodgers matter more than police officers,” declares Golan.
“The assault on police officers over the arrest of a draft evader is not a loss of control, it is the violent enforcement of a political agreement. Ben Gvir, a minister whose concept of governance exists only on TikTok, is simply looking the other way and abandoning his own police officers. For him, and for Netanyahu, Israel Police officers are pawns that can be sacrificed in order to not upset ultra-Orthodox political wheeler-dealers,” he says.
“The rioters understand that they have political backing and that attacking and assaulting those in uniform is permissible.”
The incident occurred less than a day after police’s Chief Rabbi Commander Rami Brachyahu told Radio Kol Barama that the force will no longer arrest Haredi draft evaders who come to police stations to file complaints.
Beit Shemesh Mayor Shmuel Greenberg did not release a statement following the violence. Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the municipality tells The Times of Israel that “for now, there is no official comment from the mayor.”
Last week, MK Moshe Gafni, the leader of Greenberg’s Degel HaTorah party, sent a letter instructing local party representatives on regional councils across the country to halt all cooperation with law enforcement.
Gaza mediators are set to try to pick up disarmament talks with Hamas in Egypt on Thursday, two Arab diplomats involved in the process tell The Times of Israel.
The talks have largely hit a wall, with Hamas refusing to accept the Board of Peace’s disarmament proposal, arguing that Israel should first be held to the terms of the first phase. Both sides accuse each other of repeated violations, including ongoing Israeli strikes and Hamas’s refusal to disarm.
While the US-led Board of Peace tasked with overseeing the postwar management of Gaza has not given up completely on the possibility that talks with Hamas might go somewhere after months of little progress, the panel is increasingly considering alternatives to US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, the two diplomats say.
Most prominent of those alternatives are ones that would see reconstruction allowed to begin in Gaza areas still occupied by Israel. Those parts were supposed to make up some 53% of the Strip, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that he’d ordered troops to expand that to 70%, squeezing some 2 million Palestinians, mostly living in tents, into what is left of the war-ravaged Strip.
The idea of the alternative proposal was to encourage Palestinians to move outside of Hamas-controlled areas by providing temporary housing, but it’s unclear whether Gazans will want to live under Israeli occupation and whether Hamas will try to block those people from doing so.
The model was previously shelved by the Trump administration after it faced pushback from potential donor countries concerned that it would lead to the permanent division of the Gaza Strip. But with Hamas barely budging in disarmament talks, ideas once dismissed have been brought back to the fore, one of the Arab diplomats says.
Another issue still dragging out the talks has been Hamas’s leadership elections — an opaque process that has been taking place for over a month. Hamas has argued that no final decision on disarmament can be made before a new leader of the group has been selected.
The race is seen as a close contest between the more Gaza-connected Khalil al-Hayya and the more Qatar-connected Khaled Mashaal. Both are hardliners, but Mashaal is seen as willing to take more practical steps to preserve Hamas as a political entity in the long-run, while Hayya wants Hamas to remain a dominant force in Gaza, rather than entering a period of dormancy while the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) takes over civil affairs in the Strip. The NCAG has yet to enter Gaza since its establishment in January, with the Board of Peace preferring to resolve the disarmament issue first.
Lawmakers on the Knesset House Committee vote 8-0 to advance the coalition’s bill to dissolve the Knesset, which will advance to its first reading in the plenum this afternoon.
Due to internal coalition disagreements, chairman and coalition whip Ofir Katz states that the bill will advance without specifying a date for early elections. This will be inserted into the legislation prior to the final two readings needed for it to pass into law. In the meantime, Katz only says that the range of dates will be somewhere between September 8 and October 26.
Elections must be held within five months of the law’s passing, which would mean mid- to late-October at the latest. The Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties reportedly favor an election date in early September during the run-up to the high holidays. Elections must, in any case, be held by October 27.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly urged the ultra-Orthodox parties not to force early elections in September, warning in private conversations that such a timeline would “endanger” the right-wing bloc’s chances of winning.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz say they have instructed the IDF to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“Following the repeated violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon by the Hezbollah terror organization and the attacks against our cities and citizens, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to strike terror targets in the Dahiyeh quarter of Beirut,” they say in a joint statement.
Israel has largely avoided striking in Beirut during the ceasefire, at the request of the Trump administration.
A man in his 40s has been found dead on a highway in southern Israel.
The body was discovered on Route 3 near the entrance to Hodaya, a moshav northeast of Ashkelon, police say.
Police have launched an investigation into his death. Officers are working to locate “vehicles that may have been involved in the incident,” police say.
Meanwhile, the body will be transferred to the Abu Kabir forensic institute to determine the cause of death.
Two rockets launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at northern Israel a short while ago were intercepted, the military says.
The IDF says that an apparent Hezbollah drone was also shot down over an area where troops are operating in southern Lebanon.
There are no reports of injuries.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun says that his country is facing “a vicious and reprehensible Israeli aggression,” after Israel stepped up its offensive against the Hezbollah terror group with the capture of the medieval Beaufort Castle.
Aoun condemns the Israeli offensive in a post on X and pledges to “work to end the suffering of the Lebanese people, and people in the south in particular.”
The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Lebanon today, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the castle’s seizure marked a “dramatic shift” in the fighting.
Hezbollah is attacking Israel’s north and Israeli troops in south Lebanon on a daily basis, as the Israeli military continues to strike the organization in Lebanon’s south. The ceasefire announced in mid-April has largely collapsed, though Israel is mostly avoiding strikes in Beirut and Hezbollah has limited its attacks to northern Israel.
An IDF soldier was killed and three others were wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack in southern Lebanon overnight, the military announces.
The slain soldier is named as Staff Sgt. Adam Tzarfati, 20, of the Commando Brigade’s Maglan Unit, from Rosh Haayin.
At around 1 a.m., an explosive-laden first-person view drone launched by Hezbollah struck a site in the southern Lebanon town of Yohmor, near the Beaufort Castle, where Israeli troops were operating.
The blast killed Tzarfati and wounded another soldier seriously. Two other troops were lightly hurt in the attack, the army says.
The wounded soldiers were airlifted to a hospital, and their families were notified, the IDF adds.
A suspected shell left over from World War II exploded under a stilt house in an Indonesian fishing village, killing five people and wounding nearly 20, police say.
The blast in Indonesia’s restive eastern Papua region startled locals with a thunderous boom yesterday afternoon, emitting a ball of flames followed by a thick smoke column, according to footage broadcast on Kompas TV.
Nine homes were destroyed.
TELAH TERJADI LEDAKAN DIDUGA BOM PENINGGALAN PERANG DUNIA KE-2.
Ledakan diduga berasal dari Bom Peninggalan Perang Dunia II di Kompleks Perikanan, Jln Walter Monginsidi, Kelurahan Fandoi, Distrik Biak Kota, Papua, Korban MD 5 orang, 3 orang lainnya dlm pencarian
31/5/2026_ https://t.co/MPm7AridEd pic.twitter.com/43dEBLXDZm
— NyxNara (@NaraSenyap) May 31, 2026
“The source of the explosion is strongly suspected to have been a bomb or mortar left over from World War II,” Papua police spokesman Cahyo Sukarnito says.
Three people are still recorded as missing, but Cahyo says several body parts have yet to be identified. At least 19 people were treated for minor injuries, he adds.
Indonesia was a major battle zone during WWII when Japanese forces occupied what was then the Dutch East Indies, and Allied forces fought to retake control.
US President Donald Trump says that Iran really wants to make a deal with the US and that it will be a good one for Washington and its allies.
“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us,” Trump posts on Truth Social.
He goes on to lament the constant “chirping” by various politicians and commentators about the situation, which he claims is making it harder “to properly do my job.”
“Don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever. Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end – It always does!” he says.
One rocket launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Upper Galilee this morning was intercepted, the military says.
An interceptor missile was also fired at an apparent Hezbollah drone over the Kiryat Shmona area. The IDF says the results of the interception are under review.
Meanwhile, the IDF says it struck a Hezbollah launcher used to fire rockets at Tiberias last night.
תוך דקות: צה"ל השמיד את המשגר ממנו חיזבאללה שיגר רקטות לעבר טבריה הלילה pic.twitter.com/xzEs0FtWhO
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) June 1, 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says its aerospace force targeted an air base used in what it calls a US attack on a telecoms tower on Sirik Island.
It does not give the location of the base, but the announcement comes shortly after Kuwait reported an incoming missile and drone attack.
The US military carried out several “self-defense strikes” against Iranian military targets over the weekend after a US drone was shot down in international waters, US Central Command (CENTCOM) says.
In a statement, CENTCOM says it hit “radar and command and control sites for drones in Goruk, Iran and Qeshm Island.”
It says that the strikes, launched on Saturday and Sunday, were carried out in response to “aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters.”
“US fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defenses, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters,” CENTCOM says.
The statement adds that no US troops were harmed in the incident.
Kuwait’s air defenses are intercepting missile and drone attacks as sirens sound across the country, the state news agency KUNA reports, without providing further details.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken with both Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, a US official says.
The US has proposed that, as a first step, Hezbollah will stop all attacks on Israel, and in return, Israel would refrain from escalation in Beirut, the official says.
The US official adds that Aoun tried to advance this proposal, but Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri placed the burden on Israel to stop “shooting first.”
Dozens of protesters broke into a police station compound in Beit Shemesh earlier tonight and set fire to nearby vegetation following the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox draft evader in the city.
Footage shared on social media shows a large crowd of jeering ultra-Orthodox men hurling debris at the police station as others force open the gate, allowing them to push their way in.
הפרגוד: הפריצה הלילית הדרמטית של המפגינים למשטרת בית שמש pic.twitter.com/A1FXAeHKeY
— הפרגוד (@moshepargod) May 31, 2026
In another video, police can be seen pushing back a crowd of men trying to force their way in through another entrance to the compound.
The crowd begins chanting “murderer! murderer!” as one police officer appears to punch several protesters as he moves them away from the entrance.
דרמה: בעקבות הפרסום מאות מנסים לפרוץ כעת למשטרת בית שמש, במחאה על מעצר בחור הישיבה pic.twitter.com/K2jatdTamG
— יוסי פלד Yossi Feld (@Yossi_Feld) May 31, 2026
Officers from the Israel Police Jerusalem District were deployed to the scene along with Border Police soldiers and forcibly dispersed the protesters, including with stun grenades, according to Hebrew media reports.
The police issue a statement saying they have regained control over the compound and are continuing to dispel protesters gathered in the surrounding streets.
Tehran is making amendments to a draft Memorandum of Understanding to end the war with the US, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reports, citing an unnamed source, after reports emerged that US President Donald Trump had sent a tougher MOU proposal back to Iran, and underlined the rift that the parties still need to close.
Appearing to acknowledge the new, tougher proposal that Iran received, Tasnim says that exchanges on the text “are ongoing, with both parties regularly proposing amendments.”
At the same time, Iran’s chief negotiator warns that the US is not to be trusted, saying Tehran will not agree to any deal with Washington unless it fully secures Iranian rights.
British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper calls on Israel and Hezbollah to respect a failed ceasefire in Lebanon amid an escalation in fighting between the two sides following several weeks of reduced conflict.
In particular, she says Israel’s advance deeper into southern Lebanon “must end,” saying it has “killed and displaced civilians, destroyed infrastructure, and eroded space for diplomacy.”
Hezbollah, Cooper says, “must end attacks on Israel and disarm.”
“All sides must respect the ceasefire and engage with negotiations in good faith,” she adds.
Hezbollah fired five rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel a short while ago.
The IDF says three rockets were launched toward the Kiryat Shmona area, two of which were intercepted. The result of the third interception attempt is under review, the military says.
Two more rockets were fired toward Tiberias. The IDF says one hit an open area, and the second fell in Lebanon, close to where troops are operating.
