ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 648
The Times of Israel live-blogged Thursday’s events as they happened. (Thursday night and Friday’s ongoing live blog, from the start of the Israeli attack on Iran, is here.)
A young man aged around 20 was shot dead in Ar’ara in northern Israel tonight.
The man was rushed to a Hadera hospital in serious condition, where he died of his wounds.
Police are investigating the incident.
More from Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon:
In a post to X, Danon calls the motion “one-sided… without any binding demand for the release of our hostages and without condemning Hamas terrorism.”
He adds: “This resolution lends legitimacy to terror and ignores the massacre, rape, and torture carried out by Hamas. It is a grave abandonment of the hostages and a reward for terrorism. We will continue to fight until every one of our hostages returns home.”
The UN General Assembly has just passed a one-sided resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza—without any binding demand for the release of our hostages and without condemning Hamas terrorism.
This resolution lends legitimacy to terror and ignores the massacre, rape,… pic.twitter.com/CdxUyDjQGI
— Danny Danon ???????? דני דנון (@dannydanon) June 12, 2025
The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza and aid access, after the United States vetoed a similar effort in the Security Council last week.
The 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution that also demands the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, the return of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The text garnered 149 votes in favor, while 19 countries abstained and the US, Israel and 10 others voted against.
The resolution “strongly condemns the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians … of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supply and access.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the General Assembly this was “blood libel.” He had urged countries not to take part in what he said was a “farce” that undermines hostage negotiations and fails to condemn Hamas.
“It must be acknowledged that by failing to condition a ceasefire on the release of the hostages, you told every terrorist organization that abducting civilians works,” he said.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry weight as a reflection of the global view on the war. Previous demands by the body for an end to the war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas have been ignored. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country has a veto in the General Assembly.
The US has told Israel it will not participate in any potential strike on Iran’s nuclear program in the coming days, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and Axios.
The Journal cites an official with knowledge of the matter as saying Washington will not provide any offensive support for an Israeli strike. Axios quotes two US sources and an Israeli official as saying the same.
Axios notes it is still possible that the US will offer other support, including in logistics and intelligence, while adding that it is likely to assist Israel in defending itself from any Iranian retaliation, should a strike take place.
The Journal says that though Washington is not providing official support for the Israeli threats of military action, officials do hope the pressure will lead to Iranian concessions in negotiations still taking place between the sides through Omani mediation.
The security cabinet discussed the state of talks to reach a hostage deal with Hamas, an Israeli official says after the forum convened in Jerusalem.
“The negotiating team is ready for proximity talks, depending on the progress achieved,” says the official.
US President Donald Trump says the United States still wants a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s nuclear program, after warning earlier that an Israeli strike on Iran is likely.
“We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue! My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran,” Trump says on his Truth Social network.
“They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
An Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed one person, Lebanon’s health ministry says, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
In a statement, the ministry says the person was killed by an “Israeli enemy drone strike” on a motorcycle in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa.
Israel doesn’t immediately comment on the incident.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reports several Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon.
Sympathy for Israelis dropped 14% among Republicans over the last year, underscoring waning support for Israel as the country’s ongoing offensive in Gaza wages on, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University.
Among Republicans, the new poll finds that 64% say their sympathies lay with the Israelis, while 7% say they are with Palestinians. In a May 2024 Quinnipiac poll, Republicans sympathy for Israel was at 78%, marking a 14% drop.
The poll also funds dwindling support for Israel among Democrats, who had already sharply trailed Republicans in saying they viewed Israel favorably.
Just 12% say their sympathies lay more with Israelis, while 60% sympathize more with Palestinians. Last year, 30% of Democrats said they sympathized more with Israelis, demonstrating a 18% drop.
Lebanese media reports Israeli airstrikes near the towns of Baisariyeh and Tebna, south of Sidon.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
منطقة تبنا منذ قليل#ملحق pic.twitter.com/0MgGaVye7O
— Mulhak – ملحق (@Mulhak) June 12, 2025
A US senator from California is forcibly removed after interrupting a news conference being held by the US homeland security chief.
“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” according to an AFP journalist there, as two men pushed and shoved him out of the room.
Padilla’s office says he was forced to the ground and handcuffed after being removed from the press conference.
He is currently not detained, according to a statement from his office.
Kristi Noem was holding a news conference to discuss immigration enforcement arrests that have spiked tensions in America’s second-largest city, leading to street protests and President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines.
Police arrest three anti-war protesters in Haifa for disturbing the peace.
The demonstrators “raised signs and chanted in condemnation of Israel and its actions in the war in Gaza, which could disturb the peace of the public,” the Israel Police says in a statement.
The police say demonstrators “ignored the instructions of the police at the scene,” during the “illegal demonstration” on the city’s Ben Gurion Street.
“The Israel Police sees the right to demonstrate as a cornerstone of a democratic state, and allows protests so long as they are held within the law,” the statement says.
“The police will not allow civil disorder of any kind or violation of the freedom of movement, or any behavior that could endanger the wellbeing of the public,” it concludes.
The family of slain hostage Yair Yaakov, whose body was recovered from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday by Israeli troops and returned to Israel for burial, eulogizes him and calls for the return of all remaining hostages.
“My father came home, but not as we dreamed. Dad was a simple man with a huge heart,” says Yagil Yaakov, the slain captive’s son.
“He loved the land of our country, the fields, nature, and the small, simple things in life. He always taught us to appreciate what we have, to smile, to be happy, and to try to be content—even when it’s hard.”
Yagil adds: “We also want to remind everyone that there are still 53 hostages who are waiting to return home. We pray that each and every one of them will return soon to their families.”
The slain hostage’s partner, Meirav Tal, mourns “my Yaya, my partner, my best friend,” adding: “We had a loving, flourishing, and happy home. Just the evening before [October 7], we celebrated Yaya’s 59th birthday.”
Tal was kidnapped by terrorists alongside Yaakov and his two children from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught and was later released as part of a hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and the terror group.
She extends “enormous thanks to the IDF, to the angels in uniform — whom I love so much. With endless dedication — they acted and brought Yaya back. Words cannot describe my appreciation and love for them. Thanks to them, I felt embraced, protected, not alone.”
Renana Gome, the mother of Yair’s children, says the state and its security services “fulfilled your moral duty—something that sadly can no longer be taken for granted.”
“This duty—also a right and a sacred responsibility—applies to all the hostages still held in terrible conditions. Those who are still alive, whose families count every second in agony, and those who have been killed, whose families are still waiting. Waiting for peace. Waiting to begin the mourning process that remains on hold,” she says.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 53 hostages, including 52 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 31 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
The United States is advising its citizens in the Middle East and North Africa region to exercise increased caution due to heightened regional tensions, the US State Department says.
This morning, the US announced it would evacuate some personnel from the region amid fears they could be targeted by Iran in reprisal actions.
A rash of reports over the last day, citing US officials, have said Israel could in the coming days attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. US President Donald Trump, however, has called on Israel to hold off on a strike for now.
US President Donald Trump’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff told Senate Republicans last Thursday, in a closed-door briefing, that if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Iranian Republic’s response could be a mass casualty event, Axios reports.
Witkoff — who is expected in Oman on Sunday for another round in the US’s ongoing talks with Iran to reach a deal concerning the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program — told the lawmakers that Israeli military strikes are on the table if the negotiations fail, the report says, citing a US official and a source with direct knowledge.
The presidential envoy raised the topic of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, the sources said, and claimed that the US is concerned Israel’s air defenses could be overwhelmed by an attack involving hundreds of missiles.
In October 2024, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel, though much of the attack was thwarted by air defenses in Israel and with the help of regional allies and the US. A similar attack in April 2024, which also used drones and cruise missiles, was also largely foiled.
Axios reports, citing a US official, that since the October attack, Iran has ramped up production of ballistic missiles to some 50 per month. The Islamic Republic’s goal is to produce more missiles than Israel has interceptors, the official says.
Several reports over the last day have said US officials think Israel could be preparing to strike Iran in the coming days, even as US and Iranian representatives are set to continue talks this Sunday in Oman on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
However, the US ambassador to Jerusalem has stressed he doesn’t believe Israel would strike without a green light from US President Donald Trump, who today reiterated his call for Israel to hold off on such an attack as negotiations continue. The military’s Home Front Command has also said, in response to “rumors,” that there is no change to the civilian guidelines at this time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes his security cabinet in Jerusalem.
The 8:00 p.m. meeting — reported already on Tuesday — comes amid what Netanyahu called “tentative progress” in hostage talks with Hamas, and unnamed US officials telling media outlets that they are concerned that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program might be impending.
Amid reports claiming that Israel is ready to carry out an attack on Iran in the coming days, the IDF Home Front Command says there are no changes to guidelines for civilians.
“Following the rumors in the media and on [social] networks, the Home Front Command wishes to make it clear that there is no change in guidelines for the public,” the IDF says.
Several reports over the last day have said US officials think Israel could be preparing to strike Iran in the coming days, even as US and Iranian representatives are set to continue talks this Sunday in Oman on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
However, the US ambassador to Jerusalem has stressed he doesn’t believe Israel would strike without a green light from US President Donald Trump, who today reiterated his call for Israel to hold off on such an attack as nuclear negotiations continue.
The IDF issues a new evacuation warning in the southern Gaza Strip, slightly expanding a large no-go zone.
“The IDF is operating with great force in the areas where you are located to destroy the capabilities of the terror organizations,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee says on X, attaching a map showing the areas that are to be evacuated.
Palestinian civilians in the area are called to head west.
#عاجل ‼️ الى كل المتواجدين في مركز مدينة خان يونس، معسكر خان يونس وحي البطن السمين في بلوكات 63, 64, 100, 107, 108
⭕️جيش الدفاع يعمل بقوة شديدة جداً في مناطق وجودكم لتدمير قدارت المنظمات الإرهابية
⭕️من أجل سلامتكم، اخلوا فوراً الى المآوي في المواصي
⭕️أوامر الاخلاء لا تشمل… pic.twitter.com/Z7OPxNAWPT
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) June 12, 2025
US President Donald Trump says that Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, but that Tehran can avoid conflict by ceding more ground in talks with Washington.
“I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” Trump tells reporters when asked if Israel will attack Iran.
However, he calls on Israel not to strike Iran, saying that a deal remains close on Tehran’s nuclear program.
“We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement,” Trump tells reporters, saying of Israel: “I don’t want them going in, because I think it would blow it.”
He also he’d “love to avoid the conflict.”
“Iran’s going to have to negotiate a little bit tougher, meaning they’re going to have to give us something they’re not willing to give us right now,” Trump adds.
The United Nations says that there is a full internet blackout in the Gaza Strip, likely due to military activity damaging the last cable into the enclave, which has paralyzed aid operations.
“Lifelines to emergency services, humanitarian coordination, and critical information for civilians have all been cut. There is a full internet blackout, and mobile networks are barely functioning,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq tells reporters.
“In a context already limited by physical access restrictions and widespread damage, emergency services are cut off, and civilians cannot access life-saving support,” Haq says.
Six additional activists from the Madleen boat that sought to break Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza earlier this week are transferred to Ben Gurion Airport to be deported from Israel.
Both the Foreign Ministry and the Adalah civil rights organization confirm that six more of the passengers are set to be deported today and early tomorrow, three days after their boat was intercepted by the IDF and towed to Ashdod.
They are Mark van Rennes from the Netherlands, Suayb Ordu from Turkey, Yasemin Acar from Germany, Thiago Avila from Brazil, Reva Viard from France and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament for the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party who is of Palestinian descent.
“Six more passengers from the ‘selfie yacht,’ including Rima Hassan, are on their way out of Israel,” the Foreign Ministry writes on X alongside photos of them in the airport and aboard planes. “Bye-bye—and don’t forget to take a selfie before you leave.”
The two remaining activists, Pascal Maurieras and Yanis Mhamdi, both of whom are also French, are scheduled to be deported tomorrow and will remain in custody at Givon Prison in Ramle until then.
Four activists from the Madleen waived their right to be brought before a judge and were therefore deported immediately on Tuesday, including famed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul says Iran should distance itself from any plans to acquire nuclear weapons, after Tehran announced plans to increase its output of enriched uranium.
“We expect Iran to credibly renounce any plans to acquire nuclear weapons,” Wadephul tells journalists in Rome ahead of a new round of talks between the United States and Iran on the issue.
He adds, “Everyone wants to avoid any escalation. We will not stand by idly and watch Iran become nuclear-armed. That must be made clear in this situation.”
Wadephul will travel to the Middle East tonight, and will be in Israel on Sunday, where the issue of Iran will be on the table, he says.
Italy has no indication there will be an Israeli attack on Iran in the near future, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says.
“I don’t know if there will be an Israeli attack on Iran, we have no signs, apart from what the Americans have done, that there will be an attack in the immediate future,” Tajani tells reporters.
After the IDF said it launched an airstrike in Gaza on a terrorist, the victim was identified as a disabled man with special needs
The IDF issued a statement saying it carried out an airstrike last month targeting a “terrorist” in Khan Younis, but a Haaretz report identifies him as a man with special needs.
The incident took place on May 30 and shortly afterward, footage of the strike blowing Muhammad al-Farra to pieces was posted on the Telegram page of Israeli journalist Amit Segal with the Hebrew caption, “Gaza.” It was liked by thousands of followers.
The clip shows Farra walking with a limp before being targeted. Farra was diagnosed with cerebral palsy after a childhood accident.
ارتقاء الشاب / محمد ياسين صهيب الفرا.
من ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة.
والذي فقدت اثاره منذ ايام وتبين اليوم انه قد تم استهدافه بواسطة طائرات العدو الصهيوني اثناء تفقده لمنزلة في مدينة خانيونس منطقة السطر الغربي .
المجد للشهداء والعار للخونة والجواسيس . pic.twitter.com/gydh7LDMgz— Mahmoud Alfarra (@Alfarramahmoud2) May 30, 2025
His sister told Haaretz that the army prevented the family from recovering his body for several hours.
The IDF, in its statement on the incident, says the man was identified walking in and out of buildings “used for terrorist activity” and that it had already ordered the area to be evacuated. It does not explain why or how Farra was identified as a terrorist.
A series of cabinet ministers and coalition MKs vow to annex the West Bank and Gaza at a conference of the ultranationalist Sovereignty Movement’s youth chapter, Noar Ribonut, in the city of Sderot.
“The time has come for sovereignty, and for us to impose it right now,” says Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har Melech, a long-time proponent of annexing the West Bank.
“Sderot has suffered the price for not applying sovereignty, for abandoning the Gaza Strip,” she continues in reference to the thousands of rockets fired by Palestinian terror groups from Gaza, which have hit the city over the last 25 years.
“The price for not imposing sovereignty is soaked in blood. If we don’t learn this lesson, we will pay the price in blood again. Those who live in Sderot understand the price of hesitation, weakness and, retreat.
“We are not waiting for the non-Jews, sovereignty is the only way to ensure security,” insists the MK.
Speaking in a video message to the conference, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lauds his own efforts for asserting ever greater control over the West Bank, stating that “we are applying de facto sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” and expressed the hope that formal annexation could be achieved soon with the support of the Trump administration.
And Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi extols his efforts in upgrading internet connectivity in the West Bank, saying that bringing infrastructure in the territory up to the same standard as within the pre-1967 lines is a key component of formally annexing the West Bank.
“Our right to the Land of Israel wasn’t born in the UN, it was born in Jerusalem, in Beit El, in Shiloh, in Hebron, this is our land by right and not by kindness,” he insists.
“Together we will establish sovereignty from Judea and Samaria to Gaza.”
Israel is unlikely to attack Iran without a green light from Washington, says US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in an interview with Ynet.
“I won’t be making that decision,” says the former governor and Baptist minister. “I just don’t in my mind see that that would be something that would likely happen because of the closeness of the relationship and the trust, and that’s the word I would emphasize, there is a trust between the US and Israel.”
Huckabee cast doubt on reports that US President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week not to attack Iran: “I can’t say that the president gave any instructions. I know they’ve had many conversations and they’ve discussed all aspects, but it would not be like the president to give instructions to the prime minister any more than it would be typical that the prime minister would give instructions to the president.”
Trump will not agree to a JCPOA 2.0 deal in nuclear talks with Iran, insists Huckabee.
“He was the president who tore up the first one,” he says, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal spearheaded by the Barack Obama administration. “I think the last thing he would have any interest in doing would be to embrace an Obama policy that was a total failure and one that he rejected as soon as he got in office.”
“The president made very clear that Iran is not going to have a nuclear weapon, that Iran isn’t going to have any enrichment, and I don’t know how much clearer he could get than he was,” Huckabee adds.
He also says that reports that Trump is frustrated with Netanyahu are “simply not the case.”
“The relationship is, I believe, rock solid.”
Turning to the Gaza war, Huckabee blasts Western partners for “putting more pressure on Israel than they’re putting on Hamas.”
He blames Hamas for the continuation of the war by refusing to surrender, while stressing that the terror organization cannot be allowed to stay in power in Gaza: “Leaving Hamas in power and letting them rule Gaza for the same way that World War II could not end, leaving the Nazis in Germany and letting them continue to rule the place. Plus, that is the message the president has sent us here with Hamas can’t stay.”
“Hamas is not gonna have a role,” Huckabee continues, “so I don’t think there’s any difference of opinion between the president, the prime minister on what it has to look like at the end.”
Despite violence and chaos at distribution sites, Huckabee doubles down on support for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund: “It’s getting better every day. We learn something new every day, and how it’s being carried out. We’re getting greater levels of security, pushing the food further inward to the people who are receiving it, so it’s easier for them to get it. Hamas is doing everything it can to disrupt the flow of the food, and that’s the piece of this that isn’t getting reported.”
He adds that the US is “very frustrated with the fact that the UN has been screaming to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, and then when we created an organization to do that very thing, they’ve sat on their hands.”
He calls the French-Saudi United Nations on Palestinian statehood next week “ridiculously ill-timed.”
“This was in the midst of a war, for heaven’s sakes, that they, they’re facing threats on all sides,” he says of Israel. “You would think that if European countries have time and energy to put pressure on anyone, anything for any purpose, they would say, Hamas, we’re putting all the pressure on you.”
Huckabee says that Washington would not interfere with a decision to annex parts of the West Bank.
“We don’t want to tell Israel what it should do and how it should create communities in Judea and Samaria,” he says, using the Israeli name for the West Bank. “We have been very clear, and this goes back to the first Trump administration, that developing communities in Judea and Samaria is not a violation of international law.”
Asked about the International Criminal Court, Huckabee calls the Hague-based court “an incredibly lawless, worthless entity that is going after Israelis.”
Israeli troops fired “warning shots” at a crowd of Palestinians that approached them and “posed a threat” in the Netzarim Corridor area of central Gaza overnight, the military says, in what has become a near-daily occurrence.
Palestinian media reported that some 32 were killed by Israeli fire as they approached an aid site operated by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the area.
The IDF says that “according to a preliminary examination, the number of reported casualties does not match the information available to the IDF.”
“The details of the incident continue to be examined in depth,” the IDF says.
According to the IDF, the shooting took place hundreds of meters from the GHF site, and before it was open for aid distribution.
The military says the Palestinians approached the troops “despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone.”
The army has warned Palestinians not to approach routes leading to GHF sites between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time, describing these roads as closed military zones. Still, GHF has indicated that its sites are open past those hours.
Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu seemingly calls for Israeli control over Syria and Lebanon, as well as sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, at an ultranationalist conference in Sderot.
Speaking at a conference held by the “Ribonut” organization’s youth chapter, Noar Ribonut, Eliyahu adjures the participants to show “spirit” for the country to be victorious in its wars and national goals.
“What happened on Simchat Torah [October 7] wasn’t because we weren’t strong, because we didn’t have good technology or a good air force, or good tanks. What didn’t we have? Spirit,” says Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
“Do you want sovereignty, then shout it,” he tells the audience.
“Do we want Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]? Do we want Syria? Do we want Lebanon? Do we want Gaza?” he calls out to the crowd, who shout back “Yes” for each territory.
“Then we need to shout it out,” says Eliyahu.
Strauss Group, one of the country’s largest food product manufacturers, says it will launch another round of price hikes on some of its products, mainly coffee and chocolate products, citing a continued increase in the costs of raw materials.
Prices will increase on July 1 and will affect 15% of the food manufacturer’s products. The cost of chocolate bars will rise by up to 15.8%, and cocoa powder by up to 16%. The price of Turkish coffee will increase by up to 5%, coffee beans by up to 6%, and instant coffee by up to 8%.
It marks the second round of increases this year after Strauss raised prices in January. The food manufacturer says coffee and cocoa prices, and the cost of Robusta and Arabica coffee beans have jumped by up to 49% in the last six months.
Strauss states that the price update only partially compensates for the costs of raw materials.
Israel is weighing military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program in the coming days, ABC News reports, citing “three sources familiar with the situation.”
The sources say they don’t know of a specific role the US would play in such a strike.
The sixth round of talks between the US and Iran is scheduled for Sunday.
The top US general says a new report from the UN nuclear watchdog is troubling, and the United States is watching the situation develop closely.
“The IAEA report is certainly troubling,” General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says.
He tells lawmakers that the international community appears to be thinking about what they will do about the IAEA’s latest resolution, which declared that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
One person survived when a London-bound passenger plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, with 242 on board, a state health official tells AFP.
“Yes, one survivor is confirmed,” says Dhananjay Dwivedi, principal secretary of Gujarat state’s health department. They are being treated in hospital, he adds without further details.
The Trump administration confirms that US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff will travel to Muscat on Sunday for the sixth round of nuclear talks with Iran.
Talks will be both direct and indirect, as in previous rounds, says a statement to reporters attributed to a source familiar.
After the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claimed that its dead and wounded workers — allegedly attacked by Hamas last night— were evacuated by the International Committee of the Red Cross to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, an ICRC spokesperson tells The Times of Israel that the organization was not involved in the evacuation.
While the ICRC operates a field hospital in Rafah, just south of Khan Younis, its medical teams do not operate inside Nasser Hospital.
A GHF spokesperson doesn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification based on the ICRC’s statement.
Popular Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair announces that it is extending its suspension of flight services to and from Tel Aviv until August 31.
“Ryanair has regrettably been forced to cancel flights to/from Tel Aviv,” the airline says in a statement. “Ryanair apologizes for these cancellations, which are beyond our control, and passengers are advised to download the Ryanair app to check for the latest flight updates.”
The low-cost carrier resumed flights to Israel in March after an extended hiatus, halting them again on May 4 following a Houthi attack in which a ballistic missile hit the grounds of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
An American security contractor working with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says the new aid initiative is plagued with problems and is not properly serving Palestinians.
The man — whose op-ed is anonymously published by the far-left Zeteo news site — says he is one of the hundreds of people hired by UG Solutions, one of the two American contractors working with GHF.
He says contractors were given very little information and training before being sent into Gaza.
“If you’re here to get your gun on, then pack your shit and go home, because that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to help,” he recalls being told during a briefing in Washington before they departed for Israel.
The contractors were given various lethal and non-lethal weapons but no one was tested to ensure proper training and no instructions were given for when to use them before they were sent into Gaza, he says. The anonymous contractor also says they didn’t receive cultural awareness training, even though some had never been deployed to the Mideast before.
While the American contractors were told they’d be working 12-hour shifts for four days before taking two days off, they’ve ended up working 20-hour shifts with no days off and are all sleep-deprived, he says.
The contractor recalls the chaos of the first full day of aid distribution on May 27, when GHF’s site was completely overrun.
“It was not organized, and people were getting smushed and trampled. Eventually, there were so many people in the lanes that the gates burst,” he writes. “They were only trying to get aid — aid, by the way, that consisted of flour, rice, lentils, tea bags, and noodles; things that need water. They don’t have any water. And we’re not giving out water.”
Despite assertions to the contrary by the IDF and GHF, the contractor says the Israeli army is very involved in the operation. The IDF has offices inside the GHF compounds and shares radio communications with GHF, he says.
“I went into this pretty open-minded. I don’t have a side. I despise human suffering, and I hate that it exists. I was just hoping to be helpful. But I don’t think we are. What we — these American companies and contract personnel — are doing is directly leading to more pain, suffering, and death for the Palestinians in Gaza,” he writes.
Syria’s interior ministry condemns an overnight Israeli incursion in southern Syria, saying Israeli forces killed one person and abducted seven others, calling it a “blatant violation” of the country’s sovereignty.
“We affirm that these repeated provocations constitute a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry says in a statement, adding that “these practices cannot lead the region to stability and will only result in further tension and turmoil.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for dealing a “crushing blow to the reservists” for agreeing to soften mandatory enlistment requirements and punishments for Haredi draft dodgers.
“The bottom line [is that] the proposed law will reduce recruitment of Haredim and also prevent Haredim from entering employment,” he tweets, insisting that the government’s decision was a message to “exhausted soldiers and families who were hoping for good news or relief on the horizon” that “there is no help on the way.”
According to the ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site, the new outline stipulates that the enlistment law will be a temporary measure lasting for only six years, or four if it fails to meet enlistment targets
While sanctions connected to academic study subsidies, international travel and driver’s licenses would be imposed immediately, others relating to daycare and public transportation subsidies would be delayed.
This compromise will “remove incentives to enlist” by restoring government benefits to draft evaders, “create strong incentives” not to work and deal a “fatal blow to the Israeli economy,” says Bennett. He calls for preventing the law’s passage and “replacing this egotistical and detached government as quickly as possible with a serious government that cares about the citizens of Israel.”
“It will happen soon.”
President Isaac Herzog presents his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei with the Genesis Prize during a ceremony in Jerusalem.
Milei was awarded the prize, sometimes referred to as “the Jewish Nobel Prize,” for reversing Argentina’s historic anti-Israel positions at the UN, designating Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, and reopening investigations into past anti-Jewish attacks, the Genesis Prize Foundation has said. The Genesis Prize committee also cited his success in stabilizing Argentina’s economy and achieving a fiscal surplus.
Prior to the award ceremony, Herzog and Milei marked the birthday of Hamas hostage Ariel Cunio, who has Argentinian citizenship, and also met with Argentine-born rescued captive Louis Har.
Two other Israeli-Argentine dual-nationals also remain in captivity: Ariel’s brother David Cunio and Eitan Horn. A fourth, Lior Rudaeff, was killed on October 7, 2023, and his remains have been held in Gaza since.
Iran will rebuild its nuclear facilities if they are destroyed, the country’s President Masoud Pezeshkian says, according to state media.
“It is not the case that if they destroy our facilities with bombs, everything will be lost — these capabilities exist in our minds, and therefore, whatever they do, we will rebuild again,” Pezeshkian says.
Railing at “outrageous hypocrisy,” US Ambassador Mike Huckabee blasts sanctions from five Western countries on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a meeting with the far-right lawmakers.
Huckabee hosts the two ministers at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, stressing that he is “glad to greet” them.
On Tuesday, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway announced that they would freeze assets and bar the entry of Smotrich and Ben Gvir for having “incited extremist violence” against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Glad to greet Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich & National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir at @usembassyjlm after they were ridiculously sanctioned by 5 nations. Outrageous hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/7PQIdNEBk0
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 12, 2025
PARIS — France accuses Iran of a “deliberate” escalation of nuclear tensions, following a UN atomic watchdog resolution declaring Tehran in breach of its obligations.
Paris denounces Iran’s “deliberate pursuit of nuclear escalation,” says a French foreign ministry spokesman, urging Tehran to return to the negotiating table. Iran earlier vowed to “significantly” increase its output of enriched uranium in defiance of US demands.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire on troops at a checkpoint near the West Bank settlement of Hermesh a short while ago, the military says.
Troops returned fire, “neutralizing” the assailant, the IDF says, adding that no soldiers were hurt.
Earlier today, the military says, it struck Hamas operatives at a building used as a weapons manufacturing plant in Gaza City’s Shati Camp.
“The facility struck was used to produce weapons for the Hamas terror organization and were intended to be used in terror attacks targeting IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip.
“The facility operators were terrorists who were part of Hamas’s weapons production unit,” the army says.
The IDF says that “Hamas embedded this weapon production facility in close proximity to a medical site. This site was not damaged during the strike.”
The Attorney General’s Office approves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appointment of Deputy Shin Bet chief “S” as acting head of the domestic security service, despite seemingly severe legal problems with the step.
The High Court recently determined that Netanyahu had a conflict of interest in firing outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar due to the agency’s participation in criminal investigations against the prime minister’s top aides.
The attorney general then told Netanyahu as a result that he was barred from appointing a new Shin Bet chief himself and must transfer that authority to another cabinet minister, but the prime minister has not done so.
The Attorney General’s Office states in a letter to the acting Civil Service commissioner that since having a serving Shin Bet chief is crucial for Israel’s security, Netanyahu’s appointment of “S” as acting agency head is permissible for up to a month.
“The attorney general believes that under the circumstances, and especially in light of the essential consideration of preventing harm to state security, the position can be assigned to the proposed candidate, as requested, for a period of one month,” states the Attorney General’s Office.
The Prime Minister’s Office said that “S” had been appointed for a month period in order to complete the appointment process of Maj. Gen. David Zini as permanent Shin Bet chief, although Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has asserted that Netanyahu’s appointment of Zini was unlawful due to his conflict of interest.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation releases new details about the alleged Hamas attack on its local workers in the Gaza Strip last night, accusing the terror group of preventing the dead and wounded from being allowed into Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis this afternoon.
The organization says that eight of its workers were killed and 21 seriously wounded when Hamas attacked a bus headed to its aid distribution sites. A crowd soon gathered at the scene, forcing the gunmen to retreat, according to the GHF update.
The dead and wounded workers were transported by the International Red Cross Committee to Nasser Hospital, where Hamas members threatened staff against providing the injured with medical treatment, says GHF. The update adds that “all wounded and dead local workers were piled in the Nasser Hospital parking lot,” where, as of 2 p.m., they have remained without treatment.
“The GHF is committed to helping the wounded and the families of the deceased and injured. Our first priority is to ensure that the injured receive the medical care that they need. We are working through many channels to transfer the injured from the hospital in Khan Younis to facilities with more robust capabilities,” reads the update.
“We call on the parties holding the remains of the deceased to immediately release them to their families for proper funerals and burials,” continues GHF, adding that its staff, “both international and local, are all more committed to delivering food aid to the people of Gaza after this tragedy.”
The IDF releases documents allegedly drawn up by Hamas that it says show that the terrorist group has maintained a policy of confiscating 15%-25% of aid entering Gaza during the war in order to finance its operations and pay operatives.
The organization, says the IDF, sent aid directly to terrorists in the field or sold it at exorbitant prices with the profits going to Hamas.
“Al Qassam [the Hamas military wing] took in the past 25% of the aid that arrived,” according to a planning document the IDF says is from Hamas. “It has been agreed with the brothers in Al Qassam that the percentages will be changed as such: 7% to Qassam, 4% to government entities, 4% to elements of the [Hamas] movement.”
The IDF also shares a March 2024 letter from a resident of Gaza’s Rimal neighborhood to a senior Hamas official complaining that the day before, members of the Hamas internal security force took 17 bags of flour and 15 aid coupons from his brother’s truck. The aid was purchased by his brother in Rafah and was meant for his extended family.
“We have a full list of the names of the intended recipients,” says the man, Idris Abdel Rahman Idris. “I express my hope that the confiscated aid will be returned to its legal owners.”
The documents also show the terror group scrambling to react to anger in northern Gaza over a lack of supplies, and civilians hiding aid from Hamas.
Hamas operatives in Beit Hanoun, according to internal documents, were recorded supporting demonstrations against Hamas demanding a ceasefire. Other Hamas members expressed doubt over their organization’s ability to handle rising prices and control theft.
“A number of organization members continue to curse the movement, and claim that the organization is the primary reason for the destruction in Gaza and for the collapsing living situation,” says an internal Hamas document.
Hamas also worked to smuggle in cigarettes to sell at exorbitant prices. Israel blocked the entry of cigarettes for this reason, says the IDF, and thwarted dozens of attempts to sneak cigarettes into Gaza.
Hamas funded itself through protection rackets and the Muslim hawalah international money transfer system through members in Turkey, says the IDF.
In all, Hamas has made hundreds of millions of dollars by stealing humanitarian aid during the war, says the Shin Bet.
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s term will end on Sunday at midnight, says a source in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Recently retired IDF Maj. Gen. David Zini is expected to ultimately replace Bar, although the formal appointment process is expected to take several more weeks.
Until then, deputy Shin Bet chief S. will fill the position
S. will hold the position for a month or until Zini’s appointment is completed, whichever comes first, says the official.
Bar was fired by the government in March under highly controversial circumstances.
The High Court froze his dismissal while it adjudicated petitions arguing that his firing was tainted by severe procedural failures and motivated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal and political expediencies, including investigations conducted by the Shin Bet into allegedly illicit ties between the prime minister’s aides and Qatar.
Bar subsequently announced he would step down on June 15.
The High Court then ruled that his dismissal had been unlawful and that Netanyahu had a conflict of interest in firing Bar due to the so-called Qatargate investigation, but did not issue operative orders due to Bar’s decision to resign.
Netanyahu, nevertheless, nominated Zini to replace Bar, but the attorney general said this was a conflict of interest for the prime minister and that Zini’s appointment was unlawful.
Officials say there are no known survivors after an Air India plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board crashed in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad.
Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane went down in a populated area near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.
“It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” Police Commissioner G.S. Malik tells The Associated Press.
“As the plane has fallen in a residential area which also had offices, some locals would have also died,” he adds. “Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained.”
Indian television news channels report that the plane crashed on top of the dining area of a medical college hostel and visuals show a portion of the aircraft atop the building. It is unclear if any medical students were present inside the building at the time of the crash.
Modi calls the crash “heartbreaking beyond words.”
“In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected,” he says in a social media post.
“The scenes emerging of a London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says in a statement.
Speaking with reporters in the wake of the failed attempt to pass an opposition-backed bill to dissolve the Knesset, The Democrats chair Yair Golan charges that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “entered a room with the heads of the Haredi factions and left with a disgraceful agreement” in order to stay in power.
“There is no ideology here. There is no love for the country here. There is no concern for security here. Only cynicism. Only selfish survival,” he declares, arguing that not only was Netanyahu betraying those who serve in the military, but also members of the Haredi community who “want to contribute to the state.”
“I call on the ultra-Orthodox public, on the ultra-Orthodox boys and girls, do not be afraid, come enlist, let us be Israelis who serve together. Let us be one people,” he says.
“The Democrats will not enter a government that does not ensure complete equality in the draft,” Golan promises, calling on other opposition parties to “pledge together to the citizens of Israel that we will never again sell out the serving public” and that the current government will be “the last government of evasion.”
Responding to a reporter’s question as to why the opposition did not withdraw the bill to dissolve the Knesset after it lost Haredi support, Golan responds that he was “happy that this law was brought up and the reason is simple: we have exposed the true face of the Israeli government and its leader.”
Asked by The Times of Israel what he thinks about the compromise reached by the Haredi parties and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, Golan calls the Likud lawmaker a “paper tiger” whose decision constituted an “unparalleled disgrace.”
“What appears to be sanctions is not sanctions. It is an incentive for ultra-Orthodox youth to stay in yeshiva, that’s all,” he says.
Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, resigns from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet after lawmakers vote down a bill to dissolve the Knesset.
Goldknopf’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction supported the dissolution and expressed opposition to the compromise that Shas and Degel Hatorah agreed to with Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, which paved the way for the measure’s defeat.
In a letter to Netanyahu, Goldknopf said that the premier had been warned that if no progress had been made on legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service by early June, “significant steps” would be taken against the coalition.
According to Goldknopf, the understandings on enlistment reached by Shas and Degel Hatorah do not live up to the promises made by Netanyahu in his coalition agreement with UTJ “and therefore I can no longer take part as a member of this government.”
Goldknopf’s move — which comes after a party official told Haaretz on Wednesday that if Degel HaTorah and Shas opposed the dissolution measure, his faction’s ministers will resign — will force UTJ lawmaker Moshe Roth out of the Knesset under the so-called Norwegian Law.
Despite Goldknopf’s resignation, United Torah Judaism remains a member of the coalition.
Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush has yet to announce if he will resign as well. While denied by his spokesman, Hebrew media this week reported that Porush had sought to reverse his party’s decision to support the Knesset dissolution bill.
In March, Goldknopf symbolically resigned from his secondary ministerial position as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, citing the government’s lack of progress toward passing the bill his party seeks exempting yeshiva students from military conscription.
Egyptian authorities have detained more than 200 anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists in Cairo ahead of an international march with the stated aim of breaking the blockade on Gaza, organizers say.
As part of the Global March to Gaza, thousands of activists planned to travel to Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian enclave on Friday to demand the entry of humanitarian aid.
The march’s spokesperson Saif Abukeshek tells AFP: “Over 200 participants were detained at Cairo airport or questioned at hotels across Cairo.”
He adds that those detained included nationals from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Morocco and Algeria.
Abukeshek said that plainclothes police entered hotels in Cairo on yesterday with lists of names, questioned activists and in some cases confiscated mobile phones and searched personal belongings.
“After interrogations, some were arrested and others were released,” he adds.
At Cairo airport, some detainees were held for long hours without explanation, Abukeshek said, adding that others were deported, without specifying exact numbers.
Twenty French activists who had planned to join the march were held at Cairo airport “for 18 hours,” he says.
“What happened was completely unexpected,” Abukeshek says.
Footage shared with AFP shows dozens of people with their luggage crammed inside a holding room at the airport.
Cairo’s security chief does not respond to an AFP request for comment.
Another convoy dubbed Soumoud, or steadfastness in Arabic, left the Tunisian capital on Monday, hoping to pass through divided Libya and Egypt — which organizers say has yet to provide passage permits — to reach Gaza.
The Global March to Gaza, which is coordinating with Soumoud, said around 4,000 participants from more than 40 countries will take part in the event, with many having already arrived ahead of tomorrow’s march.
According to the plan, participants are set to travel by bus to the city of El-Arish in the heavily securitized Sinai Peninsula before walking 50 kilometers (30 miles) toward the border with Gaza.
They will then camp there before returning to Cairo on June 19.
Israel has called on Egyptian authorities “to prevent the arrival of jihadist protesters to the Egypt-Israel border.”
In response, Egypt’s foreign ministry said that while it backs efforts to put “pressure on Israel,” any foreign delegations visiting the border area must receive approval through official channels.
The Sinai Peninsula is a tightly controlled security zone, with access routes frequently punctuated by military and police checkpoints.
Iraq says its intelligence and field reports show no threats to diplomatic missions, the state news agency reports, after US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that US personnel were being moved out of the embassy in Baghdad due to rising regional tensions.
Six activists from the Madleen boat that sought to break Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza earlier this week are being taken to Ben Gurion Airport for deportation, the Adalah civil rights organization says.
The six volunteers expected to be deported today or early tomorrow morning are Mark van Rennes from the Netherlands, Suayb Ordu from Turkey, Yasemin Acar from Germany, Thiago Avila from Brazil, Reva Viard from France, and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament.
The two remaining activists, Pascal Maurieras and Yanis Mhamdi, both of whom are also French, are scheduled to be deported tomorrow and will remain in custody at Givon Prison in Ramle until then.
Four activists from the Madleen waived their right to be brought before a judge and were therefore deported immediately. The other eight challenged their detention after the Israeli navy intercepted the Madleen in international waters and towed the vessel to the Port of Ashdod. But the Detention Review Tribunal ruled that the naval blockade on Gaza is lawful under Israeli law and that the activists knowingly attempted to breach it and were therefore lawfully detained.
The Foreign Ministry calls for ramped-up international pressure on Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution today declaring that Iran is in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations.
“Iran has engaged in a systematic clandestine nuclear weapons program. It is rapidly accumulating highly enriched uranium, clearly proving the nature of the program is for non-peaceful purposes,” writes the ministry’s spokesperson on X.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors has concluded, with overwhelming international support (19 in favor, 3 against), that Iran is non-complying with its safeguards obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran has engaged in a… pic.twitter.com/rQjCZkKIsJ
— Oren Marmorstein (@OrenMarmorstein) June 12, 2025
Iran’s “actions undermine the global non-proliferation regime and pose an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability. The international community must respond decisively to Iran’s non-compliance and take measures to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” he adds .
Eight of its staffers were killed overnight by Hamas, says the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Earlier estimates by the group said five were killed.
GHF still suspects that some may have been taken hostage.
Despite the attacks, GHF delivered the most meals it has in a single day today, according to its own figures.
It opened three sites, two in southern Gaza’s Tel Sultan and one at Wadi Gaza in the central Strip. The organization distributed over 45,000 boxes of food aid today, with more than half of those distributed at its original aid site in Rafah, near the shore along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The US- and Israeli-backed foundation says each box contains meals for 5.5 people for 3.5 days.
“We carefully considered closing our sites today given the heightened security risks and safety concerns, but we decided that the best response to Hamas’ cowardly murderers was to keep delivering food for the people of Gaza who are counting on us,” says GHF interim executive director John Acree. “We will not be deterred from our mission towards providing food security for the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar blasts French President Emmanuel Macron for praising a letter in which PA President Mahmoud Abbas, for the first time since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, explicitly condemns the attack.
In a post on X, Sa’ar calls the letter, addressed to Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “a sad joke,” saying that only now, Abbas condemned the attack “using weak and feeble language… as if France had been the target.”
President Macron expresses excitement over the orchestrated letter he received from Mahmoud Abbas. What made the French president so enthusiastic about a letter full of empty slogans, hollow promises that have been made countless times before, and lies that have no connection to… https://t.co/sIcjXpfuia
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 12, 2025
Abbas outlined his vision for how to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace in the region in the letter to Macron and bin Salman, who will co-chair a conference on a two-state solution later this month.
Sa’ar says any claim by Abbas to “oppose terror” or to reform the PA in the West Bank is invalid: “What real reforms has he actually implemented?” Sa’ar demands. “The incitement against Israel remains exactly the same: in schools, in textbooks, in Palestinian media, and in mosques. And so does the continued policy of rewarding terrorists, the infamous ‘Pay for Slay,'” he wrote, accusing the PA of decades-long “commitment to the ethos of terrorism.”
Abbas has repeatedly condemned Hamas in recent months and has instituted reforms, including one that would end the PA’s controversial policy of financially rewarding the families of Palestinian security prisoners and slain terrorists who carried out attacks against Israelis.
Abbas’s pledge to dismantle Hamas and take over postwar Gaza is “laughable and entirely detached from reality. We all remember how the Palestinian Authority…fled Gaza shortly after Israel withdrew,” and even now “cannot maintain control” in the West Bank, Sa’ar continues.
Sa’ar warns that any future Palestinian state would “at lightning speed” mirror Gaza’s fall to Hamas.
“Israel will not base its policy or its future on empty illusions that have blown up in our faces countless times,” the foreign minister asserts. “If Macron is so eager for a Palestinian state — he is welcome to establish one in France’s vast territory.”
A man thought to have murdered his 80-year-old mother has died after jumping off the roof of a building in Rehovot, Hebrew outlets report.
Police earlier this morning found the elderly victim’s body with a gunshot wound to the head and began a search for the son, upon which he barricaded himself on the roof of a building.
Despite police attempts to bring the man down from the roof, he eventually jumped off the building. Paramedics took him to the city’s Kaplan Medical Center in critical condition, where he was soon pronounced dead by hospital staff.
Iran’s military has begun drills earlier than planned to focus on “enemy movements,” state media reports, as Washington withdraws personnel from the region during heightened frictions.
Earlier today, US networks CBS and NBC reported that Israel is ready to carry out an attack on Iran, and could take action in the coming days.
A Muslim cleric in Sydney who called Jews “vile” and “treacherous” is on trial for racial discrimination in Australia’s federal court.
Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, gave a series of speeches late last year designed to dehumanize and denigrate the Jewish people, according to a suit filed by The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
Haddad told the court Wednesday that statements made at his lectures were intended only for the Muslims attending his lecture, according to news reports. However, prosecutors showed that ads run beforehand promoting the lecture made it clear that the lectures would be recorded and uploaded to social media.
Before the trial started, Haddad also uploaded a video to social media rejecting the court’s authority to try non-Muslims, reports say. The case is expected to run through the end of the week.
ECAJ recently won a similar case against Sheikh Ahmed Zoud, a Sydney preacher who said in a recorded sermon that Jews were bloodthirsty, treacherous “monsters” who “ran like rats” when Hamas launched its war on Israel on October 7, 2023.
However, shortly after he issued a public apology for his statements, he called in a separate sermon for Allah to “kill all” oppressors, without referring explicitly to Jews.
Australia’s 120,000-strong Jewish community has faced relentless antisemitism since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The country experienced over 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadruple the number from the year before, according to ECAJ.
Sixteen children and their family escorts were evacuated from Gaza to Jordan for medical treatment on Wednesday, the BBC reports.
Since March, the media outlet says, 57 children have been evacuated to Jordan.
King Abdullah announced during a February meeting with US President Donald Trump that Jordan would take in 2,000 child cancer patients and other sick children from Gaza for treatment in the Hashemite kingdom.
A cell of Hamas operatives that wounded two troops in an RPG attack in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis yesterday was eliminated a short while after the incident, the military says.
The two soldiers who were in a tank were moderately wounded when they were hit by the RPG.
The IDF says that a short while after the attack, the troops spotted the cell and killed three of its members with tank shelling. A short while after that, a drone strike hit a building, killing four other members of the cell, according to the IDF.
In a separate incident in northern Gaza yesterday, the IDF says troops of the 401st Armored Brigade spotted several operatives moving weapons and directed a drone strike that killed them.
Additionally, the IDF says the Israeli Air Force hit dozens of targets across Gaza in the past day, including cells of terror operatives, buildings used by terror groups, and other infrastructure.
An Air India passenger plane with 244 people onboard has crashed in India’s northwestern city of Ahmedabad, the airline and local media report.
Visuals on local television channels show smoke billowing from the crash site near the airport in Ahmedabad.
Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the director general of the Directorate of Civil Aviation, tells The Associated Press that Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787, crashed into a residential area called Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off at 1:38 p.m. local time.
The flight was bound for London’s Gatwick Airport.
There were 232 passengers and 12 crew members onboard, and emergency teams have been activated at the airport, Kidwai says.
The 787 Dreamliner is a widebody, twin-engined plane. This is the first crash ever of a Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
Citing “increased regional tensions,” the US tells its employees and their family members in Israel not to travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beersheba areas until further notice.
Traveling between the cities and to Ben Gurion Airport is allowed.
The US is drawing down the presence of people who are not deemed essential to operations across the Middle East due to the potential for regional unrest, as tensions with Iran rise amid deteriorating nuclear talks.
Iran says it will build a new uranium enrichment facility after the United Nations nuclear watchdog adopted a resolution criticizing Iran for “noncompliance” with its obligations.
“The necessary orders have been issued by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization to launch a new enrichment center in a secure location,” said a joint statement from the organization and the foreign ministry, adding that “other measures… will be announced later.”
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad Chief David Barnea will take off tomorrow for talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff ahead of the next round of talks between Tehran and Washington on Iran’s nuclear program, says an Israeli official.
The Israel-US meeting is designed to “clarify Israel’s position,” says the official.
The Prime Minister’s Office declines to answer where the meeting will take place.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to send the two senior officials after he and US President Donald Trump spoke at length on Monday about Iran’s nuclear program.
A man suspected of murdering his 80-year-old mother has jumped off the roof of a building in Rehovot, after barricading himself there when police found her body.
He is being taken to Kaplan Medical Center in critical condition, police say.
A police negotiating team had previously attempted to talk him into coming down from the roof, but to no avail.
Officers found his mother’s body with signs of trauma earlier this morning and opened an investigation into the circumstances of her death, with him as the prime suspect in what is thought to be murder.
The International Atomic Energy Agency passes a resolution declaring that Iran is in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations.
“Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran… constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement,” says the resolution.
The UN nuclear watchdog passes the resolution at its Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, the first such censure against Iran in two decades.
The US, France, UK, and Germany submitted the resolution.
The vote passes with 19 in favor, 3 opposed — Russia, China, and Burkina Faso — 11 abstentions, and 2 who did not vote.
The measure is sure to give additional momentum to efforts by European countries to reinstate United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran this year.
The resolution renews a call on Iran to provide answers “without delay” in the investigation into uranium traces found at several locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites, according to a draft resolution seen by the Associated Press.
The resolution comes amid reports that the US believes that Israel is considering a strike on Iran’s nuclear program in the coming days, even as Washington and Tehran prepare for their sixth round of nuclear talks.
A new enlistment outline agreed to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein will reportedly delay several key sanctions on draft dodgers to which the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties had vehemently objected.
According to the ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site, the new outline stipulates that the enlistment law will be a temporary measure lasting for only six years, or four if it fails to meet its mobilization goals.
While sanctions connected to subsidies for academic study, international travel and drivers licenses would be imposed immediately, others relating to daycare and public transportation subsidies would be delayed.
Should the government be unable to reach its enlistment targets in two years, additional sanctions would take effect, including excluding draft dodgers from the housing lottery.
Institutional sanctions on yeshivas that fail to provide enough soldiers would also be imposed, including up to 50 percent of a yeshiva’s budget if it provides less than 95% of its annual target and all of its budget if it does not reach 75%.
Under the reported compromise, the status of all yeshiva students would be reset and need to be regulated from scratch.
A 12-year-old Syrian girl who had a life-threatening heart condition was evacuated from southern Syria with her mother and received life-saving emergency treatment in the pediatric intensive care unit at Ruth Children’s Hospital last week, Rambam Medical Center says.
She returned to Syria in good condition on Tuesday.
The girl was evacuated by the IDF in coordination with the nonprofit organization Jethro Jews for Druze, which covered the costs of hospitalization, the hospital says.
It says she underwent the medical procedure and four days of recovery in Israel before the IDF arranged for her return to southern Syria.
For the first time in months, Israeli authorities allowed humanitarian aid trucks to directly enter the northern Gaza Strip yesterday.
The 56 trucks from the World Food Programme were transferred to northern Gaza via the Zikim Crossing, also known as the Erez West Crossing, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories announces.
COGAT says the move comes following “the approval of the political echelon and on the recommendation of the security authorities.”
When Israel resumed aid deliveries to Gaza on May 19, after a pause since March 2, it only allowed trucks to enter via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the Strip’s south.
French President Emmanuel Macron says Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is “charting the path to a horizon of peace” with his letter earlier this week calling for the disarmament of Hamas and condemning its October 7, 2023, attack.
“Condemnation of terrorism, release of the hostages, disarmament of Hamas, end of the war in Gaza, reforms, elections, a just and lasting peace for all in the region,” says Macron on X. “It expresses the commitment of the Palestinian people to the two-state solution.”
He says that Abbas has given “concrete and unprecedented commitments that indicate a real desire to move forward. The moment is crucial.”
Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will co-chair next week a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
IDF reservists feel “betrayed” by Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, who reached a compromise with the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties over the Haredi conscription law last night, says attorney Shvut Raanan, who represents the Reservists’ Wives Forum.
The new understandings between Edelstein and the Haredi lawmakers will delay by months, if not years, a number of planned sanctions against Haredi draft dodgers.
The agreement led most of the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers to withdraw support for a bill to disperse the Knesset.
Describing the move as a “moral injustice,” Raanan tells the Kan public broadcaster that the amended legislation cannot be allowed to go ahead.
“I’m waiting for Edelstein to explain to us what was agreed, and what is a bluff or not a bluff,” she says. “The outline is not a draft plan; it is an evasion plan. It is a plan for yeshiva recruitment.”
She says the Reservists’ Wives Forum will continue to campaign for an alternative conscription law, saying, “We can’t let this pass.”
“They will have to take us into account, or we will replace them,” she says of the government.
“The belief that it is possible to continue fighting with a few worn-out people is not correct,” she adds.
Iran will not abandon its right to uranium enrichment because of mounting frictions in the region, a senior Iranian official tells Reuters, adding that a “friendly” regional country had alerted Tehran over a potential Israeli military strike.
The official says the tensions are intended to “influence Tehran to change its position about its nuclear rights” during talks with the United States on Sunday in Oman.
Israeli troops detained several Hamas operatives in an overnight operation in southern Syria, the military says.
The Hamas operatives were nabbed by reservists of the Alexandroni Brigade in the village of Beit Jinn, some 6 kilometers from Israel’s border, outside of an Israeli-held buffer zone.
“Following intelligence collected in recent weeks, IDF troops carried out a pinpoint nighttime operation in Syria and arrested several terrorists from the Hamas terror organization, who tried to advance many terror attacks against Israeli citizens and IDF troops in Syria,” the military says.
The IDF says the operatives were brought to Israel to be interrogated by the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504.
Several weapons were captured during the raid, the army adds.
The decision to pull all nonessential personnel from the US Embassy in Baghdad came about after all US embassies within striking distance of Iran were instructed to take steps to mitigate risk in the event of a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Washington Post reports.
As any Israeli military action will almost certainly be met with an Iranian counterattack, the report says, US missions in the Middle East, Northern Africa and Eastern Europe were instructed to convene emergency action committees and to inform Washington of the steps that needed to be taken to minimize harm.
An unnamed State Department official tells that it was this procedure, in addition to “recent analyses,” that led US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “reduce the footprint of our mission in Iraq.”
An 80-year-old woman was found dead inside her apartment in Rehovot earlier this morning, police say, and an investigation has been opened into the circumstances of her death.
The woman’s son has barricaded himself on the roof of the building, the statement adds, and the police negotiating team is trying to talk him down.
The incident comes amid an unrelenting deadly crime wave across the country.
Oman confirms that it will host a sixth round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran over the weekend, even as Israel is reportedly readying for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday,” Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi says in a post on X.
Earlier, a US official said US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman on Sunday to discuss the Islamic Republic’s response to a recent American proposal for a nuclear deal.
Senior Iranian military and government officials have a plan in place to respond to an Israeli attack on the country’s nuclear facilities, an Iranian official tells the New York Times, amid reports that Israel could strike in the coming days.
The official says the plan involves an immediate counterattack of a similar scope to the attack it launched in October 2024, when it fired a massive salvo of close to 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, sending the entire population into bomb shelters.
The majority of the missiles were intercepted, although a Palestinian in the West Bank was killed and two Israelis were injured by shrapnel and debris.
Iran has also warned that in the event of an attack, it would hold the US responsible alongside Israel, and would target its forces in the region.
US news outlet NBC reports that Israel is considering launching an attack on Iran in the coming days, even though the US is unlikely to support the move, as it is still in talks with Tehran regarding a new nuclear agreement.
The report comes after US network CBS similarly reported that US officials have been told Israel is “fully ready to launch an operation into Iran.”
Citing five unnamed sources familiar with the situation, NBC reports that Israel is weighing the option of striking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear infrastructure as it believes the US and Iran are close to reaching a framework agreement that doesn’t meet all of its demands regarding nuclear enrichment.
The sources familiar tell the news network that they are not aware of any plans in the US to aid Israel in its endeavour to strike Iran, directly or indirectly, in the form of aerial refueling or intelligence sharing.
But the sources say US officials are on alert.
Like the CBS report, it notes that the US fears Iran could retaliate against US personnel stationed in neighboring Iraq. These concerns prompted the State Department and Pentagon to authorize some US officials and their families to leave the region hours ago.
Security expert Michael Knights, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, posits that the evacuation of staff is intended to let Iran know that it is not a sure thing that Washington will intervene and prevent Israel from launching an attack.
“It’s about trying to get Iran to respect the president’s wishes,” he says.
The Israel Defense Forces says two Palestinians were killed during an approximately 30-hour military raid in central Nablus in the West Bank.
The army describes the two as terrorists, but does not provide other details about their killings.
During the raid, 10 other wanted Palestinians were arrested and dozens more were questioned, the army says.
Troops searched over 400 buildings during the extended operation, and found a number of weapons, including makeshift guns, and ammunition, as well as “much inciting material,” according to the IDF.
Pictures and videos published by the military show troops going building to building in the Palestinian city’s central casbah.
American network CBS reports that US officials have been told Israel is “fully ready to launch an operation into Iran,” citing multiple unnamed sources with knowledge of the situation.
The report, which includes few details, notes that US fears that Iran could retaliate against US personnel stationed in neighboring Iraq prompted the State Department and Pentagon to authorize some US officials and their families to leave the region hours ago, according to a defense official.
US Special envoy Steve Witkoff is still planning on holding talks with Iran over its nuclear program in the coming days, CBS reports, citing two US officials.
There is no comment on the CBS report from US or Israeli officials.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff says he spoke Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Speaking at a United Hatzalah gala in New York, Witkoff touts US President Donald Trump’s support for Israel.
“He’s such a special man, he’s an incredible friend to the Jewish people. No disrespect to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who I actually spoke to today, but I think President Trump could be the first sitting president who could be prime minister of Israel at the same time,” says Witkoff.
Turning to Iran, Witkoff declares that the Islamic Republic “must never be permitted to enrich uranium or develop any nuclear capability.”
“A nuclear Iran represents an existential threat to Israel, as does an Iran with a large amount of missiles,” he says. “That is as big an existential threat as the nuclear threat.”
“And this is an existential threat to the United States and the free world and the entire [Gulf Cooperation Council].”
“We must stand resolute and united against this danger and ensure that Iran never obtains the means to achieve its deadly ambitions no matter what the cost,” he says to applause.
Breaking: Special Presidential Envoy @SteveWitkoff remarks on Iran as he is honored at @UnitedHatzalah gala pic.twitter.com/M05KA7645g
— Ellie Cohanim (@EllieCohanim) June 12, 2025
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman on Sunday and discuss Iran’s response to a recent American proposal for a nuclear deal, a US official says.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announces just before 3 a.m. local time that it has just finished distributing boxes of food at its distribution site in central Gaza, even though the IDF has repeatedly warned Palestinians not to approach aid sites before 6 a.m.
The GHF announcement is made on its Arabic Facebook page, which it uses to communicate with Palestinians about operating hours at the distribution sites.
A GHF spokesperson did not explain why the Israeli and US-backed organization appeared to be distributing aid overnight, when the IDF has cautioned Palestinians against walking to the sites.
The development comes amid repeated mass casualty incidents targeting Palestinians trying to reach aid distribution sites. In at least eight of those instances, the IDF has confirmed having fired warning shots that struck those who strayed off the approved access routes, while denying the casualty counts provided by the Red Cross and Hamas-linked health authorities.
The opposition-backed bill to disperse the Knesset fails to pass its preliminary plenum reading, with lawmakers voting it down 61-53 after most Haredi lawmakers agree not to support the proposal.
Lawmakers from Agudath Israel faction split after the Hasidic faction said it would back the bill, with two of its MKs voting in favor of disbanding parliament and one opposing the measure.
The failure of the bill to pass means the opposition cannot again file a motion to disband parliament for another six months.
The Hasidic Agudath Israel breaks with Degel HaTorah, the other subfaction of United Torah Judaism, saying its lawmakers will vote in favor of dissolving the Knesset if the vote is held overnight as there has yet to be “even a written offer with details of the law regulating the status of yeshiva students.”
Degel HaTorah and Shas earlier put out a statement saying they will vote against the bill to disband parliament if its comes up for a vote now.
After meeting with Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Degel HaTorah parties confirm “understandings have been reached regarding the principles for the law preserving the status of yeshiva students.”
A joint statement from the factions says that “another few days are required to complete the final version [of the legislation],” and therefore their rabbinical leaders told lawmakers to hold off on voting to disband the Knesset for another week.
Degel HaTorah and Shas also urge opposition parties to delay the preliminary vote on disbanding the Knesset by a week, though they are rebuffed.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says Hamas operatives attacked a bus carrying its local Gazan staffers, killing at least five, injuring others and potentially taking some hostage.
The bus was ferrying the staffers to one of GHF’s aid distribution sites near southern Gaza’s Khan Younis at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday when it came under attack, a GHF statement says.
The statement notes that GHF is still working to gather the facts on what unfolded and a spokesperson doesn’t immediately provide any corroborating evidence.
“This attack did not happen in a vacuum. For days, Hamas has openly threatened our team, our aid workers, and the civilians who receive aid from us. These threats were met with silence,” GHF says, adding that the attack will not deter the organization’s efforts to provide aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, who heads the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, releases a statement declaring that “after long deliberations, we have reached agreements on principles on which to base a proposal for the enlistment law,” signaling an end to the coalition crisis.
“As I said the entire way, only a real, effective bill like this leading to an expansion of the IDF’s conscription base will come out of my committee,” says Edelstein, without giving any details on what was agreed to.
“This is historic news and we are on our way to real change in Israeli society and strengthening the State of Israel’s security,” he continues. “Soon the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will begin deliberations on the law and advance it toward the second and third readings. We’re on the path to history.”
The rabbinical leaders of Degel HaTorah order the Haredi faction’s lawmakers to oppose a bill to dissolve the Knesset if it comes up for a vote overnight, appearing for now to back off their threat to support parliament’s disbandment amid stalled legislation to anchor into law exemptions from mandatory military service for members of their community.
US President Donald Trump confirms that some US personnel are being moved out of the Middle East as Washington’s nuclear talks with Iran reach a critical juncture.
“They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place. We’ll see what happens… We’ve given notice… Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump tells reporters before attending Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center.
Iran situation could get ‘DANGEROUS’ – Trump
Prez confirms US personnel ordered to ‘move out’ of Middle East embassies
‘We’ll see what happens’ https://t.co/Q3n96djjOy pic.twitter.com/R78arZeUXM
— RT (@RT_com) June 11, 2025
US Vice President JD Vance says during comments at the Kennedy Center that he doesn’t know if Iran wants a nuclear weapon, amid stuttering talks between Tehran and Washington to secure a deal on the country’s nuclear program.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas however says Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Wednesday “confirmed that Iran’s terrorist regime is actively working toward a nuclear weapon.”
“For the sake of our national security, the security of our allies, and millions of civilians in the region this cannot be allowed to happen,” says Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Rabbi Dov Lando, chairman of Degel HaTorah’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, orders the Haredi faction’s lawmakers to get ready for a potential weeklong delay on a preliminary vote to dissolve the Knesset, pending agreement “on the acute matter of the timetable for legislation” that would enshrine broad exemptions to mandatory military service for the ultra-Orthodox community.
According to Hebrew media reports, opposition lawmakers intend to go forward with the vote on the bill to dissolve the Knesset, the first of several plenum readings it would have to first clear before the parliament disbands and new elections are called.
Responding to reports that the sixth round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran will likely be postponed, a source familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel that the timing of the meeting was never confirmed and that remains the case.
A federal judge rules that the Trump administration cannot use US foreign policy interests to justify its detention of Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, but says his order will not take effect until Friday.
Khalil was arrested on March 8 after the State Department revoked his green card under a little-used provision of US immigration law granting the US secretary of state the power to seek the deportation of any noncitizen whose presence in the country is deemed adverse to US foreign policy interests.
He has since been held in immigration detention in Louisiana.
