The Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday’s events as they unfolded.
Lebanon’s health ministry says an Israeli strike south of Beirut today killed a woman and two children, after the IDF said it “precisely struck” the capital without identifying the target.
“The Israeli enemy strike on the town of Shuwayfat led to a final toll of three martyrs including a woman and her baby daughter, and a child of Syrian nationality, in addition to wounding 15 people including three children and five women,” the health ministry says in a statement.
An Israeli security source said earlier that the target of the strike on Beirut was Ali al-Husni, the head of the missile force in the Imam Hossein Division, an Iranian militia that operates alongside Hezbollah.
It was not immediately clear whether he had been killed in the strike. The IDF said it would provide further details later.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
An Austrian court on Thursday sentenced a 21-year-old who admitted planning a foiled Islamist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024 to 15 years in prison, finding him guilty of various mainly terrorism-related offenses.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that the United States will halt Iranian airlines’ access to landing spots, among other measures, as Washington pushes to intensify pressure on Tehran and open the Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on X, Bessent says Washington will “be shutting down both Iranian airlines’ access to landing spots, refueling, and ticket sales,” without providing further details.
“Only a satisfactory outcome in negotiations will end the downward spiral,” he warns.
Bessent does not specify which airlines he was referring to, although Tehran’s flag carrier Iran Air has previously been designated by the US State Department, while Iran’s Mahan Air has also been targeted by sanctions.
But he clarifies at a press briefing that the United States is not going to “restrict movement for religious reasons, so Iranians who want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca or Medina will be allowed.”
“We will also allow valid humanitarian reasons,” he says.
Former Hamas captive Eli Sharabi speaks at the final event of the Jerusalem Writers Festival about his bestselling book, “Hostage,” and his experiences since his release in February 2025.
Sharabi, who was taken captive on October 7, 2023, from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri, says he has been enveloped by his family after returning home to find out that his wife, Lianne, and two daughters, Noya and Yahel, were murdered on October 7, and that his brother, Yossi, was killed in captivity.
Sharabi says his intensive work, including writing the book, and his many media appearances and interviews, helps with his mourning.
“I don’t cry in bed, that’s not me,” he says. “When I see my daughters’ friends in army uniforms, or now in 11th grade, that makes me stop and pause.”
Sharabi, who is interviewed by journalist Roni Kuban, is alternately serious and even humorous when speaking about his time in captivity.
He relates some of the conversations he had in captivity with his fellow hostages Alon Ohel, Eliya Cohen and Or Levy, and says that as a former business manager, he would build business plans for the others.
“Alon wants to live in Copenhagen and when he wondered how he would make a living, Eliya said he should sell jachnun,” says Sharabi, referring to the Yemenite Jewish pastry.
The four men became a group, says Sharabi.
“And a group has power and that’s amazing,” he says.
“Hostage” has been translated into 20 different languages and has sold more than half a million copies, says Sharabi.
He has been asked to write another book about the last year and three months since his release, but says he wants to rest.
“I don’t have a day when I’m not happy,” says Sharabi. “I don’t have a day that I don’t think about them [his family] or captivity. Five minutes of sadness.”
Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air has resumed flight operations to and from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport after a three-month hiatus.
Wizz Air suspended flight services after Israel’s airspace was shut to foreign airlines on February 28, when the US-Israeli war with Iran began.
The carrier says the “resumption of flights to Israel further strengthens its position as the number one low-cost airline in Israel,” connecting passengers to multiple destinations in Europe, including Budapest, London, Milan, Rome, Bucharest, Bratislava, Larnaca, Warsaw, Krakow, Athens, and Sofia.
“We are excited about our return to Tel Aviv,” says Wizz Air Head of Communications Andras Rado. “We look forward to welcoming Israeli passengers with a great onboard experience at attractive prices and, of course, connecting our millions of customers across Europe to experience the amazing culture Israel has to offer.”
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to the negotiating team, says the text of a potential Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States has not yet been finalized or confirmed.
The source says Tehran has not informed the Pakistani mediator that the text is complete and will notify both the mediator and the public once finalized, adding that Western media reports claiming the agreement has already been finalized are false.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch vow a record level of security for Sunday’s annual Israel parade in New York City, despite Mamdani not attending due to his opposition to Israel.
“While I will not be attending, our administration has been preparing for weeks to ensure the parade is safe,” Mamdani says at a press briefing. “I take seriously my responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of every New Yorker and every event, regardless of my attendance.”
“I look forward to this parade occurring seamlessly and peacefully,” Mamdani says.
Tisch, a prominent Jewish centrist, says she will be “honored” to walk with other dignitaries in the parade.
“I’m so excited to march with you,” she says in Hebrew.
She cites the rise in antisemitism and the dozens of recent attacks against Jews in the US, Canada and Europe, saying, “We are not messing around with security at this year’s parade.”
“New Yorkers will see the most extensive security plan that the NYPD has ever put together,” she says, including the “largest number of officers ever assigned to that detail.”
The vast array of law enforcement measures will include heavy weapons teams, camera coverage of the area, screening of everyone entering, checking vehicles, counter-terror teams, “explosive detection canines,” helicopters, drones, horse-mounted units, “hostile surveillance teams” and plainclothes officers.
To prevent possible ramming attacks, streets leading to the parade will be fortified with hardened NYPD vehicles and heavy sanitation trucks.
NYPD intel teams will monitor social media for threats, and response units will be deployed around the city to immediately check on any threats.
Police will be stationed throughout the surrounding public transportation system to protect attendees traveling to the event, Tisch says. Attendees are encouraged to take public transportation due to road closures.
There are no known, credible threats to the event, but “the absence of a specific threat does not mean the absence of risk,” Tisch says.
Regarding protests, she adds, “We will not tolerate any disruptions to the parade. Any unauthorized persons entering the parade route will be arrested.”
The parade tends to see a small group of protesters on the route confined within a police barricade.
Asked about Mamdani not attending, Tisch says, “It’s the mayor’s decision not to march, and it is my decision to march proudly.”
Mark Treyger, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, the group that organizes the parade, thanks Tisch and Mamdani and says, “We are expecting one of the biggest turnouts ever,” numbering in the tens of thousands.
There is no immediate official Israeli response to the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding agreed between the US and Iran, and now subject to President Donald Trump’s approval.
Senior Israeli sources tell Channel 12, however, that Israel has seen no indication that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has approved the terms, and therefore “Trump has nothing to approve” at this stage.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf “may have reached agreements and guiding points with the Iranian negotiating team, but they do not have signing rights,” the report quotes Israeli sources saying. “We do not have indications that Mojtaba has said yes.”
Channel 12’s Barak Ravid earlier quoted a “very senior American source” saying the terms were agreed “by all levels” of the Iranian leadership. But he cautioned that “we will have to see” whether the US sources were correct and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has indeed approved it.
Israel and Lebanon will reconvene for negotiations on Friday at the Pentagon, with military officials from both sides set to discuss steps aimed at combating Hezbollah.
While negotiators have held three rounds of talks in recent weeks at the State Department, this will be the first meeting of strictly military personnel after the sides agreed to split up the process into security and diplomatic tracks.
Accordingly, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter will not be participating in the Friday talks at the Pentagon, an embassy official says.
The first meeting of the diplomatic track will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday next week at the State Department.
The Israeli embassy official says no major announcements are expected following Friday’s meeting, and the sides still face an uphill battle to reach a deal that would see the countries normalize ties and successfully disarm Hezbollah, which is adamantly opposed to the process.
The Memorandum of Understanding agreed upon by Iranian and American negotiators provides for a 60-day extension of the ceasefire, unrestricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and the removal of Iranian mines from the strategic waterway within 30 days, Channel 12 and Axios report, citing senior US officials.
Under the reported terms of the deal – which still requires approval from US President Donald Trump – Washington will ease its naval blockade on Iranian ports in parallel with Tehran restoring full international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Channel 12’s Barak Ravid quotes a “very senior American source” saying the terms were agreed “by all levels” of the Iranian leadership. But he cautions that “we will have to see” whether Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has indeed approved it.
The US will also commit to negotiating broader sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian funds, while temporarily suspending some sanctions during the 60-day period to allow Iran to resume unrestricted oil exports.
Negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program will continue during the ceasefire extension, with the first issues on the agenda reportedly to focus on the disposal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile and future limits on its uranium enrichment. Iran will also formally commit not to pursue nuclear weapons.
The ceasefire will also apply to Lebanon, Channel 12 says, although Israel would be free to counter immediate threats by Hezbollah.
The Channel 12 report sets out the key terms of the MoU as follows:
The report quotes an American source saying the MoU “is designed to bring everybody to the table. The details will be finalized in the course of the [60-day] negotiations. There are those in the Iranian regime who recognize that this is an opportunity to move in a different direction. We will find out during the talks if that is indeed the case.”
The source adds: “If it becomes clear during the talks that Iran cannot deliver the goods on the nuclear issue, Trump will have all options on the table — economic and military.”
Another senior US official reportedly says Trump is expected to decide within the next two days whether to approve the MoU.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir says the military is being “challenged from the outside and from within, amid attempts to drag it into political struggles that are not its own.”
“The consequences of the war on personnel, on discipline, on norms, and also on our families at home. Here too, we will stand like a solid wall. We will do only what is right,” he says at a Command and Staff College graduation ceremony.
“The only consideration before the IDF is the security of the state and its citizens, and that is it,” Zamir adds.
Police and the Shin Bet have arrested a 17-year-old Arab Israeli on suspicion of killing a married couple last week in central Israel, in an attack that law enforcement now suspects was nationalistically motivated.
Ruslan and Olga Prihodko, from Rishon Lezion, were found shot dead in their car Friday evening near Mishmar Ayalon in the Judean foothills.
The couple, both in their 40s, had left their house that morning to go on a trip and disappeared, relatives recounted to Channel 13, who stressed that neither husband nor wife had any history of suicide or mental illness.
The couple is survived by their teenage son, an only child.
Police began probing the incident as a potential murder-suicide, but later changed course and started investigating possible foul play, enlisting the Shin Bet’s help.
The development came about after police realized that Ruslan’s licensed handgun was not at the scene of the crime, and he had not fired any weapon, Ynet reports, adding that his handgun was later found in its safe in the couple’s home.
The Border Police Yamam counter-terrorism force arrested the suspect last night.
Hebrew outlets report that the teenager is the younger brother of the terrorist who carried out a deadly ramming attack in 2024 at a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon.
The White House confirms reporting that US and Iran negotiators have reached an agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding that will extend the ongoing ceasefire by 60 days, during which the sides will hold talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
However, a statement attributed to US sources responding to querying reporters clarifies that US President Donald Trump still needs to sign off on the MOU.
A US official, in an Axios report, confirmed by the White House, is quoted as saying that Trump wants to take a couple of days to think about it before deciding.
The proportion of vessels not linked to Iranian ownership that are transiting the key Strait of Hormuz has risen, according to data shared today from maritime firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
This is despite Iran’s blockade of the waterway since the start of its war with the US and Israel on February 28, preventing a large share of Gulf countries’ hydrocarbon exports, in turn harming the global economy.
“The last week we saw ships flagged with Singapore, UAE, South Korea, and also a Norway-flagged vessel going through the Gulf, specifically exiting,” says Bridget Diakun, an analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Crossings by very large crude carriers not tied to Iran appear in particular to be picking up again.
Of the 27 recorded by analytics firm Kpler since the start of the conflict, more than half took place in May.
Five of these huge oil tankers meanwhile left the Gulf through the strait between May 20 and May 26.
Three of them — the Eagle Veracruz sailing under the Singaporean flag, as well as the Eagle Verona and the Yuan Gui Yang each flying the Chinese flag — have declared China as their destination.
Another ship, the Universal Winner, is heading to South Korea, whose flag it flies, while the Nissos Keros, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, is headed for India.
China, South Korea, India and Japan have coordinated with the Iranian government to ensure safe passage, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
On May 18, Iran formalized the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to manage navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and collect transit fees.
The United States strongly opposes the new body, with the US Treasury announcing sanctions against the PGSA yesterday, while threatening similar action against anyone paying the fees.
Such retaliation risks reducing the number of ships exiting the strait in coordination with Iran.
The UJA-Federation of New York, a leading Jewish organization in New York City, is buying 20,000 bags of Bamba snacks in response to an anti-Israel boycott at a prominent Brooklyn food co-op.
The Park Slope Food Coop, a major progressive institution in its neighborhood, voted to boycott Israeli products on Tuesday, capping a long-running dispute among its 17,000 members.
Centrist Jews at the co-op viewed the boycott as discriminatory and, ahead of the vote, the campaign involved elected officials, rabbis and leading Jewish groups.
The pro-boycott campaigners said it was meant to “stop genocide.”
The boycott only applies to a handful of products at the co-op. Among them is Bamba, the crunchy peanut-flavored puffy snack that is popular in Israel.
The federation says, “In response to the divisive and hate-driven boycott of Israeli products at the Park Slope Food Coop, UJA is buying those very products, starting with a purchase of 20,000 bags of Bamba.”
The federation tells The Times of Israel it is buying the Bamba from Osem, the Israeli company that produces the snack, which was named by the Park Slope boycotters.
The federation will distribute the snacks at the annual Israel parade in New York City, taking place on Sunday.
“We’re all better with Bamba,” the federation says.
The Israeli military confirms that it has been conducting raids in recent days beyond its declared “forward defense line,” which demarcates the IDF’s security zone in southern Lebanon.
According to a military official, the goal of the raids is to push Hezbollah farther from the border and better defend the security zone amid the terror group’s increased use of first-person view (FPV) drones in attacks on troops in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel.
In a video statement, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin says troops are carrying out ground operations “in places where I, as a battalion commander, was unable to reach, and they are doing so with great success.”
Meanwhile, the IDF announces that it has killed 2,500 Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon since hostilities escalated amid the war with Iran. 800 of them were killed since the porous ceasefire took effect on April 16. Amid the multi-front war of recent years, around 8,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed by Israel, according to the military.
The IDF says that in the past two weeks, several top Hezbollah operatives were killed in strikes. The announcement is made after the military says it obtained intelligence confirming the “most senior field commanders of Hezbollah” were killed.
According to the IDF, they include the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the Khiam area; an assistant to the deputy commander of the Badr regional division; the intelligence officer for the Beaufort Castle area; the chief of engineering in the Yohmor area and his deputy; the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in Jibchit; and the chief of engineering in the Jouaiya area.
The IDF says it struck Hezbollah operatives who attempted to damage Lebanon’s largest dam in the Litani River’s Qaraoun Lake yesterday.
“Several Hezbollah operatives were observed earlier this week attempting to harm the activity of the Qaraoun Dam, which is considered national and strategic infrastructure of the Lebanese state, and they were attacked from the air,” says Lt. Col. Ella Waweya, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokeswoman.
Addressing Lebanese citizens, she says that Hezbollah, which has “led to the ruin and destruction of your country, attempted to harm strategic national infrastructure, the targeting of which would cause severe damage to the economy of Lebanon and the state itself.”
Waweya warns Hezbollah that the IDF “will not allow any attempt to harm the dam, and will act with great force against these attempts.”
عاجل وخطير ‼️جيش الدفاع الإسرائيلي يكشف: رصد عناصر من منظمة حزب الله الإرهابية وهم يحاولون المساس بنشاط سدّ القرعون
🔸 يكشف جيش الدفاع الإسرائيلي أنّ عددًا من عناصر حزب الله رُصدوا في وقت سابق من هذا الأسبوع وهم يحاولون المساس بنشاط سدّ القرعون، الذي يعتبر بنية تحتية وطنية… pic.twitter.com/o6UigX1yHm
— Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya | إيلا واوية (@CaptainElla1) May 28, 2026
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatens to target Oman if it helps impose a tolling system in the key Strait of Hormuz, warning of sanctions against parties involved.
“Oman, in particular, should know that the US Treasury will aggressively target any actors involved — directly or indirectly — in facilitating tolls for the Strait and any willing partners will be penalized,” Bessent warns in a post on X.
More than 1,300 Jewish New Yorkers sign two open letters demanding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani take action against antisemitism.
The letters, organized by The Jewish Majority advocacy group, call on Mamdani to support legislation meant to protect Jewish institutions, denounce anti-Zionist rhetoric and condemn the protest slogan “globalize the intifada.”
One of the letters has more than 1,300 signatures from community members, and another is signed by more than 70 rabbis and cantors.
The rabbis’ letter says, “The Jewish community sees with increasing clarity that threats to Jewish safety are growing, and too often those entrusted with leadership have responded with equivocation instead of moral clarity.”
“Jewish New Yorkers need something very simple from our mayor: a clear and unequivocal recognition that excluding, stigmatizing, or targeting Jews because of a core Jewish value, support for Jewish self-determination in our historic homeland, is discrimination,” the letter says.
Mamdani has condemned expressions of classic antisemitism, such as swastikas, but does not consider anti-Zionist rhetoric as discriminatory.
The letter criticizes Mamdani for vetoing legislation meant to safeguard educational facilities during protests, and cites a recent poll from the Jewish Majority that found most Jewish New Yorkers interpret “intifada” as a call for violence and believe Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase has emboldened “pro-Hamas protesters.”
The poll also found an overwhelming majority — 82% — of Jewish New Yorkers are concerned about antisemitism. Jews are targeted in hate crimes in New York City more than all other groups combined, according to NYPD data.
Mamdani has said he would “discourage” the phrase “globalize the intifada,” but has not condemned the slogan.
“For generations, New York has been the greatest center of Jewish life in America. Whether it remains so will depend on whether New York’s leaders are willing to defend Jewish dignity and Jewish safety,” the letter says.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calls on members of the governing coalition to hold off on dissolving the Knesset and calling early elections until legislation is passed to weaken the authority of the attorney general.
His remarks come after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced the indictment of a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a move which Smotrich says proves that her power is “corruptive and predatory” and “poses a danger to democracy and civil rights in Israel.”
He says that holding off until legislation that significantly weakens Baharav-Miara’s authority is a “strategic move” that the government would be wrong to miss out on.
Lawmakers are set to vote Monday on the first reading of a coalition bill to dissolve the Knesset, potentially triggering slightly earlier elections.
Smotrich’s Religious Zionism has been polling below or at the electoral threshold for months.
Earlier, his party shared an image of several opposition party leaders wearing Hasidic fur hats known as shtreimels, arguing in a Facebook post that they will give the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties anything they want if they win the next elections.
The current coalition, of which Religious Zionism is a part, has been pushing for the passage of legislation to exempt Haredi yeshiva students from military service. The controversial bill does not have a Knesset majority due to internal coalition dissent, including among members of Religious Zionism, although Smotrich himself has not taken a firm stand on the legislation either way.
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin says the military has killed “nearly a third” of Hezbollah’s forces amid the multi-front war of recent years.
“We are striking with great intensity at all times. Our troops are operating in the forward defense line area and eliminating dozens of terrorists every week,” he says in a video statement from the Northern Command.
Defrin says the IDF has killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives since hostilities escalated amid the war with Iran. “Hezbollah has around 30,000 terrorists, of whom we have already eliminated nearly a third of its force,” he says.
He says that recently, the IDF struck “sector commanders and operational personnel, thereby inflicting significant blows to Hezbollah’s command-and-control capabilities.”
“Hezbollah is battered and weakened and is in a survival war for its continued existence, this is the reality on the ground,” Defrin adds.
The EU Council on Thursday formally names the entities and individuals it is sanctioning for abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The list includes what the EU Council called extremist Israeli settlers and organizations that support them.
The statement confirms that sanctions will be leveled against Israeli NGO Regavim and its director Meir Deutsch “for the demolition of Palestinian property with the aim to expand the control of Israel to the whole West Bank.”
It also confirms that NGO Hashomer Yosh and its former president Avichai Suissa will be sanctioned for the organization’s efforts “supporting at least 28 violent outposts and settlements” and for Suissa’s role in “facilitating and encouraging serious human rights abuses in the West Bank.”
The statement also confirms that the Nachala Settlement Movement and its leader Daniella Weiss will be sanctioned over “coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians.” Nachala outposts are a “persistent source of settler violence,” it adds.
Finally, the EU Council says it is sanctioning the Amana settlement organization, which it says has “played a key role in initiating, financing, and facilitating at least 30 violent outposts and settlements” which have “forced widespread displacement” and “dispossession of Palestinian properties.”
In a separate statement, the Council says it will also broaden the scope of the EU’s sanctions on Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to also cover members of Hamas’s Political Bureau who promote, defend, or justify acts of violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has given directives for the IDF to take control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, in Hebrew-language remarks delivered at a conference held by the Ein Prat Leadership Academy.
“At this point, we are fully in control of 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip… and my directive is to get to… 70%,” Netanyahu says in footage from the event aired by Channel 12.
When one audience member shouts out that Israel should take “100 percent” of the territory in Gaza, Netanyahu responds that “we’re going in order,” but doesn’t dispute that this could be the eventual goal.
“First 70%,” he says, “we’ll start with that.”
Netanyahu admitted last week that Israel already holds 60 percent of the territory in the Strip, significantly more than it is supposed to be in control of.
Maps issued by Israel in March showed a new restricted area beyond the 53% of Gaza that Israel controlled after the ceasefire brokered by the US in October.
The restricted area, marked on the maps with an orange line, makes up an estimated 11% of Gaza’s territory beyond the “Yellow Line” demarcating the part of Gaza occupied by Israeli troops since the truce. The areas cordon off nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s territory in total.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon says he expects UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to officially place Israel on a list of sexual violence in conflict zone offenders today or tomorrow, and claims Jerusalem was never given specific cases to respond to before the decision was made, in remarks to The Times of Israel.
“We told them: if there are specific complaints, send us the cases so we can provide specific responses. But we didn’t receive a single specific case. That’s why his move is political,” says Danon in a phone interview, after announcing this morning that Jerusalem is freezing cooperation with Guterres’ office over the decision.
Guterres warned Israel last year that it was at risk of being included in the report, and listed steps Israel must take to avoid being blacklisted, including issuing directives against sexual violence, creating enforcement and disciplinary systems, investigating credible complaints, and granting the UN free access for monitoring and humanitarian aid.
The UN’s allegations at the time included multiple accounts of rape of Palestinian male detainees, among them a reported assault on a detainee being transferred to Sde Teiman — the temporary holding facility set up after October 7 for captured Hamas members and suspected terrorists.
Danon says Israel did its utmost to comply with those requests. He says he personally met multiple times with Guterres’ representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, and her team, and that Israel had arranged for senior officials from the Prison Service, the military and the Justice Ministry to meet with her delegation – but says she made cancellations due to technical complications and later due to the security situation in Israel, though Israel never blocked the visits.
“They never really gave us the basis for [the decision], because they don’t have any real basis to rely on. It could have been media reports or things like that… they never clarified any specific cases to us,” the envoy claims.
The Sde Teiman affair centered on leaked surveillance footage allegedly showing the abuse of a Palestinian detainee by IDF soldiers at the Sde Teiman detention facility.
Several soldiers were arrested after leaked surveillance footage appeared to show a Palestinian detainee being abused by IDF soldiers at Sde Teiman, and after numerous media reports, based on testimony from Israeli officials and Palestinian detainees, detailed severe cases of abuse and even torture at the detention facility.
A January report by Israel’s Public Defender’s Office corroborated these allegations, determining that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli prisons have suffered from severe and systematic violence from prison guards, deprivation of food and medical neglect, and sanitary conditions that caused and exacerbated outbreaks of disease in the prisons.
The charges against the suspects were eventually dropped after the former military advocate general was revealed to be responsible for leaking the footage.
Danon says Israel shared its full legal and oversight framework with the UN, including regulations, complaint mechanisms, and its practice of filing indictments where warranted, and warns that placement on the list carries an “outrageous” implication.
“Once you’re on that list, you’re essentially painting Israel as systematically using sexual violence as part of the conflict. That’s the gravest accusation… it’s outrageous, after October 7, to put us on the same list as [Hamas] terrorists.”
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
After Axios reports that US and Iranian negotiators have reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to end the war, pending approval by US President Donald Trump, a diplomat from one of the countries involved in the mediation process tells The Times of Israel that the report mischaracterizes the state of negotiations.
According to the Axios report, the terms of the deal were mostly finalized on Tuesday, but Trump has yet to give it his final approval, telling mediators that he “wants a couple days to think about it.”
The diplomat tells ToI that progress has been made and a mutual agreement on the MOU is close, but final answers haven’t been given by either side and therefore, it would not be accurate to state that both sides’ negotiators have reached an agreement.
Shas chairman Aryeh Deri accuses Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of indicting senior Netanyahu aide Jonatan Urich to distract attention from her failure to prevent the appointment of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, the prime minister’s military secretary, as the next Mossad chief.
“The ousted attorney general is trying to divert public opinion from the expected defeat she faces over the appointment of Roman Gofman, and therefore she is attacking Jonatan Urich as part of the continued political persecution and attempt to overthrow the right-wing government via the judicial system,” Deri says in a statement.
“I have known Jonatan as a God-fearing man of faith, dedicated, professional and a true patriot of the state of Israel,” Deri continues. “The attempt to attribute to him a violation of state security is a disgrace, aimed at removing him from the Prime Minister’s Office and terrorizing right-wingers.”
Baharav-Miara announced Urich’s indictment today over allegations that he leaked sensitive documents to the German tabloid Bild in a bid to sway public opinion against a hostage deal with the Hamas terror group in September 2024.
She also accused the appointments committee that reapproved the selection of Gofman as new Mossad chief of ignoring key facts in the case, asserting that Gofman’s actions in a controversial incident from 2022 constitute a “substantial blemish” on his ethical conduct and saying that the High Court of Justice should therefore annul his appointment.
Hamas-affiliated media in Gaza reports that the funeral of Imad Aslim, the deputy commander of Hamas’s Gaza City brigade, is underway.
من وداع وتشييع الشهيد عماد اسليم قائد كتيبة الزيتون بكتائب القسام والذي ارتقى بعملية اغتيال في غزة ليلة أمس. pic.twitter.com/09Is7HW0MO
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) May 28, 2026
Israel announced yesterday that it had targeted Aslim in a strike along with Izz ad-Din Beck, the commander of Hamas’s northern Gaza brigade.
Hamas has not yet commented on the strike or on the fate of the two men.
So far, Hamas has not commented on the alleged assassination attempt against them or announced their fate.
The chief of the Home Front Command says the unit’s forces are remaining on heightened alert amid the shaky ceasefire in Iran.
“We are aware of the situation and are at full readiness across all sectors, with the understanding that the home front is required to adapt quickly to a changing reality,” Maj. Gen. Shai Klepper tells reporters.
He says the Home Front Command “came prepared” for the recent war in Iran, and is now “using the current period to learn, debrief, and better prepare for what lies ahead.”
“Alongside the operational activity, we continue to improve warning capabilities, protection, and the civilian response, with the understanding that the home front is an inseparable part of the front line,” Klepper adds.
The Home Front Command assesses that if the war resumes, Iran may fire missiles at Israel within a short period. In the June 2025 war, Iran fired missiles some 18 hours after Israel carried out its opening strikes. In the recent war, there was a lull of just under three hours between the opening strikes and Iran’s response.
During the recent war, some 550 ballistic missiles launched by Iran reached Israel. The majority, around 72%, carried cluster bomb warheads, causing around 1,000 separate bomblet impact sites, according to the Home Front Command. The remaining 28% carried conventional warheads, with hundreds of kilograms of explosives, causing extensive damage in over a dozen cases.
The missile attacks killed 20 Israeli civilians and foreign nationals in Israel, along with four Palestinians in the West Bank. Cluster munitions killed 10, and conventional missiles killed 14.
According to the Home Front Command, nearly 6,500 Israelis remain displaced due to damage caused to their homes by the attacks.
A resurfaced video shows British actress Dame Helen Mirren being accosted in London by a man calling her an “evil Zionist bitch.”
The man, who recorded the interaction and reportedly first posted it online back in November, approached the multi-award-winning Mirren and her husband, US film director Taylor Hackford, as they were crossing the street.
“And there’s Helen Mirren,” the man says as he walks up to them, “the avowed Zionist.”
“You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust,” the man says, claiming that the 80-year-old actress was “very happy that Palestinians’ houses were gone.”
Throughout the interaction, Hackford repeatedly tells the man to “fuck off,” but is ignored.
As he begins to back away from the couple, the man behind the camera tells Mirren that she is “an evil Zionist bitch,” informs Hackford that the same goes for him, and departs with a “fuck you and all.”
Actress Helen Mirren in East London yesterday gets called a zionist bitch pic.twitter.com/CO8TLLIhaU
— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) May 28, 2026
The man was referring to comments Mirren made in a 2023 interview while she was in Israel for the premiere of “Golda,” in which she starred as the eponymous Golda Meir.
In the interview, Mirren, who is not Jewish, said that she believed “in the existence of Israel” and its right to exist “because of the Holocaust,” and spoke out against cultural boycotts of the Jewish state, saying it “didn’t seem right” to abandon Israeli artists.
She also recounted her experience during her first visit to Israel in 1967, after the Six Day War.
“I witnessed things that were wrong,” she said of her visit. “I saw Arabs being thrown out of their houses in Jerusalem. But it was just the extraordinary magical energy of a country just beginning to put its roots in the ground. It was an amazing time to be here.”
An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated that the video was filmed on May 27, 2026.
Yad Vashem has selected Munich as the site for its first Holocaust education center outside Israel, with plans for the new institution to strengthen Holocaust education and combat rising antisemitism and historical distortion in Europe.
The center will be built at Karolinenplatz in central Munich, with support from the German government, and is expected to open within three years, Yad Vashem says. Munich was chosen after extensive nationwide research because of its educational infrastructure, strategic location and historical significance as the birthplace of the Nazi Party.
The initiative was first proposed during a 2023 meeting between Dayan and then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. It has since received backing from Chancellor Friedrich Merz and state leaders across Germany.
The Jerusalem-based Holocaust remembrance institution said the center would serve audiences across Germany and neighboring countries. An additional extension is planned in Leipzig, in eastern Germany’s Saxony state, featuring interactive learning spaces for educators and students.
The project comes at a critical time as the world moves further from the era of living Holocaust survivors, says Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan.
“Historically grounded Holocaust education is more important than ever,” Dayan said, warning of growing Holocaust denial, distortion and antisemitism.
The man suspected of shooting and killing his nine-year-old daughter yesterday in northern Israel will remain in custody until Monday, police announce.
Police believe the man shot and killed his daughter, Laila Jahjah, while aiming for his brother during a fight that spiraled out of control at a family gathering in the Arab town of Arara.
He was brought today to the Hadera Magistrate’s Court where police requested to keep him in custody for another 12 days as they continue to investigate the killing.
Judge Ehud Kaplan extended the suspect’s detention for five days only, saying there are “several indications” linking the suspect to the killing.
The suspect categorically denies the accusations against him and insists he did not so much as touch a gun over the course of the argument, his lawyer, Muhammad Masarwa, tells The Times of Israel.
“The father, a law-abiding man, denies all the suspicions against him. We hope that the police will finish the investigation soon so that the father can mourn his daughter,” Masarwa says, adding that his client has no prior criminal convictions.
During his remand hearing today, police informed the judge that they have still not managed to find the gun used to shoot the young girl.
Police claim that relatives of the victim attempted to destroy evidence of the shooting by washing the floors both inside and outside the house.
Police arrested six other relatives of the victim upon arriving at the house. The court ordered their unconditional release.
Slamming the Attorney General’s office’s announcement of an impending indictment of a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jonatan Urich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin declares that “selective enforcement is a crime.”
Expressing his support for Urich, Levin declares that “nothing can compensate for the suffering and pain caused to him and his family, just because of his work with Prime Minister Netanyahu. But I trust in Jonatan’s determination to bring justice to light.”
Urich is accused of leaking sensitive documents to the German tabloid Bild in a bid to sway public opinion against a hostage deal with the Hamas terror group in September 2024.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threaten a “firm response” in the event of renewed attacks, after the United States carried out a strike in the country’s south this morning.
“If this action is repeated, the US military will face a firm response,” the Guards say in a statement on their Sepah News website.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will visit Washington on Friday where he will meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Pakistan’s foreign ministry says.
The visit comes as Islamabad is attempting to negotiate a peace pact to permanently end the US-Israeli war with Iran.
Dar will meet Rubio “to review bilateral relations and exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest,” the foreign ministry says in a statement.
Ukraine plans to buy up to 20 latest model Gripen fighter jets and Sweden will donate 16 older models, the two countries announce, as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Sweden.
Ukraine plans to allocate 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion) from an EU loan for the new aircraft, the Swedish government says in a statement.
Regarding the latest model Gripen E jets, “the aim is to quickly conclude a final agreement with deliveries as of 2030,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says at a joint press conference with Zelensky at an air base in Uppsala, 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Stockholm.
The 16 donated aircraft will be delivered in early 2027, Kristersson says.
“This is a historic decision for Sweden, but it also strengthens Ukraine’s air defence significantly,” he adds.
Sweden will transfer the first 16 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine.
Thank you, Sweden! 🇸🇪🇺🇦
These are JAS 39 Gripen C/D multirole fighters – aircraft Ukraine had previously described as among the most sought-after for strengthening its combat aviation.
Ukraine and Sweden also… pic.twitter.com/ONE052oEeJ
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) May 28, 2026
The two countries signed a letter of intent in October on Kyiv’s purchase of 100 to 150 Gripen E aircraft.
Zelensky says Ukraine, battling Russia’s invasion since 2022, hoped to buy all 150 planes.
“We hope we will be able to secure financing for all of them,” he adds.
Sweden in 2024 suspended plans to send Gripen jets to Ukraine after partner countries requested that priority be given to providing US F-16 fighters.
Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and coalition attack Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara over her decision to indict senior prime ministerial adviser Jonatan Urich, accusing her of engaging in politically motivated persecution of the right.
“I have known Jonatan Urich for many years. He always acts with dedication and professionalism,” tweets Transportation Minister Miri Regev. “Attributing to him an intention to harm state security is baseless and completely detached from reality. There is no logical explanation for this claim other than a persecution against the right, against the prime minister and against the members of his office. In the end, the truth will prevail!”
Gali Baharav-Miara “is maliciously using the judicial system as a weapon against one side of the political map: the side that rightfully fired her, and the side that will fix the rot that has spread throughout the legal system,” declares Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.
Urich will be indicted on charges of transmitting classified information with the intention of harming state security, possession of classified information, and destruction of evidence, the AG’s office announced this morning.
The target of the Israeli strike in the Beirut area a short while ago is Ali al-Husni, the head of the missile force in the Imam Hossein Division, an Iranian militia that operates alongside Hezbollah, according to a security source.
It is not immediately clear if the militia member was killed in the strike. The IDF said it would provide further details later.
The IDF says it carried out a strike in Beirut a short while ago.
No further details are given.
According to Lebanese media, the strike took place in Shuwayfat, just south of the Lebanese capital.
غارة إسرائيلية تستهدف منطقة الشويفات pic.twitter.com/hkqQvOrr8L
— هنا لبنان (@thisislebnews) May 28, 2026
It marks the first Israeli strike on Beirut since May 6. Amid the ceasefire in Lebanon, the IDF has mostly avoided striking the Lebanese capital at the request of the Trump administration. Hebrew media widely reported, citing Israeli officials, that the White House fears that strikes in Beirut so could harm ongoing negotiations with Iran.
During a visit to the ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade in the Jordan Valley, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells soldiers that “anyone who does not study Torah must enlist,” signaling support for drafting Haredi men who are not engaged in full-time yeshiva study.
“When he enlists, he must be given the right to enter as Haredi and leave as Haredi,” Netanyahu adds, reiterating calls to ensure ultra-Orthodox recruits are able to preserve their religious lifestyle throughout their service.
“You are the pioneers, and others are following you,” Netanyahu tells the soldiers. “I see the major increase in enlistment and in this desire to defend the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu is accompanied by MK Boaz Bismuth, chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who has been spearheading efforts to advance a controversial Haredi conscription exemption bill. The latest version of the legislation was rejected this week by the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties.
The legislation – which would ostensibly increase military conscription in the Haredi community, but ultimately enable continued exemptions for full-time yeshiva students – is widely seen as legally dubious and laden with loopholes.
“Our two greatest values are the Torah that brought us here and the IDF that protects us,” Bismuth tells the Hasmonean Brigade. “At this base, the two come together – Torah with uniforms.”
Wix, a maker of do-it-yourself website building software, confirms reports that it will cut 20 percent of its workforce in Israel and abroad, citing the strength of the shekel and the adoption of AI tools and investments.
“It is clear to us that in this new era, companies need to make this change in order to lead and compete or risk falling behind,” Wix co-founder and CEO Avishai Abrahami says in a message to employees. “We need to become a faster, leaner, and flatter organization.”
As the first reason for the round of layoffs, Abrahami cites the appreciation of the shekel over the past few quarters, which is driving up costs.
“As the majority of our teams are Israel-based, a very meaningful portion of our costs are shekel-denominated, while our revenue is largely dollar-denominated,” says Abrahami. “This creates a structural pressure on our ability to operate at our current scale.”
As the second reason, Abrahami lists the “fast evolution of AI capabilities” and the need to shift to “AI-native ways of working.”
At the end of March, Wix employed 5,277 people, of whom more than 60% are based in Israel.
Over 135 Hezbollah targets were struck over the past day, the military says.
In southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley, the IDF says that it struck 10 rocket launching sites, along with a Hezbollah training camp.
In Tyre, 15 Hezbollah infrastructure sites used to advance attacks were struck, according to the military.
The Israeli Air Force also struck and killed several Hezbollah operatives who were seen leaving a rocket-launching site used in an attack on troops, the IDF adds.
צפו בתיעוד: חיל-האוויר חיסל חוליית מחבלים בעת שיצאה מאתר שיגור של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בצור
חיל-האוויר תקף לאורך היממה האחרונה, יותר מ-135 מטרות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בצור, בבקעא ובדרום לבנון.
בבקעא ובדרום לבנון, הותקפו כ-10 אתרי שיגור ששימשו את מחבלי הארגון לשיגור רקטות… pic.twitter.com/5Ns8NsBh0u
— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) May 28, 2026
Opposition figures accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle of endangering state security after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced her decision to indict Jonatan Urich, a senior adviser to the premier, over the leak of classified documents to Germany’s Bild newspaper.
“The prime minister cannot embrace a person accused of deliberately harming the State of Israel,” Opposition leader Yair Lapid says, adding that Netanyahu’s “innermost circle is drowning in corruption, decay and the advancement of personal interests instead of the interests of the public.”
Democrats party chairman Yair Golan says the indictment shows that “Netanyahu’s closest circle is endangering state security.”
“In any normal country, a prime minister whose closest advisers are accused of harming state security would immediately suspend them and cooperate with investigators,” Golan says. “But Netanyahu is acting as though the State of Israel is his private property and the law does not apply to his associates.”
Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot says the decision to indict Netanyahu’s “closest adviser” is a reminder that the premier “never distanced himself from [Urich] for a moment and continues to employ him in the holy of holies of the State of Israel.”
Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir attacks Baharav-Miara over the decision, saying he does “not believe a single word” from the attorney general.
“Jonatan Urich is an Israel-lover, a professional, whom the fired attorney general, who is on a witch hunt, wants to remove from the Prime Minister’s Office at any cost,” Ben Gvir says in a statement.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, Urich will be indicted on charges of transmitting classified information with the intention of harming state security, possession of classified information and destruction of evidence.
The Trump administration is in talks to provide funding to some drone companies, including Unusual Machines and Sequoia Capital-backed Neros, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Shares of Unusual Machines were up 37 percent in premarket trading on Thursday.
Drone dominance was described as a “presidential priority” in US President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027.
Months-long discussions between private sector firms and the Pentagon have included the Office of Strategic Capital, a Biden-era lending unit focused on companies critical to national security supply chains, the Journal reports.
Unusual Machines is a drone components maker that counts Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, while Neros is a startup specializing in autonomous drones.
Performance Drone Works, which won a contract to supply the US Army with reconnaissance drones, is also under consideration for possible funding, the report added.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House, the Pentagon and the companies do not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Some proposals being discussed include funding via a mix of debt and equity that could give the government ownership stakes, the report says.
Swiss police say officers arrested a man suspected of injuring three people in a knife attack at a train station in the Swiss city of Winterthur near Zurich.
Police say the attack happened early this morning and the suspected perpetrator, a 31-year-old Swiss national, has been arrested. The three victims of the attack are receiving hospital care, according to the police statement.
Swiss newspaper Blick says it had obtained a video showing a man running out of the station concourse shouting “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning God is great.
The paper cites an eyewitness as saying the man held a knife, while people around him were screaming and running away. The incident prompted a major police operation, it adds.
Police say the man’s motive is being investigated.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 11 people, including two children, were killed in Israeli strikes this morning, which wounded 21 others.
The ministry says in a statement that an airstrike on a building in the city of Sidon killed five people, including two women, and wounded 21, five of them children.
In another statement, it says “the Israeli enemy’s raid at dawn today targeting a vehicle in the town of Adloun, Sidon district, resulted in six martyrs, including two children, their mother and their father.”
Yemen’s former president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has died in Saudi Arabia, a source in the Yemeni presidency tells AFP.
Hadi, who was in his eighties, “died in the Saudi capital following a sudden health crisis,” the source says, requesting anonymity.
Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia in 2015 when civil war erupted between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who had forced the government from the capital Sanaa, and a Saudi-led coalition.
Responding to the announcement that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has decided to indict Jonatan Urich, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over documents leaked to the German newspaper Bild, Urich responds with a post to his X account saying: “It’s quite something that the AG didn’t ask for a death sentence,” an apparent sarcastic jab at the gravity of the charges against him.
Urich will be indicted on charges of transmitting classified information with the intention of harming state security, possession of classified information, and destruction of evidence, the AG’s office says.
Air India extends the suspension of its flight services to and from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport through July 31 amid ongoing geopolitical tensions.
The Indian carrier previously put the Tel Aviv-Delhi route on hold until the end of June amid the US-Israel tensions with Iran.
Russia signs an agreement with Kazakhstan on building a nuclear power plant in Central Asia’s largest country.
The agreement was signed today during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin who met Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
The parties also sign an agreement on the provision of a Russian export credit to finance the construction of the plant.
A marathon overnight debate in the Knesset Finance Committee over a bill granting additional tax benefits to threatened communities in the north and West Bank settlements ends without a vote after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich rejected efforts to expand the benefits to a broader swath of northern communities under threat from Hezbollah.
The bill, advanced by Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot and backed by Smotrich, would grant expanded tax breaks to dozens of West Bank settlements under a new “security threat” criterion, including a 25 percent boost in tax benefit points. The original proposal did not include northern communities at all but was later expanded to include communities within two kilometers of the Lebanese border, after critics said the minister was prioritizing his base while northern communities remain under near-daily bombardment.
During the debate, committee chairman Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky says he pushed to broaden the proposal to include communities within nine kilometers of the border, but that Smotrich rejected this.
“I tried to convince [the Finance Ministry] that there should be no distinction between the 0-2 kilometer line and the 0-9 kilometer line in the conflict border area. Unfortunately, the finance minister vetoed the matter,” says Milwidsky.
Northern local authority heads harshly criticize the decision during the debate, accusing the government of abandoning the devastated region.
“Either all of us are included, or none of us are. We are no one’s punching bags,” Mateh Asher Regional Council head Moshe Davidovich tells lawmakers.
Opposition lawmakers accuse Smotrich of effectively funneling money to settlements as well as Haredi communities, which have also been added to the original bill, to gain support from ultra-Orthodox parties to advance the legislation, all at the expense of the north.
Due to the impasse, the debate ultimately ends without a vote and has been postponed for further deliberations, angering representatives of northern communities.
The Lebanese army announces that a soldier was killed in an Israeli strike while traveling on the Zaqta–Deir al-Zahrani road in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon.
Yesterday, the Lebanese army announced that a soldier had been killed in a strike on the Kfardoun–al-Khardali road in the same area of southern Lebanon.
On Tuesday, Lebanon said a soldier was killed in an Israeli strike in the western Beqaa region of Lebanon.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has decided to indict Jonatan Urich, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over documents leaked to German newspaper Bild, the Attorney General’s Office announces.
Urich will be indicted on charges of transmitting classified information with the intention of harming state security, possession of classified information, and destruction of evidence. The Attorney General’s Office says Urich’s attorneys have been informed of the intention to prosecute their client.
The charges relate to Urich’s role in the leak of a classified document from IDF military intelligence to Bild in September 2024 as part of an effort to buttress Netanyahu’s claim that it was Hamas, not the prime minister, who was holding up a deal for the release of the hostages held by the terror group in Gaza. The document was leaked to a foreign news outlet in order to bypass Israel’s military censor.
Eli Feldstein, a former Netanyahu adviser who has already been indicted over the affair, obtained the document from an NCO in military intelligence, and came up with the plan to leak it to the press.
Feldstein says he informed Urich of his plan and that Urich approved it, and that when Israeli media outlets said they could not publish it because of the objections of the military censor Urich helped Feldstein find a foreign outlet to publish it, with the assistance of Likud party adviser Israel Einhorn.
Iran’s foreign ministry condemns what it called violations by the United States after American strikes on the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, and expresses solidarity with Oman after US President Donald Trump threatened to “blow them up” yesterday if they don’t “behave.”
The ministry’s spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says Iran would “take all necessary measures to defend its national sovereignty” and condemns what he called “the threatening rhetoric of American officials against Iran and several regional countries.”
The militia led by Ashraf al-Mansi, which works against Hamas in northern Gaza with Israeli backing, publishes footage showing one of its members operating a heavy military drone.
The footage appears to be the first of its kind released by the anti-Hamas Gazan militias, which until now had primarily been seen using light weapons.
A statement published on al-Mansi’s Facebook page says that “the People’s Army led by Ashraf al-Mansi in northern Gaza announces the successful introduction of advanced drones into operational use.”
Brig. Gen. Ghassan Dehini, who is considered the commander of various militias in Gaza, announced that “several successful operations had been carried” out using the new drones.
זה מטורף שמישהו בישראל אישר להעביר את הרחפן הזה למיליציות הפרו ישראליות בעזה. אמצעים אלה נכנסים לעזה באישור של ישראל שאף מספקת אותם. עוד נצטער על זה…. pic.twitter.com/Zh7aTwB4Zc
— Shai Levy (שי לוי) (@shailevy6) May 28, 2026
It remains unclear where the drones came from, though given Israel’s military and logistical support for the militias, it is likely they were transferred from Israel.
The IDF has not yet commented.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, accuses the NATO military alliance of making practical preparations for what he called a “large-scale conflict in the east,” according to the state RIA news agency.
Naryshkin is also cited as saying that the European Union was rapidly arming itself and turning into a military alliance “directed against Russia.”
He does not elaborate on the alleged NATO preparations.
An airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip earlier this week killed a senior Hamas moneyman, the IDF announces.
The Tuesday strike in Khan Younis killed Ihab Khrizim, who the military says headed a central network for transferring funds to Hamas. The strike also killed Mohammed al-Habash, a commander in Hamas’s weapons production headquarters, according to the IDF.
Khrizim was responsible for “managing the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas’s military wing,” and recently, he “continued to violate the ceasefire agreement,” as his actions enabled Hamas to advance attacks on troops and Israeli civilians, the IDF says.
The IDF says his killing “constitutes a significant blow to the rehabilitation and force-building efforts of the Hamas terror organization.”
להסרת איום מיידי: צה"ל חיסל ראש תשתית מרכזית להעברת כספים של ארגון הטרור חמאס
צה"ל תקף שלשום, במרחב חאן יונס וחיסל את איהאב כריזם, ראש תשתית מרכזית להעברת כספים של ארגון הטרור חמאס.
במסגרת תפקידו, כריזם היה אחראי על ניהול העברות כספים בשווי מיליוני דולרים לזרוע הצבאית של ארגון… pic.twitter.com/AEt7V1LsRz
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 28, 2026
Troops from the IDF’s Duvdevan commando unit under the direction of the Shin Bet arrested five Palestinian terror suspects in a series of operations across the West Bank over the past two days, including one accused of planning an attack in the immediate future, the military says.
According to the IDF, the suspect was detained in Jenin.
In a separate raid in the village of Zeita, troops arrested a Hamas-affiliated suspect accused of “advancing terror activity.”
The IDF says three additional suspects were arrested in the Qalandiya and Al-Bireh areas, including one armed operative accused of incitement and another involved in assembling explosive devices.
Separately, undercover Border Police officers operating under Shin Bet direction arrested two additional Palestinian suspects overnight in Nablus who were also allegedly planning to carry out an attack imminently.
According to the IDF, the undercover forces surrounded the building where the suspects were hiding and negotiated their surrender before arresting them.
All of the suspects were transferred to security forces for further questioning, the military says.
יום אחרי יום: לוחמי יחידת דובדבן עצרו חמישה מחבלים ובהם מחבל שתכנן לבצע פיגוע בתווך הזמן המיידי ביהודה ושומרון
במהלך היומיים האחרונים, פעלו לוחמי יחידת דובדבן בהכוונת שב"כ ועצרו חמישה מחבלים במסגרת שלוש פעילויות מיוחדות ביהודה ושומרון.
בג׳נין שבחטיבת מנשה, הלוחמים עצרו מחבל… pic.twitter.com/q4FzCLE9Ws
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 28, 2026
A fire tore through a dormitory at a girls’ school in a town in Kenya’s Rift Valley overnight, killing at least 15 students, police say.
An unknown number of students were also injured at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil in Nakuru County, the Gilgil Police Station says in a report seen by Reuters. The cause of the fire was not known, it says.
Footage aired by Citizen Television shows broken window panes and smoke-stained walls.
The aftermath of the dormitory fire at Utumishi Girls' High School in Gilgil pic.twitter.com/s5AyXNrT7C
— Kenyans.co.ke (@Kenyans) May 28, 2026
Kenya has a long history of school fires, with more than 60 cases of arson in public secondary schools recorded in 2018 alone, according to government data. Many of the fires have been set by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.
Masoud Mwinyi, a senior police commander, tells reporters at the school that 50 officers were combing areas around the school for students who may have fled when the fire broke out.
“Of that shock and fear and anxiety, many people went out, and it was at night,” he says.
Following the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with nearly 1,000 cases and over 200 deaths reported since May 5, the Health Ministry urges the public to avoid non-essential travel to areas where there is an outbreak.
The ministry says that there has never been a case of Ebola in Israel as far as is known. There is also no known spread of the virus outside of Africa, except for patients who were flown securely to receive medical treatment in Europe and the US.
Ebola is a lethal infectious disease with high fatality rates, transmitted primarily through direct contact with a symptomatic patient or with blood, secretions, and body fluids.
The ministry says that travelers who have returned from areas with an Ebola outbreak and develop a fever or other unusual symptoms within 21 days of their return are asked to avoid contact with others and contact a medical professional immediately by phone.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara accuses the appointments committee that reapproved the selection of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as new Mossad chief of ignoring key facts in the case, asserting that Gofman’s actions in a controversial incident from 2022 constitute a “substantial blemish” on his ethical conduct and saying that the High Court of Justice should therefore annul his appointment.
The Senior Appointments Advisory Committee reapproved Gofman’s appointment on Tuesday 3-1 after the High Court ordered the committee to hear and review new evidence and testimony that it failed to obtain when it first approved Gofman’s appointment in April.
But in her response to the committee’s decision sent to the court this morning, Baharav-Miara states that the new evidence and testimony the committee reviewed shows Gofman was aware that the IDF’s 210th Division he commanded in 2022 had used blogger Ori Elmakayes in an influence operation, and that Gofman failed to intervene on Elmakayes’s behalf after he was wrongfully arrested and indicted on espionage charges as a result of his work with Gofman’s division.
The attorney general says that the committee ignored the critical new evidence it reviewed after the court order, essentially accusing the committee majority of seeking to appoint Gofman regardless of the facts of the case.
“Even after the majority of the committee members were given an opportunity to review the examination process it conducted, they failed,” writes Baharav-Miara.
“The opinion of the committee majority ignores some of the real-time testimonies and documents, which have significant weight for understanding the matter, and includes ‘inaccuracies,’ as the committee chair said,” adds the attorney general in reference to retired Supreme Court president Asher Grunis who voted against immediately approving Gofman’s appointment and in favor of further clarifying the affair.
The British Museum in London has postponed a lecture on “Ancient Israel and Judah in the British Museum,” scheduled for today to celebrate Jewish Culture Month, due to security concerns, according to the museum’s statement.
Paul Collins, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East, was supposed to give an hourlong talk on how “the histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah can be illuminated by the archaeology and art of the wider ancient Middle East,” focusing on the artifacts preserved in the museum.
The museum says the event will take place at an unspecified later date.
“In recent days, we were informed that a significant proportion of registered attendees were individuals intending to deliberately disrupt the event, preventing others from participating in good faith and undermining the purpose of the programme,” the statement reads.
“The British Museum fully recognises the importance of lawful protest and freedom of expression in a democratic society,” it adds. “Equally, we have a responsibility to ensure that events hosted within the Museum can proceed safely, securely and without intimidation for speakers, staff and visitors alike.”
The museum pledges to continue supporting Jewish Culture Month.
In recent months, the British Museum has been at the center of a controversy regarding the use of the term Palestine and Palestinian in some of its displays.
Sirens sound in the northern community of Shtula near the Lebanese border, warning of a suspected Hezbollah drone infiltration.
The IDF says the details are under review.
An Australian woman has been charged with traveling to Syria and joining the Islamic State group, Australian Federal police say.
The 34-year-old woman was arrested at her Melbourne home eight months after she returned to Australia via Lebanon with another woman, Australia Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec says.
The arrest comes two days after seven women and 12 children linked to IS returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp against the wishes of the Australian government.
Three weeks ago, four women and nine children in similar circumstances returned from the same Roj camp for displaced people, which is located near the area where the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge. Three of the four women were charged on arrival with slavery and terrorism offenses and remain in custody.
All the women who returned from Syria this month remained under police investigation. Another woman, who accompanied the woman charged Thursday to Australia from Lebanon, also was under investigation, Sirec says.
A period of time passing without charges does indicate investigations have ceased, Sirec notes.
The woman most recently arrested in Melbourne is expected to appear today in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on a charge of entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone. She also has been charged with joining a terrorist organization, ISIS. Each charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Police allege she traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS. She was captured by Kurdish forces in March 2019 after IS fighters were defeated and placed in al-Hol camp for displaced people.
She returned to Australia on Sept. 26, police allege.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon says Jerusalem is freezing cooperation with the office of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres over a decision to place Israel on a list of sexual violence in conflict zone offenders, the Ynet news site reports.
In a tweet, Danon slams the alleged addition of Israel, which has not been announced by the UN, calling it a “political decision” and “disconnected from facts and from reality.”
A UN report released by Gutteress’s office in July 2025 included Hamas on its list of “parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict.” The move followed a finding by Special Representative Pramila Patten that the terror group engaged in systematic sexual violence during the October 7, 2023, attack and against hostages held in Gaza.
According to Ynet, Israel believes the decision to include Hamas sparked pressure on Turtle Bay to also include Israel. The latest annual report on sexual violence in conflict zones has yet to be made public.
“Anyone able to include Israel on the same list as the terrorists and rapists of Hamas has no moral standing to seek cooperation,” Danon says, according to Ynet.
He adds that Israel “will wait for a professional and fair secretary general to enter office.”
Guterres is slated to end his term at the end of the year.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted an American base on Thursday in retaliation for US strikes on the country’s south, Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB reports.
“Following this morning’s aggression by the invading US military against a location on the outskirts of Bandar Abbas Airport using aerial projectiles, the American air base that served as the source of the attack was targeted at 4:50 am (0120 GMT),” the IRGC says, according to IRIB.
It does not provide details of the location of the base, though Kuwait, a US ally, said it was responding to missile and drone attacks on Thursday morning.
The back-and-forth challenges the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, four days after US President Donald Trump claimed a deal extending the truce by 60 days was nearly complete.
An apparent Hezbollah drone was intercepted over an area of southern Lebanon where Israeli troops are operating, the military says.
The “suspicious aerial target” and the attempts to shoot it down triggered sirens in several border communities in the Galilee Panhandle.
An IDF soldier was killed, and two reservists were wounded in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack in northern Israel, close to the border with Lebanon yesterday, the military announces.
The slain servicewoman is named as Sgt. Rotem Yanai, 20, a service conditions NCO in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion, from Giv’at Ada.
Two drones launched by Hezbollah exploded in a military zone on the border during the attack, according to an initial military probe.
One of the drones killed Yanai as she was running to a shelter. The second drone seriously wounded a reservist and moderately injured another.
The drones had triggered sirens in the area as they were identified. However, they were not intercepted.
Iranian forces fired at four ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, state broadcaster IRIB reports hours after Washington carried out fresh strikes on southern Iran.
“Four vessels attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz and enter the Persian Gulf without coordination with the security forces,” IRIB posts on Telegram, saying the incident took place at around 12:35 am local time (2105 GMT Wednesday) but without providing details on the ships.
“They were warned, but after they ignored the warning, warning shots were fired at them, forcing them to return,” it adds.
Kuwait’s military says it is responding to missile and drone attacks, after the United States carried out fresh strikes on Iran and Tehran said it had fired at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Kuwaiti air defenses are currently engaging hostile missile and drone attacks,” the Kuwaiti army posts on X.
The IDF says it has launched a wave of airstrikes on Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the coastal Lebanese city of Tyre.
Yesterday, the military issued an evacuation warning for the area.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports two sets of Israeli strikes had taken place on the city and an area to its east on Thursday morning, hitting a building and sparking a fire in Tyre.
The United States has issued new Iran-related sanctions by adding the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to its Specially Designated Nationals list, the Treasury Department’s website shows.
The authority is a body Iran set up earlier this month to manage requests for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
The head of a top British intelligence agency says that nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed since Moscow’s war-launching invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Anne Keast-Butler offers the estimate in her inaugural remarks as head of the GCHQ.
Russia and Ukraine have periodically published death tolls of the other side, while largely refraining from offering similar figures on their own side.
In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had lost 55,000 soldiers since the start of the war.
The BBC has confirmed the deaths of 223,539 Russian soldiers, while estimating that the total number is 45 to 65 percent higher.
The US military carried out new strikes overnight Wednesday-Thursday in Iran, targeting a military site that officials believed posed a threat to US forces and commercial maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a US official tells Reuters.
The official says the US military has also intercepted and shot down multiple Iranian drones that posed a similar threat.
The comments from the US official come shortly after Iranian media reported that three explosions were heard east of the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas at around 1:30 a.m. local time. Iranian media said that air defenses were activated for several minutes and that authorities were following up to determine the origin of the sounds.
The US military strikes, which have not been previously reported, came during negotiations to end a three-month-old war that has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher since it began on February 28 with US and Israeli attacks.
US President Donald Trump earlier on Wednesday dismissed an Iranian state media report that Iran and Oman would jointly manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as part of a peace deal. Trump said the waterway would remain open.
The US last carried out what it called defensive strikes against Iran on Monday, in what Iran called a violation of the countries’ fragile ceasefire. The US targets included boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites that the US military’s Central Command said posed a threat to US forces.
A man who admitted to taking part in a plot to kill an Iranian-American activist who is a prominent critic of Tehran has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Jonathan Loadholt, 37, was arrested in November 2024 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit stalking and money laundering in the plot targeting Masih Alinejad, who is 49.
He and another man, Carlisle Rivera, were charged with accepting $100,000 to kill Alinejad, who lives in the United States.
Rivera was sentenced to 15 years in prison in January after pleading guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire.
The US Justice Department has said the plan to kill Alinejad was ordered by Iran’s government.
“Tehran attempted to murder a US journalist in the United States simply because she exposed a few of that regime’s many abuses,” says Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg.
Another suspect remains at large: Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan living in Iran who is accused of recruiting the other two men on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful ideological branch of Iran’s military.
Alinejad is one of the most prominent dissident campaigners against Iranian authorities and for years has pushed for the abolition of the obligatory headscarf in Iran under the banner of “MyStealthyFreedom.” She left Iran in 2009.
Alinejad was the target of another assassination attempt thwarted at the last moment in the summer of 2022.
She has nearly nine million followers on Instagram.
The United States has re-added Francesca Albanese, a UN special rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza, to a list of sanctioned individuals, according to a notice posted to the US Treasury’s website.
The Treasury Department removed Albanese from the list just last week after a federal judge temporarily blocked the sanctions, finding that US President Donald Trump’s administration likely violated her free-speech rights by imposing the measures.
Albanese, who has long been accused of antisemitism and extremist rhetoric against Israel, was sanctioned by the Trump administration last year for alleged “political and economic warfare” against the US and Israel. As United Nations special rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza, she has recommended the International Criminal Court pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli and American nationals.
Three explosions were heard east of the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas at around 1:30 a.m. local time, Iranian media reports early on Thursday, adding that air defenses were activated for several minutes and that authorities were following up to determine the origin of the sounds.
Police were filmed removing a couple from the Old City of Jerusalem because one of them was wearing a hat with the phrase, “FCK BNGVR.”
The woman tells the Haaretz daily that she and her partner were walking through the Muslim Quarter when an officer stopped them and demanded she turn over her “provocative” hat criticizing far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose office oversees the police.
The woman, identified as Dafna Brenkel, tells Haaretz that after she refused the order, the officers told them they had to leave the Old City.
Brenkel’s partner filmed the officers pushing them out of the Muslim Quarter, while refusing to identify themselves.
Brenkel tells Haaretz the incident was “the tip of the iceberg of what other people experience in Jerusalem.”
“I belong to a population group that still has the ability to look straight into the eyes of people who abuse their power in this country without suffering too severe consequences, for the most part,” says the Jewish Israeli woman.
Police, in a statement on the incident, tell Haaretz they are looking into the matter.
בני הזוג שהורחקו מהעיר העתיקה בגלל כובע FCK BNGVR pic.twitter.com/4NoIDsk9Lz
— הארץ חדשות (@haaretznewsvid) May 27, 2026
Former US first lady Jill Biden says in an upcoming interview that her husband’s disastrous 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump was so alarming, she thought he was having a stroke on stage.
“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” she tells “CBS News Sunday Morning” as part of an interview airing this weekend.
“I don’t know what happened,” she says in the clip released Wednesday. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
In the debate, then 81-year-old president Joe Biden stumbled on his words, stared open-mouthed and lost his train of thought as he struggled to counter his bombastic rival.
Yet immediately after the debate, Jill Biden praised her husband’s performance, telling him in front of a crowd of supporters: “Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question, you knew all the facts.”
Joe Biden’s debate performance sparked intense concern within the Democratic Party over his evident decline, ultimately leading to his exit from the White House race in favor of then-vice president Kamala Harris.
She lost to Trump following an abbreviated campaign.
Jill Biden on watching the 2024 debate.
“As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death,” pic.twitter.com/jQfjMxd15C
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 27, 2026
Meta has launched paid subscription plans for its flagship apps, marking a major push by the tech giant to diversify beyond its longtime reliance on advertising revenue.
Meta head of product Naomi Gleit announces the move in a video posted to Instagram, saying she was rolling out Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus and WhatsApp Plus globally, with more plans in the works for businesses, creators and artificial intelligence products.
The move comes as Meta faces investor scrutiny over its massive AI spending. The company has projected capital expenditure — mainly for AI data centers — of between $125 billion and $145 billion for the year.
Meta’s stock rose nearly three percent on the news.
According to reports, Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus will be priced at $3.99 per month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 per month.
Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus will unlock extra features, including better analytics, story rewatch statistics, wider audience reach and profile customization options.
WhatsApp Plus focuses on personalization, including premium stickers, custom ringtones and app themes.
Gleit says the company intends to eventually consolidate its various offerings under a single brand called Meta One.
Meta in 2023 launched ad-free, paid versions of Facebook and Instagram in Europe to comply with EU data privacy legislation, giving users a choice between a free, ad-supported experience and a paid, ad-free one.
