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| British News |
| UK settlement sanctions timing was driven by domestic politics, Israeli official tells ToI |
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British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced plans to sanction West Bank settlements last month despite having scheduled a call with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar for the following day in which they were to continue discussing the issue, an Israeli official says, corroborating a report that Israel viewed the decision as “predetermined.” Seconding the accounts of Israeli diplomatic sources in the report, the official alleges that Miliband pressed ahead with the sanctions package while private discussions with Sa’ar were ongoing, mainly to bolster the governing Labour Party’s standing on the Israeli-Palestinian issue ahead of its annual conference next month and a closely watched parliamentary by-election in which the far-left Green party hopes to score a victory. The official confirms that on August 11, Sa’ar reassured Miliband that Israel would not begin construction on the E1 settlement project before Israeli elections in late October, and the two agreed to speak again on August 20. But on August 19, Miliband publicly stated that he planned to press ahead with sanctions, citing Israel’s publication of tenders for E1. Responding to the sanctions package when it was formally announced last week, Sa’ar argued that the tenders’ publication was “not a new decision,” since E1’s formal approval was finalized in 2025 and the process had been underway for months. A British Foreign Office spokesperson denies the Telegraph report, telling the newspaper that the Israeli claims are “completely false” and that the sanctions package came in response to the “moral emergency” of Israel’s expansion of settlements and rising settler violence in the West Bank. The United Kingdom’s move received heavy support from Western nations, which have also condemned Israeli policies in the West Bank, with France and Canada committing to restricting settlement imports, while Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden stated they would support or consider taking similar measures. |
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| World News |
| Iran security chief rejects any talks with US after Trump remarks |
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Iran’s security chief rejects any talks with the United States after President Donald Trump said he was open to resuming discussions on the Middle East war. “Don’t get distracted by the US president’s mixed signals — from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we’re ready to talk,’” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, posted. “The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming. No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!” he added. Trump on Monday said he was open to holding talks with Iran, after weeks of saying it was too early to make a deal to end the war. “The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the USA. will choose to engage — The concept of which we are open to,” Trump said on his Truth Social network. Iran has repeatedly listed demands including war reparations and the lifting of sanctions as preconditions for ending the war and its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. |
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| Israel News |
| US mediating Israel-Saudi contacts over intel on Houthis; IDF said to advise staying out of fighting |
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The US Central Command has been overseeing contacts between Saudi Arabia and Israel over the Houthi advances in Yemen and the Iran-backed group’s attacks on Saudi Arabia, Israel Hayom reports, citing anonymous diplomatic and security sources. The goal of the contacts is to share Israeli intelligence that could help Riyadh defend itself, according to the report. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turned to CENTCOM to enlist the Israeli aid, notes Israel Hayom. According to the sources, the Saudis have also turned to other Gulf states and Egypt. The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment, and CENTCOM did not immediately respond. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that the Israeli military recommended that Israel’s leaders avoid ordering strikes on the Houthis or other actions that would place Israel at the forefront of the military struggle against the group. Citing two senior defense sources, Haaretz says military officials told the political echelon that the focus should remain on a “political effort to create an international and regional coalition” against the Houthis. |
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| IDF finds Hezbollah rocket launcher in south Lebanon buffer zone |
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Troops operating in Israel’s south Lebanon buffer zone located a Hezbollah fighting position, including an armed rocket launcher and a tunnel shaft, the military says. According to the IDF, the launcher, with 32 rockets, had been left behind by Hezbollah before the ceasefire in Lebanon took effect. |
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| Kafr Qasim resident suspected of planning terror attack, police and Shin Bet say |
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Police and the Shin Bet announce the arrest in recent weeks of a 19-year-old from the central Arab town of Kafr Qasim on suspicion of planning a terror attack. The suspect, Mustafa Issa, was “greatly influenced” by the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, and by the violence in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in May 2021, the security agencies say in a joint statement. He searched online for instructions on warfare and explosives, and made several attempts to produce an explosive, according to the statement. When he was arrested, Issa had in his possession “a lot of training equipment” as well as airsoft guns, the statement says. Prosecutors have issued a statement ahead of an indictment against Issa, police and the Shin Bet say. “The Shin Bet and Israel Police view with great severity any involvement of Israeli citizens in activity that puts state security at risk,” they say. |
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