| British News |
| UK’s Burnham poised to announce ban on trade with West Bank settlements, in what some fear could be ‘de facto boycott of all of Israel’ |
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UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is poised to announce a complete ban on trade on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, British media reports. Burnham is considering a full trade embargo on all settlements, in response to Jerusalem’s planned building of settlements in the controversial E1 area. He could announce the plan “within weeks,” the report adds. Looking to take a harder line against Israel than his predecessor Keir Starmer, the Labour leader will announce “robust” new sanctions against Israeli settlements. He could also enact sanctions against far-right ministers and individual settlers. But Labour Friends of Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy group within the center-left party, has warned that it would not be possible to ban trade of goods from settlements only, and that such a move would be a “de facto boycott of all of Israel.” |
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| World News |
| Trump claims Strait of Hormuz ‘is open’ and ‘big victory’ over Iran is on its way |
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US President Donald Trump asserts again that US military and economic pressure against Iran is working. “Those things are going toward a very big victory,” says Trump. “We’re going to have a big victory here very soon.” Trump also insists that the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s military has disrupted and to a large extent blocked shipping, is in fact fully open. “You could really say, you know, because the strait is open. We take a lot of ships through the strait now. We’re taking them in. The mines are gone,” he claims. “We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s what it’s all about. That’s 99.9 percent. We cannot let them because they are crazy and they will use it,” he says, before adding that he had already “stopped it twice.” |
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| Israel News |
| Israel raids homes of Palestinians released in Gaza hostage deal for allegedly continuing to receive ‘pay-to-slay’ stipends |
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Israeli forces in East Jerusalem raided family homes of former Palestinian security prisoners whom Israel freed in exchange for Hamas-held hostages, and who “continued receiving payments and cash benefits from the Palestinian Authority for the terrorist acts they committed,” the police and Defense Ministry say in a joint statement. The statement does not specify when the raids took place. Officers from the ministry’s Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing confiscated hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash, five vehicles and jewelry worth NIS 96,000 ($32,380), the statement says. The seizure complied with a repossession order signed by Defense Minister Israel Katz against released Palestinian prisoners who still receive the PA stipends that Israel refers to as “pay-to-slay” payments, according to the statement. Amid international pressure, and in a bid to position itself as a governing alternative to Hamas in Gaza, the PA last year enacted a welfare program that ended the payments. The reforms, which tied all welfare recipients’ stipends to their financial situation rather than time served, sparked protests in the West Bank, and has failed to convince Israel and other PA critics, though an external audit earlier this year suggested the welfare reform was in effect. According to the police and Defense Ministry statement, former prisoners whose homes were raided over PA payments include Ahed al-Natsheh, a Hamas operative convicted of planning a pair of 2001 attacks in Jerusalem, one of which wounded a dozen people; and Muhammad Abad, a Fatah operative convicted of planning a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Both were released under the second ceasefire deal with Hamas that was reached in January 2025. Palestinian Jerusalem-based outlet Al-Qastal reports that two other prisoners released in that deal were summoned for interrogation today after Israeli forces raided their homes in the East Jerusalem area of Silwan. They are named as Muhammad Farroukh and Amir Farroukh, members of a group the Shin Bet busted in 2017 that carried out several firebombings and other attacks in the capital and was planning shootings, according to the interior security agency. A Justice Ministry list of prisoners set for release as part the early 2025 hostage deal identified both Farroukhs as Fatah operatives. |
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| Yair Netanyahu was target of Iranian assassination plot in Florida, has since returned to live in Israel |
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 35-year-old son Yair was the target of an Iranian assassination plot while he was in Florida. The report comes a day after Netanyahu told the pro-government Channel 14 in a phone interview that “Iran targeted one of my sons. Iran tried to kill, to murder one of my sons.” He did not say which of his two sons was the target, or provide any further details on the plot, but a source says that Israeli intelligence learned last December that Iran was planning to kill Yair in Florida, where the right-wing social media firebrand spends the majority of his time. According to the source, intelligence agencies believe that Iranian agents were “on the ground” in the Miami area conducting surveillance of the premier’s son’s movements. The report says that Yair was told to immediately leave Florida and head back to Israel. It adds that he left without packing his belongings and has been living in Israel ever since. |
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| Netanyahu says he urged Trump to consider ‘tighter siege’ on Iran ahead of expanded US sanctions, doubts possibility of deal with ‘those savages’ |
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he discussed three possible approaches to Iran with US President Donald Trump during their July meeting in Washington — diplomacy, military action and what he describes as tightening the “siege” on Tehran — and links the third option to Washington’s newly expanded sanctions campaign, adding that he is doubtful of the possibility of a deal with “those savages” in Iran. “I spoke with President Trump several weeks ago at the White House, in the Oval Office. We discussed three options [against Iran],” Netanyahu says in a video shared by his office from a Hebrew-language speech at an event in Jerusalem last night. Netanyahu says he told Trump that he doubted the possibility of reaching a “good deal” with Tehran, saying: “I told him, there is one old option. Of course, you can make a deal. A good deal — we have no objection. I doubt that you can make a deal with that bunch over there, with those savages. I’m telling you: You can’t make a deal.” “The second option” they discussed, he says, was “military action,” adding that Israel would be prepared to defend itself if attacked by Iran. “We will not allow Iran to attack us, and if, God forbid, they attack us, they will suffer a blow beyond anything they have imagined– far stronger than anything they have suffered until now,” Netanyahu says. The premier says he then presented Trump with a third option, “to tighten the siege” on Iran, telling him, “You decide.” Netanyahu does not explicitly say that he proposed sanctions, but goes on to portray Washington’s newly expanded sanctions measures as an example of the pressure strategy he had discussed with Trump. On Monday, “[Trump] reaffirmed that decision with something very, very, very powerful,” Netanyahu says, referring to Washington’s announcement of newly expanded sanctions on Iran, which the US says will target the country’s digital assets and technology, gold, aviation and shipping sectors, with secondary measures possibly affecting entities in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Europe. “What President Trump did yesterday was to tighten the siege on Iran — not by tightening the siege on Iran itself, but by tightening the siege on those who help that regime, that terrible dictatorship. That is very important,” Netanyahu says. Trump has long favored heavy economic pressure on Tehran, having pursued “maximum pressure” sanctions during his first term. |
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