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The US State Department says it has approved the potential sale of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom has been drawn deeper into the Middle East war.

The estimated $24.3 billion sale would include 48 of the military aircraft and 49 Pratt & Whitney engines along with communications equipment, spare parts and other support items, the department says.

“The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the military balance in the region,” it writes in a notice posted online.

The US will allow Iran’s president to attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week, a source familiar with the matter says, one day after Washington announced that it would be barring Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from entering the country.

“Consistent with our host country obligations, the core delegation from the Iranian regime will be able to attend UN General Assembly High Level Week. The delegation will be under travel restrictions and will face prohibitions on the purchase of luxury and other goods per our policy. The delegation is smaller than last year,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

A British Labour MP on Monday called in Parliament for “military action” against Israel, citing previous instances in which the UK has used force against alleged human rights abusers, then apologized for those remarks on Wednesday.

During a discussion on Gaza, MP Tahir Ali interrupted comments by Liberal Democratic MP Richard Foord on the need to disarm Hamas, saying, “On the issue of disarmament, should we not also be calling for Israel’s disarmament as well, given the atrocities that have been committed?”

Ali added, “Previous governments have intervened in the Middle East to take action to [combat] human rights abuses and protect international trade routes. Isn’t it about time that military action is taken against Israel also?”

Responding to Ali, Foord rejected the attempt to equate between Israel and the Hamas terror group, which, he noted, Britain designates as a “proscribed terrorist organization,” according to the UK Jewish Chronicle.

Ali, a member of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s party, also suggested last year that British troops be sent to Gaza to combat Israel. Since 2019, he has represented a constituency in Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city.
He doubled down on his recommendation of military force in a post on Tuesday.

“Previous Labour and Conservative governments have consistently justified military intervention across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, on the grounds of preventing human rights abuses and protecting vital trade routes,” he wrote. “​Is it not time, therefore, that we consider equivalent action to prevent what international bodies have identified as a plausible genocide, and what this Government itself has recognised as the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people?”

He also repeated his calls for a British arms embargo on Israel.

A senior intelligence officer who is believed to have played a key role in the failures that led to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught has been formally dismissed from the military, following months of deliberations over the matter.

Lt. Col. “Aleph” — identified only by his first initial in Hebrew — was the intelligence officer of the Gaza Division, the Israel Defense Forces division responsible for the Gaza Strip and its border, and held the position on and before October 7, 2023.

In November, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir announced that he had dismissed several senior officers, including Aleph, over their roles in the failures of October 7, 2023.

The military began proceedings to end the officer’s service, but Aleph fought his ousting in court, temporarily preventing a military committee set to dismiss him from convening and placing a gag order on details of the proceedings.

On June 30, the court ruled that the dismissal process was lawful and within the military’s authority, rejecting all of Aleph’s claims.

The military committee then convened, and following its review and recommendation, the head of the Personnel Directorate, Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, today ordered Aleph’s release from IDF service.

Aleph was notified of the decision, which the IDF says he may appeal to Zamir.

The officer’s identity — despite having circulated online for months — is still barred from publication, as Aleph appealed to the High Court against his name being officially published by the media.

Iran is rapidly advancing the reconstruction of a nuclear facility that was previously bombed by Israel, according to satellite images cited in a report by the Institute for Science and International Security.

The institute, known as ISIS, says that Iran has been “rapidly moving forward with the reconstruction of the Taleghan 2 facility,” located at the Parchin military complex, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Tehran.

Taleghan 2 was struck by Israel in October 2024, during a retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on Israel earlier that month, and bombed again by the Israeli Air Force in March amid the recent war, after the military said Iran had been restoring the site following the first strikes.

For the UK Jewish Orthodox Community
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Erev Shabbos

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