Jacob Magid

2 days ago | timesofisrael.com | Jacob Magid

Egypt and Qatar, the mediators in the Israel-Hamas negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal, have made a new proposal for a yearslong truce and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza alongside a hostages-for-prisoners swap, the BBC cites a senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks as saying.

2 days ago | timesofisrael.com | Jacob Magid

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich criticizes the current prosecution of the war in Gaza, saying that if the fighting isn’t escalated, the current government “has no justification for its existence.” Speaking on the right-wing Channel 14, Smotrich says that when the ceasefire was signed in January, “I said unequivocally that we would return to fighting in a completely different way: aiming to subdue, to defeat, to destroy Hamas, to conquer the Gaza Strip and impose military rule on it, to take...

3 days ago | timesofisrael.com | Jacob Magid

The White House has begun the process of looking for a new defense secretary, given the latest scandal surrounding Pete Hegseth, NPR reports, citing an unnamed US official. The White House and US President Donald Trump have publicly come out in defense of Hegseth following a report that he shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis before it took place in a message group that included his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer.

3 days ago | timesofisrael.com | Jacob Magid

After a senior World Health Organization urged him to pressure Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee responds that the pressure should be directed at Hamas to sign onto a hostage deal that would include the resumption of assistance into the Strip. Israel has closed Gaza to aid since the end of the first phase of the ceasefire deal on March 1, saying Hamas has been diverting it from civilians.

3 days ago | timesofisrael.com | Jacob Magid

Referencing the second round of nuclear talks with Iran over the weekend, US President Donald Trump tells reports, “We had very good meetings actually on Iran.”Asked what will happen next, Trump responds, “The next step is we need a little time.”Trump says they’ve had very good meetings on Ukraine and Iran, and will be updating us in the next 3 days.