Thomas Helm

2 days ago | thenationalnews.com | Nagham Mohanna |Thomas Helm

A senior Israeli politician and former deputy prime minister on Thursday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of approving the transfer of large amounts of arms to organised crime families in Gaza. Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu party, made the accusation in an interview with the radio station Kan Bet, and suggested that the weapons transfer was approved without having gone through the proper channels.

2 days ago | thenationalnews.com | Thomas Helm

Israel’s military said it recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages from the Khan Younis area in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. The bodies of Judi Lynn Weinstein and Gad Haggai, who were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, were identified by Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine. Mr Weinstein was 70 and Ms Haggai 72 at the time of their deaths. They had four children, the military said.

3 days ago | thenationalnews.com | Thomas Helm

Israel is holding 2,790 Gazans as detainees on Israeli territory, 660 of them in military detention camps, which have been the sites of severe abuse throughout the Gaza war, according to data revealed by the state following a court petition from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The NGO also identified 144 missing detainees in the numbers, whose statuses are unknown.

3 days ago | thenationalnews.com | Thomas Helm

Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Israel have reportedly ordered politicians in the United Torah Judaism party, which sits in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, to withdraw from government over lack of progress on passing legislation to exempt young men from the community from military service. Reports of the UTJ's imminent withdrawal have sparked opposition plans to put forward a bill to dissolve parliament, giving Mr Netanyahu about a week to find a solution to save his coalition.

4 days ago | thenationalnews.com | Thomas Helm

Warning sirens sounded across northern Israel on Tuesday, after what appears to be the first rocket fire from Syria in more than a year. Two initial rockets fired from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights fell in open areas and caused no injuries, the Israeli military said. Soon after, the military announced it was investigating why sirens were also sounding in the Nazareth area, in nearby Galilee.