United States President Donald Trump has dismissed a threat from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister for war crimes should he visit the city.

Trump insisted that Benjamin Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form” while in the US.

The president made the pledge on Monday in a social media post that did not name Mamdani directly but credited Israel with helping the US in its war on Iran.

Mamdani earlier said his administration is still considering whether to arrest Netanyahu should he attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said in an interview published on Saturday.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, charging him with committing war crimes during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani added, saying that his view is shared by many, given the actions the Israeli PM has “wrought over these last many years”.

Mamdani said he remains uncertain whether he has the legal authority to direct the police department, which he oversees, to detain a foreign leader and that he is in “an active conversation” with the city’s Law Department.

“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” he said.

During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani warned that he would order police to arrest Netanyahu if he set foot in the city, framing it as enforcement of the ICC warrant.

Netanyahu typically travels to New York each September for the UN gathering.

Posting on X, Israel dismissed Mamdani’s remarks, calling the ICC a “kangaroo court” and its warrant “bogus”, while accusing him of trying to divert attention from his own troubles.

The ICC, established in 2002 to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, has jurisdiction which Israel rejects; neither Israel nor the United States is a member of the court.

The Trump administration has launched a campaign to try to disable the ICC, imposing sanctions on judges, prosecutors and groups that seek rulings against Israel over allegations of human rights violations. (Al Jazeera)

The post Trump rejects Mamdani threat to arrest Israel’s Netanyahu for war crimes appeared first on Newswire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he has directed Israel’s military to take over 70% of Gaza’s territory.

During an interview at a conference in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu said that Israel is “tightening” its grip on Hamas. “We are now in 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip. We were at 50%. We moved to 60%,” he said. “My directive is to move to — take it step by step — first of all 70. Let’s start with that.” As Netanyahu spoke, the audience called for him to take over all of Gaza’s territory.

In late April, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued maps to international aid groups that showed the military already controlling approximately 64% of Gaza. 

The seizure of more of Gaza would force approximately 2 million Palestinians into a shrinking fraction of the coastal enclave’s shattered territory.

Under a October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces withdrew to a demarcation line known as the “yellow line” that left them in roughly 53% of Gaza.

On Tuesday, Hamas accused Israel of moving the line, saying this “constitutes an explicit and ongoing undermining of the ceasefire agreement, a serious violation of its provisions, and an exposed attempt to impose new facts on the ground by force, with the aim of entrenching military control over the Strip and undermining any real chance of stabilizing the situation or making de-escalation efforts succeed.”

Both Israel and Hamas are supposed to be abiding by the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, which went into effect in October. But progress on the plan, which was promoted by President Donald Trump, has stalled, risking a scenario in which Gaza’s territory becomes permanently divided.

Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat who serves as the official in charge of implementing the agreement, warned earlier this month that without progress, the yellow line could turn “into a fence or wall, a permanent separation of Gaza.”

Mladenov acknowledged a reality on the ground in Gaza in which “civilians are still being killed” and “families live in fear” of Israeli airstrikes.

Israel has repeatedly carried out strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire, accusing Hamas of violating it by rearming and rebuilding its forces. Those strikes have killed more than 850 people in Gaza since the ceasefire began, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Public Health. Earlier this month, Israel assassinated Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the leader of Hamas’ military wing. Eleven days later, Israel assassinated his successor in a subsequent strike.

“We vowed to eliminate everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what will be done: They are all condemned to death everywhere,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday on social media.

Hamas has also refused to disarm or decommission its weaponry, Mladenov said, a key element of the ceasefire plan upon which much of the future of Gaza rests. Israeli forces are supposed to gradually withdraw from occupied territory in Gaza after Hamas disarms and when an international security force secures parts of the enclave.

Though some countries have signaled a willingness to contribute to the security force, there is no clear timeline for its deployment. And in the absence of progress on the ceasefire agreement, Israel has gradually seized more of Gaza, entrenching its hold on the devastated territory. (CNN)

The post Netanyahu says he directed Israeli military to take over 70% of Gaza appeared first on Newswire.

The United Arab Emirates has denied reports claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli military delegation visited the country.

In an official statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said relations with Israel are conducted transparently under the Abraham Accords framework and that allegations of unannounced visits or undisclosed arrangements are unfounded.

The ministry urged media outlets to ensure accuracy and avoid spreading unverified or misleading information, stressing that UAE–Israel ties remain open and clear. (Newswire)

The post UAE denies reports of Israeli Prime Minister’s visit appeared first on Newswire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced that Israel backs the United States’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the truce will not apply to Lebanon.

In a statement on X on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that Israel supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbours and the world”.

He said the US has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan on Friday.

But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he added.

Netanyahu’s statement comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the US, Iran and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere”.

Sharif said the move was “effective immediately”.

Lebanon was drawn into the US and Israel’s war on Iran on March 2 after Tehran-aligned Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel.

Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on February 28, as well as its near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed to in Lebanon in November 2024.

The earlier truce was agreed after more than a year of cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah following Israel’s launch of its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people. 

The Israeli military has also launched an invasion of southern Lebanon and said it aims to seize more territory for what it calls a buffer zone.

There’s been no immediate comment from Hezbollah or Lebanon on Netanyahu’s announcement. (Al Jazeera)

The post Israel PM says US-Iran ceasefire ‘does not include Lebanon’ appeared first on Newswire.