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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news
ISRAEL-IRAN CONFLICT
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, warned today at an annual army parade that the “tiniest invasion” by Israel would bring a “massive and harsh” response. It comes as the region braces for a potential Israeli retaliation after Iran’s weekend attacks.
The United States will impose new sanctions targeting Iran in the coming days, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced yesterday. “Following Iran’s unprecedented air attack against Israel, President Biden is coordinating with allies and partners, including the G7, and with bipartisan leaders in Congress, on a comprehensive response,” Sullivan said. The new sanctions will target Iran’s missile and drone program as well as entities supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Defense Ministry. Sullivan added, “We will not hesitate to continue to take action, in coordination with allies and partners around the world, and with Congress, to hold the Iranian government accountable for its malicious and destabilizing actions.”
Israel has made a decision to respond to Iran’s strikes, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said today after meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” Cameron told reporters, adding, “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.” Separately, Herzog said he held a “warm discussion” with Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. “Thank you for both the UK and Germany’s strong stand alongside Israel in the face of the reprehensible attack by Iran,” Herzog wrote in a post on X. Mithil Aggarwal reports for NBC News; Sophie Tanno reports for CNN.
The European Union is considering expanding economic sanctions against Iran’s weapons program to respond to last weekend’s attacks on Israel and to prevent an escalation of the conflict. “I’m not trying to exaggerate when I say that, in the Middle East, we are at the edge of a very deep precipice,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. “Member states agreed to mobilize all efforts to avoid a deadly spillover that would be “leading us into a regional war,” Borrel said. “That is what we’re trying to avoid.” Iran is already subject to E.U. sanctions for equipping Russia with drones in its war against Ukraine. Borell said those sanctions could be broadened to include Iran’s missile program, as well as the delivery of weapon systems to its proxy militias in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria. Lara Jakes reports for the New York Times.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has denied Israel’s claims that some of Iran’s missiles were launched from Iraq on Saturday. “It was not proven to us through the military reports we’ve received that any missiles or any drones were launched from Iraq,” al-Sudani told CNN yesterday, adding, “Certainly, our position is clear; we do not allow any non-governmental body to use Iraq to bring it back into the battle. We have been taking the legal procedures to keep Iraq safe and to distance Iraq away from the conflict arena.”
Iran’s president will visit Pakistan “very soon,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said today, as the countries look to mend relations after exchanging strikes in January at what they said were militant targets. Charlotte Greenfield reports for Reuters.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Talks for a ceasefire in Gaza and hostage releases are “almost frozen,” according to a senior Arab diplomat with direct knowledge of the negotiations. The official did not attribute blame and said discussions have stalled amid tensions with Iran following Israel’s strike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus. Richard Engel reports for NBC News.
Israeli tanks pushed back into parts of northern Gaza yesterday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted strikes on Rafah, medics and residents told Reuters. Several people were reportedly killed or wounded. Residents also reported an internet outage in areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in the north of Gaza. Nidal Al-Mughrabi reports.
A U.N. commission said that Israel is obstructing efforts to investigate possible human rights violations on Oct. 7 and in the ensuing war. “We have faced not merely a lack of cooperation but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims” related to the Oct. 7 attack, one of the commission’s three members said yesterday at a briefing in Geneva. The commission was formed in 2021 to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel has accused the commission of bias and has said it would not cooperate with what it called “an anti-Israeli, antisemitic body.” The commission is due to report its findings on the Gaza conflict to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June and to the U.N. General Assembly in October. Nick Cumming-Bruce reports for the New York Times.
At least 33,899 Palestinians have been killed and 76,664 wounded since Oct. 7, the Hamas-run health ministry said today. Fifty-six Palestinians have been killed and 89 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added in a statement. Reuters reports.
A strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza yesterday killed at least 13 people and wounded 25, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital officials. Mohammed Al-Sawalhi, Kareem Khadder, Abeer Salman, and Zeena Saifi report for CNN.
The Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank that have displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely uprooted at least seven communities since Oct. 7, Human Rights Watch said today.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — U.S. RESPONSE
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said U.S. officials will present to Israel findings of a new Washington Post investigation into the killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab and her family in a car. Published yesterday, the Post found that Israeli armored vehicles were present on Jan. 29 in the vicinity of the family’s car, and that gunfire was audible as Hind and her family member begged for help. An expert analyst concluded that the gunshots sounded more akin to weapons commonly used by Israeli forces than Hamas fighters, and that damage to the family’s vehicle was consistent with rounds fired by Israeli tanks. The findings contradict prior statements by Israel’s military that no Israeli forces were present in the area at the time. Cate Brown and Sammy Westfall report for the Washington Post.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a group of American Jewish leaders yesterday that further escalation with Iran is in neither U.S. nor Israeli interests, three people who attended the meeting told Axios. The U.S. assessment is that Iran would respond to any significant Israeli strike on Iranian territory with further missile and drone attacks. “We think it will be very hard to replicate the huge success we had on Saturday with defeating the attack if Iran launches hundreds of missiles and drones again — and the Israelis know it,” a U.S. official said. A person who attended the meeting said Blinken did not say that Israel should refrain from responding to Iran, “But his message was: be smart, strategic and limited as possible.” Barak Ravid reports.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — REGIONAL RESPONSE
The Israeli military said yesterday it had killed three Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah commanders in separate strikes in southern Lebanon. In a statement, Hezbollah acknowledged the three fighters’ deaths but gave no details of their ranks within the organization. Earlier yesterday, Hezbollah claimed it used suicide drones to strike Beit Hillel, a border town in northern Israel, saying the attack had killed some Israelis. The Israeli military said in a statement that Hezbollah’s attack was “under review” but did not confirm whether the group caused casualties. Euan Ward reports for the New York Times; Eugenia Yosef and Mohammed Tawfeeq report for CNN.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Ireland’s newly appointed prime minister Simon Harris told CNN that Israel’s sense of reason has been “replaced by revenge.” In his first television interview since being appointed last week, Harris countered recent criticisms from Israel’s foreign ministry and its ambassador to Ireland accusing Ireland of being “on the wrong side of history” in respect of the war in Gaza. “Excuse me for finding it a little bit hard to see where the representative of the Netanyahu government is talking about being on the wrong side because I think the actions of the Netanyahu government right now, in terms of allowing this humanitarian catastrophe to unfold in Gaza, and the impact on women, children, civilians and civilian infrastructure is profound,” Harris said.
The United Nations yesterday appealed for $2.8 billion to provide aid to three million Palestinians, stressing that tackling the looming famine in Gaza requires not only food, but sanitation, water, and health facilities. Andrea De Domenico, the head of the U.N. humanitarian office for Gaza and the West Bank, said “massive operations” are required to restore those basic services, and that this cannot be done during military operations. Edith M. Lederer reports for AP News.
Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, today called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza. Tajani said the war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s “barbaric” Oct. 7 attacks but that a ceasefire is now “necessary.”
RUSSIA-UKRAINE DEVELOPMENTS
A Russian missile strike killed at least 13 residents and damaged buildings and municipal infrastructure in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv today. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a lack of air defenses meant Ukraine was unable to thwart a Russian airstrike last week that destroyed the biggest power plant in the Kyiv region, saying Kyiv “ran out of all missiles” when Russia attacked the plant.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
The United States has laid out protections for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if he were to be extradited, edging the possibility of an extradition closer. U.S. officials sent assurances to British authorities that he would not face the death penalty or be persecuted for his nationality, and that he could seek First Amendment free speech protections. The assurances follow Biden commenting last week that he was considering a request by Australia that Assange be allowed to return there. Megan Specia reports for the New York Times.
China’s military said today it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft that flew over the Taiwan Strait. The mission took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and U.S. defense chiefs. Both Taiwan and the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said the plane flew over the strait in international airspace, with Taiwanese forces adding they had monitored the situation but observed nothing unusual. Ryan Woo reports for Reuters.
Haiti’s government yesterday named the members of a transitional council set to take power when Prime Minister Ariel Henry steps down. The council is expected to choose a leader and a prime minister and carry out certain presidential powers by majority vote. Harold Isaac and Sarah Morland report for Reuters.
Voting is underway in Croatia today in a parliamentary election after a campaign that centered on a rivalry between the President and Prime Minister of the country. Dustan Stojanovic reports for AP News.
Voting closed across Solomon Islands today in the country’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiances from Taiwan to Beijing and entered into a secret security pact that has escalated fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. AP News reports.
TRUMP-LEGAL MATTERS
Former President Trump’s hush money trial is continuing today after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan had Trump’s first six jurors sworn in yesterday afternoon. Join Just Security Journalism Fellow, Adam Klasfeld’s Daily Dispatches from the Trump Trial Courtroom in New York for updates from inside the courtroom.