Israel News

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that his government’s goal is to “utilize the window of opportunity” between rounds of the nuclear talks in Vienna to tell Washington that the time has come for a “different toolkit” against Iran’s progress in uranium enrichment.

Revelations that Iran may have a nuclear bomb within weeks overshadowed Hanukkah feasts in Israel, but Israel’s spy chief warned Iran it would not be allowed to become a nuclear power.

The head of the Mossad spy agency said Thursday that a bad nuclear deal between world powers and Iran would be “intolerable” for Israel, vowing that the Islamic Republic will never acquire nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called on the United States on Thursday to immediately halt the ongoing negotiations in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The government will not move to extend a controversial surveillance program tracking the phones of people who contracted the Omicron coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz announced Thursday.

Israel has to do “everything it can” in order to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, if not “there may be a point when we will have no choice but to act,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday.

The Israeli military has accelerated its readiness plans aimed at preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state and to stop its entrenchment in the northern arena, Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav told the Israeli Reshet Bet radio network on Tuesday.

Coronavirus czar Salman Zarka said Wednesday that Israel should weigh introducing a national vaccine mandate compelling all citizens to get themselves inoculated against the coronavirus, a notion that mirrors legislation under consideration in several European countries.

Israel’s authority regulating excavation has called a discovered ancient town “a direct voice” from the fall of Jerusalem’s Temple.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council Tuesday that Israel’s settlement building in the West Bank “has reached a critical juncture” while also admonishing the top UN body for its “overwhelming focus” on the Jewish state.

The large-scale Hamas terror plot uncovered by the Shin Bet intelligence agency and broken up in recent weeks is “the most dangerous tactical-operational infrastructure I recall in recent years,” a senior former defense official told JNS.

Israel has been sharing intelligence with the United States showing that Iran is “taking technical steps to prepare to enrich uranium” to weapons-grade 90 percent purity, according to a report Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces are developing upgraded intelligence and firepower strike capabilities, and is drilling these new abilities on a regular basis. At the same time, Israeli intelligence sources acknowledge that Hezbollah has morphed from a guerilla-terror organization into an organized terror army.

Archaeologists made an exciting discovery in Jerusalem on the eve of Hanukkah: a 2,000-year-old oil lamp from the Hasmonean period.

Britain and Israel will “work night and day” in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, the foreign ministers of the two countries wrote in a joint article.

The high-level coronavirus cabinet on Saturday night approved fresh restrictions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, with ministers voting to ban non-citizens from entering the country for two weeks.

Israel will make its position heard ahead of the return to nuclear talks with Iran by world powers on Monday, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid scheduled to visit London and Paris next week.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed a memorandum of understanding with his Moroccan counterpart on Wednesday, the first such agreement between Israel and an Arab state ever, Israeli officials said.

Israel will not be bound by a new nuclear deal with Iran, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday.

Israel officially launched its coronavirus vaccination campaign on Tuesday for children aged 5-11, hoping to stem the spread of COVID-19 in schools and patch the largest remaining gap in its drive for national immunity from the pandemic.