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New Argentine President Lands in Israel With Pledge to Move Embassy to Jerusalem
Argentine President Javier Milei is greeted in Tel Aviv by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz. Photo: Reuters/Latin America News Agency
Argentina’s newly-elected President Javier Milei arrived in Israel on Tuesday for a three-day visit, bringing with him a pledge to move his country’s embassy in the Jewish state from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem alongside a commitment to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.
A populist outsider who won a surprise victory in Argentina’s Nov. 2023 presidential election, Milei has loudly advertised his support for Israel and his personal enthusiasm for the Jewish faith. Following his poll triumph, Milei appointed his Jewish spiritual adviser, Rabbi Axel Wahnish, as Argentina’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv.
Milei flew to Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv from Rome, where he met with Pope Francis. On arrival in Israel, he was greeted on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, ahead of a schedule that includes meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, as well as visits to the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Negev, where nearly 25 percent of residents were either murdered or kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom carried out by Hamas terrorists.
“You are a person of values who is committed only to the truth, and it is no wonder that you chose to come to Israel right away to support us in the just struggle for the defense of the Jewish people against the murderers of Hamas,” Katz told Milei.
Speaking on his flight from Rome to the Argentine news outlet Infobae, Milei said that his visit was the fulfillment of his promise to visit Israel on his first international trip since assuming office. He added that he was traveling to Israel to “express my support against the attacks by the terrorist group Hamas” and to deepen commercial ties between the two countries.
Officials traveling with Milei confirmed that the Argentine Embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem without specifying a date. “It is a fact, as soon as the situation allows it, it will be done. There is the intention, but the date has not been set,” one adviser told the Clarín news outlet on Tuesday.
Milei is also pushing forward with plans to list Hamas on RePET — Argentina’s registry of organizations and person linked to acts of terrorism. As a deputy in the Argentine parliament during the former administration of President Alberto Fernández, Milei tried unsuccessfully to designate Hamas.
Milei’s unabashedly pro-Israel position has cast him as an outlier in Latin America, where several heads of state — including Lula da Silva in Brazil, Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Gabriel Boric in Chile — have angrily condemned Israel for its military response to the Hamas atrocities.
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Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.
“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.
Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.
A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.
Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”
States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.
After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.
The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.
The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.
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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
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