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Court Cancels Israel PM Netanyahu’s Trial Hearings this Week
FILE PHOTO: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement during a visit to the site of the Weizmann Institute of Science, which was hit by an Iranian missile barrage, in the central city of Rehovot, Israel June 20, 2025. JACK GUEZ/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
The Jerusalem District Court canceled this week’s hearings in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial, accepting a request the Israeli leader made citing classified diplomatic and security grounds.
It was unclear whether a social media post by US President Donald Trump influenced the court’s decision. Trump suggested the trial could interfere with Netanyahu’s ability to join negotiations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.
The ruling, seen by Reuters, said that new reasons provided by Netanyahu, the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad and the military intelligence chief justified canceling the hearings.
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – all of which he denies. He has cast the trial against him as an orchestrated left-wing witch-hunt meant to topple a democratically elected right-wing leader.
On Friday, the court rejected a request by Netanyahu to delay his testimony for the next two weeks because of diplomatic and security matters following the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which ended last Tuesday.
He was due to take the stand on Monday for cross-examination.
“It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. He said Washington, having given billions of dollars worth of aid to Israel, was not going to “stand for this.”
A spokesperson for the Israeli prosecution declined to comment on Trump’s post. Netanyahu on X retweeted Trump’s post and added: “Thank you again, @realDonaldTrump. Together, we will make the Middle East Great Again!”
Trump said Netanyahu was “right now” negotiating a deal with Hamas, though neither leader provided details, and officials from both sides have voiced skepticism over prospects for a ceasefire soon.
On Friday, the Republican president told reporters he believed a ceasefire was close.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened in the wake of the US and Israeli bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The post Court Cancels Israel PM Netanyahu’s Trial Hearings this Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK Police Arrest 55 at Parliament Rally for Banned Palestine Action Group
A detained demonstrator sits inside a police van, following a protest in support of the Palestine Action group in Parliament Square in London, Britain, July 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
Fifty-five people were arrested at a rally for the banned Palestine Action group outside Britain’s parliament on Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
The crowd in Parliament Square had been waving placards supporting the group that was banned this month under anti-terrorism legislation, the force said in a post on X.
People from the rally, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, were taken away in police vans.
British lawmakers proscribed the group earlier this month after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
Membership of Palestine Action now carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
The group has called the decision “authoritarian,” and a challenge to the ban will be heard at London’s High Court on Monday.
Palestine Action is among groups that have regularly targeted defense firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.
Police have arrested scores of the group’s supporters at rallies across Britain since the ban came in
The post UK Police Arrest 55 at Parliament Rally for Banned Palestine Action Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Says Attack on West Bank Palestinian Church Was ‘Act of Terror’
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called on Saturday for the perpetrators of an attack on a Palestinian church in the West Bank blamed on Israeli settlers to be prosecuted, calling it an “act of terror.”
Huckabee said he had visited the Christian town of Taybeh, where clerics said Israeli settlers had started a fire near a cemetery and a 5th-century church on July 8.
“It is an act of terror, and it is a crime,” Huckabee said in a statement, “Those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh – or anywhere – (should) be found and be prosecuted. Not just reprimanded, that’s not enough.”
Israel’s government has not commented on the incident, but has previously denounced such acts.
On Tuesday, Huckabee said he had asked Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing of a Palestinian American beaten by settlers in the West Bank, similarly describing it as a “criminal and terrorist act.”
Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements and his comments are a rare and pointed public intervention by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Trump in January rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Settler attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank have risen since the start of Israel’s war on the Hamas terror group in Gaza in October 2023, though violence has long simmered there.
The United Nations’ highest court said last year that Israel’s settlements in territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, were illegal.
Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical ties to the land as well as security needs.
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Israel and Syria Agree to Ceasefire, US Envoy Tom Barrack Announces
US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg attend the Turkey-US-Ukraine trilateral talks in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. Photo: Arda Kucukkaya/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli and Syrian leaders have agreed to a ceasefire, US envoy to Turkey and Syria Tom Barrack announced on the X platform.
Earlier in the week Israel launched an air campaign in Syria aimed to protect Syrian Druze — part of a minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
Barrack said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, with the mediation of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, agreed to a ceasefire “embraced” by Turkey, Jordan and other unidentified neighbors.
There is no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office or the Syrian Presidency.
The post Israel and Syria Agree to Ceasefire, US Envoy Tom Barrack Announces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.