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In Jerusalem, defiance and despair among protesters on fateful day for Israeli judicial reform
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Standing next to a patch of sidewalk filled with the names of fallen Israeli soldiers, Ayelet Bargur embraced a friend and, pointing to a stack of poster paper, asked her if she’d like to add the name of a relative who was killed in service.
The rectangular posters bearing the soldiers’ names were arranged on the pavement in rows, weighted down by stones that evoked those found atop monuments in Jewish cemeteries. In addition to the names, all the posters featured the same phase: “In vain.”
A nearby sculpture, made of medals given out by the Israeli Defense Ministry, spelled out the same term.
“It expresses our protest that the sacred covenant between the bereaved families and the government of Israel, and the army, has been breached,” said Bargur, who identified herself as an organizer of the initiative. “We feel that the deaths of our loved ones, if the dictatorship laws pass, will have been in vain. Our loved ones died for the values of the Declaration of Independence. We are a minute before the destruction of the Third Temple.”
Bargur is one of thousands of Israelis who have crowded a park in this city in recent days, part of a last-ditch effort by protesters to stop Israel’s right-wing government from passing a law weakening Israel’s judiciary.
Hours after Bargur spoke, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted the measure through — the first piece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul to be enacted into law.
Facing that reality, Bargur and her compatriots displayed a mix of defiance, resignation and determination. They are using increasingly dire language — predicting the end of Israel’s democracy, or as Bargur did, a catastrophe akin to the destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Holy Temple nearly 2,000 years ago, which will be commemorated on the fast day of Tisha B’Av later this week.
Protesters have vowed to boycott their reserve military duty or, like Bargur, structured their protest around Israel’s revered battle casualties. This morning, a crowd of protesters around the Knesset faced water cannons and mounted police, while others marched from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and then pitched tents and created a small campsite in the middle of a park.
But despite the disappointment they would face later in the day, the protesters’ mood was not one of lamentation. They carried the same Israeli flags, wore the same T-shirts and screamed the same blaring chants that have come to define the weekly mass anti-government demonstrations in Tel Aviv. A couple of protesters told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they were considering leaving the country; most said they planned to stay.
“I will need to fight for my state,” said Roi Lupo, a tech worker who ran into a couple of his colleagues while taking a breather from the protests in the park. “This is my country. My parents are here, my family is here, my kids are here.”
He added, “What am I going to do? I live here and I’m going to fight for my freedom and my rights.”
As Lupo spoke, the Knesset was about to pass a law that bars the Supreme Court from striking down laws it deems “unreasonable.” The measure is one of several pieces of the judicial overhaul effort, which has caused turmoil in Israel and was shelved for several months amid unprecedented protests.
The locus of those protests has been central Tel Aviv, and a Monday morning train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was packed, with many of the passengers wearing protest T-shirts (“Free in our land,” “Democracy is in my soul”) or carrying large Israeli flags. Protest chants began on the endless escalators from the train tracks to the station entrance, and the walk from the station to the outskirts of the Knesset building was lined with tents advertising protest-adjacent causes, handing out more shirts or, in the case of one structure, providing food, water and first aid to demonstrators.
Outside the tent, a vocal opponent of the protests who gave his name as Meir stood verbally sparring with marchers. Like many of the protesters, he invoked his military service (during the Yom Kippur War, in the Sinai Peninsula) to bolster his point. But unlike them he thought the protest, and the public disruption it caused, was a travesty. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, claiming (inaccurately) that he was unable to pass because a T-shirt distribution tent was blocking his path.
“People come here, say the government can’t rule,” he said. “There were elections, that isn’t democracy?”
The medical tent was staffed by the Israeli Medical Association, which opposes the overhaul effort. Dr. Yifat Weiss, an OB-Gyn who was managing the tent in the late morning, said that so far, she and her fellow volunteer medical professionals had sent a dozen injured protesters to the hospital.
“I’m worried the government will say it’s OK to treat people differently according to their race, their color, their gender, their sexual preferences,” she said. “I don’t know, I’m fighting until the end. I don’t want my children to grow up in a dictatorship or any other form that is not a democracy with equality. I don’t know what I will do if the laws will pass.”
Down the street, near a tent belonging to the organization Women Wage Peace, Yael Admi sounded more optimistic. She felt the protest was an opportunity to open people up to the necessity of an Israeli-Palestinian accord — a goal of her group but something that has not been a priority of Israeli governments for nearly a decade.
“There’s more and more understanding of the connections between these things — the burning of Huwara didn’t come from nowhere,” she said, referring to a recent settler riot in a West Bank Palestinian village. “When you don’t see the rights of the other, when you think we have rights that others don’t have, it develops this mechanism that doesn’t see the others.”
Bargur, standing just feet away, next to the “In vain” memorial, said that if the reform passes, it isn’t just living Israelis who may seek to leave.
Her father, she said, has expressed a desire, regarding her fallen brother, to “take the grave and leave the country.”
She added, “I hope we don’t get there.”
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The post In Jerusalem, defiance and despair among protesters on fateful day for Israeli judicial reform appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – The third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has concluded on Saturday, US media reported.
The two sides are understood to have discussed the US lifting of sanctions on Iran, with focuses on technical and key topics including uranium enrichment.
On April 12, the US and Iran held indirect talks in Muscat, marking the first official negotiation between the two sides since the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second round of indirect talks took place in Rome, Italy, on April 19.
All parties, including Oman, stated that the first two rounds of talks were friendly and constructive, but Iranian media pointed out that the first two rounds were mainly framework negotiations and had not yet touched upon the core issues of disagreement.
According to media reports, one of the key issues in the expert-level negotiations will be whether Washington will allow Iran to continue uranium enrichment within the framework of its nuclear program. In response, Araghchi made it clear that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
The US, Israel and other Western actors including the United Nation’s nuclear agency reject Iranian claims that its uranium enrichment is strictly civilian in its goals.
The post 3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says It’s Open to 5-Year Gaza Truce, One-Time Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – The Palestinian jihadists of Hamas said they were willing to secure an agreement with Israel that that would see them remain in charge of the enclave, a source told international media. The deal would include an internationally guaranteed five-year truce and the release of all Israeli hostages in a single batch.
The latest bid to seal a ceasefire follows an Israeli proposal which Hamas had rejected earlier in April as “partial,” urging a “comprehensive” agreement to halt the war ignited by the October 7 massacres.
Israel demands the return of all hostages seized in the 2023 attack, and the disarmament of Hamas, which the jihadists rejected as a “red line.”
An earlier Israeli offer, rejected by the Palestinian terrorists, included a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the return of 10 living hostages.
More than a month into a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza after a two-month truce, a Hamas official said earlier this week that its delegation in Cairo would discuss “new ideas” on a ceasefire.
The post Hamas Says It’s Open to 5-Year Gaza Truce, One-Time Release of All Hostages first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Suspected Chemical Blast at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Kills 4, Injures Hundreds
People walk after an explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, Iran, April 26, 2025. Photo: Mohammad Rasoul Moradi/IRNA/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A huge blast on Saturday likely caused by the explosion of chemical materials stored at Iran’s biggest port, Bandar Abbas, killed at least four people and injured more than 500, Iranian state media reported.
The explosion, which hit the Shahid Rajaee section of the port, occurred as Iran began a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman, but there was no immediate indication of a link between the two events.
Hossein Zafari, a spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management organization, appeared to blame the explosion on poor storage of chemicals in containers at Shahid Rajaee.
“The cause of the explosion was the chemicals inside the containers,” he told Iran’s ILNA news agency.
“Previously, the Director General of Crisis Management had given warnings to this port during their visits and had pointed out the possibility of danger,” Zafari said.
An Iranian government spokesperson, however, said that although chemicals had likely caused the blast, it was not yet possible to determine the exact reason.
Iran’s official news channels aired footage of a vast black and orange cloud of smoke billowing up above the port in the aftermath of the blast, and an office building with its doors blown off and papers and debris strewn around.
Bandar Abbas is Iran’s largest port and handles most of its containers in transit.
The blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometers and was heard in Qeshm, an island 16 miles south of the port, Iranian media said.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency posted footage of injured men lying on the road being tended to amid scenes of confusion.
State TV earlier reported that poor handling of flammable materials was a “contributing factor” to the explosion. A local crisis management official told state TV that the blast took place after several containers stored at the port exploded.
As relief workers tried to put out fires, the port’s customs officials said trucks were being evacuated from the area and that the container yard where the explosion occurred likely contained “dangerous goods and chemicals.” Activities at the port were halted after the blast, officials said.
DEADLY INCIDENTS
A series of deadly incidents have hit Iranian energy and industrial infrastructure in recent years, with many, like Saturday’s blast, blamed on negligence.
They have included refinery fires, a gas explosion at a coalmine, and an emergency repairs incident at Bandar Abbas killed one worker in 2023.
Iran has blamed some other incidents on its arch-foe Israel, which has carried out attacks on Iranian soil targeting Iran’s nuclear program in recent years and last year bombed the country’s air defenses.
Tehran said Israel was behind a February, 2024 attack on Iranian gas pipelines. And in 2020, computers at Shahid Rajaee were hit by a cyberattack. The Washington Post reported that Iran’s arch-foe Israel appeared to be behind that incident as retaliation for an earlier Iranian cyberattack.
Israel has indicated it is nervous about the outcome of US-Iran talks, demanding a full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran says the program is used solely for peaceful purposes, while international observers say it is getting closer to being able to build a bomb.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli military or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office when asked for comment on whether Israel was in any way involved in Saturday’s explosion.
Oil facilities were not affected by the blast on Saturday, Iranian authorities said. The National Iranian Petroleum Refining and Distribution Company said in a statement that it had “no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes and oil pipelines.”
The post Suspected Chemical Blast at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Kills 4, Injures Hundreds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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