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Israeli Leaders Warn Hezbollah Not to Push Israel, Point to Gaza as Example: ‘This Is What Will Happen Here’
Israeli soldiers stand by, as a mobile artillery unit fires on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
Israel’s top leaders have sent a clear warning to Hezbollah: Stop attacking Israel with rockets and other weapons, or the Jewish state will target the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon just as it’s decimating the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah not to escalate the current conflict during a visit to the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon.
“Hezbollah got us wrong in a major way in 2006, and is getting us seriously wrong even now,” he told a group of Israeli soldiers, referring to the 34-day conflict known as the Second Lebanon War fought between Israel and the powerful Islamist group.
“Hezbollah made a big mistake with us in 2006 and it is making one now,” Netanyahu added. “It thought that we were like a spiderweb.”
Before the 2006 war, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah referred to Israeli society as a spiderweb, characterizing the Jewish state as weak. He reused that same metaphor in a November speech, saying, “Israel has revealed itself to be a weak state, as fragile as a spiderweb, and it needs American and Western support.”
Netanyahu said that Hezbollah knows such a characterization is false, adding, “It sees here tremendous power, the unity of a people, a determination to do whatever is necessary to restore security to the north, and I tell you — this is my policy.”
Hezbollah operates with impunity in Lebanon, where it wields significant political and military clout, and rules over large swathes of the southern part of the country.
The terror group and Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in early October, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the north to evacuate their homes. Fighting at the Lebanese border has intensified in recent weeks, leading to concerns that the conflict in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas, another Iran-backed Islamist terror group, to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
“We will do everything to restore security to the north and allow your families — because many of you are from here — to return home in safety and to know that we are not to be trifled with,” Netanyahu told the soldiers on Monday. “We will do whatever is necessary.”
“Of course, we prefer that this be done without a widespread campaign,” the prime minister continued, expressing Israel’s wish to avoid conflict. “But that will not stop us.”
Netanyahu then warned Hezbollah that, should fighting continue to escalate, Israel is prepared to take its ongoing military campaign of air strikes and ground operations against Hamas in Gaza and use it against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We gave them an example of what is happening to their friends in the south; this is what will happen here in the north,” he said. “We will do everything to restore security.”
Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, massacred 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 240 hostages. The Israeli government has pledged to bring all hostages home and destroy Hamas to the point that the terror group no longer poses a threat. At least 8,000 terrorists have been killed so far including key leaders, according to the Israeli military, which has destroyed much of the group’s infrastructure.
Netanyahu’s comments echoed remarks made by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Sunday.
Gallant explained that Israel isn’t afraid to go to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon if pushed to the brink.
While Israel doesn’t seek such a war, the defense chief clarified, “80,000 people need to be able to go back to their homes safely,” he said, referring to Israelis who were forced to evacuate their homes near the northern border. But if all else fails, “we are willing to sacrifice.”
Gallant then warned Hezbollah, like Netanyahu, that Israel could target its fighters in Lebanon just as it’s currently doing to Hamas in Gaza.
“They [Hezbollah] see what is happening in Gaza,” Gallant said. “They know we can copy-paste to Beirut [the Lebanese capital].”
Elaborating on the dangers that Israel is facing, the defense minister said the source of both areas of conflict — Hamas to the south and Hezbollah to the north — is the same: Iran.
“My basic view: We are fighting an axis, not a single enemy,” Gallant said. “Iran is building up military power around Israel in order to use it.”
Iran has provided arms, funds, and training to both Hamas and Hezbollah. All three have the stated aim of seeking Israel’s destruction.
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Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Music Festival Showcases Tunnel Installation That Simulates Gaza Bombings

An outside view of the “Unsilence Gaza” installation at the 2025 Primavera Sound music festival. Photo: Screenshot
A reproduction of a tunnel that simulates the sound of bombings in the Gaza Strip is being showcased this year at Barcelona’s annual Primavera Sound music festival, which opened on Wednesday.
The unique installation, titled “Unsilence Gaza,” allows visitors to walk through a dark tunnel-like path where they hear noises of explosions as well as dramatic, ominous music. At the end of the tunnel, there is a wall with a message that says in English, Spanish, and Catalan: “Silence isn’t the opposite of the sound of bombs, it allows them to happen.” The outside of the installation features the message: “When everything blows up, don’t hide in the silence.”
The installation makes no mention of the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization that started the ongoing war with Israel after it orchestrated the deadly, mass terror attack across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
UNSILENCE GAZA #PrimaveraSound2025 Instalación de 15 metros de túnel que simula el ruido de un bombardeo a Gaza en el festival de #primaverasound de #barcelona pic.twitter.com/L7XnpF06u1
— Barcelona.lives (@BarcelonaLives) June 4, 2025
The installation was designed by Palestinian sound engineer Oussama Rima and is located by the main entrance of the annual music festival, held at the Parc del Fòrum. T-shirts and sweatshirts with the words “Unsilence Gaza” are also being sold at the festival and proceeds from the sales will be donated to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society to support emergency medical aid.
The Primavera Sound Foundation said on its website that the installation aims to remind people about the power of sound and how, especially in Gaza, it is associated with pain, fear, “torture and trauma.”
“We have normalized seeing war, but not listening to it,” the foundation said. “We live in a world saturated with violent images. Hypervisibility has anaesthetised us: we see, but we do not react. Sound, on the other hand, can still move us. At Primavera Sound, sound is emotion, connection, pleasure. But sound can also be the opposite: it can become a weapon. With this installation, we want to remind you that in Gaza and other parts of the world, sound is pain. It is fear. It is torture and trauma.”
In its statement, the foundation made no mention of Hamas or Israel. Instead, it talked about “genocide,” increased military spending, “warmongering rhetoric and attempts to criminalize and silence voices that defend peace.” The installation was conceptualized by the non-profit organizations Casa Nostra, Casa Vostra and the International Institute for Nonviolent Action (NOVACT), with support from the Primavera Sound Foundation.
More than 150 artists will perform at the Primavera Sound music festival this year including Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, Chappell Roan, FKA Twigs, HAIM, Fontaines D.C., IDLES and Magdalena Bay.
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Sephardic Jewish Film Festival in NYC to Feature Array of Movies Celebrating Culture, Tradition, History

A promotional image for the film “Giado: Holocaust in the Desert” being screened at the 2025 New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Photo: Provided
The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (NYSJFF), also known as the Sephardic Film Festival, returns to New York on Sunday for a week-long celebration of films that spotlight the traditions, cultures, and histories of Sephardic Jews.
This year’s festival will features documentaries, feature films, and shorts that highlight stories set in Israel, Morocco, France, Turkey, and more. It kicks off on Sunday night with a Pomegranate Awards ceremony, whose honorees will include French-born Israeli singer Yael Naim, Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian, and French-Tunisian actor and screenwriter Michel Boujenah. Acclaimed Brazilian Jewish singer-songwriter Fortuna will receive the ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Preservation of Sephardic Culture. Fortuna will also perform at the opening night ceremony with Trio Mediterraneo and special guest Frank London, a Grammy-winning trumpeter and co-founder of The Klezmatics.
NYSJFF is organized by the American Sephardic Federation.
A documentary about Naim will make its world premiere at the film festival on Monday and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Naim and the film’s director, Jill Coulon. Also screening on Monday is the 1985 French comedy “Three Men and a Cradle” starring Boujenah, who will participate in a Q&A after the screening. Boujenah won the coveted César Award for best supporting actor for his role in the film, which is about three adult friends who are enjoying their single life until they get stuck taking care of a baby.
The Sephardic Film Festival will additionally feature the North American premiere of the films “The Last Righteous Man (Baba Sali)” and “Jinxed.” The latter is a Hebrew-language comedy, directed by Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir, about two repairmen who go to fix a television and instead find a dead body in a client’s apartment. They are then mistaken for murder suspects and get mixed up with the mafia and police investigations, as bad luck follows them around.
The Sephardic Film Festival will also host the New York premieres of “Matchmaking 2,” “Neuilly-Poissy” and “The 90s – The Revelry — Hillula,” which was a box office hit in Israel.
The film festival line-up includes “Over My Dead Body,” which explores Persian-American Jewish traditions; a documentary short about efforts to preserve the Ladino language spoken by Sephardic Jews; and a film that highlights the first-hand testimony of Yosef Dadosh who, at the age of 20, was one of 3,000 Libyan Jews deported by the Italians to the Giado concentration camp during the Holocaust.
This year, the Sephardic Film Festival is part of a new, larger cultural festival called Festival Sefarad, which will be a citywide celebration of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. Festival Sefarad will include film screening, musical performances, workshops, book talks, and Shabbat dinners throughout the month of June. The festival is organized by the American Sephardic Federation with support from the UJA-Federation of New York.
“Our inspiration to expand the 27th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival into the first-ever Festival Sefarad is the acute need, in the face of so much adversity and antisemitism, to create communal, intellectual, and cultural events that bring all Jews together,” Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, said in a statement. “With the support of the UJA-Federation of NY and 50 organizations throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens, the ASF is hosting over 40 events that showcase the dynamism, resilience, and joy of the Greater Sephardic world for Jews of all backgrounds and friends.”
The 27th New York Sephardic Jewish Film festival runs from June 8-June 15. The festival concludes with a live concert by legendary artist Enrico Macias. Tickets for the film festival are available online. The annual festival, which started in 1990, has previously screened films from Morocco, India, Yemen, Kurdistan, and more.
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Trump Administration Imposes Sanctions on Four ICC Judges Over ‘Baseless Actions’ Targeting US, Israel

An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
US President Donald Trump‘s administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
Washington designated Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia, according to a statement from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel. The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio said.
The ICC slammed the move, saying it was an attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution that provides hope and justice to millions of victims of “unimaginable atrocities.”
“It is with deep concern that we note the latest actions announced by the government of the United States … These … are regrettable attempts to impede the court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions,” the ICC‘s governing body said in a statement on Friday.
Both judges Bossa and Ibanez Carranza have been on the ICC bench since 2018. In 2020 they were involved in an appeals chamber decision that allowed the ICC prosecutor to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
Since 2021, the court had deprioritized the investigation into American troops in Afghanistan and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and the Taliban forces.
ICC judges also issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. Alapini Gansou and Hohler ruled to authorize the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, Rubio said.
The move deepens the administration‘s animosity toward the court. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court’s work on Afghanistan.
The measures also follow a January vote at the US House of Representatives to punish the ICC in protest over its Netanyahu arrest warrant. The move underscored strong support among Trump‘s fellow Republicans for Israel’s government.
Sanctions severely hamper individuals’ abilities to carry out even routine financial transactions as any banks with ties to the United States, or that conduct transactions in dollars, are expected to have to comply with the restrictions.
But the Treasury Department also issued general licenses, including one allowing the wind-down of any existing transactions involving those targeted on Thursday until July 8, as long as any payment to them is made to a blocked, interest-bearing account located in the US.
The new sanctions come at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier US sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the UN Security Council.
However, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. Nonetheless, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
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