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Sicily’s Jews have their first rabbi in 500 years. Italy’s Jewish establishment won’t accept them.
CATANIA, Italy (JTA) — Rabbi Gilberto Ventura believes his synagogue has the most beautiful view in the world. Located in the tower of a century-old castle on the slopes of Mt. Etna in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania, the synagogue is wedged between a snow-capped volcano and the sun-kissed Mediterranean sea.
The 49-year-old Brazil-born rabbi also thinks his congregation is one of the most unique in the world. It’s made up mainly of Bnei Anusim — descendants of Jews forced to hide their religious practice and convert to Catholicism after the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Before that infamous decree, Sicily was home to tens of thousands of Jews.
The synagogue, which was first inaugurated last fall, is the result of decades of grassroots efforts by those descendants in Catania to find each other and forge a sense of community that had been lacking for centuries.
Hiring a full-time rabbi was the last piece of the puzzle, and Ventura, who has a long history of working with communities of Bnei Anusim in Brazil, was a natural candidate. He arrived in Catania in January.
“I really believe that the future Judaism in the world, especially in some places like Italy and, of course, Brazil, is connected to the Bnei Anusim, and the need to embrace the Bnei Anusim,” Ventura said.
But in an ongoing point of frustration, the formal organization representing Italian Jewry, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), does not recognize them as Jews.
“In the case of Catania, this strange Jewish community hasn’t passed all the steps the law requires,” said Giulio Di Segni, the vice president of UCEI.
He was referring to the fact that the community did not seek UCEI’s permission before establishing themselves under the name “Jewish community of Catania.” Per Italian law, UCEI has a monopoly on acknowledging and establishing Jewish communal life in Italy — including authority over who can use the term “Jewish community of” in formal ways.
“UCEI can’t accept this because it is too easy,” he added. “We are not against their synagogue or their way of prayer, but they cannot use the name ‘Jewish community of Catania.’”
The rooftop of the Castello Leucatia, where the community meets, has a large menorah and a view of the Mediterranean. (David I. Klein)
Catania’s Jewish community members told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a variety of stories about their Jewish backgrounds. Some came from families that always outwardly identified as Jewish. Others identified the source of family traditions practiced by parents and grandparents who — as descendants of Jews who faced persecution for practicing Judaism — still felt the need to hide aspects of their Jewishness from the public eye.
In the midst of questions about their ancestry, the majority of the Jewish community members have undergone Orthodox conversions. But that hasn’t led to their acceptance.
Benito Triolo, president of the Catania Jewish community, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he first came to Judaism at the age of 40, thanks to the insight of a Jewish friend in Palermo, Sicily’s capital and most populous city. Working together, they established a Charter of Sicilian Jewry, which aimed to identify and highlight the Jewish heritage of neighborhoods across the island.
While working on that project, Triolo came closer to his own Jewish heritage, and after years of study, he completed an Orthodox conversion through a rabbi in Miami 25 years ago.
Another community member, who was born Alessandro Scuderi but today goes by the name of Yoram Nathan, first felt drawn to Judaism as a child watching news of the Six-Day War in 1967. At first, he was laughed at by other members of his family — except his grandmother, who happened to have a tradition of lighting eight candles in early winter and baking flat unleavened bread around Easter time.
Decades of study later, Scuderi also completed a formal conversion to Judaism before an Orthodox rabbinic court, or beit din.
Others had more straightforward backgrounds.
“I was born in a Jewish family,” said David Scibilia, the community’s secretary. “Frankly speaking, we were not hiding or deep in the shadows in this part of the country.”
Scibilia said that his father explained to him that he was a Jew as early as the age of four. Within their own home, they observed holidays and kept Shabbat — no easy task since Italian schools at the time of his childhood in the 1970s had class on Saturdays. He did not eat meat until he was an adult and was able to acquire kosher meat.
He said that his family had maintained their Jewish identity since the days of the Inquisition and married amongst a small group of other similar families.
“I was a Jew, but not part of any community,” Scibilia said. “Just my family was my community.”
An aerial view of the city of Catania shows the Mt. Etna volcano in the background, Jan. 28, 28, 2022. (Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
Scibilia explained that once he had a child of his own, he realized he did not want her to have the same lonely Jewish experience. But when he reached out to UCEI, he said he found the proverbial door to organized Jewish life shut. Earning membership in Jewish community organizations across Western Europe involves a strict vetting process, and many groups require applicants to prove their mothers’ Jewishness according to varying standards.
Scibilia’s experience was echoed by Jews outside of the community in Catania and across Italy’s south who talked to JTA — a feeling of neglect or rejection by UCEI for those who fall outside of the norms of Italian Judaism.
UCEI currently recognizes 19 Jewish communities across northern Italy and just one in the south, in Naples, which has jurisdiction over the rest of the southern half of the peninsula and the island of Sicily. The organization recognizes around 28,000 Jews in total across the country.
Scibilia noted that despite his Jewish upbringing, he has multiple certificates of conversion from Orthodox rabbis. The first came from a beit din of American rabbis from who traveled to Syracuse, Sicily, to assess Scibilia and others like him in Sicily. His second comes from the conversion court of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which is known for its exacting Orthodox standards.
Both were rejected by Italy’s own Orthodox rabbinate, and he was forced to stand before another rabbinic court in Italy.
“I have at this moment — don’t start to laugh — three documents that prove that I am a Jew, two Ketubah [marriage contracts] for my wedding, and so on, again and again and again,” Scibilia said.
Others’ experiences in the region have been even more fraught, he said.
“The problem in Italy, that if you try to study with any rabbi here, you can study for 20 years, maybe you can die even before you reach the end of the tunnel,” he said. “From my point of view, they are playing with the spirituality of these people.”
In a statement last year, UCEI called the the Catanians “a phantom ‘Jewish community’” and accused them of “misleading the local institutions and deluding believers and sympathizers into adhering to traditional religious rites, never actually recognized or authorized by the Italian rabbinical authority.”
“Between UCEI and the Italian republic is an agreement signed in ‘87,” Di Segni said. “This law means everything about Jewish communities in Italy is through the Union Jewish community in Italy (UCEI).”
Noemi Di Segni, shown in Rome in 2017, is president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy. (Stefano Montesi/Corbis via Getty Images)
Triolo said he isn’t too concerned about UCEI’s recognition.
“Ours is a process of refounding old communities that existed as early as 200 and up to 1492,” Triolo said. “Our recognition is already in our history. At that time the UCEI did not exist. We were there and we simply returned!”
No one knows when Jews first arrived in Sicily, but the Talmud tells a story that claims Rabbi Akiva, a well-known early rabbinic sage, visited the island in the early second century and told of a small Jewish community in Syracuse. Some historians believe the Roman writer Caecilius Calactinus — who was born in a town near Messina in the first century B.C.E — to have been of Jewish origin.
All agree that over the course of history, Sicily’s Jews watched as the island was traded between Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans and half a dozen other empires. The narrative has also long been that Jewish life there ended five centuries ago, under Spanish rule.
The Spanish empire’s Jews suffered the same fate as Jews from the Iberian peninsula, who would become known to the world as Sephardim when they were expelled in 1492.
The descendents of Spain — and Sicily — spread throughout the world, establishing communities in North Africa, throughout the Ottoman empire, in the Netherlands and ultimately the British Isles and North America, as it was believed that Judaism faded away in their homelands.
Catania’s Jews disagree, arguing that many Jews practiced their religion over the centuries, in secret.
Triolo and others in the community formally inaugurated their synagogue in October. It was furnished with Torah scrolls donated by the Ohev Sholom synagogue in Washington, D.C.
The synagogue is situated in the tower of the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. The building was granted to the community by the city’s municipality.
“So they had the people, they had a synagogue, but they needed somebody to teach,” Ventura said.
The community meets in the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. (David I. Klein)
Ventura, who is Orthodox, may be the island’s first permanent working rabbi in over 500 years, but it’s not his first time working with Bnei Anusim.
Back in his native Brazil, Ventura was the leader of the Synagogue Without Borders, an organization through which he served 15 communities in Brazil’s north that were made up of descendants of Jews who came with the first Portuguese colonists to South America and who ultimately had to hide their identity as the Inquisition spread to the New World.
His work there put him in conflict with Brazil’s Jewish establishment, too. But Ventura is unfazed.
In Brazil, he founded synagogues and summer camps and built mikvahs and yeshivas across the country’s north. Since 2015, he has facilitated the conversion of hundreds of Bnei Anusim, bringing them back into the fold of mainstream Orthodox Judaism.
“I am a teacher since I was 21 years old,” he said. “Now I am 49, along with my wife. It’s one of the things we love to do, and know how to do. To teach Jewish philosophy, to teach Torah, to teach Tanakh, to teach the story of the Jews in Brazil, and now we are starting to teach the story of the Jews in Italy, the story of the Inquisition etcetera.”
In Castello Leucatia, he leads Shabbat services with the energy of a gospel preacher, pausing between prayers to explain a verse, teach a new tune, welcome latecomers, or simply to allow the congregation to talk.
Catania community members are shown at a recent gathering. (David I. Klein)
“This is what’s most important,” he remarked during one such lull on a recent Friday night. “That they get to talk and be a community.”
Ventura had organized a Shabbat event for other Jews across Italy — from Naples to Turin — who shared his belief that the future of Judaism was in communities like the one in Catania.
“Our point of view of Judaism is that we have to be a part of society, we don’t have to insulate ourselves, we believe that Judaism has a lot to contribute to society,” Ventura said. “In Brazil, we have a lot of connections with people from the periphery, in the favela and other communities, immigrants, Indians, etcetera. So that is something we want to establish here, to teach the people a Judaism that brings good things to the wider society.”
Ventura isn’t the only one working with such communities in southern Italy. Across the Strait of Messina, Jewish life has also been on the rise in Calabria — the toe of Italy’s boot — thanks to an American-born rabbi named Barbara Aiello.
Aiello, though raised in Pittsburgh, is of Calabrian descent. She returned to the land of her ancestors in the early 2000s and began working with the Bnei Anusim there, ultimately establishing a synagogue called Ner Tamid del Sud, meaning “eternal light of the south.”
“Until now, nobody took care of Judaism in the south of Italy,” Scibilia said while looking out at the Mediterranean from the terrace of Castello Leucatia.
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‘Center of Gravity for Global Terrorism’: US Lawmakers Spotlight Surging Jihadist Terror Threat in Africa
Islamic State – Central Africa Province released documentary entitled “Jihad and Dawah” covering group’s campaigns in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and battles against Congolese and Ugandan armies. Photo: Screenshot
US lawmakers this week raised alarm bells over the rising terrorist threat from Africa, advocating for continued American support for African nations fighting Islamists as the continent becomes the center of global terrorism.
The US Senate Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, which is part of the larger Foreign Relations Committee, held a hearing in which legislators highlighted the importance of combating terrorist groups in Africa while jousting over President Donald Trump’s approach to the continent.
“Today, the center of gravity for global terrorism has shifted to Africa. It has shifted partly and in fact precisely because of the export of violent Islamic terrorism from the Middle East as well as because of incredibly complicated and specific local dynamics,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who chairs the subcommittee.
“Across the Sahel in West Africa and in East Africa, terrorist groups are expanding, embedding, and operating with increasing capability,” Cruz added. “ISIS affiliates and al-Qaeda-linked groups are growing, controlling territory, and exploiting weak governance.”
The Sahel region runs 3,360 miles across the African continent, dividing the Sahara Desert to the north from the tropical southern savannahs. Terrorist hot spots in recent years in the region have included Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where, Cruz noted, “JNIM [Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin], and Islamic State in the Sahel have all expanded. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa, and Fulani extremists are mass slaughtering Christians.”
In November, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point released a study documenting that in 2024, 86 percent of all terrorism-related deaths occurred in just 10 countries, with seven of them in Africa and five in the Sahel. The researchers identified JNIM as being behind 83 percent of the killings.
Describing the threats in the Horn of Africa region, Cruz said that, in Somalia, al-Shabaab “targets Americans and threatens US personnel and partners in East Africa, all while receiving support from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.”
“In region after region, terrorist groups are outpacing the ability of local governments to respond,” he added. “The failures threaten our interest globally and endanger the American homeland. The threat is rapidly growing and demands attention.”
The Texas senator also took time in his opening remarks to criticize former US President Joe Biden’s approach to Africa.
“For too long, however, Africa was treated as a theater where we didn’t have interests. Presidential administrations either ignored it or used it as a playground for self-indulgent ideological experiments,” Cruz said. “The latter problem was particularly acute during the previous administration. That mismatch allowed terrorist groups to expand and global adversaries, in particular Russia, China, and Iran, to intervene and undermine American interests. Those dynamics now threaten US interests, our allies, and ultimately the American homeland.”
After concluding, Cruz allowed Sen. Cory Booker (NJ), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, to offer his own assessment.
“What we are discussing today is not far away. It’s not disconnected from American life. It’s not some side issue we can afford to regulate to the margins of our senatorial and administrative focus,” Booker said. “Africa is not peripheral to the national security of the United States and to the urgencies we face.”
Booker added that, earlier this year, “the US intelligence community assessed that Africa has become ‘a focal point for the global Sunni Jihadist movement.’ That is not a passing warning. That is a flashing red light.”
Echoing Cruz’s concerns, Booker noted that “al-Shabaab remains a deadly and determined force who has killed civilians, killed Americans, threatened US interests, and plotted a 9/11 style attack against the United States.” He also described how “ISIS Somalia is emerging as a more significant node in the broader ISIS network with demonstrated intent and capability to threaten beyond the region, including against the United States.”
The senator went on to discuss the Sahel, pointing to how “in the Lake Chad Basin, IS West Africa and Boko Haram continue to exploit borders that are weak, states that are strained, and communities that have been failed by their governments for far too long. So, let’s be clear, counterterrorism in Africa is not charity. It is not a distraction. It’s not optional for our country. It is a core American national security interest.”
Booker named the factors that fueled terrorist groups in the region, saying, “They feed on corruption. They feed on broken governance. They feed on despair. They feed on the absence of state legitimacy, the weakness of institutions, the pain of exclusion, and the vulnerability of young people who see too few pathways to dignity, work, and hope.”
Emphasizing that “military strikes alone cannot prevent extremist groups from returning the moment attention shifts and the dust settles,” the New Jersey Democrat argued that combating the threat takes “strategy, patience, partnerships, diplomacy, development, and security working together.”
Booker then criticized the Trump administration for its approach to Africa, describing it as “retreat dressed up as resolve,” in part due to “diminished diplomatic presence” across the continent.
“The Trump administration is not delivering a whole-of-government strategy. It is delivering a whack-a-mole policy dressed up as counterterrorism,” Booker argued. “It is fragmented. It is reactive. It is too often militarized and under-strategized. Because the future of American security is bound up with the future of the stability, prosperity, and partnerships we have on the African continent, we need a strategy that reflects the true conditions on the ground and not only frames Africa as a problem but actually sees the real framing that it is an extraordinary asset.”
Cruz defended the Trump administration’s efforts in Africa.
“As I’ve said, one of the reasons for these hearings is to ensure that the administration officials have the opportunity and the platform to articulate President Trump’s approach to Africa. For too long, US policy has treated Africa as a secondary theater,” Cruz said. “The Biden administration withdrew US forces from Niger, which was a key foothold in the region that is the epicenter of global terrorism. That assumption is no longer tenable for a range of reasons.”
Cruz said that Trump “personally met with 13 African heads of state in his first year in office. But too often there is nonetheless a lazy assumption that the US is disengaging from Africa.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs, testified before the committee.
“Africa will play an important role in America’s economic future. The continent holds vast critical minerals, energy resources, and tremendous human capital,” he said. “However, these opportunities cannot be fully realized amid persistent instability in parts of the continent, including terrorist threats, which continue to affect US interests.”
Checker described the limited nature of the administration’s approach.
“Our counterterrorism posture in Africa is narrowly focused and aligned with US national security priorities. The primary objective is clear: We will protect the homeland from threats while safeguarding US citizens and commercial interests abroad,” Checker said. “Groups affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda remain active in the Sahel, Nigeria, and parts of East Africa. These threats are real, but our response must be disciplined.”
On April 16, troops in Nigeria killed 25 fighters in the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terror group during a failed attack in the Borno state.
“We will not pursue large-scale, indefinite military engagements, or nation building efforts,” Checker said. “Instead, we are adopting a targeted approach that emphasizes intelligence sharing and limited, high impact security cooperation with partners who demonstrate both capability and political will.”
Regarding the Sahel, Checker said “a region that accounted for 5-10 percent of terrorism-related deaths a decade ago, now represents more than 50 percent. Despite significant American engagement, the strategic picture demonstrates that open-ended, aid-centric approaches have not delivered sustainable security outcomes. This is why a fundamental rethink is necessary.”
In his conclusion, Checker noted that “our approach is grounded in respect for sovereignty and realism about political conditions on the ground. We engage governments as they are, not as we wish them to be.”
Monica Jacobson, senior official for the Bureau of Counterterrorism, also testified and explained how the administration’s approach was guided by three core principles: neutralizing terrorist threats before they reached the US, supporting regional partners instead of replacing them, and defending critical supply chains.
“Moroccan forces previously trained by the Bureau of Counterterrorism now train Sahelian forces across sub-Saharan Africa, using US-provided curricula,” Jacobson said. “This is precisely the model we seek to expand, with regional partners leading and sustaining regional security efforts.”
Jacobson continued, “We also recognize that, in many parts of Africa, radical Islamic terrorists target civilians based on their Christian faith. As President Trump and Secretary Rubio have made clear, we will respond to atrocities and violence against Christians, including those who knowingly direct, authorize, fund, support, or carry out violations of religious liberty. Our counterterrorism efforts have included directly targeting the terrorists responsible for this violence, and we likewise hold governments’ feet to the fire when they fail to address terrorist threats that undermine religious freedom.”
Former Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed responded to the hearing on Wednesday when speaking at Abbey College in Cambridge.
“Now, people say that there is religious persecution in Nigeria and that there is genocide against Christians,” Mohammed said. “It’s not true. It is fake news.” He defended Nigeria as fostering a culture that promotes interfaith tolerance.
Chigozie Ubani, a fellow at the Institute of Security Nigeria, has discussed Boko Haram’s attacks.
“Their target is to terrorize, maim, and displace people,” Ubani told Nigeria’s Punch News. “Once they displace them, of course, they occupy the space. So, for as long as that is not achieved, they can only retreat and come back.”
Last month, multiple terrorist attacks in Nigeria’s Maiduguri killed 25 people and injured more than 200.
“Their goal is to take over our territories,” Ubani said. “When they take over, everybody there will submit to their religious authority. That’s what it is.”
Earlier this week, officials from both Mali and Niger accused their neighboring countries of supporting terrorism. At the sidelines of a security forum in Senegal, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop claimed that other countries were “harboring terrorist groups” and allowing them to operate against Mali. Niger officials have previously accused France of backing terrorism and faced criticism for allegedly concealing the severity of Islamist terror attacks.
On Saturday, US Africa Command released a statement announcing strikes had occurred on Friday, targeting Islamic State terrorists in the mountain regions of Puntland, the Easternmost state of Somalia. The attacks targeted territory approximately 30 miles southeast of the port city of Bosaso in the Bari region. No casualty numbers were announced.
On Wednesday, Puntland forces displayed the corpses of more than 10 suspected Islamic State fighters killed in the strikes on the Jaceel Valley area of the Calmiskaad mountain range.
Video shared from the scene showed bodies in what appeared to be a crater from an airstrike.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Arrives in Pakistan, Trump Expects Offer Satisfying US Demands
Army soldiers patrol a road as Pakistan prepares to host US and Iran for the second round of peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Waseem Khan
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks with the US, offering some optimism for an end to the eight-week war that has killed thousands and sown turmoil in global markets.
US President Donald Trump told Reuters on Friday that Iran plans to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands, but said he did not yet know what the offer entailed.
When asked who the US was negotiating with, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that, but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now.”
It remained unclear whether Araqchi would meet this weekend with US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, or whether a meeting would happen later.
After a US bombing campaign and Iran‘s blocking of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the two countries are at a costly impasse, with Iran‘s oil exports blocked and US gasoline prices at multi-year highs. The US and Israel also destroyed most of Iran’s navy and air defenses, killed much of the regime’s leadership, and significantly degraded its nuclear, missile, and drone programs.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff and Kushner would leave for Pakistan on Saturday morning for talks with Araqchi. Pakistani sources said Araqchi was not slated to meet US negotiators in Islamabad, a message echoed by an Iran state television reporter, who said Pakistan could convey Iran‘s concerns for ending the war.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed Araqchi’s arrival in Islamabad, where a heavy military and paramilitary presence was visible across the central parts of the city.
Araqchi went straight into a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the Serena Hotel, where the first round of talks with the US was held, two government sources said.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani pledged his country’s support for mediation efforts by Pakistan in a phone call with Trump, Qatar’s state news agency reported.
Leavitt struck an upbeat tone, saying the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come this weekend.
She added that US Vice President JD Vance, who earlier this month led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran to end their war, is ready to travel to Pakistan to join the negotiations if they prove successful.
Araqchi wrote on X that he was visiting Pakistan, Oman, and Russia to coordinate with partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments. The tour will include consultations on the latest efforts to end the war, Iran‘s Foreign Ministry spokesperson later told state media.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a briefing earlier on Friday that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely,” he said. “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways.”
Reports on Araqchi’s trip in Iranian state media and the Pakistani sources made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran‘s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at the talks earlier this month.
The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Qalibaf had resigned as head of Iran‘s negotiating team, and added that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet.
Pakistani sources said earlier that a US logistics and security team already was in place in Islamabad for potential talks.
The last round of peace talks had been expected to resume on Tuesday but never took place, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending and a US delegation led by Vance never leaving Washington.
Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators.
Oil prices remained volatile on Friday, as traders weighed potential disruption from the worst oil shock in history amid the prospect for further talks.
Brent crude futures settled at $105.33 a barrel, about 0.3% higher, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 1.5% at $94.40.
HEZBOLLAH DISMISSES LEBANON CEASEFIRE EXTENSION
On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon extended a separate ceasefire for three weeks at a White House meeting brokered by Trump.
The war in Lebanon, which Israel invaded last month to root out Iran‘s Hezbollah allies after the terrorist group fired across the border, has run in parallel with the wider Iran war, and Tehran says a ceasefire there is a precondition for talks.
There was little sign of an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities reported two people were killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
While the ceasefire that came into force on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
“It is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said in response to the extension of the ceasefire.
Israel’s military said it had killed six armed Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon on Friday.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKADE
Trump on Thursday said he wanted an “everlasting” agreement with Iran, while asserting the US had an upper hand in the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route.
The US has yet to find a way to open the strait, where Iran has blocked nearly all ships apart from its own since the start of the war eight weeks ago. Iran showed off its control this week by seizing two huge cargo vessels there.
Trump imposed a separate blockade of Iranian shipping last week. Iran says it will not reopen the strait until Trump lifts his blockade.
“Our blockade is growing and going global,” Hegseth told reporters on Friday.
“No one sails from the Strait of Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United States Navy,” he said.
Only five ships crossed the strait in the last 24 hours, shipping data showed on Friday, compared to around 130 a day before the war. Those included one Iranian oil products tanker, but none of the vast crude-carrying supertankers that normally feed global energy markets.
Container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd also said one of its ships had crossed the strait, without giving details.
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IDF Unveils AI-Powered Robotic Warfare System, Breakthrough Artillery Against Hezbollah
Smoke rises from a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has introduced cutting-edge battlefield technology while fighting Hezbollah over the past several weeks, deploying fleets of explosive robots and game-changing artillery to accelerate the destruction of the Iran-backed group’s terrorist infrastructure across southern Lebanon.
With the goal of minimizing risks to troops, the IDF plans to deploy robots on high-risk missions to detonate large, strategic infrastructure in areas previously beyond the reach of ground forces, marking a significant expansion in its use of autonomous battlefield systems. Some of this technology has already been in use but will only escalate.
According to Israeli officials, this newly introduced technology is designed to scan vast areas using intelligence data, locate Hezbollah infrastructure both above and below ground, and systematically dismantle networks built over decades within Shiite villages, forests, and dense terrain.
The IDF expects this sustained military engineering effort to drain Hezbollah’s extensive financial investments and push threats farther from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Given Lebanon’s rugged, mountainous terrain in the area, the natural landscape severely limits the movement of heavy engineering equipment, forcing troops to rely on complex field improvisations amid dense vegetation and terrain that conceals militant infrastructure.
The IDF has previously used robotic systems during the war in Gaza, providing ground forces with a strategic edge while reducing exposure to danger, including deploying them to explore Hamas tunnels and enhance the detection and tracking of armed operatives.
Robotic systems not only reduce the danger to troops but also help offset manpower shortages and enable operations in especially challenging environments, including tunnel networks, densely populated urban areas, and other locations that are difficult for ground forces to reach.
The IDF has further expanded its arsenal with the introduction of the “Ro’em” self-propelled howitzer battery developed by Elbit Systems, a platform that leverages advanced technology and artificial intelligence to deliver quicker and more accurate firepower.
Fully automatic, the self-propelled howitzer can fire between six and eight rounds per minute at ranges of up to 40 kilometers.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime. Since then, Israeli troops have created a “buffer zone” that extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon. According to Israeli officials the purpose of the zone is to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets and drones during the war.
The US mediated a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon last week. The deal was separate from Washington’s efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran, though Tehran had pushed for Lebanon to be included in any broader framework for stopping hostilities.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the truce, which was due to expire on Sunday, to allow more time for negotiations and diplomatic efforts.
Even though the US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.
For its part, Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist group that openly seeks Israel’s destruction, maintains it has “the right to resist” what it calls occupying forces, while rejecting any direct negotiations between the two countries.
Even with the truce in place, Israel has warned Lebanese citizens against returning to their homes at this stage, with officials saying that Hezbollah could seek to exploit the situation to reestablish its terrorist infrastructure under civilian cover.
The Lebanese government has now opened direct contacts with Israel despite strong objections from Hezbollah — which was established by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1982.
With negotiations now underway toward a potential longer-term arrangement, Israel has said its position rests on two core demands: the full disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist group and a “sustainable” security-based peace framework.
Lebanon has demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the south, the return of Lebanese detainees held in Israel, and the delineation of the land border.