The IDF said late on Sunday it had carried out a precise strike on a Hamas compound in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but that it was reviewing the incident following reports that the strike caused a fire and civilians were harmed. 

"An IDF aircraft struck a Hamas compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating. The strike was carried out against legitimate targets under international law, using precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence that indicated Hamas' use of the area," the military said.

The Hamas terror group fired eight rockets at central Israel on Sunday afternoon, marking the most significant attack out of the Gaza Strip in some four months and underscoring some of the challenges remaining for the Israeli military as it seeks to oust the Palestinian group from its last major stronghold.

Three of the projectiles were downed by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, and five landed in open areas.

A home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya suffered minor damage from falling shrapnel, police said, and two people suffered light injuries, but no serious losses were reported.

The Knesset is set to hold a preliminary vote designating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a terrorist organization, by which it will then sever all ties with the body that is the main relief service provider for 5.9 Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

The legislative push comes as the International Court of Justice and the international community at large have taken Israel to task for not sufficiently ensuring the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Negotiations for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages held there by Hamas will resume next week, a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel after Mossad chief David Barnea returned to Israel on Saturday following a meeting in Paris with top US and Qatari mediators.

According to the official, Barnea discussed “building a foundation” for the resumption of talks with CIA Director William Burns and Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.

At the end of the meeting, the official said the three agreed to restart talks next week on “new proposals led by the mediators Egypt and Qatar, with active involvement of the US.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi agreed to restore the flow of aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during a telephone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday.

Egypt halted U.N. aid deliveries into the southern city of Rafah after the Israeli military took control of the Gazan side of the Egypt-Gaza border. In Friday’s call, el-Sisi agreed to let the aid flow through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing near the Egyptian border.

The Israeli government is determined to restore security on the border with Lebanon and create the conditions that will allow displaced citizens to return to the north, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

“We have detailed, important and even surprising plans,” the premier told Israel Defense Forces troops during a visit to the army’s Northern Command headquarters in the Upper Galilee city of Safed. “But I will not share these plans … with the enemy,” said Netanyahu, adding the military is “constantly in action on the northern front.”

The International Court of Justice, the principal United Nations judicial arm located in the Hague, voted 13 to two on Friday to insist that the Jewish state “immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate.”

The U.N. high court, which was ruling on a case that South Africa brought against Israel, stated that the Jewish state must cease such operations in Rafah “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The court also ruled that Israel must keep the Rafah crossing open “for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” and it must take “effective” measures to allow “unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip” to “any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide.”

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Mike Johnson announced Thursday that he will extend an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. 

"This will be a timely and a very strong show of support to the Israeli government in their time of greatest need," Johnson said in a speech at the annual Independence Day event at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. 

Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that he would invite Netanyahu in the coming week, though a date for the address has not yet been set. The move would make Netanyahu the first foreign leader in history to address Congress four times, breaking his own record of three addresses shared with Winston Churchill. 

CIA director William Burns is traveling to Europe to meet with Mossad chief David Barnea in an effort to revive talks for the release of hostages held by Hamas, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.

While it is unclear whether Qatari or Egyptian officials will also be present for the meeting both mediating countries continue to be involved in the efforts to secure a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli official says.

Israel’s war cabinet approved the resumption of indirect talks with Hamas for the release of hostages early this morning, with a source telling Hebrew media that the negotiating team was handed new guidelines to try and make an elusive breakthrough.

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday some 30 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at northern towns in a barrage that came hours after a senior Hezbollah member, who was said to have procured “strategic and unique weapons” for the terror group, was killed in an Israeli strike.

It was the latest round in a simmering border conflict that threatens to boil over into a full-scale war.

According to the IDF, some of the projectiles were intercepted and others landed in open areas, and there were no injuries. The rockets sparked a bushfire in the Hula Valley region. Six firefighting crews were dispatched to try the blazes.

How bad could the upcoming hurricane season be? Maybe one of the busiest ever, at least judging by a new key preseason forecast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday released its forecast for the 2024 season, which starts June 1, calling for a more active than normal season — thanks in large part to the off-the-charts high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

NOAA is predicting that 17 to 25 named storms could form this year, with eight to 13 powering up into hurricanes and four to seven of those reaching major hurricane status, Category 3 or higher. That’s above the average: 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. In fact, they’re the highest ever forecast by the federal agency. In 2020, NOAA had predicted the highest number of storms of all time. That season wound up with 30 named storms, 14 of them growing into hurricanes.

This season — at least potentially — sets up to top that.

“That’s the highest forecast that we’ve had,” said Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service. “It’s reason to be concerned, of course, but not alarmed.”

Plans by Ireland, Norway and Spain to recognize “Palestine” only seven months after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre constitute a reward for terrorism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday night.

“Eighty percent of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria support the terrible massacre of Oct. 7. This evil cannot be given a state,” Netanyahu stressed in a Hebrew-language video statement posted to social media.

“This would be a terrorist state. It will try to repeat the massacre of Oct. 7 again and again,” he said, stressing that Israel “will not consent to this.”

The premier concluded: “Rewarding terrorism will not bring peace and neither will it stop us from defeating Hamas.”

President Joe Biden still believes a Palestinian state should be realized only through direct negotiations with Israel, a U.S. National Security Council spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday, responding to the decisions by Ireland, Spain and Norway to recognize “Palestine.”

Biden thinks that “a Palestinian state should be realized through direct negotiations between the parties, not through unilateral recognition,” the spokesperson said, adding that the president is “a strong supporter of a two-state solution and has been throughout his career.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Norway, Ireland and Spain announced their recognition of a Palestinian state, in decisions that the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas terrorist organization welcomed.

The leaders of Norway, Ireland and Spain announced Wednesday that their countries will recognize a Palestinian state within days, sparking a diplomatic row with Israel.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said their countries would make recognition official on May 28, in a joint move with Ireland, whose leader Simon Harris said he expected other countries to join an upswell of support for Palestinian statehood in the coming weeks.

Several European Union countries have in the past weeks indicated that they plan to declare their recognition of a Palestinian state, arguing a two-state solution is essential for lasting peace in the region.

Amir-Abdollahian had a close relationship with senior IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

“You should thank the Islamic Republic and Qassem Soleimani because Soleimani has contributed to world peace and security,” Amir-Abdollahian once said. “If there was no Islamic Republic, your metro stations and gathering centers in Brussels, London and Paris would not be safe.” 

In December 2023, Amir-Abdollahian met with Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar. A month prior, he held meetings with senior Hamas politburo member Khalil Al-Hayya, and with Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ziad al-Nakhaleh in Lebanon.

He met with Haniyeh twice more, once in February during a visit to Doha and again in March during the Hamas political chief’s visit to Tehran.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that Israel might not be willing to embrace a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia if it means agreeing to clear progress toward a Palestinian state.

“The Saudis demand a ceasefire in Gaza and a pathway to a Palestinian state, and it may well be that Israel isn’t able, willing to proceed down this pathway,” Blinken said in testimony before Congress.

“It must decide if it wants to take advantage of this opportunity to achieve something sought from its founding,” he added.

The day after critics slammed the United Nations for holding a moment of silence for the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday, the global body lowered flags to half-mast to honor the leader known as the “Butcher of Tehran.” 

“The United Nations has completely gone off the deep end. Lowering the U.N. flag to half mast in tribute of Iranian President Raisi, a.k.a The Butcher of Tehran,” wrote the Israeli diplomat Yaki Lopez, a staffer in the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry’s digital diplomacy bureau.

“Raisi is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranians, as well as for attacks on Israel,” Lopez added. “What a disgrace.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday said that normalization with Saudi Arabia is a real possibility, adding that such an eventuality would be a “game-changer” for the region. 

Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Herzog said, “Two days ago, I met with the U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and heard from him what was officially announced yesterday—that there is an option for normalization with Saudi Arabia. This is a move that could bring about tremendous change, a historic ‘game-changer’ that constitutes a victory over the empire of evil.”

Israel will not engage in a full-scale military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Instead, it will continue its limited operation in the last Hamas bastion, with the blessing of the Biden administration, according to Washington Post analyst David Ignatius.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hardliner close to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who confronted the West while also overseeing indirect talks with the U.S. over the country's nuclear program, died in the helicopter crash that also killed the country's president. 

Amirabdollahian represented the hard-line shift in Iran after the collapse of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers after then-U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord. He served under President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and followed their policies.

In an unprecedented and hugely controversial development, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Kahn, said Monday that he had requested arrest warrants from the court’s judges for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with top Hamas leaders.

Kahn said that the charges against Israel’s premier and defense chief are for the crimes of “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”

“We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day,” said Khan in reference to Netanyahu and Gallant.

Searchers arrived at the crash site of the helicopter which carried Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and found no sign of life, according to IRINN Telegram message.

Major damage was reported Sunday as powerful storms tore across the central U.S. with destructive winds, giant hail and even a few tornadoes.

The severe weather threat included the potential for a derecho that could sweep across portions of Kansas and Oklahoma with wind gusts higher than 100 mph and baseball-sized hail. That is the same type of storm that barreled across Texas and Louisiana on Thursday, blasting the Houston metro area with winds up to 100 mph that left at least seven people dead and more than 1 million customers without power.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Netanyahu to discuss an ambitious U.S. plan for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel and help the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza in exchange for a path to eventual statehood. Netanyahu's office in a statement said they focused on Israel's military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, humanitarian aid and hostages held in Gaza.

Netanyahu opposes Palestinian statehood, saying Israel will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and partner with local Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

The U.S. said Sullivan said Israel should "connect its military operations to a political strategy" and proposed measures to ensure more aid "surges" into Gaza.

Israel called for bipartisan support on Sunday from the United States against the establishment of a Palestinian state, which it said would be a reward for Hamas and its backer Iran.

European Union members including Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Malta have said they could recognise a Palestinian state this month, seeing a two-state solution as essential for lasting peace.

Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, who met top House Republican Elise Stefanik earlier, said if a Palestinian state was established, Iran would use it as a base to "work towards the destruction of Israel".