Middle East

The Hill -  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday revealed he had undergone treatment for prostate cancer and delayed releasing the results at the peak of U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran earlier this year.

Portside -   Omer Bartov is an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He grew up in a Zionist home and served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, but he has long been concerned about Israel’s use of military power. In a new book called “Israel: What Went Wrong?,” Bartov argues that Zionism has morphed into an ideology of extremism that led to genocide in Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7th. “There is growing criticism of American support for these kinds of Israeli policies, both on the American left and on the American right,” Bartov tells David Remnick. Bartov believes that Israel requires “shock therapy” because “it has not still come to identify the limits of its own power, because those limits are in Washington, D.C., and it’s there that those limits have to be set.” “For Israel, that would be good, because I think Israel needs to be liberated from that kind of dependence on American power. I think, for American society and for American Jewry, that’s a very bad thing because there is a rise of . . . antisemitism from the Tucker Carlsons of the world, who are a rising force right now.” Download a Transcript.

Feedly - Donald Trump has again said that the US has “total control over the strait of Hormuz”, adding that Iran’s leadership was so hobbled by infighting that it was unclear who was in charge. But the US president’s claim seemed questionable in the face of the seizure of two container ships by Iranian commandos and a US report warning it could take six months to clear the strait of mines. Trump’s comments on Thursday came after US special forces boarded a stateless oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, which the Pentagon claimed was carrying Iranian crude oil. NPR - President Trump has ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” trying to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Shipping through the Strait has nearly stopped over fears of mines, Iranian attacks and seizures of ships. The president says he is prepared to wait for the best deal to end the war with Iran.

🎧 There are no reliable figures on how many mines are in the Strait, NPR’s Jackie Northam tells Up First. She adds that they may not be as many as Iran is letting on, or Iran might not know where all of them are. Clearing these mines is a slow and dangerous task, especially amid the risk of attacks. Northam says this week's gunfire attacks and seizures of two ships by Iran have had a chilling effect on the already small number of ships trying to make it through the waterway. ➡️ Trump announced yesterday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to extend their ceasefire for three weeks following high-level negotiations at the White House. This extension aims to maintain the fragile truce to pause fighting between the Israeli military and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

NBC News - The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by three weeks, Trump announced.