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Israel said to tell US it won’t attack Iranian nuclear sites unless negotiations fail

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The Times of Israel liveblogged Friday’s events as they happened.

Hamas responds to the news that four IDF soldiers were killed earlier today after a booby-trapped building they entered collapsed on top of them.

The spokesman for Hamas’s military wing says the terror group’s fighters “continue to hurl the ‘stones of David’ at the ‘chariots of Gideon,’ — a reference to the name of the ongoing IDF operation in Gaza.

“The enemy’s people have no choice but to force their leadership to halt the war of extermination or prepare to receive more of their sons in coffins,” says the spokesperson Hudhaifa Kahlout, known by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran will respond to the US nuclear deal proposal in the coming days, according to Arabic media reports.

Oman’s foreign minister will then decide when and where the next round of nuclear talks will be held.

While the US proposal would reportedly allow a limited amount of enrichment for a temporary period of time, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, blasted the offer earlier this week.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, is on his way back to the US to face criminal charges, ABC News reports, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Abrego Garcia will face charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the US, ABC reports.

His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Palestinian man arrested earlier today for throwing a chair at a rabbi in a Paris suburban cafe has been sent to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, French authorities say.

The reason for the attack was unknown, but France’s main Jewish association condemned it as an antisemitic assault, and French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou blamed a “radicalization of public debate” against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.

The rabbi, Elie Lemmel, suffered a gash to his head from the chair that hit him as he was speaking with a companion in the cafe in the wealthy western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.

The local prosecutors’ office says that it opened a criminal investigation for assault, possibly aggravated by religious motives.

It says the Palestinian, an irregular migrant living with temporary papers in Germany, was thought to be 28 years old and born in the Gaza city of Rafah.

It adds that “he is undergoing a psychiatric examination requiring his forced hospitalization.”

Russia launched an intense missile and drone barrage at the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the early hours of Friday, killing four people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says, as powerful explosions reverberated across the country.

The attacks followed a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin, conveyed via US President Donald Trump, that the Kremlin would hit back after Ukrainian drones destroyed several strategic bomber aircraft in attacks deep inside Russia.

Zelensky says three emergency responders were killed in the missile and drone salvo against the capital. Another person died in an attack on the northwestern city of Lutsk.

“Those killed in Kyiv were rescue workers who arrived at the scene of an initial strike and, unfortunately, were killed in a repeat Russian strike,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, writing on X, said Russia had “‘responded’ to its destroyed aircraft… by attacking civilians in Ukraine…. Multi-story buildings hit. Energy infrastructure damaged.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had carried out the strike on military and military-related targets in response to what it called Ukrainian “terrorist acts” against Russia.

Zelensky says 80 people nationwide had been injured in the attacks, which also struck several other towns and cities. He said residents could still be trapped under rubble.

In Lutsk, the national emergency service said 30 people were injured in addition to the one death. Prosecutors said the attack damaged private homes, educational institutions, and a government building.

Russian forces also struck industrial facilities and infrastructure in the western city of Ternopil, leaving parts of it without power, Mayor Serhii Nadal said.

The regional administration said the attack had injured 10 people and asked residents to temporarily stay inside due to a high concentration of toxic substances in the air after a fire.

The air force said Russia had used 407 drones, one of the largest numbers recorded in a single attack. Forty-five cruise and ballistic missiles were also fired, it said.

Four leaders of the Proud Boys who were pardoned after being found guilty of trying to keep US President Donald Trump in power on January 6, 2021, after he lost the election to Joe Biden filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking $100 million from the government.

“The plaintiffs bring this suit to seek redress for the multiple violations of their constitutional rights,” the document reads.

The lawsuit was filed in Florida by Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, the former chairman of the far-right group, and Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Ethan Nordean, who all played leadership roles, plus Dominic Pezzola.

Tarrio was convicted of crimes, including seditious conspiracy, for his role in planning the Capitol riot that sought to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election defeat of Trump in 2020. He was ordered to serve 22 years in prison.

Biggs, Rehl and Nordean all played leadership roles in the Proud Boys and were tried alongside Tarrio for seditious conspiracy and other crimes.

Pezzola was accused of assaulting former Capitol Police Officer Mark Ode by stealing his riot shield and using it to smash a window at the Capitol.

All four also received jail terms.

On the first day of his return to office in 2025, Trump issued a sweeping clemency order, granting pardons to almost all of the more than 1,500 defendants who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and issuing sentence commutations to 14 others.

US President Trump says three of his cabinet officials will meet with representatives of China in London on June 9 to discuss a trade deal.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump says Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will attend from the US side.

“The meeting should go very well,” Trump writes.

The scheduling of the meeting comes a day after Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping in a rare leader-to-leader call amid weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals.

The countries struck a 90-day deal on May 12 to roll back some of the triple-digit, tit-for-tat tariffs they had placed on each other since Trump’s January inauguration.

Though stocks rallied, the temporary deal did not address broader concerns that strain the bilateral relationship, from the illicit fentanyl trade to the status of democratically governed Taiwan and US complaints about China’s state-dominated, export-driven economic model.

The FBI and US Department of Homeland Security warn of an elevated threat level to Jewish and Israeli targets, following a string of attacks.

The announcement says it comes in response to the firebombing of a hostages rally in Colorado this week, and the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington last month. Both attackers cited the Gaza war as their motivation, according to investigators.

An arsonist also targeted the home of Jewish Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in April due to the war.

“The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict may motivate other violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators with similar grievances to conduct violence against Jewish and Israeli communities and their supporters,” the announcement says.

“Foreign terrorist organizations also may try to exploit narratives related to the conflict to inspire attacks in the United States. The FBI and DHS therefore urge the public to remain vigilant and to report any threats of violence or suspicious activity to law enforcement,” it says.

US authorities often warn of elevated threats to Jewish communities at sensitive times, for example, several warnings came after the October 2023 invasion of Israel, and a warning was issued on the first anniversary of the attack.

Ynet reports that ITA Airways will resume its flights to Israel on July 7 after the Italian airline halted its operations to and from the Jewish state along with other competitors after a Houthi missile landed near Ben Gurion Airport.

A Palestinian man was taken into custody after he threw a chair at a rabbi on a cafe terrace in a wealthy Paris suburb, a police source tells AFP, in an attack France’s main Jewish association condemned as antisemitic.

According to the source, the suspect attacked Rabbi Elie Lemmel in the western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Lemmel was taken to hospital with a head injury.

The assailant was arrested and is in detention.

The attacker is a Palestinian man residing illegally in Germany, says a source close to the case, adding that the man benefits from a status that offers a form of protection for people who cannot be deported to a conflict zone.

Jailed Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has lost nearly a third of his body weight after spending 98 days on a hunger strike, his sister says, following a brief Eid visit to his prison outside Cairo.

“He’s lost 29 percent of his original weight,” says Sanaa Seif, who saw her brother for 20 minutes behind glass. “He looked very thin, but composed,” she wrote in a post on her Facebook page.

Abdel-Fattah, 43, began refusing food in March in solidarity with his mother, Laila Soueif, a renowned academic who has herself been on hunger strike for 250 days to demand her son’s release.

Her strike began on September 29, 2024 — the day her son was due for release after serving a five-year sentence.

In May, a United Nations panel of experts said his detention was arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

The activist is consuming only herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts, his family says.

His mother, 69, was hospitalized last week in London with “critically low” blood sugar, after resuming a full hunger strike.

A French rabbi was attacked earlier today for the second time in a week, he tells Reuters, reflecting a broad rise in hate crimes across France that has included high-profile antisemitic assaults.

Elie Lemmel says he was sitting at a cafe in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine earlier today when he was hit in the head by a chair.

“I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing,” he says.

He was stunned and unsure what exactly had happened, he says, initially thinking something must have fallen from a window or roof, before it occurred to him he had been attacked.

“Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it’s such a shame,” he says.

Today’s incident follows another in the town of Deauville in Normandy last week, when Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by an unknown assailant.

Lemmel says he was used to “not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground,” but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks.

The prosecutor’s office in Nanterre said it had opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for aggravated violence and that a person was being held for questioning. It said it could not provide further details.

“This act sickens us,” former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal writes on X regarding Friday’s incident involving Lemmel. “Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society.”

Last week, five Jewish institutions were sprayed with green paint in Paris.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the anti-Semitic attack that targeted a rabbi in Neuilly today. Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau says in a post on X.

France has seen a rise in hate crimes. Last year, police recorded an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic or antireligious crimes, according to official data published in March. The figures did not include a breakdown by attacks on different religions.

France condemns yesterday’s Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, which the army said targeted Hezbollah drone factories.

France “calls on all the parties to abide by the ceasefire signed on November 26, 2024, in order to ensure the safety of civilian populations on both sides of the Blue Line,” a statement from its foreign ministry says.

“France notes that the monitoring mechanism established by the ceasefire agreement is there to help the parties deal with threats and prevent any escalation that would undermine Lebanon and Israel’s security and stability.”

“In accordance with that agreement, the dismantling of unauthorized military sites on Lebanese soil remains a priority for the Lebanese Armed Forces, which have been engaged in this task for several months, with assistance from the monitoring mechanism and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon,” the French statement says.

“France calls on Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanese territory as quickly as possible.”

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency says that 38 people were killed by Israeli strikes or gunfire across the Palestinian territory on Friday.

Civil defense official Mohammed al-Mughayyir tells AFP that 38 people had been killed in various Israeli attacks since dawn, including 11 in a single strike in Jabalia in the north.

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein conceded that he acted “immorally” but insisted he did nothing criminal as a jury deliberates on his fate for a second day in his sex assault retrial.

Weinstein is on trial again after a New York state appeals court threw out his 2020 convictions, citing irregularities in the presentation of witnesses at the original proceedings.

The former movie industry titan’s 23-year prison sentence for the initial conviction was thrown out, but he remains imprisoned for separate offenses.

Although Weinstein did not take the stand, he spoke out in an interview aired by FOX5 television earlier today as the jury deliberated following six weeks of testimony.

“I have regrets that I put my family through........

© The Times of Israel