Israel-Gaza War (2023- )

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      Johnson Says House Will Vote on Stalled Aid to Israel and Ukraine

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      The speaker, who has delayed for months amid G.O.P. opposition to funding for Kyiv, said he would bring up foreign aid legislation along with a bill aimed at appeasing Republican skeptics.Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other American allies, along with a separate bill aimed at mollifying conservatives who have been vehemently opposed to backing Kyiv.Mr. Johnson’s announcement, coming after he has agonized for weeks over whether and how to advance an infusion of critical aid to Ukraine amid stiff Republican resistance, was the first concrete indication that he had settled on a path forward. It came days after Iran launched a large aerial attack on Israel, amplifying calls for Congress to move quickly to approve the pending aid bill.Emerging from a meeting in which he briefed G.O.P. lawmakers on his plan, Mr. Johnson said he would cobble together a legislative package that roughly mirrors the $95 billion aid bill the Senate passed two months ago but that is broken down into three pieces. Lawmakers would vote separately on a bill providing money for Israel, one allocating funding for Ukraine and a third with aid for Taiwan and other allies. They would cast a fourth vote on a separate measure containing other policies popular among Republicans.“We know that the world is watching us to see how we react,” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin and Xi and in Iran, and they’re watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe — and we will.”It is not clear whether the complex strategy will be successful in the House, where Mr. Johnson has a tenuous hold on his divided conference and a bare majority. Republicans could try to block it from coming to the floor. Even if they did not, the success of the aid package would hinge on a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions that support different pieces, given resistance among hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid to Israel.And the plan could imperil Mr. Johnson’s speakership, which is teetering under a threat to oust him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Weighs Response to Iran’s Attack as Allies Push for Restraint

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      Israel’s war cabinet on Monday met to weigh possible responses to Iran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend, as the United States, Britain and other allies strongly urged Israel to show restraint and sought to de-escalate tensions between the two regional powers.Some far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government called for a swift and forceful retaliation in response to Iran.An Israeli official briefed on the cabinet discussions, speaking anonymously in order to talk about security matters, said several options were being considered, ranging from diplomacy to an imminent strike, but gave no further details. There was no immediate public statement by the ministers, or by the Israeli prime minister.“We are weighing our steps,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, told Israeli soldiers on Monday in televised remarks during a visit to an Israeli air base. “The launching of so many missiles, cruise missiles and drones toward Israeli territory will be responded to.”Mr. Netanyahu faces a delicate calculation — how to respond to Iran in order not to look weak, while trying to avoid alienating the Biden administration and other allies already impatient with Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.While the United States, Britain and France strongly condemned Iran’s assault and stepped in to help thwart it on Saturday, their calls for restraint highlighted the pressure Israel was facing to avoid a more direct confrontation with Iran.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Civilians Kill Two Palestinian Men in the West Bank, Officials Say

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      Israeli civilians fatally shot two Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, as tensions continued to spike in the Israeli-occupied territory.The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry identified the two men as Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammad Bani Jama, 21. The circumstances of their deaths near the town of Aqraba remained unclear.The Israeli military said the two men had been killed during a “violent exchange” between Israeli civilians and Palestinians that followed a report of a Palestinian attacking an Israeli shepherd. An initial probe indicated that the gunfire “did not originate” from Israeli soldiers, the military said.The two Palestinians appeared to have been shot by Israeli civilians on the scene, said an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.The killings fed fears that the West Bank could become another front for a country already in its seventh month of war in the Gaza Strip.About 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Since the war began on Oct. 7, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations.Jihad Abu Aliya, 25, was killed in a mob attack, according to the village mayor.Nasser Nasser/Associated PressOver the past few days, a renewed wave of violence has swept through the West Bank.On Friday, a 14-year-old Israeli teenager went missing, prompting Israeli settlers to riot inside a Palestinian village, Al Mughayir. Jihad Abu Aliya, a 25-year-old resident, was fatally shot during a mob attack, according to the village mayor, Amin Abu Aliya.The teenager, Binyamin Achimair, was found dead on Saturday after an intensive search; Israeli officials said he had been murdered in an act of terrorism and vowed to track down the perpetrators. In response, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, conducted a series of mob assaults in Palestinian towns, torching homes and cars, according to Palestinian witnesses.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israelis to allow security forces to search for Mr. Achimair’s killers, but he did not denounce the mob attacks against Palestinians. Human rights groups have long charged that Israel turns a blind eye to settler violence and rarely brings perpetrators to justice.In footage distributed on Sunday by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, hooded figures can be seen setting a car ablaze while Israeli soldiers watch nearby without intervening.Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, condemned Mr. Achimair’s killing in a statement on Monday. But he also said Washington was “increasingly concerned by the violence against Palestinian civilians and their property that ensued in the West Bank after Achimair’s disappearance.”“We strongly condemn these murders, and our thoughts are with their loved ones,” Mr. Miller said. “ The violence must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets.” More

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      With Nuclear Deal Dead, Containing Iran Grows More Fraught

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      The U.S., Europe, Russia and China worked together on a 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program. The arrangement’s unraveling and the spike in superpower tensions make this a dangerous moment.When Iran agreed to a deal in 2015 that would require it to surrender 97 percent of the uranium it could use to make nuclear bombs, Russia and China worked alongside the United States and Europe to get the pact done.The Russians even took Iran’s nuclear fuel, for a hefty fee, prompting celebratory declarations that President Vladimir V. Putin could cooperate with the West on critical security issues and help constrain a disruptive regime in a volatile region.A lot has changed in the subsequent nine years. China and Russia are now more aligned with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” to an American-led order, along with the likes of North Korea. When President Biden gathered the leaders of six nations for a video call from the White House on Sunday to plot a common strategy for de-escalating the crisis between Israel and Iran, there was no chance of getting anyone from Beijing or Moscow on the screen.The disappearance of that unified front is one of the many factors that make this moment seems “particularly dangerous,” said Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, “maybe the most dangerous in decades.”But it is hardly the only one.President Donald J. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Obama-era nuclear deal triggered a predictable counterreaction from Tehran, and after a long pause, Iran resumed enriching uranium — some to near-bomb-grade quality. Today it is far closer to producing a bomb than it was when the accord was in effect.Iran has moved forward with its ballistic missile programs, and some of those weapons were used against Israel this weekend.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Johnson Says the House Will Vote on an Israel Bill in the Coming Days

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      Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday after Iran’s overnight attack on Israel that the House would vote in the coming days on aid for Israel, and he suggested that aid for Ukraine could be included in the legislation.“House Republicans and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel,” Mr. Johnson said on Fox News, noting that he had previously advanced two aid bills to help the U.S. ally. “We’re going to try again this week, and the details of that package are being put together. Right now, we’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.”U.S. funding for both Israel and Ukraine has languished in Congress; Mr. Johnson initially refused to take up a $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan passed by the Senate, and the Senate refused to take up a House Republican proposal that conditioned aid to Israel on domestic spending cuts.In recent weeks, Mr. Johnson has repeatedly vowed to ensure that the House moves to assist Ukraine. He has been searching for a way to structure a foreign aid package that could secure a critical mass of support amid stiff Republican resistance to sending aid to Kyiv and mounting opposition among Democrats to unfettered military aid for Israel.But the attacks from Iran have ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Johnson to bring some kind of package to the floor this week, potentially forcing him to make a decision he has been agonizing over for weeks.He left it unclear on Sunday whether the legislation he said the House would advance this week would also include aid for Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran’s Strikes on Israel Open a Dangerous New Chapter for Old Rivals

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      Iran has retaliated directly against Israel for the killings of its senior generals in Damascus, Syria, with an onslaught of more than 300 drones and missiles aimed at restoring its credibility and deterrence, officials and analysts say.That represents a moment of great risk, with key questions still to answer, they say. Has Iran’s attack been enough to satisfy its calls for revenge? Or given the relatively paltry results — almost all of the drones and missiles were intercepted by Israel and the United States — will it feel obligated to strike again? And will Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, see the strong performance by his country’s air defenses as a sufficient response? Or will he choose to escalate further with an attack on Iran itself?Now that Iran has attacked Israel as it promised to do, it will want to avoid a broader war, the officials and analysts say, noting that the Iranians targeted only military sites in an apparent effort to avoid civilian casualties and advertised their attack well in advance.“Iran’s government appears to have concluded that the Damascus strike was a strategic inflection point, where failure to retaliate would carry more downsides than benefits,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group. “But in doing so, the shadow war it has been waging with Israel for years now threatens to turn into a very real and very damaging conflict,” one that could drag in the United States, he said.“The Iranians have for now played their card,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. “They made a choice to call Israel’s bluff, and they felt they needed to do so, because they see the last six months as a persistent effort to set them back across the region.”On Sunday, Iranian leaders said the military operation against Israel was over, but warned that they could launch a bigger one depending on Israel’s response.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Seeks to Head Off Escalation After Israel’s Successful Defense

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      President Biden and his team, hoping to avoid further escalation leading to a wider war in the Middle East, are advising Israel that its successful defense against Iranian airstrikes constituted a major strategic victory that might not require another round of retaliation, U.S. officials said.The interception of nearly all of the more than 300 drones and missiles fired against Israel on Saturday night demonstrated that Israel had come out ahead in its confrontation with Iran and proved to enemies its ability to protect itself along with its American allies, meaning it did not necessarily need to fire back, the officials said.Whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his government will agree to leave it at that was not immediately clear. Although damage from the attack was relatively light, the scope of the strikes went well beyond the small-bore tit-for-tat shadow war between Iran and Israel in recent years, crossing a red line by firing weapons from Iranian territory into Israeli territory. Had defenses not held, scores or hundreds could have been killed.Emotions were running high among Israeli officials during phone calls with American partners late into the night, and the pressure to fire back was consequently strong. The U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions, stressed that the decision was ultimately up to Israel. Israeli jets early Sunday hit structures in Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah after the Iranian-backed militia sent two explosive drones into Israel, but it was not clear how related that was to the Iranian airstrike.Mr. Biden spoke with Mr. Netanyahu on Saturday after the Iranian attack and repeated his “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security. While the president did not publicly disclose any advice he offered, in a statement released after the call, he hinted at a desire for restraint.“I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks — sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel,” Mr. Biden said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran Attacks Israel: What We Know

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      Tehran fired hundreds of drones and missiles in what was believed to be its first direct assault on Israel after years of a shadow war.Iran launched a large aerial attack on Israel and the territory it controls starting late on Saturday, firing at least 300 drones and missiles. It is the first such direct attack launched from Iranian territory after decades of shadow warfare between the two countries. The assault was in response to a recent strike on a building in the Iranian Embassy complex in Syria that killed several of Iran’s top commanders.Here’s a look at what we know about the Iranian attack this weekend and its implications:What happened during the attack?Air raid sirens sounded in Israel and the West Bank overnight, signaling the start of an attack that had been anticipated for days. In the event, almost all of the missiles and drones were intercepted, the Israeli military said on Sunday.Israel had used two primary defensive weapons systems, the Iron Dome and the Arrow 3, to thwart the attack. The United States participated in the defensive actions, and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said that U.S. forces had intercepted missiles and attack drones launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.Britain also said its planes had shot down drones. In addition, Jordan, which neighbors Israel, said that its military shot down aircraft and missiles that entered its airspace.What damage did the attack cause?The attack caused no deaths, but 12 people were brought in to the Soroka Medical Center in southern Israel overnight. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for Israel’s military, said the Nevatim air force base in the Negev desert in southern Israel suffered light damage from the attack and was functioning. What was the immediate cause of the attack?Iran and Israel have for decades engaged in clandestine warfare, in which they have attacked each other’s interests on land, sea, air and in cyberspace. Iran provides support for proxy forces including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. Israel has launched a series of attacks including killing Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in 2021, and assassinating a Revolutionary Guards commander, Col. Sayad Khodayee, in 2022.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More