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The head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. [dr.hussam73/Instagram]
The Israeli Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday an appeal against the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and approved his continued imprisonment under Israel’s ‘unlawful combatant’ law without filing charges, his attorney Nasser Odeh said, Anadolu reports.
Odeh stated that the decision is “in clear contradiction with international law and the Geneva Conventions, which provide special protection for medical personnel during armed conflicts.”
“Abu Safiya remains held in solitary confinement in Nafha prison under harsh detention conditions, deprived of necessary medical treatment and the most basic rights guaranteed to him,” Odeh said.
Abu Safiya, who served as director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, was detained by Israeli forces on Dec. 27, 2024, after troops stormed the hospital during military operations in northern Gaza.
In previous statements, rights groups and lawyers said that during detention he has suffered severe weight loss, skin infections and medical neglect.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have also reported that the detained pediatrician was subjected to abuse and mistreatment in Israeli custody.
According to Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, around 9,500 Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons, where detainees face torture, starvation and medical neglect that have led to the deaths of dozens of prisoners.
Israel’s war in Gaza since October 2023 has killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians and injured more than 173,000, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian figures.
Despite a ceasefire that took effect last October, the Israeli army has since killed 981 Palestinians and injured 3,104 in near-daily attacks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, United States, on May 12, 2026. [Kyle Mazza – Anadolu Agency]
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the Strait of Hormuz would be fully reopened by Friday and remain open to shipping toll-free on a permanent basis, Anadolu reports.
Speaking to reporters at a meeting with the United Arab Emirates’ President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in France, Trump said: “We’re going to have it (Strait of Hormuz) fully open by Friday.”
“The ships are starting to move nicely, oil is starting to go, and the prices are coming down rapidly. Stock market is going up rapidly, a lot of good things are happening, and most importantly, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
He said the waterway “is going to be open toll-free, and it’s toll-free beyond the 60 days,” adding: “When it opens permanently, it’ll be toll-free.”
The US president vowed to share with media the peace deal document reached with Iran “in a couple of days.”
“I’ll not only release it, I’ll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word, so that the press covers it accurately, because it’s a very important document,” he said.
Trump also said he intends to send the Iran deal to Congress for review, saying: “I like the idea … Send it to Congress, please.”
He said that if the deal is not approved, “let’s let them (Iran side) have a nuclear weapon,” adding that the Democrats will “go crazy.”
The US president also said removing Iran’s enriched uranium following US strikes on the country would be a “very tough excavation,” adding that only US and “probably China” have the capability to do it.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. [Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images]
A potential agreement between the US and Iran could be seen as a “betrayal” in Israel, a former Israeli prime minister told Irish public broadcaster RTE, Anadolu reports.
“I think that maybe from the point of view of the original position of Netanyahu, it may be interpreted as a betrayal,” Ehud Olmert said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He said Netanyahu would be unlikely to say so publicly because he is “entirely, completely dependent on the relations and support” of US President Donald Trump.
Though the details of the agreement were not yet fully known, Olmert argued that there appeared to be “a big margin” between the initial expectations of the US and Israel when military operations began and the current understanding between Washington and Tehran.
Olmert said he believed “the door is open” to an agreement between Israel and Lebanon, adding that Israel should withdraw from southern Lebanon as part of negotiations with the Lebanese government.
“We don’t need any territory in the south of Lebanon… we should pull out completely from the south of Lebanon and make all the necessary adjustments for territorial agreement, and we should try to make peace,” he added.
He said expectations that the Iranian regime would collapse were unrealistic, arguing that Tehran had endured significant challenges over decades and that such assumptions were “not serious.”
Both the US and Iran appeared to be seeking “a reasonable way to restore the situation to what it was before the war started,” he added.
“And the Iranians were very successful,” Olmert said.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on December 9, 2024 [MAYA ALLERUZZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
Israeli analysts sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, describing him as a “failure” and a “liar,” while noting that US President Donald Trump “humiliated” him by excluding him from an agreement with Iran to end their military conflict, Anadolu reports.
On Monday evening, Netanyahu acknowledged that he was unaware of the details of the memorandum of understanding reached between Washington and Tehran to end the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran on Feb. 28.
Netanyahu claimed he had saved Israelis from “nuclear annihilation” by launching the war against Iran and acknowledged differences of opinion with Trump, saying such disagreements “exist in the best of families.”
While Trump said Monday that the US and Iran had already signed the agreement and that the Strait of Hormuz “will be fully reopened by Friday,” Tehran has said only that the memorandum is scheduled to be signed in Swtizerland on June 19.
Observers say the prior electronic signing of the deal appears to have enabled an immediate temporary ceasefire and the lifting of a US naval blockade on Iran, while the Friday ceremony is expected to formalize the agreement and launch a 60-day period of technical negotiations.
‘Architect of failure’
Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter launched a scathing attack on Netanyahu in an article headlined: “Without shame, the architect of failure claimed he saved Israel from collective death. It was another lie among many.”
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands at the height of what any objective expert would define as a colossal strategic failure for the State of Israel and all he has to tell its citizens is: ‘Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, not as long as I am prime minister’,” he wrote.
Netanyahu “has been saying that for 30 years. Yet in the same breath, at his press conference on Monday, Netanyahu claimed Israel had been a hair’s breadth away from ‘mass death’ – a catastrophe he supposedly prevented,” he added.
Tel Aviv and Washington accuse Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons that threaten Israel and US allies in the region. Iran, however, maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, says it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons and insists it poses no threat to other states.
Israel, which occupies Palestinian territory as well as land in Lebanon and Syria, is widely believed to be the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal, although it has never officially acknowledged possessing one and is not subject to safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Verter said previous boasts by Netanyahu about “historic achievements for generations” and claims that Iran’s nuclear project had been pushed back by decades “seemed to have dissolved into the sour fog that has descended on Israel.”
“Gone, too, are the lofty goals that accompanied every confrontation with Iran: toppling the regime, or at least creating the conditions for its downfall; eliminating the nuclear and ballistic threats; severing Tehran’s ties to its proxy organizations,” he added.
Netanyahu “has no idea what is contained in the memorandum of understanding the US and Iran digitally signed behind his back. The Iranians know. The Pakistanis know. Presumably the Qataris know. Netanyahu, it seems, does not,” the columnist said.
He added that Netanyahu “sought to minimize the crisis in his relationship with Trump, whom he notably refrained from showering with his usual praise,” saying “True. But in the best families, disagreements are not usually accompanied by the daily insults, humiliations and public snubs coming from an increasingly impatient American president.”
Verter further accused Netanyahu of making a mix of half-truths, exaggerations and manipulations that dominated the event like “we destroyed the Iranian navy.”
He also challenged Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel prevented Hezbollah’s Radwan Force from invading Israel, calling it “an utter lie.”
Verter said Netanyahu claimed that the Israeli and American air forces inflicted cumulative damage on Iran worth “hundreds of billions of dollars – some estimate a trillion.”
He concluded that Netanyahu’s press conference “projected defeat,” adding that even when he declared that he would “run and win” Israel’s next election, he sounded somewhat skeptical himself.
‘His show is over’
Maariv columnist Ben Caspit wrote an article titled: “Netanyahu’s show is over: Trump threw him under the bus.”
Caspit questioned Netanyahu’s repeated warnings that Israel had “escaped certain death”, asking who had placed the country in such a position in the first place.
He argued that invoking the threat of “annihilation” was intended to obscure responsibility for Israel’s failures regarding Iran.
“Once again, Israel was left outside the picture,” he added.
Netanyahu has been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2024 over accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed more than 73,000 people and injured over 173,000 others since October 2023.
Caspit noted that Netanyahu did not mention Trump by name during his press conference, even during the question-and-answer session.
“He also admitted he knew nothing about the agreement that was signed electronically without his knowledge,” Caspit wrote. “It is reminiscent of another agreement signed in 2015.”
“Netanyahu always ends up in the same position,” he continued. “He is pushed aside, thrown under the bus, and left standing in the hallway like a scolded child waiting for a verdict that was delivered in his absence.”
Questioning Netanyahu’s claims of success, Caspit wrote: “Yesterday he boasted that ‘we inflicted severe damage on Iran’s economy.’ Fine—but so what? They could soon become an even greater economic power than before.”
He added that Iran could ultimately “impose fees on transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” while sanctions may be lifted and hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets released.
“So what value is the damage we inflicted if it can be repaired so quickly?” Caspit asked.
“Without shame, the architect of failure claimed he had saved Israel from annihilation. That was just another lie among many.”
In a separate analysis published by Walla news portal, commentator Barak Seri argued that Netanyahu’s sense of triumph “turned within a single day into his greatest concern and greatest humiliation.”
Seri noted that Netanyahu had not addressed the Israeli media since March despite the wars involving Iran and Hezbollah and missile attacks that caused casualties and widespread damage in Israel, choosing instead to speak almost exclusively to foreign outlets, particularly American media.
“But last night he decided to speak,” Seri wrote. “The reason was the dismal outcome of the agreement with Iran and the bitter sense of anxiety prevailing in Israel, including among his own supporters.”
He added that senior Israeli officials viewed the deal as “bad and dangerous for Israel,” describing it as “a real disaster” that was reached without Israel’s interests being taken into account.
Seri argued that “none of the war’s objectives were achieved” — not eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat, not removing the ballistic missile threat, not creating conditions for regime change, and not addressing Tehran’s continued support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Mocking one of the outcomes touted by supporters of the US-Iran agreement, he wrote: “The Strait of Hormuz has been opened. What a great achievement — it was open before the war.”
“Trump’s harsh and humiliating reversal against Netanyahu and Israel, accompanied by reports of difficult conversations, insults and threats, quickly leaked to the media,” Seri said. “Trump subjected Netanyahu to a genuine public humiliation.”
The US is a main ally to Israel and generally provides Tel Aviv with military, financial and political support.
Israel has occupied Palestinian territory and areas in Lebanon and Syria for decades and rejects withdrawal from those territories as well as the establishment of an independent Palestinian state envisioned in relevant UN resolutions.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
