The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they unfold.
Iran said open to nuclear deal with consortium located in Iran
Iran is open to basing a nuclear agreement with the United States around the idea of a regional uranium enrichment consortium based in Iran, Axios reports, citing a senior Iranian official.
IDF says it carried out strikes in Syria in response to rockets at Golan Heights
The IDF carried out a series of airstrikes throughout southern Syria that it says targeted weapons belonging to the regime after a pair of projectiles were fired into the Israeli side of the Golan Heights on Tuesday night.
“The Syrian regime is responsible for what is happening in Syria and will continue to bear the consequences as long as hostile activity continues from its territory,” the IDF said in a statement.
Hostage families to meet Trump officials this week in Washington, official tells ToI
The families of some of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza will be meeting with senior Trump administration officials in Washington this week, a White House official tells The Times of Israel.
The meetings will come amid an ongoing impasse in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Hamas said Monday that it is prepared to immediately enter indirect talks in order to bridge remaining gaps, in an apparent softening of its position after the updated proposal it submitted to the US on Sunday was blasted by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who said it took the sides backward.
The main issue of contention remains whether the temporary truce under discussion leaves enough of a window for Israel to resume fighting after it expires or if the proposal’s assurances from the Trump administration are enough to convince Hamas that the ceasefire will hold permanently.
Syria says it doesn’t pose threat to any party in region, working to curb non-state actors
The Syrian foreign ministry asserts that it “has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region” and is working to rein in armed, non-state actors in southern Syria.
The statement comes after Israel said a pair of rockets were fired at its side of the Golan Heights from southern Syria and blamed the Syrian government for the attack.
The Syrian government claimed it had yet to confirm the rocket launches that targeted Israel, but it did condemn the Israeli counter-attack, saying it resulted in “heavy human and material losses” and violated Syria’s sovereignty “at a time when we are most in need of calm and peaceful solutions.”
“We call on the international community to assume its responsibilities in stopping these attacks, and to support efforts aimed at restoring security and stability to Syria and the region,” the Syrian foreign ministry statement says.
Parents of Sbarro bombing victim urge US to demand extradition of Hamas terrorist behind attack
Frimet and Arnold Roth, the parents of Malki Roth, an American citizen killed at age 15 in the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, met last month with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to deliver a petition urging the extradition of the attack’s orchestrator, Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, from Jordan, according to a statement shared by the parents today.
“This is a matter of justice for the families of murdered Americans,” Arnold told Huckabee during a May 13 meeting at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, according to the family’s statement.
The Roths presented Huckabee with a petition bearing 30,000 signatures and demanding that Washington press Jordan to extradite Tamimi, who was convicted in an Israeli court for playing a central role in the suicide bombing that killed 16 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and injured 130 more. Temimi later found shelter in Jordan after being released from prison in the 2011 deal in which Israel freed 1,027 terrorists in exchange for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
“What brought us to the embassy was remembrance, but also justice,” Arnold continued. “Justice in the Tamimi prosecution has been thwarted for years and barely mentioned publicly by the very US officials who bear the responsibility of bringing the fugitive to trial. We came to implore the government represented by Ambassador Huckabee to carry out its duty to protect and stand for American victims of terrorism abroad.”
The petition was submitted for delivery to US President Donald Trump, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the statement adds, and urges Jordan to honor its 1995 extradition treaty with the US. Despite the treaty, Jordan’s high court blocked Tamimi’s extradition in 2017, reportedly claiming the agreement was never ratified, a contention disputed by Washington.
The Roths also presented Huckabee with a photo of Malki’s shattered phone, recovered from the attack site, on which she had written a Hebrew message about the Jewish prohibition against speaking ill of others. “This phone is one of the few physical traces we have left of Malki,” he said.
Shortly before King Abdullah II’s February meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, Arab media reported https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-reportedly-warns-it-could-extradite-sbarro-bombing-mastermind-to-us-for-trial/ that Jordanian intelligence had warned Hamas Tamimi might be handed over unless another country agreed to take her in. No official sources confirmed the reports.
Since her release, Tamimi has lived openly in Jordan, where she holds citizenship, and has publicly glorified the bombing. In a 2017 Associated Press interview, she stated that Palestinians have the right to resist Israel “by any means,” including deadly attacks.
“Tamimi has never shown the smallest degree of remorse. The massacre she spearheaded made her a celebrity in Jordan and beyond…It is unconscionable that Jordan, a lavishly funded beneficiary of US tax-payer-funded aid, has enabled her to be glorified as an icon while her victims’ families — including American families — are ignored,” Arnold said in the meeting.
Initial IDF probe finds Gazans shot at by troops got lost en route to aid center — report
A senior IDF official tells the Axios news site that initial findings from a probe into the latest mass-casualty incident surrounding Palestinians near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site indicate that Palestinians mistakenly approached soldiers after getting lost on their way to the aid center.
The UN and aid organizations warned for weeks that such incidents would result from forcing Gaza’s entire population of two million people to travel long distances and pass through IDF lines in order to reach the GHF’s distribution sites.