The Times of Israel is liveblogging Saturday’s events as they happen.
Trump: Russia and Ukraine ‘very close’ to ceasefire deal, they need to ‘finish it off’
ROME — US President Donald Trump says that Russia and Ukraine are “very close” to a ceasefire deal, and urges the two sides to meet and finalize it.
“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine. They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off,'” Trump posts on his Truth Social platform shortly after arriving in Rome, where he will attend Pope Francis’s funeral.
Former hostage Ron Krivoi: No one can truly understand what it’s like down in the tunnels
Former hostage Ron Krivoi has spoken out for the first time about his time in captivity and about the abuse suffered by the young man he met in the tunnels, Matan Angrest. Angrest, a hostage soldier, is still held in Gaza,
Krivoi, an Israeli-Russian citizen, was taken hostage from the Nova music festival and was freed during the November 2023 ceasefire, in a Hamas nod to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“As a person, I’m a quiet man, I live my life. That’s why I didn’t give interviews, I just continued my life as it was before – that’s what I asked for, to return to my life,” he tells Channel 12.
Krivoi, a soundman, was working at Nova when terrorists struck, massacring hundreds, raping, abusing and taking dozens hostage to Gaza.
Krivoi was first held for some time in a Gaza apartment. At one point, the house was bombed by the Israeli military and Krivoi was able to escape his captors, trying to make his way through devastated Gaza for several days before being recaptured.
“Once someone saw me – it ended badly. The people who caught me beat me up. It wasn’t simple. I went through something there… When they caught me and brought me back, the people who beat me were ordinary Gazans who took out all their frustration on me,” he says.
Of the tunnel he was then taken to, Krivoi says, “These aren’t the tunnels you see in pictures. We were in something really small, deep underground. There wasn’t even a floor – we were on sand, and the mattresses were all moldy. We were inside a very, very small cage. Honestly, about a meter and a half by a meter and a half, and we had to lie down and rest in it – you couldn’t stand. No height, no toilets, no food. We were five people, we ate one small dish with some canned food and a pita that we divided among us. I was there for 51 days and lost nine kilograms of body weight.”
Krivoi says soldier Matan Angrest arrived a day after he did, and was “completely, completely terrified.” Angrest was in a tank that was attacked by terrorists on October 7. The rest of the crew were killed.
“The interrogations he went through happened while still in Israeli territory – that’s where it started. They already connected him to a car battery on the way and tried to revive him. Using car batteries, they electrocuted him,” Krivoi says. “They weren’t able to interrogate him. He probably wasn’t even in a condition to speak because he was badly injured. His injuries were very severe.”
Krivoi says Angrest continued to be badly abused in captivity, suffering greatly at the hands of captors due to being a soldier.
Of his own time as a captive, he says, “This is something that even if a person tries to imagine – they’ll never be able to truly understand what it’s like down there.”
“I know that if I didn’t have Russian citizenship, I could still be in that tunnel with Matan to this day. I’m here because of a miracle – it was Putin who brought me home. If not for him, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Spain gave Israeli defense firms 46 contracts since Gaza war despite govt pledge – report
Spain has awarded 46 contracts worth more than one billion euros ($1.2 billion) to Israeli defense firms since the outbreak of the Gaza war, breaking the leftist government’s pledge not to trade arms with Israel, researchers say.
Their conclusions come after a now-cancelled deal with an Israeli company to supply bullets to the Spanish Civil Guard rocked the Socialist-led minority coalition government this week.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, halted weapons transactions with Israel after the start of the war following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
But according to Centre Delas, a Barcelona-based left-wing think tank specializing in security and defense, the government has granted 46 contracts worth 1,044,558,955 euros ($1.2 billion) to Israeli companies based on data published on a public tenders platform.
Of the 46 contracts, which include deals for rocket launchers and missiles, 10 have not been formalized, the think tank says in a statement that previews an upcoming report.
“It is clearly demonstrated that the government lied, there was no pledge, that was pure propaganda,” report co-author Eduardo Melero tells AFP.
Although some contracts were to maintain or modernize previously acquired products, others were new deals that “could increase the dependence… on an industry essential to perpetrate a genocide,” Centre Delas alleges.
Israel vehemently rejects accusations that its war against Hamas in Gaza constitutes genocide, saying it targets terror groups embedded in the civilian population and takes far-reaching steps to minimize harm to innocents.