The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they unfold.
Anti-Israel groups protest at White House, across US against renewed Gaza violence
Anti-Israel protest groups are holding rallies at the White House and across the US against Israel’s renewed air campaign in Gaza.
The Palestinian Youth Movement, an anti-Israel activist group, announces protests in cities including Washington, New York, San Francisco, Dallas and Los Angeles.
The group’s New York branch shares videos of a crowd in Times Square chanting “end the Zionist occupation” and marching through Manhattan shouting “imperialism will fall.”
BREAKING: Thousands of protestors in NYC march through the streets, condemning Israel's attacks on Gaza and calling for a free Palestine pic.twitter.com/IvZmM9J1U2
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) March 18, 2025
At the White House, the group posts footage of protesters chanting, “Gaza, Yemen, make us proud, tear this occupation down” and “stop the US war machine.”
The protests come after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group, called on activists to “take to the streets, to besiege the White House… to deliver a clear message to the murderers.”
“Gaza and its resistance will not be broken,” the group says in a message shared by anti-Israel activist groups in the US.
Houthis claim missile attack on US carrier in Red Sea
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels say they launched an attack on an American aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, their fourth time firing on US warships in 72 hours.
The Houthis’ military spokesperson says the operation entailed “a number of cruise missiles and drones, targeting the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and a number of enemy warships.”
There is no immediate comment from American military officials on the claim.
Fresh airstrikes reported across Gaza
Gaza-based sources report a fresh wave of Israeli strikes from the air on areas around the Strip, including attacks from helicopter gunships near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Airstrikes are also reported in al-Bureij in central Gaza and in the al-Tuffah area east of Gaza City in the Strip’s north.
There is no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the reported strikes.
US, Israel and others vow united fight for hostages at Montana summit
Representatives from the United States and six allied nations have pledged to work together to counter global hostage-taking and detentions considered unjust, they say in a joint statement after talks in Montana.
“We are united in our demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” reads the statement from the US, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel and the United Kingdom.
US special envoy Adam Boehler led the talks on Monday and Tuesday in Big Sky, Montana. The summit, which came after Boehler withdrew his candidacy to be the top hostage envoy following criticism from Israel, was first reported on by The Times of Israel.
Representatives discussed sharing information about detainees and other collaborative efforts to free their citizens held around the world.
“We will spare no effort, in accordance with international law, to bring home hostages and unjustly or arbitrarily detained individuals and to deter such future acts,” the statement says, without providing specifics.
Boehler, who was involved in efforts that led to the freedom of American school teacher Marc Fogel from Russia last month, says the gathering was centered on “how to support individual freedom and stop the hostage takers who try to take it away.”
The group vowed to work collectively to “identify and deploy every diplomatic, economic, and strategic tool at our disposal to bring these individuals home while deterring future such acts,” a US State Department official says.
One living American and the bodies are four others are being held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Columbia student Khalil pins detention, deportation threat on US ‘racism’ against Palestinians
Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, threatened with deportation over what US federal authorities say is support for the Hamas terror group, says his detention is indicative of “anti-Palestinian racism” demonstrated by both the Trump and Biden administrations.
The letter dictated from a Louisiana immigration lockup and released by his attorney, is the first public comment from Khalil, whose arrest has sparked high profile protests.
“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention,” he says in the letter.
“For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.”
He compares his treatment to Israel’s use of administrative detention, which allows it to hold terror suspects for extended periods without charge.
“For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace,” he writes.
He also references a wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza Tuesday that ended a two-month ceasefire.
“With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs,” he says. “It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”
US unseals final trove of Kennedy assassination papers
The US National Archives has released the final batch of files related to the assassination of president John F. Kennedy — a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.
The move follows an executive order issued by US President Donald Trump in January directing the unredacted release of the remaining files related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother, former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
“In accordance with President Donald Trump’s directive… all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released,” the Archives says in a statement on its website.
The National Archives has released millions of pages of records over the past decades relating to the assassination of then-president Kennedy in November 1963, but thousands of documents had been held back at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing national security concerns.
Kennedy scholars have said the documents that were still held by the archives are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th US president.
The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
But that formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of the government files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories.
Ben & Jerry’s claims parent ousted CEO to chill ice cream maker’s ‘social mission’
Ben & Jerry’s says its parent Unilever has decided to oust the ice cream maker’s chief executive, Dave Stever, escalating a battle over the subsidiary’s independence on social policy issues, including sales in the West Bank.
In a Tuesday night filing in Manhattan federal court, Ben & Jerry’s says Unilever advised on March 3 it was “removing and replacing” Stever, after repeatedly threatening Ben & Jerry’s personnel if they did not comply with the parent’s “efforts to silence the social mission.”
Stever was named chief executive in May 2023, having been with Ben & Jerry’s since being hired as a tour guide in 1988.
The new accusations came in Ben & Jerry’s lawsuit seeking to stop Unilever’s alleged efforts to dismantle its independent board and end its social activism.
Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, but the companies have been at odds since 2021 when Ben & Jerry’s halted sales in the West Bank, against Unilever’s wishes. That business was later sold.
Last month, Ben & Jerry’s accused Unilever of unilaterally banning it from publicly criticizing US President Donald Trump, ostensibly because of the “new dynamic” created by corporate rollbacks of social policies deemed too liberal by the US administration.