News Digest — 6/2/26
PM Orders Attacks On Hezbollah In Beirut, But US, Iran Interventions Pause Action
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, before 10: a.m. on Monday morning (1st), ordered the IDF to return to heavy attacks on Hezbollah‘s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut, but at press time, their orders had been delayed by interventions by the US and Iran
In the morning, they said the order was given after increased Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli civilians throughout the north.
Netanyahu said that he would not allow a situation where Israeli civilians in the North came under fire, but where top Hezbollah officials in Dahiyeh in Beitur retained their immunity from being struck.
Their statement came after top US officials initially seemed to greenlight re-striking Beirut as the Iran nuclear talks had dragged longer than US President Donald Trump had wanted, with Washington having held Israel back in Lebanon as a concession to the Islamic Republic, based on the assumption that a deal would have occurred in prior weeks.
Between 10: a.m. and 5: p.m., there were no other Israeli actions or statements regarding Beirut.
Then around 5: p.m. , IDF Arabic Spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee threatened the residents of Dahiyeh that they should evacuate if Hezbollah continued firing on Israel, since this would lead to IDF strikes on the Hezbollah stronghold.
Iran then called to pause all ceasefire talks, and reports surfaced that the Islamic Republic was explicitly threatening to fire on Israel’s North if the IDF would strike Beirut.
For some hours, reports swirled about the US leaning on Israel to delay or not attack Beirut.
IDF officials did not seem to know how to update the Jerusalem Post on the delay or how long it would last.
Then in the evening Trump made a series of confusing statements in a post on Truth Social, including that IDF ground forces would not advance on Beirut (though Israel was threatening only airstrikes so far) and that Hezbollah agreed to a complete ceasefire with Israel.
At press time it was unclear exactly what Israel and Hezbollah’s positions were compared to Trump’s presentation of them, but still, no attacks on Beirut had taken place.
Until Trump’s announcement, Hezbollah had continued periodic drone and rocket fire on Israel throughout the day, including after Adraee’s warnings.
Even shortly after Trump’s announcement the IDF sent out initial warnings of additional rocket launches by Hezbollah toward Israel.
Meanwhile, the IDF announced on Sunday morning (5/31) that its ground forces had taken over the Beaufort Ridge outpost and Wadi al-Saluki areas beyond the Litani River, but despite these moves, Hezbollah managed to shower the North with drones and reportedly over 50 rockets throughout the day.
On May 26, in response to ongoing Hezbollah drone attacks, which have harmed an increasing number of IDF soldiers, Israel confirmed that the military had invaded deeper into Lebanon beyond the April 17 ceasefire yellow line and the Litani.
Ahead of the troops’ advance, the air force, artillery and tanks conducted extensive support strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in the area to reduce resistance.
Further, the IDF added that it was operating near Nabatiya, another significant Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, and is prepared to expand its operations there as well.
Nabatiya would be the farthest that IDF ground forces have advanced, around 20 kilometers from the Israeli border, whereas as of the April 17 ceasefire, the IDF was set at around 10 kilometers from the border.
Nabatiya, Acre, Tel Dan, Beit Hillel, Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Maalot, and a wide range of other Galilee areas were either struck or had repeated sirens from Hezbollah rockets and drones fired toward them on Sunday (5/31).
Many of those same villages, as well as Karmiel, were also under attack by Hezbollah on Saturday (5/30)
Multi additional IDF soldiers have been killed in recent days by the ongoing drone attacks, sending the total IDF casualties from Hezbollah drones post-ceasefire into double digits closing in on 20.
There were no reports of civilian casualties for much of Sunday (5/31), with an increasing number of of civilians self-evacuating those areas (especially with schools suspending classes recently), but both Tel Dan and Beit Hillel had reports of firefighters battling large fires, and there were reports in the late evening of four injured at Beit Hillel.
Although for about a week after the April 17 ceasefire, Israel and Hezbollah both significantly reduced hostilities, around a week later, both sides started gradually escalating.
The IDF wanted to escalate to put more pressure on Hezbollah to agree to disarm. Hezbollah wanted to escalate because they viewed continued IDF operations against its forces in parts of southern Lebanon, which the IDF had taken control over, as a violation of the ceasefire.
However, as Hezbollah FPV drones started to injure more IDF soldiers, this encouraged Hezbollah to launch more such drones and pressed the IDF to launch more aggressive attacks on Hezbollah to try to get the Lebanese terror group to back down from the drone attacks.
When neither side backed down, the IDF started to invade Lebanon beyond the Litani, including large-scale airstrikes in Tyre and the Bekaa Valley, and even one time in Beirut, at which Hezbollah started firing more rockets and drones at Israeli civilian villages.
High Court Rules Roman Gofman To Be Named Mossad Chief
The High Court of Justice ruled Monday (1st) to reject the petitions against the appointment of MG. Roman Gofman as head of the Mossad.
The decision was reached by a majority of two justices, Justice Ofer Grosskopf and Justice Alex Stein, against the position of Justice Daphne Barak- Erez, who wrote in a minority opinion that the appointment should be disqualified.
The ruling follows the reaffirmation of the decision by the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee, which found no flaw in Gofman’s integrity. The decision was approved by a 3-1 majority, with committee chairman and retired Supreme Court President Asher Grunis maintaining his minority position.
A farewell party was held Monday (1st) for the current Mossad chief, David Barnea, who is ending his term. Gofman’s inauguration ceremony is expected to take place Tuesday (2nd) , following the removal of the last obstacle to his appointment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is then expected to announce Gofman’s replacement as his ministry secretary.
Herzog On Farhud Anniversary: ‘The Waves of Antisemitism Hatred Continue’
President Isaac Herzog hosted an event at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Monday (1st) marking, 85 years since the Farhud, the 1941pogrom against the Jews of Iraq, in which hundreds of Jews were murdered, wounded, and robbed in Baghdad and other cities.
The event was attended by survivors of the Farhud and their families, including Nadia Cohen, a Farhud survivor and the widow of the late Israeli spy Eli Cohen, and Hadassah Lazar, the sister of the late Shlomo Mansour, a Farhud survivor who was abducted and murdered on October 7, 2023.
Addressing the gathering, Herzog recalled the events of June 1941. “On the terrible night, between June 1 and 2, 1941, frenzied rioters descended upon the homes of the Jews of Baghdad, beating them, killing and wounding them,” he said. “In those dreadful hours, 179 Jews were slaughtered: women, children, the elderly, and men for one reason alone: they were Jews.
The President warned of continuing antisemitism around the world. “Eighty-five years have passed since those harrowing events, yet the waves of antisemitic hatred continue to rise, and even to intensify, threatening the safety of Jews across the world,” Herzog stated. “We are witnessing mounting antisemitic attacks, including in democratic countries, and even among longtime friends of the State of Israel
He stressed the importance of preserving the memory of both the Farhud and the Holocaust. “When we give voice to what our sisters and brothers in Iraq endured 85 years ago, with witnesses to those terrible days here among us, and when we pass on the memory of the dreadful Holocaust that consumed a third of our people, we remind the world, again and again, of the dangers contained in antisemitic incitement, and of where that racist hatred led us in the past,” Herzog said. “The more we persist in this work – warning, cautioning, and fighting – the more we will be able to halt it.”
Herzog also referred to the connection between survivors of the Farhud and the October 7 massacre. In sad and painful circumstances our entire nation came to know the story of the Farhud survivors who founded Kibbutz Beeri, as the members of that kibbutz once again faced a terrible massacre on October 7,” he said.
The President also spoke about the late Shlomo Mansour. “Such, too, is the story of Shlomo Mansour, of blessed memory, the beloved man whom I had the privilege of eulogizing at his funeral, and whose sister, Hadassah, is here with us, a woman I love and deeply esteem,” Herzog said. “Shlomo was a member of Kibbutz Kissufim who was abducted and murdered in captivity. We bid him farewell eight decades after he and his family had lived through the events of the Farhud first hand.”
In First, Israeli Doctors Perform Fetal Surgery To Save Unborn Baby’s Life
Physicians at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah have performed Israel’s first intrauterine (prenatal) surgery to treat a rare tumor that developed on the placenta and threatened the life of an unborn baby, Clalit Health Services said on Monday (1st).
The patient , who was 25 weeks pregnant, was referred to the hospital after a routine anatomy scan revealed a tumor growing on the surface of the placenta.
An ultrasound examination showed that the tumor caused severe changes in fetal blood circulation and led to heart failure, placing the fetus in immediate danger, according to the statement.
Due to the rapid deterioration in the baby’s condition, the medical team decided to perform emergency fetal surgery, the first procedure of its kind ever carried out in Israel.
The operation was led by Dr. Yuval Gielchinsky, director of the Fetal Medicine Center at Clalit-Beilinson, together with Dr. Kinneret Tenenbaum, head of the Twin Pregnancy Clinic.
According to Gielchinsky, placental tumors do not always interfere with pregnancy and in many cases develop slowly without requiring treatment. However, in rare and severe cases, they can pose a major threat to both the fetus and the mother, potentially causing fatal heart failure, anemia, low platelet levels, extreme amniotic fluid and even preeclampsia.
“In this case, the patient was only 25 weeks pregnant. The only remaining option was an endoscopic fetal intervention, which is only possible when the tumor is located in an accessible area of the placenta, as it was in this case.”
During the operation the medical team entered the uterus, identified the blood vessels feeding the tumor, and sealed them using a cauterization technique, cutting off the tumor’s blood supply from the placenta.
Following the surgery, the mother was hospitalized for monitoring in the maternal fetal medicine unit.
She was discharged to go home last week and will continue follow-up care through Beilinson Hospital’s Fetal Medicine Clinic, Clalit Health Services said.
You Cannot Make A Deal With A regime That Uses Lies As A Strategic Weapon – Marziyeh Amirizadah
I have been watching reports of negotiations between the U.S. and the Islamic republic of Iran with anguish. I want to believe that President Trump understands what I know is the truth about the Islamic Republic: that you can never negotiate with them, and they will always lie and do anything to stay in power.
I have lived inside this regime’s cruelty. I have suffered in its prisons. I have witnessed friends, and my husband, tortured and executed. And I know, with every part of my being, that a deal with the Islamic Republic is not a path to peace. It is a gift of time to an evil regime.
What I learned inside its prison walls is the same thing the world keeps refusing to learn outside of them: this regime does not negotiate in good faith. It negotiates for survival. Lying – “yaqiyya” – is its religiously sanctioned strategic weapon.
Western leaders consistently make the same mistake. They look at Iran and see a government with factions – “reformists” and hardliners. They conclude that the “reformists” represent a genuine alternative. They do not. The “reformist” and hardliner structure is a performance, a deliberate good cop, bad cop strategy designed to give Westerners the illusion that progress is possible. Both serve the same system.
The Islamic Republic regime is centered around an extremist Islamic ideology. Leaders have changed but the ideology’s goals do not change. From the beginning, that goal has included the export of revolutionary Islam, the destruction of the U.S. and Israel, and the subordination of every nation to an Islamic vision of global order.
The Islamic Republic leaders understand that American presidential terms end. Policies shift. A deal signed today can be quietly undermined tomorrow, and an administration that championed it may no longer be in office to notice or care. The ideology that drives them and the hostility toward the U.S., Israel, and the West is written into their founding documents. But none of it will appear on any negotiating table.
There is no real victory and no deals to be had for America while the Islamic Republic remains in power. They will never let go of their plans to achieve nuclear weapons and are willing to make a deal now and wait until Trump’s successor is looking the other way to break out a nuclear weapon. No deals will change this reality.
The writer is an Iranian American who immigrated to the U.S. after being sentenced to death in Iran for converting to Christianity. (Times of Israel)
