"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the IDF has been mitigating the threat of drones against Israel for the past six years at his direction during a Sunday afternoon cabinet meeting.
“At my request, the IDF installed canopies on the tanks. That was one measure,” Netanyahu said, adding that the IDF and the Defense Ministry had done “a great deal over the years,” thwarting “many hundreds, if not thousands, including UAVs, thousands of attempted drone and UAV strikes against our forces.”
Netanyahu stated that the IDF was succeeding in their efforts against the drones. “Every time there is a new threat, they succeed in neutralizing it,” he said.
This comes after a KAN News report emerged on Sunday morning that the IDF is incapable of destroying the current threat of Hezbollah drones.
The prime minister announced the formation of a new team to combat the Fiber-Optic/First-Person View (FPV) drones Hezbollah is using, labeling them “a specific type of threat.”
The team comprises individuals from the Defense Ministry, others from the defense industries, and those from the civilian sector.
Netanyahu met with the team three times in the past two weeks and told them they had an unlimited budget.
“Whatever it costs, it costs. You also have no limits, as far as I know, to your creativity and imagination, because you are the best in the world,” Netanyahu said he told the team. Netanyahu also said that Israel was “very close” to killing everyone involved in planning the October 7th massacre.
“We have Hamas in our grip,” the prime minister said.
He reiterated Israel’s accomplishments, including the elimination of Hamas leader Izz ad-Din al-Haddad over the weekend and Israel’s recovery of all hostages held in Gaza.
Netanyahu added that Israel was monitoring the situation in Iran, and that he would be speaking on Sunday, as he does “every few days” with US President Donald Trump."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-896472
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Donald Trump minutes ago about the war with Iran before convening a limited security discussion this evening, Netanyahu’s office confirms to The Times of Israel.
The conversation comes amid reports that the US and Israel are preparing to restart the war with Iran.
The leaders discussed the possibility of renewing the war with Iran as well as Trump’s recent trip to China, according to Hebrew media reports."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-speaks-with-trump-about-iran-war-ahead-of-limited-security-meeting/
"The Israeli military again warns that it is short some 12,000 standing army soldiers, a gap that it says will only expand due to the shortening of mandatory service at the start of 2027, unless the government passes legislation addressing the army’s personnel shortages.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has several times urged the government to again extend mandatory military service for men to 36 months, after it was shortened to 30 months in August 2024.
The first cohort enlisted under this shorter service period will be discharged in January 2027, further exacerbating manpower issues unless the existing law is changed...."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-again-warns-it-is-missing-some-12000-soldiers-with-gap-expected-to-widen-in-coming-year/
"Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani held a phone call about mediation efforts in the Iran war with Pakistani Prime Minister Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif, Qatar’s foreign ministry says in a statement on X. The two discussed “the latest developments in the region, as well as Pakistan’s mediation efforts” aimed at reaching a ceasefire between the United States and Iran, the statement says.
The statement follows a phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, reportedly on the possibility of renewing the war against Iran."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/qatari-pm-discusses-iran-mediation-with-pakistani-counterpart/
"
The International Criminal Court denied as “inaccurate” a Sunday report in the Haaretz daily, according to which its chief prosecutor’s office issued arrest warrants for National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, as well as three other Israeli officials.
According to the report, which cited a diplomatic source, one of the other warrants would be against a politician and the other two would be against military officials. The specific individuals were not named.
The newspaper first reported that the warrants had been issued already, then changed the story to say that they’d been requested by the office of the chief prosecutor, but were pending approval by judges.
ICC spokesperson Oriane Maillet said in a note to journalists that the report was not accurate, and the court “denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the state of Palestine.”
Her statement did not deny that they were seeking new warrants.
In the past, the ICC has often issued its arrest warrants secretly and only subsequently made them public, so it would not necessarily be announced even if it were to be approved.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry and the State Attorney’s Office did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the report.
Arrest warrants were issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, after the ICC’s then-chief prosecutor Karim Khan filed a public request for the warrants in May 2024. Khan alleged at the time that the two leaders were responsible for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity amid Israel’s campaign in Gaza, waged against the Hamas terror group after its invasion, massacres, and hostage-takings on October 7, 2023.
The court had also initially issued warrants for several top Hamas officials, but dropped them after they were killed by Israel during the war. The Haaretz report did not mention any further warrants for leaders from the terror group, which remains the de facto regime of about half the Strip.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Khan had been preparing arrest warrants for Ben Gvir and Smotrich before Khan went on leave amid allegations of sexual misconduct. He has not been replaced.
The prosecutor reportedly sought the ministers’ arrest over their role in expanding settlements in the West Bank – actions which the International Court of Justice said in July 2024 in an advisory opinion violate the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on transferring civilians to occupied territories.
Jerusalem’s stance is that the opinion was illegitimate since numerous UN resolutions, as well as bilateral Israeli-Palestinian agreements, have established that the correct framework for resolving the conflict should be political, not legal.
Israel also rejects the argument that the Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, in large part on the basis that the territory — which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, but never annexed — was never a sovereign state.
Israel insists it acts in accordance with international law, in regard to both its West Bank policies and the conduct of its wars.
It notes that when fighting, it takes measures to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings before attacking targets, using precision munitions to strike them, and facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid.
Israel also rejects the jurisdiction of the Hague-based ICC to arrest or prosecute its leaders, having never joined the international conventions that created it, and argues that the membership of the Palestinian Authority does not grant the ICC jurisdiction either, due to explicit provisions of the Oslo Accords.The ICC has no enforcement methods and relies on the cooperation of party nations to carry out its warrants.
Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland have all explicitly said they would honor the arrest warrants if Netanyahu traveled to their countries.
Others, including Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Poland, have said they wouldn’t arrest Netanyahu. Hungary also said it would not arrest Netanyahu – and hosted him, despite the warrant – during the administration of its former prime minister, Viktor Orban.
The United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, has backed Israel, and has even gone so far as to sanction ICC officials involved in the cases against Netanyahu and Gallant."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/icc-denies-inaccurate-report-it-issued-warrants-for-smotrich-and-ben-gvir/
