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Israel recalls envoys as Spain, Ireland and Norway commit to recognise Palestinian state

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Israel recalls envoys as Spain, Ireland and Norway commit to recognise Palestinian state

Israel recalled its ambassadors to Spain, Ireland and Norway on Wednesday to deliver a “severe reprimand” to the three countries after they committed to recognise Palestinian statehood next week.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz branded the show of support for the Palestinians a “folly”, adding: “History will remember that Spain, Norway and Ireland decided to award a gold medal to the murderers and rapists of Hamas.”

The move will add to the number of the EU’s 27 members that recognise Palestinian statehood, but does not include heavyweights from the bloc such as France. In a blow to their hopes for a broader diplomatic push, other countries that Madrid and Dublin had courted in recent weeks, including Belgium, Malta and Slovenia, did not immediately follow suit.

Ireland’s Taoiseach Simon Harris said he was “confident further countries will join us”. The trio said their move would take effect on May 28.

The move comes amid a split within the EU over a move by the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, as countries within the bloc struggle to unite on a response to the war in Gaza. It also follows a UN General Assembly vote this month backing a Palestinian application to become a full member state.

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 35,000 people following Hamas’s October 7 attacks in Israel, had “no peace project for Palestine”.

Sánchez said: “Fighting the terrorist group Hamas is legitimate and necessary . . . But Netanyahu is creating so much pain and so much destruction and so much rancour in Gaza and the rest of Palestine that the two-state solution is in danger.”

Norway, which brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in the early 1990s, said recognition of a Palestinian state was “the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: two states, living side by side, in peace and security”.

Ireland referred to its own pitch for international recognition as it struggled for independence just over a century ago. “From our own history, we know what it means,” Harris said.

Israel said on Tuesday that Ireland’s recognition for a Palestinian state would “lead to more terrorism, instability in the region and jeopardise any prospects for peace” and urged: “Don’t be a pawn in the hands of Hamas.”

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The Palestinian Authority welcomed the three countries’ move, saying they had “demonstrated their unwavering commitment to the two-state solution and to delivering the long-overdue justice to the Palestinian people”. It called on other countries to follow suit.

Most UN member states already recognise Palestinian statehood and Palestine is also recognised by Sweden, which acted alone in 2014, and several central and eastern European members that had recognised it before joining the EU.

France has yet to take the step and has been seeking to rally other countries, including the UK, to back a wider bid.

France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said: “Our position is clear: the recognition of Palestine is not a taboo for France. This decision must be useful and permit a decisive step forward on the political level.”

He added: “[It] should be a diplomatic tool to help achieve the two-state solution [of Israel and Palestine] living side by side in peace and security. France does not consider that the conditions were present to date for this decision to have a real impact in this process.”

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British foreign secretary Lord David Cameron said in January that the UK could recognise Palestinian statehood as part of “irreversible steps” towards a two-state solution to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Arab and Palestinian officials have said recognition of a Palestinian state should be a crucial step to underpin moves towards a longer-term resolution of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to bolster a future administration for the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

They want the US and other major western powers to support Palestine’s full membership of the UN through the Security Council. But the US this month opposed a resolution that would have paved the way for full Palestinian membership of the UN.

The three countries’ move prompted a sharp reaction from rightwing figures within Netanyahu’s government. The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, on Wednesday wrote to the prime minister demanding “punitive steps” against the Palestinian Authority in response to the European decisions and other Palestinian moves on the international stage, including seeking action against the Jewish state by the ICC.

Smotrich called for measures including a major expansion of Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and the freezing of Israeli tax transfers to the PA.

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The PA, established in 1994, exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank but lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas nearly two decades ago. Both territories are viewed by the international community as the basis for a Palestinian state.

Later on Wednesday, the extreme-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, and said the site — known to Jews as the Temple Mount — “belongs only to the state of Israel”.

He spoke out against a Palestinian state at the contested site, which is regarded as the holiest in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam.

Also on Wednesday, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel would expand a law to allow Israelis to return to settlements in the north of the occupied West Bank — regarded as illegal by most of the international community — from which they had been banned since 2005. 

John O’Brennan, professor of European integration at Maynooth University in Ireland, said the move by the three countries was more than a gesture. “If it was merely symbolic, the Israelis would not have recalled their ambassadors.”

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Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.

A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.

The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.

The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”

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Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”

But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.

In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.

Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.

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Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Jesus Vargas/Getty Images


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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.

The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.

The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.

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According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.

Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”

Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.

The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.

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Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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