JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is to visit Washington in the coming week, the government said Wednesday, as pressure mounts to call off a planned offensive in Gaza’s Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also announced that a delegation would visit Washington at “the request of US President Joe Biden” to discuss the planned assault, which the United States opposes.
During his first visit to Washington since war erupted in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack, Gallant is due to meet Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin — but no date was announced.
They will discuss “developments in the war against the Hamas terrorist organization, force build-up, humanitarian issues and areas of bilateral military cooperation,” the defense ministry said.
Netanyahu has said an operation in Rafah is necessary to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, but the presence of 1.5 million civilians in the city, many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza, has sparked fears of mass civilian casualties and a further deepening of the humanitarian crisis in the territory.
Biden said Monday he had told Netanyahu to send a team to Washington to discuss how to avoid a full-scale military operation in Rafah.
Netanyahu’s office said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi would hold the requested talks but did not say when the delegation would leave for Washington.
Israel defense chief to visit US as Rafah pressure builds
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Israel defense chief to visit US as Rafah pressure builds
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also announced that a delegation would visit Washingto
Israeli military says it will pursue every successor of Iran’s Khamenei
- The clerical body that will choose Iran’s next supreme leader has more or less reached a majority consensus
- Minor disagreement over whether their final decision must follow an in-person meeting or instead be issued
The Israeli military warned it would continue pursuing every successor of Iran’s next supreme leader.
In a post on X in Farsi, the Israeli military also warned it would pursue every person who seeks to appoint a successor for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, referring to the clerical body charged with choosing the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.
The clerical body that will choose Iran’s next supreme leader, succeeding the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has more or less reached a majority consensus, Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri said on Sunday.
The Mehr news agency quoted him as saying “some obstacles” still needed to be resolved regarding the process.
On Saturday, a senior cleric in the Assembly of Experts said its members would meet “within one day” to choose the leader.
Iranian media said the group had a minor disagreement over whether their final decision must follow an in-person meeting or instead be issued without adhering to this formality.
Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, another member of the Assembly of Experts, said in a video released by Nournews on Sunday that an in-person meeting by the assembly for a final vote was not possible under current conditions.
He said a candidate had been picked, based on the late supreme leader’s advice that Iran’s top leader should “be hated by the enemy” instead of praised by it.
“Even the Great Satan (US) has mentioned his name,” Heidari Alekasir said of the chosen successor, days after US President Donald Trump said that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, was an “unacceptable” choice for him.
