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The Iranian ambassador to Mexico signaled on Friday that his country and the U.S. could have a good relationship in the future, so long as President Trump does not take foreign policy cues from Israel.

“If the U.S. closes its eyes to Israel’s interest, Iran and the U.S. can be very good friends,” Abolfazl Pasandjdeh told Politico via a Spanish translator at a World Cup fan expo in Mexico City, urging Trump to prioritize U.S. interests.

“I also believe that if he puts the interests of the U.S. first, it will yield good results,” he said. “The most important thing is that the Israeli regime does not seek what is good for the U.S.”

Israel has emerged as somewhat of a wildcard as Trump pushes for a peace deal with Tehran. Its military campaign against Iranian proxy group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has risked upending the negotiations several times, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have a different end goal than his U.S. counterpart.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro described a rift between the U.S. and Israeli perspectives during a recent interview with NPR, wherein he said Israel’s main objective is eliminating Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat while the U.S. is largely focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“So that’s a divergence between U.S. and Israeli interests, which you can see playing out now in the way the prime minister talks about what he wants to achieve – tried to do some additional strikes just over the weekend – and President Trump’s desire to wind this down,” Shapiro said, suggesting Israel’s preference would be to continue the war.

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A British judge has sentenced four Palestine Action protesters as terrorists, handing them custodial sentences ranging from four to eight years.

The unprecedented ruling came despite jurors convicting them of criminal charges not connected to terrorism during the prosecution.

Last month, jurors convicted Leona Kamio, Samuel Corner, Fatema Rajwani, and Charlotte Head of criminal damage in connection with a raid on an Elbit Systems UK plant near Bristol on 6 August 2024.

Two other activists, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers, were cleared of the charges.

Elbit Systems is an Israeli arms manufacturer whose UK headquarters are based in Bristol.

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Down here in the tombs, there aren’t any windows,” writes Tremane Wood from inside his cell, in a modern-day American “dungeon” that few people have ever heard of.

“It’s really like living in cave,” he writes in another letter. “It’s dark and damp. Sometimes this place drives people mad. The hardest part is the isolation.”

Or in another: “You end up loosing [sic] track of days and nights and what day it is … It’s a real form of psychological torture that some people never come back from.”

Wood, 46, spent 17 years incarcerated in H Unit – the underground cells at the state prison in the rural town of McAlester, Oklahoma, where no natural light ever reaches.

According to prisoner letters seen by the Guardian and published here for the first time, H Unit – also known by the prisoners as the “tombs” – features a series of windowless cells that are built banked into the earth. The letters also tell of infestations of vermin, unsanitary conditions, and frequent instances of physical and sexual violence.

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President Trump on Thursday whipsawed between threatening new, major attacks against Iran and touting significant progress in negotiations to end the war, the latest frantic episode in the conflict that’s gone on for more than 100 days.

Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “very hard” and eventually take over its oil export hub Kharg Island in a Truth Social post at 8:22 a.m. EDT on Thursday, about five hours before calling them off.

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved,” Trump said in a post at 1:28 p.m. EDT.

Trump’s team has been focused on striking an agreement with Iran to allow commercial and oil ships free and safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and to restart negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. 

He said the U.S. naval blockade against Iranian oil exports in the Strait of Hormuz “will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”

Trump’s team has been focused on striking an agreement with Iran to allow commercial and oil ships free and safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and to restart negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

He said the U.S. naval blockade against Iranian oil exports in the Strait of Hormuz “will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”

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Eight-year-old Jad Suleiman was walking home from school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Monday when the Israeli airstrike hit. A piece of shrapnel lodged in his neck, killing him instantly. Outside Shifa hospital, his body lay on a stretcher wrapped in a loose white sheet. Dressed in jeans and a blue and red checkered shirt, the smallness of his body was accentuated by his oversized backpack, still on his limp shoulders.

Jad’s father, Youssef Suleiman, was beyond grief. He wept uncontrollably as he bent over his son’s lifeless body, caressing and kissing his face. “I am not able to speak,” Suleiman told Drop Site News. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping for air. He had removed his son’s backpack and was clutching it to his chest. “My son is 8 years old. What was his crime? He was coming home from school. This is his bag, there is blood on it. This is the bag. This is the bag,” he repeated, unable to continue.

Three Palestinians were killed in the attack, including eight-year-old Jad and a 70-year-old man. Several others were wounded in the strike and brought into Shifa on stretchers, bloodied and wincing in pain.

“You leave your house, not knowing whether you are going to return or whether you are going to die,” Jad’s aunt, Warda Muhaysin, told Drop Site. “There is blood in the streets. It’s enough. Enough…where is the ceasefire people are talking about?”

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Israel has emptied four facilities within the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex that served as offices for the Islamic Waqf, in what a monitoring group has described as an escalating campaign against the Jordanian-backed body.

The Al-Quds International Institution, a Palestinian organisation that monitors developments in Jerusalem, said on Tuesday that Israeli authorities have used "manufactured security pretexts" to target the facilities.

According to the group, Israeli forces raided the sites in recent months, broke their locks and prevented the installation of replacements.

The facilities were then left open, while anyone attempting to enter them was expelled because they had been used for "activities that threaten security".

The four sites are the Dome of Imam al-Ghazali, located above the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall along the eastern wall of the complex; Dar al-Hadith al-Sharif in the northeastern section of Al-Aqsa; Qubbat Sulayman, an open-air domed shrine opposite King Faisal Gate; and Qubbat Musa, located near Bab al-Silsila (Chain Gate).

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The brief exchange of fire between Iran and Israel was a truer statement of the balance of power that now exists between these two countries than the many spurious claims by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about having “smashed”, “destroyed” or “obliterated” the armed forces of the Islamic Republic.

In firing up to 30 missiles towards Israel in retaliation against its renewed bombing of Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Iran broke the model that Israel had imposed on the two other ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza: namely that you cease, and we keep on firing.

Furthermore, it showed that it would target northern Israel to protect a third country, Lebanon, which is also something of a first.

In announcing that it would halt fire, Iran’s military command said that if Israel resumed its attacks anywhere, including southern Lebanon, “much more severe and crushing measures than before will follow”.

It has taken time for the Islamic Republic to respond to Israel’s campaigns on Gaza, Lebanon and itself as one war - which is what it is - but at last, it is being forced to do so.

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Nithya Raman, a progressive Los Angeles city council member, has advanced to the November runoff for LA mayor, edging out former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt for the chance to face incumbent mayor Karen Bass.

Pratt, who decided to run for mayor after his Pacific Palisades home burned down in the 2025 wildfires, held a lead over Raman for days. But as ballot processing from last week’s election continued, the city councillor pulled ahead.

Bass, who is seeking another term leading America’s second largest city,learned on 2 June’s primary election night she had secured enough votes to make it to the November election, but the race for second remained close for nearly a week.

Bass’s campaign released a statement on Monday night after hearing of Raman advancing. “A campaign against Nithya Raman, who allows encampments near schools and cuts the police force, is one Mayor Bass looks forward to winning,” said Douglas Herman, a strategist.

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