Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed a series of laws undermining legal oversight of the government, benefiting allied media outlets and aiming to shore up ultra-Orthodox political support.

© Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Marco Rubio has offered nonsensical rationale in attacking the court. The Trump administration’s real goal is impunity

With the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration’s real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents “could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America”.

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© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Pool/Graeme Sloan - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Pool/Graeme Sloan - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Graeme Sloan/Pool/Graeme Sloan - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

Officials see a return to full-blown war as preferable to an agreement that fails to curb the threats Iran poses to Israel. Meanwhile, they wait.

© Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

Officials see a return to full-blown war as preferable to an agreement that fails to curb the threats Iran poses to Israel. Meanwhile, they wait.

© Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

The yearslong effort to groom the former Iranian president as an intelligence asset culminated in a dramatic effort to take him to a Mossad safe house in Iran in the early days of the war. But the plan fell apart.

© Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The yearslong effort to groom the former Iranian president as an intelligence asset culminated in a dramatic effort to take him to a Mossad safe house in Iran in the early days of the war. But the plan fell apart.

© Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Republican senator, who died Saturday, had a global reach few could rival and was vital in shaping Trump’s worldview

It was revealing that one of the first tributes to Lindsey Graham, a US senator who died on Saturday aged 71, came from Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, a far-right provocateur who recently caused widespread anger by sharing footage of himself taunting bound activists who had been trying to sail to Gaza with aid.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was not far behind, calling Graham a “great friend of Israel and a cherished friend of mine”, and he was quickly followed by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described him as “a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer”.

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© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

Israeli ambassador to US accuses Ro Khanna of political stunt to distract from support for Graham Platner

Ro Khanna accused the Israeli government and military of “lying” on Sunday about the US congressman’s detention by armed settlers and Israeli soldiers during a recent visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Khanna – a California Democrat – had posted video evidence on social media of Israeli settlers and soldiers blocking the path of his convoy on Wednesday in the South Hebron hills, near the village of Zanuta, where Israelis have driven Palestinians from their homes in what Amnesty International calls a government-backed “ethnic cleansing campaign”.

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© Photograph: Cameron Kasky/AP

© Photograph: Cameron Kasky/AP

© Photograph: Cameron Kasky/AP

The Republican senator from South Carolina had an intense interest in the Middle East, and was a staunch supporter of U.S. strikes on Iran.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Trump says US senator was ‘a true American patriot’ while Zelenskyy says he’s ‘deeply saddened’ by his death

• Graham’s death triggers a scramble to replace him – what happens next?

• Lindsey Graham dies after sudden illness aged 71

Washington woke up to the unexpected death of Republican senator Lindsey Graham, 71, who changed the course of modern history with his hawkish Iran platform and key role in establishing the stridently conservative US supreme court.

Donald Trump was one of the first to pay tribute to the controversial South Carolina lawmaker, a close ally despite past differences, in a social media post. “Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! DETAILS AND ARRANGEMENTS TO FOLLOW. So sad!”

Trump later told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that one of Graham’s legacies as a legislator was helping to confirm US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

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© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

As both sides accused each other of violating a cease-fire signed three weeks ago, the temporary agreement appeared on the verge of collapse.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

The former Chicago mayor, a Democrat exploring a 2028 presidential run, delivered a speech in Tel Aviv that was sharply critical of Benjamin Netanyahu.

© Amir Cohen/Reuters

The former Chicago mayor, a Democrat exploring a 2028 presidential run, delivered a speech in Tel Aviv that was sharply critical of Benjamin Netanyahu.

© Amir Cohen/Reuters

After days of public mourning ceremonies in the Iranian capital, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s coffin arrived in Tehran’s Azadi Square. This is what I saw covering the miles-long procession on Monday.

A resolution by the country’s cabinet escalated a long-running conflict between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s judiciary. A senior government official later walked that back.

© Ilia Yefimovich/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images