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Netanyahu’s Trial Resumes for Corruption Charges Amid Efforts to Sign Plea Deal

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv protesting the judicial reform plan, Israel, Saturday. (Reuters)
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv protesting the judicial reform plan, Israel, Saturday. (Reuters)
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Netanyahu’s Trial Resumes for Corruption Charges Amid Efforts to Sign Plea Deal

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv protesting the judicial reform plan, Israel, Saturday. (Reuters)
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv protesting the judicial reform plan, Israel, Saturday. (Reuters)

The trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Jerusalem District Court was resumed on Monday after one month of interruption.

Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes. The total sentence for these charges is 13 years.

There are however behind-the-scenes talks about signing a plea deal.

The session was held amid criticism expressed by the judges who are leading this trial at a slow pace and had decided to go on a vacation. The court’s secretariat announced that the judges are attempting to reduce the number of witnesses and have convinced the lawyers in the defense and prosecution of this.

Experts estimated that the trial would last for two years if the pace of holding the sessions remains as it is now.

They added that if Netanyahu managed to stay in power then he would seek to pass new laws that jeopardize the court's capacities and possibly halt the trial.

The trial began in 2020 at the Jerusalem District Court which holds three sessions weekly. Five delays have occurred so far due to feeble technical reasons imposed by lawyers or judges.

The indictment mentions three cases known as Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000.

Case 1000 saw Netanyahu charged with fraud and breach of trust after being accused along with his wife of receiving gifts worth approximately 700,000 Israeli shekel (around $200,000) from Israeli-born film producer Arnon Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer.

In Case 2000, he is accused of attempting to make a deal with Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper publisher Arnon Mozes for softer coverage of him in exchange for legislation to curb the reach of rival daily Israel Hayom.

Case 4000 alleges that Netanyahu granted regulatory favors worth around 1.8 billion shekels (about $500 million) to Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq Telecom Israel.

In return, prosecutors say, he sought positive coverage of himself and his wife on the Walla news website controlled by the company’s former chairman, Shaul Elovitch.

In this case, Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Elovitch and his wife, Iris, have been charged with bribery and obstruction of justice. The couple deny wrongdoing.

Netanyahu denies all allegations against him and says that he is a victim of a political conspiracy. “Receiving gifts from friends is not forbidden,” according to Netanyahu.

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World

Trump Says Yemen's Houthis are 'Behaving Very Badly'

President Donald Trump talks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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Trump Says Yemen's Houthis are 'Behaving Very Badly'

President Donald Trump talks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the Houthi militants were "behaving very badly."

This came as the group has recently escalated attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The Houthis also launched attacks on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport in recent days, killing 13 people, wounding more than 300.

Trump told reporters that he "might" ask Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to intervene and support Saudi interests.

"President Erdogan, I think, would do as I ask," Trump said.

Meanwhile, in a development reflecting the widening scope of military strikes against resources relied upon by the Houthi group, the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen carried out several airstrikes Tuesday on the Al-Sabaha Central Fuel Storage Station, west of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in an effort to disrupt a key Houthi fuel supply line that supports the group's military operations.

 

 

World

MI5 Chief Says Iran is Targeting Military Sites and Suspected Plot at RAF Fairford is 'Not Unique’

Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the UK's Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)
Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the UK's Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)
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MI5 Chief Says Iran is Targeting Military Sites and Suspected Plot at RAF Fairford is 'Not Unique’

Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the UK's Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)
Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the UK's Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)

Iran is trying to hit military sites in the UK and the suspected plot to attack a US-run military air base in September is “not unique," the head of Britain's MI5 spy agency said Tuesday.

Ken McCallum, who leads the UK’s domestic security service, said Tehran is seeking to intensify its attacks in Britain beyond the traditional targets of Iranians opposed to the country's Islamic authorities.

That has included arson and sabotage attacks on Jewish sites that Britain says were carried out by Iranian proxies.

McCallum said another “major shift this year has been Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites.”

The incident at RAF Fairford “is not unique. There have been other examples, not just in the UK but around the world,” McCallum said.

McCallum delivered a speech outlining major threats to the UK as detectives investigate a suspected terror plot against the US-run base in western England, which has been used to bomb Iran during this year’s war.

Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base on Sept. 27 as armed police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swarmed the rural area. Police later said they had found a quantity of an accelerant — gasoline — in three vans at the site, but no explosives, The AP news reported.

British authorities have linked Tehran to the incident, which led the US to pull its bombers from RAF Fairford. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the apparent plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Seven men in their 20s have been arrested and released on bail under investigation.

Iran has denied involvement, although it has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.

MI5 says AI could bring bioweapon risk In a stark speech, McCallum argued that the UK faces a “new era of national security” and is at a turning point equivalent to the 9/11 attacks a quarter century ago.

He said his agency’s work countering state threats – chiefly from Russia, Iran and China – has quadrupled in the past decade, and claimed that both Russia and Iran are expanding their hybrid warfare campaigns against the UK.

Meanwhile, technology is racing ahead, with artificial intelligence “supercharging” the cybersecurity battle between attackers and defenders, he said.

McCallum said terror plotters have used artificial intelligence for reconnaissance and attacks, including AI-enabled drones. Even more concerning, he said, is “AI’s potential to change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons.”

He said terror groups “would dearly love” to have chemical, biological or radiological weapons, but these are hard to obtain.

“One risk is that AI could enable dangerous knowledge to get into the hands of people we would all rather didn’t have that knowledge,” he said. “A second and different risk ... is the possibility that AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen.”

McCallum said MI5 has set up a new AI Threat Assessment Center to try to keep ahead of the risks.

“Human history has given us no experience of facing an actor which is smarter than we are. It is capable of outthinking us. This is genuinely novel, and deserves the serious attention it is getting, including in MI5,” he said.

World

Iran Reportedly Fortifies Nuclear Sites, Rallies its People for Return to Combat

Motorbikes drive past Iranian missiles and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders and nuclear scientists, who were killed in Israeli and US strikes, displayed in a military exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war at Baharestan Square, in Tehran, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Motorbikes drive past Iranian missiles and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders and nuclear scientists, who were killed in Israeli and US strikes, displayed in a military exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war at Baharestan Square, in Tehran, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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Iran Reportedly Fortifies Nuclear Sites, Rallies its People for Return to Combat

Motorbikes drive past Iranian missiles and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders and nuclear scientists, who were killed in Israeli and US strikes, displayed in a military exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war at Baharestan Square, in Tehran, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Motorbikes drive past Iranian missiles and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders and nuclear scientists, who were killed in Israeli and US strikes, displayed in a military exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war at Baharestan Square, in Tehran, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran is fortifying its defenses as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites and border areas, to make them more resilient to attacks, the newspaper said.

This June 15, 2026, photo from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, upper right, and the under-construction at Pickaxe Mountain directly to the south of it. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Last month, it built passive defense measures such as makeshift dirt mounds around its Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites to impede any attempted raid by ground forces, according to Vantor satellite images analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

Iranian officials are touting their efforts. The country’s airports, seaports and power plants “have prepared for wartime conditions,” installing shelters and backup supplies to continue operating in a crisis, Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the official in charge of the country’s contingency plans, told reporters at the end of September.

While US President Donald Trump last week ruled out an attack before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, he has publicly mulled hitting the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site, and US officials have said that the military is preparing a range of options for new strikes.

Iran’s government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles and holding rallies.

A banner with a picture of US President Donald Trump next to an Iranian missile system at Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Billboards in Tehran now advertise civilian training courses in the use of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and sniper rifles.

Last month, the Revolutionary Guard boasted that it had trained its first female commando units in guerrilla tactics, firearms use and drone piloting, according to footage posted by the Fatehin, an elite unit of Iran’s Basij volunteer defense forces.