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Trump Says He Was Not Informed by Netanyahu Before Israel’s Strike in Qatar 

US President Donald Trump speaks from the Resolute desk after signing a Presidential Memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 September 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks from the Resolute desk after signing a Presidential Memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 September 2025. (EPA)
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Trump Says He Was Not Informed by Netanyahu Before Israel’s Strike in Qatar 

US President Donald Trump speaks from the Resolute desk after signing a Presidential Memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 September 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks from the Resolute desk after signing a Presidential Memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 September 2025. (EPA)

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he was not informed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in advance about Israel's attack in Qatar last week.

Trump's comments came after an Axios report said that Netanyahu informed the US president of the strike shortly ahead of time.

The Trump administration has said it was notified only after missiles were in the air, giving Trump no opportunity to oppose the strike. Axios reported, citing Israeli officials, that the White House knew earlier, even if the timeline to stop the attack would have been tight.

Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an airstrike in Qatar on Tuesday, escalating its military action in the Middle East. The strike was widely condemned in the Middle East and beyond as an act that could further escalate tensions in a region already on edge.

Trump has previously said he was not involved in Israel's decision to strike Qatar.

He was asked on Monday if Netanyahu spoke to him directly to alert him that Israel would strike Hamas leaders in Qatar. "No, no, they didn't," Trump said.

Netanyahu's office reiterated after the Axios report that the attack was a "wholly independent" Israeli operation.

Washington is an ally of both Israel and Qatar. Doha has been a mediator in trying to arrange a deal for a Gaza ceasefire.

Israel's assault on Gaza since October 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people, internally displaced Gaza's entire population, and set off a starvation crisis. Multiple rights experts and scholars say it amounts to genocide.

Israel denies allegations of genocide, calling its actions self-defense after an October 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas fighters in which 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage. Israel has also bombed Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen during its war in Gaza.

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World

Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjusts his headphones during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in Jerusalem, 07 December 2025. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not retire from politics if he receives a pardon from the country’s president in his years-long corruption trial.

Asked by a reporter if planned on retiring from political life if he receives a pardon, Netanyahu replied: “no.”

Netanyahu last month asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, with lawyers for the prime minister arguing that frequent court appearances were hindering Netanyahu’s ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for the country.

Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. There is no precedent for issuing a pardon mid-trial.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in response to the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his lawyers have said that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings, if concluded, would result in a complete acquittal.

US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog, before Netanyahu made his request, urging the Israeli president to consider granting the prime minister a pardon.

Some Israeli opposition politicians have argued that any pardon should be conditional on Netanyahu retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Others have said the prime minister must first call national elections, which are due by October 2026.

World

Man Arrested after Pepper Spray Attack in London's Heathrow Airport Parking Garage

File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
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Man Arrested after Pepper Spray Attack in London's Heathrow Airport Parking Garage

File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)

Police arrested a man in London on Sunday after a group of people were assaulted with pepper spray in a parking garage at Heathrow Airport.

The victims were taken to the hospital by ambulance but their injuries were not believed to be serious, the Metropolitan Police said.

The incident in the Terminal 3 garage occurred after an argument escalated between two groups who knew each other. It was not being investigated as terrorism, police said.

One man was arrested on suspicion of assault and held in custody. Police were searching for the other suspects who left the scene.

World

US Envoy Kellogg Says Ukraine Peace Deal Is Really Close

A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
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US Envoy Kellogg Says Ukraine Peace Deal Is Really Close

A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)

US President Donald Trump's outgoing Ukraine envoy said a deal to end the Ukraine war was "really close" and now depended on resolving two main outstanding issues: the future of Ukraine's Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Ukraine war is the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War.

US Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in "the last 10 meters" which he said was always the hardest.

The two main outstanding issues, Kellogg said, were on territory - primarily the future of the Donbas - and the future of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is under Russian control.

"If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well," Kellogg said on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. "We're almost there."

"We're really, really close," said Kellogg.

Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq, said the scale of the death and injuries caused by the Ukraine war was "horrific" and unprecedented in terms of a regional war.

He said that, together, Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including dead and wounded since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose credible estimates of their losses.

Moscow says Western and Ukrainian estimates inflate its losses. Kyiv says Moscow inflates estimates of Ukrainian losses.

Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

A leaked set of 28 US draft peace proposals emerged last month, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said it bowed to Moscow's main demands on NATO, Russian control of a fifth of Ukraine and restrictions on Ukraine's army.

Those proposals, which Russia now says contain 27 points, have been split up into four different components, according to the Kremlin. The exact contents are not in the public domain.

Under the initial US proposals, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose reactors are currently in cold shutdown, would be relaunched under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the electricity produced would be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that he had had a long and "substantive" phone call with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The Kremlin said on Friday it expected Kushner to be doing the main work on drafting a possible deal.