President Trump gave the final go-ahead to strike Iran on Saturday afternoon at his private club in New Jersey, the Wall Street Journal reported. His order came after he said he would make a decision on the matter in two weeks. “The goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn’t expecting it,” said a senior administration official. The decision was made after direct coordination with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the report said. A U.S. official said that the Trump administration conveyed to Iran that the strikes were a one-time attack, not the start of a war. Last Tuesday, Trump approved plans to strike Iran but withheld a final order. “There was real debate earlier in the week about what we should do,” said the senior official.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered details on President Donald Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted three Iranian nuclear facilities Sunday. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated” following US military strikes on the country’s key nuclear facilities. “The order we received from our commander in chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear,” Hegseth said from the Pentagon podium. We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, but it’s worth noting the operation did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people.

In an overnight operation, IDF and Shin Bet forces recovered the bodies of three slain hostages from the Gaza Strip: Yonatan Samerano, H’yd, Staff Sgt. Shay Levinson, H’yd, and Ofra Keidar, H’yd. Keidar, 71, was brutally murdered, and her body was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived with her husband, Shmuel Keidar, H’yd, who was also murdered on October 7. The couple was survived by three children and grandchildren. Levinson, H’yd, a tank commander, fell on October 7 while battling Hamas terrorists on the Gaza border, and his body was abducted to Gaza. He was 19 at the time of his death. Samerano, H’yd, was murdered at Be’eri along with two of his friends after they fled from the Nova music festival. His body was abducted by a UN social worker in a UN vehicle.

Amid the deaths, injuries, and destruction in Israel, incredible nissim occur daily as Iran continues to fire barrages of ballistic missiles with powerful explosive warheads at the Jewish people. Yet another incredible neis occurred on Sunday morning in Haifa to a Belzer family, who live in an old building that lacks not only safe rooms (mamadim) in the individual apartments but also has no communal bomb shelter, Kikar H’Shabbat reported. While sirens blared in other parts of Israel at about 7:45 a.m., no sirens sounded in Haifa.

Five hours after the United States announced the destruction of Iranian nuclear sites, Iran launched two missile salvos targeting Israel – the first such attack in more than 30 hours. A total of at least 27 missiles were fired in the attack, with impacts recorded in Haifa and across central Israel. According to IDF assessments, the first barrage consisted of 22 missiles, followed by a second with five more. Following the attack, Magen David Adom teams are actively treating and transporting victims. 16 people have been rushed to hospitals, including a man in his 30s who is in moderate condition with shrapnel wounds to his upper body. The remaining victims have minor injuries such as bruises. Rescue crews are still searching for any additional casualties.

California’s challenge of the Trump administration’s military deployment in Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom in San Francisco on Friday for a brief hearing after an appeals court handed President Donald Trump a key procedural win. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off issuing any additional rulings and instead asked for briefings from both sides by noon Monday on whether the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil, is being violated in Los Angeles. The hearing happened the day after the 9th Circuit appellate panel allowed the president to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed in response to protests over immigration raids. California Gov.

House and Senate Republicans are taking slightly different approaches when it comes to the tax cuts that lawmakers are looking to include in their massive tax and spending cuts bill. Republicans in the two chambers don’t agree on the size of a deduction for state and local taxes. And they are at odds on such things as allowing people to use their health savings accounts to help pay for their gym membership, or whether electric vehicle and hybrid owners should have to pay an annual fee. The House passed its version shortly before Memorial Day. Now the Senate is looking to pass its version. While the two bills are similar on the major tax provisions, how they work out their differences in the coming weeks will determine how quickly they can get a final product over the finish line.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posts a video statement thanking US President Donald Trump for his decision to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. “Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history,” Netanyahu says. “In Operation Rising Lion, Israel has done truly amazing things. But in tonight’s action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed. It has done what no other country on earth could do.” “History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world’s most dangerous regime, the world’s most dangerous weapons,” Netanyahu continues. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A commentator on Iran’s IRIB state broadcaster declares that every American citizen and soldier in the region is now a “legitimate target” following the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The broadcaster airs a map showing US bases in the region, with the commentator declaring, “You started it, and we’ll finish it.”