New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is under fire after quietly slashing the city’s investment in Israel Bonds—prompting a fierce rebuke from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, which accuses Lander of appeasing the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A letter sent Sunday by First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro blasts Lander for what the mayor’s office calls a “sustained and coordinated decision” to divest from Israel, noting that the city’s pension holdings in Israel Bonds plummeted from “tens of millions” to just $1.2 million under Lander’s watch. The only fund still holding the bonds is the Police Pension Fund.

Iran is vowing that Israel will “pay a price” for what Tehran claims was a failed assassination attempt on President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a high-level security meeting in the heart of the Iranian capital. In comments to Al Jazeera, an official confirmed that Iranian authorities have launched a broad investigation into the “coordinated operation” to kill Pezeshkian during Operation Rising Lion, and are probing whether internal collaborators aided in the attempt. According to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), six bombs detonated near a key government building in western Tehran on June 16, as the Supreme National Security Council was meeting on a lower floor.

A group of six masked pro-Palestinian activists stormed the newly opened “King David Burger” kosher restaurant in Athens over the weekend, leaving a trail of hate and intimidation in their wake. The attackers, clad in black and armed with spray paint, scrawled messages such as “Smash Zionism” and “No Zionist is safe here” across the restaurant’s counters, walls, and tables. Red and black paint stained the interior as terrified Greek employees looked on, unable to intervene. “This was a coordinated hate crime,” said owner Tzvi Levinson, an Israeli businessman. “They finished the attack in seconds.

As socialist New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani gains momentum in the polls, controversy is mounting over his past ties to radical anti-Israel activism — including support for a convicted terrorist responsible for the murder of two college students in a 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem. During his time at Bowdoin College, Mamdani co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group that in 2014 publicly called for “justice” for Rasmieh Yousef Odeh — a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) operative convicted in two terrorist bombings. Odeh, deported from the U.S. in 2017 for immigration fraud, was sentenced to life in Israel but released in a prisoner exchange before entering the U.S.

Turkey conveyed an early warning to Iran about a Mossad assassination plan shortly before Operation Rising Lion was launched, a report published in the Arab newspaper Rai al-Youm on Sunday morning revealed. According to a Turkish diplomatic source quoted in the article, Ankara warned Tehran of Israel’s intention to carry out a series of assassinations, including Revolutionary Guards officials, in the Iranian capital. The report claims that Pakistan also provided detailed warnings, but according to the source, the Iranian authorities chose to ignore them as well.

Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg on Sunday rejected the petitions seeking to halt the hearing for Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and freeze the process of her dismissal. The decision comes after the government submitted a response to the Supreme Court earlier on Sunday regarding the petitions against the dismissal, arguing that issuing an interim order to freeze the process would constitute an overreach of the court’s authority. Sohlberg wrote in the decision: “The well-established rule, which has been applied only recently, is that this court does not address claims relating to a particular matter before a final decision has been made by the authorized body regarding that matter.

Yisrael Frey, a far-left chareidi journalist whose inflammatory celebration of the deaths of five IDF soldiers sparked national outrage, was released to house arrest earlier today following a week of detention in a high-security prison. Frey, who had been held under the rare designation of a “security prisoner,” will remain confined to his home until at least Friday, according to police. Frey’s arrest followed a tweet in which he said, “The world is a better place” after five Israeli soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in Gaza. Four of the soldiers belonged to the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a unit composed largely of frum troops.

The Supreme Court on Sunday approved a compromise reached between the government and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara on the appointment of the next Shin Bet chief. According to the agreement, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will notify the chairman of the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee of the identity of the candidate [Maj. Gen. (res.) David Zini] he intends to propose for the position within 60 days. In addition, it was decided that the term of the current acting Shin Bet chief, “S,” will be extended until the new candidate enters the position. The Shin Bet chief who is appointed will not be involved in any way in the cases known as “QatarGate” and “Bild” until a conflict of interest arrangement is formulated by the Attorney General.

A second pro-Hamas protest flotilla departed for the Gaza Strip from Siracusa, Italy, on Sunday morning, a little over a month after a previous attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade was peacefully intercepted by the Israeli Navy. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the group behind the earlier mission, is behind the launch of the new vessel, the Handala. French Member of the European Parliament Emma Fourreau and French MP Gabrielle Cathala are among those on board. In the previous attempt last month, the Madleen, with high-profile figures aboard such as Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and MEP Rima Hassan, was intercepted by Shayetet 13 naval commandos. The activists were peacefully detained, taken to Israel, and later deported. (YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)

Hamas is expected to ramp up efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and recover the bodies of fallen troops in Gaza in a bid to gain leverage in ceasefire negotiations, according to experts cited by The Guardian. “There is no doubt Hamas will increase its attempts to take new hostages, including the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians,” said Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University. His comments follow the death of St.-Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Avraham Azulay, 25, who was killed last week in Khan Yunis after Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel and attempted to abduct him. The IDF said Azulay fought back before being fatally shot. Other soldiers engaged and eliminated several attackers, preventing the abduction.