The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they unfolded.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is spreading blasphemy and hate and is putting the lives of Jewish New Yorkers at risk, President Isaac Herzog tells Fox News.
He says that Mamdani doesn’t recognize “the Jewish people’s inherent right to have a nation of their own. And he’s basically spreading blasphemy, hate, antisemitic rhetoric. He should understand that he’s risking his own citizens, he’s risking their safety, well-being and life.”
“I think New York will continue way after Mamdani,” says Herzog. “And I hope he won’t create irreversible damage.”
Asked about US-Israel relations under US President Donald Trump, Herzog says that Trump “speaks from the heart when he speaks about his love and respect of Israel and his support of Israel.”
“We can have divisions over issues or some arguments, but that does not derogate from the enormous respect we have for President Trump,” says Herzog.
“There is biblical and prophetic about the way our nations work together,” Herzog continues.
Herzog says that disgraced former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan was supposed to come to Israel to meet him to investigate Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, but canceled last minute.
“And only in hindsight now we know clearly that it was in order to divert attention from the sexual allegations,” says Herzog.
“The case has to be dropped and the ICC should … not fall into the trap of hate and lies that Karim Khan presented simply to cover for himself,” says Herzog.
CAIRO, Egypt — Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warns of any “adventurous action” by the US in separate phone calls with his Turkish counterpart and Pakistan’s army commander, according to the Iranian minister’s account on Telegram.
Araghchi stresses his country’s readiness to respond decisively to any “aggression.”
Araghchi also speaks to his Saudi counterpart, saying that any “aggression” by the US and Israel or participation of regional countries in these actions will be met with a “decisive and proportionate response,” according to his Telegram account.
A former worker at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence accuses the premier’s wife, Sara, of racism, humiliating treatment, and physical abuse.
The Prime Minister’s Office denies all allegations.
The worker, known only by his first initial “Y,” says in an interview with Channel 12 that Sara Netanyahu was openly biased in her treatment of Mizrahi workers in the residence, and treated them as second-class employees.
She also made an African foreign worker change out her clothes every time she arrived, and put on an outfit that was laid out for her. Sara Netanyahu didn’t let the worker take breaks to eat or drink, claims Y, and told other workers to give the African worker expired food.
Y also claims Sara Netanyahu pushed him physically on three separate occasions when she was unhappy with his cleaning.
Y, who was brought to work in the residence on Azza Street after overseeing the cleaning operations in the Prime Minister’s Office, was brought in to meet Sara Netanyahu a day before he started. She asked him how much he loved the Netanyahu couple.
He claims that she would check personally that he washed his hands with soap every time he came into the residence. He also had to wash his hands just to take her handbag from her every time she came home.
Sara Netanyahu was extremely demanding and obsessive about the cleaning in the residence, says Y. After a meal, he had to wipe down each piece of cutlery with three wipes before putting it in the dishwasher.
Y had to wash the floors of the residence with baby wipes, and wasn’t allowed to walk on carpets, he tells Channel 12.
She also demanded that Y pay for any cups broken while being washed.
Y says that he had to clean every hanger with a wipe before hanging clothes that came back from the dry cleaners on it. He says that he didn’t do it properly once, and Sara took a suit belonging to the prime minister off the hanger and threw it on the floor, while yelling at him that he would have to pay for the additional cleaning.
Sara Netanyahu had almost 400 pairs of shoes, Y says. He had to wipe every shoe, and would get yelled at if he put his hands inside any of them.
He says that she told him, “I am the top psychologist in the country, and you are autistic.” Y has a severely autistic son.
Y accuses her of having hoarding tendencies, and says she would yell at him if he threw trash out without getting her approval. She would also go through her husband’s trash, Y claims.
When the prime minister tried to intervene, she would tell him to stay out of it, says Y. “He wouldn’t decide anything,” he says, adding that Sara Netanyahu would tell her husband who to call and what networks to appear on after terrorist attacks.
The Prime Minister’s Office calls the report “baseless,” and says that Y was fired for “failing in his work.”
Y also levels accusations against Benjamin and Sara’s son Yair Netanyahu. Y says that Yair grabbed him and physically pushed him outside because his sheets weren’t washed.
Yair Netanyahu responded that he “never pushed the worker, didn’t curse or humiliate him, and didn’t disrespect him in any way. The claims are the fruits of a twisted imagination or an attempt to blackmail.”
Y claims that he was forced to work extremely long days. In October, he worked 169 hours of overtime, in November 143 hours, and in December 116 hours of overtime.
A roughly 40-year-old man was shot and killed in the southern town of Netivot a short while ago, according to first responders.
Medics who responded to the shooting found the man in critical condition, unconscious and with penetrating wounds, and pronounced him dead on the scene following revival attempts, the Magen David Adom ambulance service says.
A 29-year-old man who was lightly wounded in the incident was hospitalized after receiving treatment on the scene, MDA adds.
Police say officers are searching the area for suspects and collecting evidence at the scene of the shooting. No arrests have been reported.
The shooting is thought to have a “criminal” rather than nationalist motive, according to police.
The Kan public broadcaster says the slain man was a criminal known to police and that he was killed in a gangland hit.
Separately, MDA says an 18-year-old male was taken to Haifa’s Rambam Hospital in moderate condition after being shot in the northern Bedouin town of Bir al-Maksur.
PARIS, France — The wildfires that have ravaged France are “today under control,” Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu says, more than a week after the largest wildfire since 1949 flared up.
“Overall, the fires are now under control in our country” and, in Gironde, in the southwest, “we have returned to a more stable situation,” he says in an interview with the La Tribune Dimanche weekly.
Police say officers arrested 24 people on suspicion of taking part in a “mass violent scuffle between different factions” in the southern Bedouin town of Rahat today.
Two officers were hurt when forces dispatched to quash the violence were pelted with stones, according to police.
The 24 suspects were detained in raids on several housing complexes in Rahat, and they hail from “all the families that were involved in the incident,” police say, adding that the suspects have been transferred to the Rahat police station for investigation.
נעצרו 24 חשודים במעורבות באירוע אלימות המוני ברהט
במהלך היום התקבל דיווח על קטטה המונית אלימה בין פלגים שונים ברהט. כוחות של מחוז דרום, ובהם תחנת רהט, המשמר הלאומי דרום במג"ב והיחידות סה"ר ויואב, הגיעו למקום ופתחו בפעולות להשלטת הסדר ולמעצר המעורבים.
במהלך הפעילות יודו אבנים… pic.twitter.com/FL83Dtb6xh
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) August 1, 2026
Shir Matias, whose parents Deborah (Shachar) and Shlomi were killed protecting her brother Rotem at their Kibbutz Holit home in the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, accuses the government of having “violated the most basic contract between state and citizen” by failing to probe the security debacle and seeking to codify the Haredi exemption from military service.
“A huge part of the public carries a full burden, and another part is exempt from it,” she tells the roughly 300 people who showed up for this week’s anti-government rally at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square. “Rights and duties are handed out for political reasons and not for the collective good.”
The government “defiles our dead, ignores our suffering and dodges establishing a state commission of inquiry” into the Hamas attack, she says.
“Everyone whose hands were on the steering wheel on October 7 needs to go home,” she says. “Accountability can’t be a dirty word in a state that wants to keep existing.”
Appealing to Likud and Shas voters, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yom Tov Samia says at the rally that the government has betrayed its own right-wing values on the Haredi draft issue.
“How the hell does the right subsidize draft dodgers at the expense of combat soldiers?” he says.
The government has also failed to vanquish Hamas, which “won’t hand over its weapons” despite signing an agreement to that effect this week, says Samia.
The ex-general says he himself “can’t be suspected” of animus to Jewish tradition, because he grew up in a traditional Libyan Jewish home and founded a 400-member synagogue.
Samia also rails against what he calls “efforts to associate” him with “Second Israel,” a phrase coined by pundit Avishai Ben Haim to refer mostly to underprivileged Mizrahi Jews who support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sephardic Haredi party Shas.
“I know only one Israel,” Samia says, calling on “my partners in the Jewish tradition” from Shas and Netanyahu’s Likud to “stop voting for this government of debacle.”
Three Palestinians have been injured after being assaulted and sprayed with pepper spray by settlers near the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.
Wafa also reports that settlers threw stones at homes and vehicles in the village of Idhna, southwest of Hebron. No injuries are reported.
Separately, Palestinian media reports that a farmer and his wife were beaten and injured during a settler attack in the village of Beitillu, northwest of Ramallah.
Footage published afterward showed both with bandages on their arms and legs.
مشاهد توثق لحظة إصابة عدد من العمال برذاذ الفلفل الحارق، إثر هجوم شنته مجموعات من المستوطنين عليهم أثناء عودتهم من عملهم في سهل "مرج سيع" بين قريتي المغير وأبو فلاح، شمال شرق رام الله pic.twitter.com/0sygPx0ZSI
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 1, 2026
????إصابة مزارع وزوجته خلال اعتداء نفذه مستوطنون على أرضهما في بلدة بيتللو شمال غرب رام الله. pic.twitter.com/HlFDBRiHi4
— شبكة يافا الإخبارية (@yaffa_ps) August 1, 2026
Israel believes that Iran will fire ballistic missiles at it even if the IDF does not initially participate in US President Donald Trump’s threatened intensified offensive against Iran, Israel’s Channel 12 reports.
To that end, it says without sourcing, Israel is on its “highest alert.” Haaretz, citing CBS, also says Israel is on “high alert” ahead of a potential US attack on Iran. The IDF has not issued any such information, and Home Front Command has not issued any new regulations to Israeli civilians.
Ben Gurion Airport is functioning as usual, and there have been no reported flight cancellations as of tonight. Channel 12 notes, however, that “many” US refuelers have headed to Israel in recent days, potentially causing crowding and logistics complications at the busy airport.
The Iran International opposition media outlet quotes Iran’s Fars news agency earlier today as listing Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar gas fields among major energy facilities in the region as possible targets for an Iranian response to US attacks.
Fars also cited oil and gas fields and refineries in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain among possible targets.
Channel 12 says that there have been “several recent occasions” when Israel anticipated an attack by Iranian ballistic missiles that did not come to pass.
Ebrahim Rezaei, an Iranian parliament spokesman, was quoted earlier today deriding the notion that the US could force an Iranian surrender. “That is an illusion [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu whispered to Trump. If Iran is attacked, we will return the entire region and its facilities to the Stone Age.”
A fire seriously damaged Nöam, a kosher restaurant in Montreal, last night.
Montreal police are investigating the blaze, and no arrests have been made yet, according to Canadian media reports.
Quebec Liberal MP Anthony Housefather says the attack on a “Jewish business must be investigated as a hate crime.”
Nöam, an incredibly popular kosher restaurant that serves Italian and Mediterranean food in Montreal, was burned down last night at 3 am.
It looks like arson, and police are investigating a possible suspect seen walking away from the scene.
We can't say for sure the motive was… pic.twitter.com/AnBJPnCjBH
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) August 1, 2026
