Iran will restart part of its halted nuclear program in response to the U.S. withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal but does not itself plan to pull out of the agreement, the state-run IRIB news agency reported on Monday.
Citing a source close to an official commission which oversees the nuclear deal, IRIB reported that President Hassan Rouhani would announce that Iran would reduce some of its “minor and general” commitments under the deal on May 8 – exactly one year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. pullout.

As the ceasefire between Israel and terrorist organizations in Gaza takes effect, Qatar has announced that it would transfer $480 million to the Palestinian Authority and Gaza.
Approximately $300 million will go toward the P.A. health and education budget, and the rest will go to funding United Nations programs and electricity services in the West Bank and Gaza.
Both P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
“This honorable decision is a continuation of the unwavering Qatari stance that supports the Palestinian people politically and financially, in addition to defending Palestinian rights on international platforms,” wrote Haniyeh.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Michael Behenna, a former Army lieutenant who served five years in prison for the murder of an Iraqi prisoner in 2008.
Behenna, who was an Army Ranger in the 101st Airborne Division, was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone and sentenced to 25 years after killing Ali Mansur, a detainee and suspected al-Qaida member. Behenna, who stripped Mansur naked, interrogated him without authorization and then shot him twice, has claimed repeatedly that he was acting in self-defense.

The impoverished Gaza Strip has long been under strict Israeli border controls, including tight restrictions on anything that might be considered “dual use” and potentially put toward the production of weapons.
But experts who track the weapons arsenals of Hamas and Islamic Jihad estimate that they have managed to stockpile between 5,000 and 20,000 rockets. Over the weekend, the militant groups fired a tiny fraction of them toward Israel – nearly 700 rockets and mortars, according to the Israeli military – and the unusually ferocious barrage at times overwhelmed Israeli air defenses.

(May 7, 2019)—New York, NY—As anti-Semitic incidents rise to unprecedented heights in the United States, Touro College and University System is hosting a discussion on “Building Community in Response to Anti-Semitism.” This event is part of the Touro Presidential Lecture Series and will be held on Wednesday, May 15 at 6:30 PM at Touro’s Lander College for Women on 227 West 60th Street in New York City.

Police have arrested a Washington state man for making death threats against Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. weeks after he posted his intentions on social media.
Chase Bliss Colasurdo, 27, who lives in the Seattle area, indicated that he wanted to murder Kushner, a key White House adviser and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, whom he deemed a traitor, for being Jewish, among other reasons, The Washington Post reported.
Colasurdo was arrested after he attempted to buy a gun, a representative of the US Attorney’s Office in Washington told the Post.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

A new report published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBI) showed that 9 million people were now residents in the Jewish state.
The figures, released just before Israel’s Independence Day, showed population growth remained stable at 2% year-on-year increase. Immigration remains a major part of this trend, with 31,000 new arrivals offsetting a part of the 47,000 deaths.
Israel has historical policies in place to encourage the immigration of Jews from the world over, and they represent the overwhelming majority of new residents. More than 45% of the world’s Jewry now lives in Israel, as opposed to 6% when Israel was created in 1948.
The CBI also forecast that the population of Israel would reach 15.2 million by its 100th anniversary, in 2048.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Sunday said in a statement he “condemns in the strongest terms the launching of rockets from Gaza into Israel, particularly the targeting of civilian population centers. He urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint, immediately de-escalate and return to the understandings of the past few months.”
Hamas on Monday slammed the United Nations chief for his statement “reflecting a bias towards the Israeli position and in support of Israel’s aggressive position” following a two-day flare-up that killed 27 Palestinians and four Israelis in the latest escalation between Israel and Gaza militants.

An Israeli court has ordered that a Jewish teen suspected of hurling a stone that struck and killed a Palestinian woman in a car in the northern West Bank last October be released to house arrest.
The 16-year-old suspect, who cannot be named because of privacy laws protecting minors, was charged in January in the death of 47-year-old mother-of-eight Aisha Rabi.
The suspect’s attorney tells The Times of Israel that his client will be released next Tuesday and will wear an electronic monitor.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}