Ayala Ben-Gvir, wife of the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, slapped a woman from the Neturei Karta community who had violently attacked her in Beit Shemesh, the Israel Police said on Thursday.According to the police, Ayala Ben-Gvir slapped the woman in an act of self-defense. This is a developing story.

Convicted sex offender and leader of the Shuvu Banim hasidic sect Eliezer Berland should not be allowed to light the Lag Ba'omer torch at Mount Meron this year, NGO Movement for Quality Government wrote in an appeal to the High Court of Justice on Wednesday.The MGQ, along with haredi activist Tzippy Lavi and five other women's rights groups, requested that the court cancel the permit granted to the sect to light the fire.Given that this is a government-subsidized event, the groups argued, is a moral oversight and is harmful to the public.Lag Ba'omer will take place on Thursday night and early Friday morning.

The Spanish ambassador to Israel was summoned on Thursday for a formal reprimand at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.Earlier on Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stated: “We will not engage in trade with a country committing genocide.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not "bow to any bully" in response to US President Donald Trump's criticism of Tehran during his Gulf tour."He (Trump) thinks he can come here, chant slogans, and scare us. For us, martyrdom is far sweeter than dying in bed. You came to frighten us? We will not bow to any bully," he said on Wednesday in comments broadcast live on state TV.

Harvard University is dedicating $250 million of its own funds to support researchers after US President Donald Trump's administration froze nearly $3 billion in federal grants and contracts in recent weeks, the university announced on Wednesday.The elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of Trump's most prominent targets. The Republican president has been making an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the US that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and "radical left" ideologies. He has criticized Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its decision to cut off grants awarded to the school's researchers, mostly in the medical sciences. Harvard calls this an unconstitutional attempt to curtail academic freedom and speech rights.The government announced the cuts last month, hours after Harvard's president, Dr. Alan Garber, denounced a lengthy list of demands by the Trump administration to overhaul the school's leadership, teaching and admissions, and audit the views of its students and professors.Garber, in a joint statement with Provost John Manning, said the Trump administration was "stopping lifesaving research" and called it an "extraordinarily challenging time" for the country's oldest and wealthiest university.

Israel Police have arrested six people on suspicion of involvement in a shooting incident in Bnei Brak, Ynet reported.According to the police, two people were injured in the incident - one of them critically."Large police forces that arrived at the scene located a man with a gunshot wound on Rabbi Dangor Street, who was evacuated in critical condition to the Ichilov Medical Center. At the same time, another wounded man was located on Abarbanel Street, and was evacuated in moderate condition," according to the police.One of the suspects, a 32-year-old from Rosh Ha'Ayin, was arrested while in possession of a gun.