Officials in Britain claim that they are putting more pressure on asylum seekers, including removing refugees’ permanent residency in the UK. The overhaul comes as polls reveal growing immigration concerns, according to Rory Challands of Al Jazeera.
Published On 17 Nov 2025
United States President Donald Trump says he will greenlight the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, signalling a departure in how Washington handles sophisticated weapons transfers to Arab countries.
Trump made the announcement on Monday at the White House, just one day before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is due to visit. “We’ll be selling F-35s”, the president told reporters, lauding Washington’s ties with Riyadh.
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 , “Yeah, I am planning on doing it. They want to buy them. They’ve been a great ally”, Trump said.
The decision marks a substantial win for Riyadh as Trump works to persuade Saudi Arabia to establish official ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords.
But Saudi officials have repeatedly reasserted the kingdom’s commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognition of Israel on the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
The potential arms deal between Washington and Riyadh raises questions about preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge, which is enshrined in US law. Some Israeli officials have already voiced opposition to the transfer of F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia.
The US has a decades-old commitment of ensuring Israel retains superior military capabilities over potential regional adversaries.
The principle, first established under President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and formally adopted by President Ronald Reagan, has guided American arms sales in the Middle East for more than four decades.
Every US administration since has pledged to preserve Israel’s ability to emerge victorious against any likely combination of regional forces.
The F-35, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, is widely regarded as the world’s most advanced fighter jet, featuring technology that makes it difficult for enemy defences to detect.
Critics in Israel have warned the sale could erode the country’s longstanding military superiority in the region.
Yair Golan, an opposition politician and former deputy chief of the Israeli army, said the move risked opening “an arms race in the Middle East” that could undermine advantages Israel has held for decades. He also blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as being “failure-prone”.
Golan claimed that “the qualitative military edge that has been a key component of Israel’s security for many decades is being wasted.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the head of Israel’s national security, added that Israel must carry on the region’s aerial superiority.
We are not perplexed because we are in the Middle East. Anyone who truly wishes to extend a hand without harming the State of Israel must be assured of their superiority, he told the Jewish News Syndicate on Monday.
The US administration’s efforts to strengthen ties with Riyadh as part of its wider Middle East strategy are highlighted by the timing of Trump’s announcement, which comes just before Prince Mohammed’s visit to the White House.
Washington has historically managed to address concerns about Israel’s military advantage by downgrading weapons and providing it with upgraded equipment and upgrades.
Prince Mohammed’s visit coincides with the shaky ceasefire in Gaza, which is being closely watched by Israelis.
Trump invoked the US attack on Iran in June, which he claimed “obliterated” the nation’s nuclear facilities on Monday when asked about a potential F-35 deal with Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia did not participate in those strikes, but Prince Mohammed was informed on Monday that Masoud Pezeshkian, the country’s official news agency, had received a handwritten letter from him before going to Washington, without giving specifics about its contents.
Saudi Arabia would become the first Arab member of the F-35 program if the deal is made.
After Abu Dhabi agreed to form formal ties with Israel, Trump approved the sale of F-35 jets to the United Arab Emirates in 2020. However, the agreement was voided in 2021 when Joe Biden assumed the role of president because US lawmakers were concerned about the technology’s security.
The president’s and his secretary of state have the authority to veto authorized weapon sales by the US Congress.
According to Dhyab Masha’la, the head of the local council, dozens of settlers allegedly attacked the village of al-Jaba, which is located 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of Bethlehem, on Monday, torching three homes, one shack, and three vehicles.
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Masha ‘la claimed that the village’s residents had managed to extinguish the flames despite the attackers’ claims to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. There were no reported injuries.
In Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, earlier on Monday, Wafa claimed settlers attacked several civilians while setting fire to a home and two vehicles while protecting Israeli forces.
A number of women were hurt when Israeli settlers allegedly beat the Palestinians with batons and sharp objects, according to the report from the news agency. Israeli forces also prevented ambulances and fire engines from arriving at the scene, according to the report.
This year, settlers in the West Bank began to carry out almost daily attacks on Palestinians that involved killings, beatings, and property destruction, frequently under the protection of the Israeli military.
In the northern West Bank village of Deir Istiya, settlers set a mosque on fire last week.
In an “ongoing cycle of terror,” which has been occurring since the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and settlers have carried out 2, 350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone.
Rarely are the crimes prosecuted for.
A military spokesman for Israel’s military said security forces were “searching for those involved” in the al-Jaba attack after being dispatched there in response to reports of “dozens of Israeli citizens” torching and vandalizing homes and vehicles.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen the rapid expansion of settlements, called the attack “a small, extremist group” and said he would call on cabinet ministers to convene to address the issue.
Israel Katz, the government’s defense minister, stated on X that it would “not tolerate the attempts of a small group of violent and criminal anarchists to take the law into their own hands and tarnish the settler community.”
However, his statement supported the ongoing expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian soil.
Katz predicted that the government would “continue to grow and support the settlement enterprise throughout Judea and Samaria.”
The top UN tribunal, the International Court of Justice, ruled in December last year that Israeli occupation of the West Bank was unlawful and demanded that Israeli settlements be removed.
Leading rights organizations claim that as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government push to officially annex the region, which has long operated under an apartheid system, there has been an increase in settler violence.
The UN’s human rights office warned in July that Israeli security forces were being supported, and in some cases, with the consent of settler violence.
A magistrate judge in the United States has issued a stern rebuke to the administration of President Donald Trump, criticising its handling of the indictment against a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), James Comey.
On Monday, Judge William Fitzpatrick of Alexandria, Virginia, made the unusual decision to order the release of all grand jury materials related to the indictment.
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Normally, grand jury materials are kept secret to protect witnesses, defendants and jurors in cases of grave federal crimes.
But in Comey’s case, Fitzpatrick ruled there was “a reasonable basis to question whether the government’s conduct was willful or in reckless disregard of the law”, and that greater transparency was therefore required.
He cited several irregularities in the case, ranging from how evidence was obtained to alleged misstatements from prosecutors that could have swayed the grand jury.
“The procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct,” Fitzpatrick wrote in his 24-page decision.
Fitzpatrick clarified that his decision does not render the grand jury materials public. But they will be provided to Comey’s defence team, as the former FBI director seeks to have the indictment tossed.
“The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick wrote, underscoring the unusual nature of the proceedings.
“However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps.”
The decision is the latest stumble for interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump whom he then appointed as a top federal prosecutor.
A specialist in insurance law with no prosecutorial background, Halligan was tapped earlier this year to replace acting US Attorney Erik Siebert in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Trump has indicated he fired Siebert over disagreements about Justice Department investigations.
According to media reports, Siebert had refrained from seeking indictments against prominent Trump critics, such as Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, citing insufficient evidence.
But that appears to have frustrated the president. Trump went so far as to call for Comey’s and James’s prosecutions on social media, as well as that of Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.
“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Trump wrote in a post addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
Halligan took up her post as acting US attorney on September 22. By September 25, she had filed her first major indictment, against Comey.
It charged Comey with making a “false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to the US Senate, thereby obstructing a congressional inquiry.
A second indictment, against James, was issued on October 9. And a third came on October 16, targeting former national security adviser John Bolton, another prominent Trump critic.
All three individuals have denied wrongdoing and have sought to have their cases dismissed. Each has also accused President Trump of using the legal system for political retribution against perceived adversaries.
Monday’s court ruling is not the first time Halligan’s indictments have come under scrutiny, though.
Just last week, US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie heard petitions from James and Comey questioning whether Halligan’s appointment as US attorney was legal.
As she weighed the petitions last Thursday, she questioned why there was a gap in the grand jury record for Comey’s indictment, where no court reporter appeared to be present.
Fitzpatrick raised the same issue in his ruling on Monday. He questioned whether the transcript and audio recording of the grand jury deliberations were, in fact, complete.
He pointed out that the grand jury in Comey’s case was originally presented with a three-count indictment, which it rejected. Those deliberations started at about 4:28pm local time.
But by 6:40pm, the grand jury had allegedly weighed a second indictment and found that there was probable cause for two of the three counts.
Fitzpatrick said that the span of time between those two points was not “sufficient” to “draft the second indictment, sign the second indictment, present it to the grand jury, provide legal instructions to the grand jury, and give them an opportunity to deliberate”.
Either the court record was incomplete, Fitzpatrick said, or the grand jury weighed an indictment that had not been fully presented in court.
The judge also acknowledged questions about how evidence had been obtained in the Comey case.
The Trump administration was facing a five-year statute of limitations in the Comey case, expiring on September 30. The indictment pertains to statements Comey made before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020.
To quickly find evidence for the indictment, Fitzpatrick said that federal prosecutors appear to have used warrants that were issued for a different case.
Those warrants, however, were limited to an investigation into Daniel Richman, an associate of Comey who was probed for the alleged theft of government property and the unlawful gathering of national security information.
No charges were filed in the Richman case, and the investigation was closed in 2021.
“The Richman materials sat dormant with the FBI until the summer of 2025, when the Bureau chose to rummage through them again,” Fitzpatrick said.
He said the federal government’s use of the warrants could violate the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits the unreasonable search and seizure of evidence. He described the Justice Department’s actions as “cavalier” and asserted that no precautions were taken to protect privileged information.
“Inexplicably, the government elected not to seek a new warrant for the 2025 search, even though the 2025 investigation was focused on a different person, was exploring a fundamentally different legal theory, and was predicated on an entirely different set of criminal offenses,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
He speculated that prosecutors may not have sought a new warrant because the delay would have allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the Comey case.
“The Court recognizes that a failure to seek a new warrant under these circumstances is highly unusual,” he said.
Fitzpatrick also raised concerns that statements federal prosecutors made to the grand jury may have been misleading.
Many of those statements were redacted in Fitzpatrick’s ruling. But he described them as “fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the grand jury process”.
One statement, he said, “may have reasonably set an expectation in the minds of the grand jury that rather than the government bear the burden to prove Mr. Comey’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, the burden shifts to Mr. Comey to explain away the government’s evidence”.
Another appeared to suggest that the grand jury “did not have to rely only on the record before them to determine probable cause” — and that more evidence would be presented later on.
Calling for the release of the grand jury records on Monday was an “extraordinary remedy” for these issues, Fitzpatrick conceded.
When she hangs her neck’s noose. Justice will only be served when Sheikh Hasina’s just-adopted death sentence is carried out, claim some of the protesters who supported Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in Bangladesh.
Published On 17 Nov 2025