Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was still in effect, despite numerous ceasefire violations by both sides in recent days.

“No, the ceasefire is not over,” Hegseth said during a press briefing at the Pentagon alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. “Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project,” Hegseth said of the new U.S. mission to escort commercial shipping vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, “and we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have.” 

A majority of Israelis believe that ending the war with Iran under the current conditions would undermine the country’s security, according to a new poll from the Israel Democracy Institute.

The survey, conducted between April 26-30, over two weeks into the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, found that 64% of Jewish Israelis said ending the war in its current state is “only slightly or not at all aligned” with Israel’s security interests. Nearly half of Arab Israelis (48.5%) said the same.

The tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran came close to collapsing overnight after the Islamic Republic fired 15 missiles and four drones at the United Arab Emirates. The question now is whether hostilities will resume in the coming days — just before next week’s major summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, slated to take place in Beijing.

Monday’s Iranian missile fire came amid ramped-up rhetoric from both Tehran and Washington over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and as the U.S. launched “Project Freedom” to assist vessels attempting to transit through the waterway. One of the drones fired yesterday by Iran hit the UAE’s Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, sparking a fire that injured three Indian workers. 

Several top Jewish Democrats are expressing concerns about the ideological direction of a newly revived foreign policy group now aiming to shape the party’s approach to Israel in the 2028 presidential election as well as a future Democratic administration.

National Security Action, an influential Democratic foreign policy organization that launched in 2018 and helped staff the Biden administration, is returning to the political arena with a new leader, Maher Bitar, who has served in high-level defense and intelligence roles on Capitol Hill and in the White House, the group confirmed on Sunday.

LOS ANGELES — While the world’s attention has been fixed on Iran, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz and a team of American bureaucrats have spent the last few months quietly working to turn President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace into a fully functioning entity. 

The fledgling international organization — billed by some as an alternative to the U.N., although Waltz insists there is room for both — has the astronomically large task of governing and rebuilding Gaza. Waltz is bullish on the possibility that the morass of Gaza can be worked out peacefully, with enough buy-in from countries who are willing to finance the creation of a new governing and police structure in Gaza.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has for months been raising the alarm about the growing threat of antisemitism on the American right. During a visit to Los Angeles for the Milken Institute Global Conference, he called for elected officials — including in his own party — to take a clear stand on the issue. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find ourselves in a country where both major political parties are unequivocally anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic. And I think that is a very real threat,” Cruz told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday at the Milken conference. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani toured the Jewish Children’s Museum in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn on Monday — accompanied by the police commissioner, the local city councilmember and a co-founder of the museum’s, but no press or local religious leaders.

The mayor’s stop was first reported by Chabad community news site COLlive, which shared a photo of him entering the building alongside NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and inside the lobby with Tisch and Councilmember Crystal Hudson. In another image was Devorah Halberstam, one of the museum’s founders, who COLlive reported provided a “closed-door tour.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he would support “big, strong and short” U.S. military action against Iran following Tehran’s latest strikes on the United Arab Emirates on Monday — the first such attack on the critical American ally since the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold in early April.

On Monday, Iran launched 15 missiles and four drones at the UAE and targeted key infrastructure and maritime assets. Authorities in Fujairah reported a fire at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone after a suspected Iranian drone strike.